Because when you're first starting out,

nothing's working. Almost by definition,

like you're starting something new. At

least in my experience, when I'm

starting something new, nothing's

working. And then when something does,

most people are like, "Okay, that works.

Now, let's go something else." But

instead, you should just take that

niche. It's almost like a little niche

when you're rock climbing. Just take

that niche and just double down, triple

down, quadrup. It should really be like

10x down on what works because it's so

rare that you find something that works.

And honestly, in most businesses, if you

can find one thing that works and scale

it up, that can get you pretty far.

>> Brian, nice to meet you finally. Thank

you for taking the time. Hey, great to

be here. Brian, where should we begin?

I'm thinking maybe because

the impetus for this is somewhat around

the connective tissue of the 4-hour work

week. Should we just begin with how on

earth you and the 4-hour work week

intersected? Maybe we start there. So,

it intersected at a really weird and

sort of low time in my life where I had

just started a PhD program at Purdue and

I basically hated it. It was just

overall not great experience. I went in

gung-ho. I'm going to be a scientist and

all this stuff. And then the hard

reality of pipetting in a lab and having

an adviser breathing down your neck was

like, I can't do this anymore. I'm out.

So, my plan was to get a job because I

had a had a degree. I was like, "Let me

get a job as a dietitian."

Unfortunately, that didn't really work

out and I ended up in my dad's basement.

>> What was the timing of this? This was

what year roughly?

>> This was 2008. So, I think the book was

relatively new then.

>> Yeah, 2008. That would have been a year

after publication, let's just say. And

also not exactly the hottest job market

for people who may not recall. It was a

tough time overall because of the

financial crisis. totally unbeknownst to

me as a you know going to graduate

school spending most of my time at bars

drinking the great financial crisis was

like over my head never heard of it

until I tried to get a job and suddenly

it became very real very fast so

basically I was in my dad's basement

broke no girlfriend obviously

no real prospects like I'm just kind of

lazily applying for jobs every morning

and just sitting around and watching

Jerry Springer in the afternoon that's

pretty much my day. And then one day, I

have an idea. I'm like, I I should start

something. I don't know where this came

from. I'm like, I should start a search

engine for nutrition questions. When

people ask like, how much vitamin C is

in a carrot? It'll just give them the

answers. This is like basically what an

LLM would do way before and someone

that's not remotely qualified to come up

with something like this. So, I was

like, how do I start a business? I had

never crossed my mind before. I

literally thought starting a business

was like in the office when Michael

Scott gives this lecture and he's like,

"First, you need a building." So, I'm

thinking, "This is this huge undertaking

I'm about to do." So, I go to the

bookstore to find a book to help me get

started. And I basically saw the 4-hour

work week, grabbed it, and it just sort

of spoke to me.

>> What happened after that?

>> I blew my mind. I read the book. I'm

like, "What? I could start a business?"

It's like it was just a crazy

mindblowing concept that me, someone who

has no experience, was totally broke,

could start something. Not necessarily

be a smash hit, but you could start

something. So, basically, I just

followed the book exactly as it was

written. I mean, I was like, I literally

had notes in the margins. You had those

little Q&As's at the end or little steps

at the end. I would make sure I wouldn't

go past that page until I did

everything. my dream reader.

>> I was like, I'm not going to go to the

next page until I'm good and ready. So,

basically, I followed the plan and then

created an ebook about nutrition. How to

help your back pain with nutrition. We

have so much to cover. I I know I'm

cheating a little bit, but I I think

it's fair to say that your first attempt

did not turn into the mega hit that you

might have hoped.

No,

>> turns out it's hard to get traffic,

right? Or it can be hard to get traffic.

And if you don't have a budget for paid

ads, well, I guess necessity is the

mother of invention or at least

learning.

And just I want to add a sidebar here,

which is this is so [ __ ] common. It

is incredibly common, right? That you

basically have your sort of first love

relationship seldom works out, right?

But you learn a lot and that leads to

something else. But tell us about

>> kind of what you learned and how you

adapted

>> to that first experience.

>> I spent all this time on creating a

product that I thought was helpful. I

thought was good and then it was like

now what? You know, how do you get

people to actually see this thing? Mhm.

>> And like you said to him, there's paid

ads, which wasn't really something that

I could do considering I was broke in my

dad's basement having Dinty Moore beef

stew for dinner every night, or

so-called free traffic, which I was

like, "What free traffic? How do how

does that work?" So, of course, I like

went all in on that and eventually sort

of stumbled on this thing called search

engine optimization, which was like you

can rank in Google and people who are

searching for what you sell, you can get

in front of them. And I was like, "Oh, I

use Google." And I never really like

understood that there was this whole

world behind the scenes like figuring

out how it works, trying to game the

algorithm and stuff. And that sent me

down the path of learning this thing

called SEO.

>> Also, I would say just to paint a

picture for folks cuz I remember looking

at this when I started my first, let's

call it real business. Also, out of

necessity when everybody at my the

startup I joined got fired in 20201. Not

a great time for most.com companies.

So, I was working off of my soon to

expire Cobra Healthcare in California

and eating also microwave dinners or I

remember there I had a couple of

favorites at Jack in the Box which was

in the parking lot of a Safeway. So,

that was my nutritional intake. Very

similar it sounds like, right?

>> But slowly figuring out the mechanics

behind these things that we use every

day, right? and you took it certainly a

lot further than I ever did. It's the

wild west. I mean, SEO can be,

especially those days, kind of the wild

west. So, you built up

a huge kind of portfolio of

domains. It seems like something like

close to 200 or over 200. What was what

was the game plan like when you started

getting into SEO and then flashing

forward?

What was the sort of plan in terms of

revenue generation?

>> The idea was you'd have these onepage

websites rank and then you'd have

AdSense display ads on each of those.

