192. How to Build a Brand So Premium Customers Chase You ft. Marcus Milione

28:19Brutal game to play.

28:20Marcus Milione:Yeah. I mean, hell no. Going back to what you were saying, your dad seemed to be very supportive. I'm sure your mom was as well. And your bosses were also very supportive. Yeah. For someone who doesn't have a support system like you do and still wants to pursue their dreams, but the people closest to them are telling them to pursue something else. what advice do you have to that person oh man I mean look I've been extremely lucky like I uh have a great relationship with my parents and and they are supportive in that way and uh you know but it's interesting like my dad's huge risk taker and my mom is like more uh reserved in that way um and you know play stuff a little bit safer but that doesn't mean she doesn't believe in me or whatever she's sometimes the voice of reason because like my dad and I are very much like headstrong toward you know what we want and um but no I I mean if that support system wasn't there it would be harder because I do think you gain a level of personal confidence from from having that feeling that love and feeling that like uh confidence in you to make it work so I think if if that doesn't exist you kind of just got to realize like you're you got to do it for you and if you believe you can make it happen then you can make it happen just like shut out all the all the background noise you know it it sucks like if your parents are in your ear saying you know this isn't going to work please go the traditional path of college corporate job whatever then you know what they still might have your best interest in mind because like a ton of businesses fail so they might just be coming at it from like oh you know I want my son or daughter to just take the safe path and make a nice life for themselves and you know maybe they can't see it how you see it so have some grace with them there but just know that you got to make it on your own and that's just how it's gonna be.

30:34Marcus Milione:Could you imagine having a kid and like... You're not good enough Jimmy. Yeah like either they want to pursue being a singer or something and you're just like sweetheart you are tone deaf but like I'm gonna support you you know what I'm saying I'm gonna see this through with you but I don't know. Yeah I don't know. During the course of these last few years have there have there been doubts at all or do you feel like you've been very conscious of keeping, you know, this is going to work. I know this is going to work. I think that even with us, there's been moments where I've been so confident and wavering that I know this is going to work, but there's been things that have happened where I'm like, Jesus Christ, like this.

31:16Even in the valley of despair. Yeah. You're like, shit is not hitting right now. Exactly. We're going to see it through and we're going to get to the other side of this.

31:24Marcus Milione:No, I relate to that a lot. I think it comes back to what I was talking about, like micro wins macro wins like you have to keep the macro on like i am going to do this and make it work but that does not mean the day-to-day isn't gonna suck like you're going to go through weeks months whatever at a time where you're like holy shit i cannot write my name correctly like i cannot do anything correctly yeah um and of course it's gonna feel like you know oh my god I'm the dumbest guy on the planet. Like I can't get this to work or whatever. You just have to keep the North star alive. Like, you know, long enough time horizon, I'm going to make it work.

32:04Have you found that the gym and like running and athletics as a whole has kind of mirrored business in any way, shape or form? Cause I feel like going to the gym didn't affect our podcast, right? But it definitely helped in terms of like discipline and understanding. Like if I show up and I do these things and I keep these promises, wins do compound. And similar with us, I mean, we posted damn near every week for four years. And I just feel like, thank you. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. But it's similar to the gym where I feel like it took us years to where you're going and you don't see a result.

32:38You're going or you run, you don't see a result. Your time doesn't get faster. But goddamn, if you do it for a year or two years, you eventually like look up and you're like, wow, I've actually, there's something here. There's a few people that are listening to our show. you know I've now made my mile time a little bit faster I'm wondering if you found any uh

32:55Marcus Milione:any crossover there yeah I mean from a from the business side like usually it's after in real life activations where I take a step back and usually Sean and I have to kind of remind ourselves to take a step back and realize what we've built because you get so stuck in having your head down day to day and just looking at like numbers and analytics on a screen that you can easily lose sight of of what is actually being built and so it's good to reflect in that way but it very much ties back into training like you know I work with a coach now for running and he sends me a block of three months of work and you look at it and you're like holy shit but that's what's going to need to happen to get to where you want to go with however fast you want to go and you know what there's a very good chance that you're going to put in that whole three blocks of work and blow it on race day because it's not your day but you're gonna get back to the drawing board do it again give it another crack and that can take literally a couple years to eventually get to that time but you just have to be ready to lock in for for a long period of time like entrepreneurship is a game of endurance like this this like overnight success idea is very very rare that it happens I think obviously it's you know in business alone it seems that it happens more in the in the tech space but I mean I think historically in in business you need 10 plus years into something to really get it going, you know?

34:44Marcus Milione:So running's a pretty good metaphor for that. If you want to get fast, you need years and years and years on your legs. So you, you hired a coach for running. Have you hired anyone in terms of helping you with business or slash if you haven't, what have mentors told you that you've met along the way? Cause it's been very crazy with us as the show has gotten bigger, the people that you've been able to talk to and kind of reassure us of things that we've been going through. I'm curious if you've had that with your brand. Yeah. Um, yeah, I have, I have a running coach. He's great. Um, but in business, I don't really have, uh, a coach or, or like a mentor mentor in that way, in like the traditional sense of mentor.

35:27Marcus Milione:I have people I can reach out to and talk to who are successful in their own right. And I feel very lucky and blessed in that way, but not in like a reoccurring speak to them on a specific cadence. Has there been something though that maybe those other mentors have unlocked for you that you've been able to chat with or just friends that are also in, you know, this space or in this industry? Something that was like a big unlock. I mean I think looking at it from like a long-term lens is one of the it's one of the things I mean I've talked to George from represent and they've been in the game for I think probably 14 15 years something like that so and I remember him talking one time about just like you know this it's a long game before you really ever start to see the fruits of your labor and you know he runs too and And it's very relatable in that way.

36:28Marcus Milione:But it's nice to see someone who has done it and gotten it to scale and had success in his own right. And it took him a long time. Well, I guess not even that long in the grand scheme of life, but long in business. Yeah, but people, like, depending on when somebody finds a brand, they're like, yo, you're an overnight success, potentially. But they're like, you don't even fucking know. Yeah, yeah. Also, you said the term lock in. And I saw a TikTok yesterday. It was a middle school teacher. He goes, dude, one of the... I think he was a teacher, but he goes, a middle school kid. I overheard him talking to his friend saying, he looked at me and he goes, me if I don't lock in.

37:16And he goes, dude, that hurt. He goes, there's not that. Oh, man. That is like, dude, that one hurts the ego. Oh, my God.

37:24Marcus Milione:Hilarious. I mean, it sucks, right? Like teachers are our unsung heroes. Like I've had so many teachers throughout my life that have impacted me like so positively. And yeah, that profession is great. You get to shape the mind of a young, like impressionable kid. Like I love that. Okay. I forget the name, but you did have a teacher that like a specific teacher, right? Father McNally. Yeah. Can you tell us about him? Yeah. He was the teacher in my painting one class that I was forced to, it was like the art elective that i ended up taking obviously like wasn't super interested in it whatever and yeah this dude was like pretty much changed my life um and i remember going in and wanting everything to be so perfect and i had never painted so like nothing was going to be perfect but in my head it's like gotta be perfect and uh i remember i would work on like super small canvas because the the class was pretty open-ended like he would just say just give you kind of like a broad idea of what to paint about and let you kind of figure it out which I think was like such a cool way to teach and uh so I'd try to paint these like small canvases and have every line be perfect and like one day he came over and just like took the canvas and took the paintbrush and had this like six foot tall canvas that he had stretched for himself because he painted huge like you know the size of that back wall and he took this huge brush that all the bristles were all messed up and he was like yeah just you're gonna paint with this from now on and like broad brush strokes and nothing has to be perfect and you're just gonna paint and like I found that to be almost therapeutic um in a way and yeah he uh he did a lot for me in that time I was super bad headspace at the time and didn't know what I wanted to do and had kind of like felt like a failure in a way and that was a great it was a great release that was uh I forever indebted to him are you still painting at all today no no but I should I really should I feel you should it It sounds like you really enjoyed it.

