#105 ​Inside the Underground Meme Marketing World: Jason Levin of Memelord

Speaker A: Memes reveal hidden truths and they can make people realize different things. The same way good joke at a comedy show can make you realize something about yourself or about family or whatever it might be. Like, it hits you really hard. Uh, I just have this thesis, like, this is another Elon quote, right? Of like, the most entertaining outcome is the most likely, right? If you want your business to be the most likely, then it should be the most entertaining, right? If you want your book to be the most likely to be bought, then it should be the most entertaining. If you want your, your music career to be the most likely to be Grammy nominated, then shouldn't be the most entertaining. Mr. M. Post Malone, get the tattoos on your face, right? It doesn't have to be that extreme. But if the most entertaining outcome is the most likely, then you should be trying to be the most entertaining by any means necessary, right?

Speaker B: Welcome to the Internet's underground world of memes. Uh, we're diving into the dark alleys today, and I'm so excited to introduce you to Jason Levin. He's absolutely one of a kind, and he built this incredible company called Meme Lord. And it's based around this understanding that memes aren't just jokes, but one of the most powerful forms of condensed communication and persuasion that can instantly transmit all over the world. He helps companies, uh, people everywhere from startups to Fortune 500s to politicians, wage what he calls memetic warfare. And he spent years as an Internet kid just coming up on those digital streets, figuring out what works online, why some messages stick, and seeing that humor outperforms almost every other form of marketing. For full disclosure, I'm just want to be clear that I'm a small investor in Memelord, like a teeny, teeny, tiny, uh, but I think Jason is really compelling. I think his thesis is spot on. And he's an unbelievably scrappy founder, as we'll hear in our conversation. I just love how he goes about all this and I think it's hilarious. And he'll build a really unique company because he's a really unique person. This covers all kinds of ground. Uh, we talk about Internet culture, startup growth, uh, the history of propaganda, how AI is changing, company building. And if you're interested in marketing media startups or just how ideas spread, this one's for you. Uh, it might help give you a little, uh, immunity against the memes out there in the world. It might put a sword in your sheath if you run around trying to persuade people about things. Uh, we talk about the Midwit curve, uh, one of the most common memes out there. We talk about why funny companies beat boring companies and personality matters. We talk about these sort of interesting conspiracies, things that look organic, that are actually not, and go behind the scenes on a few of them, and how agents can actually start to produce humor and memes and marketing in a world where distribution is often the real advantage. People and talents like Jason can command incredible respect and incredible resources. I, uh, think this is a company and a man to watch, and I'm really excited that you get to meet him today. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Arriving at your ears in 3, 2, 1. What is the single most effective meme you've ever seen in your life? What meme did the most good or the most damage?

Speaker A: I think it's a bell curve meme. Uh, the midwit meme. Everybody knows where it's IQ graph. And for me, I think I first saw it in 2021, 2022, and it was the notion versus notes app one. And I was like, notion heavy and basically realized I was like, oh, I am notion starbating or whatever the word might be of, like, it's not real work, you know, like, the real work is done in the Notes app. And like that, like, I gotta be honest, that one took me a little bit to digest. And that's like the power of a meme, right? Is like, it changes your mind of like, wow, like, I really could just be Notes app maxing in a notebook right now. Why do I have, you know, mini inline databases for, you know, tweets that, um, I'm bookmarking, like some kind of second brain guy. I don't know.

Speaker B: Yeah, so that would have just like, immediately changed your behavior.

Speaker A: Yeah, that one. That one pretty much immediately changed it. And like, that was the beauty of that meme is like, I've remixed that now so many times that I think, you know, like, it's so helpful where it's, you know, I'm. I made one that went pretty viral. Like, you know, on the right side and left side of the iq, it's just make more money. And in the center it's like, no, I need the perfect budgeting app. It's like, I, like, when have never used a budgeting app. And like, if you're an entrepreneur, like, it's probably not the best use of your time. You should probably just like, figure out how to make more money and not, like, use like a personal budgeting app to save 12 on Starbucks. Like, Just. Just like I don't know, sell another ad spot in your podcast. Those memes, like, it's almost a way of thinking for me of, like, oh, wait, like, yeah, I'm doing the stupid thing. I'm doing the midwit thing, and I hate being the midwit.

Speaker B: There's, like, deep human truth in the midwit curve. The midwit me.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: You see, it reapplied so many times, and I feel like what's so interesting about that notion story is that it's not like, it's not like the Notes app set out to do a campaign against notion or anything. Uh, like, it was just a truth that somebody shared that totally turned you off of a product that you had been loving in an instant.

Speaker A: That's the power of memetic warfare. What we call and why so many businesses use us is because memes reveal hidden truths, and they can make people realize different things. The same way good joke at a comedy show can make you realize something about yourself or about your, you know, family or whatever it might be. Like, it hits you really hard. I was just going through another one of my Belkurd memes that popped off, and I think it's timely. I hope it's cool if I say retarded, but on the left and right side, it says I'm kind of. So I work, uh, really hard to make up for it. And in the middle, it's, I don't need to work hard. I'm too smart for hard work. I will get by with no work. Just like school. So many of my friends are, like, people from high school, you know, like. Like, they just, like, got by because they were good at school. And, like, that actually is, like, not as. You know, like, you know, that's just not, like, how the real world works. Like, you can actually be kind of an idiot sometimes or, like, not the highest. Highest iq. Like, Like, I don't know how to code. I don't know chemistry. I don't know rocket stuff. But I could go build a business and work really hard. So I think, like, hopefully that meme, like, inspired some people to just realize, like, hey, I don't need to, like, you know, be a genius. I just need to work hard, you

Speaker B: know, the way to read the midwit curve. And if you haven't ever seen this meme, like, just take 10 seconds and Google it so that you know what the hell we're talking about. Like, you can never actually be the guy on the right. So you just have to embrace that you're the guy on the left embrace the stupid simple thing that works and that's actually like the path to the Jedi outcome.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And that's why we made him our logo. The. The hooded wojack is the guy on the right side. And it's like we all aspire to be that guy and you actually become that guy by being the idiot. And just like, like, you know, memes make millions. Like, I was the guy on the left until suddenly, like, we actually raised millions and now, like, that's what we do. Right? It's like you just like force of will of nature is like, whatever. Like you, you have to get through that Midwood Valley the same. It's like, it's like the cringe valley of some way. Like, you have to like, get out of it as soon as possible, but, like, the only way out is through, you know? Yeah.

Speaker B: So you said a few things that I think are interesting. Like, Naval just did a podcast about sales and his. The title of it was Sell the Truth. And it's like, there is no amount of salesmanship that in the long run will sell a lie. And so your job is just to like, figure out a truth and state it clearly. And that's, uh, that. That is effective sales and persuasion.

Speaker A: Am m I allowed to share my screen here real quick?

Speaker B: You can do it, but, uh, we're going to get a lot of people that are audio only. So I would also say, like, where to send people or what to Google if you.

Speaker A: Okay, all right. Just in my Twitter highlight section, I have one that just says I, I won't. I won't worry about. But whatever marketing genius switch switched bots to AI agents and it's just a dude, like, stacking up cash. It's like, it's just, it's just true, right? Like, it's. And. And memes reveal hidden truths. Like, they're just like jokes. And that's why they're so powerful, right? And that's why, like, people are scared of them, right? And. And people on both sides of the aisle are scared of them. And, and why there actually is this thing called memetic warfare that research papers have been written about and proposals and books and billions of dollars spent in both sides and both in enterprise and politics and everything in between is because, like, if you can influence people's ideas and perception, like, that's actually worth a lot of money. And the best way to do that is a quick hidden joke. Right? So going into Elon real quick, like Elon, one of his. His quotes about memes is, you know, memes are the most information dense form of communication, right. And you think about selling as fast as possible. You want a poster, right? You do it great with the book is it's like, it's no different than, like, World War II posters, you know, 50 years ago. So different than surrealist art. Like, it's just image and text and like, it has all this context here. And if you could reveal a truth about the world, about your product, about, like, the problems of your customer. Right. And what they feel every day, you, uh, could actually make somebody, like, wake up and change their behavior. Yeah, Yeah.

