Bullish's CEO Brian Hanly Talks Memes & Media Businesses on The Rebooting Podcast

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welcome to the rebooting show I'm Brian Morrissey I'm going to try different formats with the podcast in the weeks
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and months to come I want to mix up the approach I feel like it'll keep it fresh I don't want to do different types of
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shows um but this week I am speaking to Brian Hanley CEO of bullish Studios someone who I got to know during the
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Blissful days of 2021 when everything was a lot cheerier and frankly easier Brian has started and runs a fascinating
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media business takes popular meme accounts in particular in order to build out media Brands around them former
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rebooting show gas liquidity partnered with bullish in building out its newsletter offshoot exec sum bush has
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also partnered with Mark Moran to establish a new kind of investor relations service I regularly say
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there's no one future of the media business and I think what bullish is doing with individual Brands and
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particularly in the finance space is a pretty good template though as we enter into what's sure to be another crazy
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cycle in the media business hope you enjoy the podcast and if you do please leave it a rating and review on Spotify
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or apple and while you're there check out another podcast I do called people versus algorithms each week I'm joined
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by long time media exec and investor Troy young and former head of design at Airbnb and CEO of universal entities
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Alex schleifer for a more wide-ranging discussion on the interplay of media
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technology and culture check out people versus algorithms wherever you get your podcasts and please email me feedback on
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either or both podcasts my email is Brian at the rebooting.com now here's my conversation with Brian all right Brian
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thank you so much for doing this conversation I've been I've been looking forward to doing this with you same here
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man thanks for having me all right I think we we met definitely during like uh I like the zurp era it
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was down in Miami um I think we're I think where do we go maybe the free end or something like this and you were telling me about
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making all this money off these meme accounts and I was like oh my God this is crazy for those people that do not
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know what exactly is bullish Studio bullish studio is a conversation about money
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um yeah basically we're we're an interesting company we we like to say that we create some of the most
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entertaining and informative uh business investing and culture content and the
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way in which we do it is a bit unique compared to I think a lot of other traditional Publishers but we can get
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more into that based on my experience advice and being a media buyer but uh at the end of the day we help make money
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off of content on the internet I know but let's get into the meme stuff the way you guys do it you you play
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you're much more buttoned up than doing the dessert pier in Miami um but I mean you got you've got like
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some very interesting properties and like so explain exactly how you do that
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particularly like I had like liquidity on like I forget several months ago um we disguised we disguised his voice it
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was kind of fun um and you know the whole I'm old so like this meme world is was totally new
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to me and you know from what you were saying like when you think about like what's going on in digital media like there's a
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tremendous amount of attention that goes into places that are that have not been
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you know monetized to some degree what did you end up seeing because you know you've been in this game for a while
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um what did you end up seeing as the opening um that ended up leading to bullish yeah
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there was a few openings I'd say I think the first one that I really you know what opened my eyes was when I was a
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revised media where you know we were look we were in the this was during a time when we were launching a ton of these different passion point-led
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verticals Munchies Vice news noisy all around different passion points and I we were we were kicking around this idea
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for doing Vice for finance uh and there's a bunch of different reasons why obviously there was a ton of audience
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that as the Millennials got older they had to care more and more about their finances having kids
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um we're in the midst of a 30 trillion dollar wealth transfer that's happening from you know our Parish generation down
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to ours which is a ton of money and a ton of weird stuff happening um and ultimately kovid was the gasoline
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to the fire before covet I would say that there weren't a whole lot of Millennials that were that cared about
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the stock market or cared about investing uh it just wasn't cool but then ultimately with stimulus checks and
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people sitting around at home the rise of the day trader came back and it just lit a fire onto this uh onto this
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excitement exciting little thing called the stock market Wall Street Bets with Reddit bubbled up and took over with
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GameStop that was when when that all was happening you were seeing every
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conversation on social media had to do with stocks investing making money and
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that really was the impetus and you know we started bullish in February of 2020 right before covet and that was kind of
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the best time to launch it and yeah yeah so you know what I saw was that you know
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you're having memes that are helping articulate what's going on and ultimately these memes were circulating you know people like liquidity Parikh
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Patel on Twitter uh ramp Capital they're you know when we looked at their numbers they were doing hundreds of millions of
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Impressions a month you know and in some cases a day and that ultimately was like wow like we are in the attention economy
