#010: Sam Miller - Uncovering the Hidden Secrets of Founders & High-Performers

Even I go through moments of genuine doubt where I'm like, do I have this in me? A lot of founders are very isolated, especially when you're starting a business, because the only thing that's cast on you is doubt. You're trying to prove to the market that you, you have an idea and that you've built something that works. And then once you've built it, you kind of are in that tumultuous cycle of like still doubting yourself, even though you've proven yourself. When we were starting our recruiting process, we were struggling so hard at first because who Who wants to join a 2-person company? We had to understand what we were doing wrong and doubting ourselves to understand how to do it right. People don't recognize the self-sacrifices, the time they're giving up, the sanity of what they're giving up to actually create something that's not for them. It's for everyone else.

Sam Miller is the co-founder and CEO of Kashish, a consumer fintech startup that allows users to split any payment across multiple debit and credit cards. At Kashish, Sam has raised funding from a stellar roster of investors, including venture capital firms Tribe Capital, Anthemis, and Courtside Ventures, alongside Odell Beckham Jr., Sahil Bloom, and Robin Wright. In this episode, we cover Sam's approach to conflict resolution and problem solving in the startup realm, building and selling multiple businesses from a young age, and the tactical secrets and habits of the highest performing founders he's met. Welcome back to episode 10 of the Turning Pro Podcast. We have Sam Miller from Kashish with us today. Thanks for joining, Sam.

Thanks for having me.

We're super excited to have you on. Sam and I have known each other for 4 months, 6 months.

I mean, it's like 6 months.

6 months. We work together and there's a lot of background to Sam that I had no idea, including the past hour that we've been talking. And so there's a lot of entrepreneurial background that we got to run through. But Ben, I'll kick it back to you. You want to kick things off?

I mean, I just listened to 10 minutes of like pre-talk before we jumped into this and it's like the most interesting 10 minutes I've heard. I think The fact that this is your first podcast, you said?

Yeah. Yeah.

There's so much, so much to share. I think normally we would start by just wanting to hear like what a day in the life looks like for you. But I think with you it only makes sense to hear your backstory and how you got to where you are today with some of the ventures you've built in the past.

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, out of college, recognized pretty quickly that I didn't want to go the route of like structured corporations. I think that one of the biggest favors you can do yourself as either a founder or an early employee at a business or even at a larger business is to understand there's two roles. There's soldiers and generals. And the second you understand which one you are, the better off you're going to be. And there are soldiers that make millions of dollars. You think about senior leadership at law firms that have been at the firm for 30 years that are making $1 to $2 million a year, they're partner, they're set for life. But they've understood that I'm not going to go out and launch my own law firm. I'm going to work for big law for my entire life and I'm going to retire happily with $15 mil in the bank and that's what I want. And then there are generals who actually want to be out there and they want to be gritty. They want to lead. They want to figure out solutions and companies that they want to work with. And that's their MO. And it's far less guaranteed revenue and capital from that. But at least you're being real to yourself. And I think that's step one of any process is just know who you are and what do you actually want to be and do in life? And so ended up having a few exits before I worked in venture capital. One was a full-service digital agency. The other one was LinkedIn for weed. And then worked at Dreamit Ventures where we were investing in Seeki, LevelUp, Houseparty. So I saw both sides of the fence pretty early on. I was 25 when I was at Dreamit and saw not only what it takes to start a company successfully, but what it takes to start a company successfully that then can accept other people's money. And I think one of the craziest things about the market right now is that everyone just expects their startup to get funded and they don't question why. And I think 2021 really did damage on the market where like I were seeing companies getting $20 million pre-idea, pre-revenue, just like based off of one sentence at absurd valuations. And we're starting to see the pendulum swing back in the other direction where it's, you only get financed if you actually have a legitimate product or a legitimate business that's heading in that hockey stick direction. And then when I took my experience from Dreamit to understand what do venture funds actually care about? Is it the revenue of the business? Is it the product? Is it the market? Is it the cap size? What do you look at? And I slowly learned that it's not— Venture capitalists don't look at it as reasons to invest. Their goal is to figure out why not to invest. And so when I understood that, something kind of just clicked for me. And we launched our last startup, which was a fintech product that focused on community banks and credit unions. So we recognized that, let's say, Bank of Western Kansas has 3 branches. It's family owned and operated since 1808. They have $1 billion in AUM, but it's a family owned bank. Like it's relationship driven. Chase, what they'll do is they'll recognize that that bank doesn't have any technology. And so what they'll do is they'll put a branch right in the middle of those 3 branches and they'll steal all the customers because they'll advertise like, you don't have to come in to put your check in the ATM anymore. If you need to send money, it's directly through an app. You don't have to come in and send a wire. And that was more cost-effective for Chase than it was to actually do digital advertising against Citibank in New York because the CAC was so much higher. And so we realized that these community banks and credit unions were just on this trajectory where they were on a slippery slope to just become nothing very soon. So we literally went in, went through Amex, Chase, Citibank, and Capital One, their experience online, and built a white label app that mimicked those experiences. And then on an annuity basis, licensed it to those credit unions and community banks. Ended up starting with Covenant Bank, this little tiny bank in Pennsylvania. We were sitting there one day and I was walking them through the product and I was like, "And here's how you do email marketing," based on my experience in the digital agency space. And they sat there and they looked at me and they go, "Wait, so you mean to tell me the emails I get from Walmart is marketing?" I was like, "Yeah." And they were like, "We thought we were getting those emails." They thought Walmart was literally personalizing emails and sending it to them so that they didn't know that that was a form of marketing. And so we launched that and it blew up. We ended up with PNC, PenFed, and Citizens Bank as some of our larger clients because what they ended up recognizing is there's that theory of a cruise ship and a kayak can both make a 90-degree turn. but a kayak can make it a lot faster. And so at times it's better for larger institutions to either work with or buy startups because of that velocity that a startup can work at. Um, and ended up selling to DCI in 2019, and that was like my first play in fintech.

That's fucking crazy.

That was exit 3. Yeah, we need, we need to go back to exit 1.

I have so many questions.