And back then it was sort of a loophole

that if you had a domain that matched

the keyword exactly, then it was a

massive advantage in the search results.

So I would have likeshampoo.org

And I would just write like a thousand

words about why L'Oreal shampoo is

great, which I obviously don't really

know a lot about. For those who can't

see the video, we are both completely

bald. Yeah.

And yeah, then putting AdSense ads on

the pages times 200. And the idea is

that you scale up enough and you know,

next thing a few steps later, you got a

private island or something.

>> Right.

>> That was the plan. Rough rough island,

>> right? ABC dot dot dot and then private

island.

>> Yeah.

>> So, let's backst step for a second

because we can talk about the business

and the business experiments and

adventures which we will and

misadventures aka panda death which

we'll probably get to. But if we're

looking back to your reading of the

book, right, there are a couple of

different directions as a chooser and

adventure

map that you can take. And part of that

often times is figuring out your target

monthly income, doing exercises like

dreamlining, which people can find for

free to figure out exactly what it is

that you are building as a lifestyle and

the things you want to do, etc. and you

come up with this very precise, not

necessarily accurate, but it's a

starting point number, right? Where were

you when you're going through all of

this? Because you can build a business

for the sake of building a business and

generating all this cash, but then the

question is, what do you do with that,

right? How does it inform your life?

Were you thinking about that stuff at

the time or was it just get out of the

basement, need something besides

have a proper meal? Yeah, exactly. Have

a meal that's not out of a can. So I

just wrote that in the whole

streamlining section. That was basically

what I wrote. But it morphed a little

bit. At first it was that and then

building the 200 websites. At some point

I was in Asia backpacking and then my

whole world changed to 3k a month. I was

like if you can get 3k a month in

Thailand, you can live like a king. So

my whole goal just became to get 3k a

month passive income. That was like my

entire focus. So it sort of shifted once

I had sort of a lifestyle that I tried

and liked. I was like I could live like

a backpacker. I can do this. So then it

just became 3K a month for a long time.

>> Did you hit the 3K a month

before

the

Google slap, which may be one and the

same as the the Panda update. I'm not

sure. May maybe those are two separate

things entirely. But where were you

before things got pretty strongly

corrected?

>> I was maybe at 3K a month around there

for like a couple months. Yeah. had a

good ride and then it kind of got

slapped. Didn't last long.

>> Yeah.

>> The first was a Panda update as you

mentioned which was a very content

focused update

>> by Google.

>> By Google. It was an update that

basically was if your content is thin or

repetitive or not helpful, we're going

to wipe you out. And it was like a one

day they push a button and you know

thousands of websites get completely

obliterated including mine.

>> That's a rough Where were you when this

happened? Do you remember when you got

the news? I got slapped twice. The first

time didn't scare me straight enough, so

I went back to the I was like, "Oh, I'll

just do a different type of black hat

SEO and I'll get away with it." It

didn't work. So, that one I think I was

in Thailand when it happened.

>> Mhm.

>> Let's then go to You get scared straight

as you put it and you build your first,

as you as I think you've put it, real

site, right, which isn't la'.org,

it's something else. when you decided to

hop to the white hat side of things,

what did you end up doing and why?

>> So, there was that first update and then

a second update where I was in Spain in

Granada and I went to my hostel, I

checked the laptop and it was like

again, it was like a repeat of the

Thailand experience. Everything dropped.

This was a different set of websites

that got knocked out and I was like, you

know what? This is crazy. Why am I doing

this? This is an insane way to live. So

then I was like, I'm going to build this

one real website and and I was kind of

inspired because there were these forums

at the time with these marketing people

and they're basically like spam, spam,

spam. And there was always a there were

a couple voices in there of people who

were like, "Guys, you were, you know,

build a real business. What are you guys

doing? Like build something real that's

durable that's not 100% rellyant on

Google." And I was kind of ignored those

people. And then once I got hit that

second time, I was like, "Okay, it's

time to build something real." So I

basically built a sort of real site in

the personal finance space. Wrote real

blog content. Didn't do any shady spammy

stuff and tried to keep it on the up and

up. So what is the bridge or what

happens between that and then

building back linko? Like how do you end

up

segueing? I mean I guess this could be

like a very fast montage in the sort of

fictionalized movie of your life, right?

But what happened right to go from there

to Back Linko which ultimately you ended

up

getting acquired

what transpired between those two. So

once this site started to get a little

bit of traction, I was like, "Wow, this

is a whole world I didn't know about.

Real marketing why SEO like and it was

fun. It was working and it was more

enjoyable because I didn't have to look

over my shoulder that I was going to get

hit with an update next week." And it

was cool because I'm I'm reaching out to

other websites and like, "Oh, this is

really helpful." And they're linking to

me. I'm not paying for links. They're

just like naturally doing it. And I'm

like, "How do I learn more about this?"

Like this whole world opened up. I'm

like, "How do I get better at this?" And

all the advice that I read on all these

white hat SEO blogs were basically vague

advice. Create great content. Build

relationships with other people. You

know, market your site,

>> lead with integrity. You're like, "Okay,

what's my next step?" Very unclear.

>> Exactly.

>> It was as vague as you can imagine.

>> So then back linko is a case of sort of

creating the thing that you couldn't

find.

>> Exactly. One thing that I saw here in

the prep notes which I was like, "Oh,

that's so smart and I wanted to

highlight it is

and there there are a number of things

obviously that you ended up doing really

well that that seem to have set the

stage for a lot of things that came. One

of them was digging through Google

patents and engineer statements." And

I'll come back and sort of expand on why

this is smart, but it'll probably become

very obvious once you explain why you

did it. Like why were you digging

through Google patents and and then

engineer statements? Are those part of

the patents or those something separate?

>> Separate.

