Zach (01:14):

We have a brand on, he's not a medium. He's not like a media buyer is not an agency. He's not going to sell you a big retainer. Who's not an affiliate. This is a true top, maybe top 100, top few hundred, a shout five plus users, for sure. Um, you've probably bought or have seen their advertisements online. Uh, it is the new CEO of Ridge wallet. I've got like three of these. Um, they're amazing. Just switched over to them. It's like the tightest cleanest wallet on, on the internet. And they spend a ton on ads, uh, to the tune of like call it multiple eight figures a year in, uh, in media and, uh, our guests, Mr. Sean Frank, uh, is a creative genius. I think Sean correct me if I'm wrong, but your background, you were like a media buyer before, way back in the day, like, like had an agency and everything pre pre being the CEO of ritual. Is that right?

Sean (02:18):

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. All mates around me. Um, but now it all goes back to, I was a internet nerd. I was like, Facebook ads came out like 20 13, 20 14, and I got a job at agency learned how to do that. Then I built an agency which was a client and I was charging them so much that we merged, uh, took an equity stake by CML Connor came over with me. Um, I would just be growing up ever since. So we're where there was a couple of years where we had to learn how to do it. And, and now we're in like the professional phase of the growth phase of it. So

Zach (02:58):

I love the way you guys run business. So Sean and I met at a geek out San Diego's, the funniest thing. I was like literally standing in a group of guys and I was showing them our charge card for ad spend kind of pulling out the diamonds. And then we started talking about the wallet and I was like, my wife literally got me the wallet like that morning, uh, this fridge wallet as a birthday gift. And Sean was like, so chill. He's like, oh yeah, that's my, that's my company. I was like, that's so cool. Like, and then we just like hit it off. And we, uh, geeked out literally about, um, pun intended about Ridge wallets. Um, and uh, just, uh, yeah, it was, it was, it was a match made in heaven. And then we had like the best sushi of our lives, uh, that night with, with some other amazing folks. So we've been trying to get shot on the show for, for quite a while. He's a busy guy he's in demand. He's an influencer on Twitter. Uh, he's busy. Uh, but thanks for being on, man. I really appreciate it.

Sean (04:08):

Oh yeah, of course guys. Uh, I love what you're doing. I think it's really cool. Uh, and I think more brands will adopt it as ad costs. Go out. You're looking at the ways to offset that and that's kind of what I would take advantage of before.

Zach (04:24):

Yeah, no, that's cool. So let's get into it, man. Um, maybe start, just give everybody a little bit on Ridge wallet. I would say everybody knows you gotta sell wallets. Like where are you guys at today? You know, what's relevant in the business, you know, going into Q4 this year.

Sean (04:43):

Yeah, no for sure. I mean, I think this Q4 is going to put a lot of people out of business. That's just the reality, you know, there's, uh, ILS 14 messed up Facebook email and uh, supply chain. So that's not going to be boring. So, um, you know, we're, we're pretty well positioned to make it through that. Like the wallets are this big, so I, if I need to see freedom or air freight on the cost is negligible. Um, a bunch of stuff on hands and, uh, you know, the way we think about ads, right? Like it always comes down to spending more. It's like we can just kind of spend your way through it. That's what we found by was 14 on Facebook. We just like, we didn't care about attribution. We didn't care about tracking. We spent more money, I've been worked out.

Sean (05:32):

So we're spending more money on Facebook now and a better term for half, um, out today. I mean, uh, this year is going to be close to our first nine figures a year. I think that's kind of the upper threshold that brands have been able to do on digital. And, uh, I think we're at the forefront of that. Uh, I think we're a top 100 Shopify store in terms of revenue track might be a little bit different. How likes that. Um, and yeah, man, I mean, uh, we, we try to do marketing first. We're super diversified. I'll spend money everywhere. Um, and I think what's going to end up killing smaller brands and brands. Your brands is, uh, like they're, they're just too, hyper-focused on the same channel for the wallet. We've always been focused on trying to get back to work. I talked to guys, you know, I don't [inaudible] because like 6 million a year and like, you know, I give them 30 minutes of my time and all the questions are, how do I get my Facebook grow has to be eight again. And it's like, oh, we're going to happen. It's never going to happen. Um,

