How to Turn Your Creator Business Into an Empire | 142

[00:00:00] Ben: Don’t focus on pure personal brand play as your primary source of revenue because if I get hit by a bus, most of that disappears.

[00:00:08] Nathan: If you ever wanted to see behind the scenes of a massive creator empire, this episode is for you.

[00:00:13] Ben: My goal is to have everything that we’ve just talked about right here be optional when I get out of bed in the morning.

[00:00:19] Nathan: Ben Greenfield has been podcasting since 2008, back when only a handful of health shows existed online. Today, he runs a stack of businesses from rural Idaho with that same show still at the center of it all.

[00:00:29] Ben: Total revenue for the podcast, 300K per month.

[00:00:33] Nathan: We break down every dollar he earns up on the whiteboard in a pie chart.

[00:00:36] Ben: Coaching comes out to 90K, 40 to 50K. It’s around 40K, 15K, 5K a month.

[00:00:42] Nathan: This totals up to 500,000 a month. Yeah. $6 million a year.

[00:00:45] Ben: Yeah.

[00:00:46] Nathan: But the craziest part is this is just one pie chart. This is actually the small business.

[00:00:50] Ben: Yeah. It doesn’t feel small.

[00:00:52] Nathan: A seven-figure business, an eight-figure business, and then-

[00:00:56] Ben: Shockingly, this doesn’t exist.

[00:00:57] The biggest key is make it not dependent on you. Set the ego aside. Doesn’t have to have your face, your name, your brand.

[00:01:05] Nathan: I love that.

[00:01:05] Ben: This is gonna be super fun. This is the first podcast I’ve ever done where I can talk about this.

[00:01:12] Nathan: And I’m excited to break down all the revenue in your business. But first, you started podcasting in 2008.

[00:01:19] Ben: Uh, yeah.

[00:01:20] Nathan: Things have changed

[00:01:21] Ben: a little bit since then. Thank you for making me feel and sound old. There was easily less than 100 podcasts.

[00:01:26] Nathan: Right.

[00:01:27] Ben: And maybe, like, four or five health and fitness podcasts, which was kinda like my niche.

[00:01:31] And you had to, like, code your RSS feed and submit it to Apple and, like, wait two weeks. And I forget the name of the website, but it was basically, like, a feed reader website that you could feed your podcast into- Right … every time it broke, which was, like, every month. Because typically, like, the code was over 100 megabytes or whatever.

[00:01:48] And yeah, it was like Wild West of podcasting, and it started lunch break at the personal training studio that I was running. I would open up my laptop and do, like, talking head videos of strength and conditioning research. Okay. And just, like, push that out there. 14 episodes in, I did an interview with a professional triathlete, uh, ’cause I was super into triathlon at the time.

[00:02:12] And then most of the podcasts from there on out wound up either being interview or, like, call in or write in Q&A episodes. But yeah, like, twice a year for 18 years.

[00:02:25] Nathan: Yeah. That’s amazing. I mean- Yeah … most people who say, like, “Oh, I was podcasting in the early days,” are not doing it today. Like, there’s a lot of people who come- Yeah

[00:02:31] and go from the industry.

[00:02:32] Ben: Yeah.

[00:02:33] Nathan: But to stay consistent is impressive, and we’ll get into- Yeah … the business

[00:02:37] Ben: and- Yeah. I’m just stubborn and stupid, and, uh… No, but, but I mean, like, yeah, we were even talking before, like, I, I… Like, it’s my favorite thing. Mm-hmm. Like, I get to either read a book and know that I get to talk to the author of the book, who normally otherwise would never have given me the time of day for an hour- Right

[00:02:52] and a half. Rinse, wash, and repeat for some, like, physiologist or coach or therapist or whatever. Um, and yeah, you talk to super interesting people.

[00:03:00] Nathan: And so- What was revenue like in the, those early days? Like, do you remember-

[00:03:03] Ben: Like revenue of the product?