39:41It'd be cool to do a collection of maybe brushstroke inspired minted stuff. I like that. It seems like you have an obsession though with, like you just said, like wanting everything to be perfect. You're sourcing super high quality. It seems like you have just a standard for the way that you want to go about your life in different areas, whether it's minted, clothing, training, anything else. where do you feel like that obsession to want to be great or striving to be perfect even though you know it might not be perfect where does that come from man I don't know I uh

40:21Marcus Milione:it's hard to say I think uh from a very early age my parents because I was always focused on sports growing up so and from a very early age it was kind of like hammered into my head that like you're not the most talented like you're not the you're not the most gifted athlete or player on the field, like you're going to have to really work for it. Um, and that came from my parents. And so like they, when I talked about my goals and aspirations in sport, they were like, okay, well, you know, you're really going to have to work for it. And they were supportive in me figuring out how to kind of work toward those goals.

41:01Marcus Milione:But I think that's kind of where I learned the discipline of like, and learn the reward of if you really practice at something and you are super dedicated to it, like you can become good enough at least to play on the same field of, of the people you look up to. And, um, and I think like, so I learned through that process that if you just stay dedicated to something with a long-term vision in mind and you work on your craft and you care about like the small details that go into what you're working on, like over time you improve immensely. Obviously in the intermediate, like it doesn't feel like you're doing anything except like, you know, reps of, of stuff.

41:50Marcus Milione:But, uh, so, so it taught me from a very early age that like these results are going to take a long time, but you can make progress. And so, yeah, I've kind of just applied it to a lot of the stuff that I do and try to just improve every single day. Like that's really the main, the main thing I care about and in a lot of stuff. So I don't know. I love that. You also brought up that your pop-up events, your in-person and stuff is really where you get to kind of see the culmination of all the hard work. So can you talk to us about how those pop-up events have been and what that experience is like seeing people in real life, wearing your stuff, coming out to even support you?

42:35Because I feel like it's one thing to, you know, get a certain amount of views or followers or engagement on social media. It's another thing to sell them a physical product and have them actually buy it. And then it's a whole other thing for them to come out and actually support you.

42:50Marcus Milione:Yeah. I mean, I think like as an entrepreneur, like we're selling a physical product and it is our duty to make that product worthwhile. And what I mean by that is somebody is trading life hours at a job to make money and taking that money and spending it of all places at our business. So the obligation to us is to make that experience enjoyable, make the product good, and make it worth the money and time that they traded worth it. and uh so yeah to see like you put on a pop-up event and you have people flying in from you know different countries or other parts of the U.S. and lining up and spending time in line like you know of all the other things they could be doing on a weekend in New York City they're there to support the brand and see the team and like I don't know how much better it gets than that but it also you know is something that we don't take for granted like we really appreciate that level of support and hope to continue to just make products that reflect our appreciation in that way um and it's it's overwhelming i mean at those pop-ups i i pretty much am no help to the team i stand in one spot and talk to people for literally the entire time until nobody is left.

44:24Marcus Milione:And it's like crazy draining on my, on my, on my, my personal battery, because I think I'm naturally introverted, but like, it doesn't feel, I don't feel any sort of like nerves, nothing like this is all just love. And I love talking to people and hearing about how the brand has impacted them, or maybe a piece of content has impacted them and hearing about what they're doing in their life. And I mean, no, it's like, it's just this insane experience. I don't even know how to really put it into words. Was that something that you expected at all when you started or like when you do get a chance to meet these people, was that something that you thought would happen where people would be impacted by this stuff?

45:08Or did you just kind of started making stuff and you're like, I had no idea that it would kind of take a turn as to where it's at now. Yeah.

45:15Marcus Milione:I mean, I think through like what you see on social media, you have a general idea, but you don't ever really know until it comes time to open the door. Like I remember the night before being like, well, I hope people show up to Sean. And I was like, cause I have no idea. And, uh, you know, again, grateful that people come out, but also, you know, it's, it's interesting to see what or who the brand reaches because at the first pop-up, you know, we had the demographic that we thought we normally reach and they showed out. That's great. You also have like parents coming and like learned about the brand through their child, but then also are now into the brand themselves.

46:00Marcus Milione:And it's like, oh, okay, well, I didn't expect that, but that's awesome. Like I like that there's a through line through like all these different ages and demographics. And yeah, I mean, so then you end up talking to, you know, some young kid who's 15, 16 to some adult who's maybe in their 40s, 50s. And it's like, wow, this is cool. This is really cool. And I'm glad the brand has an impact. I'm glad the content has an impact in some way that like you feel connected. Yeah, that's awesome. Something else that's really cool is you've been able to collab with Sockney on a shoe. How did that collab come about?

46:42And what's that relationship been? Because a shoe's pretty swag.

46:46Marcus Milione:Yeah, no, I mean, it was crazy, right? So I had an email in my inbox. I think Jason from Sockney had sent it at like 3 a.m. And it makes a lot more sense now that I know the guy. Like he is like the biggest night owl guy. But yeah, he sent an email. and just wanted like a preliminary conversation about collabs. And he kind of was doing the energy stuff over at Saucony and was mainly talking about the lifestyle stuff and brought us up to their office in Boston. And while we were there, we were like, well, you know, we make performance running too. And we, one, we use your shoes. And two, like we think we could do both a running shoe and a lifestyle shoe.

47:32Marcus Milione:And so we began work on both. Um, and now, you know, we have had an ongoing relationship with them and they've been great. You know, they, Jason and his team is, is incredibly tapped in and also like forever grateful for them for taking a shot on us and, uh, giving us the freedom that we do have in like the shoe and the rollout and everything that we get to do. because I don't know if it's like that in a lot of different big corporations. And he goes to bat for us and really trusts us, and that's like a huge help, I think, in everything. Anything that we can plan for this year from you guys with them?

48:18Marcus Milione:Yeah, so nothing's been announced. I've kind of talked about it. Well, I slipped up and mentioned it once a couple months ago. So we have a Pro 5 coming out. with them and it's in a couple months. I don't want to get into too much detail, but it will be launching at a pop-up in London. Oh, sad. And we have a lot more in the pipeline, but none of that has been mentioned. So stay tuned. Yeah, you're going to just have to stay tuned on that. When you got the email, were you like... fuck yeah or did a little bit of an imposter syndrome set him you're like i can't believe they're wanting to work with us like sakini's a massive brand or are you like yeah i'm him like of course not not that not that i'm him but so it's it was like super grateful yeah like wow this is awesome they recognize what we're doing um but also like in my head i believe we can hang with anybody so So I don't, it's not like I'm nervous.

49:28Marcus Milione:I know we're going to do it and we're going to do it well. But again, like appreciative and grateful. But you do have to have a confidence in like I believe in our products and I believe in what we can do. And that's just, that's that. Has there been anything that you've learned working with Sockany that you've been able to implement on your back end or on a rollout situation with the marketing materials, all that good stuff? It's nice to see how they look at FOB, which is like free on board, which is like prices you get from manufacturers and it takes into account like a whole host of different things.

50:03Marcus Milione:And it's nice to see how they operate on that on that way and also how connected they are to like different material suppliers and just their willingness to like test new things. because I think, again, depending on who you're working with, those doors might be closed to you. But, yeah, they really break down for us from a materials and technology perspective kind of how it impacts not only the shoe and the performance of the shoe, which obviously matters a ton, but also pricing and margin and all that stuff that needs to be taken into account. So take me into the process of you have the idea for the shoe.

50:49You guys are together. And now what actually happens? You look at color. Do you talk about the materials and different costs of them and how that impacts everything? What does that process look like? Give me the nitty gritty.

50:59Marcus Milione:In the beginning, it was a lot of just, you know, you get to choose color and stuff. Because, look, I mean, it's a risk on their end to take you in. So you don't get to just start changing everything. Because, like. We're making a loafer. There's mold costs involved and everything has costs once you start changing from the pattern-ish. As time has gone on, we've gotten a lot more rain to change things. And yeah, I guess we kind of start with, first and foremost, the running shoes have to be performing really well. So it's a look at like we'll run in certain models that they're working on. Do you go to a track because you can't be seen outside with them?

