3 Killer Businesses Hidden in Plain Sight
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To check this out, i'm going to tell about three products that are hidden in plain site. And the genius of these is that they take something that's free and they sell IT. They take a free thing and they sell IT. And i'm going to tell you about one example that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars, another one that makes millions of dollars, and then .

another one that made hundreds of millions of dollars.

I want to tell about a lot of ideas. I'm going to start with one that makes thousands of dollars of hundreds of thousands of, say, one that makes millions of dollars and one that makes hundreds of millions of dollars. And they're all products that are hidden in plane sight. So we've all seen him, but you probably never even realize their businesses. And secondly, the magic thing about all of them, they sell a product that actually free.

What inspired this? Did you just see something?

Found one, found the second, found the third. Drew line, three dots make a line. So that kind of what happened here. So first is i'm on twitter and I see joe gabba, who is the founder of airbnb friend of the podcast.

I see joe tweet out something about a screen shot of an APP that was checking water um water quality uh so the a cleaning ss of water IT was this APP called oasis I thought that sounds familiar, are same mention that like I don't know six months ago same man that in passing but I never really paid much of attention to to IT what is the story of this single list? So here is one that's making hundreds of thousands of dollars year selling a product that is free. It's during the plane site and just water quality testing.

So there's a kid who is behind this and we we we chat with him. So always this is a APP. It's an APP that checks the water quality. It'll tell you if your cities water is clean, if your counties water is clean, it'll tell you you can hold up a bottle of this opponent right here.

And I will tell you, is this ocp ona actually clean? Or does IT you p fast forever chemicals? That whole deal, right? It's the a website, right? And up a website.

And he started by this guy, aim cork. And cormac is from medical ta, which is known for having really fresh water. He said, drink growing up in, which is drink tap water.

No problem. We should drink hose water like you, sam. And that was what he did.

And then he moves to L. A. Is this just started on the same thing? He started to a tap already.

Notice, take a little bit different and he got an upset stomach. He gets a little bit sick, nothing like threatened. But he's like to that's weird.

Like, I just, I just drink the water. Like, why is the water so much different here? So he tries to look at up.

He says, how do I find out if my water is actually safe to drink out of the tap? And IT turns out that you can go to any city and you can request a report. You can request a report about the water quality in your area.

So he does that. He finds all, man, there's tons of contaminants in my water. And so he stops drinking tap water. He goes to hold food device water from whole foods. He says, well, let me see if this one is actually situated to IT.

Turns out you could contact any bottled water company and they have to provide your report about the testing of their water. And he finds that the water sold in whole foods also has lots of contamination to IT. And then he's like what that what's going on here.

And so he creates a APP, really for himself but for others too, to be able to check the uh, quality of water, whether it's your city, your town or bottled water that you're drinking. And he's basically just aggregating free data that already exists and anybody could go a request. So when we first mentioned IT, IT was on the germ y given episode few months back, IT was at ten thousand dollars .

a month in revenue. And the way that you make revenue is I think he has an affiliate scheme where like if you buy something .

that he recommends, quest report, get some fish free if you want, like, you know, the full reporter, whatever you pay, forty, forty five box, forty nine boxes, and like that for free for an annual membership to the.

And by the way, when I shared this, I knew IT was a paywall, and people were like, who the hell would pay for this? And I was like, a neck camp at first. I then I start clicking around the website.

I like, oh my god, by towns here. And IT says that might be dirty, but I can't see the results unless I given fifty dollars. And so, like I understand why is actually incredibly valuable.

I want to to tell you about a really cool figure and upsides that I don't think most people know about. It's called the marketing and content hub. So here's what works you're doing, content marketing.

That's what I do that so many brands do is works really, really well, but that could be very time consuming. So what they do is they have tools like content remix, which will take one piece of content and immediately turned into a bunch of pieces for all the different platforms in one click. Or they have leads scoring, which will basically shine a light on which leads that you have or most likely to purchase.

And then they have the analytics week, so you get reports, K, P, S and all kinds of A I powered inside, so you can share with your team and not be flying blind anymore. So if you're doing content marketing, highly recommend to check out the content hub and marketing hub for hub spot. And you could visit hub spot that com to get started for free.

Back to the subset.

I want to look at the number. So it's doing, let's say, forty thousand a months now in revenue. So forty thousand and months to basically half a million books a year.

And but if you do the math, forty five books, if it's forty five doll tript, no, he only got a few thousands subscribers to this thing. So it's not like it's not like everybody thing for this, but small over people really care about the quality of water and are willing to paid and get the information. And he's structured IT.

And so what he did was he started off with all the free reports then when you know couldn't get the reports, I wanted to test more things. He's or wanted to verify their reports. He'll do his own independent testing, but is very expensive.

It's like you know a couple of grand to do independent testing of the product to find out does that actually line up. So we slowly doing them one by one as he gets more money and he said, you know, we live in a world where we think we live in abundance. You could want to target trader.

You'll find twenty different protein bars, thirty different water. But the problem is most of its filled of tox, none of IT is actually healthy. So my mission is to build one hundred percent independent platform the test products and provide healthy alternatives.

And I think this is kind of awesome, right? Like I think this is this kind of amazing. And the way that he's growing this thing because you might wonder how to get customers for this, is he just as take talks to go viral. So check out this video. So it's a video about like liquid death right here, right? And so he'll post this video.

Tiktok, just very simple Green screen over a product and he's talking about how um you know I used to think this is really healthy, but actually full of chemicals and bubba blaw, if you want more, if you want to figure out which products you are actually clean, use my APP and this video get you know a million plus of views and all drive a bunch of bunch of attention and IT actually and then drives to bot download, open and go head and uh and sign up so very simple. Waited to test to drive traffic to product and somebody you can do over and over and over again up like tiktok and insurance rules to a slightly lesser extent, youtube torture, lesser extent. You can.