>> Okay. Could you explain what you were

doing? When I launched back linko, I was

like, there must be other people like me

who are getting into this whole world

ofio. They want to learn more about it

and they're disappointed about what's

out there. And it turned out there was.

I just didn't know how to reach them at

first. So I basically followed the same

advice that I read for starting a blog,

which was, you know, you need to publish

every week or every other day. And

that's how you build an audience. You

just publish and pray that people come.

So that's what I did.

>> People still give that advice. Publish

and pray. Yeah. Exactly.

>> So yeah, I did that and bang my head

against the wall and I was like, you

know what? I have an idea. I came up

with a a actually creative idea for a

post that would be really special

instead of just the stuff I was putting

out every week, which was good. It was

definitely actually decent to to give

myself some credit, but it wasn't

anything that's going to grab you by the

shirt and be like, I need to read this.

It was just slightly above average than

what was out there. I was really going

on that consistency play like if I do

this consistently over time there'll be

like a secret society that will just

send me traffic as a reward for being so

consistent.

I didn't really have the whole thing

planned out to be honest. I just thought

I just knew consistency equal traffic at

some point and it honestly didn't for

me.

>> So, I had this idea for a post which was

>> Google recently had said that there's

200 ranking factors in the algorithm.

>> So, I was like, let's just try to find

them. Obviously, a lot of it's going to

be conjecture and guessing and

speculation, but let's just do a list of

200 instead of the list of 10 or 20 that

I'd seen out there. And then I got to

like 55 and I'm like, man, you have to

really dig to find some of these. And

that's when I went through the Google

patents. And also people would interview

Google engineers

>> or they would give statements. They'd be

at a conference and they would give a

talk and you know one of the slides

would mention a ranking factor that

they're considering. So it took a lot of

digging. It took like 20 to 25 hours to

complete this single post. And that's

really why I was digging into all this

stuff. I just want to add an addendum to

that which is

people who have not heard of this

approach. For some folks they'll be

like, "Oh, I I've or someone else has

done that." But it is incredible what

you can learn through reviewing patents

and looking at very niche events,

industry events for videos and

transcripts of presentations. Right?

>> This was incredibly valuable when I was

getting started as well, mostly looking

at at kind of closed door or very small

event presentations and things like

that. Mhm.

>> All right. So, that was sort of a

massive post that you really invested

in. 25 hours. It's not trivial, right? I

mean, that's that's a lot more

presumably than you're putting into the

kind of publish and prey consistent

approach to just sliding a plate with

like content salad out the door and

hoping that, you know, a leprechaun is

going to show up and trade for a pot of

gold, right?

>> So, what was the response to that post?

massive traffic and controversy. Kind of

everything you want in a piece of

content to be honest.

>> I mean, you had the traffic, you had the

wow factor, and then you had the

controversy, which is like, those aren't

Google's 200 ranking factors. You know,

no one knows those.

>> And then people saying, well, this is at

least trying to come up with something,

and then people saying, well, it

shouldn't do it. So, there's like

perfect little debate around it that was

pretty lightweight. You know, it's not

anything super controversial, but just

enough to get people's attention. So

yeah, it brought in I mean I would say I

was probably getting like 150 visitors a

month. That probably brought in a couple

thousand when I first put it out. It's

brought in millions since then.

>> What did you then

follow that up with in terms of lessons

learned

coming up with new rules for yourself in

terms of how you were going to approach

the business?

How did that inform things going

forward? Once once you saw that

response,

>> I just threw out the whole playbook I

was doing.

>> Yeah.

>> Like I was using this consistency thing.

I would even have on Fridays I would

have like a Q&A. I would just put five

questions and answer them. And of course

I wasn't getting any questions. So I

just completely made them up and then

answer my own questions just to have

something to put out there. And I'm

reading it. I'm like why would anyone

want to read this? So then I just

scrapped the whole thing and was like,

I'm just going to put out something once

a month

>> and it's going to be the best thing on

that topic that's ever been written by

10x. And that was sort of how I totally

changed my content focus to quality over

quantity. You had a fun YouTube video on

ultimately the acquisition of Back Linko

and

you got I guess the original email you

got was like, "Hey, we'd love to connect

to like collaborate." And you're like,

"Well, that smells like every [ __ ]

spam email I've ever received." So, you

just ignored it, right? Yep.

>> As I remember, and we won't spend a ton

of time on this, but what is Semrush?

This is the acquirer ultimately, but for

people who don't know, what is Semrush?

They're essentially a marketing platform

that help you get better results from

SEO, pay-per-click, and also now AI

search. And

>> are they private, publicly traded?

They're publicly traded, right? Yeah, it

looks like on the New York Stock

Exchange.

>> They got acquired by Adobe last year.

So, they will be part of Adobe I think

sometime this year when everything goes

through.

>> Got it. And they acquired you ultimately

while they were public, right?

>> Yep.

>> I mean, there's so many good aspects to

this, but do you want to do you want to

tell the story about flying to Boston?

And I mean eventually this contact I

can't remember his name but since you

ignored the first email he wrote and

basically said hey look we might be

interested in buying your company like

let me be direct and you're like okay

I'll reply to that one. You told the

story of flying to Boston. I think it's

pretty funny. I also liked in your video

and you said you know up to that point I

hadn't sold anything except for maybe a

used car. I think you said something

like that. I was like that's a pretty

good line. So the first Boston trip what

happens there? Like what's in your mind?

In my mind, I'm like, we're gonna close

this thing. Like, let's go go go to

Boston. It was really a meet and greet

where the executive team just wanted to

meet me and chat about, you know, see

what I how I could help them, how Bank

Linko could fit into their their

platform and their business. And so, I

spend the day with them in the office

and then afterwards we all go out to

drinks to celebrate the deal. And I'm

like [ __ ] myself, right? I'm like,

what? We're celebrating the deal now?

