190. If You Want to Gain 1 Million Followers in 2026, Listen to This Episode

28:09You should be making content, right? Okay, now they're like, I don't need to be making content. But then what should they actually do to get leads for their business? Make a good product. Okay, okay, we have a great, let's say we have a great, okay, we have, I know that, I know the quote you're gonna bring up. So we have a great, yeah, yeah, we have a great product. Okay, they have a good product that's taken care of. How do you go about getting in the hands of more people if we have certain benchmarks that we have to hit? Or, you know, you just spent$50 ,000 on the thing and I don't have the luxury of waiting on word of mouth to happen.

28:35Michael Lim:And we're bootstrapped. We don't have fundraising. Yeah, we're bootstrapped. Give me the Naval quote though. Yeah, it's a good quote. The Naval quote, this is like total oversimplification that's going to make people mad, but like it's meant to be a thought exercise. It's like you're doing sales because you didn't know how to do marketing and you're doing marketing because you didn't know how to do product. And so the idea is that like if your product is good enough, it should ideally get enough word of mouth, positive brand recognition that it begins to sell itself. It's a bit of an oversimplification, but I think that's kind of like what's what's happening with these founders who are like I'm going to first build an audience and then I'm going to find a way to distribute something to this base I think that's like doing sales first you're just like trying to get in front of people and like convince them that what you're doing is interesting and noteworthy I mean like I think finding a way to get in front of a really really targeted ICP is a very like good place to start I think the like Silicon Valley Y Combinator or like do things that don't scale is a really good exercise because it forces you to really like get in front of customers and really tight feedback loop.

29:36Michael Lim:Like finding a cold call list of your prospects and like just getting on the phone with them and trying to do like a hand-to-hand thing, I think is a very like good way to get a product out there because it forces you to like really hear the language they're using that eventually becomes your like sort of foundation for how you market your product. And if you just skip straight to like trying to distribute to the masses, unless you're like really reading the comments all the time, you're not going to get like the same quality of understanding of your customer as if you were like calling up, you know, grandma Susie and being like, you know, I made this back scratcher and like, tell me about your back pain and like how much, you know, time it keeps you up at night because you're in pain and like you just like don't get that touch points um if you're trying to like go mass market too fast i think ads can work but ads are also kind of expensive um so i mean i don't know this is like a it's a big it's a big question like what are the ideal distribution channels for a particular product there's something called um market uh i think it's like there's product market fit but there's also like market message fit there's a lot of like there's this venn diagram of like different things that um these folks over at demand curve created.

30:48Michael Lim:And it's like, you have to like pick the right appropriate channel for distribution depending on the kind of product. So like B2B products work a lot better through doing like cold calls, messaging, like B2C products, you can typically get better distribution scale with like things like TikTok and influencer ads. But it is, it is sort of dependent on like what you're trying to launch. I don't know if I could give a universal answer here. What do you, what do you think about people listening, trying to find their ICP, their ideal customer profile, right? You've worked, you worked at Beast where your ideal customer profile wasn't somebody.

31:17Yeah, it was everyone in the whole world, right? And now then you were acquisition.com. We're trying to find entrepreneurs to potentially get them interested in this book. Is there something that you've learned from these different companies and from your own agency? When you think about getting in a room with your folks and you're like, let's think about who our ideal customer is. Is there an exercise at all or something that you've picked up?

31:39Michael Lim:I think one thing that I'd offer as a frame is that like it is not a one and done process. You don't just sit down in a room and be like, I figured out my ICP. And the same way that product market fit is a continually evolving sort of machine. So I think you have to one, commit to like a process of like throughout the life cycle of my entire business, I'm going to have to constantly be customer obsessed. That's like our number one value at owner.com is like customer obsession. So Adam, as a CEO of like a 400 person company, basically still has customers texting him every single day. Like here's what I'm struggling with.

32:14Michael Lim:And he always makes time to talk to them. You know, he's like in touch with the, the, the, the first batch of customers he ever sold like four years ago, six years ago. Right. Who were selling like Indian food in Philadelphia. And yeah, I mean, I think like the language piece, right. You have to understand how to talk like them. you have to understand like what their what their pain points are i think it's like it's like pretty generic um you know what they aspire to have uh uh you know come out of their life and and their interaction with your product um yeah i mean i don't know if i have like a really great magic answer for this other than like if you can commit to just like spending an hour a week really one-to-one or face-to-face talking to your customers, it will do you a lot better than any fancy marketing framework.

33:02Michael Lim:Cause like you just will consistently and continually improve your, you know, resolution with understanding your ICP. So you've been able to work with Mr. Beast and Alex Ramosi. Mr. Beast is arguably the biggest YouTuber in the world. I think we could probably say that he probably is. Yeah, he is. I think he's the most famous person in the world at this point. For sure. That's a, that's a really interesting point. He's not just a YouTuber anymore, right? He was like, in 2021, he was like, I want to win TikTok. I remember him sending a screenshot to the team of Kabi Lame, who had gotten like 30 million TikTok followers in one month.

33:33Michael Lim:And he was like, we need to do better than this. I think it's a really cool, like one of the reasons I love people like Jimmy and Alex is like, they just want to win. You know, there's this obsession, like Kobe had it, you know, like LeBron had all these like top artists and athletes. They just have this obsession with like winning, not because they want to beat everyone, but because they want to beat the vision they have of themselves. and so yeah that was like the mandate that he gave the team like 21 is like we're gonna not just be the biggest youtuber because we kind of we see the path to doing that like we have to be the biggest short form creator you know general celebrity that and then now like traditional tv right he has like the beast games thing on amazon so insane i saw that they're launching season two yeah my question though is having been around an entrepreneur like alex formose who's unbelievably successful.

34:23You have Mr. Beast, who's unbelievably successful at YouTube and all the stuff that he's doing. Alex Preach is stretching out your time horizon. You brought it up already. He's like, I want to do this for a decade. I'm not looking at this for like the quick fix. Is there something like that that you took away from Mr. Beast? And I'm curious to know about like the similarities in working for both those teams and then maybe some differences as well.

34:49Michael Lim:I think this is where I was thinking about like how like the best content teams in the world are like elite NBA teams so I think analogies are very powerful because they allow you to kind of like Connect things you don't really understand yet to things that you do understand very well And so you think about like a pro NBA team that I don't actually i'm like that not that good with sports and stuff But I watch like basketball. Okay, um a good NBA team Uh, like jimmy and alex have just like they've they've nailed all these basics, right? So a good NBA team or like most of them have a really clear understanding of how to win, right?

35:21Michael Lim:There's a season, there's playoffs, there's a record that you get. And then the winner has to go through these series of seven game series games, right? And then you get the fucking big trophy at the end, right? So like, and a lot of content teams don't even really understand how to win because it's like, are we trying to sell the product? Are we trying to build awareness? Are we trying to get big on TikTok? Are we trying to make our CEO famous? Like there's a thought exercise that I think every team could do, just like clarify what does winning really mean for us and what metrics would indicate that we've actually done this.

35:53Michael Lim:I think that's a helpful thing. Then there's a scoreboard, right? It's like every single minute of the game, you know, like who, which team is winning. It's like not ambiguous, right? But I think you have a lot of teams who are just bouncing between like viral hit to viral hit. And so it's like for, for 30 minutes after the upload, they have clarity, like, oh, like we're doing well because it's a one out of 10. And then they wait another like two weeks and it's like, oh shit, this video is not doing very well. But like, imagine if you had a team just like in a basketball game that like every single minute of every single day, they know if they're on track and you can do things just like by quantifying input goals, right?

36:30Michael Lim:Like, uh, at Hermosi, uh, we, we knew exactly how many pieces of content we wanted to hit every single week. And we knew what buckets those content pieces fell into. So like we had, you know, let's just say like 21 slots for Instagram a week. Eight of them are carousels. Three of those carousels are throwback carousels. Three of them are collabs between Alex, Leila, Charon. And then five of the reels are podcast reels. Three of them are like taken from tweets directly. And then two of them are like, you know, day in the life, like, you know, Leila vlog stuff. So it's very clear to the team, like this is the playbook, right?

37:07Michael Lim:Then you have this general culture of like, you know players are obviously bummed when they get traded from from uh like teams but it's not this like moral thing it's just like yeah like luca got traded it's like it's a business you know they're trying to win and so i think when a team can have like little attachment to like obviously like people matter and like i think loyalty is important and like taking care of your folks but like letting go of performers that are not like doing super well or like being really brutally honest about feedback in ways that people could be getting better like this is a really good like clip of I think like Kobe in the Olympics and his coach for the US like team was like you're taking Lakers shots you're not taking Olympics shots like you can't be showboating in the same way that you would because the stakes are so much higher here and I think for a founder to have that kind of clarity of like direct feedback to the team like Leila and Alex many times Alex in particular would sit me down and be like this is what didn't go well about this shoot?

38:03Michael Lim:How can we make this better? And it'd be like really, really helpful things I knew I had skill deficits on. Like when I was working as this creative director, I, you know, and continually still have to improve my ability to understand like aesthetics. Like I don't come from a design background. I don't have like a traditional sort of like Hollywood film, like cinematography thing. I made like, you know, backyard dance videos with my friends when I was growing up. And like understanding short form content, because I've always grown up like just making like sort of longer like YouTube pieces. I've been, I was, I ran a YouTube agency.

38:32Michael Lim:And so that was like a, a big thing I had to work on. And so like, similar to how like a coach is always giving the team like extremely tight feedback loops. Like that's a really important thing for media teams to have. And, and Jimmy and Alex do that really well. Then you have like competitive competition, you have like clear, like rivals and like storylines and, and, and not necessarily like people you need to be, but like in narratives. So for us at owner.com, like we support independent restaurants and we are trying to help arm them against like their goliaths that's like a narrative that that galvanizes the entire team to know that they're working on something that matters more than our company's bottom line like we're working for like a real legacy and like life you know for for these people that we support um then there's routines and structure like at alex and layla like we had very very defined meeting cadences reporting cadences like layla's really really good at helping teams understand like what information is shared, how often and what formats, who needs to be included on these reports, who which of this needs to be synchronous versus asynchronous.

