My First Million - How to win in ecom in 2025 (from a $200M/yr marketer)

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

Episode 684: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talk to Sean Frank ( https://x.com/SeanEcom ) about his $200M ecom playbook.  — Show Notes:  (0:00) Sean's first million (8:35) $5M - $200M in 6 years (25:57) What people get wrong in ecom (30:33) Case study: HexClad (36:52) Fast-emerging trends (40:57) How to spot trends (44:54) Services-to-product playbook (51:47) Sean calls his shot (54:01) Winning at the trends game (59:01) Being outspoken on the internet — Links: • Operators Podcast - https://www.youtube.com/@Operators9  • Ridge - https://ridge.com/  • PostPilot - https://www.postpilot.com/  • LVMH - https://www.lvmh.com/en  • Tapestry - https://www.tapestry.com/  • HexClad - https://hexclad.com/  — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com  • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents. • Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies! Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/ My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano

I'm glad you guys invited me here because you're slumming it down with like the e-com millionaires again. This is like a make-a-wish type of episode for us. You know. 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 a road, let's travel.

Never. There's really two things that I need to talk to you about. There's two reasons you're here. Number one, I cannot believe that you sell hundreds of millions of dollars of this stupid little wallet. This is unbolical. It's been blowing my mind ever since I found that out. And now you're here finally to give us some answers. And two, I think you're very opinionated when it comes to e-com.

You don't hold back. You don't pull punches. And so we like that. We like spicy guests. And I think you're going to be able to have both of those things for us. I think you should smack Sean right now for a stupid little wallet. Did you hear that? Stupid little wall.

I'm just trying to get him fired up. I told you. He gets fiery. He gets feisty. So I wanted to, you know, stir the pot a little bit. You better play nice. I'll docks your e-commerce brand. That's true.

He's got some... He knows too much. He's got some compromise on me. Dude, I've been a Ridge wallet owner since 2016 or 17. You know, Ridge sponsored The Hustle. Well, dude, thank you for the support. And you guys were super early for newsletter sponsorships. Like, we probably run like a pretty big sponsorship, like ecosystem now.

We sponsor like a ton of newsletters, like, you know, YouTubers, obviously. you guys were like one of the first people selling that ad space. Yeah, and you know what I learned about your guys' industry? Well, just any marketer who's savvy is people like you and Sean, you guys know how to find early interesting stuff and you take all of the risks and you just, you understand the arbitrage, like the underpriced opportunity. And so we had a lot of smart people who would buy these ads with us. And I'm like, I can't believe they're doing this.

It's so unproven. And then I realize that that's like the theme of a smart marketer, which is throw dollars at a variety of things and then exhaust it. Once everyone else comes and finds it. Yeah, it's at arbitrage, right? Like, everything's attention. So if I'm giving Facebook at this point $15 per

thousand views and if I can get a better price off of newsletters or influencer or YouTube, like it's all just an attention economy. And it's so funny to watch that like pendulum swing back. Linear TV, like the TV your parents probably watch, is so cheap to run ads on

because nobody's buying it. So like, you know, I'll probably spend... What's like the CPM of linear TV? A dollar. Like... Oh, wow. It's like, because there's all these channels, right? There's been like, you know, thousands of channels that have come out that like have

800 people who watch them. So like you just buy like big blocks of random ad space that are just very mail targeted. And like, yeah, literally like a dollar each a thousand people. Do you know what our best performing ad channel is, our marketing channel for my brand? Postcards. but you would not believe it postcards it's not super scalable like you can't just like spend

to infinity on it but you know you put a dollar in you'll get eight or nine dollars out of revenue it's amazing that's great you use post pilot post pilot yeah nice so okay so Sean we should start at the start so what's cool about y'all story

is you sell a simple product it wasn't like some some Mark Zuckerberg you know innovation or anything like that and you've scaled it up you built it brick by brick but you said you started in the service, in like a sort of a sweaty services business. You didn't start the company and you didn't start off in the product game. So can we just do your story for a little bit?

And then I want to brainstorm other DTC ideas with you afterwards. But first, let's do your story. Sure. Yeah, you got that right. The show is my first million. So I made my first million dollars off of an ad agency. So, you know, Facebook ads came out in 2012. That was like when it was probably like an open beta, anybody could join.

and I learned how to do Facebook ads. I worked at an agency with my CMO Connor. And the agency sucked. Like, you know, it was 200, 200 people working there, probably 500 clients. You were an employee? Yeah, yeah, I was just an employee. And then I was like, oh, I should do this. I could do a better job of this.

The ad agency I worked out. The average client was around for four months. So imagine that sales cycle. Like, it takes 60 days to onboard them. They get 30 days worth of work and they're like, this sucks. and then 30 days to off board. The average client was four months, right? And I'm like, imagine if I just did this, but I kept them for a year.

I'm like, I'll make so much money, right? So I started an ad agency. I have 10 clients. So you're saying this like it's simple. So you're working at an ad agency. How old are you roughly at this time? I was 22. You're 22 years old.

You're not like a marketing expert yet, right? You're like, you know, you're learning on the job, I would assume. Yeah, yeah, but like it was It's kind of like TikTok shop is today Like nobody's an expert, right? Like it's a brand new thing that came out Like I was, we're probably two and a half years In a Facebook ads.

People still thought Instagram followers were the most important metric And they're like wanting to run campaigns to get followers, right? And was your agency super bullish on Facebook as a channel Or it was kind of like this new thing that you know You got really interested in because it was new But was the whole agency like hey, this is going to be a really big deal? Yeah, it was like a cookie cutter D2C agency like in the heyday. This is probably like 2015, right? So Facebook, Facebook and email was the services we were providing. Like there was no

other services. Maybe there was one guy doing Google ads, right? But it was really all in on Facebook as like this brand new channel. And if I could go back in time, I would have been even deeper into Facebook. Like the biggest challenge with Ridge, we're skipping a couple of years in the future. But like we try to diversify too fast. Like I was doing newsletter sponsorship. And like they worked. I should have put all of my dollars into Facebook back then up until like 2020. I would have just been better off putting as much money to that as possible.

And Ridge was one of your clients. Were they an early client? Yeah. So I had 10. So I'm at an agency. It sucks. I think I can do a better job. Me and my CMO, Connor.

We ended up starting an agency together. We take 10 clients with us. Eight of them you have never heard of, okay? Like, they've just, you know, gone extinct. One of them was Ridge, and then one of them was actually mudwater, which is actually gone on to crush it. Like, we did their Google ads at some point, like in 2016 or whatever. But yeah, so we end up taking Ridge over.

Father's son, best friend, they start this business. They get to like $5 million a year in sales. And they are, you know, like the dad was a special ed teacher. like, you know, Daniel was going to go to be an accountant and this thing just kind of caught fire. And he really didn't want to be an accountant. So, like, there are expectations for the brand where they got to $5 million a year. They're like, this is the best thing that's ever happened, right? And me and Connor being hell of young and I'm like, I think we can get to $15 million a year.

