The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner - What Types of Ideas are Worth Chasing Today?⏐Holdco Bros. Ep. #155

Episode Date: April 11, 2025

HoldCo Bros are back! In this episode, Nik and I talk about the exciting advancements of ChatGPT 4.0 image generation, highlighting its ability to now edit pictures and create incredibly realistic AI images. We brainstormed potential business ideas leveraging this new technology, then we discussed the fundamentals of business success, where Nik introduced his framework emphasizing competitive advantage within idea and execution (grit, distribution, fulfillment, knowledge). We debated the significance of a strong market versus having a unique edge and explored the concept of a barbell strategy, focusing on either full AI or completely no-tech ventures. Finally, we discussed the growing trend of rucking and identified several potential business opportunities in that space. Learn more about Nik here: http://linktr.ee/cofoundersnikShare your ideas with us:[e-mail]@cofounders.comTimestamps below. Enjoy!---Watch this on YouTube instead here: tkopod.co/p-ytAsk me a question on or off the show here: http://tkopod.co/p-askLearn more about me: http://tkopod.co/p-cjkLearn about my company: http://tkopod.co/p-cofFollow me on Twitter here: http://tkopod.co/p-xFree weekly business ideas newsletter: http://tkopod.co/p-nlShare this podcast: http://tkopod.co/p-allScrape small business data: http://tkopod.co/p-os---00:00 The Rise of Image Generation Technology02:59 Ashton Hall: The Viral Sensation05:52 The Future of NFTs and Image Attribution08:46 Innovative Business Ideas in Image Generation12:05 The Importance of Competitive Advantage in Entrepreneurship15:00 Navigating the Path to Entrepreneurship17:56 The Barbell Strategy: AI vs. No AI20:52 Learning vs. Doing: The Entrepreneurial Dilemma24:12 Rucking: A New Trend in Fitness27:07 The Power of Community and Influencer Marketing

We got to talk about businesses you can start with this new image generation thing. Nick, I think there's going to be a whole new class of chat GPT rappers that can be built just on top of this one feature. You should probably just go and do things because friction and momentum are very real. And if you just go and try to learn, you'll probably never launch. Best way for someone who's a hustler like you is just do some side hustle, see which one hits and then lean into that one. I'd go no tech or AI and nothing in between. It'll be easier to find a competitive advantage regardless of how crowded the market is because the tidal wave is so big. Let's talk about 4-0 image generation.

Okay. Do you have access yet? No. Okay. That's okay. That means everything I'm saying, not everything, but everything I've done will be fresh to you. Right. Right.

ChatGBTGPT has always sucked with generating images with have words or numbers. That's gone. And, oh, sorry. Sorry. Keep going. No. That's fixed. That's fixed.

Really? And it hasn't. Yeah. It hasn't really been able. to edit pictures, right? But now it can. If you're on Twitter, you've seen these pictures everywhere, maybe even on Instagram. A lot of people are playing with it. Not all pro accounts have this feature yet. Mine does, thankfully. So I've been playing with it. Yeah. For instance, I generated a picture of Ryan Gosling wearing a Buckees Beaver onesie with a hood on. And it was all I did was take the

stock image from our website of the onesie, upload it and say, Give me a picture of Ryan Gosling wearing this. And it was like, we can't, you know, due to copyright reasons, we can't generate an image of Ryan Gosling. But do you want someone that looks like Ryan Gosling? I'm like, yes. It takes a while. Like it took three or four minutes to load and generate. Yeah.

But like it's, it's Ryan Gosling. Like, it's not a guy that looks like Ryan Gosling. It's him. And like the skin tones match. It does not look AI at all. Really? Can I show you? Yes.

Please share your screen. By the way, I'm trying it right now. Okay, yeah, maybe it's ready. Well, because I've been trying it on my phone. It's not working on my phone. It is taking a while to load, so this might be a good sign. Oh, my gosh. Are you freaking kidding me?

Like, it looks like him. Oh. And if you look really closely, the Bucky's logo is a little weird. Like, it's not supposed to have that whisker. But you really got to be looking for it. Okay, and this was my prompt. That's it. That's what I gave it.

Oh my gosh. Show Ryan Gosling wearing this looking sexy. I can't show Ryan Gosling in that outfit, but I can make a funny and flirty version of someone like him wearing it. Like, that's not like Ryan Gosling. That's Ryan Gosling. Good job covering your butt, but come on. Oh, my gosh.

