Last Week’s Podcast Crushed on X ... Here’s Why

[00:00:00] Richard Gaffin: Hey folks. Welcome to the Ecommerce Playbook Podcast. I'm your host, Richard Gaffin, Director of Digital Product Strategy here at Common Thread, and I'm joined as I always am by Mr. Taylor Holiday, our CEO here at Common Thread. Taylor, what's going on today, man?

[00:00:12] Taylor Holiday: Not much Richard. Uh, just, uh. A couple weeks of summer left. Um,

[00:00:18] Richard Gaffin: Crazy.

[00:00:19] Taylor Holiday: it's winding down. New things begin. It's a season of a rebirth here. You know, we're starting to, starting at day one on a new journey. So, uh, yeah, feeling lots of, uh, ends and beginnings all at once.

[00:00:30] Richard Gaffin: There you go. And speaking of which, I mean I think like one way that we documented this sort of shift was a, a conversation that you had with Andrew last week. And so I think a little bit of what we wanna talk about today is, maybe kind of digging into some of, some of getting going deeper on some of the topics that you talked about with Andrew A.

Little bit. But I think generally speaking, one thing that we observed is that. That piece of content with Andrew actually did better for us than most of the content that we put out.

[00:00:54] Taylor Holiday: Yeah.

[00:00:55] Richard Gaffin: and you would even phrase it like you've never seen received so much praise for a piece of content before. And so I think part of what we wanna dive into today, and I think it'd be an interesting conversation, is around what, why, why did that happen?

What makes a great piece of content? And then kind of spin that out into a conversation more broadly about like, why, how do you apply these lessons to say your brand? 'cause obviously storytelling is crucially important in that, um. So let's, let's kinda go back to response that you received from this piece of content.

Talk to us a little bit about what that was.

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[00:02:16] Taylor Holiday: Yeah, I, I, I've never received such aus of praise for, for a piece of content in this, in this vein of like, thank you. Like, it, like, it, like these deeply personal messages of appreciation for sharing. And it's funny, and I've been, so, I've been really trying to sort out like, why, like what? What about it?

Because I actually like, looking back, I don't think there was anything I haven't said before. Like I've told a lot of those stories a lot of times and a lot of different pieces of content, but there was something about that that really just seemed to, to hit something with people. And

[00:02:49] Richard Gaffin: Yeah.

[00:02:49] Taylor Holiday: so anytime you make a piece of content like that, I, I at least am always trying to extract like, okay, well how do I recreate this?

Like, how do I now build on top of that experience? Was it the format? Was it. Is it about me and Andrew in long form? Is it about the visual production? Is it, you know, like what, what drew out of it that you could then build on top of? Um, and so Andrew and I have been processing that a lot and I've been thinking a lot about it and

[00:03:14] Richard Gaffin: Let's, let's actually real

[00:03:15] Taylor Holiday: Okay.

Yeah,

[00:03:16] Richard Gaffin: kind of summarize first for those who didn't see it, what was the piece of content about?

[00:03:20] Taylor Holiday: so Andrew and I have been trying to do something like that's based on, we call, I call it in my head the random show because it, it's based on, I used to love listening to Tim Ferriss and Kevin, um. What's his name from, uh, dig, uh, Kevin Rose. They would do these shows where it was just two friends sort of sit together and catch up on all the things they're reading, watching, et cetera, and there'd be these long forms over a glass of wine.

Two guys that were clearly friends talking to each other, and I, I just loved listening to those episodes. Some of my favorite Tim Ferris episodes. And so Andrew and I would recreate that. We'd do these once a month, sit down, catch up, talk about what books are you reading, what shows are you watching, what things are you arguing with people about on the internet, et cetera.

This time we did, um, obviously the, the sale of CDC created this impetus for a sort of more focused conversation. And his brother who runs a production company in a really cool YouTube channel came and like shot it on four different cameras in the studio here at Skullcandy. And so it was this con combination of like a semi interview where he was asking me stuff, but there was also back and forth and then shot at a like higher production level than normal.

Dialogue. So it's a two hour sort of long form piece about the journey of CTC and, um, so yeah, it was, and it, I think it was just like, uh, tapped into something for a lot of people in a way that was, uh, obviously meaningful. So I just trying to understand that a little more is where I'm at right now.

