He Makes $1,000,000 in 30 Days Selling Christmas Trees

0:00So, this Christmas tree thing is kind of crazy. The story is this article that I read in Curbed. Basically, it's talking about the brutal mafia-style business of Christmas tree sales in New York.

0:22And I'm just going to read you a paragraph here that just captures it. It goes, Christmas trees are a big business in New York. A lot of people see the quaint little shacks that appear on the side of the road just before Thanksgiving with a bunch of trees. And you think, oh, these are probably independently owned, maybe by jolly families of lumberjacks looking to make a few holiday bucks. That's what I thought anyways. In reality, a few eccentric, obsessed, and sometimes ruthless tycoons control the sale of almost every tree in the city. They call themselves tree men. and they spend 11 months a year preparing for Christmas time, which to them is a 30-day sprint to grab as much cash as they can.

0:59I'm in. You're in, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This needs to be a Netflix show, right? Yeah, and is this the one about this guy named Scott? Well, there's a bunch of guys. So it talks about like the different guys because they basically carved up the territories. Like you got Harlem, this one guy gets Manhattan, this other guy's got the East Side and they all have different territories and they all have crazy names. So it's like George Nash and Kevin Hammer. And it's like, oh yeah, Nash got Harlem. He's a smooth talking hippie from Vermont. Hammer is a Brooklyn born Scientologist. He was a powerful force in the business.

1:33He's the one who shaped it. Hammer is rumored to own half the tree stands in Manhattan, bringing in more than a million dollars every December. The lore is Hammer lives on a yacht somewhere in the Atlantic and he visits New York only at Christmas time where he holes up in a midtown hotel room with a pile of cash on the bed and a pit bull squatting on either side of him. Like, is this even real? What am I reading? Sounds fake. Dude, if you sell a million dollars of trees in one month, like with all your expenses, like that's like a$150 ,000,$200 ,000 a year salary. With way more aura. Yeah, you might have a pit bull, but there ain't going to be piles of cash or a yacht.

2:09It might be like 50%. I can see there's a world where there's like 50 % margin all in. Well, you ain't owning yachts in Manhattan when it's on 500 grand a year. You've been doing it for like 20 years. This is an old article. Um, so I think, uh, yeah, it's pretty crazy. So then it talks about like, basically one interesting thing is it talks about the history of the Christmas tree. So it says 200 years ago, the idea of putting a tree inside your apartment would be a bizarre decision. It didn't make any sense. This is supposed to be shelter from the outside. Why would you bring a tree in? And it talks about how like Christmas trees that are trees themselves weren't even really associated with Christmas time.

2:45And then it says that started his change in 1851, there was a Dutchman named Mark Carr who was like, I think I can do this. What's doing this? Like selling trees to people for the spirit of Christmas. And so he goes, he's considered the father of Manhattan Christmas tree business. And we don't know much about him, but basically the way it describes him is he was out of work and he realized that he could chop up a tree from the forest, bring it into the city and try to sell it to the people in the city to have a piece of nature with them. And he goes and he tells his wife, she's like, that idea sucks.

3:20This is the great story of every entrepreneur. Tell your wife an idea she says it sucks and you do it anyways. I think that's the real American dream. And so he comes in and he basically tries to associate these trees with Christmas spirit, with the jolly wintertime. And he goes and he got a permit for$1 to sell it inside Washington Market, which was like their wholesale bazaar. And he starts to explain to people there that these These are trees that you can stand upright in your house, and it signifies Christmas, and he sold about a day, and that kind of started the trend of indoor Christmas trees.

3:52Again, assuming this article is not fake completely in The Onion.

4:01My parents used to do this for a living. They owned a fruit stand. You're just sitting on that fact for five minutes while I'm making up shit about the Christmas trees? No. So to this day, I've told you my father's a produce broker. So basically, these are made up numbers. But hypothetically, he'll buy a million dollars of onions from a farmer and then organize a truck to go pick them up and then sell that load of onions to Walmart for$1.1 million and hopefully make$100 ,000 in profit of which 50 goes to the truck or whatever, you know, made up numbers. But the way he got into that was my mom and dad owned a fruit stand like on the side of the road.

4:38and that fruit stand made a lot of money every October by selling pumpkins and every Christmas selling Christmas trees. And my mom would tell stories about getting up at 5 a.m. in the morning in order to flip the pumpkins because I guess they can't rest on one side for too long otherwise they get lopsided. And they would package up these trees and they would just sell a shitload of Christmas trees and that would make their Q4. I am fascinated by these kind of once a year businesses. Michael Girdley came on the podcast. He was talking about his fireworks business where 99 % of the revenue happens the day before July 4th, right?

