The Simple Newsletter Making $20M+ A Year With 1 Employee

1. 0:00 – 0:45

   Intro

   1. SPSam Parr0:00

      Kevin, the interesting thing about you is, like, you've got this massive newsletter business. It's all about farming and agriculture.

   2. KTKevin Van Trump0:07

      Yeah. We're probably in the 30 to 40,000 range on paid subscribers.

   3. SPSam Parr0:10

      Wait, did you say, like, 30,000 subscribers at $600 a year? You gotta tell me everything.

   4. KTKevin Van Trump0:17

      [laughs]

   5. SPShaan Puri0:18

      What about the other tech? So, like, I've seen people do these, like, Fitbit for cows.

   6. KTKevin Van Trump0:22

      Yeah, we think that that's gonna be prevalent throughout. We think you're gonna blockchain the farm, is what we're calling it in our world.

   7. SPShaan Puri0:27

      What are the things you're excited about now? Where do you think the opportunity is?

   8. KTKevin Van Trump0:30

      I think-

   9. SPSam Parr0:31

      [upbeat music] All right, Kevin. What's going on, man? We're here. So I have, I have gotta do a quick story on how we met.

2. 0:45 – 2:05

   How Sam met Kevin, then got his mind blown

   1. SPSam Parr0:45

      So about four years ago, I think we're in Scottsdale, Arizona, at the Design Pickle conference. I just get done doing this talk about how The Hustle is, like, doing pretty good. We're at a million subscribers, whatever. At the end of the talk, I just walk backstage, or I walk in the back of the crowd. You're wearing a Ramones T-shirt and, like, uh, shorts, and you walk up to me and you're like, "Hey, nice little talk you did there." And I was like, "Oh, thank you."

   2. KTKevin Van Trump1:07

      [laughs]

   3. SPSam Parr1:07

      And you've got this co- you've got this confidence about you. And you're like, "So how many subscribers do you have?" Uh, and I was like, "Uh, I think a million," or something like that. And, and you go, "Well, you know, that's pretty nice. I got a little newsletter myself. Uh, we're doing okay. We got about 30,000 subscribers." And I was like, "Oh, that's, that's a good start." And you said, "Well, how much do you charge people to read The Hustle?" And I'm like, "It's free. Uh, I make money via advertising." And you're like, "Oh, you don't charge?" And I was like, "You do?" And, uh, you go, "Yeah, we charge about $600." And I ... It takes about 10 seconds, and I'm, like, doing the math, and I'm like, "Wait, did you say 30,000 subscribers at $600 a year?" And you're like, "Yeah, what do you expect?" And turns out you've got this massive newsletter business, and I was like, "What's the newsletter about?" And you're like, "Oh, we talk to, uh, farmers. It's all about farming and agriculture." And I'm like, "Wait, hold on, man. You've gotta tell me everything here." And that's when my mind was blown, and I was like, "We gotta get you on." And it took about four years, but finally we made it happen.

3. 2:05 – 4:35

   Shaan's reaction at his 1st Farmcon experience (Corn futures and options trading)

   1. KTKevin Van Trump2:05

      I appreciate it.

   2. SPSam Parr2:06

      Shaan, what did you think when you met the Van Trumps and got, got around his people?

   3. SPShaan Puri2:12

      Man, I would just call it a series of amazement and confusion. I showed up, and first of all, it's called Farmcon, so I think the conference is gonna be a bunch of farmers. By the way, at this point in my life, I don't think I'd ever met a farmer. Uh, I, I had grown up, you know, overseas. I lived, uh, I live on the coast. I had never really met a farmer. So I thought it's gonna be about farming and, and whatnot, and, um, instead, it's actually about investing. [laughs] So that was the first part that I was amazed and confused about, was I walk in, and it's a talk going on about options trading, corn futures, and, and it was so far over my head. And I was like, "Wow, wait. These guys are actually talking about crazy Wall Street stuff. What's, what's going on here?" And then over time, I met a bunch of people. The conference was amazing, and they were like, "Well, what are you doing here?" And I was like, "I don't know. I got [laughs] ... I don't farm, and I don't trade commodities, so I'm not really sure, but I'm here to talk. Uh, I have a talk scheduled tomorrow, and I'm here to just be out of my comfort zone, be out of my bubble," because I had only been going to tech conferences. When I was doing my research for this pod, I learned that you actually kind of did a similar thing, which was that y- there was a period of your life where you wanted to shake things up, and you started just going to different conferences or trade shows that were totally unrelated to what you were doing and what you were familiar with. You kind of intentionally put yourself in that to, to just shake up your worldview. Is that right? Can you talk a little bit about that?

   4. KTKevin Van Trump3:33

      Yeah, for sure. That's how I met Sam. I mean, we were at this ... I don't even know what the hell it was. My son had called and said, "Let's just make it where we make ourselves go to different things, make ourselves uncomfortable, get out of our comfort zone." He called me and said, "Hey, there's this conference in Phoenix." Mom wanted to go to Phoenix and out there. And I said, "What is it?" And he said, "Design Pickle." I said, "What the hell are we..." They had people speaking at it. We're doing, like, hair. You know, they're a hair drying business, and they had all kinds of crazy stuff. I said, "Okay, I'll go." Shit, next thing I find myself walking around the courtyard of this place, holding another guy's hand. Like, you know, shit I never do here in the Midwest.

   5. SPShaan Puri4:06

      [laughs] Right.

   6. KTKevin Van Trump4:08

      What in the hell is going on? You know, they had us doing some weird stuff. And, uh, and yeah, and that's where I met Sam. And so yeah, each year we try to go to different thing, just to get different perspective, different views. You know, we just believe in, in trading and investing, it's all about perspective. And, you know, you can get blindsided a million different ways. And so I like to be around the younger people to help broaden my perspective because, you know, we always say in our business, "It's the old bear and the young bull." As we get older,

4. 4:35 – 5:00

   The farmer's theory of the old bear and the young bull

   1. KTKevin Van Trump4:35

      we tend to get more bearish, just because we don't, we don't understand as much as we did when we were younger. You know, when we were younger, we were aggressive, and we knew the latest, greatest things. And now that, uh, we get older, most of my older hedge fund friends and traders, uh, we're more cynical and bearish just by nature, it seems like, 'cause we just don't understand a lot of the newer stuff, so.

   2. SPShaan Puri4:54

      Well, I'll give you two things that came out of it. Number one, after Farmcon, me and Ben at, in the lobby of the hotel

5. 5:00 – 6:25

   How Kevin's newsletter inspired Shaan to start Milk Road

   1. SPShaan Puri5:00

      while one of the talks was going on. It was another corn futures talk that was going over my head. I said, "Hey, let's just hang out in the lobby real quick. I just gotta get out of here. I don't, I don't understand what the hell these guys are talking about anyways." So we go to the lobby, and we had talked to you about your newsletter business. And we go, "You know what? We should create a newsletter business around what we're, what we're interested in." And we were very interested in crypto at the time. We had been kicking around this idea, but we hadn't really had the momentum, the, the energy to just, like, create it from scratch, to birth that baby. And so only in the lobby of the hotel were we like, "Let's do this," and we named it Milk Road, which was kind of like a farmy sort of name anyways.

   2. KTKevin Van Trump5:34

      Yeah.

   3. SPShaan Puri5:34

      It, it all came together in the lobby. And then a year later, we sold that business for millions of dollars. And so I, I gotta credit you in a way, because we had had a conversation with you the night before, and you told us ... You're like, "All right, guys. I gotta go back to my room. I gotta write the newsletter." And we were like-

   4. KTKevin Van Trump5:47

      [laughs]

   5. SPShaan Puri5:48

      ... "You still write the newsletter? Like, surely you've hired a team of people." And you're like, "No, I, I write the newsletter myself. Um, I've written it..." I think you had written it for, like, some absurd number, like 18 straight years or 20 straight years. You hadn't missed it, and it was you writing it every single day. Is that right?

   6. KTKevin Van Trump6:05

      Well, I have a, a girl I used to work for at the Kansas State Board of Trade, Stacy Grape. She's out in LA. And, uh, she helps me with a lot of the content and a lot of the thing- I write corn, beans, wheat. I write the up top comments. She, she helps with those. And then I write the stories down below. So it's her and I usually tag-teaming the whole thing, to, to give her credit, and she's been, she's been awesome,

6. 6:25 – 8:05

   Breaking down The Van Trump Report ($18M ARR run by 4 ppl)

   1. KTKevin Van Trump6:25

      but-

   2. SPSam Parr6:25

      Let's explain, though, a little bit. So your main thing is The Van Trump Report, so vantrumpreport.com. It's a daily newsletter that is ... It's a great read. I actually have read it for a while. And it's, talks about, I call it for farmers, but it's way beyond that. So it's agricultural-based information, but for farmers, but also for people who are trading commodities. And you have said that, uh, politicians read it to understand a little bit about what's going on in that world. And you've told me, I don't remember exactly what you said. You told me that it was doing something like 30,000 people paying something like $600 a year, and it's basically just you writing it. Which if you did that math, if that's true, that's like $18 million a year in revenue from a newsletter. Is that right?

