The Man Behind MrBeast’s $500M Business Portfolio (#475)

Shaan Puri 0:00 We'll bleep out every mention, um, because this is the Zero Clout podcast. Zero clout chasing podcast, and, uh, we have a no clout policy. [laughs] And we did not, we did not wanna do that.

Sam Parr 0:12 Wait, but do we have to use his face on a thumbnail?

Shaan Puri 0:14 No, we're gonna blur it out. [laughs]

Sam Parr 0:16 What? I think we have to put, like, his face and then Reed's face next to it, and blur out Reed's face, and the thumbnail's like, "The man behind the scenes," or something ridiculous.

Shaan Puri 0:25 [laughs]

Sam Parr 0:32 [upbeat music] We're, we're, th- we gotta keep this in though. We're live now. I was j- Reed, I went and listened to a bunch of your interviews. I did the, um, I forget the guy's name. I like him a lot. The financial YouTuber in Vegas. Um, and then I wa-

Reed Duchscher 0:45 Oh, Graham Stephan.

Sam Parr 0:46 Yeah, Graham Stephan, and then I watched, uh, Samir and Colin, and, and then a few others that you did, including your channel. And I was like, "Shaan, what if we just don't say the word [beep] the whole time?" Because he's great, but I know. I, I, I, I've learned, I've learned a bit about it.

Shaan Puri 1:03 Which is-

Sam Parr 1:03 You know, let's just not mention it once

Shaan Puri 1:04 ... frankly, it's a bad business decision. Not gonna get the views, you're not gonna get the clicks, you're not gonna get all that stuff.

Sam Parr 1:10 Mm.

Shaan Puri 1:10 But I don't really care. Uh, in fact, actually, it's a great businessisi- decision to not be, uh, chasing the algorithm. So I say we just talk about whatever was act- whatever's actually interesting. I think it might be no bleep, so, um, yeah, I think we might be able to go the whole episode without it. Let's try.

Reed Duchscher 1:29 It's totally up to you guys. The Colin, the Colin and Samir videos, like, took off. I, I think we, we'd expected it to do well. I don't think I expected it to get whatever it's on, 4.7 million views. But, yeah.

Shaan Puri 1:42 You're like, "Who's counting?" As a- accurate as of today, but who's counting? [laughs]

Reed Duchscher 1:46 Is it accurate?

Shaan Puri 1:47 Yeah, that's, that's, like, pretty much the exact number. [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:51 H- how do you, how do you describe yourself? You're the founder of Night Media, but Night Media has, uh, a studio division. You have Night Capital, I believe. You have... I, I mean, Night Media in itself, it, it's fairly simple. It's just like a Endeavor or one of these other agencies, but it's a different genre. But how do you, how do you kinda like describe what you do?

Reed Duchscher 2:10 Yeah. We've, we've started to call ourselves a creator holding company. So we, at the center of the business, we represent talent, and that's been consistent since I started the business in 2015. But we've built out these other verticals now, which you mentioned. We have a venture studio, uh, which has created things like Feastables. We have a studio which is, like, making shows on streaming services. We have a venture capital fund, which is called Night Ventures. It's a $20 million fund. And then we announced Night Capital, which is a $100 million growth vehicle. Um, so for us, it's like a platformized creator holding company. And yeah, it's, I think early on it was much easier to just say, "I'm a talent manager." Now it's, it's a little more confusing where I'm like, you know, I can be entrepreneurial, I can be an investor. I'm also a [beep] talent manager, so I kind of play in a lot of different spaces.

Shaan Puri 2:55 Well, I think it's great, 'cause talent manager seems to be a horrible business [laughs] from what I can tell. I, uh, I've met a few talent managers, and basically you're, you're either, um, talent poor, in which case your business sucks, or you get talent rich, but then your business is always hanging on a thread of this one whale or two whale relationship. And even then, um, the value ca- you might create a lot of value, but the value capture is, is fairly small, um, compared to what you're doing now, where you got this investing vehicle, and you got all, you got all these other components. You said studio, making shows for streaming. What have you guys made? Have you guys made anything that's come out?

Reed Duchscher 3:33 We did a lot of stuff early on with YouTube Originals, and that was kinda the emphasis of, like, why we wanted to get into it, because Netflix and HBO and, and Hulu and all these places starting ask, starting to ask us to make shows

Reed Duchscher 3:45 with them. And so, you know, Creator Games and some of the other things that we did with YouTube Originals led us into what we're developing now, which I don't know if I can technically say anything about what's coming out. Um, I'll just say there's, like, there's cameras around constantly, uh, as well. But yeah, we, we have a, a few things, like, within scripted, one within non-scripted, uh, and then working on a few, like, different, uh, docu- uh, mentary-type things right now. So we'll, we'll have like a, I think a pretty decent slate by next year. We'll see how the, the writers' strike and everything plays itself out. I think that one's been a little interesting for us to get used to. But yeah, we'll, we'll have a bunch of different things, like, coming out in, what is it, summer of 2023? So sometime in early 2024.

Sam Parr 4:27 Is the agency business, Shaan w- was, he was joking, but he's being serious in that it, it's a bad business. Is that actually a bad business? Because when I would like... I mean, I don't, I'm totally outside of Hollywood. When I see, like, Ari Emanuel, I'm like, it looks like your ca- his personal cash flow is pretty decent, on the rise, versus a lot of, like, startups, you know, you're, you're, you're kind of in poverty until you have a, a, some type of liquid event. It seems like you guys have some type of pro-

Shaan Puri 4:52 Well, let's, let's explain the structure, right? So, so what, what is the, what is the structure of a, a talent, talent agency? So, uh, first, you basically, you, you recruit talent. You say, "Okay, you're, uh... I'm gonna help you with the business side of your operations, or get you brand deals, or get you things that you, that you want." Now, in the world of YouTube, are those exclusive or non-exclusive? Like, for example, for an NBA player, their manager, their agent is their exclusive representative, or they could fire them. But, like, no- you can't have multiple people bringing them deals. It all has to go through that person. They get a cut of everything. So is it usually exclusive or non-exclusive when it comes to YouTube?

Reed Duchscher 5:27 I think it depends on the type of management company. We've always kinda sat on the fence of exclusive. And I, I think the interesting thing about talent management businesses is they're, they generate a lot of cash. And so most of the, the management companies that you look at that have actually started to create things, like, um, when you look at just the big... Let's just look at the big Hollywood agencies, like 3 Arts, um, Entertainment 360, Brillstein, the ones that have built some of the, and, and launched some of the biggest shows, like It's Always Sunny, and Friends, and Seinfeld, and some of these things that they have backend on, that they will just have backend in perpetuity on, which those things are ending. But those businesses generate a lot of cash. I think the thing that they've struggled with is, like, how do you build something much bigger than just this cash-generating management company? And so when I started Night, the management company was really, like, the wedge of access into everything else, and that, and that's really how I looked is, like, if you could represent the biggest, start with digital creators because me, like, starting this business by myself outside of the Hollywood system was very hard to say, "I'm gonna go sign an actor, actress, musician," because that is very much dominated by the Hollywood sphere. Um, and so I, I knew that it would be much easier for me to build a wedge in digital and go represent, you know, I started with Dude Perfect in 2013, but go represent digital creators, build that wedge, and then use that as the access point to either continue building a bigger management company in other verticals or to go build, you know, something within a venture studio, have a venture capital firm. Like, the acc- the, the, the management company gives you access to everything else, and that's how I saw this in 2015. And I think that the managers that realize that, and there's some, some really w- like, good ones that have realized that. Mav Carter, I think, realized that pretty early on is, like, the management business is kinda the means to the end to build Uninterrupted and some of the other things that he's doing with LeBron. I think Scooter's probably the best example of, like, what Ithaca became, um, off the management company. And so that, that's really how we've thought about it is, like, you know, management is the core of our business, but it's really the, like, allows us to, to have a wedge that gets us into everything else.

Shaan Puri 7:30 So it, th- that kinda proves the point, right? Like, if so- if a business has to be a means to an end, it's probably in itself not the best business to stay at. Um, you mentioned a couple of those. Those sound like pretty cool businesses. So Ma- Maverick Carter is LeBron's longtime friend, I think high school. I think he's a, is he one of, part of the high school crew for LeBron, or did he come a little later? I think one of them came later.

Reed Duchscher 7:53 I, I think he was ... I, I don't know the full story. I think, um, Rich Paul was, was, came, uh, came later after high school. I think Mav-

Shaan Puri 8:00 Okay

Reed Duchscher 8:00 ... was actually a high school friend, then became his manager, and they went on to, you know, now have a production company and a few other things.

Sam Parr 8:06 That seems like one of the few times that would work out well, by the way. Like, your high school buddy, like, taking the reins, so good for, good, good for them.

Shaan Puri 8:12 And, um, and so they have a pr- they have a, a s- a company that does m- you know, basically production and maybe investing 'cause I think they own a bunch of pizz- a bunch of, uh, like, pizza chains and other things like that. So they do investing. They do production. You mentioned Scooter Braun and his business, and so what, what i- uh, w- what is his business? Is that, like ... That sounds like that might be a fantastic business. What is it?

Reed Duchscher 8:34 Well, it's, it started off, I mean, it, everyone knows the story probably that he met Justin or, or found Justin on YouTube when he was really young, reached out, you know, the rest is kinda history there. But he, he ended up building a music management company that was really, like, I think the, the cash cow of that business was more touring, right? With Ariana Gun- Grande, Justin Bieber, some of the other people, and then he sold it to Hybe about, I wanna say a year ago or 18 months ago, and they started, um, either buying other management companies. They're buying music catalogs. They're doing a lot of different things right now. Um, and he ha- he, he did build quite a few things with some of the talent. I know Justin and him built, I can't remember what the clothing business is, and there were some other, like, auxiliary businesses that came out of Ithaca. Uh, and they also did a lot of investing, a lot of venture investing. Uh, and so I-

Shaan Puri 9:18 So he, so he sold it for a billion dollars.

Reed Duchscher 9:20 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 9:21 He sold-

Reed Duchscher 9:21 Yeah

Shaan Puri 9:21 ... he s- he sold his, uh, media company, Ithaca Holdings, um, to, to Hybe for one billion, and I think that's because it had those kinda, like, like you said, like, royal- royalties on, on the m- on the music itself, not just, like, the touring, which might s- you know, stop tomorrow, and who, who knows what happens. In the YouTube world, there's no, like, royalties [laughs] structure, correct? Like, if you're a talent manager for Twitch creators or for YouTubers, you get a cut of these brand deals, 10, 15%, whatever it is, but there's no, like, royalties. You have to, like, build other IP to get the royalties, right?

