3 Killer Businesses Hidden in Plain Sight

All right, so check this out. I'm going to tell you about 3 products that are hidden in plain sight, and the genius of these is that they take something that's free and they sell it. They take a free thing and they sell it. And I'm going to tell you about one example that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars, another one that makes millions of dollars, and then another one that's made hundreds of millions of dollars. All right, I want to tell you about a couple of business ideas. I'm gonna start with one that makes thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands, let's say. One that makes millions of dollars and one that makes hundreds of millions of dollars. And they're all products that are hidden in plain sight. So we've all seen 'em, but you probably never even realized they're businesses. And secondly, the magic thing about all of them, they sell a product that's actually free.

What inspired this? Did you just see something?

Found one, found a second, found a third, drew a line. Three dots make a line. So that's kind of what happened here. So first is I'm on Twitter and I see Joe Gebbia, who's the founder of Airbnb, friend of the podcast. I see Joe tweet out something about a screenshot of an app that was checking water, um, water quality. Uh, so the cleanliness of water, it was this app called Oasis. I thought that sounds familiar. Sam mentioned that, like, I don't know, 6 months ago, Sam mentioned that in passing, but I never really paid much attention to it. What is the story of this thing? Oasis. So here's one that's making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year selling a product that is free and it's hidden in plain sight and it's just water quality testing. So there's a kid who is behind this and we, we, we chatted with him. So Oasis is an app. It's an app that checks the water quality. It'll tell you if your city's water is clean, if your county's water is clean, it'll tell you You can hold up a bottle of this Aquapana right here and it will tell you, is this Aquapana actually clean or does it contain, you know, PFAS, forever chemicals, that whole deal, right? What's, what's in the water?

And a website, right?

An app and a website. And it started by this guy named Cormac, and Cormac is from Minnesota, which is known for having really fresh water. He said, drink it. Growing up, he would just drink tap water. No problem. He'd drink hose water like you, Sam. And that was what he did. And then he moves to LA and he just starts doing the same thing. He starts drinking tap water. He noticed tastes a little bit different and he gets an upset stomach. He gets a little bit sick, nothing life-threatening, but he's like, dude, that's weird. I'm like, I just drank the water. Like, why is the water so much different here? So he tries to look it up. He says, how do I find out if my water is actually safe to drink out of the tap? And it turns out that you can go to any city and you can request a report. You can request a report about the water quality in your area. So he does that and he finds, oh man, there's tons of contaminants in my water. And so he stops drinking tap water. He goes to Whole Foods. He buys water from Whole Foods. He says, well, let me see if this one's actually contaminated too. It turns out you can contact any bottled water company and they have to provide you a report about the testing of their water. And he finds that the water that's being sold at Whole Foods also has lots of contaminants in it. And then he's like, what the, what's going on here? And so he creates an app really for himself, but for others too, to be able to check the quality of water, whether it's your city, your town, or bottled water that you're drinking. And he's basically just aggregating free data that already exists that anybody could go request. So when we first mentioned it, it was on the Jeremy Giffen episode a few months back. It was at $10,000 a month in revenue.

And the way that you make revenue is I think he has an affiliate scheme where like if you buy something that he recommends, you, he gets a cut and also you pay $50, right?

There's a paywall. Yeah. So you basically, you request a report, you can get some information free if you want, like, you know, the full report or whatever, you pay $40, $45, $49 or something like that for a free, for an annual membership to this app. So you can continue.

And by the way, when I shared this, I knew it was a paywall and people were like, who the hell would pay for this? And I was like in that camp at first, and then I start clicking around the website and I'm like, oh my God, my town's here. And it says it might be dirty, but I can't see the results unless I give them $50. And so like, I understand why it's actually incredibly valuable.

But I mean, look at the numbers. So it's doing, let's say, uh, $40,000 a month now in revenue. So $40,000 a month. So basically half a million bucks a year. And, but if you do the math, $45, if it's a, you know, $45 subscription, you know, he's only got a few thousand subscribers to this thing. So it's not like it's, it's not like everybody's paying for this, but a small number of people really care about the quality of water and are willing to pay to get the information. And he structured it. And so what he did was he started off with all the free reports. And then when he, you know, couldn't get the free reports or wanted to test more things, he's, uh, or wanted to verify their reports, he'll do his own independent testing, but it's very expensive. It's like, you know, a couple grand to do independent testing of a product to find out, does it actually line up? So he's slowly doing them one by one as he gets more money. And he said, you know, we live in a world where we think we live in abundance. You can walk to Target, Trader Joe's, you'll find 20 different protein bars, 30 different waters. But the problem is most of it's filled with toxins. None of it is actually healthy. So my mission is to build 100% independent platform to test products and provide healthy alternatives. And I think this is kind of awesome, right? Like, I think this is kind of amazing. And the way that he's growing this thing, because you might wonder, how does he get customers for this? Is he just does TikToks that go viral. So check out this video. So it's a video about like Liquid Death right here, right? And so he'll post this video, TikTok, just very simple green screen over a product. And he's talking about how, um, you know, I used to think this is really healthy, but actually it's full of chemicals and blah, blah, blah. If you want more, if you want to figure out which products are actually clean, use my app. And, um, this video will get, you know, a million plus views and it'll drive a bunch of people, a bunch of attention. And it actually goes and then drives people to download the app and go ahead and, and, uh, and sign up. So very simple way to test this, to drive traffic to this product. And it's something you can do over and over and over again. Apps like TikTok and Instagram Reels to a slightly lesser extent, YouTube Shorts to a lesser extent. You can just, once you find a format that works, you can literally repost the same thing and the algorithm is just going to say, yep, humans like this. And it's just going to keep serving it up to a lot of people, even if they're, even if they don't follow you. And so when people have figured out these like simple formats that work, they just copy paste and post the same 90% of the same video over and over and over again. And I know several people that are building multimillion dollar businesses doing this.