39:35Michael Lim:And like, I'm sure NBA teams have the same thing. It's like practices are super dialed in. They know who's practicing what any given time. So yeah, I mean, I think like there are a lot of commonalities between elite teams across media, content, business, athletics. And I think it's like, you know, understanding goals, tight feedback loops, live scoreboards, routines, like a low attachment to like, you know, like training people and like giving honest feedback. And I feel like they've, they've done that really, really well. I really like this analogy. And I, as you're talking through it, I'm like, okay, you know, let's say you bring in a young guy to your company.

40:15It's like this up and coming rookie, right? You're like, I'm going to pay him like a rookie contract, but we're going to develop his skills. We're going to trust the process. But then you hear entrepreneurs being like, man, if you bring in an A player and you pay them high, like that takes your business to the next level. I'm like, man, yeah, if you can trade for a fucking Luca, you're going to the championship. I like your NBA analogy. And then I was also thinking, I go, okay, is the founder the coach or is it the star player or is it the owner?

40:44Michael Lim:That's a good analogy. But I would probably say that the founder, like Alex, is either the coach or the owner. And then all the A players that are working for acquisition.com or for Alex is the star player. Yeah, I guess Alex is more like LeBron. Yeah, I was just about to say. He's like the GM, right? He's on the field. He's on the field, you know, like Captain America. Dude, have you seen this? I could talk basketball all day. This is so funny. Have you seen the podcast clip where, like, everything is just about LeBron. No. It's so funny. There's these two guys and they're like pretending to be super serious.

41:20They go, okay, hypothetical. Your wife is giving birth and you're on the way. But you see that LeBron, as you're driving, is changing his tire. Do you keep going with your wife to go have, you know, help her? Or do you delay it by 10 minutes because LeBron needs help changing his tire? LeBron needs you. And then the guy's like, well, I need to help the king. I got to help. My girl can wait. That's so funny, dude. Is there something that you've taken from all these years of experience with Owner.com as you build out your new media team? I know you said you've hired a few people. But when you zoom out and you're like, I know I need for sure.

42:03I need a videographer that does this really well. And I need an editor that is specific to YouTube. I need a shorts editor. What are those specific roles that you found that are non-negotiables that if someone is trying to build a billion dollar media team, what do you think they need in their arsenal?

42:17Michael Lim:Before I get into tactics, I think like there's a really important frame that is kind of new to me. It's something that emerged probably in the last year of working with Alex and Layla is that you need to find a way to build media infrastructure so that everybody is not miserable. Like you need to find a way to create systems where the founder or the person in front of the camera is happy. The team is happy. People feel rewarded, reinforced, motivated. They're learning quickly. And it's a really nuanced soft skill and more so like infrastructure you have to develop, like discipline around. And it supersedes any specific tactic or platform strategy or camera gear or individual role you're hiring for.

42:58So this is interesting because you brought up, you said happiness is a skill. Yeah. And this is something that you kind of keep going back to. So in your experience, the happier the employees are, the better and more work gets done?

43:14Michael Lim:For sure. I mean, I think it's a much easier place to draw from inspiration and aspiration. It's a good question to ask yourself. Does your team feel, does every single person on your team feel like the hero in the story of your company? and if you can't answer yes to that you have a little more work to do on helping that person understand how important their role is for the team and so like an exercise that i've done is like how does every single person on this roster of creatives like really really drive value for the team the founder is super obvious you're the face like you say all the fun stuff you come up with the frameworks right but like an underrated one is like videographers videographers like a really good videographer is not just making sure that like the gear and the recording and sd cards like our, you know, everything's like, that's really important.

44:02Michael Lim:But a videographer I think of as like the architect of the environment of the film space, they're making sure that like the right beverages are there. They're making sure that the temperature in the room is set. They're making sure that like they've sent a photo of the setup the day before to the director. So the director is not panicking, thinking the lighting's gonna be fucked up like it was last time. Right. And the same way, like your script writer, your script writer, the words are like the fundamental DNA of your entire video. If the words aren't right, it's going to trip up the person speaking.

44:31Michael Lim:It's not going to communicate ideas as clearly. It won't be as compelling or high converting to the audience. And so like every single person on the, on the team understands that like how important and how like almost this entire operation rests on them. And it's a, it's, it's something that I actually think like my new CEO, Adam has, has done so well. Like he just makes every team at the company feel like the most important team. It's not, it's not like logically possible for it to be true. But everything feels that way. Sales feels like sales is holding up the company. The media team feels like the brand is the most important thing.

45:02Michael Lim:The customer success team feels like our customers being happy and having a good experience is super, super valuable. So yeah, I think the ability for you to create infrastructure that enables teammates to feel really rewarded and reinforced for their work is way more effective than salary, way more effective than like free lunches or fun vacations or off sites like it's like yeah yeah right um i do think it starts with yourself so like um i have spent there's many people who have spent way more time on these kinds of things but i've spent about a month and a half on silent retreat like in total so about five different instances where i've like gone and just like shut the fuck up for like 10 days and is this by yourself or is this no they're in they're in like these buddhist okay like monasteries okay and there's like a network of them in the u.s so you do have other folks that you're around you're not like you're not interacting you're just like you're not interacting no you're just sitting together i mean like you're you're maybe interacting is a is subjective but like you're you're like energetically inhabiting the same like wow you know conscious space you know but but the reason why i bring this up is i think that like many creative people are are kind of sad and depressed and lonely i think it's a there's actually like some some research behind um like uh psychological profiles and certain archetypes for for how people experience like positivity in their life.

46:22Michael Lim:And creative people tend to be more like the depressed, like Hemingway poet, you know, poet, like archetype. And so you really have to work on that. Like if you want this to be something you do for a long time that you don't like, you know, look back on your life and feel like super miserable. Like I think Robin Williams is like such a great example of someone who was so talented, but like couldn't figure out the skill of like feeling rewarded by all this stuff. And so I think a lot of that is like contemplation and like understanding consciousness. And the Buddhists talk about this concept of equanimity.

46:54So equanimity is like the detachment from the outcome and the understanding that like you neither need something good to happen or something bad not to happen.

47:05Michael Lim:Like humans as primates and mammals, we're like, we're so wired to want comfort and to run away from aversive, you know, like experiences. So we want warmth and food and sex and recognition. And we want to avoid cold and pain and isolation. And like when you meditate, you just like certain kinds of meditation at least have you pay attention to like, oh, my back hurts. Well, that's just like an experience, like a sensation, like why do I need my back to stop hurting other than this like story that I'm telling myself or like, ooh, like it's kind of cold in here. Well, I'm not dying. So like, do I really need it to be warmer?

47:43Michael Lim:Or is it just like a personal preference that I'm having like as a small little emotional response at this moment? So by doing that on like a really micro scale, you can end up becoming the kind of person who can upload a video and then have it not go very well and not have it discourage you from continuing to do the work. or you can have a filming experience with like a podcast cast, maybe like, you know, didn't have a bunch of great answers or you could have done better research. And you're like, well, we're going to keep going. We're going to work on it in post. And I think it's like a really, really taxing mental like process working in media because you're just subjected to so many variables outside of your control, people's opinions of you, trends, how the algorithm chooses to bless you or not on a given day, right?

48:27Michael Lim:And so like the perfect creator, I think, is a sort of like a Buddha archetype that like is happy, positive, generous, warm, and like doesn't give a shit if things go well because they're just going to keep existing and like living in this whatever, you know, elevated state of consciousness. Sounds like we need to go to a monastery. Yeah, we need to go on a silent retreat, I think. I was – I recently went hunting. Like this was my dad's like 70th birthday thing like a month ago. And you just can't fucking talk. I didn't realize that. Because like you'll scare the elk. Yeah, you'll scare the deer or the elk away.

49:00So I was just sitting there. I was sitting in a hole for like 12 hours, no service. And I kind of felt like I was on an asylum retreat. I'm just sitting there. I'm like, I counted all the trees, dude. I can see 200 in my peripheral. And then I'm just like, I guess I'm just going to meditate here with my thoughts. But it was so interesting because I feel like I have a very heavy phone addiction. Like in the morning, it's something I'm really trying to break. But not being honest. You've been saying that for a minute. Yeah, well, I'm being honest with people, okay? Not being on your phone right in the morning and just being able to wake up is, God, it feels so much better.

49:30When you're not just like, dude, let me see what this cheap dopamine hits. Do you guys use Brick? I don't, but I've heard of Brick. I've heard of a bunch of other apps. I think I'm just going to go phone in the kitchen and I'm just going to get an old school one. I've been doing a decent job of alarm goes off. I stop the alarm. Go back to sleep. I'll check to see notifications if there's any fires. Typically, there's not. But no pressing issues. Then I'm okay. I'm going to go make my coffee, fucking journal. And I've been very consistent in I'm not checking emails or really even more importantly doing the social media thing for 30 minutes to 60 minutes.

50:13What have been your biggest takeaways from the silent retreat just for yourself personally? And what do you think you bring back into society when you rejoin?

50:21Michael Lim:so the one of the biggest frame shifts that i think i went through and people go through is that we are not our thoughts it's really easy to identify with your thoughts we even have language in in like like i'll tell you i'm anxious right now or i'm nervous are you feeling a little anxious no no no as in like i mean like people say that yes yes okay it's really easy to say that um i mean i'm a little nervous it's like actually a better way to phrase it is like i feel nervousness or I am aware of nervousness in my body. It's one step removed from like you being the emotion because like you're not, like emotions change all the time, you know?

51:01Michael Lim:And so there's like a identity shift away from identifying with the thoughts and feelings that arise that gives you a lot of permission not to act on them because you can feel freaked out or you can notice anger and then not flip off someone on the road when you're feeling like angry at them. You know how many times I've seen this dude flick somebody off driving? Three. Two or three. Sometimes it's necessary. Two or three hundred. Sometimes it's necessary. Sometimes it is necessary. Let somebody know, dude. Let somebody know. But I think, dude, I think that is... Yeah. That's one. I need to practice that.

51:42Yeah. For sure. Did you find that, though, in Mr. B? or Alex? Alex seems like he could be He's pretty stoic. Yeah.

51:54Michael Lim:Both of them are both of them are very self-reflective. They obviously spend a lot of time in their thoughts because it's a very creative kind of world they live in. Alex more so in the last seven or eight months I think has been on his own spiritual path. There's this one you can find it on the channel. I forget. what the title is now, but if you just look for like a background that looks like he's like on his Zoom, he just one day sent me on like a Saturday morning, a 20 minute Zoom video, like he's like post this. And it was him talking about happiness. And this theme that he talks about is like, I am the problem.

