Cody Ko On Building A YouTube Empire, Partying With Elon & Stand-Up Comedy

0:00What three creators do you see that you think could become billionaires? He's like, Mr. Beast, Dude Perfect or something like that. And then he said to you, no way. Cody, Cody, Cody, Cody, Cody, Cody, Cody, Cody, Cody is popping off. Algorithm has shined upon him. Cody is one of the biggest YouTubers on the platform. How did you get good at doing what you do? If you go and listen to my first episode of my podcast, it was complete garbage. If I'm thinking about like what makes a good podcast or what makes a good YouTube video or what makes a good song. the number one thing you can do is how much are you thinking about like the business side of about being a billionaire when i was younger it was like literally just about the creative but now that i'm getting older it's like i want the business to succeed and then he looks at his phone he's like elon's been texting me and then he showed us his phone it was like elon musk he was like come over and he was like should we go over to his house yeah i mean you can't really say no to that and so he got in cars and drove to his house we got to his house and him and grimes are like standing on the driveway with lanterns like welcome to why that's insane what's he like like it was one of those things where we i feel like i can rule the world i know i could be what i want to i put my all in it like my days all by the way i listen i listen this is like one of my favorite podcasts oh hell yeah so it's an honor to be on it right because i it's one of two that i listen to that's not even sponsored you guys amazing yeah no i'm serious so like when you hit me up i was like let's go i mean it's all in yeah obviously but yeah um they're good too i like them too yeah so you guys just switch between you guys and in how i built this and you so you listen to the pot so you kind of know the the vibe and so i invited you to come on uh did you think about like what are we gonna like because it's different than our normal episodes right yeah sam's not here second yeah you're like cool entertainment guy and we're usually like nerdy tech guys um what you think was gonna happen i don't know but i like being the guest on a podcast is so much better than being the host of one right because like it's like that's your right yeah the pressure's on you i can just sit here and answer questions yeah yeah good okay well that's what we're gonna do but the actually the interesting thing is you actually started as kind of nerdy tech guy too i did yeah you were uh i think like a ios dev yep and let's start there so the origin story is you uh you go to and you you make a viral app at one point i don't know if we were at school or right after school it was i was during college during college i was uh what did it actually do so i know it was called cap that or i cap that i'd cap that i'd cap that yeah what it was the app a very funny name by the way yeah um so it was like i was a senior in college and uh i was on the diving team all four years so i like didn't have like in the summers and stuff i was just training and so i I never did an internship.

2:51I didn't have any resume by the time I was a senior. And all my peers were doing internships, and they had jobs lined up for as soon as they graduated. I didn't. I had nothing. And that kind of scared me because I'm Canadian, and I wanted to stay in the States. So I needed a visa, which means I needed a job. And I also just needed money and stuff for when I graduated. I was like, what the fuck am I going to do? So I was studying computer science at that time. And they didn't have an iOS class, but I was obsessed with my phone, obviously. i was like i really want to know how to make an app so i just bought a book taught myself and then like you know the way you really teach yourself something is you sure you can like read and watch youtube videos but like it's by you know thinking of a project and then trying to make it come to life so that was my project there was one that did something similar but it was a paid app and i was like oh this is a perfect opportunity because it's not a hard idea and what was the idea so you're captioning yeah basically it was like or like as a meme meme generator basically yeah it It was like you would select a picture from your library or take a picture.

3:52And then it would it had like an internal database of funny captions that we all just like got drunk and came up with. And so it would automatically apply one to the picture in white font. But like. All the captions were sort of general enough where people thought there was like AI going on. Like what's an example? Like what do you like? Like, I don't know, a super one. I guess a stupid one would be like you take a picture of someone in here and it'd be like addicted to cocaine or something like that. and people would see that he is that's so true he does look like a cokehead and so it and okay so then the way i got it to spread is it got rejected by the apple review you know board or whatever multiple times and so i was like for being inappropriate so i was like hey i can't make this app clean because then it's not funny right and it won't do anything so i basically had the i I wrote some code so that the internal database was timed because I knew the app review process took like a week.

4:50Right. So then basically after seven days, it would release all the dirty captions. So I got by the Apple review system. Amazing. And then everyone was like, oh, my God, this app is so wild. Like, look, there's like swear words in it. And it just blew up. It was the number one app in the app store. You're just on campus, like eBay and Google. And it was number one. And I paid zero dollars for marketing. Right. And I'm on campus, like, I don't know what to do. Because I know I should be making money from this, but I'm not. And I have no idea how to make money or anything about business. And I was talking to my friend, I was like, what do I do?

5:25And he was like, dude, you should like sell ads. And I was like, I don't know. How do I even start to do that? Right. Like, I didn't know the first thing about setting up like an ad SDK or anything. And so. And you also kind of know your shelf life, you know, every day that you're the top is great. Exactly. And this might not be the case 100 days from now when I figured this out. And when you blow up that fast, the graph goes the other way just as quick. Right. So I was stressing on what to do. And I got an email from a CEO of a startup in Palo Alto. And he was like, hey, saw your app. I love it.