51:45Marcus Milione:No, they're pretty good about letting us just wear them. And then if they get leaked in some way, they get leaked in some way. Some they just will send a right foot shoe. So you don't have two to run in, but you can physically look at it and mess with it. Then we can offer feedback. And then, you know, sometimes you got to go into a bunch of different things, like, you know, change materials or, you know, this doesn't feel right or this is hurting like a certain part of my toe. And all that feedback gets taken into account. And then you start to build a story around the color theory. and yeah I mean it's it's fun because there's a whole there's a whole technical side and then there's a whole like making a product look good which is what we try to do and is there any sort of playbook now that you guys have with Sam or with your brother in terms of we have a product line releasing we know that we're going to make maybe a YouTube film or I know that I'm going to make this many pieces of TikTok content is there anything that goes on like that with you guys we plan um but there's no like do x y z like like this is what's working it's flexible um there's general themes of the types of content or like what we want for different social platforms but i think like in order for stuff to not feel stale and stay like uh fresh and interesting you have to kind of tear it all down every time and, and just work off like the scaffolding and, and the framework of what you've kind of built out.

53:24Okay. Let's say you're getting ready to launch a new collection or not even launched before launch, create a new collection. What is that process like? How are you getting inspiration? Um, how do you decide how many different SKUs or how many different products to include it in new collection? I'm just curious about starting from scratch, You're like, hey, crushed this last collection. Time to make some more stuff. What's that process like?

53:48Marcus Milione:I guess it would be easiest to just give examples. For, like, performance running, we start with, like, a mood board, and we look at things that will inform design decisions on the products. So for some of the most recent stuff, we were exploring like fighter jets, rockets, rocket boosters, how propulsion is generated and how propulsion is measured in like imagery. so I'm going to butcher the name but there's something called like Sherillion imaging and it shows like the like the propulsion wake coming out of a jet engine and that's kind of like informed some of our design but yeah so in running specifically we try to look as far outside of running as possible just to try to generate new ideas and in doing that the general theme for that was things that are fast and then you work down from things that are fast into okay well what things are fast you have like fast animals like cheetahs and stuff and then you have like fast man-made mechanical equipment like rockets and jets and all sorts of stuff and so then you start to dig into that and pull stuff pull inspiration pull like bits of design lines and stuff into the physical products and is pinterest your buddy or where are you going do you go magazines are you going youtube we have magazines we have like for that stuff like military catalog stuff um you can find stuff on pinterest the problem with pinterest is like a lot of stuff just ends up looking the same across like you can see it across brands well maybe you like i think if you're in it a lot yeah you can see it across a lot of different brands and listen you wouldn't know but he knows no dude you don't know i haven't you guys can probably see it i haven't been able to relate to something more in this conversation than what he just said so dude i'm tapped in um yeah and so uh you kind of just like try to look outside of the curator sites or i don't know what pinterest is technically called but it's like a It curates your mood voyage.

56:15Yeah, I was going to ask, though, how do you draw the line or balance getting inspiration from something else, another brand or maybe, and making it your own? Or are you just like, fuck the other brands, we're going to try to pull inspo from jets and animals and stuff?

56:32Marcus Milione:Yeah, I mean, like I said, a lot of inspo is outside of the realm in which we're working. Like I don't, you know, we respect everybody in the space, but I try to make sure none of that stuff leaks into our process at all. I think it's, I think that's probably one of the most dangerous things that could impact our design process. And I don't, I try to keep it all out. You've avoided spending heavily on paid ads, something that like most say like 95, 98 % of brands do end up using some form of, you know, meta ads or something like that. And I'm curious what, what has been your learnings or findings from that?

57:14And do you feel like it's something in the future that you might be utilizing?

57:17Marcus Milione:yeah i mean i think it would just throw gasoline on the fire i think we kind of built the hard way first um because i think like earned media slash word of mouth is probably the hardest stuff to generate for a brand so you the typical route would be you know you do your advertising your paid advertising get in front of people and then people like the product and then you know the other stuff comes comes second for me like we have a small team it's me sean and clay full-time kelly part-time but the best customer service you've ever seen and um so trying to learn that whole meta ads platform all that stuff is just so daunting and uh also a huge time sync uh and capital sync like you don't get to learn for free on the platform so it's fun it's fun to learn for you have to pay it's great yeah and uh so we're at the point now where i think it would make sense to turn on that lever to grow um but to do it correctly and and in a way that you know doesn't hurt the brand i think it requires some proper planning and definitely like having the proper people running that side of stuff what's a big misconception about fashion that you wish other founders knew before getting into it?

58:42Well, I think it's like the, the quote unquote, cool thing to do on social media is like, Oh, I have a brand, right.

58:48Marcus Milione:Or people look at it like a easy way to get rich. And I guess it might be an easy way to get rich if you're like material quality shit and your products ultimately shit. And like, you're just duping people into buying your products like and your margins insane like I guess that would be potentially a way to get rich but like I mean if you want to do it right and not saying that the way we're doing it is doing it right I mean I think it's a lot harder than you think um and yeah I guess it's it's like cool to have something your own and your brand um I don't disagree with that but I think like on on the social media front.

59:31Marcus Milione:It's like, there's a new, there's 10 new brands every day, right? It's, it's saturated. It's probably one of the most saturated markets. You could not, even before the social media stuff that you could try to enter. So it's, it's competitive. I tried starting a clothing brand in high school. Yeah. Didn't go so well. I did too. I marched into a supplier's like office. There was a brand back in the day called Live Fit that was in Orange County. It was like, that's my brand. That was your brand, dude. That was sick. I found out where their founder, I was 16 or 17 where they got their stuff sourced.

1:00:03And me and my three buddies, we just marched in there to this place. And the gal that was like the secretary was like, who are you here to see? And I just had this guy's name. I was like, we have a meeting with Mike at 11. And they're like, I don't see it on the calendar. I'm like, just let them know that aesthetic revolution is here or whatever. I can't remember what, yeah, it was, oh, aesthetic bound. That was what we called it. I was like, you let them know that we're here and we're ready to talk and we looked like we're kids we're 16 17 and he like yelled at us and was like get in my office now and then he ended up selling us 200 shirts it was pretty sick yeah it was cool and he's like you guys are nuts you gotta kick the door down he's like you guys are nuts how you gonna pay for you got cash and i was like yeah i got cash he goes just leave the cash on my table get the fuck out of here before anyone sees you guys and we left but he gave us our first shorts he's like you just have a license i'm like no we don't driver's license yeah we don't have a license dude he's like get the fuck out of here all right he's like come back when you guys are making money

1:00:52Marcus Milione:yeah it was cool though look i mean he started a business he knows yeah that's why he sold you the shirts yeah 100 you know he's like you guys have the hustle yeah most other entrepreneurs will recognize that so like doing kind of ballsy stuff like that sometimes that's what you have to do i want to talk to you about the the necklace that you're wearing uh do you feel like you have to have a certain lever of luck to be in this game like what is what does your necklace mean Yeah. So it's a wishbone. And my dad's dad, so my grandfather at Thanksgiving would do the wishbone pull, whatever. So and it was good luck if you got the bigger half.

1:01:35Marcus Milione:And I do think there is a certain amount of luck to it. There's a certain amount of luck in having success in anything. Anybody that tells you, like, I didn't get lucky is delusional. Like, yes, it's going to take an insane amount of work. And yes, you're going to have to sacrifice a lot. But like to completely discredit luck is insane. Right place, right time. Like that requires luck. You didn't control that. So, yeah, I think there is a part of luck. And saying that there's luck involved does not discredit any of your hard work. Like you have to just acknowledge the reality. I think about us and A big episode that has helped our show Was the gary v episode that we did And we had been doing the podcast for Close to three years at that point And then he fucking randomly responds to a message And it's like that's lucky like I don't even know how the fuck he saw my dm It was from seven years ago and he just so happened To be down to do the podcast saw my message put me in a group chat with his right-hand guy And it happened.

1:02:48We've been able to leverage that podcast tremendously to see success for our show. But I think that luck doesn't happen until you actually put in the work. Like you almost have to you have to gain the ability to get lucky.