[00:04:40] Richard Gaffin: Yeah. Yeah, totally. Okay, so well then talk about like the conversations that you've had, let's say with Andrew and the conversation that we had a little bit before we hit record here. Like what, are those things? Like what, what are the kind of key things that you're pulling out right now?

[00:04:53] Taylor Holiday: Yeah, so the other thing I wanna put this in context of is, like at CTC, we're always trying to come up with, we, we do a lot of original series, right? Like where we try and create content in this like form factor of episodic sequential narrative and teaching, um, is an example. The, I'd say the other piece of content I've probably received the most, uh, praise for was my Bridges series, which is like 12.

Episodes of like hour long finance and marketing educational content. And in both of these cases, what I've found is, um, that the unfortunate reality about those places of content is that you, you can't at, like, there are few and far between. They're, they're. You can't microwave them. That in both cases, like the CTC journey is like a 12 year story.

Um, and so if you want a lot of richness in a substantive thing to say, like gather experiences for 12 years, and in the Bridges series it's like 12 episodes. That's sort of the same thing, which is like. You want to teach, like learn and apply in an arena for a decade, and then you'll have one great thing to say.

You know, like that's, I think about this like with musicians sort of like their GR one great album kind of feeling where it's like you could spend your life collecting this experience of living and loss and gain and wisdom and knowledge that could sort of manifest into how many of these great. Pieces do you have to give the world, you know, and I'm being, that's a bit dramatic, but that's what it feels like a little bit, is that, um, the discouraging thing coming outta that content is that it wasn't a one off tweet that I thought of sitting on the toilet, which is sort of this like, you know, usual thing about what you say goes viral.

It was actually the opposite. It was like the end result of such a long journey that I don't know how to just tap right back into and, and offer out of.

[00:06:47] Richard Gaffin: Yeah. so what do you think about like the content creators who are sort of able to continually do that?

[00:06:53] Taylor Holiday: Yeah. Well, so I, I think about this refined skill over time. Like, uh, I think about. The people who have the repetition volume, um, that is so high that I think about this with Mr. Beast, you know, the classic story of him going back to posting when he was in high school to nobody every day all the time. And it's like this constant refinement at very large scale, over a very long time horizon that leads to then the ability to recreate it more often.

And so I think that's one thing, or, or, you know, in our industry, I think about baseball lifestyle, like those, the story goes that Josh, the founder, ran an Instagram account. Posting every day, twice a day for like seven years or some insane number to very small amounts of people early on that now the end output of the development of that audience is you can now, uh, squeeze it for $4 million in a single day on an apparel drop, which they did two weeks ago.

[00:07:47] Richard Gaffin: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:48] Taylor Holiday: you look at that and you think about, okay, how do I. Extract something out of it to teach or to recreate for myself. And, and the challenge is like, you look at it and what it is, is a very giant high mountain. It's like post on Instagram twice a day, every day for seven years. It's like a, a plan. Nobody wants, um, you know, that's, and, and so I think about that with content, um, is what is that thing you're gonna do that nobody else will do that actually makes the thing that you create something nobody else could create.

And that's, that's the challenge I think when, when I think about it.

[00:08:20] Richard Gaffin: I mean, it sounds like what it is, is like you have to begin creating. discover what it is that you can actually create uniquely or something

[00:08:27] Taylor Holiday: Yeah, that's right.

[00:08:28] Richard Gaffin: I think it's interesting in the conversation with Andrew, you'd mentioned the carrot seed being your favorite business book, and you didn't elaborate on it too much, but the point of that book is that the little boy comes out and waters the carrot. Oh yeah. Why don't you pull it. Yeah, yeah. There we go.

[00:08:42] Taylor Holiday: Go you. You can, you can tell it, but yeah.

[00:08:43] Richard Gaffin: boy comes out, he uh, he plants a carrot. Or carrot seeds rather. He comes out and waters 'em every day. There's the voices of naysayers kind of in the background of saying like, well, there's nothing today.

There's nothing today. There's nothing today. And then eventually, of course, he's able to grow. He grows a carrot.

