(upbeat music)
- I'm Scott.
- I'm Russell.
- And I'm Leo.
This is Spitball.
(upbeat music)
Welcome to Spitball, the Pitchin' Kitchen,
where three algorithm alchemists and a guest
empty their heads of startup and tech product ideas
that we have stuck up in there
so you can all have them for free.
Anything that we say is yours to keep.
And this week, I've brought our guest,
my mentor, my friend, known him for 10 years,
our AVL expert, our rapper in a former life,
and still maybe music producer, web developer,
and everything in between.
Welcome to my friend, Chris.
Welcome to Spitball.
- What's up?
Thanks for having me.
It's good to be here.
- It's gonna be a good time.
- Yeah. - Thanks for being here.
- Yeah, I'm excited.
- All right.
And of course, as we always do,
we gotta play something to get ourselves warmed up here.
So this week, we're gonna be playing acquisition or fiction.
I am, and always have been, a fan of weird company stories
where they try to get into some new industry.
Like, how does Michelin Tires end up also
rating Michelin star restaurants?
Or like, Guinness, the beer company,
doing Guinness World Records or whatever, right?
Samsung makes phones, but they also make
like nuclear warships, why?
That's insane to me.
So, but, so this week, I'm gonna go through a list
of true or false, did this or did this not happen,
made up corporate mergers, a company that tried
to buy another company and succeeded.
True or false, we'll go down the lines,
starting of course with our guest, Chris, please.
In 2005 to 2009, is it true, yes or no,
did eBay acquire Skype for $2.6 billion?
Acquisition or fiction?
- Acquisition.
- You're absolutely right, yeah, they did.
I didn't even know this, but yeah.
- What? - Yeah.
- They apparently owned it for like five years.
It was a hot mess.
- Yeah, but they don't own it anymore, right?
- No, they sold it off to private equity
and then eventually landed in Microsoft's lap.
- Ah. - Swandered it
and forced Teams on everyone instead.
- Oh. (laughing)
They just took the technology and rebranded it.
- Yes. - Wow.
- They had a 15 year headstart on Zoom
and they still lost, it's baffling.
(laughing)
- 2.8 billion? - True.
- That's insane. - True.
- Russell, acquisition or fiction?
In 2015, Disney acquired Expedia Group,
so Expedia, Hotels.com, et cetera,
to push advertising for Walt Disney World,
Disneyland Resorts, and Disney Cruises.
- No, fiction.
- You're absolutely right, that is fiction.
Although, did you know that Expedia Group
is kind of like the Match Group
that owns like Tinder and Match.com and stuff?
Expedia Group is Expedia, Hotels.com, VRBO,
Travelocity, Hotwire, Orbitz, Triviag,
all those companies are all one company.
It's crazy. - Wow.
- There's only three companies in the world
and that's it.
(laughing)
- The moral of this game is that we're indebted
to a world where there's two companies left in the world.
Scotty, acquisition or fiction?
Anheuser-Busch, maker of Budweiser and Bud Light,
purchased the SeaWorld theme park chain
from a book publisher in 1989 for 1.1 billion.
- I want that to be true so bad, so yes, acquisition.
- It is true. - Oh, awesome.
- Wow.
- They owned them. - What?
- I know, right?
From 1989 to 2008 and then they eventually merged
with another company, became the largest beer company
in the world and sold it.
- Wait. - Isn't that crazy?
- Sold their SeaWorld asset.
- Wait, so they bought it for over a billion in '89?
- Yeah. - That's a lot of money
back then. - Heaps of money.
I know and then they sold it for 2.7,
so I don't even know if they made money over the thing,
accounting for inflation.
- That was probably just inflation.
- Probably made free willy then.
(laughing)
- We'll just get rid of it at cost, yeah, no kidding.
All right, I think all three of you got that right.
It's a one-on-one, next time around,
we're entering our food round.
Chris, acquisition or fiction?
Coca-Cola acquired the movie studio Columbia Pictures
in 1982 for 700 million.
- Whoa, '82, fiction.
- It's actually true.
- Oh, no. - What?
- They sold it to Sony only seven years later
and kind of one of those first mergers
where everyone was like, "Why are you doing this?
This doesn't make any sense for you."
And then they got rid of it.
- They were probably trying to get the revenue
from the soda sales at the movie theater.
- I guess there's some synergy there, I don't know.
- Yeah. - It's weird.
- Yeah. - Russell.
- Yeah.
- Fiction or acquisition?
Starbucks purchased the juice bar chain Jamba Juice
in 2010 for 900 million,
but it operates the two brands completely separately.
- I mean, drink company, drink company, it's gotta be true.
- I made that one up, I'm sorry.
(laughing)
- Oh, man.
These are so believable.
- I know. - So good.
- So apparently Jamba Juice is still independent,
but their parent company does own Cinnabon and Auntie Annie's
and a few other things like that, or Auntie Anne's,
all those. - Yeah.
- All right, Scotty. - Yep.
- Acquisition or fiction?
There's a company called Restaurant Brands International,
humdrum name.
It's an American-Canadian multinational merger
that was created when Burger King
and Tim Hortons merged in 2014.
- Oh, I have no idea on this, so I'm gonna say fiction.
- That's true. - Oh, man.
