#1167 John Shahidi on Happy Dad, NELK Boys, Full Send, Elon Musk, & SteveWillDoIt

John Shahidi is the president of Happy Dad, Shots Podcast Network, & NELK Boys. In this conversation, we talk about the rise of the NELK Boys, how they make money, what the business is behind all the content. This includes the Full Send Podcast, SteveWillDoIt being banned from YouTube, how they interviewed Elon Musk, sales figures & product plan for Happy Dad. Happy Dad is one of the fastest growing seltzers in the world. John is one of the greatest minds when it comes to scaling products when a creator is providing all the distribution. ======================= Pomp writes a daily letter to over 200,000+ investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy-to-understand language while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at https://pomp.substack.com/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Many of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, which is my effort to find the most interesting people in the world and sit with them for hours while I ask questions in an effort to learn. We have no advertisers on this podcast, so it would mean the world to me if you would subscribe to the show on your favorite audio platform, watch episodes on YouTube, and tell your friends and family about the podcast. My goal is to help millions learn from the world's most interesting people. So let's get into today's episode. John Shahidi is the president of Happy Dad, Nelk Boys, and Shots. In this conversation, we talk about how the Nelk Boys are taking over the world and how they make money, what the businesses behind all that content.

• 0:45Anthony Pompliano?

  This includes the Full Send Podcast, Steve Will Do It being banned from YouTube, how they got in touch with Elon Musk, and what exactly are the sales figures and the product plan for Happy Dad, one of the fastest growing seltzers in the world. I really enjoyed this conversation with John, and I hope you guys enjoy it as well. He's one of the greatest minds when it comes to scaling products, especially when a creator is providing all the distribution. Here is my conversation with John Shahidi.

• 1:17Speaker 01

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• 2:41Speaker 04

  Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 3:04Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Bang, bang. I've got John here with me. I thought a great place to start is last time we talked, you were doing nothing with Happy Dad, Nelk, anything. You guys have absolutely exploded onto the scene. And what I think is interesting is like, there's a content story and then there's a business story. And everyone is very focused on the content because that's what you can see, right? I care about the business. And when I see you or any of those guys posting and you're going to like a liquor store and there's literally a line out the door around the block, you know, there's cops there making sure that everyone's like staying in line, making sure they're getting in. People are signing all of the alcohol. Like this is a massive, massive movement in a business that you guys are building. How do you think about day one?

• 3:48Anthony Pompliano?

  You walk in, you're like, all right, we have to build a business here. Like, what do you think is the advantage that you have? And how do you think about which products to launch and like, what to sequentially do from a business perspective?

• 3:58Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, I always say this, and this is pretty much a no brainer. And, you know, but, but it does come down to the product being great at the end of the day. It's always got, always has to start with that. And that's the advice I'd have to give anybody. It's like, no matter how big you are, how many followers you have, or how many connections you have with whatever retailers or whatever it is, if your product's not great, like, people are going to give. Every product that chance once, if it sucks, they won't come back. We're going on to two years of Happy Dad now. Our rebis are absolutely insane. We haven't launched a new state in six or seven months. We're about to launch five new ones in the next

• 4:40Speaker 05

  six weeks, but we haven't launched any and our sales are still growing in the existing states because they're rebis. And we haven't even revisited those stores yet. So it's really the product. It has to start 100% with the product. And then, yeah, then there's a lot of others.

• 4:54Anthony Pompliano?

  But why Happy Dad, right? Like, why is that the product that you guys want? We're going to hang our hat on this and we think this is the thing that we can build a big business around.

• 5:02Speaker 05

  We want, you know, the seltzer business has been growing over the last few years. It's pretty much become a beer replacement. And Happy Dad, the way was the branding, the marketing, or even this type of can that we use was really to target the male audience when it comes to seltzer consumption. Almost every single seltzer you see right now comes in a skinny can, multiple colors, you know, just going after, you know.

• 5:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Different ways.

• 5:29Speaker 05

  Yeah. And now, you know, and our initial, because, and it wasn't necessarily, oh, we need something for men. It was like, our audience were men. The Nelk audience is men. 80% plus of the Nelk viewer across all socials are men. So we said, all right, what can we make for our audience that will convert?

• 5:49Speaker 05

  What's funny is like female love Happy Dad. We could get into why, like, you know, it wasn't our target, but, you know, I think because of the flavoring and the amount of carbonation, I could get into that, but, you know, and maybe even let you know that we're launching Happy Mom, but we'll talk about that. Because of that, but, um, but yeah, I think, um, really Happy Dad was, we want to go after the seltzer market. It's become a pretty much a replacement to beer for all different types of reasons. From the taste to the calorie count, carb count. Now, people are a lot more conscious of their health right now. You know, I think a lot of different reasons post pandemic, realizing that maybe the best,

• 6:33Speaker 05

  you know, solution to, you know, some of what happened with the pandemic was actually your health versus. Can't go down that rabbit hole of, you know.

• 6:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Don't say it.

• 6:43Speaker 05

  But, you know, but, but health at the end of the day, you know, um, health is wealth and, um, and I, you know, and I think we all want to be healthy now, you know, I think we've learned over the last few years, like, you got it, health is wealth.

• 6:54Anthony Pompliano?

  And I think that the big narrative was, uh, Nelk had these amazing videos that were going super viral, this big audience. It reminded me a lot of like the Barstool audience early on when I was in college and, uh, in the Northeast, like you just knew they'd show up for the blackout tour or whatever. And like people would show up, right? And these guys seemed to be able to say, hey, I'm gonna be somewhere and the audience showed up, right? Like they were willing to go do that. They also were buying a lot of merch. And so usually those two, you know, data points tell you, hey, this is a real audience that's really engaged. It really kind of subscribes to the lifestyle and, and, and the values and all that type of stuff. But they weren't monetizing into content as far as I understand, right? Like there weren't a lot of brand deals. They, uh, didn't have any ads from YouTube or any of that stuff. And it pretty much was just like a merch business attached to content.

• 7:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Is that like a fair, uh, way to evaluate what they were doing before you guys really got into a lot of the consumer goods?

• 7:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, um, merch was a big part of their business because they were demonetized from YouTube.

• 7:47Speaker 05

  During pandemic years, during, during 2020, um, they, you know, they were the ones that weren't refusing to not go out and party still. And they were still having gatherings and filming the gatherings and, and they were demonetized by YouTube. But Nelk was a pretty big organization on the backend, you know, there's a couple dozen employees. So, um, they had to figure out how to pay bills and merch kind of became the pivot, um, and focus. And, um, and, you know, we say to this day is being demonetized by, being demonetized by YouTube ended up being one of the biggest blessings. Because, you know, the merch revenue has been exploded 30, 40x what YouTube revenue would ever be, um, from an ads inside.

• 8:33Speaker 05

  And then on top of that. Brands, brands are extremely afraid to work with creators. They've always been afraid. You know, just seeing what's happened over the years with different creators, which I've never agreed on why everyone was so angry at some of them, you know, and trying to cancel everybody, but the creators that have been canceled over the years, it's frightened

• 9:00Speaker 05

  a lot of brands. And that's also become a blessing in disguise because like brands have always been afraid of Nelk. And are all types of creators, but specifically Nelk. So that's where Happy Dad's come in. It's like, all right, do we go and do a super small deal with Anheuser-Busch and try to explain ourselves and then be limited on the content? Be careful of the content, or do we make our own brand? Which.

• 9:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Better decision.

• 9:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 9:25Anthony Pompliano?

  And now walk me through operation. And one of the things a lot of folks in the business world and a lot of investors are waking up to is these creator-led businesses basically did the business creation in reverse, right? Usually you build a product, then you go find the customers. Nelk and many others have basically found the customers first and then they go and they're building the product. But building the product for many creators is actually a really, really hard thing to do. They don't have that skill set. They don't have the connections. They don't have the capital. They don't know who, like, am I going to have operate this thing? You obviously have been around for a long time. You've seen a lot of different businesses and you have, not only are you well-connected, you guys have access to capital. Like, you know, I think a lot of folks kind of say like, oh, John's there, like, this has got a shot of actually working from an operational standpoint.

• 10:09Anthony Pompliano?

  How did you think about operationalizing it, right? Like just you showing up, you're not going to do everything. So like, do you build out a whole team? Do you go and you just like partner with somebody and it's your brand with their operations? Like, how does that work?

• 10:20Speaker 05

  You know, the one thing I've always been very good at is finding, delegating work and finding the best person and being able to hire and fire, hire and, and find the best person for any specific role. So specifically with Happy Dad, obviously there's so many different sectors of our businesses. There's alcohol, there's merch, there's media with our podcast. But, but on the alcohol side, when the decision was made to make Happy Dad, there's this family that I know, the Bootow family, longtime friends of mine, been in the alcohol business for many years, decades. I mean, they're. The father, Keith Bootouse, you know, they call him the godfather of the alcohol industry.

• 11:05Speaker 05

  Like, so went to, straight to them and said, hey, listen, um, need to make an A plus product. You know, I've got the platform, the Nelk Boys, we want to make a seltzer. We've got the branding, we've got everything, but we need the liquid to be A plus. And they're like, say no more. And immediately started creating the flavorings. We did taste tests and, you know, that's one thing that I've been really great at. And then, then now that's the, that's the beverage, that's the liquid.

• 11:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Who gets final say on the taste test?

• 11:35Speaker 05

  It's all of us. There's a, there's a group of, there's a group of about seven to 10 of us. And it has to be unanimous. If one person doesn't like it, we go back. So it's no like, not, sorry, Sam, we like it, you don't, or sorry, Kyle, or sorry, Joe Bootow. It's everyone has to love it. That's why we go back and forth so much. If one person says, I'm not sure, we're going back. So, and I think that's been part of the Happy Dad success has been that too. But then, you know, there's that part, there's the liquid, then there's, then there's a liquid and manufacturing, right? From cans to breweries, it originally starts with flavoring, then breweries, cans.

