👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨 “Bring a Friend” — Hinge’s double-date. Netflix’s fake K-Pop band. Golf’s profit puppy.

0:28This is Nick. As usual, Jack and I will keep you updated as always, as this develops. But in the meantime, Jack, you've got a concert to go to tonight, don't you? Dude, Mumford and Sons, and the rumor is that Noah Kahn is going to come on stage. And I hope they bring you up on stage, Jack. Keep up a takeaway up there. If they bring me on stage, I'm taking my shirt off. You heard it here first. That's some pop biz, baby. But Jack, we have three fantastic stories for today's show. What do we got on the T-boy? For our first story, one brand is defying the dating app downturn. It's Hinge, where their users jumped 18 % last quarter.

1:03Because Hinge found the route to a woman's heart, the double date. For our second story, the number one movie on Netflix right now is also the number one album on Spotify, K-pop Demon Hunters. Real title. That's the name, K-pop Demon Hunters. It reveals the most important metric in the whole media industry. For our third and final story, despite a brutal summer of rainy weather, Titleist Golf just had its best quarter ever. So Jack and I dove in T-boy style on why golf balls are bigger than golf clubs. But yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. A fantastic mix of stories to go into a weekend.

1:41Love the mix. The Drink of the Summer 2025, Nick and I predicted right before Memorial Day that it would be the margarita. Ah, the margarita, because in moments of instability like right now, consumers crave comfort. But it turns out we were wrong. Yeah, we were wrong. The drink of the summer is actually the Spaghet. Not spaghetti. It's the Spaghet. Jack and I will explain. A Spaghet is a bottle of Miller High Life where you pour out a little bit of the beer and replace that space with an Aperol shot and then a squeeze of lemon. It's basically a cheaper version of an Aperol spritz. It's a spritz dupe.

2:17It's also known as a NASCAR spritz or a hobo Negroni. Or the Trailer Park cocktail. It doesn't sound like my kind of drink, but let's roll with it, Jack. Dude, I've had one. I know. It has the same core flavor profile of an Aperol Spritz. You know, carbonation with a twist of fruit. But instead of 15 bucks, it's only going to cost you five. Because it traded out the fancy Prosecco for the cheapest beer in the bar. It's a financial trick shot. That's what we find fascinating. 80 % of the taste for 50 % of the cost. 100 % of the satisfaction. And this summer, sales are surging for this Aperol Spritz dupe.

2:54Get this. According to Square, orders for spaghetes are up 65 % from last year. Since 2022, orders for spaghetes are up 1 ,000%. Spaghetes, spaghetes, whatever. It actually was invented in Baltimore 10 years ago. Yeah. Daiquiri's in football. That's what Marilyn does. I think it's spaghetes in football. Because in this economy, you sub out the tariffed Italian Prosecco for the untariffed American beer. By the way, Yetis, I was served my first spaghet at the after party of our live show. And I didn't pay for it. I was a witness. A lovely Yeti who flew in from Dallas bought one for me. It was great.

3:29And you know what, besties? We can still taste the savings. Let's hear our three stories. One more round! Spaghet's on us! Fifteen years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is the norm. Jack Nick, that's it. I don't even think they need to practice. 50%, that's a fat tip. T-Boy City on your at-list. If you know, you know, cause we ready to go. We can't wait no more, so just start the show.

4:02Start the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor.

4:13Indeed. Oh, we missed the deadline. My recording device is having issues. Our contractor pretended to be sick. I know he's watching the World Cup matches, Jack. Or how about this? Elon just tweeted something at 3 a.m. that completely changes the takeaway on our second story. We gotta re-record the show. Besties, when workplace chaos hits you, you need the right hire. And this is a job for sponsored jobs. Indeed, sponsored jobs gets you quality candidates when you need them most. We produce a daily episode of this show, 250 episodes a year. Sometimes we need help, we need it fast. So spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes.

