189. Meet the Marketing Genius Who Turned a $.10 Rubber Band into $200M

28:00Why are there 11 men trying to figure out what women want? It should be 11 women and one man in that instance. So I think it's just a matter of understanding who are you building the product line for. If you're building it for the kids, test and market to the kids because the parents will follow and most people get that backwards. Yeah. You mentioned that Silly Bands is really kicking up steam again. And I'm curious between for like brands that end up going viral, like a Hydro Flask, you know, they have this crazy boom where they surge to billions of dollars. And then there's always naturally going to be a decline when they're like the virality and everything kind of the dust settles.

28:35What was your motivation in that period of time after the virality happens to now? Like, what are you telling the team? Keep the engine going and keep the fuel on the fire. What are those conversations look like internally? Yeah, I think it's just for us with Silly Bands currently, it's all about the nostalgic factor that when all the people that are now 25 were 10, 11, 12 the first time around, now they're introducing the product to their little brothers and sisters. And they're like right now, sororities and fraternities and sports teams are going nuts over silly bands now, but it's people in their 20s.

29:14And those people are sharing it with their younger brothers and sisters. Whereas the first time it was all a bunch of 9, 10, 11 and 12 year olds that love silly bands and they shared it with their older brothers and sisters. So now it's reversed. So we're really just focusing on the company being a legacy collectible brand that is very nostalgic and just really having fun, especially with micro influencers and TikTok shops, because right now we are killing it on TikTok shop. We're going to start doing TikTok live shopping. And so I think it's just staying true to what the brand is, a collectible and this pop culture phenomenon that any age group can have fun with.

29:58And so that's it is just staying true to the message of what we are. That's why you don't see us buying digital ads. You don't seeing us going too far out of our lane for what worked in the past and what works now. When Silly Bands first started to gain a lot of traction and started to really go viral and it became this global phenomenon, was it built at the time to be able to scale at the level of demand that was there? And what advice do you have for companies or business owners who are starting to see a lot of traction, but maybe their infrastructure isn't built for the demand that they're receiving?

30:39Yeah, again, the answer is no. There is no way on earth we could have been built for scale. I remember, and we could spend hours on this that we don't have time talking about the things I had to do to handle the scale. But I'll tell one funny story. We were in way over our skis. We could not keep up. So that night I did a Facebook post. I said, hey, we're hiring as many people as possible tomorrow. And so show up at 8 a.m. at this address if you're looking for work and you're going to be put in if we pick you. So me and me and one of the people on the team, a couple people on the team, we went to Office Depot or Office, whatever it was, Max back then.

31:23We bought all their foldable white chairs. We bought like 30 fold-out chairs. And then we bought those Hello, my name is stickers. And so the next morning we opened the doors and there was like 350 people in line. And this was the day that Katie Couric from one of the national news channels was there to film. And I literally walked the line, shook the hand of a person and I picked them out. I wrote their name down and said, go back there. And they had to work in the alley behind the warehouse in the office. Cause we had so many people in the buildings. There was no more room for people. So the police stopped by that day and they're like, croak, what is going on?

32:02Like, who are all these people? I'm like, man, we're out of room. I'm sorry. It's my property. Can you just look the other way? So we literally had 60 people working outside, building boxes and packing orders outside in the alley between my two buildings. So we scaled from 15 full-time employees to over three, I think it was 3 ,200 employees in the matter of like eight to 12 months to keep up with the demand worldwide of silly bands. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That is so crazy. It would have been so funny. It was crazy. Like it would have been the best shit show reality TV show ever produced. Like I would wake up at six 30 in the morning and look out the window.

32:48I sold my house. I had my construction team build an apartment above the office that was our game room. They installed a kitchen and a bathroom and four little areas with curtains for me and my fiance. And then two of my managers, I'm like, you're living here for now on until this gets under control. We would look out the window and there'd be 30 semis lined up outside where brands would send a semi every day or like a box truck or a U-Haul truck and say, get what you can. And they would bring cash. And I'd be like, yeah, your orders in the system, but it's like nine days out. And they're like, what's it going to take to get product today?

33:25And they'd have cash. And this was happening every, it was, it was just insane. It was the coolest thing ever, but it was also very hard to control, you know, because if you think about it, that time we were scaling, I think we scaled to like 65 countries. So you're not only dealing with the U S and the fad, the craziness that was happening, but you're dealing with the UK and everywhere else. And so it was, it was definitely hang on for dear life every day for two and a half years. I just, I love the idea of like open tryouts. Yes. Everybody show up. Katie Couric's filming. You're having people run 40 times.

34:03Like how fast can you package something? We'll get you through there. We'll get you through there. I mean, we had, we had a base, the basement in the warehouse had high ceilings and we ran out of space. So we literally put better lighting in the basement and all of the workers that built boxes, we separated packers from actually building the box, then packing the order. And we just had box ninjas in the basement. All they did was take boxes all day and then bring them up on pallets from the elevator just to make it faster. Wow. That's incredible. In seventh grade, the pink monkey silly band. It was like one of the only ones at the time that had like a tail.

34:40So like all the others, if it was around your wrist, right? It was just like around your wrist. But one had like a little tail. And I remember this girl was sitting next to me in history class. I'm like, which one is that? She said, that was the pink monkey. So I went to CVS and I bought every single pack that had a pink monkey. And then I was flipping the pink monkey alone for 10 bucks. This was in like seventh grade during that period of time. And then no one could get the pink monkey in school. I had just 50 of them at my place slinging the pink monkey. What did the distribution that look like before the virality actually happened?