- In 2017, they got Popeyes too,
but apparently it's this company of two companies.
$12.5 billion merger.
- Dang. - Wow.
- So you could have a combo,
Tim Hortons, Popeyes, Burger King in one shared space.
- Yeah, really multinational, yeah.
American-Canadian pride right there.
- Diversify, diversify.
- Do you think they brought on a marketing consultant
to name the thing Restaurant Brands International?
That's the worst name I've ever heard in my life.
- They paid $2 million to that.
(laughing)
- Acquisition or fiction?
Chris, Target acquires artisanal e-commerce platform
Etsy in 2017 for $2.75 billion.
- How much billion?
- $2.75 billion.
- Etsy? - Etsy, 2017.
- Target owns Etsy?
- Oh, man, I wouldn't have paid that much for it.
(laughing)
- You just sweep $2.75 billion off your dresser.
- I'll go, (laughing)
I'll go with fiction.
- You're absolutely right on me there, very good.
- All right.
- Etsy. - That would be nuts.
- That seems like their play though.
That seemed like Target would get into Etsy.
- I was thinking of like, what are some corporations
that could vibe in the same like, I don't know,
Burger King and Tim Hortons, Target demographic.
Apparently they do have an Ireland-based
tax dodging subsidiary company though
that actually is where they're based out of.
They actually do own a couple of other brands
like Reverb, a used music store.
- Oh, I'm on there all the time.
Yeah. - I know,
I didn't know that was a thing.
Russell, acquisition or fiction?
Yahoo and AOL were both purchased by Verizon
for $9 billion between 2015 and 2017
and the combined renamed company was named Oath.
- I think they bought them,
but I don't think it was named Oath.
- Well, acquisition or fiction?
- I know Verizon bought Yahoo, I don't know about AOL.
So that's where I'm gonna,
I'm saying acquisition.
- You're absolutely right, they did.
- Ah!
- Oath only lasted for two years.
It was called Verizon Media afterward,
but then they sold it all off.
And Tumblr was a part of that too.
Verizon owned Tumblr for a minute.
Last time, Scott, acquisition or fiction?
Best Buy purchased the peer-to-peer music service
Napster's name and combined it
with their own service Rhapsody in 2011.
- That's so crazy, that's believable.
I think that's acquisition.
- That's what happened to Napster.
- Oh my God.
- Best Buy owns Napster?
- So they did own them.
And then apparently a couple of years ago,
they started getting passed around and they sold it off.
It was like a VR concert app for a hot minute.
And now it's some music cryptocurrency thing.
Unfortunately, Napster's dying a hard death.
- Did they just bring on a bunch of lawsuits
from that to themselves?
I don't know how that would work.
- I think it was just the name.
I don't think it was anything else with a name.
With our, I think, Chris,
you were the only one who got all three right.
You're our winner this week, congratulations.
- No, I got the second one wrong, I thought.
- Oh, you did?
- Yeah. - Oh, shoot.
- So then I guess you tied for Scotty.
- All right.
- Yeah.
(laughing)
- A co-champions this week.
- I should have just taken that.
I just should have taken the W, honestly.
- The listeners would have been hitting their radios.
- Yeah.
- No, it's wrong.
(laughing)
- All right, Russell, you're up first.
What do you got for us this week?
- All right, so here's what's up.
I travel a bunch and when I do,
my wife sets up a fantastic itinerary for the town.
Hit this up, you know, she watches the videos
on those travel websites and all over YouTube.
I remember when we went to San Diego,
we watched like so many different videos about San Diego
and where we're gonna go.
And she ends up building this really robust itinerary,
roughly, it's like a rough itinerary,
just like our hot picks.
And we'll have that for our whole,
it takes a long time to build,
but then whenever we have a friend that's like,
oh, are you going to San Diego?
Here's the Google Doc that Carrie created.
You should take a look at this is what we did.
Here's what we think if we were to,
and then make some changes and recommendations, right?
So it's kind of like Carrie becomes her own travel agent
in a way because she's just making recommendations and stuff.
So I thought, man, why don't we platformatize it, right?
It turns out a lot of other people do this too.
It's not just Carrie, but like everybody creates
their own Google Sheet now with all that stuff.
So why not host all that on a platform,
share itineraries, right?
And the better your itinerary, the more money you make.
So for example, all the, yeah.
So if you build your itinerary,
you create referral codes, right?
So now you partner with all these like Balboa Parks
and these restaurants that you recommend on your itinerary.
And your job is to make, let's say really good itinerary
so that people click your referral links
to schedule that reservation or to purchase the hotel
that you recommend and all that stuff.
So now everybody's incentivized
to create a really good itinerary with links,
get their commission, and now you've got like a full
content generating money payback platform, right?
- And you're building a catalog of vacations
and how well they went and people can go on them
and rate them, yeah.
- People will keep it up to date, I love that.
- It's very kind of like cut and dry.
Like you drag and drop like your favorite places
and yeah, you can even, if you wanna get really detailed,
you can say, yeah, if you're doing three days,
this is what I recommend.
Or if you're going on a Monday, you can just go crazy on it.
But yeah, short and sweet itineraries.
Do you guys do it?
Like do you guys build itinerary kind of things
or Google Docs?
Like I, you know, vet it a little bit.
