7 killer startups that the internet has not caught up to yet
00:00:00All right, Sam. I got a question foryou. Have you ever dated anyone who's alittle little crazy? Could be excitingcrazy, could be bad crazy. There is adifference between good crazy and badcrazy.>> Yeah, there's a there's a a thin line.>> So, I have five to seven ideas for youthat I want you to help me figure outare they good crazy or bad crazy.
00:00:21>> Can I tell you what just happened to me?>> Please. Yeah.>> Okay. So, obviously we're superstars viacontent. And so, I just had my my myco-editorial meeting where we uh talkabout like cool stuff we want to talkabout on Instagram or whatever. Andpreviously I told them how I'm reading abook about Ted Bundy cuz I'm a sicko andI like reading like stories of likecrime and stuff. And he brings me aseries of tweets on the things that I'velearned from Ted Bundy.And I was like, are you kidding me?I'm not tweeting out things that I'velearned about business from Ted Bundy.>> [laughter]>> This is the nonsense that, you know,superstar creators still have to dealwith. We're just like, you know,>> [laughter]>> we're just like the average Joe.>> Not as easy as it looks.>> Oh my god, it was ridiculous. I waslike, are you are you kidding me?It's like, Ted Bundy didn't leave anyfingerprints for the first 14 murders.Therefore, you should learn how to payattention to the details and plan ahead.>> [laughter]>> I'm like>> Being mission-driven.>> Yeah.>> The Unabomber case study. [laughter]>> Yeah, a story of a obsession.
00:01:28Um all right, what do you got? You havesomething for me?>> All right, Sam. I got a question foryou. Have you everdated anyone who's a little littlecrazy? Could be exciting crazy, could bebad crazy. There is a difference betweengood crazy and bad crazy.>> Yeah, there's a there's a a thin line.And uh you know, arguably they would saythat about me that I was the crazy one.But yes, I'm>> are the crazy one. Okay.>> Uh but yeah, I've I've dated some peoplethat are off the rocker.>> Okay. So, today I got ideas for you thatI want to know are they good crazy orbad crazy? These are startup ideas thatexist that some that people are doingand in business it's this weird thingbecauseif your idea is too normal, toounderstandable, too expected, youactually have no shot.>> Yeah.>> you say a an idea and everybody in theroom nods, if 100% of the the room nodsand says that's a good idea, run away.You're about to waste 3 years of yourlife. You need some people to think thisis the worst idea, this is the craziest,who would do that? Who would who wouldjust let strangers sleep on their couch?Who would let strangers into their car?You're just going to let some random guydrive you to your destination? All thegreat ideas sound a little crazy upfront. And so you just have todifferentiate the fine line between goodcrazy and bad crazy. So I have
00:02:43I think five to seven ideas for you thatI want you to help me figure out arethey good crazy or bad crazy.>> We have a little bit of a rule on thispodcast where we try to default tooptimism and being happy about thepeople we talk about. And so for anyonemoving forward who we insult for thissegment, we are actually complimentingyou because as you've just said, theworst idea the better the company itmight be. That's like my apology thatI'm going to say right now and I'm notgoing to say I'm sorry again.>> good idea,that's a compliment. And if you say it'sa crazy idea, also a compliment.>> Yes. Yes.>> advanced.All right, first idea I want to do iscalled Pet Chat. I I don't know if yousaw this, but going viral right now,Chinese startup that has it's a dogcollar that uses AI to translate yourpet's barks.>> Dude, the theit's a it's a white family with a goldenretriever with a white picket fence. Whyon earth would you think this is aChinese company?>> It has like Chinese vibes, the wholepromo video. You know what I mean? Likewhen I lived in China and they used tohave this phrase uh NQR and they'relike, "Yeah, we have KFC here, but it'sNQR." I said, "What's NQR mean?" Theygo, "Not quite right.">> Yeah.>> And it's like it's KFC, but it's notgoing to taste exactly like KFC you'reused to. Same-same but different.>> Same-same but different. And so uh thispromo this launch video was was a littlein QR of like I don't think this was
00:03:58made in San Francisco.With 95% accuracy they claim they cantell youwhat your pet wants.Awesome.Okay. Good crazy bad crazy.>> More like amazing stupid.>> [laughter]>> It's going to break my game right away.>> Uh good crazy or bad crazy? I would sayit's pretty it's pretty interesting.That's actually great. This is great.Good crazy.>> Okay, you're into it. You're a dog guyso I knew you I knew there's a part ofyou that would be like oh my god that'sridiculous but if it worked I'd like to,you know what I mean? Like it's kind ofin that category. Now the problem isit's like all pet products that we'vetalked about on this podcast. What's thewhat's the My First Million rule aboutpet products?>> Who knows?>> Who knows? And it by the waybest aspect of a pet business is is thewho knows that factor.>> Is their gut health better?>> Who knows? Is it making them calmer andhappier? Who knows? So pet supplementswork this way and for thisthe 95% accuracy everybody in thecomments is like how are you verifying?What is that checked against? Do nobodyknows what they want. So what are youclaiming?>> A lot of dog I mean I was I had a
00:05:13greatdog for 15 years and I could tell whateach bark meant. Like if I heard himlike and I was in the other room I'd belike all right someone's at the frontdoor based off of that or now he's gotto go to the bathroom or now he justwants me to come and give him attention.Like I could like hear I could tell whateach meant.>> 100% there's like the the I just walkthere's water versus food very clear tome.>> Yeah.>> There's hey I got to poop and it's yourproblem unless you do something aboutthis right now.>> [laughter]>> There's you know there's differentdifferent barks. So I I think I put itin bad crazy just because I think dogowners know their their dogs barks.Um it's it's not that hard to figureout.All right. The next one, also we'regoing to stay in China for this one.It's called SuperBrain.>> [music]>> Hey, I want to tell you about somethingpretty cool. We have a database of allof the unsexy business ideas that havebeen discussed on this podcast. So,hundreds of episodes, the team atHubSpot went through, they pulled outall the unsexy ideas. So, not the superhigh-tech ones, but the simple,relatable, interesting, profitable, uh,ideas that we have brainstormed, andthey're all available for download forfree. Just click the link in thedescription below. Thank you to ourfriends at HubSpot for sponsoring thispodcast and putting together this freeresource for you guys. Back to the show.What you're going to see is a personholding up what looks like almost like abaseball card or like a Tamagotchi
