The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner - What Is Programmatic SEO and How Can You Profit from It? Ep. #043

Episode Date: July 24, 2024

5 more business ideas! I sat down with multipreneur Connor Gross ( https://x.com/C_GRO ) to chat about some brilliant business ideas. https://bizbrainstorms.com Connor, an entrepreneur in self-storage and e-commerce, shares insights on the power of programmatic SEO combined with AI-generated content. We also explore the Tegus research platform, niche market opportunities, lead generation strategies, recurring revenue models and more. Enjoy! ---Watch this on YouTube instead here: tkopod.co/p-ytAsk me a question on or off the show here: tkopod.co/p-askLearn more about me: tkopod.co/p-cjkLearn about my company: tkopod.co/p-cofFollow me on Twitter here: tkopod.co/p-xFree weekly business ideas newsletter: tkopod.co/p-nlShare this podcast: tkopod.co/p-all Scrape small business data: tkopod.co/p-os ---00:34 Meet Connor Gross: The Idea Guy00:56 Exploring Business Ideas with Connor04:10 Understanding Tegas and Its Business Model08:21 Innovative Business Models in the Food Sector15:29 The Potential of Electrolyte Products25:23 Ultra Running Anecdote: Ryan's DNF Story26:33 The Challenges of Salt Regulation in Ultra Marathons28:05 Exploring the Business Side of Ultra Marathons28:35 Introduction to Hyrox: The New Fitness Craze29:28 Hyrox vs. CrossFit: A Comparative Analysis31:17 Business Opportunities in the Hyrox Space33:34 Lead Generation Business Idea: Burp Again38:09 Programmatic SEO and Lead Generation Strategies47:36 Subscription Models in Traditional Businesses50:46 Concluding Thoughts and Farewell

There are 200,000 average monthly searches for Botox alone, only in the U.S. And the competition is low. So top of page bid is five bucks, but it's still low competition, 22% year-over-year change. So completely sold on this. More generally speaking, I'm completely sold on lead generation sites with programmatic SEO and basically automated AI generated content plus paid Google ads, kind of like a three-tier strategy. So we're trying this.

All right, welcome to the Kerner office. I'm still fired up from this episode I just had with Connor Gross. He's a guy I met on Twitter that's a lot like me. He's 10 years younger than me. He lives in New York, but he has an e-commerce business. He buys self-storage. He wholesale self-storage. He made 360 grand profit on a wholesale deal.

He's just always ideating, launching things, hacking. Like, he's all like me. And so I want to start interviewing people like that where we can just riff on ideas. and we had no shortage of ideas. Programmatic SEO, lead generation sites, Botox, high rocks, selling energy bars, you name it, for like 50 minutes. We just jammed on ideas nonstop. And it was really fun.

So let me know if you like it. And I want to have Connor on every month or so. Enjoy. We've got Connor Gross here. Connor is a friend that I met on Twitter. And he's a lot like me except younger. You're in your 20s, right, Connor? Yeah, I just turned 27 last month.

So 10 years apart. I'm 37. So Connor lives in New York and he buys self-storage and he starts businesses and he's in e-commerce and we're doing a lot of the same stuff and he's definitely an idea guy. So I just wanted Connor to come on and just talk business ideas and just riff on some cool stuff. Yeah, man. I mean, it's funny hearing you said the idea guy part too because I was on a call yesterday

with a friend who actually lives in Dallas, Fort Worth, so remind me to connect you with him if I haven't yet. And we were talking, he's two years younger than I am. And he was like, oh, yeah, I want to launch this business because, I'm doing these things. He has two companies right now, both of them pay him a ton of money, and he makes good money on it. But he's like,

I'm not going to spoil the idea that he wants to go after, only because it's, you know, he's very into it. But he's like, I want to do this and I want to do this for the next 50 years. And this is going to be my big thing. And he's like,

I have so many ideas. I hate the fact that I'm getting like, you know, shiny object syndrome. And he was like, what about you? Like, what's your favorite business that you run on now?

It's like, well, if I'm being honest, like, it's probably going to be the next one because things, Things always seem better when you haven't started them yet. And it's like that classic, I don't know if you've seen the graph before, but it's like, you know, you have this idea.

You're like, why isn't anyone thought about this yet? And then you start getting into it. You're like, oh, there's actually a ton of competition for this. And then you start launching it. You're like, this is really hard. And then you get a winner two and you're like, okay, it's actually not as bad as I thought. Like coming from the idea guy background, it's like your favorite idea is always the next one because you don't know all the headaches and frustration struggles that are going to, you know,

be a part of that journey. I know. And it's kind of like we're. hardwired to forget. Like forgetting is a feature, not a bug. Like when I run ultra marathons, every single time throughout the whole thing, I'm like, this is stupid. I'm an idiot. You're dumb. Why are you doing this? No one cares that you're out here. This literally doesn't matter. You're in extreme pain. This takes 36 hours. Never do this again. And then I cross the finish line and I feel good. And then it's like, okay, that was awesome. I'm glad I finished, but never doing

again. And then like two days later to like as if I could set an alarm to it, I start looking up the next race. It's like, what? And same with businesses. Like, all right, this is really hard. This is really hard. Like, let's stick to what you know. Like, don't go out of your comfort zone. And then I just, either I'm an idiot or I just forget and I do it all over. No, it's, I think it's human nature to forget. Like right now, I'm living in New York. I'm in Jersey at the time of this recording. But my girlfriend took the bar, the New York law bar last year. And I remember her being extremely stressed out the entire time. And she was, we're talking about it this past weekend because everyone's getting ready.