Reed Duchscher 9:55 Yeah. When there's, there's also no backend deals, like I said earlier, where, you know, Brillstein or some management company in Hollywood maybe helped launch It's Always Sunny, and now they have these, like, residual, um, checks coming in every single month or every single year. That also doesn't exist in the digital space, and so we had to figure out, like, what that packaging business was for us, and we ultimately landed on we think it's business building. Like, we think some of the biggest outcomes for celebrities over the last decade have been through products, right? Beats by Dre, um, probably the best example of, of something. I mean, b- like, uh, Vitaminwater was another one where it's like, um, athletes and different people had equity in those businesses. So we think our packaging business is essentially this business building, uh, which we call Night Labs, uh, which a lot of different things have come out of now. But yeah, the, the management company has then allowed us to build these businesses with creators where we take equity, uh, and we think that, like, that business is much more interesting long term than just continuing to stack a management business, um, which some of these companies do very well and, you know, they're 30, 40, 50 million EBITDA businesses a year. Um, I think they're now trying to figure out, like, what, what do we either build on top of this big cash generating business, or do we just keep doing it because the partners every single year are making three, four, $5 million a year?

Sam Parr 11:11 Do you, um, of, of your, of just the Night, Night Media, Night Studios, of your wholly owned thing, how many staff do you have at the moment?

Reed Duchscher 11:20 I believe we're just over 60, so 63 full-time, uh, within the Night ecosystem right now. And, and some of the teams are relatively lean. I would say our ventures team is, is, is lean. It's, like, three people. Our studio team is still, and that's, like, our venture studio is relatively lean with about six. Uh, and the majority of the company is talent managers and then individual, like, pod systems where a talent manager will have a junior manager, multiple coordinators, maybe an assistant under that pod, and then that pod will represent anywhere between, I would say s- five to seven creators on average.

Sam Parr 11:53 And are you managing someone as well as running the 60-person operation?

Reed Duchscher 11:59 Uh, I just

Reed Duchscher 12:00 manage [censored] . Uh, that Happened about two years a- two to three years ago, where I was like, "This is taking up way too much of my time," and also it's like it's also the best use of my time. And this was really, like, when we had started [censored] Feastables was an idea. We were, you know, d- I was, you know, produ- helping him produce Creator Games. There was just a lot going on while he was also growing, doing multi-language, all these other things. Um, and so that's when I, like, fully just, like, kinda rededicated my time to everything that was going on on his end.

Sam Parr 12:31 So you're able to get, you know, your cut from managing him as well as from owning the 60-person company. Um-

Reed Duchscher 12:38 Yeah

Sam Parr 12:38 ... so, so in, in that regard, it seems like things are pretty good, uh, even though you wanna go bigger.

Reed Duchscher 12:44 I mean, it's a management company, so yeah, thi- things I think are always a little hectic. And, you know, I'm, I'm... Most of my focus right now is on Feastables. I think you guys have, you know, I'm, I'm sure you've seen the chocolate bars. That to us is, like, [censored] and I are probably focusing the majority of our energy on that business right now just because it's growing so quickly. And, you know, we just launched in the UK. We have other global launches that we wanna do this year, uh, and it's just building into 2024. And so I, I knew this would eventually happen, where you represent a creator and then the business that you're starting becomes the big opportunity that you really wanna chase, and we think Feastables is, is really turning into that. And so I've directed a lot of my energy toward that business, uh, and it's, like, slowly, slowly consuming my life at the moment.

Sam Parr 13:27 Before you started Night Media, what, uh, what interested you? What, what were you gonna start instead of that?

Reed Duchscher 13:34 Well, I grew up watching Jerry Maguire, probably like everyone else, and so I wanted to be a sports agent. Like, I wanted to represent Rod Tidwell. Like, I wa- I wanted to be that, like, bigger than life, you know, agent representing an NFL football player, and so that's, i- what I wanted to do, and I, I knew that, like, 'cause I played football in college. And freshman year of college I realized that guys are built different. Um, I one, couldn't run a 4.3. I wasn't 225-pound wide receiver that was 5... or 6'5", and so I knew, like, playing in the NFL was gonna be very, very difficult, just seeing the, the, the level of high school to Division I football, um, that I was at. And so, you know, I started seeing that a lot of the players that I was playing with were going to the NFL. Some of them were getting drafted. Some of them were going to have, like, NFL careers that lasted 10 years. And so I positioned myself to, to be a representative for those players, and that's really what I wanted to do, and then stumbled upon YouTube in 2013 and kinda just became obsessed with it. Uh, and in college I didn't watch YouTube. Like, I was so focused on football, didn't really watch anything on the internet, um, and that changed the trajectory of my whole career.

Shaan Puri 14:43 I saw this, uh, T-shirt on Instagram yesterday. It said, "Creatives are the new athletes," and somebody was wearing that. And, uh, I thought to myself, "Uh, it's kind of a lame T-shirt, but I see where they're coming from."

Sam Parr 14:53 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 14:54 Uh, you know, I, I, I get what they're saying. You know, the... I just... I don't know if you've seen, Sam, these, uh, these deals that creators are, from Twitch, are signing with Kick. Uh, so Kick is this, like-

Sam Parr 15:03 What's, what's Kick? I heard you talk about it. What is it? It's just a Twitch alternative?

Shaan Puri 15:08 So Kick is basically a Twitch alternative, but the, the kind of the interesting part is it's started by this gambling company Stake.

Sam Parr 15:15 Oh, okay. Yeah.

Shaan Puri 15:16 So we talked about Stake before, remember? Um, it's this company that just absolutely prints cash, and one of the main ways, the main way that Stake was growing, or one of the best growth mechanisms, was they would pay streamers or give streamers money to gamble on Stake live on stream. And so people got to see and-

Sam Parr 15:32 Did, didn't they give, uh, Drake, like, a jet?

Shaan Puri 15:35 Yeah, they gave Drake, like, $20 million and whatever.

Reed Duchscher 15:38 But the, the issue was you couldn't do it in America, right? So a lot of the streamers-

Shaan Puri 15:42 Right

Reed Duchscher 15:42 ... and, and they would have to go to Mexico or Canada, and it's still very much like that. You can't do it in America.

Shaan Puri 15:49 Yeah, you gotta [laughs] get on a boat, go to international waters, and start your stream. [laughs]

Reed Duchscher 15:52 Ba- basically, yeah, and a lot of the guys were doing this in Mexico. And so n- now k- uh, Kick basically came in. They, they started Kick as, like, a distribution, like, top of funnel on top of this gambling business, which who knows if it's gonna be legal in the US in two to three years. They actually have stake.us that you can play in America. It's just a lot of the games that you have on stake.com are not there. But yeah, a lot of controversy on, uh, on this topic because Twitch banned it, and that's why Kick started is because Twitch banned all gambling on their website.

Shaan Puri 16:25 It's like there's these stories sometimes in business where it's like, um, like I have a buddy who's like this. Uh, the guys who bought Milk Road, uh, they own... Uh, one of them started this thing called JM, uh, JM Bullion, which is, like, a gold... It's the biggest pl- website for buying and selling gold online. And I was like, "How'd you do it? What's the origin story?" And he's telling me the origin story, and, and really when he started he was just trying to be a lead gen for, um, like, somebody else would fulfill the orders. He didn't have any gold inventory. He wasn't shipping anything. He was like, "Dude, I'm an affiliate marketer. I just, I get the lead from Google. Somebody places the order. I go tell the, the, the company who actually does this thing to go sell it, to go send it to him." And what happened was that they were, they were kinda yanking him around, changing the rates, and eventually they just cut him off. And he's like, "Oh, my God. They just killed my business. Like, they don't want my customers? Like, what do I do?" He's like, "Well, either I take this zero or I create the whole, like, distribu- like, create the whole, like, supply chain myself. I basically go, I get the physical inventory, I get the warehouses, and we start shipping this ourselves." So that's what they did. They ended up becoming bigger than the other company, and I think they bought them along the way. They bought that other company that had rejected them and, like, went on to become the number one site for this, and it's kinda the same, um, the same thing that you're talking about here with, like, Kick was using Twitch as, like, a distribution platform, and then when it didn't work they're like, "All right. We'll have to make our own Twitch," which is kind of, like, a huge endeavor. But what they're doing is they're giving streamers these contracts that, um, I kicked the tires on this to figure out if it was real because they gave xQc, who's one of the top, uh, Twitch streamers, a r- like, a reported two-year $100 million contract.

Sam Parr 18:03 What?

Shaan Puri 18:03 So that means that this guy's making more than LeBron James playing for the Lakers this year. Like, per year that, that would be the, the deal. And same thing... And And crazier than that is that he, uh, doesn't have to s- he doesn't have to stop streaming on Twitch. He can still stream on Twitch, right? And so when you first hear this, this sounds crazy. It's like you signed a non-exclusive $100 million deal for some kid in his bedroom playing video games. That sounds insane. And then they did that with a bunch of other streamers. So a bunch of other streamers are also making, you know, 10 million, 20 million, thir- $30 million a year to stream on Kick right now. And the big question is will this strategy work? Uh, you know, will Kick become a thing? Will it just die? Will this give Stake a bunch of customers-

Sam Parr 18:43 Wow

Shaan Puri 18:43 ... or is this a giant money pit?

Sam Parr 18:43 How, how new is the, is the website? 'Cause kick.com, according to Similarweb, has like 150 million monthly uniques already.

Shaan Puri 18:49 Yeah, so this has been going for how long? Like-

Sam Parr 18:52 Six to eight months, maybe.

Shaan Puri 18:54 Yeah, like within this year, basically, they've been, they've been doing this. And so-

Sam Parr 18:58 How did they get that much traffic that fast? I mean, that's one of the faster growing websites out there.

Reed Duchscher 19:02 Yeah, so, so what happened here was, um, two, two Twitch streamers that when they banned gambling couldn't stream on Twitch anymore because their brands were essentially built around Stake. Which one was Trainwrecks, who had a lo- a really loyal following on Twitch, and then they also then signed Adin second. And so Trainwrecks and Adin started streaming on Kick, which drove a lot of people over to that website. And then the xQc, uh, the Mi- like every- everyone else that they started signing was just driving more and more traffic, and it started to just become a thing of like anti-Twitch, go to Kick. The, also the, the one thing to point out is ad revenue on Twitch, uh, if you're, if you're a partner on Twitch, used to be 70/30. They brought it down to 50/50, which sparked outrage on the internet, and then Kick came out and said, "We're gonna do 90/10 for everyone. Doesn't matter if you're a partner or not. We're gonna lose an incredible amount of money on the content business and just make sure that stake.com remains like the cash cow." And so that's like the, the big thing that they have against Twitch is like they don't really care if they have a profitable streaming business or not.

Sam Parr 20:05 But do they... H- H- How'd they finance, how'd they finance this entire thing? I thought, Shaan, that we had talked about these guys.

Shaan Puri 20:10 For sure.

Sam Parr 20:10 Wasn't, wasn't the founder of Stake, isn't like a 28 or, or back then we, I think we're talking about a year ago.

Shaan Puri 20:15 Yeah.

Sam Parr 20:15 It was like a 26-year-old guy who bought like a $50 million mansion in Australia. Are the, is it still-

Shaan Puri 20:21 I think Kick-

Sam Parr 20:21 ... like a bunch of young guys doing this without financing?

