Jack's Dining Room & Yes Chef Group Founder: Jack Goldburg – Food, Community, & Turning Attention Into Something That Lasts

0:00This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace, and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for.

0:39You sent a message, and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew. Well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for. From a browse to a bike ride, this summer, find more on Facebook. Oh my God, you have the best job ever. Like, I wish I could just eat food all day. And I'm like, it's me too. Yes, chef. Connaisseur of food. Yes, chef guides will become like the modern day cool kid version of Michelin guides. The people who think you're eating sandwiches all day are probably not playing any long game.

1:15This guy sitting next to us was looking at us in the suit and he's kind of like, who the f*** are you guys? When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. How did you know when to jump? My girlfriend hates me because I don't see her. Is more music coming? I feel like the people might want to know.

1:27The Gstaad Guy:I think... I have this issue with a lot of restaurants that they're all kind of the same. How do you feel about attention spans? It's really like... Around the world with your host, the Stardguy. We welcome you back to the Stardguy podcast, sharing stories of excellence with those in the know for those who just know. Whenever, I mean, you know how it is when we're in the industry and we create content too. When we consume content, we try to think about the production itself. And I think the strongest part of your brand is actually your voice. I appreciate that. You have like this very captivating familial voice that you don't need subtitles.

2:11The Gstaad Guy:You never have subs, right? No, usually not. You just talk about the thing. And I know if I hear this voice, then this topic is credible. And this thing is credible. I appreciate that. I feel like same with you, with the different characters. Like when you hear certain styles, you know, like, okay, this is going to be a funny video. This is going to be more of like sass hire. Thanks. Well, thank you so much for being here. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Yes, chef. Entrepreneur, content creator, connoisseur of food and taste around the world. How did all of this start for you? That's a good question.

2:44I would say it started, the love of food started a long time ago. Growing up, I was just always like obsessed with food. Like my parents and my grandparents, like I would go out to dinner. at like when I was like eight. And if I was going to dinner on like Saturday night, I would be studying the menu like Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And I would get to the table and I would like know exactly what I want to order by the time I sat down. Like the whole menu. And I just had this like obsession with food. And then I met my business partner, co-founder Liam, studying abroad in Australia, actually. So I went to Indiana.

3:16He went to Carnegie Mellon. He was living with my friends like a month before I got there. And then we hit it off and we both just became like best friends over this love of food. Like we would be out drinking and then end up in like the back of a taco truck at like 2 a.m. every day. And we're like making tacos with a guy. And it was just always like the same thing. And we had this really similar love for the food and not just like the food, but the stories of the food. Like I think my favorite part is knowing like who is making the food and why are they making the food. Like the shawarma people that we're talking about.

3:45Like he's from Jordan and his dad passed away. And then he followed his dreams and went to Jordan to learn to kind of like honor his family and his recipes. It's beautiful. so it it just started out this love so liam and i met in australia and then we went home we graduated college like a year and a half later he was in new york and he was visiting other friends we were still friends but we hadn't like kept up and he was like yo let's let's like go do a food video and our we did our first video at this mexican restaurant called old dama in new york and we had no idea what we're doing like we're like okay there's so many different food creators but like everyone kind of does it like very similarly i don't know it's kind of like boring in a way because they're like oh like get the burger and then try this we're like let's just go try to do like our own style and bring like the energy that how it's like to go to dinner with your friends and sit across from someone so we get there and we're like pulling lobster out of there like we have no idea what we're doing and we go home we stay up to like four in the morning and we're both working consulting at the time so i worked at pwc he worked at cap gemini we're both doing tech and management consulting so we're like working till like 8 p.m going to dinner till like 11 coming back editing till like 3 a.m waking up and then posting in the next day we post our first video and it does like a quarter million views and we're like holy when was this this was uh it's amazing this was july of 2021 i think or no no sorry not 21 20 it was like three and a half years ago fine i forget what year it is right now yeah 22 i think things have moved really quick and the next day we're like holy like let's go we got to do that again and liam is like he's like you're right he's like six five he i had a three-bedroom apartment in new york and my roommates probably smaller than this hotel room and he's sleeping on my couch but he's like a foot bigger than my couch and he literally slept on my couch for a month because he was going to go home he lived in san francisco and he was going to go home and i was like you can't leave like i don't after the first week so we did our first video then like second third and we gained like 10 000 followers on tiktok and we're like holy like, I don't know what's going on here, but I think we have something.