Like I didn't even see a I never saw a

contract or an agreement or anything.

I'm like, "We're going to sign it like

tonight." So, we go out and we're at

Legal Seafood in the Provincial Center

taking shots. Yeah, this is great,

Brian. This is going to be the best

thing ever. And I'm thinking, where's

the contract? When are we going to sign?

Like, I really thought right there.

They're going to Did I miss something?

Did I black out? What happened?

>> Exactly. I'm like, did I agree? Like, is

a verbal agreement enough for a deal

like this?

>> So, yeah, I was way off on that. It took

two more months of due diligence after

that meeting for the deal to actually

close.

>> You said two months.

>> Yeah. Which for people who have never

gone through it, right?

That can be very challenging if you

don't have your ducks in a row, right?

Which almost nobody does unless they've

kind of been through this before or are

venturebacked and they have people

overseeing all this stuff. Two months is

pretty good, right? Like it's painful

but like man like due diligence can go

on forever.

For people who are starting a company

maybe they never intend to sell it but

hey you had not gone into Backlinko

thinking that you were going to sell it

right but they want to preserve the

optionality. I remember coming across

and I haven't read it in a long time but

a book by John Warllo called Built to

Sell which talks a bit about this and I

thought it was actually very good like a

very I don't want to say basic but

pretty sort of foundational primer for

some of this stuff but what advice would

you give to folks I mean one comes to

mind which I have also had to learn the

hard way about independent contractors

but what are some of the like

tenets or sort of commandments of like

hey just in case one day you want to

sell this thing. Here are a couple of

things that I learned. Anything come to

mind?

>> Independent contractors for sure. Maybe

you can expand on that, Sim, cuz you've

had experience with that.

>> Look, if you ever want to sell

something, the the acquiring party is

going going to want to know with some

assurance. And they'll have reps and

warranties in the agreement that

basically say, "Hey, if you're if you

miss something or you're not telling us

the truth, like there's going to be a

world of trouble and we'll probably be

able to back out of the deal and take

all the money back." But they want to

know that everything they're buying is

free and clear. Right? So if you've had,

as I have and as you have in some cases,

well, I'll just speak personally, always

maintain a very small full-time team,

but have used dozens and probably

hundreds of certainly hundreds of

contractors over the span of decades.

And if you're building something and

they want to see they meaning the

acquiring company every single contract

to make sure that someone isn't going to

come out of the woodwork and say hey I

own a part of that. Hey I contributed

this and therefore I am entitled to a

piece of equity yada yada yada yada

which if the deal is big enough come out

of the woodwork no matter what. You see

this with a lot of like tech IPOs and

stuff. As soon as they file the S1

getting ready to IPO, then some rando

comes out of the woodwork and says, "I'm

the seventh co-founder." And you're

like, "What?" Like, "No one's ever heard

of this person." And they just want

nuisance money to go away. So that's the

relatively short and sweet on

independent contractors. This is going

to be true also with pretty much any

agreement or contract, right? You just

want to document, document, document.

Make everything formal. no verbal, no

handshake if you want to preserve the

option to cleanly and hopefully

relatively quickly sell a company later.

Anything else that you would add to

that, Brian?

>> If you don't have your finances in

order, like you don't get P&Ls.

>> Yeah,

>> that is something they obviously will

care a lot about. Luckily, I had a good

accountant that did that stuff, so that

wasn't a big deal. The number one time

sync for me was the independent

contractors. I mean, I'm like you. I

hired so many people that did one like

created like a blog post image or

something or like a social media image

once for like 10 bucks and I had to go

try to find them.

>> Basically have to hire like almost like

a private investigator to find these

people cuz you don't even barely

remember them.

>> Even people that ghosted me. I had

people that I paid like a deposit for

work and they never even replied. They

totally they ghosted me and I still had

to reach out to those people. Of course,

they're not going to reply. But you have

to show that you tried. And then

obviously since this experience, every

contractor that gets hired signs an

ironclad agreement that says you don't

own any of this work. Once you're paid,

it's a property of blah blah blah.

>> And that made things a lot easier the

second time. But I I had no idea this

independent contractor thing was so

important to the acquirer, but it

absolutely is.

>> Yeah. So, we we won't spend a ton of

time on sort of what followed, but there

was one funny anecdote about the public

announcement. Could you just explain

that

given the time zone differences? I just

I thought that one was great.

>> Time zone differences. And I like I'm

like early to bed kind of person. So,

they told me that, hey, Brian, you know,

we're going to announce this tomorrow

and we're going to announce it at 5:00

p.m. Eastern. And I'm like, "Oh man, I

don't know. Can you send it? Is it

possible to send it earlier? That's like

10 p.m. here. I'm already kind of

getting ready for bed." Basically say,

"I'm in my PJs at that point. Is it

possible to push this earlier?" And they

said, "No, because it's a public

company. Due to SEC rules, we have to

make these announcements after the

markets close."

Yeah. I was so embarrassed. I was like,

"Oh, yeah, right. I forgot the like the

league I'm playing in here."

So you sell the company presumably

there's some type of

earnout or period of time for which

you're required to still work on

backlinko right who knows what the exact

terms are of that but for people who've

never gone through it right you can have

a vesting period you can have an earnout

where you get x percentage of the total

purchase price based on hitting or

exceeding x y and z metrics or whatever

right so there's a period of time like

that postacquisition, let's just say

because I know that was very stressful

and you started grinding your teeth and

that kind of evaporated as soon as the

deal was done. Let's just flash forward

like 2 or 3 months after the

acquisition. What does your what does

your life look like? Like what does a

week look like for you if you remember?

It's honestly not that different because

I had another startup that I was already

working on.

