He Turned A $300/Mo Gardening Side Hustle Into $45 Million/Year | Kevin Espiritu Interview

Sam Parr 0:00 All right, what's happening, everyone? Today's podcast is with Kevin Espiritu. So Kevin has this company called Epic Gardening. Epic Gardening started as a blog where Kevin would just blog about his hobby as a gardener. He started it in 2016, and in this podcast, he's gonna tell us the revenue for every year that he's been doing it. But this year they're gonna do something like $45 million a year in revenue, and Kevin walks through how they got traffic, how he's built the company, how he bought other companies to make Epic Gardening a big business. It's incredibly fascinating. He's super transparent with all the numbers. So he goes through deal by deal, all the companies that they bought, how much they paid for it, how they found the company, how they found other companies that they didn't end up buying and why they didn't buy it. It's a really fascinating story. This guy is really, really cool. I think in about five years, this guy's gonna be a really, really big deal. He's already a pretty big deal, but I think in five years he's gonna be like Chip and Joanna. You guys have to listen to this podcast. He's a really fascinating guy. Let me know what you think. All right, check it out. [upbeat music] Dude, so it's finally nice to talk to you. You, uh, I didn't know who you were, and then on the podcast, Shaan, like, told your story. And I'm like, "Oh, I recognize this guy from ev- everywhere." And I didn't realize how big of a business that you'd built. So congratulations. That's insane, right?

Kevin Espiritu 1:23 Yeah. Yeah, no, it's been a, it's been a crazy ride. It's been a crazy ride.

Sam Parr 1:26 I just watched one of your YouTube videos where one of your videos had just gotten, I, uh, I think you said 70 million views, and it's just, like, you kneeling on a, uh, like, a little kneeling, like, t- device so you can garden on your knees more easily, and you're like, "I've been getting noticed in the streets because of this silly kneeling video."

Kevin Espiritu 1:44 Yeah. That video might haunt me. I, I think it's the most viral thing I've ever made. It's a short-form video. So I'd seen this little kneeling device. It was like a Instagram reel of a German trade show, and it was just this little kneeling device where you kind of pop down. I think it's made for bricklayers. So I saw it and I was like, "You know what? I kinda wanna try it out just to see." And so I, I had my team grab one. There was, like, one in San Diego where I live. And I made that piece of content in, like, maybe, maybe 10 minutes maximum, uh, and, and then edited it up, tossed it out, put it out on, I think, TikTok first, and it just started ripping. So I, I was like, "Okay, I know this thing, it has some legs." So then I threw it on Instagram and Facebook, and then I threw it on YouTube. I think it's at, like, 150 million views across the platform, and the whole logic of doing it was, "Let me put this product in front of our gardening audience and see if they like it, so then we can either hit up the manufacturer and carry it on our store, or we can maybe make some modifications to it that make it a little better suited for gardening." And then that is basically just market validation, right? By, by the time we went that viral, we hit up the manufacturer, which is a German company, and they're like, "We would love to sell you some, but our entire stock in America is gone. Uh, so every distributor we already have has sold out, so we can't, we can't get it to you."

Sam Parr 2:58 How much, uh, rev- missed revenue was that?

Kevin Espiritu 3:01 I have no idea. Yeah, I don't-

Sam Parr 3:02 What's your guess? Over or under 10 million?

Kevin Espiritu 3:05 Oh, it's gotta... I think it's under, for sure. 'Cause I think these things are, like, 50 bucks maybe. I don't know how many we would've sold, but I don't think there was some crazy supply in the US. Uh, but yeah, it's kinda, it was kind of a bummer. So the, my only, the only thing I've ever gotten out of it is just being memed to, to death about it.

Sam Parr 3:21 Dude, so you, the reason you're sort of interesting to me is, did you start with, like, an internet marketing background? 'Cause I know that you're interested in search and SEO and stuff. Was it, like, to be an agency and then... I mean, were you even into gardening and plants and all that stuff, or did you, or were you like, "I'm the Plant Daddy now because I've got this website"? And so, like, which came first?

Kevin Espiritu 3:40 What

Kevin Espiritu 3:41 came first was, yeah, I guess, I guess designing websites did come first. 'Cause I came out of college with an accounting degree, but I played online poker to pay for school, and so that kinda, like, put me off the path of wanting to be an accountant right out of the gate.

Sam Parr 3:54 And you were making money.

Kevin Espiritu 3:56 Yeah, I made, like, 200, $250,000 probably playing poker in college. So I, I used that to pay for school, and then I had some money to, like, sit on.

Sam Parr 4:03 Was it all online?

Kevin Espiritu 4:05 Yeah, it was all online. I hated playing in person. I, because it's so slow. 'Cause when you're playing online, you're playing faster, but you're also playing, like, more tables.

Sam Parr 4:13 What makes a good online poker player? Because I would think, I don't play poker really, I've only played, like, 10 or 20 times. It's just, like, it seems like reading body language and things like that is part of the game.

Kevin Espiritu 4:23 Yeah.

Sam Parr 4:23 But what makes a good online player? Just straight math?

Kevin Espiritu 4:26 Straight math is a big part of it. So, like, understanding probability theory and understanding the types of hands that someone could or couldn't have in a particular situation. Uh, but you're, you're kind of right. Like, eventually, when you play enough online poker, it gets down to the point where you know the people's screen names you're playing with, and you probably have played with these people, like, over days, weeks, or months, depending on how often they play. And you can even get down to the point where you know in this particular position, like, I'm sitting on the button, they're sitting in this position, and they, they wait three seconds longer than they normally do, and it's this person's screen name. A lot of the times you can develop some sort of weird sixth sense and you know, you're like, "I'm, uh, I'm, like, nearly sure that's a bluff," and you'll call 'em.

Sam Parr 5:08 And you made $250,000 over four years doing that?

Kevin Espiritu 5:11 Yeah, so- something like that. I didn't track it super well. It was, like, 200, 250,000.

Sam Parr 5:14 That's insane. That is insane.

Kevin Espiritu 5:16 Yeah, yeah. So it threw me off the path of wanting to be an accountant, for sure. Uh, and then when I got out of school, I played poker for, like, six more months or something and then quit, but I had nothing to, to do. So I started playing video games, and then I was designing websites to just pay some bills. And then I got into the marketing thing because I was like, well, once you sell a website, it's sold, so you make your 1,500 bucks or two grand or whatever the hell I was charging at that time. Uh, so then I got into SEO stuff and I built the gardening blog at the same time. 'Cause I was getting into gardening. I was doing it with my brother over a summer. But I was like, "I need a, I need, like, a digital business card. Like, I need a little calling card." So I built the gardening blog as a way to show the website design clients, like, "Hey, look, look what I can build."

Sam Parr 5:59 What year was that?

Kevin Espiritu 6:00 That would have been 2013.

Sam Parr 6:03 Dude, I think in the same

Sam Parr 6:04 year I did the same thing as you. Were you reading, like, Smart Passive Income?

Kevin Espiritu 6:08 Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Sam Parr 6:09 Okay. So P- for those young listeners, I think you and I were on the young side probably at the time of his blog. I, I think you and I are the same age. I'm 34. And, uh-

Kevin Espiritu 6:19 Yeah, I'm 36

Sam Parr 6:20 ... and, uh, Smart Passive Income was, like, one... This guy, Pat Flynn, he's still quite popular. He was one of the early bloggers of, like, making money on the internet, and he had a... What did he do? He did, like, a... He wrote, like, a blog and an e-book on how to, like, get your building, like, green or LEED certified-

Kevin Espiritu 6:38 Yeah

Sam Parr 6:38 ... or something like that, and he was making money doing it. And he would display all of his income and revenue online, which at the time was, like, insane. And then he, uh, did, like, a food truck, a food tr- like, a book on how to create a food truck or something like that, and he, like, was like, "I'm gonna rank high on search, and I'm gonna blog throughout the way so you guys can see how I d- do it." I read that, and I created a pois- poison ivy, like, how to treat poison ivy-

Kevin Espiritu 7:03 [laughs]

Sam Parr 7:03 ... website at the same time, and it was making, like, $1,000 a day. And I was, like, copying everything he was doing, and I have a feeling that you were reading that same blog-

Kevin Espiritu 7:13 Dude

Sam Parr 7:13 ... at the same time.

Kevin Espiritu 7:14 I have a even more cringe story ar- around that time. So I was reading Pat like crazy.

Sam Parr 7:19 You just called me cringe.

Kevin Espiritu 7:21 And I mean, we all... That, that first site that you make, it's always kinda weird. Like, come on.

Sam Parr 7:25 It's the worst.

Kevin Espiritu 7:25 Poison ivy site?

Sam Parr 7:26 Yeah, but I have one good-

Kevin Espiritu 7:27 You buy a little... I have one worse than that, for sure. So Pat, to me, was like a god back in the day 'cause he's a half-Filipino, half-white guy living in San Diego building businesses.

Sam Parr 7:35 Are you half-Filipino?

Kevin Espiritu 7:37 I'm half-Filipino, half-white, and we've become good friends now, which is awesome. Um, but when I read it,

Kevin Espiritu 7:43 I was like, "Okay, cool. I see the blueprint. Pat's got this, like, green certification thing." And so my choice was to... I created a, a website called coc Buttermilk.org.

Sam Parr 7:53 [laughs]

Kevin Espiritu 7:53 And so I go cocabuttermilk.org, and I start reviewing every cocoa butter cream that's on Amazon, and I was using an alias. And, like, come on. Like, I was, like, early 20s. I was doing some dumb stuff. And I, I was Susie Michaels, a mother of two, who was, like, reviewing how all these different cocoa butters worked on me. Uh, and, and then I... You know, you h- hook into Amazon affiliates. And I remember it took me, like, a month. I made, like, two bucks on that site, and I was like, "Oh my God. I made money in a way that's not, like, someone just paying me," you know? Uh, and it kinda blew my mind. Like, ev- the, the whole saying, like, everyone remembers your first dollar on the internet. I wish it wasn't

Kevin Espiritu 8:30 cocoa butter cream, but...

