The Best One Yet - 🩲 “Skims for Hims” — Kim Kardashian’s growth hack. America’s unpopular debt solution. The NBA’s ticket surge.

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

Skims already replaced Victoria’s Secret, now it’s expanding to menswear — But there’s a male shopping habit Kim Kardashian’s Skims will have to overcome.America’s budget deficit effectively doubled to $1.7 Trillion this past year — The solution to our debt problem is to make the unpopular… popular.And the NBA tips off tonight with a 60% surge in ticket sales, driven by foreign fans — So found the 3 reasons why basketball is more popular outside the US than on homecourt.$VSCO $SPYSubscribe to our newsletter: tboypod.com/newsletterWant merch, a shoutout, or got TheBestFactYet? Go to: www.tboypod.comFollow The Best One Yet on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypodAnd now watch us on Youtube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Tuesday, T-Boy, Tuesday, October 24th. And today's pod, it is the best one yet. It's a T-Boy, Jack. It's a T-Boy, Nick. It's a total T-Boy. First story for the best show we've ever done.

What do we got, man? For our first story, Kim Kardashian is pulling off a simple but great growth hack. Skims isn't just selling underwear to women. It's now selling boxers and briefs to men. For our second story, America's budget deficit has ballooned to 1.7 trillion dollars. Ah, the solution to our debt woes make the unpopular popular. For our third and final story, the NBA season tips off tonight, but ticket sales are already up 60%. Because the NBA isn't selling tickets to Portland, it's selling tickets to Poland. It's not selling tickets to New Yorkers,

it's selling tickets to old Yorkers. That's why Knicks is spelled with a K. But yet he's, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. What he? fantastic mix of stories for a T-Boy Tuesday, man. Have you ever been late night swiping on a dating app and thought to yourself? I wonder if my mom

would think he's cute. Well, get this. The newest feature from Tinder is exactly that feature. Yeah, like your mom can now pick your dates on Tinder. This new feature is called

Tinder Matchmaker. Yeah, let's an outsider without a Tinder profile choose your next date in your Tinder profile. You can outsource your swiping to your closest

loved ones. Like the entire Your community becomes your Cupid. So if they sound polite, your mom's going to swipe right. Do they dress well? Your dad's going to swipe right. He didn't have a picture of a puppy in his profile? Your entire family is swiping left.

It's like handing over the keys of your car to your mom. Yeah, but that car is your entire love life. And it's not just your mom you're giving the keys to. Get this. Apparently, you can invite up to 15 friends to play matchmaker on Tinder. So do you have a roommate who thinks you've made all the wrong relationship moves over the years. Let her take over your Tinder.

You could even add your boss as your official Tinder matchmaker. If they find a match for you on Tinder, they get a bonus. That definitely violates HR. Be careful with that one. You may need to talk to Ross and human resources. Yeties, if our ridiculous examples haven't resonated with you, think of this as a Tinder view-only account. But striking up a flirty conversation is up to you.

Yeties, we all know dating isn't a solo activity. It's a team sport. It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a community to grow up. And it takes 15 non-Tinder users to find true love on your behalf. Let's swipe left on our three stories. Mom approved. Fifteen years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm.

They had an idea that caused a cultural storm. It's the best 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. For our first story, Kim Kardashian Skims, it's making its biggest pivot yet by adding menswear.

And that reveals a fundamental difference between how men and women shop. But yeties, we're going to start by sprinkling on a little context here. We are living in the era of the undergarment. The age of the undies. The underwear economy. What we're talking about is the surge in women's underwear startups that tried to fill the Victoria's Secret void. As Thongopoly ended a couple years ago, Skims pounced on the market opportunity. Did you just say Thongopoly?

It felt like it was the right thing to say in the business setting, Jack. Kim Kardashian Skims is the underwear garment startup that has done this most successfully. They have hit a $4 billion valuation this year and they said they're planning to IPO someday. Sales jumped 50% so far this year to $750 million. And now Skims is making its biggest expansion yet. They're adding menswear. Kim's is expanding to boxers and briefs. It's like Skims just added a Y chromosome.

Now, the Skims body suits and underwear and loungewear, those are all still targeting women. Sadly, Jack and I cannot really wear a one-zie on this show right now from Skims. But we can try on the cotton teas, the underwear, and the athletic compression gear that they're selling to men now. Start making some cute tops, Kim, and we're there. But yet he's skims faces one major challenge. when it comes to selling to men. Yes, it does. This is what Jack and I found fascinating about this story.

