Happy Dad sold hundreds of millions of cans — John Shahidi on building creator brands at scale

you kick us off with an introduction? Uh tell everyone who you are. Yeah. Um well, it's good to meet everybody. Yeah. And uh yeah, I'm John Shahiti. I created uh the Shots Podcast Network, which is a podcast network uh that hosts a number of different podcasts. Then we also incubate and create different brands.

Full send brand, Happy Dad brand, Ranger Cut Jerky. Um, and I think our business model really now moving forward is just to, you know, create brands and treat brands like we treat creators. So, what's the methodology for deciding what categories are are ripe for a new brand?

I think you got to look at I have a lot of thoughts on that. Actually, I talked to a guy who said he literally walks through he's more of a scientist.

doesn't doesn't do any creator partnerships, but he will walk through the grocery store and just look at the aisle and be like, "Okay, this aisle is dominated by Unilever and PNG. I don't want to play in it.

" But when he finds a spot, he found the popcorn aisle, which is there's a little section of the grocery store popcorn. And Orville Redenbacher is the only player. It's like a 200-y old company. I'm coming.

I'm coming for their lunch because he knows that they're going to be a little bit sleepier and he's gonna be able to play in that category. and he launched a product and got it to like I think like 10 million AR did pretty well. Um but anyway, how do you think about um like whites space in brands?

I think you could also um go after the big boys. I mean we did that with Happy Dad. That's right. You know, like we went after Whiteclaw High Noon, right? Whiteclaw Highoon. The big beer companies who still to this day haven't been able to figure it out. The Buds and Coronas. Yeah. What?

Give people a sense of the It's funny because I think people see Happy Dad everywhere but maybe don't have a sense of like the scale and and kind of the velocity even. Yeah. Um I'll get into that. I want to just answer this one real quick.

So I think the big thing you have to do is look at a category that could use disruption.

Um, you know, with Happy Dad, you know, we looked at, you know, back in 2021, um, people wanted better for you drinks, but most of the better for you drinks that were coming out like the White Claws are truly were really catering towards women.

So, it wasn't necessarily cool to drink a hard seltzer if you were at a party or um whatnot. So, we said, "All right, so how do we go after this category, but bring a different demographic into the category?

" And I think that's where you could also going back to what we were just talking about was, you know, even getting into these other spaces, whether it's popcorn, pizza, how do you bring a new uh customer into that category, which is what we did with Happy Dad.

We partnered with Neelk, and we said, "All right, now how do we make this cool amongst men? " The branding of it um you know, the liquid in it is, you know, one gram of sugar, 100 calories a can. It's a selzer. It's a selzer.

But then when you look at the happy dad can, which I'm surprised you guys don't have here, you have every single brand in that fridge. We have my boyfriend. We we actually don't we don't we don't drink no alcohol in the champagne infrequently, but uh if you guys This is light alcohol. We could send some here. Okay.

Some I'm sure the boys would take you up on a Friday. On a Friday afternoon. Um yeah, not a Monday 12:00 p. m. right now. No, a little bit early. I don't know. Um but yeah, I think that's what we did.

We should all right how do we uh how do we look at this seltzer category and how do we bring males into it uh the branding of the product looks like a beer feels like a beer it's in in regular 12 ounce can um you know doing these tours amongst you know um different bar towns or even you know different colleges and just catering towards the male audience.

So I think you could get into these different businesses if you could bring a different profile uh person into that category whether you want to go against unilver or Nestle's or in our case you know Kors and Annheiser Bush and Constellation Brands or Boston Beer.

So talk about um I think it it's a lot of people that have like a creator audience will think okay I have a bunch of people that watch my content online. I'm gonna create a product that I can sell to them via e-commerce.

That seems like it hasn't really been the approach to date for shots and full send and nealk retail first basically. Um, you know, have to do with alcohol though, right? Well, alcohol. Yeah, alcohol.

But, but I mean, in general, like a lot of people would say, okay, Nelk should launch a product that they can sell online to as many people as possible. And going retail first is just a lot harder. These all live. Yeah, these are these are Oh, yeah.

Shout out says, "Bro, this guy is one of the most legendary managers of all Discord. " What is this? It's all We get all the all the chats into one reream. YouTube's the primary place. Okay, cool. You can say what up to them. Um, so yeah, happy that we can't sell online, uh, unfortunately.

I mean, through third parties, but even if you could sell online, it'd mainly be marketing because selling liquid online is not super profitable. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's something we talk about too.

Um, you know, we've looked into getting to other categories of beverages and yeah, selling, you know, energy drinks or water, it's very expensive. You know, even you look at like Amazon and all the different um, you know, Amazon fulfillment center fees and all that stuff, it gets pretty pricey.

But um yeah, I think um the the one thing I do you I don't want to say with Happy Dad, you know, the the the challenge has been my expertise has been online marketing my whole life. You know, marketing a YouTube channel, a YouTube video, a Spotify link, Instagram, Snapchat.

