7 YouTubers Making +$5M/Year With Weird Hobbies

- September 5, 2025 (7 months ago) • 01:06:51

Transcript

Start Time	Speaker	Text
00:00	Sam Parr	"I'm not saying I'm above this."
00:01	Billy Parks	No one's above this. This is cool. These guys just sold $7 million in multi-tools in a week.
00:14	Sam Parr	So, in order for a creator business to work, the creator needs to be loved. What makes a creator lovable? What attributes do they have? When you see it, you're like, "That person has it," and people will buy because of them. </FormattedResponse>
00:29	Billy Parks	Finding creators that have real love from their communities is the whole thing, right? Those are the most durable audiences that will stick with them. It makes them not cancelable—people feel like they are their buddies, their friends. I think what makes them loved is that you feel like you're watching a version of yourself doing it. If you're a woodworker and you watch Jonathan Katz Moses, you're like, "Oh, this guy's just like me, and he's teaching me." You're learning, and it's like a buddy who's walking you into your favorite hobby, your favorite niche.
01:06	Sam Parr	So, that's relatable.
01:07	Billy Parks	I think so. "Relatable" is a good way to put it. I think—no, it often feels like your big sister or your big brother, too, where you're like, "Okay, they're teaching me." You know, if you like motorcycles, they're a pain in the ass to maintain and to deal with. You have to find the right routes on-road and the right routes off-road. But I have three or four guys I can call and say, "Hey, I'm going to the Pacific Northwest—where do I go? What do I need to pack? What am I missing? Walk me through that trip you took." They give me the tools I need to kind of get where I want to go. I feel like those creators are the most interesting—they can build durable businesses.
01:43	Sam Parr	"And now you're a partner at Slow, is that right?"
01:46	Billy Parks	Yeah, I'm a venture partner at Slow. I've been here for about a year. Before that, I was at The Chernin Group.
01:50	Sam Parr	Man, Chernin — I've hung out with those guys a bit. Yes, they're... they're...
01:54	Billy Parks	I saw your podcast with Kevin, which was great.
01:57	Sam Parr	Yeah, we've had Kevin on. I'm friends with Doug D'Amouro.
02:01	Billy Parks	Doug, I found that... I found that.
02:02	Sam Parr	That was you.
02:03	Billy Parks	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:04	Sam Parr	You guys' insight back in 2014, 2015, and 2016 — which seems so obvious now — was: "We're gonna take creators and we're gonna make them into billion-dollar companies." Obviously, we know MrBeast does that now. But what a lot of people don't realize is that Chernin was early on this, for one. And, number two, they've had so many successes in niche communities. For example, there's the "meat guy"...
02:30	Billy Parks	Meat eater. That's Steve Varnella.
02:32	Sam Parr	Yeah — MeatEater, and then there were probably eight, nine, or ten more. We had Kevin on from Epic Gardening. Yep. So you've built these really big businesses, and that's what we're going to talk about today — particularly the creator middle class, because there's, like...
02:47	Billy Parks	Yeah.
02:47	Sam Parr	Yeah, there's like these—the MrBeasts of the world. But there are so many people out there that are making $10, $20, $50,000,000 a year [transcription unclear], and they have like 800 or 400,000 followers in a niche community, like meat smoking or something like that. One of my favorite creators is Doug DeMuro. Doug DeMuro does these car reviews. He turned it into Cars & Bids, which I have no idea how big they are, but I think it's quite a large business.
03:13	Billy Parks	"I'll tell you, since Doug started, he's sold about $450 million worth of vehicles, and then he takes a take rate off that."
03:20	Sam Parr	Oh my God. So this guy, Doug, does these reviews where he will review an SUV or a $2,000,000 Ferrari.
03:30	Billy Parks	Anything that's an enthusiast car.
03:31	Sam Parr	Yes. What's interesting about Doug is—I don't know how he did it—but I have a feeling it was just him. Probably not even with an iPhone when he first started. Literally a camcorder, like a traditional one.
03:42	Billy Parks	"That's right."
03:43	Sam Parr	And he looks schleppy, like he has a dirty T-shirt that he usually...
03:50	Billy Parks	Often two T-shirts on top of.
03:52	Sam Parr	Everything fits horribly together. His undershirt is popping out. He's usually wearing cargo shorts without a belt, so they're sort of falling down. He wears high white socks, and he's just kind of a... I don't know. I don't know what category he is, but... someone.
04:09	Billy Parks	He's like a car nerd. He's a car nerd.
04:12	Sam Parr	Yeah, but even amongst car nerds, many of them dress affluent because they want to fit in. He does not care about that at all, and he gives these amazing reviews. So that's the relatable thing. On the other end, you have someone like "Emma Chamberlain," where young women, I think, aspire to be her because she's cool and has character and all that stuff. Is there something in there about a creator wanting to be aspirational versus quirky?
04:41	Billy Parks	I think it depends on the audience, right? Like Doug's audience loves him because he has the best information about every car. His videos—ten, eight, twelve minutes long—cover everything you want to know about that car. Generally, that's a couple of things: What do I want to drive? What do I think is cool? Sometimes it's a purchase decision. Doug gives you everything you need to learn about that rig, and he's totally unassuming and fun. I'm not as familiar with Emma, but I know she's very loved. She's aspirational—you want to be where she is when you grow up. You think she's cool; you love her access and her take on things. I think, for the enthusiast categories, those pop the hardest. Which is to say, Doug is driving a two-sided marketplace that has real scale and can scale without having to manufacture physical products, secure distribution in stores, or launch a physical location. He is building a venture-scale business. A lot of people who come to Cars and Biz now didn't even know who Doug was. It's built the scale where they're just like, "Oh, this is a great place to transact." I didn't even get here through Doug's top-of-funnel.
05:59	Sam Parr	Alright, so a lot of people will talk about how you need a million dollars and three years of experience to start a business — nonsense. If you listen to at least one episode of this podcast, you know that is completely not true. My last company, The Hustle, we grew it to something like $17 or $18 million in revenue. I started it with like $300. My current company, Hampton, does over $10,000,000 in revenue. I started it with actually no money — maybe $29 or something like that. So you don't actually need investors to start a company. You don't need a fancy business plan, but what you do need is systems that actually work. So my old company, The Hustle, they put together five proven business models that you could start right now today with under $1,000. These are models that, if you do it correctly, can make money this week. You can get it right now — you can scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Now, back to the show. So can I ask you about some of these middle-class creators? Because this is pretty interesting. Sure. You mentioned one of them and I looked him up — this guy's insane. Who's Jonathan Katz Moses?
07:03	Billy Parks	Jonathan Katz Moses. Jonathan Katz Moses is a woodworker. He started a website called "Kilometers Tools." It's tips and tricks on the right tool for the right job, essentially. Then he was like, "Oh, well, here's this tool you can use to work with this buzz saw, and here's this tool you can use to work with that." And then—sold out, sold out, sold out—and he kept developing his own tools.
07:26	Sam Parr	Let me tell you what I see when I go to his YouTube page, because it's pretty incredible. On the surface, he just looks like a regular guy—he's doing woodwork and stuff. But what's crazy is...
07:34	Billy Parks	"He's a guy."
07:35	Sam Parr	He only has... and this is big, but it's the pretty girl‑next‑door type—attainable. He only has 100,000 subscribers.
07:43	Billy Parks	"That's right."
07:44	Sam Parr	Which I think almost anyone—if they dedicate four years to virtually any niche and spend 20 hours a week on it—can get to 600,000 subscribers. So he only has 600,000 subscribers, and he only outputs, like, one video a month. Not a lot of videos. They look great; they're really highly produced and polished, but his quantity is not through the roof, and the views aren't through the roof either.