Conversion friction. Conversion friction. It's harder to convince men to try a new product than it is convincing women. Okay, get this yet. He's according to data from Jungle Scouts consumer surveys, when shopping online, men are twice as likely to buy an existing brand than try a new one. It's not that men are particularly loyal to their brands. It's just that they're lazy.

Yeah, that's what we've discovered. It's not loyalty for men. It's laziness from men. Yeah, guys follow the, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Philosophy of shopping. I mean, Jack, you want to whip up a full disclosure here about what's going on under your armpits over there? When I was 14, I bought Old Spice. I wore it for 20 years.

I've only changed deodorants once in my whole life. Jack literally showed up to our dormant college with the same stick of deodorant he had in middle school. Nick, what smells? better than lightning. The answer is nothing. It's true. They managed to buy a lightning jazz. I've had the same brand of shirts for the last six years, Jack. And due to that loyalty to their existing product or just unwillingness to change products, it's going to be hard for skims to convert men. Yeah, like it's going to be harder for Kim to get Jack to switch from Haynes to skims than it is to get Julie to switch from Victoria's secret to skims. And that's why Skims is using

star professional male athletes to sell boxers to men. Kim got Nick Bosa of the San Francisco 49ers to strip down and wear Skim Zundis. She also got Brazilian soccer star Namar to strip down for a photo shoot too. To overcome men's laziness, Kim is showing them images of the people they drafted in their fantasy football leagues. So Jack, what the heck, let's toss on this body suit and whip up the takeaway for our buddy Kim over at skims. The greatest growth hacks are sometimes.

the simplest growth hacks. Here's out on this, Yetis. How did Pantene ProVe double its shampoo sales? Simply by adding the word repeat to the bottle. When they added the word repeat, you started shampooing your head twice, so you had to buy twice as much shampoo. Yeties, how did Coca-Cola sell more soda?

Well, by solving the very problem that their core soda created. This sugary Coca-Cola product started selling Diet Coca-Cola product. And now Skim's growth hack is simply selling to the other gender. Lulu Lemon did this already. They went from women's brand to a co-ed brand,

and now a third of their sales are to men. So, bestie, skim's expansion to men, it's going to be aided by the existing huge fan base of female customers. Who are going to tell their male partners how much they love skims. So skim's next leg of growth, its big growth hack,

is simply expanding to the other gender. It's brilliantly simple. For our second story, on Friday, the U.S. government delivered huge, news, a $1.7 trillion deficit for 2023. Yeah, huge news in a bad way. Yeah, it was not good news. You just said that. Because America needs a dose of unpopular policy right now. Oh, Yetis. You know what time of year it is. What is October, Jack? The end of the fiscal calendar. The holiday, no one celebrates. It's the end of the fiscal calendar. Old Lang-Zine happens at the end of

October for the federal government. Are you getting Christmas gifts? No, I'm getting ready for the fiscal holiday. So with fiscal 2023 wrapping up this month, the U.S. government did what we all do when we're paying our bills. The U.S. government compared spending to revenue. It compared its costs to its income. How did the U.S. government do this past year? Well, Jack, it looked in the mirror and it's awkward. It's not good. It didn't do well. We spent $1.7 trillion more than we brought in in taxes in the past year. Jack, can we get an arithmetic translation on that thing? We added $1.7 trillion to our already huge debt. Basically, Yetis, America is buying too many double-digit lattes right now.

A few too many. After two straight years of shrinking the deficit, we reversed it in the past year, effectively doubling it from the year before. So, Yeties, you want to know exactly how big our debt is right now? It is so big that we spent $700 billion just on interest in the past year. We repeat, we spent $700 billion. that is bigger than Tesla just on interest payments. We could have bought the entire Tesla company if we didn't have to pay interest on our debt.

Or we could have bought 175 lifts, Jack. That's correct. Now, Yeties, this $1.7 trillion deficit, it actually reveals an interesting contradiction about America right now. Our economy is strong, but our fiscal situation is not. Because since the year 2000, we've actually gone from a balanced budget to a whole, horribly unbalanced budget. The federal government debt has reached $33 trillion. Yeah, and 80% of those IOUs, they've actually come since the year 2000.