Um the challenge with Happy Dad has been we can't do that. Um because you know I mean you could buy it on go off or Instacart third parties but um yeah there's no Shopify there's no Amazon store um but it's also um and I got this bit of advice from Dana White when we first launched the product.

He said you know with Happy Dad there's a uh multi-tier system where you have to use a third party distributor to distribute the product. Um, he said that distributor, you know, this is back in 2021. He told me that distributor is going to want to own the relationships with all the retailers.

He said, "I'm going to give you and your brother Sam a bit of advice. Don't let any third party own that relationship. Treat these retailers like you've treated these platforms. " So, like we have like the best relationships with YouTube and Snap and Meta and Spotify, Apple, you know, all the different platforms.

Um, he said, "Treat Walmart like you treat YouTube. Treat Kroger's like you treat Meta. Treat 7-Eleven.

So even if you're selling through the distributor, you're still building a relationship with the end retailer and like spending time with them and and you're not you don't care that at the end of the day when they're signing a purchase order. Yeah. Well, then we tell the distributor like here we actually did the work.

We we the K guys, we spent the weekend with them. Great guys. They're in. They want to bring all these different SKs into your store. Here you go. They're like, well, you know, we know people. No, no, no. It's a done deal. like you just deliver for us, please.

H how do you think about the you're familiar with the term Nimell, right? Niche internet micro celebrity. This idea that you can be running a profitable business full-time, like have a you know the thousand true fans, have a business, but not be so broad that you're like a Tom Cruz level celebrity.

And there's been this like trend of like smaller and smaller niche. Like I know someone who has I think they have a million followers on YouTube.

I can't even remember his name because he's so like niche just and all he does is talk about notion using notion to manage your life and he sells notion templates and he makes a fortune and I'm wondering about how you think about um like the smallest brand opportunity whether you think like you have to be able to go national at some point or there's like room for uh smaller more niche creators to still create some sort of brand that breaks through or like what the tradeoffs might be for a creator that has a really really dedicated audience of like 50,000 people.

So, you're never going to be in Kroger with that product and really and or they're not going to really bootstrap Kroger. Yeah. Unless unless your audience is like, you know, VP at unless you're like the the vice president of purchasing podcast or something like that.

Well, I think um you know, I always say I mean Neelk was very niche at the time, right? I mean they've obviously become more of a household name since 201 just like in that college demo. Yeah.

I mean they were most people when we launched Happy Dad we said hey we partnered with the Milk Boys and we're launching a Seltzer and I would say uh nine out of 10 maybe 10 out of 10 retailers say who the hell's Nelk you know um you know so that that was you know they were niche.

I think my thing is I I I don't ever look at the size of the creator whether it's someone as small as what you were referring to or Taylor Swift. Um, you know, um, if the product is great, it'll sell itself. I I've always said this is a fan of any creator, influencer, celebrity will try anything once.

Now, the question is, will they buy it again? They will buy they will try it once. Yeah. Um, no matter what it is, you know, there's celebrities that have launched ice creams and they've come and gone.

the biggest celebrity, I don't want to say their names, but you know, the biggest celebrities have launched ice creams and um you know, yeah, a recent celebrity brand that didn't work was Tra, it was Travis Scott's salt company, right? Launch the whole time.

We did and and I think that uh you would think that Travis is enough of a superstar that anything he did and put his brand behind would would at least get to like Did you pull like a million people into Fortnite to watch him play? Like he is massive.

that that might make it hard to sell alcohol pulling uh but anyways being you know h being a global superstar and launching a product does not guarantee success and I think what you're saying is like the actual quality of the product matters a ton. Yeah.

I mean I always look so Travis Scott's seltzer didn't do good but like his collabs with Nike are fire you know I mean people go crazy. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like you know and and that's the thing Travis Scott is not going to stop but yeah I mean the Seltza is a good example. It launched literally the same time.

I think it launched a month before us. Really? Um Yeah. So, and just wildly different trajectory. It just it wasn't it wasn't good, you know. Um it it wasn't good. He had the right idea of bringing a new demo into the category. Like he was going like the branding was cool. Like I remember it was coming out.

We were ready to go. We're like, "Shit, we're okay. This is toast. " You know, like head against. Yeah. I remember I was like this that's a wrap on us. But, you know, but the the but then then we tr then it wasn't it had just come out and we tried one. We're like never mind. We're going to win.

You know, that's all we had to do is try it. What do you think about taste? Not just literal taste of the beverage or the product, but just taste broadly. Is that something that a creator can actually bootstrap or do they just have it? Do they have to have it innately?

I feel like I've run into creators that have had in incredible audiences and they've even kind of picked the right category, but I taste their product and I'm just like, "This doesn't taste good. " Like, you just didn't nail it.

