The Startup Ideas Podcast - Nostalgia hacking: my favorite money-making hack of 2024

Episode Date: June 5, 2024

Join us for an engaging conversation with Jonathan Courtney, Co-Founder and CEO of AJ&Smart, as we explore a variety of startup ideas and opportunities centered around the powerful emotion of nostalgia. In this episode, we dive into the world of video games, collectibles, art, and more. Discover why nostalgia is such a potent tool for entrepreneurs and how you can leverage it to bootstrap successful businesses. We also discuss Palmer Luckey’s innovative company, Modretro, and why its product is a game-changer. Whether you're looking to start your first million-dollar business or are curious about entrepreneurial strategies, this episode is packed with actionable advice and inspiration. Don’t miss this essential guide to launching a successful startup!🚀  My FREE 5 day email course to learn how to build a business of the future using the ACP funnel:https://www.communityempire.co/free-course🎯 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.communityempire.co/📬 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 JONATHAN ON SOCIALX/Twitter: https://twitter.com/JicecreamLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-courtney-4510644b/Episode Timestamps: 00:00 Intro01:40 Visualizing Nostalgia04:54 Palmer Luckey’s Modretro (Gameboy)06:56 First business: LAN Parties20:11 Framework for applying nostalgia25:05 Second business: Millennial Retro Content Creator32:33 Third business: High-end Nostalgic Art

This will make minimum one million per year. What if we look back to the things that were popular and exciting when we were 14.5 and you try to milk the nostalgia out of those things to create new products. And I'll give you an example. I was obsessed with the video game Halo back when I was like 13, 14. And I used to do land parties a lot back then. They're some of the best memories of my entire life. And if I'm thinking, okay, so that's a memory that I had that I really,

deeply loved. But what could be something you could do? Okay, it's a comforting memory. Maybe I could start a Twitch channel where I just run land parties with like, you know, eight other people in a physical space. And you're not trying to make content that's like super educational. It's comfort noise. You're making comforting episodes that last three hours long. You're just chatting about shit. So if you can become the content creator for the new millennial retro, you're going to make yourself a millionaire. And we are back. Jonathan, Jice Cream, Courtney. That's me. That's me. It's literally you. Speaking into a metal rectangle. You said you had something to talk to me about. I did. So I sent you a text message and I said,

I saw this thing, I saw this survey, and also something else happened, and somehow it's connected in my mind, and we need to talk about it because I think your audience needs to hear about it. And then I couldn't find the survey, and then you found it. So that was the whole thing. The survey is called, or actually, well, I don't know exactly the name of the survey, but the important part of it is called nostalgia tends to peak at a single age. And nostalgia in the this case, you can see, I guess you'll see this in the video version. In the study, they asked people when, you know, when was the most moral society? When were the happiest families? When was the best music? When was the best fashion? When was the best economy? When was the best television? When was the best cuisine? And it asked people to sort of rate when these things were the best according to them. And it was like people, it asked people from like a broad range of ages. A lot of people came to the same kind of, or a lot of people's answers lined up with that basically the best stuff, the best movies, the best everything happens, happened sometimes between, sometime between when people are like

10 years old and 20 years old. So nostalgia peaks somewhere in, between 10 and 20. I think they, did they like bring it down to 14.5? So like basically somewhere between the age of 14 and 15 is where like your nostalgia absolutely peaked. What do you think about that one, Greg? So I was eating, okay, so I'm in Montreal right now and the dish here,

that people eat is Poutine, which is fries. You know it. You know it. I had it. Yeah, you know it. Yeah, you know it. And it's fries, gravy, and cheese curds. So I'm chowing down on this poutine. And my American friend who's never seen a Poutine in his life goes, why are you eating that? And I never even didn't question it. You know, I've been eating in my whole life. And he's like, you know, it's just soggy fries. So I was thinking, do I like this or do I just like it because it reminds me of my childhood? Yeah. Well, it could be a little bit of both, but it's probably more of the nostalgia element of it, I guess.

