Pod Insights Financial Tea with Mrs. Dow Jones Viral Fame vs. Actually Making Money ft Track Star's Jack Coyne About this episode Jack Coyne founder of Track Star joins Financial Tea to talk about what it actually takes to turn a viral show into a business: spending your own money, putting everything on a credit card, paying salaries before profits, and the slow, unsexy compounding that builds something real. Plus, why most creators don’t feel rich when you think they should and what money actually buys once you have it.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:02 Haley Sacks? What's up, rich people? It's me, Haley, AKA Mrs. Dow Jones, and this is Financial Tea.
0:10 Speaker 01 UKG is the workforce operating platform with unified HR, payroll, and workforce management, built to solve the unique challenges of frontline work. Powered by People First AI and decades of labor data, UKG turns workforce intelligence into real-time decisions around staffing, pay, compliance, and productivity, enabling every worker to confidently take action as work happens. Because when work works, everything works. Learn more at ukg.com/work. UKG: HR, Pay, and Workforce Management.
0:47 Speaker 02 Real traders still hear the noise. They just know when to stop listening to it. Find and research opportunities to fit your strategy with Thinkorswim trading platforms from Schwab. Discover features like robust charting, nearly unlimited customization, and built-in risk management technology. Plus, get 24/7 support from real trading specialists. That's Schwab Trading. Learn more at schwab.com/trading.
1:10 Haley Sacks? What's up, sippers? It's me, Haley, AKA Mrs. Dow Jones, and this is Financial Tea, the podcast where I teach you how to build wealth with a side of market drama, money scandals, and financial pop culture. So today's question is, how does a guy stopping strangers on the street, playing them a song, and then offering them five bucks end up running one of the most-watched internet shows of the last year? Yes, we have Jack Coin here from Trackstar to give us the financial tea. The show launched in 2023, blew up pretty much immediately, and now racks up hundreds of millions of views across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Oh, and it makes millions of dollars. Millions. And by the way, it's so popular that celebrities
1:54 Haley Sacks? like Charli XCX, Ed Sheeran, and even Kamala Harris are begging to play. I mean, Mark Zuckerberg flew this man to Hawaii to be in an episode. But the real question is, where's the money?
2:08 Speaker 03 That's what everyone wants to know.
2:09 Haley Sacks? Where's the money? How do viral shows actually make cash? Who's paying? And how do you turn internet fame into something sustainable, not just like a flash in the pan? Jack Coin is here today to break it all down. Okay, welcome to the podcast, Jack Coin. So excited that you're here. We have three icebreakers that I ask every guest. First, what were your best and worst purchases of the week?
2:35 Speaker 03 This is gonna be so boring, but I ordered groceries from Whole Foods.
2:39 Haley Sacks? Oh, my god.
2:40 Speaker 03 And this is not something that I do that often, but it was a bit of a New Year's resolution to start making a much more of an effort to cook. And I don't know, I felt so, I usually go to the grocery store, but getting everything I needed delivered, it like set me up for like wanting to plan cooking all week.
2:58 Haley Sacks? Whoa, okay. Drop the recipe, baddie.
3:01 Speaker 03 So that was one of the things. The other thing is I went out to lunch twice this week from a Jamaican jerk chicken food cart. We went today and I went on Tuesday, too.
3:12 Haley Sacks? Okay, huge fan.
3:14 Speaker 03 And my worst purchase of the week was on Monday, it was my birthday, I went to the Rangers game. And after the game, I was with a couple of friends and we decided, okay, let's just get one more drink. And then it was like, one more drink. And then it was like, one more drink. Tomorrow, we'll start Dry January. And so that wasn't the smartest purchase because it didn't set my week up for success.
3:34 Haley Sacks? Yes, yes, yes. What do you lie about when it comes to money?
3:37 Speaker 03 That's a good question. Do I lie about stuff when it comes to money?
3:41 Haley Sacks? Or like just downplay, like you're very like chill.
3:43 Speaker 03 I probably don't pay attention very closely to what I'm spending money on. And at the end of the year, when I'm really looking at credit card statements, like tracking what I spent money on, I inevitably spend way more money on going out to eat and buying, you know, going to restaurants than I should. And I sort of pretend like, oh, it's not that expensive to do that. And then I'm like, it is. I'm wasting so much money doing that.
4:09 Haley Sacks? Last question, do you feel rich today?
4:11 Speaker 03 I feel very rich in spirit and in emotion. I feel like health is wealth. So yes, in terms of like the amount of money in my bank account, no. Not at all, not at all. But I am confident that that one day I will be.
4:26 Haley Sacks? Oh my, you're gonna be so rich. Okay, before we jump into the money tea, I just want to talk about how we met because this is not a random encounter. Like Jack and I, we've been friends for a long time.
4:35 Speaker 03 Yes. And this is kind of, it's surprising. We've never done a podcast before because this is sort of how we got close to each other. It was doing stuff like this.
4:45 Haley Sacks? Totally.
4:45 Speaker 03 Explain.
4:46 Haley Sacks? Well, I, so Jack and I went to Wesleyan University together and we were both filmmakers. So we went abroad for, to Copenhagen. But I will say, so we've like been best friends since then, but I will say, I also feel like you sort of normalized this career for me because you were really early in media. You worked for Casey and Istat since high school. And so like being close to you, I understood that like, oh, this is actually something that people do.
5:14 Speaker 03 Yeah, this is a career as possible. I mean, I remember when we were in college, taking that digital film.
5:19 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
5:19 Speaker 03 Class and I knew how to edit because I had learned like in the summer and whatever. And you were like, how do I do this? And I remember teaching you Premiere.
5:27 Haley Sacks? Totally.
5:27 Speaker 03 And being like, trust me, you need to learn how to do this. And I take full credit for your whole career. That's all I have to say.
