3 Niche Business Ideas We Thought Would Fail… But Actually Crushed It

23:20Like whenever I see these numbers, I'm like, that just means nothing to me. I hope I'm dead by the time this becomes a reality. Is there any Sam Altman story you wouldn't believe? No, I believe it. I would believe it all. If I told you the OpenAI headquarters is underwaters, would you be like, that's bullshit? Or would you just be like, where? I would believe anything about it. Yeah, I'd be like, so like, should we scuba up and go visit them? Or like, what do we do? Yeah, I'd believe it all. I've got, all right, I've got a big one. I've got a short one. I'm going to give you the short one first.

23:48And then I'm going to hear this thing about flow. But do you remember, I want to give an update. And I'm going to say with preference with this update, last time I gave an update on this guy, he took that update and he clipped our YouTube video and he turned it into an ad. And I got super fucking pissed. So I just want to tell you, don't turn this into an ad. You do not have permission. That's dumb. It looked like I endorsed this product. I don't. A few years ago, I think it was three years ago, this guy started DMing me, telling me he has this idea for hostage tape. Do you remember I told you about this?

24:18Yeah. It's basically tape that you put over your mouth because mouth breathing at night makes you a bad sleeper, I guess is the premise. It's just gross. I don't know what it is, but there's some health benefits. And he just got in right when the Hubermans and the Brian Johnsons of the world and all this stuff. So he timed it perfectly. He told me he was launching this. And I was like, oh, this is really dumb. This is the stupidest thing I've seen in a long time. And he kept DMing me, kept sending me updates. I think in year one, he did$2 million in revenue. Now he just told me he ended 2023 with$14 million in revenue.

24:53And then he's saying that this year in 24, he's like, I think I can get$40 million in revenue. He's like, we're buying all these ads on Joe Rogan. We're going to be sponsoring the UFC. See, he's saying all this crazy stuff. And I'm going to file this under the, I cannot believe this worked. I still can't believe it's worked. And he's totally proven me wrong so far. Has this guy been sending you updates? Not update. I've talked to him a couple of times about one specific deal he was going to. I just try to help him out. By the way, May 25th, 2023, subject line. He said it was a bad business idea, dot, dot, dot.

25:24Email out to his whole list, I think. Hey folks, Alex here. Telling people you run a mouth-taping business isn't all sunshine and rainbows. Did anyone think that that was sunshine and rainbows? You know what they say. Running a mouth-taping business isn't all sunshine and rainbows. Everyone always asks me, like, how awesome is this business? I didn't know anyone ever said that. I recently got called out on a very popular business podcast called My First Million. Maybe you listen to it. Anyways, I reached out to one of the hosts, Sam, to tell him my idea. He said it was a bad idea, all bold. That was over a year ago.

25:58Now, 1 ,400 reviews, hundreds of success stories later, I couldn't help but message him again. Well, he didn't. And so he says, I don't know what the thing is. Oh, he goes, I thought it'd be really funny if the hostage tape army. If you're a customer of this and you're in the hostage tape army, I mean. None of these words should be going together, by the way. None of these words should be lumped in the same sentence. The hostage tape army. You know what I mean? If that's on your bio, you're out. But he said, show up in the comments and say, hey, Sam, hashtag shut your mouth. I like that part. That part's pretty good.

26:37Hostage tape, shut your mouth. I like that. Yeah, that one's good. He goes, I don't want to start a war, but these guys appreciate a good prank. We do. We really do. We do. So I don't know if he did do that. I'm going to click this link. And by the way, he's getting the last laugh if his tape is untaped. He is getting the last laugh. This guy's winning. He's making a lot of money. People actually want his product. I'm wrong here. He's right. I still think it's stupid, though. I'm looking at the comments, by the way. I don't see one hashtag shut your mouth, Sam. So I don't think Hostage Tape Army showed up.

27:08The cavalry did not appear for this one. But I think it's funny that he's doing this. And I think it's great that he's winning. God bless him. I got so angry when I saw my face on these ads. So I started getting these ads. And I'm like, it said like, I was like, well, what the fuck? I was making fun of you. and you just totally jujitsu'd me and now I'm promoting you. All right. You shared an L you took. I'll tell you about an L I take. It's 2020 and I'm getting dinner with a friend. And we're only like, I want to say 40 minutes into the dinner. And he's like, I got to go. And I'm like, was it me?

27:46Was it something I said? Am I chewing too much? What's going on? Why you got to leave? He's like, no, no, no. He's like, I hate to leave, but I got to go meet with this founder from Belarus. It was just you two at the dinner? It was us two at the dinner. And he just bounces. And I'm like, Belarus? I don't know where Belarus is. But I was like, all right. I don't know if this is some elaborate excuse or what. But he leaves. So I finish up dinner. Go home. I see an email from my friend. He says, sorry I had to jet so early. But this company is really interesting. He tells me about this company called Flow.