Shaan Puri 20:23 I mean, not without financing. The financing is Stake. They, they had like-

Sam Parr 20:26 I mean, o- outside financing

Shaan Puri 20:27 ... an 800... It had like an $800 million dividend last year or something insane.

Sam Parr 20:31 What?

Shaan Puri 20:31 Like, that business is just l- ultra, ultra-profitable. And so their competitive advantage is basically that they, their, like Reed said, their business model is not ads on Kick or subscription cut. It's can we funnel these users to come gamble on our, in our casino? And we have a casino. Twitch doesn't have a casino. That's the bet that they're making. The other thing that I, 'cause I tweeted this out. I was like, I said, "This thing is fishy." I said, "They're paying xQc $100 million for two years of non-exclusive streaming. Are they, A, lying? B, is this like incentive based or some, like, tiered, like, you know, some, some, like, stock deal? They're inflating the value of the stock or something like that to make the numbers sound, the headline number sound really big. Are they just laundering money? Is that what this is? Like, what, what is going on here?" And basically it was, here's the fi- here's what the, the, the answer was. Basically, it's a combination of cash and equity. So their equity part might go to zero, so that, that part of the deal might, might go to zero. [lips smack] Um, or it has incentives where it's like, it's based on the number of customers you bring over. Um, and the second part is that the non-exclusive part is basically so that he can just, like, funnel traffic from Twitch to Kick. So if he just turned off, like when, uh, this is like a big deal. Like, when Microsoft poached Ninja from Twitch, he had to stop streaming on Twitch that day and, like, go stream on this other platform. And so most people on Twitch were just, like, kinda like out of sight, out of mind. Yeah, some people followed him over there to check it out, but, like, ultimately their habit was still built on Twitch. What these guys are doing is different. He streams on Twitch and then he says, "All right, I'm gonna finish my stream," or, "I'm gonna, like, play the big game over on Kick." And then he just f- like, it's like a, a call to action, and he just funnels a bunch of traffic over, over and over. When I was at Twitch, we did the same thing when we were losing foothold in one market in Brazil. We acquired this huge YouTube streamer, and I was like, um, a- and they were, and [chuckles] it was an exclusive deal. But he started streaming on YouTube while he was streaming on Twitch. And I was like, and at first people in the company were like, "Yo, what the hell, man? You just spent all this money, millions of dollars, like, signing this streamer, and he's still streaming on YouTube over there for free. Like, what's the deal?" And I was like, "Actually, wait. This is probably excellent because all we have to do is just get him to, like, block part of the screen or, like, end his, like, do a cliffhanger and be like, 'I'm finishing this over at Twitch,' and he'll just keep bringing traffic over." And that's what he did. We just basically let him violate his deal 'cause we realized, actually, he was smarter than us. That was a better funnel for us than, than an exclusive deal would've been.

Sam Parr 23:01 That's insane. Reed, what, these, I imagine you've talked to these or you know these Stake guys well. Are, is this like a Sam Bankman-Fried type of company where they're, or an FTX company where there's just, like, a bunch of crazy young kids? Or is this, like, a dialed in thing? What, what are these guys like?

Reed Duchscher 23:15 I don't know them well enough, honestly, to know if it's, like, gonna become a problem. I would say that from my conversations with them, they seem like they have this thing under control. It's generating a lot of cash. I, the FTX thing, I, the company wasn't generating any cash when Bitcoin went down. It was like, just completely fell apart, but-

Sam Parr 23:32 I don't mean is it a scam, but I mean, like,

Sam Parr 23:35 uh, young people just being wild. Uh, you know, like imagine a 27-year-old making $800 million dividend, uh, just like a, a, a wild child type of setup.

Reed Duchscher 23:45 I haven't seen that from them, but the, it seems like they're a little bit more laid back, uh, in Australia, don't really communicate with a lot of people. So I, I haven't seen that behavior. Um, I mean, that could change. I'm just, I, and I know, I know way too much about the deal structures and everything else, uh, and how this stuff works. But I, I would, I'm pretty confident in Kick over at least the next couple of years. We'll see where this goes if they continue to wanna do that business. I, I would imagine Stake is gonna just continue to get so big that maybe Kick eventually becomes a distraction. I don't know. Um, but I, I would say they'll double down on Stake.us over the next, like, 18 months as, as, like, states open up and allow them to start doing this.

Sam Parr 24:26 That's insane. I-

Reed Duchscher 24:27 There was also a, a secondary business called Roobet as well, uh, that was essentially the, the Stake.com competitor. I'm not 100% sure what happened to Roobet, uh, but it's still around, and so there, there is other businesses like Stake. Stake just completely won, uh, because they were able to sign the biggest creators like Train, they signed Drake, which you guys said. Uh, and so at the, at the moment it's a runaway train. They're kinda taking all the market share.

Sam Parr 24:50 In one of your other podcasts you'd mentioned how, um, uh, you're like, "Well, a lot of creators, they think, 'Well, I have an audience. I'm gonna launch this product.'" And you're like, "Well, that can work for a couple months, but if you do a good job, this turns into a proper company, and the real challenge, uh," you, you were saying, "the real challenge that I'm in is finding amazing executives to actually run the companies and build these into real companies." You said for Feastables, I think you said you had the president of RXBAR to come and be the CEO, uh, for, uh, the burger business or the restaurant business. You partnered with someone, and you also, it sounds like, had a president or a CEO of that company. What type of deals are you striking with some of these CEOs to make it worth their while, uh, to, to, to do this?

Reed Duchscher 25:32 Yeah. Thankfully, a lot of them realize the opportunity. When they come into these businesses, they know that there's an unfair advantage in go-to-market, because the creator has hopefully built this massive platform already that gives them instant distribution and just consumers. And so a lot of the people that we interview for CEOs are actually incredibly excited about the opportunity and are willing to leave their big job at PepsiCo or wherever that is. And so how the, how the deals are really structured is very similar to any other business. You, you have,

Reed Duchscher 26:00 like, the, a cash basis that you're paying them, and then you also negotiate some piece of equity, uh, over a, like, a four-year vesting schedule. And so we, we've had a lot of success doing that. But for the most part, we usually don't have to explain the competitive advantage to the business. Like, when we start meeting these individuals, they already know. They've seen it. They saw it with Prime. They're seeing it with Feastables. They've seen it with Happy Dad. A lot of the individuals that we're interviewing already know, uh, and so it makes it a little bit easier for us to get them to leave that specific job. But it's, it's structured very similar to, like, what a, a CEO would potentially make if they came in and ran a startup.

Sam Parr 26:36 And are you funding the company with a bit?

Reed Duchscher 26:38 We fund up to a certain amount.

Sam Parr 26:41 What's that amount usually?

Reed Duchscher 26:42 I j- it honestly depends on the business. I would say it falls anywhere between the 250... 250 on the low end, a million on the high end.

Sam Parr 26:49 So Feastables, you fund... That, that, that started with just a million bucks, you think?

Reed Duchscher 26:53 Yeah. The, the, the, the big issue with Feastables was, and this is the issue we're now having with some of our consumer products, is retailers instead of... So if you s- if you started a chips business or whatever and you didn't have a creator attached to it or anyone attached to it that give you, gave you an unfair advantage on go-to-market, you would go to a retailer and they would say, "We wanna test you in 100 stores," or, "We wanna test you in 200 stores." And from a cost pers- perspective, to f- to fund the PO wouldn't be that str- like, it wouldn't put that much strain on the business. The issue that we had with Feastables was Walmart was willing to put us in all 2,650 store, or 4,650 stores, um, it, right when we launched. And so that's becoming the issue with some of these businesses is that how do you fund the PO of 6, 7, $8 million right out of the gate to meet that retail demand? And so that's the one that we've, we've had to either raise capital, uh, go beg a bank to give us the money as, like, a P- as, like, a PO loan, and so that, that's kinda the issue that we've run into. And even with Feastables, like, we raised a small amount of capital, and it was really just to fund the four million chocolate bars that we ended up selling in season one that sold out in, I think it was 45 days. That was the biggest cash constraint to the business.

Shaan Puri 28:11 Let's, let's talk a little bit about Prime. So Prime, um, seems to be just taking over. Um, I... It really, really impressive. I don't know, um, how much we've talked about it on here before, but can you just explain what's going on with Prime in a way that would, for somebody who's kinda out of the loop or maybe, you know, vaguely heard of it but doesn't really truly appreciate-

Reed Duchscher 28:34 Yeah

Shaan Puri 28:34 ... like, the, the extent it's, it's, what it's doing?

Reed Duchscher 28:38 Yeah. So if, if you don't know what Prime is, Prime is a hydration drink that was started by, uh, Logan Paul, who many people are probably familiar with, and then KSI, who is based out of the UK, but I would say the most popular creator to ever

Reed Duchscher 28:50 come out of that region. And so, you know, they very notably, like, boxed against each other multiple times. They were enemies, and the story was them coming together to start this business. And the, the company that they partnered with actually made an energy drink called Alani Nu. That's actually, um... I mean, you see it next to Prime. I think in every grocery store or retail chain I go into, it's like Prime sits here, Alani Nu sits right next to it. And so the founders of Alani Nu basically created this drink that they then called Prime, and Logan Paul and KSI came in really as just the marketing edge, and they don't do anything operationally for the business. They really just market it. And it, it became a, like a clout piece to hold a bottle of Prime. Like, now these 10, 12, 13-year-old kids have to have it. They have to drink it. And we've seen some of the... I mean, I saw an article about, uh, people saying the FDA needs to go regulate this business because it has too much caffeine in the energy drink. Uh, and so now, now there's just a lot of stuff going on about the company. But it's grown an incredible amount. I think, I, I can't remember

Reed Duchscher 29:50 what Logan said on one of his podcasts, but I think they did $45 million in revenue in January of this year, and that was, that was the last thing that I'd seen them say publicly about the business.

Sam Parr 30:01 I think he said, if I remember correctly, Shaan, we talked about it. It might have been six months ago. I think he said, like, 200 million for the year. Is that right?

Shaan Puri 30:09 Yeah, that's the number... That's one number we had heard, but 45 million obviously would put them on a totally different trajectory than that. So yeah, it appears to be just an absolute monster.

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Shaan Puri 30:37 Who's the- who's Logan Paul's manager? Who's, who's his rep?

Reed Duchscher 30:39 Uh, his name's Jeff. Uh, he's, he's on the podcast. He's been his same manager for a long time. Uh, Logan talks about him quite a bit, and so if you, if you watch some o- Logan's older videos too, he would periodically show up. And so they've been together-

Shaan Puri 30:52 Right

Reed Duchscher 30:52 ... for a long time, and Jeff put together that deal, and it's been incredibly successful. We'll, we'll see how it ends up. I, I don't know. I would imagine they're gonna wanna continue to do this thing for another couple years, and then probably sell it.

