# I met this guy who is the million dollar content flywheel king

Channel: Greg Isenberg
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1nlPjbbqDQ
Duration: 47 min
Language: English
Words: 9724
Transcript page: https://viewrankai.com/tools/youtube-transcript/T1nlPjbbqDQ

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[0:26] [Music] thank you all right case from the show hello thanks for having me man so explain to people who you are because I came across your Instagram people were just sharing your posts again and again and again and I was like I need to reach out to this guy and try to understand who he is and how he's doing this and and I just want to crawl in your brain a bit so yeah for those who don't know who case Kenny is you know please please explain I mean I would say Instagram is like a really small part of what I do it's a way that

[1:00] a lot of people find me and kind of get into my proverbial funnel but it's really a small part of what I do I'd say the joke that I say is that I share my feelings for a living that's the like brand and it comes to life in many different ways for one I'm a podcaster I've been podcasting since 2014 I host a podcast on SiriusXM called new mindset who dis it's all things mindfulness so really my passion in life and the way that I bring that to life and product and content and the podcast and books and in writing um it's it's through the lens of mindfulness that's really my and

[1:31] bringing mindfulness by my own definition to life in different relatable ways I've created products that are in Target in Walmart bringing mindfulness to life in fun ways I have in Candle lines I've created journaling lines I do a lot in music with artists in dance music with music and mindfulness so really I'm just very passionate about the topic of mindfulness and I'm privileged to be able to do it for a living and talk and share my feelings for a living Instagram just being a way to bring my idea of mindfulness to life in small consumable ways you know grateful that people like to really share that content but for me

[2:03] it all started with the podcast frankly that's like the you know the Center of My Universe it's it's where I create all my original content it's where I then decide to create products and books from it um yeah that that's pretty much it I'm 35. um you know just for normal guy reflecting on life through the lens of mindfulness and that in effect has turned me into an author first and then I'd say an entrepreneur a close so it's interesting that you said that you started with the podcast because a lot of people ask me should I start a podcast and I'm always kind of like if

[2:35] you don't have an audience like don't honestly yeah because it's so hard to get there's no Discovery built in within podcasting like how were you able to break through in the podcasting world without having an audience uh yeah I I hate to say I'm the exception but it your advice is is true it's very difficult right most of the you know podcasts nowadays that are started are started by people with big followings or her moving their following from an email list or something something like that it's and that's obviously the way to do it uh I started podcasting in 2014 on a different podcast and then I started new

[3:09] mindset who does in 2018 at the time I think I had like 10 000 followers the grammar so now I'm at like half a million so there's is the growth there um I don't know I mean I I did a lot of different things over the years I've grown large email lists like I was building an email newsletter at the same time like morning Brew was I was close with those those guys so like I learned a lot about like how to build a brand you know for me I think podcasting in a serious way in 2018 did give me a little bit of an advantage it was a little bit

[3:37] before kind of the the Heyday that we're in now um and then combine that with um uh you know my email list but really the way that my social came about was I created the podcast it did really well I remember the first month it did 56 000 downloads with no social media following and that doesn't sound like a lot but for a no-name podcaster to start with that in a month it puts you in you know a category of being successful and from there you know I I podcast for about a year and I was like oh this is really interesting like it's doing well then it

[4:08] was a hundred thousand a month 200 300 000 a month I was like I should I should monetize this but I didn't want to do ads so I was like what can I create for my audience that I I can sell to in a really authentic way landed on creating a journal actually I don't know if you know Austin from morning Brew is actually he put something in my head and suggested that and I ended up doing it but when I started to create the journals and I sold them and they started to do really well I started to put a lot of AD spend into it and in

[4:35] effect started to really create this you know the business did seven figures um and in the first eight months it did really really well but then I used that momentum to pour it back into the podcast so the podcast quickly became part of the e-commerce marketing cycle um and that kind of helped explode the podcast as well all my fulfillment emails all the follow-up emails all the Loyalty emails within my funnel pointed people back to the podcast so it became this really nice cycle of organic content created journal from it Market the journal with paid ads push people back to the podcast pushing the social and then it became this thing

[5:11] um and ever since it's become a really organic way for me to create content on the podcast see what people react to create a book from it create a product from it and then just go from there so really nice like unforced cycle so I wanna I actually want to go deeper into this and nerd out a bit so what you're describing is is a flywheel basically it's a crater flywheel which means that you know if you spend more money on ads you're gonna sell more uh of the journal which is going to get more podcasts um listens which is gonna you know sell more journals and get more podcasts you

