My First Million - Dani Austin & Jordan Ramirez: How They Got To $40 Million+ A Year As Influencers

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

Episode 452: Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) talks to Dani Austin and her husband Jordan Ramirez about working together, Dani's experience with hair loss and the business she created to solve it, how they monetize as influencers, and more. Want to see more MFM? Subscribe to the MFM YouTube channel here. Check Out Sam's Stuff: * Hampton * Ideation Bootcamp * Copy That Check Out Shaan's Stuff: * Power Writing Course * Daily Newsletter ----- Links: * Dani Austin * Dani Austin Ramirez Instagram * @thedaniaustin (TikTok) * Divi * @diviofficial (Instagram) * [e-mail] (for employment opportunities) * Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. ------ Show Notes: (01:40) - Introductions (07:40) - How Dani got into the influencer space (13:55) - Dani's hair loss (27:55) - Branding (30:00) - Mistakes influencers make (35:55) - Why does Jordan listen to the pod (40:10) - Advice for up and coming influencers (49:30) - How they make money (55:30) - User Generated Content (58:30) - What's next ------ Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. ----- Additional episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto * #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

Yeah, I mean, like our first like full year, I think you already shared it. Well, you said 20, it's 40. But yeah, we did about $40 million. And then, you know, this year we're on track to do 30%, 35% growth. Yeah. It's crazy. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.

I put my all in it like no days on. So we are here in the, uh, the shed. Yeah, the shed. Like this studio, like I'm looking at the video. It looks legit. Yeah. People don't know what looks like from the outside. This is definitely like a sketchy, like I've seen a Netflix documentary about a shed like this.

Well, you got here five minutes later than we did. It was like, it was like 100 degrees in here. Right. I was like, this is going to be a sweaty podcast. And this is a be, you guys are different than, I'll say, our normal guests, which are almost always like kind of a business, like tech software type of entrepreneur. Y'all are entrepreneurs in a different way. and you're Instagram famous. So that's cool.

That's amazing. You tagged me in a story yesterday, and I got to say, my wife has never looked at me that way before. She was like, oh, because she's never listened to one episode of this podcast. No way.

We've done maybe 400 episodes. She's not a podcast person in general. Like, she doesn't listen to anyone's podcast. Yeah. But you would think maybe she'll listen to a lot of women. We got one of those kids now. There's just not a lot of time to, like, do things like that.

Yeah, I get it. But I think she'll listen to this one. So I'm excited because she's a fan. of yours and and so we hung out at dinner last night got to know each other a little bit so I'm excited maybe we'll do like you guys give like a 60 second intro

who you guys are what why introduce yourselves to the audience sure I'll go first so my name is Danny Austin and I started creating content online about 10 years ago I was actually living in Austin I was at the University of Texas sophomore like just making videos on YouTube

in my in my dorm room you know kind of just grew from there really fast. Then gone on Instagram, all the other platforms. We now run Divi, which is a scalp care, hair care product brand. And we do that together. We have a lot of fun doing that. Honestly, online, we just share anything about our lives from, like, having two kids under two to, you know,

affordable fashion. Yeah. We kind of been doing that together for, you know, five years. So she's been online for 10 years. You know, we met, we didn't work together until we got married. I was in like Austin tech scene before we got married. And then, you know, I was telling you last night, this just became a lifestyle. And it was all consuming.

And so she would be in like, Turks and Caicos. And I would be in a boardroom. And I'd be like, oh, my gosh, like, what am I doing in my life? And so around 2018, we took the leap to work together, jumped into kind of like the influencer space, which we didn't have a name before that. It was just like we created content. And then I think the media started covering it a lot more. And then they labeled me an Instagram husband.

And then they labeled our industry. How do you feel about that label? You know, it was fine. Like, I'm glad that I did it. Wait, that's so not true. At first, you hated it. Yeah, it's true. It was, it was, like, what are you doing?

He's like, oh, you never knew. Well, when you're coming out of college, like, you know, so much of your identity is wrapped up in your title, especially being here in Austin, Texas. Like, you know, in the tech scene, it was like, oh, what startup are you part of? Do you all have funding? what's your title? What employee number were you? And so I was still kind of caught up in that mindset. And then, you know, we jumped in together.

It was like, I remember the first article that came out was by a writer named Taylor Lorenz. And she wrote an article about what is the Instagram husband. I got a history with Taylor Lorenz too. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Dude, it's crazy. A lot of people have a history with her now. But, you know, she, so she wrote that article and she quoted me in it. And then I was like labeled the Instagram husband.

But yeah. And so we did the influencer industry for five years together. just honestly created content together and then COVID hit and brands started really investing in that space. We should also say how this came about. Yeah. You listen to the pod. Yes. He's a huge fan.

I'm a huge fan. And so we, I didn't know that. I didn't know who you were at that time. But I did an episode where I was talking about creator businesses. Yes. So content creators who have now spun off businesses that are doing really well that are not called Mr. Beast. It's like, okay, everybody knows Mr. Beast. So who are the, one of the other cool, cool examples.

And we did like, maybe five, six, seven examples. And then Danny with, with Divi was one of them. And so I guess you heard that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so like a couple nights before, I think I saw a tweet that you were doing. And you were like, we're doing an episode on creator led businesses. And I think I like told you.

You told me. I like, you know, I like, I'd be so cool. They mentioned Divi one day. I follow you guys on Twitter. And, you know, like, I was like, oh, man, like, that would be cool if they recognize Divi. But we're in a niche, right? That is totally not your niche.

Like, you know, you had no idea who Danny was. Last night, Danny was like watching the first couple episodes of y'all's podcast. I was like, no, this is Sean. He's cool. And, yeah, I was on a plane a couple days later listening to that episode. And then it was like, oh, have you ever heard of Danny Austin? You asked that to Sam. And Sam was like, no. That was funny.

And then it was like, yeah, you talked about Divy and I really appreciate that. So I sent a DM. And I was like, hey, man, we'd love to come and share our story. It's very different than most of the business did y'all cover. And let's play a little game. we went to dinner last night, Chinese restaurant. We ordered food.

Let's see how well you know your husband. I don't know if he told you this already. He ate alligator. Yeah. Oh, he brought up hard. He ordered chicken, the busy order thing. Wait, he ordered alligator. I did order it.

And it was just kind of like a spur of the moment thing. There was a couple of things that were funny about the dinner. I think he was trying to impress us. No, I was not trying to impress you. This is funny, though. So Matthew booked the dinner. And it was, so Sam Ellinger used to play football at UT.

Austin. That's one of Matthew's really good friends. Matthew works for Danny and I. And I go, hey, find a cool restaurant in Austin that, you know, we can talk to these people. He books this like upstairs room. There's like a chandelier. It's a table for 16. There's five of us.

And they walk in. I go, Matthew, this is such a power move. And then on top of that, you know, that I'm like, you know, we're all talking. So I don't know what to order. And then he's like, you should try the alligator. I was like, okay, I'll take the alligator. And they were like. And then he brought it home and woke me up.

And he was like, you got to try this alligator. I'm like, I'm not touching that. Sorry. It really tastes like chicken. You should just try it. Okay, so you didn't try the alley here. Yeah, that was a crazy move. I got to give me credit.