[00:03:04] Nathan: Yeah, and, and just of your, your online venture.

[00:03:07] Ben: Oh, well, I was doing well as a personal trainer.

[00:03:09] Yeah. I was making, like, a little over $100,000- Mm-hmm … as a personal trainer running these two gyms, mostly with, like, group coaching.

[00:03:16] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:03:16] Ben: It was just training, right? No supplement sales or anything like that. But basically, all of my training was kinda SaaS-based, so people would sign up for a monthly program with me.

[00:03:26] Yeah. They would get X number of visits, and they’d get group coaching. And so I- Was doing okay as a personal trainer, but again, like working a lot of hours. And then leading up to this triathlon training program that I had made, I was maybe making another, like, maybe like 60 to 70 bucks a week on, like, online book sales with this Shape 21 was the name of this one.

[00:03:51] So I had the Ironman race week, launch week, where I was actually racing, and so I was new on X, formerly Twitter back in the day, and I mean, I went as far as, like, pre-scheduled tweets like, “Hey, I’m coming out of the water right now. Big smile on my face,” you know? And, “I used my Triathlon Dominator program,” you know, to complete…

[00:04:13] And it was, it was originally called the CEO Triathlon program, but I got a cease and desist from some company that owned, like, CEO Triathlon. So I-

[00:04:19] Nathan: Okay.

[00:04:20] Ben: I renamed it Triathlon Dominator. So long story short is, like, for race day and the six days following race week, I made about 48K in sales of that program.

[00:04:31] $97, uh, digital program, uh, 197 physical product shipped by disc.com in Texas.

[00:04:37] Nathan: So you made 50% of your annual income-

[00:04:39] Ben: Yeah, in like- … in- Not really in six days- Yeah … ’cause it took me like eight months to make it. Yeah. But, um, the idea, of course, the light bulb moment for me was like, “Wait, I can take my IP, I can put it online, I can do this in my underwear at home, and I could maybe step into a different chapter of life where my kids are literally twin boys about to be born, and I can actually have, like, a home office and do this stuff at home.”

[00:05:01] And that’s what I started doing. Like, I rinsed, washed, and repeated that program, which, you know, it had things like forum support and ongoing affiliate revenue based on my relationships with, like, wetsuit manufacturers and bike manufacturers and supplement companies baked into it. So the LTV of the customer went beyond the 97 or the 197 initial purchase.

[00:05:24] But then I continued to grow my list and I created the Marathon Dominator program, uh, a knee pain program, a low back pain program. I probably had like seven or eight different- Yeah … programs that I just started selling online as an online content creator. Had the podcast going at the same time. Wasn’t selling any ads or anything on that.

[00:05:43] But, um, yeah, a, a big part of, like, my initial exposure to just, like, getting sponsored, especially for triathlon and making a little bit of side money as an affiliate, was doing the, the travel blogging stuff.

[00:05:59] Nathan: So let’s actually put a pin in that now. Yeah. I’m thinking about the, the event that you went to where someone maps out, here’s everything that- Yeah

[00:06:05] here’s how the world works- Yeah … on an online business.

[00:06:08] Ben: Yeah.

[00:06:08] Nathan: I wanna jump up on the board and basically do that for people who are watching, right? And so- Yeah … now we have this opportunity ’cause you’re up for sharing revenue numbers and all that to basically give, pay that gift forward to a bunch of creators watching and- Oh, yeah.

[00:06:20] For sure … say, “Here’s what it looks like at scale.” Yeah. All right. Yeah. Let’s do it. So you have a few different businesses going on. We’re gonna try to simplify it- Yeah … a little bit. Over here, uh, let’s get into… We’ll just call this, like, Ben Greenfield life. Okay. Is that-

[00:06:32] Ben: Yeah …

[00:06:32] Nathan: that’s this world?

[00:06:33] Ben: Okay.

[00:06:33] Nathan: This is the, the content side of the business probably that most listeners would relate to the most, I think.