08:13	Billy Parks	No. Well, the cool thing about it is — it's, first of all, evergreen content. What he did and how often he published is important to continue providing content for the community, build his audience, and scale. I think that, by taking investment, he will be able to do more of that.
08:32	Sam Parr	He raised money.
08:33	Billy Parks	"Yeah, it's slow. We invested $2,000,000 into Jonathan's business."
08:37	Sam Parr	And how big is it now?
08:38	Billy Parks	The investment is very recent. He's doing around 6 million in revenue now strictly from his tool site, and he's grown substantially year over year.
08:52	Sam Parr	And when you made the investment, what was your upside like? What did you—what did you expect in five years? How big of a business would this be? </FormattedResponse>
09:01	Billy Parks	Yeah, I mean, we play a little longer than 5 years because we're early stage.
09:06	Sam Parr	Think... whatever. Don't know.
09:07	Billy Parks	Yeah. I mean, we'd love to see Jonathan get to $102,100,000,000 in revenue in the next 10 years.
09:12	Sam Parr	That's crazy. Yeah — is he going to enjoy his life while he's doing that? It looks like he had a pretty good life before taking your money.
09:19	Billy Parks	He loves it—he wants to build a massive business. I mean, we're not reaching out to creators and saying, "Hey, you look like you have a really nice lifestyle business making $10 million a year—do you want to go to $100 million?" We're not doing that. He reached out to us and said, "I want to build a business of scale." He needs more inventory and more product designers. He sells out all the time, so he wants to get to scale. He loves what he's doing.
09:45	Sam Parr	This is great. And what's—when you're doing research, like if you're this guy Jonathan or someone listening, and you have, like, woodworking… it's a niche — a huge niche, but a niche nonetheless. Is there, like, a math to how you decide how big it can get? Or do you just look at comparables? Are you like, "Well, there's this one woodworking e-commerce store that already does this much revenue; I think it can be that big"? </FormattedResponse>
10:10	Billy Parks	That's a good question. I mean, I think it's a little bit of both where we say team and theme, right? So it's like: can we invest in— is Jonathan backable? Does he have the hunger? Is he a founder, or is he just a content creator? And then, does he have the hunger to build something big? It's early stage; we're betting on Jonathan right now. We can't bet on Jonathan if he doesn't want to [be bet on]. It's funny—he said a funny quote. He goes, "You know, they have no control. I could build ballet shoes if I wanted." Now we have to look at the category that he's in and make sure we feel like it can get to scale. So yeah, we do a little [of both]. Once we get deeper down and figure out that this guy's great, he's going to figure something out. He's going to take a lot of different shots on goal until he does, which we've seen with lots of great creators. They're like, "Okay, I tried this business and I tried that business and it didn't work," and they're going to keep going. Jonathan feels like the kind of guy who's going to keep going no matter what. And then, yeah—we've looked, we've looked at woodworking. Are there other businesses in his genre that are making tools that are at $50,102 and $100,000,000 in revenue? We look at that and we compare them, and we say, "Hey, listen, this is good signal."
11:13	Sam Parr	Can I actually walk through that? I'm curious, because if I have a passion—or if I'm a listener and I have a passion for something—I'm often asking, "Does this have legs?" Maybe it doesn't quite have legs, but if I just change it a little bit, the trajectory might be a lot different while still staying within the passion of what I want to make, content-wise.
11:29	Billy Parks	Yeah.
11:30	Sam Parr	"So, alright—if you're doing woodworking, where would I start to research to give me faith that this can be a $50,000,000‑a‑year company?"
11:38	Billy Parks	Right, okay — that's a really good question. The really interesting thing about backing creators who are in passion categories is that they have real expertise in the area they're in. For example, because Jonathan is creating content in woodworking, he knows all the other woodworkers, he knows all the tool companies, he knows everybody in that area. We trust them to understand their own white space. The creators we back — and the ones I think have the best opportunity — are the people who are deep in a niche. They've been working in it for five, ten years, and they can identify the white space. It's not for us to define that white space. We're here to say, "we want to match capital with creators and founders who want to build something scaled," and we rely on them. Think about Doug DeMuro: he's been in the car game both on the editorial side and as a content creator, meeting all the manufacturers. He knows the landscape. When there are four or five other auction platforms available to people buying cars, Doug's like, "This is the one we need to build, and this is why."
12:53	Sam Parr	> "But when you're—when you're trying to justify that—surely you're just thinking, 'Okay, I feel like with some degree of certainty the best-case scenario is it's going to be a $1 billion company in ten years,' something like that. > > "And so what I'm curious about, though, is: let's say that I'm interested in architecture but also, like, art history. Let's say I'm a 28-year-old person who hates my job. I'm sort of interested in art history and architecture, but I want to build something sustainable and, like, potentially one... > > "The route that I pick with my content—I would imagine there's some type of equation where it's like: I guess it would be the size of the audience multiplied by the gross profit per item sold multiplied by the quantity that they will buy. Do you guys have anything like that?"
13:43	Billy Parks	I think it's a little bit more creative than math. Which is to say, we can't be experts in every niche category and then say, "Hey, this is how this is going to pan out." I mean, we should have a sense of the market. For example, look—Kevin's in the seed business. Seeds don't seem like much; they're very inexpensive. But at scale, it's a massive business. I think we look for categories where there's high spend, where people are passionate about them, and where the founder really understands the category and can tell us where they think the white space is—more than us saying, "Here's the math to solve that problem."
14:24	Sam Parr	Yeah, that's funny. I mean, my last company was The Hustle, and Jesse or Chernan came to me and they were like, "Oh, maybe you can be one of these." I don't even think they had a word for it, but they were recruiting me to become one. It was very light recruitment, but it was like, "Let's see if there's a fit. Maybe we could invest in you and you'd be one of these creator-led businesses." I was like, "Yeah..." I didn't even have faith that it could become that. I... I didn't know. Yeah, you know what I mean? I definitely didn't believe it. What?
14:50	Billy Parks	Yeah, Chernan was really interesting because, you know, we — at Chernan — it was different at the growth stage. At post‑investment you can spend so much more time with the businesses than you can at the early stage. There's a willingness to roll up your sleeves and help build it out. There's a lot of work we put into those companies post‑investment. In that earlier stage, we kind of are betting on the founder to figure it out.
15:14	Sam Parr	I think every man who's above, like, 35 years old has a dream to do what this next creator is doing, which is owning a ranch and selling meat... What is...
15:24	Billy Parks	"Oh, yeah. Yeah."
15:24	Sam Parr	What is "Five Marys"?
15:26	Billy Parks	Well, Five Marys is rad. It was started by a woman named Mary Heffordan and her husband Brian as well, but Mary is the big driver of it—Brian would agree with that. She started as a restaurant tour in the Bay and couldn't find ethically sourced meats at the scale she wanted for her restaurants. So she started looking at ranches and ended up buying one. She's super entrepreneurial—a real get-up-and-go badass. She found a ranch in the Mount Shasta area, in a place called Fort Jones [near the California–Oregon border], and began raising her own cattle there. She now has 600 acres and 600 cattle. She also has a butchery, does shipping, and operates an FDA-approved slaughterhouse. She's built a very large-scale business and has about 400,000 followers on her Instagram channel. </FormattedResponse>
16:25	Sam Parr	And what was her original content like? What got the first 10,000 followers?