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we've been in it for a while if we're if these memes are reaching some of the most high value audiences Bill Ackman on
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Twitter we've got shamoth Paula habitia these are big big investors where's the money these are kids in their basements
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that are you know memeing how how can they get paid for this because ultimately you know we have to help monetize attention so
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um there was a lot that was going on and um you know ultimately you have to weed through the Bad actors and see who's
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going to be in this for the long run and uh yeah our whole approach was let's partner with as many of them as we can
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uh building a media company yeah this day and age from the ground up is uh is a tough tough business yeah but so we'll
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get into that um because like 2021 was like basically like a million years ago from 2020 oh yeah
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um but I think what's interesting is that you saw like what you know the attention was going and there was a
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Delta obviously between the attention and um and the money but but also more than the attention like the cultural sort of
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relevance and stuff and I think what's interesting to me is you know Finance was like hardly the area you would think
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of as like media animation it's kind of like how like Washington DC is now like the place where like there's a lot of
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like really like interesting media businesses for a bunch of different reasons whereas like I always thought it was like a Backwater of the media
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business no offense Washington um you know but Finance is always like dry and boring and stuff like this and
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then there was this like explosion of these accounts so maybe it was just happening that I didn't know and like
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you know like I remember like talking to you like and and about like let's like
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use Parikh Patel like let's just let's just get into it yeah let's go into like let's roll for those who do not know
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doctor I think he's a doctor right doctor doctor yeah yeah Dr Parikh Patel
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CFA um this is not a real person no no it's a it's an avatar it is his uh His
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Image is a few different AIS smushed together he first used a stock photo that he found and then the stock photo
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model came back and was like can you not use my face so we had to he had to change it up but yeah we we've got put
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in touch with him when he had like five thousand ten thousand followers and um he's uh you know he's a unique
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individual and basically he tweets like joking stuff about Finance correct and
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he also like he said you know I could speak high level about who he is as a person but he he's you know studied in
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the financial category interned in the financial industry and has has a deep understanding of it which allows him to
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go and actually create content that resonates with a more High Finance audience and uh his voice enabled his
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ability to speak openly is what allows his content to travel going back to the point you made about like Innovation and
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finance if you look at edelman's like trust survey which looks at each of these different industries of like how
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typical Americans like trust you know different you know categories Finance is one of the least trusted categories
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compared to everything else and the reason for that is that you've got websites and marketing departments that
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are literally run by compliance teams if you're in the industry and you work at a Robin Hood or a Charles Schwab you
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cannot speak publicly about the company about the industry unless it's being approved by compliance so it's really
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held back a lot of the like open conversations in finance and it's really been held by the bloombergs and the Wall
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Street journals of the world so this ability to have people that are able to speak openly and from a place of you
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know uh you know experience is really where we're helping unlock a lot of that and change the financial media industry
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yeah and so I mean you run ads on these accounts but you're not an ad Network right I mean look we your friend uh Troy
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young has said that we are a very large uh Niche ad network uh because we're
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basically helping scale yeah we're scaling you know and I think this gets
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into like what bullish does as a business is that it's not worth it for a company to go to one Creator or one
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email newsletter and do a deal with right because like that is just it doesn't make any sense for from a time spent standpoint so we help basically
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work with hundreds and thousands of these of these different independent content creators and media owners and
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essentially represent them to the advertisers so that we can say hey look if you're going after this particular
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audience we have creators that reach that audience and it's essentially uh you know we're creating that
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monetization layer between the brands and these creators yeah but it also it reminds me of
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Federated media though totally um just in a different era yeah and now talk to me about that because like I always
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thought like you know Federated um which for those who don't know like back in back in the old days
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um it was all these ad networks before the programmatic stuff but like Federated came in and they saw a lot what was going on with the blogs and at
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the time and like you know the blog explosion was happening web 2 and stuff like this places like Nashville and
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TechCrunch were like taking off gigam and stuff and they came in and they said look we're going to be our outsourced
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publishing solution more than an ad network not like value click and stuff like this you can always you could
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always plug in those ad networks advertising.com um but they said well we're gonna like
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serve the publishing function which as you know from your experience is more than just trafficking ads right so