I will never enjoy it. I'll never forget it. So, yeah, I guess that's maybe a lesson to be learned. Yeah. They go to dinner with somebody for the first time. What are the weirdest thing on the name of you? Never forget you. That's awesome.

So you guys, you started doing this back in 2012, right around 2012. You're in college at the time. What was, because, you know, Instagram had been out. YouTube had been out for maybe five years by that point. But it sounds like when you're talking about it, it was very early days back then. What was working back then? How did it like?

What did you have a tiny following back then? Like how did it? And what was early years like? So the backstory is my brother, Lannon Austin. He's actually a musician. And he started on YouTube. He just started posting covers of different songs. He had one video blow up because people thought that he was John Mayer.

It was actually covering Teizonday's like chocolate rain song. Anyway, so that popped off. So my brother started to like kind of acquire this audience. And he told me about the space, but I thought it was so weird. Like I'd walk by his bedroom and he'd be like talking to all of his imaginary friends. And I was like, come on, Lannon. Like, you got to make some real friends. And so, but he ended up putting me in like a sibling tag because tags were really popular on YouTube back then.

You know, like the Chubby Bunny challenge or whatever tag. So he put me in a video and, you know, in all the comments, it's like, your sister should start a channel or she should share how she did her makeup or where'd she get her top? And so my brother actually made my channel for me. And I didn't touch it. we went home over winter break and we were so bored because, you know, all of our friends are in Austin now and everyone's in college. And, you know, I was just like, you know, let's give this thing a shot. So my brother filmed and edited my first video. It was all like just affordable New Year's Eve outfits. And it popped off. And within like three months, I had 100,000 followers. And I just started kind of posting consistently. I knew of like a handful of girls out in Los Angeles that were doing this like full time. And they actually had managers and they were. agencies that were just dedicated like specifically to YouTube, which was like a totally different world. So within three months, I signed with a manager. And then every summer from then on out, I would just fly out to L.A. and do collabs. Because collabs were like, yeah. Collabs were

everything. They actually had just opened YouTube space and Playa Vista in Los Angeles as well. And they had this thing called the creator program where they only allowed to think like 10 or 11 of us in and creators of all sizes. And we were for it. You had to collab with two other creators in the program in order to be able to use YouTube space. So like when you got to YouTube space, I mean, they had everything from like their, you know, a red camera. They had studios. They had, you know, editing bays, editing suites. They had all these classes you could take. So I would go and work for my manager from like, you know, nine to five. And then from five to like nine, I would go to YouTube space and just clab, make YouTube videos, learn about how to edit and everything. And you're like

21 at the time. Yeah, I'm 21. No, I was 20. Actually, it was 19. 20. I couldn't train. What were you doing when you're working for your manager? Just by day, you're like, coffee and stuff? Yeah, no, I mean, I was like in on like all of the negotiations. Like a lot of the creators were moving out to L.A. And the brands would come to the office and, you know, meet all the creators. And I honestly learned everything about like the back end of the business.

Because at that time you weren't the star, but you were like building up. Yes. And then like also being around all these creators, I would meet some of like the girls that I loved and then get their number. And then we would collab. And everyone was very, it was just very clever. everybody's helping each other out. So it was awesome. But then I was able to kind of take all of that back to Austin. And there really weren't a lot of, you know, YouTubers in Austin, which also kind of

helped me because I felt like I was one of the only ones. And so when I was, I did start kind of like pitching myself to brands because like I also signed with my manager, but she was, you know, managing girls that had over a million followers. I had maybe 150,000 at the time. And so I started pitching myself to all these like startups in Austin. And what I found, was what was happening was I was getting these brand deals or these partnerships. I would get to know them, pull them in, and then forward them to my manager. And then I would look on YouTube and like all the other girls that were signed with her would be working with these brands.

And I wasn't. So I was basically just like funneling these brands to my manager. So I realized at that time I was like, I'm not big enough for them to care. So I need to get out of this contract and just kind of manage myself and build my own team and like have people that actually care about what I'm doing. So as soon as I could, I got out of that. contract and ever since then we've always kind of had like an in-house team um which we've learned a lot from that but um but yeah it's just kind of crazy how it's evolved and so how even when you were so how

how many is the audience now so now on instagram like total total on all of our platforms we have probably over two million yeah two point five million is instagram now main one is instagram which is like the perfect platform for us um most of our content is on instagram stories and the reason we like that is because it's kind of like reality TV where I wake up with my audience. Like literally when I wake up in the morning, I get on stories and I carry them throughout the entire day.

And so it's just like the closest, I feel like people really feel like they're in our homes. You know, it's very stripped down. Yeah, yeah, it's a lot more authentic. Yeah. It's kind of like follow my day. And so you, you've done that. Now you also launched Divi.

Yeah. Because that's kind of how we, when we initially found you guys, but I read this thread. I read the Twitter thread, somebody else had written about this. and they named five or six creators I'd never heard of that had businesses that were really big. It was like Divi, it's a, you know, this sort of like hair care product or whatever, and it was doing 40 million or something in revenue.

I don't remember what the exact numbers were. But I remember being like, wow, that's like really significant and so cool. Like I never really like I'd never heard of that. You hear the same three or four examples all the time when it comes to like Logan Paul and Prime and Mr. Beast and whatever. Like especially in the tech world, we kind of. I hear the same, we're not like as deep in. So you only hear the same, you know, three or four examples every single time. So how did that come about? How'd you, when'd you decide to, instead of posting for other people, like, let's create our own brand and how'd you pick the product?

How did you, like, how'd you have the confidence to go for it? Yeah. So, um, there was definitely an era on Instagram where everything was perfect. You know, it's like back in the day of like posting the perfect selfie or the perfect like latte art, whatever it was. Um, and so I definitely played that game and it gets very exhausting. After a while, I started actually losing my hair when I was in college whenever I was at UT. First, it started with like just me being so stressed out because I'm at UT. I'm flying to L.A. every weekend. I'm posting on these videos. I have like Neutugenas like, where's the brand deal? And I have like four exams the next day. So I'm stressed out all the time. Start blowing my hair. Then I get hair extensions to try to like cover that up. That makes it worse. Then I bleached my

hair, that makes it worse. When we get married, I think like a year in, I look at the mirror and I'm like, I literally have no more hair. I was like, I didn't even want to leave the house anymore. So Jordan, this is a dumb question. I mean, are we talking? Yeah. No, I mean, like bald spots, like patches, like patches of hair. And it was stress driven? Stress driven and then hair extension, so that's probably like more traction alopecia. So what happens when you put hair extensions in, like your hair can't withstand that weight. And instead of just losing hair where the hair extension is, with traction alopecia, you actually lose hair like around that whole serenitis. So that's surrounding area. So it was like multiple bald spots like all over. So Jordan, of course,

my husband, he's like, wait, I don't get it. Like, why don't you just get a wig? All the Kardashians wear wigs. What's wrong with that? So he takes me to a wig shop in Dallas, like the first place he Googles, we walk in. It's like a Halloween store. Like the most expensive wig is like, $4.00. Right neon yellow. I'm like, I don't know. It's going to work. They're like plastic wigs. They're like the most expensive one is like 15 bucks. So I leave there like so defeated. I'm like, $4.4.00. I'm like, I'm always going to be bold, you know. So we actually learn about this like wig shop in Los Angeles, called the wig shop, actually.