5:53And he was going to go back to San Francisco. And I look at him. I'm like, Liam, like, I don't know what we have, but something is happening and you can't leave. So he literally canceled his flight, slept on my couch for a month. And just every day it was like, work till 8pm, go to dinner, stay up till 3am, edit, post, just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's amazing. Yeah. And already under the Jack's Dining Room brand. Yeah. So I had the account Jack's Dining Room, just like in COVID, not really posting almost more of like a journal for myself because i love food i love going to dinner and i always wanted to like people would ask like oh what do you where do you eat what do you cook and i was like i don't want to like write it down every time so i just was like okay i'm gonna start this account and just more so for myself like i'm gonna document it just like i know where to have it as like a note so if people ask i can just be like okay it's here it's like it's jack's dining room like this is where i eat i love that and it yeah things just kind of like moved and moved four months in we were at dinner and there was this where it kind of like it was the first time we started to like gain notoriety we probably had like around a hundred thousand tiktok followers probably less on instagram like 30 but it was like the first time we started to like feel like okay like we kind of have followers so we're at this uh restaurant uh by major food group in new york the asian um lobster club okay and we're at this table and we kind of like order a bunch of stuff and this group of moms comes up and is like oh my god my daughters know you it's like the first time i got recognized and this guy sitting next to us like across probably like similar to how we are was looking at us in this suit and he's kind of like who the are you guys like what are you doing uh and we start talking to him and we're like y 'all we work in consulting but we're starting content yada yada and he was the ceo of sports illustrated this was the moment that like changed our life, honestly.

7:38Like I think in every success story of like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, like every entrepreneur kind of has that one story of like right place, right time, a little bit of luck. I think the harder you work, the more lucky that you get and you put yourself in those positions. So this was our like lucky moment that kind of just changed the trajectory of our lives. So we're at this dinner and he starts talking to us and he's like, what are you doing? Like, this is insane. who are you and we give him the whole story and me and liam just like pitched him the world we're like we make content we're gonna take over the world like we've we've done 30 million views but we've only done it 20 with our time like we work the rest of the 80 you know we're we plan to do and he was like what if you started doing content around sports and different events because he was the ceo of sports illustrated men's journal he's like in travel and we were like like we would we would do a billion views i actually remember he asked me he was like because they they work with sports illustrated and like swimsuit too and he was like what if you could do like food reviews with sports illustrated models and different at a different events like how many views would again

8:48The Gstaad Guy:i remember at the dinner i was like a billion views and so next literally we meet him and i don't know there's a lot of moments in life where you like meet people and you have good conversations. And I'm sure like you've had these a million times and a lot of it's fluff. And it's just like a little bit of bullshit. But there was something about this one. Like I went to the bathroom after meeting him and talking. I was like, dude, I like, I truly think that like this moment is going to change our lives. And I swear to God, I'm not just saying this. You could ask like my friends and family the month before that, we kind of were just like building momentum and I kind of felt it.

