The 23-year-old That Made $2.4M with His FIRST App - Brett Malinowski

In the past year, I've made about 5 million in revenue. It really was as simple as asking ChatGPT, how do I build a mobile app? There have been a lot of people that are like, you can't just build an app with like 95% ChatGPT. And I'm like, no, you actually can. Those two videos generated... Almost 200,000 downloads in less than a week and shot us to $80,000 in monthly revenue off the jump. When you build something with a very clear use case, a very clear problem that people have.

It can be the simplest product of all time. There's massive upside. Dude, how much money do you make? In the past year, I've made about $5 million in revenue over the course of the next 12 months. I will make at least $10 million in revenue. But the majority of the profits are being reinvested into my next big vision, which is Apex. You're quite young. How old are you? I'm 23 years old. Okay, and what do you do?

I build consumer mobile apps. Okay, so like apps on my phone? Yes, exactly. Okay, and then you say consumer. That means like, what does that mean? This is for the average person, right? We're not building for businesses. We're not doing B2B SaaS, right? We're building.

apps for the average individual so do you want to let's go ahead and talk about your first app because you're a non-technical person and this was your first app and you saw pretty quick success with it so talk to me about riz gpt yeah so I had done a little bit of coding, mostly just like Python, writing basic for loops and data analytics, but I never built software. ChatGPT came out, popularized in December of 2022.

And as soon as I started using it, I was hooked. I was like, this is incredible. I wasn't immediately thinking about ways to capitalize on it. More so, just like, this is an unbelievable technology. Fast forward about six months.

And I'm getting ready to graduate college. And I don't really want to go the path of getting a full-time job. So I'm like, what can I do to make money? I have a roommate at the time. who was always using dating apps, right? And he would sometimes ask me, like, dude, what should I say to this girl? And I was like, I wonder if ChatGPT could just generate these responses.

And so I took his transcript. I manually wrote it out. I threw it into chat GPT and I was like, give me suggestions. And they were decent, but they were very robotic in nature. But I'd done a little bit of prompt engineering, right? Figuring out how to hack the sort of responses that ChatGPT gives. So I fiddle around with the prompt. I'm giving it all these instructions on ways to manufacture its output so that it actually sounds like a human.

And has Riz, right? And this is what led to the advent of Riz GPT. So this was the first mobile app that I built. And what did it do? It enabled you to upload a screenshot of your messages with a girl. and then it would take the text using OCR, optical character recognition, send that through ChatGPT with one of our prompts, and then it would produce responses.

and would send those back to you. So they could see, basically, the OCR could see the text message from the girl on Tinder. Yeah. And then it would generate responses for you to send. Exactly. So the optical character recognition...

scans through your screenshot. If it's on the left side, the message, then that's probably from the girl. If it's on the right, it's probably from you. And so it pulls out this transcript and then it gives examples of what you could say in the context of that conversation.

Okay, so it gives you options, basically. Yeah, so you could press generate response, and you get one. And then you go, I don't really like that. Generate another. You know, these are maybe not flirty enough. You can pull up the spice meter, make it spicier, and it'll... Give you a more flirtatious message. Was it in the app? Like, was it in Tinder's app?

Were you just copying? You would screenshot the message. Screenshot, upload to Riz GPT, and we've produced the response. And then they just copy paste it. Exactly. Oh, it's just so simple. Very simple. Incredibly simple. How much money did this app make?

So we first launched just over a year ago. The first couple of weeks, we didn't really have the formula down. We did like a couple hundred downloads. And then I found this niche on social media. It was Riz content. Essentially guys showing off how good their Riz is. We paid $50 for two separate promos. They just made their normal content and put our app in the middle.

And those two videos did a few million views each, generated almost 200,000 downloads in less than a week, and shot us to $80,000 in monthly revenue off the jump. From 50 bucks? $100, $250 promos, but yeah. Holy shit. And then over the course of the next few months, we scaled up to a little bit over $200,000 monthly revenue. An MRR. MRR, and we've been steadily there for like 10 months, so.

I think that we're about to hit two and a half million in total revenue. What was their normal content? You said that was their normal content. They're literally just like showing off conversations between girls. Imagine you have your Tinder messages with a bunch of different girls, right?

uh they would go through and they would show like look at how good my riz is and it would just be screenshots of their conversations with the girls with maybe little edits in the middle like let bro cook and it's like a little meme yeah um And so they would be like 10 image long slideshows and we would reach out to them and we're like, dude, we love your content. Want to use our app to show off your Riz and like put it in the middle. Be like, this is where I get my Riz from. And so it was like.

the perfect hook yeah people are watching this content because they're impressed by the guy's riz or game or their ability to flirt with girls and then this guy's like hey i'm using this app actually and everyone thinks like oh, all I need to do is download this app, and now I'll be able to attract more women. And so...

They're seeing it work because in the video, he's showing him using or talking to these girls, seeing him get the girl, and then he just credits your app. It's not him just saying like, hey, guys, by the way, this app has... He's showing. He's like, this is what I do. This is what I use. It's a piece of the puzzle to get that outcome of getting a girl. It's the same way as an athlete being like, you know, where am I?

Jordan's, right? Like Michael Jordan has his shoes. He's like, you want to play like me? Where are my shoes? Right. It makes these like larger than life figures.

feel as if you can kind of replicate their success in whatever domain. Just going to do what they do. Exactly. That's so interesting. Okay, and then how many followers did these people have? So what's interesting is they weren't... I think people often get this wrong about social media marketing. They look to followers. Followers aren't actually what matters. It's views, right, and engagement.

And so these guys maybe have like 50,000 followers, 100,000 followers max, but they're doing millions and millions of views each video, right? Whereas on the flip side, you have maybe washed up creators or influencers that have millions of followers that generate 20,000 views of video. And a lot of big brands and agencies will pay on a follower basis.

That's just, I mean, it's very clearly not the correct strategy. The algorithm changed this year, especially. And so anyone can get massive views. It's about consistency and compounding. So I'm curious.

How come it was only 50 bucks if they're getting millions of views? Yeah. You often see it with new niches, new spaces, new content. When they're capitalizing on a viral trend. One, you can get, you know, you can do cheaper promos. But two is like... Who else is going to do a promo in this space? Right? It's like, who else is able to monetize people just showing off their game in Tinder messages? What, maybe like a dating coach? But it's...

Less high converting right I think that an important part about running even targeted ads or your own in-house content or whatever it may be. It's like find the sort of audience that is going to convert best and where you have the highest comparative advantage for your application and then double down on that.

Go after, how much is the app? Sorry. How much is the app? How much is it to use? Yeah. So originally it was free to use. And then after you used the number of credits, we would charge $7 a week. Now it's just $7 a week flat. Okay, so did you not ever offer these people affiliate deals? It was just solely flat? Yeah, attribution is very difficult with mobile applications.

It's very easy to do an affiliate deal when you're a streetwear brand, for example. People just use the code at checkout. Attribution is really messy when it comes to these mobile apps. How much did you scale this influencer outreach to?

It's a numbers game, right? It's like, it's weird. You're playing both for quantity and quality, right? It's like you simultaneously need to be reaching out to like hundreds of people a day. But I think something that we did pretty well. is if there was an influencer where i'm like i need to work with this guy i wouldn't just shoot them a message on tiktok or instagram right i would go join their discord i would spam

Fucking every hour, I would spam trying to get in contact with the guy. I would message their mom. I would message their girlfriend, whatever. I'd be like, get me in contact with Malik or whoever it may be. That was one guy that I specifically did it with.

And, you know, obviously you don't want to go too far, right? I'm not like messaging weird things. I'm just like, hey, would love to pay your son to do some work for me. Let me know if you can get me in contact. So I think you simultaneously need to...

play the numbers game while also recognizing like when there is, and I think this applies to business in general, when there's something you can do that will really lever up your efforts, you need to do everything in your power to make that happen.

Um, so in this case, DMing their mom. I love that though. It's like being intentional with like, if you find a quality person, like going out of your way to make sure you get that person still do the mass outreach, everyone you can systemize that, but like. Go extra effort. Exactly. Like, you can't do this with every single person, right? It's just going to take too much time. But, yeah, I mean...

People really overcomplicate. They're like, I've DM'd 20 influencers and no one has responded. And I'm like, how long did that take you? Like 20 minutes maximum? So it's like... Yeah, I don't know. You just got to be willing to put in the time, I guess. And I think that's what most people skip past. So I'm curious then.

how much like what was the message that you were offering these people like are you literally showing them the results of how these like first few people how much money they made like hey these people made like 20 grand the first month with a video like this yeah an example video This is where I don't think that there's a one-size-fits-all universal answer. It's really dependent on the niche. So for RizGPT, we had one method. For UMAX, which we'll get into later, we had a different method.

Now for my most recent application, CalAI, there's a totally different method. So I think it's like, it's a process of split testing, right? Split testing is obvious to people when you're running paid ads. Meta does it for you, right? Split testing is obvious when there's like a clear, it's very easy to quantify the inputs and outputs. Though, split testing can also be done in a qualitative sense, right?

You kind of split test what sort of messaging you want to push onto somebody when you're trying to get them to do a deal, right? I think people who do sales, they really understand this. They test different sort of strategies, different... whether or not they're a little bit more direct and aggressive with their offer, whether or not they slow play it, that sort of thing. I think that it really applies here to working with creators and whatnot. What were a few different angles you took?

So there's like the, there's some cases in which you just want to outright, like maybe in an industry where there's a lot of bullshit, right? You're getting a lot of DMs. There's a lot to filter through, which.

albeit it's probably the majority of industries on this on social media be more direct be like hey love your content look and pay you x dollars for a promo let me know if you're interested right like A lot of these people have their time wasted, not just by people trying to do promos with them, but by people trying to offer some high ticket sale or management or whatever it may be.

So I think cutting through that is very, I think that that is probably pretty universal. So just like two liners like that? Yeah, just be direct. Just for the first reply. And I'm sure you've noticed this too, like when people are reaching out.