Yeah. From Jeffrey Star. I was going to say Jeffrey Star. Jeffrey Star, he's another YouTuber. Anyway, long story short, we fly out there, find my first wig. I'm in wigs for a year. And actually, when I first got my first wig, I didn't tell anybody because I was so embarrassed. I was like.

We actually took a trip to Chicago with my parents and my sister-in-law and my brother. And we didn't tell them the entire time. And they go, oh, nice haircut. You know, like, they, I mean, these things can look so real now. Yeah, they're super real. It's insane. So about a month into wearing it, I just felt like a fraud. I was like, I got to tell people, I feel like I'm probably not the only female going

through something like this. I think that, like, people will appreciate it and hopefully they'll be cool with it. So I shared that I was wearing wigs. And it kind of just opened up this door of, like, all these females that are kind of going through the same thing, like this, like, hidden epidemic of hair loss. Yeah, my life all the time. After, after we had our first baby, I think there's like a known kind of like postpartum, like issue with hair losses. So she was talking about it all the time. And I was like, I was like, what do you mean? Like it's nothing. Don't worry about it. She's like,

no, look at this. And he's like baby hair, whatever. And it really bothered her. And I didn't even think really even to try, like what would a solution look like. So yeah. I mean, it's, it can be very emotional. Like, especially. especially for females, because there just weren't a lot of people talking about it. So, long story short, I took the year in war wigs and I was like, you know what, I'm just going to focus on my scalp health. I'm going to focus on my wellness and really, like, give this thing like 100%. So meanwhile, there was actually this trend, or I guess a hack online,

where a lot of women were using monostat to grow their hair back, which is so strange. But the reason that was working is because it has a lot of like antifungal properties. What's Monastack? Tell Sean, Danny, you got to tell her. Is this something I should know about or no? No, you shouldn't know about it. Is there a good thing that I don't know what this thing? This is a good clickbait.

Tell us. Okay, so all the guys on the podcast are like, what that? By the way, we always joke. We always joke that we have four female listeners. Hopefully that'll change after this episode. Well, four people, we're all like dying inside laughing right now. They're all like putting their parts in their face right now. So Monastat is what people, what females use for yeast infection.

Okay, got you. And so a lot of women were using this on their scalp, though, and it's helping their hair grow. And people are taking before and after pictures, and it's like insane. So the reason that's working is because it has these antifungal properties in it, which nowadays, you know, they always tell you don't wash your hair. It's not good for you. So a lot of females are using dry shampoo. And so they're putting all this dry shampoo, all this product that's just like sitting on your scalp, blocking your follicle.

And so your hair doesn't really have like a fair chance of growing. So when they're using monostat, you know, it's kind of like detoxifying. It's getting rid of all that product build up and your hair's growing. So the only thing with that is you shouldn't be using it long term. It's just like has a lot of harmful things in it. So my goal was to find a more natural way to essentially accomplish the same thing. So I would like get into my bathroom. And I studied bio at the University of Texas.

I was going to. So did I. They don't teach you anything. I learned photosynthesis for like seven years. Yeah, exactly. They don't teach anything about the human body. Exactly. She can hang with the chemist.

I can hang now. She's like, okay, I remember that. I kind of get it. It's amazing how much you learn when you really need to learn versus my major. Now I wish I really would have paid attention because I think it really would have benefited me. But I would have known. Anyway, so, you know, I'm like a little chemist in my bathroom. I'm getting all these ingredients from online, whole foods, all over the place, and just making my own scalp serums.

And I would, you know, share on YouTube like, this is how I make it. This is where you ordered this and then mix it this way. And then people started asking, they're like, hey, can you just, like, ship it to me? Right. And so I go to Jordan, I'm like, I really think this could be a thing. A lot of people... When was this like a couple years ago? This was a 29th.

No, they probably... Yeah, 2019. 2019. And so that's kind of like where the idea originated from. And it was totally clean. So it's something that people could use every day and not feel like it's going to be harmful. So we had a lot of like eucalyptus, natural ingredients, a hobo oil. But there were a lot of things I wanted to put in it that I just didn't have access to.

So long story short, found partners. found a great chemist and then came out with our first product, which was a scalps room. And to be honest, I did not think that it would pop off at all. I really was just like, I want to serve my audience. I've been very like service driven with all of my content. I'm like, I just really want to serve people because I feel like if I serve them, they'll come back. So that was really just like the heart behind it. But what happened was a lot of people were buying it for like their day we're down the street or their mom or their husband. And people started taking like before and after pictures. We never asked for before and after pictures. But I feel like that's kind of

what made it blow up was people. It's the best marketing there is, right? Before and after. Yes. People started sending in their before and afters. And like, so then I would start sharing them, you know, left and right. And I mean, every day I'm probably tagged in like 15 before and afters, even to this day. So were there not scalp serums before that or they were, but they just weren't. You know, I think it was just such a new, like a niche, like, you know, putting something on

your scalp, like a skincare routine, like creating that scalp routine was very new. People weren't really thinking about it. So I'm sure that there were scalp serums out there. but I don't think people were educated about like how to use them or why they were important. So our biggest thing is just like if you're taking care of your skin, like you should be taking care of your scalp. It's kind of like an extension of, you know. And so I think once people kind of understood how to use it, then they went to Divi first because we're also one of the only like clean scalp serums out there. Gotcha.

So business launches when? 2020. 2020. Oh, 2021. 2021. October, 2021. So we're not even two full years in. And it's exploded.

So I don't know how much you guys typically share. Do you guys share revenue stuff or not really? Yeah. I mean, like our first like full year, I think you already shared it. Well, you said 20 is 40.

But yeah, we did about $40 million. And then, you know, this year we're on track to do 30%, 35% growth. Yeah. It's crazy.

And that's mostly from kind of the power of your community or that's that plus a bunch of other marketing that you have to do? Or how does the business grow? I mean, Because that probably exceeded your expectations. I mean, that would exceed anyone's expectations. Yeah, I always say, like, when we launched the product, we thought that we were launching it for like 10% of Danny's audience. Like, we were like, hey, these people need to be served.

Danny, you know, acquired this audience. They want a resource. And it just grew so far beyond that. And a lot of people think that, you know, Divi is all Danny's audience that's buying it. And, you know, she's only made up about 15% of the overall revenue. And so it was just a product that I think took off in. worked. It was just right place, right time. It was like during the era of the skinification of the scalp is like what the beauty gurus call it. And so I missed that whole era. Yeah, you missed the area.

Well, it's here. It's not. I don't have a skin care of either. So I didn't catch up. I do start with skin, move the scalp. I gave me two boxes. Yeah, I know. You're in it now. And so yeah, it's, it's just been wild. I mean, we never expected. And so did you guys look at like other creator led businesses? Like, who was an inspiration that you're like, oh, you know, if we do this well, this could be like, you know, whatever. Yeah. Skims or this could be like the Kylie's lip thing or whatever. I mean, we've always admired the Kardashians in a business sense, like how they've,

how they've like used their reality TV to grow all these businesses. And like we, one thing we love about them is like how they all support each other. It's like an ecosystem. Like you're using, you know, Kylie's makeup and then you're wearing Kim's skims. And so we always love that aspect of what they do. But, I mean, in terms of like our inspiration, to be honest, everyone in our space was just launching clothing lines. So it was totally different. Yeah, it was very, very different.