I think we can get this thing to $30 million a year. I remember telling Connor, I'm like, I think we can do $100 million a year selling this wallet. And he looks me down in the face and he's like, there is no fucking way in hell we're going to do that. right, this was like 2017, but they didn't really want to run it all that much anymore, right? Like they didn't want to manage people. So I'm like, cool, we'll do everything else. So my agency kind of gets built around running Ridgewallet. We do their customer service.

We do their product importation. We do all of their marketing. We do their web dev. And then I'm charging them like $200,000 a month. Like all of the money is coming from Ridge Wallet. They end up being like 60% of all agency billables for my tiny agency. and at a certain point they're like, hey, we should just merge, right? So me and Connor take an equity stake.

Everyone in my agency just goes in-house to Ridge. I end up selling off the agency to one of the people who was running it. And that was probably 2018. And since then, Ridge has gone from, you know, $30 million a year to over $200. That's amazing. What I love about that story is that it sounds like when you were running the agency, like almost like nobody would in a business school would recommend hey you're running this marketing agency and then for one client you're going to start doing customer service you know logistic support all

all these other things it sounds like wrong to do that's like how one customer is going to make up 60% of your billables from a business school perspective that would be like a bad move but darmes said something once on the podcast he goes with my first business he goes i got i got mixed up later he goes just because I was ignorant doesn't mean I was wrong, meaning I didn't know the right way to do it, but my instincts actually were leading me in the right direction. It just wasn't, you know, I didn't have like some sophisticated game plan and maybe it wasn't typical, but it was my instincts were correct. And it sounds like your instincts were correct that you should just keep leaning into the ridge thing, even though it was like maybe you'd not what a normal agent, normal marketing

agency ever would have done. Most clients suck. Like if you guys ever done client work, like most clients fight with you, they don't pay you. Like, there's always trying to hire you, right? And Ridge as a business was ran by really cool guys who didn't want to take any, like, rains away from us. They were very happy with the $5 million year business, and they're like, we could always go back to shipping the orders ourselves, right? Like, I mean, the guys are like, you know, Buddhists, like raised Buddhist their whole lives. I think that's part of it. But they were very much like, hey, this is a good thing. These guys are grown this business. Let's give them more responsibility. And, you know, you can't really.

exit agency businesses for all that much, right? One reason why we went all in on Ridge and did the merger is like an agency is probably worth maybe one X client contracts. And maybe at the peak, it was two X client contracts, right? So like if your clients, you know, if you have a guaranteed million dollars in revenue, you might be able to sell it for a million or two. Where Ridge, at the time, we're like fucking $10 billion year business right here. We're going to grow this thing at the fucking moon. So it just made sense to put all our chips in that basket. What was the metric that you saw that gave you the aha moment where you were like, all right, they're doing $5 million now, but this could be $30. This could be $100. Was there one or two metrics or was it just a guess?

What was that research process like? It just seemed like they could always put another dollar into Facebook and it could work, right? Like the limiting factor wasn't like marketing or awareness. It was like the operations of the business, right? We ended up like we had a year where we didn't have any wallets because we couldn't keep them in stock. So like we went from $15 million to $18 million one year. And that was just because we couldn't make enough of the fucking product. And I'm like, you know, so often demand is the thing that stops these brands. Like you can only get to so big of a tam. And that wasn't the case here.

You know, we did like a wearable. And it was so hard to get people to buy the wearable. Like the cack on Facebook was $400. Back then, okay? It was like so fucking hard to get people to buy these wearables where the wallet, it was like a $6 cac. Like we could just put up a new ad and they were just static images and they were just selling. So that was the metric, man. That's like an interesting process because a lot of people, myself included, will say, focus, focus, focus, get it right, make it great.

It's going to take a decade plus. But your story is more so like, I tried this, I tried this, I tried this, none of it worked. This thing was clearly the winner. I should go all in on this. Is that what your recommendation is? Well, my recommendation as a person trying to make it is you should make the best decision at the time. So whatever the facts are, when the facts change, make a different decision, right? Strong beliefs held loosely.

So, like, I'm at an agency. I could have just, like, did that grind and be like, I'm going to be a VP at this agency when I'm 26. I'll make like $200 grand a year. But I was like, no, these people suck. I think the best decision for me is to just do what they're doing better, right? And then from the agency to Ridge, I'm like running an agency business. I'm like, running an agency sucks.

The Ridge thing seems to be going better. So I should just do that instead. I should find a way to encrinch myself inside of this business. And then at Ridge, it was just like, I mean, for so long, we did not launch any other products. For eight years, it was just selling more of the wallet because that's what was working. As soon as it started to get a little hard, then we pivoted to everything else. Which is funny, because I would have thought early on, I would have the paralysis of analysis would have been like, well, there's not that many wallet.

Like, if you told me $200 million a year in revenue, I would say, well, you've sold every man in America a wallet. Like there are no more wallet buyers. You know what I mean? That's like what of my uneducated self-limiting belief a little bit would have been on that. If you said 200 million a year, I'm like, well, there are no wall. There are no more people who need a wallet. Dude, it's a weirdly big tam. Like the reason why, like we, you know, in retrospect, I could tell you all the reasons

why Ridge wallet worked. It's a $10 billion a year, okay? And like most of that is luxury brands. LVMH sells like $4 billion a year in men's wallets. like curing. They own Gucci. They sell a ton of men's wallets. But then Tapestry, which owns Coach,

coach does a billion dollar a year at men's sales. So it's men's accessories. No men are buying those products. They're all gifts that are given to them. And nobody's ever excited about getting those products. So the reason why I'm very public that I think Rich can get to a billion dollars in revenue is because Tapestry has a men's business doing a billion dollars a year in revenue with nobody loyal or passionate about that.

So I'm just going to make whatever they make in all of our cool colors and our cool materials. And, you know, I think it's been so sexy to be talking about tech and AI these past 10 years, right? Or, you know, tech for 10 years, AI for 10 months. But I was at like the All In Summit and I'm looking at those guys. And like the products they're talking about exist inside their phones, right? Like they exist inside some server somewhere. But they're all wearing fucking cool suits and watches and leather belts. And I'm like, okay, I'll just sell them all that shit, right?

Like, I'm just going to sell, like, all the, like, the most practical thing ever. Because also, smart people don't enter the space, right? The reason why Ridgewall was able to be so successful is because we're the only people running Facebook ads for wallets. Like, then there's been a bunch of other, like, people who've started up and, like, and I've tried. They've all ended up going out of business because it's really difficult to get right, right? Like, there is no repeat business. You can't, like, believe that the LTV will come save you later. it's very much like can you tactically acquire customers profitably every single day.

Hey, uh, Hey, Brown Sean. White Sean's got that immigrant energy that I love. He's got, you know what I mean? He's got the,

what do you call it? The Korean restaurant owner? I call it a Korean convenience store owner energy. You know, it's just like there's not like too, too much overthinking it. It was like, well, you guys are all wearing this.