to take the bar again. And she was like, oh, it wasn't that bad. I was like, you forget. It's very, it's very common nature to only remember the good things from a situation. So yes, yes. So you, you texted me about this idea. What is Teegas? Oh, you don't know Teegis? I don't know Teegis. Is that, is like an indie band? Teegis blew up. Tegis is, well, okay, let me, let me just Google their thing so that I can read out the exact name of it. But it's effectively like intelligence, research, insights. So if you ever of these companies where they they'll effectively say

you have a $100 million funds and you want to figure out, you know, you want to get involved in, let's use self storage because it's relevant. You want to get involved in the self storage sector. Great. You know nothing about self storage. Teagueis is going to connect you with everyone who owns

with professionals and people in the industry who own or are involved with self-storage. So realtors, brokers, owners, sellers, wholesalers, whatever. Like, if you are in the space and you know what you're talking about, they are going to connect you with them. Now, there are plenty of these consulting style platforms. The really interesting and arguably genius part of what Teaguez is doing is they're not

marking up the conversation. So if I turn around and say, you know something, I'm down to have conversations all day long about self-storage, put some time on my calendar, Tegas, you know, build me out at $2.50 an hour. The normal company is going to say, all right, we're going to charge $500 an hour. to meet with Connor and we are going to take the difference. Is that like Catalan? I think Catalan does that. Yeah, Catalan does that.

Who are Alpha sites does that? There are a couple other ones that do it and they, you know, they mark you up for your service, but they're also, you know, bringing the client in so they provide a value. What Teicus does is pretty interesting is, so you play a platform fee. I kind of figure what the platform fee is. I'm on their website right now, but like any good company, they have a pricing page and build up for the pricing on the other website. So they will say, I think it's like five or ten grandity, let's call it.

You pay that. You get unlimited access to the people you want to talk to and with no markup. So it's like the Costco-esque model. But more than that, what you're also paying for is you get access to a database or a library of all of the other conversations that have ever been had on the platform. And so because they transcribe them. And so what they tell you is like, all right, if you book a time with Connor and you talk about self-storage and you talk about how you want to take advantage of a deal down in

southeast Florida, whatever. They'll remove like the incriminating slash, you know, highly personal details of the conversation, but they will include the key insights. And they'll give you a two, I think it's a two to three week head start to act on that information. And then afterwards, the transcribing or the recording or the data is then put into their database as well. I think that this is a super interesting type of business because it gets, gets you all of this really unique data without you having to build it at all. Like, it's crowdsourced data effectively. I think building some kind of research company that can then turn into a data product.

I've got another example after I finished this ramp. I think it can be really, really profitable. So who's paying the platform fee? Is it people like taking the calls or making the calls? The people that are making the calls. So if you are. If I'm a big hedge fund and I want to learn about self-stop. storage. I pay five to 10 grand a year. And then the self-sourge expert doesn't pay anything. He gets

paid an hourly rate. Yep. The self-storage expert gets paid an hourly rate. Right. So the Tegas is reaching out to these experts and they are saying join the platform. It costs you nothing. You can only make more money. So it's a no-brainer pitch. Okay. It's also pretty cool, like, you know, just to give you an idea in terms of like their customer base, they have 3,000 customers. And so like, I don't know, you and I come from the e-commerce world. 3,000 customers is cool. It's not anything crazy. But they have 3,000 customers, but they're valued at $4 billion.

They do a lot in revenue. And they have grown like a weed in the last five to six years. So I think that one is really cool. And so let me give you another breakdown in terms of this business model applied in a different industry that can be a little bit more. Yeah, something that's like more that we could wrap our heads around. Yeah. So I've got a friend, college,

one of my older roommates. He is in the food sector. So crazy background, but like he graduated college and moved out to Montana, lived on a bison ranch and started basically creating their bison jerky line and like marketing it towards independent grocers and chain stores and all of that. He quickly realized, damn, if you want to navigate either any of these small stores, like, you know, Joe's health food store on the corner of 1, 2, 3 Main Street, or if you want to get into Kroger's nationwide. It's really hard because the little guys don't have their contact information online because they don't need it. And the big guys don't have their contact information online because it's a hell of an org chart and it's difficult to navigate. So he has since left that jerky business

and he's working with someone else right now. And what they do is they sell a service to small independent brands. So if you have Chris's coffee and he says, okay, I'm going to get you into every, I'm going to be your business development arm. You're great at making coffee. I'm great at sales. We're going to call around all of these stores, try to get you into all of the shops that you need. Our markup is we charge a small flat fee slash a recurring fee,

plus X percentage of whatever the PO is that we get you at that company. So that alone is a good model. It's a, you can back into the profit on that model. It's a reoccurring revenue. You eat what you kill. So, you know, you only get part of the upside. And it's niche.

So, like, it appeals. well. He's kind of like a broker, right? Like he builds up all these relationships. Maybe it's with Joe, the owner of one grocery store. Maybe it's the regional buyer for Albertsons. And he's like, hey, I've got some bison jerky for you. Hey, I've got some organic coffee for you and just takes a cut of the purchase order. And so he's a broker in that sense. And he builds up the business development arms for these different companies. But the other really interesting thing that he does is he's basically like turning the light switch on in the room. And he's like, All right, here's the contact information for the small guys.

Here's the org chart. Who's the buyer in this category, the email and their phone number in this category? And he takes all of this information and he basically sells his CRM. So he sells the CRM as a data product or he says, you're a small independent company. You want to get into retail. You don't want to pay me.

That's fine. You don't have to pay me. Buy my data product instead. And I think that's really cool because the data is essentially the sawdust, let's call it, of all of all of. the work that he's doing for this service brand, which is already profitable. And now the cost of goods sold or like a product essentially that he's selling is a zero dollar fulfillment cost because he already has it built out.

So he's doing both. He's doing, but he's doing like the, the higher ticket, but harder part of just calling these guys on behalf of the food brands. And then he's just, is the data that he's selling just a monthly subscription or a one-time fee or what? Yep. Monthly subscription. You get access to it.

