The Aftermath of a $1B Exit | Jamie Siminoff

Jamie created Ring Doorbell.

You sold it for like $1 billion, right?

$1.15.

The part after his decimal point is worth more than our entire career so far. I want to brainstorm business ideas with you. I want to see how you think.

Is there a $5 or $10 billion company hiding in the bug space? Probably there is.

You said, "I just don't know how to stop, and sometimes it's not smart and it costs me." Yeah.

You're going to make me cry, Sam. You're going to do this.

So Sean, listen, if you're like me, you woke up this morning, you rolled out of bed, you checked businessinsider.com, and you read this amazing article about Jamie. And it just says, I'm Jamie and I'm the CEO of Ring and I have the world's worst morning routine. And it's a whole article about how he rolls out of bed, he scrolls his phone for about 4 hours.

Everything they say you shouldn't do, like immediately, like all the wrong shit, like everything.

That was the whole article about how Jamie has the world's worst routine.

Good PR strategy, right? Like they sit down with you and they're like, hey, we need to get some cool, like, tech billionaire weirdo stuff. What do you got? And you're like, nope, don't have anything. So they're like, okay, we're going to use that.

Yeah, I'm like the average guy from Missouri.

Are you from Missouri?

I'm from New Jersey, but I tell people I'm from Missouri now because I have this farm in Missouri and I've decided that there's no reason why You can't just be from Missouri.

Guess where I'm from, Jamie? Can you just look at me and guess?

Missouri.

I'm from Missouri, my friend. Where? St. Louis.

So I, my farm is in La Belle, Missouri. So I'm in, I'm from Missouri. You're from Missouri. You're more like a city folk, but we are 2.5 hours north of St. Louis.

Dude, I love how he just out-Missouried you even though you were actually born and raised there. And he just actually was like, you're a city slicker. Not a real true Missourian.

We don't like you folks.

This is like going to like Tony Soprano and being like, actually, Tony, it's bruschetta.

So let me tee this up. All right. So I did a call with Jamie and it was super fun. Jamie created— if you've ever seen a doorbell that has a camera on it, this is the inventor. This is the man who did it. He created Ring Doorbell, grew it, sold it to Amazon for tons of money. And I was like, hey, I want to kind of have you on the podcast and brainstorm business ideas with you. I want to see how you think, how do you approach businesses? And he's like, I believe, I don't know the exact quote, but it was something like, you know, ideas are like my drug of choice. And he's like, I have this list on my phone of like thousands of ideas. Which one do you want? Yeah, exactly. And so, um, so I want to do that. Sam, you saw the doc that he sent over, which gives us kind of bullet point ideas. We don't know what he's going to say, but bullet point ideas.

Where do you want to start?

Wait, can I ask a question before we get in? How much you sold it for, like a billion dollars, right?

Uh, $1.15 billion. But I mean, if you want to, you can round down if you want to.

I mean, okay. Okay. So we're talking to a guy who, you know, you have a billion dollar company.

The part after his decimal point is worth more than our entire career so far.

I think you chose to point out I did sell it for a billion when a billion was a lot of money.

Just, just back when a billion was cool.

Back when a billion was actually like you could buy more than a cup of coffee with it.

Well, can we actually go to that story? Do you remember kind of where you, I guess I'm always curious about two things. One, was there a good negotiation story or like a throw out a number story of like, how do you arrive at that $1.15 billion? And then like, how did that come about?

I mean, what was cool with Amazon is, you know, from the, the, we had been working with them on stuff for years. So like, I actually went to Amazon and showed this guy Nick Comoros the Ring before we launched Ring because we had been talking to them. They were with Alexa and stuff. They were looking at sort of, they were trying to reach out to all the small IoT people at the time. There was a lot of little hardware things bubbling up. So I even like literally like brought them the first one and showed it to them. So we had been working together for a long time. We were very like aligned on like mission, what we're trying to do. They started to look at video realizing like with Alexa, they had, you know, the kind of the, call it the ears in the home. And they started to see the eyes and saw what we were doing. We had this, you know, kind of like dating awkward because we would talk all the time. We'd meet and, you know, Nick said, let me come down and Um, let's have lunch, which was kind of not that abnormal. And we're sitting there and it's like, you know, we should kind of go to the next level here. And it was this like very funny, like dating conversation of like, you know, it's like where you don't want to just like jump out and be like, okay, let's do it. You know, it's like, and it's like, do what? You know? So, so it's like, we keep going back and forth. Like, so you mean, and he's like, yeah. And I'm like, too. And like, we kept going back and then he finally said, yeah, like we, it's time we should combine and. you know, not, not a merger of equals, by the way, but, uh, that Amazon should buy you.

What was your revenue then? Do you know?

Uh, we were, so that was 2017. So we, that year we did $480 million.

Okay. So you guys were just huge.

Was it a profitable business or were you burning money and you had to figure out?

Here's what's so interesting is like, it was the, like the, the, of each, like the individual customer economics were insanely good. So the, the, the funda— like the, the fundamentals of the business, like the actual, like business was good. It was growing so fast that like money was just being lit on fire everywhere. And it's not that we, like, we, we had crappy offices. Like, it's just, you have to hire so fast to get ahead. Just think about like customer service when you're growing at like 500% a year. And if customer service takes 3 to 6 months, like a person you hire to get up to speed. That means you're hiring like 2 to 3x what you need at that exact time.

Yeah.

Just so that you can like not blow up as people are buying and the growth. So you're just, you're just like putting out all this cash to do this stuff. So, I mean, you start to think about it's like, it sounds cool, but then like when you're doing $170 million and you're ordering for $480 million, it means like if anything slows down, I mean, you are just like, you're dead, right? It's like on one side, yeah, I'm sitting there with Nick and I have this, I have a $480 million a year business that's growing. you know, triple digits still, like literally triple digits at that, at that scale, which is insane. And the other side is like, and I'm going out of business every day. Like every day I'm facing basically like the wall, like we're going to hit the wall. And the only way to stop that is you raise a little money, you get a little financing, something else comes in. Like, so it was getting to a point where I just couldn't handle it. Like I was, you know, I was sort of, the stress was getting to me. I mean, it was, you know, it was years of just like that. And then we kind of got into, you know, started to get in the negotiation during the negotiation. And so I wrote this book and part of why I wrote the book is like the story. I mean, it's a, it's like a bit of a longer story, which is why a book is good. But during the negotiation, I get sued by ADT, uh, probably for something that was a little bit self-induced, to be fair. They win an injunction and literally. I mean, and this is like Holly, like, you can't make this up. Nick calls me and he's, you know, I'm going to send you a term sheet over, you know, tomorrow morning, just FYI. Great. An hour later, the injunction hits us. I have to call Nick back and be like, hey, just FYI, like, not a big deal at all. Doesn't, you know, shouldn't matter. Like, shouldn't matter at all. But like, just like as an FYI, we did get an injunction from ADT on this lawsuit. And he's like, Dude, we're out.

Wow.

And what does that mean? So ADT was suing you for, for what?

So we had been building an alarm. They had a, like, a company that they had some part of that they were sort of invested in that was building it. They stopped funding it. The company went out of— basically shut down. I hired all the people from there. They told me I couldn't hire all the people from there. I told them in a very respectful way, You know, I said like, you know, please and thank yous. No, I was like a total asshole. And I was like so dumb. And I just like, I, again, I, I, you poked the bear. I poked the bear. And it's like, looking back, it's funny because it's the same, like insanity and passion that like gets a company to go from $170 to $480 is also the person that blows it up. It's like, you know, it is like the demolition man of like, you know, it's the, the, the same person that can use the demolition to like clear the way for the road is also who can, like, blow everything up for everyone.

It's my favorite Elon thing of all time when he goes on Saturday Night Live and he goes, you know, I took all my money and I spent it on trying to get rockets that will take us to Mars and electric cars. And he's like, what did you think? I would just be a normal, chill dude? And it's like, oh, actually, that explains so much. Of course, we can't have one. We can't have mad genius and then also, you know, a stable, respectful, peaceful, reasonable man over here. You can't be unreasonable in one area and totally reasonable in the other.

