🎤 “$TBOY Update” — Our 1st-ever earnings presentation, we share our strategy, metrics, and do a Q&A

0:00Hey, Eddies, it's Jack, and it's only Jack today, because unfortunately, Nick's shingles progressed to something worse, viral meningitis. Nick is currently at the hospital and he's receiving excellent care and he'll be back at his home in San Francisco probably later today. But his doctors say it's very important he gets at least a few days of rest before he can jump back on the mics. Classic Nick, when I talked to him yesterday morning, one of the first things he thought of was you, our listeners. He never wants to leave you hanging and neither do I, but we have to leave hanging from the regular show today because Nick needs his rest and recuperation.

0:40If you want to send Nick a message, he reads every comment on YouTube, on Instagram, and on Spotify. And I know your messages will lift his spirits tremendously. I did talk to Nick last night and he's getting excellent care and I can tell already he's getting better. I told Nick yesterday morning that I had an awesome plan for today's show. In place of our regular T-Boy programming, we're going to publish the T-Boy quarterly earnings presentation we did at our Chicago live show. It was a fantastic segment. We were planning to keep it just for the live audience, but considering the circumstances and considering its earnings season, we thought today was the perfect day to drop this episode.

1:23We share information about the company we've never shared before. By the way, it's a highly visual presentation with charts and graphs. So if you want to see it, check out the video on our YouTube. We put a link in the episode description. We talk in this episode about how the business is going, our strategy, our marketing, and all the wins to celebrate. All right. I feel kind of naked without Nick here. So I'm going to kick it back over to Nick and Jack live from Chicago. Nick and I both agree, this is the best one yet.

2:23First, a quick word from our sponsor.

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3:51So 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. For 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.

4:17And 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. Use code T-Boy at Monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just 50 bucks. It's 50 % off your first year at Monarch.com with code T-Boy.

4:45We figured it was apropos. If we're going to deliver our quarterly earnings report, we should suit up. Introducing the first ever T-Boy quarterly earnings report. Now, as with every earnings report that we do, we kick it off by sprinkling on a little context and explaining to you our brand strategy. The first thing Jack and I did when we spun our show back out of Robin Hood to get back to entrepreneurship was brand strategy. We had to figure out what our brand was. Because a brand isn't a description like a snack. It's a feeling like the best one yet. And when we did our brand strategy, we discovered we had four value propositions, which led to four personality words, which led to one value proposition, which laddered up to one single word.

5:38Brighter. Brighter. everything we do is about making you feel brighter in both senses of the word, smarter and happier. It was a borderline therapeutic exercise that Nick and I did. We highly recommend it because we're much more than just financial news. We're something different. Like Nick said, we're a feeling. And the word brighter is the perfect word to describe what we're trying to do because brighter has two meanings. And that's what we try to do every day. We try to make you smarter and we try to make you feel better. We use brighter when we're launching merch, when we're building a new partnership or when we're doing the show, it affects everything we do.

6:10We use it to help us make decisions. And when we're on the fence, we ask ourselves, will this make our audience feel brighter? So let's celebrate some wins from the second quarter.

6:27Our second show, The Best Idea yet was nominated for an Ambie Award.

6:36We didn't win. Yeah, we lost. But we met the guy who won, none other than Guy Raz from How I Built This, and we got his number, and we had lunch with him, and got some fantastic advice. And his was the first podcast we'd ever listened to 10 years ago, so that was a win. And Nick got to look fabulous on the red carpet. Yeah, I rehearsed. I rehearsed. And don't forget, this show, the best one yet, won the Webby Award last year. Thanks to all of the votes. Best business podcast. Thanks to them. Thanks to them. But Jack, let's back up a little bit, sprinkle on some more context. Our new weekly show, The Best Idea Yet, it launched a few months ago, and it was a costly endeavor to launch a show.

7:22We got 10 people working on this show. fact check and researching sound effects. It is a cinematic experience to bring these stories of viral products to your ears. This month, we hope to break even on the best idea yet and then enter profit territory. But man, the show is doing really well. We're really excited. Last month, we had the most downloads ever for the best idea yet, which is the critical metric we measure by. Oh, by the way, Confidential, we haven't shared this yet. We got greenlit for a second season. There we go.