5:34 Haley Sacks? Jack gets 15%. We're actually, this year we're bumping it to 20. And how did you come up with Trackstar? Because it's such a good idea. It's so well done.
5:42 Speaker 03 So I started a production company with my brother and our other friend. And the business model of that was an advertising agency. We all had this skillset going back to when we were in college. Where we knew how to make videos and we were making commercials and advertisements for people across social media. And then we were bank, we had a studio space and we were banking that money and basically spending the excess resources and our excess time on coming up with new ideas for shows. So because we had the space, because we had the tools, because we had each other to lean on, it was so much easier for us to say, let's go out and make this show and let's make another show tomorrow, another thing the next day. So we were always able to come up with new ideas and make shows because the setting was so, it made it easy for us.
6:27 Speaker 03 Like I remember the first thing we ever did is before we had any show idea, I was like, oh, I'll just talk to people on the street. And I started talking to this elderly gentleman and he was like, I said, can I interview? He's like, yeah, sure. And I was like, so how are you? Like, what's, what's your name? And, and it was like, what's the vibe? And he was like, uh, just going to get gross. It was like so boring. And he was like, why are you asking me about nothing?
6:49 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
6:50 Speaker 03 And then I realized, no, you have to like, if you're gonna stop people and try and ask them questions, you gotta ask them something meaningful so they care. Um, and so then we went back to what are, what are things that people care about? What's something that people are gonna wanna talk to you about?
7:04 Haley Sacks? How did it end up that Olivia Rodrigo was your first celeb guest? Like, how long had you been doing it before? Like, how did that happen?
7:11 Speaker 03 Still a mystery to me how, exactly how it happened, but, um, the show was not that big yet, but it was definitely like people, it had momentum.
7:20 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
7:20 Speaker 03 People thought it was cool. And we got an email, hey, can you come like meet Olivia Rodrigo? Got a new album coming out, like, would you, she wants to be on the show. And then I met her and she was like, I love watching your show. I was like, it's crazy. It shows you the power of the internet and like a good idea. Um, it can gather momentum pretty quickly.
7:38 Haley Sacks? Mm hmm.
7:39 Speaker 03 And you can break through.
7:40 Haley Sacks? Okay, so you've said that you've never like asked a celebrity to be on the show. People ask you to be on the show. So have you ever like, have people offered you money? Like, do you have to say no to a lot of people? Like, how do you sort of vet who gets to come on or not?
7:52 Speaker 03 Yeah, um, we have to say no because there's more requests and people who wanna be on the show than we have the capacity to, to do it, right? We put out maybe five episodes per week.
8:02 Haley Sacks? Mm hmm.
8:03 Speaker 03 Um, and the requests are probably thirty, forty, fifty a week.
8:06 Haley Sacks? That's so crazy.
8:07 Speaker 03 And it cost, it costs money to make the show. I have a team of like ten people. We have an office, we have a lot of overhead. And so even though it's like, oh, it's casual, I'm just gonna be on the show. It's like, there's real expenses involved with making each episode. And the, the expense of obviously all of our time and not focusing on other things. So we have to be pretty deliberate about who we record with and when and why and how we manage our time. In terms of getting paid, we have been offered to have people pay to be on the show.
8:36 Haley Sacks? How much?
8:37 Speaker 03 The most was, um, maybe ten thousand dollars, fifteen thousand dollars.
8:44 Haley Sacks? And you were, you said no?
8:45 Speaker 03 We have said yes before.
8:47 Haley Sacks? Mm hmm.
8:47 Speaker 03 Yeah.
8:48 Haley Sacks? I would think I could probably guess like which episodes.
8:50 Speaker 03 You think you know?
8:51 Haley Sacks? I think maybe if I looked, I could find that.
8:53 Speaker 03 It's a secret, I'll never tell.
8:54 Haley Sacks? Obviously, you can't, you can't do it like that.
8:56 Speaker 03 But, but I think that, you know, what we've realized is Music labels, we didn't, we stumbled into the show where musicians are sort of promoting. They're not super directly promoting their music, but the reason that we get the opportunity to talk to these people is because they want to sort of promote something.
9:11 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
9:12 Speaker 03 The whole purpose of them going, or they're promoting themselves. And we've learned through doing this that music labels have a lot of money to spend on promoting artists to get people to stream their songs.
9:23 Haley Sacks? Wow.
9:23 Speaker 03 So like they're, they are paying lots of any type of, anytime you see an artist on a show, a lot of the time, the label is paying for that to happen, or there is some sort of promotion involved.
9:33 Haley Sacks? Okay, now that we've covered the basics, let's get down to the business because the show is a huge hit, but like, how much is it making? How long did it take for Trackstar to break six figures, to break seven figures? Like, what was your first big brand deal? Like, how are you making money from this show?
9:51 Speaker 03 I would say for the first year that the show was out there, made zero dollars.
9:58 Haley Sacks? Which just shows you like the platforms don't pay.
10:00 Speaker 03 Yeah, the platforms, I guess there was a little bit of money that TikTok was paying us, maybe like $3,000 a month, which, which $3,000 is a lot of money.
10:09 Haley Sacks? Helps, yeah.
10:09 Speaker 03 If you're just by yourself, making videos at home, that's great.
10:12 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
10:12 Speaker 03 But like, we're fully, full-service production company, and I have, we're paying salaries, like for lots of people.
10:18 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
10:18 Speaker 03 Um, for everything that we do. So the breakthrough probably came in the second year. I found that like with brand partnerships, especially like in, in, on, on social media, it takes a while for them to catch up to what's happening. And so it's not like the freshest thing that just came out. It's often like, it's been around for a year, it's established, people are familiar with it, let's go like in, in Q3 next year. So, so it's like your relevance online almost pays off later than when it's actually happening.
