- I'm Scott.
- I'm Russell.
- And I'm Leo.
This is Spitball.
Welcome to Spitball,
where three Boolean Buddies and a guest
empty our 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, Scott, I believe you brought our guest again,
I did. I have brought Noah. Noah and I have been working at the same company for the last
couple of months now. And on paper, he's software engineer and our company's lead QA engineer.
But in reality, though, Noah has probably traveled further down the entrepreneurial
AI vibe code rabbit hole than anyone I've ever met. And that's saying something because
I know both of you guys.
So when Noah and I last talked, I think you had, what, 40 active app releases and probably
like several dozen more being built at the moment of this recording right now, and probably
the highest level subscription to every AI service that there is.
And it's still, all that is still not enough to contain all the creative energy that this
guy has.
So I'm very excited to welcome Noah this week.
Welcome.
Well, thank you for the introduction.
Definitely appreciate that.
And yeah, I'm here to burn some tokens with you folks together, communally.
Stop generating.
It sounds like we're gonna have to leave about 10 minutes at the end for you to do all of
your plugs.
Plugs.
Yeah, we got to give you time to plug your 90 different domains, I guess.
I want to hear all 90, though.
Yeah, me too.
They all have like the classic tech, you know, Latin word, spin-off idea, stupid startup
name.
No vowels, ends in L-Y, we love it.
Well, Noah, much like many of our guests in the past,
we're talking in the pre-show and you're like,
"Man, I have like seven ideas,
"I don't even know what to pick."
And so with cases like this,
sometimes we will kick off the show
with a little warmup game that we call intramurals,
where we go through our lists
and try to clear the decks of some half ideas
that don't really deserve a full pitch,
but there's something there
that should be duggled into a little bit.
So who wants to kick us off with our first reject half idea?
- Do it, Russell, what's up, what do you got?
- So here, I'll start with the background.
My daughter, a year and a half,
has probably had three sips of different
alcoholic beverages because of whatever happened
with me leaving a drink out or just leaving her alone.
She's a second child, so of course it's gonna happen.
I was thinking, what if you could put a ring
on your finger, and it is ID,
and it would unlock the drink.
so that my bad parenting could be safer.
I blame the manufacturers of cans
for not coming up with this.
- Dude, I tell you what,
I have an RFID chip in my wedding band
and I have a copy of my ID
that I use to get into buildings at work
and instead of having to remember to bring my wallet,
I slap the reader of the door to get in
or I tap, like, we're going to pay for lunch
or whatever, the cafeteria, it just works.
It's great.
I would have a hard time going back,
because I never remember to bring my wallet and keys
anywhere anymore.
It's that.
All the hardware for this exists.
You need a little case that goes around a can or a bottle.
You're good.
A koozie.
Yeah.
A koozie with a one-way valve that's activated by--
I see interlock koozie.
Right.
Sick.
I can't believe this is going to happen, obviously.
Printed outside.
Remember when Ben and Jerry's sold the little Ben and Jerry's
that goes over their pint.
They have a little Haagen-Dazs pint-sized,
it's like a joke gift that you would get somebody
that's a little padlock that goes--
Yeah, it seals the ice cream pint shut.
That's that, you want that, but electronic, that's great.
- That's a good one, Russell.
- Yeah, so red Solo cups, that'd be great.
Here's the other thing, if we really wanted to pitch this,
it would be for weddings, for all those types of things too,
so everybody that's at a wedding,
you know, you could prevent the underage drinking
'cause if the cup gets picked up, it's out the ring.
- Could you pitch this to college students
for like college parties where you hand out the rings
to people who you know have the ID
and like you can have everyone commingle
and the cops know that there's no underage drinking
happening there because like only the people who--
- Your can scans your ID every time you take a sip.
- Well, you have the ring on, it just works, right?
So then you have the 21 and older feeding the 18-year-olds.
(laughing)
- Cake stands are gonna be way different.
- Yeah, exactly.
- Until one guy comes in with the flipper zero,
he's drinking everybody's beers.
(laughing)
- Cloning your ID.
- I have five different IDs on me right now.
- It's like a fake ID of the 22nd century.
I love it.
- All real.
(laughing)
- Yep, that's it.
- Man, I was halfway done with my drink,
but I forgot to charge it, so now I can't finish my drink.
My drink's out of batteries, damn it.
- Come on, come on, damn it.
- Is it waterproof?
Can it support shower beers?
