How an Early Adopter Mindset Can Make You Millions

But I would also say there's been a big lesson I've learned that is anytime people live, anytime you discover a group of people who are very interested in and living a lifestyle that is different than yours, it's very easy initially to write it off and just say, oh, that's frivolous. That's, um, that's just kind of like whatever, you know, they're out of touch or, uh, they're weird or whatever. Like it doesn't really matter what, what category it is. Like when I, when I saw gamers and people who stream video games and watch other people playing video games, it was so strange to me. I remember making fun of this kid in college because I walked in on him and he was watching somebody else play a video game on a livestream. And the guy was playing in Korea. And I was like, you're watching a dude in Korea play this video game? Why don't you just play? Better yet, why don't you get outside and like, let's go, go get some food. And I made fun of him for it. And then years later, I'm like selling my company to Twitch. And like, I'm, I'm like talking about how great this trend is. And he's like, called me. He was like, you motherfucker. You know, like I, dude, you made fun of me for this 10 years ago. And here you are now, like now you're on board. And I— that's happened to me so many times in life that now I go the exact opposite way. I see some— somebody like you who says the same thing that our other buddy said, which is maybe I should go to the Mayo Clinic and get these advanced scans done once a year. I think, huh, maybe that's something more people are going to want to do. Why would he want to do this? Why are people choosing plant-based lifestyles? What is that all about? You know, like, and so now I lean in anytime I discover these things, and that's become some of the best A, like, either discoveries, life changes I can make, or B, investments. It's a great way to invest, 'cause you're actually on the cutting edge of stuff. You're in early, which is super important, obviously.

There's a book, like a famous business book on it, where he talks— I think it's Crossing the Chasm or something, where he talks about early adopters, and then, like, there's basically this bell curve of people, where it's like— In the beginning of the bell curve, it's like people who are late to it, and then the middle's like— average Joe, and there's like early adopters, and there's one more like cutting edge. And you and I both have like a handful of friends of which I would actually say that—

I, I forget the names of them, but in that bell curve there's people who are getting on names because you got the idea right but you, uh, like butchered all the names. So it's basically ear— earliest is innovators, and it's like the people actually like figuring things out. And then there's early adopters, then there's early majority, that's the kind of like big chunk. Late majority, that's the other part of the big chunk. And then there's the laggards who are like, you know, people who still have AOL email addresses and like you know, are looking, driving around looking for Blockbusters.

And for a lot of things, I would say you are on the right side. You're, uh, either an innovator or the one next to it, an early adopter.

And I'm trying to go— I'm intense— I'm intentionally trying to go that way. So I thought, uh, you know, I'm just not that. I'm not like a futurist type of guy because I've been so wrong. And I figured out the formula for it. The formula for it is, um, have an ego, make a prediction, be wrong like 5 times and have it rubbed in your face how wrong you were. Boom. You're not— you're now a futurist. Like, I remember the first time the iPhone came out and I was like, who the fuck wants to, like, read tiny text on a screen? Like, that's awful. I was like, nobody's going to watch a movie on this. I was like, yeah, you can watch. Who would ever watch a movie on this? Like, tiny square. Like, that's like— that would be the worst. It's worse than an airplane headrest. Like, I remember saying these things to people And you know, this is like, I was in college, I was like a junior in college. Nobody remembers this, but I remember being that wrong. Snapchat, I remember being that wrong. My username still has the word test in it because I was so certain. I was like, Snapchat, this is, this is stupid, right? This is just for kids and dick pics and stuff like that. Like, it certainly won't go on beyond this. Bitcoin, I was wrong early on, right? Like guys in my office were telling me about it back in 2012, 2013, and I was kind of laughing and saying, guys, let's focus on something like legit here. And now I'm like, you know, oh, fucking Bitcoin. Evangelist. And so like Twitch, same thing. I was wrong about streaming. I've been wrong so many times that I've actually flipped the script now. I, I kind of had to reassess my life and say, I'm not gonna be very good as a technology entrepreneur or a technology investor if I just continue to write off the big things as dumb and stupid early on. Like I need to go the exact opposite way. Okay, what would it take for me to do that? And then I just, I just inverted. So instead of, you know, anytime I see that the same feeling, I instead lean into curiosity. What's making people want to do this when I think it's so strange? And now I— that's, that's like flipped the script for me.

And we either had Justin or Emmett on at HustleCon or on here, and they were talking about Justin.tv, which was the site before Twitch became a thing. And it was basically, uh, anyone could log in and create their own live TV channel. And Emmett, I believe you could tell me if I'm wrong, I believe the story was like Emmett would like— there's a small corner of the site where these like guys were watching video games and it wasn't a lot of people, like thousands of people, but they were spending 2%, I think, of traffic at that time, but they were spending a significant amount of time watching, and he was like, that's— this is the one that we got to go to.

And I don't even think it was that as data-driven. Actually, the data pointed against it because, again, remember, it was a small trap, it was a small amount. They had a combination of two things working in their favor. Number one, Emmett was like— I guess actually the number one factor was they were fucked. The current thing wasn't working, and they had like no— like, they had nothing to lose. They don't— they were gonna run out of money and fail. Or they had to try something dramatically different. And, um, when you feel like you're fucked and you have nothing to lose, you actually have the one of the greatest assets on your side. Um, which is that, you know, when you have nothing to lose, you play completely differently than when you feel like you have something to lose. So that was the first thing they had to change. They, the things that were popular were all like, uh, illegal streams, illegal streams of sports. So they knew, oh, people wanna watch this, but we can't ever build a business around this.