28:15And he's investing in this company called Flow. And he's like, if you want in, I can get you in. And I remember this because today or yesterday, I'm scrolling on Twitter. and I see Flow is one of the biggest success stories in consumer startups today. 192 million in ARR with 60 million active users. And it's been the fastest growing health app for like four years. And I'm like,$192 million in ARR? I was like, why does this app sound familiar? I go back and look at my email and I see that I could have invested in this thing years ago had I just replied to this email from my friend. What valuation?

28:53I don't know what it was back then because I didn't even reply to ask. But whatever it was, I should have done it because obviously the thing has been growing so fast that it's become a billion-dollar company and it's done really, really well. But this company is really interesting. Last pod, you talked about, I forgot what Ammo or whatever it is, like some Eastern European app builder factory. Yeah, they make a variety of apps. One is Muscle for Men, and then another one was Working Out for Women while the women are on their period. Well, I see your Eastern European women's period app and I raise you because that's what flow is started by these guys out in Belarus, Lithuania, something like that.

29:32Two twin brothers, by the way. So the twin brothers, what they're raised by a single mother who's a librarian. And they're like, yo, we got to make money. Like they're 15 years old. He's like, I was going to school and then I would work a full time job after school. So I go to school for eight hours. Then I go work for eight hours. And that's what I did every day as a teenager. he's like and i just said this like deep like we have to figure something out he's like so i did two things he's like i taught myself how to code he's like and i was teaching myself using these like textbooks he's like so then i started actually writing books to make some money he's like whatever i learned i would then package up into a book and i would write it he's like i've written you know a bunch of books and then i started i became a book publisher i started publishing it's like i've published a thousand books now um so i'm like okay random he's like the other thing that happened is 2008 and the iPhone app store comes out.

30:18And he's like, I think this is going to be big. I think this is going to be like, the internet was big. There was a bunch of winners. I think there's going to be some here. So he's like, forget the book publishing. Let's start making apps. And so they start a health app, kind of fails. Start a second app, kind of fails. And people ask them, they're like, was Flow your first app? How'd you do it? He's like, no, no, I started two things before that. Similar space, but just didn't fully hit. He goes, but I believe that success is the sum of your attempts. He's like, and those first two attempts that I did for a couple of years, that is the success of flow.

30:52And I just love that quote. Success is the sum of your attempts. I think that's an amazing quote. And so he goes, we start flow and they're like, so you're a dude building a women's like period tracking app, the number one period tracking app in the world. Like, how does that happen? How does a dude in Belarus do that? I love, I love this quote. It's not my job to build the product. it's my job to build the company of people that are able to build the product. Exactly. They're like, how do you have the product intuition of building this? And that's exactly what he said. He goes, I was like, this is one thing I learned in those first two products was as a job, as a CEO, as a founder, my job is not to build the product.

31:26It's to build the company that will build these products. And that's what they did. And so they actually built two things. They create this Holdco and the Holdco owns like four apps that are all super successful. So they own Flow, which itself does about 200 million a year in revenue. And what's Flow? So it's basically, it started off with just simple like period tracking. So it's like a monthly kind of like tracker. But then off that, they go into other things. So they created what they call a woman's health super app. And this was the pitch that I saw at the time when my friend went and got dinner with them.

31:56They were like, look, we built the number one period tracking app. And that's great. And at the time, they had like 30 million users using this. And they said that in the US, 10 % of adult women were using their tracker. So like we built the best tracker. but a tracker is not going to be like the most monetizable thing, but they're like, well, why do people track? Well, often they track because of health reasons. They track because they're trying to get pregnant. They track because, um, maybe they're entering menopause. Like there's all these other things that maybe they need health coaching. Maybe they need these other things.

32:27There's a bunch of maybes from there and they turned out to be right. And so they were like, we're going to make more money than any of these other health apps. So they're bigger than calm or these other like meditation apps that are like in that kind of health and wellness space. this is a bigger app than all of those and it's run by these guys in Eastern Europe who have basically dominated the world in this one category. They're the number one in this category. But they also own a couple of other companies. They own another app called Zing and they own another app called Prisma which is like a photo editor and they own do you remember when Prisma went viral a little while back and it was cool looking filters?