10:52 Haley Sacks? Totally.
10:52 Speaker 03 Hopefully you can continue to grow, but like it takes a while for those brand partnerships to catch up.
10:56 Haley Sacks? So how, so the first year you made no money, and then the second year?
11:00 Speaker 03 The first year and a half, first year we probably made $600,000 or $700,000, and then we've doubled every year.
11:07 Haley Sacks? That's awesome.
11:08 Speaker 03 Since then.
11:09 Haley Sacks? Two X every year, baby. That's what we like to see in a startup, but you're not really a startup anymore.
11:14 Speaker 03 Well, we still kind of, we still got a startup mentality.
11:16 Haley Sacks? Startup mentality, you gotta keep it, you know, keep grinding. Uh, the other thing I was thinking about too, is like how iconic your branding is, the orange, like people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on branding. Did you just come up with that?
11:27 Speaker 03 We came up with orange because we were thinking about what's a color that represents the tone and feel of the show and orange represents like warmth and happiness. And so it was like, oh, orange just felt like a unique color and something that felt on brand for that emotion. I think branding like becomes iconic because the brand becomes iconic. And so it's almost like an afterthought, even something that probably the first time people saw like the Nike check, they're like, whatever.
11:55 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
11:56 Speaker 03 Took years for people to realize how iconic Nike is, and then the check becomes more iconic.
12:01 Haley Sacks? Everything like compounds, like you have to put that, like even with your brand partnerships, like it took so long for people to recognize that you are such a valuable platform. And now it's even going to go more to the moon because you've been doing it for longer and just keep increasing, increasing.
12:16 Speaker 03 It's a good way of putting like the compounding.
12:19 Haley Sacks? And now, you know, with compounding, it becomes exponential at a certain point. So we see this guy on the New York Times. What are the business finances right now? Like, are you optimizing more, would you say, for upside or for stability?
12:32 Speaker 03 Stability. I think, um, yeah, I think that, as I said, like every year, our revenue has doubled, but we've slowed. We started off as three people and now we're 10. So like our team has doubled every year. Reinvesting in the studio space, like this year, we've probably spent, we're spending in this past year, half a million dollars.
12:53 Haley Sacks? Wow.
12:54 Speaker 03 Pouring into our office, which is a rental, but we have like a 10 plus year lease there. And we know that we're going to get a return on that because we will film in the space. But that was a huge investment for us. And yeah, it's giving it back to, to sort of building the team and pouring it into the content and trying to figure out, how do we make a really solid foundation in here so that we can continue to develop new shows and new ideas? Because that's how we got to this place to begin with. It was like really strong foundational stability with the advertising agency model that we started with, and then building layers and layers on top of that.
13:30 Haley Sacks? So then what are the revenue streams just for Trackstar?
13:33 Speaker 03 Just for Trackstar, there's a little bit of money that's coming in from the social platforms that are paying you like ad share dollars. And then the biggest piece is brand partnerships. So brands.
13:47 Speaker 03 Will say, we really like your show. We want to support it. So like an example of that is Beats by Dre. We already had a year-long partnership with them for product placement. So we always wore Beats by Dre custom Trackstar headphones and did a couple
14:01 Speaker 03 interviews on the set of Beats shoots that were happening. And so that's something that's, it helps us plan in the long term because we know there's X amount of dollars coming in throughout the year. We have a similar partnership with Rivian, the car brand. So we do stuff with them throughout the year. And it just helps us kind of, instead of waiting for one thing and the next, like sporadically, it helps you sort of plan ahead a little bit and know you have that amount of money to rely on, to invest in. We could hire a producer for our podcast or whatever that thing might be.
14:33 Speaker 01 UKG is the workforce operating platform with unified HR, payroll, and workforce management. Built to solve the unique challenges of frontline work. Powered by People First AI and decades of labor data, UKG turns workforce intelligence into real-time decisions around staffing, pay, compliance, and productivity, enabling every worker to confidently take action as work happens. Because when work works, everything works. Learn more at ukg.com/work. UKG, HR, Pay, and Workforce Management.
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15:35 Haley Sacks? Something that I think is hard when you're an entrepreneur is knowing whether to invest in your future rich person versus like your current rich person. And I know in your personal life, your wife is pregnant and you know, you're doing all these renovations for your office. But like, I'm friends with Ally. Like, she's like, girl, we can't afford to, you know, renovate our house. Like, you know, but it's like, you're going to pour everything into the business. But it's like, your personal life, you still scale back and are like, like, you know, Not throwing dollars around. So how do you negotiate that?
16:10 Speaker 03 First of all, the money that we're spending on the business is it's not my money.
16:15 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
16:15 Speaker 03 It's the business's money. I own a piece of the business, but I have partners in that. And so it's not like all of it is just my own cash that's going in. And the hope is that we can, making those investments will pay off in my career going forward. That will help us have more financial stability down the road with our kid. But spending like money on like furniture at our house in the short term isn't necessarily something that's going to have a payoff when like, you know, when you know people with babies, like babies are like, are like vomiting like.
16:47 Haley Sacks? Yeah. Yeah. Babies are so gross. Like babies get it together.
16:50 Speaker 03 I don't know.
16:51 Haley Sacks? Yeah. Like, it's like, why are we gonna like shell out for that?
16:54 Speaker 03 It's so it's just, I don't know. It's, I guess it's part of my personality. It's easier for me to, to just like justify, oh yeah, I can use the business credit card for this thing. Cause it's like part of the business and it's a write off for that.
17:05 Haley Sacks? Yeah. Yeah.
17:06 Speaker 03 I guess that's part of it. Like when you're spending money on your business, it's a write off in that business. Or it's an asset for that business. Whereas when you're spending, swiping your own credit card.