5:11Like, so it's like July 3rd is 99 % of the revenue. And it's like, what a make or break. What a like high stress, but also, you know, kind of peak season versus off season style of business. And those kind of fascinate me. We've talked about before, like, I think one of the great side hustles is going around the neighborhood and basically saying, hey, like, do you want us to put Christmas lights up for you? We'll put Christmas lights up. Like, I think you can make, you know, tens of thousands of dollars in a six-month sprint if you just wanted to go knock on doors and ask, you know, the same question over and over again.

5:42And I think that, like, there's a guy in our neighborhood who basically does that. You know, he hits up, he gets, like, 50 houses to say yes to this thing. Each one of us pays, you know, I think I paid, like,$1 ,700 for, like, a basic Christmas lights thing that took him, you know. And the guy who was knocking on the door wasn't even the guy who put the lights up. So, I don't even know if he was just, like, a lead gen guy. I don't know who he was, but I respect the hustle. What's this health startups that have wild traction? So there's a couple of health startups that just caught my eye. Normally, there's a bunch of these ideas that sound really great, and then they just never work.

6:20And a lot of them are like, and they're all the things that, basically a rich, smart, San Francisco, LA, New York type of person does or wants in their life and they think that everybody does and wants that and that it can be accessible to all of them. But actually, it's too expensive and too hard to do and too bespoke and all this stuff. Ideas that fall into this category were like music discovery. And then there's like... Let me give you a good example. This was a headline in Business Insider. Billionaires plan to launch a media brand around the zeitgeist of Brooklyn. Exactly. A billionaire launching a media company about how Brooklyn is where it's at.

6:58That's the worst. I'll take how to lose$50 billion for$100, Alex. You know, the Instagram co-founders after Instagram, their revenge company was this news reading app. So they basically quit Facebook and they were like, ah, Facebook is kind of bastardizing Instagram. They're just copying Snapchat and all this shit. And they were kind of making these low-key, passive-aggressive remarks. And then they were like, we're doing it again. And they did this photo shoot of them in their vacation home where they get away when they want to be creative. And they say they're going to try to change the way that we consume news and make news less biased and more easy to consume and all this stuff.

7:39And of course, two years later, they shut it down because that's, again, this kind of smart, wealthy, well-meaning person trying to solve a problem that they have, but not a lot of... It's not... Basically, it's not junk food. People want junk food. People want Cheetos. and they want the Cheeto dust on their fingers. And anybody who's like, I'm going to take the Cheeto dust off their fingers, they just don't find a lot of demand, typically. Okay, so this is like one model of the world I have. And then there's, but then you always pay attention to what's going to break your frame. Where am I too biased?

8:10Where have I locked in? And maybe the world is changing underneath me. And so there's two health startups. And so Daniel Eck, who is the founder of Spotify, who is awesome guy, but he checks a bunch of the boxes, right? billionaire who's coming off of a huge life-altering win of a company. And he's been rich since he was 21. Been rich for a long time. Obviously, he's at that Huberman phase where he's like, you know what, I need to take care of my health. I need to get a protocol. I'm going to start taking drugs that nobody can pronounce. I'm going to do all these things. That's a normal thing.

8:48The protocol phase of life. Yeah, exactly. So he's in his protocol phase. And so he launches this thing called Neco Health. And it even had the other kind of like, uh-oh, warning signs where it's like, he's not really running it. He's like a part of it. But he's like, wait, you're running Spotify. So how are you going to do this? Like, oh, there's like a team that's running it. Okay, so maybe this operator model, who knows? We'll see what happens. So there were some warning signs. Instead, there's this post that came up. So he posts on LinkedIn. And Daniel posts over 60 ,000 signups in just 12 weeks.

9:22It's been only three months since we launched Necco Health in London. The response has been nothing short of incredible. Over 60 ,000 people have signed up for a scan, which reflects a growing shift towards preventative healthcare and early detection. And I think it's sort of like, you know, maybe PreNuvo-esque. Dude, by the way, I think that's bullshit. Getting 60 ,000 email subscribers, I don't think that's particularly... Maybe. Because like if you go to the website, like it's the craziest, awesomest thing you could imagine. It's a$250 scan, right? So let's just say the full value of this is$15 million pipeline in three months.

9:59Now you're saying, okay, some of you will just looky-loos. Sure, of course. Not all these people are going to convert. Okay, fine. And even if it's one 15th of that, if they booked a million dollars in bookings for this thing in 12 weeks for a single geographic location in London, that's kind of interesting to me. That's not nothing, right? That's not like this pie in the sky thing. What's it do? I think what they're trying to do is they basically, they're going to scan your body. They're going to look for moles and they're going to look for, look at your arteries and your cholesterol levels and all this stuff.