Speaker B: I think this company is a really interesting one because it's like all great companies are an outgrowth of a unique person who just goes about being themselves. You know, to your point about school, right? Like, there's people who are great at school, and then they're just kind of like a cookie cutter in the rest of their life. And what you find when you get out into the real world is like, you're valuable to the degree that you're unique. And I feel like you are unique. And this company is unique. And I, uh, don't know. I want you to sort of introduce, like, yourself and your company through that lens because I think this is unlike, you know, we get a lot of, like, hard tech and deep tech entrepreneurs. We get authors on this podcast. But, like, you're something else entirely.

Speaker A: I appreciate it. I think we're some combination of all of the things. And so Memelord is software for memetic warfare using a mix of AI agents for meme marketing and trend detection and everything in between. Right. We know what your brand is. You know, we could predict the memes before they're even made. Right. And we help brands be funny, we help them get more attention.

Speaker B: And.

Speaker A: And that could be defense companies, that could be government stuff, that could be silly brands and e commerce brands. That could be anything from advertising to organic bangers on X and TikTok. Or it could be billboards or merch or ways to sell your book. For background of, like, who I am, I'm an Internet kid through and through. Like, started posting YouTube videos when I was like 10 years old. I, like, learned Photoshop sold like 50 grand worth of stickers when I was in high school. Just, like, cooking up Grateful Dead stickers, you know, at school, I was that kid freelancing for frats and sororities, cooking up merch. And really, like, it all came down to, like, this. I was a graphic design kid. Like, I was literally face Swapping myself into, like, silly images when I was 10 years old, and I still do that now. And, you know, after college, uh, around that time, like, I wanted to make money writing online. That's when I found Eric's work. I read your, uh, book about leverage, which underrated. And all those books and the almanac and everything. Around 2021, I was working for startups, uh, ghost writing for founders. So a lot of founders you see on the timeline, I was the guy writing those Tweets. And when ChatGPT came out, I was cooked. Right. I knew I was cooked. And fortunately, like, more and more of these founders were also realizing, like, what stands out, what gets attention and it's humor. I was like, oh, shit. Like, wait, they want to pay me for being funny? Like, that's what I wanted to do. I didn't want to write the serious stuff, but now you're going to pay me to do it. And realized, like, the world was going towards boring and if you want to stand out, you have to be funny and unhinged. And it's the things that AI can't do. ChatGPT still can't be unhinged. Claude still can't be, but you can be as a human. And so that's really where I went. I was doing all these marketing for startups. I was head of growth at Product Hunt. I worked with gm.dev, i did a lot of work there. And basically I just drank a lot of Red Bull and built Memelord with no code. And. And then after that, raised a few million to grow it. You know, our software, what it does, it alerts people of the newest trending memes on iOS and then you're able to cook up anything you want and remix it to your brand. Now the future is actually just agents doing all that for you and, and memetic agents. So, yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I was, I was signed up for this back when it was like, you were just like, texting. It was text alerts for, like, hey, there's a new trending meme.

Speaker A: Um, do you know how expensive texting MMS is? Ridiculously expensive. We were, yeah. So happy. Now we've got iOS notifications which are near free. It's pretty amazing.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's Willio Bill adds up.

Speaker A: Oh, that's Willio Bill was getting bad. I had, I had my rep on speed dial. It was crazy. But, yeah, man, it's like, you see more and more like the smartest people on the Internet are shit. Posting. They're posting memes right? It's. It's Elon, it's Andreessen, it's. Whoever it might be, right? Politicians on both sides. People are like, no, it's just Trump. No, actually, Gavin Newsom is posting memes, and so are the Democrats. It's both sides. Because memes are just like, the way to communicate. They're the simplest base unit again. Right. You know, there's. I worked with Andrew Cuomo. I got invited to Gracie Mansion to meet Eric Adams. Like, you know, different politicians have hit me up since then. Right. And, like, different parts of government stuff are. We, you know, talk side by side, right. Advocacy groups, all that stuff. And it's like, if you have an idea that you stand for, you know, maybe it's nuclear, maybe it's data centers, stuff that's very common on this podcast. Well, guess what? A lot of people hate you, right? A lot of people hate data centers. And somebody needs to do propaganda for that, and somebody needs to fight the memetic warfare. And that's. That's a lot of what we do, uh, for businesses.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, Isabella Bemke, I think her is how you pronounce her last name. ISO. Dope. Like, she's basically been doing memes for nuclear for years. And it's like, what's brought so many people around because it's like, if it's not fun to consume, people go to the Internet mostly for their kind of, like, let off steam, enjoy themselves. And so, like, if you want to communicate with them, you've got to make it enjoyable for them and funny. And, like, you've got to feed the algorithm something that's going to want to spread. And so people interacting with it and enjoying it, like, that's what's going to spread, and that's how you earn the right to reach more people. It's like, make the education or make the. The nugget entertaining.

Speaker A: Yeah. And like, I remember when I was starting out on Twitter, like, 2021, 2022, some kid was like, you have to either be serious or funny. You can't do both. It's like, no, you. You can do both. Like, when Palantir is posting memes, I think you're allowed to post memes too, buddy. Like, Mr. B2B Sass for fintech and insurance. Like, you can be silly and serious. And like, marketing has always done this. Like, memes are just an iteration, the latest form of funny marketing. Like, it's been around forever. You know, I wrote the book on memes and studied the history of advertising. And capitalism. Right? And. Yeah, let's go, you know, let's go.

Speaker B: This is high up there. Like books I wish I published that somebody else actually published.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, Funny. Marketing's been around forever. You know, it's probably the oldest form of marketing besides sex. And like, you know, it works for any brand, any topic, any. Anything is if you can make it funny, you can do it. And I think, uh, one of the big things that people are, uh, especially in these serious businesses, like they're scared of memes, is like, oh, it has to be unhinged or racist. Like, no, like, we work with the most boring B2B billion dollar companies and find things that are funny. That there's no racism, there's no unhingedness, there's no sexism. It's like, if you've ever listened to Seinfeld, he never curses, he never talks about sex or drugs. He just finds the humor in daily situations, whether it's in for us. We work with HR brands and sales and Vibe coding and security because there's just funny things, right? Like, it doesn't have to be unhinged. Like, there's a lot of funny things that aren't unhinged.

Speaker B: So, yeah, uh, I know some of this is probably sensitive, but like, are there people that you can talk about, having worked with?

Speaker A: We can talk about a lot. Yeah, we, by, by request, we're happy to, but they'll say a lot of like B2B SaaS, unicorn, stuff like that. And then we have a lot of brands on our site too. But like, yeah, we, we are bread and butters. Uh, the. Actually the B2B and the, the boringer the better. Which is like, I think like one of the reasons why there's such an alpha. There is like, if you're a boring company, like, nobody's reading your white paper except for like 12 dudes in like a shack. Like, you want attention. Like, there's so much arbitrage to make it funny. That's why, like, very excited about like, the boringer the better, man. Like, give, give me, give me a data center company. Give me like a, like, you know, I don't know, like I was listening to a podcast with the Koch brothers, like, give me a chemical plant or like an agriculture tech company. And like, let me try to make that funny because, like, it's really easy to make like, I don't know, like some consumer, like, brand funny.

Speaker B: That that's just easy Throne the, like, camera. It's just easy camera for your.