7:59Also, kind of funny confidential, but the top episode right now is the Dr. Pepper one. Just thought we should tell that to you. Although we really like the episode that's the least listened to, which is about the Oregon Trail. They're both fantastic. What's next? So social media has been a challenge for us. Honestly, it's our greatest weakness with social media. Our podcast audience has always been way bigger than our social following. We believe we have a fantastic show, but transforming that into social clips has never quite clicked for us until recently. So we invested in it. We hired an incredible creative director who runs our social media, Rachel Hauer.

8:38She's scampering around somewhere right now. She's done an amazing job. There she is. And we'll share with you some of the strategy that we find working. Because in the last 90 days, the Instagram following has jumped 75%. 100%. Insane. Now, we want to talk quickly about something that our coach from college taught us, which is the difference between rocks and sand. Yes, rocks and sand. You have a cup, which is the amount of time in your day. If you do the sand first and then try to put the rocks in, it won't fit. Nope. But if you do the important things first, the rocks, prioritize that, we found there's room for the sand afterwards.

9:22Our rocks is producing the pot every day. It is the absolute priority. It's our full-time job. We absolutely love doing it and can't believe it's our career. Absolutely. Only after that do we consider other business development things. Only after that do we answer emails and get back to our fans who DM us. And it's the same with social media. We've decided that there are rocks that we must make happen every day. Three social media posts. two videos and one static post. We don't do anything else on social until those three things are done. And adhering to that rocks and sand rule for social in the last 90 days has already paid off.

10:01So the two reels that Rachel posts on Instagram, those find new listeners who've never heard of the best one yet. After being satisfied by the video, they click our profile, they check out our grid, they see our static carousels, the four stories we cover every day. They're like, Dan, this account's follow-worthy. Hopefully, they listen to an episode at some point and become fans. You'll see them at the next live show. It's going great. Now, we also wanted to share some highlights from an audience survey that we did in May. Thank you if you completed the survey. So, who are you? We actually have a term for you.

10:33You're not just the besties and the yetis. We see you all as ambitious zillennials. And odds are, our average listener is between 28, 34 years old. We actually over-index on women compared to other business news shows significantly. And statistically speaking, you probably are wearing Lululemon and ate at Chipotle twice in the last week. Raise your hand if that's not the case. That's purely anecdotal. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Margin of error, one sweet green.

11:10That's awesome. So we actually want to find out how people discover us. And for new listeners, it was recommendations from friends. This is why we ask in every podcast, HYHTPOI. In your life, you need a CTA. Jack and I go through a CTA at the end of every show. A CTA is a call to action. And when Jack and I say, HYHTPOI, have you had the best one yet? This is why. This is why. And we appreciate it. So thank you to everyone who's helped us grow the show. And in your own life, it always helps to ask. It never costs you anything to ask. Now, this next slide is really exciting. This is our follower count on Spotify, which is neck and neck with Apple as our top platform.

11:56We were growing steadily going into late May, and then something happened. That's a hockey stick that would make the Blackhawks jealous. And the rate of growth after that event in late May has been better than ever before. I'm sorry. It would make the Red Wings jealous. You know, the Blackhawks are better than the Wings. So what happened on May 23rd, 2025? Well, micro-influencers happened. First of all, it wasn't just Spotify where we saw this bump. We must have seen it on Apple, too, because we hit number 29 on the overall podcast charts that day. Now, I should point out, May 23rd is this podcast's birthday.

12:40Very nice. We had our first episode of May 23rd, 2018. Congratulations. So for all the astrologists out there, that's probably the reason. Yeah. We're a cancer. Gemini. But we also noticed this post, which went viral. It's a Yeti from New York who we bumped into in Washington Square Park once. We must have said something good because she went onto her TikTok and said, to get ahead at work, she recommends listening to two podcasts. We were one of them. And that led to a million views of her TikTok, which actually translates into podcast downloads for the show. And we've talked about micro-influencers before.