52:33Like if you're unhappy

52:35Michael Lim:or something is not going well in your life, like you can just realize that you are the source of unhappiness because you have a expectation that things should be different. And that will never change, even if you become richer and more famous and like whatever, right? And so that's, yeah, if frame number one is like, we are not at our emotions, we are not at our thoughts. Number two is human suffering will always be a constant so long as you desire stuff to be different. And that desire will never change no matter of the external circumstances in your life. So you have to make it an eternal change.

53:12Michael Lim:I have this quote I wrote down on my phone for like my 2026 sort of ideas. is it's like happiness is an inside job. It's like a heist that you have to like make happen because like no amount of money or fame or respect or like attention from people is going to like make you feel like everything is right in the world. Because like just biologically, humans are just wired to want more because we evolved in a very like resource scarce environment and now we are resource abundant. And so you just have to like work on that. Have there been moments throughout these super high highs that you maybe have reflected and been like, man, I'm not happy and I feel like I should be happy right now?

53:58And if so, what would your advice be to someone that's going through something like that? Because I feel like with a lot of the elite performers that we talk to, they all and I feel the exact same way. I'll set a monetary amount. I'll set, oh, we need to hit this many subscribers. Or we had our first video, we got 150 ,000 views. and it's like that's so cool but then the next one could get 5 000 and then you want to jump off my balcony and it's just like this weird thing of both of us have been trying to practice the art of detaching because we what we can control is the title and the thumbnail and we can control doing a really good episode with our guests but i can't control if one gets a hundred thousand views i can't have an inclination that i think it should but i feel like i really resonate with what you just said because it's our expectation when i get pissed off yeah it's like no one told me that this last app was supposed to get 10 000 views plus or whatever the heck this weird number is in my head and then we're pissed and i'm like what the fuck is going on why have we not why why are we doing this like why did this not do well but at the end of the day like we've we've talked about this a thousand different times in a thousand different ways it's like we can't i can't control who comments that day i can't control who likes it that day all we can do is find great people to sit in the chair across from us and put out what we think is a great piece of content and hope that other people will resonate with it.

55:17The people that are telling us are me and you to each other. You know, I know. Do you want your ticket now or later to the moon? Because this one's going viral. And then it doesn't. And then I get mad because I'm like, Brayden said we were going to the moon. We're still on Earth. I don't understand. What's going on? Our bet in 2026 is YouTube. And so because we have a limited amount of finances to be able to allocate towards content we're saying okay let's go less heavy on short form and let's have yuli film weekly youtube videos of us where if we can crack long form i think it's gonna um deliver a higher roy for us of what we're trying to achieve than going more consistently or like leveling up the output on short form.

56:12Michael Lim:I think it's a really good bet. Like I think YouTube is where the highest quality attention is. You also are able to explain topics with a lot more nuance that create really strong like brand affinity and credibility. The thing that I would caution you against like, or encourage you to maybe figure out how to continue to figure out the short form game in like a way that's like scalable and financially feasible is that like, you know, There's this concept like variance in statistics and like short form is just a higher variance platform. And it's actually a good thing. Like you just, if you can post a hundred times in a month and it's hard to post a hundred long form podcasts in a month, you're just more likely to have one or two of them hit.

56:49Michael Lim:And then once that happens, you can double down on that. And then all of a sudden next month four hit and then eight hit. Right. Whereas like if you're waiting for the two out of a hundred outcome for a podcast, that might not happen. Right. Or like it's just a little more difficult to replicate because with the podcast, it's like, was it the guest? Was it the packaging? Well, you can't get the guest on it another time. But if it's a clip, there's so many things you can replicate. Maybe it was the way that you had a text hook. Maybe it was the really concise question you asked as a hook to the thing.

57:18Michael Lim:Maybe it was like the B-roll you used, right? And so that's like always been our play with the Hermosi team. The one other thing I guess I forgot to mention is that we're also going to be doing two slash three minute all the way up to like 15 minute clips on YouTube on another technically eclipse channel. But it's great. It's not going to be. It's not. It was great. No, for sure. But you're still not benefiting from the variance of the actual short-form algorithm itself, which is weighted towards treating every single short as its own standalone thing. Like I think YouTube channels, long form, you're beholden a little bit more to like YouTube has some kind of audience profile.

58:01Michael Lim:They understand the performance and the personalization metrics of the people who are watching your videos. and so you're you're unlikely to have a random hit of new audiences that watch your long-form youtube content if you don't already have a large base short form i think it's totally different because it's like it's almost like a dice roll every single time um and so i think you just like when you're trying to build something early stages um like just roll the dice more i think and even like you also can benefit from clipping old old old podcasts right yeah totally it's so interesting And it's something, I think it's something that we've been battling with super hard because, you know, it's, you only have a finite level of slots that people can sponsor.

58:47And then you're also trying to, you know what I mean? It's such an interesting, it's an interesting monetization to like what a podcast brings to the table and what you, what your boundaries are for what you can monetize on. It's so interesting. One thing you, sorry. No, I was, okay, no, you go, you go.

59:02Michael Lim:I always say one thing you can do to solve for trying to get like cheaper editors to like do stuff if they're not like on set or like understand English as well is like Stephen Bartlett has like the, have you heard like the AI button thing? The thing, the button under the table. Oh, yeah. Do you know what it does though? No. It tells them that like this is a moment they should click. And I'm pretty sure it's set up with a live transcriber and a timecode system. So it like, so I was trying to build this with Hermosi team. I was like, wow. Okay. So mid pod, he's, he's, he's. I think so. I don't actually remember.

59:33I've heard him talk about that.

59:34Michael Lim:Wow. So the ideal situation would be one of you has like a thing on one of these iPads. You hit a button and there's a, there's a Claude or some kind of MCP related thing that has access to your transcript. And then it like there's, okay. So like level one is time code. It's like, okay, one minute and 27 seconds. Good moment. Be like Yuli writing this down. But that's not that good. It still requires a lot of effort to make that right. Okay. Step number two is it also gets the moment. So it's like when I was asking this question about the NBA thing, that's a moment. That's a moment. Step three is the bot has access to the transcription that's happening live.

1:00:11Michael Lim:And it does a query that says at 90 minutes and 45 seconds, the podcast guest was talking about NBA teams. And, you know, like Braden asked this question about, you know, what Mr. Beast was like. And that's a moment. And then it even has the transcript there. So it like has everything that the Clipper needs to be able to make it. And then step four would be at the very end of the podcast, you have an agent that then just like you just sit down as a team and you hit a button and it lists you the 25 moments from the podcast and you just go, yes, yes, no, no, no, no, no, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then that's a brief that gets sent to your editing team that just probably cuts down on a lot of, because you guys have the most taste of your entire, you always have the most taste of your entire team.

1:00:54Michael Lim:You can't outsource that. Yeah. Like even if you get a really dope, badass editor from LA who's like been doing this for a while like they don't have the 200 episodes of knowledge you guys have of like what clips and what moments hit so these kinds of infrastructure things are things i'm trying to build with my team i'm to save time because like i have three media team members right now i'm used to like you know mr beast had like 25 when i joined obviously now hundreds alex and layla's media team was like 18 by the time i left you know so what consists like if now that you're if we're if we're trying to build the usa dream team yeah of media teams what are the u.s olympic the u.s Olympic media team what does that consist of right okay so you know number one you need your like LeBron to like just be like healthy happy like focus you gotta figure out ways to like clean up their calendar optimize for like batched film sessions you know uh get rid of bullshit that they ideally can get handled by like an EA and stuff number two my opinion these days and the way that I'm building my team is core group of senior managers and then vendors.

1:01:57Michael Lim:So like I've hired a senior manager for operations who's going to be building like infrastructure and a lot of these like cadences for us. And then we have a director of content marketing who actually was at the company before I joined. He's like a world-class storyteller, went to film school, knows our customers super well, like amazing at creating storyboards and like understanding how to interview people. And then I will hire two more leads this year. One is a short form, like head of short form manager who understands like hooks and visuals and how to pick up a camera and like film UGC stuff.

1:02:29Michael Lim:And then I will hire a YouTube manager who's like obsessed with titles, thumbnails, ideas. And then that's it for a while. I'm going to wait to hire like a editor or like a junior strategist or like a clipper, because I think that if I have enough centralized direction and like strategy, we can, we can get like agencies to, to like outsource a lot of like the specific production inputs. And that even goes for like all of my videography is right now happening with like a local contractor. I would like to have an in-house videographer, but like in a venture backed startup, like every bit of headcount is an opportunity cost to hire another engineer.

1:03:05Michael Lim:So I'm like, ah, like probably could make the product better. I will, I will wait to hire like my editor. So number one, you need your founder to be like just super dialed in and like calendar is clear of commitment so they can film regularly. Number two, you need a core group of senior leadership that ideally has been there, done that. Number three, you need really, really clear, I call these like foundational documents. Like what is the ethos of the brand we're trying to create? What are the associations we want? What kind of messaging do we want people to know or not to receive in our content?

1:03:43Michael Lim:And then like, how will we know if we're winning? So everything, every team in 26 needs this thing that I call like a growth model. So in, you know, investment banking or like management consulting, there's all these like, you know, we're basically spreadsheet monkeys. So we make these spreadsheets that project out financial forecasts for companies. and I basically was like, what if we had this but for a media team? But instead of impressions, which is very volatile, it's just follower growth per platform. So, and I can send you guys a screenshot of this later, but basically it's like, I took the baseline percentages of every single platform in 25.

1:04:19Michael Lim:So Facebook grew by 4 % a month. Instagram grew by 7 % a month by followers. YouTube grew by 12%. And then I created a base case of like, if I just multiplied that compounding every single month, where would we end up at the end of the year? And I think it was like, we would go from a hundred and a hundred something thousand followers to like 400. And then I was like, okay, I think if we increase our, um, our publication rate from seven times a week. So one time a day on Instagram to 14, I don't necessarily think that will double the rate of growth, but I think it could increase our rate of growth by 20%.

