The Pomp Podcast - #1114 Matt Gresia | The Man Behind Your Favorite TikTok Accounts

Episode Date: November 2, 2022

Matt Gresia is a TikTok star with 4 Million Followers and runs many other popular channels. In this conversation, we discuss content creation on Tiktok, Instagram and Youtube, the business behind creators, the rise of short form videos, and how Matt would build a new account from scratch. ================== With a Messari Pro subscription, you gain access to exclusive industry-leading long-form daily research reports, daily crypto news & insights in your inbox, advanced asset screeners, curated sets of charts and metrics and so much more. Try Messari Pro today! Get up to 25% off their Messari Pro membership by visiting www.messari.io/pro and entering promo code "POMP" at checkout. ======================= The number one name in NFT domains and the world’s most powerful wallet are teaming up to bring something new to the crypto and Web3 world: <Your Name.Blockchain> That’s right, Unstoppable Domains and Blockchain.com partnered to create NFT domain names ending in .Blockchain.  Either sign up for a free blockchain.wallet or visit Unstoppabledomains.com to buy your domain today. ================== Exodus is leading the world out of the traditional financial system by building beautiful and user-friendly blockchain products. With its focus on design and user experience, Exodus has become one of the most popular and loved cryptocurrency apps. It’s supported on both desktop and mobile, allowing you to sync your wallet across multiple devices so you can have access to your funds anywhere. You can instantly exchange around 100 different cryptocurrencies straight from your wallet. Interactive charts let you view an asset’s price history and your portfolio’s performance over time. And maybe the best part, Exodus is integrated with the Trezor hardware wallet - making advanced security easy for everyone. Visit exodus.com/pomp for your free download or search Exodus on the App Store or Playstore. ======================= The Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for thermoregulation. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking. Even better? Eight Sleep recently launched the next generation of the Pod. The new Pod 3 enables more accurate sleep and health tracking with double the amount of sensors, delivering you the best sleep experience on Earth. Go to eightsleep.com/pomp ======================= Valour (formerly DeFi Technologies) represents what’s next in the digital economy -- providing simplified, trusted access to crypto, decentralized finance and Web 3.0 investment opportunities. Institutions and investors can gain diversified, secure, compliant, and easily tradable access to a diversified set of industry-leading equity products and protocols, through a single stock purchase on a regulated exchange. Currently listed on U.S. (OTC: DEFTF) and Canadian (NEO:DEFI) exchanges. For more information or to subscribe to receive company updates and financial information, visit our website at valour.com =======================

what's up everyone this is anthony pompliano most of you know me as pomp you're listening to the pomp podcast simply the best podcast out there now let's kick this thing off matt garcia is a tiktok star he's got over four million followers and he's got a number of other accounts that he's built and scaled with millions of followers as well in this conversation we talk about tiktok instagram youtube content creation the business behind creators and what and how he would go build brand new accounts today. I really enjoyed this conversation with Matt. Hope you guys enjoy it as well. Let's get into this episode and let us know what you think at the end. Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast

are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. this podcast is for informational purposes only all right guys bang bang i've got matt here uh i'm in my mid-30s and one of the most popular questions i get over and over and over again is people saying what is tiktok uh when i think of tiktok i think of the geopolitical concerns i think of a bunch of people in tech being like we should support it we should ban it we should whatever but one thing you can't deny is that is this massive platform that young people are definitely

using. Uh, you have multiple accounts that are very popular on Tik TOK. Like why is Tik TOK working and like help people understand like what exactly is going on on Tik TOK for those that aren't there? Yeah. Um, first off, thank you for having me. Of course. Uh, it's an honor. I feel like you're, you're kind of like a North star for a lot of like business creators. So I'm like, I'm honored to be here. Um, but yeah, I think as far as Tik TOK goes, the main reason that I think it works is that like the attention span is getting shorter and shorter right um and so tiktok gives you sort of i guess both as the creator and as a consumer it gives you this like instant gratification where it's like if you don't want to see something uh if you're watching the

video uh if you're uninterested you can just keep scrolling and uh you'll find a video that you like very quickly because their algorithm is so good um so i think like in short the reason that it works so well is that it's just, it's easy. So we saw 2020, I think maybe it was like a big year, uh, from a explosion of Tik TOK, obviously a bunch of people, uh, uh, got these huge audiences. They became like culturally relevant and they've kind of spanned from there. Uh, I've seen a lot of people build their audience first on Tik TOK and then try to go elsewhere. Should we read into that as to like, this is a good place to build an initial audience, but like, there's not a lot of money to be made or like, why are people maybe building the audiences initially there and then

trying to get onto these other platforms well i think i guess like a similar thing happened to me where um i'd always had friends who were you know making money on youtube uh and tiktok came around and it just seemed like a really easy thing to get into um and so i started making tiktok videos and it was super easy and then i think everyone kind of goes through this thing where they're like okay well what am i going to do next right um and i think like the obvious next step is youtube just because it's like more complicated. You want to like grow as a creator and I guess like an artist of like making videos.

Still video content, still similar in terms of the types of content you could create with Shorts versus TikTok or whatever. Right. The problem is that I've seen it translate well very rarely. Interesting. Yeah. Why is that? Well, I just think like,

I just think that long form YouTube videos and Tik TOK videos are very, very different. Um, you know, Tik TOK is more like a lot of attention grabbing, um, as where YouTube, I believe is like a little more, you know, uh, relatable, authentic. Uh, and so at the same time, if you have a lot of Instagram followers and you built that organically, I guess nowadays, like not through reels, um, those followers genuinely are like, or generally are like really there for you. And so if you post about your YouTube channel, a lot of them will probably convert, but on TikTok, it's not that way. So when you think about TikTok, one of the things I've heard maybe read from night media talk about

is like, if he had to choose where he'd want people to have an audience, it'd be YouTube, long form YouTube, because they know who you are, they get emotionally attached, all this stuff. Do you think that TikTok doesn't have that? Or like, what is the relationship you have, you know, almost 4 million followers on TikTok. What is your relationship and the content you create with the audience? If you tweeted out or posted somewhere

that you were going to be somewhere, would people show up? Would they not show up? Like, how does this work? Yeah. I mean, there's definitely a lot less of that with TikTokers, right? Like there's a lot less.