1:03:03Marcus Milione:Yeah. So I made a tick tock once just like walking down the street of of increasing your surface area for luck to strike. right so let's say you want to like do something and let's say you want to blow up on social media right you could post a single time every day and you'd have 365 posts for that year you could post 10 times a day and have 10x that amount and so you've just increased your surface area for the off chance that any of those videos go mega viral and like your trajectory changes by 10x just by increasing your workload so you want to do things that like increase your surface area for luck to happen and in your case you had been podcasting for x number of years and putting out those pieces of content that he ran across it was lucky that he ran across it and was in the mindset to DM you, but it wasn't luck that it happened.

1:04:12Marcus Milione:You had been putting out the, the precursors to luck for a long time. So yeah, like I said, like luck is a factor, but so is a lot of hard work and stuff. Yeah. It's when preparation meets opportunity. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's, it's also really interesting because, you know, through, through talking to you and when we were doing our research like me and brayden were wondering how like strategic you were with the business and how strategic you were with what you're posting on social media and then with the business side of minted and it sounds like You were just like, I'm a post what I like.

1:04:52I'm a figure it out. You said you didn't really have any mentors in like the business side. You're figuring out the clothing side, the business side. Is that just a common theme where you're like, I'm going to put in so much work and I'm going to make this my entire thing that inevitably it's going to work because it doesn't seem like even with the content strategy, you're like, it's pretty loose.

1:05:17Marcus Milione:yeah it is it is i mean like a lot of stuff is gut feel but also you have to be able to identify like areas of opportunity and so like when you see that you're growing some sort of following and they're asking about the jewelry that you're wearing but the jewelry are things that you made for yourself in the diamond district here then you have to put two and two together and think like okay well I can make 10 of those and sell them online maybe to the people that are asking about them and so yeah I mean like you just have to kind of have your irrational belief in yourself and then when opportunities come knocking be able to identify them and figure out if that's kind of like what you want to go for that was one of my favorite videos the one that you and Sam did it It was like uncut gems.

1:06:11Marcus Milione:Oh, yeah. He killed that shit. If people haven't seen that, Sam outdid himself. Gosh, that was sick. I love that. Were you and your brother in there and the guy says a number and you're like, 46. Yeah, let's go. That was fun. What was that negotiation process like to get, you know, like how does it work for jewelry? I mean, we've talked to a lot of people who do clothing, but I don't think any of them have, that we've spoken to have done any jewelry. Like, what is that? Like, you had gotten it made here. I didn't, I didn't know. So that specific instance was like return jewelry or defect jewelry that we needed to melt.

1:06:46Marcus Milione:Um, so we were going in to get like spot price of the silver cause it's a nine to five. So it's not like a hundred percent pure silver. Um, so, you know, they'll buy it off of you. And so you're in like the back rooms of the diamond district over there on 47th street and, you know, dealing with, with all these people. And it was the first time we had ever done it so it was like sam essentially captured us learning on the fly and negotiating on the fly and like hindsight being whatever it is january 22nd like with the price of silver 200xing since then we made a horrible trade but there's no way to know um all of our all of our jewelry is made in italy um so yeah that was just like a one-off we had been accumulating since the start of the business like defect reject jewelry that we just needed to melt down yeah he he did a good job if a creator has been getting traction they have attention and they want to create a product and sell something what's a mistake that you see a lot of creators make when trying to turn the attention that they're getting on social into actual income oh man i don't know like i think your heart's really got to be in it i don't think everybody's made to be a business owner or run a business and just because you know you can garner views on on social media doesn't really mean that anyone's gonna like buy what you're making um and i think the customer is getting way smarter than they were even 10 years ago and they can kind of sniff out like when some thing's just a slap dab job and like there's no heart and soul behind it and like you really care about the products or the customers and it just feels like a cash grab like to me you might be able to make money a couple times doing that but after a certain period of time like I think it runs its course so but if they really care about starting a business and and wanting to have success like I would say it's got to be in something that you're passionate about uh because you need to take a step back and ask yourself like, okay, is this what I want to be doing for 10, 15, 20 years, not one, two years.

1:09:03Marcus Milione:And then it's all just going to magically work out. I'm going to be like big boss CEO. Like, no, like you got to be ready to just commit to it for a long time. So have there been people that have approached you that have wanted to invest to significant dollar numbers in Minted and why the decision to turn them down? Yes. Well, we're bootstrapped. And so that gives you a certain level of freedom to pretty much answer to nobody except yourself and your customers. And, you know, I think investment into businesses is demonized on social media. And it's usually because, you know, people feel that businesses' qualities suffer after they gain investment.

1:09:52But like, and I'm not going to get

1:09:55Marcus Milione:into the education of why it's very helpful, but like businesses require cashflow. And getting outside investment to facilitate and like relieve stress and stuff is a great thing for a business um and so like it sucks when i see it demonized uh because like at some point in minted's journey it's going to need to take on capital because like you know either growth is going to require it or whatever and it doesn't mean that everything just goes to shit and the whole thing blows up and like whatever. Like it just needs to be the right capital partner and, and right investors. And, um, they need to be aligned with your, your mission.

1:10:42Marcus Milione:And like, look, I, I met with a firm that wanted to invest and they're insanely great people and insane operators. And I like them a lot. I just didn't like the terms, but like, that's fine. You know, I think, I think like someday the right terms will come across and I'll be like this makes sense for fermented and like bootstrapping it's hard and there's a reason a lot of people don't do it like this shit is so stressful I've run the bank account down to like less than a thousand dollars so many times it's not even funny just because the industry we're in is so cash flow intensive that money goes out the door and it doesn't come back into the bank account for like nine months.

1:11:27Marcus Milione:So it's this juggling act. And yeah, capital helps relieve some of that pressure and also like give you more levers to pull to grow. Is it a common theme in clothing to go get business credit cards, put the, put the, like their inventory run on the business credit card and then wait and pay minimums or like, what is, what is a standard in this, in this world? I guess you could do that. I wouldn't do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm saying like, what can you do to make sure that you're getting income to pay these cards off so you're not getting screwed on interest? Because I mean, that first year you get 0 % APR on a lot of these cards, right?

1:12:10It's great. But then after the year, you're at 24%.

1:12:13Marcus Milione:I mean, yeah. I don't think you should put any like outstanding balance on a credit card. Like we have an Amex, but it gets paid off every single whatever, 30-day billing cycle, like fully paid. and I don't think you should carry a balance on cards. What you need to do is figure out a way to bolster your cash so that you can pay for your product and so that you're not carrying a high interest rate like that. I think that would be a terrible thing and probably kill your business. But as you establish relationships with your manufacturers, you can go to them and ask for terms. Like, look, instead of putting 50 % down and 50 % at completion to get these products, I want to put 30 % down and I want to pay you 90 days after these goods have arrived at our warehouse.

1:13:07Marcus Milione:So, like, there, you have really stretched your cash flow and that helps a lot. But those factories are not going to give you those terms until you establish, like, pattern with them and have proved creditworthiness. another option you have is you know like go to your business bank and be like we'd like to get a line of credit for x amount and that also helps yeah but it's it's a balance like for the first couple years we had no terms um and like no line of credit nothing so you're just take you take the profits and you reinvest it like you can't pull shit out because as soon as you start pulling money out of the business, you're handicapping yourself and you're essentially capping your growth.

1:13:53Marcus Milione:So you're pulling money out to do whatever you're doing by your watch that you were talking about. And you've now reduced how much you can grow the next time because you wanted your fancy little watch. You often hear founders talk about what got them to a certain level or point is not what's going to allow them to get to the next level. So what are you going to have to let go of, delegate, or change about the business, how it's operated today, or what your responsibilities are as a founder? What are you going to have to let go of to allow Minted to get to the next level over the next 5, 10, 20 years?

1:14:37Marcus Milione:Um, I think it's going to be a case of hiring and, and delegating off of my plate. Um, and I think this is where I probably am not doing a good job. Um, and like where I'm kind of failing as CEO founder, whatever. Like I, I still get stuck in the, I know exactly how I want it done and it'll be faster for me to just do it instead of teach somebody how to do it. And then, you know, obviously you teach someone they're going to make mistakes and that's all part of it. And I'm not like mad at anybody for doing that, but like, it's just will be less time for me to just do it myself. Um, and while yes, that might be true in the immediate, it's non-scalable and And like you're going to have to do it at some point.

