7 People Making $5M-$10M From Weird Hobbies

27:51person really going to put the time into it? Are they really behind it? Is their audience really going to believe it? Like, is their audience really going to move when they say move? And you have to have a real value proposition for an operator to want to come on board and work with you. So I think if you have sound principles and what you want to build and why, you can find a good operator. Like part of that is the test of at least what we invest in. We invest in a creator that is a founder that can attract talent to run their businesses. So where do you go to find them? I mean, first you got to decide what your special sauce is and where you need support.

28:27And I've heard you talk about many times, like where are places that you need support? And you need to be very clear about that. And you need to like make sure that you're attracting talent that's going to like cover the 180 degrees. Also, you don't have to, you can kind of date before you marry, which is to say, work on some projects with them. You know, work on like, say, hey, I want to build this out. I want to try this out. Make sure you're putting enough capital into it so you have money to pay an operator and that you have a plan for it. So I think it's really important to, we look for folks that can attract that kind of talent.

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29:42All right, back to the pod. Can I ask you about like maybe one or you tell me one or two more of these interesting folks because I love hearing about this. But then also after that, I'm going to ask you about if you're starting from scratch, like which niches or categories do you like? Well, I love. OK, so there's there's a couple of creators that are really interesting in the auto care space. There's this great guy named Larry. He has a company called Ammo NYC. And Larry does detailing of like celebrity cars. Wow. Larry has 2.3 million subscribers on YouTube. And all he's doing is cleaning cars and making videos about it.

30:21He details cars. Sorry. Yeah. That was the caveman version of that. I'm looking at his videos. And first of all, there's like a$4 million acid martin that he cleans. But then there's also going to be like a car that's been in a barn for 40 years. And that's going to take like a week. Right. Yeah, yeah. So he, yeah. So Larry has a robust business cleaning celebrity cars that either are going to auction or they just have a badass collection and they're going to be taking it to, you know, a car show or they're going to be, you know, going on going on a trip that's with all the like hot, hot shit car owners.

30:58and he really gets in there and like really understands the cars and has built products with his own mixtures and built his own brushes and towels and everything all d to c and he uses the top of funnel which is the car content of detailing these cars which is like kind of car porn for people. And any car enthusiast who has like a proper collection knows Larry and uses his products. Dude, I would watch these videos like on silent. Like this would be like just played the background of my living room on Apple TV for like, you know, eight hours while I'm just hanging out a day. Larry's awesome. Check out this other guy, Detail Geek.

31:45So this is the other side of Larry. Oh my God. This guy has almost four million subscribers. So what's he do? Like more low-end stuff? he just like he is somewhere in i want to say like the dakotas or the midwest i don't know i don't i can't remember exactly somewhere where they drive lots of pickup trucks that get dirty that's right it looks like the cars have been for like four weeks on a hunting trip in the mud where he's like getting out shotgun shells and he does these 20 minute long videos that get insane views And he too launched his own products called Detail Geek. Really, really interesting guy.

32:24I've tried to talk to him many times. I talked to him once. He's very happy with his lifestyle business. He does not want to engage with people who invest in these things and help scale these things. He's like, I like my family. I like my life. And I make good money. And Bob's your uncle. And he doesn't need it. And, you know, Larry's a little bit more in the sexy world, but the detail geek does not care. This guy's awesome. What's your, you probably can't say, it's a stupid question for me to even ask, but this company definitely does more than$10 million in revenue, I would think. Here's what I'll say.

33:04All of these middle-class creators, I think, have the ability to be venture-style businesses with the right founder and the right hires. So, which is to say, direct-to-consumer businesses who kind of somebody came up with an idea like Casper or glasses that you can buy over the internet or shoes that are different. Like, they were kind of built in a brand boardroom. And somebody said, okay, well, I have a new product, right, that I think the audience wants. And then I'm going to go build a brand, and then I'm going to go build an audience, and I'm going to go spend a bunch of money to build consumers.