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explain first of all is that like a fair comparison and then and then secondly like what do you do Beyond quote unquote
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just add demand don't get me wrong like ad demand is very important ads keep the lights on here look we're an ad
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supported business we're a bootstrapped business hey here too that's here too that's it Independent Media yeah you
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know and we could talk more about uh VCS investing in media businesses But ultimately like I saw a lot of advice I
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watched that go from you know low valuational high one and it's like you you got to keep it lean and mean so ads
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keep the lights on and ultimately you know that that was our entry point to working with a lot of these creators but
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to your point that's that's fine but we're not really building Equity we're not building like long-term value for
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ourselves or for these creators but what we found is that we have a lot of experience in how to build media
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properties and you know basically compounding you know compounding asset and that's ultimately what then helped
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us you know we that led into email newsletters so we actually helped liquidity who I know you've had on take
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his Instagram account and then you know basically bring that audience into an email newsletter uh you know which is
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very different right I mean what like what liquidity does like on Instagram and stuff like this is like it's very
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mean it's very right jokey and funny and stuff like this exact sum the newsletter
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I I get it I I read it most days um it's very bullet point it's very you
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know made for finance uh person who is looking to quickly scan and know what
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the heck is going on in the morning it is not um yeah there's a mean cleanser or whatever like this but it's not it's not
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all like haha right and then I think when you look at liquidity as an entire you know media entity that is one
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component of the flywheel right so that that's a way for him to diversify not only his audience but also the way in
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which he speaks to his audience so that you know it's another uh spoke on the on the Hub and wheel and I think that's
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what we're helping with you know that's what we're helping creators do uh so whether they're a you know a video focused Creator and helping them take
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that next step into being more of an operator to say hey look like you're doing all this great video there's a ton of other areas to exploit to help expand
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the reach of that video content whether it's opening up more distribution channels or helping with a partnership
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ship to get them on a bigger distributor so we're basically able to use all of these different creators and represent
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them to these bigger Distributors these you know other types of you know uh Avenues to explore to help them make
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money and build businesses so we're excited about creators who are you know committed to building businesses around
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what they're doing and also as I saw advice and you've spoken a lot on this podcast about it's like you got to be
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Diversified I watched 20 people get laid off because Mark Zuckerberg had the pivot to more friends and family
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Connections in the feed and watched you know short form video on Facebook just get gutted and that's where it's like I
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can't put too many eggs in one basket with these different platforms so you're always having to diversify and I like to
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say you got to run towards the cpms I mean you look at the the Creator funds that are out there there is nothing
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there and I think it's it's hilarious to see like Instagrams like uh you know
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brand uh like you know brand collaboration Marketplace just fail like it's a tough business you know eighty
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percent of creators business comes from branding so we're helping really open up that 20 and diversify that away from
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just being brand new but but you want to like do more because I think to go back to the Federated like example um you
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know and it's different it's different here and different blah blah blah but at the same time I remember when federators
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started at the time like I I was like you know wework right and and wework was just starting to take off and I was like
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I don't get this I said why does our office building have a Manifesto out front I don't get this and then like you
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know any time I would like overstay like by a minute in the um in a conference
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room somebody would be irate and like banging on the door what the hell are the talking about and
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I was like I cannot wait until the day we get rid of this and get our own office I'm like and I was like this
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doesn't make sense as a business that their customers would celebrate the Day they fired like we work and I'm like
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Federated in some way to me was victim of the same thing in that like Mashable
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and TechCrunch and gig um they used Federated to get to the point where they
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could just hire their own sales team instead of giving 50 or 40 whatever the cut was to Federate it they would just
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say hey we're gonna keep 100 totally and that's a bad look I think that touches on a very important component here where
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you're seeing a lot of other businesses that are in our world pop up uh where they're acquiring or buying creators I
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do not believe that that is a way to be able to build long-term sustainable businesses and you know look our model
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is built where people can come and go but ultimately if we see a breakout success we really try to understand
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where can we as a company participate in the upside there and I think an example of that is working with Mark Moran uh on
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building Equity animal which is a services-based company uh in the investor relations world that was built
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off of that and that's something where you know we're we're participating in that and I think as other creators you