I'm so turned on right now. This is the greatest thing, dude. This, this guy. So he shows his revenue, uh, on Twitter, which is pretty cool. So Oasis Metrics over the last 28 days, monthly gross revenue, he shows us $25,000 and he shows his churn. He shows everything. I actually predict this could be a significantly larger product than— I think it could be worth—

I think it can be—

many tens of millions of dollars or even more. The reason being is the way that these review websites work is you typically have to hire a lot of freelancers in order to go out and write all of the articles. But if you're just using data to like organize as a table, it's way more profitable. Also, he's getting early in on— he's getting in early on a trend. I think this water thing is still tiny, tiny, tiny compared to what it's going to be like in the next 10 and 20 years. I think he's onto something life-changing for himself.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right. So a lot of people watch and listen to this show because they want to hear us just tell them exactly what to do when it comes to starting or growing a business. And really a lot of people who are listening, they have a full-time job and they want to start something on the side, a side hustle. Now, a lot of people message Sean and I and they say, all right, I want to start something on the side. Is this a good idea? Is that a good idea? And again, what they're really just saying is just give me the ideas. Well, my friends, you're in luck. So my old company, The Hustle, they put together 100 different side hustle ideas and they have appropriately called it the Side Hustle Idea Database. It's a list of 100 pretty good ideas, frankly. I went through 'em. They're awesome. And it gives you how to start 'em, how to grow 'em, things like that. Gives you a little bit of inspiration. So check it out. It's called the Side Hustle Idea Database. It's in the description below. You'll see the link, click it. Check it out. Let me know in the comments what you think.

Okay. So I promised you I would tell you about a company that's hidden in plain sight that is using free— selling free information and making hundreds of thousands. Check. Now I'm going to tell you about one that's making millions and then we'll go to the hundreds of millions. Okay. So the millions one, and we've mentioned this once before, but it was years ago. So I want to bring it up again. If you've ever been to a company's office, and you walk into their break room or their, maybe their kitchen where they have snacks, you'll always notice on the wall that there's this poster and our eyes just glaze over it. We don't ever look at it. Looks just like a, looks like, you know, when you're on an airplane and you see the safety thing in the seat back in front of you, it looks like that, but it's on the wall. And this is a labor law poster. And the reason that your office had it is the reason that all offices have it. It's required by law that you have to post this in your company, your employee, you know, break room or open area. And these labor law posters, they update every year, so you have to get a new one every year, and they're required by law. Okay, so that's the good news. The bad news is you have to buy them. Or do you? And so here's the interesting thing about this business. There's a couple of companies that do this. I don't have all their names and information here, but I remember finding one that was like based in Minnesota. And what the guy was doing was he's just print— all he does is print labor law posters. So what they'll do is they'll mail you a letter to your business and the letter looks a little bit scary and it says, hey, if you don't have this poster up, you are in violation of California labor laws right now. And you must have this up. It is a requirement by law. It costs $45. Tick this box, send this back to us. We will send you your poster. And you do that and you said it, they send you the poster, you put it up on your wall, you forget about it, you move on.

And this is a private company that sends that letter?

Correct. Now the thing is, these labor law posters are actually free. You could just go to your state labor law website. You can get the labor law posters, but companies have realized that using this sort of like awareness tactic, tactic, making it easy, sort of scaring the hell out of you is a way to make a couple million dollars a year on super high margins. Cause all you do is printing the same poster, single SKU, single product, one, one product a year. And you just send it out to businesses and they, and then they have to fill out the description.

I'm on, I'm on the government's website and figuring out how to order the poster for free is actually hard.

Of course, of course. Just like filing your taxes is a little bit confusing and TurboTax and others have made a, you know, they, they turned the button into bright shiny green buttons instead of small gray buttons that you don't know which one to click. Right. So there is a tremendous amount of value in simply either aggregating and structuring data and making it available for people, or helping you just comply without, you know, having to figure out how to comply. And, uh, you know, maybe the $50 tax is worth it every year as your subscription, but that's what these companies do. So Labor Law Posters, a way to make millions of dollars selling a product that's free and a business, again, that's hidden in plain sight. And I bring this up because one of the great things about this podcast that I hope we do for people is that you will go from a mindset where success seems rare and hard to grasp, and you're sort of thinking, what is it? I need a great idea, and great ideas are rare. They're hard to find. To a mindset of everything I see in my life, every object in my view, it's not there by accident. That sign is there for a reason. That cable is there for a reason. Somebody realized you needed that and they created that. Once you realize that, you realize, Oh my God, businesses everywhere. This is a business. This is a business. This is a business. And then you realize, wow, all I got to do is figure out one of these. That seems easy, right? It's like in a jar full of Skittles, picking one, it doesn't seem that hard. And that's what, you know, I think, I hope to sort of achieve by bringing up these businesses because not only are they clever little business models, but it just points out that your eyes are just glazing over million-dollar opportunities everywhere you walk because they are literally everywhere. You will go into a parking lot. Look at the ground. Somebody painted those stripes. And when you go look at it, you go, you can go ask the owner of the real estate. You say, who paints the stripes for your parking lot? They'll say, oh, we use these guys. You go talk to them. You say, wow, you just paint straight lines in parking lots. That's what you do. Yep. How much money do you make? You know, is this a small business? Oh, you did $7 million last year revenue? No profit. Oh my God.

Right.

And then you realize, oh my God, there's somebody who makes $7 million a year profit painting white lines on the road.

Dude, I, when I first moved to San Francisco, I lived with this guy. He was one of my roommates and he was a piece of crap, but he was telling me how he was making hundreds of dollars a month because apparently the Church of Latter-day Saints, Mormons, they, you can order a Bible for free on their website, I guess, but they like, it's like lead gen and they'll like come and hand deliver it, but they'll like try to like, you know, convert you to their faith or whatever. And he created an online store selling Bibles. For $20 and somehow ranked on Google. And he just went and took the person's information and put it into the Mormon's website. And on his website, they're like, you know, we hand deliver Bibles or something like that. And it was like, oh, that's hilarious. And I remember this guy and I was like, this is a horrible scam. That's amazing. Uh, but it was very funny. And he was making like $500 a month, uh, doing this.

