 This is Startup at the Storefront. If you were to set out to cut your caloric intake today, odds are pretty high that your mind would immediately go to what food groups you could swap out or substitute. What about swapping out or substituting the beverages you consume on a daily basis? Lower calorie beverages are certainly nothing new, as diet and zero calorie options have been staples of everything from Pepsi to Gatorade to Michelob for decades now. There are some, though, that are betting big that consumers are becoming a bit bored with those antiquated options. Our guests today are Doug Walker and John Feld of Leisure Town, a CBD-infused sparkling water company. They've positioned themselves in a major intersection of wellness, CBD, and non-alcoholic alternatives. Their immediate goal is to be the drink that's cool to consume at parties without any caloric or inebriated side effects. Their long-term goal has their sights set much, much higher. You don't have to take my word for it, though, as we're about to dive into the deep end with Doug and John. So listen in as we cover everything from why they got dropped from all major online payment processors in a span of three days, how they turned to NFTs in order to sell and market their drinks, and why Doug is currently running for mayor of West Sacramento. Now onto the episode. All right, guys, welcome to the podcast. On today's show, we're talking to Leisure Town, Doug and Jonathan. Thank you guys for joining. Either one of you can take this. People don't know. What does your company do? Leisure Town. There's two parts of Leisure Town. Yes. There is a CBD. Which is delicious, by the way. I'm here having the... What is this one? The Lime Yuzu? The Lime Yuzu. Yep. Bomb. So these are for your traditional retail channels. Alcohol replacement. I honestly look at it as like, I don't know if I can really say it, because health claims with CBD are such a thing, right? But I look at it as like a weight loss supplement. We have one marketing kind of campaign idea where it's like, five IPAs equals two Big Macs, five Leisure Towns equals one Apple. And it's just summing up like the calorie content, like people don't... I come from craft beer, and people don't realize the calorie content in a drink. Let's jump into this for a second. Yeah. We just had a non-alcoholic company come on our podcast, and they just, literally episode came out today. And they're out doing Budweiser and like InBev, or whatever the big players are in Canada. Like the number one selling non-alcoholic drink in Canada. And so I'm talking to him, and I'm like, why aren't you unapologetically calling beer cigarettes? Like, why aren't you unapologetically leaning in and being like, this shit is so bad for you, and the calories are so awful? Like why are you playing nice guy? Why are we doing that? And I'm like legitimately like, I'm curious. Because what you just said is you're playing offense, right? You're going, yeah cool, five of these is an IPA or a Big Mac, right? And you're going to show people in a really cool marketing way. And I just think like your stories are opportunities. And so I kept asking him this question, and it was just clear like he really likes being in the nice guy because maybe he thinks he's going to get acquired, whatever narrative he's thrown up in his head around, like he wants them to like him. What he doesn't realize is like if... But it's not hip. It's not sexy. You still get acquired because those big brands, I think they like to see when you get their attention because if they acquire you're taking... Most people don't know that these brands are acquired. We had a term for it in the craft beer world where it's like, it's a pretty handle. Oh, that looks like a craft beer handle. It's owned by one of the three major players. And they like the separation. They like you not to know. That's how they diversify. Oh, these guys would never buy them. They took shots at them. No, they own them. They own them. That's a smart way to do it. It's like, oh, I don't want a course, but give me a goose island. Yeah, same thing. Yeah. I mean, I'm the case study right here. I mean, I love IPAs. I have a K grader in my kitchen. I mean, during the pandemic, my wife just... We had a baby in January. The pandemic happened. It was just IPAs all day and we had nothing to do. Got a couple extra LBs on the waistline. Got a little more jelly. Looking good, John. I'm trying. The leisure towns are helping. So we're both new dads and the waistlines are getting a little bit bigger and we're trying to hustle. And if we can choose a leisure town versus an IPA, it helps out. Here's the new campaign. I'm not going to work out more and I'm not going to eat healthier. So I guess I'd drink less calories. Nobody's honest in their marketing. Why is that? I find it so silly. So I found being in beverage and then being in marketing, I found that, one, people are terrified of risk. People are not creative at all. I'll tell you, I'm the most creative person in the world. And I feel that way now. And I used to not say that. I feel it, I feel it. You should unapologetically bashful, bro. Just go lean in. Tell people they suck. In a business meeting, you get tired of getting turned down for like, in your pitches and you're just like, you guys don't get it. You're from the future. They don't get it. I tell everyone that, I'm like, I'm from the future. People are catching up. Here's a quote that I haven't got credit for yet, but I said, visionaries, don't see the future. We create it, right? Yeah. You create the criticism. Yeah. And so like, I got kind of tired of hearing no. And so I told him on the call, genius had just come out. I was like, I gotta start acting more like Kanye West. Like I gotta be more confident, right? Because if you're coming up with crazy ideas, you have to own it, right? Yeah. But I've found that most people are scared of risk. They're not that creative and like, they don't wanna poke the bear. And when you do poke the bear, you gotta be really creative or you gotta be really subtle, I think. You gotta be smart. You can't just be arrogant. That does turn some people off. So I mean, I get why he wouldn't wanna take all that risk, but. He does now. I think I convinced him. I love how you said, compared to cigarettes, that's hilarious. Why wouldn't you do that? That's hilarious. Why wouldn't you start calling beer the new cigarette? I had an idea recently that I wanna film. It's like, it's say two girls at a party and one is about to drink a beer and ours has her leisure town. And she's like, oh, would you like me to get you a drink? And she's going over to like the blender and it's the same calories as like a burger. So it's like, oh, would you like something to drink? And she's putting a burger in there. Bro, shut that. When you first said the whole calorie count and filming it, I was thinking the old Mitchell Loeb ultra commercials, the low calories, but they never went that visceral. That's emotive. You need to do that. You need to do that. It's something that's like, it's not sexy to drink a Mickalobe. Like, you don't feel cool, don't you? Leisure towns, like what we're trying to do is like feel cool because it's an NA beverage, but when you go to the party, like people, you're not just holding like a Mickalobe. Like, oh, that's cool, you're like, you hold this like, what's that? It's an opportunity to start a conversation. And I think that's what's cool. We wanted to provide like, honestly, the real reason behind the CBD drink was to create a non-alcoholic drink that was cool to bring to a party, right? Because younger generations are trending down in their alcohol consumption and I don't think it's going to be in a beer. It can be. I don't know how like the product breakdown is actually going to work out, but I think it's, if they're not drinking beer from the start, why do they want something that tastes like beer that just has less calories? Cause another thing I said was light beer still has a hundred calories. That's another thing I'm holding a sign that says light beer still has a hundred calories. That's a lot of calories. This has 25. So like if it's a health, if it's a health thing, you know, a hundred is way more than 25. And one last thing I wanted to say is like, a lot of these people that make these brands, they're not in charge of their creative. So they're either hiring an agency or they're people that came from a background that wasn't beverage. So they don't inherently understand beverage. That's, and I, I mean, maybe I'm biased, but I really feel like a lot of these brands that create beverages don't have a beverage background. So we have like some sponsors for the podcast. And as we're either getting hit up for sponsorship or talking to brands, I realized that more and more and more and more. These are like household names. And I realized they don't have a content strategy. The people in their marketing department feel like they're taking risks. They're too big. They don't know what they're doing. And so they just, they just go back. And for anyone, listen, you can literally just go like, pick your favorite brands, go on their Instagram and just see how many sole photos you see with different colors. And that'll tell you everything. There's no video. There's no exciting content. There's nothing that's, it's gonna be reshared. It's just a super safe photo of a product. And there's a thousand of them. And you're like, that's really stupid today. It's because they all plagiarize other people's ideas. Like they see what other people in the industry are doing. To your point. But that's what gave me like the thing of like, oh, these most brands don't have no idea what they're doing. Most brands don't have a face either. And what we learned too very early is like we're, we're young in business. We're both in our thirties, but we're, we're new to being like entrepreneurs. So we've relied on advice from older successful people. And like, oh, hire this agency, hire that agency. 