16:29	Billy Parks	It was all her moving to this ranch and building out this ranch life. She tells stories about herself and her family. She's got four daughters that are all rad — all cowgirls. Obviously, they didn't start that way when they were little, but they're now kind of like 16, 14, 15, 13 — around that age. They're all ropers; they like to compete, so they're always going around. It's ranch life: caring about the food, caring about the people who you work with, and building out business. There's also a very strong female-entrepreneur vibe. She taught courses to other women who were building businesses. Actually, the Ballerina Farms woman took her course and then launched Ballerina Farms, which... [unclear phrase: "which scale is ballerina now"].
17:12	Sam Parr	That's another. It's similar.
17:14	Billy Parks	Yeah, Ballerina Farms has a bit more controversy around it. The woman's name — which I forget right now — lives in Utah. She and her husband bought a ranch. It's very well shot and very beautiful, and it's a little more composed than Mary's Content. Mary's Content is more like... if you look at it right now, you're literally watching her build a house. She, her husband, and her kids go out and grab rocks from the land and put them on the hearth; she's building them out. She's feeding cows. </FormattedResponse>
17:46	Sam Parr	So, was she successful before she bought the ranch?
17:48	Billy Parks	No, she had three or four restaurants in San Francisco. Got it. Yeah. She's been— I mean, as you know, with restaurants, they can be doing great, but you can't really retire from them until you reach real scale. She was a proprietor. I think of her as a proprietor—that's the category I would put her in. She had restaurants, she was serving great food, and she had a good life, but it wasn't what she wanted. So she went out to the farm instead. She saw an opportunity to build a ranch that had ethically sourced meats, raise cattle, and tell the story while she was doing it. It's so deeply authentic.
18:24	Sam Parr	"It's basically like... I think I saw it. I forget the director's name—Guy something."
18:31	Billy Parks	Guy Ritchie
18:31	Sam Parr	Guy Ritchie — he was telling this story that always stuck with me. I think I heard it when I was a little bit younger, and it always stuck with me. But it was basically like, when I try to live my life, he's like: "I am a director and I want my life to be a movie. I'm the director of my own movie. I'm the director of my own life." And I hear, "Yeah, like what she's doing or I see what Mary's doing," and to me it's like social media makes it so much easier and attainable to say, "I'm going to do something epic and I'm going to bring people along the way, and that is why it's going to be so epic — because they're going to support me and this is so awesome." So, how big of a company does she have? And she's... it's just selling beef.
19:08	Billy Parks	She—well, she does a lot of things. She sells subscription boxes of beef. She also sells other products and has done courses, like I mentioned. She sells whiskey and cookbooks. She actually doubled down recently on a tallow product line because she processes her own meat and has tons of tallow, and has been making it sparingly.
19:33	Sam Parr	This lady's awesome. They do camps — they even run a cowboy camp where you can go and see.
19:37	Billy Parks	Yeah, yeah. I think it's a small part of her business, but it's definitely—she brings people on. It's a heavy lift. She does it seasonally, but she brings people in and kind of teaches them with the idea that people can learn what it's like to live a ranch life and come out there kind of in a dude-ranch way. But she'll make you roll up your sleeves and do stuff for sure.
19:54	Sam Parr	How big is this business, Five Mary's Ranch?</FormattedResponse>
19:57	Billy Parks	I mean, as far as all of these businesses that I'm talking about — as an investor, I talk to all these folks. I can't share all of them; some of them, if it's publicly disclosed, I'd be happy to share. But the way I would frame this business is that it has the ability to achieve venture scale.
20:13	Sam Parr	"And I would say the threshold of venture-scale is probably 100 million in revenue, right?"
20:17	Billy Parks	It can do it.
20:18	Sam Parr	Yeah, it's awesome. Can do.
20:21	Billy Parks	Also, the coolest thing about Mary is the meat business is great, and I think she will always do it. But this tallow line that she launched is something that can scale even more. I don't know how much you've seen about what's gone on with beef tallow and people using it for popular skin care—it's very popular. She does it right there on her farm. She makes it; they built a place to process it, and they do it right there on the farm. That's another line of business. That brings me to another topic with all these guys: they have the opportunity to take lots of shots on goal. It's like, "Okay, I built out this meat business—how much can it scale? Can I exit it? Do I want to exit it?" You get to a certain place and then you say, "Okay, what else can I offer my audience that is totally organic to who I am?" They will buy because it's something they want. Maybe that thing becomes the thing that is venture-scale, or maybe she tries something else that becomes venture-scale. But the beautiful thing about all these creators and this kind of creator middle class that we're talking about is that it's not just one business they can start.
21:26	Sam Parr	But two things. I'm gonna push back on two things that I want you to prove me wrong. Number one: focus. Like—nine out of ten times—one of the reasons, nine out of ten times, a lack of focus is what kills a company. It's more often than not better to do one thing incredibly well than to do a bunch of things, because it's just hard to pull off a bunch of things.
21:46	Billy Parks	Great.
21:46	Sam Parr	The second thing is that operations are very challenging, particularly for a ranch. I mean, just like a software company—it's pretty easy: you're just behind a screen and there's no capital expenditure (CAPEX). For a ranch, that's really hard. Who is operating her business? How on earth do you find all these wonderful operators? Also, how do you balance creating content? I do this podcast twice a week and I also have a company, and it's quite challenging. That's probably a lot easier than running a ranch.
22:14	Billy Parks	Great. Running a ranch is very hard — she will tell you, and you can watch and see. I agree with that. So when I think of focus, my answer to your question is prioritization. She's gotten the ranch to a place where now she has to decide if she wants to double down on another line of business. If so, she needs to make sure she has operators in place and enough time to try to build out that next line of business, or bring in another person or two to operate and help launch it. So she's got a ranch. She has to make sure she has enough time and energy — either with the people who are supporting her ranch or somebody to help her with the tallow line. It's about prioritization and then building it out. I agree with you. But you look at somebody like Jocko Willink. Are you familiar with Jocko?
23:08	Sam Parr	What I know about him is he was a former Navy SEAL — a badass. He looks like a SEAL, looks like a G.I. Joe, and has a podcast. But I don't know much about his products.
23:19	Billy Parks	Yeah, so that's another example of how you get to scale: you're taking shots on goal and thinking about prioritization. Jocko—like you said—he's got a massive podcast. You agree he looks like a G.I. Joe, and you're right that he is an ex-Navy SEAL. He's also the kind of person who posts pictures of his watch at 4 a.m. when he's starting his workout. He's a big jiu-jitsu guy. He's also a very intentional father and talks about how to raise your kids—not glued to screens and raised with intentionality. Jocko speaks to a lot of people, and he has a great course called Echelon, which he teaches to Fortune 500 CEOs and others. The general public can also apply and be part of it. He did pretty well with that business and continues to do well with it.
24:08	Sam Parr	Echelon is like... so he dropped. I'm looking at the website — it's corporate, so I imagine, if I had to guess, it's six figures. He comes and talks, and then three of his team will drop in and help you with some leadership issues within your business.
24:22	Billy Parks	That's right, that's right. I think it's at more scale than that, but yes—he does big conferences with multiple Fortune 500 CEOs, and he's very well respected in that world. In the leadership space, he talks a lot on his podcast and in his books about how to be a great leader and how to manage up and manage down. He's pretty prolific in that sense. He then launched a tactical apparel brand, starting with boots and moving into clothes, which are American-made, kind of workout/military-style clothes.
24:58	Sam Parr	Which, I would have to imagine, would actually be one of the harder businesses to run.
25:01	Billy Parks	"That's a very hard business."
25:03	Sam Parr	Because returns... and, yeah, returns and sizes, and that would be hard.
25:07	Billy Parks	Yeah, supply chain — it's hard. So he took those shots on goal. He saw a place where he thought he could move his audience. Really interesting. Then he launched JocoFuel.
25:19	Sam Parr	What's that protein?