35:08Like how back then would you go to these brands and say, you know, the CVS's of the world or the Wall, I believe it was Walgreens I would go to to get the silly bands. How would you go to them without the proof of like, oh, we're doing tons of, you know, tons of revenue at this exact moment. Like obviously once all of these people are talking about your product, all these distributors are like, yes, please like bring it to us. But before that, how do you get it into their store? Yeah, I mean, we were fortunate. We built the story first and didn't really worry about retail and then retail come crawling at our doorsteps.

35:39So we were very fortunate because we were negotiating from a position of strength because we were so viral nationwide. every retailer, every gas station, every chain store in the country and out of the country needed the product. And so we were very fortunate. We didn't have to go out and do sales and do the dog and pony show. We didn't have to do any of that. And it is a very difficult thing to do because retailers always say, well, show me the money. And they want to make sure the product's going to sell first because they don't want to take the risk. And so it did work well for me because every product since Silly Bands, the slightly successful and the ones that failed, every time they'd say, well, I don't really see it.

36:24I don't know if we want to pick this up. I'm like, well, you didn't see Silly Bands either, did you? And I'm like, look what happened there. So I've always had that angle with the retailers, but that's why I think anyone building a product in a company now should focus on direct-to-consumer first, TikTok shop first, build the story, build the infrastructure, then go to retail because retail is a lot harder to conquer and it's a lot more risk. So with the brands that you invest into now, you want to see that they're going directly to the consumer. That's like numero uno. You want to see that they have scale there.

36:56Is it, is Amazon a part of that? Or is right now, are you like, Hey, I really want you to be on TikTok shop. I want to see that that's working for you guys. Talk to me about a brand that you would invest in that would come to you. What are you looking for in that? What factors? Yeah, for me, Amazon definitely is part of that. a TikTok shop. You know, eBay has its strengths in some ways. Fair is pretty good in some ways. Walmart.com, Target.com are pretty good some ways because if you go on Target.com and you do well, it has nothing to do with retail, but they do have the metrics of it. So then that way you can use those metrics if you want to get into Target stores from a brick and mortar standpoint.

37:34So I think it's all about just building the story. And when I'm looking to invest, almost all the consumer products that I do, I own, or I am a major shareholder of that company, just because then I know I'm not going to lose control. A lot of companies come to me and say, we're raising capital to do this product. I rarely invest in those companies because of the fact that too many times I can't trust where the money's going to go. And a lot of these people that are in startups have this belief that, well, I'm going to pay me 10 grand a month. I'm going to pay this person 10 grand, this person, and most of your money is getting eaten up in overhead and not in growth.

38:18And so for me, I don't invest in outside companies in the consumer products world very often. I would just rather take my own ideas or ideas that I can own equity into market, because then I know it's going to get done right. You bring up focusing on story and how important that was for silly bands. How did you deal with getting knocked off? If a company does have a successful product, I feel like naturally other companies are going to come and knock it off and you see it a ton. And there's actually been quite a few people on our podcast that we've had that have dealt with that. And so I want to know, how did you guys deal with the knockoffs and having off-brand silly bands?

38:56Yeah, it's really difficult to do. But the number one lesson that I learned with Silly Bands that would have cost me 50, 60 bucks to prevent is whenever you're going to launch a consumer product and you think you have a really good idea, buy every iteration of the URLs for the website and control the social handles the same way before you go live. Because when Silly Bands launched and we got all that momentum and we had all that success, Then there was zany bands and there was kooky bands and crazy bands, all with the same kind of colorway that we had similar textile, the Z at the end. And I had almost every single one of those names in my shopping cart to buy the URLs because I was saving them as I was deciding on a name.

39:46but I only bought the iterations of silly bands instead of all the others. And all of the others would have cost less than a hundred dollars. And it would have made it really difficult for any people knocking us off to get momentum. If they couldn't use some iteration of a word and bands with a Z. And so zany bands and crazy bands and kooky bands, we had all of those. And for less than a hundred dollars, I could have bought them all and prevented people from having a name that was close to ours. So that would be the number one thing I would tell people building a brand. Protect yourself there first, and then it'll make it harder for them to get momentum.

40:24And if they don't profit and get momentum, there's going to be a lot less knockoffs if you protect yourself. On the topic of building a brand, one day, you know, you step outside your home, you're walking around the street, and you hold up your phone, and you get a video that hits 3 million plus views. why did you make that video and what did that impact have on the on this portion of your career so i was at an event it was an alternative investing summit and a gentleman asked me to speak at a roundtable discussion a very very one of the largest investing firms in the world really liked my brain and wanted me to talk so i did so after the event he said to me in these words He said, why are you not doing more with your personal brand when your brain is 600 miles ahead of everybody else?

41:19And that was the moment that changed my life. Because at that time, I think I had 9 ,000 followers on Instagram and I had like 50 or 60 ,000 on TikTok. So I went home, I thought about it, and I was kind of like, all right, I could do this. So I started like toying with some ideas of what I would do if I took content seriously. and I thought, you know what? I have 30 years of stories I could share with the audience. So I started testing with that. And that first video that you're alluding to was the three tips of what I would do. And it got like 3 million views and just a million shares in the first few days.

41:57And then I think it was the second or third video I did was, do you wanna be the first millionaire in your family? Here are the three things I would do. and that video has over like 40 million views now. And that was the one that really changed the game because I went from 50 ,000 followers on TikTok to like 400 ,000 followers in a month. And then from then on, it just kept going and going and going. And now between all platforms, I think I have around 4 million followers. And I have a big podcast now through the Rich Habits podcast and all this stuff. So I think it's just all about, I struck a chord because I have a proven track record.

