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Will come back. The charm would show. it's episode. Twenty Four

1:00

Hundred Fifty One. And. Oh

1:02

my goodness. We're joined by Connor. Boy act,

1:04

the guy. Who. Years ago

1:06

was slumming as my tech guy and

1:08

then his the full. Flowering of

1:11

his talents, Out to the

1:13

whole world occurred. When. He went

1:15

out on his own an accomplished so

1:17

much. That. He makes me feel

1:20

like a lazy bum. Mrs. Connor Boy Egg

1:22

who. Among. Other Things is the

1:24

creator of the Total Twins children's book

1:26

series which has about. Cause. Carter

1:29

himself, in addition to the titled when, has also written.

1:31

Books. In his own right outside that

1:33

series, some for adults, some for teens,

1:35

so he's written, I would estimate somewhere

1:38

the neighborhood. Six. Hundred

1:40

and eighteen books. That's probably not quite

1:42

that many, but it's somewhat of that

1:44

neighborhood it seems like, but he is

1:46

also. Where. Are you the President of

1:48

the Liberto since years. Okay, Public.

1:51

Policy: Both? Would you call it a public policy?

1:54

Institute. It started as a public policy group.

1:56

Now it's more fun in something bigger. Will probably get

1:58

a new it as part of the warthog. Today

2:00

bed Yards Definitely trying to change hearts

2:02

minds and laws around the country. Okay,

2:04

good, good, good, In. That particular

2:07

thing I want. I've been today. When.

2:09

I read about it and I saw the

2:11

numbers involved. I realized just how foolish I

2:13

was depriving the world a disguise energy. So

2:15

by keeping him to myself, I just take

2:17

it over with Conrad the Complex and I'll

2:20

say something. I could very easily make the

2:22

Tom Would show into a Current Events show.

2:24

There's nothing wrong with that. I'd we all

2:26

need current Events shows to know what's going

2:28

on. Trust Cnn to tell me. I listened

2:30

What people tell me is really going on.

2:33

But. My. Billie. Problem I have with

2:35

that is the. Current. Events are so

2:37

depressing. Most of the time is almost all

2:39

bad news. And. Connors doing something

2:41

grazier. And. Not as many. People

2:43

are talking about as you would think they would. But.

2:46

I actually like things that are encouraging

2:48

and good and positive and productive. So

2:50

hence this episode with Connor. So welcome

2:52

back to the Tom Would Show Counter

2:55

Boy Act! Tomboy. X or

2:57

have me on and. I remember those good

2:59

old days working on your website, helping to

3:01

build the Liberty Classroom. I remember them with

3:03

fondness. I mean just building a relationship with

3:05

you, learning more about all these ideas. Reading.

3:08

All the books that you're recommending was a

3:10

huge part of my own developments so. I.

3:13

Don't think it was depriving the amazing it was helping

3:15

build a foundation of what I've been able them grow

3:17

with my team to that. You're. A gracious person,

3:19

I appreciate that I've never the old days when I.

3:21

Would send you the tiniest little nit

3:23

picking tasks. And. It would be. I

3:25

would. I'd just. Press enter on the email. he's

3:28

already done it. I don't know how this

3:30

happened. so you spoiled me completely or it's

3:32

let's talk about what's going on with your.

3:34

The. Program is that a particular like to

3:37

say I'm pay particular attention to today

3:39

and that's the Children's Entrepreneur Market program.

3:41

I. Knew this thing existed, but it seems

3:43

like. It's. Grown by leaps and bounds

3:46

in almost no time at all. Yeah.

3:48

And your audience I think Tom especially

3:50

will appreciate the history of how he

3:53

started this project in twenty sixteen. We.

3:55

saw some headlines that bubble of

3:57

every year or two about little

3:59

kids lemon lemonade stands getting shut

4:01

down by some random bureaucrat for

4:04

not having, let's say, a food

4:06

handler's permit or for not having a business

4:08

license. I remember in one case, it was a

4:10

four-year-old girl who, of course, with her parents' help,

4:13

set up a little lemonade stand on the side

4:15

of the street where a 5K was

4:17

going by. And some county worker

4:19

showed up and said, well, you need a

4:21

business license that costs She

4:24

was selling 50-cent cups of lemonade.

4:27

So you do the math on how much you would have

4:29

to earn just to pay for the permission slip. They shut

4:31

her down. And so periodically, these

4:33

would make national headlines. In 2016, I saw

4:35

a few of these headlines bubble up. I

4:38

said, that's ridiculous. Let's have

4:40

some fun with this and go to our legislature

4:42

in Utah where our headquarters is.

4:45

Let's go to the legislature and propose a law, a

4:47

bill that says if you're under 18, you don't

4:50

need to get any permit, any license. No

4:52

nothing. No sales taxes. No

4:55

nothing. I think unanimously, nearly unanimously, Utah

4:57

became the first state to have one of

4:59

these. We've since helped a number of other

5:01

states pass similar laws. In fact, just yesterday

5:03

at the time we're recording this in Arizona,

5:05

they're working on a lemonade stand law.

5:08

And one of our little youth entrepreneurs,

5:10

12-year-old Aiden, showed up to testify in

5:12

support of the bill. And they passed it out of

5:14

committee. And now it's working its way through the system.

5:16

So we got this law passed in Utah. And we're

5:18

like, okay, that was fun. Let's do something with this.

5:20

We launched the children's entrepreneur market.

