The Best One Yet - 🎀 “The secret sauce to Pink Sauce” — Pink Sauce’s growth hack. Marvel’s superhero ROI. Weber’s broken grill.

Episode Date: July 26, 2022

Pink Sauce has gone viral, but its growth hack was not explaining what it is. At Comic-Con, Disney revealed 2 more phases of its Marvel Cinematic Universe — we think it’s one of the greatest acquisitions of all time. And summer is peak-season for lighting up Weber Grills, yet Weber stock just plummeted 16%.$DIS $WEBR $KHC $SPYFollow 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 Tuesday, July 26th, and today's pod is the best one yet, Jack. TbOI, it's also the biggest week for business of the entire summer, for sure. Okay, Jack, a third of S&P 500 companies are reporting earnings this week. On Wednesday, the Fed announces a major new interest rate. On Thursday, Lollapalooza kicks off in Chicago. On Friday, Beyonce drops her latest album.

Oh, and you thought we forgot? Oh, it's Tuesday. T-Boy Tuesday. Jack, what's our first? first story. Disney just unveiled another dozen Marvel movies. Spoiler, Marvel is one of the greatest financial returns in cinematic history.

For our second story, pink sauce. Pink sauce is the infamous, mysterious new dipping sauce that's taking over TikTok. So Jack and I jumped in T-Boy style to what's the secret growth sauce to the secret pink sauce. And our third and final story, it's the middle of the summer, you just lit up your Weber

to grill some summer kebabs. He's the season of grilling, and yet Weber's grill stock plummeted 16% yesterday. But Nick, before we hit that wonderful mix, honestly, I love this mix today. This is actually a wild mix today. You just finished renovating your house. You just finished redesigning your garden. You've refreshed your wardrobe too. But how about your coffee? According to the Wall Street Journal, the newest thing in DIY projects is build your own coffee. At this, Yetis, there is a surge in demand right now for ready to assemble caskets. DIY for your deathbed. It's like Dropbox, but it's for your body's physical drop box. Now, Nick, build your own

casket does make financial sense, though. It does, Jack, because a typical casket, that's going to cost you $5,000. How much does they build your own casket cost? 500. And DIY coffins also fit into a greater trend. Yeah, because you already renovated your living room, you may as well renovate your dying room, too. So it's not just a box, it's a creative opportunity. You're going to be there for eternity. You may as well make it yours. Deco here, some of a pulse tree there. Turn that pine wood into an aesthetic focal point. Lumbar support

everywhere. Yeah, so the coffin, it's having an architectural moment. It's like IKEA, but for your afterlife. It's like Westdown, but for your expiration date. It's lazy boy, but for a whole new level of lazy boy. Jack, why are they selling DIY coffins at Bed Bath and Beyond? Emphasis

on the Beyond. Let's have a moment of silence for our three stories. Sit down and don't stand back up. 15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dawn. They had an idea that caused a cultural need to practice. 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. Start the show. For our first story, Disney just unveiled dozens of planned new Marvel movies and superhero movies and shows. Disney buying Marvel could have been the best acquisition ever, because Disney has a playbook.

Forget the Metaverse, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Jackie. Tell us about the MCU over there. It is all the superheroes in a roster, except Batman. He's not in the MCU. Rachel! Where is Rachel? She's not in the MCU.

And at Comic Con in San Diego this past weekend, the creatives at Disney revealed a new superhero. New one. Sheehawk. The Shehawk. The Shehulk. Shehulk is a new Shmovie

in like eight or ten episode original series on Disney Plus, about an attorney specializing in superhuman law. Sounds very Professor Xavier to me. Also, I'm just like rip off their shirt and happen to have giant biceps and turn green. That's the other part of the she-hawk. Now, Disney owns Marvel, the superhero franchise. And they also announced this past weekend, phase five of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Now, that's what shocked Jack and me about Comic-Con. Phase five. There is a phase five to the Marvel. Superheroes. Antman. Guardians of the Galaxy in Captain America, they're all getting new movies in Phase 5. Phase 5, because the Marvel Superheroes aren't just a franchise. They're a business plan. That's not all. They also unveiled this past weekend, phase 6 of the MCU. Oh, yeah, new Avengers movies coming in 2025 and every single title is going to have superlatives. We get two new Avengers. You thought Endgame was the end game? Oh, yeah, you were way off on that one.