50 grand, 70 grand, 30 grand. After you're like seven of them, we're just like, dude, you guys don't know what you're doing. You have no clue about our voice, what we're trying to create. We're just gonna do this ourselves. And once we started getting them, that mindset of like they're no different than us. They don't know more than we do. You can go on YouTube and find everything you want to find out today. If we want to learn something, we learn it, we do it. Once we got that mindset, we have like this, it was like that golden like an aha moment of just being like, wow, we can, we can do anything. And there's no, there's no limits. Like who cares if we piss someone off or get a cease and desist. Yeah, we got a good collective. We got a cease and desist. Got a tattoo every time you get one. We got a cease and desist from a festival in India, if you know it. What were they mad about? Well, we'll get into the utility part of what we stood with Leisure Town to solve a problem. Yeah, it's been exciting riding. That was like four days ago, it was fun. Oh, recent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's jump in. I was gonna say like, let's take the opportunity. Yeah, so Leisure Town, we've been working on Leisure Town for the last two, three years, just developing, you know, the palette of the taste, the branding, everything that goes in and out. We have some really great partners in like the celebrity space with Rob Dyrdek and Diplo. Rob helped us found it, yeah. And so we've, we had this great. I hear he's a legend, by the way. He's like, he's so on it. He's like the coolest dude I've ever met. I heard that. Sharp, super sharp too. So creative too. Finger on the pulse type guy really understands it. But he's as cool in person as you would think. Like he's not, you mean. So like old persona is actually him. Yeah, they say don't meet your heroes, right? But like, I mean, I grew up watching all the shows. Yeah, yeah. Robin Big was classic. I still want to skateboard part. I don't even skateboard. I just want to go in a building and just fuck with it. Yeah. And to be able to, in the future, I would have never thought to be able to like spitball marketing concepts with the guy. You know, and he's like, he's brilliant. And he loves duck. Loves duck. He's a, I'm a little jealous, but he loves duck. It's cause he's super creative and like honest and like there's ways to take risk that reduce the risk, right? If you're being subtle, if you're doing it right, to us, like when you say some of these concepts, if you do it right, in my opinion, I don't think it's that risky. But if you do it like, if you go a little too hard, it's like, come on, that's too risky. There's a fine line, right? And so we had this, this build out. We were planning it for, I mean, essentially years, right? To get this January 1, 2022 launching with the CBD. And Doug, you can take the. Beginning of December, we were talking with Rob and we had the whole team on the call and we're like, hey, we want to launch January one. I know this is like a tall order, I was like, but our cans are going to be ready. We'll have our third party fulfillment partner ready to go. We can do it. I was like, it's January one, it's dry January. We're doing ourselves a disservice if we're not able to launch in time. And January one, I think we all got COVID. So it turned into like January 5th. Same. We all were sick. We all got that. I got COVID three times. Damn. I'm like on the Hall of Fame right now. I'm on the leaderboard. Wow. Yeah. Crazy, right? So I got Omicron. That's so crazy. Yeah. That's unheard of. Yeah, in early. And I'm doing great. Was it like Delta, Omicron and Euro? Every Greek letter, dude, I got it. He got it before it was like really a thing too. Like you got it early. Are you patient to Euro? Early adopter. I might be patient to Euro, make it a one, man. I'm an early adopter, that's hilarious. No, actually the most sick I got was before COVID was cool. It was still like a myth. And my other partner, Eli, we own a coffee company. We were up and down the Pacific Northwest coast. We had a big event in Seattle, and we had a big event in Portland, but there's a specific county. I forget the name of the county. It's like a smaller county. And a bunch of the dudes there were like super sick. And these are like the manliest men you've ever seen. Like one dude, I love him, he scares the hell out of me. Like if I saw him in an alleyway, he'd scare the shit out of me. It's a firefighter owned and operated coffee company. Got it. What do you think of like the burliest firefighter? He's the coolest dude, but his head's like, his head's tatted. He's all tatted and he was super sick and he wouldn't admit it. I was like, you all right, dude? He's like, no, I'm fine, I'm fine. By the time we left, so it started in Seattle, then we're down in Oregon. By the time we were hitting the road back to California, I was like, dude, I don't feel good. He's like, yeah, I don't, he wouldn't admit it either. And he's coughing up a storm. And he's like, I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm like, dude, something is wrong with us. COVID, nobody was saying it existed yet. And I was sick for two weeks. It was actually kind of crazy because it allowed me to have two weeks off from my real job at the time. And that was the catalyst for me to never really have been employed by someone else ever again. What happened? What happened in it that like they wanted to keep back? They were super worried about COVID and I could do everything remotely. Right. Like cause I had the brewery set up on autopilot, like with everything I'd been doing for so long. And they were like, we don't want to risk it. Just stay at home. Cause I was really like, I couldn't get out of bed for like two weeks. And I think I got a COVID test, but COVID had just hit the new server. Right, and the test sucked. And it was negative. I did get it three other times after that, which is hilarious. But that was the most sick I'd ever been in my life. And so that kickstarted like two weeks off from not going into work, where I could really focus on all my projects. That was it. I kept working for like six months and would go in occasionally. But like that was the catalyst. I mean, that's incredible that you were able to focus on other projects or even do any kind of work while sick with COVID. I mean, most people will just like sit on the couch, watch Netflix and call it a day. And I know we're going to the Leisure Town story too, but I think like the 2020 year was one of those like pivotal times, I think in the country, especially for Doug and myself, where you realize that you don't have like a safety net. You know, your company, your job, like your nine to five or whatever it is you're doing, like you can't rely on that. And it really inspired, I mean, I have two kids, a wife mortgage, like Doug has a newborn son. I mean, like when you become a father, it changes everything. And I was just tired of relying on other people. And I think that's what we, that's what we've been able to really. Put your jobs, kids. Yeah, exactly. Well, and he brought up a good point and I don't want this to come off as. Bro, Bre Brash, bro. Well, I got so much respect for like, I couldn't have gone back to work where I had to wear a mask every day. So like you go to somewhere as simple as a restaurant or a grocery store and people are wearing a mask all day. Like that's tough. Yeah. I can't smell my breath for that long. You know what I mean? It's nice to be able to take it off and have the ability to like have that control. Yeah, it's just like it's, you got to breathe to survive. It's making it more difficult. So for them to do their jobs like that, that's, that's tough. For a long time, I had these like philosophical thoughts that like no human should ever be in an office. I really believed that for years, years, years. And I was like, people have dogs. If you have a dog, what do you do? You feed it in your house. You tell it when to go outside. It poops, you pick it up. It shows you love when you want love. That's basically what an employee is. That's how I looked at it. And it was like really fucked up and I couldn't not see that. And then when I'd go to like Google's campus, I'd be like, oh, they got volleyball courts here and swimming. I'm like, do you not see what the fuck is happening between your dry cleaning, your barber shop. Like you're a dog. You're just a domesticated human and they've tricked you by giving you a big salary. And you think you're winning, but your six figures is not winning in any capacity. You're just in a fucking pond, trying to swim, waiting for the current thing and it's gonna change. And you're just a loser with no soul, with nothing. And then COVID hit and I was like, fuck yeah, this is it. Everyone's gonna get it. By whips we make slaves, by gifts we make dogs. That's the best quote I've ever heard. There you go. And those little gifts, they're gonna do everything you say because they've got the laundry. They've got the volleyball. It's amazing. Yeah. It's amazing. It's a fucking retirement home. Life can't get better. For the very talented people. Yeah, right? And a lot of people, like we're saying people are risk averse, that's a great life for a lot of people. It's not. Right? It is though. It's soul suck, I hear you. It is soul suck. I hear you. But like some people, not everyone has soul. Everyone has a soul, but not everyone has soul. That's what leisure time's about. We have. Getting people to chase soul. I want. Follow your soul. So many times I've said we're the first beverage company in my opinion to have a soul. Like a lot of the marketing for the CBD, I do with this suit on that I wore. I wore it on the last podcast. I was gonna, I was like, nah, I'm not wearing it today. He's actually running for mayor though of West Sacramento. Are you really? Yeah. Because we can't advertise like you said, right? So you can't really advertise. So we're not, we don't have the same resources to advertise this as we do any other brand that we've ever done. Can't do the paid social marketing, which is like everywhere, right? Even though we've seen diminished returns. But like, how do you get press and crowded space? Running for mayor. I like it. Because I'm the mayor of leisure towns. What's your platform? You good, 2022. You good. Yep, you good? That's what me and Rob came up with. How many people is it? Is it like a, is there three? How many candidates are there? There's one lady and she's got like a hundred Instagram followers. So I think ducking together. You get the young vote. Oh wow. That's awesome. The modern vote, right? And even if I lose, it's fun, right? Yeah. My dad was like, what do you do if you win? I'm like, I'm the mayor. What do you mean? Run and stride. I've had calls with, I've had calls with politicians and like I had a really cool call with his name's Ian Calderon. And he told me a lot. It was