Building a strength sports media empire with David Thomas Tao of Barbend.com

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Hey, this is Jim. This
episode is our conversation with David Thomas Tao,

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co founder of Barbin dot com and
until recently CEO, when they were

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actually acquired a couple of months ago
by by Pillar four, and which is

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kind of an exciting thing to talk
about in the strength space, that someone

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who is providing news on the strength
world actually gets acquired by a serious media

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company. It seemed I would have
never bet that that would have happened years

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ago, but it certainly did.
David somebody that I should have crossed paths

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with by now, but I hadn't. Mike certainly had. Anyway, we

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had a great conversation with him that
we really enjoyed. Not always the biggest

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fan of doing remote interviews, but
this one was great because he was a

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great guest. David's in New York
City and they just had the experience of

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the Canadian wildfires blowing smoke their direction, and we're in California and we have

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that stuff all the time here.
So anyway, that's what's going on at

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the beginning of this conversation. It
starter starts in media race, but enjoy

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it. So we had them on
because we're in the Valley basically. So

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we had them on three sides of
us and it looked like that. Yeah,

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so we had the COVID going on. They're telling you to wear every

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mask in the sun, and then
we have like fucking ash flying from the

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sky and they're telling you don't leave
your house because you're gonna inhale flames or

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something else. Seeing the world like
that literally does feel like, uh uh,

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like a Harrison Ford movie or some
shit. Yeah it's Blade Runner.

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Yeah, something is crazy. I
was seeing those pictures on Twitter in New

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York. I was like, holy
shit, Yeah, Dune is a better

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analogy. That's a little more like
topical. I haven't seen the whole thing

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or the Blade Runner sequel when they're
in Vegas. Yeah, Orange Sky liked

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it. I loved it, and
I didn't, you know, didn't like

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the original Blade Runner the first time
I saw it in the theater. I

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never saw the first I only saw
that one, same same director as the

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New Dude, right, Yeah,
which I loved, but I was a

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nerd for the original one too.
So Next Dunes coming soon, Yeah,

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this year, next year, I
think December ish. Yeah, I think

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they should just call it Next Dune. Yeah, like not Dune two,

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just next Dune. I don't even
Yeah, I need to catch up.

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Welcome to the Next Dune. I
haven't seen it, you haven't seen it?

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Yeah, or like Dune two next
to Dune. Yeah. And instead

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of all the funky names that go
with the books, was there is there

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three books? Oh no, no, no, no, the books are

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like there's like eight. Yeah,
there's like three that were written by Herbert,

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and then there were a bunch that
have like one of his family members

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names on that they were his side
ghost written by somebody else and they just

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used his name for the hell of
it. Yeah. Yeah, they're not

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as good after after that, Yeah, they get even. I didn't.

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The second one was okay, and
the third one it was just too stupid

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and sad. I don't like stupid
sad stories. I mean, like,

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you come out of the first book
and it's like, you know, okay,

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so victory has consequences, but it's
still victory, right, And then

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you get into the next one's it's
like, oh, this whole governing thing

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is really complicated and the politics are
going to kill us, and oh the

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politics killed us, and you know, I don't know, is that the

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core that Star Wars stole kind of
the political essence of Doune. Maybe is

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just what everyone says. Yeah maybe. I think like the universe that Dune

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made is so big it's like impossible
to say everything they came after it didn't

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still Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah that makes sense. Their attention

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to detail was so sick that everyone's
a copycat, just purely based off covering

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every yeah, facet of sci fi. Yeah, and and yeah, there

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was stuff that it was borrowed from
other you know, like classic sci fi

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stuff, and there were things that
were borrowed from like recognizable current culture too,

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you know, along the way that
made people able to resonate with it

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a little egg yet heavier than some
stuff. Yeah, Star Wars is like

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a perfect balance. I feel like
of like casual and nerdy, where Dune

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seems extra nerdy. Dude's pretty nerdy. Yeah, like like the Normans aren't

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speaking of Yeah, worry with David
Thomas Tao, who are your self proclaimed

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proclaimed strength nerd. I'm a I'm
a strength nerd and a whiskey nerd.

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I live at that middle of that
vent diagram. I feel like I feel

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like that's a pretty good portion.
Um whiskey and lifting for some reason go

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pretty hand in hand. Maybe it's
like the I don't even know what culture

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because vodka maybe is more popular in
the Russian strength world, but America,

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whiskey and lifting or kind of the
gig. Yeah, well it's kind of

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I yeah, I was just saying
Alexei to Rokti was in New York a

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couple of years ago. He's an
Olympic champion, a weightlifter who still does

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a lot of content and I was
hanging out with him and he was like,

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David, I've never tried the whiskey
before. That's wild. And I

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was like never and he's like,
no, huh no, never had He

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said the like the the the way
whisky, and uh that was great.

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It was cool to like introduce someone
to that. They're just not a brown

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liquor. That's wild. It's yeah, not really not really in Ukraine,

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I guess, uh, not much
of a culture around that, but yeah,

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I introduced him to it. He
he knows, he knows what's up

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now. Well that well, actually, that's a good question. That's a

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sort of down my list questions like
how do you introduce someone to whiskey who

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has no like, where do you
start, which what flavor you think it's

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going to be the most successful with
someone who doesn't have any experience with whiskey,

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just like a Hennessy and a diet
coke, because that's where I had

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a heady cooke. I think,
I think, I think the best place

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to start with whiskey for someone who's
completely new to it is probably bourbon.

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And that's not just because I'm from
Kentucky. It's sweeter, it's a little

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more accessible, like you can have
it anytime after a meal. With a

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meal. You don't want to start
with something or someone with something like really

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smoky or like super high proof.
Um, if someone's not used to like

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neat alcohol, I think like a
lower proof bourbon is a really good entry

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to that to see if they just
vibe with it. Plus they're sweeter typically

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and cheaper exactly because of the corn
I mean typically, I mean I can

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find you expensive bourbon. Yeah I
have. I have Bourbon. I paid

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way too much money for it.
Yeah, but like a decent bottle of

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bourbon is you know, forty bucks? Yeah exactly, exactly. Yeah.

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We we have on the set with
us and have since the beginning of of

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of you know what, when the
weekend that we opened the gym, there

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is a bottle of Red Breast twenty
one here that Mike lovingly procured for us.

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I had to google because I didn't
know shit about whiskey. I don't

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really know anything about anything, to
be honest, so I just kind of

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sit on Google. But that tasted
good taste. I love the older red

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breastuff. I have a bottle of
Redbreast twenty seven. I'm waiting to crack

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for my birthday this year, and
that stuff tastes like it tastes like liquid

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pineapple and papaya. It's like so
fruity. I absolutely love it. So

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is it. It's a big birthday
then, so well, every birthday can

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be big if you believe every piece
of everyday's gonna be a personal pizza,

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if you believe you're right exactly exactly. I say that, But like,

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my birthday's next month's right when everyone's
on vacation, So I always think it's

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gonna be like a big thing.
I invite all these people and it just

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turns into like meat drinking alone,
and I'm like, WHOA, we're doing

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it up. It's probably better that
way did people suck. I just had

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a big birthday and I got to
hang out with my grandkids. But that

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was it. I was, you
know, away from home. I had

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to travel the next day. I
was tired. Yeah. I don't really

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do birthdays. Yeah, I'm happy, happy thirtieth. By the way,

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Jim, Yeah, exactly times too. So yeah, um, what's so

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the average Jim Nerd meathhead lift your
guy partakes four to seven days a week,

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right, it's the average whiskey nerd
guy partake. So I mean you're

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just having a whiskey with each meal. You got a breakfast bourbon? Oh

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no, man. I Since I
started doing stuff in the whisky industry,

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like professional tastings, tasting panels,
reviews, I drink so much less.

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Yeah, because you just like blow
out your palette every night. If you

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drink all the time, and then
like you just can't. The temptations always

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there because there's like an event every
night you could go too. So I

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probably took like two to three maybe
evenings a week, and I count how

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many drinks I have. Otherwise I'm
just not able to function. That's my

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issue. I like alcohol a lot. I like a love red wine,

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but I'll have like one drink and
I'll be hungover for five days. One

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drink. It happens, It happens. It's so bad. It could be

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anything. I had one Corona last
summer and I'm fucked up for five days.

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Corona's fairly. I was gonna say, you're still You're still messed up.

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Yeah, I still probably shouldn't drive
days ago. You should definitely get

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your liver check because it's not like
I don't do steroids. I've never even

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gone through like a college binge phase. I think my liver's fought. I

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think maybe my liver is fucked.
I don't know. I think I'm just

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a sissy as part of the issue, and maybe that's it. I'm just

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running. Actually, what I like
to say to boost the confidences. I'm

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running so optimally that one negative step
backwards feels like just a whole wrench in

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this system. Yep, that's what, yep. Exactly. In college,

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I had a friend who had a
very low alcohol terrence tolerance and nothing wrong

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with that. He's shaming us and
he no, no, no, no

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no, but he he he vomited
once after having a couple of drinks,

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like just booze wasn't for him,
and he just came back from the bathroom

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at this party and he was like, man, my immune systems too strong.

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Yep, kicking out, all kicking
out, destroy all poisons. He

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just like he just like tapped.
He's like tapped his chest and he's like,

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systems too strong. Man. I'll
relate. I guess that works.

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I guess that works. I relate. Uh to say that. Uh So,

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you know, one of Mike's friends
was questioning me the other day about

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the whole, you know, process
of podcasting, because Mike and I've been

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doing it for almost ten years now, and he said, like, do

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you have do you like research guests
and you like have like a list of

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questions you want to ask or whatever? And I'm like, fuck, no,

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not really. I was sort of
a little bit. But there's been

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there's been a couple of guests that
if I had no clue who they were

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and no connection, yeah, I
might do a Google. And then we've

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done some touchy subject ones right where
I would google around. So I didn't

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sound like a total idiot that I
am. But most of the time that

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people we talked to are in our
spheres. Yeah, So the speaking of

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that. So the one question I
really have to ask is how have we

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not cross paths before? Now?
Yeah, I don't know if we've chatted

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either. Obviously worked with you in
your brand a good amount, I don't

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know if we've actually chatted. Mike, I'm I'm a little I'm a little

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sad you were on the Barben podcast
couple years ago that I remember that.

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I thought it was Jacoble at the
time. I was Jake there also or

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no, was it just me and
you? He was? He was?

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But I think you and me that
was on the podcast twenty sixteen, seventeen.

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Oh no, that was like twenty
twenty. Like my memories gone.

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We weren't we, right, My
memory has been gone for we weren't even

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around, like we We didn't have
the podcast until like twenty twenty. Uh

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yeah, I mean we only launched. We only started in like mid twenty

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sixteen. Dot com. But to
your yeah, barban dot com. Um

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to your question, Jim, how
did we not cross paths? Somebody asked

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me that recently in New York.
If they're in the fitness industry and they

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used to own a gym like a
few blocks from where I used to live,

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and They're like, how have we
not crossed paths? And I thought

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about it a lot, and my
answer is I'm just not very cool.

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And because of that, like people
aren't like introducing me to people. Like,

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people aren't like, oh, I
got to follow this guy on social

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I gotta see what he's up to. People are just like, no,

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I know, I got you on
Twitter. I got you on Twitter probably

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twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen. I
bet I you're like my one follower.

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Every tweet is just for you.
I followed you now, I had only

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had a mutual followed with Barbin,
but I didn't like, I hadn't followed

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you until very recently. But I
know that you've been friends with the Sturets

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for a long time, right,
Oh, they're great. I met the

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Sturets back in like twenty fourteen,
um, when their daughters were in elementary

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school, and now they're like in
college, and that just lows my mind.

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Give us, give us like a
thirty second rundown of who you are,

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what you do. Yeah, just
a quick background for the folks listening,

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because we didn't do any research.
You got it, I mean,

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because your research. Nice to meet
you. My name is David. Why

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the heck am my hair? Well, my name is David Tao. There

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are a lot of David Taos,
so I say David Thomas Taw so people

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can actually like figure out who the
heck guy I am. I co founded

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Barbend in twenty sixteen. That's probably
what I'm best known for. Barbend was

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my idea. I was a strength
nerd for years. I was a really

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shitty competitive lifter years for years in
weightlifting and then in like CrossFit, but

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I love the stuff. I just
immersed in it. I wanted to get

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to know the culture, and I
had a journalism background, So Barbend was

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like the site I always wanted because
I was tired of like having to go

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to fourteen different forums to get event
results and like training tips and stuff like

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that. So barban kind of started
out of a personal passion. It grew

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much quicker than we expected and then
basically grew the like raised money, grew

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the team. I was CEO of
barband. We were actually acquired two months

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ago, a little lesson two months
ago, and I'm still on the team

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because I want to be. All
of our employees switched over, all of

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our execs switched over, not because
we like have to. I want to

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be very transparent. There's no like
earnout for founders. But I kind of

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built my dream job, or was
lucky to fall into my dream job,

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you know, doing content around strength
sports and journalism around strength sports. So

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I can't really imagine working anywhere else. And then on the side, I'd

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do a lot of work in like
the whiskey space, the spirit space.

