SPEAKER_01
All right, K is from this show. Hello. Thanks for having me, man. So explain to people who you are because I came across your Instagram.
People are just sharing your posts again and again and again. And I was like, I need to reach out to this guy and try to understand who he is and how he's doing this. And I just want to crawl in your brain a bit.
SPEAKER_00
So yeah, I mean, I would say Instagram is like a really small part of what I do. It's a way that a lot of people find me and kind of get into my proverbial funnel, but it's really a small part of what I do. I'd say the joke that I say is that I share my feelings for a living.
That's the like brand and it comes to life in many different ways. Like for one, I'm a podcaster. I've been podcasting since 2014.
I host a podcast on Sirius XM called New Mindset Houdis. So all things mindfulness. I've created products that are in Target and Walmart, bringing mindfulness to life in fun ways.
I have created candle lines. I've created journaling lines. I do a lot in music with artists in dance music with music and mindfulness.
So really I'm just very passionate about the topic of mindfulness and I've privileged to be able to do it for a living and talk and share my feelings for a living. Instagram just being a way to bring my idea of mindfulness to life in small, consumable ways. You know, grateful that people like to really share that content.
But for me, it all started with the podcast, frankly. That's like the, you know, the center of my universe. It's where I create all my original content.
It's where I then decide to create products and books from it.
SPEAKER_01
So it's interesting that you said that you started with the podcast because a lot of people ask me, should I start a podcast? And I'm always kind of like, if you don't have an audience, like don't, honestly, because there's no discovery built in within podcasting. Like how were you able to break through in the podcasting world without having an audience?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. Yeah. I hate to say I'm the exception, but your advice is true. It's very difficult, right? Most of the, you know, podcasts nowadays that are started are started by people with big followings or her moving their following from an email list or something like that.
And that's obviously the way to do it. I started podcasting in 2014 on a different podcast and then I started New Minds at Houdas in 2018. At the time, I think I had like, I don't know, 10,000 followers on Instagram or something.
So, you know, not like half a million. So there's the growth there. Um, I don't know.
I mean, I did a lot of different things over the years. I've grown large email lists. Like I was building an email newsletter at the same time, like morning brew was I was close with those guys.
So like I learned a lot about like how to build a brand. But you know, for me, I think podcasting in a serious way in 2018 did give me a little bit of an advantage. It was a little bit before kind of the, the heyday that we're in now, but really the way that my social came about was I created the podcast.
It did really well. I remember the first month that did 56,000 downloads with no social media following and that doesn't sound like a lot, but for a no name podcast, there's a start with that in a month. It puts you in, you know, a category of being successful.
And from there, you know, I, I podcast for about a year and I was like, Oh, this is really interesting. Like it's doing well. Then it was a hundred thousand a month, 200, 300,000 a month.
I was like, I should, I should monetize this. But I didn't want to do ads. So I was like, what can I create for my audience that I can sell to in a really authentic way landed on a creating a journal.
Actually, I don't know if you know Austin from morning brews. Actually, he puts something in my head and suggested that and I ended up doing it. But when I started to create the journals and I sold them and they started to do really well, I started to put a lot of ad spend into it and in effect started to really create this, you know, the business did seven figures.
And in the first eight months, it did really, really well, but then I used that momentum to pour it back into the podcast. So the podcast quickly became part of the e-commerce marketing cycle. And that kind of helped explode the podcast as well.
All my fulfillment emails, all the follow up emails, all the loyalty emails within my funnel pointed people back to the podcast. So it became this really nice cycle of organic content, created journal from it, market the journal with paid ads, push people back to the podcast, pushing the social and it became this thing. And ever since it's become a really organic way for me to create content on the podcast, see what people react to, create a book from it, create a product from it, and then just go from there.
So really nice, like, unforced cycle.
SPEAKER_01
So what you're describing is a flywheel. Basically, it's a creator flywheel. And that's like the holy grail of what every, they're calling them now creator prener's, which are like creators plus entrepreneurs wants to be at.
Just like walk me through the whole flywheel in like one level deeper. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_00
So I mean, the lowest level of course was the podcast. I've been doing it twice a week for five years. I just hit episode 500.
It's my thing. It's, it's ingrained in my routine twice a week and then pretty much 24 seven because I'm always thinking of content and I don't do guests on the podcast. So it's all just like case Kenny's thoughts of the day.
Honestly, came from a really like self self compassionate place. Like I worked in advertising for 11 years before I started doing this in Chicago with a bunch of the, you know, tier one agencies and then an advertising technology sales and let a sales team in Chicago. When I was about to turn 30, I was basically like, you know, call it a quarter life crisis, whatever you want to call it, break up and I was traveling a lot for the job.