5:23

So think of this like a farmer's market. But

5:25

the kids run the whole show. Mom and dad can help

5:28

set up. They can take down. But the

5:30

kids are doing the work. They're doing

5:32

the product development. They're doing the pitching

5:34

to customers, the money management, customer service,

5:36

everything. And what we're really solving

5:38

for, you probably did this with your kids, as

5:40

I did with mine. Every parent loves doing the

5:42

little lemonade stand at some point with their kids

5:44

and having them be a little entrepreneurial. The

5:47

problem is that the traditional lemonade stand,

5:49

90% of the time, kids are just

5:51

sitting there looking cute waiting for cars

5:53

to stop. So it's fun. It's memorable.

5:55

But it's not a great learning experience. The

5:58

learning comes through the customer interaction. resolving

6:00

concerns, answering questions. And

6:03

so what we do with our markets is

6:05

we'll often attach them to a large like

6:07

community festival or rodeo or some big event

6:09

where there's a lot of people coming out

6:12

and we'll attach our event adjacent to

6:14

that. And so these kids have a ton of

6:16

foot traffic, which means not only are

6:18

they making a ton of money typically, but

6:20

they're learning a ton. And so to

6:23

me, ultimately, this is about like

6:25

on its face, this has value to create

6:27

value for families, offer them these experiences, help

6:30

kids earn some money and gain self-confidence. It's

6:32

all important on its face.

6:34

I think it's all valuable, but this for

6:36

us is part of a broader strategy because

6:38

I think entrepreneurship is a very effective way

6:41

to get people interested in the ideas of

6:43

free enterprise without beating them over the head

6:45

with a white paper or a book or

6:48

being even so direct by saying, Hey, you should

6:50

understand why free markets are important. Instead, we give

6:52

them lived experience. We get their kids hooked through

6:55

the profit motive and then we can build

6:57

around that with our Tuttle twins and other materials

6:59

to start teaching them. So this is a very

7:01

strategic thing for us that we're quickly scaling up

7:03

across the country. Let me

7:05

say in parentheses here. Now it obviously doesn't hold true

7:08

for everybody, but for a lot of people

7:10

who are in marketing or business

7:12

coaching and you hear the word

7:14

coaching. Now, you know, when I hear that I'm a

7:16

little bit jaded, you know, if I

7:18

hear about life coaching, I'm very skeptical, but

7:21

I'm talking about the really high level people like

7:23

let's say Jay Abraham or Grant

7:25

Cardone or people of that caliber

7:28

or Ben Settle who taught me email

7:30

marketing. These are not, well, Grant

7:32

Cardone is a little bit openly political, but in

7:34

general they're not. And yet if

7:37

you peel back a layer or two, they're

7:39

more or less sympathetic with us because they see

7:41

it firsthand. They understand the value

7:43

that they provide. They understand what they're

7:45

doing in the world. And

7:47

then they see that they are

7:49

spit upon, insulted, fleeced,

7:52

blamed for all society's problems. And they just don't

7:54

go for it. As I say, they're not openly

7:57

ideological, but you talk to them for

7:59

10 minutes. and you realize, yeah, they get

8:01

it. So there is a connection, as you're

8:03

describing. I do believe there is a connection

8:06

between these types of activities and

8:08

at least the rudiments of an appreciation

8:10

for our general worldview. So

8:12

what can you say about the growth in

8:14

this program? Because this is what, I was

8:17

so happy to see this that it made me think,

8:19

there would be wrong of me not to talk to you about this

8:21

on the show. So we started,

8:23

as I said, in Utah, and for

8:25

about five or maybe six years, this

8:27

was just a fun little program in

8:29

our backyard. But Libertas in

8:32

the past years has transitioned from

8:34

this state-focused organization to a national

8:36

policy organization. We would not work in

8:38

dozens of states with legislators around the

8:41

country. We've changed over 100 laws. And

8:44

so our policy work is national. Of course,

8:46

Tuttle Twins is national and even international. So

8:49

we got to the point of saying, well,

8:51

this kids' market program is awesome. We've had

8:53

such an enriching experience doing this

8:55

for several years. Why are we just keeping

8:58

this in Utah? There was literally no reason,

9:00

and there was every reason to expand it.

9:03

So last year in 2023, we said, all right,

9:05

let's do the first experiment

9:07

of expanding. We

9:09

decided to open six additional

9:11

states, and it went swimmingly,

9:14

finding people, training them. Because

9:16

the way it works is in every location where

9:18

we operate, we hire a local market

9:21

manager. They're the ones who plan all

9:23

these markets. They meet with the city

9:25

event planners, the community organizations. These

9:28

people are finding the right events that will be a

9:30

huge success. And then they're

9:32

executing the whole thing, doing all the registration, all

9:34

the marketing, and everything. So we hire

9:36

people around the country, and it went super well in

9:38

these six states. And so this

9:41

year in 2024, we're adding an additional 20 states.

9:44

And part of that is we do all

9:47

this through Libertas, through our nonprofit. We

9:50

received this award. It's called the Peterson Prize

9:52

for Venture Philanthropy. And it's

9:55

a fairly prestigious award in

9:57

the conservative freedom movement awarded

9:59

to one organization a year that

10:01

has bold ideas and solid

10:03

leadership. We applied and

10:05

ultimately were selected from about 100

10:07

applicants, all of whom are doing

10:10

amazing, disruptive, important things. Amazing.

