- Duration: 26 min
- Platform: meet
- Source: Read.ai 01JFATKNXEWM8G48FRKJB3XW1H (https://app.read.ai/analytics/meetings/01JFATKNXEWM8G48FRKJB3XW1H)
Transcript
[Ben Ornstein]: A high school buddy of mine who is, we played tennis together on the tennis team in high school. He became a tennis content creator. So he works for a tennis channel, but he also has his own YouTube audience. It’s like 32,000 subscribers or something with raving tennis fans. So I reached out to him at the beginning of this year and was like, hey, we should do something else with your content. So long story short, we created a weekly newsletter find the best tennis stories on the internet every week that tennis fans probably haven’t seen. And then I noticed on his YouTube, the comment section was insane. People were commenting left and right. So I was like, yo, we should create you a Discord. So I created him a Discord as well. So that’s kind of those two things. And it’s been a lot of fun this year. [Michael Houck]: What’s the what’s the newsletter I’m going to subscribe? [Ben Ornstein]: I can look up the The draw dot tennis. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: The draw dot. [Ben Ornstein]: I love how they have the dot tennis. That’s cool. Yeah. I was like, yeah, that sounds kind of cool. [Michael Houck]: Let’s give it a shot. Oh, it says error. Resolution error. It tried to send. Yeah, it’s not working for me. Is it like the hyphen draw or is it just the draw? [Ben Ornstein]: No, the draw, no hyphen, nothing. Yeah, no, it has an error. [Michael Houck]: I’m going to try incognito. No, same thing. That’s so odd. [Ben Ornstein]: I don’t know. [Michael Houck]: Max, you should try it. Let’s help debug this for better. The D-R-A-W, right? [Max Palmer]: B-T-H-E-D-R-A-W dot tennis. Oh, once I started typing it, it’s come up because I’ve searched it before. Nice. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah, yeah. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, so it works for you. It worked for you? [Max Palmer]: Yep, it worked. [Ben Ornstein]: That’s so strange. [Michael Houck]: That’s weird. Here, I’ll send you this screenshot of the error so you guys can take a look at it. Yeah, I’ll look at it later. That’s so strange. Yeah, I love tennis. So I actually do want to check it out. Okay, um, so let’s talk content stuff for this week. Last week for the newsletter, I just sort of went and wrote something because it got too late in the week this week. Do we have a newsletter topic we want to do and, uh, and research or wait, actually, sorry. First, let’s start with you, um, Max, because you said you have something in the second half of this, right? [Max Palmer]: Yeah. I’ve got to make a phone demo in five minutes. Um, so I found this short that I thought was good. I just sent in a chat. [Michael Houck]: Okay. Okay, I’m watching it now. Actually, do you want to share your screen so we can both watch it? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Oh, yeah, sure, sure, sure. [Michael Houck]: Let’s do that. Okay, I’ll go back to the beginning. [Max Palmer]: The most underrated brand in America is hidden inside every single Costco. Kirkland does more than $58 billion in annual That’s more than Nike or Coca-Cola. Here’s exactly how they became the number one CPG brand in the United States. Costco is the third largest retailer in the US after Walmart and Amazon. But while those retailers have hundreds of thousands of SKUs available to consumers, Costco sells less than 4,000. That means Costco is the largest customer for most of the brands that you’ll find in their warehouse. And as a part of the negotiations for the right to be sold to those Costco members, they’ll also negotiate that those same brands like Duracell, Huggies, and Tide produce the Kirkland version of the same product. Costco also uses their leverage to reduce prices by 15 to 20% while also stipulating that quality is improved by at least 1%. It all comes together to create a resonant brand with lots of loyal buyers. Subscribe for more. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: The most underrated. [Max Palmer]: I actually didn’t realize that part of the negotiation is forcing these brands to just create the same exact product and label it Kirkland. Kirkland’s great. [Michael Houck]: I buy like a, when I go to Costco, I get a ton of Kirkland stuff. [Ben Ornstein]: They’re great. Yeah. [Michael Houck]: I also, I think the thing that like at first it was like kind of a normal video, but then they were like, Kirkland makes more revenue than like Nike and Coca-Cola or something. I was like, wait, what? Really? [Max Palmer]: Yeah, the hook was great. Simple short video. You know, we could do this about different brands, different startups. This is his second best performing short with 2.9 million views. So I think it’s a good one to copy. [Michael Houck]: Who is this guy? Just like, uh, that’s about like rich people. [Max Palmer]: Yeah. Kind of the role is ruled by powerful. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: 153,000 subs. [Max Palmer]: Cool. I’m going to check out some more of his stuff, but yeah, I agree. [Michael Houck]: This format is, is good and it’s something that we could, um, we could do with others. Um, we need like genuinely interesting facts and stories and a lot of people know, like, It’s going to be research heavy. Uh, but I do want to level up our shorts in general. I think I’ve been like reacting to the news. I think that’s getting us some followers, but it’s going to be hard to have like a breakout unless there, unless there’s more research that goes into them. So I’ll probably be relying on, on you, Ben, to do some more as we have ideas and sort of make our process a little more formalized. It’s tough because with the news, we got to react quickly versus stuff like this is more ever. [Ben Ornstein]: Right, right. Different process for those. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, but yeah, this is good. I’ll make a note of this one. [Max Palmer]: And then I just saw a tweet that Grammarly acquired Coda. Oh, wow. [Michael Houck]: Which isn’t like super big news, but it was interesting. Two products that look cool, but personally I found impractical. [Max Palmer]: I like Grammarly. And we tried Coda. Remember that, Hauk? [Michael Houck]: I do remember that and we didn’t stick with it for whatever reason. [Max Palmer]: I forget why. Yeah, I think it was fine. [Ben Ornstein]: It’s kind of just the same as Notion basically. I was about to say, it’s a Notion tool, right? [Michael Houck]: Like it’s the same thing. Yeah. They tried to make it different, but I never really understood what about it was different. So I was like, well, Notion has a desktop app. [Max Palmer]: So let’s, that just seems simpler. [Michael Houck]: I don’t know. Yeah. Okay. Or you gotta hop? [Max Palmer]: That’s pretty much all I got. Um, okay. [Michael Houck]: On the, on the video front, um, I’m like finally sort of getting my shit together. So, um, I’ll be able to start tonight probably recording two or three. Uh, for context, I talked to Lara at clip wing and we’re not going to do the clips from the podcast episodes if you weren’t using them anyway and the guests never really post them. Yeah. Uh, So now we’re gonna have seven to eight slots for shorts per week, which means we should be putting one out every day, which will be good for the algorithm. So before Friday, I’m gonna have them make enough to get us through the weekend and through Monday, and then we’ll be ahead of schedule going forward. The topics you guys have been flagging, by the way, are great. Please keep it up. I have a running tally there in my reminders. I’m going to record some more of them. [Ben Ornstein]: So please, please keep doing that. Cool. I love having that notification at 11 a.m. Sometimes I don’t have any by then, but I like getting it then rather than at four. [Michael Houck]: Okay. I won’t, I won’t move it to four. I set it to four. [Max Palmer]: I guess it was on like UTC time or something. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: So I’ll leave it there. [Michael Houck]: Cool. All right. I’m going to hop. All right. Yeah. Um, okay. So for the long form videos, I am obviously very behind, but I’m going to have a draft of a script written by end of day tomorrow. So I’m gonna loop you in for like next phase of research for that one at that point. And then you’ve already done it for three, right? [Ben Ornstein]: I’ve done the US versus EU one. That was the latest one. I’ve done… Fundraising explained, right? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Fundraising explained and the entire… Yep. [Ben Ornstein]: So I altered… So I do have the stuff in Notion, but I also put them directly in Linear. I agree, one source will be good, even though the formatting’s a little odd. I tried playing around with it a little bit. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, I mean, just play around with the formatting, but honestly, just having it all in one place and be notified in Slack when you do it, it’s worth the trade-off, in my opinion. 100%. Okay, cool. And then for the next one, do you want to get started on how to build an MVP? [Ben Ornstein]: Sure, I can get that one going. [Michael Houck]: I think if we have that, then that’s a good mix for our first month. The history, the MVP, the fundraising explained, and the US versus EU. Those are all good for January. [Ben Ornstein]: Okay, I’ll put that one in progress. Can I put decide how to store research as done? Yes, because we did decide. Okay, that one’s done. Awesome. Okay, so that’ll be the next one I do. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Cool. [Michael Houck]: So those three and then And then podcast we have I’m recording with Adam on Thursday, Adam Nathan, hopefully he doesn’t postpone again. And then Sahil Chopra on Friday. So those all should be fine. And then that’ll get us basically through the holidays in terms of recording time. So we won’t be wasting any recording time through the holidays. And then We have the Caspar Barnes episode scheduled for Monday the 6th. [Ben Ornstein]: I started research on that, but there’s been so much, I haven’t gotten very far. It’s like, you know, three weeks away or something. [Michael Houck]: So no rush. But yeah, so we’ll do that one. And then I’m still talking with Sahil and Dryden about coming on to But basically that would mean if we get Sahil and Dryden, then that would mean that we’re booked up in terms of editing time through the week that ends on the 24th. And we don’t have someone for the last week of January. So I think it probably makes sense to book someone else for that last week of January slot, just so we’re covered for the month of January. And then going into February, we’ll see, hey, have these long form videos taken off and does it make sense to continue investing in the podcast episodes right now or put that on pause until our channel gets bigger? [Ben Ornstein]: I looked at that H1 2025 doc and I’m like, oh, you’re so right. We should have done the long forms first, because then these would have crushed, but you’re right. [Michael Houck]: And we got such a good guess, but it’s like, honestly, I thought the news newsletter audience was going to translate over really well. I don’t, you know, it’s the same content just in a different different media. But I guess that is powerful. [Ben Ornstein]: It does mean something because like, there are some people that I talked to in the discord, from the tenant discord. And they’re like, Yeah, I’m never gonna read a newsletter. I love I love watching Gil’s YouTube content, but I’m not gonna read your newsletter. I just don’t like reading So the other way too. [Michael Houck]: At the end of the day, there’s just different people have different preferences. And that’s, that’s it. So yeah, we have to become YouTubers and build up a channel, and then bring the podcast back. And honestly, our older episodes will get a lot of a lot more play at that point anyway. Because that’s what happens. You get like a outlier video and all your other videos start getting recommended more. [Ben Ornstein]: I feel like even still, If we do secure that Saw Hill in person one, that would be a fun one to do and it would do well regardless. [Michael Houck]: It can’t be in person because I’m not going to be in New York. Oh yeah, when do you leave by the way? Yeah, so I leave on Christmas Eve and I’m going down to Philly to see my parents for Christmas and then I’m going to Chile on the 27th and then I’ll be in Argentina for like a month and a half after that week. And then Brazil for another two weeks. And then Texas for like a little under a month. And then for April and beyond, I literally have no idea where I’m going. So. [Ben Ornstein]: That’s crazy. Wow. Yeah. [Michael Houck]: So I’ll be on the move. I’ll be recording. I’ll see different backgrounds, obviously. I’ll be recording in different spots. But got Airbnbs with a lot of good natural light. [Ben Ornstein]: Hey, that’ll be good. That’ll be good. [Michael Houck]: But yeah, okay. So I think we’ll just become long form YouTubers. We’ll keep doing the shorts at a higher frequency. Right now we’re projected to hit 1000 subscribers in February. I would like us to hit 10,000 subscribers, summer. And then if we can get to like between 50 and 100 by the end of the year, next year, that would make me feel good. But we’ll keep investing through the year, because I think unless something crazy happens, we need that channel. And who knows what’s going to happen with Twitter. I’m still working on it, but it’s very slow and a lot of roadblocks. [Ben Ornstein]: Yeah, it’s crazy. I could look through my network to see if I know anyone at Twitter. It’s crazy. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, we really need someone who’s on the policy team. That’s the key. That’s what I’ve realized at least by talking to various people. So I’m like trying to back channel as much as I can, but no point in worrying about it unless it gets fixed. Yeah, true. So yeah, YouTube in the meantime, and we’ll go from there. Okay, sounds good to me. I on the newsletter side, I’ll let you know if there’s a topic for Saturday that I think we want to do research on. But I also might just want to do a curation episode or issue where we like, you know, curate the best, like, you know, the one of our best performing issues ever is like 12 curated guides from Y Combinator startup library, right? Okay. So I think just with the holiday coming up, just lighter weight stuff for people to read probably makes sense. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: 100%. [Ben Ornstein]: That’s what we just did with the the one that we released this morning. It was a, it was a best of 2024. [Michael Houck]: So. Oh, nice. Yeah. If you want to, if you want to subscribe me to it, I actually would love to get it. [Ben Ornstein]: Cause I love, I love tennis. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah, no, that’s awesome. We can jam on that too. [Michael Houck]: What, um, did you freeze? I think you froze. [Ben Ornstein]: What email would you like me to add?