How to Get Everything You Want Out of Life⏐Ep. #144

I was like, I'm going to make these sneakers out of playoff towels that I went to growing up. So I just made them. I ended up spending the whole day with Mike Conley. An unpurchasable experience. What is a permissionless project? Doing work without permission. I've literally changed my life and my career by doing permissionless project. Nameless account. 18 followers. I tweet this and we're on a FaceTime within 10 minutes. We work with big Fortune 500 companies on like defining what's next for them. We're adding like billions to the bottom line. Like I think the biggest opportunity for people. Listen, like.

Jordan, why don't you tell us who you are, what you do.

I'm Jordan Mix. I'm a partner at Late Checkout. Many people might know Late Checkout from Greg Eisenberg. He's a prolific Internet creator, but also entrepreneur and business person. And we've got a holding company and we work on some of your favorite products. You know, you're probably using one of our products right now that we've worked on and we, we've got a series of companies. LCA is our main innovation agency that designs futuristic interfaces for the AI age. So we work with like big Fortune 500 companies on like defining what's next 18 to 24 months down the road for them. And then we've got the Startup Ideas podcast, which a lot of people might have seen, you might have seen Chris on an episode, you know that, that triggered some beef a little bit.

Yeah, yeah, it did.

Well, a little beef. And then we've got Startup Empire, our Internet community, where we basically teach people and help people run our very similar playbook using the Audience Community product framework, which is like find an Internet audience, put them in a community, learn what they want, and then build products that they're begging for. So we've done that many times and we, we did that to start an acquired boring marketer, which is our last.

Holding isn't Late Checkout. Now you guys sign like million dollar agreements with these Fortune 500 companies?

Yeah, we try to do like average, like lifetime value of a project is, yeah, seven figures. So we, we sometimes start on a lower six figure sprint and then expand out. But yeah, we're, we're truly adding like billions to the bottom line though. So it sounds like a lot these like big agencies, but you know, we've got case studies that are, that are out there that we can, we can share. I don't want to put them on blast, but you can sift through them. If you go to the website. But yeah, we added like literally like 2 billion in market share for a publicly trade for work that we did. So.

And you're just helping them launch products?

Yeah, it's everything. So it's like conceptualizing things that they can't see, like using their community to make products way more sticky. Like thinking about interfaces in a way that they haven't been thought about before. Borrowing from like consumer social and you know, B2B SaaS. Product that gets like consumer socialized is just a delight for users and it's just like it feels so fresh when they launch it. So like that's our whole pitch is like Forget about your 12 month roadmap. We're building for the 18 to 24.

I would bet most people have never even heard of an agency like this. Is this even approachable to people starting an agency like this? How do you find a decision maker at a company like Microsoft, Slack, whatever.

That's the hard part. And it's like a, it's a network game. And that's why we only work with like 8 to 12 people a year. We cap it at that for a very specific reason because we can do the best work in those constraints. And so yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a network game for sure. And really like it's, it's kind of doing permissionless projects, you know, which we're, we're going to talk about today is like just doing stuff and thinking about their business in ways that they've never thought about it before. And reading between the lines is just the best way to stand out in today's like age. It's just like there's a bunch of noise, but if you take just a little thought, a little care, you can intercept some people at the highest level. Like we actually I just learned that from David Sinra, the founder's podcast guy. His network is crazy.

How did he get to that point? Just because smart people started listening to him and respecting him. Like he was building trust at scale and then he just made connections with them.

Yeah, I mean like the TLDR is he read 175 biographies and has done three hour episodes monologued about those. And he has this weird parasocial relationship with a very high value audience that they think that he is like a dead person. Like they think that he is like Charlie Munger, you know, so now billionaires will call him and be like, what would Charlie Munger do with this problem?

Right? And by parasocial you mean it's kind of more of like a one way relationship.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, parasocial relationship. Like they're. He's in a billionaire's ears for three. For three straight hours. Yeah, like he doesn't know the billionaires, but they know him very well, which is even more important. His trust and affinity is like way higher with them. And like, I mean, if you think about their hourly rate, like, they don't even have an hourly rate, but like they're donating three hours of their, their time to listen to him talk. And you know, it's just traveled like word of mouth. And he is, he is like an encyclopedia. Like, it is incredibly impactful. Like the way he can distill framework and like put this stuff out.

So think of all the overlap of skills that he has to have to be where he is. Because on the surface it's like, oh, he's just reading books and talking about him. Big deal. It's like, well, no, like, first of all, he probably has a photographic memory. Second of all, he has this infectious energy when he talks that most people just don't naturally have. Right. Third of all, like, he. He genuinely loves diving in and learning these things. It reminds me of. Was it Ben Wilson, how to take over the World podcast guy? He told a story about this billionaire that wanted his advice and wanted to pay him a stupid amount of money to just like teach him about history. And it's the same thing. Just because he was listening to his podcast.

Totally. Yeah, it. It is. It is a frame breaking experience to hear those guys talk about it because it is very real. I wasn't like a huge fan of David, to be honest. And I mean, I respected his craft. But like, after we spent that time with him or the beginning of this year, I was just like, oh my dude. I was sleeping on him. Like, incredible, incredible. Like, I was like, I'm. I. It's like the Shaq meme. It's like. I apolog. I wasn't familiar with your game.

Okay, well, let's start talking about permissionless, Whatever. Permissionless projects. I feel like this is just the perfect thing to talk about because I did a keynote last year on finding your white whale, how to land a white whale. And I define a white whale as being a business partner or a customer or a vendor or someone like that one connection, one relationship that could be worth more than every other relationship in that business in your life. And I feel that pairs very nicely with what we're talking about here.