10:29And they're going to be, it's like a better health check, okay? So it's preventative. It's not like normally, you know, normal healthcare system is you have symptoms. We sort of tell you to take two Advils. You come back, you're like, hey, I still got the symptoms. And they're like, okay, well, let's check some basic things here in the office. And then you're like, dude, I really think something's wrong. It's like, all right, go get a scan. So when you're broken, you get scanned. And the idea where healthcare is going is you get scanned before you're broken to tell you where you might break or what's starting to break so that we can fix it earlier.

11:00Obviously, anybody can agree with that idea. But actually doing it and making it work, both technically and building the brand around it and getting consumers excited about it and getting enough funding or getting enough revenue in the door for this to be a real business, it's pretty impressive to me. Okay, so that was the first thing that happened, that little post. The second thing was, I'm an investor in this thing called superpower. Are you an investor in this? I think you told me about it and it looks amazing. So superpower.com. So it says, a new era of personal health, the world's most advanced digital clinic to help you live longer, prevent disease, and feel your best.

11:35Okay, ignore all that. Ignore all that. All it is is a 10 times better version of an annual physical. Okay, I like that. Okay, you're getting an annual physical anyway. If you're bought into the idea of I should get an annual physical, here is a better annual physical. And they're like, okay, what's a 10x experience of the annual physical? And by the way, I love that idea. The simplicity of that pitch, of that mission I think is really, really powerful. And the thing costs, I don't know, like 400 or 500 bucks. So it's like, I would be willing easily to pay. Dude, you're on their homepage right below Mark Zuckerberg's sister and right next to the Winklevoss twins.

12:15Oh, hold on. Mark Zuckerberg's sister? Well, still pretty cool. My excitement went up and down. You're right next to Mark Zuckerberg's sister. Shout out to was it an aerial? Yeah. Cool, actually. I met her at a party. She was actually very cool.

12:35Okay, so let me just tell you a little bit about this. So they sent this investor update. I think I'm allowed to share this. So Jacob, one of the founders, he sends this investor update and I invested in this thing like a little while back. Didn't kind of hear about it. They were like working on it. Honestly, he was like, all right, we'll see when this thing comes out. And here's what they said. They go, the best doctors in the world already offer this today, but having a concierge doctor who does this type of work for you can cost like$100 ,000 plus. It's only for rich people. So our job is to make that available to everybody.

13:03Okay, so then... By the way, I'm going to my concierge doctor tomorrow for my checkup, and it's not$100 ,000. What do you pay,$20 ,000 a year? No, maybe$5 ,000. A year? That's it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's okay. I don't want facts... Bottom of the barrel, have a thought. Yeah, I found them in the yellow pages. No, I don't want facts. I have a friend who has Peter Atiyaz, is, Doc, and I think it's a quarter million dollars a year. So there's a range, and you're on one side of that range. You're not in the middle. That's the good news.

13:37I'm definitely on one end of that bell curve. Not the good one. They wrote these stats, and they were like, we had three million hits to our site during launch week. Wow. I was like, what? And they said, our wait list has grown to over 100 ,000 people. What? I was like, what is going on? And so I emailed them, and their product is, the first product of the membership is a 10x better version of the annual physical. And so basically, it's like... Is that the language they use in their documentation, or are you just saying, this is just 10x better? This is what they said to me in an email. Got it.

14:14And they were like, you know, basically, you're going to get 100 plus lab tests, a full body report, an hour long consult with your doctor, a limited QA with your doctor throughout the year, additional health consoles and whatever at Insider Prizes for$499. I kind of buy this value prop. I think that's going to work. I was like, dude, that's pretty crazy. How can you even offer this for$500? Secondly, did you say you had 3 million visits during launch week and 100 ,000 person waitlist? How did you do that? Because, yeah, I tweeted your thing out, but as much as I love to pat myself on the back, I don't think I can help anywhere near those type of numbers.

14:54And they were like, yeah, basically in the first three or four months, 100 ,000 people signed up for this thing. So, superpower.com, their site is beautiful. But the way... You can click join. Did you say thank you? Yeah.

15:13That's my thing nowadays. I'm just slipping in thank yous and you're welcomes when people are not trying to give me compliments. It's great. Or when you're 0.1 % of the reason why it looks good you know like you we have a hundred thousand person waitlist uh do is it in person so like is the checklist done or sorry is the checkup done in person no so how do they like like you know like do the thing where i like cough or i i don't know because i i haven't been a customer yet i'm on the waitlist still but i assumed it's like those all telemedicine where basically, let's say, they send you to a quest type of thing to do the blood draw.