Yeah, so many questions. But like, The part that you were telling me before we actually started rolling, where you're like just accidentally in your grandma's house building this agency that then has 150 clients and 33 employees. Yeah, I want you to walk me through that process a little bit because I think at that age you don't know what you don't know. And it's more the thing I'm impressed with and curious about is your ability to problem solve.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's, that's kind of the name of the game. It's— I, I always view it as like being an entrepreneur is, is is herding cats and problem solving. Those are the two things you have to constantly be aware of is making sure that you're looking out for your people and in addition to it, solving problems. And without those two fundamental layers, you really don't have anything because there's two components. And you know how they say in life, death and taxes are unavoidable? There's two things in the startup ecosystem that are unavoidable, conflict and people. And if you can't master one, you won't be able to master the other. And it's not even just conflict for yourself, it's conflict between employees and how to have a conversation with them about how they navigate that conflict and how if you don't see eye to eye with a product launch of someone else, how to have a conversation about it where you're not demeaning someone else's work because they've actually spent time to prepare something, but also understanding that they're human too and they're going to have a reaction to it and it might be happy, sad, mad, frustrated, but you have to respect their decision. And on the reverse side of it, if someone's coming at your work and saying, "I think it could be better for X, Y, and Z," swallowing that pride and that ego and being able to take constructive criticism the right way. And so when I had my first company, a lot of it was based on the advice of my dad. And he basically gave me an opportunity to go and work at large corporations in America, and I didn't want that and never really saw myself fitting into that world. And he pretty much forced me to the point where he was like, "If I'm here to make sure you succeed, then you're never going to fail. And if you don't fail, you'll never succeed." And so gave me a period of time where I had to frankly get my shit together. And when that time came, he was like, "You're out. I can't be here to help you anymore." And there were times where I literally had 36 cents in my bank account, Didn't even have enough to get like dollar slice in Manhattan. There were times where like I legit had to collect quarters and like always felt like such a schmuck going to the pizza place and putting like one stack of 4 quarters or like a stack of 10 dimes on the counter. And like everyone in there is like some drunk 22-year-old having fun. And I'm 22 buying dollar slice, not because like I'm drunk and I want to, but because like that's literally how you live. And ended up realizing at the time that you had to pinch and zoom on an iPhone to look at websites. And this was 2013. And so ended up realizing that there was a framework called Bootstrap that you could implement to pretty much any website and make them mobile-friendly. And just went around offering the services for a very, very cheap cost to whoever would let me in the door. And that ended up going from just mobile websites to email marketing campaigns, redesigns of websites, logo redesigns, brochures, like soup to nuts full-service digital agency to the point where it blew up. And we exited that pretty quickly, ended up with 150 clients and a pretty large team. And throughout that process, there was one thing that my dad always told me that stuck with me was, "You can never make your pants longer. You can always make them shorter." And so we were talking before this about like, how did we get to the point where I was asking for these large retainers right off the bat? And the worst thing that you can ever hear is no. And no, it's really not that bad of a word. But if you go at them and say, I want $12,000 for this product, and in reality, in their mind, they would've paid 20 grand for it, you've already cut your pants. You can't go back to them and say, no, it's now 15. And so if you can ask for 30, they might say no just because the price is too far off. But if you fear that risk, then you're doing this for the wrong reason. But if you say 30 and their budget's 20, they'll say 18, then you go 25, then you land on 20. So if you went in at 12, you just lost $8,000 in opportunity cost. And so that was one of the things that I learned early on, and it applies to every business I've ever been involved in.

How do you, like, what's your metric for stress testing that, that like bargaining chip, I guess? Because I think part of it is qualitatively recognizing how valuable is your service.

Yeah.

And at what is the breaking point where, you know, you get to a certain number where everyone is like, dude, you're an idiot, like, I'm just not going to pay you that much for what you're offering. Yeah. And how do you land on your own sweet spot with even your businesses you're building now?

Yeah. Yeah. So Two parts of that. One is knowing your actual worth and not only your worth, but the worth of the business and the services that you're providing. What is it actually worth? There was an article I read when I had my agency when Citibank acquired Travelers Insurance. They hired this guru in branding. And I forget her name, but they were at lunch and they had paid her, I think it was $30, $35 million. To go through a complete rebranding of this now acquisition.

35 million.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure.

That's crazy.

If I'm not, dub that at whatever price it is. And at lunch, on the back of a napkin, she drew the new logo with the T that has the umbrella shape over the eyes. And one of the senior leadership of Citi was really pissed off and said, "why did we just pay you $35 million for this rebrand?" And she said, "You didn't pay me for this rebrand. You paid me for the 50 years of experience that I have in the industry to get to the point where I can put a logo on the back of a napkin and you're going to like it." And so I think that that's component one, know your worth, your experience, your team, what you can actually do and how you're going to go effectively doing it. The second thing is just being honest and trusting from the beginning. I doubt there's going to be someone, if you're honest with them, they'll be honest back with you. They might say no, but they'll give you a reason as to why they're saying no. No, you don't have enough experience. No, your team is too small. No, XYZ. No, your price is too high. But if they respect you because you're being honest with them throughout that process, they'll say, no, the price is a little bit too high. And because they now respect the fact that you're putting yourself out there in an honest way and not trying to like pull the wool over their eyes, they'll come back and say, "Look, our top dollar is $22,000." And then it's just about meeting them halfway. And so if you can go into it with those two scenarios, then you'll understand pricing throughout. I mean, a hard thing that people do is try and look at comps. This isn't real estate. This isn't like comparing one house with 5 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms to another house with 5 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. Every one of us has our own DNA and our own imprint that we're putting into that business. And so people get caught up in times where they're trying to price out each other based on similar-sized agencies or similar offerings, but that's not applicable to you. That has nothing to do with your story and how you're running your own business. So if you can just focus on knowing who you are and what your value is and just being honest from day one, then you'll end up figuring out a situation where you're gonna know how to quote things based on what's working. And no one's gonna tell you to kick rocks because of, being honest. Maybe a person here or there and that kind of person just unhappy with their life and taking it out on you because they have a little bit of power, but outside of that, it'll be pretty respectful.

Quick question, especially on the agency front, running not a 150-client agency, something a little bit smaller. And also for context, Sam and I have also negotiated on price before and that is exactly how we operate.

Who won?

It's very refreshing. That's the thing, we both won. Met in the middle.

Yeah, we met.

You're like, we were like, we met in the middle.

That's the right answer.

We both want, um, no, we honestly did. Like, we were negotiating price and we were pretty straightforward with each other. And it got to a point where I'm like, Adrian, this price, sign today, we're ready to go. Like, I want to work with you. Here's where we have to be. Gave him reasoning as to why we had to be there. There's always opportunity cost of if I can save X amount of dollars in my monthly budget, that means I can either hire more people reinvest in different resources and start scaling the business in a different fashion. And we were just blunt with each other about that, and it ended up leading to us actually being able to strike a deal. And we weren't too far off. And now we're in a situation where it's a respectful relationship where it's like, all right, we're happy to work together. Because that's the other thing, you don't want to work with someone just because the price was right, because you end up not having a really great relationship with them. And then what's the point of doing it if you're not enjoying it? The point of Being an entrepreneur is to love what you do, and the only way to love what you do is to love who you work with on both the client side as well as the employee side.

Yeah, I love that.

I have a follow-up around— this kind of dovetails into what we call this show called Turning Pro. And for context on that, Ben and I basically met at a similar period. It was probably you 5 or 6 years ago where we both realized a need to kind of recommit to the main thing and start taking ourselves—

not—

I think we always took ourselves seriously, but take it to kind of a different level. And I think one of the moments for me running Verbatim was when you realize, you kind of wake up one day, and I remember waking up one day and being like, "I have a couple closing calls today, and if I close, these are potentially worth $100,000 plus." And when that hits you, same with you, right? Of, "Wait, if I don't show up today as best as I can, I could have just lost $100K or $200K or $300K." And I'm sure you had those moments. And so I'm curious. Especially early agency days, maybe as you scaled, were there any moments where you realized, "Holy shit, there's a lot on the line. I have to level up in some way"?

