The Best One Yet - 🎃 “Happy Halloween NOW” — Target’s 80/20 rule. Private Jets’ country-club-ification. Calm’s meditation situation.

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

Target revealed it’s already selling its 1st Halloween items (in the summer) because it's focused on the 80/20 Rule. Private Jets, from Taylor Swift’s plane to Wheels Up’s stock, are having a moment as travel becomes country-club-ified. And the Calm meditation app is still making money even though you stopped meditating, because its sneaky sales strategy.$TGT $UP $UALFollow The Best One Yet on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypodAnd now watch us on YoutubeWant a Shoutout on the pod? Fill out this formGot the Best Fact Yet? We got a form for that tooLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Thursday, the new Friday, August 18th, and today's pod is the best one yet. It's a T-boy. I cannot wait to do this T-boy right now. It's a T-B-O-I, Jack. First story for the absolute best pod we've ever whipped up for the Yetis. Target just announced their summer earnings, but all the focus was on your Halloween costume.

Target is already trick-or-treating because of the 80-20 rule. Our second story, call Taylor Swift. Private Jets. Private Jets. having a big moment. Because travel is getting country clubified. Our third and final story, our calm and headspace, the two billion dollar meditation apps. But here is a very stressful update. Apparently you haven't been meditating. Guilty. Namas, stay out of that app. Can I do a fourth quarter of the new year resolution?

But Yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix. Honestly, the perfect mix two days before vacation. Wonderful mix, Jack. Do you mind keeping it down? Oh, I forgot. I forgot. Oh, we don't want Airbnb to think that we're being too loud. Because Yeties, Airbnb's latest product is anti-party technology. We repeat, the newest feature from Airbnb isn't for booking a boat and it isn't for renting a pool. It's for buzz killing parties. That's right. It's official.

Airbnb has proprietary anti-partying technology. Jack, I'm checking LinkedIn right now. CEO Brian Chesky, he's now the chief of the fun police. I'm going to have to confiscate that solo cup as evidence. Yeties, a couple months ago, Jack and I told you that Airbnb made its party ban permanent. Parties were angering the hosts and bothering neighbors, too. Yeah, so Airbnb became a party pooper because it depends on its host, and it wants to keep those neighbors happy. But now Airbnb got tech to poop on a party before it's even happened.

Before you even pop the champagne, they pooped on that party. Airbnb's artificial intelligence can now predict that you're going to throw a rager. It's like the Nostradamus a Bachelorette weekends. Now, the funniest thing, first, they tested this anti-party artificial intelligence down in Australia. Okay, get this. You would show up to a Barbie down under, and if you brought a Foster six-pack, you're going to get locked out of that Airbnb. The test was successful down under, so they're bringing the AI to analyze your intentions before you've even booked. For example, Jack, let's say your buddy Timmy clarifies that all 10 guests to this weekend's Airbnb happen to be dudes.

Or let's say you ask the host how many pool toys there are. in the pool. Oh, Jack, if you happen to be adjacent to South Beach, then Airbnb just canceled your reservation. Because Airbnb is the crusher of the kakers. They're going to shut down that chin day. Say au revoir to that soire. Now, Nick and I discovered there's one way to beat Airbnb's anti-party technology. Yadis, if you want to avoid all of this anti-party technology, there is one way that you can pull it off. Everyone please use your indoor voices. Silent Disco, milk martinis, please be respectful. Do you mind just taking your shoes off before you come in? Let's see, our three stories.

Fifteen years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea that caused a cultural. 50%. That's a fat tip. Tea Boy City on your at list. If you know, you know, because we're ready to go. We can't wait no more, so just start the show. Our first story, Target, just announced it's summer earnings,

but all they could talk about was your Halloween costume. Target is trick-or-treating already because of the 80-20 rule. Jack, can we talk about it? like the most underappreciated secret in all of shopping right now, should we say? There's too much stuff on like every shelf. Over at Target in I-L-6, they got to sell 8,000 extra blow dryers they're stuck with. Target announced months ago, and we covered it on this pod, that they over-ordered big-time, had too much inventory, so they had to slash prices to clear the house.

Jerry, what are we going to do with all these hair dryers? Someone's got to get the curling irons. And that meant that you got to buy an $80 cooler for $40. And you know what? that's not a profitable way to run a business. No, and that's why Target's profits just fell 90% last quarter. But that was the past. Target wants to look ahead to the future. They do. And here is Target's plan to look ahead.