33:02Yeah. The Holdco has raised $100 million Series B. And that's called Palta? Palta, yeah. And are they in America? No, they're in Lithuania. Really? And they have like hundreds of employees. And this is like in the pitch deck was like, yeah, we can hire like 10 super talented European coders for the cost of one mediocre engineer in San Francisco. They didn't say it like that, but I added the mediocre part. But that's the implication is basically we have this like talent advantage. We're the big fish in the small pond, but the small pond is highly talented with really good programmers and were super, super cost efficient.

33:39And so they were able to be very efficient as they've grown. You could have invested in this? Yeah. So this one... That one sucks. So I would say the first one was not really a miss in that, like even now, I don't think that would have been a great investment, but a great business to own, not a great business to invest in. This one would have been a great business to invest in, but it just didn't hit any of my patterns. It's like you have Eastern European company versus a Silicon Valley company. It's in the period tracking. I don't know how big that space can be. I underestimated, I'm sure many people underestimated how big that app can be.

34:17And in fact, that's why they said, they're like, I love that these guys didn't bullshit. They didn't do the thing that all Silicon Valley startups do where they make up their origin story where they're like, well, the reason I got into this was that my aunt was having trouble, like Jack Dorsey with Square. He's like, I was trying to buy this vase that was being this guy was blowing glass and making this vase for me and I wanted to buy it but he couldn't take a credit card and I thought wow the small business of America are underserved I should really change this in fact actually I think part of that story is true that the co-founder did do that as a hobby but I think most startups make up their origin story where they're like you know like native deodorant he's like my sister was pregnant i just did not want her to be having aluminum in her armpits and so i created a pregnancy safe yeah right dude you just the shipping cost of deodorant was just a lot cheaper than mattresses and you just exactly like that's why you did it economics is not as good of a story or like i went to etsy and i was hunting for the most most highly sold product that didn't have competition that was under one pound of ship and had 80 gross margins it's like that's not as good of a pr story so these guys they didn't do that.

35:25They were like, why'd you do this? He's like, well, we just wanted to find the most underserved market. He's like, we just knew that no talented builders were building in this space. And we thought, well, half the world's population has this problem. They're completely underserved. And we can build a simple product that might have legs to grow from there. And that's what they did. This guy's amazing. We got to get him on the pot. So one of the founders, I guess you said two brothers. His name is Yuri Gursky, I guess. He's from Belarus, but I think They kind of live in Poland, it looks, and Cyprus.

35:58They're all over the place. But he's really successful. So you kind of acted like he was a young kid just blogging and packaging his blogs into books. No, no. These guys are gangsters. Yeah, these guys are ballers. And he's had multiple companies that he sold. One he sold to Facebook, one to... I actually don't know how to pronounce this. What's mail.ru? It's the Russian guy... Yuri Miller. Yes, yes, yes. He sold one to Google. like these guys are hardcore these guys are awesome yeah these guys are kicking ass and so they um and you know he's he's basically like they're like what do you think contributed to the success of this he's like well the biggest thing is we picked the right market and i love that he said this because i think this is where he even said this he's like most people he's like you need three things the right target market the right timing and then the right people to execute on it he's like most people don't get the first two right but that's your rising tide if you can picked the right market and the right timing.

36:52He's like, we picked basically this underserved women's health market. And we started in 2008, right? When the App Store came out, that's where we started making apps. So we were early and we went to the underserved market that had demand. From there, all we had to do was just hire good people and it would work out. And I think that most people, when you talk to entrepreneurs or the way their brain works, if you had to make a pie chart, it would be like, number one is like, how cool is my idea? So it's like not market, but it's more product. They focus on the product. Then they focus on the people.

37:23And then last is like, they kind of think about what market they're in. And what they try to do, which I think is a bad strategy, one mistake I made many times, is like build the best product in a whatever market, in a meh market. But you'd rather go into an amazing market and build a good enough product. That's like where a lot more success comes. And the best example of that, I believe it was Coinbase. they were like, our website early on sucked. It went down all of the time. But we picked a market that people were begging for it and that they were willing to put up with a really crappy product.

37:57And another... Speaking of these apps, Michael Acton-Smith from Calm, he gave me this great soundbite one time. We were just talking. And he was like, I don't launch these other things. And I had to push the rock up the hill in order to make it work. But I knew that I picked the right... I knew that I picked the right market being calm and meditation. He was like, it was as if I had just was surfing and I just happened to catch this massive tidal wave. And my job was not to push the rock up the hill. It was just to hang on to the surfboard and hope I don't crash because it's pushing me and it's doing all of the work.

38:31And that's the difference between something really working and something not working. Because he's like, I had all these amazing things. And he's like, I'm a really good entrepreneur. And I kind of brute forced it into reality, but it was really, really, really hard. And I learned that when you pick the right market and you catch the right tidal wave, that makes life a thousand times easier. And the hard part is what people get wrong is, okay, I want to pick the right market. So they just go to the biggest, flashiest market, right? So right now, AI, I got to go into AI and they go into a super competitive market.