00:06:29ofsome sorts.But,it's grandma or grandpa. So, basicallyit's a way to memorialize and stayconnected to loved ones who passed away.You upload their video and audiorecordings and their personality, andthen you can chat with them in your handanytime you miss them.>> That's messed up, man. That that wouldthat'd break my heart.>> Okay, so you're you're you're out onthis one.>> Uh,yes, I want it, but I if it's for agrandparent who I knew was going to die,I mean, it just it would make me cry allthe time. So, but I think it's awesome.>> [laughter]>> You have not yet picked a side on anyidea so far, just tolet>> say something really quick. They call itSuperBrain. I've noticed, so I live in,uh, Manhattan and my office is in this,uh, a Chinese area, and I've noticed,like, can you read this?>> Uh, I cannot. What does it say?>> Okay, it's a it's a electronic storethat just says like Air Mart USAIncorporated. And then like down thestreet from that, it's like AmericanCowboy Inc. and they sell like iPhonechargers. And then like a block awayfrom that, it's like, you know, like USAnumber one. Yeah.>> [laughter]>> I love that. I love when when theseimmigrants come over here and they'renot exactly sure
00:07:44like the what's thebest way to phrase things and they'relike, "What's the most American thing wecan think of?" Like I That's my favoritething on Earth. I love those stores. Ialways patronize them. I love them.>> the Thai food near me.>> Yes. Yes, or like>> their restaurant Thai food near me so itshows up at the top of your Google Mapsor Google search results.>> AAA Locksmith, I'm in.So, I love that. And so, that's so funnythey called this Superbrain because thatcould just be anything. When I startedSuperbrain, I thought something else.But yeah, that's pretty amazing. Itbreaks my heart, but that's amazing. Iwould say good crazy.>> Yeah, have you seen the You're notwatching the NBA playoffs.>> dog. I've watched I'm watching theKnicks partially cuz I like seeing thecelebrities on sitting like who'ssitting on the floor, but also JalenBrunson is pretty cool.>> So, Sam, the version of AAA Locksmiththat you'll appreciate. So, these twowomenwere going viral because every time theywould show the coach of the Spurs,behind the coach of the Spurs was two>> Ladies with big boobs.>> Two endowed women. That's soThey were there for one game and peoplewere like, "Oh, wow. Like, you know,hey, I'd love to get more coach reactionshots." And then they were there againthe next time and they're like, "What'sgoing on here?" Turns out these are twogirls two OnlyFans creators who had thegenius marketing idea of splurging
00:08:59forstrategic tickets where they knew the TVcamera would show them literally onlyfrom the between the neck and the bellybutton. And they're perfectly positionedright behind the coach. So, every timethey show the coach to show these girlsand their Instagram and their OnlyFansis popping off right now. And I waslike, "Wow, this is the modern-day AAALocksmith." Like, how do you How do youshow up first in the yellow pages as youcall yourself AAA Locksmith? This isthat. And I was like, "Honestly, women,I I you know, I ladies, I respect thehustle. This is a incredible marketingmove. I do appreciate it.">> That was pretty brilliant how we startedwith AAA Locksmith and then went to AAALocksmith and you weave that in.>> If you talk to for long enough, that iswhere I end up.>> [laughter]>> Is it a question of is it 10 minutes or10 hours? The conversation will landthere. All right, ready for the nextone?>> Yeah.>> Um this is kind of up your alley. You'rea health and fitness and I would sayearly adopter,arguable influencer, but have you seenthe trend of hyperbaric chambers athome?>> Yes. So, hyperbaric chambers areinteresting. That looks ridiculous. Thatlooks like auh>> It looks awesome.>> It looks like we're likeyou know, you would be put to death.>> It looks like he's like an astronaut orsomething, yeah.>> Hyperbaric chambers are interesting. So,the reason I've known about
00:10:14them is I'ma huge running nerd and in the '60s,'70s, and '80s, and well even till to tothis day, a lot of the US Olympicrunners would go and move to Flagstafffor three or four or five months at atime cuz they would want to be ataltitudes. And then people were like,what would happen if we let these guyssleep in a chamber that had less I guessless air or thinner air, I don't knowthe right terminology. And you wouldbuild a you would just be more efficientwith oxygen and thus a better enduranceathlete. And now a lot of people thinkthat this for the average human ispretty cool. Is that the story?>> Yeah, so there's people are now tryingto build like we've seen saunas becomesomething that used to be at a gym or atan external location. Now there'sat-home sauna brands that do hundreds ofmillions in revenue.We saw the same thing with the coldplunge. I think the the plunge guys, youknow, they sent us a a home cold plungetub. And you know, those I forgot whatthey were doing, but you know, they weredoing 100 million just direct toconsumer, no retail presence of peoplebuying cold tubs for the home.And the prediction or the idea here isjust like it happened for saunas andcold tubs and red light, it's going tohappen for hyperbaric chambers next. Andso there's a couple companies trying todo these at-home hyperbaric chambers.What I liked about this one was the lookwas very different than the normalhyperbaric chamber and it's visuallydistinct. And I think the visual,
00:11:30justlike how cold plunges and saunas becamesomething that you would share onInstagram cuz it's like this weird likewellness flex or like discipline flex. Ithink hyperbaric chambers could havethat same potential. What what do youthink? Good crazy or bad crazy?>> I I keep I keep saying good, but it'sawesome. Do you know what I think itwhat it should be is Have you evertraveled with your children and in ahotel room you have to like share aroom, and so there's these like darktents.>> Like a blackout tent.>> A blackout tent. They're pretty awesome.So likeuh you travel and you like can buildlike a crib and it's completely dark soyou can still like have the light on inyour bedroom uh if your kid has to sleepin your room.My opinion is if I was Eight Sleep or asleep company, it needs to be uh a sleepcompany just needs to make like um youknow how like little girls have likethese beds that have like the like the>> princess canopy>> the princess canopy. Yeah. It you needlike a like a a king canopy where it'slike, you know, you go in and you sleepit with less air and you come out.That's that's what it should be.>> I don't know if physics allows it to belike that cuz>> it's like pressurized air, right? Youyou have to Like actually I think one ofthe challenges with this is it'stechnically a medical device. So HBOT,which is I guess the hyperbaric whatevertherapy, is a medical device. You can'tmake claims without clearance or safetyrisk,