- Well, I've used kind of like,
like TripIt is a really utilitarian thing
where you like forward your hotel bookings
and flight reservations and stuff.
And it sort of organizes all that in one place for you.
That works okay.
And I know there's like Wanderlog
and a few other things where you can build these itineraries.
I've never seen the like social network-itized version
where you can browse other people's and stuff.
That's really cool.
- Yeah, one of my people that I work
at a co-working space with,
they were sharing their trip to like South Africa.
And it was like literally two weeks.
Here are the five, like the 20 things that they did.
And I'm like, can you just send that to me
so I can have it in my Google Drive case?
(laughing)
- Totally.
- Like somebody like really put a lot of effort into it.
Right?
And it just kind of goes,
it kind of goes to waste after all that.
I don't know.
It just seems like it should be shared.
- Yeah, and why reinvent the wheel, right?
Starting from scratch, maybe you get like two or three
and then you kind of put them all together, you know,
and create your own.
Like maybe there's that option
where like you can drag and drop into your own list.
And then, but the links,
the referral links like transfer over as well.
- Whoa.
- That would be awesome.
- Yeah, I bet like, you know,
like the kid itinerary, right?
Like, oh, I like these three itineraries,
but I need the kid friendly version.
So I made my kid friendly version.
And now that's really popular
because it's the kid friendly one, right?
- Yeah.
- Versus the dinks, you know, you got the dink version.
You got the solo traveler version, right?
And it's just, I don't know.
It just seemed like it'd be cool to even just browse them,
experience somebody else's itinerary.
- Yeah.
- You know, I don't know.
- Live vicariously, see all their vacation pics.
Yeah.
- A little bit.
- It's a good thing that like a trip advisor
or something could sort of tack on
to what they already do, you know?
- Yeah.
Another idea for that could be like,
hey, we can go out to like one really nice meal, right?
And like spend such and such money.
So like, you'll go to the bougie lists
that like rich people go to,
and then you can just grab the one,
like this is the one thing we're gonna do
and splurge on kind of thing.
- And if you're going into your profile
on the site and saying like,
I tend to prefer bougie stuff.
I tend to do outdoorsy things.
I tend to do technical marvels, whatever it is,
you can kind of get the machine learning algorithm churning.
- Yeah.
- And do a quiz at the beginning.
- These kinds of people like these sorts of things.
Let me put these recommendations in front of them.
- Yeah, like if I'm the outdoorsy type,
where do I hike?
Where do I go see the scenic views?
You know, which trail kind of sucks, right?
But then you end up going on like the trail app
to find your best trails.
And then you go to your restaurant app
to find your best restaurants.
And it just seems so much like,
why do I have to go to Yelp, TripAdvisor,
you know, trails.com or whatever it is.
- I just got back from a conference in Chicago
for a few days and opening Google Maps
and typing the word food and just panning around,
trying to like filter, they're not open right now.
This one is 4.4 stars and that one's 4.6,
but it has 800 reviews instead of 300.
What does that even mean, right?
- Right.
- If you could like humanize this by saying,
these three people that you know
because they have similar interests as you,
the travel blogger that you follow, the whatever,
they recommend this place because of these reasons.
That's way more of like a human recommendation.
- Yeah, yep, I agree.
- Travel bloggers would love this.
They would post their itinerary up
and now like you could get itinerary influencers,
you know, making cash on the side.
- Travel blog's a real thing, totally.
Then you can like, sort of like when you have
like a link tree type thing,
but here is this trip itemized and itinerized, yeah.
- And it could be also for like parks,
like theme parks, you know, it's like where to stay,
where's the cheapest, where's, yeah.
Like what's got gluten free options,
even things of that nature that like people are really,
you know, maybe concerned about.
I think that could be really cool too.
- I didn't even think, yeah.
Like just very, very niche, but people need to,
like what's the gluten free trip in Disney?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(laughing)
- Around the world, gluten free.
- I'm a vegan, where do I eat?
- I think you're right, Russell,
that people are already generating these things
and they just are kind of living in silos somewhere.
So if you can get this importing from Google Docs
and or saved Google Maps lists
and or my email, you know, booking confirmations and stuff,
if you can somehow like suck up all that data,
if people opt in, man.
- Incentivize them and that's what Russell's doing,
I love it.
- Yeah.
- Oh yeah.
- Yeah.
- They put it in themselves.
- Right.
- Or you say, hey person, specify that you're gluten free,
that you're a medium budget, that you prefer outdoors.
And then we'll pay you to suck up all of the places
you've been from your, you know,
your Google timeline or whatever.
And then we just know.
Hmm.
- Snap.
- Spooky.
- You can take it to the next level.
- I know, this gets sketchy really quick.
- But if you could take it to the next level
and then like, you know, 'cause you could go to Yelp
and Google has its own thing,
like as far as restaurant recommendations and stars
and like combine them all into one as well.
So it's like, I don't have to, you know,
all I trust Yelp or all I trust this.
I think that could be cool too.
Like just bringing them all together.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, you wouldn't need those other apps in theory,
right?
You'd kind of be trusting your itinerary or.
- The gurus.
The gurus.
- Yes, the gurus.
- Right.
- Having a human connection helps a lot
with that recommendation.
I wish I could open one app and see like,
sort of like Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB scores
and whatever all next to each other.
