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EP02 Million Dollar Domains

 Welcome to million dollar domains. Uh, this is million dollar domains today in startup.club. And startup.club is if not the largest, one of the largest clubs on clubhouse. And I've been doing a joint show, um, besides my work in domain club with startup club for the past three months. And so we thought we would move and, uh, there's going to be a way to do it in both clubs, but today we're in startup clubs.

So. Rachel is hosting us today. Thank you, Rachel. And um, what we do on million dollar domains is we talk about a special part of the domain name, business that is, has less to do with the 150 million dot Toms or the new TLDs or buying names for registration fee and flipping or. Managing the one domain name that your company owns.

And these are all the things we talked about on Monday domaining and outbounding club. But what we've done for the past three months, a million dollar domains, it's really talk about the market of million and multi-million dollar domain.  Where were most cases we're dealing with scarce assets that are bought and sold on the retail market or the resale market, much like homes are bought and sold on the resale markets.

If you want to go to the middle of New Mexico, maybe, or somewhere in the world, you could probably buy some land for free and just pay the property taxes. But in jail, Most of the time when you're buying real estate, it's, it's a market that's matured, different people have bought certain properties. And then to, to get those properties that you'd like, now you pay someone else for the value of those names.

And we've seen over the course of the last 30 years, domain names, approach million and multi-million dollar numbers in 19 98, 99, 2000. And then maybe again, we saw. Uh, strengths in 2007, 2008, and then really now. And so the purpose of million-dollar domains is to talk about these million dollar. And so what we've talked about over the past three months are what makes a domain name, you know, worth a  million dollars.

And I think that just like any appraisal that you might do, you might look at three different ways. What is the cost method of saying a domain is worth a million dollars? What might be the comparable sales method? And then what may be the income method that you might use to appraise the value of an asset?

So at different times I've gone through. The prices that are being paid for a million dollar domains seem to have a floor seemed to be consistent. Um, if you want a one word english.com. If you want a two letter or three letter.com, if you want to a two, three or four number.com. They're all going to be in a much narrower price range.

Uh, then you might find for a name that you may use for a business. So I think you've got the cost aspect that you're not going to get stocks.com or realestate.com or wowed.com or purple.com probably for  less than hundreds of thousand dollars or millions of dollars. And then I talked about the income approach, which is if your company is spinning.

One to five, to 10, to a hundred million dollars on advertising and an easy to remember prestige building domain name can make that advertising one to five to 10% more successful. Or the idea is you would get the same benefit for potentially spending $900,000 on advertising that someone else would have to spend a million dollars on because the domain name, the destination address that they give their customers or the Mindshare that it takes to remember that domain name is going to be is going to be, um, less valuable.

If you, if you don't have a one word or easy to remember, So I've been able to quantify that if you look at your annual spend or the market cap of your company and take your percentage that on  that basis, many of the names that are available for sale and you can buy for just money can give you benefits much more than.

And one of the people that we have with us today, Mani tongue has been working in this market for the past 25 years. I've sold a million dollar domain name with Monte. Um, he introduced me to many of the aspects of the domain name business, and I had them on the domain show. So welcome Monte. Thanks for joining us to talk a little bit about million-dollar domains.

Thank you page and, uh, happy to be here. And, uh, there's a, there's a lot of the examples of. Seven-figure domain names that are worth a hell of a lot more now today than they were back when they were sold. And that's for sure. Yeah. And I think as you and I have talked to about where that, where this budding industry in the big one word domain name market, that's been on the cusp of growth and worldwide acceptance for twenty-five years.

Um, but still in general, I think that.  Everyone is come to grips with the fact that great domain names can be worth one to five, to 10, to a hundred million dollars. And I think that the advantage is still on the buyer side, that if they know what a good domain name can do for their company, they're still buying in an environment that comes from either past sales, which have happened in some weak economic times, um, or simply the seller's imagination, you know?

Pick a number one or two or three or $4 million based upon the past, but Bhante, you've had some million dollar domains in your auctions this year. Can you tell us a little bit about the last auction you had and I think it's still going on and you've got some, some big one word properties in it. What are some of the dates right now for the right of the.

Um, so the, the closing of the extended auction from the name's gone option is going to happen on October 14th. Uh, lots will start closing at  one 30, I believe. Um, uh, PM Eastern state. Um, and yes, we have some seven figure names in this option. Um, some of which are considered, um, bargains, even at seven figures, we have names like nutrition.com, sweepstakes.com, waged.com.

Uh, political.com U m.com. Auto loans.com automobile.com. Uh, just to name a few, but, um, uh, outside of that, um, I have gi.com u.com, um, even club.com, uh, that were, uh, marketing for sale. That's amazing. Now, when you think of a name, since you kind of teased us with it, like club.com, um, or the, the two letter names.

I mean really when someone's trying to think, everyone just wants to know how much are they, you know what I mean? And really they're so unique. So  duplicatable, um, in a negotiated method, not in your options, but in negotiated method. How do you kind of start with the buyer if someone's listening to million dollar domains this week and they're thinking, well, maybe I want to spend a million dollars.

So my company wants to spend five or 10 million. Do you just kind of show him the price right off the bat. Like, Hey, I'm interested in club.com. How much is it? Do you carry an asking price for something like that or the two letters or is it really a conversation? Well, it's obviously a conversation. Um, I, I was trained in the consultative sales approach, uh, when I was in my medical business and my medical career for 15 years.

And, um, w what you've really tried to do as a, as a, um, you know, as a consultant. And that's, uh, basically what I, what I've been doing with domain names ever since the beginning, it's kind of changed the way that domain names were, um, even offered, um, to end users instead of vending or lifting, um, Um, needs,  um, or you find out what somebody needs and once, and then you create a case around that.

Um, so you put together a great case around why a certain name might be better than what they're using or better for a project that they're about to launch. Uh, I gained a lot of, um, mind share and market share doing that for some of the largest companies in the world. Uh, and some of the biggest industries.

Um, you know, back in the early days, you know, corporations just didn't get it as much as they do now. And even there, they're still late to the party on stuff like that. So, uh, uh, I used to manage the acquisitions for Lionsgate films, for example, and if everybody remembers there was a movie called crash.com many, many years ago that won the academy award.

Um, before they got to LA to accept the award, they didn't own the domain name. And so I got them the domain name and, um, it was, it was a good reason on why they needed that name after they won the academy award for best picture, uh, because there was going to be tons of traffic and  attention and mind share and eyeballs on that, on that movie and on that, on the domain name and trying to.

You know where that, where that website went and where, where it was pointed to and all that stuff. And so that's just one of the examples. Um, um, you know, there's, there's many, many others, but, uh, I use a consultative sales approach, uh, to try to generate a case. Um, if somebody needs to get a range, uh, of a price that's in a, you know, above seven figures, I try to give them a range.

Also let them know that there's probably other interested parties in the same name that, um, it's possible, Michael go higher than that. Um, you know, there's, there's a lot of seven-figure names that have sold, but, um, you know, there's, there's not as many as six figure names and five figure names and forfeit your names.

Of course. Um, so, um, they're, they're big feats to accomplish both at auction as you know, uh, page when we sold your seniors.com for $1.8 million and, um, and others for even more. Yeah. And I would say to people that are thinking about getting into this market, whether you're listening today  or on the podcast, that many times I would encourage you as a buyer.

You know, you may have someone in your organization or you may have in the back of your mind, Hey, maybe we could get this for cheap, you know, and I would just encourage you that by trying to get something cheap at the beginning, you may just start a really long process that lets the seller. Continually look at the name more and more and sometimes become more enamored with it.

See its value on the upside. And you may end up paying more later because you came in low. You wanted to talk about all the deficiencies, the domain name had how it was terrible, how there's no way you should pay a certain amount and Monte. Have you seen it? Where most of the time when someone buys a name and the hundreds of thousands or a million dollars.

There's a lot of times where it should seem like they're overpaying a little bit. They shouldn't be a little, it  should seem a little risky, but that's the only way you can buy something. We're looking back. You're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe we were even thinking about, you know, whether to pay this or this or this, because of all the value we've had.

So sometimes can, can the buyer be so greedy, maybe that the process goes even longer and they pay. Oh for sure. Um, the more interest there is on an aim, usually the higher, the value goes up, the higher the, the, the, the price goes up. So. You know, a lot of people increase price as interest goes up, even, even though the name hasn't sold yet.

So there could be a thousand offers on a domain name, um, which shows there's tons of interest in it. And every time there's an offer, it could ratchet up, you know, similar to any kind of a valuable piece of real estate. I mean, look at the home market as an example, uh, today there's so much demand that houses were selling above asking.

Um, so that's kind of a similar example to domain names. Um, on the contrary though, it's  also can be, it could work to a company or an end user's advantage by paying more or paying a hefty dollar for a name because they can publicize the fact that they've paid up for a valuable piece of real estate or digital asset that promotes their business and enhances their longterm game.

Um, Yeah, people might say that voice.com at $30 million was way overpriced. Um, some people might say voice.com at a million dollars was overpriced, but boy did both sides of that transaction make play and make sure everybody knew that they paid $30 million for the domaining. Um, so, and, and it also set a bar, you know, for other domains.

Um, probably to be, um, enhanced and value and overpaid, you know, like, uh, you know, home.com and others. Um, so it's really important that, um, if you're going to pick, you know, some people want to stay quiet and keep the transaction confidential, uh, for good reason, because they don't want to be solicited with a thousand other names that are like it,  or the, the, the, the, the contrary side of that is once you pay up for it, especially if you're a public company it's going to come out every year.

You might as well, you might as well beat the drum about it, eh, because you know, press any kind of press is good press. Um, as the saying goes and paying up for a digital asset or an acquisition, or, you know, a merger and acquisition of a company, it's very similar to a domain name and the price. Puts that on the map and sets a mark and, and makes it newsworthy.

And wouldn't you agree? Also many domain names are so unique that once they're purchased, it's not like another board or another venture capital group or another startup can say, yeah, we, we we'd buy voice too. We'd go. We'd do that too. We'd like to do that too. Um, you know, now that we've seen someone else actually do it, uh, actually, you know, consummate buying that we would do that too, but really.