Speaker A: It's too simple. And like, there's too many kids competing actually for that. Like, give me the boring stuff because that's actually where the money is too. And like, it's more fun too.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think to your point, the arbitrage is like, there's a lot more alpha. The more boring the industry, the more you stand out by being brave, by being funny. Like, I would love to see a bank or a financial institution or like so many people who sort of like, dumb down their brand and make it so plain and vanilla. Because, because trust is what matters. But also like, you build that bond with people by revealing the truth, the shared truth. And I think there's so much. Yeah. Ah, there's so much good that can come from that 100% counter position to the entire rest of the industry when you start to like, make fun of the boring people.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I also think, like, on that note, what I always tell people is memes won't save your business if you have a bad business. Like, you're anyways, like, you're just not going to make money. Like, that sucks. Like, like memes could get you attention on your good business. But like, that's why you saw so many brands, like 2021, like the, the crypto scams. Like, like none of those are good businesses. We don't touch any of that. Like, they're just not fundamentally good businesses. Like, like, at the end of the day, like, I'm a business person and like, we make a lot of money and we try to like, help other brands make more money. Like, that's like what we do. And I don't know, I think like, there, there hasn't been somebody who takes funny marketing as seriously as it should. It's just a lever to pull at the end of the day. Like, I'm gonna go off on this, but like, like SEO, paid ads, serious blogs, podcasts, all levers is. We just wanna be the best funny marketing lever in the world. That's it.

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, and, and one of the least, one of the least explored like, of those spaces. You know, SEO is like slowly dying or quickly dying, depending on your category and how often your customers use use LLMs. I mean, just some of the stuff gets saturated so quickly. Like the, the ad platforms are just going to crank up ads until, you know, they make most of the marginal dollars. But funny is interesting because it's so uniquely human. It's so timeless and it's hard. It's like, yeah, I think it's John Cleese who's like, it's actually really hard to explain why things are funny. You never quite know. It's kind of this process of, like, experimentation to see what resonates. And even when you know that it is funny, you don't even. You don't always know why.

Speaker A: A hundred percent, 100%. We, like, wanted to do, like, data classification and we've, like, tried it with like, why is this meme funny? And like, getting really autistic about it. And it's just like, this is a waste of time. Like, somewhat like, yeah, we're gonna, like, try to do it, but I think it's just like, surprise and shock value a lot of the time. It's hidden truths. It's like, I don't know. I. I heard another quote too, where it's like the, the funniest people are actually not the jokes where you immediately start laughing, but it's the one where it's like, it takes a second and then you're like, wait, what? And like, that's what memes, like a good meme. Like, oh. And then you start laughing. Right. Like, I don't know. I just like, uh. It's really hard to benchmark it. We're actually, like, working on some stuff around that where, like, can you see which AI model's the funniest? Right. But. And it's not hard. You just a B test stuff. But. And we've been doing that internally for a while and building up that data. But like, I don't know. I think it's one of those things that's unpredictable, man. It's. I don't know if it's. It's. It's a deep philosophy, I guess.

Speaker B: Yeah. How do you handle that? I mean, like, your, Your business is interesting because it's part software. Like, I'm a. I subscribed, I'm an investor, but I also just like subscribe as a user. So I use it to make memes for, you know, to market books or just like mess around on the Internet. But there's also a service aspect and then there's also like an AI piece now, right?

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: All right, so let's take me through those.

Speaker A: Yes, we have our software that anybody could subscribe to and that also has an API where you could get access to AI meme gen. And we also have now are launching agents and we have services as well for the, for the really big ones. So, like, services. We've been working with all these big unicorns whatnot, and now we're. We're launching these agents where anybody can. Any business can sign up for an affordable rate. So that's. That'll be, uh. I don't know when this pod comes out, but that should be out very soon. And. And we're like, basically, like, the world is heading toward agentic me marketing, like, or agentic everything. And the best brands are running five accounts. Like, they're actually not just running one. Like, they're running five. And like, whether that's a human, whether it's us, whether it's agents doing that, like, the best are running even more. Like, you know, these app creators, like, a lot of. A lot of big apps are running 100 accounts, right? And the only way to do that at a certain level is scale, is AI and like, to scale that, right? And, you know, that's the power of memes is it sticks out. And so, you know, it's not just one dude yapping. It's humor. It's unhinged. It catches the eye. It scroll, stops you. And so where memoir is going is we are this agentic platform, right? We are dropping agents all summer long, very excited about. And there's going to be agents for everything, for book marketing, for podcast marketing, for music marketing, for meme ads, for every kind of marketing you can imagine. Memes, um, are applicable for everything. And so, like, you know, just another. We'll. We'll get some more Elon quotes here of, like, you know, who controls the memes, controls the universe. And. And then Richard Dawkins, right? Like, memes are the smallest unit of cultural transmission. If you want to, like, break down your business's idea into the simplest unit, like, memes are the way to do that, right? Hidden truth. We have, like, home security businesses using us. We have, you know, like I said, defense companies or public companies and B2B SaaS, everything. Authors, record labels. Post Malone's record label is like a customer. Like, that's so weird. But, like, they need to break new artists. How do you do that? You put the music behind meme videos, right? It's just strange.

Speaker B: Crazy.

Speaker A: It's so weird, man. It's so weird. I mean, we. We've been Twitter buddies for a while, so it's very strange. And just. Yeah, it's. It's crazy. So I'm, um. Like, I don't know. I think. I think we're entering this world of just, like. Like, nobody's taking memes seriously enough still. And, like, I've been preaching this for a while. Like, the world's catching up. It's going to be fun. It's going to be really fun.

Speaker B: Yeah, you are like, uh, we've been following each other for a very long time, which is like how you, I think, hit me up to. To invest. But the, like, you're very reliably at the frontier of the Internet, like kind of figuring out what's, what's coming, what's just starting to work, which is always a really interesting thing because it's hard to know what to. What to believe, what, what is going to be, what is going to catch on. Like, what's just like a flare and what's this new kind of big thing that's going to be around for a really long time. And this feels like one of those shifts that's absolutely. Like you've been dead on on this for a long time and there's been so much to sort of support it. When you said there's people running like five accounts or a hundred accounts, like, are they. They're owning their own, they're building their own audience on meme pages that are dedicated to what, their industry or new specific memes. Talk to me about that.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So like, for example, say you're an HR unicorn and nobody wants to follow your main page because you're an hr. Well, why don't you start up funny HR meme accounts and satire accounts about the workplace, and why don't you own those pages? But you're not actually doing the work, you're paying us to do it, right? And then you're plugging the link underneath, right? This is all hypothetical, of course, and you're driving demos and inbound sales, but you actually own the accounts. And now you have all these accounts that can retweet you. And uh, now imagine if there's this in every niche and you need a funny defense guy and five accounts of that who can then, you know, plug your brand and retweet your launch videos, right? And as we know, being online, like we're in this weird circle where all these launch videos are going viral because people are paying people. Well, what if you own that distribution, right? And we're seeing this again and again. And so like, you know, OpenAI buying TVPN, like that's, that's actually not anything new. Like HubSpot bought my first million and Stripe bought indie hackers or something like that. And like, that's not new. Like big companies buy media pages to get lower cac and meme pages are like the cheapest form of that. And so like, why not just start your own, right? Like record Label bought the Daquan meme page and that. That asset for $85 million because it helped them reach artists cheaper than, you know, buying Pitchfork or Rolling Stone. Right. It gets the same audience and bigger for cheaper. So that's like, you know, every brand should have secondary assets and meme pages and, and a lot of pages across multiple platforms. And so we own a lot on Twitter. You know, if you look at, you know, Twitter, LinkedIn lunatics, that's us chatgpt lunatics, that's us tech bro memes, that's us on Instagram. We own Riches. The Instagram handle Rich riches. R I C H E S We own Lunchroom, which is our fake news page. Like both of those are fake news pages that we plug memoir in. So like, you know, every, every brand, I think, and, and honestly, like, a lot of influencers were seeing this too with clipping pages or they have fan pages that are all run by them or their record label. Fun fact, like every artist record label is run by the record. That or every artist fan page is run by the record label. Especially in the beginning, they all astroturf it. And so like, I don't know if you're a brand, like, don't sleep on it. I think there's just, there's going to be a massive wave, something that your audience might like. I am extremely bullish on robot memes for 2026 and the future. I think that there is going to be an onslaught of robot memes as SpaceX goes public and these other companies start actually going to market. And we are building up robot meme pages for the masses right now because brands are going to need that. Very, very bullish on robot memes, meaning

Speaker B: the meme itself is like a humanoid robot.