42:38I'm not some person that's just a course seller that's never really done anything. So I have a proven track record. And I think being older and trusted helps as well because everyone's looking for a cheat code. And I just always try to give people the most value that I possibly can to help them with their brands and their business and their finances in a way that's digestible because Because most people that do what I do on the internet, they make investing and building a brand and building a business sound hard because they want to sell you a high ticket course. So if they can scare you and create fear, that's going to get you to buy the course.

43:16I'm the opposite. And that's why the course sellers don't like me because I give it all away for free. And yes, can you help me make money? Sure. If you join my Rich Habits Network and join our private community, that's a paid network. If you book time with me, you pay to book time with me to get information. But for the most part, I give it all away because I think it just moves the needle and helps so many more people than I could if I were selling courses. What was your experience with content creation and personal brand before you had that discussion with your friend and going out and making that selfie style video?

43:53Yeah, I mean, I was doing a ton of content for our brands. I wasn't the, I wasn't the, um, talent though. You know, we were hiring celebrities and back then, you know, big influencers. I did the deal with the Bieber's, the Maloof's. I did the deal with the Kardashians. So I had a lot of experience in social media and how to produce it. But I was just never the guy in front of the camera. And the girl that I was dating at the time in Louisiana, she was doing the influencer route. She was doing pretty well. So I would do content with her, but it was more skits and funny and just like casual stuff.

44:30And that's when I pivoted and decided, you know what? I have a lot of great stories. I have a lot of great history. I could share these stories and really make a meaningful difference in a lot of people's lives. I didn't expect it to go so big so fast, but now as they say, the rest is history and it's just keep building from here and try to provide as much value as I can to as many people that'll listen. Take me through if someone wants to become the first millionaire in their family, this group that is listening to this, I know they're super motivated. Some of them might already be millionaires, but many of them are on the path to becoming the first millionaire in their family.

45:05And I'm curious, what are some of those steps? But I know one that you said earlier, like grab a percentage of your income and save that no matter what that is getting invested. So we have that one down. What are those other steps that someone needs to take? Yeah, if you go before that in the life cycle of someone becoming successful financially, I think it's kind of more about mindset than anything. Most people are brought up to be consumers first and investors second. That needs to flip. If people can start to look at their money as what can I do with this money to make more money rather than what can I spend it on?

45:42That is the number one biggest flip of mindset and hurdle most people have in society. And that's 20 year old people all the way up to 50, 60 year olds. You have to get that mindset flip done first. And then secondarily, it is the outcomes of your surroundings. You should never listen to people that you wouldn't trade lives with. I know that's an old statement and a lot of people have used it over the years, but it is so accurate. You should not be listening to people that have a day-to-day nine to five menial job that are never gonna go where you wanna go because they don't have the experience or the knowledge to be able to help guide you.

46:21And all they're gonna do is hold you back with fear and lack of mentality to get you to believe it's not for you. And I think those are the two main things to get people started. Because if you can start, the earlier you start, the better, obviously, because of compound interest. So anyone that's listening to this that's in their 20s and 30s and you've never invested, the minute you get done with this episode. You need to get a notepad. You need to start thinking about how you can put away 10, 15, 20 % of your money every single month. And if you're living the paycheck to paycheck, give up the weekends of partying and all that.

46:56Go get a side job. Take all the side job money, the side hustle money, and start investing it in basic stuff. You can go open a public.com account, set up your Roth IRA, invest in VOO, QQQ, and AIQ, two, three funds that are super simple, get started there, and then grow from there. But it's really all about, in the beginning, making the shift from a consumer-based mindset to an investor-based mindset, and then figuring out how to start putting money away, even if it's only$100 a month. Because all the fake gurus tell people, if you don't have$10 ,000, don't bother. That is terrible advice. You can start with$100 a month, then go to$200 a month, then$500 a month, and still retire a multi-multi-millionaire without doing anything else.

47:44Yeah, something's better than nothing. 100%. What are your thoughts though on investing in yourself? Obviously you've brought up investing in the stock market, but obviously building a personal brand for yourself has opened up a lot of opportunities and I'm sure has also led to monetary gain as well. What advice would you give to someone as far as like investing in themselves versus putting money in the stock market? Yeah, your coaching group, if they're in there learning about making money or going to seminars, stuff like that. I think it's a tragedy and it is a tough situation for most people that will spend years becoming a professional learner of information and guidance without taking action.

48:36I know people that have been going to seminars for five years. They go to every mastermind. They put it on their credit card. They do all of this, but they don't take any action. That's a mistake. I'm okay with spending money to educate yourself, but I'm not okay with people that spend 20, 30, 40,$50 ,000 a year when they don't even have a portfolio of$500 ,000 yet or$250 ,000 because I think there's a world. You can go listen to podcasts that are free. You can get books online for free or very, very inexpensively. You can learn by joining, like, let's look at the Rich Habits Network, my community.

49:15It's$74 a month. $74 a month. You get two and a half hours a week of me on a live stream telling you everything that I'm working on, what I'm doing investment-wise, all of these things. Plus, you're surrounded by other people that are growing and building for$74 a month. So I look at it that I don't like to see people that all they do is go out and learn, but they don't take any action. I think you need to have a hybrid of both of investing in yourself, but making sure you don't do it so long that you're never taking action to build anything from what you've learned. I mean, the way to tell is ask anyone, you know, um, how many masterminds have you been to in the last five years?

49:59And if they say 11, that's a mistake because they've spent a ton of money. Where in the middle of those 11 masterminds did you take action? So I think it's got to be both where you're learning and investing in yourself, but you're also still taking action because some of the most successful people are the ones that take one action, but they really see it through rather than the people that try every new, look at it this way online right now, there is a thousand fake gurus that we see on our feeds every single day that are selling a course. and it's always the latest and greatest. You see a person, it's usually men, that one day they're a Forex trading expert, then two weeks later they're a crypto trading expert, then four months later they're a done-for-you Amazon store expert.