Once, once it's gone, they don't have the ability to buy that exact name anymore. So you're, you're almost announcing  to your industry that you've purchased something at the exact time that no one else in that industry can duplicate what you've done. And in a world of paid media and shared media and earned media.

You're right. Monty, just dimensions from it. Um, you know, I got to believe if you have a million dollar price tag in your press release, you're probably going to get picked up on most of the, the newsfeeds surrounding any keyword relating to your industry. And what a great way to either enter an industry or, you know, announce a rejuvenation or a web three O concept or something like that, uh, with this announcement, because sometimes those of you out there, when you're doing press releases, it's really hard to talk about yourself, unless you've, you've come to a stage in your company, like a new release for something you can't just say, Hey, uh, domain, club's really doing well right now that really isn't a press release.

But if I said that, Uh, domain club just bought domain.club that 10 at least  gives me something to say to get that, that shared media in that earned media. Totally agree. And, uh, again, that's been demonstrated in many, many examples just as, um, you know, companies that buy out other companies make sure it's newsworthy and it's right on CNBC that they, they, they publicize the price paid for that.

And then there's all the discussion. Well, was it overpaid? Was it underpaying? You know, and, and, um, just that conversation generation from that particular transaction even generates more, um, eyeballs and more conversation around it, which makes it more of a. Just from that incident, just from the discussion happening on whether it was worth it or not.

Um, so in the case of domain name, you know, you have, you have things that are, you know, you have rarity obviously, because domain names are unique. Um, you know, there's the short names, like the two letter domain names, for example, like U m.com that we have, you know, that could stand for a thousand different things with the, that start with the letter, U and M, including a bunch of universities.

And so,  you know, there's a lot of play on that. There's a lot of, you know, you're going to have something that's generic as you M or something that's specific as automobile.com or you know, or nutrition.com. And so, um, um, rarity comes in two different, you know, a couple of different formats. It's, it's, uh, it's rare because it's short and could stand for lots of things.

And once it's gone, it's gone or rare could be like a name like nutrition.com that stands for an entire. You know, segment of health and food and, and what you eat every day and, um, you know, healthy environment and all that kind of stuff. And that's a top tier name or what we, you know, what we call as a top tier name at the very top of the food chain of domain names that then all kinds of stuff fit under it, like diet and exercise and all kinds of.

Well, that's fantastic. I think you're right. The two letters, um, have so many uses now. So we talked a little bit about some of the names you representing and the buyer gets the benefit of a broker, many cases. And I think where I found that's helped over  the years is a buyer can express. Maybe exactly what they're thinking in no uncertain terms to the broker in a way that just like in a real estate transaction, you may not feel comfortable doing with the seller.

You know, I go into someone's house and I'm like, that's terrible. That looks terrible. I want to change that this, that. But I think that whether the, you know, the brokers level of interest, what they're looking to do, what they're looking to pay, it seems like it helps both sides to have this buffer to kind of help the communication.

Do you find that sometimes you're, you're having to translate what the seller tells you, maybe to the buyer in a way that they can hear it the best way and then vice versa. Oh, for sure. I mean, again, that's where the consulting side comes, comes across. I've probably done more stealth acquisition transactions than anyone.

Um, so I would be on the buyer and seeking out the proper name for, uh, for a particular, for, for their company or for their, you know, for their end user use.  Um, and then, um, working with the seller side, you know, I have to be the consultant on their side as well to make it a fair transaction. Um, Um, what you, what the perfect transaction is, is, uh, something that's a win-win for everybody.

What were the buyers happy? The sellers happy. And of course the broker, um, or the agents happy, uh, with the transaction. And, um, as a, if you're working on the buyer side, you obviously want to help them get the name at the best and most affordable price. And if you're working on behalf of the seller, you want to get the most money for the domain name.

So it's, it's, it's a tricky spot being in the middle of that, but, um, if you've done it over and over again, you know what that sweet spot is and where it's fair to everybody and. Then you get repeat business, uh, as a broker, um, you know, on the broker side, but then you have a happy transaction between buyer and seller in the, in the long run.

And that's. Yeah. And I think we're at a unique time right now, because I think, um, whether it's because of the renewed emphasis on e-commerce because of the pandemic, the frustration with having the dominant internet companies like Amazon and  Google and Facebook, you know, control your message that buyers are, are becoming infected.

And sellers, the reason I think it's, it's, it's a two way market right now is I think most sellers that have owned premium names for 20 years, if they ever thought they were going to get an amount in 2000 or 2007, we've kind of got back to that level where they said, well, I'm never going to sell until I get a million I'm never going to sell.

I get 2 million. And I think for them the last seven or eight years, they would have had to take a law. Versus their emotional expectations of what they thought the name would be worth Monday. So now that we've reached a strong market, I think many of the best inventory. Is available, you know, names like home.com coming up this year and some of the other one word names, you know, I think that we have a lot of inventory that most people didn't even want to have discussions about.

Right. Monte and 14, 15, 16,  17, 18. Cause the, you know, the, the prices were maybe a little weaker. So you've got a time when we have great inventory. The sellers expectations are based upon the past and the buyers seem to be slowly coming around or. Uh, startup just raised so much money, like a hundred million dollars, then all of a sudden spending 1% of what they raise to get there.com.

That seems to be a trend. Do you see that trend? Yeah, for sure. And there's still some companies that, that, uh, that just don't get it, you know, I'm I'm and I'm going to lay out the perfect example. So we have bird.com for sales still, um, and a bird, the scooter company, you know, bird, a bird, um, scooters, and, and, uh, they they're about to go on.

They still don't own their.com name, which I have, uh, it's at a reasonable price for them to get. Um, they're, they're, they're going to come out over, uh, I believe it's between a four and $5 billion market cap, uh, value, and they can obtain the domain  name at the right price, uh, for, you know, a fraction of that.

Obviously you have, you know, a percentage of, of what their, um, you know, what their value. And, you know, they're about to launch on a, on a.co, you know, and, and I, yeah, I like, I love dot CO's, but it's not as good as a.com. It's a great alternative to.com, but you know, there's not too many successful IPOs that launched on a.co versus a.com.

Um, and then you brought up the Facebook example. So what just happened to Facebook in the last week? Well, they had a huge outage. Not only Facebook as a social media company, but the millions of businesses that decided to go with a Facebook page instead of having their own domain name. And so they were out as a result of Facebook being out when they say had their own domain name, they would have been in business and still operating for the almost 24 hours that Facebook was down.

That's a huge, huge, um, SailPoint right there on why companies should own their own domain names and, um, the best domain  name they could ship out. Uh, to avoid somebody else's outage, uh, and thinking that Facebook could never go down or be vulnerable to, uh, to, uh, an attack or to a screw up on their DNS or whatever.

And therefore everybody's businesses were affected by that besides Facebook. And, uh, that, that multiplier effect is a great fail case on why everybody should have the right domain name and, uh, and their website up and operating well, fantastic. No doubt. And I think. Um, you know, the things that go along with the Facebook thing, kind of bringing to mind different things.

I know Michael Costello tweeted yesterday. Hey, if, if you heard in a sales process, someone saying we can get by with Facebook, uh, you know, now's the time to contact them again. But I think it brings up more than that. It brings up the idea that in today's market, you might be paying Google. To retain customers that you've already earned.

You've already made the  investment to get a customer. And most companies know what that investment is. You know, what does it cost to acquire a customer? And you've already made that investment yet, somehow, whether it's because of the competition for the keyword of your company's name on Google, you're having to also continuously pay.

If you've trained them to only find you. By typing your company name into the Google search bar. And I think w w I think what's happening more and more is companies are realizing, wait, because we have a short name because we have an easy to remember name. People can either just type in our name on their smartphone, because really it's almost easier now on a smartphone for me to type in bird.com.

Then to go to Google type in bird, have to look at their results, scroll down past the page, the results, paid results. Look at each thing. See if it's the company I want and then get myself to my  destination. And then it may not be the destination@bird.com today. It may be where the bird.com marketing people want me to go.

So I think when you think about a name, like bird.com, you know, I think money, I think, and we do a lot of staging it, million dollar domains, you know, I think your buyer's going to come from outside that in user, because it's just something. It's four letters. It's short. If you think about a bird making music, a bird making speech, a bird chirping, a bird flying, a beautiful bird, a bird in the sky.

It's just such a wonderful thing to be associated with. Um, and I think what a company can do is they can say, are there any attributes of our company that are bird. We're all birds or just the word bird would be associated with and what these companies have been forced to do. I think over the past 10 years is make up other words like birdie or bird something, or spell birds with three whys.

 When the cost of getting the exact one isn't as much as they think. So. Good luck with that one. Yeah. Well guess who, the biggest buyer should be a bird that's who the number one buyers should be based off of what you. No, what company uses bird as their logo makes a bird noise. Whenever you send a message.

Twitter. Exactly. Twitter. Or the next Twitter, but bur you know, birds tweet, that's what birds do. And BR and, and, and Twitter should be the next buyer of bird. And, uh, of course I am trying to get it across their, uh, their, their eyeballs, because it's a no brainer. They just launched a, uh, uh, a division called bird watch.

Um, so they're using the term already, but that's just a perfect example, uh, and exactly down the pathway of, as you just described on, uh, you know, other potential buyers, there's no brainer buyers. There's no brainer buyers that have the word, and they're the only word they go by my brand and they don't own their own brand name and the.com. 

And then there's others that use bird-like features, logos, uh, uh, noises, um, um, things in their commercials that makes the most sense. And I would say, you know, the neat thing about the crypto craze or the NFT craze has been that a lot of it's had. Completely outside the three biggest companies on the internet, Google, Facebook, um, and Amazon.

And, you know, you think about telegram and then discord. And the idea that people have come up with better mousetraps, I think of a company raises $40 million to do a new messaging service or something. And then they do their second round of $200 billion or something to be bird. It's just a fraction of their market tap, you know, literally it's, it's it's like saying, would you rather have a company worth, you know, a hundred million dollars called X or, you know, it would only cost you  101 million to be well, 104 million to be worth this now, Monte, I know we've had just for a little bit.