1:15:27Marcus Milione:So I think I failed in my doing that well. As of recent, I've been trying to get better and like, you know, hand off more to everybody on the team and just coach them how to do it. And it seems that we're starting to see the fruits of that now. now but i i do think like to get us to the next level it's going to really take like you know trust in those people but also them you know stepping up to handle those responsibilities what do you feel like are those roles that you would love to see come in immediately and really help alleviate some stress like if you could if you could be like yeah if we get a player a player in this world what is it i that's a good question i think like a i don't know like a really good operations person who's been in the industry for a long time uh would be a huge unlock for us just because we'd all all three of us would be able to learn from them and like that's that's like invaluable having them come in with all of the mistakes they've made in their career already solved so we don't have to make them and you just pay them for it like man that's a pretty good deal uh because you're gonna make the mistakes and then be out money anyway so yeah i think like that that to me seems like like it would be a pretty big unlock uh outside of like you know paid advertising advertising probably impact like revenue bottom line fastest but like we had talked about kind of before the show i mean that's a tough person to find.

1:17:10Is there, let me rephrase the question. If you could go back and talk to yourself the day you quit your job and went full time and if there's like a piece of advice you could tell young Marcus, like what would you tell him to be able to either save him frustration or headache or fuck ups?

1:17:33Marcus Milione:That's a good question. I think like, I think honestly focus out of anything. We have what works for us, and we just keep drilling down on that. I think sometimes to my detriment, I want to explore so many different things with product categories and stuff that it distracts me. but you know it's a double-edged sword because it's worked for us in the past but like it's not always the right thing to be doing when it's a team of three people so you can only focus on so much um so just like staying focused on i don't know our our core competencies i guess would be would be a good piece of advice and like just strap in dude because lock in yeah it's it's going to get hard.

1:18:31Do you have desire to open a physical location, permanent, not pop up, multiple locations, like over the next, you know, 20, 30 years, like where do you see Minted going? Where do you want it to go? And like, what do you deem as successful? Besides, like you said earlier, you're like, I don't have to work for anyone and I get to design clothes for a living. like this is awesome. Yeah.

1:18:55Marcus Milione:I think, uh, physical retail is, is hugely interesting to us. Um, and I don't know what that looks like. Like there's just physical retail, but then I'm always a little more interested in like physical retail that is like more of an experience than anything else. And I've always wanted to, you know, I got a million ideas, but like, I'd love to have a physical retail store on the bottom of a building and then the top floor be like an incubator for other brands or other businesses that like are getting their start, but have nowhere to work or like we can offer them advice or like, I like being involved in that way.

1:19:31Um, and I thought you were going to go the route of, we got a sick gym up top. Yeah.

1:19:36Marcus Milione:I mean, that'd be nice too. Mark is just running now. He just needs a track. Like, yeah, I don't know how familiar you guys are with like Kid Super and Calm from Kid Super, but like he just did a tour of their like retail slash office slash recording booth slash soccer fields like like he's got this whole world built out there in Brooklyn it's like so cool to see um so while I I love the idea of retail stores where people can go in and like try stuff on physically and I think it makes the customer experience a little bit easier for them not having it be just retail. I like the idea of retail plus experience in some way.

1:20:20So are there any benefits to being in New York versus another big city like LA? I'm sure to do a clothing line, you can do it. Could you do it in the Midwest or like you got to be kind of either New York or LA? I think so. Like, yeah, I think so.

1:20:39Marcus Milione:I think within the age of the internet, everything is like way easier um you can connect with anybody anywhere in the world and uh and if you have an idea figure out a way to bring it to life um i think in new york or la you have more kind of apparel and garment related knowledge kind of centered and there's like a nexus forum in both in both areas uh and so when it comes to like pattern making or you know needing to adjust things and finding experts that can help you in doing that New York LA helps a lot but no I wouldn't like if it's a young person in the in the Midwest listening to this and like feels that they need to move to LA or New York to to get started I would tell them you don't and you know what you're probably better off saving the money in the Midwest and like just starting now don't wait because I think it's very easy to just want all of the pieces to be perfect before you actually even pull the trigger.

1:21:49Marcus Milione:And that ends up getting to the point where you never end up pulling the trigger and just starting, just start, just start, just start. That's my biggest thing is just start. How did the tariffs impact what you guys were doing? And what did those conversations look like to your community when it was, you know, talked about within your company? Yeah, I mean, they hit us just like they hit anybody else. And, you know, I think for us internally, it was a bit of a fire drill to figure out kind of what was going on. Because you had like the initial round and then like a second round of terrorists that were like way higher.

1:22:33Marcus Milione:And you're kind of like playing a waiting game thinking, you know, my internal thought was this hundred and some percent additional tariff is unsustainable for 99.9 % of businesses in the U.S. So, like, I know that the president doesn't want to kill all those businesses. It's more that he's trying to negotiate whatever is going on. And so I was hopeful that they would come back down. and I assumed that there would still be like an additional tariff. And it's still in place right now for you guys. Yeah. Okay. And we haven't raised prices. So we kind of just have eaten a bit of the margin, which is unfortunate.

1:23:16But at the end of the day, like our supply chain is in place

1:23:21Marcus Milione:and we're not like such a big player that it's easy for us to just like move around super easily. and also our manufacturing partners overseas, specifically in China, are like super talented. And, you know, there's a lot of misconceptions with Chinese manufacturing about it being low quality, whatever. Dude, we went out to China. We went out to Hong Kong. Dude, they're insane. We went to Shenzhen too. It's crazy. Insane. The craziest stuff that we've ever seen. And what I always try to educate people on is like, you can't reshore that very fast because like these machines and the supply chain they have in place is advanced because there's an incentive for them to invest money into the best machines and and everything else that goes along with it the u.s hasn't had that industry in that way in years and so like there is no reason for any of those companies to invest they will a lot of them don't exist, but invest, um, in any of that stuff here, because there is no return on that investment because people aren't manufacturing here.

1:24:27Marcus Milione:And so like the quality is bad coming out of China. If the input is bad and the company wants the lowest costs, everything. And like, like doesn't care about, you know, certain construction techniques and stuff like you can get the highest quality stuff, but you're going to have to pay for it like anything else. So when you're just like a low cost, I don't care about products and quality and stuff like, yeah, it's going to be bad, you know, but it doesn't have to be. Yeah. I think we were just mind blown because we went out to, we went out to China and do you know Daniel Dalen? Yeah. Okay. So he took us to, he was touring another, um, a new sunglasses factory because he has a sunglasses or a glasses company.

1:25:14And he was like, you guys should come to the factory and i was like okay you've heard about chinese factories like yeah i don't know what we're about to go see and we were like we left being like oh the u.s is brainwashed about made

1:25:29Marcus Milione:in china oh dude they're like hospitals they're like surgically insane yeah it was it was amazing too to just see it was all these different sheets of plastic millions of sheets of plastic you had all the turquoise ones like you know like your ones that you're wearing right now and you could see it on just a flat piece of plastic and then it went into this machine and it just was like coming out the other side all these little bricks and then it went another machine and then they were cut out with a laser and then there's saw all the different people i believe it was it's like 11 different touch points or something like that that i counted before the plastic reached like an end table and someone was stress testing it to make sure that it was actually going to go out to the public and you had a group of people that were just like bending them and turning them and making sure that they weren't going to break before it was tossed off the line into, you know, another bin that would be shipped out to like us or your brand or something.

1:26:22It was so cool. It's clean, beautiful, AC. I'm like, this is not what I expected. How did you form a relationship with your manufacturer and like, how did you get in contact with them? Did you test different ones before you landed on the final one?