War's literally for the Avengers. Now, Yetis, Jack and I saw this overwhelming show of cinematic force, and there's one thing that we could not stop thinking about. Is Marvel the greatest acquisition in media history? Okay, let us jump in T-boy style. Or in any history? Let's jump in T-boy style to the numbers. Jack, Disney acquired the Marvel Cinematic Universe of Superheroes back in 2009 for how much money?

Just $4 billion. Maybe they got it so cheap because it was during the Great Reservoir. session. And as of this summer, 2022, they've now produced 28 Marvel superhero movies, and those have brought in how much money, Jack? $25 billion in movie theater tickets alone. 25 billion. That's two lifts. So the box office sales, though, that's just the start for Disney, which monetizes characters like Marvel's better than anyone else. Okay, we'll jump into more numbers. The data shows that those 28 Marvel movies are a key reason why 87 million plus human beings have subscribed to Disney Plus, the streaming service. They're also monetizing Marvel at Disneyland, which sells tickets to that

theme park thanks to the Avenger campus over there. Because first you saw the movie in the theater, then you streamed it on Disney Plus. You may as well buy the real Thor Hammer in real life at Disney World. Disney has probably turned that $4 billion investment in 2009 into $104 billion of value. That is a superhero R-O-I. Call She-Hawk. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies saving humanity over at Disney? The best deals come with playbooks. Okay, besties.

2009, Marvel, which did all these superheroes, they created them, they were an independent media company. They were actually a publicly traded company. And Marvel owned the IP for 5,000 different characters from their comics and the movies they'd made so far. But they couldn't capitalize on all that potential. And that is why they saw. sold to a way bigger company with a whole lot of experience, Disney.

Disney turns creative characters into multi-billion dollar media enterprises. That is what Disney does. Yeah, Mickey has a cruise line, the Lion King has a Broadway play. ESPN, they got their own award show. Disney has a playbook. It's why there's nine movies with Iron Man, but 19 business lines with Iron Man. So for Marvel Comics, it was pretty nice to get paid $4 billion, but it's way nicer knowing that Disney has a playbook for the future.

And that same playbook convinced George Lucas to sell Star Wars to Disney in 2012. Because the best business deals, they come with playbooks. For our second story, the newest trend on TikTok right now is pink sauce. Pink sauce is the fastest growing condiment because pink sauce is a mystery. That's the point. Okay, Jack, open up the cupboard here. We got a rainbow of condiments. What are you seeing?

You get red ketchup. That's fair. Yellow mustard. Lovely. Green relish. It's like a rainbow. What is missing from that Roy G. Vivjak? Pink.

Pink. We need a pink sauce, right? Well, the one color missing in the visuals food spectrum is now here. Thanks to someone named Chef Pie, who made one, she made a pink sauce. It's not millennial pink. It's more Barbie exploded pink. Less like food cabinet, more medicine cabinet. It looks like pepto-bismol, and it's gone fully viral on TikTok.

It has. 20 bucks a bottle, but it goes on your hamburgers. Or does it go on your ice cream, Nick? Or does it go on your pancakes, Jack? It's not entirely clear. More on that when Jack and I get to the takeaway. Pink sauce is a tiny company. It's not like the publicly traded companies

with the unicorn private startups we usually cover. That's true, that's true. But Jack and I noticed that pink sauce has succeeded at growing so fast, we had to cover the growth hack. Two months ago, Chef Pie was just a food creator on TikTok. She had hundreds of followers. Her account was a dime a dozen. But then on June 11th, everything changed because, Jack, she posted a video and what was in the

caption of that video? The caption was simply pink sauce. And she got one million views. Then she posted again with dipping a chicken tender into her pink sauce. She got 5 million views. Then she posted a video of the brand new pink sauce bottle. And she got 10 million views. In just two months, chef pie had racked up.

up 273 million views on TikTok. And now that pink sauce is a commercialized product that comes in a clear plastic bottle with two words, pink sauce, and the shade will burst your retinas. It's a bright pink. It's very pink. Now, she's only shipped about a thousand bottles because that's her capacity. She's a small business woman. Now, she's an entrepreneur. She's made some mistakes in the bottling process. But here's the wild thing. The mistake she's making are driving more attention to the product. For instance, she accidentally wrote on like the nutrition label that there's 444 servings in the bottle. She meant to say like 44 or 4. It's about a 10th less. It's a lot less. Well, people posted videos of that endearing mistake and that drove more attention on TikTok.