38:59That's, uh, it is a hot market. There are going to be huge winners there, but the trick that like, you know, Peter Thiel one time went to a, uh, meetup and they were like, what's the key to investing? He drew two circles, like a Venn diagram. And he's like, seems like a bad idea. And then the other he wrote, is a good idea. He's like, the problem is most people just do things that sound like a good idea. The problem is everybody else is also doing things that sound like good ideas. You're just, it's tons of competition. And you might be too late by the time it seems like a good idea. He's like, so the secret is, can you find something that today seems like a bad idea, but is actually a good idea?

39:34Coinbase started back when Bitcoin was like not considered like an obvious. Crypto wasn't the wave back then. It wasn't the trendy thing to do. It was actually an underserved market, but it wasn't. And it was turned out to be a great market, but it wasn't considered already a great market where all the smartest people in the world went and were fighting this like war over there. That's what AI is today. Everybody agrees it's an incredible market. So they're all going to go fight this battle over there. So you really have to, if you're going to have something, you have to niche down and find some section of that that's underserved or go somewhere that's today not seen as that.

40:05Forget AI. Find the thing three years from now that's AI. This seems like the hostage tape guy giving his TED talk. He's going to be standing there like this talking about the Venn diagram of bad ideas and good ideas and that his idea is just going to be in the circle of the bad ideas. You've got to be in the middle. I'm sorry, hostage tape guy. You're right. I'm wrong. You're the one winning. This is amazing. These guys are amazing. I would love to get this guy on the podcast. Is he speaking? I imagine he's an English speaker, right? Or partially? Dude, he probably speaks better English than us.

40:44Is there anything this guy can't do? If one guy had to save my life, and they were like, how about this guy? I'd be like, yeah, sure. I'm sure he could do it. Yeah. And if you Google this guy, so his name's Yuri Gursky. Sorry, I'm probably pronouncing it a little bit incorrect. he's got the perfect balance he's got that next door that next door hot look you know what i'm saying it looks like he could you could chill with him a little bit but he also looks like he could really mess you up physically like he's he does a good job of having that that next door i get so many messages or comments of people making fun of me and they they either think i'm gay or they're just like dude why are you commenting about people's calves all the time and I'm totally just like giving into this.

41:28By the way, do you have something to promote today or what? Now it's time. Right now we're talking about some of the best execution we've seen, some of the best, most talented people we've seen. And are they sitting in America? No, they're overseas. Actually, everyone has been overseas. Everybody we've talked about has been overseas and that's because the world has changed. There's talent everywhere. And for you as an entrepreneur, one of the things you should be doing is leveraging that global talent. The way to do that is to go to Shepard and just tell them what you need. All you do is you go there and you're like, hey, I think we need a developer.

42:00I need an engineer or I need a designer or I need somebody who could do all of our influencer marketing. Whatever you don't have time for, that's the bottleneck of your business. Go to Shepard, tell them what you need, and they will find you somebody. A couple of weeks, you will have talent in place, usually for five times less than you hire for in America. This is a not so secret secret anymore. For my e-commerce company, I think 40 % of our staff is international. We get tremendous cost savings and we get some of the best talent just by looking overseas, looking where other people aren't looking.

42:29If you're hiring in the same place that everybody else is hiring, you're not going to make it. They're doing developers now? They do developers, yeah, because they do LATAM. So one of the things I've been using is all their LATAM talents in Latin America where you get a lot more of two things. One is a shit ton of MBAs. So I needed an operations person. I was like, my COO is just like, I feel like every COO is overworked. I don't know if you've ever had this, but the entrepreneur always just gives the COO everything they don't want to do, which is like 85 % of all the work in any business. It just gets dumped on the COO.

43:01It's like, yeah, that's operational. You should figure that out. And so I was like, dude, my COO needs a COO. And so we started hiring operations people from South America because they have basically people who are MBAs. So they're trained that way. They've been doing consulting for years. And they make, let's call it$3K a month. And so compare that to in America, you'd probably be paying 12 to 15K a month for that same talent. So four to five times more. And so we found some awesome, both developers and operations people in LATAM. That's what I go for there. And then like kind of like customer service, design, anything that's like data, marketing assistant, that's all Philippines for me.