- IP67. - I thought you went
for beer spills, that's better.
- Shower beers.
- Yeah, when I'm showering with my children,
I don't want them to be like, "I need a beer."
(laughing)
- For the gym shower.
- No, that's my drink.
- That's right.
- Yeah.
- We all shower with our whole families, right?
That's like normal, everyone does that.
- You guys don't have kids, you wouldn't understand.
(laughing)
I don't know if Noah has kids or not, but I'm guessing.
- I fortunately do not.
- You have 40 domains.
I mean, you can't have kids and have 40 domains.
(laughing)
- You can't afford kids with 40 domains.
(laughing)
- Child support payment, more like namecheap.com payment.
What were we talking about?
- I have so many questions.
Okay, yeah, anyways.
- All right, I gotta steer back, I got one.
- Okay, what do you got, bud?
- So, took an Uber recently.
Uber had little screens on the back of the chair
in front of me, and it would,
I just had not seen this before.
And it was like, it had like my root on it.
It had, "Hello, Scott," and then,
"Hey, I could add a tip and stuff on here,"
and it was playing ads.
So I started talking to the Uber driver and he's like,
"Oh yeah, there's just a company that sends these to us
"and they give us like 10 to 25 cents a ride
"just to have it there.
"We don't pay anything for it."
That's a cool model.
What else can we apply this to?
I wanna do this with urinals and bars.
I've got 10 cents a flush,
you just, there's an ad right in front of you
the whole time.
And that's it, that's the entire idea.
- Or in the stall, oh no.
- In the stall, wherever.
It is just a screen, super cheap hardware,
playing whatever you want.
-No, it's got to be interactive.
-Interactive.
[laughter]
-All smeared with fingerprints and stuff.
-No, hands-free.
Hands-free, use the stream.
-Use the stream. -Streaming powered.
[laughter]
-The hottest new streaming platform.
-There's just guys chugging water out there.
I got to get the high score in Pong.
-Oh, no.
-You play with the guy next to you?
[laughter]
-Paddle ship? I'd do that.
-Competitiveness.
It's like those games, you know, at the carnivals.
You just gotta aim and hit the target
and just like keep it going, right?
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- Hand-eye coordination.
- You're also incentivizing public shitting.
(laughing)
Right, aren't you like,
"I'm just gonna go to my local pub
"just to get the 10 cents, wait, maybe I missed something."
- Scott's been in the bathroom for like 25 minutes.
What is he doing in there?
- I'm paying for the date.
(laughing)
- I wonder if you could get sports betting involved
somehow with that as well.
Yes
It just feels right
I was thinking the magic mirrors where you've got the embedded screen behind the thing over the sinks to when I get every station
Involved an ad as far as you can see was you can watch the action
What I've been thinking the world needs more of is screens with advertisements on them
Why not in apartments like you know how you can buy the Amazon fire tablet for like 20 bucks cheaper?
Yeah, 50 bucks off. Why not rent an apartment? Yeah
be getting a dog wash right now.
It's like that screen with the second screen below it.
What's it called?
The free V or whatever you're talking about.
You can get a 55 inch TV for free from a company that watches all your watching
habits and advertises at you or whatever.
And there's a second smaller display that is not for the television use that's
below that shows ads and has the like navigation UI on it.
I forget what it's called, but the Verge reviewed it and said it sucked.
That makes me feel so sick.
They said, "We are just being upfront with the same deal that all the other TV manufacturers have,
which is we collect all the information on you and show you ads and stuff.
They are just not being honest about it.
We are forthright and you can have the TV for free."
Which is like compelling, right?
Yeah.
Hmm.
Huh.
Yeah, it's that, but in a urinal.
At least the TV's don't piss all over them.
Yours doesn't.
You don't know me.
All right, Leo, what you got?
On this week's My Brother, My Brother and Me, they made an offhanded quick joke
about CPAP machine scent pods.
Let's dive into this idea.
You have a machine hooked up to you all night.
That's delivering air to your body, right?
Why not put a little something in the middle?
You got a little like a fresh baked cookies.
It's the morning.
You got that fresh roasted coffee scent.
There's so many opportunities here for you to sell a pod, an accessory, a
subscription service, make that a little bit more luxury and carcinogenic.
Honestly though, like you have the fancy, you know, the light alarms and
other different variations to wake up.
No, just put like a cinnamon roll Keurig, whatever thing in there.
And that's how you wake up.
Pavlov yourself.