1:04:53Michael Lim:So you basically can start to map out increases in inputs and then increases in growth rate and like you can hire a spreadsheet monkey to like build these these things i'm noticing how dialed you are on content strategy and not even content strategy of how many times you should be posting every single day or every single week but having those different buckets that you're filling yeah how important is that when it comes to content strategy of being as strategic as you are. Super, super. I forget which director, Hollywood director, talked about the power of constraints in creative. It's like, if I tell you to write a short story, kind of difficult.

1:05:38Michael Lim:If I say, write a short story about a knight and a dragon, but they've got some weird sexual tension going on, or whatever weird constraints you can put, or improv classes, they'll say, you're doing improv, but one of you is a doctor, and there's a fire in the hospital, and you're going to like save your patients at the same time. So when you can create boundaries around things that are proven in the data, it makes your creative team's life so much easier. And you can actually get more junior creatives to like accomplish similar outcomes than someone who needs to do this from scratch every single time.

1:06:09Michael Lim:So when I say like Alex and I were paying attention to what Adam Masseri like was talking about with Instagram and carousels at the end of 24, he was saying like this is the way that the platform is going. We're like, okay, make more carousels. Well, how many? Well, we know that we're approximately posting three times a day. So let's just make like half our post carousels. Within that, then we also noticed in the data that like Alex and Layla carousels did better than individual carousels because they have like obviously shared audiences. It tends to be more like wide reaching relationship content people can relate to.

1:06:39Michael Lim:That's beneficial for the brand. And so, yeah, we just made like a formula. It's like we're going to have it's like it's like the same as like if you have a trainer who gives you a workout plan, Wednesday's leg day, Friday's upper body, like, you know, it's way better than like no I got it just write that down no I got it just write that down yeah so it's like way better than like I'm gonna go to the gym and like flop around and do pull ups and pick up the dumbbells I see Brayden doing that all the time you know what's crazy I've never seen Brayden hit legs once well when they're huge you don't have to see that's what I'm saying all upper body when you're massive you don't really have he's at diminishing returns on legs exactly it's like how much bigger you might not fit in the chairs exactly I did want to give you a compliment though a rare compliment really is i was at the gym so me and brayden go to the same gym and there's personal trainers there and one of them goes uh he's like dude your boy is like he's pretty flexible he's like lifting heavy weights but he's also pretty flexible and travis was like came up to you and asked you and you go yeah i used to wrestle so dude you're listen you're strong but i'm a flex but you're nimble i'm bendy dude you know what that's from though it's from being and twist it up like I'm not.

1:07:49So having to do that. He's good for longevity. Yeah, no, it really is. And now there's this guy. I don't know if, I don't know why you both would get hit with this, but there's this dude that holds up a sign that's like, take me down and wrestle. Yeah, I love that guy. Get a thousand dollars.

1:08:01Michael Lim:Yeah, that motherfucker is so strong, bro. And I selfishly want to do it, but I know he'll dog walk me. And I know I'm like, I think I'm tough, but I've watched him and I'm like. Big hit to the ego. I just don't know if I could, I just don't know if I could take the hit to the ego, man.

1:08:17yourself from the outcome i gotta practice what we're doing here on funny on your on your way out you wrote this ridiculously long document 50 page document with layla right or was it just you that

1:08:31Michael Lim:wrote it i think like i had told layla uh you know i told alex and layla hey it's been the the most amazing experience my entire career working with y 'all i've gotten this offer to go work for this the software company and back in silicon valley i'm from california and um you know i obviously want to make the team super set up for success here's my i wrote like a plan like here's like a two month long basically like structure set up and um as part of it i was like i'd love to just document everything but not so much in these like little one-off like sops i think like sops can get lost super easy than like everyone's like where's the fucking google doc with our filming thing and so i was like i want to make an artifact like like alex has done such a great job of writing these books.

1:09:12Michael Lim:I kind of want to make like an internal book, but it's going to be about how to succeed at this company. And we'd had a number of internal team, like feedback discussions where some of our earlier employees, like a lot of them were like first job out of college, were like, I would love to know how to, how to, how to grow here, like how to be successful here. And like, it feels like we have very specific ways that we think about culture and growth. And so I was like, what a gift to first myself to like, be able to take all, I have like just pages and pages of notes in my journal of like things I've learned from Alex and Layla over time, but they're like not structured.

1:09:42Michael Lim:They're not sequenced well. And then a gift to the team to be like, hey guys, like I'm not here anymore to guide this team as the, as the person leading the media team, but like, I want you guys to succeed, whether it's here or even after acquisition. So here's just like some, some frameworks that I'd like you to, to, to think about. And then to Alex and Layla, just to know that like, I left it all in the field. Like every single person that like is on this team understands what you guys have as a vision for this, this company that they've shared with me behind closed doors. And so I wrote it, I shared it on like my last, my last day.

1:10:13Michael Lim:And then Layla ended up sort of publicly releasing it as she launched her, her recent newsletter, which everyone should go subscribe for Layla's letters. And it's, it's like embedded into one of these like internal memos that she released as a part of acquisitions, like history. And so the way that I structured it was like, number one, what are cultural underpinnings that are important to Alex, Layla and the teams that you can understand like the language with which we think about growth and business. Number two, what are what are like foundational frameworks that you need to understand for how media actually makes companies money?

1:10:47Michael Lim:Because I don't think if you if you don't have that, you can't really build media for a business. You're just like making random clips and hoping that they hit. And then number three, with that framework, how do you actually grow in advance as an individual like a creative professional? So I'll give like the TLDR, you can find it online or something. But like for number one, you know, the acquisition logo is like supply and demand and leverage. So supply and demand, we've kind of talked about this already. Like you have to make stuff that is novel, unique. Your product has to be standalone and interesting above your competitors.

1:11:17Michael Lim:Leverage means everything you do as a media team should ideally be a double, triple, quadruple dip. If you're making content, find a way to make it into an internal training and also a LinkedIn post and also a recruiting video and also a podcast that's going to be shared on YouTube. Same with like founder's time. Like if you're having a film session, try to fit the content review at the end of the film session or during the lunch break so that you don't have to schedule an entire extra content review meeting during the week. Then there's like volume negates luck. Like it's like one of Alex's mantras that if you just put in enough reps, you were able to get over the sort of natural variance of waiting for things to do well.

1:11:56Michael Lim:And then some of like the fundamental frameworks around like how businesses make money through media is, you know, the economic engine of every business is this equation called LTV to cap. So it's like, how much money do the customers you bring in make you versus how much did it cost to acquire them? And many people understand how that works on like paid advertising, because you put in, you know,$15, you pay up 15 bucks, he gets you a customer that makes you 60. but media doesn't always directly create the customers because like it's a long time cycle. Someone might watch your podcast and not like immediately, you know, go buy your sponsor's thing or your personal product.

1:12:34Michael Lim:But media improves LTV because if people watch your content and understand you as people, they pay you more, they stay for longer, they refer other people. So they're a more valuable customer. The CAC side of the equation is like, you want to be able to acquire as many customers as possible for as little money as possible. And so if you have a brand, it requires less advertising to convince them to hit the buy button because they've seen your free stuff online. They have more trust. It also gives you economies of scale of converting more people because if you can put the same piece of content out there and it gets a million views, you didn't pay more for those views, but you would if it was a paid ad.

1:13:12Michael Lim:That's the advantage of organic content is you can get unlimited efficiency with customer acquisition. and that's kind of how media influences stuff. So like if you have the perfect media engine would convince everybody in the world for free to buy your product and stay forever. That's like the extreme thought exercise. And so within that framework, now you understand our content has to do that. Like our content can't just get views. It has to convince someone that like our product is good and better than the competitors. Our product has to convince people or our content has to convince people that the people making this product are aligned with my values, that I aspire to be more like them.

1:13:52Our content has to make our advertising more efficient

1:13:57Michael Lim:by pre-handling objections that they would need to believe to be able to buy our soda versus our competitor's soda. And so, you know, at the final, like probably 20 pages of this guide, it was like, how do we do this? Well, one is understanding that within content you need rotations because it makes it easier to fill in the gaps than like making things up every single week. you also need some kind of like feedback loop. It could be like a weekly report that just shares the top performing posts of the week. Third, you probably should optimize for followers, not impressions. So we believe at acquisition, and I believe that now, like with my current company, that growth dashboard that I was saying, that spreadsheet is all follower counts.

1:14:38Michael Lim:It's not impressions because your follower conversion, I think is the closest thing to someone raising their hand and saying, I'm willing to give you my money. Someone like watching your video and even like saving or sharing it is like, maybe, maybe they just thought it was like a funny meme they want to send to. This is really interesting because you've heard that followers don't matter. No, it is. Yeah. It's not, it's, I, this is like a number one or a really important belief that I have is that followers is not a vanity metric. I think it's the most important metric you have in your entire media ecosystem because like, because, and it is actually because it matters so little for distribution.

1:15:15Michael Lim:So right now, why do you choose to follow someone? I at least follow someone because I like their content so much. I don't want to risk not being able to find them again. So I hit the follow button. You're right. You're right. I can pull them from my following list. So true. Cause I, yeah, you're so right. Like if I see someone, there's nothing that pisses me off more and Instagram sucks at this. Instagram search is horrible. If I just, if I just search Michael, you're not popping up. Because search is probably 10 % of their traffic. I know, but it's so you should be able to type in a person's first thing.

1:15:46Michael Lim:It's crazy because you will not pop over. You just search Brayden doesn't pop. You have to search B figgy and then it'll pop up, which bothers the shit. I mean, you're so right because I go to my following and I'm like, I want to sort by latest. And that's how the only way I can find someone because I won't remember their name until you've gotten hit with 20 fucking pieces of their shit. You're not going to remember their name. You won't. You're like, there's no shot unless it's like very short and catchy or something like. So you think that views are a vanity metric, but followers aren't? Views are, I mean, okay, like let's define vanity metric.

1:16:15Michael Lim:Vanity metric is something that like you get just because you want to flex on other people. I actually think that like flexing is an important part of this economy. Like with a supply and demand equation, you know, someone is likely to go and engage with a creator or sponsor them because they have views and followers. Like, and so how do we know Mr. Beast is the most famous person in the world? Because he has the most followers. Like, so I think, and he gets the most views, right? So I think like just the basis of saying something is a vanity metric is maybe like a little oversimplistic, but what we want is a metric that is a leading indicator of your business becoming more valuable because they're becoming a customer.