Were you tempted to do that too? A hundred percent. Jordan was like, please don't. Please don't. But our turns are insane. My parents, my dad actually has a showroom at the Dallas World Trade Center in Dallas. So he, you know, sells wholesale, you know, Nordstrom, all these boutiques. My dad always told me, he's like, the one thing I ask you is, please.

don't get in the fashion industry. It's just, it's a lot. And so, but one thing I knew that I wanted, if I ever did launch a business, is I wanted to have something that could be on subscription. And so a lot of my ideas were mainly tech at first. I never really thought of, like what?

Like, what would it have? You know, some service that you could get. I had, I honestly didn't have like a, what? Like you, we had this. There was like one, yeah, there was one time where she like wanted to launch her own app because she felt like, you know, she could build a better community, like through a different platform. than Instagram.

And we tried it. We called it, what did you call it? The Sassy Club? The Sassy Club at the time. And it was like we used this third party app system. And we drove a large part of our community to it. And we tried to do like more. The whole concept was like, let's meet in real life with our audience.

And so it was like we do meetups and stuff like that. And that was just really hard. It was kind of like a bumble. Right. Yeah, it was kind of like a bumble. And so we tried that, you know, it was pretty difficult. And then it was difficult to manage like the in-fate. interactions.

Yeah. Let me ask you a question. I just hired a guy, paid a guy $5,000 to do a couple of like one-on-one like workshops with me. And it was all about this idea of personal branding, which honestly a pretty lame phrase in general. Like I cringe that I even did all this, but I'm putting it out there in the spirit of authenticity.

So I paid this guy. Why did I pay this guy? Well, this podcast itself has gotten pretty popular. But I've always had this problem, which was just like, you see some people and their brand is so clear. It's like, there's this guy who, this guy named Pomp and Pomp is all about Bitcoin. He's the Bitcoin guy.

Yeah. Like, you know him about, you know, because of Bitcoin, he talks about Bitcoin. Everything he loves, you know, every fourth word needs to be Bitcoin. Yep. And then you have like Tim Ferriss, who's, you know, the four hour workweek guy or the four hour body, four hour chef. He's the four hour guy. He's all about kind of life hacking your way there.

And so you go down the last. I said a lot of people who have built good online followings, they have a clear kind of like, they're the blank guy or they're the blank gal, whatever. Like that's what they're known for. And for me, I've always been like, well, I don't know, the business guy.

That doesn't sound very specific or focused. And I was like, oh, I've gotten pretty far without that. But maybe somebody can help me kind of sharpen this. So this guy who I hired, he works with like, you know, like Jay Shetty and like, a bunch of people who are like that, like the guy who did Quest Bar thing.

Tom, whatever, Bill you. And he's like, yeah, you know, like, Jay Shetty, his story is he was like kind of like in and out of trouble, then decided to go be a monk. And he was a monk. And then he, like, I kicked out of the monastery because a monk came to him was like, you know, you are like, there's something bigger in store for you. So he decided to make his life mission to bring ancient monk wisdom in a modern way to the world. I butcher. I butcher that, but something like that. Yeah, he is killed it.

I just said, man. Right. He's doing it every day. I just knew if I was like the blue-eyed Indian guy. Like, you know, that's what stood out to be. Like, the guys- I didn't know monks had green eyes. Yeah.

But I was like, okay, I see the value in if you really like sharpened this like, whatever your brand is all about. But then I've met people who are maybe like you who, um, you probably never hired a consultant or like did a brand workshop or like sat down with a piece of paper and like tried to architect. It seems like it kind of happened organically and naturally for you. So I have two questions for you. One, do you think you have like a focus like that, like the blank? You are the, you know, just like the Bitcoin guy.

Do you have like a thing that's like our brand is about this word or these three words or whatever? Do you have something like that? So when I started going through my hair loss, I think it was the first time that I kind of felt like I had that thing. Like I was kind of like the wig influencer for a while and then kind of like the hair loss influencer. I mean, as cliche as it sounds, I feel like like I think our biggest thing. is we've always just been very authentic and like goofy. And we've kind of, I feel like what we've done is figured out how to collide those worlds of like being professional, but also getting, you know, taking your heels off, getting back home,

just like and being real about what it's like having two kids. Like you're in heels, changing diapers, kids peeing all over you. But like I would say it took like 10 years for people to kind of, I've never had, you know, persona or this video pop off and go viral and then everyone knows who I am. Like I've never had that moment. It's just been like very gradual of, but I, but I totally feel what you're saying. Like I, I still go through those times where I'm like, okay, who am I?

Like, what do? What's my identity? Like, what do? And I do feel like there are some bloggers out there that are so good at like, okay, when you think of Chick-fil-A, you think of this one person or when you think of like this one brand, you think of it. Dude, that shouldn't have been mine. Chick-fil-A genius.

Yeah, no. You're trying to be the whole time. Yeah, and it's like, and so I do try to find those things that like, okay, when in Dallas, when people go here, like, are they going to, what brands are they thinking of when they think of Danny? You know, but it's, it's challenging because also like I'm very, you know, one day I want to be doing this. One day I like to kind of shift and be on my toes. What do you think people get wrong when they try to build a following? Not like the people who are just obviously bad, but let's say people who have the potential work could be working out. What do you think are the mistakes that those people make that like?

They're trying to be perfect all the time. And it's so unrelatable. I think like one of the biggest reasons that like people can relate is because we have made so many mistakes and we share them. And like there's times when we get online and we're like, man, that was bad. We should have done that. Like there was an example, a small example, but I was cutting up like fruit for my daughter, Stella's lunch. And I'm cutting the grapes wrong, you know, like where they can choke on grapes and like, had no idea. Like my mom never cut my grapes. So like, I didn't know I was anything wrong. But, you know, like the DMs start flooding in, the Facebook groups are popping off. And he's like cutting the grapes wrong.

Are you trying to kill your shade? Yeah. Like you're influencing all these moms to cut grapes wrong. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I didn't know. Like so, you know, you get on. You're like, guys, I'm so sorry. Like I made a mistake. Let me like teach you the right way to cut grapes instead of like deleting the content and

being embarrassed about it. And so it's like. I think you cut them wrong the second time too. I did. I did. I did. Um, but yeah. So I just feel like I have a lot of girlfriends like in Dallas that are, you know,

trying to do something similar. and they're trying so hard to just be perfect all the time. Right. And it's not really... You said the word relatable. I think that's a key thing. Like, we had the comedian, Hassan Minaj. I don't know if you know how he's like...

Yeah, he was on Netflix and something that. He came on. And I was asking him something about... Because we do this, like, we're doing these live podcasts now sometimes. So we're doing one this Saturday here in Austin. And so I had asked him, I was like, hey, I'm going on States. Kind of like stand-up comedy. There's going to be whatever, like 1,000 people in the audience.

How do I, you know, any... What would you say, like, first five minutes, how can I set a good tone here? And he goes, he gave me two pieces of an eye. So he goes, first, make it clear that you are there. So he's like, talk about the room. Talk about the person in the front road. Talk about, you know, the city that you're in and like what it's been like for you to be there. Like, just make it clear.