I'll just sell that. Right. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. And I think you'll keep wearing this. So, you know, Munger has these great quotes where he's like, his main thing is like, instead of trying to be brilliant, just avoid stupidity.

Or he'll be like, you know, the best thing in the world is stupid competition. And we just have not much and stupid competition. It sounds like that's part of what, in retrospect, made Ridge work was you were like, hey, look, we took the simple idea. And there's not a lot of other really smart, you know, DDC marketers that were doing this. And so we were able to make hay. Yeah, totally, man. I mean, and to this day, the best D2C marketers are working on stuff like, you know, AG1, right?

Like, they're selling supplements. And it's because it's a better business. Like, undoubtedly, if there's an LTV tied to your business, like it's going to be better, it's going to be more valuable, it's going to trade it a higher multiple. But the other thing is, like, the best marketers have more or less left the industry, right? Like, in 2021, running an econ brand was incredibly cool. It has gotten less cool every single year. So there's less people doing it.

There's less voices. There's less people talking about it. It's because it's fucking hard. I'm unjokingly called like the blue collar work. It's like, you know, everyone wants to be shipping cool AI products or everybody wants to be shipping, you know, something that isn't physical boxes to people's doors of products you actually have to like make. Everyone wants to build, you know, the services of whatever. So anyway, yeah, over the past four years, it's gotten really uncool to do what I do. Do you guys, on 200 million in revenue, are you able to make a good cash flow and profit?

Or, you know, I know so many friends who have these companies and their numbers are huge, but they cash is always an issue. Are you able to manage this well? Or at that scale, do you still struggle? I think the reason why you guys ask me to be here is to talk about the fact that you can, in fact, make a profit running e-commerce brands. So Ridge has never raised any money. We have no debt. So every dollar in this business, every dollar on my balance sheet, his profit that has been reinvested, I've been able to make millions of dollars a year for the past couple of years

running this business. So yeah, it can definitely be done, man. Like I bought a house in L.A. directly because of selling wallets on the internet. Give us a sense of the timeline. So you said kind of like, I don't know, it was 2016-ish, right, when you guys merged or you took over the brand. But can you just give us kind of like a year one, $5 million when you started working with them, then it went to 10, then it went to 22, then it, you know, give us a timeline.

Yeah. And I'm fucking horrible at timelines. So I'll give it my best. It's basically been, it's like a 50% kegger since I started working with the business. So I think they did a Kickstarter in 2013. The first year they do like a million of revenue. In 2015, they probably do two or three. When I meet them, 2016, they do like $5 million.

So I think it went from five to 10 to 15 to 18. and that's like the hardest year of the business when it went from 15 to 18 that was like we had no inventory with this massive fucking tax bill that sucked that was probably 2018 or 19 when that happened

2020 we do $50 million so I might that must have been 2018 it must have been 30 so 18 to 30 to 50 and then we then 50 this is the COVID year so it went from 50 to 100

and then it's been like yeah I mean last year was a, I'll just say a multi-hundred million dollar a year. So let me recap that for the listener. So you started in 15, I didn't hear what you said, but in 2016, 5 million, and then

each year for that was 5,010, 15, 18, 30, 50, 100 with last year being multi-hundred. That's incredible growth. Yeah. Something like that. So it's been super fun, man.

And Sam, you brought up, have I sold every wallet in America. That was like one of your concerns, right? So like I said, it's a massive Tam, right? And I always say like we're a great uncle gift. Like you guys are going to go to Christmas or you guys are going to go to fucking a birthday or whatever and you have to buy some guy in your life a present and you don't know his size, right? The Ridgewall is a perfect price point. You can get one on sale today for like 76 bucks and it is sizeless. And like every guy in your life, you'd be like, hey, look, it has your favorite sports team on it or it has carbon fiber or whatever else.

Right. So it's a perfect uncle gift. And most of our products are probably sold as gifts, right? Some woman in their life buying it for some guy in their life. And the wallets are about half of revenue right now. The other half of revenue is all the other stuff we've launched. So the biggest unlock we've ever had was in 2022, we started selling men's wedding bands. And once again, this is a category where people thought it was so fucking dumb to sell men's wedding bands. They're like, it is a commodity good. Like, who the hell is buying this? The first year we'd eight figures. It is the highest margin, fastest growing part of my company is selling men's wedding bands on the internet. So let's talk about this because we're in this group chat that you have, which is like a bunch of, a bunch of DDC brands. I don't know what the cutoff is. I think I'm like below whatever the cutoff was supposed to be, but you let me in, which was nice of you. You're in the like the charisma hire. Yeah, exactly. I'm the personality hire. So, so I, you talked about like going into new categories and like the wedding band was obviously a smash success. You've said the wearable thing maybe wasn't as big of a success. And you had this kind of

interesting way of looking at it. Because I just thought Ridge wallets, that kind of like the carbon fiber metal wallet company. And you were talking about like Mont Blanc and you were talking about these other almost like luxury accessory brands. And that was the vision you had for the company. When did that vision kick in? So like when did you reframe what the company is? Because I think entrepreneurs, we hear stories or somebody already has the vision and they already have the right frame. It sounds beautiful and big and really appealing. But at the beginning, they don't always have that. You know, Mark Zuckerberg, there's a video of him on a couch somewhere,

and somebody's like, are you going to expand past colleges? He's like, no, that wouldn't be cool. And now he's like got satellites above India giving people Internet so they can use Facebook. Like, you know, your vision expands as you grow. When did your, the vision kind of change or when did you reframe it? And secondly, how do you think about going into new categories? Yeah. Well, I'm a very paranoid person.

So, like, in 2018, I'm like, this is. is going to end. We have to fucking find some other shit to sell. So we got into backpacks and phone cases and all this stuff pretty early in 2018. And we, the first year we did like four million dollars in backpack sales, or maybe it was three million. It was like a big chunk of revenue. And we canceled that program because I was too stupid to know that was like actually a good amount of backpacks. I was like, I'm like, the wall is doing $20 million. How can we can't do $20 million in backpacks? In retrospect, we've since relaunched backpacks. So I was just too stupid, right? So we were always looking for new products to sell, mostly because I was worried that I was going to sell every

wallet to every man in America. But as you learn more about the industry, like the very common thing is very large hold coes holding lots of accessory brands. Like LVMH is just an accessory brand. Like everything inside their portfolio just tells accessories, mostly to women, but there are occasionally pop-ups of like very strong men's accessory brands. Mont Blanc is owned by Rich Monta. They own Cartier. That is the strongest men's accessory brand. And they do $500 million a year you think it's going to be pens, pens were like 18% of revenue. It's mostly just like small leather goods, right? And it's across the world, people buy each other gifts, like wallets and backpacks and

belts and everything else. So there's a playbook here. It's like you have to find a group of customers who like you. You have to continue to make products that they like and sell it into them. And I am more ruthless with product expansion than I think a lot of brands are. And I think more people should just try. They're really worried about hurting brand. And I'm like, your customers never fucking think about you.