But the reason the deficit doubled in the past year, it's for a couple of random reasons, to be honest. It's actually because of a couple of funny kind of random reasons. Yeah, part of it's kind of Nick, actually. California residents got a tax extension because of natural disasters there. So, like, we haven't gotten California's taxes yet. Yeah, actually, we didn't, I didn't pay our taxes. It just got extended to November.

This is your fault. This is Nick. Apologies. Meanwhile, the stock market hasn't done very well the past year, so there's been fewer capital gains taxes paid. Yeah, the government's not collecting as much capital gains taxes as it typically would from Wall Street. But long term, the problems have been fundamental. Both the spending and revenue errors for the government have been going in the wrong direction.

So Jack and I are heading in the direction. of a takeaway. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddy is over in the entire U.S. economy? To reduce our deficit, we have to do the unpopular thing. Now, Yetis, the biggest weakness of the United States, it's our inability to make unpopular, but necessary decisions. To make short-term sacrifices for long-term benefits. It's the biggest challenge we have as a democracy. Democrats have driven up deficits with politically popular spending. And Republicans have driven up deficits with politically popular tax cuts. Eddies, we don't need more popular policies. What we need are some unpopular policies. Yeah,

we need more revenue for the government. Either by raising tax rates, closing loopholes, or closing tax gaps. And we need less spending from the government too. Ideally, by cutting wasteful spending, also by cutting maybe some benefits. Now, why are politicians not keen to do these two things? Because they are not too popular. But we can't worry about popularity. when our deficit just doubled to nearly two trillion dollars. And that's why we need to make the unpopular policies popular. For our third and final story, the NBA season tips off tonight, but ticket sales are already soaring, especially from abroad.

We found three reasons why the rest of the world loves the NBA. Three reasons why the rest of the world loves the NBA more than America does. But first, Yeti's experimentation is in the air especially when it comes to pro sports. Look around you, you smell that? It is experimentation across the sports spectrum right now. Just like Major League Baseball did this past season, the NBA has ditched traditions to make the game more entertaining.

Get this, the National Basketball League is doing an in-season tournament in the middle of the season. The NBA Finals doesn't happen until June, but there's this random mid-season tournament. It's kind of like what they do in European soccer. Yeah, it's kind of like what they did in inception. with Christopher Nolan, Jack. And for the second year in a row, there's a random rivals week inserted into January.

Yeties, the NBA is dunking on tradition like a young Vince Carter. But they're raising up the entertainment quality like John Stockton shorts. Yeties, the NBA. It is trying to bring mid-season excitement to a sport with a historically meaningless regular season. And that led to this surprise. We just got early data and it shows that the NBA's self-disruption is, working already. Yeties, this is what we found fascinating about the story.

Last week, Stubbub, the ticket platform, published their NBA preview. And what did they tell us, Jack? That ticket sales for NBA games are up 60% at this point of the year compared to last year. Yeties, there has been a 60% pop in ticket sales from Madison Square Garden in Manhattan to the smoothie king center down in New Orleans. Holy DeKembe Matumbo, Nick. So Jack and I jumped in T-Boy style, and we noticed some interesting. interesting micro trends.

Like that, the LA Lakers have moved back to the number one spot for ticket sales, dethroning the New York Knicks. And the Denver Nuggets have tripled ticket sales coming off of Nicola Yokic's finals MVP. But we also noticed some macro trends. For example, international interest in the NBA just hit an all-time high. Fans from 92 countries have already bought tickets on Stubhubhub for NBA games. That's up 24 countries from just last year. Like Nick said at the top of the show, it's not Portland, it's Poland fans.

It's not Milwaukee. It's Milan fans. You want to go sit in your seat? You're going to have to learn another language. Bita, bitta. Ahya. Ah, yeah. So Jack, Oktria is Janzana, we knew, and yasik, Kumpli.

What was that? That was Polish for what's the takeaway for our buddies in the NBA. Is there any language you can't pronounce? Google Translate for the assist. Yetis, the NBA is number three in Americans' hearts. It's number one for the rest of the world. So, Yetis, basketball, it actually trails football and baseball and popularity in America. But basketball has the most international fans.

Stubhub's key finding was a 120% jump in sales outside of the United States and Canada for NBA games. Yeah, the number of tickets sold outside the NBA's home market more than doubled from last year. Why is international interest in the NBA surging? We found three reasons. First, unlike football and baseball, basketball is a global sport. Basketball has been played at every Olympic Games since 1936. Second reason for the NBA surge, foreigners are dominating the league right now. The last five MVP winners in the NBA, none of them were American.