Like, give them the fact that you're there. And everybody will be present together when you do that. And he goes, the second thing is low status. I go low status. He goes, yeah, like people make this mistake a lot that they try to be high status. They're like, I want your approval. So I'm going to present a version of myself that is high status. When in actuality, the way people relate to you and like you is doing something low status.

So making fun of yourself, showing a weakness, being vulnerable, saying something that makes you look bad, not great or like embarrassing to you. And so he's like, you know, comedy is actually a low status art form, not like high status, which is what you're like. If you go at a conference, you go on stage. it's typically going to be all high status stuff. People trying to say things that show how important they are and how smart they are and their resume and all that. That's not how people relate to you. And so what you're saying kind of reminds me of that is like a

doing things that are showing the showing some of the flaws almost not just because they're there, but like it actually helps. It actually builds that relatability. I know. I agree. I mean, I feel like the times that we connect with our audience the most is like in those

goofy times when I'm running around with no pants on and like, We're like, oh, I relate. Same thing, you know. I think there's like a pushback on like A-list celebrities even towards influencers because it's like I don't understand like this is not relevant to my life at all what the Kardashians are doing and the private jets and all this stuff. And like I think that that's where people feel at home, you know, is in these kind of like relatable moments, which is what I told Ben, you need to do.

I feel like y'all do this so well on the podcast is like you're not trying to be this business guru expert. You're just kind of talking about everyday people. bull's business and your thoughts on it and you're kind of riffing and I think that you know I told Sean I was like I think he just needs to do more he needs to get on Instagram stories and you get on YouTube that was my advice to him are you on Instagram service I went non-private like you know I'm not doing when we DMD him was private I was like what's this guy doing yeah yeah I didn't bother with Instagram but but what did your your your fancy branding coach tell you so what he was saying was

so they did this they did a great exercise actually um I kind of want to like packets this thing up so more people can do this. I think it's a pretty useful thing. But what he says is he was like, you know, you want to figure out your signature stories first. So he's like, don't try to get to the end point of,

oh, I'm known for X. He's like, go look at your, the signature stories that made you you. So like, what were the moments of your life that kind of defined who you were?

Times you either made a key decision in life or you, which could have just been like, no more. Like, I'm not doing this ever again. Or, you know, so some people have.

that if they give up alcohol or something. It's like that becomes their brand, but it's like the signature story is the rock bottom story that they, when literally they were so embarrassed at something that they did or felt and that they decided never again. Or it could be a signature story where, you know,

they went from kind of being, you know, shy to actually given out there, being more confident. And what changed? So you find your signature stories. That kind of reveals what you're going to be, what you're going to end up being known for. The mental shortcut people will need to make

when they're trying to think about who's that guy? Oh, he's the guy who blah, blah, blah, blah. That's their story. The second thing he said was he was like, you got to figure out what you said something about like serving. He's like, basically people will come to your content because they're trying to change the way they feel. So you got to know that.

You're not giving information. You're giving a transformation of like, you know, emotion, how somebody feels. So he's like, what transformation do they get when they come to your content that you give them better and more consistently than anybody else? If you do that, you went. And so you got to figure out what is that change. So like with the pod, for example, we talk about business ideas or like, we'll show you

an under the radar business you never heard of. That's really interesting crushing it. But like, let me ask you, I bet your answer will match what I think it is, which is why do you listen to the pod? What do you, what do you feel when you listen to it? I think it's like education meets inspiration. Like I think I walk away being like, oh, cool, new idea. Like I want to, you know, I want to learn more about that.

I feel like I can, you know, go do this in our business, right? And I think that that's what you guys do really well, whether it's like just sharing ideas or, you know, uncovering these things we've never heard of. But it's done in a relatable manner. Whereas, like, I think that that's why it's inspiring is because you're not doing this and like this I'm up here, you're down here type of way. It's kind of like, hey, we're all here and we can all do it. It's more tangible. It's very relatable. Like, I think that there's very strong parallels between what I've seen in like Danny's content and the way that she

relates to her audience and what you guys are doing with your audience. Well, we call it the girl next door. We don't want to be a super model. We want to be the girl next door. You're still trying to be hot, but you're like, relatable hot. You're like, I can't get there, but yeah, you are the girl. I love that. How have people, like, do you, what are your experiences like in real life when you meet people

who listen to the pod? It's probably like how you what you feel, which is that they know you. They're like, like, you know what I mean, but I really know you. But like, we're friends. Yeah, like, like, an Instagram, like, daily vlogging kind of like through an Instagram story is kind of the same way. It's like the same. I know you, your kids. I know what your house looks like. I know, like on my way here. I was asked to my wife. I was like, I don't follow them on Instagram. I don't know their stories. They don't know. They're like, oh, their mom is like involved in it. And this. They got two kids. Like there's like all these little things that are known about your life, the inside of your life. And so I think like that's what you guys do on the podcast, a different podcast is like such a long form conversation. Right. Unedited. Unedited. Uned unscripted. So you get to know someone's personality. And I usually do the pod with my buddy Sam. And Sam, like, it's kind of like two friends hanging out, kicking it. And so you, you get the, like, what we found was that the two transformations people get, the two feelings that they get consistently is we're like their entrepreneurial friends. It's almost like, they got to hang out with their two guy friends who are like super into business, nerding out about business stuff. It's like, they kind of got to have the hang out without like going and having to friends and doing the hangout like themselves. Because it's like, oh, I was driving somewhere and I just listen. But I kind of got my hangout fix. And the second is like motivation or like the inspiration, like the juice to be like,

I'm probably not going to go do any of the things you mentioned on this podcast specifically. But just hearing about stories of people doing interesting things made me want to go do more interesting things. Or if they're doing well, it made me want to go crush it in my field too. So once we realize that, it's like, oh, okay, that's very different than people come to me for this specific information or the specific help. Because it's like, yeah, there's some of that. but it's not the main thing that gets people attached. I told Ben this, you know, but I said the biggest pitfall from here is you got to stay humble and you got to stay consistent. Because I think that what happens in this era, and you saw it a lot with the early TikTokers that blew up during COVID is they moved in these big houses, right?

You know, and then they would sign with these managers and then they're all in all these commercials and the very thing that made them relatable and tangible during those times. Which was dancing alone in their bedrooms. Now they're in mansions and it just loses the same sentiment, right? And I think that that's the pitfall of anyone really in like the entertainment industry. But like anyone who's built their brand off of authenticity is like losing that. Right. So it'd be like you guys, you know, becoming jerks, you know, or douchey. And then like no one wants to hang out.

And they're like, oh, well, now they're just pompous. Or even like you have to protect yourself, you know, in our world, we have to protect ourselves from the sponsored things of like, oh, they're just bought now. You know, like I don't trust them anymore. You know, I don't believe that they're saying this. for just genuine reasons. It's not salmon, right, you know, kicking it. And so you probably get this question a lot.

It's the same question we get a lot, which is like, if you were just starting out today, what would you, what would you do, right? If you were 21 now, what would you, where would you start? We get that on the business side. What would you say your answer to that is on the content side? Would you start on TikTok? Would you go to Instagram?