Like, you're lucky if somebody is mad to launch something. Like, you know, I always go to, like, BIC is one of my favorite brands. Like, they make lighters and they make pens and they make razors, right? And we buy all of those products independently. And they're best in class. I didn't even think of the, I didn't even think of those three. Yeah. But you saying that, I'm like, oh, it's same.

Yeah, yeah. And they're the best in class in all three of those. want a disposable razor or a cheap pen or a lighter, that's the only one. They own those markets. And it's just because the guy had a plastic factory. And he's like, it's a French company. And they're actually, they got into tattoo removal now, right? Like they're making like, they just bought a bunch of tattoo companies because they're like, yeah, whatever takes plastic, we're just going to do those things, right? And it doesn't violate anything in your brain because you just, like, that's just the way it's always been. So I think it's more elastic than like,

than a lot of people want to admit. And brands die by being too rigid by that. Like all birds should have got into fucking betting and like all these types of things, but they didn't. So now they're just a fucking dead shoe company, right? Like you should just be so ruthless with that product expansion.

You're a very charismatic guy. You have a lot of interesting parts of your personality that I enjoy. What attributes would you say are most responsible for the rigid success, do you think? One, it's a very trust-forward organization. It's a very transparent organization. When I say trust forward, six of us own it. You know, three of them are father, son, best friend, like literally would die for each other. And then me and my CMO, Connor, I lived with him for fucking five years.

Like the guy, we, I was talking last night, there was a time we were running the agency where we did not have $1,000. Like, we would have to take, his dad gave him a car. And it was like a 1997 Honda Civic that smelled and, like, paint was peeling. Windows didn't work. We would take it to meetings. We would have to park it behind buildings so people didn't see us get out of this fucking junkie car.

And, you know, tying it to that, it's like not being, not being scared to go back to zero, right? Like, I'm from, like, a very poor bad area where kids died of fentanyl overdoses. And, like, I lived in a flop house with, like, fucking, like, there was, like, 14 guys living in bunk beds when I moved to L.A. And so I'm like, dude, not scared to go back there. So just more willing to take risk. Things were never that bad.

being willing to eat shit. I'm like, bro, if I have to fucking be a waiter, we'll figure it out, right? Yeah. So, yeah, that fortitude, like not being, like, so ego tied to whatever the fuck you're doing.

If I have to pack boxes, I'm going to pack boxes, right? What are the ways people get, ecom wrong? So we've talked about all birds, right? It was a product that was hot, and now the stock is, you know, dead. There's, you know, a bunch of other

kind of famous examples of that. And then there's companies like yours, which is keep scaling profitably, you know, never took a dollar a debt, never took a dollar of investment and made it work. What are the kind of, give us like your version of the do's and don'ts. And maybe just start with the don'ts, like the dumb shit that people do, the bad decisions that people make or the common traps you see people fall into. Because I'm sure, you know, that's your network is e-com.

So you see the full spectrum, people who totally flop, people who grind away for years and get nothing out of it, and people who excel and succeed. Yeah, so you can't out muscle a tam. So like understand what you're selling and how the market actually is. I see amazing operators waste time with horrible opportunities, right? Like the tam is what the tam is. And if you're like the number one fucking garlic press seller, like that's kind of a meme in the community. Like dude, I'm like in you're executing ruthlessly to be the number one garlic breast seller,

that is worse than being the 12th best creatine gummy, right? because that market is exponentially growing, there's LTV tied to it. Like so many people just waste energy and time on these horrible fucking product categories. So you can't beat a tam. You're not better than the trend. So bone broth. There was companies that exploded, got to $80 million in revenue. It was like, dude, this is the new way people are going to consume calories, bone broth.

That is now at a 30-year low because that's not the cool thing anymore, right? Same with keto stuff. Yeah, exactly. So there's a guy from IQ bar. His name's well. He's incredibly smart. He talks about his trend surface area. So it's like, look, people talk with their luck surface area. He's like, I make products to have as much trend surface area as possible. So if keto's hot, I'll be keto. If gluten free is hot, I'll be gluten free. If it's sugar, that's cool or non-sugar, like, whatever. I'll make those products to just hit whatever the trend is. And I'll just change my packaging. So I'm always top of trend. And you're not better than the trend, right? So that's the point in front. trying to make is you can write it up, but as soon as it crashes, you'll crash with it. And then my third one, the most controversial one, is that LTV isn't real. Like, lifetime value only works if you're alive. So most brands die waiting for LTV, right? And what you mean by that is you've got to be profitable early on on that customer you acquired.

If you acquire the customer for $200 and you only made, you know, $20 and you're saying, oh, the LTV, it'll all pay off. That's kind of what you're talking about, right? Versus the way you guys do it is you're trying to be profitable, either first purchase or are you guys profitable first purchase or is it like, you know, a month or is like, you know, a month or where are you guys at? Dude, I have to be profitable in the first purchase. You think people are coming back to buy a second wallet in a month? It's like, I'm like, dude, the LTV from wallet customers is like maybe in 90 days I get 10%. So like it's very much I have to be, I have to turn not not a contribution margin.

like actual true paying for all my fixed costs every time I saw a wallet to somebody. Can we play a game called Change My Opinion? And this is for both of you guys. I have a bone to pick with your industry. I think Sean's heard me with this spiel before. What frustrates me sometimes, not exactly you guys, but I'm going to use you as an example. But people who all they worry about is like the KAC and the LTV and the Tam of these industries. and they don't spend any time actually thinking,

is this product awesome? Is this the best? Is this truly solving a problem? And it bothers me sometimes that it's more of an arbitrage, not exactly thinking about, can I create a widget that makes a customer's life better and is of high quality? I wish that more people in this industry

sort of talked about that a bit more. Do you think that's a fair criticism or where am I wrong on this? Dude, no, I mean, I think it's a fair criticism. My industry has been washed out, though. So, like, the people you're talking about probably have all left. It's that there's so few people left in e-com. Like, Sean brought up, like, the group chat.

Maybe two people respond every single day, and one of them's me tap. Like, it's like we're at, like, a multi-year low of interest in the industry. So, like, yeah, all those people have left. The people who are still here in shipping, dude, I bring up Hexclat. You guys want to talk about. like amazing. Yeah. Yeah.

So like I'm very close to. You tweet about them all the time and like they inspired me because you said they like worked for three years finding the perfect pan. Okay. So when I met Danny, it was 2020. They, they didn't have a website. He says they did. But like you couldn't check out on the fucking website.

Okay. They they were fucking selling pans at trade shows and like county fairs cooking up eggs themselves, right? In Costco Roadshow. So not even in Costco. They had a pay to show up at Costco and fucking cook up these eggs. And they, from 2020, they'll do, I mean, it's documented at this point over a half a billion dollars a year. Like they got to hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in annual turnover with a hundred million plus in profit.

