Getting Cancelled And Punched In The Face | Minx, Nate O’Brien, Silicon Valley Girl

So, I had a really cool event hosted by this company called Carrot. They provide these metal credit cards to creators and influencers. They invited us to this event and there are tons of super cool people here and we decided we try something different for this episode. We're going to have a bunch of people swing by just a random really cool influencers or business people like NATO Brian, Ask Sevy, bunch of people and they're all just going to have little segments on here talking about some really fascinating tidbits of information. Yeah, now the fun part about this is that we're filming this at the very end and I have to say these 20 minutes that we have with with each person is in my opinion unique. Like it's but it's so good because we have to be so like fast-paced. Sometimes I think this is more interesting than like an hour-long episode. So, you guys are really going to enjoy it as soon as you subscribe. Yeah. Subscribe. You just got to hit the subscribe button. too. Oh, yeah, we got the Patreon. Yeah, check out many things, guys. Okay, they're all going to be linked down below. We're going to have tons of really cool guests on. Thank you so much, Carrot, for throwing this event and inviting us. And uh let's get on with the episode. So, coming on right now, we have Minx. She is a massive Twitch streamer and she also participated in Creator Clash. She dominated the event and uh she's incredibly interesting. So, we're going to have her on right now. There we go. Just bite it. That's That's perfect. It tastes good? Mhm, tastes like uh aluminum. Hello. No, it's the other way. It's It's where it says Audio-Technica. Hello. Yeah, that was good. Hello. That's it? Yeah. Hello. That was good. Okay, we'll talk right there. the Ice Coffee Hour. My name is Minx and I'm here with my two guests. Wow. Cool. We're the guests. This is fantastic. my podcast. not streaming today. I'm happy to have you here. So, you're a streamer. I am. How did you get started in that? I liked games. I liked video games. I used to play Crash Bandicoot as a kid on the PS2, bit of Hercules sometimes. And then as a little side hobby, I started Twitch and for 7 years was a 10 viewer Andy with absolutely nothing. Playing video games, Dead by Daylight, Call of Duty, everything. And then I went on a dating show called Lover Host and it changed everything. So, you did it for how long? Uh I started maybe I should even pull out my old YouTube videos. I started as a kid. I always wanted to be in content creation, but you know, especially when you're from Ireland, you don't expect to succeed. It's It's one in million chance for anyone regardless, but a loud Irish girl from Ireland making it here in LA, made it though. Look at me, Mom. I'm on a podcast right now. Sorry, got sidetracked. The Graham and Jack nonetheless. I have really itchy Could you repeat the question? What was the question? Oh, how did you get started? And you said you were streaming for 7 to 10 people for years and then you were on a dating show. Yeah, so I just I would play games like Dead by Daylight, Call of Duty on my own with my friends when I was younger and then a guy called Austin, Austin Show, he found a clip of me spilling ketchup on my shirt and instead of changing it I just turned the shirt backwards. I was like, "Well, it's clean now." And he thought that was funny and he invited me to his show Lover Host, which is you go on um It's not Discord. It's not Skype. There's another one. There's one of those things. StreamYard? No. It's like Zoom? Yeah, I think It was before Yeah, Zoom. Zoom. Okay. Let's say it's Discord. Whereby you just go on there and he'd have a guy and have 20 women fight over that guy and then it was always a big streamer. So, like I guess I was just loud and crude and that blew me up. What did you say? Like what clip went viral with that? You must have said something. I would just call the other cuz I was I'm not mean to women, but they were my enemy at the time cuz I was fighting for the guy's love. And I guess the C word here isn't really popular, so I would continuously call them that if they would get ahead of me and I'd get mad and throw my chair around and then a lot of people were like, "Oh, she's a bit insane, isn't she? Let's just click on her and watch her more." And then I went from 10 viewer to 200 viewer Brandy and then from that I had more opportunities. People reached out to me and had me on their shows, too, and it just kept growing. But if you're asking about my biggest clip, it would be the dreaded White Claw clip. What is the dreaded White Claw clip? I was um I'm not going to call it cos playing. I'll say dressing up because I look nothing like Hinata from Naruto, but I was dressed up as her and I had a little shuriken and I was just flipping it around. It was plastic, by the way. So, I didn't expect it to actually hit the White Claw. I stabbed the White Claw, it sprayed me in the eye, I got blinded, I screamed and ran off, and that got like 2.4 million views just from that clip and this was when I was still smaller, like 200 viewers, and then it just kept going from there. So, you found that by like kind of acting out or doing these obscene things that you got viewers and you're able to catapult that then to Twitch. Yeah, and then it just kept going and I kept being more psycho and then I moved to LA 6 months ago and I was like, "It's going to be temporary, but the opportunities here." But you're all like, no offense to Americans, love you guys, love you guys, you're a bit not funny. Americans aren't funny. Yeah, are we trying to be funny though? I don't think we're trying to be funny. Irish humor. I said [ __ ] on a [ __ ] train going to Disneyland and an old woman looked at me as if I was like the devil and I was like, "Ooh, okay, we won't say that's just a little bit more normalized like over in like that place, Europe. To be fair, it's the Irish. [laughter] Geography-wise, Europe-ish, you know? That's common. No, the Irish are a bit a bit off their head. Yeah, it's not really a word that you say here. Like in the US, it's a bit of a stigmatized word. It's not that that word. Like really really abrasive or something? so. It's It's shocking for people to hear. So when they hear that, they don't know how to react. It kind of like stuns them a little bit. It's a lady's part, but we can say [ __ ] and dick like you dick and no one blinks an eye at that. It is kind of interesting how we just pick and choose what words are like the worst ones and what are not. It really is. Let's get back to to your success. So okay, would you say that the person that you acted on camera, was that strategic in order to get these viral moments to help catapult your career to success or is that like actually kind of an accurate reflection of who you are on a daily basis and it just so happens that like people really like that? Uh I would say a mix of both because at the time I was working a full-time job as a receptionist. Mhm. Um and then I'd like to just have fun, but this outside, I didn't have many friends in Ireland. I was an introvert back then. Surprise, look at me now on a podcast. But I was an introvert, so I would try show my fun crazy side to the internet and do that. So yeah, it's definitely a part of me and it's ever since I moved to LA, I realized it's a bigger part of me than I thought. Mhm. Cuz I've not been as introverted since, but no, it's probably just mental illness to be honest. Like I I I I don't think uh or the Irish. It's either the Irish in me or the mental illness in me. Could be both though. Yeah, that's what I Could be both. Probably on the good side. I succeeded a tiny bit. Not yet. No, you've succeeded a lot. A lot, actually. Can you talk about finances at all? Are Do feel talking about that? Oh, I thought you were to ask me like advice on finance. I was like, man, I'm really dumb. I don't know. We can talk about that, too. I yeah, yeah, we could go over that. But, I'm curious like from your perspective in terms of like your income and how that's shifted. So, it went from you know, I was working 50 hours a week as a receptionist for a mortuary company, by the way, would give out headstones. Tough job, actually, cuz you'd come in and they'd just be sobbing to you because they're buying a headstone for someone that's dying or dead, and I'd be like That'll be $400 plus tax. Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It starts at 2,600. $2,600? the plot of land. That was for the limestone one. And then, if you wanted to go to granite, and there's different colors, and I'd just be like It's a lot of money for you, I know, and I know you just lost someone, but my boss will kill me if I don't sell you the best headstone out here. My boss was a bit of a like He was like, "No, just show them." And I'm like, "They're here crying about their lost ones." That job was to Anyway, it was funny because we It wasn't funny. We also sold countertops cuz it was like a countertops It was a granite company. So, when someone would come in, I wouldn't know if they were going to come in and be sobbing for a headstone or a new family excited to get their first countertop in their new house. So, I'd see someone and I'd be like Hold the face like this. Hold it. But, no, that job was paying me 1,500 to 2,000 a month depending on my hours. Um the hours started at 40, and then I realized when I started Which happened, and I remember getting my first paycheck, and it was like Well, not my first one, but when I started growing, and it was 3.5k, and I was like I can just act the idiot online instead of sitting at this headstone company for 40 hours a week and make more money. And then my dad was the most supportive one in that. My mom was always cuz I went to college to be a special needs assistant for 3 years. Um so that headstone company was like just a stepping stone. And then I was like, I don't want to do prison officer or special needs assistant when I can just like be myself and be a weirdo and somehow get paid more. Hm. Somehow get paid more. That was insane. But first we got to thank our sponsors Storyblocks. Guys, we've been using Storyblocks for about 2 years now and I mean it when I say it has helped the workflow of this business tremendously. Storyblocks is a subscription service that gives you instant access to millions of high-quality, royalty-free HD and 4K footage, templates, images, sound effects, you name it. I cannot tell you the countless hours I've literally just wasted looking for the perfect stock footage or sound effects for my edit. Well, with Storyblocks that is no longer an issue. I've been able to reinvest this time I've saved from Storyblocks back into my creative visions and to make content that I'm truly proud of. And whether you're part of a large media company or just trying to jump start your next creative passion projects, Storyblocks is the perfect solution. With their flexible and scalable subscription plans, you can start creating content with the tools you need without having to worry about a budget. Plus their unlimited all-access plan lets you download unlimited assets from all three of their libraries. Guys, seriously, we've been loving and using Storyblocks for about 2 years now and we are so excited that they reached out to sponsor us. Creative burnout is a real thing and creative inspiration does not have to be so taxing. Learn more about how you can take your editing to the next level when you visit storyblocks.com/ich. Again, that's storyblocks.com/ich or you can just use the link down below in the description. Thank you so much Storyblocks and back to the podcast. And what about today? How has that evolved? Can you share how much Yeah, so I I right now like my most recent paycheck on Twitch was 8.6k. But the issue with that is cuz the Brits took half of the Irish land, I get taxed 60% on everything. So, even no matter even though I'm making a lot of money at the end because Ireland doesn't have a treaty with America like UK does, the the top half not Northern Ireland does. So, I'll pay Twitch's tax, I'll pay Irish tax, and I'll pay LA tax. And it all bundles up where it totals to 60%. god. So, I do make good money, but more than half of it gets taken. Do you find that demotivating though? Like, why am I doing all this work when I get to keep 40%? It is when the tax time comes around and I see my friends paying way less, but it's also like I still have this insane opportunity. Like, even with the amount of tax I pay, it's better than what I was doing in Ireland, but it's just a bit annoying. Now, what about other opportunities, sponsorships, endorsements? Are you doing those? Yeah, so my agent Daniel, he he has brought up I used to work No, I won't say names cuz it'll make them look bad, but I used to work with three different sponsor companies, and they'd bring stuff to me in a Discord channel, and my sponsor when I got sponsored, it'd be around two to 3k per sponsor. And then when I was at my peak and blowing up, I remember my biggest one was in I was like, "Oh my god, thank you, Prime Video. Shout out to you, baby." But then I got canceled. And it dropped down to I would be lucky if I got 1k for a sponsor. Now, what do you mean you got canceled? Um I'm I'm out of the loop can we talk about to talk about this? Yeah, I know I can talk about it. So in Ireland it's different there. So I said I didn't realize that the L word was a slur for lesbian. I didn't realize that was a slur at the time and I cuz I I have very gay friends in Ireland that would say it normally and then I said on stream and this was when I was blowing up with the Minecraft community and they can be a bit finicky with and they almost kind of like kept saying it in chat. They're like, you can't say that and I was drunk at the time and I was like, I can't say the L slur? okay. I'm like, but it's for it's for lesbian and they were like No, but that's a slur towards lesbians and I'm like I'm more gay than I am straight. I'm like, I didn't even realize this. I didn't mean it like that, but they kept taking that clip of context and they would post all over Tik Tok saying that I was just kind of degrading and then that was the start of it and then they dug up tweets from 2015 when I was a teen where I was like, I prefer Asians over white boys and it they said I was fet- fet- fetish- I can't say the word. Fetish- fetishize Fetishizing. Yeah. say it all the No, I can say it. Fetish- fetishizing. And then that just blew up more on Tik Tok and they kept going and then even if you look at my Tik Tok comments now like if I post something it'll be like, oh, isn't this the homophobic and I'm like, bro I'm gay. I was a closeted [ __ ] gay for years cuz Ireland's [ __ ] still moving on, but it's that just brought my sponsors down because anytime my name would be mentioned it was Oh my god. thing about it. Was this recent? Um no, this was like last year, but it still comes to this day. And then, that's why I was saying, back to the sponsors, um, the three companies I worked with just kind of stopped bringing me stuff to wait for it to blow over. And then, luckily, my current agent, when I came out