33:40These kind of middle class brands have gotten to a place where they're like, I already have the audience. I know product market fit. I'm ready to go. And then it's the right fuel to the fire determines whether they're going to get to venture scale or not. When they're starting, is it just oftentimes them with an iPhone and them editing it either on their phone or on their computer? And how big have you seen them get it with just doing it in that sort of scrappy hustler way? Great. That's a great camera. So Mary, back to Mary, she just shoots everything on her iPhone. Like, that's it. You know, she's on Instagram.

34:20She shoots everything on her iPhone. It goes on her reels. Like, you know, it's just her making the content. So that's one version of it. So if the question is from your audience, can I get started without a big setup? The answer is yes. You know, like, yes. And obviously it depends on the genre you're in and the stories that you're telling. You know, Mary's telling a story about her life. She's relatable. Like you want to know where your meat comes from? It's Mary. It comes from there. It's not highly produced, beautiful, you know, it's just Mary doing her thing. And Mary's rad and her kids are rad and her husband's rad.

34:53And you can tell that right away. Larry started with a small setup and now he's got a four bay or a three bay garage in his spot in Connecticut. That's all lit. And he's got a guy who shoots it with him and he still does it all himself but it's just two guys two guys with two with almost three million subscribers basically yeah i mean he's got more people that work in the business but yeah it's like two or three guys but it's like a beautiful studio yeah slash detail spot it's all well lit he's very intentional about the look and feel and that makes sense for like these high-end cars right like it's like for high-end cars and people who are like very wealthy who have you know multi-million dollar car collections who are watching this kind of video Like you want to like, you don't want to just shoot it on an iPhone.

35:39You want it to look beautiful because Larry cares about what one side of the car looks like before and one side of the car looks like after. And you got to, you got to really show that. So you need equipment and you need light and you can't just shoot it, you know, in the front, you know, in the front driveway. There's one more really funny story that I think you would like. There's this guy named Tonester. Oh, I like him already. Who's Tonester? Yeah, yeah. Tony, I don't really know. I don't want to butcher his last name. He better be some Italian guy with the name of Tonester. So he was working at Sherman Williams, making like, you know, like it's like an entry level job making blends for paints.

36:15Oh, tone, like paint tone. I thought it was like Tony from the garage with like slick back hair. It's like a little bit. It's like a little bit of that. He's not like a slick old guy like that. He's like, he's an interesting cat and he's done a great job. So he starts making TikToks while he's working at Sherman Williams, while he's blending paint. just kind of like talking about paint blends and just kind of posting tiktoks casually and he starts to blow up and then he gets fired from sherman williams because he's using their office for tiktok oh they blew that one which is like duh right so he launched his own paint brand oh my god tonster paints and it's like running a clown card into a bank other than he's not a clown he's really smart and he's done a really great job and he if you look at his tiktok you know he's got north of a million followers and he's has like a no dude on tiktok he's got 2.3 and on youtube he's got a million and i'm almost positive that all the videos it's literally just a camera on a paint can and he sticks the drills in there and he mixes it that's all it is that's right and so that's where it's kind of like back to your story where you can just start and then if you hit the right audience you can you can you can really build it out but i think the the ones that are, and we'll see how he does.

37:31He's doing great now and he's a smart business guy and he's figuring it out. And is that a venture scale business? Like, is he going to have his own Sherman Williams? Is it going to get to a hundred million dollars in the year? He could. It depends on execution at that point. I think that the ones that I look at and the things that we want to invest in at Slow and the things that I think have a better shot to get to venture scale businesses are the ones that have been building audience trust for years that are known for that specific niche, and they have a really strong community, and they are creators that are entrepreneurs.

38:06How long are they typically creating content before they launch a product? They could do it on their first one, or they could do it after four or five years. You know, Jonathan Katz Moses, the woodworker, you know, he launched a product very soon after, and kind of his story was about launching the product, a lot of it. But he did a lot of videos about woodworking and tips and tricks and people were following around for a while so i don't think i think it just depends on your niche and your audience like i think like you really have to be a trusted voice of authority in your niche you know like you have to people really trust jaco you know people really trust atia people really trust huberman people really trust mary but i'll push back a little bit on that because because okay so jaco was a veteran so like he knows about being tough which is like kind of his thing peter atia is a doctor so he knows about health but yeah like this guy worked at sherman sherwin williams i agree that's why it's like who knows it's not like you need a phd you know i think like they're not to discredit them but like i bet you i could spend one year learning how to clean cars and i and i can like make at least interesting enough content and then maybe after a little while longer, like formulate a product.

