#71: Alex Lieberman — 20 Unhinged Startup Ideas

Why is there not a reusable ass wipe? That is a handkerchief for your ass. Based on what their clothing is, people in the comments have to guess what they do.

It's these two old Jewish dudes and they're just like maybe 60, 70, very fat. Uh, this goofy— it turns out, listen to this, he found them on Craigslist. You don't think politicians would do that?

I think it's a horrible idea. Um, and you should never share that again. In any sort of public forum.

Blow up the internet, from the basement to the higher net. Scrolling, tapping, man, we ain't done yet.

Let's blow up the internet.

All right, pitching you a business idea. So I want to try out what it's like to be a construction worker, and I would probably pay like $300 a day for that just to see what it's like. And I kind of think there's a business there where you get to try random jobs. What do you think of that?

So it's funny, I thought you were going the direction of trying construction equipment, and I was about to tell you this already exists. There's, there's a place in Texas that lets you for a period of time— it's, it's, it almost kind of reminds me of, uh, you know, Rage Rooms. It reminds me of like a Rage Room, just a different version, where you can basically go try like a— see, this is going to be where I show my lack of construction knowledge— but like the, the whatever the main equipment is, like you can go try steamroller, you can try like a plow, and they just have a bunch of shit out and you can just try moving it with construction equipment. So what you're saying though is basically be able to go try— basically if Mike Rowe's Dirty Jobs was like a business.

Yes, essentially that. So I have, you know, a friend who They were looking into warehouse stuff, right, to start some logistics company. So he got a job at Amazon, just in the warehouse for a few months. He was already post-exit founder, whatever, working on his next project. Wouldn't it be simpler if you just pay a couple hundred bucks, get to work there for a few days, see what it's like? I would also really like to see, like, I would pay to see what it's like being a Facebook PM. The silliness of it. It'd be so much fun.

So, so what's funny is that I think I've had like a similar type of idea before where I've like, I've basically been like, it would be so cool if like when I'm think— I was thinking about jobs in college, if I could just like kind of tastemake a bunch of different jobs. I feel like there's a few directions you can go with this. You can either go the direction of like make it a business where you can basically pay the person who you're going to be shadowing to allow you to shadow them. Except, you know, there's going to be some jobs where, where it is an issue. Like, you know, in my ideal world, Jason Levin isn't like doing open heart surgery if I'm getting— if I'm getting surgery. But I think that is interesting. I also think it's an interesting content play also. Like, I think there's basically a great YouTube opportunity to just reboot Dirty Jobs, like not to plug Morning Brew, but The last video that Macy, who's one of our amazing video creators at The Brew, the last video she did was she shadowed one of the most famous and like longest tenured hot dog cart operators in New York City. So her whole video was about like, what is the business of running a hot dog cart like? And so she literally did everything with this guy. Like this guy, in order to get his spot in front of the New York Public Library, he sleeps in his van the night before because it's first come, first serve. So she rented a U-Haul and slept in a U-Haul the night before so she could get up and reserve the space with him. So I think like, I think business side, fine. I think rebooting Dirty Jobs and I think that's a bigger idea, which is go, go to your cable TV if you still have cable TV and look at basically the slate of shows on like CNBC or some of these other networks like History Network, A&E, and just think about how can you reboot that on YouTube.

I love it. I mean, we've seen that so hard and I think, I think this would be a really fun one. I also think it'd be really fun for just tech jobs where it's just, you're just sitting there and a dude's on their laptop. You're like, what are you doing? What are you doing, dude?

Like, so, so, so if you could pick one job to shadow for a day, you could, you only have one. It could either be a specific occupation or like a specific role at a specific company. What job are you picking?

I feel like I really want to see what mattress salesmen do all day. Like, how do you survive the boredom of being a mattress salesman? How many naps are you taking per day? What do you do when nobody else is there? Like, I need to know. I would just be— I'd be sleeping the whole day. I'd just be texting or tweeting.

I also feel like whenever I feel like every 8 years I go to a mattress shop, and a mattress shop is like the definition of like old school brick and mortar sales where like every salesperson comes out from every nook and cranny of the store and mobs you to see who can get the first point of contact so that they can get the commission. So yeah, it's a tough job.