• 12:19Speaker 05

  But then, then now it's got to leave the brewery, it's got to go to different states. Every state we have a different distributor. So had to find someone to help me find the right distributors, the right partners. Lot, a lot of states in alcohol are, have franchise laws, meaning once you sign the deal with that distributor, you're in with them for life. Crazy law, by the way. Crazy, crazy.

• 12:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Obviously a free market principle, of course, of course.

• 12:44Speaker 05

  Hundred year old laws, you know, so, so anyway, so now we're like, all right. So if we're in with these guys for life, we got to be careful because one is they got to be great. They got to make us a priority. They can't have a product by a competitor because we'll be bullied, you know? If they carry like, let's just say, I don't want to name any competitors, but we all know who the competitors are in the canned alcohol space. You know, if they say like, hey, like these Happy Dad guys, you better shove them out, make, you know, like they're going to listen to the bigger guy, of course. But then also, you know, with Distribution, you gotta also say like, all right, one day if the, you know, a strategic partner wants to come into the business, do they like that distributor? Cause you're in with them for life. So, you know, there's all those pieces we had to learn as well. So I had to bring in someone to help me learn that side of things. So I did that, that then that happened.

• 13:26Speaker 05

  And then then there is now the retail side. It's all right, cool. All right. We got a great product. It's been shipped out to the distributors.

• 13:34Speaker 05

  How do I get Kroger's to care? How do I get Publix? How do I get Walmart? How do I get 7-Eleven, Circle K? How do I get them to care? So that was, you know, so I was able to go and pretty much help find best people. You know, there's the point A to Z is so long in alcohol, but I was, that's, that's something I've always been great at.

• 13:52Anthony Pompliano?

  How much of the talent that you ended up recruiting? Were you able to just go to them early on and say, hey, here's our idea. Here's, you know, the Knop boys. Here's their audience size, like get on board versus you had to kind of get things in motion and get some momentum. And then it was easier to convince, you know, some of these A plus people to come on.

• 14:09Speaker 05

  I think I've been very lucky and I've said this in a lot is, um, I've always had this philosophy of, um, life is long, not life is short. And I've built some really great relationships in the last 20 something years that I've been in business where, when I make these phone calls, almost everyone kind of knows I'm a man of my word and they'll give me a chance, whether it's pre-launch, shortly post-launch, whatever it is, you know, I could, with some of my friends, I've been very, very, very lucky with the friends and partners that I have that, you know, I could make calls and everyone's going to give me a chance.

• 14:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Why do you think that is? Is it just that you've been doing it a long time and you've been successful and kind of always done what you said or something else?

• 14:48Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I'm, I'm not a bridge burner.

• 14:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 14:51Speaker 05

  Yeah. That's not, that's not anything that I do is burn a bridge. I know, and I'm still, I'm old, but I'm still, still young, you know, I'm 43 years old. I know when I'm 55 years old, I'm going to need to call you for something, you know, and I know when I'm 55, you're going to take my call or vice versa, you're going to call me and I'm going to come through for you, you know, we're going to know each other in 12 years, you know, so, so that's why to me, I'm also thinking my relationship with you or my relationship with whomever, your brother, anybody. You know, we're still pretty young.

• 15:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. I mean, people have a hard time thinking five or 10 years in advance, let alone if you're, you know, in your twenties.

• 15:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Right. Some of these guys.

• 15:28Speaker 05

  The Bhutal.

• 15:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Just forty, fifty years from now.

• 15:30Speaker 05

  The Bhutal family I met in nineteen ninety nine. I met the Bhutal family.

• 15:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Wow.

• 15:36Speaker 05

  Nineteen ninety nine. Yeah, I was nineteen years old at the time, maybe twenty, twenty years old, I think I was at the time when I met them. I mean, I met them so long ago. I was actually with them when nine eleven happened. We were literally watching TV together. Like, that's how long ago I knew them. So for me to.

• 15:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Twenty years later, you call.

• 15:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, for twenty years later, it's like, hey, listen, I know you guys are got all these partners and you guys are doing these tequilas and vodka. I think they were part of the Tito's team. And I forgot the name of the tequila, but a big tequila.

• 16:05Speaker 05

  I actually had a business with them. We created an alcohol a long time ago and the alcohol failed. And, you know, many know when a, when a business fails, partners usually hate each other and no one ever want to talk to each other again. It's like, we still love each other and they still took my call. This was fifteen years ago when we made that tequila that failed. Fifteen years later, they're still taking my call. So I think that's kind of the lesson for anyone in business is like, don't burn a bridge. Life is long. Life is not short. You know, when people say life is short, they're just like, dude, get whatever it takes. Go burn that bridge. Screw that person. You, you, you, you, you. I don't, I don't agree with that.

• 16:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 16:38Speaker 05

  And I think it's kind of proof now. It's like, you know, when Kyle or Steve or any of my partners calls like, hey, can you help get this? Can you help get this done? It's like, I think, you know, I'm sure we'll talk about it, but been like getting Elon Musk, you know, on.

• 16:51Anthony Pompliano?

  How'd that happen?

• 16:53Speaker 05

  I asked him twice. First time he said, maybe. Second time he said, sure. But that's a ten year. Email, emailed him at the time and then like they, then, then I followed. The second time was a text. I was like, yo, you said maybe, you know, like.

• 17:07Anthony Pompliano?

  What, like, what do you say, what do you say in the text? Are you hitting Elon with like a you up text? Or are you just like very specific, hey, we're gonna be in Austin. Here's the date and time. Can you do it?

• 17:18Speaker 05

  No, he, he said if you're in Austin.

• 17:22Speaker 05

  Well, both. Try to be as specific as possible, but be short as well. I know I only have a few seconds of his time. Um, but when I had text, when I texted him the last time, um, I said, hey, I think this is a great weekend to do this. Um, at the time, the Twitter deal was kind of pending. I said, I'll stay away from any Twitter talk. Cause there was like, that's talk of Twitter lawsuit and all this. Stay away from all Twitter talk.

• 17:50Speaker 05

  I'll give you final approval on the video.

• 17:53Anthony Pompliano?

  I actually think that this is something that, um, many people who aren't in the content creation business don't really understand. So journalists, there's no final approval, right? They're gonna write their story. They're gonna do their interview. They're gonna, uh, kind of produce whatever content they are and they go out with it and they do their best for the most part to try to be accurate and try to get, you know, all the different perspectives and, and kind of, um, I, I think most journalists are, are trying to do the right thing. Uh, but when there is no final approval, like it just goes out and a friend of mine recently, somebody wrote a big article about him and I texted him. And he was like, I'm happy with how it turned out. Right? And so it was like, kind of like, you don't know until it's out and he read it and, and he liked it. Now in podcasts and YouTube and all this stuff, what I've noticed is there are a lot of business leaders, a lot of, um,

• 18:38Anthony Pompliano?

  uh, investors, those types of individuals who are gravitating towards podcasts and YouTube style content because they do get to see it at the end. And I think that there's a difference between like, what some people would refer to as like the gotcha journalism, right? Which is like, hey, I'm trying to get you to say something that's bombastic. So then I could twist it or whatever. Versus like, we're gonna talk about things today that are like non-controversial, right? And it's like, I want you to be able to feel comfortable to talk, right? And vice versa, when you guys are doing those interviews. But how important do you think it is that you say to a guy like Elon, you get final approval?

• 19:11Speaker 05

  It's very, it's very, you know, it's what's crazy, what you're saying is it's very important because we offer it to every single guest. And what's crazy is nobody's ever called us to take this out, right? Because I think they feel so comfortable that they're just like not on the spot and they're not overthinking what they're saying. Cause they're like, okay, at the end of the day, I'm gonna have final approval. But there wasn't a single thing, Eli. I didn't, he, we didn't even talk about it after. We just went live. I think we went live like a two days later. Like he never said, hey, I thought you said final approval. There was nothing. Sometimes we'll ask someone at the end, like I remember we did David Portnoy and I texted him. I said, hey, anything that you want to take it out of that? And he said, no. Um, you know, sometimes I'll follow up and ask, but. Almost never has anyone ever told us, even though we've offered it, no one said, hey,

• 19:55Speaker 05

  take that one part out or whatever.

• 19:57Anthony Pompliano?

  I always say that the people who ask for a bunch of stuff to be removed, we've had, I don't know, maybe 1,200 episodes, maybe like five or six people who have been like, you know, literally one person one time was like, here's the timestamps, can you take out this to this, this, whatever. It's like, those are the episodes where you're like, look, it's already trending where if you're that worried about it, you probably really weren't saying things anyways that were super, super interesting. And so, uh, the more successful somebody is, the less likely I think they want to.

• 20:22Speaker 05

  Okay, I can tell you right now, there'll be no, no changes required from this episode. There'll be none. If I said something wrong, that's on me. That's not, that's not your team's fault. That's, that's, that's my fault.

• 20:32Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Uh, so you guys do the Elon interview. Wha- what is that like? I mean, you guys are, obviously you're all in there. I think that you and, and kind of your background, your relationship, you've known him, right? All this stuff is very different than maybe like Kyle or, or any of the other guys. Like, what are they like before Elon comes in the room, right? What, like, what is that whole process like?

• 20:50Speaker 05

  Well, it was, um, it was, I think, a little nerve wracking because it was, one, it was supposed to be done the day before and there were some, kind of like some hiccups and some issues with like different things that it didn't happen. So then the next day, actually, I didn't get ahold of Elon till like 3:00 PM the next day. So, um, so there were, you know, we, we had flown out. Um, it was my brother's birthday the day before, so we had flown out and, you know, spent a lot of money last second to fly out and I'm just sitting there. I took my wife with me at the time. So I'm just like, I had like some like emotional support because I was just like, I can't let these guys down. Like the whole team flew to Austin. Cause the last message you were asking about, the last message

• 21:34Speaker 05

  with Elon was, hey, I'm down to do it this weekend. And, um, I said, where at, where are you gonna be? And he said, Florida or Texas. I was like, well, like,

• 21:47Speaker 05

  which one? Like, I didn't even know you go to Florida. I've never heard of Elon going to Florida. I was like, you know.