super eye-opening about like how it actually works. And he was like, you know, don't worry. If you do win, he said every mayor has a full-time career. So you could do it. He was like, it sounds crazy enough. I think he actually wins. So I'm like, cool, let's do it. And I think what we learned too, it's like, I know fake it till you make it. It's kind of has a bad vibe to it. But like we've been in meetings that are way over our heads talking to people who we should not be in the same room with by any means. And you just got to fucking fake it. You just got to believe in yourself and know that you're smart, intelligent, and you can bring something to the table. Once you get over that like hierarchy. The mental block. Yeah, it's just you can like. There's like a stratosphere that people just need to go through and realize like, oh, my crazy is the shit that's gonna light this world on fire. Let me dig deeper into that. Society fucks that up for a lot of people. And to that point, there's a lot of pushbacks. We had a huge pushback right after we got better from COVID. Our payment processor, we launched on Shopify, Shopify dropped us, PayPal dropped us. They can do that? Because we're CBD. So what the fuck? All the compliance was there. You have to fill out a hemp attestation form. We did that. There's not even really a mention of CBD. It's a hemp beverage, right? Right, right. We're working with the most compliant partners in the command space, the emulsion supplier. Like we are working with the best in the business. I had to get those manufactured in Florida because they had the highest third party like QA, QC. The freight on those was insane, right? And so we're working with the best people. So I've got my product. I'm like, cool, it's time to sell. Let's go, soft launch. We're ready just to tap into our main investors, Diplo and Rob, to start helping us market this, right? We have a marketing plan, everything. And then first day, Shopify just goes, nope. I was like, I'll just go through Stripe payments. Stripe goes, nope. And the next day, PayPal goes, nope. So we had been working on a high-risk merchant account for, took way too long. We were at like six weeks, seven weeks, eight weeks. Towards like, we're getting all your bank information. Crazy. To sell something that, do you feel high? Do you feel sick? You feel great. You feel great. And like that is way healthy. Like, why can a child buy- You're from the future. Why can a child buy a Coca-Cola? Right, there you go. Cigarettes. Because it's established and we haven't gotten there yet. That's the path. A Coca-Cola is like 43 grams of sugar. It's all my dad will drink. I finally sold him on these. I'm like, dad, come on, just drink. It's like less sugar, come on. You're not gonna work out. You're not gonna eat healthier. Let's reduce the calories wherever we can. That's so crazy. Yeah, that's your marketing. It's so good. But I can't sell that. So we've been working to get our high-risk merchant account for way too long. And then that's where our buddy- During this time, the great thing about my relationship with Doug and our partners here is I've been doing a lot of the creative, right? So kind of once the creative's done, I can take a step back and look at other projects. I was doing a branding kit for a payment processing company and just started talking to them about crypto, NFTs, things like that. We're starting this conversation and Doug is my crypto savant. Like if I have a question about crypto, I always ask him. He's very hip to the space. I'm new to it and I'm coming in, just pandemic was great because I got to learn and see just- Buy high, sell sober. I heard that joke last night about this story. I buy high, sell low. Yeah, it's a nice. This is the way. Yeah, this is the way. And it's like Doug is famous in our group for like do everything that Doug doesn't do. You know what I mean? I'm from the future. I call it early and then I don't do it. Wow. And then I listen to his advice because it was a great advice. But if he does it, do the opposite or do it. Right, that's cool. Always sell to our agency. And so we started thinking about NFTs. I, right when this whole thing happened with the payment processing, I was going to Vegas for a UFC event and got to meet some really cool guys out there who were crypto developers out in Miami. And we just started hitting off instantly. That same time I'm working with this same group about the payment processing and talking about NFTs. And then we just came to the conclusion that the way we can sell leisure town is through an NFT. So we're not going to go through the traditional payment processing issues. We're going to sell a digital product, which is an NFT. We're going to be able to use a credit card. So a fiat transaction that doesn't have any gas. That doesn't have any fees. The NFT gets air dropped to your wallet. And as the utility that we bring, you get a 12 pack variety of leisure town. So by selling a digital product. That's what's up. That's what's up. I like it. Incredible creative. It was. Let's go. It was one of those like. What's the NFT though? What is it? So it's a license to chill. It's a license plate. It's a license plate. Stay golden. Let's fucking go. And there's 200. I love it. 2,500 varieties. Okay. What we're trying to do is, so it started out, okay. This is a great way to do it. Digital product, NFTs, all I've been thinking about for the last six months, eight months was how do NFTs become popular? It's all about utility. It's gonna, we're working right now. We were able to form another company called Dropped. And Dropped, what that is basically is bringing Web 2 businesses into Web 2.5. Not Web 3. We're not gonna go full. But we're gonna get you, my grandma, Doug's grandma, into Web 2.5. How do you do that? What do you do? Baby steps. Yeah. Cause we have stuff like. Wallet. Like what's. Yeah. So we're gonna have. Wallet, education, marketplace, utility. It's gonna be the next wave of CRM marketing, text message, email, but we're gonna do it tastefully where I'm in control, not the business. My emails has 6,000 unread emails. My text messages have 30, just because of all the stuff that's coming to me. But imagine NFTs get to the place where you get to choose how you're getting stuff delivered to you. But then you also get the collection elements and you get rewarded and there's gamification. That's what we're trying to bring. And that all came from figuring out this leisure town solution. Everybody loved the McDonald's Monopoly game, right? You gotta gamify the world. There's brand loyalties dying off with the boomers. We know that, right? Like brand loyalty kind of dies off. And people's attention spans are like that now. And we think it's up to the brand to be almost like a better host to their fans, right? You turn your fans into evangelists by kind of celebrating them. Right now it's like the brand's in the center, but we think the consumer should be in the center, right? It's like this consumer-centric kind of platform. And reduction of apps, like there's way too many apps. Like the last thing we wanna do is keep downloading apps that just go to the back page to die. So it's like, how can we create something that's like a consolidation of all this, puts the consumer first. And why do I gotta give you my address to buy? Like an audiobook. Why do you need all that information? Can I just give you some money? It's less intrusive. Walk me through it, walk me through the, so I go on your website. I'm assuming that's where I start. So we start up the second right-hand. Yeah, it's leisuretown.io. And so you go click the NFT. It shows all the utility, our roadmap of utility that we're trying to bring. So it comes with the 12-pack variety of Leisure Town CBD, 25% off merch for life. We're gonna have pop-up events. How much is it? It's $100. $99. So on top are- What's the crypto? Do you pick a crypto? No, it's all- So it's credit card? Yup. So it's all through credit card. Post transaction, you get an email where you input your wallet address. We're gonna clean this up to where it's almost instantaneous, we check out. And then you drop the NFT. And then we drop the NFT. It's all in polygon to reduce. It's automatic, so it's production of gas, right? Gas is crazy. And so with this- Not on Cardano, it's not. Yeah, that's true. And with this NFT, the price for a 12-pack variety- I don't think we can do this on Cardano though. No, not yet, no. After shipping is, what is it, 60 bucks? It's 60 bucks. So we're adding that little 40 bucks on top for the utility that we're trying to bring. You know, the events, the things. The cease and desist we got from the festival in India, which we won't name. I don't even know if you can even say that. Yeah, all right, yeah. Just some festival out there. Yeah, we're giving away two tickets. And so they hit us with a cease and desist very quickly. We wanted to reward, aren't we? Wait, no one can give away tickets to that festival? No, they said we're like- I mean, you can, but I think we might have had an accident. I think Doug actually tagged them in the post. Why wouldn't you though? I know, I was- I would think that they would want any kind of- It's like UGC. What was their issue? They're just super protective of their brand. They don't want anyone to benefit off- Dee told him. Okay. We have a really good friend out here in LA. He's been a mentor of mine, Dee Murthy. Does the 5.4 group, Young and Reckless. Brands out here. Group chat is a podcast he's on. He was like, dude, you guys are gonna get a cease and desist like instantly. I didn't believe it. I was like, they're not gonna find us. We're not big enough yet. And literally- And they're on it. So he knew. Yeah, so, and I think that was one of the things we learned. It's so interesting. I mean, that's one of the things like, dude, we'll do it. We'll give it away. Give us a cease and desist. Cool. Like, what's the worst thing that could happen, right? But I think what's, we're learning, especially with the leisure town, NFT side is, it's all about community, right? It's why are you gonna pick my beverage up versus something else? And it's because you feel a part of it. With the NFT thing, it's also a cool thing to have in your wallet. You know, if we do a pop-up concert down here in LA, we wanna have NFT holders get access, but then also have an outlet for people who just wanna come, scan this QR code and get a proof of attendance NFT. So it's almost like your ticket