Yeah, I mean, like, I've Literally changed my. My life and my career by doing permissionless projects. And, like, I didn't invent them. I didn't invent it by any. Any means. How I got started, I was like, I was doing mechanical engineering in college, and I ended up in Asheville, North Carolina, working at this plant. Factory, like, as a design engineer where we were making, like, literal utility trucks.

Okay.

And I was on the. I was there for seven months. And, like, at the end, I'd made friends with this country guy named Drew. You know, he was, like, dipping in the cubicles and like, crazy guy. And he came into the, like, my little, like, intern office and was like, never leave college. Never leave college. Like, you're. This is like, the best time of your life. And that just, like, hollowed me out. And I was like, I can't have that happen. Like, I can't. I just, like, I'm not gonna do that. Like, now my engineering career is over. Like, corporate is over. What else am I going to do when I graduate in four months?

That one offhand comment that he's probably says to all kinds of people, it just, like, completely changed your brain.

Yeah, because I just spent six months, like, while my friends were all still in college, like, going to football games and doing the whole thing. Like, I was working. So it already didn't feel good. Like, I was two hours away. It already sucked. So, like, when he threw that icing on the cake, you know, at the end of the. The seven month, like, co op agreement or whatever, like, I was just like, no, dude, this. Like, I've got to find a better way to do it. And I don't know what it is. Like, I didn't grow up, like, very entrepreneurial at all. But, like, that moment was like, okay, you've got to figure it out on make it on your own. Like, how the f are you going to do that?

Were you at ut?

Yeah, I was in Knoxville, yeah. Tennessee.

Okay. University of Tennessee. You're working a couple hours away. You're almost done with school. He says that comment and you're like, I don't even know what entrepreneurship is, but I need to look into this because I. I love Drew. I don't want to be Drew. I don't want to ever say that about my. I don't want to ever come into another guy's cubicle and tell him that.

Exactly. Yeah, I don't want to. I don't want to be Drew. I love him, but, yeah, exactly. So, like, that sent me down like the Tim Ferriss Rabbit hole somehow, like I went down the four hour work week and then, you know, that whole, that whole thing with just like, how do you optimize your life? How do you make the life of your own? And I stumbled upon Ryan Holiday. Ryan Holiday is like canvas strategy. And this was like the, this is like the early days of like permissionless projects to me. And I'm actually going to share my screen because I have like a little like presentation that I just think it would be like, this is amazing, cool to walk through. It's just like permissionless projects. I really think you can like change your life doing this. So what is a permissionless project, like doing work without permission? Like, it could be whatever. It can be literally like asking your partner's father if, if you can marry her or like, you know, like getting a job or starting a business. So like the evolution going back is like the canvas strategy with Ryan Holiday. This, this idea is basically like instead of waiting for a path to, to be open for you, create your own path by being a blank canvas that people hire up, can paint on. So basically like do things that make other people look good and you in return will accidentally carve the path that you could never have seen for yourself in the first place.

I mean, it's back to first principles where you're playing on their ego and their pride and their vanity in a good way. Right?

Everyone's got it, dude, you know? Yep, everyone's got it. So as soon as you realize that, you just like have to lean into it and just start seeing the world through this lens. Like, how can I, how can I be a canvas? And like, that's what I hope. Like people listening to this take away today, it's like, doesn't matter if you're starting out or like 30 years into your career, like having this mindset truly has changed my life and just like how I look out, have an outlook on the, on the world.

What was Ryan Holiday's big story that got him to think along this way? Do you know?

He's like a life, like a career canvas, stoicism guy. Yeah. Now he was Robert Green, the power law. 48 power laws. His like apprentice. And I think it was like a cold, cold, like knock on the door even like wasn't even like a dm. He like just like pulled up to his office and then he was like the youngest chief marketing officer of American Apparel. And he took them from like 20 to hundreds of millions of dollars as a 22 year old. And then he started writing books, became an author and now he has, like, a really cool bookstore places. So. But after the canvas strategy, like, I was just like, already doing this stuff in my. In my daily life, but I stumbled upon Visualize Value Jack Butcher, and he has just a really interesting way of framing it, and he called it the permissionless apprentice. Do the thing before you get the thing. Do the job before you get the job. Like, just take action and good things will come. And now we're like, in this phase of the Internet, it's like you can just do things. You know, it's like these all are the exact same thing and the exact same principle. And, like, you can. You can just do things. I want to show some, like, results of me, like, doing this.

So you're saying the canvas strategy, permissionless apprenticeship, and you can just do things three different ways of saying the same thing. Just create your own future, but not in like a woo woo way, like a Tony Robbins seminar, but in like a very specifically, here's how you do it, here is why you. You should do it, and here is how approachable it actually is.

Yeah. And it's the same thing you said about, like, going after your white whale or finding your dream client or it's all the exact same, you know, like, we run startup empire and everyone's at all. Everyone asked me, like, how do you. How do they go from like two clients to 10 clients, whether it's a service or SaaS, and it's like, it's doing this. You know, it's like, literally find eight people on LinkedIn and, like, just do stuff that is on the bottom third of their to do list, and they will end up paying you and they will become a client. So, like, it proliferates through, like, every. Every little piece of business and really just life in general.

Okay, so I'm gonna like. Yeah, let's start.

What. I've had, like, some stories, not to brag, but just like, this is. These are the W's that I. That I've taken by doing this over, like, literally 10 years. And then I'm gonna say, like, then we're gonna break down, like, how anyone listening can do this. And, like, what do we need to look for? How do you. How do you read between the lines? And then we can just jam on, like, a ways that I would do this in 2025.