Sam Parr 8:31 And then, and, a- and that's when you got into, like, internet marketing. But didn't you do, like, a Kendrick Lamar website too?

Kevin Espiritu 8:37 Yeah. That was, that was, uh, man, that was probably, like, a couple years later. So the story on that one is my cousin, I was living with my cousin at the time. He was, like, a biomechanical engineer, and I'm over here doing all this weird stuff on the internet, like building sites and stuff. And he's kinda getting intrigued by it, and a friend hits me up, and he was like, "Hey. I have all these blogs that I need to sell. I just need some money. I have Kendrick Lamar, Rita Ora, Schoolboy Q," like, all these sort of up-and-coming artists. And this would've been, like, 2014, I think. He goes, "You wanna buy one?" And I go, "I, I'm kinda doing my own thing, but maybe I'll have my cousin buy it, and we'll do it together." So my cousin Johnny actually puts up the money for it, and I think I had, like, 10% equity in this Kendrick Lamar website. And we start, like, scouring the internet, and we actually become, like, the biggest source of Kendrick Lamar news on the internet before he drops his first album, good kid, m.A.A.d city. And so no one really knows Kendrick. Like, only super fans know him. And there was a point where, like, I think Kendrick's manager even called up my cousin and was like, "Uh, like, we really appreciate what you're doing for Kendrick. Like, you're putting h- his name out there," da, da, da, da, da. And the way we monetized that is we were just selling shirts, just, like, print on-demand shirts. I think we probably made, like, 30 or 40 grand doing that. And then after the album dropped and he blew up, all of a sudden he, like, trademarked his name, and we had to shut the site down and stuff. But that was another, like, weirdo internet thing that we did.

Sam Parr 9:57 All right. Look, the question that Shaan and I get asked constantly is what skill set did we develop early on in our careers that kinda changed our business career? And that's an easy answer. It's copywriting. We've talked about copywriting and how it's changed our lives constantly on this podcast, and we give a ton of tips, a ton of techniques, a ton of frameworks and throughout all the podcasts. Well, we decided to aggregate all of that into one simple document so you can read all of it. You can see how we've learned copywriting, but you can see the resources that we turn to on a daily basis. You can see the frameworks, the techniques we use. It's in a simple document. You can check it out in the link below. All right, now back to the show. What was the main thing, though? Was it the gardening, like, gardening websites the whole time?

Kevin Espiritu 10:34 No. The, the gardening thing didn't really start until for real. Like, it was a hobby that I love doing, and I've, I've done it every, every year of my life since 2013. Um, but it was just, like, a h- a hobby blog until 2016, uh, when I went full time on it.

Sam Parr 10:49 And hobby blog in that you were actually, like, into gardening, and you're like-

Kevin Espiritu 10:53 Yeah

Sam Parr 10:53 ... "I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna create content around" ... But did you see any numbers where you're like, "Uh, this could be a big company," or was it straight joy?

Kevin Espiritu 11:03 No. No. I mean, it was a mix, right? Like, I was gardening for fun, and then I would just document whatever, whatever I was doing and, like, make a YouTube video or make a blog post. And I would try to monetize it. Like, I'd make some ad revenue or I'd make some affiliate revenue, but I never thought it could be huge. Like, I remember talking to friends that were all kinda doing the same thing at the time, and I was like, "Man, if this thing could just make two grand a month, or if it could make five grand a month, like, that'd be amazing. Then I wouldn't have to go get a job." Uh, 'cause I think my mind didn't understand the scale that any, any business could really become at that point in time. So yeah, it took, it took a while for me to realize the potential of it.

Sam Parr 11:39 And then you, you kind of, like, had this... The, it's a, it's a, it's not, like, a cliche to most people, but for the media world, it's, like, a cliche at this point. But at the time when you were doing it, it was like content and commerce was actually, like, a pretty innovative idea, which is I'm gonna build this huge blog, and instead of just making money on advertising, I'm going to sell my own products, which is, like- It sounds silly that, that, that I'm calling that innovative, but, like, when you were getting going, that was a thing. I mean, I had a blog, and I was like, "I don't think that you can, like, sell your own products. I'd rather just stick to, like, what I know, which is content and ads."

Kevin Espiritu 12:16 Yeah.

Sam Parr 12:16 And I was, like, totally against selling stuff, but you made the right decision for sure. That's a significantly better business.

Kevin Espiritu 12:23 It's a, it's a way better business, and

Kevin Espiritu 12:26 yeah, the, the brief story on that is 2016, I, I go full time on Epic Gardening. I was, uh, at Scribe Media, or Book in a Box it was called before that. I was, like, second employee there. So I quit that, go full time on Epic. It was just a blog and YouTube channel.

Sam Parr 12:38 Did you have any revenue when you quit?

Kevin Espiritu 12:40 Yeah, I was making $450 a month.

Sam Parr 12:42 Great.

Kevin Espiritu 12:43 I have this whole spreadsheet of, like, what it was making at the time. So at that time, I actually thought I was going to farm. Like, leg- legit farm in people's front yards and, uh, like, aggregate all their square footage and, like, sell that produce to restaurants and stuff like that.

Sam Parr 12:57 Right. I mean, that sounds, like, really hard. [laughs]

Kevin Espiritu 13:00 Yeah, it's, it's a really hard way to make a small-ish amount of money, which there's people that do it, and I actually respect it a lot, but-

Sam Parr 13:07 It's cool

Kevin Espiritu 13:07 ... it's cool, yeah. It's just not scale. Uh, so, so I go, "Okay, how about I just make this blog make a couple grand a month?" 'Cause it was making 450, so if I could make 450, I could probably make two. If I could make two, I could make five. And so I started growing it, and I think that year the blog made 17 grand total, uh, about six months of the year. Uh, and then the next year it was 72,000 revenue, and this is all media, 'cause I haven't done any product yet, right? 2018 it was 225, and then 2019 is where I had that realization that you mentioned where I was like, "Wait, why am I just making money from ads and, like, brand sponsorships? Like, what do the brands want from me when they do a brand deal? They want access to your audience. Well, I have complete access to my own audience, so why don't I just be the brand selling to my own, my own audience?" Uh, and so what I did is I realized, like, uh, well, every piece of content I put out is basically a search for validating demand for whatever's in that content. And so in all these photos I'm putting out, 'cause I'm cr- um, at this point I'm gardening in Hillcrest, San Diego, in, like, a very small front yard in, in a pretty urban part of downtown San Diego. And so I'm, like, filming my content there. I have these little raised beds in the front yard, which is just a way to grow plants, and they're made out of metal. And every time I took a photo of these, everyone's like, "What are those? What, what are those things in the photo? Like, where'd you get those?" So I was like, "I actually don't know. Like, a brand just sent these to me, and I put them in the front yard." And so I started emailing this company. They're from Australia. I emailed them, like, maybe once or twice a quarter for, like, a year saying, like, "Hey, can I get these? Can I just, like, somehow get these to America and sell them?" And they're like, "No, no, we already, we already have someone we're working with. Like, we don't need to do that." And then the beginning of 2019 they emailed back and said, like, "Hey, are, are you still interested in, in carrying our products? We... Like, a distributor just isn't working with us anymore." I'm like, "Yeah, sure, let's do it." And I think I probably had, like, 70, 80 grand in the business bank account at that

Kevin Espiritu 15:06 point in time.

Sam Parr 15:06 All right. So it's like, it's, like, promising. You're not rolling in it yet, but it's media-

Kevin Espiritu 15:11 Yeah

Sam Parr 15:11 ... so it's mostly profit.

Kevin Espiritu 15:12 Yeah, it's mostly profit and it's a small business with, with nearly zero employees. So to me I'm like, I'm making like a, like a mid-level doctor's salary out of-

Sam Parr 15:22 Yeah

Kevin Espiritu 15:22 ... this business now, you know? So I'm, I'm chilling. I'm, I'm gardening. I'm liking my life. Uh, so I hit these guys up and they're like, "Yeah, sure, like, here's how it works." And I'm like, "Holy shit, I don't know how buying product works," 'cause I'm, I'm used to media. And so much like, like, the sort of cringe early days, the way I tried to do it was sort of, sort of noob. Like, I was like, "Okay, how do I buy the product?" And they're like, "Well, you have to pay us, you know, here's all these different, like, shipping terms." So I bought a 20-foot container of these raised beds for I think $35,000, which was like half the money that I had. Uh, and I go, "Okay, well what, what hap- what happens when they get to America? Like, what am I supposed to do?" They're like, "Well, you gotta receive it at the port, and then you, that container has to, like, go somewhere, and then you have to unpack it, and then you have to ship it." And I'm like, "Okay, cool, like, thanks for that information." So what I tried to do-

Sam Parr 16:09 [laughs]

Kevin Espiritu 16:10 ... is I tried to rent a, uh, storage facility out of a Costco, and, like, just w- one of the ones that you, like, go to if you're gonna move for a year, you know? And you put all your-

Sam Parr 16:19 Yeah

Kevin Espiritu 16:19 ... furniture there. So I tried to do that, and I was, like, trying to figure out how to get it from the port to the storage facility, and then I was trying to look up, like, how, well, how do you get internet in the storage facility so you can, so I can print the labels?

Sam Parr 16:31 Oh, and you were gonna literally mail these things out yourself?

Kevin Espiritu 16:34 'Cause I didn't know anything about commerce. So I didn't know you could, like, send it to a 3PL or you could send it to a warehouse.

Sam Parr 16:40 How many, like, units w- of stuff did you have?

Kevin Espiritu 16:43 I think it was 550 beds at that time.

Sam Parr 16:46 Okay, so, like, that's a, that's a ton, but it's like, all right, I'm just gonna go to the post office four times a week and I'll just, I'll figure it out. I mean, that's-

Kevin Espiritu 16:55 Yeah

Sam Parr 16:55 ... a lot of work, but I guess-

Kevin Espiritu 16:56 Yeah

Sam Parr 16:56 ... it's kind of reasonable.