   3. KTKevin Van Trump7:09

      Yeah, it's just myself. Uh, there's about four of us on our staff here. Uh, a friend of mine that used to be a golf pro, uh, [laughs] a buddy that I went to school with, uh, Stacy out in California, and my son, Jordan, on this side of the fence. My wife does, uh, bookkeeping with our accounting team. But that's really it. And like you said, yeah, I did the newsletter and just, you know, wanted to write about what I was interested in and, and everything that kind of interests me. And so, you know, that's, that's really what we do and what we put out. Yeah, we've got several congressmen, senators, a lot of big trading groups, hedge fund people. And yeah, prob- 35, we're probably in the 30 to 40,000 range on, on paid subscribers today.

   4. SPShaan Puri7:48

      It's also got like five pages of memes in it, which I love 'cause I was like, I would read it and the first part was cool. It was commentary on where you think the market's headed and it's written the way you talk. It's very informal. It's, it's a straight shooter type of vibe, which makes it fun to read even if it's not your shtick. And then it's got a bunch of memes, which made me laugh, and I was like, "This is hilarious

7. 8:05 – 12:28

   Rural farm kid gets into trading

   1. SPShaan Puri8:05

      that, that you chose to do that." Was the product we see today, is that basically how you started it? Is that what it was at the beginning? And how did you get it off the ground? What was the ... How'd you get the initial momentum with that?

   2. KTKevin Van Trump8:14

      Yeah, pretty much. So I, my, married my high school sweetheart. We were both from a small rural town here in Missouri. And I go to work for a group that was contract with the NFL, do camps, combines, clinics. So I'm traveling all around the country. Got a really cool job making no money. My wife kind of lands her dream job in Chicago. And, you know, we didn't come from any money, neither one of our parents or anything. We didn't have any money really so to speak when we were younger. So my wife gets this job. She was gonna run the Eddie Bauer out on Michigan Avenue. They was gonna be their premier store and all this. So we thought, "Man, this is gonna be great." You know, we go up there and I didn't know anything and, uh, some of my friends in the NFL are like, "You gotta get in the trading business." Shit, I didn't know anything about trading. And I said, "I'm a small rural town farm kid. Played a lot of sports all my life." And they said, "Well, we'll get you this interview." I go get an interview with this guy, and the guy just kind of looks at me, he's like, "Damn, you're a big, tall guy." Uh, and I s- I was probably about 6'4" and 350 at the time. And they're like, "You, you like to fight?" And I'm, "What the hell kind of interview question is this?" You know, I'm like, "What? What?" And I said, "Yeah, sure. Shit, I go out every weekend, you know [laughs] what I mean? Get in a rumble or two at the bars." And they're like-

   3. SPShaan Puri9:17

      [laughs]

   4. KTKevin Van Trump9:17

      ... "Yeah, you're great. We're, you're hired." And I said, "Well, what am I doing? I don't even know what the hell I'm doing." They're like, "Oh, everybody will see you on the floor. It'll give us a little edge and an advantage." So, you know, I started at the very bottom. They wanted me to be a phone clerk, you know, and then moved to where I was in, or getting orders off. So I meet a few people. They start me off, I go over and I'm trading Swiss francs, D-marks, and foreign currencies over at the Merc. And then I flip back over to the board and I was trading treasuries and-

   5. SPShaan Puri9:41

      So wait, Kevin, this was back when you used to have to kind of push and shove your way with the, with the papers-

   6. KTKevin Van Trump9:46

      Oh, yeah, yeah

   7. SPShaan Puri9:46

      ... getting your trade off?

   8. KTKevin Van Trump9:47

      Oh, yeah.

   9. SPShaan Puri9:47

      And they were like-

   10. KTKevin Van Trump9:47

       Yeah, it was-

   11. SPShaan Puri9:48

       ... your size was actually an asset?

   12. KTKevin Van Trump9:50

       Yeah, big- big time. The, the ... You know, they'd hire basketball guys, ex-football guy. There'd be fights break out all the time on the floor, and so.

   13. SPSam Parr9:57

       All right, guys, really quick. So back when I was running The Hustle, we had this premium newsletter called Trends. The way it worked was we hired a ton of analysts and we created this sort of playbook for researching different companies and ideas and emerging trends to help you make money and build businesses. Well, HubSpot did something kind of cool. So they took this playbook that we developed and we gave to our analysts, and they turned it into an actionable guide and a resource that anyone can download. And it breaks down all the different methods that we use for spotting upcoming trends, for spotting different companies that are gonna explode and grow really quickly. So if you want to stay ahead of the game and you want to find cool business ideas or different niches that most people have no idea they exist, this is the ultimate guide. So if you want to check it out, you can see the link down below in the description. Now, back to the show.

   14. KTKevin Van Trump10:42

       Then we got off the floor where we were, uh, ARB and minis. Uh, e-minis first came out. We were ARB and minis against bigger S&Ps. And then really my strong suit became really, uh ... More people got interested in grains, corn, because they started using corn as ethanol and things like that. So a lot of our big energy traders and friends, they didn't know anything about the Midwest, you know? And so it was all just foreign language to them. So they would keep asking me questions. And then I would go back home to my small rural town where the farmers were playing dominoes in the morning, you know, up and getting breakfast or co- And, you know, they'd be like, "Hey, city slicker," you know, "Tell us what's happening here in the corn, bean, or wheat market or cattle market." And I would do, like you said, Shaan, I, I would just dumb it down to my, you know, my back home speaking in more of a blue collar and just tell them, "Hey, here's what they're really meaning or saying." And so in '07, I just ... It was before that a little bit when the, the government came out with the RFS. That's where they turned corn into ethanol. I started writing a newsletter, kind of just for myself, a journal. I'd said, "Hey, I'm going to be a better trader and better investor. I've listened to a lot of people. Uh, I've been broke twice on a couple of deals, and it's like, let's do it the right way." So I started journaling and I said, "Hey, I'm going to send my notes out to friends." And then it started circulating back to me. It was coming from guys at Goldman and different trading firms, and it was circling back to me. And I told my wife, I said, "Shit- We were investing trying to do some, uh, oh, storage units at the time. So I thought, "Hell, I'll send it out for 40 bucks a month. It'll be like a storage unit deal. Let's just see if people will buy it or pay." And, and it just kind of took off and went nuts from there, and we've never advertised, and we're in about 45 countries now, and-

   15. SPShaan Puri12:22

       All the growth was organic then?

   16. KTKevin Van Trump12:24

       All of it, yeah. We've never advertised one time.

   17. SPShaan Puri12:26

       [laughs] I love it. And then you have

8. 12:28 – 13:50

   Farmers operating at the highest level

   1. SPShaan Puri12:28

      the conference, the thing that I went to, and I think it was originally called the Van Trump Conference. You renamed it-

   2. KTKevin Van Trump12:32

      Yeah

   3. SPShaan Puri12:32

      ... to FARMCON. And for those of you who don't know, you are like a god at this thing. It was really inspiring to see s- because you weren't trying to be, uh, you know, the, the front and center of it, but you could just tell you had so much respect from the community. People really appreciated this gathering 'cause they were getting a lot of value out of it. And you ran it like a family affair, and you got your son there, and he's got his swag business, and so the, how did the FARMCON thing come about, and is that, like, a big part of the business? Why do you do it?

   4. KTKevin Van Trump13:02

      Yeah, you know, it kind of... Well, it started off just myself and probably 30 or 40 friends, traders, investors. We'd get together once a year, drink some beers, and tell each other what our favorite trades or favorite investments were. And they loved coming to Kansas City 'cause it was kind of an anomaly, you know, we're used to being on the coast in New York or California. So they'd come here, and it would be kind of fun. And so they would start to invite their friends, and we all had investments in land, uh, bigger land investments and different investments. Next thing, we had a lot of hunting and fishing guys were coming, and just people that owned big farms, and they were flying their private planes in. And so yeah, then we just kind of blew up, and they started telling more and more of their friends. And hell, next thing, we started selling out most everywhere we'll have it at. You know, it's, it's really cool. You know, fun time.

   5. SPSam Parr13:49

      Can we talk

9. 13:50 – 16:18

   Ag Swag

   1. SPSam Parr13:50

      a little bit about kind of like your empire and what it is now? So you've got the publishing business, the newsletter, and then you have this thing called Ag- AgSwag, which is a merch company. Is that right?

   2. KTKevin Van Trump14:03

      Yeah. Let me back up to, uh, to be clear. You know, some of the people grandfathered in, we started charging $40 a month, 400 a year, or 40 bucks a month. Then we went about eight years ago to 660. And we have some people that white label the report and send it to their, uh, their businesses and their staff and things like that. So that's all in the mix. But yeah, so I had a friend, uh, Dave Krumholz. He recently passed away. He was the CEO of Payless Cashways, and Dave came back here to Kansas City. He started a business consulting company, and then he got hired, uh, at a place called American Identity. And I said, "Dave, what the hell are you doing at a company called American Identity?" I said, "Don't they just sell like hats and tchotchke stuff?" And he's like, "Yeah, a private equity company bought them, and they're gonna dress it up. They want to have a, you know, big executive team, so they're bringing me in as the CEO." And he's like, "I think we'll have a good exit." Well, about three, or I think it was three or four years, they sold to Staples, I believe. It was undisclosed, but I think it was close to $8 billion. They sold to Staples. And I said, "Holy shit." I said, "Who, what do, what'd you guys do over there at American Identity?" And he said, "You know, we made hats, shirts, and tchotchkes." And I said, "Well, who the hell are your biggest clients?" And he's like, "John Deere, ADM, Cargill." I'm like, "Oh, shit." I said, "I know all those people. I know all the, you know, all the farming community, ag people." And, uh, he says, "Well, I tell you, you know, if you ever get where you guys are gonna start something or launch something just under the radar, non-intrusive business, you know, this, this would be a great way to get something rolling." So I told my son, Jordan, when he got out of college, or he was about out, I said, "Hey, if you ever, if you want to try something on your own, I got an idea." I said, "I've come up with a name, AgSwag." And I said, "You know, we could probably spin this off and take care of a lot of our clients and just provide a lot better service and, and be a lot, you know, more fun and friendly and, and give people some great fresh ideas." And so we launched AgSwag, and it's, you know, just a swag company that provides hats, things of that nature to people really specifically in the ag world. We do other things, but that's really our ... Jordan's forte. And, uh, he's running that. He's hired an art team. He's got about four or five artists. Uh, my daughter came back to help him. He's got, you know, a team of logistics people, and I think they're gonna do, he said somewhere between 25 and 30 million this year. So you know, they're, they're growing like crazy and, you know, every day. If we wanted to pull up a little slide, I can walk you guys through a little bit of the business model on that.