Okay. Yep.

Cool. So I grew up in Memphis. My favorite basketball player growing up was Mike Conley, and I knew how to make sneakers. He got traded away to the. To the Utah Jazz, and he was going to Come back on, you know, his homecoming game. And I was like, I'm going to make these sneakers out of playoff towels that I went to growing up and make these sneakers out of the playoff runs that he put us through. And I'm gonna meet him and we're gonna, like, gonna. We're gonna hang out. And so I just made them. It took me, like, 40 hours to hand make these Jordan ones from scratch.

How did you learn to make shoes at all?

I just was very interested in it. And I went to this school in New York called the Shoe Surgeon. He. He's done work for, like, Justin bieber and, like, LeBron and all these people. So he had, like, a four day class in New York that I went through because I was just, like, really curious and wanted to put my hands on.

What did that cost?

It was like, three grand.

Okay.

Yeah. It was, like, the most awesome. Or spent on, like, professional development or, like, personal.

Yeah.

At the time, like, I was like, what am I doing? And I was like, getting married in, like, three weeks before.

Like, it's funny because three. Three grand is like half a semester at UT and we don't even bat an eye. But when you pay three grand for something like this that could end up changing your life, it's like, oh, man, what am I doing? You know?

Totally. Yeah. I'm like, how am I going to tell my mom that I paid three grand to go to New York and make sneakers? That sounds ridiculous. Anyway, like, the head of, like, the media division of the Grizzlies ended up using me as a pawn to get him on to get Mike Conley in his media day. So he reached out to me, Chris Vernon, this guy, like, the color commentator of the Grizzlies, and he was trying to get time with Mike Conley while he was in town. And Chris Vernon saw these on Twitter, like, just going viral, because I was like, yo, help me get these to Mike Conley. Like, we're gonna make it happen. Like, help me out, Memphis. And so Chris Vernon used me as, like, hey, I've got this guy who's trying to give you shoes if you want to piggyback. He piggybacked. We, like, collapsed.

Yeah.

On it. And, like, I ended up, like, spending the whole day with Mike Conley, like, an unpurchasable experience.

It was just coincidental that the commentator also wanted to get a hold of this guy at the same time. You happen to be going viral. So he piggybacked on you.

Yeah. Like, he reached out and said, yo, I'm Trying to get him on the show. Like, let's make it happen. I'll help you out. But I learned later that he was, like, trying to get Mike on the show the whole time.

But, like, this is a guy that should be able to, like, get a. Get a guy like that, and he's not able to. And then you. Some guy from nowhere who no one's ever heard of with one tweet and, you know, $3,000, 40 hours of work, a lot of passion, a lot of motivation, a lot of research. So I'm not discounting that. But it all distilled down to a tweet that got a lot of attention, right?

Totally. Yeah. You. Like, I had. You have to do the work, and then you have to publish it. And, like, I was completely fine taking an L on this, because the whole point of doing this thing is not for the outcome. Like, that's the number one thing for these permissionless projects is, like, you can kiss the outcome goodbye. If you do it for the outcome, you're already doing it for the wrong reasons. I looked at this as, like, hey, I'm going to have a dope pair of shoes, like, hanging behind me in my. In my office, or I'm going to get to hang out with, like, a childhood hero of mine. That's what sounds like a double win to me. So, like, 40 hours. Well worth it. Let's rock.

How many views did that tweet get?

Dude, it was, like, previews. This was, like, 2018, 2019. It got, like, 700 likes and it got his attention.

Did he DM you?

No, I was DMing him like, crazy. Like, I was dming all of his camp. Like, I had studied, like, his agent. I was, like, following his boys. I was following, like, his marketing guy. I was, like, hitting him from all cylinders. Like, I was DMing his wife. Like, it was crazy. Like, so what was.

What was, like, the nail in the coffin that finally got you in touch with him?

Chris Vernon was the guy. Oh, Chris Vernon, he, like, intercepted. It was like a parent trap moment, basically. Like, Chris Vernon had me in the studio and was like, yo, Mike, I have a gift for you if you come to the studio. Like, it was like, a total, like, parent trap moment. And then, yeah, we.

You were like, the honey pot.

Yeah. And I was more than happy to be the honey pot. It was fun.

Yeah. So then you ended up spending the day with him.

Yeah. Like, we just, like, I went to shoot around and, like, just, like, was rolling with the. With his posse. Like, I was there for, like. And, like, mind you, like, 20 minutes before I'm sitting outside with a backpack with these shoes in my backpack. Like, I might not, you know, give it to him. And, like, he actually rolled up and walked straight past me. And I could have either easily just, like, handed him to him right then. But I let him walk by because I was, like, hoping that I would get, like, linked up. Like, I was hoping that I would make it into, like, the studio.

You wanted to do it the right way.

I want to do it the right way.

Like, because you could have just handed him off. He's, like, cool, man. Thank. Really appreciate this. And he's gone forever.

Song gone. Yeah, we wouldn't have had the photo moment. We wouldn't have a video. Like, it would have just been, like. It would have been, like, a premature opportunity and all the work kind of would have gone to waste. So, like, picking the moment actually matters a ton too.

So when you were just hanging with him, were people like, who's this Jordan guy? And he's like, oh, he made me these shoes, dude.

I was literally, like, just alone. Yeah. Like, I was just, like. I was like, I wish I would have brought some friends, but, like, I just thought it was going to be, like, a quick, like, go rogue situation. His, like, group was taking, like, these photos and stuff. So it's just. It was. It was a surreal moment, for sure.