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know we're helping launch their businesses that's where we take our you know more of a financial stake in them because here you know you've got the the
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big VC money coming in trying to say how do we invest in creators but that's a fallacy you got to really you're
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investing in businesses um so we're identifying you know some creators just don't want to build big
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businesses which is fine so let's help them make money in the in the short term and you know if that keeps going great
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if they leave it's no harm no fail to either side and we don't really lose anything because that's what's keeping our lights on on a day-to-day so you
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know we we I think we said to 100 we sent 310.99s out to independent contractors
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last year um you know obviously there's millions of dollars there so it's like so you have churned you have you turn through
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different I mean that's just the reality of a network right with things like Equity animal and
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Mark that's a totally different situation you know Mark was working with liquidity I don't know it was like
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employee one or something like this then they split up I don't know there was some kind of divorce um I'm not going to get into like the
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the sort of meme Dirty Laundry um but you know it's a whole different world
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uh but um you know with Equity animal I mean remember you guys were doing some like I
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don't know Twitter spaces for like a public there's apparently a publicly traded um
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but that's that's different in that like that is like a true like business venture right um yeah that's what we're
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looking for we're looking for true business ventures at the end of the day those are what are the investable assets that come out of these creators whether
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they're e-commerce stores whether they're sustainable you know subscription businesses like that's where the value gets created it's not in
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the actual account um you need the account operator behind the keyboard every day and motivated to
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keep creating and the second that you let them you know de-risk by selling off an account that's when the voice kind of
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Fades away and you saw that with Goldman Sachs Elevator you see that in in a lot of other examples where it's just like
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it's the the creative brains are what ultimately pushes that forward and if they want to check out
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we're not going to be the buyer holding that like we you know yeah we need that operator
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I do wonder about that I mean because like like you said golden Goldman Sachs
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Elevator like I I think we're in this era of like disposable media and like
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before in social media I think it I thought of it as like a weakness of some Brands now I'm starting to think like
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this this is a feature of just the world we live in and like maybe maybe that's
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just how it is that most brands are going to be to some degree ephemeral like in the same way that like
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yeah fine Bruce Springsteen's still playing like Madison Square Garden but most not most musical acts they name a
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couple of good albums and then that's it have they started a podcast called 25 months and it's this whole concept
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around the average Creator only lasts about 25 months um it creating before they burn out they go they get a
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full-time job they do something else and I think you know that's media I mean you see the right media's on like a five
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seven year cycle around media Brands and unless they can truly reinvent themselves I think barcel is a good example but like it is tough and they
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fade away and our business model is built assuming that that's gonna happen um and that's why we're you know we've
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been going on for three years now and I've seen accounts that we've paid a lot of money to but the Creator just wants to check out you know they're they have
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a family with kids and a full-time job and this was a side gig for them and that's fine um so it's it's but yeah the cost of
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creating content is coming down significantly um and it has to just be profitable too I mean I remember advice we'd spend tons
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of money on creating content but I would scratch my head around where is it when you come back in and that's where you
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have to always the cost of content has to make sense for the monetization strategy that's built around it
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yeah well I mean the good thing about memes is I I think they're pretty efficient ways to query efficiently
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I don't I followed the um what is that like the VCC no no I followed DC brags of course but
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like the um the memes that we count the calls how people like I don't know there's like I don't know what the
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ethics I don't know this is actually about ethics and meaning um I don't know what the ethics of me
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mean I mean look he wants themes yeah there was actually something interesting that I saw the other day about I think
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it was um Reformation or one of those Brands where they were going out to a bunch of tick talkers that had viral videos and
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they solely had the the Creator remake that viral video to word for word but
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wearing the um Reformation clothing and then those videos went and took off and the whole concept was like it's just
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copying the same stuff that works but hey the Creator's getting paid and everybody's getting taken care of but it's the same that you see on YouTube
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everybody's following Mr Beast if you look at the stages of YouTube over the years the content all molds with itself
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to the platform everybody's optimizing for what grows on the platform at that time and if you're not keeping up with
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it's tough to tough to keep growing but there's also it's like something even like with Mr Beast like I wonder like
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I'm like how lasting is this is this brand because like you know he's he he's
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obviously nailed this specific area he's not the first person to be like a stunt