10:13

That's a quarter million dollar prize. Oh my gosh,

10:15

fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. So spread

10:17

over three years, but the idea is we're

10:19

leveraging that money to be kind of a

10:21

starter investment to open up a whole lot

10:23

of additional locations. So as I said, 20

10:25

more states this year, the goal is in

10:27

2026, we will be fully national. But

10:30

then in the two or three years

10:32

beyond that, we're going to further expand.

10:34

So think of Texas, right? Last year

10:36

we launched in Dallas. This year we're

10:38

hitting up Austin and Houston. We'll

10:40

need to do San Antonio. So it's one

10:43

thing to say we're in every state. It's another

10:45

thing to be launching these markets in every

10:47

major metro area around the country. And so

10:49

that'll probably take us about five years. And

10:51

at that point, we'll be serving nearly half

10:54

a million kids every single year and have

10:56

this national program where we're out in the

10:58

community creating value, but then attracting these people

11:00

to us as an organization

11:02

to our ideas. Every

11:04

family who comes, they get a Tuttle Twins book.

11:07

We're giving them curriculum. We build

11:09

education around this experience so that not

11:11

only are we giving them a fun

11:13

market experience, but we're teaching them the

11:15

ideas of free enterprise. And then we

11:17

can connect them to like you're in

11:19

Florida. So there's groups in Florida working

11:21

on policy, working at the Capitol, trying

11:23

to defend these principles. We can connect

11:26

all these families to the organizations in

11:28

their backyard, trying to defend their freedoms

11:30

and make the world a better place.

11:32

So it's just this big strategic initiative

11:34

to strengthen our movement, starting

11:36

with these kids markets, going around the country,

11:39

drawing people into our network, and then serving

11:41

them and stewarding them along the way. How

11:44

do you balance wanting to

11:47

seize opportunities with the

11:49

risk of biting off more than you can chew? Oh,

11:52

that is a question to which

11:54

I probably don't have a good

11:56

answer. Speaking for personal

11:58

experience, I am... Very kind

12:00

of A D H D. Like.

12:02

If my Colby score for those know about it I'm

12:04

I'm was called a quick start which means. The

12:06

second I have an idea, it's you know, let's

12:08

go. As you point out, a decade ago time,

12:10

I'd get an email from Tom Woods and it

12:12

would be immediately like, okay, I must give that

12:14

attention. So. I'm very lightweight to

12:17

act on things and decide on things.

12:19

Which. Has, it's downsides to be sure.

12:21

but there's been massive upside for us

12:23

to capitalize on all these opportunities and

12:26

really aggressively trend skill this up. As.

12:28

A program that, yes, we operate philanthropically and

12:30

we get a lot of donor dollars. But

12:32

think of all the corporations out there that

12:34

want to support. Youth. Programs in

12:36

their community want to support the

12:38

next generation entrepreneurship. So. For

12:41

us, this is a very family friendly brand

12:43

and as I said when we were deciding

12:45

should we scale us up and there was

12:47

no reason not to and every reason to,

12:49

We've just been dumping a lot of energy

12:51

and resources into growing this program in part

12:53

because again it has value. was faced with

12:55

that as old as trickle down impact on

12:57

those families on us as an organization. A

12:59

Chris Amazing relationships with donors who I can

13:02

tell he's your grandkids. Live in Atlanta, Georgia

13:04

We've got markets in Atlanta, Georgia. Let's get

13:06

your grandkids to go. And. So it

13:08

creates a lot of solid relationships with all kinds

13:10

of people. And. Is just

13:12

a joy. My board chairman He went to one

13:15

of our markets. Last. Summer of. He

13:17

calls me after. He. Says Connor. I just

13:19

spent five hundred dollars buy something from every

13:22

single birds because he wanted to go support

13:24

all these kids. It's just such a joy

13:26

to go these of and it's a very

13:28

as as you said earlier, top lot of

13:30

negativity lotta. Depressing. Stuff out there

13:33

in the media and and in the policy

13:35

world to were battling all this in our

13:37

politicians and trying to improve things. This.

13:39

Program. This youth entrepreneurship program

13:42

is such a soul. Fulfill.

13:45

Are just so meaningful and so fun to work

13:47

on. So I'm excited that continue to skill as

13:49

up. Your. Listeners no matter where they are

13:51

on the country. Hopefully we have markets going know

13:53

as to whether out so that get their families

13:55

involved. a while i would think

13:57

this is the kind of program also that is

14:00

unique positioned to spread by word of mouth. Because

14:02

if there's one thing adults enjoy doing, it's talking

14:04

about what their kids are up to. And

14:06

then other parents find out about, why isn't my kid up to

14:08

that? Sounds like a great thing for my kid to be doing.