Zach (06:41):

Sean is like, uh, Sean is like the, um, what the, probably the paid media therapist for like all of the top 100 e-com brands, like on Shopify, I feel like is like, he, like, I feel like everybody's always hitting up shot, uh, talking about like ideas around, uh, creative and what they should be doing. Uh, you're so generous with your time. I'm like, I was really, uh, kind of taken back by like how often you're just talking with other e-com brands. I'm talking sense into them. Sometimes they're taking your advice. Sometimes they're just, you know, nodding their head, not doing anything, but you still keep just like giving up so much of your time.

Sean (07:24):

The thing is, there's an interview on [inaudible] two hours and all he talks about is just like how he's obsessed with like 18 hours a day. He was just, that's what he does. That's like 80, a hundred hours a week just thinking about e-commerce. So I won't be going to anybody who will give you the time. But, uh, yeah, most people, when I tell them what they should do, they just go to bed. Doesn't work for my brain. And it's like, okay, well, it works for bigger brands works for, for brands. It's going to work with you or you're gonna go out of business, like, uh,

Zach (08:02):

Make it work. You gotta make it work.

Sean (08:06):

So anyway, we'll, we'll, we'll jump into like, you guys got some questions or whatever, and like, you answered like your third question. We went over beforehand, like the finance principles, like figure out how much you can spend in break. Super rich. It's like a 1.4 X blended ending up. So it's like, I can spend a lot of money and it's like, that's the one, that's all you people now react four X, five X. That's never going to happen again. Like task performance was arbitrage. Like people could talk to you about Facebook. Everyone knows their entire business to Facebook.

Zach (08:46):

Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's get into it, man. So what's working now. What's your, uh, what's your rich ed. You want to talk about

Speaker 2 (08:58):

[inaudible]

Sean (09:00):

I probably have, I mean, I've done other people come on here and said the same thing happens in every episode. Listen, the sound. Uh, but like the idea of like modular content on paid social platforms. So like YouTube pre-roll or Instagram stories and like modular content is like, awesome. I can send over my best ads. You can post them with each other at any point. Uh, no single thing is in frame two more than two seconds. So it's just like, it's just, this is, you know, I talked to, I talked to a brand and they make really sit motorcycle jackets and like they're $700 and they're like, and they showed me this video. They did. And it's eight minutes long and I'm like, cool, no, one's going to watch this. You're competing with Jeff doc and the best YouTube videos and Netflix through there. No, one's gonna watch your brand story video, just like, well, people are gonna watch this, like a 15 second eye attack of like our videos are the first frame is like shuffling.

Sean (10:07):

That doesn't make any sense. Right. So I think doc squash did this really well, but that one's up on his head or I think, uh, you know, what, what we do is like our best book, like the first two seconds of the brand is just the hook. Um, and people should watch Mr. B's stock by how he makes contact. Cause like it's all about the first 10 seconds. Like tell them multi-story are, but for us, it's like, I'm picking up a Jeep hood and there's a bunch of wallets. And it's like that doesn't make any sense where your engine is. Uh, but like that just folks, people into watching the next a bit and then, then it's not letting them become bored. So we hook them with that. And then the next frame is either an influence. You talked about how it's great, right? Uh, and may legend.

Sean (10:51):

He's like, this is the best law you ever met. Immediate kind of us doing something else, immediate kind of a sense of analysis. And it's just rapid video engagement to get people to watch more of the video because that's a retargeting. It always comes down to video. It always comes down to, uh, increasing watch times. Right? So going back to Mr. Bruce, I obviously spend way too much time watching him videos in YouTube. It's it's this rule of 70% attention, right? Like if someone starts watching your videos, you want them to watch 70% of it. That's how you optimize, uh, you know, your ad sets revenue, right? Video optimize it. She teaches YouTube, but this is a good video because they want people to watch more video. Right. So getting that principal over to paid ads, right? It shouldn't be easier on a 32nd video. It gets me watch 70% of it. Right. Uh, you know, if people will watch seven YouTube videos, she able to get them to do that. So just tweaking the hell out of your ads, those super cuts, those types cuts to get that