The mistakes on the bottles got a million views for the bottles. Fueling further intrigue. Don't even get a start on the typo for vinegar. Vinger or Vingar. So, Jack, what's the takeaway first? our buddies over at pink sauce who were probably going to be acquired by craft hines. The pink sauce growth hack was never describing pink sauce. When you repeat, pink sauce never described what it was. That's the growth hack. What is this pink sauce?

Pink sauce, it didn't become the most talked about condiment just because of its super pink look. That nuclear toned pink though did get your attention. But what kept your attention and what drove sold out sales is the mystery. The mystery, what is the flavor? Chef Pie never described the taste of this pink sauce ever. That's her brilliance. People are buying the pink sauce just to figure out what the pink sauce flavor is.

It became a growth hack because people who got the sauce posted a review describing the flavor in their own words to the curious TikTokers. So then these new videos of people simply revealing the taste, those got millions of views on TikTok too. Now, Pink Sauce didn't do a collaboration with a big brand. there was no Kim Kardashian celebrity influencing going on. This was all regular authentic users. PinkSas used visual to get your attention, mystery to keep your attention, and authenticity to repeat, repeat, repeat. And now worried about our sponsor, Robin Hood.

We see ads all the time. All over the place, 10 bucks off this $5 promo code for that, Jack. You can buy three suits, you can get one free. But something we always thought was cool about Robin Hood, the free stock promo. Yeah, this was wild. The promo isn't like. some X amount of dollars. It's one stock. If you signed up for Robin Hood, they'd thank you with a single share in a publicly traded company on the house. And that free stock promo, it actually helped drive

Robin Hood's growth and got new users in the stock market right away. One of the most creative moves in promotional history. So when Robin Hood became our sponsor, naturally Jack and I said, we got to do the free stock giveaway. If you're not on Robin Hood yet, you want to get started, go to robin hood.com slash T-boy and get cash to select your free stock. That's robin hood.com slash B-O-Y, certain limitations apply all investments involved risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC, Robin Hood is no longer affiliated with us or the podcast. For our third and final story for T-Boy Tuesday, Weber Grills is down 60% since its IPO. So their CEO just quit.

Weber's officially flamed out because of our pivot back to experiences. Can we talk about, Jack, the number one source of stress right now? Everyone's feeling it. Everyone's feeling it. The accidentally well-done steak. Everyone said medium rare and then you overcook the steak. You can't grill that again. Sorry, Dad.

You just lost a vote of confidence. Give me the tongs. If you undercook, you can always put it back on the grill. If you overcook, you're not invited back. And the CEO of Weber Grills cooked their business into a concrete rock patty that your body should not ingest. No signs of life anymore. After enjoying an 18% and 30% sales growth in 2020 and 20% and 20,

in 2021, Weber Grills is now shrinking. Weber Grills experienced 7% decline in sales this past winter and 22% decline in sales this spring. We're talking about the spring, like prime grilled buying season. They saw a drop this spring. The CEO is out and an interim leader is in place, which is never a good thing for a company.

Now, here's the thing, Eddie's. Jack and I should have smelled something was wrong when Weber IPOed last year. Because classic, the CEO in his IPO paperwork described his grill company like it was a tech business. Yeah, back when Weber IPOed, they used the word disrupt 44 times in their S-1 IPO paperwork. They referred to their installed base of 50 million grills globally. They even launched a Weber Bluetooth-connected grilling app to send you push notifications that the grill is hot. Here's the issue.

Weber's not a software company. Of course it's not. They make metal fire drums. Literally the least techy thing imaginable. We're talking about a caveman technology. Maybe the CEO knew then that the physical sales of their physical product would slow, so he tried to redefine Weber. If you open up a history textbook, you literally see Neanderthals with the equivalent of a Weber group.