They say never meet your heroes. Was. Was that true in this case, or was he awesome?

Yeah, it was great. Like, and, like, all, like, the three other players that were like, the core four were also there. So, like, it was just an unbelievable, like, moment to. For me to just, like, get to, like, kick it with them and, like. And, you know, speaking of parasocial relationships, again, I had a parasocial relationship with them.

Yeah.

Like, I, you know, like, I could already jump into, like, a convo and not be like, you know, what they, like and kind of, like, how they move. So it was, like, chill. And that's why I kind of got to roll with for a little bit longer than just, like, the handoff.

Let me ask you this. When you're, like, planning and scheming, are you just, like, a dreamer? Like, I don't know how else to put it. Are you a dreamer? Like, you're just hoping that these things and you're just kind of fantasizing and visualizing it, and then it actually happens sometimes.

Yeah, it's more like. It's more tactical than that because this was, like, just an idea that I had when he Got traded and I wanted to make, I wanted to do creative project. And he was coming back around Thanksgiving and I knew I was going to be in Memphis with my wife's family at Thanksgiving. So it's just like, I was just like, all right, this is an opportunity. Like, let's, let's start in October and just like crank and crank and try to make it happen. It's really like tactical. We'll get into the, the like, tactics of how I, how I see these opportunities.

Did you realistically think you'd spend the day with him or did you just want to give him the shoes? Was that like the perfect outcome and then that was exceeded in your mind?

Yeah, exceeded way before, way beyond. Like, I literally just wanted to hand him the shoes and like take and take like a picture. Like what you're seeing on screen. Yeah, like, that's like, that was it.

It's like this is your white whale. It was just like, this guy's awesome. He's cool. I want to give him these shoes. It's not like I'm going to launch the next Nike. This is going to be my launch pad. I'm going to monetize. Like, you weren't trying to monetize anything. You were just trying to do something cool.

Totally. And I think that's why get this wrong too, is like they are trying to go for the outcome. They are trying to monetize. They are trying to do it. And I think it's very hard to stay in the game if you have that mindset of like, this is a, this is a, a scheme.

So video is cool. But you know what's better? Long form audio via podcast. And my newsletter, tkopod.com go there to subscribe for free to my newsletter. It's one email a week, very tactical. And then go to my audio podcast, three episodes a week. Stuff like this. You're going to love it. All free, no sleazy sales pitch.

Tkopod.com it rarely like works out in your favor like that. So we try not to move like that like ever now, you know, even if it is like the dream is to like monetize it. I mean, there's a big brand like Steagallman stable now. They, they're a hat brand from New York. And he, he did this permissionless project stuff where he sent hats to the NBA bubble. Like he literally just like sent hats to a bunch of people in the bubble, like without permission. And they spread like wildfire because they, all the NBA players were trapped in a bubble. They saw Nothing new. They had a per diem. They started trading the hats. Like just like crazy stuff like that. He like, yeah, now he's like monetized and done collabs with the Knicks and like NBA players and celebrities, but like, he just sent packages.

Well, dude, did you hear about the true brand guy hats? Guy, have you seen those like, upside down Dallas hats?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.

Like the dude, perfect guys wear them. They're everywhere. That was just. You need to research that because that's basically what he did. He wasn't calling it that, but he made these hats that just said Dallas upside down. Cool design. And he found like, I forget his name. It was like some fourth string backup quarterback that no one's ever heard of. But he had just got like drafted to the Cowboys and he booked a hotel across the street from where he knew they had a meeting and like ran into him and gave him the hat for free. He wore it in the locker room. Everyone asked him about it. And then like, then all the Cowboys were wearing them and then forget about it. Like all the NFL was wearing them. Now the dude, now it's like a huge eight figure brand. That wasn't like his grand ambition. He just was just like doing something cool.

Dude, it's beautiful. I love it. I love stories like that. It's like so much. I want to collect. I want to collect as many as I can.

You should put them in a book, man.

I am. I'm going to one day.

Okay.

I did the same thing for Jack Butcher again, like with the shoes. Like, I just was like, this guy's incredible, like, completely changed, like how I view things. And so I was like, yo, let's do, let's do these shoes. Turns out he lived in my neighborhood.

No way.

Literally?

You didn't even know?

Didn't know? No, I just like literally reached out. I was like. Took his courses. I was like, thank you. Changed my business that I was running at the time and. And like build once, sell twice as course. That's now a dollar. And Permissionless Apprentice, which is now a dollar which everyone should take. Yeah, he was, dude, five minutes away. We walked to like a coffee shop and. And I handed these off and like we've. We've become friends since.

So for those that aren't watching, describe what you. What you made for him.

Yeah. So Jack Butcher is visualized value is like iconic for these black and white. Very simple images that have very minimalistic design but say a lot with them. So basically created a Jordan one with his all black With a black out with a white outline for the swoosh and then some exchangeable tongue tags that were Velcro with some of his, like, juxtaposition. So, like, the left shoe had one of them, one of the visuals, and the right shoe had the other one. So like, you know, decades versus days, you know, or.

This is pointless. Isn't that one of them?

Yeah, this is Pointless is like the. One of his most famous ones.

I can't believe you made these shoes.

Yeah, yeah. Now they're like in his house and like, I go to his birthday party and he's like, dude, I still like, have these and you know, and it's just like, it's just like a piece of art. Like, he's not wearing them, but like, now he's like an artist. Like, and it's dope to like have. Have your art be in an artist house. So.

Have you ever sold your shoes to anyone?