14:11

And then it has a momentum of its own. So

14:14

thinking along those lines, what are your ambitions? I mean,

14:16

it's okay. If you don't reach this goal, I'm not

14:18

going to have you back on and make fun of

14:20

you. I just want to know, in the

14:22

best world, realistically, what would you

14:24

like to see in terms of growth and

14:27

numbers of participants? Well, we'll

14:29

probably plateau in about five or six

14:31

years where I said we'll have about

14:33

200 major metro areas around the country. And

14:36

in each of those metro areas, 10 to

14:39

20 markets every single year. So this is just

14:41

a once a year thing. We're

14:43

doing this a whole bunch of times throughout

14:46

the year so that kids who succeed and

14:48

enjoy it can come back again, continue to

14:50

learn, refine their product, refine their pitch. So

14:52

in every metro area, 10 to 20 markets,

14:54

200 of these metro

14:56

areas around the country, we

14:59

probably stop there in terms of geography because

15:01

the more rural places, they just don't have

15:03

the population density to make these markets a

15:05

success. We don't want kids to come to

15:07

our event and have four people

15:09

show up. The magic of this is

15:11

that lots of foot traffic. And so we're going

15:14

to stick to those 200 metro areas. But even

15:16

though we plateau in terms of geography at about

15:18

half a million kids a year, the program, we're

15:20

going to add a lot more capacity to. For

15:23

example, this past year, we launched

15:25

a scholarship program. So teenagers, it's really

15:27

seed capital. Teenagers who

15:29

really want to grow their little business and build

15:31

a website or even a storefront or whatever, they

15:33

can apply and we're giving them 500 bucks, 1,000

15:35

bucks, 1,500 bucks. That's

15:38

just, it's not equity. It's just take the money.

15:40

But there's some reporting and accountability to make sure

15:43

these kids are actually following through on what they

15:45

said. So that's a program we're going to massively

15:47

build up around the country to be given out

15:49

all this seed money to get the kids started

15:52

and entrepreneurship more seriously than just a Saturday morning

15:54

fun event like we do. And

15:56

then beyond that, we'll take all of our scholarship

15:58

recipients and then the ones that are moving

16:01

forward and actually acting on what they're saying,

16:03

we're going to build a mentorship program around

16:05

it. So imagine like you said, Ben Settle,

16:07

here's a wildly successful entrepreneur. I can go

16:09

to someone like Ben and I can say,

16:11

hey, do you want to give back, pay

16:13

it forward? I've got a kid I would

16:15

love to connect you with where once

16:17

every other month, you guys spend an hour

16:20

on Zoom or maybe he's in your city

16:22

and you go out to lunch or something.

16:25

And we match up our youth entrepreneurs

16:27

with successful adult entrepreneurs who will kind

16:29

of coach them and mentor them and

16:31

be a sounding board. So we'll build

16:33

out a whole mentorship program. Eventually

16:36

down the road, we'll probably launch our

16:38

own like shark tank type annual event

16:40

where we'll get our top teen entrepreneurs

16:42

who are being really innovative and really creative. We'll

16:44

bring them all out to this big event.

16:47

We'll have a panel of our own sharks

16:49

and judges who will put in

16:51

their own money into these kids little businesses

16:54

and really just try and scale it up. So there's

16:56

so much more here, but the vision is just

16:58

even for this program, we want to

17:01

celebrate entrepreneurship, the mentality of it, the

17:03

mindset of it. I think in a

17:05

world full of entitlement mentality and victimhood

17:07

right now with identity politics, one

17:09

of the best antidotes is entrepreneurship because

17:12

you're having to think about value creation.

17:15

It's not about what I want or what

17:17

I am entitled to. It's about how do

17:19

I create something of value to this other

17:21

person so that we can have this mutual

17:23

win-win exchange. And so I

17:25

think this is a program that is kind of

17:28

right time, right team behind it.

17:30

But part of just this bigger vision

17:32

that we have of realizing that in the freedom

17:35

movement for so long, all these

17:37

organizations, these think tanks and activist groups

17:39

and everybody have all been focused on

17:41

adults, right? We go to voters,

17:43

we educate adults, we try and, you know, but

17:46

it's hard to persuade adults. They're largely set in

17:48

their ways and their worldview. And

17:50

so what we're trying to do is go

17:52

out around the country and draw in whole

17:55

families with kids through this program, through Tuttle

17:57

Twins, And then over the years as we

17:59

educate them in. Deepen their understanding of these ideas.

18:01

They become our allies and that site and

18:03

we have a much stronger movement. We are

18:05

way more supporters. Are move and hasn't

18:07

been thinking. About this family centric

18:10

outreach we've been letting our ideological adversaries

18:12

educate our kids in the school system

18:14

and only later to we go bring

18:16

them are ideas So I've just become

18:18

increasingly events that that a more family

18:20

centric. Youth so guess I'll reach

18:22

as how we're going to defend liberty in

18:24

the future. So. That's the vision bind this

18:26

program and much of what we're done up. A

18:30

really quick message on behalf our

18:32

sponsor: Crowd Health. We all know,

18:34

American Health insurance is confusing. Frustrating.

18:36

Expensive. But I. Guess you have

18:38

to have at right off a whole what

18:41

do you gonna do about it off? Well

18:43

we have so they will you do about

18:45

it Now as male friend John Bush says

18:47

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19:43

But I. Have to bring up an

19:45

old story not really into this program, but

19:47

related to. Your. Work agitating

19:49

younger people. Because. It's

19:51

so emblematic of little are up against and I think

19:54

you pro know what I'm trying but. The.

19:56

Article was a Cnn article. oh

19:58

using you and propagandized of putting out

20:00

right wing propaganda for kids in

20:03

a world that is entirely left wing propaganda.