Just once you find a format that works, you can literally repost the same thing. And the algorithm is just going to say, you humans like this, and this just going to keeps serving IT up to a lot of people, even if they, even if they don't follow you. And so when people have figured out these like simple formats that work, they just copy, paste and post the same ninety percent of the same video over and over and over again in and I know several people that are building most a million doll businesses doing this.

I'm so turned on right now. This is the greatest city do this this guy, uh, so he shows his revenue uh, on twitter, which is pretty cool. So always this metrics over the last twenty eight days, monthly girls revenue, he shows this twenty five thousand.

And then he shows his charney shows everything. I I actually predict this going to be a significantly larger product. I think I could be work and many tens of million dollars or even more.

The reason being is the way that these review websites work is you typically have to hire a lot of freeLancers in order to go out and write all of the articles. But if you're just using data to like organize as a table, it's way more profitable. Also, he's getting early on in on he's getting in early on a trend. I think this water thing is still tiny, tiny, tiny compared to what is going to be like in the next ten and twenty years. I think he's under something life changing for himself.

Yeah, absolutely. okay. So I promise you, I will tell you about a company that hidden in plain site that is using free, selling free information and making hundreds of thousands check. Now want to tell you about one that's making millions and then it'll go to the hundreds of millions OK. So the millions one we've mentioned this once before, but he was years ago, I want to bring that up again.

If you've ever been to a companied office and you walk into their breakroom or there maybe their their kitchen or snacks, you'll always notice on the wall that there is a poster and our eyes is going over that we don't ever look at IT looks just like a looks like when you're on an airplane and you see the safety thing in the the seat back in front of you. IT looks like that, but it's on the wall. And this is a labor or poster.

And the reason that urk office had IT is the reason that all offices have that is required by law that you have to post this in your company, your employee, in a break or open area. And these labor law posters they update every year, see if to get a new one every year, and they're required by law. okay.

So that's the that's the good news. The bad news is you have to buy them or do you? And so here's the the interesting thing about this business.

There is a couple of companies that do this. I I don't have older their names and information here, but I remember finding one that was like based in minnesota. And what the guy was doing was he just all he does, print labor posers.

So what they'll do is theyll mail you a letter to your business, and the letter looks a lowest scary. And IT says, hey, if you don't have this post rop, you are in violation of california labor laws right now, and you must have this up. IT is is a requirement by law.

IT cost forty five dollars. Take this box. Send this back to us. We'll send you your poster and you do that. You the poster you put IT up on you all you forget about you move on.

And this is a private company, that son setter, correct?

Now, the thing is, these labor law posters are actually free. You could just go to your state labor law website, you can get the labor law posters. But companies have realized that using this sort of like awareness, task, tactic, making IT easy, sort of scary the hell out of you, is a way to make a couple million dollars a year on super height margins. Because all you do is printing the same poster, single skill, single product, one one product year, and you just send IT out to businesses and they not fair election.

I'm on i'm on the government's website and figuring out how to order the poster for free is actually hard, of course.

Of course, just like finding your taxes is a little bit confusing and turbo tax and others have made they they turn the button into bright, shiny Green button instead of small grey button that you don't know which want to click right. So there is a tremendous amount of value and simply either aggregating, instructing data, making IT available for people or helping you just comply without having to figure out how to comply.

And you know, maybe the fifty dog tax is worth at every year as your subject tion, but that's what these companies do. So labor law posters, a way to make millions of dollars selling a product that's free and a business. Again, that hidden plain side.

I bring this up because one of the great things about this podcasts that I hope we do for people is that you will go from a mindsets where success seems rare and hard to grasp in your sort, thinking, what is I need a great idea. And great idea is a rare. They are hard to find to the mindset of everything I see in my life.

Every object, in my view, it's not there by accident, that is, that sign is there for a reason, that cable is there for a reason. Somebody realized you needed that and they created that. Once you realize that, you realized, oh my god, business everywhere.

This is a business, this is a business, this is a business. And then you realize, wow, I like going to do to figure out one of these that seems easy, right? It's like in a jar for the skittles picking won IT doesn't seem that hard.

And that's what in, I think I hope to to to achieved by bringing up these businesses because not only they clever red little business models, but IT just points out that your eyes are just glazing over million doll opportunities everywhere you walk because they are literally over. If you will go into parking lot, look at the ground. Somebody painted those stripes.

And when you go look at, you go, you can go as the owner of the real state, you say, who paints the stripes for your parking lot? So we use these guys. You go to talk to them and you say, wow, you just paint straights lines in parking lots.

That's what you do. Yp, much money do you make? no.

Is this a small business? How you did seven million last year? Every no profit? Oh my god. right? And then you you realize, all my god, there is somebody who makes seven million dollars profit painting White lines on on the road.

Do I when I first just have to go, I lived with this guy. He was one of my roommate, and he was a piece of crap. But he was telling me he was making hundred thousand dollars a month because apparently the church of latter day since moments that you can order a bible for free on their website, I guess.

But they like it's like a legion and they'll like come in hand, deliver IT, but they'll like try to like, you know, convert you to their faith wherever. And he created the online store selling bibles for twenty box and somehow, right on google, and he does what took the person's information and put IT into the barb's website and his website. Like you, we have deliver bibles or something like that and I was like that and I remember this guy, I was like, this is a horrible scheme that's a big uh but I was very funny. He was like, like five hundred hours month, uh, doing this.

That is so funny. Oh my.

the guys.

what happy guy.