17:15 Haley Sacks? It's just a liability.
17:16 Speaker 03 You've already spent that.
17:17 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
17:17 Speaker 03 You've already paid taxes. You're just spending out of like your bottom line.
17:21 Haley Sacks? I know.
17:22 Speaker 03 You know.
17:23 Haley Sacks? I'm obsessed.
17:23 Speaker 03 You know about spending money and saving money.
17:25 Haley Sacks? Oh, I totally. And I'm the same way where I run everything through my business. But like, I, I don't think I spend that much. Like everything is in service of the business. And then when it's not, it's like, oh.
17:36 Speaker 03 Yeah. It's a different thing. It's a very different thing, right? Like just even like a flight, like it's paying for a flight, paying for a business class flight. When you're working is different than paying for a business class flight on vacation.
17:48 Haley Sacks? A hundred percent.
17:48 Speaker 03 You're like really paying a lot of money for business class.
17:51 Haley Sacks? That's like $3,000.
17:52 Speaker 03 I don't do that.
17:53 Haley Sacks? Yeah. Feels really different. What I think is amazing though, Jack, is like you're, you talk so much about like what you're building, right? Like, it's like you're on this amazing rocket ship where I think there is so much wealth and success in your future and in your present. But so much of the way that you've done that, that I think is helpful for my audience is by investing in your human capital. Like if you think about it, you're the ability to. Start public opinion and the production studio was because you had your expertise in, you know, production, your brother's an amazing editor, your other partner is amazing at cinematography. Like you all were build bringing your skills in to build something valuable. And then even for Trackstar, I know that you spent so much time learning about music.
18:38 Haley Sacks? You tell me that you want to build a new MTV, you're reading books about MTV, you're building, read, you know, you are, as much as you love music when you started this, you've now become like an aficionado. So just talk a little bit about like building your human capital and how much that has added value to your career.
18:54 Speaker 03 I guess it's, it's sometimes, sometimes it's hard for me to separate my life from my work interests. Like everything bleeds into each other and like I, I won't slow down. So I'll be thinking about like a country music artist or something that I spoke to and they mentioned someone and then I get home at night, I'm like, I want to watch a documentary about that. I just want to know about that. I, I think it's just a, a sense of like curiosity about the world and, and trying to tie that curiosity to the things that are happening in your work life. And then like, if you're going to be a storyteller, you have to be incredibly curious about the world to learn about it, to tell those stories. You're the same way with what you do. Like you're reading all sorts of stuff about finance and learning about the
19:39 Speaker 03 economy and you want, you, you, even when you're not working, you're continuing to try and learn those things. And when you read the paper and you see some, you're like, oh, that, that is connected to something that I know about in work, but I should know about it more. Besides, um, just investing in your sort of self and trying to like learn more. I mean, I, I guess like other things I've done, I've taken classes at night to try and learn about accounting and like, how, how do I like learn stuff that I'm applying to my business.
20:04 Haley Sacks? Like you're not just waking up and being like bloop, I have an internet show. Like you've created yourself. You built yourself into Jack Coin, who is ready for this opportunity. And like that, in order to have high earning potential, you need to meet that challenge. It's not just someone's going to hand you a check. You need to be the person who's going to demand that check because you're valuable. And every time that you read, you watch a document. When you do any of that stuff, you are like putting, you're investing in that.
20:31 Speaker 03 Yeah.
20:31 Haley Sacks? And I think that's so important and like something that no matter even if you, who you are, you can be doing that, no matter what your career is.
20:38 Speaker 03 I think it's hard to figure, when you're young, it's hard to figure out what you want to do. Cause there's like endless possibilities and you have like more limited skillset. But the more you start to figure out in life, like this is the thing that I get the most excited about, the easier it is to say, oh, that's my thing. Let me pour more, continue to fill up the bucket with more and more.
20:56 Haley Sacks? Do you feel happy doing what you do? Like, is it overwhelming now to have all this other responsibility? Or do you?
21:05 Speaker 03 It's the best thing in the world. It's the best thing in the world. I've never had a day of work where I wasn't happy. But, but that's also to a large extent true before I started this company. I, I feel like I've always been guided by trying to do things that are gonna bring me happiness. Like when I was not making any money straight out of college, working at this production company, I still really liked it. Like I liked every day and I liked the experience. And if I wasn't having fun, it was like, okay, I gotta change it up and try something new. When, so I worked for Casey and I sat for a long time. We started a company called Beam. That company sold to CNN. I worked at CNN for, uh, for a year. And in that time, like it wasn't a very fulfilling job.
21:49 Speaker 03 It was like, I was, a lot of my ideas were being shut down and I found myself kind of becoming lazy and like stagnant in that role. Cause oh, they don't wanna do this. All right. And, and I was getting paid a lot of money. And so it was like, well, I'm not gonna leave. Like I can just kind of do stuff coast and do what I want on the side. But then you just, you don't wanna do that either. Cause you're making enough money. Oh, I'll just go out. I'll do this thing. And you stop being focused. Sometimes when you're like hungrier.
22:13 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
22:14 Speaker 03 It's easier to, to, to spend that extra time on the outside, like fighting for, harder for what you want.
22:20 Haley Sacks? When I worked for Laura Michaels and I worked with Ben Marshall, who is like now on SNL, the redhead on SNL, he every night after work would go to like practice with Please Don't Destroy, or they had a writing session or whatever. And it's like, we were making like. Forty K a year, we weren't making any money and like it's a relatively New York City tough salary to get by on. But it's like, he was just all about that bigger vision. And now, you know, like he invests human capital. You gotta be hungry and keep going.
22:50 Speaker 03 I think, and I think if he had a job where he was in private equity, he was making two hundred thousand.
22:55 Haley Sacks? He would have never done.