So then, so then I said, I uploaded a picture of Beaver Nuggets just in a bag. Now show that same pick of him, but he's showing in Beaver Nuggets with a look of joy on his face. Showering, showering. image created. Look at his skin. Like look at his.

I mean, his skin's always been flawless. Can you zoom in? Well, like, it's the opposite. It's, he has crow's feet on. Can you zoom in for me? It's not. No, not letting you. It's not letting me.

But look how, like, the shading of his skin, like the lines. Beaver nuggets look blurred. Yep. Yep. So then you had to go full Ashton Hall. Right. I mean, he broke the internet. Okay, if you're listening, you don't know who Ashton Hall is and you haven't been on the internet.

He's this guy out of Alcorn State. He played football. Supposed he's 5'5. Whereas on his football profile, he's 5'11. And he posted his morning routine. And Nick, that thing got almost a billion views on Twitter. Can we talk about Ashton Hall for a minute? Or is that going to be too big of a squirrel?

As long as it's not that big of a squirrel. Let's talk about it. Okay. That dude's a genius. He's a genius. Obviously, it elicits a lot of hatred towards him because you're like, who the freak is this guy? Which is why he's a genius. Yeah.

Like who is he? The timestamps were odd. He's in the air for four minutes as he's jumping into the pool. So like the whole video is his morning routine and it's a minute by minute him. Every frame is memeable. It's not like a memeable video. It's every frame. It's like he said to AI.

I want you to give me a frame by frame viral video concept that I'm going to shoot. and make me as hateable as possible, I'm good looking and have big muscles and I'm rich. You know what I mean? I'm just like match those things together. It's crazy. Also, I just want, but I do want to say, how big of a psychopaths do you have to be to wear that much jewelry when you go and work out? Let's not, don't even get me started.

But Nick, that's just part of the video, right? He probably doesn't actually wear that. But first of all, there, you can see online that he recently filed an eviction or like an eviction was filed against him. Like that's public data. Oh, really? So now that all this has gone viral, a lot of stuff has come out about him, which is, I mean, five foot five. I don't know if that's true, but I heard it from a non-reliable source.

So it's probably true. So I said, show this guy eating a massive box of crispy creams with an ashtray next to him full of old Sigs and a huge bottle of Coke by him as well, as in Coca-Cola. So then I got this. Okay. To crispy cream. Oh, my gosh. It says crispy cream. It does.

because like before it would be like I know romp or just like make up a language you've never heard of like it's a little blurry but there's nothing wrong with it oh the Coca-Cola logo looks perfect and it looks real perfect yeah and then you got a different version with a bottle of adderall right here but it just it looks real I mean you got a peloton in the background with a red handle Like this is where I think NFT technology is actually going to come into play. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because you like, you don't know what's real anymore unless you have some type of attribution,

something to show like, oh, it's stamped with my blockchain or whatever, right? Right. Right. This is so good. It is. Oh. Oh, this next picture. So if you can't see, Chris has been scrolling down and there's a picture of Chris on a

billboard. This looks real. Like it looks like you took this picture. So Simon made this. This is not AI yet. Simon made this, but I want to switch out these three words with other. I'm trying to ABCD test this on Facebook. So we're looking at a billboard.

On the left hand side is Chris. It's my podcast podcast logo cover art. And on the right side it says still rat racing. The kernel of the office pod because it's all kinds of letters. And then it shows where to go listen to it. Yeah. So I want to swap out still rat racing with all kinds of different things and see what people click on the most.

So I said swap out still rat racing with quit your job. So it did this. So it switched out the person. Yeah, I was going to say, who the fuck is that? That's not me anymore. My podcast, all the letters are. Like, I didn't want you to touch that. But all the letters are still right.

It changed like, like it was a black background with white font. Now it's just black font. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like, it's still is a work in progress when it comes to words. But and then I was like, okay, no, don't fix it. And then it just said, still rat rock. So it's getting there. It's getting there.

Words are hard. I was going to ask because in the past when you tried to edit images, it just doesn't work. Like you have to start over almost. Is it the same way? No, it's better. But it's, yeah, it's a lot better with words and letters, but it's not perfect. That is insane. What's interesting is to see each of these companies catching up with each other.