Is there that office scene where Michael Scott burns his feet on the
bacon, the George Foreman grill.
Because he loves to wake up to the smell of bacon.
So he wakes up and turns on the grill, goes back to sleep,
and wakes up to bacon a few minutes later.
But he burns his foot on it.
Yeah, it's that.
You could wake up to the smell of bacon,
only it's coming from a pod in your CPAP.
We just really mess with someone's dreams at like 3 AM.
Put a random cartridge in there.
Smells like fear.
Maybe you could hook this up with the lemon peel.
You get like-- you're trying to alert yourself
you're dreaming get a lucid dreaming thing if you smell a certain scent
instead of sealed flashing light oh you could mess with that person so much in real life
though light a lemon candle in the house to see the reaction the CPAP machine
gathers air from the room right like why aren't we selling air that is naturally
harvested so you want like fresh pasture air you could be breathing fresh pasture
air from a tank the entire night like space balls where they crack the can of
air to breathe yeah. Fresh mountain valley oh it's so good it's from the Alps
I live in LA there's smog everywhere we're just gonna have big giant things
of air that are shipped in from the Rockies. Do they sell like alarm clocks
that way though like why don't they have smell alarms? I don't know. Fire! That'll get you out of bed.
Ha ha ha every day. I don't know if I want to train myself to ignore that.
Sensor Wake. Yep. Apparently Holiday Inn Express. They have fragrance cartridge ones.
Okay, this is a thing, but not in line in your seat, Pat.
Fragrant, so it is Holiday Inn upcharge. $25 a night to wake up to the smell.
Holiday Inn Express Breakfast Alarm Clock. I mean, yeah, you could even have this be like an oil diffusery type thing.
It's probably not great to like, huff that stuff straight into the lungs, but there's something here.
The new collab with Yankee Candle.
Exactly. Oh, yeah. Oh my mother-in-law's here
There's all kinds of branding opportunities you get your like Auntie Anne's and your your
Fudge shop, whatever it is. That's gonna make it free Cinnabon. People are gonna have to buy it
They're gonna go to Cinnabon right after that's right door - right on the side of the CPAP machine. Just press a button
C-PAP machines
There you go.
All right, now what's your intramural?
All right, so I don't know if you guys know this, but you can pasteurize meat at low temperatures.
Like if you sous vide meat, it doesn't necessarily change color or consistency.
And so for folks that want to get like an authentic cannibal experience, you could have
a restaurant that serves pasteurized pork or chicken that you can essentially get the
feeling of eating it raw. Alright one suggestion on your pitch there's a
single word I would drop. No that's the viral effect right there. It's not for me.
No I don't do raw fish. Of course not. There's just a market. For the animal in you. For the animal in you. I can see that in an italics
script a little drip of blood no utensils table they slap it down in
front of you it's a drumstick but it's just raw meat hanging off the idea of
biting into like chicken that looks pink still completely safe to eat for your
body for your brain yeah that's so sure mental hurdle it's the fear factor
thousands of years of evolution beat Chang telling you no I'll have the
chicken sandwich rare pasteurized seeding moving so my buddy Sean did this
once he pasteurized it but then he seared it you know you sear it because
you got a you can't eat you know but maybe I kind of wanted a piece that
wasn't seared I'm not gonna lie I was like oh if this is safe just once just
one exactly I'll please have the the buffalo chicken nigiri please chicken
sushi why is sushi only fish I guess you could do like a sushi restaurant like
that almost right I'm willing to try pork I definitely have had steaks I
don't think I could do like poultry chicken turkey that is hard to imagine
Yeah, we've all had like steak tartare, right?
Just get the sampler, right?
You just come to the restaurant, get the sampler, right?
One of everything.
Platter of raw assorted meats.
Mmm.
These have four legs.
This one, you decide.
They don't tell you which one is the person.
It's people.
Noah's Restaurant is people.
You guess the meat, you get it free.
[laughter]
How different do you think these "raw" meats taste compared to their fully cooked counterparts?
Probably are pretty different, right?
I feel like turkey and chicken cold cuts taste a lot different than...
Only one way to find out, Leo.
Guess so.
Yeah, that's a good question.
Does it denature when it cooks and so it changes the way that the protein tastes?
Probably.
And the fat too probably renders a little different.
I guess I should have tried this one out before pitching it.
Is this why you're just, I'm not sure you'd be with us tonight.
I think it's a different kind of sickness that you get.
