How Iman Gadzhi Really Made $100M

0:00Iman, welcome to [ __ ] dude. Thank you. I appreciate it. This is probably one of the most exciting times of my life, but coming to WAP myself six months ago, now having you here as a co-owner is pretty exciting. I think we're on the cusp of something huge. But I would love to just hear like why did you decide to join [ __ ] So, WAP really is just a totally different beast compared to anything else out there. It's interesting because you can do your payments, you can do your checkout, you can then also deliver the product, the digital product to the customer, but then if you want

0:33traffic, you can get traffic through content rewards. You can also get traffic through the marketplace. I mean, right now we're selling $3 to5 million a month for our users on the marketplace. So, it's just and you know if if you I wanted to go even further you could technically make money on [ __ ] like as a creator you could make money on [ __ ] and let's say you sales were low then you could push content rewards and get more sales then you receive the money then you know once uh the customer comes in you can actually deliver the product on [ __ ] and then you can pay your team

1:03directly on [ __ ] and it's basically just like this whole everything's on platform and that's why it's just it's hard to compare it to anything else out there 100% everything in in the info world is like disjointed. You need seven different tools. Everyone has their own platform. They watch YouTube video. They sign up for your email list from Beehive. They go to ClickFunnels for the

1:21landing page. All these different tools. They go to a totally different platform to fulfill and it seems like we've just like verticalized the whole thing. Yeah. I mean, even uh yesterday we were chatting with the engineering team and we were looking at new updates on on the live streaming and we just totally scrapped Zoom for our next uh for our next event. Uh so for the sort of VIP section of it, we're going to have uh we're going to do a 5,000 person Zoom room and we're like live streaming so good the way it is right now. So once again, just another software was able to

1:49scrap. Yeah, I think uh it took a lot for me to leave my existing business as a creator, you know, doing full-time content, becoming a YouTuber. But I do think we're like actually on the cusp of something very special and hopefully building one of the greatest companies in the world. And couldn't think of anyone I'd rather do it with than you, bro. So very excited to build this together. Uh, I have a ton of questions

2:10if we can actually go into your story. I've been a longtime viewer of your content, very early days, and watching your evolution and different phases you've gone through, different growth strategies you've used. You've been so dynamic and always with the new trend right now, your content, your flywheel, everything you're actually posting, like you have five different channels. I don't know how you get out all the content that you get out. Like, you've built a machine, dude. And so, this seems like the perfect era. like you probably I think you've accumulated all possible knowledge you could in the content/info world. Now we just got to build it into the one of the coolest

2:44products that hopefully every person on the world can use. But I would like to learn how Iman Godsy was made. And I mean that in both you as a person, your mind, but also the brand because it's bigger than just you right now. Like it's actually this like full-on business. Would you consider Imani a

3:00business? I would say so. Uh obviously especially when it comes to the content side of things, we really do treat it like a media company. It's not just like uh like when we decided to take it serious, we took the same philosophies and the same principles we applied in the businesses and we're like, okay, cool. We're going to treat this like a business now. Mh. And obviously, you know, past few years once we decided, okay, we're going to do this properly. It's uh, you know, we laid out a plan. I think we executed on it relatively well and and I guess here we are. So, I would love to hear what this

3:35plan actually was because I witnessed it. You had around 250,000 subscribers a few years ago and then in a very short time frame, you hit 5 million subscribers in almost less than a year it seemed. And I remember we talked and you kind of prophesized that you had like a 10 person team at the time and you were like, I'm about to blow this thing up. I've never tried with content before and this is like where you actually added a lot of intent. And so early in the days when I was actually just a viewer, a fan from afar, you were actually just like recording your day in

4:06and day out. You would read three books and then you would share your lessons from those three books like every single week when you were like a teenager and you were kind of just like documenting your life. But then there was this one moment where you like actually like I'm going to put some intent behind my content, try to actually make content that could maximize the algorithm's reach. And it was very cool to hear you say that and then actually do something bigger than anybody has done in our space before. So what was that plan when you actually decided to put intent into your content? Well, I think we were

4:38actually hanging out must have been April of 2022. So yeah, it was about that period we were hanging out in London and that was about the time I was like, "Okay, cool. We're going to actually start taking this seriously." And there's there's a few facets to it. First things first is on YouTube which was you know our main platform at that time packaging of the video decided because as you said before that it was really just like a it was an afterthought. I would think okay what am I thinking about what's on my mind shoot a video then on the day like five minutes before we would come up with a

5:12title and a thumbnail there on the spot whereas I had to totally reframe that and first of all look at my market because before my market was very small my market was just people who are interested in agencies and then I went broader and I was like okay let me just talk to people who are interested in online business but that also has a total addressable market and then I went wider to people who are into productivity and self-help and all this stuff and then went a little broader there and then with the vlogs went even more broad and then you know with the the Tik Tok stuff and the short form

5:43stuff went even broader so and you know funnily now actually we're trying to bring it in you know we're actually trying to go less broad on the YouTube we're trying to reel it back in because yeah it's we have different business goals these days so I think it all really started with just being intentional and the other thing I want to make clear is for a lot of people it won't make sense to have a brand as as big as I took mine. Mhm. You really just have to figure out what is your goal with your personal brand. If your goal with your personal brand is to

6:11get deal flow for your VC getting 5 million views on a YouTube video, like how many of those people are actually how many of those people actually are the right eyeballs that tie into your business goals? If you're talking about something that's very niche, yeah, maybe you can get 5 million views on a video, but how many of those will convert to actual business? I think a lot of people focus too much on viewership. And I think a lot of people, by the way, they see what I do and they

6:37try to emulate it. They try to copy it. Uh, and they're like, "Okay, cuz he's doing that. I should do that, too." And it's like, "Well, yeah, I have the businesses on the back end and I have stuff that's $30 and stuff that's $100 and stuff that's $3, whether that be a consumable brand, whether that be my eyeear company, whether that be whatever, a mobile app, whatever it is to actually make it make sense to be that broad. Whereas, yeah, as I said, I see a lot of people who are selling stuff for $20,000 B2B offers and then, you know, try to make like a a

7:07very five things I learned become a millionaire. It's like you're the sort of person that's interested in that kind of video probably isn't the same sort of client that is looking to pay for a B2B $20,000 uh service. So, I think it's for me it really is just about being intentional. We intentionally set out to go broad. That's what we did. And then it was just a matter of what levers could we pull and taking it to the next

7:34level in terms of how serious we did it. Like we went overkill. Three full-time thumbnail editors. Even though I was uploading at that point, you know, now we have multiple channels. By that point, I was uploading one time a week. So uploading once a week, you had three people inhouse full-time because we would go back and we would rehash all of our videos. So every day there would be a new test. So you're saying the old videos that have been posted even a year ago. Mhm. So, you have three full-time thumbnail editors just constantly changing every video on your channel. Is that really just so like if it gets

8:03recommended because it's con those are all constantly getting pushed even if they're a year old. But maybe that even like feels like a new video to someone if they didn't decide to watch it the first time they saw it. Yeah. Not only that, but that retest almost gives it a and and if you actually if you split test and you get a a better result, then the algorithm will then push it out further. M and that was like especially in 2022 2023 that was like it was killing it for us. You know there was videos that we we'd uploaded a year before and all of a sudden you know

8:32change split test the thumbnails split test the titles and you know millions of views in the space of a couple months. I would refresh your like feed of all your videos and every day just different color different set different title angles like constantly and so that was like from observing you could like actually see what was working very well

8:49and what wasn't. So thank you for that. So, so, so thumbnails was one. Uh, then main thing was just even as I said packaging like it's like you could have the best edited, best title, best thumbnail video in the agency space, but at the end day the total addressable market of that space is small and a larger market is online business. But then a larger market from there is self-help and then a larger market is just like generally people just knowing you. And we have different strategies as well on different platforms. you know, when it comes to our short form now, like we just like that as general brand

9:21awareness. The way I view it is, you know, I'm spending what I'm spending on short form to get we get about 200 to 300 million views a month. And on that department now, we're spending like on Facebook to get that kind of viewership. I would have had to spend 800 800k maybe a million dollars a month to get that sort, you know, those sort of eyeballs and that sort of impressions. So yeah, you know, the way that I look at things is the short form and the clipping stuff is it it's just omniresence and like you can't you can't kind of get away from me. Like I'm just everywhere at all

9:58times. And also we find that a lot of people there's a lot of people who love Tik Tok, love Insta reels, they just don't watch YouTube. Mhm. They just like no matter how good your stuff is, they just simply won't watch YouTube. Now there's some people that don't watch short forms. Uh they don't watch reals. They don't watch Tik Tok, but they only like YouTube video stuff. And also for us, like I know you're not pro you're not going to watch my main YouTube channel, but now with the business channel, you'll watch the business channel, but I know for a fact you watch the vlog channel. We've never even had

10:26this conversation, but am I wrong? You watch the vlog channel. Yeah. So, so I know we kind of have something for everyone. Mhm. Now, that's also taken time to get to that place because at the end of the day, I only spend Okay, maybe this month because we're doing the whole press release and stuff like that, maybe a little bit more time, but on average, I only spend four to six hours a month on creating content. So, you need to have very robust systems in place to actually once again, you have to treat it like a proper media company because for me to sit down and do everything and

10:52not have a team to assist and help me out, it just would simply take too long. I'd have no time to actually spend on the businesses. So yeah, it's uh you know, we took it serious. I think it's very cool that you're saying that you set the intent with the target market that you're going for and then it's not about posting more and more content, but I think it's about getting more reach out of the content you were posting. And so I think you were literally probably one of the first two or three people to really crack mass short form distribution because I mean if you just

11:20make a YouTube video that probably gets you like 5% of the total view capacity you could get. But you basically hired like over a hundred clippers at one point, I'm sure. I would love to hear how that operation, how you came across that, how you like set that up, how it was structured and everything. If you could explain. Yeah, so we started the short form department. So going back to like thumbnail was a lever that we pulled. Uh thumbnail uh then we had a different strategy on Twitter. We have a different strategy on LinkedIn. Like we have all of these they're kind of like these subd departments within this media

11:48machine. Then clipping obviously was one of those and we we went hard on that. And I think in 3 months we went from a team of zero to 65 people full-time in-house. I wouldn't recommend that for anyone. I think we were spending about4 million a month on that department. Um and you know since then we've become more efficient and we were getting about

12:06100 million views a month at that point. So now we have a much smaller team and we're getting two to 300 million views a month. And we found once again different levers to pull like for I'm sure you've seen on my uh short form I guess here's a little insight for people. I'm sure you've seen on my short form like we have like podcasts like this and people are always asking like where are these podcasts like where can I f you can't because I never release our podcast if we have something set up like this or we're in a cool location like you know Alex and I or Amara and I we'll just sit

12:33and we'll just talk for like 30 minutes just shoot the [ __ ] and then from there there might be like 10 to 12 different clips that come out of it and the podcast never goes out because I don't have the I just simply don't have the time to like set up a bunch of podcasts and like I also to be honest most podcasts I don't really enjoy. Like for me this a lot of fun because you know we're genuinely friends. So this doesn't feel like this doesn't even feel like we're doing a podcast. This is a genuine conversation. But for me to like travel and spend like x amount of time

13:01traveling and two hours on a podcast set and blah blah all this stuff to get clips cuz that's what I saw. I was wondering why are people going on so many podcasts? Like people go on like five podcasts a week like every single week and I I just didn't understand. I was like ah it's because they don't care about the podcast. They got maybe 14,000 views, which, you know, for someone, you know, some of these people who have large followings, that's not really much. They care about the clips. So, I was like, what if I could get the clips without doing the podcast? So, I was

13:29like, okay, cool. We just do these internal pods, shoot the [ __ ] uh, and then, you know, we're going to get 10 to 15 clips to come out of it. And that was another thing that meant that I was able to get more out of short form, uh, while putting less in. Because at the end of the day, you know, I'm still I have to run the businesses. like I can't I'm not a full-time content creator. So yeah, that's that was one thing that really helped with the short form department