25:19	Billy Parks	It's like a grouping of energy drinks for pre-workout, during-workout, and post-workout.</FormattedResponse>
25:27	Sam Parr	Dude, that probably crushes it.
25:29	Billy Parks	Crushes.
25:29	Sam Parr	He probably makes $100 million a year in revenue off that.</FormattedResponse>
25:32	Billy Parks	"Crushes, you know... and then Chris Pratt joined in, because Chris Pratt is very military-friendly and likes Jocko and all that kind of stuff. That product is in Walmart and in GNCs. Walmart really likes to support those military founders. It's a product that people like, and people really trust him because he has, like, the same kind of stature they'd give a Huberman. He's such a specimen and he talks about working out and training, and people really follow that. So these are all places he totally has permission to be. You can say, "Okay, well, the focus is: why is one of them not working better?" Or you try something — you launch it, and it does fine."
26:10	Sam Parr	But what do you do with the fine thing, as someone running his clothing company?
26:14	Billy Parks	Yeah. I mean, I think that's what you do with the fine thing: you say, "Okay, this thing is doing fine—let's make sure somebody's running it." And I'm sure somebody's running it. He—he's a prolific content creator, so I'm sure he has partners and operators that are running these things. Being a leadership guy and being in the military, I'm sure his network is vast when it comes to getting great operators and knowing how to work with them and communicate with them. I mean, he's a proper entrepreneur.
26:37	Sam Parr	You know what's funny is I... I guess I am a creator, which I don't have anything wrong with as a title, but I didn't set out to become that. I previously started a business, and I was mildly okay at running a company. I'm pretty good at hiring, but I was mildly okay at doing the work myself. I would say I'm mildly okay at being a creator, but finding operators is still hard for me, and working with them as a partner is quite challenging. How do you find a partner if, let's say, you're listening to this and you have 20,000 or 30,000 followers and you're like, "something is here, but I don't know when to get help"? How do you decide when and how?
27:19	Billy Parks	Yeah, I mean, I think entrepreneurs have to be able to do that. That is kind of one of the telltale signs: if they're a founder, they know how to hire and they can attract people to hire. Which is to say, if you're a creator who does general comedy or general entertainment and you decide, "Okay, I want to start a coffee brand" or "I want to start goo in a bottle," I think attracting an operator is going to be very hard. They're going to ask, "Is this person really going to put the time into it? Are they really behind it? Is their audience really going to believe it? Is their audience really going to move when they say move?" You have to have a real value proposition for an operator to want to come on board and work with you. So I think if you have sound principles in what you want to build and why, you can find a good operator. Part of that is the test—at least for what we invest in. We invest in a creator who is a founder that can attract talent to run their businesses. Where do you go to find them? First, you have to decide what your special sauce is and where you need support. I've heard you talk about this many times: identify the places where you need support, and be very clear about that. Make sure you're attracting talent that's going to cover the 180 degrees. Also, you don't have to marry right away—you can kind of date before you marry. That is to say, work on some projects with them. Say, "Hey, I want to build this out; I want to try this out." Make sure you're putting enough capital into it so you have money to pay an operator and so that you have a plan for it. I think it's really important. We look for folks that can attract that kind of talent.
29:01	Sam Parr	"Can I ask you about—maybe one or two more of these interesting folks? I love hearing about this. Also, after that I'm going to ask you: if you're starting from scratch, which niches or categories do you like?"
29:14	Billy Parks	I love it. Okay, so there are a couple creators who are really interesting in the auto-care space. There's this great guy named Larry—he has a company called AMMO NYC—and Larry does detailing of, like, celebrity cars.
29:30	Sam Parr	Wow. Larry has 2.3 million subscribers on YouTube, and all he's doing is cleaning cars and making videos about it.
29:39	Billy Parks	He details cars.
29:40	Sam Parr	Sorry — yeah, that was the caveman version of that. I'm looking at his videos. First of all, there's like a $4,000,000 mansion that he cleans. But then there's also gonna be, like, a car that's been in a barn, like...
29:51	Billy Parks	A barn. Barn.
29:51	Sam Parr	And that's going to take a week, right?
29:55	Billy Parks	Yeah, yeah. So—Larry has a robust business cleaning celebrity cars that are either going to auction or are part of a badass collection. They'll be taking them to a car show or going on a trip with all the "hot-shot" car owners. He really gets in there and truly understands the cars. He has built products with his own mixtures and has made his own brushes, towels, and everything—sold all D2C [direct-to-consumer]. He uses the top-of-funnel content, which is the car-content of detailing these cars. It's kind of car porn for people, and any car enthusiast who has a proper collection knows Larry and uses his products.
30:51	Sam Parr	"Dude, I would watch these videos on silent. They'd be playing in the background on my Apple TV for 8 hours while I'm just hanging out during the day."
30:59	Billy Parks	Just Larry is awesome. Check out this other guy, Detail Geek. So this is the other side of Larry.
31:06	Sam Parr	"Oh my God, this guy has almost 4 million subscribers. So what does he do? Like, more low-end stuff?"
31:11	Billy Parks	He just—like, he is somewhere in, I want to say, the Dakotas or the Midwest. I don't know; I can't remember exactly where.
31:21	Sam Parr	He's somewhere where they drive lots of pickup trucks that get dirty.
31:24	Billy Parks	"That's right. It looks like the cars have been, for like, four weeks, on a hunting trip in the mud, with him getting out shotgun shells. He does these twenty-minute-long videos that get insane views, and he, too, launched his own products called Detail Geek. Really, really interesting guy. I've tried to talk to him many times; I talked to him once. He's very happy with his lifestyle business. He does not want to engage with people who invest in these things and help scale them. He's like, "I like my family. I like my life, and I make good money," and Bob's your uncle — he doesn't need it. Let you know: Larry is a little bit more in the sexy world, but the Detail Geek does not care."
32:11	Sam Parr	"This guy's awesome. What's your—yeah, what's your... You probably can't say. It's a stupid question for me to even ask, but I would think this company does more than $10,000,000 in revenue." </FormattedResponse>
32:21	Billy Parks	Here's what I'll say: all of these middle-class creators, I think, have the ability to become venture-style businesses with the right founder and the right hires. Which is to say: direct-to-consumer businesses where somebody came up with an idea—like Casper, glasses you can buy over the internet, or shoes that are different. They were kind of built in a brand boardroom, and somebody said, "Okay, well, I have a new product that I think the audience wants, and then I'm gonna go build a brand, build an audience, and spend a bunch of money to build customers." These kinds of middle-class brands have gotten to a place where they're like, "I already have the audience; I know product–market fit; I'm ready to go." Then the right fuel to the fire determines whether they're going to get to venture scale or not.
33:13	Sam Parr	When they're starting, is it just—oftentimes them with an iPhone, editing either on their phone or on their computer? And how big have you seen them get with just doing it in that sort of scrappy, hustler way?
33:28	Billy Parks	Great — that's a great camera. So, Mary — back to Mary — she just shoots everything on her iPhone. That's it. She's on Instagram; she shoots everything on her iPhone and it goes on her Reels. It's just her making the content. That's one version of it. If the question from your audience is, "Can I get started without a big setup?" the answer is yes. Obviously, it depends on the genre you're in and the stories you're telling. Mary is telling a story about her life; she's relatable. You want to know where your meat comes from — it's Mary; it comes from her. It's not highly produced or beautiful; it's just Mary doing her thing. Mary's rad, her kids are rad, and her husband's rad — you can tell that right away. Larry started with a small setup, and now he's got a three-bay (or four-bay) garage at his spot in Connecticut that's all lit. He's got a guy who shoots with him, but he still does it all himself.