Yeah. Although it is pretty good. Yeah, it may be a bit of both. So I think that, I mean, what I want to talk about is why does this matter within the context of startup ideas? Yeah. So I think I have an idea of how to land this, although it might not work. So the reason this came back to my mind earlier and the reason why I messaged you is because today I bought a very cool thing. and because it launched today, and it's something called a mod retro,

which is Palmer Lucky's new physical product. Palmer Lucky is the guy who invented the Oculus Rift, and he also runs Andurall, which is like a defense contractor right now. And he's also really into video games. He used to be like a Game Boy modder, and he created this Mod Retro, which is like a ridiculously detailed and loving recreation of the Game Boy Color, I guess it's the Game Boy Color. I just bought the orange one if you're if you're wondering which

color I went for. And I looked at this page and I was immediately like, I need to get this. This is something I have to get. Now, I had a Game Boy Color. I think I was, I don't know actually exactly what age I was. But when I saw this and I knew I had to buy it, I started thinking back to this back to the study. And I was like, I actually have a weird thing about buying nostalgic things in general. There are things where when I see a YouTube video of it or when I see like a, for example, I just got a Game Boy DS because I remembered having it as a teenager and I was excited about it. And it's not really that I end up playing these things or even using them, but just having them gives me sort of like a comforting feeling. I can't really exactly describe it. And I started to look

around and realize that so many of the things that I buy and so many of the things that I do, I'm looking to the other side of my apartment here, and I can see a lot of radiohead vinals, and they're all of the albums that I was listening to on repeat when I was 15. I was listening to Kid A, like on repeat over and over and over. But also like the teenage engineering products that I love and I obsess about, and this is also a teenage engineering object. It's just like hyper-nostologic, hyper-nostalgia designs. And I was thinking, right?

Okay, startup ideas. We're always looking for ideas. We're always looking for new angles. What if you look at people like, okay, we're millennials. We look back to the things that were popular and exciting when we were 14.5. Hey, everyone. If you're anything like me, you've got a ton of design work that you need. Websites, landing pages, emails, social assets.

You name it, but you don't just want beautiful landing pages or beautiful websites. You want the stuff that's going to convert. You want the stuff that's going to actually drive value. That's where design scientists.com comes in. It's an agency that for one monthly price will do all your design work, all your copywork, all your engineering, and do stuff that actually scales your revenue. You don't need a designer. You need a design scientist.

Let's go. Designscientist.com. I liked it so much. I invested in the business. And you try to milk the nostalgia out of those things to create new products. And I'll give you an example of like a business that I think you could make relatively good money out of. And I want to go like hyper over the top specific here. One business could literally be looking at something.

I was obsessed with the video game Halo back when I was like, I don't know, 13, 12, 13, 14. And I used to do land parties a lot back then. This is where, for any millennials listening, you'll know what this is. You literally would like connect your Xboxes with a cable. We would all sit around in my house in Ireland and destroy the place. But we, it was like, there's some of the best memories of my entire life. And if I'm thinking, okay, so that's a memory that I had that I really deeply loved. But I don't see anyone massively taking advantage of, you know, exploiting that memory. But what could be something you could do? Okay, it's a comforting memory. Maybe I could start a Twitch channel where I just run, you know, once a week or even, you know,

once every day if you want to go hardcore. I run land parties with like, you know, eight other people in a physical space, Halo, maybe Halo 2 as well, to add in the, you know, dual wielding for any of the people who know you could hold two guns at the same time. It's pretty cool. And honestly, I honestly think just streaming something like this and then turning that into other types of content, maybe a weekly podcast talking about Halo and Halo 2. I don't know how much money you could make out of it, but if you look at something like the kind of funny games cast, which is a daily gaming podcast, more focused on the news side of things, I think you could make a fair amount of money doing advertising in a piece of media. like that, at least for a while. And then you add in the next thing. Another thing I think you could do, which would be pretty fun, is you could like create, and I heard, I was listening to my first million today, and they were talking about these speciality print magazines. And I was thinking,

like, I was one of the very few people who had a dreamcast video game console. And there was like four of us in the world. But you could definitely create something really high end for us, for people, maybe like a ridiculously nice coffee table book for all of the nostalgic video games and all of the elements of the dreamcast that would just get someone like me drooling. And yeah, I don't know, man, there's just something to this idea of looking at what was hot, what was exciting, what made you feel super cozy. And it is a comfort thing. It's not about making like an amazing new creative thing.