• 21:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Coin flip.

• 21:52Speaker 05

  Yeah. So I was like, which one? And, um,

• 21:56Speaker 05

  I said, should we just book our flights to Texas? And he just wrote back, sure. I was like, okay. So then we just did that. Uh, this was on a Friday. I said, hey, we'll be there Monday. And he said, okay. Some things happened Monday couldn't happen. So then, um, I said, hey, let's do it tomorrow. He said, message me in the morning, message him in the morning, didn't hear back to like 3pm. And then he just wrote me like, see you at 9pm tonight.

• 22:24Anthony Pompliano?

  So 9pm on a Tuesday, the world's richest man just rolls, what is it like in a hotel room?

• 22:29Speaker 05

  We, uh, we, we had got a hotel room, like in downtown Austin.

• 22:32Anthony Pompliano?

  And, and so he just rolls in and just sits down and just records a fucking podcast.

• 22:37Speaker 05

  He's like pulling up. I'm like, okay.

• 22:43Anthony Pompliano?

  It's always so funny to me, right? Because you, you always remember like, once you're around these folks that like, they are humans, right? They put one pant leg on at a time, like all the, all the normal shit. They text, right? Pulling up, like whatever. Uh, but from afar, right? Like he's dealing with the Twitter stuff. He's got somebody tracking his like, uh, private plane he's freaking out about, right? Like all this like, yeah, like all this crazy stuff that you gotta deal with when you're the world's richest man and running all these companies. And then like you find time to, you know, go chill in a fucking.

• 23:10Speaker 05

  He's the best, man. I, after that, like he and I've always, and I was going back to the relationship, I met him in 2013. So this is now, what we're talking about is August of 2022. So it was like nine years after, like nine years of me and him just kind of like, just kind of occasionally chat and ran into each other a few different times. Um, mutual friends' birthdays. Actually, one time I was at a restaurant, he was there, you know, we're, ran into each other, we're sitting next to each other. But, uh, um, you know, we just always kind of stayed in touch. Um, but after then, like he and I really stayed in touch, like, you know, there's like, it's like kind of crazy now. It's like I talk to him weekly, like.

• 23:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 23:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, all different types of things. Usually Twitter. Yeah, usually Twitter.

• 23:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Are you gonna give him like product tips?

• 23:53Speaker 05

  Uh, creators like, like I really, he really cares about the creator space. And um, he really wants Twitter to be the greatest platform for creators. So he'll, he'll definitely call me on, we'll talk product a little bit. He knows like my background of like building the app 10 years ago with shots, but um, but I think more is like creators, like, you know, uh, creators of all different worlds, not just YouTubers and influencers, but like athletes and actors and actresses and um, and musicians, you know, stuff like that.

• 24:23Anthony Pompliano?

  One of the things I saw that he was talking about, I don't know if they're going to implement it or not, that I thought was a pretty interesting idea, is they're going to put ads potentially in the comments. And then the creator who creates the original post, right, could get a share of uh, the actual ads in uh, in the comments.

• 24:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 24:38Anthony Pompliano?

  You know, it, it would be like the equivalent of YouTube throwing up ads in the comment section and then you get a, a share of it. And I just thought like, okay, whether that works or not, it's always unclear, right? You gotta kind of test it and look at the data and they'll decide whether it's worth uh, shipping or not. But like, man, they're thinking differently.

• 24:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? Like, like they're, they're willing to test some things that may be taboo, right?

• 24:56Speaker 05

  That model works. Um, Snapchat does that right now with creators. They run ads in between stories on Snap and they share that with creators and it's very good money. So this, um, you know, obviously Twitter doesn't have stories. I do think, and I've told Elon a few times, I do think Twitter should bring back stories. Like, you know, if you remember they had fleets.

• 25:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 25:12Speaker 05

  Um, just, just like, was like X, I mean, even the name, like, what's a fleet? Isn't that when you buy a bunch of cars, like, you know, like, what, what, you know, it's like, but, but, you know, just bring back Twitter's stories and just call it Twitter stories, but, you know, um, but yeah, I mean, now, but the way they're doing it because of the comment section, which is, you know, a lot of people read on Twitter, um, versus just viewing, um, I think you'll get a lot, a lot of engaging people reading. And I think you could sell that engagement to advertisers as well.

• 25:41Anthony Pompliano?

  I mean, putting the view count alone, right, was a pretty big deal. Like, it definitely, I think, opened people's eyes to like, hey, people may not be engaging, but they're here.

• 25:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:49Anthony Pompliano?

  They're watching, right?

• 25:49Speaker 05

  I thought that was genius.

• 25:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I did too.

• 25:51Speaker 05

  I think, I know there was a lot of backlash in the beginning, but I thought it was genius. I hope that feature is here to stay. Um, I think it's great. I actually messaged him that too. I said, hey, I think this is a feature that should be here to stay.

• 26:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Who, who are you guys trying to get on the podcast that you haven't been able to get yet? Is there like somebody who's like?

• 26:06Speaker 05

  On the Full Send Podcast?

• 26:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 26:07Speaker 05

  We have a few. We have the Pivot.

• 26:09Anthony Pompliano?

  So on Full Send specifically, let's start there.

• 26:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Because most people would think Elon would be like the top of the mountain, right? But you guys already got him. Is there anybody else that you guys like?

• 26:20Speaker 05

  We've got Elon, we've got Trump's been on there.

• 26:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, he was on the podcast. I don't know. The video didn't last long.

• 26:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think 48 hours or 24 hours.

• 26:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Did you know it'd get taken down?

• 26:33Speaker 05

  No, I didn't think it would.

• 26:35Anthony Pompliano?

  So that one, even after you guys recorded, you thought that it was gonna be fine?

• 26:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, but someone from his team, a good buddy of mine who works for him, said, hey, this is gonna be taken down pretty soon. Watch. And I said, why? He said, because read all the comments. They're all positive about him. And because it's positive, it's gonna go down. I was like, okay. And then, and you read, I mean, even if you read, because we weren't going into that Trump. I want to answer the question about who, because I love that question. But we weren't going into it as a political, you know, like we try to stay clear of politics as much as possible. A lot of the podcasts, I actually helped write the questions. So like, some of the questions were like, what songs on your playlist? What do you listen to when you're in shower? Like, you know, you know, even like joking, I don't think they ever asked this one, but like, what do you think about the Kim at the time was relevant, Kim and Kanye situation? And like, you know, like,

• 27:22Anthony Pompliano?

  It felt like dudes hanging out.

• 27:23Speaker 05

  That's what we wanted. And that's what we got.

• 27:25Anthony Pompliano?

  And he is, regardless of your politics, he is a master manipulator of the media. And he has hot takes and he has posted frankly, some of the most viral content on the internet in the last decade. I mean, I still tell people like, when he was president, one of the most ridiculous, but hilarious things that he did was when he was tweeting at Kim Jong-un and called him Low Rocket Man.

• 27:49Speaker 05

  He's the funniest man on the internet.

• 27:50Anthony Pompliano?

  And you're just like, dude, you're the president. Like, please don't start World War III, but also like, okay, you didn't start World War III. Like, that shit's pretty funny, right? And the entertainment factor is like off the charts. And so that's what the-

• 28:00Speaker 05

  The debates, the debates, the debates in 2016 and the ones again in 2020, like.

• 28:06Anthony Pompliano?

  And so that's what it felt like.

• 28:07Speaker 05

  Just great content.

• 28:07Anthony Pompliano?

  It felt like you guys were there hanging out with him and firing questions that he never gets asked, right? And like, I mean, I want to almost go as far as to say like, it looked like everyone was enjoying it. Like, he was having fun.

• 28:19Speaker 05

  We had the best time.

• 28:20Anthony Pompliano?

  And then the guys were having fun, too.

• 28:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, we had the best time. And I'll be, you know, again, like, I just try to steer clear of politics. But I can just say one thing about him. He was so cool to us. Like, he was so kind. Like, even when the cameras are off, he was just like, welcome, I'm making sure we got everything we needed. And then we've ran into him twice since. We ran into him at his golf course in LA. And then we ran into him at a live golf tournament in New Jersey. Same thing, like, every time he's giving us a hugs and like, asking us how we're doing. He actually, I saw him a couple of months after I got married in June. And he said, hey, I heard you got married. Congratulations. And he actually sent a letter to like, me and Renee,

• 29:02Speaker 05

  and like, congratulating us on our wedding. And like, yeah, just like, you just like, that's why it's hard for me to like, just be around any negativity. But also, like, I'll be honest, like, I'm also not a, I'm not a Joe Biden hater either. Like, at the end of the day, the man's the president of our country. You know, he has serviced the country for a long time. And I think, you know, he was elected president, and, you know, his age might be his only one of, maybe a major flaw. But like, that's not his fault. Like, we still voted him in, you know? So it's like, you know?

• 29:38Anthony Pompliano?

  I think there's a lot of people who wish that they were operational at his age.

• 29:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Right?

• 29:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm actually sometimes impressed. I mean, sometimes it's funny, right? Some of these clips where he's just like, reading and it's like, completely like, you know? But it's like, you know, what can we do with politics? You know, I just laugh. There's nothing we can do. There's nothing you and I can do to change anything. Like, you know what I mean? Like, we could go and vote, and our vote counts. But that's about all we can do, you know? Like, you know, so now I'm just gonna sit back and enjoy it.

• 30:03Anthony Pompliano?

  I think that's the other thing is-

• 30:04Speaker 05

  It's great entertainment.