>> So I I was basically running on a

treadmill and then I just hopped onto

another treadmill that was right next to

it and just kept going. So there wasn't

a whole lot of downtime to really

reflect or analyze that one day that the

announcement was made, especially the

next day because it was late here. So

like the next day was really when I was

sending messages to people and stuff and

getting congratulations and whatnot. But

after that day, I was pretty much back

working on the next thing. Like

>> didn't reflect too much on it.

>> So my life was more or less the same one

day after.

Looking back, are you basically like,

"Hey, I'm a border collie. I need to

work or I'm going to go crazy." So, I'm

glad I did that. Do you wish you had

approached it differently? I kind of

wish I approached it differently. Yeah.

And looking back, I was wish I took some

time off. It's just tricky because you

know how it is when you have a startup.

It's kind of a strange situation. Like I

had a new company that was growing. at

this old company that I sold and it felt

weird to say to the new team like, "Hey

guys, I need to reflect about how great

my life is. I need to chill out. You

guys still work though. Like you work

your asses off. I'm going to I'm going

to chill on the beach for a while." So

it felt a little weird. I felt like I

kind of had to go back into the trenches

with them right away. Almost even more

so to prove like look, I'm not done.

Like I'm not going to rest on my

laurels. We're still in it to win it.

financially at that point were you

focused on the new company exploding

topics because you wanted to get to that

sort of big pot of gold at the end of

the rainbow like what was the driver

behind that right I don't know to what

extent you were sort of financially

stable had savings we don't have to get

into all the nitty-gritty if you don't

want to but I'm just curious what was

driving the involvement in the new

company for you it wasn't really 100%

financial

When I sold back Linko before then I was

probably okay for most of my life. Then

when I sold back Linko, it was like,

okay, I'm probably good for forever. And

then I wouldn't have probably started

something else right away if I hadn't

already. So towards the end of Back

Linko, when I was involved with it

before I sold,

>> I was honestly getting a little bit

bored with it.

>> Like I was bored talking about the same

things, writing about the same things,

doing the whole course launch thing.

>> And I kind of wanted something new. and

I saw an opportunity where there were

more trends than ever, but I couldn't

find a good tool for curating them that

was like here are all the trends in this

space right now. There was Google

Trends, which is fantastic if you know

about a topic and you want to see how

it's trending, but what about a trend

you've never even heard of? And that's

sort of where I realized the opportunity

was. So, it wasn't really purely

financial. It was more like this is kind

of exciting and new. I think it's a good

opportunity as well and it'll give me

something to do between these sessions

with back linko which was it was also

boring because it was so optimized like

I work like three hours a week. It was

like four-hour work week honestly at the

end like it was getting so much traffic

on autopilot. The launches were really

easy to do.

>> Even courses were easier to create at

the end because it just had it all down

to a science. Even it was a totally

different topic. I knew exactly how to

create a course. So the challenge wasn't

really there and this was like okay new

challenge new space and that's basically

it wasn't so much financial it was more

just to freshen things up and to try

something new.

>> Yeah. And you'd also already committed

to other people right with this new

startup. So it makes a lot of sense when

you had with backlink go so much on

autopilot

>> the 3 hours per week right what were you

doing with the rest of that time because

the most and we don't have to dig into

the the book too much here but if I had

to point to one chapter that people pay

no attention to because typically

they're like oh yeah that'd be a nice

problem to have and they like forget

about it is the filling the void chapter

filling the void chapter 4 work week is

really important so you don't go into

like psychological freefall

among other reasons. But what were you

doing with the rest of your time if Back

Linko at one point right when the

flywheel was really spinning was only

occupying or requiring 3 hours a week?

>> I was bored. Honestly, I wasn't filling

it well. I wasn't filling the void. I

was basically going to the gym,

>> reading books, playing video games,

nothing. And that I think that was part

of this and we this boredom was

>> I needed to reread that chapter

essentially and fill this with something

meaningful

>> and I think that's why I was seeking

another startup project.

>> Yeah. 100%.

>> I need to work. I need to build

something. I'm not building this. I'm

just maintaining it.

>> Mhm.

>> So that's really what got me into

exploring topics. So honestly the

filling the void chapter the whole

filling the void concept I really only

took seriously recently.

>> Mh. But before then I basically filled

it with sort of nonsense to be honest

and then started another startup.

>> What were some of the things you did

differently with exploding topics after

all the experience with back linko?

Maybe things that in retrospect you're

like wow that was a really smart

decision and change and maybe somewhere

like okay

lesson learned right would probably if I

were starting from scratch with

exploring topics I would have done it

differently. anything come to mind in

terms of good and quoteunquote bad

decisions?

>> We can start with the bad one, which was

how to monetize this site. I had this

very strange idea that we're going to

create this awesome free resource that

anyone can visit and just see trends

right away. They can filter. They can go

by category. And you think, oh, how you

going to monetize that? Logically, you

think SAS, an upgraded version of what

they're seeing for free. And for some

reason, I was like, a paid newsletter.

like let's create a paid newsletter. So

we created this paid newsletter that was

granted helpful in in like objective

terms but not necessarily for that

person who wants to see trends in their

particular niche. So we would send them

a trend on like some sort of face cream

and then on like a car and then a

battery and then a tech startup and they

would be like what is this? People were

I want just trends about e-commerce. I

just want trends about this one thing.

Like why are you sending me all this

stuff? And then people would also sign

up thinking it's SAS even though we said

everywhere like paid newsletter, paid

newsletter. And they'd be like, I

thought this was SAS. I thought this was

SAS. That was our number one complaint.

And yeah, sometimes you just need to

like get that bean over your head

because I was like, "Oh, SAS is so

complicated. I I mean, my co-founder was

a coder, but I'm still like, oh, we're

going to have to hire developers and I

don't know anything about this whole

world UI." And for people who may be

listening who don't recognize the term,

a lot of people will, but software as a

service, right? Think about Dropbox.