[00:08:57] Taylor Holiday: Yep.

[00:08:57] Richard Gaffin: And so, I mean, basically like within the tale of that story is the tale of all of these different. of the growth of these content, um, or these sort of like famous content accounts or whatever. Um, and, and then generally, just like a business, like anything in general that you're gonna succeed at, requires you to have zero feedback for a long time in order to get to a point where all of a sudden it ramps up and you get a ton, right.

[00:09:21] Taylor Holiday: That's right. Yeah, that's right. And, and yeah, the port of the book is, yeah, he waters the ground and pulls up the weeds every day. A bunch of people tell him It'll never come up. It'll never come up. And then the very end came up just like the little boy always knew it would. Um, and. Yeah, there's this, this sense by which I go back to those early days, and if you scroll the beginning of our YouTube channel and like, look, we're not even like big creators.

Like we, we don't, it's not like we have massive audiences here. It's not, it's more of the application into the business space. But what Corey and I said is like, we'll just, we're just going to make stuff all the time. Um, and so I think about now. That process for, we have some internal people who are developing their own skills as creators or wanting to figure out how we can build on this as an organization.

And I, I think the key is to, for each person to sort of explore their unique voice and experiences that give them an angle to tell that is distinct from everybody else. Like, and that, that is like a little cliche, like be yourself sort of vibe. But I think the temptation. The problem with that is that what's likely to be true also is that early on you'll get very neutral to no feedback about that path.

[00:10:30] Richard Gaffin: Yeah.

[00:10:30] Taylor Holiday: so the temptation is to start looking at what other people are doing that works and trying to like mimic it, right to go edit like the guys on YouTube and edit like the people on TikTok that are successful already. And there's something about it that I think is, uh. It's really challenging to sit in your own story when your own story

[00:10:50] Richard Gaffin: Yeah.

[00:10:50] Taylor Holiday: feel compelling.

At first, ,

[00:11:42] Richard Gaffin: I, I think there's probably some benefit to like. Maybe trusting that your story, even though it maybe doesn't feel particularly spectacular, may contain unique nuggets of insight anyway. Like I think about

[00:11:55] Taylor Holiday: I.

[00:11:55] Richard Gaffin: to, to kind of bring it back to e-commerce, like a lot of e-comm founders, this is especially like 10 years ago on the about page, it's like we were just two guys in a garage with a dream and it's like, okay.

I mean that's, that's every single founder's story basically. But if you actually. Were to dig into their specific experiences, actually getting into that garage. Where was the garage? Who were the people that they were talking to? What's like one time that somebody, I don't know, yelled at you on the phone, whatever, you would kind of uncover some, there was just inherent uniqueness in those events that maybe you, you'd be able to dig up, I guess.

Um,

[00:12:30] Taylor Holiday: Yeah. And, and I, I think there's this, um, so, so one of the things, I'll give you an example of something I saw recently that sort of illustrates, um, what I think is sort of required on this process is so Western Rise, uh, will and Kelly Watts, did you ever work on their brand? Richard, I, I feel like you might have, uh, so they were a client for a while.

Really awesome couple. They have a brand called Western Rise. It's like apparel. And, um, now I'm gonna use my words wisely here. Like this category I find to be like really difficult 'cause it's just so damn competitive and hard to be. Unique in any way that's substantive, that gives people something to connect to.

Um, and so I know they had been kind of grinding it out for a while, having periods of growth, step backs, all these different things. And I saw a post, um, I. This week, two days ago on LinkedIn, and it was from Will. Um, and it was announcing like a, a, a refresh of the brand, like they redesigned the brand and along the way it says, so this is, this is what it says.

A lot can happen in six months. Sorry. The next chapter of Western Rise is here and it feels damn good to finally show you what we've been building. A lot can happen. In six months, we shut it all down. We moved our family to Vietnam, rebuilt our supply chain from the ground up. New partners, new processes, tighter oversight, better everything.

We launched a new office and team on the ground, redesigned our fabrics. Re. Find our fits reimagined every stitch, we rewrote the brand voice from scratch, refocused our product, sta rebuilt internal systems and we did it all in six months. Uh, the end result is this and he like shares the new brand, the brand documents.