   3. SPSam Parr16:16

      Yeah, let's do it.

10. 16:18 – 19:00

    The Van Trump Business Model "People buy value not price"

    1. KTKevin Van Trump16:18

       You know, this is just a simple example. You draw, you know, you have your, your scale of uniqueness on the left and your scale of total value on the right. And so if you go to your far right, you have high value and low uniqueness, right? And then you're asking, "What the hell would that be?" And that, that's like a tire business. I always use that example. Like, you know, people have to have it, so it's not unique, but there's high value because everyone, you know, nobody wants to kill their family and they need damn tires on their car, so they want it to be good. That, if you see your business in that aspect, you know you're in a low-gross business model, meaning you're gonna have to be a, a low-cost provider. You're gonna have to do volume, and you know that's gonna be your play. If you get up into the upper right quadrant, and this keeps me out of a lot of bad business deals, here you have low value but high uniqueness. Um, you know, you start to ask yourself what, you know, what is that? Uh, remember when Snap or Google came out with the glasses, those glasses or-

    2. SPShaan Puri17:15

       Spectacles, yeah

    3. KTKevin Van Trump17:15

       ... I always saw them back in my day, like a laser disc. You know, you, you know you're, you're gonna be cost a lot of money to educate the masses. It's gonna cost a lot to get it to market, and there might not be any longevity in it. So you got to be careful in, you know, not a lot of value but high uniqueness. That's a tough spot to play in. Now you get over to where Apple likes to play or some of the others, you go high value, high uniqueness. That's something like an iPod. 10,000 songs in your pocket, you know, that was their main stick, and it's like, that's where you can create high gross. That's where you can create high margin, and that's where you can make a lot of great things happen. Obviously, lower left corner, uh, you're, you're an idiot i- if you're somewhere in there.

    4. SPShaan Puri17:55

       [laughs] No value, no uniqueness.

    5. KTKevin Van Trump17:57

       You're making so bad ... Yeah, you're ... You know, and I always say on there, people buy value, not price, and this one's a hard one to understand for a lot of people because if I went into, uh, Walmart and I put a whole bin of laser disc in there and I put them for sale for 5 cents, I mean- Bag it. Nobody's gonna buy them just because there's no value to them. You know what I'm saying? Now, maybe there is a little now because people are looking to sell some of those types of items. But I'm just saying you, you have to be aware. People buy pri- ... People buy value, not price. And so you can make the price as low as you wanna go, but if it's just not good, it's not good. And I see people get trapped in that a lot in real estate and some other things. So, you know, this is where we try to, we try to categorize the business deals when they come down the pipe, where this is at and how this is gonna play out. 'Cause it's never the soldiers I send in at first, right? It's never the first money we send in on the deal. It's how many more soldiers are gonna get called into duty and, uh, and maybe never come back home into my bank account or come back, you know, missing limbs and arms. And so it's like-

    6. SPShaan Puri18:58

       [laughs]

    7. KTKevin Van Trump18:59

       ... you, you have to be

11. 19:00 – 20:43

    The customer continuum

    1. KTKevin Van Trump19:00

       careful, I think, in that aspect. You know, it's, it's that ... 'Cause, um, my wife all the time is like, "My gosh, we're writing more capital call checks." But we kinda know when ... If we can categorize in this way, we know what we're getting into. Where we went with Ag Swag, what's critically important, we believe, is knowing your funnel. So your light users, there's obviously you're gonna be able to get more market share on your light users. As you move down the customer continuum, that would be your heavy users. So as Shaan pointed out, that would be John Deere or that would be a Cargill. Now, we ... What you have to understand in all businesses, you're always gonna be pulled to the right, so you're always gonna be pulled to the high user and low gross. They're gonna try to get you over there. If s- if people like what you have, they like what you're doing, they're gonna take you over there more to the right and, you know, try and beat you up on your price, try to beat you up on gross because they say they're a heavy user. That's why it's really imperative for most people, you don't wanna get an order from Lowell. You know, you don't want to go that way because it's next to impossible to get your business back to the left, and to the left is where you're gonna see a lot more profitability, a lot more high gross. A- and so we try to position Ag Swag in the middle away from the John Deeres and ADMs. So we've had calls from them wanting ... Their play is for us to, you know, store all of their merch for the year. We ship it out. It becomes a logistics business. The gross shrinks up to nothing, and we've got a, you know, a real ... You know, you know, we're running a real people business then where we've got a lot of hands and a lot of touches. So we've tried to stay out of that space as much as possible early on so we can create and build more smaller accounts, smaller business owners, and people like that where there's more fragmentation for us, so.

    2. SPShaan Puri20:42

       You have these other

12. 20:43 – 23:57

    Poker vs chess

    1. SPShaan Puri20:43

       slides that I really like. So you have this, uh, this poker versus chess one that I loved. Um, can you, can you talk about this one?

    2. KTKevin Van Trump20:50

       Yeah, you know, I just think ... You know, they talk a lot about life being like chess, or a lot of times you'll hear people talk about those things. You know, um, you know, I say life's more like poker than chess just because the cards are face down and a lot of luck's involved a lot of times. So, you know, you can be the greatest, have the greatest skill in the world, and I've met some of the most brilliant, brilliant people, but if they don't catch any breaks or don't catch any luck, and you know, it, it, it becomes tough. So I think you have to remind yourself, and that's what we were kinda talking about earlier. If you think you're a genius and you're, you're just smarter than everyone else, I think you run into a ton of problems and a ton of roadblocks. That's where I think, you know, you have to look at it more like poker. Like, you know, you catch l- you're gonna get lucky every now and then and get on a run and get on a little heater, and, and sometimes, you know, that's when you really have to, to push and go all in, is, is when, when your, when your luck's going your way. When, when you feel like you, some of the things aren't going your way, you gotta pull way back. You know, that's not when you double and triple down. That's when you kinda hunker down and let the storm clouds pass and, and hopefully your luck will shift-

    3. SPShaan Puri21:47

       Right

    4. KTKevin Van Trump21:47

       ... and turn around a little bit.

    5. SPShaan Puri21:48

       Well, it seems like there's three, three parts to the poker thing, right? There's the cards are, are face down, so there's a lot of unknowns, unlike chess. Then you're talking about l- luck and variance. That's the second part. But then the third part was you said that the, the amateur players just play too many hands. A pro only plays, you know, 15 to 20% of their hands, but an amateur's playing half the hands. And so the trick is actually just to pass on the average opportunity to save room for the huge opportunity. And that's, that's the other one. D- and I think Warren Buffett calls this waiting for the fat pitch. He's like, "There's no called strikes. You can let 50 opportunities go by and just pass on them. Even if there were some good ones in there, it's okay as long as you just, when you do swing, you swing at the right ones."

    6. KTKevin Van Trump22:29

       100%. I, I 100% agree. I mean, you know, we use that analogy. We use the Ted Williams thing all the time. There's, Ted Williams has a batting chart, and Ted Williams was one of the first persons to go and document all of his, where he would hit balls and where he could ... You know, what his percentage was if it was high and outside, low and inside. And he figured out where his sweet spot was. And, and Williams would just sit and wait for his pitch, and when he got it, he, he, you know, knocked shit out of it. So it's similar to what you're saying.

    7. SPSam Parr22:54

       You, you talk about, uh, luck, and you say passing on the average opportunity to save room for the huge opportunity. And with your trading, uh, what have been opportunities that you've thought were huge that you pounced on, as well as maybe some that you didn't because you thought they were average?