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account or something like this and he has to continually I mean I'm kind of reminded I'm getting like David Blaine
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flashbacks right I remember David like he was like you know he was like a magician and I was like okay that's you
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know yeah you know some good magic we don't have a lot of magicians around these days and most of them are like
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corny and this guy was like you know quote unquote cool back in the 90s and then pretty soon like he's doing like
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increasingly and next thing you know he's like you know in a coffin underwater for a couple days or
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something or you know he was like being suspended in a glass box at one point uh
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in the U in in London and there you know they got no time for this so like I remember one of the tabloids was like
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had hired a miniature helicopter and was like flying like a cheeseburger like in
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front of his like glass where is he wasn't eating for 36 hours
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but I don't know what my point is my point is basically these things do have a shelf life a lot of times they didn't
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um and that's where I think when you look at Mr Beast I mean if you look at the backing of him he's got night media behind him which he helped co-found so
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he's obviously participating in that in the night Ventures they got feastables they're launching businesses cpg
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businesses off the back of that and I think that's where you're going to start to see those exits you see it with the note boys and happy Dad Seltzer like
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they need to get into other businesses to build that long-term Equity that could be their own Standalone businesses
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they can use their channels to promote it and then at some point there's a really juicy exit because the value of
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Mr BEAST's YouTube account there's something there but without Mr Beast there's nothing and if he gets hurt if something happens to him it's done like
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it's a single person risk yeah talk about a risk yeah I mean and you also just you have to it's like kind of like
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the Jay-Z thing of like you know exiting to like you know be to get in the background like I mean I think
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like I I have a lot of like I think Bill Simmons like was actually had a profound influence on on digital media and was
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right about a lot of different things right and like I'm very impressed at his his staying power because like I run out
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of it like I like him but then like sometimes I need to take like a year or two off like at some point I'm like are
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we getting Crow old together like I I sort of sometimes think that's why I want like I kind of part of me wants
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Twitter to go away because I'm like am I gonna be like you know tweeting at like
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85 I really don't want to be and I feel like the only way I'm not
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going to be if Twitter goes away it'll be an AI ghost version of you at the rate that all this is uh coming I know
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you've been writing a lot about that it's it's wild but yeah look it's it's funny to see like you know it's the the platforms they rise and they fall and
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creators and media and media personalities go with them um it's it's a cyclical business and if
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you could stick around you're the breakout especially for multi decades yeah exactly
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um so let's talk a little bit about like the customer base because like again like I joke that like you know we're
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we're at the broken Shaker you know during a totally different era right and like crypto is going crazy down in Miami
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and like you know people there was just like I remember I did like a a conference presentation at a time one of
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my slides was just money everywhere there's money silly everywhere people
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were cutting and and crypto money was everywhere and you benefited from that a lot of people
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benefited from that I mean there's just so much money getting pumped into the system I remember
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um I think it was it was liquidity they started like I don't know if you guys were this this started a podcast and
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we're like yeah we I remember getting that email from Mark like yeah we struck this deal for like I don't know like
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seven figures for I'm like for a podcast I was like can you introduce them to the rebooting show
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um money was everywhere it was wild it was a wild time um I mean look I think and and one one
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thing that we like to always say is like we sell pickups how much of your business was crypto we had a good
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portion of it look I I'm not going to be shy FTX was one of our larger clients last year thankfully all the work that we did was was above bar but it was and
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and to people sit here and say that we could have done more due diligence is because nobody could have done
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due diligence when you see Tom Brady doing that it's just it's the nature of the beast but I think what we've always
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done is that we are grounding ourselves and being a bootstrap business every deal that we're doing has to make money
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and has to make sense we've said no to 95 percent of the deals that we got that come across our desk because ultimately
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the only thing that our creators have that we have with our creators and the audience is trust so you know we only
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focused on a lot of the entry points into crypto lead exchanges and some of the Hardware security devices we didn't
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touch any of that other you know other funky stuff but it was I mean you see the amount of money that was floating
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around it was insane and I think you know as it's you know as it's dried up a
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lot you're starting to see a lot of companies you know just go under because they ultimately could not get you know the economics of their business to work
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their their cost per acquisition costs were just way out of control compared to what they thought they could get by
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doing these affiliate schemes and they read about how great Robin Hood was able to grow and it's like those days were