6:01I want to hire you and buy the app. And I was like, perfect. That worked out. So I took a trip to Palo Alto, which was cool for me because like growing up, you know, being obsessed with apple and steve jobs i was like silicon valley is like a dream that's where i'd want to end up but is this it this is the yes this is it oh amazing no this is i'd cap that to the sequel so like when this company i was surprised you didn't go with like dose or something i know right did i tell you this on on my podcast okay when so i i took a trip to palo alto fell in love with it met the team they loved they like you know we just got along great it was a it was a mobile ad sdk company yeah it was a mobile ad network so they needed my app to drive traffic through the network cool and i needed money in a job right so they like it was you know pretty um mutually beneficial they acquired the app i think it was like for 50k half in cash half in stock which was great for me it was a nice like lump sum yeah get a lump sum sorry to get like a apartment and furniture and stuff and then my first job was to make a was to make a sequel that was a paid version.

7:09Or no, actually, no. My first job was to make an iCap that Plus, which was the paid version. Right. And we launched it, and immediately it made$200 ,000. And I was like, damn it. Wow. Damn it. I should have just done this by myself. You're early to the Plus train. There wasn't Apple Plus. It wasn't ESPN Plus. I invented that. You pioneered that shit. I have it patented, actually. And so then we made iCap that 2. And then we made, I kept that two plus and we just milked this thing. How much do you think the whole thing made like half a million bucks or something like that? But then, you know, then it died.

7:47Yeah. But. And so you had, you had that run of like, you're doing that on campus. So you got the taste of like the thrill of making something succeeding, kind of failing, but also succeeding at the same time. Where was your head at that point? You're like, what are you thinking at that moment? You're like, oh, I could just do this again. Or what was your approach after that? Like after I got the job, just like after you had gone through that experience, like, did you think of like, I'm going to do this again? Or what was your, it definitely was my first like little taste of independent success.

8:19So that definitely gave me a little courage. Like my plan was, okay, I'm just going to stay at this company and work my ass off and try to try, you know, do what I can to make this thing a success so that like the stock, you know, become something and that didn't happen. um but yeah it was like definitely it gave me my first little taste of success and before that i had never you know had i never like felt momentum like that before where something's working and the graph is going up to the right and you're like oh my god i'm on to something right and then you tasted that again when you started doing like content right vine vine content was the next time you tasted that like that kind of crazy virality i actually that was more everything since then has been more linear really yeah like i've never been you know you see creator creators all the time that blow up like out of nowhere like you know this year it was like alex earl or something like that sure or um who else like the octopus octopussy kid you know him no anyways it happens it seems like it's promising though he's really like a gym um he's really funny but for me it was always like i kind of had to grind my way to having an audience right by literally downloading vine making videos every single day i was i was actually pretty late i would say like the whole first like class of you know like famous viners had already been a thing like king badge right britney furland they were already like people right that everyone recognized so when i downloaded it i was just like i didn't download it with the intention of like being somebody or you know generating an audience or anything like that I just was I was working on a social media app for this company and it was like snapchat for video basically and then snapchat for video came out we were like damn it and so basically I was like just keeping tabs on all the new ones that were coming out and vine came out so I downloaded it started playing around with it and I lived alone in Palo Alto which has a 21 year old the most like boring life imaginable so I would just start making videos, I would get home from work.