22:56 Speaker 03 It would be, he'd be less inclined to go after work and meet those guys in practice.
23:00 Haley Sacks? Totally.
23:01 Speaker 03 And, and he'd, and his boss in, in the finance job would be like, you can't leave and like go to a writing thing.
23:08 Haley Sacks? So wait, there's three of you in the biz, though. You've got your business partner, you've got Kieran, your brother, and you've got you. How do you split the business profits?
23:17 Speaker 03 Everything we make, like, goes back into the business. Like, we don't really take pro, I guess, we're technically like have tax liabilities for the thing.
23:26 Haley Sacks? Like, who, how much do each of you own?
23:28 Speaker 03 Equal.
23:29 Haley Sacks? Whoa, really? Even though you are the star?
23:32 Speaker 03 Equal.
23:32 Haley Sacks? Damn. Are you sort of like, hmm, should have, should have done something differently there?
23:38 Speaker 03 No, I mean, obviously, like, sometimes you're like, well, why couldn't I? But from the very beginning, I was like, no, it's important for me that everyone feels like they have equal ownership.
23:47 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
23:47 Speaker 03 Over this business.
23:48 Haley Sacks? Is it hard to work with your brother?
23:50 Speaker 03 It's hard to work with anybody. But it's also easy, you know, I think it's equally hard and easy to work with my brother and my other partner who's not my brother.
24:00 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
24:00 Speaker 03 You know what I mean? Like, they're both, there's challenges with, at any given time with anyone you work with, but also there's a level of closeness between all of us, but particularly with my brother and I, and a level of trust that you can't, like, replicate.
24:14 Haley Sacks? Yeah, okay. I wish my sister knew, like, how to edit. I would be lit.
24:19 Speaker 03 Your sister's a doctor.
24:20 Haley Sacks? My sister's a surgeon, but it's like she needs to leave that behind and do premiere.
24:22 Speaker 03 Maybe you can hand the scalpel.
24:24 Haley Sacks? Yeah, I could. I'm like, can we wear, I'm like, trying to make her be more Dr. Phil vibes and she's not down. I'm like, girl, we gotta write a book. Like, let's go. So wait, what was, have you ever made like a really expensive mistake running the show?
24:38 Speaker 03 No, we've been pretty measured with how we've spent money. So I, there's not one particular mistake. There's, there's things that we've spent more money on than we should have. Like every step of the way is like a learning, right? It's like, oh, we, this person like who, who works for us is like they, it feels like we're getting so much more value out of them than what we're paying them. And maybe this person, you're not getting as much value out of, and you're paying like a lot. And so sort of trying to figure out that balance and understand where people are in their career. And so not that those are mistakes, but it's just like when you run a business, you start to learn how to navigate like the biggest expense for the most part every month is the team and the people.
25:20 Speaker 03 So like, how much, how much are people worth in your business? And then knowing that, oh, we have to get rid of someone if they're not providing the value. Cause like, it's a business at the end of the day and like you care about people, but also you have to worry, focus on the health of the business and make sure it's in the right place. And, and that as you grow and you start to be able to hire more and more sort of high level and expensive people, it's just riskier, right? Like if you're gonna give someone a salary for 200, 300, 400,000 dollars.
25:47 Haley Sacks? Do you do that?
25:48 Speaker 03 That's insane amounts of money. No, not yet, but that's a place, that's a direction we're headed.
25:52 Haley Sacks? Like who would, who do you need on the team?
25:53 Speaker 03 Paying myself, like I, I would love to be able to pay myself two or 300,000 dollars a year. But if I'm gonna do that, it's like every month or every two weeks, you're looking at the expenses and you're like, we have to make a lot of money to be able to pay this many salaries.
26:09 Haley Sacks? How much do you pay yourself?
26:11 Speaker 03 Uh, this past year, a hundred grand.
26:13 Haley Sacks? And then do you wanna double that this year? Like what's your goal?
26:16 Speaker 03 Yeah, my goal is like to, is to, is to try and double that this year. Um, at least I think, but, but now because we're having a kid very soon, like it's gonna be a whole new learning experience. Like how do we budget for that? And also, you know, back to your question about, when we were talking about hiring people, when you are, have kids and both you and your partner work, you have to figure out, like that becomes a business, I think.
26:43 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
26:43 Speaker 03 I don't know this yet, but I'm imagining you have to hire the right babysitter.
26:47 Haley Sacks? You have to have the right people, the right team.
26:49 Speaker 03 Care team in your house because your most important investment is your kids. And you have to have the right person with them. And if they're not working, you'd be able to fire them.
26:58 Haley Sacks? Mm hmm.
26:58 Speaker 03 And but maybe that makes it easier because it's probably so much easier to fire someone who's doing a bad job taking care of your kids than it is someone who's like working on Excel spreadsheet or whatever.
27:07 Haley Sacks? But also you'll be better at it. Like my friend Bryn is a CEO and she has three kids and she's fired seven D nannies. Seven zero. She's like, oh, bye, bye, bye, bye. Like she runs such a tight ship. Like there is no wiggle room. And it's like her company is worth a billion dollars. Like that's why. Like you either got the sauce or you don't.
27:29 Speaker 03 I think when you were asking about like, what's, what do I want in terms of like expenses and stuff in my life? Like, it would be cool to have and like an office manager, but for your house, for your life, you know?
27:44 Haley Sacks? I hate, I hate those kinds of tasks and they take up your whole day.
27:46 Speaker 03 You know, when you go to a rich person's house and the fridge, it's like organized.
27:49 Haley Sacks? Oh, my God. My friend is a billionaire and she has like special waters.
27:53 Speaker 03 There's always something like that. Yeah. And you're like, you just, it's just a different level of.
27:58 Haley Sacks? Yeah. You didn't have to think about this.