That is so funny. Oh my God. Is anyone—

who is that guy?

What happened to that guy?

I, he's one of those guys, you know how like you have these friends and frankly you and I are those people maybe where they're like, do hacky shit.

You have those friends. It's like, dude, do you remember how we met? Yeah.

Where it was like, you do this hacky shit and you're like, this is going to go one of two ways. Uh, like it's going to go the right way or the wrong way. Miles was the wrong way. So like, he like kind of disappeared. He probably got in trouble for a crypto scam. Um, what's the, uh, yeah, it was like, it was crazy, but it, and like, and on his about page, he was like, Why did my, why did the person who delivered my Bible want to talk to me? And his thing said, yeah, they tend to do that. Mormons love to talk. Like it said, like, uh, like it just explained how like you're going to get hand delivered by these Mormon guys. Uh, what's the third one?

Okay. Third one. Um, here's a product that is used, I believe, 6 billion times a day. It is a product that Time magazine said is in the 50 things that made the world economy work. Do you want to take a guess what this is? It's a hard one.

I get it. This is, this is pretty fun. Uh, do you have one or two more hints?

Like many great inventions, it was invented maybe 20 years before it actually got used. So somebody invented this thing. They're like, this is cool, but how do we, what do we use it for? They couldn't find a use case. And finally they found a use case. Oh, I'll give you another example. Um, every time you buy a product, you use this product. I feel like I'm doing those annoying riddles where it's like, I'm, I'm awake at night, but not during the day. What am I?

Or like, You could sit on me, but not take me with you. Uh, all right.

I'll end the suspense.

The answer, by the way, is a chair. What is that?

It's a barcode.

So, oh, that's cool.

Do you know the story behind the barcode?

No.

All right. So let me give you a little history lesson. I know you like history. So, uh, barcode is invented by these two guys, Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver. And these guys are inspired by Morse code. They realized like, wow, Morse code is so simple. It's just Basically, it's dots and dashes. The dash, I think, is like a rest, basically. And the dot is like, you know, the sound. And they're like, could we create another system that's like that? Maybe a visual system. So they created a system, actually looked like a circle at the time. So it was like a circle and they're like, oh, look, with thin lines and thick lines, we can create like an, basically an infinite number of unique tags for something. And they're like, oh, this is great. They patent it, but there's not really a good use case for it. And then people try to use it for a couple things, you know, They realize, oh, you know what we could do? We could track train containers. We're always wondering where those containers are, where in the route that they are, and if they ever get unloaded. So they put a barcode on the side of a train container and it works great. Everyone's really excited. That's working great for a second. And then the problem is trains are outside, they get dirty. And as soon as any dirt gets on the thing, it ruins the barcode. So they're like, ah, this is a bad idea. Take it off, scrap it. And then they try it on some second thing. Doesn't really work either. And basically for like, I don't know, a couple decades or something. Nobody's using barcodes. At the same time, in another part of the world, you get the invention of the laser and the laser gets invented. And the laser's a really great way to scan something that becomes interesting, but they don't really know what they're scanning. Why, what are we scanning this for? Lasers have multiple uses, but that gets invented. And then in the third part of the world, three things come together. The third part of the world is grocery stores are having a really tough time. Because they are trying to stock inventory and they're sort of by hand keeping track of all the inventory they have. Think about this in a store. There's so many units, it's taking so many hours of labor. And then if any customer checks out, it's so slow because, okay, every item you have, I got to punch it into the register exactly what this is. I got to either remember the prices or I got to write this in and then I have to keep stock of the inventory levels. It's a pain in the ass. So they create—

do you think that like when Walmart was invented? Created, founded almost around this time. Do you think that a barcode is one of the reasons, like, would that have prevented companies from scaling? Is just the operational manpower.

So Walmart opened their first store in 1962. This was now 10 years later. So '74 is when this starts to happen. They're hitting this problem. It's too slow, too much labor, too expensive. So they create the Ad Hoc Committee for the Uniform Grocery Product Identification Code. And they go into the lab and they're like, all right, we need something. They find this technology there. Oh, remember what's that guy Norman always talking about? That goddamn barcode. What if we use that? What if we use this laser? And they come together and they create the barcode and they change the shape of it instead of the circle shape. They change it to the rectangular shape that we all know and love today. And the first barcode ever gets scanned as a pack of Wrigley's gum in 1974. And so boop. And they're like, wow, that just took— it knew the price. It took me 1 second and it's deducted my stock level by 1. Oh my God, that's— this was magic. And so, you know, this is like the blockchain getting invented, right?

It's like, oh my God, how do they convince all of the manufacturers to put this on their thing?

They just like rally around retailers, demand it. So the retailers are saying this is going to— they're the ones with the hair on fire problem, right? They're spending all this money and time on labor. So they say, Hey, if you want to be in our store, you got to start adding these things to your product. And, and so for a manufacturer, you're like, oh, if I want shelf space, which is the most important thing for me, oh great, I'll happily stick this, this on here. And so they're all working. And where do you, but the problem is, where do they get the code? And how do I make sure that your code is not the same as my code? Right? Like what, what's going to prevent that? Well, we all got to go through some central thing that's going to, you know, give us the barcodes that are, I can use for my product to make sure nobody else can use it. It's like, Reserving namespace or a license plate. It's like, how do I get my, my exact license plate that nobody else is going to have? And there became what's known today as GS1. GS1 is the nonprofit that issues these barcodes and keeps track of who owns the barcode space. And to get barcode space, you got to pay. But again, remember, every store has standardized on one thing. So if you want to be in a store or you want your goods in an Amazon warehouse, For example, you now need to use their system, which means they have infinite pricing leverage and they charge a shit ton for these barcodes.

And so, and is that GS1 who's charging?

GS1. So GS1, let me tell a little bit about this, this nonprofit. You can go look them up because they're a nonprofit. So last year, $80, $81 million in revenue. Barcode sales makes up 90, 93% of this. And again, a barcode is nothing. It's literally like I just, a set of lines that they're selling for $90 million a year. And they now have $416 million of assets that they've just been stockpiling. The CEO makes $3 million a year. The CFO makes $1 million a year. The SVP of community engagement, which God knows what that guy's doing, making $800,000 a year. This might be the easiest job of all time.

