My First Million - We found 7 business ideas that will blow up in 2026

Episode Date: June 2, 2026

Get our Business Idea Database: https://clickhubspot.com/frle Episode 830: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) rate 7 crazy business ideas that are actually genius.  — Show Notes:  (0:00) Intro (3:14) Pet Chat (5:47) Super Brain (9:44) At home hyperbarics (13:03) Blue collar meta learning (16:57) Endpoint Arena  (21:54) Bathhouse + Steakhouse Experience (27:46) Funday Press (31:52) Dumb phones (41:42) Zach Yadegari's new thing — Links: • HVAC Technician Trainining - https://www.meta.com/experiences/hvac-technician/9277146442386260/ • Endpoint Arena - https://endpointarena.com  •  The Funday Press - https://thefundaypress.com  • Dumb.co - http://dumb.co/ — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton (joinhampton.com): My community for founders. Average member does $25m/year. Many of the guests are members. Get after it...apply: http://joinhampton.com/mfm — 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 • I run all my newsletters on Beehiiv and you should too + we're giving away $10k to our favorite newsletter, check it out: beehiiv.com/mfm-challenge My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano /

All right, Sam, I got a question for you. Have you ever dated anyone who's a little crazy? Could be exciting crazy. Could be bad crazy. There is a difference between good crazy and bad crazy. Yeah, there's a thin line. So I have five to seven ideas for you that I want you to help me figure out are they good crazy or bad crazy. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. Can I tell you why it just happened to me? Please, yeah. Okay. So obviously we're superstars via content. And so I just had my my quote editorial meeting where we talk about like cool stuff we want to talk about on Instagram or whatever. And previously I told them how I'm reading a book about Ted Bundy because

I'm a sicko and I like reading like stories of like crime and stuff. And he brings me a series of tweets on things that I've learned from Ted Bundy. And I was like, are you kidding me? I'm not tweeting out things that I've learned about business from Ted Bundy. This is the nonsense that, you know, superstar creators still have to deal with. We're just like, you know, we're just like the average show. Not as easy as it looks. Oh my God, it was ridiculous. I was like, are you kidding me?

It's like, Ted Bundy didn't leave any fingerprints for the first 14 murders. Therefore, you should learn how to pay attention to the details and plan ahead. I'm like, being mission driven. Yeah. The unabomber.

A case study. A story of an obsession. All right, what do you got? You have something for me? All right, Sam, I got a question for you. Have you ever dated anyone who's a little crazy? Could be exciting crazy, could be bad crazy. There is a difference between good crazy and bad crazy. Yeah, there's a thin line.

And arguably, they would say that about me, that I was the crazy one. But yes, I'm... Oh, you were the crazy one. Yes. But yeah, I've dated some people that are off the rocker. Okay, so today I have ideas for you that I want to know, are they good crazy or bad crazy. These are startup ideas that exist, that people are doing. And in business, it's this weird thing because if your idea is too normal, too understandable, too expected, you actually have no shot.

So if you say an idea and everybody in the room nods, if 100% of the room nods and says that's a good idea, run away. You're about to waste three years of your life. You need some people to think, this is the worst idea, this is the craziest. Who would do that? Who would just let strangers sleep on their couch? Who would let strangers into their car? You're just going to let some random guy drive you to your destination? All the great ideas sound a little crazy up front.

And so you just have to differentiate the fine line between good crazy and bad crazy. So I have, I think, five to seven ideas for you that I want you to help me figure out, are they good crazy or bad crazy? We have a little bit of a rule on this podcast. So we try to default to optimism and being happy about the people we talk about. And so for anyone moving forward who we insult for this segment, We are actually complimenting you because, as you've just said, the worst idea, the better the company it might be. That's like my apology that I'm going to say right now, and I'm not going to say sorry again.

If we say it's a good idea, that's a compliment. And if you say it's a crazy idea, also a compliment. Yes, yes. Very advanced. All right. First idea I want to do is called Pet Chat. I don't know if you saw this, but going viral right now, Chinese startup that has, it's a dog collar that uses AI to translate your pets barks. Dude, it's a white family with a golden retriever with a white picket fence.

Why on earth would you think this is a Chinese company? It has like Chinese vibes, the whole promo video. You know what I mean? Like, I lived in China, and they used to have this phrase NQR. And they're like, yeah, we have KFC here, but it's NQR. I said, what's NQR mean? Think of not quite right. Yeah.

And it's like, it's KFC, but it's not going to taste exactly like KFC you're used to. Same, same, but different. Same, but different. And so this promo, this launch video was a little NQ. of like, I don't think this was made in San Francisco. With 95% accuracy, they claim, they can tell you what your pet wants. Awesome. Okay. Good crazy? Bad crazy.

More like amazing, stupid. It broke my game right away. Good crazy or bad crazy? I would say it's pretty, it's pretty. pretty interesting. That's actually great. This is great. Good crazy. Okay, you're into it. You're a dog guy, so I do there's a part of you that would be like, oh my God, that's ridiculous. But if it worked, I'd like two, you know what I mean? Like, it's kind of in that category. Now, the problem is, it's like all pet products that we've talked about on this podcast. What's the My First Million rule about pet products? Who knows? Who knows? And by the way,

best aspect of a pet business is the who knows factor. Is their gut health better? Yeah. Who knows? Is it making them calm or happier? Who knows? So pet supplements work this way. And for this, the 95% accuracy, everybody in the comments is like, how are you verifying? What is that checked against? Nobody knows what they want.