So GROC, which is XAI, Twitter, their LLN. them came out with image editing abilities like a week ago or two weeks ago. I can't remember it like the timeline. And then all of a sudden open AI comes out with their edit edit, image editing capabilities. Deepseek comes out. And then all of a sudden open AI comes out with their deep research. Like these products are already existing.

They're kind of just like waiting for the first person to bring it to market and then they're going for it. It's what it seems like. So we got to talk about businesses. You can start with this new image generation thing. Nick, I think there's going to be a whole new class of. chat GPT wrappers that can be built just on top of this one feature. Absolutely there is.

Absolutely there is. Can I tell you one of my favorite ideas for this? Yes. There's a class of like niche kind of indie SaaS projects and just I don't know why, but for whatever reason, SaaS projects, companies, apps built around resumes and jobs do really, really well. probably because people are, they're in a productivity state of mind. They're trying to better their lives.

They're willing to spend some money because they're about to get a job. That stuff just does really well. So why not like a, now this domain name's taken, visual resume.com. And the landing page looks kind of like replica. It's just a prompt. And you've got some pictures of what resumes could look like, like before and after pictures on the website. And for five bucks, you just upload your resume.

and it just spits out an infographic of your resume. Something that just looks beautiful but delivers all the same info so you can stand out. Unlimited revisions, $5. Yeah, that's fantastic. Put your email in to get delivery of it. So you get an email and you get $5. What do you think? Yeah, I think it's a fantastic idea.

How would you build it? Cursor or replica or lovable or whatever. Like this would be very, very simple. Very simple. Would it be an app that you actually have on your phone or is this a desktop? I don't think it needs to be. I think you could turn it into a record. product, like you could use those emails to upsell them to a proper iPhone app. That's $9.99 a month,

like unlimited image regeneration, image fixing, whatever it is. But this would be like your foot in the door to do all that. Okay. Again, we didn't talk about this beforehand, but you ready for me to bring this full circle? I've never been more ready for anything in my life. Do you remember in the fall when I was complaining about taking family pictures? Yeah. And we brainstormed on the idea of like, this is now to the point where it's the use case. Okay, what do we doing, Nick? Send me a family picture right now and I'll share my screen and I'll swap you out in like an old country town photo and we'll see if it works. Okay. Hold on. Let me go find it. Just me or my kids? Whole family. I don't have the whole family. We'll blow out your face. We'll blow out your face. Okay. Oh, you just, you just missed a great joke

opportunity. You could have been like, ah, my wife doesn't let me come to the family picture. She says I ruin them. I could have said something very self-deprecating right there. Okay, Chris, you're going to you're going to get this picture it's going to look a little different than me usually when we do family pictures she has a stand in because she says i hate weird faces okay while you're doing that to remind people of the premise we wouldn't have family pictures and it's a horrible experience especially when you have young kids you're trying to take them for like the christmas photos so you don't want to be looking like you're at the beach but then it's still warm weather you're sweating like crazy you got young kids running around one kid smiling one kid's

pissed off. In fact, the picture that I sent you, one of my kids is pissed off. So this will be fun to see like that. He looks like that a lot, though. That's just his face. Anyways. And so what we talked about was like, why isn't there something where I can just send family pictures? Just good pictures to my photographer throughout the year. And then we get to the end of the year. And it's like, hey, I'm ready for you to make me my family portrait. They take the pictures. They run them together. And they spit out. You could probably build a rap. Oh, dude. Okay, you know how this week, I built a survey. It was fun. I like found these questions, built a survey and then it spit out output. Easily build a survey. Let's say you're a photographer or even a digital

artist, digital marketer. You just build a survey that says, hey, tell me a little bit about your family, what kind of picture you would like, what are the cool things you did this year, what are your favorite places, whatever. And then you, who's putting all this stuff together, you get the information from their survey, take their pictures, merge them together, and then and tell AI, hey, generate me 10 ideas for this. And then you send it to the family and they're like, I don't like this background. So-and-so looks weird, whatever.

Then there's like unlimited revisions. You don't have to just do it like one time, trying to get a blemish or something. Photographers are toast. It's never been more over for photographers than it is right now. No, they just need to learn these skills. They'll be supercharged. While you're doing that, I'll share my screen real quick.

Because it turns out, I do have access. I just grabbed a random picture on my desktop, which happens to be me and Gurdley. And so I just said, I want you to make this an anime style picture. And this is what it generated for me. It was pretty good.