13:16It is a powerful medium. It was insane. Our most successful marketing effort, Nick and I had nothing to do with. Meanwhile, we do other marketing efforts. So it's a big goal of ours in the second half to explore this further. But Jack and I always have big goals when we're not dealing with the rock and the sand. We grab a drink and we think, what do we want to do that's big? And we've got four big goals on the agenda. Here we are. Live tour, book, product, movie. That's all we're going to say about it, but if you've got a preference...

13:56If you've got a preference, shoot us a DM at tboypod because we want to hear it. We're very hard at work at all these ideas. Oh, we can't adjourn the quarterly earnings call. No, no, no, because the lawyers, yeah, we got to do the thing with the Q &A. We got to take the Q &A. The SEC is going to come. The SEC requires that we take questions from the audience for the quarterly earnings. Before the Q &A, we got a quick word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Bill, the intelligent finance platform that helps businesses scale with proven results. Yet he's paying and getting paid?

14:28That 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 to 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 TAG. So powered by AI, build is 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. Bill is the intelligent finance platform trusted by nearly half a million businesses and 98 of the top 100 US accounting firms to manage, move, and maximize your money.

15:05They 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. NetSuite next. Yeah, 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.

15:38Yeah, 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. AI 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.

16:07Fox. In a good way. So yeah, it is 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. We're going to take three questions. We have the operators handing around a microphone. Please raise your hand if you have a question for us. About the business, about podcasting, about life, careers, any questions at all. All right, we've got one right over here in the middle. Thank you, Rachel. Todd Coben Suarez from lovely Chicago, Illinois.

16:47Thank you. Fellow Michigan alum as well. Go Blue from Ross. Go Blue. Question. So you mentioned that you have almost done 2 ,000 episodes. So that equates to just about 6 ,000 takeaways under my math. Out of all those takeaways, which one do you believe resonates with your life and your life motto the most and why? So I can answer this one first. We covered McDonald's, which announced a few years ago they were taking salads off of the menu. And our takeaway was that you can't be a people pleaser. You can't be a people pleaser. Basically, McDonald's was trying to make everyone happy. They're like, okay, we got the fried chicken sandwich, we got the double Big Mac, and we'll give the salads to those who want salads.

17:35Turned out people didn't want salads from McDonald's. and them trying to please everybody was hurting their ability to please their real fans who wanted their greatest hits, some Chicken McNuggets. Honestly, I have grown up a people pleaser my entire life. My dad raised me to be a people pleaser, not knowing it, but he told me that I am third. That was a book that he wanted me to read. God's first, family's second. I am third. And so honestly, as a result, I put others' needs above mine. So that was really personal to me. And I realized you've probably heard the expression, you've got to put your mask on before the others.

18:16The airplane tells you that. I've got to take care of myself or else I'm going to be grumpy. Yeah, when I propose wearing his jerseys, Jack just did it to please me, basically. Sorry for dominating that answer. My favorite is one that became a catchphrase because people have said it to me when we've seen them, which is, retail's not dead, bad retail's dead. And Molly and I will walk into a store sometimes, and I'll be like, you know, look at this place. You see, retail's not dead. And this was around the area that Casper Mattress and Warby Parker, and everyone was disrupting with online D2C. Retail wasn't dead, just bad retail was dead.

18:53Thank you for the question, and go blue. Hey, guys, how's it going? Is that James? It's James. Yeah! Quick question to the audience. How many dinks are in here? Okay. It's a dink fest. A lot of dinks. You dink heads. Well, any sinks in the audience? There we go. Wait, are there any sitcoms in the audience? Any dink wads? A double dink wad ass? There are a few acronyms. Nick, what sitcom again? Single income. We'll get back to you on the rest of that one. James, what's the question, man? From Buffalo. All right, this is James from Buffalo. I have a question here. For the third son that you had, I believe that, Nick, you gifted him stock into his Roth IRA.

19:44I did a 529 plan donation of Crocs stock because I know this kid's going to be Crocs deep in like a year. He's only six months old, and we already have somehow had to buy him three pairs of Crocs. Jack's a subscriber to Crocs, and that's not even an option. So my question is this. Where did you guys get that idea from? Because I'd never heard of that. It's not very common. And for any of these things that are going to convert to having kids, what are some other gifts that you would recommend giving your best friend, your kids at that stage of infancy? I think the idea came from the category of our show, which is the way Jack and I think.