39:21You know what I mean? It's not like I need to, I don't need to spend eight years of schooling to do this. Totally make, totally make, I agree with your point exactly, which is to say, Tonester is a we'll see because he hasn't spent, like for me, somebody who has spent years and years and is a trust. So back to your architecture, architecture idea or your art, your, your artist idea. Like somebody who has built five or six years of trust and authenticity with an audience and scaled it, they have more permission to launch paint. And then you think that you feel better about their understanding of both the industry and product market fit, feedback from their audience, what their lane is, what they can sell.

40:03Like you feel better about investing in somebody who's been in it for a long time versus somebody who is like, okay, for a couple of years, they've been creating content. So Tonester is like a big, we'll see. I think he's great and he's smart and he's going to do something, but somebody like Larry, yeah, I think you could start a detailed channel and like grow it. Um, but Larry's been doing this for 10 years. And when it comes to getting distribution in other, you know, it's like getting to scale, like the chemical guys did, which, you know, they took an$800 million check and they were, they had shops, they had locations, they scaled into all the different auto specialty shops and Home Depot and everywhere.

40:42Like that comes from years and years being involved in the industry and really understanding the white space and really understanding your audience that people who kind of just get started, like, you know, Mary's been at it for six, seven years and built that trust. So I think the ones that build the trust and understand the community, like they really have an opportunity to scale in a way that somebody who just getting started is like a let's see. So you can use a little bit of me as an example, but just the audience. anyone who's listening and has a passion but like i've sort of thought like oh it might be interesting to do youtube or instagram a little bit more it might be interesting to get into this creator space what's the lessons that i should learn from these people on the repeatable process like what's the best practices that i should uh take away like i know that this is part art where it's just like if you have an it factor it just kind of can work but surely there's some type of workout plan where if I lift this amount of weight and eat this amount of food, then I'm going to be at least in the 90th percentile, like do it for two years versus everyone else.

41:46So like what are the, what's like the, the lift weights and eat, and eat lots of protein, uh, kind of checklist. Version of this? Yeah. That's a good question. I mean, I, a couple of things that come to mind, um, and I'll, and I'll, we can decide together if it's a complete answer or not. I think for you personally and for, or, or, or to take you as an example, like, I think you double down on the stuff that's really interesting to you and stuff that you want to talk about and bring people and you can build an audience around your journey. Right. So you, you're doing a lot of that now, which is like business building.

42:19You're interested in entrepreneurs. You're interested in like what's going on in the business world. And that, that, that'll drive into, you can decide if that's going to work in the bottom of the funnel where you can go beyond being a creator every day. So So, for example, like you like motorcycles, you are sober, you have a family and you are interested in like intentionally raising your kids and being a husband. I would think through the things that are your passion hobbies and that bring you the most joy. And I would double down on creating for those things with keeping in mind, it doesn't have to be day one, but pretty soon that you have to be thinking about creating content, building an audience, establishing yourself as a voice of authority.

43:01in something that there is a bottom of the funnel. Bottom of the funnel meaning a product that I could eventually sell. Yes. Kevin sells raised farm beds and seeds. Doug sells cars. Jonathan, the woodworker, sells tools. The detailer sells chemicals. The tonester guy sells paint. Mary sells meat. You know, on and on and on. Do you think it's safe to say that any content niche can come up with a product or service that can sell? Or should you think first, like what could I sell? And then let me think of which content falls within that category of something I'd be willing to dedicate 10 years to creating that content around.