13:51stuff. Uh and yeah, it's just been it's been a journey. As I said, we've been doing it for about two and a half years. As far as I know now, I really don't know anyone else on earth that has as many owned accounts getting as many views as us. Uh I'm sure there's people who get, you know, many more views, but the fact that we have like a collection of accounts that bring us uh two 300 million views a month is incredible. It's a lot of work. I don't recommend it for anyone. And that's one of the things that, for example, I'm so passionate about with the content reward

14:20stuff. It's like you get to receive the benefits I've had like I've spent in the last two in the last two and a half years, I would guess I would have spent because obviously our costs have gone down. We became more efficient, but I would guess I probably spent $2 million on that department just on clipping. just one clipping. Everyone knows selling digital products are one of the best ways to make money online right now. And with just under a hundred million dollars in sales by the age of 25, it's safe to say that Iman is the best in the world at selling digital products. That's why

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15:04expertise and without showing your face. And to make it even more interesting, whoever launches their digital product and makes the most money, will win up to $250,000 in prizes, including a McLaren, five Rolexes, and an in-person mastermind at Wap HQ with Iman and I. So, if you're serious about making money with digital products, click the first link in the description below to register your free ticket today. Now, back to the episode and most people just don't need to go to and like but like having full-time people, full-time staff, like all internal, you have to pay them salaries

15:37monthly. You have to manage all them. Quality assurance like Yeah, everyone knew it was like a very valuable thing. How like how important was it for your business, for your channel? Super important. It's like the key distribution for you guys. It's super important. But the thing is like we've had to also get the clippers that we've had or that we have like we've had maybe for that for the clipping department I don't know what like 15,000 applications

16:0110,000 applications something like that. Like not many people can get 10 to 15,000 people to apply to work for them full-time. And you know absolute [ __ ] massive shout out to that department and everyone who works there. Like we have incredible superstars and I'm so proud of them. But of course it is it's a lot of work, you know. So even just like let's say you do have the budget to put towards clipping because it's it's just such an incredible way of getting your face out there, your name out there, that brand awareness and being omniresent. But for most people, they

16:33couldn't even get five or 10 clippers. You know, we've we had that competitive advantage of having 10 10 to 15,000 people apply. Whereas someone like [ __ ] like there is you have that directory of clippers who are there every single day ready to uh clip people's content, make money. They're hungry, you know, they're ready to they're ready to help you move your brand forward. So you have that supply there which, you know, it's I've never seen anywhere else. Uh quite frankly, it's just really cool because I watched all I everyone saw you do it and everyone wanted to copy it, but they didn't have $100,000 a month to hire

17:08people. They couldn't even get the Clippers if they could. They had to manage all the accounts post themselves. It's like this like at minimum $100 $200,000 like set of overhead just to get short form distribution at that scale going and we really modeled the content rewards after that system and I think it's automated everything like like you said the clippers are on the marketplace they automatically track payouts and they only pay on a CPM so you only pay a dollar per thousand views. Were you paying people a flat fee or how did you guys do pay structures for clippers? We've played around with it. We played around with flat fee, flat

17:38uh fee plus incentive. Uh we ended up going back to flat fee because also uh one of the things that was different for us as well is like we didn't just want to optimize on views because we kind of got to a point where we're like we know we can get views like now what do we actually want the brand content to be around. So I think step but that's a very privileged thing to say by the way like step number one is get views and that should be the focus for most people get views and then focus on like maybe we scale back the views by 20% or 30%

18:08but try to get different kind so it's you know for us flat has worked best because sometimes incentivizing people on viewers you don't get on views for us specifically uh you don't get the right content uh but once again this is where you can kind of set the parameters as well you you can say you these things are go against the brand guidelines, stuff like that. Yeah, you're reflecting on like three years of like lessons, but I think if you were starting today, it's like first get a batch of content, try to find like that content market fit and then once you have examples, show the

18:38new people these are what the requirements you must follow. Exactly. It wouldn't have been smart for me to launch and say, "Hey, this is the X guideline XYZ blah blah like like kind of have a chokeold on people." like we had to launch it for like a year or so with kind of no rules just like get views and then from there obviously we can kind of start to refine and stuff like that and optimize. Absolutely. So I think this is something that like is finally like an opportunity for the everyday person. You don't need to put any money up front. Now you only pay after the views you get and Clippers

19:05will literally find you on the marketplace. So also just another thing I want to say about that is like I have this bill no matter what. Like this is a bill that I pay regardless in month out. Whereas for some people, maybe they want a little bit of extra heat around their brand for three months a year, you know, maybe coming up to a launch or a new product launch or maybe uh uh whatever. Maybe they have a a business that has seasonality to it. Maybe they want that extra uh heat in those periods, but in slow months like let's say for example like my eyewear brand,

19:36as I wear brand would suggest, like summer months are crazy for us. Obviously, winter months a little slower. So with something like content rewards, you can now get all these eyeballs and all these attention for maybe 3 months or 6 months to a year when it serves you best and then the other six months, well, it's not an expense on your P&L anymore. So it just gives you that flexibility. It's very interesting. I like the fact that you were talking about how you did like these like private podcasts because it's not about like going on some huge person like Joe Rogan or Chris Williamson. I'm sure those those two would help, but

20:07like objectively, if you don't have anything interesting to say or anything valuable, even if you go on that podcast, like the way YouTube is now, it's going to be like way less effective. You could get 10,000 views on the Chris William podcast if it was boring or you're not informing people. And so, you kind of just found this way over time that you know how to make content that just gets views, that's captivating, that's interesting. I feel like that's your true skill of like

20:29you've learned this intention. understand what content works and what doesn't? How to position yourself? How to present everything and what to share in what way? So, I'm curious. Do you have anything that comes to mind as I explain that observation that you'd like to share on that approach? Like what do you like when you're sitting down to do a podcast with just your team? Is there like an intention? Like are you ask like

20:51we're going to talk about these things? Am I going to say something controversial? Like what do you actually think about before you go into these podcasts? Before back in the day, we used to do it where like like Alex or Amara would like ask me a question and now these days we have no like we just because the thing is like Amara I've known her for 10 years like Alex and I like we live together like you know we're basically best friends so it's just that it's that like natural synergy between us. Maybe if it was like someone who I wasn't as I didn't have that

21:23natural synergy with like maybe we would have to go back to asking questions and this and that and there's nothing wrong with that but you know I I also want to make it clear when I'm like a tactician and when I'm not with our short form stuff I'm not a t like for the sitdown podcast stuff I'm not a tactician. It really is genuinely just like two friends catching up and yeah and just having it recorded and then whatever comes from it comes from it. Okay. If we're going to talk tactician I want to ask about your Instagram. Sure. Where are you a tactician with your Instagram

21:50and your brand aesthetic and what shots you're putting and getting together? I know you've never I'll put this on the record. I know for a fact you don't pose for photos. Like you don't stage this stuff, but like your brand aesthetic is so coordinated and what you show and the way you have like how you're being perceived is very like in my opinion I know it has to be intentional and so I'd love the insight on if you could flex a little on me, what can you take credit for? Yeah. So, with my Instagram, I actually think that's the worst case study of like intentionality. Like,

22:18Jenny, my Instagram, my main Instagram is just like every 3 months, I remember like, [ __ ] I have like some like a decent amount of following on Instagram. I should probably post. And then what I'll do is I'll, you know, I'll be on a long flight and I'll just look through my camera roll and favorite some stuff and I'm like, "Oh, cool. Let me just, you know, post like a a photo dump." But I would say Instagram is the platform

22:40the worst with because it's real time. Even like my stories, I really struggle my stories. My team is like, "Bro, you get like 500,000 story views. Like, this is a big audience. Like, post some shit." And I'm just like, "Oh, man. It's cuz cuz you can't batch it out, you know, with like YouTube and and and or YouTube and LinkedIn or Twitter or all these other platforms. Like, I can like we can build systems around it." Like, there's not really a system for me to like post my day-to-day life. And I just like, funny enough, I'm actually a very private person. Even though I'm public, I'm what I'm doing dayto-day. I'm very

23:09private. So, I know what you mean in terms of the aesthetic. I don't think it's tactical. It's just always been like what I like. And what I mean by that is even just film film photography. Like I started getting really into film photography about six, seven years ago. And I got super into it. And you know, I was shooting myself personally. you know, we have a crazy collection of LeAs and Mamias and all these crazy lenses and all and like but I yeah, I just was bored and I was just studying and buying like every single camera like film camera under the sun you can imagine and

23:44learn how to shoot personally myself and then I was just like I just like that aesthetic and I like that vibe and the same thing with like VHS. we started shooting VHS a few years ago cuz I just like that feel of like effortlessness. And same thing, you know, when it comes to my content, like I genuinely I can say it was hand on heart. I have never set up or posed for like some an iPhone shot. Now there's like cuz you asked you asked me this off camera. Uh there's stuff we do like for example if we're in Lake Ko. Yeah. And we're like okay cool. Like clearly if

24:14it's like production grade stuff like I didn't not know the camera was there. like of course like and sometimes we try to have fun with the content like you know sometimes we don't take ourselves too seriously we're like you know what we're in this cool location let's do like a cool cinematic intro and obviously if there's like professional cameras around like you know Alex would be like oh let's do this shot with this shot and just have like a little fun with it so yeah that's kind of on the more professional side of things on the uh handheld stuff like Alex knows like I'm just not going to you're not going to

24:42catch me posing for [ __ ] like it's just yeah I'm going to walk through my life do my life stuff and And then if you catch some stuff, great. If you don't, that's not really my concern. Uh, and then in terms of the intentionality of the brand, I I just I just think everyone has their unique cool thing. And I think if you think something is cool enough, everyone else will start to believe it. Like the way I dress is not cool now. It's I guess kind of become cool in the last few years. Like objectively, is it cool the way I dress? No. But because I feel

25:14so comfortable in it, other people feel that and they're like, "Oh, you know what? I'm drawn to this now." Or maybe objectively, does it make sense when you have we have such high definition cameras to go back and start buying cameras from 20 years ago and start trying to shoot on film cameras? No. Objectively, that's not cool. And that wasn't like five, five, six years when I started, you know, shooting on film and and posting that. Was that cool? No, not really. So I just think whatever your thing is, if you just like it's authentic and it's true to you, like everyone else will catch on. Yeah. Because you were like

25:49the first thing you'd ever do is like videography in a way. And so it's almost just like extension of your art. So you just like doing these like cinematic scenes of you having a security guard open up your Gwagon door, putting on your suit, walking to a building. It looks [ __ ] sick. So I'm curious though. I'm going to keep digging. I know a lot of these actually play into each other. M like you could you have the luxury cuz you're saying, "Oh, I just talked to Alex and Namar on a podcast and we just shoot the [ __ ]

26:12We're comfortable with each other." Everybody has two friends where they could do that, but it's not going to get the same amount of views as you. Even if you're intentional what you're saying or not, like people will just listen to you talk about anything because you're interesting. And so is that the purpose of building like Instagram makes you perceived as like this very like it's your true life, but at the same time like on the outside looking in, you're like this very interesting. You're an anomaly. You're like a 22-year-old

26:34that's made tens of millions of dollars. Now you're 24, but at the time like that's who you're being perceived as. And so those probably play into each other very very well. And so is that the reason that you do these like cinematic intros at Lake Ko on a nice like obviously that's expensive to do and you're going to you would love to go to Lake Ko anyways but like in the reality of content creation like you can do both at the same time. And so is it like okay on Instagram we're going to like show this specific side of my life to then become like more of a captivating person

27:02and then that like has trickle down effects across the entire brand. Is that like a thought process? I just think it it all comes down to how do you want to position your brand? Like obviously if you look back at my early content it's just me just [ __ ] documenting everything. Now, I think that's sick. Personally, like when I look back at my old [ __ ] of me, like when I'm 15, 16, 17, I'm so like even 18, 19, 20, like whatever it is, like, and I'm just sharing authentically like what it is that I'm doing. Cuz that the biggest lever that I had to pull on then was