4:45Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners of this T-Boy show will get a$75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this show. Indeed.com slash podcast and mention T-Boy. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Monarch. Yeah, it is. You know my first money lesson? It was where to put our lemonade stand.

5:21I was wondering, it was on the Upper East Side. Do we do it on Lexington Avenue or Park Avenue? Wait a second. New York City has lemonade stands on the sidewalk? They didn't. We were pioneers, Jack. Lexington Avenue is more commercial. Park is more residential. So what did we learn, Jack? Families are willing to pay more for lemonade. So you set it up on Park. Yeah, we did it on Park. Besties, no one gives you financial lessons in life. You end up figuring most of it out as you grow up. But we love Monarch because it's like a financial advisor in your pocket. Because every minute, it's tracking your savings, spending, investments, and more.

5:47For instance, Monarch's goal tracking feature shows if you're on track for that summer trip to Santa Fe. And it tells you what percent of your income is going somewhere that's a surprise. I open Monarch all the time because it takes the mental load off tracking my finances. And whether you're single, you're in a family, or you're dinking it up, Monarch's the way. Our personal fave, the AI Weekly Recap. A once-per-week gut check on what you did with your money. Hey, Nick, you've spent 96 bucks at kids' lemonade stands since July. Yeah, because we pioneered it for him, Jack. Resties, write your own story with Monarch.

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7:00For our first story, who says dating apps are dead? Your single friend might, but Matchstock just jumped 10 % on a dating app turnaround led by Hinge. Hinge has revealed the secret to a woman's heart is a double date. Ah, Yetis, Tinder fatigue, swipe sickness, bumble burnout. The macro theme in the dating game? Yeah, Jack? I'm done letting algorithms decide my date. Even though the dating app industry is tariff proof, dating app stocks, they are down, the users have been lost, and profits have been cut. Just about every dating app stock is down at least 80 % from their all-time high. Instead, for Gen Z, their meet-cutes are IRL again.

7:43Run clubs, book clubs, going clubbing at actual clubs. People are trying to meet other people in person. Jack, our creative director, Rachel, she met a guy when she got injured at a triathlon meet, right? I think he was a medic. Yeah. She's the first person to request CPR. No, no, no. She's the first person to give her insurance number before her phone number. I think I need mouth now. I'm not sure if you do, but we'll roll with it. Yetis, this has led to such surprising news. Jack and I had to cover it. And the news is from Hinge. Hinge announced yesterday that the number of paying users rose 18 % last quarter for their parent company, Match Group.

8:20Tinder actually shrank again, but Hinge's revenue jumped 25%. Revenue per a paying user, it's up to$10 a month. Now, the context here, Hinge is the more mature dating app. It's less hookup, more Apple picking in October with a very nice sweater hookup. Both Tinder and Hinge are owned by Match, and the stock jumped 10 % yesterday. Yeah. Hinge is crushing it. Those aren't our words. Yeah. Those are the CEO's words. The first time we've ever heard crushing it on a corporate earnings call, and we're cool with it. So, Nick, what is Hinge doing that Raya, The League, and OkCupid aren't? Well, here's what we discovered.

8:54Hinge is focused on females. As the CEO put it, the Hinge team put a significant focus on the female experience. For example, Hinge's cut down on ghosting with a reminder to get guys to respond to your DMs. Come on, guys. Come on, man. Hinge's found an interesting balance. They're not explicitly female first, like Bumble. They're more female-influenced when developing new features. Right. And that female focus, it has also influenced Tinder with their new feature, double dating. You and another single friend who's on Tinder can become a package deal on the dating app. Basically, if you want to date us, bring a friend because we are double date only.

9:33And last quarter, Tinder launched the double date feature to couple up. And the numbers have been fantastic. Users are in love with it. What are we seeing, Jack? Women are three times more likely to send a reaction and four times more likely to match when one of them are using the double date feature. But women have become the power users. A third of Tinder is now using this double date feature. 26-year-old Sarah is sick of swiping on dating apps. Yep. But it becomes a more fun activity if her roommate Ruby gets to team up with her. So add it all up and Tinder's business model just got saved by a wing woman.

