#1164 Richard Ryan | Founder of Black Rifle Coffee on Product vs Distribution, Social Media Influencers, Blockchain & Web3

Richard Ryan is a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Black Rifle Coffee Company. In this conversation, we talk about his entrepreneurial career, building mobile apps before YouTube was in the app store, how he built a media company with Verizon, all the secrets of Black Rifle Coffee, and tips to grow an audience online. ======================= Announcing LYCEUM | Miami, a day-long event on March 4th in Miami Beach hosted by Pomp. We’re gathering an explosive group of experts to engage in a series of bold discussions, covering topics from investing, emerging tech, longevity, space exploration, entertainment and more. The speaker lineup includes names such as investing legend Cathie Wood, NYT bestselling author Vivek Ramaswamy, billionaire Christian Angermayer, master of Contrarian Thinking Codie Sanchez, Modern Wisdom host Chris Williamson plus many more. Listeners will receive an exclusive 40% discount on VIP and Insider Pass tickets with code POMP40. General Admission tickets are free of charge. Spots are limited so head to lyceummiami.com to buy your ticket today. ======================= 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. Richard Ryan is a serial entrepreneur and a co-founder of Black Rifle Coffee Company. In this conversation, we talk about his entrepreneurial career, what he was doing building mobile apps before YouTube was in the App Store, how he built a media company with Verizon,

• 0:47Anthony Pompliano?

  what are all the secrets of Black Rifle Coffee Company, and where he would be building on the internet now if he was trying to build an audience from scratch. I really enjoy talking to Richard. He's hilarious. He's got some great stories and tons of great insights. Once you get done listening to this episode, jump on Twitter and let us know what you like, what you don't like, what you agree with, and where you think that we are complete idiots. We always appreciate the feedback and it helps us improve these episodes for each one of you. Here is my conversation with Richard Ryan.

• 1:15Speaker 01

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• 2:40Speaker 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.

• 3:03Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Bang, bang, I've got Richard here with me. Black Rifle Coffee is a fucking massive company.

• 3:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, your crew's wearing a hat.

• 3:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Literally walk in, people got hats on. Everyone loves the product. It's a massive business, now publicly traded business. You guys went public at a multi-billion dollar valuation, whole thing. We'll talk about Black Rifle Coffee in a second. But you had a whole life before Black Rifle Coffee.

• 3:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:27Anthony Pompliano?

  How the hell do you go from doing all these other things to actually starting Black Rifle? What were you doing before?

• 3:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, let's go down memory lane. I moved out to Los Angeles, early 2000s.

• 3:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Sorry.

• 3:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, I know. I was doing the typical pursuing the entertainment career out there. And for a period of time, you know, I was homeless, living in my truck because Craigslist didn't exist back then. And it was really difficult to find a place in a short period of time because I flew out there relatively quick and was looking at places to stay. And I was like, I'll be out here in three months. They're like, well, we'll have it rented in two days. So I drove out there with all my stuff and hopes and dreams. And started doing stand-up, went to Groundlings, did all the comedy stuff for a while, and I got really frustrated with asking permission. To vent creatively.

• 4:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 4:21Speaker 05

  And about 2006, YouTube came around. I was cast in a top 100 YouTube channel doing sketch comedy. And around the same time, the iPhone came out, 2006, 2007. And started seeing the writing on the walls. And so I taught myself how to program. Uh, I was sleeping on a porch for a period of time, working all these different jobs. Well, it was, it was walled up. It was walled up, but it was, you know, cheap for LA. It was a $400 a month porch.

• 4:51Anthony Pompliano?

  That's not bad.

• 4:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, but uh, it was great. I was bartending downtown. I even had this uh, degenerate gambler. Uh, GC who would come in all the time and I was really good at picking college football.

• 5:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 5:04Speaker 05

  I know this is really, really random, but I legit, I worked probably eight jobs at one time.

• 5:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 5:09Speaker 05

  And.

• 5:10Anthony Pompliano?

  What were you doing in LA though? Just trying to be a comedian?

• 5:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was just trying to do the entertainment thing.

• 5:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Alright, it's hard if you're not funny.

• 5:16Speaker 05

  It, it, that's true. And I, I am not even close. I am, I'm the worst. I mean, I remember getting my first laugh on stage. I was like, what is this?

• 5:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Alright, so you're doing the eight jobs. What do you end up doing?

• 5:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, so uh, I teach myself how to program. You know, the iPhone comes out and I start creating mobile apps.

• 5:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 5:32Speaker 05

  And because we were doing the YouTube thing at that time, YouTube was native to iOS. So you couldn't run ads on it. It was like the calculator app. And I was like, well, you know, this sucks. I mean, we're getting a lot of views on these videos and everything. So I started creating YouTube apps. So this was about four years before YouTube even had an app in the App Store. And I was linking AdSense to content creators so that they can monetize it. And about that time, the Partner Program came out. Uh, so we could see the writing on the walls that there was going to be something, a monetization mechanism downstream. But that was kind of like my claim to fame, having been so early on. And that led to a great relationship with Alphabet, with Google and YouTube.

• 6:14Speaker 05

  I came in and helped uh, consult with the product team on various different things like what is now Creator Studio. And a lot of different analytics, like we went over hotspots and some other things to help kind of growth hack your channel and all that fun stuff. And um. Yeah, so I didn't wanna break up the band and the thing that I was doing there on the comedy channel, so I went hard in the paint in a different demographic. So I sat down and was like, as a branding exercise, what could I do for a specific demographic? I wanted to shift from that thirteen to twenty-four female predominantly to a eighteen to forty-five male doing action adventure, firearms, explosives, skydiving, all this fun stuff. And because

• 6:55Speaker 05

  of my relationships with the studios, I would come in, I would consult for them on creative marketing strategies, be it Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount, Universal, so on, a lot of the game developers too, like Ubisoft. And I would help them figure out their ROI. Cause at that time, hindsight's 2020, a lot of the best practices that we have, like just even ads in general, all that was discretionary budgets back in the day. Nobody really knew what they were getting from it. You know, they looked at TV, print, billboard, all that stuff is more effective than what digital was. But for me, I could see clearly through our demographic or key demographics on all the different channels and social platforms, that there was something brewing there. There was a more intimate relationship being built

• 7:40Speaker 05

  than that of traditional media. And so, from there, the studios and ad agencies would be like, hey, do you wanna help promote this product launch? And if it fit with my demographic, I would do it. So for Relativity was a good example. I learned how to skydive and I did a halo jump, breaching with C4, went to Aero Environment, we broke down the RQ-11 Raven, the Puma, the Wasp, all these drones and everything that were incorporated in the movie. And for me, it was easy, because I had this never-ending supply of movies and video games coming out. Put my own kind of creative spin on it with slow motion footage

• 8:20Speaker 05

  and everything else. And ultimately, I got to where I'm at now, just short of three million subscribers on that and, you know, a few billion views off of that. And about 2015, a little earlier than that, Verizon wanted to launch this big Go90 initiative. I think it was a multi-billion dollar initiative that they did. And they were like, one of the largest procurers of media at that time. I mean, they were buying everything, television shows and series. We launched a digital media, daily editorial news brand for the Heartland Millennial Mail as a mouthful. But it was just like, we, we need news for that kind of 18 to 35 male.