28:01 Speaker 03 Thinking about it.
28:01 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
28:01 Speaker 03 Oh, there's just, oh, open the fridge. Oh, there's, there's cut fruit in there.
28:05 Haley Sacks? Cut fruit. No, cut fruit is like very valuable.
28:08 Speaker 03 I was thinking about buying an espresso, like an expensive espresso machine for the office.
28:13 Haley Sacks? Oh, I think that's nice and good for like, I'm sure they would give it to you.
28:17 Speaker 03 Ally, like my wife, I was like, should we get this for the house? She's like, get it for your office. Like, you know, don't get it for the house.
28:24 Haley Sacks? That's the girl.
28:25 Speaker 03 And I was like, yeah, it's a write off. But then after, if it doesn't work in the office.
28:29 Haley Sacks? You can bring it home.
28:32 Speaker 03 And that's my financial advice to you, everyone who's listening.
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29:06 Speaker 01 UKG is the workforce operating platform with unified HR, payroll and workforce management. Built to solve the unique challenges of frontline work. Powered by people first AI and decades of labor data. UKG turns workforce intelligence into real time decisions around staffing, pay, compliance, and productivity, enabling every worker to confidently take action as work happens. Because when work works, everything works. Learn more at ukg.com/work. UKG, HR, pay and workforce management.
29:38 Haley Sacks? Okay, but you, this show, like, I feel like you are up there with like Chicken Shop Date and Subway Takes as like one of the top internet shows. Do you guys all talk? Like, how are they monetizing? And like, what do you, how do you plan past viral fame? Like, what are other, like, what's the plan? What's the four year plan? And what's the relationship?
30:00 Speaker 03 I, so Subway Takes, Kareem and I started basically around the same time. And we're friends, we're friendly, and we text and talk about stuff and kind of give each other advice about, hey, how do I navigate this thing? Or this person like wants to work together, whatever. And that's a great resource to have, and he's an awesome guy. Amelia is like, been in the game for 10 years.
30:20 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
30:21 Speaker 03 So she's someone who we, I do, I'm sure he does, look up to and admire a great deal, and admire her career. And she's really someone who had this like idea, and she's a creative force that wanted to build this thing. And it wasn't about making money and becoming rich. It was about like, I really want to do this show and tell this story. And it kept building and building and building. And everything came from that. And she gets opportunities to host red carpet events. She's like a personality that people want to connect with. And she's done this hosting thing. So I think that's great. And I think both of, I think all of us probably have a similar business model where there's brand partnerships, and then there's the revenue from the platforms. And then there's sort of hosting gigs that you can get outside of your own shows.
31:05 Haley Sacks? Where do you see tracks are going in like the next four years? Like,
31:09 Speaker 03 Yeah, well, we want it to be the next, we want it to be like MTV of this generation. And I, it's, I know that's kind of, if you just know it as this one show, that's hard to like, think about, oh, where does it go? It's just a show. It's going to become a network with lots of different shows, but at the heart is storytelling around music and connecting musicians and fans through.
31:30 Haley Sacks? And the spring break trip of, I hope.
31:32 Speaker 03 We're gonna do, yeah, spring break, Trackstar.
31:33 Haley Sacks? Trackstar's spring break, I think, was super important.
31:36 Speaker 03 I think about that all the time.
31:38 Haley Sacks? Yeah, foam party.
31:39 Speaker 03 Spring break was, was such an interesting.
31:41 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
31:41 Speaker 03 Yeah. I just met the longtime CEO of MTV Networks, Tom Freston. And I was like, I just kept asking him all these questions about how, what, how they went from music videos to then like the MTV of eventually Jersey Shore and these other things and sort of how, why they made those choices along the way. And, you know, if you go back in the archive, looking at these early shows, like Adam Sandler got his start.
32:10 Haley Sacks? On MTV?
32:11 Speaker 03 On MTV, on this show called Remote Control. And so it was just like, it's always about finding talented people and bringing them into your orbit. And so where Trackstar is gonna go and how we're gonna get there is we're gonna try and find really talented people and give them a platform and a place to tell these types of stories.
32:29 Haley Sacks? Do you, is that your new mentor? Like, I feel like that's also something interesting, too. It's like now, you know, are you, is that like someone that's gonna help guide your career? Like, who helps, who helps you make those decisions?
32:41 Speaker 03 Definitely, like, finding people like that who have that experience, I think, is really important. Interesting comp with, with MTV is like, when it started, cable TV was brand new. So, and I think having shows, having sort of serialized shows for social media platforms is still like very fresh and new. And so a lot of people don't even understand what this whole landscape looks like. And so there's a tremendous amount of opportunity there, but going back, like, the MTV core team, they looked up to Rolling Stone, which started, you know. 15, 20 years earlier as a, as a print magazine. But it's kind of, they were doing the same thing. They were connecting people around the shared love of music.
33:26 Speaker 03 And so they kind of could learn some things from them, but Rolling Stone could learn some things from MTV because they didn't know about TV. And I think each generation, like the younger people know probably more about the emerging technologies and sort of the, the new landscape. And then the older people can say, well, here are some truths that have gone off throughout time. And here are some things, general things about business that will be helpful for you to know. And so to answer your question, yes, I wanna have those types of people as mentors, but also you have to stay true to,
33:58 Haley Sacks? To what you're about.
33:59 Speaker 03 I understand the current landscape better than,
34:02 Haley Sacks? They do.
34:02 Speaker 03 than, than they do.
34:03 Haley Sacks? A hundred percent. Um, also, I just wanted to flag that, yes, you are having a baby and you know that I'm a master of growing generational wealth. So I do feel like you need to start, just in the videos, you're wearing the baby in a carrier.
34:18 Speaker 03 Yeah.