9:26And I said to like my friends and like my parents, my siblings, my cousin. I was like, I don't know what is going to happen, but I feel like something is going to like, I feel like a break is coming, like something big is going to happen. And literally like two weeks later, we met him. So a week after this dinner, we get on a call with like their whole team and they offer us like a full-time job to go on and like create content for Sports Illustrated and Men's Journal. So we created like a sports show. We created a travel show where we go to hotels in different cities, kind of like called it Now You're Here, like your ultimate guide of like where to eat in a city, where to stay, the cocktail bar to go to in the activity and that allowed us no so it was under that was the best part it was under our brands but like with them so essentially they funded us for a year to like go all in on content and after that we just never looked back uh and i tried to work at i don't know if anyone from pwc is going to watch this but i was working at pwc like for an extra six months while doing that so it was like the best time of my life so i i was like not actually working but keeping my computer open and then we're like traveling and so silent quitting yeah the silent quitting every boss hates it every boss hates it actually one of my bosses was cool though i was like i had to stay there for a year and a half until i had to like re if i left early you repay back your bonus yeah and i was like a month out and i i told my boss i was like hey like i'm gonna leave but i'm a month away from having to repay my bonus like what should i do and he's like just like don't say anything just like keep going i was like that's my dog i was like that's my dog are you fine with this being less yeah i mean i think that hopefully they're they're happy

11:10The Gstaad Guy:for me i love that i love the story i actually see a lot in common with it with my own story so it's very i'm very curious about your story i had a job at apple okay and i tried not to silent quit but it was a covet time so i didn't actually have to be flying around like you were yeah i was at home regardless the entire time and once i got a a deal that paid me better than my salary i was able to quit so very similar yeah just the moment and how did you feel i think so many people ask me they're like how did you know when to jump like that's the biggest thing in the scariest thing is like oh like when do you take that chance and that jump to go all in on something that you like you truly care about i think what you just said is really smart and the same thing with us it's like i always tell people i'm like don't jump too fast like keep what you have for as long as you possibly can until you have no choice but to go to the next thing like don't leave everything behind and go for the next until you know that you can actually do it also when you have nothing comparatively, you have nothing to lose in theory, right?

12:20The Gstaad Guy:But when you've worked your entire life to get a job at PwC or Apple, it's like, is it really worth risking this whole thing because I had one video go viral? Exactly. And the short answer is no. So it's a good thing that you tested it out and you made it work. When was your first video? My first video was in 2018. Okay. This is my eighth year. So you've been in the game for a while. I've been in the game for a while. And I have to ask too, because we're big fans of it. When did you drop and are there any more songs coming? Commercial Flight. We're fans of Commercial Flight. It's a low-key banger.

12:50The Gstaad Guy:It's the best song. It's my favorite piece of content I've made by a stretch. My favorite piece of content. Is more music coming? I feel like the people might want to know. I think more music should come. I slowed it down. The content strategy has changed a bit. Yeah, the music is great. The music was fun. This was all pre-reels and pre-video-first social and pre-interest media where like, I assume half Jack's Dining Room viewers don't even follow Jack's Dining Room. You know, because your view numbers are insane. You have a lot of followers, but a lot more views. Back in the day, like, back in the day in quotes, pre-reels and pre-interest first media, people's views were usually less than their followers.

13:31The Gstaad Guy:So you were basically servicing your followers and not servicing the interests of non-followers. And things like commercial flight made a lot of sense because it was like the last step of a long story. I had told so many shtadgeist, smaller stories that then amalgamated to this commercial flight moment. And I feel like that's very difficult to do now because the likelihood of the same person seeing three videos in a row is very slim. Totally agree. I mean, you've done such a good job of this, but how important do you think building real community within your content is? I think it's incredibly important.

14:08The Gstaad Guy:and you're a testament to that. Especially if you want to go from digital to real world, which you've done very well. I think it's an incredibly important thing. I remember the first video I saw of yours was focaccia sandwich, I think. Crazy views. In Italy? In Italy. Yeah, maybe Al Antigo. Al Antigo. That's like one of our biggest videos ever. Yeah, that's the first one I saw. Yeah. Second was a chicken Caesar salad wrap, Los Angeles. Okay. it's crazy humongous yeah i think that might that like was it really big really big i think that's in florida actually in florida fine it's in boca that's the one yeah like you like yeah almost ripped apart yeah yeah i think that's the second video of some of yours yeah and then of course i'm a loyal follower i appreciate that it's really cool to like meet other creators who are doing really cool things and being fans of each other like i've seen your content so much before a friend connected us and then now we're here sitting on your podcast which is awesome and it's like really cool to see the progression and see someone like do really cool things and build a community and then get to be a part of it and there's so many people that i've met that i'd be become like internet friends with but i are now genuinely really close friends of mine i love that which is awesome i hope i hope we're there definitely i see that i see that for us for sure this podcast is brought to you by zap before we get into it if you're in london you need zap It's a 24-7 on-demand grocery app delivering straight to your door in a matter of minutes.