• 9:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 9:02Speaker 05

  And with a slight conservative perspective on it. And I joke, I tell people like, I'm libertarian, short of anarchy, but they wanted to, they wanted to go a little bit more conservative. So that's the route we went. But it was one of the fastest growing digital media brands they ever invested in. I think we got a million subscribers the first year. Everything all organic because we were kind of the bastard child because we were that conservative brand in that massively blue, I guess, portfolio. But ultimately, you know, I stepped away from it in 2017 because the success of Black Rifle Coffee.

• 9:41Anthony Pompliano?

  What's the story there with Black Rifle?

• 9:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, so.

• 9:43Anthony Pompliano?

  How does that get started?

• 9:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, so, so of my partners, Jared, Matt and Evan, everyone kind of had irons and other fires. Those guys were focused on transitioning from their time in military service into civilian life. And they had modes to do so with these different businesses. Jared and Matt had Article 15 clothing. I think they have a whiskey company and some other stuff too. And Evan was doing Twistrate, which was a tactical instructional media company. And then there was Readyman, which was American kind of preparedness, strategy tutorials and stuff like that.

• 10:27Speaker 05

  And Evan and Matt JT wanted to do a sample coffee roast profile for Article 15 clothing. And it sold out super, super fast. I think it was a thousand bags or something like that. I'm, I'm going to be off on the numbers, but it sold out extremely fast to the point where they were like, hey, maybe there's something here. And so.

• 10:48Anthony Pompliano?

  And what, like when you're selling those bags, how much are you selling them for usually?

• 10:52Speaker 05

  Now we're selling them for about 16 bucks.

• 10:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 10:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 10:55Anthony Pompliano?

  And how much does it cost the business to actually get the bag, make the bag?

• 10:59Speaker 05

  It varies. And so that was, that was some of the challenges early on because we really didn't know what volume was going to be. And that is for a CPG company.

• 11:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Hard.

• 11:11Speaker 05

  Extremely hard, not knowing how and when to turn those dials. Our first year, I did 350 million views on my content promoting the brand. And that's through Verizon. So in my contract with Verizon, I had that I could promote my own brands, which is great because it was on their dime. And they were, they were happy with it because I brought all my friends, all of my talent into that network to help this symbiotic relationship grow, which ultimately led to them having the fastest growing digital brand they ever invested in. So for us, 350 million organic by me alone. Matt, he had a killer Facebook page. He was doing these rap videos and stuff like that that really,

• 11:54Speaker 05

  really related to just everybody. It was hilarious stuff. But the organic traffic alone in our first year, that most people would kill for. I mean, you break that down in a CPM, a startup, most people can't afford that. And so for us, it became this challenge in trying to figure out really how to turn those dials. Because you get a viral video and you only have enough supply for 10,000 customers, you're going to get a lot of customer service inquiries, a lot of pissed off people that, you know, they're really frustrated with not being able to get their product because it's taken a month or whatever. So for us, it became this challenge and hats off to Evan. The dude is just a phenomenal, an exceptional businessman. He like, we reinvested everything that the company

• 12:38Speaker 05

  made back into shoring up the supply chain. We, you know, we had to turn dials with other roasters. Whenever we did get those viral hits or we'd get on, say, Fox News or something like that. We'd have to lean on third parties to help us scale our roasts to be able to meet the demand. So we ultimately reinvested into a roasting facility in Nashville, well, Manchester, Tennessee. And that allowed us to be able to turn the dial ourself, which increased our profit margins, which today you see a lot of other coffee companies out there. Most of them are white label. They're going to the same people we did back in the day. So their profit margins aren't going to be anywhere near what ours are. And again,

• 13:22Speaker 05

  hats off to Evan for really like focusing on that. And the guy's just been exceptional at what he does and hiring fast, firing fast, third parties and whatnot and being able to scale the business.

• 13:35Anthony Pompliano?

  So when you think about that business, how much of it was dependent early on with the organic views from just kind of like the core group versus today, it's the same thing, right? Or have you guys gotten much smarter? Because I see you guys have podcasts, you have tons of sponsorships, like there's a bunch of stuff now going on where it almost to some degree feels like a marketing company with a, you know, a coffee product. And that's almost been the secret to the success. Is that like a fair way to think about it?

• 13:57Speaker 05

  Absolutely. I mean, you can 110% say we're a media company that sells a product. You know, early on the strategy, like, and this isn't no secret. I did this with Verizon. I did it with us. So I established a foundation. It starts with inspiration and education videos. And then there's entertainment videos or education information, then entertainment, and then inspiration. So our foundation was education, be it how to make coffee in a Chemex, how to fold a Chemex coffee filter. You know, those things are intimidating to a lot of people. So we build this massive library that when people come to us, they know we're the subject matter expert on this, but they also get valuable information on

• 14:39Speaker 05

  how to make their coffee. What's the best coffee? What are our coffees taste like? And then when we start hitting these entertaining viral pieces of content, they have this library to go to, but then we work the algorithm. Because now YouTube or whoever is seeing that, oh, this video is successful. What about these other videos? So we're going to rank higher when people are looking for coffee stuff just based off of. The affiliation between our high performers. And then we switch gears into inspiration. So we shift the mission. Or we shift the content to our mission statement, which is as far as a company's concerned, we're helping veterans. Transition from military service like our founders did into civilian life, but then for our nonprofit and the company in itself.

• 15:23Speaker 05

  Giving back to veteran and first responder communities. And so having done that without organic content, we wouldn't be who we are without social media. Black Rifle Coffee doesn't exist. I will confidently say that. Now, early days, if anyone said that that was gonna, you know, be the thing that all of us were. You know, chips in on, they'd be lying if they said that because we just didn't know back then is just a series. What's the, what's the saying where luck is the intersection of opportunity and preparedness?