And maybe it tastes good to you, but it doesn't taste good to enough people that I think people will stick around and this will actually have, you know, exponential takeoff. Um, is that something creators can just like brute force or do you think that they need to partner with someone?

need right they need to find the right partner that uh that has the expertise that that's not going to settle that's not going to be excited about the creator not going to say like you know what you're so and so like whatever you throw your name on it's going to work you know like they're excited there's there's been people I've seen in the world of different people I've worked with they just get excited and they're so excited and and sometimes they get celebrity excited where like they're just like you know like I'm so excited to be in the room with them I don't want to piss them off.

I just want to go and I want to go tell my friends that I'm partner, you know, I'm partners with this person and um you know, and that's always the the the the kiss of death is when you don't have the right partner who doesn't want to be honest with you and just more excited to have your name and go be able to tell some people that they're in partnership with you.

Do you think there's any I don't know if it's a risk to your business or just like like potential future where uh one of the major companies like AB invees out that they could potentially go to the next generation of incredibly high growth creators and say look normally we would just buy ads from you and but that doesn't give you any economic upside.

So instead let's do a joint venture. Let's make it 5050. We will handle all the logistics, all the capital. So instead of just raising 20 20% dilution from a VC, you're also getting our supply chain. You're also getting our distribution, but you're going to be the face of this brand.

And instead of just uh oh, you're in a Super Bowl ad, here's a million- dollar check. You get real upside in the performance of this and then maybe we spin this out, maybe we buy the whole thing at some point, but they're just getting in much earlier to a more complete extent.

Do you think that that's that that's a model that we could see happen in the future or do you think there's something about the big these big CBG companies have innovation divisions whose job is kind of like they certainly spend a lot of money.

They spend a lot of money like kicking these ideas around and they'll make a bunch of different con like concepts and you just don't hear them ever going from zero to one and breaking out.

I feel like they're also in a position where they can sit back and be like let's let the market create hits and we'll just just pick cherry pick cherry pick the best one. Well, um, you know, uh, uh, I don't know why we still talking about Cacti.

Even reading comments about Cacti Cacti, but, uh, Cacti was that Cacti was a partnership with Annheiser Bush. Oh, no way. That was exactly what you said. I don't know what the exact split was, but it was owned by co-owned by Travis Scott, Annheiser Bush, distributed by Annheiser Bush.

You would think that that would be I totally understand why you were so worried because that feels like they have all the advantages against you and yet maybe they lack the entrepreneurial talent and like they need to win. You needed to win.

Big problem here is I don't know the the the the actual guy who is running Cacti. It's like some person in a big organization. Meanwhile, like Happy Dad, regardless of how great Neelk is, how great the product is, like I'm sure Happy Dad like wouldn't be a hit if you weren't like step by step like making play.

It's just like and and betting your personal brand personal brand. And also like you probably have taken unlimited phone calls on Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday night. Whereas like if you're just some corp dev person at a big company, like are you really going to push that extra mile? marketing too, right?

Like like you know having different podcasts and having the placement you know like you know how many of those podcasts with Neelk I've been there like while they're interviewing putting the happy dad right next to everybody creating towers like when they interviewed Elon like we were struggling finding happy dads and Austin we had to like delay him to from coming just to make sure that that that we had product in there.

I was like he's we're not going live until there's happy dads in front of him, you know. So like you know those are the things doing things that don't scale the like the grassroots you know type of things as well. So I think that's the other problem.

I actually think partnering well also like there's no innovation on their side too on those big brands. I think that's where they need people like us or you guys like you know forward thinkers. No guy in a boardroom is going to think of, you know, at Unilver or whatever is going to think like, "Oh, wow.

" Like, "Let's build this with Taylor Swift. " No, they'll build they'll or or I think this ingredient that's not popular today is going to be super popular in 5 years. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, the energy drink companies right right now, like none of them, how come none of the big energy drink brands, Red Bull, Monster, Celsius have come out with a stevia or monk fruit um uh sweetener replacement, right? Like they're just not thinking about it.

But somebody will and will end up selling their company to one of those three. Yeah. You know, or or you know, Dr. Pepper.

what uh give us a lay of the land of like the platforms today in your view from Tik Tok, you know, potentially going through uh some type of acquisition or or restructuring uh to YouTube to Spotify, like how are you advising the the creators and and uh kind of like talent that you work with on um getting the most out of the different platforms?

Um, well, this will probably give me trouble on this podcast because I know everyone from all these platforms probably watch this, but I'm a YouTube first guy. Like, I think, you know, um, I'm a YouTube first guy for uh, video. Um, when live, I'm a X, you know, I like X for live a lot.

Um, but, you know, which is crazy because I think they have like one person that works on the live product from what I've heard, it's my buddy, an absolute legend. But, it's a special.

It's a special thing that was I mean certainly underutilized like X live streams were basically you watch the SpaceX launch there and then you get off and that was it.

And now there's a number of shows ours is one of them that's put X live streaming front and center and kind of realized that no one was really taking it that seriously and like it's a pretty decent product. Yeah. Yeah. No, I love I love you YouTube. I love for the discoverability.

you know, you can actually go viral, get millions of views. If you have good content, you show up there, it's going to get shown. It's going to get seen. And and it has a longer tail, longer halfife. Like you can let a video simmer for a month and it can just grow to a million views.