He's one of those guys. You know how like you have these friends and fricker unite. Are the people maybe where they're like to do hacking shit?

You have those friends think, do you do remember how we met?

So yeah, where I was like, you do this hacking shit. And you know, like this going to go one of two ways. Like it's going to go the right way or the right way.

Miles was the wrong way. So like he, like kind of disappeared. He probably got in trouble for a crypto scheme. Um what's the yeah he was like, I was crazy. But about page he was like, why did why did the person to delivered my bible want to talk to has six yeah they tend to do that mormons loved is so like I said, like like and how you're going to get hand deleted by these more guys. What's the third one?

Okay, third one. Um here's a product that is used, I believe, six billion times a day. IT is a product that time magazine said is in the fifty things that made the world economy work. If you wanted, take a yes.

what this is is a hard. When I get this, this is pretty fun. Uh, have one or two more hints.

Like many great inventions, IT was invented maybe twenty years before I actually got used. So somebody invented this thing, this is cool, but how do we, what do we use IT for? I can can find a use case.

And finally they found a use case. Oh, I i'll give you another example. Every time you buy a product, you use this product. I feel like i'm doing those annoying riders. It's like i'm awake at night, but not during the day.

What am I like? You could sit on me, but not take me with you and the suspect, the rather way the chair. What is that? It's a barker. So, oh, that's cool.

Do you know the story behind the barca?

No.

alright. So we give a little history lesson. I know you like history. So barcode is invented by these two guys, Normal woodlands and barred silver. And these guys are inspired by morse code.

They realized that, wow, mos code is so simple, it's just basically it's dots and dashes. The dash, I think is like a rest. Basically in the dot is like, you know, the sound and I could.

We created other system that's like that, maybe a visual system. So they created a system actually looked like a circle at the time, so was like a circle. They were like a look with thin lines and thick lines.

We can create like an easily an infinite number of unique tags for something. And they like, this is great patent IT. What is not really a good use case for then people try to use IT for a couple things.

They realize, oh, you know what we could do? We can track train containers. Where was onder, where the containers are? We're in the world that they are.

And if they were, get unloaded. So they put a barcode on the side of a train container, and IT works great. Everyone is really excited.

That's working great for a second. And then the problem is, trains are outside big, a dirty. And as soon as any dirt is on the thing, everyone is the barker. So that I got this bad idea, take IT off, scraped, and then they tried on some second thing, doesn't n't really work either.

And basically for, like, I don't know, couple of decades or something, nobody y's using barcus at the same time, in another part of the world, you get the invention of the laser, and the laser gets invented. And laser, a really great way to scan something that that becomes interesting. But but they don't really know what they're scanning by.

What are we scanning this for? Lasers have multiple uses, but that gets invented. And then in the first part of the world, three things come together. Three part of the world is grocery stores are having a really tough tonk because they are trying to stock inventory, and they are sort of by hand, keeping track of all the investors they have. Think about this, a store so many units is taking so many hours labor. And then if any customer checks out is so slow, because, okay, every item you have, I got to punch IT into the register, exactly what this is. I got to either remember the Prices or I ve got to write this in and then I have to keep stock of the invitation levels.

It's a pain in the ash. So they create do think that like wouldn't so warmer was invented, created, founded almost around this time. Do you think that a barcode is one of the reasons like what that have prevented companies of scaling is just the Operational manpower.

So walmart open the first united sixty two. This was now, ten years later, seventy four. When this starts to happen, their hearing this problem is too slow, too much labor, too expensive.

So they create the ad hoc committee for the uniform grocery product identification code, and they go to lab when they like, right? We need something. They find this technology there.

Oh, member, what's that guy? Norman, always talking, got down. barcode.

What if we use that? What if we use this laser? And they come together and they create the barcode, and they change the shape of IT instead of the circle shape that changed in the rectangle shape that we all know and love today. And the first barcode ever get scanned as a pack of rigorous gump in one thousand nine hundred and seventy four and so book and they're like, wow, that just took IT knew the Price and I took one second and it's deducted my stock level by one oh my god, this this is magic. And so you know, it's like the black chain getting invented, right?

Oh my god, how do they convince all of the manufacturers to .

put this another thing? They like saying this, there they are, the ones with the hair on fire problem, right? They're spending all this money in time on labor. So they say, hey, if you want to be in our store, you gotta start adding these things to your product and and so for a manufactured year ago, if I want shelf space, which is the most important thing for me, oh, i'll happily stick this on here. And so they're all working.

And where but the problems, where do they get the code and how do I make sure that your code is not the same as my code, right? Like what what's going to prevent that? Well, we all go to go through some central thing that's, you know give us the bar codes that or I can use for my product to make sure nobody else can use its like reserving name space or a license place.

So how do I get my my exact license place that nobody going to have? And there became what's known today as G S one. G S.

One is the nonprofit that issues these barcode and keeps track of who the barcode space. And to get bark's space, you've got to pay. But again, remember, every store has standardized on one thing. So if you want to be in a store or you want your goods in an amazon warehouse, for example, you now need to use their system, which means they have infinite pricing leverage, and they charge a shit ton for these barcus.

And so, G, S, one.

who's G, S ones? G, S, A little bit. This is non profit. You can go to look up because the non profit. So last year, eighty eighty one million dollars in revenue, barcode sales makes up ninety ninety three percent of this. And again, a barcode is nothing.

It's literally like I just a set of lines they're selling for ninety million dollars a year and they now have four hundred and sixteen million dollars of assets that they're just been stock piling. The CEO makes three million dollars a year. The c photos a million dollars a year, the S V, P. Of community engagement, which god knows what that I was doing, making eight hundred thousand dollars year.