34:27	Sam Parr	But it's just two guys—two guys with almost 3 million subscribers, basically.
34:32	Billy Parks	Yeah, I mean, he's got more people that work in the business, but yeah — it's like two or three guys. It's a beautiful studio.
34:38	Sam Parr	"Yeah."
34:38	Billy Parks	The detail spot is all well lit. He's very intentional about the look and feel, and that makes sense for these high-end cars. It's for people who are very wealthy, who have multimillion-dollar car collections and who are watching this kind of video. You don't want to just shoot it on an iPhone; you want it to look beautiful because Larry cares about what one side of the car looks like before and what the other side looks like after. You really have to show that. So you need equipment and you need light, and you can't just shoot it in the front driveway. There's one more really funny story I think you would like. There's this guy named "Tonester" [unclear name—possibly Tony; speaker didn't want to butcher his last name].
35:22	Sam Parr	He better—he better be some Italian guy with the name Tonester.
35:25	Billy Parks	So, he was working at Sherwin-Williams, making paint blends. It was an entry-level job.
35:32	Sam Parr	"Oh—tone, like paint tone. I thought it was, like, Tony from the garage with a slicked-back look."
35:37	Billy Parks	It's like a little bit of that. He's not a slick old guy like that — he's an interesting cat, and he's done a great job. So he starts making TikToks while he's working at Sherwin-Williams, while he's blending paint: just talking about paint blends and casually posting TikToks. He starts to blow up, and then he gets fired from Sherwin-Williams because he's using their office for TikTok.
36:00	Sam Parr	Oh, they blew that one.
36:02	Billy Parks	Which is like, duh, right? So he launched his own paint brand — my God — called "Tonester Paints." It's like running a clown car into a bank. Other than he's not a clown; he's really smart and he's done a really great job. And if you look at his TikTok, you know, he's got north of a million followers and he has, like...
36:22	Sam Parr	A dude on TikTok — he's got 2.3 [million followers?], and on YouTube he's got almost that. All the videos are literally just a camera on a paint can, and he sticks the drills in there and mixes it. That's all it is.
36:34	Billy Parks	That's right. So that's kind of like — back to your story — where you can just start, and if you hit the right audience, you can really build it out. I think the ones that are... we'll see how he does. He's doing great now, he's a smart business guy, and he's figuring it out. Is that a venture-scale business? Like, is he going to have his own Sherwin-Williams? Is it going to get to $100,000,000 in the air? He could. It depends on execution. I think the ones that I look at, and the things that we want to invest in at Slow, and the things that I think have a better shot to get to venture-scale businesses, are the ones that have been building audience trust for years, that are known for that specific niche, that have a really strong community, and where the creators are entrepreneurs.
37:23	Sam Parr	"How long are they typically creating content before they launch a product?"
37:28	Billy Parks	They could do it on their first one, or they could do it after four or five years. You know, Jonathan Katz [Moses the Woodworker] launched a product very soon after, and his story was largely about launching that product. He also did a lot of videos about woodworking—tips and tricks—and people were following him for a while. So I don't think there's a single rule; I think it just depends on your niche and your audience. You really have to be a trusted voice of authority in your niche. People really trust Jocko. People really trust Atiyah. People really trust Huberman. People really trust Mary.
38:06	Sam Parr	But I'll push back a little bit on that—because, okay: Jocko was a veteran, so he knows about being tough, which is kind of his thing. Peter Attia is a doctor, so he knows about health. But, yeah... this guy worked at Sherwin-Williams.
38:22	Billy Parks	I agree. That's why it's like... who knows?
38:23	Sam Parr	"It's not like you need a PhD. I'm not trying to discredit them, but I bet I could spend one year learning how to clean cars and make at least interesting enough content. Then, after a little while longer, I could formulate a product. You know what I mean? It's not like I need to— I don't need to spend eight years of schooling to do this." </FormattedResponse>
38:43	Billy Parks	Totally. I agree with you. Exactly — which is to say Tonester is a "we'll see," because he hasn't spent... For me, somebody who has spent years and years and earned trust—back to your architecture/artist idea—somebody who has built five or six years of trust and authenticity with an audience and scaled it has more permission to launch. You feel better about their understanding of the industry, product–market fit, feedback from their audience, their lane, and what they can sell. You feel better about investing in someone who's been in it for a long time versus someone who's only been creating content for a couple of years. So Tonester is a big "we'll see." I think he's great, he's smart, and he's going to do something. But someone like Larry — yeah, I think you could start a detailed channel and grow it, but Larry's been doing this for ten years. When it comes to getting distribution and scaling — like the Chemical Guys did — they took an $800,000,000 check. They had shops and locations and scaled into all the different auto specialty shops and Home Depot and everywhere. That comes from years and years of being involved in the industry and really understanding the white space and your audience. People who are just getting started... Mary has been at it for six, seven years and built that trust. So I think the ones that build the trust and understand the community really have an opportunity to scale in a way that somebody who's just getting started is more of a "let's see."
40:20	Sam Parr	So, you can use a little bit of me as an example, but just—okay—just the audience: anyone who's listening and has a passion. I've sort of thought, "Oh, it might be interesting to do YouTube or Instagram a little bit more. It might be interesting to get into this creator space." What's the lesson I should learn from these people about a repeatable process? What are the best practices I should take away? I know this is part art—if you have an it factor, it can just kind of work—but surely there's some type of workout plan. </FormattedResponse>
41:11	Billy Parks	That's a good question. A couple of things come to mind, and we can decide together if it's a complete answer or not. I think, for you personally — or to take you as an example — you should double down on the stuff that's really interesting to you, the things you want to talk about and bring people into. You can build an audience around your journey. You're already doing a lot of that now: business building, an interest in entrepreneurs, and curiosity about what's going on in the business world. That can feed into whether this will work at the bottom of the funnel, where you can go beyond being a creator every day. For example: you like motorcycles, you are sober, you have a family, and you're interested in intentionally raising your kids and being a husband. Think through the things that are your passions and hobbies — the things that bring you the most joy — and double down on creating for those areas. Keep in mind it doesn't have to be day one, but pretty soon you should be thinking about creating content, building an audience, and establishing yourself as a voice of authority in something that has a bottom-of-the-funnel.
42:21	Sam Parr	"Bottom of the funnel" — meaning a product that I could eventually sell.
42:25	Billy Parks	Yes. Kevin sells raised farm beds and seeds. Doug sells cars. Jonathan, the woodworker, sells tools. The detailer sells chemicals. The tone stir guy sells paint. Mary sells meat. You know, on and on and on.
42:39	Sam Parr	"Do you think it's safe to say that any content niche can come up with a product or service that can sell? Or should you think first, 'What could I sell?' and then, 'Let me think of which content falls within that category—something I'd be willing to dedicate ten years to creating content around'?"
42:54	Billy Parks	"Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think you don't want to—it's really hard to sell products if you're just funny, right?"
43:02	Sam Parr	Dude, those people—like I was telling you about my Mormon buddies. The L.A. and New York crowd might laugh at them: "Oh, these..." They might be highbrow and look down on them. The funny New York or L.A. actor/comedian crew I know who make content—they're—yeah, they're broke. They don't sell anything.