Maybe not the best example, but I mean

Dropbox is a great example. But with a

lot of these products, there's a there's

a premium version. There's a version

that you get to use for free and then if

you want a bunch of additional storage

or features or access, whatever it might

be, then you pay $9.99 a month or

whatever. And there's like the basic,

intermediate, advanced version,

enterprise, etc. That's SAS. Sorry to

interrupt. I just want to define that.

Yeah. But if you had told me that before

we started, I would have been like, "Oh,

logically then we should have the

premium advanced enterprise version in

the back end instead of the paid

newsletter idea." So that didn't really

go well until we ultimately shifted to

what we should have been in the first

place. So that was sort of the bad

decision.

>> Mhm.

>> The good decision was definitely

investing in this data, publishing data

early on. So with back linko, this is

something I only discovered after like

five years of running the site and then

with exploring topics I was like day one

we're going to publish tons of data.

We're going to be the source that's

another strategy like be the source that

of information on technology

software e-commerce trends anything

trend related we are going to be the

source. We're going to have the latest

data. we're going to have the best

visuals and we're just going to be the

source for that information. As opposed

to writing how-to content, we really

focus on datadriven content. Did it work

right out of the gate or was there a

formula that you realized worked after

you had a particular

well-received publication of data?

>> It took a while to get going. A lot of

mistakes, a lot of posts that weren't

great or the topic wasn't a good choice.

What really helped us, what was sort of

the smash hit were these very specific

stats that people look for. So what I

discovered through this process was this

stats page idea is nothing new. Like

people write, you know, the biggest

stats around the fitness industry or

LinkedIn stats or whatever. And those

are fine, but usually journalists aren't

looking for LinkedIn stats or Tik Tok

stats. Some of them are and that's fine,

but most of them are consuming very

specific like how many users does Tik

Tok have or how many people use LinkedIn

every day like daily active users or how

many posts are on LinkedIn every day

like it's super specific. So if you're

able to find a credible stat around that

then you can crush it even if you're not

the one that developed it. Like a lot of

times these are also buried in like PDFs

or white papers or again interviews that

you have to pull out. Like one of our

biggest smash hits in this area was how

many users a chat GPT have. Granted, we

publish this early. That's another thing

that can help a lot. If you publish one

of the first or the first specific stats

page, then you get into this virtuous

cycle where you're very visible when

someone's searching for that topic. Then

they link to you, they mention you,

makes you more visible, and then you

just are like in this massive flywheel.

So, one of our best pieces was how many

users does chatbd have and every once in

a while Sam Alman will give a talk and

he'll mention it or when they raise a

round they'll mention it and all we did

was just document their user growth

based on these statements that they

made. The initial post probably cost

hiring a freelancer like 200 bucks and

then to update it every couple months is

like another 50 and it's been referenced

like 3,000 times. It's absolutely

insane. they'll have the effort to

reward ratio is nuts on that. And of

course, it's just like part of it is is

some pieces do better than others, but

we've noticed that that formula tends to

work well. If you can find a trending

specific stat that bloggers or

journalists are looking for when they

write about that topic, they're very

likely to reference you. So, I read I'll

give credit here. This is on

growthmanifested.com. Found this doing

research. You were interviewed towards

the end of that interview by Alex.

He asked you what the best piece of

business advice was that you've ever

received. Now, this may have changed and

there's probably more, but it was Noah

Kagan advising you to double down on

what works. Could you expand on that?

And then I'm wondering if there are any

other sort of mantras or short pieces of

advice that you would also put on like

the Mount Rushmore of your best advice

that you've received. It sounds so

simple, but it's one of those pieces of

advice that's simple but hard to follow.

Because when you're running a business,

there's like a million things to worry

about, to focus on. There's new

opportunities, new challenges, other

competitors, you have an employee that's

sick. It's hard to really focus on like

that little thing that works. But I

think this is especially important when

you're first starting out because when

you're first starting out, nothing's

working almost by definition. Like

you're starting something new. At least

in my experience, when I'm starting

something new, I don't know, like

nothing's working. And then when

something does, most people are like,

"Okay, that works. Now, let's go

something else." But instead, you should

just take that niche. It's almost like a

little niche when you're rock climbing.

Just take that niche and just double

down, triple down, quadrup. It should

really be like 10x down on what works

because it's so rare that you find

something that works. And honestly, in

most businesses, if you can find one

thing that works and scale it up, that

can get you pretty far. Mhm. Aside from

the 4-hour work week, right, which was,

I suppose, a catalyst of sorts in the

beginning, were there any other Have

there been any other books that stand

out or resources when someone comes to

you and they're like, I'm thinking about

starting a business, right? I'd like to

start a business. Are there any books or

resources that you tend to recommend

frequently?

>> For people that are just like, I want to

start a business and they're like, I

don't know what to do, how to do it.

They're like totally green. Then Ready,

Fire, Aim is usually the book that I

recommend. You familiar with that one?

>> I've heard of it.

>> Michael Masterson.

>> What leads you to recommend this book?

>> It gets people into the action mindset,

like leaning towards action instead of

analysis.

>> Mhm.

>> I was guilty of this when I first

started doing a lot of spreadsheets and

analysis and business cards, registering

a company, all those things that you can

do later that don't really matter. This

gets you going on like the most

important things

>> and then later you can always change

course right but the key is really like

starting starting starting or like Paul

Graham says action produces information.

>> So if this is book basically will

hopefully give people a kick in the butt

to get started instead of analyzing and

then being like okay now I'm ready

>> just be like start today and then like

change as you go.

>> I feel like that book is almost a

litmitness test. If you read that book

and at the end you don't do anything,

then you're probably not ready.

>> Yeah.

