TFTC: A Bitcoin Podcast - #477: What It Was Like Launching Bitcoin In El Salvador with Sean McDonnell

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

Marty sits down with Sean McDonnell from Salt of the Earth to discuss the myriad stories that led to the founding of his company. Sean on Twitter: https://twitter.com/seanfmcdonnell Salt of the Earth: https://drinksote.com/tftc 0:00 - Intro 6:32 - Lacrosse 15:59 - Groupon 23:23 - Giving up the party life 27:11 - Skiing story 32:51 - Coding bootcamp 38:06 - Bitcoin 43:01 - Bukele’s war room 52:24 - Starting Salt of the Earth 1:02:50 - Electrolytes 1:14:24 - Jack Dorsey story Shoutout to our sponsors: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠River⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠CrowdHealth⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Bitcoin Talent Co⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Sote⁠⁠ TFTC Merch is Available: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Shop Now⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join the TFTC Movement: Main ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YT Channel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Clips ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YT Channel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Marty Bent: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠

what's up freaks it's your boy marty here to introduce this rip of tftc this rip was brought to you by our good friends at river river is here building out bitcoin infrastructure they build their own infrastructure they don't have any third-party dependencies like prime trust or fortress they built their own wallets they custody their own bitcoin and multi-sig if you buy bitcoin on river it is reserved one-to-one in multi-sig cold storage you can dca on river if you dollar cost average you set it and forget it you're not gonna pay any fees on those buys you can set limit orders maybe you thought the price of bitcoin was going to dump after the etf and you know not to buy the etf you need to buy actual bitcoin you could have set a limit order below the price of

where it was when it launched you could have set it at like 39 000 that would have been filled you can do that on river very easily they also have river links which allows you to gift people bitcoin it's a fascinating incredible way to do it you go in the river app you create a gift a link a river link you say hey i want to give my friend a hundred dollars worth of bitcoin then you send them the link they click the link and they can say hey i want to sweep this to my river account if i have it or any other wallet that i want to it's the best way to gift bitcoin if you're stacking sats if you're gifting bitcoin if you want to set limit orders go to river go to river.com slash tftc sign up today you're gonna get five dollars worth of bitcoin this rip was also brought

to you by good friends down the hall unchained also doing it the right way also building their own infrastructure what unchained is doing revolves around multi-sig custody two or three multi-sig quorum it's a collaborative custody model their vault product allows you to hold two keys Unchained holds one. You can distribute your risk, eliminate single points of failure. Unchained's there to be the second in the two or three multi-sig quorum if you need them. They also have an IRA product. A lot of people aping into the ETFs.

Don't think that's the best idea. You should get access to actual Bitcoin that you can control. And if you want to have an IRA and Bitcoin in your IRA, go to Unchained. Transition your IRA into their Bitcoin IRA. and you can hold your own keys again with that two or three collaborative custody model if you're thinking i want to invest in bitcoin from my retirement account i have this ira i don't want to liquidate it and then buy bitcoin you don't have to hit up the concierge team down the hall go to unchained.com consultation set up a consultation learn about their ira

there's many people doing i know many people my family have done it they're very happy they feel secure they feel happy the unchained team is the best in the space at our onboarding people unchained.com consultation tell them the tftc sent you this was also brought to you by good friends at crowd health and bitcoin we're focused on taking sovereignty back in the monetary perspective at crowd health it's taking sovereignty back from a health care perspective typical or health insurance the industry is notoriously opaque expensive impersonal crowd health is a different model. It's not health insurance. It's crowdfunded healthcare. You pay a monthly fee, pay a membership fee. You join the crowd health community. If you ever need to go to

the doctor, you tell crowd health, Hey, I'm going to the doctor. I say, all right, get us a bill. You go to the doctor, you get the bill, you give it to crowd health. They negotiate the price lower. Then you pay the first $500 of that bill and the rest gets crowdfunded by the crowd health community. They've had a hundred percent of bills paid to date. They can't guarantee that will happen but the model seems to be working if you're young healthy have a good income you don't want to pay crazy health insurance premiums you don't want to pay crazy health care costs maybe you're unemployed you're paying cobra that's what happened to me I wasn't unemployed but I left a company did not get health insurance and I was on cobra extremely expensive ditch cobra for crowd health

it's way cheaper me and my family love it we've been using it and it works it's worked for us We've used it multiple times throughout the last two years since we've been CrowdHealth community members. So go to joincrowdhealth.com slash TFTC, sign up today, and you're going to get $99 for the first six months of your membership fee. Last but not least, this rip was brought to you by Bitcoin Talent Co. Bitcoin Talent Co. is here to help you find the best talent in the world. If you're a company building out the space, a lot of the companies we talked about, John and I, in this episode, they need to hire. some of them are using bitcoin talent co to go hire what they need it's a bitcoin recruiting firm built by bitcoiners for bitcoiners they understand bitcoin again like john and i discussed

they're uh an inch wide and a mile deep and understanding bitcoin so it's not just some recruiting firm that's going to not understand what bitcoin is and not know the talent to bring to you they do know they understand multi-sig they understand mining they understand lightning they're going to be able to find you the talent go to bitcoin talent.co tell them the tftc sent you get onboarded with them get the best talent you don't need a full-time employee you need a contract worker guess what they have a flex program that'll allow you to tap into a roster of people who are willing to work uh for short periods of time three months six months whatever you need you need a design sprint an engineering sprint you need a part-time cfo bitcoin talent go

can find those people for you. BitcoinTalent.co. Tell them that TFTC sent you. Wasn't last but not least, also, new sponsor. Been drinking electrolytes to supplement my water, my hydration.

Salt of the earth. Go to drink, S-O-T-E, drinksote.com, drinksote.com, slash TFTC. Check it out. With that TFTC promo code,

you'll get 15% off. Enjoy this rip. you've had a dynamic where money's become freer than free if you talk about a fed just gone nuts all all the central banks going nuts so it's all acting like safe haven i believe that in a world where central bankers are tripping over themselves to devalue their currency bitcoin wins in the world of fiat currencies bitcoin is the victor I mean, that's part of the bull case for Bitcoin. If you're not paying attention, you probably should be.

How come you don't talk about Owls Lacrosse anymore? Owls Lacrosse? Owls Lacrosse. Still a big fan of Owls Lacrosse. Big shout out to Sam. Sam Angelotta. Owls Lacrosse. Unfortunately, Cash App.

Well, not unfortunately, just the way the business Cash App is a sponsor. And that was a deal we did with Cash App where people would sign up. Oh, and you were just giving the referral to them? I think so, yeah. Yeah. They seem to be doing great. Sam's crushing it. I talked to him, I think, like six months ago.