43:38Wow. All right. Well, and what's the URL? SupportShepherd.com. Go to SupportShepherd.com. And then when you're there, tell them I sent you, they'll take care of you. Well, guys, when it comes to banking, the only time I feel truly happy is when I'm using Mercury. And that's today's sponsor for the show. That is the banking product I use for not one, not two, but actually eight of my businesses. I have eight Mercury accounts. I just went and counted. I use it for every one of my companies. It's an absolute no-brainer. Over 200 ,000 other fast-growing, ambitious companies use Mercury. It's one place you can go where not only you can, of course, have your money there, but you can send invoices.

44:12You can pay bills. You can create reimbursements for your team. pretty much all of your financial needs can be housed under Mercury. And the product is beautiful to use. And the reason why is because it's a product that was not made by finance people. It was made by a founder, Imad. He's been on this podcast before. And he used tons of products as a startup founder. And this is the one that he wished he had. And I actually reached out to them to become a sponsor for this show because I'm such a big fan of it. So if you need a banking product for your startup, use Mercury. You will not regret it.

44:40It's amazing. For more information, check out mercury.com mercury is a financial technology company not a bank check show notes for details do we want to round up round out with the the three random things you have here yeah i got some random things i don't know uh which one we want to do did you watch the super bowl at all yeah i i'm not like a sports guy i i but i watched it just because it was a big deal and uh you have jason how do you say the guy's last name kelsey kelsey jason kelsey over travis Kelsey that Travis guy seemed pretty likable in his post game like interview like he seemed like a big goofy idiot in the best possible way yeah he kind of is although it was really bad for him I don't know if you saw during the game he like basically got super angry at his coach and like almost like knocked him over and was yelling at him the reason it wasn't cool was because his coach is old enough that you're like oh that's like you're you kind of pushed an old guy you know what I mean he like kind of lost his balance he like almost pushed him down and it was like yeah that's what I'm saying everyone felt bad for like their own dad in that moment that's what I mean but I was like oh he's a little bit too old but they like hugged it out and it seemed like they were fine afterwards yeah I think they were fine but definitely all of the Taylor Swift fans were like red flag we need an emergency meeting all the Swifties had like an emergency meeting were like I'm worried about Taylor I don't know what I'm just gonna do I don't like what I saw out there but did you see the I did see the brother so he has another brother in the NFL Jason his brother dressed up like Zach Galifianakis from Hangover from Alan from The Hangover he looked hilarious Yeah, I basically want to do a TED Talk, actually.

46:11I want to prepare slides and be like, here's why you should be Jason Kelsey and not Travis Kelsey. Because on paper, you want to be Travis Kelsey. He's the receiver. Jason Kelsey is a center, like the most unglamorous position that there is. So it's like, you have Travis Kelsey. He's a tight end. He's always catching passes. He's better looking. He's more handsome. He's more stylish. He can dance. The other guy's kind of awkward. Travis Kelsey's dating Taylor Swift. Oh, that's amazing, right? But Jason Kelsey's wife is a badass. She's great-looking, former athlete, super fun. She joins this podcast all the time.

46:48And she's got a great personality and just seems super down to earth. She shows up to the box because they know you're going to show Taylor Swift like 100 times during the game, right? And it's Taylor Swift and she's there with that actress. What's her name? Blake, whatever. Blake Lively. Blake Lively, yeah. And they know. Every time something happens, they're like, doing YouTube thumbnail face. Like they're so exaggerated with their emotions because they know we're performing here. Whereas like Jason Kelsey's wife is there in the background. She's wearing like her college hoodie, like her like alma mater hoodie, no makeup.

47:17And she's just super comfortable and she's having a great time. She's like eating food and drinking. She's like chilling out, not trying to get attention all the time. So it's like, and then Jason shows up. You've thought about this a lot, huh? I did because last week they played, or two weeks ago, they played in Buffalo and the game, I don't know if you saw it. It was like crazy snow day. and Jason Kelsey was watching the games, watching his brother play and he went and he was like, dude, I don't want to sit in this like luxury suite. He's like, I want to be out there with, this is awesome. This is like what you grow up loving about football is like a snow game.

47:48This is crazy playoff football. So he takes his shirt off. He jumps into the crowd. He jumps out of the luxury box into the crowd with the Buffalo fans and starts chugging beers and just like having a great time with them. He's like, that's the experience I want. And his wife was like, don't do this, babe. Like Taylor Taylor Swift's here. People are going to see you doing this. He's like, I don't care what people see. This is what I grew up admiring. I want to have a great time. So you can tell this guy's having a great time. He's not in it for the show. He's got the real relationship goals you should have.