10:25And I just, all of a sudden, like started feeling like I was like flexing my creative muscle. And hadn't done that in a long time. Yeah, I felt good. So every day, I would just make more videos. And then it was like getting involved in the community, you know, like making online friends with the other people that were kind of getting some traction. And then I started showing up on the popular page, and people started recognizing my face. And I just kept doing it like, just was genuinely like didn't try to make it a job. I just was like programming is my job this is my hobby and I'm gonna treat it like an art right sort of and that that sort of paid off because I people I think people liked the sincerity behind it and you what do you mean by that so like for the people that were let's compare the people that were trying really hard to like become famous on vine and what you were doing what do you think was different to the outsider I think like selling out was a much more obvious thing back then or a much more like binary thing whereas now it's like completely expected it's like someone someone takes off and they start doing ad reads and their fans are like yeah get the bag let's go whereas back then it was like first of all six seconds is really hard to endorse something in like naturally get the bag exactly so it was pretty obvious when people like started making money and then people would be like ah you know you sold out you're not the same right so i think that it helped that i had an actual job on the side that i was making decent money but you got to a couple million followers right yeah yeah i think i had like i yeah i think i had like three or four or something and on vine i was wondering something like that or maybe two i don't know what happened to vine i think it was just a little bit ahead of its time because i think now i mean if it came out like five years ago i feel like it would have worked but it was kind of working then and then they just like turned it off i think it was because when twitter twitter bought it before yeah they launched then they launched it and it really worked but then like the traffic started tapering off and i think they were at a crossroads where they were like we can't monetize just just our website right like twitter was having a really hard time monetizing i think it still is and wasn't there like a meeting with creators where the creators like we want money and twitter was like nah and then they wasn't there like some famous i remember there was something like that where they yeah i think they like were in a room with like king batch and those people and they were like we want this much money to keep posting and they were like we don't have it right they're like okay yeah yeah yeah so they're like actually we're just gonna shut it shut down the whole thing instead you want more money yeah exactly platform like oh okay um so you okay so you go through that you uh you guys have had you've been doing content on like podcast youtube for like over 10 years probably almost right yeah almost what and you said you know it's kind of linear so if i said like what was kind of breakout for you or like the breakout moments or like things you remember were like oh shit things just got different for me like i something is different i don't know exactly how how big this is but like something changed i remember i remember the first time that i hit a million views overnight it was like a it was a that's cringe video which was like one of now like one of the most viewed series on my channel and uh i remember like we did a couple and they seem to be working people seem to be into them but it wasn't like apparent how much more people liked them than you know the other stuff that i was doing and then we post like the third or fourth one and i remember waking up to a million views and I was like oh my god that is that was unfathomable for me you know even five months ago like those numbers just like don't even make sense to me and uh so that was one pretty distinctive moment another one was when we when then me and Noelle went on tour for the first time and the second time and all the times after that and the tickets would just like sell out and i was like i see that was a moment where i was like i can't believe that this is now converting into real world sales where people want to come to a venue and see us in person that felt really cool that's always like a weirdly sobering thing what do you guys do when you do that because we did uh we've done i think we did two live shows this year um both times they like you know people showed up which was like shocking in the moment and afterwards uh but also we were like what the what do they want like what are we supposed to do podcast like you want to just do the podcast in front of you while you sit here like yeah i know that's boring i think um and we try to do a bunch of stuff uh i personally hate it i hate i'm like i don't really want to do that again because like you know your series is called that's cringe that's in my head i was like this is cringe right now what's happening is a little bit cringe what do you guys actually do when you do your live stuff we did uh so like the first couple shows that we did were just uh on stage like podcasts because the same thing we didn't really know and then what do people want to see i'm not really sure they're buying tickets for a live podcast 500 people just sitting quietly listening to our first show is like 100 or something like that or whatever there's a crowd of people just watching the podcast yeah and that went well but you guys are funny i think that's the thing they're laughing so it's kind of a comedy show yeah yeah so i think that works but then we so then after that we did another tour where we were like hey we can't we need something that's going to like guarantee laughs and we really want to want to put effort into this so then we wrote a show and then we started writing songs for the show and it kind of became like a third music a third like live sort of that's cringe that we did on stage gotcha and then a third like just stand up comedy wow um because noel was a stand-up before we started doing anything together so he kind of already had chops and in research for this i saw a video of you doing stand-up what yeah where there's a video oh my god please please do not look that up please for the love of god i do not want to see that oh it's on my own channel dude i'm taking that it wasn't that hard for me to do this research by the way what's it like doing stand-up horrifying horrifying the thing is i i dj now yeah i've heard and so i like that's in front of people and i find myself like a lot more comfortable obviously because it's not just you and the mic and the audience it's like there's something in between which is already awesome you know it's like music right so you for the live shows you guys are like turning it into like a full yeah by the end of the tour because we did a we we toured the whole world right and we did like i don't know like a hundred shows or something like that so by the end is like we had the show literally word for word scripted and memorized right because when you do it that many times it just becomes the same show and then you like alter it a little bit every time if something got a laugh you'll add that back for the next one and it kind of evolves so we had samir from colin and samir in here yesterday and i had asked him a question like um i think we said something like you know uh what three creators do you see that you think um like could become billionaires like you talked about mr beast great who else who else you think has that pathway or potential and he said he's like mr beast uh he said a fair who's dude perfect or something like that and then he said you no way yeah really yeah and i was like that's amazing because he named 50 other youtubers by the way during the episode i was like oh cool i never heard of these people because i'm not like in the like i have the things i like and i'm not like youtube culture i'm not like everywhere on youtube yeah and i was like dude he's coming in here tomorrow i'm gonna tell him this and see how he reacts and you sound surprised i definitely am surprised you know the thing the thing he said wasn't like he's going to be he's like uh they could he's like it's up to them yeah he's like they totally can if they if they choose to like optimize in that direction they are like the ones who have like the kind of the audience the intelligence and like the kind of the the capability to do stuff there or they might take that energy in a different direction yeah um i also uh i was telling ben all the way over here I was like, I feel like you and Noelle could do a Harold and Camargo to White Castle movie.