But you, you said wow. At the same point I did. Which is that like, wait, an American family so committed to making their brand work picked up and moved their family to Vietnam.

[00:14:19] Richard Gaffin: Yeah.

[00:14:20] Taylor Holiday: Ah, now there's a story

[00:14:22] Richard Gaffin: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:22] Taylor Holiday: I'm in. I'm like, I'm, I'm in. I want, I want a vlog. I wanna see like, where's the TikTok account showing me the journey.

Where are you every day? What's it like to raise a family in Vietnam? Like, and, and, and I just go like, oh, there, there's, now there's a something of interest. There's, there's a, there's a, but the, the cost is like. Ima in, imagine like immeasurably high. Like I, I, I wouldn't do it, but that's what makes something worth checking out.

And so I think there's just this, this piece by which you can't fake it. I, I go back to like the born primitive thing of like, why, why was there D-Day thing so amazing? You know, it was cool packaging and all this stuff, but the reality is like, you know, what Bear had to do to be able to create that moment was like.

Become a Navy SEAL and be willing to die. Like if that's, like, that's the truth, right? Um, of like what it required. And so I think about that as a reality of like what, when agency, like what does it cost, I don't know, 12 years of your prime age, of your life like that. Like there's just something about. The depth of cost that actually people won't ignore.

And they, it will matter to them when they tell the story. If you do something that they look out and go, wow, that's dramatic. Like, that's,

[00:15:36] Richard Gaffin: definitely.

[00:15:37] Taylor Holiday: I think, I think, I don't know. I, I guess that was, that was the thing that I feel coming out of that is that, um, if I wanna give anybody advice, 'cause I get like one of the things that's triggered a bunch of people asking me things or like, I even think about with Tony Luke, you like creators and content.

It's that like. You just, you can't, you can't fake the complexity, the hard the time. And so if you want it, you gotta, there's gonna be an immense cost to the thing. And so just like if you'll pay more than everybody else on that price side, then I think you get something on the other side that's like somewhat commiserate.

Now, not always, I'm sure, but that's a little bit of my feeling coming out of it.

[00:16:18] Richard Gaffin: totally. Well, I was, I was gonna observe too that like in the story that you told, particularly in that episode and that I know of like within, there's just sort, sort of Germany of, of common thread. There's nothing that's as. As sort of, um, concentratedly dramatic as I moved my family to Vietnam, the, the actual, like the drama or the pain itself, the cost itself, regardless of, of whether or not it's like as, as kind of explosive as that contains inherent interest.

So I think like for sure, people just like. Listening to the moment when you had, you and Dunbar had to be on the phone with the bank

[00:16:52] Taylor Holiday: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:53] Richard Gaffin: whatever, and the fact that you felt, even you Taylor Holiday, the sort of leader in the e-commerce space felt emotionally unprepared to even like bear the weight of all the stuff that you were going through. Um, there's just sort of like inherent interest in that and may, maybe what I'm saying is that sort of build in public model is maybe the type of thing that you need to do in order to create this type of content. But,

[00:17:14] Taylor Holiday: But yeah, there's almost, there's almost something about like asking yourself where you're paying like a, a disproportionate or unique cost

[00:17:22] Richard Gaffin: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:23] Taylor Holiday: that could be. Of interest. Right? Or, or, or could be actually the moat that you're building like that, that's sort of the question is like, what, where are you digging a moat through immense hardship that someone else won't be able to just easily cross over?

And so I think even if you think about your content, like if the way that you've made a piece of content is because you followed like. A new trendy edit process, even if it works. The problem with that inherently is that everybody else can too. Like there's literally like nothing about it that would be unique to you in any way, shape or form.

And I think about this all the time with my business, like there's a lot of temptation to like partner with vendors, right? Like in our space there's a lot of this like where you could be the prefer or like an agency partner to the new triple whale Moby or whatever. And. I think the problem with that is that it sort of sits in the same vein.

It's the shortcut that everybody else, it's the bridge everybody else can walk over to and gives you no unique value proposition in the world. And so this, whether you're a brand or a service provider or anything else, I think the question is to just constantly ask What do I have to offer that is distinct from.

Anyone else and to really keep pulling on that thread to play a little pun there as much as possible, um, for a long period of time.