I have so many people that are like, hey, man, I think I could really, really improve what you're doing. Free to hop on a quick call. Here's my calendar link. I'm available in six days. I'm like, no, I'm not going to do that. But then some people reach out and they're like, hey, dude, love what you're doing. This X maybe should actually be Y. Here's an example of how I would do it differently. Maybe here's a new design for your logo or here's a new strategy for whatever it may be.

And they're like providing value up front or showing exactly what they can do. I'm like, okay, this person's legit. They're not going to waste my time. This was your first app, you said, that you've ever built. And you're not a technical person. So, A, getting on the Apple App Store seems...

like a hurdle that you might not have seen coming, but also even just the technical build of it. How did you build the app if you weren't technical? Yeah, so like I said, I had like a very high-level kind of understanding of technology, but... I was certainly no software developer. So it really was as simple as asking ChatGPT, how do I build a mobile app, right? It had said you can either build in SwiftUI for iOS or Kotlin for Android or React Native if you want to deploy hybrid, etc. And...

I chose SwiftUI. There wasn't much method to it. I was just kind of like, this makes sense. So I downloaded Xcode. And you get hit with the hello world and the little globe sign on the screen. okay, we need to figure out what the designs are going to look like here. So we hop in Figma. One of my co-founders kind of led that charge. We're both working on it. We get the general designs, what we want it to look like. And I'm like, okay.

ChatGPT, I need a blue gradient background for the homepage. And it tells me dot background parentheses linear gradient from blah, blah, blah to blah, blah. So now I have my background. I want a button in the middle. I go, ChatGPT, I need a button. I need two buttons, actually, and I need a logo at the top. It gives me the UI for that. I say, okay, now after I press this button, I need to...

Go to my camera role to upload an image. And it was this simple. It was, I need to do this, chat GPT, explain it to me, then I implement. I need to do this, explain it to me, implement. And now, obviously, there were times where I had to do debugging.

But anytime that that came up, I just asked ChatGPT. I'm like, hey, you gave me this code. Why doesn't this work? And the reason that I'm getting kind of specific here is there have been a lot of people that are like, you can't just build an app with like 95% ChatGPT. And I'm like, no, you actually can. Like, I know for a fact I did it myself. And over time, ChatGPT essentially became my tutor, right? As I started to get a little bit more familiar.

It didn't have to write all the code. I still have it right the majority, but I started to learn, too. I was like, hey, can you explain the difference between an observable object and a state variable, right? Yeah, this took a little bit over a month. RizGPT, relatively simple, like two-function app. Now I could probably build it in a day or two, right? But getting off the ground was... It really wasn't that complicated. It wasn't easy but it was not complicated.

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WGMI. Thank you, Durable, for sponsoring today's episode. So you had the set goal. Then you're like, all right, I need to get this built. Naturally, you're asking ChatGPT and it's giving you piece by piece as you're solving the problem one by one. And really, the product is just a GPT API. Exactly. At the end of the day. We had no backend. We didn't have user authentication. The app was named RizGPT-Production. So when you downloaded it, that's what displayed on your home screen.

Yeah, our APIs were totally insecure. We were originally making the API calls from the front end, which anyone who's listening that's a developer knows how dangerous that is. The API key was like... If you had just opened up the app, you could just steal our API key. And everyone would charge you. Exactly. For all the tokens. That's funny.

That shows that I think it's action-focused. If you just sat there trying to think through everything, trying to solve everything in your head first, trying to look up videos on how to code, you would have psyched yourself out. Yeah, there were probably things that... reasonably now I could do in three minutes. That took me 20 hours just because I would mess up some little part of the code that would just make the system completely unfunctional.

Or setting up the back end, I did it through Heroku, which in retrospect I would have just done AWS. But, yeah, I think that the...

big lesson here is I know a lot of people that have ventured to build apps and then they get stuck on like some really small, maybe like compiling error and it takes them 20 hours and they just can't seem to solve it and they just kind of give up. But... Just keep pushing through. Yeah. Now this especially applies to an app like ChatGPT. I don't think that someone without previous software experience could go build a social app, right, in which you have like interactivity.

Amongst users, that's a different ballgame. Start small, right? Yeah, but it's still insane that you built this first app without any technical experience just using ChatGPT in a month and then you launch for $100, you get $80,000 in MRR. That's right. That's nuts, dude. Congrats, by the way. Thank you very much. That's the action that shows and gets you the reward. So I was getting on the App Store difficulty.

No, it really wasn't that bad. You just kind of have to set up an LLC, create a developer account. Now, albeit my co-founder handled the majority of it for RizGPT, but then I did it for UMAX. And CalAI, so, well, CalAI did it with one of their co-founders, but no, no, it's really not much of an issue.

Okay, interesting. I mean, at the end of the day, that really is how simple the story is. Like, I think a lot of people like to complicate software, think you need to be a super technical developer, has to be some refined app. You're like... There's a new trend right now with AI, new product available to market. I see a problem that I can solve with it. I see content that's working right now. And so you kind of had like this like distribution that was like very clearly strategically seen.

And then you just launch something and people liked it. Yeah. So now I don't think this applies to, you know, actual large scale software. But when it comes to these sort of like indie applications.

People often overcomplicate it. They try to build something with like this somewhat convoluted use case. They're like, not to call this person out, but somebody hit me up and they're like, dude, I just built this app. I want your opinion on it. And it's like a water drinking reminder application. And it just enables you to track how much water you're drinking. And I'm like, okay, listen.

Can this provide some value to people that maybe aren't drinking enough water? Yeah. And like oftentimes these applications can work, but there's no guarantee, right? Whereas when you build something with a very clear use case, solving a very clear problem that people have, it can be the simplest product of all time. But if you just solve it in a better way than currently exists on the market.

or you distribute in a better way than it's currently done on the market, there's massive upside. RizGPT is as simple as, guys don't know how to text girls. The clear example of this is people... Any guy that's been in a group chat with multiple guys probably knows that they'll send these sort of screenshots in the group chat, right? Okay, now let's build a product to solve this. Instead of sending in group chat, send through app, produce response.

give to the user um and so yeah that's kind of been my thesis for the past three apps that i've built And they've all scaled very well. He's not a one-hit wonder, so I want to get into the next one. But I guess the last question I have on RISC GPT is, because you were probably pretty early. It was probably right when the GPT API came out. You took action really quickly, and so you saw a lot of early success.

You got to like 200k MRR. Did a lot of competition come into the market? Yeah, so I should actually clarify here. I set off to build it having no understanding of what the consumer mobile app space looked like. I had no idea that there actually was a formidable competitor on the market who's now actually bigger than, I should also clarify here, RizGPT is now named PlugAI. So there was a competitor on the market. I was completely unaware of them. Also, this is...

over six months after the GPT API came out. So it wasn't that new. The competitor being the Riz app. That's why we changed our name to a threatened lawsuit. You know how it goes. So, yeah, what I had said earlier, like, sometimes you don't have to build something super novel or solve in you. Sometimes there can be competition, but if they're not distributing well...

it's as if they don't exist, right? They had done less than 200,000 downloads at this point. We did that in our first week, right? So, yeah, I really want to harp on that point.

I don't think people say this often. I think a lot of people actually disagree, but if your competition is not known, it's as if they do not exist, right? If I've never heard of a product, if the average individual has never heard of it, then it doesn't exist in society, right? It only really exists once people know about it. Did you...

Okay, so that's interesting because it's like the brand name has to be established, especially on social media in this day and age, and their brand name wasn't established. I love that you just had like kind of horse blinders on and blind ignorance here. And then you just went forward, solved the problem, got an influencer and it's working without even looking at the market, without looking and seeing how complicated it would be. You literally just did it.

Yeah. It's awesome. Big believer in like shoot from the hip, right? Like I think people spend too much time trying to optimize everything that they do. And now this is important. For example, if you're building consumer social or first impression really matters.

And if you get a ton of people on your application and it's not built well from the start, that they're churned and they're never coming back, right? But when it comes to consumer utility app, it's like, I'm sure it's probably better to be slightly optimized from the start. But... Yeah, I like to shoot from the hip. I don't do like super in-depth market research in regards to...

I try to understand the market, but I'm not doing like focus groups and I'm not having like a five month beta testing period. Like I build the fucking app and I put it on the market and I hope that it works. It's pretty simple. Guys need help talking to girls. Yeah, everybody's trying to get girls. Huge market. market. This is a new ability to do it and I can probably find a way to market it. Yeah. So, okay.

Let's go on to UMAX because UMAX is even bigger than this one. So you took those lessons and then you kind of made a bigger and better app. But I love your approach to how you chose UMAX. So if you could kind of start there. Yeah, so... I split up with my co-founders from RizGPT. It was amicable, kept my equity, still getting paid from it. And so...

I spent the month of November hopping from couch to couch, right? We hadn't gotten paid out from RizGPT yet, the way that the Apple payout cycle works. And then there's this big thing, but I have no money and I'm kind of...

I stayed on my friend's couch for a couple of weeks than my brother's couch. And I'm like, all right, what should I build? And I'm kind of scrolling through social media and I'm like, okay, what's interesting? What are people, what's really popping right now? And I come across looks maxing. To me, it's super fascinating because it seemed like the gym niche weightlifting was kind of slowly declining and looks maxing was taking its place. What looks maxing solved that I think...

the weightlifting niche was one step away from is the majority of guys want to, you know, for example, lift weights because they want to be more attractive to girls. Looks Maxine cuts right through that. Looks Maxine's like... Okay, you want to be more attractive to girls. Let's improve your facial aesthetics. Let's improve how you look. And we can do this a lot quicker than spending five years lifting weights to try to get jacked.

So I start to do more research. Okay, I need to put myself in the mind of a looks maxer. Like what would I want? And I find that on Reddit, on TikTok, on Instagram, there are two common things that people are looking for. They're looking for... how can I become more attractive, right? Like, can you rate or give me suggestions, right? What skincare should I do? What hair care should I do? Or hairstyling, what have you. And any advice that they're getting through social media.

is not personalized to them right like an influencer can create a video saying if you have wavy hair do this if you have this skin care this skin type do this but it's not all just laid out in front of you Now on the flip side or I guess second people want to know how attractive they are

And people want to be able to quantify their progress over time. We see these sort of glow-up videos like, I used to look like this, and now I look like this. Now I'm really hot. But it's not quantified, and people don't know where they stand.