This might be the job to the old happy hours like when you do .

um and they they stash thirty million dollars and overseas places like the carbon in central amErica and all of their expenses pretty and half of their expenses are they .

like a staff salaries lobbying against the Q R code. Is there like a barcode? Q R code like lobby or they're just fighting each other?

I think Q R code are just a type of barcode there. Just a three to mada okay. Ah two t sorry.

Um so yeah that isn't that crazy though that this this nonprofit now has half a billion dollars and assets just selling barcode and any retail, anybody he's ever had to light get your products, you know you see you want to sell on amazon amazes you ve got to do this is a racket you end up just having to pay whatever they demand in order to to get your products on the shelves. Hey, let's take a quick break to talk about another podcast that you should check out. This is called the next wave IT tossed by mat wolf.

And if the land is part of the hub spot pod guest network, which of course, is your audio destination for business professionals like you, you can catch the next wave with mat wolf. And he's talking about where the puck is going with A I creators AI technology and how you can apply IT to your growing business. So check IT out. Listen to the next wave, where ever you get your pocket.

Do you know how? Like there's been a lot of cool movies. Likely there's been a cool movie on the guy who created blackberry.

I think there is one on the person who help create touches, and then there is another one for the person who helped create. The pop star is like, kind of call by production stories. Uh, I wonder, is there an interesting one here?

I just there is like, what if podcast were movies, then they turned up every episode of like acquired, or how I built this into documentary.

What this guy, but not silver t like that that this is actually a way more interesting story than ah I would have thought because this is something that changed culture IT changed IT changed so many things like IT know we talk about inflections and how like you know, the iphone was invented, which had all these ramifications, including a GPS being there, which now means that uber has the ability to exist.

And then there is like mila million examples of that. This is one of those inflections where like this barcoo helps to create, let's say, are made a walmers possible, or made of the other thing possible, which, like, literally shaped a history. And this is actually really fascinating stuff.

Yeah exactly. Uh, so so this is just a it's a space that you again, you don't think you don't even think this is like you don't think where does this come from? Where does this little thing come from? And again, IT doesn't come from nowhere. Somebody create IT and then that person who create IT now has you know something they can charge for and there's business everywhere.

So it's so funny that this episode is accidentally turning into a theme, a theme of things that you don't really think about but how they became a thing. Um I have actually an example of one of those. Can I tell you that yeah go are.

So in the one thousand nine sixties in hawaii, IT started to become calm. And I think IT was because of like one hotel where your employees were allowed to wear in a hawaii shirt to work on friday, because for the most part, you had to wear a suit to work. You know, like dressing formal was how business people Operated all of the time.

And this whole casual friday idea, it's sort of started getting popular in main land amErica where like in the nineteen eighties, H. P. Was like, hey everyone, you can wear a whole line shirt to work on a friday, which was a big deal because they imply tens of thousands of people.

So it's like a IT was kind of like a statement. But in reality, up until the late eighties and early nineties, virtually everyone wore suits to work all of the time. However, this executive at levis, so levi s had just launched a dockers and dockers were coachy pants.

Up until then, coachy pants were almost considered. Uh, you know, if you look at like the history of A A fashion, like suits were considered like the at the standard, that's what you do. catches.

We're basically casual wear, even though now we don't look them as casual. That's what they were. They were casual where and levis creates dockers because they want to make cache business.

But still people are like this is too casual. We can't wear these any other time except saturday and sunday. And so this marketing executive at levis has this brilliant idea.

They printed up forty thousand that explains to H. R. Professionals, here's this new thing called business casual and casual friday, and here's the rules of this holiday or this, like new tradition.

IT was just an eight page panel light, and IT said, I didn't promote levies or dockers though, but in all of the photos you'll see like a picture of someone wearing jeans and IT is like a levice logo or you will see a picture of someone where in coaches and you just assume that it's dockers. And so this thing takes off. IT works. So they to read this.

that a guide to casual business where ideas for dressing professionally at work, and then IT basically shows like pants, jeans like is showing like options, ideas for IT. And then is rules for IT, the rules .

that they said, like genes, but be new jeans, right? Or like, like, they can be stained, or what else they say.

sly, no sleep less, no tanks. A man I may describe ation.

Baby set, baby set. We're we're going to sit to catchy, like, you know, like, IT takes time. I really guns .

at wednesday. Do you think we can I I .

talk about but so it's a good avoid .

large aray, okay, enough. Save athletic where for after work and I don't forget to check foot where opodo sandals are. Rose, no, I just not appropriate.

Yeah, it's a great little pimples. So they set this out to literally forty dollars and hr executives um and they even go as far to create an H R hot line.

So if you work at uh IBM and you're like, you know I actually don't know protocol for like our of our sales allowed are like whatever I can call this hot line and I can ask the inventors of casual friday, hey, can sydney where like open kids, our shoes allowed, toes allowed to be seen even if like the tony ils or policies like whatever, like you can ask these questions. And IT takes off, and casual friday officially becomes a thing. And so IT literally shape culture.

And IT was all because levi was like, we got to sign these guys up. We got to start selling stuff. And like back then, IT was kind of the american apparel industry was little bit or right.

They weren't doing that great. And this changed everything. And so people started buying dockers, buying levis, because this movement of casual friday totally picked up.

And IT got me thinking, this is like some pretty brilliant marketing. I call this marketing, you can call cultural shift marketing or tradition high jacking. And so people who have, like, found little traditions, and they blow up the tradition, or they blow up this idea.

And then they say, and by the way, if you want to inside idea, we just so happen to have the thing that can make you like us. And so there's a few other examples of this that I I can present you. So the first one is the bear.