Zach (12:03):

70% retention. I've never thought about it. I just think about when I, when I think of video ads, it just think of the hook and like how to get somebody's attention, but I've never really thought about video ads in terms of just like 70% viewership retention on an ad. Um, but it all makes sense. It's actually, that's actually kind of, that's pretty difficult to do, like 70% is pretty high or for retention on a video. So you really to know your to pull it up.

Sean (12:33):

It's, it's, it's the gold standard, so hard to pay. But what advertisers need to do is learn from what creators are doing on plastic, because there's a lot of looping short form get doc creators, right. That gets 300% pinch on a video because people are watching it over and over again. So interesting. Right. So it's like, how can we take that same thing to ads on those platforms? Right. Um, and then it's like multi narrative storytelling, right? So it's like, there's a visual story that the visual sort of past the over children's desk, you're adding to be so good. But if stuff, if you're on a train watching it, someone wants to watch the video over your shoulder. Right. And it's like, are you doing that? Probably not your biggest person talking about it. And like, oh man, that worked a year ago. It's not going to work in the future. Like it really needs to be so on the cutting edge of like good content and you have to live in brief what's happening on social. So I think we've been content support. And I think getting your retention rates up is going to be the most crucial thing. It's just going to drive CPMs. And so hopefully that makes sense. That's what we're thinking. So I hired a guy who just does scripting of that 40 hours a week, just thinking about multi story telling and like compelling narratives in video ads to get people on board.

Zach (14:05):

And he's the, he's just scripting them.

Sean (14:08):

Yeah. All he does is it's script shot lists. That's all you guys that I have agency partners. I have video editors to make that happen, but I need someone to just think about, what's engaging. What's what's this, what's the second piece to get people with pain. Right?

Zach (14:25):

Yeah. And what's, what's uh, like what's this guy's background, right? Like, why did you hire this guy? Is, you know, for those that are thinking like, yeah, John, I want to do it. I would love a guy like that. Right. Um, but like, what are the skill sets that, that like he brought to the table and why you picked him? Um,

Sean (14:45):

I'll explain to my staff first, because I think one, one part of the stack is the rest of it. Right? So it starts with, I have a really amazing media buyer. His name is Jimmy. I am, I unfortunately hired him from common thread collective. Don't do that comfort book. It's a good shop and approach their employees. Just, it was a happenstance and I'm sorry, Taylor, for doing that. Uh, but, but we got you to meetings. Amazing love the guy. So academic team. So he's like my director of paid social. So he's at the very top for hire. Uh, then he works with David Herman who is on Twitter and he's like the best all around what it can buy. Uh, he he's a consultant for business. We pay him and he helps us out and just tell us what he sees working out with place. Right.

Sean (15:34):

So that's like the execution side. That's like the science part of it right then for the art creation I have, you know, probably a dozen random Instagram photographers, just like they travel and get good shots and like shut down short form video for us. Like they're just in vans in Utah or whatever they want to do. Uh, then we have like three really good videos, you know, longer form video or multi-shot lists. Right. So like all that's outsourced, like the actual parts side of it. I think it's really hard to get art in a box. So it's like we pick and choose the best different studios. We want to work with the projects. Right. Who do you want to endorse right now? Some shout outs. So probably my favorite is structured. They're in San Diego. It's this guy, Derek, Derek. Really good guy, but they're a group board.

Sean (16:36):

Yeah. They're really awesome. Yeah. So those guys, I mean, we get away at G making him out to the desert with us, like 12 hours of shooting just to get Dolly shots and like just amazing guy stopped up. They drove their own cars gnarly. Off-roading just like, make sure we have a super shot. Um, anyway, so there's, there's a bunch of shops that like produce content for us, but then like what we needed was somewhere in between the science piece and the art guy, Chris, uh, you know, I'm not even sure of his background. The way we hire people at Ridge is I get a bunch of applicants. Uh, I come up with a test like, this is what the job, if you're good at the job should get me to do this. Right. And then, you know, I pick, I look at their portfolios and pick 10 or 20 of them.