Here it is, here it is. Halloween right now. The CEO said it best. We need to lean into the holidays here at Target. Target's going full hallmark card on us. Yet it is August, which by the way is the only month of the year with no international holiday. And yet Jack and I noticed that Target just, said the word holiday 11 times on their earnings call. What is going on here, Target? What's going on, Target?

Target says that celebration moments drive visits. So here's Target's real plan. Drag out and amp up those celebration moments. For example, they say that Halloween brings a very engaged customer into Target to spend a lot of money. I mean, Jack, we all have that friend who hired like an entire makeup team to do their Shrek outfit. Which is why they are bringing Halloween from the fall where it belongs. Yes. To now to the summertime. Get this, Yeti's. The whole Halloween collection over at Target, it dropped in July three weeks ago. Uh, Shrek, is that you?

Didn't expect to see you this time of year. Shrek Green is the new summer tan. And Target isn't just loading up early on trick-or-treat kick cats. No, they're not. This is where Jack and I had to sit down, stand up and sit back down again. They announced that they're going to roll out their Thanksgiving gear months in advance starting in September. It's not even sweater weather yet. and Target wants us munching on Snickers bars and slurping up turkey gravy.

I just bought Wilder ejaculator, Nick. Don't tell the kids, but Halloween began a month ago. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Target? You're seeing Halloween in July because of the 80-20 rule. Yeti's the 80-20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle. It's this really bizarre general rule of life that 80% of results come from just 20% of the people involved. It's like straight out of the DaVinci Code. It's like the Fibonacci sequence of finance.

It was first noticed in Italy where 80% of the land was owned by just 20% of the Italians. And you may notice it today because 80% of your Instagram likes come from 20% of your followers. In business generally and probably where you work too, 80% of profits tend to come from the best 20% of customers. So it's likely 80% of targets' earnings come from its 20% of customers who are holiday obsessed. The 80-20 rule, it's not always. the case, but it is a bizarrely reoccurring ratio in business. That's why you saw Halloween costumes the week after the 4th of July. For our second story, private jets are having a moment right now. Private jets are borrowing a strategy from country clubs. 17 minutes. What's that? 17 minutes.

That is how long the flight was that Kylie Jenner took on her $72 million bombardier private jet just a couple weeks ago. That's a ridiculously short flight. It is. She actually flew across Los Angeles. That was the flight. That's like an hour drive. Yeah.

I mean, she really, she was really hungry. You can't even watch an episode of Seinfeld. She's not the only one. What's our buddy Drake up to lately? Drake's puddle jumping too. He took an 18-minute long flight. Wheels down to wheels up.

Uh-huh. And those private jets, they are not easy on the green stuff. No. News of Kylie Jenner and Drake's 17 and 18-minute flights caused some outrage. because private jets are five to 14 times more polluting than a regular commercial Southwest flight.

One sustainability agency even created a whole shameless for all the celebs out there. Yeah, they determined the number one biggest carbon footprint among the private jetting celebs. The Grammy for biggest private jet user goes to. Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift, sorry, Taylor can't come to the phone right now.

She needs to get to Starbucks extremely quickly. T. Swift goes from concert to concert, just busting the ozone. Taylor Swift like jumps on a Cessna and literally chokes a polar bear. Not just celebrities with these huge private jetting carbon footprints. Private jets in general are just having a celebrity moment. Like if Drake and Taylor Swift get together for a duet at a concert, a glacier disappears, Jack. That's actually sad, but I'm still laughing.

Okay, well. Some of the top trending Twitter accounts right now, they're tracking private jets. It all started with Elon Musk. Some like 18-year-old kid started posting everywhere Elon was flying. And now they're tracking Nancy. Pelosi too. But Yeties, it's not just the tabloids or Twitter that are so into private jets right now. Wall Street can confirm there is a private jet a paloosa happening. And that's what we found fascinating about this whole story. Let's look at Wheels Up, a publicly traded private jet company.