The advantage that I think buyers have in an auction platform is in some ways you've already done some of the work for the buyer and that you've prenegotiated a reserve for the seller. And not only that is, I've told people over the years, you've prenegotiated kind of the opportunity to take some time to think about this name.

By it and know that they're going to get it. It's not going to be pulled out from under them or something like that because you've got a reserve price on these names that if people bid that reserve numbers, they don't have to wonder if the transaction's going to go through. Right. The sellers already agreed to that.

Uh, that is correct. 99.99% of the time. So, yes, so I do a lot of work with the seller to come up with a reasonable reserve. The goal, obviously in an auction, this is no different than Kristy Sotherby's Meekum car auction, Jackson.  Um, is to have reasonable reserve prices and even no reserve prices that drive market value based off of market competition and letting the market determine what the value is.

So, um, domain names are still a unique, um, asset in that way that. There's not a lot of comparables, uh, as there is with real estate. So, you know, if I'm in a neighborhood and I'm selling my house and the house across the street was built by the same builder and has the same structure, you know, like a plan neighborhood, my house is likely, uh, valued at the same price that that house just sold.

Uh, based off of the number of bedrooms and the neighborhood we're in and whether I'm on the water or not, that kind of stuff. So that's it, that's kind of an equal comparable, uh, and that's what makes a real estate, um, you know, a comparable market with domain names. It's kind of similar. You can say that bird.com is similar to.

Um, birdie or birds, plural, or, you know, a type of bird or what birds make a tweet or whatever, but it is very unique.  Um, and it is, um, it is based off of type in traffic and well, how you can SEO it and whether it is a dictionary term and, you know, uh, marketability and, um, all that kind of extra stuff. So.

We do have a huge comparable database, obviously of similar terms and the same keywords and all that stuff. So that's how we kind of come up with, um, a market value and I've done 500,000 plus domain appraisals. Um, so we use that data as well and all the millions of transactions that have occurred, um, but take negotiate with the seller to come up with a reasonable.

And that will drive market competition is one side of it. And it's, it's, you know, it's not an easy task to do because you want to make sure that seller satisfied with the sale. And then of course, the buyer has a set reserve, you know, and they don't know what that reserve is, but they at least have a price at which when they strike that number, um, that, that, uh, they're going to become the winning bidder of that name when they beat the second highest bidder.

So in that way it is correct. And  that's what makes. A viable market for digital real estate and digital asset and things that are fungible and non fungible, like art, uh, collectibles, um, you know, rare coins, um, NFTs, as you can see, what's going on, the biggest transactions are happening on auction because of this.

Um, not in. Um, and, and, uh, you know, we believe, and I've always believed since I created the auction market for the domain industry, that it's a way to keep fluid market transactions and liquidity in our market. Um, on the side. True private and negotiated and listing transactions. So all at the same time, um, because it sets a bar, it makes it, it sets a, uh, a great foundation of what names are worth.

And it keeps things going and fluid throughout the year. No matter what time or what day it is or whatever, um, when the markets may be up or down, um, auctions, or at least our auction seem to, to keep the market fluid and generating a revenue.  That's great mind you. I would encourage those of you looking at the right of the dot list.

You know, whether you're looking for a, a million dollar name, like new christian.com, multimillion dollar name that because, and all respect to Monte that the whole world doesn't know about domain options yet. And you might take the approach that, well, if no one bid more than 300,000 or something for nutrition.com, why did I have to pay the.

As it's more, but I might say to you as a buyer right now, you're benefiting from the fact that as much as Bonnie, you know, prize, not every qualified buyer is at that table to buy that name. And you might be able, you may have to pay the difference between the current bid and the reserve to get it, but you're going to own it.

And the other people that might've paid that amount, aren't going to find out you bought it until you have it. So I think in many cases, because we don't always read and Monte and notice  with that, we don't always reach every qualified buyer to be in the room of these options. That if that, if you, it would be great, if you only had to pay what the second highest bidder one to pay, but if you're there and the other qualified buyers aren't, and you know what the reserve is, or you bid high enough to get the reserve, it's really a buy it now.

And you're not going to have all of the. Am I too far off base, too Pollyanna, or I think that's an advantage for the buyer that, that there's a chance. Not every qualified competitor is bidding in the auction. Oh, that's definitely true. I mean, uh, uh, I try to get as many qualified buyers, so our options as we can, uh, we do all kinds of marketing and end user marketing and LinkedIn marketing and Facebook marketing.

And, um, Scott works his ass off in marketing. And so we, we try to get as many qualified bidders as we can so we can, so we can truly have a, um, a true market value at, at the strike price or whatever the price is. Um, and we do run, I do run all kinds of different options. So  we do do sealed bid options with, um, you know, bitter D high bidder pays the second highest bid price that we did that in our contention resolution four.

I can, you know, when, when all the new TLDs came out, um, because that was the fairest way to do those types of auctions, we felt, um, where everyone would put their best bid in. And, and even if you. The highest bidder would pay the second highest bid price, uh, which would be called the market price at that time.

Um, in, in terms of public auctions and open options or English auctions as we run, um, it's the highest price wins obviously. Um, and you outbid each other until that price goes to the highest point. And then when there's no more interest in. Bought or, you know, at the strike price or it's, uh, moved and sold or, I mean, moved into, um, you know, a brokered situation where we might have to bring the reserve price down and negotiate with the buyer that was interested, our second highest bidder and the highest bidder and see if we can get a deal done there.

And we do lots of  those transactions as well. Fantastic money put the, the what's you're fading. You're fading out a little bit page. It sounds like now.

Uh, can you hear me barely? Something's happened with your mic. All right. All right. Um, so we have till the 14th, uh, the names that didn't meet reserve in the live auction are available. Plus some names that may not have been in live auction, cause you had to whittle down the list and those end on the 14th.

Well, they end all in at the same time, that day will different bids extend the auction or how's that going to work just from the details point of view. Now it's going to be a staggered. Um, so closing starts@onethirtypmeasternstandardtimeatrotddothighbid.com. That's HIB id.com. Um, or if you go to rotc.com, you can be directed right to the  auction.

Um, but we are, we have a staggered close, so, uh, we'll start closing lots of names at the same time. Um, you know, lots being, you know, Um, a group of names at once. And then if there is a bid that happens within 30 seconds or a minute of closing, then there'll be an extension. And, um, it'll extend until the bidding's over in each one of those lots.

And it'll continue throughout the day until all the lots are either sold or closed and past. Well, fantastic. Well, I'm going to cover some news of the day. Is there anything else you want to share with us Monte or Scott? Scott? You have anything? No, I just was, uh, my jumped on the beginning. We were talking about Andy eaters and what Paige was going to do with that.

But I think you've covered everything. Monte, as you mentioned, page, there was, there was a lot of names that weren't in the live auction. And then there were some late addition names that, um, you know, didn't even have a chance to get in the live auction that are in the  extended auction name, like wage.com for example, which is.

Again, a great, awesome, you know, one word, short name that stands for, you know, anything we're related to money and making money and earning a wage and income and a job and, um, all that stuff. So, uh, that's, that's one of the best names we have in the auction as well. What's the reserve rains on, on Wade's.

If I've got some nickels to rub together, I got to find some money in. Oh, that'd be, that'd be in your million dollar category. That's it? But I think that's a great example though, because you know, you think about wage and I think that. You know, people could say, oh, this is what's wrong with this. What's wrong with this.

What's wrong with it. And then you think what really is the most valuable people? The most valuable thing that people have even more than their house, it's the earning power over their lifetime. And I think that when you started talking about the total earning power of every person in the world is your, is your market size.

Um,  and the ability to relate that, you know, with. Uh, one syllable, one word Wade's dot com. The only thing that I think works against people's thinking is the past, or maybe it hasn't been done. And I guess Monte, that's the one thing from, you know, again, in many ways the, the, the, the person who's started everything in our business.

Do we need to have some new companies make that case. You know, for a long time, we used to have the business.com sale and the toys.com IPO. And we've had companies buy generics to brand themselves, you know, like purple mattress company, but the idea of taking a generic and, and applying it to that business.

You know, I think some people might say, well, no one else is doing it. Why should I, um, do we need some new use cases in that area where people started a business with, uh, with a great one word showed how you could make 10, 20, 30, $40 million a  year. It seems like some of our use cases are dated.

Well, I wouldn't say they're, I wouldn't say they're dated. Uh, I would just say that, um, you know, you use purple as an example, which is a mattress company. Um, Uh, you know, in that particular case, it has nothing to do with bedding other than the material underneath the mattress is purple. Um, but it had nothing to do with, you know, the mattress itself, other than the color of the mattress, uh, you know, fabric, you know, the mattress, a makeup, um, and, and you have several examples like that word names, you know, short names, we'll repurpose for another use.

Um, and then just. Um, on that case study, um, you know, they became valuable domain names in itself because the, uh, color turned into a product or, um, you know, another word turned into, uh, another use case that was unrelated to the actual definition of the word. Um, that's actually a  cool way to use names these days.

And of course you have the urban dictionary and other dictionaries now that are in use. You did mention like using bird with a Y instead of a IRD and a Y RD and which people are doing, and, and the slang of the word sometimes makes it cooler and more hip than the actual spelling of the word. Um, and I think there's plenty of use cases out there that do it.

And, and as we keep going down a path of digital. Uh, the digitalization and AI revolution of, um, of the internet. You're going to see all kinds of new use cases and words and things that are used. I mean, just look at the last 12 months. You know, digital real estate, digital assets, NFTs, non fungible tokens, crypto Bitcoin, um, all the various terminology for that Metta medic.

Metaverse met a universe, all these new words that were in existence before, but weren't used in crypto before, because there wasn't crypto. Now there's new uses and new cases and new definitions. And now they're going to be redefined in the,  in the, in the dictionaries, across the world because of this. Um, so I think that happens every day and maybe we just don't pick up on at all.