It's like, how do you bring back that sense of comfort to the, the millennials who just craved that sense of like, oh man, that was such a, that was such a cool thing. That was such an amazing time. You know what I mean? Am I getting this point across at all? Dude, this, this hits home. This really, really hits home to me. So, but I want to, I want to respond to your, to your idea. I'm going to respond to your idea first. Wait, what console, what kind of console boy were you when you were like 14, 15? I wasn't a console boy. I was a counterstron. I was a Counterstrike aficionado. You were a PC gamer.

I was a PC gamer and I took it really, really seriously. And that honestly was what got me onto the internet and really just like meeting people from all over the world, joining teams, competing. I competed in the World Cyber Games tournament to a worldwide tournament. Oh, the Cyber Games. The Cyber Games. So yeah, I'm a nerd. I'll say it. and it was an incredible experience.

So I think the idea of a land party is something that is extremely special, but I wouldn't go about it from a Twitch angle because there's the secondary trend around IRL happening right now. Yeah. So I think that there's an opportunity to, if So House was creating land parties, what would that look like? It's funny because I was thinking, okay, first I was thinking, yeah, but that's just a fucking creepy internet cafe. But that's the thing. Internet cafes are now really creepy and weird because like who goes into them, you know, I don't exactly know. creepy people. creepy people.

But if you were to have a place for millennial, like professional millennials to go where they could do multiplayer games that basically also the other thing is like once you turn. turn like 20, you kind of stop gaming in the way you used to when you were in a teen, you're a teenager. And also you cannot compete against people playing Counterstrike now. Like I'm 36. If I try to play any online multiplayer game, including the new Halo Infinite, I can, I can last like three seconds. But if I could go to a place, I honestly, I'm always thinking about like what are some alternative ideas to bars where you go drinking? And you know what, dude? Fuck, I also, and I've been talking to my girlfriend about this a lot. I hate going to dinner parties. I hate going to bars and just sitting around in a circle and talking to people. It's so intense. And what I used to do when I was a

teenager is we would play games together. We wouldn't sit all facing each other. We had something to do while we were kind of chatting and shooting the shit. And I think one of the things that I really miss, and I'm trying to bring it back into my like social life is just doing stuff when you're hanging out with your friends. Instead of just sitting around drinking, smoking, whatever it is, I feel like having a central activity. And if we could have a Soho house with Land Party combo, dude, I would be so in. I would be so in. Yeah. And I also think the, yeah, with the other trend around sober curious people and people becoming sober. Board games are becoming more popular.

Card games are becoming more popular. You throw in land parties there. Maybe during the day, it could be a place where you can kind of we work. Work. Maybe you can work there and be creative. But at night, that's when maybe there's just organized games. You need someone to organize it and there needs to be structure. So, for example, I saw a friend of mine actually, this is a guy, his Twitter handles Internet Vin.

He's like an entrepreneur. And I was actually surprised. He wrote playing Counterstrike tomorrow night in North York, which is in Toronto, getting two rooms for 5V5. We have eight people, but need two more. Let me know ASAP if you want in. And you're just starting to see little things like that where people are like, yeah, I do want to. a game. I do want to be in real life. So that's why I like this idea. And it's kind of, if you think about it, a lot of the most famous entrepreneurs like, okay, Palmer Lucky, also Elon, also just a lot of

people who are in startups are kind of nerds. Maybe that's also a great way to just meet other very interesting entrepreneurs. In a way, again, I cannot stress enough how much I don't like sitting at a table and facing people and having to interact with them. The only way I can do that is like and find it interesting is when we're drinking. Like when you're out at a bar and you're all sitting around a table, it's just kind of intense if you're stuck next to someone and you kind of have to talk or else you're going to be weird. But if you have something to do, I mean, I'm a nerd. I find it awkward, I think, to just sit directly across from someone and talk to them. But if you have something to do, I think you can have some pretty interesting conversations. Halo, Golden Eye, all that kind of

shit. There's something to it. I know that people have tried to open arcade bars, but I'm not talking about arcades. That's not the vibe. I'm talking about Halo. Yeah. I'm talking about couches. I'm talking about also standing sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. And I know someone's going to be listening to this and be like, but that's going to cost me $200,000 to open up a space like that. And then I'm going to be on the hook for $10,000 a month of rent. And then my answer to you, listener, is slowdown. What is the smallest version of this look like? Well, it looks like just organizing games.