Sean (17:31):

I pay them each $300. I'm like take this task two or three hours. And that's how I make all my hands. I'm not creative. I can't decide if it's in the resume. It's not good for you. So we just pay people to think fast. And I recommend everyone do that. How are we going? So it's so important that the right person come back, which is a business just paid to take best then. Um, where does Chris, uh, he's, she's hearing what is working on the platform from Jimmy and David. They're like, Hey, look, we're seeing other people do this on my other accounts or based on 50 ads, I have language. Now this is what word, this type of content. And then he's taking it and putting a rich spin on it. And then he's just finding the perfect partner for ending it. And then those are getting done. He can manage 12 different studios or creative at a time. And they're giving them all that stuff where he has what you all know he's choosing what scenes you want the past, but then those together and then keep them through a video. So we have a full-time video at her house and that's kind of like our creative staff working for us. Um, I think more grants would be that like, you can't have just a video.

Zach (18:56):

Yeah. That's solid. Thanks for explaining the whole stack. I think you're right, right. It isn't one, it's not just one golden nugget, one dude. And kind of, you know, I think it's super helpful for folks on and thinking about how to, how to structure their whole team for success.

Sean (19:10):

Yeah. And sorry, I'll talk for like 15 minutes in blocks about [inaudible]

Zach (19:20):

Uh, we'll just like remove you from the zoom link here. [inaudible] no, it's good, man. I love it. That we're killing it. So let's get into pour it. What's not working right now.

Sean (19:43):

I mean, we have videos by

Zach (19:50):

Dylan Carpenter,

Sean (19:55):

Hundreds of influencers per month. So I always tell them this as like, cause you know, you're, you're taking swings and like we never, always going to hit home runs like there's a lot of ads that like just don't work for whatever reason, but like we're Bob Bauer was recommended or something. Right. So whenever they feel bad about that, I tell them a story. Um, I spent six figures on ad NPR inside the jails. So $800, six figures in NPR spent. And uh, I negotiated the hell like my, my, my effective CPM through NPR ads. It was like $9. So, you know, they price it with 35 and I just negotiated the hell out of them. I like walked away from the, and I just, I bullied them to get like the, like the lowest possible CPMs you can. I mean, we were on all the top or on planet money. We were on like flagship programs and still allow for hundreds of thousand wall, one buyer. Uh, that was the worst thing

Zach (21:09):

And NPR, that's your, that's your fail. So basically what you do when you, when you spend six figures on media and it doesn't work and your customer acquisition budget is just a real quick hack. You just move that to your branding budget. And everybody's happy. It's like, oh, that was for brands

Sean (21:30):

That probably works when like you have VC backing or we own the company. And so I just get $200,000 that year didn't have any money. What it taught me was, uh, it's hard to sell physical products, that own environment, right. It's especially hard to sell a different business. Like, you know, we're, we're not a normal wallet and we're like, we're specially different. Like we're metal. Like how, how do you explain that? In words, um, in an audio only format to like huge mess there, how to learn that I should ask things more. I shouldn't just spend $2,000. I should probably spend and see if it works at all. Um, but I just wanted to jump right in and just, you know, like take this big bite, we'll get the best rate possible. Um,

Zach (22:25):

So poor it's just, don't go all in. Got it, got it. That's painful selling physical products and audio environment. Yeah. Makes sense. Uh, and then, uh, yeah, maybe in NPR, maybe not the best traffic source freaking.

Sean (22:44):

Yeah. Yeah. Who knows man, but uh, I guess the general overrated, like there's so many of them, they sell them on downloads, which isn't real listeners are so easy to scam. I know you're doing a podcast and probably not an ad I'm extending.

Zach (23:01):

No, we just, we, we just have native advertisements for dash fi you know, our charge cards. So, uh, it's good. It's, you're just hating on us on ourselves.