>> The whole point is to get started and

like it it gives you advice on how to

know you've got traction and what to do

once you get traction. So, I feel like

if you just read the book and you're

like, "Okay, what's the next book to

read?"

>> It's probably not the best approach. So,

that book is hopefully the the kick in

the butt that someone needs. This might

be a tough question to answer, but how

would you define the startup costs for

Back Linko and Exploding Topics? Like in

the first 3 months of those two

companies existing,

how much money was invested in each of

those? Like how much money was required

slashinvested?

>> For Back Linko's case, a few hundred

bucks at the most. It was like domain,

WordPress.

I probably hired someone to create like

a basic blog design theme for WordPress.

>> Don't remember how much, but like if I

spent a thousand, I would I say that's a

lot. I was probably more like 500 bucks.

>> Mhm.

>> Because it's a blog. I mean, really, at

the end of the day, there shouldn't be a

lot of cost involved at that. Exploding

top was a lot different because I

acquired like a prototype version from

someone for 75,000

to start with and hire them as part and

they that that was part of their pay

package as well. So just on day one I

was in with that much.

>> And then it was a redesign and a rebrand

adding more trends hiring a couple

people to do some basic things. So that

was probably more like 90,000 something

in that range.

>> Mhm.

>> But it was a unique situation cuz it

wasn't built from scratch. was acquiring

someone and then that was also paying

for some of their time. It was kind of

like hiring them as part of the

acquisition and that was paid out over

the course of a few months. So, I'm not

exactly sure how much would be like in

that first couple months, but it was in

that range.

>> Why did you acquire something and what

was the the deal structure of the

acquisition?

>> I acquired it because I was trying to

build this exact thing myself and just

stumbling and, you know, stubbing my toe

over and over again. So, I knew that

there was a an opportunity for this like

trend like I couldn't even describe it

very well. It's just basically you want

to go to a website and just shows you

trends in whatever niche you're

interested in. And that sounds so

simple, but nothing existed like that,

believe it or not.

>> And I hired someone to build something

like that.

>> And it was horrible. I used Reddit, so

we'd look at subreddits and we would see

how many times a word was mentioned or

something and found nothing valuable.

The signal to noise ratio was completely

backwards. It was like for every 200

hits, one was like decent. And then one

day someone forwarded me this random

site this guy started and I'm like no

this like this is exactly what I want

but it was even better than I had

imagined.

>> Mhm.

>> So then it reached out to him and then

the deal structure was essentially buy

it 100% straight up.

part of the acquisition cost will be

you'll get paid that and then on top of

that if it goes well over the first I

think couple months then we can set up

some sort of part-time deal and if that

goes well we can do full-time

>> and he would be helping you throughout

that entire period of time to determine

help you determine if it's going well or

not.

>> Exactly. And he was the coder and

developer behind the original version.

So he was best qualified to to continue

to work on it and improve it rather than

hiring someone random to come in. He it

was his vision to start with and then I

said basically if it goes well with

full-time for I think another month or

so we'll basically be co-founders on

this thing. The only rub will be if you

want to want a lot of equity then

you know you're going to have to put

money in to fund this thing or if you

prefer that you get more cash then you

can just get a proper salary and then

I'll own most of the business. So that's

basically what we did. He chose more

money and then he owned a part of as

equity in exploding topics.

>> How did you end up in Europe?

>> Love to be honest.

>> Yeah, that'll do it.

>> Yeah. I mean, my wife, we met in

Thailand many years ago and then we

moved to Berlin. This is actually a

funny story partially from the 4-hour

work week because you mentioned Berlin

as like this cheap place. So, we're in

Thailand looking at Craigslist and

looking at all these apartments that are

like palaces for €300 a month. And we're

like, Tim was right. This is amazing.

Like, you can live like a king in Berlin

for nothing. So, as we're like flying

there, we send out all these emails like

we're gonna and of course they're all

scams. It's like I'm lost and like I oh

I'm out of town but if and I lost my

passport but if you leave like this

money into this Western Union like oh we

show up to Berlin we're in a hostel

>> for like €8 a night in a 12 bed hostel

while we realized that this whole thing

all these ads we're applying to is a

scam. No one uses Craigslist in Germany.

So then we eventually found apartment

lived in Germany and she's Portuguese.

>> Mhm. So we visited Portugal a number of

times while we lived there and

eventually was like we could freeze our

asses off or we could live in the sun

like so much like the sun. So yeah,

that's basically how we ended up here.

Yeah. The thing about the 4 work week,

right? The principles and frameworks all

still work. Obviously some of the tech

tools since they were last updated in

2009, most of them are completely

irrelevant. Probably not going to use go

to my PC at this point, right? access

your home computer remotely to do the

work you need to do.

>> But the the pricing examples obviously

have changed right since it was first

written in 2007209.

So the the principle the idea of geo

arbitrage and applying that to what you

earn and how you pay contractors

employees and then your sort of living

expenses. It applies, but definitely for

anybody who's who ends up picking it up,

if if you read that doing something in

Buenosares costs A, B, and C, I would go

online and fact check that because it's

probably changed a little bit.

>> What are other sort of lessons learned

or things that you would like to share

with folks? Could be about your journey,

could be about mistakes along the way,

really anything at all. Because part of

the value of these conversations is that

we can get into a lot of specifics that

are omitted in the

magazine profiles of people that end up

reading like a list of highlights,

right? And there's obviously a

survivorship bias to begin with if

people appear on magazine covers. I know

that's an antiquated example to use,

but what else would you like to share

with folks or anything else you'd like

to add just about the about the journey

cuz it's not over. It still goes.

>> One thing that I've discovered recently

that I wanted to share would be actually

filling the void.

>> Mhm.

>> I felt the void after selling exploding

topics and and how I was able to fill

the void.