[00:18:40] Richard Gaffin: Yeah. Well now, okay. So it strikes me then of course, that like part of this too is like surely there's just some element of x factor of just like you and Andrew are really good at telling stories, you're compelling on Mike, whatever. how much of a role do you feel like that plays in it? And obviously this feels like to me it contributes to the IR replicability of this type of thing.

[00:19:00] Taylor Holiday: So, yeah, so even that's a good example. Like what was Andrew's past life? He was a preacher. Like, you know, like I even

[00:19:08] Richard Gaffin: Yeah.

[00:19:08] Taylor Holiday: that's, that's where I grew up. Like it was, that's where I learned to. Speak too was in church. I was listening to people preach narrative and you wanna talk about the ultimate place of making up stories?

Like that's the, that's the spot. No, sorry, sorry about the shot there. But like, there you have to be so compelling around this really complex idea that is, uh, inherently rooted in belief in story and narrative. And so, uh, it's. It's just another example of a place where the bridge and the structure got built to, to, to ultimately end in a piece of content that has that level of impact.

And again, we're, we're like, we're not, we didn't change the world here. We're just talking about something that was like a good business outcome. You know, it's just, um, so. I think though that these are all just pieces where I, I we, we've been talking about like, do we send some of our up and coming people to Toastmasters?

Right? Like, like

[00:19:57] Richard Gaffin: Yeah,

[00:19:58] Taylor Holiday: how could you help them? How could you help them refine the craft like, and. What cost could you get everybody to pay that would be greater? Such that, so, so that when they realize the benefit, you can look back and go, yeah, yeah, they paid the price, therefore they get the reward. And it, it's just like the equity thing.

Like if you try and separate these things where you just want the reward, like it just doesn't seem to be. That it happens that way very well. Um, and I find this with our content too, when I find it, I, I know when I'm being shallow, right? Like when the amount of time and energy that we put into preparing for the thing isn't that rich that I, I expect somewhat of a service level response back.

Um, there's been a couple of times where we've sort of really tried to rush and finish for the sake of getting that sponsorship or whatever, whatever it might be, and you just feel it. You like, you know, in your soul that like there's just something about it. That isn't your best work. Um, and I think that is, uh, that is the tension that I think most coming outta this piece of content.

I'm learning and thinking about how to apply in communication or advice to brands or anybody else is that like to sit a little longer in the unique you and the story and the place where you're absorbing costs and how could we bring that to life in a way that would bring people into it.

[00:21:13] Richard Gaffin: Yeah. Well I think like that that your point that you're making about sending people to Toastmasters, that that sort of makes sense too because there's, I feel like being a great storyteller, at least learning those techniques really papers over a lot of maybe inexperience as well. Like maybe you don't find that you have. This sort of unique, there's not a a unique experience that's easy for you to immediately dig into, but the fact that you're a great storyteller might make that kind of a moot point. I think. I think about the, uh, you know, the YouTube channel, I think it's Mr. Ballin maybe, uh, he's kinda like an ex Navy Seal who just tells stories.

That's his entire channel. He gets like a 2 million hits per video. None of the stories are his own, with some rare exceptions, but he's an incredible storyteller. So you want to hear him tell the story of the guy who, I dunno, blacked out and in a coma. He met his wife and had a family and then woke up and they disappeared or whatever.

Like an incredible tale. But the person who's telling the story themself doesn't do such a good job of it, but he does. You know? And so I think like there, there's a ton of value in Yeah. Trying to nail down those communication techniques to kind of boost whatever experience it's you already have. Right.

[00:22:17] Taylor Holiday: Yeah. Yeah. That, that's so right. And that, that guy's fascinating. I've actually, I've seen his stuff where

[00:22:22] Richard Gaffin: Yeah,

[00:22:22] Taylor Holiday: he's just sort of reading, so you get this combination of like, he gets the trade on the best stories from everyone, and then he.

[00:22:28] Richard Gaffin: yeah.

[00:22:28] Taylor Holiday: gets to use his, uh, charisma and ability to present, to maximize the value in a way that's super interesting.

