They sold their company to Snapchat (and then became YouTubers)

30:32Then we're going to come home, reevaluate, and then decide what was next. Garrett actually pitched some investors on a next business idea. They were ready to fund his next venture. And then, you know, in my eyes, we were going to come home and we were going to do it again. but much to my surprise we came home and I was like I'm loving this I love living out of a suitcase and I'm actually thriving so like the the moderate Colorado girl next door was loving living an unconventional life and Garrett of course was probably going to be in no matter what so when we came back after four or five months of travel at that Christmas and we decided let's keep going and that's when we went into like business game plan and then we went into game plan what are we going to do because again we don't want to be foolish and touch the acquisition money and the 45 ,000 is near gone, that's when we started to like reach out to airlines and tourism boards and hotels being like, will you pay us?

31:18Will you host us? Will you give us a discount? And at that level, we were probably like 50 ,000 followers at the time on Instagram and like 20 subscribers on YouTube. And, um, they, they would sometimes if we reached out to enough of them, like they would give us a discount, but then as we grew and also as like influencing as a whole, that like space grew, then they became more familiar and aware and willing to like test it out so then they would like give us it for free so the bleed of our like cash was like slowing down at least we were traveling and it was still costly but at least like cheaper and then you know we probably traveled for a year maybe breaking even barely breaking even and then you know 2017-18 is when people started paying uh creators and i'll you know i'll never forget some of our first deals and you know making six hundred dollars off of a post was just such a big deal i mean we had our savings and we had our money we didn't necessarily need it but to have this new venture and start making money it was like a really exciting time i think it was an important thing though at least for me and how my brain works is it was important for me to like put the acquisition not just put it aside but like mentally forget about it and so if you ask me as as ridiculous as it sounds like i was poor again i had like the sure the money in the bank that was quickly dwindling away and i was like perform or die especially because i knew like i wanted to keep traveling.

32:37And if we can't figure this out, then, then we're done traveling. And so I felt like a young hustling rookie entrepreneur. And I, and that's like my favorite version of myself. And so I liked it to purposely position myself in that so that like, again, not only did it help us like perform the best, but it also just like, that's when I'm maybe my happiest self. So I'm the same. And I would say though, the danger that I've experienced with that, and I'm curious about this, is creating that environment for others who don't like that environment. Does that make sense? So like for me, I work my best when my back's against the wall, when the stakes are super high, and when I feel like it's survive or die.

33:18But I don't think Colin works his best like that, right? And I think I've noticed that at times I have in our career created that environment because it's very motivating for me, but it kind of can be, it's not a great creative environment. I think sometimes for me, it makes me feel like for some reason we're not doing well. Right. And I'm like, wait, I think we're successful right now. Why are we acting? And I'm not saying we should be foolish. Right. But like we're acting, we're treating ourselves as if we're not doing well. And like we're not succeeding. We should feel somewhat good about what we're doing and not always treat ourselves like we're failing.

33:54Right. Yeah. It's a very interesting like psychological battle because it drives a lot of purpose and then sometimes it is your reality like you do live in that reality but yeah and being you know being married to your business partner has been a very interesting thing to navigate and we both have such different work styles and for him to realize early on you know i don't want to be up until 3 a.m working like i'm gonna go to bed and garrett's not he's gonna like go until the job is done And, you know, and I'm going to care about these little things and logistics and the kids and all this stuff.

34:29And, you know, again, Garrett's got his one track mind. So figuring just navigating, I think that relationship in a marriage has been totally I don't know. I was telling literally the way here. I was like, I've loved the last six weeks together. I did big press tour for my new book. We went to Antarctica and I've loved every second of like being by Garrett's side. We've had a really great time together. And I mean, we've been working together now for almost 10 years. We've figured it out. But I still would not recommend working with your spouse. It's very difficult. Very, very difficult. I would recommend it.

35:02Yeah. I mean, I can imagine. Yeah. I mean, I think it's beneficial that we're not married. Yeah. For sure. We have some separation. We get to have separation. Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting, though, because I think I always think about like where what I would do with, you know, like I've always craved that. I think we all grew up at a time where, you know, the big tech acquisitions, like that was the aspiration for a young 20-year-old, right? Like that was what everyone was playing for. We watched the movie The Social Network. You heard about Evan Spiegel. You're like, I got to build an app and sell it.

35:36You lived it, which is so interesting. And that was, I think a lot of when we were young and started our first YouTube channel, that was also the aspiration. Yeah, we didn't look at it as a YouTube channel. We were like, this is business and people are selling businesses, right? Yeah. How old were you when you guys started that? 21. Yeah. And we were 24 when we went through our acquisition. And yeah, I mean, it wasn't as much cash. It was a lot of like, you know, stock and like, you know, getting in, getting a job essentially. But especially at that age, so much of it is like experiencing that process, like going through that process.

36:12That was a crazy process. Yeah, exactly. What was the, I just wanted to go back to this. what was the experience of like telling evan spiegel that you were going to leave after three months because you have to tell him the story this might not be for the video but this is this is a typical garggy any story that needs to start with this is a true story what i'm about to tell you okay is um we i'm working at snapchat and she says like oh i decided i was unhappy so i just i told her i'm gonna leave and go play soccer how it like actually happened was this that I was committed. I was like, you know what?

36:48I'm unhappy, but he bought my company. He paid a fancy dollar for it. Like, I'm in for the long run, okay? Then one day this happens. James Franco made a movie dissing on North Korea. North Korea hacks Sony's emails. Sony CEO sits on the board of Snapchat who acquired my company. Journalists dive into those email hacks and just find any information that was confidential that they could. Within there - The acquisition, scan acquisition was completely confidential. Nobody, we couldn't tell our parents. We told our parents we moved to Venice because we had a new business. I had sold my company for$54 million and my parents, my siblings did not know about it.

37:23Okay. So it's completely private. And at first I had said earlier today, I was like, oh, when I started the company, I was like, it would be really cool to someday like have my name up in like TechCrunch or Wall Street Journal of like, you know, this, this acquisition happened. And when that didn't happen, I was like, am I bummed? And, and then I quickly realized like, no, this is actually like the best case scenario. We got like this life changing money, but no one's going to treat us differently. And we can choose how we want to live our lives because nobody knows about it. OK, well, that all changed when North Korea hacked Sony's emails because I'm at Snapchat offices on December 16th, her birthday.

38:00And even my co-workers thought I was just like a hire out of college. So I'm sitting with the design team and the designer next to me is like, hey, Garrett, check this out. And I look at his computer and it's literally the cover of Wall Street Journal saying Sony leaks update snapchat uh acquires utah company scan from garrett g for 54 million dollars and there's a big picture of me and i'm looking at it and i was like oh and he looks at me like who are you what's your name again and i was like um and then right then the door opens evan and the lawyers that come in like garrett come with us and they literally just sat me down like hey things are obviously going crazy.

38:39Turn off your phone. Do not talk to anyone. We'll come up with a game plan and talk to you tomorrow. This was like the end of the workday. Jessica, like 10 minutes later, picks me up. We're going to go have a special dinner for her birthday. And she's like, how was your day at work? And I was like, you know what? Like it was a crazy day, but I want this night to be about you. Like, let's just talk about you. And if you haven't really, like Jess is just the most selfless human on the planet. She's like, no, no, tell me about your day. And I was like, okay so this is what happened and just like spilled the thing anyways long story short that that like put this weird curveball into everything at snapchat just the whole company started like to morph and change in my role now people understood like who i was and like how i came on the company so they now couldn't have me as just like a ambiguous designer on the team it was like okay garrett and his team are actually working on the secret pod project and they get their own office now.

39:30And it just changed things big time. And that sparked the change. And I remember before making the big decision, not only having the conversation with Jess, but I remember calling my brother, who's a high school teacher and just person who perhaps I like respect and admire his like life wisdom the most. And I called him and I was like, Hey, surprise, surprise. I made a lot of money and I'm now working at Snapchat and I want to quit. I'm making 180 is my salary. I get a million dollar bonus for each year I'm here. And this is how much money I got from the acquisition. I'll, if I leave, I'll keep the money from the acquisition, but I'll give up my 180 salary and I'll give up my million dollar a year bonus.

40:11And he's like, okay, uh, can I call you back? He calls me back like, you know, whatever, 20 minutes later. And he was like, I'll be honest. I just can't even like get past those numbers. Like I don't, I'm a high school teacher. I don't, I don't understand these numbers you're talking about. They're absolutely outrageous. But he said, he goes, but I know you, I know what your like work ethic is, what your future is. And most importantly, I know where you find happiness that you got to leave. You got to walk, walk away from that money and you got to quit. So it was the very next day. I just set a meeting with, with Evan and I was ready for him to just, he's a very passionate guy.

40:47He's very like, kind of like Steve Jobs-esque in his both like passion and creativity, but also his like notorious like anger and like again it's just passion to his fullest right and so when i went i was really scared i remember i got bloody nose that morning just like how nervous i was i sat down with him and just so much props and admiration for evan because when i told him he the first thing he said he's like i get it i knew it was a long shot bringing like someone like you in um if you ever want to come back i'd love to work with you again but yeah best of luck to you and like see you later wow yeah wild i know it was crazy so and that happened the week before soccer season started so we literally packed up our bags went back and i played the season opener when you joined the soccer team everyone knows you sold your company oh yeah i sponsored the team my company badge was on our sleeve yeah it was a really weird scan was yeah wow it was a really weird thing to be a college soccer player like yeah do you remember do you remember snapchat i mean if they still have it where you like based on your location you would have a filter so you could swipe over and like have that location-based geo filter yeah yeah so the very last thing i remember they're like turning off my email and i was like wait give me one more day and i go to like south field which is our soccer field and i put a picture of me so that like when i was playing soccer attendees of the game would swipe over it was like a picture of me that was like my farewell to snapchat wow yeah how'd the soccer season go it was great he's awesome no regrets I played my senior season of soccer that's fun you got your money and your cake too yeah see yeah you got it that's what that means yeah did did the experience of going on Shark Tank and having them all say no did you enjoy selling the company after that I remember that very well I imagine you were like yeah I remember each of those it was a cool thing when it became like you could like Google like Shark Tank's biggest missed opportunities and we were number one wow um i remember when we went on the show we'd already raised money and the app was already like getting downloads like crazy so we didn't need to do a deal and shark tank came to you it was one of the few times where he hadn't gone through the whole application process um so i fully went on the show being just i just want exposure whatever yeah and my company is scan i'm here seeking an investment of one million dollars but just the competitor in me i'm just a competitive guy once i was in the moment i was like i must win these people over and so to have when they all said no say no i was devastated i don't know if you guys know this but like you have like a movie star trailer and you go back to your trailer and they literally have like a therapist there to like talk you off the legend it's okay it's okay whatever and i was like guys i'll be good like i'm not worried i went back in the trailer and i'm like it's over i messed up this is the end of my business and she had to like talk me down um yeah i just got caught up in the moment and then finally i realized like this was a good thing for us and then when the episode aired and then it's like he had a really favorable edit and even though they didn't take his money they said really they shined a good light on us a million dollars for five percent which is what you came in asking is pretty high for sure they do not come on Lee no yeah they do not take kindly on shark tank to those types of valuations so when you guys first start making youtube videos then like after all this um do you remember the first time when like the viewership on youtube specifically started to pick up because it sounds of like Instagram picked up before YouTube yeah definitely do you remember that experience of like like what did it feel like for YouTube views to start coming in and and a community to start building there that that's where that's where we started to learn um a lot about ourselves and how we relate to to social media in the most like true pure way Jessica is like not made for social media and what I love about her why you know um and yeah so as it started to grow again she like what's in the comments and the messages she and I deal with that like very differently got it and how do you differ in that I mean I can imagine but oh I just I I'm a people pleaser so when you read those comments and you're like oh you know you should mother this way yeah yeah Yeah, I think a lot of it was just like, how dare you not buckle your kid properly in a car seat?