On X, it's got to be like that day or nothing, right? So, it's a little bit different. Yeah. We talked about that when we first met was like the clips like your clips. Yeah. Like even this interview, someone's probably going to watch in two years, three years. I mean, I get it now from old interviews.

People say, "Hey, I watched your interview. I don't I don't do a lot of interviews. But like say, "Hey, I watched that interview. " I'm like, "Which one? " Like, "I did that 3 years ago. " Um, Instagram, Tik Tok, and whatnot. So, that's why I really like YouTube the library for sure.

Spotify feels like they're trying to to solve discoverability, but but it seems like they have very limited inventory in terms of how it shows up. They have that one placement that's like on the homepage that I see every now and then. It's not super dialed in yet. Would you see them ever doing live video?

I think they have to. I don't know if they are. I haven't heard anything, but I think they they kind of have to. I mean, live video. I mean, you you guys actually like you guys are going to change the game with live. There's going to be a lot of copycats like after what you guys have been doing, especially on X.

Like you guys are going to change the game. There's going to be a lot of people now because of you guys and your guys' growth has been insane. Um, let me ask you guys something though, please. Because you guys talk to a lot of um different AI um, you know, all these different um, LM LLM.

Um, what do you think they're going to do with social? Like what's chat GPT or I mean Gro I guess has X, but like chat GPT or Plex. I think OpenAI is going to allow you to share or there was already a share button in chat GPT. So if I go I mean this happened just earlier today.

I was pulling up some research and I shared it with somebody on my team. Shared a link.

He can see not just the result but what I prompted what I followed up have a whole discussion and I think that people the most basic form of sharing within an open AI social network if you call it that would just be I go and explore a topic and then I can share it out and you can just see what I'm interested in.

So I did a whole deep research report. I fired off. It took 20 minutes to pull up all this stuff on the new CEOs of Oracle. And if you follow me and you're interested in Oracle, well, I just saved you 20 minutes because I did the deep research report. Now you don't have to do one.

And you could say, "Oh, well, if John's interested in this, John's acting as a curator on top of the infinite knowledge engine that is ChatgBT. " And I think that would be kind of like the the the the first like textbased nerdy social network that could sort of bootstrap.

I can think of a few people where I want to see what they're searching as they as long as they opt in to share. I don't want to see everything.

My my read is that the LLMs are a threat to the social platforms, but not because they're going to launch like social products, but because time that you're spending with an LLM or spending with like a voice model, if somebody's becoming best friends with some model, we saw this with like chat GPT40.

When OpenAI announced GPT5 and deprecated the model, the Chat GPT Reddit thread forum was just going crazy. people just freaking out being like, I feel like you just killed my best friend.

And so it's less that I see the, you know, the open AIs or the anthropics of the world actually competing in social because if you're you, even if you're using AI to create media, right, using it to create images, video, etc.

, or like stories, whatever it is, you're still better off going to YouTube, the platform that has a massive massive audience and sharing that content there. I backed a um I backed a social platform years ago that that pivoted and is now doing some doing enterprise SAS.

Uh and they had got they were building a let's let's hear for SAS. We love you like SAS. We love to s uh but but they they built a basically Twitter but just for just for anons. Yeah.

Uh yeah, and it was cool because people that didn't have an anon could go on there and just like start like sharing and create this whole kind of new personality and they got like some traction but then people just realized like hey if I'm like if I want to post under this identity I'm still better off just going to X and sharing there.

So they never reached uh critical uh mass and so I just think they are already competing with the social platforms but in um entirely entirely new ways.

So you could imagine a world where like somebody's AI friend is like generating them content that's that's in in Chad GBT for example or in Gemini or in one of these apps and just saying like hey I thought you like this and it's like a video that the model generated itself for the user because it knows the user so well and so but that's different than like a UGC platform.

So the the other place that uh I think the models will eat off of YouTube's plate a little bit is in knowledge retrieval. So I gave that example of like I wanted to learn about the new CEO of Oracle. Yeah.

I might still pull up an interview with them, but there was also a whole series of channels that were just sort of like the history of Microsoft and you could go there. I I ran one of those channels for a while.

I was doing sort of like these these video essays and and you can see that you can just hit chat GPT, get a full script and just have it read it to you. And that will eventually be instantiated with pictures and you'll be able to watch it.

And so, um, a lot of the, you know, how-to knowledge retrieval tasks that happen on YouTube, how do I fix my, you know, my washing machine that people will migrate over potentially. And I, but I wouldn't necessarily call that like social media, but it was certainly like content creation.

Um, and so, uh, Chatt is certainly like eating off of that and and Gemini, too, because Gemini can scrape all the YouTube data and then they can actually point you, hey, watch this. They're already doing this in search years ago where you say, "How do I fix this particular washing machine?

" It says, "Go to this video and go to minute three. Go to minute three because you don't want to skip the intro. Click right here and this is exactly your problem because they talk about five different problem.