34:19 Haley Sacks? And then you can pay the baby for being in Trackstar and then we can open the baby a custodial Roth IRA.
34:26 Speaker 03 So,
34:27 Haley Sacks? Like just put the baby in some shit and then we can make the baby an employee.
34:32 Speaker 03 This is like a common thing with celebrities, right?
34:35 Haley Sacks? They are always putting the baby in the media because then the babies can be paid as actors or models, which is like really when you're a baby, the only thing that you can do.
34:46 Speaker 03 I was a baby model.
34:48 Haley Sacks? Whoa.
34:48 Speaker 03 And, and,
34:49 Haley Sacks? Do you have custodial Roths?
34:51 Speaker 03 I ha- I got some sort of money for,
34:54 Haley Sacks? Damn.
34:55 Speaker 03 That I guess moved into college. Yeah.
34:57 Haley Sacks? You pay it forward.
34:57 Speaker 03 And I have these great like baby photos in like different outfits.
35:00 Haley Sacks? There you go. There you go.
35:02 Speaker 03 So, yeah, we're gonna have Little John, he's gonna be working.
35:05 Haley Sacks? Little John, cool.
35:08 Speaker 03 He's gonna be working.
35:08 Haley Sacks? Little John. Also, like, I just want to open the floor up. Like, do you have any money questions for me? Like, I'm here for you.
35:15 Speaker 03 So you, I mean, you asked, am I rich? And I said last year I made a hundred thousand dollars. That's great. That's like good money, but it's not like,
35:22 Haley Sacks? For the amount that you work.
35:23 Speaker 03 raising your kids in New York City, but, but. I have a lot of equity tied up in a business that's valuable, right? And so when you, when your, when your wealth is tied up in shares of a company that's increasing in value, what are the, how do you pay for your life? And, and like, and not take the money out of the shares of the business? Isn't that a thing?
35:49 Haley Sacks? Okay, so what you're talking about is buy, borrow, die. And it's like, every billionaire does this. And basically you build something valuable, like Trackstar. And then Trackstar is valued, say Trackstar is valued at a hundred million dollars. Then you borrow against that a hundred million and you use that money to fund your life. Then when you die, because of stepped up cost basis, the tax bill disappears. So your heirs then inherit the valuable asset in full. You've never like, you, you own thirty three percent or whatever, thirty three percent of Trackstar, they would still have that, but there's no taxes.
36:29 Speaker 03 Okay, so the key is like, right now I could sell half of my position in, in the business.
36:35 Haley Sacks? Do not sell.
36:36 Speaker 03 That cash, but instead I could, I could take, I could borrow money against the shares. Spend that money, I want to buy a new house.
36:43 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
36:44 Speaker 03 If the business is worth a hundred million dollars.
36:46 Haley Sacks? Yeah.
36:47 Speaker 03 I want to buy a new house. And I'm like, oh, I have these shares that are worth thirty million dollars. I could borrow ten, buy the house, or I guess borrow enough to pay down my mortgage and stuff on, on a house.
37:00 Haley Sacks? But it's risky, right? Like then, you know, you've got to-
37:04 Speaker 03 Well, if the value of the business goes down, then you're, then you're screwed.
37:06 Haley Sacks? Yeah, you're fucked. But like you, like this is what Mark Zuckerberg does.
37:10 Speaker 03 Borrowing money is always risky, you know?
37:11 Haley Sacks? And this is totally, and this is how billionaires pay zero taxes. Because on paper, they're taking like a one dollar salary, you know? But they're borrowing against their assets. Like I think Jeff Bezos takes like a dollar salary. I know Mark Zuckerberg does.
37:25 Speaker 03 Yeah, the money is not, they're not actually making any money.
37:28 Haley Sacks? No, no, no. And the craziest thing is that borrowing is not taxable income. So the money that you borrow against the business- Not taxable.
37:38 Speaker 03 Interesting.
37:38 Haley Sacks? Buy, borrow, die.
37:40 Speaker 03 I wasn't thinking about it necessarily as a tax scheme, more just like.
37:45 Haley Sacks? It's okay if you're like, this is a safe space for tax schemes, by the way.
37:49 Haley Sacks? Like, it's like, if you want to, like, just say that, like, it's fine. Like, Uncle Sam is my least favorite uncle.
37:55 Speaker 03 Yeah, I mean, I guess my thinking is just try and get by on as little as possible and keep as much as possible.
38:01 Haley Sacks? In the biz.
38:02 Speaker 03 In the business and spend it on.
38:04 Haley Sacks? I think you could definitely find someone or a place to give you a low interest rate loan against Trackstar, and it would be really smart. And then pay it back. Oh, the other thing that I wanted to tell you that does stress me out about your finances, which I think happens a lot with business owners, is like, are you investing? Like, are you doing SEP IRA? Are you doing a Roth IRA? Like, you could have a Roth IRA with your income limit, I mean, with your income. Like, I know you're putting everything back in the business, but I think that, like, it would still be really smart for you to make sure that you're diversifying into the stock market.
38:36 Speaker 03 What's the max that you can put into your Roth?
38:39 Haley Sacks? For this year, it's $7,500.
38:41 Speaker 03 I do that every year.
38:42 Haley Sacks? And SEP IRA, too.
38:43 Speaker 03 That's basically where I am, just with the Roth.
38:45 Haley Sacks? But are we doing SEP?
38:46 Speaker 03 No.
38:47 Haley Sacks? So we have the same accountant. We need to have, Michael Savochi, love your work. SEP IRA is great when you have your own business. I just, because I think that, like, we put so much back, but you need to also hedge your bets.
38:59 Speaker 03 Yeah.
38:59 Haley Sacks? Even though this is going to the moon, like, and also, you want to make sure you got disability insurance.