    8. KTKevin Van Trump23:09

       Yeah, tons. I could go through those like crazy. And, uh, you know, but I, I agree with that, and we've, we've talked about this, myself and a lot of my trading friends. It's that as we've gotten older, we've, we've learned. We can look back through all of our documents, tag docs, and everything. I mean, the more trades we made, the worse year we had it seemed like. The fewer trades, by far the better of a year. And, you know, now we're trading even less and less and less, and I know, I think some of our readers kinda probably get discouraged of these. They want the action and everything. But, you know, it's like wrestling. You know, as a great wrestler, a, a high school or college wrestler, they're super patient. They wait for the, the market, in this case, to make a mistake. Wait for the market to get out of, out of aligned or over-leveraged or over-tilted, and then you come in and you try to make a play. Uh,

13. 23:57 – 25:04

    The decision to do nothing is still a decision

    1. KTKevin Van Trump23:57

       y- you know, most all your money is made ... The greatest traders will tell you all your money's made sitting. You know, sitting and waiting, and it, and it's incredibly hard to do. The decision to do nothing is a decision, and in our world, uh, a lot of times it can be the best decision you could possibly make, so. You know, and as far as, like Sam saying, you know, we, like I said, we were early with Bitcoin. We were early with Tesla I was trading when Amazon first came out and we had 30,000 shares of Amazon like right out of the hole, and I went negative on it. I'll never forget the story. My wife and I shit, we didn't have enough money to pay attention at the time, and we were sitting there t- they, I had this position on, it went against me and I said, "Man, if this thing just gets back to even..." And Amazon traded like three, four bucks a time. It got back to even and I blew out and I mean it would have been like, you know, the craziest trade of all times if I'd have stuck with it. But I wouldn't have stuck with it probably. You know, I'm a trader, so it's like-

    2. SPShaan Puri24:48

       [laughs]

    3. KTKevin Van Trump24:48

       ... you can't, you can't beat yourself up saying, "Man, if I would've just stayed in that or not stuck with that." And I think a lot of people do that to themselves. You know, it's a psychological game and y- you just wanna try not to beat yourself up and not get down on yourself, 'cause that, then it, then it gets hard to fail and, and recover, so.

14. 25:04 – 28:20

    Trader v investor

    1. SPShaan Puri25:04

       What's the case for being a trader versus a investor? 'Cause if you read about all the investing greats, they all kind of poo-poo traders a little bit. They're like, "Oh, you don't wanna be a trader, you wanna be a, you know, a, a buy and hold guy. You wanna buy, find a great b- asset and then sit on it for a long time." Am I just only reading the advice from the investors and that's why? Or is there something to what they're saying?

    2. KTKevin Van Trump25:25

       No, you're absolutely right. I mean, there's plenty of trades I've been in that I've become an investor because th- they went against me and we just kept holding and holding and holding, right?

    3. SPShaan Puri25:33

       [laughs]

    4. KTKevin Van Trump25:34

       So it was meant to be a short-term trade, but turned into a long-term, uh, you know, just ass-kicking. So it's like-

    5. SPShaan Puri25:39

       [laughs]

    6. KTKevin Van Trump25:39

       No, I agree. My job though, I was a trader, so you know, I was at the floor, I was at the exchange, I was at the Kansas City Board of Trade guy, you know. And so my whole job revolved around trading and fairly quick movements in the market. I was never, I did own a day trading firm at one time, uh, and you should just see, you know, the success rate on people day trading, it was just a miserable business. So we don't day trade, so to speak. We'll be more swing trading. We'll be multi-days in a trade. You know, the commodity markets are a little different. For every buyer there's a loser, and they're a little different than stocks. And, and there's expirations on the contracts. So you know, we're, we're more short-term oriented, but we're also longer term investors like you would say, Shaan. I do think, I advise my kids, my own kids, this exactly what you're saying. You know, no, unless you're gonna be full-time and you really want the belly aches, I wouldn't advise probably, you know, trading or trying to time market movements. Uh, like I said, I, I'm more with Buffett, you know. I, I think, you know, everybody's trying to beat the indexes. I mean, everybody's trying to beat the S&P or the NASDAQ. And year in and year out, that's tough to do. And you know, so I think, you know, as a passive investor, a long-term hold is probably a, a, a good play for, for the majority of most peop- uh, and, and that's the way to build wealth.

    7. SPSam Parr26:50

       How many years have you beat the index? How or how long you been doing this? 20 or 30 years? H- Do you think that you've beat the index?

    8. KTKevin Van Trump26:56

       You know, I mean, the years that we beat it, we beat it by a mile because we get lucky in some certain position or some certain stock. And year, like this year I'm, I'm trailing. I have decent amount put over into, uh... You know, we're still in a lot of CDs at five and a quarter or 5%. And you know, a lot of our wealth building has come from real estate.

    9. SPShaan Puri27:14

       That's just buying land, farmland, or what are you buying?

    10. KTKevin Van Trump27:17

        Buying real estate. You know, we have everything from commercial properties to single families that we've turned into various Airbnbs. Uh, yeah, land, farmland, regular land, those have been our biggest winners.

    11. SPSam Parr27:30

        Has the majority of your net worth come from the income that the newsletter has produced, or has it been from trading?

    12. KTKevin Van Trump27:37

        So I think there's two ways you can do with your business. You know, when you're making money, you can either take the money and reinvest it back in your business, which we didn't do. That was kind of my play. I'm like, "I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna take my money and then I'm gonna put it out and see and try and invest in other people's businesses." And you know, and we've, we're, we're partners with a, a firm, a private equity firm called Isolic. So we're early investors in ag tech startups and some biotech. And so we've had a ton of losers, but they've all led to meeting new people, uh, learning new things, and then that in turn comes to something else that, that... So you know, we try to grow our revenue and then take that revenue and invest it in various other vehicles a- and other sources.

15. 28:20 – 32:37

    How most people should be building wealth

    1. SPShaan Puri28:21

       What's the, uh, like, sentiment like amongst the people that are reading the newsletter or would come to the conference? You know, are people bullish right now? Are they optimistic? Are there big headwinds or tailwinds? What's going on in the food producer world?

    2. KTKevin Van Trump28:34

       Yeah, you know, it's, it's pretty dark right now over in our world, so, so to speak. The, the big jump in rates was obviously, uh, kind of a real pinch for a lot of our ag tech startups and a lot of the people just in agriculture in general. So you've had a big jump in rates. And then we also have, you know, a little bit of a glut right now. We have a pretty burdensome supply of corn. We're over 2 billion bushel supply of corn. You know, we got a about 500 million bushel supply of beans coming down the pipe. And-

    3. SPSam Parr29:00

       W- Sorry, that, that means that last season overproduced?

    4. KTKevin Van Trump29:04

       Yeah. You know, we had a good year last year. Uh, South America's coming off a, a pretty good year. Argentine, like for example, Argentine production doubled, uh, from what they had. They had a big drought, uh, last year, had some production problems. Brazil's got a little bit of... They're down from a little bit. But China, like, so China right now hasn't been a buyer of US, uh, new crop beans, haven't booked any, any cargos, uh, which is unusual. So we're worried. We got this election coming up. A- anything can happen. We're not sure how China's gonna play it with Trump coming back into the mix. Are we gonna have a bigger hit on tariffs? So when Trump was in office, we had bean prices go d- break pretty considerably 'cause, uh, we got into a pissing match with China and, you know, they're the number one buyer of beans in the world. So it's, we're kind of trying to weigh this thing out here and see how things are gonna shake out. But we do have some new things on the front. We got sustainable aviation fuel. So soybeans are now gonna be used to make sustainable aviation fuel, which is gonna be a big one. We're trying to push to get corn to where the corn production is gonna also be used to make sustainable aviation fuel. There's a few pipeline issues that need to be addressed and some things like that. But we're moving for more food for fuel is becoming more, a little more prevalent, so we're seeing more countries move to that for cleaner energy sources. So we're seeing more utilities and more usage for traditional crops, and we're seeing more utility and more usage for land. We were just seeing a ton more buyers and bidders come in for land. People wanting to put in solar, you know, solar fields, uh, to create energy, wind fields. Uh, there's just a lot more utilities being used now for data centers. We're seeing a big push through the Midwest on companies wanting to build these massive data centers, uh, really through the glut of the Midwest. And we think it's kinda like Cushing to Oklahoma where we store our oil. Now we think data is gonna be kinda the new oil, and so we're gonna try and store our data here in the US centrally into the Midwest. So we're seeing a big push in some farm ground being gobbled up for, uh, big data centers.

    5. SPSam Parr31:03

       My father is a, a produce broker, so he owns a small brokerage where, like, let's say that over the course of 20 years he's sold $100 million worth of onions, you know, over the course of 20 years. The, the, the margin is like 5%, like, so he-

    6. KTKevin Van Trump31:18

       Yeah

    7. SPSam Parr31:18

       ... he'll, he'll make $5 million over 20 years, whatever, if you sell $100 million worth of onions. So it's a huge quantity, but in that space, he's a small dog, you know, really tiny. But I remember during '08, like, I remember I was only, uh, 17 or 18, I was watching the news and I was like, "You know, Dad, why do you seem like you're making more money now than, than before where everyone else seems to be going broke?" And he was like, "Well, look at the corner of our kitchen. There's onions and potatoes there. Like, people are still gonna buy this stuff no matter what. And then when the economy's going well, like, you're gonna go out to eat and I'll crush it then, too." So it was like I'm, I'm in a good business. And I remember thinking, like, as I got older, I kinda forgot about farming and I forgot about food and agriculture and I just, I didn't really think about it. But what I've learned is that over the years, that America is really good at two or three things, one of 'em being culture. So we export culture, like, amazingly well. So Hollywood is, like, our biggest export, I would say, or, or culture. The second thing that we do really well, we are so fucking good at growing corn. America is so good at growing corn. And I forget how important agriculture is to our, to our, our way of life in, in America. So when you're talking about some of these things about what China's doing, what Brazil is doing, if China's buying stuff from us, how big is,

16. 32:37 – 33:55

    Why the wealthy are getting into agriculture

    1. SPSam Parr32:37

       like, this entire industry that you're assoc- I mean, what percentage of the GT- GDP or economic value is it creating in America compared to other things?