It's updated on its daily basis. you get new buyer information, you get an email, the contact information where they're at, like, it's a cool, it's a cool concept. That is cool, because, I mean, he's probably going to end up making more than these food brands are. He will definitely, I mean, unless he's working for the RX part, right? You know, eventually the food brands, see the biz dev in house, but he will definitely be making more than the food brands, I think. Yeah, I mean, I, like, we used to own a company called Send Eats, where we did all the logistics

for these niche food brands, and they don't make any money. Most of them go out of business. It's a really brutal, tough business. So I'd rather be on the data side of it. I agree. I went to school up in Boston. I went to Northeastern. There were two guys, one while I was in school, one after I graduated that I got in contact with.

And the poster child of entrepreneurship at Northeastern during the time that I was there was this company called Eat Your Coffee. They sold, essentially called it RX bars with caffeine infused in them. Cool concept. It was really niche. And like this is also coming during the time when like right now I feel like if I want Twitter, if I'm reading entrepreneurship stuff. People are leaning more towards the boring stuff, the things that are proven ideas. This was during the time when, like, people wanted that Uber.

People wanted to hear you run a company, and not just that it's a painting company, but it's a sexy brand. And the guys that were running in this company, they, you know, they launched it. They formulated a way to get caffeine into a bar. They scaled up. They got some, you know, some fundraising. They got into retail. But I think at the end of the day,

They had an okay exit. Like not to down talk them, good friends of mine, but like, sure. You know, they had a fine exit. It wasn't like they are retiring on a beach somewhere. After that, you know, I'm now two, three, four years postgrad at this point. I had a conversation with his other kid who's at North Eastern and he's like, I am launching seaweed chocolate bar. And I was like, and he's like, oh, there's all the benefits of the seaweed. And I was like, I was like, dude, you seem smart.

Like you seem like a hustler. Like I can tell just based on the fact that we're on this phone right now. Like you like come on a play. ideas, you like launch this stuff, you're like an entrepreneurial person. Like, you will be successful in something that you do. I'd never want to be the bearer of bad news when it comes to it. Like, prove me wrong if this is the case. But I would say you could probably make more money doing something that is more proof now.

Yeah. So, you know, unless you're like the RX bar founder who I know, I don't know if you've seen recently. Yeah, yeah. Have you seen the new product that's launching? What's it called? I think it's called David. I think so David's bar.

I don't know if I heard of that. Is it? It's shit in Florence. I think so. It's like the Greek sculpted God. Yeah, it's going to be cool. I don't know how he does it, but it's like a hundred. David Protein?

Yeah, it's 150 calorie protein bar with 28 grams of protein. Holy cow. I'm looking at it right now. It has like a gold wrapper. David. Yep. I don't think, I don't mean he's launched yet, but you know, if you're like, hey, you're the RX guy.

Rox guy was like the pinnacle of all of this stuff a few years ago. And now you're building this ultra macro bar. You're going to be pretty successful. Well, the problem with these food brands is you don't make any money until hopefully one day you get a big exit like RX Bar. Because if you're growing, then you have no cash. You're constantly raising cash and spending it on new inventory. So is the inventory game. Yeah, that's the problem.

It's the e-commerce game. I know, I know. I will say on that, though, do you want to talk about the other thing I text to you? Because this is a food company. I won't say who told me it because I don't like outing people in public. I don't think these numbers are private. it. Do you know element? I would assume, right? Element, what?

Just L M and T. Maybe Electrolites them? No, I don't know if I do. Oh, you don't know these guys? Okay. Look them, look them up and then just for the sake of this call. All right. So, yes, I've seen this. I've seen this before, but I don't consume this. You don't. Any reason why? Or just having it around to it? I don't see it around. Like, it looks familiar. The branding looks familiar, but yeah, I don't see it around. Okay. So I know, I know we're kind of putting you on the spot here right now, but these are electrolyte packets.

They've got salt in them. They have potassium, magnesium. Their whole thesis is the FDA or whoever is in charge of the narrative around the nutrition in the U.S. Always always saying salt is bad, sodium is bad. Yeah. Have less salt, have less sodium. They're like, okay, if you are sedentary in your lifestyle and you have like diabetes,

sure. If you're an athlete, if you're mildly fit, if you sweat during the day, if you like have cognitive functions that require a lot of your stuff, focused by the day, the average American is actually not getting enough salt for their, for their day-to-day. And so they create these really easy supplement packets where you drop in a drink. I buy them all the time. They taste great.

They're solid. And genuinely notice that like if you, not even if you're hungover, but like if coffee is just not doing it for you because maybe you've drank in your third cup of coffee and you're super dehydrated at this point, these actually making you feel better both physically and mentally because it's like, oh, yeah, I'm like replenishing something in my body. seeing what you see now, how much do you think they do in sales and profit? I know that's a loaded question.

First of all, like, before I even get there, like I totally agree with you. Like I did keto a while back. And like all of the issues that people have of keto is because lack of salt, right? And like if you can get enough salt,

magnesium, potassium in, you're fine. And when I was running ultramarathons, like it all came down to, to electrolytes. And I genuinely believe that not enough people are drinking electrolytes on a daily basis. I'm sold on the thesis.

Like, geez, I don't know. Nine figures, top line, eight figures, bottom line. 130 million in sales with like, let's say, 22% margins. Okay. You're extremely close. 200 million top line, 40 million bottom line. Dang. Okay.

Wow. For a salt packet, that's pretty crazy. It's crazy because I want to launch something like this. I wrote a newsletter about it. Did you read that? It's called Busy Juice. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, I did.

I did. Yeah, it's just because like I, I had the same problem. I want to drink a gallon of water a day, but water's boring, right? And so I started getting those meo packets just to make it more flavored. And then it's like, okay, this is like 100% red dye number 40 and I'm drinking a gallon of it. Like, I don't know what I'm doing, but this can't. And it's not like I felt bad. I felt, I just thought this can't be good for me, right?