Does he host happy hours?

Yeah, exactly.

Like, what do you do?

Um, and they, you know, they stashed $30 million in overseas places like the Caribbean and Central America and all of their expenses, pretty much half of their expenses.

Are they like lobbying against the QR code? Is there like a barcode, QR code, like lobby where they're just fighting each other?

I think QR codes are just a type of barcode. Uh, they're just a 3D.

Got it. Okay.

Uh, or 2D, sorry. Um, so Yeah, that isn't that crazy though, that this, this nonprofit now has half a billion dollars in assets just selling barcodes and any retailer, anybody who's ever had to like get your products, you know, you, let's say you want to sell on Amazon. Amazon says you got to do this. It's a racket. You end up just having to pay whatever they demand in order to get your products on the shelves.

Do you know how like there's been a lot of cool movies lately? There's been a cool movie on the guy who created BlackBerry. I think there was one on the person who helped create Tetris. And then there was another one for the person who helped create the Pop-Tart. He's like, kind of cool like product creation stories. Go, uh, I wonder if, is there an interesting one here?

Somebody's just sitting there is like, what if podcasts were movies? And then they just turned like every episode of like Acquired or How I Built This into a documentary, dude.

Well, this guy Bernard Silver, like that, that this is actually a way more interesting story than, uh, I would've thought because this is something that changed culture. It changed, it changed so many things. Like it, You know, we talk about inflections and how like, you know, the iPhone was invented, which had all these ramifications, including a GPS being there, which now means that Uber has the ability to exist. And then there's like a million, a million examples of that. This is one of those inflections where like this barcode helped create, let's say, or made a Walmart possible or made this other thing possible, which like literally shaped history. And this is actually really fascinating stuff.

Yeah, exactly. Uh, so, so this is just a. It's a space that you, again, you don't think, you don't even think this is like a, you don't think, where does this come from? Where does this little thing come from? And again, it doesn't come from nowhere. Somebody creates it. And then that person who creates it now has, you know, something that they can charge for and there's business everywhere.

So it's so funny that this episode is accidentally turning into a theme, a theme of things that you don't really think about, but how they became a thing. I have actually an example of one of those. Can I tell you it?

Yeah, go.

All right. So in the 1960s in Hawaii, it started to become common. I think it was because of like one hotel where your employees were allowed to wear a Hawaiian shirt to work on Friday because for the most part you had to wear a suit to work, you know, like dressing formal was how business people operated all of the time. And this whole casual Friday idea, it sort of started getting popular in mainland America where like in the 1980s, HP was like, hey everyone, you can wear a Hawaiian shirt to work on a Friday, which was a big deal because they employed tens of thousands of people. So it was like a, it was kind of like a statement. But in reality, up until the late '80s and early '90s, virtually everyone wore suits to work all of the time. However, this executive at Levi's, so Levi's had just launched Dockers and Dockers were khaki pants. Up until then, khaki pants were almost considered, uh, you know, if you look at like the history of fashion, like suits were considered like the, that's the standard. That's what you do. Khakis were basically casual wear, even though now we don't look at them as casual. That's what they were. They were casual wear. And Levi's creates Dockers because they wanted to get the khaki business. But still people are like, this is too casual. We can't wear these any other time except for Saturday and Sunday. And so this marketing executive at Levi's has this brilliant idea. They print up 40,000 pamphlets that explains to HR professionals, here's this new thing called business casual and Casual Friday. And here's the rules of this holiday or this like new tradition. It was just an 8-page pamphlet and it said it didn't promote Levi's or Dockers though, but in all of the photos. You'll see like a picture of someone wearing jeans and it is like a Levi's logo, or you'll see a picture of someone wearing khakis and you just assume that it's Dockers. And so this thing takes off. It works.

And so they go, you gotta read this though. A guide to casual business wear, ideas for dressing professionally at work. And then it basically shows like pants, jeans, like it's showing like options, ideas for it. And then is there a, uh, rules for it? So what are the rules that they said?

Yeah, it says don't wear like tattered jeans, but they should be nice new jeans, right? Or like, like they can't be stained or what else does it say?

Uh, sleeveless, no sleeveless, no tanks.

Oh man.

I mean, discrimination, baby steps, baby steps.

We're going, we're going from suits to khakis. Like, you know, like it takes time.

I mean, should we try Guns Out Wednesday? Do you think we can make this happen?

I, I, I, well, I'm actually gonna talk about that in a second, but so it's a good avoid lingerie.

Okay. Okay, fair enough. Um, save athletic wear for after work and, uh, don't forget to check footwear. Open-toe sandals are gross. No, no, it just says not appropriate.