18:45Yes. Yeah, yeah. So we are working on something. I can't really say too much about it. I'm a believer that that's like so in your guys' wheelhouse. I think it'd be a lot of fun. I remember when I was younger, I acted in a movie like as a kid actor of a thing. And my older brother in the movie was Cal Penn, who is Camar. So he called me one day and he was like, hey, how's school going? Like, I don't even know what I had to say. I was like, how's your, what do you do? What are you doing now? And he's like, oh, I'm filming Harold and Camargo to White Castle, which to me, I didn't even understand what that, I didn't know what White Castle was.

19:19There was none where I was at. So I thought it was a fantasy movie. Okay. I was like, oh yeah, I guess he's like going to some fantasy epic castle thing. And I remember going to school and tell my friends like, yeah. Why did he call you? He was just checking in on me. He was just a nice guy. He was just checking in. So you were like friends with him after that? Because like, because you were saying like, you know, when you go on tour, you hang out like in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Same thing on a set. You just sit there. Right, right. For like nine hours waiting for them to line up the shot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

19:42Do like five minutes of acting and then you just sit there again. So he was just checking up on you. Like, what's good? Yeah, he was like, what's good, man? Like, you know, how's your summer going? You saw his number? I don't know anymore. You should read it out, actually. He came to speak at Duke, actually. And I was like, I went up on stage and I was like, oh, I look totally different than like when I was 11. And I was like, hey. And I was like, he probably has no clue who I am. That's really funny. He seems like a nice guy. Oh, he's ultra nice. Really nice guy. He's also I really like about him is he.

20:14He just like grinded super, super hard at the time. There's like no Indian actors, like the only Indian acting jobs he could get was like, you're the convenience store guy. You're like thick accent. And I remember talking to him on set. I was like, what are you going to do after this? And he's like, he's like talking to his agent or something. And he's just kept turning down roles because he's like, they just want me to be the stereotypical Indian guy. yeah and i was like um okay cool so like what are you gonna do instead he's like i don't have anything and there's no instead i was like so and he's like he's like i have no money and i'm just gonna like i'm gonna just wait till i get a real he's like if i do that i'll never get out of that yeah yeah so i'm just gonna like risk it all and like grind through this period of like not having anything um until i get there that's funny i i took a i've told this story before on my own podcast but I took an acting class one time and they were talking about leaning into your typecast at the beginning of your career.

21:08Like you have to do what you look like in order to like get your foot in the door. Right. So we did this exercise where we all went around the circle like this. It was like a, you know, room full of students, like 20 of them. And we all had a journal and we would all like one by one, look at each other and write down what we thought they looked like and their typecast was and so like and then we all revealed them basically like one by one they the teacher would point to one of us and then the rest of the students would read what they wrote about that person so it was like it was like doctor scientists you know and it was like uh you know race car driver cool shit and then it gets to me and they're like influencer coke head dj sells coke in the bathroom it was literally like five minutes of just the most offensive shit how i look like a douchebag i was like damn but i mean i guess that's you're an influencer and a dj now so i don't know too much about your lifestyle but like this is what ended up happening yeah he nailed it he actually had a similar thing he's like got a call he's like oh yeah i'm gonna be on csi and they're like csi it's a terrorist plot he's like oh man come on dude and he actually what he did was he changed his name so his name is not actually cal pen his name is like culpin modi and he's like i'm not getting any auditions for the roles i want so he just created a fake name by splitting his first name yeah and then he started getting calls in and they're like he shows up he's not white and they were like oh okay i guess you're here go ahead and read the role and see what happens yeah and then he got it yeah actually the funny thing is the one of the bigger roles he got was like indian doctor on house and i was like ah you split the difference.

22:48He doesn't have to do the accent, but like, you know, still kind of stereotypical in a way. Did you, when you were like trying to get better at what you were doing, um, how did you do that? Cause like, obviously you get better by just doing reps, but sometimes, you know, if I want to get better at something, I might, you know, hire a coach, read a book, take a class, uh, like study and break down. People were already good at it. Like, how did you get good at doing and what you do? Was there any intentional kind of process you went through? I think a lot of the times if I'm thinking about like getting what makes a good podcast or what makes a good YouTube video or what makes a good song, I'll just like consume a lot of it and just think about it a lot.

23:35But I mean like the number one thing you can do is just do it. You just learn by doing at least for me um so that's that's how i've gotten good it's just reps over time because like if you go and listen to my first episode of my podcast it was complete garbage right it's just something i've gotten better at i'm still not that great at it but like i've gotten better at it through the years right um and now i'm going through that sort of with like music production too it's just like i'm at the beginning stage where i'm like everything i make is a little bit better and just leaning into that the joy and like conquering the zero to one phase and yeah just like learning to enjoy that part of the learning curve, I think is really important.