[5:48] know and sort of this live that keeps going and that's like the Holy Grail of what every Crea you know they're calling now creatorpreneurs which are like creators plus entrepreneurs yeah um wants to be at so my question to you is could you talk more about like what your ads look like what platforms you used and then more specifically like how were you actually driving people to the podcast and then on the podcast like what experience like just like walk me through the whole flywheel in like one level deeper yeah yeah for sure so I mean the lowest level of course was the podcast I've been doing it twice a week

[6:27] for five years I just hit episode 500. it's my thing it's it's ingrained in my routine twice a week and then pretty much 24 7 because I'm always thinking of content and I don't do guests on the podcast so it's all just like case Kenny's of the day um so yeah so let's just talk about that bro sorry to interrupt you let's talk about that for a second thoughts of the day like you talked about you know feelings you know how did you come up with the idea for the podcast and what were you trying to accomplish in terms of the content um I honestly came from a really like self

[6:59] self-compassionate place like I worked in advertising for 11 years before I started doing this in Chicago with a bunch of the you know tier one agencies and then an advertising technology sales I led a sales team in Chicago when I was about to turn 30 um I was basically like you know called a quarter life crisis whatever you want to call it break up and I was traveling a lot for the job I was based in Chicago I was going to like Toledo and Columbus and St Louis and Kansas City no disrespect to those cities of course but it was just like little plane to hear to

[7:25] rent the car to here and I was just like man what would happen if 20 years from now I looked back and was like I never questioned anything I never questioned who I was dating what I was doing the goals I had so on and so forth so I created the podcast from a pretty genuine place of wanting to challenge myself I'm a pretty type a person and the fact that I didn't have great answers to some pretty simple questions of who am I what do I want so on and so forth I was like let me start a podcast in 2018 a little less cliche than the

[7:52] straight white guy starts a podcast in 2023 so it was a little more vulnerable and I saw it as a you know platform to just push myself and that was it and that was it and I I started from that place and I'd been riding online in different forms you know for years and you know I was buddies with Cole and you know and you know had been in the space for a while like I understood things but I saw it as a means to you know kind of just help myself and then from there yeah it just became this thing where I realized what I was doing I was

[8:18] practicing mindfulness you know the art of introspection the art of radical honesty and it just became a really simple thing where I would just ask myself questions and answer them for myself and for other people and then you know the podcast started to grow then I started to do a lot of dating content through the lens of mindfulness not like how to text someone or anything like that but through the lens of mindfulness and that's what really blew up the podcast from a Content perspective um and then yeah it became really easy because I don't do guests um typically I mean I have but it's typically me just you know hey here's

[8:49] something I saw the other day here's a tick tock that said don't catch feelings and I was like that's stupid we should catch feelings and I would just react to stuff Through My Lens um and I really I don't call myself an expert or a guru it's really not my thing I'm not a licensed therapist of course so just try to keep it real and simple and it's just you know it's easy it's easy to do 500 episodes when it helps you and it helps me it's my therapy so I've been doing it for five years and then year four Sirius XM came along and bought up the distribution

[9:16] rights in the advertising rights so then it became this this big thing but to answer your question that's kind of where it came from so that's the podcast and so that's part one of of the flywheel yep and you from your podcast are you driving people somewhere I mean so now yeah I always drive to New mindsetwoodist.com which links all my journals all my book uh different products that I'm involved in obviously when I first started um it was just one Journal at the new mindset Journal which I I created in January 2020 I launched on Indiegogo in 2020 January 2020 raised 37 39 000 did

[9:55] not do well I actually lost money on that between agency expenses I hired an agency to help me 3pl expenses manufacturing expenses just didn't really know what I was doing it is what it is so I lost you know a couple Grand on it then covid hit and I had fulfilled the initial cohort of people who bought it on Indiegogo and I had like 2 000 journals left over I was like oh man these are burning a hole in my pocket with my my 3pl and Cicero Illinois I've got to get rid of these so I started posting on Instagram just you know and at that time I had I don't know maybe 50

[10:27] 000 followers or something um and it's luck Randomness timing positioning something happened where they just started to sell and I remember at that point having Shopify notifications turned on on my phone was getting a little ping I was like oh this is this is crazy people are actually buying this and then I started to run ads and ads were uh really still cruising and especially during during covid the early part of covid really cruising so I started to put money into it and in the first um 18 months it did about five and a half million and that's not a number Flex I learned a lot I messed up a lot I

[11:01] really screwed up inventory um you know my my p l was all over the place but it kind of took off and then when you say Ad you're talking Facebook ads yeah I'm talking I'm talking Facebook Tick Tock did a little search um but but principally Facebook meta meta right and like what did the ad copy say like that you know because it was wild it was so silly like every marketer would tell you it wouldn't work my my initial ads were static Carousel images of text messages that someone might send after standing up for themselves or affirmations to remind them of themselves and then the final Carousel