Shaan Puri 31:03 And those guys who created the drink, you said they created Alani Nu. They-

Reed Duchscher 31:06 Yeah

Shaan Puri 31:07 ... uh, but that wasn't that big. Uh, like it seem- I remember when Prime first came out, I was like, "Who are these guys?" And it's... I think it's two dudes, right? Who are the founders of that.

Reed Duchscher 31:15 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 31:15 Um, and th- though they didn't really have a huge hit before that. How did they even secure that deal, and why, why did they partner with them over like, you know, some more established thing? Do you know?

Reed Duchscher 31:28 I honestly don't know. I've never had that conversation with Jeff of, of why did, why partner with this company instead of doing it yourself? I think, I, I would imagine what happened was this company presented them with the opportunity, and it was something that really resonated with Logan. And then I remember the story of him saying he called KSI and tried to get him on board, which he did. And so it, it probably was just right place, right time. Logan was ready to lean into something else. I mean, Logan's had a lot of different business ventures over the last five years. I mean, this one obviously is far and beyond the most successful, but I, again, I would imagine right place, right time. They liked the product, liked the-

Shaan Puri 32:05 Right

Reed Duchscher 32:05 ... got along with the individuals who were operating the business.

Shaan Puri 32:09 And the m- the partnering with KSI, um, were they just actually friends the whole time, and the whole boxing thing was just, you know, just a sort of frenemies thing? Or like... 'Cause that's kind of a-

Reed Duchscher 32:19 Yeah

Shaan Puri 32:19 ... genius move, right? Like you kinda have to give credit to be like, "You know what will make this even bigger?" 'Cause normally, let's say you're one of the biggest YouTubers, those people tend to have like a bit of an ego. I am distribution. I don't need anybody else to do this. I don't need to split the pie, especially with my enemy. So that's kinda interesting. What, what's going on there?

Reed Duchscher 32:37 No, total- uh, no, uh, they did not like each other. Uh, the boxing beef was real. They were definitely enemies, and from my understanding of the story, and I've, I've only heard Logan's side of this, I haven't heard KSI speak about it, it took a lot of convincing for Logan to get KSI on board because there was still a lot of animosity between the relationship there. I mean, a lot of stuff was said. A lot of personal things were said about-

Shaan Puri 33:01 Yeah

Reed Duchscher 33:01 ... girlfriends and parents and, I mean, it, it was a very personal beef that went on in this YouTube space for a while. And so I think that's why it was so surprising when those two came together to launch Prime because it was the last two individuals you would have ever thought to partner together on a hydration drink.

Shaan Puri 33:17 Right. He said my Pokemon was a PSA 8. It was-

Reed Duchscher 33:21 Yeah

Shaan Puri 33:21 ... it got ugly. [laughs]

Reed Duchscher 33:23 Yeah. Yeah. But now it's like for, for us it's, it's been helpful because, you know, we, uh, they launched in Australia, and it went incredibly well for them. They launched in the UK, it went very well. And so Feastables, like we're probably six to eight months behind because they, you know, had a product and launched a, a lot sooner than we did. But it's, it's allowed us to then go into those conversations in Australia-

Shaan Puri 33:44 Right

Reed Duchscher 33:44 ... UK, Southeast Asia, where, and they, the retailers have already had massive success with Prime, where it's a, it's a much easier conversation for us to explain to them why they should take Feastables. Where I think if we were the first ones coming into the, the in- the industry, like into Woolies, uh, in Australia, probably a little harder conversation pre-Prime.

Shaan Puri 34:03 Well, and that... Prime seems like an amazing category. Uh, like that, th- to me, uh, the drink, the hydration drink, water basically, like fancy water, is a better category than chocolate bars. Um, how do you think about categories that you're gonna go into? Like, um-

Reed Duchscher 34:18 Mm-hmm

Shaan Puri 34:18 ... do you think that's a better category, and, and also like how do you choose what category to get to? Is... You could basically-

Reed Duchscher 34:23 Yeah

Shaan Puri 34:23 ... promote anything.

Sam Parr 34:24 Dude, when we, we, we, we did the thing with [censored] , Shaan organized this thing and he brought a bunch of Feastables. I ate about eight of those things in one night.

Shaan Puri 34:31 [laughs]

Sam Parr 34:31 I was... I felt horrible the next day. I, I didn't eat dinner. I just ate all this chocolate. So i- a- at least for that night, it felt like a good category.

Shaan Puri 34:39 [laughs]

Reed Duchscher 34:40 Yeah. Well, okay, so y- I have to back up just to explain how this all started. And so, you know, this started with [censored] I, you know, in a parking lot kind of brainstorming ideas while he was... It was in between him filming this video that never got posted, like most [censored] videos that like just got filmed and, and

Reed Duchscher 35:00 never, people never saw it. But anyway, we, we came up with this idea where we wanted to launch a snacks company, and we wanted to build this content idea around launching the snacks company. And chocolate bars to us felt like the right category for a couple reasons. Like one is it's a massive business. Like it's a $26 billion industry. It's v- it's very holiday, seasonal dependent, which if you're a parent going into a store for Halloween or for Easter or something like that, and it's like Hershey's is sitting here and Feastables is sitting here, and you have a eight, nine, 10, 12-year-old son, daughter, like it's a no-brainer. Like you're gonna buy the Feastables chocolate. And so that, that was one reason. Another thing is the 50th anniversary of Willy Wonka was, uh, in 2021. And so the initial idea was let's put golden tickets in chocolate bars and sell that and give away a chocolate factory, which became just a thing in itself of, you know, buying a warehouse and turning it into a chocolate factory was no easy feat. Um, but that, that really kinda sparked the conversation of, okay, well, if we're gonna build this on this chocolate factory giveaway with a chocolate bar, um, what are the other categories that we can eventually go into? The, the cookie really came because, you know, [censored] had this joke on his channel, and it's been since the beginning is you guys see it in the banner, it's like subscribe and I'll give you a cookie. And so we, we wanted to venture into cookies next. It's, it's not, I would say, as big of a focus for us as chocolate. I think we're really trying to build out seasonality in chocolate. We're trying to build multi-pack in chocolate. I don't think people truly understand how big Hershey's actually is, uh, and how dominant they are in the space. Like, they truly dominate chocolate because they also own Reese's, which is like if you walk into chocolate aisle in Walmart, Target, Kroger, wherever, you see a giant wall of orange and a giant wall of brown. It's like you very clearly-

Shaan Puri 36:47 Yeah

Reed Duchscher 36:47 ... uh, those two businesses or those two brands dominate the chocolate aisle. And so we thought it was a good space for us to go at because it wasn't, um, it wasn't so oversaturated by 20, 30, 40 different companies. It was like we really knew who we were competing against. We were like, "We're competing against Hershey. We need to be more innovative. We need to build this gamification layer. We need to build a better product that has higher quality ingredients." We, like, we j- we knew, like, what the, the roadmap looked like to compete with them. It's been a lot harder than we thought. Just global chocolate supply chain I think was something Jimmy and I knew nothing about. Thank God for our team that, like, understands this that we've been working with. But yeah, I think we'll, we'll definitely go... I don't know if Jimmy said anything to you guys when you were in Greenville, but I mean, there's a roadmap of products that we're gonna do over the next, like, two to three years. We're trying to figure out, like, what the rollout strategy is gonna be. But for 2023 and going to 2024, chocolate is the main priority-

Shaan Puri 37:43 Right

Reed Duchscher 37:43 ... uh, in getting more space in retail.

Shaan Puri 37:45 I gotta take back what I said. I think it's a great category. You convinced me I was wrong. That was great. Uh, I actually, I think what you guys are doing is really smart there. By the way, Hershey's makes, like, 8 or 9 billion a year in revenue off of, uh, their thing. And the reason I think it's a great category actually based on what you said was the audience fit, but also, uh, just, like, how old that competition is and, like, you know, you didn't say this, but, like, if I'm Mars or I'm Mondelez or I'm Hershey's, um, you know, I look at my acquisition targets, my M&A targets, there's not many. And, um, I think this is an opportunity where I don't think the business itself is gonna generate a ton of profit just because, uh, physical goods and, you know, the, the, like, as you scale up, it's like, you know, it's not the, the thickest margins. But I do think this is, like, a business where you're gonna look up and sell it for $500 million or something like that someday if you wanted to.

Reed Duchscher 38:37 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 38:37 So I take that back.

Reed Duchscher 38:38 Well, it's... You'd actually be surprised. Um, chocolate actually is a, it's a pretty good margin business for us, and I mean, Hershey is still, you know, they probably churn off $6 to $800 million in profit every single year and have been doing this for 50-plus years. And so we, yeah, we- it's, it's, it's been challenging for us, but we understand, like, what the roadmap is. We really think that w- And we don't know how Hershey is gonna compete with us s- uh, seasonally. Uh, that's, like, one thing big for us. Like, Halloween's gonna be big for us this year. Uh, we're doing a lot of different sweepstakes and promotional things. And so, you know, for us, if we can win those months, like, October then becomes $100 to $200 million just in a single month, and we can put our full force into just October and then into holiday, and then you turn it around and you're like, "Okay, now, like, what are we doing for Valentine's Day? What are we doing for Easter?" Uh, and so these-

Shaan Puri 39:30 Right

Reed Duchscher 39:30 ... are all, like, the conversations that we've been having over the last year.

Shaan Puri 39:33 What number would kinda cross the threshold of, all right, we should take this acquisition seriously if one of those guys came to you at the end of the year?

Reed Duchscher 39:42 I don't think he takes a multi-billion dollar acquisition right now. I, there, there's just too much upside in the business right now.

Shaan Puri 39:49 Just for Feastables?

Reed Duchscher 39:51 Yeah. There, it's just, it's... The amount of opportunity for us, not, not only, okay, let's just, just, I'm just talking domestically. So now let's just, let's talk about just the world, right? Chocolate is, is popular, like, globally. And [beep] we haven't really talked about this yet, but I know he talked about it on your guys' podcast, is we launched all these multi-language channels. There's, there's really a method to the madness here is, like, you know, we now dub in, I think, 16 different languages, uh, including Japanese and French and Hindi. Those are all markets for us that we're pushing into over the next, like, 12 to 18 months. And so the opportunity for us is just way too big to even look at an acquisition at the moment because for us, like, s- Asia is, is a huge market. The Middle East has actually become one of our highest growing markets at the moment, which we're now figuring out, like, what are the points of distribution, and then we're eventually gonna be able to just specifically market to those regions. Like, we're gonna be able to put a video file up, and it's gonna be the Japanese dub, but instead of being like, "Hey, go to your local Walmart and Target," it's gonna be, like, our, um, our, our dub artist in Japanese, which is, uh, the voice actor of Naruso saying, "Oh, you can go buy

Reed Duchscher 41:00 it at your local 7-Eleven or other convenience stores available in Japan."

Shaan Puri 41:04 Right.