that lives in your wallet forever that says I went to this event and add utility to that. You went to all 10 events and you've got proof you went and something that's park place. We came up with this idea a while ago. Doug, what's your line about desperation? Desperation drives innovation. And we were desperate and we had to figure this out. We did it and it's opened up a lot of doors. We have, we've had meetings with two professional sports teams up in Northern California about becoming the NFT partner for them. We're trying to work out with some of the biggest online retailers in the fashion space. I mean, it's really exciting how solving this problem for Leisure Town has opened up doors for us in the NFT world. A lot of people are thinking like this, right? This is direct mail went to email went to SMS and it's gonna go this way. When we don't know and we say two and a half because while we fully believe in web three, we believe that there's like an intermediate step for some people. Some people aren't ready to dive fully into web three and that's fine. Like the credit card that the credit card kind of tech, that's a simple bridge for them, right? Cause you have all the protection of using a credit card which is really nice for the consumer. And it's the simplest transaction ever. Like we're, we've got a project that's more web two and a half than web three. And this is perfect like example where maybe they're not trying to buy with, you know, a hundred ETH this product, but you know, they can use a card. It's a lot of money. So it'd have to be like a ACH or something, but. So the sports teams that you were talking with, is this just solely NFTs that they're interested in or are they interested in also selling leisure town at their arenas? So we did talk about the beverage and there's potential, but since it's still CBD and they were telling us this sporting league, this association, they're like really strict, wondering to get approved. It has to get sent to all the owners or a representative of all the owners. They all have to kind of be like, okay, do we improve this ingredient? It'll be here. Like with leisure town hemp specifically, like direct to consumer beverage is a tough model because shipping is a mother, right? It's the bane of my existence. Shipping is the worst part of all this. Like it increases your costs so much and then they get lost. Like at least 15% get lost. That's incredibly high. Because you're in the mafia. It falls off the truck, it falls off the truck. That's to the TVs. And maybe it's just not good enough procedures set up for this new product. I don't know. I mean, we've been shipping for like three years now. Who do you use? We use a 3PL company. You should use an ABIS. Have you heard of an ABIS? A-N-U-B-I-S. Not N-A-B-I-S. N-A-B-I-S. Oh, for the cannabis? For your product. I thought they only did cannabis. They do this too. They do hemp? Yeah. We had them on. Yeah, yeah. Two guys, right? Yeah, June. Yep. He had mentioned, I don't know if it's in the podcast, but he had mentioned like they were branching out at the time into other product lines because they just saw the opportunity. We have this in- They have the whole setup. They have the warehouse. They have the thing. They have the tech. It's just licensing, right? It's crazy that you can't sell these at a dispenser anymore. Really? Yeah. I would think that would be the one place that you could sell these out of anywhere else. Yeah, no, because there's no cannabis, no THC in it, I guess, I don't know. It's adjacent. Yeah, right. But no, but at least you can find it in more traditional channels. And the reason why the cannabis beverage format is so small right now relative to other formats is when this format is at a safe way, it's going to be massive. But all the investor projections, the overshot beverage, pretty bad. And I don't know why that was. It hasn't taken off like people thought. We're starting to see indications that is why people are turning super bullish, but it's an extra stop for a lot of people. I don't smoke cannabis, I drink it. I will smoke it, if I smoke it, I get too high. But if I drink low dose like this, I can actually work up to my optimal high. Three of these I feel amazing, it's the best. I'm not that legacy consumer where I need a lot, but a little bit, I feel great. So these will be in dispensaries. Those are in some actual retailers in Northern California and it's doing well. But once you're able to buy this and not have to take that extra stop, and I don't know how long that's gonna be, right? We're all waiting on FedLegal. But I think this category, boom, and the reason why we went with two and a half milligrams in a lower dose format when you're seeing the fives and the 10s and then you'll see the 100 milligram twist tops, so the multi-serve where you're supposed to take 10 milligram servings, but some guys just slam it, I'd be in the hospital. That's a lot. But I'm bullish on this ratio specifically because look at the American Light Lager category. It's the biggest beer category there is, and that's never gonna change. We say less is more, and I say you don't drink one beer to get drunk, so why would you drink one drink to get high, right? So I think once legalization eases up and you're able to buy this at more places, and right now it's just tough, like you're selling this which is heavy and it takes up a lot of space, or you can sell dabs in a packaging like that for like a hundred bucks. So the distributor has to make a call. They're gonna sell what's easier. So it's been slow, but we're finally there. I'm super excited. I love the drink. It's my favorite high. Like if I'm cutting back from drinking, it's the perfect replacement. It's like... Did you ever imagine where you guys have like a tap room, manufacturing room, something outdoor, your NFT's part of it? Diplas, they're doing a thing. How do you get in? You're an NFT holder, the whole vibe? We have a vision of... Bro, build like four of those all around the world. One in India, one in LA, one in San Diego. Yeah. Like if you've been to like a top golf. Yeah. Right, it's a cool vibe. Imagine there's just the Leisure Town. Leisure Town's actually a street in Vacaville we grew up. And so it was a retirement community with a golf course. So all our founders are from Vacaville. And Leisure Town Road is a retirement community. And Leisure Town, it's like the biggest road in Vacaville, like links. Like one side to the other. Yeah. And so they were all from one side and I was from the other side. That's so cool. And Leisure Town kind of. And I think that the biggest thing with, with kind of what you said is like, we want to become a place where you go, right? And Leisure Town, it's what the feeling, we say paradise isn't a place, it's a feeling. And like when you look at where THC is today, like my wife and I, we've been drinking these. And she was like, you know what? She felt bold and was like, I'm gonna try one of the 10 milligram ones from a different brand. And then she slowly like sinks into the couch and then tries to get up to go to bed and can't move. And she has to slide off of the couch and says, I want off this ride. I want off this ride. Right, right. That'd be me by the way. Yeah. And she's like, and it was a good lesson. And then it's, it's funny. Cause like I say that and I don't, I always forget to give her credit cause that's a great line. Like I want off this ride. But it's like, it's such that feeling. Like me, I've, I've always had that feeling with THC. Like we went to the comedy store last night and they were, they were giving out free weed. He won. And they're like, who gets paranoid when they smoke weed and I shot on my hand and they're like, okay, you, we can tell you get paranoid for weed. And so they gave me a bunch of weed that I'm just going to like smoke or whatever and just feel a little uncomfy. But when I drink these, I feel like I can control my high. You know what I mean? Like I'm not doing a four foot bong rip and like losing my mind, but like, I can drink a couple of those and like feel good. This is the unofficial drink of bogey golf. So when you're doing bad at golf, you don't feel bad about it, right? Cause you're just chilling. My goal, if, if all else fails, my goal is to have, like you said, I would love to have a tap room because coming from a beer background, the way to be most profitable in a brewery is you can operate six satellites under one license, right? So you have your manufacturing and then you, you plug in your beer to the satellites. So you're selling your beer at cost, but at retail prices, right? Instead of buying through a distributor, someone else's beer, you, you set up your satellite tap rooms and you maximize your space and your profit. So like that's, that was my background. I was like, okay, beer, how do we, how do we increase revenue and profit and all that shit? I want to have similar something with leisure town. And it would have to be with this to the start, but with like something to give, something active for people to do, like a driving range. I love a driving range. Golf courses are super expensive water maintenance, but like driving range is what I want. Like I love to golf, but like if I can just spend an hour just hitting and drinking whatever, you don't need that much space for your driving range, depending on how you do it. And even like pop-ups, let's build it. Let's build it. And the thing that this is a no-brainer, all these other brands, what they don't have is the tap room. What was the tap room? What's your soul? It showcases, your tap room can showcase your brand and think about how much you spend on marketing every month. Oh, sick. Okay. Is it mint? It's hilarious. They're different, but you could THC that, you could have some fun with it. Everyone puts this. Look at that right there. How good is that? So for everyone not watching, these are golf toothpicks. Made with flavor number 33. Justin Elridge, former famous skateboarder, is a good friend of mine. This is his company and he's trying to reinvent golf and this is like his hero product. He's got merch. He's got sneakers. He's got a whole bunch of cool stuff. It's good too. It's good. And it's fun. We got a golf accessory. We'll show you two as well. I like it. But like, I like all of it. Like for me, when I think about NFTs, we're thinking about doing what the artist who did this mural, and it's the same concept. It's like, we can make the art dope art, right? And