43:37Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think you don't want to, you know, like it's really hard to sell products if you're just funny. Right. You know, those people like I was telling you about my Mormon buddies. They like the L.A. and New York crowd might laugh at them like, oh, these like they might like, you know, be highbrow and laugh at these people. The funny New York-like or LA actor, comedian crew who I know who makes content, they're broke. They don't sell anything. That's right. I think you can build a big audience that doesn't transact and you should be careful about that. And I think if you're in a niche passion category that you like learn and love, you will eventually figure out what the white space is and you can build a product or a service that works there.

44:19And I can give you more examples of people who are doing that. But I think if you're building content, you have to be keeping in mind what's the bottom of the funnel. Like, what am I moving? What am I going to move people to? But I think you start by building a voice of authority in an area. Like, you can't, even if you have a large-scale audience in, you know, in an area, it doesn't mean that you can move product. Like, you have to learn how to do it. Like the people that we've been talking about today, like have learned how to move product and learn how to build product and learn supply chain and hiring and, you know, subscription and blogs and how to keep their audience from churning and how to, you know, keep things in stock.

44:58Like you're an entrepreneur. You got to, you got to know how to, you got to know how to build a business. And that is to say also, like, there are two kinds of business. I mean, there's lots of kinds of businesses, but two, there's like lifestyle business where it's like, hey, I can make a million dollars a year doing this, or I can make half a million dollars a year doing this, or I can make two million dollars a year doing this, and that's just fine with me. The problem with that is, is from varying deals and AdSense and like selling like merch and a couple little things here and there. The problem is, is once you stop, like your revenue goes away.

45:28You're just a freelancer. Yeah, exactly. You've built something that you can't exit. And for some people, that's okay. And it's not like what's better or what's worse. But if you're going to spend five years building your audience, build them into something that you can transact into. And you can add value to them by cool new tools or great ethically sourced meat or cool color tones for your bedroom or anything that adds value to your audience. Is there a medium or a platform that matters? So we've talked about TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Those are all video. One thing that I've predicted, I wrote this, or we did a podcast on this where I'm like, there hasn't been like a billion dollar Twitter creator, but I think there will be.

46:12And there might be actually some now. I said this like three or four years ago. Do you think that it has to be video and audio or video? And we know podcasting works too. So video and audio. I think video and audio are the examples that I've seen where people have been able to build kind of like lifestyle plus slash venture scale businesses. I think the audio is a great way to connect with your audience like consistently and you can really like own the relationship and build like a cadence of trust with them. It's a very intimate platform where if you love something, you listen to it weekly. I think video is the same way and building an ecosystem around the video first platforms is, for me, it has more signal.

47:24What's new? What's interesting? What should I pay attention to? And I had friends that had sold their newsletter companies. Like Sam had built The Hustle. Austin had built Morning Brew. And they had sold their newsletters for tens of millions of dollars. So I thought, how hard could it be? I launched a newsletter called The Milk Road. It was a daily crypto newsletter. And it grew like wildfire. We grew it from zero to over a quarter million subscribers in a year. Partly because the content was good. But partly because people were crazy about crypto. And that was a good time to be doing this. But the reality is that we wouldn't have been able to do that.

47:53and build that business that we ended up selling a year later for millions of dollars had we not had Beehive. Beehive was the reason we could do it in a year because if we didn't have that, we would have had to build all sorts of custom stuff or pay expensive consultants to do things or use five different tools and try to stitch them together. Beehive just did it all for us. It is the best way to start and grow a newsletter. An email newsletter is this little secret of the business world because they're free to send, they're free to grow, and you can build this incredible relationship between you and the readers.

48:20So check it out. Beehive is actually offering 30 % off your first three months if you use the code MFM30. So go to beehive.com and then use the code MFM30 to get the deal today. There's a link in the description. I was going to ask you what niches you think like someone should exploit. You said that was you gave me the energy that was hard to answer, but I'm going to so I'm going to like tease you up. Push me. Yeah, well, I'm definitely going to push you, but we're going to ease into it. Push me. Listen, so I'm sure that you have a list of like creators that have one to 5 ,000 people and you see them and you're like, oh, they got something here.