here, uh, Miko hooked me up with him. And he was like, "It's that's not why your price went down. It's because you were working with three different people, and they were giving out different prices." And but the whole time I thought it was because I was like, "Oh, I'm a bad person." But he was like, "No, it's cuz three different" And then he brought my price and now my recent sponsor was a for a Pac-Man thing, which when I thought that was the end of me is a really good thing to get back up there. I'm sure we've all done or said something at some point. I mean, gosh, can do silly things all the time. And something that's like silly can just be misconstrued as like, "Oh, that's your intention. You're trying to hurt these people." or whatever. But I don't know. I mean, especially you just you said that you're les- you're lesbian. I am Like or like bi or something? Mostly I'm pansexual, prefer women. What if, uh, I meet a guy that has the same the it's personality for me. Okay. But I prefer women. Mhm. It's a weird thing. I'm I'm scared to even say my sexuality because I never wanted to label myself. I said, "I don't want to label." And then, at the time, they were like, "No, if you like everybody, you're pan. You're pan." And I'm like, "Okay, I'm pansexual then." And then, one day I was like, "I think I prefer women." And they're like, "That means you're not pan because you're open to everyone." And I'm like, "But at the time, you were you were the one that put the label. I was just like, I like who I like." Yeah. It's a it's a weird thing. So, the internet can be scary at times, especially cuz, you know, you're figuring out stuff on your own. You're changing, and then someone will come or similar back to I don't know if you guys played Xbox. I played PS3. Uh back in those days. The that was said on the mic. It just it just it's I don't like when they dig up stuff from the past and they don't let people change. Yeah. It's kind of same with Jenna Marbles, the stuff like that where she apologized but they won't let it go but then they missed her when she was gone. Mhm. It's like Yeah. the internet. But I will say the one thing I really admire about you is how competitive you are and just how resilient you are. No matter what happens, you keep you keep coming back and you you've your fight I think was a great example of that at the boxing ring. I was shocked. Oh my god. Between you and Yodeling Haley, that was in my opinion the most like gut-wrenching fight for me to watch as well. I think that was that takes the entire thing for the entire boxing match was watching you two. I was like I could cuz I couldn't do that like straight up. I If you put me in that situation, I I'd be out so fast. I was so impressed by her because so I don't remember we would have like group training things that people would meet up. Haley was always very hidden to the point my coach would be like, she's not taking it serious. And then at the end he was like, no I met her coach and she's taking this very serious. She gave up vaping. She And I was like, I'm scared. I'm scared. But I did not expect her to cuz I had contacts in and in the first round she knocks out one of my contacts and I remember being half blind and I'm like, Oh my god. I thought when I was going to fight a TikToker it was going to be over in one throw. No. She was She was strong. Everyone was saying that she wasn't like hitting me but she was. It was like I was dazed. Like I Neither of us really remember the fight and she just kept going and kept going and then In second No, the third round she knocked out other contact. So, it was just a blurry vision and at that time I thought she was going to KO me because between like not being able to see and every time she'd come back, there's one clip of her where she's bleeding down the nose and she's like And I was like, if I'd seen that, I would I I People didn't see it with my coach. I was saying to him that I think I need to tap out. I can't breathe. I was losing it. I was like, I can't breathe and he's like, you've got this, you got it. I'm like, oh my god, my dad's watching. And every time I went back up and then even when I the fourth round when I won, you can actually see me in the video not realizing I won. I was so dazed. I was so out of it that when I heard that bell, I thought it was about to go to the next round. And I sat down, they gave me water and my coach is like, you did it. And I was like, I won? I won? And everyone in the clip was like, she walked off so confident. Mhm. [clears throat] I was you did. I was no, I was just like keep going, keep going. And then I went up back to the room and hurled everywhere in the toilet. Really? Yeah, when they brought me back. Like even on the winning scene, I was like trying to be funny, but I was like, oh my god, just let me back in the room. I'm going to How did you feel the next day? Amazing. Really? I No, I did feel amazing. At the time I was like, when I felt that pain from the hits and like the like, oh my god, what happened? I was like, never again. And then No, it wasn't even the next day. It was after I hurled and I stood up and I was like, that was the best experience of my life. What did you like about it? I just like boxing because it's a place where you can be feral. You can be feral and they're not going to but it's a safe way that the the refs will stop it when they're worried, but you don't have to worry about holding back and you don't have to worry about your opponent. Like if you get in a bar fight, bouncer's going to take you away straight away. But in the ring, you can just boo, boo, and it's the energy, it's the fitness. Gained a lot of weight since that fight. Haven't worked out in two months, but I'll get back into it soon. But at the time I was just it's boxing is Yeah. Are you going to continue doing the boxing training? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It was I don't know why cuz I like look back and I'm like, "Oh, I almost lost." But it was still one of the most thrilling things I've ever experienced in my life. Do you think you would do it again? Absolutely. So, if Ian comes back to you says it's Creator Clash 2, you in, you'd say yes? Absolutely. Really? Absolutely. Is there anybody that you would want to fight in particular? So, I don't know how much I can say, but they already have been looking at someone for me, and she terrifies me. Really? She terrifies me, and it was funny cuz we went to Spotify close down Disney recently, and I walked into her and I like was like, "Hey!" She's so nice. She's the sweetest girl ever, but she scares me. With the like Haley, I didn't know much about her. I was like TikToker easy. But the fact that I almost lost that, and I'm already scared of this woman, I'm like, "Ian, maybe I uh maybe we should just uh cuz a lot of people wanted to get into Creator Clash. Yeah. They wanted to go into it after, you know, how big it was last time. And Ian and Anisa have to choose from so many content creators. So, no one's confirmed except for two matches. They confirmed mine straight away, and I was like I was like, "I don't mind giving up my place." I'm like, you put up a good fight. "I'm good." I'm and they're like, "No, no, no, we're excited for this." And I'm like, You have a huge advantage. So, I was reading on Reddit, and everyone who was like a, you know, semi-pro or, you know, amateur fighter was saying the first fight like that is the most difficult because you go in and you're not prepared. But doing it again, you know, it's like, "Okay, I know I'm going to be out of breath. I know what it's going to feel like with all the you know, the adrenaline going on. I know what the crowd's going to So, you have an advantage that nobody else would have because like you've been through it before. And you also see just how hard you would need to train. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't It's true what they say, until you're in the ring you don't understand. Cuz like you trained so much before your fight. I trained so much, but then when you get in it, even sparring's not the same. You get a hit and you're like, Huh. You're punching me. You're punching me. And I think my issue was just I didn't train cardio enough. I couldn't keep my hands up. Yeah. Do you have anything else you want to say? We have 3 minutes, 2 minutes. a quick question if we can ask it before. Um, I've noticed people that do Twitch have uniquely dedicated like fans. And I want to know your take on it. Why do YouTubers, it could be a YouTube channel with like 5 million subscribers, but their Instagram could have like 20,000 followers and then their engagement could be like, you know, 40 likes or 100 likes a post. But for some reason it is unique within the Twitch community where those creators, they can have, you know, like a million followers on on Instagram, but their their Twitch has, you know, I don't know, 2, 3 million followers. How are the conversions so good for fans on Twitch? I think it's the fact that it's real time. It's talking. Like a YouTube video, I personally prefer YouTube cuz you can sit there, but when you're with career you're seeing them do it live. There's no editing. There's no cutting. Like Like cuz I watched a lot of Twitch people before I blew up and it just was It was more engaging. I can like type to them, they'll see my message, I'll see their reaction live. Where they're with YouTube, you see it after and they might like the comment, but it's uh for me it was like, oh my god, I'm not to be parasocial, I'm seeing this person like react to this thing and when Twitch blows up and then you can just be like, hey, follow my Instagram right now. And then, you know, you can put that in a YouTube video, but then when chat responds and they're like, "No, thanks." and it's like, "Do it. Do it." Like, it's an easier way to engage. It's And Twitch clips, I mean, you know, Twitch has been going and saying lately, but now I think YouTube might be making the comeback because they're They're gaming, right? They're taking a lot of the biggest creators. Yeah, I've seen that. [clears throat] And like, TimTheTatMan, Myth, LilyPichu. YouTube, if they get their emotes in check, like their BTTV, their chat, I think they could outgrow Twitch at this point. I agree. They could they could conquer Twitch and maybe Spotify for podcasts. Hm. So, that's where I think they have to head though, because there's so much competition. They're not going to compete as well with TikTok. So, what's left? Podcasts and uh Twitch. TikTok is insane. I know. It's too addicting. It is, but it's also like the amount of opportunities it's given. Like, you know, Lil Nas X blew up from that. You know, music creators that grow from TikTok. And TikTok creators, too, though, because you're not talking with them one-on-one. It doesn't feel like you're having a relationship with them, but the the the relationship between followers on TikTok and the TikTok creator is also like Twitch. It's like it's it's so much more than just like a YouTube and a a subscriber. And then it's easier to go viral cuz it's a shorter thing and it goes up and the that's why I love like if anyone wants to get into music, that I think TikTok right now is the best place to grow. You put one song on there, it's catchy, people will reuse it, more people will hear it, and then it's So, I even though TikTok is kind of cringe, I think it's one of the best platforms for smaller creators to grow. Like, Twitch, like I said, I streamed 7 years. YouTube, I tried since I was a kid. TikTok, one viral thing can set you off into famousness? Yeah, famousness. Cool. Is that a word? Yeah, it may as well be. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. We got to go up at the the thing right now. So thank you guys and we'll be right back. That was great. having me. So now we're going to be having on Marina, Silicon Valley girl who by the way was one of the first people that we've ever had on the podcast back when Jack was still in college. Yep. Sounds weird. Anyway, we're going to have her on because lately she has been going completely viral on Tik Tok. She has a huge YouTube channel and we're going to be getting some updates on her in terms of her business and what else Jack? And her baby. She had two babies. She did. Thank you so much for coming back on because you were one of our first guests ever on the Ice Coffee Hour. Oh, I was the first? One of one of them. I think it was number 10. Maybe episode number 10 so you would have been guest like number five or something like that. Oh, okay. That's pretty that's pretty cool. Those are the really early days though before we did like any crazy thumbnails or anything like that. Like you were there. 2020, yeah. Yeah, kitchen table. It was a dining room table. That's crazy. So a lot has changed. You've been deciding whether to um leave college. Yeah, that was what that was the time. That was that time. Did we talk about that that episode? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That seems like ages ago. Yeah. That seems like I hardly remember college. Oh my gosh. [laughter] Wow. It's nuts we were still doing this before you dropped out of college. that used to be the talk. It used to be college then it went on to like girlfriend stuff and now it's like outsourcing. That is so funny. [laughter] All right. Yeah, so do you regret not finishing college? Uh yeah, man. I wish. I wish I put [laughter] all this work. I went straight to college. advocating for finishing. Were you really? Yeah, cuz I'm pro education. Let's talk about that a little bit more. Why are you pro education? First of all, you run an education business, right? Can you explain to us what exactly this education business is? So it initially started as a study abroad booking platform. So you could book a trip to Spain to learn Spanish or trip to the US to learn English, but during COVID we lost 90% of our revenue. So we had to pivot and we pivoted to a to an online learning platform. So we basically work with creators in educational space, and they create product for us, and we distribute it. Mhm. How many languages do you speak? Russian, English, German, and a little Italian. Fluently? Well, I studied mathematics in German, but it was in 2010 when I studied in Germany. So, I think I won't be able to use it like on a daily basis now, but English and Russian Russian is my native and English, yeah. Why'd you decide to learn so many languages? Well, when you don't speak English, English is the number one language you have to learn cuz it opens all the doors. I wouldn't be here if I didn't learn English. German, I was like my dream was always to study abroad, and going to the US or UK you can't really afford it as a Russian family. And Germany had free education, and I was like, let's learn German. And I really fell in love with the country and like with the products that Germany creates for the world. Um so, this is why I learned German. And Italian, I just had Italian friends, and they were sisters, and they would always chat to each other in Italian, and I was fascinated by the way it sounded, so I decided to learn a little bit of that. Do you speak any other languages, Graham? I took four years of Spanish and one year of Latin. How good are you at both? Terrible. Really? Yeah, really bad. I don't remember a single thing. Really? Nothing. Hola, ¿cómo estás? Let's see. Oh, wow. Four years. Yeah, four years. Holy cow. I I can't use it like Yeah, you use it for work. because I definitely I think Spanish would be such a fantastic language to learn, but Would you do videos in Spanish, though? No. Uh I I think it's good to to understand and be able to speak, Mhm. but I don't know. When I was in high school, I had very just I was very narrow focused, and it was either I'm playing the drums or I'm working. And I If it wasn't either of those two, I had no interest in it, so I didn't pay attention. Got it. Yeah. I was the kid I You know what I used to do? There were There were some sort of like [snorts] he, she, they, them, like those sort of differentiations, and I'd write them I think on my on my hand before going in class so I could if I had taken a test You cheat. Yeah. You would cheat. That was the only way I think I passed high school. get in trouble for cheating? Um I think once I got caught with having notes and the teacher took the notes and told me that if I got caught again that uh you know he would flunk me from that so you continued cheating. I just didn't get caught. Okay. He [laughter] said if I got caught again but didn't say that I couldn't continue. I don't I don't know I I have I have a feeling that you would be like an exemplary student. Straight A student. Straight A student. You were straight A's. Where did you go to college? St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg and then from there University in Germany for like a semester but then I got accepted to Johns Hopkins with a full ride scholarship for their master's program and University of Florida MBA full ride scholarship but then we got also we accepted investment from 500 Startups and we decided that I would focus on the business instead of doing my MBA. How has your income shifted over these last two years from going in person to online? How have you evolved as Well, we lost in in gross revenues we lost a lot but then we're making more on selling online products because if you're selling an offline product you have partners as well. Um but we're still getting to pre-pandemic revenues. Really? Yeah. Why do you think that is? Because I would feel like for an online business that there would be a lot of demand from people who have the time let's just say during the pandemic to learn another language. think it's the average check. The average check before was like two to three thousand dollars and we have thousands of people traveling. We were like number one for a lot of schools all over the world and now like we have the same audience but the average check is like one hundred fifty dollars so it's different. Got it. Now I have to say that the one thing you have been doing really well is the what I spend or a day in the life of a mom in San Francisco, let's just say. Those videos are so much fun to watch and I keep getting them recommended. Yeah, I keep getting them recommended. Like you go into the grocery store and like putting items in your basket and comparing the cost. It's crazy how they're blowing up. Like I'm even not ready for that right now. When you're posting a video, I'm used to like 100k views, but if you get like 2 million views overnight and like all the different people who watch your videos cuz I'm targeting, you know, young entrepreneurs or people who would want to start a business. And now like millions of people are watching them. So it's it's new, it's interesting. How did you come up with that idea? I started researching the algorithm on TikTok and somebody told me that you actually need to post yourself. So I had my assistant in Ukraine who was helping me with posting. So we saw most of the audience coming from Asia and like Eastern Europe and then the thought, what if I post with my American SIM card, what would change? And so because it was me creating content, I was like, let's create something, you know, that I wanted to create. So I created a a video about having a baby in California and how much it cost. And I just posted it with my SIM card and it blew up like in a day or maybe like in a week I think it was 7 million views and I got featured in Mashable, BuzzFeed and I was like, oh my god, so it was the SIM card and this new format that I thought I would do. So yeah, crazy. Wow. How are you continuing that momentum? So you see like when we're talking about those short videos, the price is the shock factor and I think this is why people are watching till the very end and then they hear the price. Like I went to this dentist and they gave me an estimate to like fix my teeth and it was like $2,000 and people are like, what's going on here? Like I could continue doing that and like going to Erewhon and like showing how much Erewhon would be fantastic. So okay, so I did a yeah, I did I'm I'm a little ignorant I guess on this. This these haven't showed up in my feed. The exact So you go to these places Jack. You go to these places, you're pulling a bunch of different items off the shelf and at the end you show the total cost of it all? Yeah. And it's just blowing up? And people freak out. As what? As a short? As a Tik Tok? As a short on Tik Tok. Um well, I guess short on Tik Tok. It's like a 60 seconds on Tik Tok. Yeah. The The big one though, I remember seeing the the cost of having a baby. How much was that? Two 2,300 something like that after insurance. Uh of going to the hospital and like giving birth? Yeah, and like giving birth like doctors were not even there when I had my baby cuz I I had her so fast. They walked in and I was already with a baby. Who Who delivered it? Uh so there there was just a lady who was watching me and she was like I was like the baby's coming. She was like, "Okay." [laughter] How How painful is that? Um well, the first time was more painful but the second time was like your body just get you it gets used to it. Is it the Was the first time I just [laughter] I'm curious too actually. with the first time that you gave birth, was that the most painful thing you've ever experienced cuz I've heard No. on many accounts that giving birth is like the most painful thing. No. I think like No, cuz I I have couple surgeries and like recovering after surgeries is a lot more painful cuz I think this is a natural process and your body releases so many hormones. I know it's the first time you're talking about [laughter] having birth on this podcast but like your body releases hormones. We're We're were meant to have babies, you know, just doing our daily stuff. Like we would hide for several hours, have the baby and then go back to our lives. Um and because you're you know, I've never tried drugs but Yeah. You You didn't You were I never tried. I never tried. Yeah, and when you're having a baby, you're like you love everyone. I saw babies in the store and crying because I was like, "I'm going to have another baby right now." So it's just the hormones. It's just crazy. You You're in the outer space. So you didn't have any sort of epidural or No. And that wasn't as painful as the So what was the surgery that you had that was that painful? I had um What is it called? So they had to cut out something from my stomach but they had three holes and then I couldn't walk after it for a days. So, that was really painful. Um but, having a baby was natural, so. That is a Yeah, you don't hear of many births without pain medication. You know, I was born without any pain medications. You were born Yeah. What? Yeah, so my mom, when she had uh uh my half sister, she I I don't know. She She had the epidural or whatever was given. But, because I was going to be her last, um that she wanted to have a natural experience. And so, I've heard it's it's better because apparently, I think the epidural does something to the to the child when it comes out. Like, there there's some after effects that maybe they come out That makes sense. numb or something. I I think there's something like that. I'm not an expert by any means. I'm probably butchering that really bad. But, no. Yeah, I wanted this natural experience, so I worked with doulas who were helping me concentrate. And Dima was part of my husband. He was helping me a lot, so. It was really magical. And how has having a child like affected Has it affected your business at all? Like, your business philosophy or philosophies in life in general? Are they good for business? [laughter] I don't think Unless you're trying to build like a family vlog. Uh-huh. Uh but, in general [laughter] That joke we triple views there. Yeah. It's hard to focus cuz sometimes you have a plan. Like, I'm going to film every day of the week, and then your child gets sick, and that's it. Your plans are ruined. And you You stay with your kid. So, yeah, it's different now. I can't really plan ahead. Hm. Would you ever consider getting a nanny? I have a We have a nanny. Oh, you have a nanny. We have a nanny. The problem is like the kid needs you as a parent. The nanny helps with daily things, but it's still when the kid is sick, it's you uh who they need. Got it. What was the most unexpected thing for you being a parent? Hm. Interesting. How dependent we're going to be on the nanny? Like we won't really be able to travel like for example went to Europe uh a year ago when the kids were really small. We wouldn't be able to do it without a nanny. What do they do exactly? They Yeah, that's such a help. Uh [gasps] sometimes she sleeps with them so I can get the full night rest because when you have a small kid, they would wake up several times a night and you you just don't get enough sleep. That's number one thing I'd say. Got it. Yeah. I think Graham wants to have a child at some point, you know, and he's just trying to get a feel Feel it out. Yeah, I'm not ready by any means. Like I could go probably another 10 years and and feel like, all right, maybe maybe now. I know it's it's a big commitment to you know, I know it's at some point but I feel like right now I'd be too selfish. Like I want to be too focused on this. Anything that takes time away, I wouldn't uh be as receptive. I don't think I'd be a good parent right now. One thing Alex Hormozi said when we had him on our podcast is that it would be hard for him to have a child and be okay with his child not being the exact person he wants him to be. Oh. He wants the child to be. What do you think about that being a parent yourself? But you can control that. Right, but he says he would just have a hard time with that. Accepting that. Accepting that. Yeah, and and gay and he adds that to the the risk of having a child. It's like, what if I don't like my child or Oh, you would love your child. Regardless. Of course. Yeah. they don't like you? Oh, no. Maybe that's how they phrased it. No, this is not how we're built. The kids are built to love their parents and do anything that their parents do. But let's say he has an expectation of his child and his child's I don't want to do that. I'm doing my thing uh and it happens to be crime or maybe you know, drugs or older kids? Older kids, yeah. I'm talking like, you know, 20s, 30s. They just grow you know, in in a different direction that's not as intended. It's maybe not the best for the society. Yeah, I think my approach to this, I want them to be happy and I want them to be good citizens. So I have 18 years to teach them all I can and then after that it's really up to them. So you can't change their personality. After 18 you think people are pretty set in. Yeah. Hmm, that's interesting. Yeah, I think for me my biggest thing would be like if they don't have that drive or work ethic. Mhm. Then I would feel like But no, this is something you can teach them. This is something you can totally teach them. Cuz they wouldn't be too I I don't know. Like I'm not very different from my parents cuz you just live in this world and this is how you see the world and the kids they just learn from you. Yeah. That's it. But here's the thing though. Like what if I don't do a good job at teaching? What if they see like oh, you know, dad's always working. I don't want to work. It's something like that. Like maybe they want to like do the opposite. But it's a you can look at it in a in a positive way. Like my dad's always working. That's amazing. Like If you're mean to your children or you don't like treat them well, then I think whatever you do they're probably going to go against but I think if you like shower your kid with love and support, obviously don't spoil them, you know, but you live your own good life and you show them love and you do your own thing, they'll look at you just like most people would be like that's a pretty remarkable person. I want to be just like them. That's true. So. I agree with that. So on the the whole business side of things, how are your businesses broken down currently? What businesses are you running? So my husband took over most of the operations of LinguaTrip because it's really hard when other people cannot rely on you. Like sometimes the team needs a manager and I'm with the kids so we decided that he's taking over all the operations at LinguaTrip. Um I'm doing my channels, I'm doing my courses, I'm doing brand deals and then investing. Mhm. So those are the two things that you have going on. It's the the language course thing. You have your own courses like how to be a YouTuber and stuff, right? Yes, I remember those and then the child and everything. Yeah. That's interesting. Two kids. And how many hours are you working then? Four to five a day. That's the maximum I can do. How do you on top of taking care of Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, like working is four to five hours. Yeah, and the rest is like kids and home. [laughter] I don't know what to say. It's It's hard to relate because it's like we don't have those experiences. So, like we're trying to learn. But it's hard to be like, oh yeah, I How many hours do you work? Uh depends on the day. Usually eight to 12 a day, I'd say. But it depends on the day. Like Fridays I could take a little earlier cuz you have the whole weekend to nothing happens in the market, so. I'd say you work close to like 60 hours a week. 50 to 60. Uh yeah. Yeah, probably. But it's great. Yeah, but it depends because sometimes I could get like five hours of the work, but it's so concentrated and you're just like in the zone. And other days it'll be like 14 hours, but my brain's scattered. I I don't get quality work done. Takes me so much longer. And you've you've experimented with TikTok, right? Cuz I've seen your TikToks. Oh, kind of. Kind of kind of still guy is Coffee Hour. Yeah, the Which we've been doing Yeah, it's Coffee has been doing really well for us, actually. The the TikTok. The TikTok account. Yeah, it's been doing really well. For my own personal we've had our guy just clipping up little bits and pieces and posting them. I got to do more on TikTok, though. Yeah. I think realistic He was here today. Yeah, I saw him. You should talk to him and just put him on the actual like a salary or something like that. I expect one per day cuz I