24:13What are some things you figured out that made like, let's say the that cringe series, which now has like, I don't know, 150 million views on that, that, that style of video that you do? What's something you figured out? You're like, Oh, that's, I used to do it this way. Then I figured out this and made it better. I don't know if it's really anything conscious. You know, it could, it's like, it's mostly stuff that you just like innately pick up on when you do things over and over again, when you read comments and think about what people are reacting to. But, you know, a lot of the times it's like the first time we did a video like that, you know, we were trying to riff and kind of stepping over each other's lines and jokes and punchlines and stuff.

24:53And the next time we did it, we got a little bit better at like letting each other speak and breathe. And like, that's one thing that I think we're really good at now is we never speak over each other. Like we never interrupt. We're really good at riffing, but like because we're innately just conscious of like you know the audience and what they want to hear and no one likes to hear people interrupting and stepping all over each other's jokes you know um so stuff like that um we just get better at like just because you do it you know uh i like that answer even though i wanted you to say like the trick uh it's like a lesson i've had to relearn so many times that there is like you know there are things that make things better but they're Like there wasn't the trick.

25:36Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like a shitload of reps and caring. And then like, you know, you just sort of like get better with every rep. But there's like – Which is kind of the boring – it's like the – it's not the answer that's like, yes, I found the secret. But it's like that is the secret at the same time. I don't think it would be fun if you went from zero to good at something just by doing one little trick. Because it doesn't – you don't – like I find so much joy in like getting a little bit better at something every time I do it. and then seeing a little evidence of that which you get by posting online right like the next time you do something you all of a sudden you you know five comments being like wow this is better than the last one you did and you're like right yeah yeah i'm getting it you know that drives me i love that feeling we had uh mark manson come in court here uh the day before and he he has this he said is like uh happiness uh people think happiness comes from not having problems happiness comes from solving problems yeah totally and i was like oh yeah that's like so fucking true and um the better version of that it turns out is like when you um when you feel like you chose your that problem so like if the weather is just bad you know yeah you know it's like oh i didn't choose this it's happening to me yeah but if you're like you know i want to like for you you're like doing these long 50 mile races or 100 mile races or whatever it's like you're choosing a set of problems that you're going to get you know struggle but get satisfaction with as you overcome them yeah um right now what are those for you so it's like the endurance stuff maybe the business stuff is like that too for you or no uh yes for sure both of both of those things let's let's talk about the business stuff so on the business side uh you know a lot of these creators are building brands off their stuff like products yeah i mean for me it was like investing or other stuff are you doing any of that stuff?

27:25I am. Yeah, I'm developing something that I'm going to launch in the fall. But for me, it was always kind of difficult. I would see people doing it. And I was like, this is okay, this seems obvious. And then I would think like, the money that people are paying us to promote their shit on the show, like ExpressVPN, for example, they've been a sponsor of the show for years. And they've probably paid us like, you know, if we totaled it all up, it's like an insane amount of money, right? But their return on investment must have been way higher right otherwise they were then to continue to rebuy the ads year after year so i'm like why don't we just like it just makes sense for us to own something that we're promoting because then we see all the upside right um but it it was always it always kind of killed me thinking of the right thing because i don't want to force anything on on my audience uh and comedy is a very hard thing to like align with a product or a service because it's just something that people enjoy it's not you know it's not like a i don't know it's not like fitness or cooking where there's like products that people use every time they cook with comedy it's not like that it's uh it's just like i don't know generic and sort of so i like when i started doing the endurance stuff that's when i was like oh there's a lot of stuff that i'm doing every day yeah that it's natural for me to promote and this is really cool cody's run club yeah so this is kind of kind of my first like uh product in this direction where like i wanted to make something more like fitness right focused um so this is like the first time i've done like running shorts for example when you're really worked when you're promoting it are you doing because that little like video that was on there was kind of funny are you like using the like are you leaning into the humor side or you try to be like more serious when you're promoting the stuff uh that's something i still kind of battle with myself over how serious because like I always want to be like comedy is a very easy crutch to lean on because it's like I like making fun of myself and also if I'm a little bit self-conscious about something it's like oh I was just joking so like this you know it's like a hard for me to sit in a studio and actually make a fitness video because I'm like I'm not that guy right I'm just doing endurance races because I like doing it it's a challenge but I'm not the guy that's out there like in slow-mo, like you can do anything, you know?

29:44So I like, I like to blend the two. I mean, that was great. Like you're like on the bike and the guy's like spraying, spraying the mist in your face. That's great. So yeah, this is like my first, you know, time kind of generating a product in like the more fitness lane. And then I'm going to do something else that I think will hopefully be a little bit bigger. It'd be funny if you were just sort of the anti-David Goggins, like just went the other way. Yes. Stay soft. Yeah. Marshmallows. Just sign off with something so incredibly soft. Do you listen to a lot of his stuff? I do. I mean, I read his first book, and I've listened to his Joe Rogan episodes and stuff like that.