Reed Duchscher 41:04 And so we're gonna make everything very localized. And so to us, like, we're like n- haven't even rounded first base yet to what this business opportunity is. And so I don't know. We haven't even had, like, acquisition tar- like, isn't even a thing we're discussing at the moment.

Shaan Puri 41:17 Well, when we, when we all hung out with him, he was talking about, he was talking about the same thing. Uh, I don't know if he was saying Feastables, but just, like, his enterprise, you know, he threw around crazy ideas of, like, maybe IPO, maybe sell for billions of dollars. I don't know. Like, but he approached it in a... [lip smacks] This isn't an insult, but it was very naive. Like, he sounded, like, uh, an innocent, like, "Oh, I'm just gonna do this and then this and then this. That's it. Like, it's, it's gonna work." And I remember, but I, but I, but I found it to be, like, um, believable. A, like, I believe that he actually could potentially do that, which is crazy, but B, I felt like his ignorance a little bit about business was actually a massive, um, tool for him a little bit where, where I was like, man, that's like you'd be one of the biggest things in the world, and in his brain he's like, "Well, yeah, what do you, what do you expect?" Uh, and I don't know if that's n- uh, maybe naive is not the right word, but i- there was almost an innocence about it, uh, that I, I really appreciated. Do you think you have that same kinda mindset with this or, or do, are half the things that you guys are working on, not just you and him, but your rest of your artists or the rest of your, um, [lip smacks] uh, folks on your team, are you like, "I don't know if we can pull this off, but whatever, let's just try and get into it and we'll see what happens"?

Reed Duchscher 42:28 Uh, I, he's probably... We're, we're a little bit different in that regard. I think I'm a little bit more of a realist in terms of, you know, knowing how hard these things are to build, knowing how hard these things are to sell. I, I said ultimately it's gonna be his decision, you know, if he wants to sell this thing or not. But I, I think there, there is a level of him and I are very naive to, to... At, at least when we entered the chocolate arena, we didn't really have a, a good understanding of what we needed to create, how we needed to compete, and I actually think that was an advantage for us because we were just running as fast as possible trying to get product out, and we made a lot of critical, um, I would say, decisions that were either big positives or big negatives, and we were able to go change the negatives very quickly. I think one is, you know, for-

Sam Parr 43:15 I think you said you, you didn't even have customer support the day you launched, or something like that.

Reed Duchscher 43:19 We didn't have customer support in [censored] , which we then learned in Feastables. Like, okay. In a little different business. So we, we had a [laughs] full customer social support team when we launched Feastables, thankfully.

Shaan Puri 43:30 And [laughs] you, you know, you've done a couple of these now, and I think, uh, I've always been amazed, like some creators are much better promoters than others, and it's not just... Like, it, it matters, like in a couple different ways. Sometimes if your brand is like, "I'm super real and authentic," anytime you say anything promotional, the audience is like, "Yo, sellout, you know, you can't do that." And other people whose brand is to be more of a spectacle and more interesting, they can get away with a little more. But there's also just the creator's motivation. So as brands throw money at creators to, you know, tell people, "Hey, swipe up and do this. Hey, swipe up and do this," you know, like at some point, um, I think everybody becomes a little numb to it, the audience and the creator. What I've been impressed with is for something like Feastable or I also felt this way with Prime, I felt like with Prime, Logan Paul is like the CMO and he's like, he's looking for every edge he's got. It almost... Y- you know, like I don't think they own the majority of the company. I think they own a, a, a small minority of that company. But he almost treats it like a majority owner. I remember when he went to like... He goes to like, uh, you know, the WWE thing or UFC fight, he's got his Prime bottle with him, and then he'll do something that he knows is gonna g- He'll like embarrass himself so he gets memed like a million times on Instagram. But he's like, "Yeah, I got memed, but I was holding M- I was holding Prime, wasn't I?" And he's like, you know, basically it was all intentional. He's like looking for these little edges, and that's very different than, you know, the old days when, uh, you know, an influencer holds up some detox tea and just says, you know, "Hey, try this." Um, h- what do you think is the difference in buy-in and that kinda like, that mindset of like, "I'm going to use my engine to promote this, like to level 100"? What have you seen is the difference there and, and how does that happen?

Reed Duchscher 45:16 Yeah. I mean, there's also just a different level of excitement when you have ownership in the brand versus you don't. Whereas like there's a cash exchange for you to promote audible.com, you're not gonna be as excited, you're not gonna put as much time creatively into this a- let's just say ad read than you will if you own the, the business. And so I, I actually first saw this with [censored] when we did Finger on the App. I'd seen him do a lot of like we had done a lot of mobile integrations on the channel, and then when we did Finger on the App, it was our thing. Uh, we owned it. It was like our competition.

Shaan Puri 45:48 You should explain what it is for somebody who doesn't know.

Reed Duchscher 45:50 Uh, Finger on the App was we created this mobile game where a person puts their finger on their cell phone, uh, [laughs] and the last person to take their finger off the phone win- won 100 grand. And there was little bombs that would pop up, so you would have to like move your thumb around to just avoid objects that would pop on your phone. It ended up lasting 72 hours and then someone won 100K. But, uh, [censored] level of excitement and level of promotion just went to the next level. Uh, he was, you know, telling people why they should download it and he was, you know, messaging people back on Twitter who was like, "Hey, I just downloaded. I'm ready for the game." He was responding. And so there's like a, a much m- there's much more depth to the level of excitement on the creator side, and you really see that with Prime and with [censored] too, with Feastables. And you see it with also Happy Dad with Nelk. Uh, they're going all in on Happy Dad. The podcast is essentially built around, you know, Happy Dad is everywhere for each podcast episode. And I, I do think the future is creators starting businesses. The issue is like most of the time it's just gonna happen at the top, uh, where, you know, where we are seeing some interesting businesses for like a mid-tier creator who maybe isn't to the level of Logan Paul or Nelk, but they're, you know, Cars versus Bids or something like that where it's, you know, the channel maybe has two, 3 million subscribers doing 500K a video and they're gaining a lot of traction on that type of business.

Shaan Puri 47:09 What are some other examples like that?

Reed Duchscher 47:11 Um, in, in the creator space?

Shaan Puri 47:13 In the creator space. Cool creator businesses that are not-

Reed Duchscher 47:16 Yep

Shaan Puri 47:16 ... just like, "Well, I'm the most famous guy on Earth, so whatever I say works." Uh, you know, what, what are some, like we had Doug Demuro on for Cars and Bids.

Reed Duchscher 47:23 Yep.

Shaan Puri 47:23 Uh, what are some other examples like that?

Reed Duchscher 47:25 Uh, there's one called, uh, Rare Candy. It's with Leonhart, who's... You know, he's a, a relatively large Pokémon style creator, and he has a marketplace where you can buy Pokémon cards and do Pokémon unboxing. So it's, it's similar to Whatnot in how it, it works.

Shaan Puri 47:40 Yep.

Reed Duchscher 47:41 But it's... You know, Leonhart owns a, a large piece of that business. Um, I... I mean, to go back to the top, like Emma Chamberlain Coffee I think is another one. It's like very organic. Her talks a lot about coffee. And now I'm starting to see a lot of businesses pop up on the smaller end where it's maybe you have a, a channel that washes windows, right? So it's like a TikTok creator who maybe it does ASMR through like washing a house or washing windows, and they use it as like this top of funnel in like a city where all these individual houses or all these people are now reaching out to and be like, "Oh, this person's in Austin. I'll pay them $400 to come pressure wash my house."

Sam Parr 48:17 I've seen a lot of those for pressure washing.

Reed Duchscher 48:19 Yeah.

Sam Parr 48:19 There's, they're all over the place. And the grass cutting, uh, like lawn mowing.

Reed Duchscher 48:24 Yeah. Lawn mowing, vending machines. Uh, seeing a lot of like little small niche businesses getting built. But I,

Reed Duchscher 48:30 I think these businesses are much bigger than people think they are. Um, they're, they're gaining, like even in the, the pressure washing, like I'm meeting creators and they're making like 20, $30,000 a month- Just from pressure washing homes, and then all of a sudden, you know, they hire two or three other people because the demand is so high for people, you know, booking them out to, to clean their home, that they start to hire employees, and then it becomes a real business that once just started as, like, one TikTok video of them pressure washer-ing, pressure washing their own house.

Sam Parr 49:00 Are you from the Midwest?

Reed Duchscher 49:02 I am from North Dakota.

Sam Parr 49:03 You're the first person on the pod that says the, says the word wash like I do, with an R.

Reed Duchscher 49:07 [laughs] I, I, I'm, like, I grew up 40 miles from the Canadian border, so I'm probably just as Canadian as American at this point.

Sam Parr 49:14 Ah.

Reed Duchscher 49:14 But-

Sam Parr 49:14 I get made fun of all the time for saying that word that way, that I'm embarrassed to even say it, but I just heard you say it.

Reed Duchscher 49:19 [laughs]

Sam Parr 49:19 Um, are, are there any companies, uh, or are, any creator businesses out there that are shockingly large that m- uh, many people don't know about?

Reed Duchscher 49:26 Yeah. So one that I was wildly impressed by that was much bigger than I initially thought was Dhar Mann. So it's the largest scripted YouTube channel on the internet. And so it, it's all, like, it's daily uploading, but it's long-form scripted storytelling. And so I-

Sam Parr 49:45 Oh, yeah

Reed Duchscher 49:45 ... I really didn't understand, like, how big of an operation that was and how many, you know, people and how many sets, and just the sheer volume of content coming out of that business. That, that was one I was pretty surprised by.

Sam Parr 49:57 And if you don't know what it is, I remember when I first saw it, I was like, "Are people watching this?" And then I just have been paying attention. It's slowly growing. It's almost like the Hallmark or Lifetime channel, but for, like-

Shaan Puri 50:08 How, how do you spell it? What is it?

Sam Parr 50:10 Dhar Mann.

Shaan Puri 50:11 Oh, D-H-A-R.

Sam Parr 50:11 D-H-A-R space M-A-N-N. He has 18.5 million subscribers.

Shaan Puri 50:17 Oh.

Sam Parr 50:17 It's like, um, it's, there's, like, a lesson to be learned in, like, each episode. Is that right, Reed?

Reed Duchscher 50:23 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 50:24 He used to do something completely different, right? Like, Dhar was doing something completely different, and then he's, he, he pivoted into this.

Sam Parr 50:30 Mm-hmm.

Reed Duchscher 50:31 Yep. Found, found his footing in scripted storytelling on YouTube. Uh, more fast-paced, a little bit more light on the, the scripted, uh, like, storytelling aspect 'cause it, it's, like, more content and volume.

Shaan Puri 50:43 I'm pretty sure this guy had a giant weed business before this. [laughs]

Reed Duchscher 50:46 Um, makeup, actually.

Shaan Puri 50:48 But I, I think he also had a weed business. Wife is also an influencer. I think she has a makeup business.

Reed Duchscher 50:53 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 50:53 I'm pretty sure this guy had a cannabis business. I, I don't know if I, if I got that right.