I was based in Chicago, I was going to like Toledo in Columbus and St. Louis in Kansas city. No disrespect to those cities, of course, but it was just like little playing to hear the rent the car to here.
And I was just like, man, what would happen if 20 years from now I looked back and was like, I never questioned anything. I never questioned who I was dating, what I was doing, the goals I had, so on and so forth. So I created the podcast from a pretty genuine place of wanting to challenge myself.
I'm a pretty type by person and the fact that I didn't have great answers to some pretty simple questions of who am I, what do I want, so on and so forth. I was like, let me start a podcast in 2018, a little less cliche than the straight white guy starts a podcast in 2023. So it was a little more vulnerable and I saw it as a, you know, platform to just push myself.
And then from there, yeah, it just became this thing where I realized what I was doing. I was practicing mindfulness, you know, the art of introspection, the art of radical honesty and it just became a really simple thing where I was just asking myself questions and answer them for myself and for other people. And then, you know, the podcast started to grow.
Then I started to do a lot of dating content through the lens of mindfulness, not like how to text someone or anything like that, but through the lens of mindfulness. And that's what really blew up the podcast from a content perspective. And then, yeah, it became really easy because I don't do guests.
Typically, I mean, I have, but it's typically me just, you know, hey, here's something I saw the other day. Here's a tick-tock that said, don't catch feelings. And I was like, that's stupid.
We should catch feelings. And I would just react to stuff through my lens. And I really, I don't call myself an expert or a guru.
It's really not my thing. I'm not a licensed therapist, of course. So just try to keep it real and simple.
And it's just, you know, it's easy. It's easy to do 500 episodes when it helps you and it helps me. It's my therapy.
So I've been doing it for five years and then year four, serious exam came along and bought up the distribution rights and the advertising rights. So then it became this big thing, but the answer your question, that's kind of where it came from.
SPEAKER_01
So that's the podcast. And so that's part one of the flywheel. From your podcast, are you driving people somewhere?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I always drive the newminds.satutis.com, which links all my journals, all my books, different products that I'm involved in. Obviously, when I first started, it was just one journal, the new mindset journal, which I created in January, 2020.
I launched that Indiegogo in 2020, January 2020, raised 37, 39,000, did not do well. I actually lost money on that between agency expenses. I hired an agency to help me, three PL expenses, manufacturing expenses.
Just didn't really know what I was doing. It is what it is. So I lost, you know, a couple grand on it.
Then COVID hit and I had fulfilled the initial cohort of people who bought it on Indiegogo. And I had like 2000 journals left over. I was like, oh man, these are burning a hole in my pocket with my three PL and Cicero, Illinois.
I've got to get rid of these. So I started posting on Instagram just, you know, at the end of that time I had, I don't know, maybe 50,000 followers or something. Just, and it's luck, randomness, timing, positioning, something happened where they just started to sell.
And I remember at that point having Shopify notifications turned on on my phone, was getting a little ping. I was like, oh, this is, this is crazy. People are actually buying this.
And then I started to run ads and ads were really still cruising and especially during, during COVID, the early part of COVID really cruising. So I started to put money into it. And in the first 18 months, it did about five and a half million.
And that's not a number flex. I learned a lot. I messed up a lot.
I really screwed up inventory. You know, my P&L was all over the place, but it kind of took off.
SPEAKER_01
And then when you say ads, you're talking Facebook ads.
SPEAKER_00
I'm talking Facebook, TikTok, did a little search, but principally Facebook meta.
SPEAKER_01
And like, what did the ad copy say like that?
SPEAKER_00
It was wild. It was so silly. Like every marketer would tell you it wouldn't work.
My initial ads were static carousel images of text messages that someone might send after standing up for themselves or affirmations to remind them of themselves. And then the final carousel would be a picture of the, of the journal, but it was very incongruent. Like it was text messages for a printed journal.
It was very confusing, but it was still cruising at like a five times row ads on it. And it worked really well. Obviously, you know, since a lot has happened in advertising and iOS and all that jazz, a lot has changed and has really, you know, forced me and my fellow Ecom compatriots to get really good with creative.
But frankly, I really don't spend that much on ads anymore. You know, luckily so since, since then two, three years ago, things have taken off organically for me where, you know, my books on Amazon, I'm on Amazon now, about two years in, I started selling on Amazon and let that ecosystem really boost everything. But in the beginning, the ads were really simple.
Didn't really know what I was doing, but they worked.