And I think that's the problem. It's like, it's just true. Like, if you want to do something, I mean, Ring is a one in a whatever generation company. And like, I say that as someone who like looks at it and I can't believe I'm even part of it. Like, it's incredible. I mean, it's, it's a ver— like, people just call it a Ring. Like, it's, it's, I mean, to build something like that is incredible. And so, yes, like, you probably have some traits that are very strong, but those can cut both ways. And so, you know, when the person from ADT calls you and you're like, think, you know, like, you're like in this sort of vortex of doing stuff, you know, maybe you don't sort of take the time to say like, why don't I just come to you? Why don't we sit down like we're two humans and work this out? And by the way, I'm— it'd be funny to like now go back. Like, I'm sure if I had just flown there, sat down for dinner with them, I really actually feel like they probably just be like, like, fine, whatever, we're good. Like, we just wanted to like talk, you know, because I kind of want to say like, we just want to talk to you. Instead, I was like, you know, like lunatic, you know, doing stuff. And they sort of said, well, why don't we teach you some business? And so they, they did. And to be fair, like, whatever. And so that, that was very, you know, turned out to be fairly painful.

All right. So you guys are about to get to the best part of the podcast. This is the part where we ask Jamie how he comes up with new ideas for businesses, how he came up with the idea of Ring, but also a lot of the other projects that he's looking into starting. And he's got this amazing name. Called the Snowball Method, meaning he likes to find very small ideas that can eventually become big. But the problem is that these ideas are so small that people don't notice them or they forget about them. And so here's what we did. We went and looked at what he's going to talk about on this podcast, which you're going to hear because you're going to get to it. But then he's talked about the Snowball Method on a bunch of other podcasts, and we went and broke it down into a really easy-to-understand methodology. And so if you're interested in solving these 4 questions, this guide, it's for you. So it's How Do You Spot Billion Dollar Ideas Hiding Inside Boring Problems? Number 2, what early-stage moves actually validated Ring before it took off? Number 3, how do you keep momentum when your business feels stuck or you're on the brink? And number 4, what critical decisions make or break a founder's path from $200 to $1 billion? And so if this type of thing interests you, which I think it does because you're listening to My First Million, you can get the link in the description below.

So you call the guy, you're like, hey, feel silly even bringing this up, but there's a little lawsuit you should probably know about. And then They, he's like, we're out.

Out.

And you're thinking, well, look, you drafted the term sheet anyways, just go ahead and send it over. And he's like, no, no, no, we're out. How did it go back on?

I said, why don't we just keep the negotiation going? And like, you know, if I settle this thing out, then like, we're good. He's like, dude, we're not like, Amazon's like, not done. Like, it's, it's like basically like pencils down until whatever. On the flip side, which was great, is I had a safety net. So like, don't worry, I'm totally fine. Like, I'm going into this Amazon deal with a safety net, which is if we don't do the Amazon deal, I'm going to raise $200 million. So I also had to call them and say, just FYI, like, I know this deal, like we're about to close it for this money. And just FYI, like we had this little injunction on that little thing that I kind of said that was not going to be a big deal. And they're like, yeah, we're out too. It's like the two doors I was looking at is like selling to Amazon or raising $200 million. It was the first time I was going to take secondary money off, so I was I was going to actually take some money off the table and meaningful money. Like it would have been like real for me. And so those are like the two things I was like sort of looking at going into the holidays basically. And all of a sudden both those doors evaporated and now we're negative like $70 million in the bank because we didn't plan the cash flow. Cause it was like one of these doors is going to happen. You're not going to raise more money. Like, I mean, You're not going to raise like a third set of money. Like, you know, so, so all of a sudden we like go to like, basically we are like technically like a bankrupt company almost immediately.

Okay, go on. I'm hooked. So what happens? And more importantly, what's the conversation you have with yourself in that moment? Because I think, you know, there's what you did, but there's also what you said to yourself before you figured out what to do.

Yeah. So what's the, like, my, so again, to traits that are good, like the one thing I do have, which is probably You know, has kept us from completely blowing the place up. When things really hap— like when things are really, really bad, I go into like a pilot checklist. Like I am just like deadpan calm. We got to do this. We had this. So I'm like, we have to, we're going into the holidays. Like we have to sell everything. We have to like break every record. We have to like, it's like the only way to survive is just like, we got to like do this. Um, and we also have to stop paying our bills to anyone that can't like, you know, actually like tow us away. Um, and so we did that too, which was pretty, that was, and that's, that's not fun because like you're calling people that have worked, you know, vendors and you're like, hey, listen, like I know, but if you, if you like stop shipping this, we're dead. If we're dead, everything you've already sent is dead. Like, you know, it's just, it's a bit of like, it's not a conversation you want to have.

It's everyone's problem at that point. Yeah.

It's horrible. Like it's just, it's just like a bad, it's a bad situation.

And then did the lawsuit go away?

So we, like, we're going through whatever we go. It's crazy as we go through, um, you know, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, like that whole sort of week, we literally blow out like every, like everything's like Ring is just the, it's the product of the holidays. Like it's the number one seller at Best Buy. Like it's just literally like on fire.

So by the way, on that, if this wasn't happening, how much less do you think in sales you would have had, you know, like percent-wise, how much do you think you got extra just with the forcing function of necessity?

At least there's definitely like probably like low double, like 10%, 15% at least. At least.

And was it just your intensity? Because it's like, we have to. Or did you come up with a new idea? What'd you do?

We did everything. Like every social post, every this. Like, I mean, we just had people like we did. Yeah, you just like you put it all in the field. Like you just like send in your best everybody. So we just went crazy. But for sure, I think for sure that was a part of it. but we need, like, we needed to, like, we needed to, like, literally break every number, blow everything out. Um, and still with that, like, it wasn't clear that we would live. It just felt like it was going to be more likely you'd live if you were blowing it out than not. Um, and so we doing that, and then all of a sudden ADT calls and says, hey, would you like to talk, you know, settlement? It's like, it's like, imagine, like, imagine if you had, like, You know, if someone's like, literally like you have no oxygen, you know, and they're like, hey, would you like a little oxygen? You're like, uh, I'd love some oxygen. And so we went and they were actually like pretty like fair. And once we settled like that, like everything else was amazing. It was this weird thing where like everything underneath was like the best ever. And we had this just one cloud that, that, that moved everyone away. And as soon as that dissipated and went away, like it was, you know, I mean, so we basically, it was like December 9th or something, you know, that we settle.

Um, which on that day, that's, that's really fast, right?

It was, you go to this, like, it's this thing, you go to like this, um, um, this office where there's like two conference rooms and this, this judge, like a, a retired judge basically walks back and forth between these like two conference rooms. Like you're in one and they're in the other. And you just, they just keep going back and forth all day. And then it's the craziest thing. Like finally they're like, okay. And you're like, okay. And then you sign it and you're like, this is done. And they're like, it's done. I'm like, done, done. Like I kept like, it was like, like a, like, you know, like a Laurel and Hardy, like done, done, done, done. And then, you know, I called, I literally, I called Amazon and just said, just FYI, I settled. And they said, okay. Like it was like, you know, like that's all, like we love the business. We just didn't, you know, we didn't want to get involved in that. And so once it was settled, they know that was like December 9th or whatever. December 31st, we signed for $1.15 billion to sell it.

Wait, so the deal closed 30 days later after the return?

So we signed the LOI, like the binding LOI, like literally like less than 30 days.

So did you shop it around as well?

I, I didn't, um, for a number of reasons. The biggest one was I did not know of another buyer that would back our mission. So we were very missionary around. Making neighborhoods safer.

What were your interactions like with, uh, with Jeff Bezos?

So Jeff loves entrepreneurs so much that they've learned not to have him, um, you know, involved in the, in the purchasing, because I think Jeff would just be like, I love you, man. Like, he's like, Jeff's so great. And so, so I didn't actually— I mean, I had met him like once before, but I didn't really kind of know him. And so really it was post-deal that I got to you know, really start to spend some time with him. And he is just one of the greatest people ever, uh, for lots of reasons. I'd say the number one is he's just like a good human.

Do you have any good, um, Bezos stories of like, you know, it's because rare that you, you know, get to actually interact with, or in your case, work with, because there's always levels to the game, right? I meet people who I think I'm doing great, then I meet somebody, I'm like, wow, that person's got a different level of intensity, or they're a different level of sharpness, or they ask a different style of question. And so you, but you don't know until you meet him, right? You don't even know what level 12 looks like until you see level 12.

Yeah.

And so I'm just curious, like, did you have any moments like that with, uh, with, with Bezos?