48:18Not the Taylor Swift high school, the cheerleaders dating the quarterback type of shit. And then he shows up to the Super Bowl dressed like Alan from The Hangover. I love Jason Kelsey. I am all about Jason Kelsey. Jason Kelsey over Travis Kelsey. That's my case. I'm looking at that. I just Googled Jason Kelsey's shirtless and you do see him in the box wearing gray sweatpants taking his shirt off and he's like in the drunk guy mode where he's yelling. What's hilarious about this guy is you see his face and you see some of the things where he sounds just like a goofy dummy like he's just joking like your fat friend.

48:52But they show him shirtless and you see a can of beer in his hand and it is so small. This guy is a giant. This guy will kill you and eat you. Yes. This Bud Light game looks like a five-hour energy in his hand. This guy is a freak. They're both, I guess, huge. This guy does not look huge when you just see him from the neck up on the podcast. He's got gray hair, right? So he doesn't look like an athlete. You see him shirtless. This guy looks like a freak. That's amazing. Yes, exactly. I just think there's some life lesson. There's some wisdom in this whole thing. In fact, another version of this, by the way, did you see like when the I don't know what it was, the Grammys were on and the Tracy Chapman song was going super viral.

49:38Do you see this? They did fast car. Yeah, she looked awesome, too. So do you know the back? You know her story or do you know the backstory of like Tracy Chapman and that song? Yeah, she basically was just a normal person. She was just an average lady. And she I think got discovered by like a friend of a friend. So the friend being the writer of Billions, his dad. Yeah, his dad worked in the music industry. And Brian went up to Tracy and was like, look, this is always lame. Well, they went to this in college. So they were in college. She's just playing on campus. And he's like, you're amazing?

50:11He calls his dad. He's like, dad. Well, he goes, what he said was, he goes, look, this is lame usually. And I never asked my daddy for a favor. That's kind of douchey. Right. But you've got it. Would you care if I make an introduction to my father? I actually think he might help you. and I'm not just like blowing smoke up your ass. Like you actually, this actually could do something and I think it became something. It did. And so she kind of gets a contract, but she's like the anti-artist, right? She's the anti-pop artist. So she's not, like she's just going to make the music she wants and she's not going to like just do what the record label wants.

50:42They were like, oh, tell us about your relationship. She's like, no, I prefer to keep that private. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But just tell us. She's like on Access Hollywood. They're like, but this song has to be about someone. She's like, well, it is about someone, but like, you know, I'd prefer not to share it And I don't want them to feel bad about it or anything like that. So I'm not going to share. And they're like, well, it's hard to promote this album if you're not going to say anything. And she's like, I just want my music to speak for itself. To me, I went down a rabbit hole after this, and I watched her, and I was like, she is the beacon of authenticity.

51:09Her and Jason Kelsey are like, you actually want to be them. You don't want to be the pop answer. And there's something to just being totally authentic and not performing for everybody. She makes all the little TikTok bitches look like little TikTok bitches. I'm just like, I don't know if you've seen the subreddit, I am the main character. Yes, I hate it. It's basically full of people who think they're the main character of life. They're like, they put their camera somewhere on a flight. They stand up and they're doing a TikTok dance and everyone else is like, dude, can I get to my seat? Like, what are you doing?

51:40Like, what is this? And it's just like these annoying people who are trying to do stuff for attention. And so... Do you know how old Tracy Chapman is? She's like in her 50s probably. I don't know what she is. She's 60. She looks awesome. and she's like she just goes gray she's got no makeup on or whatever she's like uh they're like you know how do you um how do you promote your music she's like i don't know i don't have social media though you don't have social media she's like no i mean i just hang out with my friends what do i why would i need that and they're like but because um because um and you sound like an idiot trying to explain why you need social media she's like i don't know i just make my music and i i like go outside and i play with my hangout with my friends like where would i need that and then they're like okay but like what do you do on your phone and she's like i don't have a smartphone either haven't you heard the uh haven't you heard the story of like the mexican fisherman and the banker it's like that where it's yeah you know a banker a rich banker's on vacation and he's in mexico and he's loving it and he meets this fisherman who brings him fresh fish every day and uh the front the fisherman basically brings the fish in the morning to the banker and then he spends the rest of the day chilling the banker goes to the fisherman he goes hey why don't you just go and like your fish is the best go hire more fishermen and like i'll help you let's build this into a thing and we're going to make so much money.

52:49And the Mexican guy's like, all right, but then what? He goes, well, then we're going to grow revenue to like 15 million and then we're going to sell it. And the guy's like, then what? He goes, well, then you're going to be rich and you can do anything you want. And the Mexican guy's like, what would I do? The banker goes, well, then you can just fish all day and just hang out. And the Mexican guy's like, I do that now. And that's like the whole parable of like, you know, I actually don't know what it's trying to say other than like your great life a lot simpler. You were so strong until the end.