It's funny, one of the girls, one of the women who works here in the commons was friends with him growing up, and we somehow stumbled. I think I was talking about it. I was lacrosse. She was like, you know Sam? I was like, yeah. i know sam so the girl out there julia said she like got the job because of her brother who's a listener of you do you know who her brother is i don't know there's a lot of

listeners out there she'll come a long way from the dpu lax days dude yeah um well i was done playing 2010 and that was dude how about we tell the story of your last game that was your last game right last game ever hung up hung up the cleats after that one all right do you want to like tell your side of the story and then i'll fill it in we were playing augustana augustana augustana we're in rock island illinois on the border of illinois and iowa this is 2010 Must have been our 2009-2010 2010 We were on the back end of a road trip

We had gone down to like St. Louis And made our way back up To Rock Island right Yeah And We're playing in the middle of nowhere Tired I think that was our third game that weekend

I think we were in Indianapolis and Missouri Poor scheduling Just like And then up to Iowa Yeah I decided I didn't want to play long stick i don't want to play close defense i wanted to play midi so i grabbed a stick and then pat desmond who i saw crying on instagram because the detroit lions won a playoff game for the first time in 30

years the other day how did i miss that dang wow he uh he threw me so in lacrosse when the goalie saves a ball and you break out to start the transition uh you're looking for the ball over your shoulder looking back at the goalie and the goalie supposed to throw you a tight a tight ball right to your stick um because there's defenders out there they could hit you desmond threw me what i mean he shouldn't have she shouldn't even looked shouldn't even looked you're right in the middle of the field yes like definitely you know go to the outside and i mean you just do one of over your shoulder and then it was just buddy pass like nice lob hits your stick and it was just like decked some dude had to be like six five 250 pounds hit me straight in the chest i mean i don't

remember any of it and like you just hit the ground so hard it was like a big duffel bag just got dropped from like a 10-story building that's how it sounded and i got knocked out but you got up like right away and you came and you came onto the side and I remember being like I was like damn wow he really got his bell rung and I was like okay but like I was trying to keep pushing you to like go back I was like yeah man like we just need to you know get some momentum on offense and and get it going and you were like ready to go back out and Tim this is another earlier Tim courier was like we were so ragtag that it was like always a player coach tim was a senior and he was the head coach and he was like dude he's not going back he's not going back out and you

were like ready to go and then he goes he's like steak what what day is it and you're just like oh fuck dad no idea what day it was i gotta piss myself that was scary and that's when we were like gotta take him to the hospital and and drove you to the hospital and i know an ambulance showed up i went in the ambulance because i remember they put an iv in me in the ambulance so i went in the ambulance with you and had to call your mom because i was the president and um man that was that sucked like no i remember and you were like this is like i was like have you had a concussion before and you're like yeah it's like my like seventh one or something yeah it was my sixth pretty bad concussion i remember coming to in the uh in the middle of rock island illinois

the middle of nowhere we're like waiting in the waiting room for a doctor to see me and i come to like i think i come out of the the fog i was in after being hit and i like come to and the first thing i see is this like dude with like a bald head and he's got a tattoo of the middle finger on the back of his head i was like where the fuck am i what am i doing here good old rock island and then you i think it was guido and reed waited and we drove back to chicago through the middle of the night and i was fucked up for like two weeks yeah man that's that was that wasn't that was scary i remember just being like i couldn't believe i i felt so guilty that i was like i wanted you to just keep playing i was like dude

come on let's go and Tim when he called you out on the date I was like wow that's that I guess that's how you know I couldn't even spell my name it's weird because I have like these I remember Tim asked me that and I didn't know I didn't know what day it was and I remember asking me to spell my name and I could see my name in my brain but I couldn't like articulate the letters I was like yeah here we are though I mean you've come a long way yeah come a long way I became that player coach and after i got knocked out i started coaching my sophomore year then that was yeah sophomore year how did you guys do sophomore and junior year the we kept getting progressively better sophomore year was the worst but the junior and senior year we did well obviously

the senior year ending with a ship and you didn't have any other coach sophomore year or junior year Colbert what was the name he was terrible and he tried he tried to be like the head coach I think we're probably

going to get some DPU lax guys listening to this hopefully right I would imagine but no it's weird

thinking back because that that was like 2010 I got knocked out couldn't play lacrosse and couldn't play sports anymore except for like

basketball at the Ray and that's like sort of what set me down the path to Bitcoin I was like alright can't play sports anymore let me focus on economics

and all this shit and fell down the bitcoin rabbit hole two and a half years later yeah and 2013 was the championship season yes when your boy showed up as an assistant assistant coach yes thank you from the from the mean streets the grubhub coming into a group on group on not grubhub and i wasn't even at group on at the time i was at this other company called um bright tag and i was not enjoying my job and i just remember being like this is sweet like this team is like winning and like and then going down and winning the conference championship great rivers conference yes grlc and then going to the national championship tournament that was like that was so fun to just like because when i was playing it was

like the first year we were killing it we had all these brother rice guys we were like smoking the league and then we got moved up into like a legit league conference and then we were just getting our asses kicked by like wheaton and like because we were just like partying a lot and like these guys were all sober just working us but like we had kids from brother rice you know the best school in the midwest um but yeah that was so fun like seeing uh a team that you built pretty much from like freshman year it's like sophomore and then coach like win the championship that was like it was awesome all it took was a little structure all i did was add 6 a.m workouts in the off season and two practices a week in season and we just had camaraderie and a bit

bit of structure and actually obviously playing lacrosse in the northeast allows you to know the game pretty well i knew how to organize a defense i handled the defense and there were some players on the team that could put together an offense i was like you guys focus on offense i'll make sure the defense is good yeah i didn't even really like try to do any x's and o's i was like just trying to hype everyone up it's like let's just fucking kick the shit out of these guys let's go but we've come a long way since then yeah like you said you're at 10 years at what was that one and bright tag bright tag you don't seem like somebody likes uh being chained to a desk or working for a company no when i was working at groupon i really enjoyed i was doing

sales and I was like launching markets my first market at Groupon was Fayetteville North Carolina and it's like a tiny military town outside of Raleigh and I like went out there and it was really fun actually like going to visit and like meeting with like I had my best customer was a indoor skydiving place so I like got to go there and like do that and like meeting people face to face and like doing those deals was really fun and then I started to do the moved up from Fayetteville to Raleigh and then Charlotte and then I started doing the Groupon getaways and I was doing I was like in charge of like the ski Groupons all the mountain stuff all the resorts and I found this one conference called the mountain travel symposium. And I remember just pitching like

the GM of the group on getaways. I was like, look, living socials there. They're like the headline sponsor. Like we have no representation. We, we gotta be there. Like, and he was like, well, I don't want to pay. I don't want to like pay to be there, but like, I'll send you there if you want to go. I was like, okay. It was at Squaw Valley. And I was like, this is sweet. I'm going to, I'm going to get paid to go like ski for a week and like meet all the, it was like a speed dating type of thing. And everyone's like skiers and stuff. And I, I, there's a movie, like my favorite ski movie.