Kevin Espiritu 16:57 I, I thought it was reasonable, and the reason why I was trying to do it like that is because when I, when I ordered it and they packed the container in Australia, I was like, "Okay, cool, guys." Like, to my audience I was like, "Hey, you guys asked where these things were from. I figured it out." I put up a really crappy Shopify store and I was like, "Here they are." And then I sold them out in like four or five days-

Sam Parr 17:18 Oh, no

Kevin Espiritu 17:18 ... while they were still getting to America. So I knew I, I knew it was working, right? And so then what I did is I used that money to buy another container, and then that was on the way, and then that sold out. And then I was like, "Oh my God, like, I think there's something really going on here."

Sam Parr 17:30 So what was your revenue in '19, the year you started selling stuff?

Kevin Espiritu 17:34 So '19 was like 550, and half of it was the product. So in the year one, like, immediately half was, was product.

Kevin Espiritu 17:42 So I was like, "Oh my God, I think what I've been building this whole time is the top of a business and not the bottom of it." Like, I thought media was the whole thing. It was like-

Sam Parr 17:50 Right

Kevin Espiritu 17:50 ... oh, actually media is right here and it monetizes, but the bottom is actually where, where, um, the business lies.

Sam Parr 17:55 And that's like the weird, innovative idea. I remember, uh, so, like, uh, my friend Nathan Barry has this awesome blog post called, like, Billion-Dollar blogs, and it's, like, basically the story of a handful of people who started out blogging and then built companies around the blogs. And the most famous example is probably Glossier, or, uh, I think that's what it's called, Glossier. It's the, the women's makeup, uh, brand that started as Emily Weiss, I think her name is. She had, like, a fashion blog, and then she was like, "Oh, this selling stuff is way better than selling ads," and it became a, a billion-dollar company. And he has a few more examples of that. And that, that's when I first read about that idea, but I still thought, "This is way too intimidating and, like, too challenging." And particularly for me at the time, I ran a business website, and I was like, "I can't... What am I gonna possibly sell?"

Kevin Espiritu 18:45 Yeah, like what product?

Sam Parr 18:46 Yeah, so, like, it didn't really make sense for me. But even still, I was like, "This is too intimidating." But you were living it and doing it, which is pretty cool.

Kevin Espiritu 18:52 Yeah, I mean, uh, frankly, like, it was quite intimidating to me, but I just was too either dumb or smart to, like, realize that, and just went ahead and did it. But anyways, like, the, to wrap that up, like, I ended up talking to a friend of mine who was in commerce, and he's like, "What the hell are you doing, dude? Just get, like, a 3PL and get a freight forwarder and send the container to there. Hook the Shopify to there, and then they'll ship it all out for you." And that's what I ended up doing, and so that, that was kinda the genesis of selling products

Kevin Espiritu 19:20 at Epic Gardening.

Sam Parr 19:21 And didn't you grow that to, like, 7 million in revenue with, like, four people?

Kevin Espiritu 19:25 Yeah. So yeah, I mean, I think 2020 would've been 2.8 in revenue, so almost a 6X-ing year on year. And then 2021 was 7.3, 7.4 or so, and most of it was product at that point in time. And that would've been on a team of me, my garden assistant, my actual assistant, a video editor, and, and a writer. And that was it. That's all we had.

Sam Parr 19:47 On 7.3 in revenue, what could your profit be?

Kevin Espiritu 19:51 Oh, man. It was probably, like, 50% or something like that.

Sam Parr 19:57 So you're rolling in it.

Kevin Espiritu 19:58 Yeah, yeah. Well, 'cause, 'cause the thing about it is you, if you run it like that, and that was with $0 of paid spend, right? And so I have no acquisition cost. My acquisition cost is equal to my media, 'cause that's the only way I was getting the word out, but my media is not a cost. It's a, it's a profit driver. And so it's that term negative CAC. Like, I had negative-

Sam Parr 20:19 Yeah

Kevin Espiritu 20:19 ... CAC on the business.

Sam Parr 20:20 Why raise money then? I know y- you raised, I think, $17 million. Why? 'Cause, like, if you... The cool thing about bootstrapping a company is you can do whatever the hell you want.

Kevin Espiritu 20:29 Yeah.

Sam Parr 20:29 And there's, like, freedom in that, and that's frankly my favorite part about business, is, like, the freedom of, like, you're creating your own empire. You can do whatever the hell you want. If you wanna grow it, you can. If you don't wanna grow it, you don't have to. Um, you get all the money. You don't have to answer to anyone. I assume at this point you own, you still own 100% of the company. At least-

Kevin Espiritu 20:47 Yeah

Sam Parr 20:47 ... if I'm you, I'm not giving equity to my employees because it's like, uh, I've been doing this by myself for a long time. I'll, I'd rather just pay you a high salary. Why even take $17 million?

Kevin Espiritu 20:58 Yeah. I wrestled with it for a long time. Like, maybe that deal took, like, six months to close, I would say. And at least for The Chernin Group, that's not some massive deal for them. Like, that's not, that's not a ton of money for them. It's, it was huge amount for me. The, the logic ended up being, I was like, "Do I know what I'm gonna do in the next couple years?" Like, do I understand the complexity of the business I, I had built? 'Cause it's a... That's a really lean team to be at 7.3 with, like, a commerce business shipping product out to like-

Sam Parr 21:27 Yeah, there's, like, a bunch of redundancy issues, like, at that-

Kevin Espiritu 21:30 Yeah

Sam Parr 21:31 ... around, like, anything north of 5 million, it's like, all right, we've got something here. We've got a seed of something working here. It potentially could be huge. Like, I should have some... I should actually, like, shift to being a proper CEO, and, like, with begin, with being a proper CEO is, like, hiring extra employees, even if, like, you know... Like, at that point it's like with, with the size that you were, everyone was working 110%, and at that point, it's, you kinda, like, almost purposely become a slightly more inefficient because you're like, "If I get 70% of effort from 10 people-

Kevin Espiritu 22:01 Yeah

Sam Parr 22:01 ... that's better than 110% effort of five people. And I'll have some redundancy so people can, like, chill a little bit or if someone gets sick or quits." Like, there's actually, like, some proper CEO work you have to do at that, uh, stage, I would think.

Kevin Espiritu 22:13 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Totally. I mean, and the operational side, like the hiring, et cetera, side, like, I had no clue 'cause I was on a team of me and, and four contractors. Like, I didn't, I didn't really have hiring experience. And then on the commerce side, it's not like we got to 7.3 selling, like, an online course, which would be a lot simpler to fulfill. Like, there's, there's inventory planning, there's, like, sales tax nexus that you hit in all these different states that you have to file for. So there was a lot of complexity I was, like, staring down the barrel of that I, I knew f- that I didn't know about. I was at least smart enough to know I didn't know what was coming. Uh, and then frankly, like, that was just a crazy period in the market. Like, 2021 was probably still the last best time to do any kind of raising. And, um, and then at the same time I was like, "Look, I'm already ahead in, in my space. Like, no one, no creator in gardening is, is doing what I'm doing. And so why don't I just make sure that I stay ahead and partner with people who actually understand how these media to commerce businesses are built?" And that's what ended up making me do the deal.

Sam Parr 23:14 Were you able to take any money off the table, or did the 17 go straight to the balance sheet?

Kevin Espiritu 23:18 I was able to take some off, which was great. Um, and-

Sam Parr 23:21 Yeah, that's, like, life-changing, right?

Kevin Espiritu 23:22 Yeah. It was, it was life-changing, and then, like, I had bought a warehouse, um, to, to start fulfilling. 'Cause eventually, like, I moved off the 3PL. I was like, "You know what? I'm paying these guys, like, 30, 40K a month in fulfillment fees. Why don't I just, like, start a separate company, buy a warehouse, and then become my own tenant, and then, like, build equity in the real estate side?" And so when we raised, I, I actually didn't... That, that warehouse didn't go with it, and so I, I had the warehouse, too. So, like, the way the whole personal financial math worked out, I was like, the way I live, I'm good now and I can just, like, fully focus on trying to win this space. So that was another part of it.

Sam Parr 23:56 Do you have family?

Kevin Espiritu 23:58 Uh, yeah. I have a, I have a girlfriend. Yeah, and then a lot of my family lives in San Diego.

Sam Parr 24:02 What's it feel like to, uh, be... I don't know if you were single at the time or not, but what's it feel like to be a young guy, uh, and you're like, "I'm good. I'm good for potentially-

Kevin Espiritu 24:11 Yeah

Sam Parr 24:11 ... forever"?

Kevin Espiritu 24:12 Yeah. I mean- It's kind of, uh, underwhelming I guess. I don't know. Was it like that for you?

Sam Parr 24:18 Why?

Kevin Espiritu 24:18 I don't know. For, for me, I had, I had already made quite a bit of money running up through 2021 just sort of solo, and so it was a huge change, but it wasn't, it wasn't like, you know, $1 million to $200 million net worth or something like that. Like, the, the way I live, I just don't, I just don't need it, I guess. Um, and so all it did was eliminate worry about, like, I don't know, what if something medical goes wrong, or I couldn't even figure out if I wanted to buy anything for a while. Like, I didn't, I didn't buy anything, like, fancy to celebrate or whatever.

Sam Parr 24:48 Not having money is m- m- ... The, the period of my life where I didn't have as, uh, money was more stressful than the periods of my life where I did have breathing room.

Kevin Espiritu 24:58 That, that I completely agree with. That, I, I always think, like, it mitigates all your downsides, but it doesn't, at least I haven't found that it makes you some massively happier person.

Sam Parr 25:11 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you remember that, that study where it was like $70,000 a year?

Kevin Espiritu 25:16 Right.

Sam Parr 25:17 That's bullshit. That is absolutely bullshit.

Kevin Espiritu 25:19 That, that, that I agree is bullshit. That I agree.

Sam Parr 25:20 Why? Why do you agree that that's bullshit?