Some like TV apps do that.
It'd be cool if you could see,
here's the Google Maps score and the Yelp score
and the TripAdvisor score and the whatever all in your app
next to, by the way, that vlogger you follow
loves this place because of their breadsticks or whatever.
- It was featured on Anthony Bourdain
or something like that, you know.
- Honestly, if it was featured on like Drivers Dining
and Drives, I'm like there.
- Yeah.
- Just tell me, you know.
- It's got the Flavortown seal.
- I sat where Guy Fieri sat.
- That's just one of the trip options.
- The Flavortown itinerary in every city.
That's a whole username, you know.
- Dude, there's somebody who's cataloged
every question ever asked on Jeopardy.
There's gotta be somebody who's like cataloged
every stop on Diners, Divers, Dives.
- 100,000%.
- The wiki, the Flavortown wiki.
It's gotta be out there with an interactive map
and everything, I'm sure.
- Dude, like travel through the whole US
like in one road trip, just RVing through
Diners, Drivers, and Dives.
- Now that's an itinerary I would look up on your app.
(upbeat music)
- All right, Scott, let's hear what you got this week.
- Okay, I'm gonna follow a Leo on this one.
Instead of cabinets except they're dishwashers,
I want Theranos but for optometry.
So I just had an eye doctor appointment
and I always get really frustrated with them.
Like I have to come back every year
just for you to tell me the same shit again and again.
It's just like they're looking at your eyes.
It's one stationary spot.
How hard would it be to just set up a box
or basic camera system that can run through
all the procedures that they do,
use a basic AI script to look for,
hey, I see an anomaly here, I see anomaly there,
or just everything looks here,
oh, you have astigmatism, blah, blah, blah.
A camera could do all of this
versus just a couple of mechanical guys
that are switching lenses in the back.
And then that's it.
It spits out a prescription at the end and you're done.
Yeah, that's the entire pitch.
I just was very frustrated today
and I'm like, I could automate this.
- When you present in front of YC,
I would maybe encourage you to not use the word Theranos.
- Theranos, guys.
- So I go to your website and I sign up
for my virtual appointment a week from Tuesday
and then it sends me a briefcase
with your thing in the mail?
- I don't even know if it would be that.
Honestly, I was picturing this in like a,
you just, I don't know, put this on a street corner,
send this to like a third world country or something
and be like, this is the box,
this is now the optometry box.
And maybe add an attachment on there
that it can spit out lenses or something too
if you don't, you know, some minor modifications.
But it just has, yeah,
a hundred different types of lenses on there.
It spits out what you need for your left and right eye
and you're done.
- Dude, this is Redbox.
- Redbox but for eyes, yes.
That's the way to think about this.
- Every Walgreens would buy this box, Scott.
- That's what Theranos said.
(laughing)
They actually did too.
- I believe it.
You take one tear and you put it in a vial
and it knows everything about you.
In theory, you don't even need to have inventory on hand.
You just send it in the mail.
This is like--
- Send it in the mail, use your webcam.
- They do, what is it, orthodontics this way.
- Really? - Yeah.
- Right?
Like don't you like Invisalign?
Isn't that like a thing where you take an imprint
of your teeth and you ship it in the mail?
- Like the foam thing.
- And they send you all the braces.
- Yeah, like literally you don't need
to see an orthodontist anymore.
Invisalign or whatever, you take an imprint of your teeth
and they ship you incremental, like invisible liners
that move your teeth over time.
And that's it, you're done.
It just takes the imprint and moves.
Like this is that, but--
- But your eyes never get better.
(laughing)
- They just get worse.
I mean, of all the medical things,
I feel like eyes would be the easiest one
to work with in something like this.
- Obviously if there's something wrong,
you go to a doctor.
- Yeah, for sure, and it'll tell you.
Like, "Hey, you should probably go to a doctor
"for that thing in your eye there quickly."
- I like it.
- Dude, I get so many text messages
from like RX Optical or whatever.
Like, "It's your yearly appointment, don't forget."
And I go every three years.
(laughing)
And I'm like, "Did my prescription change?
"Did my eyes get any worse?"
And they're like, "No, you're great."
It's like, "Wow, I should have just waited another three."
Like this is exactly, this is a health safety issue.
I would do it every year
if I could just roll up to a Redbox,
throw on some, drop down my VR headset
and does some scans and all that stuff.
Like, why not?
Like does the eye blowing thing.
It just seems--
- Right, they don't even do that anymore.
I learned that today.
- Oh.
- I don't wear corrective lenses yet,
but I feel like if you've gone a couple of times
and had prescriptions changed a couple of times,
there's probably like a pattern there, right?
Like why can't a vending machine see
you've been 0.25, 0.25, 0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0.75, 0.75.
You're probably either gonna need 0.75 or one, right?
Like, I don't know.
- We need an eye doctor.
We need an eye doctor on the show.
- Yes, yes.
I think another way that you can make it,
like really pitch it so that that community,
like optometrists and these opticals
would be on board with it is like,
hey, look, you're able to use,
'cause you have to go like every 18 months, I think,
before it expires, like your prescription,
which is really frustrating, like you said,
because your eyes haven't changed in three years
and you're like, oh, I'm paying for this.
But maybe you can go to the Bach up to three years
and then you have to like go see an optometrist.