53:15And all this nonsense, whatever. actually I'm not sure what it's all about why doesn't he hide on the boat be the banker let's go on vacation

53:31yeah I think you missed the ending of that one I think it's about knowing what you want and also knowing how to have it and have enough that there is such a thing as enough Tracy Chapman has enough Tracy Kelsey has enough By the way, a couple other cool things about her story that I really like. One, you know, be prepared to, you know, take the chance when luck presents itself. Do you know how she got her big break? Like what kind of catapulted her to become a star? Because obviously she's not doing the normal stuff you do to promote yourself as a pop star. She doesn't look like a pop star, doesn't talk like a pop star, doesn't have social media, doesn't have a smartphone.

54:06So how does she get her break? Have you heard this story? No. So there was like a giant televised music thing that was for Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And she's on the prelims, the undercard of the undercard, before the TV stuff even turns on. So she goes and she plays two songs or three songs early in the day. And then later in the day was supposed to be the headline acts. And Stevie Wonder was supposed to go on and perform. But Stevie Wonder got lost. they messed up his backing tracks and so he's like i can't go on like my backing this is not gonna work like i need the audio to work and so they were like shit uh the audio is messed up we need somebody to go fill like you know six minutes of time here before the next act and give us some time to fix this who can go on and who can play with no backing tracks and just go on acoustic and kill it.

55:03And they were like, Tracy, will you go on there and play a song? And she's like, okay. And they're like, but it's just you and your guitar, nothing else. She's like, okay. And so she goes out there and she plays fast car. And you can see this video on YouTube. Her voice is like quaking at the beginning and she has no like auto tune, no vocals, no backtrack. So it's like, you can hear every imperfection in it. But then she gets, you know, she kind of comes into her own. She sings the song and people love it. People go nuts for it. And that's how she kind of got her break into startup was by being prepared and being willing to go out there and take a risk and having obviously the talent to back it up.

55:37Her first album sells 10 million copies, which is insane. And then they're like, amazing, huge hit. Fast Car still is considered like one of the top 100 songs ever written or whatever. They're like, what are you gonna do for your second album? Hey, the record executives come to her with like some ideas. They have like a pitch meeting. They're like, you know, presentation. They like pull the curtain off the easel. and they're like, Tracy Chapman singing these pop songs. She's like, no, I don't think I want to do that. And they're like, but Tracy, you did 10 million. Your first time you could do 20 this time, right?

56:07Like the banker to the fisherman. And she's like, no, I don't really want to do that. They're like, well, what do you want to do? She's like, I'm not sure yet. I'm going to experiment and figure it out. They're like, experiment? What do you mean? You have to go to the studio and record. She's like, no, no, I'm not going to record. What I'm going to do is she hired. So normally what a musician does is they go, they write their songs, they go to a studio, They hire like a studio musician to come and play the, like the piano or the trumpet or whatever with them there. They have no chemistry with them.

56:33They record. Then later they go on tour and they perform. She did it in reverse. She's like, what if I did the, instead, what if I hired a set of musicians that I really like? I took the risk of hiring them. And what if we tour for a year, writing songs as we go. And then through the tour, we're going to see what music is resonating with people. And at the end, we'll just record the stuff that they liked. almost like a comedian going to small clubs and working out their material. She did that for music. And so, and that's how she did her second album. And she was like, I'm so proud of how it turned out.

57:02Blah, blah, blah. I have no idea what the sales are, but like, you know, I like that, that approach. And again, I'm, I'm on an authenticity kick right now. And to me, I love that. Last year I said, Sean, I'm going to be having a baby. Do you, could you tell me what are some of the highlights of having a kid? And this was in private. And you're like, it's just great. You know, my, my son and my daughter, like, I just, I get so much joy out of seeing that they admire all these little things. Like, they just love staring at the fan and it made me happier that like, oh, the fan actually is cool. And I like, I like am interested now because they're interested and I love seeing them grow.

57:36That's how I feel right now. A few years ago, a few years ago, I asked you about really simple things that I just thought you would understand, like Dolly Parton. And you're like, Dolly who? Now, you're teaching me about Tracy Chapman next for all I know you're going to tell me who the Beatles are and you're going to do this wonderful breakdown and I just think that you have grown so much that you are now like Tracy Chapman like I didn't know everything about her but I could tell you a lot of her songs and and now you've just discovered her and I love that you are bringing a new perspective of this and you're actually teaching me about an artist that I love next we're going to talk about you know Paul McCartney or Clapton let's talk about all this stuff tell me who Mick Jagger is I like him I used to stop believing but now I realize I should don't stop believing.