Yeah. Well, I would say to, to those out there in the business, I think that once something shown to be. Working the price of entry is going to be a lot more. And I think if someone takes mattress.com and starts moving 60, $70 million a year of mattresses off of it, there's going to be a rush to buy the keywords, not for their brandable value, but for their keyword value.

And. You may have to pay up now, but I think compared to what's going to happen to sellers expectations when there is a great use case like that. Um, you know, I think that's the risk and people say, yeah, but I, I don't invest in risky things. I don't take chances. Well, there's billions of dollars being spent on risky assets right now.

And. And I think that shouldn't be a thing. So speaking of billions of dollars, thanks again, Mani and Scott,  I'm going to announce the Guinness book of world records, highest asking price ever for a domain name. Um, this is the official unofficial. Book of world records, which for those of you who aren't over 40, uh, used to be a book that we all had that had the world records for everything, the oldest person, the youngest person, the tallest person.

So I'm going to use the Guinness book of world records. I'm going to announce and put forth for verification, the largest asking price ever for a domain. And, uh, Monte, I could play a game with you and ask you, what do you think it is? But anyway, I was looking on doe.com, which is a way to look at all domains for sale.

And I clicked some of the keywords like Monte was talking about, you know, NFT and metaverse and I have metaverse.aig. And metaverse.aig and Dofu has a  way to search the different marketplaces for what's for sale. And we've all seen the names that are for sale for $999 million. And I say, that's peanuts because metaverse that AIG has been listed for sale, not for seven figures, not for eight figures, not for nine figures.

Not for 10, not for 11, not for 12. Not for 13, not for 14, not for 1517 figures. It's for sale metaverse.aig for 14 quadrillion 165 cents million 439,241 billion, $642 or $302. So Monty, have you ever seen anything listed for sale for more than 14 quarters? Only in pesos.

I think, I think that must  be in pesos or, or, or shackles or something. It's got a dollar sign in front of it. So the internet doesn't lie. Um, So anyway, so that's a, you heard it here first, the height, or maybe, or maybe it represents the entire universe and beyond in a potential users of people we haven't discovered yet that living beings.

There you go. It's not just the metaverse. It does not say a financing was available, but you might be able to get it for a trillion. Uh, for a 14,000, uh, it'll be 1000 years that a trillion a month would be $14 trillion, 14 quadrillion dollars. Anyway, uh, we in second place, uh, oh my gosh, you got me on that.

That'll be next week. Tune in to see with second place, uh, here on three I'll sort by price decreasing with the word metaverse.  Uh, FB Metta first is, oh, we just have a new record. We now have FB metaverse listed for sale for 73 quadrillion. That must be somebody listening right now that just put that up for sale because I think it would become number one in the Guinness world book.

That's right. They're tied with metaverse start and start metaverse. So those people need to add $1 to their listing so that it's 73 quadrillion 316 quadrillion 861,022 billion, 119 million, $730. All right. That was. Well, listen, rarely do we get the real world to interject with domain names and we just kind of about 10 minutes more today of a million dollar domains.

And if you have a question about a million dollar domains, a question for Monte or Scott, if they can stay with us, or if you're offering a million dollar name for sale, or you want to know if your name  is a million dollar domain name and. Have it be close. Okay. Um, or if you've got a show on, uh, on clubhouse this week, go ahead and pop up and we'll make you a speaker.

If you give us your permission to record. But, um, in the news this week, Elliott silver reported on his domain investing.com, which you should be subscribed to. I know many of you can probably get the feed from domaining.com, but if you're subscribed to his feed, you'll get his post. Right. And he talked about Kevin O'Leary from shark tank.

Mr. Wonderful. I think is what he goes by. Um, and one of his investments is in a company called immutable holdings, Inc. And immutable holdings Inc is a holding company with various blockchain investments. This is from, uh, Elliot story. And one of the investments was nfte.com and just like Bhante shared before Monte, uh, immutable holdings had a press release where they said, announcing that  immutable holdings is listed on the stock exchange, the Nao stock you saints.

I'm not sure where that is. Um, But, uh, Kevin said quota divested immutable holdings to get a diverse portfolio of blockchain opportunities, including nfte.com. One of the most important and valuable domain names and Cristo assets settled. Larry nfte.com is where the puck is going. The opportunity to build profiles in the NFTE space was such a powerful and important domain name.

Is what immutable holdings is doing. So if you think about that, By having Kevin as a shareholder, knowing that his name and his press releases are getting picked up. Not only are they announcing that they own in Ft com, but they're given a free chance in one or two sentences to say exactly what their business model is without having to pay for that advertise.

So not only when you announced that you've purchased a one word domain name to get a chance to tell people what  the name of your company is, you get you've earned the right because of their interests to say what your company's trying to do. And if you think of how much money companies spend trying to communicate what their company's trying to do, it's an amazing chance.

Uh, the thought is that they bought this around. Let's see, I don't know if they've ever published it. They want NFC at that time to be the go-to platform for entering the NFTE ecosystem. Uh, Andrew Roesner, uh, had announced that he sold in Ft, uh, to this holding company. Uh, Elliot found out that the name was sold for seven figures.

Although the exact amount is not being disclosed. So Mr. Wonderful, Kevin O'Leary might be the type of person that you can expect. If you had a start-up and you went to the shark tank and you may say, well, what is your company worth? Or what are your assets? And you said, well, we have a domain name. You may think he'd be a naysayer.

 But I think in this case he gets it. And I think more people than you think. In the real world, they don't want it publicized. They want to be able to buy things for cheaper. But, um, Monte, I don't know if you've worked with this company before or, or this, but don't you feel like this is a real world, uh, announcement of something that we've known for a long time, but it's going to take more of these, uh, before we can ever say that domains are at their top or overvalued or this, that, and the other, we still have a long way to.

Yeah, for sure. And, and, you know, and Andrew's a good friend of mine and a good cop and a good colleague or, or we're in businesses together. Uh, and we also compete together and as brokers and, uh, but I know for a fact that he sold. Cheap, um, on purpose so that it would be a real use case. So there's another example of somebody in the industry, um, um, selling a name less than probably what it's valued at one could argue that it's worth as much as  a voice.com you know, NFTs and.

Um, you know, it's, it's shorter than boys. It's, it's the huge rage right now. It's, uh, it's also a three word domain name that could, you know, three letter domain name. It could stand for other things as well. Uh, it happens to Stanford, non fungible, token, um, and. It keeps again, it keeps fluid fluidity and liquidity in the marketplace by doing a transaction like that.

And look what happened, you know, Kevin and Larry of sharp shark tank made a point to say how valuable that domain name was. And one of the reasons why he invested in that company and, and there's, there's lots of examples like that. And I think as more and more transactions come into the future, um, you know, some people put stipulations saying, Hey, we, we want to do a joint press release about this.

And that helps the industry. It raises everybody's Tidewater up, no matter what domain name you have, what extension you believe in. Uh, it helps raise the value of the entire industry when things like that happen and, and a particular famous investor and a television  personality. And, you know, CNBC commentator makes a point by saying how valuable that particular domain name was and using the word domain name and using the, uh, the, the actual domain name that was sold.

And we know it was sold for $2 million. And so that's great. Um, and we need. Well, fantastic. Um, last thing I'll cover today on the news was, uh, James Isles, who does a great job. He writes for Dean Dwayne named wire. He talked about a company, marshmallow.com, which. The big marshmallows song for 12,500, about four years ago.

And the Andrew was like, great sale. Wow, great one word name. But at that time, it wasn't clear that these single word names were going to have the brand of open. And people said, well, you want to get the one with the E because that's what it sounds like. And different things like that, but he writes a story and he talks about how for buying that name for 12,500.

Now there they've just raised 85 million at a  $1.2 billion valuation. Um, they spent the 1200. In the early days, instead of waiting till now, where they may have spent, had to spend $2 million to get the name, they paid 12 five. It was for sale on seydoux.com at the time. And I think that if you're out there buying, you're going to have to show foresight.

And I would say to you that are listening about million dollar domains. It's only the equity owner, the private equity firm, the venture capital firm, the CEO, it's only a stakeholder. I think that can make a domain name, decision like this because. I think everyone else in the company is looking for guidance on what to do from the top down.

And they may not want to see any money go toward, um, an asset purchase. They may want to think that that people can always replace that asset. But as I've said for 20 years, you know, a domain name works for you, 24 7, 365. It takes no vacations. It needs no friends benefits.  You don't have to house it. You don't have to create an officer.

You don't have to supervise it and pay a supervisor or a manager. And, and once you buy that asset in.com for the initial price, it's going to cost you about $9 and 50 cents to $13 a year to keep that name for each and every year, you have the guaranteed right to renew that domain name on the internet.

And I think that. Other departments may not want to see money, go out for this purpose, you know, to, to buy an asset. But if you're the stakeholder and you're allocating capital inside of a company, I would encourage you that you need to make the decision to spend the money, a domain name, to make all the rest of the money that you spend, uh, happen.

So those are my three news items. Uh, this week in Ft com selling and Kevin O'Leary's comments. I think that should go into your list of links that you can show to people. When you're talking about million dollar domain names, what other people have said  about million dollar domain names. I think you can paint a picture with the domain name wire story on unicorn.com uh, to show people that.

Even at the time, it may look like you're overpaying a little bit, but looking back on it, if you know what you're going to do with it, even at your founder or your startup stage, um, if you can get it for the right price, that makes sense. And then I want to thank Monty and Scott from right of the.to share with us about direction, their auction coming up and, uh, and domain names.

So thanks everybody. I'm going to check for questions. Let's see, uh, anybody have any questions for what we talked about today? Have a million dollar domain name they just bought or that they're selling or brokering, or lastly, if you've got any clubhouse talks this week that you want to share, um, I'll be on Monday in domain club for Monday domains and then Tuesday in domain club for outbounding club, where we talked about selling domains and outfit. 

And I know next Tuesday, I think Braden, Pollock's going to be on with Krista for a clubhouse talk. So, uh, we usually end right about the top of the hour, Rachel. Thanks for letting us be in start-up club today. We may do this in the future again, so thanks.