Wow. Oh my gosh. That's good. Like it kept the background. Like it has my remote here for the fan. You look Japanese. Turning Japanese. I really think so.

It's got the brick. Oh, it's got the brick. got the break in the background? Grandma. Break in the background. Oh, it's got the sure mic. What? Granted, it says Shube, but that's okay.

My eyes are blue and very big. Your hair is brown now. My hair. That's okay. Hey, that's okay. It makes me look good. Dude, that's amazing. All right, what you got on your end?

It's still loading. Well, that's loading. I have an idea on this idea that I want to ask you about. Wait, I want to share my screen as it's loading because it's halfway done. An old-time country setting, country-western setting goes against their content policy for some reason. So I said rainforest setting and it started, what? What is that? It started loading and then it went away and said bumps into a content policy stuff.

It's interesting to see trends of styles. So like clothes comes back in style. The stuff kids are wearing today baggy, Janco jeans. Those are popular when we were like middle school and high school. and now they're kind of coming back into style, which is really cool. It's funny. But one of the things that I've seen also as millennials is like retro Nintendo 64. It's not actually Nintendo 64, but it looks like Nintendo 64.

Or just retro Nintendo, where you're literally just playing the retro game of Nintendo. I wonder if in like five years or even sooner, you just go the opposite direction where everything's going to look so polished, so professional, so good, any kind of copy any marketing materials, any picture, any LinkedIn, whatever, that the way to stand out will be to like go the opposite way and look low tech. I wonder if there's a product around like a low tech solution or or even just a low tech looking solution, a prompt. Yeah. Yeah. That could be a rapper, just like a call it like lofi, lofi rapper or lofi. Yeah, it's like countercyclical. Like there's this famous ad that went viral where it was like like our graphic designer just quit now hiring.

And it's like someone wrote it in Microsoft Paint. Really? Yeah. And like that, that did really, really well. So it reminds me of that. It reminds me of like Minecraft. It reminds me of the fact that like short form videos, TikToks, like they shouldn't be overproduced anymore.

Like they kind of need to be underproduced so you can stand out. Like we're already there, it seems. And I think we're going to go that direction even more. Yeah. Here's my rant for the week. I see posts all the time from people who were like, oh, I'm looking for a business to buy. I shouldn't hire an operator. or like, have we already talked about this before?

Yes. I'll be in the weeds. We talked about this two weeks ago. Two weeks ago? Okay. Yeah. So I'm still on this rant. I've been thinking more and more about it.

And I've kind of come up with this framework that I want to run past you and get your opinion on. So there's a lot of people who they want to be entrepreneurs. They're young. They're hungry, rowdy arsonists. And they want to get into entrepreneurship. But they think like, oh, I just got to go start a business. where I go to buy a business, and they're not really thinking through the best steps to prepare

themselves for entrepreneurship. So here's a little formula that I have that I want to get your opinion on. I think that success in business is your idea plus execution. It's that simple. You have an idea, and then there's execution. And then within that, the execution, you have grit, you have distribution, you have fulfillment, and then you have knowledge and experience. in one of those four at least you have to have a competitive advantage and then even in the idea you potentially have to have a competitive advantage somewhere in that formula something has to have a competitive advantage in order for you to be successful so like you have grown like crazy on social media was it the idea i'm just going to post shorts every single day about business

no there's lots people who post shorts every day about business was it the execution yeah it was the execution so like what was it in the execution the distribution the probably the fulfillment of it, right? Like it was a creative strategy in the way that you were finding viral videos and then you're putting business plans on top of it because any viral video can become a business plan. Like that was a very interesting take on an already knowable idea of, hey, build an audience and of course, then you'll have distributions. It's like, okay, cool, everybody knows that. You had a very unique value proposition and an unfair competitive advantage. And I think a lot of people want to get into entrepreneurship and that's admirable if they don't have an unfair competitive

advantage. So video is cool, but you know what's better? Long form audio via podcast and my newsletter. TKOPod.com. Go there to subscribe for free to my newsletter. It's one email a week, very tactical. And then go to my audio podcast, three episodes a week, stuff like this. You're going to love it. All free. No sleazy sales bitch. TKO pod.com. If you're 23 years old and you're looking at this, it's like you're going to go compete in a market that already exists against people who have the distribution, have the knowledge, have the fulfillment. And if you're like, well, I'm just going to work as hard as everybody or harder than everybody else, it's like that, that's just table stakes when you enter the game. So I've been thinking this through. What do you think of that framework?