I did a, like, during checks, one of Jack's projects, I did like raffle off a pair of custom dunks and that's the only pair I've ever sold. But I sold those for like eight grand because I sold like NFT raffle tickets.

So the NFT days.

Yeah, the NFT days. Try to make it as functional as possible. But yeah, the coolest, most successful one by far is like, what I'm doing with my full time job with Greg right now is like, it was a permissionless project. So, like, I saw Greg's tweet, I. I realized that he only did a lot of like, visual.

This first tweet here.

This first tweet here. Yeah. So it was basically like a. Like, he's trying to be visual with this, right? He's like, it's. It says short form video plus newsletter plus commute, free community plus paid community plus product is how you build a business in 2023. So I'm, I'm reading this and like, it's got 1,000 likes. And I'm like, he's clearly trying to do something visual here. But I'm realizing that he probably doesn't have time to create a visual. So I was like, what if I just created this visual? And in 2023 I was like, I'm gonna do dope things with dope people. I started this little brand called do within and I was burnt out running a med tech agency and I was trying to sell it. Couldn't sell it because I was like the key man of it. And I was like, I'm literally trying to sell it So I can get out of here. And so I was like, I have to stop because I'm like mad burnt out. And I took a month off and I was like, I'm just gonna do dope things with dope people. It was like my month of permissionless projects. And this was January 2nd of 2023. From a nameless account. 18 followers. I tweet this and we're on a FaceTime within 10 minutes.

Okay, so do within that was the brand new nameless account. You just went ahead and you converted his tweet into an infographic, then you tweeted that as like a quote tweet. And then what happens?

Yeah, and then he says like, he dms me. Love the image. Who are you? Like, because it was from a faceless account. And I sent him like my, my main account and he was like, facetime me. And I said, well, we'll do. And like, we just started hanging out and like jamming on business and we're like. He was like, what are you gonna do next? And I was like, I'm not sure. Here's a couple ideas of what I'm thinking. And he was like, what if you just came and built LA Checkout and that's been like an absolute like game changing place for me to find my people and like build businesses like that I've like dreamed about building for a long time now.

Built what like specifically? What was the original goal for you and where did you end up?

Yeah, so I started on a project called you probably need a robot as like an entrepreneur in residence. And that newsletter, when I took it over, was at like 30,000 subscribers and we got it up to like 80,000 and monetized it and did, did the whole like AI wave and then we merged that into startup Empire, our membership community. And then I just joined as like an operating partner at late checkout, the Holdco level and just right hand manning to Greg a lot on a lot of different things, like creative direction on the startup ideas podcast, M and A deals, partnership deals, and then like growth and ops for the, for the businesses across the board.

Amazing.

Yeah.

And this was day two of your month of permissionless projects?

Yeah, day two. Yeah. I didn't stop there. Like, I did a bunch of other stuff too, but like this one just hit quick and like it was the most fruitful by far.

Yeah, so he's putting out a bunch of visuals now, right? Are you behind that as well?

Yeah, some of them. Like a lot of the sketching ones that we've done like the hand sketch stuff is like. Is. Has all been from. From me. But, yeah, I saw an opportunity. You know, it's like, how do you. How do you do these permissionless projects? Is, like, you look at, like, what skills that you have, like, what you want to be doing, the people that fire you up, and, like, where that overlaps with your, like, passion and interests, and you find the, like, keyhole of that, and it's like, what value can you provide to these people that get you amped with the skills that you have and areas that you want to do? And, like, those are how you see the opportunities. It's like, I wanted to collab with someone like Greg, and I was like, I can design kind of. I'm not a designer, but I can design. Like, I can see, like, what he's trying to do here. So, like, what if I just did it for him? And then for me to have more strategic conversations to, like, actually add value to his business instead of just like, yo, man, would love to pick your brain. Like, got some ideas for you.

How long did it take you to make that image?

10 minutes?

This is a weird question, but what happens if he says FaceTime? You get on FaceTime and you're boring, and you're. You're just lame talent in the world.

Yeah. You got to open. You got to.

It doesn't work, right?

Doesn't work. No, you got to bring, like, you.

Got to be someone that he wants to hang out with.

You do. You do. But this is, like, the door. So this is the door opener.

So if I'm listening to this and I'm boring, what do you do? Do boring people know they're boring?

Yeah, I think they. I think they might, but I think you're interesting to someone. Like, what? The skills that you have. No matter what, it's like you're interesting to some. Like, I guarantee you can find this loophole. No matter if you're interesting or whatever, you just have to study. You just have to study up and, like, be ready when your number does get called instead. Like, what is that? Like, opportunity is like preparedness or luck is like, preparedness meets opportunity or whatever that kitschy phrase. It's like, it's like that. But it's just like being ready for when your number is called to be.

Interesting just because of the fact that you liked Greg, you liked his content and his style, and you reached out. Like, that probably means call it 80% chance that he's not going to find you boring. Because even in a parasocial relationship, you guys are a lot alike. I see the same. Like I have a referral program in my newsletter and, and so I hop on calls with people that refer x amount of subscribers and almost every call is just a total bro that like I just bro down with immediately because it's like the, the biggest distillation of people that like my stuff and therefore they're most like me. They're usually like 30 something white dude. We attend the same church, we each have two to four kids and like we're just like the same person, you know, so it's like just by. You don't even need to worry about that. Forget I even said that because whoever you're reaching out to and you're wanting to add value to, they're probably going to like you because you like them. And it usually goes both ways.