1:16:51Michael Lim:And so if I follow your podcast, it's because I don't want to like chance that I'll never see your stuff again. I want to be able to find it. And I'm also like, there's a low key like cost to adding someone to your followers because like everyone cares about your followers. So if I'm going to sacrifice my social street cred to like give you one of my followers thoughts, right? This is again, then it means something in the same way that me giving you money means something, but it's just an earlier stage in the life cycle, right? So by optimizing for followers, I think you get a couple of things.

1:17:27Michael Lim:You, one, have like a bit more of like a universal, what's the word like currency which would you can measure your audience growth like for us you know we went from like about you know 150 ,000 followers to like 220 just this past month and it's like that's amazing if I had just said we got 15 million impressions during that time skewed skewed data yeah it's like well what does that mean like who are these people so Which one went viral? Yeah, exactly. Is it all from like one random video? Is it cheap? Is it cheap views? Is it not? So if they have no intent. Followers are what we call like a proxy for like a much more engaged potential buyer.

1:18:10Michael Lim:It's not perfect, right? So like one of the projects I'm working on, maybe like if we ever do a pod again, like one of the things I really want to understand better is how do you go from understanding followers to attributed leads and traffic and understanding like what actual videos drove success for certain campaigns or like, you know, we have like this like AI restaurant website grader that like you can kind of put in your restaurant website, kind of like Credit Karma, and it'll give you a score. And so ideally, I understand what YouTube videos are driving traffic to that thing. And we have some like UTM links and all that.

1:18:41But I think the world

1:18:43Michael Lim:of marketing is going to a place where everything is infinitely personalized. So like, if you think about like advertising back in, you know, the 1900s, you get like a letter from Comcast or Geico would be like, whatever, say 15 % on the thing. Now you'll get like a letter because you just moved to a place and the local barber is like, I saw you just moved here. Like you get a little more personalization. Instagram obviously is sending you personalized advertising all the time, right? It's like, we talk about, I don't know, I'm going to get ad for this water. Yeah. Yeah. We probably will. Yeah.

1:19:13Michael Lim:Then the next level of this, I think is where once I opt in now, when the person calls me from this company, they're like, I saw that you, you and your friends from this podcast drink this water. I saw that you liked this particular video about the benefits of having like water. That's a pH level of, of 8.6. Tell me more about that. It's like this scary level of personalization all the way through the customer journey. So if we do this right, I think by the end of the year, our media team and our marketing team will understand a restaurant owner when they come into our pipeline, what YouTube videos do they watch?

1:19:50Michael Lim:How does that connect to like what they're trying to do with their business and their cuisine type and just be able to give them much better service because we have that level of personalization. It's so interesting. When you think about a team and trying to make media a business, what does that look like for most companies in the world? Because I mean, you guys got great data when you were at acquisition.com. You had a hundred folks coming every month, to get personalized advice on their specific constraints in their business. And I'm assuming a lot of them probably wanted, were like their ads sucked or they needed help with, they wanted to be like, oh, we want to be a media empire.

1:20:24We see you doing it on YouTube. We see you guys getting leads from this. And it worked. Like you guys were getting consistent leads that were watching these videos and be like, I'd love to come to Vegas. Yeah. Right. So when you think about building out an actual, the backend of a company using media, what do you think about? Is like, is YouTube the place to start or is it going with, okay, hey, who's going to be on camera? What are your biggest strengths? Like, what does that look like to actually turn this attention into income? Because attention with nothing in the back end is just empty views.

1:20:56Michael Lim:I'd first offer like a framework for understanding the stages that this goes through because I think it can be very overwhelming for someone to feel like they have to be at Alex and Layla's stage of media. So like level zero is you have nothing. You are only doing, like let's say you're a plumber. Okay, you're a plumber. You drive around with your van. You hit houses. you unplug their toilets, whatever. Level one is you have enough stuff to let people know that you're not a scammer and that you exist. And like, there's like a little bit of like happy customers. You take your phone out after the toilet's been unplugged and like, look, there's no more shit.

1:21:27Michael Lim:Like whatever, right. So that's level one. Level two is you have content that is purely used for hand-to-hand combat, like sales enablement. So you're a plumber, you record a testimonial selfie with your happy client that just says like, Hey, like our pipes were leaking. the sink was a mess, but Joe, the plumber came and helped us out. Like, thank you, Joe. And you send it only during sales cycles. So these videos get like 12 views, but they're super hot leads that are on the fence. And the whole reason why I'm creating this framework is because at every point in the media cycle, you want to be able to pour time and attention into media where it's having the most leverage and effecting your business.

1:22:03Michael Lim:So if you go straight to level four, which is like, I'm going to make plumbing educational content, maybe it'll hit. Maybe you're just going to be making plumbing educational content for like six months. And then you're just like, you could have been focusing the entire time on your business, right? So yeah, you go through like website credibility, like having your story, having like a bio somewhere online, then you go to enablement content. Then most people go to paid ads, especially with local businesses, geo-targeting ads, like where you can like talk about your offer and like your plumbing business, you know, it's just like a lot more likely you're going to put in some money and get some reasonable ROI.

1:22:36Michael Lim:Obviously there's a testing period. And then finally, you're able to work on stage four, which is content that is for the purpose of creating like brand affinity and like a long-term sales cycle and like trust and all the impacts and LTV to CAC that we talked about. But you don't need to do that from the beginning. And so not to your question, once you've committed to wanting to have that kind of content ecosystem, I think you need to focus on like what platforms are you prioritizing first? this day and age i would probably pick between instagram linkedin and youtube linkedin is crushing yeah linkedin is crushing it's pretty sweet it's nuts it's doing really really well for for a lot of people especially b2b right um and and linkedin in 26 is going to figure out their video algorithmic it's a little bit fucked up right now but like i'm starting to see people on my linkedin like video feed um i noticed man i'll get the same fucking likes on instagram i do on or on linkedin i do on instagram right now just crazy some of the stuff does like way better.

1:23:33Michael Lim:It's wild. I have half the followers on Twitter that I have on LinkedIn. I get literally one like on all my tweets or my ex posts. Like it's like sad. But like on LinkedIn, it's like, it's your burner account. Yeah, basically. Well, not intentionally. I don't know. Maybe, you know, honestly, this is a good frame. Whenever Alex talks about platforms, he always encourages people to be like, I'm the problem, right? This is the happiness thing, right? It's not that the Twitter algorithm sucks or the X algorithm sucks. I don't know how to do Twitter very well. I haven't been doing it for long enough.

1:24:05Michael Lim:So like what I need to do is like find some smart. So this is probably to your point. Once you've established where your ICP is, go and meet people and talk to people who have done this before and just pay them money. Like go find ghost writers on X and LinkedIn or people with agencies in this space and either paying them for the consulting or pay them to do the thing for you. Because that is going to ramp you up way faster than trying to like hire your own version of like the Mr. Beast or Hermosa team because you don't even know what you're looking for in the beginning, right? You don't know how to reinforce, set development plans, give priorities.

1:24:38Michael Lim:But an agency, at the very least, has like a minimum viable structure for that. At some point, you will run into an issue of, in economics, they call these like principal agent problems where your incentive's not aligned. So agencies, as the agent in this case, don't really care about your content doing better. They just care about your content doing well enough that you don't fire them. So you have to enforce, I just told my team this actually yesterday. It's like, you have to apply that Elon Musk CEO laser beam to all your agencies. You can message them every single day. Like, where's the video edit?

1:25:09Michael Lim:Hey, there were like four or five things I didn't love about this. And then more importantly, like give them way more positive praise and reinforcement than any of the other clients. Like write them a fucking Christmas card. Like send them a personalized video when your first post goes up and be like, thank you guys for taking a bet on me. Like I know you have a lot of potential clients you could be working with, but like, you know, as a former agency owner, those are the clients that I will think about in my free time and like work to make them happy because I like them and I know them more as people, right?

1:25:37Michael Lim:Like they've created like a branding exercise with me as a client of mine. And so with agencies, in order for you to really get the most amount of value out of them, if they're not like a full-time employee, you just have to be like super on top of giving them lots of direction and reinforcement. And then the last piece, I think this, the last piece of this would be like the the NBA scoreboard and the game tape reviews they do in the locker room after is like every week, can you simply look at like what were the top two or three posts that converted the most followers, knock out the most views, and every platform will give you this data.

1:26:09Michael Lim:And then why? Look at the retention curves. Every short form platform now has retention curves, just like YouTube did like five years ago. And make some sort of hypothesis. Like we think that if we put up a text hook that has some numbers and dollar signs in the first like two seconds, you know, people are more likely to stay and engage and follow. And then just write down your list of hypotheses on a given week and then just test them for a month. And then I have this document I call like the media change log. It's kind of like in software development. Every single time they release a new update, they just write it down and they release it on a roadmap.

1:26:43Michael Lim:I have this for media because it's very easy to just flounder and try random shit and have no way to look back on it and be like, oh, this actually worked. And so you should do that for content strategy. And you should also do that for internal processes. Like if you guys find a better way to set up the podcast mics or the lighting, put that in the change log so that a new team member being onboarded can like really just know like how has this process changed over time? Oh, that's so good. That's so good. Braden's in the, have you finished the book? He's reading Elon Musk's biography. Yeah, I have one chapter left.

1:27:17It's so interesting. That laser beam. It's wicked interesting. And also just how I think he really sets quite unreasonable expectations for folks, and they hit them. He has some of the - Or they don't. Or they don't, and he fires them. It was interesting, though, just hearing about him balancing these three companies at once and how focusing on SpaceX almost caused Tesla to burn down. And it's a really good book. I'm listening to Audible version of it. And I like that because now every month I just pay 10 bucks and I get a new Audible. Although I like -

1:27:50Michael Lim:Oh, it's good. Yeah, you have the credits. Yes, dude. I love collecting the books. But I need a little bit more books to fill up my bookshelf. But I like just being able to like, if I'm cleaning my house, I love listening to stuff like that. It's so fun. Really good. Yeah. Okay. So question. I want to go back to even before working for Alex, the YouTube video that you put out talking about the next, you know, your next venture. You brought up how for both the jobs working with Mr. Beast and Alex, you made a custom personalized piece of content. I'd love to hear the story of before working with Alex, working for Mr.

1:28:25Beast. And how did you actually get the job working for Mr. Beast?