SPEAKER_01
I'm on your website right now and new mindset who dis join a community of 300,000 journalists. And there's a bunch of, you know, you can shop the best sellers and stuff like that. Yep. So let's just say someone comes in from an ad, a Facebook ad. Yeah. They buy, they buy the journal. They make that a part of their habit.
How do they hear about the podcast? Like what's that flow look like?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. Twofold. For one, there's a page in the journal that actually promotes the podcast and drives people there.
So you're actually going to be reminded of it in the book. The second, of course, is the fulfillment process and the drip flow through, I use claveo through the actual fulfillment process itself. The first email you'll get when you confirm your journal is, Hey, while you wait, why don't you get ready with some mindset and then it points to the points to the podcast.
I've also in the past, I've also been somewhat clever, I suppose, by I drip some affiliate emails, affiliate links into the email specifically with some of the online therapy groups that pay pretty large CPAs there. So also while you wait, why don't you start with therapy. So that's also worked pretty well.
But yeah, the email has been a big way to promote it.
SPEAKER_01
So that's smart on a lot of level. So first, I don't think enough people do this where they have a low ticket item that they sell via paid ads, mostly, and then put them in a drip campaign that ultimately leads them to audience building, community building and affiliate deals that are related like value add affiliate deals to help basically, you know, get your return on ads and up. Yeah, people, the baseline is like, Oh, I'm just going to like create an ad.
I'm going to sell it. I'm going to sell my product and hopefully get and get an email and market to them in the future. But there's so much more you can do.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I mean, that's my exact. I mean, every additional listener on the podcast because I have programmatic ads in the podcast is money in my pocket. So any any link in an email should benefit the economics of the business that I've built in a healthy way.
I've also I also have like Amazon affiliates in there because I sell a lot of my products on Amazon. So, you know, there's a lot of different ways to make money from from one click that goes beyond the purchase, the actual item that comes from that they bought.
SPEAKER_01
And then the other important piece, I think is just like the product itself, you're like double dipping and triple dipping on like all levels basically.
SPEAKER_00
Oh, 100%. Yeah, I mean, it's really beneficial because I mean, for one, you know, I designed the journals with a certain aesthetic, it's meant to be shared. Like I like a lot of the quotes that I post on Instagram come from the journal and vice versa where people are just incentivized to get their phone out, take it and share it.
And that drives people to social and that drives people further back to the podcast. So, you know, it works really well. And then I wrote a book this past year that was not a journal that was not like a quote product.
It was a book book. And that has really helped as well, just like really just creating a line of products from from entry to, you know, wherever people want to go that benefits their style, whether it's journaling or reading. Or I've because I have audio books as well.
So it's, you know, it sounds a lot more strategic than I think it was. It just to me, it just was like, duh, this is what I do. But, you know, having the support of like serious for the podcast also like, I used to sell my own ads on it and stuff.
And that was really complicated. But like bringing someone else on board who can do it at scale. It's a dangerous game because there are a lot of ads in my podcast and it is rather short, which I don't particularly like.
But when you're a capitalist trying to make money off a podcast. But, you know, all the things move together and I try to be really specific about the advertisers that I work with and, you know, it's not just throwing money at something.
SPEAKER_01
Quick interruption from me. If you're listening to this on Apple podcast or Spotify, you're getting any value you need to come to YouTube and subscribe to the where it happens podcast YouTube channel. I promise you the experience is richer, more interesting.
So if you're getting any value, just stop what you're doing. Open up the YouTube app. Go to the website and press subscribe at where it happens on YouTube.
And if you're watching this on YouTube and you haven't subscribed, what are you doing? Go, go press subscribe. Thank you. Enjoy the rest of the show.
The book. Why write a book? You know, it just seems hard.
SPEAKER_00
Well, it's not hard when you have a podcast, because I could just I just go to my podcast I sort by top listens and I'm like, huh, is there a pattern here? Yes, let me write a book from my top podcasts. And I've already written all the podcasts like the podcasts are written with very detailed outlines. I just take that line turn it into a book.
I don't think there will be a point where I write a book from zero from scratch. It's always built from analytics, things I've talked about things that people react well to. So you talk about a cycle there.
Furthermore, I mean, I'm an author like that is who I am. I don't. I love being an entrepreneur love creating products, but you know my heart and my soul is is the art of the content.
It's it's speaking, it's writing, it's it's creating ideas from a media standpoint. It's also easier in my experience to get traction from a book. I was on the Today Show two weeks ago, which is a pretty unique opportunity.