10:06Even if the date is a disaster, Sarah and Ruby can go to another place and laugh about it. Yeah, and it's probably more fun. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the dating apps? Products are like real relationships. You gotta keep them spicy. Says the guy taking his shirt off at a concert tonight. Yetis, last time we covered dating apps, it was in April. Tinder had just tested out a new thing called the Flirt Bot. It's basically an AI chatbot in your DMs to help you improve your pickup lines. But so far, it sounds like that hasn't worked. They haven't mentioned this Flirt Bot feature on their earnings call.

10:43It seems like it failed. But Tinder also launched their double date feature. And that feature has worked. Yes, it has. And that's a reminder to all of us to A-B-L-E. Always be launching everything. Some features stick, some features stink. You can't predict how people will respond. But either way, Match kept it spicy by launching a whole bunch of features to revive their business. And the double dating feature worked, and it helped boost the stock by 10 % yesterday.

11:13For our second story The top movie on Netflix right now Is also the top music on Spotify K-pop Demon Hunters The wild success of this cartoon band Reveals the number one metric you need to know about Time spent Time spent Speaking of time spent Yeti's Jack and I were watching some Netflix over the weekend we noticed something interesting and we had to dive in T-boy style. The number one album in the world right now is a soundtrack to a Netflix cartoon movie. Netflix and Spotify is like a cultural merger we're going through, Jack. Let's break it down. Let's break it down. K-pop demon hunters. Yep.

11:57The protagonists of this movie are a K-pop girl band and their music, which is fictional, is fire. In fact, seven of the top 11 songs in America right now, according to Spotify, are from this K-pop Demon Hunter animated movie. And those same seven songs are also in Spotify's top 20 globally. Basically, they're making BTS blush right now. Now, I've been listening to the music all morning as I researched this story. I'm officially a fanboy. You going to that concert too, Jack? So wait, let me just add this up for a sec, man. All right, we got a fictional band that is the top real band on Spotify, and it's been in the Netflix top 10 movies for seven weeks now?

12:39Yeah, it's not K-pop, it's fake pop. But it's real. But yet, this is what we discovered. This movie that we're talking about right now, it's actually been watched twice as much as the movie theater blockbusters this year. What the heck is K-pop Demon Hunter? Okay, we'll explain. K-pop Demon Hunters is an animated movie. It's produced by Sony and it is streamed right now on Netflix. Here's the plot. There are these demons in Korea that suck the souls out of people. And the only way to defeat them is with music. For hundreds of years, there's been one K-pop girl band that slays those demons and they do it with singing.

13:17But here's the conflict. This latest evolution of demons, they transformed into a K-pop boy band. And this K-pop boy band are absolute heartthrobs. So the people they're trying to victimize are total fanboys just like me. Add it all up in the soundtrack that is number one on Spotify, it's half sung by the K-pop Demon Hunters and half sung by the Demon Boy Band. Now here's what we found fascinating. This movie is the number one most watched movie in the world this year by 2X. All right, we got the numbers. The number one box office US movie is Lilo and Stitch with a billion dollars in revenue. And if you assume a$6 per ticket global average price, that means it's been watched by 170 million movie theater goers.

14:06Okay, but K-pop Demon Hunter on Netflix? It's been viewed 159 million times. Slightly less than Disney's Lilo and Stitch, but still rising fast. But Nick, that's not apples to apples. Right. Because Netflix isn't watched alone. The average Netflix view includes two people or more. So, by our math, K-pop Demon Hunters is actually the number one watched movie on Earth. Not just number one, it has twice as many views as the top theatrical blockbuster. Sit down, stand up, and sing it all over again. Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at K-pop Demon Hunters? Netflix understands the metric that matters, but Hollywood doesn't.