1:26:36Marcus Milione:Yeah. So we, we ended it, we had tested a ton and have used a ton and like like i said like we have kind of manufacturers everywhere you know china is one but there's some in italy and stuff like that and um yeah you you end up testing a bunch of stuff essentially what we were doing was having the same the the product that we need made and like sending it out and seeing like what kind of quality was coming back from these factories and then kind of as you narrow that down it becomes a conversation with them about capabilities and you know how stringent are they on quality control and how stringent are they on like you know when you're sourcing materials knowing where everything's coming from and and so yeah over time you you build a relationship with them and we we haven't been out there yet but I think that's probably something we'll do in 2026 and I'm excited to meet the team like you talk to them every day yeah so it's uh you end up forming this like weird relationship where like you're on opposite time zones opposite side of the world you know you don't know if you're ever actually going to even meet each other but like you're so in the weeds on everything and like they go above and beyond for us we've had like last minute projects with like nike that we've had to make a collaboration piece on and they're like grinding it out for us and And it's, yeah, no, they're always like a pleasure to work with.

1:28:07I had no idea that you guys collabed with Nike.

1:28:09Marcus Milione:It's like a, it was like an intern. Well, we have another one actually like coming in March, but it's an internal thing. So it's for their Nike Indoor Nationals, like their athletes. How cool. Yeah. They came to us to, to work on like a collaborative jacket in the past. And then this year we're also doing another piece of apparel. So that's awesome. But yeah, you're working with Nike and everything has to be up to their legal standards. So everything's vetted, whatever, and everything passes. So it's a cool experience, but working with them for the first time, this is a huge big dog. And they have their legal team and you've got to answer.

1:28:51You need to say, me and my brother need a first class flight to Portland so you can see the Beaverton headquarters. Lay flat. It's crazy. I went to Nike University. oh yeah okay we got a very close uh you know sight as to what was going on like we would get the shoes before the basketball team and the football team would get that stuff and then we'd shoot it all and we'd be like we'd have to bring it in like a sack and they wouldn't let us like take it outside because no one could be able to see it and then we'd set up all these like hidden cameras for when they'd come into the room and see that stuff it was super cool to see like met tinker hatfield got to like talk to him about the jordans that they would design and stuff like that so it was very cool just to see and be around all of that it was nuts so interesting do you have a dream collab slash a product that you haven't made yet that you'd like to make slash here give me another one throw another slash you would you like to take minted in the direction of sponsoring athletes as well ooh slash I had them all on my mind I was gonna slash okay so wait

1:29:59Marcus Milione:the first one was um man uh that's a great question I think yes but I don't really I don't know off like the top of my head but I don't think they would be what you traditionally expect like Like, I don't think it would be another brand in the space. It would be more like, yeah, it would be more like institutions or something that has, like, for some reason I'm, like, connected to in some way or feel like a connection to. So I'll keep thinking about that, but I don't have any off the top of my head. Okay. Oregon X-Minted. Come in 2020. There you go. What was the second one? That might drop the stock.

1:30:53Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're funny, dude. Okay. It was, oh, man, I forgot my middle one. But do you want to, like, sponsor athletes?

1:31:03Marcus Milione:Yeah, I think so. But that's, like, an interesting, that's an interesting, like, field because you have, like, the way Nike did it, which was, like, world class. uh obviously with jordan and have you read shoe dog yeah great yeah i was like i feel like you would like it um and then you have like the quote-unquote sponsored athlete route that like a gym shark took where they had like a core group and then it expanded into like a lot more people and so i think our philosophy with that would be kind of more of the nike way that they went about it like the top athletes that you can get obviously like they didn't in the beginning like you can't just get whoever you want um and then like hopefully they develop into like world class uh i think like that's the approach we would take rather than just like the you know you have social media influencers that are like yes athlete yeah quotes yeah yeah to me like i grew up looking at Jordan and like when you were sponsored by a brand you were that was like the pinnacle of whatever um and so now it's I think for some people it's it's lost its meaning a little bit in that way and I think yeah it's cool to be like a brand ambassador sponsor whatever but I want it to be more of the aspirational part of of what Nike did with with their athletes okay and then oh I remember my last one is there a product you haven't made that you'd like to to make um I think I think a performance running shoe at some point would be a lot of fun um like start to finish you're saying start to finish under just under just minted other than that man I don't know I don't know my mind goes immediately to like some random shit that's like tech a new phone or just a huge Cuban yeah even chain yeah like i'll just start rocking like a 40 million yeah yeah yeah yeah that's perfect where did the name minted come from i don't know this so it was kind of it was like a saying that i i had used in college like if i liked something i'd be like oh that was mint uh and so pretty much just needed a name and i had not graduated all that long ago and so it was still like fresh in my mind and then um there's also the tie back to like minting a currency is like you're creating something of value and hopefully like it's what i would like to do with minted the brand so uh it's kind of like two ish things there i like it i love it man this has been this has been an incredible podcast ladies and gentlemen this has been episode 193 with marcus million 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 peace thank god we made it home we got a little delayed we were stuck in new york for quite a bit of time freezing you wanted to spend a little extra time in new york right yeah i did thankfully delta is gonna pay this back are they yeah yeah they are i called i called this morning yeah i was in a good mood too they caught me on a good day thankfully that guy on the other side all right here's what i think tell me we don't go to new york again in the winter in the winter nowhere you only go somewhere in the winter if you can ski Agreed.

1:34:26Ray, what'd you think of our boy Marcus? This was a super fun episode. One of the most requested. One of the most requested episodes we've probably ever had in the history of the 505, which was super fun to be able to sit down. Shout out to Sam Snowden for setting that up for us. He is a practitioner and he's a documentarian, honestly. He started this whole thing with no end goal really in mind. Like I think he just started documenting because it was interesting to him. It was fun. Well, he also started it without the. Yes, there's no like brand at the end of this tunnel. It wasn't like, let me start documenting the journey and I'm going to create minted.

1:35:06It kind of just came about. Many of the people that we've talked to on the show or friends of friends, friends that we've talked to that have businesses that are online or were built off the back of YouTube or Instagram or TikTok. A lot of them started with the end goal in mind of like, I'm going to show the process of building this or I'm going to first build an audience and my goal is to then create said product and that's what we're going to do. Like this is a problem in my life. I'm going to build this thing. His was very, oh, I built this engine accidentally and I have this great idea for a clothing brand.

1:35:37I should go out and pursue this because people were asking about different products that he was making, his necklaces or clothes that he was wearing. And he's like, you know what? I think I can actually go out and solve this problem that I'm seeing in the market. And from chatting with him, they put so much energy into those clothes. It's not just like the average consumer brand where they're just going overseas, getting a garment and then slapping their logo on. I mean, they're really sourcing these materials, figuring out premium collections and stories to go with the different things that they're putting out.

1:36:08I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and thought it was just really interesting to hear his insights on the brand and like how far they've come and where they're going in this next year. A big takeaway I took was how important or how much he cares about customer service and the actual product that he's providing to his customers. We didn't even have in the notes to ask him about the tariffs. And you brought it up at the end of the conversation. I was like, good fucking podcasting there. Come on. Just calling an audible. Yep. And he was like, yeah, we're getting affected by the tariffs, but we decided to not raise prices.

1:36:43And it seems like a lot of the stuff that he's doing is not maybe the best thing to do for making money for the business. For margins. Yes. But he's like, I don't care about that. He's like, I want to do this the right way. And I just really respect that about him. It was really refreshing to hear that, that it wasn't all just, I'm trying to maximize profit. I'm trying to figure out how we can get the lowest cost of these goods and sell it for the highest price. It's like he is really keeping his customers at the forefront of everything that they do. I think that's very admirable. It's how businesses should probably operate.

1:37:24Well, I mean, customers are the backbone of every successful business. It's the whole thing. If you don't have any customers, you don't have a business. There's a reason why you're able to eat the food that you're eating, have the car, have the house, the apartment, whatever, is because of the people that are supporting you. And I feel like a lot of brands get to a point, probably where they're at or even before where they're at, and they start to just lose track of that, of why they started and how important the customer is and how important their journey is, how making it easy for them to have your product if they want your product and all that good stuff.

1:37:56So I really like this pod. I also think a reason he's able to do that is because he's bootstrapped. He doesn't have investors or VC-backed money being like, hey, we need to turn as much of a profit as we can. And the fact that he is bootstrapped, it makes it a lot harder. And I also thought it was interesting that he brought up how taking on money to scale your business is not a bad thing. And it gets demonized a lot of times because I think people have the perception of a company taking on money and then the ethos of the business kind of falls apart. And he's like, that's not always the case.