50:45They just jump from thing to thing to thing to thing, but so do the people buying their courses and they never really take action to see what works. It's so funny. I went to a Tony Robbins seminar with my mom and my sister when I was in high school. And there was a friend that my mom knew that went, I forget what his name is, but she was like, yeah, he goes to like every Tony Robbins seminar. He's like, I don't know when he has time to like put this stuff into practice. Cause she's like, he was at one a few months ago. I'm like, dude, that's wild. But there are a lot of people. I think it's an epidemic.

51:22So I got, and I'm not going to name names, but I got kicked off of a tour in 2025. This happened in 2024 because I said the only way I would join the tour for as a speaker is if they did not allow people to pay for the the event or the course with a credit card. And they're like, you're nuts. I'm like, I won't do it because if they have to pay for it with their own money and they're not using buy now, pay later or their credit card, they're going to take action. But when they can put it on a credit card and make minimum payments for three years, they're probably not going to take action. So they didn't bring me on the tour because they don't care if people learn and execute.

52:05They only care about what their bottom line is. And that's why I go viral all the time in people's comments with fake gurus, because I'll be like, yep, coaches teaching coaches how to coach who've never built anything. And it's just so funny because they get so mad at me. But it's okay with being a coach. Like I could make millions a year if I launched a course program to coach people how to build businesses. I could make millions. But the problem is so many people, 90 % of those people are never going to build anything successful. And then I feel bad that I charged them for something that they didn't win with.

52:39So that's why I don't do it. With your mentors growing up, what were some of those conversations that were very pivotal in your growth from a business standpoint? Yeah, you got to think, though, when I came up, there really wasn't mentors. You had your dad and the people near you. So I didn't really have much from a mentorship. Probably one of the pivotal points in my life was one person, highly educated. He was the general manager of the car dealership when I took the job there in finance. And he was probably the only person I could consider in that early part of my life that was a mentor. because my father left when I was six and moved out of state.

53:19My mom, she was a divorced single mom. And so I really helped her financially over the years. So I really didn't have it. But now, think about this right now. You can go online, book a call with someone like me, spend an hour on your problems, your goals, and your pain points for 500 bucks, let's say. And you can advance your life by years, at least months, By paying for that, back when I came up, there was none of that. You had to find out the hard way. And that's why it took so much longer 20, 30 years ago to build success because you didn't even have a way. The only resource you had back then were library books.

54:02Now you have endless resources everywhere on the internet for every expertise out there. There's someone that really knows what they're doing in that expertise and you can pay for speed. And that is one of the most incredible things anyone can use right now as a tool. For someone growing up right now listening to this, maybe they don't have a father figure in their life. Like you said, your dad left when you were six. You have a single income mom. What would your advice be to that group that's listening to this show right now to get them from a point of maybe playing the victim mentality to going forward and crushing something that they really want to do?

54:37I would say move to a place in the United States that is warm 12 months out of the year where there is a higher concentration of high net worth people and then immerse yourself in that life. I don't care if you're a caddy at a golf course. I don't care if you're a server at a nice restaurant. I would tell people if you're young, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21 years old, move to where the money and the weather is and get out of the neighborhood you came from. Because I grew up in a poor part of East Toledo. There were no opportunities. There was no entrepreneurship. So I had to learn on my own. You don't need to do that.

55:23Move somewhere where you have 12 months of warm weather because like in Ohio right now, it's snowing in five degrees. you lose a lot of opportunities when you're not in a high growth, high income area. So that would be the number one thing I would tell people is move where the money is. And one of the most important quotes they can learn from that is proximity to power does not mean you possess it, but it sure helps. And that's just, you're getting near the money. You're getting near the power and the education, and you're going to show people as being a server or a good caddy, or maybe you're washing vehicles at a car dealership, you're getting around where the money is so you can figure out how to get a piece of it for yourself.

56:08Okay. Last one. Last one. I was going to say, I think that's really good advice, regardless of an age. I think just stay where it's warm. I like that. Last one for you. We'll get you out of here. When you, when you go to this area, right, you move to California, Austin, Florida, Miami, and you're around these higher net worth individuals, but you don't have any of those skills necessarily. You're like, okay, maybe you're a caddy. What would your advice be to that group that's going over there? How do they get these skills and what should they be focusing on? Is it learning different AI processes?

56:36Is it learning about CPG goods? What should they focus on to be able to have a conversation with a higher net worth individual? I would say first and foremost, increase your education as a human, how to improve your oratorical skills, how to improve your decorum, how can I be more gentlemanly, How can I be more kind and have good manners? And I think that's the most important part first, because someone like me, if I see a young kid that's a hustler and he's working hard, but he's also speaking correctly and he's kind to people and he shows grace, I'm going to hire him over an Ivy league grad every day of the week, because I want somebody that's going to have the hustle and the tenacity to keep going because life's never going to be fully easy.

57:22So for me, I think it's all about grooming yourself to be more educated and more knowledgeable, and then also improve your skills with AI, what's happening in the future, and how can you provide the most value to someone in their company. You know, because right now we hear this term, AI is not going to take your job. Someone that's better at AI than you is going to take your job. And I truly believe that at least for the next five, six, seven years, if you work at a company and you have a nine to five job, it's okay. Just be better at it than everyone else and learn the things of where the world is going.

58:01You know, Wayne Gretzky once said what made him so great at hockey is because he would skate to where the puck is going. And most people would skate where the puck is. You have to get ahead of the masses to be better, but you don't have to be ahead of the masses that much to have the edge over them to be able to succeed at a much faster pace than the average person around you. This has been an amazing conversation. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been episode 189 with Robert Kroak. If you're still here, please hit the subscribe button, drop us a comment, leave us a like, and we'll see you guys all next week.