Definitely many, many moments. I'd say the biggest thing I took away from Jeff is he's the most positive person I've ever met in like the weirdest way because he gets shit done. So it's not like he's like, just like, hey, good job guys. You know, it's like, but he's able to just like be so patient. On things and just like he, he like sees the future and he's just very patient and, and, and very positive. And so I've, I've tried to, it's definitely different than my personality. You know, I'm sort of more like, you know, punch a wall, kind of like run around and yell a little bit more. Like it's just like kind of like more like that, like maybe like inventor passion, but he has taught me to sort of try to like just be a little bit calmer and let things sort of work themselves out versus like forcing everything. I think maybe that's the, the, the biggest learning.

And why have you stayed this—

I mean, how—

the deal was what, 10 years ago, 5 years ago?

It was 2018, so 7 years ago.

Why are you still there? I mean, obviously, I mean, money is probably a big part of it, but is there—

Oh dude, mission. He's going to say mission. I could bet anything he's going to say the mission.

Mm.

Um, money.

No, you know, uh, I actually, so in 2023, I ended up stepping down. I was just, you know, I'd taken the company almost 10x'd it from when we got to Amazon brought it profitable. Like, I felt like I delivered, like, the package. I'm like, here it is. It's pretty amazing.

So you grew it to $4 billion in revenue.

Is that around there? Yeah.

Oh my gosh. That's wild.

So it, you know, the thing just kept growing. It just kept like, it's just insane. And so I finally was just like, I am, I'm feeling like super burnt out on just the, like, a whole thing. I stepped back and I, and I did realize I missed just, I just missed like Ring. Like I missed the mission. I missed what we're building. I love like, I'm an inventor at heart and being able to be at Amazon, you can invent at scale. So, you know, an inventor, the best thing for an inventor is like see your invention out there.

Yeah, but it's pretty amazing that like most inventors, I mean, I mean, there's many inventors that are successful. Dyson, there's, you know, Edison was a good businessman, but, uh, you know, uh, maybe, maybe Musk would be an inventor. I'm not sure who else, but typically the stereotype of an inventor is someone who's got like two different matching socks and like they don't like know how to do anything, um, other than like invent and they're a little bit messy and whatever. But it sounds like you actually knew how to operate.

I would say I've used invention around operation, but I don't operate. I certainly don't operate in a normal way. So, um, like I've never had a staff meeting. Like everyone's always like, you know, what day do you do your, your staff meeting on? I'm like, none. Um, cause I've never had one. We never had an all hands meeting at the company. And like, so we, you do things when you need to. So there's a lot of things that like, I don't have those like processes of how to like run a business.

Dude, you are exactly like, you know who he's like, Sean? 100%.

Who?

Elon. Um, the card game.

Yeah.

Elon Lee. Yeah. Elon Lee.

Elon Lee. Oh man. He had the exact same mentality where he was like, yeah, we don't do this at the company. We're, whereas Sean and I were like, wait, but I thought everyone had to do all hands. He's like, well, I thought about the reason why, and we just invented a different way to do it. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think if you can turn, like, again, like it's still inventing, like it's like just, like, just because it's not a, like a physical product or just because it's internal doesn't mean it's not an invention. So I do love that, like, you can use invention across the board. Um, and especially like how you build a business. I would say like, I mean, this is where Dyson, I think, and I don't, I don't know him, but he's like, he's like my mentor. I just, this is like the mentor I don't know. Um, but like, look at what Dyson's been able to do by having built a great business. Like if he hadn't built a great business, he'd just be a guy in a, a barn somewhere in like Oxfordshire or some shit. Um, and instead, you know, he's like able to like build all this crazy good stuff and have this company. So I think I did feel like the business was something you needed in order to be able to like get your inventions out there bigger. And that's, that's kind of what Ring has been. And then being at Amazon, it's like, that's just like, you know, 1000x that.

Was there a moment in those early days for Ring where it went from not working, like it's not a thing, to it's a thing, like an inflection point where, you know, or did it take off right away? As soon as you had the product, people started buying it.

It certainly, you know, looking back, it probably took off more than I thought because like being inside of it, you're sort of dealing with the problem. So you don't really see it as easily. Um, like again, when I wrote the book, I kind of like was able to like go back and like think about all of what was happening and look at it in a different light. And so Um, it was 2016. My wife was out trick-or-treating. Um, I was away on something, and that was like the year she called and she's like, this is your— it's like every house has a Ring. She's like, this is insane. Um, and I think you really felt it because like they're literally trick-or-treating and like they're like hitting like the Ring like every house. Um, so I think there was like some moments like that.

Dude, that's gotta be like one of the most proud moments ever where you're like, my wife is seeing it.

So, I mean, like we would literally drive around, I mean, early, like, and yell, like when we saw a Ring on a house. Like, it was like, that was like a, and then we kind of had to stop the Ring game because it like, it was like, you just became yelling Ring the whole time. Um, but, but early on, yeah, I mean, it's like, and as an inventor, like, that's, that was, you know, if I, I, I never felt like it was successful until we got the wire, just because I felt like it could blow up. But I did feel like I had created something meaningful and had that, like, satisfaction of that just by seeing, like, seeing these on everyone's front door and Um, the stories that then they created, like the, you know, stopping a crime, doing whatever, like those, those were the things that were like, that was amazing.

I'm curious, the wire hits. We've asked a bunch of people about this on the podcast because it's a, you know, it's a moment you look forward to as a founder like, like crazy. But, you know, it's hard to actually get there. And we've had some guys say, yeah, when the wire hit, you know, he's like, I went to the ATM the next 5 days just to print balance. You know, never pushed that button before, but I was just so excited. Or, you know, some people feel lost, you know, right afterwards. I guess like Wire hits, what, where were you and what was going through your mind?

So I booked, I don't know if you know this company TaskUs, but the, it's a great public company now. The founders are friends that were, you know, kind of kids from Santa Monica that I had known that started it. And they asked me to speak at their customer conference like 6 months earlier. And it was in New York, just like on whatever, some random day in April. Of 2018. Um, because of how everything happens, like you sell, like you finally announce it, then the government has to inspect it. Then even after that, there's like, they have to like file stuff and whatever. See, like the actual wire date is not like any of those dates. It's kind of a random time when it just comes. And so it ended up being like, I'm at this event and I'm speaking in New York and I'm sitting there and I'm like, I'm sorry, everyone. Like, I'm good. I'm like, my phone's out. I'm like, I'm like, I can barely even like, I'm like, just like, I'm so, I'm like, I'm just gonna. Like, keep refreshing this because the wire is supposed to come in. And everyone known, like, they knew I had sold. So I'm like, the wire hasn't come in yet, but it's supposed to come in right now. And I just like, I'm sorry, I keep, you know, Wells Fargo, you know, it's like, yeah.

And, um, you're like on stage, you're like, look, I know I was talking about customer service, but today I'm gonna give a talk on how to get rich.

Yeah. I'm like, you know, money doesn't matter to me, it's all about mission. But like, but like, you know, hold on the next hour. Yeah, it's like, like, it's all— and, and literally like it You know, it comes in and there's like just commas and commas and commas. And it's like, how many commas could this be?

Like, you know, it's like, like it's a run-on sentence.

Yeah.

Like, yeah, exactly. Comma, comma, comma. And I just, I, uh, yeah, it was the best. I mean, especially I had just gone through the most traumatic thing ever. And from a money side, like I, if, if Ring had exploded at that point, which it, I mean, it, it. Got right on the edge of, it would have been like really impactful to my family.

Like, and I, yeah, were you like, uh, just not broke, but like, were you just like, you know, 7, like $150,000, $250,000 a year salaried person?

Like that. Yeah. It was like $150,000, I think at that point. And I prided myself, and this was by looking back, a real mistake. I prided myself on being like the least paid executive.

Yeah, man. That makes you desperate. I did the same thing on a much smaller scale, but it made me desperate.

That's exactly right. So here's the other problem. When you're making that kind of money and you're at a company doing $480 million, people are like, hey, come to this charity event. Oh, it's only $10,000 a table. Uh, do this. And you kind of have to, like, you're, it's like you have to sort of take part in some of this stuff, but you don't actually have the money. So you're, you're, you're spending even more than you would making that salary regardless. So yeah, I was like, I mean, I was basically $0 and I mean, you know, I wasn't like, I wasn't like in debt debt, but I wasn't, I didn't have like a nest egg. And so if Ring all of a sudden went away, like that was all my like future money was in Ring.