[00:06:39] Give me a sense of the audience and platforms. What platforms are most important to you and-

[00:06:43] Ben: Okay …

[00:06:44] Nathan: how many subscribers?

[00:06:44] Ben: Yeah. So let’s, let’s just jump straight into revenue and size then. Okay. So number one would be the podcast. Part of it is not because I’m good at it. I’ve just been doing it for so freaking long that it’s just, like, a very, very slow rolling snowball.

[00:07:00] I think I’ve got about 120-some million downloads-

[00:07:05] Nathan: Okay …

[00:07:05] Ben: total of that podcast.

[00:07:08] Nathan: What would you say- monthly downloads are for the podcast?

[00:07:11] Ben: 275,000 per month. That’s for two episodes per week.

[00:07:16] Nathan: Instagram?

[00:07:16] Ben: 450,000-ish. 123 on YouTube, thousand. Twitter, I think it’s around 150,000 now. Email is, like, like, a quarter million.

[00:07:26] Nathan: That’s a good sense of who we’ve got in the audience, or the scale of the audience.

[00:07:30] Ben: Right. Right.

[00:07:31] Nathan: Let’s talk revenue. Okay, so the big one is the podcast. Yeah. What revenue do you do on a monthly basis?

[00:07:37] Ben: Yeah. So-

[00:07:37] Nathan: Everything tied to the podcast and advertising …

[00:07:39] Ben: yeah, for Ben Greenfield Life, my personal brand, podcasting would definitely be the biggest.

[00:07:43] The podcast revenue would be pre, mid, and post-roll ads- Okay … throughout the podcast, you know, anywhere from four to six per episode. Yep. A newsletter feature in the weekly- Ooh … roundup newsletter that goes out once a week, depending on the package that someone signs up for, ’cause there’s different levels of packages.

[00:08:02] Sidebar ad on articles on the website, ’cause typically we’ve got about four long form articles per month that come out. They would also be getting, uh, social reels.

[00:08:13] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:08:13] Ben: Social story, so there’s the social media piece, and then, uh, they can also buy whitelisting. So they can take- Explain what you mean by whitelisting

[00:08:21] an ad. Like, they’re, they’re basically buying NIL, name, image, likeness, to be able to run an ad for three months or six months or 12 months or however long of a contract, I mean, advertising contract that they’ve signed up for. So because of that, the actual package that my partnerships team, which consists of two people, would sell to a sponsor goes way beyond just, like, “Hey, here’s our, here’s our CPM, our cost per thousand downloads,” and instead, like, “Here’s the full package that you get.

[00:08:53] We go way beyond just, like, selling a podcast ad for you.”

[00:08:56] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:08:56] Ben: So total revenue for that type of scenario for the podcast right now is at about 300K per month.

[00:09:03] Nathan: Okay. That’s awesome.

[00:09:04] Ben: Um, that’s basically for sponsors, for advertisers. It’s not like- Products I’m selling personally, that’s what-

[00:09:10] Nathan: And so that, yeah, that’s a substantial- You

[00:09:12] Ben: know, red light therapies, and coffee enemas, and all the- all the things.

[00:09:15] Yeah.

[00:09:15] Nathan: That’s that side. What’s, uh, the next biggest bucket?

[00:09:18] Ben: So when I was racing triathlon and doing personal training, my biggest source of income was coaching.

[00:09:25] Nathan: Okay.

[00:09:26] Ben: And I still do some coaching. So I coach a limited number of clientele, and then Life Enterprises is the holding company for Ben Greenfield Life, and Life Enterprises owns Triumph Coaching.

[00:09:37] And under Triumph Coaching, I personally coach eight people, and then I also do one-off consults with people- Okay … throughout the week. So somebody might hop on with me for 20 or 30 minutes or sometimes an hour to talk about, like, blood biomarkers, health, fitness goals, whatever. So coaching comes out to about 90K a month.