Not a cold.
Sorry, I got a cold from eating raw chicken.
It was cold.
Don't think you did.
It was cold.
Yeah.
Not sure that's how that works.
All right.
Who's up first this week?
Leo.
Leo never gets to go first.
Let's do it Leo.
What do you got this week?
You say that every time I go first.
I go first all the time.
All right.
So paper, you're not going to believe this.
This is an E Ink idea.
So paper books, the superior way.
There's all kinds of studies that say that kids need to learn, uh, or that kids
learn better if they're reading paper.
If they're manipulating a piece of book, paper, paper, adults too.
You increase reading comprehension, something about moving through the book.
Right.
Reading on a Kindle is convenient.
You get all of the click to tap a word and you get its definition and you have a
million books in your pocket, all that stuff.
So I'm imagining a Rolodex of six, eight flexible E Ink screens that are in a
spiral shape and you flip from page to page and all it has to do is track what
page you're on and it's an infinite number of pages, right?
So you can just go around and get that motion and have the proceeding through a
book feeling, but you're just looping through over and over again, you're using
the same 6, 8, 10, 12, 20 pages over and over again and they're just changing in
the background when they're not exposed to you. I don't know what to call this
again. I have E Ink Rolodex book written down. Pitch. That's a green friendly idea
right? Maybe. I don't know how toxic making books are. Books are terrible for the environment, just cutting
down trees to make them. Tree is famously finite. Let's get more lithium. Let's get some
Liquid crystals and lithium on this bitch, yeah.
Yeah.
I love how you have an idea for--
you have a lot of e-ink ideas, but this one's like,
I want even more e-ink in one idea.
How many can we have in one?
The Pimp My Ride, I heard you like e-ink screens, so--
Put an e-ink screen next to an e-ink screen.
Well, flexible displays are starting to become a thing.
And it does seem like a really fun use for it,
whether it be a color LCD, like a traditional thing,
or something a little bit more paper-like, right?
You get your infinite book.
Imagine writing on one of these if it was a touch screen.
Wouldn't that be fun?
You got your like spiral-bound notebook
that you're taking in classes.
Flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip.
Oh, there it is.
And maybe there is a button on the touch screen
that'll let you jump 50 pages ahead or whatever,
but you still get the satisfaction if you want it.
- Dude, you're onto something, Leo,
'cause I feel like I remember
like the location of certain things in textbooks.
- Yeah.
- And sometimes you're like doing the page flip thing
quickly scrolling and looking for that image or like,
oh, I remember it's kind of like around here
and then you slow down and then speed up.
Like you'd have to get that experience.
Like you just bend the page a little bit, right?
It makes, if it makes a sound,
but then also flips through those pages really quickly
or slowly, that would be, that would change.
People would buy it then for sure, you know?
- I like the writing into it too.
I'm picturing like Tom Riddle's diary from the second Harry Potter where you just, you know, you have some...
Yeah, chat GPT, you're writing into it and it's talking back to you like a book. That's cool. I could see
actual books being sold with you just open it and it's just an E-Ink display if they get cheap enough instead of printing a whole
book. Then the second half of the book is DLC, you gotta pay for it to unlock it.
You gotta pay for the ending.
Subscription.
Or watch an ad.
It's a dynamic targeted ad in my book.
You're a fan of the Detroit Lions.
Like, fucking book, how did you know that?
I think the textbook version of this would be really nice.
Right?
Like, I remember in high school when you had to, like, carry all your textbooks around.
It'd be nice to replace that.
I like the idea.
I'm trying to picture the UI of flipping through lots of pages.
And you can imagine if you've only got, you know, ten slightly thicker than paper pages,
that wouldn't work super great but what if you could grab the top and turn and
it's one page or grab the middle and it's ten pages and grab the bottom and
turn and it's like 50 you could like hop through it that way wouldn't that be
fun yeah or like there's gotta be some other way to skip around quickly maybe
haptic feedback so you start to bend it or pull it
Yes, that's a patent that somebody probably already is I
Don't I don't think this is no gadget exist
I think there's one human on earth that would buy this gadget if it existed it was me, so I don't know
Engineering yeah
You're making me think about books with smells now -
So I go to that page my CPAP machine just starts pumping
People talk about like they like the smell of books. You need to have a scent pod for your your Kindle for sure.