So what are you claiming? A lot of dog, I mean, I had a great dog for 15 years. And I could tell what each bark met. Like, if I heard them, like, and I was in the other room, I'd be like, all right, someone's at the front door based off of that. Or now he's got to go to the bathroom. Or now he just wants me to come and give him attention. Like, I could, like, hear, I could tell what each meant.

100%. There's like the, there's water versus food. Very clear to me. There's, hey, I got a poop and it's your problem unless you do something about this right now. There's different barks. So I think I put it in bad crazy just because I think dog owners know they're dogs barks. It's not that hard to figure out. All right.

The next one. Also, we're going to stay in China for this one. It's called Super Brain. Hey, I want to tell you about something pretty cool. We have a database of all. of the unsexy business ideas that have been discussed on this podcast. So hundreds of episodes, the team at HubSpot went through. They pulled out all the unsexy ideas. So not the super high-tech ones, but the simple, relatable, interesting, profitable ideas that we have brainstormed. And they're

all available for download for free. Just click the link in the description below. Thank you to our friends at HubSpot for sponsor this podcast and putting together this free resource for you guys. Back to the show. What you're going to see is a person holding up what looks like, almost like a baseball card or like a tomagatchi of some sorts. But it's grandma or grandpa. So basically it's a way to memorialize and stay connected to loved ones who passed away. You upload their video and audio recordings and their personality and then you can chat with them in your hand anytime you miss them.

That's messed up, man. That would break my heart. Okay, so you're out on this one. Yes, I want it, but I. If it's for a grandparent who I knew was going to die, I mean, it just, it would make me cry all the time. But I think it's awesome. I've not yet picked aside on any idea so far. Well, let me just say something really quick.

They called it Superbrain. I've noticed, so I live in Manhattan, and my office is in this, a Chinese area. And I've noticed, like, can you read this? I cannot. What does it say? Okay. It's a electronic store that just says, like, Air Mart USA Incorporated. And then, like, down the street from that, it's like American Cowboy Inc.

And they sell, like, iPhone chargers. And then, like, a block away from that, it's like, you know, like, USA number one. Yeah. I love that. I love when these immigrants come over here and they're not exactly sure, like, the best way to phrase things. And they're like, what's the most American thing we can think of? Like, I, that's my favorite thing on Earth. I love those stores.

I always patronize them. I love them. It's the Thai food near me. Yes. Yes. You're naming your restaurant Thai food near me so it shows up at the top of your Google Maps or Google search. Yeah, like AAA locksmith. I'm in. So I love that. And so that's so funny, they called this Superbrain because that could just be anything. When I heard it's Superbrain, I thought something else. But yeah, that's pretty amazing. It breaks my heart, but that's amazing. I would say good crazy. Yeah. Have you seen there? You're not watching the NBA playoffs.

I am, dog. I've watched, I'm watching the Knicks, partially because I like seeing the celebrities on sitting, like who's sitting on the floor. but also Jalen Brunson is pretty cool. So, Sam, the version of AAA Locksmith that you'll appreciate. So these two women were going viral because every time they would show the coach of the Spurs, behind the coach of the Spurs was two... Ladies with Big Booms.

Two endowed women. And so they were there for one game and people were like, oh, wow. Like, hey, I'd love to get more coach reaction shots. And then they were there again the next time. And they were like, what's going on here? Turns out, these are two girls, two only fans creators who,

had the genius marketing idea of splurging for strategic tickets where they knew the TV camera will show them, literally only from the between the neck and the belly button. And they're perfectly positioned right behind the coach. So every time they show the coach, they show these girls, and their Instagram and their only fans is popping off right now. And I was like, wow, this is the modern day AAA locksmith. How do you show up first in the yellow pages as you call yourself AAA locksmith? This is that. And I was like, honestly, women, you know, ladies, I respect the hustle. This is an incredible market. move. I do appreciate it.

That was pretty brilliant, how we started with Superbrain and then went to AAA locksmith and you weave that in. If you talk to me for long enough, that is where I end up. It's just a question of is it 10 minutes or 10 hours? The conversation will land there. All right, ready for the next one? Yeah. This is kind of up your alley. You're a health and fitness, and I would say early adopter, arguable influencer, but have you seen the trend of hyperbaric chambers at home? Yes. So hyperbaric chambers are interesting. That looks ridiculous. That looks like a... That looks awesome.

It looks like where, like, you know, you would be put to death. It looks like he's like an astronaut or something, yeah. Hyperbaric chambers are interesting. So the reason I've known about him is I'm a huge running nerd. And in the 60s, 70s and 80s, and even to this day, a lot of the U.S. Olympic runners would go and move to Flagstaff for three or four or five months at a time because they would want to be at altitude. And then people were like, what would happen if we let these guys sleep in a chamber that had less, I guess less air or thinner air? I don't know the right terminology. And you would build, you would just be more efficient with oxygen and thus a better endurance athlete. And now a lot of people think that this for the average human is pretty cool.

Is that the story? Yeah. So there's people are now trying to build. Like we've seen saunas become something that used to be at a gym or at an external location. Now there's at home sauna brands that do hundreds of millions in revenue. we saw the same thing with the cold plunge. I think the plunge guys, you know, they sent us a home cold plunge tub. And, you know, those, I forgot what they were doing, but, you know, they were doing 100 million just direct to consumer.