1:28:28Michael Lim:Yeah. So I have a very like unconventional and like strange sort of pathway into the media. Well, as many people do for sure, because it's a very emerging sort of economy. I was a computational neuroscience and economics major. in school. And my dream was to work at Khan Academy. I really wanted to change the future of education by working in ed tech for these distributed systems of helping personalized learning. And so I thought the two things I need to do are one, get a very deep hands-on experience in the education world. And then everyone at Khan Academy, when I LinkedIn stalked and did a bunch of info calls, had worked at McKinsey or Bain or BCG, one of these top tier management consulting firms.

1:29:07Michael Lim:So I was like, okay, I'm going to try to get my way into both these things. So I applied. I got into TFA and got an internship at Bain. And so for the next like four years out of college, I basically spent two years teaching AP statistics to high school seniors, which was like the most fun and also like so hard because like kids hate math. And then I was in management consulting in San Francisco here. And so after leaving Bain, it was like the middle of COVID. So I was like, you know, burnt out of consulting and I had always done like our family's weddings. Like my dad is like our family videographer.

1:29:46Michael Lim:And so I had enough editing skills to like be a mediocre, like just like Fiverr level like editor. And I just started like working with these different editors. A lot of them are like entrepreneurs. And I was like, I think I could do this like little agency thing. I had a friend who like took me under his wing and showed me how to price like agency models and stuff. Mr. Beast in December of 2020 tweeted, like he's hiring for general creative talent at the time he had like 20 million subscribers or so like pretty like big um but he obviously needed to like expand his team quite a bit and so i was like look i have no experience running youtube channels i i have i'm not that impressive of a candidate i have to do something like kind of different and unique and so i actually hired a coach that um his name's charlie hoen he's like this amazing entrepreneur who who was like tim Ferris's and Seth Godin's like first employee.

1:30:37Michael Lim:And so he has this like methodology for creating what he calls like gifts for, for, for people you want to work with. You'd like do extensive research. You like make something novel, you find a way to get them on the phone or like send it to them. And so I did this process. I like dove into everything Mr. Beast was trying to build and understand like his brand. And so I was, I was a dancer in college and I like called a bunch of my dance friends and I was like, let's make like a video, but I'm going to rap and I'm going to rap to uh drake's pop star um thing but i'm gonna change all the lyrics and like make it like all about mr beast i don't really know how to rap so i had to hire a rap coach off fiverr um and we like we did like sessions on enunciation and like the beats i i know like enough to like do a little beat making also hired like a beat mixer on fiverr as well i don't even know a rap coach was a thing on fiverr in particular yeah looking for one i didn't haven't looked on fiverr yeah i'll send you my guys contact it was like 60 bucks a session it was super reasonable so i i i yeah exactly right i go to the go to the la we make this music video i send it to to just like the the ether on twitter i tag a bunch of people his manager at the time reed um picks it up and sends it to jimmy jimmy watches it and is like oh this is dope and so he dms me like hey like i saw your video like what's your discord and so i like call him on discord i never like really had used discord much before this and i'm like oh my god like uh so yeah i i do like editing and like i kind of know YouTube strategy you kind of have to like like fluff up your your resume a little bit it was enough for him to know that I was smart enough to at least like hang out with him in person so he flew me out to North Carolina peak COVID right had to quarantine in a in a Hilton for like you know five days and then um uh show up and and all we do for a week is play settle it as a Catan and drive around in his Tesla did you ever win yeah actually I think maybe I got the job because I won because he's really good at I was going to say I feel like Joey would be insane at Catan Do you play Catan?

1:32:32He's savage Dude I love Catan

1:32:35Michael Lim:Yeah it's really good we should play sometime So yeah so like I think it's a good way to like understand how people like think about economic trade-offs and like and so I won a couple games maybe I won one game with Catan I can't remember but he pitched me on like three ideas one was like you can lead a production team for the main channel you can be like a head of ideas or you can help me start this new like charity I want to create this thing called Beast Philanthropy and we want to make doing good viral. And so, yeah, I was like, that sounds like aligned with my previous background and like working in social impact and education.

1:33:07Michael Lim:I love this idea of like starting things from scratch. And so did that with him for about a year and a half. And it was amazing just like being able to apply this like viral vector of like videos and fun like challenges to like feeding people and like building homes and like giving away clothes and laptops to students in need. And yeah, it was a really cool experience and definitely taught me a lot about like getting your foot in the door with these people who are way more successful and accomplished than you just requires like doing, going way above and beyond the norm. I think when I got the job, I realized I never even had actually applied.

1:33:44Michael Lim:I never submitted my application form in the Google form. I just like tweeted the thing out there. And it's like, That's actually a really good metaphor for you really cannot go the conventional pathway because you just get buried. When you think about the philanthropy channel, that channel is getting views and they're using that to fund these amazing operations that you guys are doing. When you sit down with the group and you're like, how are we going to make this one video viral? Because I think a lot of philanthropic videos, they're just really poorly done. They're not created in a way that elicits any sort of reaction as somebody.

1:34:22They're just like, oh, there was a problem here. We gave them clothes. There's no buildup. There's no story. And you guys crushed that. And every video is getting millions of views. When you think about making those videos, what was that process like? To actually be like, we need this video to get millions of people to see it. How do you think about an audience that broad? Because it's so different from acquisition.com or even at owner.com. There's a very specific group that you guys are targeting. It makes it so much easier to figure out messaging. Like you're talking to everybody with that video.

1:34:49Michael Lim:I mean, I think what you're speaking to is like the world, what's happening to the world right now is a lot of these industries that traditionally have not had the power of organic branding are trying to make it work like venture backed B2B SaaS, vertical, vertical SaaS, right? Hard to, you know, make like sexy content about, about that. Same with philanthropy. It's like, what are we going to show? Like just like food drives and stuff. So, I mean, this is like Jimmy's brilliance, I think is like, everything is packaging and title first, right? Like if we can't come up with an interesting way to name this video, we should not invest the very constrained resources we have to like do good because we have lots of trade ops, right?

1:35:28Michael Lim:Like we can only give away so much money. I think you have to like really dial in like what's the packaging, right? You have to find a way to create real stakes, which I think is challenging with philanthropy because like you don't want to like not help these people. So the stakes, I think oftentimes became the stories. Like what would have happened if we didn't come through and help these people? Like we had this project where we went to New Orleans after Ida and like gave away a bunch of food. And like we showed this lady whose like rooftop had been ripped off by the storm. And she's just like she's crying.

1:35:57Michael Lim:She's thanking, you know, Jimmy and the team for all the help. And so I think like you can create stakes in any content format, right? You have to just like paint the picture of what happens if we do not succeed at this thing. or if you're doing educational content, what happens if you don't take my advice or what would have happened if I didn't succeed at the story that I'm telling you now? So yeah, I think it's like packaging, stakes, volume, like doing more, you know? Did he set unrealistic expectations for you guys? Yeah, all the time, right? I mean, that's like how he works. I think like it's just like we are going to do the impossible repeatedly, right?

1:36:34Michael Lim:And we're going to do good for people in a way that hasn't been done before and make it cool in a way that hasn't been cool before with very limited resources because it's a charity and you have to be really intentional about your funds. So yeah. Let me ask you this. We've heard a lot of people talk about YouTube being a packaging platform and you just brought it up. If you can't come up with a title and thumbnail, it's not even worth making the video about. Are there any other tips that you have for creating systems around creating YouTube videos or something that like people don't really understand and maybe are still messing up when trying to see success on YouTube besides the packaging side of stuff?

1:37:20Michael Lim:So one more note on the packaging that I've been thinking about recently is that people can pay lip service to saying that packaging is important and not actually do it. So you have to put not just your money, but your time where your mouth is. So right now I'm spending$13 ,000 a month on packaging consultants. Like we just like sit down, we go over titles and thumbnails and like AI mock-ups and like, and it's, I've never done this before. All my money has always gone towards like first like editing and making sure that the stuff is polished and the captions look good. It's like, I just realized I have to force my team and myself to like give this thing the time that it takes.

1:37:55Michael Lim:And because I'm spending so much money, I'm not going to skip those meetings. We are, we are absolutely going to sit down and just like beat this title to death. And so I would say like, I can't stress enough how important it is to really think about that as a process. And I'd say they're not just packaging. They're ideation consultants. So it's ideas and packaging together that are the tip of the spear for all the value for an entire media strategy. The question was what other things are important to think through? Is there something that isn't – not that packaging has become common knowledge.

1:38:26Michael Lim:Okay. but I think it's become a lot more known over the past year, two years, like actually how important packaging is. Is there something else that maybe isn't as well known right now about like what makes a YouTube channel successful or a video itself successful? Visual congruence. So like, uh, I wrote about this on LinkedIn the other day. Um, meta had this Andromeda update, which changed the advertising algorithm to prioritize ads that look different more than like sound different or like talk different, right? And so the rule of thumb is 60 % of the visual of your ad has to change from creative to creative in order for meta to give it the opportunity to be auctioned against audiences and shown.

1:39:13Michael Lim:And I'm like, look, if meta has this, whatever, trillion dollar, you know, advertising machine, and they're feeling like on Instagram that the most important thing for ads that are being swiped through is visuals. Well, organic has to be the same way because it's all in the same feed. It's the same human scroll and the same thing. So - Are you saying though, person to person, it has to look different? Or if you're creating ads for yourself, 60 % of the way it looks needs to be different for like each one of the ads that you make. Yeah, like, and not, I don't even mean ads. Like I basically, I'm translating, like if this is the mandate from ads, it should also be the same for your content.

1:39:50Michael Lim:So if you're making organic short-form content pieces, you have to find a way to make the visuals different, which is actually quite hard to do with educational formats because you're – Yeah, you're an a student. At the end of the day, you're a talking head in the studio. So you have to find a way to like – this is where like it just forces a creative exercise. How do I make the beginning of my content look different from my last video? Do I pick up my phone and I start this podcast with a fucking selfie? Do I – do I – I don't know, change the chairs? Do I like do fun little challenges at the beginning of each of the episodes?

1:40:21Michael Lim:and that's both a long form and a short form thing it's more important on long form and the reason why I say visual coherence or congruence is because the first couple like people don't realize that your thumbnail and your title are not just like the thing that people click on it's the whole thing that happens when your video gets auto-played on the YouTube mobile thing so if you have your YouTube thing when you hover over a video it plays the first 10 seconds on mute so you have to make sure that the first 10 seconds look like they're confirming the title or thumbnail without any audio. That's why every single beast video, you see a tank shooting in the video.