And it was a five minute segment on me and the book. And he likes to cover books, especially when there's like a nice meaty promise to it. And, you know, for me, writing a book is also about distribution.
Like I distribute the book exclusively on Amazon, which pushes to my other Amazon products, which are my journals and it just, it's just, it just brings in new people who want a book that aren't
SPEAKER_01
my readers or journalists who want to read and it just creates a nice again cycle. I see it and you've got the fly well going. I also see it and I'm kind of like, well, there's so much more you probably can do here.
And I'm curious if you feel the same way. Like, do you look at it and you're like, well, like I'm just gonna, you know, maybe write a book every year continue doing the pod. Like, no, no, no, I want to build like, you know, you're wearing a mad happy hat.
Like, no, I want to build like a mad happy level brand here and build something extraordinary in terms of size.
SPEAKER_00
So, I mean, my real aspiration is to build something bigger than Case Kenny. Like right now I'm attached to my name and that's a privilege, of course, to be able to do that. I mean, very few people are able to make a living from their name by writing.
SPEAKER_01
Very especially if you have such a cool name like Case Kenny, like case, you know, my name is Greg Eisenberg. It's just not, it doesn't have the same like flow to it.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. You know, maybe I was, I was born for this. Who knows? You know, my real aspiration is build something bigger than me.
I'll tell you two things that I'm working on to that effect. The first thing is actually somewhat inspired by mad happy. It's called 216 social club.
If you go to 216socialclub.com, it's basically my thing. It's like there's a lot of great apparel brands, communities that are built around the idea of, you know, evangelizing conversations around mental health.
And I think that's great. I like to build really practical, simple things, brands, services, et cetera. 216 is a number that's always been close to me.
Long story there, but I take time every day at 216 p.m. to do nothing, to practice stillness, forgiveness, gratitude, anything I can get my hands on or literally just stare at a wall. It's proved to myself that I'm capable of being mindful.
So I launched that the other month, um, still trying to figure it out. Really don't know what I'm doing, but I think that's got some real legs to it about bringing mindfulness into culture through merchandise and then through larger things. Um, but the idea of uniting people around a time of day, I think it's pretty interesting and pretty unique.
I have a small, large SMS list that every day at 216, I send out a text. So every day at 216, people are thinking about either myself or what I represent in some way. That's not a big revenue business for me at all.
In fact, it's very, very tiny, but I think the idea has some legs to it that I could build a community around people who want to practice mindfulness in practical ways, not just talk about mindfulness and how great it is to be mindful, but to actually do it in cool ways. So that's something that needs some work. Um, I kind of just launched it and let it sit, but, um, hopefully you'll be seeing more of that soon.
SPEAKER_01
Let's, let's jam on this for a second. So first of all, I love this, besides from like the design, the name is so good because it brings it back to the ritual of 216. Yep. People often ask me, what makes a good community person? And I always say, if you can throw a good party, you know, you are a good community person. And when you think about building a, you know, creating a party, what do you, what do you think of? Do you think of like, what is the purpose of the party? What is the food? What is the music? You know, who am I inviting? How are they showing up? Um, with time, with time they leaving, like, how do I think about surprising and delight throughout the night so that they're never bored? Like maybe there's like, I don't know, maybe like, um, a special DJ comes at this hour or live music, you know, just like, keep, keep, keep surprising.
And the most important piece of that whole pie is really the, the mission and the rituals. You know, the purpose and the ritual. And you hear you have a very strong purpose and rituals.
So I think you're like, underselling yourself a little bit when you're like, yeah, I don't know really what I'm doing. Cause it's like, mm, you have a great purpose slash mission and rituals. Um, the question for you really is, if this scales to 10 million people, like, what do you want that text group to look like? Cause when I'm on the website, it says one of the main value propositions is our focus is community, your purchase gets you added to our daily mindfulness text group.
Like what's your vision for the community? Yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00
I think that that's where I'm, I'm still circling that because, you know, I think a lot of people want to build community for community's sake. I actually want it to be beneficial because I've had the privilege of building a community, but I want it to be very practical and I want it to benefit the community. Obviously, I want it to be a marketing distribution for myself, but I truly want it to be a source of ideas for people to practice mindfulness in, in relatable ways at scale.
Um, my, my second ambition that's closely related to that, cause again, I, like, I'm very into the idea of mindfulness and culture. You see culture grab onto mental health in recent years at accelerated rate. I think, I think mindfulness soon has an upcoming cultural moment that is going to be defined by its practicality, not its woo-woo-ness, not its fairy tale rainbow-ness, but it's, Hey, here's how we're actually going to do it.