44:59Or how, you know, like, I don't know. People are just always so critical on different things and how you're spending your money or how you're raising your kids or where you're going and what you're doing and what you're not doing. Anyway, it's just hard for me. And it's been something the last eight years that I've had to, you know, I've gone through these ups and downs of mental health and dealing with being in the public eye. It's been a challenge for me for sure. Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, that is difficult, especially with children. Because obviously, you care the most. For sure. And the people who are commenting care the least.

45:28For sure. About the well-being of your children. Well, and early on, it was one of those things where I was like, you know what? I need a thicker skin. Like, this is good for me. And for a couple years, I was great. And then there's been some ups and downs. And maybe a couple years ago, something happened. And I was just like, I'm out. You know, and Garrett has been the one to step in and really take over that comment section. And I've had just to find that balance of like how I can be involved and see stuff, but also, you know, not look in the comments ever. Yeah. I find the tough thing with the comments is that many times for a creator, your self-awareness is your superpower.

46:05So if you understand things about yourself and how other people will perceive them, you can be a better YouTube creator. For sure. Because you can mold yourself to what you think the masses probably will like. But because of that, you're probably also self-aware of some of the things that make you insecure or that you're not happy about. And then you see them in the comments. And even if it's just 10 % of how you feel, it just explodes. And now it's like 100 % of how you feel that day. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because I imagine there's this complicated relationship with like, hey, this thing is like an amazing platform we've built with our family.

46:39For sure. And it comes with the good and the bad, right? Like putting yourself out there is just a, there's a thing Colin says about like when you first started YouTube channel, like a lot of people will come into the comments and be like, wow, this channel is so underrated. You know, like you're so underrated. This is so great. Why don't we have more views? Why don't we have more subscribers? You guys are great. You guys are great. And you just feel great. You're like, you're right. Why don't more people watch this? I'm going to be so great. This is so great. And then there's a tipping point, right?

47:06Where it's like, you go from being underrated to rated. Everyone's ready to judge you, right? and everyone's ready to be like, why does everyone like these people? Like, this sucks. And it's this weird moment in time where there's no middle ground. It doesn't go from like, it's not gradual. I think it was Instagram when we went from 1 million to 2 million on Instagram. And I had told Garrett, I was like, we're too big now. Like we kind of passed that threshold of just having all the people come in. Because for the longest, and still to this day, like if there's one thing I'm going to toot my horn about, it's the incredible community and demographic that we have.

47:40Like the people that follow us and really follow us are the best of the best people. And I love that so much. But, you know, still, depending on the platform, you get jerks out there. So, you know, just a lot more have come along. Who is the audience for the Bucket List family? You know, it's it's it sounds weird to say, but it's good people and it's families and it's all around the world. It's really cool. We're 50 % international. And something that's interesting is our YouTube audience specifically, they're not YouTubers. They're Instagrammers. When you dive into our analytics, you see that most people are coming from Instagram and they're watching our YouTube and nothing else.

48:20It's like almost 90 % of our views come from Instagram. No way. Literally like the click rate. Yeah. Like for the first time ever, we had like a YouTube expert like look at our analytics. He's like, this is weird. Like this is completely different than anything I've ever seen. We don't get anything from the algorithm like at all. Yeah. Interesting. It's like YouTube hates us. But it's just like people who come from outside. Or you're making decisions that are actually just not optimal. Well, and that's - Or growth. I mean, yeah, when I say that. But again, Garrett doesn't play the YouTube game.

48:46He uses copywritten music. He makes 20 to 30 minute videos once a week. We don't play the game. So I'm not surprised. I would argue though right now, 20 to 30 minute videos. It's playing in our face. I would say that some of your titles and thumbnails are really optimal and some of them are not. And I think the viewership changes per those. Same with your intros. Like you watch your videos and they're like, oh, you're making these more similar to home videos than what like a true YouTube retention specialist would. 100%.

49:18It's like I said before, like literally every decision is like, shoot, do I do this to perform or do I do this for my journal? And that's just my weakness. The first time I came across you guys was via Instagram. And it was because my wife was like, look at this gorgeous family. and I remember it very well. And I, I, it makes me think about like, are you guys conscious of the concept of like, um,

49:45creating aspiration, right? Like, like your content is inherently aspirational. And does, does that ever come into play of just like, like, is it aspirational? I guess is the question. Like, are you, as you're living it, you're like, this is what everyone would want what i what i know it's a weird question interesting question yeah what i really like about it is that like on the surface our content's about travel yeah but you ask our audience it's been so cool to be on jessica's book tour because while she's signing books i'm just getting to like hang out with people online and just talk to them get to know them and it's just like the biggest focus group ever where i'm learning like oh this is why people have connected with us and every time it's like oh i saw this exciting video where you went you were like cage diving with sharks.

50:29And that was the first video I watched. But then I started to watch more and more. And now it's like what the content is about, what it's actually about behind like, you know, the facade of travel is about family and like a much more meaningful message. And so, yeah, like if we can be aspirational for people in the sense of family, like 1000%, we've achieved our goal and our message. I like that. Yeah. Aspirational. I feel like the book is a good example of that because the book does not necessarily say everyone should travel like us all the time. Like there's no expectation here. Oh, for sure.

51:02It's super unrealistic. That you're going to become the bucket list family. And maybe you can tell us more about the book from your words. But like from my understanding, the book is here are ways that you can travel like how we travel. Well, and if there's one thing I do want people to get out of the book is I can't remember who was saying. You went to Hawaii. Yeah. I'm just kidding. You know, I think a lot of families, mine included, we are a Disney World family. People travel to the same place every single year, time and time again. But there's so much more out there, especially when it comes to nature and wildlife and culture and history.

51:33You know what I mean? Like, the more people see of the world, the more they care. And now getting out that message, just, you know, I want to see people traveling more intentionally. And so I hope by putting out this book and some of these bucket list things that are actually achievable, not only for an individual but for people with kids um you know we can all become better ambassadors for the world just so everyone knows what are some examples of these bucket list items that well i mean we've swam with whales and tonga and we've stayed in castles and we've you know been in the overwater bungalows and we've even this trip last week to antarctica i mean it was a 23 three-day voyage and our kids were the only kids on the boat the average age was like 70 and yeah everyone was kind of looking at us like you crazy like your kids are going to cross the drake passage they did better than we did and then also it's just like it's it's a pretty intense thing you know you're there like literally amongst the elephant seals and and fur seals and the penguins and everything like it's it's antarctica is crazy and uh but we'll show very well in our videos like how doable it is and how family-friendly it is.

52:42And it doesn't need to be these, you know, very expensive trips on safari. But, you know, you can go to Baja, Mexico and go to this lagoon in San Ignacio and have gray whales come up to your boat and want to be pet. Like, stuff like that people just didn't even know existed. And that's like a very affordable experience. It's a very affordable experience over, you know, having to, I mean, safari, I realize, is it an absolute, yeah, it's true. Yeah. And so even like going back to like, what's the deeper message behind the message is when my friends have asked me, hey, like, welcome back from Antarctica.

53:17How was it? I find myself, the first thing I say is like, oh, this is incredible. Like 23 days on a boat with my family. Like my kids didn't have school and soccer and music practice and all of that stuff. I didn't have internet connection, the majority of it. So like, what a unique time to be together as a family on this adventure. I find myself talking like more about like, oh, this is what it was as a family experience than just like, oh, the icebergs and this and the penguins. How do you think the kids relate or understand the YouTube channel? Because they are pretty young. Like what's their perception as far as you know of what it means to have a YouTube channel?

53:50So for a long time, our kids were completely unaware of it. They just thought we're making family videos. They thought everybody had family videos. I remember Dorothy, our oldest, meeting some kids at a pool and I think we were in Greece. and she made a friend and she was like, oh, I want to see your videos. Do you want to see my videos? Like she thought everybody made videos. And now, I mean, now they're starting to realize she's 11, she's starting to get it. She's actually starting to want to make her own videos and create her own content, which is really, really fun. But they would like come home from school and be like, what's a subscriber?

54:19Like somebody at school said we have a lot of subscribers. Just a fun moment. We got our gold play button, right? However many years ago. And purposefully, I kind of like just put it aside in our closet as like, hey, this is where like my journals and my memories go. But we didn't like show it off or do any like special video or anything about it. And then I remember our middle child, his name's Manila, he came home from like third grade and was like, dad, what is a gold play button? And I was like, excuse me? Again, he doesn't like know anything about our YouTube channel or whatever. That's why he was like curious because a kid at school had said, I hear, you know, you have a million subscribers, you have a gold play button.

54:55He's like, I don't know what you're talking about. So he comes home and talks to me about it. And I said, that's something you get if you get a million subscribers. I had like the whole conversation with him and he is like, thinks about it as super thoughtful. And he's like, well, keep working hard, dad. You'll get there someday. I was like, okay. So I mean, it's been a weird balance of why we haven't made our kids like fully aware from the beginning wasn't necessarily like for those reasons. It was more so just how we relate to social media in general that our kids like don't have phones. They don't have screens.

55:27They're not consuming social media content. Um, other than they know we make, yeah, they know we make these videos and then we get to watch them and that we share with people. They understand that. Um, but they, they don't get the gravity in the audience and, and, and it's really something weird as a parent to navigate, you know, this is such a new world that we live in and Garrett and I every day are having these conversations of how does this affect our kids and do we want them in the public eye and how does it, you know, it's a whole spiral. Yeah. I mean, surely they, they are in the public eye, right?

55:59I mean, surely like people can recognize them. We have an Instagram account for each of our kids and they all have, I don't know, 250 ,000 followers, right? Yeah. And those literally just started. Yeah. The whole thing has been interesting because we'll sometimes get like criticism like any family YouTuber would of like, hey, why do you have your kids on camera? And it's something I'm super passionate about because I'm like, guys, you don't understand. Like this started from the most pure place. This was literally a family journal. Each of my kids' Instagrams was me being like, I want to remember this child in every day of their life.

56:35So I'm going to post one photo a day. But again, it wasn't in my mind like post a photo a day. It was like save a photo a day. And then they just grew big. And then even our YouTube channel, like video one, it's us being like, hey, mom and dad, we're going on this trip around the world. We want to remember and share it with you. So we're going to make these videos once a week. In video like four, it was even like later than that, like video like week 12, I'm like, hey Jacob and Brandon thank you for subscribing to our channel we're now up to like eight subscribers like you know it was just a family like journal and nothing more so when people are like why do you put your kids in the public eye it's like no like you guys did that we just made family videos we made a journal it grew bigger than and became like a career in an industry but that was never the plan well and early on though they were private right so yeah over time you were the one that had to convince me to make it on private and that in that conversation do you remember like the main reason why i shared with you and what you decided like okay let's do it there just came the time where for me with social media i think you can put out good bad or nothing and my personality is probably the nothing like deep down i'm like you know like let's just be ourselves or you know keep it close to our family or friends or something but when I started to see the impact we were having on people and how important it is to put good out in the universe to put out family to put out kindness to put out service to put out adventure and travel you know like all these great values it took me a minute to realize how much good can be done and should be done and we've been given so much and we have the responsibility to share it so that came maybe a year into our travels that you know I had to really become I'm just a more confident parent of the, I am confident in what we're doing in our attentions and the way we're parenting.