I think I probably told all the team about it called NAR. NAR, yes. And it's based on this book called Squallywood. that's uh nar is like a acronym for gaffney's numerical assessment of radness and he scott gaffney rob gaffney they wrote this guidebook on how to attack the mountain and like get points for certain lines and then you get like extra credit points for doing shit like going up skiing up to a bunch of like a stranger and saying like hey i just want to let you know I'm the best rider on the mountain or like, I'm so much sicker than you. Like, I can't believe

you're a pro. Um, just like skiing naked, like doing like the more uncomfortable something made you feel the more points it was worth. And I think I was really, I made everybody like watch that on the lacrosse team. Yes. I was like, this movie is how I live my life. Like you gotta do this and um yeah i've i had a hard time like keeping a desk job yeah especially a group on like what happened to groupon is it still around like i think groupon may be like one of the prototypical products of like zero interest rate policy companies they just got a shit ton of money well they were huge in chicago when we were so this was even this is way before zero interest rates this was like for the longest time it was like okay we have like i don't know i felt like

they really put um e-commerce and like email like okay how do we how do we figure out like what to do with like social like sharing and and like emails and like deals and like i don't know i feel like groupon was just the right place at the right time and everyone figured out like okay if we can just get a Groupon deal like we're going to get in front of so many people we're going to drive so much traffic to our business but it was ultimately like a lending

platform because these restaurants were like always strapped for cash and the best deals were like restaurant deals and I'd be like okay you try to call a restaurant and you say okay so what's your average

ticket for two people and they'd say oh it's $25. So you say, okay, we'll do a deal. $12 gets you $25 worth of food at your barbecue restaurant. You get $6 and we get $6. And that those rates aren't, don't happen anymore. Or at least that's how it worked in the beginning. And so then they would sell like a thousand of these Groupons. And so that's 6,000 bucks. And that's a 6,000 bucks that they like didn't have to do anything for and then they get a check you know like 30 days later for 6 000 bucks but then they get like slammed business and like the whole staff is like pissed off the customers get pissed off and like it's kind of a nightmare but like for a while it was like the hottest thing it was like

and it was like really fun to work there like i remember going to visit the super fun when some of our friends would work there it was a campus every two weeks there was like 60 people from like big 10 schools that were just getting like just graduated that were like rolling in and everyone's making like 10 grand a month selling coupons you know it was like crazy it was great and everyone's like partying like after work every night um and like you could see it was like instant gratification you know you'd like you call a business you do a deal and then you in like seven days it would be live on the internet and then you just like look at your deal like after work on your phone you just be like you know refreshing my deal like how much you know

calculating your commission in your head like nice nice nice like kind of crazy you know thinking back and thinking about like some of the businesses that just like got blown out yeah because that's not a viable business at the end of the day right like imagine the restaurant sells at $25 for 12 yeah yeah i mean you can only do it like once a year or like once very sparingly but then like it's like a drug like these restaurants are like let's do it again run it again are they making money though or are they losing money from this it's not it's like they're usually not making money but it's like an advertising expense yeah it's kind of how you have to i don't know think about it yeah you're getting people in hoping they come back yeah that's what that was one of

our lines when we call be like you know would you rather put up a billboard or would you rather have come in the door and try your food you know and let it speak for itself you know like do you think you could get them to come back a second time and they're always like yeah oh yeah i can get a come back it's like i don't know yeah it's funny how that space has evolved now it's all what do you think it's taken over a group on if that i don't know i mean something like easy table is the easy table what is i'm trying to think of the apps i mean i don't know any of these i just do like instacart yeah i like never go out to eat well that's the thing that's like i mean that's sort of what i wanted to dig into with you um sean good friend founder of salt of the earth

which i've been using a lot of and um we've been talking a lot as you've been growing this business over the last six months and i think um having been your friend for shit almost a decade now more than a decade now 14 years now 15 years almost it's crazy thing i'm a decade out of college um it seems like you're really invigorated about like starting your own business and leaning in and not only starting your own business but something that sort of aligns with who you are today because you're not a party boy anymore no no no you've really leaned into the health side of things yeah man i uh i'm almost like seven years no without a drink how's that how's that why did you decide to stop um so it was on my 30th birthday or like right after my 30th birthday i

was i was listening to this podcast of tim ferris and laird hamilton and tim ferris was like so laird um if you could tell your 30 year old self like one piece of advice like what would it be and laird was like stop drinking alcohol and i was just like and laird's like you know you know laird he's like this epic like big wave surfer who's just like badass dude and i was like i want to be like laird like if and it i don't know something about the way he said it and like i was um had been giving up alcohol for lent for like six years and it was always like something that i saw huge benefits from i was like wow like my sleep's better like i'm just like feeling better all this is all these benefits and then like also i remember my telling my

grandmother like like that i was doing this she's like why don't you just give up just stop if you keep talking about how great it is why don't you just stop i was like yeah all right maybe and then like she died and then like i don't know a few weeks later i heard laird say that and i was just like yeah i'm all right i'm gonna like try it maybe that's a sign do you miss it at all no not really like it's uh it's helped me a lot just like not drinking like um in what ways i mean really like the sleep was probably the biggest thing um i mean but then the uh the drugs didn't really stop after the after the drinking i let that keep going for another like four or five months and then that got like crazy and then i was like i gotta stop everything so you've been

completely sober for almost seven years yeah yeah pretty wild change how crazy does it get like i want to share somehow on this podcast those pictures that we have of like popping champagne bottles from like the championship days and like we i mean i designed a shirt for our lacrosse team that was like it was like a pbr depaul blue demons i don't think i have the shirt anymore but Jeremy Shockey's got one he's got he's got one somewhere um which is another kind of crazy story um yeah he became best friends with Jeremy Shockey for a short stint there you still talk to him at all yeah I mean every once in a while um so yeah that was during the same time actually that we were doing the coaching and then I was like helping out