27:28relatability. Mhm. So, I'm like, listen, I don't have all these [ __ ] fancy cars. I don't have all this stuff like, but I'm just a kid who's like has a dream, is trying to make something of himself. And that was my superpower. That's something I I like I I grapple with a lot now. I don't have that anymore. Like I'm a really hard person

27:47to get behind now and I understand that. Like I'm not like I'm very aware of what battles you can win and lose. Like for example with Drake and Kendrick he was an idiot for trying to take that battle on because no matter what it was a lose-lose when you get to a certain position it's like no one's going to try to like root for you and and you just have to be comfortable with that. Like I know I'm a very difficult person to root for these days because it's like okay cool you wanted to make it. you made it like what else do you do you want to

28:15more [ __ ] rounds of applause. So it becomes this you don't you're not the underdog anymore. Everyone wants to like root for the underdog. So like that's a superpower that people have that I don't have. Like that's an advantage that other people have that relatability and that like rooting for um you know for an underdog that I don't get that benefit anymore. So yeah, maybe you don't it's it's tough because you don't have maybe like the lifestyle but you have something that I don't have. Mhm. And also I just want to make it clear in terms of like the content and stuff like that like you know I would want to go to

28:44Lake Koma either way. We no that was generally a business trip like I actually had to be there. Like I will never travel somewhere for content ever. Even the vlogs now never every I mean listen let me think about the last vlogs we we did. Oh ski trip that was like that was a late birthday trip. I was going to do that either way. London. Yeah. I will never travel to a place for vlog. We got to get a vlog out. Yeah. It's just a lot of times what happens is people don't know the true reason I'm in a place. I'm People don't realize like I'm so private

29:17with what I actually do behind the scenes. I I think this the other thing like I don't feel like you need to show everything on social media. Like I my biggest blessings I don't show on social media or my biggest moves I don't show on social media unless it's like things are done dusted and it for example like this it's time. This has been a long time in the makes. Yeah. Exactly. So, um, yeah, hopefully does that give you a little bit of I'm going to keep asking questions until I keep super clear because I actually accept that answer, but there's other examples I think I can

29:45like pull out to get a little more detailed perspectives on it. So, because by the way, I also just want to let uh people know like, bro, you are [ __ ] amazing at what you do. I appreciate like you're amazing at what you do and and even from our conversations three years ago, you're like you notice things that no one else notices. And I think obviously that's why you're such a wizard in this domain because you just like the the layers that you're going down like most people would just see, okay, cool. This is what's being shown, but you you question things so many layers down and uh I think that's why

30:19you're the the marketing wizard that you are. I appreciate it, bro. Psychology is my game. It's all I study. So, and you've actually been like who I have like you're the best at what you do and so I've been very much paying attention those conversations. Like I think you were the first person to tell me to put effort in my thumbnails. Like I would literally record just like throw like three things on the screen and go and you're like no like flashy thumbnails are out. Like it's about simplicity and that fundamentally changed the entire way I was thinking about my thumbnails

30:44and how I was able to grow my channel. Not to the same level of you. You go through such thorough lengths with your team. I'll give you compliment back. you are actually a deep numbers person and you love like the efficiencies in business and actually trying to make the business economical and better and like you will nerd out about a 2% increase in something like that's actually what you care about and secondly hiring like it's not possible to only record four hours of content a month at your scale when you're running five channels and all this unless you have a [ __ ] insane team and I've met them all can vouch

31:15they are like the sharpest serious most serious people that are equally bought in and I've never understood culture until I came here and I can tell that your team has a very distinct culture as well with like the marathons that you guys run. So, props back to you for that game. I think that's the Sagittarius Sagittarius Capricorn difference here, but equally fun in business. So, back to actually going into the details of how you actually built your brand. I think the main thing I'm curious about is with these vlogs that you do with these your YouTube channel, you have all these different channels now. Do you always

31:49start like business first? Like what you're selling first and then you choose a content style around that? Is that like the main approach? Yeah. So, I guess it just depends on what our goals are. Like for example, from 2022 up until like beginning of this year, I wanted to play dumb. Like quite frankly, like I've dumbed myself down to the 10th degree on social media because I was I wanted to corner the 18 to 25 year old market. That was my goal. Own that market. And I felt like, you know, I accomplished that. And then now my goal is we're moving from 20 to the 25 to 35

32:23year old market. Not to say that, you know, people who are 22 or 19 aren't going to watch my content. Of course, that's not the case. Uh we still have a lot of viewership in that in that domain. But like for me now, I'm comfortable, you know, rather than get making a video that I know for a fact will get 2 million in the first month, that's more broad. I'm cool making a video that's more technical than maybe speaks more to 25 to 35 year olds. uh that's will only get 300 or 400,000 views in the first month. But I'm comfortable with that because our business goals have shifted. So the main

32:53channel really is for uh our main educational product suite. That's really what the main channel is for. Then we have the business channel because for example you you would look at the main channel and you'll be like okay cool. This is like useful but like not at my career stage. Then you look at the business channel, you're like, "Oh, [ __ ] Wow. This person's like there is a method to the madness." Like, he's he can break down every single he thing he does in excruciating detail and with full-blown SOPs and uh a clear system and an outline for everything. Whereas someone who's, you know, 21 and just

33:26starting their online business, that would be overwhelming to them. So, we have the business channel, we have the main channel, and then the vlog channel. Here's what it is. It's in 2022 when the sit down red light, blue light, two camera, you know, that was like absolutely crushing it. But I am a person where I'm always thinking what's things going to look like two years from now. And I said the team like we were at the like the top of the game in terms of like I bro I would sit down and write like bullet points like I would spend 10 minutes bullet pointing. I would just

33:57turn on the camera spit you know spit a 20-minute video out or get edited down to like 14 15 minutes. a million views just like that. So easy. And a lot of people get comfortable and complacent there. But I'm already thinking, okay, in two years, what are things going to look like? And I know that everything's a pendulum. So, I knew that the vlo vlog pendulum, I had a feeling the vlog pendulum was going to swing back because even the highly edited stuff. I could sit here and I could say the email editing style is like the way that you succeed and you crush it. But in today's the current

34:27meta, that's not how you crush and succeed, right? the the meta today is raw, real, unedited, but I think that'll be the meta for about another year. Even it's starting to fizzle out slightly in the ne, you know, next six to 12 months. So every and but then it'll go out of style, but then in 5 years it'll come

34:43back. Like everything comes in and out. So I told the team, listen, my prediction is, you know, over the space of the next year, year and a half, vlogs are going to come back in. So let's do this vlog channel. Yeah. You spun it out cuz you were doing a few vlogs on your main channel like the private jet one or whatever that collab and then you spun it out to Imani Unscripted and then that was like a very early bet and then sure enough you start getting millions of views on that channel. Daniel Dalen pops up a few other vloggers like it really became a thing and you were like right

35:12there on that wave. It's like it seems like every wave that's happened on YouTube you're either a part of or were there right when it started like a part of it. So it's very interesting. I I do have one question because it's really cool to see your end state now, but obviously like this is super intimidating. Like even me like I am like I could not do all of that. Like I can barely make one video on my channel a week right now. And so I'm very interested in you were saying earlier like when you were just starting out like I remember like I don't hopefully

35:38this isn't outing you on camera. you were like crying in the bathroom of like a high school because you were getting bullied for meditating and like you were like were struggling very much at a certain point in your life and that what you're saying about re relatability at that time like you were just authentically recording your life and just like trying to share it with someone and then you were just reading books three books a week every single week and just sharing it what you learned from these books you had a crazy bookshelf when reading was not cool at this time either but then I remember

36:03seeing you on the midnight pod you kind of went go like you kind of went black around this time on social media if I remember like you kind of took a cake or something. And then you came on this one podcast, The Midnight Pod. Now you were like dressed really well. You had these glasses. You crossed your legs. You had

36:17like you made $4 million through info. And like you were like 19 or something. And I was like, what the [ __ ] happened? Like I hadn't watched you in a few years. I'm like those books really paid off. But then you came back with like you were like leveraging up is what I like saw it as. Like you started out as like this 15-year-old kid who was just like going through it like every kid and just you were just really ambitious and sharing what you're learning. Then you actually started your agency and started explaining a little bit like that. Then you actually made a few million dollars

36:42and you like came back like an evolved version of yourself. And then once you made that $4 million, you put into crypto, made like a $10 million trade basically. Or I guess I guess you're not a trader, but like actual investments. I got lucky. Yeah. But a good time. Like you put all your money into killed it. But like I just see this way that you like it's not just like a straight path like oh I just kept making content and compounded. Like you like you would grow an inch. you would take that, leverage that to then help you make the next step up through social media and you

37:10constantly evolve your content style. So that's like my perception from afar. I would love to hear how you like if you thought back how you explained each stage and how you leveraged the last one to position yourself to growth in the future. Yeah. So I guess one thing just to like for example that midnight pod that was November of 2022. Mhm. So that was November of 2022 and I I think just the main thing is obviously I just evolve like I grow as a human like to to to be uploading from 15 to like at that point I was just about turn about to turn 22. Like obviously

37:45you just grow a lot as a as a person and you're you start you know doing okay for yourself financially and you know you can start to buy clothes that you can afford before and you can buy a wash that you couldn't have before. So like I just started to also just like those are very pivotal years as a man as a person quite frankly. So I think that's one thing that maybe people saw a lot of evolution. I don't know if maybe if people had seen me from 35 to 42 if you would have seen as an aggressive as as an evolution because I was just like

38:14growing up as a man quite frankly. But in terms of the up until 2022 honestly I gave the content stuff no thought process whatsoever. So, even at the midnight pod, like I didn't really give it any thought. It genuinely was from like April 2022 uh when we were in London or it was it was a few months before that actually. Funny enough, I was going to turn off all my social media and I was in Crown Montana in Switzerland at my business partner's chalet uh at one of my software companies. What a cool thing to say. At one of my software companies and uh I was like, listen, I'm going to go like

38:47I'm going to turn off all my social media. I've been uploading on YouTube for six years. Uh, and I was like, to be honest, I think I'm just kind of sick of it. And he was like, [ __ ] that. He's like, you're in this incredible position where you can kind of, as you said, like you can be a business, like you can attract opportunities and you can attract talent and you can attract all of like for you to like give up now,

39:10like no, you need to go 10 times bigger. And it was just something I never for me, I'm one of those people like if I'm halfassing something, it never feels good to And I I guess I was just kind of halfassing the social media stuff and the content stuff and I didn't treat it like an actual business. And by the way, I want people to even if it's just them, it doesn't matter. Even if you're just a solo person, you can still treat it like a business. You can still think of it like a business. Now, I also want to make it clear, there's certain creators and like even individuals that

39:38we're friends with where they call me and they're like, "I want to implement this system that you have in place and this system." And I tell them, I'm like, "Listen, bro, you're you're creative. like you're you if you do what I do, it will crush your soul. So, you have to know the kind of person that you are. So important to understand, you know, like you could blow up your channel by uh 10 times as many subscribers, but you'll feel empty inside because for you, you're you're a true true creative. I'm not a true true creative. I'm creative in some domains, but I'm a very pragmatic let's build the businesses and

40:11let's you know, I have a lot of Yeah, I have a lot of responsibility. I have a lot of people relying on me and I, you know, I'm the captain of the ship and I have to make sure that we're always headed in the right direction. So, you know, I'm a person where let's say I mean the content I'm making right now I I really love uh because it is a little bit closer to where I am in my career stage, but you know, maybe even nine months ago if I was making a maybe more beginner content, I I kind of have to I'm not as enthusiastic about that. You

40:41know, I always try to remember the 15 or 16 year old me and remember how useful that content could have been to me back then or even honestly the 17 or 18-year-old me, but I'm a person that can sit down and create the content either way. Whereas there's some people who are creatives where like that is too soul destroying and too soul crushing for them. So you also have to know who you are and you have to just be very self-aware. Like first things first, just have an intentional personal brand. Having the most amount of subscribers, the most amount of following. if you don't have a