so like for me, it's like art first, cool. And then epic events, like just epic events at some of the places we own or not, but it's like crazy events, like people on still. It's like just madness, but it's connecting the real with, you know, it's like the web three with real estate. And you're doing that right now. I see so many parallels between what we're thinking. And like, I draw a lot of inspiration from like the early craft beer movement. Like, Logany just used to do the coolest shit ever. They used to know how to reward their people. And I've been, I've been telling like investors and people in this space, I'm like, Logany just used to do the shout out, Logany does. I don't drink a lot of Logany's, but I respect the hell out of what they did as a brand. Like they killed it. When they sold for 500 million the first time, eventually doubled that. Their owner had the best quote I'd ever seen cause like a lot of people would perceive that as selling out, right? And his answer was, oh no, I just want to take Logany's worldwide. I want to take craft beer worldwide. I was like, brilliant. Cause a lot of people in craft beer are quick to say, your sell out, right? And there's all this pride like, I'll never let somebody like water down my beer, like ton of that kind of shit. But they used to know how to like really get people excited to sell their beer. My favorite event was called the scum train. And it's, can't even cost that much money. But two weeks a year, the KOA up in Willets, they would rent out the KOA and it was industry only. So like the best buyers, brilliant to get buyers and bartenders excited about your product. The best buyers, the best numbers would get rewarded. And then brewery folk would get like invited too. And then they would throw this big concert and like, it's the same thing. All it is is like the NFTs you're badge in now. Totally, yeah. But like, how do you build brand loyalty? It's through that. Through community, yeah, that's it. And I heard what really changed my mind with NFTs is Ian Rogers, he's, I think chief brand officer of ledger. So the hard wallet. Yeah, hard wallet. He was on a podcast I was listening to and he was talking about like NFTs and like how, like if you had an NFT for every concert you ever went to, that's a way cooler collection than having a T-shirt from every concert. Cause the T-shirt's just gonna sit in a storage bin in your garage, right? You're gonna run out of room and you're very rarely gonna wear that. Maybe you give it to your kids when it's on trend, when they're like older. You're gonna drink too much alcohol and gain too much weight and it doesn't fit anymore. Yeah. Case in point. I went from an XL to a double X, but you know, I'm working my way back down. Looks good on you. Looks good on you. Thank you man. And it's like, one of those things is like, imagine if like, like being a storytelling creature, like that's why we have Instagram cause we want to tell our story. Not necessarily to be braggadocious, but because like it's fun to look back and see your memories. But imagine if everything you did was on the blockchain from the basketball games you go to, to the concerts, to the vacation, right? We're staying at a really cool hotel here in Beverly Hills and I was like, imagine if like you get a cool badge and it's like, wow, like I was there, you know? Like you're not going to collect your room keys. Like that's just kind of weird, you know? And it takes up a ton of space over time. But if imagine if you like went like my grandfather, we kind of talked about a little earlier, but like he has the most unreal stories. He passed away two, three years ago. And like when he was older, he's getting like to his final years. Like he wasn't telling stories anymore. And I lost that connection of like, man, I wonder like what my grandpa did, but what if his life was documented on the blockchain? And then my great, great, great-grandkids can look and see his story. Like that's the future. And that's what- Oh, grandpa went to Woodstock? What? Yeah, exactly. And it's like- What STD there? Yeah, and it's the thing, it's like, maybe not everything should be documented on the blockchain. You're making an FT for that, too. It's a one-of-one. It is. Those experiences, like I love like never let the truth get in the way of a good story. You know, like that phrase, but like imagine if you could cut all the bullshit out of people's lives and be like, dude, like I know you went to this, I went to this, we have a connection, right? I could say I went to Coachella last weekend, like I didn't, but I could say that. And I could make up some bullshit, but imagine if you knew and authentically could like relate to somebody, you'd have a deeper and more intimate connection with them. Well, what was most eye-opening to me, so like look at Disney and the pins that they give out. People collect those like crazy, right? So an eye-opener to me, I was with my boy when they were deciding to invest in open sea or not before all this stuff. And they did. It was a great investment and I was in his office and we're talking about NFTs. And this was before NFTs really took off. And he's like, he's explaining it to me and I'm like, it's the dumbest shit I've ever heard, but I think you should do it, right? Because if we don't understand it, means we're not late. If you don't understand it, you're not late. And you gotta realize that younger generations like don't want what we want, right? So those Mickey's pins, for example. And a good way that my buddy explained it was like, how many people see the art in your house? Like you have an art piece in your house. How many people see that? How many people can see that same art if it's in your phone, if it's on your website? The flex isn't in your house anymore because especially during COVID, you weren't letting people into your house. Most art sits in a hanger and they have to keep it like from decaying or whatever. So art never even sees walls, but now you can put it on your phone, you can show it to everybody. And that's all the NFTs are, those Mickey pins will eventually go digital, you don't have to worry about losing them. There's serial numbers like for authentication, like the art on the wall is now cool, but like it's going digital. Sometimes it's nice to have something tangible, like I get that. I agree. But I also see the benefit of some digital, like the hotel room keys, like art can be in any forms. I mean, we have this mural behind us, we've got this mural is on a champagne bottle up there. Like, you know, it's morphing and then you're in talks making an NFT, like all different types, like you're saying people can share the same art. So like with, with Leisure Town, like, you know, this is a cool design that you've got on the can. Like are you going to make this into some sort of digital artwork? That's Northern California. Okay. Yeah, that's the Bay Area, the bridge. You've got it all in there. Like you've got the mountains are Tahoe. The middle is kind of where we're from. You've got the bridge. Yep. And then there's a little homage to Hollywood right there with the, the Leisure Town. And I think that's where, I mean, like Leisure Town, like if we look like deep web three, like there could be a Leisure Town metaverse, right? Yeah. Rainer. Yeah. And it's something that's in the room. What are we doing guys? What are we doing? What are we doing? What are we doing? Metaverse, Leisure Town, Diplo's holding his concert there. I mean, you could build out this whole thing there. Exactly. The Ferris wheel. But I think what has to happen first, before we can... It doesn't make a lot more money. You're not CPG anymore. You're an event. Web three. Massive. Oh, we've got ideas in there. Yeah. Yeah. This is, I like it. What we believe in too, it's like, the only way to get mass adoption to web three is like you said, you have to have something physical. We went to an event and it was promoting a, like an NFT. And the line was non-existent because it was too difficult for people to do, right? They had to download a wallet. They had to link it to this thing, scan another code, put it in the wallet. Seed phrase. If you had to give a new seed phrase, you had to... It was like seven steps, right? Meanwhile, just around the corner, Coors Light was doing activation with pretty girls, you know, stamping koozies with... A damn koozie. Yeah. The line was like 50 people deep. Meanwhile, this NFT probably has, it's like way more value than a koozie. The NFT could potentially be like season tickets. You don't, we don't know yet. It's probably nothing, but like... But what we're thinking about is like... Probably nothing. The way you get people to actually jump into this and it becomes a tool for the business and the user is you have to give them something that's normal, which is something physical. Which is the Leisure Town 12 pack. You want to get an NFT? We're going to introduce you to NFTs because you know you want the physical, which is this. As that keeps going, we believe NFTs will get to a place where they're all free. There will be those art projects that do cost money, but the mass people who have NFTs will have a collection of free NFTs in their wallet. And so I think Leisure Town's been the most fun because there's so many applications. We could do a pop-up here in LA, rent out a space for a night, have a party. NFT holders come or mint your NFT to get in the door. That's your ticket. There's utility. It's cool. We do it. We get it all over the world. So you said you've created 2,500 total. How many of those have sold thus far? So we have about 20% of them sold as of right now. We've been trying to get as we... I'll buy one. I'll buy one. Yeah, we'll give a promo code for your guys as listeners. Yeah, let's do it. So we can give a 25% off promo code. We went on group chat and we think we gave the first ever discount for a NFT. It was hilarious because now they come by it with a credit card. Yeah, yeah, it's so true. We were like, do we just make history by offering a discount on an NFT? I think you did. Yeah. Thank you. And it's one of those things like we have a brand we did 2,500 we sold about like 20% of them which doesn't seem like a lot, right? But what's fascinating about it is we did that with a product that nobody's ever tasted with an NFT that nobody even knows what the brand is. And we only had a couple of weeks of marketing doing this. We had five days. We had five days total. And so... It's