30:25Have you read the book Living with a Seal? No. It's a great book. There's an entrepreneur named Jesse Itzler. Do you know him? Have you ever heard of this guy? Jesse Itzler? No. he um so he married the woman who created spanks okay um he and then he created like spanks like the concept the action uh no no the uh shapewear spanking yeah that would be that would be that's a big idea she uh so and he created he started off as a white rapper then uh he's always like white rapper things like all right not gonna make it as a rapper so he's like i'm gonna work in a um record studio like a record label so he's like working as a record label his intern was uh like this guy who's trying to be this rapper trying to be all hard he's like yeah i like this guy it was 50 cent so 50 cent was his intern for a little bit 50 cent goes off blows up so he's like okay um he's like that guy like had it i don't really have it but he's like what do i what can i do he's like he started creating jingles so like rap jingles okay so he's like um he created the knicks theme song like the new york knicks like go knicks go whatever go new york go and so he created sports like jingle like kind of like quick raps for companies okay and then he sells that company for like i don't know four million bucks he's like all right i got four million bucks i split it between the two guys what are we gonna do now that we got two million bucks and they after they sold they met a rich guy who took him on a private jet and they were like flying in this private jet they're like this is amazing we would love to do this more we can't afford a jet so like it'd be cool if you could just own like a couple rides on a jet like a piece of a jet like what if i could just fly on a jet 10 times that'd be amazing yeah timeshare for jets so they created that ended up selling that jet or something they sold it to net jets so there was like marquee i think was the other guys so and so they sold it to net jets which was owned by warren buffett that was a huge sale and then now he like owns a piece of an nba team he like you know zico coconut water he like invested a bunch in that early on when he was like oh coconut water is gonna be a big thing yeah uh because he's an endurance athlete so nice he loved doing long runs and so he was like the running community loves coconut water i think mainstream is gonna too yeah so he found a small brand that wasn't doing that well put a bunch of money in and they ended up like selling it to coke later i listened to that how i built this episode it's that's like one of my favorites the coconut water one yeah if you're looking for a good one yeah look look up that episode and watch that it's great and so he uh one of the things he did along the way was he was like i really want to run this like i guess there's some hardcore race in arizona or whatever the hardest race death valley or something something like that and he goes there and he sees uh people running and then he sees um this guy who's just like a like a huge guy running this race and he's like by himself um he's like bleeding and he's running and it's david Goggins essentially and he meets him he's like hey I want to run this race next year um will you train me and he's like will you live in my house and train me uh for like 30 days and then he did and then he wrote a years later he wrote a book about that whole experience oh that's cool this was before anyone knew who David Goggins was so the book came out and he just calls it living with a seal he never mentions the guy's name but he's like this character that's like just like hard as shit and just like you know would wake him up like you know it'd be at three in the morning they just like they would run like eight miles at night yeah yeah you wake about three in the morning and be like wake up bitch it's time you know like he'd be like let's go we're going running again and again i gotta read that it's a great book it's a great read jesse it's so yeah living with a seal it's good uh look that up a good one have you like for the running thing is it like why like i don't i'm like if you told me to do an endurance thing i'd be like oh you've suggested my least favorite activity on earth yeah yeah why do you do it my parents did it growing up so it's kind of in my blood i saw them do it um and i've always like they they raised us like we would go on bike trips all the time and so we were always doing it and then we would see them do these incredible feats of fitness and it just became something that i that drove me and then i was like an athlete in college and stuff so when i graduated i was like i need something to stay in shape so like running just seemed like the most natural thing and then uh once you do you know five miles you're like oh or once you do three miles you're like i think i can do five and then you're like uh i should i should maybe go for a half marathon you get kind of addicted to it right and then so i've done like marathons ever since and then my sister signed up for an iron man and she did it and she's my younger sister so i was like damn it she did that before me so then i signed up for one and then i I did one.

35:02And now it just kind of like through that I was going through like a pretty dark period, like right after COVID. And through training for this for these, I did an ultra marathon first, and then I did an Ironman. And through training for those, I kind of like refound my confidence and my happiness. So now I just like something I want to make part of my life. So like I started the training channel. And now I'm just planning more things like I'm gonna do the New York marathon. and then I'm planning a hundred and something mile altar that I'm trying to do. What about the music videos you guys do? Because they're amazing and they're like almost like too amazing.

35:41It's like, wait, like, where did this come from? Why is this like, why is this good? Are you guys, is this what you guys actually do? Like, I didn't really understand. The first time I saw one, I was like, this is, I don't know, I was just like very jealous. I was like, holy shit. Like, you can't have, you can't be like, oh, I'm relatable and funny, but I'm also like mega talented on the other side. It's like, no, you get to pick, you know, that's how life works. How'd you guys start doing that? And why is it like, why is it so, so fucking good? And like, why don't you lean it up more if it's so good?

36:12I do think that, yeah, like a lot of the stuff I've done or been successful at, it's been like, like I'm the person to look at a pipe dream and be like, it would be really cool to be that. And then like actually try. And so that's kind of how that started was, Like you don't count yourself out. You mean like. Yeah, exactly. Like I. Somewhere in me kind of believe that I'm probably capable of that somewhere. And I think everyone is of everything. But I'm pretty good at like not. You know, turning myself down, I guess, at the beginning. And that's kind of what I lost in that like dark period was I lost that confidence.

