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I feel like I can rule the world. I know, I could be what I want to travel, never looking
back. Okay, so this is one question Friday. You have submitted questions this one but the audio is actually bad. So we're not going to play it. I'm just going to read the question for for you guys. So the first question is Sam will milk Road ever be bigger than the hustle. So for those who don't know, the hustle there's a lot of people listening, I think we actually don't know.
That is the hustle used to be the publisher of this podcast. It was a daily email, not as 2.5 million people or two million people, I think, and we sold it to HubSpot and it was a pretty good thing. Sean now has this thing called the milk road, which is very similar to what that business was, but in a totally different Niche. And he could talk about how big it is, if he wants to, but it's got really big, like, in six months and I actually the reason why I wanted to answer this question and I'll let you do a lot of talking, but I'll go for really quick. I actually
we think I was thinking about this and my friend, Jason Jason janowicz, who's actually kind of a competitor to you. He runs black Works, he lives in or I live in the building. I'm in Brooklyn right now for four months, and he lives in the same building and we've become friends, and he told me, he's like, I think media, it's one of the best businesses to scale to 100 million dollars in Revenue but also like the hardest thing to then get to a billion in revenue and was like well that's interesting why I think it was well because it's just such a straightforward methodology for four or five years or six.
Seven years to get like 100 million, you just like pick a niche, you build this audience you if you can do it by email and then you sell some type of research that sometimes subscription and you're making money through advertising and then you host a conference and you just do the same thing. But bigger and more often over and over and over again, for like eight years. So because of that, I sold an ear for, I think if Shawn sticks with it, if Shawn, I'm bent stick with it and decide to make it big, I think that it could definitely be make many, many, many, tens of
Or even a hundred million dollars a year in Revenue. If they have the patient's, be the focus and see more importantly, the desire to make it like that. So, yes, I think it's so super straightforward to build this business. That doesn't mean it's easy, but it's
simple.
Right. I think you nailed it. I think that's exactly on point and I have not surprised you nailed it because this is something you probably think about a lot. This was the industry, the product category you, you know, lived and breathed every day. So I think you you kind of nailed it. Let's actually I don't have much to add on that. Let's add there was another question, we were debating, I think it's
wait right here, I'll wrap up this one question which there's maybe a world more likely a world where you actually sell it for many tens of millions of dollars like I did.
And that will be like a, an amazing outcome. So yeah, this business. Definitely got my gun in mind is
yeah.
Yeah, my intention is like, you know, that's not a decision. We have to make up front. It's more like, how do I want this to go? It's like, well, I want to have a small team that I like in this Niche that I really like and I want to put out great content and build. I want to build a flywheel. That's my Mo. The most important thing right now is like right now is the hardest part crank at the flywheel at the beginning. But I want to build a flywheel which is that every time we push send, you know, the audience gets more.
Trust more loyalty we get every new subscriber we come bring in brings in more friends and so I'm just trying to build these at like this asset and then we'll see. Now, you know, crypto I think is a more valuable Niche than the one you were in but I think you were earlier into this game and figure things out before. The game is harder now to play because it's way more competition and the Playbook is there's more success cases so a lot of people copy like you guys. They copy morning Brew. They copy you guys because when you guys are doing it,
there wasn't a ton of like,
Popular success stories, where people look at that blueprint say Okay, I want to do this for me. It was easy as like dude sounds like good buddy. I know that blueprint and I am really into this Niche. Let me use that blueprint. And there's a lot of people that try that not, everybody's going to succeed for sure. But like, the prices were lower, the cost of talent was lower the number of competitors were lower back then. So I think I'm at a better Niche than you were in. But I think you were earlier and then there's the question of will I have the patience and talent that you had to build this thing up?
I think you have the talent you have the talent. It's just, it's really just is that what you want and building a business for like 10 years? I mean, bait to get to make it big. You like what I learned is, like, a lot of value happens in your five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. And some of those later years once your, that's kind of like it. That's how to boot. If your time I bootstrapping it takes a while to like figure out an industry. But anyway, I actually think that I agree with you your Niche is more valuable. I think both of our niches were big enough though where it's like yeah I mean this could
This could be a very large business, it just like, do you want to do that for eight, nine ten, eleven, twelve years, whatever. So will the milk Road? Be bigger than the hustle? It absolutely. Can it absolutely can, right? So that's my answer. That question. This podcast is sponsored by marketing Against the Grain. A podcast in the HubSpot podcast Network. It's hosted by Kip, who's the CMO of HubSpot and Kieran Flanagan, who's the vice president at HubSpot, if you want to know what's happening, now in the world of
Getting what's ahead and how you can lead the way. Then this podcast is for you. They share their marketing expertise and give you unfiltered details and the truth. Like no one tells you a few episodes are, why creators are disrupting marketing, the framework for thinking, for success, and they even do an episode on why they bought the hustle, which is actually kind of an interesting topic. So check it out. You can listen to marketing Against the Grain wherever you get your podcast, just type in marketing Against the
Grain. All right let's do this other one real quick. So it says you guys have
Have the money experience, energy, and wisdom, to build, something, legit and big. But you've chosen relatively safe things like Sam's working on short term, rental, airbnb's, and Sean started a newsletter company. Why totally fair question? Good question. I think. What's your reaction to that?