Yeah, a hundred percent. And, and you like, you are someone who's creating content all the time. I would need an hour with your content, like deeply studying it to know where I could help you. You know what I mean? Like just like reading through the lines, crossing over stuff, reading some newsletters, seeing some short form, doing all this stuff like you put your brain into the world. It's very, it's. It would be very obvious for me to pluck something that, that I could like help you with if I, if I wanted to get in your space. Like I think the biggest opportunity for people listening is like being a number two to someone that has a lot of stuff going on. Like it was underrated opportunity of all time is like everyone wants to be a creator, be the face of something and be the da da da da da. It's like actually it's dope to be the number two.

I would agree with that.

Like you have a, you have a number two, don't you?

Yeah. And he's awesome and he's always top of mind. And like we've talked about a bunch of business ideas and it's like, well I'm always default to like why don't you do it? Do you want to start this? And he's like, well I don't know. And like I don't want him to because I'm competing with myself in a way. But like he's just so top of mind because we literally talk every single day. He's top of mind.

Totally. And it's like another way to put it. That's how I, that's how I would like if I was someone that was trying to like create opportunity for myself, I would be trying to Trying to do that right now.

What were some other experiments that month that didn't go well?

Yeah, so I did like a go to market strategy for Kit convertkit at the time Kit and I did like this whole like 30 minute like presentation loom thing and I like chaptered it up in like a really like high quality like production and it got viewed like 40 times. Yeah, nothing happened from it. Like, I know everybody at the company looked at it at once, you know, or twice.

They didn't even say like, hey, appreciate this.

No, just go.

40 views on a Loom is a lot.

Yeah, yeah, I got passed around for sure. I was like, oh, it's something's working for sure. But yeah, no, it's like. And then the, the world like comes back around. It's like, then I'm getting invited to their private mastermind because like we're Kit customers and like we've grown newsletters.

Oh, so it has. So it has come back around.

Yeah, exactly. That's like I didn't use it for the desired outcome that I tried to do. Like I, maybe I wanted to work at Kit maybe because I was like literally trying to figure out how I can not work in medtech at the time. I was like, where am I gonna go next? And I was like, I want to do something in the like the B2B SaaS creator, Internet Scalable. That, that kind of was like my like constraints. So I just started doing things for people in that, in that space and it did pay off. And like I also used the exact same go to market strategy on a pitch to be hive. Just switch the brands. Like, you know, it's just like, was.

It the same loom or did you record it twice?

It was different. Yeah. And that was way scaled down. Like I didn't do like a deep loom for Beehive. I just said like, yo, I've got like, you know, this, this and this. This is where I would take Beehive. This is how I would turn Beehive into a billion dollar brand. Like, who doesn't like getting that? Nothing came from that either. But like now I know the team and like we've used their newsletters, their newsletter product for a lot of stuff. And it's like that, that those two experience also helped me scale our newsletters that are like vital and lifebloods to our businesses.

Now what's interesting to me if, is if the Greg experiment doesn't go well, then the Kit experiment never goes well, even over the long run. People view it 40 times, but it never comes back around. But because of the fact that just one of them worked, eventually it came back around. Does that make sense? So it's like this isn't something that you do once and like it didn't work? No, it's like you do it once and it doesn't matter if it worked. And you learn if you do it 20 times and it works 3 of the times, then over the next five years, 13 more of them might work as well because they can all kind of interconnect.

That's a shots on goal and like it compounds, you know, like you're building a portfolio of these things and they're, they're assets and you become like the person that just shows up in people's dms with actual value instead of, hey, can I pick your brain? It's completely game changing. Even like when we're doing just like little partnership stuff, like doing a little, just a little thing that's out of the norm, like kind of standouty. It's not a huge project. It takes five minutes instead of one minute. It like, you just get their attention. These are the four steps that I've kind of like talked to, but like I'm gonna, I'm happy to send this to anybody that wants it, but it's like these are like what you need to do to start seeing like with X ray vision opportunities for you to like execute these, these projects. So it's like analyzing what skills you have. And like what do you like to do first off? Like, you might have a bunch of skills that you absolutely hate. Like, I would not do permissionless projects on stuff that you hate because then you'll be like getting yourself in a box where you don't want to be. Make a list of people you want to target that could be customers, people you want to work with, companies you want to work at, businesses you want to start, and you want to interview potential clients. Make a list of you want to target. Find the gap. Like literally just like X ray revisions. Study them. Where are they missing things? What's on the bottom of their to do list that they're never getting to, like I talked about. And then like do the thing and send it to them. And like ask for nothing in return. But be ready with when they do. Say like, what'd you do this for? Be ready with a specific, like either more value to add to them or a specific ask.

All else equal. What kind of things do you think there are to do for these white whales? What kind of tasks?

It really depends on, like, your skills.

And on what they do, right?

Yeah. Like, where they have gaps and what your. What your skills are is the thing that you should do for them. Yeah, I mean, like, one that I'm doing right now. We'll see if it pays off. Is something for David Sinra. After we had him on the podcast in Miami, he mentioned this book that he read about the founder of Sequoia Capital, Don Valentino. And it's like an unpublished book. He's like, yeah, it's seven. It was 70 pages and it was a PDF, and I hated it. I hated reading it. But, like, gosh, it was a good book. It was, like, so good, and I learned so much from it.

He just hated reading PDFs.