What job would you shadow for a day?

Hmm. I— oh, probably like a movie stunt double or like a stunt car driver.

That'd be fun.

Yeah, I think it'd be awesome. Now again, like the odds of getting injured would be very high. So I'd want some sort of training prior by the person I'm shadowing. But yeah, I think basically being able to like drive illegally for a day would be awesome.

That would be sick. That would be awesome. I would love to shadow OJ the day of his chase. That'd be great.

I thought you were gonna say you wanted to shadow him at trial.

No, no. Um, all right, hit me with the business. What you got?

Okay, so have you ever heard of Granimals?

Is that like animals for grandmas or what? No.

Okay, so Go on your computer and look up Garanimals right now. G-A-R-A-N-I-M-A-L-S. And tell me when you go to the website, tell me what it says or like what it— the first Google search says.

Is it Garanimals?

Garanimals.

Oh, mix and match clothing for babies and toddlers. Okay. Yes.

Okay. Ready? So do you have any idea where I'm going with this or no?

Mix and match clothing for tech bros so they don't have to like figure out their clothes.

It could be tech bros or just adults. Like my, my general feeling is that people— the one of the hardest things people deal with in terms of fashion is that like they get a bunch of disparate shit, like they get a bunch of shirts, shorts, whatever, and rarely do they buy things as an outfit. So then when you're going out on a Saturday night or like any time you want to actually dress somewhat well, you have to go through this entire rigmarole of trying to figure out what matches well. But imagine there was a brand that just had clothing that was like A, B, C, D, and there were A, B, C, and D shorts or pants. And so you could just look at the tag of anything in your closet and know that if it has the same leather— uh, sorry, the same label as the shirt equivalent or the pant equivalent, you're good to go. And it is a good match.

I need that. I definitely need that. All I have are like black t-shirts and then I just wear that with whatever pants I have. My wife kind of thinks it's absurd, but I'm cool with it.

But that does make me think of maybe there's an entire different brand, which is basically just like Famous Business People Clothing Incorporated, where you can basically— you can buy the Elizabeth Holmes, you can buy the Steve Jobs, you can buy the the new age Zuck and the old age Zuck.

Yeah, so let's talk Zuck for a sec while we're on this topic. Do you think— does he have a stylist? Is it a PR switch? You know, I wrote this big piece about it. I don't think it is. I think, I think it's a, it's a vibe shift. I think he's just a happier dude now.

So, so you think this is all authentic?

I think it's— I think he started working out, made some guy friends, got outside of it, maybe did a little ayahuasca, And like, I think honestly, yeah, I think it's pretty authentic. I, I don't think it was some massive PR switch.

Do you think if you're in tech for more than 10 years, it's a requirement to do an ayahuasca journey?

Yeah. Yeah, it is. It actually is. Like before you become a VC partner, they make you do it. And if you don't survive, then you stay an analyst forever.

I'm not surprised. I've heard about this being talked about in the background, so I'm glad that someone finally validated it for me.

And same with, same with angel investors, because like there are also demon investors. If your ayahuasca trip goes bad, that's when you put—

wow—

demon investor and you start like ruining companies.

So honestly, honestly, I think that would be great branding. Like someone needs to do that for their fund. We are exclusively demon investors.

Yo, I really think there is a marketplace in sabotage tech. There's not enough of it.

I'm surprised No VC has been called meme capital yet.

I'm thinking about it. So, yeah, interesting.

On the Zuck thing, look, I think that— I think it's— I would say it's like 80% evolution of his lifestyle, 20% polite nudge from PR. Like, I think he's generally engaged in like less nerdy shit over the years. But I also think his PR team has basically been like, we need, we need to evolve the story of Zuckerberg in order to change the perception that people have with Meta. And, and by the way, whoever was responsible for that is severely underpaid.

Yeah. Super smart. Extremely smart.

Yeah. Amazing.

I saw a tweet which was, which, you know, it was, Zuck just experienced the evolution of every Jewish boy, but over a longer period of time than the average.