Smells like old books. Yeah
That's a good idea. Each chapter has its own smell. Old librarians like it's just not the same. Old books
just have a smell. You're like shut up grandpa. I have it right here. Spritz spritz spritz. Even has your smell in it.
(laughing)
- Russell, what do you got for us this week?
- All right, so I was thinking about,
my dad got a drone, and I'm like,
oh, I haven't thought about drones in a while.
- That's not true.
What are you talking about?
(laughing)
- I haven't thought about like startup drones.
Well, I guess you're right.
There's probably been a couple.
(laughing)
- Okay.
- The most recent thought though I had was,
you can fly a drone.
I think up-- and you know this, maybe, Leo, better than I do--
the 400 feet limit, right?
I thought it was meters, but yeah, it could be feet.
I don't remember.
It doesn't matter.
Yeah.
Whatever it is--
Pretty low.
We're in the US.
We don't know what a meter is.
It's probably feet.
And then I got into gliders for a minute.
So anyways, I'm trying to create planes that
can carry 55-pound packages, like small air drones.
And all they do is carry a package.
And you just send it across the waves,
and you have the last mile problem solved a little bit.
So if you think about Amazon, they
have probably one warehouse facility in a major city.
And they send all their trucks to it,
and then send the last miles, like the last 20 miles
to get that package.
What if you shorten that even further
by having these hub and spokes of,
on top of multiple different commercial buildings,
you have these drone planes that are gliders
that can throw, like, that basically you send them,
maybe a little solar power action, all right?
- No, man, I want a freaking rail gun up there.
I don't want it launching these guys off.
- Well, you can travel, I guess the limit
is 100 miles per hour, too.
So, like, you can send planes back and forth
underneath 400 meters, just package after package,
like screw every Amazon truck on the road,
just like have package deliveries.
I feel like there are a lot of people
that would pick up their packages
if it was on their commute home
or at their local post office, you know,
or you just send everything to your post office, right?
These drones just deliver packages nonstop, right?
- The Timu aircraft carrier.
(laughing)
This is a genius idea.
(laughing)
And if you do, I don't know how,
I don't know the physics of all this,
but if you have the right spring loaded drone sender,
on the top of the roof.
- Railgun.
- Yeah, whatever you just said,
probably that'll be better than what I'm thinking.
So it's just like, on the roof,
some guy's just all day pulling back the drone,
sending the next one.
- So Amazon's already doing this with
direct to the consumer, right?
They're testing out your drones that'll
deliver to your backyard and stuff,
like this kind of thing, right?
You're saying that this is going to the tops of buildings?
I don't understand what's going from what to what.
I feel like that's not working well.
So that would work from, let's say, it's the second mile,
we'll say, from the Amazon warehouse in the major city
to the local post office, and then
from the local post office to your house.
That last literal mile is those small air drones,
but then before that, from the major hub,
you would send it maybe via these small packages.
You could get same day delivery
for all your packages a lot sooner,
or a lot more effectively,
'cause we don't get a lot of same day
out in our neck of the woods.
And it probably would be better,
I mean, it'd be nice to have that option, right?
And there's literally just an Uber driver
sitting at the post office
waiting for the next Amazon drone
to fly in from the Grand Rapids at 100 miles per hour.
And yeah, and you know what?
I saw these planes, like,
they're, a long, long time ago,
they delivered medicine across,
you know what I'm talking about?
There's like some video. - Yep, in Africa.
Yeah.
- Why don't we have that doing that for these packages?
You know what I mean?
That's just, that's just it.
We're America, land of innovation,
And here we are driving our packages around.
Yeah.
They get life-saving medicine.
I want my Crock-Pot the same way.
That's not fair.
They're in sub-Saharan Africa.
They got it too good.
Leo, thank you for being--
[LAUGHTER]
They've got a lot of parodies.
But I mean, that technology is already available.
Then why can't I just ship my Crock-Pot that way?
All right, another way to do this too
is if I wanted to send a package next day,
if you guys want to have a throwback,
what was it where you had the highway?
I was just about to say this.
Yes, this seems like the next natural extension
to the highway thing.
Yes, that's the one you're about to say that.
All right, refresh us.
It was like hitchhiking your packages
from one rest area to the next area.
And you got paid as you drive.
'Cause like, if you have room in your trunk,
why not ship something,
add, fill the millions of cars on the road
with logistical boxes.
And then the next rest area you go to, you drop it off.
And you just figure out how to--
But yeah, you would fill those boxes
with those small planes that are just dropping packages.