If I had 4 million on YouTube, my experience would be totally different. Um, and so I think that has a lot to do with the fact that people are spending less time with you. Um, you know, if somebody, if somebody is on YouTube and they're posting two long form videos a week, let's say they're 10, 15 minutes, those people are spending 20 to 30 minutes a week with you. Um, and at the same time, like YouTubers, the entire video generally are like not just spending that entire time trying to keep the retention rate up. They're not being like overly, you know, uh, energetic. Uh, and so I think with YouTube, it kind of feels like your friends a

little bit more as we're with Tik TOK. It's like just these little like tidbits of information. People might think it's interesting, so maybe they'll follow you. Um, but with YouTube it's, yeah, I think it's just a totally different ball game. Everyone wants to know how do you make money on Tik TOK? You are unique in that, uh, you have a personal account that's pretty big. You've created other accounts that are big. Uh, you run accounts for other companies, uh, and there's like advertising. Talk a little bit maybe about your account to start. Uh, how did you grow it? And then how do you actually end up monetizing? Yeah. Um, so I started my ticket, my TikTok account just with the goal of like making videos about things that I cared about, which generally was

business or content, uh, creator related, like creator economy stuff. Um, and so after a little bit, I kind of realized what worked well, which was like, you know, making sure you're hooking people, making sure that at the end of the video, they're satisfied with what they watched, um, et cetera. And we can get into, you know, more of the, more of those things after. But explain that. So there's like a formula for a video that you make? yeah I think I think it depends on the person right like I think no matter who you are it needs to be interesting in the beginning and so with me it's like I'll generally say something that sounds a little bit ridiculous in the beginning

so that someone will be like the hell's this guy talking about right and so then they'll continue to watch the video and hopefully understand what I was saying in the beginning eventually so that's that's kind of the goal there but I think with different people like the format can be different um like there are people who have these like really great personalities naturally like on and off camera and i think that some of those people can literally just like you know put their phone up press record and say what they're thinking about and for some reason five million people like want to hear about it you know um so yeah it's just it's really interesting there's like a ton of different ways to do it so you catch

their attention in the beginning you mentioned that they're satisfied at the end how do you measure that or or how do you think about making sure that happens well i think it's just making sure that like in the beginning you have to like kind of ride this line between like whether or not you're just like saying something that's like complete bs uh or like like i think for what i do for example like i'll say something like you know Andrew Tate is lying to everybody, right? Which I think a lot of people would disagree with. In some areas, maybe I would disagree with that.

So like you say something like general that makes people want to stay and then at the end, I think people would be like, okay, I get what he's saying, you know? As where if I were to say something totally ridiculous and then not be able to back it up at all, I think people would just be pissed off. So it's almost like make a outlandish statement,

a big statement whatever terminology you want to use you make some statement in the beginning you grab people's attention and they use the rest of the video to basically explain what you're what you mean by that and if you do a good job of catching their attention and then they stay to get the explanation they're satisfied at the end right so like with i made a video for example when like mr beast launched beast burger in the beginning of that video i could have just been like hey guys you know mr beast launched beast burger here's why it's cool or here's why it's important. But the beginning of that video was like, Mr. Beast is going to be the first content creator billionaire ever. And here's why. Right. So it's like, it's super short. They don't know

like exactly what I'm talking about. So like sparks a little bit of like curiosity. And then by the end of their, by the end of the video, they're hopefully like, okay, I get it. And on TikTok, do they need to do anything to help it go viral? Or is it just, if they just stay and watch like youtube if they just stay and watch uh youtube's like cool completion times is really important we're going to send this viral a podcast has no virality to it in the audio format and somebody has to literally share it or word of mouth and that's really the only way that it gets popular what is tiktok yeah um i think it's pretty similar to something like youtube or you know instagram where i think everything is is weighed pretty pretty well like if a video has

a ton of shares comments likes uh and i think tiktok pays a lot of attention to like exactly what people are doing um so i think like if a lot of people are going to your page and watching your other videos and following you from like one specific video then they'll push that video more and how much of this is just tiktok's algorithm is better than youtube's or is that not even true i don't know that it's true i think they're just really different I think TikTok can like or I guess maybe it is

better in a way because I think TikTok can target people even more if you go to YouTube assuming you have a YouTube account and you go to the homepage there's probably a video or two that you're interested in there

but I think with TikTok if you've been scrolling on the TikTok for you page for like a month at some point like you know eight out of ten videos that they show you you're interested in which is probably a little scary to think about yeah well and i guess also um as they get better and better uh and they get more data the big question i have is youtube's been doing this now for you know forever how much harder is it for youtube just given the amount of content they have to you know

kind of pick through to show you versus a tiktok which still has a ton of videos most popular website, all this, you know, all the things we know. Uh, but I'd love to see what are the total number of videos on YouTube versus the total number of videos uploaded in Tik TOK. My guess is YouTube is still like much, much more from a video standpoint. I'd be surprised if it wasn't. And so YouTube has a problem, uh, which is a good problem to have, but it's still a problem. You got to find through billions of videos, which is the one to show Matt that so that he watches it versus, you know, the next one. Right. Yeah, definitely. Um, and also YouTube videos have a longer lifespan which i think makes that problem even more relevant to them explain that so on

tiktok if a video like explodes usually like nine times out of ten of course there's outliers i i'll notice that it dies uh you know after five or seven days even if it's like huge right like i think my biggest video got like almost 25 million views and so that video was only really growing for like it's probably closer to seven days but that was it is where if a video on youtube gets 25 million views it's probably been up for a little while um so yeah i think i think with tiktok that problem is a little bit easier for them too because like they're really feeding you like new ish things at least in comparison to youtube um so yeah that's a really good point i've never thought of that so when you think of your personal account what are the different ways

that you monetize there is it all advertising based or do you have other other things you do yeah um so with my personal account forever it's just simply been ads um which is scary in comparison to youtubers because most youtubers assuming you know you're not like uh really inappropriate or using a ton of copyrighted stuff you're monetized you're usually making enough money uh if you're doing it full-time like you're usually making pretty consistent money month over month um so for me in the beginning it was scary right because one month you could make tens of thousands of dollars and for three months you could make nothing zero close to it right uh especially because like the tiktok creator fund pays essentially nothing like

the most amount of money that i've ever made from the tiktok creator fund uh i think i had gotten around 50 or 60 million views in that month and i i want to say i made around like 1500 bucks wow so if you're getting that amount of views like on youtube email is flooded with brand deals to the point where like that 1500 bucks means nothing um as where yeah on youtube it's like it's it's not even comparable like it's not even close so 50 to 60 million views in a month uh your email was flooded yeah and what are people saying like hey make me a video can you mention my product in a video like what are they looking for yeah it's mostly brands and i mean you know 90 of the emails you get are like some random amazon seller like looking to see if

you'll sell their purple wigs right like something that's totally irrelevant um and something that's just not going to work and most of them will offer you like 200 bucks that's the other thing too is like the i think the ad rates there's this huge like gap right where some i think tiktok is still so new that like some people don't realize like what the rates are like so it's really all over the place um does that help or hurt you um probably mostly hurt because like most of the time you have to kind of justify it um and be like hey listen like you could go to this person this person and this person who's like i guess in the same like bucket as me but they charge just as much, if not more. And so you have to like, there's this extra step of like,

you kind of have to prove to a company, uh, like why your rates are the way they are. Um, but I think that's all getting better now. Like, I feel like a lot of brands have, uh, you know, given pushback a little bit less. And how do you decide? So your inbox is full of all these people who are like, Hey, advertise my product from purple wigs to things you actually might do. How do you decide which ones to work with and which ones not? Is it a price thing? Is it a product thing? Is it a combination? Yeah, it's definitely a combination.