Kevin Espiritu 25:22 Well, okay, so first of all, I think inflation adjusted, isn't it like 160K now or something like that?

Sam Parr 25:27 Yeah, even I think that number's might be bullshit too, too.

Kevin Espiritu 25:30 Yeah.

Sam Parr 25:31 160 grand in, in, uh, in one of the top five cities, uh, shockingly doesn't go very far.

Kevin Espiritu 25:35 Doesn't go far. Yeah, I think, I think that's bullshit because the things ... Let's say you're making like 200 a year, you can get, like, you can have someone come and clean the house, or you can have, like, meal support or these sorts of things that, that help you free your time up from things you, like, genuinely don't like to do. Uh, there's things, like, I love to do that of course I could pay for. Like, I obviously, I grow my own food and I, like, cook meals and, and bake my own bread and stuff like that. I, I don't have to do that, but, like, I, I don't clean my house anymore, right? Uh, and so, like, things like that I think give me, I don't know if, like, positive joy would be the way I would phrase it though. It's just like, I don't have to do an annoying thing is the way I think about it.

Sam Parr 26:14 Yeah. It's like, uh, you remember that book, like, The 5 Languages of, of Love, and it's like, oh, your girlfriend's, like, an active servicewoman, so, like, if I do something nice for her, she'll feel loved.

Kevin Espiritu 26:23 Yeah.

Sam Parr 26:23 There's, like, the five languages of love but for money, where it's like-

Kevin Espiritu 26:27 Yeah

Sam Parr 26:27 ... for me it's not nice things, but for some people it could be they love cars. For me, it's the same thing, where I've got a cleaner who comes often and I just, like, genuinely feel happier not having to do my laundry and clean.

Kevin Espiritu 26:38 Yeah.

Sam Parr 26:39 Uh, and so and those, like, small things, which frankly aren't expensive, uh, it, it, it, it definitely makes you happier.

Kevin Espiritu 26:46 Yeah.

Sam Parr 26:46 Like, th- those little small

Sam Parr 26:47 things. How big's the-

Kevin Espiritu 26:48 I learned that all from Ramit.

Sam Parr 26:49 Same.

Kevin Espiritu 26:50 I learned that all from Ramit, is, is just he has, like, a surgical team on every single part of his life that he hates, uh, to do, and I was like, "You know what? That's actually pretty smart." And so...

Sam Parr 27:01 And he spends big on stuff. I was with Ramit on Saturday. He, he, like, always asks these, like, crazy questions where sometimes I'm, I'm just wanting to chill and have fun, and he's like, "Sam, let me ask you a question."

Kevin Espiritu 27:10 [laughs]

Sam Parr 27:11 "What, what's, what's your rich life?"

Kevin Espiritu 27:13 [laughs]

Sam Parr 27:13 And I'm like, "I don't know, man. Uh, like, let's just drink our coffee." He's like, "No, no, no. Tell me your rich life." And I'm like, "Okay, uh, it's not stuff, it's, uh, services." He goes, "What would happen if you 10X'd your spending on your services?"

Kevin Espiritu 27:27 Dude, we- [laughs]

Sam Parr 27:27 And I was like-

Kevin Espiritu 27:27 I was having coffee with him. We had the same conversation.

Sam Parr 27:30 [laughs]

Kevin Espiritu 27:30 With the exact same... He goes, he goes, he goes, "How, how, how big would your staff be if it could be as big as you wanted it to be for your house?" And I was like, "I don't know. Like, I th- I think I have, like, a cleaner and maybe, like, a cook every so often or something." He's like, "Oh, man, like, what kind of cook?" You know, he gets into the details on all that.

Sam Parr 27:47 He gets into the details. He loves it. He loves it. And when he asks those questions, frankly, it does make me start thinking, A, like, maybe I should do this, and B, like, am I thinking too small? Like, if I love something, why don't I, like, get 10X more of, of that thing? And so it is, like, cool to think about. He, he does do a good job with that, uh, of, like, make, of, like, pressuring me to think beyond, like, how I'm thinking. And, and Ramit's stuff has actually been life-changing for me.

Kevin Espiritu 28:14 Same.

Sam Parr 28:15 How big's the business now? Can you say?

Kevin Espiritu 28:17 Yeah, yeah. We're, we're about 90-ish people, uh, and we're hoping to hit somewhere around, like, 40, 45 million this year in revenue.

Sam Parr 28:25 That's insane, right? Did you ever think that... And are you doing it prof- profitably still now that, even though-

Kevin Espiritu 28:30 Yeah

Sam Parr 28:30 ... you've raised money?

Kevin Espiritu 28:31 Yeah, we're, we're profitable. We're profitable. Well, the first year after, I think we were not because, you know, we hired quite a bit ahead of, of growth, 'cause we were, like, way under hired with me and four contractors, and then, um, this year, this year we are.

Sam Parr 28:45 You think, uh, how big, how big do you think it's gonna get in, like, five years?

Kevin Espiritu 28:49 I mean, I think it's, like, a foregone conclusion to get above 100 million, uh, because we have, we've made a couple acquisitions. We made two small ones and one large one, and even just sort of growing those I think has a shot at, at getting us past 100. I don't know how much bigger than that.

Sam Parr 29:06 Why acquire something instead of building it on your own?

Kevin Espiritu 29:09 It's really just speed and if you have the competency internally to do it.

Sam Parr 29:13 Did you, I mean, you, you, you studied accounting, but did you know anything about acquiring a company, or did Churn kind of hold your hand?

Kevin Espiritu 29:19 So the big, the big acquisition where we bought the seed company, that was, Churn led a lot of the diligence on that 'cause it's, like, way too complex a 30-year-old business. Like, I, there's no way I could do the, the diligence on that. But the two small acquisitions, I led those, and they sort of just helped with the legalities of, of getting it all done. So the very first one was a seed tray. So, like, when you s- when you're gardening, you usually start seeds in, like, a little tray, and a lot of these trays are made out of pretty flimsy plastic and they're just, like, throwaway things. And so a friend of mine who was in the space on the media side of gardening, he's like an educator, he, he was developing these trays, and he hit me up and he's like, "Hey, can I come down to the house and just show you this new tray that I made to start seeds in?" And this was, uh, early 2021. I was like, "Yeah, sure. Come on down." He comes down and he shows me this tray, and it's, like, this very s- super sturdy, durable tray to start seeds in, which solves, like, some of the problems of them being flimsy. Then he had, like, cut all these little slits in it, and there's, like, a big hole in the bottom, which if you're a gardener, you know it's like That makes it easier to like pop the seed out and put it out in the garden. So I hold the tray, and the second I hold it, 'cause I've been gardening for like eight years now, I'm like, "Holy shit, this is like the best seed starting tray I've ever seen in my life, like for sure." And he's like, "You can stand on it if you want to." So I like, I'm like 220 pounds, so I stand on it with one foot. It doesn't budge, and I'm like, "Okay, like that thing's durable." And so I go, "Well, what do you wanna do? Like I think this is a cool product. Uh, do you wanna like... I can put it on my Shopify store and like see if the audience wants it." And he's like, "Yeah, sure. What do you think? Like we'll just split the profits 50/50. You have, you have the audience, I have the product, and, and let's go." So I started teasing it in like Instagram or YouTube videos, and it's an injection molded pro- product, so we can only make so many in a day. You have to like press the mold and like accumulate inventory. So we, we built up like maybe a week or two of inventory or what we thought was, and then I just put an Instagram Reel out and I was like, "Hey, this is the coolest tray I've ever seen, and there's a link in my bio to go grab it." And we sold it out. Like Shopify has this live analytics you can look at.

Sam Parr 31:21 It's awesome. It's like-

Kevin Espiritu 31:22 It's, it's so cool

Sam Parr 31:22 ... it's like, it's like, uh, just the biggest dopamine rush when you start-

Kevin Espiritu 31:25 Yeah

Sam Parr 31:25 ... seeing that come in.

Kevin Espiritu 31:26 Yeah. So I remember I, I was screen recording, uh, just to see, uh, just to kind of flex and, and record the live screen, and we sold out like a couple weeks' inventory in like 25 seconds.

Sam Parr 31:36 How much revenue was that?

Kevin Espiritu 31:37 It was like 25 or 30 grand I think. So now that's a, that's an entire line of products we own. It's on our shop. It's called our, our Epic Tray line. Uh, so if you go to our shop and you go to seed starting supplies, you'll, you'll see all the trays there. So over the next like, over the next like three, four weeks, we just like built up inventory, dropped it, sold it out, built up inventory, dropped it, sold it out, and we were just splitting the profits. And then I go to him and I was like, "Hey, look, n- not only is this working like really well, like better than I thought, but there's definitely more trays that we could make. There's like different form factors and different ideas, and like little domes you could put on top to keep humidity in or whatever." And I was like, "But I can't make them 'cause that's what you do, and I'm like 95% of your sales. So what if you just joined Epic? You know, we'd raise some money." I was like, "You could be our product lead. We'll, we'll... I can't really like buy the business based on revenue 'cause that, that is, we are your revenue, right?"

Sam Parr 32:33 Right.

Kevin Espiritu 32:33 "And so how do, how, how do we structure a deal?" And so the deal we came up with, without getting into like crazy specifics, is we basically paid him for all of the assets, like the, the, the molds themselves and, and the research and development time and a premium on that. Um, gave him some equity and hired him as our product lead, and then we've built that line out to like, I think like 12 or 15 SKUs going D2C and wholesale now. Um, and it's like, I think, I think we're like up 7X probably on the acquisition price as far as like revenue after the fact. So, and, and that wasn't like a big acquisition. It was sub 500,000. So to me, I'm like, "That's why you would, that's why you would buy." Because I-

Sam Parr 33:15 Yeah, and that's a great, that's a great deal for everyone involved.

Kevin Espiritu 33:18 Yeah, exactly. It was a total win-win. Um-

Sam Parr 33:20 What are the other two?