Yeah.

So what 90% of people are doing on this site, we can't use. The 2% thing worked. And then the other one was, he was like, I personally like watching these. So he's like, I'm gonna go with that. Like, these are my favorite things to watch on the network. So if I'm gonna work on this, I'm gonna work on the ones that I personally find, you know, the most interesting. And actually most of the company wanted to go work on the hotter, sexier idea, which was called, uh, what was the thing called? The video thing they had, not Viddy, their, their version of it called Socialcam.

Socialcam.

So the company split in half. They said, all right, Justin.tv is not going to work, abandon ship, and we got to figure out, you know, what's the, what's the emergency ship? And so they had this, I think Michael Seibel, who now runs Y Combinator, and Justin Kan. They wanted to do Socialcam. It was Instagram for video. Instagram is the hottest startup in Silicon Valley, but it's photos. We're going to do Instagram for video. And they were able to instantly raise money. They got tons of initial hype and traction and press, and all the talented people in the company wanted to go work there. So I talked to this guy Jacob, who's the OG designer at Twitch, and he's still there. He's still at the company today. And I said, um, how'd you know like to bet on Twitch instead of Socialcam? He goes, oh no, dude, I wanted to be on Socialcam. They were just like, nah, like we don't, like, uh, team's full, bro. Like you go work on, on the thing with Emmett. 'Cause Emmett was his childhood friend. He's like, you, you gotta go do that one. He's like, ah, fuck. All right, whatever. And you know, so like that was what seemed like the great idea, but actually what Emmett did, which was leaned into this really weird behavior, unique lifestyle that these gamers were doing where they were streaming themselves playing for 8 hours a day, that turned out to be the thing.

And that's kind of my point, which is like, I think that there's like these— I, I do it on online communities, particularly Reddit, but you can right now you could do it on Twitter, or you could just type in like any idea or any hobby and type in the word forum, and you could just find like these niche communities of people that are kind of freaks and it's fun to like learn all about it. Like for example, intermittent fasting, fasting is now like, we all talk about it. Um, I remember like 8 years ago, I remember Business Insider wrote an article about like a Microsoft executive and they mocked him for the like intermittent fasting. What is this? And, uh, but there's, there's been communities online where I've like read about people doing this for forever and you're like fasting, like no, like breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Just look at anything they make fun of Silicon Valley for at the beginning of coronavirus. It's like, VCs are so paranoid about the real world that they're wearing masks to conferences. Guess what everybody's doing now? Wearing masks, right? Uh, oh my God, intermittent fasting, Silicon Valley's latest craze, not eating till noon every day. You know what a Google, what Google engineers are doing, right? It's like, make media loves to make fun of it. Guess what? That's what everybody's gonna be doing. Um, you know, what are some other things that are like that? I think, you know, some of them are meditation, by the way, was like that too. Uh, people made fun of it and then, you know, Boom, it's like the new yoga. Uh, the other ones I think that, that are happening are like stem cell or any like blood platelet spinning stuff where it's like, oh, you have knee pain? Well, these guys, they like go to Puerto Rico and like go to Germany and like get this fucking blood spinning treatment and go get stem cells injected into their knees.

That, and, uh, now they feel good. And gene editing, I think is, is gene editing's one.

Another one, uh, breathwork. I think breathwork is where meditation was. I invest in this thing called, uh, Othership. They just actually launched their app. I use it every single day and like I use it religiously because it makes you feel so good. And to the average person, like I do it outside now after Huberman was like, get sunlight on your eyes first thing in the morning. So I do it outdoors and I'm sitting in my driveway basically doing it and neighbors are walking by, they're walking their dog, what they view as a very normal behavior, go for a morning walk. And they see me like doing fucking breathing techniques on my driveway and they think I'm a nut. And I love it. I go louder as soon as somebody walks by because I want them to know they live next to somebody from the future.

Dude, there's this guy, his name was Bill. Well, let's start with— there's this guy named Arthur Leonard. He's, he's dead now. But in the '60s and '70s, he was a New Zealand track and field coach and he had runners like Paul Walker or not Paul Walker. That's John Walker.

Furious.

Yeah. Yeah. Peter Snell and all these like New Zealand guys who started winning the Olympics in the 1500 meters, 5K and 10K. And everyone's like, dude, what are you doing with your runners? And he goes, we run like 120 miles a week. We do long distance running and we go slow and we just do it, just a shitload of it. And this one coach, uh, from Oregon got really interested and, uh, his name was Bill Bowerman. And he goes, well, I'm the track and field coach at Oregon University. I have all these great runners. What are you doing? And he goes over to, in the 1970s, in New Zealand and he learns from Arthur Leonard and he comes back and he starts making it popular. And two things happen. University of Oregon gets really good at track and field, and he ends up, um, making shoes for his runners so they can run a little bit faster. And he calls it Nike. He calls that company Nike. He starts it with, uh, with another runner, Phil Knight.

Yep.

And the other thing that happens, and this just, it worked out perfectly, is he starts talking about it to all of his friends. He even writes a book about it, and I believe it's called like The Joy of Jogging. And the idea of jogging, it wasn't even like a thing in the '70s.

Right.

People are like, What do you mean you're just gonna run? Like, aren't— is it from what? Yeah, like, aren't the police gonna go after you? And, and like, it, like, it was like astounding. Like, prior to the 1970s, right? There was a— it was the jogging craze of the '70s. Prior to that, people didn't go out and run. That just like wasn't like a thing. And so anyway, that's like another example where like running became popular and Bowerman created Nike to kind of capitalize on it.