I think a lot of people would be kind of ashamed to say the money's important because you'd like to think that it's not. But it is, right? You're running a business, of course it's important. If the perfect fit of a company, you know that the ad's going to work out well, they fit right in with your page,

your audience isn't going to be pissed off at you for promoting them. If you should be getting $10,000 and they're offering you $500, you're way too far apart, right? um so yeah i think it's definitely a combination like and what do you do in that scenario so like you you want ten thousand dollars for a video somebody offers you 500 do you negotiate do you try to send them comps do you just say come back when you got ten thousand dollars like how do you

handle that um well if nothing's aligned you know sometimes i guess it depends on like how flooded the inbox is but sometimes it's like a no answer kind of situation yeah of course um but yeah i I mean, otherwise, like definitely. But if it's the perfect company, like if you're like, man, this is going to fly on the page. Yeah, well, it depends. Like if it's a startup, there have been times where I've been like,

okay, well, maybe we can make this up in equity, right? Like if I really, if I'm, if I really think, and I have a few friends who are like very familiar with like the VC space. So I'll like ask them, hey, what do you think about this company? And they'll check out like, you know, how much funding they have and like who's backing them

and kind of give me their thoughts. So if they're willing to give in and make that up with equity, then there have been a few times where I've done that. Got it. Okay, so it's all advertising on your page. Why don't you sell things? You don't know what to sell?

That's not kind of how TikTok works? Yeah, I think it's kind of a combination of both. Like on TikTok, you really need to be like a certain type of creator to be able to sell stuff just because your audience isn't quite as engaged as if you were on YouTube. And so, yeah, I think for me, it's like it's much easier to just stick with the brand deals. And obviously recently, like I've started with selling like B2B, right? like we were talking about before we started the podcast like uh i've been running brands tiktok accounts for them um so i think that like through through that and like uh advertising those are probably at least for my account uh the like most plausible ways to to make money so you go to

a brand we'll talk about which brands in a second but you go to a brand you say hey i'll run your account for you what are they expecting you to do is it like you literally get them the handle and like set up the page and then you tell them what to post or are you creating all the content? How does this work? Yeah. Um, so I think it's obviously super important for brands to be on TikTok, right? Like, or at least be making short form video. Um, like we were talking before about how like TikTok might be banned. People are scared, but I don't think short form video is going away. Um, and so I think that that's like something that a lot of brands and especially, I think startups should be focusing on now.

And a lot of them over the last like two years have started. But I think like my whole pitch is kind of like, you know, if you're going to grab some kid who, you know, was in studied marketing and is fresh out of college and you're going to pay him a hundred grand, why wouldn't you just come to me? Right. Like I've been, I have like real experience with this. And so I think a lot of brands now, hopefully, will start coming to me. and if not me, people like me, um, to, to do that. I've always thought, uh, you could go get a

marketing degree or if you show up with like a hundred thousand, uh, followers or, you know, in this case, millions of followers on an account. Uh, if you want to go get a job at one of these companies and it was like you versus like the degree and you're going to win it all day long because you're like, cool. That person like read some books and I listened to a professor, but like I know how to do this. Like here's proof. Yeah. Right. And so it is that real world experience. Uh, this is true of everything like in sales, right? If you show up to the job interview and someone's like, Oh, I have a sales degree. And somebody else is like, nah, man, like I got three leads where, who do I send these to internally? Right. People are like, I guess that guy could

do the job. Yeah, definitely. And so as far as expectations goes, um, it's really all over the place. Right. Cause like a lot of brands are just in totally different spots, you know? Um, I guess This is a good time to bring this up. Like BlackRock's TikTok account, for example. Which you guys run. Right. So they already had a TikTok account set up and they already knew that they wanted their employees

to be in the videos. Okay. So their expectation was just like, hey, we have this set up, but we could probably use a little more force behind this. How do you do this? Right. And so-

And do they have like a- So for context, uh, you got your account, you've got other brand accounts. You also run BlackRock's Twitter account or a TikTok account. And for those that are like, wait, BlackRock, like the, the BlackRock. Yes. BlackRock, like the trillions of dollars of assets, uh, has a TikTok that you're running, uh, in, in partnership with them. Who's coming up with the, like, let's just go through step-by-step.

Like, okay. You work with a brand like BlackRock. Who comes up with the ideas? Are you like, Hey guys, here's 10 ideas that you could do. Or are they coming to you and they're like, here's 10 things that we want to do, like make it go viral. So this is interesting. I guess we'll like go back to the beginning of my partnership with them. So I ended up connecting with someone from their, in their social media department.

And the whole TikTok thing was actually, it was Larry Fink's idea. He was like, we got to get on TikTok. Larry Fink wanted to get on TikTok. Yes. Jesus. Wild. And so they were like, we got to get going. Like we're, we're trying to push on this.

Right. Cause like, of course, you know, when, when Larry wants something like, so, uh, it was like a very, it was like a very quick thing. Right. So just kind of like threw me in cause they, they were like, we want to, we were looking for someone who like kind of knows what they're doing. Um, and so I was like, is it like cold email? Yeah.