Um, yeah. So I don't know. I, in some ways it's a discourage, it's weird. It's like a discouraging

[00:22:43] Richard Gaffin: Interesting.

[00:22:44] Taylor Holiday: feeling coming out of it because you're sort of like, I don't know how to recreate that. Like, I don't, I don't know how to make the next thing I do as substantive as the thing where I told the story of 12 years of my life, you know?

Um, so. There's a lesson there that I think can be applied and thought through. And as we go into, and we have a job, right? We have to come up with 10 original content series over the next 16 months together, right? And we've gotta think about what can we tell and trade on that is, um, really valuable and substantive to try and allow people to connect to it in the same way, to try and be helpful.

'cause that's what we're here to do. And for brands that are listening, like, I think it's just to just stop sometimes and ask that question of like. Where's the place that I'm digging the moat and how do I focus more on that and how do I adjust my horizon of impact appropriately? Um, because I think, you know, the contrast of this is like the groom story, right?

Where like, I don't know if you listen to, uh, Chad Janis on. Marketing operators, like talking about, uh, Gros and how fast they're growing and it feels like it's all super fast microwave. But again, underpinning that as a guy who spent a decade in the industry in private equity learning, went to Stanford Business School, like there's like 15 years of preparation to be able to build a really fast growing company.

And so it's just never true. Probably not never, but it's very rarely true that this instantaneous thing is connected to anything other than. A process and journey that was really hard over a really long time that other people weren't willing to take.

[00:24:19] Richard Gaffin: Yeah.

[00:24:20] Taylor Holiday: I think that's the, uh, the lesson that I think about.

I think about this, like when it comes to raising kids or marriage or anything else, it's like, yeah, the great reward is, is at the end of that process of doing it. Then you have something to say about the process that people wanna listen to. It's like,

[00:24:34] Richard Gaffin: Yeah.

[00:24:35] Taylor Holiday: congratulations, you were married for 50 years. I would like your advice.

Uh, you've been married for 32 minutes. You know, and I think that's just sort of the, the trade off.

[00:24:44] Richard Gaffin: Yeah. Um, a couple things I think might be worthwhile following up on from that conversation in terms of the, the specific content. So, I know you sort of had talked about the, the value of the agency business in, in e-commerce specifically versus the value of e-commerce brands. So I was wondering if, like, if you could maybe unpack that a little bit for those who missed that sort of original interview. Just kind of like a,

[00:25:04] Taylor Holiday: Three,

[00:25:04] Richard Gaffin: a summary or maybe

[00:25:06] Taylor Holiday: right before we had, yeah, I, I think this is, I was talking a little bit about how. My sense for this comparison is that a lot of it's tied up into cultural perception and that like agency owners are sort of like second class set entrepreneurs, like they're not the cool ones. They're not endeavoring to do the, the most exciting thing.

Um, there's a lot of our industry that I think is connected to guru info sales and things like that that kind of get latched onto it in the way that drop shipping probably does to, to brand owners. Like there's this part of it that's all lumped together, and I think that actually conflates the actual underlying business realities about.

[00:25:44] Richard Gaffin: Hmm.

[00:25:44] Taylor Holiday: The risk, the cost to start the business. So like an agency has no underlying investment cost, so it doesn't require a bunch of capital upfront, which that, that low risk, um, portion of building something is like really underappreciated. Two is like way better cash flow. I think it's got a great growth potential.

There's a vibrant m and a community. There's just these, these elements that if you looked at the businesses on the surface, detached from the cultural perception. I just think that one is distinctly better than the other and like, like not very close, but yet that's not the way that most people interact with it, because I think the stories of the Lululemons, like there's no, there's no chip.

What's his name? Chip Hale. What's the, the Lululemon founder's name? Um,

[00:26:29] Richard Gaffin: don't remember.

[00:26:30] Taylor Holiday: um, there's nobody, there's no version of that for, um.

[00:26:36] Richard Gaffin: Chip Wilson.

[00:26:36] Taylor Holiday: Chip Wilson. There's no Chip Wilson of agency owners, right? Like we don't know that story. There's no Phil, there's no Phil Knight shoe dog. Like the only one we have is like to go back to David Ogilvy in the seventies.

You know, like,

[00:26:48] Richard Gaffin: Yeah.