At the time, GPT Vision API was about to be released. And I'd started playing around with it in the web app. And I was like, I think that I can build an app to solve both of these problems. So I'm uploading pictures of myself and friends and playing around, figuring out how to make it work. Similar to what you were saying about when the ChatGPT original API came out that there was so much opportunity, I posted on Twitter. I was like...

GPT Vision. This was actually the demo day before the API came out. I was like, somebody is going to make millions of dollars or there will be people that make millions of dollars. off of an opportunity that they identify as a result of this new technology, GPT Vision. And for those listening who don't know what it is, GPT Vision is essentially chat GPT, but you can upload images and get an analysis. So I set off to build this app.

I had seen that Sam Zia was really popping off on social media. And I was like, I think because this community is so tight knit, I think that having someone who's really at the forefront. is going to confer a lot of value here. And I'd seen Sam in one of Lucas Pachter's podcasts. I was like, I think that this kid's smart. He's a hustler. I think that he would be a great partner. So I brought on him and my older brother.

And that was kind of the start of you, Max. Is he like an influencer? Yeah, Sam is a Lux Maxing influencer. There's kind of like the big three in the Lux Maxing space. It's like K-Shami. Phil Natham, and Sam Zia. How many followers do they have typically? I think all those guys each have a few million across platforms. Each video they're posting is getting how many views, you think? Yeah, so Sam at the time only had like 200,000 on TikTok.

But he was getting like a million plus views of video. And he's teaching people like mewing or like how to like put your face in ice water. Exactly. It's like here's how to tighten your facial skin or like sharpen your jawline.

That's so interesting. So you saw that that was like a popular, it was a trending topic on social media. The content was getting a lot of views. And so you saw that this was like a new up and coming thing that hadn't been, there's nothing, no infrastructure to be built for this yet, but it's getting really popular.

And then simultaneously, you saw a new ChatGPT vision, which you could upload a picture of your face, and it could analyze your face. Yeah, it was like market X new technology. Timing was perfect. Looks maxing was just starting to really become...

popular look at like the google trends it's like steadily increasing at this point like november december of 2023 um gpt vision that just came out there's nothing like it on the market uh llama 3 just wasn't as good And in order to build something like this in the past, you would have to...

You can use facial landmark detection, but that can only get you so far. To get the real in-depth analysis, we'd have to train a custom ML vision model that could cost anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 with no guarantee of having a high... quality output whereas we could test this in real time for less than a cent in image gotcha so that is so fascinating so that's how you chose to make this app yes what is the revenue for you max right now yeah so first month

we did about $100,000 in revenue. That's insane. Second month, we did about $200,000 in revenue. And then that's when we went viral. And since then, we've been doing like over $500,000 a month. So I think... Now we're at a little bit over like 5 million.

Oh my God. Or excuse me, sorry. We're at a little bit over 3 million. Yeah, but 5 million for your career. And it'll be over 5 million in 2024 for you, Max. That's insane. Okay, so you had the idea. That's how you built it. That's why you wanted to build it. How did you approach building this differently than...

Yeah, so this one, UMass was a little bit more complicated. We actually built it. Decent from the start. We had a user table. We had some level of authentication. That's crazy you didn't have a user table. Yeah, yeah. Pretty similar. Honestly, this time we used Swift UI, AWS backend. I was passing the images through an REST API as base64 encoded, which definitely is not best practice.

moved to pre-signed URLs after that. Did you build it? Yeah, yeah. Oh, wow. So whereas ChatGPT wrote like 95% of the code for RizGPT, maybe it wrote like 90% for UMax. Yeah, it maybe took about a month again to build.

Could you break down like what your thought process was for like what features you're building? Can you explain what the features are and like what the user flow is right now? Yeah, yeah. So I originally had started a series when I first started building it where I was going to document my... Like building in public.

And then very shortly thereafter, I was like, this is a waste of time. I do have some of the videos. I think one of them is on my Twitter. If you want to scroll down to a few months ago, you can find it. I think that disconnecting early on is very valuable. I spent... a pretty unbelievable amount of time just walking in the woods like no phone and nothing just thinking through like all the different ways that I can actualize the sort of vision that I have and

So this is where I think like really tuning in to your own conscious and subconscious and your thoughts about the space is extremely valuable, right? Kind of set your general trajectory.

and then build fast, right? So I figured out, I'm like, okay, we're going to do the ratings. We're going to give the recommendations. And I'm thinking about how I want the flow to look general UX. And I'm just doing this all in my head, right?

And then once it starts to come together and the vision becomes clear, I think another important thing here is like any project that I've worked on that has had real success, as I think through it, I become more and more confident about the probability of success. Anytime that I've become less and less confident, it generally doesn't work out. If as you start to think through, you become more confident, I think that that's an indication that you're on to something. So it starts to become clear.

I start to mock up the designs in Figma, playing around, getting some advice from friends, input. And the big thing here is I want to make it as simple as possible, give people what they're looking for as quickly as I can. What are they looking for?

They're looking for their ratings and their recommendations. So they'd post a photo and you'd get like a rating out of 10, like how attractive you are. Yeah. And then it would give you recommendations on what you can do to become more attractive. And a big thing that we focus on is like... Traits that you can adjust as an individual or things that you can change. For example, skin care, hairstyling, grooming, right? Strengthening your jawline, right? We're not focused on things like...

Well, you don't have strong cheekbones, which you can't really change. Like, you're fucked. You're ugly, right? So I'm a big believer of an internal locus of control, and that's something that we really feel strongly about empowering people. So in addition to the overall score, we also have the potential score. What would you be rated if you were to improve these malleable characteristics?

Internal locus of control. I think an internal locus of control in psychology, there's like internal, external. Internal is if something happens in your life, you attribute it. to kind of your decisions and your actions. An external locus of control, you're going to attribute things that happen to, you know, well, just an unlucky day or maybe the weather was this or this person did this to me as opposed to...

I should have checked the weather in advance, or I should have, you know, thought about what I was going to do before I did it, right? As opposed to saying, like, things happen to me, like, I create things, or I create the things that happen.

Interesting. So then how are you coming up with a person's rating? Yeah, so we're essentially assessing for these various characteristics. Do you have present acne? Is your skin somewhat discolored, right? Are you well-groomed? Is your hair styled well according to your face shape? Do you have bags under your eyes, right? And so we're assessing for like 20-plus characteristics and then using these...

For different features for example with jawline if we notice a strong jaw contour Which is as simple as saying to chat GPT like does the individual have a strong jawline? And then you give a little bit more explanation to improve accuracy.

So if you don't have a strong jawline, that'll decrease your jawline score. Right. So is it like, so you can like tell ChachiPT to identify these set variables in someone's facial. Like if they have acne, if they have a strong jawline, whatever it is, contour lines.

And then are you just basically saying if they have one of these, deduct a point or something like that? Yeah, pretty much. And then you're setting a baseline. It's primarily classification because it doesn't do... a very good job at quantification if you tell give me adrenaline score it'll be like 70 someone else 70 someone else like you know uh whereas if you classify and then use that to adjust the you know

Quantified output saying like the highest if they have none of these high score be a 10 basically Yeah, exactly that makes a lot of sense then deduct points exactly so interesting And then you basically what does the app do from there once they have that score? So it's basically setting that baseline so

And then you're trying to get them to a goal. Yeah, exactly. And then along with these classifications, for example, if the jawline isn't strong, we'll give some recommendations. Eat food that is chewier. Or use these jawline trainers, right? Because your jaw is essentially a muscle, right? Or you have muscles along your jawline that are going to make it sharper. Or lose weight, right? If the individual appears to be overweight.

That sort of thing. Interesting. And the recommendations that we give are very straightforward. Like, the majority of the recommendations, if you look at it for any individual component, is like, eat healthier. Work out.

Wash your face, right? We are not giving things that are really out there. But we feel strongly about helping teach people to take care of themselves better. I think as a young man in society. I think girls are taught this early on about how to groom themselves well, take care of themselves. I don't think that it's as prevalent for young men.

I have two brothers. I was never told anything about skin care. I never washed my face until after college. Yeah, literally, literally. And so just making these simple recommendations more popular and well-known. I think is a good thing. So it's more like you're like...

Telling them how good they look. And if they did these three things, this is how good they could look. And you're basically just bringing awareness that, hey, facial care is a thing. You could also strengthen your jaw, which is a thing that people probably don't even know exists. Absolutely. And so you're kind of just pointing them in the right direction.

Yeah. Instead of giving them a full on like eat this today, eat this tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think that society would be better off if everyone took the time to take care of themselves. Right. Simple. And so I think. To me, it feels like a good thing. And so that's what the app is just essentially doing. It's pretty simple. It's just giving them baseline, telling them their goals. Here's how you can reach that goal. Is there continuity? Like, why would they continue using the app?

There's not too much. You can get your updated recommendations, but it's largely not going to change all that much. I guess progression pictures or something? Yeah, yeah. You get progress pictures. You can kind of track how your score changes over time. It was certainly something we considered building into. However, it is not something that I'm super passionate about in like the actual way that it manifests. Like if we were to really double down and spend years on this thing.

I think that we could get it to a point where we're providing a lot more prolonged value. Though, as we'll get into later, I have a vision that I'm more passionate about building. It was somewhat opportunistic in nature. Like there's a lot of opportunity to provide value here and do well in this space. So let's capitalize on that. And sort of the success here will enable me to pursue the bigger visions.

with a higher probability of success. Yeah, this was just kind of seemed like there's a lot of value in the market to capture. And it was like speed that you kind of took advantage of. And you saw the trend, you took the action and you captured that value.