15:40The Gstaad Guy:Yes, minutes. I've been a Zap customer for years and I'm honestly embarrassed to admit that I actually place a few Zap orders a day whenever I'm in London. One day it's Dale's Fert Organic and the next it's David Protein, IM8, Drizalicious, Apple AirPods and even Aqua di Parma Colonia, of course. Just last night I was sitting at dinner in Mayfair and the table next to me actually had a Zap bag delivered straight to their dinner table and the gentleman pulled out a pack of antihestamines for his date's allergies, eye drops for himself, and a pack of gum, which I think was for both. All from Zap and without needing to stand up from their dinner table.

16:12The Gstaad Guy:It's chic, it's simple, it's convenient, it's Zap. I personally always use Zap directly from their app because I love having access to the full range, the fastest delivery times, and also the best value. But you can also use Zap on Uber Eats and on Deliveroo in London. So download Zap now and you'll understand exactly why my friends and I love Zap as much as we do. And now, back to the podcast. There's something that I love that you did, and I really appreciate it as a fan of yours, but also as someone that rarely sees this happen. And I think when I see people achieve great success, especially in social media, as an intention, they usually have lots of consecutive wins.

16:51The Gstaad Guy:What I mean by that is there's a strategy, and they execute on that strategy. On the flip side, when I see people who become content creators as a consequence of virality, basically posting one video, it goes viral by accident, there's usually a massive fall off. They rarely use that, strategize and grow from there. They make a couple TikToks, they have the same joke, and they never really strategize beyond. That first video you made that went viral, it makes this all seem like a consequence sort of. It's like, oh, this one video went viral, so let me just ride this wave. But actually, it sounds like it triggered this moment of insane strategic thinking.

17:33The Gstaad Guy:You are a PwC guy, so it kind of makes sense. But you immediately thought big picture versus thinking, how can I extract value from this moment? How can I get invited to this random party and be the cool guy on the block for a week? How can I make this a five or 10 year plan? Were you thinking of the possibility of this moment coming? Were you waiting for that viral moment to happen? Or did it hit you like a bus? I'm really curious about that moment. 100%. we've Liam and I are so similar in that way that we've just like from the beginning like literally from our first video I feel like we've always been so tunnel visioned like we haven't we don't really care about like what's to the left and to the right like it's solely our mission and literally from the first day we were like we have the opportunity to like change the world of food like it was never about one viral video or like it was never about going to the party or like making some money and buying a car like i don't care about that i don't really i'm not like a materialistic guy it was always about like how can we build the biggest food community in the world how can we use socials today as you know our vehicle because we live in an attention world Like whoever gets the most attention has, you know, the power and can build things.

18:55So for us, we're like, okay, how can we get the most amount of attention and provide like real value with something we love? And it's not like we're trying to get attention. So many people are like clickbaity or put out negative things. And so many people always ask me this too. They're like, you say everything's good. How come you don't do any bad videos? It's like, I know the impact that we have on restaurants and, you know, how hard it is to be in that industry. the last thing I'm ever going to do is go talk about a mom and pop store, put someone down. Like if I don't like it, I don't post it, but we're all about positivity and about telling people what to eat and where to eat that I love, not where not to eat.