43:22	Billy Parks	That's right. I think you can build a big audience that doesn't transact, and you should be careful about that. If you're in a niche passion category that you like, learn, and love, you will eventually figure out what the white space is and you can build a product or a service that works there. I can give you more examples of people who are doing that. If you're building content, you have to keep in mind what's the bottom of the funnel—what am I moving people to? Start by building a voice of authority in an area. Even if you have a large, scaled audience in an area, that doesn't mean you can move product. You have to learn how to do it. The people we've been talking about today have learned how to move product, build product, manage supply chain and hiring, run subscriptions and blogs, prevent audience churn, and keep things in stock. You're an entrepreneur—you've got to know how to build a business. That is to say, there are two kinds of business—well, there are lots of kinds, but two broad types. One is a lifestyle business, where it's like, "Hey, I can make $1,000,000 a year doing this," or "I can make [half of $1,000,000] a year doing this," or "I can make $2,000,000 a year doing this," and that's just fine with me. The problem with that model—relying on varied deals, AdSense, merch, and a couple little things here and there—is that once you stop, your revenue goes away.
44:46	Sam Parr	"You're just a freelancer."
44:47	Billy Parks	Yeah, exactly. You've built something that you can't exit. For some people, that's okay — it's not a question of what's better or worse. But if you're going to spend five years building your audience, build them into something you can transact into. Add value to them with "cool new tools," "great, ethically sourced meat," "cool color tones for your bedroom," or anything else that adds value to your audience.
45:15	Sam Parr	Is there a medium or a platform that matters? We've talked about TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube — those are all video. One thing that I've predicted... I wrote this; we did a podcast on it where I said, "There hasn't been a billion‑dollar Twitter creator," but I think there will be. There might be some now. I said this like three or four years ago. Do you think that it has to be video and audio, or just video? We know podcasting works too, so... video and audio?
45:40	Billy Parks	I think video and audio are the examples I've seen where people have been able to build kind of lifestyle- or venture-scale businesses. I think audio is a great way to connect with your audience consistently. You can really own the relationship and build a cadence of trust with them. It's a very intimate platform: if you love something, you listen to it weekly. Video is the same way. Building an ecosystem around video-first platforms, for me, has more signal.
46:15	Sam Parr	I was gonna ask you what niches you think someone should exploit. You said that was you — you gave me the energy. That was hard to answer, but I'm gonna... so I'm gonna, like, tease you.
46:23	Billy Parks	"Up, you push me."
46:24	Sam Parr	Yeah, well, I'm definitely going to push you, but we're going to ease.
46:26	Billy Parks	Into. Push me, push me.
46:27	Sam Parr	Listen.
46:27	Billy Parks	Yeah.
46:28	Sam Parr	"Yeah. So I'm sure that you have a list of creators that have 1 to 5,000 people, and you see them and you're like, 'Oh, they've got something here.' Who is on that list? Is there anyone like that, or a category like that?"
46:46	Billy Parks	"I’m going to preface this by saying a lot of the companies we’ve talked about here are very dude-focused. I also want to say that there are lots of categories I’m still learning about and getting better at. One that I think is really interesting is everyday carry."
47:04	Sam Parr	"Everyday carry" — are you referring to handguns, or does that include things like Mason knives and other items? </FormattedResponse>
47:09	Billy Parks	I think knives... I mean, obviously we've seen what's going on with Ridge Wallet. But a creator that owns that—like, what you keep in your pocket every day—those items matter: wallet, watch, keychain, pens, writing tools. There are creators out there who focus on this. There's a really cool, scaled company that sells knives called Blade HQ. It's also a company in Utah, and they started creating content because they couldn't advertise—they were selling what is considered, by the internet, weapons. I think the everyday carry creator community is growing. Some of them are really popping up, though some haven't reached scale yet.
47:56	Sam Parr	You know what? I completely agree with that. If I was listening to this... I think there can be a Hodinkee — Hodinkee was a watch blog that eventually... </FormattedResponse>
48:05	Billy Parks	I was on the board of Hodinkee. Yeah, we invested in a churn.
48:08	Sam Parr	And I don't know. The outcome wasn't as expected, but that doesn't...
48:11	Billy Parks	That's right.
48:12	Sam Parr	But I don't think that meant the business itself was bad. I don't know anything about the company, but if I had to guess, maybe they just grew too fast or something like that. You can correct me if I'm wrong. But I think there should be a Hodinkee for fountain pens, or a Hodinkee for fancy pens.
48:26	Billy Parks	I agree. I mean, I think those are the kind of things that, when we see them, we're like, "whoa." You know, chess creators — really interesting. People who play chess, passionate — you know, that's interesting. Yeah, fountain pens, any of the everyday-carry stuff is great. I also think [“two egg creators” — unclear] — like Second Amendment‑right creators who are teaching, or who do product reviews on different guns, different [word unclear], and different holsters and things like that — have a massive audience. We've seen what happened with Black Rifle Coffee, yeah. But the ones who are actually teaching about tactics and safety, and different weapons and scopes, and [“vinyls” — unclear] to kind of carry it — those have massive audiences. Some of them have built scaled businesses, and I think those are an interesting category as well.
49:13	Sam Parr	There's a guy named—actually, this is the first time I ever said this word out loud. It's one of those words that I read and I know, but I'm afraid to say it. I don't know if it's Hickcock or Hickock. "'45" — I thought maybe that meant he's in Oklahoma, like a redneck, and that he was born in 1945. Right?
49:29	Billy Parks	And right.
49:29	Sam Parr	He's this old man that you would only understand if you live in the South or the Midwest—like I am from. We all had grandfathers like this: they wore overalls or Wrangler jeans and a flannel shirt. They're pretty nice and stoic, and you like being around them. Well, that's what this guy is, except his passion is every type of gun on earth. He'll do, like, a machine gun and say, "Oh, this is a cute little machine gun—let's see what it's about." Or he'll be doing a Revolutionary War cannon or the type of gun from the Civil War where, you know, "they put the thing down and then they load the blacks" [unclear: "blacks"]. I don't know anything about this stuff; I just like watching it. Or he'll do something like a silencer on a gun and you're like, "What's that sound like?" Have you ever seen this guy? He's got 8,000,000 subscribers on YouTube.
50:23	Billy Parks	"No, I haven't seen him."
50:24	Sam Parr	Oh my God, it's like...
50:26	Billy Parks	"Look at T. rex arms."
50:27	Sam Parr	He's the Bob Ross of guns — that's the best way to put it.
50:31	Billy Parks	That's awesome. Yeah, there are some newer cats on the scene. Like, check out T-Rex Arms. It was started by a couple brothers — one of them's name was Luke Lucas Botkin — and he's actually since broken off from T-Rex Arms. But it's like tactical, Second Amendment creators: a massive firearms accessory business. They do some advertising, but there are a lot of restrictions on that. They sell their own tactical gear, have a total cult-like loyalty, and they're running a really scaled business now. What's crazy is Lucas was part of the brothers, and Lucas and the brothers have split; Lucas is now starting his own thing. I'm actually interested to see what Lucas builds on his own and if T-Rex continues to grow. But that's a properly scaled business.
51:16	Sam Parr	Alright, so, everyday carry. What else?
51:18	Billy Parks	I mentioned chess. I think that's interesting. People are really passionate about it, and we've seen some really cool, scaled businesses come out of chess.
51:25	Sam Parr	"What's a chess business that's scaled?" </FormattedResponse>
51:28	Billy Parks	Chess.com
51:30	Sam Parr	I mean, that's a multi-billion-dollar company.</FormattedResponse>
51:32	Billy Parks	"That's right. That's right — jujitsu."
51:37	Sam Parr	Yeah, we know that.
51:38	Billy Parks	"That's a really great category. Have you seen Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Fanatics?"
51:42	Sam Parr	Yeah, I live in Texas, man. I feel like if you... you... you... like, everyone did that shit.
51:48	Billy Parks	Yeah. Look up the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Fanatics website. This is a two-sided marketplace started by a Jiu-Jitsu champion and a guy who kind of "did commute, like continuing education" [unclear]. This is a scale.
52:00	Sam Parr	Of course.
52:01	Billy Parks	I know who this.