    2. KTKevin Van Trump32:46

       Oh, massive. I mean, it's, you know, one of the ... And we're seeing more and more of the wealthy get into agriculture, and that's why I'm saying it's a really hot area and you're seeing, you know, the Gates Foundation, Buffett's group. Uh, well, Warren's, uh, son, uh, Howard, he used to be a big farmer, uh, and he had just recently gotten out and, uh, still owned the ground, but they're having some other people farm it and do some things like that. But yeah, seen a big, big push in more and more people being interested in ag and interested in food and where it's coming from. We're seeing, Shaan, what we're also seeing is more people going direct to the farmers now. Uh, just recently in the last few weeks we've seen more ranches come online, kinda form a little coalition. There's a group of about seven, eight good ranches down in Texas that are now selling direct to the public. You know, they were getting maybe ... They were getting minimal for their beef, uh, uh, you know, and now that they're selling direct, they're, they're really doing well and people like buying direct. And so-

    3. SPShaan Puri33:35

       Did you just buy off their website or, or they, there's some startup that's doing this?

    4. KTKevin Van Trump33:39

       Yeah, they have auctions. I think it's called Bid for Beef. [laughs]

    5. SPShaan Puri33:42

       I thought that was a dating site.

    6. KTKevin Van Trump33:44

       Yeah, yeah. You know, so they, I, yeah.

    7. SPSam Parr33:46

       It could be. Whatever you're into.

    8. KTKevin Van Trump33:48

       Yeah. [laughs] Yeah, but you know, they're starting to make more traction and we're seeing that across the board with other plays.

17. 33:55 – 36:00

    The succession plan for farms

    1. SPShaan Puri33:55

       What's going on with, like, farms that are ... Kids don't wanna take it over.

    2. KTKevin Van Trump33:58

       Yeah.

    3. SPShaan Puri33:59

       What does the succession plan look like? And, and is somebody solving that problem?

    4. KTKevin Van Trump34:02

       That's a huge issue, and that's being discussed heavily in, in the ag world, that, uh, you know, so you have a, this, this big succession, uh, rollover, I think. I don't know what the number, I can't remember off the top of my head. It's okay, 80% of the farms are owned by people over 60, you know, and it's, it's a really aging demographic. And a lot of the, the kids, you know, are, have other jobs or went off to great colleges and great schools and they don't necessarily wanna come back. So yes, there i- there is a, a, a big issue. And, and a lot of the people in the farming world keep their cards really close to their chest, and they don't really talk a lot openly with their kids, or they don't have a lot of great succession planning in place. And, and we're seeing that a lot. I think, uh, you know, we've tried to be super open with our kids and, and discuss everything and show 'em everything and say, "Hey, here's where everything's at. Here's what you need to know. Here's where you need to be." And, uh, you know, hopefully, you know, we tell our other friends, uh, it's a similar type thing. So yeah, succession planning is, is very important. Uh, and I think it's, you know, something that we all have to address as we own businesses, so.

    5. SPShaan Puri35:01

       Well, well, what, what do you think's gonna happen? Like, uh, if, if 80% of these are owned by people over 60 and a lot of the kids are going, like is this just gonna be private equity owns all the farms? Like, what, what, what happens here?

    6. KTKevin Van Trump35:11

       We are gonna see a lot of rollover and a lot of turnover. So in the farming space or when you're buying acreage, there's a, there's two bidders that are gonna come against you. The person whose farm butts up against you, they're gonna be willing to pay a big premium 'cause the land may only come available once in their lifetime. And so they're gonna be bidding heavily. So whoever's in close proximity, because as you know, driving the combines or driving the har- it, it makes a lot of sense to get a continuing piece of ground. And now you're also having, like, California Teachers Pension Fund bidding against you. You have other high profile, uh, fund people bidding against you. So yes.

    7. SPShaan Puri35:47

       Who runs it? They just place somebody to go live on the farm and, and run it?

    8. SPSam Parr35:49

       Well, Sh- Shaan, have you ever been on a farm?

    9. SPShaan Puri35:52

       No. [laughs]

    10. SPSam Parr35:53

        So-

    11. SPShaan Puri35:53

        I don't, I don't even know where I would go to find a farm. Where do you go? [laughs] Is there a map somewhere?

    12. SPSam Parr35:58

        So my, my, uh, my aunts and uncles and cousins

18. 36:00 – 39:14

    The economics of professional bull riding

    1. SPSam Parr36:00

       are farmers in Oklahoma, and they have like 2,000 or 3,000 acres. And they are, I guess they're ranchers. And so they own, like, 1,500 cattle, I believe. And a bunch of their cattle are, uh ... Shaan, you've probably never heard of this term. They're bucking bulls. Have you ever heard of ... You know what a bucking bull is?

    2. SPShaan Puri36:16

       I do not.

    3. SPSam Parr36:17

       So what they do is they, uh, the PBR, which is the Professional, uh, Rodeo Association, they If you get a good bull, a good bull can be worth, I don't know, Kevin, what, like 50 grand all the way up to a million dollars. And-

    4. KTKevin Van Trump36:29

       Oh, shit. Yeah, more than that. Some of them, yeah

    5. SPSam Parr36:31

       ... and, uh, these good bulls, you get... You make money in two ways. You make money because at the rodeo, the rider gets paid. So if you stay on a r- a bull for a certain amount of time, you win and you get paid. But the bull that bucks the hardest also gets paid, and that's like a, like a rating, rating system. And so there's like famous bulls that are known as, like, really hard-bucking bulls.

    6. KTKevin Van Trump36:51

       [laughs] Who's the Michael Jordan of bulls? It's Bushwacker. I mean, it's Bushwacker.

    7. SPSam Parr36:54

       It's Bushwacker.

    8. KTKevin Van Trump36:55

       [laughs]

    9. SPSam Parr36:55

       Bushwacker's been the best for a long time. No, Bushwacker's a famous bull. Uh, the guy who, uh, like dominated Bushwacker, what's his name? JR or something? He, like, just retired, I believe, right? What was that guy's name?

    10. KTKevin Van Trump37:05

        Oh, yeah. I, I, we've... My son played football with a couple kids that were PBR bull riders. They're very, you know, it's a lot there.

    11. SPSam Parr37:09

        They're insane.

    12. KTKevin Van Trump37:10

        Oh, they're nuts. Yeah.

    13. SPSam Parr37:11

        So m- m- my cousin and the family, this is what they do. And so I went and stay with them every once in a while. And we get up at, like, 8:00, and starting at, like, 10:00, you go to the feed store and you buy a huge amount of feed. You bring the feed back, you call the bulls, and you throw it all over, like the, like you, like, scatter it out throughout the, the, the area, and they come up and they eat it. And then on the weekends, they drive these bulls from Oklahoma to Texas, which is like 12 hours. And these bulls, when you put them into the truck, you would think a bull that you birthed and raised, like, they will literally be there when they birth this bull. But once the bull hits puberty, I guess, or it has balls, it wants to fucking kill you, no matter what. It doesn't matter-

    14. KTKevin Van Trump37:52

        [laughs]

    15. SPSam Parr37:52

        ... if you raised or birthed this bull, this bull wants to murder you every chance it gets. And so just to get the bull onto the truck, it's like a life-or-death situation every once in a while.

    16. KTKevin Van Trump38:02

        [laughs]

    17. SPSam Parr38:02

        Like, this... It's a 1,500-pound thing that w- that you gotta get into this truck, and they would drive these bulls all around the country, and they get paid, I think, four grand just to sh- as an appearance fee or something like that to show up at the PBR.

    18. KTKevin Van Trump38:14

        Wow.

    19. SPSam Parr38:14

        And then the other, the cows, the, uh, the females, and so they make their money by raising the cows that they sell for beef, and then the bulls, they either sell them to get bred, or they make money directly from the rodeo. And it's like a huge cash business. So my cousins and aunts and uncles, they'll always have a, a wad of cash because they'll go to the auction, and it's just, like, a really heavy cash business. They get, let's say, 10 grand for selling 10, 10 cows. They take that 10 grand, and they spend eight of it, like that day, on more cow feed. And so it's like a really heavy c- I, I'm probably getting some nun- numbers wrong, but they're... it's a really heavy cash business, and it's fucking hard. My cousin Sam would drive around, and he'd be drinking, like, Natural Light while he's driving his truck, checking on all the, like, on all the cows.

    20. KTKevin Van Trump39:00

        [laughs]

    21. SPSam Parr39:01

        Dude, it's a har- it's a hard living, and it's really fun. I've, like, spent time on there. It's been... It w- it's fun for me as a visitor, but it is a hard job to do this shit. You are working and walking constantly.