Kevin Espiritu 33:22 So the second biggest one we did w- w- was actually a media acquisition. So that was a blog. So a friend of mine from, from like the old SEO days had built a gardening blog, and we were hiring for a director of editorial, like just someone to run our blog, and our blog was doing well. Like maybe like 8, 10 million sessions a year, and that was monetizing off of display ads, but then hopefully like people will go through and like buy some stuff on our store too.

Sam Parr 33:47 All from search or mostly from search?

Kevin Espiritu 33:49 Yeah, it was like mostly search. I would say like 80% search. Um, and so this guy emails me and he's like, "Hey, look, I saw that, that head of editorial position. I'm working in SEO right now, but I've also been building a gardening blog on the side." It was called AllAboutGardening.com, which is now redirecting to Epic Gardening. And he's like, "I'd like the job, like I'd like to put my hat in the ring for the job, but I kinda have like a competing blog." So to me, I go, "Look, you've built that blog really fast, way faster than our, we're currently building ours, but you kinda can't work for us and run that blog, so what if we bought your blog and hired you to run our blog?" And he goes, "Okay." And so what we did is we bought the blog and we migrated his blog into our blog, which was like, call them both like 10 million sessions a year, something like that. So you'd think like 10 plus 10 is 20, but our blog from an SEO perspective was like super strong. So by migrating his into ours, our blog went to like, we probably got like a 20, 30% premium on the traffic. So like 10 plus 10 equals 25, right? Uh, so then you're monetizing better off of the display ads there. But then we also just made more from the ads themselves, and so effectively the acquisition financed itself by the increased revenue like month one. Uh, so that was another like sort of weird acquisition where-

Sam Parr 35:14 What did you, can you say w- was that more or less than 500?

Kevin Espiritu 35:17 It was, yeah, it was, it was in between 500 and a million, and the way we structured that one is we paid some upfront and some over a period of time, job plus equity. So it was, it was a-

Sam Parr 35:26 And this was post, this was post-Chernin?

Kevin Espiritu 35:28 This was post-Chernin, yeah. So the way that one has ended up working out is we have a awesome leader running our blog at a higher level than ours was before. Our traffic has over doubled, and we're monetizing at over double the rate on the traffic. So, you know, like, like YouTube RPMs, right?

Sam Parr 35:45 Yeah.

Kevin Espiritu 35:45 It's the same with blogs. Like our, our blog RPM doubled after doing the acquisition. And so basically we just created like a cash flow that, that finances the thing that we bought that created the cash flow.

Sam Parr 35:56 Did you read a book about this? I mean, how did you learn about acquisitions like this? I mean, that's a pretty good one.

Kevin Espiritu 36:01 I just thought, I don't know, I just thought about it. I was like, "If I do that, I feel like all these things will happen." And then they did. I don't know. Like that, my, my whole like-

Sam Parr 36:10 You're like, uh, you're like, "Look, I don't make up the rules. I just think them up and write them down."

Kevin Espiritu 36:14 Yeah.

Sam Parr 36:14 You're like, "I, I, I don't know. I just, I, I, I, I-"

Kevin Espiritu 36:16 [laughs] Well, you know how like-

Sam Parr 36:18 I just go

Kevin Espiritu 36:18 ... people say like there needs to be one re- one like core reason to do something, uh, like a acquisition or a business move or whatever. I, I agree with that, but to me I, uh, the way I mentally underwrote both of those things is I was like, "Well, the core reason is pretty obvious. Like, I don't have a product, now I do."

Sam Parr 36:34 Yeah

Kevin Espiritu 36:34 Or like, I don't have the traffic and a leader, now I do. But then I just go, "How many other ways could this benefit us? And how many other ways could it hurt us?" And if the ways it could benefit us outweigh the ways it could hurt us, I go like, "I feel like it'll just, feel it'll just work then." And this probably holds true for, like, acquisitions that are smaller where it's maybe a less efficient market or something like that. I don't know how it would work if, if you have some sort of big, big deal.

Sam Parr 36:59 What was the third

Sam Parr 37:00 one?

Kevin Espiritu 37:01 So it's-

Sam Parr 37:01 'Cause you're two for two. You're two for two now. That sounds pretty good. What was it?

Kevin Espiritu 37:04 Those, those ones work, those ones have worked out. Yeah, yeah. So the, the third one was almost, like, kind of a condition of doing the Chernin deal in the first place 'cause they were like, "Look, like, this is, this is not a big amount of money for us, but we wanna do some follow-on and see if we can, like, purchase a really awesome company in the space and help power up Epic Gardening." I was like, "Okay, cool. That sounds good."

Sam Parr 37:25 Which is, I think, what they did with, like, MeatEater, uh-

Kevin Espiritu 37:28 Yeah, yeah

Sam Parr 37:29 ... and a few others where they buy, like, they buy the or they invest in the, the media company, and then immediately they're like, "Let's go acquire a company to sell to the audience."

Kevin Espiritu 37:39 Yeah, yeah. Exactly. And so we were looking, man, we looked at so many different companies, like maybe 150, 160 different companies in the space. I was, like, out at a f- a fruit tree farm in Missouri at one point in time.

Sam Parr 37:52 When you say look at 150, does that mean just, like, put, like, ideas on paper? Or does that mean actually contacting 150 people?

Kevin Espiritu 38:01 Oh, it's, it means contacting more than 150. It, it means, like, talking or, like, looking at a deck or inspecting in some way somewhere around 150. Something like that. Um-

Sam Parr 38:11 I mean, that's a shit ton of work.

Kevin Espiritu 38:13 Yeah. This is why, this is why having them has b- has been helpful or having an investor on your side has been helpful 'cause, like, I'm out here running the business, and I'll, I might mention a company, and they'll, they'll diligence and say like, "Yeah, this makes sense. This doesn't make sense."

Sam Parr 38:24 Yeah, s- and then they'll, they'll cold email them or cold call them and be like, "Hey, this is who we are. I know this is out of the blue, but-"

Kevin Espiritu 38:31 Mm-hmm

Sam Parr 38:31 ... "would this ever entertain you?" And then if they say yes, then like, "Look, uh, why don't you, like, put together some high-level numbers and then, um, send something over, and we can talk about it with our team," and then you get some type of, like, docs in or PowerPoint or-

Kevin Espiritu 38:43 You get something. Yeah

Sam Parr 38:44 You get something, and you're like, "Uh, yay or nay?" Like, it could go to the next step. Let's actually have a real discussion about this. Is that, is that how the di- diligence looks like?

Kevin Espiritu 38:52 Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. Like, I, I remember we l- we were looking at, like, the top 600 gardening apps at one point in time, and so we, I got, like, a sheet from, uh, one of the people on the investment team, and they were like, "Yeah, here are, like, the seven we think make any sense whatsoever, and here's, like, the 593 that don't make any sense at all." So it's like that.

Sam Parr 39:11 So these guys are doing a lot of the work then. Uh, they're helping you.

Kevin Espiritu 39:14 Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Sam Parr 39:14 They're pull- they're pulling their weight.

Kevin Espiritu 39:16 Uh, I think so. Yeah, absolutely. Um, so, so anyway, so the seed company. This is, like, the big, the big acquisition. This was a company that, without me knowing it, it was the first pack of seeds I had ever grown when I first started gardening 'cause I went into some random nursery with my brother and just picked up, like, a beautiful packet of seeds, these cucumber seeds, and lo and behold, turns out to be the seed company we end up buying in the story I'm about to share. So we go out to Colorado. It's this company called Botanical Interests, and they, they're really well known for having high germination rates, so the seeds sprout really well when you buy them. But also, the packet is just beautifully designed.

Sam Parr 39:52 What are they growing? Uh, you know, I'm a noob. I'm a total noob when it comes to this stuff. What are they... What's the out- output?

Kevin Espiritu 39:58 There's six... I think we, we stock about 650 varieties of vegetables, flowers, and herbs.

Sam Parr 40:03 Wow.

Kevin Espiritu 40:03 So pretty much any- anything under the sun. Anything that you would, like, reasonably wanna grow, we, we have it. And it's a, it's a husband and wife. They'd been running it for, like, 28 years. They were married. I think they had divorced, like, a few years prior to that. And they were sort of ready to hand the business off to whoever wants to run it next. But it, you know, it's so, it's like one of those, like, quote, "boring businesses" that people talk about all the time. Who's, who's actually gonna be able to buy it? And the seed business is actually fairly complex. There's a lot that goes into it that you have to understand. And so we go out there. I meet, I meet the guy, the husband, and he's like, "Hey, can I grab a selfie? Like, actually, I have a friend who's, like, a big fan of your YouTube. It'd be amazing if, if I could show her that we met." And, uh, and immediately I'm like, "Okay, like, maybe I've got a little edge in this, in this process. Like, maybe I'm gonna be able to get this company."

Sam Parr 40:49 It could go either way. It could be like you have an, y- you have an edge or, shit, they know that they're, that we have money behind us or something like that.

Kevin Espiritu 40:56 Could be that, too. Yeah, could be that, too. But we go through the whole, like, the diligence happens. We go on a tour of the place where we're talking through pricing and all this sort of stuff. And so I told my investors, I was like, "They gave me all this swag. They gave me, like, a hat." So I go, "I'm just gonna wear this hat in every piece of content we make until we either win or don't win this deal." Because I know the guy watches it, right? And I know, like, probably his team watches it, too. So for the next, like, this was maybe May. For the next six months, which is a great time, like, May, that's spring through summer, I'm cranking YouTube videos out. I'm cranking Instagram reels out, short form, whatever. Hat, hat's on 24/7, every single piece of content. And we go through the bidding process. We win the deal. We were not the highest bid by, like, quite a bit, I would say. A, a, a material amount for the sellers to, like, not have in their pocket if they went with us. And we go out to celebrate. And I go, "Hey, you know, I really appreciate you guys. Like, it's, it's truly an honor to be able to carry on the legacy of this company. Like, this is the first seed packet I ever grew." And I'm, I'm just being very gracious 'cause I, I did feel that way. And he goes, "You don't know how much wearing that hat helped." And I go, "I f- knew it." Uh-

Sam Parr 42:07 You got 'em

Kevin Espiritu 42:07 ... so, yeah, I got 'em. Not in, like, a malicious way, just like-

Sam Parr 42:10 Sure, sure, sure

Kevin Espiritu 42:11 ... I'm, I'm using the angle that I have, which is my media angle.