Yeah, it's a great little pamphlet. So they sent this out to literally 40,000 HR executives. Um, and they even go as far to create an HR hotline. So if you work at IBM and you're like, you know, I actually don't know protocol for like our open-toe, our sandals allowed, our like Whatever, I could call this hotline and I could ask the inventors of Casual Friday, hey, can Sidney wear like open— are, are, are shoes allowed to, or are toes allowed to be seen even if like their toenails are polished? Like whatever. Like you can like ask these questions and it takes off and Casual Friday officially becomes a thing. And so it literally shaped culture and it was all because Levi's was like, We got to sign these guys up. We got to start selling some of this stuff. And like back then it was kind of the American apparel industry was a little bit in a rut. They weren't doing that great. And this changed everything. And so people started buying Dockers, buying Levi's because this movement of Casual Friday totally picked up. And it got me thinking, this is like some pretty brilliant marketing. I call this marketing, you can call it cultural shift marketing or tradition hijacking. And so people who have like found little traditions and they blow up the tradition or they blow up this idea and then they say, And by the way, if you wanna buy an idea, we just so happen to have the thing that can make your life a little bit better. And so there's a few other examples of this that I can, I can present to you. So the first one is De Beers. So they're a diamond company. They've been around, I think, for hundreds of years actually. In the 1940s, they ran this campaign called A Diamond is Forever. And it was this idea that like diamonds are special because up until the 1940s, diamonds were special, but they weren't nearly as special as we think they are now. And they also came up with this insane idea, which is they're like, this campaign they come up with, how much should you spend on a diamond? And they said roughly 2 to 3 months of your salary, which is like outrageous. But that alone is like what that campaign is credited as helping shape the diamond industry. They even ran further campaigns and said on certain anniversaries, you have to get your wife a diamond. Another one is breakfast being the most important meal of the day. Kellogg invented that idea. And so like we grow up now and we tell our kids, you have to eat breakfast. It's the most important thing. Kellogg invented that. Prior, prior to that, people didn't always think that, right? Two other ones are baby showers and wedding registries. So baby showers weren't a thing until Johnson Johnson started running ad campaigns. You have to have a baby shower if you're pregnant. Or if you're, uh, Macy's came up with the idea of wedding registries. They said, um, you're going to get married. You got to, people got to buy you all this stuff. And, and, and in fact, you don't want people just to buy you random stuff because what happens if they buy you the same stuff that you already have or two guests buy you the same thing? Like, that's ridiculous. You have to create this registry at Macy's that you can register. And then finally, spring cleaning is another one that really wasn't a thing until Lysol came up with this idea of spring cleaning.

Wow, dude, these are great. I love— I don't know if other people get as fired up about these. I get so fired up about these. I think because it's the same idea as, oh wow, these businesses are hidden in plain sight. You know, this object just didn't just get here. Someone made it come here. All of these occasions, these, these sayings, these, these holidays. They didn't just pop up out of nowhere. Somebody made them happen. And when you find out that it's some marketing dork, it's some marketing dork somewhere that was like, you know what, like, how do we— spring sales are slow, spring sales are slow, spring, spring, spring fling, no, spring clean, no, spring cleaning. And it's like, yes, that's how we're going to get people to buy cleaning products in the spring. I love that. I love that just a mad ad man somewhere in the world can just shift how people do things. There's a great— we did an episode with, um, Craig Clements about exactly this.

Was it like leaky gut?

He did, he did prebiotics, but he didn't talk too much about that. It was, was, he was talking about the ones that have like the ones you're talking about, like why we eat bacon for breakfast, why we drink orange juice, right? Like where orange juice came from. And like all these things that today just seem like, I don't know, it's just what we do. It's just staples of the, of people's diet. It's just tradition. And it's like, no, no, that wasn't tradition. Or, you know, the classic one is toothpaste. He talks about how at a certain time, about only 6% of the population brushed their teeth. And so when they wanted to increase sales of toothpaste, he said, well, we can't just sell more toothpaste to the 6% of people who already brush their teeth. We need to get the other 94% of people to start brushing their teeth. How are we going to do that? And that's when he came up with that campaign. Um, not Craig, but Claude Hopkins.

It was, um, It was like, rub the tongue on the, on your teeth and you feel that film.

Yeah, one of them. Exactly. It was like, you know, basically saying, take your tongue, rub it on your teeth, you feel that film. That's, and he, and people did that as soon as they read it, they do it, they'd stick their tongue there and then it's gross and you're like, there's a way to get that off and then you'll have that Hollywood pearl smile and then people wanted that, right? And so that created this movement and then by the end of that campaign, something like 70 or 80% of people now brush their teeth in America. It was like a huge shift that happened just off of that one ad man, that single big idea. And I love these. I've really actually like toyed with the idea of writing a book about just these, these crazy ad men and then the way that they've actually shifted culture.

Yeah. And, and, and that fascinates me as well. And like another one is like Wall Street Journal. And so they try to like, they, they, they sort of nailed it, but it hasn't permeated. It hasn't stuck with us, but it was the idea of once you graduate college, The gift that you get is a Wall Street Journal subscription, just like I think Rolex did. It was like, once you, you know, President's Club is you get a Rolex if you sell, if you hit some sales quota, right? Like, or you become president of whatever. And so I was thinking, what other things haven't been hijacked that can be? And so I've got a few examples, but the first one being Friendsgiving. So Friendsgiving is what like 20-somethings who are single is what they celebrate. Instead of a Thanksgiving with the family, they do Friendsgiving in their town or in the city that they're living in. And so I think Friendsgiving is one that there's not a clear winner as to who owns Friendsgiving, but we can make it an entire week of being thankful for your friends. And you will do various gestures, including having them over for dinner to show your, uh, how appreciative you are that they are now your friends. And so we could sell gift boxes, we could sell gratitude journals, we could do digital cards, we could do all types of stuff. And by the way, speaking of cards. Hallmark is like one of the inventors of like Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, things like that. Uh, the other one, graduation season. So turning into a life transition planning or celebrating new life phases all because of graduating. So we're gonna call it graduation season. And so what do you get for graduation season? You get financial planning subscriptions, productivity tools, career coaching, travel discounts. That's for graduation season. You said you've thought about this. What are other ones that you've thought about?

Oh, I mean, come on.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like examples of things where you're like, that's amazing that they pulled that off.

Uh, like Craig talked about the Otis elevator one, which I thought was amazing. So he basically talks about how back in the day elevators got invented far before they were used. What does that mean? So the elevator gets invented, but people didn't want to use them. They didn't want to, they didn't, they're scared. We're scared. Because there were situations where elevators would just plummet and you just plummet to your death. So it's like, okay, no thanks. And the consequence of that is, think about it, if you don't have elevators, you don't have tall buildings, right? Because people are only going to go up so many flights of stairs. So like New York was like, you know, 4 stories high. There was just no, there was no buildings taller than that. So cities were kind of limited in how big they could be. And this guy Otis ends up creating a, um, an elevator with automatic brakes. Okay. So Otis creates the automatic braking elevator. He's like, this is it. This is going to be amazing. Everybody's going to buy my elevators. And if you look today, by the way, you go to any elevator, you'll see a little thing on the wall. It almost always says Otis. But it didn't happen right away and he couldn't figure out why. He's like, this has automatic brakes. It solves the problem, but nobody believed him. And so Craig talks about how one of the techniques that the marketers use is a—

but they have to like break the elevator and like a film it, like getting caught.