>> Yeah, please. So, set the stage for you

like I sold back Linko and then about

two years later sold Exploding Topics

and was just kind of going full-time,

not super crazy working all the time

because I was fairly efficient, but

still working all the time and then went

from that to like basically stopped to

zero. And a lot of people I think they

have this feeling of listlessness, no

direction, maybe a bit of depression.

For me, the symptom was stress. Like I

think I was wired for stress not only

just in general but also because of the

sale process is stressful and then just

because the sale is done your body and I

think part of your like reptilian brain

doesn't really recognize that and it

still is looking it's looking for

threats and it's looking for

opportunities and it's just not chilled

out. So I struggled for like two months

with stress on my aura ring my stress

was like 2x baseline from after I sold.

And you'd think it'd be the opposite.

You'd be like, "This is great. Like, I

sold two companies. I'm good for the

rest of my life." Like, "What is there

to be stressed about?" And then I

realized what I needed was a hard reset.

That was the first step. We went on a

trip, got away from the environment, got

away from the day-to-day life, and then

it somehow was able to hack my brain to

be like, "Okay,

you're safe or like things are chill

now." So, when I went back home, the

stress was gone. It was like back to

baseline or below baseline.

>> What was the trip?

>> It was a trip to the south of Portugal

to the Algarve.

>> Yeah, it's a nice spot.

>> So went to the beach.

>> Nice oranges. Toasty.

>> Yeah, good orange. Yeah.

>> So spent some time down there and that

was just like the hard reset. I think

you just need to get out of your

environment. But then when I got back,

it was like stress is gone, but now

feeling a little bit bored.

>> Like that boredom was coming back. And I

was tempted to start another startup and

I read this someone sent me this who

another friend who had a big

acquisition. He sent me this thing I

think it was in the Yale School of

Management and it was basically they

interviewed founders that had just

exited and they asked him their advice.

>> What was it like? What were the good ups

and the downs? And they basically said

when you sell there were like

psychological dangers that can occur.

One is that you lose your sense of

structure. The other is you lose your

sense of purpose and you lose your sense

of connection with your team. It all

goes away like you have it and then one

day you literally don't. So different

people react to it in different ways but

they warned that the a lot of case

studies in this paper were saying people

that started companies within a year of

selling usually regretted it.

>> So basically take a year and don't make

any major commitments whatsoever. So

that's what I did. It kept me from

starting these I had all these ideas I'm

going to start a soccer and then I would

be like wait a year wait a year wait a

year and then by the time a year came

around I didn't really want to because I

was able to fill the void largely with

tennis

>> for me tennis has been one activity

checks all the boxes and fills this void

it's amazing then because if you think

about it

like if you want to have fun you play

video games or watch TV or something if

you want to have socialize you go out

drinking if you want to exercise, you go

to the gym. If you want to get fresh

air, you go for a walk. Tennis has all

these things like in one activity. And

if you want a community, you need to

like whatever. I don't know. I mean, I

actually don't even know how to do that

outside of tennis. That was the thing

that changed was what I joined a tennis

club

>> and there's a lot of other entrepreneurs

there. A lot of Americans, man. It's

like the 51st state over there, to be

honest. It's getting a little crazy. But

anyway, so I filled the void with this

community of people that are playing

tennis, trying to improve, obsessed with

the game, like watching YouTube videos,

reading about it, practicing all the

time, and now I don't have that same

sense of like wanting to start something

new. I love that. And just a few

observations since, as you would

imagine, since the book came out in

2007, I've had the opportunity to sort

of vicariously watch a lot of people

grapple with this and having worked with

so many startups in angel investing,

granted in a kind of venture-backed

environment, but the a lot of the

challenges are the same.

>> Yeah. Whether you're coming out of for

instance, you know, I know guys in

special operations, if you're coming out

of running a company, if you're coming

out of starting and running a company,

when you lose, as you put it, and I

really liked the categories you

mentioned, right, when you lose the

structure, when you lose in a sense, the

identity, when you lose the connection

to team,

you can end up with a severe degree of

vertigo, right? and a a very precarious

paradox of choice and something like

tennis and some people listening might

think like what tennis

probably even if it's not the forever

solution and the end all be all what it

does just like getting your your

recommended daily allowance of essential

amino acids and vitamins and so on

you're getting just enough that it

provides ides you with the psycho

emotional sort of

health and space to think about things

more clearly instead of being reactive.

You know what I mean? Like you you're

getting enough of all of those things

and it provides you with a buffer and a

certain equilibrium that allows you to

think about things more clearly. And

furthermore, this is not necessarily a

problem you have to solve after

everything vanishes, right? You can you

can think about this in advance and

experiment with things so that

when you have like a a real phase shift

which in the context of the 4-hour work

week isn't necessarily selling a

company. It's just like once you get it

to a high degree of automation where it

requires 2 3 hours a week if that to

manage which is more common than people

might think

what you do with the rest of the time is

a tremendously big question right.

>> Yep. So, I love that. Makes me want to

go back to the Algarve. Also

can get a little toasty. Could be worse.

Let's put it that way.

>> Yeah, it's a good country for tennis.

Brian, this has been super fun. Where

can people find you online?

>> Let's start with YouTube. That would be

the first place. And then LinkedIn.

Brian Dean on YouTube and Brian Eden on

LinkedIn.

>> Perfect.

>> That other Brian Dean must have grabbed

that one.

>> Brian, is there anything else you would

like to say?

before we wind to a close.

>> This has been great. That's it. Thanks,

man. I know it's late, several time

zones away, and I appreciate being

flexible on the timing. So, thanks so

much for taking the time, everybody

listening or watching, we will link to

everything we discussed in the show

notes as usual at tim.blog/mpodcast.

And until next time, as always, be just

a bit kinder than is necessary to

others. and also to yourself. Thanks for

tuning in.