The Startup Ideas Podcast - I Met The Most Obsessed Man On The Internet

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

I'm joined by Zach Pogrob, entrepreneur and content creator with over 1.5M followers. We discuss how to build a loyal audience in 2024, the importance of associating your brand with a word, three business ideas you can steal, and so much more.🚀  My FREE 5 day email course to learn how to build a business of the future using the ACP funnel:https://www.communityempire.co/🎯 To build your own portfolio businesses powered by community you might enjoy my membership.You'll get my full course with all my secrets on building businesses, peer-groups to keep you accountable, business ideas every single month and more!Spots are limited. https://www.skool.com/community-empire-6150/about📬 Join my free newsletter to get weekly startup insights for free: https://www.gregisenberg.com70,000+ people are already subscribed.FIND ME ON SOCIALX/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenbergInstagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/FIND ZACH ON SOCIALX/Twitter: https://twitter.com/zachpogrobInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/zachpogrobEpisode Timestamps00:00 How to build an unforgettable brand01:47 First business idea: Suffering as a service03:05 What is the Run Cult?15:24 Second business idea: Building agencies on the back of creators22:09 Third business idea: A platform that helps creators get sponsors25:28 Golden advice for creators and entrepreneurs27:30 The importance of being authentic31:37 Long-form vs short-form video36:00 The future of online writers38:19 Be strict with your message, flexible with the medium39:52 The importance of associating your brand with a word49:10 Zach’s biggest fears55:10 Where to find ZachIf you enjoy the podcast, consider leaving a review to help others discover the show :)

I think this is the most underrated thing in the world for creators especially and anyone trying to make anything. Usually the best creators own one word or one specific phrase. Like Ryan Holiday owns stoicism. Jacco Willink, I think owns discipline. What happens is you repeat this word every single day and then people just start seeing it everywhere. Because you know what it is? When you give something a name, it gives someone like a lighthouse, right? Until then it's just like air.

But when you give someone a name, it becomes something they can go towards, something they can visualize, something they can stand by. And so there's that piece. There's like giving an actual name to your mission, your lifestyle. who you are, whatever it is. I have been looking forward to this one. The most interesting man on the internet, Zach Pogrob. And I have a confession to make. I actually was going to cancel last minute this podcast recording

because I woke up at a headache. Really wasn't feeling well. But you talk about obsession. And I've been seeing all your videos about running and just going hard and sleeping on the floor and I looked in the mirror and I slapped myself in the face and I was like, what would Zach do?

And of course, I, you know, I'm looking forward to this. I'm not going to cancel it, right? Like, I'm obsessed. I want to make this podcast amazing. I'm not going to cancel it. So what did I do? I had a couple of double espressoes, popped a couple advils, worked out, steam sauna cold plunge. and then I just sat outside a little bit, had a little breakfast for like 30 minutes and completely

changed my morning and day. And I've been feeling dope since. So you inspired me. Let's go. That is the obsessed lifestyle. It is unoptimization. It is almost embracing when you don't feel perfect. Embracing when you don't have all the stacks, all the cards stacked with you.

and using that as like motivation. It's huge. So good job, Greg. You're officially obsessed. I appreciate it. So on this podcast, we talk about different business ideas and and different niches and trends. You prepared a few, which I think are are fascinating. And I want to start with suffering as a service.

What do you mean by that? Yeah, it's funny because it's almost like SaaS. right it's like the same kind of acronym i just think normal life has gotten so soft and easy you know uber eats to your apartment go puff for deliveries um and that's why you see all these people doing you know tough modders spartan races ultra marathons people are craving that type of discomfort that actually makes them feel alive um even like these dark retreats like in the last year i don't know about you but like five people i know are like oh yeah i just sat in darkness for a week to like find myself and like you can position that however you want that is suffering

like in some way and it's like I think you can get really creative with that and I think it's a massive opportunity like you have to imagine just normal life's just going to get easier and easier right we're going to have to do less and less so people will need more things like that and so like honestly it's a big part of what I'm doing like this run cult I just started this run club it's kind of like shared suffering and I think that's why people like it can you talk about that like for for people who don't know like what is what is the run cult and why do you think it's start it's taking off sure so yeah if you if you've been on like instagram in the last year you've probably seen run clubs taking off kind of all around the country they're kind of like the new uh

they're like just this new trend that's happening in all these cities because people are getting into running and i've been doing more and more running myself getting really into it over the last year have this audience you know biggest on instagram and you know me and hunter weiss in the office we're kind of talking like you know what type of community do we want there's so many of these and honestly last the week I launched it which was like three or four weeks ago it was one of those things I didn't even decide it till the morning up I'm just like I need to do this I came up with the perfect name the night before perfect branding run cult every run club is called club cult is like one letter off and a total different like meaning so it's just like it goes from

being oh hey want to join this rub club run club to hey want to join this run cult I just love it and yeah what it is is me and like 50 people every Monday morning meet we run through the streets of Manhattan in the morning at 7 a.m. We do sprints at the end. And it's great. It was also the first time really testing, like, my audience with an in-person event. And it went really well. It's pretty cool.

Like, for me, it's not really about me. And I kind of struggle with that. We could talk about that too because I know you're a big community guy. But it was cool to, like, give people a chance to enter the world of obsession that I write about because that's kind of what it is. And it is suffering as a service in a lot of ways, right? 100%. 100%.

We do sprints. No run club does sprints. I literally make these people sprint for the first time in probably a decade. And they love it. It makes them feel alive. And that's why they keep coming back. Yeah. I've seen people talk about your run cult as sort of like a fight club 2.0.