helping you out with the coaching at DePaul I went on vacation um so at this company Bright Tag they were really flexing the like unlimited vacation policy and I was like I'm gonna take two weeks and go to Vail end of December like peace and like my brother was um like mountain safety and at Beaver Creek and he was living in this dorm style a place called the Tarns and it was like like a college dorm I mean it was like a common room this was like this big and then four bedrooms attached and I was sleeping on the couch but it was ski in ski out so I was like skiing a lot and the second day in I was getting kind of bored because they all had like jobs and I could only ski with like my brother like half a day certain days and so I found out that

you could the private lessons were a thousand dollars a day and i was like i could do that like i'm like better skier than this guy and so i posted an ad on craigslist saying you know i'll give free snowboard lessons skiing or snowboarding lessons um anywhere in like summit county like around and so I'm getting hit up like crazy and I have like these two girls that want to go snowboarding I've never given a lesson and I go to the bar that night and I Jeremy Shockey sits down right next to me and I was like whoa like this guy's massive and I was like can I get a like picture and I'm like just hanging with him and he's like and I'm wearing like I have a little bit of gear like gear like I'm wearing a hat that says like Beaver Creek it kind of looks like I'm

like i work for the mountain a little bit and he's like what what do you do what are you doing here and i was like yeah well i'm giving these two girls snowboarding lessons tomorrow and he's like dude let's fuck these girls he's like give me your number and because there's no girls in the mountain towns it's like eight to one ratio so he's like texting me the next day he's like yo what are you guys doing i was like hey sorry like the next the next day the girls bail they're like hung over not gonna not gonna go skiing and so shocky was like well all right well can you give me and my friend like lessons i was like sure i've never given a lesson before and like i have a gopro and he introduces me this guy this guy's name is fred and he's like in his 50s and he's

like very beginner snowboarder and he's like okay so how does this work like you're like free or what and i was like look i um it's for it's known as pirate instruction on the mountain like you get banned for life if you get caught doing this at veil resorts i didn't know that at the time but like they they'll they'll try to throw a felony at you saying it's like theft of service from resorts it's federal wildlife land like all this bullshit so you have to you can't like you can't even post that on craigslist anymore they they'll like scan it and they'll pull it down but i was like look i'm not i'm not really allowed to like charge you for a lesson but like if you want to give me a tip you can um it's a thousand or you can go pay a thousand dollars to to veil and like

i have a gopro i'm gonna make a video it's gonna be like way sicker than whatever you're gonna get from these get from that you know idiot and he was like okay let's do it and he just throws me like 500 bucks cash like right away it slaps my hand i was like all right we're in business and then like the next day he just does it again he just like keeps doing it and then i'm like hanging out it's like him and shocky and then after a week of doing that they were like okay every time we come back and these guys were in miami and they're like every time we come back out to the mountain like we're gonna fly you out from chicago and you'll like be our guy i was like all right sweet so like that was like christmas i did that and then like spring break i did that

and then another christmas another spring break and then i know two christmases and then they like okay like they offer me a job at in like their family office in south beach and i moved down 2014 you've been in miami ever since i've been there ever since do you like miami i do like it yeah miami beach south beach i think it suits your needs better than chicago i mean dude yeah i i was like i was living with my parents right before that like i was like head lost had eventually lost that job with uh bright tag now and they changed their name like a bunch of times but yeah it was like taking too many vacations it's probably yeah they were just like who's this fucking guy like thinks he's like a lacrosse coach and a snowboard instructor like

you got a job to do buddy not cool enough nobody cares about tag management also at the time i was trying to sell a technology for like a stupid amount of money like five thousand dollars a month at google had just came out with like google tag manager and that was free and everyone's like oh never gonna take your call so yeah and again it doesn't seem like you're you're cut out to work for somebody which is like believe me i've tried i you know i've tried but i'm the same way yeah i tried to quit many times but it's that thing it's like that nagging thing and you're just like i'm not liking this life short i think i gotta go after something i want it's yeah so then after the family office thing i i got a job with auction.com and that was like i was like okay this is cool

this is like tech this is real estate i'm kind of i was like doing a lot of real estate stuff and tech stuff and then i was just like this is just getting kind of bored and i i went to this like coding boot camp didn't you do a design code design boot camp yeah see i was like i'm gonna do that i was like i want to like build something you know like and uh that was 2017 and like right before that like kind of like during in the middle of that i was like okay i'm gonna try to start a snowboarding a a plant-based protein i was like really into i had just watched what the health and was like i was like okay i'm gonna try the vegan thing hardcore oh god i i went there that sounds terrible for like a year i was like hardcore how unhealthy did you get i mean i was training

for an iron man too so and i was like oh i'm i'm following the rich roll playbook you know like this guy did five iron men in like five days and to me that was like and he was like 50 and i was like okay as a vegan yeah but they're like now there's guys like james lawrence who did like 50 iron men in 50 states in 50 days he's done a hundred he just did a thing i call like he did like 100 iron men in a row he's not a vegan like these guys i even met like other like crazy iron men athletes and i was like yeah i'm doing the like vegan thing and they're like dude what are you doing like no but i don't know for some people it works i tried it and i was like maybe and i wanted to create a product because I saw this girl her name is uh Michelle Lewin she's like

OG Instagram fitness influencer she's like she was like the first one she was in my lived in my building in South Beach and I'd see her at the gym and I was like yeah she's pretty fit but like she just made it look really easy you know like she has probably like 50 million followers on instagram now and like she she launched up some products and just like blew up and i was like oh my god like this crazy like you just need to like i don't know be fit and like come up with a product and like put it on instagram and it'll sell and you got to be like a hot girl that helps that helps yeah but then i was like in south beach you know trying to sell a snowboarding plant-based like high altitude training protein powder just like

just like didn't work no it wasn't it just it just didn't work and so then i was and it was all kind of falling apart while i was doing the coding boot camp and so then i was like okay i'm like try to get more like technical and like learn more about like how to build a company on my own like i just i want to build something and kind of got into like uh like the devops stuff like aws and uh just like cloud architecture and then well at the coding boot camp i made a product i actually won actually you know who's in my boot camp was sam abasi yeah who's been on the podcast been on podcast 1031 portfolio company hoseki they actually just made a big announcement today with bitwise what's the deal what's he what's he up to i haven't talked to him in like forever