It's organizing game nights. Yeah. And maybe you do game nights with entrepreneurs like Halo for entrepreneurs, Halo for designers, Halo for XYZ. And then you move on to other games. And then you could eventually charge for it. I'd love it. Honestly, if someone does this in Berlin, I'm in. Like, I'd rather be paying for this than a lot of other.

Because this goes into a bigger topic, by the way. You know this idea that when AI gets better, we're all going to have nothing to do. And actually, entertainment becomes more and more important, like filling your time with entertainment. It sounds ridiculous. I also saw this guy on Twitter. He was kind of giving this, he was doing this post. Maybe you saw it was like, since 1885, we've been living in a world of abundance. And so we don't actually need to do anything. Most of us are just making up our work. Look what we're doing right now, dude. And so entertainment becomes super, super important. And it becomes an actual important industry because we're all going to be so bored. And I think, yeah, just tapping into that nostalgia, tapping into the IRL thing.

Dude, online gaming did not kick off for me at all. The last time I really enjoyed multiplayer gaming was Halo 3 with a friend of mine, Alex, in person. I just, I'm not the multiplayer gamer, but I love gaming. I want to go hang out and play games with people. I am the multiplayer gamer. my favorite part about gaming is like what internet Vin was talking about five versus five

and like being on a team and playing in a team sport and coming up with strategies. Do you still do it? Do you still like play a lot of PC game? Not not nearly enough because I have a Mac and Counterstrike 2

which is the latest countertrike I can't play because it's on a Mac and I just can't. I don't know. I don't want to set up like a separate rig just for Counterstrike. So, you should though. I should.

Treat yourself. Yeah. It's more of just like, yeah, honestly, you're right. I should. You should just do it. Yeah.

Another, another, another Steam, I have the Steam deck here for anyone who hasn't seen it. The Steam store is also full to the brim of games that tap into, different types of nostalgia. Right now I'm playing a game called Balatro,

which is just like a, it kind of looks like solitaire, but it's kind of like a weird, haunted poker game. I'm also playing a game called Roadwarden at the moment, which again is just full on Game Boy color vibes, which is super cool, and it really appeals to me.

I think there's just this, I don't know, I also love like AAA video games, but there's something deep, there's something that like drags deep, into my soul and deep into my wallet when I see anything relating to video gaming from when I was younger. Like that mod retro, I just, I didn't even read. I was like, I need it. I need it right now. And by the way, the shipping to Europe is almost the same price as the object and I still had to have it. If they can do that to me, there's a, there's a market. The other tangential idea

I have to your insight is how do you take something like a nostalgic product, like let's say the Game Boy Color, and create high-end expensive art out of it. Oh. So that's what this is like the prompt for people listening, which is go think about what was meaningful to you as a 14-year-old because if it was meaningful to you, there's probably other people was meaningful to. It could be as silly as Poutine. It could be as fun as a dream cast and everything in between and then go think, okay, how do I create a really expensive object that's somehow a piece of art that I can sell on the internet and then

talking tactics. Then you just, you either build niche websites, get a lot of SEO traffic, and then convert them to the high-end products, or you just run pay. I know you're a big paid ads guy. I love paid ads. Yeah, you love paid ads as much as you love Halo. I shot like 30 new ads today. I saw some guy on Twitter say that meta ads. I can't remember who it was.

I should remember this stuff to get them a shout out. Actually, he did a great job. Maybe I should give him a shout out so you bring them on your pod. He is like this ads expert and he was talking about the idea that like a lot of of people who are running paid ads just don't run actually enough ads. And so the algorithm can't really tell which things are working. You know, as in the more ads you have, the more likely you are to find the winners. And then you can kind of double down on those winners. But it like takes a while to find the winners. I'm not going to go fully into that now. But I can't find it.

It was really good. I recorded loads of ads. Back to nostalgia. People are going to be, dude, you know what, people are going to get nostalgic, when the people who are 15 years old watching the ads with me and them right now in 15 years, I am going to be nostalgic to them. Oh, 100%. People who are listening to this podcast.