36:48And if I thought of something, I would revert back to like, no, you couldn't accomplish that. um but when it came to music i was always like it'd be cool to like do it would be cool to like go online and say i have a new song out you know what i mean that would be a really cool backwards from that yeah exactly and like i never i never played any instruments besides drums growing up i was never really musically inclined i had a good sense of rhythm and i really enjoyed music and so i was kind of like no this is something that's not really for you and then i was like no why can't it be and so i downloaded fl studio i made a beat and for one of our videos i invited noel over because he used to actually rap in high school so i was like i made this beat can you just rap over it and we'll make a funny song for the end of this video and uh he you know took a little bit of convincing because he was like i closed this chapter of my life so finally got i got him over to the place he you know put a verse down i recorded my verse i wrote and recorded and then i was like tried to figure out how to process a voice which song was this horrible song called keep your dick fat and then which was a comedy song again comedy is like again again the comedy is a nice crutch to lean on where you're like we're bad but it's funny yeah exactly so people don't like put too much pressure on you or make fun of you too much and so we did that oh that's still up wow okay my first beat ever it's horrible yeah i like the beginning stuff i always like the early stuff

38:28how'd you decide on that as the concept like well what didn't make it that this one as the idea that's a great question actually i totally forget how we even came up with that i think he must have said keep your dick fat or something and then i was like oh that's funny let's put that down Well, that's also how Tiny Beat Gang came about, right? Like, that's, it was just something you said. It's just like, that was our whole thing. It's just dick jokes and being stupid and being five years old. So, and then, so after we released this, we shot a music video for it. And where we like used a friend that was a DP and we shot it all nice.

39:07And then we're like, oh, this is a fun thing. Like doing something a little bit more high production value. This is like a really fun path to go down. And then shortly after this, I got a DM from a producer in LA. His name's Diamond Pistols. Now like a fantastic friend and has produced a ton of music for us. He was like, hey, I'm a producer. Let me produce your next song. This is really funny. And so we were like, sure. And we showed up at his place. And we made a song called Super Zen. Like in a day? Or like we did. We made that song in a day. And how do you make a song in a day? What do you really?

39:39So you get there. I mean, if you're working with a good producer, it's you get there. They're like, what do you want to make? And you're like, hey, well, I've been listening. Usually the way a music session starts is you'll just listen to music together. And you'll be like, I really been into this song recently. You'll put it on. Try to find some sort of inspiration. Or if you come in with a concept, then you'll kind of work off that. We didn't really have anything. And so he started making a beat. We just like wrote some bullshit lyrics. And then we came up with this concert. So we're like, at that time, Xanax was like the big thing, like Lil Pump and all these guys were talking about doing Xanax all the time.

40:11So we were like, let's make a song called Super Xan where it doesn't make any sense because we don't actually know what mainstream rap lyrics mean. We're just kind of trying to, you know, hang on to the trending references and stuff like that. So then once we made that song, we're like, the song is pretty damn good. Let's shoot another video for it. And Noel called in a bunch of favors. We ended up getting a horse for the video. These look expensive, too. so you guys like yeah this one was probably like you made a bet you're like this is worth it yes i mean music videos are at the time money pits at the time was that like kind of like significant like is that like this was like a lot of money yes oh yeah it was we had nothing back then so it was huge so like i said a lot of people did it like on favors because they liked us and that's diamond pistols you know a lot of people that were in the video like she was a paid actress but um are just like friends and stuff and we knew someone who had a horse and they brought the horse and we paid them like 500 bucks or something wow uh so then we released this on spotify and actually got a lot of streams because people watched the video because it was funny so then we were like we should do an ep maybe so then we started making more music and then fast forward to two eps and albums later we signed a music deal with arista and we released two songs with them one of them being broke bitch which now has like over 50 million streams i think walkman has like 80 million or 90 million yeah i think i saw one was like 85 yes i think it's almost gold was that 100 100 millions gold uh it's just like it's 100 000 or it's 10 million sales and i don't know how i forget how does that even work anymore yeah i forget it's a weird equation but i think it's almost certified gold which is fucking crazy that's a funny uh rap idea for you because everyone's always platinum.

41:57Yeah, yeah. It's like we went gold. Yeah, exactly. That's good. I like that. I might steal that. Yeah, I'm funny too.

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43:12One of my questions on my list was like, am I funny and how do I get funnier? So I would say yes. Because you listen to the pod. Go ahead. Yeah, I would say you're definitely funny. i chuckle i think you guys here i'll give you some constructive criticism from a listener from a fan of the show i think you need better cold opens agreed a lot of times i feel like you use the wrong moments and you should use the funnier moments maybe it's even dumber than that we come from a different world so it's like uh we're just dumb about like how you would do a creative process it's like oh you should care about this and like you should run a process that like looks at the feedback or the data and then like makes it better.