" Have you gotten a bunch of crazy pitches from like AI companies that want to like use the the Knalk boys for like every hour? Every hour. Yeah. Well, every I mean and not a lot of not none of them are that compelling, right? No, nothing.

which is yeah my LinkedIn is yeah what do you think about what do you think about uh influencerled software companies uh there was a like a story I think Mr.

Beast was talking about this a little bit that he was thinking about doing a mobile game studio and that felt like potentially an extremely valuable thing if he can do it. But making a great mobile game is really really hard. I was uh on the My First Million podcast pitching that's how we started.

That was our first business. Really? Mobile games. No way. Uh I I was pitching BeastVPN because if you look at who's buying the most ads on YouTube, it's always the VPN providers, right? And why is that? International audience. You put up video on YouTube, people are watching it all over the world.

And so anyone can use a VPN anywhere they are, anywhere they're in the world. It's much harder if you're like, "Yeah, I'm only available in stores in America. " Well, you just got 30% of your audience or something if you're just a broad channel.

And so, uh, I I was always sort of bullish on the idea of creators launching software products, but at the same time, software is really, really hard to get right and actually build a great product.

And so I understand it's not something that you can build like once or in CBG you go through these product development cycles create a hit product sell that billion a billion times right I think there's um I think there's some plays in software I think about it a lot because we also have so much data on everything like we have you know from our Shopify stores because of our our our merch business and this is why yeah it kills me that we I sell happy online because you know how much data I would have like you know I mean we I think we just went through I I don't even remember I should have had some of our numbers but you know I think like couple hundred million can sales couple hundred million out watch out we got more stats I wonder if my brother's in this chat he can send us some uh my brother was supposed to watch but um keeps ringing still rings it's a good wrong.

This is the best show. You guys are crushing, man. I was so excited when you guys hit me up. I was so I don't like interviews. You found us early. You found I did find you early. Yes. Yeah. And then you guys have been blowing up. Jordan Gold and I talk about that all the time. Like we're always sharing clips.

Um you know how many times people have tried to sell me your handles? Mine gets up. You have John and people always hit me up. Oh, I'll get you at John. And I'm like, I know John J. I know you don't have his I have I have John on YouTube. That's crazy. I've had John on Snapchat.

I Is that just because you're the first person on these platforms or is that was that you you find him early and you you get the right hand? No, I I wasn't the first. Okay. But I was the second.

So like you know these platforms like I when my Twitter one like I think whoever got it in whatever year Twitter went 2007 or something.

I think like someone got the name didn't use it and like within a year like you know cuz I think the rule is on some of these platforms no one's used it if it's inactive for 180 days um that includes no one logging in.

So literally someone got the name and said this ain't for me and bounced and then I went and claimed the name right away. So those names I got within like the first year. U so I wasn't I was never the first but I was always the second. That's amazing.

Um so yeah that was like my mission the last like 15 years to get Unite. Unite the great houses. Yeah. Tik Tok at John. All of that. You're at John on Tik Tok, too. Every platform. Every platform. Kick. I don't even use kick, but I just got Hey, you got to You got to log in every 179 days. You know what?

Do not leave that. I actually almost lost one of them. I forgot which one for that reason. I think my Tik Tok. I almost lost. Yeah. So, yeah. Never log off. Never touch. Yeah. There's there's an army of like high school kids that are like, "No, like I'm going to claim this black market.

" They always they always try to resell me my names like Yeah. Or they they get like some of our names or like they get like Neilk, you know, because we did we got Neilk on Instagram and but they use Nelk Boys and now they try to like we we never logged into Neil and someone gets it and tries to like extort me.

Like but listen, if you're watching, you're going to try to extort me. It'll never happen. Like never what's uh what's going on in in music because you work with you work with some artists. Like what what is the state of things?

How's the industry reacting to I mean it still feels like the only person I know in music that I care for is Justin Bieber. He's crushing it. Yeah. New album.

Has he Do you do you feel like uh and I don't know how much you can speak to this but it seems like the new way to make a hit song is you think about the hook like what hook is going to go viral in a reals Tik Tok format and then build the song around that.

Is Justin a big enough star that he does he can just make his music the oldfashioned way or is there still this kind of you do like one for the you kind of have to fans one for me? Someone say though you have John at John in the Bible. That's funny. That's funny. John from the Bible the original.

Um, so one thing with Bieber is I I have no say or input in the creative, but if I what I could tell you just by knowing him if that's a trendy thing other people are doing, I could assure you he's probably not going the other direction. Yeah.

Like I don't think he needs to or even thinks or he probably even knows that's a thing. Like I think he's when he's in a creative mode, he's in a different on a different level. So, can you take me through some of the other growth hacks that artists in music are doing?

I heard about this one where because of the nature of Spotify, the fact that you can fit unlimited songs on an album. For a while, artists were just shipping like 45 songs on an album, just throwing it up, seeing what the algorithm likes.