But long term, I could see how that wouldn't be like your billion dollar business. And so it's kind of like a launchpad business to get your first set of capital. And you can have like a more mission focused approach, I'm sure. That's pretty much exactly the plan. So this seems to be like the new approach to at least consumer apps and SaaS.

general is that you saw the trend and you partnered with an influencer to launch it so you had that baked in distribution is that something that just tell me about that approach is that like was that really intentional yes like so you called a social media businesses or

entrepreneurship or something yeah yeah it's interesting so i think that this space is kind of like the intersection of tech and social media right um but the approach to partner with an influencer to me i think is really dependent on the space that you work in

For example, Look Smashing was a very tight-knit, like, ride-or-die community, right? The people that were in it, they loved it. And there were a small number of influencers that were really leading all the messaging, all the... looks maxing zeitgeist right um sam was one of those guys so partnering made sense he's also a great dude like super good to work with i don't think that's true for all influencers um and so there

it made sense. Though, for example, with Cal AI, which we'll get into in a moment, calorie tracking is like, it's fucking massive, right? There's no one individual who's leading this entire... the entire community or culture so in that sense partnering with an influencer right if if your goal is to achieve true market penetration and like even dominance then

no influencer will be able to provide their keep if you get there, right? Maybe they can, if they're a good entrepreneur, right? If them being an influencer is just like cherry on top, they're good entrepreneur. They have connections. They know how to run a business. Beautiful. Do it, right? But when it comes to primarily partnering with someone on the basis of their influence, I think that it is relative to your time horizon expectations for the business as well as...

the state of the niche in which they exist. What was your approach to CalAI? Yeah, so I had the idea for CalAI while UMAX was really blowing up. I was like, I can't really justify going all in on this. Meanwhile, I've been in contact with these two entrepreneurial 17-year-olds. They're unbelievably cracked for their age. So smart, so mature.

uh technical skills what have you they hadn't had like major successes one of them zach had had for his age a major success right he had sold a website that he got like millions of users on for like a hundred thousand dollars right but they were new to the app space and They were really interested in it. And so I hit them up and I'm like, yo, I think that we can run this playbook that I have for mobile apps for calorie tracking app. That said, I just need you guys to understand that.

My number one priority right now is UMAX. I'm going to give you guys the playbook, capital, and to some extent take y'all under my wing, and we'll go even split on this. You guys are running it. I'll essentially serve as a resource for y'all. And they were like, bet, let's do it. So I had the initial idea, the designs, and the playbook, and then they built it. They got the social media train running, what have you.

Cal AI has been doing so well, I think in large part due to how well these kids have executed. We've done over $300,000 in the past month, so we're at, I think, like 3 million ARR right now. Because not all of that is recurring, right? And now the play here is within this kind of like team, we're building out new applications, leveraging the infrastructure that we have.

through designers, social media marketers, etc. And over the course of the next couple of months, I'm really helping to kind of ensure that we have a well-oiled machine here and going to continue to push the ball forward on this.

as I gear up for my next big play, or I guess my biggest play now, which will be Apex. I know that I could continue building apps.

And I think I could do like $20 million in revenue minimum next year if I'm all in on just building these sort of consumer apps. Now, I don't want to be someone who maximizes for money, right? I don't view that as... a fun way to live life right i think that that to me seems like actually really depressing where it's just all about how can i make more money more money more money um as opposed to doing things that you care about and

The vision behind Apex is something I really do care about. I agree 100%, but I think you have to make your first taste of money to like... It has to be a conscious choice after you make the money to then be taken seriously. It's a lot easier to pursue the grand visions when you have the safety net, right?

I didn't have the safety net before. Now I do. Yeah, it's like the launchpad business. You need money to take the bigger swings too. Elon Musk did Zip2 before he did PayPal, right? And did PayPal before he did Tesla and SpaceX. So I want to ask one more question on Cal AI.

First off, so for anyone listening, they're going to think you're crazy for switching from a company that's making $500,000 a month. But I assume there's a problem with... like retaining people getting people to like the LTVs probably isn't like years down the line I assume there's there was kind of a trend that you hopped on and so like the market's not growing at the same there's other competitors so there's maturity and it's going to cash flow and it'll exist

But for you to take bigger swings where you want to be, like I'm sure you want to be like an Elon Musk level entrepreneur, essentially, right? And build a mission. That app is not going to get you there. And so when you have a bigger vision with a mission, it makes sense to just...

you're still contributing what you contribute. You kind of built the machine, so it's running itself. It's a business. And you've kind of tapped out the market, and there's potential flaws in the long run. So it doesn't make sense for you to commit and double down. Is that kind of the right assessment?

I think another important note here for me specifically is I'm not the sort of person who can just will myself to do the thing that I don't want to do. If I don't want to do something... I wholly like cannot fucking do it. It's good self-awareness. Yeah. So I definitely optimize for doing things that I'm interested in. Um, and with you max, it was similar to what I said earlier. It was like, okay, let's.

Let's get this thing on autopilot so that it can continue to sustain itself and make a good amount of capital that I can use for future projects. But, like, yeah, there were ways in which I think... Could have grown UMACs and still can. The biggest issue is, like, I just don't find myself inspired when I work on it. And as a result, I'm going to get way less out of my time than I put into it.

And so with Cal AI, I was like, this will be a really fun thing to do. We can kind of build a studio here. I can help these two 17-year-olds, Zach and Henry, who, like I said, are fantastic. can get them a massive win early on, and I can still see some upside from this. Meanwhile, I pursue the things that I care about.

I think that should be like a way more accepted answer by people, by the way. Like I think that's 100% the right way to think about it. Like if you're not excited about it, you don't feel like it's something that you want to be doing. Don't do it. Don't do it. That should be the right answer. And then you make the next approach better. I know so many people that try to force themselves to do something because they identify it as their highest ROI activity. Yeah. Per unit input. But as a result.

their inputs are just like, they put in eight hours, they're only really getting three hours of productive work done versus when you're really passionate about something, you can put in eight hours.

and you can get like 16 hours of productive work out of it, right? And the next four hours, there's learning about it in general because it's fun for you. It makes a lot of sense. Give me a little more context on Cal AI, though. What do you mean by you created a studio?

And could you just explain, like, how you're building these so they're on autopilot? Yeah. So I don't want to go too in-depth into, like, the specificities. Just, like, explain the model. But high level, it's we have ideas for apps, right? Any good app dev. knows that you always have like 20 ideas in your back pocket and you're just working on the best one. With the studio model, we're bringing in engineers who maybe are interested in entrepreneurship or want to work in a small startup.

and having them really lead the charge on an individual app that we have an idea on, right? We'll do the designs. We'll provide the infrastructure, anything that they need. We help them with, and then they just get to build, right? And obviously participate on the product side of things, what have you. Then we have also the social media infrastructure. We're running all the paid ads. We're doing the in-house content generation.

working with various influencers and kind of scaling it up on the distribution side as well.

Interesting. This is what we do. We do venture-led or creator-led SaaS, basically. We partner with creators and then build them software. Yeah, so we're not looking to do the influencer partnerships for the majority of these. It's the dev side. Yeah, exactly. Do you see with consumer apps, there's a ceiling?

that you've been hitting or is that what you mean like it's i think that it depends on the application like different applications are going to have higher and lower ceilings the amount of effort that you put into it for a long period um so Yeah, I think that oftentimes it's very difficult to estimate ceilings. So once you just start to see yourself plateau and you know that you're still doing all the right things and nothing seems to be working.

that's usually an indication that you've hit a ceiling or that it's just going to be super hard to penetrate through that. Maybe that's like a local ceiling. It's not like the universal ceiling. You have to add new features, change the product. Yeah, exactly. And with UMax, for example, I know that we're not at the universal maximum. We're at a local maximum, given the state of the current product. Now, in order to break beyond that, it's just going to take time.

effort, attention that I don't want to put into it. Passion. Exactly. It will take passion and I don't have the necessary passion. That's good. That's great self-awareness though, to be honest. Okay. So. One last thing on this. You said that you got Cal AI to a really good start really quickly. Could you just explain what the process is? Because you're kind of so refined now.

Like just like objectively, like step one, step two, step three, like, okay, have an app idea, see trending in the market, have developer, you said social media manager or something like that. Could you just explain from your perspective, like how you like break down the roles and pieces you need to scale like that? Yeah, I think that there are a lot of people in this sort of like utility app space, as I describe it, tool apps.

that are doing it all themselves. I think a distribution of responsibility across team members is very valuable. I think that generally you'll see like greater than 2x outcome when you have two highly skilled people working on the same thing, so long as the ceiling isn't like super low. And so that I think is a key component of success here.

It's like someone takes lead of engineering, someone takes lead on design, product, app store, et cetera. Someone takes the lead on marketing. And then from there, within the context of each individual role, I think that the consumer app space, probably more so than any space, is just like rapid iteration. You iterate on your distribution strategy, you iterate on different designs, on different engineering styles, etc.

And because you can do it so fast and in real time, like if you're an e-com product, for example, you have to wait for the new samples. And then like, there's just a few week change. A lot of waiting. A few weeks go by before you can change anything at all. Whereas with... software you can just and so I think you apply that to every you know sector of your business and

Yeah, that's really what has worked for us. So it's literally just like have an idea, get the design, have a developer, everyone owns their role, have a marketer, and the marketer's just pounding outreach, cutting deals. It's like some apps, it's going to be paid platform ads.

Some apps, it's going to be influencers. Some apps, it's going to be internal UGC. I know people that succeed with each of the above strategies. Influencer, I think influencer strategy is the hardest to crack from what I've seen, to be honest. Um,

but that's the one that has worked for me. There's so much subjectivity to which creator you work with. Yeah. And like the density of their audience. The majority of people are not going to be able to run, like they're going to run influencer promos and they're just going to be unprofitable. They're going to take the first person that says yes, they're going to say that 5,000 followers.

10,000 views that should work without really understanding how loyal their audience is. Yeah, yeah. And there's so much complexity to it. I'm trying to give the universal transferable lessons here, but in regards to like... People all the time ask me, like, by the way, how do I do influencer marketing? I'm like...

So much nuance. Yeah. So much nuance is why like anyone that sells a fucking course on it, I'm like highly skeptical. I'm like DM people. Yeah. To think that there's some universal strategy is to, it's just like, it's. it's not how it works. It's, it's, you have to iterate. All right. Now let's talk about the big vision. Okay. Cause you're in your early twenties still had multiple million dollar consumer apps in the last two years. And now you seem to be taking the big swing. Yep.