48:55And who is on that list? Is there anyone like that or a category like that? I'm going to preface this by saying a lot of the companies that we've talked about here are very dude-focused. And so I want to also say that there's lots of categories that I'm still learning and getting better at. But one is everyday carry, I think is a really interesting category. Everyday carry being handguns, or does that include like mace and knives and everything? I think like knives, I mean, obviously we've seen what's going on with Ridge Wallet, but like a creator that owns that, like what you keep in your pocket every day.

49:37So yeah, knives, wallet, watch, keychain, pens, writing tables. There's some creators out there that do it. There's a really cool scaled company that sells knives called Blade HQ. It's also a company that's in Utah. And they started creating content because they couldn't advertise because they were selling what is considered by the internet weapons. And I think the everyday carry creator, there are some of them that are really kind of popping up. Some of them haven't reached the scale. You know what? I completely agree with that. And if I was listening to this, So I think that there can be a Hodinkee.

50:19So Hodinkee was a watch blog that eventually. I was on the board of Hodinkee. We invested in it at Sherman. And I don't know. The outcome wasn't as expected, but that doesn't. That's right. But I don't think that meant the business itself was bad. I don't know anything about the company, but if I had to guess, maybe it was like they just grew too fast or something like that. And you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there should be a Hodinkee for fountain pens or a Hodinkee for fancy pens. I agree. I mean, I think those are the kind of things when we see those, we're like, whoa, you know, like chess creators.

50:50Really interesting. People who play chess, passionate, you know, that's interesting. Yeah, fountain pens, any of the everyday carry stuff is great. I also think 2A creators, like Second Amendment right creators who are teaching, who kind of do product reviews on different guns and different vinyl and different holsters and things like that, have a massive audience. Obviously, we've seen what happened with Black Rifle Coffee. Yeah. But the ones who are actually teaching about tactics and safety and different weapons and scopes and vinyl to kind of carry it, like those have massive audiences and some of them have built scale businesses.

51:28And I think that's an interesting category as well. There's a guy named, I actually, this is like the first time I ever said this word out loud. It's just one of those words that I read it and I know it, but I'm afraid. So I don't know if it's Hickcock or Hickok45. I thought maybe that meant like he's in Oklahoma and he's like a redneck and he was born in 1945. And he's this old man that you would only understand this if you live in the South or you live in the Midwest like I am from. And we all had grandfathers like this. They like wore like overalls or wrangler jeans and like a flannel shirt.

52:02And they're pretty nice and stoic. And you like being around them. Well, that's what this guy is. Except his passion is like every type of gun on earth. And so he'll do like a machine gun and he'll say like, oh, this is a cute little machine gun. Let's see what it's about. Or he'll be like a revolutionary. And I don't know anything about guns, but I just like watching it. But it'll be like a revolutionary war cannon or like the type of gun in the Civil War where they like, you know, put the thing down and then they load the blacks. I don't know anything about this shit. Or like a silencer on a gun.

52:34You're like, what's that sound like? And this guy, have you ever seen this guy? He's got 8 million subscribers on YouTube. No. I haven't seen it. Oh, my God. Look at T-Rex arms. He's the Bob Ross of guns is what he is. That's the best way to put it. That's awesome. Yeah, and there's some newer cats on the scene. Like, check out this T-Rex arms. It was started by a couple brothers. One of them's name was Lucas Botkin, and he's actually since broken off from T-Rex arms. But it's like tactical Second Amendment content creators, massive firearms accessory business. does some advertising, but there's a lot of restrictions on that.

53:11Sells their own tactical gear, has a total cult-like loyalty. And they're running a really scaled business. Now, what crazy thing is, is Lucas is part of Brothers. And Lucas and the brothers have split. And Lucas is now starting his own thing. So I'm actually interested to see what Lucas builds on his own. And if T-Rex continues to grow. But that's a properly scaled business. All right. So everyday carry. What else? I mentioned chess. Yes. I think that's interesting. People are really passionate about that. We've seen some really cool scale businesses come out of chess. What's a chess business that's scaled?