Yeah. And seeing us hang out at this particular time and it's going to be like 2042 and they're going to be listening and they're going to be like, oh, I remember when, you know, it was 10 p.m. Jonathan was like hanging on a couch and he was eating this USB drive. It's fully bedtime. My eight sleep is like pissed off right now that I'm not.

That I, that my eight sleep is going to be angry that I did this podcast so late. But I just had the urge to tell you about this graph. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, isn't there a quote there? You don't step into a river twice. No man steps into a river twice. Is that relating to the eight sleep kind of bursting and soaking the whole better? No, but sort of. It's related to a river. It's related to no two river changes. It's a flowing river, right? So it's changing over time. So if you step in it in 2024 and you step in it in 2025, it's a different river. It's seen different things. Is this relating to like if I hadn't do the idea, the idea would have changed tomorrow, or is this related to something nostalgia

related? Here's the quote. No man ever steps into the same river twice. That's true. River moves on. River moves on. I think I just kind of, I just don't, why are you saying this quote? Because, I don't know, man.

I don't know. But we got to leave this in. I like, leave this in. I, guys, I don't know why Greg said that. But later when I'm watching back, I'll be like, oh, yeah, like, how didn't I get that? Like, I don't know why you said that quote. Yeah, I just wanted to confuse you. I could pretend that I'd, oh, yeah, you're right, yes, twice, yes, River.

I understand, yes. Yeah. Oh, smart quote there, Greg. That is a great. It is actually, it is a great quote, like, for something. suppose, yeah. It is a really good quote because the whole point is that nothing is the same. Nothing is the same. Before we head out, nostalgia, if you wanted to create a high-end collectible company based on nostalgia, how do you come up with the idea? And actually, how do you get started? You know,

you create a landing page, you use SEO, paid ads, walk us through a bit of your framework for thinking about how to start one of these businesses. I do think that content would be the easiest way to start, and that content would probably be, you know, let's say Metal Gear Solid is probably one of those things that a lot of people in my generation were obsessed with. I remember, like, everyone looking at every detail of the trailer for MGS2,

it was one of these just obsessive things. And so what I would probably do is realistically start a YouTube channel. And I would maybe do a series on one specific game. And that series would be like breaking down what made it so special. Like I would try to recapture the excitement of looking at the trailers. And it would be almost like a little kind of, you know, low-end documentary about maybe something like Metal Gear Solid, for example. I would try to get an audience, basically. I would try to get as much of an audience as possible.

And honestly, if I'm thinking about a high-end product just in something that I would know how to create, I would probably create a coffee table book. Something like we talked about last week, this guy who does the video game magazine. What was it called? A something waste of time? I actually have it literally right behind me.

What was it called? A, A, P. Dude, I don't know. It was in the podcast last week. I know. I know exactly. I can picture the website. I don't know what it's called.

He's really leaning into this. He's interviewing video game developers who worked on games from like, you know, 10 to, dude, you know, one of the biggest reveals this week in the PlayStation event, I'm obsessed with the video game industry, by the way. One of the biggest reveals this week in the PlayStation event, one of the biggest showcases was Silent Hill 2. And so that would be an example. That's getting remade.

Like, if you played a game that really stuck with you, that you became obsessed with, that you got really into, making content about that product, and I wouldn't even sell it. Like, the high-end product probably would be a coffee table book

about like either one game, or it's about a couple of games that came out for maybe, maybe there's like a special coffee table book just for the PS1 or just for the PS2 or just for Halo. That would be probably my angle? What would yours be? Oh, I got one more. I got one more. Controllers like refurbishing controllers like PlayStation 1 controllers or Xbox controllers.

Like just making them, I don't know, making them into like some sort of, object that you can have in the house. Maybe it's just a faceplate of the controller. I don't know, something with that, you know? I would really, really niche down. So I would be like the channel for, I don't know, Mario Brothers, you know, just really, really niche, niche down and just talk about that. Video first, 100%. Yeah. Short form, probably. First. First. And then you really just need like one or two of those clips to go viral to get, you know, I was talking to a friend of mine this morning. He just had one of, he's like in the entrepreneur space and he had one of his clips get 10 or 12 million views and he got like 30,000 or 20,000 subs from it. Wow.