Explain your thought process behind this. So I describe Apex as an all-in-one self-actualization ecosystem. Self-improvement, self-actualization, similar, but...

kind of came to this realization that we're more focused on actualization. So I think to provide the proper context here, we can go all the way back to ancient philosophy. A lot of ancient philosophy was very focused on practical wisdom. Stoics were really big on this. Philosophy is valuable to the extent with which it is applicable in your own life.

Stokes focused a lot on developing your internal character, virtue, and what it meant to live a good life. Now, nowadays when we hear the term philosophy, we think of... This sort of like study of the metaphysical abstract. I think therefore I am. I think that was Descartes. And it's like that. This just doesn't mean anything to the average person. And so we hear philosophy and we're like, this is very academic in nature. No application to me. I think that ancient philosophy is more...

similar to self-improvement, as we know the term now, than modern philosophy. Now, if we look at how self-improvement is characterized, it's almost like this weird voodoo term where it's like self-improvement.

What does that really mean? Because on social media, we see people lifting weights just so that they can get jacked and impress girls and guys and be high status, right? And we see people talking about entrepreneurship of like, you just need to make 10K a month, bro, to escape the matrix. And now you can buy your Rollie, right? Or live in Miami. And I think that we see this across.

A lot of different domains of self-improvement on social media. I think a better alternative world is like, let's work out and eat well so that we can be healthy, feel good, think more clearly, live a better life. Let's pursue entrepreneurship or learning or whatever it may be so that we can contribute to the world and orient our own life in a way that we can live.

by our own terms and not fall into these like mimetic desires we see on social media. You want to explain what mimetic desire is? That's pretty core. Yeah. A mimetic desire is essentially you're mimicking the desires of other people, right? We do it all the time, I think more so than we realize. But instead of thinking things through first principles, you're getting to the ground truth and then deciding what you want to do. You look to what do other people want.

And that's probably a pretty good indicator. That's a valuable thing, right? Like the social norm. If there's a fire, it's like survival. There's a fire in here. You see people running. It's probably better to start running instead of trying to see if there's a fire. So it's like in us to behave that way. And I think a lot of the times.

the majority of the time it's a valuable thing for humans, right? Kind of offloads the responsibility of like thinking through things and taking the time, what have you. But on social media, it's like you see everyone has a role. You want one. You see everyone's selling courses. You want to achieve this sort of life that they paint that you can.

The vision for Apex is kind of fighting against this. It's to focus on doing things that are going to help you self-actualize, to improve your...

the meaning that you're able to create in your life and your virtue as an individual. And so we're going to be getting a house in between San Diego and L.A., hopefully a nice, fun property. where we can create content. So this is one side. This is kind of pushing against the social media angle. And then two is a place that I really think I have domain experience is creating applications and tools to help people achieve their various goals.

And one of the issues with the consumer app space is that the majority of developers and companies are just optimizing for LTV, otherwise known as lifetime value. So how much will your customers pay you? multiplied by the number of customers that you have it's purely a game of maximization of profit and now the reason i say i have specific experience in this is because it's a space that i've worked in right like

I've done the consumer app subscription game. But it's not about how much value can we provide to people and how can we improve as many people's lives as possible. So...

being that we can do development in-house for free, we know how to code, we're going to be building these tools 100% free to use. We're going to have communities 100% free to join. We're going to put out content and help inform people of what... we think can improve their lives 100% free. And so the goal here is not to make money. Obviously, in the future, we will have to figure out how to generate revenue. Maybe it's we produce physical products that help people.

And we take a small profit on that. But rather, how can we improve as many people's lives as possible? And so the majority of the money that I've made from the apps that I've worked on up to this point...

As I had mentioned earlier, it's all going to be going into Apex. So if you're like me, you have a software idea and you want to get it started, but... you're just intimidated. You don't know how to hire developers. You don't know how to manage a project, getting it designed. You're just unfamiliar with the process. So that's why I actually had my partner start our agency, WGMI Labs, so we could help you bring your software to life.

The development agency where you get a full team dedicated to your project. So you'll get a designer, a developer, and a project manager. So all you have to do is list the features you want and kind of tell us how you want it laid out. and then watch it get built week after week. So if you have a software idea and you're ready to get started on it, go to wgmilabs.com and we're happy to help. Interesting. So this is going to cost a lot of money though.

Like I know you've made a few million bucks. You probably have a few million bucks in your bank account, but are you going to raise money for this? And if you do, how are you going to convince people if there's not a clear cut maximize shareholder value? Yeah, it's a great question. So. At this point, we don't intend to raise in the short term. As I mentioned, I will be putting at least a couple of million into it, my own money. I should also specify some of my money is also going to my parents.

And then like a little bit for myself, you know, because I still need to eat. I view it as like what FaZe Clan is to gaming. What Barstool is to like degeneracy, entertainment, sports, drinking, gambling. we will be to self-improvement. Like a brand. Exactly. And then, yeah, like, I want to file as a B Corp, which is C Corp. You have a...

you need to maximize shareholder value, right? B Corp, you are... So if we were to raise investors and we have obligations to them, we can actually act in the...

interest of the public good rather than just maximization of profit and shareholder value. Is this like a not-for-profit? Is that different? Yeah, yeah. To me, when I, a little bit over a year ago, got into this space, I was like, I just need to make a lot of money and then I can decide what to do. And I think in the process of making a good amount, I've kind of realized that it doesn't like really move the needle internally or does it move the needle societally.

It definitely, I think it's a safety net. Safety nets are really important. But I think a lot of people fall into the trap of money then becomes your only indicator. And that's all that you optimize for in life.

And I think that that's a very shallow existence. I agree. So you're trying to build like this bigger brand of like culture and media around self-improvement, self-actualization, and then create like... not create influencers, but like the way FaZe Clan is, it's like there are like, you said FaZe Rain, FaZe Banks. I will be Apex Blake. My co-founders will be Apex Jesse, Apex Wiley, et cetera. Interesting.

So those are centered around like a specific type of content. Yours will be centered around self-improvement. So you just like kind of create self, you might become like a self-improvement like creator, influencer. Yeah, essentially. And I think another important note here.

is I think that in the self-improvement space, something that can be somewhat isolating is that you have all these creators, like Brian Johnson, for example, and like... To be clear, I always respect people that are pushing the extreme of anything. I think that's actually really cool. But it's isolating. It's like you can never drink alcohol and never have fun.

And you need to do your, or like Andrew Huberman, like your three hour routine when you wake up to optimize and biohack for the day. And it's like, okay, it's cool. I think that we should all engage in healthy habits. But it can make you neurotic. Like I had gotten pretty deep into biohacking. I actually had a company that I started that was kind of in line with the original Apex Vision very briefly a couple of years ago called OptiSci.

Optimize science, right? Like optimizing using science-based tools and whatnot. I found that in the process, I became neurotic about health to the point where it stressed me out so much. I was getting bad sleep because I was so focused on getting the perfect sleep. And so I think... the ability to find this balance of like caring about health and prioritizing living a disciplined life is very important.

Caring about your career and what you do is very important. But it shouldn't all be like, it shouldn't be all or nothing. You should be able to live a balanced lifestyle. Okay, I'm very curious. Now I'm observing this from...

Since you're telling me firsthand. It seems like your first app was like you partner with influencers, like you pay them like 50 bucks for a plug. And your second app, you actually partner with partner, like equity partner with the top creator.

And now it seems like you're going for a much bigger vision. And so you're trying to create the creator. Trying to be the creator. Yeah, you're trying to build like a whole media engine over time. Yeah. First, and then you'll figure out the monetization second. Yeah, exactly.

I think FaZe Clan, for example, here, people might be like, okay, you referenced FaZe Clan. They blew up. Yeah, great. Took a $2 billion valuation. And then they just got acquired for like $40 million or whatever it was recently. They crashed. Because they weren't able to build a business behind it. Somewhat similar to Barstool. They got acquired by Penn Gambling, or whatever it is, for this big valuation. And then Dave Portnoy bought it back for a penny, right?

And so this is where I, you know, I think that they're very good counterpoints. This is where I have conviction that it won't happen to us because I believe that we are businessmen first. Creator second and we're gonna learn the creator side and that I don't think that I think that we will be able to figure out the business model

Such that it enables us to continue to provide value to people. I think that'll be the easy part for you guys. Yeah. Yeah, you guys have that part down. The problem with FaZe, I was like in that community. So I've seen the come up from the start. My whole goal is to buy a Counter-Strike team. So I love esports. But they just basically... we're so focused on

The content, trickshotting, building the community, they were the first vloggers in the end of the time, but they just let the wrong people in. And those people just followed maximize shareholder value, get a biggest valuation and exit. And Barstool was a little different. They were just like a...

what a funnel for a gambling company yeah at the end of the day it's true so you just gotta nail the business model on the back end this time but you guys seem to have that no problem yeah yeah i think that we'll be able to do it the biggest thing is that i'd never want to be a company like

I want anyone who's listening to this to hold me accountable in the future. I never want to be a company that's just like, how do we extort the sort of trust that people have in us to make as much money as possible. I think that is like so morally corrupt and abhorrent. And so I don't think that that will happen. Although, you know, absolute power corrupts absolutely. So it's not impossible.

How I know myself, I don't think that that will happen. I believe in you. I think you're business-minded. I think the FaZe Clan people were just so focused on the media, so focused on the content, and they loved their audience, and it was special. And then they let the wrong people in who came in, and they trusted them, got screwed. Same with Barstool. 20 years.

newspaper sports content building it up then sports gambling comes legal shiny object nothing wrong with it but that's what happened and it tarnishes the brand you know I think there is something wrong with it. I think there's something wrong with the phase plan side. I definitely think that sports gambling is an ethical, moral dilemma for sure. But I don't know if it necessarily affected...

I don't know. Who knows? Their brand still seems to be doing fine from a business perspective. But I'm curious. This is a total side question. Did you feel some type of guilt for the type of businesses you're running? No. Like how you made money? Yeah. People haven't asked me this. I don't. Because, I mean, I think that there were a lot of opportunities to engage in the immoral action. Like, we'd found pretty much all of the apps that I've worked on that you get, like, the highest LTV.