- I like the idea of being able to sit in my backyard
with like a baseball, tossing it up in the air,
trying to hit a 100 mile an hour flying crock pot
out of the air, all into the backyard.
Like package thieving just got a whole lot.
It was going to my neighbor, but I, uh, I shot it down with my nerf gun.
I don't want to get pulled over with like 50 little airplanes in the back of my car.
What, uh, what are you doing?
No, I swear.
I don't know what's in any of those.
I don't even know.
Put them in the back of my car.
It's they're not, it's not mine.
I'm just holding it for a company.
How many trucks go from like Grand Rapids to Holland?
Do you know what I mean?
Why not get four semis or a hundred little drone planes to go back and forth to
deliver that all night, all day, just same flight path, you know?
I think you should go directly from the ship.
It just pulls up in the Harbor, starts launching the planes out.
Direct delivery to your house.
Remember that Amazon render of a blimp?
The carrier.
The dystopian blimp carrier that had packages in it and drones descending out of it from a throne.
Playing Rite of the Valkyrie.
[Humming]
Is that crazy? I guess people would just be like, "Oh, that's so- the aesthetic is so bad."
But like, "Dang, that's so convenient."
Like, throw the blimps up in the air, man. Let them fly.
Yeah, I guess it's just- it's just- it's just the vibes, huh?
So you have people that are in countries that haven't been exposed to modern warfare.
they hear "Eee" and they're like "Oh, my crockpot!" Meanwhile, PTSD strikes the refugee.
Too soon.
It's so true though, it's probably like terrifying.
Drones! We love those. We've only ever had positive association with drones.
[Drone music]
Alright Scott, what do you got for us?
I also would like to riff off of one of our oldies this week.
I want Corporate Espionage 2.0.
I've got a new take on this ever since an offsite
that Noah and I went last week.
So in the original idea, we had company A
would train an employee and get them hired
inside of company B, where there would be a mole
and quietly steer business back to company A.
So like you have a software vendor
that plants someone at a different company's IT department
And this new IT employee just always seems to recommend
their former employee's software tools.
All right, so 2.0 version is Noah and I
were just at this company-wide offsite all week.
It was an entire company, one hotel, conference room,
seminars, three meals a day, like that whole thing.
But during this, we're talking about the state
of the company, strategies, roadmaps,
all of it that were behind doors that were just doors.
There was no badges, there's no checkpoints,
there's nothing.
So anyone, like even direct competition,
could have just walked in.
So could we take someone in like a casual business outfit
or like a server uniform, a decent cover story,
who could just like nurse a cup of coffee
for three hours a day for a week
and just listen in that room?
And like, nobody would have blinked at that.
No one knew anyone there.
So that's the whole idea this week.
An agency where you can hire trained corporate spies
specifically to infiltrate your competition.
- Conference center.
- At public events.
I guess it wasn't even a public event,
it was a private event.
- Is that George Clooney in the corner?
(laughing)
Are we being Ocean's Eleven'd right now?
- It's an impersonator, just ignore him.
- So the startup idea is a crime.
(laughing)
- Yes.
- Is he a crime?
- Well, here's the thing, how illegal is this?
- What I was gonna say is, well,
yeah, I don't know the answer to that question.
- The startup idea is a crime.
I wonder, I've been to several different events that are like several day long
software vendors hosting, here's our roadmap, here's what you need to know.
Customers of our company come to our big event in a big conference center somewhere.
I wonder how many of those are equally poorly guarded that you could have like
your company as a broker to get the secrets of your competitors
by going to those events.
Can you sit in the back and just overhear
what that company's roadmap is and feed that back?
See, and you can--
this is a third party company that
says we will get you information that you can't find online.
That's all you know.
And what their special talent is, that social engineering--
Just being really boring in public, unnoticeable.
Yeah.
They're recording all those events.
They got little phone taking--
they just look like one of the audience members.
They take out their phone and take a picture of the slides,
but also happen to be recording the whole thing.
That's 80% of data collection.
And then your agency then would process it and provide you
the--
The price point?
The information.
Well, the information.
And you as the company are like, I
don't know how you got this information,
but thank you, and you have the plausible deniability
as corporate A, right?
I didn't send a guy there.
I just paid this agency to get me information,
and they had some really good information.
Oh, well, they've been sending people on stage to--
I didn't kill that guy.
I just hired a hitman, your honor.
It's illegal somewhere in this train,
but I'm not sure at what part.