No retail presence of people buying cold tubs for the home. And the prediction or the idea here is just like it happened for sanas and cold tubs and red light, it's going to happen for hyperbaric chambers next. So there's a couple companies trying to do these at home hyperbaric chambers. What I liked about this one was the look was very different than the night. normal hyperbaric chamber and it's visually distinct. And I think the visual, just like how cold plunges and saunas became something that you would share on Instagram because it's like this weird, like wellness flex or like discipline flex. I think hyperbaric chambers could have that same potential.

What do you think? Good crazy or bad crazy? I keep saying good, but it's awesome. Do you know what I think it, what it should be is, have you ever traveled with your children and in a hotel room you have to like share a room? And so there's these like dark tents. Like a blackout tent. A blackout. tent. They're pretty awesome. So, like, you travel and you, like, can build, like, a crib, and it's completely dark so you could still, like, have the light on in your bedroom if your kid has to sleep in your room. My opinion is if I was eight sleep or a sleep company, it needs to be a sleep company just needs to make, like, you know how, like, little girls have, like, these beds that have,

like, the, like, the princess canopy. The princess canopy. Yeah. You need, like, a, like, a king canopy, where it's, like, you know, you go in and you sleep it with less air and you come. out. That's what it should be. I don't know if physics allows it to be like that. It does. No, it does. It's a pressurized air, right? You have to, like, actually, I think one of the challenges with this is it's technically a medical device. So HBOT, which is, I guess, the hyperbaric whatever therapy, is a medical device. You can't make claims without clearance or safety risk, pressurized oxygen in an enclosed space. It's harder to make it sexy like a cold plunge, which is basically a tub of water. So I think that's the potential downside of this one,

but could be something there. Also, don't you just need your, your head in it, like not your whole body. So couldn't you just do like an astronaut helmet? That'd be amazing. All right. Next one. Number four, the blue collar meets nerd combination that you didn't expect. It's kind of like what's a food you didn't expect?

Not the cronut. It's like the Doritos Locos Taco. What else? It's like, what is the unexpected food combination that sounds gross but is actually great? This is that. It's learning to be an H-Fact. technician by playing a game on the Oculus Quest that Meta made. I don't know if you've seen this.

So they've created these quest games that are like data center operations engineer and you're like playing like a flight simulator, but they're actually using it to train and hire people because they badly need more technicians for these jobs. Okay. And I think this is pretty interesting. What say you about this? Look at this guy. Tell me you wouldn't play this game.

I don't play video games really, but I do love like war sims. But I do HVAC. No, I like war sims. And oddly enough, there's like a trucking sim, a trucking simulator that I find oddly relaxing. But I do like simulators, but I don't want to play with a, I don't want to be an HVAC person. No. Look at this. I feel like I actually need this.

It's not even a want. I think I might actually need this. You know what I used to do is I used to love buying old motor. motorcycles and like taking them apart and like cleaning all the parts and putting them together. That was like a huge hobby I had. I love doing that in college. I would definitely play a game where I could do that, but I wouldn't want to do age facts. So I think this is that this is crazy. How tight is the bond when you made another person who loves motorcycles or taking them apart? It's sort of like when I see another mixed race couple. I just, you get a nod.

It's a nod. It's a nod. It's one thumbs up. Yeah. Straight to third base in that relationship. It's like, we know. like the intentional walk and then you get to go all around the bases actually whenever we used to see before I had kids whenever I saw a mixed race couple

with a stroller I had to stop myself because the first like eight times I was like staring into the the stroller so hard and I'm like sorry I'm just trying to see like what your combination

is going to look like just so I know what we're going to look what my kids will look like you have a pentone shade chart I just want to see where you fall I just want to know and there was there's whole Instagram handles dedicated to that, like different combinations.

Don't you think they need a better term for it than mixed race couple? I feel like you deserve a much cooler phrase for that. I call my kids super babies. I'm like, oh, they're super babies. They have a diverse gene pool. Yeah, you need like, I don't know, like what's the thing called when you do Froyo? And it's like the black and white swirl. Like a swirling.

You need that. All right. Applon MetaQuest are teaching blue collar trade skills like HVAC repair, welding, plumbing, electrical, through hands-on VR simulation. you put on a headset, you practice diagnosing a broken AC unit and assembling an EV battery pack, risk-free, repeatable, and gamified. There's multiple players doing this like Interplay Learning in Austin, Texas.

They're the leader. They have hundreds of hours of HVAC solar plumbing and electrical training. They can actually get you certified as a technician or an associate just using Quest. SkillVary does this for welding and painting simulations. There's a massive shortage, 500,000 unfilled HVAC and plumbing jobs in the U.S. alone. And training is slow. expensive and dangerous to do on real equipment. I am a believer in this, Sampar. Good crazy.

My buddy who owns an HVAC company, they have this thing called Hoffman University, where they put new recruits in for months or weeks at a time. And so I'm a little bit familiar with what he was just telling me. And I went and saw the facility where they have, like, they call it a university. It's just like a two-month training program or whatever it is. It's pretty cool. And there's a huge need for this. I didn't fully understand it until I saw his place. So yeah, that's pretty cool. I just don't want to be. played as a game. Right, right. But if you wanted the job, it'd be good. If I wanted the job. Or you want to hire people. This is brilliant. Number five, Endpoint Arena. You're going to need to,

I'm going to put the glasses down and do the sort of nerdy push up the glasses here, because this one's a little highbrow. It's combining two things that I only partially understand. Prediction markets and biotech clinical trials. So I don't know if you've seen this. But these guys made a prediction market for clinical trials. So I don't know if you're familiar, but basically on the stock market, there's lots of drug companies, pharmaceutical companies that they're trading

is highly dependent on the outcomes of upcoming, phase one, phase two, phase three, clinical trials. And there's a huge, I mean, my cousin used to work at a hedge fund. And the whole idea was like, if we can have a higher estimation of the probability of success of that trial, we know where the stock's going to move

once that's confirmed. And so there's a huge incentive to understand the science understand this, the actual true probability versus what the stock market is predicting. And so endpoint arena created a polymarket, essentially, just for betting on, you know, right now, luteum 177, Rosopatatum, teratyl, teradactyl, the metatastic prostate cancer. So that's obviously what I'm pretty well versed in.