So like, uh, I was connected with, uh, this girl from there on, on LinkedIn. And I remember like she posted something one day, like we're looking for a Tik TOK creator and I was like, this is perfect. So I just shot her a message and I was like, hey, I'm curious to hear more about this. So we started pretty immediately. And so what I started doing with them and what I'm trying to do through Fuse, my agency,

with startups is just everything, right? Like a door-to-door kind of service. All you have to do is approve the videos, we'll do everything else. um and so with them it's it's pretty much that and obviously like their compliance is a little bit heavier than than a bunch of like startups that i've worked with um so there's like a little bit more to the approval process but yeah i mean it's essentially just like me and then there's a few other people from their team who kind of like suggest things that they should talk about like

to ensure that they're like staying on brand you know um so it's kind of like they'll they'll talk Like they'll come with some ideas and say, hey, you know, we'd like to talk about this. And then I'll try to kind of figure out how to talk about that in a way that could be like digestible on TikTok. And then do you give them like a script and they have their employees like read the script? Or like how does that work in terms of you getting the content you need to be able to edit so the video is high quality? So once the video ideas are laid out, we'll like write a bunch of scripts, take them to like their legal and compliance. they'll, uh, you know, approve them. We'll make changes, whatever it may be. Um, and then we'll like set like a filming day in their office. And so, uh, it actually works out well cause I live

in New York and their headquarters is in New York. So, uh, like probably one day every like, you know, two weeks, three weeks or whatever. You roll into BlackRock and do you bring like the influencer, uh, light and like a camera and everything? Which is crazy. You'd really do like yeah yeah I'll go into their office and it's it's nuts like uh I stick out actually well I don't want to sound like you know like I'm like shitting on them at all because like their their marketing department is actually really like it's mostly young people of course um but still it like it is black rock right so like it's like pretty like I go in like this like hat and everything and like nobody does that in an LA Dodgers hat in New York no no no you usually don't actually

it's a sore topic right now we don't got to talk about the yankees um so yeah so like i'll go into i'll go into their office like you're wearing dodgers hats now yeah it's uh it's not that as a yankee it's not good sorry are you from new york huh are you from new york uh my whole family is yeah so when you walk into black rock uh are they like excited yeah like the employees that are gonna be in the videos they're like yeah they're really cool like we're we're like we're all friends it's nice yeah so they're like cool i get to be in a black rock tiktok video yeah but like they're building so like the like i said the marketing department's really cool uh but like if you walk into the lobby you'll notice like most people are wearing like suits they look real

serious and so like i remember the first day walking in they have real jobs yeah they have real jobs so like i remember the first day walking in there's like a ton of security on the in the lobby and whatever and uh the guy was like hey like you looking for something like what's up why are you here? Yeah. Like kind of just like, what are you doing? Like, you don't look like you belong here. Um, and I remember being like, yep, this is perfect. This is exactly what I wanted with my life. Um, so yeah, yeah. So I'll, I'll go into their office. We'll film the videos and then, uh, you know, edit them afterwards, get more approvals and then they get posted and stuff. And what is the purpose? Is it, they want to be culturally relevant with a certain demographic?

Do they want, is it like a recruiting thing? Is there a, are they trying to make money? Are they trying to sell ads on their BlackRock TikTok account? Like, what was the purpose? Well, I think there's two things. I don't want to get in any trouble, so I'm not speaking on behalf of them. This is speculation. But yeah, I think if I had to guess,

I think that they're trying to like tap into the youth, which like, you know, anyone who's listening to this probably knows that the best way to tap into the youth nowadays is TikTok. Um, and so I think that's part of it. And then also like their whole thing is really like an initiative to, uh, teach people more about like financial wellness. Um, and so I think it's definitely like a longterm game for them. Cause it's not like, you know, in any of the videos, it's not advertising like Aladdin or any of their like products generally. I mean, sometimes like if, if it fits, like we could mention it, like it doesn't hurt to just make mention of it. But,

But yeah, I think so generally it's just like promoting financial wellness and I think perhaps planting the seed for the youth. Yeah, which makes sense, right? Like if you were sitting there at that organization and you're like, man, I'm going to think really long term, we probably want our brand in front of young people who may come work here one day, maybe customers one day, maybe buyers at other companies that we're trying to pit.

Like it makes sense to get your brand in front of them. And for the cost or like if you think of it like from a risk return standpoint, It's like minimal cost compared to the potential benefit that they could get. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, at this point, you know, it's been less than six months and their following has, I don't know, probably close to 10x by now. How many followers do they have? Well, they have like, I think, 17,000, 18,000.

Damn, they got more than me. Really? Yeah. I think we got 15. Yeah. But they started with, you know, I think 1,500, something like that. All right, enough about BlackRock. They're not paying me any money.

So this is not a BlackRock ad. Go follow them on TikTok. When you think about the business that you're running though, so you run those types of accounts. There's also startup type accounts as well. Is it all brand recognition, brand awareness? Or do you see some of these companies

trying to do like direct response stuff on TikTok as well? for all your crypto data and research needs. With Masari Pro, you gain access to exclusive, industry-leading, long-form daily research reports, daily crypto news, advanced asset screeners, and curated sets of charts and protocol metrics. You can try Masari Pro today, and listeners of this podcast will get 25% off

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safely navigate Web3 and DeFi apps on Ethereum, Solana, and Algorand from one wallet. Manage, mint, and sell NFTs on multiple networks in one wallet. You can swap Solana and ETH tokens natively right within the extension and if you ever hit a snag world-class customer service is available 24 7 more of your favorite chains are on the way so run don't walk over to exodus.com slash pump to download the exodus web 3 wallet right now again exodus.com slash pump go check them out today yeah i mean i think it's a little bit of both right i think it's i think it kind of depends on like where the company's at um some of the startups that are like super um you know small just getting started they're looking for conversions um and so but then there are some

that are kind of just looking to like looking for that awareness right like i don't know if you're familiar with carrot uh they do like credit cards or they're technically not credit cards for influencers so um we are hopefully by the time this is out uh we'll start running their account um and they for they for example like we're kind of just like we want to make cool videos that like attract influencers specifically because like their niche is like very specific right like you can't get a carrot card if you know you're not an influencer um and then there are other companies like there's one uh also not sure if you're familiar it's called here um they do like this is not an ad but uh they do like it's like fractional you can buy into like fractional

shares of like airbnb airbnb rentals okay um they're actually based here in miami too uh so like we're running theirs and theirs is more targeted to like we want conversions right like um so yeah so when you do like uh content for them are you in the videos or are you getting other people are you getting their employees yeah um so i think like i'm open to being in the videos but the i'm really focused on like scalability here because one of the things that i noticed about like my ads on tiktok for example is like you can only have so many ads so like for example the rest of this year i can't take any more ads um why because you're sold out yeah pretty much because like you can't uh you know if if half your videos are ads like you're just going to

destroy your audience um and so i've noticed that with this it's it's pretty scalable like i can i like to spend a lot of time with like the people who i work with who are like touching this so that they can like figure out how I think about things and can like sort of start to do things the way that I would. Like Reese, for example, has been like a huge help with all of this. And he's been working with me for over a year now, maybe even close to two. How did you two meet?