I love how honest you are. Most people, the more successful they get and the more sort of, you know, these moments, like they try to either downplay or they're just less, less honest. And I think, and by the way, I think this is why when I called you, I was like, that dude's happy. I was like, it's not like you're like, you know, some yogi or, you know, a monk who's just like, you know, at peace.

That's not that.

But I was like, I, you, you seem free. And I think that that's something that we all hope success gives us, but it's actually not the success that gives you that. It's you have to decide how you're going to be.

I think also like, yeah, when you're facing, like when you see what the other side is, that clearly I do remember, like, it's like, I remember how lucky I am sort of every day. Like, I wouldn't call it like this. I mean, it is success. Is it like money? But like money, I think. I have so many friends that have a lot of money that are not free, which is a shame because like, that's really what this gives you is the freedom to do what you want. Like I get to wake up and work on things that I want to work on and impact things that I want to impact and be with my son and take him on college tours this past weekend. And like, I get to do things, um, because of that. And that, yes, like I am like that overall, I'd say like that is very happy.

I want to take the mindset that you used to build Ring, your approach as a, as a founder, and kind of break that down and then see what other ideas might fit that. So one of them that you told me, you said rule number one, you know, I like to start with the problem, not the solution or the technology. And so, you know, what did that mean for Ring? And then what's another example of an idea where you could, where you could take that kind of problem-first approach?

Yeah, I mean, so Ring was, I was in my garage, I couldn't hear the doorbell. So like, like, what do you, what do you need to do is you need to hear the doorbell now. When you find that problem, it turns out a lot of times new technology can help impact it. Like, oh, there's smartphones coming out. Okay, well, those have screens. Like, uh, there's Wi-Fi now in homes. There's like this. So it is that technology can assist the problem. I think the pro— the issue is most, a lot of founders will say, I found this new chip that's out there. What can we do with this? And so they don't find a real problem. They just like, you know, it is a technology looking for a problem. I like to start with like actually something that is a true problem and then it doesn't matter what the tech is. I mean, that's part of what built Ring into the, where it is today is, and again, you, you're going to laugh with mission, but by being a mission to make neighborhoods safer, we don't follow any technology. We're not a camera company. We're not an alarm company. We're not a social network company. Like we are just a making neighborhoods safer company. Which means like regardless what comes out or what we can think of, it doesn't matter what it is. If it's a steam engine in the middle of the neighborhood and that's going to make things— sure, I don't care.

And so you take that. Now, if I'm you and I'm like, oh, I was in the garage, I couldn't hear the doorbell. I think there's a part of me, the inner critic, that would have been like, this is too small. Like, you know, that doesn't sound like a big fancy idea. I'm trying to do big fancy. I'm trying to be a big success, not a small success. And, you know, is it that you did napkin math on like how many doorbells I could sell? Is it that you just don't care about market size? Like, how do you think about that?

There's a a guy who's like somewhat successful and said to me, it was the most insulting thing like almost anyone could ever say. And right when I'm doing this, he said to me, I kind of put his arm on my shoulder and he was much more successful than me at the time. I am now much more successful than he has ever been. And he put his arm on my shoulder and said like, I love you, man. Because you just like to work on these like little things and it's like so cute and fun to see. And I was like, oh my God, like that was the most like, it was like when you're finding these things, it's, if they were obvious that they were huge problems, someone would be doing it. So it's like, you have to find these problems that are sort of not obviously huge, but sort of have that, have, again, I look at it as like, what is the, what could it be? And so like with the doorbell, it was a small thing. Cause even people were like, uh, $200 doorbell, like there's doorbells are $10. And it's like, so that was the problem. But if you really looked at it and zoomed out, it's like everyone has a doorbell in their house across the world. Like globally, like literally a doorbell's on every home.

So was Nest popular at this point?

So Nest was popular as a thermostat.

Um, and they had it sold.

They were just selling or sold to Google. And Dropcam was actually the Wi-Fi camera that was out there that was doing well. And that Nest ended up, you know, that Tony ended up buying at Google to bring into Nest.

So maybe there was some inspiration where it's like, okay, uh, not the same thing, but like a household item for sure.

Oh, for sure.

Like, and I was actually like super, in fact, I actually have an email to Matt Rogers, who is the co-founder of Nest. Like when the Nest came out, I was like one of the first customers and just said like, it super inspires us, this like what you're doing here. So yeah, no, there was, there was stuff happening. But yeah, I think it's, it is hard though to see like at the time how big a market is. Again, if it was obvious, like everyone would just be like, oh, the doorbell. Oh, we should just do a doorbell. Like, look at this guy's doing a doorbell. Like, let's just, it's going to be huge. And no one thought it was going to be huge.

Did you have like a dream where you were laying in bed talking to your wife? You're like, you know, I think, I think we can make $100 million one year, one day.

I didn't. I kind of like built it. My wife was the one who said like, so this is, and this is where she's like, it makes me feel safer at home. And that was like, oh, this is like, again, like this is more than just like scratching my itch in the garage. This could. And that was what I realized that, that the security market, like the overall security market had not yet started looking at how you could build and invent products around presence and sort of like true crime prevention. Like it was, the alarm was built in the 1800s and kind of was pretty much like very the same thing, which is like trigger off of a trip and call, you know, a central station. Like it was like, that was kind of like best in class still. And we were like, we can look at this problem differently, which, which is again, that's, that was the superpower was the, not just the doorbell, but then we did the floodlight camera. Then we did like, we did all these things that were sort of unique. Um, because we were looking— even the Neighbors app, which is a, you know, it's a huge social network for crime and safety in neighborhoods. Like, all that stuff came out of looking at the problem and trying to solve it.

So what's an example of an idea today you see a problem out there that you're like, somebody could go try to solve that?

Bugs. Like, I just hate bugs. Like, I've never found anyone that likes bugs. And it's amazing that there's like no one has actually created— with all the technology, like, we can launch rockets up in the air and land them on like a little barge. We can like do all this stuff, but we can't get rid of freaking flies at my house in Missouri. And so I just, I just feel like there's got to be simple ways to do this between like solar and, you know, there's just got to be like ways to look at this problem differently than just either hitting it with some toxin that's going to kill us all as well. Um, or these other products that just don't work.

Is that your current obsession?

So I, I have realized over time you have to work on like one thing, like you can't work on 10 different products. When I meet a founder that's like, or, you know, an entrepreneur that's, uh, I'm doing this and this and they're all different. Um, I'd say, you know, 99 out of 100 times, like they're going to fail because they're just splitting their energy.

All right. Well, for the sake of entertainment, but also teaching our listeners and it's fun. Can we walk through this? Let's say that you're not at Ring and let's say that this is like actually the idea, which this idea potentially, I don't know how it's, I mean, now it's obvious that Ring is awesome, but maybe in 2014 when you were explaining to someone, they're like, What? What? That sounds so stupid. And so maybe like a lot of people are going to think bugs, flies, that's it? That's all you got? Like, let's walk us through like this idea of like why this is a big problem and like how you would attack or how you would go about solving this.

Yeah. So I would just like literally, I would stick myself on the farm. I would get the soldering iron out and I would just start like figuring out, I'd just be like, and also I'd immerse myself in the problem. Like, why are bugs going on the horses? Like, why are they like, what are they attracted? Like, what are they actually attracted to on this? Like, what are they doing? And I, I would get on ChatGPT and I would be like trying to figure that out. And I'd be like looking at everything and I just figure out like what, like, and again, simplify, like, like how do I go from a first principles approach? Like what is the way to just get rid of these damn things at scale? What would that be? How could you do it inexpensively? Um, my feeling is it has something to do with solar and either like some like kind of screw mechanism or suction to sort of like, cause you got it. It's like a big problem, right? Like it's like a, it's like a mass volume problem. And so it's like these, like, I keep thinking of these like little stations that that you just put all over your property and they're just continually sort of like collecting, um, and, and how to do that. So that's it. But I would just, and I just literally, I'd just be like building this stuff. Like I would start, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do research. I wouldn't ask friends if it's going to be a big business. I wouldn't spend time on any of that stuff. I would be out there like with solar panels and Dyson vacuum cleaners hooked up to lights and, you know, tubes. And like, I'd just be like doing this stuff.