19:30Like I'm not going to spend my time eating bad food and telling you what not to get. So I understand how challenging it is to build a company. I mean, we're in the process of, we're a startup. We, it's really challenging day to day. I can only imagine how hard it is for like an immigrant family to run a restaurant. So yeah, Liam and I have kind of had this mentality of like, we're going to pave our own path. We're going to just have our blinders on and be tunnel visions and really think, okay, like, how can we use content to bring people together and build a community? How can we then build an in-person aspect of that to like not only watch a jack sanger video but come experience it and that's what birthed the food festival we traveled the world for two and a half years trying the best food seeing some crazy things and we're like okay this is amazing billions of people have seen the videos but how can we actually like touch it feel like give them an experience give them a chance to be together and celebrate the chefs and we're like what if we threw a festival so two a year and a half ago was our first festival in new york and literally like three it was may and we're like oh we should do a festival august we just like threw it together with a team well and we're like oh this actually worked we sold out like two instagram posts and it was insane it was so much smaller looking back on it today it feels like such a kid version of what we did but i i remember like at that moment we're like oh my god like this is the coolest thing ever we had 25 restaurants We did our first ever tuna cutting and 6 ,000 people showed up and we're like, whoa, like this is real.

21:03And I think it's so hard and impressive when creators can get people to show up. Like I always say it's, it's not necessarily hard to go viral anymore on the internet. Like people go viral every second, but it's like, can you keep that? And can you build something that matters and is that, that adds value to people's lives? And I think if you can get 20 people to show up in a room on a Tuesday, that is way more important and way more powerful than getting 10 million views on a video and that's something that like i really pride and it's all team like we liam is one of the smartest people i've ever met and like having people around you that can think long term and like saying no is so much more powerful than saying yes and just thinking like our mentalities how can we kind of own everything we do like rather than work with partners like you mentioned the hat like we we wore i was wearing hats for in all of our videos for so long and for the first like six months and people would start to come up to me i think because of the hat so really early on we were like wait a minute like what if we made our own hat and wore that high in every single video for two reasons one it comes like this beacon of branding and two like it's something that people can be a part of and buy and feel like they're part of the community and for the longest time like i swear the hat was people might not have recognized me, but they would recognize the hat.

22:23So we would walk places and they'd be like, Oh, the yes chef dude. And I would take the hat off and I'd be like, kind of like incognito. Uh, so that was like one of our first decisions where we're like, okay, we're not gonna wear other people's hats, but we're gonna wear ours. Cause we're like really thinking, okay, how is wearing that? It might seem simple, but how is wearing a hat in every single one of our videos could impact our brand and our community in five years. And I think it was one of the smartest things we've like ever done. and then the festival and the the business side that we're going and we're launching a studio to do a lot of like larger scale food content and kind of create like our own version of the food network so everything we've done is like very calculated amazing and it's just all about surrounding yourself with smarter people yeah than than you are so like i love that it's that's what has allowed us to like really take the next step but yeah it's never been it's never

23:16The Gstaad Guy:been about like virality i really see the the energy and the desire from you and your team's side to actually create value versus extract value i think that shows in the tone of voice you have it shows in the questions you ask the outlet owners the restaurant owners and the chefs about what they're doing and why they're doing it you're not trying to take from any of these places by going viral on their demise and speaking negatively ever you're always praising and trying to create impact for the people in the restaurants, but then trying to create value for the viewer by creating these real life events.