And Monte and Scot, and anything else you want to, you want to end with a Monty? Thanks for announcing some of the new ads like Wade's dot com to the auction. And we hope to have you back to talk about the results of the auction, um, uh, as you get those in. So thanks a lot. My pleasure, our pleasure. We look forward to everybody participating in the online auction.

That's ending on October. Thanks Monte. Hey Debra. How you doing? Do you have some content and a content room coming up? I do. Thanks Paige, for having me up on stage and, um, this afternoon at 3:00 PM Eastern standard time. Uh, we'll be  Domenico was, and it's a club about brandable domain and, um, people.

Feedback from their peers and many times that will increase the value, like in your own mind of your own domain. Um, just to see, to get, if you, when you get feedback other people's. Fresh eyes, see things you might not have seen in your domain. So it's a lot of fun. And, um, and we also talk about other things about in the brandable space, like the brandable markets or, um, whatever we want to talk about.

Brandable tone means. So again, that's, uh, 3:00 PM Eastern standard time domains and domain is, is domain with I a Z. Great. And if you want more information, you can also hit Debra's profile and follow her club or follow her. And Deborah, we did record today. So I wanted to make sure to get  your permission that we can record you to the.

Yes, certainly page. Thank you. Fantastic. Well, thanks everybody for coming to million dollar domain so you can get some information on prior shows a million dollar domains.club. We'll have the recording of this show up on start-up dot club and a link from domain club. Uh, want to thank our speakers and guests for coming to million dollar domains today and have a great week out there.

I can't wait to see what happens in million dollar domain name. Just in the next seven days till we meet again. So I'm going to close the room and thanks to.

Question 2

Read the Audio Transcript For: SE.Club- Building a great brand with Eric Malka

Accepted Answer

TRANSCRIPT: SE.Club – EP30: Building a great brand with Eric Malka / 10-1-21

 Today we have a very interesting session. I don't know about you, but I use the product, uh, the artist shaving product. It's phenomenal. It's uh, probably one of the nicest, um, shaving products I've ever used.

 Every year. I get a present for my wife. She restocks all my artist shaving stuff. And today we have the founder. This is exciting. I just want to let you know too, if you haven't already done. So go to startup.club and enter your name in the email list. Last night at 6:00 PM, we had Mr. Wonderful on from shark tank and we had a great time.

 Uh, by the way, we did record that session. So it's available on startup.club, www.startup.club. And let me tell you this show, this show is all about finding the secret code that entrepreneurs like Eric have when it comes to starting scaling, exiting, and repeating that over and over again. This is the serial entrepreneur hour every Friday at two o'clock.

 And we're trying to figure out the secret sauce. What is it that Eric does that makes him so successful over and over again? And that's what we're trying to figure out. Today's all about branding. We have Jeff, who is our moderator and branding expert, uh, along with Olivia. I think she's not in today, but we have Jeff.

 He's going to take it away. Thank you Colin and welcome everyone. And welcome Eric. Before we begin, I do want to remind everyone that this show is also being recorded. And if you do raise your hand, when we open it up later for questions and ask Erica question, uh, you are giving us permission to record you.

 And as Colin mentioned, recordings of this show and all episodes of the serial entrepreneur hour can be found over@startup.club, the website for startup club, and you can sign up for our mailing list there and get informed of upcoming shows and special events like yesterday. Having Mr. Wonderful and today having the wonderful Eric Malka.

 So with that, Eric, welcome to serial entrepreneur hour.

 Eric, you can go ahead and unmute yourself and say hello and introduce yourself,

 tap that microphone in the lower right corner. And you should be good to go. So these darn movies go. Here we go. I just gave up my age. Um, hi guys. Thanks for having me like calling Jeff. Thanks for being here, Eric. And I know, um, you know, you've got a great origin story, um, with you and your wife, starting the artist shaving together.

 Do you want to just give a little bit of background and then, then we'll get into some questions for you? Yeah. Um, I'll give you the short story. Um, met my wife in 94. Um, in Miami, we moved to New York. Uh, broke with, um, with a dream and, uh, stumbled onto the shaving category by coincidence and, uh, sold our car and from our kitchen and in our Chelsea apartment, we started, um, we started the brand and opened a small, tiny shop in the upper east side of Manhattan.

 And, uh, it just took off, eh, we quickly realized that we had stumbled onto a unique, uh, category and that we had an opportunity to turn it into an household brand. So we built it from there. That's great, Eric, and, and, you know, you started with one, a physical store in Manhattan. Um, when did e-commerce become part of the model was, was e-commerce part of your vision from day one or did that evolve over time?

 Well, we started the art of shaving in 1996. There was no e-commerce. So the time, uh, we were the OJI of direct to consumer, we were retailers. Uh, that's what direct to consumer men bag. The hint is opening up a brick and mortar store. It's not until, uh, early 2000, 2001 that we started having our first website, actually a static website that then sell products and a year later having, um, having an e-commerce, um, website and I think 2002.

 So at the time you, you launched e-commerce how many retail locations did you have at that point? In 2002, we had only four locations because we had shifted our focus to distribution, to luxury retailers around the world. And so between 19, uh, between 2001 and 2003, we ramped up about 800 door distributions in the us and abroad.

 And after that, we started to, uh, wrap up our retail stores starting in 2003. Uh, so we were very visible on the shelves of Neiman Marcus Bloomingdale's and the likes, uh, which drove, uh, internet sells almost instantly, but we weren't pushing internet itself. They were just another way for consumers to, uh, reorder their favorite products.

 It accounted for about 10% of our overall. So really the, the exposure you had at the retailers was the driver for people to then find you online and, and, um, reorder the products. And I remember when I first started getting artist shaving products, they were from stores like, you know, um, Neiman Marcus and others.

 But then I noticed the store is showing up the retail stores. And one thing that stood out and then I'll F this is the last question I'll ask, and then I'll let others talk. But the one thing that stood out was of course, you had the barber chair in the store and the opportunity for people to get an actual shave, which was a brilliant bit of marketing, especially in a high traffic, uh, location.

 Cause people walking by could see right through the window, someone's sitting there experiencing the art of shaving, you know, firsthand. Right. Was that something you did from the beginning and your very first store or did that come later on? That came about six months after we started our first store and, uh, From the second store on, we had Barbara chose because it really drove a much more interesting experience and journey for the consumer and drove sales.

 Yeah. Really ma made it stood out. And it's interesting because you really were ahead of your time because that was an experience in a retail location. And now of course, in today's world, everything is shifting towards much more experiential, uh, shopping experiences. And, and many would argue that that's the only future left for physical re retail is, is if you can turn it into an experience since everything else you can literally do online.

 So you're way ahead of the game. Well, thank you for saying that because, you know, we, we were, um, innovators and in a few different ways and, um, you know, people don't really give us any credit for it, but yes, we were already realizing that there was no reason to go to a retail store. Like ours, because you could get our products almost anywhere.

 And we had to rethink retail into an experiential journey. We called it a consumer journey. Once they come into the store, all senses have to be, um, um, catered to, and I'll tell you an anecdote. I mean, you know, we dealt with affluent male consumers, and I remember one guy early on at the register after getting a haircut saying, how do you survive on Madison avenue, charging $40 for a haircut.

 And I was having this conversation with them while I was reading about $400 with the products that he was buying at the same time. So, uh, the answer became evident when I gave him his. So the, the loss leader concept, the lost leader concept was not lost on us. That's great. Well, let me open it up for, um, Colin or Michelle or anyone on stage to ask questions.

 And while we're doing that, if you're listening in the audience and you have a question for Eric, um, please raise your hand and Rachel will bring you up and you'll have a chance to ask that question, Michelle, go ahead. Yeah. Hi Eric, just so great to have you here today. Um, like, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm so impressed when I think about what you did for the bigger vertical, which is men's skincare, which by the way, is becoming a massive industry.

 I think I just read a statistics recently. It's going to be close to a $20 billion industry by the year 2027. What you told me. Was not particularly innovative, but you made the old new again in such an elegant refined way. Like what really was the aha moment for you? What really brought this to your attention?

 And, you know, just a little bit for me, my family actually ran old school barber shops. So I remember very distinctly when you came about, we were so impressed. You know, we were, they were giving like $5 haircuts, but they were, Barbara's using straight razors, but you, you know, in your wife and your team came along and really changed the paradigm to make it a profitable, you know, sector.

 So I'm really interested in, at what point did you realize I could take this old thing and really like, make it new and glamorous? Like, like what was that moment?

 Well, thank you for that question. That's a. Okay, you guys are showering me with a lot of, a lot of pride with it's true that we have ignited, you know, before the art of shaving, uh, men's grooming was really, uh, shaving cream tube and a throwaway raise where you, you took to the gym. Uh, we gave men permission to groom because we, we made it extremely masculine.

 Uh, I don't think we had an aha moment. I think my wife and I were just instinctive, uh, and lucky entrepreneur being at the right place at the right time with the right ideas and the right background. Um, when I started discovering these old shaving accoutrements that I was working with, uh, our, our only idea was to open.

 Uh, we said. We probably can get enough money to script up and open a tiny little mom and pop store, uh, and the execution of it. And the development of it is, is what we infused into the category. We brought our own DNA to that, to that category. And I think, um, really by instinct, more than by sheer genius, we, we created something that was really appealing at the perfect time in the past hundred years for the category, uh, when men's grooming and metro-sexual movement was really starting.

 But our biggest challenge is we did not have a distribution channel. We would do business with the Barneys of the Neiman Marcus of the world. Uh, but they would sell very little merchandise. Uh, and it was very frustrating for us because we already had two stores. You know, one of them was doing more than a million dollars a year in revenue.

 So we knew the demand was there. And that really drove us to, uh, focus on driving our own, um, retail concept. And just to back up a little bit, really the magic behind the art of shaving was a combination of my wife's, um, impeccable taste for luxury packaging and, and branding and our mutual love for natural health and wellness.