Yeah. And so I just started, yeah, I just started ordering crap on Amazon. on and kind of experimenting, tinkering, and came up with this lemonade. And it tastes like Chick-fil-A lemonade, but it's just lemon, stevia, and caffeine. And I drink again. So I know exactly what's in it, and it's caffeinated, and it keeps me energized all day long, and it keeps me hydrated. And I can even put light salt.

So light salt is like part potassium, part sodium. And then you just got to throw some magnesium in there, and you've got all your electrolytes. So I've been drinking this myself, and like, I plan to sell it one day, but it's one of those things where it's like you've got a consumer package good and it's e-commerce like food it's like all the hard things so i'm not i'm not excited about starting it but i also want to but i will say so you know don't sell the liquid right like i think i was going to do only do powder i bet you could probably do that so i know i've read up own the day own your life by marcos albreg anyway like a lot of cool things from that book it's like you know it all but

it's like a good read because it just talks about, hey, here's how to think about having a successful day as it relates to relationships, working out, like, eating, like all of this stuff of stuff. But it always talks about, and it's something I did for like a year afterwards. And now I'm more on the element game. But you wake up at the morning, you're already dehydrated rather than just like, don't drink coffee right away. Like, you know, this is all the Andrews you can't remember and stuff too now. But drink a glass of water and squeeze like a wedge of lemon in it.

and a little bit of salt, drink that, chill for like 20 minutes, and then get it the coffee. And I started doing that. I was like, wow, this is like maybe placebo, sure, noticeably different for me. And I feel like for your busy juice thing, too, I could also see like, you know, maybe something that elements not doing this thing, of the magnesium, potassium, whatever, but like even very small particles of dehydrated lemon, dehydrated orange, could potentially be cool as well. So, I mean, I don't want to just make this an ad for like an intellectual I think. I think the reason I texted it to you from my business standpoint is this is also an idea

that I've had for a while. There is this entire category that I've talked about for two to three years that I really like, but unfortunately, the hard to execute upon category and the category is essentially like minimalism in a sense. So I really like the idea of detoxing, you know, using your phone mess. I really like the idea of meditation. I like the idea of fasting. things that are essentially removing the stimulus and, you know,

extra things that are constantly sold to us on a daily basis. The tough part about that category is like by nature, it's hard to create products and services in that category because you want to do less. And I think that with Element, knowing how big it is, and I think people are starting to begin to see that they are either, you know, doing a lot of sales or everywhere, I think that doing very niche versions of that would be extremely beneficial. So niche versions from one of two ways.

One is the, what does it help with? Okay, collagen element can, you know, for nails and skin and all that. That's starting to get overdone a little bit. But the one that I wanted to do was just called like fast right or something like that. And it's literally element designed for people who do intermittent fasting. Like it doesn't break their fast. Exactly. So it's, it's, you wake up in the morning, you put this in the water, exactly what I just described here from the beginning of the day side.

and it's got supplement-style margins, right? You sell the thing for, you know, 80, 90% gross margins on it. And you just put it in your water in the morning and you get after it and you drink your black coffee and you have this. It doesn't break the fast. Make sure you have your electrolytes. No flavoring. You can add flavoring if you want, whatever. But, like, I think that is a cool concept.

Or you can genuinely just take it and like slap a sport thing on it. And so have it be element for soccer, element from football, element for track, whatever. What about like even element for like ultra endurance events? And you could you could distribute that by just sending free packets to all the races to just put in like the race packets? Yep. I laid a marathon a couple years ago. And like there was noon everywhere, the noon things. The idea is not new.

It's like there's a bunch of these coming out. But everyone wants to be the Nikes. Everyone wants to be the something to everyone category. Like even, okay, I don't know if you did this. Like would you always eat before you would. go on runs. Not usually. I usually ran fasted.

Same. So I feel like a sick name would be run fast. Yeah. And it's like little salt packets before and it's like, you know, catch a double entendre is the word where it's like, okay, you're running in a fast state. Make sure you at least have the electrolytes that you need prior to going. Dude, one of the stupidest good ideas that I had about a month ago on this podcast is electrolytes for dogs.

Because I went on a run and I came home and my dog just started licking me, which he doesn't normally do. And I'm thinking, you just need electrolytes. Like, you are leaching my salt. Then I thought, huh, if I were like a dog lover, I would think, oh, you poor thing, you know, like I need, I'm not. I love my dog, but I'm not like a dog person. So that you could totally just get, literally get some co-packer that has salt, magnesium and potassium to put it in a container and just say, put this label on it for dogs, dog, and just sprinkle it on their food. I was going to say everyone's targeting the dog food bowl, right? Like you look at farmer's dog. It's $100 million plus business.

Everyone's targeting the dog food ball And no one's talking about the dog water bowl And it's just water Like literally I Same exact story I'm down the shore in Jersey right now I went swimming in the ocean yesterday I came back and my parents' dog

Was just like look at my ankle I was like oh yeah You probably want the salt But like you know the most fun thing That happens to a dog's water bowl Is you put ice in it Right? Like there's got to be something better than that

For the dog And especially people who want the supplements or whatever. I think even honestly, I wonder if it would change the taste or if they would notice. But like people who give dogs or supplements, that's a big category, know if anyone is doing dog supplement powders where you just mix it into the water bowl. That seems pretty interesting to me. I don't know, you know, dogs don't drink all their water when sitting.

So maybe like it, it recrystallizes or you have to mix it. Occasionally that might be annoying. I don't know if it's viable, but I could see that being kind of cool. You know what else you could do? that isn't like it isn't as easily shipable as a powder. But have you ever, have you ever been deer hunting or anything? No.