Danny will fucking shoot me for saying all this stuff. But like, I think it's all pretty rare public. You know, Gordon joined the brand. They have Fox as an investor now. Like, pre all that, they were doing nine figures in Iber a year, okay? Didn't Gordon Ramsey, like, write a huge check? He didn't just, like, sort of joined the brand. He, like, invested a pretty sizable amount.

Or was he part of a round, or was it him personally investing in it? That's all public. There's, like, there's, like, a thing. He came in with Fox on some, on something and, like, you know, because it's like a three-way deal. Fox wants to give him money to make shows, and he wants to get more equity in hexclads. It's like a big three-way deal. Gotcha, gotcha. Dude, I have like 12 hexclad pans in my kitchen right now.

Are they awesome, Sean? They're great. You know, I don't know if they're the best pants because I don't try 100 pans, but they're way better than the pans I had before. And to the point where I bought a second set of them, because I was like, these are great. I'm happy with these pants. Yeah, and they put years into that product development.

Like, they actually, like, they care about their customers. What it comes down to is respecting your customers. If you're just like, that's why I don't like info products. Like, if you don't respect your customers, if you're just like trying to arb them or like, You know, we have a customer name. So our customer is everyday dad. We call him Ed.

And I'm like, almost every meeting, I'm like, are we respecting Ed? Are we delivering value to Ed, right? Everyone has an Ed in their life. Think about like your guys' brothers or your dad's. He's just like a guy he likes widgets and like he loves fishing and like he loves NFL. Like that's fucking Ed. And I'm like, look, Ed has paid for everything in my entire life. We need to take care of Ed.

We want to make sure Ed gets like the best, coolest shit possible that we give him great value and great deals. And that's what Hexclad did. And we're talking about, like, I think this industry, it's a bad rap because so many people have entered it and so few people have left with any amount of money. Or, like, the people who did leave with money, like, it was like a greater fool theory. They were just tricking somebody to give them money and then they bailed out. But then there's companies like Hexclad where they'll be a 50-year brand.

They'll be a generational brand. And they're fucking crushing it. So it's possible. They're buying Super Bowl ads. Like, I mean, this is, you know, a, they were booted. strapped up until like two years ago, like a bootstrap brand getting that done. It's fucking amazing. Yeah. I think Sam, what you said is true that marketing skill is the core competency for most of the winners in this space. Most. There's a couple who just really

nailed product or community, right? And then they just, they built slowly brick by brick over over the, over a decade. But for the most part, the people you'll hear about and the people you'll meet, they're great because they are great at doing Facebook ads and Google or now TikTok content. And so that's true. But at the same time, you're like, oh, I hate that it's this cact to LTV thing. Well, it's like, guess what?

When you sit down with your team, you're like, how do we raise LTV? Right? Like there's some natural gravity, like Sean saying, like you buy a wallet every seven years. You're not really going to change that. But like for my product, you do buy it way more often. You know, in the first six months,

we double our, double the amount that they paid us on the first order. Right. So it's really, it's a, it's a movable number, right? We can actually affect that. And then you're like, all right, well, how do we increase LTV? It's like, yeah, you could spam them with emails. You can spam them with text messages. But guess what?

The better way to do it is to make an amazing product that they're going to want to buy again. And like lower the return rate. How do you lower the return rate to get more profit, right? It's like make a better quality product. And so I think that when you, that for anybody who's actually going to try to win, you will have to make an amazing product. Otherwise, you won't be able to do the ad arbitrage you're trying to do because how else could you increase the LTV if everyone hates your,

product or it's not doing anything for them. And so, you know, I think the people who stick around and actually win in the long run are the ones who do what you. Yeah, I think those are good answers to the question. I think that, um, like, you know, when I see someone making like a boost your testosterone like thing or I'm like, dude, I don't know if any of this works or if they're just really good at making a label that's appealing. And so I like start to lose confidence in the industry as a whole. Oh, totally. Well, actually, and that's actually, I'm actually curious if you guys have any of these, like, D2C brands where you're like, this product is amazing. And so it's actually really good to hear that Hexclad is one of them.

Do you guys have any other favorites? Well, going back to the supplement side, a lot of it is like, I mean, a lot of this work is being done like the co-manufacturers, right? Like, there's co-packers that actually do all the formulation. So a lot of times people are just showing up and buy stuff off the shelf. So if you're getting any sort of supplementary. supplement, like, it's probably the same salesman white label the hundred times, and that's just, like, the way the industry works. So, you know, I put hard goods in a special category,

and, like, we talk about DTC brands. I mean, all of my favorite fashion brands are small and independently owned, right? Like, does that count? Like, this is Buck Mason, these pants are James Purse, right? Like, I just got a suit from Billy Reed. Like, these are all small independently owned companies, right, that are running. They have Shopify websites.

Does that count as D2C? right? It's very much like there's a black box of bad wrap products. And I think a lot of supplements that come from comands, right, or anything to do in the health and wellness space. Like that is typically where there's a bunch of shit. But if you buy a Ridgewallet, you're going to get what is on the package. You know what I mean? Or one of our phone cases or whatever. It's like a fucking phone case, man. Like it's pretty good. Who else is crushing it? So what are some DTC brands that we wouldn't know or we wouldn't really realize how well they're doing just because we're not in the space.

We're not paying attention. Yeah. The other reason you guys called me here to talk about the woobles. Okay. The woobles is fucking crushing it. The wubles. Okay. So what are the wubles?

So we are three young adult men. We're not the core customer, right? It is a crocheting product. So it is like you make little characters and they have licensing and like there's little education. It's like basically like either it's, you know, people doing it to have less screen time or it's you're doing with your kids so they have less screen time and that's awesome yeah dude when i met them they might be they might have been doing

10 million dollars a year like they in two years they've gone from 10 to probably 150 million dollars in revenue like no no capital raised they are still and i really i like them and i I respect them, they will not fucking launch subscription boxes. They're like, yeah, we don't think it's that important. I'm like, Jesus fucking Christ, like, if I could shoot these people, I would because they won't do subscription. It's like the perfect product. Like, it is, there's educational, it's fun, it's connecting with your family.

Like, it's this movement against screen time, which is like a big trend that they can take advantage of. There's every month they can have new characters. They could just show up in your door, you do them, there's a little community aspect. It's the single best brand and execution. that I've ever seen. Like, this will be a billion dollar exit because they're so fucking good at it. They've never raised any goddamn money.

Just like, it's two people just putting it together in North Carolina. How did they even think of this? Like, well, how did this get on there? Were they big crocheters? What is the origin story of this? Yeah. So I think it's a husband or wife team. I think she was just crocheting.

And she's like, yeah, I would love to have little guides. And there was like an Etsy community of people like selling crochet guides. And she's like, she would buy them. And then she'd be like, okay, I'm going to make my own. And then she would, you know, release them. And then it's like, oh, maybe I should just sell my little crochet kits. And bam, fucking explodes, dude. So, like, if you're listening to this and you're thinking, like, okay, I want, I'm not washed out.