Sam, have you seen our friend Julian's obsession with bugs?

No. So we have this friend named Julian who's like out of this world and like he's, he's only eaten steak for like 2 years and now he's moved to Hawaii and he has a ranch and he's doing crazy stuff.

Yeah, so he moves to Hawaii, he buys a ranch and he starts building like, you know, a home and he's, he's got this bug problem just like you. And because, you know, the big project he was doing was the ranch, the big problem with the big project was the mosquitoes. And so he's like, he specifically focused on mosquitoes. And so he told me, he emailed me for like over a couple month period that like just different things he was trying to do to, but what you were saying, like understand what the hell's going on with the mosquito. Where's the root problem? It's kind of first principles. And he's like, oh, the problem is we try to kill the mosquito. No, you need to kill the eggs. Because if you don't kill the eggs, for every one mosquito you're killing, there's like, whatever, 100 mosquitoes that are coming out. And then he tried, bought all the fancy contraptions, and then he realized like, oh, they lay their eggs in the water. And so what you need to do, and so I guess, I don't know all the science behind this, but he basically has this thing, I got it on the screen here, it's like this, just a bucket with water, and then you spray this, um, or you put this thing in the, in the water that's going to like kill the eggs when they try to lay them there. And so it like stops the cycle.

Yeah.

And he's like, I did it. I solved the problem with the mosquito, um, the mosquito problem, which is that they want to lay their eggs on stale water. So you put the dirt in there as you make old stale water as a trap for them. And then you put this thing in it that's going to it's a harmless to human bacteria, but it's going to kill the eggs. And he, and he was like so pumped and like, look at this thing. This thing has 11,000 bookmarks on a single tweet, which is like, you know, that's pretty, that's pretty unusual, but it kind of shows a lot of people are like, you know, have this same itch, the same problem and don't really have a good solution.

Yeah. So it's, and it's like, you know, is, is there a $5 or $10 billion company hiding in the bug space? Probably there is. Like probably, like, I mean, it's, it's global, like every, like they're everywhere. It's, it's also like, I mean, it's an issue on health. You know, mosquitoes cause health issues, flies cause health issues. So it's like, it actually, like, there's like real impact. So if you could figure something out, like it actually, it, it, you know, it is probably, you know, a $5 or $10 billion thing.

It also seems like there might be like a branding thing that you did well with Ring that like could be applicable in the bug space. Like, I don't know what all the big bug companies are, but I know Raid. It's like they all literally, like, they look and sound like killing with, like, toxin basically. And like the, you know, uh, it's all branded in a, like, a Monster Energy looking can. And you know, the way that these new, like, Celsius and Alani Nu and Prime, like, a lot of the new drinks came out and they're literally like just energy drinks but with a, like, a different vibe.

I think that's, that's a good point, is like, there's like, it is the same thing where there's like a, there is a probably a new brand in this that stands for, and it's like, it's not environmentally safe because like, I'm like some eco warrior. It's because like, you don't want to spray shit all over your house. Like you live in that. Like, it's like, that's not good. Like we do these like bug bombs and stuff. Like there's no way those are good for you. Like it can't be.

I thought the Monster Energy drink, uh, mosquito spray was a pretty good, uh, that was pretty good. Yeah. Right?

Isn't that what the can kind of looks like?

It's like, I wish someone would go do it. I wish, and like, it'd be amazing. Imagine in 5 years someone comes back. It's like, I was listening to this thing. I had the same thing. I needed like a little push. I got inspired and I built a $5 billion business out of it. Like that would be the coolest thing ever.

Ray, like we're at war. We're going to go to battle. And like, the thing about this weapon is if you don't aim it in the right direction, there might be, you know, there might be a self-inflicted wound here. Yeah.

You know, it's bad when you're using something, when you're, when you when you say the name, I can taste that. Like, it's not like I can smell it. Like, I can taste what that is like because it's like that toxin goes through your— it like blasts through your skin.

My wife hates that stuff because we have a dog, we have a baby. It's like, she's just like, look, we can't just spray this stuff all over. Like, yeah, I don't know. It's too risky, right?

And so, I mean, what were you like using it as? Hairspray? Like, why are you spraying it all over the place?

Well, you know how it is when like there's a bug that— it's like that one episode of Breaking Bad where there's a fly in the, in the, in his like meth lab. Yeah, I was meeting with a bug the other day in, in like my house, and I was like, okay, fine, mission. I'm like suited up in a hazmat suit, just going to war. But you know, you get carried away. Um, one of the things you had said I really liked was you called yourself a snowball.

Yeah, so the snowball would be like, if you think about the fly thing, it would be, I hate these flies. Okay, like that's the snowball starts going down the hill, and then I'm just like taking stuff and soldering it together, doing it. Like it's now it's gathering sort of its and then it like hits something and like you lose a little bit off the snowball, but it keeps going and you just kind of roll down the hill. And by the way, some snowballs and they're rolling down the hill, they hit like a, they hit the tree and they just explode. So like that could be the fly thing is you get to this point where you just can't figure it out. That totally happens. If you can see the finish line when you start, it's usually not a big good thing. Like it's, it's like, that's usually you're, you're not like, you're not inventing or you're not changing the world typically if it's like that clear how to get from start to finish. And so, yeah, it's like, I just kind of feel like I just kind of roll down the hill and gather and you hope you don't hit a tree. And as you get to the bottom of the hill, you hope you're like a bigger snowball. That's, you know, I guess, hopefully good for the world. Like I guess snowball, if snowballs are good for the world, that you are helpful.

When we got bought, we got bought by Twitch and Emmett, the founder. Um, he's this, you know, great entrepreneur. And I was like, you know, my value of being there, I was there to earn out my deal and, you know, be helpful, but I really wanted to learn from Emmett. I was like, this is the one guy I want to learn from while I'm here. So I asked him, I said, hey, in the early days of Twitch, did you ever like send investor updates or anything? I'm a little bit nosy. I was like, can I, would you share any of that with me? Like, I would love to see that, dude, just as an entrepreneur. Like, what was it like 10 years ago? And he's like, sure. So he sent me this update. And one of the things he wrote in there, he goes, it is one of his updates. Um, because it was hard at the time, you know, they were doing a pretty unproven thing. Uh, video game streaming, you know, it wasn't clearly going to be a big market, but he felt a sense of momentum. And he's, one of the investor updates, the title was, we are a steamroller going through a field full of flowers. And he was like just saying, and then they had gotten like 152 streamers that week. And he was like, yes. And so he was just taking a lot of pride in the small stage. Cause if you just keep looking at the small stage and poo pooing it, you never build up the momentum.

Yeah.

And the second thing he said was like, same thing. He goes, he's like, you know, I really want to try to get into this like kind of adjacent space. And I was like, why do you want to do that? It seems like there's so much more room to run still with game streaming. And he goes, yeah, but he goes, you never want to see the finish line. He's like, if he's like, cause I know he's like, I don't want to be able to see the, like the horizon at the end. He's like, even if that's still 5 years away, I need to do something that's going to push the horizon out further so that we have more room to run. Um, and I'd really never thought of it like that, but I guess, you know, as you play at scale, that's obviously like an important thing.

It's actually, I think I always think of goal, a lot of goals are actually ceilings. Like, you think of a goal and you want it to be something like you, you kind of hitting a goal perfectly is probably means the goal wasn't set right. Like, you, you want to have these, uh, directional goals, like things that you could try to achieve that are sort of tangible, but sort of in some ways unachievable. So that you're always like, to your point, like you're just trying harder to get, like, it's, it's the carrot on the stick in front of you where like, you can kind of never get the carrot, but you keep going for it.

You have a life philosophy and a life outlook that's very different from mine. But frankly, I'm envious of how you think about things, both like where you're like, I start with the problem and I'm an inventor, which sounds basic, but the way that you do it is quite nice. You have a really good attitude. And then you just made this line about like goals and ceilings. What people or what books do you think have influenced you? And if Sean and I or one of our listeners wanted to like kind of develop this Jamie mindset besides your book—

Yeah, by the way, shout out your book.

Yeah, thank you. I mean, I would of course read Ding Dong by Jamie Siminoff. I mean, I think that's the, the how-to guide of, uh, uh, of business.

No, great title, by the way.