• 15:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 15:56Speaker 05

  And that's exactly what it was like, like, like, again, hats off to my partners and everyone because. Everyone was so ready and willing to take up the mission. That I don't think that anybody else could have pulled it off like that.

• 16:11Anthony Pompliano?

  How important was it that the product was coffee versus anything else?

• 16:14Speaker 05

  I think it was extremely important because you, you look at the saturation point of specific products at the time. Article 15 is a great example where you had Matt and JT, two of my other partners. They had a T-shirt company predominantly T-shirt. They sold other stuff, but then. The market started to saturate. You started getting all the, all these other. Veterans exit in their, their military service and then they started these T-shirt companies. It started to get a little saturated. And like, okay, well, what's my value proposition that somebody at what's unique to it and everything? For us, coffee was unique. I mean, say what you want about Starbucks, but Howard Schultz really, he was the Steve Jobs of coffee.

• 16:55Speaker 05

  He changed an industry. I mean, he took sugar water and made it an everyday thing. Like, I think their, their.

• 17:05Speaker 05

  Tagline is they're the third place. So there's work and there's home and they're the third place. And it's true. I mean, you see how it's infiltrated pretty much pop culture as it is.

• 17:19Speaker 05

  And so now where was I going on that?

• 17:21Anthony Pompliano?

  In terms of the coffee itself, though, like, could you have done it with, I don't know, fucking body

• 17:25Speaker 05

  Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, sorry. Yeah, so, so coffee was a unique, it was a unique good in that it really appealed to the culture. So that key demographic of the 18 to 45 male, specifically military culture, because everybody is drinking caffeine, via energy drinks or coffee, and nobody else was doing that. Right, so that you had this, you had this, which became in that 2016 era of Trump and the whole polarization in politics. It became, you know, Starbucks started leaning harder left in that with the immigration, you know, statements and everything else.

• 18:07Speaker 05

  And so we became that, that alternative for the military culture and specifically like the conservatives. And that was to our benefit because there was nobody else in that sector.

• 18:20Anthony Pompliano?

  And does coffee like align really well with the videos and blowing things up and like, kind of like the hard charging, extraordinary life, you know, type content is that's somebody who drinks a lot of coffee?

• 18:30Speaker 05

  I mean, you could say that, but I, I would argue that's just convenient.

• 18:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 18:35Speaker 05

  Because I've, I've made the joke that men want to be Matt, women want to do him. It's, it's just you, it's hard not to like the people in the company. You hang out with everyone like Jared is a social butterfly. Like that guy, he knows more people than anybody else I know. Like I'll, I'll run into a random guy on the street and BF, I don't know, Oklahoma, I'm like, oh, you know JT? Yeah, that's like, like, everybody knows these guys, everybody wants to be him or be around him or hang out. And I think that's just, it was a convenient thing that Evan was just smart enough to really focus on optimizing the business

• 19:17Speaker 05

  and scaling it in a way as fast as possible and as efficient as possible.

• 19:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Had you guys funded? Was it all self-funded?

• 19:23Speaker 05

  It was self-funded for the most part. We brought investors in at a couple of points. For various different things, the roaster, um, facilities, um, but yeah, we didn't, we didn't really bring in a lot of.

• 19:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And then, uh, the whole idea of going public, I think a lot of people when they started a coffee company and they're like, we're fucking around on the internet and we're going to sell coffee. Oh, look, it works. Okay, that's cool. Oh, wait, hold on. It's like really working. At what point or like, why go public?

• 19:51Speaker 05

  Yeah. So that's interesting because going into COVID, we were positioned really well because we were a D to C company primarily. And we didn't have the overhead that a lot of CPG companies had getting caught with their pants down when everything was shut down. We were able to still roast, still ship and get to our consumers. And if anything, they were, they were drinking more at home than going out and stopping at say a Starbucks or a Dutch Bros or Dunkin or wherever. And that worked to our benefit, but as COVID started easing up restrictions in these different areas. Our focus was scaling out brick and mortar or our outposts so that we could position ourselves around these military bases and larger markets strategically.

• 20:34Speaker 05

  To get to our customers in a day to day kind of convenient way.

• 20:39Anthony Pompliano?

  And when you think about that experience, what is like the biggest surprise through the whole thing of building that business? Whatever you just thought, say that, what is that? What, what is that?

• 20:53Anthony Pompliano?

  What was that surprise?

• 20:55Speaker 05

  Yeah. No. So for me, again, this goes back.

• 20:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Nah, don't fucking bullshit me. What is that?

• 21:01Speaker 05

  So this goes back to the libertarian thing. I like, I, I fall under a lot of scrutiny because a lot of three letter organizations like DOD and ATF. I fall under their oversight.

• 21:16Anthony Pompliano?

  They like you or no?

• 21:17Speaker 05

  I, I, I don't know. Um, I'm, I'm, I'm buttoned up, soup to nuts. I dot every I, I cross every T. But I just don't want another one like the SEC in my life where I come on the podcast and I say something about revenue and I was like, oh shit, that's a forward looking statement. It's like, and then I have to like, like, I'm not Elon Musk. I can't take like a $200 million fine or something like that. So I just don't like that. Oversight like that's.

• 21:49Speaker 05

  I have too much oversight in my life. I like to be candid.

• 21:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 21:52Speaker 05

  And I like to be as transparent as possible. I don't like worrying about what I say.

• 21:58Anthony Pompliano?

  That's fair.

• 21:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 21:59Anthony Pompliano?

  That's very fair. All right. And now you're doing other things other than just Black Rifle Coffee.

• 22:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:04Anthony Pompliano?

  So explain that.

• 22:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, so I feel fortunate in that the way I look at life is I'm a subject matter enthusiast. I've been really good at the things that I do because I approach it as a consumer or viewer. This is what I want and this is where I see the industry going. And for me, I've seen the writing on the wall with social, with mobile, where I see it again in blockchain and there's an opportunity here. And unfortunately, there's all these people looking to extract value early days and not necessarily provide value to move the ball. And I'll tell you what I mean by that is like early days mobile, there were a lot of people who made millions of dollars on the flashlight app. And I don't care about that. I get it. Get your bag, secure it, have fun, do your thing.

• 22:48Anthony Pompliano?