Sam Parr 42:13 Everyone won. Everyone won.

Kevin Espiritu 42:15 You know? Everyone won.

Sam Parr 42:16 Did you, uh, what were some of the red flags and, and I guess green flags or whatever it is th- for that deal, along with a few other deals when you're looking through the financials and the business?

Kevin Espiritu 42:26 So the, the seed companies Red flags are that it, basically that it is a seed company. Like, that's just a hard... It's a difficult business. Like, there's a ton-

Sam Parr 42:34 Why? 'Cause there's so many different SKUs?

Kevin Espiritu 42:37 Tons of different SKUs. Uh, there's, you have to do, like, a non-GMO certification. You have to do germination testing. You have to do pesticide and herbicide testing. You're, you're physically purchasing or contracting a grower to, to grow seeds that you then receive, test, repack, et cetera. And so there's just, like, a lot of com- It's not like you're, you're selling, like, a rug or something like that, and you can just buy rugs from China and then sell the rugs to other people in America. So that was complex, but the part that I think was really green about it is it was far and away one of the best brands in the space. Like, I, I'd loved it for 10 years. And on top of that, they were mostly a wholesale business, and the online business they, they sort of hadn't done a whole lot with. And I was like, "Okay, well, we're, we're definitely an online first company, media and product, so why don't we just plug, plug those two together?" And I think the first year after we, we did the deal, the online part of the business for the seed company was up, like, 70... 60 or 70% year over year without really doing much. Like, all we did was move it to Shopify and tell people we own the company now, and that's pretty much it.

Sam Parr 43:40 What, what, what payback cycle were you looking for? And what type of multiple do businesses like this sell for?

Kevin Espiritu 43:46 Man, I, I don't remember offhand the multiple, but I wanna say it was probably 6 to 8x, somewhere like that.

Sam Parr 43:53 Uh, income?

Kevin Espiritu 43:54 Yeah, I think so.

Sam Parr 43:56 And how long till you could pay back the acquisition?

Kevin Espiritu 43:59 That's a good question. I don't know, maybe... Hopefully, like, hopefully, like-

Sam Parr 44:06 So I mean, I, I think that's pretty fast.

Kevin Espiritu 44:08 Yeah, it's like fi- I would say, like, five, hopefully.

Sam Parr 44:11 Yeah, I mean, or I mean, if you o- only... if they only sell for five to seven times, I would think that you'd, you'd actually grow it or get that money back significantly faster, I would think-

Kevin Espiritu 44:21 Yeah

Sam Parr 44:21 ... because of kind of like-

Kevin Espiritu 44:22 Yeah

Sam Parr 44:22 ... the audience that you have.

Kevin Espiritu 44:24 The audience, and then, like, just the opportunity, 'cause we're, we're, we're carried in, I would say, 4,500 stores around the country. And so to me, I'm like, "Well, it's just seeds that are carried, like, just our seed brand's there," 'cause th- they were a seed company, but we're making these trays that I told you about. We're making these other new products. We d- now we have a distribution network. So why don't we tell all those retailers, "Hey, look, we're, like, making better product that your customers will want. Just stock our product in your store"? And so that was, that was another, like, big lever, I think. We're still testing it out and trying to prove if, if that's right or not, but we're like, "Yeah, why, why wouldn't we just offer a ton of our products now to wholesale in a network that we couldn't have built?"

Sam Parr 45:01 Have you ever been to a Chip and Joanna's, like, Wayfair-

Kevin Espiritu 45:05 Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah

Sam Parr 45:06 ... like, their, like, it's like-

Kevin Espiritu 45:07 I did a show for them, uh-

Sam Parr 45:08 It-

Kevin Espiritu 45:09 ... in 2020.

Sam Parr 45:10 Like, you were on their show?

Kevin Espiritu 45:12 I filmed a show for Magnolia back then.

Sam Parr 45:15 They have, uh, it's basically like Disneyland for, like, 40-year-old white chicks.

Kevin Espiritu 45:20 Yeah.

Sam Parr 45:20 Uh, it's like you could, like, buy anything in the world, uh, that your, like, for your home or living room. Uh, I went to it once, and, like, my, uh, mother-in-law and her sisters, like, wanted to go and, like, take pictures of, like... They just wanted to, like, anything with Chip and Joanna's name on it, they just wanted to see it. And I was, like, doing math around, like, how many... I mean, it's like a, it's, it's like a, it's like a campus, and so they've got, like, food and, uh, many, many different stores. And I was doing math, and I'm like, "These guys are gonna be billionaires. Like, this is gonna be the-

Kevin Espiritu 45:50 Oh, yeah

Sam Parr 45:50 ... this is gonna be the greatest thing ever." And that's gonna happen to you because you've got the same shtick, where you're, you're in a good, uh, niche of, of, I imagine it's mostly women, uh, and they probably have, they probably spend a lot, or just for the hobby, they spend a lot. But B, you got the charisma. You got the look. Like, y- like, it's gonna happen.

Sam Parr 46:12 Do, uh, do you get crazy, like, stalker messages or, like, fans who are obsessed with you?

Kevin Espiritu 46:19 Um, it, it's definitely happened. Yeah, it's definitely happened.

Sam Parr 46:21 People make fun of me on this podcast all the time, part- they, everyone thinks I'm gay 'cause they, like, I comment on, like, men all the time.

Kevin Espiritu 46:27 Yeah. [laughs]

Sam Parr 46:27 But, you know, I, I'm not embarrassed to say you're a charismatic, good-looking dude. I, I imagine you've got, you've got a lot of fans.

Kevin Espiritu 46:34 Back at you, dude. We... So everyone thinks I'm gay, too, actually, just because I'm a-

Sam Parr 46:38 Join the club.

Kevin Espiritu 46:39 Just 'cause I'm a guy. I think it's 'cause I'm a, a younger guy in gardening, and gardening is seen as a more feminine hobby. Uh, people just think I'm a gay guy, which it's just, it's just an interesting phenomenon to experience-

Sam Parr 46:51 [laughs]

Kevin Espiritu 46:51 ... on the internet all the time. But, um, yeah, no, I mean, I would say it ha- it happens for sure. It, I, I've done the whole, like, delete all your info from the internet process, but it's kind of hard when you're-

Sam Parr 47:02 Dude, it's never good enough. It's never good enough

Kevin Espiritu 47:04 It's never good enough, especially when you film at your home, right? Like, my set is my outdoors, and so I can't, like, not show the street, et cetera, 'cause it's, it's just in the shot. Uh, there's nothing I can really do about it.

Sam Parr 47:15 Dude, I've had times where, like, I took a picture of my house, and I didn't think you could see it, and then, like, the next couple days, I'll get GIFs sent to my home, and, like, people will find it on, like, Street View, and I'm like-

Kevin Espiritu 47:25 Yeah

Sam Parr 47:26 ... "Ah, shit."

Kevin Espiritu 47:26 Yeah.

Sam Parr 47:27 And, like, I'm not a famous person. I'm a mildly popular person in a small subset of the internet, and so I can't imagine if you're, like, real famous or if I'm like you and my videos get millions and millions and millions of views.

Kevin Espiritu 47:37 Yeah. Yeah, I mean, uh, look, it's, it's, it hasn't been as bad as I think, like, legitimate celebrity type people, but I've definitely had, like, I had an experience earlier this year where this woman, we're all in the backyard 'cause that's where we film most of the time, but there's a garden in the front yard, too, and I have security cameras on now that record, like, locally to my house, so I can pull up footage of whatever I want. And this woman, like, comes up the front door, knocks on it, says, "Yoo-hoo," and then, like, looks in the house and then goes out into the front gate, walks, opens it, like, kinda messes around with some plants, tries to walk around the backyard, and my assistant was in the backyard. She's, like, coming around the, the back to the front, so they kinda, like, butted heads, and my assistant just freaked out. She's like, "Who is this woman?" And this woman s- saw nothing wrong with what she was doing. She was like, "Oh, yeah, I just wanted to see if you guys were filming, like, wanted to come say hi."

Sam Parr 48:25 Ugh.

Kevin Espiritu 48:25 And we're like, "We don't know who you are." And she, like, there's nothing we could have said to her that would have made her understand her behavior was, like, completely out of the norm. And so every so often, it's like the law of large numbers, man. Like- If you have an audience of many millions, all you need is .01%, and that's still, like, 14 people, you know, that'll come mess, mess

Kevin Espiritu 48:45 with you.

Sam Parr 48:45 You were telling Ari before a- about something that I wanted to ask you about, and this is something that I've been crazy interested in. It's a business I don't really know much about other than listening to, like, two or three podcasts and reading a couple articles. But, uh, the li- like licensing of, uh, fruits or vegetables or different type of seeds. So, like, I was reading about the history of Honeycrisp apples.

Kevin Espiritu 49:07 Yeah.

Sam Parr 49:07 And I believe it was started in either, I think it was Minnesota, like University of Minnesota. What they did was I think they, like, took two plants and they bred them, however that, people even do that. I don't even know how you do that. But it took, like, many decades because I guess it takes a year to get a, a new plant, or I guess it takes, like, 10 years to get an apple tree in the first place, or five years, something like that. And then you screw up a bunch, and then so it ultimately will take many years, sometimes decades to get, like, a good apple. And then they come up with a really cute name like Honeycrisp, or, like, I think I had one the other day that was called, like, a Cotton- a Cotton Candy Apple. Like, you, like, brand it with some, like, cute name, and then you license it out to other, other farmers. And you build this massive business that has this moat that will take 30 years to disrupt. Is that how-

Kevin Espiritu 49:58 Yeah

Sam Parr 49:58 ... or am I, do I have that right with that plan?