58:29Peace. We walked here today for the PPD. We are carless. We don't have cars anymore. We have homes. We're not homeless. We just don't have cars. It's part of the game plan, though. Part of the story. We got to make the book better. Yeah, dude. We're, you know, we're taking that money and putting it into the podcast. It's just what it takes. And you guys clearly don't want it bad enough if you're not doing the same thing. Listen, man, selling a car to keep equity in a business, respect. That's what it did. It wasn't the main car. It wasn't the main. It was, dude. Originally, I thought, I was like, are you, were you walking back?

58:58You're walking to these meetings? No, no, no, no. He's just driving. He's, he's taking his daily driver. Yes, yes, yes, yes. But the classic. This was a really fun, really fun episode. Stoked that we got Robert on the show. You guys are going to be investing savants by the time this episode's over with. I really like how he makes investing in financial advice really practical and not so scary. Because I think that there's a lot of people, a lot of content that I see online about like... Makes you feel like you're broke. Makes you feel like you're broke. And it makes you feel like investing or making a lot of money is hard.

59:35And I like that he just makes it really approachable. We're just going to take a percentage of our income. We're going to toss it into Vanguard, dude, into the S &P. There's something that is going to stay stable. Okay, so two things. He brought up lifestyle creep. I'm definitely a victim of that. And I got too carried away in altcoins. I should have just ripped Bitcoin. I remember when Kostas called me, he goes, dude, he's saying these words. and I'm like, is that Spanish, man? Like, what are you talking about? You got to go to Cardano. Cardano's going$10. Dude, it should have just gone Bitcoin and S &P and Roth IRA.

1:00:17I just called it a day. Called it a day. Called it a day. Yeah. Dude, for my business owners out there, you guys got to make a SEP, okay? You know what that is? Simplified employee pension. Fuck yeah, talk to them. Yep, that is throwing money into that. I believe I can do$7 ,000 a year and it lowers my taxable income. It's great stuff. Oh my, wait, what's today? Today is... Today, Wednesday? Yes. Do we have those open tryouts tomorrow? Oh. Is that tomorrow? Yeah. So hopefully you guys are athletic. Dude. I'm banking on you being super athletic because I feel like the rocks, we got to do something.

1:00:55We should do like a rock Olympics. 505 is going to the moon. And so what we're doing is we're deploying the capital that we took from selling our car and putting it into 505. This thing's going to the moon. We need more help. So we need to hire more employees. And we're doing open tryouts. That's what we're going to do. And Katie Couric is showing up tomorrow to film. She's going to be there. I think ESPN is also going to be there. Can you imagine like that time period? He makes a post on Facebook thinking, oh, probably five people will show up. You just got, you're just like hundreds of folks pop down the door.

1:01:29You're like, okay, Michael, you're going to be down at the end of that line. Just keep everything cordial here. No shoving. Get some name tags. It's insane. It's just a hilarious concept. It's insane because I remember slinging these rubber bands, but I didn't have any concept of the scale. I was too young. I was in seventh grade. I was just like, oh, dude, let me make a quick couple hundred bucks off these silly bands. It's funny because he was saying Alibaba. I remember this dude. god and he's calm i remember this dude hit me up on my baseball team randomly brings me over to his crib and he's like hey i got a business idea i'm like okay what are we gonna do and he's like do you know the power band bracelets i was like uh-huh he's like we can get those for 10 cents a pop but we have to put in some money i was like okay how much money do i got to put in i'd put in a couple hundred bucks at the time which i was young i was probably in like sixth or seventh grade didn't have much money.

1:02:25So we got these power band bracelets. And I remember they came from Alibaba like a month and a half later, came in the packaging and everything. And I was slinging those at school out of my backpack. And I was doing a little two for 40 deal. And we got those for like 10 cents, those wristbands. And that was the intro. I was like, oh my God, we can make money off this stuff. This is crazy. Dude, it's funny because... I was like, dude, you buy two. I buy two, you're going to get a discount. That was my thing. Two for$40, man. One for$25. There were a few different toys that I considered slinging that you would find at not necessarily like Toys R Us.

1:03:05Toys R Us was marked up. Already past the... I remember taking a trip to New York with my mom. I must have been in middle school. And it was like a hacky sack, but for your fingers. and this guy was really good at it and he was like yeah you can sell these and i'm like oh my god i'm bringing this back to la as if you found something like overseas you're like i'm bringing this back to the states like dude new york's got this but la doesn't have this i'm bringing this back and i was like i never ended up doing it and i thought it was super sick for a couple of days and then i was like this isn't that this isn't that cool hacky sack for your fingers fidget spinners you got on that early oh you could have slanged those in high school man that would have been a thing you know the person who created the fidget spinner didn't patent it and so i think they lost out on a ton of money oh that poor soul yeah you know what else i sold i sold uh i sold duct tape wallets 10 bucks a pop i loved selling those those are great did you guys have the this is this is a super niche public school kid thing okay did you guys have kids selling the gummy worms out of the backpack that had the Kool-Aid in the gummy worms?

1:04:15Or is this just like - No, we had kids selling candy and I tried selling candy once. I had my mom take me to Costco and buy some stuff in bulk and I was slinging it. And I think I did it for like two days and I made like a few dollars and I was like, this just isn't worth it. There was like kind of like a turf war going on at our school between one kid that was selling the Kool-Aid gummy worms. It was a freshman, one kid that was like a senior. He's like, can't be can't be slinging on my side of the turf which is so funny it also another thing that i really liked about this episode is when he was talking about how easy it is nowadays to come up with a product develop it and not have to just spend tens of thousands of dollars i was literally talking to my buddy kai about this last night we're saying how there's so many different websites to make apps now where i can just type what i want yeah and it can build me out an interface for less than$100.