19. 39:14 – 41:15

    The come up of FarmersOnly

    1. KTKevin Van Trump39:14

       Yeah, you're right. And you know, I lost, I lost a good chunk of mo- not a big chunk, but I did what you said. Some buddies of mine came and said, "Hey, let's start raising these bulls to be PBR bulls," you know, rodeo bulls. Shit, I di- [laughs] I don't think I ever cashed one check. I think it just... It was a lot of fun. A lot of, like you said, a lot of drinking Natty Light and driving around in a pickup, checking on them, and you know. [laughs]

    2. SPSam Parr39:32

       Yeah, it, like, it, it's, like, fun, but it is fucking hard, and y- it, it's a very capital-intensive business. So, so what-

    3. KTKevin Van Trump39:40

       Hey, I'll give you one. I'll give you one-

    4. SPSam Parr39:41

       Yeah

    5. KTKevin Van Trump39:42

       ... that I, that was a big miss. Now, a guy came to me, and Sam will get a kick out of it. Guy came to me, that was probably 20 years ago, and, uh, 50, you know, the internet was just getting going. He said, "Man, I got this great idea." And the, the guy came in, and he was all suited up, and I said, "Well..." And he's an English major and all that. He says, "What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna build these websites, and I'm gonna hire a couple other English majors, and we're gonna write really eloquent descriptions of these cattle and these bulls and their stems," the stem that they call the sperm, you know. And he's like, "Then I'm gonna sell this sperm all over in Japan, all over the world." I said, "Dude, you're nuts. This shit ain't gonna work." You know, this was early on. Uh, dude blew it up. He blew it up.

    6. SPSam Parr40:19

       How, w- how do you eloquently describe the sperm of a bull?

    7. KTKevin Van Trump40:22

       [laughs] What's his, what's his website?

    8. SPSam Parr40:24

       I don't know. You know, the background, the lineage. I don't know. I have not followed him for a number of years, but I remember he came back through, and some people were like, "Man, this guy just..." Hey, I'll tell you one. We were at the Louisville Farm Show. They had me come down there to speak. It's US' world, uh, largest indoor farming show, and so I go down there to be the keynote speaker, and there's this little booth set up next to us, and they got all these Polaroids on this little 10-by-10 booth tent. And I go over to the guy, I said, "What the hell is this thing?" He's like, "It's called farmersonly.com." [laughs] And you guys have seen all of the ad- Man, I'm not shitting you, Shaan. We're, like, all making fun of him, and then the next year he comes, and he has, like, a 20-by-20 booth. And then-

    9. KTKevin Van Trump40:59

       [laughs]

    10. SPSam Parr41:00

        ... the next year he's there, and shit, his booth damn near as big as John Deere. I mean, his booth is massive. And we're like, "What the hell?" And then he's got Super Bowl ads, and it, it was just farmersonly.com. You're looking to marry a farmer, you know. That thing just blew up, and he... Shit, he turned that into a great deal, so.

    11. KTKevin Van Trump41:14

        [laughs]

20. 41:15 – 44:32

    How to buy a farm

    1. KTKevin Van Trump41:15

       When you, uh... L- so let's say I wanted to become a gentleman farmer and I wanted to go buy a farm. Walk me through that. So first, where would I find a farm? Uh, do, is this, like, sold, like, on Zillow, or is this, uh, brokers only? How do people find farms to buy?

    2. SPSam Parr41:28

       You know, some people are now investing fractally through, uh... I'm in, I'm invested in a company, Acre Trader, acretrader.com.

    3. KTKevin Van Trump41:34

       Yeah.

    4. SPSam Parr41:34

       So we buy farms. We even have farms out in your neck of the woods, Shaan. Um, out in, we have nut farms, uh, out in California. Uh, we have regular, uh, other row crop production farms through Bakersfield and that area through there. Um, you know, and all over the United States, you have various farms grow various different products, whether-

    5. KTKevin Van Trump41:52

       So a farmer is selling a fraction of their, of their farm.

    6. SPSam Parr41:56

       What happens at Acre Trader, we go in and actually buy the entire farm from a family, say they're wanting out or that's succession planning and they wanna leave. So we'll buy the entire farm, and most of the time we'll have a farmer in that area that has called us about the farm and said, "Hey, we don't have the money, but if you guys would wanna put up the money, we'd be happy to farm it for you and do revenue sharing, crop sharing, or some type of, uh, you know, split i- into the revenue." We're looking to just hold the ground for appreciation over a 10, 12-year period. The years you have good years, you have some really good years. Some years, though, you, you're gonna have some, some losing years. But over the course of time, 10, 15, 20 years, your appreciation on the land's gonna be

    7. KTKevin Van Trump42:33

       That's really gonna carry you forward, and that's what the ... That's what a lot of the hedge funds are looking for. A lot of the funds are looking for that longer term appreciation.

    8. SPShaan Puri42:38

       Well, what do, what do these trade for? Like, if I go buy a farm, what is the multiple you pay on a farm typically? Or would it be just price per acre?

    9. KTKevin Van Trump42:46

       Price per acre, and it's gone nuts lately. I mean, my buddy just sold ... His mom left him a chunk of ground that they had in their family, and he said, "Hey, what do you think?" And I said, "I don't, man. It's a great time." This was about seven, eight months ago. I said, "You know, farmers are flush with some cash." Maybe it was about a year ago. And he ended up getting 20,000 an acre down here outside of Missouri. Now, that's pretty rare off the books. You know, acreage around here typically go for, you know, five to 12 to 15. But if someone needs the ground or wants the ground, and it's a continuing piece of track to their farm, you can see guys get in a bidding war. And so you get bidding wars. Yeah, you can go out anywhere, look up farm ground. You wanna ... You know, there's a lot of things you wanna look for. Like in Kansas, you can't drill any wells anymore. You can't drill new wells. And so Kansas and Nebraska, there's a lot going on with the underground aquifer, and there's a lot of problems with, with water usage. And so, you know, we, we believe though, we like C and B grade ground. We like ground that's maybe in a floodplain, or we like ground that's, uh, water deficient because we believe that all the technology and the money from Gates's foundation or Buffett, they're, they're really putting their money into new technology that'll help grow crops in third world countries that have really poor soil. So you know, Iowa has the best soil. Iowa and Illinois, they'll argue with each other who's got the richest soil, and they've got great soil and great farms that you really don't have to do a lot to. Uh, you get to some of these peripheral areas though-

    10. SPShaan Puri44:13

        Yeah, you wanna be like these guys who you get a biker jacket, but you got no bike, right? Mm. That's, that's more of my, my vi- my lane. So I just need to know. Yeah. I'm asking questions just so I have the lingo in case I ever get pressed so that I, I can sound like I know what I'm talking about without actually knowing anything, uh, what I'm talking about. Yeah. You're, uh ... You have to get some land to match that Carhartt coat that you wanna get. [laughs] Yeah. I get, I get, I get

21. 44:32 – 45:18

    Wearables for livestock

    1. SPShaan Puri44:32

       that. Well, what about the other tech? So like I've seen people do these like Fitbit for cows where they're like, uh, you know, like the cow's a valuable, you know, asset, and, uh, you don't know if it's sick. You gotta keep driving around, keep checking on it. What if you could know before it's too late what tech is working?

    2. KTKevin Van Trump44:47

       Yeah. We, we ... It is, and we're invested in a few companies to do that, and they'll tag them. They'll tag the cattle. You know, because there is a push to have less antibiotics, less, you know, less k- uh, you know, shots and things into, into our, our food supply. So if you're able to identify when they have a fever earlier, you can get them segregated from the herd, get them away from the herd, give them the, give them the medicine that they need in a more timely fashion. So yeah, all those are great. You know, Zoetis, a publicly traded company, they're a leader really probably in the animal health space if you're looking for something a longer term play. We're invested in Zoetis.

22. 45:18 – 47:55

    Blockchaining farms

    1. SPShaan Puri45:18

       I have a business, Shaan, that my friend's working on that might interest you too, Kevin. So basically he's putting all ... He's put RFT- RFD? RFT? RD? RFID. RFID, sorry, tags on chickens and cows, and you know how like a chicken will, uh ... Like when you buy eggs it says free range, and you just kind of trust. You're like, "I guess that means a chicken was just like out walking around, which is better for me because it's somehow healthier." And now it's also like if you're, if you care about animals, you're like, "All right. At least I know it had like a better life," and whatever. But free range, I think that it's a technical term actually, where they ... It has to have a certain amount of space, but I don't think that it's actually necessarily always followed. And so what he did was he's putting these, these tags onto cows and chickens. And so you know the beef that you bought, the tag number, and you could actually go and see how much did it walk around and where did it go, which sounds a little morbid and weird, but it's actually supposed to be like reassuring where it like, "Look, my farm is now ... You can hold my farm accountable to know that this meat was actually raised in the way that I promised it was going to be." And that's like an interesting idea because I think, Shaan, you said this. I think you said, uh, in like some period of time, 20 or 50 or 60 years, we're gonna look back at the way that we treated cows, and we're gonna be like, "That was pretty unfortunate. Like this, it shouldn't have been done that way where an animal is just born in a pen and never leaves, and then we eat them." And I, I actually agree with that. I agree with that sentiment where like the way that we treat certain animals, I'm cool with eating them, but it's, it's better to, better to let them have a certain life. And so this idea is kind of interesting to me.