43:54Yeah. Or like watch it together and be like, what could we do better? Yeah. We've never done that. Yeah. But we should. I mean, I don't know. The show's good. So that's like, that's my only little thing because it's such a, it's such a great opportunity for a laugh right before the smash cut to the intro. It's such a beautiful thing. And so we, we tend to like take our cold opens pretty seriously or like we need, we need a good laugh right at the beginning of the show. So then when someone turns it on, they're like, huh. I knew I liked this show. Another week. I'm sticking around one more week.

44:26I'll stay until the ad read. Yeah, exactly. I'll stick around for 10 minutes. Exactly.

44:33I just saw the ideas section for you where I was going to pitch you. Oh, yeah. Okay. We had one before you walked in. Frozen s'mores? Yeah. I was like, why isn't there something called frozen s'mores? So why me, though? well we had the idea right before you arrived and i was like i gotta ask cody about frozen s'mores potential you think there's potential there listen i like so what we're gonna do here let me tell you that how this i how this came about okay i was like in this studio or whatever i was like i want uh because this this might look however it looks but like we're in an office building and this is like a small like cubicle of office when we're here i was like i want to buy an ice cream truck and turn it into a podcast studio and like roll it up to wherever we're gonna to whoever i want to record with and like yeah that's what steve-o does he does it in an ice cream truck it's not in an ice cream truck but he has like a sprinter van right that he's turned into a little i was worried that my genius idea having a traveling set because he pulled up right outside my house and i literally like my commute was two seconds that's what i want to do yeah it was pretty sick and uh so we're like okay let's retrofit it and then ben was like you know well we got to just create an ice cream brand if we're going to do that and then yeah frozen s'mores yeah okay okay it's a s'more i see the cold and the marshmallows vanilla ice cream okay that's idea number one i have for you that's good i like that yeah marshmallows are my least favorite thing about s'mores agreed agreed um okay next one uh let's make a netflix show so i wanted to brainstorm with you real quick okay a netflix show business related so business unscripted that's the category okay so shark tank is a great show yeah we need more uh so like you know the way like you know american idol happened and then people were like oh shit the voice x factor america's got talent like people just took that format and started remixing mask singer like they're like people like this amateur singing thing we're gonna do it yeah i think people like the amateur business thing shark tank works yep there's not really another shark tank uh there's not like another remixed version of a cool thing that you would want if you like shark tank you might like this so we could do one for like creators.

46:42So I don't know, just like what would work? What do you think? I like the idea of doing it where people like come in and pitch their channel or their like TikTok idea or whatever. This was Sully's idea last night. He's like, yeah, we need it for creators. Yeah, that's good. I think I've heard someone doing that, I think. Because that's not the first time I've heard that idea. Right. But I think it's an awesome idea. So like, how would it work? So they come in, you got you as a guest, as like a successful creators, maybe you're the like judges or whatever. What do they get? Because like, you know, in a business thing, you're like, I get the investment.

47:14I get the investment. I'm going to get. No, no. What does the judges get? What does the contestant get? Like, what do they want to create their channel? Every creator just needs money to fund their idea. I see. Yeah. That's obvious, I guess. Yeah. And then you maybe like as a judge, you'd be like, okay, now I get like 10 % of, I'm your manager now. I get 10 % of everything that you make. Right. In the future. That's a good idea. Okay. You're in. It sounds like you're in. it's not i'm in on both so far okay cool so we're doing all of these yeah we're frozen s'mores first clearly yeah second uh shark tank for for creators yep um another one uh app startup ideas okay so cap that yep smash it yeah cap that plus true smash it i kept that two smash hit i kept that two plus where did it stop ahead was it two plus where it ended that's when traction started dying have you had any and you were almost i say almost because i think your friend best friend something like that started cameo so you were like very close also to creating cameo yeah or being a part of cameo oh yeah i could have been in at the beginning they were making that in my living room and i was like this is you're like okay guys losers like cool yeah it looks cool hey what are these guys doing then i go record a youtube video like that's any cooler and uh and then it blew the fuck up and then i ended up investing in series a right and i was like these guys were building this beside me well good for you because i anytime i miss the first round it kills me to come in later even though like you should just come in it's like yeah and i'm like so anchored yeah and you're like the fact that they were in my living it's out of the principle yeah yeah i will lose more yeah exactly so uh have you had any other like you know viral app ideas that you haven't pursued because you're busy being like i had one where it was like it was like um it was like an app where you could figure out where to buy frozen s'mores frozen s'more locator yes exactly but then i was like wait that doesn't exist yet so someone has to invent that and then i'm gonna make that out that's good do you have any problems or pain points or opportunities you've seen as like you know you're a creator there's tons of companies at Silicon Valley be like, we serve the creator economy.