[11:38] would be a picture of the of the uh Journal but it was very incongruent like it was text messages for a printed Journal it's very confusing but it was still it was cruising at like a five times row as on it um and it worked really well obviously you know since a lot has happened in advertising and iOS and all that jazz a lot has changed and has really you know forced me um and my my fellow Ecom compatriots to get really good with creative but frankly I I really don't spend that much on ads anymore you know luckily so since since then two three years ago

[12:11] um things have taken off organically for me where you know my books on Amazon on them on Amazon now about two years in I started selling on Amazon and let that ecosystem really boost everything but in the beginning the ads were really simple didn't really know what I was doing but uh they work I'm on your website right now and new mindset who diss join a community of 300 000 journalers um and there's a bunch of you know you can shop the best sellers and stuff like that when you buy the book so let's just say someone comes in from you know an ad a Facebook ad yeah they buy they buy the

[12:46] journal sorry not the book they buy the journal they make that a part of their habit how do they hear about the podcast like what's that flow look like yeah twofold for one there's a page in the journal that actually promotes the podcast and drives people there um so you're actually going to be reminded of it in the book the second of course is the Fulfillment process and the and the drip flow through I use clavio um through through the actual fulfillment process itself the first email you'll get when you confirm your Journal is hey while you wait why don't you get ready with some mindset and then

[13:20] it points to the points to the the podcast I've also in the past I've also been somewhat clever I suppose but I I drip some affiliate emails affiliate links into the email specifically with some of the um the online therapy groups that pay pretty large CPAs there so also while you wait why don't you start with therapy so that's also worked pretty well but um yeah the email email has been a big uh way to way to promote it so that that's smart on a lot of a lot of levels so first I don't think enough people do this where they have a low ticket item that they sell via paid ads

[13:57] mostly and then put them in a drip campaign that ultimately leads them to audience building community building and affiliate deals that are related like value add affiliate deals to help basically you know get your return on ad spend up yeah like people the like the Baseline is like oh I'm just gonna like I'm just gonna create an ad I'm gonna sell it I'm gonna sell my product and hopefully again and get an email and Mark to them in the future but there's so much more you can do yeah I mean that's my exact I mean every additional listener on the podcast because I have programmatic ads in the podcast is money

[14:35] in my pocket so any any Link in an email should benefit the economics of the business that I've built in a healthy way I've also I also have like Amazon Affiliates in there because I sell a lot of my products on Amazon so you know there's a lot of different ways to make money from from one click that goes beyond the the purchase the actual item that comes from that that they bought and then the other important piece I think is just like the the product itself helps the podcast right like have building a product that basically funnels into you're like double dipping and then triple dipping on like all

[15:12] levels basically yeah I mean it it it's really beneficial because I mean for one you know I designed the journals with a certain aesthetic it's meant to be shared like I like a lot of the quotes that I post on Instagram come from the journal and vice versa where people are just incentivized to get their phone out take it and share it and that drives people to Social and that drives people further back to the podcast so um you know it works really well um and then I I wrote a book this past year that was not a journal that was not like a quote product it was a book book

[15:42] um and that has really helped as well just like really just creating a a line of products from from entry to you know to wherever people want to go that benefits their style whether it's journaling or reading um or I've because I have audio books as well so it's you know it sounds a lot more strategic than I think it it was it just to me it just just it was like duh which is what I do um but you know it's been it's been great and you know having the support of like serious for the podcast also like I used to sell my own ads on it and stuff

[16:13] and that was really complicated but like bringing someone else on board who can do it at scale it's a dangerous game because there are a lot of ads in my podcast and it is rather short which I don't particularly like but you know it is what it is when you're a capitalist trying to make money off a podcast um but you know all the things move together and I try to be really specific about the advertisers that I work with and you know it's not just throwing money the book why write a book you know it just seems hard it's not hard when you have a podcast

[16:45] because I could just I just go to my podcast I sort my top listings and I'm like huh is there a pattern here yes let me write a book from my top podcast and I've already written all the podcasts like the podcasts are written with very detailed outlines I just take that line turn it into a book I I don't think there'll ever be a point where I write a book from zero from scratch it's always built from analytics things I've talked about things that people react well to so you talk about a cycle there furthermore I mean I'm an author like that that is who I am I don't I love