[00:09:56] Okay. And that’s either recurring revenue or a la carte coaching calls. That is actually an area that we are actively trying to build. Um- Nice … adding more coaches, scaling the coaching program. Mm-hmm. Uh, and we are adding next month group coaching.

[00:10:13] Nathan: Okay. And then as we come up here, what’s the next? We’re getting to some smaller slices

[00:10:17] Ben: of the pie.

[00:10:17] Okay. Smaller slices of the pie. If we really want to, like, rabbit hole a little bit, technically I have, like, Ben Greenfield Life, which is the content piece.

[00:10:24] Nathan: Okay.

[00:10:24] Ben: Ben Greenfield LLC is where I do, like, my advising, uh, my speaking, and my books. And so advising, speaking, and books, um, those would all be other pieces of the pie.

[00:10:35] Advising, that would be like literally a monthly fee that companies pay me to give them, uh, as the name implies, advice. Uh, that’s around 40K

[00:10:44] a

[00:10:44] Nathan: month. Okay.

[00:10:44] Ben: Speaking is, depending on the month, anywhere from 40 to 50K per month. That would mean like, you know, traveling and giving a keynote. Sometimes there’s like online Zoom appearances, things like that.

[00:10:55] But basically just, like, getting on stage, giving a talk, getting on an airplane. So yeah, speaking and advising fit into those categories.

[00:11:03] Nathan: That’s awesome. What are the small categories?

[00:11:04] Ben: They’re even more teeny-tiny pieces. I, under Life Enterprises, have kind of like what w- you could consider to be like the Facebook of health- Okay

[00:11:13] which is Life Network, which is a membership-based community where experts in whatever, holistic dentistry to biohacking to fitness, um, have content that they put out for people, whether it’s ad-free podcasts or articles or videos. That is mostly a freemium play, although some people upgrade to premium for access to fewer ads, and that kicks off around 5K a month.

[00:11:37] That feeds into Life Market, which would be more of like the Amazon of health, and that’s where people are buying like curated products. Like everything from like, you know, skin and beauty products to supplements to bars to powders. Red light pantless. And that’s like around… Yeah, so that’s around 15K a month.

[00:11:53] Okay. So, um- That’d

[00:11:55] Nathan: be the affiliate side.

[00:11:56] Ben: That’s… Yeah, that’s kind of an affiliate play that goes beyond affiliate revenue that might be kicked off from advertising relationships that are part of the podcast. Oh,

[00:12:04] Nathan: okay. ‘

[00:12:04] Ben: Cause when someone signs up for an ad package, right, part of their ad package would be, well, yeah, you’re gonna pay X dollars per month for running an ad or for whitelisting, but then we do get a certain percentage of the sales that are generated.

[00:12:16] Nathan: Actually, I wanna take a step back and just look at this as a whole.

[00:12:18] Ben: Yeah. ‘

[00:12:18] Nathan: Cause we’ve got both-

[00:12:18] Ben: Did, did we give everything? Uh, oh, book, book sales.

[00:12:21] Nathan: Books.

[00:12:22] Ben: Make a ton of money.

[00:12:23] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:12:23] Ben: How, how much money

[00:12:24] Nathan: are we printing

[00:12:24] Ben: on books? Yeah. Uh, I make around 5K a month on book sales. But that’s literally like 13 books, like all combined.

[00:12:31] Nathan: Okay, so we’ve got podcasts really all advertising and sponsorships- Mm-hmm … is 300K. Yeah. Coaching is big at 90K.

[00:12:37] Ben: Yeah,

[00:12:37] Nathan: yeah. Uh, and then advising and speaking are 40K-

[00:12:40] Ben: Mm-hmm …

[00:12:40] Nathan: uh, or so each. Affiliates would be next at 15K.

[00:12:43] Ben: Right.

[00:12:43] Nathan: And then you’ve got the Life Network and books at 5K.

[00:12:46] Ben: Right.

[00:12:46] Nathan: Yeah, there’s a lot going on here.