Speaker A: Just like meme pages about robots and, and clankers.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, because like, we're about, they're about to finally commercialize. Right. And so like, right now we have a bunch of pages around CPG or about software, but like, we're about to find like, hard tech is about to go from spending hundreds of millions to billions on capex to finally spending on marketing. And personally, I want to be like the best position possible in the world to like take that capital and put it in my pocket and grow their brand and my, my company at the same time, like, I think, like, we're going to see a massive spend in robot and hardware marketing over the next five, ten years. That like, has never been done before.

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, I think the early adopters and in particular hard tech right now is also super prime for, for humor as a distribution channel. I feel like, you know, the companies that are succeeding are building, they're like doing incredible, like humor driven aura, farming all over. This is super interesting though, because I feel like a lot of people, this is these like, very deliberate, calculated appearance of an organic following or organic catching on. And I think people would be really, really surprised to learn how much of what seems organic is contrived.

Speaker A: Oh, absolutely, man. And the, the people on Twitter who, where you see paid partnership, that's the obvious ones, right? Like, the m unobvious ones is like the dudes like me who have, you know, meme accounts with millions of followers who like, we've just been building and we own them. We don't pay, we just own them. Right. Or like anonymous accounts that are actually yours to like, one of our investors has like a, uh, very popular anonymous account. Like multiple of our investors. Right? Like, like that's like the calculated moves that like the big boys are playing. Like all the YC guys, like, sorry, guys, but like, they're all just fucking shilling to the same agency, spending like 50 grand for a launch video to retweet it. It's all the same agency. I know because they pitch me all the time and it's annoying. That's like, it's so annoying. It's all the same agency or like two or whatever. And they're. They're clowns. But, like, that doesn't actually get taken seriously. And it's. You're going to burn all your capital. And like, personally, like, I'm not trying to do that. I'm trying to save money and make money. So.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, and it takes more than one, you know, big day, one launch.

Speaker A: Dude, no. Oh, my God. Dude, it's crazy. Everybody's spending on their launch video. Would I spend in like three months? Like, it's crazy. Like, dude, always be launching. We're going to be launching all summer. You know, every. Every day is launch day and it's just slow and steady and like, it's really sad. Like, me and my team were talking about, oh, we should start like a, a page of like, people who had beautiful launch videos and then went bankrupt in under two years. Like, it would just be like so many highly correlated, high, highly correlated. It is, I hate to say it, like, the statistic of, like, if you spend a lot on your wedding, there's like a higher divorce rate or something like that. It feels like you're overcompensating for lack of a product. And like, I think that bubble is going to pop very, very quickly.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Or hopefully. Hopefully soon.

Speaker B: Yeah, that is super interesting. And I mean, I'm thinking about this as like an artist or an author too. You're like, oh, if I'm comparing, you know, three record labels or three publishers, whatever. I want. Every author's biggest fear is like, there's two big fears, right? Either the book is going to suck or the book is going to be great and nobody's going to care. And uh, like almost every publisher and almost every author can reach a level of greatness on the book that's just like a controlled process. But once you get into the, like, all right, how do I get this out into the world? That's a really squirrely, difficult problem that money can't necessarily solve and grit can't necessarily solve. And so like going to the, you know, the record label or the publisher that owns these media pages and can be like, look, uh, we control a bunch of this. That seems organic. That can really give you the appearance and, and actual outcome of like, you know, driving up a ton of followers to your core account, driving a ton of sales, getting this like organic interest, making you go trending. Yeah. And the puppet master is all over

Speaker A: the place, 100% man. And it's, it's nothing new. I mean, like, I learned from the goats before me of like the Ryan Holidays of the world. Like, you know, people know him for stoicism, but like, that's not Ryan Holiday. Like, Ryan holiday was the 30th marketer alive. And we saw that this week with his, with his little blow up a couple of weeks ago. But like, you know, Ryan's background, he was, he was a PR hacker for American Apparel and like the dirtiest marketer calling fake, you know, starting fake billboards, you know, prank calling journalists, like, this is nothing new. And it's also like hundreds of years old. You know, like the father of PR, Eddie Bernay is like in the 40s, 50s or 60s, was like, you know, starting these fake protests and stuff like that, which quite incidentally, I will. Hey, let's go, let's go.

Speaker B: Edward Bernays. Underrated. Underrated.

Speaker A: 1. One of the GS, man, I'll be taking a play out of his book this the summer. Did you know it's only like 10 grand to host a protest? It's actually not that expensive. You could just buy a protest. So we're going to be doing a protest this summer for free speech in France and it's going to be sick. It's not that expensive to just launch a protest. And like, you know, people like, uh, I don't know, you could spend that on a, on a mid tier influencer in LA who doesn't respond. And it's like I, I really like what I've always tried to do. And like this comes from me. Being broke like three years ago is just like, be the scrappiest marketer alive. And like I would like put up flyers. One of my favorite bits that I did. You know how like dogs pee all at the same place?

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Because they smell the urine. Right. So we put up stickers that says, hey, is your dog peeing sign up here to get memes? Right. But it's only where the dogs pee because they all go to the same spot. And then when the dog is peeing, you check your phone. Right. And we saw signups coming from that for like, you know, $20 of stickers. Right. And then I did like these like viral stunts in New York doing that. And it's like, I don't know, I. The amount of like time that you put in thinking about your hardware and building your robots, like, think about the marketing as technical and like sneaky and clever and exciting too because like somebody else is thinking way harder about it or based on the outsource you're thinking. But I don't know, there's just a lot of, like, there's a lot of fun that you could have if you're willing to just not pay some agents, some in some agency to like retweet your launch video. Like, that's all I'm saying. Like, uh, it just pisses me off, man. Like I, I don't know, I hate seeing people just waste money. Maybe it's the Jewishness.

Speaker B: What's that old saying? Like, first time founders focus on the product, second time founders focus on distribution.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think it's super important. It's probably true for authors too, right? Like, there's probably a lot of authors. And I don't know if this is true with your story. Like, has it changed at all? Like marketing, Dominac and the law versus Biology versus Elon now.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, Elon, I've definitely shifted more. Like I've got less time and more money, so I've got like, uh, I run more experiments.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And like, I just, I understand, I think now that like word of mouth is the only thing that works and all you're doing is like trying to light the, get the kindling to go so that the word of mouth carries on. And so actually, I mean, Memelord comes in for me, where I. Once I resolved, I was like, okay, all the greats. You can't launch once, right? Be launching every day. You've got to post about your book every day. It's so noisy. It's so loud. Okay, if I'm going to post about my book every day, how do I do that without driving myself and everyone who follows me fucking crazy? The answer is, like, you have to be funny. You have to be enjoyable. You've got to, like, make it pleasant experience. And so I started using Meme Lord to, like, either make memes about the book or memes about Elon, or Photoshop the book into these, like, funny situations. Or make celebrities look like they were reading it and then cl. And then say very clearly, like, you know, this celebrity is like, this image is fabricated. Don't let it influence your opinion of the product. Right. Like, there's just so much, uh, there's so much more you can do when you're just, as you point out, just, like, a little creative.