• 30:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Everything in, everything that is seen through the portal of your phone or your computer has become entertainment. And sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad. But like- I think that gets lost a lot of times because people take so much so seriously. But like if there's one thing that we've learned is that if you're entertaining and you could hold people's attention, you're charismatic or whatever. You win, right? You win in politics, you win in business, you win in all these different facets. And I think that is one thing that the younger generation has an advantage on. It's like they grew up with the phone in their hand.

• 30:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? Like they understand that in, you know, it's the life is a movie. Right? And that's how they live their lives.

• 30:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. You were asking earlier about who on full send podcast.

• 30:46Speaker 05

  I think one of the things so had Elon have had Trump, had Dana White, who I, you know, admire, Mike Tyson.

• 30:58Speaker 05

  I mean, I mean, you know, Dave Portnoy, which who I think is probably one of the most underrated entrepreneurs of our time. But

• 31:05Anthony Pompliano?

  I can't say anything nice about Dave because in a recent episode, I called him a pioneer of the digital media age. And I'm just waiting for him to find that clip and then go and celebrate. So

• 31:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 31:16Anthony Pompliano?

  He, he's incredible in terms of what he's done. And I think people don't give him the credit he deserves for a 20 year run. Too, right? It's not like you just show up on the scene for two years.

• 31:25Speaker 05

  I think he's the, I would put him in top five greatest

• 31:32Speaker 05

  entrepreneur in the world of sports. You know, like when you're making that list of like the greatest entrepreneurs in the world of sports, and you take out all the sport owners, you know, the Jerry Joneses and Al Davis and all them, take all those guys out. But on sport entrepreneurs, like I would put them in top five.

• 31:48Anthony Pompliano?

  All time?

• 31:50Speaker 05

  Of our time, of our time. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know who was doing stuff in the seventies and eighties, but of our time.

• 31:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 31:55Speaker 05

  I would say.

• 31:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Who else is up there? Ruben?

• 31:57Speaker 05

  Ruben, 100% Ruben.

• 32:01Anthony Pompliano?

  I mean, just those two guys.

• 32:02Speaker 05

  Dana White.

• 32:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? Yeah. Dana White. Yeah. Yeah. There's probably like five or six people you could come up with that you're like, man, they've built what is hundreds of millions or billions of dollars of enterprise value. Specifically the intersection of media, business, whatever, and sports.

• 32:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:16Anthony Pompliano?

  And they've done it really redefining what sport is or how it's covered or, you know, whatever.

• 32:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:23Anthony Pompliano?

  And like, that is the definition of a pioneer.

• 32:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. I would say Mark Cuban too. Obviously owns a Mavs, but outside of Mavericks, he's done quite a bit as well. But um, but yeah, I think those, you know, with guests, I want to try to answer that question again because I think about it all the time, who else and what's the direction of the podcast?

• 32:44Speaker 05

  I think different creators or celebrities or whatever who, who actually have products like also think Full Send Podcast could be a platform for someone who's got their own Happy Dad or whatever and come and talk about the business with the boys because that's one thing with Kyle especially who's the main host of the podcast, it's his podcast and you know, he really understands, he's very hands on with the business of Happy Dad. So like, let's just say like, I was just talking to Kevin Hart's partner in the tequila and we were talking about how, how to get Kevin on and what would they talk about? You know, Kevin doesn't really know the Nelk Boys all that well and you know, so.

• 33:22Anthony Pompliano?

  That would not be a funny episode at all.

• 33:25Speaker 05

  No, I know, I can't wait. You know, there's gonna be some one liners in that one, but um, I think um.

• 33:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Who's taller?

• 33:33Speaker 05

  But no, I think talking about like his tequila, you know, and like the business, the stuff that we opened up this podcast with and talking about is like the business behind, you know, like his, his tequila.

• 33:45Speaker 05

  I need to try it, I haven't tried it yet, but everyone has talked about his tequila, has talked about it's a 10 out of 10 product. It's because it's on the higher end of the tequila, like he's not going after like the lower, lower end, like it's a higher price point tequila. But um, but it's like, we share distributors and our distributors like when I, I was just randomly, I'll ask him like, how's Kevin Hart's tequila? Like crushing it, absolutely crushing it. So, so is it crushing? I know it's not crushing because of Kevin Hart, he's got the right partners. Now Kevin Hart's got a crazy platform and like, and what he's doing, it's helping, but it starts with your partners. And like he went and he went and found the right partner, this guy James who's awesome. And then James went and got the right product made, you know, and then they went and I know they, the distributors that they use, the same ones we use.

• 34:30Speaker 05

  A plus and and then now Kevin's got this platform and now he's grinding as well and all the time. So it's like, you know, there's so many different parts to building a could, you know, a creator product, which what Kevin's tequila is, I think, like getting guests like that to talk about that, like, or another one that I think is a very underrated business because he has so much potential. I was actually talking to him this morning about is David Dobrik and his pizza place. You know, one might look at it as like, wait, it's just one location off Sunset Boulevard. Yeah, that location is less than six months old. Like, wait until you see what he does with this over the next few years. The opportunities of growing it into multiple cities, maybe franchising it. Maybe you see the frozen pizzas in Costco's. You know what I mean?

• 35:11Speaker 05

  Like, like David Dobrik has a billion dollar business right in, you know, in his hands, you

• 35:16Anthony Pompliano?

  know? Yeah. What was fascinating to me is that all of these brands are the equivalent of, as a kid, when we grew up, like CC's Pizza, nobody knew what the hell CC's was, right? It was just like you went to a place, you liked it, you kept coming back. But now what ends up happening is somebody like a David Dobrik can open a pizza place and he's done the marketing for years. He's already built the fan base. He's done all this stuff. And it is the like athlete endorsement type model. Now it's just these people are realizing like, own the business, right? And it then begs the question, like, the Nelk Boys, are they creators or are they entrepreneurs? Right? Kevin Hart, is he a movie star? Is he a comedian? Is he a entrepreneur?

• 35:56Speaker 05

  I would say entrepreneur.

• 35:57Anthony Pompliano?

  I think that they all fall under that entrepreneur.

• 35:59Speaker 05

  Entrepreneurs that just happen to create, you know, different than you and I, you know what I mean? Like, you know, we were businessmen, but we also know how to create, but in different ways. You know, we know how to go on podcasts and speak well. They know how to create. Kevin Hart knows how to create in front of a live audience telling jokes, or Nelk Boys know how to create great content that'll go viral on YouTube and the internet, you know, just in different ways.

• 36:19Anthony Pompliano?

  But how do you think about how big Happy Dad is? Like, in terms of, are there numbers that you guys have shared publicly in terms of like how big that business actually is?

• 36:28Speaker 05

  It's very big, but what's crazy is, um, you know, when I say we're two years old, um, we, right now, we're only as of now in March twenty twenty-three, we're in sixteen states only. And in those sixteen states, we have less than ten percent penetration. We're not in every single store yet in those sixteen states. But when you look at the Nielsen charts, that's public to anyone who wants to go look or subscribe, however, the way you want to get access to Nielsen is, we're moving up on the charts in so many different, um, parts of America. You know, we, uh, you know, we're, we're a top ten everywhere that we're available, but in some regions and some stores, we're a top three.

• 37:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Top three alcohol brand.

• 37:12Speaker 05

  Top three seltzer.

• 37:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Seltzer.

• 37:13Speaker 05

  So White Claw is number one by a landslide. Truly's number two. And three, four, five have always been kind of a battle between Vizy, Bud Light Seltzer. Depending on your region, there's a lot of local ones, um, like in Southern California, there's one called Ashland. You know, there's never been a solid number three and we've, in a lot of territories, we've taken that number three and we've kind of locked, uh, Topo Chico is, it was a big one. That's actually was number three in a lot of spots, slots, um, that's owned by Coca-Cola.

• 37:44Speaker 05

  But we've, in a lot of areas, we've locked in that number three. So now, cause like White Claw's got number one locked.

• 37:50Anthony Pompliano?

  For now.

• 37:51Speaker 05

  For now, yeah, for now, yeah. But they're also got many years ahead of us. I mean, White Claw's, I would say like six years old, uh, maybe a little bit older. And then Truly's got number two locked, you know, but we were, we wanted to lock number three and now we're locking number three in a lot of regions. So, so that's, you know, that's only in the sixteen states. Uh, we're launching five more states. We're launching, um, we're launching Canada. Um, Canada's a big market for our, um, our content consumption. And, and then also like what we're also now looking at is like, uh, different audiences at different sectors

• 38:28Speaker 05

  of consumers. Uh, we know, we know if you're twenty-five to thirty years old, you've heard of Happy Dad, you've tried Happy Dad if it's available in your state. But now we're looking at, at male, if you're twenty-five to thirty-year-old male, uh, now we're looking at, okay, how do we hit? The female market, how do we hit the Latino market? How do we hit the black market? Like, how do we hit, you know, these other markets?

• 38:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Just take all the demographics, whether it's race, gender, sex, whatever you can do and just cut through every single one of them.

• 39:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, what do we have to do?

• 39:02Anthony Pompliano?

  How do we keep penetrating all these different demographics?

• 39:03Speaker 05

  So I'll give you an example of the female market is one is it's not a day where a different female's coming up to me. He's like, well, why happy dad? Why aren't you doing happy mom? I've been hearing that for almost two years, you know? So.

• 39:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Great idea.

• 39:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, great idea. So we're doing happy mom.

• 39:20Anthony Pompliano?

  And it'll be similar type of product and just different branding?

• 39:22Speaker 05

  Same product, just different flavor. And we said, okay, so instead of 10 men taste testing the flavors, which is what we've been doing the last couple of years with our existing flavors, let's get 10 females, women who work for us, women within our world and the industry. My wife, she came in.

• 39:39Anthony Pompliano?

  I was gonna say Renee one?

• 39:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, Renee's one. So 10, yeah, 10 of them, 10 of them, she's, I mean, they all had to be honest. But if anyone's gonna be honest, it's gonna be her. But the 10 of them came together and they came up with the flavor together. So, so, you know, it's like, all right, cool. So the, the, the brandy's there, the flavor's there. 10 women love this flavor and we're gonna, that's gonna be the first flavor is happy mom. So now we're going after the female market.