But, yeah, I mean, it was like, literally, it's a. It was a PDF of pictures of someone taking, like, of the book. Like, it was, like, complete garbage. Like, listening to him talk about that. And then he. He mentioned, like, somewhere, his favorite bookstore in Florida. I was like, dude, I'm gonna OCR like, like, take pictures of these book and, like, use AI and OCR it and get the transcript. I'm gonna typeset it, I'm gonna do a print on demand, and I'm gonna ship this thing down there with a note that said, thanks for coming to the Startup Ideas podcast, and I'm gonna ship it to the bookstore that he loves, and it's gonna sit behind the desk. I called the guy, like, the book's about to come in actually this week, so. Well, we haven't seen it yet, but I called the. The. The owner of the bookstore who he knows. I'm like, just keep it behind the desk. When he shows up next time when he checks out, like, just give it to him.

Oh, my gosh. Okay, so if I'm David do and I find out it's you somehow, what is the ask for David?

I actually don't know.

You just really like him.

I don't have an ask for him, but I just know that if he remembers that, like, surprisingly delightful moment, he's going to owe me and us. Really? Like, he's going to owe the Startup Ideas podcast or. Yeah, he's going to want to help us do something, and I don't know what it's going to be. I don't care if it's. If it's nothing. I, like, actually just, like, really appreciated him, like, driving an hour and coming to do the pod, even though he wanted to. And, like, he was late to dinner with his wife. And, like, I just saw the opportunity to do it. And I can only speak from my experience, so I'm like, I feel like I'm just like talking about the stuff that I do, but I just like, I was like, this is a doable thing, so why don't we just do it?

I'm just getting so many ideas for myself. I hope that people listening are getting ideas like, let's just take everything else out. Let's say like the hack, the whole permissionless hack. There's only one on the planet and, and that's to make a book for someone. Right? What is the. The physical cost? 10 bucks to do this?

Yeah, it was like literally like $9.

Okay, $9, let's say another 10 bucks for shipping. 20 bucks. How much of your time went into doing this?

Like, I did the screenshots on the flight back from Miami. So like I was just like listening to a pod. Probably founders, honestly, because I was like in the zone on him and just screenshotted it. And like, I use clean Shot, my like screenshot tool that has OCR baked in and it like was perfect. Ran it through AI, saw if there was any typos, downloaded a typesetter on the Internet for free. Used this thing called blurb and it made the book.

So two hours, called the bookstore, five minutes. Was the bookstore weirded out?

No.

Okay, so let's call it two hours and 20 bucks. Yeah, like we. I talk about asymmetric bets all the time. Like, what an asymmetric bet? I'm over here thinking selfishly for myself, like, how can I do that exact hack as my permissionless? Because there's no, like, there's no end to permissionless. Like there's always a bunch of people above you and below you, right. In whatever hierarchy you consider yourself within. Right. So let's say that my, my white whale is to be on the Lex Friedman podcast or Joe Rogan, right? Why wouldn't I just take like, go to his YouTube channel, sort by most viewed, take his top 10, put it in like a nice leather bound book and mail it to them. What's stopping me? What's stopping anyone from doing that?

Nothing, it's just, it's just the idea and like just doing it, you know, and like wanting to do it and like thinking it's worth the time to do it.

It's like I love saying the phrase all the time, you either win or you learn. Right? But I'm going to edit it for a minute. You either win or you learn or you have a really good story or all the above.

Yeah. It's so. It's so fun, dude, doing this stuff. Like, I love hearing what other people would do. Like, just hearing that. It's like, because you learn a lot about people. It's like, who do you want to meet? Who do you want to hang out with? You know?

Yeah.

What would you do? What would you do for them? Like, it's such. Such a good small talk question and so, so much better than like, what would you do? Or what do you do? You know?

Right.

Even though people. That people hate when I ask that because it's like, kind of like, intrusive a little bit. And it's like you're like, well, this guy's like, going a little too deep and small talk.

You're like, skip the small talk.

Yeah.

Well, this is amazing. What else do we have on this presentation?

Yeah, I think it's just like this mindset. The mindset shift here is like, like rethinking about, like, how you see the. The world is like, how. How do I meet person X versus, like, how. What problem can I solve for them? Like, how do I get a job? Like, who. Who can I make look amazing? What's the application process? Like, how do I find a third door? I think, like, sales. I think about this a lot. It's like finding a third door in sales. Like, talking about LCA at of this pod, we were. We're doing a big, like, third door outreach right now to people that we think are cool. And we, like, made a physical magazine that's, like, beautifully designed. Chef's Kiss on the design. Took, like, multiple weeks to design it. And it's about, like, designing products in an AI age. And, like, it looks so sick. I'm like, I can't wait to get one on my desk. But we're going to be sending those out to, like, potential prospects. So that's so much better than a LinkedIn DM. Or that's so much better than a bumping shoulders at a conference. Like, hey, aren't you the CPO of Microsoft? It's like, yeah, I don't want to be, like, called that, man.

I wonder what all the best third doors are. That could be a good newsletter or a whole dedicated podcast. Like a magazine, a book. I posted a job on Twitter once, and like an hour later, Crumble Cookies showed up at my door from a guy, right? Like, that's a third door. You know, finding someone on Strava, finding them on Venmo and sending them a dollar. I've never even heard the phrase of a third door.

But there's a book called the Third Door. So I'm like, I didn't create that by any means. I think it's made by a guy named Alex. Yeah. Third Door by Alex something. So that would be a cool pod. I've thought about that as a pod. That would be. It would rip as a newsletter too, because it really just does get, like, the creative juices flowing.

Yeah. All right. Portfolio effect. What was that?