he found a company hoseki in there um they essentially are creating a tool that allows you to validate that you own bitcoin and so they just announced this partnership with bitwise which launched one of the etfs where like hoseki will help validate and do proof of reserves for them so they they can prove the etf actually has the bitcoin so we had this competition at the end of the boot camp i won was it your it was it was called cabbage patch it was the dollar cost averaging app and um it worked actually worked like i like was able to like you know scrap it together and like get it to work and then i tried to actually um sam and his team actually tried to like buy me or like figure out they're like let's work together and i was like ah i don't know i'm

gonna try to sell this thing on my own and i had this guy who started a company he was like had some he just raised like wait wait explain the oh explain the app so the app was called cabbage patch and it was it hooked up to your bank account and every after every it would round up every purchase and then buy bitcoin with the spare change um so if you bought this coffee for you know 80 cents it would round up to a dollar and then take that 20 cents invested into bitcoin the problem is if you're buying bitcoin at 20 cents the commission is like huge at the transaction it was like doesn't really make sense to buy that much that small amount that small amount of bitcoin that frequently so what it turned into was an app that just bought bitcoin

it would be like the way that the workaround was like okay we're gonna tally up your spare change at the end of the month and it was usually around 20 bucks and so that was that was like the app it was basically like 20 bucks on average like you're gonna buy every month and like on autopilot and yeah a bunch of apps kind of came out at the same time doing the same thing you can do that with cash app now you could do it with cash app now at the time you couldn't do it with cash maybe you planted the idea in their mind i mean there was like there was i wasn't the first one to have the idea there was there was a couple other out there like uh but there was there was a guy actually he had the best one it was called coin flash i remember i remember just staring at

his site and be like damn this guy's so good what was queen flush it's the same thing but like he had you could buy litecoin you could buy eth that sounds terrible you could but like he also was better with javascript and like so the front end looked really slick it was like a lot of a lot of toggles and moving parts it was just like oh like that's nice we're like i think i was saying this earlier i think to parker you were probably one of the only dudes at depaul that listened to me back in the day i was like you guys should like maybe look into bitcoin yeah no we were i think the first time i i heard about bitcoin was um i had a couple friends that had this other startup that

had this one engineer from notre dame and he was like i just heard he was like he just had bought like so much bitcoin it was like this and and he he was like just like a dirty nerdy like super nice guy super brilliant guy and i just kept hearing this story about how he like you know hit it big and then lost it all you know like he got hacked or something it was like oh joey had like 10 million bitcoin and he just and then he put then some russian hacker took it all then he moved to africa or something and i was like oh man what is this bitcoin and then like i remember you and me chatting about it like probably yeah early on just like in g chats like like are you following this stuff like this is

like pretty wild yeah it was when i was working at uh a dearborn i forgot about g chat it was like you my wife and like two other people i would g chat dude g chats and that's where i would like i was like dude you should check this out yeah yeah for sure this is like this is some big stuff here what do you think about it now 10 years later yeah it's like it's still like very legit i mean it's like gotten um i personally i feel like it's sometimes i get a little like depressed about bitcoin just because like for it to really like thrive i feel like the world just kind of has to fall apart i don't think so like i feel like it's constantly like you're waiting for like like it's a lot of doom and gloom there is a lot of doom and gloom but i don't think

uh like i necessarily needs to fall apart i think the likelihood of the world falling apart is pretty high it's not yeah and that's why bitcoin exists yeah like it's it's nice it's it's great to have like i just think it's like amazing it's great but i feel like when i get really into it like when i when i see like like the whole twitter like world i'm just like oh like that's so like dark sometimes it's like so like i i don't know i i like keep my distance like a healthy distance but i'm still like paying attention and like seeing what's going on all the time yeah like i loved going to el salvador like bitcoin beach yeah you went there who'd you go there with athena so i went there well i went there by myself um i like had brought my girlfriend at the time and

and i just wanted to like go surf there and like check it out and then and like buying papusas with you know like bitcoin and stuff and like going to restaurants and like buying food with bitcoin i was like this is awesome i was like this is like real it's happening that was like four years ago three i don't know yeah like three or four years ago i was doing that and and then i can't so though and i met like the shrike guys down there and i really wanted a bitcoin beach t-shirt like bad i was like oh these are sick and then as they're giving me one they're like oh you're in miami can you give one to mayor suarez i was like like i don't know the guy like and they're like dear just take one and get get it to him i was like okay so then like when i

landed i dm'd him and he like wrote i was like hey i got this shirt from bitcoin beach guys can i like bring it over and he was like yeah come by tomorrow i was like whoa and then i was like is this actually him or is this and he was like yeah it's me i was like where'd you meet him city hall he was there and dude it was crazy because he the two buildings in surfside had just gone down remember when that happened oh yeah i've got some theories on that one all right well yeah let's there is a theory out there so the theory for those uh buildings is that john mcafee's dead man switch was located which is a theory out there have you heard this one logan no there's

a theory that uh john mcafee's dead man switch was located in that building they had to take it down so john mcafee's not just like alive somewhere like in the caribbean he may be we don't know his dead man switch didn't go off why not wait what does a dead man switch do or what is a dead man switch so if you're worried that the government or somebody's gonna take you down take you down you uh you're gonna take everyone take two buildings yeah you put something on a computer and you say hey if i don't interact with this for x amount of time like send the emails to the people or do something with the data uh yeah well well suarez just a theory he was dealing he was he was in the middle of all that he was like he was in the middle of

all that and he was like just swing by at like 1 30 i was like okay so i like show up i was like i gotta get a pic dude like send it to the boys down in el salvador and he's like he's wearing like fire department gear and he's holding up the bitcoin beach shirt i have it like it's a great pick um but then i went back with athena so do you know matthias goldenhorn he's like the president now of athena he he was like head of sales or something or head of latin america because they're like a chicago-based company yep um bitcoin atms athena and he had he was like yeah oh bitcoin was becoming legal tender in el salvador september 7th i remember and it was like august i was just there in may and august rolls around i was like dude like this is cool

what's happening down there you're like there a lot right he's like he's like yeah i'm actually like part of the team to like help with the chivo wallet and like get businesses down there like ready to go and like he's like i'm i need so much help right now he's like actually can you come down and help me i was like what it's like okay he's like can you get on a flight tomorrow i was like yeah let's go i just like show up into this like airbnb that they they rented out and it was like a war room and it was like it was like 12 dudes in this airbnb and they had all these like um card readers that that were like chivo wallet and like government sponsored and like i have another picture that i'll send you logan that is like me at this desk this table with like the whole with