20:07

And so you have your children's book series, and

20:09

that's just one children's book series too many, but

20:11

what I love about it is how you responded

20:13

to that. So

20:15

yeah, they accuse us specifically of

20:18

creating a quote, right wing children's

20:20

education complex. And so

20:22

first I'm like, okay, I like that. I might use

20:24

that. Thanks for giving me that term. But

20:27

many people when they, because

20:29

Tuttle twins, me and Elijah and my partner, our

20:31

illustrator of the books, this is like our baby,

20:33

right? Like we've invested a lot in creating the

20:35

Tuttle twins and spending a lot of time and

20:37

energy. And so when you're attacked

20:40

by CNN, right, a lot of people might

20:42

be just, you know, they might go home

20:44

and cry. They might be frustrated. They might

20:47

need to go to the gym and let out some

20:49

steam because they're frustrated. I was smiling.

20:51

Literally when I was reading this article, I

20:53

had just this ear to ear grin because

20:55

I realized it was a marketing gift. We

20:58

took a screenshot of the article. We plastered

21:00

social media with it. We send it to

21:02

our email list at the time we had,

21:04

I don't know, 600, 700,000 people on it.

21:07

And we said, okay, guys, check out, we linked to the

21:09

article. So it wasn't just the screenshot. We're like, go read

21:11

the full thing. Here you go. And we

21:13

said, flash sale. If you enter the

21:15

coupon CNN on our website, you're

21:18

going to get 50% off of

21:20

the Tuttle twins books this weekend only

21:22

that weekend because of CNN, we sold

21:24

over a hundred thousand bucks in

21:27

a single weekend to which I then said, Hey,

21:29

does anyone have any contacts at MSNBC so that

21:31

we can get them to pile on as well?

21:34

That is so great. You know, we've heard

21:36

the expression monetize your haters, but that's an

21:38

easier thing to say than it is to

21:41

do. I actually have a t-shirt that Eric

21:43

July at least used to sell of

21:45

it's an image of him and it says monetize your

21:47

haters. And I first heard

21:50

the expression used publicly

21:52

by Jordan Peterson and I believe it was

21:54

on Joe Rogan. He said this

21:57

was early on in his rise to

22:00

public fame. He said, I believe I

22:02

have figured out how to monetize

22:04

the social justice warriors. And so I

22:06

did something very similar on a smaller

22:08

scale. There was some crazy rapper

22:11

who was criticizing me and it was

22:13

just all bizarre. I mean, it was

22:16

a bizarre situation. I don't want to go into

22:18

it, but it was so good, the way I

22:20

responded, that I actually made it into a book

22:22

Ben Settle wrote about how to do this. I

22:25

made his name into the coupon

22:27

code for libertyclassroom.com. And I

22:29

said, all right, this is just for my Twitter audience

22:32

only. Nobody else found out about it. You have

22:34

two hours to use this coupon code. And I

22:36

even said to him, look, if you want a

22:38

subscription, I'll copy one because you obviously need it.

22:41

So it was perfect, right? It was

22:43

absolutely perfect. Just my kind of thing.

22:45

So that's the kind of thing I think

22:47

you learn on the job. There's no marketing, no business

22:49

school teaches you that. Well

22:52

and then we had before CNN, there

22:54

was this, I think they still exist,

22:56

this socialist magazine written by socialists for

22:58

socialists called current affairs. They

23:00

did this whole eight page spread on

23:03

the Tuttle twins. They had their own

23:05

parody illustrations about how we're

23:07

all Jeff Bezos puppets trying to,

23:09

you know, enslave warehouse workers and so

23:11

forth. I actually have this article

23:13

framed on my office wall. I

23:15

felt a little awkward purchasing a socialist magazine in

23:17

very capitalist fashion. They felt like they should have

23:20

sent me one for free. But like you, we

23:22

made the coupon code after them and I offered

23:24

them free books that they wouldn't take it. And

23:26

it also backfired when we did, we did our

23:28

coupon code, hey, current affairs, get a discount on

23:30

our books. They then tried to

23:33

launch a retaliatory coupon discount

23:35

saying, Hey, get a discount off of our

23:37

socialist magazine. If you use coupon code, Tuttle

23:39

twins, ooh, takers, but it was fun to

23:42

see the back and forth. Yeah,

23:44

yeah, yeah. And you know what, in a way, in a

23:47

way that's kind of, I mean, I'm not

23:49

encouraging them, but since usually if

23:52

I may use contentious language like

23:54

this, our adversaries are not that

23:56

clever. It's nice to see occasionally you get a

23:58

worthy one, you know, who's who's going to learning

24:00

on the job. And by the way, if that

24:02

kind of reminds me of something. So you

24:04

had obviously some knowledge about

24:06

our ideas and you also had

24:09

a tremendous amount of technical knowledge.

24:11

But I don't think you had any formal business

24:14

training and then suddenly you threw yourself into

24:17

this world where you're creating books

24:19

and workbooks and you have a

24:21

monthly publication you send out and

24:24

all the rest of it in this brand. And then

24:26

on top of that you were running a nonprofit. You

24:29

had to learn an awful lot on the job. I

24:31

mean, what were some of the pitfalls of that? Were

24:33

there any? Oh, there have

24:35

been very many. I mean, starting

24:37

a nonprofit like any business, I

24:39

had no clue what I was doing. There was no

24:41

manual for it. I hired wrong for a long time.

24:44

I had no idea how to hire the right people

24:46

and build the right team. And so I had

24:48

lots of hiring struggles. Leadership, right?