 So all of the art of shaving products were made with the most natural ingredients and essential oils, which really was also something very, very novel, not only for men, but in the industry as a whole, which we now know as the clean industry, but way, way back in the mid nineties. And I'm getting off subject from your questions.

 We started to have our blacklists. We don't use the. Chemicals in our products, we use only botanical ingredients. Uh, so the aha moment, I think, you know, was a work in progress. We, we immediately within, I think within three months we realized that we had inadvertently stumbled onto something that was much bigger than we set out to build.

 Uh, and that's when we really started to look at it and say, how do we turn this into a brand? How do we create an offering? We don't want, you know, we don't want to just be a multi-brand retailer with a cool, uh, service concept. We want to become a household brand. So we started creating a line of, uh, uh, of products.

 So it was really a work in progress to, uh, to come into our own because, you know, from selling a car in 1996 to selling the company to Procter and gamble in 2008, um, that was quite a journey, uh, But there was not that one single aha moment. And to this day, my wife and I are building more brands and this is the same process.

 We just, you know, it's just something we do instinctively. We basically build things that we wish we, we had access to in the marketplace that we can't find. Let me ask a question, Eric, is it, I mean, it's phenomenal what you created here and all your other projects are amazing as well, but how do you think about it before you start these businesses?

 Was it 1996? Were you thinking, you know, I could create this brand and, and, and then you built a company around it or did you sort of build a company and, and create the brand later? Yeah, the way we did it back then is not the way we've been doing it ever since. Uh, uh, back then, w you know, my wife was 22 years old.

 I was 28 years old. I had. Close the, uh, business that that was not successful. Um, and really we were thinking about creating a tiny little business, a little mom and pop shop where we could sell products that I have access to from, from England and Europe. And, uh, we started to develop our skills, uh, at the art of shaving.

 And this is where we discovered our own individual talents and, uh, our ability to create, uh, this grind that we became brand builders. Uh, today, when we sit down to create a brand, um, we really put pen to paper thinking, how do we create an iconic brand? You know, it's almost impossible to create an iconic brand, but it is the mindset that we use to, uh, to develop.

 We start with a very, very big vision and iconic vision. Uh, but back then we were too naive. You know, we were, we were, we had very good instincts. We now realize that, uh, and we had a lot of luck. Um, and with those two things, we were able to create something that allowed us to have a platform, to develop our brand building skills, to create a real brand, to, uh, scale it and eventually, um, sell it.

 So it was a very different time for us. Yeah, but, um, you've done a great job. And like you said, the instincts were right. And I think one of the things that a great brand needs is consistency. And I think the artist shaving did a great job of keeping that consistency of wanting, you know, organic natural products throughout.

 I still have the wooden, um, shaving. So bowls, you know, so when everyone else was selling, um, you know, uh, plastic and metal soap bowls, you came out with these beautiful shaving bowls that were made of wood and you put the sandalwood soap in it and you had the natural hairbrush and, and all of a sudden shaving became fun.

 It became something interesting instead of a chore you did every day. Um, so that all tied into building that, that iconic brand, um, I have other questions, but let's go to Sasha, Sasha, welcome to the serial entrepreneur hour. Did you have a question for Eric? Thank you. Yes, I'm thrilled to be here, Eric.

 It's so lovely to hear you describe the, um, the senses and how you incorporated the senses into building a brand. And I think in this time it might be unpopular. I'm in marketing, alongside Jeffery. So pardon me for being crazy here, but in this time of performance and growth and this advertising silo that we're really struck down and I'd love to have you talk a little bit about, more about the deepening of the brand storytelling and they ascetic and design value that you shaped the art of shaving with, because I think that's what we recall.

 And that was what, when I first entered your store was so intriguing and exciting to me, it was the engagement of the senses. And I think that still has a value even as we eventually into the metaverse. So I'd love to hear your sentiments on the state of things. Now we're just having. Began to incorporate the senses either naive at later, or just as you continued love to hear more about that.

 Thank you. Yeah, sure. Thanks for that. Uh, well, we've just launched, uh, our, our, our new brand called the ingredients wellness nine months ago. And, um, you know, in the nineties and early 2000, we were trying to create a, um, a sensorial experience for the consumer because we were not digital yet. So it was about touching, smelling, hearing, feeling, you know, transporting you into a different era and so forth.

 But at the core of every iconic brand is a purpose. And, um, in, in our latest brand, um, we're extremely purpose driven. It's all about. Promoting, you know, uh, empowering consumers to reduce toxicity in their daily lives, in pursuit of optimal wellness to lead a natural lifestyle, if you will. So, um, times have changed, but there's some, um, elements, uh, that, that still stayed true to this day.

 Um, I think that consumers today, um, really want to connect emotionally as they are. They have always connected emotionally with brands. I mean, if you want to create an iconic brand, you need to have an emotional connection. And that's where the purpose is so important. Not only for your consumers to, to, uh, To build a community around you, but also your employees, your vendors, everyone, you know, uh, we talk a lot about culture at EO and in business in general, but, um, I call it just cult.

 Um, every, every company has a culture, whether you want to or not, but we always created cult like following, um, And, and that is done primarily by having a purpose greater than just selling products for making profits. It has to go much beyond that. And my wife and I have always been extremely passionate about natural health and wellness and, uh, through our own experiences, we've detoxified our lives, uh, to achieve a higher level of health.

 And that's always been our driving principle behind every company that we build. We, we don't want to sell products. We want to improve people's lives and primarily, um, help them improve, um, their health. So whether it is by making them happy with the environment, having beautiful music, educating them with great content.

 Uh, providing them with products that are free of toxic chemicals. All of these things are, um, in my opinion, a sensory journey in many ways that can translate from the physical world into the digital world, uh, today. Uh, for example, one of the, well, I'll leave it at that unless you have a follow up, I'll give the example.

 Well, one of the very innovative thing we're doing with ingredients wellness is where the first personal care brand to actually disclose our exact formulation on the front of the bottle. This has never been done before because most brands consider that to be proprietary secrets of, of the company. Um, so by doing that, uh, we're creating.

 A relationship with that customer based on transparency. And if you think about every relationship that you can have in the world, whether it's with a loved one or intimate relationship, transparency is at the, is the, is the building block of these relationships, right? Uh, if you have something to hide, you know, there's no honesty, there's no intimacy.

 This is where our brand ingredients starts by saying to the world. Um, we have no secrets. What you see is what you get we're fully transparent and all we care about is your well-being and your best interest. So the world is changing, uh, but, but Brendan, Brendan principals, um, are the same. They really are focused on a purpose and on, um, The wellbeing of your customers and developing this emotional relationship.

 And at the art of shaving, we were very, very, very fortunate. And we realized this after a couple of years, uh, how strong the emotional connection was between shaving and men. Uh, first of all, it is the, one of the only thing that separates men from women as an act, right, shaving your face is this is a solely masculine thing.

 And what we kept hearing in our stores, they in day out, because the first two years, my wife and I were physically in the store, catering to consumers is that, um, we hear stories. Oh, last time I had a straight razor shave was a day of my wedding, 40 years ago. Oh. I remember my grandfather taking me to the barbershop.

 Oh, you know, my uncle was a barber in Brooklyn. Oh. You know, all day long we heard. And these are emotional stories as you can get. So. Uh, that was a hugely important factor that we discovered to have that emotional connection between your brand and the consumer. And I think even in the digital age, If you focus on that emotional connection and you treat your brand like your person and you treat your customer like the loved one, then you can create an emotional relationship with that customer.

 And that's really the foundation of an iconic brand. Yeah. That that's, um, really great Eric and a great question, Sasha, because I think at the heart of it, that transparency, that emotional connection creates trust. And at the end of the day, People want to deal with a brand. They trust they want to have a trusted brand.

 And I think that's probably, as you alluded to Eric more important today than ever before, you have all these micro brands now where we're almost anyone can, can whip up a Shopify site, find some products to resell and sort of create this brand. But a lot of them be by nature of being a micro micro brand in that regard don't have that trust.

 They don't have that level of transparency. They don't have, uh, they haven't put the effort in to create that emotional connection you're talking about. They're just out there to sell a product, as you said earlier, as opposed to, um, really creating that connection, creating that trust. So I think it's very relevant to everything you said.

 Yeah. Thank you. Right. We feel very strongly about that and that's where it starts. It doesn't start with what are we going to send? Who are we going to sell it to how much money we're going to make? How are we going to fund it? It starts with what is it that the consumer needs? What's their pain point right now for us, what we realized as our pain point, because we are a customer and we're catering to ourselves thinking that there are many people like us out there.

 The pain point is that we're bombarded with petrochemicals in our daily lives and it is making us sick. Um, and that is a huge pain point that we're addressing. So our starting point is completely slow, selfless. It's completely about the consumer wellbeing, the best interest, and, uh, And, and, and fairness, uh, uh, in how we deal with them and that doesn't prevent you from doing well, by the way, you can make a lot of money doing good out there.

 Uh, it's great, Eric, I don't think we often hear, uh, brands refer to themselves as selfless. So I think that that's a great, a great word in that association, Stacy, welcome to the serial entrepreneur hour. Did you have a question for Eric? Yes, I do. And, uh, first, just a really big shout out to the moderators in the room, um, for bringing Eric and the art of shaving.

 I mean, what a disruptive of course, in a good way. And I tonic brand and Eric, it's so nice to meet you. And, um, of course, um, branding marketing is, is my profession. And I'm just wondering and forgive me because I came in a little late to the room if this was already discussed, but the name itself. The art of shaving, you know, because again, um, my self, my, my, my company, I run an agency, we have named a lot of brands.

 And when I start to think about the name, the art of shaving, it was like, wow, well, shaving is really like an art and a science. And so I just wanted to get into your, into your mindset a little bit. And how you came up with the name. Well, um, yeah, it's a cool story. Uh, we were already involved with the shaving industry, but, uh, we lived in Chelsea on 23rd street, then behind our house every weekend was the flea markets of antique dealers.