Your competitive advantage being the most important thing. Yeah. If you're going to start something, you need to have a competitive advantage in something or a path to a competitive advantage in something. Like an edge. An edge. Yeah. Yeah. In order for it to be successful. I agree with a caveat. I think that maybe the most important thing is the market that you choose or the tidal wave that you choose to ride. I'm thinking of ride sharing, right? Uber launched. They took the market by storm, then Lyft, sidecar.

There's a bunch of others and they're doing great. Here's a very recent example, totally different. You know, six months ago, we talked about that guy that Moes launches for free. He posts the time lapses. they get millions of views. Do you know how long he's been doing that and how many followers he has across platforms? No, I don't know. He's been doing it for about two and a half years.

He has 45 million followers. That's insane. 45 million. So are you telling me that if someone were to copy and paste exactly what he does, exactly, no competitive advantage, no differentiation, they would be successful because it's a tidal wave. Like there's so much demand. There's few people willing to go out.

side, buy a mower, do it for free, knowing how to edit it. Like, they would win. Yeah, in my opinion, those would be competitive advantages. If you know how to edit it yourself or if you have the money where you don't need the money to go and mow somebody's lawn. I'm just saying like some backstop. You don't have a background in this, right? Like you literally just copy him.

Like you download Capcut. Like you don't have a background in editing, but you're just like, I'm going to copy him exactly. I feel like because there's so many people that want to watch something so visual, that you're not going to get 45 million in two years, but you could get four million in two years or 20. Yeah, great caveat. I think that falls into like the grit category because in order to do that, even if it's a knowable

execution strategy, he's got to do it for two years before he gets to any level of like, quote unquote success. He's doing this for free and he's actually paid. I just use that as an example because he's been doing it for two years. But like his first videos started going viral like immediately just because the algorithm them loves it. Yeah, but that's luck is not a strategy. It's like, okay, did he pick?

He's like, oh, this is a tidal wave industry. I'm going to go out and mow logs. He got lucky, but anyone copying him wouldn't. They're just copying. I think we're in agreement here, but you're entering now into a market with more competitors. So the probability of your success just lowers when you're entering it with no experience. Either the road is going to be longer. You've got a steeper learning curve.

you've got to throw more resources at it, et cetera. All of this goes to say, it's proving the point that I'm coming up with is if you were 25, this was my question, if you were 25 years old and you were like, all right, that's the business formula. I want to figure out where I can achieve this competitive edge to enter a market. What would you be looking at right now? You personally, like Chris, 25 year old Chris, where would you be looking to get that competitive edge and then exploit it. Now, it might be this where you're like, I'm going to basically start

a lawn care company with a component of, I'm going to do video. And so that's, that's my asymmetric bet is that video takes off. But essentially, you got to learn how to go mow lawns for a period of time, right? So that could be one vector. I would go full barbells, barbell strategy. I'd go no tech or AI and nothing in between. I feel like both are tidal waves. And it'll be easier to find a competitive advantage regardless of how crowded the market is because the title wave is so big. Like the home services title wave isn't going to get bigger necessarily, but there will be fewer people on it because of AI. So it will be it will become less competitive. I 100% agree with the barbell.

That's totally my thinking. It's either got to be full AI or like full no AI. Let's get the mower, the landscaping guy as an example. Do you think it's a better strategy for somebody who's young that wants to get into the space? space to go and find someone who's doing it and learn it from them or to just go do it themselves. I mean, you know my answer to this. Come on, Nick.

Yeah. To go do it yourself? Do you think you would have, do you think you would have gone faster if you had actually gone and learned like an almost apprenticeship with somebody else? Well, let's talk about like phone restore, like my first thing, right? Where literally everyone I spoke to, they're like, you got to learn how to fix phones, dude. you learn how to fix phones before you open a business fixing phones. It was like, okay, I hear you.

I hear you. I don't want. I'm impatient. So logically on the surface, it's like, yeah, I, you know, I could have given me a head star. I could have learned faster. But realistically, a lot of times what happens, and this is something I tweeted about this week, is like, you sit down with someone, you apprentice, you learn how to fix phones. And then you're like, ah, this kind of sucks. you know, oh, I didn't realize this.