00:12:45pressurized oxygen in an enclosedspace. It's harder to make it sexy likea cold plunge, which is basically a tubof water. So I think that's thepotential downside of this one, butcould be something there. Also, don'tyou just need your head in it? Like notyour whole body, so could you just dolike the astronaut helmet? That'd beamazing.>> [laughter]>> All right, next one. Number four, theblue collar meetsnerd combination that you didn't expect.It's kind of like what's a food youdidn't expect? Not the cronut. It's likethe Doritos Locos Taco. What what else?It's like what is the unexpected foodcombination that sounds gross, but isactually great?>> [laughter]>> This is that.It's learning to be an HVAC technicianby playing a game on the Oculus Questthat Meta made. I don't know if you'veseen this.So, they have they've created handThey've created these Quest games thatare like data center operations engineerand you're like playing like a flightsimulator, but they're actually using itto train and hire people because theybadly need more technicians for thesejobs.>> Okay.>> And I think this is pretty interesting.What What What say you about this? Lookat this guy. Like, tell me you wouldn'tplay this game.>> I don't play video games really, but Ido love like war sims.>> do H-Vac.>> No, I like like
00:14:00war sims and oddlyenough, there's like a trucking sim atrucking simulator that I find oddlyrelaxing, but I do like simulators.>> But I don't want to play with I don'twant to do be an H-Vac person. No.>> guy. Look at this.I feel like I actually need this. Thisis not even a want. I think I think Imight actually need this.>> You know what I used to do is I used tolove buying old motorcycles and liketaking them apart and like cleaning allthe parts and putting them together.That was like a huge hobby I had. Iloved doing that in college. I woulddefinitely play a game where I had coulddo that, but I wouldn't want to doH-Vac. So, I think this is a this iscrazy.>> is the bond when you meet another personwho loves motorcycles or taking themapart?>> It's sort of like when I see anothermixed race couple. I just you get a nod.>> [laughter]>> It's a nod and a thumbs up.>> Yeah, straight to third base.>> Yeah,it's like we know.>> [laughter]>> Like the intentional walk.>> And then you get to go all the wayaround the bases actually.>> [laughter]>> Whenever we used to see before I hadkids, whenever I saw a mixed race couplewith a with a stroller, I had to stopmyself because the first like eighttimes I would like I was like staringinto the the stroller so hard and I'mlike, "Sorry, I'm just trying to seelike what your combination is going tolook like."Just so I know what we're going to
00:15:15lookwhat my kids will look like.>> Pantone shade chart? You know like Ijust want to see where you fall.>> I just want to know. And there wasthere's whole Instagram handlesdedicated to that, like differentcombinations.>> Don't you think they need a better termfor it than mixed race couple? I feellike it you deserve a much cooler phrasefor that.>> Well, I call my kids super babies. I'mlike, "Duh, they're super babies.They're they have a diverse gene pool.">> Yeah, you need like, I don't know, likewhat's the thing called when you dofroyo and it's like the black and whiteswirl? Like a swirly. You need that.All right, Apt on Meta Quest areteaching blue-collar trade skills likeHVAC repair, welding, plumbing,electrical through hands-on VRsimulation. You put on a headset, youpractice diagnosing a broken AC unit andassembling an EV battery pack.Risk-free, repeatable, and gamified.There's multiple players doing this likeInterplay Learning in Austin, Texas.They're the leader. They have hundredsof hours of HVAC, solar, plumbing, andelectrical training. Uh they they canactually get you like certified as atechnician or an associate just usingQuest. Skill VR does this for weldingand painting simulations. There's amassive shortage, 500,000 unfilled HVACand plumbing jobs in the US alone. Andtraining is slow, expensive, anddangerous to do on real equipment. I ama believer in this, Sam Parr.Good crazy.>> My buddy who owns an HVAC company, theyhave this thing called HoffmanUniversity
00:16:31where they put new recruitsin for months or weeks at a time. Andso, I'm I'm a little bit fam- familiarwith what he was just telling me and Iwent and saw the facility where theyhave like they they call it auniversity. It's just like a, you know,2-month training program or whatever itis. It's pretty cool. And um there's ahuge need for this. I didn't I didn'tfully understand it till I saw hisplace. So, yeah, it's pretty cool. Ijust don't want to play it as a game.>> Right, right. But if you wanted the job>> If I wanted the job>> Or you want to hire people, this isbrilliant. Umnumber five.Endpoint Arena. You're going to need toSo, I'm going to put the glasses downand do the sort of nerdy push up theglasses here cuz this one's a littlehighbrow.It's combining two things that I onlypartially understand, prediction marketsand biotech clinical trials. So, I don'tknow if you seen this.But these guys made a prediction marketfor clinical trials. So, II don't know if you're familiar, butbasicallyon the stock market, there's lots ofdrug companies, pharmaceutical companiesthat their trading is highly dependenton the outcomes of upcoming, you know,phase one, phase two, phase threeclinical trials. And there's a huge Imean, my cousin I used to work at ahedge fund, and the whole idea was like,if we can have a higher estimation ofthe probability of success of thattrial, we know where
00:17:46the stock's goingto move once that's confirmed. And so,there's a huge incentive to understandthe science and understand the actualtrue probability versus what the stockmarket is predicting. And so, EndpointArena created a polymarket, essentially,just forbetting on, you know, right now,lutetium 177 roso patatem,terataxel, pterodactyl, the metastaticprostate cancer. So, that that'sobviously what I'm pretty well versedin. And right now, it's 33% yes, 67% no,and you can see how much is being bet onit. And you can actually either hedgepositions by betting here in addition tothe stock. You can use these,you know, prediction markets, which aretypically higher accuracy than uhthan, you know, individual experts.Um cuz you get the wisdom of the crowdsuh that have skin in the game. Um so,it's very interesting to me. Uh what doyou what do you think of this? What doyou what do you have to make of this?>> Super fascinating. How'd you find this?>> A guy tweeted this out.>> Interesting name. I think I love it. Butyou know why it's called Endpoint Arena?Is go to the top left of the website andtell me what you see, Sean.>> Endpoint Arena season 5? Is that whatyou're looking at?>> Yes. It says season 5, which leads me tobelieve are they trying to