Reed Duchscher 50:56 Why, why is it-

Shaan Puri 50:57 But that's funny

Reed Duchscher 50:57 ... yeah, WeGrow. He started, uh-

Shaan Puri 50:59 WeGrow

Reed Duchscher 50:59 ... he s- he started WeGrow. It's sold hy- uh, hydroponics and marketed for growing medical marijuana. That's funny. Why, uh, why is this guy impressive to you, Reed? What, what, what's the behind-the-scenes information?

Shaan Puri 51:09 Just the sheer, like, the sheer size of the production company. You know, people, people say it. They're like, "Oh, you can build, you know, production entities on top of YouTube," and creators are hiring employees. You know, it's like this is a good example of massive production entity built on YouTube, cashflow positive, making money. You know, I think most people thought that, you know, you couldn't do scripted storytelling on YouTube and actually make it a profitable business, just because it didn't make sense with how the ad revenue worked and how the splits worked, and he's really figured it out. And it's, it's hard because you have to upload daily, and you have to average two, three, four, five million views per video to start making significant amount of money, but they really figured it out on a large scale.

Sam Parr 51:50 Did they get the revenue up, or did they get the expenses down? What did they do different than, uh, you would've expected? Or what did they, what, what was the trick?

Reed Duchscher 51:57 From what, from what I've seen in the scripted space on YouTube, and, and this is also, like, in the, in, like, the streaming services, scripted content is very expensive. You know, you're, you have writers on staff. Like, it's usually long timelines. They, they figured out how to create content on a scripted basis much quicker and much more cost efficient, where it's like Dhar's doing a lot of the writing. Um, they have a lot of just, like, part-time talent that comes in periodically and acts. Uh, and then they also just, like, figured out how to do this with their own sets, so they're not renting space. Like, they actually built their own sets in, uh, in, in LA, and they're just, just reusing the same sets. I mean, if you watch a lot of Dhar Mann videos, you'll see the school. You'll see the, the movie theater. Uh, there's a, there, there's, like, a gas station. There's a lot of, like, staple sets-

Shaan Puri 52:45 [laughs]

Reed Duchscher 52:45 ... that just continue to show up, and they do a really good job just repurposing those sets.

Sam Parr 52:50 That's amazing. I can't believe th- I remember seeing this guy when he was coming up. I never in a million years would have bet that this would've been a good one. What, what are, uh, what are some other businesses out there that you've seen that are just shockingly interesting?

Reed Duchscher 53:01 So this wasn't... It, it's not a ch- channel that's a business yet, but I, I stumbled upon it a couple weeks ago. It's called Ryan Hall Y’all, and he was a former meteorologist, and it's, like, a channel based on just, uh, what weather, uh, is happening across the country.

Sam Parr 53:19 [laughs]

Reed Duchscher 53:19 Uh, different things that you should know about, like the hurricane season and how it's gonna affect the, the, like, uh, s- the Southeast. And, you know, it's a... I'd, I'd seen channels try and do this in the past. He's the first one that's gaining, like, tremendous traction, and you can see it in the views per video. You know, it's like two, three million views per video just on d- talking about different weather patterns. And this, this is one-

Sam Parr 53:41 Wow

Reed Duchscher 53:41 ... that could, I think, become pretty interesting long term, whether he decides to build something on top of that. And I'm, I'm guessing it's, like, a very, uh, minimal team. It's probably him plus an editor.

Shaan Puri 53:53 What is he doing? Because, uh, weather's so local. People, you know, what do I care about the weather in Toledo, right? Unless there's a natural disaster, like, you know, what do, what do I care? So how is he, how is he doing this? This is incredible.

Reed Duchscher 54:04 More, more of, like, the talking about just the whole, the things that you should know about tornadoes, or these are the most dangerous, uh, weather patterns of the year, of the month. So he talks more holistically about just the entire industry. It's not really localized. I mean, I'm sure he could start localizing channels, but that becomes a much smaller opportunity. You have to, you have to make these videos appeal to everyone, and he's done such a good job of that.

Shaan Puri 54:28 Right.

Reed Duchscher 54:28 But these, these type of, like, little niche channels that start to pull a tremendous amount of views pop up every single month on YouTube. I mean, the vending machine one was something that I went down that rabbit hole, and farming. I went down the farming rabbit hole as well.

Sam Parr 54:40 What one are the, what's the farming and vending machine ones?

Reed Duchscher 54:43 Yeah, so farming, Cole The Cornstar. I'll, I'll hit you with a few ones. So Millennial Farmer-

Sam Parr 54:47 [laughs]

Reed Duchscher 54:47 ... is probably the one that- I watch the most, and, uh, I grew up on a farm. And so it wasn't that interesting to me because I kn- I know all the stuff that he's doing. But for a normal person on the coast who is... doesn't know about, you know, cultivating or, or anything like that, I think it's, it's really interesting to them. And so he's one that's, it's more, I think appeals more to an older crowd. Uh, Cole The Cornstar is another one that probably appeals to a little bit younger demographic, where it's a little bit more like-

Sam Parr 55:16 That's a nice name

Reed Duchscher 55:16 ... pranks and things like that on the farm. Uh, and then Lauren Farms, a female channel, also kinda showing, like, in the, in the daily aspect, um, of just what do you do on a farm. And so there, there really is a space for all types of content on the internet now. That's why the, the argument of the internet is so oversaturated, it's hard to break through as a creator, like, I just have never bought that argument. Because on TikTok and YouTube Shorts, I'm seeing things that continue to break through on a weekly basis, and then people are figuring out how to turn it into an actual channel that's profitable. And we're seeing it with people like Ryan Hall Y'all, who, you know, nobody would've ever thought that a, a channel about the weather could pull 3 million views a video, but yet here he is doing it time and time again.

Sam Parr 56:02 Well, that kinda makes sense. The, one of the comments on Ryan Ha- uh, Ryan Hall's video, it said, uh, "Man, the Weather Channel has really lost its way. I'm so excited that Ryan is, is doing it this way." Which is funny that someone, like... And that was actually the most up-voted comment, which means a lot of people pay attention to The Weather Channel, enough so to actually, like, wonder if it's lost its way or not. Uh, so it kinda makes sense, where you can just look at, like, what are, like, for example, you could be like, well, Court TV. Court TV has been around for... or C-SPAN. Some of these things have been around forever. You could go and look at what their revenue is. You could see, like, what's interesting about them, what's not interesting about them, take a new spin. So Weather Channel's owned by, uh, it's that, um, the guy in Hollywood, Byron Allen. I think he was an actor.

Reed Duchscher 56:40 Mm-hmm.

Sam Parr 56:40 Now he's, like, one of the richest Black men in America. He owns Weather Channel. I think they still make, like, $500 million a year in revenue. So, like, a great business. We had, um, we were friends with this-

Reed Duchscher 56:50 Yes

Sam Parr 56:50 ... guy named John who, who was the president of BuzzFeed, and he told me, he was like, "Man, if you look at CSNBC, they only have, like, 50,000 concurrent visitors or, or, uh, viewers on their, on, on the channel, but they make this much in revenue. I'm gonna create that, but for Facebook Live." And he ended up launching Cheddar and sold it for hundreds of millions of dollars. And so, like, this is, like, a interesting strategy of just, like, looking, like, which channels have lived for 50 years and are doing good, but they're just kinda, like, been doing the same thing over and over and over again for a while. So it's kind of an, actually an interesting strategy.

Reed Duchscher 57:21 Totally agree. Like, bu- building a new Weather Channel, I think is incredibly complex and complicated, but he definitely has the type of distribution that could start that business. I think then it's just, like, you would need to find a partner to help him probably execute that. But yeah, that, that's, I think, why I found the, the channel so interesting, is like, I go to The Weather Channel. I even have a widget on my iPhone that, like, pops up from... It's, like, aut- automated from The Weather Channel. It gives me the weather every single day. I was like, "I would much rather download a Ryan Hall Y'all widget that, like, gave me the weather."

Sam Parr 57:51 Totally.

Reed Duchscher 57:51 I would much rather support that, um, than The Weather Channel. And so yeah, I think there's a much, there's a pretty interesting opportunity there for him.

Sam Parr 57:58 You'd made a comment. You said something like you would bet that YouTube will be five times more valuable than any other platform combined in terms of value to, from a creator's point of view, of the type of business you can build on top of it. Um, y- you know more than I do, but Shaan and I had made this argument, like, a year and a half or two years ago, where we're like, "Man, Twitter's, like, happening in the tech field." But there's not really, like, a, a, uh, what's the Kardashian lady? Uh, the Jenner, the... There's not, like, one of the Jenner persons who have, like, launched this, like, Instagram business that became a billion-dollar company off of Twitter yet. But we think that there's gonna be something there. And then Shaan was like, "Yeah, there's, like, the guys on, uh, the guy mafia on Twitter. There's, like, the strip mall guy. There's, like, the storage guy. And they're actually, like, raising a, a significant amount of investor money to create some of these companies." Do you... Have you been playing around with Twitter and seeing, uh, like, some of the micro influencers? And the, the, the major difference is instead of, like, um, what you do, which is more pop culture, uh, this is a little bit more B2B and, and much older. But have you paid attention to, like, Twitter and played around with the idea of one of these folks, whether it's, like, uh, Sweaty Startup, our friend Nick Huber, who's got, like, a 400,000 following, about them building, like, pretty big companies on the back of Twitter as opposed to YouTube?

Reed Duchscher 59:15 Yeah, I've seen it. I'm actually not surprised, because I've, I've been pretty outspoken of social platform, where do you build the most fan loyalty across social, and I've seen that Twitter is at the top of the pyramid in terms of fan loyalty. Like, a, a Twitter follower that will comment on your tweets is much more valuable than a casual viewer on TikTok or Instagram. Because usually, like, they actually care. And so I think people are now sh- starting to figure that out, that, oh, Twitter's actually incredibly valuable if you can start gaining traction and start to get people that, that really engage. It's also, it's an older demographic, where I think the one thing that YouTube is really struggling with right now is, you know, yes, there's people like Ryan Hall, and there's people like Millennial Farmer who are appealing to maybe a 20 to 30-year-old, but there, it's, it's much more s- suited for an eight-year-old, uh, to watch content. Whereas Twitter, to me, is like, I spend most of my time on Twitter. Uh, the people that I meet on Twitter, like, I would buy products from i- if they actually promoted something. And so I just think that Twitter for me has been really interesting from just a fan loyalty perspective. Uh, it's just the depth of the platform. Whereas Instagram and TikTok to me have been more casual. Uh, I, I buy things on Instagram, but it's rare. And TikTok is, like, my mind share. It's like, every single second I'm seeing a new video. I don't even remember the names of the channels that I see on TikTok. They just come and go. Like, I, and I, when I'm at different events and I see a lot of TikTok creators, I, I recognize them because I've seen them on TikTok. I have no idea what their TikTok channels are, which is bad.