I want to try e-commerce. I highly recommend getting into services first, okay? Like, you should learn how to make money on the internet via services. And if the show's called My First Million, you'll make your first million dollars delivering good value to people like me or like Woobles, whoever else. then find a trend that's very fast emerging, right? Like, I think no screen time, I think creatine, those are the two biggest ones for the next two or three years. Like, if you can do a no screen time creatine crochet kit,

something, fucking, you'll figure it out, right? Dude, I've spent so much money on Legos lately for that no-screen time trend. What are other no-screen time products? I feel like the microplastics is another trend, right? Like... And air quality. Yeah. Dude, yeah.

So, like, just glass, everything. Glass bottles, glass containers. Whatever. Just, like, imagine if you could just buy a backpack and they're like, we guarantee there's no plastic in it. Fucking awesome. Just wrap it in paper ship to people. That's another trend of things can be fast emerging.

Yeah, no screen time. Just more physical, tactical toys, right? Like, bringing back the fidget spinner, but as like a focus tool, right? Like, I think there's a bunch of shit you could do in there. But anyway, those are fast emerging trends right now. protein was a trend that's basically probably dead right pre protein was collagen there's always these just like pockets of success you'll find and that's the beauty of the space it's like you know what it is right now in that space um what's the what's the early boob milk uh what's that called colostrum

yeah oh my god i'm getting so many ads for colostrum yeah you know the other one will be like I think raw honey. It had like a small moment. I'm sure it's going to come back, right? There's like a bunch of New Zealand honey companies. And if you were a founder, where would you kind of look for these? Are you a proponent of look in your own life? What are you doing or what is your wife doing?

That seems unusual. But actually there's a passionate community. Are you like, I scour Etsy and Reddit? Is that where you would look? How would you do this if you didn't know what you're trying to start with? Right. So you should look in your own life because you probably don't have the skills to actually to go out there and like, like, you know, or I'm assuming you have no resources to actually pick

a trend and double down and actually deliver on those promises, right? So you should find something in your own life that you actually know and are passionate about. If you're more seasoned professional, I think you can find those things, right? And really what it would be is I think Reddit's dead. I think Etsy's dead. Like that's AI slop basically at this point. The insidification of the internet has happened to those two websites. I would look at literally what's happened inside of Irwan. Like I would just move to LA and go to Irwan every single day because those those are the best people are catching trends. Like they were anti-backs in fucking 1997, right? Like that's like, look, they are very, very early on those things. And if you're,

if you're not going to do that, then it's like you just you have to follow the girlies on TikTok, right? The other one I bring up is Pilates. Like Pilates was a thing in 2000. It's having a massive resurgence right now. And like, once again, we're three young men. How are we going to fucking make a Pilates brand? But Pilates for guys probably could be another trend. Just needs a new name. Yeah, totally.

Well, Laplace, I think is what the actual name is. Oh, no, Legree, something like that. My life knows. But yoga is very much a downward trend, right? And like this yoga was just a synonym for health and wellness. And like, you know, non-justice. Jack Dude's Weightlisting, I think that's actually changing. And it'll be something else, like Pilates or something else.

What are some other going up and going down? Give me like a topic or a trend and tell me, is this a buy or sell moment? Well, look, this is not a hot take. This is not Scott Galloway fucking, but all big box department stores. Like, it's very, very much. Like, we just saw Joanne's Fabric go down. We just saw container store go down. We just saw Party City.

Like, that's going to accelerate. Like, we are over commercial real estate. There's too many big box stores. Like, even Target is having a really fucking hard time. And my biggest wholesaler is Best Buy. I crush it in Best Buy. But all of that shit is probably, the FUD isn't real enough.

It should be even more real. Like Nordstrom's, Macy's. Like, I think, small independent brick and mortar shops really do work. Like if you're in L.A., you go to Century City. Like, but I was walking around Bloomingdale's, and, you know, like 10 years ago, it was, or even 20 years ago, probably,

it was like the number one place to buy women's fashion, like women contemporary fashion. It was the coolest thing ever. I'm walking around, they got blouses that are $800, and it's dead on a Saturday. Like, nobody's fucking shopping there at the best mall in L.A. So I think the FUD isn't even, we should be even more scared that there's going to be more collapses and any any

sort of commercial real estate that's like 10,000 square feet plus that is like selling physical goods um the other one is probably better for you candy like uh there's like vCs have really back this like better for you artificial sugar like you go to a fucking target like there's all of these like weird artificial sugar brands I think it's going to come out that that causes cancer and rfk is going to be pretty against it so anyway I'm probably not launching anything in there, probably launching real sugar. And that's a very hot tape that could add age really bad, that like real sugar is going to make a massive resurgence. What do you think about like, you know, these, like other people who do the same model you did

services to products. So for example, I think the guys behind Bres, which is that, I think it's a, I don't know what it is, like a mushroom drink or it's like an adaptogenic drink. So basically it's like it gives you a high, but it's not alcohol. It's like, It's a weed drink or something. Their website says Bres is microdosed cannabis and mushrooms in a can. Yeah. It's a weed drink. Okay, great.

It's a weed drink. Those guys were agency people, right? I begged to be the first check in Bres. There's screenshots where they said they were working on it. I'm like, let me be the first check. Because Aaron is incredibly smart. He was the first person to figure out how to work with META to have controlled substances be advertised. So, like, he, that's like his specialty.

Like, if you had a cannabis company, you had to go through him and his agency called We Are Lucid to actually do the cannabis advertising on meta, right? He found a compliant way to do it. So he's incredibly smart. Nick's an amazing operator, ran a great agency. That's the best model. The other person is Zach from Homestead. He has a company called Hollow Sox. Like, I don't know how much time we have, but to unpack history of e-commerce,

e-commerce 1.0 selling random shit on the internet okay like whatever pets.com e-commerce 2.0 was marketplaces it was eBay versus amazon for everything else e-commerce 3.0 is where we consider dc 1.0 which was like the first brands coming online the all birds whatever else then you get d to c 2.0 which was the covid hotness the peak everything exploding right we are now in d to c 3.0 which is small service providers pivoting to brands with very lean teams and create gummies, hollow socks, Bres, the three best examples. Create Gummies has a team of eight people.

I think we'll do $40 million this year, right? Hollow socks is a team of five people. They'll do $30 million this year selling socks, most of them at ads, right? And then Bres, they're public with their numbers. Follow Aaron on LinkedIn. And I think they did $5 million last month in revenue. Okay. in beverage in a controlled substance, that's fucking insane.

Like, that company's worth $300 million today, right? And I think their team's incredibly small, maybe 20 people at this point. So, yeah, that is the best bull case for e-commerce right now. Service operators who've seen like the rise and fall of all these different brands have learned from them, have spent their money to get good at ads, right? launching targeted hyper-specific brands. And the three I named are the best. Sean, you should go to drinkbres.com. Do you see their website?

That's the prettiest website I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, that's usually not a good thing. The prettiest website's not usually the ones that work the best. I hear you, and I am on board with that. This is one of the exceptions. Look at this. But I think what happens is you see the front of the house is not always where the traffic is going.