53:45Chess.com. I mean, that's a multi-billion dollar company. That's right. That's right. Jiu-jitsu? Yeah, we know that. That's a really great category. Have you seen Brazilian jiu-jitsu fanatics? I lived in Texas, man. I feel like everyone did that shit. Yeah, look up the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Fanatics website. This is a two-sided marketplace started by a Jiu-Jitsu champion and a guy who kind of did continuing education. Oh, of course I know who this guy is. This is the famous coach, right? Right. But it's a two-sided marketplace. So Jiu-Jitsu instructors can upload their videos, and then people can sort through, like, I want to learn how to do a rear naked choke, or I want to learn how to sprawl better or whatever.

54:36They can pick coaches that they like. The site can help kind of ID coaches that you might be interested in. It's TotalWeb 1.0. This is great. And I can't say how much they're doing, but it's a good business. What about you being the creator? No, man, this is like the hardest thing I do. And talking, like seeing myself on the internet is like my least favorite thing. I'm very excited to talk to you. I think that's what you want to talk about is great. But man, I will never watch this because I just cannot watch myself. I cannot be a creature. Dude, no one watches themselves. Like, I've never seen MFM in my life.

55:08And it's one of these things where you have to have tough skin. But, like, the Mormon family that I mentioned, they have a whole subreddit dedicated to mocking them. And I met them. And these people were the most loving. They're the nicest people in the world. It was the most loving family. They took us in. I felt like I barely knew them and I was their cousins. They were, like, the most loving family. And people mocked them like crazy. And then on our pod, someone will be like, you know, you look fatter or skinnier than I thought, or you look older or younger. And like, we get mocked constantly.

55:39Yeah, no, I think it's a very hard thing to do is like putting it out there and building their audience around things that they're really passionate about talking about. And yeah, I love the idea of getting involved in a creator-led business. But right now, I really love the thesis that we have at Slow, kind of like building out, supporting them and matching capital to creators who are entrepreneurs who are really wanting to build things at scale. Let's say someone said, all right, you got to quit Slow right now and you have to go and join. We'll give you like a draft. Like you get three. You get three picks of creators that you're like, I want to.

56:12Oh, actual creators? I want to join that company and I want like a little stake in it. Are there three that you think are going to the moon? We have this thing called Sarah's List. Sarah was my wife because she joined. We planned where she could join Airbnb at a time where she could still have a very comfy gig, like a$40. You're not totally grinding and you get a lot of salary, but your stock, it's still a 10x. If there was a billy list for you and traders that you like, what would the top three or four be? Oh, my God. I love what Kevin and Doug are doing at Epic Gardening and Cars and Bits. Like those are both humans that I like and would like to work with, which is kind of like my most important, which if you asked me if I hypothetically would go and work with a creator, like I would need to like love them as a human and love the category.

57:11And those are both categories I can really get behind. I just sold my car on Cars and Bits. Oh, you did? What car? 2020 AMG E63 station wagon. Nice. Were you happy with the price? Yeah, I got what I wanted. I hit my reserve. Oh, good. Yeah, I think that's awesome. I only own old cars. So now that Doug is selling old cars as well, I can sell my Scout if I'm ready to move on it. But I... That's great. Yeah, yeah. It's a good... It can be a really good buying experience for everybody. Okay, you should follow Sarah McAllister. Sarah McAllister has a company called Go Clean Go. Right now, Sarah is just like the queen of clean.

57:50And people have been following her since the pandemic. And she's been building. She's got a couple million subscribers on Instagram. I think 2.4. And I think she's got a real shot to build a really awesome business. So I think she's really cool. Wait, does she own housework.com? That's what it is. I don't remember exactly what it is, but yeah. So she has people that love her. They dress up for her as Halloween. What? And she is a badass, and she is really cool. So I really like that business. Does she sell anything yet? Or is it just, it looks like she doesn't even have her own product. So there is still, it looks like she's still prominently a media company.

58:29She mostly makes revenue through, yeah, affiliate links and brand deals and stuff like that at the moment. Oh, this lady's going to kill it. That's a good one. I think she's great. The queen of clean. That's a good one. I don't know if that's what anybody calls her, but I just said that. Dude, if this lady comes out with a laundry detergent, like that's going to be the greatest thing ever. Forget it. Yeah. I really like her. I also really like this creator named Gohar Khan. So when he was like 13, 14, or maybe even younger, he started making like Minecraft YouTube videos. Right. And he built this massive audience.