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I grew up in the little town
in Kentucky where they make most of the

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world's bourbon, Bardstown, so I've
kind of been interested in that connected to

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that industry for a long time.
I hear the Kentucky in your boy.

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That's a thing I was going to
marry. That was on my list.

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I don't know if you know Brandon
the old bird dog. Oh oh yeah.

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You talk to anyone else in my
family, they have it. I

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went to college. Okay, here's
the story. Here's here's how I lost

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the accent. I used to have
a little one. So I go to

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college in Boston. My like second
day on campus, I'm drinking out of

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a paper bag underage on the sidewalk
outside of like a frat that I got

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kicked out of and this this police
officers, like Boston cop comes up to

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me and he starts talking to me. He's clearly like mad, like I'm

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this like seventeen year old kid at
the time, just drinking on the sidewalk.

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That's not good. But I couldn't
understand what he was saying. And

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when I started talking because of his
accent. And when I started talking to

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him, he couldn't nderstand what I
was saying because of my accent. And

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I realized. I was like,
they're not all going to change their accents.

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So I think I want to live
here, I'm gonna have to change

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mine. So Mark Wahlberg Movies gets
you, right, The Fighter, Yeah,

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I watched like that was like true, why I would to college like

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free way before The Fighter? So
I watched. I watched The Departed like

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seven times in a row. And
then I just dropped my accent. So

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my family still has it. And
if I go back, if I go

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back home, like the cadence changes. Yeah, I speak much slower.

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It's a little more rhythmic. Yeah, I get that because my my family

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was all from Oklahoma, and I
started off kind of sounded sounding like them.

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At some point along the way,
I was like, I don't really

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want to say worsh rag for the
rest of my life, and so I'm

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gonna fix that. And so I
sound like a pretty much you know,

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a newscaster now. So does does
being raised in Kentucky play any role in

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the strength, you know, background
that you have, Like Kentucky isn't necessarily

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cross fit, but a lot of
powerlifting, a lot of big burly boys

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running around, obviously very close to
Columbus, which is the you know,

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the epicenter of of now CrossFit,
but originally is the powerlifting city of the

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world. Does that kind of did
that seep into your childhood? Definitely not

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in the childhood. There are a
lot of country strong people where I'm from.

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Where I'm from, so, like, you know, people who grew

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up working on farms doing a lot
of manual labor. I did some of

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that growing up, But yeah,
I don't think that impacted me too much.

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I think that's I know something that
Kentucky has become a little more known

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for. That part of country has
become a little better known for. There

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was, like, weirdly in the
small town where I grew up, there

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was a very high level Highland Games
train Jim. So, a lot of

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like top Highland Games athletes were in
Bardstown, Kentucky, because that's even the

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niche of the niches, right,
like obviously you probably a body being up

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top. Yeah, and then maybe
maybe probably CrossFit then powerlifting, weightlifting third

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tier and high Lands is probably bottom
of the strength tier probably so. But

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you know there's a lot of space. Yeah, a lot of things to

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three easier, a lot of farm
implements. Yeah, that makes sense.

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Easy enough of them makes sense.
Oh. The one the one thing that

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was interesting was growing up, we
had the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, which is

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where my actual first job was,
and they had barrel rolling competitions and a

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fifty three gallon barrel of whiskey is
like five hundred some so like you got

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to be able to move those with
some finance something. No, they're like

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a couple of ways, Like there
were a couple events. You could roll

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them like on their side, which
is takes some strength, and then you

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could also roll them on like on
the edge is kind of hard to describe,

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um, and you could try and
get the spin right to where they

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would like kind of like a bowling
ball curve, and you could like try

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and like get them to go in
a certain place. So that was that

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was tough. If you ever rolled
a barrel of whiskey, that's that's gonna

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make a sweat. But i'd be
down. I mean, I think you'd

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be pretty good at of me.
I'm pretty weak man. Oh yeah,

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you you said earlier that you were
a mediocre competitor, and then you start

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Barman and had a lot of success. That's all of us if we were.

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I didn't say it was a mediocre
competitor. I said it was a

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shitty competitor. I just want to
be clear. Is mediocre above Oh yeah,

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oh yeah, for sure. Well
I would probably consider myself mediocre.

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I guess I don't really know.
But either way, the point is that

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if we were actually good at what
we did, we wouldn't be sitting here

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talking. We'd be probably lifting in
Malta or wherever big competitions are happening.

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That's actually I would I would probably
agree with that. That's actually even weirder

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00:21:00.519 --> 00:21:04.200
why we didn't cross paths. Just
the mediocreness. You know how they say

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like, oh, sorry, those
who can't teach, those who can't do

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00:21:08.039 --> 00:21:14.640
teach. I'm like one worse than
that. I couldn't even teach, so

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I just started writing about string sports
me too, I couldn't even coach report.

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Yeah, yeah, I can't even
write. Dude, you got me.

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I just talking to him if I
can't even spell, Well, you

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know the other but you're so charming. It's all fake, it's all made

293
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up. The other connection, too, is like, you're friends with Bournstein,

294
00:21:32.160 --> 00:21:37.480
right, Adam's great. Yeah,
I got him way like twenty twelve.

295
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I don't know him at all,
but his co author on on engineering

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the Alpha is somebody that's been friends
with for twenty years. Oh, John,

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00:21:45.759 --> 00:21:48.359
I know John. Yeah, I've
known John a long, long long

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00:21:48.400 --> 00:21:55.319
time. John used to put on
these epic dinners at like Brazilian steakhouses in

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New York. Some of the best
friends I've made in fitness. I'm I

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00:21:59.599 --> 00:22:03.759
made it dinners. I believe that. Yeah. Yeah, he's really not

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00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:08.880
operating in fitness anymore. But when
he was, like he had some epic

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00:22:08.960 --> 00:22:15.640
mastermind stuff going on, like different
and intentionally different than most of what everybody

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00:22:15.680 --> 00:22:22.240
else is doing. He's he's more
in the relationships. Yeah, storytelling like

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00:22:22.359 --> 00:22:30.799
sex positivity space now I think,
yeah, for sure, what's what's the

305
00:22:30.839 --> 00:22:34.640
first step look like? Kind of
building an empire that Barbend was. Um,

306
00:22:34.720 --> 00:22:38.480
There's obviously a lot of websites that
do things like that, Um,

307
00:22:38.519 --> 00:22:41.799
bodybuilding dot com come to mind,
or t Nation for those that are a

308
00:22:41.799 --> 00:22:48.039
little more niched out. Um.
But even those, and maybe this is

309
00:22:48.079 --> 00:22:51.960
just my opinion, maybe it's yours
as well, just kind of got washed

310
00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:55.599
out and a little commercialized. There. There's always an agenda behind him that

311
00:22:55.640 --> 00:22:59.839
you could feel. Um, where
Barbend, as long as I've read it,

312
00:23:00.079 --> 00:23:03.200
seen it been a part of it
has always seemed to truly be about

313
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the sports and about the lifters and
about the niche itself rather than I've never

314
00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:11.799
felt an agenda once from y'all,
which is like major props at least from

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00:23:11.799 --> 00:23:15.960
a consumer end, although I don't
consider myself much of a consumer, and

316
00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:18.000
obviously people have to make money off
of what they do, so I don't

317
00:23:18.079 --> 00:23:22.119
necessarily blame te Nation, But yeah, everything kind of gets watered down.

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00:23:22.480 --> 00:23:26.559
So how how do you turn,
Like you said, a little bit of

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00:23:26.559 --> 00:23:32.039
a journalism background, enjoying lifting being
I bet you were mediocre dude. No,

320
00:23:32.160 --> 00:23:34.839
yeah, I doubt you were shitty
being a mediocre lifter, and then

321
00:23:34.880 --> 00:23:41.319
how do you turn that into like
a business that's thriving and arguably top of

322
00:23:41.359 --> 00:23:45.440
the game within that space. I
mean, I think our timing was very

323
00:23:45.440 --> 00:23:51.759
good. We started at a time
when people wanted more coverage of this stuff,

324
00:23:52.440 --> 00:23:56.960
and for the first couple of years
we were all news Like we didn't

325
00:23:56.000 --> 00:24:00.559
have the money to pay people to
write in depth training con nutrition content,

326
00:24:02.319 --> 00:24:06.839
like we couldn't even get brands to
send us equipment to review. And we

327
00:24:06.839 --> 00:24:10.119
also didn't really have a space war
because we couldn't afford like an office for

328
00:24:10.200 --> 00:24:15.079
that. So the first year was
like me writing thirty plus articles a week

329
00:24:15.160 --> 00:24:21.240
just on like every news thing,
like if it results, you know,

330
00:24:21.319 --> 00:24:26.519
world records, this person's injured,
they're out of this competition. And our

331
00:24:26.559 --> 00:24:30.279
timing was also good because that year, it was twenty sixteen, it was

332
00:24:30.319 --> 00:24:34.720
still when like World's Strongest Man did
not release their results publicly, so people

333
00:24:34.720 --> 00:24:38.119
were just clamoring to figure that out. We were able to report on that

334
00:24:38.160 --> 00:24:44.759
early. The Olympics were that year. I wrote reports and recaps for every

335
00:24:45.079 --> 00:24:48.920
weightlifting session at the Olympics. Like
fortunately it was in Rio, so the

336
00:24:48.960 --> 00:24:52.720
time zone was similar, but like
I just didn't like I think I skipped

337
00:24:52.720 --> 00:24:56.599
my own birthday party that year,
not that I had a birthday party.

338
00:24:56.599 --> 00:25:03.240
I skiped my own drinking, just
to clarify, Yeah, actually, And

339
00:25:03.440 --> 00:25:08.480
we I just had this insatiable appetite
to cover everything. And that was before

340
00:25:08.519 --> 00:25:12.119
I had an editorial team. My
co founders were just keeping the site running

341
00:25:12.200 --> 00:25:18.640
like technically SEO. We were self
funding it, and I was just like,

342
00:25:18.680 --> 00:25:22.759
I'm going to become a one man
editorial wrecking ball. And I've never

343
00:25:22.759 --> 00:25:26.559
worked harder in my life or like
crazier hours. And then we're like,

344
00:25:26.559 --> 00:25:29.960
okay, we have some traction people
are visiting. I remember the first time

345
00:25:29.960 --> 00:25:33.640
we got five thousand viewers in a
day than ten thousand and twenty thousand,

346
00:25:33.720 --> 00:25:36.839
and I was like, holy cow, how did you know you got to

347
00:25:36.880 --> 00:25:37.880
do something with that? Do you
know those were good numbers? Did you

348
00:25:37.920 --> 00:25:41.799
did you have a background in running
blogs or something like that, like or

349
00:25:41.839 --> 00:25:47.079
did your did your co founders what
what was like a standard you maybe going

350
00:25:47.160 --> 00:25:52.279
by? We I had a background
in that they had a background in SEO

351
00:25:52.319 --> 00:25:56.400
and analytics, and and we thought
that if we could get to a million

352
00:25:56.720 --> 00:26:00.680
visitors in a month, we'll have
made it like that's like the top tier

353
00:26:00.680 --> 00:26:06.480
we could ever aim for. Like
spoiler alert. We blasted past that in

354
00:26:06.640 --> 00:26:11.960
like our second year and we're still
growing, but that was like the end

355
00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:15.200
goal, Like we didn't even know
what the real end goal was, but

356
00:26:15.359 --> 00:26:21.480
like we'll like get to that and
nothing else matters. And now we're trying

357
00:26:21.519 --> 00:26:23.799
to like go in order of magnitude
above that or like several times above that.

358
00:26:25.960 --> 00:26:30.400
But we tried to raise money in
like late twenty sixteen early twenty seventeen

359
00:26:30.440 --> 00:26:33.559
because we're like, oh, we
got to hire a staff. We can

360
00:26:33.680 --> 00:26:36.839
scale this, right. I was
getting burnt out, like I can't write

361
00:26:36.839 --> 00:26:40.480
all this myself, would need money
to pay people. And so we started

362
00:26:40.519 --> 00:26:42.799
going to venture capitalists. And this
was in the days when like everyone was

363
00:26:42.839 --> 00:26:48.160
like they want to throw money at
BuzzFeed, at Vice Media, at like

364
00:26:48.319 --> 00:26:53.440
Mike dot com, which no longer
really exists, and we got turned down

365
00:26:53.440 --> 00:26:59.559
by every VC like doesn't look like
like I have you just like reach out

366
00:26:59.559 --> 00:27:03.960
to them, have a Zoom meeting
and like throw them a pitch. Oh

367
00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:10.400
they were in person meetings back then. We were going out to La yesterday.