24:50

Like I was always the guy, I was a code

24:52

monkey, right? I used to be your programmer, right? And

24:55

I would just sit there buying my computer and crank

24:57

and get work done. But having to

24:59

build a team and have leadership

25:01

strategy, cast vision for other people,

25:04

in my case, as a nonprofit

25:06

fundraising, building relationships with high net

25:08

worth people and creating value for

25:10

them and partnering with them and

25:12

marketing, right? Like, wow, gosh,

25:14

I've spent, if

25:16

I were to add up how much money we spent

25:18

on marketing over the years for Teletwins, it's probably over

25:20

$10 million. And basically what

25:23

that means is that my customers for

25:25

Teletwins have paid for my marketing experiments

25:27

because it's what's called self liquidating marketing.

25:29

In other words, you click

25:31

on an Instagram ad for Teletwins, you buy

25:33

our books, you pay, I don't know, $70,

25:35

$80, depending on what you're buying on average.

25:38

Well, my cost of acquisition, in other

25:40

words, the amount of advertising dollars I have to pay

25:42

to get a customer on

25:44

average fluctuates, but you know, $40, $50

25:46

to acquire a customer. And then I've got other,

25:49

you know, the costs of the books and the fulfillment and

25:51

everything on top of that. But my

25:53

goal isn't even profit. Doing

25:55

this through our nonprofit, it's a mission driven goal.

25:58

I want these as

26:00

much as possible. So my ultimate goal is

26:02

revenue neutrality. As long as my

26:04

customers will pay for the advertising so that I

26:06

can get them to buy the books, then

26:09

I'm marketing for free. And consequently,

26:11

those $10 million that I've spent

26:13

on all these marketing experiments have

26:15

been the best education I have

26:17

ever received because it's all real-world

26:19

data. It's doing AB experiments. It's

26:21

trying to understand... I'll

26:24

give you a very specific example, Tom.

26:26

Back in 2017, when I started really

26:28

ramping up online advertising of the Tuttle

26:31

Twins, I created these graphics.

26:33

You were in one of them. We had

26:35

a Murray Rothbard one. We had a Ron

26:37

Paul one. And these quotes about why education

26:39

is important or freedom or all kinds of

26:41

stuff. And so I threw up all these

26:43

ads just experimenting and seeing what would work.

26:45

The most proud one that I had was

26:47

Ron Paul. And I had this quote where he

26:50

actually gave us a testimonial. And I think yours

26:52

was also a testimonial. But people saying nice things

26:54

about what we're doing. And it was

26:56

fascinating to me to see how some people... I'll

26:59

boost your ego here a little bit. My theory

27:01

was that the Ron Paul ad would blow it

27:03

out of the water because it's like Ron Paul.

27:05

He's the granddaddy of the movement. Your

27:08

ad beat his by like 3x

27:10

and many other people beat Ron Paul. So that

27:12

was really interesting. I had to try and understand

27:14

why is it that the Ron Paul testimonial isn't

27:17

doing as good. And part of the

27:19

conclusion we had was that Ron Paul

27:21

was limelight in 2008, 2012

27:24

presidential campaigns started his liberty

27:26

report. But when he left Congress, he kind

27:28

of faded a bit from everyone's daily remembrance

27:31

and focus. Whereas you and others were

27:33

kind of up and coming and growing

27:35

influence and daily engagement. And so

27:37

I had to realize, oh, okay, the influencers

27:39

and the people I can partner with, they

27:41

need to have... If they're truly influencers, they

27:43

need to have influence. Who are the

27:46

people that have influence? It's people that you

27:48

listen to on a regular basis, not people

27:50

that you listen to and have very fond

27:52

respect for and admiration for in the past.

27:55

But I wonder if another part of that is that Dr.

27:58

Paul's kids are all grown. I'm sure he sees... his

28:00

grandkids from time to time. But

28:02

at the time I gave you the endorsement, I had

28:04

five daughters living in the house. So you can assume

28:06

I read these books to them. So

28:08

I don't just like them in the abstract, but I can tell you

28:11

that the kids like them. Yeah, no,

28:13

that's a very good point. And I

28:15

have to offer this parenthetical. I don't know that

28:17

I've ever shared it on your show before. When

28:19

Elijah and I launched the Tuttle Twins, it was

28:21

2014 at Freedom Fest. I

28:24

know you're interviewing Mark Skousen here coming up. So

28:27

we went to Freedom Fest. That's where Elijah and I

28:29

first met. So we kind of had some affinity for

28:31

Freedom Fest. We had a booth. No

28:33

one knew who we were, right? Like we

28:35

were in the corner, like the deep dark

28:37

corner of the big vendor hall. People

28:40

were just walking by our booth. No one had any

28:42

clue what this was or who I was or anything.

28:44

So we sold a few and talked to a

28:46

few people, but I had just set up our

28:48

website a couple of weeks prior where people could

28:51

come and buy the books online. Every few hours

28:53

I'd get an email notification saying, hey, someone buy

28:55

your book. While there at the

28:57

conference, I'm sitting behind the booth. Things are

28:59

slow. I'm kind of feeling

29:01

like, is this really the best

29:03

idea, best use of my time, et cetera? And

29:06

I get this email notification. Someone bought 50

29:08

copies of the book. I love

29:10

this story. We only have the Tuttle Twins. I

29:12

actually do know. Okay, I should. Yeah, so I'm

29:14

scrolling down. I'm like, it's rolling in Carol Paul.