I love, I love that. Uh, by the way, this, this is like a great, uh, a great prompt in itself is like if we had to create the, let's call it like post-COVID, um, rebrand power rankings, what, who are your top 3 in terms of rebranding? And so I'll, I'll go first. I think Zuck is one. I think that, I think that Bryson DeChambeau, I don't know if you're a golf fan, but Bryson DeChambeau, just for context, he's one of the best golfers in the world. And 3 years ago, he was one of the most hated golfers in the world. He launched a YouTube channel like a year, year and a half ago, and it's blown up and the world loves Bryson DeChambeau now. So that's second. And then the third, I'm trying to think who else has pulled off a really good rebrand. You know, I would say the perpetual one is mayonnaise. Mayonnaise has been very, very well rebranded into aioli.

It's very impressive. That guy deserves a raise too.

Also kale. Whoever rebranded kale into something that human beings should actually eat, they deserve a raise as well.

Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. I think I think like clubs and stuff. I don't know how, I don't know the word for it. Like I feel like run clubs, run clubs I guess would be like a good, good way to phrase it. Oh yeah. They have just popped off and incredible, right? Yeah. I think IRL events in general too are just like having this, this spur of rebrand. It's like now it's normal to find friends or, you know, date on the, oh, same with like internet dating. Now it's just like totally accepted completely.

Accepted. Totally.

Yeah, those are the two.

Yeah, that's interesting. Those are good. I'm trying to think if there are any others.

Yeah. All right. I got another business idea for you. I mean, okay, let's hear it. All right. So, you know how people post their MMR screenshots, right? You know, MMR or MRR. My bad. Yeah.

Oh, yes. Yes.

You know what I'm saying? So what about like a rent an MRR? So like rent a Stripe, like you give me access to your Stripe for just a day to screenshot and then post on Twitter to hopefully drive more sales if you're Brett from DesignJoy.

Um, uh, would you call that fraud or not fraud? We're going to play a game. Is it fraud or not fraud?

Um, I would say it's, it's definitely immoral, like under the legal terms of fraud.

I think only if maybe you raised money based on it and that Yeah, and the people who would— I think that was like, that was Firefest.

Also, also, if you just post a screenshot with no caption, you could just be saying it's a screenshot. Like, you're not saying it's my screenshot, it's just a screenshot, you know?

I think, I think that's very interesting. You also, you know, I think people get very creative. Like, maybe there'll be people have weird flexes where they actually rent horrible, horrible financials. Yeah, yeah, because they want— they're trying to get a pity party. They want people to help them. It, you know, actually acts as a little bit of engagement bait. Yeah.

You know, I just rent a broke bank account and then the person with that broken bank account gets money because you're renting it.

That's a really interesting idea.

It's a virtuous cycle. I like it.

I'm curious, how do you think of that, by the way?

I just see a lot of people post MRR screenshots and I just think it's really funny. And it was a similar idea. I've talked about this, I think, with Cody Schneider. Was basically like sabotage, another sabotage tech, which is replace your competitors' runway with like a fake runway. So they like think they have way more capital than they do.

That's hilarious. This just made me think of another idea, which is one of my biggest pet peeves is when people call something that is not MRR, MRR, meaning like no agency or services business should be calling their revenue MRR. They should be calling it monthly revenue. So a new idea I have is a Chrome extension where any— anyone who has MRR written on the internet, they need to validate it by connecting their Stripe account. And on the backend, it looks at their churn. And if their churn is above a certain amount, it auto community notes their tweet to say, sir or madam, what you have is monthly revenue, not MRR.

Yeah. And you're educating them really.

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

I do think like if you have your MRR in your bio, it should sync to Stripe. Yeah. Yeah. I think that'd be really nice for sure.

Yep.

All right.

I have another idea.

Go for it.

So this is— okay, ready? So I'm a big fan of Dude Wipes.

Yeah.

And I sent this idea over to Sean, their chief dude officer. So you know how like back in the day, like people wouldn't use tissues, they would use handkerchiefs. Why is there not a reusable ass wipe that is a handkerchief for your ass?