[00:26:48] Taylor Holiday: or Mad Men. We got John Ham, the fictional character in a bygone era. Like, so there's just not the cultural icons that I think represent that hope or possibility or like, ooh, they, they did a really cool thing. And so I think that, um. Part of, and I use the metaphor on the thing of just like comparing how my kids don't like soccer 'cause they don't see soccer in our culture.

They don't, they don't feel like they look up and go, Ooh, I wanna be like person X. They wanna be like, uh, you know, Steph Curry and um, Justin Jefferson and all the guys that they see and Bobby Whit Jr. And like, those are the guys that sort of occupy. So soccer, it's like hard to see themselves in it in some way.

But, um, yeah, I don't know. That's a little bit about why I think it gets evaluated incorrectly.

[00:27:30] Richard Gaffin: that's interesting. 'cause I, I remember like when, when I first joined CTC and for sure, like for three or four or five years or whatever, I remember you continually harping on the idea that the agency business is a bad business model because as you know, if you're growth, you're growing like this, you're staffing to actually support that growth goes like this as well. So the margin, which is the distance between those lines, remains the same the whole time. But part of the point that you were making is

[00:27:54] Taylor Holiday: We're so

[00:27:55] Richard Gaffin: not really

[00:27:55] Taylor Holiday: outside. Oh yeah. That's not really the case. And I actually think it is the case for e-commerce. It's called cac, and it just like, it goes up forever with you and actually is like worse. And so I think, um, that's, that's part of what I think is the other piece that where these things got mis described is that everyone looked at the underlying costs, um, related to the labor side, but all of a sudden.

AI and things are causing that to actually change. But what isn't changing is that the Mark Zuckerberg tax is like, like gravity in these businesses. It just doesn't disappear. Um, and so it persists in, in a way that I think people thought there was gonna be leverage or compounding network value, but consumer products almost have like no network value in many cases.

Um, so there's a, there's like disproportionate effects that people assumed were one way that I think are the, actually the opposite way.

[00:28:44] Richard Gaffin: Yeah. Okay. So one, one last thing I wanted to follow up on from that conversation was you spend 12 and a half hours a day on your phone. Is that, is that true?

[00:28:54] Taylor Holiday: I think what it, it, it, well, lemme, I'll tell you what my exact usage is right now. Um, but I think it's basically every waking moment, um, that I'm using my phone, like I think about how much I'm on Slack or texting or listening to a podcast. Like if the second I'm in the car podcast starts. If I'm walking my dog, I'm listening to a podcast.

If I'm here, I'm texting constantly. I'm on Twitter constantly.

Here we go. Screen time. Um, daily average.

Yeah. Eight and a half hours

[00:29:25] Richard Gaffin: On

[00:29:25] Taylor Holiday: what it looks like. Um, but yeah, I think it's just constantly touching it, you know, and interacting with it. Um, and that's where I'm just like, just, just inject it into my brain already. Like, let's not, let's not fight this. Let's just, I'm, uh, I'm in line for the, the Neuralink.

The, uh, I mean when, like, I think of it sort of like when you wear glasses, it will really be. Permanent, right? Like, so it's gonna be a permanent screen kids up. So I just think of it sort of like that chat GBT has made it worse. I talk to chat GBT all the time. That's another thing I'm constantly doing. So, yeah, I, I just think of it as an extension of my brain.

[00:29:59] Richard Gaffin: your experience of it is not that, it's like an addictive time suck. It seems like it just it.

[00:30:04] Taylor Holiday: I mean, there's certainly

[00:30:05] Richard Gaffin: you're having a bad experience with your phone?

[00:30:07] Taylor Holiday: no, I think I have to be careful when I'm around and trying to interact with humans to, to break from it, to give them my attention. So I think like when I'm with my wife or my kids, um, you know what's so funny? I don't know if you experience this. My dog is the most acutely aware.

My dog hates when I'm on my phone

[00:30:23] Richard Gaffin: Yeah.

[00:30:24] Taylor Holiday: and will come over and like paw at me endlessly in a way that like, I think my family sort of just sometimes is just going, ugh. You know? So I am, I am aware that what I'm trying to be with humans, that it can be limiting, but during the rest of my time, I don't. It's not like I'm at work scrolling TikTok.