know. I got to do that. And you should try creating platform specific content. Like TikTok specific. time. I I have so true. Everyone always has the time, man. I am burnt out. You don't have the energy. I don't But you have the time. Something Something will have to be pushed off. Something. I'm at a point now where I feel so good work to sing, though. And like even of what I have right now, I just like deep down, I which I think I might do, is just say no to like just cancel the things I have going on right now. Interesting. Yeah. I I everything I've I've canceled, I felt so good afterwards. Like I felt so good about the vlog. I felt so good about just everything else. Millennial Money. Like just not doing it. It It's weight has been lifted off my shoulder. I feel so much better. Mhm. And the more I say no to things, the better I feel, the happier I am. So zero. Oh my gosh, no. You could you couldn't pay me That's right. to to want to take that back on. I just I don't want to do it anymore. That makes sense. So yeah, for TikTok content, it would take my time away from something else. Uh even now that so I sold one rental property, that just closed. And now I'm like it's so nice just not to think about it. This is the mental I I could go off the deep end here and just like sell everything. I I'm not going to do that, but it's just the simplicity of just buying an index fund. I've loved it. And I don't want to deal with the properties anymore. It's like, oh, I have to pay property taxes and remember of like, you know, I had insurance lap on a property. That was so stupid. Mhm. And it was just because I didn't have the time. Like they sent me an email, I didn't see it. And uh insurance lap for like 3 months. And like, what if something happened in those 3 months? And now I'm not insured because I'm too busy to look at an email and the property manager is not isn't aware of that. So Interesting. So in 5 years, ideally, you would just do one video a week and that's it? Uh I don't know. I cuz sometimes I love the three videos a week. Mhm. And I love the current schedule. I think if I could just I I think at the end of the day, I just need to focus on the three things, which is main channel, second channel, Ice Coffee Hour. And and that's it. I don't think I have any capacity anymore for anything else other than those. Mhm. And I think I just do those really well. That's my strength. Interesting. cuz I hear too many things, honestly. And I've been thinking like, you know, even listening to all these pitches today, I've been taking so many much advice from other people. And I just like, oh yeah, they're right. Like, you know, not saying this is wrong for you, Jack, but like the outsourcing or taking on new projects. And oh, you should be doing this. And, you know, your audience is perfect to to you know, collaborate with these ideas." And I'm like, I think I think they're the wrong choices for me. Mhm. And at the end of the day, I don't feel as excited as I should be. What's your end goal? Sorry, I'm I took over. Yeah, no, I think it's fine. Uh I'm just just enjoying what I do. And I think at the end of the day, like I enjoy making videos. And like, that's what I have the most fun doing. Everything else at this point is just But like, if you could imagine an event where you go as a very special guest, like Oscars or Nobel Prize or whatever, like what would this event be? Dr. Phil. Joe Rogan. Wait, me going on event? Yeah. Yeah, like and getting an award or an award. I don't want it I Or like a party where everybody Graham hates parties. I don't go to I'm I'm not that social. I don't know, like a perfect event for me would be like six people, all you can eat sushi. That would be the perfect event for me. Who are the six people? Oh, gosh. Uh well, [laughter] Jack, obviously. No, I just think honestly with the team, it's like, you know, me, Macy, Jack, Alex, uh Kelsey, and then Jack's future girlfriend. Six of us right there. Andrew could come along. Andrew, come along. Until you get a girlfriend, and then Andrew, you know, has to He's my interim girlfriend. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's great that you're like you're all set now. Yeah. He's got everything he wants. You know what I was saying with the team? I got to say So, I I'm I'm always pushing to outsource. I'm always pushing like, try this new thing, try growing and stuff like that. But, at the end of the day, knowing who you are and with your logic, I think what you just said was extremely reasonable. And I I agree with you. I think Look, man, if you're at the point of just not having the energy, I sympathis I sympathize with that. And I get where you're coming from. As long as you can maintain what you're doing and you can maintain it well, it's totally fine. That's what I think. Everything else has been stressing me out lately, and I just don't want the stress anymore. I just I don't want to deal with it. I just you know, I I to look at my emails and not have to deal with it. You know, I just want to focus Mhm. making videos. You know. Great. So, I think that's I've learned that I think today was a good revelation for me. That's good, man. Yeah, I think so, too. That's great. What about you, Marina? Do you feel like you still have all of this energy to continue push pushing these new things and trying out new businesses and scaling what you have right now? I think so. You think so? Yeah, I just got excited like all the all the things happening with short videos. Like my choice right now is do I push it and just do more or do I stop it? Cuz like the attention I'm getting, I'm not ready for it right now. Like millions of views and like as I was saying, kids staring at me in the streets and like not necessarily getting the feedback I was expecting when I was like showing the Tesla and all of the comments are about me showing off with a Tesla. Oh, I remember. Okay, so did you see this video, Jack? Okay, it's kind of funny. I'm going to speak candidly here. No, go ahead. tested it at the car wash. But instead of calling it a car, I took the car the Tesla. But this is what I'm used to like I say I [laughter] No, I I do the same thing. I'm like we're going to take the Tesla instead of we're going to take my car. We're going to take the Tesla. That's interesting. every one of the comments was like, I didn't know she had a Tesla. Uh tell me again that she had a Tesla. People are like, what car does she drive again? Cuz how many times did People do that with Tesla. Like Tesla specifically with everything. Like I name things. I give them a name and like the the ba the most thing you can name them is the the brand. Yeah, it's true. No, but I have my iPhone. I'm going to grab my iPhone. Did you say watch? Did you say Apple watch? I say Apple watch. Yeah, and I think with Tesla specifically they do it. Nobody says like I'm going to take my Toyota. My Nissan. No, I say my Ford. I say my Ford all the time. Mhm. I know. You should remake that but with Ford. See what the reaction is. I'm going to drive my [laughter] Ford. Everyone's going to say my Celica, my '87 Celica. Everyone's going to [laughter] I don't know. I feel like that's a good way to make light of situations like that. Kind of leaning into the joke, you know what I mean? Leaning in the joke, but it happens every time. I deliver a message, but people see something completely different. Like because they go viral. Like if I get 300 Like when I get 300,000 views, I'm like the feedback is perfect. When I get 2 million views, 11 million views, 30 million views, this is when things go wild. I don't know. Like I'm excited about all the views. Like this is cool. I can actually make this the stuff videos, but at the same time, do I want people to see me as a dumb girl who says Tesla versus same car? I don't know cuz they think it's dumb. I just think it's engagement. It's engage I know, but then I'm thinking like if I Sorry, if I want to work with, you know, this particular brand, like if they come to the comment section, would they want to work with me? Yes. I think so. I think so. If you got canceled, you're not getting canceled. People are just saying I don't think it matters at all. Like the Chris Chris Jenner, she made the masterclass. And I I watched the masterclass. I was like, okay, she Okay, it's a good product, but what do people say? Cuz Kardashian said her so I went on Reddit. People were like picking on this product. They were like, I will cancel my masterclass membership because you did this. I was like, do I want to be Like not exactly Kardashian, but do I want to be this controversial person that does something and then the company is also getting It depends how safe you want to play it. I think There's a the high risk, high reward. I think the risk is pretty limited cuz you're not saying it like saying my Tesla and people are poking fun at that. I I think it's very mild. Yeah. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It's the nature of TikTok comments. Right. Or YouTube shorts comments. That's just how it is. I think any brand would look at that and say, wow, 20 million views, that's incredible. I don't think they're going through reading the comments. I be surprised. Mhm. I think it's worth it. Because the thing is like when you're talking to 20 million people like that little minuscule percent is going to be the most vocal about it. Every time I have something do better than average, you get those comments. And the haters are way louder than people that support you. Yeah. Half the time I think they're joking though. It's after I think it's just like, you know, exaggerating behind a computer cuz it's funny. Mhm. And then if they start getting up votes, then it's like, "Woohoo, I got all the attention." And then if the creator responds like, "Wow, I got their attention." Yeah. Half the time I think it's just that. Yeah. Yeah. think it's that serious. But you've got a knack for this. Like you're onto something and we don't know how long that algorithm is going to work for. That's true. That's absolutely true. And this is what I'm like, it's maybe we have 6 months, maybe like I would take your shot because with this audience that you could grow could be faster than like taking 10 years somewhere else and you could do it in 6 months. Mhm. And I think that the risk is low. Yeah, just just managing how people see cuz I don't want to be seen as like this girl who shows off in Silicon Valley. This is not the brand I'm trying to build here. Like I try to convey one message and people see another message. So, I don't know. Yeah. Maybe have a review system but like have it filter through like five people and then if they all like it like I watched your video and I didn't think a single thing about the Tesla Mhm. until I went to the comments. Yeah. [laughter] But you know what it's funny. Yeah, that's a good point. comments make made me watch it again. Uh yeah. So if anything the comments could be it's like this loop where it's like watch the video, go to comments, watch the video again to see if the comments were right. Yeah. Uh that could that could work to your favor though. It's yeah, that like the latest video I made about the flying like the flying experience when we had to wait etc. But everything everyone was focused on like a broad a neck on the airplane but this is what Russians do. We'd bring eggs, cucumbers, and uh ham to feed the babies. No, on the plane? On the plane. [laughter] This is what we do. And people are like freaking out. You monster. plane, really? [laughter] Yeah. But you know what? But I think some of that just I want to say the culture differences make it watchable and engaging. That yeah. And the fact that you get so many comments, I just That's not something that people get upset about. At least like I think it is fine. Yeah. I think something something to work on myself with myself as well. Cuz I think I want to control everything and also the way people see me. And when I can't control it, I'm freaking out. And that's my problem. I get you 100%. Like anytime I see a hate comment, it makes my day so like Okay, this is going to get a lot of people to write hate comments, but it it doesn't make me feel good, right? But I can see a bunch of really nice compliments and I would say like the feeling that I get is so much less than like You know what I mean? Than a hate comment. For some reason they put you down way more than, you know, nice comments put you up. Yeah. Yeah, I would say it's almost 100 to 1. Like you have to get 100 good comments to outweigh one bad comment. Yeah, I agree on that. Yeah. Terrible. But I think that like that's something we can all work on as creators is recognizing like people watch you for a reason. It means they probably appreciate what you have to say for the most part. I agree with that. And also I'm a firm believer it's like you get a a pool of you know, 100% of your people watch your video. Let's say 99% enjoy it, 1% dislike it. 3% of your comments are going to be negative. Because if you have a negative emotion towards the video, you're probably more likely to comment than Yeah. positive. That's true. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. What an interesting episode. I know. Yeah, let me know the next time I get right into your recommended section, let me know. Yeah, I'm actually going to look at that. the comments. Okay, I will. We'll do. Okay. [laughter] All right, well thank you so much for coming on, Dana. It's good seeing you. Thanks. So up next we have NATO Brian coming on. This is going to be a really unique episode because Graham is actually going to be busy for this one. He has to judge this event. People are going to be pitching him their startup ideas. Something like that. And uh it's just going to be Nate and I. So, this is a one-on-one, it's very short, 15 minutes. You guys are going to love this one. We get really personal. Tune in. Hey guys, thanks so much for tuning in. I have Nate O'Brien here today. You may notice Graham Stephen, he's gone. He's not present. It's just Nate and I. We're going to have a little low-key chat about some business, some cool stuff you're doing cuz you're doing a lot of cool stuff. I don't know how much how much you're comfortable talking about, Nate. Uh we can talk about a lot of business stuff. Yeah. Okay, cuz you're doing two things. I mean, you've been on this podcast a couple of times before. We discussed your like reclusive {slash} minimalistic life that you're doing where you're like going into like the Rockies and like living in a van. Yeah. And at the same time you're running like multiple six-figure businesses online. And we can go into a little bit of both of those. Sure, yeah. They are two total like weird things. Like you wouldn't think that they match up and they you feel like they wouldn't align, but uh they do. You're not a very flashy person for like being so young making, you know, some pretty good change. Yeah, I don't like the flash. I don't I don't like drawing attention to myself. Um and I yeah, I never really set out to be like an influencer or like to get attention. It was just sort of an opportunity. And so, you know. And you've never been flashy or never wanted to be? No, I I don't want people looking at me. Um I'm trying to stay discreet, you know. Would you consider yourself kind of like an introvert? Oh, big time. Big introvert. Um I've gotten a lot better at speaking to people, just like forced myself to learn it. And uh but my social battery dies very quickly. So, I just spent 5 days in New York with tons of meetings and now I'm just like And it's always been that way? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, actually before it was even bad, I wouldn't even go to social events cuz I couldn't handle them. Why? Is it like anxiety or do you think it's just your tolerance is low for it? No, just like I I wasn't good at holding conversations, didn't know how to communicate with people. I had to teach myself how to do that. I'm wondering if since you spent, assuming like that you did this, you spent time away from like social events and parties and that kind of lifestyle, you were left to your own devices and that gave you a lot of time and opportunity to research like different business strategies and stuff like that. Yeah, definitely. Especially growing up um cuz like I didn't have a lot of friends. And so uh whenever we'd go hang out or go to the movies on the weekends in like middle school, I would just go home into my room and just like focus on like building things. And I'm always curious. I ask this question to a lot of people that come on this podcast, but I'm always curious like what is it in you that is that innate desire that I'm assuming you've always had to be exceptional in something? Like a lot of people I'm guessing live their life and they just think, you know, like I'm happy making ends meet, doing my thing, you know, settling down, whatever. But it seems like a lot of people we have on they just have this innate desire. Do you know if it's like your family instilling values on you or if it's like just something you people are born with? Um you know, for me it was it was actually because uh from a for business thing it was it was cuz I wanted a lot of freedom with with my time, right? So like that's why I started all the business ventures cuz you know, I didn't want to get a job, I didn't want to have to go to school and everything. So I was like, let me just make some money so I can just do whatever I want whenever I want. Like it could be Tuesday and I can just be, you know, sitting in a lawn chair somewhere in in the middle of the day. Um but yeah, I mean my family didn't really pressure me on anything. So there wasn't any like big pressures like Nate, you need to go to college, you need to get a good job. It was just kind of hey, do whatever you want, you know, if you want to mow lawns, that's cool. If you want to be a, you know, a a doctor, that's cool, too. Um but it was it was very chill. So I I don't know where that came from. I think it was just I love learning. I love uh really challenging myself and I think unique growth always. Um and so if you you know, there's that saying like if you're not growing, you're dying, right? So like just always moving forward in some way just kind of keeps me happy and everything in check. Yeah. And what about comparing yourself to other people? Because I do my best not to do it because it's just I think it's just objective Well, not objective cuz you can use it to your advantage, but a lot of the times it results in some pretty bad uh you feel poorly, right? And I compare myself, believe it or not, to you a lot. Uh-huh. Because we're the exact You're 23, right? Yeah. We're the exact same age, right? But you get to live in the Rockies, and you like have this cool van life, but at the same time you're making like crazy money, you get to travel a bunch, you're like nomadic. Like that is like the ideal life, in my opinion. Do you find yourself comparing yourself to other people? Oh, the grass is always greener on the other side. I mean, um, I remember actually you had you, uh, and Graham had Kevin on the Ice Coffee Hour at one point, and you actually [snorts] like I came up in the conversation, and you were talking about how, you know, you guys would like to be me, where you can just kind of travel and stuff, and then I was watching this thinking I would love to be Graham, where I could actually get out so much more work, or Kevin, where I can get out, you know, seven videos a day. So the grass is always greener on the other side. Yeah. That's really interesting. That you That you want to be more productive. I mean, honestly, I'm pretty content where I am. Um, I mean, I always have that like work smarter before you work harder mentality, and it's like, um, also just, you know, I'm I'm okay with not working 100 hours a week, but I do wish I had that capability of doing that. Is there ever a time in your life, do you think, where you'll just be like, I have enough, I'm making good money, I've been making good money for a long time, I can stop all my businesses and go travel? I think that would get depressing if I if you stopped everything entirely. I think right now what I'm doing is exactly what I wanted to do. That's like my dream of like being able to travel and also growing stuff on the side. So like you don't need to have a full sprint, um, and sacrifice 30 years of of my life in order to still accomplish something. That's kind of So, yeah, I I think I can do both. Maybe I'm not going to be, you know, a a billionaire, but, um, still I think I can accomplish both at the same time. Have fun while also growing businesses. That's interesting. And onto your actual businesses that you're running at the moment, it's interesting to me because you have so many different businesses, and every Every you come on here, you're always kind of like a little secretive about what exactly is going on. And I was wondering if we maybe we could talk about some of those businesses that you're running, how you built them up, how successful are they really? And uh yeah. Oh yeah, I mean, you know, just pays the bills. Um I have like some YouTube channels um and like, you know, the personal finance stuff and um yeah, a couple channels and uh yeah, they pay bills. So, you have your main channel, you have NATO Brien. Yeah. And how much is that making? Are you Are you comfortable saying numbers or you would you rather um yeah, I probably don't want to go into specific numbers, but it's it's it's like it's not making as much as it did last year cuz I make one video a month on it now. Um I feel bad letting it totally die, you know, because I feel like I have to like give people something and also, you know, I could do some decent-sized brand deals, so I feel bad like letting it go, right? doesn't excite you that much? No, it it it doesn't excite me that much cuz I I I I think I've said everything I need to say, right? But why can't you just reorient the reorient the uh type of content that you're putting out to stuff that you're, you know, interested in? Cuz I I just don't really want to talk to a camera, you know, others there's other things that I that I'd rather work on that that that we are working on, so. Okay, so you're saying stuff where you're behind the camera running some sort of business or Yeah, yeah, that stuff is is good as well, like running channels without being on them is is also great. Um but even just beyond that, sort of like the stuff that I'm working on with Sebi, with some of the venture stuff is is more exciting. Let's talk about that for a second because I know I actually only became aware of this other business that you're doing with Sebi. I don't know how long, maybe like three maybe like it was a a month and a half ago or something. You guys all came to Vegas and we all went like gambling, I guess. Like we all we all played poker. Oh man, that was rough. It was rough. I I was so scared playing poker in Vegas. It was like one of the first time I played too, so I didn't really know what was going on. But, you know, we're trying to crack jokes and stuff and everybody's so serious at the poker table in Vegas. It was just yeah. Yeah, that that was a tough experience right there, but I remember we were sitting at the poker table and you're talking about like some new business venture with Sebi and I was completely caught off guard by it. Maybe I'm just out of touch, but what exactly is this business that you're doing with Ask Sebby? We've had him on the podcast before. Uh Uh yeah, he's a really, really smart guy. Yeah, Sebby's great guy. Um genius. Um and so uh if you remember, Graham invested into Yotta, right? Which is which is that uh banking app and you know, uh they do a lot of really cool things. Um but so Graham invested in that through one of Sebby's syndicate. So, Sebby going back on some of his history and the reason why we partnered together is cuz he had a company he was a co-founder of a company that uh got acquired by firm back in I think 2015. And then he actually became a YouTuber and that's sort of how we all connected with him. Um but at some point around 2020, he started running syndicates. Um and he lives in SF, so he's very tied in with the venture world and then uh like like that very early stage like pre-seed and and and seed companies. Um and so he's doing those syndicates and then eventually uh we kind of combined forces and said, "Hey, let's launch a formal uh venture fund." And uh so so we just launched uh uh like back in in May. So, it's it's been pretty recent. Um and just kind of focusing on like, "Hey, look, we're creators. Uh creators having equity in companies and we can help those companies uh grow." And that's kind of the the main thesis there. So, explain it What's that thing they say on Reddit? Like explain like I'm five or whatever. Okay. Give Give it to me like that, right? Like say I don't even know what uh syndicate is. So, let's take it actually from from the startup's perspective, right? Okay, wait, so you don't know what a syndicate is. So, basically, a syndicate is when you just get a group of people together and that creates like a vehicle that then invests into a company, right? So, Sebby went He went to Graham, he went to myself, he went to a handful of other finance influencers and said, "Hey, there's this really cool company. It's super early. Um it they're they're raising on their seed round at a certain valuation. Um I think we should get all these creators together and and invest into this company and get some equity in them because look, like, you know, Graham, like say for example, Webull, right? How much equity has been driven by Graham for Webull over the past 5 years? It's probably an insane amount. And like he got paid, you know, a lot of cash, but if he had equity, it there's a potential it'd be worth even more. Or like when I started promoting Robinhood in 2016, I don't know what the valuation was, probably $100 million or something, you know? And then they at one point they were worth over 10 billion. So instead of getting $5 in cash, having some equity there would have been really incredible. Yeah. So you're saying you get a bunch of people together and when you're basically shouting out these companies or doing affiliates and stuff like that, driving traffic, instead of being paid cash, people are being paid equity in these companies. Essentially. Or so there's different ways of doing it. You can be paid in equity, which is through one of Seby's companies called Subscribe, which you should just have on again to talk about it cuz it's really interesting. Or just investing into it. But imagine as an influencer, if every company that you're promoting and is sponsoring your video, you have you own a piece of that company. Like how like really important that could be. And that's what the big people do, you know? That's what like Logan Paul does with a lot of his stuff or the Kardashians. Right? Um I mean just just look at the stuff that they're talking about, right? Logan Paul's not doing one-off videos with um like some random brand. Most of the stuff that he's promoting today or Mr. Beast for example, he does some one-off stuff, but a lot of the stuff like Feastables with his Willy Wonka video. He he he owns side from that. Exactly. So so creators shouldn't just be focusing on cash. They should like it's also nice to have cash plus some interest in that. Because really the real money in most of business is built in equity appreciation. That's interesting. And it also makes sense that the businesses would prefer this as well because then also they get to like first of all you get like to add the the creator, whoever's, you know, shouting you out as your list of, you know, like people that own or whatever. And also, you know, it's probably a little cheaper if you're a startup and you're Mhm. you know. And and then also we can really help on on helping the companies understand, hey look, you're overpaying influencers, right? Cuz I'm sure you guys see that as well where there's some startups who will raise some money and they just don't know what's the going rate for influencers. And so, that's what we're kind of there to help them as investors into their company, uh we have the connections, right? So, we know a lot of influencers, we can connect them with them for potential brand deals, and also tell them, "Look, you're getting screwed. You're paying too much for new users." or or whatever it might be. So, yeah, we just feel like it's it's a great uh relationship. Mhm. So, that's that right there. You have that. You have your main channel. And then, what else do you have going on? Um I I mean, those are really the the two main things. Um and then, um yeah. And then, just also a lot of networking, which is kind of a weird thing. You can't really Wait, I I've never found a ton of value in networking, but I know you go to all these conferences, you go to all these events, and meet up with a bunch of other like companies and creators. Like, what value do you find in that? Um it's a couple things. So, going back to what I said earlier, I love learning. And so, when I can just meet people, and they have a new business, like we were just talking to John, right? And he was telling us about his his new company that he launched, Lucy, um which I'm assuming I can talk about on here, but yeah. Um and yeah, it's just so interesting. And like, I I would love to get on a call with him and talk for 3 hours about the company, just learn about it. And And that might almost be a downside to me. hopes of investing? No, no, no, no. Just cuz I'm genuinely interested. And this might be one of my sort of like kryptonites, like my my things that is is almost bad, where I'm too interested in things, and in everything that sometimes I feel like I waste my time. Like, for example, I don't make a ton of videos on YouTube on my channel, because I'm going to be honest, some of my time is just spent, you know, I'll spend 6 hours like researching a publicly traded company to try to make a trade, when maybe I should just be making videos. But, I I just love learning, and I'm just always intrigued by things. That's really interesting. And do you ever spend time like wasting it away, like on TikTok, or just like scrolling on YouTube shorts, or something like that? Like Do you ever do that? Um yeah, I mean, I'm