Would you put it in the laundry machine, I guess, or like how would I like it.

I—

well, similar, on a similar boat, to change, change a little, is just like the reusable Kleenex in general. Like, why don't we carry around handkerchiefs? Like, when I was cold— oh my God, dude, when I was a kid, I would get colds all the time, and I would just literally— I'd be that kid with tissues in my pockets.

Yeah. So what— why— I think it is a question about why did the handkerchief die?

Yeah. And how do we bring it back? I totally agree.

But in all seriousness, I did tell Dude Wipes that they should just use that as like an April Fool's joke, that they should come out with the, like, the Asserchief and call it a handkerchief for your asshole.

Um, I love it.

I have another idea. Ready?

Okay.

Um, okay, this actually I think is a good one. Do you, do you style your hair at all?

Nah, not really.

You never style your hair? What do you do when you go out?

You just a little hand thing and it stays?

Okay, well, a lot of guys I know, they style their hair with pomade, right? Do you know what pomade is?

No, I think it's palm oil or some shit.

No, it's not palm oil. It's like, it's basically, I actually am curious about how it's different from hair gel. I think it's considered to be like, I think when people think of hair gel, they think of like very goopy and sticky. And then pomade, I think, is supposed to be less like oily and like sticky. But it's still like the way pomade works is like you like reach into like a vat that kind of looks like Vaseline. You put your fingers in there and you rub it on your hair and then your hands are all disgusting and you have to wash them after. I've never understood why there isn't just a spray version of pomade. In the same way women use hairspray for their hair, why isn't there the men's equivalent of hairspray that is just branded for them?

Yeah, I think there's going to be a big kind of thing with men's skincare too, similarly right now.

Isn't that what Jake— isn't that what Jake Paul just did?

Yeah, was that skincare? Was it something similar? Yeah, I think it's Jake Paul Business. Yeah, I know, deodorant too, right?

Was it W? W. Jake Paul.

It is.

Oh, it's, it's body spray. It's his, it's his, um, it's basically his play on taking on Axe, I think.

Makes sense. Makes sense. Um, yeah, I think skincare for men, I feel like that's becoming a little more normalized, at least. All right, here, I got an interesting business idea for you, which is like actually a real business. So my friend runs an Instagram page called Dude Fridges. You might have seen it. It has a bunch of dude fridges.

I've never seen it, but I can imagine what I'm going to see when I go to this.

So a bunch of frat fridges. He sells like, you know, ads to Arizona Iced Tea and stuff like that for $15K each, right? He's making money. 80,000 followers for Dude Fridges, right? And we were talking the other day, we were eating barbecue, we were like, there is no fridge with a moat. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's just, I want a fridge. There's no cool fridge, right? Like, you just buy any fridge. But if there was a cool mini fridge that was a dude fridge, right? Maybe a secret compartment, maybe licensed the NFL, right? He's like hosting events and stuff. I think there's actually huge business in just dude fridges and based on this meme page alone.

And then basically if you wanted to expand your portfolio, it's basically you just think of like, The man cave. And it's like, what is every product in the man cave? And let's own the man cave.

Yeah. Dude fridges, dude freezers, dude hairspray, dude wipes, dude wipes. Oh yeah. Dude wipes could buy it.

Perfect. Exactly.

Yeah.

That's, that's, that's interesting. I like that. I, I have a similar, like similar kind of thought. So I have two ideas for, these are like content ideas. One is an idea for a podcast. And the other is an idea for an Instagram account. So I'll go in reverse order because we were talking about Instagram accounts. I think an awesome, like, kind of comedy account would be called Dress to Guess. Okay, it would be called Dress to Guess. And basically what it would be is it would be pictures of just random people in different attire like, like that you see on the streets. It'd be like a picture of a guy walking the city, a picture of someone sitting at a bench. And based on what their clothing is, people in the comments have to guess what they do. And I, and I, and I just think you would get not only incredible, like, I think not only would, could you get incredible photos of people wearing absurd shit that you have to guess, but I almost think the best content would be the, the best comments paired by, with the images, and those would turn into memes in themselves.