41:08business backend to monetize it is like the worst thing ever. Yeah. The worst thing ever is having a bunch of viewers and and being well known and having this huge audience, but no way to truly monetize it. That's what why obviously I love everything we're doing on W. Um, but outside of that as well, you just need to know who you are character-wise. Like if you're a true true creative, then maybe create focus on creating content that nurtures your soul. Whereas if you're someone who's really a little bit more pragmatic and you're building it for you view it as a true media company to like fuel the

41:40businesses then you know you can treat it in a different way. Okay. So then I'm very curious I am not an investment person you know I can make money be diligent put it in these different assets and like I don't even like the mental bandwidth because it like hurt it like takes creative space from my mind like having to like think of all these things and with that just like not the

42:00best person with finances in general. you have always seemed like very spot-on with finances, but I'm curious if there's ever been because you're also 24, which is insane how good you were at like 20, but has there been a time like where I'm just so curious because you're balancing you could live a good lifestyle and like you're obviously like spending a lot of money on the lifestyle. I know you have these rules of like spend at least a certain amount of what you make and everything, but was there ever an early on time where like you overextended yourself and you felt like a pain from that? Like I remember

42:30seeing the South Africa house that you got, the villa you got, and I was just like [ __ ] mind-b blown. I'm like there's no way this dude can afford it. But maybe that's just a random example of why that's where the question's coming from. Like has there ever been a time where you've like experienced that where you learned that really early like at 18 or 19 or something or is that

42:46always just been your thing really? I guess I'm just not a massive It's funny because most people would think like, oh, you know, being an entrepreneur, massive risks, this, that, and like, yeah, granted, I make [ __ ] massive I mean, I make massive investments, but for me, they're always calculated risks. Mh. And I always weigh up the upside, the downside, and especially as a beginner, I really don't like too much risk. I don't like businesses where there's a lot of risk

43:09or you could wipe yourself out. So, honestly, no, I've always been pretty diligent. No, I know a lot of people look at me and they're like, "Oh, he's so reckless." Like, he enjoys his life. I'm just like I'm unapologetic about I sign a certain portion of my income to just enjoy because at the end of the day, I'm never going to [ __ ] get these years back. And I think that's what like sometimes people forget as well is it is this balancing act of like are you ever going to get these these

43:37years back? So, how much do you spend? Like for example, for me, I would actually I have a propensity I would lean more towards spending more in your 20s because I'm like% because the the bang for buck you get compared to your 50s. Like for me, if you're making let's say you're making 10k a month uh in your 20s or your 30s, for me that's like making 200k a month in your 50s in terms of like the actual uh value it brings to your life or the quality of

44:03of life that you get from it. So yeah, I guess I just kind of balance up or weigh up those two things, but I never had any things that could like wipe me out. Like I have no debt in my life, which I know a lot of people like I have friends of mine, they're like, "Bro, that's ridiculous. That's like, you know, you could be, you know, you should take a Lombard loan against your assets and then make that money work for you and this and that." And I'm just like, I I I know I could, but I just I don't know. I don't like the peace of

44:28mind to know that it's very dangerous to take advice from people online, especially older like older people in their 40s telling you to save in your 20s because that's probably a projection of them like in their 20s that like they kind of wasted their time and they were just trying to make money. I think that I don't think I'm bad at finances finances or finance. I think I'm like just so confident in my ability and my skills and that I want to also just enjoy the time when I'm young. this is the time you're supposed to be spending money on going out with friends, going on vacations with people because you

44:54have the most freedom. And so you know, no matter what, you have a set of skills that means that you're valuable for the rest of your life. And and you know that you will always be an income generator and a quite frankly a value generator, whether that's for your own ventures, whether that's partnering up with other people, whatever it may be. So yeah, I think there is a level of confidence when you you have done enough like when you're just a confident person and you know you have uh certain skill sets you know that like you're never going to go broke right at any moment I could just

45:25snap my fingers I have so many different skills. If I had to go back to shooting music videos on the street I can make $1,000 you know exactly and learning the sales behind that. So even in the uh I want to really I really want to ask you this. The South Africa era was an interesting one to watch from afar. like it looked really fun for you. Mhm. Have you I want to give context here because you're not you are you are in my opinion you're an icon like you actually documented from 14 to $100 million by 24 and 10 million by like 22 like just

45:54crazy if you actually go back and look at your content so cool but at the same time you being so early to that you couldn't really there wasn't anyone to copy or mimic where a lot of people are there's so many I goti clones now of every different vertical that you've accomplished but it always seemed like you were on such a unique path and that's what made it so captivating captivating And that South

46:21Afric recording that conversation. So I'm curious, was has there ever been a time even then that like it was for you had like the first maybe I should get this house because it'll like make me look like or it'll show my how successful I am like physically. Never honest. And and I I know that some people have a tough time believing that, but like what's the first thing like you give that example of by 22 I had $10 million uh liquid, semi-quiquid, whatever. Yeah, liquid for sure. And yet I didn't own a car. Like what's the first thing people do when they make their first 300K is

46:56they go buy I bought a Mercedes, you know? And by the way, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm just saying like clearly if I want to flex or I wanted to like do stuff for the camera like when you when you've accumulated that level of of of wealth or small inklings of wealth you you go buy you you're flashy. You go buy super carcass this that because you know that that's going to drive more eyeballs more attention leveraged up. Yeah. But I just knew it was inauthentic to me and like even to this day like you know people ask me all the time like when are you going to buy

47:24uh this hyper car that hyper car? I just don't care quite frankly. Like I just don't it would just be inauthentic to me. Like I don't know maybe at one point I'm just like maybe it is authentic to me and I get more into it but like I don't know. I just like what

47:39I like and and I think people feel that. Was there a book that the coolest thing to me is you read reality trans surfing when you were a teenager and I read that book three years ago and ever since then I'm like that is the single-handed most important book I've ever read and everything I read in that book I immediately put into practice. So now I'm like at this moment is like super

47:56trippy. And so I saw you read that 18. I'm like it all makes sense right now. Were there any other books like that that like or just any books in general that helped you like understand like individual thought like thinking for yourself because that's not like a normal thing to just become self-aware of. Yeah. So around when I was like 14

48:1515 I'd read reality trans surfing. That's crazy. Yeah. Med I mean that book's dense. You have to re like I reread it every couple years because it's like Yeah. It's it's very dense. Mhm. And uh stuff like that. Meditations Marcus Aurelius that was basically like my bible and that was a trend like just two years ago that became a trendy thing and you were on that like eight years ago. Yeah. I think you just always have

48:40to like you're a perfect example of it. you have, you know, let's say for example, you've studied and you've looked at some of the stuff I've done because you're like, okay, there's, you know, specific parts of his life that, you know, I would like to achieve similar results, but then you you don't go service level. You go deeper and you're like, okay, what actually got him to that point? And I did that like I would try to go beyond the think and grow rich, how to win friends and influence people, which of course are like amazing gateways. I try to go a few levels down and go, "Okay,

49:11cool. where is what's this what's the more serious stuff that people are reading or what's the more serious resources people are looking at so yeah I just from a young age I I guess I always just knew people are the biggest risk to themselves like if I think about like the risks in life it's usually it all comes down to a person or biggest risk to a business it's usually the people who are leading the business so I just knew that I need to I needed to learn self-awareness I needed to learn emotional control I needed to learn. I'd say that's to be honest my biggest superpowers. I know how to put

49:45my ego aside and play dumb, for example. I know how to shut up. I know how to ignore things. I know how to even if behind the scenes that's not how I'm feeling or, you know, I know how to smile at someone that I know for a fact hates me or is trying to destroy me, but I know that and that's how you end up defeating that enemy. Like there's just I learned the art of war. Mhm. And and war is not puffing your chest up and talking about how you're a [ __ ] gangster and talking about how you know you're such a tough guy. Like those aren't the real

50:16tacticians. You know the real tacticians. Yeah. They're silent. So that learning strategy and learning the art of war from a young age, I think that was very beneficial. Especially as you start to get more temptations coming your way and you start to get more, you know, you start to become the biggest risk to yourself, which is, you know, earning a decent amount of money at the age that I did, you end up becoming a risk. And luckily, I didn't implode like a lot of other people in my situation. So, I think if there's one thing I'll give myself a pound on the back for, it's it's

50:54managing to get through that bumpy ride. Instilling one belief in your mind that isn't yours is a very dangerous thing. And a correlation I've seen with all the young kids who have made millions of dollars in their teenage years, not a lot of them, but the few that have, it seems like they learned the exact right way to think for themselves very early, the right way to frame beliefs, what to believe, what not to believe. And

51:16there's the right actual like mental. And what really stood out to me is I was raised Catholic. I was raised like aware of like God and religion, all these things. And I actually never fundamentally understood it until after reality trans surfing. Reality trans surfing like spoke the same concept to me in like the the way my brain works like very analytically very like from a physics perspective of like how this actually works. And if you and they reference religion and the Bible in there quite regularly and he's like kind of translating like interpretations and that was to the point where like I truly understood like what a relationship with

51:51God was. And ever since then, it's like I was a very high anxiety person, always worried, always stressed, always feeling like I was in control. And that moment like let me like let go and like set like this is what I see for myself. I believe this is possible. This is what I'm going to work towards and I was going to see what happens. And now it's like instead of like trying to force myself onto the world, I'm kind of like sitting here just like waiting for like a sound over there. It's like a sign from God like this is your path. Trying to like show a door for you. And that's

52:18something that you were like very adamant on when I first met you. And I just like totally overlooked it. Like you kept saying, "God," I'm like, "Is this some like PR thing to look like a good person on the internet?" But now like experiencing that and then reverse engineering it, hearing you read that so early, I'm like this actually makes so much sense because if there's one thing that you could actually do to fundamentally change the direction of your life, it would be seek that relationship. In my opinion, whatever in whatever framing you need for the word God, whatever that is, but seek what try to find that. That makes a lot of sense

52:48to me. Yeah. Well, all I can say is that is yeah, it's beautiful. You have those insights and uh you're I as I said, I noticed the first time three years ago, you're a very deep thinker. You're a very very deep thinker. I know we don't speak on these on camera, so I want to acknowledge that to you at least. It was very interesting and you were a part of me being able to like like the weight of how you held that in our private conversations like

53:15actually made me look a little deeper. So very very grateful for that. Now I'll go the complete opposite direction and this is just a testament to my personality here. Another thing is that I've learned a lot from you was getting girls through Instagram [Laughter] and I was so ready to ask you about this. Sure. Because I because you had an a very effective system and I don't want to get you in trouble. I know you're at a different phase of your life, but at the time it was quite a hot topic for both of us and it was the most speaking of me being deep and analytical, you had a system

53:52down or at least some very clear uh approaches to Instagram. You were very anti-dating app. You were like hinge and bubble. No good person's on those things. Instagram is the dating app. And don't post a picture of you in front of a car. Don't show off your watch like this. You had very specific subtleties. And so I would love if you are open to discussing your approach to Instagram if you are in this phase of your period where getting a female is your

54:19objective. Yeah, sure. I mean um let's see, man. I don't know. I feel like a [ __ ] grandpa. I feel like an uncle these days. Um, yeah, obviously it's uh I guess when your your personal brand it can go uh many ways whether that's business, whether that's your dating life. So I just think you know I was even at in a meeting last night with an individual and you know we were talking about um the dating pool in in Miami and he's like yeah I know cuz sometimes maybe the way I present myself it's can attract people that I don't want to attract. I I think just when it

54:59comes to your what you put out online, you have to be very cognizant of like what kind of women would you like around you. Obviously, there's certain things like the sort of you know the sort of women that will be attracted to like a aggressive listen there's one thing if you're like a car is around and I think that's the thing like if a car is around of course it's one thing but like if you're posing in front of a car it posing in front of anything basically makes it clear that this thing is not normal to you whereas if it's just in your surroundings you're just it's

55:29nonchalant you and it shows that it's something that you're accustomed to. So, I think it just depends what you what kind of individual you're trying to attract. I think for me, even if you look at my social media, like I post a lot of just dumb photos on my Instagram, like I'll post like ugly selfies or like funny like bits and bobs that kind of show my personality because I don't want like Yeah. I just I I just want people to like look at me and be like, "Okay, he's still a real human." Mhm. Like I don't want this like overly I don't like when people like glorify me too much or think