23:53The Gstaad Guy:So I'd love to first actually learn more about the impact because I know that you've sometimes created content for a small place that then wasn't a small place anymore or a struggling place that wasn't struggling anymore. Can you tell us more about the impact one of your videos has had on these places? That's probably like my favorite part and feeling and like you said i think it's really like we live in a world that's big enough where a lot of people can win together the restaurant can win and the viewer can win and both people can be really happy um yeah we we have like so many stories one that i like to tell there was this sandwich shop and it's cool because it's not just like in new york or the u.s it's kind of it's become global now amazing there's a sandwich shop in uh madrid called diva rare and we went like a year and a half ago and liam liam is so talented at seeing like something that no one else can see him being like like that's it viral that's good yeah like there's a story there so we saw this clip of a sandwich it was literally this focaccia sandwich that was being made with burrata and he was like we need to go hit that and i was like oh yeah that looks good so we go to the sandwich shop we do a video and they have this mortadella sandwich with burrata and pistachios house-made bread and we were like okay we want to add honey on ours to just spruce it up a little bit which didn't exist so do a video um and it and it does really well it's not like it probably does like eight million views ten million views which is obvious like that's amazing but like it wasn't like our biggest video ever okay and if they have one location when we did this video like a year and a half ago or two years ago we went back a couple months ago to madrid they now have nine stores well they opened up eight new locations and we talked to them and they were like we didn't even sell honey before and we they now have like drums of honey like all like literally like thousands of pounds of honey in their warehouse did you bring your own honey the first time uh i we honestly might have i forget i maybe they like had i i we might have like actually brought our own honey i kind of forget but and they have like a picture of me like on the menu and it's just really cool because they're so it's a family in madrid it's not like some big place but like they literally in a year went from one to nine locations which is like insane uh there's this place montaguez gusto which i always like to talk about it's this sandwich shop in the east side of new york and it's this immigrant who drives like two and a half hours every day and he just works his ass off the nicest his name's andre the nicest guy ever and we went and we did a um a video there and it's just like the most random place ever like i don't know it's it's not like a place but they make amazing sandwiches and we did a video and it just like blew up and every creator went and did sandwiches and he texted me like literally yesterday he was like it's been a year and a half since your video and like people are still going crazy the lines are still at the door like we they named a sandwich called the jack gusto and he was like we're so honored that you were a part of it and like the honor is really like mine to be able to to see these people just like work their ass off and I love that get highlighted and get like you know the praise that they deserve but yeah there's there's so many for me it's like it's always the mom and pop shops that I think like hit the hardest and that mean the most to me like there's there's a sandwich place all antique is obviously very big but they're everywhere now yeah there's a place Igeroni it's I think the best sandwich shop in Florence okay and it's this husband wife and it's a small single shop and we did a video there again like two years ago and it wasn't like it was kind of empty and now it's that video did like 30 million views and it is like a premier sandwich shop and they just like crush it and they also have like a special sandwich on the menu now that we did um so it's really cool to like and that just once i see that too i'm like the last thing i would ever want to do is have the opposite impact and close a restaurant yeah there's a lot of there's enough negativity and hate in this world yeah like we don't need more of that.

27:56The Gstaad Guy:I feel something about you that I'm sure the audience feels right now and it's this abundance energy in all that you do versus a scarcity energy. I noticed that when you were talking about food content creators to begin with, already a saturated market, someone who has a scarcity mindset might think there's already enough people doing this. The puck is already on their side. There's no need for me to try this too. That's scarcity mindset. The abundance mindset is oh, there's so much room for so many different people to win here. I'll take a more positive view. I'll take a more authentic view of just reacting as I would with friends.

28:35The Gstaad Guy:And I'll prop up these restaurants. The same way with the restaurants. I think I see content creators who say, I wouldn't do an ad for anyone for free. So I'm only going to talk about places that I can get a kickback from or that I can extract some value from. I don't want to just create value for another person. and I'm loving this these signs of abundance that I think are seem second nature to you as a person where you just want to do the best thing in the best way possible and you believe the good will come somehow after is that always how you've been as a person? Yeah I mean I try to just like I think if you're a really good person and I appreciate that I think if you're a really good person and you just put out good energy and you do good to the world good things will return because like we don't take money from any restaurants we don't get paid there's actually these scammers going around and it's actually scary that are emailing a bunch of restaurants and small businesses on our behalf and we've gotten like hundreds of emails being like is this you and some of them have paid them like a thousand dollars which is really sad and it's scary to see that like we live in a world where people will pretend to be you and take advantage of like smaller businesses but that's nothing that like we would never do that we don't take money from restaurants and for us it's like let's focus on the community let's focus on like what we truly care about let's just go put out the best food content bring the most positivity and like everything else will come like because of that now we do food festivals and sell out 10 000 people in la and new york yeah that's not from building a brand of like hey pay me to do something that's like let's just like do really good work uplift people build a community and then things will come and i think if you continuously have that mindset of like okay how can i just like you know genuinely add value to things the value will come back 10 times i love that and i think that's the difference between like the short-sighted and the long-term thinking and a lot of people like okay like oh i could get a thousand dollars right now it's like you could or you could work really hard for you know the next year not necessarily take the kickback and then get a hundred thousand dollars at the end of the year and it's like what do you prefer what one's a little bit harder and riskier because you don't have the money in your hand today but it's about really like building and doubling and tripling down on the brand and we try to like we like really truly care about what we do when we're building like on the food festival like we in LA we invested a lot of money like we're not out here like getting rich off a food festival In fact, it's the opposite.