I agree with that completely. I would love that. In New York, you could do it so easy.

Exactly.

Yeah, I love that.

That one other is, um, I've always thought an account called, um, Picturesque Pisses would crush it, which is basically pictures from behind of a man or a woman, uh, peeing with a, with a beautiful view in front of them. And it, and basically It would just like the caption would have where in the world it is. And then, uh, that would be it. And it would just be picturesque pisses.

I love that. Actually, summer after freshman year, I started a brand and that was our logo. Was really just a dude peeing.

Yeah. I love that.

Never, never made it too far on that one, but I think it could come back.

Here's the other idea for you.

All right.

Um, okay. So I was going to HubSpot, just had their conference, uh, inbound. And so I was taking an Uber to— I can't remember if I told you about this, but I was taking an Uber to Newark Airport and I'm in the Uber with Big Mike and Big Mike, I'm talking to him and he has an unbelievable personality. And I was talking and I'm like, Big Mike, what? Like, what's— what are the craziest things you've seen in an Uber before? And he starts rattling them off. He's like, I've seen drug deals going down. I've seen escorts and prostitutes. I've seen like the most belligerent drunk people. Like he was telling all these stories and as he was telling them, I'm like, this guy is an entertainer. Like this guy is talent. And so then I was like, have you ever thought about doing a podcast like or a video show? And he was like, it's funny, you're the 6th person to ask me that, which to me is some validation that other people like laypeople in his Uber and been like, oh my God, this guy's got talent. And so the idea is basically, you know, there was an old show called Taxi Cab Confessions, basically bring back Taxi Cab Confessions and it'd be this YouTube show/podcast where it would be Big Mike and his friend who's also an Uber driver. And the show would be recorded while they're driving somewhere in his Uber and they're just riffing about the craziest stories they've seen in their Uber. And then you could have guests come in, they sit in the backseat. So it could either be passengers who have had crazy experiences or other drivers who come in. And, and I think there's this whole world of like really good kind of comedy shows based off of like curation of great content that the world, most of the world hasn't seen. So for example, like one of my favorite podcasts ever, I can't remember the name of it, but it's basically 4 comedians go into the depths of Reddit and they go into like the subreddit Reddit, Am I the Asshole, and like other subreddits. And they pull out the best comments and the best posts and they riff about it. And like, not only is the content from Reddit great, but then like their commentary is great on it. So that's the idea.

Yeah. Have you ever seen the Instagram page Old Jewish Men?

Uh, I don't know.

So it's this Instagram page that's popular in New York and it's these two old Jewish dudes and they're just like—

395,000 followers.

Yeah. They're like, you know, maybe 60, 70, very fat, uh, this is incredible, goofy. And so I met the guy who runs the page. It turns out, listen to this, he found them on Craigslist, and it's just a kid our age, you know, 27, 30, young, young guy, and he just found them on Craigslist and paid them, and it's just made them absolutely famous. And these are just two random schmucks from Craigslist.

That is incredible.

Yeah. And I think it's very repeatable as well.

Like I, I, yeah, basically the, the, you know, I've always been obsessed with this idea of becoming like the, the Simon Cowell of the internet, like identifying talent that the world doesn't realize is talent yet. And yeah, just looking at this, like there's their second pinned post is like one of their characters from Craigslist and the guy's shirt just says mommy's little, little matzo ball. I love that.

It's so good. I met them. They're so weird. They are about as weird as you'd imagine, like some 70-year-old dude responding on Craigslist. Very strange.

That's amazing.

Speaking of weird businesses, I got another one for you. So you know how Bryan Johnson is measuring his nighttime erections, right?

Yes, I do.

You also know how there's sleep clinics, right? You see where I'm going with this?

Wait, what? What do you mean by sleep clinic?

Like you go in to get your sleep tested, right?

Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So there should be clinics just measuring your erections. Nighttime erections. Yeah, just that's a real nighttime.

Why don't you start it?

I feel like I, I don't want to be, I don't want to be the guy handling that, you know, although maybe I'll pitch Brian on that.