Yeah. I mean, before I launched it, I watched Fight Club every single night, like 20 times in a row. I'm not joking. Just because I wanted like the principles and the ethos to be like in my brain. It's the same model. It's like project magic. a man in fight club if you've seen the movie it's like start this thing where people you know they have never seen the side of themselves and now people like around the country are starting run cults

kind of like what happened with fight club um i don't know it's uh it's cool and what's the business of of the cult like how do you do you plan on monetizing it yeah so i plan on monetizing what i'm doing in the running space as a whole is like very partially money driven like i want to build real companies in the space. And that is 100% a part of my vision. But I'm not thinking about that yet, really. I think there's a lot of opportunities. Like I think getting, like I said, like 50 people totally aligned on a mission wearing all black in Manhattan is special. There's a lot of different ways to monetize that. But overall, it's more just like it's a huge piece of the world, right? The world I'm trying to build. And I don't know. I think there'll be really cool opportunities

this year with that in terms of collaborations. Obviously, you could do products and merch, but I think and we can talk about this more, I think the running space as a whole is massively wide open. And so that's where I think I'll make a lot of moves over the next year or two. So if you wanted to monetize it, what sort of ideas would you have for it? Yeah, one idea would be races. I think that'd be fun. So there's one kind of organization doing this, but they just kind of suck at social media. And so do like these put on races and charge, you know, a certain amount of money.

That would be okay. I don't know if you'd make a ton of money from that. Probably make more money doing just like really great quality merch with it. Could do that. Could host events. I don't know. Like I haven't really thought about it that much. So Rafa, do you know Rafa?

The cycling apparel company. It's a bit high end. And basically the idea is you buy their merch, but they also have a yearly community. And you can pay like, I don't know what it is. I think it's like $50 a year or something. and you pay for that and you get access to their like London, New York, SF, cycling events and meetups. So it's like there's these communities, you join them and you, you know, you get to race. And obviously you're going to, you're not going to show up to a Rafa IRL meetup wearing a Nike shirt.

You're going to wear Rafa. So I think the combination of like, I could see you, just especially because of the black, by the way, I'm wearing black for you. I was wearing gray before and I was like, something's off here. I need to just throw out. It's a change real quick. That's why I was late.

And so I think that's a good, you know, the fact that I put on black right now, like if I had an obsessed sweater, I would, you know, I'd be wearing it right now. Yeah,

I, I cut out for a second. So you said that brand, it's like a clothing brand at its core, but they host, there's a type of membership where you get access to these races. Yeah, I think the, so my better answer is like, I've kind of thinking as the run cold as this,

here's how I'm thinking about the running space right now for me in terms of monetizing. It's run cold is one piece, right? There's a massive opportunity, I think, in apparel, right? Like I'm starting to do these races now and I can't find anything I like. Can't find any brands I like to wear just because of like the ethos of the branding and the styles. So there's that piece. And then the third piece is like coaching. I think one of my like most viral tweets in the last year was every guy I know who's lifted for

the last five years is getting into running now. And it is true. Every single one of them. So like there's like the runcult, the apparel and then some type of coaching branded around this coaching programs app, whatever, um, branded around this type of athlete. And that's really how I'm thinking about it is. So you've heard the term hybrid athlete, right?

Yeah. Like the Nick Baer model kind of, right? Yeah. He like made that. Explain that for people. Because not everyone knows that. Yeah. Yeah.

So Nick Bear, you know, was a savage, um, you know, he was. He was in the Army or Marines, and he did Iron Man, he did bodybuilding shows. He's run freak marathons. And he would consider himself the hybrid athlete where, you know, he competes in strength competitions and endurance competitions like running in marathons. And that's become a huge thing on social media now. People, they do both. They run and they lift.

I'm actually not interested in that at all. Like I have barely lifted in the last three months. I'm lifting a little bit, but I'm a runner. I'm a runner. That's all I care about. But I'm 200 pounds still. I'm a big boy still. relatively in the running space, especially with like the times I'm doing.

And so I think there's a massive opportunity for me to build this new category of runner where it's like 180 to 200 pounds. A lot of them lifted for most of their like young adulthood. But now they're getting into running and they need something to compete in, right? Because I think like what Spartan does and what like, have you heard of high rocks? Hirox is huge, man. Hirox is like the new crossfit for hybrid athletes basically. It's like it's been around a while, but it's really blowing up.

Like every, every, like, fitness influencer in Austin that I know is competing in this thing called high rocks. Anyway, I think there's this new opportunity to build this category for these ex lifters becoming runners to compete in doesn't really exist because these guys will never be Olympic marathoners. They'll really never get to like a 230 marathon, which is really, really, really fast. But they could still do something insane at their weight. You know what I mean? Like, I genuinely think if I keep going in two years, I'm going to be the fastest marathoner,

probably in the world between like 180 to 200 pounds maybe it's like a big goal but like i'll be up there and it would be sick if i could start this new category and like you said races things like that where it's designed for these types of people um i think that's a massive i think if you could create something that people dedicate their life towards that is unlimited monetization opportunities and and it's just sick totally and i think you're thinking about it the right way which is you're not forcing monetization. That's the mistake a lot of people make is they'll build a community. They'll build a movement and they'll start with monetization right away.

And it's just like you're building something special and it doesn't know it's a toddler. You know, it's not an adult. It doesn't know what it wants to be yet. And I think. I like that. I like that a lot. That's a good analogy. Yeah.