We're not just going to talk about it.
SPEAKER_01
Like, is this a broadcast text message that you're sending or is it like an actual text group? Uh, no, it's with community, the, the text platform.
SPEAKER_00
Got it. Got it. Cool.
SPEAKER_01
And, and just can you explain community just for folks who don't know what that is? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
Community is the one that you knew about, but didn't know about back a couple of years ago when all those celebrities started sharing their numbers on social media. It was through community, which is basically a SMS platform. That's a little bit of a, a little bit of a, a little bit of a, a little bit of a, a little bit more approachable than using like an attentive or a claveo for texting, which can get out of hand pricing wise.
It's a little bit, um, they, they group it based on how many subscribers you have rather than texts sent. Um, but it feels a little bit more personal. Like it's, it literally looks like a text.
It is a text they can, they can message me. I can respond back if I'm so inclined. Um, but it's got all the analytics and segmentation and you can send people texts on their birthday and by city and, um, but I think different demographic information if you want, but, um, for me, it was, it was, you know, wanting to choose something that was as close to an actual, you know, homie text group as possible without, you know, turning it into a daily marketing text.
SPEAKER_01
There was this guy who I met on Twitter. He actually gave me a like 15 or 20 minute meditation zoom thing. Um, you know, during peak COVID and his Twitter account is like, he tweets like every day you probably should be drinking water right now.
And it's just like reminder, Hey, you need, you should be drinking water. And it's a similar thing to what you're doing with 216, which is there's these things that we know we should be doing, but we end up forgetting or life gets in the way and you know, it's so fast paced life today. So I think there's probably a set of brands, community based brands that you can create around not just meditation, but imagine like a water company, which employs a similar model.
So I think there's something here around the daily ritual to 16 do this every day that relates to the product. Again, that's another flywheel. Like you're building another flywheel 100%.
Yeah. Have you started any? Have you started? It's funny. It's like you're the non flywheel flywheel guy.
SPEAKER_00
I'm like, damn it again. I did it again.
SPEAKER_01
Who's it again? Um, do you have you started any paid ads or any marketing or just sort of testing the business out now?
SPEAKER_00
I'm testing the waters for the vulnerable answer of I don't know what I'm doing in apparel. Like I know how to manufacture a journal. I know exactly who to go to.
I know my cogs. I know exactly how to make it real sweet and nice. I don't know the first thing about building an apparel brand, what I should be paying, I'm drop shipping it right now.
And I'm fine with that because I didn't want to drop a hundred grand on something that might not do well that, you know, I just don't know what I'm doing. So, uh, it's kind of a wait and see reaction. I've got a phase two drop coming with new designs, which I want to, I want two or three drops under my belt before I decide that I really want to go scale at it.
Um, with talking to manufacturers and everything. So that's the real answer. So no paid ads or anything like that behind it now.
SPEAKER_01
What do you need to make this big? You know, let's just jam on this a little bit. Like, do you, is it you're missing like a apparel partner in this business? Is it you're missing a creator to be a part of this business? Like what are the pieces that you're missing to help scale this?
SPEAKER_00
Uh, yeah, I think it's twofold. I think it's an apparel partner for one to make so we can really figure out the price point. Like, um, I was really inspired by Siegelman stables.
Well, I'm sure you're familiar with, with their story of like creating a luxury product out of something that isn't necessary, a luxury product. And that's what they stand for. For me, creating a luxury product than mindfulness space feels a little disingenuous to like price a hat at $70 or something like that feels, feels a little bit wrong for trying to make mindfulness more approachable at scale.
But I really need to know what I, what I stand for price wise right now. I, you know, I've got to sell hoodies for, you know, 70 bucks because my drop shipping price is 40. Like we're not making a lot of money here, of course.
Um, so the first point is working with someone like that that can help educate and scale. Um, the second I think is, um, yeah, it's along the, the creator lines. Um, I don't think a cold paid ad strategy is going to get this where it needs to go.
I think it needs to be organic. I think it needs to be community driven. I hate to say it.
I think it might need to be like celebrity driven in a sense. Some, some real taste makers getting it, wearing it, um, creating the, the cool factor, I always ironically say like, I don't like the word cool, but I also do cause I want mindfulness to be cool. I want it to be imbued in cultural moments.
And I think, you know, some folks that are at a high tier of celebrity, uh, could help that. So I think somewhere in the mix there, uh, is really what's going to get them push it.