Love it. Yeah. So when you go deer hunting, you can buy like these salt blocks and you'll put it out there by by the stand and the deer will come and just look it because they need salt. I wonder if you could get those like get the same manufacturer to just like break them down into much smaller pieces and just put that like next to the bowl or like the food bowl or the water bowl because that is one concern is like you're cut. customers might over salt the dog and, like, kill him.

Yeah. And it could be a big liability. But if it was like, if the dog could control the level of salt that he was taking in, it could be a different experience altogether. Oh, 100%. I will also say, just that would remind me of a small story that you would appreciate being an ultra runner. So I have a friend, his name is Ryan.

We grew up in the same town together. And the guy is just a savage. He runs ultra marathons several times a year. Like, he's done like the Moab 240. And like, like, that was insane. It's insane. Well, with the craziest part about it, isn't the Moab 240? Like, I always joke about this.

It's like 242 miles. And they're like, we're just going to round down. Like, when you're at the point where it's so many miles that like, you just round down. But anyway, the guy is not built like a runner. He's 5, 10, 190 pounds stocky guy. But he's just mentally different. And he was telling me the story where he had one, DNF. And for listeners right now who don't know what the DNF is, DNF is, did not finish.

So he said one DNF in his entire career. And the DNF came because he was training here in New Jersey all summer for this race. I forget what the, I think it was the Bigfoot something, one of the Bigfoot races. That's one of the other 200 miles. It's in Washington like Mount Olympus. Okay. So that's 200. Yeah. So he was training for that. And when he's out here training, I guess you know this as well. Like you take salt packets. Because you sweat. so much and it's not like you're running a marathon where it's like, okay, I can get through it. Like there are points where like if you don't have the salt or like you're shutting down. And so he's taking salt packets out here because it was summertime and he's sweating like

crazy and he goes to run the race and he made two mistakes. The first mistake he made was he bought salt packets, but he like just bought them out of a CVS or whatever and didn't look at them. And they were three times the strength of what he had been taking out here. Yeah. And then secondly, the climate was dramatically different. I think if you said Washington, I thought it was Colorado for some. some reason, but like it's like somewhere was just drier and less humid. And so he was sweating less

naturally. And so he's taken three times more salt and sweating, you know, call it 30% less. And he hit a point where he's like mile 95. He's like, my feet are so swollen that I physically cannot move anymore. And like, I think he broke some bones and stuff like that. So yeah, it's a not to derail from the, from the dog supplement one, but it's a crazy story. No, I've done that because it's really hard to regulate or even know how much salt you need. Like, I'd run ultramarathons and I'd roll up to an aid station and they'd have salt pills and I'm just like seven, sure, you know? And then like, I go to change my shoes and my feet look like elephant feet. They're insane.

And then and then I'll start peeing like every 10 minutes on the trail. Like an insane amount. And it's just getting all those fluids out because you've been retaining it. So I could totally see that happening. They're a crazy business. It's also great. Well, sorry, actually very unimpressive businesses. seems like from from Ryan who I talked to.

He says how, you know, he'll go to a race and there are a ton of volunteers. And there are like 35 people in the starting line. I was like, is the, is the race making any money? He's like, no, these people, these people just love their stuff. I know. Like I, I wonder the same thing. They're always begging for volunteers, but then they have, you know, 3,000 entrants paying 200 bucks apiece.

And I'm like, how are you not making money on this? What are your thoughts on high rocks? Okay, what is high rocks? You don't know high rocks? Dude, I don't know high rock. Well, so, okay, so look it up. So, so high rocks is, I think it'll start taking off. It is CrossFit, but different.

Okay. It's like a tough mutter, but for CrossFit? Yes. Yeah, well, well said. So it's, how to explain? Anyone who listens to this right now that actually does Hirox is going to critique the hell out of my description. So I'll read.

That's fine. Hey, I've never even heard of it. Yes, I'll read the summary right now. With over 40 plus global races in 2020, seeing over 90,000 athletes and 50,000 spectators. Welcome to the World Series of Fitness Racing. Hirox is a fitness competition that combines an eight kilometer of running and eight functional workout stations.

It is an indoor hybrid fitness racing event that alternates running with functional exercises. It builds itself as the World Series of Fitness Racing and a sport for everybody. So is it like the CrossFit games with more running? I think it's the CrossFit games, but more accessible. And I think here's the cool thing. So I do a combination, and, you know, I think my knees could be banged up right now, so less so right now. But I do a combination of running jih Tzu and lifting. I'm probably going to not do as much of jitsu in the future because I'm getting way too hurt.

But I think people like running in part from the health benefits and set in PRs, whatever. But it's specifically, I think that PR element where when you're running, you can say, damn, I shaved off some time on my splits here. or I set a new PR for how far I was able to go. And there's like this cool trophy case Strava badge, you know, feeling to it. Lifting, you don't get that as much unless you're sending PRs. And to be honest, like if you're trying to PR all the time, like you'll probably get hurt or things just like you look good. You can lift heavy, but you don't feel that good all the time because you're just like, damn, things are tight.

Things, I just tweak my back, whatever. So I think that high rock is pretty interesting because it gives people back that competitive. competitive nature that they want and that people love as a sport, but in a more functional way that has maybe hopefully a lower injury rate. And it's growing like crazy. Like if you look at even as Google trends on high rocks or you look at all of the gyms that are popping up that are specific gyms for high rock athletes, you'll see that it's consistently been picking up for the last three to five years. And I think there's a big opportunity to build everything that has already been built for the crossfit space for the, you know, other sport in the world space, specifically for high rocks and have a lot of success. Hmm.