29:16

They call one for all their grandkids. So

29:19

Elijah and I had the good honor of

29:21

going to Dr. Paul's home and having lunch

29:24

with him and Carol just a few

29:26

weeks ago. We were down there for a recording on

29:28

his podcast and I was able to share that memory

29:30

with them and just pay a lot of

29:33

respect, but it is interesting. I think

29:35

your point is very valid. You have a lot more influence

29:38

in the sense that as a dad, you see how

29:41

this is working. Again, going back to your

29:43

question, I was learning everything.

29:45

I had no, I was just doing a

29:47

lot of experiments. That's the greatest learning that

29:49

I've ever had is experiment like crazy. Set

29:51

up split tests, set up A-B experiments, challenge

29:54

everything that you think is going well, try

29:56

and disrupt yourself before others disrupt you. And

29:59

so. with all of our marketing efforts, and

30:01

even just the whole business, we're always trying

30:04

to rethink, rethink, rethink, and challenge the status

30:06

quo, because it's been so helpful to us

30:08

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31:29

One thing in terms of the strategy

31:31

that you talked about, that's a little bit different with

31:33

me, I'm very often selling things

31:35

that are electronic and instantly deliverable. They're

31:37

not physical books and stuff. But

31:40

one thing that I do is

31:42

I'll give something away, and

31:44

then stuff I give away is generally

31:46

pretty good. I'm really proud

31:48

of what I give away, the books, the videos,

31:50

whatever. But then as soon as I give

31:53

it to you, you get taken to a page where I say, okay,

31:56

now I've got something for you to buy, but

31:58

it is steeply discounted. And it is. It's deeply

32:01

discounted. But the idea of

32:03

that is, I don't really

32:05

take that money and keep it. Like

32:08

let's say I'm selling a $100 course for $17

32:10

or something. It's

32:12

a crazy discount. That's not so

32:14

I can make $17. It's so

32:16

that I take all these sets of $17 and

32:20

I then go into whatever

32:22

social media platform and

32:24

I spend it on ads to get more people to

32:27

get that integral thing. And so it's

32:29

a way of getting more people into my audience

32:32

while not having to in effect spend my own

32:34

money. I spend the money that the thing itself

32:36

generates, which is why it's called

32:38

a self liquidating offer. It generates money from

32:40

that one time offer, get the course

32:42

for $17. The $17

32:44

goes into getting more people. Some of them get

32:46

the $17 thing. That brings

32:48

in more people. And meanwhile my audience gets bigger and

32:51

bigger. This is the kind of thing, again, nobody taught

32:53

me. Well, nobody taught me that in school. I

32:55

had to learn that by just watching what other

32:57

people did. And as an

32:59

author, Tom, you'll appreciate this. I know you're

33:02

doing some author trainings

33:05

and I'm gonna be talking to your audience about that, how to write

33:07

a book, how to sell a book. And

33:09

as an author, as someone who's passionate about

33:11

spreading these ideas, I need to

33:13

find ways to get people to actually buy the books

33:16

and invest and go read them with their kids. And

33:18

perhaps the greatest lesson that I've learned, the thing

33:21

that has helped us with the teletrans the most

33:23

is removing the middleman to the extent possible.

33:26

So we have our own warehouse, we do

33:28

our own fulfillment. I employ a few dozen

33:30

teenagers who just pack Tuttle Twins books all

33:32

day long. But we do all of that

33:35

because it allows us to be the ones

33:37

selling the book on tuttletwins.com directly

33:39

to the family. Why is that important? There's

33:42

a few reasons, but the key thing, it's what

33:44

you said, it's audience growth. I want

33:46

to build a list. There's power in the list. Every

33:48

time I have a new book coming out, I have one in a couple of

33:50

weeks coming out for teens and

33:53

parents called Mind Wars. It's not

33:55

a Tuttle Twins book, it's just about the psychological

33:57

battlefields that we're in today. So I have this

33:59

massive list. of a million plus people now that

34:01

I can send one email to and suddenly I've sold

34:03

15,000 bucks or whatever. So

34:06

the list as you grow that over

34:08

time, the ability to communicate directly with

34:10

your customers and with your audience

34:12

is so key. You can set up affiliate deals,

34:15

you can set up referral partnerships, you can do

34:17

all kinds of stuff. But I

34:19

find that so many business people

34:21

more broadly, but also authors specifically,

34:23

don't think about marketing

34:25

really much, but also they don't think

34:27

about audience development and how to actually

34:29

connect with their readers and how they

34:31

can create value for them and offer

34:33

for them in exchange for that email

34:35

address or their SMS number. And

34:38

so that to me has been the most rewarding

34:40

lesson is realizing that there's power in the list.

34:43

And no matter what we do, it's all about

34:45

creating enough value that they will give me contact

34:47

information so that I can serve

34:49

them over time and create more value for them.

34:52

Let's go back to the children's entrepreneur market. I

34:55

think I've almost basically said it. What is the

34:57

website for that? Yeah, it

35:00

is a mouthful. Children's

35:02

entrepreneur market.com. Children's

35:05

plural. Children's entrepreneur market.com. And

35:08

so right now at the time of this recording

35:10

in February, we've got probably six or seven states

35:12

open just because it's earlier in the year. The

35:15

rest of them will all open this summer and

35:17

fall when things are warmer. But

35:19

there's a little sign up there. You can join the email

35:21

list and get notified when we have markets going in your

35:23

state. And if you don't see any now, you'll be the

35:25

first to know. These are for kids age five

35:27

to 17. It's a pretty

35:29

wide age range. And we don't

35:32

control or regulate anything the kids sell.