[17:11] being an entrepreneur I love creating products but you know my heart and my soul is is the art of the content speaking it's writing it's it's creating ideas so I you know I have my next book lined up which will release a year and a half from now that is just part two of that seemingly so from a media standpoint it's also easier in my experience to get traction from a book I was on The Today Show two weeks ago um which is a pretty unique opportunity and it was a five minute segment on me and the book um media likes to cover books especially when there's like a a nice meaty promise

[17:45] to it so I think people are ready for the book and you know for me uh writing a book is also about distribution like I distribute the book exclusively on Amazon which pushes to my other Amazon products which are my journals and it just it just brings in new people who want a book that aren't journalers or journalers who want to read and it just creates a nice cycle so I I just I love what you're building I I love it so much because like I I see it and you've got the flywheel going I also see it I'm kind of like well there's so much more

[18:17] you probably can do here and I'm curious if you feel the same way like do you look at it and you're like well like I'm just gonna you know maybe write a book every year continue doing the Pod um or am I like no no I want to build like you know you're wearing a mad happy hat like no I want to build like a mad happy level brand here and build something extraordinary in terms of size I mean my real aspiration is to build something bigger than case Kenny like right now I'm attached to my name and that's a as a privilege of course to be

[18:50] able to do that I mean very few people are able to make a living from their name by writing very especially if you have such a cool name like case Kenny like case you know my name is Greg Eisenberg it's just not it doesn't have the same like flow to it yeah you know maybe I was born for this who knows but thank thank my parents for that you know my realization is build something bigger than me I'll tell you two things that I'm working on to that effect the first thing is actually somewhat inspired by mad happy um it's called 216 Social Club if you go

[19:21] to 216socialclub.com it's basically my thing it's like there's a lot of um great uh apparel Brands communities that are built around the idea of you know evangelizing conversations around mental health I think that's great I like to build really practical simple things Brands Services Etc 216 is a number that's always been close to me long story there but I I take time every day at 2 16 P.M to do nothing to practice Stillness forgiveness gratitude anything I can get my hands on or literally just stare at a wall let's prove to myself that I'm capable of being mindful so I launched that the other month um still trying to figure it out really

[19:56] don't know what I'm doing but I think that's got some real likes to it about bringing mindfulness into culture through merchandise and then through larger things but the idea of uniting people around a time of day I think is pretty interesting and and pretty unique I have a small large SMS list that every day at 2 16 I send out a text so every day at 216 people are thinking about either myself or what I represent in some way that's not a big Revenue business for me at all in fact it's very very tiny but I think the idea has some legs to it that I could build a

[20:26] community around people who want to practice mindfulness in practical ways not just talk about mindfulness and how great it is to be mindful but to actually do it in cool ways I think that's got some some legs to it so that's something that needs some work I kind of just launched it and let it sit hopefully you'll be seeing more of that let's let's jam on this for a second so first of all I love this besides from like the design the name is so good because it brings it back to the ritual of 216. people often ask me what makes a good Community person and I always say

[21:01] if you can throw a good party you cool yeah you know you are a good Community person and when you think about building a you know creating a party what do you what do you think of do you think of like what is the purpose of the party what is the food what is the music you know who am I inviting how are they showing up um what time what time are they leaving like how do I think about surprising and Delight throughout the night so that they're never bored like maybe there's like I don't know maybe like um a special DJ comes at this hour or live

[21:31] music you know just like keep keep keep surprising and the most important piece of that whole pie is really uh it's really just the the mission and the rituals if you you know the purpose and the ritual and ritual here you have a very strong purpose and rituals so I think you're like underselling yourself a little bit when you're like yeah I don't know really what I'm doing because it's like you have a great purpose slash Mission and rituals um the question for you really is if this scales to 10 million people like what do you want that text group to look like because when I'm on the website it

[22:09] says one of the main value propositions is our focus is community your purchase gets you added to our daily mindfulness text group like what's your vision for the community quick Interruption from me if you're listening to this on Apple podcast or Spotify or getting any value you need to come to YouTube and subscribe to the where it happens podcast YouTube channel I promise you the experience is richer more interesting so if you're getting any value just stop what you're doing open up the YouTube app go to the website and press subscribe at where it happens on YouTube and if you're watching this on YouTube and you haven't subscribed

[22:55] what are you doing go go press subscribe thank you enjoy the rest of the show yeah I don't know I think that that's where I'm I'm still circling that because you know I think a lot of people want to build community for community's sake I actually want it to be beneficial because I've had the privilege of building a community but I want it to be very practical and I wanted to benefit the community obviously I want it to be a marketing distribution for myself but I truly want it to be a source of ideas for people to practice mindfulness uh in in relatable ways at scale