I didn't realize, oh, I got to go to China to get these. And I'm going to be talked out of it. Now, I'm just going to speak out of both sides of my mouth, right? That could mean that I find something better, right? Because I can't replay my life. It could be that I just keep just kind of doinking around trying to learn, learn, learn, like ever learning, never coming to knowledge of the truth, you know? Yeah.

I posted a video about the silt fencing business. And this guy commented, the whole premise of the video was like, Like go do a silk fencing job for free where it has failed, like an erosion control job at a residential home where it's failed. Take a video of yourself doing it. Send it to the builder that owns the job site as a sign of goodwill and say, hey, I fixed this for you. Next time you have a job, give me a call. And this builder commented. And he's like, hey, I'm a builder here.

I'll tell you what, that wouldn't work. That just wouldn't work. I'll tell you right. From a builder's perspective, that would. I'm like, okay, if you were the only home builder in the United States of America, I would take that very seriously. Texas, I'll tell you what. I would take that seriously, and I would not enter that market.

But you're one of thousands. I don't care. I don't care what you think. So a lot of times the people that you're seeking advice from, they're like, you're trying to do the right thing and they're in the industry. So you're like, they know what they're talking about. They can't see the forest through the trees. They're so jaded.

It's all they know. So they like maybe they're a pessimist by nature. Like, oh, you don't want to do this because this, this, this, this. Whereas like another guy in the same industry would be like, yeah, I, I'm, actually, this is a great industry. It's kind of a cheat code and you should try it. You know, so it's just tough because we're saying opposite things. We are saying opposite things, but they're also like in line with our personalities, right?

Like that's the way I'm going to go find success. You're going to do it a different way. I think the rule is more you should go out to de-risk yourself and like gain a competitive advantage and go get some experience. But what you're saying also makes a lot of sense. So I'm like trying to work through this framework because in my, mind in the in the example of oh go out and do something for free for a home builder why not go get take a job for six months at a really low pay for a home builder then you like understand how to

actually put up those fences or how to actually frame or run electrical or do plumbing or phone restore as an example all the mistakes you made in phone restore were made on your own dime whereas if you had spent some time maybe you could have learned some of those mistakes on somebody else's dime and then transition them. But it is, to your point, it's that balance of like, there are people who will go and learn and then talk themselves out of the opportunity. There's too many variables. It depends on personality type. Sure. The best way for most young people who are looking to get into entrepreneurship is to go out and you're still taking a risk, but go take a job that pays way less than you're currently

making right now in an industry that is barbelled, like you said, either very AI focused or no AI at all. Like go learn plumbing, HVAC, construction, framing. Because you know it's not going to go out of business in the next 10 years, guys who are going and framing houses. I'm sure robots will get a lot better. That's not happening in the next 10 years and go and learn that industry because then once as the demand is there for it, you're going to have an agency that can go and do construction. For me, that seems like the best way for somebody who's young to enter entrepreneurship. It's not to buy a business that they have no idea what they're doing. And it's not to spend a bunch of money starting a business up.

I think your best way for someone who's a hustler like you is just do some side hustle, see which one hits and then lean into that one. If somebody like me, it's like go get some experience first and then take the swing. But there is no such thing as like, oh, I'm just going to have somebody else do the operations. Like, no, you need to learn this stuff one way or the other, either all in from the startup like Chris does, or go gain some experience like I do and then get into the business. You like you can't shortcut understanding the business and just think you're going to outsource it to somebody else unless you're born to a rich family, basically. Like a lot of things, it just comes down to know thyself.

It'd be nice to have like a quiz on our website or something where people could learn more about themselves. Like are if you do this, are you most likely to do this or this? And they answer 10 questions at the end of it. It's like, you know, you should probably just go and do things because friction and momentum are very real. And if you just go and try to learn, you'll probably never launch based on the answers you just gave to this quiz. Yeah, that was the entrepreneurship quiz that I sent you. Basically, there's four options. Would you start a business?

Did you buy a business? Did you invest in a business? And then there was actually option for, which I didn't explicitly state, which was like, just do a side hustle because you're not ready for this. But yeah, that's the whole thing behind it is there are hustlers like you who were always going to hustle. Like, oh, I went to Facebook marketplace and I flipped this thing. And I bought it for $4 and I'm selling it for $5. Like, you just have always been a hustler. I'm not a hustler.