1:38:38I don't like that taking on money is demonized. He goes, but I like the fact that I can just run my business exactly how I want to. And I don't have any outside influences trying to compromise the way that I want to run my business. Last night, I was looking at our thumbnails from like a couple of years ago and I was dying laughing because I'm like, man, these were so bad, but we had to go through that era to get to where we're at now. You know, I mean, we just passed 31 ,000 subs a couple of days ago. Come on. It's pretty sweet. Shout out to the rocks. But failure is not optional. We talked about that during the pod.

1:39:17It's required. It is something that you all are going to go through for whatever thing it is that you end up building. Clothing, fashion, digital business, podcasting, social career. You're going to suck at it. It's going going to be not very, it's not even be very fun all the time. There's going to be highs, there's going to be lows. And I think it's really important that you don't get too down in yourself when stuff is going down and you don't get too high on yourself when stuff's looking really good. Because a lot of the times like you'll get a huge win and then a huge L a couple hours later or a few days later.

1:39:48It's just the nature of being an entrepreneur and trying to figure out where the direction is that you're going to go. It's never going to be like a perfectly straight line. It's going to be over here, over there, over here. But you finally make it up to where you want to go. It's a common theme that we've heard multiple of our guests talk about. I just, I love also the fact that he brought up the valley of despair. And he's like, not me. You know, you might have gone through that, but not me. And he goes, he knew. He knew that I was going to go through it. And it's so true. Like you were saying, there's been times where, I mean, we've been doing this for over four years.

1:40:28There's been times where I've gotten discouraged. I never thought, oh, we shouldn't do this anymore. But I'm just, you get into the mindset of, we've been doing it for so long and we've been putting in so much work. Almost when's the break going to come? Or when are we finally going to see the fruits of our labor? And it can be easy to get down on yourself and get discouraged. But knowing that everyone who has had success in whatever field they're in, at some point goes through that, it's comforting. Because then if you are in a time of you're going through the valley of despair or things aren't looking great, if you can kind of shift your mindset of, oh, this is supposed to happen.

1:41:18Like this is part of the journey. If this wasn't happening now, it's going to happen at another time. so thank god it's happening now because once we get through this we're going to be bigger and better and stronger it's really a marathon too it's funny because he runs and stuff but it's it really is a marathon the entire game of whatever it is that you guys are doing realistically will probably take two to four times maybe even six seven eight times as long as you think it's going to take okay what's interesting i think i saw her mosey talk about this but he said that it doesn't make sense that entrepreneurship is like a marathon because the marathon you actually know when the finish line is.

1:41:56It's a long journey, but you know that there is an end in sight. And with business, maybe I guess if you have, you know, the goal to sell, but if Marcus's goal isn't to sell minted and it's what he wants to do for the rest of his life, it's almost harder than a marathon because there is no end in sight like there is no defined finish line well entrepreneurship to me is a game that you just get to keep playing as long as you don't run out of money you get to keep we get to keep doing the show every week as long as we don't run out of money sure like that is the game that we're playing and with anything that you do as a business owner restaurant whatever the heck the thing is physical digital it's how long you can keep playing and keep surviving, whether it's off a damn credit card, whether it's off savings, whether it's off a loan, whatever the heck the thing may be.

1:42:49It's like every little business has a lump sum of money that's like, this is our runway. And we have to figure everything out that we can to keep this going and keep making money, keep getting leads to keep playing the game because the game is super fun and you don't want to, you don't want to not play this game. Yeah. I also thought was interesting what he said about trusting his taste and just making products that he wanted to make or that he wanted in the marketplace that didn't exist yet it reminded me of the episode with Ross McKay where he was like most products that are made are built out of a founder seeing a gap in a marketplace or having a personal problem like it's a lot of these products are built off of personal need.

1:43:36And so I think for Marcus, it reminded me too, it's, it wasn't just, I want to make, you know, a cool clothing brand. It's, I actually have a desire for a certain part or, or like a very specific type of clothing. It's not out there. I'm going to go make it and I'm going to trust my taste that people are going to like it too. And also, also reminds me of Max tuning. He's like, this sour candy doesn't exist. So I'm going to go make get because he wants the perfect sour candy. Yeah. Most of the businesses that will be successful won't be like the thing that's never been done before. Yes. 99 % of them.

1:44:13It's going to be an iteration of something that's already out there. A drink, a CPG good, a digital product, whatever the heck it is. It's like you, you don't need to think too far outside of the box, figure something out that annoys you about a space. And chances are there's probably another handful of people that are also equally as annoyed as you are about that specific thing. Also going back to where you brought up a little bit earlier about him just being so dialed on sourcing high quality stuff and how much he cares about his community. It was interesting with the pop-ups. He's like, I'm typically no help to the team on the days that we do these in-person events.

1:44:50But people come from all over. I didn't even realize people were flying in from out of the country. Like that is insane to think about. you've built up such an incredible community and your products are at a certain level that people not only love you but they love the products that you're creating enough to not just take time out of their day because they live in New York and like I'm gonna come hang out it's like you're flying not even you got to get the passport you know what I'm saying I don't know how many brands or people, I would choose to fly overseas to go experience something. There's definitely a few, but it's a few.

1:45:31Yeah. It's definitely very sparse. And to think that they have that sort of, that sort of pole is amazing. It's so cool to see where their brand has gone. And it's great research for them to be able to see the people in person and understand like what they like and what what they're wearing, what clothes are they like, are they interested in? Are they all rocking the same crew neck or something? It's, it's interesting because we're talking about like smaller brands have this great thing at their disposal. Many times if, especially if it's founder led, like Marcus, he can just DM someone. Yeah.

1:46:01What did you think about this hoodie? What could we have done better? What did the tank not do correctly? Or what can these shorts be better for your runs or whatever? And that's really interesting. I think it's something that every single small business should implement into what they're doing. If you like have the capacity to go and, which we all do, to go to your customer and say, hey, what did you think about this? How can we make it better? You're always going to continue to make a better product and people are going to keep coming back to your thing. Yeah, I also love how much confidence he has in his brand.

1:46:33Even though they are in the grand scheme of things, still in the early stages of it, they've been doing it for, I think, five years, maybe six years at this point. has it been six no five years it was night 2019 i believe 2019 right before covid yeah i believe so so yeah maybe maybe six solid years yeah but in the grand scheme of things like not that long yeah um but i love that he has the confidence of you know if a big brand um like a sock in the year and nike comes he's like we can hang you know we might not be like as globally recognized yet as Nike or Saucony, but we're getting there. And I have confidence enough in myself to be able to deliver on something amazing and be able to hang with the big boys.

1:47:20Yeah. And their team seems very dialed on their individual roles. Yeah. Like having people that are like, you own this thing. This is your only thing. Yeah. It was super fun. I'm glad that we ended up making it out. We were out there for an art list event and then got to piggyback some pods out of it, which was epic. I am super excited just about these next few months. We've been putting out a YouTube video every week. Dude, they're fun. Just crazy. Shout out to you, Lee. Been cooking these up for us. And it's on our second channel, which is the Beefy and Costa's channel. It's exciting. We'll leave that below.

1:47:53So if you haven't checked it out, definitely go check it out. We've been brainstorming what the videos we want to make are, how we can make them different. We're really trying to lean into the fact that there's two of us because I think that isn't an unfair advantage. so we might be doing some funny bits and just some banter yeah it's gonna be it's gonna be epic i also have to tell you guys so when we were in new york we first of all cancel our flight right they move it back like 16 times and i'm like okay we're gonna be stuck here so i call american express this guy books us this one thing i was trying to really push for a single bed like one bed i know you were but they only had the double beds every time we check into a hotel brain's like why are you giving me the double bed it's weird because i always ask for the single you always ask for a single yeah and i get it because i mean chloe's told me that you guys you need to like snuggle with something to be able to get a good night's sleep exactly and you know if she's not there exactly and i am i get it yeah um makes me a little bit uncomfortable but like you know we're close yeah and they keep giving us the double beds but at midnight we were up kind of late and we hear like a fire alarm what's going on over there and i'm like dude it's gotta be nothing it's gotta be nothing and then all of a sudden you start hearing really loud knocks on doors and you could kind of hear like someone was in a swamp outside i'm like what's going on outside man open the door just water all the way like probably what a good inch of water we didn't even need to open the door it had flooded into our yeah into our room into the room Yeah, it was pretty close to just engulfing all the equipment, which would have been awesome.