52:01	Sam Parr	"Guy, is this the famous coach, right?"
52:04	Billy Parks	Right, but what it does is it's a two-sided marketplace. Jiu-jitsu instructors can upload their videos, and people can sort through them. For example: "I want to learn how to do a rear-naked choke" or "I want to learn how to sprawl better," or whatever. They can pick coaches they like. The site can help identify coaches you might be interested in. It's totally Web 1.0.
52:26	Sam Parr	This is great.
52:27	Billy Parks	And I can't say how much they're doing, but it's a good business.
52:30	Sam Parr	"What about you being the creator?"
52:32	Billy Parks	"No, man, this is, like, the hardest thing I do. Talking... seeing myself on the internet is, like, my least favorite thing. I'm very excited to talk to you — I think what you want to talk about is great — but, man, I will never watch this because I just cannot watch myself. I cannot be a..." [sentence trails off]
52:47	Sam Parr	Dude, no one watches themselves. I've seen MFN in my life, and it's one of those things where you just have to have tough skin. The Mormon family I mentioned? They have a whole subreddit dedicated to mocking them. I met them — these people were the most...
53:04	Billy Parks	They're the nicest people in the world, yeah.
53:05	Sam Parr	It was the most loving family. They took us in. I felt like I barely knew them, and I was their cousin. They were like—yeah, the most loving family—and people mocked them like crazy. Then on our pod someone would say, "You're fatter or skinnier than I thought," or "You look older," or "You look young." We get mocked constantly.
53:22	Billy Parks	Yeah, no — I think it's a very hard thing to do: putting yourself out there and building an audience around the things you're really passionate about. I love the idea of getting involved in a creator-led business, but right now I really love the thesis we have at Slow: supporting creators, building them out, and matching capital to creators who are entrepreneurs and who want to build things at scale.
53:45	Sam Parr	Let's say someone said, "Alright, you gotta quit slow right now and you have to go and join." We'll give you, like, a draft: you get three picks—yeah, three picks—of creators that you're like, "I wanna... oh." </FormattedResponse>
53:55	Billy Parks	Actual creators.
53:56	Sam Parr	I want to join that company and I want, like, a little stake in it. Are there three that you think are going to the moon? You know, we have this thing called Sarah's List. Sarah was my wife—because she joined, we planned where she could join Airbnb at a time where she could still have a very comfy gig, like a $40k role. Yes, you're not totally grinding and you get a good salary, but your stock could still 10x. There was a "Billy List" for you and traders that you like. What would the top three or four be? </FormattedResponse>
54:29	Billy Parks	Oh my god — I love what Kevin and Doug are doing at Epic Gardening and Cars and Bits. Those are both people I like and would like to work with, which is kind of my most important criterion. If you asked me hypothetically whether I would go and work with a creator, I would need to love them as a human and love the category. Those are both categories I can really get behind.
54:57	Sam Parr	I just sold my car on Cars & Bids.
54:59	Billy Parks	"Oh, you did what, Car?"
55:00	Sam Parr	2020 AMG E 63 station wagon
55:04	Billy Parks	Nice. Were you happy with the price?
55:06	Sam Parr	Yeah, I got what I wanted. I hit my reserve.
55:08	Billy Parks	"Oh, good. Yeah, I think that's awesome. I only own old cars, so now that Doug is selling old cars as well, I can sell my Scout if I'm ready to move on. But I—that's great. Yeah, yeah, it can be a really good buying experience for everybody. Okay, you should follow Sarah McAllister. Sarah McAllister has a company called Go Clean Go. Right now, Sarah is just like the queen of clean, and people have been following her since the pandemic. She's been building—she's got a couple million subscribers on Instagram; I think 2.4 million—and I think she's got a real shot to build a really awesome business. I think she's really cool."
55:48	Sam Parr	Wait, does she own housework.com?</FormattedResponse>
55:50	Billy Parks	> "That's what it is. I don't remember exactly what it is, but yeah. > She has people that love her. They dress up for her at Halloween. > She is a badass and she is really cool, so I really like that business."
56:04	Sam Parr	Does she sell anything yet, or is it just... it looks like she doesn't even have her own products. It still looks like she's predominantly a media company.
56:12	Billy Parks	She mostly makes revenue through affiliate links, brand deals, and similar partnerships at the moment.
56:17	Sam Parr	"Oh, this lady's gonna kill us. That's a good one."
56:19	Billy Parks	I think she's great.
56:20	Sam Parr	The Queen of Clean — that's a good one.
56:22	Billy Parks	I don't know if that's what anybody calls her, but I just said that.
56:26	Sam Parr	Dude, if this lady comes out with a laundry detergent, that's going to be the greatest thing ever.
56:31	Billy Parks	I really like her. I also really like a creator named Gohar Khan. When he was 13, 14, or maybe even younger, he started making Minecraft YouTube videos and built a massive audience. Then he kind of put it down, focused on school, and got into MIT. When he was at MIT—during COVID—he started making videos about going to an Ivy, like going to MIT. I think he has… you tell me; I don't have it in front of me—does he have 6 million YouTube subscribers?
57:09	Sam Parr	"Yeah—more. Oh my God, I'm looking at his numbers. How so? Is he in his teens still?"
57:16	Billy Parks	So he launched this—no, no, no. He's post-college, and he's launched this thing called NextAdmit, which helps students write college entrance exams.
57:25	Sam Parr	Just teaches them how to use ChatGPT.</FormattedResponse>
57:27	Billy Parks	No, it teaches them—like, teaches them how to write, right? So he has people that read through them who have also been in the Ivies. He reads through them and he basically, you know, at—I don't know—$80 a pop, helps you kind of do that. But he also gives a lot of information about how to think about the "big story" you're going to tell when you want to get into college—about the thing you did in high school. Now he's starting SAT prep courses, and he just knows his audience. He knows that young, first-generation kid who wants to get into that Ivy—not bums like you and I were in high school. He really has an opportunity to build a scaled service business that understands what kids are thinking and what kids want when they're trying to get into Ivies and they're trying to get...
58:15	Sam Parr	Into, that's colleges. </FormattedResponse>
58:16	Billy Parks	So, I like him a lot.
58:17	Sam Parr	Those are two. I'm good.
58:18	Billy Parks	Think he's really interesting.
58:19	Sam Parr	You want me to, and I'll—I'll wrap up by reciprocating. I'll give you my two...
58:22	Billy Parks	Okay, good. Yeah, yeah, yeah — please.
58:23	Sam Parr	"Do you have?"
58:24	Billy Parks	YouTube first, bro. I should've made you go first.
58:26	Sam Parr	While you were talking... So, the first one I mentioned: this guy's got a harder path to build a business because clothes are harder, but it's called The Iron Snail. I started following this guy a while ago. His background is that he went to film school. Sean and I talked about this on a previous podcast: creators nowadays—especially younger folks—are different. When YouTube was just getting started, it was all about being authentic, which meant kinda scrappy and just thrown together. Now it's way more well produced. This guy tells you both the history of clothing and things like why Jamaicans are obsessed with Clarks shoes. Apparently there's some history behind that.
59:11	Billy Parks	Oh, yeah.
59:11	Sam Parr	He'll also do, like, "Here's the highest-quality, lowest-priced clothing, ranked." He'll say, "Why are—why do Japanese make the best jeans on Earth?"
59:21	Billy Parks	Down right.