  How much do you guys make on the IPO? Hey guys, what's going on? I hope that you're enjoying this conversation. I wanted to interrupt for a second to tell you about an event that we're hosting on March 4th at the Miami Beach Convention Center. It's called Lyceum Miami and I've gone and asked some of the most popular guests from this show over the years to come in person at the event. It's gonna be awesome. We have everyone from Kathy Wood to Vivek Ramaswamy, Chris Williamson, Cody Sanchez, and many, many others. I also even have a couple of surprises for each one of you if you show up. The best part about this event is it is completely free to attend. That's right. All general admission tickets are free. You simply need to go to lyceummiami.com.

• 23:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Lyceummiami.com will get you free tickets on March 4th at the Miami Beach Convention Center. And if you're a big baller and don't just want to get a free ticket, you can also get a VIP or an insider pass. If you use the code POMP40, you'll get 40% off. That gets you all kinds of cool things like the night before, a cocktail with the actual speakers and a couple other perks. Go check it all out at lyceummiami.com and use code POMP40 if you want to be a baller. I can't wait to see all of you there. Go ahead and click on the link in the description and let's get back into this conversation. What do you have to say?

• 24:07Speaker 05

  Um, I don't know if cap tables are public or not. I assume so if it's like,

• 24:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, when you go public, yeah. Like, how much do you think like the core team before or whatever made?

• 24:15Speaker 05

  I don't know. I don't know. I'm so reluctant to say numbers.

• 24:22Speaker 05

  But so, so having said that about the flashlight app. Yeah, so.

• 24:28Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm public at two billion, so like, the four of you.

• 24:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:33Anthony Pompliano?

  You, you did okay.

• 24:34Speaker 05

  Maybe, yeah, I assume so. Yeah, you'll have to talk to my accountants. But so, uh, the App Store, like, Apple's gonna replace that. It's gonna be native, right, to iOS. I'm looking five, 10 years out, like inventory control management via mobile device, which we were talking about earlier with Best Buy. Most people, you know, now hindsight's 2020, you have the benefit of that. You can say, hey, look, you know, I can go to Best Buy and check the inventory before I get there. 15 years ago, you couldn't. And most people weren't thinking about that then. I was. I just didn't have the money to patent that process or start building it for people. Uh, and so I see this, this opportunity and blockchain and the sins of Web 2.

• 25:16Speaker 05

  And, you know, unfortunately, what I'm trying to break this down for my viewers who might be listening in on this, you know, the early days of Web 2, you know, unfortunately, there wasn't a payment mechanism built into the HTTP protocol. Had there been, we might not have taken traditional media advertising like overlays, native and everything else, and applied it to Web 2, like YouTube and everything else. The unfortunate byproduct to that is, you know, we're, we're all about a quantity. We want sheer volume of impressions because that's what gets you ads. That's what gets you results. So you have to tap on the nerve. You gotta fight or flight response. You gotta be controversial. You gotta be angry.

• 25:59Speaker 05

  You gotta elicit, uh, an emotional reaction from people. But I think people really just want value. They don't want to be wrecked emotionally and everything. So there's a lot of problems that can be solved, I think, in, in Web 3, where through incentive mechanisms.

• 26:16Speaker 05

  Mechanisms, if we get it right and in a permissionless way or decentralized, these are, I know these are a lot of buzzwords, but they mean a lot and the implications are vast. Because if you look at the gatekeepers, the apples, the YouTube's, like their hardware to their software, like YouTube as an example, with the content that I would do on my YouTube channel, Full Mag, everything's legal. You will not find anyone more buttoned up than me. I have just about every federal license and clearance that you can think of. I have permits, I have insurance, instructor ratings, range safety officer, all these different things.

• 26:59Speaker 05

  And yet still my videos will get demonetized or pulled. And it's really, really frustrating for me because what I'm doing is 100% legal. It's just by doing so, well, you don't have the right to 100% distribution or reach. Like you can still publish it. Well, that's screwed up because I just spent 15 years of my life. And not only that, YouTube invested in my channel. I was, I was part of YouTube's Next Up where they spent, I think it was 40 or $70,000 investing in 25 channels. It's like, oh, okay. Now you guys changed the rules of the game, but I'm doing everything legally. It's just you're changing a social narrative or you're changing the distribution, which is impacting a social narrative.

• 27:39Speaker 05

  And it's arguably going to make those kids grow up in a world where firearms may be taboo. And it's like, well, I disagree with that. I think unless it's, unless it's illegal, all that stuff should be fair game. Like people should have a hard conversation about hard topics. You shouldn't try to control that for people. So I'm building a lot of products right now. You know, I know there's a lot of people out there like, oh, we'll do the guns YouTube or we'll do this YouTube. It's like, you're not going to compete with the second largest search engine. You're not going to beat them at their game. There has to be a fundamental shift in something like a base layer that's built, that people can build on top of. And then they can have their own discovery. And again, I go back to the incentive mechanisms and the monetization mechanisms.

• 28:23Speaker 05

  Those are the key components, but short term, I'm working on some security products because I think that that's really important. A lot of people are getting scammed. A lot of people are getting fished.

• 28:33Anthony Pompliano?

  How bad do you think that problem is?

• 28:34Speaker 05

  I would say it is, it is 99% of all attack stems from some form of phishing. Yeah, because most people, they say, oh, I got hacked. No, dude, you clicked on a link here or did this. Like, there are a few instances where higher level organizations may have the ability to access devices remotely, Pyon attacks and stuff like that. But realistically speaking, the bulk majority of consumers are getting phished. Now, there may be some people that are getting spearfished where they're being specifically targeted. But that's, that's it. So like, I'm trying to figure out ways to mitigate that and, and, and reduce that risk.

• 29:17Anthony Pompliano?

  When you look, kind of zoom out in the world, what are like the big things that you think are important right now? So obviously, you guys did Black Rifle Coffee, you're focused some on the security stuff. Like, what else in the world interests you right now?

• 29:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a tough one because I'm at this point in life where

• 29:38Speaker 05

  I think you hit a point, you probably did when you had your first child. It's like, what does it all mean? I know this very, it's like, it's an existential crisis moment or something along those lines. But, you know, at the end of the day, if, if we're just eating, sleeping, living and then dying, at some point, you've got to make the world a better place. Like, you've got to put a positive impact. So it starts with your family, then your community, maybe your state, and then higher up. I do think people should vote third party and get away from polarization in politics.