[23:28] um my my second ambition that's closely related to that because again I like I'm very into the idea of mindfulness and culture you see culture grab onto mental health in recent years at an accelerated rate I think I think mindfulness soon has an upcoming cultural moment that is going to be defined by its practicality not it's woo-ness not its fairy tale rainbow-ness but it's but it's hey here's how we're actually going to do it we're not just going to talk about it the second thing that I do a lot in that I I'm excited for the future of his music as well so one of the things for

[23:59] 216 is Festival daytime festivals right everyone complains about you know going to the club to listen to good music but you can listen to good music during the day but um I do a lot in music I work with a lot of big name dance artists I don't know if you're a dance music fan but folks like Martin Garrix and Griffin these guys that I've worked with where basically we team up and they'll create a dance music set like a 40-minute set and I'll come in and interludes and drop a little bit of mindfulness um it's great for for walking working out it's great for people who aren't

[24:26] good at using calm or headspace and want energizing movement sweat heartbeat you know 126 bpms in their life so one of the things that I'm working on is like almost it's almost like a a mindful uh record label um where I'm I'm pushing that angle of my influence that's more of just a thing that I'm interested in but it will all come together in a way with community and mindfulness and culture points um one of the things that I did this past year is I released a collab with what do you mean if you know those guys in Ben and crew they obviously they understand the game Space they

[25:04] understand the card game space and they saw a real opportunity to bring mindfulness into like a gamified way or um a habit way so basically I built them out of 365 Day card deck of little mindful things you could do every day got in a Target in Walmart so just different cultural points and I'm excited to see what the next one is but I think the idea of of habit and ritual and engaging with mindfulness in a practical way is really what's going to give it its moments so blabbing but that's kind of what I'm excited about and you're like is this a broadcast text message that you're sending or is it

[25:37] like an actual text group uh no it's with Community the text platform got it got it cool and and just can you explain Community just for folks who don't know what that is yeah Community is the one that you knew about but didn't know about back a couple years ago when all those celebrities started sharing their numbers on in Social social media it was through Community which is basically a SMS platform that's a little bit more approachable than using like an attentive or a clavio for texting which can get out of hand pricing Wise It's a little bit they group it based on how many subscribers you have rather than

[26:11] text sent um but it feels a little bit more personal like it literally looks like a text it is a text they can they can message me I can respond back if I'm so inclined but it's got all the analytics and segmentation and you can send people texts on their birthday and by City And I think different demographic information if you want but um for me it was it was you know wanting to choose something that was as close to an actual you know homey text group as possible without you know turning it into a daily marketing text there was this uh there was this guy who I met on

[26:45] Twitter he actually gave me a like 15 or 20 minute meditation Zoom thing um you know during Peak covid and his Twitter account I'm blanking on his name but I think his name's like Kenji or something but he his Twitter account is like he tweets like every day you probably should be drinking water right now and it's this like reminder hey you need you should be drinking water and it's a similar thing to what you're doing with 216 which is there's these things that we know we should be doing but we end up forgetting or life gets in the way and you know it's so fast-paced

[27:22] life today so I think there's probably a set of Brands community-based brands that you can create um around not just meditation but imagine like a water company which is um which employs a similar model so I think I think there's something here around the daily ritual 216 do this every day that relates to the product again that's another fly but like you're building another flywheel 100 have you started any have you started it it's funny it's like you're the non-flywheel flywheel guy I'm like damn it again I did it again oh as you can um do you have you started any paid ads or any marketing or you're just sort of

[28:05] testing the business out now I'm testing the waters for the vulnerable answer of I don't know what I'm doing in apparel like I know how to manufacture a journal I know exactly who to go to I know my cogs I know exactly how to make it real sweet and nice I don't know the first thing about building an apparel brand what I should be paying I'm Drop Shipping it right now and I'm fine with that because I didn't want to drop 100 Grand on something that might not do well that you know I just don't know what I'm doing so uh it's kind of a wait

[28:32] and see reaction I've got a phase two drop coming with new designs which I wanna I want two or three drops under my belt before I decide that I really want to go scale at it with talking to manufacturers and everything so that's the real answer so no paid ads or anything like that behind it now so what do you need what do you need to make this big like if I you know let's just jam on this a little bit like do you is it you're missing like a apparel partner in this business is it you're missing um a Creator to be a part of this

[29:03] business like what are the pieces that you're missing to help scale this uh yeah I think it's twofold I think it's an apparel partner for one to make so so we could really figure out the price point like I was really inspired by siegelman Stables which I'm sure you're familiar with with their story of like creating a a luxury product out of something that isn't necessarily a luxury product and that's what they stand for for me creating a luxury product on mindfulness space feels a little disingenuous to like price a hat at 70 or something like that feels feels a little bit wrong for trying to make