So Reese actually sent me like a cold email. And I was like, yeah, this seems interesting. Sure. because his whole thing was like I'm just really interested in this like I'll do it for free so he didn't even get paid for like six months or whatever and then whatever

he was great and he graduated college and now it's like a full time thing and so yeah I think the goal is to like kind of like have a balance between like retaining as much quality as I can and also

like having the capability to scale because it's like how do we put out more videos? How do we put out better videos? Um, and how do we also make sure that brands feel like they're getting the proper attention from me? Because that is usually like a pretty big part of the pitch. Um, and so, yeah, I mean, I think, I think it's pretty much just about like finding good people, which I'm sure, you know, is like the toughest and one of the most important things um and then also like kind of being uh you know strict with like which brands we choose to work with um because like i think it's really tough like when when a company like

is willing to give you a bunch of money right but you don't want anything to look bad like you don't want your brand to look bad if if the company is no offense boring and you there's just no content opportunities there. Like I'm just, it doesn't make sense even to get paid. Uh, even if you're getting paid to like, take that time to make, uh, you know, videos for an account that might not really do anything. There, there is, uh, I bet you that we could make 10 times more money across all of the different, uh, advertising deals that we've done over the years. We could have made easily 10 times more money if we accepted all of the boring people, uh, the people that we thought uh were like eh not something i really want to be associated with uh either

because of the people because of the product because of the market whatever uh if you have a growing audience or a big audience i think that people underestimate how much opportunity there is but the people who stay in this game for a long time uh you have to make sure that you pick correctly right and it feels like tiktok is like that on steroids like it's the wild wild west Yeah. And, and I think like you get tested a lot, right? Like recently. What's a test that you went through? It was very recent. Okay. Don't use names.

We won't say the brand's name. But it was. I'll give you $5 if you say the name. No, I'm just kidding. Five bucks? I'll take it. See, he'll do anything for money. Yeah. It was a, it was a, like a sports betting and other types of betting thing. Okay. um and they were really really pushy about like basically like you need to encourage people in a legal way to uh start gambling and we want you to get on twitch and start streaming

your self gambling and we'll give you money for that and whatever and they offered like it was like a full year deal and it was like close to a million dollars a million dollars for a full year for you to post on tiktok and stream on twitch which by the way It is definitely, it's much, that's a much bigger, I don't want to give like the wrong impression. It's a much bigger offer than like I have ever gotten for like one single thing. So that was like testing, right?

Because it's like almost a million bucks. Like I don't have to sweat for the next year. But at the end of the day, it's just like, I think, I think it would just weigh down on my conscience too much. Because it's pulling people towards gambling. yeah i mean especially with like the way that they wanted their messaging to be was not like you know i think i think some people could maybe see it differently if it's if it's the type of thing where um you know you kind of just show yourself gambling and maybe

like an interesting clip or whatever but this was specifically like hey you know they'll they'll go ahead and uh you know double your first deposit and you know like a lot of just incentives for people to start gambling and i think especially on tiktok with like younger audiences like you don't want to plant that seed yeah i think the younger audience but also uh one of the things i've thought a lot about we've worked with some of the gambling companies before but it's always been from a perspective of like this is entertainment you should use minimal dollars right we've been approached by people uh and thankfully we're not in like sports or wherever where this is like crazy uh who are like put all of your money in and like you'll get rich right

and and i think that there is uh it's very similar in crypto as well right like if you think whether uh there is like buying bitcoin um on an exchange whether it is in your retirement account like there's all these different products now and i always remind the brands like you shouldn't tell people uh that they should or should not do something you shouldn't pass judgment on them right obviously uh you want people to use your stuff but like the message that will resonate is actually one that is rational, not one that's like super over the top. And so, and I see some people

who are like super over the top and you're just like, I got it. Like they were shopping a deal and it kind of went around and like, I'll talk to two or three friends and they're like, nah, you know, not for me, not for me. And then like, I'll see the ad somewhere

and I'll be like, oh, they found a home. Yeah. Right. And it does make you think a little bit as to like what's going on. Yeah. And I think even as far as the gambling stuff goes, you know, those companies have to do their thing, right?

Like they, they got to make ads and same with creators like they need to do that too and so I want to like follow up with my previous statement by saying like I've also done some and probably will continue to do some of those ads I think like just with those like

the messaging has to be right you know so I don't want someone to watch this podcast and see me post an ad for a company and be like you liar but I think that there is this like people talk all the time about product market fit right and you know very well understood now in the startup world

But like one of the things that we have found across – I mean I talk to a lot of people who have audiences who are kind of in this world and over and over and over again, people are like, look, if I find the right brand that aligns with me, my values, my ethics, whatever, and with my audience and what they're looking for or whatever, fill a need that they're trying to find a solution to, it's a home run. Oh, yeah. And sometimes people forget, like there's distractions, right? There's money, there's views, there's like all these different things. Sometimes it's just being associated with a certain brand, right? Some people are like, oh, that's going to be better for me or whatever. But if you can align those three things, like it ends up being a win-win for the person who's creating the content for the brand and ultimately for the audience as well.

Definitely. I mean, I think, I think I kind of like to see those, the brand relationships the same way you would see like, you know, romantic relationships, right? Like, uh, so there are, there are companies that you can work with very briefly. Uh, you know, there's some instant gratification. One night stand. Correct. Um, and so I think a lot of people are, you know, I don't think it's the worst thing in the world. I just think a lot of people are like tempted with taking those deals. Um, and then there are companies that like I've found, for example, where I'm like I will get on my knee

and ask you to marry me let's sign the biggest contract we can if you want to sign for 10 years let's do it and so yeah I think those two are strangely similar but yeah I think it is totally a home run

if you can find a brand that works perfectly I think another big thing too is like how the people are at the brand the people who you interact with are they cool? are they a pain to work with? Um, so yeah, I mean, if you can find a brand with cool people that do something that your

audience is interested in, that you're interested in, uh, and that have the budget, like, yeah, I'm laughing because, uh, I've had all the experiences. Some of them you're like amazing. Like literally you got, I'll go to bat for you all day long. Like whatever I can do to help you others. You're like, when is the contract over? Right. And what I found actually is the people in the second situation they're almost never like they don't want to be doing it either right like there's you know you mentioned earlier compliance stuff there's uh sometimes a uh executive team that's like overbearing or trying to call the shots or what like there's a bunch of reasons why stuff yeah it's dumb stuff and everyone knows it's dumb but like it's just the situation they

find themselves in um and so what i always remind them is if you're easy to work with and we understand your goals there's a whole bunch of stuff that we can do because we can see opportunistic stuff and like we used to do these live stream um kind of like one-off things right so like especially during 2020 i would just be at home and just be like you know what i got some stuff to say and i just hit you know live stream on youtube or whatever and at the end there'd be q a people ask me questions and so like if i was working with an advertiser that like i really believed in and i understood what they were trying to accomplish everything somebody asked me a question about one of our advertisers is so and so like here's why i like them blah blah whatever

like that's not part of a contract that's not anything it's just you want like you believe it's a solution for the audience right yeah 100 and i mean i do that all the time too where like if a brand is really really fair um you know they're you guys like mutually agree on you know how many posts you have to make how much money they're giving you oftentimes like i'll go out and wear, you know, some brand's hat on a podcast or like, you know, I'll mention them in a live stream or like, you know, show a little extra love on like their social media accounts or something like that.