SPEAKER_01
So that's the question is like, do you partner with like a CAA or someone like that or, or like an individual creator, or do you just like reach out to like cold DM or get warm intros to different celebs and just do it yourself?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. Uh, I mean, I'm a, I'm a lone wolf. I always tend to do that.
I think calling myself out on my own BS right now, I just got a lot going on. And, uh, I need to, I need to figure out a priority, but I've always done well of, you know, sending certain people product and things like that. I think that's the next step.
Um, or bringing someone on, you know, I've had many chats with, you know, some investment groups and folks like that that I keep close. And I was like, yeah, let's loop in. Let's, let's raise some capital.
And I've always been like, I don't want to do that. Um, so I, why would you do that? Like, why would you never, I've never been inclined to ever raise, to be honest, at this point yet. I mean, even, even writing books, like I've, I've, I've had so many meetings with publishers, the big five and every time, just the idea of giving away my IP for a quick payday makes me really sad.
So I've always been a little bit of a glutton for punishment and doing things myself with my own capital and just kind of going the way. But, you know, I think for this, I, I need, I need a, uh, energy that comes from a second drop where I'm like, I really like these designs. Like the first designs were cool.
Like I think what's really cool is what it stands for, but I need some designs that really speak to it. And I've got a great designer who's, who's working on some now. So I think after that's dropped, I'll, I'll have some, uh, some better direction.
SPEAKER_01
I don't know, man, cause I'm, I'm looking at the website and I'm looking at the designs and like, you know, I run a design agency or in multiple design agencies. You like them? And I'm looking at this and I'm like, this is sick.
SPEAKER_00
Cool, man. It's something that I'm like really excited for, you know, it's so funny. Like even when I first got into journaling, I was like, man, I have a little bit of imposter syndrome, like the people really need another journal.
And I feel like I still have a little bit of that where I don't have the, like, let's do this, like let's dedicate some serious time and resources to it just yet. Um, I just need to find that on switch. I know it's a cool idea.
Cause I talk about the number two 16 all the time on the podcast. So I'm like, I love the, the topic of it and people seem to really resonate with it. Just gotta, gotta hit go, you know, before, before someone swoops in and, you know, takes the idea with another time.
SPEAKER_01
Well, I think, okay, a few things. So one is around the journal and competition. My, my thesis is that every community, every, every well oiled community can actually have a journal.
So if we go back to how we define a community before, which is like purpose slash mission and rituals, the ritual's piece is the journal in a lot of ways. And of course some communities lend itself way better to having a journal. Obviously, you know, yours is like beautiful.
SPEAKER_00
I got one for you that along the same line. So I'm working with a large men's fitness brand. Um, they do really good work.
They're, they're pretty large, not Jim shark, smaller than Jim shark, but I'm developing a journal for the gym for them that instead of scrolling on your phone, like we all do between sets, which is ridiculous. Like we can't take an hour off our phone. It's, we're going analog in the gym and we're not necessarily writing answers in this journal that I'm creating for them, but it's a workout tracker.
You're tracking your workout and then it's got journal prompts. So in between sets, when you're huffing and puffing and you're resting, you're thinking through these things. So it's bringing mindfulness into the gym and their community is just rabid for that kind of stuff.
I think it's going to crush it when we release it, but I totally agree. I make a good living also from consulting for brands that want to create this type of product, um, for their community. I think fitness is a, is a great, uh, community for that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01
What other verticals or spaces do you think a journal could do well in?
SPEAKER_00
I don't know. I've had the, the fitness one circle for a long time. Obviously it just lent itself so perfectly.
People are wanting to improve themselves. Um, I mean, I think the one that I haven't seen anyone do great just yet because they always turned it into a freaking productivity journal. And it drives me crazy as business professionals.
I can't think of a more stressed out group of people than sales people. For instance, I used to run a sales team, a technology ad technology company. I don't talk about being stressed out and hating yourself.
SPEAKER_00
So I think a journal for a either very specific group of people, sales people, executives, whatever, I think would, would crush it. Um, I'm sure it exists in different forms. I've just never seen it the way that I like journaling, which is a mix of prompted and unprompted.
So a lot of journals out there that just, they stress me out more than they helped me. They're like, do this, do that, come back at this time, measure yourself on this. And I'm like, I feel even worse about myself now.
So somewhere in between and that's marketed in a, in a cool way. Um, I think we'd kill it there.
SPEAKER_01
It's an interesting lesson because we all, you know, product builders were always kind of like, well, I don't want to go and build something in this space because there's too much competition. But it's kind of like, well, if you have this devout community, as long as you like purpose build the product for that community, like it doesn't make a difference that there's thousands of competitors.