It's like, um, but I don't know. Maybe, maybe I'm wrong with it.

[00:30:45] Richard Gaffin: time, like on your phone is spent

[00:30:47] Taylor Holiday: Just trying to

[00:30:48] Richard Gaffin: communicating with

[00:30:49] Taylor Holiday: highlight. Yeah. A lot of it, that's, that's the thing. It's a lot of text and slack and like, I think about everything that I have going on right now and what I'm trying to coordinate, like. So my wife and I were working on a design project for our house.

We're, so we're, there's planning going on about that. I have to submit my roster for my travel ball team in the next six hours, and I have to confirm from a few parents when that's due. So I'm trying to coordinate scheduling for practice at uc Irvine this week. And then, uh, I have all the things related to CTC.

I have people that are responding. I'm trying. So there's just like, there's no way to do that.

[00:31:23] Richard Gaffin: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:24] Taylor Holiday: Without my phone, without constant coordination around. So you're really like managing your life through this device. That's where it's like, I think this idea that like your phone is a doom scrolling pit is just sort of like, that's not really what's happening here.

[00:31:37] Richard Gaffin: Yeah, yeah,

[00:31:38] Taylor Holiday: Um, so I don't know. It's leverage on life, I guess. So

[00:31:41] Richard Gaffin: people who like, who feel that

[00:31:44] Taylor Holiday: it's like.

[00:31:44] Richard Gaffin: addictive pull from it or whatever are the ones who are doom scrolling. But if you are using your phone to actually. Particularly people who post a lot on Instagram report much higher levels of happiness to people who just

[00:31:54] Taylor Holiday: Oh, interesting.

[00:31:55] Richard Gaffin: And so

[00:31:55] Taylor Holiday: Interesting.

[00:31:55] Richard Gaffin: yeah, people

[00:31:56] Taylor Holiday: Most people,

[00:31:57] Richard Gaffin: to as a communication tool, which is quote unquote what it's meant for, tend to be happier with it. But if you sort of are particularly susceptible to being

[00:32:04] Taylor Holiday: right?

[00:32:05] Richard Gaffin: by whatever notifications or Reddit or whatever, then that's the thing that kinda like sucks the life

[00:32:09] Taylor Holiday: Oh, interesting. Yeah, like it, yeah, it's a doing device for me. Like, it's like a magic wand that I wave around and things ha come to life. Like, it's, like, feels incredible. Um, so yeah, there's, there's, I'm sure there's like anything, pros and cons, but my experience of it, I, and I'm not, I have not yet reached a point where I'm like trying to buy one of those brick devices and ban myself from it or something.

I, I'm not, not at that moment today.

[00:32:32] Richard Gaffin: Yeah. Yeah. Not there. You having, uh, uh, subscribe to the print New York Times to get your news from

[00:32:37] Taylor Holiday: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Oh, you do. You really, you got it back coming to you. That's kind of fun though.

[00:32:41] Richard Gaffin: my, uh, my building, I'm like, we're probably the youngest people here by 20 years or something

[00:32:46] Taylor Holiday: Yeah.

[00:32:47] Richard Gaffin: our floor. Most people are older and I'm the only person who receives the print newspaper,

[00:32:51] Taylor Holiday: Interesting.

[00:32:52] Richard Gaffin: it was kind of leaning into the demographic, I guess.

But

[00:32:54] Taylor Holiday: Um, that's crazy. Yeah. Well, thanks for, thanks for checking in. Uh, the point of doing this episode was just for me to process with Richard selfishly. 'cause Richard's my professor. So it's good to, always good to process. And then for you all is to just, I don't know, to sit, sit in, whether that's discouraging or encouraging though.

Just the idea that, um. You have to go on the long journey and then tell the story of the journey. And that's what people want to hear is they want, they want access to something novel. Um, and so be interesting, go forth and live in a way that's compelling and fascinating, and then share about it.

[00:33:31] Richard Gaffin: That's right. All right, cool. Well wise words, Taylor, appreciate it. Um, yeah. And uh, for everyone else, appreciate you listening and we'll talk to you next time. See you.