• 30:17Speaker 05

  Like, specifically on a local level, like, I would, like, just play as active a role in your community as possible. I don't generally talk about charitable stuff, but one of the things I think have really, like, really, really big impacts on the day to day, like, whenever I was living in Los Angeles, again, you know, it's hard not to get emotional. It was like, didn't, you know, I didn't have a whole lot of money, but I made sure I spent the time to give back. So every Tuesday, I go animal shelters and walk dogs because it would help with their kennel anxiety. Most of the volunteers.

• 30:54Anthony Pompliano?

  You just go and you can walk a dog?

• 30:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, so, oh man, this would like, so the LA system is like, it's such a process. It took me almost a year to qualify because.

• 31:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Wait, you gotta apply and then they approve you?

• 31:07Speaker 05

  Because they don't want people just coming and doing it for the holidays and then leaving.

• 31:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, interesting. Basically, they want you to be a regular.

• 31:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, and so you have to go through this whole process.

• 31:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 31:16Speaker 05

  And then, once you get cleared and everything, then you're good to go. Which is really gratifying for me because, again, this is early days of social media. But I created like the Facebook page for the North Valley Animal Shelter, which was this, it was one of the highest kill rate shelters in the US. But predominantly, most of their walkers were younger female. And so they couldn't, most of the dogs coming in are either pit bulls or chihuahuas. And those have the highest euthanasia rate. And so, none of the pit bulls would get walked because they were just, you know, too big. And so, it was one of those things that I could, I could do, go there, walk, work with them and everything.

• 31:57Speaker 05

  And hopefully, that made them more adoptable and relieved some of that kennel anxiety. And helped a few out there along the process. But people, I think they, I think they think that a dollar here to this organization is great. But I think your time is so much more valuable. And you can make a much greater meaningful impact directly in your community than worrying about too many things abroad. If your whole focus is things outside of your community, I think you're missing an opportunity. You really make a positive impact.

• 32:36Anthony Pompliano?

  I completely agree. And I also think that a lot of people, because of social media, they focus on international or even national level issues. But there's shit going on in your backyard.

• 32:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, for sure.

• 32:47Anthony Pompliano?

  And actually, there's a lot of shit going on in your backyard.

• 32:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:49Anthony Pompliano?

  And I always ask people, like, when's the last time you watched the local news?

• 32:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Never, right? Like who watched the local news, right?

• 32:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Um, and so when you do that, you start to realize like, again, it's not all bad. Yes, there's car crashes, there's, you know, crime or whatever, but also like there's somebody literally within a, you know, three mile radius of your, of where you are that needs help or could use a helping hand or, you know, whatever. And if you just focus on that, like that's something you can actually impact what's going on in another country. Maybe, right? Just a little bit harder.

• 33:22Speaker 05

  And, and I would add to that too. Like it's not always hardship too. There, there's other means of giving back to your community. It could be mentorship because there, you know, there are a lot of single parents out there and us as professionals, there may be people out there that could use some advice. It could be professional advice. It could be, you know, personal advice. There's, there's so many ways to have a positive impact. And I think so many people are isolated, even though they're so well-connected and social. And I think the more we start trying to find ways to interact with people on our day-to-day that's not wholly digital, I think the better off we'll be.

• 34:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Uh, are there other products that you see people building or other companies that you're like, wow, they're really on to something. They're, they're absolutely killing it right now. Like when I just asked that, like what, what products or companies jump to mind as like, they seem to really have figured something out.

• 34:21Anthony Pompliano?

  For people listening, he's drinking a liquid death out of a can.

• 34:26Speaker 05

  That's a, that's a.

• 34:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you understand that this is the highest ROI thing that they do?

• 34:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:31Anthony Pompliano?

  For, for me that don't know, I'm an investor in the company and so they send all these cans and like, I just like, to be completely honest, the only reason why I like drinking it, other than we're probably making money as people see it is, uh, it's in a can. It's not in a bottle.

• 34:44Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 34:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? And like every person I've talked to in the health industry is like, stop drinking out of plastic bottles. Okay, cool. This is not a plastic bottle. Feel like I'm doing my like health kick. Uh, but other than that, what else?

• 34:56Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mean.

• 34:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Then the people who are selling water.

• 34:58Speaker 05

  Hats off to them. I, I love the, I love the hydration packets. So. Protect is a veteran owned company and they do these hydration packets also. Sleep packets, they have like melatonin, GABA in them. LMNT is another great one. It's all, all those things are the things that kind of have a day to day impact for me. So it's, it's hard to, I don't really FOMO on many brands, but I, I really like what those guys are doing just because I use them on a day to day.

• 35:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. The, um, the other thing is I've seen more and more companies try to become media businesses. So they have the products and then they go try to build the media stuff. And it feels like there's a lot of people who are realizing like, maybe you should do it the other way. It's like build, build the distribution and then figure out the products.

• 35:45Speaker 05

  Chicken in the egg, right? Because there's, there's risk when you build a brand as a media company. And most brands rely on personalities early on, if they're going to do it that way, because there needs to be a collaborative component to it. Typically, there's exceptions to all rules, but there's a risk if your key talent isn't founders owners in that.

• 36:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, I don't know. That's a chicken or egg. They're both problems to solve for. It's a cautionary tale for those who do do the media thing. And then they try to throw a whole lot of money at it and advertising. Because typically what happens is they bring the wrong people in to help them advertise. And their sample audiences are such a broad demographic. If I was to give any advice to media or CPG companies or anyone that's looking to build and starting either media or product first. You've got to know your demographic. That is lesson number one. Because if you're not focused on that value proposition from day one, and you start bringing the wrong people in, you're going to go into a negative. Either engagement or algorithmic spiral.

• 36:57Speaker 05

  Because for us, if we have an 18 to 45 US male demographic and we start serving ads up to a 65 year old Cambodian lady. She's gonna bounce really fast, or she's not gonna click through, whatever it is. And all of these are signals to the algorithm that she doesn't care about the content. And the more people that don't care about the content or the product, the more of an uphill battle it's gonna be against getting put into search and related. And that is another lesson that a lot of people don't know. It's like, search, related, discovery, that is, I would, I would argue, most successful creators, that's gonna be 50 to 70% of their, their impressions.

• 37:39Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's coming just from the search.

• 37:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, or related.

• 37:42Anthony Pompliano?

  What other platforms do you think people should be posting content on? Like, are you long on YouTube Shorts, on TikTok, on Reels, on fucking something I've never heard of before?