58:28And I want to put that out there. I want to share that with the world because I think more parents should, you know, do the same, put out goodness and put out kindness and put out love and family and all those good values. I find for myself, it's very hard to separate what I know and what I do for our business and what I do on my personal accounts. Like I don't post personally on Instagram. I haven't for like two years because I feel like I know too much about what it is to make content and to care about it. And I don't want to look at myself on my personal account and judge what I think I would like to be just memories, like you're saying.

59:04But I can't do that. I can't separate the two because I know what it means to not perform well on Instagram or something not to get shared. And then I look at it and I don't, I'm not able to look at it objectively. Like, oh, that's a nice moment that I had. Right. Do you face that as well at all of like where performance meets family memories on a weekly basis? But it's the same thing. And I'd like to say I've stayed true to our like purpose and why we started originally, because every time when I make a video, I mean, I literally am editing Antarctica. to cut and it's like okay this video will perform better if i do abc but i'm gonna like this video better if i do xyz and it's like a two-second negotiation with myself and i'm like no i'm gonna do xyz i want this for me our background selling scan having that financial stability has made us as creators be able to do things that most people don't you know what i mean like We don't have to worry about the numbers.

1:00:02And Garrett, our YouTube, I mean, you monetize. One out of 10 videos. We just don't monetize because he uses copywritten music. Because every time I'm like, this is the song that would make it perform better and make us more money. This is the song that better reflects the way I remember this moment. And that's what I'm going to choose. That was the first conversation Colin and I ever had. That is true. Wait, really? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He was making a series out in Colorado about his club lacrosse team. And that's how we met. I watched the trailer. And I was like, I'd love to put it on my channel, which was called the Lacrosse Network.

1:00:35I was really viewing it as like a TV network. Yeah. So I'd love to essentially acquire the rights to your show, right? And I was like, all you have to do is change the music. And we can put it out. And Colin was like, well, I can't change the music. He's like, I can't change the music. It's better music. So nice knowing you. Yeah. Good luck with your Lacrosse Network. Yeah. Well, and the more we've learned about the YouTube world and how much money we could be making, That's been kind of a hard thing for me because I'm the business side, I'm the financial side, and he's the creative side. So to him, again, we do have that financial stability and security that we've had for the last nine to 10 years.

1:01:10I think that's a really important context. Because my question is like, you guys are speaking about this in a way that you don't have the pressure of profitability. For sure. This is much more our passion than it is our career. Right. Yeah. Otherwise, like, and then I would also say, correct me if I'm wrong here, but your production costs are likely taken care of from the travel perspective. Like you're not paying for your own travel to go out there. So then it's like, well, if it's at no, you know, like a lot of creators, what the issue is, like they're like, let's say Yes Theory, right? Travel, they travel a ton.

1:01:43Cost them a lot of money to go take their crew out to, you know, one of their destinations. So the pressure of performance is high. Totally. And those guys are really passionate about travel. I've spent a lot of time with them, but that still plays a factor into it, of course. Like it has to also perform, but it's interesting to recognize that this is a different, like that your entry point into YouTube was not from a place of, I need this to work as a job, which I actually think is a very dangerous way to enter YouTube. And I know that from experience because it was our entrance into YouTube, you know, and our entrance into commercializing creativity.

1:02:17For sure. And then you have that additional layer of like, you have to be very careful about commercializing a family journal. Uh-huh. Right. Yeah. And be very thoughtful about how you do that. So where does the, you know, monetization come into play? Because the thing that's very fascinating about you guys, the first time we talked, like I found the way you're thinking about this next chapter of the career to be very unique and interesting. And I'm curious if we could talk about that of, you know, how do you take what you've done now and you've built this amazing platform? How do you now scale it to the next place.

1:02:58Because surely at some point... you don't know as I guess your kids get older if you still want to do this. And that was probably, I think, my biggest reason we wanted to move this route is with the whole parenting side. What's it like to have kids in the public eye and on social media? And so when the idea came about of doing a cartoon, it was like, oh, wow, we can continue to travel to put good out there. But I can take my family and go off into the sunset. But meanwhile, Garrett can build something super beautiful. We just wanted to make it a choice for the kids. As much as you want to be involved, it's here.

1:03:40It's an opportunity. But 100%, if you no longer want to be involved or attached to this, that's okay. But we've worked so hard to create this platform or community or brand, this message that so many people around the world benefited from, that we think it would be like both like foolish and irresponsible to just like turn it off. So how can we like pivot or morph it? And that was the turning it into a cartoon. So can you talk about that, where that idea sort of came from and where it is right now? So current, like that was 2020. I feel like when that like idea sparked and came about. Well, and we had had many offers for reality television and even, you know, all sorts of, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:04:24We had had multiple offers and that was, I had no desire. You had no desire. No desire. I mean, yeah. I think reality would be hard because you lose control of the narrative really fast. Oh, for sure. The same reason why I don't have an editor is because this is my family, our memories. I really need to be able to control how they are shown and portrayed, right? Yeah, and what you just talked about around having to make a decision on what would work better versus what am I comfortable with, you go to reality TV, there's no what am I comfortable with. No, no, no. That's out the door. It's like, where's the drama?

1:04:54What's interesting about this? where's the fight between you guys like that's what i'm filming if i'm a reality producer or trying to instigate right when you'll learn like jessica is just mindful and careful and moderate in all things and i'm just yes man to the fullest and so like every time a reality tv show would hit us up i know her answer would take all these calls from production companies that were so thrilled and excited to you know might be our relationship yeah yeah i would take you and i should go into business and you two can just like we would go wild yeah literally every opportunity like a mr b's competitor and yeah it would be a disaster the most ridiculous like email that'll hit us i'm just like hey let's entertain it well i mean a good example is like i remember when the dubai tourism board hit us up it just happened to be days after we had left and jess was like obviously no we're not going to go back we just left there 48 hours ago and i was like but but what if we just put a crazy number out there and they say no to us.

1:05:52So we say yes to them. They say no to us. And then maybe something will happen in the future. So just tell me like, there's a number that would get you to go back to Dubai. And she's like, no, no, like Christmas is coming up. We literally have like, not only we were just there, but we have like 48 hours window. I'm like, then let them know that say, this is our number and this is our window. And they'll say no to us. And she's like, okay, put out a ridiculous thing. And they said, yes. And we went back to Dubai. I brought my sister and my brother-in-law. We had this epic, legit 36 hours in Dubai.

1:06:20She was like, they would need to pay us this much. I want to bring my sister. And this is how long we have. And they said yes to it. What was that number? This was pretty early. I think it was eight grand. You know, this is. Dubai's definitely not paying eight grand. Yeah, we had like 100 ,000 followers maybe. This was like 2016. We were like small fries at the time. I see. And yeah. and at the time that was like our biggest paycheck to date so it was really exciting for us and again I was just like just put your number out it's funny you say that because I was asking Garrett we were working out before we came over and I had said I was like what's their dynamic and he was like I think they're really like balanced whereas you and I are like yin and yang and now hearing you guys say that I'm like oh okay here we go now I understand like we have you gotta have we're balanced because we're on opposite sides yeah that's where we find balance yeah and I think we respect each other's viewpoints.

1:07:14Oh, for sure. But you need both. You need both, absolutely. You need someone who's like the pusher and the pusher, and then someone who's going to make sure he's not dead in a gutter. Our history has always been like, Samir finds his way into rooms that I can't even believe he found his way into. Tells them what we can do, says yes, and then comes back to me, and I'm like, oh, you got in that room and said yes? All right, let's figure it out. And now we'll make it happen. And then it's tough and it's difficult, but we're always feel good and are happy on the other end of that. And that's where progress happens.

1:07:41I will say, I think that was really fun and great when we had very limited opportunities because I would have to find the opportunity. Now opportunity comes to us every day. That's actually, I would assume with you as well. For a yes man, that's a dangerous game. It's a dangerous game. When I wake up every day to new invites around the world, do you want to be paid to go to Korea? Do you want to be paid to go to Bali? I'm over here as a mom being like, but the kids, they want to go to school and they don't want to miss their Valentine's party and they don't want to miss the talent show. A lot of it is and then there's also just the play of like gratitude of like am i in a place where i can just say like no to these opportunities i would feel like ungrateful and so i'm like how long is my life i'm just gonna say yes to all of these and and that's how i like express my gratitude i think yeah i i don't for me i don't think it's i would i like gratitude as as uh i would like to adopt that but i think for me it's a lot more fear where it's like am i ever gonna get this chance again.

1:08:39Right, right, right. That's, that's, I think where I, where it really, it really hits me because I think we spent a lot of years for us not being successful, not having opportunities. And if you remember that, you remember what it's like to not have the opportunity. I think your body lives there. Like your body doesn't move as fast as your reality. Right. So like we're here now in a space of, we have opportunities, but my existence is still back there where we didn't. You operate in, this could all go away tomorrow. And I operate a little bit more so in, isn't it amazing we're even here? Yeah.

1:09:08That's our dynamic for sure. Same, same. So the second time I came across the Bucket List family was when you started crowdfunding for an animation studio. For the cartoon. Yeah. And I think that was in, was it in 2020 or 2021? I think 2021. 2021. I think. Yeah, 2021. And I was aware of you guys and I, you know, I'm not really in your demo. beyond like from a YouTube perspective. Yeah, for sure. But I had checked it out on Instagram, like very aware of what you guys were doing. But when the crowdfunding campaign came around, that was really interesting to me. And I was wondering if you could talk about, you know, the impetus of that, what it was and how that worked.

1:09:51I think it's like, just like the creator economy. It's just such an important lesson for all of us because here we wanted to, in a way, like not like step away from YouTube, but just kind of like evolve it and see like what is the next chapter for us which like so many creators are doing right and so for us that that idea was a cartoon and so how are we going to create it and it was like well we could like raise money and self-fund it we could uh go and try to like partner with a big like disney or one of netflix one of these studios and i kind of just like i'm so new to this i'm going to do all of it at once and just see what's working and i went i pitched a lot of the networks and one of them made a 10 million dollar offer to us of like hey this is great you guys are great let's buy this off you for 10 million and just do it and buy what off of you like buy the rights to make this cartoon the rights to make the bucket list family into a cartoon yeah and it kind of goes back to like thank goodness we're in the financial situation we were because i knew that wasn't the right decision for our family or for the cartoon for the show like creatively it wasn't the right partnership um but 10 million dollars is a crazy amount of money and so like so i said no to it a lot of people were upset and like baffled by it and because that you know that was the goal you can create your cartoon i just go for it but that was the most i remember sitting we were in alaska and i remember seeing to you like you can either build this yourself and not be told to do or you can be you know the employee again and knowing that snapchat experience of how quickly like being told what to do and not having the creative control i was like this isn't gonna work yeah it's good that you had experience with high dollar amounts because yeah i think if even today if i heard that number and i said no to it it would keep me up at night you know like i think having exposure and experience of that obviously played into your favor there yeah but was there an issue with also like ip and creative control of you know that honestly that's what triggered me at first because i so i initially said yes let's do this oh you did i did but in the contract it said that we were giving our life rights to our children.