There seems like there's been a whole bunch of different make the song shorter, make the song longer. You see this on YouTube where for a while the meta was like, you know, 10 minutes because you get two ad reads, then it was like 20 minutes, then it was 50 minutes and it just got longer and longer.

Like the algorithm does shape the content a little bit. Is that happening in music? I don't know. Cuz the only person I He only works with it doesn't care. No, it's just like doesn't think about that. It's not even a conversation.

Well, it's important to admit because some people will work with like a massive creator and then they'll think that they're God's gift to the algorithm because they just worked with a superstar, but really that just kind of warps their what I what I just advise these artists, you know, but what I tell everybody quite honestly, whether you're an artist or podcaster or influencers, like make a product, you know, like I think but but don't going back to what we were first talking about, don't make it just any product.

like think of something that could use disruption, find the right people and make it like I I truly uh Mr. Beast and I talked about this. He said he didn't agree with me, but I I you know, I I truly believe every creator of any influence should own some sort of product or be a partner in one.

Um, you know, I think right now, you know, these retail stores, what I from what I've seen and now with America going healthy and, you know, um, people just being more conscious of what they're eating, you know, I think, you know, a lot of these shelf spaces in these retail stores could use something new and different, you know, um, like these guys are doing it.

Um, Williamson. Yeah. So, you know, they're doing it. Um, you know, I think and and I don't think just because a big player in the game um is own you know what I do know is when nicotine is a good example. Mhm. What is this like 80% of the market share is Zen? Yeah. Retailers don't like that.

They don't like when a big company owns the category like boss around. They get bossed around you know they on price on placement on everything like you know. So it's like don't be afraid just because Zen owns 80% or Nestle owns 90% of the frozen foods section like don't be afraid to go against them.

Re the retailers will actually support you. So if you've got influence you know just think of building a product find the right people. Don't settle and go and go give these big guys a run for their money.

On the influencer side what do you think the is there an optimal structure like uh because you could it's the Neelk boys that's plural. there's multiple characters in the world that are promoting the same product.

Uh there's also uh single influencers who uh you know take a you know a huge slug and it's their brand the personal person singular and then there's other brands that say okay yeah we're a group of founders we're building a product we're going to go and give significant equity to five influencers 10 influencers and then you have big brands that are saying hey we're going to go spend with 500 influencers on day one to try and promote this like is there a natural structure that you think is best something else I think about a lot Um, now so now we keep talking about if you're an influencer, go find the right product, create it, drop it.

Now it's the marketing of it too, right? Like like Chris does not flex this all the time, right? Like we know cuz we're in the business and this is Chris's business. But there's people in my office that drink this and I'm like, "Oh, you watch Chris Williamson? " They're like, "Who's that? " Like we just like this drink.

Oh yeah, there there's people in my office. You got to be you got to the the cultivating the ability to promote your products aggressively. Like this is why Dylan on our team is is uh s such a huge addition. We we just hired uh Yeah, I met him. Well, that's that's a different we have two.

Dylan was nice is our new our new president, but he is like uh has this uncanny ability to uh to like ask go for these extra asks and um you know get uh like he got the journal to write about him joining TBPN, right? a podcast hiring a president after 11 months.

It's interesting story, but it takes a lot to like go out and make that happen. Whereas Chris Williamson like is not promoting this at the level that you are. He's not holding up Elon, you know, Musk being like, "We're not starting the show until we can get Happy Dad. " Yeah. In on the set, right?

and that you you kind of even I think something I've realized throughout my career is like even uh even products and people that have incredible momentum like still keep that like focus on like no we need to keep pushing we need to keep promoting the thing that we're doing over and over and over uh and it never stops.

Well, so let me tell you why Chris is not u because I've sp spoken with him and his team. It's a mistake that we made with Happy Dad.

And you know, I know I shared what I used to do with Happy Dad, but it's actually something that if I had to do it again, I wouldn't push it so hard because what's the point of Chris promoting this right now on here and on every podcast he's on, every podcast he does if it's not available everywhere. Oh, interesting.

Right. Like, you know how many people we sent into the category when we launched in 2021? But just two months ago, we just launched our 50th state. It took us four years to launch nationwide. We just launched Utah. How many people for four years saw I love Neelk. Neelk loves seltzer. I become a white claw customer.

That's a lot. Exactly. How you know how many people I mean how many we I mean we made I don't want to take full credit for this but we helped make the seltzer category cool amongst men which led to now it's not as shameful to drink a white claw now as it was four years ago. High noon you know did a deal with bar stool.

You know what I mean?

all these things where you know so if I were to do it again I would focus on distribution first and be available everywhere so people don't run to the store and say hey do you have happy dad here no we don't but we have this we have that well I'm here I might as well just get that oh wow this is good I'll just become a c customer for this brand to happy Dad yeah which is nearly impossible so what they're doing is because I met with him and his team a few months ago um is they're focused on their distribution they want to become everywhere they're available more places now.

Um I don't I don't but it's such a it's such a chicken and egg thing because if you're not promoting something aggressively and the retailers like why should I or Walmart's like wait what are you doing? I've never heard of you. Why? You got to find that balance, right?