[Speaker:BEN_SHARF] I mean, even to this day, this morning woke up feeling that. That feeling never goes away because the only thing that changes is your expectations. So while it might be $100K on the line today, in 4 months it'll be $400K on the line. Or while it might be money on the line today, It's also about looking out for your team. There have been so many times where I've canceled meetings that would generate a lot of revenue for me or the business, but I canceled those meetings to meet with my staff to make sure that they were okay because something was going on. And you have to look at it as, what am I exchanging here for that opportunity? Whether it's your time or the happiness of your team, you have to understand, like, what am I giving up for that? What is the pro and con of saying yes or no to that meeting? And then going at it that way. I mean, there were so many conversations that I had early on with Kashish that was, I have to show up every single day. And oddly enough, even though I've been a 3-time founder and had quite a bit of success in the space, you're still always doubted. And that's the one thing I've learned is even though the biggest CEOs and the biggest founders are still doubted when it comes to new ventures. I mean, you look at Elon Musk when he bought Twitter, having already launched PayPal, sold PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX. The guy is a multi-founder, multibillionaire.

Boring company.

Boring company. Exactly. Dogecoin. He blew up from literally nothing.

I had to add the extra one because I was talking to someone. You just sit there and it's like 5 or 6 unicorns that he's—

OpenAI.

Yeah, OpenAI. It's like simultaneous.

And when he bought Twitter, everyone went up in arms. There's no way he can do this. This. You are doubting real-life Tony Stark. For what reason? And even he's doubted. And so even when we launched Kashish and Kevin—

Can you just quickly tell people who are listening what Kashish is? I don't think we touched on that at the beginning.

Yeah, we didn't. Yeah. So Kashish is a technology that allows for consumers to split a payment across up to 5 cards on any website. So whether it's a combination of debit and credit cards, credit cards and gift cards, credit cards and credit cards. We recognized that there was a market of buy now, pay later that was allowing for consumers to realize that alternative financing at checkout was an option. You didn't just have to pay with cash, credit, or debit. You could actually use a combination of things. And we recognized that there was this opportunity. The market size that we ended up realizing was $127 billion. Is left on the table because of abandoned carts because of this issue. They either don't feel comfortable maxing out a card at checkout, or when they get to checkout, the shipping and sales taxes get affiliated with the purchase and it puts them over what they can actually spend. And so instead of going at it with, well, let's do layaway online, which is what buy now, pay later is just with lipstick on a pig, we could consolidate what you already have in your wallet and not put you in a position where all of a sudden you're taking out 10 loans to buy 10 different items. Imagine tracking that. Imagine if you had— So on my way here, I was in the Uber and I'm using Apple Pay to pay for the Uber. And it said, pay in 4 installments for my Uber. I'm like, that is insane. I can use buy now, pay later for an Uber ride. I take about 10 Uber rides a day. Imagine if I took a loan out on all 10 of those loans. Times that by 365 days. That's 3,650 loans. Imagine if I handed you 3,650 credit cards and I said to you, you're gonna have to pay these off every month or you're gonna go into delinquency, collection agencies are gonna be knocking at your door, and your credit score is gonna plummet. Would you be able to do that? Probably not. That's a lot to manage. And so now that buy now pay later is being used for groceries, Uber, like everyday items, it's kind of a scary market to be in because it's very similar to the '08 housing crash where you have a lot of people taking out loans that they don't fully understand. They think they're 0% interest rates. Buy Now Pay Later averages around 18% for their consumers. And the loan stacking kind of becomes predatory because no one really understands what they're doing or how to pay them off. In addition to that, it allows for consumers to borrow more than they actually make. So with Kashish, you've already been underwritten by Amex, Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo. They know how much you make. They know what you should be spending. And they've given you a limit on your credit card because of that factor. They know if you spend more than this, you will not be able to pay it off and they will lose money on you as a customer. So if you're going to do the opposite of that, and instead of looking at what the banks have already underwritten and do your own underwriting process as a technology company, you're going to put yourself in a position where someone who's making $55K a year has borrowed $70K a year, and they're never going to be able to pay that off because after taxes, they're making $30K a year. That alone is going to take them 3 years with no other expenses, no other cost of living to pay that down. And so our premise was, let's change the understanding of instant gratification and launch something called responsible gratification where you can still make those purchases, but let's do it in a sophisticated way that doesn't harm you financially. And so it's like one of the—

it's one of the few ideas. So I wasn't familiar with the business until he mentioned that you were coming on the podcast 2 hours ago. And it's one of the— it's one of the ideas where I read— I went to your homepage, was like, just makes so much sense.

Yeah.

Like, why? Like, why has nobody done this before? And I look, I look at hundreds of companies all the time, just between my friends and angel investing, whatever. And it's one of the very few. And I'm like, I get it. I like, I don't need, I don't need more information. Like, why has no one done this yet?

I mean, that's a question going back to like when we started raising capital and your comment about like waking up and knowing what's on the line today.

Yeah.

Every single fund and angel investor asked us that our first year in business. Everyone.

It's like, am I— it's almost, is it too good to be true? Am I missing something? Is there just like a piece of this puzzle that fell under the table? I don't understand.

So, there is. There's the component of like my co-founder, Kevin, arguably the most humble human being you'll ever meet. Him and his wife, they rescue cats. Like, that's what they do for fun. Like, he is the most kindhearted man you'll ever meet. He's also a killer. And he is a brilliant engineer. He went to Carnegie Mellon, then after Carnegie Mellon was one of the first ever quants at BlackRock and Tudor Investments in the '90s.

No way.

So you got to think about it. Banks in the early '90s were introducing computers for stocks. And these are guys that were business majors in college. They didn't understand how to operate a computer. And it wasn't as easy as they are now because Apple's done such a phenomenal job of making them simple to use. But back then, you actually had to understand code to be able to access the computer the way you needed to. And so he was one of the first pro quants at Tudor and BlackRock, did some government contracting work, and then actually ended up working for Steve and Tim at Apple in 1999 during Steve's reemergence as CEO of Apple. And Kevin worked on a team. He was the manager of a team, what was then called iTools. It's now the fundamental layer of iCloud. So the product that we're using every single day in iCloud, Kevin was a part of building that infrastructure.

Damn.