• 40:00Anthony Pompliano?

  And how do you think about the audience being 80, 90% male, right? Whatever it is, being able to crack into that other side of maybe now it's not just the content drives it, right? Like, is it now something where happy dad can like be bigger than Nelk? Can it escape, you know, kind of being, hey, there's this group on YouTube who has a big audience? And like, that's why happy dad is successful. And eventually people just say like, no, happy dad is like a successful seltzer that survives on its own, even if Nelk never uploaded another video? Hey, guys, I hope that you're enjoying this conversation. As you probably realize, we don't run any ads on this show. That's right. All the other podcasts, all the other YouTube shows that you watch, they have advertisers.

• 40:45Anthony Pompliano?

  We don't have any direct relationships with advertisers and we simply create this because we enjoy doing it. Now that we do that, though, we have a team. And if you'd like to support us, one way you can do that. is to go subscribe to the Pomp Letter. It's a daily letter that I write to about 235,000 people about my personal opinion on financial markets, business, technology and Bitcoin. Just go to pompletter.com and you can sign up there. I'd love to have you join us and it's a great, easy way to support the work that the team and I are doing on a daily basis. All right, let's get back into this conversation.

• 41:19Speaker 05

  Thing gets become bigger than Elk and I'll give you a couple of reasons why I know just from experience. This one's a small one, but this one happened, but this is the happened once with one person, so it can't really tell. But I have another example. Kyle, who's the creator of the Elk Boys. He, um, main face of Elk Boys, him and Steve. But Kyle was on a flight, he's wearing a Happy Dad hoodie, a guy next to him, sitting next to him says, hey, love your hoodie, man, I love Happy Dad. Kyle's like, oh, cool. He's like, taking shit, I'm sitting next to a fan, this is gonna be a brutal flight.

• 41:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 41:52Speaker 05

  So the guy is just talking about Happy Dad, this and that, and after the end of the flight, um, a guy is just like, yo, what's your name? He's like, Kyle, I'm so and so. Kyle's like, wow, this guy doesn't even know who I am. Like, he had no idea the guy, who Kyle was. But he was talking about Happy Dad and, you know, was talking about why he likes Happy Dad and this and that and I don't know if Kyle ever revealed who he was.

• 42:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:12Speaker 05

  He was just like, this was crazy, like, this guy had no idea. So that's one. But this is, this, this other one is a bigger example is, um, we did a test run in Costco.

• 42:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 42:21Speaker 05

  So Costco, Northern California called us, they said, we want to test Happy Dad. We want to test it in nine locations. And, uh, usually a product, when you want to get into Costco, you'll make a bigger product because Costco always likes the lowest price. So you want, you want to give them, but they look at per unit price. So that's why most people make like larger club packages, um, for Costco. So you get maximum dollar, but at a cheaper price, visual price point. We weren't ready to do that. We only have a 12-pack available. So we, we're like, all right, well, you're just gonna have to sell the 12-pack for now. We don't, it's gonna take us some time to make a 24 or 36-pack. I think we've decided to make a 24 now, but, um,

• 43:05Speaker 05

  So we gave them 12, um, the 12 packs. They tested nine stores in Northern California.

• 43:12Speaker 05

  The product got shipped out earlier than we knew. So it was, it got, it got delivered to the Costco stores a whole week before. We had this whole marketing plan in place.

• 43:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Basically, like the marketing plan is like, we're going to tell people to go buy it. We're going to show up.

• 43:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. We're going to do all this stuff.

• 43:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Sell out for sure.

• 43:28Speaker 05

  We got to impress Costco. We got to show them how fast we move. Um, the product got there a whole week before. We didn't know. And people are messaging us, like, hey, just saw you at Costco. And I'm like, what do you mean? Like, we're not supposed to be there till next week, Thursday, but it was a whole week Thursday before. Calling some of our partners are like, yeah. Um, so by the time we got some answers, um, it was like now Monday, by the time we got answers. And I'm like, well, we got to like implement this thing. I don't want Costco to think we're a flop. Right? You're sold out all nine Costcos. So what? We, we never promoted. Look at our socials. We never promoted available on Costco. No one posted on social media.

• 44:08Speaker 05

  And one thing, like I mentioned a few minutes ago, our audience is 25 year olds and up, 25, 30 year olds in Northern California. That is not, Northern California is not a big market for us. And 25 year olds aren't really going to Costco to shop.

• 44:23Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep, yep.

• 44:23Speaker 05

  So it's not our even audience.

• 44:25Anthony Pompliano?

  How much of this is like, um, uh, Prime? Uh, I don't know if the numbers leaked or, or somebody reported them, but the Prime drink. Um, I think they did like 250 million dollars last year in, uh, revenue. And, uh, I've talked to a couple of friends who have kids that are, you know, kind of like eight to maybe 15 years old. And they're like, my kid can't find it. My kid, you know, if, if there's a gas station locally that has it, like, they all spread the word very quickly and they go and they pick it up. And some of them are even reselling it at school for a, a premium and like all this kind of stuff, right? Like, how much of that is baked into what you guys have done with Happy Dad? When I see people, you know,

• 45:02Anthony Pompliano?

  in a line down the street and it's like, look, we want to sell out, but like there is this scarcity element of it that drives people to go to run over to Costco and buy it, buy it out because it's not widely available in Northern California, for example.

• 45:14Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, we are available in Northern California. The Costco one was a whole different audience that gave this, gave Happy Dad a try. Whether it was older guys. So, so I'd love to talk about Prime in a second. Well, you were talking about their numbers, but, uh, but. With Happy Dad, so the neighborhood I live in is all, you're not, you're not gonna find an adult under, under the age of thirty five, but it's like younger families, thirty five to fifty year olds live in my neighborhood. I've made it mandate, like every, we have three grocery stores in my neighborhood and we have like five different bars. And I, and I've told our team, hey, listen, like everywhere in my city, and I live in a smaller city, twenty thousand people, every location that sells alcohol in my city, you

• 45:59Speaker 05

  gotta do me a favor and make sure we're stocked up. Like, I gotta see it. Like, I don't wanna go to my Albertsons or my Stater Brothers or even my Selmas Pizza, the pizza place, or Borden Brew, my sandwich place, and not see Happy Dad. So they made it, they're like, alright, and, and literally I said it because me, but also like, I think this audience, it's thirty five year old to fifty year old men, you know, what are, they're, they're all dads, you know what I mean? Like, they see a product called Happy Dad, and I think that's what happened in Costco, like Happy Dad. That sounds cool. I'm a Happy Dad, you know, I'm here, I'm here to buy a bunch of Tri-Tip, like, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm a Happy Dad. My wife let me out of the house. So, I think people were, you know, the marketing of that is now getting the thirty five year old to fifty year old men, whether they're people living in my neighborhood or going

• 46:43Speaker 05

  to Costco, the Costco shoppers. But the product's gotta be great, because somebody went back and bought it again, you know, like, somebody went and said, hey, let me give this a try, you know, you know, bought twelve of them, you know, he took them out in a day or two and went back that Sunday or Monday and bought more, so. So the rebuys are really important, going back to what we opened up and talked about was the product's gotta be great. Yeah. But yeah, so I think that's, so the scarcity of it, I think, maybe helped a little bit in the very beginning, but now it's the actual product and hitting different audiences. Yeah. Like, we were talking about genders, ethnicities, age groups, you know, like a Nelk audience pretty much caps at like thirty one, thirty two years old, you know, it's like

• 47:25Speaker 05

  probably the oldest, you know, so, you know, how do I get the thirty two to fifty year old to drink, you know, or sixty year olds to drink? And what about Prime? What do you guys think about that? Someone asked me this morning, actually, do you think those numbers are real? I think so. Like, I think, gotta remember one thing, Prime- One thing I do hate is when people compare us to Prime, which happens sometimes on social media. I don't even know why I read social media, but on social media like, you know, oh, Prime's doing 250 million. Like, show us your numbers. Like, no, ours is not that, you know, like, but we're also in 16 states only. And but, but I do believe that Prime's doing that because not only are they available in all states,

• 48:09Speaker 05

  but they're also absolutely massive in the UK. Like KSI.

• 48:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Is he a sleeper? Like, in terms of, for, for Americans, like, he's, he's that guy in the UK.

• 48:19Speaker 05

  I don't think people know how big KSI is in the UK. Like, he's, I, I mean, he's like, he's like borderline royalty out there. Like, they love KSI out, out in the UK. So, so you got that strategic partner in Europe. Then you have Logan here, and then like Logan's genius marketing, right? And it's like, there's not a place where he's not holding up the bottle and making sure it's the bottle's getting as many impressions. But also like, you know, I've got a lot of, all my friends, you know, I was telling you before we even got started, like all my boys back home. Like, my best friends are, we have, there's a group of 10 of us from high school. 27 years later, we're all still best friends. Most of them have kids. Whenever they're, they're coming over, I had a Super Bowl party, all the kids, Uncle John, do you have Prime?

• 49:04Speaker 05

  You know, dads are drinking Happy Dad, but Uncle John, do you have Prime? And they, Logan always sends me cases to my house. So I'm always like giving the kids Prime. And now they want to come back. We want to go to Uncle John's house. He has Prime. These are kids between eight, eight and 13 years old.

• 49:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And is it like just basically replacing Gatorade for them?

• 49:20Speaker 05

  Think so.

• 49:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Like, like, you know, you and I probably grew up and it was like the Michael Jordan commercials and Gatorade. And I remember when Powerade came, you kind of like, I don't know.