pretty good. We're just now starting to see the trickle down effect of people referring others to this. So that they're, it's gonna start and I think those 2,500 will go quickly and then we can start really playing around with the future of it. And you have a Discord and all that? No, we're not doing Discord. No, that's good, that's smart. We have... How do you feel about Discord? No, so slight tangent, but basically the way I look at it is what a lot of young people are just people who are in NFT space don't really understand is that they're becoming really savvy startup investors and they're finding that out through their Discord. And so if I know that there's resentment within the group of any NFT project, I'll find out in minutes on someone's Discord. And that's really powerful actually from a community person who has never invested in startups because they're actually learning what it takes and they're actually in real time, like assessing. Assessing. I never looked at it like that. And so what I think this is gonna, like, but if one hits, now let's say I make whatever, 100 grand or 200 grand, 400 grand, let's say I had an ape, right? And so then all of a sudden I'm gonna use that money that I just got for free, buy something cool, great. And then I'm gonna have all this capital and I'm gonna go create the success I just saw on my own version of the world that I wanna impact. And so whether that's real life, whether that's NFTs. And so I think that's like 2025, this explodes. Everyone right now is in money making, learning season without realizing it at all cause they just think it's fun and cute. And Discord is the curriculum. And then once they're out, but I don't think Discord, like if I were to launch one, I wouldn't have a Discord. I don't like Discord cause it can be overrun by bots. And maybe that's just my experience in like the big Discord. But like I got kicked out of Discord for no reason for like six months. And I couldn't figure out why. So I tried to create, I think somebody like spammed my account or something. Cause Discord is like, it's like Twitter, right? There's bots everywhere. And then so I use my wife's phone and was like, hey, you don't know Discord. She was like, do you have a Discord? Like she asked me these questions like, do you have a Discord? Like, yes, I have a Discord. She doesn't know what it is. She just thinks it's like this random social media. Yeah, she's like, it's like the Reddit crazy stuff. And I'm like, no, I was like, it's the worst thing ever. I was like, here, do you want to see what it is? And I showed her what a crypto Discord looks like. And she goes, that doesn't make any sense. I'm like, I know, trust me, I hate it. So I tried to use her phone number to create one. They're like, like the IP addresses were like too close. And they're like, we know you're trying to impersonate that person. So nothing. So I finally got my Discord back. And I just think it's, some projects, it works, right? Some projects have to keep updating them daily, right? And they're driving FOMO because it's like a 10K PFP project. But if it's a smaller one and like, there's other ways around it. Like you could do a Telegram, read only Telegram. There's ways to stay in contact. Or you can rely on web too. Like email and SMS, like there's multiple ways. In the future, I think it's simplifying this, right? We don't want to have multiple wallets. We don't want to have 17 Discords we want to use. I think that's where, and I appreciate it because like crypto community right now, it's like a members only club, right? You have to be invested in all these different channels to be a part of the club and get the benefits. That's not mass adoption. That's not the future. That's not my wife. She's never going to do that. Doug's wife, my grandma. But if you, we're looking 10 years down the road of applications, utility, NFTs, not even calling them NFTs anymore, right? Our partner in the business, what he talks about is like, you know the, your credit card, you know the tap to pay feature. It has some long acronym. No, NFC, nobody knows what that means. And nobody knows what that means but they know tap to pay. NFT in the future could be something different. The term NFT scares people, like naturally. Who don't understand the space? I don't know why. I think it's because they... I think it's the fear of the unknown. Yeah, totally. They can't see it. They can't touch it. So they're... But I think that's the opportunity. Like the way I think about NFTs, like let's say we were to build a brewery. Let's just say we did it for your product with a golf thing. And let's say there was two walls there. I would just have muralist like do art. That art gets swapped out every quarter. We take photos of it. We sell that art on the NFTs. And now people are like legitimately owning something. You can even fractionalize it cause it's a big piece. You can fractionalize it. We can put a little piece on their glass. Now when they come, their ticket is like their glass that got mailed to them directly. So you make a beer and it has that name or the IP on the label than they could. Yep. And if they want to trade it, they can. But now you're giving somebody a reason to show up on a piece of art that will never be there again. And you're including artists. And for the first time they're going to get paid. And so this is the web 2.5 thing where like you're introducing a new community to a wallet that has no idea what that is. They're for the first time getting recurring money. And then we're just replenishing the funds as more people come. And then thus more art, more artists, and you win because now you're creating, let me think about this. You're solving so many problems. You're creating real community. You're having real impact in a very real setting. It's dope as fuck. Yeah. I mean, I love that you said that because the first client Doug and I were going to work with in this NFT space basically rugged us, took all of our ideas and ran with it in the heart. Oh my shit. We had a great roadmap, great plan because like this is a great opportunity for artists. Like imagine Michelangelo's descendants, his family, if they could still get royalties on all of his artwork. And like the artists like from way back centuries ago, you know, we're just giving paintings for like brushes or paint and now these are the most iconic paintings in the world that someone else is benefiting from. But imagine if there was that percentage that always went back to like that artist. I'd be unreal. I'm trying to do that with a mural next door brewery right now. And so it's city owned land or walls and I'm just going to NFT it. But the street artists will get money for the first time. How cool would it be if say that same art, say there's 10 holders or whatever, nine states and nine frames and that is featured on a bottle and that bottle has real sales tied to it. And those own like I want to create NFTs where the utility provided is so much more valuable than any resell that they never resell it, right? So if I own that mural, I'm going to take the cash flow all the time. Like however you can figure it out cause there's still like the illegal compliance, right? And I don't know, maybe have a former doubt. I don't know this part yet because you can't promise any profits, right? Like that's the thing about NFTs. Even though you see so many scam projects that like sell you the moon, right? They sell you the craziest shit. You don't want to be, since you're not registered as a security, you can't do certain things. And so like it'd be cool if you could figure out how to fractionalize that mural. So the artist is getting paid. There's creator fees, there's royalties. And then it goes on a can and you sell that in retail or whatever or even at your brewery. Those owners, they now feel like an owner in the brewery. They're evangelists at that point. Like that's so cool. The utility provided is like, hey, I own this. That's something that never existed in the past. I think brands in the future will have to be less top heavy, right? It'll have to be more fair and more like horizontal playing field where you reward your customers. Like you give them something of real value just give them a 25% discount. Like they can have ownership in the specific brand. That's a game changer. We had like a few entrepreneurs who were like in their early 20s come on the podcast recently and that's how they see the world now. And it's just like rightly so. And when I think about the companies that created loyalty with me, I just think about Dropbox when I was in college and every friend that I got to sign up, which was my fraternity, I got 250 megabytes and I was so early to it that I'll never pay for Dropbox the rest of my life. Wow. And I still don't pay. And I have like a terabyte. Like I have so much storage and I'll never pay for it. But the thing is like when they did it. Head of their time. Head of their time and nobody followed them. Yeah. Like there wasn't a single company that was rewarding their people. Brilliant. And that marketing campaign cost them zero. And it's the reason they took off. Brilliant. I mean they were at why? Combinated timing, that's crazy. And they were literally gonna fold the company. Really? Drew Houston, yeah. That was like their little thing they concoct. Like oh yeah, just let, create a referral. Invite and give people free data, free storage. And it's just like that's the model. You know, and so all these young kids are seeing that that's the same thing. And so if you want the younger market today, regardless of your brand, you have to give them a lot more than just a 10% coupon thinking that's, it's not gonna work. No, it's not. It doesn't work with the younger generation. It's so generic, right? And also people know they're like fuck this. Like what am I, you just inflated your price. Well, and people are realizing that they don't need as much shit. Yeah, right. Like we have so much stuff. Minimalism is taking off. We went to a comedy show last night and it was hilarious because it's called the shimmy shimmy yaw. And they, the comics who come up, this is some of the best comics in the world. Like Santino was on last night. Mazda Brani, they give something out to the crowd. And Mazda Brani had like, he said he's remodeling his house or something. He had bags, yoga mats. He had like six tennis rackets. And so some stuff where people are like we don't need that. Yeah, it's like why are you giving