Well, exactly. So the World Fair was going on and Otis decides to go all in and he creates this show basically. So he creates this exhibit where he's got an elevator suspended in the air, hanging by ropes, cables, like they would. And he, because he had watched Cirque du Soleil and he was kind of like inspired by, oh wow, Cirque du Soleil, man, their stunts and their spectacles are so awe-inspiring. You can't help but look at it. So he said, I got to do that. So he gets somebody up there and he stands in the elevator and he says, ladies and gentlemen, I have created the world's first safe elevator, the elevator with automatic brakes. And he gets the guy at the top to swing an axe, and he cuts one rope, and the elevator starts swaying and swinging and is hanging by a thread now, and everyone's gasping in the crowd, and he's like, cut the rope. And then the guy swings, he cuts the rope, elevator starts to go down 2 feet, and then it automatic brakes and it stops. And he says, all safe, gentlemen. And he says something like, whatever. He says some famous phrase. That basically says like, Otis Elevator, when you're in an Otis elevator, you know, it's all's well, all's well, you, you will be safe. And elevator sales take off from there. And when elevator sales take off, now buildings can be taller. It literally reshaped the way that cities work. All because this guy realized that he needed to think out of the box in terms of his marketing, and he needed to do something that would break through the noise and it would actually shift culture, shift perception about a product in a dramatic way. And one tool of the tool belt is that Craig called these The hijacks of the human mind, the 7 human hijacks. And he's like, one way to hijack the mind is a spectacle like this.

Does Craig have a book? I got to re-listen to that one. Does Craig have a book?

This is after that episode. I hit Craig up and I was like, hey, I want to write this book with you. And we talked about it. We both got really excited about it, but we're both busy. So this might be the motivation to rekindle that project.

Dude, the 7 human hijacks? I wrote the, uh, sign me up.

I wrote the intro for it. It's pretty dope. I'll read it to you sometime.

Oh, that is awesome. I'm gonna have to go listen to that 'cause that was like 2 years ago and I remember listening to it and think he's amazing.

Can I read you the intro to this book? Yeah, we can cut this out if it's boring, but I just wanna, I wanna get your opinion on this. All right, so I wrote this a while back. All right, it's called Hijacks or 7 Human Hijacks: Confessions of a Billion Dollar Marketer. Okay, so that's Craig. Craig sold over a billion dollars of products online himself. Okay, so I said, uh, here's how it goes. If you read this book, I need you to make me a promise. Repeat after me. I promise to use these tactics only for good and not evil, because the techniques in this book, not just tactics, they are hijacks. The same way a terrorist can hijack an airplane, marketers can hijack the minds of consumers to get them to buy products they didn't even know they wanted. You might be skeptical. In fact, I think you should be skeptical of somebody making such a bold claim. But I could tell you that these hijacks have been used to sell— I've I've used these products to— I've used these hijacks to sell over $1 billion of products personally. That's 1 billion with a B, in case you lost count. Um, but rather than convince you— rather than let me convince you, let me ask you: did you brush your teeth this morning? More importantly, why? Who told you to do that? Who told you to brush your teeth in the morning? Your mom? Well, who told her? Her mom? Well, yeah, before that, who told all the moms to do this? It must be the dentist, right? But wait, who told the dentist? The answer, it turns out, is a man named Claude Hopkins. Before Claude Hopkins, only 7% of the population brushed their teeth. Sidebar, can you imagine dating back in 1913? Nobody brushed their teeth. I feel bad for grandpa. After Claude Hopkins, 65% of the population brushed their teeth. And Claude didn't just sell toothpaste. He literally changed the world. He got millions of people to change their daily habits with one brilliant marketing campaign I'll show you in chapter 2. But before I show you how you did it, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I go, and then the chapters are like, how diamonds became a girl's best friend. And blah, blah, blah. Like each of the different products that, that got, you know, embedded into culture.

What are the 7 human hijack? Like, what are they?

Sounds like I succeeded and got you curious. You're going to have to pay $14.99 and get the book.

Like, is it literally like 7 different, like tactics or is it 7 different examples of tactics?

Tactics. And then each one has examples and you stack them. So what he showed was like, you know, for example, one of the tactics is spectacle. Like I told you about the Otis elevator.

So like a spectacle would be one of the seven. Yeah.

Like a spectacle is one of the seven, but like even the thing about like take your tongue and put it on your teeth. So like a, um, like a, like a magic trick basically. It's like the thing, you know, but remember the thing where people used to, that power band or whatever, those bracelets and they made you like hold your arm and they're like, look, you see how now you can do it. Put your arms out and watch. I can't push you over. Right.

And wow.

That's sort of, um, that's what I forgot what he called it, but that's sort of magic trick. Is, uh, is one of the things where it's a, it's a demonstration, a powerful demonstration, right? So you can demonstrate on the person themselves. You can get them to feel it and feel it themselves in order to, to, to want to buy a product.

Did Craig come up with this idea of 7 Human Hijacks, or did you come up with it on the pod?

Uh, so he, he was gonna come on and it was like, cool, we could talk about your business. We could talk about whatever. And I was like, you know, I said, I asked him one question. That's a very valuable question. I said, What's the best talk you've given recently? Like, have you given like a presentation or a talk at all that just like really killed? Like you could just tell the audience loved it. He's like, oh dude, I did this one talk inside my company just to get them fired up. He's like, basically my company is like a giant marketing company and I wanted them to come into work and not just feel like, oh, we need to raise sales by like 7% this quarter. Like, no, like he's like, I wanted them to realize, yo, marketers, you don't just drive some revenue or lift sales by X percent. Like A marketer can literally change the way that society works. And he's like, so to get them fired up about that, I told them these examples of stories that they did. And then he's like, when I was putting them together, I realized it's the same set of techniques that they've been using across these 8, 10 examples, just the same, same set of tactics, these hijacks that they've been using. And he's like, that could be cool. And I was like, yes, do that on the, on the pod.