Yeah. Like what type of content would you do? Because like you had said one thing that was actually very, very interesting to me. Your first video you said was like affordable New Year's year, New Year's Eve outfits. That's kind of amazing because that's a great, like, almost like title. Like, it seems like from the beginning you had a good sense of like what content will work. Right.

Yeah. Not everybody has that. Like, I think most people would have tried something that's like, not bad. Yeah. I would say with like any platform that I started on, I mean, I would probably start on TikTok now just because I feel like it's the easiest to go viral. Instagram is so tough. But I do feel like YouTube's like kind of coming back a little bit. Yeah, I heard vlogging is coming back.

Blogging, long form. But I honestly wish I wouldn't have started out with the trends, like chasing the trends. I really wish I would have just like found something really unique and honed in on that. Because I feel like I was like trend chasing for so long. And then I would have some video pop off. But that was just because it was trendy. And no one actually wanted to get to know me more. So I wish I would have just like kind of been more unique, which I think kind of just goes back to like, what does Danny actually want to share?

Like what is she really passionate about? I would mix in a little bit of that. like I, since I was studying biology and kinesiology, I would, you know, mix in a little bit of like what I was learning in my classes. But then the next video was a trend, you know? And so that's the same thing that I feel like a lot of TikTokers get caught up in. You know, they're just doing all these trendy videos. And then they have a meetup and like no one comes because nobody really knows them and nobody actually like connects with them. And then too, like I think branding as characters within your content is so important. Like you said, my mom's in a lot of content. So I had this idea to call my mom. What's her character?

So yeah, her character is we call her tornado. And that's the reason we call her tornado is because she is a tornado when she walks in the room. Like right now, if she was in this room, she'd be dusting off your leaves over there. She'd be fixing all the light bulbs. My mom has so much energy. And I didn't really know how to like communicate that to the audience. So my first step was like, we call her tornado. And the second step is every time she comes over, we're showing her up on a chair, dusting things off.

Doing tornado things. Doing tornado things. pulling me out of my comfort zone, just like being a tornado. And so, and then, you know, Jordan's character is like every single day he gets up at the same exact time. He wears, you know, he gets dressed up every single time. I'm running around the house, just like chaos. So we all have our certain characters. And I didn't really learn how important that was up until like probably like three or four years ago. How did you learn that? You just sort of like, because people started forgetting who we were. And so I had to like create a way where people like when they, when they, you know,

know, we're missing it. Like, what did they associate our family with? And, like, how, how could they remember us throughout the day? And so, um, so like, tornado was, was a, like, was kind of huge for us. I feel like that was not only that, but it was like very relatable because, you know, just even before we had kids, like the content we were creating, I'm like, who relates to this? We're traveling all over the world, taking outfit pictures. Right. You know, like this is not. And honestly, it was exhausting for us because it wasn't even like relatable for us, you know? And so as soon as we kind of like settled down and we had, kids. And I was like, okay, we have to figure out a way to make our everyday life interesting.

So we bought our nice house and then we went into a relatable house and then we go sleep in the nice house. Honestly, I know people that do that. Like, I know influencers that have second houses that literally just film their. Our middle class house. No, or I know influencers that literally will like, they'll take a Chanel bag to dinner, but they'll like switch it with like an Amazon one before when they take the photo. And it's like, I, But no, I feel like what's so, like, unique about us, too, is like that we kind of live our lives just the way we were raised. Like, with the same family values that we were raised with. We're not shared to, we're not scared to share that with our audience.

Yeah, I mean, I would say, like, everything, you said a lot about, like, characters. This is, like, who they are, you know? And it was just like, how do we kind of, like, tell it from all these different angles? And it just fit, you know, like, every family is a story, right? And I think that that's where a lot of the creativity seeped into what we did, right? and why it was hard to do what we did is we had to find what made our family unique and almost produce it like a reality TV show. And I think that that, I mean, I don't want to say that we were the first, but I think that's what we saw the medium of Instagram stories as. Like a lot

of, I think, influencers in like the 2019 era when it came out, we were like, oh my gosh, like, how am I going to do this? Because they're not super personable. And we, you know, with your YouTube background, we were like, oh, man, this is like our platform to shine. And it was, it was so fun. So what I'm pushing you to do is like, show your wife, show your kids. show the behind the scenes of like what is happening in Sean's life beyond just this podcast. Like that's what I think. And it doesn't even have to be family. It could be like your producer or your assistant or whoever it is.

Like my brother now has an assistant. Her name's Katie. And she shows up like three days a week. And she is everyone like loves around the content. And now because they love her and because she's a character, they got and do these crazy things that they probably would have never done. That's just so much more entertaining now because there's another character involved. And so who's, are you just?

like selfie with the camera? Do you have somebody who follows your route? This guy. Hello, my name is Jordan. This guy. I mean, yeah, it's, we do have a content creator now that we actually just hired. Yeah, he looks with like reels because those are, that's a different game. That's a whole other beast.

So, you know, he's been helping out a little bit, but like we kind of just enjoyed doing ourselves. There's a lot. I talk to another woman who listens to the pod is Rebecca Zamarolo. You know, she's like a YouTuber. She's got like 10 million subs on YouTube. Uh-huh. And when I called her, she was. basically like, yeah, downstairs right now is like the camera crew.

They basically live in our house and she's like, my dog has a channel that's got like 300,000 subs, like we have our gaming channel. We have our, she does like kind of kids like role play content or something like that story. Kind of like, yeah, let's like treasure chest in the backyard. Let's go do whatever. And so they not only each one, not only as a character, each one got their own sub channels has their own following and then they have a camera crew that was like just there all the time. I was like, man, that's, you know, like stressful.

It's like a lot. It's like reality. It's like, you know, famous people, they have trouble when they go out because they're like, oh, I keep getting stopped. But almost like influencers have it in the house. It's like I never get to just not. Yes. Have you said the same thing?

Yes. Oh my gosh. It's hard. And I love our team to death. But, you know, it's hard when your job is to live your life. You know, your job is to experience life to capture it in a very raw strip down way. But, you know, when there's crews and there's teams, it's. it's sometimes counterproductive to what you're trying to do it. And so, you know, the reason I think that

the husband and wife dynamic works so well in our niche is because it's just us hanging out, you know, and it's like, it's the best content there is. Danny had a bin in her life that was like falling around that wasn't her husband. It's like, it's all about the dynamic, right? And so like I, you know, it's funny. I always advocate for like the best producer for a content creator is going to be the husband. In fact, I think that the most successful couples in our niche have that husband, wife dynamic where they're creating content together. It is funny. We have our, so we do have a team and they come over like four days a week.