[00:12:48] And I guess- Yeah … just to be clear, all of these numbers that I wrote up here, they’re all monthlies.

[00:12:52] Ben: Um, that, that is kind of like the personal brand revenue with a little bit of that personal brand intermingled with-

[00:12:58] Nathan: Right …

[00:12:59] Ben: Life Network, which is like other experts, and Life Market, which doesn’t just rely on me to drive traffic.

[00:13:05] Nathan: Yeah, so that makes sense.

[00:13:05] Ben: Yeah.

[00:13:06] Nathan: So this totals up to basically 500,000 a month- Yeah … uh, which is about- Yeah … $6 million a year.

[00:13:12] Ben: Yeah.

[00:13:12] Nathan: And so that’s the, the personal brand side. Right. I wanna dive in on the, the advertising sponsorships, all of that.

[00:13:19] Ben: Yeah.

[00:13:19] Nathan: Because there’s a few things that you’ve done here that make it more interesting or more- So like, or more successful.

[00:13:25] Ben: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:26] Nathan: Right? So first you’re selling integrated ad packages- Exactly … instead of paying, like someone’s like, “Hey, I wanna pay just for a podcast slot.” And you’re like-

[00:13:32] Ben: Right … ”

[00:13:32] Nathan: We’re not doing that.”

[00:13:33] Ben: Right. You get basically like a rate sheet, and then you get a personal call with a sponsorship manager who’s going to typically have-

[00:13:40] Nathan: Mm-hmm

[00:13:41] Ben: often it’s a couple of calls or, or more to actually arrive on an ad package that works for your budget, but that- Yeah … rolls in as much as possible.

[00:13:48] Nathan: And that’s the, the partnerships, we’ll get into the team a little bit, but that’s two people on the partnerships team.

[00:13:52] Ben: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:13:53] Nathan: Okay. Two questions. When did you start doing the whitelist ads?

[00:13:56] And give an example of-

[00:13:58] Ben: Okay … how those work. And to contextualize this for you- Yeah … um, I didn’t know I was whitelisting until I saw it on our ad package, and I asked, “What is whitelisting?” Because I actually didn’t know myself. And your partner sales people said- And my partner sales people- “Let me tell you”

[00:14:10] well, okay, let us tell you what whitelisting is. So basically, people can take an ad, and it might be like an ad that they’ve already purchased, like a social reel or a social story or a social post, and then they can pay to like run that ad on their platform or as like a partner with you-

[00:14:27] Nathan: Right …

[00:14:27] Ben: on Meta, on wherever.

[00:14:30] They’re tr- usually it’s on Meta, like, like- Mm-hmm … Facebook. Um, and they’re paying a fee to have access to that for a certain period of time.

[00:14:38] Nathan: So like- Yeah … one that I saw recently was for the, is it Respire? The-

[00:14:42] Ben: Okay. So yeah, for, for like- The mouth tape … mouth tape. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:44] Nathan: Exactly. And so I’m-

[00:14:45] Ben: Yeah …

[00:14:45] Nathan: going through there, you pop up in my feed.

[00:14:47] Ben: Yeah.

[00:14:47] Nathan: It’s an ad run by them.

[00:14:49] Ben: Right.

[00:14:49] Nathan: But it’s-

[00:14:49] Ben: Exactly. Yeah … it’s your face talking about it They’re, they’re, they’re basically pumping money into that ad to run it- Yeah … but, and like they’re tracking whatever metrics that they’re getting on sales. ‘Cause you’re gonna

[00:14:57] Nathan: convert

[00:14:58] Ben: better

[00:14:58] Nathan: than- And- …

[00:14:59] Ben: some random Exactly.

[00:15:00] And I’m glad you brought them up, too, because- Um, we actually, and I left this out of the podcast revenue, ’cause I don’t know if it fits in a podcast or affiliate, but it’s interesting. We are doing more long form videos that a sponsor can… So for like 7.5K, I’ll shoot an educational video that is hopefully gonna bring value into people’s lives anyways.