00:19:01make it likea series?Like is Endpoint Arena like this is theshow?And the show is like will this drug getapproved or not?>> Yeah, I've no idea. This is amazing.>> That's That's kind of fascinating,right?>> Okay, here. Let me just read you thisarticle. One day in early May, aweb-based platform called she tied twocontracts to a upcoming psilocybin drug.They could wager onuhwhen on when the company would submitthe drug application for blah blah blahand the FDA would approve it or not.These are event contracts, which is kindof the basis of all uh predictionmarkets. They're trying to speed upscience. Endpoint Arena CEO MichaelFisher, who's a PhD, studied ateconomics computer science at Stanfordbecame curious about the promise ofprediction markets and he created an appuh around this. He said, "I became veryinterested in the concept ofexperimentation and encouraging otherpeople to think about and place bets onwhat they think is going to happen ifthey do certain experiments." He arguesthat clinical trial focused predictionmarkets can democratize keyword>> That's a trigger word for us.>> Yeah, he's a lawyer.>> democratize the trial process and giveparticipants motivation to becomeexpertsand improve experimentation blah blahblah.>> Okay, so the why here is a little bit ofa turn-off.I don't think I I think he said a lot ofwords, but he really was just saying wewant to gamble. I think that's I don'tfind that interesting. I wouldn't want
00:20:16to line this for prediction markets. Andcorrect me is this like is this you andme if we take opposite ends of the bet?Are we betting against each other or arewe buying stakes?>> We uh so the way it works is there's aprice for a yes contract and every timesomebody says yes on the yes contract,the price of yes will go up unlessthere's corresponding pressure on the noside. So it's basically there's nothere's no bookie. There's no middlemanwho sets the price. The market sets theprice. The yeses versus the noes. It'snot directly like a stock market whereI'm buying your shares necessarily, butI can buy I can put money in at yes andmore I do it, it'll skew the price up toincentivize people to take the otherside of the action potentially. Let mejust read you what he said. He made thebold claim that prediction markets couldeventually provide scientific benefit.Here's a hypothetical example. A knownGLP-1 drug is being studied in a newindication. If somebody already takingtherapy for the therapy for diabetes orobesity experience improvements relatedto the new condition being evaluated inthe trial, they could use the first handinformation to inform a prediction onthe market.In theory, patterns that emerge throughthese predictions could provide earlysignals about a drug's potential andadditional indications before the trialis released. So, for example, one coulddo a more focused targeted trial withfewer people. It's a way to speed upscience and create a market where one is
00:21:31incentivized to move quickly and usefewer resources to get towards outcome.I don't know if I fully understand or orbuy that.>> I don't know if I fully understand it oror buy it. I don't understand it,therefore I I'm going to say that it'sstupid.>> don't understand it.>> [laughter]>> And I guess therefore I know I don't buyit.>> UmUm this is I can't decide. I think it'svery interesting, but I would say badcrazy.>> Number six.The Cleveland Shvitz.Great name.>> [laughter]>> This is a interesting company. So, checkthis out. It's a bathhouse plus asteakhouse [laughter]in Cleveland.This is actually the reboot of TheOffice.All right, so a 98-year-old Jewishbathhouse in Cleveland that combinesRussian-style steam, cold plunge, andmassages with giant T-bone steaks andcocktails. You sweat, you plunge, youeat steak. It's a full socialexperience. Part spa, part steakhouse,part private members club. Isn't thisamazing? It's blowing [clears throat] upright now. Barstool called it thehottest reservation in the country thiswinter.>> [laughter]>> A $165 a person covers your drinks, yoursteam, uh your cold plunge, and a fullmeal. Their phones are ringing off thehook with reservations at all hours.It's attracting millennials and Gen Zwho are discovering it through
00:22:46socialmedia. They recently opened ladies daysand coed days after being male-only fordecades.A group, you know, for example, a groupof six friends could book a Saturday atthe Shvitz.They alternate between the steam andcold for a couple hours, get massages,then sit down for steaks and cocktails.It's the new going out. It replaces thebar, restaurant, spa, or nightclub foran outing.>> I'm in. That's awesome.>> It's not even crazy. This is just it'sdownright spectacular.>> Have you heard of this company calledOther Ship?>> I'm an investor in Other Ship. I loveOther Ship.>> So, I went to my first Other Shipsession. So, basically, the best way todescribe it what it is for somebody whodoesn't know.>> So, the one-liner that I would describeit is it's SoulCycle for sauna.And so, in Manhattan, where I live, it'sall like young It's like a combinationof hippie-dippie, but also like yuppietech people. It's quite fun. And you gofor an hour-long or maybe 45 minute-longsession. And there's cold plunges, andthen there's a huge sauna where you'rein You're like basically, you know,naked with like 50 people in the sauna.And then there's like a leader who'sdoing breath work and and is like movingthe towel to get like the eucalyptusflavoring in your face, and it calms youdown in a weird way. I'm I'm not doingit justice, but it's actually quiteawesome. And there's loud music goingon. Again, I'm not doing it justice,