Sam Parr 1:00:48 [laughs]

Reed Duchscher 1:00:48 But I will remember, like, someone's Twitter at. ... uh, that I see and I'll be like, "Oh my gosh, that's at..." whatever it is. I, I, very rarely do I say that about TikTok. And so I just think that the depth of consumer is just much different on Twitter.

Sam Parr 1:01:01 Who would you buy a product from? Which of the, quote, "Twitter creators" would you buy a product from? Or rather, who are some of your favorite follows?

Reed Duchscher 1:01:09 I mean, I met Blake Robbins, which we've, you know, did a podcast together. I met him on Twitter. That was how we met. I thought his tweets were incredibly interesting. I thought as an investor, he was talking about a lot of things that interest me. And so if Blake would've sold anything three to four years ago before I knew him, I would've instantly bought it because he had, he had built up that, you know, loyalty. I had that loyalty of like, I not only agreed with a lot of things he was saying, I thought it was really interesting to the point where I would take time to comment or like that tweet. And I, I have a lot of those now just that I follow on Twitter. And then, uh, you get to like the [beep] of it that are getting hundreds of thousands of likes and I think, you know, now then you have the bots and you have a lot of internet trolls and stuff like that. But where Blake kinda sits is in the 30,000, 40,000 follower range, and a lot of those people care about what he's saying. And then the, the word of mouth becomes really interesting, where someone says, "Hey, I use an Eight Sleep mattress. Um, it's changed my life." If someone like Blake or you guys tweet that, I'm gonna be like, "What is an Eight Sleep mattress? I should probably figure out why they like this so much." But if someone on TikTok is like, "Oh, my Eight Sleep mattress, blah, blah," I probably just scroll past it and don't even think twice about it. Um, so that, that to me is like something that I've noticed.

Sam Parr 1:02:26 I tweeted out that I love Eight Sleep. Like, I, I don't have any affiliation with them. Um, I just had one of their mattresses and I tweeted out how much I loved it, and then right away their team reached out like, "Hey, can we do an affiliate deal?" Or-

Reed Duchscher 1:02:36 [laughs] Yeah

Sam Parr 1:02:37 ... "Do you ever wanna partner together?" I'm like, "No, man, I just, I'm just talking about cool shit that I like." And so-

Reed Duchscher 1:02:41 Yep

Sam Parr 1:02:41 ... but they said they, they said they s- they sold a lot of mattresses from that tweet.

Reed Duchscher 1:02:45 Yeah, the people that follow you also can afford the product. They, you know, probably have been following

Reed Duchscher 1:02:50 you for a long time. They trust what you say because you guys aren't shilling a ton of stuff constantly. So when you authentically talk about a product, it's like people pay attention. It's like Tim Ferriss, right?

Sam Parr 1:03:00 Totally.

Reed Duchscher 1:03:00 Like, I, I, I used to pay a lot of attention to what Tim Ferriss was using and talking about on Twitter.

Sam Parr 1:03:05 Are there any other good follows that you, that you have that, uh, you, you could see launching a business and succeeding?

Reed Duchscher 1:03:11 Um, I mean, you guys mentioned some really good ones. I... It's, it's not a, a platform that I pay a lot of attention to in terms of individuals, like, that can grow businesses. I think I'm, I'm much more suited for YouTube. I live in the depths of YouTube every single day. Twitter for me is, like, following people I know.

Sam Parr 1:03:27 Right.

Reed Duchscher 1:03:27 You guys, my friends, like other people in the business sphere. Um, but we'll see. I, I hope they're able to grow businesses on top of it. I, I have a lot of confidence in Twitter just as a platform to grow fan loyalty.

Shaan Puri 1:03:39 What, what about Threads? We didn't ask you about Threads.

Reed Duchscher 1:03:43 I... If you guys look at the Google Trends for Threads, it's not looking good. I also saw a graph this morning on daily active users for Threads that just, like, fell off a cliff. And so-

Sam Parr 1:03:51 It plummeted

Reed Duchscher 1:03:51 ... it's, it's re- I don't know. It's-

Shaan Puri 1:03:53 But that's predictable, right? Like-

Reed Duchscher 1:03:54 I, I didn't have a lot of faith in it. Um, but we'll see.

Shaan Puri 1:03:57 I don't think that... I, I see a lot of people talking about that, and I think their takeaway is like, "Oh, it's not working," or, "It failed," but, like, that was always gonna happen. Even... Whether Threads is gonna succeed or not, if they got 100 million people to download the app, any app, look at the Twitter app will do the same. If you get 100 million people in a day to download the thing, you're going to churn, like... You know, 80% of them won't just start using the app regularly, habitually, uh, right away. So, so to me, I see that and I'm like, "This is completely normal," and ha- like, to me, has no... Uh, like, that was gonna happen either way. Um-

Reed Duchscher 1:04:33 Mm-hmm

Shaan Puri 1:04:33 ... there, there was no chance that 100 million people are gonna download it and 100 million people are gonna keep using it next week. That's... Uh, no app in the history of mankind ever has worked that way. And so the question is, like, what happens, I don't know, uh, three months from now once they get their kind of core base of users? Does that start growing or not? And what... Like, you know, w- there's no way to know until, till then.

Reed Duchscher 1:04:55 Yeah, totally agree. Uh, I, I haven't logged on. I logged on the first day I downloaded it and haven't really been on since, so I, I... There's also, like, you know, me-

Shaan Puri 1:05:03 Did you tell your talent to, like, keep an eye on it?

Reed Duchscher 1:05:06 No.

Shaan Puri 1:05:06 Or what'd you tell your talent?

Reed Duchscher 1:05:08 No, we honestly don't care. Uh, it's up to them. Most of them will download it and will post on it and see if they like it. I think we're... we'll wait. Like you said, it's gonna take months to figure out if this is gonna gain traction. I think most of them are just gonna patiently wait. I don't think any of our talent's gonna fully lean into Threads. They're, they're better off putting their time into making amazing YouTube videos.

Sam Parr 1:05:28 We did this video, Shaan and I did this video, like, two weeks ago or a week ago, where we were talking about how we liked that Zuck did this and we were Team Zuck, and, uh, Shaan, we, we officially have a new nickname. I don't know if you saw this in the comments of YouTube, but we are-

Reed Duchscher 1:05:40 No

Sam Parr 1:05:40 ... o- officially now Zucks Cuck. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:05:44 [laughs] That's plural.

Sam Parr 1:05:45 That is-

Shaan Puri 1:05:45 Both of us. [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:05:46 Zuck- Zucks Cucks. They call us Zucks Cucks. Uh-

Shaan Puri 1:05:50 The T-shirts are getting printed. Uh, we should be all right. [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:05:52 I don't know, like, how we are his cuck. Does that mean we are having sex with his wife or-

Shaan Puri 1:05:57 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:05:57 ... or is he having sex with our wife?

Shaan Puri 1:05:59 No, no, it's more PG. It's more like the Mighty, the Mighty Ducks. It's like we're the, we're the Mighty Ducks.

Reed Duchscher 1:06:03 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 1:06:03 We're this, this, this, uh, this small group of people who really believe in this thing that everybody else kinda, uh, has written off or hates. [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:06:11 Yeah, but we're a cuck, so I don't know who's-

Shaan Puri 1:06:13 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:06:13 ... who's having sex with whose wife, but something is happening there of which we are involved in. Uh, we are officially Zucks Cucks, which I'm okay with. I, I... Then yeah, I'm a Zuck cuck, for sure.

Shaan Puri 1:06:24 [laughs]

Reed Duchscher 1:06:25 Gee, well, it... Once, once they box or fight MMA, like, I'll be in Elon's side of the, the octagon, so maybe we- we'll, we'll say hi to you guys or-

Sam Parr 1:06:32 W- will you really? Bro-

Reed Duchscher 1:06:33 I think so. I think, I think-

Sam Parr 1:06:34 ... I will bet you a, a largest, a large sum of money that if that ever happens, that Zuck would crush him.

Reed Duchscher 1:06:39 I... Yeah, I guess I... In terms of who would win, I mean, just looking at the pictures that Mark posted with Israel Adesanya and, uh, Volkanovski, it scares me a little bit if I'm Elon Musk, but I still... Like, I gotta support Elon, so win or lose.

Sam Parr 1:06:53 Do you, um- L- uh, last couple questions, but w- what would you sell Night Media for right now?

Reed Duchscher 1:06:59 I wouldn't. I created Night because I really enjoy it. I... What would I do if I sold Night Media? Become an investor? Like, I already get to do that, so I, like-

Sam Parr 1:07:09 Yeah, but, but there's, there's always... There's gotta be a number. What do you think it's worth?

Reed Duchscher 1:07:14 Um, man, I don't know, to be honest. Uh, it, it all depends on how you value the subsidiary lab's businesses. I mean, I could probably... I know what the core management company is worth, and what the subsidiary businesses are, I think, is, like, where it could flex quite a bit. But I don't know, I enjoy it. Like, I, I think if I, if I sold Night, the acquiring business would have to make me the CEO. Like, if we sold it to an agency, like, they would, they would have to make me the, the CEO of that major agency or management company, because I actually enjoy doing this. Like, it's not something... Like, I didn't start Night Media to sell Night Media. I started Night Media, so I was like, "I really enjoy what I... I really wanna do this." I, I find fulfillment in it. I have a venture capital fund. I get to invest, I get to start businesses, I get to be entrepreneurial, I get to be a manager, and I get all the perks of being a manager. Uh, I, I don't wanna do anything else right now. That might change in a few years. Who knows, like, what time will do? But yeah, I don't know. I, I wouldn't sell. We've had offers. Like, I just wouldn't sell it, so.

Sam Parr 1:08:17 Well, what, what, um, hundreds of millions of dollars, I would assume. Lo- low-

Reed Duchscher 1:08:21 I wouldn't sell it-

Sam Parr 1:08:22 North of-

Reed Duchscher 1:08:22 ... for hundreds of millions of dollars. There's no chance in hell

Sam Parr 1:08:24 ... That's, that's wild. That's a good... That... You're in a good position to be in, right?

Reed Duchscher 1:08:28 Yeah. I mean, there's just...

Reed Duchscher 1:08:31 I feel like we're... I said this about Feastables. I, I feel this about the whole company in general is we haven't even got started. It'd be hard for me to, to sell this thing with the amount of upside that I see over the next, like, five years. I, I could see a partnership of some sort. I don't think I could just fully sell it and walk away or have, like, an earn-out over multiple years right now. Not yet.

Shaan Puri 1:08:56 Well, you raised $100 million, or you received $100 million from-

Reed Duchscher 1:09:00 Yeah

Shaan Puri 1:09:00 ... Chernin in a separate fund to buy consumer businesses that you could then kinda, like, plug in YouTube distribution into, something like that. I think that's the idea. Can you explain the big idea there and what... U- if you've done anything with that yet?