- It's the stopgap.
- Right, right.
- I can renew my driver's license from Secretary of State
like every other time or something
and then I have to go in in person every once in a while.
- Right. - Oh, yeah.
- Yeah, something like that.
- That makes sense.
- And optometrists and ophthalmologists
would start to see only people,
or they'd see them more infrequently, less frequently,
but they'd also see like, hey, the Bach's told me
I might have a little bit of a cataract going on.
Can you confirm?
Like it'd actually be reasons to get them in the door
'cause nobody is happy in the day
where you didn't need anything from me.
I don't know why you were here.
That's not good for them because they're busy.
It's not good for you 'cause you're busy.
This would be better for everybody.
- Yeah, I think people would get checked more often
if it was like, you know, cheap, easy, you know,
like I'm getting my eyes checked every year
instead of every three because, yeah,
the doctor forced me to, but I really don't have to go.
But now I'm like going to the Red Box, the iBox,
and checking every, why not?
I'm gonna wait in line for my prescription
and get my eyes checked real quick, you know?
Like literally just,
that's why they have the blood pressure machines
or whatever, right? - Yep.
- It's kind of similar, but.
- What's the Sam Altman crypto with the orb?
World coin, do you guys know about world coin?
- World coin. - There's a,
there's a cryptocurrency project by the CEO of OpenAI
where you go to a place in the real world
and you stare into a giant metal orb
and it verifies that you're a human
and it's supposed to be the basis for the,
if I've been feeling these are gonna be available
in the next couple of years,
if you could, you know, pivot to having these orbs
be the thing that check you,
I think that's gonna be your ticket.
- Get your prescription if you need.
(laughing)
- Exactly, yeah, just stare into the orb
and you get your lenses next day.
Would you rather get your prescription
from Redbox for glasses or orb?
I know what I'd choose.
- In order to get more buy-in,
because again, you might get pushback from that community,
but if you could get them to buy into it,
be like, yeah, if you have a monthly subscription to us,
we'll put you at the top of the list
as the optometrist that we recommend for them to go see.
- The referrals. - Right?
- Yeah. - The referrals.
- You walk up to the thing and it says,
hey, you need to get that diabetic retinopathy looked at,
here's who we recommend, yeah.
- Yeah, exactly.
- Oh man.
- It's a lead generator.
- Yes, there you go. - Instead of a competitor.
- Yes. - Yes.
- Okay.
- Referrals are a huge deal in the medical industry,
saying, hey, it's actually,
you need to go see an ear, nose and throat guy about that,
but here's who I recommend.
They all make backroom deals for that kind of stuff.
- Dude, the VCs that funded Theranos
would jump on this so fast.
So if you're listening,
like we're here, we're ready
for your first round investment.
- But again, I really think you shouldn't use that word
when you're in your pitch deck.
(laughing)
(upbeat music)
- All right, Leo, what do you got for us this week?
- All right, I got a weird one for y'all,
I hope you're ready.
Planetariums.
- I'm in. - They're fun, they're neat.
You probably haven't been there since middle school.
Why not?
I don't know why.
It's the kind of thing that I feel like
I would enjoy doing again,
but I'm like a space enthusiast.
It'd be kind of fun to go, but I just don't.
We don't really have one near us,
but even when there is one around,
I look at that, I'm like,
that's kind of, I can't believe that still exists.
I have a 4K TV at home.
You know what I mean?
- It's 'cause they legalized weed, dude.
(laughing)
- I mean, if the Las Vegas Orb can succeed,
maybe planetariums deserve their place coming back too.
So I've got an idea for pumping up
and bringing planetariums to the next level.
You ready?
- Let's hear it.
- I'm so excited.
- Instead of chairs that you have around there
and the seating area at the base of the planetarium,
giant donut shaped swimming pool.
In the middle of that donut shape is the dry area
where the projectors are and the lifeguards, I guess,
and the equipment and project,
all that stuff that you need to make it happen.
You could float under the stars.
You could have like movie nights.
You could have light blue lagoon lights
all throughout the pool.
You could have the underwater speakers thing.
So you just kind of float there amongst the stars.
I had an experience growing up of being in a swimming pool
in a place where there was no light pollution.
So you could look up and see like the Milky Way and stuff.
Absolutely imaginable to float and see that.
And it would be really cool if you could do that,
but also flying through space in a saltwater pool.
- Saltwater pool.
- Sure.
That way you float better.
- I'm speechless how much I want to do this.
- Right?
Does that sound amazing?
- 80 degree, like bath water, super heavily salted.
So you can just, you either have a inner tube
or you're just floating there
'cause the water's so dense.
- Yeah.
- Staring up at the stars or laser show
or whatever the hell you want.
- Latest Christopher Nolan flick.
(laughing)
- Oh my God.
(laughing)
Just put Dune II up there.
(laughing)
- You could have the center have a bar.
- Yeah, I was gonna say that.
- A little swim up bar.
You just paddle over, you know.
- Yeah, we can make it cooler.
Little RC boats will bring your cocktails out to you.
- Oh yeah.
I like that.
(laughing)
I want that job.
There's gotta be.
(laughing)
- The boats are named after planets.
(laughing)
- There might be some moisture concerns,
but I feel like there's at least one planetarium
that's like derelict out there that could use this glow up.