Ding Dong. Thank you. Thank you. In all seriousness, no, I would, um, I think the book that stands out the most for me is the Walt Disney biography. If you want to read this, like, get ready. Like, you better clear your calendar because this thing is like, I think the audiobook's like 24 hours. I mean, it's whoever did that audiobook died afterwards.

Like, it was like, that was like I think like of all the people that I've talked to and all the biographies that I've listened to, the Walt Disney biography might be the most cited version I've ever heard. And like Walt, I've never read it, but there's all these stories, uh, where like on the small things, like apparently someone was building like a train in Walt's backyard for his kids or grandkids. I don't know, something like that. And he wasn't there, like a contractor that says like, well, we can't make the train curve. And he's like, well, it has to curve because when someone's on the train, I don't want them to know what's coming up next.

That is the embodiment of it. And it's also, he was so maniacal about every detail of every experience. And I was, what I was going to say is when you read this book, you realize that he was tortured. He could never achieve what he wanted to, which was like absolute perfection of this. And so when a movie would come out, like my, my, the, the thing that I took out the most from his book was Every movie that would come out, because, you know, he was pushing animation ahead, like, like the technology in animation. So like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves come out. He's sitting in the theater in the back. Everyone's watching it, like, literally mind-blowing, like, seeing what's up there. But because he's already working on the next movie and the next iteration of animation, he knows that this is shit. Like, he knows that, like, that movie is not as good as the next one's going to be. And he's like, literally like crying in the back of this theater. That he's showing such a bad product to people because it could be so much better. And all he wants to show them is the next one. And I thought that's like the struggle of a true inventor and entrepreneur and like product person is like, you just, like everything I put out, I'm mad because I know I can be better. And it's like that, just that constant thing. And that's like, that's how you drive to be the best. And, um, there's definitely, you know, like I think you look at some of the greatest inventors and entrepreneurs out there, you see that constant, just like that, that that, that drive, like that engine that just, they can't stop.

Yeah. You seem a lot happier than him. Um, which is, uh, a good attribute to also have.

It's not, it's not terrible.

There's, um, another one of your, your philosophies as an entrepreneur that I really liked was you talked about this idea of Tom Brady. I've used this, uh, you know, I did, we did this call before this pod, uh, like a week ago or so. I've already used it twice in my thinking in between. So that's when you know an idea sticks. So could you explain the Tom Brady hiring thing.

Yes. I mean, every team, like when you get to the whatever, and I'm not that into sports, but you know, they trade like the first trade pick for this. And like, they're always trying to get like the first pick of the, the, the, the, of like the, what is it called?

The draft.

The draft is how much I'm into sports. So, but like every team, they, they had the chance to get Tom Brady multiple times. Like, it's actually insane. It's like they didn't just have like one shot at him. He was the 199th draft pick. Like everybody had the chance to get Tom Brady. And so while everyone's focused on like whatever the number one draft pick of that year, I don't know, the number top 10, I probably are unknown to us today. Um, but Tom Brady is one of the greatest athletes of all time. And so to me, as a, as a business, you have to find the Tom Bradys. They're actually out there for you. Like everybody has access to Tom Brady or the Tom Brady of your business of that area. It's like, how do you find them? How do you incentivize them? How do you let them become the Tom Brady? That is just the amazing thing. Whereas I meet with founders who are like, oh, I'm trying to get the person from the company of the this. And it's like, that's the number one draft pick and you're going to just probably pay too much. And honestly, they're probably not going to be known in 10 years. Great.

Sounds good. How? My—

so there's lots of people have lots of different methods for finding great people. My thing is Uh, hire fast, fire faster. The mission really helps. So you sort of bring someone in, like the interview is basically like, I mean, obviously, like, do you have the skills to do the, like, the basic job? So like, it's like, there's like a sort of a light bar, but above that, it's just, are you passionate? Do you want to work on this problem with us? Like, do you, and do you really want to work on this problem with us? Like, do you want to wake up in the morning excited about this problem? If you're passionate, you want to work on the problem and you have the minimum skill set to do it, we'll let you, we'll let you try. Like, it's just like, let, let, like, I don't know, go out there and throw the ball. Like, see how you do. And you give them massive autonomy in their area. Like, give them the ability to succeed or fail. I think another thing that a lot of companies do is they so, like, wrap you in soft, like, in— they don't want you to fail. So they stop you from succeeding. It's like such a weird thing. It's like they, like, they, they're so worried that maybe you're gonna, you know, if you're not able to do that level of the job, so we gotta be careful. Like, we don't want you to be, get, be over your head versus like, let Tom Brady be Tom Brady, let him throw the ball. And, and, and when you let those people do it, it's like, it's incredible. And yes, in the process of that, you're going to have people that are just going to like not be able to, you know, succeed at those jobs and you you know, you move on with them and you do it. And by the way, you can be compassionate in that. It's not— you don't have to be, um, how fast do you fire?

Like when people say hire fast, fire fast, that's, that's a little bit vague. So like, uh, let's say you meet someone, how fast would you offer them a job?

At that time, like, I mean, you know, we're probably not in that sort of like with Amazon now and stuff. It's like, obviously, and it is as you get bigger, like things are a bit different. Back in the startup days, I'd say like 3 to 6 months. Because you certainly don't want to like, it's not like the first day someone comes in, you say like, okay, you're bad. Like, or you're good. I mean, it takes someone a little bit of time to get their, like their feet wet to get sort of get their footing, but you want to be pretty quick. It's, it's, I would say it's very rare if you talk to almost anyone that, you know, an entrepreneur or leader that they say like, I wish pretty much anyone that you say like when they fired someone, it's like, I wish I'd done it sooner.

So 3 to 6 months. What about hiring?

Hiring is like on the spot. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a on the, like, I mean, again, Amazon is a little bit different now. So I'll just be like honest of like, yes, like we have a bigger company. We have like some more like it and you have to do that. It's like, that's part of the, that's par for the course. But, but yeah, we were like, like Mimi, who is my chief revenue officer today. She cold emailed me and said, I worked at Dyson. I now work at Sonos. You know, I see what you guys are doing. I'm in the neighborhood. I'd love to stop by. So great, stop by. So she sits down with Don and I, Don runs our sales. She starts talking. I look at Don, Don looks at me. I said, we should just hire her, right? He goes, yeah. I said, okay, you're hired. And she's like, she's kind of like, like, are you two jokers serious? Like, this is like, I was just coming to talk to you. And I'm like, Beth, done. I'm like, do you not want to work here? And she's like, no, no, I want to work here. I'm like, well then, then just come in to work here. She's like, what am I doing?

I'm like, I don't know.

You just said you seem to like know all these problems we have. So like, go fix them. Like, I like. You just told me that we're doing all this stuff wrong. Like, why don't you just take whatever that is, like make that job title and go do it. And she's our chief revenue officer today.

So have you ever heard Warren Buffett describe his, his thing with this, with people and the too hard pile?

No, I actually haven't.

So, um, this guy came on the podcast, Mohnish Pabrai, and he, in the episode he described, he, he bought a charity lunch from Buffett for $650,000. He had learned so much from Buffett. He had been super successful doing Buffett's method, basically. And he's like, this is my— my tuition is overdue. So he's like, I'll do— I'll buy the charity lunch and we'll go. And I have no expectations. So I said, what did you ask him? And he asked Warren Buffett, he goes, Warren, you seem to be a really good judge of people. Like, he hired some pretty great people inside of Berkshire, and you've avoided a lot of the kind of like doing the wrong acquisitions. So you seem to be a good judge of people.

What's your—

what's the secret? And Warren Buffett goes, no, I don't think I'm that good at people. He goes, I think what I do is I'm a very harsh grader. So he said, he goes, basically the cost of me saying no to a good person, to somebody who actually turned out to be good, it's not that consequential if, say, if they turned out to be good and I happened to say no because I couldn't tell. But if I say yes to too many people who happen to be really bad, that becomes very costly and very hard for me to unwind. So he goes, if I was at a dinner party, and there was 100 guests and you let me spend 5 minutes with each person, he goes, I could, without a doubt, I could tell you these 5, no doubt, are fantastic. These 5, definitely stay away, they're sort of toxic, or there's something, you know, uh, that I don't trust about them. And then there's 90 people who I don't know, I can't tell in 5 minutes, and they all go in what I call the too hard pile. It's just too hard to tell. And he goes, a lot of life just works by putting everything else in the too hard pile and just focusing on the 5 things that you pretty clear and pretty sure about in a very small amount of time. And everybody wastes their time trying to get clarity on that 90%. That's very hard to figure out. It takes a lot of time and energy and you're going to get it wrong a lot.