He's written two published books on iOS development. There's a plug for you, Kev. That's crazy. Yeah. If you just Google Kevin Kim and iOS development on Amazon, you can buy his books. They're really long, but they're worth the read. And then he just ended up in the startup ecosystem. He was my head of engineering at Vetter. We've been friends since 2015. And He's just a very good guy, but also understands frameworks like you wouldn't believe. I mean, if you think about Apple and what Steve was able to do to the point where Steve is now gone and Apple is still Apple. And this goes back to what you and I were talking about earlier of like, what is your footprint as a founder within your business? Right now we have 20 employees, so I'm 1/20th. When we double in size, I'm 1/40th. Double again, I'm 1/80th, and so on and so forth. You become more and more insignificant. The difference with that was Steve was Apple. When he left, Apple crumbled. When he came back, they thrived. And when he passed, they had to take the DNA of what Steve was doing and make sure that it was represented throughout all of Apple because that's why they fell apart to begin with. You and I were talking about making sure as a founder in the early days of having your vision and your mindset crystal clear to your employees, So that way, as that footprint shrinks over time, they know what you want out of them and the culture you're building and how you want to go about business day to day, to the point where as your footprint shrinks, you matter less and less. And that was the issue originally with Apple, was that Steve was not clear about that. He was just trying to get the computer out in the market. They got rid of him because of that, and then they brought him back and he made it Apple's DNA. Think differently. Like that was all about Steve. And so we were lucky to have Kevin in my life to the point where he was willing to start a company with me and then understood the technologies that didn't exist. So timing is pretty much everything in life. You know, when it came to one of my startups that had to do with legislation being passed at the right time in the right place. And with this, we were fortunate enough where in the past 6 years, companies like Plaid, and companies like Stripe have really taken on the startup ecosystem to the point where if we're using Kashish, we have to know your real-time account balance to know whether or not to approve you for a transaction. If you don't have enough money in your debit account, we do not allow the transaction to go through because we will not let you overdraft your account. We did not have that insight until Plaid existed. So whether it was myself and Kevin or someone else, They physically could not build the system until Plaid existed as a company. And then when it comes to digital card issuance, you had to have companies like Marqeta and Stripe to release that technology to the startup community when they were mostly focused on larger corporations because it made them more money. And so when you look at the tech stack and the people that we have and our cap table, it really was just like the perfect storm of the right people, the right place, the right time. And so that's one of the reasons why no one was able to do it. I mean, we've been in market for 2.5 years and no one's been able to replicate what we've been able to do. And I attribute that to like our digital moat, but outside of it also just the fact that like, because of who we have at the table, we've been able to scale in a more efficient manner than anyone else would.

So I want to talk about who you have at your table, right? So I think Adrian alluded to this, I'm going to reiterate it, but the, the notion of turning pro or like those moments in your life where you get up from the, the poker table you're at and go to the higher stakes table and level yourself up. It's very clear that something happened along the way for you. I mean, obviously having a couple exits doesn't hurt the situation, but the people you have in your corner right now building Kashish is nothing short of incredible compared to most people who are building a company. Um, would love to hear a little bit more how you think about relationships, relationship management, being able to sell the dream to, to get people at your table who frankly are being pitched 500 times a day from every angle.

Yeah. So we, I would argue we have one of the best cap tables in the market right now.

Do you want to list a couple of those people? That is already public information, but—

Yeah. So, well, the first person on our cap table was actually the person that introduced myself and Adrian was Sahil Bloom. I don't know how familiar you are with him. I know you're familiar with him, but he had 30,000 followers on Twitter, was still working at a venture fund in San Francisco when he and I met. We had one call and he was like, I'm in, I don't care. And this was again before we had anything but an idea. We had the idea and like a really, really shitty presentation, like the worst presentation. But again, if you're pitching the vision that they don't care about the presentation and Sahil now has 930,000 followers on Twitter, he's one of the most spoken voices on LinkedIn, on Instagram. He's on every single podcast you can imagine. And so we were fortunate to get someone like that to immediately back us and be a part of the journey with us. Just as much as he's seen us grow, we've seen him grow. And we treat our investors like we would treat our friends. We are very honest and forward with them. I said to every investor early on, if they're— if I can't call you when I'm down, I'm not going to call you when I'm up. And if I don't have that trust of being vulnerable with you, then there's no trust here at all. And so we ended up getting him, Jason Guss, who is the CEO and founder of Octane Lending, one of the largest lending companies, I think, in the United States. They just reached unicorn status. Andrew Gluck, who has Reverent VC, large venture fund. Chris Wallace, who was at Greycroft, then went to HBS, has his own venture fund. And we really just stacked the table with really incredible angel investors at first, made sure that we knew if you are the front entry point to the business, they're the first investors that are going to look at you. That's that friends and family round. Load up with the best friends and family you can find. From there, we went and did our seed round, and this was our first big round. And this is where we wanted to get institutions involved. So we got Anthemis, Courtside Ventures, Tribe Capital, Harlow Equity out of Canada, and just a really great traditional fund perspective on the business. Because we were getting amazing feedback from individuals, we wanted to tap into the venture funds to look at this and say, are we thinking about things the right way? How are we building this business in a fashion that's fundable? Part of that ended up somehow, some way getting introduced to a few celebrities like Robin Wright and Odell Beckham Jr. Who just immediately understood the business, which was the craziest part.

Takes one sentence. I'm telling you, like, I get it.

Yeah, but it's crazy to hear why they get it. So we all get it for different reasons. I understand it differently than how you understand it. And like the instance of like Robin and Odell and Lil Baby and Michael Rubin, like they understood it for different reasons because of the life experiences that they went through that actually led them to understanding like why this is a valuable technology. For the demographic that they grew up around. And so Robin Wright was actually the first one to sign on. Frankly, didn't even know who she was. One of my favorite movies is Forrest Gump, and someone had to remind me, like, that's Jenny in Forrest Gump.

Princess Bride, man.

I had never seen it. And I told her that. Great movie. Yeah, I told her that. And she was like, you haven't seen Princess Bride? I'm like, no. So I watched it.

Honesty wins.

Yeah. I was like, I watched it eventually. And I was like, that movie's awesome. Didn't really know much about her and then remembered her from House of Cards like much later down the road. And then ended up getting her and Odell, Lil Baby, Michael Rubin. I'm probably forgetting so many off the top of my head. Damson Idris, who's on FX's Snowfall. And really built just like this close network with them of like integrity, purpose, honesty. That's it. You know, we want to make sure that we're just as comfortable with them as they are with us, because the only reason to get celebrities involved into your business is to scale the business in a cost-effective manner where they're getting the brand out there for you as a brand ambassador. Now, if I'm going to ask Odell to wear a kashish hat courtside at a Lakers game, which he did for us, and then that got reposted by the Lakers official Instagram account and [Speaker:TIM_FERRISS] Love that. [Speaker:JAMES_WATT] Yeah, it was nuts to see. And as a lifelong Lakers fan, it was the coolest moment of my entire career. 3 exits aside, fuck all of that. Watching my friend and investor wearing my company's logo courtside with the Lakers was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Almost in tears happiest thing. But the only way that they're going to feel comfortable doing that, unless you pay them because that's also part of their revenue stream, is to be real with them and to make them feel comfortable with what you're doing as a business and who you are as a person. And, you know, we, we, we got phenomenal introductions just because it was all through Odell and his network. He literally was like, you're a good guy. I love your business. You and Kevin are phenomenal. Like, are you open to X, Y, and Z? We never approached this where we wanted celebrities attached.

You work with him and AJ?

Is that his— AJ? Yeah. I, I literally talk to AJ every single day, multiple times a day.

Yeah.

I spoke— I've spoken to him once before.

Yeah. What would you speak him for?

Uh, with another friend, Jeremy Green. I don't know if you know who Jeremy Green is, but Jeremy and AJ were were, were good friends, and he was telling me about like a fund that they were raising a while ago. I mean, man, the thing that I love—

463—

yeah, yeah, yeah. The thing that I love about, uh, a lot of athletes are the ones who have the foresight to like bring someone into their circle who understands how to move in the business world.