- That's a really good idea.
- It'd be fun, like the solar eclipse just happened
and that would be awesome to be like,
oh, I didn't see the solar eclipse,
but I went to my local planetarium
and swam in the pool for a couple hours
and experienced basically the same thing.
(laughing)
You know, saw a live stream of it.
It was great.
- Yeah.
- Honestly though?
- I mean, that'd be kind of,
I mean, there's a lot of,
there was a lot of hype around that.
So you're creating like,
you're turning planetariums into an event space,
not just a planetarium, right?
Concerts, you know, you could,
I mean, just blow it up a little bit to be weddings.
Why stop there?
Maybe they're doing that now, I don't know.
But like planetarium, the event space,
pool, hockey, you know, why not?
Just anything, you know?
Just special events.
- Get married under the stars.
- You'd have to upgrade like the whole visual experience
'cause some of the last ones I've gone to with Nathaniel,
- It's not good.
- It's always like really dim.
- Yeah?
- Oh, really?
- Yeah, like.
- Haven't changed their bulb in several generations.
- There's probably some old IMAX projectors
you could scavenge out from somewhere.
- I'm literally Googling planetariums for sale right now.
(laughing)
- How much does one of those run you?
I don't really know.
- One in Kentucky.
- What's the going rate for a planetarium?
- There's one in Kentucky?
They're non-profits, right?
So you can't really buy those, but.
- Basically a museum.
- Yeah.
- They're usually in museums, aren't they?
- Often.
- Yeah.
- We had one that was part of like an art center in Flint
on the other side of the state, yeah.
- It might honestly be easier just to buy a pool
and then put a dome on top of it.
(laughing)
And an IMAX projector.
- Yeah, you're done.
- Dude, why not just do that?
- And a lot of salt.
- Through the planetarium,
just build your own space experience huts, you know?
- Ooh.
- I mean.
- What's a space experience hut?
- A planetarium, but portable, but water.
- Oh.
Going along with the pitch a couple of times ago
of the video game hangout trailer,
you have like a portable planetarium.
- Yeah, you get one of those giant tents
that you fill with air, right?
You know, they just fill up and you throw a projector on it.
Now you go to any local pool,
create the planetarium experience to go.
- That's fun.
So are these battery powered?
Probably not solar.
(laughing)
- Diesel engine.
(laughing)
Gotta power the light bulbs somehow, you know?
- Right.
Shovel more coal, the earth needs to be seen.
That's fun.
- Don't they have those giant, like,
do you guys remember in,
I don't remember if you guys had this experience
of like second grade,
where they would take a bunch of blankets and box fans
and create this little, no?
And like garbage bags.
It was actually a bunch of black garbage bags
and they would poke holes in it.
And then it would create like an experience
that you were in.
- Oh, that's cool.
- Looking at the night sky.
- What?
- Yeah, do you know? - Really?
- Interesting.
- Must've been a really great teacher.
- Black garbage bags?
- Yeah, tape them together.
- I guess so.
Put them over your head.
(laughing)
- Read as fast as you can.
- No.
(laughing)
- Hold your breath real good, kid.
- Get back on the bus, you know?
- Great teacher.
- How big are we talking?
- I mean, this was second grade, right?
So you tape like, what, 30 garbage bags together
and make a giant garbage blanket, okay?
- Whoa.
- Dome it up.
- Garbage blanket.
- Dome it up.
- Next pitch.
- Throw a box fan in it for plenty of ventilation.
- Yeah, I guess.
- And then it blows up like a balloon, right?
Like those parachutes, you know?
- Yeah.
- And you know, you throw a projector in there over a pool,
you just like triple the size of it.
- Totally doable.
- Okay, I have a Discovery Dome system for $26,000,
which is an inflatable planetarium.
- Okay.
- Everything included that you need, apparently.
- They stole my idea that fast?
Oh my gosh.
(laughing)
- How big are we talking here?
- It looks tiny.
- $26,000 had better get me something.
- It looks very small for $26,000.
- So not big enough to put over like a pool in the backyard.
Like an above ground.
- It's like literally on the White House's front lawn.
I don't know how else to describe it.
- All right, we start with hot tubs, all right?
Well then we go to the hot tub.
- There you go.
- And we go full pool.
(laughing)
- Oh, it's like a big black, okay, perfect dome.
- That is way too expensive.
We can undercut this market.
- $40,000 for the planetarium Discovery Zone
at eplanetarium.square.site.
So it's legit.
They didn't even buy a domain name for this project.
- Add to cart, $26,469.
(laughing)
- Someone went to AliExpress and searched dome
and put about five zeros behind it.
- Leo, this might be my favorite idea.
I love this.
- Really?
- Yeah, I would do this every weekend
if I had one of these near me.
- Possibly inebriated?
- Of course.
Dude, you could rotate shows, you know?
You could send like a flyby of Jupiter or something.
Like walk, fly through Saturn's rings
or here's nebula Wednesday.
Come on by on a Wednesday.
- You're just floating in zero G.
It would feel like you're just floating.
- Aerial footage over a big city,
flybys on volcanoes in Hawaii.
You know, like it doesn't have to be space themed.
You're just floating and watching.
I mean, there's like swim up movie nights
that, you know, pools and stuff will have.