like this whole operation of like people that were like it was very it felt very cool like very like like i was in with like the whole like top dogs like okay we're we're making this happen with bitcoin it's like we got to get walmart to be able to accept bitcoin here and like the mcdonald's and like all the everything is gonna have to accept bitcoin in four weeks like are you ready and i was like dude what are you gonna have me even do i don't even know what's going on here and they they just like didn't really know it was like it was just a madhouse it was like seriously madhouse the fact that you were like i didn't know this until now the fact that you were like in the room when all this is going like bukele's like brother is like running the shit

and he's like walks in the room and and like matias is like under the desk like no jill like like where and there was like we were getting like escorted around and stuff and what did you actually do so they wanted so they wanted me to look like i was like part of the team they were trying to like make their team look like bigger and like smarter and like american i don't know and like matthias was like we'll figure something out for you to do like maybe you can help us out with like the aws infrastructure or something or like we'll figure something out for you to do and after like a day or two of just like hanging out with them i was like i just i don't see what going to do here like i don't know how i'm going to be adding value like this is like

no there's it was just kind of a wild wild west and what was i doing this is some incredible insight into the rollout of dude so oh related bitcoin so it's such incredible such incredible insight that i was like how can i how can i make money off this situation i was like Like Athena was trading on an exchange and the price of Athena was like 80 cents. You're about to get myself in trouble. Yeah. No,

I, cause I, well, nothing wrong happened. So I actually, I was like, cause they were, I didn't know how they were going to pay me either.

They were like, Oh, maybe we'll give you shares of the company. I was like, what is this company even worth? So I'm like looking at these filings and like, trying to figure understand the business and and then i was like you know what i'm just gonna buy you know i've been i've been known to option trade for my day you know my dad was a broker

dealer at the board of trade and i've just been into it and i was like man i could buy some of these options on this athena stock that's you know 80 cents and i bought like a thousand dollars worth and and then i told i told matthias i was like dude i just i was like i just bought some some athena stock and he was like he's like yeah like i don't know if that's gonna be like do it like he was just like yeah i don't know about that that move and i was like really like this guy i was like he was he talked me out he basically like made me think like oh this is a that move like i'm and i was like you know i'm gonna cash out i'm just gonna get out of this the next day it's someone leaks that like athena's it's on twitter someone leaks like

athena's the one rolling out chivo wallet and bitcoin price shoots up to like 30 dollars it would have been worth a lot and i was just like fuck man like damn that was like my shot and yeah unfortunately you couldn't incriminate yourself because you sold i did sell yeah this is the the weird world of sean mcdonough you just end up in these places next to jeremy shocky in the war room with bukele's team as they're rolling out bitcoin yeah that was that was crazy how do you how do you end up in these situations um i don't know i probably just following the curiosity i feel like that's probably how i've ended up there and just like willing to like kind of go for it to send it if you want yeah just just send it yeah that i did not know that

you never told me that story dude i'm almost positive i've told you that story like i feel like there's more to it too i mean i still keep in touch with those guys um like i like shout out carlos this guy he's like an attorney down there and he was like dude uh i sent him some salt to the earth he like loves it he's like oh we gotta get this down here but like shipping internationally is like i don't know let's let's dive into this it seems like i love this shit too a lot yeah it's funny having known you for 15 years yeah maybe rome has finally finally found his niche here what's been like starting this company this has been super fun i mean um so i have kind of always been into this like i worked at the gatorade sports science

institute in high school it was like across the street from high school barrington it's not there anymore but it used to be one of their like hubs and i would do these different like lab tests and try new flavors and they would analyze my sweat and it was kind of just like this weird you know side gig that i did for like 10 years it was like always like hey like i'd get an envelope in the mail that's how we or i'd get an email actually and they'd say like yeah we got in this new 10 week study like are you available it pays like 50 bucks an hour i was like always eat like yeah yeah, hell yeah. That train is always on time. And then I just was like failing with my own, you know, with the protein powder. And then like,

just like started to do, um, e-commerce stuff the last year on Amazon. And I was reselling other brands. Like I was reselling a lot of shoes, a lot of Nikes, Adidas and Puma, New Balance. and i was like man i want to just sell my own brand the margins are so much better and um kind of went on this like this like surf sabbatical last year where i was like you know i had this video editing agency that i stumbled upon too where i met ryan breslow he was like my first, I met him at this party, this like hackathon party in my, at Miami hack week and just like started talking to him and whatever. And then I like showed him a video that I made for a VC atomic ventures that I was like, I don't know what I was doing. I just made this cool

video. It was actually a video of pomp and, um, Abrams, uh, Abraham, I forget the guy's name. uh but it was a video of pomp actually and i showed it to him and i was like yo like ryan do you know anyone that would like want videos like this and he was like me i want these like okay like how many he's like a lot and like okay and again never had had no experience doing this at all i was like okay well we can go rent a studio just kind of like this we just go rent studio for like an hour and a half and i would just like talk to him and ask him questions kind of like a podcast and he would just like talk and then i would i had a team in the philippines that would just like cut it up and animate it and then he would like share it and then after he started

posting these i started like getting more clients like people that were just like yo make those for me and then and that that was a business that was zero percent interest like everybody had money for that and then they didn't like everyone's like no this is like the price came way down the ai tools got way more advanced like so like i had that business going with the shoes and then i was also selling offshore software development people because i just like knew how to code i just like kind of sucked at it and i was like oh i'm better at sales i could just get these guys in india or south america or whoever and link them up with companies here in the u.s and so yeah i just kind of like had all these different things going on and then at the beginning of 2023 i was like i

started this like surf adventure i was like okay i'm going to costa rica for a month uh i'm getting ready to go to this place the mental wise in indonesia have you ever you know the mental was so i'm like i booked this trip with four guys from university of denver when i went there um and these are like good snowboarders and friends and we all kind of picked up surfing later on and we had just put this trip in the books it's kind of like one of those like destination like bucket list surf trips i was not prepared like i was my skill level was like not there and so i was like all right i'm gonna spend a month in costa rica surf every day i like had like this like coach that just like would like scream at me and like really like really push me

hard and then after that i was like i'm gonna go to nicaragua and i actually linked up with ryan overwork remember him yeah he's living he was living in santa teresa another guy we played lacrosse with he was living in santa teresa and he was like dude i'm moving to nicaragua i'm like why he's like oh it's too crowded here lineup's too crowded it's too expensive i'm like all right i'm gonna go to nicaragua so then i went there for a month and i was in this place called hacienda iguana which is like this bubble retirement community that has like two world-class waves one's called panga drops and one's called colorado's just colorado's is like super famous wave that wasn't working the whole time that i