And right now it's 33% yes, 67% no. And you can see how much is being bet on it. And you can actually either hedge positions by betting here in addition to the stock. You can use these, you know, prediction markets, which are typically higher accuracy than, than, you know, individual experts because you get the wisdom of the crowds that have skin in the game. So it's very interesting to me. What do you think of this? What do you have to bake of this?

Super fascinating. How did you find this? A guy tweeted this out. Interesting name. I think I love it. But you know why it's called endpoint arena. is go to the top left of the website and tell me what you see, Sean.

End Point Arena Season 5. Is that what you're looking at? Yes. It says season 5, which leads me to believe, are they trying to make it like a series? Like, is the End Point Arena like, this is the show? And the show is like, will this drug get approved or not? Yeah, I have no idea. This is amazing. That's kind of fascinating, right? Okay, here. Let me just read you this article.

One day in early May, a web-based platform, call sheet tied two contracts to a upcoming psilocybin drug. They could wager on when the company would submit the drug application for blah, blah, blah, and the FDA would approve it or not. These are event contracts, which is kind of the basis of all prediction markets. They're trying to speed up science. Endpoint Arena CEO Michael Fisher, who's a PhD, studied at economics, computer science

at Stanford, became curious about the promise of prediction markets, and he created an app around this. He said, I became very interested in the concept of experimentation and encouraging other people to think about and place bets on what they think is going to happen if they do certain experiments. He argues that clinical trial-focused prediction markets can democratize, keyword.

That's a trigger word for us. Yeah, he's sugar word. Democratize the trial process and give participants' motivation to become experts and improve experimentation, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so the Y here is a little bit of a turnoff. I don't think, I think he said a lot of words,

but he really was just saying we want to gamble. I think that's, I don't find that interesting. I wouldn't want to align this for prediction markets and correct me, is this like, is this you and me if we take opposite ends of the bet? Are we betting against each other? Are we buying stakes? So the way it works is there's a price for a yes contract. And every time somebody says yes on the yes contract, the price of yes will go up unless there's

corresponding pressure on the no side. So it's basically there's no bookie. There's no middleman who sets the price. The market sets the price. The yes is versus the nose. It's not directly like a stock market where I'm buying your shares necessarily. but I can buy, I can put money in at yes, and the more I do it, it'll skew the price ups to incentivize people to take the other side of the action potentially.

Let me just read you what he said. He made the bold claim that prediction markets could eventually provide scientific benefit. Here's a hypothetical example. A known GLP1 drug is being studied in a new indication. If somebody already taking the therapy for diabetes or obesity experience improvements related to the new condition being a value of the trial, they could use their firsthand information to inform a prediction on the market. in theory, patterns that emerge through those predictions could provide early signals about a drug's potential and additional indications before the trial is released.

So, for example, one could do a more focused targeted trial with fewer people. It's a way to speed up science that create a market where one is incentivized to move quickly and use fewer resources to get towards an outcome. I don't know if I fully understand it or buy that. I don't know if I fully understand it or buy it. I don't understand it. Therefore, I'm going to say that's stupid. I know I don't understand it. And I guess, therefore, I know I don't buy it.

Um, this is, I can't decide. I think it's very interesting, but I would say bad crazy. Hey, let's take a quick break. You know that feeling when strategy is done, the brief is written, everyone's aligned, and you realize someone still has to sit down and actually create all the content? That someone is usually you and it's due tomorrow. Well, the Breeze assistant from HubSpot can help. It works right inside HubSpot.

You can draft campaign copy, blog posts, emails, all in your brand voice, all using your actual customer data. So you don't create just content. you create content that converts. Check out HubSpot.com, the agenic customer platform for growing businesses. Number six, the Cleveland Schwitz. Great name.

This is a interesting company. So check this out. It's a bathhouse plus a steakhouse in Cleveland. This is actually the reboot of the office. All right, so a 98-year-old Jewish bathhouse in Cleveland that combines Russian-style steam, cold plunge, and massages with giant teabone steaks and cocktails. You sweat, you plunge, you eat steak. It's a full social experience.

Parts spa, part steakhouse, part private members club. Isn't this amazing? It's blowing up right now. Barstool called it the hottest reservation in the country this winter. $165 a person covers your drinks, your steam, your cold plunge, and a full meal. Their phones are ringing off the hook with reservations at all hours. It's attracting millennials and Gen Z who are discovered. covering it through social media. They recently opened ladies days and co-ed days after being mail only for decades.

A group, you know, for example, a group of six friends could book a Saturday at the Schwarzschitz. They alternate between the steam and cold for a couple hours, get massages, then sit down for steaks and cocktails. It's the new going out. It replaces the bar, restaurant, spa, or nightclub for an outing. I'm in. That's awesome. It's not even crazy. This is just downright spectacular. Have you heard of this company called Other Ship? I'm an investor in Other Ship. I love Other Ship. So I went to my first other ship session.