 If you're from the city, you may remember them. I don't know if they're still around and my wife and I used to love, love going there every weekend and picking up this and that. And one day we found. Somewhat that sell sold these old shaving razors and you know, old Gillette things. And, uh, we started buying some of them and there was a book there, a book on shaving that was written in the 18 hundreds to teach men, um, how to, how to shape, because, uh, you know, in the old days you had, if you were wealthy, you had your valet shave you.

 If you were poor, you had your wife. Uh Shavey basically. So this book was entitled the art of shaving, and we thought it was a great, a great name to adopt for, for our new store. So that's how, that's how we came up. I love it. Well, it, it works. It's all good. And just one other quick, follow-up question, Eric.

 Um, I, I believe you're, um, the art or shaving is registered. Did you apply for, for the registration or is a PNG? Oh no, we did. Uh, first thing we did, uh, I'm, I'm a nightmare, you know, every trademark I've ever filed with my lawyer, he told me this will never go through. He's never once not said that, uh, this is too descriptive.

 It's never going to go through. So yes, we absolutely, you know, when we sold our company, I think 95% of the price, uh, was about that trademark and what it represented. Uh, so yes, we filed that trademark, both in the us as well as abroad, um, very early. No, it's funny because we've been told the same with paul.com.

 Jeff and I have been told that we cannot trademark it. Well, you know what? booking.com the Supreme court ruled you can trademark it. And, uh, we're gonna try, we're gonna try, we'll see how it goes. Well, I got a, I got a trademark for the word ingredients, so that's, I don't know how lucky I was with that one, but, uh, we got it.

 Yeah. I noticed that when I visited ingredients wellness, that that was pretty, pretty remarkable. And, um, um, important to, again, building that iconic brand, you know, you want to own every aspect of it and having the trademark, uh, having the right name is, is clearly an important part of it. Stacy. Thanks for bringing that up.

 Uh, Peter, welcome to the serial entrepreneur hour. Do you have a question for Eric? Yes. Hello everybody. Hi, Eric. Um, have I heard you saying, um, I was lucky we were lucky. Right when you were starting up. Um, I'm just curious if you were lucky ones then, or you're our lucky steel and you've been lucky your whole life.

 And if you can elaborate however you can on this topic. Yeah, I truly believe, I mean, I don't understand luck as, as much as the next guy. Um, we don't know where it comes from, whether we create luck or it just happens to us. Uh, I've been very lucky. I've been, I've been blessed in so many ways. Uh, I have so many examples of things.

 Uh, I was lucky about that. Had nothing to do with, with, uh, any kind of, uh, intelligence or resources. You know, when we opened our second store on Madison avenue, we didn't realize we were across the streets from the, uh, headquarters of, um, of that publishing house that has all the greatest magazines in the world.

 Um, I, I forget the name, you know, print magazines, but they used to, these two have 50, you know, magazines under one roof, uh, Condit hats. So that was extremely lucky. Every day we had the editors of every magazine you've you would ever want to be in a walk in front of our store. Um, you know, and we got so much press on that.

 That was extremely lucky. Um, Two years. You know, when I, when I presented the brand to the president of Neiman Marcus in 1998, uh, he didn't say a word for 30 minutes. And then he turned to, you know, when I finished my presentation turned to his team and he said, you guys probably don't know this, but my, uh, grandfather was a barber, you know, game over, you know, that was the end of that.

 Uh, th there was so many situations that I felt, uh, we were extremely blessed. I'm blessed with, um, being, being asked to, um, give my review of the new razor P and G was launching as, as part of their Gillette, um, acquisition. And that was on CNN talking about the fusion razor before it launched in the marketplace then, and the group president at P and G was like, who's this guy, we should go talk.

 You know, that became a whole, a whole window that opened to the world. So, and even today we feel, you know, we continue to have a lot of blessings. I think, I think we can attract luck by, by doing certain things. But, um, you know, I still don't understand how that happens. I just, uh, I'm very grateful for, uh, and also conscious that lock is the fifth element that you don't control in, um, in creating an iconic brand, you know, you can control the idea, the execution, the funding, um, you know, all the elements you need to create a successful company, but you just do not control that element.

 Some people call it timing, some people call it luck. Um, but that's the one thing we don't control. That is an essential part of, of, uh, building a great. Hey, Eric, you brought it up the word PR did you hire a PR firm? Um, and if you did, what, what point in the branding's brand's development did you hire that firm?

 Well, about six months into our first door, uh, I knew a barber from England that came to the U S once in a while, did events at Bergdorf Goodman. And I said, Hey, why don't you do a day at my store? We'll we'll buy a mentee barber chair and you can shape customers. We'll do an event. We have about 400 names in our database.

 We'll send out invitations. And my wife designed a little postcard and we said, you know, he used to be the barber to John majors, the, the prime minister of England and Elsa did an obscure member of the Royal family. So we said Barbara to the Royal family and to the prime minister of England is coming to our store.

 And we literally at a 400 cards, we sent out, we received a hundred appointments. So we extended the event for four days. And one of the postcard landed on a young PR executive who came to see us and said, I love this thing. I want to promote you. And he said, no, we have no money whatsoever. She said, I'll do it for free.

 And if I do a good job, uh, you can hire me said, uh, yeah, that's a great idea. We'll take that deal. Um, and the event was such a success. We had CNN, uh, do a three minute spot on us. We had a New York time articles in the Sunday time, almost two pages long. Um, So many magazines, Forbes, so many magazines wrote about us.

 So it was a humongous success, but just the, just the, a New York times article in the Sunday Metro section in 1997, uh, turn our store from doing, you know, a few hundred dollars on a Monday to doing close to $10,000. The day after the article came out then, and that, and that, um, level of sales lasted for three months, people were calling us from all over the world to order products.

 We had a line outside our little store and we realized, uh, we realized that we were, we were agreeing. Brand for PR this was a great thing people wanted to talk about. So from that point on, we hired an agency and we never looked back. We had probably 10,000 mentions or articles written about us at the art of shaving over 10 years.

 And it was really our marketing budget. We didn't have, you know, uh, we didn't have money to buy a page in GQ magazine or to put billboards in subways or even television ads. So PR was our way to get the word out and it was a driving force, uh, behind the artist, shady marketing. That's great. And thank you for bringing that up.

 Colin, because PR I think isn't traditional PR that you're talking about using PR to get earned media, not paid media is in some respects, a lost art and an underutilized benefit for businesses, especially building a brand. So clearly you were able to leverage. Yeah. And when we launched ingredients, we immediately hired RPR from which we'd been working with for the last 20 years.

 And, uh, you know, we leveraged it in a different way this time because we really wanted to announce ourselves to the industry more than to the consumers. So it was hugely important to get on the map and to, and to get everyone out there knowing that we're here and starting the conversation with us. And he really, you know, propelled us forward.

 We're now talking to distributors around the world, signing contracts, talking to every retailers you can think of in the U S and PR was a real catalyst for, for achieving that. And the young woman who worked for free that she got hired, she did get hired. And, uh, eventually, uh, with us and other clients, she opened her own PR firm and became very successful.

 That's great. So you're a part of her success as well. Well, I have a few more questions, but I want to get to chief throw. Who's been waiting very patiently. Good to see you. Do you have a question for Eric? Thanks, Jeffrey. I appreciate that as nice to talk to you, Eric. Um, this is a great discussion because I think that, you know, for myself, someone who's really into audio branding and voice skills is great to see your story from beginning to where you are now.

 So thanks for sharing that. Um, I'm curious, actually, um, when you started your journey, how did you go about validating your idea and what you were doing given that you have other competitors who may not be doing your exact same product, but they're trying to also, um, get the same customer. Are you talking about the art of shaving or, oh yeah, we, we're not that sophisticated, but we did learn a great lesson from that.

 Uh, when we were thinking about open that little store on 62nd street, we, we spoke to people around us. You know, my father-in-law, uh, was a businessman, uh, uh, a friend of ours who had a restaurant right across the street from that location. And everybody told us not to do it. Uh, so, you know, we were not sophisticated like that.

 We were not validating, um, the idea, uh, formally with focus groups or anything like that. But we did ask people, we respected around us and it led us to one of our principles, which is, uh, never ask for people's opinions about our business endeavors. Um, what we did do, uh, What we didn't do at the art of shaving early on was probably the best thing we ever did, which is if you were to do focus groups in 1996 with a group of men and ask them what they wanted from a shade brand, they would tell you the opposite of what we did.

 And if I had any experience, if I had the experience I have now back then, I would have probably failed miserably. The fact that we had no clue that we were outsiders, that we were young, that we really broke all the rules without even realizing it recreated a very complicated four step system, uh, with glass bottles and natural ingredients and, and lavender sense and, you know, shaving brush isn't fancy razors and expensive stuff and retail stores.

 I mean, it was suicidal if you think about it from a rational industry professional point of view. So we did the exact opposite. And it turned out pretty well. Yeah. That's such a classic entrepreneur story that we hear again and again, you know, I think it was Henry Ford. Right. Who said, if he asked customers, you know, what they'd want, they, they would've said a faster horse.

 Right. They wouldn't have wanted a car. Exactly. Yeah. So that's great. Thank you for sharing that. Um, Johan welcome to the serial entrepreneur hour. Did you have a question for Eric? Yeah, I did take your, thank you. Um, it's nice to meet you, Eric. I actually, um, Ashley worked for Nike communications and um, in 2015 and I read shaving, um, for a couple of months, uh, um, before moving to Miami.

 So it was, uh, it was very exciting and I knew the brand in and out. Um, um, and just launching it and introducing it to, um, to influencers. I was sort of like in charge of a lot of like the social media marketing and kind of like the influence. Um, engagement. Um, that was really, really exciting. This it's nice to hear your voice and know who's the man behind the brand.

 Um, so my question is, um, um, basically launching or basically putting together the business lead for my own wellness brand and I'm having a hard time, just kinda like there's a lot that I want to do. Um, I've been, you know, kind of like jumping into the whole kind of like breath work and meditation. And I know that there's a lot of products out there.

 Um, Gwyneth Paltrow sort of like does this whole, like, you know, she partnered herself with other brands and kind of like promotes them. And I guess it's kind of like called commission-based marketing. Um, so you're basically generating return of investment from partnering up with other companies. Um, but I also want to.