Yeah. And I say, I, so, and so kind of my method has been on the hiring is the too hard pile is I'm aware that I'm not that good at figuring out who's in that pile always. And so if it, if I'm wrong, I'm just going to be very quick to sort of pull the trigger. And by the way, like You can also be wrong pulling the trigger. Like if you're pulling the trigger after 3 to 6 months, like you can be wrong. Um, I'll also say like there's lots of people who didn't fit our culture who went on to do incredible things and are incredibly successful. So it's not that like failing at Ring was failing in life. It was, you just didn't fit what we were doing. And we are a unique lock and you want a unique key to work in that lock. And that's where I would say the empathy side, like I didn't fire them being like, you're terrible, get out of here. Like it was like, like, it just doesn't, like, we're not working out together. Um, and I would feel bad for every single one of them that they have to go back to their family or whatever. Like that, it was, so that did weigh on me, but I also wanted the business to have this clarity and to move fast and to, you know, and from the Buffett thing, like I will say the wrong people are really, really could be like, that's bad.

Can I ask you about one thing here? You said, um, I just don't know how to stop. And sometimes it's not smart and it costs me.

Yeah. It's like, this is like the, this is like the Jerry Maguire, like, you're going to make me cry, Sam. You're going to do this. Yeah. I mean, I think if I, if I look at like part of, you know, it's, it's even like we talked about that ADD thing. It's like, I just keep going. Like, I just don't stop. And, you know, overall, that's probably like, you know, I think, so I keep telling young people keep asking me like, what should I do? you know, AI's coming out. Like, I don't know where I should go to college or what should I do? And it's like, just put yourself in a position where you can just grind. Like, just go grind because you just got to get out. Like, it's, it's, no one knows where the world's going to go. No one knows what's happening. You can't control the world. Everyone like acts as if they can. Luck has to be your co-pilot. And so just go out there and just, just keep grinding. And a lot of those times when you're grinding, it's hard because when you can't actually see where it's getting you to. You talk to entrepreneurs that have already made it. So it's like people say the average business takes 7 years to be successful. So we'll say to me, so you're like, it's kind of like you knew when you started that you had 7 years. It's like, no, you don't ever know that it's going to be successful. Like it's the average. It's just, so I do think the grinding thing is it's underestimated how hard that is to keep grinding because it's, you don't see where it's going and you need sometimes to have these weird other factors happen. That are out of— outside of your control to make your success happen. Just like Instagram coming out while we're building a camera at your front door, you know, that superpowered our message. I didn't build Instagram. I didn't, like, push it out there. I didn't help it. I didn't know it was coming, but I kept grinding on my side and got lucky on some of these other things.

One of the things I liked that you told me was, um, you look for products where 90% of the marketing is already done. and I called it last mile marketing. And you were describing how this worked in your favor at Ring and how sometimes an entrepreneur can go wrong if you, if you really need to like educate the market about something completely from scratch.

Yeah. So it's, it's, and I, so I would call it pre-awareness. So if you can, if you can try to like give a little bit of invention, a little bit of differentiation to something that has pre-awareness, you, it's incredible because if you look at the, there's a cost, just look at like the cost, like A new-to-world product, you have the cost to tell someone about it is incredibly expensive. Like if I have to tell you about some product and everything I have to tell you about it is, is new to world, it's very hard for you to understand it. And they like go to the film business, like when it's a completely new film, it costs more to market it than Top Gun 2. Because Top Gun 2, like, you know, everything, like, you know, Top Gun, you know, you know, Tom Cruise, like there's so much pre-awareness in that. The doorbell, putting a camera on a doorbell. And again, I sort of got lucky to learn this thing is everyone knew where the doorbell was mounted. They knew what the doorbell did. They knew like the functionality of it. I just added like a piece to that. I did the same thing with a floodlight camera. You knew what a floodlight looked like. You knew where it goes. Like, you know what it does for you. And now you add a camera to it. And so wherever you can use this pre-awareness, I mean, like Liquid Death, like it's water. Like you didn't have to tell someone like what this drink was or like, it's like, but they changed like a piece of it. And so I just think like changing a piece of it, getting your edge on it, um, in something where there's pre-awareness, great, great way to start because you get billions or hundreds of billions of dollars. Like in my case, like the doorbell, think about how much like advertising sort of dollars or whatever, like you want to call it. Um, you know, come from the doorbell just being known for the last 100 years.

All right. So I told everyone that, um, you know, we give a list. We were like, let's start with ideas. Let's start with strong opinions and cool stories. You have one on here that actually was probably one of the most eye-catching things I've ever read. You bought a town in Missouri. Is that right?

I, I, well, I, I, I went to a town in Missouri that had, um, and a lot of these small towns now, if you go out into the Midwest and to some of these areas between like the opioid, uh, issues, industrial farming, like these towns have just been just pummeled. And this town, La Belle, Missouri, when I went there was really like I'd say it was in, it was in pretty tough shape.

You're actually, you're actually the second guest that we've had that has bought a town in Missouri. The first is Al Doan. He bought a small town. Him and his mom own a knitting company that is a multi—

totally know that town. Yeah, it's amazing.

Yeah. So, so basically Al and his mom, his mom started it and then Al, I guess, is like running it where it's like a knitting company and he has bought a town in Missouri. And he calls it like, uh, Disneyland, but for knitters.

Yeah, I think, I think it is, but it's become this, this place has become like the Mecca. Like people go there. It's amazing.

Um, by the way, Al, I'm so sorry. It's called Missouri Quilting Company. It's, I totally missed it.

I actually, I do want to talk, I got to talk to him at some point. Cause I, he's done some amazing stuff. What I tried to do though, is just a little different. So they've made it like, it is, it is an incredible destination and they've done an incredible, like from what I've seen, like an incredible job. My thing was I really just wanted to help bring this town— again, I'm an inventor. I look at things that I see that are sort of not where I believe they should be or a problem. Like, yeah, we go to our problem, right? Like, what's the problem? The problem is that this cute little town no longer has any business. The sidewalks are broken. And also people's perspective had changed.

Like, how did you show up there though?

So I invested in a business off of Shark Tank. I went back on Shark Tank as a shark. Invested in a business called Moink, this woman, uh, Lucinda Cramsey from La Belle, Missouri. And, uh, and she has this direct-to-consumer meat company where we buy from small farmers and send it out. Very missionary, really cool little business. And I go there and visit with my family. And, um, I just like fall in love with the place. My son's running around on hay bales. He doesn't even know what his phone is at that point. Like, it's just like, you know, we're coming from Los Angeles. And he like, it's just amazing. And I ended up buying a little farm there and fixing up the house and getting involved with the community. The town was really in sort of a tough place. And so we started fixing up the sidewalks and like kind of the broken windows theory of like, if you kind of start fixing some stuff up, you know, would other people join in? There was a lot of like kind of trash on some lots and like kind of that kind of stuff. And so people started cleaning up their stuff. We cleaned up the streets and the, and the sidewalks. We then. Took the building that was broken on the side of the thing and fixed it up and made it into a beautiful coffee shop. There was no place— it's like crazy. There was no place within an hour to sit with someone during the day and talk to them about anything except the bar. And I like going to a bar, but a bar is not a great place to have like a civil discussion about things. And so like the coffee shop is an important fabric of the community. So we brought the coffee shop there and it's like, that became cool and actually became successful. And then We helped fix up the tavern in town and made it this awesome, it's like the coolest bar ever, but it's like farm to table with organic grass-fed beef from my ranch. Um, no one even cares because out there they just like, they're like, well, whatever, but it's like literally the best food you'll ever have like anywhere. It's like incredible. It's like literally probably the best like beef in the world. And then a doctor put an office there and a health clinic now, and that's been helping and the town's gotten healthier. And as that happens, people, so it's like this, again, this is the snowball effect or like the. The, the, the incredible flywheel of you get things going and then people sort of take it from there. They also are like, I don't want this, you know, Jamie, this city slicker from LA. Why is he making all the money? Like, I want to, you know, it's great. Like, have the greed be there. Someone started building apartments, like little apartments there. Um, it's a town of 700. It's amazing.