Speaker A: Yeah. If you just have, like, think just a little bit outside the box and. And think about how can you do this in a fun way? You know? I had this tweet go viral a few weeks ago of, like, don't invite me to another dinner series. Like, every day I get invited to dinners as a founder. And, like, I don't like food that much. Like, I like food, but I could make myself food. I prefer to just eat some sushi by myself. Personally, I. I, like, I'm a big sushi bar kind of guy. Just solo. Like, stop inviting me to dinners. Like, like, I don't want to go to Dorsey. A dude. Like, I'm done. Like, I could afford to dinner. And, like, they're all just copying each other. It's like this memetic bind virus started by, like, this founder dinner series in New York that's put on by a bank. And now every fricking. Every company hosts dinners, and it's like, dude, just think of something more original than a dinner. It's not hard. And so, like, examples here. It doesn't have to be this crazy. I hosted a. I rented out a movie theater to watch Instagram reels on April Fools, right? And that was three grand, probably what you'd spend at Dorsia. But, like, it went viral and people loved it, right? I. During, uh, Halloween a couple years ago, I hosted a Bug Horror Story night where engineers came in and talked about bugs and, like, told it, like, a horror story. Right. You know, I hosted startups, VC and ping pong where just 200 people in New York came, came through and played ping pong. Like, it's just like, it just drives me nuts. Like I feel really bad. Like I literally like I've had to tell people, like, stop inviting me to dinner, just like, cut it out. Like, I, I don't know, maybe, maybe I'm will regret this when I'm eating alone and you know, in, in my mansion one day. But like, at least I'll be like having some peace and quiet, you know. Like uh, just pisses me off, man. Like, I'm sorry for this rant, but it's just, it's so many dinners. Like just, I hate it. I hate like I, I just hate it so much and like I don't even live in sf. I can't imagine how bad it is there, man. Dude, crazy.

Speaker B: I was expecting you to rant way before 40 minutes, so I feel like you held it together for a long time. That's good. Yeah.

Speaker A: Ah, I held that one in. But I could, I could, I could rant some more. So just on the, on the topic of sf, I uh, think both of us, like we have chosen not to live in the, the mind virus bubble, right? Like, and I think like it's, it helps a lot. I don't know about you, but like not living in like the hive mind, like it helps living outside of that. And like, I think that is why everybody is copy pasting each other's launch videos is because they're all comparing themselves to each other, the people that they see every day. And when you're not in that, like you're playing your own game, right? Like, you know, like you're just doing your own thing. Like you know, in sf, who knows, maybe you're starting like uh, a AI writing startup, which is like totally against your philosophy, right? I, I, you know, like, same as me where you want to have fun writing or whatever. Like, or maybe you're, you're, you like, it's just like get out of the mind virus, like stop hosting dinners. I'm back to that. But you know, it's just like, I don't know, I, I have this like uh, I just have this thesis like, you know, this isn't me, but like this is another Elon quote, right? Of like the most entertaining outcome is the most likely, right? If you really take that into like belief, right? If you want your business to be the most likely, then it should be the most entertaining, right? If you want your book to be the most likely to be bought, then it should be the most entertaining. If you want your music career to be the most likely to be Grammy nominated, then shouldn't it be the most entertaining? Mr. Post Malone, get the tattoos on your face, right? Like, it doesn't have to be that extreme, but if the most entertaining outcome is the most likely, then you should be trying to be the most entertaining by any means necessary. Right? And so that can mean being super unhinged. It can mean throwing events that aren't dinners. Again, we're getting back to this of, uh, dinners. I'm just going to keep going back. But, like, seriously, like, you like being entertaining in some aspect and embracing that makes you more likely to succeed. And that's like just my thesis for how I see the world is like, people want to be entertained, you know, like, entertain them, give the people what they want. Yeah.

Speaker B: I think Mr. Beast is maybe the best example of this. And he's a. I think he's going to be an iconic entrepreneur. He's going to be the entrepreneur of a generation of a decade. And he already is. I think that's very clear to everybody who's like, under 30. And I think people kind of over 30 are like, either who is Mr. Beast? Or like, oh, he makes those YouTube videos and he's actually, one, he's the Michael Jordan of YouTube. But two, he's also going to be an unbelievable entrepreneur. And we're going to go from like Warren Buffett to elon Musk to Mr. Beast in terms of, like, the, the generational striations of, you know, their generation's iconic entrepreneur. And Mr. Beast takes this to heart deeply. Like, listen to the audience cut anything that's not entertaining. And he's going to make a huge empire out of learning to Command attention through YouTube a hundred percent.

Speaker A: And like, again, Jake Paul as well. Like, the other day I was like, watching old Jake Paul videos just, like, for fun. And like, if you go back to his early videos, it's him like half shirtless, dancing like a girl and like, doing pranks in the street. And it's like, that dude is now an investor in Andre and going to be a billionaire in the next, like, five years for sure. It's like he's just a goober who, like, took it really seriously and, like, took his entertainment super seriously. And, like, you got to respect that. Uh, and like, I don't know, I wrote this in my book, was like, this is not like new, like, comedians getting rich. Like Seinfeld's A billionaire. Larry David's a billionaire. Like, Kevin Hart's very, very wealthy. Like, plenty of these guys are rich. We just, like, now live in the best time to monetize your sense of humor. And, like, memes are my way of doing that. To each their own. I think, like, memes are the most spreadable, but, like, you know, it's. It's nothing new. It's just like, again, it's just a lever to get on your. Your real product, your real attention, your real ideas. And I think, like, in VC founders, like, we're all in the business of ideas here. And, like, if you want your idea to win again, it should be the most entertaining, you know, version of that at least.

Speaker B: Like, can we go back to this protest you're throwing protest in France for 10 grand? I feel like we kind of glossed over that. Uh, and I need to know everything.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So we're gonna be in Nice and Cannes for, you know, my team retreat and then the marketing festival, trying to wheel and deal, get some clients. And.

Speaker B: Is that Cannes lion or is that a different thing?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's like the Cannes lion, but the marketing side, not, like, the cool movie stuff. We are too cancelable for that. And there's companies, I'll DM you about it, but there's companies where you can just sign up for a protest and they just find the people. And when you think about it, all you're doing is just hiring actors.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And, like, I mean, you look at Columbia in 2024, that was all actors. They're all paid actors. It's all whoever. Right? Like, whatever side you're on, it's both sides. Most protests are Astroturf. Like, and then similar to a business, then people start talking and coming. But most of it is AstroTurf. Right. And I was like, oh, I've been wanting to do this forever, like, host a protest. Last summer, I did a viral boycott of the energy drink Celsius to change her name to Fahrenheit. But I didn't get a chance to really do a protest. And, you know, France is very famous for their topless female protests, so let's just say we're going to have women on the beach protesting for why memes are free speech. And we may or may not be spending more than. Than France spends on AI this summer. So we'll see what happens. But it's. It's gonna be fun, man. Like, you know, again, like you, it's like experiments. Like, we both. I think since we met, like, we both have Less time and a little bit more money to spend. And it's like, I gotta just trash it. I'm gonna film it, I'm gonna post it. You know, leverage, right, like that, the, the naval idea, all that stuff. Leverage is like, oh, like now I actually have like, you know, all these meme pages I could just post this on. Like, I was scared to do this stuff before because I didn't have the leverage or distribution, and now I have this. It's like, oh, like, why don't I just drop a few hundred bucks on a video or, you know, drop a thousand dollars trying this. Like, it's like, oh, wow. Like I could really try some stuff. And I think, like, that's super exciting. And like, there's a lot more exciting things than dinner. So back to dinner.

Speaker B: When you're. Yeah. When your experiments are cheap and the upside is really high, you can run a lot of them and they, you know, they start to pay for the themselves and you keep on with it.

Speaker A: So wait, I'm, um, back to books real quick. I'm curious. Like, you've 100% found like word of mouth. Because that's the same with software. 100%. Like the best is just. There's something about it. Word of mouth. Yeah, trust.