[29:34] mindfulness more approachable at scale but I really need to know what I what I stand for price wise right now I you know I've got to sell hoodies for you know 70 bucks because my Drop Shipping price is 40. like we're not making a lot of money here of course um so the first point is working with someone like that that can help uh you know educate and and scale the second I think is um yeah it's along the the Creator lines um I I don't think a cold paid ad strategy is going to get this where it needs to go I think it needs to be

[30:03] organic I think it needs to be Community Driven I hate to say it I think it might need to be like celebrity driven in a sense some some real taste makers getting it wearing it um creating the the cool factor I always ironically say like I don't like the word cool but I also do because I want mindfulness to be cool I want it to be imbued in cultural moments and I think you know some folks that are um at a high tier of celebrities uh celebrity uh could help that so I think somewhere in the mix there is really what's gonna gonna push it so that's the

[30:35] question is like do you partner with like a CAA or someone like that or or like an individual Creator or do you just like reach out to like cold DM or get warm intros to different celebs and just do it yourself yeah uh I mean I'm a I'm a lone wolf I always tend to do that I think Kong myself out on my own BS right now I just got a lot going on and I need to I need to figure out a priority but I've always done well of you know sending certain people product and things like that I think that's the next step or bringing someone on you

[31:09] know I've had many chats with you know some investment groups and folks like that that I keep close and they're always like yeah let's Loop in let's let's raise some capital and I've always been like I don't want to do that why would you do that like why would you never I've never been inclined to ever raise to be honest at this point yet I mean even even writing books like I've I've know I've had so many meetings with Publishers the big five and every time just the idea of giving away my IP for a quick payday makes me really sad so I've always been a little bit of a glutton

[31:38] for punishment and doing things myself with my own capital and and just kind of going the way but you know I think for this I I need I need a uh energy that comes from a second drop where I'm like I really like these designs like the first designs were cool like I think what's really cool is what it stands for but I need some designs that really speak to it and I've got a great designer who's working on some now so I think after that's dropped I'll have some uh some better Direction I don't know man because I'm I'm looking at the website and I'm looking at the designs

[32:06] and like you know I run a design agency around multiple design agencies you like them and I'm looking at this and I'm like this is sick cool man this is really really exciting I would love to keep chatting with you about it I mean it's something that I'm like really excited for you know so it's so funny like even when I first got into journaling I was like man a little bit of imposter syndrome like the people really need another journal and I feel like I still have a little bit of that where I don't have the like let's do this like let's dedicate some serious

[32:33] time and resources to it just yet um I just need to find that on switch I know it's a cool idea because I talk about the number 216 all the time on the podcast so I'm like I love the the topic of it and people seem to really resonate with it gotta hit go you know before before someone swoops in and you know takes the idea with another time you know the 116 Social Club well I think okay few things so one is around the journal and competition my my thesis is that every Community every every well-oiled Community can actually have a community a journal so if we go back to

[33:08] how we Define a community before which is like purpose slash Mission and rituals yep the rituals piece is the journal in a lot of ways and of course some communities lend itself way better to having a journal obviously you know yours is like beautiful but I think one for you that along the same line so I'm working with a large men's fitness brand um they do really good work they're they're pretty large not gym shark smaller than gymshark but I'm developing a journal for the gym for them that instead of scrolling on your phone like we all do between sets which is ridiculous like we can't take an hour

[33:45] off our phone it's we're going analog in the gym and we're not necessarily writing answers in this journal that I'm creating for them but it's a workout tracker you're tracking your workout and then it's got Journal prompts so in between sets when you're huffing and puffing and you're resting you're thinking through these things so it's bringing mindfulness into the gym and their Community is just rabid for that kind of stuff I think it's going to crush it when we release it but I totally agree I make a good living also from Consulting for brands that want to create this type of product for their Community I think Fitness is a is a

[34:18] great uh Community for that kind of thing so just agreeing with what you're saying what other verticals or spaces do you think a journal could do well in uh yeah I don't know I've had the the Fitness One Circle for a long time obviously it just lends itself so perfectly people are wanting to improve themselves um I mean I think the one that I haven't seen anyone do great just yet because they always turn it into a freaking productivity journal and it drives me crazy as business professionals I can't think of a more stressed out group of people than sales people for instance I used to run a sales team a technology at