Wheels Up just reported their second quarter financials. And how they do? Record revenues. Here's the Wheels Up business model. You know, they own and lease 170 jets. They let paying members book those jets. And those jets, those are private flights. And in interesting, thing about Wheels Up's business, it's not Hollywood celebs driving those record numbers of flights. No, this is the wild thing. It's newbies who are driving the record private jet sales. The majority of Wheels Up flyers are on a private jet for the first time in their life. Yeah, it just got their diamond little wing. So WheelsUp core customer isn't the A-list celebs like Drake and T. Swift.

No, get this. 80% of WheelsUp's users are flying commercial just like you. They're right next to you on Delta. They're flying commercial sometimes? Yeah. Flying Wheels Up private other times. So Wheels Up's earnings reveal that it's not just more private jetting going on among celebrities. It's also new private jetting going on among nobs. That's the key and that led to our takeaway.

So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the private jet industry? We are seeing country clubification spread across the economy. Bestie's key insight about the pandemic, it drove consumers to seek out private experiences to avoid COVID. And people enjoyed those private experiences. Now many are willing to pay a premium for members-only exclusive experiences. The way Jack and I see it, that is country clubification. It's an emerging trend replacing golf with a whole bunch of other experiences. For example, Soho House, it's basically an urban country club.

It's a premium co-working lifestyle club that's expanding to new private spaces in new cities. And perfect timing, Jack, the Wall Street Journal just did a deep dive article on a surge in private eating and private working clubs spreading across Manhattan. Now, like country clubs always have, more consumer experiences are adding financial gates to join. Instead of pooling member money to build a new golf course or tennis court, new clubs are buying restaurants or co-working spaces or private chats for members only. Wheels up captures that too. It does. It's the country clubification of travel. Now, a word about our sponsor, Robin Hood.

A lot of Yetis don't realize how much prep work goes into this pot. We spend hours every morning, jump. jumping in T-boy style to earnings reports, CEO tweets, breaking news headlines. Jack and I are toggling tabs like you toggled IM Convo's in 2004. Having eight tabs open can be stressful. You don't need that, especially when invest. Robin Hood offers it all in one app. Whether you want to trade options, ETFs, or stocks through Robin Hood Financial,

or you want to buy some Bitcoin on Robin Hood Crypto. You can do it all on the Robin Hood app. If you're not investing in Robin Hood yet, to get started, go to robin hood.com slash T-boy and choose your free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash T-B-O-Y. Limitations apply. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC, all investments involved with us. By the way, this podcast is not owned or part of Robin Hood.

We are not employees of Robin Hood. For our third and final story, meditation apps, common headspace, are suffering from post-pandemic drops. But one crucial sales strategy they made has saved off the real suffering for these meditation apps. Okay, you can't like meditate to anything these days. You can't probably meditate to our pot. It may be hitting an octave too high.

You definitely shouldn't meditate to this pod. I actually opened the Calm app and you can meditate to the rules of tennis to help you go to sleep. Just some guy reading the rules of tennis? Yeah, it's an exciting sport, but like, that's going to put you to sleep. Yeah, yet his common headspace dominate the mindfulness app market. And both passed the $1 billion valuation marks during the pandemic. Many millions of people, us included, replaced our commute during the pandemic with a 10-minute breathing exercise from one of these apps. Instead of jumping on the subway, you got Labrub.

Braun and Matthew McConaughey whispering sweet nothings in your year for a nice bedtime story. But Com, the number one meditation app just announced last week, they laid off 20% of their staff. So it's a sad situation over at Com. But the bigger concern isn't just the layoffs. It's this shocking new data. New data from Aptopia shows that downloads of the Com app and the Headspace app, number one and number two, are down by over a half in the past year and a half.

It turns out you're not mastering your breath like you were. year ago. Even worse, Apptopia tracks usage of those apps, not just new download. True. So existing users, not just new ones. Yeah. And it turns out people who already use those meditation apps are using them 50% less too. All right. So there's a couple possible conclusions from this data. Exactly. Like first, people are just flat out meditating less. Maybe now that the pandemic's kind of waned, you're meeting up with people for Taco Tuesdays instead of staying home for mindfulness Mondays. Or another explanation. People are still meditating, but hey, you don't need an app to guide you through it.

Sorry McConahead's not personal. We had a great run, but I'm just going to go to sleep on my own. Now, we don't know which one of those is the actual explanation, but this is the real shocker with the meditation drop off. While users of the apps is definitely shrinking, revenues of the apps continue to rise. That just doesn't make sense. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Common Headspace? A one-year subscription gives two years worth of revenue. All right, Yetis, this one just messes with your minds.