Yeah. So this is like, why. Why it works, like, why all this works in a very concise way. It's like you connect the dots in reverse and build a portfolio. You're learning and you have good stories getting in rooms you don't belong. You're building, like, transferable skills and value like, that you can reuse on projects, and then you're building a network with no ask in return. And just. It works just like the. The reps. Reps matter. And then I'm going to write a book one day on this. I'm going to collect all these stories. So if you're listening and you got a story, shoot me a. Shoot me a dm. I don't know the title. Yeah, we can.

It's either you like how I do on accident. You should write a book. Not even knowing that this was the last slide.

Yeah. Cold message, hot coffee. I would love for it to be like a coffee table book with, like, Human of New York type. Like, photography would be cool. Shoot your shots. Super lame. This is like the. The design of.

That's the principle.

Future books. Yeah, exactly.

I love it. I'm like, I wanted to record this to amp people up, but I'm like, my fingers are twitching to get like, Kamal on the phone to start talking about ideas of what we could do. And like, I know this stuff. Like, I don't know all this stuff you taught me. Most of what I just know. But, like, I've been doing this stuff. Like Bucky's John McAfee. Like, I've been sending loom to randos, looms to randos for years, and I usually never hear back. And that's okay. Like, I spent two years knocking doors in Eastern Europe. I got rejected 50,000 times. Like, I don't. I don't care. You know, you got to get over that, too. That's another thing is like, I heard the phrase maybe just yesterday. It was like, chase the nose. Chase some nose. You got to go get rejected.

That's how you learn, you know?

Yeah.

Like, that's the only way to learn is like, get told no and you're like, well, why didn't that work? How do I get to it yet Ass. Like it breeds innovation or like breeds iteration. I don't even know the L's I've taken, dude. Like you just forget about them. You know you do like if they don't show back up at your door, it's like out of sight, out of mind. Clearly you didn't matter. Yeah, yeah, I love doing, I love doing this. Like, I do this a lot with like podcasters and like content that I want to see create. Like Riley Brown has like been AI creator. I don't know if you know Riley Brown. He's been doing like AI like basically like breakdowns on YouTube. Just like very, very like detailed. Yeah, he's, he's, he's really good and just like good energy guy. But I was like, dude, I want to see Riley like literally for three hours use cursor as a non developer. And so I like tweeted, what's the best way to learn Cursor as a non developer? Like going fishing for him. And then like he, he commented on it and like, like did a bunch of stuff. Whatever. They commented on it. And then I said like, I sent him a message and I was like, that was a subtweet. He was like, videos coming Sunday. It's just like I just wanted him to do that. It's like. And I like he got like 50, 000 views from it. But like I wanted to see it. Yeah, I was like, I basically like prompted the content. Same thing for other, other people too that have, that hasn't worked out, but maybe one day it will.

Yeah, I mean you wanted to see him do that, right? Yeah, yeah, 100 and it worked.

Yeah, I was like, I want a three hour like movie of someone going soup to nuts on cursor because I'm tired of list of watching the one hours and like I've watched like 10 one hour videos and I'm still not like dialed at it. So like I need one person to walk through their whole process like so I can like learn.

Makes me want to try that as well to do the cursor thing. Like spend three hours on cursor, hit record and just see if it's embarrassing. I just won't publish, but I probably would anyway.

Dude, I think that that type of content is really interesting to me right now. Is like the behind the scenes, like fly on the wall or over the shoulder and it's just damn easy to create.

Just hit. Yeah, it's so easy. There's like no editing.

Like your, your operator video.

I thought that was Cody Sanchez's. Oh, no, sorry. Right, sorry. I forgot. I couldn't remember who copied. Who did attribute me by saying some guy. So we're good?

Yeah. You look like some guy, actually.

Yeah. Yeah, I do.

Yeah. I was like, that's some guy. Yeah. But like that, that didn't take you long to record.

No.

And it ripped.

No, no, it ripped. Yeah. And like I would. That's something that I do when I'm not recording. So it took no extra time. I might as well hit record. Which is what you said in the beginning. Like, you might as well hit publish if you're doing cool things. Like, if you're not doing cool things, you should. Okay, now if you're doing cool things, why aren't you hitting publish on that?

Yeah. And like do it in a format that's frictionless to create. You know, like, don't be like, you need like a. To upgrade your studio and blah, blah. It's like, dude, no. No one care. No one cares. Like, be a little loom face in the bottom corner and like show how the sausage is made and I guarantee you'll find some interesting people. Like, it'll create a magnet. So it's really fun. It's a fun time. It's fun time to be a builder. Fun time to have ideas. And it's never been easier to like make stuff happen.

A whole business is that you're like a lot of people listening to this. 70% are aspiring business owners and they listen because they want ideas. Like, what do I launch when I launch? How do I find customers? Okay, well, here it is. Like, don't try to find a thousand customers. Like try to find one with these permissionless methods. You don't need a lot of money. You don't even need a lot of time. 20 minutes plus 20 bucks. You could have a leather bound book in the hands of your greatest admirer. What are we doing?

Yeah. Does your audience like want to buy businesses?

Some of them. That's another great way.

It's another great way to buy a business. Like, boomers are retiring or whatever. They're easy to impress.

Jordan. Thank you. Where can everyone find you if they want to buy this book one day or get in touch with you or. Or be permissionless with you? Go full meta next.

J, R, D, N, M, I, X. You can find me on LinkedIn. Jordan Mix too. But those are the main, those are the main places. Yeah, I don't really want you to buy this book. I want you to send me your cold DMs and success stories. So if you're listening to this and you have a success story, hit me up. And let's collaborate and crowdsource this book. And put it on coffee tables everywhere.

All right? What'd you think? Please share it with a friend. And we'll see you next time on the Kerner Office.