15:56They order your labs, and then there's a doctor remote who's analyzing your labs, who does the call with you, does the consult, talks to you, all that stuff. Anyways, I thought that was pretty crazy traction because I was like, dude, let's just take the total potential value of the pipeline. You're saying during launch week, or during this first couple months after you just announced the company, you have$49 million of potential revenue in the list, which of course, only a fraction of a fraction is going to convert. But I mean, it's still just like really impressive. So a lot of these health startups that I thought were kind of like wishful thinking, I think something has shifted in the culture where health startups are no longer wishful thinking and people are legit willing to pay.

16:37And you see this with content, you see this with Huberman, with Peter Atiyah, with Brian Johnson. I think there's a shift happening where health is cool health is in and whatever that next layer of like the market you know that next segment of the bell curve that's interested in this but it's a big like sizable chunk um it feels like another part of the bell curve has gotten unlocked of people who are willing to spend what's the early adopter phase is it like like it's like freaks and then it's like early adopters and then it's like everyone else like what is it what's like the We should rename all the segments.

17:09Yeah, like fucking quacks of weirdos. People you hate to talk to. Yeah. Those innovators. That's the one you're talking about. Freaks and geeks. Yeah. All right, so the freaks and geeks. And then there's early adopters, which are the wannabes. That's us. So we keep an eye on what the freaks and geeks are doing and we start to half-ass copy them. And then there's the early majority. And the early majority is kind of like, you know, the smart, reasonable person. And then you get to late majority and then the laggards, which is like, you know, your mom who still has a newspaper subscription and, you know, whatever else, AOL, email address.

17:47My mom does, actually. And I, so I would say I'm early adopter. Sometimes I'm the innovator for some of these things. And I think what's going to happen based off of my pattern is I think a lot of these things are one-off stuff. So I have tested so many different blood work companies just because they're the latest and greatest and it's exciting to try something new. In general, I've not had a huge amount of repeat purchase for many of them. For some of them, for example, do you remember Forward Health? Something like that, I was like, oh, I'm actually in. Or you remember One Medical, which is popular now?

18:30Now, I've been a paying customer of theirs for like five years. So some of them I become like recurring customers, but I love trying new stuff. What I think is going to happen is now it's shifting to now the one past the early adopters. They are now open to trying this stuff. And so I think getting a waitlist, I actually think it's less challenging than it appears. But making it so you come back every year is really, really hard. And it's going to be interesting to see who can pull that off. Because I've done the Pronovos. I've done, you know, InsideTracker. Have you? Yeah. Like I've done everything.

19:05And they're awesome. It's just a matter of like, which ones do I rely on every quarter or every year as opposed to I just found some new drug and I just want to stick it in my body this one time just to see what's up and I'll never touch it ever again. There's a lot of people like me who do that, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. You're on the fitness and health side, I would say you're in the freaks and geeks category, right? You were telling me about like, you're like dude i injected this stuff in my butt and i don't have cravings anymore and basically we're talking about ozempic before ozempic had like a brand name you're like i read about it on a forum and it's amazing i don't eat candy anymore this is going to change the world i think i told you about that in 21 i think it was summer i think it was summer of 21 and um or something like that maybe 22 and i remember telling you when i was like when i put this stuff in my body It feels like people who have alcohol and addiction issues, I think that's going to go away.

19:59And then actually last week, my friend Jason went to a conference and the CEO of Eli Lilly, I think it is, the maker of one of the semiglutide or OZEPIC competitors, he announced that it has been officially approved for alcoholics. So I do put weird shit in my body just to see what's up. and I actually texted you eight months ago, I think, and I said this new one, I forget what I called it. It started with a T and I was like, this one, this is going to be the one. What was that called? Yeah, I remember thinking I should buy Eli Lilly stock when you told me that because I was like, who makes this?

20:35I'm in. I learned my lesson the first time, kind of writing off your weird health experiments and I was like, okay, I'll just blindly follow this. But Eli Lilly is already a$750 billion company. So I was like, okay, I don't know how much upside is left on that. Like even if it became a$2 trillion company, it's like, what am I really thinking is going to happen here with this thing? So, you know, I think I missed that. But if you look at like a five-year span, Eli Lilly is up, you know, 10x almost in the five-year span, 8x.

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22:17will one day be the norm? Yeah, I do two things. I don't think these are like in the free, I guess they are. I guess if I took a population of a thousand people and I said, how many people are doing this? I think the number would probably be zero. Even if I went to a CrossFit type of like health community, thousand people and I said, who's doing what I'm doing? I think the number is zero. You, I think, have done one of these things, but there's basically two things I do on a daily basis and have been doing now for probably two years. The first is Breathwork Every Morning. Yeah, that's awesome.