59:22	Sam Parr	And so he'll break down and do these really interesting... What's funny is the reason why he's going to win is because—even if you are a woman, even if you don't give a shit about clothing or history—you watch his videos because they're so well produced and because he's so funny. He's hilarious, so you're engaged and you're bought in. He is currently in the process of launching his own clothing line, and he's documenting it. Clothing is like the hardest thing ever, so it's going to be a hard business. The second one is Project Air. Look up Project Air—it's this young guy named James who's in the UK. It originally started out with him building model airplanes. What started as a model plane turned into an RC plane, which then turned into "I'm going to build the world's fastest RC jet" or "I'm going to build the world's largest RC jet" or "I'm going to set the land-speed record for an RC car." He's even done things like "I'm going to send a rocket up like SpaceX and have it land right back down," except he's going to do it in his garage. It became like hacker engineering stuff, where the things he does are actually incredibly challenging math problems. He's a proper engineer. He has one video where he built an RC battleship and said he's going to have them fight and sink each other.
01:00:53	Billy Parks	So.
01:00:53	Sam Parr	Good. I see this guy, and I see what...
01:00:55	Billy Parks	Do you think his bottom of the funnel is...?
01:00:57	Sam Parr	Selling RC kits. It's very similar to Mark. What's...
01:01:02	Billy Parks	Mark Rober. Crunch. Yeah.
01:01:03	Sam Parr	"It's very similar, where it's educational stuff. If I had to guess, a large percentage of fathers like me—who want my children to like what I think is cool—feel the same way. I don't want to build an RC plane and take it somewhere. I'm going to look like a pedophile going and doing this shit. I'm going to be weird. But if I get my kid into it, I can still, you know, have fun and do this shit. You know what I mean? I don't want to buy an RC car and take it to a school."
01:01:26	Billy Parks	"How old is your little one again?" </FormattedResponse>
01:01:28	Sam Parr	We've got a ways to go.
01:01:29	Billy Parks	You've got a ways to go, but you're just gonna bring them along in the prank. "Yeah — I'll be like, 'Yeah.'"
01:01:33	Sam Parr	Yeah—my kid's just a prop, basically, so I can go to a schoolyard with a really fast RC car.
01:01:40	Billy Parks	Awesome.
01:01:41	Sam Parr	I think there's a bottom-of-the-funnel opportunity for that: to build model kits.
01:01:46	Billy Parks	I will check him out. Yeah—Rover has done it right. I mean, that business has exploded. Those guys have done a great job building out those subscription kits.
01:01:54	Sam Parr	And there's this entire—there's this one guy. His name's Remi, I think: R‑E‑M‑I. This will be my last one. Type in "Remi RC plane" and check this out. This is so strange. So it's R‑A‑M‑I R‑C. He has a million followers. Tell me what the first video you see says. Can you—can you tell me what that says?
01:02:16	Billy Parks	Remy RC plane — the world's biggest RC. 29 million views on this one: building an Airbus.
01:02:24	Sam Parr	This guy is building a freaking Airbus. He's building remote-control airplanes that are the size of an Olympic-sized pool. Like, this shit—it's basically a fucking plane he's building. And there's a really weird part about this: they never truly call this out. I think maybe they do occasionally.
01:02:43	Billy Parks	Okay.
01:02:43	Sam Parr	But you're gonna see them on, like, an airstrip, and you're gonna see him take off from a house. And you're like, "Is this guy— is Remy just a rich guy with a... with a— where? What is going on?"
01:02:54	Billy Parks	Right.
01:02:55	Sam Parr	It's Tyler Perry's house. Tyler Perry's hobby is that he loves RC planes, and he is this guy's patron. This guy, Remy — I don't know if he lives there or if he just spends some time there, but Tyler Perry...
01:03:11	Billy Parks	He just puts him—he just puts him in a pram and takes him to the park.
01:03:13	Sam Parr	He... I don't know what he does, but Tyler Perry has this massive hangar at his house. Except—I bet he has a hangar with real planes, too. To be honest, he's so wealthy. He also has one dedicated to RC planes. It's so funny: Tyler makes cameos. You'll see him basically flying. I know that Tyler's paying for it because Tyler is always the one flying the plane. These guys, Remy, will build the jets and just hand them to this guy who they barely talk about or mention. It's Tyler flying the jet because they don't want to wreck it. You know, it probably costs $100 for this jet. They even call it out—"flying planes with Tyler Perry"—but that's basically it. They barely talk about the fact that it's just this guy. I think he's from Dubai.
01:03:58	Billy Parks	I say, "Internet, bro — that's the Internet."
01:04:00	Sam Parr	It's so cool. This guy has a million followers, and I think that's, like, another interesting thing. So those are my picks.
01:04:06	Billy Parks	That's good. This isn't a pick—that, like... my—anyway, you should check this one out. Have you seen Hacksmith? </FormattedResponse>
01:04:14	Sam Parr	What's Hacksmith?</FormattedResponse>
01:04:15	Billy Parks	Dude, these guys just dropped something called the Smith Blade.
01:04:19	Sam Parr	"Oh, these guys are gonna kill it."
01:04:21	Billy Parks	Dude, they just did $7,000,000 on Kickstarter in, like, a week. Thirteen—well, it says thirteen days to go. I think they dropped it this time last week; that's what I want to say: $7,000,000.
01:04:35	Sam Parr	And it's just a box cutter.</FormattedResponse>
01:04:37	Billy Parks	It's not a "no"—it's a multitool. A multitool is like a Swiss Army knife, right? It's got five different kinds of knives on it. You know, a Swiss Army knife is going to have your toothpick and your tweezers, and a couple different kinds of knives that have different edges and blades on them. This one is built with the intention of including everything you would want. These guys also sell lightsabers — you have to check out their YouTube page.
01:05:00	Sam Parr	Oh my God, and they have 15 million* subscribers.*
01:05:04	Billy Parks	Yeah, they sell lightsabers and all kinds of other things. "What's a lightsaber?" </FormattedResponse>
01:05:10	Sam Parr	Is that just a flashlight?
01:05:12	Billy Parks	A lightsaber? Have you seen Star Wars?
01:05:14	Sam Parr	I know what it is, but I don't know how... you know, to make one.
01:05:17	Billy Parks	So you haven't seen— you just know about Star Wars? You haven't seen Star Wars? </FormattedResponse>
01:05:20	Sam Parr	No, I was playing sports and stuff and going outside.
01:05:23	Billy Parks	I also played sports, and I know—I know what Star Wars is.
01:05:28	Sam Parr	I know what it is, but I don't know how. Is it a flame?
01:05:31	Billy Parks	"It's a little—it's a mini lightsaber, bro. Check it out. I mean, they call those 'sabers.'"
01:05:36	Sam Parr	"What's that that comes out of the metal part? A piece of plastic?"
01:05:39	Billy Parks	Light.
01:05:40	Sam Parr	But that's just a flashlight, no?
01:05:42	Billy Parks	They're, yeah — they're badass flashlights. You could call them that. They're $150 Canadian, $350 Canadian, or $500 Canadian. They're, like, badass.
01:05:53	Sam Parr	"Dude, I just bought a $500 laser pointer the other day, because apparently if I can shine it on a piece of paper it's going to light it on fire. I'm not saying I'm above this."
01:06:00	Billy Parks	Yo. No—no one's above this. This is cool. I'm into it. I'll tell you, no—no one's above it. These guys just sold $7,000,000 in multi-tools in, like, a week. </FormattedResponse>
01:06:12	Sam Parr	Wives are still willing to have sex with us by the end of this episode. Billy, man — you're cool. I'm really thankful that you came on, and, hopefully, we'll stay friends. But you're the man.
01:06:25	Billy Parks	Yeah, man — thanks for having me on. I love what you're doing, and now, happy hunting.
01:06:30	Sam Parr	Thank you. That's it. That's the pod.

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7 YouTubers Making +$5M/Year With Weird Hobbies

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