I think it is a really interesting idea. You know, I do, I do think you may run into some like issues around, like, I don't know, there's many issues. I see, like, one is what does the cleansing process, like the cleaning process of the erection measure look like?

We use the Dude handkerchief, bro.

Used or unused Dude handkerchief?

That's a good question. I do think it'd be an interesting business though. And Yeah, might not be the best business though.

One other idea for you. You know how cars, like especially back in the day, would have things hanging from the rearview mirror to, like, set, like improves the scent of the car? What if that existed for your ass?

I think that's a really good one. I would definitely need that. Or for dogs, just like walking around. I really, I think, although that would make them want to smack each other more.

That's actually an interesting idea also, is like it either, if you farted and it blew out the smell, it could be a good smell, or it could be a smell that would be like of another animal. So you would always have an out of, it wasn't me, it was like, there's clearly a skunk, or like, oh, it must have been that basset hound across the street.

I already blamed my dog already, so I'm safe on that one.

That's messed up. That's how you know you're going to hell is when you blame your dog for your farts.

My wife falls for it, it's all good. What do you think about a VC fund for meme pages? Just like a PA kind of firm that just buys meme pages. Like, I want to LBO a meme page, leverage buyout that shit, you know?

I think what FuckJerry did is what anyone should do with their meme account, which is come up with a great business idea. I mean, it's so hard, but come up with a great mass market business idea that you can use your meme account as distribution for. Like, I don't know if you know the whole background of what FuckJerry did, but they have What Do You Meme? And What Do You Meme? does $100 million plus a year. And FuckJerry now like that used to be their biggest business with their advertising. Now it's like an insignificant part of their business and it just acts as marketing for what you meme.

Yeah, 100%. I talk about that a lot in my book. You know, it's called Memes Make Millions, but the memes themselves don't make the millions. It's memes get the attention on the products that make the millions. But Memes Make Millions is a sexier title.

Yeah, it's a great title.

I appreciate it. That's what I've been doing now with Memelord Technologies is building that business on top of it, uh, building kind of software. Where it's not just delivering memes because like just being a quote unquote meme lord for companies, that is a tiring, thankless job.

I love that.

Go make your own shit.

Yeah, I just came up with another one on the spot, which is, you know, have you ever seen Dodgeball?

Of course. Yeah. Dodge, dip, duck, dive, and dodge.

Yeah, exactly. And you know, White Goodman, of course, who is Ben Stiller in the movie. You remember how he was trying to practice self-control with eating pizza and he had like the, the, the, the car clamp, like the, what are they called? When you jumpstart your car, the jumper cables, jumper cables. He had jumper cables on his nipples and he was, and he was zapping himself before he could eat the pizza. One is, so one idea is just that, right? Creating a mechanism for—

I think, dude, I think a zapper anytime you go near sugar, I, yeah, I would use that.

Like anytime you go near like sugar and ice cream Even, even just like a shock collar for humans.

Yeah, I would definitely wear that.

The other idea similar is I think everyone just at times needs different forms of tough love to hold them accountable. So imagine like it could be a TikTok account or something, but basically it— I mean, there was a guy who blew up on TikTok and he basically was kind of like a tough, almost like drill sergeant-esque motivational speaker would be like, who is like like, you said you would get up today, now get the fuck up. So like, that was his whole account, is basically an account of different levels like of accountability holding, and you just bookmark that account. And based on the personality of tough love you need in a given day, like sometimes you may need something more soothing, other days you may just need a complete hard-ass, you can just click on the video you want and it gives you the tough love you need.

Yeah, I do think A lot of people were joking about it after AI Friend that there should be an AI enemy, but I, I really do genuinely think there should kind of be where like there should be an AI like hard-ass drill sergeant coach. I don't want some AI fake friend bullshit. I want somebody challenging me and like, you know, I want somebody sabotaging me like, oh yeah, yo, go eat that cookie, motherfucker, see, see how you feel about that. Yeah, I want somebody like making my life a little harder just to you know, increase conflict in my life, you know? Yeah, like, make it harder.

That's very smart.