But they, they meet in our upstairs playroom. And so they're not the ones actually filming the content, but they're there. Truly, it's off to that. As we had more kids, it was like, okay, we're just going to put this ball pit in here. Okay, here's Stella's table and so Stella will walk in and just be playing. But the amount of times that we've tried to, you know, get a workspace or get an office, it just like doesn't work because they do have to be there because, like, it's, like, if we're going into an office every day, that's not relatable anymore. Right. And there's also

like nothing, I don't know. It's truly one of the most like, like technical nuances that's difficult about our industry is like how do we position our team? Where do we put them? And then like Danny can't, you know, you can't just say, hey, Danny, come to the office and do a try on hall. All the clothes are in the closet, right? But so it's always the trade off of, okay, do we have people in our house? What do we it. Yeah, we're still fanging it out. Still figuring out. And for the like Instagram kind of like sponsored content or like brand deals, tell me a little bit about those. So how, uh, how those kind of like changed over time? What, what is like working the best or what works, what doesn't work anymore or it doesn't work at all when

people try it? Yeah. So I mean, brand deals started out as, you know, here's a product, go make a YouTube video, include it for 20 seconds. put the link in there. And, like, at first, I was such a sellout. Because, you know, like, I'm 20 years old. I'm like, I'm just trying to pay my rent. Like, I'll do anything that I can do to just, like, get by. And so, and then I think you get to a point where you're like, wait, like, people really trust me.

Like, this is like some responsibility. So I kind of, like, took this approach where I pictured myself, like, you know, shopping with them and then purchasing something, then trying it. And then then being like, what the heck, Danny? Why did you recommend this? So I really started to take, like, more responsibility. And like, wait, I am a real. Like I got to serve these people. Not only that, I have to find the best deals. Not only that, like, I need to go after

these brands and beg them for better promo codes that, like, they can't get anywhere else. So it kind of became, like, competitive with myself. Yeah, we kind of became like a like a, like a, like a, like a, like a QVC always going to have the best deal. And so we tried to adopt that mentality in house. You know, I always describe it as like a like a like a like a triangle, like at the top is the audience. And like, as long as we're prioritizing them first, everyone's happy. At the bottom left is like our business, which we have to take care of. We run a team. And then on the right is like the brand we're serving.

And we found that every time we try and flip the triangle a different way, so if we put the brand at the top, then the audience is like, you don't actually like this product. And everything kind of just crumbles. And the, I would say like this year in particular, COVID especially,

it was like there was just this like craze for promo codes. Like because what the shopping was happening so much through Instagram that we found our edge to be like, hey, let's get the best deal that you're not going to find anywhere. else, you know, in the country. And it kind of, I mean. Yeah. But I think what works a lot for us is to not just go 100% on brand deals, but to also couple that with affiliates. So when I post, you know, LTK, so when I share something that I like to know. Like to know it. Yes. So like to know it is basically a platform where, you know, anything I swipe up to, you can make commission off of it. But the

best thing about LTK is I can share things that I genuinely bought. Like this top right now, I got from Target. I purchased it. I get to go tell people, okay, it kind of fits a little tight in the shoulders, so maybe go a size up. You know, here's the link. Make sure you order it in white because that's about to sell out, whatever it is. And so that's like super authentic, super real.

People know that you're making commission off of it. They don't care because you're just providing them like a lot of value. So that's like 50% of how we monetize. And then the other half is, you know, through brand deals where I feel like if you have a really strong affiliate base, like you can get really picky with the brand. that you're choosing. So we got super picky, like the past couple years. And then it got to a point where like, okay, we're getting brand deals. We got affiliates. Now, let's go after those brands that have never given promo codes or never given deals. Let's fly out there and like meet with them in

person and like beg them for promo codes. So one of those examples was free people, you know, girls love free people, been wearing free people for years. They never do promo codes. They rarely do. They'll go on sale, but never do like a discount code. So we begged them forever to get a code, finally got a code, you know, within the first hour, we pushed seven figures because people are like, and not like that, but because we, I had worn it for years and people had seen these, you know, these specific crop tops that I've been wearing for so long, it was like the most like genuine, authentic push and it like benefited the brand, benefited us, benefit the audience, everyone's happy. And so what's the juiciest brand deal you've ever had where you were like, wow, they're going to pay us

that? Like, that's a stupid about of money. or like, you know, we can make this book. You don't have to say the name of the brand or you can just describe it. You know what you're going to say. I think. You say it. Stanley. Stanley.

Stanley. The cups. Yeah. So, fun fact, we were like the first. Why are those like so popular? We were the first to share them. Yeah. First bloggers.

I think we influenced my wife. She bought one. And I was like, this is humongous. This is a giant, giant cup. It's a great product. You know, they are owned by PE. and so we flew up to Seattle and we were like, guys, listen,

because they really hit that, like, Utah Mormon market really well. Love that mark. Yeah, it's a great market. And then they saw that that was working. The president is a guy named Terrence. He's actually a phenomenal, like, marketer. He was the one who put Post Malone and Crocs

and, like, kind of like reverse Crocs trajectory to being like a cultural icon. And so he, I think, had noticed Danny and was like, hey, you know, like, there's something about this mom market that's working with Stanley, you know, flew us up. there and it was it was hard they still haven't given us a code per se on the quencher have they not on the quencher we have a code on every other product but the quencher yeah that's it's hard but yeah they um they've been good but they've been awesome to us we have some special things coming out with them we're

excited yeah we're excited amazing so pain points right so like you talked about divy was born out of a pain point that you had yeah um i'm curious as you guys are trying to run this kind of influencer business plus Divi, like, have you felt any pain points that you're like, God, I wish, I wish somebody just made this easier or made this. Hiring people easier. Yeah. Wait, this is kind of random, but like content creation at weddings. Content creation at weddings.

Yes. So I feel like now brides really want like TikToks or reels or just like iPhone photos. They don't want to like hire this photographer and wait, you know, two months before they get their photos back. So at my wedding, I just hired someone to like take an iPhone. and like take iPhone video, walk around. That's a good idea. That's a great idea.

That's a great idea. Take photos and I just paid them like hourly, but I feel like you could get like a pretty good team that like, you know, they take all this. The nice thing is to you get your content the day after the wedding. Because like the biggest bummer is you go to your honeymoon. You don't have any pictures. They're up to post.

Yeah. Then they post and like people are going to pay for that because it's their one day. A normal videographer, I think is like 10 grand plus. Oh, yeah. And sometimes I don't even like I like the iPhone videos better. Because those are like, like you said, like my sister-in-law just got married, like, a few months ago. She just now got, like, the first cut of the wedding video. And then that doesn't look like what content looks like nowadays.

Exactly. It looks like this like archaic, like a looking thing. It's like nice. Yeah. But it's like if you posted this, it's like, okay, grandma, like, you know, this is not like a... David's brother had like five TikToks and like six Instagram. Yeah, that felt like the fun of the party, you know, was captured. I think the reason we've noticed that is because Jordan films a lot of our content and we've been to a lot of weddings where

the next day the bride is like reaching out to me like, hey, can you send me that real that you posted or your stories for the day? And we're like, oh, they already expired. Like, they're done for it. You know? And there's so many like content creators now that I feel like don't want to be influencers. They're just like content creators. Like they'll just create content for other people. I think someone's going to, that's always been a great idea you had. Thank you. I had more time. I like that. And that's cool because that could just be like local franchises. Exactly. You could just train someone how to do it. In theory, you could just start that business and then be like, I'm looking for an operator in Nashville.

We need an operator in Florida. Who's going to be able to do these like dispatch content creators? And they go in and then they like cut it all up and then they have it to you by midnight. You said there's a bunch of content creators that don't want to be influencer. So who are they? What are they doing? Yeah, I would say like we've seen this a lot with like divvy. It's called UGC now.