Check this out. If you Google 7 Human Hijacks, Craig Clements. The first post is on Reddit and it says, Craig Clemens on MFM talking about the 7 human hijacks and how to use them in your marketing. And it links to this amazing post that this guy, uh, wrote where he lists the 7 on r/marketing. Yeah, it's so good.

So one of them, for example, is he talks about like, uh, the act of rebellion. So how do you make your consumer feel like they're giving the middle finger to the man by buying your product? So the example he gives is back in the day when cigarette sales were flat and cigarette sales were flat because basically cigarettes were only smoked by men. And so, and there was like, so it was already super saturated. It's like, dude, we can't really get more men to smoke. They kind of all smoke already. And so they realized like the only way we're going to grow sales is by getting the other 50% of the population to start smoking. So how do we get women to start smoking? At the time it was seen as not cool. It was seen as sort of like, um, you know, it was like a kind of dirty masculine thing to do. And so the guy behind the campaign, um, basically what he did was he used influencers. So influence is one of the hijacks. So he got all of the, like, uh, whoever, like, the Kardashians of their time were. So you got like 30 of them all together, all at once. And it was at a time where the big problem in culture or society was like, I forgot if it was like women being able to vote or was like some other thing where it was like Women were repressed in some way. And so he got them all to go to this, the parade or the fair, the, you know, the New Year's Fair or the Macy's Fair or whatever it was, like the parade that happens in New York. And they all stood on this float and he gave them all cigarettes. He said, all right, when you turn this corner, you're going to light that cigarette right when the journalists are all there. They all have their cameras pointed at you. You're going to light the cigarette and you're going to defiantly smoke the cigarette in front of them. And you're going to do this thing that women aren't supposed to do as an act of rebellion.

He called it, he called the SIGs, uh, torches of freedom.

Exactly, exactly. And that's what the, the newspapers, he, so he then put somebody in the crowd where the journalists were and he said that out loud to the journalists who then went and wrote that in their story. Like they, they lit up these torches of freedom.

Um, you see those ladies up there, guy? Those are, uh, those are, uh, those are torches of freedom. That's what those are.

This is what Jewel needs to do. And he used to be like, these are vapes of freedom that these kids are using.

Oh, look at that guy. That's a, that's a sex machine that he's using. He's gonna have sex with so many people because he's using that thing.

Even, even that same— so then I think it was like Lucky Strike or whoever, their brand color was green, and green was like not in vogue at the time. And he's like, yeah, the women don't want to buy it because these cigarettes, the box is not fashionable. It's like, do we need to rebrand? He's like, Hold my beer. Don't rebrand. And so instead he got those same women to go to the, whatever the big, like fashion, you know, like, like the Met Gala type of thing. And all of them wore green. They all wore that same green color dress. And so then green became cool for women. Like, you know, it's basically, it became in trend right after that. And then, you know, the sales of that, that, that brand went up basically because he made the color cool. And it's kind of just cool to see somebody who can puppeteer society in this way. I'm summarizing it like a 9-month-old episode, so I might have some of the details wrong here.

This Reddit poster said, side note, a lot of these stories are documented in this amazing book called Propaganda.

Yeah, that's the Bernays book, right? It's a hard read, dude.

I have wanted to read it, but it seems like intimidating. What's so hard about it?

You know, these old books that are just like so dense, it's not an easy read. I don't know. My brain is very simple. Like a lot of people recommend books to me. They're like, oh, this is a great book. Have you read, you know, René Girard, like Memetic Theory? It's like, oh, I'm interested to go buy the book. And I'm like, I'm just too dumb to read this. Like I'm too dumb.

I even read the—

do not have the attention span to read something like this.

I read like the Memetic Theory, like summary book. Like what was that one that came out recently? And it was still hard. I still read like—

I've heard of that one.

I read that. That was like the Malcolm Gladwell version of like René Girard. And I like read it and I'm like, So I want what other people want. Is that it?

Right.

Like that's the, it was, I read the whole thing and I was like, I don't understand why this is so many words. What am I missing? And so I've heard about this book. I've heard all about this book Propaganda. It would be fun to read or at least try to read.

There's something about books that are like more than 50 years old where their brains were just able to like, you know, they spoke differently, they talk, they, they talk differently, they, they, they write differently. And for whatever reason, my brain can't really process it very well. So I kind of need somebody to like translate into modern speak or into like simpleton speak for me.

Yeah, I think maybe I'll try and do that. This guy, uh, this seems like a cool book. Oh, the guy who wrote it was born in 1891. He died in 1995. Wow. He saw a lot. All right. Let me tell you, let me tell you about something that I did. So on, did you see, you probably didn't see this, but on Friday I tweeted that I'm going to Yale's campus. I've tweeted that I'm gonna go check out Yale because it's like an old historical place and I wanted to like do something interesting for the weekend, something easy on Saturday. Tweeted it out. I got like a lot of replies and it was like kind of overwhelming on what to do. So on Saturday morning we just drive up there and I just go to the busiest, just like part of the town where I think like, I'll just figure it out when I get there. I show up, I see a student tour. Like if you're a prospective student, you know, like when you go with your mom and dad. And I just like slip in. Yeah. I just like get out. I just like, I just like pop in and like, it's pretty funny. Cause it's Sarah and I who I don't think either of us look young enough to be students. And then I've got my baby like strapped to my chest.

Well, I gave it away. Yeah.

So we're just like, we're like, we like, just like are at the back of this like student-led tour listening in. And then out of nowhere, this kid, I guess he's not that much of a kid, but he's like 20 years old. He goes, hey Sam. And I go, what's up, man? He goes, hey, I, I'm a big fan of the pod. I listen religiously. I saw that you were going to be here. So, uh, can I show you around? And I was like, yeah, I would love that. What are you, what are you doing here? What are you doing today? He's like, well, I saw that you were coming and I just went to the most busy place there was. And I just hoped that I was going to see you. And here you are. And so this kid gave me the—

now I didn't think through what happens after that, but it was great.