368
00:27:11.519 --> 00:27:15.599
It was just this is like from
the pre Zoom era, and people

369
00:27:15.640 --> 00:27:18.240
wanted to meet in person. So
it was like balancing between New York and

370
00:27:18.319 --> 00:27:22.240
California, trying to talk to these
folks, asking friends of friends for intros.

371
00:27:23.359 --> 00:27:26.559
I had done some business journalism,
so I was asking like my contacts

372
00:27:26.599 --> 00:27:33.799
for intros, and like the meetings
were so bad because no one believed in

373
00:27:33.839 --> 00:27:37.519
our idea. No one thought that
could ever be anything. I literally remember,

374
00:27:37.559 --> 00:27:41.519
like the one that sticks out in
my head is I got coffee in

375
00:27:41.680 --> 00:27:48.240
downtown Manhattan with this venture capitalist and
part way through he was like, oh,

376
00:27:48.279 --> 00:27:49.960
I need to go to the bathroom, Like this is interesting, let

377
00:27:49.960 --> 00:27:53.240
me just pop to the bathroom real
quick. And I was like cool,

378
00:27:53.400 --> 00:27:59.880
and he just gets up and like
he didn't even he didn't even like walk

379
00:28:00.039 --> 00:28:03.920
toward the bathroom. He just said
that and then like walked out the fucking

380
00:28:03.960 --> 00:28:07.319
door. That's bad, I did
think. I think I teared up with

381
00:28:07.359 --> 00:28:11.680
this coffee shot wild. That's just
wild too, Like human nature is like

382
00:28:11.799 --> 00:28:15.200
still like that. Could you just
say like, yeah, man, I

383
00:28:15.240 --> 00:28:18.079
don't think this is for me.
It's not really up my alley. Um,

384
00:28:18.119 --> 00:28:22.880
and then just like finish your coffee
or leave. But I think I

385
00:28:22.920 --> 00:28:29.200
think everyone in the coffee shop thought
he had just dumped you. Like I

386
00:28:29.359 --> 00:28:34.599
was like of sitting there alone and
somewhat emotions. So all that all I

387
00:28:34.599 --> 00:28:40.599
have to say, Like we we
were able to raise zero institutional dollars and

388
00:28:40.680 --> 00:28:44.160
because of that, we had to
raise a seed round. That's friends,

389
00:28:44.279 --> 00:28:48.720
family, and people in the fitness
industry. There's some rich people all individuals

390
00:28:51.279 --> 00:28:53.440
there are there are, Um,
we did not get a lot of money

391
00:28:53.480 --> 00:29:00.000
from them, but we we were
We had to like really leverage our own

392
00:29:00.079 --> 00:29:03.480
personal networks, right, Like,
um, I don't I don't come from

393
00:29:03.480 --> 00:29:07.200
wealth. My co founders didn't come
from wealth, but we're you know,

394
00:29:07.240 --> 00:29:10.759
I like talking to people I knew
in college who worked in finance and had

395
00:29:10.759 --> 00:29:14.119
done well. Um, talking to
like my co founders, family members,

396
00:29:14.319 --> 00:29:18.680
people I knew in fitness, just
trying to get what we could just so

397
00:29:18.720 --> 00:29:23.279
we could hire some basic staff and
grow. And because of that, we

398
00:29:23.400 --> 00:29:26.880
knew there was no more money coming. Like we raised the seed round and

399
00:29:26.920 --> 00:29:30.319
we're like, cool, this is
it. We have to make this work.

400
00:29:30.799 --> 00:29:33.279
And I think ultimately the reason we
were successful as a business is because

401
00:29:33.279 --> 00:29:37.440
we weren't expecting another influx of cash. There was no Series A, Series

402
00:29:37.480 --> 00:29:41.960
B. We're like, this is
the cash we have, We have this

403
00:29:41.079 --> 00:29:45.160
runway, and if we can't get
profitable in that time, we're fucked.

404
00:29:48.079 --> 00:29:52.319
And that was like that number,
like the money in the bank account would

405
00:29:52.359 --> 00:29:56.759
whittle down, you know, every
week as we paid people, and we're

406
00:29:56.799 --> 00:30:03.119
familiar with the you know figure.
Yeah, and figuring out how to get

407
00:30:03.160 --> 00:30:07.880
profitable and build a real business and
content was great for us because now I

408
00:30:07.920 --> 00:30:11.839
look back at every company in content
that did raise venture capital. BuzzFeed News

409
00:30:11.920 --> 00:30:18.119
just shuddered. Vice just declared bankruptcy, right, Actually, hilariously, we

410
00:30:18.200 --> 00:30:21.359
used to share a building with Vice. We had like a very small office

411
00:30:21.359 --> 00:30:25.880
and they're very big building. They
were like the biggest tenant. And someone

412
00:30:26.359 --> 00:30:29.920
recently reached out to me actually yesterday
and they're like, hey, do you

413
00:30:29.920 --> 00:30:33.400
want to take over the lease for
Vice's building, and like, we don't

414
00:30:33.400 --> 00:30:37.160
even have an office in New York
anymore. Yeah, we went remote during

415
00:30:37.200 --> 00:30:41.200
COVID, But I was like,
how fucking funny is that? Yeah?

416
00:30:41.240 --> 00:30:42.799
Who made it? Kind of out
of that space? Like bar stool,

417
00:30:44.279 --> 00:30:47.880
they're kind of barstool. They're kind
of like a similar one that's had a

418
00:30:47.880 --> 00:30:52.240
lot of success lately. Um,
if you're your name had to start with

419
00:30:52.319 --> 00:30:56.880
Baar and then you were going to
be a successful Oh my god. And

420
00:30:56.920 --> 00:31:03.119
they're in New York too, right, barstool Iza Right, So Porty is

421
00:31:03.200 --> 00:31:07.599
the New York pizza taster. He's
the yeah one yeah, the one bite

422
00:31:07.640 --> 00:31:14.160
or whatever it is. I don't
I don't really follow them, but yeah,

423
00:31:14.200 --> 00:31:17.000
I think I think we got really
lucky because everyone was like, oh,

424
00:31:17.000 --> 00:31:19.440
you got to raise venture capital,
and the fact that we weren't let

425
00:31:19.759 --> 00:31:26.519
let us dodge a bullet. Because
like venture capital and venture capitalists, they

426
00:31:26.680 --> 00:31:32.440
pushed these content companies to grow unsustainably
and there was no way they could actually

427
00:31:32.480 --> 00:31:37.799
make revenue to give vcs that hundred
extra return, right, And like,

428
00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:41.880
we raised revenue and we gave our
investors a great return. They're super happy

429
00:31:42.039 --> 00:31:48.640
when we were acquired. They were
like over the moon, But they're individuals.

430
00:31:48.200 --> 00:31:52.400
We didn't give up control of the
company when we raise money. We

431
00:31:52.400 --> 00:31:55.160
weren't like, we're going to raise
money, you all get four board seats.

432
00:31:55.920 --> 00:31:59.240
That's not how it worked. And
so we controlled our own destiny and

433
00:31:59.400 --> 00:32:05.640
we had to build like a real
sustainable business. Yeah. That makes you

434
00:32:05.720 --> 00:32:10.519
exercise some discipline that you know,
having a giant budget and being pushed to

435
00:32:10.680 --> 00:32:20.200
go just hard in in the way
that these other um outlets did. Uh.

436
00:32:20.920 --> 00:32:25.000
It just it really does set you
up for success when success comes around,

437
00:32:25.039 --> 00:32:30.079
I guess, and I think to
the fitness industry and the strength world

438
00:32:30.119 --> 00:32:34.680
grew for sure, like it was
much smaller in twenty sixteen than it is

439
00:32:34.759 --> 00:32:37.319
now. Yeah, I would say
so we kind of rode that rising tide.

440
00:32:37.359 --> 00:32:38.920
Yeah, twenty sixteen, you know, at least in our timeline.

441
00:32:39.400 --> 00:32:44.759
Yeah, it was probably like,
yeah, the first big peak that continued

442
00:32:44.799 --> 00:32:47.440
to just spread the roots kind of
the tree, you know, twenty twelve

443
00:32:47.480 --> 00:32:52.000
to twenty sixteen was was kind of
the spark that it is now today.

444
00:32:52.160 --> 00:32:55.160
I mean you can even just see
it in like basic social media followers,

445
00:32:55.160 --> 00:33:00.319
Like the biggest social media quote unquote
star in twenty sixteen, maybe you had

446
00:33:00.519 --> 00:33:02.960
five hundred thousand followers on Instagram or
something, and now the biggest stars of

447
00:33:04.079 --> 00:33:08.000
ten million. Yeah you know an
Instagram. Sure, Instagram's grown or whatever,

448
00:33:08.119 --> 00:33:14.640
but that's and you're we're talking about
it time too. That um,

449
00:33:15.160 --> 00:33:19.799
you know, YouTube fitness was really
exploding, and it was maybe easier to

450
00:33:19.839 --> 00:33:24.000
accumulate audience like most of the big
folks now that we know are not necessarily

451
00:33:24.039 --> 00:33:29.640
accumulating audience. They're trying to hold
on yeah to audience yeah, or they're

452
00:33:29.680 --> 00:33:35.160
newer from yeah TikTok space or yeah
yeah, the whole the whole industry has

453
00:33:35.200 --> 00:33:37.640
just changed immensely. I mean,
it's gotten younger, which is cool,

454
00:33:37.720 --> 00:33:42.000
right because the next gen has come
in during pandemic and they use TikTok as

455
00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:45.759
their main platform and spread it elsewhere. But it is it is an interesting

456
00:33:45.799 --> 00:33:51.799
space. Have you guys had to
pivot based on that or do you observe

457
00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:53.519
that world at all? Or do
you just stick to the roots of twenty

458
00:33:53.559 --> 00:33:57.799
sixteen, like all right, we're
crossfits, strongman, powerlifting, weightlifting,

459
00:33:58.039 --> 00:34:00.599
We're going to report on that.
Or do you start to dabble around and

460
00:34:00.640 --> 00:34:04.039
say, all right, man contents. You know, the entire game has

461
00:34:04.079 --> 00:34:07.480
switched. How how do we adapt? We've had to get broader and broader

462
00:34:07.480 --> 00:34:13.800
over time. We didn't cover bodybuilding
until twenty twenty so like and that's partially

463
00:34:13.840 --> 00:34:17.800
because I was running the editorial team. Bodybuilding was not my competency. It

464
00:34:17.880 --> 00:34:22.480
wasn't until Andrew Guttman came on as
our managing editor. Now he's our head

465
00:34:22.480 --> 00:34:25.119
of content. You know he had
a background in covering bodybuilding. He could

466
00:34:25.159 --> 00:34:30.000
build a team to cover bodybuilding.
I remember the first Olympia we covered.

467
00:34:30.039 --> 00:34:32.519
It was that weird pandemic Olympia.
They hadn't I think Florida in late twenty

468
00:34:32.559 --> 00:34:36.000
twenty. I think they might be
going back, and I was suddenly get

469
00:34:36.440 --> 00:34:37.760
it might be going back. Yeah, it kind of makes sense for it

470
00:34:37.760 --> 00:34:42.199
to be in Florida. Yeah,
I don't know. They're both kind of

471
00:34:42.239 --> 00:34:47.199
the same to me. Well,
they're both very like exbowee convention e.

472
00:34:47.719 --> 00:34:52.599
That's what I meant by that exactly. You can wear very little clothing in

473
00:34:52.639 --> 00:34:55.440
both. There you go. Um. But I remember the first time we

474
00:34:55.480 --> 00:34:59.920
covered bodybuilding in twenty twenty, I
was getting text from people at other public

475
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:01.880
actions and fitness and they were freaking
out. They're like, since when did

476
00:35:01.920 --> 00:35:06.239
you all cover bodybuilding? Like like, we're getting less traffic because of you,

477
00:35:06.719 --> 00:35:08.159
which is not the intent. I'm
not trying to like drink anyone else,

478
00:35:10.599 --> 00:35:16.559
but I was like bodybuilding since now, since now, But I think

479
00:35:19.159 --> 00:35:22.320
I think that we've had to get
broader in the type of content we produce.

480
00:35:23.079 --> 00:35:27.119
With more resources, we were able
to write training content and find people

481
00:35:27.159 --> 00:35:30.840
to write training content, like the
people who are qualified to write that nutrition

482
00:35:30.920 --> 00:35:36.960
content reviews. And in addition,
the demographics completely changed, right, Like

483
00:35:37.079 --> 00:35:40.639
our audience was almost all male when
we started. We have more women reading

484
00:35:40.679 --> 00:35:45.159
now, more people of color reading
now. And like a lot of people,

485
00:35:45.760 --> 00:35:46.800
I haven't. I haven't been a
face of the brand for a long

486
00:35:46.840 --> 00:35:51.679
time. It's kind of more recently
that I've been doing podcasts like this and

487
00:35:51.800 --> 00:35:54.199
talking to great folks like yourself.
But like, I'm a person of color.