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over and I think it was they had a ton of free money and it was uh it was a
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wild time we benefited from it but for sure yeah so well the come down must have
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sucked it was I mean look every every business every media business that was there was you know received that I mean
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semaphore's investment from FTX was a big like oh kind of moment um but yeah look the business contracted
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for sure um but that's that's why we're bootstrapped and we don't have investors to have to answer to because when times
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are hot in certain industries they get hot great let's take the money and and we're able to live another day uh
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instead of like taking on Leverage at that point and I think a lot of companies you know love that leverage of
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taking on VC money but then at the end of the day the bill comes due um and I I just get really worried about
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the amount of VC money that got pumped into media businesses because then it's like you know what what's where's the
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eggs I mean there's exits obviously but I could be very careful about that yeah and it also just makes you do weird
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stuff oh totally like I mean we've seen this so many times and you know like
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just think about like what Refinery you know could have been or would have been if it didn't like have all that VC money
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like right like I mean now it's gonna get like passed off to to some either
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private Equity Firm or some sort of vampire situation where they just you
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know milk it for the SEO value which is like I always choke I mean it's like to me it's the hospice care of like
27:41
publishing is like you you enter into your like SEO harvesting phase where you
27:47
just sort of like hooked up and drains and PC net and CNET money.com I mean
27:53
like it's it's unfortunately the the way Brands don't die this is things like
27:58
brands do not die until chat GPT wipes away SEO a brand a digital brand that's
28:06
been around for a while will not technically die Mashable is a good example of like man Mashable still fight
28:11
the good fight what's going on there Mashable right now I'm pretty sure I would like to get him
28:19
to get to get zip up on here to talk about it I'm pretty sure Mashable is the most profitable it has ever been in its
28:25
existence and like there's a lot of people listening this like Nashville still exists I'm like it absolutely exists it is using all that SEO juice in
28:32
order to um do a lot of affiliate and um it's
28:38
just you milk the SEO and and oh there you go yeah um so what are the kinds of
28:43
like how has your client base though changed um because what I end up wondering I guess there's two two sides
28:50
of it right so there's how the client base has changed because you know crypto was like you know the the the the Apes
28:58
and stuff like this I know all of us like I was crypto curious so I'm not gonna like you know throw Too Many Stones I didn't buy an ape or anything
29:04
like that I'm not that crazy but um you know I was in Miami I'm not I'm not that's not perfect and
29:11
um there's that right so like the client base totally changes but also like a lot
29:16
of this meme stuff like was this like a zero interest rate phenomenon too because like you know
29:24
look everyone's into the stock market when it's up you know Dave Portnoy was doing his you know Davey day trader I
29:31
haven't seen Davey day trader he seems like he's from he's you know retreated to doing his Pizza reviews and taking
29:37
pot shots at like women's college basketball players yeah look the I I think there's a component of it being a
29:44
zero interest rate phenomenon covid and the stimulus checks and sitting around and people being bored and having more
29:50
access than ever to ideas to be able to invest in I mean you're seeing the legalization of sports betting come
29:56
across the country so I think you know it is a component but look memes are here to stay I think the the scale in
30:02
which they're able to affect you know all of America obviously that contracts and grows but I think even as you look
30:08
at q1 of this year you're seeing a ton of retail inflows into the stock market you have to remember that unfortunately
30:14
you know for the folks who have jobs I mean obviously there's been a lot of layoffs recently but even if you look back to three you know you know 2018
30:21
area like people are getting paid every two weeks they're putting money into the market and they need help on where to
30:27
put that money into the market so there's always going to be that that flow into into investing so that's where
30:33
you know there's this stuff is here to stay Robinhood is 20 million active brokerage accounts there's 150 million
30:39
active brokerage accounts in them open in America right now and that's growing um so like people are still investing a
30:46
lot now how they get their information and and how they're persuaded to invest in different you know ideas has changed
30:52
and evolves every day um but it I think the craziness look there's this saying so there's in the
30:59
stock market there's this um there's there's a thing called the vix which shows how much how volatile the stock
31:04
market is they say a rising vix drives clicks when you see the CNBC markets and turmoil that's when you know there's oh
31:11
yes it is sure because then it's you know Michael Berry sent out this thing the other day saying that like all after
31:17
all this banking crisis read details there to buy it retail's buying Bed Bath and Beyond right before they're on the
31:22
brink of bankruptcy like they're people are looking for the action so when markets are moving that's when there's the most amount of excitement but still
31:29
every day there are people that are investing in ideas and that's where we're really looking at you know where are the the base that's there and then
31:36
when we have those big blow up moments that's when our business does really well so you know the the clients that we
31:41
have will always kind of come and go because they're also the byproduct of VC Investments so we we have a ton of VC
31:47
backed fintech companies that are you know actively spending with us to acquire new customers
31:53
um and the types of those companies come and go some stick around for a while some don't um but that's the nature of the Beast
31:59
and then we also have you know since expanded into other you know ancillary type uh client categories anybody that's
32:06
looking to reach affluent people right and that's where I think you know these people have a lot of liquid dollars to
32:11
spend and that's where you open up you know the you know apparel and high value Ecom and there's a lot of that yeah I
32:18
mean you're gonna get your most I mean when when it's a bull market you're going to go for the index right and like
32:24
and particularly when there's a land grab going on in crypto like people can talk about like sustainability and stuff
32:30
like this let me tell you if you didn't run to the crypto and you're right it's like that's like an IQ yes like there's
32:35
a ton of money available and it's very motivated money because it's all
32:41
about like trying to establish this you know it's a language and picks and shovels are always good during
32:47
this um so how is your so you're now going into like you know non-endemic
32:53
categories obviously with you know just basically this is high net worth but like what like how is the mix of the
32:59
work that you're doing because like I remember back in those days like it was
33:05