So they are a diamond company bit around, I think, for hundreds of years, actually in the one thousand nine hundred and forties, they ran this campaign, LED the diamonds forever. And IT was this idea that, like, diamonds are special, because up until one thousand nine hundred and forty, diamonds were special, but they weren't nearly as special as we think they are now. And they also came up with this insane idea, which is there like this campaign, they come up with, how much should you spend on a diamond? And they said, roughly two to three months of your salary, which is like, outrageous.

But that alone is like what that campaign is credited as helping shape the diamond industry. They even went further. Campaign says on certain versions, you have to get wife diamond.

Um another one is breakfast being the most important meal. The day canoe invented that idea. And so like we grow up now, we tell our kids you have to eat.

Breakfast is the most important thing. Cogan invented that prior to that, people didn't always think that right? Two other ones are baby showers and and wedding registry. So baby showers weren't to think until Johnson and Johnson start running. Thank you.

You have to have a baby shower if you're pregnant or if your uh, maces came up with the idea of wedding registries, they said you're going to get married. You got people going to buy you all the stuff. In fact, you don't want people just to buy your random stuff because ones to buy you the same stuff that you ready have or you just buy you the same thing like that's ritin ulc. You have to create this registry at maces that you can register. And then finally, spring cleaning as another one that really, really wasn't the thing until light came up with the idea of spring clean.

These are great. I love. I I don't know how the people get fired up about this. I get so fired up about this, I think, because it's the same idea as a while. These businesses, hidden planets of this object, didn't just get here.

Someone made IT come here all of these occasions, these these things, these holidays, they didn't just pop up out and nowhere somebody made them happen. And when you find out that it's not marketing dork in some marketing dork somewhere, that was like, how do we spring sales or slow spring cells are springing, bring flying nose spring cleaning. No spring cleaning is, yes.

That's how we're going to get people to buy cleaning products in the spring. I love that. I love that. Just A A mad ad man somewhere in the world can just shift how people do things. There's a group we did abode with great lament about exactly this .

was IT like leaky gut.

He did he did priebke tics, but he didn't talk too much about that. Um um IT was he was talking about the ones that have um like the ones try not like why we backed for breakfast, why we need drink. Orange is right, like where oranges came from.

And like all these things that today just seem like I don't know this is what we do is just staples of the of people's diet. It's just tradition and as I know, that was a tradition. Or you know, the classic one is toothpaste. He talks about how at a certain time, about only six percent of the population brushed their tea.

And so when they wanted to increase sales of tooth bases, what we can to sell more tooth bases to the six percent of people who already burst teeth, we need to get the other ninety four percent of people to start brushing their teeth. How are we are going to do that? That's when he came up with that .

campaign um not by claude hopton. IT was IT was like, rub the tongue on the on your teeth and you steal that film yeah .

one of one of them exactly was like basically saying, take your turn robot on teeth. You feel that film that and people did that as soon as they read IT. They do IT they they stick the tung there and it's gross and you like there's a way to get that and then you'll have that hollywood pro smile.

And then people wanted that right. And so that created this movement. And then by the end of that campaign, something like seventy or eighty percent of people now brush your teeth in america.

IT was like a gear shift that happened just off of that one. Adman a single big idea. And I love, i've really actually like, toyed with idea of writing a book about just these, these crazy ad men and the way that they have actually shift the culture.

Yeah, and that passes me as well. And like another one is like washy journal. And so they tried to like they snail IT, but IT hasn't probit hasn't stuck with us. But as the idea of once you graduate college.

The gift that you get is uh a lochy general subscription just like I think for all lex did IT was like once you you know presidents club is you get a role ex if you are sell, if you hit some sales quote like or are you become present, whatever. And so I was thinking, one other things haven't to been hydrant that can be. So I got a few examples of the first one being friend's giving.

So friend's giving is what, like twenty something who are single is what they celebrate, uh, instead of a thanksgiving with the family, they do friends giving in their town or in the city that they're living in. And so I think friends giving is one that there's not a clear winner as to who owns friends giving. But we can make IT an entire week of being thankful for your friends.

And you will do various gestures, including having them over for dinner, to show your, uh, how appreciative you are that they are now your friends. And so we could sell gift boxes, we could sell gratitude journals, we could do digital cards. We can do all type of stuff.

And by the way, speaking of cards, hallmark is like one of the inventors of like valentine's day, mother's day, things like that are at the other one graduation season. So turning into a life transition planning or celebrating new life faces, all because of graduating. So we called graduation season.

And so what do you get for graduation season? You get financial planning, subscriptions, productivity tools, career coaching, travel discounts. That's for graduation season. Of you said you've thought about those. What are other .

ones that you ve thought about?

I am, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like examples of things like that's amazing that they pull that off.

Uh, like crack talked about the oldest elevator, one which I thought was amazing. So he basically talked about how back in the elevators had invented far before they were used. Was that mean so the elevated invented, but people didn't want to use and they didn't want to, was scared.

You're scared because there were situations where electors would just plum, you just plug to depth. So like, okay, no thanks. And the the consequence that is think about IT.

If you don't have elevators, you don't have told buildings, right? Because people only going to go up so many flight to stare. So like new york, was I going to four stories high there? No, there was no buildings, all of that.

So cities were kind of limited in how big they could be. And sky modest ends up creating a in the elevator with automatic breaks. So odeo, crazy, the automatic breaking elevator he's like this, is that this is going to be amazing. Everything going to buy my elevators. And if you look today, by the way, go go to any elevator, you'll see a little thing on the world almost always says, oh um but IT didn't happen right to IT and he couldn't figure out why he's like this has automatic breaks that solves the problem but nobody believed that. And so crack talks about how one of the techniques that the market is used is a.

but have like break the elector, like a film.

like getting caught. Well, exactly. So the world fair was going on, and oldest decides to go all in. And he creates this show basically. So he create this exhibit where he got an elevator suspended in the air, hanging by ropes cables like they would.