488
00:35:55.320 --> 00:35:58.840
I was in you know, I've
been interested in strength for a long

489
00:35:58.880 --> 00:36:01.800
time, and you know, the
first few gyms I went to, I

490
00:36:01.880 --> 00:36:06.159
was like the only non white guy, right, And that's totally cool.

491
00:36:06.199 --> 00:36:08.960
I was always welcome, Like it
didn't impact my journey, I don't feel.

492
00:36:09.719 --> 00:36:15.880
But gyms are more diverse now you
have more women involved, more people

493
00:36:15.920 --> 00:36:19.119
of color, you know, I
think that, Well, this is a

494
00:36:19.119 --> 00:36:22.440
little sad, but like every time
we post anything for Pride Month, we

495
00:36:22.480 --> 00:36:28.159
lose followers. But like, people
weren't even doing that six or seven years

496
00:36:28.159 --> 00:36:30.760
ago, right, people weren't even
acknowledging that, Like, oh, people

497
00:36:30.800 --> 00:36:37.079
of diverse sexual and general and sexual
orientations and genders are like interested in lifting.

498
00:36:37.320 --> 00:36:44.559
It's almost like everyone can be interested
in lifting, and as yeah,

499
00:36:44.599 --> 00:36:47.760
crazy, silly, silly to think
that, right, I'm being sarcastic,

500
00:36:47.840 --> 00:36:55.360
clearly. But as as the demographics
grew, and as he acknowledged demographics grew,

501
00:36:55.519 --> 00:37:00.280
and as more different types of people
became publicly interested in all sorts of

502
00:37:00.280 --> 00:37:06.440
strength, competitive, non competitive,
we had to broaden the type of content

503
00:37:06.440 --> 00:37:08.920
we were writing or the types of
content we were writing, right, And

504
00:37:09.119 --> 00:37:12.480
a big thing for us is like, hey, let's not have the same

505
00:37:12.519 --> 00:37:15.320
people in every featured image. Yeah, it's not just going to be like

506
00:37:15.679 --> 00:37:22.599
the ripped white guy, you know, and every art Yeah, and like,

507
00:37:22.679 --> 00:37:24.440
look, we've had to rely on
stock photos before. It kind of

508
00:37:24.440 --> 00:37:30.400
sucks sometimes, but and we haven't
always been perfect, Like we've messed up

509
00:37:30.559 --> 00:37:34.559
so many times. But our mantra
is like, hey, the space is

510
00:37:34.559 --> 00:37:38.480
getting bigger and more diverse, our
content has to get bigger and more diverse.

511
00:37:40.039 --> 00:37:43.239
Yeah, makes sense. I mean, even just the body building thing.

512
00:37:43.280 --> 00:37:46.000
And I think everything goes in cycles, although bodybuilding probably will always be

513
00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:49.880
the number one, you know,
like gym, sport or hobby, just

514
00:37:49.880 --> 00:37:52.880
because I think just human nature in
some senses, and obviously the lead of

515
00:37:53.000 --> 00:37:57.440
Arnold and some of the bigger figures
that have made it popular. But I

516
00:37:57.480 --> 00:38:00.480
do think it's all cyclical, you
know, like twenty six teams a great

517
00:38:00.519 --> 00:38:06.079
example, like crossfits at its freaking
peak. Powerliftings insanely popular on the internet,

518
00:38:06.280 --> 00:38:09.800
and we're slowly maybe creeping there already. I predicted like three years that

519
00:38:09.840 --> 00:38:15.320
powerlifting would kind of make its mini
comeback as a little bit more even with

520
00:38:15.960 --> 00:38:17.320
or strength sports in general, a
little bit more even with the body building

521
00:38:17.360 --> 00:38:21.559
world. But I'm already seeing it, Like how many people on Instagram and

522
00:38:21.599 --> 00:38:24.760
stuff are just throwing themselves into powerlifting
meets out of nowhere. So I think

523
00:38:24.760 --> 00:38:28.440
that cycle is back. So you
guys probably just try to read some of

524
00:38:28.440 --> 00:38:31.679
that. You might even know you
might even be part of the snowball of

525
00:38:31.719 --> 00:38:37.519
that effect. We're at the size
to where like we kind of build our

526
00:38:37.559 --> 00:38:40.239
own audience sometimes, like if we
write more content on a specific thing,

527
00:38:40.559 --> 00:38:45.480
we see that search volume for that
stuff starts increasing, which is like a

528
00:38:45.480 --> 00:38:47.440
little crazy to think of. The
Other thing I want to point out is

529
00:38:49.440 --> 00:38:52.880
as people have been in the strength
game for longer, the age demographics grow,

530
00:38:53.320 --> 00:38:58.320
right, so, like so much
of our readership right now, masters

531
00:38:58.320 --> 00:39:01.840
athletes, people interested in lifting over
thirty, forty, fifty, sixty seventy.

532
00:39:02.599 --> 00:39:06.920
Some of the content that does the
best for us is highlighting people who

533
00:39:06.920 --> 00:39:09.760
are not necessarily setting world records as
a twenty five year old, right,

534
00:39:09.800 --> 00:39:14.760
but people who are doing inspiring and
cool things on the record front, the

535
00:39:14.760 --> 00:39:17.519
news front, the pr front,
who are older in all sorts of age

536
00:39:17.519 --> 00:39:23.159
categories. We write on master's results
for powerlifting, weightlifting a little less so,

537
00:39:23.199 --> 00:39:29.440
but it's catching up CrossFit bodybuilding.
That stuff does insanely good and it

538
00:39:29.559 --> 00:39:31.800
was not that way back in twenty
sixteen. Yeah, yeah, So what's

539
00:39:31.800 --> 00:39:36.480
happened is like strength has gotten bigger. Oh, sorry to interrupt. People

540
00:39:36.519 --> 00:39:40.480
are finding it and they're sticking with
it, right, So, like if

541
00:39:40.480 --> 00:39:45.119
you found it as a thirty five
year old in twenty sixteen, you're now

542
00:39:45.119 --> 00:39:50.039
a forty two forty three year old. Your approach you're chaining training has probably

543
00:39:50.079 --> 00:39:52.440
changed a little bit. The content
you're looking for has changed a little bit.

544
00:39:53.400 --> 00:39:55.920
Cool. We have to adapt a
lot of them, like hopping back

545
00:39:55.920 --> 00:40:00.639
and forth between the niches too.
I feel like a i'm a thing like

546
00:40:00.960 --> 00:40:04.639
maybe you're a crossfitter in your twenties
and then you dabble in weightlifting in your

547
00:40:04.639 --> 00:40:07.119
thirties and then now you're the you
know, just the jim bro in your

548
00:40:07.159 --> 00:40:10.920
forties or something. And even myself
of slightly guilty or you know, of

549
00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:15.960
dabbling in different places when you you
hit a roadblocker BJJ. Yeah, when

550
00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:20.840
mediocre, when mediocrity was too loud, I would try something new. All

551
00:40:20.920 --> 00:40:25.039
right, this goes a mediocre victim
of my own nonfences, suck at weightlifting

552
00:40:25.079 --> 00:40:29.960
instead now for a little bit maybe, and then now I'm like sucking at

553
00:40:30.039 --> 00:40:35.840
fake CrossFit, just sucking at all. I'm sorry, yes, right,

554
00:40:36.039 --> 00:40:37.639
yeah, I don't mind. There's
something to be said for the power of

555
00:40:37.679 --> 00:40:42.320
being bad at something, No,
for sure, and jokes aside. I

556
00:40:42.360 --> 00:40:45.519
think being bad at and continuing to
do it that makes this badass. My

557
00:40:45.559 --> 00:40:50.559
friend, it's easy to fucking do
someone you're good. It's hard to do

558
00:40:50.559 --> 00:40:53.880
shit when you saw, especially in
a public way. Oh yeah, I'm

559
00:40:53.880 --> 00:41:01.480
real public about am I sucking everyone
else? Everyone knows mediocre physique, mediocre

560
00:41:01.519 --> 00:41:08.280
personality, all of it. So
I wanted to ask about this acquisition process,

561
00:41:08.360 --> 00:41:13.280
like what was the due diligence like
about that? And did they like

562
00:41:13.320 --> 00:41:16.159
approach you from the beginning or were
you, like, did you guys have

563
00:41:16.280 --> 00:41:23.800
a price tag on yourself beforehand or
what what happened? So, one thing

564
00:41:23.800 --> 00:41:29.159
I want to point out is that
I think media companies can only get so

565
00:41:29.199 --> 00:41:32.199
big on their own. Yeah,
right, Like, eventually you're at the

566
00:41:32.239 --> 00:41:37.280
whims of the algorithm. Google changes
something. Facebook change is something, Instagram

567
00:41:37.360 --> 00:41:44.159
change is something. It creates fluctuations
to impacts your revenue right directly through ads

568
00:41:44.320 --> 00:41:47.639
or indirectly through other sources, sponsorships, you name it. And like,

569
00:41:47.679 --> 00:41:53.159
if Google change your algorithm, that
changes our bottom line as CEO, Suddenly

570
00:41:53.199 --> 00:41:58.480
I'm like, cool, we have
to reallocate expenses month to month. It

571
00:41:58.880 --> 00:42:02.360
kind of sucks, but part of
the game, it's fine. As part

572
00:42:02.400 --> 00:42:07.280
of a bigger media company, you're
able to weather that storm and it all

573
00:42:07.320 --> 00:42:09.880
kind of evens out because they have
more resources and then more diversified, right,

574
00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:15.760
so you can actually like put money
towards more predictable growth. You have

575
00:42:15.840 --> 00:42:21.480
more time, you're hedged. So
we were always open to the idea of

576
00:42:21.519 --> 00:42:27.199
being acquired, but we weren't shopping
ourselves around to answer your question, and

577
00:42:27.559 --> 00:42:34.599
we actually started getting a lot of
inbound offers and interest, like twenty one

578
00:42:35.199 --> 00:42:39.960
late twenty twenty one. But here's
the deal. When websites sell online,

579
00:42:40.519 --> 00:42:45.960
they often don't sell as media companies. Oftentimes people just want the website,

580
00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:47.719
they want the asset, and they
want to like scrap it for parts,

581
00:42:49.920 --> 00:42:52.360
right, they want to just like
squeeze it for all it's worth. And

582
00:42:52.400 --> 00:42:57.559
we had a team at that point
when we sold, we had geez I

583
00:42:57.599 --> 00:43:01.920
think it was like seventeen full time
employees. Those are people with lives careers

584
00:43:02.920 --> 00:43:07.079
like they work at Barbon because they
wanted to build a career in strength content.

585
00:43:08.559 --> 00:43:16.119
I was terrified of the idea of
selling to a company that wouldn't respect

586
00:43:16.159 --> 00:43:21.639
that commitment that we'd made to our
employees and they'd made to us. So

587
00:43:21.760 --> 00:43:28.000
we weren't even entertaining acquisition offers for
anyone who didn't want to keep on our

588
00:43:28.119 --> 00:43:32.440
entire team. Right, That was
like pretty much a non starter. And

589
00:43:32.519 --> 00:43:36.280
so when Pillar four reached out,
we had a relationship with that company.

590
00:43:36.920 --> 00:43:38.760
My co founders and I, you
know, we've known the CEO, Todd

591
00:43:38.800 --> 00:43:44.599
for a while, great guy.
We've seen how they do business, We've

592
00:43:44.599 --> 00:43:49.000
seen them grow over the years.
Very much a company with a lot of

593
00:43:49.039 --> 00:43:52.800
Southern hospitality, which very much appealed
to me. They're based in North Carolina,

594
00:43:54.039 --> 00:43:57.159
and so when they reached out and
they were like, hey, we

595
00:43:57.280 --> 00:44:00.559
like how you all do business.
We just want to add gas the engine.

596
00:44:00.360 --> 00:44:02.159
We want to grow. We want
to take what you're doing, we

597
00:44:02.159 --> 00:44:05.840
want to learn from it, maybe
apply it to our other properties too,

598
00:44:06.280 --> 00:44:09.199
and then just help you grow more
and more. And that was really appealing

599
00:44:09.239 --> 00:44:14.599
to us. And so the outcome
ended up being good for us, good

600
00:44:14.599 --> 00:44:19.719
for our employees, great for our
investors, and everyone poored it over,

601
00:44:19.920 --> 00:44:24.960
Like every single employee poored it over, and the exact team and the founders.

602
00:44:25.960 --> 00:44:30.079
We're still working there because we want
to, and they've actually allowed us

603
00:44:30.119 --> 00:44:35.559
to. Well, we have hired
and we've had more resources to hire more

604
00:44:35.599 --> 00:44:38.320
people. Like our team is now
bigger and has grown faster as part of

605
00:44:38.360 --> 00:44:44.599
Pillar four compared to when we were
independent. Right, So I look at

606
00:44:44.639 --> 00:44:47.880
our like Monday weekly kickoff calls,
and they are all these new faces and

607
00:44:47.960 --> 00:44:51.400
I'm like, Wow, they wouldn't
be here if we hadn't gotten acquired.