SPEAKER_00
I used to be really bad at that thought process. I used to always talk myself out cause I'm like, it already exists. Why would I build it? And I remember very specifically, I don't think I've ever told Austin this, but Mr.
Austin from morning brew, I was in a conference room at my old job talking to him. Talking to him, uh, like I honestly asked him, I was like, give me some life advice. He was like, Oh, like, why don't you create a journal? And my immediate reaction was, why would I create a journal? Tim Ferriss has a journal.
Everyone has a journal. And I remember leaving that and being so frustrated with myself for like having that be my knee jerk reaction that I just then went and spent the next like five months and created it and sold it. So, you know, I think, uh, yes, agree to your point.
If you have a community, you could definitely build a product for them. I think journals are great, but you know, if you build a custom for a community that you know well and that trust you, I think it'll work.
SPEAKER_01
Long run. And then you have to ask yourself, like, Tim Ferriss literally thought about, wow, should I, should I create a journal right now? And it's like 2015. Yeah. Like in 2015 or whatever it was, like it was competitive then. And Tim Ferriss is, you know, he's not a dumb guy.
Like the guy knows what he's, you know, knows what he's talking about and understands competition really well and doesn't launch a lot of products either. So yeah, I think a lot of founders, especially this whole like solopreneur movement, I think a lot of people are going to see different spaces, see products in the spaces and then just like turn away when they really shouldn't be turning away. They should just be like, like, don't find your niche, find your super niche, create something purpose built.
And don't worry that there might be a hundred more general purpose competitors out there. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so when I first launched the new mindset journal, which was like my base journal, like now looking back, I'm more proud of what I've built since then, because I've learned a lot. But when I first launched that journal, my, my marketing for it was, here's a journal to help you be happier. And it didn't do well, right? It didn't do well because the promise was so vague.
It's like, I don't have time to be happy. I've got bigger problems. I got bigger fish to fry.
The, the moment that I pivoted the branding from here's a journal to help you be happy or whatever, to here's a journal to help you get over a breakup. Cause all the prompts were actually more geared towards like forgiveness. Obviously emotionally triggering entry point.
That was when things really started to blow up. Healing, you know, not, not in a like, not, we're not like, you know, obviously taking advantage of people's emotions here, but finding the most palpable, concrete, triggering entry point to get people in. That is what has always done wonders for, for these types of products.
And I think in the past, I thought a little too high level, happiness, confidence, these kinds of things, as opposed to like the sticky points that really get people in, and then you can go broad with some of the things. But yeah, when it's so competitive and everyone has a journal for happiness, we got to, we got to go a layer deeper. And I think that's what's really helped.
The, my last book is basically, it's called, that's bold of you. It's basically a book about, you know, becoming your best self. I mean, it could not be a more basic of a self-help topic in the world, but the whole concept was, if you've ever been called crazy, loud, too loud, too quiet, too difficult, these things that particularly a lot of my audience, which are women have been called, that was the entry point.
And that was the, oh yes, definitely, you know, poke me to get into helping reinvent yourself. That is what has done wonders. So obviously this is just marketing stuff, but it's the little things that, that matter as far as like, what is the problem you're solving or what is the trigger point that you're addressing? And I learned that over time, of course, to get as specific as you can and then serve that group of people and then open them up wider and it's worked really well.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. And, and really just, I like your example around showing examples, like here's examples of, you know, how to get over a breakup, how to get over this, asking people these like rhetorical questions, like, have you ever been called too difficult and you know, via your audience that like, that's the number one podcast in the last 90 days. You're like, of course I know.
So it's using, that's why I always say like, building a community based product is building a startup on easy mode, basically, in a lot of ways, because you get to, you get to learn from your audience and your community, what they want, their likes and dislikes, and then you just feed it back to them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
And that's why, back to the beginning, that's why I always say, back to the beginning, that's why I'll always do the podcast, even if I shut it down and don't make money or it dies, because podcasting is difficult. You've always got to be up leveling up your game. Otherwise your audience slowly declines, but I'll always do it because it's great way for one, to give me ideas and two, to, to react to whoever is listening and judge their reactions so that it can go out and build different things.
So I'm not building an, an asilo. I'm not building for a headline. I'm not building something that sounds good.
I'm actually building something that people want.
SPEAKER_01
If people want to build their own, their own empire, their own media empire, like you've built, what advice do you have for them to get started?
SPEAKER_00
Well, I mean, I think the cliche one is build something that you would use and that you will use, because again, I'm very incentivized to continue to create and build and do content because every single time I do, it helps me. I wouldn't be doing this for five years if it didn't help me. I would run out of gas 100%.