00:24:01butfor some reason, you do get in thislittle strange trance, where it is It'shot in there. You You have a certainsmell. You hear noises. You feel thewind going against you. It's quite cool.And they even have like single nightswhere you can like go and like um youeveryone there is single. And it'spretty awesome. I'm actually I thoughtit was amazing. I went one time, andthen my wife and I are like we'll go onlike our date night. And you can go atlike 9:00 p.m.>> That's amazing. Yeah, I I'm so jealous.I haven't gone there. They opened up NewYork. I think they opened up one morelocation somewhere. They got a bunch inthe works. I really want one to be outhere in the Bay Area. I'm>> Is it a good business?>> It's a good great business. Um and I Ithink the hard part is hishe didn't try to make like the SubwaySandwiches of like locations, where it'sjust like this very simple box.>> No, this is high-end.>> This is like high-end everything. Andit's like he he wanted to make what Ithink he successfully made, which is themost epic kind of sauna breath workexperience that's probably ever beenmade as like a place you can go. And soI I saw uh Dana White, the president ofthe UFC, did what He went to one. Hedidn't know anything about it. He wentto one. He's like, standing out He'slike, I don't know what like this is themost amazing place I've ever been to.He's like, if you're in New York, youneed to go to this place.
00:25:16This place isincredible. And he gave this like Hewent live on Instagram cuz he was justso hyped from what he's like, that wasamazing. And um so I'm pretty jealous. Ireally want to to go to go check it out.Uh I'm a big believer in breath work.I've been using the Othership>> Yeah, you've been talking about breathwork for like 6 years now.>> Yeah, I think they're kind ofdeprioritizing the app, but even betterthan the app is like People don't don'treally use or know about this phrase,but state is going to become a veryimportant word over the next uh 10years. Managing your state, being in agreat state, it can you know, state ofmind, but really it's just how you feel,how you experience the things youexperience. So, if you are in a badmood, you can go to a good thing andhave a bad time. If you're in a greatmood, you can like I've told the DMVstory before. You can go to the DMV andhave a great time. And I think mostpeople are pretty poor about managing orcontrolling their state. And the easiestway to manage and control your state isnot to think your way there, but to usethe body. The body can drag the mind.And so, going into hot, cold, breath,and music, and you can and certain odorslike you know, eucalyptus, you canliterally change your state. And I thinkthat's going to become very addicting topeople. I think people are going to lovewhat they're getting out of that. Andit's it's very similar to why SoulCycleand Barry's Bootcamp work. It's notbecause it's the best workout. In fact,you could argue in many ways CrossFit,Barry's, SoulCycle are not
00:26:32idealworkouts. They're not great for strengthtraining. You're not getting People'sform is all over the place. But,you go, you're in a dark room with abunch of other people. It's a communalexperience. The music is pumping.There's a leader who makes it so youdon't have to think. You feel a sweat.You're doing hot yoga, you know, you getthe temperature thing. You changestates. And I I that's what people gotruly for, not the fitness layer.>> It's kind of becoming a recurring jokethat every everything comes back to likewhen we were 14, 15 years old readingbooks on pickup artists and how to meetgirls. And one of the first things thatthey try to teach you is you have to gointo like a session to meet a girl. Likeif you go to a bar and you're like Iwant to meet a girlfriend or whatever,you have to change your state and youhave to be in a positive state. And thenwhat they try to teach you is when youmeet someone how to bring them into yourstate. And so that's pretty funny thatyou predict that state's a new word. Theword generative is out, state is in.>> State's going to be in. I think it'sgoing to be in.>> So I I think this is awesome. I'm Ithink>> the schvitz, we love it. Uh wish itwasn't in Cleveland though, but I dolike the>> That's a horrible name, Clevelandschvitz. Is it schvitz? Schvitz? Yeah.It just sounds like there's a lot ofbacteria there. Like when I think ofthat word, I think of like the steam iscoming from like a sewer.>> [laughter]>> That's the Oakland schvitz.All right, number
00:27:47seven.The Funday Press. Have you seen this?>> No.>> All right. So imagine a newspaper likethe Sunday Press, but it's the FundayPress. It's a newspaper that has none ofthe news that just makes you depressedand only the fun games and comics.>> [laughter]>> So this is made byuma guy that we we met who is like apretty prolific board game designer.It's that guy right there on the left.And he's made a bunch of like like Ithink he made Is it Cards AgainstHumanity? He made like one of the biggames uh like that's like one of thebest sellers in the world. So this guyis a very creative guy. I went and I dida call with him and behind him like hisbackdrop was not like a library ofbooks, it was a library of only boardgames. Like thousands of different boardgames that you've never heard of. Andthis guy is like a game designer. And sohe created this actual physicalnewspaper that gets delivered to youthat's got like crosswords and Sudokusand like just the fun parts and none ofthe depressing heady stuff that comes innormal news. What what say you?>> Amazing.Uh I'm so into this. I think this isawesome. Do you remember Highlightsmagazine?>> No. What is that? Is that like the citylike cool stuff in the city? Is thatwhat that is?>> No. So, if you Google Highlights mag Iassume this is for kids, right?>> No, this is for adults.>> Oh, this is not I it looked like a likeit was telling you like cool
00:29:02like uh>> No, it's kind of like the LEGO kits foradults and like you know like What doWhat do What do we call it? Kidulting?Kidulting is the trend. It's like amulti-billion dollar industry of likekeeping adults things that feel liketheir childhood that will help de-stressthem.>> I think that's a horrible word cuz thatjust makes me want to punch myself if Isay I'm a kidult. It's like when peoplesay like>> You're the name police today.>> It's like when people say like they'readulting because they scheduled theirfirst doctor's appointment. My reply tothat is what you've heard before.>> on your bingo card.>> It's like yeah, it's like dude, you're22, okay? If this was 1946, you'd haveeight confirmed kills in the SouthPacific. Like don't tell me that you areadulting by scheduling a doctor'sappointment, okay? Be a man and justcall and get a doctor's appointment. Idon't need>> Galloway of you. That's That's That'stight. I like that.>> I just think it's ridiculous. I thinkthat kidulting is stupid.That said, the Funday Press>> You literally do this, by the way.You collect mini foods out of LOL dollsand you do buy elaborate LEGO sets thatyou do like for nights on end.>> I'm not going to hashtag it though, butI will talk about it on a podcast infront of millions of people, so it'sdifferent. This is pretty interesting.Um, yeah, so Highlights magazine was Ithought it was for kids. So, butHighlights magazine is like what I grewup like reading as a kid, so I thoughtthis was going to be comparable. But uhthis is pretty interesting. Does itsell? Do people buy it?