So basically the best way to describe it what it is for somebody who doesn't know. So the one liner that I would describe it is it's sole cycle for sauna. And so in Manhattan, where I live, it's all like young. It's like a combination of hippie-dippy but also like yuppie tech people. It's quite fun. And you go for an hour long or maybe 45 minute long session and there's cold plunges. And then there's a huge sauna where you're in, you're like basically, you know, naked with like 50 people in the sauna. And then there's like a leader who's doing breath work and

is like moving the towel to get like the eucalyptus flavoring in your face and it calms you down in a weird way. I'm not doing it justice, but it's actually quite awesome. And there's loud music going on. Again, I'm not doing it justice. But for some reason, you do get in this little strange trance where it is, it's hot in there. You have a certain smell. You hear noises. You feel the wind going against you. It's quite cool. And they even have, like, single nights where you can, like, go and, like, everyone that are single. And it's pretty awesome.

I'm actually, I thought it was amazing. I went one time and then my wife and I, like, will go on, like, our date night. And you can go at, like, 9 p.m. That's amazing. Yeah. I'm so jealous. I haven't gone. They opened up New York.

I think they opened up one more location somewhere. They got a bunch in the works. I really want one to be out here in the Bay Area. Is it a good business? It's a great business. and I think the hard part is his he didn't try to make like the subway sandwiches of like locations where it's just like this very simple box

no this is high end this is like high end everything and it's like he wanted to make what I think he successfully made which is the most epic kind of sauna breathwork experience that's probably ever been made as like a place you can go and so I saw Dana White the president of the UFC did one he went to one he didn't know anything about it he went to one he's like standing

He's like, I don't know what, like, this is the most amazing place I've ever been to. He's like, if you're in New York, you need to go to this place. This place is incredible. And he graved this, like, he went live on Instagram because he was just so hype from what he's like, that was amazing. And so I'm pretty jealous. I really want to go to go check it out. I'm a big believer in breathwork. I've been using the other ship app for long time.

Yeah, you've been talking about breathwork for like six years now. Yeah, I think they're kind of deprioritizing the app. But even better than the app is like, people don't really use or know about this phrase. But state is going to become a very important. important word over the next 10 years, managing your state, being in a great state, you know, state of mind, but really it's just how you feel, how you experience the things you experience. So if you are in a bad mood, you can go to a good thing and have a bad time. If you're in a great mood, you can, like I've told the DMV story before, you can go to

the DMV and have a great time. And I think most people are pretty poor about managing or controlling their state. And the easiest way to manage the control of state is not to think your way there, but to use the body. The body can drag the mind. And so going into a hot, cold, breath and music and certain odors, like eucalyptus, you can literally change your state, and I think that's going to become very addicting to people. I think people are going to love what they're getting out of that. And it's very similar to why SoulCycle and Barry's boot camp work. It's not because it's the best workout.

In fact, you could argue in many ways. CrossFit Barry's SoulCycle are not ideal workouts. You're not great for strength training. You're not getting people's form is all over the place. But you go, you're in a dark room with a bunch of other people. It's a communal experience. The music is pumping. There's the leader who makes it so you don't have to think.

You feel a sweat. You're doing hot yoga. You get the temperature thing. You change states. And I think that's what people go truly for, not the fitness layer. It's kind of becoming a recurring joke that everything comes back to like when we were 14, 15 years old, reading books on pickup artists and how to meet girls. And one of the first things that they try to teach you is you have to go into like a session to meet a girl. Like if you go to a bar and you're like, I want to meet a girlfriend or whatever, you have to change your state.

and you have to be in a positive state, and then what they try to teach you is when you meet someone, how to bring them into your state. And so that's pretty funny that you predict that state's the new word. The word generative is out, state is in. State's going to be in.

I think it's going to be in. So I think this is awesome. Cleveland Schmitz, we love it. I wish it wasn't in Cleveland, though, but I do like the- That's a horrible name, Cleveland Schlitz. Schwarz, yeah.

It just sounds like there's a lot of bacteria there. Like, when I think of that word, I think of like the steam is coming from like a sewer. That's the Oakland Schitts. All right, number seven, the Fun Day Press. Have you seen this?

No. All right. So imagine a newspaper like the Sunday Press, but it's the Fun Day Press. It's a newspaper that has none of the news that just makes you depressed and only the fun games and comics. So this is made by a guy that we met

who is like a pretty prolific. board game designer. It's that guy right there on the left. And he's made a bunch of, like, I think he made, is it, Cards Against Humanity? He made like one of the big games. Like, that's like one of the best sellers in the world. He's a very creative guy. I went, and I did a call with him. And behind him, like his backdrop was not like a library of books. It was a library of only board games, like thousands of different board games that you've never heard of. And this guy's like a game designer. And so he created this actual physical newspaper that gets delivered to you that's got like crosswords.

and Sudoku's and like just the fun parts and none of the depressing heady stuff that comes in normal news. What say you? Amazing. I'm so into this. I think this is awesome. Do you remember Highlights Magazine?

No. What is that? Is that like the city, like cool stuff in the city? Is that what that is? No. So if you Google Highlights Magazine. I assume this is for kids, right?