1:05:04Well, he was saying that back in the day, back in the day, it's so funny. Back in the day? Back in the day. Back in my day. It costs like 15 or 20 grand just to like bring a product to market. And now you can do it for a hundred bucks. Insane. Which is crazy. A few hundred bucks, you guys can have your website. You could have a deck made. You could go figure out how to raise capital if you're obviously, if you have the skills and the acumen to be able to do that. But it's never been easier now. And we have all of the resources at our fingertips. I mean, we have AI at our fingertips. This is a thing that I really liked that he said.

1:05:37He's like, you can go and get access to someone like me for like 500 bucks or something. And we've done that. I've wanted to talk to someone. I'm like, how much does this cost? It's$1 ,000. Fine. I'll pay this fee and I'll be able to talk to them and get this very specific niche piece of advice that I want from a person. And that's never been a thing for our parents' generation. That wasn't a thing. My dad could just be like, oh, I want to learn from this person. And now there's so many different ways to get in touch with them via Instagram or via your phone or via you leveraging content. Then like, let's use this show, for example.

1:06:10We would never have gotten four or five years ago. We have never gotten the opportunity to talk to the people that we get to talk to. Sure. Never. We would never. We built a platform. It's not even massive. It's just like it's a niche platform. It helps people. People see it. It's high quality. We use nice cameras. We have good lighting and stuff. And then you provide the guests with clips and they have a platform they can go share their message on, whether it's to promote something they want. That wasn't a thing a decade ago. People didn't have that, you know? What he says about that it has never been easier to build wealth and that if you are broke in today's day and age, it's your fault, can ruffle a lot of feathers.

1:06:47Yeah, definitely. And of course, he says it to be a little bit... Yeah, yeah. What's the word? Yeah, just get a little rise out of you. But there is some truth to what he's saying. And he is a true bread entrepreneur. The fact that he had I don't even know how many businesses by 23, 24 is pretty insane. But yeah, I think if someone was to hear him say, oh, if you're broke in today's day and age, it's on you. That can ruffle some feathers. But I think what he means is that there's never been a better opportunity and more opportunity to create something and generate income for yourself and generate wealth.

1:07:32We're always going to try to bring the rocks, the best guests on the internet. We're going to try to bring you guys as much of the free advice that we possibly can that realistically people should be paying for. That's our goal, right? We get these folks on and try to extract as much value for you guys as we possibly can. But I know it's super interesting. I also thought that he said something that I really liked about marketing to the Target demo and not to the parents. And then he sees a lot of the consumer goods brands making that mistake. Yeah. And I wanted to ask him about that because my mom has the girl's clothing line.

1:08:07And I was always wondering, okay, the kids who are going to wear these clothes, they don't have the money to spend. So like, should you be marketing it towards the parents? What are your thoughts on that? I think he's right. I think that if a kid wants something bad enough, they're going to bug their parent about it enough to where the parent is going to get it for the kid. One thing my mom never cracked on, Chef Boyardee. Never cracked on Chef Boyardee. I don't know why. She always let us buy shit at the grocery store. It was just like, Chef Boyardee, she's like, we're not getting that. I'm like, do you think it's terrible for us?

1:08:39I think there's a difference between food and an actual product. It's funny though, but on the nagging side, I remember seeing the ad and then being like, one chef boy or D. Yeah. I think she got, I think she might've gotten it for us once and then we just didn't eat it. She was like, guys don't eat that. Dude, that reminded me, this is so fucking random. You're going to laugh. Okay. I was listening to an old fabulous song in the car. Okay. Forget the name of it. And he, I go, this is like the greatest, funniest ad lib in any fucking rap song ever. He was like talking about stepping his dough up and he goes, something about my dough, Pillsbury Doughboy I was like dude that is such a funny line For a rapper to say in a song And it kind of hits But yeah dude you should make a rap And your adler should be Chef Boyardee Because we're chefing in the lab dude There it is we're locked in Shout out Jayhawk shout out lab culture We're in the lab What else dude What fucking else Let's see what else we got on here Oh dude Dude, maybe the greatest single piece of advice that has ever been said on the 505 podcast, be somewhere warm so you're not sad.

1:09:55Don't live in Ohio. Robert said it, not me. Don't live in Ohio. We have a huge group of rocks in Ohio. Listen, I can say that and I feel for you because I went to school in Wisconsin and when the winter hit, boy, was I a sad little chicken. I was fucking depressed. Seasonal depression is a real fucking thing. And has it been raining the last couple of days in LA? Yes. But today, what was it like? Sunny. Sunny and 72 degrees. I'm a lot happier today than I was two days ago. You walk outside, walk outside the studio, looking at the beach. I'm like, yep, we're here. Dude. We're podcasting. We made it.

1:10:32We made it. Yeah. Are we at your dad's house? Sure. Dude. Doesn't feel like it. No, dude, because we're in the stew. Because we're in the stew. We're in the stew, dude. Late night. What time is it? 5 p.m.? Almost. It's almost sketchboy hours. um dude anyways you were you you're still lifting huh we were in the gym last night we got big together last what else you want to talk about it felt this is our time this is our time i know i can say whatever i want this is great uh we we're going to new york in like a week and a half yes with our list week and a half no two weeks right two weeks is it two weeks which is coming up pretty sick and we got confirmation on a really sick guest last night which we're super stoked About three guests we'll bring for you guys in New York.