    2. KTKevin Van Trump46:47

       Yeah. We think that that's gonna be prevalent throughout. We think you're gonna blockchain the farm is what we're calling it in our world. You know, you're gonna blockchain a farm, meaning the fertilizer companies and the input companies are gonna have to report all that, and you're gonna know what was put on whatever it is you're eating or, you know. And the reason they want to blockchain it is just like remember when Chipotle was having those issues several years back, you know, with some things. They wanted to be able to go right to the field, right to the spot, and know exactly what happened and what was put on and what time and where it was at. And so yeah, I agree with you, Sam. I think that's definitely where the world's headed and, and, you know, I think we're seeing farmers make that transition more and more. They're a lot more tech-savvy than people give them credit out in the world. They, they're very tech-savvy as a matter of fact. And, and nobody treats their animals ... I mean, my opinion, I have never been on a farm in my entire life that I seen any abuse to animals. I mean, nobody treats their animals better just because it's ... Generally, with typically the way they make their own living, the way they make their, their money, and they teach their kids to take care of the a- you know, they love them and show them at 4Hs and go all around. It, it, it's sad that they do get it such a bad rap in the media, uh, when I've personally never come across it.

23. 47:55 – 50:00

    Kevin's take on lab-grown meat

    1. SPShaan Puri47:56

       And what's your take on the alternative meat movement thing where, uh, in Silicon Valley there's a bunch of startups that are trying to grow beef from cells so that you won't have to farm the animal, you won't have to harm the animal to, to be able to have the same genetic meat. It should be virtually identical, genetically identical. Uh, what's your take on that movement, and is that where you think things are going?

    2. KTKevin Van Trump48:18

       I think there will be a segment of the space that continues to grow, and I think you're gonna see it continue to gain market share. I think as, as population shifts and moves out, uh, you know, as the baby boomers continue to age and move on, we get more people. I think you're going to see alternative types of pro- protein be developed, and I think As they get more money in the labs, they're getting better at reducing the cost and creating better flavor. And I think as those two things continue to move forward, just like with Tesla and Elon Musk, you know, i- it's, it's only a matter of time. Uh, how's everything happen gradually then all at once and, you know, it's like the electric vehicle. I think you have, you know, a lot fewer moving parts. It's a lot better than the combustion engine. I think you're gonna see things, you know, gradually gain more and more market share in-

    3. SPSam Parr49:05

       Well, have farmers taken to... Like, I always read the comments of, like, in Texas message boards and things like that. They, it, it does- it seems like it's 50-50 if, like, the rural community thinks that electric vehicles are, are worth it.

    4. KTKevin Van Trump49:18

       Yeah, right now at the time, no, because just the distance traveled. You know, a lot of folks that travel massive distances out in rural America, and so it doesn't make a lot of sense to them at the moment. I think eventually, yes, I think they'll see it have better torque, you know, better low end, [laughs] uh, get up and go out of the hole, and I think you'll see a lot more transition. I... Like anything, no- nobody wants to, I guess, let go of their heritage and their roots and, uh, you know. It's same with the fake meat. You know, a lot of farmers just bash it and wanna go nuts about it. I, I, I think there's definitely gonna be a place for it, and I think there's, it's gonna be able to gain and grow some market share. You know, probably, you know, as, as they get costs lower and lower, I think it, it'll be, you know, a way that we see things happen.

24. 50:00 – 52:35

    Opportunity zones: air, shelter, food, water

    1. SPShaan Puri50:00

       If you were 24 years old again and you had the entrepreneurial energy to go do something, what would you be, what would you advise that 24-year-old to go, to, to go do in this space? Where do you think the opportunity is?

    2. KTKevin Van Trump50:13

       I think there's gonna be a big push with air quality, air, you know, just the quality of air from this wh- whole virus, uh, just to testing for the viruses, and we're seeing a lot more testing take place in general, uh, just over the entire space. So I think there's gonna be a big push in things to do with air and creating good air quality. We're seeing a lot more kids that have asthma or asthma-related problems, and I think, you know, not just here in the United States, but I'm talking globally and taking some-

    3. SPSam Parr50:39

       But what's an example solution, what's an example solution of that from an agricultural, uh, uh, perspective?

    4. KTKevin Van Trump50:47

       Well, so, you know, well, we're big right now into the, uh, carbon market, so, you know, we're trying to reduce carbon footprints, and no one really reduces it much more than the, you know, giant corn field, uh, corn field, plants, you know, things of that nature. And so, you know, yeah, I think there's a big play and a big push into the carbon, trying to reduce, like I said, trying to reduce the footprint. Anything that'll help save energy, improve our water usage, improve water purity. You know, I think anything to do with the natural resources, they're just gonna become more heavily relied upon. If we transition all this to electric, I mean, the rare earth minerals are gonna be hard. They're gonna be scary. I mean, there's gonna be a lot of plays i- in, you know, what we see on the, uh, on that whole side and that whole front. So I think, you know, natural resources, things to do with natural resources, things to do with air, water, like I said, food quality. You know, we really love the blue collar space. I mean, I think we love, you know, like what Cody Sanchez has going on or some of the other things. We like the thought of buying blue collar businesses, uh, rolling them up, and, uh, you know, kind of packaging them up and selling them.

    5. SPSam Parr51:51

       Why do you like that? Because they're, they're retiring?

    6. KTKevin Van Trump51:54

       I think they're retiring. I think we didn't see near as many kids go into the trades as we had in the past. You know, my dad and my wife's dad, I mean, everybody was in trade back then. Now it was everyone's goal to go to college, so, you know, you just had a big lull, or a big, I guess, you know, where there's just a short supply of good, skilled people. And now we think you can go into that space, and we've tried it, uh, a couple times and, you know, where we can build out some things. And I think you provide people with good quality service and an onboarding process that, you know, you can cut your customer retention rate down to a feasible level. I, I think there's just, the sky's the limit on growth, you know, and I think you can-

    7. SPSam Parr52:33

       Do you use, Kevin, do you use TikTok?

25. 52:35 – 54:24

    New trend: trade schools

    1. KTKevin Van Trump52:36

       I, I'm on it. Yeah, I see it.

    2. SPSam Parr52:37

       Have you guys seen the, like, popularity amongst young people and the trades? Like, it's, it, like, peop- they glamorize it in, in a, in a, in a cool way, uh, and I think an accurate way, which is like, "I'm making however, 150 or $120,000. I, I just went to trade school two years."

    3. SPShaan Puri52:53

       Well, it goes so well on TikTok 'cause it's a, it's like a novelty. It's like going to the zoo. It's like, "Wow, you made that? You know how to do things with your hands? And that's what a carrot looks like when you, when it comes out? Like, that's incredible." Uh, swipe. All right, onto the next one. That, that was easy. [laughs]

    4. SPSam Parr53:07

       But, but I actually think that some of these young people are actually being influenced by this because they're like, "Shit, I graduated with 150 or 200 grand in debt, and I don't make anything remotely like that amount of money, and I'm sitting on my computer all day. Like, this might be a little bit more intriguing." And I don't have the, any data, but it does seem like young people are more open-minded to the trades than at least Shaan and I's, uh, like, graduating classes.

    5. KTKevin Van Trump53:31

       Yeah, I'm seeing that as well. We're hearing that from some of the younger kids that are opting not to go to college and they're going in to be a pipefitter or going into pipefitters union or the plumbing union or electrical union. So yeah, we're, we're definitely seeing-

    6. SPSam Parr53:42

       Dude, 'cause AI ain't gonna replace plumbers or, or electricians or HVAC people.

    7. KTKevin Van Trump53:47

       No.

    8. SPSam Parr53:47

       Uh, it, it, it may be one day, but, but no time soon. Uh, and, like, I do think that stuff's getting more popular, and I think that's really cool and fascinating. There's, like, it's also, like, ripped buff dudes, so it's always, like, chicks, like, commenting, like, about, like, have you seen that guy, Shaan, who just cuts wood?

    9. SPShaan Puri54:04

       Yeah, the lumber- yeah, the lumberjack guy. He's incredible.

    10. SPSam Parr54:06

        I love that guy.

    11. SPShaan Puri54:06

        It's not just chicks. I, I, I, I'll sit there and I'll watch that video twice. Uh, it's just an incredible video. [laughs]

    12. SPSam Parr54:12

        It's this guy that uses an ax, and he's sometimes shirtless, sometimes not, and he's just, like, you know, obviously a 10 out of 10, and he's just chopping wood.

    13. KTKevin Van Trump54:20

        Yeah.

    14. SPSam Parr54:20

        And, like, everyone's like, "I need this in my life."

    15. KTKevin Van Trump54:22

        Therapeutic.

    16. SPShaan Puri54:23

        Um,

26. 54:24 – 55:30

    Roll ups for wealth creation

    1. SPShaan Puri54:24

       have you been a part of any roll-ups? Uh, I always find roll-ups to be a really interesting business strategy, and it seems like there's a lot of money to be made in a, in a successful roll-up. I'm curious if you've been a part of anything.

    2. KTKevin Van Trump54:33

       I have not personally, no. I usually either exit ahead of time or, you know, get a little nervous or it, it flames out. But I have a couple friends that, yeah, that's their whole, their whole way they've created all their wealth. You got one of the gentlemen I'm speaking of right now, he's doing it with, uh, cranes. He's buying small crane companies, uh, that'll have two or three cranes, and he's buying them and he's putting them all together and, uh, you know, and he's gonna sell that. And he's done it with several other things, whether it's restaurants or different things in the past. So yeah, I thought it was interesting on the crane play. You know, he came to me about an investment. I- we just didn't do it, but, uh, yeah, I'm sure he'll hit a huge home run with it.

    3. SPSam Parr55:10

       Dude, Shaan, I think the shit that Kevin's doing is way more exciting than the shit that our friends are doing.