31:09We're like almost losing money, but we're investing so much into the experience to try to truly give someone an experience they've never seen before.

31:17The Gstaad Guy:Can I already imagine that it's a beautiful experience purely based on your initial intentions of doing what you're doing? Like I would never try to convince a scarcity person who's a value extractor to become an abundance person who's a value creator. I think it's quite innate and quite true to the person's view of how they interact with the world. And I think that every step of your journey so far has shown that abundance. And I'm sure that at these festivals, you are trying to give all these restaurants the best platform possible to shine in ways they otherwise can't. Speaking of that, I have an idea that I'm working on that I think you should actually do a similar thing with.

31:58The Gstaad Guy:I realized that when I wait outside a restaurant in a random place, a lot of the restaurants have these stickers on the glass of like trip advisor five star and michelin guide of course very credible yeah but then all these other random stickers that mean nothing to like our generation and their friends are something already that we're working on okay good but we're launching not to cut you off but something that i'm really excited about and we there's a ton of different verticals of like our business end but we've launched yes chef guides fantastic which to me i think and i'm hopeful that yes chef guides will become like the the gen z the modern day cool kid version of michelin guides fantastic i personally we can talk we i could talk hours and hours and hours about food and restaurants obviously yeah i some michelin star restaurants i love but i really don't love food that's just like art like i personally do not enjoy two three michelin star restaurants because it's more so about like the foam and the design of the plate than the actual food like i when i eat i like abundance i want to eat big sandwiches and pieces of meat like i don't want to eat miniature food because it just doesn't taste the same in my mind and like i guess this goes more into the how i work is like you say one thing and then it just triggers this next idea it just flows yeah literally i like to look at things on like this triangle from a business perspective and i think it's like moving forward if we can do this like we'll be able to build something incredible if you have content community and experience and product like for me that's like the golden triangle so if you can create really good content that builds a community have an experience around that and then create a product that adds value to that community and connect all those things together i think you'll win on the highest level especially moving forward with you know ai and technology kind of taking over a thing so for us it's like we make food videos and people love to watch it and get recommendations and seafood from around the world we can have a food festival that brings them together and then okay like you know we're working on some products that i think will add a lot of value and be really good for people in that space and it's like how can you how can each thing you do have a content side of it have a community and an in-person experience that's out of it and then a product that someone can walk away with because community and the experience of actually being somewhere, I think makes a brand so much more powerful.

34:23The Gstaad Guy:And I think that the driving force of all three of those, if that's the engine, like the fuel of it all, I think is credibility. Yeah. And it's when I hear Jack's voice, I know I'm going to trust what he's about to say. When I see him wearing his hat, I know it's going to spark interest that I'm going to act on. And if I'm walking into a restaurant and I see a Yes Chef Guides sticker, maybe I haven't seen the video, it didn't hit my feed or you haven't even made a video yet because it takes a long time to make videos at least if i see the plaque there the sticker there i know oh this is a place that i would like because i know that the community and i and i both don't like fancy schmancy presentation first of all bark and no bites we actually want all bite and no bark you know we don't mind a sloppy slop bowl yeah as long as it tastes fantastic and it's it's it's qualitative and not just like nice for Instagram.