1:11:15It's going to cost us an arm and a leg, but it always does because that's New York City. It's great. We love it. Well, this time it's only costing an arm, not the leg. True. Because it's winter. And because Artlist helped the friends out to get there. Yeah. Which is great. But also it's insane how much cheaper a hotel room is in New York in January compared to... Dude, you guys don't understand. Every time we go to New York, it's like$6 ,000 or$7 ,000. and there's just like not much. And I'll tell you what, we're not staying at the Ritz. We're not. We're not. You should see some of these hotel rooms that me and Brayden have stayed at in New York because they are rough.

1:11:53You would giggle because both of us used to have jobs that when we would go on the road, I felt like a king in a castle, man. Brayden's favorite thing was to do room tours when he would go to different states and cities for the Lakers. and so there's no room tours when we go we don't be giving we don't be giving you guys room towards the holiday inn man dude yeah yeah the fun was it the holiday inn that we stayed at the first time i don't remember but yeah it was it was and i remember when we walked into the room into the hotel this dude is just he was smoking pot oh he was so hot in the like it reeked of pot yeah in the eyes were bloodshot yeah in the obvious hotel he's like can i get you guys checked in And I'm like, that's what we're here for.

1:12:36Yeah. That'd be great. And then we get to the room. So it's me, Braden, and Chloe. We had some time off. We were like, let's just go to New York. It'll be sick. We underestimated how expensive it's going to be. So we're like, fuck. Okay, I guess we're staying at a Holiday Inn. We also couldn't open our suitcases. That's what I was going to say. There was legitimately not enough floor space for all three of us to have our suitcases open at the same time. You could do one at a time. And the others had to be zipped up and kept upright. And I remember Chloe being like, oh, Brayden, you going to do a little room tour?

1:13:07Come on, show off how you're living. We're going to skip this go around, dude. Our last hotel that we got was not that bad. The last one we went. No, no, no, no, no. The last hotel we went to in New York, I was like, okay. But the funniest part. Step up. It was like. It was fine. Whatever. It was fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he goes, oh, you guys booked with Amex. He goes, we got you on a complimentary upgrade. We got you in the suite. Dude, the guy was a homie. We thought we were like, dude, we daffed him up. But dude, we opened the room. We see it and we go, oh boy, if this is the suite, we do not want to see what a regular room was.

1:13:41What did the other one look like, dude? He's like, oh yeah, American Express partner? Oh my God. It's like, you guys are a little lost. This side of town. Man. But yeah, New York's going to be sick. Panama's going to be dope. Dude, we're going to Panama. Crazy. And we're going to be there during... Carnival. Which is nuts. We're going to film some really cool stuff. I thought Carnival was only during, or I thought it was only in Brazil. Paid to be you cohort is kicking up on the 15th, which is sick, which is super exciting. So if you're interested in that, just DM us on Instagram. I'd love to talk to you about it.

1:14:13It's about growing, monetizing your personal brand. It's going to be super, super fun. And it's not a big group. So if you want to hang out with us. Yeah, dude. If you want to be like the Pillsbury Doughboy, make some bread from your personal brand. Get your dough up. oh we started a new channel and we posted our first video yes you guys should go watch it we'll link it down below so if that is of interest to you growing and monetizing your personal brand it's literally about that it's a great example of what it could be like to be coached by us so you should go check it out and it's free 99 it's like a half hour well it's like 35 minutes i just have a question because today i guess when this is coming out it's january 8th okay okay which means a solid week has passed since the first yeah how do you feel like your 2026 has been what goals do you have for this year beyond stress beyond stress beyond stress but when we get back from new york i want to start 75 hard really yeah i don't want to do it until we come back are you doing the real 75 hard are you going to do a big 75 hard i'm just going to do the real deal i'm I'm going to do it every day.

1:15:20And it's going to suck. Dude. Because it's hard. And I've done it before. And you know what's funny? The first time I ever did it, I did it for like 50 days and I messed up, started over. I did like 100 something days of 75 hard. Dude. But I'm going to do it and I'm very excited because every time I've done a challenge like that, it has been a good experience for me. So I'm excited because I know a bunch of you psychopaths will join me. Yeah. I know that's what will happen. So at least there'll be three of us. You know? big community we have a huge huge huge group listening i i know that you some of you guys are athletes i'm like guaranteeing some of them are athletes i know i know that i feel like we attract a really athletic group that's what i would like to super talented because you like to think that they're it's like similar similar vibe yeah totally so it's like probably former olympians former professional players or dude even some active olympians yeah that's exactly what i It would be fucking hilarious if someone commented.

1:16:19And they were like, dude, I'm actually going to the games in Utah. I'm like, let's go, dude. Come on, represent. Represent. It's crazy that the Olympics are going to be in LA. I know. At some point. Dude, I don't think I want to be here. I think the city is going to be so packed. Dude, maybe we Airbnb our apartments and get rich. I know. we go to bali for a couple weeks and then airbnb them out be sick um i was gonna say something though oh so let me tell them who we got coming up okay we got we got two pods coming up this weekend we got michael lim who formerly used to work at team ramosi so like head of youtube there yeah alex ramosi and then he left to be at a company called owner.com which is going to be exciting i'm super stoked we're recording that one on friday and then we got a rock coming flying in from North Carolina to pod with us.