It seems like that, but better.
'Cause then I'm either like standing in the pool
and watching the thing that's off to the side.
I want it above me, you know?
- We could just VR this.
We could just create waterproof VR.
And then you just put you in one of those
sensory deprivation tanks, but with an Oculus.
That seems simpler.
- Seems simpler.
- How much are one of those tanks?
- We can make one for 40 bucks.
- Yeah, you buy it.
- It's a trough.
- You go to Facebook marketplace
and look for like a old trough, exactly.
- Give me a trough and a garbage bag
and I'll poke some holes in it.
- Dent it up, clawfoot bath tub from your neighborhood.
Put a trash bag over it like Russell's kindergarten.
- Guys, we're still under budget here.
- Spend more on the salts, you know?
(laughing)
- There's a, basically someone bought a warehouse
in a bunch of big cities.
So there's one in London, Chicago, New York, Barcelona.
And it's a spa type thing, but it's a giant ass warehouse
and they have a bunch of different hot tubs
and like different temperature, cold plunges
and pools and stuff.
And the entire place is lit almost entirely
by actual candles, thousands of candles.
And it has underwater speakers
and you can like stand under a waterfall
and lay on hot slabs of marble and stuff.
So you pay like 200 bucks for 90 minutes
and you just get to like butts around
and hang out in the warehouse.
- That's awesome.
- I know, it's kind of sort of like this,
but also I need a movie 'cause I'm a child.
(laughing)
Showing me space.
- I'm with you, I'm a hundred percent with you.
- Can I get the space version of that?
(laughing)
- Not enough astronauts.
(laughing)
- I'd like to go to the space spa please, mama.
(laughing)
- All right, Chris, welcome to the show.
What do you got for us this week?
- All right, man.
So I'm pretty bougie, okay?
You know, I like my sneakers, you know, I like my hats.
I like expensive audio equipment, all that kind of stuff.
And so for a while there,
like I've used a loofah all my life, okay?
I just love like--
- Where is this going?
- Yeah, I know.
I like the efficiency of it, you know?
There's some other things that you can use,
they have like the little rubber ones, right?
But I don't really feel like it's like getting into my pores
and so I'm a big loofah guy,
I understand that if it stays wet,
bacteria can grow in it, that sort of thing.
And so when I got a sales job
and I did sales for a couple of years,
you know, I wanted to take my loofah with me,
but it was like messy.
It's like, oh, like I just used it
and then I got to leave the hotel and it's wet,
got to like throw it in a Ziploc or something.
And that's just gross.
And, but there are tons of people
that like to bathe in that style.
And so I was thinking to myself,
like what if there was a package,
like a packaging for the loofah, right?
That when you put it into it, it dried it out, you know?
Kind of like the reverse of what would happen,
like what happens when you humidify
like an acoustic guitar, but in reverse, right?
So it's actually taking the moisture
instead of adding moisture.
I don't know how to do that,
but if we could figure that out, boom,
all of a sudden you can have a whole line of loofahs
that go along with this bag
and trademark it, copyright it, all of the things.
And then, yeah, you just take it on the go.
And as you're taking it on the go, it is drying it,
might have to be like,
have some sort of battery power to it
in order to complete the process.
USB charging.
- A little heater, yeah.
- Yeah, yeah.
And that's the product, you know?
- Yeah.
- So I've got a couple of little,
you know, those like silica bags,
the do not eat packets that you can get.
I have a little plastic guy that's got those in it,
but it also flips out a little plug-in socket thing
and you put it on the wall and it will dry itself out.
So you can reuse them over and over again
for 3D printer filament.
It seems like you can make like a case
that does that, right?
- Yeah.
- And then you can put it inside
with those beads or whatever's in there,
have it recharged.
- But you can dry silica packets?
You can take the silica-
- Technically, yeah.
You could take like a throwaway, discardable one
and like- - Put in the oven.
- Put it in a dehydrator for hours sort of thing,
or like an oven or whatever, but it's kind of tedious.
So this one's kind of nice 'cause it's convenient
and built in, but they're not super popular and common.
I don't know why.
- Dude, Chris, I'm in this, I'm the same.
I get the plastic scrubbies, I call it.
I don't feel like I get clean unless I have one of those.
Something about like, it's like a scratching
of your whole body, you know?
- Exfoliating. - Like it's a full clean.
- Exfoliating is the word.
- Yes, it's the exfoliate feel, right?
You can't get without it.
But I try to use washcloths at the hotels
and they're like terrible.
What am I gonna do with this?
Yeah, so I'm like, I had a work trip for three days
and I'm like, I just don't feel clean until I get home.
And it's like, yeah, I totally get it.
I would, yeah, but my first thought too was silica packets,
just like throw it in the bag and just, and call it.
But I don't even know if it'll actually get
that dry that fast, I feel like.
- They have a maximum, yeah.
- Right. - Yeah.
- I wonder if there's a mechanical solution to this
where it could somehow like fold in on itself
and squeegee all the water.
- Oh, your juice compressor thing, just bring that.
- Just put it in Juicero.
There's a bunch of Juiceros lying around somewhere, I bet.
You could just reuse them.
- Buy 'em out. - And you're hauling
a big machine with the hotel with you.
This is my loofah squeegee machine.