Speaker B: It's. It is the. I mean, if you just think about your own behavior as a person, like how often do you click through an ad and immediately buy the thing? Like, only if it's like super low stakes and you know exactly what you need. And it's like a one impression sort of. Conversion is super rare. If I think about books, it's not, it's not the 20 bucks, it's the 5 hours or 10 hours to read the book. And so I have to hear about a book three or four times before I'm like, okay, yes, like I should read it. I trust the sources. I'll put it on my wish list or I'll buy it. And then it sits on my nightstand for a couple, another couple more nights before I'm like, all right, I'm going to open it and read it. And once I read it, I recommend it. Or it comes up in conversation and I'm like, oh, you should check this book out. I read this book about this problem also with books. It's like, you only make a couple bucks a book. It's like, you can't run around spending money on ads trying to like get, you know, you can't spend five bucks on an ad to make $3. Shit. Doesn't work.

Speaker A: No it, it just doesn't work unless you're selling a course on the back end or something, which a lot of

Speaker B: people are selling courses or consulting or, or services or whatever.

Speaker A: Nothing wrong with that, of course. Yeah.

Speaker B: But, uh, yeah, there's no like brute force marketing effort in the world that can sell a million books. Like, you can maybe you can will your way to like 10,000 I think, over time. And the difference between 10,000 and a million is just like how many people recommend it, how many people gift it to others? Do they put it in their newsletter? Do they share it on social. Do they gift it to their family or whatever?

Speaker A: Yeah. Is it shareable? Right? Is it, is it mimetic? Is it self recommending? And like, I think, you know, the, the things, like a lot of these, the hard tech, a lot of these serious companies do miss sometimes is like the importance of narrative, of alliteration, of metaphor. Right. Like my book Memes Make Millions, right? Mmm. This is like still, I still use it all the time, right? That alliteration, you know, the, the metaphors of, of Memelord. And like, you'll see the Jester. Now we have our AI model. It's called Jester. It all goes back to that same, that Kingdom empire stuff, right? Keyboard is a new battlefield. You know, the camo, like build worlds. Right? I don't know if you know Nathan Baugh. I think you guys are, you guys are both awesome. He's an investor too, longtime friend. And like, he wrote a, uh, newsletter about world building that was super influential on me. And just like, you know, whether you're building a book or you're building a software, like, you got to build worlds. And I think when you look at these hard tech companies that are successfully doing that, the Palantirs, the Andrels, the Rainmakers, I think is a great example. They have these heroes, like a hero's journey, literally the founder, you know, whether it's Augusto or. Or Carp or Palmer. And then they have these worlds around them, these fucking universes. They have symbols, they have symbology of like, you know, the lo. Not just the logos, but literal symbols and characters, right? They have colors, they have these worlds. And like, I just, a, like, I wouldn't underestimate that. And B, I wouldn't outsource that either. Like, especially not early days. Like, yeah, sure, maybe hire an ad agency later. But even, like, even if you're the most autistic engineer hard tech guy alive, like, take that time to like build your world of creativity, you know, and like, stick with it. Because like, it pays off. Like, there's no world where I could have outsourced me more to somebody else. Like, it just wouldn't work. And a lot of these guys are big sci fi nerds, right? You think about Elon and all these people, right? Like, build that world that you want to see. I think that that would be my, my personal advice around that.

Speaker B: Yeah, you went through an interesting inflection point a few years ago. I think it was kind of around, it was around when you raised capital. I feel like there was a super. This isn't the way it is for every person or every company, but I feel like for you, you sort of went from like solo, like practitioner to like, oh, this is like a movement and a company. And like you, that was you like, planning your flag in this idea and like taking it to a different level. I'm curious like, how that process was because we talked a bunch kind of like through those. Yeah, six, nine months or whatever.

Speaker A: It's been the biggest self improvement exercise. Like I think like startups are a self improvement exercise hidden in a Quest to make $10 billion. Like, like I've gotten in the best shape of my life. I'm like, you know, trying to focus on, um, my sleep, like mentally, like improving as a leader, delegation, right? Like all these things. Like you either step up or you step out. And like, I, I, I'm not losing this opportunity. Like, this is, this is my shot. I'm not a Stanford kid. I'm not like a, you know, an engineer. Like, this is, this is my shot. So like I'm stepping the fuck up. And that's how it's been since, since day one. And like, for me it was very organic. Like I said, like I started Meme Lord is, is actually just a newsletter of memes. And then I built no code software and then I built, you know, raise, uh, some money. And like the way I found the raise was actually just listening to Cyan Bannister on the Tim Ferriss podcast. I was like, wow, she's cool. Like, she has a crazy story. She's been through some. I like her. Let me message her. And then she's like, yeah, fly out. I was like, cool. And then like I had 100k on Thursday. I was like, dope. But like, really like, like it, it was just like naturally just like, uh, doubling down again and again on, on what I do. And like, you know that that period was crazy, right? Just kept doubling down and like eventually you double down so much, like exponentials and you're stacking potato chips. Eventually those potato chips hit the moon and like, what a, uh, what looks like doubling up pennies for three, four years. The pennies get tall, right? And then you have a lot more pressure on you. Like, I feed like eight families, right, or whatever and like insurance and like that, which is crazy. And like, for me, like, a lot of it has come down to like, just like how seriously we take it and, and finding the right people. I, uh, you know, have to fire people a lot. I have to, you know, have these hard conversations, right? Quote from Almanac that I repeat again and again is. Is hard conversations. Easy life. Easy conversations, hard life. Like, I repeat that again and again to myself, to my CTO even, and to my wife even. Like, the hard conversations, like, step up, right? And like, I want to run a business on truth and like these hard conversations. So I think like, it's. It's been a really. A lot of sacrifice, a lot of not sleeping, a lot of self improvement and like, I think a lot of just like trying to get better at delegation. A lot of like, it's very weird, man. Like, I, I think I. I don't know if I shared this investor update or a tweet, but like, my life's very strange. Where I'll go from like shaking hands with Alex Karp and like, you know, meeting Post Malone's team to like, the next day I'm just recording sops and like looms as like, I mean it's the same with you or you're just like, one day you're meeting famous people and the next day you're just like recording like some like, you know, in a notion doc. Like, it's all like amazing. Like to me, like it's, you know, some days are like highs but like, it's all like a gift. And like, I don't know, I. I think for me, again, like, as a founder, not coming from a traditional background, I'm not blowing my cash. I'm not, you know, hiring my friends. I'm not making these mistakes that like, you know, Maybe me at 20 or me straight out of Yale or Harvard would have done right? And you see this a lot right now. You see a lot of founders who like, they just immediately raised for some idea and just like, they just blow it. And like, I don't know if I'm going to blow it. It's going to be for damn good reason. Not because I wanted to throw a party and go viral or some shit, maybe a protest, but that's only five grand. Anyway, ten grand. So anyways, I, I guess I was getting kind of deep here, but like the, I think like one thing that you don't talk about in your book is like, you know what happens when you fucking get the leverage, bro? Because like, I got it and I feel like a dog chasing a car. You know, you get it and you're like, whoa, like, oh boy. Like, what do I do now? And it's a little intimidating and nobody really talks about that. It's like, I have the leverage now. It's like, well, if, uh, I don't use it, it's just going to waste. But like, it's really hard. I don't know if you've, if, if you felt that over the last couple years where your time becomes so much more valuable and it's a little scary, it's a little freaky.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's like once you catch the car, the car goes faster. Like if you're doing it right, like the whole thing speeds up and compounds and in order to get it in the first place, you uh, you're kind of skating where the puck is going. And so, yeah, this is very interesting. Like, oh, this is a self reinforcing thing where now you have a team of eight and you're like, oh, I can't do the things that I used to do to get us here. Like, I have to shift that. You're just like constantly kind of climbing stairs and reinventing things.