i was there but i was still surfing panga drops every day so then i go to then i go back to miami i'm still like doing the shoes thing but it's just like kind of like whatever it's like and then i go to portugal surf in erie sarah for a while check out nazaré meet up with one of my friends then we go to the mental wise and once we're in the mental wise it was like i mean amazing like heaven it's like two weeks of just like we stay at this place called aware of resort and you know it is like it is like summer camp for adults you know you're you wake up at 6 a.m and what's awesome is like you're just like with your boys the whole time you know it's like you wake up 6 a.m have a coffee and then you get in this boat and the boat takes you

to these waves like perfect waves and you're there all by yourself with like you know your your dudes and and you got like the music in the boat and it's got a cooler and whatever and you just surf for like three hours till you're like dead and then you get off go back eat go back do it again for like 10 days straight you just did that and it was like so it was like amazing and you're also eating like really great food and while that's happening i'm like kind of renting out my my studio in south beach the whole time i had like kind of figured out i was listing my south beach apartment on uh apartments.com and i was like getting people like and i was like okay yeah like rent it i i was just like able to kind of like make it like swing it and then when i was

in mental wise some girl was like i want to book it for two months i was like okay so she books it for two months and i was like where am i gonna go like and while i was there everyone's like you gotta go to bali like we're here it's like close like it's like it's about to be peak season over there for surfing like you gotta go and so i was like all right i gotta go so then i find this spot in bali i book it like pay for the two months in advance and then i get there and the girl flakes at the last second that was supposed to run in the spot so i'm like fuck it's like i'm trying to get out of this now and i'm like and i can't get out of it i can't get my money back so i'm like i just got to eat this and i'm gonna stay and i'm gonna make the best of

it and so i'm like i'm like i need to start a new business i'm like i'm running out of money i'm like, I got to start something new. And I was surfing super hard in the morning. Like I'd wake up at like six, five 36 surf for like two hours. And then I go to this place, the Bali training center. It was like, amazing. Just like, you know, like amazing, good looking people that are working out, sweating heavy. And then after that, there's like a restaurant where everyone's like hanging out and then go to this place called santai and there's like an amazing sauna ice bath so i'd do that whole thing that whole thing by 11 and i'd be done by like 11 and i'd be just dead like totally and i'd be like okay try to like i'd go to this co-working space after and try to like

get some work done on my my businesses and stuff and i just like had no energy and i was like drinking caffeine and like drinking tons of water eating lots of food and like couldn't couldn't wake up like i couldn't get it going and then i started to just like add salt just like pink Himalayan salt and i was like waking up and it just changed everything like i was totally a different person i was able to just like push through and recover and like get up and just like keep going and so i was like man i'm here like i want to like make the best of every single day i don't know if i'm ever gonna come back to this place like i want to like i want to surf every day every morning like i want to be out there

and um so that yeah it just like helped me like get through it and then i was like i was there and i was like talking to you know different suppliers and um started to like visit them and like tweak the formula and just like really like get into it and like working on the you know working on the uh the packaging the design and like going back and forth with like different designers and like people in the philippines that i knew that were like you know sri lanka like all everyone was like i no one was you know i'm the only u.s based part of this brand really um for now but um yeah i was just like really just hustling to like make it happen. And I was starting to take, while I was in Bali, I was like, I'm going to start taking

pre-orders. I was like, I have the formula kind of like figured out like halfway. How'd you come up with the formula? The formula was, I wanted to, so I was like looking at Liquid IV and Element and I was kind of like, okay, these are like, these are the big boys. And first I was like, okay yeah liquid iv is definitely like the biggest boy i mean they they that founder i had kind of like you know admired his story and heard him talk about how he saw the product being developed uh or he saw like pro baseball players drinking pedialyte and he was like this is kind of like ridiculous we should come up with something different and um he he just inspired me and but i also really liked the element guys i was just like these guys are

this seems like the more advanced way to do this like this and then in just trying the different products myself i was like this is more the the product that i think makes me feel the best um like i feel like with liquid iv there's like all these like b vitamins and like a bunch of bullshit that just like doesn't really do anything it's not like really gonna make you feel that much better like the salt is like you could just do the salt like you could just buy pink himalayan salt in the morning and like not use this and like yeah you know you'll you'll feel it but it doesn't taste good what does it do the salt really like it kind of like pushes water into your cells like sodium just like it's kind of like the simplest way i can like explain it but

um yeah i mean it's really replacing also just replacing what you lose in sweat you know just like how gatorade always sold it to you yeah and they like so i've seen you do like the demos of like where you put the thing into the metrometer yeah the metrometer and that so what's happening there so that is a sensor it's a piece of plastic that's like a straw that's held up by two copper wires and it measures the the like strength of the charge between the two copper wires and when there's a stronger electro uh like concentration it's just like a stronger current it's like it's just like a stronger charge in your body and when i so i saw a friend of mine actually had this metrometer instagram video that he posted that like went super viral and i was

like oh that's so smart where he's like grounding he's like he has his feet underground yeah and he's like touching like a tree and then he like uses his and it's like i was like wow that's like like listening to someone talk about grounding is like very like hippy dippy like i don't want to hear you but like when you pull that thing out and you're like looking at numbers you're like oh this is like legit so i was like i'm a big fan of of grabbing yeah me too it's like kind of weird to say but like it's totally legit it's totally legit i mean i love going out and like i try to work out on the sand every day if i can't it's just like it's the best and like jump in the ocean i feel like it's like the best but when he showed that video i was like that is so powerful to like

see some numbers some measurement and you know you hear you see there's so many comparison videos of like this is how much sugar our product has this is how much sugar our product has you decide it's like show me something like i don't know better than that like that's like the logan paul move logan paul's like this is how much sugar prime has this is how much sugar everybody else's it's like shut up dude that sucks you were telling me about what's wrong with prime it's got too much it's all potassium there's no sodium it's like 10 milligrams of sodium and they're like we have 800 milligrams electrolytes yeah but like 790 of them are potassium and that's not like that's not hydrating you it's not like helping you

like you don't sweat potassium like you sweat salt and so that's what salt of the earth does yeah it's you the salt gets you the salt baby yeah man and what's it been like getting this off the ground it's been dude it's been you know i think elon said this where he's like you know because i'll compare myself to elon uh he's like uh entrepreneurship is like staring at a dark hole and like eating glass you're just i mean like i think it's just like it's always like uh fear and euphoria you know like some days i'm just like super high like oh my god we just closed all these equinoxes and hotels and then other days i'm just like how am i going to pay my rent like what am i going to eat like how is this going to work so you know