14:50Yetis, yesterday, Jack and I covered Disney's earnings report. We told you about it, but we didn't mention that Disney subscribers have actually stopped growing. Disney is pretty much topping out at 185 million subscribers. That's a little more than half of Netflix subscribers. So why is Disney's audience half as big as Netflix's? Well, they're not looking at the right metric over at Disney. Netflix's hero metric is the same hero metric of TikTok, Instagram, Duolingo, and all the other tech companies. It's time spent. Netflix doesn't care about winning Oscars or box office revenues. Those are vanity metrics to these guys.

15:26What they care about is how much time their subscribers spend watching Netflix. Or another way to think about this, a Hollywood executive ain't interested if you watch for two minutes or two hours because both those viewers pay them the same amount. Old school execs are like, who cares? As long as they're paying, I don't care how much time they spend. But a Netflix exec knows that more time spent is a reflection of more love and that you're more likely to stay subscribed for a longer period of time. So K-pop Demon Hunter, it's not on the list of top box office movies, but it's number one where it matters.

15:58Time spent. Now a quick word from our sponsor. NetSuite next. Yetis, they say time travel is not possible. But have you heard of this theory? Every day your business is late to AI, you fall two days behind. Therefore, if you get ahead of AI, that means you're basically traveling two days into the future. I'm actually fact-checking that math with Christopher Nolan right now. Yeah, we got to double-check that. But that is definitely how NetSuite Next works, because the next leap in how business gets done is by sticking AI into everything you do. NetSuite by Oracle helps you do that. It automatically surfaces custom insights because their AI has the context of all your business data.

16:35AI agents work with you to solve daily problems, saving you time and money. And anytime you have a question, you just ask them like they're your colleagues. So besties, if you aren't sure how to use AI for your company, this is honestly the perfect place for you to start. NetSuite. And once you use it, it'll feel like time travel with Michael J. Fox in a good way. So Yetis, for the first time ever, you can try NetSuite Next for free. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, go to netsuite.ai slash tboy. Built for every industry, ready for every boardroom, netsuite.ai slash tboy. This episode is brought to you by Bill, the intelligent finance platform that helps businesses scale with proven results.

17:10Yetis paying and getting paid, That is a pain for small and medium-sized businesses. Jack, did you send the invoice? Did they see the invoice? Did you remember to remind them to see to pay or remember to pay the invoice? If you drop the ball in any one of those steps, you don't get paid. Nope. And you're missing out on cash flow. You should not have to chase your customers. This isn't tags. So powered by AI, Bill does all that, simply and automated so that you don't have to. ACH, credit card, check, international wire transfers. They probably do carrier pigeon Bill Pay if that's how you want to get paid.

17:41Bill is the intelligent finance platform trusted by nearly half a million businesses and 98 of the top 100 U.S. accounting firms to manage, move, and maximize your money. They have securely processed over a trillion dollars in real transactions. That is proven infrastructure you can actually trust. So besties, talk to an expert at bill.com slash proven and get$150 gift card as a thank you. That's bill.com slash proven. Terms and conditions apply. See offer page for details. For our third and final story, Titleist, the number one ball in golf, is now the number one ball on the stock market as well.

18:16Titleist just announced record revenue for its five different golf brands, but their business model is the same as your printer. Yes, it is. But Jack, I mean, is there any better brand exposure than being the punchline in a joke on Seinfeld? That's a life goal for us right here. Push and play. I could barely see from the waves crashing down upon me, but I knew something was there. So I reached my hand in, felt around, and pulled out the obstruction.

18:51But is that a title list?

18:58Title list. Yeti, sometimes Jack and I get frustrated when a corporation misses an opportunity to brand their company to the public. Because one publicly traded company owns only golf brands. They own Titleist. They own Scotty Cameron. They own Pinnacle. They own Foot Joy. They own all of them. But instead of calling themselves Golf Corp, Birdie Holdings, or Four Play Inc., they called themselves a kushnet. This is a pure play putter stock, and yet their name is a kushnet? No, I guess it's named after the river in the city where the company was founded, which is in Massachusetts. Just outside Boston.