Well, I think it's you, you, you struck a chord, like with this pain as a service, this idea around a new category of runner, like the why now, like it's very important to ask yourself, like, why now? Like, why does this, why should this movement exist? And I think there's a lot of reasons why. And I think if I were you, I would be like, okay, how do I introduce as much pain as possible? I like that. Over the next 12 months, prove out New York City. and the truth is like new york city pretty sure new york city has like more like a bigger GDP than Canada i believe so you know if you can make it there you can make it anywhere right so there's

so much opportunity i think uh 10 plus million people um that i would just focus on pain and new york city uh it's like double down on the thing double down on the the thing the thing that people like it for yeah that's the thing we kind of debate like the cult branding because it's so like divisive like we don't get that many girls at our run cult right and some of the guys like like girls i guess and it's like but i'm like no like that's the whole magic of it it's like it is a cult it is hard it wouldn't work if you change the name so i like that i will more pain more pain to the world more pain more pain more gain no i think uh i think there's there's so many sister brother painful ideas that you could apply um i was watching this thing there's a wild thing it's called

this is especially true in like the ultra marathon game there was watching this thing if you want to google it it's a sick documentary called the barclay marathons and i don't know how much you'll see on google but it's a great documentary it's just this random dude in the middle of tennessee puts on this 100 mile race, right? And to get through it, you have, you, there's no amount. There's no route. You make your own route and you have to collect like book pages from trees. So you have to collect pages from books, tape the trees to prove you've been on it.

It's wild. So I think there's so much I could do with like, like imagine like a dark place ultramarathon series. Like I think that is going to stuff like that could be so cool. I found, uh, I Googled in. The first thing that came up was a New York Times article that said life is in fair he didn't want this race to be either. It reminded me of that, it reminded me of the thing from,

did you ever see like that haunted house, McKinsey Manor, I think it's called? It's just this dude in like New Jersey who like, people sign up to get tortured by him. And it's just a dude in like a house. Anyway, that's another weird YouTube rabbit hole.

Well, I think the trend that you're talking about, which is basically that people need to feel something. Correct. is a really important thing to note. You know, I'm in a group chat, and someone in the group chat this morning wrote, I just bought some Bitcoin and Ethereum. And then someone else wrote, why?

And then he writes, just to feel something. It's true. I mean, I feel like that's why people got so addicted to crypto. It's like that a few years ago, it was just so emotional. Yeah. So I think, like, if you can start, like if you can reverse engineer feelings like that's a good prompt for how to create and you know and you talk about this lot a movement versus you know a business yeah i like that

let's move to agencies on the back of creators what's interesting about that to you well i have one now it's pretty cool it's called vids it's mostly right now for the animations that i've done on my page kind of how I blew up my content last year. I think I gained like 2 million followers in six months from making those animations, just like crazy numbers. And when it works well, that model is sick for someone like me where you have talented operators on the back end helping build it. Right.

Like I've never built real, real businesses yet, built like small businesses. So it's like trust them. And I think creators on, it depends, right? I think creators either massively underestimate or massively overreestimate or massively overestimate the demand they have, right? And like, I think I'm, I was in like the underestimating camp, like underestimating how much I made, how many leads I drove from promoting something.

So it's like finding those creators who are underestimating it versus the overestimating, right? Because I think more and more creators would sign up for something like this. To be fair, maybe there's not that many, but that have a big enough audience. But I think there's still enough. And I think if you can package a creator's journey and obsession into a service, it can be pretty cool.

I still think it's a good opportunity. How much does it cost to work with you? Like, what is the product offering? And do you, are you running the agency? Is my other question. Am I personally? Yeah. No, no.

There's an operator. His name is Jordan running the whole thing. I'm involved still because it's still pretty new. We have a few different tiers. It's like, I think the lowest is like 3,500 up to like 7,500, and then a little more if if the package gets crazy. And yeah, it's just. like set video deliverables basically you get me involved as a creative director basically where

I'm like looking over all the design because that's what I'm obsessed with and you also get like my system for script writing because in my opinion especially on short form the also I'm not trying to sell my agency right now it's just like this okay you're explaining it's like yeah I'm really not um there's a million needed agencies go work for go choose one that you like um the scripts on these videos are everything I genuinely think it's like 90% script writing for short form and really for content in general, right? But it's, yeah, that's what it is. It's not complicated. It's just, you know, trying to do, there's a bunch of these agencies, just trying to do a good job at it. I think zero to a million dollars revenue, like it's a good cash flowing business, maybe two

million dollars. I think where these businesses get way more interesting is when they turn into some sort of software product. So I'll give you an example. Not many people know this, but who tweet, which is a social media scheduling platform. has raised hundreds of millions of dollars, multi-billion dollar valuation, actually came out of an agency called Invoke. So Invoke was a social media agency in the mid-2000s when Twitter was just first coming out.

And they realized that their clients needed tweet schedulers. So because they're working with social media, clients, they're just like, okay, let's just go build it for ourselves so we can use it with clients. And then once they got like 20 clients using it, all of a sudden they spun it out. And then it became a separate business.

They raised hundreds of millions of dollars. And sort of the rest is history. So I think with you and what you're doing, I think like at the face of it, creator agency is like, I don't know, somewhat interesting. But what's more interesting is the insights that the creator has

and the insights that the agency has so that you can productize that. Maybe it's software. Maybe it's not software. It doesn't necessarily need to be software, but some productization. and people throw around the word product-tie services, I'm not talking about a product-tie service.

I'm talking about a product-tise scalable business. So I think that's where you can take your business. Yeah, I think you're right. And I also think, yeah, you're right. Like, as a whole, the agency thing is probably overrated for most people. It's just cool for me, which is why I'm talking about it. I mean, your friend, I mean, it's because you have friends who are in that space too, right? Hunter has an agency.

That's right. Correct. Yeah. We basically all do now. Yeah, we all do basically. It's great. Yeah, you're right. It's probably as a whole super overrated for creators.