00:30:17>> Yeah, I think it's kind of new, but uhokay, here's the here's what it says.It's a early-stage indie project.There's a competitor called The SundayClub that runs the exact same model, allgames, no news. Also, the New York Timesgames-only product, so no news from theNew York Times, is has a million payingsubscribers at $5 a month, 60 million inARR.So, this is basically the physicalprinted out version of of that idea.>> Yeah, I think it's pretty awesome. Letme show you something kind ofinteresting. I've been really interestedin physical newsletters. And this issort of tangential to it, but I readthis article in the Wall Street Journalhow there's this crossing the headlineis the crossing guard making $14,000 amonth mailing out her musings from herjob. And so it's this woman namedChristine and she has a monthly physicalnewsletter where she just writes aboutlike things that she's experiencing as acrossing guard. And it's justentertainment. It's just silly, it'scool. And she posts she likeI don't forget how she shared this out,but I don't think she had a very bigaudience and now she has tens ofthousands of dollars a month worth ofpeople paying money to get this physicalnewsletter.And I I think I said this 2 years agoactually that I think that likethese I wouldn't call it a magazine, butI would literally call it a physicalnewsletter. The jankier the better. Likeif it looks like it's
00:31:32on printed paperthat's stapled together in a Manilafolder, I think that you can make somereally cool products that way. And Ithink that people are going to continueto be drawn to quirky things like this.And the Funday Press is one of thosethat fits that category.>> All right. Well, I appreciate youplaying my game. Crazy crazy good orcrazy bad.>> Do you want me to tell you somethingthat's similar to this that you canI'll give you two more ideas that areactually quite similar to this last onethat you can kind ofyou can judge.>> Okay.>> All right. So I bought this thing calledI guess it's I don't know what they thenoun that they would describe it, butit's a dumb phone. But go to dumb.co.>> Bookmarked. All right. dumb.co.Hello from the flip side.>> Okay, so check this out. It's a flipphone.So I have this flip phone. It's just a>> Oh no.>> It's just a TCL phone. It's $25 and then$20 a month after that. And what they'vedone is they've created an app that Ihave on my phone and it's basically Ibelieve this phone is its own phone, butreality is is that it's more like aforwarding phone. So if you call myphone, I can turn my phone in my I canturn my iPhone in dumb mode or smartmode. If it's in dumb mode, thatbasically means I can't receive callsand all the calls are going to go tohere and all the texts are going to go
00:32:47to here. And replying to a text messageon here is a huge pain in the assbecause it's like the Nokia, you know,where you have to like to get to theletter C, you got to click it threetimes.>> Three times, yeah, yeah.>> And so, it's pretty cool. But, here'swhy I think this is particularlyinteresting. And so, they have this whenyou order it, they have thisdocumentation. They give you a pamphleton like how to set it up. And theirbranding is quite good. So, like if yougo to their website, click where itsays, I think month free a phone. Andso, there's not any articles writtenabout this company. And so, theyactually have a customer service number.I just called the customer service thismorning and I was like, "What's thestory of this company? Tell meeverything." And I could tell I I wastalking to the CTO. I could tell it waslike a three or four-person companybecause I could hear people in thebackground and I was literally callinghis phone cuz I could like FaceTime him.I could tell. Basically, the backgroundis it's a guy who previously had acompany. He's sold it. He's self-fundingthis company. They have four full-timeemployees according to the person Icalled this morning.And uh it started because he hosted likea friends challenge where it was 1 monthwithout a phone.And they found that 1 month without aphone wasn't particularly uh feasible.And so, he's an entrepreneur and so, hecreated this app that helped you turn a$25 TCL phone, which is what this is,into a
00:34:03forwarding device where you cansort of like place your iPhone at leastfor parts of the day.And it's quite interesting. And theirbranding is really cool. If you go tothe website, everything is like verylike old schooly and and but but fun.And there's like Polaroid pictures. AndI have a feeling that this is going totake off. I don't know if this companyis going to work, but I think itpotentially could. The reason I thinkthat is if you go to uh there's asubreddit called dumb phones that I'vebeen a subscriber to for a while now andit's been taking off. I think it has200,000 subscribers on it and I've beennoticing that it's definitely beengrowing. It's definitely been growing alot.And it's quite fascinating and I lookedup a a bunch of different reviews for avariety of phones and I settled on thisone and I went and looked and CNNrecently did the best ad campaign everfor this company. So basically they tookone of their presenters and they hadthem do a brain scan where they measuredhis short-term memory. So they had themread something and they were able to Idon't know how the science works butthey were able to look at like how focuswere you when you were readingsomething, how much did you remember anda few other tests. Then they gave themthis phone, this brand is how I foundit. Uh they gave them this phone for 2weeks and then they had them redo thetest and his capacity to focus and hiscapacity to remember went upsignificantly. And I saw that and I waslike, that's