Kevin Espiritu 50:00 That's pretty much right. That's pretty much right. So we're gonna go into, like, garden nerd territory for a sec, just so I can explain-

Sam Parr 50:06 Good

Kevin Espiritu 50:06 ... how it works. So when you're making a new tree, it's har- it's really difficult, like you mentioned. Like, actually when you're making new varieties of most plants, it's, it, it's super painful to get the variety that you actually want. Like, I met a guy at a farm once, he'd been working on a potato for, like, 20 years. And he-

Sam Parr 50:24 And what was his, uh, goal outcome for that potato?

Kevin Espiritu 50:27 So the goal outcome, potatoes are, are grown from what are called seed potatoes, which is basically just, just a potato that you throw in the ground. So you don't plant, like, a little seed.

Sam Parr 50:34 Right.

Kevin Espiritu 50:34 You just throw a potato in the ground. So this guy was trying to make a potato that you could grow from an actual potato seed. 'Cause when a potato is in the ground, it throws, like, leaves up, and it actually makes a potato flower, which produces a potato berry, and that berry has seeds in it. And if you plant those seeds, the problem is that you don't get the potato that you planted. You get something different.

Sam Parr 50:54 And so his outcome was, like, a more efficient way for-

Kevin Espiritu 50:57 Yeah

Sam Parr 50:57 ... a farmer. It wasn't necessarily a certain taste.

Kevin Espiritu 51:00 Yeah, it was, it wasn't, it w- I mean, it definitely was a taste, but you're right. Like, the idea was instead of buying a ton of potatoes and planting them by hand, you could just plant a bunch of seeds.

Sam Parr 51:09 Got it.

Kevin Espiritu 51:09 That took him tw- that took him 20 years, right?

Sam Parr 51:11 Did he get his out- Did, did, did he do it?

Kevin Espiritu 51:13 He got it, yeah. It's called the Clancy potato. We actually sell it on our, our store. It's an awesome potato.

Sam Parr 51:17 Did he get wealthy from it?

Kevin Espiritu 51:18 I hope so. I didn't ask, but I hope so. I think he did it under a seed company, so probably they got wealthy, I'm not sure. But, uh, either way, he's interesting guy. So with fruit trees though, it's kinda the same thing, where, like, you have to, you have to keep developing tons and tons of trees and then figure out, let's say, okay, this is the apple out of the hundreds that I grew out that I actually like. It's, that's my next Honeycrisp, right? And what you then do is you, you have to graft, you have to take a piece of that tree and put it on what's called the rootstock of, of an apple, so, like, the roots and below. 'Cause you can't use the seed of that 'cause it'll be a different apple, and it will take a long time. So let's say you, you get this magical new Honeycrisp. Uh, what you do is you take a bunch of those, those little branches off, and you put them on other apple rootstock and then grow those out, and then those are genetic clones of that new Honeycrisp. And then you do that again, and then you do that again. And so that's how-

Sam Parr 52:16 And is each time one year, or how long does it take to grow a w- a tree?

Kevin Espiritu 52:20 Mm, it's probably, like... It, it would really depend on the type of fruit, but it, it, it's probably... It, I'll say this, it'll shorten from growing from seed by, like, 70, 80%. It's, like, way faster than growing it from seed. Not only that, it, you, you have to do it that way 'cause you won't get the same genetic apple. And so what,

Kevin Espiritu 52:38 what guys like the Honeycrisp guy you mentioned, or this, there's a guy named Floyd Zaiger who's, who's sort of known as, like, the godfather of stone fruit, which is, like, peaches, nectarines, all those types of, of trees. What they do is they have tens of thousands, I think, of trees that they're cross-pollinating, growing out, grafting, tasting, testing, and then when maybe .1% of those actually become a variety, they now have a patent on that 'cause they've developed that, what's called a cultivar. They have that cultivar, and then they can license that out for other people that put into production. They take, like, a licensing fee on all those. So you're right, like, once they actually create the next Honeycrisp or the next, like, killer peach, they can make a cash flow off of that thing for, like, who knows how long, until the next one comes around.

Sam Parr 53:23 I'm looking at this guy, Floyd. So he's 94 years old.

Kevin Espiritu 53:25 Yeah.

Sam Parr 53:25 It looks like he's, he's still doing it. Yeah, looks like-

Kevin Espiritu 53:28 I think, I think he passed away, like, a couple years ago, but he's, like, a total legend in the space.

Sam Parr 53:32 Oh yeah, you're right. He, he passed away, but it looked like, based off the photos, up until, like, when he passed away, it looks like he was still-

Kevin Espiritu 53:38 Yeah

Sam Parr 53:39 ... planting or, or involved. Did he build a big, uh, w- his name of his company was, uh, Zai- Zaiger's Genetics, is that right?

Kevin Espiritu 53:46 Yeah, Zaiger Genetics, and then what, what, there's a nursery called Dave Wilson Nursery, which I think they sell the most fruit trees in the US. They use a lot of Zaiger's stuff. Uh, and so they'll, they'll be the people who grow out a lot of Floyd Zaiger's actual trees. Um, so it's a, it's a crazy model, 'cause you're right, like, good luck competing. You, you have to spend, like, 20 years to even get started.

Sam Parr 54:08 Does it make re- uh, does it make, is it, like, a good business, or is it something that looks awesome but day to day it's quite challenging?

Kevin Espiritu 54:16 I mean, I don't think it's the easiest business. You have to know a lot about plant botany and genetics and all that. But, like, the people who like this type of stuff, like, there's nothing you could pay them to make them stop doing it, so they might as well have a business based on it, you know?

Sam Parr 54:28 Yeah, my parents are in the agriculture industry. So my, uh, father, his first business was a fruit stand on this... He started as a stock boy in, like, the produce section of a grocery store. Then he opened up a fruit stand, and then he created a produce brokerage, which is, like, a, basically you- Have relationships with farmers in Idaho or Bakersfield, California, and you buy, let's say, $500,000 of onions, and then you go and find a trucker to pick it up, and then you sell that $500,000 of onions to Walmart for five, fi- $500,000, $50,000 and-

Kevin Espiritu 55:03 Yeah. Yeah

Sam Parr 55:03 ... you make, like, 10 grand of profit or something like that off organizing that, that deal. And you have to sell... At this point, he's sold over $100 million of, of onions over the course of 20 years, but the margins are, like, 3% or, like, like, like, y- y- you know, it, it'll be basically him by himself selling 20 million a year worth of produce, and, like, you make, I don't know what you make, but, like, $300,000 a year. So a good living, but, like, you've got to sell a shit ton of product in order, because the, the, the margins are so small. Uh, and so I've grown up talking to some of these farmers, and it's, it's, it's, uh, it's more of a vocation than anything because it's just what they know. It's, you know, they've been born and raised doing that, and it's like, "I, I am a farmer, uh-

Kevin Espiritu 55:50 Yeah

Sam Parr 55:51 ... no matter what." And it's not like maybe traditional businesses where it's like, "I see an opportunity, I'm gonna do this." It's like, "No, this is just what I was bred to be."

Kevin Espiritu 56:00 That's what I've noticed in our, in our space, 'cause there's a lot of, like, smaller product companies or small seed companies, et cetera. Like, no one's, no one's trying to get super rich doing it. Like, uh, even, even me, like, back in the earlier days, I was like, I, I just... I'm very happy making that 250 that I made gross revenue and pulling out whatever I made. It just so happened that I also like business, uh, and so they combined really well.

Sam Parr 56:25 Can I, uh... I... And we- we'll wrap up here in a second, but look, I wanna ask you a quick question about, uh, diet.

Kevin Espiritu 56:30 Mm-hmm.

Sam Parr 56:31 Uh, I'm, I'm a little... I've recently moved to a new place just mostly because it was ac- across the street from a farmers market, and I've been obsessed with the idea of buying produce and, uh, meat that only comes within, like, a 20 or 50-mile radius of where I am. Um, because, like, even if you buy food at Whole Foods, I still think... Like, Whole Foods is supposed to be like some type of standard, which I don't think it is the standard anymore, but for a long time, it was like that was the standard of healthy eating. Um, but I still feel crappy after I eat that because I don't, uh, you know, like, I don't even know what organic actually means, and I don't actually buy into the hype necessarily that that makes... That is the right way to do things. Are you eating all of your own food, and do you think that makes you feel different than grocery store food?

Kevin Espiritu 57:21 I think, I think for sure it does because

Kevin Espiritu 57:26 I don't know that I believe... You know that book Blue Zones? Remember that one that came out? It's like how to live long.

Sam Parr 57:29 Dude, I think that, that, that book is awesome, but I think it's bullshit. Like, if you-

Kevin Espiritu 57:34 I think, I think a good part of it is bullshit, yeah.

Sam Parr 57:35 You know why it's bullshit? So here, well, I'll tell the audience. I did a little research on it. It's like, what they all have in common is that, uh, like in Osaka, Japan or, uh, like they lie about their age.

Kevin Espiritu 57:47 Yeah.

Sam Parr 57:47 And so, like, they notice that, like, wow, this... In this town, there's a shit ton of people born on January 1st. Like, what's going on? And it turns out a lot of them lie about their age, I guess, so they get Social Security at a certain time or something like that.

Kevin Espiritu 58:00 Oh, wow.

Sam Parr 58:01 And, uh, and so there was a lot, uh, like the, the, the, the... Although maybe he... there was some bit of truth in there, the commonality between the five Blue Zones is that they have a huge amount of, like, age fraud.

Kevin Espiritu 58:14 I also saw something about... [chuckles] Can you imagine, like, lying to be older? Uh, I saw something about, like, it also maps to when we started accurately tracking birth certificates. Like, a lot of these people are old enough that they're from before when we did that, and so how can you really know how old they are? The thing I do think is-

Sam Parr 58:30 And maybe that's, that's the nicer way to put it what I maybe said.