1:11:56And you're like, ah, what a terrible parent are you to be like, oh yeah,$10 million and yes, you can have my three children for the rest of your life. Yeah, so the initial was obviously I pitched them because I wanted to work with them and then when they said yes, that same day they made us the offer. And so it was like, yes, let's do this. It's a victory. Cheers. Let's start negotiation. And the negotiation was this three, maybe six-month process. And then when they finally gave us the contract, I remember they're like, thanks for letting us take the six months to get you the contract we need this back by friday or like deals off the table and we like dive into it and it was like too aggressive and i was like not only did you kind of like show your side when you like were weird about this timing like trying to like force us to rush this but clearly it's like an unhealthy contract like as a friend do you want me to sign this because if we're gonna be partners we should be friends and it just wasn't right so um when you know when you understand that it's like okay that was not only the right decision, but it's actually an easy decision, you know?

1:12:55And so we decided to like consider the funding part. And so from me, uh, raising investor money for my iPhone app, I went back to a lot of those investors. They were very good at fundraising. Very good. Like you could have easily, I think we had said we wanted to get$10 million and you could have raised it. And I told them, I'm like, I want to raise the majority of it for my past investors because because they've supported me from day one. And then I'll, I want to find a way to include our audience and what that looks like. So the idea was, let's make a pitch video, which we did, posted it on YouTube.

1:13:30I think it was titled 10... Seven Reasons Not to Invest. And we'll just put it out there, and we'll allow, if there's anyone out there who's an accredited investor, meaning 100K or more, we're open to meeting with them, and hopefully they'll be able to participate to include our fan base. And then something very interesting happened. And it became legal in the U.S. literally that month for people to participate as a small amount as$100 and get actual equity in the company. And so we used a brand new platform to try this. It was called Republic. Yeah, I remember. And we were. Well, I remember we were about to launch it.

1:14:07And at the point, the minimum, I think, was$25 ,000. We'd attached it. There was like a Google form where you could commit your amount. Like, here's my, all of my information and I'm going to commit a hundred grand, like whatever it is. And you have to be an accredited investor. What was the bare minimum? Was it a hundred? It was 25. It was 25. 25K. So the concept here though, is that like, if I put in 25K, I actually own a percentage of this animation. It wasn't because the crowdfunding, like say Kickstarter is like, thank you for your money. Sure. We're going to give you like a t-shirt or whatever prize level, but you don't have ownership in this project.

1:14:36No, this was like, you're an actual investor, an actual like equity holder in our company, the bucket list studios. So we created the like studios company, the bucket list studios, and you're going to have ownership, not on just the cartoon, but like the entire company. And so we're about to put out this video and we had put the base level of 25 K thinking, oh, that'll like weed out someone. And it was like 10 minutes before hitting publish that I'm like, you know what I want. You had a conversation with your old business partner and you said, why should the rich just get richer? We need to open this up to anybody.

1:15:09And then you switched it to. I literally switched from 25K, drag all the way down to$100. And then we just hit publish and like, let's see how this turns out. And I like have the numbers in my phone because I'm like typing out this outrageousness as it happens. She and I are like sitting in bed on Sunday morning, watching the spreadsheet fill up. In under like 10 minutes, we had passed a million dollars. In under an hour, we had passed 3 million. And 24 hours later, we had$43 million committed to us, which like i being an optimist i'm like i think we can reach our goal of three million like i think so but like 43 million was beyond me whoa whoa for 43 million dollars well and and so you you filled out the form and you could say at what level got it and you know it was it was from 100 up to so these were commitments these were people weren't giving us money and that was 43 million dollars were committed from a total of about 30 ,000 35 ,000 people and I was really proud to see like 50 different countries were represented in this pool of people wanting to like support us I have two questions is it a problem that it's way more money than you wanted and what roughly allotment of the company like what percentage was that see and one that was the thing whether it's like smart or foolish, whatever.

1:16:31We just, we didn't know what to expect. So we had told people beforehand, like, this is the valuation of the company. And this is the percentage we're looking to give away, which at the time, again, I'd already promised my past investors, like, Hey, you can come in. And they were participating at like a million dollars,$2 million. Like they were writing big checks. So we only had a very, like a smaller allotment still remaining. Um, Um, so the crazy, it was a weird thing where like, because we already set our valuation, that was just us like vocalizing it. We definitely could have like gone back and been like, yo, this, there's way more interest than we expected.

1:17:04We're going to raise the valuation. So now everyone can give us, we're going to take your 43 million and we're only going to give you like 10 % of the company. We maybe could have done that. And a lot of our investors were like, yo, you got to like do this. And I'm like, no, like that doesn't feel fair to me. We'd already voiced the thing. so what we're gonna do is we're gonna go back and ask everyone we literally put the cap the max amount you could uh invest was a hundred dollars it was a really weird thing to be like thank you for your offer of a hundred thousand dollars would you be willing to only give us a hundred dollars and but that's what we did because at this point money wasn't important to us it was allowing people to participate that wanted to support us like we're there was the community that was our number one priority and so put the max there and am i doing the numbers right 30 000 people invested 100 for the 3 million total from our audience 7 million total from our past big investors for a total of uh 10 million dollars wow to start this cartoon this company yeah and so is is the the base premise of the cartoon company or the the animation studio is to start with hey we have this IP of the bucket list family we have an existing audience to scale this we can turn this into a cartoon that can live on you know way longer than we want to make videos but is the secondary and then we can replicate that with other people in our position yeah like people know like you know we're big thinkers we're big dreamers there might be a future but as far as what we promised it was like look we're going to do three things initially we're going to create this cartoon and potentially more content we're going to create software just because that's like our background and we're going to figure out like what type of apps and software we want to create and then we're going to create merch just because that's that's fun and as a designer i just like well and if you create a cartoon that's where you're going to make your money so the cartoon yeah right yeah yeah if you make the cartoon the merch is where you're going to really make there's not good money in like yeah actually like cartoon really it's it's even like in that like 10 million dollar deal like the way things would like break down and shake out like you wouldn't make a whole you wouldn't take a whole lot of money home it's it's once you've created an incredible brand let's just use like the simpsons as an example then how you can monetize that endlessly is where you can make the money but not actual like the content interesting yeah youtube has changed that right yeah i guess like coco melon bug feels like like again making music is similar right like you don't really make that much money off the music yeah it's like going on Exactly.

1:19:32Interesting. Um, so that now, you know, you raised the 10 million, where does the studio stand today? So we raised that money and a weird thing to this. And I voiced this when I said, Hey, here's the seven reasons not to invest in me. One of those reasons was this isn't going to be my top priority. Family is going to be even health is going to be even my hobbies. Like there's a lot of things of like, um, I'm me trying to have like a balance happy life, like this is going to be somewhere high on my priority list, but it's not going to be at the top and people need to like understand that. And so the tricky thing with that is I can't build, I can't use this money and go build like an army of animators because I don't want to manage them.

1:20:15I don't want to like, I don't want to be the next big CEO of a big corporation. I just know what that looks like lifestyle wise. And it's not for me. So my challenge is like, how do I use this 10 million, build a very small team that's like passionate and talented. And then probably just because it's such hard work to create something like a cartoon show, we need to still, still go back and partner with a bigger studio, bigger network, whatever that looks like. So this gives you leverage now. Yeah, so now we've like proved the interest. And now to go to these networks and say, we have 30 ,000 paying investors.

1:20:47And we have funding that we can contribute. And we've got a small team. Oh, and we have 5 million people who watch us. And we can say no to you. Yeah, exactly. Like the leverage in negotiation is like, you've just created a whole new version of leverage when it comes to like IP life rights. Like you're like, we don't need that anymore, right? I guess in theory. Well, so we've spent the last two years since, you know, finishing the round of funding, again, going back to these networks. And stepping foot into this entertainment world is so difficult. We're used to the creator space. We're used to the tech space where you see something and you create it in days.

1:21:24People also speak very directly in the creator space. Yeah. Meaning like, it's like, hey, let's do this you want to do it yeah let's do it that means you're doing it yeah the entertainment problem that you're running up against it's infuriating i mean literally the last year of negotiations but not even in negotiations it's like oh we're super interested let's reschedule or like what are you doing two months from now and you're like what are you doing i was just telling you about this let's set a call yeah let's set a call when in june what it's may or what are you talking about that's not the way we work honestly I think it's like in so many ways it's just a broken industry and like Optimus in me I was like I just want to fix so many things because again if you don't have time for a call in the next like 48 hours like don't do that call it's not worth your time if it's not worth your time like this week you know yeah that's a really good point it's just a mindset it's a really good point that yeah if it's not there's a story I told Colin about Ari Emanuel where if someone says like hey I'd love to talk he just goes okay call me now Yeah.

1:22:27And it weeds out people who aren't prepared. For sure. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, because they're like, oh, wait, I was going to say, I was going to suggest this tweet. He was like, clearly you're not ready. Yeah. It's not important. So you don't need to do that call. It helps that I just shared the story of like Evan being like, I want to acquire your company. I want to have this done by the weekend. Like I know how quickly legal can move when they want to or when they need to. Yes. And also timing wise too, you know, we were kind of starting to pitch these networks right when the COVID boom of the networks was falling, right?

1:22:59They were cutting shows left and right. So then start pitching them on something new. I loved listening to the Oscars yesterday where they were like, why don't we start funding 20 different ventures for$20 million instead of giving one Marvel$250 million. Yeah. So it's just been an interesting last two years learning how this industry works. Meanwhile, still building an app, still creating merch. And so it was super helpful to go into these negotiations and say, when we're talking about merch, like, oh, hold on. We already sell backpacks. We already sell clothes. We already sell all this stuff.

1:23:36So we came into the negotiations. I'll say that was very intentional to sell the merch we have. A lot of our audience has been confused of like, wait, why are you pushing merch so much? I thought you were focused on the cartoon. And it was a tricky thing because it was super intentional to sell this merch because I knew the time would come when we would get to negotiations with the studios and they would want rights to the merch. And I knew if we just said, no, like we want the rights, that wouldn't have a lot of like pull. But to already say, no, this is already our business and we've already been doing it and have sales and designs all that we own.

1:24:09Like you can't either buy that from us or we're going to keep the rights. so it was all very intentional the order that we did this in so that when we finally found the right partner we were in a really good place negotiation wise to to get what we wanted suggestion the audience gets a return like the people the 30 000 how do they get a return on that hundred dollar because they have like actual ownership in the company um it comes down to like like it's similar to investing in any startup you're waiting for any sort of liquidity if the company goes public the company gets acquired anything like that is when when they would make their money back.

1:24:42The tough thing for me, again, like as a storyteller is I'm wanting to tell people like, this is what happened. And then this is what happened. But for two years, the story was the same. I am knocking on the doors of these networks, trying to find the right partner. And even though we were having good success and good interest, because no deal was happening, I couldn't for two years, just tell like our audience the same, you know, kind of like, I mean, my, the bane of my life was these pitches. And so I just kind of like took it as my own personal journey and we didn't like update our audience that much because i kept feeling like oh we're right on the edge of like closing a deal i'll just wait another month then i'll update our audience and it just kept being that way shareholders it was it was really 30 000 of you know and so you have people being like we're you know and most of these people they've never invested in anything before so they were very very excited and we were too you know like we all want to see this come out you know but learning how this industry works especially animation right it takes a decade at least so yeah i was just gonna say it's a hard thing to just try to be like guys like trust me trust me i'm like we're working our hardest and i'm trying to do this the right way not the fast way we we long ago could have done this the fast way but we want to do it right and it's slow have you considered just the youtube way like in a world where coco melon exists uh and is able to thrive on youtube obviously they have other offerings as well but why not like hire someone from a coco melon 100 we could have and so we did um i'll say there's there's kind of like the big network say netflix disney um hbo max like those and then there's like third part like third party studios uh most of them like especially up in canada and vancouver area that can like create it but they're not like the distributor the channel or like the the network right um and i pitched every single one of everybody as well and it was interesting because the majority of those, I think every single one of them actually said, yes, we want to do it.