[34:48] a technology company you want to talk about being stressed out and hating yourself there you go so I think a journal offer a either very specific group of people sales people Executives whatever I think would would crush it I'm sure it exists in different forms I've just never seen it the way that I like journaling which is a mix of prompted and unprompted so a lot of journals out there that just they stress me out more than they help me they're like do this do that come back at this time measure yourself on this and I'm like I feel even worse about myself now so somewhere in between and that's

[35:21] marketed in a cool way I think would kill it there yeah I think uh it's an interesting lesson because we all you know product Builders were always kind of like well I don't want to go and build something in this space because there's too much competition but it's kind of like well if you have this devout Community as long as you like purpose build the product for that Community like it doesn't make a difference that there's thousands of competitors I used to be really bad at that thought process I used to always talk myself out because I'm like it already exists why would I build it and

[35:54] I remember very specifically I don't think I've ever told Austin this but Mr Austin for morning Brew I was in a conference room at my old job talking to him like I honestly asked him I was like give me some life advice he was like oh like why don't you create a journal and my immediate reaction was why would I create a journal Tim Ferriss has a journal everyone has a journal and I remember leaving that and being so frustrated with myself or like having that be my knee-jerk reaction that I just then went and spent the next like five months and created it and sold it

[36:19] so I think agreed to your point if you have a community you could definitely build a product for them I think journals are great but you know if you build a custom for a community that you know well and that trust you I think it'll work long way and then you have to ask yourself like Tim Ferriss literally thought about wow should I should I create a journal right now and it's like 2015. like in 2015 or whatever it was like it was competitive then and Tim Ferriss is you know he's not a dumb guy like the guy knows what he's you know knows what he's talking about and

[36:49] understands competition really well and doesn't launch a lot of products either so I think uh yeah I think a lot of Founders especially this whole like solopreneur movement I think a lot of people are gonna see different spaces see products in the spaces and then just like turn away when they really shouldn't be turning away they should just be like you know I I say like find your super Niche like don't find your Niche find your super Niche and go to this like smaller Niche create something purpose built and don't worry that there might be a hundred more general purpose competitors out there yeah and I mean I

[37:25] learned a lot so when I first launched the new mindset Journal which was like my base Journal like now looking back I'm more proud of what I've built since because I've learned a lot but when I first launched that journal my my marketing for it was here's a journal to help you be happier and it didn't do well right it didn't do well um because the promise was so vague it's like I don't have time to be happier I've got bigger problems I got bigger fish to fry the moment that I pivoted The Branding from here's a journal to help you be happy or whatever to here's

[37:57] a journal to help you get over a breakup because all the prompts were actually more geared towards like forgiveness that that's a more obviously emotionally triggering entry point that was when things really started to blow up healing you know not not in like not we're not like you know obviously taking advantage of people's emotions here but finding the most palpable concrete triggering entry point to get people in that is what I was always done wonders for for these types of products and I think in the past I thought a little too high level yeah happiness confidence these kinds of things as opposed to like the sticky points that really get people in

[38:29] and then you can go broad with some of the things but yeah when it's so competitive and everyone has a journal for happiness we gotta we gotta go a layer deeper and I think that's what's really helped um and my last book my last book is basically it's called that's bold of you it's basically a book about becoming your best self I mean it could not be a more basic of a self-help Topic in the world but the whole concept was if you've ever been called crazy uh loud too loud too quiet too difficult these things that particularly a lot of my audience which are women have been

[38:59] called that was the entry point and that was the oh yes definitely you know poke me to get into helping reinvent yourself that is what is done Wonder so obviously this is just marketing stuff but it's the little things that that matter as far as like what is the problem you're solving or what is the trigger point that you're addressing and I I learned that over time of course to get as specific as you can and then serve that group of people and then open them up wider and it's worked really well yeah and and really just I like your example around showing examples like here's

[39:31] examples of you know how to get over a breakup how to get over this asking people these like rhetorical questions like have you ever been called too difficult and you know via your audience that you've built that like that's the number one podcast in the last 90 days you're like of course I know so it's using that's why I always say like the biggest like building a community-based product is building a startup on easy mode basically in a lot of ways because you get to you get to learn from your audience and your community what they want their likes and dislikes and then you just feed it back to them yeah and

[40:07] 100 yeah yes yeah and that's why back to the beginning that's why I'll always do the podcast even if I shut it down and don't make money or it dies because podcasting is difficult you've always got to be up leveling up your game otherwise your audience slowly declines but I'll always do it because it's a great way for one to give me ideas and two to to react to whoever is listening and judge their reactions so that it can go out and build different things so I'm not building an Assa in a silo I'm not building for a headline I'm not building something that sounds good I'm actually