608
00:44:52.639 --> 00:44:59.440
The due diligence process itself, though, who it is for selling any company

609
00:44:59.519 --> 00:45:06.880
at of any size. It's complicated, right, because you don't want any

610
00:45:06.920 --> 00:45:10.480
misunderstandings. You want everyone to have
the same info. Obviously, lawyers and

611
00:45:10.519 --> 00:45:16.559
accountants are involved. I love our
lawyers at accountants. I love Pillar For

612
00:45:16.599 --> 00:45:22.639
as lawyers and accounts, but you
basically are trying to run a company while

613
00:45:22.719 --> 00:45:29.599
spending months on endless calls and due
diligence fact finding with them. Right,

614
00:45:29.679 --> 00:45:32.320
So you're going through tax returns,
you're going through P and L's, you're

615
00:45:32.360 --> 00:45:37.840
going I mean, your your websites, You're going through all the analytics,

616
00:45:37.880 --> 00:45:42.599
like every month of analytics for the
site's entire existence. You have to go

617
00:45:42.679 --> 00:45:46.559
through all of it. It's really
complex, but we needed to do that

618
00:45:47.400 --> 00:45:52.280
so that when we were acquired,
so that once it was finalized, we

619
00:45:52.280 --> 00:45:54.480
could just keep the momentum going,
right. So the whole goal was like,

620
00:45:54.519 --> 00:45:59.440
Okay, our employees are all coming
over, how do we disrupt their

621
00:45:59.519 --> 00:46:04.039
day to day the minimum amount so
they can just keep doing what they're doing

622
00:46:04.199 --> 00:46:09.760
producing great content. And we weren't
perfect at it right right, but I

623
00:46:09.800 --> 00:46:14.800
think it was a gradual enough transition
to where people could keep doing what they

624
00:46:14.800 --> 00:46:19.800
were doing, get better at it, and then integrate more resources as Pillar

625
00:46:19.840 --> 00:46:22.880
For provided them. And my day
to day is the one that's changed the

626
00:46:22.880 --> 00:46:28.199
most, Right, Like, I'm
not CEO anymore. A lot of my

627
00:46:28.280 --> 00:46:31.440
job is doing like brand outreach,
talking to people about the brand, thinking

628
00:46:31.440 --> 00:46:36.440
about how we're going to expand video
strategy, podcasting strategy now that we have

629
00:46:36.480 --> 00:46:44.880
more resources and more people. So
my day job completely shifted. But for

630
00:46:44.920 --> 00:46:51.000
everyone else, I think it's been
a pretty gradual transition, and there's been

631
00:46:51.239 --> 00:46:53.800
relatively little change for them in terms
of like acquisition and stuff. Jim and

632
00:46:53.840 --> 00:46:58.280
I have had a couple of experiences
in the past couple of years of just

633
00:46:58.360 --> 00:47:01.639
dipping our toes into the world and
seeing how crazy it is, looking at

634
00:47:01.639 --> 00:47:05.679
the numbers, and kind of doing
a full audit, like you said,

635
00:47:05.679 --> 00:47:08.559
with different teams, and like,
that's big decisions. There's big money involved,

636
00:47:08.559 --> 00:47:12.760
like you said, there's other lives
and jobs involved, and the content

637
00:47:12.920 --> 00:47:16.159
game it's so easy, right even
And maybe you disagree, but I assume

638
00:47:16.199 --> 00:47:20.360
you do. You write an article, it bombs, you learn from it,

639
00:47:20.440 --> 00:47:23.599
you move on. Right that the
cycles not even twenty four hours anymore,

640
00:47:23.599 --> 00:47:27.559
it's one hour. Did this do
well? Did it not? As

641
00:47:27.559 --> 00:47:30.280
long as you stick to obviously who
you are in morals and all that,

642
00:47:30.679 --> 00:47:32.559
who cares, right, there's no
harm. You just forget you move on.

643
00:47:34.159 --> 00:47:37.719
So like my confidence with content is
I don't because day one I've just

644
00:47:37.800 --> 00:47:39.880
been me that I'm not like an
act or anything. I can't fuck up.

645
00:47:40.159 --> 00:47:44.440
There's I have no you know what
I mean? I have full confidence

646
00:47:44.480 --> 00:47:46.880
going into something. If someone asked
me to talk or write or do a

647
00:47:46.960 --> 00:47:51.440
video, fuck it, you ask
for me, You're getting me, right,

648
00:47:51.920 --> 00:47:54.079
But doing something that affects so many
people, and it's such a big

649
00:47:54.119 --> 00:47:59.119
business, Like you said, all
the employees looked at it and all kind

650
00:47:59.119 --> 00:48:01.519
of agreed. But what you the
confidence? It sounds like after your audit

651
00:48:02.800 --> 00:48:06.880
it felt like a no brainer.
But what gave you the confidence to say,

652
00:48:06.960 --> 00:48:07.920
like, all right, this is
a huge move, but this is

653
00:48:08.079 --> 00:48:15.440
for the net good. I believed
it was. But I'm not gonna lie

654
00:48:15.440 --> 00:48:17.280
and say it didn't keep me up
at night. Right, when you're running

655
00:48:17.280 --> 00:48:21.480
a company and you're making big decisions, and it wasn't just me, right,

656
00:48:21.480 --> 00:48:25.119
it's my co founders in my exacts, and it wasn't No decision was

657
00:48:25.199 --> 00:48:30.400
unilateral, even a CEO. I
didn't just like make decisions and everything changed

658
00:48:30.599 --> 00:48:31.920
right, Um, But it definitely
kept me up at night. It was

659
00:48:31.920 --> 00:48:38.000
a huge stressor I looked even more
ragged than I look now after due diligence

660
00:48:39.440 --> 00:48:44.280
on what I looked like a lot
of whiskey consumed almost none, almost none,

661
00:48:44.320 --> 00:48:47.199
which is the problem. Maybe that
was the issue this decision, would

662
00:48:50.159 --> 00:48:52.480
like I already looked like a muppet. I looked even worse coming out of

663
00:48:52.519 --> 00:48:55.800
due diligence. You know, you
bring up a good point, Mike about

664
00:48:55.840 --> 00:49:00.960
like you can you can see when
things succeed and flop digital content, you

665
00:49:01.000 --> 00:49:07.239
can get instant gratification, but you
also get instantaneous disappointment, and you have

666
00:49:07.320 --> 00:49:10.280
to adapt to both and just move
on. And like, you don't have

667
00:49:10.400 --> 00:49:15.440
time to be sad that a piece
of content didn't perform, because if you

668
00:49:15.519 --> 00:49:20.199
don't move on, your competitors are
going to catch up or beat you.

669
00:49:20.320 --> 00:49:22.639
And we have competitors, right,
We're in a competitive space. Now we're

670
00:49:22.639 --> 00:49:27.800
not the only one. I think
we're the biggest and best. But you

671
00:49:27.800 --> 00:49:32.400
don't stay there by stagnating. Shoot
or shoot is what we say. Next

672
00:49:32.440 --> 00:49:37.280
shot? Yeah, next shot,
you miss a shot. You gotta goldfish

673
00:49:37.360 --> 00:49:40.639
memory and keep moving. Yeah,
that makes sense. Was there any point

674
00:49:42.400 --> 00:49:45.440
in the process where you're thinking,
geez, I hope that that doesn't look

675
00:49:45.480 --> 00:49:50.280
as bad to other people as it
does to me as as part of the

676
00:49:50.320 --> 00:49:58.559
business structure or you know, performance
or whatever. I have talked with my

677
00:49:58.639 --> 00:50:02.639
therapist a lot about that, because
every decision I make, I feel like

678
00:50:02.679 --> 00:50:07.679
always look terrible. Like the imposter
syndrome is real, yep, especially when

679
00:50:07.719 --> 00:50:13.320
you start getting Mike you mentioned it, like a real audience. We had

680
00:50:13.400 --> 00:50:16.559
over thirty one million readers last year. That's insane, it's right, Like

681
00:50:16.840 --> 00:50:22.000
I think bar Bend in the next
eighteen months will be at I mean,

682
00:50:22.199 --> 00:50:25.239
this is kind of a guestimate and
a lot of it's seasonal, but like,

683
00:50:25.280 --> 00:50:29.960
I think the next eighteen months we're
going to be at about forty five

684
00:50:30.079 --> 00:50:34.800
million readers a year. You're like
that trajector do you know other websites or

685
00:50:34.880 --> 00:50:38.159
like, because even for me,
like what, what can you compare that

686
00:50:38.199 --> 00:50:43.599
to somebody else? Like give us
a reference of like a mainstream media or

687
00:50:43.639 --> 00:50:45.320
something like that, so so we
can see what Ballpark y'all are in,

688
00:50:46.599 --> 00:50:52.960
um, because in my brain that's
not that's an insane shit. We we

689
00:50:52.960 --> 00:50:57.320
were and anyone can correct me on
this, but as far as I know,

690
00:50:58.320 --> 00:51:00.800
pre acquisition, we were the largest
independent fitness publisher in the world.

691
00:51:00.920 --> 00:51:06.400
Yeah, I don't doubt it,
right, And I think that we're still

692
00:51:06.440 --> 00:51:10.760
one of the largest now, we're
just not independent quote technically independent, and

693
00:51:10.880 --> 00:51:16.159
I think that. You know,
my dream was always to build something.

694
00:51:17.159 --> 00:51:20.719
Now this actually wasn't always my dream
because I never knew this as possible.

695
00:51:20.719 --> 00:51:23.599
But now my dream is to have
Let me be honest, my dream is

696
00:51:23.599 --> 00:51:29.480
to is to be the biggest invest
Like men's health is kind of the elephant

697
00:51:29.480 --> 00:51:32.320
in the room they get. They
get a lot more traffic than we do.

698
00:51:34.000 --> 00:51:37.280
It's not all fitness content. A
lot of it's their celebrity content now,

699
00:51:37.239 --> 00:51:39.880
so it's a little bit apples to
oranges. Yeah, they're like teaching

700
00:51:39.880 --> 00:51:44.519
that I want banana and some weird
shit. I followed them on Facebook.

701
00:51:44.760 --> 00:51:46.559
No, no shame because I've worked
with them too in the past. But

702
00:51:46.880 --> 00:51:52.159
they post them crazy shit now,
Like I have no clue what they're posting.

703
00:51:52.199 --> 00:51:54.800
Sometimes I swear to God, it's
like the banana versus Apple conversation or

704
00:51:54.840 --> 00:52:00.280
something. They write a lot of
different stuff and I don't I don't pretend

705
00:52:00.280 --> 00:52:04.719
to know their strategy, but I'm
close with a lot of folks there.

706
00:52:05.239 --> 00:52:08.039
EBB Samuel close personal friend. I'm
getting dinner with him in like in two

707
00:52:08.119 --> 00:52:14.480
days. Great guy. But I
want Barben to be bigger than that,

708
00:52:15.199 --> 00:52:19.159
Like, I want Barbin to be
a bigger brand and fitness than Men's Health,

709
00:52:19.840 --> 00:52:22.679
which was unthinkable when we started because
Barben is a strength brand. Yeah.

710
00:52:23.119 --> 00:52:27.960
How can a strength brand be bigger
than one of the biggest fitness brands?

711
00:52:28.920 --> 00:52:32.039
Right? And I think that's because
people are realizing strength is a part

712
00:52:32.039 --> 00:52:37.360
of fitness. You can't be fit
and you can't have that be a priority

713
00:52:37.360 --> 00:52:43.599
in your life if there's not some
type of resistance training that you're incorporating.

714
00:52:43.679 --> 00:52:45.159
Yeah, I mean that's like the
biggest change over, Like you know,

715
00:52:45.239 --> 00:52:49.639
the decade and decade and a half
of Doune fitness is how many people know

716
00:52:49.760 --> 00:52:53.960
what a squat and deadlift are and
can at least perform them in some aspect.

717
00:52:54.000 --> 00:52:57.280
They're not perfect by any means,
But you go to a commercial gym

718
00:52:57.280 --> 00:53:00.960
now there's so many squat wrecks.
All the commercial gyms here. They used

719
00:53:00.960 --> 00:53:02.599
to have the tiered pyramid one where
you have to walk out eight feet to

720
00:53:02.639 --> 00:53:06.400
squat it or you're gonna hit the
side posts. Oh I kind of miss

721
00:53:06.440 --> 00:53:07.960
that one. Yeah, I don't
hate it. I don't. I don't

722
00:53:07.960 --> 00:53:09.840
know why, and I'm not I'm
not that short, so like those safeties

723
00:53:09.880 --> 00:53:14.960
didn't catch me anyways. But you
go to any commercial gym now there's minimum

724
00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:17.199
like five squat racks, and again
people are, you know, figuring out

725
00:53:17.360 --> 00:53:21.280
how to squat properly, but at
least people are trying. And so I

726
00:53:21.360 --> 00:53:25.239
think Tier truth to your words,
like like whether you want to call it

727
00:53:25.280 --> 00:53:29.599
old school bodybuilding, right, the
Arnold squatted, Ronnie Coleman squatted, some

728
00:53:29.639 --> 00:53:31.519
of the most iconic guys did.
But there was an era there of twenty

729
00:53:31.519 --> 00:53:37.840
thirty years where it was so machine
based and so cardio based. Um that

730
00:53:37.920 --> 00:53:40.159
now things are expanding, and like
you said, you had to expand your

731
00:53:40.199 --> 00:53:45.000
demo, but that's because the demo
itself kind of expanded. Bodybuilders squat more,

732
00:53:45.039 --> 00:53:46.559
you know, even like Sea Bumble
will do some rtls or some deadlosts

733
00:53:46.599 --> 00:53:50.960
with you, and he's the guy
right now versus a couple of years ago.