That's badass.

So what, what do you think makes, um, like there's all those like levers that you talked about, like, you know, the coffee shop so that people have this third place. There's fixing the sidewalks and the broken windows. I imagine, like, I don't know, sports or church. There's like other things that kind of like revitalize the community. Was there anything that surprised you that like how, how much of a difference it made? Like it seems small, but actually it's pretty big.

What surprised me, or I should say, should, didn't surprise me. So when I went to it, I'm like, I'll just buy, like you said, like I bought a town. Like, and I did not, like I took part with others in the town to change the perspective. And so I was a catalyst, but like, it turned out you needed everyone.

So Would you be comfortable revealing how much, like, you had to invest or how much money?

It's, it's quite a bit, but I'd say the, the, what really needed though was everyone to join in. Like, it wasn't like you could say, this is actually what's interesting is it wasn't the money. Like when I went there, it's like, I would like, I saw the town. I'm like, I'll write a check. You know, it's like, sadly, like I was like, I'll write a check and I'll like, just fix this whole place up and it'll be nice. Like, I'll just do that. Like, and then. No one would even sell me any properties. Everyone was like, ah, like it. And then I just started to get involved in the town. I drive my backhoe into town, you know, like with a Bud Light in the cup holder and like, you know, talking to everyone. And like, they realize that I'm just one of— like, I'm one of them. And like, we're just all friends.

Like a movie, man. And this is the scene where like, totally, this guy, you might be all right.

Yeah. And I did, because I, I am— I love sitting out with them. At the side of a pickup truck, watching the sunset on the farm and having a beer. Like, I, that's my happiest place to be. So, and then I started, we started fixing up the sidewalks and I went out there and like, I was part of it. That was the other thing is truly being part of it. It wasn't the money. It was like showing that support. And then another guy in town's like, I'm going to help fix this up. And I'm like, great. And we just, it was, you know, it's like also what created Ring. It's like a thousand things that we did. It's not one thing. And so it's like, there was nothing that surprised me that was like one thing we did. I am surprised. I mean, the coffee shop I thought would lose money. I just didn't want it to lose too much money. It actually makes money. So that was surprising. Um, but I'd say what the, the unsurprising thing is, it's like, it's just, it's, it's also a long thing. Like it's been 7 years that I've been working on this now with the, with the people there. I'd say we're like, now turning the corner, but it's probably another 7 years to get it really where you'd hope it to be because it just, it's like every year you do another project, every year you do another thing. Like you can't just do it all at once.

Every 4 months, uh, in this podcast, here's what happens. You see Sean and I sit on our hands like this. If we just stare at you because we're in, you got us.

By the way, if you guys are in, let's do a podcast from La Belle Misere. Sam, I mean, you can, you know, you can go visit home and then, and then come up.

So, well, I'm in for that. That's, I'm, I'm, I'm, what I was saying was I'm in on Jamie.

I think it's so cool. I mean, even the way we said it was wrong. It's not that you bought a town, you invested time and energy and money into a town. You invested kind of a piece of soul into it. And the idea is kind of like some places just need a little bit of that, like CPR, just to bring them back to life. Um, and get that, you know, it takes a little bit of pumping.

A catalyst. Like, they're like, like, like I was a catalyst, but I was not the, Right. It, again, it's like, it is a business, right? Like, it takes a team. It takes everyone being on board. Everyone rolling, like, it's all these things are the same thing. Like, it's, it's not just like getting venture capital money and you just make it. Like, you don't just like, you know, do that. It's like, it's very, it's hard to build something great.

The, uh, the TripAdvisor page is pretty cool. You guys named stuff, uh, really well. It's called the top places The Milkweed Inn, the Tick Tock Motel, Tippy's Bar and Grill, Stanley's Diner. I'm in. I want to say it. I want to stay and eat at all those places.

All right.

That's awesome. I think, you know, in the sort of like, I don't like the idea of legacy. I think legacy is just sort of like an ego thing. But I do think we do get remembered for certain things by others. And it's not always what we expected. It's not always in our control. And I think what you're doing here is, is really cool. This would be if you're on a TED Talk. I actually want to hear this story more than the Ring story. I think it's, it's such a cool life resume, you know, win. And I'm sure it's been very, like, satisfying and fulfilling in a way that just doing another company or hitting another, like, quarterly sales goal would never do for you at this stage. And so I think it's pretty awesome to hear that because I think, you know, we all want to— we're in the game of entrepreneurship initially for the success and then satisfy some insecurity, get some financial independence. But then why do you stay in the game? Well, it's because it's fun to play. And two, like, these projects are just vehicles. It's just like workout equipment. Um, it's— you're there to have to like to go for a ride. You're there to grow a little bit. And so I think this is a really cool project that, that you did.

Entrepreneurs should be making the world better. And so like, whether it's on a big scale, small scale, whatever, like we should just be like working to do that.

Is this going to be like a second act for you? I mean, this is like, first of all, this is like, you know, I don't— we have to figure out how the story ends and like hopefully there's like a good like fairytale ending of it. Like the town thrives or whatever, but like, is there like a book here? Is there a movie here? Because this seems like a pretty, like, uh, pretty funny and like interesting tale.

I, I mean, maybe. I, I don't know. I, I kind of just would hope that— I just wish more people would go do this. Like, I just think like we need to like, It's like, I, if we could use, if all the people that have learned so much could use their brains and a little bit of their capital to do this, like we would solve so many problems because it is going to the root of the problem. Like, like we look, we keep, we always treat the output of the problems. Like we have hospitals to treat people that have had sugar all their lives, but we don't stop people from eating sugar. And then we try to tell them not to eat sugar, but we actually don't like Do things to make sure that like they understand why. And so it's like, I think like part of this is like, if you look at this, this area now, it's like healthier, like it's like all these things. And so how do you, like, how do you figure out like the root of problems and fixing it? So I, I'd say like LaBelle is just like one of, I don't even know, 5,000 towns in the U.S. that have the same thing. And if you grow up like that, you know, there's going to be like societal issues that come from if we leave areas behind.

And so I think that like I'm in New York City right now. I'm from Missouri. I'm in New York City right now. And there's the Langone Hospital nearby. And it's just, you know, the guy who started Home Depot probably donated $1 billion to start this hospital. But then like 4 blocks away, there's this other hospital, this other hospital, this other hospital, all rich guys. Yeah. And that's wonderful. You know, great. But what is not talked about is like middle America or like, you know, instead of like donating to different countries, like it's not particularly accessible in terms of it's top of mind or it's even thought of as a thing of like investing into a small town. But it seems like a really awesome way to give directly to the recipients, but also the, the teaching them how to fish kind of idea of like, look, I'm, I'm helping. It's our town, it's your town, and I'm just here as a part of it. And it makes it just a little bit better, which snowballs into something bigger. And that, and that's really fascinating because because every rich person, or a lot of rich entrepreneurs, they want to do dope shit. They do want legacy. And like, it seems like a really great option.

I think it is. And it's where you can also use like your superpower of what you've learned. Like you can actually like impart your knowledge. It's not, it's not just money. It's like money obviously does help, but you need a little bit of that like spark to help. But it's not cash. It's like actually more about using your brain and helping. And by the way, what you learn from it, like what I've learned from being there is incredible. Like that's the other side. We just need to share more.

A lot of the tech guys, it's like, you know, cool to be in politics right now. And, um, I've— that is not my personal inspiration. And I hear a story like this and I'm like, man, that sounds so much more helpful. Uh, and very fascinating.

Yeah. Very cool, Jamie. Well, I appreciate you coming on, telling the story. Uh, shout out the book. It just came out 2 days ago. So, um, shout out the book. People should read it to hear, to get the full story. Uh, what's it called? Where do people get it?

So it's Ding Dong: How a Shark Tank Reject Went to Everyone's Front Door. It's available on Amazon.com.

Man, you're the best. We, you know, Sean and I have a bunch of favorite people. I think Jesse Itzler, Rob Dyrdek, we've had on about 4 or 5 other guys. You have just made our Mount Rushmore. Thank you for doing this.

You're the shit. Thank you. I'll see you in Missouri. We'll be doing a follow-up podcast from there.

There we go. I'm in.

I don't know about Sean.

I'm in.

I'm in.

I'm in.

How can you say no after, after such a great story?

Well, thanks for doing it. That's the pod.