But I think it's, okay, I think it's underrated for like operators. I think it's a cool opportunity for like the operator to like start something cool. That's what I think it's more, the opportunity is better. Yeah. Start something. And I like what you're saying. And get what you're saying. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I like what you're saying. That's definitely the vision. That should be the vision. If you, uh, if you were to create software. for a video agency, like, what would you create? I mean, I've wanted to create the software since I started making these videos,

and I have some people who are trying. It's just not, doesn't exist yet. It's just like drop in a script and make an animated video. If you want to make that, you know, message me. There's like people who can do like a 10% version of it. And it's probably pretty close with the AI stuff, to be fair. That would be like that would be the answer related to those videos. Yeah, I feel like that idea is a huge idea, which is basically,

it feels like every four or six months there's like a new format for short form video like and you've been to your credit like you've been always like feels like always inventing it or popularizing it only like one or two only like one or two yeah only change the internet the history of the internet once or twice no big deal so I think that's what creators should be thinking about is like productizing that part of their brain it's just hard to It's just harder to build something like that. Oh yeah. It's way harder.

But you get better results. Yeah. And it's harder and there's less instant gratification. Like you could send out a tweet being like, hey, like you wouldn't do this, but you could send out a tweet be like, go to my landing page and book me. I've got two spots open for my video agency. And people would get that, you know, sign up in a second. And you'd make money in a second. It's way harder to like build a suite of.

software, hire like talented people, invest a bunch of money and charge $50 a month. That is way sicker though if you can do it. I agree. Yeah. So something for for folks to think about. This was an interesting idea that you have. The mid tier creators, passion fruit for but better. What did you mean by that? Have you used that platform at all? Do you know about it. Yeah, I've used the platform. I don't mean the shit on them, but it's actually great. And I've made money through the platform, but like it's kind of, it felt kind of unusable. Like I, um, it's just like, uh, what's the right word? It's like, uh, chunky. It's like hard to use quickly. Um, I feel like, so the mid tier of creators, right, these people are getting a good amount of inbound for sponsors and

collaborations, right? They're not getting, you know, $100,000 deals, but they're getting, you know, a few every week interested or a few every month. They could make, you know, a living, let's say, like a good living from sponsorships, but they have no idea what they're doing. This was basically me all last year, right? And I had to figure it all on my own. I think there's an opportunity there. I feel like now I'm kind of going beyond not to be like cocky.

I think I'm slowly getting like away from that category to where like now I'm talking with like bigger companies and bigger deals and I have people helping me. But it's like mid tier. I don't know how exactly you define it with metrics. It depends on the platform. But I like passion fruit, but better. Passion fruit, but it works. Like I think that's a massive opportunity.

Helping creators like productize and, um, not productize, but like a package with their offerings. Um, I think it's a big opportunity. I mean, a lot of people are trying to help me with it sort of. And, uh, not necessarily the creators, but the operators to like go in and build those businesses. Yeah. And there's probably this, this, here's, here's a product I would love, which is, I would

love to be a part of a group. Maybe it's less than 50 people. but a group of creators and operators, like invite only, and having like a team moderate to like connect, let's say, you know, Zach with, you know, someone from, hey, it's like, hey, let's do a partnership with Shopify. And like we did this thing for Mr. Beast. Let's so do for you, you know?

Like, where does that exist? Like, where does, you know what I mean? You're saying the operators, the operators for the brands? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't really exist. And that's like, this is what I'm saying. It should something like this should exist.

I'm kind of talking with some people who are doing something like this. It's just like, yeah, it's interesting. It's a good opportunity, I think. Yeah. If you can do it, though, you need to get connected with these people and it's hard. Yeah, it's hard. It takes time and the trust isn't necessarily there. That's why, like, I love the idea of having some person in the middle of it,

sort of like moderating it. You know, passion fruit is interesting in the sense that like it's self-serve. Anyone can go on there and you can book sponsorships. Like we use it for, we have a newsletter called You Probably Need a Robot.com and for AI productivity and people book ads and like it's awesome for us, you know, but we don't have people being like pitching us like, oh, hey, you should, you know, do merch. And you know what I mean? Like so I think having someone in between and connecting could be really interesting. So I do think that there's something on this idea. Dude, I got to ask you.

I listened to the Founders podcast. So I heard you spoke to David Senra and I want to know what he told you. Oh, yeah, this great piece of advice. He did a show in New York. It was awesome. And we hung out for a second before it. Yeah, he gave me this piece of advice that I've given to like a dozen people when they want to start something.

It's like, let's say you're a creator or you're an entrepreneur and you want to build this thing, right? You have this list of like the five things that you. should probably do. Like if you're a creator, that's like, you know, get your Beehive newsletter. It's like get a course going. Get, um, you know, get a carousel for Instagram. Like all this stuff, right, that is so like this next, the typical next steps, but usually the creators who have outlier success ignore all of those and they go do something else that's unique. So it's like, the advice from him is like, take the five things that most people would do in the situation, ignore them completely. Like,

actually write them down, ignore them completely and then go do something else more unique and better. I think that's great advice to like stand out. And it's so simple and tactical. Yeah. And I'm not surprised he has such good advice because like he literally studies the world's best people. Exactly. He's great.

Like you know the advice he gave me actually? Because we were talking about monetizing for me. The other piece of advice he gave me, which was great. When I was asking him, yeah, how should I make money from like my community? The obsession is up. He's like, just build a cult. That's what he said. And he was right.

And that's literally what I did with the running. So it's like I didn't really understand what he meant at the time. but now I do. I feel like it's so ballard just to be like, you ask a question expecting like a one-hour podcast response and he just says like several words. But you know, he's the type of guy. He's a smart dude.

He like, that was all I needed. I actually kept, that was actually the best answer. Yeah. I'm glad he didn't say anything else. Totally. Yeah. I need to understand that.