19:33But we think Akushna should actually be called Titleist, because Titleist is their biggest brand in golf, and it's 63 % of this company's sales. If they were called Titleist, Cosmo Kramer would be a shareholder. Well, this brand, well, this golf company just had its best quarter in golf history. Record revenue, record profit, and the stock is sitting close to an all-time high. They just tapped, tapped, tapped, tapped, tapped it in. So besties, here's what Jack and I are thinking. Like a golfer who just finished 18, how about we count up a cushion at score for the past five years? Gladly, Nick.

20:09The pandemic created a ton of new American golfers. Oh, we're talking huge numbers here, right, Jack? Revenue for this golf company today is 2.5 billion a year compared to one and a half billion pre-pandemic. And you know what? You can actually see those new golfers in this company's financial numbers. Nick and I jumped in T-boy style to the 2021 annual report. In that year, golf club sales grew twice as fast as golf ball sales. Now, here's why that's interesting. Usually, it's the opposite. Because you only need golf clubs every five to ten years, but you need new golf balls all the freaking time.

20:44I go through three sleeves per hole, Jack, and that's a record. Dude, I love Lynx courses because you can always find your ball. I just take other people's balls. I'll admit it here. Victimless crime. Now, despite the brutally wet early summer we've had in 2025, Akushnet reported solid golf ball sales in the second quarter. All of the northeast of this country had almost 25 straight weekends of rain this year. It was brutal. As a result, I've only played two rounds this year. But golfers still bought umbrellas. But apparently golfers were buying umbrellas. Actually, Nick, golfers bought golf umbrellas from Akushnet.

21:19Yeah, we see that too. Golf gear was the fastest growing category for the company by far this year. But this part's interesting. If you think about it, there's a direct correlation between the number of golf balls purchased and the amount of golf being played. And the number of golf balls bought remains about 40 % higher than before the pandemic. The pandemic golf boon has not waned. So Jack, gold jacket, green jacket, what's the takeaway, Jack, for our buddies in the golf industry? Even though printers are dead, the printer and ink business model lives on. Yetis, new golf clubs are very expensive, but surprisingly, they also don't make much profit.

22:00Think about it. Golf clubs are costly to make. There's a bunch of different lengths. There's different pitches. You need a left-handed and a right-handed variation. Ah, but balls, on the other hand, are much more uniform, so the factory can pop out a million of those balls way more efficiently. That's why golf balls are about 20 percentage points more profitable than golf clubs. And that's why Titleist is happy to offer you a discount on that nice new set of irons because that buyer is a ball buyer for the rest of their life. And the balls are where the real profit is made. Besties, this is the same business model as the printer.

22:32The printer is the unprofitable part. And the printer ink. That's the profitable part. Because the profits are in the balls.

22:44Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for the real Friday? Match's dating stock rebounded 10 % yesterday. Thanks in part to Hinge and the double date feature in Tinder. Products, they're like real relationships. You gotta keep them spicy. For our second story, K-pop Demon Hunters is the number one movie and the number one album in the world right now. And it shows the media metric that matters most. Time spent. And our third and final story is a kushnet. The pure play golf stock that owns Titleist just reported record sales of golf balls. Is that a pro-v1? Even though printers are dead, the printer ink business model, it lives on in golf.

23:26But yetis, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, OpenAI just launched ChatGPT5, their new and improved version of the flagship chatbot. Will we notice a difference? Probably not, but techies swear this is a big deal. Apparently it's going to use fewer em dashes and be less sycophantic in its compliments. Not going to suck up to you as much, you know. It'll apparently give quicker answers too. That's a great description, Jack. And second, the IPO market is hot right now. Firefly, the developer of rockets and other space vehicles, is up on the New York Stock Exchange.