Speaker 5 (23:10):

I mean, I see yours on chill, sun and podcasts. Like I actually watched his a couple of times a week and y'all always pop up in there. And so I was like, I'm curious how that actually does. Cause it's, they seem to be like a minute and a half long videos and I'm like, these are pretty in depth.

Sean (23:24):

Uh, I I'm all about video format. I'm on Chelsea amazing sick, sick guide where we're doing a custom lot with them. So like good partnership. But uh, I'm not buying audio only bypassing. It's like, there's too much room for fraud. The CPMs are too high. Like it's too hot of a space, but listeners aren't there. So video sponsored video, black gas, your mom was like one of our first people sponsored. Uh, so shout out to everyone, but audio only, I'm not going to mess around with it.

Zach (24:02):

Oh, there you go. All right, man. Last question. What's a financial principle. The, you want to share for e-comm brands looking to scale. I think the way you guys operate over there, uh, is super interesting. It's so laid back and so chill. Uh, so maybe just share how you think about, uh, investing in ads and what some of those principles you might want to leave.

Sean (24:31):

Uh, spend more. That's like, what's the best advice I can give anybody and I'm on bias. I don't feel I can make any more money. It's better for me if you don't spend. But like the people listening to this, it's only going to get harder like Facebook isn't God, Facebook is a business and they're not adding new users. Okay. They're not getting them to spend more time on the platform. The only way for them to make more money is to charge them one of your ads. So 2016 was the golden era. 2017 was the golden era, 2018 branch. It was the silver era we're entering into the hardest time ever. It's only going to get harder. So spending more money now, uh, because the world's more competition, like the only solution. I mean, then I tell everybody that's what everyone's listen to me. But, uh, there's a storm coming with IRS and apple and track and getting harder to get the cookies, more competition, big brands, spending more money on digital.

Sean (25:37):

These are all massive storms. The only way you can survive as well. So if you're a $5 million brand, $10 million brand, probably gonna go out of this, it's just get as big as possible. So you have the resources, the customer base, the brand awareness to survive, whatever. I end up giving you a conspiracy theory. Cause it's like, you have to think about what Google's going to do. Like you have to think what apple is going to be. Next. Apple is going to get into ads. Everyone knows it. They hired, uh, like the guy who built Facebook's ad network. They hired him very publicly and that buyer and uh, you've seen what was happening with search, like searching things on Google, some horrible experience you've had been wallet. It doesn't know what pebble law you want. Here's a hundred ads, ranking, ranking. Doesn't even matter. I'm just based on Amazon, wherever we have to make another decision personalization and customization is there.

Sean (26:36):

Um, so we're entering into a world where we're going to say wallet and she couldn't show you the one that matters to you, right? Or are you to say, pay with pals? It's just going to buy. Right? So discoverability is going to get more and more bit. So ads won't even look like how they look now, the future we'll be able to get on people's radar because massive couples like target or Walmart or Amazon or more money, they're going to own all that. So if you're a little 5 million out of your bag through that out, spend money on Facebook. You're going to go out of business. So spend more. Now it's going to be impossible. Yeah. That's my rice pitch. Probably not actually the blog people are off here that, oh, what about inventory? My business? What about logistics? Like, look, figure it out.

Sean (27:28):

I'm like, why do you think we're going to be calm? Why do you think you deserve to be in this industry? Cause it's like to be an e-comm right now used to be good at marketing. You have to be a lawyer. You have to be good at HR recruiting. It's not like you have to be good at this to be good at logistics and supply chain. If you get a product development, like it ends up being a hundred different roles. It's not just, I have an idea I could not get started. You know what I mean? But now it's got to be an expert, become an expert in something.