So one person that you actually surfaced to me is a guy named Sam. Sullick. And ever since I saw your tweet on him, it's just changed how I've seen the internet, basically, because I see it everywhere. Yeah, it was pretty relatively early to him. Like, I think I tweet Shout of the Mountain like summer. And now it's like you see him every day constantly. Every day. What, uh, for folks who don't know about him, maybe explain a little bit and, and tell us why you think it's interesting.

and there's a trend around it. Yeah, sure. So he's like a 20-year-old bodybuilder in Ohio, just ridiculously jacked, probably juiced up, almost definitely juiced up on steroids. And over the last year, or in 2023, he went from like zero to,

I don't know what's yet, two million subscribers on YouTube, posting a long-form video of him working out every single day. And basically the reason it's caught the internet's attention is one, obviously the growth, but two is the type of content, which is polar opposite to one,

It's polar opposite in many ways, which usually is how you get these outlier results. One is it's the opposite of all fitness content. Fitness content, bodybuilding content became all about Lamborghinis and influencers and cars. He just went the total opposite way. I'm recording on a shitty iPhone that's cracked. I don't care about clothing. I don't care about anything. I don't care about money.

I just want to lift. And then number two is compared to YouTube content, which is the Mr. Beast. This is the thumbnail, the optimization. It's just, nope. Here's me on a broke, my iPhone. to tape to a broken tripod. I'm just talking to the camera, one take, no edits, totally unedited and unoptimized. And because of that, it was exactly what people wanted. And, you know, I put out a bunch of tweets about him because he's really inspiring what I'm doing now with the video and what I'm

trying to do. And it's like, yeah, it's incredible to me what he's doing. I think, though, and I think it's he, honestly, is like part of this shift happening in content now towards that raw, authentic style. but for most people doing that will be really, really hard. It's even, it's happening on Instagram too. Like you're putting out more handwritten notes on Instagram. And I think that's resonating with people more. I put out some handwritten notes. Are you talking about like the posts with like the handwritten style?

Yes. Yeah, yeah. Even, yeah, you're right. That's kind of an example of it. It's more authentic than, you know. So for example, with those, before that, I was just doing like tweets. It would show my Twitter and it would show my text, which is what most people do. And it's insane how much better the handwriting performs.

Dude, I literally, if people aren't watching this or they're listening to it, you need to watch the YouTube. Because like, I just saw like the light bulb go off in your brain, which is like, oh my God, he's right. The handwritten thing is more amateur, you know, is the more amateur type thing. There's actually two things there. It's, it is more amateur and authentic. Also, I don't handwrite those. It's actually just like font. But anyway, it's that.

And it's also removing your tweet for Instagram. This is like a tactical thing that might be useful. I think removing your Twitter thing is so useful because Instagram posts, especially text, they get shared. They grow from people sharing it on their stories. And most people don't want to share a quote with someone's little face and Twitter at. They want to share just text.

So if you like think about that logically, it makes a lot of sense. However, it's hard because from a design perspective, they're more used to seeing Instagram. Okay, this is a whole other thing. But like the design of text posts on Instagram is super important. And it's how I've grown my stuff. And it's like you have to make something that people can recognize instantly. And you want the words to hit their brain instantly. Right.

So it's like for a tweet, they instantly know what that is and recognize it versus a handwriting post. If you choose the wrong font or the wrong style, you're fucked. And they're not going to be able to read it. They're just going to scroll. So it's like you have to make the handwriting style as easy to read as the tweet. Anyway, side tangent. No, good tangent. A lot of people listening, including me, are trying to figure out how to grow their Instagram.

I'll tell you a little something. I'm curious, your perspective. I decided this week to go rogue. And I had an agency basically running my Instagram. They would clip up this pod. Occasionally, I would do a direct-to-camera thing. And they'd post it on Instagram and on YouTube shorts. and I didn't love, how do I say this respectfully?

It was Matt, me? No, it's just, if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it obsessively in your words. That's the only way to grow on social media, I think. That's the only way to actually grow is to be completely obsessed with it. And the reason I grew to 600,000, sorry, 360,000 followers on Twitter was because I was obsessed with the content. And I shared at the time, and still to this day, I try to share a unique point of view and take people behind the scenes. And with Instagram specifically in YouTube shorts, I don't know. And it's just being honest with yourself. I don't know at this

point how to use that short form, like cut up long form to make it work on short form. Like to me, I just, I felt like that was a moment in time. I don't know. What are your thoughts like if you were me do you think it's a mistake that i you know i'm not doing clips short form clips so you're not going to do any or you're saying you're going to do a different i'm just i'm going to double down on long form that's basically what i'm saying i'm doubling down on i think i think that's smart that's kind of what i'm trying to do now right i'm trying to take my instagram audience to youtube um i i don't think that's wrong i think it's hard to do what you were saying which is like take a long form piece of content like a podcast and put it into a real it's hard

Like you're going to post 100 clips and maybe one goes viral and the others just get ignored because people are tired of seeing podcast clips in their feed. Yeah. Right. They are. So it's like I think the better way to do is just like figure out content specific, right? Like Twitter, you were just making tweets and that's why they did good. And so yeah, I don't know. I'm a big fan like for Instagram.

Like the way I view my stuff, I want to have like the pretty highly produced like edits of me like running or the animations. And then on the other side, almost 50-50 have just me talking to the camera. no editing, right? I think that's a good way to do it. But, no, I think you have the right mentality. Longform is, I mean, look, I'm, I'm in a unique situation. I only made short form content, really written content for like four years and then started doing video.

And then after like a month of doing video, my life has completely changed. So like, you know, I'm all in on the long form stuff. Yeah. I like long form too. I've also just noticed the people that listen or watch to watch long form are high quality people. On high quality, like connection with you too. It's like, completely different.

Completely different. Like such a, it's so, like so many people reach out, watch YouTube or listen to the podcast and I just want more of those people. The way I've been explaining the people what I'm going through and I think you understand this too. It's like your short form stuff builds trust, especially when you do it for years, right? You get a lot of trust by posting every day and showing up. But once you take that to a long form medium, you get the connection.