Speaker A: I like. You know I grew up a video editor, right? Uh, like I said, I was posting YouTube videos and like, I went to video editing camp. Like I want. That was my dream. It was like doing that and like, probably not the best use of time for me to edit my Instagram videos anymore. Like, and like, even though I love it, right, Like I actually do enjoy the process. It's like, here's a hundred bucks kid, go make a video, right? And like a lot of things like that. You know, I've, I think, actually weird thing a lot of founders these days probably are, uh, feeling this is like my biggest competition to marketing actually. And writing and making content is now vibe coding, which is very weird, right? I didn't know how to code. I don't know how to code and never did anything until a couple years ago. And uh, I was just this marketing guy writing a newsletter all the time and now I could barcode stuff and it's like kind of addicting and like I actually have to shut off cursor because like, my time is like much more valuable marketing and actually I have engineers who could do the coding and like, yeah, every now and then code some stuff, but, like, that's actually not the best use of my time. And like, that's kind of weird. It's. It's really weird. It's very confusing. And I'm curious if you have any exercises, um, about like, figuring out what's the most leverage in your life and like, how you grade that stuff.

Speaker B: Yeah, actually, I think I'm due to do this. So it's kind of in top of mind of like, I do quarterly or like, inventories, like snapshots of like, where is the leverage? What's the next best lever? What sort of things? I call it like a. There's like an opportunity cost where you're sort of forced into leveling up by the last steps that you've done. And so you should be changing your attention threshold. I call it like, the level at which you pay attention to things. And when you're like, broke, it's every fucking penny. And then it's a dollar, and then it's every $10, then it's every $100. And your job as a, as a leader of an organization is like, set the standard, right? So, like, yes, you delegate the editing of a video, but you hold the bar for, like, where it should be. You hold the bar for where the product should be. You, you know, communicate that to your team and reinforce that. But you should have some leverage in terms of, like, you spend one hour on this for every 10 hours that somebody on your team spends on it, or one hour to every 40 or one hour to every 100. And like, as you become a better delegator and you have a better team and you have these sort of like, stacks of leverage and the culture becomes more clear. You get, you get more and more leverage out of the, you know, the time that you spend on any given thing. And if you do that, you know, every quarter or, uh, maybe every month, I don't know how fast things are changing for you. You know, you'll kind of see the levers build and it'll. It sometimes reveals like, oh, I'm. I'm falling behind in this one over here. Or this is my, um, most obvious next step. Or just give you a sense of how far you've come and you can be like, well, shit, okay, I can, I can take the next step because I just, I just reminded myself that I took the 10 previous steps and they were all, okay, yeah, dude.

Speaker A: It's funny, I, like, just had a flashback to I was Looking through my old notebooks a few. A few months ago and, like, seeing my, like, money goals, right? And it was actually, like, around when I'm reading, uh, almanac, like 2021, it was like, make, like, five grand a month, right? Which is like, you know, I wasn't doing that then. And like, wow. Uh, you know, it's. It's. It's. It's weird. And the leverage thing, it's. It's very hard for, I think people not in it to understand, too, and why it's so, like, crucial. Uh, I think, like, I feel like Naval talks about this a lot. Just, like, the protection of time is, like, the freedom around it. Like, I. I didn't get rich to be on somebody else's schedule, right? Or, like, I'm not trying to get rich, like, real rich to. To be on somebody else's B.S. like, that's not why I'm doing it. Like, I'm doing it for freedom. And, like, just the. The leverage every day to think about that is. Is. It's intimidating at times. I've been, you know, I was. I was very, like, against the idea of executive coaching. And then I actually got recommended one from our BCE fund, and he's been great. And there's, you know, just this. This kind of, like, push that. Like, okay, you know what? Like, your time is. Is super valuable. Just, like, start hiring. Like, you're in the. In the exponential business. Like, hire just like, uh, you don't need to do everything yourself, man. Like, you're not 18 anymore. You're not, you know, this scrappy kid anymore. Like, I think that's. That's been the biggest personal transformation that I'm sure a lot of founders go through that. Like, it's very weird. Like, it's very strange to. To suddenly have leverage and you don't want to fuck it up, and you want to maximize it, and. And it's hard. And back to memes. Why I think memes are the best lever, you know, to just talk my own book for a second. They're fast to make. They're cheap. They're inherently viral. Right. They make people laugh. They could be spreading whatever it might be is. That's. That's the power of it. And you know why. Why we built this business?

Speaker B: Yeah, this is such a cool business because. And it's been really fun to, like, watch you market it for what it's worth. Like, if. If you. If you don't, uh. I know you can't talk about a ton of case studies and stuff. But you can, anybody can watch how you market Meme Lord, and how you talk about it and the things that you go through. Because it, this is a, yeah. This is a business that takes courage. And I, I appreciate, it's clear that you are having fun doing it, which is good. But, but you've got to be a little crazy. You've got to be a little like, you know, middle fingers up to like do this right?

Speaker A: Yeah, dude, a hundred percent. Like, you know, hit pieces after hit piece for, for my work with Cuomo and whatever death threats it might be. Like, it's a business. Like, it's not for the faint of heart. Being in the most cancelable marketing business. And that's, that's what we want to build is, is something fun. And I, I think like, I just encourage everybody like to tell their story on the Internet too. Like the goods and the bads, right? Share those wins. Building the software because it gets people invested, really. Like, you know, like, I, I, I've showed how I was building the shitty version of the software. If I just waited until the software was where it's uh, at now, it would never be here because I would have never gotten customers even on the crappy version, and I would have never met the people. And like, I think I'll, you know, it doesn't need to be perfect. Share, Share that process and like, obviously keep some sauce to yourself. Like, keep the case studies. Like, you know, if you're building rockets, maybe don't spread the secret formula, you know, but like, you know, it's share those wins. That's what, that's what motivates people and, and gets people invested in your company. Like the most beautiful thing to me, this is, this is a demonic thing or a fucked up thing, but I love it when somebody hates me but still uses my software. Like, I just love it, dude. Cause it's like that means I built some good software. Like, this guy just like hates me and like will flame on me on Twitter, but like, he's still using my software every day because, like, it's that good, you know? Like, I don't know, man. Like product distribution, everything between. You need both, but I'm going on another ramp, but there we go.

Speaker B: That is hilarious.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Ah, you, you got a ton of hit pieces for a while. And I like that you just, you took pride in them.

Speaker A: You're like, dude, if you're not getting hit pieces, you ain't a hit baby. No, for real, for real. I always dreamed of being a rolling stone, man. Like, I Thought I was going to be a Rolling Stone writer, you know, uh, uh, that was my dream. And then they're writing about me. Their joke, dude. Like there's a reason why like the best writers publish their own books now, like you and, and write their own newsletters and beehives and substacks. Like, you know, like, why are you writing for Rolling Stone about me, man? Like there's actual rock stars, dude. Like, why are you writing like a political hit piece in Rolling Stone? Like, that's just so sad. Like it's. I just like, how can you take these people seriously? Is like my belief around this. And like I. Again, like, I'll get uh, Augusta, right? Um, yeah, Augustus. Sorry. Rainmaker. Like I saw him last summer and like he's getting all his hit pieces too. And it's like something like. I mean, huh, what? It's the man in the arena, right? It's, it's the jokesters. It's like you, you can't.

Speaker B: He's getting pieces from people with like single digit IQs. It's just like insane conspiracy theory.

Speaker A: Well, I mean like he can't control the, the weather and the juice. Like that would be my response to those people is like immediately like that's where I would go. It's like, pick one, bro. Like you can't have this kid doing it and the juice. So like, if you're gonna be a conspiracy therapist, there is pick one conspiracy theory, you know.