1:26:38And then it came up to me just being like - To go to a studio and say, we want to create this. Oh, and we have the money and we have the audience. And the funny. That's music to their ears. Everyone was a yes. But then we quickly realized, why would we give them a piece of the pie? You know, like, why wouldn't we just - Because we would still eventually have to go to a Netflix or go to whatever, or put it on YouTube. So that's a great question of like, why not just put this on YouTube? and I think to be honest it was kind of like something we always wanted to consider but we knew that was an option so why not go down the other path just to see if something else is the option knowing like YouTube not only is an option but it's a really good option and even like today there's a real good chance that that's where a lot of our content like either way content will end up on YouTube but like is that the only place?

1:27:25like maybe, very likely yeah you probably have more leverage if it's not on YouTube in some way shape or form to start And it's just kind of also like, I want to experience life. And because we've experienced YouTube, like, is there something else out there? Let's find out. So the good part of this long, long journey is after all of this, we start having negotiations with National Geographic. Jessica writes her book for National Geographic. It was a four-year process and it launched February just last month. And it did incredibly well. And it's just like a spectacular book. We're so proud of it.

1:27:59and not only was it one of National Geographic's best-selling books ever in like the pre-order phase and at launch but they also just like fell in love working with Jess and so in a cool way all along she became like the golden key to all this where I was just like hitting the pavement and like not making like successful progress for like two years and then Jessica was just like her pure kind self and they fell in love with working with her and then they experienced the madness of our audience when they were buying her book like crazy around the world. And that's when they said, Hey, you guys are working on a cartoon or like trying to, we should have that meeting.

1:28:36And that was like, finally the meeting that changed everything for us because they, it's a beautiful match where I have just so much like admiration for Nat Geo. And I, even all along, if you'd have asked me back in the beginning, like, okay, you've, where's your dream for this to land? I never said it. I didn't want to jinx it. So I just like never said it. But the number one all along, like if this, this should live with National Geographic. It's a beautiful, beautiful partnership, especially National Geographic being owned by Disney. So I gave it my everything in that pitch meeting. Yeah. Take us into that pitch meeting.

1:29:14Like what's, obviously they have a preexisting relationship with you. The goal was, the goal was, okay, we need to find a future home for all things bucket list. Eventually that'll be a cartoon. Before that, it's a very smart step because a cartoon takes so much time. It's a really clever step to do like kids books first, especially just because I'm really excited about it because of how much of our lives is like digital. So much of what we represent is experiencing life offline. And so to create books first is something we're incredibly excited about. And so it's like, okay, we need to find this future home.

1:29:49So that's what this partnership was. like is National Geographic and Disney the future home of all things bucket list so we're working towards that and it came down to the wire and by that I mean like it was December oh my gosh I'm having so much PTSD this was super stressful for me um and I just kept asking him like hey because we we would have a conversation if I had one question I'd be so careful about whether or not I would like bring it up and I would have to choose because if I brought up something and they going to have an answer, then we would rearrange the next meeting every time. That meant a week.

1:30:24And so every time I knew, every detail, every question is just putting out another week. And I wanted the deal to be closed in 2023. The OCD creator storyteller in me wanted the deal to be closed in 2023. I'm a logical person. I understand very well. If this deal closes the second week of January, 2024, it makes no difference in the grand scheme of things. but the OCD storyteller in me wanted 2023. Not only do those numbers add up to seven, my lucky number, but my hero, Walt Disney, created the company Disney 100 years prior to 2023, which is way cooler than the 101st year, right? But I couldn't tell that to legal team.

1:31:06They could care less. And if anything, they're like, wait, you're ridiculous. Like maybe we don't want to partner with you. So I couldn't voice this. And here I am just stressing and trying to come up with like other logical reasons why this deal needs to close. And finally, I just had to force my hand. I said, look, guys, when you have our passion and our excitement, you've, with her book, you've experienced the value of that. And it's been your best-selling book this year. I promise you, if you close this deal this year, you're gonna have my full excitement, gratitude, passion, all of it. If this gets pushed out to next year, I think I wanna like kind of like start over, just kind of like restart the conversation because this isn't the partnership I you know thought it was I need to feel some like give and take here close this deal this week or it's not going to happen oh okay and two days later we have the contract it's closed wow wow two days later they send it to me and I remember like I've been venting here it was just this year-long grueling process and coming from the sports world you know I want to like sit down at a table put on the hat and say I'm going to South Beach.

1:32:18And they just send me a DocuSign. I was like, I worked this hard for a DocuSign? I'm going to open the email. I'm going to do one click and it's done? That's what we've been working towards? Come on, where's the fireworks? You guys are freaking Disney. Let's make an event of this. But yeah, whatever. So it was like four days before Christmas. Should we launch a DocuSign competitor? We should. And a hat. yeah big hat i was gonna say do you want some mickey mouse ears i'm taking my talents so this is what we did this is what we did i remember hitting up my contact in at g and being like hey i got the docu sign do i need to sign this right now or does it make any difference if i sign it later tomorrow and she was like excuse me you've been like pushing so hard to us to get like why are you not gonna sign it and i think i told her i was like i just want to wait for the kids to get home from school we'll do this together and she's like all right so while the kids were at school i designed my own contract that was a beautiful like legit contract printed it out set up a table in our living room like made like a very special family event to it explained to the kids like this is what this means for us as a family this is what it means for like bucket list as a company and and then we each signed it you know we framed it put it into our in our home and then and then we clicked docusign that's awesome and then the deal was done yeah Yeah, congratulations.

1:33:35Yeah, so you have a home for this. It has found a home. It was our number one dream choice. We're so thrilled. Her experience actually working with National Geographic for the past four years, that's what really proved to us, these are the people we want to work with. Great company, great brand. And then just such a cool partnership where we're young, new, and fresh compared to them. And I would argue that Nat Geo is the most timeless respected brand on the planet, arguably, worldwide. Yeah, totally. And what's interesting is actually it being done via Nat Geo feels substantially different than it being done via Disney.

1:34:15100%. Because Nat, you have a big opportunity to be like the Nat Geo brand. Nat Geo also respects the travel side to what you're doing. Totally. There's no brand that is more esteemed, really, than National Geographic. When they did, for a while, it looked like it was going to pivot and it was going to be like a Disney thing. Like, oh, we'll move this from Nat Geo. Like Disney wants this. And that's where I put my foot down. I'm like, no, we want to do this deal only with National Geographic. Because even like if we're like designing the cartoons and what do our characters look like, we didn't want someone to see it and think, oh, that's cool.

1:34:49That looks like Disney. That's not what we wanted. Also, there's probably a question of like, you guys are going to still make YouTube videos, right? And there's probably some requirement. You have to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Feel the pressure. And that's a whole other part of the negotiations of what are we allowed to continue to do? And what do we own versus the new content? And also the channel is like the marketing for the book. For sure. So it's like, oh, for sure. We need the channel to keep, you know, stay alive. So there's a bit of that, like there's complications with YouTube creators because we're also very used to being independent.

1:35:18And so when you get into, you know, a situation where you're getting in with like a Disney, it's a totally different ballgame because you want to keep what's yours, yours still. And that's something I have really appreciated about National Geographic specifically, even with my book, is they want me, us, to be true to who we are. You know, they have been – Like when Jessica created her book, she created her book. I have had so much more creative freedom with them. Is it co-created or similar? We talked to the Sidemen's team and they did their deal with Netflix. They produced their movie and then licensed it to Netflix.

1:35:51And they own it 100%. I'm assuming that's not the case here. No, this is going to be much more of like a team effort. I'm like say like at the head of the wheel creatively and like leading that charge um but it's going to be very much like co-created picking artists together and everything um but again I'm the one being difficult and being like no it can't look like that it's got to be its new thing we got to hire these specific types of artists and everything and I mean props to them they're trusting me and they're following my lead and that's something I like go back to like Walt Disney and like what the big picture is here, I feel like massive responsibility, but I only feel excitement with it.

1:36:31Like I feel like I'm the right person for this task. What's the desired timeline? Like when can we expect to watch a cartoon? Well, to read. Well, okay, sure. Yeah, first. No, honestly, I'm curious about both. Literally, it's just like, when can we show the world anything, right? And then that's in the negotiations. I'm like, guys, I'm going to document this process. I couldn't document the process of me pitching studios and like the legal negotiations and that's I it's like hurt my heart how much our audience has been in the dark up until this point so as soon as we have something that we feel like oh this is actually not just like oh this is a finished book but like I'm going to start showing like the process the explorations the concept are like rough drafts like all the things and it was a tough battle with legal being like hey guys like this is what I do I'm going to do it and you can you need to be all right with that and trust me and so we'll very soon immediately start like showing that process but as far as when the book first book one say the actual content will come out as of now it's slated for next fall i literally just having like that was the one email they sent me before i've been like don't don't make any promises i think it's slated for next fall um but again like if we finish the book in the next three months then that'll change so also nice they've been really they're willing to be fluid with us on when this comes out what i was getting at though like the actual like answer in my mind is you can't rush greatness and i'm like guys i just experienced the most grueling process and was so patient with you guys for legal you're gonna need to be patient with me i'm not going like have you ever been to a movie and you're like how did the movie get made like that was terrible like who approved this movie once i got into the entertainment space and saw I'm like, oh, that's why bad movies get made because people make deadlines.

1:38:16People make like budgets and then they just like rush them. And like they spend the wrong like time in the wrong places. I'm like, guys, everything's gonna live and die first based on story, then based on art, then based on music. So like those are three things we're never gonna rush. This is my legacy project. We're gonna focus on this until it's just the way we want it. Then we'll move to the next chapter. I appreciate and I like respect your deadlines and I'm gonna try my very hardest to like beat them. and be ready far before him. But that's all I can promise you is my best effort. I'm not going to release something that I'm not fully proud of.

1:38:50And so like timeline wise, we'll see. Like greatness takes time and I'm going to force them to be as patient as they required me to be for that process. I think that's smart. Story first. This is a question now that I'm really, really curious about as we're starting to talk to more creators who are doing deals with traditional media and those deals have hot, like large dollar amounts. What have you learned about negotiating in those environments as a creator, as someone who's built your own media platform? When you walk into the room of the traditional entertainment business, what have you learned about those negotiations that can get into the tens of millions of dollars?

1:39:30It's interesting. The more you can detach yourself from the numbers, it's weird. It's just kind of like you need to know up front, like you're incredibly valuable and just have that like self-value and confidence. And then from there, forget about the money and just and just like, is this a good deal? Is this the right partnership? Do they value me? And usually like the way of them showing the value is not only like negotiating in a favorable way, but then also showing you with like the dollar amounts. Right. And so one of the best things I've ever had going for me when it comes to negotiations is I just not only do I like value myself at a very high level, but I also know like I'm going to give you my everything.

1:40:09And this is going to be the best choice you ever made. Letting letting me work with you and I'm going to prove that to you. I'm worth it. So like that's that's. Do you guys have a team doing your negotiating or do you do that yourself? I did it for a lot of our career. You did. Yeah. And now we are represented by United Talent Agency. Okay. Yeah. And then we have a lawyer as well who works from there. I'm extremely involved. Right. Right. But it is, it took me a long time to feel comfortable being detached from the process and I'm detached. I'm still involved in everyone. I, I feel uncomfortable if I'm not in the meetings.