No, this is for adults. Oh, this is not. It looked like a, like it was telling you like cool, like, it's kind of like the Lego kits for adults and like, you know, like, what do we call it, cadulting. Cadulting is the trend that's like a multi-billion dollar industry

of like giving adults things that feel like their childhood that will help de-stress them. I think that's a horrible word because that just makes me want to punch myself if I say I'm a cadult. It's like when people say

you're the name police today. It's like when people say like they're adulting because they scheduled their first doctor's appointment. My reply to that is what you've heard before. It's like, yeah, it's like dude, you're 22, okay? If this was 1946,

you'd have eight confirmed kills in the South Pacific. Like, don't tell you. me that you're adulting by scheduling a doctor's appointment. Okay, be a man and just call and get a doctor's appointment. I don't need... A very Scott Galloway of you. Those, those, tight. I like that. I just think it's ridiculous. I think that cadalting is stupid. That said, the fun day press. You literally do this, by the way. You collect mini foods out of LOL dolls and you do buy elaborate Lego sets that you do for nights on end. I'm not going to hashtag it,

though, but I will talk about it on a podcast in front of millions of people, so it's different. this is pretty interesting. Yeah, so Highlights Magazine was, I thought those were kids. But Highlights Magazine is like what I grew up, like, reading as a kid, so I thought this was going to be comparable. But this is pretty interesting. Does it sell? Do people buy it? Yeah, I think it's kind of new.

But, okay, here's the, here's what it says. It's an early stage indie project. There's a competitor called the Sunday Club that runs the exact same model. All games, no news. Also, the New York Times games only product. So no news from the New York Times is, has a million paying subscribers at $5 a month, 60 million in ARR. So this is basically the physical printed out version of that idea. Yeah, I think it's pretty awesome. Let me show you something kind of interesting. I've been really

interested in physical newsletters. And this is sort of tangential to it. But I read this article in the Wall Street Journal, how there's this crossing. The headline is, the crossing guard making $14,000 a month mailing out her musings from her job. And so it's this woman named Christine, and she has a monthly physical newsletter where she just writes about, like things that she's experiencing as a crossing guard. And it's just entertainment. It's just silly. It's cool. And she posted, she like, how to forget how she shared this out. But I don't think she had a very big audience. And now she has tens of thousands of dollars a month where the people paying money to get this physical newsletter. And I think I said this two years ago, actually,

that I think that like these, I wouldn't call it a magazine, but I would literally call it a physical newsletter. The jankier, the better. Like if it looks like it's on printed paper that's stapled together in a manila folder. I think that you can make some really cool products that way and I think that people are going to continue to be drawn to quirky things like this

and the Funday Press is one of those that fits that category. All right. Well, I appreciate you playing my game. Crazy good or crazy bad. Do you want me to tell you something that's similar to this

that you can, I'll give you two more ideas that are actually quite similar to this last one that you can kind of, you can judge. Today's podcast is brought to you by my friends at Mercury.

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I'm just all in on Mercury. Why, I like products that are easy to use. I like products that get me and the problems that I have. So like very easy to make a joint account with my wife. Very easy to spin up virtual cards. One click and I get savings yield. It just has all the stuff that I need. in one place.

So if you're looking for the best banking product on the market, it's definitely Mercury. I will fistfight anybody who disagrees with me on that. Go to Mercury.com slash personal and learn more. Mercury is a fintech, not an FDIC insured bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group and column NAA, members FDIC. All right. So I bought this thing called, I guess it's, I don't know what the noun that they would describe it, but it's a dumb phone.

But go to dumb. com. Bookmarked. All right. dumb. com. Hello from the flip side. Okay, so check this out.

It's a flip phone. So I have this flip phone. It's just a TCL phone. It's $25 and then $20 a month after that. And what they've done is they've created an app that I have on my phone. And it's basically, I believe this phone is its own phone. But reality is that it's more like a forwarding phone. So if you call my phone, I can turn my iPhone in my, I can turn my iPhone in dumb mode or smart mode.

If it's in dumb mode, that basically means I can't receive calls and all the calls are going to go to here. And all the texts are going to go to here. And replying to a text message on here is a huge pain in the ass because it's like the Nokia, you know, where you have to like to get to the letter C, you've got to click it three times. Three times, yeah, yeah. And so it's pretty cool. But here's why I think this is particularly interesting. And so they have this, when you order it, they have this documentation.

They give you a pamphlet on like how to set it up. And their branding is quite good. So, like, if you go to their website, click where it says, I think, month free of phone. And so there's not any articles written about this company. And so they actually have a customer service number. I just called the customer service this morning. And I was like, what's the story of this company? Tell me everything.

And I could tell, I was talking to the CTO. I could tell it was like a three or four person company because I could hear people in the background. And I was literally calling his phone because I could like FaceTime him. I could tell. Basically, the background is it's a guy who previously had a company. He's sold it. He's self-funding this company.

they have four full-time employees, according to the person I called this morning. And it started because he hosted like a friend's challenge where it was one month without a phone. And they found that one month without a phone wasn't particularly feasible. And so he's an entrepreneur. And so he created this app that helped you turn a $25 TCL phone, which is what this is, into a forwarding device where you can sort of like replace your iPhone, at least for parts of the day. And it's quite interesting. and their branding is really cool.

If you go to the website, everything is like very like old schooly and but fun. And there's like Polaroid pictures. And I have a feeling that this is going to take off. I don't know if this company is going to work, but I think it potentially could. The reason I think that is if you go to, there's a subreddit called Dumb phones that I've been a subscriber to for a while now. And it's been taking off. I think it has 200,000 subscribers on it. And I've been noticing that it's definitely been growing.