All right, unrelated, JD Vance swim shirts. You saw him swimming in the pool with a shirt on. I think there's a whole market of fat kids who wear swim shirts that are underserved right now, and there's no moat for any of these swim shirts, right? They probably buy Billabong or Quiksilver. But JD Vance, if he loses, you could capitalize on that.

But what if you're on the left and you want a swim shirt?

Oh, maybe Hillary will release some. I'm not really sure on that one.

I was going to say, we could ask. Maybe Tim Waltz could launch his version.

Oh, that'd be smart. That'd be a great VP debate. And they're just debating about swim shirts in swim shirts.

That'd be awesome. I love that.

I would definitely love to see that.

Let me see if I have anything else. One second.

All right.

Okay, I have an actual real— do you want a real or not real?

Go for it.

Okay, a real, a real idea is, um, so, okay, when you go and travel, like, think about the last trip you went on, like, out of the country, like, it was a significant trip, and you try to put together, like, an itinerary for what you wanted to do. How did you walk me through, like, how you put together an itinerary. Like, how did you figure out where— what you wanted to do?

All right, let's do this. Um, I went on my honeymoon with my wife to Costa Rica.

Yep.

Um, we contacted the, uh, you know, place where we were staying, asked for stuff, and then it was actually a challenge because there was like a lot of stuff around there and you have to like choose it, right? I guess that's what choosing an itinerary is. But then booking the time and then like I kind of honestly, don't tell my wife this, but I kind of asked them, I was like, hey, can you just choose most of the stuff for me? Yeah, and I'll just approve, you know, and you just let me know. And I picked the favorite stuff. Do you think there's like a better way to do that?

So, so yeah.

Okay.

So that's how you do it. I think that's how a lot of people do it. Some people will hire, you know, planners like travel agents. Other people will ask their friends who like another way is like if you had a friend who went to Costa Rica, you would ask them. And then sometimes people like look up Costa Rica itinerary online. To me, it makes no sense why there isn't a platform that already has millions of, of trip itineraries where basically you can put in your criteria of how many days you're going for, whether you want more adventure, relaxation, your budget level, any dietary restrictions, all these things. And basically a platform that shows the best, uh, the best fit for itineraries. And you can upvote itineraries, you can downvote itineraries, you can load your own itineraries. And anyone also who loads an itinerary can end up making affiliate revenue off of anyone who ends up booking any of the things in the itinerary. That the— they can get kickback from the, uh, companies that are responsible for, for the things they did on their trip.

Interesting. I, I like that. I could see travel influencers killing it with that.

Exactly.

Um, I got another idea for you which was pitched to me, uh, by a meme lord, which is basically like, you know how, uh, when Jensen Levin was like signing the boobs, right? Or like whatever it might be at some big event, they a lot of times like big tech leaders, CEOs get turned into memes, right? There should be consulting agency helping you, you know, become a meme, right? For—

you're basically saying, as in, like, if Jensen didn't already, like, do that on his own volition, if he had, like, a consultant who was like, Jensen, you're gonna go to the NASDAQ, and there's gonna— we have a plant that is a woman who's going to expose her breasts to you, and she's gonna— and she's gonna ask for a signature, and you're gonna sign it.

That was me pushing Jensen to do that in exchange for stock.

Oh, really? Wow. Now I know why you went indie.

Yeah, exactly. So I think for like CEOs that don't have a lot of attention, right? And want more attention, right? And we're like, this is how you become a meme.

That is, that's very interesting. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, I feel like it's a little bit of a, a tasteful shill of your own product because like, because like it's not quite to the Jensen extreme, but if people had early entrée into things that were going to be way more, have way more attention on them in the next 24 to 48 hours, it's effectively like doing that.

Yeah, 100%. One last idea for you is rent a family for politicians. So if you're a single guy and you're running for office and you want to appear like a better candidate, you could rent a family and a wife and kids and like, you know, all that stuff.

I think it's a horrible idea.

Thank you.

I think that in today's day and age, any family rental would be found out about probably 3 minutes after the family is introduced to the public.

Well, not if they're like kidnapped or something.