And it—

yeah, like Odell and Ajay are the perfect example of that. Not enough athletes do that. And I think one of the issues is that when you start to get big really quickly you then struggle to realize like what's real and what's not, who's in it for the right reasons. And then you start to have trust issues and you kind of just get distracted by the wrong things. And very few athletes have found their sidekick, for lack of a better word, that Odell has to be able to be at the forefront of so many cool things while he can just focus on being the best athlete that he can be.

I've literally said to Odell numerous times in person, you are so lucky to have AJ. Because if you look at celebrities, the access that they have to deal flow is incredible, but they are so easily taken advantage from, from financial advisors to managers to agents, because they're working on their craft. That's their passion. And when you end up becoming someone who's made hundreds of millions of dollars in career earnings, you can't really trace everything. And so that's why you look at Mike Tyson, for example, Yep. He lost $500 million. $500 million should last you generation after generation after generation. Like, that is an absurd amount of cash to go through.

It's hard to lose $500 million.

Exactly. But it's because he trusted the people that he had running his team, even though they weren't trustworthy. And so I think that athletes, specifically athletes, just because careers are short-lived, you never know what's going to happen. And the money now is absurd. I mean, NFL contracts 20 years ago aren't what they are today. The NBA contracts are insane. And so it's really about finding the right sidekick that's going to look after you as if they were their own. And that's what AJ's done perfectly for Odell, is like he doesn't treat Odell any differently than he treats himself. In fact, he treats it like a business. He operates it like a business. Like there is not a single conversation where he's not looking out for either the best interest in Odell or what this can do for him and Odell's business together. And frankly, one of the things that a lot of people don't know is like, AJ didn't want to be his manager at first. So they met at a Drake concert. Odell bumped into him and AJ had no interest in being in the celebrity space at all. And then they just started talking and they were backstage and just hit it off. And Odell was like, "Hey, come work with me." And Ajay was hesitant at first, but Odell ended up convincing him, and that's where they are today. It's also like the reason why you start doing things. We didn't start Kashish because we wanted to take advantage of credit cards or consumers. We started Kashish because we saw an organic means to an end. People were needing something. We saw a reliable, responsible way to actually solve for that issue. And that's what led for us to actually doing the business. Kevin heard about the idea before I did. And instead of calling me, he kind of shrugged his shoulders off and was like, "Well, someone will figure that out." And then 2 days later, I called him. So it's like, when does that aha moment happen? It kind of happens organically just through the process of going through things. And so yeah, it's been awesome building the cap table and seeing their impact and their input on the business. I mean, We have everyone from Lil Baby is one of the most emerging rappers in the game all the way to Michael Rubin who runs one of the most successful merchandise platforms in the world. He owns Fanatics.

That dude is a killer.

Yeah, yeah. He's got an amazing team around him and that's the difference. And you were saying this before about sidekicks. He put the right team around himself so he can focus on the one thing that he needs to do. And that applies to not only investing but to running a business. If you are a founder or CEO of a company, you have to hire the right people to understand what it is you're trying to do. Give them a crystal clear vision, make sure they understand that vision, and get the hell out of their way.

Do you know his— do you know Michael Rubin's entrepreneurial story from like—

started with the garage with skis?

And we're just like, we're talking about before we started recording about the 10-year-old kid with 2 million users. Like, his story is something along those lines. Do you know it?

Is it a book or Where can I—

no, no, I heard this. I actually heard it on the Full Send podcast with the NELK Boys.

Oh, was he on that?

Uh, yeah, he went on there and he— yeah, and he told his— he told his backstory. It's like, I don't remember the exact anecdote, but there's something along the lines of when he's like 16 years old, he had so much money and he like wanted to buy a Corvette with like his friend, and they like split buying a car. And his parents like, what are you doing? And he just— he's like making money at such a young age, just like hustling all the time. So I think the other piece too is you see people now most consumers don't recognize all the things these individuals go through to get to where they are. I think it's similar with like a business you're building, right? Like you have that moment where you have that, let's say, a TechCrunch article, you announce a fundraise, whatever. It's not like you spent all the time on this on cloud nine. It's like you work all these days behind the scenes where no one knows what's actually happening for that one moment when you can actually like tell the world what it is you've been grinding for.

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah.

I mean, they also don't see the sacrifices that those people go through. Yeah, I think that the biggest thing about Rubin and others is you don't see the sacrifices day to day that those people go through. I mean, in reality, he has enough money to retire the rest of his family lineage for the rest of existence, be on a beach drinking piña colada and not a care in the world. But that's just not who he is. And a lot of founders are very isolated, especially when you're starting a business, because the only thing that's cast on you is doubt. You're trying to prove to the market that you have an idea and that you've built something that works. And then once you've built it, you kind of are in that tumultuous cycle of still doubting yourself, even though you've proven yourself. Even I go through moments of genuine doubt where I'm like, "Do I have this in me? Okay, if I'm thinking that way, then how am I going to show myself that I have this in me?" We now have a team of 20. When we started this, it was just Kevin and myself. When we were starting our recruiting process, we were struggling so hard at first because who wants to join a 2-person company when you're living paycheck to paycheck? You just got fired from 15 companies over the last 2 years because what happened in 2021 was everyone made so much money. Everyone got equity in these startups that were valued at insane valuations. And we're sitting here saying like, well, here's equity and a low salary to join a 2-person team in New York. And they're like, "I just got burned by FTX. Why do I want to work for you?" The fintech world got crushed because of a few bad players in this space. And so we struggled with that. We were like, "I can't believe we're struggling to get people to understand why they should join this team." And then we got the first few and it snowballed to now we have the 8th and 10th employee from Honey. Honey sold to PayPal for $4.6 billion. We have the 11-year senior vice president of product from Capital One who now runs our head of product. He was there at Capital One where they bought Paribus and Wikibuy, rolled it into Capital One Shopping. All those Samuel L. Jackson commercials are him.

This is Pat?

Yeah, Pat.

Pat's fucking killer.

Yeah, he's phenomenal. We ended up getting Vin, who I don't know if you met Vin.

Not yet.

But Vin is our head of data, was running Steve Cohen's Point72 and was about to join Citadel and is now our head of data.

Yeah, you thought.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You heard of—

Yeah. So go ahead, sorry.

Yeah. And just an amazing team of engineers. And so it became about we had to understand what we were doing wrong and doubting ourselves to understand how to do it right. And so at a level of a Michael Rubin, or whoever at that scale, you have to understand that they're dealing with doubt constantly. And people don't recognize the self-sacrifices, the time they're giving up, the sanity of what they're giving up to actually create something that's not for them. It's for everyone else.

So here's, here's a question that I am curious about because it plays right into this. And I've asked this before, and I— the reason I'm going to ask this is because I've actually seen a lot of clips about it online. I'm curious where your head is at. What would you say are the top 3 most consistent traits of high performers?

Like, that makes them high performers?