And so you just need like one of those to go viral and then you have your base. And then from there you can create other channels and just start. using your Mario channel to push to your Zelda channel. And I would think about what are games. I think the Silent Hill example is really smart because now all of a sudden people are like, oh, I forgot about Silent Hill. But there's a group of people who are not going to buy Silent Hill too, but who would buy Silent Hill one nostalgic items.

Right. So that's where it comes, it all comes back to searching on Reddit and seeing where there's growth areas in certain games. And picking the one strategically, I think also is something what I would be doing. So you would also sort of do a content-first approach. Yes. Content first and then just see what sort of things.

Like, I think also even something is basic. If you go to the Qajima website, Hideo-Kajima has his own company now. He's the guy who made Metal Gear Solid. and I actually buy like the shit on that website. I have his hat from the death stranding video game. I buy the key chains, all that kind of stuff. I think, but you know what I think would work best? Forget about it.

I love the big, the high end product idea. I would just advertise other people's high end nostalgic products on my super long form, three hour episode per week, conversation between me and you talking about. reminiscing about our gaming time during like the, you know, late 90s and early 2000s. Honestly. Yeah. Yeah. And you know the name of the show would be called the good old days.

The good old... Remember the good old days? I remember the good old days. I remember it. There's actually a podcast that if you guys want to check out an example of like, it's not exactly what we're talking about, but there's an element of it because it's more about the industry. It's called Game Boys to Men by Jeff Gersman.

I don't know if you can get it for free. I pay for access to it. And it's like this guy and his friend reminiscing about the games industry in the 90s. But I think there's a Game Boys to Men for millennials talking about Halo, Silent Hill 2, Metal Gear Salt. Guys, if you're listening to Greg's podcast right now, let me see if the this does something to you. You've lost your entire audience. First of all, that means quite literally nothing to me.

You don't know. If you're listening to this and you heard what I just did, you put it in the comments. We got to tell Greg what he's listening. into. Yeah. No. You don't know that one?

No, I was a Nintendo Nintendo guy and a PC gamer. Okay, let's see if you know this Nintendo one. Zelda. Ocaryna of Time, man. Yeah.

All right. Can I tell you about a business related to nostalgia that I think you're going to like? And I think it probably does at least $5 million a year. Yes. All right.

Right. It is called gridstudio.cc. Do you know about this business? I don't. I'm looking it up now. So it's brilliant. It's basically doing something similar to what I was talking about, where you take nostalgia and you make high-end art pieces of it. Although I actually don't think it's as high-end as I would do it. So what do they do? They get original parts from original Game Boys, iPhone. It's so fucking cool. I knew you'd love this.

I knew you'd love this. And they take the original parts and even like newer-ish things like the Apple Watch but first generation. And they put it in a art frame and they just kind of annotate it. And it's just a beautiful piece of art. So they'll take out a Game Boy and you can see all the inner wall. workings on a beautiful art piece. And it's just, it's a beautiful homage to the device. Dude, you know what's so weird? Remember earlier, I haven't seen this before, but remember earlier when I said I would take the faceplate off the controller? And I didn't explain what I would,

I was imagining putting it on some type of frame. But this is way cool. I wasn't thinking about this exploded view. But honestly, looking at the Xbox original Duke controller version, of this gives me that feeling of nostalgia. Oh my God, this is so cool. Do you see the SNES one? So good. The fucking Game Boy. I really, really love this.

I love this. Do you know the people who did this? I don't, but on their website, I think which is really interesting is their influencer program is like at the bottom. and I bet that a lot of their revenue comes from, I mean, if you're like a YouTuber, creator type person, like you just want to talk about this, you know? This is so cool. So that's really cool. I think they're doing really well.

And I also, I found out about them because I saw their paid ads absolutely everywhere for a long period of time. Oh, I actually need to get this purple Game Boy color with Pikachu on it for myself. Yeah, I feel like I'm going to bankrupt you. This just bankrupted you. Oh, no. Oh, no, not again. I already spent a lot of money on a Game Boy nostalgic thing today. Totally. Yeah, but dude, this is, okay, I mean, you obviously found the best example. This is amazing. That's exactly what I'm talking about. on the product level. So now that I've seen this,

I would make a YouTube channel about Halo, about that era. So I think it's probably best to choose your, when you said niche down, if I was thinking about this and I was spending a bit more time on it, I would probably choose a platform first, and that would be my first channel.