58:20You heard this great song. Like I am getting so much joy and I'm learning now that you are, because you probably didn't know much about her before this, did you? No, I mean, I just heard the song. In fact, I didn't even understand what the song meant. You never heard that song? No, I love the song, but I don't know. So there's two types of people. I think there's people who listen to songs for the words and there's people who listen to songs for the meaning. Which one are you? Like I can hear a song a thousand times and not tell you, I have no clue what the song is about. I don't know. I've never even, actually, I've never even thought about the lyrics.

58:50I might know some of the words, but like, I couldn't tell you what the song is about, even though I've heard it a thousand times. I care about the meeting, like particularly like rock and roll by like a lot of black people in the 70s and 80s. It's like civil rights stuff. I enjoy like learning the story about it. Yeah. I don't actually know what Fast Car is about though. You should go listen to it. Go listen and like actually listen to the lyrics. It's an amazing story that she's telling in that thing. So I kind of got into it for that reason. I also liked one other thing. appreciate poise as a trait.

59:20I think poise is something nobody ever talks about, but we all notice it when we see it. And those are things that I like to pick up on. One of the things that nobody says they are into or practice, nobody ever says I'm practicing poise. But when we see it, we all think it's badass and we appreciate Tom Brady. He's so poised or that leader. He just has this way he carries himself. Well, it's poise under pressure, right? Poise. And so she did this Charlie Rose interview and Charlie Rose, again, she's kind of the worst interview ever because she doesn't say anything like. She doesn't play the game.

59:50Yeah, she doesn't play the game. And so he's like, you know, tell me, you know, when you were a young kid, like when did you first start playing music? She's like, oh, you know, I got a guitar and I started playing music when I was like five. He's like, by eight, I was writing songs. And he's like, and he's like, and that's when you knew you wanted to be a musician. She goes, I think that's when I knew I, she didn't say I think. She goes, that's when I knew I was a musician. Oh, yeah. And so he was like, just realizing kind of this, she wasn't trying to say it to own him, statement too. And I think there's what a poised way of saying something that she's just saying it as it is.

1:00:25That's how it was. I realized I was a musician and that's me. That's a part of me. That's how I am. It wasn't I'm going to try to do anything. Trying is the least poised thing you could do. I am a musician. I think she's a badass. I really respect her. And I think she lives in Ohio, which is sort of like Dave Chappelle. These guys that are like, they could have it all they could be in the middle and the thick of it all but they're in fucking ohio just chappelle's another one on the authenticity mount rushmore right like walked away from 50 million dollars because you know they were trying to control the the show and uh he's like then they made they called me crazy and said i was doing crack in africa he's like no i'm not doing crack in africa what the hell are you talking about he's like he's like i'm in ohio i'm not gonna fight my image i'm just gonna go live my life and be happy i didn't know that that I actually up until recently thought he was in Africa.

1:01:14He was like, cause that was the narrative. It was Dave, Dave Chappelle kind of like basically went crazy. He's doing crack. And then he went to Africa. He lost his mind. He's, and he came out like years later. It was like, no, like they were offering me a bullshit contract. I said, no. And then I just went home and like just did other things with my life. Yeah. He's like, and then they started saying this crazy shit, but whatever. Okay. Whatever. Yeah. He was like, I was in Ohio. That's where my father's from there. I was just hanging out with family. Right. It's like, you know, the poise thing, like when Mandela got locked up for whatever, like he was like locked up for 30 years or something like that.

1:01:52And then he came out and like, you know, whatever, solved the apartheid. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what history is. He did something good for, you know, black and white people, I think. He went to Mexico and he fished. He was fishing with a bunch of Mexicans. Who knows what he did? But the thing that he said was badass. He was like, they were like, you know, aren't you angry or resentful that put you in jail for 20, 30 years or whatever. And he was like, no, I was preparing. Because I was preparing for this. And I was like, that's a cool way of saying it. Sean, coming through big time.

1:02:22This is the Sean Puri episode. That was a good one from start. Am I cultured now? I think I'm cultured. Yeah, I think so. I think the second you give props to Tracy Chapman and Nelson Medela, I think that you are officially, you've crossed the chasm, my friend. You know when you leave milk out for a while, it becomes yogurt cultured. culture. That's what happened to me. I just sat out for a while and it happened. It only took you a couple dozen, a few dozen years, but you've officially, you've crossed the threshold. Congratulations. Good job. Good pod. If you're a fan of this, you got to subscribe.

1:02:53If you want more Tracy Chapman stuff, but also the occasional joke about Mexican fishermen that we totally skipped over and don't understand the meaning of the story, you got to subscribe. That's the pod. Thanks.

1:03:08I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, less travel, never looking back.

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