I'm more of the, okay, well, let me learn it first, understand it, way more paralysis by analysis. But then eventually I go bigger by buying a business or investing in a business. Both of those things are fine. You just have to know who you are. And each one of those have pros and cons, but you can't skip the step of, like, learning. The learning is the integral part of becoming successful. I love it.

Me too. So I'm a little frustrated because that other, podcast. I won't say in my name. It's fine. But I had two things prepared to talk about. And then they released two episodes talking all about these things. And it's just a crappy coincidence. Screw him. Screw him. Just do it, Chris. You're going to do it better. Let the record show. Okay. Let the record show. You're familiar with Rucking? I've heard the word. I'm sure if you explain it, I'll be like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I can't. You put on a backpack with weights in it and walk around. Yeah. Okay. It puts more stress on your core, on your legs, on your body. It's a

healthier way to walk. Okay. And it's funny because when I was running ultramarathons like three, four years ago, people were rucking. Like they would rock an ultramarathon and it was a thing. But it was very niche at the time. Today it's very, very, it's getting a lot more popular. And there's a company called Go Ruck and they're doing half of either 50 million dollars or something in annual sales, just through a Shopify store. They're doing great. They sell like $300 backpacks, $75 weight. Anyway, I mean, the irreverent marketing is just right there. Like, go rock yourself. I know.

I know. You've got a bunch of puns. Dude, it would be incredible. Okay. Sorry. Anyway, I'm too cheap for this stuff, Nick. These backpacks are expensive. It's $300 for a backpack.

Okay? And then you got to buy the weights. That's just the backpack. You know how much these weights are? You know how much these weights are? Expensive. I'm sure they're expensive. It's like $75 per weight.

Why? Because they have a handle. Like, what are we talking about? You want to put weights on, but you can't work hard to grip it. Like, that's like, that's like going to the gym to walk on the treadmill and parking right outside the front door. Like, what are we talking about? It's like, what the ruck are we doing here, you know?

There it is. So, like, we're talking about going four to $500 in to just walk around with weights on your Just a vest? A $4 to $500 for just the vest. They have vests and they have backpacks. And it's like $2 to $300 just for the backpack. And then you got to buy weights to put in it. Yeah.

And what they'll tell you is like, well, these backpacks are different. it has slots so they won't jostle around and it supports your waist and there's pat it's like it's a freaking backpack can a brother get a jansport here you remember the episode of the office where and he goes and runs for yeah his nipples chaf yeah i mean yeah i guarantee there's somebody who's like oh yeah i could put this together for 50 bucks and they went and they're like oh nipple this guy's right here i'm talking to this guy okay that's why i brought it up i'm sure that that is so my wife and i go on a date every Saturday night and we wanted to go rucking on our day. Okay. What the wreck. Okay. We want to go rucking. So I'm not going to buy this stuff. Like I went to go rock.com to buy it and I'm

like, I'm not doing it. I don't care. So I have this like Chinese backpack that my mother-in-law gave me from Amazon like four years ago. It's called like Tizio. It's like probably cost $24. It's a good brand. And you want to know what weights I put in this sucker? I'm so ready for this. I'm asking Chad GPT. I'm like, what is the cheapest price? per ounce of a weight. Like it needs to be dense. It needs to be cheap. It's like sand, water. I'm not going to be lugging around water. Dude, I roll up to Home Depot. I buy pavers, like cement blocks to pave the sidewalk. $1.78 for 17 pounds. What are we doing? $1.78. Did you crush them? No. What are you talking about? No. No, it's like a brick.

I know. I'm just saying the weight distribution might be weird if it's just in the brick form, right? No. It's good. No. Okay. Because you can get square ones. You can get rectangular ones so you can buy different sizes, different weights. Out the door, it's like five bucks. Throw them in the backpack, I'm good to go. 30, 40 bucks out the door. Okay? So then I'm thinking like, this needs to be a thing.

Like this other podcast talked about is there needs to be like a more affordable version of Go Ruck. Sure, but there are other ways you could monetize this. So like Go Ruck is the premium version, but the other version is like, hey, do you want to feel like you're in middle school again trying to catch the bus? Remember when you'd like have the backpack on and you're running and your back So like again, we're playing on people's nostalgia back to middle school. Go rucking, how tight did you have it on?

Like was it tight enough where it wasn't flapping against your back? I had no flap issues. It was fine. Nothing was wrong. Like it worked great. Could you have run and it been fine? If I did run, it would have been the same experiences with a go ruck backpack. It was a normal experience.