35:35

Sometimes you'll have a lazy mom or a

35:37

busy mom or whatever who just goes to

35:39

Costco and buys some bags of chips and

35:41

soda cans. And those

35:44

kids aren't going to do very well because they're

35:46

likely going to be a couple of booths down

35:48

from some kids who made homemade cinnamon rolls. And

35:51

then there are a couple of booths down from

35:53

some kids making a fun, fruity boba drink. And

35:56

so the competition is part of the process. I

35:58

had a mom. I have a brief story. I

36:00

was three years ago after one of our markets, I was

36:02

at the gas station, and this

36:04

van pulls up on the other side, and this lady

36:06

says, hey, you're the guy from the market

36:08

thing, right? I said, yeah. And with

36:10

her kids still in the van, proceeds to berate

36:12

me for the poor experience that her children had.

36:15

Oh, we had to pay 15 bucks for a

36:17

booth, and my kids didn't

36:19

even make their money back, it was a waste of our time. And

36:22

I went and looked up later what she had

36:24

sold, and it was the equivalent of something simple

36:27

and stupid like that, that couldn't compete

36:29

against all the custom, interesting things

36:31

that these kids were doing. And I don't

36:33

know if you ever watched Seinfeld, but there

36:35

was this shtick where George Costanza would always,

36:37

when he had a kerfuffle, he'd be driving

36:40

home on the freeway 20 minutes later, and

36:42

he'd have that aha. But what I should have said? Yeah,

36:45

exactly. So he pulls a U-turn, and he

36:47

goes into Mr. Steinbreter, but

36:50

by then it's too late. That was me with this

36:52

lady. In the moment I wasn't on my toes, I

36:54

wish in retrospect, I would have told

36:56

her, lady, it's not about making money,

36:58

it's about learning. And what you just put your

37:01

kids through and the experience you just had, is

37:03

perhaps one of the greatest lessons that you can

37:05

teach them to help them understand, why didn't we

37:07

do well? What were other kids doing, where they

37:09

did well and made money? Let's learn from this

37:12

and grow, but it was this very like negative

37:14

victim mindset. So for us, it's

37:16

not just about kids earning money, we want these

37:18

kids to be learning a lot. We've got curriculum

37:20

for them, we've got all kinds of videos and

37:23

things to help them. And

37:25

so we end up getting just a

37:27

wide range of products. I

37:29

once had a girl teach me a song

37:31

on the ukulele for five bucks, little 15

37:33

minute ukulele lesson. We got just all kinds

37:35

of stuff. It's just such a joy. And

37:38

I'm hopeful that we can get all your listeners

37:40

coming out to support these markets, whether their kids

37:42

come and participate, or just show up and patronize

37:45

these kids and put them through their paces to

37:47

ask them tough questions and see how they do.

37:49

It's just such a rewarding event, especially

37:52

knowing that behind the scenes,

37:54

there's like this strategic initiative on

37:56

our part to leverage this audience that

37:58

we're building. and continue to educate

38:01

them over time in our ideas, our philosophy,

38:03

and then put them to work with

38:05

the groups in their state who are trying to

38:07

defend freedom. Before I

38:09

let you go, maybe you know this already, but

38:11

not everybody listening will necessarily know it. Do

38:14

you know there's actually an expression for that experience you had

38:16

where you thought of the exact right

38:18

thing to say, but only after it

38:20

was too late? The expression is

38:23

l'esprit de l'escalier. And

38:25

it refers to the staircase. It's only when you get

38:27

to the bottom of the stairs does it hit you.

38:30

This expression goes back several hundred years

38:33

because we've all had it that somebody is

38:35

berating us, as you say, and we're discombobulated.

38:37

We're not at our best. Not everybody is

38:39

Michael Malice. I think that's fuel for him.

38:42

He's whittier at that moment, whereas

38:44

I'm completely confused. I don't know

38:46

what to do. And then later

38:49

I formulate the greatest comeback, so

38:51

that's l'esprit de l'escalier. All right.

38:53

So childrensentrepreneurmarket.com is the website. I'm

38:55

going to have that linked conveniently

38:57

in the video description as

38:59

well as at tomwoods.com/2451. I

39:02

can't endorse what you're doing

39:05

more highly, and I hope

39:07

people will go check it out and get involved.

39:09

As you say, even if you don't have kids

39:11

of your own or maybe you're older or you're

39:14

an empty nest or whatever, you can still take

39:16

part. We still want people to show up and

39:18

participate and be encouraging and buy things. So there's

39:20

a role for everybody in this. Absolutely.

39:23

Thanks for having me on, Tom. It's great to

39:25

help spread the word. This is something over the

39:27

next three to four years we want to have

39:29

everywhere. And so if we're not in

39:31

your state, dear listener, dear viewer, we'll

39:34

be there soon. But again, on that website, you can

39:36

subscribe and make sure to get updated once we do

39:38

come to your neck of the woods. Thanks

39:40

again, Connor. And thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Become

39:44

a smarter libertarian in just 30 minutes

39:47

a day. Visit tomwoods.com to subscribe to

39:49

the show for free, and we'll see

39:51

you next time. Bye.

39:56

Bye. Bye. Bye. Podsworth

40:00

Media, check them out at podsworth.com.