And he, because he had watched circa sale, who's kind of like inspired by owner circa solve, and that their stunts and their spectacles, les, are so all inspiring. You can help a look at IT. So he said, I want to do that.

So he gets somebody up there. He stands in the elevator. He says, ladies gentleman, I have created. They set the world's first safe elevator, the elevator with automatic breaks.

And he gets the guy at the top to swing and x and he cuts one rope and the elevator, or starts swing and swinging and is hanging by a thread now. And everyone is gasping in the crowd. And he's like, cut the rope.

And then the guy swings, he cuts the rope. Elevator starts to go down to feet, and then they are automatic brakes and IT stops. And he says, all safe, gentleman.

And he says something like, whatever he says, some famous phrase that spaces says, like old elevate. When you're in an otis elevator, you, you know it's all well. Oas, well, you, you will be safe. And elevator sales take off from there. And when elevator sales take off now buildings can be toler and literally reshaped the way that cities work.

All because this guy realized that he needed to think out of the box in terms of this marketing, and he needed to do something that would break through the noise, and IT would actually shift cultural, shift perception about a product in a dramatic way. And one, two of the two belt is that a craig called these hy jacks of the human mind and the seven human hy jacks. And he's like, one way to hijack the mind is a spectacle like this.

Just create. Have a book I gotto read. Listen to that one. Just create.

Have a book. this. After that episode, I had crack up, and I was like, hey, I want to write this book with you.

And we talked about we're most I really excited about IT, but we're both busy. So this might be the motivation to rekindle that project. I did a seven and human hydra. C, I wrote, I wrote the intro for IT. It's pretty doubt already to you .

sometime ah that is awesome. I'm going to have to go listen to that because I was like two years ago and I member listening to him think he's amazing. Can I read .

IT the intent of this book? Yeah.

we can cut the .

side of boring, but I to get you on this, right so I wrote this back, right? Hy jacks or seven human? Hy jax, confessions of a billion dollar marketer.

Okay, so that's crack. Rg sold over a billion dollars of products online himself. Okay, so I said, ah, here's I go.

If you read this book and aged to makes me promise, repeat after me, I promise these tactics only for good and not evil. Because the techniques this book not just take, they are hijacks the same way as terrorists can hijack in airplane. Marketers can hijack the minds of consumers to get them buy products they didn't even know they want IT.

You might be sceptical. In fact, I think you should be skeptical or skeptical somebody making such a bold claim. But I could tell you that these these hydrants have been used to sell.

I've used these products. I've used these hydrants, ks, to sell over a billion dollars products, persevered. That's one billion with A B in case you last count.

But rather convince you, rather let me convince you. Let me ask you, did you pressure you this morning? More importantly, why?

Who told you to do that? Who told you to pressure tea in the morning? Your mom, well.

Who told her? Her mom, well, yeah. Before that. Who told all the moms to do this? You must be the dentist, right the way?

Who told the dentist the answer? IT turns out, as men name clod hopkins before before clod hopkins, only seven percent of the population breast their teeth. Side bar can imagine having back in one thousand and thirteen.

Nobody brush their teeth. Feel bad for grandpa after cloud hop, and sixty five percent of population brush their teeth. And claude in just sell youth space IT literally changed the world, who he got millions of people to change their daily habits with.

One brilliant market of campaigning will show you in chapter two, before I show you how you did IT aba ba. And then I go. And then the how diamonds became a world girl's best friend. And the like, each of the different products that they got, you know, embedded into culture.

What of the seven human height? Like what are they?

Sounds like I succeeded and got you curious. You're gonna to pay four or ninety nine and get the book.

Like, is that literally like seven different like tactics, or seven different examples, tactics.

tactics. And then each one has example and you stack them. So what he showed was like, know, for example, one of the tactics spectacle, like I told you about the O S. elevator.

Like a spectacle would be one of the seven .

yeah like spect was one of the seven. But like even the thing about like take your tongue and put IT on your teeth. So like a like like a magic trick basically is like the thing member, the thing where people used to .

that power band and whatever .

those bracelet ts they made you .

like ort of um that .

I forgot what he called IT. But that sort of magic trick is one of the things where is a demonstrate a powerful demonstration, right? So you can demonstrate on the person themselves, you can get them to feel, I feel, of themselves in order to to want to buy product.

Did cray come up with the C, D, F seven? You have been hydro, or did you come up .

with IT on the fh? So he he was going to come on. And IT was like, cool.

We can talk about your business. We talk whatever. And I was like to ask some one question is a very valuable question. I said, what's the best talk you've given recently? Like have you given to make a presentation or a talk at all that just like really killed, like you could just tell the audience loved IT.

Do I did this one talk inside my company just to get them fired up is like basing my companies like a giant marketing company and a lot of them to come back to work and not just feel like we need to raise sales by like seven percent this quarter. Like, no, like, like I wanted realize all marketers, you don't just drive some revenue or relived sales by x percent, like a market that can literally change the way that society works. And he's like, so to get them fired up about that, told them these examples of stories that they did. And then I is like, when I was putting them together, I realized it's the same set of techniques that they've been using across these eight, ten examples. Just the same the same set of tactics is hy jacks that they have been using and he's like, that could be cool and I was like, yes, do that on the fun.

Check us out a few google seven human hy jacks cray comments. The first post is on red IT and he says crates on M, F, M talking about the seven human hy jacks and how to use them in your marketing and IT links to this amazing post that this guy, uh wrote where he lists the seven .

and arch marking yeah.

it's so good.