1:40:42Like I, I need to be very much a part of it, but yeah, it's different. It's very different to have someone else doing it, but it has freed me up quite a bit. And the good side of it is like, that is what they do. And so they can just bring like more deals and bigger deals. we work with - They also know the market, which is most helpful for me. Right? It's because if I'm like, oh, that sounds pretty good. I mean, I've had experiences like exactly what you described with the scan deal where I'm like, we're happy with that. And they're like, Samir, we know the market. You're being undervalued here.

1:41:13And I'll be like, but I'm good. That's good. And so we've gone back and forth quite a bit on those types of things, but it's always netted out in a positive way because they do know the market. it exactly yeah we have in our life christy and she like it would almost be feel wrong to like call our manager our assistant she's just our christy she's our everything just to make our lives better in every way and uh yeah she's been that for us in a lot of ways how does the studios the book all of that fit into the broader i guess um business and like revenue pie chart of bucket list family? Because it sounds like you were saying like you, you monetize one out of every few YouTube videos.

1:41:56You, it sounds like brand partnerships are probably a big part of the business now. Does all of that continue? Does this kind of engulf and swallow all of that? Like is, does the bucket list studios now also incorporate what's happening on YouTube and Instagram or like paint me the picture of, of the whole business now? We'll, we'll continue to like, And actually, I had made the announcement on our Bucket List family YouTube channel, our current YouTube channel, that we've been putting videos out about once a week. And literally, their title was like week 204, week 205. On week 250, we made the announcement that we were going to stop at week 300, at least in their current format.

1:42:35We're currently at week 265, I think. Oh, wow. So you're closing in on that. Uh-huh. And we just let people know like, hey, this has been a season for our family. We don't know if it's going to just completely turn off and call it quits or if it's going to like morph and what that's going to look like. But you can expect this consistency to continue to 300 and then something will change.

1:43:13points a second for threats. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it. Guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40 % your first year. Visit lifelock.com slash podcast for 40 % off. Terms apply. Ominous. Yeah. Cryptic. Yeah. Something's going to change. I mean, a lot of it is, is, you know, Garrett has edited every single one of those videos. You know what I mean? To be where we're at in life and Garrett spends his days exactly how he wants to spend his days. It's not hard and he loves editing these videos but i mean he's still spending 20 to 30 30 to 40 hours a week editing so i think that's going to be a big shift but you know building out not only this cartoon and the books and you know we're working on an app and you know just building out more of our community that's a whole other side to it like i said we have an incredible demographic an incredible community we have something called bucket list friends which is a subscriber group people pay$5 a month.

1:44:08We give them exclusive content, um, exclusive travel deals, um, bringing that all together for a new community on an app. That's a whole other side to the studios that's included in the business. Um, so it's, it's still got this big grand scheme and then all the merch on top of it. So, so it's kind of this whole big three 60, you know, and then at the same time, you know, like, I don't know what YouTube is going to turn into, but you know, there's still the social media side. That's, that's the marketing driver. That's still the views that you need to make it all successful. So if you were to rank your revenue streams from like biggest to, uh, I guess, I guess just like for in order of, of like how the business really functions is merch on top prior to studios or is it advertising brand deals?

1:44:53Right. Um, for us it's about, well, so there's the bucket list family right now. And then there's the bucket list studios bucket list family is half brand deals, half bucket list friends, half subscription. Okay. Yeah. Classic creator. Right. And then studios is all merch right now. All merch. Yeah. How big is your team? There are 10 of us total, less included. Yeah. Your brother is the head of story at Bucket List. Can you talk about that role? And what are some of the other roles that are in the business? Because head of story is not a, it makes complete sense. But what is that role? this is a good example of like we're doing this in such a different way like it might blow up in our faces and i'm i don't want to say i'm okay with that but like i'm okay with it if i tried my best i love trying something unique and if it fails it's like hey at least we tried something at least we tried something new so much better than like oh okay i'll just bow down and stick to the recipe and then if it fails i'd be like disgusted with myself and so um i hired my brother this is the brother that was the high school teacher that i talked to that i just look up to so much, you know, and what a unique, so much props to him and his personality that he'd be willing to like work for his little brother.

1:46:06Sure. Right. But that's, he knows just how I feel about him. I know he feels about me. So it works. And he's just a brilliant, brilliant writer. And nobody knows our story better than he does. I could go out and hire the best writer in the world, but they don't know us as well as he does. And even though he's never written a cartoon or children's books I he's just the most brilliant writer you know and so I'm confident it was the right choice we'll see I'm sure a lot of like blame or like questioning will come my way if it doesn't work out being like oh you just hired him to like help hook up your brother which wasn't the case but like we'll see how that turns out but everyone who we've hired there's one guy on our team who's our like lead of creative nation and creative he has industry experience He's the only one of the team of 10.

1:46:52Everyone else, our Merch guy is new to Merch. We've obviously never done this, you know. And then me and one of my buddies that we built the iPhone app with, Scan, he's on board as well. He and I are creating the app together. Cool. And so, yeah, it's my dream scenario. It's a very small team. I care dearly about everyone. We're a very tight-knit, you know, family-type group. And just kind of that misfit, Let's see if we can do this as a team of rookies. And are they all employees of studios? Not, yeah. So the creator company is just you guys. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I think that's the right.

1:47:29We've seen that. It's a growing trend in the creator space of like, there's a scalable side to what you do and an unscalable side to what you do. You keep the unscalable side really small, as small as possible. And you hire in the scalable side, right? So like you transfer any talent over to the side that has scale to it. Yeah. Yeah. That's really interesting. the um i'm curious what you think about just generally the category of family and uh i guess like family-friendly youtube and family-friendly digital content because it is a massive category it is like you know youtube even has its own app for youtube kids right it's interesting too to be in this space and like garrett said like we're not huge consumers ourselves our kids aren't consumers whatsoever that's interesting your kids do not consume youtube none i don't know I don't know.

1:48:17They can watch our YouTube videos. And that's it. Interesting. That's a rule. Like you can't watch. Yeah. Just in general, like our kids at home don't have a screen. We don't have a TV. We'll sit down on a Sunday and like pull up old videos just for fun. And watch early. Yeah. I still do that with my home movies. Like if I go to my parents' house with these VHSs and I can just watch them for hours. What's the reasoning behind that of like, we don't want you watching? More so just we believe that's like a healthier life. It's just, it's a weird thing because I'm such like a techie guy. But because of that, I've also seen the dark side.

1:48:50Well, and our YouTubes, if you look at our YouTubes, our goal is to put out there, put it out there, right? It's our family videos. We hope you will watch it for 20 to 30 minutes once a week. And then we hope you'll go out and live a life. Like, I don't want you to sit and binge watch my videos. Got it. Right. Which is, you know, probably not how most YouTubers work. They want you to sit and go through all the videos for hours. but ours is probably more like a tv series where you can go and watch you know the algorithm he says the uh no yeah that's exactly right and so to the good the good side of like why we why we do like being like creators is because i feel like the life of a creator is so busy to create that it leaves very little time to like consume and so if you're going to spend some time I'm like on a screen or on a phone.

1:49:39It's I would rather my kids say in the future if they want to. I'd rather them be creating than just consuming. Yeah. Well, and our daughter, you know, our oldest is 11. None of her friends have phones. So we're kind of at the precipice of, you know, bringing in phones and social media and stuff. You know, like it's not quite there, but maybe in the next two years or so, you know, and I don't know what that is going to look like. Garrett and I have talked about maybe when Dorothy's 17 or 16, we give her her Instagram. She's got 300 ,000 followers. And you can turn it off or you can monetize it.

1:50:16Here's a job if you want it or you can just turn it off. And she loves making movies. That's wild. It just happened with Matthew McConaughey's son. Did you watch that? I think you mentioned that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They gifted their son his Instagram and it had$800 ,000, right? I don't know if it had that many. How old is he? But basically they like launched it for his birthday. I think he was 16. Oh, wow. Yeah. See? And they made like a public announcement. Yeah. You know, here it is. Have fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and something I also love about our demographic is, and we took this when we were pitching other companies, and the first thing people would ask is, what's your demographic?

1:50:57and for us they were looking for the oh you know the seven to twelve year olds they wanted a very specific demographic and for us it's always been full families the amount of our audience that sits down together on a sunday evening and watches it together it i mean it's the majority of our audience it's a fun tradition that they'll like on sunday evening send us a picture of them as a family sitting down in the living room and like watching on tv together like sometimes like wearing our merch and stuff and for me i'm like tell me something else in the entertainment world where families will in today's world gather together as a family on like a weekly routine sure where the merch like maybe sports teams have like achieved this you know maybe reality competition shows yeah yeah american idols but they're probably not wearing the merch they're definitely not wearing the merch so for us to like be able to like achieve that when we go into disney national geographic and they'll like push back being like no like you need to be more specific with your demographic i'm like no sorry we've worked so hard to like achieve this unique setting that that's what we wanted that's what we want to achieve with the cartoon as well yeah you know it's not gonna be a little kiddie cartoon it's it's gonna be that family friendly full family entertainment full family entertainment is really interesting i mean very hard maybe maybe the other and it's it's probably an older demo but i would say dude perfect probably fits into this category of like full families can sit or at least like you know parents and kids i've i've watched that happened where like you know parents and kids are sitting and watching dude perfect we'll sit down and watch mark roberg when he does oh he's yeah we love watching yeah i think with both of those groups you know dude perfect and mark rober like mark has built an incredible business with yeah just a phenomenal business where it's like kids use it yeah yeah i mean my my my nephews use it and it's just like you watch the video and then you get to like the business is also built to say stop watching and start doing it, which is really cool.

1:52:49And he only makes 12 videos a year. That's interesting. I think you guys fit into that. Do you have anticipation of doing any I know you have done this in the past, retreats or family trips that you can go on? We do them quite often. We'll do two to three years. And actually, now even with this Bucketless Studios team, so our group of 10, we all work remotely. We do our best, which isn't the most strategic thing, successful, business wise, but we do our best to like practice what we preach. And so everyone works from home and like, they know that we would prefer them to prioritize their family, get your work done.

1:53:25But like, you don't have work hours. You're not checking in or clocking in like nothing. Like you live your best life. You be healthy. You be like, have your passions and hobbies and focus on your family. Just make sure you get your work done whenever and wherever you want to. But because of that, we're all remote. And so we'll like, we try as much as possible, but usually ends up being like three times a year. We'll come together somewhere awesome. The good part of our, about being the Bugos family is there's just like an email full of invites to destinations. So we'll respond to them and say, would you be willing to like host the Bugos Studios team?

1:53:58And then those that say, yeah. So we did, we like told our team about the really exciting news of the partnership with National Geographic on a private Island called Ariel in the British Virgin Islands. It's just, it looks like almost like a villain layer on a cliff side. It's the most outrageously beautiful, stunning structure in the Bridge for Giant Islands. And that's where we got to like tell our team. So that was the big downside is we don't get to like hang out with them. The plus side is we can work pretty epic places when we come together. Yeah. And they get to mold their lives as they like.

1:54:29You've done retreats though for like audience members. Yeah. So we, I mean, we go to Africa every other year. We were working on a surf camp. We've done Blapkos. We've gone to Fiji. We've gone to White Sharks. And you're there every time this happened? Yeah. we've done one that we weren't present and it was awesome to see like how well that did so now that has our wheels turning but other than that one which was a safari in tanzania all of our bucket list group expeditions we come are with us present and we we love them like we love we'll we'll purpose we kind of learned along the way what we like and don't like and the smaller groups is what we prefer but i mean it it really does just bring together such incredible people yeah i like that I like the experiential business for YouTube, like YouTube creators who have the opportunity to, whether it's touring or like camps or retreats.