Zach (27:59):

I think, you know, we were at a sub summit, uh, last week, this, this conference, and one of the big brands there, um, you know, they didn't buy into the excuses that a lot of brands say is like, I don't have the money right. To invest in the ads. Right. Cause if you're an e-com and you're sub like 20 million, we all know you're strapped for cash and you're borrowing, uh, to, to scale. Right. And so this brand they'll do $60 million this year. I want to say they're spending maybe between one to 2 million a month, at least. And the guy was just so flippant and flat out about it. He's like, yeah, we have like 300 grand in cash like right now. And he's like, but we have like insane cashflow. And he's like, I just reinvest so aggressively to the business office, like, okay, that's insane.

Zach (28:51):

Uh, but I think that sometimes you can kind of take the lessons from that, like really out there on the bleeding edge of how aggressive, um, you know, somebody like that is to be able to invest in that growth. Um, I'll just kind of also taper it back of like also be responsible. Uh, but don't, don't kind of buy into the, the excuse of, you know, I don't, I don't have cashflow or I don't, you know, I don't have money to reinvest in ads. Like find a way, get big and get big, fast, um, because the storm is coming.

Sean (29:28):

It doesn't come from that. We haven't raised money backing. We didn't know how to, like, we muscled away through this. Uh, I tell people like, yeah, you know, we had over 10 last year, over $10 million, no government paid $500. Uh, and then all the rest of the money went to go buy in the pool. You know what I mean? We're not, we're not eating ramen, but like it's, it's, it's delayed gratification, which is like, keeps getting bigger. We know that we can break. Right. So it's like, I can pay all my people. I can pay for ads and I can pay Walmart. And it's like, I need that to get, well, I think there's a future. Maybe it's next year. Maybe it's 1 23 where the best brands. And it's like, if you're in growth mode, that's what you're doing. So you have the answers now. It's like, okay, well that's common planet. It used to be 10. Then it was five when it was four. And now the best brands I know. So it's like, okay, think about it.

Zach (30:55):

So good. So good dealing. What, what, what do you want to ask Sean? You've just been like taking notes, listening to alert cranking away.

Speaker 5 (31:06):

Ah, yeah, this is good now. I mean, it's is spot on. This was super interesting. And to be honest, I kind of hear this kind of perspective, especially just feel the fire, you know, and even in the beginning we were kind of mentioning, know your break, even numbers. I mean, a lot of people, the fact that you're saying that with the level you are in the company is pretty legit. Cause I mean, everybody wants two or three X these days for access. So I mean, Hey, you can make it happy at break. Even just keep fueling that fire to build that customer base. Because as you mentioned, it's, it's, it's, it's only gonna get worse. I mean, I've always been seen as came out there. So I think this has been a super fruitful one that a lot of brand owners should totally tune in on. Cause it's just realistic.

Sean (31:48):

The same, the same scary story, the same all the time. It's like in Silicon valley, if you wonder what the future looks like, figure out what program was working on nights and weekends. And it's like, man, it's the same thing as the world. The biggest companies in bang are. So it's like, that's the future. That's Apple's going to be $500 billion a year. So it's like, we're going more towards that. And that affects our ability to make money. So understand everything about, um,

Zach (32:31):

Sean, you killed it. Thank you so much for being on the show, man, tell everybody how they can get in touch and how we can support you for what you're doing next.

Sean (32:45):

Or are you just chilling now? Charge back. I'll talk to most people. So we're talking about stuff like I've done a lot of podcasts, very rarely. It's one of those things where it's like, I mean maybe, maybe 10 brands ever. I've done podcasts with tens of thousands of downloads. So it's like, yeah man, if you really want to talk about it really about it, I'm here to figure it out. But

Zach (33:11):

I love it. I love it. All right, man. Thank you so much for your time. It's been amazing show. Appreciate it.

Zach (33:22):

Thanks so much for listening to another episode of the rich add more ed podcast. If you're like me and listen to podcasts on the go, go ahead and subscribe on apple podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and rich dad, poor dad.com/podcast. And if you absolutely love the show, go ahead and leave a review and a comment share with a friend. If you do take a copy screenshot of it, email me zack@funneldash.com. Show me you left a review. I'll give you a free copy of the rich add or add book to learn more about the book. Go to rich ed for a.com to leave a review that a rich had or at.com/review. Thanks again.

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