1:49:37Would have been super fun. Thank God they gave us 200 bucks off. I mean, what would we have done without that? Well. Worst hotel. Do not stay. It kind of offsets because that's about how much our Chipotle ended up netting out. Oh, we got, dude, this is insane. So first of all, there's no, nothing's open, which makes sense. It's snowing. I remember this when we were in school, in college at Oregon, there was a snow day. And dude, you don't understand what we had to eat. It was like the most random shit. You're just finding like, oh, we have some crackers. We couldn't go to the grocery store. You don't think that I know about a snow day?

1:50:09You guys had lots of snow days. I'm saying for the rocks and maybe you're in the West Coast. There's Miami rocks. There's some West Coast kids, you know. So we basically are stuck there and we're trying to Uber Eats food. So there was one place that we call and they're open. So we get the food. Hour goes by. I'm like, that's normal. 90 minutes. I'm like, dude, we're dying. It's like 830 at night. We're like, we're starving. and we gave him a call and she's like yeah we're looking at about 25 orders that haven't been picked up for uber eats because there's no drivers i'm like okay so we're gonna have to hike somewhere and we walked out if we walked outside immediately turned back around we're like dude it is nine degrees and the snow is just pumping into your face i counted or i looked at how long the video was because you filmed the whole thing it's 38 seconds from the time we step outside to you see me turn around and go we should uber well it's because we thought it was a good idea we could have walked it wasn't that it was necessarily like so fucking cold it was cold yeah it was survivable though survivable it's that there was so much snow that we couldn't walk on the sidewalk and we had the perfect shoes yeah there's nothing better than a pair of air force once yeah it was like honestly snowstorm just prime prime but um yeah new york's always a good time just oh and then we fucking bumped into tej patel randomly in time we're walking we were walking to the subway to go to the art list event and tej just pops out of nowhere dude small team big checks that was so funny randomly seeing him i was like turn around tripod in hand it's gotta It's got to be, Tash.

1:51:47It was so funny. What else? What a time, dude. Really, what a time. Oh, we're headed out to Panama. We're going to Panama. You're going for a really long time. I'm going for a couple days, just liggity split. We got some ads to make out there and some fun stuff. We're going to go for a good time. So shout out to Alex Lawson. And he got a villa in Panama. For free 99. For free 99 in exchange for content. And guess what? It's what me and Fig want to do. So he hit us up. and he's like, yo, you boys want to come out? He made it sound like there's enough beds for everybody. So that one we will actually be sharing a bed at, which is hilarious.

1:52:28But, you know, FIG's balancing. We're going to build a fort. Yeah, we are going to build a fort. You're balancing production company. Yeah, we got a shoot for NBA All-Star Weekend, which is all good, dude. Two shoots on the same day. But it's also, guys, where we're staying, it's not easy to get to. No, we're literally, it's far. I mean, we're taking a speedboat, a little tiny hopper plane, a big plane, two big planes. So you're literally going to be there for a day and a half and then have to bounce. Yep. Which sucks, but I'll be holding it down. Hold it down for us, dude. Hold it down for us.

1:53:01Yeah, so that'll be fun. It's going to be epic. And we've been going every day on the gram, which has been super fun. I've been going every day. I've been going every day. Have you been going every day? 10 days in a row. There you go. 10 days in a row. Dude, you kind of unlocked a new format though for yourself. Yeah, I just keep seeing that people talk to the camera. Like, dude, I could talk to the camera. Give me a mic, dude. I'll talk to the camera. Lock me in. You should change your username to highest up wellness. Even higher, even higher up wellness. This has been a trend. First of all, this has been a thing on TikTok for the last five years, I want to say.

1:53:37I've been seeing like... Just yap sessions. Yeah, people just talking straight to the camera. I have a theory. that we're just very tired of seeing all the most polished things. I think many people are like, I want to see a regular person telling me about the thing. Like easy, no filter bullshit. Sure. No crazy B-roll. I still think, I personally, I don't want that to be my whole thing because it bores me. It's super boring. It's super easy. Just talking to a kid. Yeah, it's boring. It's like, I can do it in 10 seconds. I can do it on my, thinking about ideas, I write in my notes real quick at the gym.

1:54:14I'm like, I could do that in five seconds. There's no, it, it is a skill to be able to talk to a camera and articulate your thoughts cleanly, but there's no, there's no skill required to, in my opinion, like, it's not like a, I think you're under my underestimating that. Yeah, really. Maybe, maybe we've just made videos for so long. Okay. Let me rephrase that. I know there's a skill required. It doesn't challenge me. So therefore it's not as interesting to me. There's no challenge for me to do that. It's hard to make a real video, to sit down and script a video and edit a video and come up with a concept is difficult in my opinion.

1:54:49Whereas that is no friction for someone who gets paid to talk into a microphone. Well, then I think you need to lean into it if it's so easy for you. No, I agree. I agree. I'm going to do your money where your mouth is. I'll do one a day. Okay, here. Okay. Okay. I have a thing for you. What do you got for me? If it's so fucking easy. Tell me, dude. go every single day with a yap sesh plus some days double down and do like a different type of content i was watching a clip bitch i'll do it dude i'll do it i'll i'll do it okay it's interesting though i i do go back on my thing i think it's difficult to talk to a camera no no i just think i think it's not stimulating classic thing i think it's not back on his It's not stimulating as someone who has all the skill set of all this other shit.

1:55:37Yeah. Like we have all this stuff. Like it'd be like kind of crazy if I was like, I'll never make a cool video like that. Well, no, I don't think it's, I don't think, I think you need to change your mindset. I think that it's a skill that you're incredibly good at talking to camera. Use that to your fucking advantage, even though it's not stimulating. So then half your videos or maybe less have it be the talking to camera. and it is almost like your filler content. Agreed. Because it's an easy piece of content to make. Correct. Easier for you. Definitely, definitely. Not for me. Takes me 20 tries to get one usable video.

1:56:14We were talking to Michelle about this, who's in our Paid to Be You cohort, and she was explaining that's how she really blew up on TikTok like five plus years ago. Like she was just talking to the camera, very lo-fi, no filters going on. And I just think it's funny because I keep seeing these videos pop up on my feed that are just like that, that are talking to the camera. What drives me crazy, though, is when a 16-year-old's like screaming at me. I've been getting hit with these all the time. I'm like, dude. The 16-year-old life coach? Yeah, yeah, just like screaming at me. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, dude.

1:56:46I'm just like, I'm just trying to get my yerba mate drink right now, dude. I don't need to be yelled at right now, bro. I guess you and I have four you pages a little different. I don't know why. You're having 16-year-old girls on your...

1:57:02I got some kid in high school He's like you need to get a job You can do your ice bath Relax dude Go do your homework or something Are you talking about the young kid No that kid's funny That kid killed me I don't know The steak situation He's like I don't party We know you don't buddy I don't party

1:57:26Marcus Milione:Dude dude dude chill Chill, chill, chill. Just go to school, man. Go to school. What else? Oh, dude, we got cool pods coming up for you guys. I'm not going to tell you who, but we got a couple cool ones that are locked in. You guys are going to be learning a lot about systems, a lot about selling stuff. It's going to be epic these next few weeks. And don't you guys worry, because we're going to keep flying out to get you guys good guests. We just got to recoup a little bit of bread. Yeah. And we're going to get Ak out there for the rocks. I think we have a couple of places that are in mind. Dude, I think there's a UK trip later this year.

1:58:02It's happening. Yeah. I think we need to get out there to the London town. I'd love to. I've never been. Really? Yeah. I'll hold your hand. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been episode 194 of the 505 podcast. If you're still here, please hit the subscribe button. Drop us a comment. Leave us a like. We'll see you guys all next week. Peace.