- No, I know. (laughs)
- But yeah, can it like roll up and the water shoots out
or like fold somehow or something, you know?
- Oh, that's a good idea.
You know, I did swimming in high school
and I had this trick where you would take a towel
and you'd roll your swimsuit in it
and you would hit it as hard as you could against the ground
and it would dry your swimsuit so well
'cause the way you rolled it and stuff.
So like, I don't know if you could create like,
I don't know how to describe it,
but it's like you rolled your towel
so you lay a towel flat, you put your swimsuit on it
and you roll it and now you have every inch
with a towel drying it.
Could you do that with the loofah?
- Whoa.
- Just like roll it in a towel
or like have some sort of like version of that
that maybe you pull really tight
or like when you twist it, you know,
when you twist a towel a lot,
maybe there's a way you could create a device
that squeezes out all the water with a bunch of pressure.
- I like that, Russell.
Like, there's just a ring attached to the loofah
with a string on it and you just pull it
through the ring of itself
and then all the water comes out.
It won't be perfect, but it'll be dry way faster.
- And then you throw the beads in with it
and boom, you're off to the races.
- There you go.
- That actually, yeah, you get it dry enough
to keep the silica packet from being soaked
and you get a new silica packet every time.
There's your model.
- Subscription.
(laughing)
- The special, yeah.
You have to get our high quality ones.
Don't get the ones from the store.
- Yeah, we gotta make it DRM compatible
only with our loofah and our silica packet for sure.
- I mean, yeah, your silica packet's gonna be like,
you know, a foot long or something.
It'll just be like some special measurements,
like the Keurig of silica packets.
But you know, that's one model.
- Short of every hotel room in the nation
having those swimsuit drying machines
that spin 'em really fast,
what's the smallest possible incarnation
of the thing that,
so that's like a little basket
that spins really fast, like a dryer.
Is there a way to use centrifugal force
to get the water out somehow or something?
- A rope.
- Like a gyroscope?
- You could tie and--
- Pull it like you're pulling a lawn start?
- Yeah.
- Spin it.
(laughing)
- Like a salad spinner.
- No, I'm talking lasso, dude.
Like you talk--
- Oh, that's good.
- That's it, like lasso style.
You throw it, you know, like.
(laughing)
- That's funny.
- And it's a workout, we could sell the videos.
(laughing)
- Upper body, loofah dry 20X.
- The cleaning service at the hotel will appreciate you.
(laughing)
- Water everywhere.
Water and skin cells and soap.
(laughing)
- No, you do it outside, man.
That's the--
(laughing)
- You're the crazy guy on the hotel lawn
in Atlanta in the middle of the night.
(laughing)
Just drying your loofah.
- I got a 4 a.m. flight.
(panting)
(laughing)
- I think the best one that, yeah,
I like the loofah with the ring attached
that you like pull it through.
That's really clever.
- Yeah, that seems like it would work, right?
Scott, you're the engineer.
(groaning)
That's the sound we make when--
- Sounds like a yes is what I heard, so.
- We're working on it.
- The project manager says yes
and it's the engineer's job to figure it out.
- Yeah, of course we can do that.
Figure it out.
(laughing)
- So who would our main customer base be?
- I think Chris.
- Travelers, right?
- Yeah. - The Russells.
- I mean, you just sell the better loofah.
It'd just be the loofah--
- The better loofah.
- Yeah, you'd sell the loofah
and that would be, part of that is you're,
you got the drying thing, you get the whole kit, right?
It's not just, yeah, it's not just the drying machine,
it's the full experience.
So like, yeah, you can get different colors.
- And they have, they've got a reputation.
(laughing)
Sorry to interrupt, you were on some heat there,
keep going.
- You're thinking like it's a little different sizes,
different shapes.
- Different colors. - They light up.
- Surprisingly hard to reinvent the loofah.
- Glows in the dark.
- That's not bad.
- I was gonna say, it's traditionally
kind of a feminine thing, so you gotta like market it
to dudes with like the bro loofah.
It's got like fire and lightning bolts and stuff on it.
- That's right.
- Monster trucks.
- Yeah.
(laughing)
- Smells like Jim Bean.
Dude, there's your acquisition, your exit strategy.
You sell to like, what is it?
The squash or the men's soap bar, the Sasquatch.
- Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Instant win, perfect match made in heaven.
You get a bar of Sasquatch soap with your loofah, now boom.
- That's a good idea, just make it an add on
to like Axe or something.
- Yeah, so like a licensing deal.
Licensing deal, yeah.
I like that.
- Buy it in the gift box.
- Yeah, so then you expand, like your target market
would be any dude that wants to get clean.
- It's pretty big.
- That's gotta be at least like a third of dudes, right?
- A third, at most a third of dudes.
(laughing)
- I'm gonna get into loofah marketing in a second.
No, I don't.
(laughing)
- Pull up the pitch deck, let's go.
- Smell better, you know, less soap, more clean, you know.
(laughing)
For the economic buyer, right?
It's like a weed whacker for your chest hair.
(laughing)
- That's next week.
Sold.
- Well, if you're a stinky man on the go,
thank you very much for listening.
I hope you enjoyed yourself this week.
And thank you so much, Chris, this was such fun.
Thanks for being on this.
- Guys, had a blast, had a blast.
- Thanks, Chris.
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