Just charging like an inordinate amount for subscriptions. The most you could charge, yeah. And like not responding to people when they ask how to cancel subscriptions, this sort of thing. They have always acted in a pretty moral and ethical way when it comes to the amount that we're charging, that sort of thing. And then I think like with UMACs, for example.

We were always very, like I always felt very strongly about not doing unethical things within it. And so there were a lot of practices that we could have engaged in that would have increased retention or had people coming back more and more. charging more money, as well as a big thing would have been going really hard in the female niche. There's a lot of stigma surrounding female beauty. We really could have capitalized on that. I was like, I feel strongly about not doing this.

I think some people would say, well, you're creating insecurities in men. I think that insecurities drive change. I think that the recognition that you should work on yourself and improve yourself is a good thing for society. My feeling is that the business I've built up to this point, I think if anything, I moved the needle slightly in the positive, but holistically probably haven't really moved the needle much.

So this is why you want to go deeper on the you max like practical self-improvement That's the whole vision here. It's like these have not really moved the needle much I wouldn't I've never done anything that I think moves a needle in a negative direction, right? Now it's obviously subjective and there will be people that disagree with me. I think that the vision for Apex is pretty clearly only moving in the positive. And also...

Yeah, I mean, like there's a question like do the ends justify the means, right? I don't think I've moved the needle much. If you think that I've moved the needle slightly in the negative, I think that at least to some extent the majority of the money that I've made will be... invest into something that is only moving in the positive right um so yeah i don't know like it's there's an argument to be made that this is how i justify and rationalize it to myself

I don't think that that's the case. Can I say something here? Because it's kind of what I talked about when you first walked in. I'm curious that the thing that made you money...

was the vanity of looking good or trying to get girls at the end of the day, like those things. And that was a far end of the spectrum, right? The same, not the same category, but like, for example, here on the internet, nuance is hard to... portray on the internet so you have people on both extremes you have brian johnson screaming no alcohol you have to live perfectly and then you have the flexors

make 10K a month, get jacked, have a Rolex look good. And those are what captures attention on the internet because the nuance is like the truth, but it's not as entertaining. And so I'm curious how you think about Apex as a media engine, because I love content, this is my game, as a media engine where you're in the middle. Yeah. Do you think that's going to resonate because there's like a pendulum swinging back?

I think so. I'm a big believer in reversion to the mean. I do think you bring up a great point. I think that I've always been kind of passionate about this general vision for Apex, right? I built the brand OptiSci that was somewhat similar in nature, maybe a little bit more to the scientific end of the spectrum. But I think that the time that I've spent in this space has really enlightened me and opened my eyes to the fact that...

I don't think that a lot of this is extremely bad for society, the messaging that exists, but I know that it's not good. I've worked on the messaging that currently exists on social media. I do think that there's some that's worse, some that's better. What have you. Talking about yours? Well, I'm talking about the messaging of, like, just make as much money as possible. Oh, yeah, yeah. I think that, like, that is a little bit worse than, like, what we do with UMAX, which is, like...

You're doing nothing wrong. You're doing great stuff. I don't think you should feel guilt there at all. Yeah, so anyways, now that said, yeah, I'm a big believer in reversion to the mean. I think that the mean here is... actually how like the majority of people that I know that are living good disciplined lives live, right? They go out on occasion, right? They're not afraid to have a beer, right? Like the scientific end would say that you can't.

They also don't only prioritize the maximization of money. They do things that they care about. They enjoy their work. They prioritize giving back, right? I think that social media often sensationalizes stuff, right? And so there's the argument that, like, maybe we're not going to do that well in social media because we're not pushing a sensational narrative. However, I think that the truth...

at least should win out here. And I think that pushing this narrative will resonate with a lot of people that are kind of sick of the...

all in on one end what will your content look like because I feel like the benefit of Andrew Huberman and Brian Johnson is like at least you know where the north star is and so you know like okay this is the right way to do it I'm gonna not do it every day only but I will implement this every once in a while so it kind of Does that make sense? Yeah, I think that oftentimes you can build a really strong community just taking an opposition to a very prevalent or popular antithesis. So, I mean...

Not that I'm trying to replicate these people individually, but just as some examples, like Jordan Peterson, right? He is going against the sort of like liberal, woke agenda, what have you. Donald Trump is like, drain the swamp, right? And I think here we're like, cut the bullshit on social media, right? Like, let's actually, let's do things that are going to make us feel and live a more meaningful life rather than just doing the...

like I had mentioned sensationalized thing, just make money just because money's fucking sick and get jacked because getting jacked is sick. Right. Let's, uh, Let's prioritize self-actualization because this matters more than any sort of like quantitative materialistic metric that we're currently seeing. And so your plan here is to build the biggest media engine you can possible.

It's by spreading the right message to attract the right people. And so you're buying this big house or renting this big house in California to basically make it a content house, like the old FaZe house in a way. Yes, exactly. And the... the sort of person that we're looking for is the sort of person who may be

feels lost and feels like they haven't been super disciplined or maybe social media has led them astray and they're feeling like maybe they're not all that they can be. And I think that we can provide a message and sort of...

philosophical framework to help them achieve what they want to achieve and have that internal feeling that they're doing the right thing i have a number of friends that are working like pretty normal jobs and maybe they're doing like really good things for the world right and But they just feel like so insignificant because they see this shit online about kids their age that are making so much money. And I'm like...

I promise you life is not that much fucking better on this other side, especially when all you're prioritizing is money. You're looking up at these guys, but like, they've got it made. But then these guys are just looking up and like, they've got it made. Right. And there's no peace anywhere. And instead of looking at people being like, this is a very virtuous person who does good by their community and lives a fulfilling life, it's like...

We just have this shiny object syndrome where we're just like, just one more fucking, you know, doubling my income, then I'll be happy. And it's just not the case.

Yeah, I think at least in my friend group out here, everyone has reverted back to the mean. We all made our first million at 23, 24, maybe a little earlier, lived out all those social media projections. Very insecure. There's a deep driver of that. then went through like a dark phase of like spirituality of like feeling empty and then completely reverting back on our own. It's like an internal path.

I can't tell if that's like naturally baked into us or that's just the circumstances we're being put in because of social media. Reversion to the mean. Yeah, we all revert back to the mean of how you're actually supposed to live. But you have to, you were doing mimetic desire once you had that money.

You're just doing what you saw you're supposed to do once you make money. And the danger here is that like, I don't think like the reality is that the majority of people that want to try to like make the millions aren't going to be able to. And as a result, they're going to.

there will be a tendency to go through life feeling as if they didn't achieve all that they could, not knowing that even making a bunch of money when you're just looking for the pursuit of money isn't going to provide a fulfilling life, right? if you could just push this message of like, it's not as cool as you think it is.

Do the things that are going to make you happy on a day-to-day basis. Do the things that are going to help you provide for your community. Be a good friend. Be a good family member. Work out to feel healthy and feel empowered. Like, that is a good life, at least to me.

I am so torn on this advice. I would love to hear your perspective because you're in it too. It's so hard because I've made a lot of money. but not doing something that I was like deeply passionate about. It's what drove me. And then that money gave me the ability to not have to work to self-reflect and then now be like more like spiritual in what I pursue. And that is a directly affected how much money I make. Like I'm like scared to make money, not scared, but like.

I don't like push hard. And so it's like, did I get complacent because I made the money? And then I went on a, also a spiritual journey. And now is that a new excuse to not like be a savage business guy? It's like a whole. mind fuck at both sides and so it's like then do you give the advice but now i'm happy and i'm working on a business i make a lot of money and i'm happy with what i do i'm passionate about it but then do i give that advice to the 21 year old version of myself so

Yeah, I think it's a great point. I think about things from the macro perspective, not just you as an individual, because you are not the same as the next person. Without a doubt. Now, I like the idea that... we should do things where even if we fail, we come out on top, right? So, for example, it's like if you work on something, let's say you try to do OnlyFans management, right?

You're trying to manage OnlyFans creators and you spend a year grinding at it. If you succeed, great. You come out with money, but it's like at what cost? You're not going to feel good about the money that you made. You're not going to have gained like really valuable skills, right?

Whereas if you fail, you come out with fucking nothing. It was a complete waste of time and you still feel like shit, right? Now flip this. If you pursue something that you care about, maybe you want to figure out how to, maybe it's in the... STEM field, right? Maybe you want to develop some new open source software. Maybe you just want to build a software that's really valuable for people. Or you want to figure out how to produce a novel chemical. I don't know much about chemistry.

Or it doesn't have to be STEM. It could be anything. Maybe you really care about pets, right? And you want to be a vet. Now, these are pursuits where, like, if you succeed, great. Maybe you make money, maybe fame, maybe notoriety. Maybe you just feel really good about what you did. In addition to the fact that it will have been a valuable pursuit because it's something that you care about, right?

As opposed to the OnlyFans side, you succeed and you don't care. Now, hold on real quick. If you fail in that pursuit, you will at least know that you spent your time pushing for something that you cared about to begin with, right?

And so that's kind of how I view Apex too. I'm like, there are other things that could make me more money or other things where I might have a higher probability of success. But even if I fail here, it will have been worth it because it's something that I really cared about to begin with.

But there is the upside of this being a multi-eight-figure, nine-figure potential play. Like, that is on the plate. Oh, yeah, yeah. Obviously, that's not the clear intent of, like, this is why I'm doing it. But it is a variable that is... in the mix. Yeah, I'd rather pursue a big play where I care about what I'm doing in the process than there are other eight, nine-figure plays that I could pursue.

where I don't give a fuck, right? Yeah, 100%. Even though this one has a lower probability to success on paper to investors and whatever. And if I were to just 100% prioritize building consumer apps, juicing cash, that's just like, I don't know.

uninteresting to me. This is a personal question that just came up as you were saying it. Do you think there are people that OnlyFans management could be their thing? Could be their genuine passion? Or do you think that's a literal, moral, ethical, like, written in the universe that's not? I think that... I would wager that there probably exist people, but I don't think that that's their most evolved form of self. It might be their passion at this point in time. I think that...