My reaction is a. I do things that are fun.
and so, like, maybe funds at the best word, but like give me energy and be
I I think that when you start something like, I'm not really always trying to start something that Innovative. I'm just trying to like do cool stuff really well, and it's going to end up being probably pretty big and also like, dude, starting a new thing even particularly if it's like you're creating a market like Uber or something like that, you kind of have to dedicate your life to it. And there's other businesses that you could actually have a little bit more fun and a little bit more balanced and probably a better result.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, my answer is very similar, which is lifestyle, right? Like I've said this before, starting a starting a start-up, that's like one of the big, you know, we're going to create, you know, we're going to send Rockets to Mars type of startups. The Elon musk's the Twitter's, the YouTubes, the Facebook's of the world Uber's, these are, that's the
location. Is this? Yeah.
It's it is your life and it is going to dominate a decade of your life.
Win or lose and like it's going to come with a certain stress level and a certain time, commitment. That is pretty much required to do it. And so I thought of it like last two business. I started were and I by the way I did that my all of my 20s were pursuing a game like that and then we sold when I was 30 or 31 and then my 30s so far, have been starting a family so I had two kids. 34 years old, I just turned 34 and
And I was like what and I was you know, I'm like okay well what do I want to do with my like time in my life right now? And I was like well
I don't know I got really
fat while starting those companies. Like I'd like to be healthy and in great shape that became like a priority for you. Think I won't have a kid. I had two kids that that obviously becomes like a top priority and then it's like, well I want to, you know, enjoy myself and like I do like to do business. But is there a version of business? That's them, was the version of business. That's the most fun. If I was optimizing for fun,
And not for ambition, what would fund lead me to go do and and so I found a mix of things. Like I consider this a season right now, like maybe it's a seven-year season. It's when my kids are little babies that I'm going to like, do things that I'm like, I could do at home. Like the first one is, I started an e-commerce business and that was something I could do pretty easily. It was a totally different type of Challenge and it's not going to be a billion dollar business, that's not the goal. The goal is for every quarter to get a fat check
Of, you know, a million dollars of profit, every three months from that business, that would be sweet. And then eventually, you know, sell that thing for I don't know, 80 million dollars, some like that, that would be a good outcome for that business. And then the newsletter bit of the milk Road was like, well, I'm just super curious about crypto. What, like, why don't I just follow my curiosity. Like, if I want to be learning about the stuff, let me just make a business, the byproduct of me being curious at that, kind of became my mindset was let the business be the
byproduct of the Factory. The Factory is based on fun and curiosity and then the money comes as the exhaust out the chimney. And so that's why I didn't like the podcast was the the fund Curious Thing to go, do the thing. I just enjoy doing for fun, and it generates some money. But also, you know, let's say starting my fund off of the back of the podcast like to invest that became a business model by product of what I was already doing anyways. Which was studying different niches Industries and businesses and
Getting to know those Founders and like investing became a byproduct of
that.
Good good. A short answer
it. I'm not going for the most ambitious thing I think in general, there's a trap there because all the movies and and articles, you read will be glorifying. The hero winners of that Olympic games of that, brutal Olympic sport of building billion dollar companies, and my goal is not to like have, you know, like have a billion dollars. I want to have a billion, Bill billionaire, billionaire lifestyle, and likability lifestyle has a bunch of time.
And like a zit can spend with her family income. I like to work out in the middle of day with my trainer my house. Like that's those things, give me an incredible amount of joy. And so I would not want to start a business that overrides or interrupts that I want to start a business that has a juicy prize, but fits in that lifestyle. So that became my focus. I'm going to do that for a season of like maybe seven years and then I'll reassess and see, like, what comes after
that.
Fucking a good answer. Then what do you think? This is pretty sure been just as Sean mentioned. I just want to come here on the end to let you know how you can have your question, featured on my first million. And that is by going to MFM pod.com and clicking on the microphone in the lower right hand corner, and you can record an audio message. And obviously the one on this episode was a little bit low quality, so we weren't able to play it most of the time. Well play your audio so yeah, go leave us a question. Awesome.
I feel like I can breathe
To the world. I know I could be what I want to put my all in it like a day's travel never looking back.