56:01that I'm like like I'm just a [ __ ] normal person just like anyone else. Uh and then in terms of Instagram, I don't know. I'm probably not actually the best person to ask because I uh listen, I don't slide in DMs ever. I can't remember the last time I ever No, actually I know the last time I slam in the DMs. Uh um what's her what's her

56:18name? Sexy Red. Is that She's popping the rapper, right? Banging. Yeah. Yeah. We were at um we were at courtside at a heat game and uh like the boys were like, "Oh, that's sexy red." I was like, "Who the [ __ ] is sexy red?" This is like two years ago or something. And uh and then yeah, they showed me and they were like, "Bro, you should you should slide in." So I slid in, but no response. Damn. Could have been. So my my um success rate isn't super high on the DM slides in the last few years. But um yeah, I just think listen, if I'm being entirely honest, if

56:52you're in a certain position, you just kind of and you end up getting a lot of people reaching out to you, a lot of women reaching out to you. Um as I said, I guess currently that's not really a big priority in my life. Uh I just prefer my I I like seeing my friends have fun. Like I kind of live vicariously through my friends. What advice are you giving Tristan for I guess another bad example. What advice are you giving to one of your single friends? How should they run their

57:16Instagram? I think realistically if obviously I'm in a bit of a unique position where I'm just getting so many people reaching out to me but if you are reaching out to people um once again just try to show your personality. Don't try to like the posy photos I don't think are going to work very well giving yourself away. Yeah. It's also going to attract the wrong sort of person. I just think quite

57:34frankly I said show your personality. And the thing is there's no oneizefits-all. Like there's a funny enough there's a lot of women that will look at my stuff and be like he's just not my type of person you know and maybe I'm too much of this for someone or I'm not enough of this for someone like and that's fine. You're not meant to be for everyone but there's going to be a subsection of people that if you have your content cured in a way which is true to you but also like you can put some time and thought into it. Like of course I'm not dumb. Like when I post my

58:04story dumps, I'm still like I do think, "Okay, cool. This signals this. This signals." Yeah. Thank you. Of course, there's an element of like you have to figure out what's the general vibe. I'm on a private jet, but I'm laying down with my hat over my head and you can see the right leather. Maybe there's a logo right there because girls are looking at

58:22the details. There we go. There we go. So, yeah. you know, but on the flip side, let's say you've got like a um you know, a story dump or a photo dump and you've got like multiple of those things that could come across as too shy. Okay, well then throw in like a [ __ ] ugly selfie or throw in something like with you with like your dog or like something that's like, "Okay, cool. This person's not like a stuck up superficial narcissist." If they see a picture of you making a goofy face, they're like, "Yeah." They're like, "Okay, cool." Like he's not trying to [ __ ] like a normal

58:55girl. Yeah. Yeah. is still like a normal humor. He's like cuz I I just don't think anyone I don't think any female is like a guy that takes his Instagram too seriously. Red flag for sure. I think it's just like bro at the end of the day like it's you know it's not that deep and I think that's like the thing I want people to still get the vibe. Like of course my social media sends a certain message and you know it's clearly it has indicators and it says something about my brain but I also want people to know like I'm not a person that [ __ ]

59:24takes myself too seriously. Like I'm sure you know some people from the social media space that's like if one thing is wrong they [ __ ] come after you bro. They'll come after you. You know they'll [ __ ] ask you to take down your the podcast. You know what I'm talking about? Uhhuh. Bro, like you know what I like they're

59:41they got fragile fragile egos, you know? For me, if I'm having a [ __ ] bad hair day, at the end of the day, like you're you're a man. Like, I'm not. So, yeah, I think it's you can have these, for example, high status signals and and high status indicators, but still don't take yourself too seriously because I think that's when you kind of become a little like, you know, repulsive to people. But I really like the fact that you are like you're conscious of like what you're putting out is how people are perceiving that and then this is not like a manipulative way like okay I don't want

1:00:14to come off like an [ __ ] cuz I'm not an [ __ ] so let me make sure I blend in some like goofy fun like I'm not taking myself too seriously. Yeah. The the one thing that you said that stuck with me was that you want your Instagram to show what your life would be like to experience with you. Mhm. And so is your life just going to be sitting there in front of a Ferraris all day on photo shoots or is your life going to be, you know, at Lake Como with five of your friends laughing. There's her friends are around. Like it's just a good

1:00:38environment. That was probably hands down the best advice I'd ever heard. And so there you go. But you have something to say. Yeah, I was just going to say also like you kind of have to maybe this could get taken in the wrong way, but like train your friends on how to take photos. Facts. My girlfriend lets me know that all the time. Like you have to train your and vice versa. Like you have to learn how to take good photos for your friends because like you know if you guys are at the end of day we all do have a we all have a personal brand whether we like it

1:01:03or not just is it working for you or is it working against you. So like even me and my friends, this is like four like five, six years ago, like we would still like take photos of each other's like but when we weren't looking like that's like for me the the most like repulsive thing is like uh posing photo. Now of course listen if you're taking a photo to commemorate a moment or this or that

1:01:23like it's a different story. thinking like, "Oh, this would be a sick shot for like tough, you know, whatever." Maybe it's different if you're doing like I don't know. That's not to say if you take a film photo or a cool photo in front of whatever the bridge, but there's an aesthetic to it.

1:01:37It's an art. Yeah. Blocking. Yeah. Everything. Yeah. It's Yeah. Exactly. It's It's There's a certain There's a certain vibe. It has to be you at the end of the day. Like it has to be your thing. Like your cinematic scenes probably originate from the fact that you were interested in film seven years ago. Yeah, 100%. Your aesthetic, the VHS, you actually have like a row of like antique cameras, like you're into the art of photography. So, that shows, but then you'll just do a photo dump from your iPhone that's just like your genuine experiences or casual goofiness and it's like this blend, but at least I think you understand how it's

1:02:11going to be coming across and not just like blindly trying. The worst thing is to copy somebody else and just like this guy has Iman's stories or posts are awesome. He got all the he does all these things because of his Instagram. Let me just copy that. Like I think it's the uniqueness and the true to you that comes out and that's what's felt through the camera. For sure. Yeah. Exactly. You got to find what works for you. Whether that's like retro look, whether that's and and I think when you find your style, people just like flock to it and they appreciate it so much and whatever

1:02:39that is for you. I mean, I haven't found it yet, but I'm going to be training Cam, Steven, and Hunter to start taking photos of each other just for the homies because we definitely need to up our game there. Have you resonated with a specific movie character? Has that been put into a mood board? And are you prompted very specifically when you're going on social media podcasts to answer questions in a certain way that would

1:03:02resonate with that movie character? Definitely no prompting, that's for sure. Okay. Uh also like the the way that I am on a podcast really depends on the like who I'm talking to. Mh. And what I mean by that is like some people we just go like [ __ ] super meta deep with some people it's like goofy conversations just

1:03:23talking about culture. For some people it's like both. So it just I kind of match the vibe of of the host. Uh when it comes to a specific who do I resonate with the most or is that even like is that how you guys when I'm saying you leverage up and you have to level up. There's a certain point that you had like a few million subscribers that it's like okay what's the next level? and you're the type of guy that's always like what's the next level and so was there a certain point where you had to get so coordinated since it was a media company

1:03:51and getting so omnipresent that it had to be like tightly organized so your team could cons like assist yeah I mean listen for example like we know that there's a general gist we know we're giving across James Bond we're giving across maybe a little bit of Batman great Gatsby like we know that that's the general if we take who my character

1:04:13is and who do we kind of match it up to? We know that's the general vibe. So, and we know that's definitely not like uh we're definitely not trying to be [ __ ] a rapper. We're definitely not like we know what we're not trying to be and then we're always kind of keeping it in the container of what we do want to be. Uh so, I think there's like a general understanding. There's definitely no like media training or you have to say this or you have to say that, but we know generally where we're trying to go. And we also generally know like for example in next uh this next

1:04:45phase of life as I said I've been playing dumb for a long time. Yeah. We know this next phase of life there's even things like I'm really close to now like there's things that I genuinely love that I'm like I'm I'm more and more apprehensive now to even like show anything about my lifestyle for sure because it's just like these things are for me but I know they could be you get

1:05:05put into a bucket with other people. Like for example, like the [ __ ] I do is genuinely just my life and it is what it is. But I know for some people they look at that and they're like, "Oh, cool. You're [ __ ] flexing." It's like it that does annoy me and that does frustrate me sometimes because it's like let's say there's a cool cinematic of me running through New York. It's like, "Okay, cool. He's living his life." But let's say, for example, we're going on a business trip and it was, you know, that was a very important business trip uh last year and I took a BBJ and we had

1:05:32just recorded me running. But if I'm recording on the BBJ, it's like you're flexing. like or maybe I'm both of those [ __ ] things are just me living my life. But now it's getting to that phase where I'm like whatever it is what it is. I could sit here and like cry about it. But like posting any sort of lifestyle stuff then puts you into a certain category. So that's something for example now we've been thinking about for the next 5 years like you know whether I'm living this lifestyle or not maybe like I have to actively because you know how people will actively live a

1:05:57lifestyle to show on social media. I'm like, I think I have to stop. I I have to actively not show my lifestyle because it could affect me negatively on social media in terms of like being taken as serious. Actually makes a lot of sense. Yeah. It'll work against you at this point. 100%. Leveraging up differently. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, you're playing in in when you go into different rooms and you know now like really what I've been doing the last year, year and a half is just buying companies, investing in companies. Some I've made public, some I have, some I haven't. Uh but it's not I'm not viewed

1:06:27as that. I always heard you say that and I was like but you made a pretty big boy investment to be here right now which was pretty gangster I will say. Yeah. So it's you know and this year I've I've um one a month I'm revealing different companies I own. Last month I revealed one of my companies we just got accepted into YC. So yeah but people just don't know me as that. So but it's hard for I think for people in their mind to wrap around like okay cool. he has a cool lifestyle, but then also he's investing in companies. So, sometimes you do have

1:06:58to like Yeah, you have to think about these things and you have to think about, okay, where's the that next career step and how what are the signals that work against it? I'll give you an example. Even me, I I make judgments. Mhm. You could say it's right or wrong. There's like for example, there was another very substantial investment investment I was going to make into a company. I had a meeting with the founder and once again,

1:07:20you could say this is right or wrong. This has just been my observation. uh he was wearing Louis Vuitton and because he was wearing Louis Vuitton shoes and a Louis Vuitton shirt, I just didn't make the investment because I'm just like I don't that's not the archetype of the the founders the sort of founders that I have belief in. I'm not saying as a founder you need to look dress like [ __ ] But that's just Yeah. Like the the companies that I've had the most success investing in, they don't that's just not like that's not a thing. What is it? Whoa. What is either they look rid dressed like complete

1:07:55[ __ ] right? Like either that or they're well put together, but it's like whatever unilo this that like also also I would also be a little offput. For example, if they were like head to toe and Laura Piana, I'm like why are you spending so much time like like you're not in that career stage as an investor. Interesting. Looking at the growth of your company like you shouldn't be [ __ ] spending time thinking about that stuff. like either be well put together, but you shouldn't. First of all, where you getting this money from like like first things first. Number

1:08:22one. Number two, uh this is concerning. Uh and number two, um preferably, yeah, they just don't they just don't even care. Mhm. I invest in autism. That is my life message. And I think that is a very successful strategy so far in my life. I I can back that up. Yeah. It's a power. It's a superpower actually. It's

1:08:41focus on one thing and obsess over it. And that actually results in upside major exponential results. Yeah. And so I think that's very interesting though because no matter it's a human survival mechanism like you are making a your first impression within five seconds you are coming to the conclusion you're making so many like micro assumptions in split seconds that the fact that like it's interesting that you have like definitely one is like the autistic archetype of like the tech founder classic like Peter Teal type of people like that's a very well-known thing is Silicon Valley like it's a Elon Mus has aspberers like it's a thing and then