So high rocks for different sports, basically? No, I think, I think different businesses for high rocks. Okay. Okay. So, so let's, let's break it down. Like TRX, for example, TRX is a really, TRX and Rogue are two really big CrossFit brands. And I'm sure that both of them can be applied to high rocks as well. But like one thing that high rocks does as an example is they're really big on assault bikes

and ski urg machines. I know that, again, I've never done this. So if people have more information, apologies, but they're really big on those two machines because it's like kind of functional and it's a little bit more cardio-based and pushing yourself. Like, can you develop things that make you better at those machines? Can you develop a supplement brand, as we were talking about before,

that is the supplement of high rocks? You know, can you build a content and new site that is specifically for high rocks? Will you build, like, I have a buddy who is building a gym right now over in Denver where the average membership for that gym, the average amount that people spend every single year of that gym is $20,000, and they're marketing themselves as the premier high rocks gym. And they do the blood work testing,

and they do recovery, and recovery, I'm sure, is the big one here. So I think that there are a lot of opportunities to see how you can make money from this growing sport. So piggyback on high rocks in other ways. 1,000%. I like that. I can't believe I've never heard of it.

I mean, like, I've never been involved in CrossFit or any of that. Like, I just like to run and ride my bike all by myself for many miles at a time. That's all I do. Yeah. Well, I mean, this, this, I don't know, if you have a competitive nature, I don't know if you're running. I do. I do. I do.

I do. I think it's worth a shot. Like, I also just like it from the standpoint of, you know, I've done Crosswood before. I think CrossFit's cool. I, lately, I don't know, like, I'm about to sound older than I am on this podcast. But like, dude, shit just starts hurting. And I'm like, I just tore my meniscus last month. I re-herneeded a disc three months ago.

And I'm at this point where I'm like, I like, I like having hobbies, but I also like walking. And so I need to start picking my hobbies a little bit more carefully. Yeah. I think I'm built like a Cadillac. I'm like thick. And like I don't get injured ever. Knock on wood.

But I know that if I run and I cycle, like I'm just, I'm not fast, but I'm just like sturdy. I'm just like a V8. I'm not going to win any races, but I'm just, I'm just. I'm just sturdy. It's good. It's a good one. Maybe updated Twitter bio, built like a catalog. I want to hear about your lead gen business idea because I'm doing something in this right now.

And it is, I'm like so excited about it. And I just want to copy and paste it in all the, all the industries. All right. So this is, I was hesitant to share this one because like I genuinely want to start this one. But in the, in the spirit of not gatekeeping business ideas. And all I'll preface with this is if you hear this idea and you're like, that's a good idea. I'm going to do that.

Just like DM me. I'm like, let me be a part of it. Like, let me put a money for it in some way or like, I don't know, anything. I want,

I think it's such a good idea and will 100% work. So here's the concept. My girlfriend can't burp. And there is a large community of individuals who cannot burp. That was Andrew Wilkinson, right? He just came out. Yeah,

he just came out and did this long Twitter thread that was all about how he couldn't burp, but he fixed it in his life, has changed. So how did he fix it? I don't remember, but it's there. I bet it's what I'm about to describe then. So if you're in the subreddit, the subreddit called R slash no burp, there are 30,000 people in there are close to 30,000 people. And lately, the more I go around drinking, and this came up two weeks ago, and I'm like drinking at a bar in New York, I'll bring up a Sarah usually drinks wine because the carbonation really upsets her or she'll drink, you know, twisted teas or some kind of like no carbonated beverage because the carbonation after two or three, you're like, damn, I feel

you have to burp, but I can't. And it's like really bloating and uncomfortable. So here's something that everyone has started to find out who experienced is this. There is a way to solve this. You get Botox in your neck. Very little, like not. That's what Andrew Wilkinson did. I pulled up the tweet as you were talking. So we got Botox in his neck? He didn't say neck, but he said Botox. I believe it's in your neck. This is not medical advice. I don't want to pretend to come off as a doctor. I'm not. I think that's the solution based on what I've read and based on what I've researched for my girlfriends. But it's like you have this feeling your entire life of like

the equivalent of like chugging a beer and a seltzer and then having to hold it in afterwards. Like nobody wants that. And it is a growing thing. There's somewhat of a hereditary thing. Like I know her mom can't. We met some people over the 4th of July. We brought this up and they're like, I haven't been able to too. I thought it was just me. I thought it was this crazy person. But like my mom can't either. And so I think it's I think it's a little bit. a hereditary. I think it's a bigger thing than most people realize. And when I say Botox, like, I don't know, maybe I have somewhat of a stigma of this, but like, it's not like get rid of your wrinkles. It's like you look physically no different afterwards, but I got again, I don't want to

pretend like I'm going to have a medical advice here. I think it has something to do with your length notes or something that allows you to contract them and effectively get air out of your stomach, I think. I think that it would be such a killer and easy idea to start a content website called burp again or whatever you want and make so much content about the subject that I don't like it would not be hard to rank to the top of Google for why can't I burp how to burp again you know like bloating after carbonated beverage things like that and then creating lead gen for local areas where you can refer patients out to Botox doctors which I think you know they do a handful of things plastic surgery and all of that other types of stuff

And so, like, you're selling a very high ticket thing. Like, you'll probably get paid very handsomely for these leads. And I think it would crush. I don't think it would be a $10 million of your business. I think that if you do it right and put it on autopilot, you can probably get this thing up to doing a couple hundred thousand dollars per year in mostly profit. Again, this is something like, if I had no companies today, I would do this tomorrow.

But unfortunately, it's just like not worth the time. So if somebody's listening to this and they're like, damn, I like that concept. Shoot me a Twitter DM, Connor Gross, and I'll pay for the money to set it up. You have to do all the work. And I'll kind of coach you through it a little bit. But I love the idea so much. I love this idea. So I did a little research while you were talking.

First of all, burp again.com is open. So you could buy that before this podcast goes live. Second of all, I pulled up the Google keyword planner. I looked up Botox, can't burp, I can't burp. The competition on all of them is low. There are 200,000 average monthly searches for Botox alone, only in the U.S. And the competition is low. So top of page bid is five bucks, but it's still low competition, 22% year-over-year change.