me your trash? Yeah, we don't want that. So like minimalism is a real thing. It's so funny. It's just not practical if you have two kids. My house is full of fucking toys and stuffed animals. I don't know what to fucking do. Kids don't understand minimalism. And like I get the toy for the kid and he plays with five minutes and he wants another toy. I'm like, fuck, there's another toy. We've got an NFT yet. So it changes all the time. So what's next for you guys? What does the feature look like for this year? What's the big thing? Launching THC, that's right around the corner. That's what I was up this morning working on. We're getting that all straightened out. Really building out the Leisure Town brand and the utility. Trying to throw events all around the U.S. just with our connections in LA, Miami. I think those are two great places to start. At the same time, we founded a company called Dropped which is all focusing on that Web Point 2. Really diving into Dropped and seeing how we can do a couple of test cases and really fill out what businesses and brands need from a Web 3 solution service. And there's plenty out there. There's hundreds of NFT launch pads, right? We don't want to be that. We're starting out as a launch pad because we want to learn the ins and outs of the business what we can need and then we're going to turn it into an automated NFT as a service SaaS business. And that's really where we're focusing on. And it's, we have some great partners. The really fun part. People in the film industry down here in LA. Yeah, we're the best idea ever. Yeah, major movie producers and trying to gamify the marketing elements of. Movies. So rather than like static billboards, there's something that comes with it. Gamifying it. Or call to action. You want to see this movie? Purchase your ticket now. It's fun. I mean, Doug and I, Do they get it? The movie producers? They do. One does. He does. He's the one that wants to do it. He's been trying to do this for 10 years. The movie that they just did was one of the biggest blockbusters in like the superhero world a couple of weeks ago. Spider-Man? No, saying too much. Was it an IMAX film? No, it was everywhere. You'll drive down sunset and you'll see all the book boards. I'm not trying to be too cryptic, but he was like, yeah, we're going to spend a hundred million dollars on marketing in the last couple of weeks for this movie. And it does nothing. It's just noise. Nothing but inflate the budget. And just you have to recoup that. And we're going to bring. And you're not even seeing traditional marketing or modern marketing. It's all like traditional, which is like out of home. How does he view that though? Like what are you selling? He's tired of that system. And he wants to bring a new way for people to engage with the movie from day one. So once you see that first trailer, how do you get that customer engaged and start essentially getting them to pre-book their movie ticket, right? And so that's what we believe is through what our service will be with the NFT. And the fun. So imagine. What are they getting besides like, is it like unlimited? You go to unlimited show. Imagine if you get first access to view the trailer. You get first access to the extended. Oh, I see, I see, I see. Or maybe we're doing a Comic-Con. Or depending on rarity, you might get to be in the movie. In the movie, yeah, the screening. Got it. Yep. You get to go to the premiere, you know? And it says, it's all about this. And you can charge a low fee for that. But then you can also get user generated content, which people don't get anymore, driving people to go back to the theater to where you take a picture of yourself at the theater with your ticket, upload it, and then that becomes an NFT that's branded and gives the, you know, you get that connection. How about this? When you go to Amazon Prime and a new movie comes out and you spend $19.99 on it, what do you get? 24 hours to watch. That's all you get. So like, you don't get much. So we have ideas on like, we could even sell it for a premium. It's a novelty item, but there's ownership tied back to it, right? The NFT, all the NFT is just verifiable ownership. And we could tie so much to that. And I hate to use the word, the D word disrupt, like an industry, right? It's a little overused. You're from the future, right? Yeah, right. That's all we do. Everyone uses disrupt in the future. Yeah, and, but it's just a new way to look at it. And what's really fun about what we're doing is like, I love the creative strategy behind it and how to like make this cool and make it valuable for both parties, consumer and. I wonder if like Apple gets it or, you know, some of these big companies. I don't think I'm sure they get it, but I know like them specifically, like they don't want this because web three is going to be less dependent on the platform, right? Cause web two, everything went inside the circle and it was web one was on the fringe, web two was, you know, consolidation of like the huge tech brands that we know today, right? That's web two, web three is going to go back out and you can monetize your platform independently almost, right? If you can drive the traffic, you can. That's what Snoop's doing. That's, and that's how it should be with that throw. Yeah, he just bought all the IP. He bought the IP, he bought the masters. He's taking it off Apple off Spotify. He's tired of not making any money. And he's going to play it in the metaverse that he built. Yeah, yeah. He's got a spot made $21 million doing that, releasing his new album. Really? Yeah, people. So the tough part is how do people pay for music? Cause we're so used to like, I have Apple, I do have Apple. And a very small percentage of that goes to the artists themselves, but like Apple takes a good chunk and then the label takes a big chunk. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So like how do, for like Snoop, for example, how do you get some 18 year old kid to pay for the dog father? Because they're not paying for that. They're paying for, Oh, are they getting it? In a sandbox, they're paying for, they get included in like a live showing. Got it, got it. And you have 31 in that room as somebody and you can hear Snoop's voice because it's like a clubhouse. Going back to the, You can hear real world utility. Hey, he did 21 million. And you have, he said he had 34 million streams on Apple Spotify and that made him nothing. Right? It made him probably like a hundred grand. Damn. Isn't that crazy? And I mean, there's a saying it's insane. The numbers are insane. He talked about it on the last drink champs. Okay. And we gave like real numbers. Wow. One of is an NFT platform for music and Nas did his newest song on one of. And like that's, they're changing the game in that sense. I think, I mean like Apple, I don't know. I don't know where they fit in this. Well, like I know like they're the gatekeeper, right? You guys watch a super pumped, right? I never realized how much power they had because of the app store. Like if this, what we're doing becomes an app, they can control everything. They can still control it, right? That's still not really web three. So like they are the gatekeeper right now. So like I would see them not really wanting all this stuff to happen cause it all runs through them. But this is a, but they still have the hardware. They've got the phone. Right. They got the thing people need. So maybe this is how Android wins. I don't know. It's going to get interesting. I don't know. I don't like the green bubbles, man. I like my blue bubbles. Same. So I don't know. No, it's the head of it in a lot of ways. So we've been really watching all these like the WeWorks show. We crashed. We crashed. We crashed great. And like the Home Show. And like Doug and I were like, are we Elizabeth Holmes? Are we like faking it till we make it to? We actually like either collapse or we go and like we were at a WeWork and it was kind of ironic. And we saw one of those like robot dogs. Oh yeah, Boston Dynamics. That would like blew me away. Cause like seeing them like person, I was like, that's like, that's some weird future stuff that, you know, I'm like, I'm literally saying to this group, I'm like, that's terrifying. They're like, no, it's brilliant. And I'm like, yes, I see the application that you're doing it for. It's a great idea. I'm like, but me, that I'm like, that's terrifying. You can't hurt that thing. It's like just metal. And it moves like a gazelle. Like they had it moving through the hallway and we're like, you can't beat that. I don't want to go off. I'm too big of a tangent. But if all this conversation around the creative marketing, they did it right. They had the most creative marketing ever. Like they would literally swing baseball bats at their robots and just do the backflip. Exactly. And then everybody was talking about it. Right. And I think that's, I mean, going like not off tangent by any means. Cause if you look at what we're trying to do with leisure town, it's like we're trying to change the whole way people are looking at this. Right. Like from a, from a marketing standpoint, like no one's going to hit their, their robot with a baseball bat. Right. Like that's just like crazy marketing. I might. That was scary, dude. I like dogs. Yeah. I'm more of a cat guy. Don't judge me. I like cats too. I like them all. I mean, it's a, it's just, it's the age of like now you can't rest in your laurels. You can't just sit there and like be comfy and you're cubicle. Like if you want to be successful, my thing is like, when we first had my son, I had several times where I overdrafted my bank account. My wife stopped working. We were paying off debt from a two income lifestyle to a one income lifestyle. Scariest shit of my life. Right. Literally waiting to buy groceries on the first one I got paid. And every month just like, ooh, hoping, you know, we can get there. We're doing fine now. Like we're comfortable. You know, there's still, I still want to get further, but like there's a lot of people who get in that situation that crumble, you know, not, not to pat myself on the back by any means. I'm not trying to do that. Or get that eight to five. Yeah. Or just, and it's like, there's so much opportunity if you can just think about what you want to do, do it like stops, like letting someone say no to you, you know. And you learn that the people that you're working for aren't smarter than you. No, they're never. I always tell