sure I do. I would say the way that I waste time is probably a little bit different than other people. So, I I don't consume really short-form content. I try to stay away from it just cuz I can't like get away like it's it's so hard to get out of TikTok if once you enter into you'll be on it for 2 hours. So I mean I waste time like I'll drive for 15 hours on the road somewhere and just um you know, so that's kind of a waste of time, right? mean you're driving, you're like listening to some crazy podcast thinking of your next multi-million dollar business plans. But um okay, yeah, that's true. But I I love just learning. I I love consuming as much as possible. Hm. Yeah. Okay, so that's all of the businesses that you have going on basically for the most part, right? much. I mean I have a couple like uh channels with my brother that also, you know, just kind of help like diversify a little bit. But uh other than that, yeah, that's that's pretty much it. Hm. And one thing I kind of wanted to make apparent because I remember before I was like in the YouTube scene and I would I would watch content similar to this. I would see like people that were you know, near my age and I see them talking and they're all like business year whatever and I'm like gosh, like why am I not doing that? And I want to make it clear to people. I've always wanted to say this on the podcast, but now I guess it's the perfect time. It's like Nate and I when we're not talking on the podcast, it's not always about like, you know, these crazy business plans that we have. Like we all like we just talk, you know, we joke around and talk about random stuff, too. Oh, totally. I always just wanted to say that because I feel like that there's there's this idea that like people like Graham, people like you, people like me, like it's all business all the time. That's not necessarily the case. Oh, yeah, we we do a lot outside of um business, you know. Yeah, got to have fun. Yeah. So Graham I mean he's still gone. [laughter] Stoked to say anything. So Graham's still gone. I mean he's here right now, but we're recording this after the fact. Uh but right now I guess in the video he's like recording still and we figured it'd be fun if we brought on Ask Sebby and Nate O'Brien is going to be filling in for Graham. He is my new co-host of this podcast. Let's get on with the show with Ask Sebby. Welcome back to the Ice Coffee Hour. We have my co-host Nate O'Brien. Uh Graham's actually filming the the right now and we wanted Sebby on and we couldn't have done it otherwise, so Nate's my co-host. Yeah, I've never co-hosted before, so But you wanted to start a podcast, so this is a good opportunity to test out your skills. Yeah, so do we like interrogate him or what? Yeah, don't you have a new Brian show? What happened to that? Uh, it's just been on the back burner forever, yeah. All right, well [laughter] Well, we have ask Seby. We've had you on the podcast before. People loved the episode, okay? We talked about how you're an unemployed person making 10 million or whatever. I don't I don't remember. title, yeah. Some clickbait. It was some clickbait that Graham came up with, and I was like, all right, sounds good to me. So, we brought you back on uh to talk about a lot of crazy stuff that's going on with you and your businesses, and I know you've currently partnered with Nate on this new business venture. We kind of talked about it briefly when I had Nate on. Um I'm going to go ahead and pass it to you and Nate. What do you got to say? Um yeah, uh kind of like See, this is why I'm not a good [laughter] host. It's okay, man. It's It's okay. Um what's I ask him? Okay, here. I have a question for you. Um [laughter] I'm never starting a podcast. I can't do it. I'm retired. it, man. You got it. Um but uh yeah, what what was your reasoning for um [laughter] I have nothing. I have nothing. I believe in you. Okay, okay, actually, tell us about the company that got acquired by a firm, because you're so stealthy about it that and I didn't even know that until last year, and nobody knows that, cuz he's so quiet about it. Yeah, so that was we were basically helping people attending coding boot camps get loans because coding boot camps is one of those like weird things where if you attend it, there's a very high likelihood that you get a very high-paying job. So, I think a lot of people who are not in the New Yorks and the Bay Areas of the world or even LAs now, you don't realize that tech jobs can pay an absurd amount. Like, a lot of people in normal places view six figures as kind of the dream, and often times that's kind of the starting point for a lot of software engineering roles, and we're trying to help people uh get into these programs because they're otherwise expensive. Uh so basically it was a lending platform for that purpose. Okay. So you're like tech lead kind of in a way. Um not really tech lead more so like kind of a a firm or like a SoFi like getting a loan in order to attend the program. I think tech lead is selling you his course. So so for some reason it's hard basically to give loans or to go through the underwriting process or whatever. Exactly. So a bank a bank doesn't know what people aren't making money yet. But for people that go through this coding coding boot camp, it's almost guaranteed that as they get out, they have a very marketable skill, they can get high-paying job. So you guys were providing loans for people to attending to attend those coding boot camps. loan or is it like a loan those were tuition loans. Um but it wasn't cuz cuz these aren't like technically like colleges or traditional ones. They're more like secondary programs. So the hard part was making sure that we weren't financing bad programs. So a lot of these Okay, so it depends. So some of them are very good in that they're focused on you getting a hired and actually getting a good job and they have a good track record. A lot of other copycat ones were like, "Okay, you can charge people $21,000 or $17,000 to teach them the bare basics and there's no risk on their end." So we need to make sure that we weren't funding those. Oh, so it depends on actually the boot camp that these people are going to. Yeah. So we were trying to go after like the Harvard and Stanfords of those programs to make sure that people had a higher likelihood of getting employed afterwards and also being able to repay the loan. And these weren't loans that were backed by the government or anything. These were just purely It was peer-to-peer lending. What's your How are you How are you kind of like evaluating the sort of like the credit risk or like the default risk? And were you shipping that risk off or were you just like bringing it all on yourself? So we were just a technology platform, so we were not taking on the credit risk. We were a platform facilitating everything. Um and then also the risk It was more so looking at the results of those coding boot camps and how they previously performed. So some of them like again, if you don't have a track record there, uh, not that good. If you're someone who has a tendency of placing people at these high-paying jobs, then that's a lower risk. But, the idea is that uh, you might be very smart. You might be underemployed right now. Let's say you're working at like McDonald's or something. But, like, you are actually smart. But, without that actual education, then you have a hard it's a very hard path to get into that traditional role. And, by going to this program, it can changeably increase your income from $30,000 to, let's say, $80,000, $100,000. But, you may not want to pay that up front. Or, you may not have the ability to get a loan off it. And, who were the typical lenders? Was it just like random people that had good money? Or, was it like businesses? Or, Yeah, a lot of the lenders were not banks. A lot of the lenders were pretty much other tech people who have uh, often times seen the ability of tech to like kind of change people's lives. Mhm. And, also some other people who are arbitraging, too, because they were like, "Well, I can make 8% here." And, it makes sense because the credit risk feels relatively low. And, that was kind of the rise of the Prospers of the world, where you were there were a lot of like peer-to-peer lending platforms taking off. And then, that got acquired by Affirm? Yeah. How much was the acquisition for? Uh, can't say. And, but, where did your role fall into place in this? It was pretty much a bit of everything. So, a lot of kind of marketing, partnerships, uh, bit of products. Like, as a founder, you're not really doing just one thing. I think a lot of people, when they think of jobs, especially like traditional corporate jobs, they're like looking very much like, "Okay, I do this. Anything beyond that, I'm not interested in. I'm only hired for this." And, that makes sense when you're an employee. But, when you're like a founder, or when you're like working with Graham, for example, you're probably doing a bit of everything, right? Like, Yes. it's not like Graham's hiring you to edit. He's like, "Okay, cool. Can you also send this email? Can you take out the trash? Can you pick up this package for me, maybe?" Yeah, you take out the trash for Graham? No. No. I've never I've never taken out Graham's trash, but I have visited the post office for him. Yeah, so, same idea. But, um, that Yeah, that was a while ago now. That's like 7 years ago now, so uh, and then, uh, transitioned into YouTube. That's Why did you pivot to YouTube? Cuz I feel like when someone exits a company, then I feel like they just go on to their next startup. And I feel like YouTube is sort of I've never seen that really. ironically, YouTube was initially kind of I was debating turning that into a next startup. So, I pretty much got very obsessed with credit cards. I kind of realized how much value you could get from it because for me, as someone who grew up relatively like I would say lower middle-class income, I never thought I'd fly business class or first class, for that matter. So, seeing how you can actually use points to do it, and I'm like, "Oh, wait. Like instead of just turning those points into $700 in cash, that can be a business class flight that would otherwise cost $7,000." So, the fact that I can kind of see how the other side lives was very interesting to me. And then I kind of dove into that rabbit hole of like, "Oh, crap. Like there's all these cards. You can actually kind of modify your spend. You can also sign up for them and just hit the intro bonus and do that." So, initially, uh, first off, I got very addicted to it. And then I was just telling my friends about it. That's kind of how that whole thing happened where I spent like 30 minutes like 45 minutes talking to a friend about like the Chase Sapphire Reserve. It's like, "Hey, you need to get this card. It makes so much sense." And then they were like, "All right, cool." And then the next time I saw them, they're like, "Hey, can you explain the card again?" I'm like, "No." So, I was like, "Okay, I'm just going to make content as like first at at a minimum, it's going to be a friend who watches it. If they need to watch 10 times, great. But, it's like just explaining the idea that like this is a no-brainer as long as you're not overspending. And worst case, you can downgrade this into a new annual fee card." Uh, so, that was kind of the starting point. And then uh, yeah, just started making more content. People were interested. And then I I was surprised that I was getting a lot of smart comments, too, cuz I associated YouTube with like dumb comedy, for lack of a better example, where like the prank type stuff, more than anything. Uh, so, just to see like actual like professionals and smart people coming in to say, "Oh, yes. Uh, I I did this trip. I did this trip. That was pretty cool to me. And then initially that that whole thing was because I was also doing like a blog where I was trying to make the next like NerdWallet. Yeah. So, how many credit cards do you have? Cuz I know you have a lot. I'm saving that for a future video. So, I need to Dozens. At least. Potentially. Yes. Many. More than 30. And now I know you're going into like a lot of startup investing and stuff like that. Can you tell us a little bit more about I remember last time we talked we talked about the the the business you just discussed. What has changed since the last time we talked? It was probably what, like 10 months ago? Yeah. So, uh which business? Like the startup investing business or the one that got acquired by a firm. It was the the loan the lending one. Yeah, so that was like 8 years ago. That was like a while ago. Yeah, we talked about that in the first ever Ice Coffee episode. Yeah. So, uh I ended up starting another company recently uh with Mandy, my co-founder, that's basically helping content creators work with startups for equity instead. The idea being that a lot of companies just can't pay what creators are worth, especially uh because personal finance rates might be more expensive than people realize. Uh and then the other half of it is that we have seen so many of these companies grow from, let's say, a 50 million valuation or 80 million to a 2 billion or 1 billion valuation, like a unicorn. So, if you think about it, like we're actively helping these companies 10, 20, 50 X in value, but oftentimes when they come to us in the early stage, they kind of do the opposite. They're like, "We can't pay that much because we're an early stage company and we'll pay you less now, but maybe we'll pay you more in the future." And like, you don't really want to take that handshake agreement because, first off, they might not necessarily pay you more, and secondly, maybe that maybe just doesn't make sense for them to do that. So, it's like, "Okay, cool. How do you like incentivize uh creators to have that upside?" So, that's the equity component. And then, in addition, recently uh ended up starting a rolling fund with Nato Green. Uh the idea being that we end up seeing a lot of deals, we were doing a lot of angel investing anyways, and by having this fund it basically means that we can help either uh high net worth individuals invest and get access to these deals that they otherwise wouldn't, or creators who just don't have the time, right? Because creators, even if they might be interested in getting their hands dirty, they have so many different things they're working on that investing is this whole other thing that maybe it's not worth their time. Yeah, and sitting in on meetings, too. Like and like I've never run syndicate but you've you've run many of them that I've I've been in and I can imagine how sort of just much of a headache it is to round up influencers to get them on a call with the founder and then have the influencer do some level of due diligence and then, you know, so it's it's uh definitely the fund made a lot more sense. And what about the the public companies? Like the the bigger stock market, how how when that goes down and or when that's struggling, how does that affect the the private companies, the stuff that you guys are more in tune with? Yeah, I would say that funding slows down, but good companies are still getting funded. Uh I think the problem is that a lot of private investors look at these public companies as multiples. So, for example, if you were making a mattress company right now, you're like, "Okay, cool. Who's the whale in this space?" Casper. If Casper's not doing well, then your upside is so minimal as well. So, that's kind of the big risk there unless you have some other like twist to it or like something else going on. So, Eight Sleep is one where even though they are a mattress company, they're more so a technology company because they have cooling, they do a lot of data stuff on the back end. They have like a SaaS play where they charge you a monthly fee to get your information and stuff. Uh so, I think like it just depends on how you position it, uh but I would say generally a bit of a pullback. Yeah, it it it sort of trickled down. Like it started with uh say November when Elon and Bezos and some of those big guys started selling a lot of their public shares and then it sort of trickled down from public to like the late stage, like you know, like the Series C and Series D and then eventually now it's even affected like the seed and pre-seed where they're having to lower their valuations as well overall. But I would say it's a net good thing because it means that the valuations have come down to earth. I'd say before that like in the last especially last year in particular, a lot of valuations were in like the absurd range where it was like pre-product, pre- idea, pre-anything. It's like 50 mil valuation. Pre-founder, yeah. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. How do these companies even come up with their valuation? Like do they just say, "Oh, I think this company's worth this much." and then it's kind of like it establishes its its own market and then people are like, "Oh, I'm willing to contribute this amount of money at this valuation." Or is there actual like statistics or or data to back up each valuation? So, I think some people will say that it's the probability of you becoming a billion-dollar company and like how you want to price that. I'd say it's more so just what what people want to pay, right? Like if people if you're someone who's last startup was Wealthfront and you've done well, you have a good track record of like founding these billion-dollar companies and making people 10 to 20 X back, people are happily invest at a higher valuation. And then if you're someone who's like fresh out of school, then it's probably going to be a lower valuation. Or if you don't have a track record. So, just because a company's valued at a at a high amount doesn't necessarily mean you wouldn't say accurately represents the the chances of this company becoming a billion-dollar business. No, I think if anything sometimes the higher the valuation the harder it might be to even be to hit the goal to keep raising money. So, one of the things with startups I think people get like confused with especially if they watch a lot of Shark Tank is the whole like focus on necessarily cash flow. They'll be like, "Oh, like what's your margin on this? What's your cash flow?" And it's like, "Yes, that's important for certain things like D2C where like if you're selling a can, that matters a lot. But if you're doing software, often times in the early stage it's about acquisition and whether you can like grab the market and you can kind of figure out how to like turn on more profit like wedge like levers afterwards to make it so that you are more profitable. So, like if you look at like most companies early on, like Amazon's a good example of this where like for a long time they were like "Other people's margin is their opportunity." Because they wanted to keep expanding. And then that's kind of how they got into their position. But if you look back into like the finance uh like news shows uh like 20 years ago talking about Amazon, everyone thought it was a joke. So it's it's a tough thing, I think. What's the biggest factor you look at on somebody, let's say it's a a kid who's 18 years old and they have an idea and they're trying to raise at a $25 million valuation. Uh what's like the biggest thing you look at to say, "Okay, this is this is the person that is is going to do it?" Yeah, I think a lot of it is So I think the three criterias that most people say are founder, so whether it's the right founder, uh whether it's a market that you think is growing, and also whether the product is good in that market. Uh in terms of the founder, I I think part of it is education. And then it's that intangible side. I think you can kind of get it when you talk to them. So it's like dating, right? Like someone might be good on paper or like on their Tinder profile, it's like, "Oh, they're super attractive." Um [laughter] Hey, you too, man. You got to elbow me. That's you too, Nate. Come on. Hits every single little criteria you want like, "Oh, okay, cool." But like maybe when you're talking to them the chemistry's not there or you feel like they're not worth your time. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So for the person side there's that. Um industry obviously is that space growing? Is it something that is in need of uh disruption or like is like or maybe it's highly competitive. Like if you're launching something that sounds like a me too product, then it's very tough. And then also the product in that space how it does. Relatively. Jack, do you have any angel investments? I'm try I kept thinking. Uh do I have any angel investments? Yeah. I've made one angel investment in investment investment in this company called Good Cash. And uh I saw the pitch last time Carrot, the people throwing this event why everybody is here filming with us. Uh this guy pitched and I liked the the company. And then I remember I also I think I talked to you a little bit about it and you and you guys just said, "Do it, Jack." And I said, "Okay, yeah, I trust you guys." So, I did. Yeah. Yeah, he's a really smart kid. Uh I shouldn't call him a kid, but he's 18, so he's like uh yeah. Super smart. Yeah. And I hear one other thing on angel investing. Usually when you're when you're buying uh some private equity in these companies, are you mostly placing a bet on the CEO or the on the founder and the and the team. necessarily the product. Yes, because they can they can pivot. That's the thing. But like, are they able to execute if they need to pivot? End of the day, like you're so early that it has to be the person. Interesting. Yeah. You'd think that it would be the product. You really would. here's the thing though, there's there's so many companies that I pass on that are outside of the venture world. Like there was one just this week where the idea was so good. I probably shouldn't share it right now, but it was such a good idea and I'll share it like off camera. Um it was such a good idea, but he just wasn't an operator and you can tell like based off of like his failed businesses in the past and all these other things. And so, um yeah. That's interesting, but you love the idea. Yeah, and I was talking to Chris Camillo yesterday about this and he's like, "Look, if it if they're not an operator, don't do it because even if the idea is amazing, it's a billion-dollar idea, if they're not like if they just Yeah." So. Cuz you're going to bet on the person. It doesn't matter. And you're betting on the person sticking around and making it a successful long-term company. One wouldn't expect that at all. You think all it is is like the the product or service because that's what you do when you're investing in public companies. It's not like you're usually considering the founder in that. Yeah, so for example, Good Cash, right? Like he by himself like the idea, you could argue that maybe it sounds like a me too copycat idea cuz there's a lot of other companies that do something similar, but the fact that he's just very smart and executing and like does the leg work, to me matters. So, coming on next, we have Eric Wei. He is the co-CEO and founder of Try Caviar, the company that's hosting this entire event. We've been friends with them for a super a time. He's the CEO of a business valued in the nine-figure range. Super interesting guy. We're going to talk about how he grew this business and a bunch of other really cool stuff. You excited? I am. Let's bring him on. Eric, welcome to the Iced Coffee Hour. This is a long time coming. I appreciate it. Graham and Jack, I feel like I'm supposed to know in dollar terms how much you've generated. Right? That's usually how you frame it. I actually don't know. I'm trying to remember. Let's say 300,000? That's an accurate guess. I mean, that's pretty good. I think it's about like 220, 230? No, it's about 240, maybe? 240. Okay. That's a good guess. I mean, that's very accurate. Yeah, that was the classic really just throwing a number out there and going with my gut. So go in the millions, but it's it's it's about that. So, thank you so much for coming on. I think it's important that we introduce you because you are the founder and owner of the credit card that I use all the time. Uh we got to listen to this. Hold on. The Carriage Credit Card. There we go. This is the uh the heaviest credit card that I have, and you've created this as a whole business of running credit cards. Could you give us a little bit of your backstory uh for a few minutes and how you came up with this idea and and how this makes money? I I still don't understand how you make money with this. So, my background is a mix of a couple of different things. I previously worked at Instagram as a product manager, where I helped build Instagram Live, Instagram Business and Creator accounts, products for creator and content businesses like yourselves. And I had the time of my life because I grew up on YouTube and Twitch. And getting to build product and tools for the people I had spent my entire high school and college time watching, it just felt really special. Especially, and this goes into the other part I did of things I did before going to Instagram, I previously worked in finance. I went to Harvard. I studied economics. I worked in investment banking at Blackstone. I worked in management consulting at McKinsey. And I was absolutely miserable. It's all things that I felt like I needed to do because it's what everyone else around me was doing. But it never actually was what I wanted to do. And so I went through a period of my life, I'd say my teens to my mid-20s, where I was very depressed. Not really liking the direction I was heading and watching a lot of YouTube to try and distance myself from it. About [snorts] 6 years ago I had that existential realization I had to make changes. That's why I left finance to go build products for creators. And now here at Carrot, the company I co-founded, it brings it all together because we build better financial products for creators. We've worked with so many people. For example, ZHC, who you've actually spoken with and interviewed before, one of the biggest YouTubers out there. When he walks into a bank and tries to explain what he does for a living, they don't actually get it. Another individual you might be familiar with Ludwig. Top streamer who when he was doing his subathon last year trying to gift subs to people, his card kept declining because no bank trusted him enough to give him a high enough limit. The entire financial system underwrites you off a set of really standard metrics like FICO, how much debt you've taken out in the United States and how much you've paid back. It doesn't account for your actual income, your cash flow, or if you're a creator, the size of your business and your social stats. So we're trying to build the financial system for content creator businesses. And as you said, our first product is a metal business card where we base its terms, limits, and rewards off of their social stats. And you asked us, [snorts] "How do we make money?" So the real secret for us, we don't charge any fees to the creators who use our cards. We make a little bit of money called interchange, which is the processing fee that stores and merchants pay to accept cards, but the real play is the cross-sell. We believe that we're going to do such a good job with these cards and building our brand, building our trust, and developing our own underwriting model to actually assess whether creators are good businesses, that we're going to be able to cross-sell them to other financial products down the line, like bank accounts, tax products, lines of capital, even mortgages. The secret of financial technology products, it's always about the cross-sell. You're probably familiar with the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. The former head of Chase, Jamie Dimon, when asked, "How much money did you make on this card?" because it was such a hit, he said, "We lost $200 million this year on it. And I wish we had lost 400 million." Because all of the cost was incurred in year one, and all of the benefit is from people who potentially might switch over to other Chase products over 5, 6, 7 years. So, our whole thinking at Karat is we started with a card, which many top creators like yourself use, because it's going to give us the ability to cross-sell what we build next. So, I'll pause there, but sort of a really quick high-level on some of the things you asked. you've been doing this credit card now for 2 years. When is the next product? So, 3 years, actually. But the reason why I say two, we spent 1 year just failing repeatedly over and over. And we tried 15 different products. One of them was actually bookkeeping and taxes for creators. And it's what we're launching next now. The difference is when we tried to do it before, nobody knew who we were. And as a creator, you think about taxes maybe 1% of the time. Usually, you're focused on growing your channel, doing more content, making more money. And the 1% of the time you care about taxes, everybody goes to the people they already know and trust. Every creator goes and finds, "Hey, you know, my mom's uncle's fraternity brother does taxes for bakeries. Maybe he can help me out." So, before in that year one, we spent an entire year trying to go out to creators saying, "You haven't heard of me, but I can do this better for you." And everyone either being that 99% of the time they didn't care or that 1% of the time when they did, they already were like, "Hey, I know somebody who can do this for me." But, the reason why we're launching this now is because we actually have that trust and we have the ability to go now to people and say, "You already use our cards. Now, we can help manage your accounting, your tax strategy, your payroll." So, that's the really big focus Scam and Jack that we actually just launched about a month ago. Who's doing that? How do you vet these people to make sure they're good? So, there's really two, three things you care about when it comes to your bookkeeping and your taxes. The first one is, is it accurate? AKA, if it's not, you might get audited by the IRS. And there's so many creators we work with who have issues where they owe back taxes and penalties because they didn't have someone helping them do it properly. The second thing