• 49:27Speaker 05

  I think it's, it's, it's, it's what you just said. I think it's Gatorade combined with Michael Jordan. Cause Michael Jordan, it was cool to wear Michael Jordan because of Michael Jordan. Cause Michael Jordan was so cool to kids back then. And I think that's what Logan is. Logan is really cool to kids these days. So he really appeals to the eight to 13 to, you know, teens, you know, teens of all ages. You know, people, they love Logan. Obviously a lot of people hate Logan and Jake, you know? But, but, but, you know, but also they're in the world of combat sports. There's, you're supposed to have people hate you. That's, that's why people are buying these pay-per-views. And they're making gazillions of dollars with the pay-per-views. So, but kids love. Logan Paul, kids love Jake Paul. I know because I see it myself with all my friends' kids.

• 50:11Speaker 05

  So that's why I think those numbers are real and I think, man, I think, I think this is like, maybe their second full year too. I think they're about as old as, I remember, I think we're around the same age. Just Happy Dad maybe started a little bit later, but they're murdering it.

• 50:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, I want to talk about a couple of other things, but um, on the like, I'll call it the milk business. You also have, uh, as you mentioned, other podcasts, you guys have other products. I know that you guys have talked about, uh, doing some sort of jerky product. You guys are obviously still doing merch. I've heard numbers that are like mid eight figures on the merch in a year. Like, this is like a big, big business. What is the structure of this? Is this like a bunch of different businesses and each one has kind of different partners and equity splits or whatever? Is there like a, it all rolls up and there's kind of like a holding company and people would think it almost like a conglomerate? Like, when, when you put on like the business hat, how do you think about the way you all have built this? And some of it may be intentional and some of it, you know, sometimes you're just moving so fast that like, you're like, oh dude, this is a complete mess.

• 51:08Anthony Pompliano?

  We gotta fix it, right? But like, is it comparable to the conglomerates of like yesteryear that people would be familiar with in like public companies? Or, uh, or even private conglomerates? Or is it look different from that?

• 51:20Speaker 05

  Well, um, I think it's, it's, so I'll break down the entire structure.

• 51:27Speaker 05

  There's, there's three companies. Um, there's Happy Dad LLC, the beverage, consumer goods, food product. I'm gonna get to that and the kind of the real vision behind the direction where Happy Dad's going. There's Full Send, which is milk, Full Send, uh, content house, but also, um, merch. Those, uh, eight figures that you've heard has been underneath the Full Send Milk umbrella. And then there's Shots Podcast Network, which is my, yeah, shot, formerly known as Shot Studios, became a podcast network during COVID. You know, when we had to pretty much shut down the studios and couldn't really have production. We pivoted the whole business into podcasting.

• 52:11Speaker 05

  And those three pretty much ran by me, my brother Sam and Kyle. So Kyle's now a partner in Shots as well. And, um, and Steve will do it. And, um,

• 52:26Speaker 05

  so.

• 52:28Speaker 05

  Let's go back where so shots is just the network shots is got the relationships with all the platforms shots is pretty much 14 years of me doing YouTube.

• 52:40Speaker 05

  So there's shots, then there's full send, which which is really the merch teams from full send golf, full send fitness. All the different collabs full send does and then even powering happy dad merch. But then there's happy dad, the way we see happy dad is. You know, it's not the same as. Like we don't see ourselves as like the next Budweiser. Definitely not the next truly a white claw. I think it's much bigger than that. I see it as the next Pepsi co is what I see it like I when I want to model. The happy dad company, I think of the Pepsi co model Pepsi owns Pepsi and all the different Pepsi products, Mountain Dew. Different variations of Pepsi Pepsi also owns Frito lay.

• 53:26Speaker 05

  Pepsi also owns Gatorade. Pepsi owns a bunch of different water companies, including Aquafina. So they're in the beverage and then they're in the, you know, consumer goods product world up until recently Pepsi owned Taco Bell Pizza Hut. KFC, Long John Silver's. And that's kind of the model with happy dad is, you know, we have happy dad. Happy dad's the number one priority when it comes to consumer goods. But what more can happy dad do? We have these teams that are walking through these stores, they're merchandising, they're building these displays, they're developing relationships. Store owners, store managers, buyers, everybody, you know. So while we're doing that and we have our own staff that's internal, we didn't subcontract that we don't use a third party distributor for this.

• 54:11Speaker 05

  We use third party distributors to distribute the alcohol, but not to go actually build the relationships. We own those relationships. They're happy dad employees at happy dad.com emails. So while we're doing that, what more can we do? Um, that's where the idea of beef jerky came in. Uh, it was presented to me about a year ago.

• 54:31Speaker 05

  Just somebody just cold emailed me and just said, hey, like I've got a beef jerky company. Would like, would love to see if there's something we can do together. I'm, I live in Orange County. We're in Orange County. And I say, hey, stop by the office. Let me give it a try. Bring some samples. Tried it out. I was like, wow, this is really good.

• 54:51Speaker 05

  You know, shout out to this guy, but um, Ahmad, but um, the, the branding wasn't there though. I was like, listen, like, I don't think anyone's gonna buy that. But, but you've done the most hardest part. You've made a great product. Let me help you with the branding. Let me, I'll come up with something and let me help you with the distribution. And um, and that's what we did. We rebranded it. Uh, during the time we had bought a bunch of bored apes. So we said, all right, so we have four apes. Why don't we do each one of the apes will be a different flavor. Call it beef jerky, bored jerky. And um, and use our guys who are going into the seven elevens, Krogers, independent stores, wherever and say, hey, while we have Happy Dad, we actually have this other product as well. And it's doing this, what, you know, doing really great on socials.

• 55:35Speaker 05

  We're, we're doing this. Sales wise, we're doing this, whatever, you know, um, their spiel is in um, and getting that into stores. And that's kind of like going back to the Pepsi model is all right, Pepsi has Pepsi. And probably Pepsi's the number one driver of revenue for the company is the Pepsi product. But Pepsi also has Frito Lay. What's our Frito Lay? Beef, beef jerky. Maybe down the road, there'll be other products. Maybe we do get into non-alcohol or other alcohol. You know, we, we're getting to these liquor stores. Maybe there's a spirit, maybe, you know, more, but right now, Happy Dad has a lot of work to do. And then there's, you know, our first food product that we'll be distributing.

• 56:13Anthony Pompliano?

  And as you do this, how much of it'll be you guys ideating the actual products versus like somebody brings to you and you're like, hey, you already, you know, you nailed the product, but we can help with the branding and distribution and, and more so, there's probably a lot of people who are listening who may have products. Is that something you guys are actively seeking and saying, hey, look, have you got them? Come show them to us or?

• 56:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, we're always, you know, I, I, you know, it's crazy and, and I know my emails are gonna blow up after I say this, but I read every single email that's sent to me. Yeah. Every single email, I'll read it.

• 56:41Speaker 05

  So there's the other guys, you know, they pitched us on ATM machines, you know, and doing ATM machines. And my first instinct was that's not food. What's that have to do with us? But now I was like, wait a minute.

• 56:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Same.

• 56:52Speaker 05

  We're in a lot of bars, you know, like we could, what if, what if we made Happy Dad, what if you skinned it as a Happy Dad ATM machine? And now it's another point of sale item inside that bar, right? Cause maybe someone didn't know Happy Dad's available there and they went to order their Jack and Coke, but they need to go get cash from the ATM machine. They see Happy Dad logo there. They come back, hey, you guys have Happy Dad here? Oh yeah, we do. You know, like, you know, they're just not, you know, cause people aren't, we're less than two years old. They're not programmed to go to the bar and think to order Happy Dad yet. So how do we program point of sale items? Well, point of sale, we've got coasters that we'd make available to all the different bars and other on-premise locations.

• 57:33Speaker 05

  We have neon signs available, bond request. Um, we have napkins. We give the staff all the different merch. But like, maybe the ATM machine is like, that's a pretty big piece of real estate inside that of that location. So, so, you know, I'm, I'm always looking at different things that people send. We will, will, uh, we'll come up with ideas ourselves. Um, you know, many of the like of the flavor idea of Happy Mom or it's another one that we're coming out with early April with a very big partner.

• 58:08Speaker 05

  Um, it's gonna be a big surprise, but a big partner first week of April and then, um, you know, so those are all like the flavors and the ideas of the partnerships were all stuff that came in internally, but then people pitch. So I would say it's like 50 50. It's whatever. I mean, whatever makes sense. We're not going to just do anything. Uh, you know, we do get pitched a lot of dumb stuff as well, you know, but, you know, but, but if it makes sense and it's something that we could be helpful and doesn't distract us from what we're currently doing, we'll do it.

• 58:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Hmm. I want to talk about Steve. Um, I don't really, I'm not as familiar with all of the controversy, but it sounds like from a couple of videos I've seen recently, he's not allowed in the YouTube videos.

• 58:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's crazy.

• 58:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, they get, they'll get taken down. Like, like, I guess kind of what's happened there and especially for our audience who, uh, they're not going to be up on the latest, you know, kind of details of Melk and the content. Like, how would you describe Steve as part of the group? And then it almost seems like he's kind of been banished off of YouTube.

• 59:03Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, as far as part of the group, it's very simple. Steve is a partner in everything we do. Um, Steve is. A very close friend, I wouldn't even say to me a brother. Um, and, um, you know, I mean, he's part of our group and pretty much will be part of our group for the rest of our lives. So, so he's, he's part of us. Um, and that'll, you know, with or without whatever platform that that's never going to change. But, um, you know, it's very unclear. So when I was going back and we were talking about the Elon thing that Monday, when we met, when we were supposed to get with Elon, when we landed, we were told that Steve Channel was permanently banned and it just kind of so sucked the soul out of all of us.

• 59:49Speaker 05

  Um, when that happened and, um,

• 59:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you like tell Elon like, yo, Steve will do his channel got banned and then he's like, Steve will do what?

• 59:58Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, no, no, because at the same time Elon had also said, um,

• 1:00:05Speaker 05

  that, um, I guess someone had, Steve loves Elon to this day. If you go down his Twitter, he's retweeting every single thing Elon says.