Yeah. Like, if I were to give you a list of 20 high— you know, if I start saying Michael Rubin, so on and so forth, like 20 high performers, and you're like, have to pull 3 commonalities, like, what are the most 3 common traits that you would see in all these people across every industry? Yeah, yeah. Just high performers can be quantified just in general, not necessarily CEO.

Yeah, I think that the 100% mentality is the first thing. Understanding that if you're going to start something, you're going to finish it and that's it. There's no ifs, ands, or buts, no excuses, no bullshit. The second is purpose. You have to start something for a purpose and finish it for a purpose. And then the third thing that I would say is understanding when it's okay to say you don't know. And I think that that might not be on a lot of other lists, but the biggest thing that I've been able to do and I've seen others be able to do in the market is it's okay to say you don't understand something. Or you don't know the answer to something and that you need help understanding that part of it. And I can tell you that Michael Rubin and Portnoy and all the other guys that have started and sold companies for billions of dollars and are huge entrepreneurs, at one point or another in their career, they asked someone for advice. And that's saying, I don't know. And that's the ability to be vulnerable and say, like, I don't know if this is the right decision, the wrong decision. If I need to learn more to actually do this. But being able to say I don't know and letting someone else help you understand is a key component to it. And I don't care what anyone else—

I know, I love that one. But for context, so the main one, I don't even think the other two are as relevant, but the main one is the concept of inadequacy and doubt. So the reason that most high performers become so high in performance is because they always doubt themselves. They're never enough. And it's like this endless rat race against yourself. Till the end of time.

Yeah, right.

So like when you talk about, you know, Michael Rubin can retire and his whole lineage is paid for and he can go sit on the beach and drink a piña colada— yeah, he doesn't see it that way in his mind. Like he still needs to get to that next level all the time, endlessly. And so for an outsider looking in, you're like, this person's crazy, I don't understand why would they keep doing this. It's not a money thing, it's like a— it's a battle against yourself and it's trying to find that moment where you are enough or you have gotten what you wanted. But I don't know if that exists. Like Generally speaking.

Yeah, it doesn't. That's why they call them serial killers and serial entrepreneurs.

Yep.

Because you have to be crazy to be doing it over and over again. Like the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. Every company I've ever started or been a part of, that first year is hell. And for some reason I expect because I've done it before it to be a little less hell, but in fact, it only gets harder as you get older and you're challenging more.

Why do you keep coming back?

I mean, doubt is a huge component of it. I mean, there's so many chips on my shoulder from conversation of whether or not an investor turned us down because they didn't think we were operators. And to think Kevin isn't an operator is the craziest thing I've ever heard, but we did hear that early on. Or that no one's going to use the product that you're building. That adds doubt. Even after all the years of success and everything else you've done in life, you're still a human at the end of the day. And when someone says to you, "I don't know if someone's going to build a product that you're in," literally building in real time, that kills you. And so you end up wanting more because you're hearing people that you respect say no and hearing people you respect say, we don't believe in this or we don't believe in you. And at the end of the day, that's just their job. That's what they're supposed to do. But it's very hard to not take that personally and digest and add that as a chip on the shoulder. I mean, we were literally told we're not operators. And on every single LinkedIn post I've posted since that day, I've written hashtag not an operator.

If you don't take that personal, like, you're not cut out to be the entrepreneur, in my opinion. Like, I think that that's a huge piece of it. I think that translates to so many things. Like, I played Division 1 hockey. Yeah, I had so many coaches throughout my career just tell me, like, you weren't good enough. I— like, this is one of my favorite personal stories, but I ruptured my spleen when I was 15 years old. Uh, and I got cut from my team that I was on. I played with the same group of kids from the age of like 8 years old to 15, and I got cut after I ruptured my spleen. Basically was told I wasn't good enough. Ended up go playing, playing in a different organization at a lower level. At the end of my career, I went further than every single kid except like 2 kids who made it to the NHL.

Yeah.

Which isn't the point. It's not about comparing to them, but like that life experience is the only reason that I end up getting to where I got to because it's like, if someone's gonna tell you you're not good enough. Like, I don't need to be an asshole about it and go, you know, brag in their face or whatever. But for me, at the end of that journey, to be like, you motherfucker, I told you you're wrong. Like, that's what keeps you going. And then once that moment's over, you're like, fuck, what's that next— that next opportunity that's gonna like propel me forward? And then it was like building my first company and like raising my first round of funding. And then that first investor's like, no. I'm like, all right, well, that was the biggest mistake of your life. And like, it just— it's one thing after the next.

It's hard not to take things personally because anything that you're doing, you're putting yourself into.

Yep.

Like, when it even came to like the branding of Kashish, like, I went through the process of making our logo.

Just finished that process.

Yeah, you just finished it, and you're calling me every night. It's hell. It's hell for people that aren't designers.

No one understands unless they do it themselves.

And like, I went through that, and to hear like even comments about our logo, I was like the countless nights that I stayed up until 1 in the morning looking at the different types of logo fonts, the different styles that they were recommending to me, like going through iteration after iteration after iteration just for a logo, let alone the grand scheme of building a business. It's hell. And to hear someone doesn't like or appreciate what you're doing, like it's hard to not take that personally. The only thing that you can't do is hold a grudge. Yeah, you take it personally and you prove them wrong. And like even within the celebrity and athlete network of investors that we brought to the table, there were celebrities and athletes that ended up saying no to us. And our response was always, you're going to regret that.

But we've still done things with them outside of just working on Kashish because you never want to burn a bridge, especially because you never know when these people are going to pop back up in your next business or another opportunity. I think you have to handle situations with maturity because if you act like a little baby, it ends up hurting you even more. I think the one funny anecdote, I don't remember who it was, but there's like an investor. I think this post went viral on LinkedIn one time, but some investor posted about a founder that he passed on and that founder sent him an email like every week for the next 2 years with their metrics, just like because the company ended up hitting like rocket ship growth.

Is this Anchor?

I don't, I don't remember who it was, but it was every week the founder just reminded the person of like, this is what we're building and Eventually the investor just went public on LinkedIn. He was like, dude, you know what? Like, I fucking respect this move. It's kind of arrogant, kind of funny, but I think it's something I'll remember forever.

Weekly investor update. Wait, I'm curious, what have you— so we're talking about how you, I don't know, have consistently with each new company, it seems like you're operating slightly differently.

Yeah.

Taking learnings and lessons and you're able to move to different poker tables to use that analogy.

Yeah.

What have you had to sacrifice? Whether it's late nights, whether you'll randomly text me and be like, hey, I can't talk today. I'm like, where are you? You're like, I'm flying to LA because I got to deal with this fire.

Yeah.

What have you had to give up?