00:35:18the greatest ad I've everseen. This is perfect. Plus you do these1-month challenges where you buy thephone and it's only $20 and it's $20 or$25 a month after that to subscribe andget their service. I think it's reallycool. I think this could take off andthe company I believe is only 4 monthsold.>> Have you been using it?>> I just got it this morning. I just gotit this morning. I just got it thismorning and I'm so going to test it out.I can give like an update but I thinkit's really promising and I noticed thatwhen I walked out into my office andshowed it to my team, I was like, checkthis out. Everyone was like clamoring.They were like, what is that? Let me seethat. And I think it's reallyfascinating.>> I mean the the problem isthe problem is so real. Total agreementon the problem and then the question iswhich of these solutions is going to bethe one? Like you've told me about brickbefore, how you brick your phone. You'vetold me about the dumb phone and youknow, there's other people you know,George Mack has two phones. One's asmartphone, one's a dumb phone. Like youknow, people have these like differentsystems.I'm really curious what the rightsolution is going to bebut the problem is is gargantuan becauseeverybody's got the phone and everybodyeverybody who has a phone is addicted tothe phone. I really don't know anybodywho's not addicted to their phone. Soyou know, just in my life, I don't know.Of all the people I know, it seems likethere's a 95%addiction rate. And the question iswhat's going to be the
00:36:33nicotine patchfor that? What's going to be the the AAfor that? How are people going to getoff this addiction? Uhis there going to be a solution thatthat some percentage of people gravitatetowards?>> My opinion is that this to the all thebig companies out there, this appears tobe a very niche silly thing. Myprediction is that in 10 years this willnot be. I do not think>> came out with this, if Apple came outwith a version of this,I think they could sell a billion ofthese things.>> Well, you know that they're like if youGoogle Apple flip phone, like there'sthey're they're working on>> on it?>> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't thinkit's rumors. I think they've announcedit, but there's for sure rumors.iPhone fold is what it's going to becalled. Now, I don't know if it's likeanother screen, I don't know what it is,but they're calling it like a flipphone. So, I guess like there's allthese and it's not important whatexactly what it is, but there's allthese breadcrumbs out there that I'mseeing that's pointing to like this isactually going to be a mega trend andnot just a niche thing. And I can giveyou another really cool example. Haveyou heard of this lady named Cat GPT?>> [laughter]>> Okay, look her up. That's her Instagramhandle. [clears throat] Okay, so thislady started getting popular onInstagram. I think she has four or600,000 followers.>> Incredible name.>> Yeah, it's cool. And she started doingeducational videos on AI. And one day in2023,
00:37:48she came up with this idea tocreate a physical phone, like alandline.And she like made a post about it andlike no one wanted it. So, she kind ofput it on the back burner. And then lastyear she was like, you know what? AI isactually like can make this process alot better. Let me see if I can use ChatGPT to make this product a little bitbetter. And she used the product ChatGPT to help make this a physicallandline. It's not really a physicallandline, but it looks like a rotaryphone, like the ones that like yourgrandparents maybe had or like theselike old school physical phones. And sheused Chat GPT to like help get itapproved by the FCCs cuz you had to likedo some approval process and to helplike design it, whatever. And she put avideo out about it, and it went quiteviral. I believe uh there was>> this is amazing.It's a It's aphysical phone, like the old-schoolphones, like you could either have it onthe wall, the rotary one, or just anormal normal corded phone, but it's aBluetooth device to your actual phone.>> Oh, wow, so smart.>> And her branding is beautiful. And whatthen In 2025, she launched this to heraudience, and she was like, you know, Itried this in '23, no one really wantedit, but I have a video audience, screwit, let's do it. And she sold $800,000worth of these this product in 5 months.Now, in 2026, she's tracking or she uhshe says the goal and and it's early inthe year, but tracking towards uh $5million a year in revenue.