So the front of the house is kind of the hero. It's the brand. aspirational, but you run your ads and maybe you're running straight to a PDP or to a TikTok shop or to different things like that. I think they're very heavy into TikTok, right? Like their model is the TikTok blueprint, which we just did an episode with Rob the bank about like the TikTok blueprint that a bunch of the brands are using right now. And I think Brez is doing that where it's organic. It's it's kind of the TikTok affiliate slash organic model where you're getting really cheap CPMs because TikTok videos can just pop off and, you know,

you're putting out thousands of pieces of content a month, but, uh, and it's driving sales. Unlike the way, you know, I've been doing it or you've been doing it, Sean,

which is like a lot of, um, you know, Facebook, Google ads. You know you put a dollar in. It's attributed exactly how much that, that ad generated in revenue and you just sort of optimize from there.

The TikTok game is a little bit different. It's a bit of a spray and prey game for the most part. Yeah. So I just sent you guys. This is from Aaron from Brez. They did 4.6 million in revenue. in month 21 January. This is their Lincoln Post.

So this is all public information that they share. TikTok shop was 37 grand. Amazon revenue was 342. I'm not going to read this for the audience. Maybe you'll just show it. But, dude, they're fucking killing. Bryce is awesome. Well, they post their P&L basically every month on,

it's not an actual P&L, but like, you know, sort of a marketing P&L on Twitter and LinkedIn. It's great. So we could read this. So total net revenue, 4.5 million. Let's see.

That's in, you said month 21 now. Yeah, yeah. Dude, like, and literally. Then their ads. They spent a million dollars on Facebook,

400,000 on Google, on TikTok ads. They spent zero, but I know that they must be spending on the affiliate part of TikTok because if I'm on TikTok, I see brez stuff all the time. And it's always an affiliate link, you know,

swipe up and you can sort of buy it from there. Apple of and 472,000. It really seems like one of the keys of this business, and this is not always the case, but it's picking the right idea. The right idea and the right angle, it seems like there's no other way to explain how something can get to $4 million in monthly revenue in 21 months. Yeah. I mean, and the reason they were able to be right is because they're both agency operators, right?

Like they're the right people to launch a product like this. And also it's so hard. The reason why they're willingly sharing their P&S. now is they have nothing to hide and they don't think you can beat them, right? And I think anybody listening to this can't beat them because- Are they shutting down their agency? Are they just going to keep trying to do both? Like, why would you run your agency once this happens? Yeah, I mean, you end up just like, you know, selling it off or hiring operators. I mean, I mean, Nick Shackleford, which was the partner in Bres, I mean, he had an events business, he had an agency business. He

had an email business. I think you just, you find partners to take that over and you just put more time into this. But I mean, early on, I was like bullying about these fucking guys because they're the best. Sam, I want you to Google Nick Shackleford Tattoo. And tell me if you want to compete with this guy. Oh, my God. His whole body is covered. Yeah. From the neck down to his toe, every inch of his body is covered in a tattoo. He looks like a, like a guy from prison break. Yeah, he looks like a Japanese murder. Like, you know how they do like the yakuza? They do like the whole. that's insane. Included his dick.

I mean, he actually got it done, man. He said it was so painful. Oh my God. It looks horrible. I mean, it looks great, but I don't want to do it. It looks painful. Yeah, that's what I mean.

That's insane. What do you think Ridge is worth right now? Oh, man. I mean, the market for a brand like us is at an all-time low. And like, look. Well, what's the all-time low number?

We'd probably, a market clearing price is probably $3 million. Like, I could probably clear that at the market with our growth and everything. It's really hard to sell my business right now. And like I'm not trying to sell my business right now, right? Like I think we have like, by the end of the decade, we'll be doing like five or six hundred million dollars a year in annual revenue, really driven by this big tech rollout. So like we're really big and best buy already. We're going to be in Apple. We're going to be in Verizon. Selling power banks, phone cases,

cables. We already sell our wallets in a lot of those places. So that's like the next evolution of the brand is just more product expansion. But it's hard for me to sell my brand. when Solo Stove is in a public company, and I think they're worth maybe $100 million on the public market, right? Like, they peaked at $2.1 billion, and now they're probably, the market cap today is $100 million. And they have, like, $400 plus million in revenue. They own chubbies.

Like, it's very hard for my brand do at a market, when if you squint, we kind of look like them, and they are, they just need to be taken private. There's a lot of take private things to happen. And interest rates are still too, to take a lot of stuff private. So we're just waiting. Waiting for all that.

What would you want to sell if you weren't doing Ridge? If you had to sell Ridge today, what would you, what other product? I mean, you're not a guy who would stop. What other product would you want to sell? Yeah, my goal for Ridge, eventually I'm not the long-term shepherd of this brand. Like if it's going to go public or whatever, or most likely get bought by one of the roll-ups, like in our industry, that's the exit path. There's 10 strategics that end up buying brands like ours.

I would like to net $100 million and then I would like to sort a portfolio of brands and services, basically. Like, you know, everyone wants to have their old little P.E., their own little family office type thing. So I would launch a bunch of weird little e-commerce brands that I think are going to be trend relevant and hire service providers to run that as businesses. I love that you know what you want.

You know, you've mapped this out of like what your ideal setup is. I love that. I love people who call their shot. Do you, you talk about trends like, but, but, you know, bone, bone broth. It's hot. Then it's not. Keto, it's hot. Then it's not. And so, like, why go after a trend if it's going to ultimately, you know, do what trends do? Most trends don't last forever. So is that, like, building your sand castle, you know, building your castle on quicksand or something like that? Like, why go after a trend when trends have this, like, shelf life?

Are you trying to time and exit? or are you trying to, you're going to hop trends? What's the plan if you're going to build on top of a trend? Yeah, dude, going back to Will from IQ bar, trend surface area. Like, you create a product in a trend because that's the, the best way to grow is in a growing market. You can be average in a growing market and grow very, very fast, right? I was an average operator when Facebook ads were growing,

and that's why I had my business grew. Now I can be a good operator because I have to be, right? But when a market's growing very fast, you could just be average. and then once once you get some sort of success it's pivoting so like if I was in the bone broth business I would have told them like hey

we have to do fucking protein focused bone broths or bone bars like I'm that guy coming in here trying to like disrupt whatever fucking business I'm in I'm like yeah if I was at bone broth I'd be like look that's fine we should do that we're going to do bone bars and we're going to get

whatever some jacked guy talk about how they're great that I'd be in the bar business, then it'd be like, we got to do bone supplements. We got to be the only guys doing bone whatever marrow pills. Like, that's the type of shit I'd be pitching to them. So, uh, I love that that's your answer because it's like, that's the attitude you have to have to win in that game. My takeaway is, man, what a horrible game to play. Uh, like, you know, I was just doing a podcast yesterday with a guy and he goes, uh, you don't want to be in the fresh produce business. He's like, um, you know, you know, he's like, you want to be YouTube, not a YouTuber, right? Just as a simple example.