You give up your life. I mean, that's the reality of it, whether it's, you know, work-life balance. You know, I've seen situations where you see family less, you see friends less, you see loved ones less. I mean, especially as it starts to really grow, then you're more and more dedicated to it because There's nothing worse than building a company, taking it off, and then at the top being like, "All right, well, now I'm good." And then it crumbles because you think you're safe. You're never safe. And so as it gets bigger and bigger, your commitment becomes stronger and stronger to it. I mean, there's a reason why Michael Rubin's hosting dinners with Travis Scott and Tom Brady with the next class of rookies that are coming into the NFL last night. It's because it doesn't stop. It's only going to get bigger and you just have to keep up with that pace. And so you sacrifice quite a bit when you're starting companies, and each company's different because you're also sacrificing the understanding of what you thought you already knew. And you have to, similar to a chameleon, you have to change the color of how you're viewing things. None of my companies have been the same. And a lot of other founders and entrepreneurs, they're not the same. They might be in the same space, but they're very different businesses within that space. And so you have to teach yourself entire industries, semantics, regulation, data components, technology components. You're hiring different people, you're building a culture, you're building a brand. You're sacrificing everything to do that successfully. If you're not, then you're going to struggle to get that brand off the ground. And it doesn't mean that you have to put in 18-hour days. I think people confuse sacrifice and hard work with like, I have to be the person that's going to bed at 2 and waking up at 5 every single day for the next 20 years of my life. And that's the only way I'm going to succeed. Shocker. That's not reality for everyone. There are some people that need to work like that. You were saying before, like, you need to be in New York because you need the hustle and bustle of this environment. But that doesn't mean that, that someone else has to have that New York mentality to succeed. It's case by case based on who you are and what your business is. But you also have to sacrifice your pride and your ego. Like when we first got the KashiSh office, Kevin and myself literally sat there and helped put together the furniture that we got for our employees so that they didn't have to do that. And I'm constantly thinking to myself, what can I do for my team to make them happier in these moments so that they can give me that 100% of themselves? So one of the first things we launched was our benefits program. We cover 100% of health insurance, which includes dental and vision, commuter benefits, a match 401(k), We force them to take 2 weeks off a year and then it's unlimited PTO thereafter and $150 a month wellness stipend. So you can use that for yoga, you can use that for therapy, whatever you need to use it for. And one of the reasons why we did that is because if you're going to ask someone to drop their life and buy into yours, you have to make sure that no matter what, in the back of their head, they're not worrying about anything else. And so we created a program that made sure that our employees, no matter what we asked them to do or how many hours we asked them to work, that they felt comfortable and safe and that we had their back. And that's a sacrifice that even they have to make when joining a startup is, can I feel comfortable enough here knowing that in many instances startups ask you to take pay cuts because that's just how you build a startup. If I take that pay cut and I leave the— Pat worked at Capital One for 11 years, 11 years. He had never worked anywhere else. For him to leave Capital One which was a very cushiony job. He was very comfortable, very safe, was on a trajectory that is very hard. It took him 11 years to get to that trajectory, left that to join a startup that was in the infancy of growing. The only way you can do that is make sure that in the back of his head, he's not regretting that decision of leaving Capital One. And so you're sacrificing not only your time and your resources and at times like your mental sanity and your overall well-being because You have to lead and provide and protect your team, but you're also making sure that you're looking out for the sacrifices that they're making and understanding those sacrifices. Because the last thing you want to do is think to yourself, well, I'm sacrificing X, Y, and Z so I can treat my employees like shit. And I'm paying them, so they should be grateful that I'm paying them. That's not how it works. It's, they also sacrifice something to be here. And as long as we can mutually understand that, then there's going to be that obligation of you being the founder of your business and protecting them. And they will respect the hell out of you for it because you understand that they also made the sacrifice to join you there. And that, that was something that you're constantly having to remind yourself of, because at the end of the day, I do see businesses where it's like, I'm paying you a salary. I'm the one bearing all the stress. I'm the one bearing all the pressure. I'm the one that raised the capital. I'm the one that did this. I'm the one that did that. You should be fortunate enough to work here. When in reality it's the opposite. And I think that that's what a lot of great leaders have in mind. Like, you constantly hear about culture, and culture has nothing to do with like nap pods in an office. It has to do with how you're treating your staff and how they're perceiving your reaction to their needs and wants. And so you sacrifice a lot to go through that process of understanding how other people tick.

Yeah, I think one of the biggest— I mean, you've had this experience with running an agency, right?

Yeah.

The, I mean, you guys too, right? Before Platters, you guys were doing agency work. The most underpaid people I've ever seen are in like big marketing and big advertising agencies.

Oh yeah.

It's crazy. Like kids out of college, even though you may not be highly skilled coming out of college, making like $40,000, $45,000 and having to live in the city and commute to an office in downtown New York. I mean, that was one of the biggest things that we did early on at Verbatim. It was just like, What if we just paid people a good salary?

[Speaker:BEN_SHARF] Yeah. So you should do that. And then we do another thing where it's called a once-a-year price adjustment. So we do not run the government. We are just 3 people sitting in a room. So we can't tell you what's going to happen with the market. And last year when the market inflation rose to 8%, you can't expect your employees' salaries to be the same. You have to adjust them for the market conditions. Again, to make sure that they're safe, that they're looked out for. And so paying a good salary is an amazing start. Adding in a system where you're adjusting that salary based on market conditions. I mean, if you were to tell me 3 years ago that inflation would be at 8%, rent in New York would be at an all-time high, and it would cost me $9 to buy like something that used to be $3, I'd be like, "You're crazy. I don't know what you think you're on. You're probably on acid or something." But that's the reality for all of our employees and all of the people that are working with us is life has become extremely tough and difficult and it's become far more expensive. And so providing them either the opportunity to speak to you about market conditions and say, "My rent has doubled, my lunch has doubled, my commute has doubled in cost. How can we work something out?" So that way you retain employees instead of just hiring employees. I would say that that's an extremely important component to building that culture.

I love that.

Yeah.

What keeps you up at night? Like if Kashish fails, why?

If Kashish fails? I'd say if Kashish fails, it's because Kevin and I have given up on the integrity and principle of the business. So one of the things that we're okay with is not being used for a transaction and not making revenue on every single transaction. Our AI engine will actually tell a consumer, do not use Kashish for this. And I think that the way that we fail is if Kevin and I deviate away from that and become solely focused on revenue. Obviously revenue matters, it's a huge part of the business, but it's not the only thing that matters. And when you look at what happened in BNPL, they were just giving out loans for anything because they needed the revenue because of the mass— the massively high valuations of what they got. I mean, Klarna was valued at $30+ billion and then had to drop down to $6 billion because of the inflated revenue that the market conditions were giving them at the time. And so the only reason we'll fail is if Kevin and I give up on the core mission of the business and just say, "Fuck it, let's make as much money as possible here," because that's when we'll not only lose the overall thesis and mission of the business, We'll lose the trust of our team. We'll lose the trust of our partners. We'll lose the trust of investors. We'll lose the trust of the market because everything we've been saying up until this date would just be false at that point. I mean, that's one of the reasons why people like the business is because of how forward we are about the mission of the company. And if we gave up on that just for like a few thousand dollars here and there, that would mean that we're giving up on the core essence of the business. And that's how we fail. That's how most companies fail. It's either that or hiring. Yeah.

When you wake up every day and you have to drive home this mission and show up and build that culture and make sure your staff is taken care of and make sure you're closing deals and bringing in new investors to operate at that level, are there any specific non-negotiable habits or routines that have to get done for you to operate at that level?