And the connection stacks on. on top of that trust and it is absolutely insane right so yeah I'm with you yeah awareness and affinity that's what that's how I describe it short form is great for awareness and affinity is uh is what what you call it like the connection and and yeah like an analogy i used the other week sorry interrupts you is like short form is like short form is like passing someone on the street maybe say hi for a second but it's a short interaction and long form is like sitting down with them for dinner it's like oh you're really getting to know them now um Dylan Dylan even had a better analogy with that he's like Dylan Jarden he's like yeah short form is you know on the street you don't choose it it just happens

to you kind of like short form scrolling on a feed but long form you're choosing to meet someone you're clicking on a video it's totally different yeah super intentional and um so i think prediction more more creators go long form is that is that what you're thinking creators and especially writers right like i think um like i think danny miranda put out this tweet how all these writers are now doing video including myself yeah i think like the i wrote wrote how the other i think the online writer staple like that's like kind of a meme now kind of like uh on twitter i think it's so overdone and overrated for almost everybody and like you can't make any money with it and you can't build a real brand and you can't build a real trust with your audience unless you're this super unicorn

which is like five people and instead i think i mean it depends what you want to do but like well explain that a bit i'm curious like what do you mean by that why can't online writers do well on the internet monetize well on the internet i guess they can i just think it's hard i think it's hard and i think i don't think people are good enough writers i don't think most people are interesting enough like i said i think for the unicorns you can but like look at even someone like dan co right dan co has monetized pretty well but i think a large piece of that is from his videos he's crushing on youtube and that's why people connect with him. Right?

It's like he, I wouldn't even call him an online writer. He's a kind of a, he's a writer and a YouTuber, right? He sells writing courses, but he's basically a YouTuber. It's like, so that's what I mean.

It's like, there is like the Tim Urban's of the world and the James Clears of the world, but outside of them, there's, think about the ones who build real businesses off just their writing. Sure,

there are some newsletter guys like, that I'm ignoring for sure. But like for the kids starting up, even me who has fucking like two million followers from writing. I don't really. I have followers that I, Most of my followers came from taking my writing and putting it into videos.

Right. So even though that's why I have this thing, I repeat over and over to people, it's like strict with the message, flexible with the medium. It's like I just want to, this is me though. I don't want to just be a writer. That's why I'm out here running marathons. Like I want to be, I want to do more than one thing. I want to build brands. I want to do that stuff.

And for me to do that, I think I have to build my world of obsession into every single medium. And so it's like take the core that works, the writing and put it into these new packages. I don't know. For me, that's really exciting. And I think that that's how I'm going to do everything. Yeah. So like I said, it depends on your goals. But I just think for most people, it's overrated. I guess my realization with all this is doing multiple formats at the same time is very, very difficult. So the reason. You have to learn one first kind of. You have to like really get one first. Yeah. Yeah. It's one at a time. Like my mistake was I did I was like, oh, I'm an online writer. I write on Twitter and I have a newsletter.

I could easily do podcast, short form, long form, like a bunch of other platforms, you know, TikTok, Instagram, shorts at the same time. And it took some awareness to basically be like, no, like that. That's actually a bad idea. Like go what, like, and I love that. Flexible with the format. Is that what you said? Flexible with the format.

Well, yeah, that's what I did last year to make it super tactical. Last year I didn't have those videos. right, the animated videos that got hundreds of millions of views. And I didn't have obsession as a brand. So at the same time, I basically was like, all right, I'm going to commit to this one message, but I'm going to be super flexible with the medium that I use to get the message in front of more people. And that is like a thing that I don't think anyone does.

And if you, most people don't do either. But when you do both, what it got me is a ton of new fans and a ton of actual true fans who will, you know, put obsession in their bio and come to my runcult. It's like, that's like one of my favorite ideas I came up with that, like, straight. with the message, flexible with the medium. And you've talked to me about, I remember when we met in New York last year, about the importance of owning a word. Can you talk more about that?

Yeah, I think this is the most underrated thing in the world for creators especially and anyone trying to make anything. It's like the best people are constantly owning, well, usually the best creators own one word or one specific phrase, right? Like Ryan Holiday owns stoicism. Jacko Willink, I think, owns discipline or maybe leadership also. He might own both of those. I think it's an extremely powerful way to build a brand because what happens is you repeat this word every single day.

And then people just start seeing it everywhere. That's like a scientific phrase for that. And especially on like Twitter, it's an powerful, it's a very powerful brainwashing platform. Like that's all I'm doing every day is like brainwashing people to believe in obsession. and I think it's working. You can do it tastefully, though, where like, I don't know, you still follow me, right? Like, I'm not that annoying.

Like, it's like, you can do it without being annoying. And I just think it's, because you know what it is? When you give something a name, it gives someone like a lighthouse, right? Until then, it's just like air. But when you give someone a name, it becomes something they can go towards,

something they can visualize, something they could stand by, something they could put in their bio like mine. And so there's that piece. There's like giving an actual name, name to your mission, your lifestyle, who you are, whatever it is. And then there's also like, I think you should be trying to name everything you do, right? Like the names are like the nodes that let people share your ideas.

Without that, how do your ideas get shared? It's basically impossible. You're pretty good at this. You're actually really good at it. You're always coming up with shit. Like, what is it? Like, multi-preneur. You're great at naming.

And so it's like, you get it. But a lot of people don't get this. And the challenge is it's very, I think very, very, very hard. And it takes a long time. Yeah. How do you come up with the name? A good one. You have to put out a ridiculous amount of stuff and wait until it's completely obvious.

That's the only answer, I think. You have to wait until it's obvious in that other people love it, you love it, and no one else owns it. And then there's also the thin line of you want a name that is unique that you can still own it. But rare enough that, sorry, unique enough that you can own it, but common enough that it's still in culture, right? Like obsession is all over culture. It's behind all these guys like Kobe and. all these people. So it's like that balance.