Kevin Espiritu 58:34 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think the thing that is somewhat true there is, like, it does seem to just make logical sense that the fresher food you eat, the better off you'll be. And so to me, I go, well, it doesn't get fresher than out of my own backyard, right? Like, we just had a amazing carrot salad we made yesterday. I've even grown my own wheat to make my own sourdough bread, which is definitely extreme. Like, I don't think that's practical. But yeah. I mean, I think you do feel better, and I think the best, the next best thing to growing your own food would be going to, like, a farmers market, as long as you know, like, the farmer is actually growing things the way that they say they are. 'Cause now there's, like, farmers market fraud. 'Cause down here in San Diego, people will drive up from Mexico with, like, mono-cropped food and just pretend like it's a farmers market. Uh, whereas-

Sam Parr 59:17 What questions do I have to ask them?

Kevin Espiritu 59:19 You would have to ask like, "Well, where, where is your farm?" Which they could definitely lie about if they wanted to.

Sam Parr 59:23 Show me, show me pictures.

Kevin Espiritu 59:24 Yeah, yeah. They, they should have pictures of it. And you could ask like, you know, "Do you spray pesticide, herbicide, fungicide? If so, like, which ones?" You don't even have to know what their answers mean, but if they can't fire the answers off quickly, that's your signal that they kinda don't know what they're talking about.

Sam Parr 59:40 What do you do for meat?

Kevin Espiritu 59:42 Meat I tend to just buy at, um... I'll, I'll go to like a Whole Foods or there's like a local fish market, uh, called Point Loma Seafoods down here in San Diego I'll try to go to. And sometimes, so I'm trying to get like some friends to do that like quarter cow thing with me.

Sam Parr 59:57 Yeah, me too.

Kevin Espiritu 59:58 But so far, so far no one's down. So if you're out there, holler at me.

Sam Parr 1:00:02 I've, I've been trying to do that as well. Uh, you need like a huge garage fridge, which is how you know you made it, by having a garage fridge to like store all this meat. Uh, but I've been doing it too.

Sam Parr 1:00:12 Have you seen, um, uh, it's called, uh, it's called Coop, but if you Google like Coop-

Kevin Espiritu 1:00:18 Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Sam Parr 1:00:19 Um, so-

Kevin Espiritu 1:00:19 We just had him on our podcast.

Sam Parr 1:00:20 AJ?

Kevin Espiritu 1:00:21 The smart farm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Sam Parr 1:00:22 Yeah. AJ's a good buddy of mine. AJ's awesome. Um, I... What's his URL? I wanna give him a shout-out. Uh, but-

Kevin Espiritu 1:00:28 Coop.farm.

Sam Parr 1:00:29 Coop.farm. So Coop is like, it's like they, like the tagline that I saw in an article was like, "It's like the Tesla for a chicken coop." And it's, uh, so Coop.farm. It's like a smart chicken coop. Um, and it looks pretty cool. I think I might get one. Um, I think it'd be awesome to have your own chickens, uh, 'cause that's like a pretty low-maintenance, uh, way to s- kinda get into the habit or get-

Kevin Espiritu 1:00:52 Yeah

Sam Parr 1:00:52 ...

Sam Parr 1:00:53 a hobby. The other thing that I've done for years is, uh, beekeeping. Um, so I've raised my own bees, um, in order to get honey. Uh, which is like an awesome hobby. And beekeeping's a cool thing because y- it requires like cl- not much maintenance as, uh, at all. And from a business perspective, you remember that Flow Hive or whatever that went viral-

Kevin Espiritu 1:01:14 Yeah

Sam Parr 1:01:14 ... on Kickstarter and it raised like $20 million? I do think that, uh, beekeeping, like the, the supplies could actually be a legitimately good business. Um, and you could create like... Because you can create like a, a, a lifestyle brand around it because the content to, around that is like inherently quite viral. Like I used to create-

Kevin Espiritu 1:01:33 Yeah

Sam Parr 1:01:33 ... these like just videos of me like, uh, scraping off the honey or the, um, what's it called? The, um, honeycomb.

Kevin Espiritu 1:01:41 The comb, like the honey from the comb, yeah.

Sam Parr 1:01:41 The comb. Yeah, like scraping the comb off of my, uh, uh, my trays or whatever that's in the hive. I don't actually know anything about it, even though I've had bees for years. But like that's how little you have to know about this in order to like successfully do it. Like I would like scrape off the comb and like make these awesome videos, and then just like give it to my friends, and they loved it. And it w-

Kevin Espiritu 1:02:01 Yeah

Sam Parr 1:02:01 ... it's like such a fun hobby. Uh-

Kevin Espiritu 1:02:03 Yeah

Sam Parr 1:02:03 ... and so I'm really big on that

Kevin Espiritu 1:02:05 There's a woman named, uh, I think her name is like Texas Beesworks. I don't know if you've seen her stuff on the internet. But she has this like very soft, pleasing voice. And she'll be like... There'll be music, and there'll be some crazy scenario where there's a hive, and she's like h- called out. And she goes, "I've, I've been called out to take this hive out of a manhole." And I-

Sam Parr 1:02:22 Dude, she has a mil- uh, 1.6 million subs on YouTube.

Kevin Espiritu 1:02:25 Oh, yeah. Yeah, she's huge. And so I, I always look, 'cause I know what I did with Epic, and I look at all these other people and I go like, "Don't you realize like you could have a thriving beekeeping like goods company?" But then, you know, m- the, the sort of paradox of the whole creator world is that most creators just don't wanna do that, and that's why they don't do it. You know?

Sam Parr 1:02:43 Dude, she was on Joe Rogan. I'm looking at it now. Sh- Erika Thompson.

Kevin Espiritu 1:02:47 No way.

Sam Parr 1:02:47 She was on Joe Rogan.

Kevin Espiritu 1:02:48 Yeah.

Sam Parr 1:02:48 She goes, "I did my first podcast, and it's-"

Kevin Espiritu 1:02:51 It's Joe Rogan. [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:02:52 It's Joe Rogan. She goes, "I did my first podcast. Link is in the bio. Thank you so much, Joe Rogan and team. This was such a wonderful experience for me and my bees."

Kevin Espiritu 1:03:00 Damn, that's a flex right there. That's a flex.

Sam Parr 1:03:03 Awesome. This, this is a, this is a gem. This woman, uh, she's got it. Um, yeah, man, beekeeping's a good, uh, is an interesting hobby. You, you should try it out. You... Like it requires no work, and I'm pretty sure it makes your plants way better. I notice that whenever I get bee- whenever I get bees, you start seeing like all different types of flowers, uh, in the backyard.

Kevin Espiritu 1:03:21 That's the last thing I haven't done. Like I've got the chickens, I've got a- all the pond. You know, I, I don't have bees yet, so I might have to get some bees.

Sam Parr 1:03:28 Dude, it costs like $200 to start.

Kevin Espiritu 1:03:30 Yeah.

Sam Parr 1:03:30 Like, uh, like I, I... My hives are from Amazon for 200 bucks, and then you go on Craigslist and you find like a bee delivery person. Uh, the lady that I used was this like beautiful like Eastern European woman. She shows up in her Lexus. She pops out with an hive. She's not wearing any mask. She's got like a fancy watch on and like beautiful blonde hair and nice clothes, and she just goes like, you know, "I've got your bees." And I was like, "Yes, ma'am."

Kevin Espiritu 1:03:54 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:03:54 "Please come put 'em over here."

Kevin Espiritu 1:03:56 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:03:56 And, uh, I paid her $200 for the bees and then $200 for the hive that I got on Amazon, and that's all y- that's all I needed. And it was pretty aw-

Kevin Espiritu 1:04:03 Do you still have them right now?

Sam Parr 1:04:04 Uh, I recently moved. Uh, but up until recently, yeah. I had 'em on the... I had 'em in San Francisco and I had 'em in Texas. But in San Francisco I had 'em at my small little house. Uh, I had a backyard. And then I also had 'em on the roof of my office in downtown San Francisco, and I had about 10,000 bees. And you wouldn't even... You could... Your hive could be like 30 feet away and you wouldn't even know that it's there.

Kevin Espiritu 1:04:26 Yeah.

Sam Parr 1:04:26 Uh, it's like a pretty self-contained thing. It's, it's like an awesome hobby.

Kevin Espiritu 1:04:29 Okay, I've got, I've got a spot for my hive then. I have the perfect spot in my backyard for my hive.

Sam Parr 1:04:32 Yeah, and like I think I... Like I don't even know what I'm talking about and I have 'em. And like I got, I got stung. I've been stung like twice. Like it's like not like that big of a deal. Like p- it's like people think it's a very intimidating, unapproachable hobby, but

Sam Parr 1:04:46 I got into it because I like made a list of like... I was like, "I need a hobby that doesn't require a ton of work. Uh, I c- it can't cost a ton of money because if it costs a cu- ton of money, I'm gonna break rule number three, which is I can't turn it into a business to make money." And so like, I like ha- and I was like, "What's a good hobby?" And then I saw a Burt's Bees documentary, and I was like, "That's a good hobby. Let's do it."

Kevin Espiritu 1:05:06 There you go.

Sam Parr 1:05:06 And so that's... And, um, AJ's a buddy of mine, and, uh, uh, he got me into beekeeping as well.

Kevin Espiritu 1:05:12 Yeah. Yeah, I'm excited to see-

Sam Parr 1:05:13 But-

Kevin Espiritu 1:05:13 ... how that coop, that smart coop business does. It's a really cool design.

Sam Parr 1:05:17 Um, well, thanks for doing this, dude. You're the man. Uh, you're, uh, you, uh, you're gonna be fun to watch over the next like five years.

Kevin Espiritu 1:05:25 Thanks, dude.

Sam Parr 1:05:25 This is gonna be a very exciting journey. I, um... We take pride on having people on before they g- like right at the beginning of their like takeoff. And even though you're, you're already incredibly successful, I have a feeling that this is still gonna be early in your journey, and, and we're gonna brag about having you on early in your career.

Kevin Espiritu 1:05:41 [laughs] That's awesome, dude. Well, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Sam Parr 1:05:44 All right. That's the pod. [upbeat music]