1:40:58Michael Lim:Then you see a tank like, you know, in the actual thing itself. There's some ways you can get around it. Like I think having like B-roll and credibility are a good way to like convince the viewer you're not going to like clickbait them. Because what's happening is like the tank in the thumbnail and the tank in the video is just to let the viewer know you haven't been scammed. Like you're going to get what you clicked on. If I make a video titled how to be an eight figure entrepreneur in 2026, I could have like dollar bills in the video. But like, what's more important is that pretty early on in the story you share or in the video, you share some kind of like proof point to convince the viewer that like, they're not going to be scammed by you.

1:41:37Michael Lim:And that's why Alex would be like, I've done every single time, every time this exit. And because you have to assume the person who's new to your audience needs that. The person who's old to your audience doesn't mind hearing you. Yeah, they're just like, whatever. And it makes it easier for people to evangelize you. If they know what you've done, I can pretty easily articulate what Alex has accomplished because he's repeated it to the team and in public so many times in a row. Michael, this has been insane. This is episode 190 of the 505 Podcast. 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.

1:42:08Peace. Gotta have a system. You got to. Dude, systems win baseball games. That's what they say. you gotta run your content team you gotta run your team like an nba team you just gotta trade them they're not doing well you gotta trade them say you're going dude you ever been to you ever been to a hotter shitty place cold place because you're going there yeah you're not you're not living in the sunshine state look you gotta run your team like the lakers yeah potentially maybe boston potentially sell the team they're not doing well you say yeah what you don't want to do is trade a 25 year old Luca.

1:42:41Yeah. For yeah. For Anthony Davis. That's probably not the that's not the smartest thing to do. You don't want to follow the Mavericks. If there's one thing to take away from this episode it's to hodl when you have a Luca. It's to get in the gym. You know like fuck it we ball. This is such a fun such a fun episode. I think some of our biggest takeaways ways were how these elite media organizations run it's not like they just show up and shoot really good content their pre-production process is elite they're spending a lot of time ideating scripting and looking at what else is working on the internet i think a lot of people and we've talked about this with people that we've coached and people that we just speak to in the dms like a lot of people are trying to make up new shit and that's just not what you have to do yeah you guys, most of you have expertise that are listening to this, right?

1:43:35You have something that you're really good at. You can go look at other spaces, formats that are working and steal those formats and put them into something that you can say and that you can share your beliefs around. Something I thought, something he said that I thought was very interesting is that he doesn't actually think a lot of people should be making content. They're better off spending time putting in the reps, learning something, actually building something, learning skills or building a business of sorts, and then making content around it. Because if you've actually done it, it's so much easier to come off as the expert.

1:44:14And I think there's a lot of people pretending like they have authority in a space when they actually haven't built anything substantial. I think that I agree and disagree because I think that people if they practice making content but didn't say oh I'm the expert at this thing you would have by the time you are really good at the thing you would have a ton of reps of practicing making content and I would argue that most people can't afford to pay someone to like have them make the stuff for them yeah you know what i'm saying so like i feel like personally you would be better off practicing it not saying i'm the best at this saying i'm on my way to trying to learn how to master x thing or whatever and then by the time you do have a little bit of capital you can pay someone or at least have a very good understanding as to how social and all this stuff works because i feel like people that are just let's say really good at a thing and never understand content or have any idea how it works.

1:45:13I feel like they get taken advantage of. So it's a really interesting concept. Should you or should you not? And I feel like you almost build it as you're going across the ocean. Yeah. You take the journey POV as opposed to the authoritarian POV. Because Caleb brought this up, which is interesting because both Caleb and Michael have both worked for Alex for mosey it's the it's so easy to sniff bullshit and you don't want to pose as you don't want to pose as an authority figure if you aren't one because that's the quickest way to lose trust followers then you're going to be on baller busters we don't you do people don't want to you don't want to be on baller busters man don't want to be best account on the internet you don't want to be there i really liked what he said about followers and how yes i think a lot of us this one also kind of blew my mind a little bit no i know and it was interesting thing because when we were at the lakers i remember a lot of the different things that people would talk about and meetings were like oh we're doing this many impressions but followers was always one of the metrics that was shared and when you were there were you i wasn't so much mindset no were you in the mindset of like why do they care so much about followers kind of or were you not even really thinking about it i don't think i was really thinking about it because my job wasn't to i I wasn't on the side of the camp of, oh, this stuff needs to get us this many follows or something like that.

1:46:41I was more so thinking like I'm trying to make sick fits. Well, I was looking at my individual pieces, why they did or did not perform well. Yeah. Like what my thoughts were on why they didn't perform well. Like did my hook suck? Did I not have good text? Like I was more on that camp, not like are these accounts growing? I feel like that was more like the social side of things, not the creator side of things. So it's interesting to think about as a creator now for our business. Yeah, if our pod was losing numbers, that would be a big deal for us. If our subscriber count was going down, I'd be like, what is going on?

1:47:14And how can we reverse this as soon as possible? What's also interesting is after the podcast, me and Brayden both went through our analytics on Instagram. and you can see what posts had you gain followers, which ones gained you the most followers, which ones didn't gain you followers. And it's interesting because there's kind of a clear reason why someone would see a piece of content, at least when you're self-auditing, see a piece of content that you posted and decided to follow versus not follow. And I think a lot of people focus on views views, likes, obviously followers, but views, likes, saves, and shares.

1:47:57And those are kind of like the big four. But thinking about if this piece of content is going to get me in front of somebody new that is my ideal customer, and do they enjoy this piece of content enough to where they can hit follow. And a lot of people are saying, well, followers don't matter because of the way the algorithm works. But I, after talking with Michael, disagree with that because something you don't get if you're not following someone is stories. And you want to make sure that the way the algorithms are set up too, especially on like TikTok, I think followers matter maybe a little bit less on TikTok because there isn't like the DM feature and well, there is, but it's just not as good as Instagram and there aren't stories or actually there is.

1:48:46There is, but it's different. No, yeah. I'd argue TikTok, you're optimizing just for you, right? Yes, but also the algorithm, it still feeds you sometimes people that you follow. But I love that what he said is you don't want to run the risk of never seeing this person again. And people are precious with their follows. You know what I'm saying? Like you can be just kind of scroll, doom scrolling and hit like or share and save all day long. But to actually be like, damn, I like these pieces of content so much. I want to follow this person because I don't want to risk the chance of never seeing their content again.

1:49:23I think that means that followers still hold a lot of weight. And the content that you guys all make is like investing in the S &P, man. It's all going to compound. at some point, like if you're really putting in reps and you're putting in, you know, 25 plus pieces of content a month, one of these pieces, or you're absolutely awful at this, will go out to a little bit. At least a little bit. No, yeah. I don't think that they're guaranteed to go in the hundreds of thousands, but I would argue that if you put in that many reps, something's either really wrong and you don't know who you're talking to, or something is wrong with the way that you're speaking or your communication skills, but you guys should see something break out a little bit.

1:50:05Be like a couple thousand more people or a couple hundred more people saw this than everything else. And why was it? And then analyze what that was and take it into everything else that you're doing. Another thing that Michael brought up was how clear they are on their ICP. What's ICP? The ideal customer persona. Dang. Profile. Or profile, whatever. The person you're going after. I think so often we think about what do we want to make content about? What do we have expertise in? But if you can reverse engineer and really hone in the demographic that you're going after and paint the picture in your head or even write it down of this is specifically who I'm trying to attract.

1:50:48If you can think about your ICP, you'll have a lot more success because you're thinking about the audience first, or you're at least keeping them in mind when you're like, when you're making a piece of content and thinking, is this content for my ideal customer profile? Without a doubt. This is such a, such a fun episode. And just how crazy that he got the opportunity to work around two of some of the biggest and best creators on the internet. Like Alex owns the word business right now. You know what I'm saying? I think, I think Gary owned it for quite a bit of time. Gary had a crazy, ridiculous reign and his content still does very well.

1:51:28Gary Vaynerchuk. But I think Alex came on and it was a different perspective on all of the business content that was already out there at the time. Dude, I almost think Gary more so owns the word content more so than business. I think you're right. People don't even know. You're right. A lot of people don't even know that Gary has VaynerMedia. He's this motivational speaker and talks about making content all day long. And I think Alex is so much more about business. And Michael also talked about just helping Alex make content for people at different stages in their journey. And I think that's super important to like.

1:52:08And look at their model. Look at the model of what acquisition.com is. And you'll start to understand where all of the content comes into play why all the youtube videos are a specific way what they drive to in the description and how their advertising engine works because when you really zoom out and you look at okay well there's a reason why all of this stuff exists there's a reason why there's all these free playbooks and why they're for people at different stages like if you go to their site you know they have like nine different steps to yeah for people to like gift you something but it's meant to keep you getting better yeah you know um the fact that he was a part of crazy the 100 million dollar launch is insane and getting to hear what it was like i asked him on the podcast you know everybody thinks it's day of you you hit this big milestone but it's the not even just days or weeks it's the months leading up to it they they slowed down yeah what did he say it was six months or something i was six months that they slowed down on like organic content to really just focus on this it i might be butchering that or i think they started planning the launch like six months ago and then i also love the fact that alex was just saying all right we're gonna stay in this room for 72 hours and we're just gonna lock in and get deep work done i think it's another big takeaway i think just even from from observing alex's content and then also talking to michael and talking to Caleb, they both say Alex walks the walk.

1:53:46He talks about working hard and he's just actually working and I think a lot of us we say we're working hard but there's times where like, yeah, maybe you're bullshitting. You know? And sometimes... Maybe you're on reels, man. Maybe we gotta sit in this room for 72 hours straight and just order Uber Eats and lock the fuck in. That's a great YouTube video. Yeah. We camp here. We make cots. We tell them, hey, we can't come home. We're staying here in the room. Deep work. For 72 hours. We're going to New York next week. We sure are. It's just crazy. Five days in New York City. You know, it's funny, you guys.