So I would choose the original Xbox just because I have somehow shit tons of nostalgia for that, even though I had the N16. I had the Dreamcast and I had the Xbox. I think the original Xbox was the most influential console to me because of Halo. And that would be the channel I would create. I would focus on the Halo games.

I'd focus on a lot of the other, I mean, there wasn't so many other amazing games that came out outside of Halo that I really loved on the Xbox. But, yeah, I would focus in on that. I talk about that a lot. and I would be an affiliate of this. I would be affiliate of Grid. What do they call Grid Studio? Yeah, horrible URL.

Grid Studio.cc. I would love to acquire this business, rebrand it, add some higher-end art pieces to it. So their stuff looks amazing. But imagine if it was in, you know, the frame to me looks kind of, IKEA cheap. But, you know, I think that there's some collectors that would spend thousands of dollars for some of these.

And if they were numbered and there was rarity associated with it, this is a mega, mega business. So I'm really interested in that. Have you seen Displate, D-I-S-P-L-A-T-E? No. So it's kind of similar. I mean, no, it's not similar to that. but it has, it would be another one of the affiliates for our new podcast. And actually, interestingly enough, coincidentally, Halo is right up front when you land on their

display.com landing page. They're, I mean, I don't know how much money they're making, but a lot of influencers talk about them. It's kind of cool. Interesting. Man, this is like, I want to shut down my business and just work on this now. that's my goal is to get people to listen to this

and stop what you're doing and go do something that you hear on this podcast yeah but the hosts aren't supposed to do it oh yeah because people need us they forget the host yeah but honestly dude listen we're not going to do it because we don't have time

because we're running you're running a lot of businesses I'm running one. Someone needs to do... I'm going to give someone the exact idea that's going to... This will make minimum one million per year. If you liked that era of video games and if you have a friend to talk about it,

or even if you don't, so if you don't use Jeff Gersman as an influence, so go to YouTube, search for Jeff Gersman. He does a one-man show every week. It's three hours long. and you talk about nostalgic, but not, the thing is, people, when they talk about nostalgic games, they go too far back, they're talking about like the original SNES. I'm talking about nostalgic or the millennials.

I honestly, I don't know if that exists yet. There's low, retro is always SNES. It's always, you know, original Sega Mega Drive. I'm talking about retro for us is Halo. It's Metal Gear Solid. It's Silent Hill 2. it's Resident Evil, Resident Evil, and it's, you know, Siphon Filter, all of this shit. So if you can become the content creator for the new millennial retro, you're going to make

yourself a millionaire. And you're not trying to make content that's like super, you're not like super educational. It's comfort noise. You're making comforting episodes that last three hours long. You're just chatting about shit. Listen to Jeff Gersman. He's a perfect example of it. It's just three hours of chatting. And he opens energy drinks and talks about them. There's just something deeply satisfying about listening to his podcast. And I think this needs to exist for the millennial retro, whatever the fuck that's called.

All right. This is big. This is a really big idea. And it's a big idea because it's a thousand ideas. It's not just one idea. It's a whole media empire run by me, even though I'm not going to do it. Yeah. Someone's got to fun your excessive, nostalgic collectibles have it?

I know. I have so much, dude. I have so much stuff. I don't use it. Turn your cost center into a profit center. Yeah. This thing is great, though. Look how cute this is.

That is cute. I love the colored buttons. Never going to use it though. So yeah, that's it. That's all I came here to say. I appreciate you having the time. Thanks for bringing this to us. And if folks liked this episode,

you have two little things you could do. One is you can subscribe on YouTube, because we're trying to grow that YouTube as much as possible. So go at Greg Eisenberg. Just go and do it. And two, comment on the YouTube. And we will be in the comments. The last episode with Jice Cream didn't get as much love as it deserved.

Yeah, we need to know if you love Jice Cream or not. Is this personal? The best episode to do. I mean, this episode's definitely the right. If you don't like this episode, you won't like the vibe. So yeah, you got to tell us if you like the vibe. And if you recognize what I was humming as well earlier. Yes, exactly.

And thank you for coming on. It's been real. I'll see you later. See you, Greg. Bye. Bye.