And like, by the way, that's like the third time that's happened. And I love when that happens because I, like, he's doing me a favor of like, I would love like a local to like show me around. And so he shows me all this amazing stuff. So have you heard of Skull and Bones?

The secret society of Yale where presidents are in or all that? Is it legit? What is it?

It's quote, a secret society, but I don't know like how much of a secret it is when there's like a building and like, it's like a, like, it's like a nonprofit with like an endowment. So like, I don't know, like what, I don't know what the secret is. I don't know like what, what secret, but it was just cool to like, see this building that I've read about. And then we went and saw this old graveyard. It's the oldest graveyard in America. And I was looking through it and I'm going to explain to you why I'm obsessed with old stuff, particularly the Ivy League. So it's kind of like a nerdy thing of mine where I like, I've been to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, a bunch of others. Cause I just love like touring these old schools. They're just cool. We go through this old graveyard. And we saw Noah Webster's grave. You know who Noah Webster is? Have you heard that name?

Dictionary Webster? Is that him?

The dictionary. Merriam-Webster's dictionary. The guy who invented the dictionary. And I just was like looking at this, this old graveyard. And next to him was, uh, Charles Goodyear, the guy who created vulcanized rubber, which created Goodyear tires. And it was awesome. It was so cool. And I'm actually really envious of you that you went to Duke, this like historical old institution. Because it was so cool to like be around history where like someone came up with something and they literally invented or standardized the English language, like something that like shapes history. And it's still an, you know, they've still impacted the way that we've done things. And so it was an awesome, awesome weekend to like see all this old stuff because it inspired me. You know how like when you get behind the computer, like every single day and you're like, I'm going to do something that just makes a little bit of money. Sometimes you kind of get these ruts of like thinking small.

Right.

It was very inspirational to like see Yale and see this old institution that has lasted for centuries and how big and global it was. It was very, very cool. And I want to give a shout out to that kid. I don't want to say his name because he said he wanted to be low-key, but I want to give him a shout out for showing me around.

That's awesome. Most white person hobby ever, to go to a graveyard. You'll never see, you'll never see, uh, non-white tourists hanging out in a graveyard. It's not, not a, not a thing we do, dude.

It was awesome. It was great.

So you, you saw the Webster's Dictionary, Goodyear, and you're like, all right, I'm going to come back and podcast. What, what, what was your, what are you going to do? What's the move?

You know, it kind of put me into a little bit of a crisis where like I was asking that, but like, you know, this podcast is definitely part of it. You know, I don't know about you, but I sometimes think like, this is like a podcast is not like impactful compared to like, we're talking to guys who are inventing robots that are doing X, Y, and Z, or like, who are going to the moon. But a lot of these guys were authors that I, who's like, uh, whose grave I saw and I was still inspired by them. And so I felt a little bit inspiration of that, but there was a little bit of a crisis of like, oh man, like it's important to do something like that can impact people for, for centuries.

Pars thesaurus. I don't know. Just putting that out there. See what, see how that lands. I feel like you're good with, uh, coming up with alternative phrases for things.

So instead of saying, uh, you know, that's just because I don't know the real phrase and I can't pronounce the word. So when I mumble, it just sounds like, did you, did you get this feeling at Duke where it was cool to be around like old, uh, like historical things that have lasted for a long time.

I know exactly what you mean. There is definitely a vibe and a feeling when you're at something that is not just bigger than yourself, but sort of timeless. The problem with Duke and other Southern schools that have this is like, you're like, oh wow, who made, you know, what is this? And it's like, this is the slave wall. It's like, oh yeah, well, okay, never mind. It's like, what's the name of this road? It's like, this is Tobacco Road. We had tobacco plantations. It's like, everything is, there's like, a sort of, um, dark side to a lot of the history there. So that wasn't cool, but the rest of it is. In fact, I used to love going to the, the chat, like the center of Duke's campus is the chapel. And I used to go there all the time, even though I'm not religious, but just the aura, the vibe, like the vibe of a church is kind of unmatched, to be honest.

Great.

And, um, so yeah, I really love, really love that.

Here's why I like Silicon Valley and why I like old stuff. It's kind of similar, which is I love thinking about things that we take for granted. So for example, like buildings that have been there for a long time or that are really large, or even just like your streets or institutions like Yale. And I'm like, how did someone create something that became such an institution that we take it for granted? And we don't even like reflect on like how this became a thing. And Silicon Valley is cool because it's ideally the outcome is that you are creating something in real time that will become an institution like an Airbnb, like a Google where it becomes a verb.

Right.

Uh, like I'm gonna, you know what I mean? And you get to see that happening. And I think it's really cool to be in Silicon Valley to see the beginning of hopeful institutions in the, in the making. And then also go and seeing the old stuff of like, this is how it's done.

So we just had Gary Tan on. Don't you think that YC should just have a campus and it should have this sort of gothic, uh, you know, old school institutional vibe. And even if they're not, if they're not going to do it, why wouldn't I just go create a campus, a small micro campus. For YC people, free, free, free room and board. So free place to live, free food that's healthy. And all I do is just cherry-pick investments from people on campus. I just get to invest in their companies. It would be, I don't even need YC to do this. Why, why wouldn't I do this?

There's a, or even just a museum. Have you ever heard of the Museum of American Finance? It's this thing in New York City where it's like a museum for like the history of finance. And frankly, it's badass. It's awesome. And just like a place to like go and like physically explore all that YC has done. It is kind of interesting.

It's just like Bill Ackman's loafers. What's inside this thing? What is the Museum of Modern— of what? Of Finance?

Yeah, it's a Museum of American Finance. So if you look at a photo, it's just like, it shows like, here's what like the stock tickers used to look like. And people would stand here and like trade like in the 1800s. And then like, Then it switched to have like, to the phones were on the floor, or you do this, whatever. Like tells the history of it and then like important things related to it. But it's a museum in downtown, uh, Manhattan.

That's cool. I like that, dude.

This is a fun episode.

Yeah, that was a banger.

All right, that's it.

That's the pod.