734
00:53:51.039 --> 00:53:52.760
You know, everyone's just sitting on
a machine. So it is interesting

735
00:53:53.000 --> 00:53:57.800
to go into that next echelon.
So you guys are Tier one already,

736
00:53:57.840 --> 00:54:00.719
but to be the website, do
you think there's big changes you got to

737
00:54:00.719 --> 00:54:04.280
make. Is there is there new
strat and you don't have to do anything

738
00:54:04.400 --> 00:54:07.320
you know, confidential or secret?
But is there like a leap you guys

739
00:54:07.320 --> 00:54:13.719
have to take or is it just
like continuing to hike Everest They're they're leaps.

740
00:54:14.159 --> 00:54:16.719
I'm a pretty straight shooter. We
have to be more multimedia. We

741
00:54:16.760 --> 00:54:21.000
have to expand our podcast offerings.
We have to expand our video offerings.

742
00:54:21.000 --> 00:54:25.639
We actually just hired a new videographer. I know, two podcast. I

743
00:54:25.679 --> 00:54:31.000
mean that's that's a you're gonna see
the press release next week. Barband acquires

744
00:54:31.000 --> 00:54:42.039
fifty percent facts. Uh barb in
my brain, you don't want to.

745
00:54:42.280 --> 00:54:49.119
You don't want to, you don't
want to. Um, Yeah, we

746
00:54:49.159 --> 00:54:52.239
have to. We have to be
more multimedia. Like social media has not

747
00:54:52.280 --> 00:54:55.400
been a priority for us for years. We have not had a dedicated social

748
00:54:55.440 --> 00:55:00.440
team. UM. Video has not
been a huge priority for us for a

749
00:55:00.480 --> 00:55:04.400
while. We have to go ham
on all of those, right, Like

750
00:55:04.480 --> 00:55:08.719
we have to be producing basically daily
video content, podcasting content. We have

751
00:55:08.800 --> 00:55:13.760
to get broader and more diverse.
We have to incorporate that into our written

752
00:55:13.800 --> 00:55:16.760
content and our social game. We
got up our social game like ten X,

753
00:55:17.559 --> 00:55:22.320
and we have more resources to do
that, and we have game plans

754
00:55:22.320 --> 00:55:25.440
to do do that, but it
doesn't come immediately. Right like the month

755
00:55:25.440 --> 00:55:29.239
after we got acquired, I was
kind of like, yeah, we gotta

756
00:55:29.519 --> 00:55:35.519
do it, blah blah blah.
And then everyone was like, well,

757
00:55:35.880 --> 00:55:38.440
like, maybe we make sure that
everything else, you know, the things

758
00:55:38.440 --> 00:55:43.760
that are like driving revenue already,
maybe we like optimize those a little bit.

759
00:55:44.360 --> 00:55:46.039
And I was like, oh that
makes a lot of sense. Yeah,

760
00:55:46.119 --> 00:55:52.039
yeah, my brain like shifted since
I wasn't see CEO anymore. I

761
00:55:52.159 --> 00:55:57.360
was like, Oh, let's go. And that's still the energy. But

762
00:55:57.400 --> 00:56:00.360
we have to get more multimedia.
We have to be more cross platform.

763
00:56:00.519 --> 00:56:06.440
That's what the big mainstream out let's
have done. One thing that we don't

764
00:56:06.480 --> 00:56:08.719
have plans for. And again I
want to be very honest about this.

765
00:56:09.400 --> 00:56:14.000
UM, I don't call all the
shots anymore. But subscriptions. We're not

766
00:56:14.039 --> 00:56:16.559
big on those, right. UM. People have asked that, they're like,

767
00:56:16.599 --> 00:56:22.880
what about paywalled content or like,
uh, you know, I mean

768
00:56:22.920 --> 00:56:24.679
that for like our on site content, we have newsletters. Our newsletters are

769
00:56:24.679 --> 00:56:29.119
growing, they're pretty big. Um, you do subscribe to those because that's

770
00:56:29.119 --> 00:56:35.000
how email works. Um, I've
so so I've been told as far as

771
00:56:35.440 --> 00:56:39.639
you know, smoke signals, I
just yell, I just yell, And

772
00:56:39.760 --> 00:56:46.840
however many people hear the content.
Yeah, we have to make bigger on

773
00:56:49.119 --> 00:56:53.679
I listened to your interview on the
mass Anomics podcast, and actually I think

774
00:56:53.719 --> 00:56:59.880
that that Tanner connected us because I
I mentioned to him that it was really

775
00:57:00.159 --> 00:57:06.119
really good interview. And one of
the things that really like resonated with me

776
00:57:06.639 --> 00:57:12.320
was when you started talking about the
when Barbin started attraction, Like when you

777
00:57:12.320 --> 00:57:17.400
started realizing, oh, we're actually
like people are are people are engaging with

778
00:57:17.440 --> 00:57:22.400
our content and it's kind of developing
a life of its own. And that's

779
00:57:22.400 --> 00:57:25.840
something that Mike and I experienced with
our first podcast, like it when it

780
00:57:27.039 --> 00:57:30.360
started to take off, which was
pretty early, but like you know,

781
00:57:30.559 --> 00:57:35.639
definitely we started in thirteen. Definitely
by fifteen, it was like crazy on

782
00:57:35.679 --> 00:57:40.000
a level that I hadn't really anticipated. Um And and really I never had

783
00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:43.960
any thought about, like how do
we make it bigger because it just kind

784
00:57:43.960 --> 00:57:46.599
of kind of kept going and not
a lot of strategy. Yeah, not

785
00:57:46.599 --> 00:57:52.760
a lot of strategy at all.
And obviously you guys put more thought into

786
00:57:52.800 --> 00:57:57.840
that than we did. And Uh, Like what how did you make those

787
00:57:57.880 --> 00:58:05.800
decisions about what direction to go when
you realized that you were actually gaining traction?

788
00:58:07.079 --> 00:58:10.280
Well, first off, I'm really
pleased you listen to the Masonomics interview.

789
00:58:10.800 --> 00:58:14.079
Those guys are a lot of fun. And when you reached out Jim,

790
00:58:14.119 --> 00:58:20.440
I was like the Jim from Facts
because I knew who you were really

791
00:58:21.239 --> 00:58:27.079
I did, I did? Okay, okay, okay. As far as

792
00:58:27.599 --> 00:58:30.440
figuring out where to go next,
and like how we do that planning and

793
00:58:30.519 --> 00:58:37.840
strategy, we have a mountain of
data. We have seven years of tens

794
00:58:37.840 --> 00:58:42.679
and hundreds literally hundreds of millions of
site impressions. Right, it might be

795
00:58:42.679 --> 00:58:45.679
in the billions now if you look
at the impressions we've had, and so

796
00:58:46.000 --> 00:58:51.519
we can dig into that data and
see where the trends are going before they

797
00:58:51.599 --> 00:58:54.800
might even be trends. So when
it comes to like, okay, say

798
00:58:54.800 --> 00:58:59.119
we want to expand podcasts, Say
we want to have five different podcasts a

799
00:58:59.199 --> 00:59:02.719
year from now, where the fastest
growing demographics, the fastest growing subjects,

800
00:59:02.800 --> 00:59:08.400
the best engagement. That's actually not
my strength. I'm not the best at

801
00:59:08.400 --> 00:59:15.039
coming through that data. We have
hired since the Pillar for acquisition more people

802
00:59:15.599 --> 00:59:21.280
who have a specialty in that realm, and so for us, we kind

803
00:59:21.280 --> 00:59:23.960
of flew by the seat of our
pants to start Barbend was founded on a

804
00:59:24.039 --> 00:59:29.119
hunch that we could make a business
out of the strength world, that people

805
00:59:29.119 --> 00:59:32.519
were hungry for that strength content,
without really having the example that proved it

806
00:59:32.559 --> 00:59:37.920
could work. I mean, the
teenage existed, Breaking Muscle existed. We

807
00:59:37.960 --> 00:59:42.519
actually acquired Breaking Muscle a couple of
years ago, but it was a bit

808
00:59:42.559 --> 00:59:45.360
of a hunch, which is probably
one reason we weren't able to raise money

809
00:59:45.360 --> 00:59:50.000
that easily, because like, people
don't want to give you hundreds of thousands

810
00:59:50.000 --> 00:59:52.960
of dollars when you're like I think, yeah, I believe in this.

811
00:59:52.239 --> 00:59:58.079
But but now we can comb through
all this data we have and we can

812
00:59:58.079 --> 01:00:01.159
see where the trends are going,
and we have that in a way,

813
01:00:01.440 --> 01:00:07.239
it's like one of our most valuable
assets, right, is the data that

814
01:00:07.280 --> 01:00:09.880
we've had from seven years of doing
this over and over and over again.

815
01:00:12.239 --> 01:00:17.519
So now those decisions are a lot
more informed. But the first few years

816
01:00:19.440 --> 01:00:21.880
it was a lot of throw things
against the wall and see what sticks.

817
01:00:22.480 --> 01:00:27.760
Yeah I get that for sure,
Yeah, I know. We Our first

818
01:00:28.079 --> 01:00:34.960
podcast was started on a hunch of
mine that we could connect more more closely

819
01:00:35.000 --> 01:00:43.480
with an audience in a longer format. People would engage more and and and

820
01:00:43.920 --> 01:00:50.119
see themselves more in in in what
we're what we were presenting. What we

821
01:00:50.239 --> 01:00:57.199
didn't have a lot of was data
because podcasting is still way way way behind

822
01:00:57.920 --> 01:01:02.760
in terms of demos. For sure, you have to run a survey if

823
01:01:02.760 --> 01:01:07.079
you really want to know something.
Um, you know, Apple has better

824
01:01:07.159 --> 01:01:13.760
numbers now than they used to,
but that's only people who are using their

825
01:01:13.880 --> 01:01:22.320
podcast app under specific iOS versions.
You know, It's it's inadequate, and

826
01:01:22.320 --> 01:01:24.280
so it's difficult to plan. You
sort of just have to like watch the

827
01:01:24.320 --> 01:01:30.039
whole watch the whole scene and figure
out, like who who else looks like

828
01:01:30.039 --> 01:01:34.920
they're doing something? And I think
that there's a danger in that because you

829
01:01:35.039 --> 01:01:37.880
end up kind of I think you
were saying earlier, sort of bring on

830
01:01:37.960 --> 01:01:45.440
the people who are a little bit
less reliable in terms of information and a

831
01:01:45.480 --> 01:01:52.760
little bit more sensational, you know, in terms of content. I'm sorry

832
01:01:52.760 --> 01:01:58.480
about that. In terms of like
content itself, the world's weird right now.