1:09:13simultaneously the Louis Vuitton's the complete other extreme like okay this guy's like a little scammy like Miami vibes, but then there's like, okay, you could be like well put together, but it's not too coordinated where it's like you're a narcissist and you're picking up on that very very quickly. So, I'm saying like this is what I mean by you're a master of perception of like you understand these things. You understand people and it's all a people game at the end of the day. Yeah. I think listen it it's pattern recognition and everyone has pattern recognition and of course there's people that don't like

1:09:41there's always exceptions, right? There's always exceptions, but there's different what people don't understand is different status signaling. Like for example, like I have a lot of friends that are multi-billionaires and I'm not joking for them. Stat signaling is going in economy cuz they're like I'm so rich that I I I'm so rich I'm so humble that now I'm in economy. And it's like you're Yeah, but would you would you have done that if you didn't [ __ ] post that on your close friends? Like you're just posting that to like make yourself look like this. M so it's just like once again a lot of it is status signaling

1:10:14but then you've got reverse status signaling so then you've got like at the bottom of the rung you've got like Louis Vuitton designer status signaling and then you've got like uh you know Laura Piana too much Laura Piana. Yeah. Then you've got Laura Piana this stat signaling but then what's funny is then you get to another level where it's like no now you just start dressing [ __ ] like Unilo and and H&M because you're

1:10:32just like so rich you don't even care. Yeah. So it's it's it's like it's just Yeah. It's f like this it's funny. Now the thing is as well it's there's people who are that maybe fall under one camp but aren't those things. Like that's why it's something I've been more cognizant of in terms of like showing anything about my lifestyle. Like it's it's funny like my team they're like bro you [ __ ] bought this half a million

1:10:55dollar watch. It's been like two months. Like most people be [ __ ] posting like live as they're buying this thing and this is like you know as like the watch I was wearing yesterday. It's not only like that. is the fact that to be selected to buy a watch where they only make two of them a year and there's [ __ ] millions of people who want this watch like it's a big thing and I'm just like I is so like it like I don't like posting about my lifestyle anymore and they're pushing me to do it but I'm also like posting about my lifestyle then now

1:11:23puts me you know back to people's pattern recognition I don't blame them the the fact that they look at that and like okay he's posting about lifestyle that must mean that he's xyz because they've it's just pattern recognition. They've seen, okay, this person has flexed their watch before, so that must mean that he falls under their category. So, it's they're trying to put you in a

1:11:42box that like they can understand you. Yeah. And and every human does it. It's normal. And there's like what you're referencing like local status of like no matter what your so like your social graph, your friend group, you all have like this mimetic desire to impress each other and like, oh, you admire this person, he said this was cool, so then you go buy this thing. And it's all like triggered by humans. And I think that's actually where like individualistic thought is the most important thing to have because you could start like judging someone for a certain way they're behaving and you've instilled one belief that like me saying autism

1:12:11like people are some people are going to get offended by that and they're going to have now let's instilled belief that you shouldn't talk about these people this way and to the point now they won't even listen to anything else we say and they box you out as like good bad and that really will actually like break your knees if you're trying to be successful in business if you allow those like social beliefs to affect your rational decision-m for business decisions. It's a very meta concept, but very interesting. My favorite thing about you, can I keep saying things or

1:12:37do you have something new? No, no, no. Go for it. Okay. Two things last. First off, huge pass test for saying James Bond. Okay. Thank you. Like can confirm he is who he is on camera, off camera. He did not have to answer that. That was a [ __ ] test. Huge pass. Thank you.

1:12:55Two more. These are also just me again. My favorite thing about you, I think I think it was on Biaz's podcast. You have such a good way because like now you're past the flexing era of like you're not like a like flexing, but you're like, "Oh, I hate G Wagons. I've had three of them. They're the worst car in the world." And I think that is the smartest

1:13:16thing that you do. Yeah. I I I don't I don't know if I said I hate G Wagons. I actually love G Wagons. Or not G Wagons. It was Oh, it was a certain supercar. I get what you mean, but No, I mean, it's I don't know. I mean, It is my genuine belief. It goes back to like the supercar thing. Like I most supercars I just think are like I've driven them all. They're just I found them very unimpressive. So there's

1:13:37things you like, things you don't like. It just that's just always been my philosophy is like if you like something like I don't look at you know I was I don't judge in any direction. Like it's funny. I was I sat down with I don't want to say one of my friends, but one of my acquaintances uh and we were having a meeting. This is maybe a few months back. And I'm not joking like she has tens of billions of

1:13:58dollars liquid in her bank account. Super like one of the top property developers in the world and it's like we were talking about things and I was saying like yeah you know it's crazy like everyone always chases all this money and think they need all this money like realistically because I've played around with different spending levels. I'm like uh you know past past a certain amount and I was about to say past like 3 to four million a year in spending like I'm not joking it makes zero difference to your life. And I was before I could say that she was like, "Yeah, like past 20 million a year." And

1:14:27in my mind, I'm like, "What the fuck?" I asked her, I was like, "What do you spend $20 million a year on?" She's like, "Well, my jet fuel is about like $3 million a year." And then I thought about it. I'm like, I was like, "How is this possible?" But like at the end of the day, I'm not in her position, you know? So, like, who am I to judge? So, I don't judge up, I don't judge down. And what I mean by that is like whatever someone wants to spend their money on, I don't judge it if that's genuinely truly what you love. By the way, there are

1:14:50some people I know that genuinely truly love drip. Like, like they genuinely love these pieces and they're not doing it because they want to show people they're rich this that they're like they like obsess over it and they'll find the old vintage stuff and like they just love that world their thing. But you can tell they love it. Like they're not [ __ ] doing it for anyone else. And I'm like I I respect that. And even though whatever maybe I would have wear some of those pieces, I'm like bro I [ __ ] I genuinely respect it. And I like look at them. I'm like I would still

1:15:20like I think they're welldressed cuz I'm like this just fits your personality. So yeah, I think all this just comes down to like when you're real people can feel that and there's certain things like I couldn't give less of a [ __ ] about Pokemon cards. But like if I did I would feel no shame around like spending money on it if it was fit within my budget. And I think if you can talk about something in an excited way and like people could tell like it really fits your vibe then then yeah the audience just feels that. I think that's the most important line you said. The audience feels that

1:15:54it's all a feeling and so like editing like it's not about the graphics that people use. It's not about the two-colored lights that people use. It's the fact that what you're saying you're speaking with a certain passion that they feel is true to you. And that's really how content works. I think Daniel Dalen was the best example of that in recent times. Like crying on camera in the car of his excitement of like actually like about to be building one of the coolest businesses he's had the chance to work on and then explaining the all the different emotions at the same time. And so it's like if you're

1:16:21trying to have one piece of advice for social media content is you have to make people feel. And the only way to do that is to not be as coordinated. Don't look at the external world. Ask yourself and express it. Yeah. That feeling the emotional variance. I think that's where you start to get into like you go from like followers to true fans like when you can give them a variance of emotion as in show them the good, show them the bad, make them feel happy, make them feel sad, make them feel um sometimes even angry, sometimes feel like jealous, sometimes sympathetic, like if you can coordinate all this

1:16:55these emotions in one uh and also the other thing is just don't try to make yourself seem too perfect. That's a lot of a lot of my job on social media actually is just not making myself seem perfect because once again it's already [ __ ] hard enough to root for me because when someone has set out to do something and it's not been easy. I've had I've had so many [ __ ] L's and so many setbacks and you know it's it's not been an easy journey but when someone has set out to do something they've accomplished it. It's very hard to root for them at that point. But it's even

1:17:22five times as hard to root for them if they're like try to make themselves seem perfect because then you're like, "Okay, cool. Now I really want to I wish for your [ __ ] downfall because yeah, PE you only people only like heroes because they have flaws. Like they have a kryptonite. They have something that

1:17:36like is the thing that holds them back. So yeah, trying to make yourself appear too perfect on social media is probably a, you know, the number one way for uh people to just not [ __ ] with your stuff at all. Not get any following. It seems like it's the era of like a thousand followers like on YouTube, like smaller, very niche, very deeply interested people and you're sharing as much as possible about that shared niche to the point where they feel like they're doing it with you and if they want to get involved, they can. I feel like you this is like the new thing that you've been

1:18:09calling lately. So, I'd love to hear your perspective on just because you have 5 million. It's kind of weird to say, but like it almost seems like it's it'd be really cool to have like 1 to 2,000 followers. I think it's a massive advantage. I think followers don't matter at all right now. Subscribers don't matter at all. I mean, you know, YouTube really changed their algorithm in the space of last year or so where, you know, I get people on my feed with 30 37 views, 300 views. I think I was saying this yesterday, like I watch, it's funny, I watch about two hours a

1:18:36day of YouTube, but I watch on 4x speed. 4x? Yeah. Is that even possible? On on Chrome, you've got like an extension that you What's it called? A video speed controller, something like that. That's the hack. Yeah. So, and by the way, that's not like for enjoy. Like, it's not time constraint because you want to consume. Yeah. Cuz basically, I want to be tapped in and I want to know what's going on on online. Critical. It's I think a lot of people would be genuinely surprised how like I know every single creator online. Like honestly, I may not say it. I may not put it out there, but

1:19:06like I know everyone and for me it's it's just studying. So, I'll spend like 30 minutes whatever. Let's say I'm eating lunch this that and I'll just watch in 4x speed and uh obviously with captions like without captions would be impossible. Uh and I just see what's working, what's not working. And there's I think there's a lot of small creators that'll be very genuinely surprised that like I'm on the other side of the screen, you know, eating my lunch somewhere and just watching them in 4x speed. Uh just going through their day and I'm like, "Okay, why is it that this video was an outlier and outperformed

1:19:37all the other videos?" Okay. Why? Yeah. You also have to ask yourself why. Why is the content performing? Why? Why? Why? Because it's not the title in a vacuum. It's not the thumbnail in a vacuum. Maybe it's the feeling in a vacuum. Maybe it's there's a certain resonance in the ether of the culture

1:19:50right now that that really hits. Yeah. Once again, yeah, it it's cultural and it's also it's a swing and it's like s like for example doing a low quality recording in front of a whiteboard. It's once again it goes back to like the anti- status signal. It's like I am so smart. By the way, whether that's [ __ ] true or not, it doesn't matter. But it's just pattern recognition. People like, "I'm so smart." People think whiteboard, they think schools, they think education, universities, colleges, etc. Okay? They think, "Okay, you're usually a person with a whiteboard behind them is a person of authority who's teaching something to other people." So, they're

1:20:23instantly thinking, "Okay, authority." Then they're like, "Okay, cool. There's no displays of wealth." So, they must be once again going to that reverse status signaling because people have this, by the way, also people have this idea in their mind that like people who are super wealthy don't spend money. That's a whole load of [ __ ] Like that's [ __ ] that like they want you to think that's all a [ __ ] PR play. Like they just have a $5 million piece of art on the wall and don't even flex on it, you know? Yeah, exactly. Like they want you to think that's not the case. Wait,

1:20:48is that your friend? No, no, no. Sorry. I was just That's just a piece of art. Okay, I was cool. I was about to get concerned. I'm safe. Um, so yeah, with with all that being said, it's going back to pattern recognition. So like that is a style that you can implement, you know, cuz people say, "Oh, but I don't have this fancy thing or that fancy thing." Okay, well then you can go to the opposite end of the market and you can speak to the people who don't want this flashy stuff, want stuff recorded on an iPhone. And especially that is the meta right now. that

1:21:17generally is like what's in or you know uh doing screen recordings of mural boards and it's all of these things signal different they say different things and they tap into different markets and you know the the the fact of the matter is there's certain people no matter what I do no matter how amazing my content is or how valuable or what I've accomplished in life they they just won't [ __ ] with me and that's like I think you're gonna drive yourself crazy to think that you're going to make everyone appreciate your [ __ ] now I have a broad spectrum of stuff where now, you

1:21:49know, I have quite an open market where like maybe you like some of the short form stuff, maybe you like um uh the main channel stuff, maybe you like the business stuff, maybe you like the vlog, like so there's there's kind of something for everyone, but still there's certain people that just genuinely because of quite frankly because of where I'm from, the way that I talk, uh you know, maybe I'm too much, maybe I I'm too show offy, maybe I'm not show offy enough for some people. And that's fine. What's cool is that that's