1:55:17Like, I think it's a really interesting, it's also healthy for the YouTube creators to like go out and do something like experiential. Well, and I think for me, especially to see like, okay, everything we are working so hard on because I have tried to detach myself from the social media side to go out and say these incredible people that are watching and how it's impacting their lives. It gives me so much more excitement and motivation to continue to opening myself up to the world. The scale comes in three forms, I think, or has the opportunity to come in three forms when it comes to being a creator.

1:55:50One is digitally, right? So for you guys, that's turning yourselves into a cartoon. Now we can digitally scale, right? Then there's like physically. That's through merchandise. You can scale the brand through like things, people, the Nat Geo book, things people can touch and feel. And then there's experientially as well, which is, can I do the thing that you're doing? And I think the creators who have the best opportunities are the ones who can scale across all three of those. Then you can really build a significant business. Totally. One thing that you guys should be warned about is once you know us, once you're on our radar, you're going to get invites often, crazy invites.

1:56:28And you need to, this is an actual warning. You need to be aware that it's okay to say no because you're going to get a lot of invites. Oh, man. This is exciting. This is exciting and terrifies me because being friends with the yes theory is not so different or it used to be not so different. I'll say Craig Adams is a creator who hikes all over the world. I said to him, I was like, hey, if you ever want someone to join you, I'd be happy to go. And he DM'd me immediately and said, I'm going to Chile in three days. I was like, oh, no, I was like, I'm not prepared. Yeah, I'm like, no, I didn't. I didn't mean that.

1:57:00It was more of like an emotional thing. It wasn't a real thing. I was like, oh, I just mean, I'd like to be that person who would be there with you. Oh, our friends now, they're used to the like, hey, we're going to swim with Great White Sharks this weekend. I'm going to take all the invites. I'll take it. Yeah, okay. Because I think I'm now at a point where I'm like, yes. And I'll come back to that, like the entrepreneur in me being young and a bit scared that I was never going to get somewhere, right? If someone invited me to something, I'd be like, I can't, I got to work, right? And not recognizing that, like having a variety.

1:57:30Oh, if we go, we will monetize that. But just not realizing that having a variety of experiences was really important to being a creative entrepreneur. Like, I don't think I realized that for a lot of my 20s. I thought the path was sit in a room. You had to work. And just sit on your computer and just work. Well, then I want to know for you guys, each of you guys, like, what is that thing that would be the number one, the very top of your bucket list that you haven't done yet that you want to someday? if if money is not an issue if the difficulties the typical difficulties are not an issue where's that place or what does that experience I think mine has been a little bit longer term.

1:58:07I really want to become fluent in Spanish. I was an Italian major in college and I got pretty much there. But I have like zero opportunities really to use Italian. And there's so many opportunities here to speak Spanish. And I loved what speaking another language did to my brain. It felt like aerobics for my brain. I just loved being confronted with that opportunity. And I've wanted that so badly. Just to like go for long enough to be fluent. Yeah. I love that. If you just off the top of your head had to pick a Spanish country to go have that first experience. The first thing that comes to mind is Mexico City just because I really enjoyed it.

1:58:43And I think traveling around Mexico would be really fun and interesting. And if I had to get back for some reason for my family here and there, or to even come here, I could do it. That's the first that comes to mind. Italian, you studied that in school? Yeah. Have you been there yet? Yeah, I spent a lot of time there in college. Awesome. Becoming basically fluent. So you know the joy. How much that can connect you with that culture in just the next level way? And talk about like a way from the internet type of experience. Like my, I was there at a time where I didn't even have a smartphone. But even now when I have the opportunity to speak a language, like my phone and the internet is so far in the back of my mind.

1:59:16I'm just so plugged in and excited to engage and see how it's going. Yeah, it really does. It's such, there's such a beautiful feeling to be able to, like you said. Oh my gosh. And it like puts a smile on my face. It puts a smile on the other person's face when they feel like it's working. Yeah. Even when it's clunky, you know, it's like, it's so fun. she and I we met serving church missions in Russia so that's where we first met we're both fluent in Russian and it's interesting to hear you say that because like 90 % of like cultures and languages around the world as soon as you say hello or thank you in their language they just like light up Russian not the case oh really Russian you can like speak fluently back to a Russian and they're just like you speak very poorly why do you have a terrible accent I'm like dude I'm speaking your language and it's very difficult nobody speaks Russian by the way and they are not impressed yeah they're not impressed I think for me, it would be South America.

2:00:04Like I studied abroad in Brazil and I really loved it. Okay. And I always wanted to like, I don't remember what the actual thing was, the kind of like motorcycle-y type. There was a lot of people that I met down there who had like flown into, I think Lima, Peru, and then they were just on a motorcycle going through South America. I can't motorcycle and I'd be too scared. So I'd probably ride buses, but there was an experience I had in Europe where I flew into Barcelona and met my friend and then had a flight out of Paris 10 days later and had no plans in between. And we just hopped on buses and found our way through, you know, basically navigating from Spain to France.

2:00:42And that's what I would want to do now is just like flight into Lima, Peru, flight out of somewhere else three months later, and then just be like, I have to navigate my way through that. I like the challenge and the unexpectedness of that, the ups and downs of, we had a lot of downs in those 10 days, right? Like there was nights where we couldn't figure out where to sleep and we had to get on a bus to sleep on the bus. So that to me was really fun. Those like adventures where the next hour is you have no idea what is about to happen. It's kind of the beauty of travel. And when it bleeds into your life, I've just realized like, oh, the ups and downs of life like are the journey, are the experience.

2:01:20It's a good like, you know, what you take away from travel. Should you make a mental note so you can plan these? Yeah. We can send a follow up. I have a like a functional question here. Like do the, your kids, they operate almost like, like child actors where like they have those accounts that you're stashing money into that they can't touch until they're okay. So that's just how it operates. Got it. And that's because you chose to do that. We did a deal with Disney back in 2018 where we, it was called 30 stays in 30 days. We stayed at every single Walt Disney world hotel in 30 days. There's 30 of them.

2:01:57They made us open up Cougan accounts for the kids. and I'm glad they did because now we have one for each of them and now any deal we do that includes the kids which is every deal yeah where it benefits them got it and our second son he's like starting to grasp money and so he's like wait how much money am I like you know are you saving for me like when do I get this money and what can you know what I mean can I have ice cream no no ice cream what if I pay for it oh shoot oh wow that's so funny he's like what do you say What do you say to that? No. I still know that. I still know that. What was it the other day?

2:02:35He's like, Dad, are we rich? And I was like, okay, let's have this conversation. And I was like, I think I just told him no, but we work hard. And I just made sure not to answer, like use the word rich. And then the response that I'm like, look, we're working as hard as we can so that we can always have food. We have our amazing house that we love. And I gave him that answer. And he goes quiet. He's thoughtful about it. And he was like, well, keep working hard, dad. You'll get there someday. Thanks, bud. That's funny. Yeah. What is your relationship now to money? And how does it play into your motivation or your life?

2:03:12Money is a weird, it's a weird world. I don't know. And maybe as like a creator where, you know, when you're making$25 ,000 or$50 ,000 on a post or something like that, and you can do one post and make so much money. and then to go to the grocery store and see produce for, you know, or a carton of eggs for$12. And I'm like, what? It's just a weird, I don't know if you guys have experienced it. It's all relative. And like Garrett mentioned earlier, we're very conscious of how we spend our money. We're still very frugal. And I think a lot of our friends are really surprised when they see how frugal we are, even though we have money.

2:03:50Even if our travels, like if we do a brand deal, we'll ask to be flown business class and hopefully they'll say yes. but we're never gonna pay for business class we're always finding the cheapest ticket right we're always economy and our kids understand that yeah i gotta be honest that whole experience has really messed me up getting flown business because it just it will and this sounds ridiculous to say it does but it's just a real thing that happens right like you get flown really nicely nice accommodations when you're flown out by a big company to go do a speaking engagement or something like that you got to buy your own ticket and you're like all right uh i guess like i i try Because you think about it, you're like, am I really going to spend four to five grand for eight hours, 12 hours on a flight?

2:04:30No, that's crazy. But then you're like. Sometimes it's way more than that. Yeah, sometimes it's way more than that. If you're flying to, you know, I fly to India for my family trips. That's an expensive business class ticket. I'm sure. Yeah. So if you have any travel hacks, I will also take those. Have you guys worked with, have you ever heard of Flight King? No. Okay, I'll introduce you guys. I think he kind of uses all the points in the credit cards. Flight King's not a website. It's a guy. It's a guy. It's a guy. Turned into a business. He does business class at discounted rates. So instead of paying$10 ,000 for a business class, you're paying$5 ,000.

2:05:05So it's always just worth an attempt. If you're going to go on a trip and you have some budget that you're at least considering it, you literally just let him know, this is when I go. This is my flexible window. And then he'll get back to you like, oh, here's the discounted prices. And then you can choose if you want to book it. We've been using him the last two years. Did you guys ever think about launching a travel website or travel app? I mean, that's what Bucketless Friends is where we give people exclusive deals. So anytime we go to a place, we just went to the Antarctica on a Lindblad trip.

2:05:34Lindblad is a very pricey experience, but rightfully so. It's the best way to experience, especially the Arctic regions, and they have experiences all around the world in partnership with National Geographic. So it's a great experience on Lindblad. but we'll let these companies know up front if you're going to work with us if you're going to host us pay us whatever you also need to provide a very stellar discount only exclusive to our bugless friends got it so bugless friends they pay five dollars a month but as soon as they like book a safari and save themselves like eight grand you know yeah these are like really stellar deals interesting that's that's a really cool perk to that membership that's a great how many members are there in that um it kind of ranges over time but i think like in the lifetime we've had 30 thousand yeah i think like obviously like when you watch a channel like yours the natural instinct is well i want to do that too so yeah yeah being a part of that and we yeah we absolutely love that we can like provide it's always one of the favorite things is people will send us a pic being like hey look where i am and there's somewhere that we've been before and they're very like remote like that's off the path places that they would only go to because like you know we send them there do you guys represent your own brand partnerships are you repped by like a agency no just ourselves Just yourself.

2:06:45So people just send you an email. And that's where - Well, and my background is in marketing and advertising. I went to school. I wanted to do product placement in movies. I wanted to do the Reese's Pieces and E.T. or the Bond cars. Like that's what I wanted to do. And now I just do it in my own life. Let me ask you a question on that. Why hasn't product placement come into our world? I mean, I feel like it has. You feel like it has? Yeah, it's what we do. I guess what I'm talking about is like, right now, let's say we had like a Coca-Cola right here. Right. in movies I would not have to disclose that that is a paid promotion okay I get what you're saying yeah in our industry I would yeah why is why has that not happened yet does that make sense great question uh that that to me feels really interesting that like that's a great question if you guys are driving us a jeep let's right right right again on a tv show or in a movie you do not need to disclose that jeep is paying for that it's a much better consumer experience yeah but on youtube you'd have to be like thanks so much uh because ftc you'd have to be like thanks so much Jeep for providing a car and sponsoring this video.

2:07:43Like probably stop your story for 60 to 90 seconds to talk about it. I find that like we are adopting advertising from the radio. Right. Right. Right. On YouTube where it's like break from the programming, deliver the advertisement back to the programming. Whereas like movies get to do it in a much more integrated way. Yeah. Transformers can have Chevy all over the place. We don't get to do that. I just think that's, that's probably the next chapter of advertising for us. I was going to say, I think it's morphing that way. I think that's just a natural. And I think it already is like happening even just we're not necessarily aware of it.