59:06And then he kind of like put it down, focused on school, got into MIT. and when he was in mit it was during covet so he started making videos about going at going to an ivy right like going to mit you know i think he has you you tell me i don't have it in front of me what does he have six million youtube subscribers yeah more oh my god i'm looking at his numbers uh how so is he in his teens so he launched this no no no he's post-college and he's launched this thing called next admit which helps students write college entrance exams just teaches them how to use chat gpt no it teaches them like teaches them how to not right so he has people that like read through them who have also been into ivs he reads through them and he basically like you know at 80 bucks a pop or something he helps you kind of like do that but he's also kind of gives you a lot of information about how to think about the big story you're going to tell when you want to get into college about the thing you did in high school and now he's starting like SAT prep courses.

1:00:08And he just knows his audience and he knows that young first generation kid who wants to get into that Ivy, not, not bums like you and I were in high school. And he really has an opportunity to build a really scaled, uh, service business that really understands what kids are thinking and kids want when they're trying to get into Ivy's and they're trying to get into colleges. So I like him a lot. Those are two good ones. I think he's really interesting. And I'll wrap up by reciprocating. I'll give you my two. Okay, good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, please. Do you have YouTube in front of you right now? I should have made you go first, bro.

1:00:43I should have made you go first. Well, I had a thing while you were talking. So the first one I mentioned, this guy's got a harder path to build a business because clothes are harder, but it's called the Iron Snail. All right, so the Iron Snail, I started following this guy a while ago. His background is that he went to film school. And Sean and I talked about this on a previous podcast that the creators nowadays, the younger folks, And when I was, well, still, but even when I was younger and YouTube was just getting started, it was all about being authentic, which meant like kind of scrappy and just thrown together.

1:01:15Now they're way more well produced. And so this guy tells you both the history of clothing, like why Jamaicans are obsessed with Clark shoes. Apparently there's like some history behind that. Oh, yeah. But then he'll also do like, here's the highest quality, lowest price clothing ranked. he'll say why are the jap why do japanese makes the best jeans on earth yeah right and so he'll like break down and do these really interesting stuff and you know what's funny is like the the reason why he's gonna win is because you can be a woman this is mostly men's clothes you could be a woman you could not give a shit about clothing you could not give a shit about history but you watch his videos because they're so well produced and because he's so funny he's hilarious that you're engaged and you're bought in.

1:02:00And he is currently in the process of launching his own clothing line. And so he's like, he's documenting it. Clothing is like the hardest thing ever. So it's going to be a hard business. But, and the second one is Project Air. So look up Project Air. It's this young guy named James, who's in the UK. And it originally started out with him building model airplanes so what started as just like a model plane turned into like an rc plane which then turned into i'm gonna build the world's fastest rc jet or i'm gonna build the world's largest rc jet or i'm gonna set the land speed record for an rc car and he's even done things like i'm gonna send a like a spacex i'm gonna send a rocket up and i'm gonna have it land right back down uh Just like SpaceX does, except I'm going to do it like in my garage.