And the final reason, NBA players don't wear helmets and they don't wear hats. That's a huge deal. You can see basketball players faces. you can't see football or baseball players faces. Or hockey in the age of social media, that is some powerful marketing. That's why the biggest driver of NBA ticket sales is from outside the United States.

The NBA is number three in American's hearts, but it's number one for the rest of the world. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us for T-Boy Tuesday? Kim Kardashian skims announced yesterday it's expanding to menswear. Sometimes the best growth hacks are the simplest, like selling to the other gender. For our second story, the U.S. government deficit was $1.7 trillion in 2023, nearly double up from the year before.

To reduce the debt, we need to make unpopular policies popular. And our third and final story is the NBA. It tips off tonight with more foreign fans than ever before. The NBA, it's number three in Americans' hearts, but number one for the rest of the world. For the rest, der Welt. Partuto and the world. But Yetis, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today.

First, according to the Wall Street Journal, there has never been a worst time to buy a house. Apparently it is 52% more expensive to buy compared to rent right now. 8% mortgage rates and sky high home prices. Renting has never looked better. And second, Chevron agreed to buy rival oil driller Hess for $53 billion. Jack, that is the second huge oil deal we have covered this month. But will Hess continue making those green and white toy trucks that they sell over the holidays? It's the question on every analyst mind.

And finally, remember we told you Crox was making Croc Cowboy Boots? We did. The Croc and stock and craziness. It was looking great. Well, they're available to buy today. The Crocs Cowboy Boot is on sale now, and Jack and I are checking. And Jack, they are sold out of size 10, 11, and 12. It's tough out there. Good thing I'm a size 9 and a half.

Yep. Yeties, you know my foot size now. He doesn't change his deodorant. He's got small feet. No big deal. The best part? I rub the deodorant on my feet. It's not disturbing.

It's charming. I love it. So now time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Nalash Patil over in Chantilly, Virginia. All right. Trivia question. What's the most expensive thing humans have ever built? The most expensive thing we as humans have ever built.

The most expensive thing we as humans have ever. created, what is it? I first didn't think, like a building, like a skyscraper. I was thinking the pyramids, like, adjusted for inflation, but I feel like we lost those texts yet. Or what about, like, the Mall of America? That must have been pretty darn expensive to build. I think we're still paying for that one, apparently.

Or like Bezos's yacht. Well, it's none of those things. Apparently, the most expensive thing humans have ever made is the International Space Station at $100 billion. Launched in 1998, the ISS is a collaboration between five, international space agencies. America's NASA, Russia, Japan, Europe and Canada, they all built the $100 billion

international space station. And it's been continuously occupied orbiting the earth with a full-time crew since the year 2000. Little do they know. They are on board the most expensive piece of real estate ever built. The most expensive thing ever built.

They should have used promo code T-boy. For 15% off, your first space station. Yeties, you look fantastic over there. Jack, you were glowing in your Halloween outfit on Instagram right now. In my deodorant. Yetis, to give you a hint about what we're wearing for Halloween, let's just say that the costumes are enough.

Check us out at T-BoyPod on Instagram and let us know your business-themed Halloween costume for this year. If you've got a costume and it's involved in business, we want to hear. Nick and I, we'll see you there, and then we'll see you tomorrow. Can't wait. And before we go, So congratulations to Yeti Marissa Johnson, who just graduated from flight training and will be flying for the Ospreys in the U.S. Marine Corps. Thanks for having our backs, Marissa. And congratulations to Brandon and Deanna, who just got engaged over the weekend at Flume Gorge in New Hampshire.

Have you ever been over there? I haven't, but I'm adding it to my list. Sounds lovely. And Manny Elser Jr. just got a new job at Reebok, thanks to Shaq. Shaq influenced this influencer. And Atlas and Diana and Percy. are buying a house together down in lovely Orlando. Happy birthday to Mackey Jimenez in Venice, Florida.

And a happy first birthday as a mom to Priyanka Dengra, who's doing a great job over in Houston, Texas. Priyanka, you are the best one yet. This is Jack, Nick and I both on stock of Lulu Lemon. Yep. Yeties, you know my foot size now. He doesn't change his deodorant. He's got small feet.

No big deal. The best part? I rub the deodorant on my feet.