So it's like user generated content. So there's like a whole. Yeah, there's like a whole economy now. They're not getting paid like as a brand deal to promote it on their own. own stories. It's like, you know, hey, we'll pay you $2,000 for four videos with our brand a month. And so these brands will have 10 UGC creators on standby, on retainer, you know, and they use that content for ads. And so what is happening is like our like our UGC content at Divi is performing the best over any type of like branded asset. And so it makes it sort of feel like a lot of people

are using the brand in an organic ways. And they, they are. But it's, It's a whole other new class. And I was like, oh my gosh, people are doing that. Like, that's insane. Yeah, we pay for our brand. We pay like between one and $2,000 to a handful of creators for this exact thing. And it's like, they don't have a following. Yeah.

They're just like good at creating this content. And they're like, wow, you know, I get free product and I get paid to do this. Like, this is amazing. And I don't even need to be famous. Like, I felt the hit even with my brand deals. Like, we don't get a lot of those opportunities more because they used to come to me. And they used to say, we'll pay you X amount of, but now I guess we're too expensive or something because we never hear for them anymore.

Well, it's kind of shifted to. Like, that's interesting part about like how the influencer industry shifted is it's, it always kind of goes in waves, right? But it's like moving from like back to mass marketing where it's like as many people as possible are using and talking about your product at the same time. And so that's how it goes viral on TikTok. So how it goes viral on TikTok. So where does Divi go from here?

So you guys are at this level now. You have like a retail distribution too, right? Yeah, so last year, we did about 8% of our revenue from retail, but we are scaling in Ulta. So we're hoping to be in all doors of Ulta by the end of this year. I don't know, Danny's always been big on not taking investors, so we didn't do that at the front end. And so we're kind of like, we own our own destiny at this point.

I think that we're very passionate about the mission of Divi. It's hard to create an influencer brand that people don't think you just slapped your name on it, right? So we really wanted to create a product that is more and bigger than Danny. And so the products have to be really good. And so we're really focused right now on innovation. We're trying to patent some of our technologies. By the way, why is it called divvy? What's the name?

Yeah, you answer to this. I always forget. So it's just like divvying up attention to like each area of your life, like overall better lifestyle and overall wellness. But is it one of those things where it just sounds cool, then later you're like, what's the meaning? Or you're like, I always say she doesn't like. Honestly, you really want to know. It was just so hard to trademark. Yeah, I was like, she gets mad when I say this.

I was like, yeah, it's the third name. All the others are trained. No, it was like the 30th name. It's a good name. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, now I love it now. And so you're going into retail. You hired up a bunch of people you said.

Yeah. What else is like? What's the next unanswered question for you guys? What are you trying to figure out next? I would say like, you know, last year was very difficult just because like it was kind of Danny and I running everything. We've now, like you said, hired like this suite of VPs. I would say the next biggest challenge for us is like we're kind of setting the stage for in 2024 to go international, which some companies have done really well and other companies have

really botched. Yeah. And it's been just like a money pit. And so that's probably the next frontier for us. And, you know, we would like to do it without having to raise additional capital. We've done everything thus far ourselves, which is very unique. I mean, the best part is, is like our audience is kind of built in. So when we launch something, people tell me that day if they like it or not or that day, what they want more of. And so, you know, our sequence or what we've launched, we only have four skews right now has just been like listening to our audience.

And that's the biggest, one of the biggest things is, can you sell international? And so we're definitely working on that. And then just like a lot of other skews in the pipeline, since we only have four skews, we have a lot of lot more. Product development's been the hardest thing to learn for us for sure. Oh, 100%. And so there's like that company like, seed beauty that was doing stuff for

I forgot who Kylie or something like that. There's like these companies that are behind the influencer brands. I know like the prime drink or whatever. There's like these guys behind it that's totally. They have their own company. They do like multiple brands out of that. Did you guys work with somebody like that or do you do your own sourcing and manufacturing? We found a manufacturer

and that's pretty much it. Formulation, how'd you do that? You went to like a formulation house or whatever a formulation lab. Yeah, like manufacturers usually have chemists and house. So we found one, and they developed our serum. And luckily, we just picked one right. That's a very hard world to navigate too, I've learned. I think we totally got lucky with our manufacturer on the first one because there's a lot of

bad manufacturers out there. And you don't know until six months later, right? And so picking the good ones has been hard. But yeah, other than that, I mean. We have two in-house chemists now. Yeah, we have two in-house chemists. We, again, with the influencer business, like Danny learned so much from having a manager. we've always just tried to be entrepreneurs in-house and bring in-house,

which is usually longer. You make more mistakes. It's harder. But, I mean, I think that we like where we're at where we didn't have a Cody or someone come in and say, just slap your name on this because we're able to listen to our audience, develop the products that we know that they want. But yeah, it's more challenging for sure. I didn't see him at all last year.

Yeah, I was like, I have a life now. I play paintball now. So, like, I'm good now. Put paint ball around? I play paintball now. And it's also the first time now we have like our four VPs when we walk into a room and we're like, hey, we have an idea. Can we do this? We're like, what's the political process of how we get things done? And now there's process everywhere.

Whereas, like, if we have an idea today and the content side, we're like, okay, let's make it happen, you know? And it's just, it's becoming a real company, which is, it's cool, but it comes to things. Yeah, I have to be careful. Jordan tells me when we walk into the office. He's like, you can't just walk into the office and tell them what you want or that you don't like something. Like, we've been working on this product for a month.

She's like, yeah, I don't really like it. It's like, wait, way, way, just don't say it. Just crushing hopes of dreams. Sorry. You think you'll be doing content in like five years, 10 years? 100%. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed with my job. Like, I love creating content. Yeah. Yeah, I don't even think of it as a job. But it's, it's honestly like so I think it like our relationship, I feel like is always really healthy. Whatever we're like creative together and creating things together. And I think we love doing that. Instagram therapy basically. Yeah. Pretty much. I mean. If you work with your wife, like you, I feel like you have to work through so much more conflict than if you have nine to five. Like I'm like,

I mean, we, yeah, it's, it makes our relationship stronger. And we were something like a larger goal and then, you know, but we'll see like how it evolves with involving our family, like our kids. That's something I still haven't really figured out. And that's what's so great about working with Jordan is like if we ever didn't want to share our kids or go down that path, like him and I can just take over again. And then also having divvy, we don't have to rely on sharing the entire family. But no, I think it's something that will probably always be doing. Yeah, well, on Instagram. Yeah, so people can find us on Instagram under Danny Austin.

And then divvy, divvyofficial.com. And then Instagram, divvy official. Yep. Easy. And what about you? Where's your Instagram? Oh, I don't. You don't have one?

I don't have one. Dude, you got a spin-off character, man. It's so much effort that I couldn't. I couldn't. It would cause conflict in our marriage to try and do both. Like, it's true. Yeah. I'm a great supporting actor.

That's why I was. Amazing. If you want to come work for you, how would they mind you? Yeah, yeah. If you want to come work for Divi, email hello at divvyofficial.com, and it'll get to me. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks for doing this.

I know this is definitely, you're probably like, what the heck is this podcast? Who are these guys? But I appreciate you coming on. It's fun. It's fun. Thanks for having us. Right on. I feel like I can rule the world.

I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back.