35:19Definitely. How did you take the transition? Because I think you've done a really good job and are a really good example of going from, okay, like building this community of people that love your content and engage and you know who they are really well and then transitioning into your own brand and Pubell, which has been great. And I've seen it pop up all over and congrats. It looks awesome. I need to start rocking some.

35:40The Gstaad Guy:I'll send you some. I know you're wearing two J's right now. Yeah, do you know the two J's guys? I've had them a few times. They're great. They're very cool guys. Super talented. but they've done a great job i'm sure people i'm i know that they probably watching know your story well but i'm so curious about like your transition and what you saw work for you to go from content to product is really hard like i think that's the most challenging thing in the world is can you turn one of your viewers into like a customer and not i think that has a bad connotation to it it's like oh can you take advantage of them like for us and for me and i'm sure you think the same way it's not like can i take advantage of this person watching my cons it's like how can i add value to their life and add addition to the content they're watching through something I know they're going to enjoy.

36:21The Gstaad Guy:I really appreciate the question. I have a dear friend, his name is Alex Icon, who's, you would love him. He's an abundance first person to the nth degree. He doesn't believe in value extraction in any way. He believes in creating value for people. And if that has a positive byproduct, then great. And if it doesn't, at least you made someone else's day better. and when I first started Stad Guy, I did not have that view entirely. I was making content and having fun but on the business side I was always thinking okay, how can I now get something in return? What business can I start to make money off my audience?

36:58The Gstaad Guy:And my first business was Skincare Line. I had no credibility in skincare and I wasn't trying to make the best skincare product for my audience. I was trying to make as much money as I could from my audience. Skincare Line failed. Second product, made these like cardigans. I already had so much credibility wearing Loro Piana and talking about Loro Piana. My cardigans, of course, were not as well made as Loro Piana. Failed. Third product, Rosé. I was trying, I had heard all this big celebrity news of like George Clooney, Casamigos, Kendall Jenner, 818. Oh, maybe Stad Guy becomes the next unicorn in the wine space.

37:36The Gstaad Guy:so throughout the wine had made no content about wine no credibility in wine guess what i don't drink i never even had wine wait a minute you know this is really interesting to me because i feel like a lot of people have one chance to throw out a product and that like good for you to keep you know going again and being honest with like yourself and with your audience of like hey I've come far as an individual and a person and I've like realized the more important things but keep going I'm like very like thank you so much very interested about this so I tried the wine and worked in the wine for a few years about four years and I was catching up with Alex Icon at dinner in London and he's like oh dude loving the content how are the businesses going and I was like meh I thought they'd be going better they're okay and he says you know I'm not surprised at all.

38:29The Gstaad Guy:I'm like, not surprised at all. Why is this guy being so negative? Like I thought you supported me. He's like, I love you. That's a real friend. It's a real friend. It's like, I love you. I love everything you do, but I don't see intention in any of your businesses. I don't see love and I don't see value creation. I see you trying to extract value because you're starting businesses that all you care about is the outcome. You don't care about the product. You don't care about the process. And I was like, you know what? You're so right. Like that's a hundred percent factual. I feel so strongly about the brands I work with of which I own none of like I love Laura Piana I love Audemars Piguet I love these brands that I was an ambassador of and I am an ambassador of but none of the businesses I started was I starting with the intention of abundance and I said so what do you suggest I do?

39:13The Gstaad Guy:and he said well I think you should pause think about what you do for your audience digitally and how you can bring that into the real world kind of like you bringing the restaurant energy and the excitement of trying something new in your videos to your festivals. And I paused again with him and I said, listen, what I do for my audience is allow them to connect over shared absurdities, shared experiences, shared humor, and they actually get closer through them. I realized that I hosted a three years of Stadgei party in London and two acquaintances were at the party and they bonded over a Stadgei joke and they ended up getting married.