39:04 Speaker 03 Yeah.
39:04 Haley Sacks? Because, like, you know, you don't have a peg leg on TV, like, or maybe you do, like, it's like, you gotta watch, like, you know, what if you, both your arms get eaten by something and then you can't, you got a wireless mic, like, you need to.
39:17 Speaker 03 Wow, wireless mic, that's a good idea.
39:19 Haley Sacks? I guess, now that I'm thinking through, like, you could do the show in many different physical states, but we should also plan for, like, maybe, what if you got laryngitis? You know, like, you gotta plan for, you protect your asset. This is a big asset.
39:33 Speaker 03 Insurance. Insurance is a hard thing.
39:35 Haley Sacks? Insurance is so hard. My dad is always telling me, like, he made me get insurance for, like, financial advice insurance, basically.
39:41 Speaker 03 I just feel like there should be. Someone should disrupt.
39:46 Haley Sacks? Insurance.
39:47 Speaker 03 Insurance.
39:47 Haley Sacks? Health, please.
39:48 Speaker 03 There should be a really simple app. I'm not even talking about health insurance, I'm talking about like, like every other, like business insurance, liability stuff.
39:55 Haley Sacks? Like niche, niche insurance.
39:56 Speaker 03 Everything, like it should just be simple.
39:58 Haley Sacks? Do you have any other financial questions?
40:00 Speaker 03 Where are the best places to borrow, best like ways to borrow money?
40:04 Haley Sacks? Well, I mean, like, uh, one example is like student loans, like if a stu-
40:08 Speaker 03 Student loans are really low interest.
40:10 Haley Sacks? Most of them, unless you're, they're private, they're gonna be, the like, the threshold is seven percent. So we look at like any debt underneath seven percent APR is considered low interest. And any debt above seven percent is high interest. And then if it's over seven percent, it's like you're on a treadmill. Like you're, no matter how much progress you make, like you're just never gonna get off. It's impossible to like make progress because like you're just being hit every month with these crazy payments and it's overwhelming. But if it's below, because the stock market has averaged like an eight to 10% return. So you're able to take the money that you're borrowing and put it into the stock market at eight, you know, at four percent, five percent. Put it into the market at eight to 10%. You're making a ton of money. That's why celebrities all have mortgages.
40:55 Haley Sacks? So Brene and Carpenter just got a mortgage. She is worth fourteen million dollars. Adele has a mortgage. Beyonce and Jay-Z are billionaires. They have mortgages.
41:02 Speaker 03 So Brene Carpenter is only worth fourteen million?
41:04 Haley Sacks? I know, I was also surprised at that.
41:06 Speaker 03 That seems low.
41:07 Haley Sacks? I know, but I feel like if you look at it, she's, her net worth is growing so much every year.
41:12 Speaker 03 Yeah.
41:13 Haley Sacks? I think she's been working for ten years, but it just hit.
41:15 Speaker 03 Yeah.
41:16 Haley Sacks? And she probably has a lot of expenses.
41:17 Speaker 03 It's a lot of expenses.
41:18 Haley Sacks? Yeah, like when a girl is looking that good, she's doing that much, like it's like, it's a big team.
41:23 Speaker 03 And it's expensive to like create her whole thing.
41:26 Haley Sacks? That's what I'm saying.
41:27 Speaker 03 Just because she puts on a show at Madison Square Garden, that might, the show might generate a couple of million dollars. Like, there's a lot of, there's everyone who's working at Madison Square Garden, she's paying.
41:35 Haley Sacks? Well, you know a lot about musicians' business finances, too. Where you were like, now, whenever I see on Spotify that a show has a billion streams, I like, remember what you, how much is it that they get paid for a billion streams?
41:47 Speaker 03 Uh, I think a billion streams is $4 million.
41:51 Haley Sacks? I'm like, clocking that. I'm like, okay, Sabrina, it's okay, Selena Gomez.
41:55 Speaker 03 And I think that's not just the artist. I think that's what the platform pays that's then like split, like often like 50/50 with the label.
42:03 Haley Sacks? Okay, Jack, that is my financial advice for you, but you know where to find me. I'm always here to give you more. And thank you, sippers. Yes, let me know if I'm allowed to call you that, or if I'm going to jail. Thanks for listening to Financial Tea. We will be back next week with more financial insights and piping hot gossip. And if you have got a financial confession, a question, a mess you need cleaning up, go to speakpipe.com/financialtea, random website, but I will answer your question, your voicemails if you leave them there. Speakpipe.com/financialtea and spill it. Oh, and also, Jack, do you have anything you want to promote?
42:40 Speaker 03 Yeah.
42:41 Haley Sacks? I mean, yours is famous. Everyone knows you.
42:42 Speaker 03 Trackstar Podcast is a show that we make. It comes out every Wednesday. It's available on all podcast platforms. You can listen to it, or you can watch it on YouTube, or Spotify, or whatever. Yeah, it's really fun. It's about music.
42:54 Haley Sacks? Thank you, Jack, so much for coming on the show. One of my favorite people and someone who I really admire, like your financial business journey. We're gonna get you some cash flow, baby. Buy, borrow, die. We gotta find someone to give you that loan. Talk about it after. You're the GOAT.
43:10 Speaker 03 You're the GOAT.
43:11 Haley Sacks? Literally a star, since I've known him. Now everyone else is seeing what I've always seen.
43:24 Speaker 01 UKG is the workforce operating platform with unified HR, payroll, and workforce management. Built to solve the unique challenges of frontline work. Powered by People First AI and decades of labor data, UKG turns workforce intelligence into real-time decisions around staffing, pay, compliance, and productivity, enabling every worker to confidently take action as work happens. Because when work works, everything works. Learn more at ukg.com/work. UKG, HR, Pay, and Workforce Management.
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