2:08:15Like how often brands are just trying to send us stuff because they understand that. Yeah. You know what I mean? So I think it's happening. It just isn't quite to the level that it is in movies yet. Yeah. Yeah. My favorite thing about how the way Jessica like represents us, because like I said, we don't like belong to an agency, is purposely so because Jessica not only is just like doing these deals, but she's just like becoming friends with these brands. Right. The fact that she's like personal friends with most every major airline in the world and every like tourism board and hotels and like everything has just been so incredibly valuable to like what we do.

2:08:51I think that's a really important point because we like our industry, we are in the relationships business 100%. Like as long as you're making good stuff, then you're in the relationships business. First, you have to make good stuff. And Garrett and I both like him with editing and me with my relationships, like we've both been control freaks from the very beginning. So we never wanted to sign with an agency. and Garrett's never even thought about having an editor, you know? So we, I think most people would be surprised. I mean, we do have someone who helps us now kind of go through contracts and stuff, but, um, yeah, it's been Garrett and I for the last eight years.

2:09:23I remember when our friend, she was like fashion influencer and she was repped and it got back to her that Victoria's Secret invited her to the fashion show and they weren't willing to pay. So the brands or the agency said no. When she found that out, she's like, that's like my Mecca, I would have paid to do that. Like, why did you say no? So there's just good examples of like, it's obviously more work, but I think it's one of the best things we've done. Yeah. And that's how the Nat Geo deal comes together is because of your relationship. Because you own that relationship. Well, and our editor, my editor has been our advocate throughout the whole company.

2:09:56And she's been the one who's gotten us meetings with, you know, speaking at National Geographic and book side the book side and the social media side and the cartoons that you know what I mean so kind of going through all these different groups the dynamic would be very different if there was actually an agent between you guys and she's amazing she came to Africa with us last summer she's our dear friend now and I mean she's half the reason why we are with them where we are because we adore her we invited her to Africa and she said yes wow he's really pushing this up he can't wait look in your eyes right now like the next time you ask us to go somewhere Eric can't wait to ask us to go somewhere honestly It's one of my favorite ways to get to know a person is how they react when you give them an outrageous invite.

2:10:36Oh, man. It's not even the experience. It's coming. It's the invite stage. So what is the— I'm open to it. I'm open to it. I will bring a camera. Hey, that's even better because as long as Garrett's got a buddy. There's going to be a lot of invites. Okay, good. So you got to be okay to say no sometimes. Garrett is thrilled to have a buddy with him with a camera as well because then they're just playing off each other. Those are like your favorite trips when you have multiple creators. What is the major motivator now for you guys? And where do you want this all to go? I think for the last few years, you know, when finances isn't the, you know, the motivating factor, so much of it is what experiences can we have together as a family?

2:11:19And what do we need to do to achieve that? Right? So we just went to Antarctica. That was on our bucket list. You know, we're just looking for these opportunities for our family. We'd actually talked about this like a year ago. We said, let's just say like YouTube turned off, Instagram turned off, whatever. Like it's out of our control to an extent. What are the things that we wouldn't be able to pay for or want to pay for? And we need to do it while we're the bucket list family. Because if that turns off, are we going to pay$180 ,000 to go into Antarctica? We're just wired, too frugal. We wouldn't.

2:11:53And yet it's such an important experience for a human to be able to like hopefully make there may get there someday so we made that list of these are the things we need to prioritize while we are the bug of this family not saying it's going to turn off but that might be out of our control perspective you know i like that yeah that's really really cool i feel like we should make a list of things that we want to do while we're calling it we would absolutely say yes to yeah in this moment exactly that's good uh for me for me a big like big motivating factor at this stage is i'm aware that if i wanted to i could just like turn off and fade off in the sunset and a lot of entrepreneurs be like, oh, I could never retire.

2:12:29I would argue I could once I picked up surfing. Like, I could do that the rest of all day, every day. Garrett's five-year plan is to not own a phone. Oh, interesting. We'll see, yeah. So lifestyle-wise, you're looking for a shift in five to ten years. Yeah, and I'm there. Like, I could do that tomorrow if I wanted to. Why I'm still going is kind of a mixture of these experiences while we're still the bucket list family that we can pull off. But to be honest, like, the other half of it is wanting to take what I feel like I've accomplished in life, which is ultimate freedom, and gift that to as many people as possible.

2:13:02Not only like hopefully inspire it to many people around the world, but people in my circle. Can I give you a job or an opportunity or whatever it is? Can I help you get to what I've accomplished? Just not financially, but like freedom wise, freedom of lifestyle. Well, and experiences like we've seen and experienced so much. And so now like we we joke about giving like invites to travel there is nothing there's no greater gift you could give us than us experiencing something for the first time through your eyes you know when safari is my favorite place in the whole wide world so when i get to take my friends and my family on safari it's the greatest they're watching animals and we're just i'm always just like i love it there's nothing that brings more joy yeah we had our neighbors in hawaii who like rarely leave the island maybe they've left like twice and we their kids don't is it's kind of like the hawaiian way like they don't have a tv their kids had never watched like a disney movie and the just knowing their kids i'm like oh my gosh their heads would actually explode if they experienced disney world let us take them and it was almost like a year long to like convince them to let us do it so we took their family to walt disney world this is like a month ago it was vip tour guide backdoor access, Buggyless Family style.

2:14:13Like they just got it to like the max level. And it was one of our favorite Disney experiences ever to get that experience through someone else's eyes. I read a quote of yours where you said you wanted every day to feel like a Saturday. Do you feel like that's where you are right now? I feel like I've probably been there for like 10 years. It took a lot to get there, but I've been there. I literally wake up not knowing or caring what day it is. And I do what I want to do that day. 99 and 100 days of the year. That's also, though, because you have a wife who does all of the things that you don't want to do.

2:14:54I know exactly what day it is. This is very true. That is it. But I will say, props to Garrett and for what he has accomplished because even back in the scan days like the scan snapchat acquisition wasn't the biggest acquisition that you've seen you know like it's not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things but Garrett sold a successful company while playing collegiate soccer while being with his wife and young daughter like Garrett has always had an incredible work-life balance of you know just living how he wants to while accomplishing incredible things yeah I'd say also like the unique part of that perhaps is how much I did walk away from the tech rat race yeah how many people hit me up during our travels being like hey you must be itching to get back in like to the rat race of things and I'm like I swam with whales today with my kids like I'm good I'm not dying to be behind back behind a computer um but like that's how a lot of people are it's just like more money more money more money and I think one thing that like if I were to try to explain how to achieve that every day a Saturday like lifestyle is understanding that like bell curve of life where challenge to your graphics team, there's this bell curve, right?

2:16:06And as you make more money or you achieve more fame, you become happier and happier and happier to a point. And then as you get past that tipping point, which is different for every human, you become sadder, sadder and sadder. So your happiness is on a bell curve as you make more money or achieve more fame. And the interesting thing with like us and our dynamic is I, if I were to guess, I like truly do feel like at the cusp of it, we're in a really amazing place. And I want to like push that limit. I want to see like, hey, let's get to the top and look over the edge and then stop there. But I don't know where that is.

2:16:41And I think I have a very high threshold for both. So I want to keep going, keep going. Where she's like, hey, we're good. We're good. Like, let's stop here. So she, in a positive way, is holding us back. And I just want to look over that edge. That's very honest. And I appreciate that. And I - I would say, yeah, I was going to say, I would say you're - We've talked about that. Extremely similar to that. Yeah. I think I asked you one time, like, how famous are you willing to get? Remember? It's different for everyone, right? You've had some incredible conversations with incredible people over the years.

2:17:09I remember, you know, back in our scan days, we lived in San Francisco. Garrett went to the Giants game with Jack Dorsey. Founder of Twitter. And he was Garrett's idol. He was a designer. He had, yeah, had Square, had Twitter. Like, he was everything. And in that two hours, you know, there's not a better, like, experience to get to know somebody. than a baseball game in like a box where you just it's just you and him and you get to just chat for hours and after that conversation this is again you know before the acquisition of skin Garrett came home and I was like how did it go you met your idol today and he was like he was awesome he was super nice but all I wanted to do was find out what's your family like what's your friends like what do you like to do for fun and his whole motivation was business yeah and Garrett left being And like, that's not what I want.

2:17:57And we honestly - I was like brokenhearted because I was like, oh, he's not my hero who I thought he was. And there's nothing against him. We're just different people. Just different motivations. But I was like, it was important for me to realize in that time, like, oh, it's, I thought it was money that I wanted, but money's not going to give you freedom. It can help greatly. But it was in that moment I realized, oh, I'm not trying to achieve title and fame and money. I'm trying to achieve freedom. Fame can help with that to an extent. And money can help with that to an extent. So I want as much fame and money that will give me as much fame as possible.

2:18:29Nothing. We left Silicon Valley the next month. Went back to Utah. Garrett, I mean, Garrett's dropped in and out of soccer, or in and out of school three times to play soccer. And that was one of those times was after being in Silicon Valley for a year, doing the rat race, and then really is like realizing, what is this for? Like, this is not what I want. You know, you thought that's what you needed to do is you need to be heads down 24-7. it was literally the fisherman we met in tonga who was like hey man like there's a better way to do this like you can catch way more fish if you bought a bigger boat and did this and this and this you would be making way more money well what would you do with that money i just want to fish like he's doing exactly what he wants to do and money's just going to make his life more complicated and so once you achieve it like that's where you live yeah so i do think we misconstrue like freedom is uh oftentimes what everyone actually wants and i think we misconstrue the other thing that again like you're saying i think the honesty is really important like they do help of course they help right money and fame do help you get there but you might like tip over the edge in the pursuit of well freedom's on the other side freedom's on the other side it's like when we're building our company we're hiring more and more people the more i can like delegate and hire people that's going to make my life easier until i'm managing 100 people yeah and i both times in both companies i've learned like 10 is kind of my sweet spot once I get beyond that I'm spending too much time managing and not enough time creating so I want just enough people to like create and it's like a team team effort but I'm still like a meaningful part of the creation process not the management process there I remember someone asking me do you miss the days when you were like a young poor married couple and they almost lasted in a way like they wanted me to say yes and I was just very transparent with them I was like, no way.

2:20:11Life is way better with money. And anyone who thinks otherwise is bad at having money. I remember too deeply what it felt like to be like poor and worried and stressed. And I'm only grateful for any money in my life. And I think we've done a really good job of like sticking to at least like the frugal part of who we are, then only letting it be a good thing so fire awesome well what do you guys hope um what do you guys hope for with uh the next year as you're approaching your final you know the 300th i guess youtube video which means a big shift you're approaching this new chapter of of animation and immortalizing yourselves into a cartoon like what do you hope for what do you hope comes out of all of this i just want to do a good job it's it's what we've been working for is to get to this point yeah right to have an audience on on our youtube that we can like just share the stories the way we want to um it's such a special thing so i'm like i'm in no rush for these 300 it's funny because videos zero to 250 we're always about like 20 minutes and i found that they're starting to become like an hour long because i feel it like slipping away like i don't want to and i just want to like soak it in while i have it and so on that end it's fully just embracing it and soaking it in while we're while we're in it and then the next chapter being with national and geographic i i really just want to like prove ourselves and do a good job it's such like a blank slate blank canvas and uh i want to do a good job for him well we'll be watching we'll be reading and hopefully we'll be with you on some crazy adventure look forward to the first forward to the first that is up to you my friend Cool.

2:21:54Thank you guys. Thank you. Appreciate it.