that's well it seems like it's getting traction like that's it's been like you said it to me first i was like all right i'll try it out and i tasted it like oh shit and then i was at the gym i usually take it after my workouts i'm like oh like it does give you that burst of energy i mean i'll tell you one of the highest i'll tell you the probably the highest i've ever gotten like pure euphoria feel was after you tweeted about it and seeing orders come in i was i was just I was like yes it was like ching ching ching ching and I was like oh my god oh my god my adrenaline was like going well that's what we're talking about earlier like how do you plan on like I think you got a good product

there like how do we scale it you know I think you just go to drink s o t com slash tftc just hit that button i don't know i mean i think i think i could bootstrap it pretty far yeah like um you know that's that's it'd be nice to i have this this conversation in my head a lot where it's like yeah just take the whole thing bootstrap this baby and then other times i'm like nice to get like some investment and some more people involved but um yeah i don't know just kind of going with the flow yeah i think you're riding a trend though i think people are really beginning to realize that oh maybe we should care about our health and do preventative health totally i mean it's important is hydration important yeah man you know it's important

this electrolytes important you know you know this i mean first thing you do when you get into er is they hit you with the saline solution because you're probably dehydrated like 70 of the population is like chronically dehydrated i mean it makes it makes sense i mean a lot of times i've just noticed in myself especially like with the fasting stuff I've realized like especially in the afternoon I for some reason in the afternoon was when I would like want to just like eat snacks all the all afternoon it's like oh it's snack time like let's just eat whatever and I kind of realized it's like I'm not even hungry I'm just like bored and I like just but like and then if I'm but if I'm trying to replace that with water

then i'm just like having to pee like all the time so then when i was like now if i just have one of these i'm not i'm actually not hungry i'm just thirsty is what i've like come to realize is that and i feel like that's probably the case with a lot of other people where they're not actually hungry they're just thirsty and it's kind of like disguised as like oh i need to eat but then like i mean you just did five days no eating it's like you can do it and like you feel actually pretty good like yeah i felt really good last thursday it's like pretty it's like amazing like two thursdays i was like scared to do the 72 hours because i was like oh my i'm not gonna be able to mentally function i'm gonna be like but i was actually like really sharp you know

you're kind of like on edge like yeah at the end of day two you're like all right i'm gonna groove now i'm like used to being hungry hangar hunger pangs go yeah yeah but yeah it's like um it's changed like how i think about fitness and endurance and just like getting through the day because i think with the natural like circadian rhythm of most people you're kind of like supposed to be kind of feeling like tired around like two o'clock, three o'clock. You're kind of like, your body's kind of like, okay, it's time to like, but then you, but then if I like have one of these at like two o'clock, which I usually do, I'm like ready. I got like, I'm good. I'm like, I don't really need. And it's amazing that it's like, also if you drink it in the morning,

like first thing in the morning, which I usually do is like, sometimes I don't even feel like I need to have coffee it's like I'm not actually tired I'm just dehydrated that's the other one is like wow could I I mean I still love coffee but I like I uh I drink sad coffee what's that it's like that's what my brother's wife calls it like I'll just have a glass of whole milk and like instant coffee and like maple syrup and i'll microwave it that's disgusting it's sad that is sad sad coffee but it's fast like i'm just like i don't want to i don't know i'm just like lazy with the drip too or like french press i probably should just do one of those but i'm just like i don't know five minutes for a pot of coffee but now i've just i've been drinking a lot

of milk raw milk i wish are you on the raw milk i want to get on the raw milk but i've just been doing the whole whole milk yeah the raw milk's uh a big upgrade you get it yeah they sell it here in austin that's how i broke my fast i did raw milk three raw eggs and raw eggs yeah raw raw eggs give me the texas to get a southern draw uh-huh nice and you get the cowboy boots and you get the cowboy boots nice you get a hat from a deep eddy cabaret officially a northerner in texas is this is this the look of somebody who was transplanted here logan all right drink sote.com slash dftsu if you want to 15 off yeah definitely do that yeah

anything else we should tell the freaks oh should i talk about the jack dorsey story i think we can end it with the jack dorsey story all right so last year i started that you know surf sabbatical and i was in costa rica and i i sit down at dinner and at a corner i see him at the table next to me and i'm like i'm like looking across the table with my buddy i was like yo that's jack dorsey he's with like 11 look at that girl oh my god smoke and and then like nothing happens whatever but then the next day i see him again at this reggae club i think this place actually closed down but um like the whole town goes to this this reggae club and so I like go in and I see him and I was like with this girl

and I was like oh my god he's and he had like a bunch of cute girls around and like he had like security and he was by like the exit you know he was like he had his own like entrance and exit that he it was like private little corner and I was like oh man I want to like just say what's up to this guy like i but i don't want to be like i don't want to be that meme of the guy that's like screaming into the girl's ear like trying to like say like yo like there's only 21 million bitcoin you gotta like what's up dude you wanna i just like didn't know i didn't want to like do that it was so loud too so i'm like how am i even gonna talk to this guy it's like so fucking loud and and so then i'm like i'm like dancing my girl i'm like having a good time i'm like kind

of like forgetting about it. And then like, so at some point she like drags me like closer to him. And then at one point I'm like, you know, arms length away. And I was just like, I gotta like say what's up. Like, I gotta say something. And I'm like thinking to myself, like, what the hell am I going to say to this guy? And I just like, I just kind of like leaned in at one point and I was like yo jack love what you're doing for bitcoin man and he just he was like yo thank you like i appreciate that like he was like what's your name i was like yeah i'm sean he's like oh i'm jack i was like yeah no shit i was like yeah um and then like right after that he just kind of like he he like looked at like his like security and like bouncers and just kind of gave him like

nod like yo this guy's this guy's fine like don't kill this guy and the rest of the night we're just like you know like shoulder to shoulder like oh he just kind of like welcomes me into his like circle of of like hot babes and like we're just like shoulder to shoulder dancing like the rest of the night it was like so awesome and uh yeah that was it i didn't get a picture or nothing i was just like you got a good story i got a great story and it was a great memory yeah yeah You live a wild life, sir. It's funny coming from your basement apartment in Chicago to pumping elbows with Jack Dorsey.

The Athenian story might be the funniest thing. The fact that you were in the war room in Venezuela the week before they... El Salvador. El Salvador. Before they launched the Bitcoin law. Yeah. The fact that you were in that room blows my mind,

but I'm happy you were. Yeah, I don't know what I was doing. I got the picture to prove that. got a lot of stories jeremy shocky athena jack dorsey bali starting a electrolytes company yeah for the freaks for the freaks yeah it's all the earth for the freaks drinksote.com tftc peace