Yeah. So I think physical exercise is a huge component to it, whether it's a long walk or a jog, waking up 30 minutes early just so you can do even 10 minutes of cardio at the gym if it's too cold out, and eating healthy are the two things that most people don't understand. And whether you're an athlete, playing sports growing up, I understood that, dealing with athletes on a daily basis, I understand how important it is. But your gut and your mind are very well connected. And making sure that if you're going to put your mind through hell during the week, that you're treating your body well enough to support that mind. I mean, it's like if you were to take the engine of a car, the mind, and the frame of the car, the body, and you were to take that engine and beat the shit out of it, and then you were to take the frame of that car and also beat the shit out of it, the engine's going to fall out and the car's not going to operate. But you can at least support the engine until it gets some mental rest and rework by keeping your body sharp. And I don't care, again, 18 hours a day, my ass. Everyone can find 30 minutes to go for a walk, to get some sun, to eat healthy, to make sure that you're doing what you need to to at least keep yourself at base level. I can't speak to anything else other than what works for me, but I think those are the two fundamental aspects of any business.

I mean, what about for you personally though?

Yeah, so me personally, it's tough because it's changed over time. Like, I'm, I'm in my 30s now, so like it was different, you know? Like, I used to be able to like have a scotch and it not affect me the next day, and now I have a scotch and I'm fucking hungover for 3 days. So like getting to understand your body as you get older and not jeopardizing that adjustment and like recognizing it, accepting it, and then just being like I'm gonna drink after I accomplish X, Y, and Z is something that I've had to do. I've also had to reprogram myself on sleeping. Like, when I had my first businesses, I was sleeping like 2 to 4 hour nights, literally. That was when you were, what, 22? Yeah, even all the way until when I was with Dreamit. Like, I was barely sleeping, putting in, you know, 20-hour days. And then as you get older, your body changes, your mind changes, your life changes. And now if I don't sleep between 6 and 8 hours, I'm just not on my game. And so it changes from person to person. Like I know that Kevin every day walks to the office and then he lives like a mile and a half from the office and still walks to the office every day, even if it's 10 degrees out. And that's what he does for himself. So it's about, again, knowing yourself, knowing what you need to do. And who cares if someone's going to like think that's funny and you, or you might feel embarrassed about it, but like whatever keeps you balanced, you have to do because at the end of the day, it's your mission, your business, your people. You have to accomplish it. So like, people like look at, you know, on Instagram Reels or TikTok, and they see all these influencers talking about like, you have to do an ice bath, there's chemical reasons to doing an ice bath, and like, you should be waking up and going outside with your feet on the ground like Liver King, like grounding. Yeah, like all of that stuff. Like, yeah, great, that might be what works for you, but like, that's fucking bullshit.

I see Sahil's ice bath videos, they're pretty damn good.

It works for Sahil. It works.

Yeah, it works because he's got millions of followers and people love watching.

Yeah, and like I've tried the ice bath. Like, I tried it. It was the worst experience ever.

We're getting—

we're getting one.

We'll have one upstairs on the roof. You're gonna try it? No, I've done it a ton. We're getting one.

Uh, he's a psycho.

He works out.

Yeah, I definitely am on the one side of the spectrum.

Yeah. So again, I think—

but it's more than just about doing hard things. I think it's something that I just like love doing.

Yeah.

I hate the ice bath.

Oh, you hate it?

Yeah, yeah, I hate it.

I hate the people who say they love it.

No, no, I think you're, you're, I think you're a liar. It's kind of like there's two types of people in the world, those who pee in the shower and those who say they don't. Like, to say you love the ice bath is a crazy thing to say.

Never heard that analogy before.

You never heard that?

No. Yeah. Oh, New York City, welcome to it. No, it could be.

I don't know, I've heard that. It's also like the same as like peeing in the pool.

I've also never heard that before.

Welcome to it.

Have you had to, have you had to limit drinking?

Uh, there's been a few instances where, like, you know, again, like, being out in LA with Odell or even being in New York with Odell and some of the other people, like, you know, it's sometimes hard to, like, recognize that, like, you're dealing with, like, a physical specimen. Like, the way that his body functions is completely different than how our bodies function. So, like, he can have a few drinks, wake up, no hangover, hit practice 4 AM. Do a 2 a day, like eat food, like just a different genetic composition than me. You're in shape, man. I don't know. Yeah, I am, but I'm nowhere near—

It's all relative to who you're sitting in a room with.

Yeah, exactly. So you're sitting in a room with him and it's completely different. And so like, you know, having times where like, you know, you, you end up enjoying those moments so much to the point where like you, you lose track of like, is this drink 3 or drink 4? Those are the only instances where like that's really ever become a problem. I think that like Again, you have to know yourself and know who you are and what it is. And like, if you're drinking to deal with stress, that's a completely different thing than like drinking because like you're celebrating. Yep. Or drinking because like you have an accomplishment. And so I think again, like knowing your surroundings, knowing what you're dealing with, like understanding what you're going through and what the consequences of those actions might be if you'd have one too many, like There were periods where Kevin and I literally said to ourselves, we have 90 days to accomplish one thing. In those 90 days, nothing is getting in our way. We don't care what it is. Girlfriend, family, friends, alcoholic. We are committing to these 90 days and that's the only thing we're caring about. And so it's circumstantial and it depends on who you are. But again, some people need an ice bath. Some people needed an ice cold beer. It's really just who you are and what you're going through. And I think that people have gotten so caught up in comparing themselves to, again, the Sahils of the world, who by the way is one of the nicest, most genuine people I've ever met in my entire life. But they get into this pattern of seeing what works for these successful influencers and they try and interpret that as what works for them because it's worked for someone else. And I liken that back to like my agency days of where I used to have people come to me and say like, "I liked Apple's commercial. I want to do that for me." And I'm like, "Well, what worked for Apple won't work for you because you're a pizza store and you're not Apple and the marketing has to be different." And so people have gotten into this rhythm of continuous comparison where they're looking at others and saying, "Oh, well, if I do those things, I'll become that person." And that's just not how reality works. And so again, I stress this so much because I've gone through this so many times. Like, just know who you are and know what it is that you're trying to accomplish, and that's all you should care about. And eliminate all of the other distractions.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah.

Um, I think we're, we're at time here.

Perfect. Sam, absolute pleasure, dude.

That was, that was awesome.

First podcast. He's coming back for a round two.

Yeah, I mean, this is my first ever podcast.

You should do more, I guess, is the, my advice to you after having that conversation.

No, we, we did call her daddy before we sold it to Barstool, we had Call Her Daddy. And I was behind the scenes there and I was like, I'm never fucking doing a podcast. And here I am. I think that was 6 years ago. We had— we dealt with Alex and Sofia. Now I'm 6 years later, full circle.

That's going to be topic of the second one. Amazing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Call Her Daddy was wild. Yeah.

You want to just look at the camera? Your time to shine. Tell them, tell them where they could find you and find Kashish.

Hey, I'm Sam Miller, co-founder and CEO of Kashish. Just go to www.kashish.co. That's K-A-S-H-E-E-S-H dot C-O.

Hell yeah.

Boom.

There you go.

Thanks, Sam.

Yeah, I don't know what social media is by heart.