1:17:14June, June, you should be exciting. Shout out June. It's going to be an epic little weekend of pods for you guys. And we haven't gotten the confirmation out yet, but it's the biggest, one of the biggest rocks of them all. And I'm not going to - It's a bucket list. I'm not going to say the name of the rock because I don't want to jinx it, but we got to like, we're in. His team said we're in. So now we just have to find a day. So we're going to be traveling to the land of Georgia it looks like which is super atl which is super exciting so we need to that one's gonna be big that one's gonna be crazy uh don't want to spoil anything but just know that we are working hard to get you guys the best guests in the world for 2026 he um he i would say huh i don't know if i'm more excited for him or for the gary v pod like he's he's up there with gary for me oh like just as far as like you love this person he's just the fucking man and if you know him he's kind of one of those i think gary is more well known but for him it's like if you know him if you know you know okay and if you consume his content you're like this dude is the fucking the man he's the man dude just know we're bringing you more more rocks that are boulders this year that's oh yeah yeah that's what we're doing dude we are after the biggest and the best guests for you guys so if there's anyone that you would love to see on the show let us know and we will try our best dude we got we got sun the other day can we tell them this oh the first time ever this is actually crazy so we got this email about someone that was down to be on the show which was like this massive person we're like damn we're feeling on cloud nine and someone that we asked was like you guys are little bros still yeah he's like you guys aren't big enough yet and i was like dude fuck you i was so like i get it because the pods that he's been on are big but what a dick and he's not even he's big but he is not even at if gary v was to tell us that totally understandable this dude just don't think he's that we got a little brod We got a little brode.

1:19:35And it's okay. Dude, we did get a little brode. It's fine. Don't you guys worry, though. We're not, dude, we're not pressed about it at all. No, dude. I mean, anyways, real quick. What exactly is In 75 hard? It's a, dude, I've done it before, so I'll tell you. It's 10 pages a day, so we'll find you a bunch of picture books. It is a workout outside for 30 minutes, a workout inside for an hour. It's a strict diet. It's a gallon of water. no alcohol which will be super easy and it's uh progress picture in the mirror every day i'm not worried about it i think there's one other thing that you're missing i've done it so i don't think there's anything else that is needs to be added oh you what do you think's the hardest part like which one of them i just think the double workout sucks yeah that's the worst part because like most people if you're like oh i want to do this and like you work out a decent amount because I feel like I feel like I've been inconsistent in the gym okay and so I'm looking to turn into a weapon that's what I want nice you know I want to like I want to turn into a weapon financially I want to turn into weapon looks wise and I want the personal brand to just keep keep growing in the pod to keep growing yeah I think business personal I want all of it to just encompass like like forward progress okay so this is this is where i'm at with 75 hard or this is you can't tell if i was gonna do it this is how i would do it you can't change no i'm this is what this is what i'm gonna tell you i don't need to do two workouts a day like i'm good with just staying consistent with working out every single day i would add into their posting every single day on social like i'd rather instead of doing two workouts okay i'd rather just do like just do a workout you're fucking good we're not trying to impress anyone stay consistent in the gym eat healthy i feel like i eat healthy enough to where like i don't need to stick to a diet and i don't think it's really fucking fun to like not eat certain things okay i cook enough i i feel like i have nutrition relatively dialed you should do your we should do a coasty challenge yeah that's what you should do i'm down to i'm down to drink enough i'm down to drink the water i'm down to read the book.

1:21:50Take a progress pick. Progress pick. I'd like to just work out every single day and then for me it's just like post consistently on social. Okay. And that's like what I would do. We could get that going for you. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But speaking of a strict diet, I'm trying to fix my gut right now. I know, I know. We gotta get you straightened out. You guys, this is day six. Toasty's not having sugar. No sugar, no carbs. No carbs. Yeah. And I learned this is really... No, tell them it's not no carbs because you can have vegetables. It's no, what is it? It's no starchy carbs or something? I thought you're allowed to have veggies.

1:22:29Yeah, but there's... No, there's carbs and vegetables. It's just a different kind of carb. You're not having like potatoes and rice. Yeah. Correct? I'm basically just eating eggs, meat, veggies, and avocado. Yes. I have to do that for two weeks. I don't know if I want to do two weeks, but I got a gut reset thing, 14 day gut reset from seed. And then a candida, because that's what I have, candida yeast overgrowth in my gut. That's awesome. So they have that at Air One. So I got that. Great. Have you ever tried sea moss? No, but I - It's fucking gross. I get hit with ads for that shit all the time.

1:23:06It is fucking gross. I don't want that stuff. But I've been taking that. Oh, you've been taking that? I've been taking zinc every day. Is it literally just, is it just moss from the ocean? Like what is CMOS? I think. This is exactly what it sounds like. I made the mistake of going into Air One and talking to the dude in the vitamin section. Brutal. And be like, this is what I'm going. This is what I'm dealing with. And he said, dude, he licked his chops. Oh, dude, he goes, follow me here. So we got this, this, this. This is our bestseller. Oh, have you heard of this? Dude, I spent like 140 bucks on four things.

1:23:36I was like, fuck. Oh my gosh. But I will say my energy feels more stable and prolonged. Okay. I'm typically, I think it's because I drink a ton of coffee and caffeine that I tend to feel like I'm good in the morning, few hours, and I'm like, fuck, I'm crashing. Then I feel like I need some more coffee. I noticed a big thing that's not nearly as prevalent is brain fog. and um i think with candida it's like brain fog and super fatigue are like the major symptoms feeling not as much of that the more you know anyways this has been great dude that tmi no let him dude i feel like we're on a first name basis with all the rocks yeah so i don't think it's weird um i think it's totally cool this is a fun pod though did you get your rash under control shut up this has been episode 189 i think so yeah 189 this gentleman has been episode 189 oh dude we're we're like really close to 200 and we're also gonna hit 30k subs i think next week that's crazy we're almost at 200 man yeah we tried to get someone cool for you guys 200 but they keep saying no so it's fine we'll figure it out yeah anyways love y 'all Love y 'all.

1:25:01See you guys all next week. Peace.