So one of them, for example, is he talks about like a the act of rebellion. So how do you make your consumer feel like they're giving the middle inger to the man by buying your product? So the example gives us back in the day when cigarette sales were flat and cigarettes was flat because basically.

Cigarettes only spoke by men. And so and there was so already supersaturated I do we can really get more men to smoke to kind of all smoker already. And so they realized the only way we're going to grow sales by getting the other fifty percent of the population to start smoking.

So how do we get women to start smoking? At the time I was seen as not cool that was seen this sort of like, um you know, I was that kind of dirty massan thing to do. And so the guy behind the campaign, basically what he did was he used influencer, so influences one of the highjacked.

So we got all of the like a whoever like the cardanus ans of their time words. They got like thirty of them all together, all at once. And that was at a time where the big problem in culture or society was like, I forgot that was like women being about to vote, or was like some other thing.

I was like, women were repressed in some way. And so he got them all to go to this, the parade or the fair, you know, the new year's fair, the macy fair, whatever was the parade that happens in new york. And they all stood on this flow.

And he gave him all cigarettes. He said, alright, when you turn this corner, you're onna light that cigarette, right? When the journalist are all there, there are all have their cameras pointed at you.

You're going to like this, right? And you're going to defiantly smoke the cigarette in front of them. You're going to do this thing .

that women aren't supposed to do as know what he called him. He called IT. He called the six torches of freedom exactly.

exactly. And that's what the the newspapers. So he then put somebody in the crowd where the journalists war, and he said that out loud to the journalists within, went and wrote that in their story, like they lit up these torches of freedom.

This is up. The guy is nose church. The freeze, that's nose.

That's what fuel needs to do. IT is be like, these are vapor of freedom. That this is .

that's that's a sex machine that he's using. He have sex with so many people because he's using nothing.

even even that same then I think I was like Lucy strike or whoever their brand color was Green and Green was like not invoke e at the time. And as I get the women don't want to buy IT because these secret the box is not fashionable. Do we need a rebrand? Is I hold my beer, don't rebrand.

And so instead he got those same women to go to the whatever the big um like fashion like like the met gala type of thing and all of the war Green, they all wore that some Green color dress. And so then Green became cool for women like, you know basically they became in tran right after that. And then you know the sales of that that that brain went up basically because he he made the color cool and is really cool to see somebody who can pop tear society in this way. I'm summarising like a nine month old episodes. I I might have some of the details wrong here.

This reddit poser said, said, a lot of these stories are documented in the amazing book called propaganda.

It's hard read. Do I have wanted to read IT?

But that seems like intimidating. And whats .

so hard about books is a easy. And I, my brain is very simple, like a lot of people recommend books to me. The back, this is a great book, have you read? You know, bernazard are like theory. I go, i'm interested to go buy the book and i'm like, i'm just too dumb to read this like i'm too I even read, do not have the attached span to read something like this.

I read like the memetic theory, like summary book, like what was that one that came out recently and was hard? First I read that that was like the mountain m gladwell version of, like rennard art. And I like read IT.

I'm like, so I want what other people want. Is that is right? I like that the IT was, I read the whole thing and I I don't understand this is so many words, what are I missing?

Uh and so I had this book proc. I've i've heard all about this uh book propaganda. Uh, I have would be fun to read or at least try to do.

There's something like more than fifty years old where their brains were just able to like, you know, they spoke differently, they talk, they talk differently, they, they write differently. And for whatever reason, my brain can't really process IT very well. So I kind of need somebody to like, translate into modern, speak and like simple and speak for me. Yeah.

I think maybe I trying to do that. This y this seems a call book the guy wrote. IT was born in eighty nine one and died in one thousand nine hundred ninety five.

Wow, it's all a lot. I A quick break. I know that you're listen to my personality.

That means you will love numbers. Well, i've got a new podcast called the money wise. And the premise is simple. We talk to high network people. So people who have somewhere between fifty to five hundred million dollars. And we start with simple premise, which is tell me exactly how much money you have, how much money you make every month, what your important folio looks like, how much money you spend every month, and every other bit of information that involves your network and you are spending. And the reason we do this is because I want to demystify money.

So we just have the woman and am who has uh and ninety four million dollar portfolio I for selling her business and SHE spends three hundred and sixty thousand dollars amount SHE talks about where the money is, what SHE spends IT on and why SHE spends that much if IT makes her happy or night. And then we dive deep on different topics, like children buying versus renting, giving money away. We basically are having a conversation that I see a lot of rich people having behind closed doors.

We do IT publicly. So check IT out is called money elise. And you could find IT. Whatever you get your podcast, let me tell you, let me tell you about something that I did.

So, did you see you presidencies? But on friday I treated that i'm going to yells campus, i've tweet that i'm gonna go check out yell, because it's like in all historic a place. And I wanted to like, do something interesting for the weekend, something easy on saturday twitter. Now I got like a lot of replies and I was like, kind of overwhelming on what to do. So on saturday morning, we just drive up there and I just go to the busiest, just like part of the town where I think, like, i'll just figured out when I get there, I show up.