24:02A$10 billion valuation after the stock opened 50 % higher. Firefly barely makes revenue, but they are developing reusable rockets just like SpaceX. So it's a proxy to SpaceX. Right. SpaceX, unfortunately, continues to be a sumo stock. Yeah, and what's a sumo stock, Jack? If you want to invest in SpaceX, sadly, you're missing out. S-U-M-O, straight up missing out. And finally, remember we covered breast milk flavored ice cream in the spring on a T-Boy episode? It's from a company, Frida Baby, which makes baby goods. They wanted to raise awareness for their products. It was a product advertisement, a product advertisement.

24:39Well, that breast milk ice cream launched yesterday and it's already sold out. Although t-shirts are available. You can get the merch. I know what you're wondering. It's flavored like breast milk. It's not real breast milk. Yes. Made out of dairy. Exactly. But it tastes like breast milk, apparently. Now time for the best fact yet, which is actually a correction from Yeti's Jack Leonard and Thomas Sexton. We did a story this week on the New York Post, which calls itself the longest running daily newspaper in America. And the Post was founded by Alexander Hamilton. But Jack and I were surprised that wasn't mentioned in the musical about Hamilton.

25:13And therein was the correction. Hear, hear. Hamilton the Musical does explicitly credit Alexander Hamilton with founding the New York Post. It's true. It was just mentioned so quickly in the rap lyrics that I somehow missed it, even though I've seen this play like eight times. Here's the actual lyric. How does Hamilton, the short-tempered protein creator of the Coast Guard, founder of the New York Post? Okay, I missed it. I'm sorry. Also, Jack, I got one more correction. This one sent in by Molly Martell, my wife. Oh, boy. Okay, did I say something? No, I said this week we have all those brands in our closet, fashion brands.

25:49Okay. She wanted to clarify, she does own Lululemon and Quince, but she does not own any Cezanne anymore. And she's never owned Viore. She's owned Athlana. Dude, that's so funny. Alex was annoyed that I didn't mention she's a ThredUp customer. Dude, every week our closet gets emptier because of her ThredUp usage. So Yetis, we apologize to everyone for Jackson, my corrections. and you all look fantastic this week, by the way. Celebrate the wins and tell a buddy when you're at brunch, H-Y-H-T-B-O-Y. That's how we grow the show. Have you had the best one yet? It's the best way we grow the show is you telling friends about it.

26:24If you know, you know.

26:30And before we go, a happy birthday to Darren Jackson, a Yeti, listening on Spotify. Happy birthday to Jonah Faye Hurwitz in Brooklyn, New York. And Kyle Succo is turning 33 years old down in lovely Los Angeles. Happy 30th birthday to Dumaine Babcock in Los Angeles. And a happy birthday to Anna Hayes. The Brooklynite finished her first draft of her first novel. Happy birthday to the bioengineer Vedant Raul in San Francisco. And Mark Niles the Panthers turning 62 years old from Middlebury and living in London, baby. Happy 24th birthday to Ali Gentile in Boston, Massachusetts. Just as at Boston. and Adam DeVita, the legendary besties turning 30 years old down in lovely Boca Raton, Florida.

27:10Thank you, Adam. Happy 35th birthday to Kelvin Liu in Ontario Ranch, California. And Juan Fang in Irvine, California celebrating the best birthday yet. Happy 51st to Dan Naughton in Winston-Salem, The Dash, North Carolina. And to everyone named Kevin today who hasn't heard yesterday's pod, go listen to yesterday's pod. And to anyone else celebrating something today to make it a T-boy. celebrate the wins.

27:39This is Jack. I own stock of Netflix, Disney, and Bumble, and Nick and I both own stock of Spotify. There are moments that reveal who we are and who we're meant to become. For those born to lead, such moments call for a vehicle of equal distinction. Dynamic by design, uncompromising in execution, the Range Rover Sport was engineered for those rare individuals who demand the world and possess the conviction to claim it. When your time to lead arrives, you need a vehicle that rises to meet it. The Range Rover Sport. Exclusive offers available now. Explore further at rangerover.com.