Despite a huge drop-off of new users and usage, both Common Headspace, just reported second quarter revenue growth. Yeah, how are revenues rising, even though usage of these apps is way down? The answer is the annual contract. Get this, Calm doesn't offer monthly subscriptions. You can only sign up for an entire year for $70 a year. So the users may be down 50%, but the revenues are still at 100%. Even if you're not using the app, you're still paying because you signed up for a whole year.

And then when you accidentally pay for an additional year, you notice... Oh, crap! Ah, it's too late to cancel. And then they hit you with Matthew McConaughey again. And then after another year, you probably forgot again to cancel. And that is why one year subscriptions give companies two years of revenue. Or maybe three. So it's one crucial sales strategy that has masked a major problem in the meditation.

amps. That sale strategy is the annual subscription. Which is really two years of revenue. Maybe three. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us for the new Friday? Target spring was awful. So they're pulling Halloween into the summer. Because of the 80-20 rule. 80% of results come from its 20% Shrek-loving customers. For our second story, private jets are having a moment and we see it in wheels up. It's the country clubification of the whole economy. And our third and final story, Calm just announced layoffs because the use of their meditation apps are where you. They just got saved by their business model. A one-year subscription is two years of revenue.

Maybe three. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Tiana Harris from lovely Chicago, Illinois. Push and play. Here we go. Happy Black Business Month. In Tuesday's Tea Boy, Nick mentioned that pumpkins cannot grow in this current weather. Well, that's far from the truth.

Pumpkins originate from Mexico. The oldest pumpkin seeds have been found in the Wahaka Highlands of Mexico. Pumpkins, squash, watermelons, and gourds all love hot weather with lots of water. So the brighter the sunshine, the bigger the pumpkin. Yeah, pumpkins definitely aren't native to New England. Well, now I'm rethinking the whole pumpkin patch fall, sweater weather plan check. You know those little bumps on the pumpkins? Those are goose bumps.

They're freezing out there. And now we know why Target was selling Halloween stuff in July. And why pumpkin spice latte is already here. Yeties, you look fantastic for the new Friday. And if you're at an Airbnb right now, remember, whisper to your buddy next to you each one. Have you had the best one? Oh, we're going to get kicked out. Okay, all right, it's over.

They're kicking us out. And before we go, congratulations to a couple legendary Yeti's Matt Dup and Liz Mooney, a new baby named Maya, who's a baby bear cub. And happy drafting to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in TD's fantasy football league. And April and Kay just had their seventh anniversary. over in Nashville. Congrats to Anthony King Jr. for getting a new job at Discord over in Oakland.

And Nick Sanchez celebrated a new birthday, a new job, and a new hip over in Florida. The Trifecta! And Heather Udo and the Shoppable team, congrats on moving to New York City and launching another new product. Congrats to Chrissy Sorocham for starting school at the Rochester Institute of Technology. And a shout out to Samantha Brenner for shouting us out for doing all these shoutouts. And every birthday to Nicole Logan, Davey Florida.

And Maggie Dung over in San Francisco has been listening since the market snacks era. And happy early birthday to Sam Wetzel the Pretzel over in Chicago. And to Waffles the Golden Retriever, congratulations on turning three in human years in San Diego. Dogs are adorable when they're three human years old. And to anyone else celebrating something today, make it a teapot. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack, Nick and I both on stock of Airbnb and Robin Hood. Now a word about our sponsor, Robin Hood.

A lot of you listen to our show while you're driving. Two hands on the wheel. Keep it 10 and 2. You might be cruising Chris, no rush. Stay in the right lane. Or you might be doll lane from Duncan, dotting from lane to lane. And there are different drivers on the road. They're different investors too.

Maybe you're cruising down the long-term lane with stock investing, or maybe you're a more advanced full-speed trader. Well, the Robin Hood app helps put you in the driver's seat wherever you're at in your investing journey. If you're not investing on Robin Hood yet, to get started, go to robinidad.com slash t-boy and choose your free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash T-B-O-Y. Limitations apply. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC, all investments involve risk. By the way, this podcast is not owned by or part of Robin Hood, and we are not employees of Robinhood. It's even better lying doing any of this risk.

That was so funny at the end there. That was so good. That was really good. I was going to text and be like, none of the whispers came through.