20:26We call our category pop biz, the intersection of pop culture and business. And the idea of celebrating your best friend's son's birth with a stock to us feels like pop biz. That is bridging a cultural concept with a business one. And when you choose a stock that's not a boring one but Crocs, which the kid's actually going to wear, and one day Jack can explain to him, yeah, you have this in your portfolio. You're wearing it. It's because you got it 18 years ago. That is a beautiful pop biz experience. I think it's an amazing thing that we get to own parts of companies and get wealthier that way.

21:07I always think like a dollar saved isn't a dollar saved. It's a dollar put into the stock market, which is going to double in seven years. Like it's crazy. And it's a wonderful thing. And I want Wilder to know that his favorite movie on Disney, Cars, he owns part of the company. And I'm excited to teach in that early on. So that's where it all came from. James, thank you very much for the question. And the last earnings question. Brian Spencer, hometown Arlington Heights, Illinois. Social is... I'm just kidding. My question to you, I've listened to the show for years, and I feel like maybe I'm just hitting on this because I just live here.

21:49I feel like you have shout-outs from Chicago almost every episode. There's a there there. Or a lot from Illinois in general. Do you know why that is? Is it just because we do logistics? Chicago does logistics. That's all I needed. Phenomenal. Thank you for the question. And thus we adjourn the T-Boys second quarter earnings report. Here, here. Thank you.

22:47But Nick dropped the H, and it wasn't his parents' decision. It was Nick's decision. Seven-year-old Nick was a huge fan of hockey, and he noticed that the Russian players, who were just joining the NHL post-Cold War, spelled their name Nicholas different than Americans spelled Nicholas. So Nick insisted to his parents that he drop the H and do it the way the Russians did. Now, another reason Nick did it is because he likes to avoid cliche. So he changed his name spelling so as not to be too expected. And that's actually one of the reasons this is a great show. Nick's demand for originality. If I write a sentence and it's got a cliche in there, Nick edits everything that I script for the show.

23:32And he always insists that it not come off as a cliche, it not come off as unexpected. And if there's a moment in the show that you're laughing at, it's probably this part of Nick that's making you laugh right there. All right, Yetis, you look fantastic. And Nick, I know you're listening. You look fantastic too. Yetis, I instructed Nick to watch all three Lord of the Rings movies while he's recovering in the hospital. So get ready for an unusual number of references to Gollum and Smeagol and elves next week when he's back. We've got another special episode coming tomorrow. It's also fantastic.

24:07I will see you then. In the meantime, tell your buddies HYHTBY. Have you heard the best one yet? If you know, you know. Nick and I, we'll see you tomorrow.

24:23But before we go, happy birthday to Pia Irene Marie in the Philippines, who loves talking T-boy with her favorite sister. And happy birthday to Chad and Grant Borilski in Windsor, California. This father and son birthday duo turns 48 and 7 on the same day. And they just got a new puppy with the same birthday. Hey, just kidding about that last part. I don't know when the birthday's birthday is. Send in a shout out when that puppy turns two. And happy birthday to Morgan Schroeder, aka Martha's Vineyard's fairy cheese mother in Edgartown, Massachusetts. And happy six-year anniversary to Praveen Hazelby in Hazel Park, Michigan.

25:03And a big shout out to Molly, Nick's wife, from just outside Boston, who's an absolute trooper right now. And finally, a big shout out to Nicholas from New York, New York. I love this guy. And if you do too, drop a comment for him right here. He's crushing it in his recovery, but he would love to hear from you. And to anyone else who's celebrating something today, make it a T-boy. Celebrate the wins.

25:30This is Jack. I own stocks of Kroc and Disney. Nick owns stock in Lululemon. And we both own stock in Chipotle. Hi, all. This is Kim and Penn Holderness from Lifeline. Summer is here, which means it's officially travel season. And when you're out there making plans, you need somewhere reliable to stay. That's why Best Western is such a solid option. This summer, get 1 ,000 bonus points and a chance to win 250 ,000 bonus points. So wherever you're headed, make it count with this limited time offer. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at BestWestern.com. No additional purchase necessary for sweeps.

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