And so, yeah, I think it's just about like trying to have like the most reasonable and like amicable relationship. Talk to me about grandma. Your grandmother is now TikTok famous, from what I understand. You showed me some of the videos and they're hilarious. Yeah. Um, so it's around a year ago now that we started. Okay. Um, my goal was to kind of figure out whether or not I had gotten lucky. Right. I kind of hit like this wall where I was

like, maybe a little bored of what I was doing. And I was like, let's do a test. So I wanted everything to be working against me. That was my goal. I didn't want to be able to like plug the page anywhere else. I didn't want to be in the videos. Um, and so I took my grandma for a few reasons. Uh, I guess a, because it's difficult cause she's no offense, no, not old. Um, and she, Hey, she looks like she's 21, but she, you know, she's a little up there. You'd never guess it. Uh, and people on Tik TOK are super young, right? So like, how do you get young people to be interested in an old person? That's probably a unique challenge on Tik TOK. Um, and so we started making these videos and I kind of like sat down one day and just obviously like knowing

and being close to her my whole life kind of wrote down like the things that, uh, I was most interested in and that I saw people who she knew were most interested in when it comes to like her personality. Um, and so like, Hey, she has great stories, right? Like she's, uh, she's an immigrant. She came here from Italy, like at 18 by herself, uh, obviously couldn't speak English. Like she's got a really interesting story so stories and her cooking so i was like what if i just combine these a little bit and so uh she'll she does these cooking videos uh and she'll just add in like little tidbits of like you know i remember back in italy we used to eat this dish because you know like i think she was talking about beans and like they couldn't afford meat so they had

beans and whatever like these heartwarming stories um that i think like a very specific niche of people can appreciate to like an extreme level because it's so rare on the internet um but it's also like something that people just generally would see and you know even if you're you don't really care about like italian culture like most people would look at that and be like oh she's cute so yeah we started that uh she was cash huh she making cash so a little uh but she probably could be doing much better i just it's a time thing yeah you know i think at this point it's more of a it's more of like a passion thing um because she also like loves it you know it's like something for her to do she probably never thought that she'd be really doing anything like i guess

this isn't like real like work for her but uh you know it's like it's something she's got to show up and she's got to like she obviously like has to be uh she has to perform on camera does she get Like, does she put like specific clothes on and like, and she's like, oh, this is my look for today. Like, do I look good? Yeah. Cause she's like, she's super old school. So she like, she wants to make sure that like, do I look good?

Is my hair right? Is my shirt good? Like she's, uh, she's really funny. I also got really lucky with her too. Cause like her, she has a great personality. So like, I don't think it would have worked with anyone. Um, but yeah, she's a great personality. Like she laughs a lot.

It's like, it's a personal thing too, because like, you know, it gets us to spend more time together uh so like it's like a bonding thing and then also i realized like obviously it'd be cool to like make her a bunch of money but i think more than anything i want to i want to like take responsibility for like making her live the best years of her life at a point in her life where most people don't right like usually uh people have their best years when they're super young so it's like who's to say that she she can't like just have a great few years yeah so like uh i guess like some of the ways that i've done that is like um we spoke about carrot before they do this whole thing where they now like get billboards in time square for like a bunch of uh creators and so i

surprised her with a billboard in time square with like a picture of the two of us which was like just the most ridiculous thing what was her reaction oh my god she was crying i swear to you for hours like these guys were here were there and like she was because it was like it was super emotional for her because like she was saying that like she she immediately thought back to like when she got here and obviously things were much different back then uh so she took a boat here and it was like whatever nine days she was by herself 18 years old when she got here it wasn't like a you know let me call my dad because her dad was already here like let me call my dad and tell him to come pick me up right like they didn't have cell phones obviously like

they didn't a lot of like small like logistical things that we wouldn't think about um so she was like you know i couldn't i remember like you know getting to the port finding my dad we walked to time square and like that was like the first thing that she did when she got here and so i remember her saying that like uh because of like some of the like adversity that she had faced like through her life she always felt like she was i guess like in a way like less than like a lot of people who had more opportunity uh because like she didn't get to go to college like she didn't get to live like the classic like nine to five life uh and so i think like that made her like especially emotional because it was like oh well in in a world where like my entire life i didn't think

that I could ever impact a lot of people or do things that you know most people can't do uh I'm doing that right and so it's like I think that kind of made her emotional to like remember going to Times Square all the way back when she came here and now to going to Times Square and like you know she's on a massive billboard yeah I mean with a million followers on TikTok do you think that you can get her to make more money in a single year now than she made in her entire life Oh yeah. Yeah. It's kind of crazy. Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. It's, it's nuts. And like I said, I haven't done that, but I should. Why not? Yeah. Like I said, it's, it's mostly like a time thing. And also it's, maybe it isn't mostly a time thing. I think it's also partially about like

doing it right as well. Like right now we're working on merch as we're like, for me, I don't think my merch would crush it yeah but with her and this is like an interesting thing like that i learned through this about like the differences between people's audiences is like she has a much more attached audience like i swear to you every time she leaves the house someone is like i need to take a picture with you no no gracie i love you she's getting stopped in the streets all the time every single like literally every time she leaves the house um and she loves it like it it's gotten to the point yeah she loves it uh it's gotten to the point where like she doesn't even mention it to me anymore like in the beginning she was like oh my god this is crazy someone

you know someone recognized me can you believe it and now she's just like she's like a celebrity of course they did she's regular to her yeah oh my god um and so yeah her audience is like super attached and a lot of them are like you know i lost my grandma like however many years or months ago and so like uh like nona gracie just really resonates with me and it like reminds me of my grandma or whatever it may be so yeah it's super cool and so like yeah we're working on merch um also looking at like some sort of avenue to like kind of monetize her recipes maybe like a cookbook or a recipe subscription or something along those lines but it's a no-brainer yeah yeah i think so too um yeah so thanks i'm inspired now i'm gonna i'm gonna make her