833
01:01:58.559 --> 01:02:00.000
I feel like and maybe you know, you said you're not the data

834
01:02:00.039 --> 01:02:04.480
guy, but I'm sure your data
guys inform you on what's going on with

835
01:02:04.480 --> 01:02:07.360
the data, or maybe you have
your own opinions. But on my end,

836
01:02:07.639 --> 01:02:13.000
like TikTok's this five second content app
right, you're watching something for five

837
01:02:13.079 --> 01:02:15.840
freaking seconds, and that's obviously one
of the most popular social media's on the

838
01:02:15.880 --> 01:02:21.880
planet. And then the other end
you have stuff like live stream, Twitch,

839
01:02:22.440 --> 01:02:27.039
kick, Rumble, all these places
and podcasts, which are you know,

840
01:02:27.079 --> 01:02:30.440
the most popular podcasts typically are super
long format. We're talking hour or

841
01:02:30.480 --> 01:02:34.840
two hour, three hour, and
live streams. I mean those guys go

842
01:02:34.840 --> 01:02:37.679
for five to eight hours a day. And so it seems like the extremes

843
01:02:37.679 --> 01:02:42.079
of content because everyone says like,
oh, the whole world has ADHD and

844
01:02:42.559 --> 01:02:45.400
whatever, and maybe they do,
I don't know, but people are clearly

845
01:02:45.599 --> 01:02:51.320
tapping into three hour podcasts and eight
hour live streams. Yeah, how has

846
01:02:51.360 --> 01:02:53.400
that affected your guys' strategy? I
know a lot of your stuff's written,

847
01:02:53.400 --> 01:02:59.320
but you obviously create video content and
audio content as well. Do you see

848
01:02:59.360 --> 01:03:01.320
that going anywhere? What's your opinions
on it? And how do you guys

849
01:03:01.400 --> 01:03:08.119
kind of wiggle around the changing of
the media's. Interestingly, in the written

850
01:03:08.119 --> 01:03:15.079
world, the tolerance for longer pieces
of content has grown, so we're actually

851
01:03:15.079 --> 01:03:19.519
writing longer pieces of content now.
And that's on the news side, that's

852
01:03:19.519 --> 01:03:22.719
on the evergreen side. So it
could be like event results, So how

853
01:03:22.719 --> 01:03:27.840
do you add more contexts to those
event results, right, like the athletes

854
01:03:27.920 --> 01:03:31.679
history or the competition's history, or
comparing it to previous iterations? How do

855
01:03:31.679 --> 01:03:37.159
you really flush that out? On
the evergreen side, like could be training

856
01:03:37.199 --> 01:03:39.800
content right like you got to Go
Deep. We write a lot of three

857
01:03:39.800 --> 01:03:45.039
thousand word articles and we used to
not do that, but that content performs

858
01:03:45.079 --> 01:03:50.119
really well now. And it's almost
like when people are looking for something in

859
01:03:50.119 --> 01:03:52.840
a written form factor they want to
spend time on it because they want to

860
01:03:52.880 --> 01:03:57.000
focus in on it. So that's
kind of the trend we've been seeing on

861
01:03:57.039 --> 01:04:01.440
the written side. On the video
on podcast side, you know, we're

862
01:04:01.480 --> 01:04:06.280
really focusing on adding more resources and
firepower to that, and so when it

863
01:04:06.280 --> 01:04:13.639
comes to length I, we don't
have a ton of recent data because we

864
01:04:13.679 --> 01:04:17.000
haven't really produced regular videos for like
a year, and so moving forward the

865
01:04:17.000 --> 01:04:19.000
strategy, it is like, Okay, how can we produce a lot of

866
01:04:19.000 --> 01:04:23.559
different types of video and then start
doubling down on what perform as well,

867
01:04:23.800 --> 01:04:30.960
something you all know very very well, and different types of video content are

868
01:04:31.000 --> 01:04:34.239
going to need different time domains.
Right, So if it's like an in

869
01:04:34.320 --> 01:04:41.760
depth review on something like people want
a lot of info, you can't make

870
01:04:41.800 --> 01:04:45.480
those two. Yeah, you can't
make those too long. But if it's

871
01:04:45.480 --> 01:04:53.280
just like, hey, we're recapping
an event, there's sometimes people want something

872
01:04:53.280 --> 01:04:55.320
shorter. They're like, Okay,
I want to get all the download on

873
01:04:55.360 --> 01:04:59.360
this in five minutes. And then
you know, maybe if I want something

874
01:04:59.440 --> 01:05:02.519
really in depth and all this additional
context, I'll go to the written version,

875
01:05:03.519 --> 01:05:06.320
right, and I'll compare that to
previous event results or something like that.

876
01:05:06.719 --> 01:05:11.360
So I'm kind of excited to find
out. But yeah, that implication

877
01:05:11.440 --> 01:05:16.159
for the written world a world for
the written world, that context is generally

878
01:05:16.159 --> 01:05:19.719
getting longer. We've seen that in
a pretty pronounced way. That's interesting.

879
01:05:20.400 --> 01:05:26.400
Have you noticed, like we have
noticed that when you're producing something that's basically

880
01:05:26.519 --> 01:05:30.800
that's intended to be very basic for
someone who's just coming into into a particular

881
01:05:30.880 --> 01:05:35.800
sport, that there just isn't a
way to be basic enough, Like there

882
01:05:35.880 --> 01:05:41.000
isn't a way to break it down
enough. It's an explain like I'm five,

883
01:05:41.079 --> 01:05:45.960
but I'm three, you know.
So there's something that we start applying

884
01:05:45.000 --> 01:05:50.199
to our content early on that I
think people in fitness we're slow to catch

885
01:05:50.239 --> 01:05:55.239
up on. So I have a
journalism background, and they call it the

886
01:05:55.239 --> 01:06:00.079
inverse pyramid. So if you write, like a report on something, or

887
01:06:00.119 --> 01:06:02.280
if you write a news article,
you start really broad with the stuff that's

888
01:06:02.360 --> 01:06:06.119
broadly applicable, and you get more
and more narrow. So the further you

889
01:06:06.119 --> 01:06:11.119
get down in an article, the
more specific you get, the nerdier you

890
01:06:11.159 --> 01:06:15.880
get, basically, right, the
more you assume people already know, and

891
01:06:15.960 --> 01:06:19.880
we structure our news coverage like that, right, So it could be a

892
01:06:19.960 --> 01:06:24.280
result from the Olympics or the CrossFit
Games, you know that first paragraph,

893
01:06:24.400 --> 01:06:28.039
like everyone's going to understand what it
means, right, Like the CrossFit games

894
01:06:28.079 --> 01:06:30.239
just happened. Here's what that is, Here's where it was, and when

895
01:06:30.239 --> 01:06:34.679
it was here's who won. Right. And as you get further down the

896
01:06:34.800 --> 01:06:39.480
article, and this is why longer
contents performing better. I think, at

897
01:06:39.519 --> 01:06:44.280
least in one capacity, you add
more subsections to give more specific contexts,

898
01:06:44.519 --> 01:06:46.280
and by the time you get to
the bottom, people who have made it

899
01:06:46.320 --> 01:06:49.519
that far, well, they've had
all the contexts you've written previously, so

900
01:06:49.559 --> 01:06:54.800
they definitely know more, and if
they do make it further down, they're

901
01:06:54.840 --> 01:07:00.320
probably more interested than someone who's just
taking a cursory glance, and the assumed

902
01:07:00.400 --> 01:07:06.599
level of knowledge has increased the further
you go down the page. Interesting,

903
01:07:06.800 --> 01:07:10.000
That makes sense. Yeah, I
know nothing about the written world, even

904
01:07:10.039 --> 01:07:12.280
though I think I wrote something for
you guys. You guys probably chopped it

905
01:07:12.360 --> 01:07:15.599
up and hopefully made it way better
because it sucked. We just maybe you

906
01:07:15.639 --> 01:07:17.039
wrote a regular pyramid and we just
turned it upside down. Well, I

907
01:07:17.079 --> 01:07:19.199
probably wrote a square for all I
know. I don't know what the fuck

908
01:07:19.239 --> 01:07:24.480
I'm doing. Always drop out.
I don't know shit. I know to

909
01:07:24.480 --> 01:07:28.199
lift the barbel mediocre, mediocrely that's
it. I was checking. Okay,

910
01:07:28.199 --> 01:07:32.440
so you did you did the barbe
In podcast Mike in twenty nineteen Deep Depression

911
01:07:32.480 --> 01:07:40.400
Man, October twenty eighteen to about
twenty twenty three January, My Memories shot.

912
01:07:41.960 --> 01:07:45.639
I just came out of a smoke, a fog, not even mirrors,

913
01:07:45.639 --> 01:07:49.239
just smoke. Yeah no, no, there's no mirrors, mirror shit.

914
01:07:51.880 --> 01:07:56.840
Yeah, it's been it's been a
hell of five years over here.

915
01:07:57.920 --> 01:08:00.239
Well, okay, so in a
in a muller Vain. This is something

916
01:08:00.280 --> 01:08:03.960
I'm trying to do um with every
episode now and I don't know if it

917
01:08:04.440 --> 01:08:09.199
depends on my memory, so it
could be spotty. But um uh,

918
01:08:10.320 --> 01:08:15.880
what I want to ask is every
week has kind of it's rose and it's

919
01:08:15.920 --> 01:08:28.680
thorn, so you can choose either
or or give both. But do you

920
01:08:28.720 --> 01:08:33.399
have anything that fits in those categories
that you're able to talk about for for

921
01:08:33.640 --> 01:08:38.720
this week? For this week?
Yes? Oh well wait, wait,

922
01:08:39.079 --> 01:08:41.680
every Rose says it's thorn? Was
that poison? Was that the band?

923
01:08:41.920 --> 01:08:45.239
I believe? Yeah? Okay,
whenever stuck in my head on a loop

924
01:08:45.239 --> 01:08:49.800
now still think of Seal Seal Kiss
from a Rose by the Batman. Yeah,

925
01:08:49.880 --> 01:08:54.680
forever epic, epic, Yeah,
totally. I only recently learned what

926
01:08:54.720 --> 01:08:57.159
the lyrics to that song are.
I don't want to they don't make any

927
01:08:57.199 --> 01:09:00.880
sense. Yeah, I might ruin
it. That song still slaps it does,

928
01:09:00.600 --> 01:09:04.680
Okay, what's the thorn this week? So we just had a big

929
01:09:04.680 --> 01:09:13.239
reporting session for barband for SEO basically, and Barban's completely organic. We're not

930
01:09:13.279 --> 01:09:15.560
paying for traffic, right, so
like SEO is basically everything and stop just

931
01:09:15.600 --> 01:09:18.720
Google traffic. It's YouTube traffic.
It's social traffic, it's being traffic.

932
01:09:18.800 --> 01:09:21.600
It you know, it gets broader
and broader. SEO is like everything.

933
01:09:24.239 --> 01:09:28.680
So right now we're coming off of
a period where there are a lot of

934
01:09:28.680 --> 01:09:33.079
events and now there aren't so many
events, right, and that'll pick back

935
01:09:33.119 --> 01:09:38.439
up around the CrossFit games. So
there's like this lull in the news cycle

936
01:09:38.479 --> 01:09:43.920
and strength and we've experienced a traffic
dip because of that. Right now.

937
01:09:43.960 --> 01:09:46.600
It doesn't mean like our traffic has
been cut in half, right, but

938
01:09:47.159 --> 01:09:51.720
it's less than it was when the
World's Strongest Man was going on in April.

939
01:09:51.840 --> 01:09:55.039
Right, It's just like a little
dip and it'll pick back up as

940
01:09:55.039 --> 01:10:00.439
more events happen. And contextualizing that, especially for like new employee for the

941
01:10:00.479 --> 01:10:02.600
Broader pillar for a team, which
was very understanding because they have a lot

942
01:10:02.640 --> 01:10:05.760
of experience with this, Like that's
a bit of a thorn because you look

943
01:10:05.800 --> 01:10:10.119
at that graph and it's a dip
and you want things to go up and

944
01:10:10.199 --> 01:10:12.840
up and up and up. And
for the first few years at bar Bend,

945
01:10:12.880 --> 01:10:15.039
it was like always up into the
right, like every month we had

946
01:10:15.079 --> 01:10:19.520
growth. Because if you're starting from
nothing you have, you can't go down

947
01:10:19.800 --> 01:10:28.119
right, right, you can't have
like negative traffic, like I got used

948
01:10:28.119 --> 01:10:31.479
to the hockey stick. Yeah,
and now it progress is not linear anymore,

949
01:10:32.239 --> 01:10:35.640
and that's been the thorn. It's
still a thorn for me because I

950
01:10:35.680 --> 01:10:41.119
remember those for a few years,
right, and I remember how it's just

951
01:10:41.159 --> 01:10:43.479
built and built and built and built. It felt like we're on a rocket

952
01:10:43.520 --> 01:10:45.960
ship, right, and you know, now it's a little more up and

953
01:10:46.000 --> 01:10:51.159
down, so predictably up and down. But that's a bit of a thorn.

954
01:10:51.399 --> 01:10:55.159
And like you never want to tell
a new employee like, hey,

955
01:10:55.239 --> 01:10:58.880
our traffic's a little bit down this
month, right, yeah, yeah,

956
01:10:58.880 --> 01:11:00.279
it just never feels and then you
have to plain why even if you predict

957
01:11:00.319 --> 01:11:03.000
it, even if you predicted even
notes coming, even if it's normal,

958
01:11:03.079 --> 01:11:11.880
it just numb feels good. Yeah. The rose is UM. I had

959
01:11:11.920 --> 01:11:15.159
a lot of folks reach out to
me yesterday and today, like even this

960
01:11:15.239 --> 01:11:19.439
morning, um, and they are
interested in covering Barbin from the business standpoint,

961
01:11:19.960 --> 01:11:23.880
which is something I've been really excited
to do. Like I love the

962
01:11:23.880 --> 01:11:27.079
fitness world. I'm honored to be
on this podcast. Thank you for having

963
01:11:27.119 --> 01:11:30.840
me, thank you for being here. It's when I listened to I hope

964
01:11:30.880 --> 01:11:34.880
your audience hates me less after this. I do have some haters. That

965
01:11:36.159 --> 01:11:39.279
means you're doing it. Shout out
to like the two shout out to like

966
01:11:39.279 --> 01:11:42.560
the two haters. And I'm pretty
sure that like my mom runs both of

967
01:11:42.560 --> 01:11:47.840
those accounts. Um, yeah,
her olds. But like, it's been

968
01:11:47.880 --> 01:11:53.319
really cool that people have been looking
at Barbin now post acquisition and they're like,

969
01:11:53.359 --> 01:11:56.880
oh, this is like a mainstream
media story. Yeah, because like

970
01:11:56.960 --> 01:12:00.760
every media outlet, if you were
just follow the news, is struggling.