I mean, if you look at podcast thing, it's like the average podcast ends after like 10 episodes because it's very difficult to do. Same with brands. How many people make a living from their brand? Very few.
What's the average revenue of a small SMB? I don't know, 40 grand or something. It's very small. You got to find something that you'll stick through when things aren't going well.
I remember when I, when iOS 14, 14, five would ever hit and all of a sudden my ad stopped working. I was like, well, I guess we had a good run. I guess that was it.
But no, I didn't say that because I was like, I love this material. I'll take an income hit for a little bit here while I figure things out. But, you know, I kept going because I had that reason.
So I'd say for one, have a Y. I know it's cliche, but you need to have a Y. You need to build something that helps you.
I really do think that's important. And then I don't know, I'd say from there, you know, distribution is everything. And I'm not just talking about rented distribution on Instagram and TikTok because that could be taken away in a flash of a moment.
So I would focus on the tried and true of the email and I think SMS is of course having its moment as well. Open rates, response rates on SMS or bonkers. So I'd try to, try to build something there.
And then I think also like, I also do a fair amount, a fair amount of retail. I think a retail is having its comeback moment for all the E-com boys and all the focus there. I think having a retail wholesale strategy really helps mitigate a little bit of the risk of, you know, what happens when your ads or your online community isn't as responsive as it used to be.
So somewhere in between there of Y plus distribution plus a balance of retail and E-commerce strategies will probably be well served. I like a man.
SPEAKER_01
I got a head out in a minute, but do you have any questions for me?
SPEAKER_00
I'd love to continue jamming on 216 with you. It was actually, I actually haven't thought about that in like two weeks because I've been so head down on some other stuff, but what proof points would you look for when you're first building something like that that says, okay, let's, let's pour some gas on this. Like, what do you look for? Metrics wise or vibes wise or somewhere between.
SPEAKER_01
So one of the first things I would do if I was running 216 or 216 was a client of late checkout would be, I have this thesis that every E-commerce store should have free and paid products. For example, like if you go to, you know, Jack Butcher. Yep. So I'm pulling up his website right now. So if you go to his merch page, he's got like hoodies for sale for like 50 bucks and coffee and coffee mugs and hats and stuff like that.
But he's also got for $0. You can get a visualized value wallpaper for your phone. Or if you go to his courses, you can buy his courses.
There's a course for a dollar. There's a course for $99. There's also something called daily manifest.
I don't know if you've played with it, but it's, it's kind of like a habit tracking app slash journal. That's a digital asset. That's $0.
You, you might look at it and be like, why is he doing that? I think that he's, this is brilliant because what he's doing and he's using Shopify to power all this is once you add it to cart and you check out, he's getting that email address. And then all of a sudden you've been onboarded into the visualized value world. Like if you're going to use one of his like, you know, graphs as your mobile wallpaper, like you're looking at it every day, like that's high value and you, you might, you know, over time be way more likely to buy some of his products or services.
So one thing I would do if I were you is I'm not sure. I'm not convinced that buying the product puts you into the tax community. Like to me, the tax community is something that you give away for free that you ultimately nurture them.
And you have a set of free products that you start selling on your e-commerce store. And you, as you're doing, you continue to double down on your paid products. But your set of free products is all about building the community and nurturing the community.
Your set of paid products is actually to, it's actually more word of mouth than anything, you know, in the beginning of this call, we talked about mad happy, your hat that you're wearing. You get to go out in the world, order a tea, you know, let's say you're going out or go out for dinner and people are going to see that you're wearing that hat. So they might be more likely to buy that product or if a celebrity wears it or an influencer or whatever.
So I think I, I see physical products as identity reinforcing and word of mouth. And I see digital products as a way to nurture through community. And that would be my biggest piece of feedback for you to chew on is thinking about free, different than paid.
Hmm. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00
I appreciate that. Yeah. I actually really like that. I love a good nurture.
I really do. I love a good proving it. Like don't just like buy a product.
Just I'll prove it to you. I'll prove why it's valuable. And my SMS list has always been one that's been for free and then I would just send out some of my best thoughts and it always felt very nice and very inclusive.
And then the people who got it, got it and bought my product as a result. And it felt like a very unforced, you know, marketing journey. Um, so I'll definitely give that some thought.
I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_01
My pleasure, man. Uh, it's been, it's been fun jamming. I'll see you in Miami.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, man. Yeah. Let's, let's link up when, uh, when you're back in town, it'd be great.
SPEAKER_01
Sounds good. All right. Later man.