• 1:00:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 1:00:13Speaker 05

  And there was one time he made just this joke video when Bitcoin had crashed and, you know, it came out that like Elon sold all his Bitcoin and Bitcoin crashed and Steve like lost a lot of money. So he made an anti Elon video once. That's a joke, you know? The problem with the, the biggest problem Steve will do it has, and I think this is what's led to Steve's termination of his YouTube is, um, people can't tell that he's joking, like they can't tell his jokes. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know if this is the best analogy, but I used this analogy once. It was like, it's like,

• 1:00:48Speaker 05

  it's like, it's like a woman, like, like, if you see a, like a teacher, like out there, she's dressing, not like a teacher, but like, maybe like, you know, she looks like she's like an exotic dancer. And you're like, dude, why is she dressed like that? She's a teacher. She's not supposed to dress like that. But then like, if you see a girl that you know, she, you know, she works at Tootsie's and she's dressed the same way that teacher was like, no, that's fine. She's a stripper. You know, like, and I think that's the same thing with Steve is like, people don't know that he's a comedian. So when he says things, people are just like hit so off guard. It's like, oh, why do you say that? Like, he's a comedian. Steve is a funny, funny guy. So if you're not watching all this content, you don't get it. So if you're just watching a clip,

• 1:01:32Speaker 05

  you're gonna be offended because he will say some stuff.

• 1:01:34Anthony Pompliano?

  It'd be offensive if it's just some random person on the street, but if you know a comedian said it, then maybe you'd be fine.

• 1:01:39Speaker 05

  But if Theo Von says it, or if Tim Dillon says it, or Dave Chappelle says it, or, you know, you know, any, any stand up comedian says it. It's like, oh, no, no, he's a stand up comedian. He says that kind of shit. Ah, okay, okay, damn, that guy is fucking dark, you know? But no one really knows Steve is that. It's like, who is he? It's like, oh, he's some kid from Florida that blew up on the internet.

• 1:01:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:59Speaker 05

  Oh, and he said, what? You know, and I think that's what's led to,

• 1:02:04Speaker 05

  people say it was because of gambling. Maybe that's the reason that was used to, terminate it. But I don't think that's why. I think it's because people were taking some of the things that he said was offensive because they don't know that he's actually joking. Because if, if a, if a person who has a Netflix special, stand up comedian would say the same thing Steve said, people would be laughing about it and sharing it. So I think that's kind of what happened with Steve. But

• 1:02:32Speaker 05

  it's a blessing in disguise because after that he did a deal with Rumble and he's got a, you know, I know it's very early with Rumble, but you know, he's like a priority to the CEO, Chris. He's like always taking care of Steve. They've become good friends.

• 1:02:46Speaker 05

  You know, Rumble's numbers have been through the roof ever since then. Steve also launched a audio only podcast as well with the video on Rumble, something very unique and it's like helped his number, now helped him develop a new audience on, on Spotify. That's like, you know, that's now introduces Steve will do it world. Now, it does hurt not being a Allowed on YouTube. He's launching a Snapchat show, you know, obviously with Twitter, he's, he's good, you know, so.

• 1:03:14Anthony Pompliano?

  So he can't even be in the videos for like the full send podcast? That's crazy.

• 1:03:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:03:21Anthony Pompliano?

  If he's. Did you guys like have him? His voice like just put him off to the corner and not put him on video?

• 1:03:27Speaker 05

  It's just, we've thought about it. We thought about putting him, you know, maybe make putting on a mask, you know? Yeah, put him in a costume, you know, we've, we've thought of all, all of that.

• 1:03:36Anthony Pompliano?

  I can only imagine what you guys have thought of.

• 1:03:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, we've thought of it all. Maybe he's a, you know, maybe he's a DJ competitor to Marshmallow, you know? It's like just becomes the official DJ of Nelk, but no one knows who it is. We've, we've thought of it all. And we might do that. So hopefully Noel from YouTube's made it this far into this episode. But, um, no, the, the, the truth is that's all joking aside is the truth is I think life goes on and I think it's time for him to focus on other things. People love Steve when he's still, his channel was terminated in August. So it's been what? Six, seven months and when he shows up for meetups, same, same amount of crowd, you know?

• 1:04:18Speaker 05

  You know, nothing's really changed other than not having YouTube, but like, you know, with Happy Dad, he's just as important as a partner to us. You know? It, it's tough for me to say. I don't, I don't agree that he can't be in videos, you know? So it's just tough for me to like, kind of go down that rabbit hole. So I just kind of stay mute because the people I've talked to at YouTube about it.

• 1:04:45Speaker 05

  I, I don't want to say who or what, what department or anything, but they've all like, pretty much like said the same thing to me. It's like, we don't agree either. Like, like it's, it's like a deeper group within there.

• 1:04:59Anthony Pompliano?

  It seems weird. Like I understand taking down the channel, right? Like again, I don't agree with it based on what I understand he was saying or whatever, but like, okay. Uh, but to then say like, you basically banned the person from YouTube? Where like they can't even appear on anyone else's?

• 1:05:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:05:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Channel? I don't know.

• 1:05:19Speaker 05

  I think, I feel like that's being bullied because if they said, you know, and I think they're just bullying creators when they're saying that because.

• 1:05:29Speaker 05

  Andrew Tate was banned from YouTube as well, right? But he's on Piers Morgan's channel on Piers. So Piers is okay because he's Piers Morgan and he's part of a massive network. But we're just some small creators. We don't, you know, like you need that massive network because they probably spent X amount of dollars with this other department. So you can't piss them off by deleting Piers Morgan's, you know, cha- channel or, or, or video. But you don't really need anything from us, you know, so. We're, we're threatened, you know what I mean? But, but you know, if like, let's just say going back to Andrew Tate, who's probably, you know, what? The most hated person on the internet, maybe the most banned person on the internet.

• 1:06:11Speaker 05

  But if Andrew Tate went on Good Morning America, that'd be okay for them to air it on their channel. You go on Good Morning America 10 times, they're gonna give ABC a hard time, you know? But Steve will do it comes on the full send podcast. Hey, you're gonna be terminated.

• 1:06:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Sounds like Steve will do it. You should go on Good Morning America.

• 1:06:31Speaker 05

  Very true. Yeah, we, we gotta see. Actually, he was joking about that. He was like, maybe, um. He's like, you know, it's funny is, uh. He's like, maybe I should go on a Mr. Beast video. He's like, you think you can make that happen? Let's see if like they take down Mr. Beast. Well, that's actually a genius idea. Like, let's see. I doubt they would take down Mr. Beast.

• 1:06:51Anthony Pompliano?

  I don't think that they would do that.

• 1:06:53Speaker 05

  He said that. He said that a few weeks ago. We were in Arizona. It's like, we're, we're talking about that. We're like, maybe we should put you on a Mr. Beast video.

• 1:07:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:00Speaker 05

  But, but yeah, it's sad. It's sad because, um, listen, I would be the first to admit if we did something wrong. And, and, and Nelk has done the world of Nelk, all, all, everyone has done some dumb things here and there. But does it, nothing has, nothing that's led to the consequence of being permanently banned on the biggest social network in the world, the second biggest website in the world. Without any type of warning, there was no warning, no nothing. So that one, like, that's why it just kind of sucks. It's like, this, Steve has done, listen, Steve has done a lot of dumb things. Lot of them publicly, some. Behind the scenes a lot.

• 1:07:42Speaker 05

  And anytime I've called him, I says, Steve, I wouldn't do that, or I would, he stops. You know what I mean? Like, he stops. He's, he's moving a million miles an hour. Anytime I've called him. He's twenty-four. You know? Anytime I've called him, or his mom's called him, or Sam, or Kyle, anyone's gonna say, hey, Steve, and, and explain logically, not Steve, stop. Hey, Steve, don't do this because this, this, this, and that. Ah, fuck, I didn't think of it like that, John, you're so right. You know, or his mom, or his.

• 1:08:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Imagine being a twenty-four-year-old kid and everything you do basically is on the internet. Imagine those dumb things.

• 1:08:15Speaker 05

  I can't, I can't, I can't imagine. I can't. I wasn't, yeah, there was no, I don't even know.

• 1:08:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Come on.

• 1:08:19Speaker 05

  I mean, was YouTube even a thing when I was twenty-four? I don't know.

• 1:08:22Anthony Pompliano?

  No.

• 1:08:22Speaker 05

  Um, but, um, but yeah, so that's why to me it was like, Steve is a very logical, smart guy. He's not dumb at all. He's moving a million miles an hour, but if someone slows him down and explains things to him, he stops. I know, I know this. I talked to, his mom and I are very close and we talk five, six days a week. You know, and where everyone's always in a, you know, we got this, pretty much this board of directors around Steve to always protect him. But he listens. He's not, he's not unmanageable or anything like that. And that's the one thing he never got from YouTube was a phone call, hey, we don't like this. You know, could you please not do this? That never happened. Just was, hey, permanently banned, no appeal, no nothing. Sorry.

• 1:09:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you think it changes, uh, with, uh, Susan leaving a CEO and, uh, this guy Neil coming in? Or do you think that it's kind of below CEO level?

• 1:09:12Speaker 05

  I don't think, I don't think it's a YouTube level. I think it was a Google level. I don't think it was a YouTube. Cause everyone that I've talked to at YouTube is like, dude, we love this. We don't agree with this. Everyone I've talked to at YouTube, I never talked to Susan about it, but everyone else I've talked to. From, you know.

• 1:09:27Anthony Pompliano?

  High up, down, yeah.

• 1:09:29Speaker 05

  You know, like David, I don't know, I don't know. Might not even be a YouTube thing. Might it might even be a third party contractor that they, you know, contracted policies out to. You know, everyone does that. Twitter did. I know that. I know damn well Twitter did that. Elon got rid of them, all of them. But Twitter was doing that. It wasn't even a Twitter.

• 1:09:46Anthony Pompliano?