i'm gonna make her a million dollars what um uh what are the steps so like somebody watches this like all right cool i got it tiktok's big i should be on tiktok uh i want to build an account what would you say are like the three to five steps that somebody should do immediately to grow on TikTok um yeah okay so I guess step number one is like figure out your lane right like what are you interested in and it could be anything I think you see a lot of people who will decide things based off of like we'll decide what they're making videos about based off what they think what will what will do well um and I really think anything could do well right I think it just depends on how you present it um but there there is a market for everything i mean you know

obviously different different uh like niches are are like different sizes but like for example if you absolutely own the basket weaving niche like you could probably monetize that really heavily even if like the maximum capability for like your follower count is like 50 000 that could be like a gross underestimation so basket weaving community don't come at me but um all right so first is find your lane i think it's finding your lane making sure it's like true to you um and then from there i think uh i think consuming a lot of content at least in the beginning around the type of content that you content that you want to make is super important just to like see you know what other people are doing and how other people are doing what you want

to do well um so i think that's like the second step and then i think especially with tiktok it's just like go right like just do it um which is like i guess like very cliche to say but like the it's almost like the more planning you do like the more like like theories you come up with like maybe this will do better as where like with a tiktok video you could make one in 10 15 30 minutes max if like you're really trying to make a good video um so it's like how about you just test it you know um and so i think that's kind of what i did was like exactly those steps and like just kind of tested things until they worked um and i sort of like leaned in on the the things the topics that worked and tried to like you know uh remake them in a way and like kind of stuck with

the format and yeah, just like kept going. And then at some point, like obviously when you get to a certain amount of followers, um, brands start to reach out or you can like reach out to brands and like, they'll be interested in working with you. And then from there, I think it's important to just like continue running it as a business. Like a lot of people I think don't do that. And I think that that's probably like one of the bigger like mistakes that I see. so i want to ask you a bunch of just rapid fire questions do it uh the first is if you had to pick one tiktok account that you think absolutely crushes it but people don't really know about it what would you say oh the black rock tiktok i'm kidding i'm kidding um this episode is brought

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Well, actually, no. Okay, I do believe that, but I won't pick that because it's too corny. Okay, so this is... Can I modify the question to it should be bigger? Okay. There's a guy, his name is JT Barnett. He makes like creator economy content

and he has a bunch of followers. Like he's crushing it. But I think he should be doing better. interesting. What's one trend in this whole creator economy thing that, uh, you disagree with or you think doesn't have legs to stay? Um, have you seen that? There's a, there's a new trend where people like, I suppose like freestyle a song, like telling a random story. Have you seen this? No. There's like an instrumental that everybody uses. I'm, I forget the name of the the actual song,

but everyone basically throws on this instrumental and they'll tell a story, but pretend like they're like singing, but they're like, it's, it's always terrible. Like they're half singing and they're nothing like rhymes or goes together. It's just, it's really weird to me.

I don't know what you just described. Not only doesn't sound like it's going to last, I'm surprised it ever became a thing. Yeah. Like, yeah, it is huge. Like some of these videos have like millions of likes and I'm like,

I cannot bear to like stand more than 10 seconds of this that's crazy who do you think is the most likely person from the creator economy to go on to build massive businesses similar to a Mr. Beast but hasn't yet started like who do you think has the biggest opportunity

who hasn't yet started at all I mean I think like the Nelk boys are doing a good job with doing what Mr. Beast is doing but obviously at a smaller scale but they've already started I would just say anyone with like anyone with like an extremely because if you have a

really captivated audience I think people this is probably a longer answer than you wanted but like I think you realize at some point that instead of promoting things that are in line with my brand that are owned by other people why wouldn't I just go and own those things

right so I think anyone for example like my grandma has big potential for that right like she could theoretically like she could start like a whole merch brand surrounding like the italian culture and it could explode right like tomato sauce the whole thing yeah yeah she could yeah she could she could go into like you know consumer goods and start selling things in in grocery stores and like that would be that would be wild i think she's got potential if you had to pick youtube instagram tiktok you get to upload one video to go viral which one

has the highest probability of going TikTok. If you had to pick one of those three platforms to build an entire business around, which one would you pick? YouTube. If you had to pick one for the highest degree of creator satisfaction, which would you pick? Hmm.

I think it's a toss up between TikTok and YouTube, but I think I'll go with TikTok. Okay. You shit all over Instagram and all three of those answers and didn't pick them for anything. Why do you think Instagram maybe doesn't? keep up with the other two platforms i don't know yeah i guess i'm not the biggest fan of instagram it's just like i think tiktok and youtube are just really running it right now because all that

instagram really has going for them is like they don't even push like photos and stuff anymore you know like which is like their whole thing yeah so it's like i feel like instagram's kind of just trying to be tiktok right now yeah um but it so yes but doesn't that make it easier for the people creating content where like it used to be like long form YouTube video, photos on Instagram, TikTok video, whatever. Now it's just like 60 seconds or less vertical video put in all three platforms and like you're good.

I just think, I think long-term it's like at what point do the consumers get bored? Like if Instagram just keeps doing what they're doing and I could be wrong, this is like pure speculation, but like if they keep doing what they're doing at what point do users realize like I could just be on TikTok, you know? Like do I need all of these accounts

and things going on. I don't know. I think that at some point that could happen. When you meet somebody at a bar and they ask you what you do, what do you say? This is a funny question. I'll usually just be like, oh, I'm in social media. I think especially because as the years have gone by,

it's gotten more and more complicated, right? Like, am I the social media consultant guy? Do I make videos? Do I build brands for other people? and so like if they if they're really interested and they'll like continue the conversation i'll like explain more but it also depends on like who it is you know like is it's if it's like a random person you know like someone like a family friend's friend or something who's like 60 years old and they're like what do you do i'll be like i'm in marketing yeah just leave it at that you

know like it's not even except for your grandma yeah she knows exactly what's going on she knows She knows, yeah. Do you think that she tells her friends? Oh, she does. Yeah? Are they jealous? She loves it. No, I don't think they're jealous.

Some have offered to, like, feature in her videos because she's got, like, a whole squad of, like, old Italian women. Yeah. Oh, and they want cameos. Yeah, yeah. And so they're just like, maybe one day I'll hop in your video, you know? And she hasn't taken them up on it yet? No, I think we're totally open to it.