Do you think someone could rationalize it as being like good for the world? You can rationalize anything. My opinion is that it's not good for the world and kind of goes against like... Yeah, I don't know. There are a ton of ways to rationalize it. We're actually providing guys that otherwise wouldn't be able to talk to girls. They get to now speak to girls, and I'm helping facilitate this, and now they're not going to kill themselves. So there's a way to rationalize pretty much anything.

I personally disagree with it. I agree with you. I'm on the same page as you, but I'm curious. Do you think that there's like a universal or ethical, like a karmic, like I'm so, this is like a super deep thought, but like. is there like a karmic consequence to doing that objectively? Or is it simply based on how you feel about it? Like if you genuinely think you're doing a service, you're helping these guys talk to girls, this is like nobody thinks this way.

I've never lived in anybody else's shoes, right? However, what I have experienced, and what I think other people experience too, is that when you do something that you know is not good, you feel that in your soul, right? And... maybe there are people that don't feel that in their soul. And maybe there are people that like truly believe, right? But in terms of like universally, I'd like to think that like there is a universal good and that they are not in line with it.

But who knows? I haven't lived their life in their body. That's very interesting. Is it the subconscious way you feel about yourself doing it that affects your karma? Or is there a universal set of bad? That is a very interesting thought. I like to believe the latter. I agree. I would also say that is not the best way to make money and there will be karmic results to it, but besides the point. Okay, so I'm curious then, you're trying to build like this media conglomerate or...

group of people like a cultural brand of people with creators in there are you like going to like recruit specific influencers and like are they going to come out and live with you yeah yeah it's a great question so the original co-founding team is going to be myself My older brother, who would work with me on UMax, my very tight friend for a while, Jesse Abed, coming out from New York, he's absolutely killing it in his B2B sales job.

I don't want to speak on his behalf, but like high six figures. And he's leaving to work on this. And then we've got another person in the pipeline to be determined. So we're all going to live out there, create content together. Um, we'll make content on like, you know, working out like various, not just like weightlifting, but like running and doing cardio and doing, uh, you know, stretching, flexibility, et cetera, things that are gonna make your body feel good and you feel high energy.

Eating food that empowers you. While also balancing this with like, it's okay to have a fucking sandwich sometimes, right? And then, yeah, we've got, I've got connection to a number of influencers, I think, that exist. in the realm of this self-improvement space. So hopefully going to have a good number of them come out on occasion, kind of create content with us, like a week at the Apex house, that sort of thing. So...

yeah i think that that'll it'll be a lot of fun do you see people being like each person like just making their own style of contents like everyone will be slightly different like this is the this is the podcast guy this is the vlog guy this is the similar to like in stoicism how there's like the or even in religion, right? There's like the overarching high-level philosophy, right? And then in regards to our own, I guess, practice of it.

Everyone's going to have their own form, right? Maybe I really like to run and lift, whereas someone else might be really into swimming, right? But like the core principle here is like we all like exercise. Maybe I'm really into studying. physics whereas someone else wants to uh like i mentioned maybe they care a lot about pets they want to become a veterinarian right like different people have their own professions interests etc and so uh

I'm a believer in all of it. Like, I think everyone should be able to practice however they like, so long as it's, I guess, you know, but it's not just like anyone do whatever they want sort of thing. It's not like someone...

If someone on the team was like, dude, I feel really strongly that managing OnlyFans creators is sick, I'd be like, I feel like this is kind of not in line. It's about health, self-improvement. Yeah, it's like, it's how religions, philosophies work in general. You have the high level.

uh that everyone kind of believes in uh but then practice how you like so it's like the self-expression of their own exactly so long as like everyone is kind of in line with like self-actualization and trying to live the best life that they can

mind body spirit right i encourage everyone to do whatever whatever they like and so it's interesting how you're saying you're blending media with free apps what is the thought process behind the free apps yeah so i think that one of the issues with a lot of communities is that And similar to like kind of what I was talking about earlier with UMACS is you don't get personalization. It's very difficult to get personalization, right? For example, let's say that we have a thousand people.

Let's just take some system where there's a thousand people in a community and you have one person who's kind of the head of it. I can't really provide the customized knowledge or recommendations, whatever, based on every individual circumstances. But what you can do is you can build applications that can help the individual customize their training, for example, right? We could have a fitness app where it's not just optimized workout for hypertrophy, but maybe you say...

Okay, I really want to prioritize my cardio, but I also want to do some strength training and what have you. And you take in all these different variables, and then we can produce a custom fitness plan that's about making you feel better, right? Fitness apps right now are pretty fragmented in it's like there's a running app, there's a weightlifting app, there's a yoga app, right? Not a holistic exercise application. And we can provide these custom routines. I can build this, right?

or nutrition, right? It's not just about calorie tracking or like not just about the health or the quality of the individual food, right? But given what you are looking to improve in your life, how can we help you build a custom nutrition plan? Maybe you want to improve your skills or knowledge in some occupational domain, right? We can have you input what you're looking to improve. We can build this kind of custom formulation.

So it's not only, obviously, it's a good app that helps people, but also it's a way for you to, like, build up the media empire, then capture their contact info and, like, have them as users. Yeah. I mean, it's less, like... Strategic, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's more like just, like...

I just think about apps that I would want to use. So many of these, I mean, all of these fucking apps cost money nowadays. Everyone knows it. You download any app and you're like, all right, I'm going to have to pay to use this. This sucks. uh, people understand like Instagram, social media and whatnot is free, but any tool app, it's like, you gotta pay. Um, so I'm like, I feel like it'll be cool to build this and just like give it to the people. And then if they want to.

consume apex content and engage with us engage with the community great if they don't that's okay the thing about i've noticed is one you're really intentional like you like know why you're doing things but then you don't overthink it and you think very differently like you like This is like the mainstream way of thinking. You take a two-degree different angle to it, and that gives you, over time, a big gap between people. Is that something you intentionally developed?

Yeah, I don't know. I think that I've always been pretty curious. I read a decent amount. I think thinking from first principles is good. I don't view myself as some crazy visionary, but... I do think that I'm a fairly good at deductive reasoning, beginning with the end in mind. I think that... I think a lot about mimetic desire and how that applies to not just like what we want, but what we think, right? And how we view the world. And I think that if you go about your life taking like no...

Nothing for absolutely, right? Anything that you're told, like don't take it at face value. You need to kind of figure out how to come to these conclusions yourself. I guess when I was young, I asked why a lot. I was very rebellious. Teachers did not like me. And I think early on, that was pretty difficult, chaotic. I think over time... uh it's very valuable in I think informing the way that I think about was it taught to you or has it always been in you yeah it's interesting um

I don't know, I feel like it's kind of always been in me. It was definitely taught to some extent. My father did a good job with that. But, like, even with my parents, like, they were... Yeah, I was difficult as a kid. You're an independent thinker. Yeah. That's so interesting because it's almost like that's something that people...

I don't want to say lesser evolved, but you're mentally less aware of your surroundings since you have this light bulb moment because you're taught by school to conform. The whole point of the school system is to teach conformity, to be here at this time, to listen, be quiet when you're sitting, raise your hand when you want to speak.

And you're a bad student if you don't follow that. But all of the exceptional top-performing people are like you, in my opinion, that I've met here on this podcast. I appreciate that. Yeah, and so it's like if you don't do well in school, it could be an indicator of a different way of thinking.

I don't want to say it's an indicator of success because it's just bad grades, but it is like that type of getting in trouble can be positive for your outcome in life and to trust that and to lean into that if you're a kid. I think being intentional with everything that you do and having... as I mentioned earlier, an internal locus of control. Believing that you really do have the power to do whatever it is that you want and to figure things out.

And to be willing to sacrifice and maybe sacrifice in that, like after I graduated school, I didn't have any income at all. I was getting loans from my brother for groceries, but that's what produced. positive long-term returns or long-term returns. Now, flip side, I think thinking differently too, it's like oftentimes, especially in school is a great example of this, when you think in line with everybody else.

you're gonna get rewarded for that you get the good grades right whereas if you kind of won't accept what the teacher has to say or you try to think differently you might sacrifice in the short term grades for example here But then in the long term, it'll enable you to, I think, think more logically and rationally.

rather than just accepting everything that you hear as a foreground conclusion. Yeah, I think the thing that helped me most was saying if you accept what everybody else accepts or you do whatever they do, you'll get the same results. Exactly. Right? Yeah, yeah. Whereas if you think the same way as everyone else...

you will have the same ideas when you decide what to build. But if you try to think differently, then you can get the different ideas which produce the different results. Didn't you write a book when you were seven or something? Yeah.

When I was seven years old, I wrote an e-book titled How to Make Money as a Seven-Year-Old. From a very young age, I've always been fascinated by entrepreneurship. I've always been fascinated by systems, right? I really like figuring out how things work and then figuring out how to produce positive returns. And so...

I started like investing in the stock market when I was seven years old. Every day I would bring the Wall Street Journal. They had like the stock prices. This is when I didn't know how to use like technology really. Um, or like I didn't have a phone to search up stock market. And so I would bring the little, uh, newspaper on the bus and I would just go through my favorite stocks. It was like MSFT, Microsoft and INTC Intel.

And I would track them every single day. And I was like, I want to make money to invest in the stock market. So my dad would pay me like 10 cents a rock to pick up these rocks that we had in the yard. And I would mow lawns. And I started doing all these different little things. And I'm like, what about the internet? And so I was watching, I was consuming like the...

kind of like course guru style content from the age of seven, just like figuring out all the different ways that internet works. And I was like, I stumbled upon eBooks and I was like, how can I learn about how to make money? So I start to find. how to make money as a seven-year-old. I search it up, try to find this ebook, and it doesn't exist. And I'm like, seven-year-olds need to know this. We need to popularize this information. So I write a book, How to Make Money as a Seven-Year-Old.