  We had our YouTube channel deleted one time. We were on a live stream and we got done and it was deleted. And thank God I had Twitter because I went on Twitter and I was having a field day being like, what the hell just happened? And it took a while, but I had numerous YouTube employees DM me and be like, hey, send me the information and all, you know, try to navigate internally. And it turns out that the official communication was like, there was a mistake made. Channels reinstated, you're fine. But the unofficial stuff was like, one person hit the delete button.

• 1:10:16Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:10:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? And like, I think to me, it was like, I don't know who the person was. I didn't want to know, right? It's just like, look, just we got the channel back, move on, whatever. I was like, man, one, one employee can do that?

• 1:10:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:10:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Right?

• 1:10:28Speaker 05

  That's what I mean.

• 1:10:28Anthony Pompliano?

  And like when you get to that level.

• 1:10:30Speaker 05

  That's what happened to Steve. You know, I don't know who, don't know is a contractor out, you know, they contracted a firm out of, you know, in the middle of nowhere. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. We'll never know. But what I tell Steve is maybe things change, maybe there could be reinstatement, but in the meantime, build this relationship with you have with Rumble, you know, I know it's not YouTube, but they take care of you. And they're, they're growing as well. But then also you've got everything else, you know, you have so much more. And when we walk the streets of Steve, just as many people going, losing their minds when they see Steve in the streets today as they were a year ago. So nothing's really changed as far as his relevancy goes.

• 1:11:09Anthony Pompliano?

  When you think of Full Send, Milk, kind of the whole thing today, right? Those three companies, et cetera. How big can this get? Like, is this a thing where the aspiration is, we want to build a billion dollar business? We want to build a 10 billion, 100 billion. Is it like, we think we can build this and, you know, some large corporation will come in and buy us out? Like, what, like, kind of, when you guys sit around in private and you think about like, imagine if, how big are the dreams or aspirations?

• 1:11:40Speaker 05

  You know, one thing I've never ever done is build anything in hopes of selling. So I've always wanted, every business, including Shots, Shots is 14 years old now. Happy Dad's about two years old. Full Send Nelk, I only joined about almost three years ago now, but it was, you know, it's about 10 years old, seven years old without me.

• 1:12:05Speaker 05

  My first focus is make it a successful profitable business. Treat this like we're never selling and we're just gonna be a profitable business. We're growing, we're innovating, you know, we're monetizing, you know, monetization. You know, monetization leads to being able to innovate and we could create, you know, Happy Dad was self-funded in the very beginning. To this day, we haven't really brought on any large investors. And so, you know, we make all decisions, you know. Happy Mom, I didn't have to go get so and so's approval. We decided. My brother and I decided, ran it by Stephen Kyle, they loved it. That's it. That's happening. You know, and that's always been the philosophy.

• 1:12:47Speaker 05

  Now, how big it could become, you know, because we do have shareholders, so I sometimes have to answer that question is, I think in each one of, each one of those businesses itself is a several hundred million, if not billion dollar company.

• 1:13:01Speaker 05

  And then Happy Dad, the different businesses within Happy Dad, I think, I think Happy Dad's a multi-billion dollar company. I think Happy Dad's.

• 1:13:08Anthony Pompliano?

  I think you're not thinking big enough.

• 1:13:10Speaker 05

  Was that? Yeah, I think.

• 1:13:11Anthony Pompliano?

  I think Happy Dad could easily be 10 plus billion.

• 1:13:13Speaker 05

  10 plus billion, I think Happy Dad's gonna have a number of billion dollar companies within it, right? I think Board Jerky itself is a billion dollar company. And I think someone will just call them.

• 1:13:20Anthony Pompliano?

  I saw The Rock with Terra Mana Tequila, I'm gonna mess up the numbers, but Casamigos. I think when they sold, somebody said they were doing like 180,000 cases, or they had done 180,000, I think it's over a billion. And The Rock has now sold a million cases. Right? So again, maybe the numbers are, you know, not exactly the same from a multiple basis. Price points could be different, profitability could be different, the economic environment's different. Like, you know, there's a whole bunch of kind of asterisks alongside that. But like TerraMon is probably a multi-billion dollar business, right? For that audience size and engagement, I feel like not only do you guys have a very large audience, a very engaged audience, which also have a really long runway, right?

• 1:14:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Like, everyone loves The Rock, he's one of the most recognizable people in the world, but he's older.

• 1:14:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? And so if you think over the next, you know, 10, 15 years, all those 21 to 28, 29 year olds, they're eventually going to become 30 and 40 year olds.

• 1:14:19Speaker 05

  Yeah. We, you know, you know, and Happy Dad, we also have partners outside of Nell. So Drewski became a partner recently, Sugar Sean O'Malley became a partner recently. There's a partner that's coming out April 1st, I can't say who.

• 1:14:37Speaker 05

  But I'm gonna, I'm gonna show you, and I just want you to see your reaction.

• 1:14:40Anthony Pompliano?

  All right.

• 1:14:41Speaker 05

  And then we'll.

• 1:14:42Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, but I can't say.

• 1:14:43Speaker 05

  You can't say, I'm just gonna show you.

• 1:14:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, no.

• 1:14:48Speaker 05

  He actually came out with the flavor idea himself, too.

• 1:14:53Speaker 05

  Not yet.

• 1:15:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, that's a grand slam.

• 1:15:02Speaker 05

  He came out with the flavor and the packaging.

• 1:15:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Of course, of course.

• 1:15:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:15:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Like, that's a grand slam.

• 1:15:08Speaker 05

  Yeah. So that's, so he's become a partner in the company. And, and we're launching a, our first, well, I don't, I don't want to say our first,

• 1:15:22Speaker 05

  our first collab, our first collab was actually, in my opinion, this, our Board A Banana Flavor. That was our first collab, but this will be our second collab, I guess, you would say. But yeah, that's coming out. So, so that's, you know, so when, now, when I'm thinking Happy Dad, I'm like, all right, I got, we got these other partners. And by the way, he hits a different market. Like, he's the, and that was his approach to us. He came up and said, hey, what are you doing within the black community? It's like, I'm trying to figure it out. He's like, let me run that for you. Let me, let me handle that part for you. You know, I was like.

• 1:15:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Pretty good person to do it.

• 1:15:53Speaker 05

  Yeah. So I was like.

• 1:15:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Love to have you.

• 1:15:58Speaker 05

  You know, Mr. Mrs. You know, I'm not gonna, I guess I've said him. So yeah, we know it's a mister, but um, but yeah, yeah, let's, let's do it. So this was about maybe a year ago this time. It's been a year partnership in the works and we're launching it April 1st. So, um, but yeah, so going back to it is like, so shots, in my opinion, several hundred million dollars. I mean, it's right now, it's currently actually the biggest podcast network on YouTube. Shots, Shots Podcast Network is, um, Full Send

• 1:16:31Speaker 05

  is and can be the next Barstool Sports, in my opinion.

• 1:16:37Speaker 05

  You know, uh, it's gonna be a lot of work. Don't want to ever take away anything from Portnoy, 20 plus years of grinding. So it's not like an overnight thing, but in the long run, it could be its own network for sports content, male and female focused content, both, um, you know, um, comedy, what time? And then, and then there's Happy Dad, which Happy Dad, the beverage itself to me is billion dollar plus company. But then Happy Dad's gonna have these other brands within it that'll also, you know, or Jerky, in my opinion, could be a billion dollar plus company itself. So, so that's why it's like multiple, multiple ones. But all three are very different too.

• 1:17:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:14Speaker 05

  But they all complement each other, you know, the Full Send brand and everything Full Send brings to the table helps Happy Dad.

• 1:17:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:20Speaker 05

  Shots Podcast Network helps bring on podcasts and you have like the Pivot Podcast where every episode they're drinking Happy Dad. And we're partners with them now and you know, other partner, other podcasts that we're going to bring underneath the partnership that gonna be drinking Happy Dad in every single episode, or even some of the collabs that we're gonna do, we're gonna do a Pivot Podcast Happy Dad collab. You know, um, so, you know, so they all, they all, they all, all these companies talk, they all, they all talk.

• 1:17:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's very smart. Yeah. Where can we send people to find you if they wanna just kind of pay attention as you guys continue? Or if they want to reach out?

• 1:17:53Speaker 05

  Um.

• 1:17:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Don't give your email.

• 1:17:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, they find my email. My email's too easy. I gotta make it more complicated. No, I mean, my socials, you know, I'm just at John everywhere. Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, I have at John. I don't use TikTok much, but every time, well, every so often, I'm on at John there. I'm at John on YouTube. So just John everywhere. But that's my personal, but I think if you really want to follow and see everything, just follow our brands. Follow Happy Dad on its, on socials, Board Jerky, Shots, Nelk Boys. You know, those are, I think, more entertaining. My personal ones, I'm so focused on helping other people with their social strategy. I forget about myself, so I don't really know what I'm doing. I just throw up random stuff on my socials.

• 1:18:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I think you're doing just fine. Awesome. Thank you so much for doing this. I always enjoy talking. And I don't think people quite understand just the, the size of what you guys have built and how fast some of this stuff's growing. So it's cool to talk to you and hopefully it'll inspire a lot of other people to watch.

• 1:18:53Speaker 05

  That's, that's why I do these podcasts, man. I want, I want, every once in a while, whenever I do these, someone messages me that they were inspired or they're doing this or that. I really, you know, I don't like doing a lot of these, but I do them because I just know that there's people out there who just want to get up and get off their ass and do it. Whether launch your own podcast, start your own company, design your own merch, whatever it is, you know, like just do it. Because that's, that's been the secret to us is like, you know, when we want to do something, we do it. And we don't, like I've said before, and I'm going to say forever, we don't burn bridges. We're always thinking long-term and, and you know, and, and we have fun. We do everything we do. Everything that we do is just fun. So that's what I'm hoping that anyone who's listening to this will just get up and just do it.

• 1:19:39Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it. All right. Thank you so much.

• 1:19:40Speaker 05

  Thanks.