1:22:12like a it means there's an equalizer. Mhm. It means that because I've had people before tell me like, "Oh, but why would someone watch my content or why would someone listen to me?" It's like, I know this might be some like hard to hear. If you have a competitor in the same space genuinely, simply because the fact that you're a female, automatically there's some people that watch you that

1:22:30won't watch the male for sure. Yeah, 100%. And and just because you have you have a British accent and the other person has an American accent. Once again, now you have a segment of the market simply because they identify with you and they resonate resonate with you. And that's why like more people need to put the personal back in personal brand. They just like yes of course once again treat it like a media company make it meticulous all the stuff but like still make it personal because that's how you get a segment of the market that's sticky. I think that's the epitome of like you're so hard to put

1:22:59into a box for someone even down to your accent. Like you're from London you kind of you're Russian from London kind of speak English like normal like American English. Yeah. Then you live in Dubai. It's like what who is this person? Like this doesn't make sense. just be normal. And so like you keep watching and

1:23:15there's so many layers to that for you. But I do think that's interesting. I have a really personal question. I guess not personal, but like how you see things because obviously like if you're Elon Musk, 50% of the world hates him, 50% of the world loves him. You look under his comments. You have schizophrenic people thinking he's like going to destroy society and this is all one big ploy to gain power and then pull the rug on people. And some are like he's like the best person on earth actually saving humanity, which I lean to that side. But you're that size in our world. like you are the biggest in

1:23:41our world and I'm sure you get both sides of that and so kind of what you were saying like okay if they're on a whiteboard and they're drawing on the whiteboard you're like oh school authority this person's teaching me they don't have a watch on there's no supercar oh they're not going to sell me a course even though that person could be the most intentional aware person knowing that that's how people think and then manipulate them and so I'm very curious of like this whole like people will try to like discredit people who sell courses or anything but it's very

1:24:07frustrating because like in any market. All markets are competitive, especially in ours where there's so much money. This is probably like the most valuable content market on YouTube is the info world. You are hands down the number one performing person and that's an equally competitive market as tech. That's an equally competitive market as you know ecom brands. They're all just their own domain and you are clearly the best at your domain which should merit you like peak respect but so many people try to like dismiss you as like oh he's a core seller. I'm like, you try to sell a course, you try to make $100,000 in a

1:24:42day with a course. Like, show me how much time that's going to take you and then you can talk. And so, I find that very interesting and I would love to hear your perspective on it because you probably get the most [ __ ] out of everybody just because you're the biggest, just like Elon. Yeah. I mean, listen, I understand that the uh info space is gets a bad rep. I

1:25:03think for me there's there's opinion. It's funny also scammer. I find that scammer is now they use it in the same way they use racist. Like if Oh, like oh, the same crowd. Yeah. Like they use it in the same way like you could do something and they're like, "Oh, you're racist." It's like what does me having to do? Like like you're you're just like it's it's just kind of a word they just throw at you like scammer. It's like scammer. It's like okay cool. Well scamming means you promised a pro like it's funny like even at a town hall um Stephen was like if there's a refund

1:25:33policy it can't be a scam. Like my policy is very simple. Exactly. It's 7 days. It used to be 14 days. 7 days or 14 days depending on when you bought the products when. No questions asked money back guarantee. I've given 4. We're about to cross $5 million in refunds. Our refunds is still only single digits. So we have about a 6% 6 and a half% refund rate, something like that. Uh and my whole thing is very simple. Like try the product for a week. If it's not what you were promised, that's cool. Ask for money back and and that's that. So I I just think that's the best way of doing

1:26:04things. I think also it's crazy that like we're held like in what world are you allowed to buy a pair of Nike shoes, wear them for seven days, sleep in them, like literally consume the entire [ __ ] thing and then on day seven you go back to Nike and they have a no questions asked money back guarantee. No questions asked. The only time they ask you a question is of course you want to collect data as a business. So we survey our customers, you know, once we've actually returned their money. So what world are we living in where like same thing with Apple like in what world do you think you can go to

1:26:35Apple buy an iPhone use it day in day out cons like it's it's it's being used 24/7 and then day seven you go back and you know uh Apple has a no questions asked money back guarantee and people are still calling Apple a scam and then on the flip side I get people saying it frustrates me sometimes because I get people saying oh but you're making large claims and I'm like okay well let's look at the most valuable company on earth once skin. Apple, bro, if you look at Apple's keynotes, they're giving you their statistics on their iPhone. Every single year, they put lipstick on their

1:27:07product and they say, "Okay, you get these results, these performance, blah blah this." And it's like, yeah, maybe a brand new iPhone in the right room temperature and all of these factors that are not realistic in the real world. Yeah. You get that sort of performance. They're benchmarks. Yeah. Yeah. They're benchmarks. So, it's like even [ __ ] Apple does it. So why is it unfair that you know you say hey we have this customer that's achieved this result and this customer that's achieved this result of course if you go and you tell people you have 100% guaranteed result to accomplish this this of course that's unethical and

1:27:39also pair that with the fact that you don't have a refund policy so when people come in and they're like whoa this is not at all what I was promised or what I was expecting so I think there's some players in the info space they give a bad rep for me one thing that I've always been very um has annoyed me is conditional guarantees. I see that a lot and that and I understand because I would genuinely feel scammed uh because a lot of these people what they do is they go okay uh we guarantee you're going to accomplish x result like we accomp we guarantee you're going to

1:28:09make $100,000 but then in the stipulations and if you don't we're going to uh refund you plus send you back uh send you x amount of money or we're going to uh you know uh continue to whatever extra thing they add. But if you look at the stipulations, and I have no issues with that, if they were unconditional, if there weren't conditions to that guarantee, aka if you look in the fine print, it's like, but you have to do this, this, this, this,

1:28:33this, this, this, this. The fact, too. Yeah. And it's like, and it's unrealistic stuff. It's like, okay, you have to basically do a 100 cold calls a day, every single day for 90 days, and be able to prove it, track that. Yeah. And it's like, bro, you know, you're setting people up for sale for failure at this. That is deception. Now, if your policy is like like honestly I actually have less of an issue with someone saying my refund my refund policy is zero. I have no refund policy because at least them

1:28:59people know what they're getting into. Correct. I actually have less of an issue with that than [ __ ] conditional guarantees because like once again what's the refund policy once you own open an iPhone? Nothing. Like and yet they've sold you on benchmarks that is not realistic that you're not actually going to accomplish. Same thing with like when Nike sell their shoes or when with you know when they sell you a Ferrari. Like once again the reason I I haven't gone so into you know all these super cars is because most of them I can tell you they're [ __ ] [ __ ] All the

1:29:25most of these super cars are dog [ __ ] They break down. They don't work like it's promised. You don't they're not as fast as they advertise to you. That's why for example I'm a big Porsche guy. Like I just know the car always works. Whatever they benchmark it actually always performs better than that. And that's why like I appreciate the company

1:29:39and I buy a lot of Porsches. Integrity. Yeah. So all that to say that like even Ferrari is going to sell you on some outcome like some some benchmarks all science and some benchmarks but like no one's going to Ferrari and saying oh it's a scam or this that it's like and by the way you you try walk driving out with your Ferrari and going back and trying to return it $50,000 down the drain. Exactly. So, it's just funny that we live in this world where like, you know, with info people will be like, "Oh, but trying to call anything with a I I just think there's there's a big

1:30:11difference between is was it worth it or is it a scam?" Now, the was it worth now was it worth it is a conversation we can have every single, you know, any day of the week. Like, if someone wants to say, "Hey, you know, let's say for example, I didn't buy I bought this product and it wasn't worth it." You know, I'm sorry to hear that. We, you know, we do a lot of work as a business. have a a a very extensive product team, customer support team, uh a student concier team. We do as much as we humanly can to make the products as good as possible. And we've

1:30:36had, you know, our MPS score is through the roof. And I honestly hand on heart can say at least in the info space, I've never seen the satisfaction and result from actual customers because once again, it's funny. I see this like it's so annoying sometimes. I'll get D like I'll even get messages from people. I I respond all the time and they'll be like, "Oh, I got scammed for and it's funny because it'll be numbers. it'll be an amount that we've never sold a product at that price point. I got scammed for x amount. I said, and I'll really respond. I'll say, uh, send me your customer email and I'll refund you

1:31:03100% of the money. Ghost block. Because I know that there are [ __ ] customers because our whole thing is like the reason why we've return like we've given back $5 million. That's $5 million net pocket money to me. Uh, like net money in my pocket from customers. The reason why we return it is I'm like, listen, I would just rather return the money than have like actual un like unhappy customers. uh or customers that feel like they got slighted. So, that's our policy and I think that's a fair policy and anyone in info that has a unconditional money back guarantee, I

1:31:34just don't think you never call a scam. Now, by the way, probably out of 10 products I buy, whether that be expensive purchases, whether that be small purchases, probably out of 10 purchases, I have one that I'm like, "That was incredible." I have about three that were like, "Okay, that was okay." And then I have about six that I was like, "Okay, that wasn't worth the money." Does that mean that they scam me? No. It doesn't mean that they, you know, the these multi- national corporations scam me. It's just like, you know, sometimes maybe, by the way, maybe the product for someone else, like maybe for me it wasn't great, but

1:32:09for someone else, they [ __ ] loved it. And this is this is just business as a whole. So, it just comes down to me, which is simply if you have a unconditional guarantee, I just you can never get called a scam. Now, as to whether was the product worth it or not, maybe once again, maybe for you it wasn't, but maybe for someone else, it totally changed their life. In the same way, maybe for me, I I bought a pair of running shoes, but because my feet are wider, I hated them. They were horrible. But for someone else, they ran their fastest run in them and they ran

1:32:35their fastest marathon, and they love it. They they wouldn't consider looking anywhere else. So, it's all objective, but I just think there's a certain way you conduct business. If you conduct business in that uh fashion, what else can you do really? But the everyday person just lumps everybody together and if you do one thing I will just to first off I love how passionate you got because that shows you really care about this in a very positive way. Secondly, there's one thing in the world that everyone says like you get that advice when you're like 5 years old is that knowledge is power. Like knowledge is the one thing

1:33:05that's proven to change people's lives because for the better because if you learn the right piece of information at the right time that can change everything for you. And so investing in that is objectively probably the most important thing you could do. You obviously you can find it on YouTube for free, but like if you like someone who's actually gotten that result before, you can very clearly see they have the result that you want, you should be able to support them and pay for them for

1:33:24that knowledge because that's valuable. I went to university at college. I got an $80,000 loan. They will not refund me, unfortunately. And was it a scam or did I not was it not worth it? It absolutely was not worth it. But like I knew what I was getting into and I knew I was going there to learn. And sure, there was stuff that was being taught there that was outdated and everything else that I learned was just on free for YouTube. But then once I actually went down the career path, there was a depth of knowledge that I needed from an

1:33:49expert who was doing it who I could pay. And that was like probably the most valuable thing you could do. As long as you have intent and you're not just like unreasonable going into it, naive going into it, thinking that's all going to fix your problems. Like I believe there is some also onus on the person buying the thing to like of course go into something realistically understanding why and what you want and what it's going to do for you because no matter how good the program is, it might not be relevant to what you're doing. And so

1:34:14trying to be able to see through that. But I digress. At this point, people are going to say that two core sellers are just coping at this point. But yeah, yes and no. I mean, listen, at the end day, it's it just comes down to, you know, I I I I just love this. I love this industry, quite frankly. And once again, it comes down to with running shoes. Like more than likely, once again, probably for every, you know, I just like to buy running shoes because I'm like every once in a

1:34:45while there'll be one that I just love. Like probably for every five running shoes I buy, there's one that I will continue wearing. Like I'll continue wearing it and you know, maybe if I it wears out, I'll buy it again. I kind of But but does that mean that because I have a 20% success rate with running shoes or by the way it's also the same thing with like shoes in general? Like we all know like we buy a bunch of shoes, you know, maybe we buy out of every four or five pairs of shoes we buy, there's only one pair that we'll like go ahead and reby or like you know