 Share the wisdom and kind of like the experience that I've had with like breath work and meditation, and just kind of like studying, you know, just like on society in general. So it's this whole sort of like wellness brand that, um, there's a lot that I want to do. And I just kinda wanted to get your input on like, you know, how, you know, someone who's so successful, you know, can narrow it down.

 You know, maybe these are some of the practices that I did, you know? Um, so yeah. Hi. Hi John. Nice to meet you. Um, yeah, I mean, you're, you're, you're spot on. I mean, anxiety, anxiety is a huge, huge issue and, um, wellness is, is, is the business I'm in, uh, from a different angle. Uh, but, uh, Anxiety and other, you know, wellbeing, um, issues are really, really relevant today.

 And I think that entrepreneurs that, uh, get on board with wellness are going to be part of a mega mega industry. Um, it's a very broad question you asked me, but you know, one thing I learned with the art of shaving is, you know, I had just came out of a failure. I lost everything I had made up to that point.

 And what I realized is that my ambitions and my big visions for myself and my career were overwhelming. So it's like thinking about climbing the Himalayas in 30 minutes or less. I mean, that is extremely impossible. Uh, that's how I felt. And when I changed my mindset, um, to thinking. Very small. I started realizing that philosophy I have, which I tell entrepreneurialism, which is, uh, start small to grow big, not think small, but start small to grow big.

 It's all about being able to, um, to manage that start. And for me, it was opening a tiny little store on the upper east side, a tiny, tiny little shop, 200 square feet by selling my car and investing $15,000 and look what it turned out to become. So, you know, don't be afraid to start with tiny, tiny steps.

 Uh, you'll be surprised where that leads you. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Uh that's that's great advice, Eric. I had one question too, before we get to ed ed there. So when you think about your experience with the artist shaving, it's kind of a two-sided. What's one thing from the art of shaving that you made sure.

 A hundred percent you also wanted to do with ingredients. And conversely, what's the one thing you, you learn to experience with our artist shaving that you absolutely positively wanted to make sure you didn't do with ingredients. Yeah. I mean, it's very clear. Um, we, uh, with ingredients, we are so purpose driven.

 We are really looking to have a social impact. Uh, we want to shift the way the industry operates and we want to minimize or eliminate petrochemicals from personal care products. Uh, so that's one thing we've learned from, um, the art of shaving is that we want to go full tilt with our purpose and our philosophy.

 What we did learn the art of shaving. We were the most vertical company in the industry. I think we, we had our own laboratory in our offices, in Miami, where we made our formulas and we sold those formulas in our own brick and mortar scores that we operated. We were completely vertical. There was absolutely zero outsourcing.

 I had hundreds of employees all over the country and with ingredients, we said, we want to build a, you know, we want to build a hundred million dollar brand with five employees or less. And we want to outsource, automate, you know, the technology is obviously available today that it wasn't in those days, but we really wanted to have an efficient cash flow business in the sense that, uh, by outsourcing and, uh, automating everything we could really.

 Scale rapidly or slow down when, when the need need be, and really, uh, not have a heavy structure, uh, internally. That's interesting. Cause with, with that in mind, when, when you're doing everything internally, aside from the challenges that has, it does give you complete control. So you were a hundred percent in control of the quality of the products and everything else as you move to this new model of, of, of spreading out and outsourcing more, is it a challenge or how do you address the challenge of still maintaining the level of quality and control, um, that you want to have over your products?

 Well, it's, it's simple. We only control and do internally what we do better than the rest of the world. Everything else we outsource the people that do it better than us and that worry about it so that we can continue to do the things we do. Really really well. And we still do our formulation in house.

 We control, you know, our, our, our control over the quality of the product is key. And today we really were in a different place in our career. And we realized with the art of shaving, that when you really front load the work, when you win the war before you fight it, when you, when you really put everything you have at creating the best, most compelling value proposition of a brand before you launch, you know, chances are, you're going to have to hang on to the back of the car.

 It's going to be dragging you. Whereas if you don't do that, you might find yourself pulling that weight, um, of that car on your shoulders. Uh, so we control the factors right now that we do extremely well and that are essentially. To, um, to making everything else about building a business simpler or less relevant in the future.

 That's great. And, and I think the point you make there, you know, relates to, and as an entrepreneur, it's important to be self-aware to be able to recognize what are those things that you can do better than anyone else. Um, so you know how to prioritize what you outsource. So that, that's a great lesson in that.

 Uh, we've got a few minutes left before we finish up. So I want to give ed a chance to ask his question. Now, just from your profile picture at, I have a feeling you have some insights or interest in the shaving industry. So what's your question for. Hey, thanks, Jeff. Appreciate it. Um, and thanks startup club for putting this together and Eric, thank you very much.

 We never met, but, uh, the art of brand story, um, and brand, and, you know, inspired me to open up a small chain of luxury barbershops called razor bar. Uh, so that's what Jeff was reacting to our logo there. So again, thanks for that inspiration, Eric. Uh, you're very welcome. Yep. The question is, could you describe a little more the customer portrait, um, of like the ideal, the ideal customer for the artist shaving brand, you know, elaborate a little bit on.

 Um, maybe not so much demographics, but even behavioral, behavioral, and attitudinal, uh, just really in depth on customer portrait and maybe how that's evolved over time. Yeah. I, it definitely evolved that I exited the art of shaving at a pivotal time in that evolution, by the way, when the, in 2010, the, uh, hipster movement started with, you know, beard fashions, which was, um, a detriment to brands like Gillette and the art of shaving.

 Um, our customer was we knew our customer well, uh, because we catered to him from day one, we had our own laboratory, our stores were laboratory where we're 10, 15 guys came in every single day and they all spoke. Verbiage, right. They were all psychographically in a very similar, uh, in our case, we catered to a more traditional guy.

 And sometimes that meant a 17 year old high school, or that likes to wear a tie to school. Sometimes it was a nine year old guy sometimes, you know, across across many, many demographics. You know, I remember, you know, being on Madison avenue store and the bus that came by Madison avenue. I remember one day he just slammed his brake in front of the store, opened the door and the driver ran into the store, picked up his favorite shaving cream, paid for it.

 Really good clan, went back into the store, into the bus and drove off. Uh, so, you know, we, we consider ourselves an affordable luxury, but we really catered to a guy that really took pleasure. First of all, we catered to someone. I'm not going to say that enjoy shaving because most men did not, but really had to, you know, they were in a position where they have to shape for their jobs today.

 The world has changed considerably in that regard. But back then, um, if you worked as a professional and in many jobs, it was considered appropriate to shave. So we dealt with a more conservative, uh, what we call the gentlemen and a gentlemen, wouldn't leave the house with the five o'clock shadow. Like I would, you know, um, myself.

 Uh, so that was a little bit the, the profile. Um, of course, you know, we catered to a more affluent consumer most of the time, but as I said, um, almost anyone can afford $20 shaving cream, right. You don't have, you know, as we, as we used to say back then as being an aspirational brand, um, You may not be able to drive this, the Ferrari that the wealthy guy drives, but you can buy the same shaving cream he uses.

 Right. So, um, it was really what we really discovered with the artist shaving, um, after we sold because P and G explained it to us through heavy research about what we had created was that we had taken a ritual and, um, and rituals, you know, when we talk about, uh, creating a brand, um, being able to own and to create experience around that ritual for men is it goes back to the caveman, um, uh, brain, right?

 Uh, so. We created an experience where guys took some pleasure in the morning to take care of themselves by, by having that massaging that oil and taking that, that beautiful, expensive brush they bought and whipping up that ladder and putting it on their face and then gliding that razor and, you know, using these, uh, the, the steam in the shower, you know, that whole experience, the aftershave, the smells, the feeling, uh, this is something that guys longed for, that they were not given permission to really do.

 And, and this is where the magic happened. That's where the connection happened between that very masculine ritual and the experiential side of our, of our shading system. What a, what a fantastic way to end this discussion, Eric. I mean, really ed, thank you for that question. Cause you're really tapped in to what's at the core of, of, of the success of this brand.

 And if you're thinking about building an iconic brand, how can you, you know, what can you own that, that really dives deep into our DNA, into rituals, into history. I love, I love that Eric and I really want to thank you for taking the time to speak with us this afternoon. And uh, I want to thank everyone who came on stage and asked Eric any questions, Eric, any final remarks you want to mention before I hand it off to Colin to kind of close this out?

 No, thank you for having me. I've done a lot of podcasts. This is one of the most fun ones I've done and the most interesting one and really appreciate you having me on. Thank you, Eric. We really appreciate it. There's a lot of nuggets in here. I encourage everyone to listen to the recording when it's posted over at start-up dot club, because you'll want to take more notes and pull out some of the nuggets that, um, Eric shared with us today.

 Colin, do you want to take us out? Yeah. Well, this is what it's all about. It's all about listening and learning from other serial entrepreneurs. I mean, today was just amazing. And we learned about, you know, being a little bit edgy and, you know, with the, with the, uh, barbershop chairs, we learned about, you know, I like when you said build an iconic brand before you launched now, like think of it as an iconic brand before your launch, which was different than your approach at art of shaving, um, transporting your customer to a different era.

 Mixing this idea of mixing sensory with branding is what sounds like a shaving right now. My friends. Um, to put your idea out there, absolute transparency. Uh, I thought that was interesting with this ingredients, wellness focusing, you know, on the customer, uh, trademarking PR events, 10,000 articles. My gosh, we learned a lot today and you also said something which is similar to what our topic is next week on serial entrepreneur hour at two o'clock next Friday, you said start small to grow big.

 My daughter has been struggling with this idea of getting her startup off the ground. So this is next. Week's all about from idea to startup. Let's just do it. Let's just get it off the ground. Let's just launch it. What does it take? What's the mentality that we have to have as entrepreneurs to just get that idea to launch that's next week.

 Thank you everyone. Thank you again, everyone. Eric. Thanks so much. We really appreciate your sharing with us today.

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