#159 - Update on Michael Jordan's House, a Nine Figure Sex Toy Company & the Man with a Million Acres

MFM #159 MJ house update Recap : Last episode the guys spoke about buying MJ’s house. The plan was to potentially turn it into a museum or Airbnb. Problem : zoning and parking -- but those might be overcome Shaan: Spoke to Rally Rd and Nifty Gateway founders Now what : What's going to happen now? Sam thinks nothing’s going to happen -- the guys are too busy. Shaan: you’re afraid to fail Collecting old Apple computers Opportunity : Old Apple computers like the Macintosh II and Apple II sell for a premium on eBay. There is still demand for these because of their cool aesthetics, and retro look. At Monkey Inferno, visitors would often ask about their old Macs over the expensive paintings that hung on the walls. Sam bets these will continue to appreciate. Can make for a good investment opportunity as retro style becomes more and more in demand. Idea : Creating products from old Macs, such as https://inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2012/03/Macquarium-jake-harms.jpg Sex talk Steve Shubin - founded Interactive Life Forms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleshlight Origin : Steve started creating sex dolls, but eventually realized most guys wouldn’t order sex dolls. He pivoted and created the Fleshlight. He scaled the company with his kids. Does an estimated $50-$100m in revenue Sidenote : One of Fleshlight’s factories in Spain uses its excess capacity to manufacture prosthetics elephant legs for Southeast Asia Opportunity : Creating the new fleshlight There is a growing demand for male sex toys, especially in countries like India and China. Even in areas where it’s taboo, new discreet packaging has made it easier. Idea : Fleshlight marketing through channels like Onlyfans. Molds can even be made from the Onlyfans creators themselves. Billy of the week Brad Kelley Started out renting space for factories and warehouses. When he noticed lots of customers using his warehousing space to store tobacco, he pivoted. He founded Commonwealth Brands in 1991 and sold it in 2001 for $1B "I've never defended [smoking]. Hopefully, it will be phased out of society." He’s bought a ton of land since then and is now the 4th largest landowner in the US. In January 2020, Kelley put up for sale many of his West Texas ranches, offering roughly 500,000 acres with a listing price of $404 million. He also bought Lonely Planet installing a 24-year-old CEO at the helm The purchase was a failure when he sold the company in 2020 for $50m having had bought it for $70m Sam’s a fan Keeps to himself and has done “boring” businesses. In contrast to Silicon Valley’s flashy hype-machine Indie VC Indie VC was a venture firm backing mostly bootstrapped founders. The idea was to give founders a little bit of money to help them grow instead of the traditional model of flooding a company with cash and taking a massive stake. The company closed its doors, and Shaan and Sam are critical of how founder Bryce Roberts announced the closing (didn’t take the blame hard enough). https://medium.com/@bryce/the-end-of-indie-6e1b92d90b09 --------- Have you joined our private Facebook group yet? Go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/ourfirstmillion and join thousands of other entrepreneurs and founders scheming up ideas. Editing thanks to Jonathan Gallegos (@jjonthan)