people to reverse it. I always say, okay, let's pretend like you quit your job today and you had $10,000 in debt. All right, let's just pretend. Okay, cool. But now you had, let's just say three months of time. Like you gave yourself three months. Now you're 30 grand in debt. Who gives a shit? Let's say you couldn't figure it out in three months. Let's say it's six months. Now you're $60,000 in debt, but you've had six fucking months. Do you think you would do something epic in that six months without anyone getting in your way? And if the answer is yes, then roll the fucking rock. The 60 grand doesn't matter. Dude, I- You're never gonna remember it. Doesn't matter. I went into debt. My credit score went to shit. Good. Because I knew- That's all that suffered. It's all the, but think about this. It's all the constructs that suffer. It's your credit score. Who gives a fucking shit? Dude, I had a homeless person's credit score, dude. Good, dude. And I'm saying this very transparently, dude. I'm just saying this is what's required. That's good, but look at you now. Yeah, and it's like- But that's what's required. So imagine if you just changed your mindset from, oh, this is so painful. And I get it, it's hard, right? Because you had a kid, I get that. But imagine if you were taught when you were four, like that's required. It wouldn't be painful. Well, and it- It's like losing weight, right? It humbled me, man. Like, I literally was like, I wasn't afraid to tell people that I'm struggling. Like, I wasn't, like, once I got over that fear of, oh, I wonder what people are gonna think, right? Then I was like, dude, yeah, I'm struggling. I'm trying to figure it out. Now that I'm at this place where we're close to like, being really successful, like people are like, dude, I'm so fucking proud of you because like, you just figured it out. If you don't get put in that, you're back against the wall, like my wife, I was like, you know what? Hey, I'm gonna take on all the debt. Let's keep your credit score great. Let's just ruin me. And like, I got a credit card, shortly after it was like, here's your $500 limit. I'm sick, dude, cool. And when it was like, but I was like, you know what? I gotta get that. I gotta build it back up. I gotta keep, like, just get a personal loan. Let's build it up and let's keep paying these things off. And it was just like, if I never had that situation, I legitimately would be still working like a nine to five job, feeling comfortable, but have zero risk, but not have the opportunity that I think is capable for everybody. I used to, when I would go to work, I would drive the same road. It was like 45 miles maybe. And I'd take the back roads from Sacramento to Winners. And I liked my job. I liked the people and like, you know, I didn't really have anyone tell me what to do. So it was cool. But I would, every time I got to a certain place in these back roads, I'm like, I'm living in the fucking simulation. I was so tired of taking the same road every day. I'm like, what is this? Every day, I take the same road. I'm like, there's no way it's not a simulation, right? Like that's how my brain was thinking because I was just like so tired of doing the same thing over and over again. And I would just, I'd try and explain it to my wife and she's like, what do you mean? Like, she's like, I'm so tired of just having to look at the same stuff every day. I don't know if that's a good or a bad way to think but like, I just, I couldn't do it anymore. What gets you out of that mindset? It spurs you to do something different. And Doug and I are, we have a thousand projects we've started and throughout the process realize, oh, this is viable, this one's not, right? And we have, you looked at my Dropbox, I have 55 decks ready to go. We can get funding on and do it. But like, some of them just aren't viable at the time or it's not the right moment. And like, I remember like, I worked in the creative world and I was like, you know what? I want to get something more secure. My friends were working at this copier company selling copiers door-to-door like business parks, right? And they were making six figures. I was like, sweet, perfect, I'm gonna do that. I went on the first day and I got in my car and started crying. Went to the gas station, bought a Lotto ticket, won a hundred bucks on a scratcher. And I was like, this is the only way I'm gonna get fucking out of here is if I go buy Lotto tickets every day. So I lit every day and I bought a scratcher just hoping that, because I didn't see a future. I was like, I'm stuck, man, I'm stuck. And then I was like, I used that six months at a six month contract. And I was in the first year of my marriage. So I was, I got married young, I was 24. Been with my wife since high school and she's a rat-a-dye chick. So she's been with me through all this wild stuff. But I used that six months. I'd go and I'd do the bare minimum of work for my nine to five just to keep them out of my hair. And I'd go and I'd just work on my design portfolio, work on my design portfolio, design, design, design. Ended up, I got fired from that job. The next day I got hired in a design position, a design role. It helped me change everything. Like it just like flipped the script. And like when we look at Leisure Town, when we were hiring all these branding and marketing companies that come in, it was just like, that's the path you're supposed to go. You're supposed to spend 50 grand on a design company to come in and be like, hey, hey, hey, we had a meeting yesterday just because we still take these marketing meetings. Oh my God. It was, it was the worst meeting I've ever, we were going through the grapevine. So thankfully we just had Zoom on like the no camera. And it was like, they were playing videos. And it was like. And the DJ voice, like that DJ voice, hey. It was like, terrible. And it was like, what can we do for you? Let us explain marketing terms to you. Yeah, it was bad. I know. And it's like, you go down that path of like every single time is the same stuff. Like just grab yourself in like whatever that like matrix moment is, right? Of like getting in out of like the normal like line of sight then you're, you can do it man. Another thing is like most entrepreneurs aren't willing to get dirty enough. And like everyone wants to quit their day job early, right? For like two years, I'd work my full-time job and then stay till like midnight so I could roast coffee when everyone was gone. And that's how we started the coffee company. We got the coffee company to almost two, like 1.7 million revenue in three years. So like it's hard to compete in coffee, direct to consumer brand. So it took us about three years to get there. But like the early days was me, I smuggled a roaster across the border from Tijuana. Had a crazy weekend. Fucking, that's man. That was the one- It's not a small thing to smuggle. No, it was- It was a commercial roaster, so it's 10 kilo, 22 pound. So anyways, we got back, but I stayed at my day job for years and would just work literally non-stop. It was fucking tough. Like you get burnout. We'd roast coffee at night. One time I made this mistake of roasting inside the brewery because the weather conditions were so bad. I was like, oh, it's a huge facility, huge facility. It's one of the biggest ones because it shares with the winery. I was like, we'll just roast inside with the doors up, with the roll-ups up. It was Thanksgiving weekend and so much smoke comes off when you roast. The entire place smelled for like four days and this place is called Fire. And there's wine being made, so that's a bad look. We got so, I mean, think about when you get lucky on your entrepreneurial journey. Nobody came in because it was Thanksgiving. You can't make that up. And we're like, we're never doing that again, but that's what we do. We would roast coffee at night and then that kind of just turned into all this. So it's like a crazy journey, but it's always been product focused, beverages and then I love marketing and I love crypto and that's kind of how we got here. Crypto's what I do it on my spare time. Anything else we should know before we wrap? I mean, I think the biggest thing is like we, we're really trying to have a lot of fun with Leisure Town. Ultimately, this is what we're, we're trying to bring all this beta test case stuff with NFTs, bring it to Leisure Town. We would love for you guys to try the beverage. I think the biggest thing, we'd love to do the discount for your listeners. So is there like a promo code? We could do 25% off. We could make a promo code for you guys. Yeah, I can throw it into the beginning of this. What should we do the promo code? What should it be? Quit your job. Risky boys, 25. I like quit your job 25. Quit your job 25, that's good. Yeah, okay. And so yeah, and that's going to be at leisuretown.io. You can see kind of our roadmap of what we're doing with the utility, but it comes with a 12 pack variety. Would love for you guys to try it. If you're listening, use quit your job 25. I love it. And last thing, we dropped samples of the CBD drink down to Arawana. We did yesterday. So these are already in store. These are beautiful 2.5 milligram THC, five milligram CBD drinks. We'll be hitting dispensaries May into May maybe, mid May. And that's like statewide. And why do you drink these? Cause they're pretty tasty. They're really tasty and consistent. So you can like, you're not going to get too high. It's not going to be that college brownie experience. Perfect. Thank you both for taking the time. Thank you. One last thing. If you want to follow our crypto journey, it's dropped d-r-o-p-t dot club. It's brand new. So that's what we're doing. Dot club. Nice. D-r-o-p-p-e-d. D-r-o-p-t. Okay, got it. Drops. Cause we air dropped it. I loved it. Awesome. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right. That was our conversation with Doug and John of Leisure Town. And while you're still here, if you're not already subscribed, you should seriously consider doing so. If you are subscribed, then you should seriously consider leaving us a review. And if you've already done both, well, you're awesome. We are found at Startup Storefront on every social media platform, except for Twitter, where we can be found at STS Podcast LA. The team consists of Diego Torres Palma, Natalia Capolini, Lexie Jameson, Owen Capolini and me, Nick Conrad. Our music is by DoubleTouch. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time.