That's why the CEOs planned to pivot to tech didn't work. The stock is down 61% since it's July 2021 IPO. Jack, you know how many times my dad? Dad's used that app? He actually doesn't even know it exists. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Weber Grills? The American consumer has pivoted back from things to experiences. Besties, for over a decade, the theme of the millennial consumer was that we prefer experiences

to material things. Why buy an expensive car when you can Uber? Why buy a Rolex when you can go on a trip to Rome? Yeah, but then the pandemic, redefined consumer tastes. You hunker down at home. you decked out your house. Weber IPOed as everyone was pimping their cribs, home vesting, and buying expensive

things for their home. But now the American public is sick of the pandemic, and things are changing. Spending has shifted from material things of the pandemic back to experiences. Jack and I haven't seen it all year. Concerts sales, travel, entertainment. The stuff millennials have always loved, we love again.

And Weber Grills is not one of them. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us over there? Marvel has Wakanda forever to finish phase four this year. then there's two more planned Marvel phases. Are you kidding? Each phase is like eight movies, too. Here's the takeaway.

The best deals, they come with playbooks. Disney, they got playbooks. Our second story is pink sauce, which used visuals to get our attention, mystery to keep our attention, and authenticity to repeat it. The pink sauce growth hack was never describing the pink sauce.

Our third and final story is Weber Grills. The CEO is out after the stock has fallen 60% since the IPO. Because consumers have swung back from things to experiences. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by longtime legendary Yeti, Kelsey Black, down in Austin. What is the closest U.S. state physically to the continent of Africa? Okay, you're thinking Florida. Everyone is thinking Florida, right? Yeah, the peninsula of Florida is basically pointing at Africa, isn't it? Okay, maybe some people are thinking North Carolina. That's an option too here. I'm not thinking North Carolina. Like the outer banks, they're pretty out there. maybe. It's actually Maine.

Yeah, Maine is the closest U.S. state to the continent of Africa. One of our most northern states is also our most eastern state. The distance from Maine to Morocco is only 3,155 miles. It's actually the closest point we've got with Africa. Cody Head State Park in Maine is the first place in America to see the sunrise. And the first place closest to Africa. Yeties, you look fantastic. which leads to one question, Jack, does the pink sauce taste more like an aoli or more like a bubblegum?

What are you thinking? I'm thinking I haven't tried it. And I'm thinking we should get one sent our way. I'm actually going to try right now. And, okay, we need a minute. Yeties, we'll see tomorrow. And before we go, a very happy birthday to Claudio Kravici from Long Island. The Labens counselor himself.

In fact, during a crucial moment in Jack's and my podcast business, Claudio told us these keywords. You're in the game. And that was big for us. And a happy birthday to Mid Panther Mary Walsh from New Jersey. I wrote a paper with her in Econ. And Jake Lewick and his dog rider, Jake just had a birthday in Scottsdale, Arizona. Happy birthday to Simone Mickey in San Jose. And Mirage celebrating that 30th birthday with a good weekend down to Miami.

And happy first birthday to Donna Lynn in Harrison, New Jersey. And Eric and Michelle Jones, congrats on the 14th wedding anniversary in Samanak, Illinois. Congrats to Emma Clary, who got a new job at GM. And Andres Valez Ramirez just got a new job as a design engineer in Michigan, too. Two congrats to Griffin Kelton. New job. Great. New baby on the way.

Wonderful. Raleigh, North Carolina. And Vasty Michael Reitz pointed out that if air conditioning is the duct tape to climate change, then what's the duct tape to air conditioning? Duck tape. This is Jack. I own stock of Disney. And Nick and I both own ETFs of the S&P 500 and stock of Robin Hood.

And now a word from our sponsor, Robin Hood. The first time we swiped up to buy a stock on Robin Hood, whoa. Yeah, Jack, you get like that, like little vibration. Boom, you've done a trade. It wasn't just an incredible app. Robin Hood added incredible resources too. That started with the Help Center.

Everyone has that. Then came Robin Hood snacks, digestible financial news. Then came the news feed, providing free third-party news from trusted sources. And then came Robin Hood Learn. A huge trove of articles explaining what the heck an ETF is. Yeah, spoiler. It's like a stock smoothie. Jack and I actually wrote the article.

If you're not on Robin Hood yet, want to get started, go to robinode.com slash t-boy and choose a free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash T-B-O-Y. Certain limitations apply. All investments involve risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC, and by the way, Robin Hood is no longer affiliated with us or the podcast.