Speaker B: No, that's not how the.

Speaker A: That's how they work, dude. A lot of these hardware defense companies, you know, whatever it might be, man, like you're gonna get hit pieces. And like, just know I say this from like the pit of my heart and uh, is like, it will be okay. And like the people who respect you will still respect you after and probably respect you more if you handle it with grace and joy and have fun with it. If you are somebody who cowers over it, you will lose the respect. But you need to respond. The best response to being ridiculed is to act ridiculous right back. Like hit them right back, baby. Like we posted our hit pieces right on our website. Like they are, we say, featured in hit pieces at these, at these articles, man. Like people still sign up for our software every day. Like there's been, you know, if anything, they helped us raise money. Like, yeah, I think uh, you were

Speaker B: in the middle of the fundraise when that happened. And yeah, there's, there's a bunch of. I mean your lineup of investors is unbelievable for people that have not Looked like Cyan Banister is one of the all time greats. Biology was like early in like I don't know you, you can everything. Yeah, but there's so many people who, who read those signals so much better and they understand deeply that like what you're doing is, is super important. It's, it is, yeah. Mimetic infrastructure which is like what controls the software in people's heads.

Speaker A: 100, 100. The way that I always put it is like, you know, you see these memes everywhere, like on Instagram, on Twitter, like they're all made on somebody's software.

Speaker B: Like. Mhm.

Speaker A: A lot are made on ours now and like that's, that's the goal and like, I don't know man, if, if you have an idea in the world, like you should consider spreading it with me. Don't give up your ad agency or whatever. But like just consider that that might be the best way to spread a certain idea and change people's minds about it.

Speaker B: Yeah. Pull that, pull that meme lever.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: My normal opening question, and maybe now it's my closing question is who are your heroes?

Speaker A: Heroes? I say like I'm like a very weird mix of like Mac Miller and Peter Thiel. Like it's, it's very strange. Like I grew up like an absolute stoner, like 15 to 18, just like smoking weed, listening to rap, partying with my friends and like doing graphic design like while I was stoned, selling like psychedelic stickers. That's how I made 50 grand in high school. Selling stickers, just getting high, listening to Mac Miller. And then like I just like stopped and just got really like weirdly into tech and like, you know, teal is just like always early on stuff and you know, based as fuck and you know, stands up for these things and is always early and like I think I'm this weird mix of just like, you know, this, this, this arts and tech that like it's just strange man. So I don't know, I, I, I think those were probably a couple. Donald Glover is a big childhood hero of mine. You know, Childish Gambino like started with comedy and then he, you know, pivot that into tv, into movies, into you know, businesses around that. Most of my heroes are, are outside of tech for the most part. Writers, you know, Kurt Vonnegut was, was a big one of mine growing up. The beatniks, Kerouac, stuff like that actually was, was more of my, my background. Yeah. And I think like, I think you could have a lot of heroes for sure, you know.

Speaker B: We should like, yeah, small slices of many people, I think is kind of where the most interesting cats end up. And you dropped a bunch of, I mean, uh, like comedy legends and advertising and like persuasion legends. Like Bernays is. I'm sure Bernays was a huge influence on you. I think he's.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, dude, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm reading this book right now, which you probably, like, called how to Win the Information War. And it's about this guy named Delmer. And it was During World War II, he was running fake German radio stations for England to try to dissuade Nazis from fighting and was doing all these insane tricks of, like, they would drop propaganda of, like, you know, Nazi women, like, you know, blonde women having sex with, you know, the, the opposite sides, right? To, to. To try to encourage these soldiers to go home to their wives, right, and give up, like, what. He was running these fake radio stations. Him and people speaking in German and, and doing these. Hold all these bits and trying to basically get inside their heads. And like, I would say people like that man are, uh, are definitely my heroes. People who take their silliness extremely seriously and, and understand they can have world ramifications and, and change lives. And that's, that's the goal with me. More, for sure.

Speaker B: Amazing. All, uh, right. Where would you send people to follow you? Learn more. Observe this incredible spectacle in action. Subscribe for the Topless Protest updates.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, subscribe for that. I would check out memelord.com m e m e l r d.com and, uh, follow me. I am Jason Levin. Death threats, please send them to the DMS. I accept those, uh, 100%. So no, uh, crypto scammers, but I will accept those for sure.

Speaker B: Just. Just like a framed wall of death threats at the.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I got, I got to do that. First dollar ever made right there and then, like, first death threat and first hit piece, I think is like a very, very good wall to have. That's the goal.

Speaker B: That's good lore. It sounds like an icon in the making. Dude. I'm very excited. I feel like this is optimistically, like talking to a young, a very young, like David Ogilvy.

Speaker A: I appreciate it, man. I appreciate it.

Speaker B: Like, what's going to define this generation's advertising and attention and communication? Like, you know, all the greats of the previous generation, like, wrote direct response letters or made TV commercials. And I think the, the great, like, advertising and communicators of this generation are going to be on social. And you're one of the most, like, unique and powerful kind of voices in this, uh, and I'm excited to see what happens. And I'm grateful for the tools that you make because I use them all the time.

Speaker A: Hell yeah, brother. Hell yeah. The world is run by mean lords, and it's just the beginning, man. So thank you so much for having me.

Speaker B: Of course.

Speaker A: Memes reveal hidden truths and they can make people realize different things. The same way good joke at a comedy show can make you realize something about yourself or about family or whatever it might be. Like, it hits you really hard. Uh, I just have this thesis, like, you know, this isn't me, but, like, this is another Elon quote, right? Of, like, the most entertaining outcome is the most likely, right? If you really take that into, like, belief, right? If you want your business to be the most likely, then it should be the most entertaining, right? If you want your book to be the most likely to be bought, then it should be the most entertaining. If you want your music career to be the most likely to be Grammy nominated, then shouldn't it be the most entertaining? Mr. Post Malone, get the tattoos on your face, right? Like, it doesn't have to be that extreme, but if the most entertaining outcome is the most likely, then you should be trying to be the most entertaining by any means necessary, right? The smartest people on the Internet are posting. They're posting memes, right? It's. It's Elon, it's Andreessen. Politicians on both sides, people are like, no, it's just Trump. No, actually, Gavin Newsom is posting memes, and so are the Democrats. It's both sides. Because memes are just like, the way to communicate. Nobody's taking memes seriously enough still. And, like, I've been preaching this for a while. The world's catching up. It's going to be fun. It's going to be really fun. What I always tell people is memes won't save your business if you have a bad business. Like, you're anyways, like, you're just not going to make money. Like, that sucks. Like, memes could get you attention on your good business. But, like, that's why you saw so many brands like 2021.

Speaker B: Like the.

Speaker A: The crypto scams. Like. Like, none of those are good businesses. We don't touch any of that. Like, they're just not fundamentally good businesses. Like, I don't know, I think, like, there. There hasn't been somebody who takes funny marketing as seriously as it should. It's just a lever to pull, like, SEO paid ads, serious Blogs, podcasts, all levers. We just want to be the best funny marketing lover in the world. That's it.

Speaker B: Mhm, Mhm, Mhm.

Speaker A: One of our investors has like a very popular anonymous account, like multiple of our investors, right? Like that's like the calculated moves that like the big boys are playing. Like all the YC guys, like, sorry guys. But like they're all just shilling to the same agency, spending like 50 grand for a launch video to retweet it. It's all the same agency that doesn't actually get taken seriously. And it's. You're going to burn all your capital. And like, personally, like, I'm not trying to do that. I'm trying to save money and make money, so.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, and it takes more than one, you know, big day, one launch.

Speaker A: Dude, no. Oh my God. Dude, it's crazy. Everybody's spending on their launch video. Would I spend in like three months? Like it's crazy. Like, dude, always be launching. We're going to be launching all summer. You know, every. Every day is launch.

Speaker B: Mhm.