Because Walmart did eventually bring us in because they saw us on all the podcasts and all those things. You got to find that balance.

If you could, if it could be in sync and you could hurry up and build one team that's just doing marketing and one team that's like hurry up and be available everywhere, whether it's the regular independent liquor store down the street or the thousands of Walmarts, like you've got to not get caught up on the marketing so much, but yeah, find that balance of also like get the marketing so you could tell why Walmart or 7-Eleven or the independent guy.

Yeah, I know there's 10,000 other brands out there, but put mine up get mine and put mine up front, too. It's not even like be available. Don't not in a corner. Build me a display up front as well. How do you uh how do you advise uh the talent that you work with around like reinventing themselves over time?

Because I think like Neelk boys are a good example like living like kind of a party lifestyle going from a college lifestyle, young adult, etc. Eventually they're going to get to the point where their own interests are no longer I had this question about Mr. Beast like is he gonna become he has a very young audience.

Will he become Mr. Rogers and and at 80 he will be still talking to children or young young adults or will he age up and we'll be seeing him makes make content about being a dad?

You know I it's such a fork in the road for creators and I feel like get older like Bieber is a good example of somebody who is just like constantly reinventing himself.

So the people that listen to him 15, it's not like I'm sure I'm sure teenagers listen to Justin Bieber now, but it's the people that when I was, you know, when I was a teenager, like people listen to Justin Bieber and those same people now are like consuming the music in the like just as much. Yeah.

He's a he's the best example of aging up, right? Because you know when Yeah. the person that 13year-old girl that loved Justin Bieber 13 years ago is now 26 years old, you know? So still probably wants to go to the concert.

Still wants to go because his music now has the ability to like make the personal decision like I can just buy. But listen to his music now, right? Like his music is like stuff that like adults listen to.

he's not making, you know, like, you know, some of these other pop stars that, you know, let's just say these pop stars in the past that never really made it because they just stuck to that, you know, making that same song for that 13-year-old over and over and over again where like he's making songs for people in their 30s and 40s and, you know, the way he looks and way he dresses his his clothing brand now is like, you know, it's not merged.

it's actually a a fashion brand like you know Skylark. So I think that's the thing. So going back with Neelk is the same thing, right?

Like the podcast was a big step towards that, you know, like they they do the occasional pranks here and there to keep, you know, stay true to the audience, but most of their stuff is podcasting, serious stuff, um, you know, um, you know, interviewing CEOs, you know, uh, world leaders, world leaders, presidents. Yes.

Yeah. So you know, so those, you know, all all that all those things. So that you know why? because that Neil fan who loved the pranks 10 years ago is now in their late 20s, early 30s. So, um, so I think that's what you've just got to age up. But it's not easy to age up too, right?

Cuz like, you know, you're going to have to take the risk of like, is this going to perform as well? It might not. The podcast was not doing that good at first, right? It just took a while for people to understand, wait, how did you go from prank videos to podcasting?

Um, so you know it, you know, you got to understand like, you know, you got to take that hit. You know, maybe if you were getting five million views of milk video, your podcast might get 1 million at first. You know, it might get 20% of the views that it had be before. But, you know, eventually it'll pick back up.

So, don't, you know, don't don't panic if you're not getting the views that you used to. So, so that's the same thing with Mr. Beast is like, you know, maybe, you know, I don't I don't Yeah, I don't know if I would what I would do if I were Mr. beast because I think what's what he's doing right now is working.

But for the long term, yeah, he's got to think and I I know he does it. He's thinking about it because you guys watch him on other podcasts like he drops fbombs and stuff like that. Like he's trying to like figure out how to like cater towards older people. Totally.

And if you zoom out, you just think about him as like this generation's game show host. You can see what he's doing with Beast Games on Amazon. And clearly game shows as a category, what he does really well is not uniquely young. You can do an American Ninja Warrior. You can do Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

He'll put his own twist on it, of course, but uh you can you can make a game show that has the Mr. Beast touch and production value and pacing and editing and all the things that he does really well for a much older audience. Yeah, he could probably be Brian Serest like way bigger Ryan Serest. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

He could definitely get there. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think of uh like uh these IRL activations? It feels like uh Pat McAfee has done WWE, Logan Paul's done WWE.

There's something interesting about when these online online influencers, these people that you only see between the screen like wind up going and doing something live podcasts often go on the road like how how thoughtful are you about that these days?

Um, I think, um, wait, you're talking about Logan Paul being in the WWE or Pulse being on the W? Uh, just Logan Paul like fought in WWE and he does boxing, right?

And so, and so there's this something interesting about like like he can be so big online, but there's something that makes you even bigger when you go into something that's legacy or something that's there's something that makes it more real.

I mean, Jordy gave the example of us going in the Wall Street Journal and and and like that's very much like us crossing crossing over into a different world almost and it feels like that's something that uh creators need to be thoughtful about, but there's maybe something still underrated there.