like okay you can like just run like some Instagram stories ads and stuff like this and FTX would yeah totally and
33:12
it would just work too the thing is that when when there's a lot of excitement in the market you know the cost to open up
33:18
a new brokerage account is is in the single dollars and then all of a sudden it's the bear market and everybody doesn't trust anything and then the the
33:24
price is 10x so what we've seen and and what we've done as a business is it is
33:29
beautiful to have the transactional advertising Revenue that comes in from newsletters and other Creator sponsorships because we get a ton of
33:35
deal flow and we see the performance on what's working what's not who's renewing who's not and why and what we've been
33:41
able to do is then identify the people who are doing really well as a business and then go deeper with them so what
33:47
we've done is half of our business has been has turned into production and other types of Consulting where we're
33:52
actually helping companies produce their you know their YouTube content and strategy which then spits off all the
33:58
short form content which establishes trust for their brand it allows them to take advantage of all of the organic
34:04
channels that are blowing up we have a we have a very kind of uh old school B2B company that we do all their production
34:10
for and we're seeing you know we'll put out a you know an Instagram reel that'll do a hundred thousand views organically
34:16
without any paid and we're showing them that there's a ton of value in that while also being able to run direct
34:22
advertising and you know you have to build your funnel so much of the last two three years of all of the VC money
34:29
running into crypto or fintech has been on cheap cost per acquisition costs all these companies were run by engineers
34:35
and they think they can hack marketing they think I give you a hundred dollars I'm gonna get three hundred dollars back on on that email newsletter and the
34:42
reality is is that doesn't work and if it does it's uh you know a lightning in a bottle and then you're gonna hit
34:48
saturation of level with that newsletter so you have to keep finding more and at a certain point you have to take a step back and realize there's only so far
34:55
that your affiliate programs and direct response are going to get you as a brand and I think you start to see like FTX
35:00
and Robinhood then all of a sudden the television ads come in and then you start to see hey we should go and do bigger more brand building we need
35:07
people to trust us so we're helping educate brands on the value of going further up funnel and you know it might
35:13
not have a direct Roi tomorrow but they're starting to see month over month wow this is a compounding asset of
35:19
building our own audience and I think you saw Josh tapolsky recently um who is the founder of the Virgin and VOX media
35:25
uh recently tied up with Robinhood to help take Robin Hood snacks and build more of a media company around Robin
35:31
Hood yeah because at the end of the day Robin Hood makes their money when more people are trading stocks and they need
35:37
media to drive that engagement because you can only have your app and push notifications help you out so much that
35:43
you have to develop a real relationship although I think like the opportunity I sort of like Get Afflicted this a little
35:49
bit today because I I do think I'm like obsessed with zero and just write phenomenons but I do think like one of them was this idea of go direct like
35:56
from Tech firms you know because like I I'm I'm eagerly awaiting the second installment of the Degen Trilogy from
36:03
coinbase uh Studios I I don't know when that's dropping my guess is never
36:08
um and all of us I don't think culture is kind to suffer because the second and
36:14
third installments of the Degen Trilogy based on the board AIDS is is never going to see the light of that I think
36:20
that's um I think that's probably a good thing but I think what what the opportunity provides is like you're
36:25
saying like a lot of these companies to me got over their skis with you know oh
36:30
we're gonna build media we're gonna go direct we don't need the blah blah blah you know what media seems so easy when
36:36
you're not in it I mean I I look I don't say that I'm gonna build some sort of
36:41
fintech company I don't know why they think that media is so easy I guess because they can tweet and do some clubhouses that's it
36:48
um but like are you so you're gonna end up being like providing a lot more agency Services though I mean that's like both
36:54
good and like also risky it is look we're here to make money every day we have to look at our p l i have to make
36:59
payroll every two weeks and it keeps me up at night but ultimately yes it's it's doing that and then where we see
37:04
opportunity to make investments in content we just launched a show called this week and money with myself Mark Moran and a comedian Sharina Shahidi
37:11
that's an owned and operated asset and then we're able to put those through the distribution pipes that we have and then
37:16
make a return on the investment there so as we start to see traction for those shows we can double down on them invest
37:22
more in them so that we can create our owned and operated media and then furthermore an area that we've been excited about is also making some small
37:29
uh Investments off our balance sheets so when we do have you know extra money that's you know that's there we've made
37:35
investments in um technology that you know because we know we're not developers we don't have Engineers on
37:40
staff but then when you know Tyler from beehive who is engineer number one at morning Brew comes along and says hey I
37:45
want to build this platform uh to help you know creators launch new email newsletters we we put one of the first
37:51
checks into that and then ultimately helped introduce him to our network of investors who then ultimately Howard
37:56
Linson from social leverage who led the round there and that's I think part of our entire company's flywheel where
38:02
we've got the transactional email newsletter Creator work and we know what the needs of the creators are and the
38:08
advertisers when we see success we can then double down and either go deeper with the brand or go deeper with a
38:13
potential technology partner and make an investment and I think that'll start to compound over time and it already is
38:20
um and you know we're in this for the long haul this is not like this this business is not getting set up for a quick sell
38:26
um you know it is you know it's very much like I would say a lifestyle business but we want to be in control of
38:32
our destiny uh and pursue ideas as they come come our way and look when you're when you're bootstrapping a business you
38:38
just got to make a different different set of decisions and yeah you have a different set of trade-offs than than other companies there's a lot there's a
38:44
ton of upsides but at the at the end of the day you have some constraints and some times those constraints are good
38:50
and sometimes those constraints are not and we have to stay here because we're
38:55
already in so many different areas to monetize our content that we're already spread so thin and you know I I battle
39:02
with this a lot are we staying focused enough on what we're doing but it's like yeah if I had VC money oh man I would be
39:07
all over the place doing stuff that I don't even know why I would be doing them but it keeps us grounded
39:13
you'd be doing the you'd be doing Parts two of three of the general 10 nft projects that are all zeros and my
39:20
family asking why by the way on that just like since we're all this like I find sofa like they just had the
39:26
metaverse Fashion Week and what's hilarious to me is is all these yida how it is it's like all these Brands the
39:34
Cycles are so long for getting anything done at Brands is that they're stuck
39:39
with these web3 projects that the sunk cost is like oh we put so much money into this and like God I wish we
39:47
didn't have to go through with this but like at least that's the way I'm looking at it because I see like GQ coming out with their web 3 thing and I'm like oh
39:53