is, does it help you save money? For example, if we went and ordered Chipotle and started eating this here on camera, that potentially could be considered a business expense. And there are many financial professionals out there who don't know the sorts of write-offs as creators that you can actually get. The third thing is responsiveness. A lot of times you're on your own schedules. Both of you are so busy. You need someone who's managing your finances to be available right away. And so many creators are so much busier than normal small medium businesses that whoever they work with, they're not able to actually provide a high quality service. So, on those three things, making sure you're not audited, making sure you're getting all the write-offs, and making sure it's responsive, we actually went and hired the accounting creator specialists who were serving our card holder clients. There were an entire team of people who we were emailing back and forth because we provided cards to their clients. And they'd ask us for statements, they'd ask us what is Carrot, what is going on. And one day we went to them and said, "Hey, do you want to just come work for us? Because everything you're doing, let's put it under one roof, where not only are you going to help us provide the best quality financial services to creators, we're also a tech company with engineers. We're going to take those insights and start to build product around it, too. So, it's not just a pure services play for us, it's tech-enabled. It's using the brand and trust we've developed with Karat to hire the best people to now provide financial services and start to build product around automating more and more of those pieces. That's the focus now. And again, what's our vision? It's one day every content creator business in the world comes to us to incorporate, to get set up on Karat, accounts, taxes, credit, just everything. And this is just one small step toward getting there. Jack, really quick, you pressed record on these, right? Yes. Okay. [snorts] I was I was paranoid for a second because I was like, "Oh, crap, was I supposed to do that?" You didn't do it. So, so here's something. We're breaking some news right here, okay? We just wrapped up recording with Jack Conte, the the CEO of Patreon. Yeah. What? You didn't click record on those. The cameras weren't recording. We'll get him after this. Are you kidding? You're Are you No, I'm serious. I just wanted to get your live reaction cuz I think it'll be kind of You serious? Yes. No. Yes. It's all right. I can't tell if you're messing with me cuz I mess with Jack all the time. bring Jack back in after this. He's still upstairs. We'll make sure You kidding me, Jack? Don't don't mess with me, man. I'm not kidding. No, no. Cuz remember how I ran in cuz you were already in here? I just assumed that you already clicked record on them. I saw you messing with this thing. Yeah, I just I mean, I turned this on. You don't know how to use that. Are you You swear, Jack? You have to I swear. I swear. Swear on your family. I swear on my family. That's really high stakes. up. Really? Yeah. What do we do? It's fine. I'm not bothered by it. We can just try again. It's okay, Graham. No, but that was so good the first time. I know it was really good, but we can get it again. Yeah, let's get it now. You have an even deeper friendship and you know Jack and I'm sure he's going to want to come down. We have another pitch coming up after that we can go grab him. And right now we have Eric from Tricarrot who has What's the valuation like 400 million? Really high and it's actually confidential for reasons that I'll tell you afterwards. But suffice it to say is we filled a product a lot of creators love and we've raised a lot of money. And I'll also say the whole reason why we brought Jack in and for those who are watching and listening who might not have the context is Jack Conte, the founder and CEO of Patreon, who's a fellow judge with Graham here on the whole creator shark tank show we're putting together. The reason why we brought in Jack and why I'm excited to bring him back down and have him re-record is because that guy is a great example, one of the first tech CEOs who's also a creator because he's also a musician. Jack I think is actually one of the first CEOs who's also a creator, so we're in we're I'm just trying to follow in his footsteps and this is our way of creating by hosting events like this. Let's talk a little bit about this event specifically because I know with your card you throw a lot of like different parties and events and then invite every every creator and it's one of my favorite things about the card, honestly. It's the community that you guys facilitate. The perks of the card are all obviously they're great. I love the cash back and everything and obviously the fact that it's metal, totally awesome. You should get that. But I love the events that you guys throw and uh let's talk about this one specifically. We've done one like this in the past where it's like a shark tank kind of, but instead of the sharks it's just a bunch of really good creators and then you bring in other people. What's like the purpose behind these events? I'm sure that they're not cheap. So, we once got dinner with Max Levchin, the co-founder of PayPal and he told us the most important thing around financial products and acquisition, it's actually trust. Think about the financial products you use. I know for myself, the bank I'm on is the one my mom set up for me when I was 10 years old. In order to do something different and something new, you have to have a lot of trust in that new company and what you're doing. And we're building something really new. Financial products for creators. The trust and awareness and education piece is actually the most important. We're not trying to say, "Hey, we're better than all of the other products out there." We're trying to say, "Hey, as a creator, you should care about these things, period." Because you're not just a creator and a creative, you're also a business who deserves and needs to be set up on business products. So, an event like this one, Creator Shark Tank, it's about helping everybody and yourselves see yourselves as businesses, as entrepreneurs, as CEOs of your own media empires, and as investors who other companies are coming in asking for your expertise to help. I know you've spoken with Minks, as well. And Minks joined because when I chatted with her on Discord, I said, "Hey, I think you'd be fantastic as a judge on a Creator Shark Tank." She said, "Hey, you know, like I don't know if this is really my style." And I said, "This is a chance to show to the world that you're not just funny, you're smart." And we got And our mission is Carrot to elevate you so the rest of the world sees you the same way we do as business people. So, we host things like this because it builds trust and awareness and it aligns with our mission where instead of watching Mark Cuban and Kevin O'Leary, you get to watch people and personalities who've built followings of millions who inspire, entertain, and educate come in in a different context as business people. One thing that I found kind of interesting is how you mentioned a mission of the company. How many employees do you currently have? So, we have about 50 employees right now. 50 employees. And we recently had Leila Hormozi on the podcast, and she was mentioning how you can develop a good culture around the business. Because you know, she has her her startup, I guess, as well. And she said the most important thing in order to create a culture around the business and to get good hardworking employees is you have to establish a mission and like a core goal, basically, that that the company is trying to achieve. And then beneath that, what did she say there was? It was values? I don't remember. I think it was a mission. You have to establish a mission, and then you have to think about every action and value and make sure that every action and value of the the employees is serving that mission somehow. How do you How do you establish a culture within your business? And how do you find good people to try to emulate that culture? First of all, absolutely love Alex and Leila. Second, the reason why you need a mission, even if looking at super tactically as a startup, why would somebody come work for us when they could just go work for Facebook and get paid multiple times more and probably work less. The only reason they would is they might be really aligned on liking us as people. They might be excited by the prospect of building an earliest stage company with a chance at upside. Big Big part of it is going to be the mission. It's the why are you even a thing? Why do you even exist? And when you bring Jack, you should ask him about it. We actually share a very similar mission to Jack. Where he's described it as empowering the second renaissance, right? Many of you're familiar with the first renaissance, which was a blossoming of intellectual and creative energy. And thing is there's going to be another. Because when you've made it easier than ever for people to create content and share with each other, there's going to be a moment where the younger generations, they're all growing up, they want to be creators. Making content like this for them it's going to be as simple and easy as breathing. And then when everybody feels comfortable sharing creating content with each other, at a certain point, there's almost going to be like a singularity moment where boom, there's going to be another inflection point in terms of humanity benefiting from everyone sharing and learning amongst themselves. And so in a way, the mission of companies like Patreon and ourselves is to empower the creators and help make that happen. And the way we see it, as a creator, there's a lot of things you have to do on figuring out how to make content, how to find your community, how to make money from it. We're the ones that want to help you scale it into a business. Anything involving the hard work around managing your flows of money, working with the financial system, working with the government, we want to make that easy so you get to continue focusing on the creative piece. That's not only our mission, it's also why I started Carrot. The best part of what I get to do is spending time with people like both of you, genuinely appreciating and admiring what you've built, and just thinking through from my side, is there something I can do to make that better? The impetus behind our various products, like I said, is people like ZHC, people like Ludwig, who were just suffering really low limits set by really arbitrary banks. And that's what informed the decision to go build that out. And everything we're doing after is based on what you think is important. Do you worry though that these banks have these systems in there for a reason? They they've been around for a very long time. And by breaking some of those reasons, that maybe you're opening yourself up to some sort of issue, let's say if if a creator charges up the card, all of a sudden their ad revenue goes down, a sponsor doesn't come through, and then they're in a position like, "Oh crap, I spent 100 grand and I got 20k." Yeah. Then you worry about that. That that's a higher likelihood of happening here. So, the risk and reward come hand in hand. People often ask, "Oh, I assume in starting this company, you must have figured out a way to minimize defaults." No, we have defaults, absolutely. It's why there's no free lunch. It's why nobody's built something like this before. You can't go and underwrite a brand new population without incurring the risk and learnings around figuring out, oh, here's somebody who I thought was good and they actually weren't. And the only way to build an underwriting model and build financial products for new population is to say, I'm going to underwrite people who I think might default. Because if you only underwrite the people who you think are good, you're just hardcoding your own assumptions. You're not actually learning. So, the really long answer to your point, Graham, is it's absolutely risky. And big banks don't do it because they already have a proven business model on serving the lowest common denominator of your average American. And what's changing now is financial technology products are becoming easier and easier to build, which means you got to specialize and build it to solve specific problems for specific types of people. You've probably noticed Chime and Step, for example, built to solve problems for young adults and teenagers. Nova Credit is focused on solving the problems of immigrants. There's ones doing that for Uber drivers and freelancers. We're doing that for creators. And yes, in underwriting that new population, you will face more defaults because you're taking on an area that people you haven't yet understood. But the hope is if you can learn fast enough, you now have built a moat that stops anybody else from coming in. In terms of not only the trust you've built from a brand POV, but literally your underwriting model is going to be better than anybody else's because you've now learned what actually matters and what doesn't. So, who defaults? Could you give us like maybe some factors that would play into that? Like creators who make riskier content or creators with under X amount of subscribers? Is there a metric? I'd frame it as where were the areas of your populations that we had to learn the most because we knew the least. And it's creators who have now begun to expand their business models beyond just making money from say AdSense or sponsorship revenue. It's folks who have built content businesses where say now they're selling products and there's inventory risk, right? Then there's a potential outcome where they didn't necessarily know how well they were going to sell and it didn't end up being as strong as they thought it would. And those were some of the cases where we saw as hey, we know this is a riskier segment. The upside is also potentially larger, too. And we want to go learn and see how we can underwrite. It's probably the same calculus that both of you think about as creators, right? When you've decided, for example, to launch a line of courses, that was a little bit more risk for a little bit more reward. You've actually spoken on your channel about launching your coffee business and the risks and expenses and tribulations you've gone through are frankly probably an order of magnitude more complex and harder than if you stuck to just doing content, but you do it because there's also more potential reward. So I think of it less as who's more likely to default and more on what are the segments that we realized we had to learn more to comfortably underwrite because their business models were different and growing beyond the traditional hey, I make content and I get AdSense and I get sponsorship revenue. Okay, so it's the night before posting, but we can't forget about giving a verbal shout-out to our patrons. We got to shout out Ben Ashmore, Rich Smith, Colin L, Inam Khan with Inam from Investing Investing with Inam, Rick Barkley, and Kevin Dunkel. Thank you guys so much for being patrons.