    4. KTKevin Van Trump55:15

       [laughs]

    5. SPShaan Puri55:16

       [laughs] You gonna quit and go do it?

    6. SPSam Parr55:18

       Uh, no. I don't know about that.

    7. SPShaan Puri55:19

       [laughs]

    8. SPSam Parr55:20

       It sounds like a lot of work, but I wanna be-

    9. SPShaan Puri55:21

       Sounds like a lot of, lot of words then if you're not gonna go do it. [laughs]

    10. KTKevin Van Trump55:25

        Yeah.

    11. SPSam Parr55:25

        No. I, I... what it means is I like hanging out with these types of people sometimes.

    12. SPShaan Puri55:29

        [laughs]

    13. SPSam Parr55:29

        That's what it means.

27. 55:30 – 57:50

    How to gain new perspectives (purposefully)

    1. KTKevin Van Trump55:30

       Yeah, and it gives you guys, uh, you know, I think it gives both of us... I like hanging out with your group of people because I think it gives me different perspective and learn different things that you guys have going on that I can make applicable to my world as well. And so, you know, yeah, there's a good synergy there between all of us.

    2. SPShaan Puri55:44

       And how do you do that practically? 'Cause I think you do a good job of getting yourself into positions like we talked about, going to random conferences that are totally outside your industry that you didn't need to go to, but you wanted to go to to, to shift your lens a little bit, or hanging out with younger people who may be demographically just doing different things, culturally doing different things than the guy who made it and is at a country club now, might, might be disconnected from whatever the sh- culture shifts are. How do you tactically go about doing that? How do you put yourself in those positions? What questions do you ask?

    3. KTKevin Van Trump56:11

       Honestly, just make myself. I always he- yelled at the kids when we were growing up, so I played sports at a high level and had several friends at One World Series and, you know, Super Bowls. We always talk, you know, we, you get a bad coach, you know, everybody get a bad coach or things like that, and it's like, "Look, man, you gotta be able to steal something from the guy." The guy was a great player. He was a, you know... You gotta go in there with an open mind, and you gotta be able to take away some things that they've done well and that they've done positive, and then use those and put those arrows in your quiver. So I just always have the kids looking for new crazy, weird conferences or things to go to and, and from there I'd make myself go. The last couple years I didn't wanna go, and I'm like... But each time I went, I, I, I took away several little gold nuggets that we implemented into our business models, and hell, we've made big returns on 'em, each one of 'em. And, you know, I didn't think I'd get anything out of going to the car, and I'm just like, "This is gonna be a waste," but I just sucked it up and did it. You know, it's like going to work out or you gotta run or something. It's like, "Ah, shit. I guess I just gotta go do it."

    4. SPShaan Puri57:08

       Yeah, we had a friend when we were going to FarmCon who was supposed to come with us. It was me, Ben, and our buddy. And the morning of, we're like, "Hey, we'll meet you in the lobby. Um, you know, your flight was, you, you landed like an hour ago, right?" And he basically woke up, looked at, and it said Kansas City. He looked at the flight time, then he's like, "Ah, you know what?" And he just bailed. [laughs] And I was like, man. Uh, but, but of course, I, I felt that. Everybody feels that in the moment. Like, God, do I really wanna go do this thing that I don't have to do that is unknown, right? It's, it's back to your thing about are you willing to sprint for an unknown distance? And, um, we didn't know what value we would get out of it. That was the hard part. That was the challenge. And doing it when we didn't know what would come out of it was really, really valuable. Um,

28. 57:50 – 1:02:14

    Windows vs doors

    1. SPShaan Puri57:50

       and it's ironic 'cause that same friend, he, um, he gave, he gave me a great analogy one time. We were talking to a younger friend. This guy was the youngest VC in Silicon Valley. So 19, 20 years old, he was investing, I don't know, $10 million into, to things. He was like, he got written up as the youngest VC in Silicon Valley. So we were, we're meeting with this guy, but now five years have gone by, and it was like you hadn't seen him really progressing at that same rate that you would expect somebody who definitely had that sort of phenom type of, uh, upbringing, uh, where, where it seemed like he had all the potential in the world. And I was like, "Man, what do you think he's doing wrong? Where, what would you do differently?" He goes, "Oh, it's, it's like windows and doors." He goes, "He's only willing to do something if it's a window. If he can immediately see through and see the, what's on the other side of it, then he'll do it. But anytime there's a door and it's opaque and you don't know what's on the other side of it, he's not willing to knock on a door and open it up and see what might be inside. He's only looking at doors and he... at windows. He's never willing to go through a door, and if, once he starts going through doors, he's, this guy's career's gonna take off." And I remember hearing that and really taking that, you know, to heart, because I thought that was very, very wise.

    2. KTKevin Van Trump58:56

       That's a great analogy. Yeah, I never heard that before, so, and I've heard a lot. That's a, yeah, that's a great one there, for sure, so.

    3. SPSam Parr59:01

       Shaan, the reason why you like a lot of these folks in the Midwest and some folks in the S- in the South is because you love phrases. You love phrases like windows and doors.

    4. KTKevin Van Trump59:10

       [laughs] They're classic.

    5. SPSam Parr59:11

       You love cool sayings, and you know what? I love 'em too, and that's why I'm happy-

    6. SPShaan Puri59:15

       Dude-

    7. SPSam Parr59:15

       ... I'm friends with both of you guys. I love 'em

    8. SPShaan Puri59:16

       ... we, we were at a dinner. So at FarmCon, you invited us to, like, a private dinner at the end. It was, like, 10 people. This guy stands up, and he delivers two of the coldest lines I've ever heard. So he stands up, and he f- f- uh, we're doing our intros, like a... And so I stand up and I give some super vanilla intro. "Hi, I'm Shaan. I live in San Francisco, and I'm a, I'm interested, and I'm a tech founder and an investor." All right, sit down. Forgettable. [laughs] This guy stands up. He's got a big presence, and he goes, um, I for- I don't even remember what his, his name was exactly, but he, he said, he goes, "You know, uh, [laughs] I, I don't know a lot of things. I don't know the, I don't know the score of the game right now." There's a big game going on. He goes, "I don't know the score of the game right now. I don't know anything about this." And he goes, [laughs] he goes, "Hell, I don't know where the remote is in my house half the time, but I know deals, and I've made a lot of deals." He's like, "I'm a private equity guy," and he starts talking about his deal-making. I was like, wow. And he goes, "I've been around for a long time. You cut me open, you can see a lot of rings in the middle." [laughs] I was like, wow, that's one way of saying it. And he's just on fire, and he goes... Somebody go, somebody asks him, they go, "What if, well, what if they don't, what if they don't go for it on this deal? Sounds like you really need them to s- to say yes. What if, what if they, they say no? What if you get rejected?" He goes, "I'm not afraid of rejection." And he's a big, big old dude, and he goes, "I've stood in front of women in my life naked before, and I've heard no, no, no, no, no."

    9. KTKevin Van Trump1:00:33

       Oh.

    10. SPShaan Puri1:00:33

        "I'm okay with it." [laughs] I thought, I was like, wow, this guy is, like, half comedian, half businessman, and I loved it. But it was just, it was just another day at the office for him, but for me, coming from, from our world, that was, like, the charisma levels and the, the, the, the, the gift of the gab was so, so incredible to see. I loved it.

    11. KTKevin Van Trump1:00:55

        Yeah, it's definitely wild times. [laughs]

    12. SPSam Parr1:00:57

        Yeah, and, and you got that too-

    13. KTKevin Van Trump1:00:58

        Good story

    14. SPSam Parr1:00:59

        ... a little bit, uh, that I like, just hearing what you have to say, Kevin. And, uh, for the people listening, maybe, maybe we'll get you some new subscribers. It's thevantrumpreport.com.

    15. KTKevin Van Trump1:01:07

        Oh, yeah.

    16. SPSam Parr1:01:07

        I, I like your, uh, you always, you do something cool where you'll just, like, have a selfie with you and your wife, and you'll, like, say, "Today we're on vacation. Here's what we're doing," and you'll say something kind of funny and cute, and, uh, I love it. I, I think it's great.

    17. SPShaan Puri1:01:19

        Well, we should just get, like, a group of 20 of our, of our listeners, a, a select small group to go to FarmCon, and we'll all go together as a field trip next, uh, next time you guys do it.

    18. SPSam Parr1:01:27

        When is it?

    19. KTKevin Van Trump1:01:28

        First week in January. January 8th and 9th this year coming up.

    20. SPSam Parr1:01:31

        How much is the ticket?

    21. KTKevin Van Trump1:01:32

        I think this year we're, like, 1,200 bucks or something.

    22. SPSam Parr1:01:35

        And you sell a lot of them too, right?

    23. KTKevin Van Trump1:01:37

        Yeah, we'll sell out whatever they give us, you know, like, capacity-wise. We sell out the hotel every year and, yeah.

    24. SPSam Parr1:01:42

        We appreciate you doing this. You're the man. Thank you. And thank you for, uh, y- years of being a, a cool dude. You've always been a great guy to me, so thank you.

    25. KTKevin Van Trump1:01:50

        Yeah, I appreciate it. Good luck, both you guys and your families, and-

    26. SPSam Parr1:01:52

        That's the pod. Thank you very much. [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 1:02:14