It's definitely been growing a lot. And it's quite fascinating. and I looked up a bunch of different reviews for a variety of phones, and I settled on this one, and I went and looked, and CNN recently did the best ad campaign ever for this company. So basically, they took one of their presenters, and they had him do a brain scam where they measured his short-term memory. So they had them read something, and they were able to, I don't know how the science works, but they were able to look at like how focused were you when you were reading something, how much did you remember, and a few other tests.

Then they gave him this phone, this brand, is how I found it. They gave him this phone for two weeks, and then they had him redo the test. And his capacity to focus and his capacity to remember went up significantly. And I saw that, and I was like, that's the greatest ad I've ever seen. This is perfect. Plus, you do these one-month challenges where you buy the phone, and it's only $20, and it's $20 or $25 a month after that to subscribe and get their service. I think it's really cool.

I think this could take off. And the company, I believe, is only four months old. Have you been using it? I just got it this morning. I just got it this morning. I just got it this morning, and so I'm going to test it out. I can give like an update, but I think it's really promising. And I noticed that when I walked out into my office and showed it to my team, I was like,

check this out. Everyone was like clamoring. They're like, what is that? Let me see that. And I think it's really fascinating. I mean, the problem is, the problem is so real. Total agreement on the problem. And then the question is, which of these solutions is going to be the one?

Like you've told me about brick before, how you brick your phone. You've told me about the dumb phone. And there's other people. George Mac has two phones. One's a smartphone, one's a dumb phone. And like, you know, people have these, like, different systems. I'm really curious what the right solution is going to be. But the problem is gargantuan because everybody's got the phone and everybody,

everybody who has a phone is addicted to the phone. I really don't know anybody who's not addicted to their phone. So, you know, in my life, I don't know, of all the people I know, it seems like there's a 95 to 98% addiction rate. And the question is, what's going to be the nicotine patch for that? What's going to be the AA for that? How are people going to get off this addiction? Is there going to be a solution that some percentage of people gravitate towards?

My opinion is that to all the big companies out there, this appears to be a very niche, silly thing. My prediction is that in 10 years this will not be. I do not think... If Apple came out with this, if Apple came out with a version of this, I think they could sell a billion of these things. Well, you know that they're, like, if you Google Apple flip phone, like there's... Are they working on it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think it's rumors.

I think they've announced it, but there's for sure rumors. iPhone fold is what it's going to be called. Now, I don't know if it's like another screen. I don't know what it is, but they're calling it like a flip phone. So I guess like there's all these, and it's not important exactly what it is, but there's all these breadcrumbs out there that I'm seeing that's pointing to like this is actually going to be a megat trend and not just a niche thing. And I can give you another really cool example.

Have you heard this lady named Kat GPT? No. Okay, look her up. That's her Instagram handle. Okay, so this lady started getting popular on Instagram. I think she has four or 600,000 followers. Incredible name. Yeah, it's cool.

And she started doing educational videos on AI. And one day in 2023, she came up with this idea to create a physical phone, like a landline. And she, like, made a post about it and like no one wanted it. So she got to put it on the back burner. And then last year, she was like, you know what? AI is actually like can make this process a lot better. Let me see if I can use ChatGBTD to make this product a little bit better. And she used the product Chachabit to help make this a physical landline.

It's not really a physical landline, but it looks like a rotary phone, like the ones that like your grandparents, maybe you had, or like these like old school physical phones. And she used Chachabit to like help get it approved by the FCC's because you had to like do some approval process and to help like design it, whatever. And she put a video out about it and it went quite viral. I believe there's a, this is amazing. It's a physical phone, like the old school phones, like you could either have it on the wall, the rotary one or just a normal, normal corded phone, but it's a Bluetooth device to your actual

phone. Yes. So smart. And her branding is beautiful. And what then in 2020, she launched this to her audience and she was like, you know, I tried this in 23. No one really wanted it. But I have a bigger audience.

Screw it. Let's do it. And she sold $800,000 worth of this product in five months. Now in 20206, she's tracking or she says the goal and it's early in the year, but tracking towards $5 million a year in revenue. And if you go to her website, to me, what's quite clear is that she can have all types of skews. And I think she said this. I think she wants to launch this thing called Cat Labs. So basically, she can create all types of phones. But if I was her, I would basically look at everything in my phone that does something, or even my Alexa that does something. How do I create a

product that undoes it? Now, this sounds crazy, but you could have like a handheld GPS or you could have like an old school, more old school alarm clock that doesn't do anything else but just goes off and on and maybe you could use your voice to like turn it on and off. Or you can have like a jail for your phone and you could become a company that's all about phone addiction issues. And you could have a variety of skews in the same way Ridge Wallets started with wallets and now they also sell. Give it away free game here. I love it. She should do the phone jail is a great idea. It's cool, right? And I used to have a phone jail. It was just a KitchenAid. No, no, no, but you got to like make it look like a

Of course. I had one that was just like a timed Tupperware container. But I think that she does a beautiful job with branding and everything's pretty cute and cool. And it's like it's the clear like, you know, David versus Goliath with Goliath being addiction and David being like, but don't you just want to like focus and make your brain feel good and be less lonely? And I think that's such a great marketing story. And she's doing a really good job with it. This is a great find. I love this. that is really cool.