00:39:04And if you go to her website, to me,what's quite clear is that she can haveall types of SKUs. And I think she saidthis. I think she wants to launch thisthing called uh Cat Labs. So, basically,she can create all types of phones, butif I was her, I would basically look ateverything in my phone that doessomething, or even my Alexa that doessomething, how do I create a productthat undoes it? Now, this sounds crazy,but you could have like a handheld GPS,or you could have like an old-schoolmore old-school alarm clock that thatdoesn't do anything else, but just goesoff and on, and maybe you could use yourvoice to like turn it on and off. Or umyou could have like a like a a jail foryour phone, and you could become an acompany that's all about phone addictionissues. And you could have a a varietyof SKUs in the same way Ridge Walletstarted with wallets, and now they alsosell>> free game here. I love it. She should doThe phone jail is a great idea.>> It's cool, right? And it I used to havea phone jail. It was just a KitchenAid>> No, no, but you got to like make it looklike a phone jail.>> had one that was just like a a timedTupperware container. Um but I thinkthatshe does a beautiful job with branding,and everything's pretty cute and cool,and and it's like it's the clear like,you know, David versus Goliath, withGoliath being addiction, and David beinglike, "But don't you just want to likefocus
00:40:20and make your brain feel good andbe less lonely?" And I think that's sucha great marketing story, and she's doinga really good job with it.>> This is a great find. I love this. Thatis really cool, and I like the sort ofanti just be the anti of the main thing.It's not like you're trying to convinceeverybody. It's just that 1% of peopleare going to feeloverstimulated by the thing, and if youcan provide the alternate, and you cando marketing via TikTok with reallyvisual buzzy products that people goingto get people talking in the comments,which is exactly what this does. Likeher top TikTok just says, "I broughtback landlines." And she's holding oneof the physical phones. And there'sgoing to be people who like it, who hateit, doesn't matter, but it's going toget a reaction. That's how you can grow,you know, grow these types ofbusinesses. And then you just if youjust up level it and say, "Well, am Ireally just selling a landline, or am Iselling a return to the physical?">> Yeah.>> Right? A return to the real. And it'slike, "Ooh, I like that." There's a lotof people who want to return to thereal. What is What does that entail? Oh,there's other products that might make alot of sense in that case.>> Yeah, it's sort of like what What's thatfunny bottled water company?>> Murder water.>> Liquid death.Like it's sort of like that, where it'slike with these phones and like thisthing that I have here, the moat is notthe technology right now. The moat isnot the product. The moat is the brand.And I think that with if you tooksomeone
00:41:35who was in advertising and yousaid, "Just focus on ads and focus onbuilding a brand that's really, reallycool." That is the moat.>> Did you see umZack, whatever I forgot his ZackYadagari, the guy the guy who did theCali AI app so the teenager>> I know what his new thing is. Did heannounce it?>> Yeah, it's on the he did like a YouTubevideo. So let's going to let's talkabout it. So let's give the context. Sohe came on here when he was, I don'tknow, 17 years old or something. He wasin high school. He like came on thepodcast in between class periods. Helike skipped a skipped skipped class tocome be on our podcast, and he was doinga calorie tracking app. Not an entirelynew idea, but he did it he made a simpleapp with his friends, and they reallyleveraged TikTok to grow the app. And hetalked exactly about what he was doing.He was at a few million in ARR at thetime.And they grew it to something like 20 or30 million in ARR, and they sold thebusiness. And he'snow he's like a college student who, youknow, sold a sold a business for I don'tknow, a bunch of money. Somewherebetween, you know, let's call it 50 to100 million bucks. Last time he was on,he came on after he sold it, and he wastalking about what he wants to do next.He said, "I want to do something in withhardware, something physical." Partlybecause there's just a fun challenge,partly because seeing, you know, wherecan I go where there's less competitionfor when it's getting easier and easierto create content, easier and easier tocreate apps.
00:42:50How do I do somethingthat's a little bit different? And so hejust came out with a YouTube videoannouncing his new thing, uh, which doyou want to describe it?>> I didn't watch the video. I had justknown that I knew what space it wasgoing to be in and roughly the product.What I didn't see the video. Where didhe, what's it called?>> clock.>> [laughter]>> It's an alarm clock, and it's basicallyan alarm clock that you It's like aphysical brick. So you put it somewhereelse. So your your phone alarm won'tstop beeping until you tap your phone tothe brick. So it's kind of like a way toget up out of bed and stop doomscrolling.And his idea is like, "I want to build>> How does that help you stop doomscrolling?">> Because you have to get out of bed andgo touch your phone to this thing thatyou put, presumably, in the kitchen orsomewhere else, somewhere where you youneed to be up and active, not justsitting in bed on your phone. You know,most people they wake up with an alarmclock, they look at their phone, theysee a bunch of net notifications.>> it, got it.>> They snooze the alarm, and they stay inbed looking at their notifications,social media, whatever for 20, 30minutes, and that's how they start theirday.>> Got it.>> So the idea would be your alarm clockgoes up, and that beeping's not going tostop until you're up, out of bed, andyou touch the thing.>> Awesome.>> His new His new thing's called Flow isthe name of the the company.>> Oh, cool. Wow. Okay, he released ityesterday. So flowalarmclock.com.Uh, this is awesome. Great video, too. Ithought that my prediction was good, butthen seeing like a young
00:44:06guy who's waymore in the know and like in the in thepulse of young peoplebecause he likes that it's like kind ofthat's like the real validation.>> Yeah.>> So, are you on board with some of thisstuff?>> Am I on board with it? What do you mean?Oh, the dumb phone and>> You want one?>> I don't trust myself meaningI love to buy a gadgetbut there's a graveyard of gadgets Idon't use in my office and I'mlearning like hey lookI got to really be committed to actuallylike commit to the bit if I'm going todo it like I got to really want thething and change my lifestyle to do itso don't don't just buy all these thingsfor no reason. So, I'm going to kind ofwait and see if you tell me like yeahdude I use it all the time this is if 4weeks from now you're like this is mynew normal then I'll buy it.>> The brick has stuck with me. That isit's at my front door and depending onwhich activity I'm going to go out anddo so if I'm going out with my familythat continues to have maps, textmessages, calls, and Uber.>> Right.>> I think that's it and then if I'm goingto go work out it literally just has myworkout app that's it and Spotify.That's it.>> See, I just deleted social media off myphone it kind of did the same thing.There's not really much else to do on myphone once you take that off. What am Igoing to do?>> too easy to go to twitter.com.>> Oh, I didn't even think of that. I wouldI wouldn't even think to do that. It'ssuch a bad experience dude they're justconstantly trying to get you to downloadthe app. They they nuke it for
00:45:21you. Likeyou can't see a reply you can't like youcan't do anything.>> But then I end up just spending so muchtime on Claude asking it questions. So,I just had to like nuke everything. Ihad to like>> That's you know what?>> Just like I don't know I just like it'sjust the habit of like I have I'm in theelevator reach in my pocket pull it outdo something and like that that likeaction has to like go away entirely andin order for it to go away I just can'thave anything working.>> [laughter]>> Um>> Yeah, that's fair.>> All right, is that it?>> That's it.>> All right, that's the pod.
00:46:09>> Hey.