So it's those three things. You love it. They love it. And no one else has it. Super hard. But when I felt it, it was obvious. I started like the obsession movement after a run.

It just hit me like, oh my God, this is obvious. I need to tweet this. Like who is obsessed? Put a black flag. If you're obsessed, put a black flag in your bio. And across Twitter and Instagram like thousands of people did it.

I didn't plan that. There was no planning. Yeah, I had like, I had follow obsession in my bio for like a year. So it was like, it was ruminating. But it was just boom.

obvious and did it and it was a good choice. So that's what I'd say. It's like start paying attention to the, I just said it, like those three things. So it's so important. And that's why I think you're going to, I believe my prediction, Zach, you're going to be a household name in 10 years because. 10 years. That's a good time on.

10 years. Like you can beat. I want to do it. Is that your goal too? Something like that? I don't know. I, I think that. We're talking about you right now.

You know, I think that I just. We can race. Let's race until we're on Oprah. Okay. Is that the bar? I just, I think that when you pick a category of one and you name the category, which is what you're doing, and you consistently know how to leverage social platforms to create progress and you show up every day,

as long as you're healthy, I just don't see how you don't. make obsession every obsessed person's, like, mission, and they're going to want to play it. I saw a really good tweet by Pascal De Silva, and he said, we need more Walt Disney's, less Elon Musk's. Who is that? Who tweeted that? Pascal De Silva. Who is that? Yeah.

That's a good tweet. It's a good tweet. It's a good tweet. It's not trying to go. Yeah. I think it only got like a. a few like check it out you know check it out yeah because i mean that's exactly what i'm trying to do like at the core of i've everyone seen the disney map if you're listening to this probably with all

the different connected parts of their business at the core was just like what was it like animation films right and at the core of mine is world words about obsession it's what i've done literally since day one and we'll never stop doing and as long as i do that right it will feed everything um i love that yeah i love that yeah i mean i think that's the thing it's like when you stick to this one word, it compounds in the most insane way, right? Because people instantly understand you who you've never met. And so they can explain you really easily. And that creates all these opportunities that happen behind you that you never see. It's like, oh, this is Zach. He's obsession. He's just trying to build the world of obsession. Everyone gets it instantly. And I've only been doing that

for like really a year. So like imagine five years. Imagine 10. It's a cool. It compounds. It compounds quick. You're right. The word of mouth on owning a word is. is massive. It's especially massive when you live in New York City and you're connected with other people who are connected. A lot of people say like, oh, okay, I'll just put it out there. I mostly work remote, but I think that if I lived in New York City or I live in San Francisco, you know, my movements would probably go quicker. And also, I should say that your friend group is an obsessed friend group from what I, from what I've seen, Dylan, Henry. Yeah, like all those guys, right?

Yeah, we basically live in the office. It's great. Yeah. I mean, you live the lifestyle. I think that if you're going to own a word, whatever word you're going to own, you need to live that lifestyle. Yeah, I mean, that's the most important part.

Like, I have this like path of obsession I've written about a little bit. It's like the seven steps that these guys like Arnold, Disney, they all go on. And I'm very much living it. I'm like almost halfway on it. And I have to. That's the only way it works. But the way this really works is this is actually important on owning a name. The reason it's actually so important is it lets you build something bigger than you,

which is why people get followed in the first place. It's because they're doing something bigger than themselves. No one wants to hear people preach. No one wants to hear people who make it all about them. Like I made this 20 tweet the other day. I was running and this girl stopped me on the street and she just screams at me, obsessed and keeps walking. And I said, I wonder if that girl even knows who I am.

I wonder if she even knows my name or if she just knows obsession. I bet you there's a good chance she doesn't even know my name. She just remembers follow. me and seeing like obsession this, obsession that. Think about that, right? Think about that. That is, I also, I don't get recognized that much. So like, that was crazy. And it's a perfect example. It's like, it gives you this thing to build that's not you anymore. It doesn't even have to be a brand. Like I don't monetize obsession really yet, not not really. So it's like, that is a super important, but like subtle, but really important piece to it. Yeah, it's mind

share. You're owning, you're owning the mindchair of obsession. It's worth a lot of money. Who else out there owns a word or owns a movement that you look up to? Just curious. It's tough. Like the ones I said before, big examples, Ryan Holiday. Jocko is kind of like my role model for how he built his businesses.

Just a quick mention. Like he crushed the art and he crushed the business. One guy on Twitter is great. This guy, Colty bra, you ever see him? No. Colton, he's great. He's like one of these Twitter guys.

like OG like money Twitter. I think, I think he is. He might not like me calling him that. But to me he kind of owns the word like misfit. Kind of talks about like all these boxers like eating like shit before their fights and still crushing it. Like I love that.

To me he kind of owns the word misfit. I don't know. Let me think who comes to my brain quickly. Okay. I think of cold tubs. I think of that guy on Instagram who does it every day and like smash the thing with a dumbbell. I think of him.

He's kind of owning cold tubs to me. I think of, I think of wealth. I think of Sahel. I think he's trying to own that word. That might just be from him, like, texting me that. But I think he's doing a good job there. Like, I don't know.

That's Sahel Bloom for people. Yeah, he's. First name basis, yeah. We're on the first name basis. Yeah, exactly. There's two types of people in this world. There's people who call Mr. Beast, Mr. Beast. And there's people who call Mr. Beast Jimmy.

Which one are you, listener? Exactly. That's one. Yeah. I want to end with this, and I want you to be real with me. What's keeping you up at night? What are you fearful of and try to be as honest as you can? So, okay, what am I fearful of?