Oh, got it. So you would have to— you'd have to kidnap them. What's going on over there?

Sorry, my dog's like playing with the mic or trying to— he heard when we were talking about blaming the dog for farting. He came over. I was like, don't do that shit.

I don't know his name, but apologize to him on my behalf and your behalf.

I appreciate it. So do you think you wouldn't— you know, you don't think politicians would do that?

No, but I don't think they would. I think it's a horrible idea and you should never share that again in any sort of public forum. But I will say a crazy thing is one of the— you know how I do 60 Second Startup, like the short-form pitches? One of the pitches that was done, I don't know, let's say like a year ago, was a rent-a-bridesmaid. And like, like, that's not that different, which is crazy.

It's like, wait, did girls not have bridesmaids or what was going on?

It's for brides. Who don't have enough friends to have. And, and, and part— so she has rent a bridesmaid, like the base package, and then there would be premium level where you could order speeches to be given about you at the wedding by a complete stranger.

That's crazy.

I—

when I was getting ready for my wedding, I was, you know, tweeted about it. I was like, yo, I will ghostwrite your vows for like a grand. I think vow ghostwriting could there could be some money there for sure.

My sister told me she used ChatGPT to write her speech that she gave to my wife and I at our wedding. And I honestly, good on her. Like, it was a good speech and it was way more efficient.

Yeah, you got to use your resources. Yeah, I, I think there's money there for sure. Oh, I got one more for you.

Okay. All right.

You know Genius.com, like the rap genius? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like That was super under-monetized and they kind of failed. But we could do that for like shareholder reports or something like that. You know what I'm saying?

Oh yeah, I like that.

There sort of is already that, like with Readwise and David Senra is kind of doing that. But I mean like an official platform where, you know, you have the CEO add his comments or something like that.

I think that's an interesting idea. I think, I actually think that's an interesting idea.

Better than, better or worse than like renting a family for politicians?

Better than renting a family. Okay. Another one that I just think is like, so there's a subreddit called Find the Sniper. And basically, it's, you know, Where's Waldo?

Yeah.

It's basically every post is a real-life version of Where's Waldo, where like you have to find something that's hiding in plain sight. And I just think there's so much interesting stuff that could be done. Like if they turn Find the Sniper into like an adult Where's Waldo book, I would buy every version of that. Like to me, that is the best version of a bathroom book.

I like that, dude. It brings me back to playing like I Spy as a kid.

Exactly, exactly.

Cool, man. I think those are, those are all the main ideas I had.

I think they were great ideas other than the rent a politician's family one.

So what's funny is that was inspired by somebody on the timeline. I saw a politician who like borrowed his friend's kids or something for a photo. Ridiculous.

Ridiculous.

That's politics, baby.

I feel like the best part of this show is that you never know if an idea is genuine or a joke.

Someone messaged me. I did the podcast, did this a few weeks ago, and we talked about political trading cards. And somebody messaged me yesterday saying they're already in production. They're making them now.

So while— no, no, it's a show that I've always wanted to do that I think you, you'd be specifically positioned to do is basically a— if Punk'd and VC pitches got combined. So basically you hire comedians to go pitch VCs and you have the whole thing recorded and they're fake ideas and the competition, it's basically head to head of two comedians and it's how long they can get go before a comedian, before a VC realizes that they're pitching a fake idea.

Yo, I wanna do that so bad. And if you really commit to the bit, you apply to YC, you, you do the whole challenge.

You end up building the company.

You go to Demo Day and everything, like the entire thing.

And if you can exit the company, that is the ultimate bet.

I love it. I love it. Awesome. Sick, man. Alex, where can people find you? What are you working on these days?

You can find me on Twitter @businessbarista. You can find me on LinkedIn. But my guess is most of the people listening to this podcast probably I don't go on LinkedIn, but if you do, you can find me there. And yeah, I'm doing a combination of incubating new businesses and also thinking about how I can invest in creators. So if you're a creator and you are looking for an angel investor to invest in the future of you and the businesses you're trying to build, hit me up.

Hell yeah. Let's do this. All right, dude, this was fun.