He's like, you take the best YouTuber and they're in the fresh produce business. They have to keep running as fast as they can on that treadmill. And then the treadmill gets faster and faster every year. And if they stop, they fall behind and there's a thousand other people on that treadmill. And so same thing. Like if you're on a trend and a trend, you know, almost by definition is going to sort of peter out. And then the new trends will emerge. That just seems like a really hard way to win in business.

When there's other styles of businesses that don't have that problem. But I think. But, Sean, I think you're both could be right. I think the right answer, though, is to whichever path you take should fit your skill set and interest and you should commit to it and be that. We had Moy's on.

Moise Ali from Native Deodorant, and we said, like, why don't you do something easier? He goes, because I'm a merchant. This is what I do. Yeah, I think that stuff is silly, dude. No, it's not silly. I actually disagree. I think committing to a path is significantly better than not. And if Sean Frank is committing to this trend thing,

then he, yeah, it's exhaust. for you because that's not your interest. Yeah, but you can come into a better path. That's not true. What are you talking about? How much better pack could it be? He's got a 10-year-old company that's doing $200 billion a year in revenue. That sounds like a good path.

Yeah, I'm not saying what he's doing is bad. I'm saying he's the, he's an outlier winner. And even he's like, yeah, there's a company that's like us that does 400 million a year and is worth 100 million on the public markets, right? Or, you know, we have to continually hop, you know, from one category to the next. And he's in a better one. It's more enduring. But let's say you're on the bone broth type of thing.

where it's a wellness trend and the wellness trends or the diet trends they change very very very rapidly right it's like that's a hard game to play compared to like you know look at the other look at the possible set of businesses you could go into that's that's definitely on the hard side dude like ecom is definitely on the hard side and ecom on top of a trend is it is the hard version of the hard version oh dude look i i i understand completely but the reason why i'm in it is because it's permissionless. When I was 22, nobody would let me build fucking Nvidia servers or whatever. Like, you know, a more robust infrastructure-led business, right? Like if I was going to provide, I don't know, fucking routing cable services, some random shit like that. Like maybe now,

you know, I could get to that, but e-commerce is permissionless. And that's why I like it, agencies are permissionless. It's like the reason why we sold on Shopify is because nobody would give us a Nordstrom's PO, right? Like, there's a level of gay people. But there's a lot of things. SAS is permissionless. Communities are permissionless. There's a lot of things that are permissionless.

There's a lot of things that are permissionless. The agency one is actually more permissionless than e-com because for e-com you have to buy inventory, right? There is a capital requirement. The agency one is different, right? That's just, I'm going to hustle my skills and I'll get cash flow. What you did was use that cash flow to then, you know, invest and continue to grow the brand. But for most people, they get, I know a lot of people that got excited about,

about ecom and didn't realize like how scaling works with ecom where yeah it's the it's like it people squint and think it's sass that it's not it's like it's like it's like your bit your problems get harder the bigger you get right like it's bigger POs it's more management it's everything else where you know if you're SaaS it's like you know if it's if it's if it's 10 zeros or a thousand zeros be impressed through your thing that the fuck cares um hey sean you you've gotten more you're you're a great follow on Twitter because you're hilarious, but you're this perfect combination of being hilarious, but also I think you're right, like, because you've been there, done that. But has being as opinionated as you have been in willingness to call people out and this willingness to like say

what you think, has that ever held you back and do you regret doing that? Or do you think that like going all in on being a strong personality has benefited you? I mean, the only tangible negatives of being a public personality on the internet is, is if, when you get sued because you will be sued, right? Everyone gets sued and it's the cost of doing business. They will read your tweets in depositions. So just like that is the reality, right? I think a lot of people like don't want to like offend people. You're like, that's embarrassing or what? Like what did you mean by saying you want to shoot the wobble family? Dude, no, like I mean, I was, I got to pose why I told someone I was going to drop a nuclear

bomb on them and they read that. I'm going to explain like. I had to explain like, I don't have access to nuclear weapons. But, like, I mean, you should be yourself and authentic. And my Twitter has sold, like, $300,000 with the wallet. So definitely it's a net positive. And your podcast, right? So your personality and being public about what you guys, how well you guys are doing with Ridge and being funny and opinionated led to you guys

doing this e-com podcast. And the e-com podcast pays you a bunch of money, right? Like, you guys are doing really, really well off that. So that's paid off. in a different way, right? You want to talk about that? Yeah, yeah. So I only have like four minutes. I got to go to a call and do my real job. Maybe something you guys don't know anything about. Yeah, what are you talking about? Huh?

I take naps after this. Yeah, so look, the reason why I got public on the internet is because in 2022, all of my friends moved across the whole world because of COVID, and I didn't hang out to anybody. And it sucked for everybody. 201, 2021, 22. Like, I used to have a community of people who talk about e-commerce and then they've all moved. So I was just by myself and I'm like, let me just get on Twitter and start talking about e-commerce. And through that, I made a bunch of great friends because it's a very lonely thing running a big

business. Like, you know, my best friends from high school, one of them goes to like crime scenes and cleans up like when somebody kills themselves or whatever. And the other one does garage doors. So like, imagine trying to tell them being like, yeah, man, like, you know, I spent $8 million on meta, but I probably should have spent, like, they told me to shut the fuck up. So you want to find friends who, you know, can, you know, have some sort of sympathy for which you're building.

So I got on Twitter, found those people. They're all like, you know, Jason from Hexclads on there. Mike Beckham from Simple Modern. He just like $200 million still in fucking water bottles. Matt from Pele case. We started a podcast. Yeah, dude. What's it called?

It's called Operators. So it's a niche e-commerce podcast. We have spin-offs. We have marketing operators. Dude, I think it'll bill at least $2 million to sponsors, but it might bill like $4 million to sponsors. And it's just us talking about e-commerce. Probably one-tenthth of the listenership.

I mean, way less. Maybe one-one to the listenership you guys get. But because it's so niche, it's like way more of an actual, like, community, right? And, you know, I think people want to be you guys because you guys are like an entertainment show, right? You guys are like a big show, you know, massive reach, entertaining people.

but if you listen to this and you're an expert of something, do an incredibly niche YouTube channel because like the sponsor integrations are just so much deeper. Like our sponsor is fulfill the ERP, right? And like, you guys don't know what that is, but if you're an e-commerce merchant, you need an ERP and the annual contracts are $150,000 a year and we've probably sold a hundred of them, right?

So it's like they'll give us $600,000 a year because we're the only marketing channel for them, right? Anyway, but yeah, so we do a podcast. I think that's great advice. All right, we'll let you go. We know you got to go sell wallets and rings and other great things. Shout out your Twitter. Shout out your URL.

Where do you want people to go? Okay, go to ridge.com slash Sean and buy a wallet. That's the best way to support me right now in this moment of time. Never stop selling, guys. We appreciate you, man. Thanks for doing this. All right, that's the pod. 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