So completely sold on this. More generally speaking, I'm completely sold on lead generation sites with programmatic SEO and basically automated AI generated content plus paid Google ads, kind of like a three-tier strategy. So we're trying this. I'll tell you off the podcast what the industry is, but we're trying this in an industry right now. And I've done a ton of research on Google keywords.

And there's well over 100, maybe 300 different industries that could go just as well, if not better than the industry we chose. And we're, we haven't even launched, but we're just putting out AI generated content that fits a certain long-tail keywords. And then we have three different

services that we offer in 1,000 different U.S. cities. So we've programmatically generated 3,000 landing pages, and we're upping that to 5,000 here soon. That's crazy. Service in city state. Service in city state with like a lead capture form on everyone. And we've only indexed like 236 of these 5,000 pages so far. And every single day, it's like more and more and more. We're ranking in the top 10 for, We're getting clicks. We're getting leads. All of this. You're getting leads. Yes. Like actual leads. Purely organic. No, before I did any of this, I tested it with paid Google ads. And I was like, okay, I like what I, this is really good. Let's invest some money into SEO. And it's really working. And so we're actually thinking seriously about launching like a programmatic SEO agency to where we could do this for others. Right. It's like, give me the industry. We'll just kind of deliver it. Tie a bow on it. Deliver you a package.

You run the whole business. We'll give you some pointers, but you're going to pay us three to five, six, seven grand to just get everything set up for you. I love it. I think the thing that is helpful here is I think you have to create a lot of content around this business model because I think, you know, affiliate marketers and people who are like deeper in the trenches on the internet know about this all day. It's not something that is widely talked about right now.

They do. At least in the communities that you and I run in. So I think proving that this can be an effective business model is super important. one thing that I missed the mark on, and sorry, let me actually, before I say what I missed the mark on, I think the biggest thing for this, whether it is a service or a product, because I think people do a lot of the affiliate product stuff right now, it has to be high ticket. It makes no sense. Totally agree. It's high ticket. And I remember it was over-co- or highly recurring.

I mean, really it's the same thing, right? Sure, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. High LTV. It's called that lifetime value. And I think one thing that I missed the mark on over COVID is I was like, I was like, I was, like, I just sold my company.

I want to get into some kind of affiliate site. And I spent a day or two looking at content keywords. I think both of my biggest strength and biggest weakness is I have a stupid bias to action where like it's great in most day to days when starting new things. It tends to be a hindrance because I'm like, I don't want to spend the time researching and figuring out if this is the right thing. Let me just buy the domain, start the website, hire a writer, build out a keyword plan and just go after it.

And I did this. It's in the dentistry space. So I said it, I think it was, I don't think I own the domain anymore. I think it was called like Superior Smile or something like that. And I was like doing lead gen or affiliate sales for water picks, for retainers for like all that type of stuff. Very, very low ticket items. It wasn't worth the time.

Wasn't worth the energy. I shut it down like months later. So total waste of time. But where I think I missed the mark is I used to own a tiny house blog. And the tiny house blog never made that much. money. I think it made a thousand or $2,000 in profit every single month. But like nothing, nothing crazy. But like, you know, we rock, we ranked for, I bet if I even look it up now, we ranked for like, best appliances for tiny house, best dishwasher for tiny house, best furnace for

tiny house. And what I should have done a better job at is, you know, we had all this traffic. We were doing original content. I literally hired a writer to scrape Facebook groups and like, do essentially like, I don't know what they're called, like profile pieces on different people who who own tiny houses. We should have done way more lead gen for somebody who wants a tiny house built. You're selling a $20,000, $30,000 thing, if not arguably more. And, like, people would pay several hundred dollars for that. And I should have done that.

It just really, like, it was the lowest priority on my to do. Hence why I never got around to it. We're buying tiny houses right now for RV parks, and you almost can't find them for under $70,000. I mean, it's on this way off from the prices. Yeah, exactly. So, you know. I mean, there's always a tradeoff, though.

There's a threat between the volume and the ticket price, right? So 100%. So you've got to find that happy medium. Yeah. What I like about the service one, like I think services are better. Services are for sure better because especially with like, and also as I said my idea earlier, like big disclaimer, big asterisk on all of this. I don't know if that's legal.

I don't know if you can legally sell leads in the medical space. I think you have, I think there are laws around legally selling leads to a, legal space, like to attorneys and stuff. There is for legal. I don't know about health care. I have no idea either. It feels like if it is for legal, maybe it should be for health care, but that's a whole other thing.

But point being, I like the business model a lot. I think you nailed it with a high ticket, and we are doing that in ours. But like I was looking up kitchen remodeling. No one's bidding on kitchen remodeling. That's like a $30,000 thing. But the other side of the equation that is easy to ignore is you want a buyer of these leads that has a nationwide brand or else you're going to be juggling like hundreds of relationships with these blue collar business owners that are super flaky, you know?

That's a good point. So if you can find this Venn diagram overlap of like high ticket, high volume, high search volume, low competition and nationwide brands where you can talk to one person and he's like, I've got 362 locations in all these cities. We'll buy everything you send us. That is the gold mine. And I think they do exist, but it's hard to find. And the other the other asterisk here is what is like, what is Google's AI going to do to this?

Yeah, 100%. That's also why I think there's maybe a bigger push to get into YouTube. Like at the end of the day, you need some level of discoverability. All I'll say, at least what we're speaking here today in July 17th, 2024, like, I am not super worried about that off the time. Like you Google stuff right now and they show you their AI prompts. And like, I think Google's doing it. a big disservice to themselves right now, in my personal opinion, because their AI suggested stuff is so bad that, and I don't know if you agree with this, but like, it's quite literally

trained me to automatically skip over it and go to what I'm used to and what I'm familiar with. Now, don't get wrong, over the next 10 years, younger generations, maybe it gets better, maybe they start looking at it first, and they're like, I know it's better, and then we get made fun of from being the old people who doesn't read the AI prompt because it was bad when we first saw it. Like, totally valid. But I think there's enough of a, cash grab window in the short term. And I think that there's there's always going to be people who need to find people and have like discoverability via Google via something.