[40:36] building something that people want it's easier said than done um sometimes people say they want one thing but don't uh I've also learned so you know somewhere in between is the balance if people want to build their own their own Empire their own media Empire like you've built what advice do you have for them to get started well I mean I think the cliche one has built something that you would use and that you will use because again I'm very incentivized to continue to create and build and do content because every single time I do it helps me I wouldn't be doing this for five years if it

[41:09] didn't help me I would run out of gas 100 I mean if you look at podcasting it's like the average podcast ends after like 10 episodes because it's very difficult to do same with Brands how many people make a living from their brand very few what's the average revenue of a small SMB I don't know 40 Grand or something it's very small you got to find something that you'll stick through when things aren't going well I remember when I when iOS 14 14 5 would ever hit and all of a sudden my ads stopped working I was like oh well I guess we had a good run I guess that was

[41:36] it but no I didn't say that because I was like I love this material I'll take a income hit for a little bit here while I figure things out but you know I kept going because I had that reason so I'd say for one have a why I know it's cliche but you need to have a y you need to build something that helps you I really do think that's important and then I don't know I'd say from there you know distribution is everything um and I'm not just talking about rented Distribution on Instagram and Tick Tock because that can be taken away in a flash of a moment so I'll focus on the

[42:05] tried and true the email and I I think SMS is of course having its moment as well open rates response rates on SMS or Bonkers um so I try to try to build something there and then I think also like I also do a fair amount a fair amount of retail I think retail is having its comeback moment for all the econ boys and all the focus there I think having a retail wholesale strategy really helps mitigate a little bit of the the risk of what happens when your ads or your your online community isn't as responsive as it used to be so somewhere in between

[42:38] there of Y plus distribution plus a balance of retail and e-commerce strategies will probably be well served I like them in um I gotta head out in a minute but you you have any uh do you have any questions for me I I like I'd love to continue jamming on 216 with you it was actually I actually haven't thought about that in like two weeks because I've been so uh head down on some other stuff but um what are your thoughts on that what do you think would be like a next what what proof points would you look for when you're first building something like that that said okay let's let's

[43:10] pour some gas on this like what do you look for metrics wise or Vibes wise or somewhere between one of the first things I would do if I was running 216 or 216 was a client to play checkout would be I have this thesis that every e-commerce store should have free and paid products so for example like if you go to You Know Jack Butcher of course yeah yeah visualize value so I'm pulling up his website right now so if you go to his uh merch page he's got like hoodies for sale for like 50 bucks and Co and uh coffee mugs and hats and stuff like that but he's also got

[43:46] for zero dollars you can get a visualized value wallpaper um for your phone um or if you go to his courses you can buy his courses there's a course for a dollar there's a course for 99 there's also something called daily manifest which is kind of I don't know if you've played with it but it's it's kind of like a a habit tracking app slash Journal that's a digital asset that's zero dollars and you you might look at it and be like why is he doing that um I think that he's this is brilliant because what he's doing and he's using Shopify to power all this is once you

[44:21] add it to cart and you check out he's getting that email address and then all of a sudden you've been onboarded into the visualize Value World like if you're gonna use one of his like you know graphs as your mobile wallpaper like you're looking at it every day like that's high value and you you might you know over time be way more likely to buy some of his products or services so one thing I would do if I were you is I'm not sure I'm not convinced that buying the product puts you into the tax Community like to me the text Community is something that you give away for free

[44:57] that you ultimately nurture them yeah and you have a set of free products that you start selling on your eCommerce store and you as you're doing you continue to double down on your paid products but your set of free products is all about building the community and nurturing the community your set of paid products is actually to it's actually more word of mouth than anything you know in the beginning of this call we talked about mad happy your hat that you're wearing you get to go out in the world order a tea out you know let's say You're going or go out for dinner and people are gonna see that you're wearing

[45:32] that hat so they might be more likely to to buy that product or if a celebrity wears it or an influencer or whatever so I think I I see physical products as identity reinforcing and word of mouth and I see digital products as a way to nurture through community and that would be my biggest piece of feedback for you to chew on is thinking about free different than paid thank you I appreciate that yeah I actually really like that I'm a I love a good nurture I really do I love a good proving it like don't just like buy a product just I'll prove it to you I'll prove why why it's

[46:06] valuable and my SMS list has always been one that's been for free and then I would just send out some of my best thoughts and it always felt very nice and very inclusive and then the people who got it got it and bought my product as a result and it felt like a very unfair forced you know marketing Journey um so I'll definitely give that some thought I appreciate that my pleasure man uh it's been it's been fun jamming I'll see you in Miami yeah man yeah let's link up when uh when you're back in town that'd be great sounds good all right thanks all right

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