If you can get it right, similar to launching a great brand, if you can have like what is the interaction with the fans or the people who are just meeting you for the first time in the real world, that then can become something that makes you more of an institution than just something that they see on their screen.

Well, I think with Logan and WWE, I think that's a really good example of like he entered this platform. Well, one, you've got to be good at it. Like, it has to make sense, which in my opinion, I think it makes sense for Logan. Like, I think it's hilarious. You know, I think it's so funny.

I can't get enough of him and his WWE content. And then you got to think like, what is my core thing and is it going to help that? like in his thing, you know, if you were to ask Logan Paul, I have never asked him this, but I'm sure if we did, you know, what what matters to you most is his online presence, right?

Like his YouTube, his podcast, and and Prime. Yeah. So, like, does going into the WWE help the core businesses? And I think it does. I think it's kept him relevant on YouTube. I think it's definitely helped Prime.

So if it if it if it's helping the core thing and I think the same thing with you guys in Wall Street Journal, does Wall Street Journal help this um versus like leaving this to do Wall Street Journal, you know, like if it if it helps this platform and brings more validation to this show and more eyeballs and awareness to this show and all the things you guys have done with this show.

So you guys had Zuckerberg last week. I haven't watched it yet, but like I thought it was a joke. I was like, "Wait, did they use them for thumbnail? " I was like, whoa. And I watched like 10 seconds. I didn't have time to watch the whole thing, but I want to watch like who wa they had sucker. Like that's crazy.

How do you advise your talent on uh startup investing, private markets investing? Because I feel like this can be a good way for talent to just like light millions of dollars on fire if they're not careful.

But at the same time, if they're really strategic about it, they can end up, you know, getting access to the best investment opportunities in the world. Yeah. I think um they need to be surrounded by the right people. Um, right.

Like you got to be surrounded by a um like someone at Andre or I think you you guys have Shervin on here later. Like be were surrounded by Shervin Puchavar. You know what I mean? Like be somebody that can ident you met at, you know, in New York, you know what I mean? Like you know. Yeah.

We had Saquon Barkley on the show and he has he's around smart people. He's around very smart people and he's been and he's been investing in companies that have been uh backed by tier ones. It's not just taking a flyer on a friend's business. Oh, you're going to start a restaurant. It's It's okay.

Everyone in Silicon Valley is piling into this company. I should get into Yeah. Yeah. 100%. I I mean, Ashton Kutcher is a good example of that in the past. Now, Saquon's doing that. Um I mean, I think MC Hammer who like got into Twitter early or something like that, right? Like I think Nas got into Coinbase.

He was at like like Seer like Series A or something. Coinbase. Yeah. MC Hammer got I think through um what was that guy's name? He was a legend back in the day. Ron Conway. Yeah, Conway. A agrade. I forgot. That guy was like a but through him I think he got into like Twitter early, you know. SV Angel was Angel.

Ron Conway. Uh you said Agrade. Uh no, Agrade was a Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. SV Angel. But um but yeah, I think you just have to be surrounded by the right people. There are good people out there. Um there's good people out here. You're speaking of a great guy Siri, you know what I mean?

Like if you're around right people, but I've seen it so many times where guys will be like, "Yeah, I met this guy at the, you know, at restaurant in New York and like, you know, not to bash New York and random person, but it's like what's he done? " He's like, "Well, you know, um, you know, he's promising a 20% return.

" No, you have to get like I think that that's a thing I when I lived in San Francisco, I always felt that that was some a problem that needed to be solved. And there are guys like Shervin like brought in like the Rock Nation people, uh, a lot of other people into deals.

I think he brought in like a gang of people into Uber early. So, you know what I mean? Like there are people out there. Um, you just have to have the right person.

I don't know if you guys know uh Chris Lions from like he he's always been that doing stuff like that like you know like um you know so you know I think you just need to find a Chris Lions or Shervin or Gio Siri or someone like that someone who can pipeline for you.

Yeah, which I think the Ashton I think Ashton had Ron Conway was his was his guy. Yeah. So, um, so yeah, I think that's a big opportunity that I think they should be doing, but I don't think they should go and invest in some like real estate development and, you know, because their cousin is doing it in Alabama.

I that's it's a true story. Who knows? Who knows? Elon Elon's building a whole Colossus 2 data center over there. So, you talk about someone that invested like 25 million into a house, like a scam in Alabama, lost that 25 million. It's is dangerous territory. Crazy. But yeah. Yeah. Lots of risk out there.

Well, thank you so much for taking the time. Yeah, great to great to finally hang for fun. We come come by anytime. You know, we're here every day. And uh we chat's a distraction. I know. I'm sorry. We're We're going to pull that. You're one of the first uh interviewers who's uh who's been able to see the chat.

We're not sure if that's distracting. You manage a lot of these things. Social media and me, but Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're you're locked in on that. Well, great to see you. Thank you so much for hopping on. Uh we will go backend. We have our next guest in about 15 minutes. But first, let me tell you about Profound.

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