Yeah. And I think no matter what Google does with the area AI, I think the localization is important. Because like I was looking up one of these search terms in Clarksville, Tennessee. And let's just say it was it was fence repair Clarksville, Tennessee. And there were none, right? And this isn't actually. This isn't true. But it was some service in Clarksville, Tennessee.

And there were zero locations. Whereas you would think Clarksville, there's like 100,000 people, you would think there would be three, right? And so if I'm Google's AI, and I want to show you the best answer, and someone searching, fence repair, Clarksville, Tennessee,

even that, like, programmatic website, they're going to show you because what else are they going to show you? Whereas if you're competing on a worldwide or a nationwide level, they might, like all those little gimmicks and hacks, they might not ever get shown in the new AI, right? They might show you the most relevant thing, and only one instead of pages of 10.

Another thing that I like about this programmatic idea is I compare it to like rollups, private equity rollups. I love roll ups because there's so many industries to roll up. And so it's like there's not a lot of competition in a lot of these. Like I heard a podcast about a guy that rolled up music schools only in Denver and sold it for $40 million. Right. Like who's thinking of rolling up music schools are like, let's do self storage.

Let's roll up dentists. Let's like all the obvious stuff. But there's still thousands of industries that will be rolling. up and some of them might take two decades just because there's so many and people don't think of it. And so I think of this opportunity that same way where, yeah, the growth hackers and the gray hat guys and the black hat wizard and all those guys have heard about this and they've been doing this for years, but there's still so many random niches and opportunities that they haven't even thought of yet. Yeah. And also like that's just the nature of it, right? Like there are more popping up every small day

if you started a lead gen for people to sign up for their first high rocks race, right? Right. Like new industry, brand new thing. Like people, people want that. And so, like, if you have a great topical authority for how to get fit and, like, do it in an evergreen niche, you'll always have more opportunities, I think, afterwards. And that's also why people always stress the email list stuff and being able to own your audience. Like, there are certainly benefits and advantages towards that as well. I was just mentioning the roll-up part in general, not to derail the conversation. But one thing that I think is pretty cool is I was having conversations with this one.

one guy down in South Florida last Christmas, and he is starting a franchise where all he does is he buys chiropractor shops. I think in terms of like business models and changing, you know, everyone who owns and buys software is very familiar with the reoccurring revenue model and how that can increase multiples and how that's like such a good business model. He's buying chiropractor shops and all he's doing is he's changing the pricing model from, you know, if it's, I don't know if the numbers I said, I'm going to get this wrong. Let's say it's $120 to visit a chiropractor, and you go once a month. He's going to charge people $200 per month on a reoccurring revenue, and you get unlimited

cracks. Let's be honest, you know, certain things this works really better well with others a dozen. AMC launches their movie pass. Like, do you want to go to the movie theaters more than two times a month to make it worth it? Probably not. But on the contrary, too, like, I know people who buy car washes and they sell an unlimited car wash plan. because you're paying $15 for your normal car wash,

but what if you pay $25 and every time you drove by, you can get it done? Well, guess what? The cost of water and soap is negligible. And the amount of times you're actually going to use it versus it being nice in theory is low. And so I like the idea, too, of taking those businesses that are usually at one-off and there's something you do on a reoccurring basis,

but like not crazy often in saying do it unlimited numbers of times, but you're also going to be paying a monthly subscription. That's genius. Like, and he's, of course, he's doing that because it's already proven out. Like, it just works. Right? If it works in Destin, Florida, it's going to work in Bellevue, Washington. You can do it with like teeth whitening, too.

Like, unlimited. Yeah. I mean. Do you, yeah, I don't know why there's such a dumb thought on mine. I was like, do you need to get it done more than once? But yeah, I drink enough coffee that I can imagine getting it done more than once. It would be helpful? What about haircuts?

You just got the haircut coming out with a fresh cut. Would you pay something? I wouldn't because I'm so cheap, dude. I go like three months between haircuts. just because I get busy and I don't, I don't really care what my hair looks like. I'm married. What I got to worry about. That's a good point.

But that is, I do like that idea, though. I think it would work in New York. I also think it would work well because the type of person that wants a lot of haircuts that the month has shorter hair. And so it's not like it would take super long, especially if you're going frequent enough where it's like, hey, not a whole hell of a lot has happened in the last week. But like I just want to get like lined up before a Friday night out or something like that. Yeah, I'm wondering like how you could go into it, like,

a barbershop and have them test just so you could like be a passive observer and see if it works. Then once it works, it's like, all right, I'm going to buy a thousand barbershops. Yeah, I bet it would work. Yeah, 100%. There's got to be one out there that does that, I would have to think. I bet there is. Reach out to them. See it, see if life's better or worse. They're like, it's one guy comes in every single day. He's so annoying. All he wants to do is talk. You know, there's probably, you got to put some rules around it. Your card didn't process this month, bro, sorry. Yeah, for real.

Well, I know you've got a hard stop, but thank you for joining. Connor. Where can we find you? Yeah, if you want to check me out. If you want to launch the Botox idea, hit me up. Twitter at C underscore GRO. I wrote a newsletter that is this but words. It's biz, B-I-Z, brainstorms.com.

So feel free to check that out as well. And yeah, thanks for having me on the show, Chris. Yeah. And if you guys like Connor, which I'm sure you will, let me know in the comments. And I want to have them on regularly so we can just riff on it. ideas. All right, what did you think? How'd you like Connor? Reach out to him if you want to start that Botox business. Let me know in the comments if I should have him back on again and we'll do this again. Anyway, please subscribe, like, share with your friends and we'll see you next time.