1:02:53So it's like became like hacker engineering stuff to where the stuff that he does is actually incredibly challenging math problems. Like he's a proper engineer. He's got one video where he built an RC battleship and he was like, I'm going to have them fight and sink each other. And I see this guy and I see. What do you think his bottom of the funnel is? Selling RC kits. It's very similar to Mark. uh what's mark rober crunch labs yeah it's very similar where it's educational stuff and if i had to guess a large percentage of fathers like me who want my children to like i think it's cool but like i don't want to build an rc plane and take it somewhere i'm gonna look like a pedophile going and doing this shit i'm gonna be weird but if i get my kid into it i can still you know like have fun doing this shit you know what i mean like i don't want to go like buy an rc car take it to a school how old's your how old's your little one again we got a ways to go you got a ways to go but you're just gonna bring them along in the in the pram yeah i'll be like my kid's just a prop basically so i can go to a schoolyard with a really fast rc car awesome and so and so i think there's a bottom of the funnel for that to like build uh like model kits i will check him out yeah rober has done it right like that's i mean that business has exploded those guys have done a great job building out those that subscription kits and there's this entire there's this one guy his name's remi i think r e m i and this will be my last one type in remi rc plane so check this out this is so strange so it's r a m i rc he has a million followers tell me what the first video that you see can you can you tell me what that says remi rc plane world's biggest rc 20 million million views on this one building an airbus this guy is building a freaking airbus so he's building remote control airplanes that are the size of a of a olympic size pool like these it's basically a fucking plane is what he's building and there's a really weird part about this story so they never truly call this out i think maybe they do occasionally okay but you're gonna see them on like an air uh like an airstrip and you're gonna see them take take off from a house and you're like does this guy is remy just a rich guy with a with a where what is going on right it's tyler perry's house so tyler perry his hobby is he loves rc planes and so he is this guy's patron and so this guy remy i don't know if he lives there or if he just spends some time there but tyler he just puts him in a pram and takes him to the park he i don't know what he does but tyler Perry has this massive hanger at his house, except I bet you he has a hanger with real planes, to be honest.

1:05:37He's so wealthy. But he also has one dedicated to RC planes. And you'll see, it's so funny. Tyler makes cameos. Like, you'll see him, like, basically, I know that Tyler's paying for it because Tyler is always the one flying the plane. And so these guys, Remy, will, like, build the jets and just hand it to this, like, guy who they barely talk about or mention. and it's Tyler flying the jet because they like don't want to wreck, you know, it probably costs 100 grand for this jet. And this guy, it's such a, oh, I guess they do call it out. So flying planes with Tyler Perry. But that's like basically it.

1:06:10Like they barely talk about it. The fact that it's just this like guy, I think he's from Dubai. That's the internet, bro. It's so cool. And so this guy has a million followers and I think that's like another interesting thing. So those are my picks. Yeah, that's good. This isn't a pick that, like, anyway, you should check this one out. Have you seen Hacksmith? What's Hacksmith? Dude, these guys just dropped something called the Smith Blade. Oh, these guys are going to kill it. Dude, they just did$7 million on Kickstarter in, like, a week. Well, it says 13 days to go. I think they dropped it this time last week.

1:06:49That's what I want to say. $7 million. And it's just a box cutter? No, it's a multi-tool. A multi-school is like a Swiss Army knife, right? It's got like five different kinds of knives on it. And like, you know, a Swiss Army knife is going to have your toothpick and your tweezers and a couple of different kinds of knives that have different edges and blades on it. And this one is built with the kind of intention of everything that you would need. Like, these guys also sell lightsabers. Like, you got to check out their YouTube page. Oh, my God. And they have 15 million subscribers. yeah they they sell like lightsabers and and and uh all kinds of like what's a lightsaber is that just a flashlight a lightsaber have you seen star wars i will i know what it is but i don't know how i would make so you haven't seen like you just know about star wars you haven't seen star wars no i was like playing sports and stuff and going outside i also played sports and i know and i know what Star Wars is.

1:07:45I know what it is, but I don't know how, is it a flame? It's a little, it's a mini lightsaber, bro. Check it out. I mean, they call them sabers. What comes out of the metal part? A piece of plastic? Light. But that's just a flashlight, no? These are, yeah, they're badass flashlights. You could call it that. But they're, you know, they're$150 Canadian or they're$350 or they're$500. They're like badass. Dude, I just bought a$500 laser pointer the other day because apparently if I could shine it on a piece of paper, It's going to light it on fire. So I'm not saying like I'm above this. No, no, no, no one's above this.

1:08:19This is cool. I'm into it. I'll tell you, no one's above it. These guys just sold$7 million in multi-tools in like a week. So really interesting. I hope our wives are still willing to have sex with us by the end of this episode. Billy, man, you're cool. I'm really thankful that you came on and hopefully we'll stay friends. But you're the man. Yeah, man. Thanks for having me on. I love what you're doing. And, you know, happy hunting. Thank you. That's it. That's the pod.

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