971
01:12:00.840 --> 01:12:03.399
Vice went bankrupt, BuzzFeed News just
shuddered, like, you know, the

972
01:12:03.439 --> 01:12:08.279
Washington Post has had layoffs, but
it's not all doom and gloom. The

973
01:12:08.399 --> 01:12:15.079
Athletic yesterday. Yeah, that's stunning
to me. I just like to shift

974
01:12:15.119 --> 01:12:18.119
away from the strategy that was working. Yeah, I mean that's like the

975
01:12:18.119 --> 01:12:21.600
strategy the New York Times acquired them
for, right exactly. It's like,

976
01:12:21.680 --> 01:12:29.159
now, we just want to make
us now. And I like that more

977
01:12:29.159 --> 01:12:31.720
people are interested in us. Obviously
it strokes my ego. I'm like,

978
01:12:31.760 --> 01:12:35.319
yeah, I'll talk about this business
I started b Yeah, well, I

979
01:12:35.359 --> 01:12:41.119
don't mind if I do. But
I like that people are looking at a

980
01:12:41.119 --> 01:12:44.479
business that's endemic to the strength community
and they're saying, oh, that's a

981
01:12:44.479 --> 01:12:48.840
real business. There are content lessons
there for other audiences and other communities,

982
01:12:49.199 --> 01:12:54.119
because when we first started, a
big reason no vcs wanted to give us

983
01:12:54.159 --> 01:12:58.119
money was because they didn't think Strength
was a real audience or a real community.

984
01:12:58.600 --> 01:13:00.239
They didn't think it was worth a
ship, and it was a lot

985
01:13:00.279 --> 01:13:02.439
smaller than to be fair. But
now that people are looking at us and

986
01:13:02.439 --> 01:13:08.399
they're like, oh, maybe other
different outlets in different spaces can learn something

987
01:13:08.520 --> 01:13:15.119
from Barben that that feels really good, and maybe it'll show some people that

988
01:13:15.159 --> 01:13:19.119
like a career in media like can
actually happen, right, you can actually

989
01:13:19.159 --> 01:13:24.159
still build something in this space.
It's not just everything going out of business,

990
01:13:25.199 --> 01:13:28.239
yeah, or a side hobby.
So I think that's what most people

991
01:13:28.319 --> 01:13:30.479
probably think of, you know,
even even with what we do. Or

992
01:13:30.520 --> 01:13:32.880
oh you kind of do YouTube,
Oh yeah, kind of do YouTube?

993
01:13:33.159 --> 01:13:36.039
Yeah, Oh you kind of kind
of do that. Oh yeah, you

994
01:13:36.119 --> 01:13:39.119
kind of do that. Oh you
kind of write about sports, or you

995
01:13:39.199 --> 01:13:42.600
kind of have a podcast. Because
it has all of it's gotten so popular

996
01:13:42.880 --> 01:13:45.159
that it's almost become hobified, like
it had to be a hobby in twenty

997
01:13:45.239 --> 01:13:48.359
ten. Yeah, when you start
a podcast for YouTube because there no one

998
01:13:48.439 --> 01:13:51.520
was doing it. There's no such
thing. But there's enough history now.

999
01:13:51.560 --> 01:13:56.840
But then everyone, yeah, hopped
on the train. And so for ninety

1000
01:13:56.920 --> 01:13:59.279
nine percent of people it is a
hobby. But that doesn't mean the one

1001
01:13:59.319 --> 01:14:04.600
percent doesn't insane potential. If you
stick with it and have have some keys

1002
01:14:04.720 --> 01:14:11.000
that that the world wants to see, no read by, and then you

1003
01:14:11.000 --> 01:14:15.039
take it seriously long enough, kind
of anything can become something. Yeah,

1004
01:14:15.079 --> 01:14:21.199
for sure. I want to thank
you for joining us today and thanks for

1005
01:14:21.239 --> 01:14:25.880
having me guess, and you should
come visit us because I think you would

1006
01:14:25.960 --> 01:14:29.960
enjoy yourself here. You ever head
to the West Coast not La, say

1007
01:14:30.079 --> 01:14:33.000
La, California's big La sucks.
I didn't. I don't like it.

1008
01:14:33.079 --> 01:14:40.039
I don't like La. Oh my
god, I'm gonna get canceled Disneylands all

1009
01:14:40.119 --> 01:14:44.600
day. Yeah, you know how
to not make friends say that the second

1010
01:14:44.600 --> 01:14:47.960
biggest city in America isn't fun.
No, it sucks. If they know

1011
01:14:48.000 --> 01:14:53.000
it too, everyone, they're starting
to realize it sucks. It's always well.

1012
01:14:53.039 --> 01:14:56.399
Look, I need to make a
West Coast trip soon. I'd love

1013
01:14:56.399 --> 01:14:59.039
to come see you guys. I'd
love to avoid La. If I could,

1014
01:15:00.039 --> 01:15:00.960
and the next time you guys are
in New York, let me know.

1015
01:15:01.399 --> 01:15:03.680
I'll show you a good time.
I would love too. Haven't been'll

1016
01:15:03.720 --> 01:15:08.920
be one of the I don't think
I've been since twenty fifteen. No,

1017
01:15:08.920 --> 01:15:13.800
No, you've been since yeah,
seventeen, maybe seventeen eighteen. Kenny Santucci,

1018
01:15:14.239 --> 01:15:15.640
you might be familiar with the name. Good good friend of mine.

1019
01:15:15.720 --> 01:15:18.439
Yeah, he used to have me
out there for some seminars and things,

1020
01:15:18.479 --> 01:15:21.359
and I think he's still having pretty
big seminars. Yeah. The Strong,

1021
01:15:21.520 --> 01:15:25.640
the Strongest, Yeah, the Strong
New York. I'm working out with him

1022
01:15:25.760 --> 01:15:28.279
Friday at his new spot. Well, it's not so new anymore. They've

1023
01:15:28.279 --> 01:15:30.760
been there for a couple of years. Yeah, but uh went Strong October

1024
01:15:31.439 --> 01:15:35.039
Ougus whenever he's doing that, I
think, so that might be an excuse.

1025
01:15:35.119 --> 01:15:38.279
It was October last year. Yeah, that might be a good excuse

1026
01:15:38.279 --> 01:15:42.800
to head out there. Um.
It's a good community. They've been doing

1027
01:15:42.800 --> 01:15:45.439
a lot of outdoor workouts they called
the street Beat. Yeah, so they're

1028
01:15:45.479 --> 01:15:47.199
just like working out literally, like
on the streets next to where the gym

1029
01:15:47.319 --> 01:15:51.239
is and people freaking love it.
It's awesome. They're in Manhattan still.

1030
01:15:53.279 --> 01:15:57.800
Yeah, they're in Manhattan. They're
in UM like kind of right above Madison

1031
01:15:57.840 --> 01:16:01.439
Square Park. Okay, so I'm
in Brooklyn, UM, but I try

1032
01:16:01.479 --> 01:16:03.720
and work out there like once a
week, once every other week. So

1033
01:16:03.800 --> 01:16:06.399
I'll grab or work out with him
on Friday. Yeah, Kenny's a fun

1034
01:16:06.439 --> 01:16:13.319
time awesome. Where can people find
you? Well, obviously follow Barbend,

1035
01:16:14.000 --> 01:16:17.560
follow Breaking Muscle, which Barband also
owns, the Barben podcast, which I

1036
01:16:17.560 --> 01:16:23.039
still host. They still let me
host that, so I'll keep posting until

1037
01:16:23.199 --> 01:16:28.399
they say don't, which is weird
but fun me personally. You can find

1038
01:16:28.399 --> 01:16:33.000
me on Instagram at David Thomas Tow
on Twitter at d underscore Town. That's

1039
01:16:33.079 --> 01:16:38.560
d underscore Tao. And this is
this is the big mistake I make.

1040
01:16:39.439 --> 01:16:42.520
If you want to email me,
I'll give out my email David at barben

1041
01:16:42.640 --> 01:16:46.439
dot com. So email me with
all your complaints. I was gonna say

1042
01:16:46.439 --> 01:16:49.520
accolades and admiration, but let's be
honest, you don't have any of that.

1043
01:16:49.560 --> 01:16:53.319
What's emailing me? It's a complaint. Yeah, what's the majority of

1044
01:16:53.359 --> 01:16:59.520
the emails you get from like random? The majority of random emails that I

1045
01:16:59.600 --> 01:17:01.560
get, and that like we get
at our info app barbend and a lot

1046
01:17:01.600 --> 01:17:05.800
of other stuff. U is athletes
who want us to cover them, which

1047
01:17:05.800 --> 01:17:11.239
is great, which is awesome,
or people who are upset that we don't

1048
01:17:11.319 --> 01:17:15.039
cover like events more in depth,
like like smaller events or mid tier events

1049
01:17:15.079 --> 01:17:18.960
more in depth. And that always
used to like really hurt me because some

1050
01:17:19.000 --> 01:17:23.680
of them are kind of mean emails. Yeah, but that's but, but

1051
01:17:23.800 --> 01:17:27.560
someone contextualized it to me. It
actually might have been Tanner from Masonomics.

1052
01:17:27.600 --> 01:17:30.760
He's like, wait a minute.
Their complaints are that they want more of

1053
01:17:30.800 --> 01:17:34.319
your product, yeah, because content
is your product, right, And I

1054
01:17:34.399 --> 01:17:39.880
was like, oh, that's actually
fine, and we want to cover more,

1055
01:17:40.000 --> 01:17:43.079
right, but as our team is
only so big, like as we

1056
01:17:43.159 --> 01:17:45.880
grow and as our capacity grows,
we can write more and more in depth

1057
01:17:45.920 --> 01:17:49.560
on more events, more athletes,
more topics. Cool, So like most

1058
01:17:49.560 --> 01:17:54.680
of our quote unquote hate mail as
people saying, hey, we want more

1059
01:17:54.720 --> 01:18:00.439
barband And once I started thinking it
like that, I was like, cool,

1060
01:18:00.439 --> 01:18:01.760
I'll just give out my email send
me all those Yeah, pretty good

1061
01:18:01.800 --> 01:18:04.840
place to be in. Yeah,
I'm gonna send you my resume every day.

1062
01:18:04.880 --> 01:18:11.720
Now I'm scheduling mail show. Let's
go every single day. It'll be

1063
01:18:11.760 --> 01:18:15.119
my resume every morning, it's like, oh, it's Mike again. Yeah,

1064
01:18:15.880 --> 01:18:18.520
let's see what mediocre deadlift he did
today. Mike, y'all just follow

1065
01:18:18.560 --> 01:18:21.640
you my own reports of my workouts. It'll just do my Just get to

1066
01:18:21.680 --> 01:18:25.479
send me your training lock. Yeah, it'll be my training lock. Yeah.

1067
01:18:25.600 --> 01:18:28.479
Wow, two sets of two.
That guy's working hard today. All

1068
01:18:28.520 --> 01:18:31.319
the outtakes from a YouTube videos,
yeah yeah, just scrap. Yeah,

1069
01:18:34.319 --> 01:18:38.520
everything that you edit out, send
my way, pilot and send it my

1070
01:18:38.560 --> 01:18:40.479
way. No, I don't.
We probably don't edit a lot out.

1071
01:18:40.560 --> 01:18:45.279
Sadly, that's part of the issue. Who knows the bullshit I say?

1072
01:18:45.680 --> 01:18:48.520
Mikey Um, ladies and gentlemen,
thanks for listening. We got new episodes

1073
01:18:48.520 --> 01:18:55.039
every single Wednesday and Friday. Here
subscribe, share your friends. I appreciate

1074
01:18:55.079 --> 01:18:57.960
you. Three sp dot c for
all your clothing needs. Third Street Barbels.

1075
01:18:57.960 --> 01:19:00.640
Start going to California if you are
in town. Um, and I'm

1076
01:19:00.640 --> 01:19:02.399
selling Mike where you want to find
me. I am at the Jim McDean

1077
01:19:02.479 --> 01:19:05.439
all the social media. The show
is fifty percent facts or pretenders of word

1078
01:19:05.640 --> 01:19:10.880
it fift you is just numbers forcipercent
backs. The Stupid Funding Podcast Association with

1079
01:19:10.960 --> 01:19:18.279
iheartly that bign percent facts now brought
to you by barback dot com. Thanks

1080
01:19:18.279 --> 01:19:19.159
so much for a