my God it's so Brands to arrive at the party like not like a day late but like
39:59
six months it's it's wild and I saw that cycle advice I mean our sales cycle for big deals was six plus months that it's
40:05
like we made content six months ago that are finally going live but I was in uh Miami for Art Basel and I was on a I sat
40:12
in in on a panel talking about loyalty and and the intersection of web 3 with a bunch of big Brands and it was like
40:18
comical because the brands that are on the stage some of them were publicly treated companies and they're talking
40:25
about how they can start to use web 3 and all this loyalty mechanism and I'm like why are you guys not looking at the
40:31
fact that you're a publicly treated company that have in some cases hundreds of thousands of individual retail
40:37
investors that they have no idea who they are which is where on the equity animal side an area that we're so excited about is really starting to
40:43
unpack the technology of the stock market people can go and buy a share of Disney right now but Disney does not
40:49
really know who that person is and that is the start of true loyalty versus getting involved in these like
40:55
financially driven web 3 art weird non-core part of their business where
41:01
it's like what department is that helping because I always struggled with that like what is this just an
41:06
innovation budget gone Rogue or like yeah like I get worried about that for big Brands yeah I find that actually
41:12
interesting about the equity animal project because um you think about it like you look at
41:17
like what happened with you know and I think about um you know obviously GameStop and and
41:23
then also with Wall Street bets um and also it's what went on with AMC but then also you look at like sub stack
41:31
um and this crowdfunding campaign which I didn't we're both fellow investors in
41:36
in beehive mine's a little small but like um you know I didn't invest in in the sub stack crowd funding mostly because
41:42
I'm like I don't invest in something where they don't show up in financial it's like I'm not that oh my God not
41:48
that much of a Mark um but I think he what that shows because they they raised a lot of money
41:55
and it is that their needs there's there's an opportunity I feel like for
42:00
companies to to collapse that that thing between their like customers and their owners and stuff like this yes and
42:06
there's there was a big legislation passed during the Obama era called the jobs act which basically started to look
42:13
at the definition of what it means to be an accredited investor for the longest time it was straight up illegal for a
42:19
regular American to invest in a private company and what they were able to do is launch something called a regulation a
42:26
and then there's a couple other versions of it reg CF and others which allow companies startup companies to solicit
42:32
investment from retail investors that are not accredited so regular people making regular amounts of money and
42:38
invest in these companies which is so exciting because anybody can go to Vegas and gamble as much as they want but you can invest in companies so that
42:44
regulation has paved way for a lot of exciting you know companies to pop up such as start engine Republic and we
42:50
funder and then have companies be able to open up access to invest in them you know via these these uh regulated
42:57
portals and sub stack is taking advantage of Regulation CF which allows them to raise up to five million dollars
43:02
from regular people um there's a lot of thoughts about you know that that strategy for them at that
43:08
valuation um no tell me you're you're in favor I
43:13
am absolutely not in favor of it look at the end of the day when you're investing valuation matters and I think you really
43:19
need to understand the entry point that you're getting an ad and I was running some numbers the other day so they're
43:24
raising at basically a 10 discount from what the last round which Andreessen Horowitz came in at that I I saw a ton
43:30
of good I was like what like 650 or something and the reason is 585 and I
43:36
was looking back I was like there's so many like intersections of substack and like medium.com and medium last raised I
43:42
think at a half a billion dollar valuation a couple years ago and like that is a big L and and look the I think
43:49
the comp that everybody looks at is MailChimp getting acquired for what like 20 billion dollars by Intuit which I
43:54
think that entire business was that bootstrapped amazing eggs that was bootstrap it was it was wild they became
44:00
I think two of the most wealthy people in America but then there was a ton of things back about how they didn't get anybody but yeah they sold it for 20
44:06
billion they had like employees there for like 30. issue like some stock after the fact but
44:12
on the sub stack front it's just you look at these VC back businesses that are down like they're raising rounds at
44:17
you know less than 50 you know in some cases 90 percent decreases in their valuations and they're not showing any
44:24
numbers and it's just they're they're basically asking for donations from their from from Their audience right and
44:29
yeah I I just did this was going to come out a week after a podcast I did with uh
44:34
with with Chris best and like um we talked a little bit about I'm not less I'm I'm more I'm more interested in how
44:42
it will change their um their roadmap rather than anything because like what I think about I'm I'm
44:48
selfish so I think about it as someone who publishes on sub stack and I'm like this is going to force them to make bad
44:54
decisions that are against my interests that's basically my that was my message on this product that's if they're also
45:00
still around nobody knows what their burn is like like are they gonna be in business in a year like I that's where
45:06
I'm like why do they need this money and it's only five million bucks but they're yeah
45:12
yeah I don't know and also I think when you look at the actual core product like some of their bigger writers are
45:19
churning you know when when like they they were you know when they took on all that BC money from Andreessen they were
45:24
writing all those sub stack project a lot of these early investors that are very loud on Twitter talking about them
45:29
investing it I think they're just taking part of that check that they got and investing it back in the company and they're just giving it back to them and
45:36
it's just like it's a head scratcher honestly and I I think it's unfortunately you know those are the
45:41
example companies that just like I mean look all the luck in the world to them but if they don't get a good exit it's
45:47
just they're burning Their audience and that'll just have a compounding effect with people leaving and then if a VC has
45:52
to come in and to loot them further it's just it's going to create a lot of weird dynamics that let the VCS take the risk
45:58
don't put that risk on your community um especially ones that are very like you know new on your platform I get I
46:05
get nervous about that um yeah that's fair all right let's leave it there this is a this is a great
46:11
meeting of the Brian's I appreciate it you know that are you alarmed you're actually one of the younger Brians out
46:17
there because this is a name that is um it's dying out I don't know like nobody nobody talks about it and I it's always
46:24
it bothers me that this is not like I know we have a lot of things we're dealing with right now but if you I'll
46:29
send you the chart of you know Brian's and it like peaked as like a name like
46:34
right when I got it in 1973 and at this stage it is pretty much I think on on
46:42
track to die out by like 26. I don't know that's a bummer my mom was about to name me Kevin but uh I was happy she
46:48
gonna be Brian especially with an eye not a y yeah I know why that's right all
46:53
right cool thank you so much Brian we'll talk soon see ya thank you all for listening and thank you to Jay Sparks
47:00
and pod help us for producing this podcast um you should check out Jay and his
47:05
services at podhelp.us and we will be back next week new episode

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