So the go ruck is not like the vest that. these like tactical guys will wear that look like they sell those that's not their main product they need to have like a sternum strap that like connects the backpack straps in the middle that kind of helps redistribute the weight and then you can have like a belt strap to help distribute it to your hips the weight more it feels like this would be really easy you find a manufacturer in china there's got to be knockoffs on ali baba already right yeah so dude let's go back to our barbell okay yes sir people need to do barbells of this right they need to go old Ultra cheap, super cheap, stupid backpack.

You could make it funny, kind of like with your puns, right? You'd be like, yeah, this is a piece of crap backpack from China, but it's not going to break. Okay. And it's 50 bucks, including the weights. Yes, these are pavers from Home Depot, right? And the expensive part with e-commerce with this is shipping. Like I bet for the $70 weights that go rec sells, a lot of that is just the shipping that they're baking in. You got to go that direction or you got to go super barbell, ultra-premium, no synthetic fibers, no microplastics.

These are all cotton backpacks. Like these weights, like there's no paint. Like there's no lead, whatever. Super premium. Like kind of like a Patagonia or like a lifetime return policy, something like that. Or you got to go like digital product, $20 ebook PDF of like how to rock for $50. And it just, it's like an instruction manual. Go to Home Depot.

Buy this. Buy this. By this. By this. And then there's like workout tips. There's like a plan. I like the info product idea. Or you source the backpack.

and you can do this now, which is crazy with AI, then you could build a wrapper to place the order at Home Depot to ship to your house because the most expensive piece is going to be the weight that you're shipping from overseas, right? Like, why am I going to order that from overseas? I could order it from my local Home Depot and then have them through checkout. Boop, they buy the backpack. Exactly. Affiliate links.

And then Home Depot is just sending it to their house and they get two shipments at the same time. And it's like, here's how to put together your rucking backpack. Dude, or you could make like a Strava for rucking because it's kind of interesting that like Strava and like these these watches right here like the Garmans and Coros is in the world. They don't they can't really account for rucking because you're just walking or hiking, but you have an increased heart rate. So I wonder if you could do like a very niche strava for rucking only or like a scheduling app for rucking or you know what I'm saying? Like something to track your workouts or. The other thing to do would be like pickleball. All these accessories have popped up around pickleball.

I'm sure you could find, like you could even do this in your newsletter. I'm sure there's probably of your whatever 150,000 subscribers, 10,000 that ruck. I don't know, maybe that's too high. And just pull them and be like, hey, you ruck, what's the worst part about rucking? You're like, oh, the worst part is and whatever the worst part is, so heavy. It's so heavy. But whatever the worst part is, that becomes a niche product in and of itself. Kirk, like, what was the business he had that he was a partner of?

Infinite disks. Yeah. It's like he sold that before it finally hit peak popularity. But rucking is like on the way up with the job popular. So like, what could you do? Could you make branded backpacks? Could you have influencer backpacks? Like, you could make backpacks and go find, that's actually a really good idea.

Forget the premium. Go find whoever the influencer is that talks the most about rucking that has the largest audience or whoever's making it the most popular, or send it to 10 really popular fitness influencers and be like, hey, for free, wear this and anybody that buys through us, you get an affiliate link for. I love it. Dude, there's all kinds of like influencers plays you could do with this. It also feels to me like the, remember when Stanle's became popular? I'm like my Stanla. It's like just becomes popular because it's popular. It's not just necessarily popular because it's the best thing.

So like rucking is probably going to become popular just because it's popular, not necessarily because like, what are we talking about here? It's a weighted backpack. Yeah. Like it's nothing new. There's no invention that's happening here. It's just rebranded. It's rucking.

Yeah. It's pretty good. I like that one. Nick, I would be remiss if I ended this episode without talking about one of our close friends. Oh. This is a friend that we've talked about and referred to multiple times on this podcast. And he recently had a sit down with me. And he was offended.

He was offended because we always refer to him anonymously. And he wants his name to be known to the world. His name is Stephen. H. He lives at B. He has four children, all boys, wife name is a great man. He owns Oakbridge Advisory Services. That's Oakbridge.as.com.

He does quality of earnings analyses for healthcare companies. He's a great man and a beautiful father. Stephen B. Hale. Did you really just docks him? Yeah. Oh my gosh, dude. I was like, what the hell? All right, what do you think?

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