• 37:51Speaker 05

  Man, that's a, that's a big one, right? Because you have Alphabet, which is publicly traded. And who knows what's gonna happen with TikTok? But you also have a potential Section 230 ruling coming up January, by January 30th. And that has potential implications for all curators.

• 38:16Speaker 05

  That is a, that's a highly contested

• 38:22Speaker 05

  topic, I guess you could say. I have strong opinions about it. I think that-

• 38:26Anthony Pompliano?

  What do you think?

• 38:28Speaker 05

  I think that the, the platforms have been hiding behind their Section 230 privileges for too long. And there needs to be some changes to it. Also, if you do away with it, that takes away the search and related component to, or the, the recommended, sorry.

• 38:47Speaker 05

  That has implications for the recommended content, which YouTube is extremely good at recommending content. But I also have a chip on my shoulder. They don't like to recommend this stuff that I make because it's not advertiser safe or advertiser friendly. I'm like, well, screw you if an advertiser spent millions of dollars a year like Target, and they don't know how to set exclusions for the type of content that I create that is 100% legal. I'm sorry, why should a whole industry of content creators suffer that who have built their entire business models off of something you said was good five years ago? But now the tides have shifted because it's not politically, you know, acceptable.

• 39:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you think that when they limit monetization, it kills the virality of the video?

• 39:34Speaker 05

  And I can show you the analytics.

• 39:35Anthony Pompliano?

  They claim that's not true.

• 39:37Speaker 05

  Well, they're full of shit and I can prove it. Like, I have, I have, I have the data. Like fortunately for me, I can say I have a library of videos that go span 12, 15 years. And so some of my top performers are from eight years ago and they have 20, 30 million views. And the cool thing about analytics is you can see these clear spikes and dips. And I get emails when they demonetize the video and there is a spike the day of, straight down. And then I appeal it, it gets, it gets approved and we go through this whole thing and it takes weeks, sometimes months.

• 40:16Speaker 05

  And the views go from, um, you know, I don't know, let's call it a million views a month to a thousand views a month when it's demonetized. And then soon as I get it remonetized, it goes back up. And you could argue that something happened in the world and maybe that changed that. But two of my videos, they demonetized them twice and the spikes are clear.

• 40:41Anthony Pompliano?

  You want to see something hilarious?

• 40:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 40:42Anthony Pompliano?

  This is a video that has 130,000 views on it, right? You tell me where in the video they demonetized it.

• 40:51Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:53Speaker 05

  Super clear, super clear.

• 40:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Like, what, where, where are we going here? Right? You tell me where they demonetized that video. They claim that there's no impact from demonetization, but uh, I don't know what happened.

• 41:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, and they'll, and they'll, they'll give you some, and I, I totally understand it. I know a lot of people in YouTube and I feel sorry that a lot of people get yelled at and these emails and

• 41:24Anthony Pompliano?

  I don't yell at them anymore.

• 41:26Speaker 05

  I understand the job's hard, but it's still frustrating as a businessman who's, who's not only YouTube's invested in me, but I've built my brands and like, like the ego's attached to that. My, I feel like my soul's attached to it in some way where it's like to lose that is, I don't know.

• 41:45Anthony Pompliano?

  I actually think if I was them, I would just be like, yeah, when we demonetize the video or we limit the monetization, distribution goes down because we don't make as much money off the video. You know, we would all say like, makes sense. Well, or, or I'll pay it or makes sense, right? Like, got it. Okay. Well, let's not get demonetized. I think it's the fact that people all believe, I mean, when you see that, right? And you're like, literally that exact moment is when they demonetize the video and people see that. I think that they're like, dude, why are you guys just, just say that that's what's happening?

• 42:15Speaker 05

  No, I call bullshit because if it was just a monetization thing and they were worried about their advertisers, screw it. I have a coffee company. We pay a lot of influencers for impressions. I will monetize every single one of their channels. We already run the Shopify cart underneath our YouTube videos. How about you let us buy all the ad inventory of all those people you're demonetizing? We'll run our ads on it. Give us an advantageous revenue share split on it, but they won't do it. So because it's on principle, they don't want the distribution. Like they don't want that, that content to reach trending or whatever it is. I'll sell the ads. I don't care. If you're worried about the hosting and the streaming bandwidth, fuck it. I'll pay for it.

• 42:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Does the Shopify cart underneath the YouTube ad, uh, YouTube video work?

• 43:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, of course.

• 43:03Anthony Pompliano?

  People buy?

• 43:04Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you, to be fair, it takes work, right? And you have to have product that people actually care about. A great, a great strategy is if you're incorporating any type of product in a video, you curate that product through the carousel on the bottom. So it's easy for people to, to, to click through on it.

• 43:21Anthony Pompliano?

  See right there.

• 43:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 43:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Makes sense. Um, what, what other secrets or tips or tricks do you have for people who are trying to be on the internet?

• 43:31Anthony Pompliano?

  This, I, I literally people, it's like people come out of the woodwork. I, I don't want to say who it is, but I recently had somebody who was an accountant. An accounting firm I don't use, they reached out to me and they were like, hey, I want to become like a accounting influencer person. And I was like, why would you want to do that? And they're like, well, because eventually I could leave. Maybe I could make a living just doing the content, but also then I could start my own accounting firm. And like they had this whole little plan and I was like, sure, like, why not? Right? Guess what I do? If I need an accountant, like millions of other people around the world, they Google. And if your content is ranking up there, like you have some advantage, whether it's through ads, whether it's through building a business, whatever.

• 44:06Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 44:07Anthony Pompliano?

  But I was like, oh, every single industry, somebody's going to try to do this.

• 44:09Speaker 05

  Okay. So let's break this down just off of your accountant. I love doing these kind of thought exercises with people because it's general, it's no effort for me. I have an opinion. Again, I'm a subject matter enthusiast. Take my advice with a grain of salt. Algorithms change, policies change, and you know, what's working for people today probably won't six months from now. But having said that, for your accountant and really anyone, be consistent with your value proposition from day one. You can experiment here and there, yes, but don't fall into the trap of vanity metrics. Your ego wants you to get those vanity metrics, the likes, the comments, the views and everything else. None of that shit matters. What matters is the people coming to consume your content care about it.