1:35:12the rest just kind of collect dust and we think that we wanted it but we decide okay you know what maybe it's not for me. Does that mean that you then go and stop buying shoes? Of course not. It's like and that's that's the way I view digital products is like yeah maybe you know you buy some that aren't for you by the way just because it's not for you doesn't mean it's a good product. It just means maybe it's not helpful for you right now. Or maybe yeah, it just maybe it wasn't helpful for where you are right now, but if you came back to

1:35:35that digital product a year from now, it would have totally changed your life. I've had that experience with books, for example. So just cuz you bought one digital product and maybe it wasn't the right one for you, is there one thing that you could take from it? And the way that I look at like cuz once you receive knowledge, once you have knowledge, it's you can't give it back. It's not tangible. Yeah. You know, you can't give it back. And the the way that I view that is like that knowledge and that insight is is with you for the rest of your life. So, let's say for example,

1:36:00you even paid um you know $10,000 uh for for a program. If you you know uh average that out average that out over the space of the next 30 years, that's what like about $300 a year that you paid for that program. Has that brought you more value and more in terms of your income? Because there's people ask me all the time like, oh, what should I invest in? It's like, well, you are the

1:36:24biggest revenue generator in your life. Now you get to a certain point where you know there's only so much more money that you can bring in and you know now you actually have to start investing in like sizable businesses or sizable assets and this and that but like especially in that early stage it's like that extra 20% you get in the market that's not if you only have $1,000 to invest that's not going to like you're not going to take turn $1,000 into $100,000 a year in a year predictably with you know just investing in XY Z etc etc. Whereas if you spend $1,000 or $1,500 or even listen even if

1:36:58it's 50 bucks whatever whatever it is and you learn a skill and that skill like for example I bought digital products when I first started on content creation. Mhm. Content creation has made me directly when I was doing a freelance and when I had a creative agency direct directly made me hundreds of thousands of dollars. But if I look at everything else it's done and that skill that I paid at that moment but I got the

1:37:21benefit of that for the rest of my life. it's made me tens of millions of dollars probably directly just from that. Uh same thing with uh whether it be digital products I bought on advertising or this or that like and some things you know some digital products I bought and you know some course I bought and honestly 99% of it was not really worth it like I I I had something I paid for last year that was 250 grand 250 grand uh to have 10 calls I'm not joking I must have used the first two calls we're talking about I had a very niche thing in one of the

1:37:52businesses I wanted uh solving on I wanted advice on and we probably spent the first two calls talking about that problem was solved and then we spent the last like eight calls just like shooting the [ __ ] but that honestly it really took one call that that one call was worth the 250k to me% so even if you can just take that one thing from the digital product or the the coaching or the course or the info whatever it is if you can take that one thing the the knock-on effect that has for the rest of your life is is insane and that's why I've just always been like you know even

1:38:25in my bio when I was 17. And but when I was 17, I didn't have a course or anything that I was selling. When I had this in my bio, I'm on a mission to reform the education system. And the way you reform the education system for me is online education. And that's why like I'm so like I put my money where my mouth is. Like I [ __ ] believe in this more than anything else out there because the return you can get in traditional education compared to online education there just there is no comparison. And yeah, maybe you have to go through, you know, three or four, you

1:38:55know, maybe there might be three or four bad digital products you buy for every one that's like incredible. But it's the same thing when you go to classes, you know, you don't stop going to school just because three or four classes are [ __ ] waste of your time, but you have that one that like you learn the skill that then becomes your career for the rest of your life. I think it's probably the most important thing to happen right now. I was deeply sad in college. It's

1:39:15probably the darkest period of my life. And I was a videographer. Like I was trying to do a little side hustle, making money in college, but like I see all these people online making all this money and I was like, "Okay, I need a new career path." And the first piece of content I saw, the first time I ever heard about internet marketing, marketing online was from you. Five to six years ago. And now I lead marketing a [ __ ] And so and and trippy. Sorry, just one thing I wanted to say on that is like our mission, of course, our mission is always transforming and

1:39:46morphing, you know, as time goes on, but right now what we're really focused on at WAP is helping people make money. And I was saying this yesterday. I don't know why that's like a dirty thing to say. Like it's like, oh yeah, we want to make people healthy. It's like no one's going to give you issues for that or we want to help people, you know, we want people our mission is to help people sleep better or our mission is to uh make people have better marriages. It's like these are all noble things but yet your mission as a company is to help people make money and it's like why is

1:40:15that a bad thing? Like usually this is the foundational thing that make sure that every all these other things can even be unlocked and can even happen. It's the most important thing. So why is it like a a taboo thing or why are you you know it's just like I think people should [ __ ] say with pride like yeah I want to make money. Well I'm like very passionate about that being our brand is like we are here to make you a lot of money. Like we are to the point that's what it's about. Like social media everyone like translates followers to oh they make a lot of money and everyone

1:40:41like beats around the bush like in these like free communities. I'm like we are here to make you a lot of money. We are going to build you the tools that we all wish we had when we were all 15 because we've all made money online very early and now we're all together telling you exactly what you should be doing with the best information, the best engineers and hopefully the best product for you to do that and so just such a full circle moment the fact that you're here at [ __ ] too. Like it's just insane and you've helped us so much with the

1:41:03product. So really appreciate it, dude. Very excited for the future. I have one last question for you. What are you looking forward to in your life right now? Like what's the most exciting thing? Honestly, right now it's [ __ ] Right now it's [ __ ] As I said, it's you can't compare it to anything else out there. It's, you know, we we I guess sometimes we do kind of make comparisons, but it is interesting to look at it like the WeChat of the West

1:41:31where it's you can do everything on W. Like I think truly people the more and more people cuz WAP's been so product focused like I you know I said this it's like the best built product that no one knows about and not listen not to say that no one knows about it cuz that's fair. They got to this point with zero marketing all product which is which isn't crazy the fact that like people on WP are making $und00 million a month right now. A month right people on W are making $100 million a month and people are crushing with W. It's still not really that new secret, you know. It's

1:42:03like this little tucked away secret. I'm so excited to bring it to light in uh 2025 and and you know, onwards because it's I've said before, you know, trying to compare it to to Shopify, you know, the Shopify Shopify digital products, but like at the end of the day, Shopify, you know, when when we sell uh our eyewear, we still have to we still have to use a 3PL to get the product to the customer. We still have to run Facebook ads to get the customers in. Like there's we there's multiple different touch points. Shopify really just does, you know, payments. I guess you don't even technically you don't even need it

1:42:39for payments, but you know, it does payments and checkout. But WP, it's payments, checkout, paying your team, getting traffic to your offer, whether that be through the marketplace where we're literally making our WP users three to five million a month, like as in bringing the traffic to them. Mhm. Uh or whether that be on the clippings and the um content rewards side of things. So, it's just like it to me it's bigger than Shopify. To me, it's bigger than Shopify. It's bigger than uh payment processor. It's bigger than uh it's bigger than it like it's an advertising platform as well. Like it's

1:43:19just I've never seen anything like it. Quite the million dollar question is what is [ __ ] And so that's why it's like it is impossible to compare, but we have like pieces of everything. Like we have Amazon style marketplace for digital products. Uh we have actual fulfillment like a discord community platform. Like

1:43:33you can do all of that on the platform. You can build your entire store just like Shopify. You can handle all of your payments. So whether you're running an agency, whether you're selling a digital product, you can literally run any online business just through our payments infrastructure. Then you can do the customer support through the community platform. Then we have you can pay each other money just like Cash App on the platform. And so it's a community platform with money. And now you can see how much everyone's making on the platform. And so it's just cool as [ __ ] and super unique, but a testament to

1:43:57like all of the founders journeys, our journeys to come together and build this right combination of things that we all know will work perfectly together. So it's just allin-one and I'm hyped about it. And and what else is very interesting is how much we're doing on the gamification side of things. Uh and I have no issues whatsoever saying this word in relation to being better and

1:44:19earning more and making more money. addiction to on the wall platform like we're getting people addicted to being better and you know evolving with their career and taking steps forward and making more money and and learning more uh uh on platforms. So what it's just like you know I was saying this yesterday like even small things like the spin the wheel like when I first obviously we first started discussions what it must been about like eight nine months ago and as I'm getting more and more familiar with W you know back then I'm looking at certain things I'm like spin the wheel that's that's a bit

1:44:51ridiculous but then now as I'm looking I'm like understanding like people genuinely wake up every day like okay you know let me spin the wheel and me as a as you know let's say for example I've got a community or I'm Um, I've got a community or I have a course or any, you know, I'm selling Fortnite maps, you know, like people are selling all sorts of show and [ __ ] It's insane. I and I decide, okay, I want to give 10% of of earnings back to the uh the community and every single day there's going to be a new person that wakes up and spins the wheel who's

1:45:21learning on platform, but then also spins the wheel and it's like, [ __ ] you know, this person just paid for my lunch because they care. They show that they appreciate me. Or, you know, this person uh spin the wheel and you win a phone call. you know, on once a week, you know, uh you get to uh touch base with some of your customers and show appreciation. Like there's so much stuff that makes learning fun. And that's why like when I thought like when I had I'm on a mission to reform the education system in my Instagram bio in 2017, like I knew I didn't know what that looked

1:45:49like yet. Like I didn't know I didn't think I was going to accomplish it anytime soon. And obviously bear in mind when I say this, I want to make it clear like everything W has built is [ __ ] kudos to you. And you know, I'm so blessed and fortunate to, you know, have been able to to come in and make an investment and be a coowner now and, you know, really have a seat at the table. But for me, when I think about that mission of reforming the education system, like WAP is the closest thing

1:46:15that I see out there full stop to that. I think that's a really important thing to focus on here because college, everyone was sold the stream like you go to college, you get a degree, you get a job to make money. like that was the function. But they're still getting away with charging $80,000 for degrees for degrees that don't help you get a job and don't make any money like liberal arts degrees, journal, like all these random ass degrees where [ __ ] is going to be the free market of ways to make money. You're going to see what courses are people actually making money from,

1:46:44what industries are hot right now, who's making the most money in what sector of the market, what actual mechanism, whether it's content rewards or affiliates or bounties or selling a course or community. you'll actually be able to see the free market of what is in demand and what information is valuable right now. It's actually translating into money. So, I think that's the perfect synergy and everything we've both done in our lives has built up to this moment. So, it's very very interesting. Yeah. As you said, it's very cool to have a room of so many people that like have actually lived it because the issue is with all

1:47:13the other platforms, it's people that like they're just not they're not in the trenches right now. Like we're all still in the [ __ ] trenches. Even though we come together and we're here at WAP and we're all involved in WAP, we still have our own stuff going on. And I think it's so cool that that's like actually promoted because it's like, okay, cool. You need to be in the trenches. You need to be know what's going on. You need to know what's working, what's not working because, you know, there's stuff quite frankly, there's stuff that like people promote as like their big USP that doesn't even

1:47:41[ __ ] work. And the people who are the founders have never even done it themselves and they're telling you to do it and they're molding the entire company off of it. So, it's just Yeah, it's um it's literally required by Stephen. Every single person here has to have a [ __ ] Literally, even the office dog made $200. Poncho made $200 with his [ __ ] So, 200 a month. 200 a month recurring. Let's make that for the record. So, Stephen is probably honestly like the most inspiring CEO I've had the chance to work with. Like vision, understanding money, understanding who he's building for, obsession with the

1:48:12product. like we'll be at a dinner at 10:30 p.m. and he starts getting agitated because there's a onestar review of a very simple bug and he'll like get up in the middle of the meeting and go fix that thing himself. And so it's just like this obsession over the product but like holding that standard across everybody. And so it's very very cool to see that. That was very different um just having a technical founder that cares so deeply about what he's building. It's like you can't even put it into words like how important that is and I've never seen something

1:48:37like it. So big shout out to Stephen. But dude, I think we're on the cusp of something very, very special. And it feels like the mission is like actually just now beginning. Like we did it for ourselves. Now let's do it for billions of people. Yes, sir. You want to play FIFA? Let's do it.