1:54:24So this is our third time going to New York for the podcast. Yeah. First time in the middle of winter. Tell them about the degrees that we're going into. What was the high? The high, you guys, is 26 on the day that we land, and it's 14. So I'm looking out a window. That's the low. I'm looking out a window right now. It's 72 degrees here in Southern California. LA is kind of nice. You can't beat this place. You can't beat this place.

1:54:56And what was I going to say? Yeah, it's just going to be cold. Also, because it's middle of winter, a lot cheaper to book a hotel, and flights are a lot cheaper. You guys know that I love to make that video about how much stuff cost us. And it's going to be a little cheaper this go around. Hopefully. We might do. We might be able to go out to an IHOP or something. But we have some awesome guests. And today we locked in. Today we locked in. Let them know. An epic guest. Let them know. It's booked. I booked the studio. Tell them. Tell them who our three guests are. Listen, if you listen to this and the episode doesn't come out, something crazy happened.

1:55:27Yeah. Because I bought the studio about an hour ago. We got Marcus Milioni, Minted New York. has been a bucket list guest for us. You guys have asked us for Marcus for years. I'm hyped to have him on. Years, years. We got Alex Costa, which will be epic, and Carl Crafts. It's going to be insane. And we got Carl Crafts at our studio. At our studio. I can't wait to see the studio. We might pick up some art. We might buy some art for you guys. Maybe right there. Dude, should we get a little... You're so sick. She did a little custom 505 art right there. Swap out the neon sign. Three big ones. Let's go.

1:56:01And we're going to Panama in a couple weeks. Going to Panama. So sick. Which would be, that's going to be super fun. A little pissed that I got to cut it short, dude. It's all good. I know, dude. You're working hard. It's all good. And then what else? Oh, pretty funny. So I went to an Adobe event last night. They had a few creators out to do some vision boarding. And we're, you know, we're vision boarding, having a good time. And then in walks Hayden Hillier-Smith. And so, you know, fellow 505 Podcast alum was just talking to him. And, you know, I'll give you some game because he was giving me some game about this.

1:56:42Oh, what's the game? He was at this thing. What's it called? Spotter. No. What's it called when you bring it? Yeah. He was at a summit put on by a spotter. Hopefully we can go one day. And he was like, yo, YouTube's changing. I was like, what's going on? So apparently, you guys, I'm going to give you guys the inside scoop. Apparently, Netflix is real nervous about YouTube TV. So I guess they're licensing creators' back catalogs and going to maybe put them on Netflix. That was like something that might be coming in the future that he said. He also said that brands are trying to work with creators on much longer term partnerships.

1:57:24Finally getting their heads out of the list. I know. and he brought up how um what was the other thing how youtube shows are just going to be like the next big thing and so i think a lot of brands are wanting to work with creators to put on big shows or even streaming services i think mr beast really opened up a big door with um beast games shout out to mr beast just paving the way putting the economy on its back 10 million dollars dude was that is that season two what the giveaway is well it's like five and then you flip a coin to see if you go would you flip a coin I'd take the five I wouldn't risk it for the biscuit yeah no I would take I would take the five because you would feel like a moron I know if you lost out of five I'd cut off my left toe on the show like there'd be no I would not be able to come back from five also I got a question okay this is this is for the rocks too if you go up there and they have that money tracker go into the moon you eliminate your team for like a like what's your number to eliminate your team i'd send my team home for a million dollars it's a game show man i saw people no i know i'm saying i don't even think i let it go to a milli i think i'm i think i'm pulling trigger okay okay let me let me let me ask you this let me ask you like what's the minimum okay yeah so let's say because statistically the odds are that you're going to get out from some bullshit, right?

1:58:49Like you're going to get out because, oh, this one dude took money or something like, you know, they line you up in a line and then one dude screws you over for like 25 ,000 or something. Right. I think if you get the opportunity to get a six figure plus payout, sure. I feel like you have to take it. Yeah. Am I wrong there? Six figures. Like you're, you're going in knowing, cause dude, you'd feel terrible if you'd get, you got, I think$2 ,000 to be on the show. You'd feel crazy. You go all the way out to North Carolina and you're like dude I just got two grand so this is this is I think my strategy and I'm curious if you've gotten this far in the episode now we're just having a good time okay I think you go in okay and your strategy is to make as many friends as possible and you become super likable you're like yo we're in this together okay dude you build up the trust and then you try to be like the leader that gets picked like I'm not fucking pulling that lever and then and then that ticker goes up and you fucking and you're you're going home with 740 oh you're awful yeah that's how i think i would play the game call me a shitty you'd be a villain of tv call me a shitty person the one guy is still in it that dude i'm just trying to dude all press is good press i'm trying to blow up the 505 pot i'm doing this for us okay anyways that's how i would play there's one guy that's still in it from last season like they got Okay.

2:00:08No, there's multiple people. There's three. There's three. But I'm saying the one guy that's still in it, he took 650K and the other girl got like 10 grand or something. Yes. And he's like, I really need this for my family or for like he was in debt or something. And it's interesting because he's still there, still getting to play. There's another chance to get it. And so is the champ, the old champ. That's what I was wondering. He's still there. It's like what, 10 mil wasn't enough? Dude, Jeff, 10 mil wasn't enough for Jeff. I like him though. He's a very, no. Yeah. And he's doing it for a good.

2:00:37Yeah. of doing it for a great cause. Yeah. Help his son who has a, like a really rare disease. I hope, dude, I'm crazy to be, people be like, it's rigged. Jeff runs it back. 20 million dollars. Be crazy. What else? What else? Oh, this is also fun. You brought up North Carolina. Me and Sarah Catherine, my fiance, we locked in our wedding venue, which is in North Carolina. Sick. So I'm really excited. That's super exciting. This place is beautiful and we wedding planning i guess now it starts because we needed the venue first picking a venue here's the thing you guys picking a venue really stressful there's so many options california way too expensive because they throw in an automatic 20 gratuity and 10 tax so any place in california that you go at least from my experience of the ones that we talked to it's going to be 30 percent more expensive and then they didn't have that in north carolina that's not cool no that's insane yeah maybe we'll get married in here yeah we see how many people we can sit chairs dude also just call it a day how expensive do you think wedding dresses are if you had to guess because she started looking and she's looking at different places i think on like the cheapest end like the cheapest cheapest cheapest end probably like a thousand bucks and they probably go all the way up to like 50 000 i bet i bet these dresses are ridiculous 30 000 dresses i've seen some crazy clips about wedding dress that's why i'm saying such a ridiculous number i've seen these dresses get like some of them go the crazy sequencing and stuff so i know that they get just like crazy but i would bet the average gal's wedding dress i'd say between one and ten which still like so ridiculous it's sarah catherine am i am i right there yeah you're in the pocket yeah sarah catherine was asking a good friend of hers how much she paid for her dress how much like her because a bunch of her friends had been getting married like sarah catherine's friends friend and she's like about like 15 grand each you're kidding i go what the no and so she's looking and she goes she goes baby you're really gonna want me to have this dress eight thousand dollars though oh my god dude this podcast needs to take off.

2:03:01Oh my God. What? Dude, we're renting our suits. Operation Get Coast is rich enough. Are you renting this? Like we rent suits, right? No, here's the thing. Oh no, we're not renting suits? I have to buy my suit? Is that the move? Well, no, it's going to be black tie. What's that mean? Tuxedo. Oh, so we rent that, right? So you'll rent, yeah, you can rent it. Yeah, yeah. Oh, but you want to buy a custom suit for yourself? So this is typically how it goes, I believe, is... Thank you. So you rent a tuxedo until it's your wedding day and then you buy it and now you own a tuxedo for the rest of your life that you can wear for any black type.

2:03:40That makes sense. Yeah. Okay. So you get like a nice custom suit. That's what I'm planning. How much is a suit? A thousand bucks? Maybe 2 ,500 bucks? I don't know. I have literally zero idea. I think. Like a nice custom tailored suit. Yeah, it probably, if it's really nice, it could probably go upwards of like$3 ,000 to$5 ,000. We should have gone wearing Hong Kong. Why do we not do that? Well, dude, no bullshit. I might try to take a trip to either like Thailand or Hong Kong or something and go get a sick custom suit for a grand and make a trip out of it. That's what Dalen was telling us we were there.

2:04:14Remember he said, he's like, if you guys want a great suit, this is the best place in the world to get a suit made. He said it's like very, the best quality custom suits. My cousin went to Thailand and he got, I think he got like five custom suits, including the tuxedo for his wedding. And I think he spent like a thousand or 1500 bucks. And it was like very nice. The nines. So we'll see. Dude, maybe we go to 505 versus Thailand. That could be kind of sick. Yes. Dude, so we made our new channel name, Be Figgy and Costas. We're really excited about it. You guys should go watch our second video ever that we made because we're posting weekly videos over there.

2:04:50it's going to be a mixture of formats but hopefully you guys like them and they're not just us traveling around there's gonna be value that we're talking value you want to talk about value talk about practice we'll talk about practice about value we're getting value oh we should do a vlog we can do a cool vlog in new york that'd be great it also made me think though like next week what is our video i think we have some old footage and i have the footage of you guys you betting on the camera gear like the auction funny dude we have some stuff that we need to we need to figure out what our story is going to be because it's a bunch of random shit so we'll figure it out we'll figure it out but now we're youtubers the second channel is sick we hit 30 000 subs on this channel that's crazy that's insane and the other channel hit over 100 which is really cool so if you guys want to go subscribe for us i think our goal with the other channel to you guys is me and fig were saying if if every video can get like a thousand two thousand a couple thousand views i'll be ecstatic so stoked just people kicking it hanging out with the rocks and learning some game vibing that's what we're looking for yeah but we got some we got some fun stuff planned i'm excited to travel and uh panama should be fun because panama there's um blue water blue water but carnival oh yeah i did not tell my fiance that carnival is going on while we're in panama because she was already sad that we're gonna be gone for valentine's day so i don't i you know you know it's the uh when when the wife says uh just don't have too much fun or whatever and then i see there's a trend where the it's like you're with your boys it's like yo guys don't look like we're having any fun it's like serious face selfie yeah we're not having any fun so funny so yeah we got to be like Chloe Sarah Catherine not that fun Panama's just not that sick cut to a clip boys are raging carnival it's so funny this is great though this has been a such a fun pod Michael Lim if you're still here please hit the subscribe button drop us a comment go to our other channel and sub for the boys and we'll see you guys all next week peace