• 44:55Speaker 05

  That is it. Like if, if, if, if your goal is to get views, you might as well just be getting bikini models or something like that. It turned into another form of Instagram, right? You do a provocative photo or something like that, or somebody being outrageous in the thumbnail. Yeah, you'll get views, but people only buy into that for so long. And if your value proposition isn't consistent, again, let's go with your accountant here. He's starting a channel. Start creating accounting content. Don't fall into the trap of being sensational. Oh, blah, blah, blah. But be relevant in your space. Hey. I don't know what accounting thing is happening here in the world. You know, BlackRock's doing this, or whatever it is, and break it down for your viewers.

• 45:38Speaker 05

  Or, hey, here is 10 ways to save money on your taxes. Do collaborations. He's gonna have Anthony over and we're gonna talk about my taxes today. And we're gonna disclose to everybody how much you made in 2022, or whatever it is, right? These things, these things that can help him grow, but he stays in his lane and stays consistently.

• 45:59Anthony Pompliano?

  That show would fucking pop. If somebody, if there was an accountant that created a show.

• 46:04Speaker 05

  I mean, there are a lot.

• 46:05Anthony Pompliano?

  And there's, no, if you broke down people's taxes.

• 46:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Especially if you start getting celebrities.

• 46:14Speaker 05

  Well, and again, here's, here's.

• 46:16Anthony Pompliano?

  John Travolta used this tax trick to avoid.

• 46:20Speaker 05

  Beautiful.

• 46:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Sorry, I don't know anything about John Travolta. I just figured he'd be a good person.

• 46:23Speaker 05

  It's great, but like, and again, I geek out on this. Like, I'm giving this dude a million and one suggestions. I'd probably go on Social Blade or one of these websites and try to forecast what a creator would make based off of impressions. Look and see if they had any ad deals. And then maybe forecast what a production cost and like itemize and deduct and all these other different. You could do like a, a, a high level forensic for what it is, like without actually having access to that stuff. And people would, it would probably grow. And then he could throw in these, these really viable, healthy, like hacks for people who don't have YouTube channels or whatever it is, but be consistent with that.

• 47:05Speaker 05

  And again, like I was showing you earlier with hotspots and everything, he could probably find a lot of videos and ride on the coattails of it by segmenting and commenting on that stuff as a subject matter expert.

• 47:16Anthony Pompliano?

  The, um, the other thing I think a lot about is like, that's obviously like a services type business that eventually could be content, but the physical products, I'm shocked at how many businesses that are in the physical product game do not understand how powerful the internet is. Like, we've been doing this shit now for 20 years, right? Like, like the internet works, right? Well, content works.

• 47:36Speaker 05

  It does.

• 47:36Anthony Pompliano?

  But they still don't do it.

• 47:37Speaker 05

  Think about it this way, though. If you have a CPG company and you have distribution.

• 47:45Speaker 05

  And it's all you need. You're not D to C. Do you want the headache of scaling it that way? Like, I mean, some people, some people get in Walmart or Target and they're like, I'm good. I've got that like, I've, I've, I've, I've stood up this company and I've gone this path before. I don't really want to deal with the headache of doing this thing. I mean, to each their own, but if you're, if you're a, a big brand, I think that you're missing an opportunity for the longevity to not have some type of emotional fabric woven in a media narrative to kind of solidify that relationship with your, your consumer.

• 48:30Anthony Pompliano?

  When you think about, um, take somebody like Mr. Beast, right? He just, uh, they launched a new feastable uh, chocolate bar. They're calling it D's Nuts.

• 48:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 48:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, and I saw them tweet out and say, uh, like whoever controls the memes controls the internet. How like, how do you control the memes?

• 48:50Speaker 05

  Jimmy's like, it's, it's weird saying it, but Jimmy, Jimmy's a beast. I mean, he is the beast. Uh, he's his own animal. Like I'm using all these puns, but I use them typically in that reference, but, um, yeah, he's just a completely different, different machine. Like the dude is, yeah, I like it. He's, he's apples and oranges in so many ways. He's on such another level now that I feel like he could jump into any market as passionately as he is on everything else and just crush it. Like he could, as long as he has the right teams to maintain the QC and scale.

• 49:36Speaker 05

  I think, whatever he does, like, I think the average brand or entrepreneur isn't going to have that.

• 49:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, of course. But like, how, how do you create or control the memes in the way that they're doing? Is it just because he's got such a big audience? He says something and it's cool?

• 49:49Speaker 05

  I think that's it. I mean, he's, to be fair, what he says is relevant. What he says is funny, but a lot of other people do on the internet too, and it doesn't catch like that. Uh, some people, some people.

• 50:03Anthony Pompliano?

  It's like Prime. You know, the, uh, drink Prime?

• 50:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:06Anthony Pompliano?

  You see the numbers recently?

• 50:07Speaker 05

  No.

• 50:09Anthony Pompliano?

  They claim they did, I think it was Logan Paul, my brother was tweeting about it. I think it's $250 million in revenue last year, and I think in January, they did like 40 million.

• 50:21Anthony Pompliano?

  In revenue.

• 50:22Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 50:23Anthony Pompliano?

  It's gotta be a two, three billion dollar company.

• 50:26Speaker 05

  But where are they selling?

• 50:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Here's the crazy part, talk to anybody with like a middle school child, especially a middle school boy. They can't find it. It's sold out in all of these.

• 50:37Speaker 05

  But is it D to C or they have distribution somewhere?

• 50:39Anthony Pompliano?

  They have some D to C, but it's in, uh, it's definitely in gas stations. I've seen them in gas stations.

• 50:43Speaker 05

  Interesting.

• 50:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, but yeah, they've like gone like the traditional, uh, distribution path as well.

• 50:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:49Anthony Pompliano?

  And so like, I don't care what you're, you'd be selling fucking piece of paper, sell 250 million dollars worth of piece of paper in a year. You got a real business.

• 50:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, for sure, for sure. Props to him, man. Props to him. That is.

• 51:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? Two, wow, two influencers.

• 51:05Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 51:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Who like, I would argue, aren't just influencers, right? Obviously, these guys understand very, very well.

• 51:11Speaker 05

  They're, they're really smart businessmen. They are lifestyle brands of themselves.

• 51:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 51:16Speaker 05

  For sure.

• 51:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:18Speaker 05

  Wow. I had no clue. Jeez.

• 51:21Anthony Pompliano?

  So to be on pace, let's call it for somewhere between 400 and 500 million dollars in revenue in 2023. For a drink business, you know, for, for like a beverage business. Coca-Cola is going to call at some point.

• 51:35Speaker 05

  For sure. And I just, I.

• 51:36Anthony Pompliano?

  You want to guess? Let's just put it on the record. What do you think they get bought for?