And I never ended up publishing it, unfortunately. But I'm like, you can sell candy in school and you can mow lawns. Like most seven-year-olds probably aren't allowed to operate a lawnmower. But... Yeah, that was that was really the start. The reason I ask is because when you're seven, this isn't like I feel like when you're in high school or college, it could be.

there's a greater, there's like, you want to get girls, you want to look cool, you want status. When you're seven, you're not really thinking about status by any means. So what was the driver? Is this like where, because it's like, this is a form of, at that age, it feels like that purity is like a form of self-improvement. Yeah. 100%. I think the world has always been really fascinating to me, figuring out how things work. And although I didn't know exactly why at the time.

I knew that the world was run by money and that when we would go purchase things from the store, we paid money. And I would hear online, they talk about the economy and the stock market. And I always hear the term money, money, money. And I'm like, okay. And it's mimetic in nature. But I'm like, okay, if money is so important, and if I get money, I can do the things that I want to do. And I can live whatever life I want to live.

And I can have whatever I want. And so very early on, it became clear to me that money was important. And over the years, I started to realize that it was really just a tool. and an abstraction of resources. And that if you acquire some of it, then it enables you to kind of shift the world in the direction that you want it to.

Yeah, I mean, from the age of seven, it took me a little while to start making my first real amount of money. But thankfully, it's kind of all worked out. I'm interested where the self-improvement... Have you ever read the book Mastery by Robert Greene? Yeah, I'm familiar with it. Where did the self-improvement...

natural interests i feel like that is self-improvement yes money is a tool but at that age it's like unless money was like a problem at your house was when you were a kid was something your dad was bringing up a lot like yeah to your mom or something that you like observed my dad was obsessed with self-improvement He would run five miles every day. He worked out every day lifting weights. He went to Princeton undergrad and then Harvard MBA. Damn. He was an entrepreneur.

Probably the hardest working person that I know. He was dealt a bad hand. He has a neurodegenerative condition, SPMS, secondary progressive multiple sclerosis. He's up. barely able to walk now. It's neurodegenerative. He also has some other stuff going on that I'd rather not get into. Around the age of 12, I kind of... This is when the condition really started to take hold. And it was, for the past 11 years, it's neurodegenerative.

And so I saw that the self-improvement mindset embodied in him from a very young age. And I also saw what being dealt about bad hand does. He still gets to the gym every day, even though it's very hard. And so, yeah, this really, I think, really opened my eyes what it means to...

to be able to live, and what it means to be able to improve yourself. And I think that we all have an obligation, not just to the world, but to ourselves, to do everything that we can to live the most fulfilling life that we can. and to become the best version of ourselves. I think it's Socrates has the quote. It's like along the lines of, it's a shame for a man to not be able to experience the strength and beauty of which his body is capable.

Something along those lines. And I really believe that. And I think that's what makes me so passionate about living it and also attempting to... prophesize it or preach it to the world so you saw it so early and how important it was and even now his resilience to be able to keep going exactly incredibly resilient incredibly hard-working um and so

Yeah, like financially, we had done pretty well up until I was 12, but then due to a number of factors, kind of. But then pretty good timing, like right as I started. Whereas we had to sell the house, whatever. That is when the businesses started working. So like when I moved home after college, house on the market, older brother giving me loans for groceries.

That's interesting timing. Yeah, it was pretty crazy. I don't make someone religious right there. Yeah. So you kind of came up in a, not necessarily like a privileged environment, but like... safe like taken care of financially yeah yeah exactly but then due to like physical health issues yeah it was pretty wild you couldn't work couldn't yeah whatever no so then you kind of like this like not culture shock but like

financial like storm in a way yeah your life is changing perfect timing honestly so now i'm able to you know give back to my parents um is that what you said you're doing with the money that you made yeah so

A decent proportion is going to Apex. Another proportion is going to my parents. It's probably like two-fifths, maybe a little bit over two-fifths Apex. Two-fifths parents, one-fifth me. So you've kind of like stepped in as like the main financial provider for your family? Yeah.

damn bro you think that that contributed towards your it's interesting that you were trying to make money when you were seven but do you think that contributed towards your like like do you feel did you feel a sense of responsibility when you were starting in college Did you see that coming? Yeah, it was, like I said, it was from when I was like an early teenager. Yeah, I saw it coming, but...

Yeah, I remember having a conversation with my brothers being like, all right, we're going to have to figure this out. Now, that said, my grandparents are like, they have enough to be able to help as well. So I don't want to push the message that we were really poor or had it really bad because that's not the case. But definitely a period of struggle.

Interesting. It's very fascinating from a psychology perspective. Yeah, it is. But that is like the main driver of Apex now. And kind of like the...

It's interesting that all your apps were still self-improvement based too. Oh, 100%. All of them. Even talking to girls is still self-improvement. Yeah, in some sense. I think that it's all along the lines of... I think it's just something that I understand pretty fundamentally. And so as a result, I'm going to think through different ideas to build in the space as well as I think I'm going to have success.

Seeing as I like to think of myself as somewhat of an expert on the topic. Yeah. What's exciting you the most about this? About what? Apex. Apex. I think what's exciting me the most is that I... Success is not guaranteed, right? But as I mentioned earlier... I've had the best results on projects that I work on where I become increasingly confident as I think about it, as I begin to work on it. Apex is this to the max.

I like to say, like, if we can change a million lives and make zero dollars, that's a much more preferable outcome to making millions of dollars and changing zero lives. So I think that we have a really good opportunity to do the former. And maybe it's somewhat egotistical, but I like to think that my view on self-improvement and what I think that it should be, I think that it is...

better than the majority of what we see on social media right now. And I think that I've seen the context of my own life that any conversations that I have with friends and whatnot, I like to think that I'm able to offer valuable advice to help them improve. And now doing this on a mass scale, I think just enables outcomes of a magnitude greater than what I've been able to achieve as a friend or family member. You said that you...

We're building in public for a little bit. You had a Minecraft channel back in the day. So is creating content something you've always wanted to do? I think, yeah, I think that it's... Like I said, I've always liked to help those around me in whatever way I can, like trying to help them start businesses or giving advice for weightlifting or whatever it may be.

And to me, creating content is just the ability to influence on a mass scale, to be able to help people on a mass scale. Now, doing Minecraft and whatnot, I think that that was a little bit more fun in nature. But yeah, and that's why I say like it is, I think just the idea of creating content as a whole is like somewhat.

narcissistic, egotistical in nature. I don't think that is necessarily negative if you're pushing out a positive message, but it is like my message is really valuable and therefore everyone needs to hear it, right? So... I guess, yeah, I definitely don't have no ego at all, and I'm willing to accept that as long as I think I'm pushing out something that will help people and help society. Yeah, that's like the checklist you have to hit first.

Yeah, exactly. I know people that are passionate about helping society, whatever, but they have no interest in content. They're like, that's just like, I don't really care about putting myself out there like that. What type of content do you plan on making for yourself at least?

Yeah, so I think a lot of content about there's like the basics, which is I think I view health as a pillar. So I think this is exercising. This can be running, weightlifting, whatever, giving recommendations. This is nutrition. And I think a really...

Something that doesn't really exist as much in this self-improvement niche, but I think is incredibly important, is time in nature. Like I had said, when I was working on UMAX, when I work on any of my projects, I spend a lot of time going on walks and forests and whatnot just thinking.

And I think that this is incredible for not only cognitive stimulation, but mental health as well. And so this is one of the reasons that we're getting a house like in between LA and San Diego on the middle of nowhere is I think it can be very, uh,

very valuable to thinking clearly. And I think that it can improve health significantly. Is this from like a subconscious perspective, like not taking in inputs and just trusting your inner? In the book, Deep Work, Cal Newport speaks about this study that was done.

You take two groups. One of them, you have them walk through a city while they're thinking through some difficult problem. This could be mathematic, this could be literature, whatever it may be. You have them walk through a city while they think about it. The other group, you have them walk through a forest.

The people that, and then you have the control group that does nothing. The people that go on the walk in the city outperform the control group by a little bit. But the people that walk through nature significantly outperform both groups in their results. I think that nature is healing. It's de-stimulating. It gives us an opportunity to kind of reflect and our subconscious to expand.

It gives our subconscious opportunity to expand in its ability that we don't get from just going on a walk in the middle of the city where we have all the stimulus, lights, people, cars, noises.

Yeah, I think that that is something that I want to preach a lot. I think it's probably the number one belief I've come to now, and it's something that you...

don't it doesn't do well on the internet if you teach people it doesn't like it's not popular amongst like the everyday person it's not flashy it's not flashy they think it's all about like they need more they need to take more in when really it's like you just need to give like one command or two like ideas to your subconscious and then just let it sit

And then let it process and then reflect on it and then work towards it. Everything else is like noise and confusing your subconscious at the end of the day. This is why I also think that working on things that you're passionate about.

is very valuable because your subconscious never lies to you. If you try to force yourself to work on something you don't care about, you might be able to consciously work on it, but your subconscious doesn't give a fuck. Whereas when you work on the things that you care about, it's always spinning. It's like...

Give me more of this. It loves it. It's soul-filling. And you're not jumping around looking for anything else to do. You're like, only focus on that. Everyone's felt that way with homework. Yeah, yeah, exactly. In some subject. Exactly. It's like the last thing. It's mind-numbing, right? It's mind-numbing, not in that. consciously you can still do it but like your true mind your subconscious is just tapped out you can almost feel like your body just wants to like

push away from the page. It's interesting. Exactly. Well, dude, you're one of the brightest minds I've ever talked to. So I appreciate you coming out here. I don't think I'm deserving of that compliment, but it's been a pleasure speaking to you too. You're a clear thinker. You articulate it well. And I think that is like the sign of intelligence. So I appreciate you coming.

on here sharing everything didn't really hold anything back where can people find you brother blake anderson w on instagram twitter um yeah that's probably the best place to contact me if you want to send me an email Blake at apex.inc. This is the new company. And then if you want to check out Apex on Instagram, it's apex.improve. We do not have any content. It just says coming soon. But if you follow.

You'll be able to see what comes soon. Guys, if you align with self-improvement, self-actualization, you want to be a content creator, it seems like a cool opportunity. You're ambitious. You're smart. Good on camera. Hit him up. Guys, follow Blake on Twitter. Super interesting. Dude, thank you so much. Yeah.