Same.
He won a truck.
I have a perfectly good alibi.
So could you do insider trading using this?
Is it even insider trading if they don't have security?
Like if they don't protect themselves,
it's technically a public event,
anybody could have walked in there.
- Short that stock, they just had a real bad event.
Yeah, huh.
- The food was terrible,
the employees looked really unsatisfied.
(laughing)
They're not gonna make it.
- Just put one of those like tablets,
how happy are you working at this company
with the smiley faces?
And just leave it there and see what they say.
It's just like, they don't know why it's there.
Nobody would say otherwise.
- And then blackmail those employees that raided before they.
- Why not?
We've made it this far.
- Yep.
- Takes a picture of them each and every time.
That is...
- What's it called?
- Corporate Espionage 2.0_final.
Dot doc X.
You know what I mean?
- It's implausible deniability, sir,
if you're gonna be selling these wares.
Super great secrets for cheap. This is spy. This is like it's 007 you know
it's gotta be like yeah they would have a handler and they would have the full
agency behind them and a badge printer. Scott it'll be Scottie's angels.
Three spies.
It's a honeypot.
Hey Scott, we're at the...
[laughter]
In the corner very obviously.
[laughter]
Are those three beautiful models in spandex in the back?
Of our engineering company.
They don't look like IT consultants.
[laughter]
Well we don't care.
Turns out techies are super easy to manipulate through traditional means.
[laughter]
(laughing)
- All right Noah, what do you got for us this week?
- All right, so I have this problem
where I will wait until the absolute last second
to buy gifts.
And it's not that I'm not necessarily thoughtful
about the gifts that I'm purchasing for these people,
but my problem is mostly procrastination
until it's too late.
And so what I need is to make these decisions well ahead of time.
And I need something.
I could even return things.
So what I need is a calendar that tracks all the birthdays, Christmases,
upcoming weddings, whatever it is, and just automatically is going to
ship at least something, maybe one or two choices.
So are you like adding cumulatively to this list over the, as you see
something and then it takes care of the ordering later?
Yeah.
So I'm kind of seeing like a concierge setup where you do an initial
And we say so do you have you know parents and like?
When's when's the birthday as you find out all the information set a price limit for each person?
You can be like this is a co-worker
Don't want to spend very much on them. Just want to keep them happy and then we could get
Automatically shipped in advance pre-packaged with my signature printed inside the card with a nice little message
Trained on writing that I've done before so like of course. Yeah, it needs to be customized
Specifically to that person and from me. We all know all of our co-workers handwriting's of course
Only if you're a using Scott's Scotty's angels
Never forget your kid's birthday again, so this be perfect we can market to deadbeat dads
Yes, pre-purchase. I like the auto return part - oh, yeah, you just it sends you a plethora like oh
I don't I want this one and all of them just go back on their own and get returned to Warby Parker
but gifts, right? You get four gifts sent to you and you just put it back in the box and...
One of them is gonna hit, right? Out of the four.
There's clothing companies that do this. This is, this is total, totally...
Stitch fix.
Yeah.
We call it gift fix.
Gift fix.
That's good.
Fix yourself.
Appear thoughtful.
You end up just keeping half the stuff, you know.
Yeah, if you keep more than one item you get like a volume discount, so you encourage them to keep all of them.
Could this service like track, because you're putting in you want this at this point,
and then you know sometime later you're gonna want it.
Could this service buy when on sale and stock up in the inventory on Black Friday and
track lowest price trends and all that kind of stuff too for you? You know what I mean?
Now we're doing galaxy brain shopping.
Yeah.
I know that sometime between now and July I'm going to need this thing
Included in my next box or whatever. I'm gonna need a tie or socks for my uncle go
Does it stock them online golf related item look up just just use LinkedIn and nothing else
It's the only info you're gonna get on these people and I'm gonna choose a gift based on that the instas
Yeah
If you had an insta it's only gonna be based on like the highlights the people the things that people want you to see how easy
is it to buy data for a specific person? Like is it all grouped into one thing or
can I be like I want to buy all of Russell's data to figure out what I
should get him for Christmas?
That's a great question.
I don't know.
Like brokers.
Who do I buy this from?
Ad brokers.
Yeah.
I want to see all of the things that are powering the targeted advertisements for that person
in my life.
Oh.
Yeah.