That's like the real question, right? Yes. Because I'll give you a second to think about it. Like from the outside, and I love following you, from the outside, it looks like this guy has everything together. He's doing all the right things. He's building up these assets. He's building a category of one.

he's in this cool friend group you know he's living in new york city he's at the center of it but what's really keeping you up at night what do you fear um it's definitely not that does it look like that i guess it kind of looks like that i've tried to be more open with how like reckless my life is though like i did like sleep in the office for like two weeks um because i had to and uh what's actually keeping me up at night is youtube because i'm not sleeping that much because of it getting better now though that was like a rough two weeks the fear for me is two things i think it's one i choose the wrong opportunities to build first, right? Because like now it's basically like, all right, what do I build first?

That's really like the question. It's I choose the wrong opportunities and it messes up like what I'm building. That scares me. I don't know. Number two is I guess I burn out because like I genuinely unlocked like a new part of myself like about four weeks ago, five weeks ago for a lot of reasons. And one was like starting the daily videos. Just like committing to something extreme like that was like exactly what I needed.

Like unlocked like a new part of me. So I think the fear is a fear of like burning out. It's like I can't keep going. But I don't think that will happen. I feel like that's like, this is not obsession. You don't burn out. I don't know. It's just me being honest.

I'm afraid of getting hurt. If I get hurt, I can't really do the running thing, which is going to be like, that's like a massive part of like everything I want to build over the next five, 10 years. That will be hard. It's really like the first thing I think is the biggest worry right now.

I'm still trying to figure it out. Like I need to make more money to like build, make the stuff I want to make. It's like that simple. Like I want to hire a videographer right now. A videographer is not free. So like I have to go get that money. somewhere. It's like, how do I go get that money? It's like doing the right things because I think

I said yes to opportunities last year, right? Especially in terms of like brand sponsorships that really put me back in terms of like I had this compounding thing going right with my content and it just like just like stop me. And so yeah, that's the fear I think. On the money piece, I once heard this concept called mailbox money that I like using, which is how do you have a project or a set of projects that every single you know every day every week every couple weeks you just have your bills paid for so that you can do the the thing that you really want to be doing it hits the mailbox every single day every single week i love that i didn't i never had that really i have that with the agency now that's kind of like why i want to start it yeah so i think yeah i think you're going to start just i think you're starting to see a lot more people interested in cash flow portfolio of cash filling businesses because AI is definitely going to, if it speeds up software creation, which it is, I think there's tons of opportunity to create mailbox money projects. And that's like case in point.

Who owns the term mailbox money, right? I never heard the term. It's so great, though. That should be a book 100%. That should be a book on building those. You should build it maybe. It's like you should make it. That should totally be a book or a course.

You should go take that. Did you come up with that? Someone once told me it. All right. Well, forget them. It's your time now. The person that told me it, I'll give credit, is the actually co-founder of Hootweet, Dari Ameli. He was the one.

He was like, I was telling him about a project that was involved in and how it was just like paying me monthly and kind of like covering my bills. And he was like, oh, you're talking about mailbox money? I was like, what are you talking about? Mailbox money. I was like, no, no, no. It's like, it's like this like project. And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it covers your bills. You don't have to worry about, you know, your bills.

Yeah, it's amazing. I never really had that in my life. I always sold, like, my first business was like, oh, basically a service. People only book once, which is like kind of the worst type of service. Mailbox money is the goal. My box money is sick. Yeah. And I think for a lot of folks, their full-time job is their mailbox money.

True. And the problem is it's difficult. I don't know about you, but it was hard for me. Like I had a job You know when I've had jobs in my life It was hard for me to like Create projects on top of it Like if I'm working

Like I obsess like you and I If I'm if I'm working on something I'm all in so it's hard to like do a lot of side projects So I think that's the Tough part about having a job Yeah I never had a job But probably because I'm obsessed I would rather just have like no money

And like not sleep and have a job but yeah i don't know that's just me not saying i recommend it people who have jobs mailbox money is possible but difficult um and i think 2024 year of mailbox money um Zach thank you for taking the time for coming on the show thank you that was fun we ripped some some good ideas in there hopefully maybe yeah absolutely i think you know people let us know post in the in the youtube comments if you if you liked any of the ideas or if you have any ideas for one words that you want to own and where could people get to know you a little bit more best place you get to know me is my youtube just Zach Pogrob you could probably find it by searching that and uh that's you know

I'm doing a video every single day this year trying to make them all long form they mostly have been like over like 10 minutes um but my biggest platform is Instagram pretty active on stories there lately Zach Pogrob. And Twitter, Twitter is like my favorite platform though for like, you know, the cult I'm trying to build and like, just like, like I said,

brainwashing like nonstop. If you follow my Twitter, it's very low chance you won't get obsessed. So take that as a warning. But yeah. I think everyone should go follow the, follow you there. Not just to be interested in,

in the great content you're putting up, but also like to me, you're building like the blueprint for how so many brands are going to be created in the future and how so many, I think there's going to be like a Zach Pogrob for X. It's worth studying. It is funny. Like no creators, not to start interrupt you. Like very few people are doing the name thing. And I just think it's so important. Totally. It blows me, blows me way. You do it. You're like one of the only ones. Um, because I love names. I love names. It's the best. Dude, coming up with names is the best fucking game

ever. And only people who do it understand it. But it is an infinite game. It never ends. and it is so hard. Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely underrated. A good name is totally underrated. And I tweeted this recently, which is premium domains are actually underrated, in my opinion.

I think so too. Yeah. We didn't need to buy multipreneurship.com, but we did because it was just like. It's just sick. It makes your brand look sick. It's like, yeah. Yeah, I don't know.

I'm a fan. And the other thing about premium domains, quick, quick tactical thing for folks is that you can lease them a lot of them so you know if you find a domain that you really like and you're like I don't want to I can afford $50,000 for this domain a lot of them you can go and offer them hey I can pay you $2,000 a month or $1,500 a month so I've heard of that that's smart yeah yeah all right man I'll catch you I'll catch you in New York let's go stay obsessed