I see a student tour like, if your perspective student you like, when you go, your mom and dad and I just like that yeah I just like, I like, I just like puppet and like, it's prety funny because it's say, and I who I don't think either was lucky Young enough to be a students and then i've got my baby like strap to my chest well, anyway, yeah so just like like we like just like at the back of this, like student LED to our listening and and then out of nowhere, this kid, I guess he's not that much of a kid, but is like, twenty years old he goes, hey, same and I go, what's up, man he goes, hey, I am a big bed the pi elista an religiously I saw that you were going to be here so, uh, can I show you around and was like, yeah, I love that what you what are you doing here? What are you doing today? He's like, well, I saw that you are coming and I just want most busy place there was and I just that I was.

see you and here .

you are and so this kid.

get me now I didn't think through what happens .

after that if when I was great, i'd like but when that's like, the third time has happened and I love that that happens because I like he's doing me a favor of like I would love like a local order like show me around and so he shows me all this amazing stuff. So i've heard of sling bones.

the secret society of you, our presidents in or all that is IT was yet what that what that was IT it's quote .

a cigaret society but don't know like how much of a cigarette when there is like a building and like it's like a it's like a nonprofit that downing so I know like I don't know what the secret is. I don't know like what what secret, but was just cool like see this billing that I i've read about and then we went and saw this old graveyard, see all this graveyard in america.

And I was like to do IT and i'm going to explain to you why i'm obsessed with old stuff, particularly the the ivy league. So it's kind of like a nerdy thing of mine where I, like, i've been to the prince and yell a bunch of others I just love, like touring these old schools that just school. We go to this old graveyard and we saw no websters grave. You know, who know webster s, have you heard that name dictionary?

Webster.

that dictionary? Maria website dictionary, the guy who invented the dictionary. And I just was like, look at the this this old graveyard. Next to him was a Charles good year, the guy who created, organized, which created good year tires. And that was awesome.

IT was so cool, and i'm actually really envious of you that you want to do this like historical old institution, because IT was so cool, like be around history where, like someone came up with something and they literally invented or or standardized the english language, like shaped history. And IT still, they have still impacted the way that we've done things. And so IT was an awesome, awesome weekend to like, see all this old stuff, because that inspired me.

You know how? Like when you get behind the computer, like, every single day and you like, i'm going to do something that just makes a little bit money sometimes, so you going to get these rights of like thinking small. IT was very inspirational to, like C.

E. So he was all institution that has lasted for centuries. And how big and global was IT was very, very.

I want to give a shot to that kid. I don't want to say his name because he said he want to be locky. But I want to give a shot .

up for show me around that awesome, most White person hobby ever to go to a graveyard. You'll never, you'll see non White tourists hanging out the graveyard. A not a thing we do.

IT was awesome.

IT was for you. You saw the web. rediculous. Good year in your like, right? I'm going to come back in part test what what was your what going to do?

What's the move you know, a kind of put me into a little bit of crisis for like I was asking that, but I know this pockets is definitely part of IT. You know, I don't know about you, but I sometimes think like this is like a podcast is not like impact for compared to like we're talking to guys who are inventing robots that are doing X Y Z Z like we're going to the moon.

But I like these guys for authors that I who's like, uh who's gray by song, I was still inspired by them. And so I felt a little bit inspiration of that. But there was was a little bit of crisis of like a man like it's important to do something like that can impact people for for centuries.

Parts the forest. I don't know. Just put that out there. See, what have you say that lands I feel really good with, come up with alternative phrases for things so that of saying, no.

not just because I don't know the real phrase and I can't pronounce the words so when I mumble that I did, did you get this feeling at duke where I was called to be around like old historical things that have asked for a long time?

I know exactly you mean there is definite a vibe um and a feeling winner at something that is not just bigger than yourself as sort of timeless the problem with duke and other southern schools that have this is like you like, oh, wow, who made know what? What is this? This is the slave wall is yes, what's name of this process? This is tobacco road.

We had tobacco plantations. Like everything is there's like a sort of dark side to history there. So that wasn't cool.

The rest of IT is, in fact, I used to love go into the the chat, like the center of duke ample is the chapel, and I used to go there all the time. You know, i'm not religious, but just the ora. The vibe, like the vibe of a church, is kind of unmatched to be on great. And so yeah, I really love, really love that.

Here's why I like silicon valley. I and why I like old stuff. It's it's kind of similar, which is I love thinking about things that we take for granted. So for example, like buildings that have been there for a long time but that are really large or even just like your stress or institutions like, yeah and i'm like, how did someone create something that became such an institution that we take IT for granted and we don't even like reflect on like how this became a thing.

And silicon values cool because it's ideally the outcome is that you are creating something in real time that will become an institution like an airbnb, like a google, where becomes a verb like, you know what I mean and you get to see that happening. And I think it's really cool to be. And so I can value to see the beginning of hopeful institutions in the in the making. And then also going seeing the old stuff like this is how it's done.

So we just had gary ten on, don't you think that Y, C. Should just have a campus and you should have this sort of gothic, you know, old school institutional vibe? And even if there, if they're not going to do IT, why wouldn't I just go create a campus, a small microcar pus four Y C people, free, free, free room and board, so free place to live, free food that's healthy.

And all I do is just Cherry pick investments from people on campus. I just get to invest in their company ties. IT would be, I don't even need Y, C. To do this. why? Why would I do this?

There's or even just a museum. Have you ever heard of the museum of american finance? Is this thing in new york city where it's like a, it's like a museum for like the history of finance. And Frankly, it's bad as it's awesome and just like a place to let go and like physically explore all that Y C has done. IT is kind of interesting .

is like bill act loafers. What's inside this thing? Well, museum of modern of what a finance yeah.

it's it's a museum of american finance. So if you look at a photo, it's just like IT shows. Like here's what like the stock tickers used to look like and people would stand here and like trade, like in the eighteen hundred.

And then like then I switched ed to have, like, the phones are on the floor. You do this, what I really tells the history of IT. And then like, important things related to IT. But it's a museum in downtown. Uh.

that's cool. I like that.

Do, this is a fun episode.

Yeah.

that's a ber.

Travel looking back.