That's interesting. I feel like I've seen like investigative journalism things where
they FOIA their own, you know, stuff but it never is. Yeah, private brokers and
stuff. I think it's illegal now to get the real-time cell tower data but only
as of the last like three years. Reply all on that. Which is pretty terrifying.
Not helpful for gift fix but still scary. I mean it could be. What would you do?
Figure out where they are, figure out when they need it, you launch a T-Move, dive bomb.
Mom always goes to that one masseuse or nail parlor, so here's a gift card or whatever.
Yeah.
Here, dad, here's your nail...
Your friend.
Her friend.
Dad, I know you're having an affair, so here's some gas money.
I bought your cell phone records.
Yeah, that's what I meant.
I got you tickets to a Coldplay concert.
I got you a consultation with a lawyer.
Well, have you heard of the, I guess, Target knew that a guy's daughter was pregnant before
he did.
Have you guys heard about this before?
Like, the Target's data team started serving ads to a household because they were able
to figure out through the browsing activity of the daughter that she was pregnant.
So you probably could do this.
In fact, let's ship the gift regardless if you haven't paid for it or not.
And we'll come collect it later.
Congrats on your new baby.
What is this? Yeah, there you go.
Signed. Send us 25 bucks. You just have to
You just have to agree ahead of time that it will handle all of it and then gifts start just popping out
With yours signed by you. That's awful. Never empty-handed
Ever. Never empty-handed dot-com. What about what about like a turnstile like a locker?
That's in your building filled with various gifts so we can have just like air pods like common stuff
PS5 controller, I don't know backup but like anchor power bank or whatever describing this airport vending machines
Yeah, but they're they're wrapped
With a heartfelt note about how much
Appreciate the friendship
No, no you idiot your signature is in your account and it prints it on fly and delivers it
No, I gotta go old school. Yeah, the auto pen the auto pen
Honestly, I love the idea of a red box
It's always a red box
But we'll just have one that you put an item in and it just wraps it for you and spits it out right away
Can you do my clothes? I'll just bring a box of laundry. Why not?
Why are you wrapping your clothing are you gonna give it to the folding it individually wrapped up tear into a nice t-shirt today?
Sometimes I just wrap my own stuff to feel something
There's like so many like bags of nuts, you know
Like consumable foods that are just like I should just buy these regularly just to maybe make them into gifts and worst-case scenario
I I keep them right? There's probably some
Description service but like yeah, the pre-wrapped stuff is just like you have 20 bags
They start you with here your first package comes with 20 bags with tissue paper wrap it yourself
All right, like you know
But then but you get you get stuff all the time and they're all made to be gifts or you just keep them
super simple MVP of that
I think would be like sure like I'm looking at a bag of pistachios right now and I'm like
I could have totally saved that as a gift, but instead I'm eating it
- Pistachios are individually wrapped,
so it goes along with the theme perfectly.
(laughing)
- Write my name on each one of those.
Wow, you wrote your name on all those?
Yup, I care that much about you.
That's how much I care about you.
- Two on one half of the shell, from on the other.
Pistachio fortune cookies, lasered onto the pistachio,
And then we reassemble it back into the shell.
(laughing)
It's natural.
You can get like the Declaration of Independence.
- How do you laser a pistachio?
- It's very exciting.
- I want 15 fortunes today, all right?
- Well, dear listener, thank you very much for listening.
We hope you enjoyed yourself.
If you have us on while scrambling to find something
for the upcoming Mother's and/or Father's Day,
we appreciate you.
Thanks for listening.
And thank you very much, Noah, for being on.
This was great.
- Likewise, thank you guys for having me.
This is a ton of fun.
- Our website is spitball.show.
There you can find links to our YouTube channel,
other social media.
Hey, if you have an idea, record a voice memo,
send it on over to our email address,
podcast@spitball.show,
and we might discuss it on the show.
That's it, so you can follow us on the Fediverse,
such as Mastodon.
We are podcast@spitball.show,
and on BlueSky at spitball.show.
Our subreddit is r/SpitballShow.
Our intro/outro music is "Swingers" by Bonkers Beat Club.
Please, if you wouldn't mind,
one friend who mysteriously leaves gifts on your desk once in a while of like food and
trinkets and stuff and you're like, "Why?
I didn't even do anything.
I don't understand where this is coming from."
Send them a link to this episode.
We think they'd like this one.
And if you wouldn't mind, leave us a review.
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, whatever it is that you listen to us on.
That is the best way for people to find out about the show.
New episodes coming out in two weeks.
We will see you then.