And I like the sort of just be the anti of the main thing. It's not like you're trying to convince everybody. It's just that 1% of people are going to feel overstimulated by the thing. And if you can provide the alternate and you can do marketing via TikTok with really visual, buzzy products that are going to get people talking in the comments, which is exactly what this does. Like her top TikTok just says, I brought back landlines and she's holding one of the physical phones. And there's people who like it, who hate it.

It doesn't matter. but it's going to get a reaction, that's how you can grow, you know, grow these types of businesses. And then if you just up-level it and say, well, am I really just selling a landline or am I selling a return to the physical? Right? A return to the real. And it's like, oh, I like that. There's a lot of people who want to return to the real. What does, what does that entail? Oh, there's other products that might make a lot of sense in that case. Yeah, it's sort of like what, what's that funny bottled water company? Murder water? Liquid death. Like, it's sort of like that where it's like with these phones and like this thing that I have here, the moat is not the technology right now.

The moat is not the product. The moat is the brand. And I think that if you took someone who is in advertising and you said just focus on ads and focus on building a brand that's really, really cool, that is the moat. Did you see Zach, whatever, I forgot, Zach Yadigari,

the guy who did the Cal AI app. Did he announce it? I know what his new thing is. Did he announce it? Yeah, he did a YouTube video. Let's talk about it. So let's give the context. So he came on here when he was, I don't know, 17 years old or something.

He was in high school. He, like, came on the podcast in between class periods. He, like, skipped a skip class to come be on our podcast. And he was doing a calorie tracking app. Not an entirely new idea, but he did it. He made a simple app with his friends. And they really leveraged TikTok to grow the app. And he talked exactly about what he was doing.

He was at a few million in NARR at the time. And they grew it to something like 20 or 30 million in ARR. And they sold the business. And now he's like a college student. who sold a business for, I don't know, a bunch of money, somewhere between the, let's call it, 50 to 100 million bucks. Last time he was on, he came on after he sold it, and he was talking about what he wants to do next. He said, I want to do something with hardware, something physical, partly because there's

just a fun challenge, partly because seeing, where can I go where there's less competition when it's getting easier and easier to create content, easier and easier to create apps, how do I do something that's a little bit different? And so he just came out with a YouTube video announcing his new thing, which you want to describe it? I didn't watch the video. I had just known that I knew what space it was going to be in and roughly the product. I didn't see the video. Where did he? What's it called? It's an alarm clock. It's an alarm clock. And it's basically an alarm clock that you, it's like a physical brick. So you put it somewhere else. So your, your phone alarm won't stop beeping until you tap your phone to

the brick. So it's kind of like a way to get up out of bed and stop doom scrolling. And his idea is like, Wait, I don't understand. How does that help you stop doom scrolling? because you have to get out of bed and go touch your phone to this thing that you put, presumably, in the kitchen or somewhere else, somewhere where you need to be up and active, not just sitting in bed on your phone. You know, most people, they wake up with an alarm clock, they look at their phone, they see a bunch of notifications. Got it, got it, got it, got it, they snooze the alarm and they stay in bed looking at their notifications, social media, whatever, for 20, 30 minutes. And that's the idea would be your alarm before it goes up, and that beeping's not going to stop until you're up, out of bed and you touch the thing. Awesome. His new thing's called Flow, is the name of the company.

Oh, cool. Okay, he released this yesterday. So flow alarm clock.com. This is awesome. Great video, too. I thought that my prediction was good, but then seeing like a young guy who's way more in the know

and like in the pulse of young people because he likes that, that's like the real validation. Yeah. So are you on board with some of this stuff? I'm on board with it? What do you mean? Oh, the dumb phone and...

You want one? I don't trust myself, meaning I love to buy a gadget, but there's a graveyard of gadgets I don't use in my office, and I'm learning like, hey, look, I got to really be committed to actually, like, commit to the bit if I'm going to do it. Like, you've got to really want to use the thing

and change my lifestyle to do it, so don't just buy all these things for no reason. So I'm going to kind of wait and see if you tell me, like, yeah, dude, I use it all the time. This is, if four weeks from now, you're like, this is my new normal, then I'll buy it. The brick has stuck with me. That is, it's at my front door,

and depending on which activity I'm going to go out and do. So if I'm going out with my family, that continues to have maps, text messages, calls, and Uber. I think that's it. And then if I'm going to go workout, it literally just has my workout app. That's it. And Spotify, that's it. See, I just deleted social media off my phone. It kind of did the same thing.

There's not really much else to do on my phone once you take that off. What am I going to do? It's just too easy to go to Twitter.com. Oh, I didn't even think of that. I wouldn't even think to do that. It's such a bad experience. Dude, they're just constantly trying to get you to download the app. They nuke it for you.

Like, you can't see a reply. You can't, like, you can't do it. anything. But then I end up just spending so much time on Claude, asking it questions. So I just had to, like, nuke everything. I had like, I'm just, like, I don't know. I just, like, it's just the habit of like, I have, I'm in the elevator, reach in my pocket, pull it out, do something. And like that, that, like, action has to, like go away entirely. In order for it to go away, I just can't have anything working. Yeah, that's fair. All right, is that it? That's it. All right, that's it pop.

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 looking back. All right, let's take a quick break to talk about a podcast. Because if you're listening to this, you like podcasts. And what's better than one podcast? Another podcast, and let me tell you, another podcast you should check out. It's called Success Story.

If you like hearing about different success stories and hearing Q&A sessions with successful business leaders or hearing keynote presentations or just checking out conversations about sales and business and marketing tactics, This is a great podcast for you. So check it out wherever you get your podcast.