• 51:41Speaker 05

  I mean. It depends. I mean, that like, how old are they?

• 51:46Anthony Pompliano?

  The business?

• 51:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Not that old. I mean, definitely less than five years old.

• 51:50Speaker 05

  I mean, given the market and everything, I would say at least a five acts of annual, right?

• 51:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Of annual revenue?

• 51:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:59Anthony Pompliano?

  I think that they have the potential. The potential $5 billion or higher exit.

• 52:05Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 52:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Which is basically all they got to do is if they continue to grow at kind of the rate that they're growing.

• 52:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 52:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? You need another two to three years. If you can basically hold on and not sell, you're doing a million or a billion dollars in revenue.

• 52:19Speaker 05

  Dirty math is what like a 10x multiplier of like.

• 52:21Anthony Pompliano?

  It'd be 10x from where they essentially are right now. Yeah, give or take. Uh, but if they can hold out for another 12 to 24 months on top of that.

• 52:28Speaker 05

  Jesus.

• 52:29Anthony Pompliano?

  You basically get to, you know, close to a billion.

• 52:32Speaker 05

  I'm sweating right now. I'm just, I'm thinking, I'm thinking, what is, what is that infrastructure like behind the scenes? Like, how did they do this? Or did they just, did they just work in agreement with somebody that could scale it, white label it?

• 52:44Anthony Pompliano?

  I don't know all the details, but I think that somebody else had the idea, started like a beverage business and then like brought them in. I, I believe that's true. Somebody will correct me if not. Um, but yeah, like it, once you get to any type of scale, I think people, it's not like, hey, we came up with this like crazy idea. We don't know what we're doing. And like, we just happened to sell all this stuff, right?

• 53:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's the hard thing, right? Because if, for a brand to try to find influencers to bring on and kind of snowball it, the risk on the influencer is little to none in that sense. As long as they know that they can turn the knobs and ramp up production and distribution if they, if they follow through on their promise. That's a great deal on their part because then they don't, they're, they're just sweat equity. They're not necessarily having to even kick in any money. But on the flip side, for, for influencers who try to build something, man, it is a dice roll. I am so fortunate to have the partners I have. Like, like Evan just like he.

• 53:39Anthony Pompliano?

  Operationally.

• 53:40Speaker 05

  He stepped up to the plate operationally in a way that I don't think many people could have.

• 53:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 53:45Speaker 05

  Like he, he like, it's, there are so many ways for a business to fail, especially if you're an influencer, like trying to turn these dials on scaling a business. It's just, it's easier to have somebody who knows what they're doing. And I think that's what Jimmy does too. I think he, he probably has people, reach out to him, his team, his network that can follow through on execution. And then he gives the overall creative strategy and marketing and everything else. And then they turn those niles. So.

• 54:16Anthony Pompliano?

  When um, uh, when somebody asks you, what do you do? What do you say? Like, are you an entrepreneur? Are you an investor? Are you a fucking influencer? Are you a YouTuber?

• 54:24Speaker 05

  It's hard.

• 54:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Are you an explosives expert?

• 54:27Speaker 05

  I, I struggle with this. And so we just did this P E V C, uh, event, uh, founder event this week. And I just tell people I'm a subject matter enthusiast. I find things that I'm really excited about and I go hard in the paint. I learn everything that I can about it and I try to be as best as I can in it. It's, it's hard because again, I make this joke that whenever I was in Los Angeles, people perceived me as the gun toting redneck. And when I was in Nashville, I was a gay loving liberal because people inherently gravitate towards the things they disagree with you on. But I, I, it's hard because I'm also a developer. I'm a marketer. I'm like, you know, an entrepreneur, you know, an investor, all these different things.

• 55:12Speaker 05

  So I, I'm the worst on my social media because of that. It's easy for me to define and refine a brand or an influencer, but it's hard for me because I don't want to play that game. I don't want people to come to Richard Ryan on social media and only see slow motion guns, or only see business advice, or only see this new blockchain product. And I probably burn a lot of people whenever I talk about the thing that they're not interested in that consistent value proposition. So I read the room typically and I'm like, hey, I'm, I'm this guy. I'm the comedian. Yeah.

• 55:47Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Last question for you is, uh, I was talking to somebody recently and they were like, a great exercise is 10, 20 years, look out and think to yourself like, what does your Wikipedia page say? And that kind of keeps you like, what's your north star? For you, what is your Wikipedia page not say that it will say a decade from now?

• 56:06Speaker 05

  Will not say.

• 56:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Like, what does it not have on there now? So you can't, you get credit for nothing you've done so far. But like, what does it say a decade from now?

• 56:18Speaker 05

  Well, I mean, regardless, just happy dude.

• 56:23Speaker 05

  Because for me, so I've done this thought exercise a lot in the past and I'm never, never happy with who I am. I am miserably competitive. I look back on myself six months, let alone six years ago, and I hate the guy I was. Like, I feel like I grow so much in a short period of time, and that's good. Like, you should grow as a person. You shouldn't stay stagnant in your beliefs or your knowledge and everything else. But I aspire to hopefully make that person six, 10 years from now, happy that I am who I am now. Because ultimately, that's the only person that's gonna matter, because I don't know what the future holds.

• 57:03Speaker 05

  So I try to live by, you know, my moral compass for what it is. And, you know, decisions that I've made in my life, I can look back on and I can say, hey, look, it may not have been popular, but I did it the way I thought I should and I didn't cave to either peer, political, or whatever pressure that may be against my belief system.

• 57:27Anthony Pompliano?

  That's a pretty fucking good one.

• 57:29Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna say like, like getting to go public in New York and.

• 57:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Bro, come on, we just talked about YouTube taking shit down.

• 57:42Speaker 05

  You can cut that, I don't care.

• 57:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Where can we send people to find you on the internet?

• 57:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, um, really, yeah. Anywhere, anywhere, it doesn't matter. Richard Ryan on all socials, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Again, I'm not consistent with my value propositions on there. So you wanna see some photos of me skydiving, doing stuff? It's probably on Instagram, talking about the world and blockchain and all that fun stuff's on Twitter. And like, I'm just all over the place. BlackRifleCoffee.com and Full Mag, all these other different channels.

• 58:24Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it. Thank you so much.

• 58:25Speaker 05

  I appreciate it.

• 58:25Anthony Pompliano?

  We'll definitely do it again in the future.

• 58:26Speaker 05

  Thank you, sir. Thanks for having me.