Reed Duchscher 1:09:17 Yeah, so Labs will, will start a business zero to one. Uh, Feastables was started ground level, raised capital, hired the CEO. Night Capital is more fixated on finding a business that's generating cash, that maybe is doing $5, 10, $15 million a year, and we think we can come in, uh, probably buy a majority stake in that business, roll some creators or a celebrity onto the cap table, and expand what that business is doing or just continue to grow that business. It's, it's very similar to what Chernin does and is doing with Cars & Bids and did with Barstool and Hello Sunshine and all these other businesses.

Sam Parr 1:09:55 Yeah, they've done that tons of times.

Reed Duchscher 1:09:56 Yeah, a massive opportunity for us to do it as well, but just because we understand this creator ecosystem and just internet pop culture so much better than anyone else. And so that ideally is, like, why, why we did Night Capital. We're not in a hurry to, to do a deal. I think the economy's been something that's scared us a little bit, and everyone that did deals in 2022, I think, is really regretting a lot of those. Uh, and so we're just patiently waiting for what that thing is gonna be.

Sam Parr 1:10:20 Well, dude, we appreciate you doing this. You're the man. Um, it's always... I li- I like just hearing, like, what you're tinkering with. You have a very, uh, interesting, uh, perspective on things. What do you think, Shaan?

Shaan Puri 1:10:29 Yeah, this was fun. Um, and I'm glad... Uh, I don't know how well we stuck to our mission, but I think we-

Sam Parr 1:10:34 It was pretty good.

Reed Duchscher 1:10:36 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 1:10:36 It was pretty good. Uh, we'll bleep out every mention, um, because this is the zero clout podcast. Zero clout chasing podcast, and, uh, we have a no clout policy [laughs] and we did not, we did not wanna do that.

Sam Parr 1:10:50 Wait, but do we have to use his face on a thumbnail?

Shaan Puri 1:10:52 No, we're gonna blur it out.

Sam Parr 1:10:54 What?

Shaan Puri 1:10:54 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:10:55 I think we have to put, like, his face and then Reed's face next to it and blur out Reed's face, and the thumbnail's like, "The man behind the scenes," or something ridiculous.

Shaan Puri 1:11:03 [laughs]

Reed Duchscher 1:11:04 I'll, I'll let you guys figure that one out. I mean, there's plenty of things that went well-

Sam Parr 1:11:07 No, you gotta figure it out. We don't know how to do it.

Reed Duchscher 1:11:09 Oh, here we go.

Sam Parr 1:11:09 We suck at YouTube.

Shaan Puri 1:11:10 [laughs]

Reed Duchscher 1:11:10 Nah, you guys-

Sam Parr 1:11:11 We suck at-

Reed Duchscher 1:11:11 ... you guys are killing it, so.

Sam Parr 1:11:12 No.

Reed Duchscher 1:11:13 I, I-

Sam Parr 1:11:13 Uh, YouTube is... We have way more downloads on, uh, on, like, the actual podcast, uh, you know, uh, iTunes and stuff like that. Uh, we suck at YouTube.

Reed Duchscher 1:11:20 I mean, I would argue that a listener on iTunes or Spotify is probably way more valuable than a single listener on YouTube in the podcast genre. So I, I think what you guys are doing is incredible, um, and I, I would continue to focus on listens across other platforms. I wouldn't, like, hedge too highly on YouTube at the moment.

Sam Parr 1:11:37 I agree. That... We've, we've, we, like, went hard on YouTube for, like, the last 12 months, and now it's like, oh, man, actually the podcast number, that just steadily grows every single week, whereas YouTube, it's a little, it's a little lumpy.

Reed Duchscher 1:11:50 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 1:11:51 I'm the opposite.

Reed Duchscher 1:11:51 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 1:11:51 I love YouTube. I think it's great. I think I-

Sam Parr 1:11:53 I-

Shaan Puri 1:11:53 ... just like the comments, I guess. I like the feedback loop.

Reed Duchscher 1:11:55 I love it too, but I, I do think that... I, I consume your guys' podcast on Spotify, so.

Shaan Puri 1:12:01 Yeah. It's... I guess that's what you get used to. Once... W- wherever you consume it, you're like, "This is a good place for things." [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:12:06 Indeed.

Shaan Puri 1:12:06 And so yeah, you know, that's where things go. All right, Reed, thanks for coming on, man. Where should people, uh, follow you or find you? Uh, shout out wherever you want people to go.

Reed Duchscher 1:12:14 I mean, we spoke a lot about Twitter, so it's just ReedJD on Twitter. Um, and then, uh, I, I probably am the most active on Instagram in terms of, like, answering messages, so, uh, same thing, ReedJD on Instagram. So I appreciate you guys. Thanks for having me on.

Shaan Puri 1:12:27 See ya. [whooshing] It is Producer Ben's last day, uh, last day producing an episode. This is it. This is your, uh, your Michael Jordan shot against the Jazz. Will there be a Wizards comeback?

Sam Parr 1:12:41 In six.

Shaan Puri 1:12:41 I don't know. W- but, but this might be your walk-off.

Sam Parr 1:12:43 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:12:51 All right, here's the rules. You can't say anything about next chapter or adventure. I don't wanna hear that.

Sam Parr 1:12:57 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:12:58 And, [laughs] um, you can't generically say you learned so much. If you say you learned so much, you better tell us exactly what you learned. All right? Those are the rules for this speech.

Sam Parr 1:13:07 Okay. Great. Um, so the next, the next thing for me is basically

Speaker 1:13:12 Focusing on How to Take Over the World, getting the podcast as, as big as possible. Speaking of things... Taking over the world with How to Take Over the World. Speaking of, like, things I learned when I was here, I think, um, people talk a lot about focus, right? And focus is maybe easier when things are not going well because if focus is about saying no, the world is, like, saying no to you. But when things start going well, all of a sudden the world is, like, saying yes to you. You have all these opportunities, right? And, uh, so that was, I think, one of the things that happened to me early on when I came on My First Million. All these people were like, "Oh, Ben Wilson, the new hot thing. Do you wanna try this? Do you wanna do this? What about YouTube? We, uh, we should make some Shorts. You wanna do TikToks?"

Shaan Puri 1:13:52 [laughs]

Speaker 1:13:53 And I was like, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I wanna do, like, all these things," right? And so I had all these kinda half-finished projects that ended up not going anywhere 'cause I was maybe a little too dispersed in my attention. So now it's like, no, no, no, just let's get the podcast to be one of the best podcasts in the world. That's all I'm focusing on for the next year, and then we'll see what happens after that.

Shaan Puri 1:14:19 There's nothing better, quitting your job when you have [laughs] twins, let alone even one baby.

Speaker 1:14:26 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:14:31 What kind of, what kind of responsible Mormon are you? I mean, well, how, uh, w- what kind of decision was this? Reckless, at best. [laughs]

Speaker 1:14:39 Well, I mean, it's, it's not like I'm starting from zero, right? It's not like I have an idea for a podcast. Luckily, uh, you guys have, um, put me in a position where the podcast is doing pretty well right now. So even if I have a bad year and, and it doesn't grow that much, like, I'll be fine. And if it goes really well, then things will be great. So it's a little bit of a risk, but not an existential risk.

Shaan Puri 1:15:01 And do you have a, I don't know, message to the fans? What do you... How, how do you wanna leave us here? Where, where, where do you wanna go with this?

Speaker 1:15:06 So obviously the first message is go follow How to Take Over the World wherever you get your podcasts. You'll love it.

Shaan Puri 1:15:11 My man.

Speaker 1:15:12 I guess, um, the, the, the most important thing is thank you guys. My life changed, uh, however... a year and a half ago when, uh, when you guys brought me on the show, and I called it the, the ride of a lifetime, but really, like, I didn't know if I would be able to make a living as a creator before you guys brought me on here. Now, now I know that I can do that, at least in, in some capacity. And so my life has completely changed, so, so thank you. This has been amazing, uh, and I've loved doing it. And, uh, to everyone who has, like, supported me, been such a fan, cheered for me, uh, on the podcast, like, thank you to you guys, to you listeners as well. It's meant a ton, and I've loved it. So I guess that's the last thing. I'm just very, very grateful for this opportunity I've had.

Sam Parr 1:15:53 The reason I didn't, like, celebrate you leaving, 'cause I'm like, "You're not really going anywhere."

Shaan Puri 1:15:56 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:15:57 You'll be around. Uh, [laughs] if... You're just gonna be unemployed for a little while, and hopefully-

Shaan Puri 1:16:02 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:16:03 ... uh, it works out. But I'm sure it will be, and I'm happy you kinda came in our lives. Uh, this wa- i- it's fun having you around. Uh, well, we're hiring for a producer-

Shaan Puri 1:16:10 [laughs] Yeah

Sam Parr 1:16:11 ... by the way.

Shaan Puri 1:16:11 Speaking of-

Sam Parr 1:16:11 We [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:16:12 ... we, uh, we kinda-

Sam Parr 1:16:13 Speaking of

Shaan Puri 1:16:13 ... need a producer now. [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:16:16 [laughs] Yeah. Uh, so we're u- we're using one of, uh, Shaan's Filipino assistants-

Shaan Puri 1:16:22 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:16:22 ... for a little while, but I don't know if that's gonna work out. Uh, but yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:16:25 My mom is trying to download Audacity this morning-

Sam Parr 1:16:28 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:16:28 ... so we'll see what we can do. [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:16:31 [laughs] Yeah.

Shaan Puri 1:16:32 We-

Sam Parr 1:16:33 So we need a producer. But yeah, Ben, uh, we love you, and thank you for everything you did. You, uh, you were mostly decent at a handful of things.

Shaan Puri 1:16:41 [laughs] The, the-

Sam Parr 1:16:43 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:16:44 Ben's like, "This was the ride of a year and a half, I gotta tell you." [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:16:48 Uh, yeah. [laughs] It was a leisure walk. Uh, but it was fine enough. Uh, no, Ben, you're amazing. Uh, I, I l- I still listen to all the pods, so that's how I know that, uh, it's a good podcast that you're doing.

Shaan Puri 1:16:59 Yeah, I'm glad you're doing this because we need more episodes. Uh, like, if you go... I've listened to all the episodes, I just need more episodes, so this is good. I'm glad you're doing this. Um, thank you so much for everything that you've done. You've brought a lot of, uh, I don't know, good support and good energy to, to what we do. We make it very easy for me and Sam, 'cause we just get to show up, perform, and then not think about it aft- Like, as soon as we hit done, me and Sam don't really have to think about anything, and, uh, that's because of you and a bunch of other people behind the scenes. And so, uh, thanks for everything you've done, man. And we will all go in solidarity. The gentleman's agreement today, you don't subscribe to us. You go subscribe to How to Take Over the World. Fantastic podcast. It basically talks about, I don't know, great conquerors and people who achieved greatness and great things. Ben goes and reads, like, 50 books s- and then just summarizes it into one awesome podcast story, one hour, so that you don't have to go read all those books, and you get the story from him. So it's an amazing, amazing pod. Go, go subscribe.

Sam Parr 1:17:56 Thanks, Ben. Talk soon. [outro music]