Like, we probably will. It would be a good idea. Her people are going to talk to their people? Maybe I can start accounts for all of them and just build this, like, army of nonas. I I'm imagining her there. Uh, my wife's grandmother, uh, or I guess great-grandmother, uh, she, um, uh, was on the news in Bulgaria because, uh, my wife was, uh, interviewed in Bulgarian media. And she mentioned her great-grandmother who of course they pulled the

photo. And so she's like calling all of her friends. And, uh, she's like, did you see the news. I was on the news, like basically talking shit and being like, you've never been on the news. I was on the news. The news cares about me. They don't care about you basically. And she's like, you know, I don't know, 92, 93 years old. She thinks she's a hundred, but she's 92. And, uh, I remember just thinking like, man, that never leaves you. Like, yeah, I don't think, I don't think Nona has gotten to the point of confidence yet where she's like necessarily flexing about it. I think it's more so just like sharing things where she's like i am shocked that this is happening you know like so call her friends and be like i was on a

billboard in time square does that make any sense to you kind of thing you know like uh like did you see the picture and it's funny because like she doesn't have a phone she's no idea how to operate oh she didn't even have a phone no no no uh so like everything basically is through me right like i'll like read her comments and whatever and so it's funny because like so like uh she'll be like can you print this picture of us so i can show my friends and i'll be like oh yeah that's right like you can't text your friends the picture because none of you have phones you know so her friends don't have phones either so they're like yeah they really are you know fax machine and printer yeah yeah and then she like show up and be like here's pictures of all the scenes of my

tiktok that went viral imagine she's got like one of those like books that you flip yeah and then she shows them like what the tiktok is no no no no she'll just like she'll ask me it's mainly just for like big things like that you know i think really it was just the time square billboard but now it's like an interesting story. So I tell it more dramatically. Um, but yeah, yeah. So either she'll like ask me to show them in person or, you know, something like that. Or like one of their like grandkids will show them. Of course. Yeah. That's, uh, I think that's what grandkids are for. It's like, Hey, look what's going on on this internet thing. And they're like, get off the internet. Don't put your credit card on there. Yeah. It's also weird. Cause I think like, uh,

some people, I think even like younger people, but you don't, the numbers behind a screen, it just seems like a game but i think in person as she started to get recognized more she starts to understand the numbers more now you know yeah i think it's true for everyone though right of just like the numbers don't seem real and at some point they do start to seem real whether it's a conversion on something that you post or whatever but like there is this like this is a game then like oh these are people that are watching uh which is kind of a weird thing when it happens definitely where can we send people

to follow you on the internet Macrocia across everything yeah well on Instagram it's like real Macrocia but I'm sure

if you just put Macrocia it'll come up are you big on Twitter no no unfortunately do you have a Twitter account I should be big on Twitter

yeah do you have a Twitter account I do have a Twitter I just don't really use it why don't you just put the videos from TikTok on Twitter does that get engagement a little alpha for you

because I use Twitter more than everything else. They are now testing like a carousel in the middle of the feed. So you start scrolling and all of a sudden it's like, trending videos. I'm like, where did this come from?

I'm confused. So they're doing something with video. I don't know if I'm in some sort of test cohort. I don't know if they've actually rolled this out to everyone or whatever. But I see the carousel there and it's already I'm like, should I be putting more video on Twitter? Are they about to go full TikTok and just boost all the videos.

I don't know. We'll see. I definitely need to start focusing on Twitter more now. I think Twitter is a space where a lot of industry people connect. Yeah, it's what LinkedIn should have been. Right, exactly.

I think especially now with Fuse and stuff, I'm definitely trying to connect with more people like that. There's nothing more powerful than a Twitter DM to somebody who's been following you for years. Yeah, definitely. I think, right?

Like email, likely going to be missed, ignored, you know, whatever. It's hard to like remember who's who, whatever. If you get a ton of emails. Instagram and TikTok are still like, okay, maybe, but like that's like for most people, it's like personal stuff. They're not doing a lot of work stuff there.

Their accounts are locked on Instagram or whatever. But Twitter is like this weird thing where it's like personal and professional. Yeah. And if you follow people, consume lots of their content, and then they DM you, you respond. Yeah. Yeah, I think, and also Twitter is interesting

because I didn't know this, but my buddy Nate mentioned to me that like Twitter has like insane organic reach. Yeah. And I never knew that. Like, I guess he was saying it's basically like TikTok with words. To a degree, yeah.

I mean, there's months, in a single month, I'm trying to think, probably the biggest month ever, uh i've never said this publicly some people are gonna freak out exclusive i think we did like 300 or 350 million impressions oh my goodness in a single month like those are tiktok numbers maybe like 180 000 followers like net new followers whoa like it's that's crazy and now that's like the absolute craziest has ever gotten and like i was tweeting a lot like you know all these things that were like kind of tailwinds for it. But yeah, I mean, it's like pretty big.

If you're like, if you're playing your A game in an industry that's hot and Twitter's like not screwing around with a bunch of bots and stuff, which they are right now. Yeah. Like, yeah. I mean, it's a platform that can go.

Is the deal with Elon going to go through? I'm 50-50. and the 50% yes is like, he wants to do it now. Well, maybe he doesn't want to do it. He's going to do it now. The 50% no is, I think there's like a little bit of an outlier chance that like the government blocks it. Like they claim that they're going to review it

or there's like rumors that they're going to do a national security review. For what? I guess, what's their fear? Well, if you're Elon Musk and you have SpaceX and Tesla, you're heavily dependent on government contracts and also like go to the extreme uh tesla is now producing cars in china he's very dependent on selling cars in china if china shows up and is like hey by the way if you want to continue to

produce your cars here like this twitter thing let me let's have a conversation about what we're going to do there uh-huh like again it's a stretch but it's not a stretch right like you can start to understand both sides of it uh and so like man what if the story was like all the nonsense all the debate all the stuff whatever and then like the government blocks it and he doesn't end up having to spend 44 billion dollars for a company that's not worth 44 billion dollars because the government blocked it yeah that would be pretty nuts the most as he says all the time like the most entertaining outcome is the most likely like joe biden saved elon musk 44 billion is not the headline that anyone is expecting but like i don't know there's a 50 50 shot of that happening yeah

I, uh, that's crazy. Huh? Like, all right, we'll end there. I appreciate you coming on. Uh, thanks so much. And, uh, we'll continue to do this and definitely have to do it again in the future as, uh, as grandma gets more famous. I appreciate it. Yeah. We'll get around here one day. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. I really hope you enjoyed this one. Make sure you're subscribed on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. And if you're looking to transition into a brand new job in the Bitcoin or crypto industry, we've got you covered. Head over to thecryptoacademy.io. My team and I have been working with the top HR teams in the industry to develop an intensive three-week training

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