[00:15:21] Right. Like we did one, uh, three days ago on sleep. I just had a video crew in my bedroom for a half hour in the evening, and that was sponsored by Respire. Right? So at the end of the video, you know, at the beginning there’s like the hook, “Oh, stick around for the end, I’m gonna give you-” Yeah … “you know, one final trick that, you know, you may not have heard of before.”

[00:15:39] And then at the very end I’m like, “Okay, and then the last thing,” and then you, you bring out the mouth tape and the nose tape. Right. And, um, so those are like long form videos, not like minute long social reels that- Mm-hmm … that sponsor can actually, like, sponsor.

[00:15:52] Nathan: I like that. And the other thing that I picked up on is, so, so someone would be paying upfront, a brand might be paying, in that case, $7,500.

[00:16:01] Ben: Yeah.

[00:16:02] Nathan: But then you’re also making money on the performance of it as well. Is that right? Where there’s some- Yeah … kind of affiliate revenue or what else for the sales you drive?

[00:16:09] Ben: Right. Because they’re running it with my link and/or my code, right? Mm-hmm. So there’s still some evergreen income that occurs.

[00:16:17] Yeah. There’s a few deals that we’ve done where the partners are just like, “Well, no, you know, if we’re paying X amount of dollars just based on our, our cogs or margins, whatever, we’re not gonna do the affiliate revenue also.” Most of the time we like to do the affiliate revenue just because- I mean, it keeps the

[00:16:31] Nathan: incentives along

[00:16:31] Ben: yeah, it keeps the incentives along and a lot of times, like, those affiliate cookies will be like lifetime affiliate cookies. So in many cases, if I’m signing a sponsor for 12 months, I’m really signing them for like 20 years as long as that code remains active.

[00:16:42] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:16:43] Ben: Uh, which is work for the partnerships team.

[00:16:45] I mean, it’s a pretty massive Airtable that’s like got all the codes and all the tracking and all the contacts and there’s like about 60 partners- Okay … that are really like the top 60 partners that we- Yeah … really focus on and we follow up on.

[00:16:59] Nathan: That’s awesome. Yeah. So in a moment I wanna get into- The two bigger businesses.

[00:17:04] This is actually the small business.

[00:17:06] Ben: Yes. Uh. Uh,

[00:17:08] Nathan: but before we do that-

[00:17:09] Ben: Doesn’t feel small, but

[00:17:10] Nathan: yeah.

[00:17:11] Ben: Yeah. It, it’s probably the one that I work the hardest in.

[00:17:13] Nathan: Okay.

[00:17:14] Ben: Yeah. And

[00:17:14] Nathan: I mean,

[00:17:14] Ben: it’s- ‘Cause, ‘

[00:17:15] Nathan: cause it’s me … a few roles and everything else.

[00:17:16] Ben: Yeah, it’s me and, and that’s also, like, you know, cautionary tale for any content creator.

[00:17:21] You know, if I get hit by a bus, most of that disappears.

[00:17:24] Nathan: Right. So what does the team look like? We, we have two partnerships people-

[00:17:27] Ben: Uh, so- As we focus on the

[00:17:29] Nathan: Ben G- Greenfield

[00:17:30] Ben: side … yeah, so CEO of Life Enterprises, um, who m- uh, basically oversees Life Market, Life Network, Triumph Coaching- Mm-hmm … uh, and the podcast, and the team basically ultimately answers to him.

[00:17:46] Although I’m the CEO of Ben Greenfield LLC, which is speaking- So the parent company … advising and books. That, that’s- Oh, got it … that’s my own deal. Yeah. That’s separate from Ben Greenfield Life. But any- And that’s pretty lean. I mean, speaking, advising, and books doesn’t take a lot of work. Yeah. And most of the people I work with are just, like, my EA team, essentially.

[00:18:04] I’ve got, like, three EAs, and- Okay … it’s me and those three EAs that are doing most of that stuff. As a matter of fact, if people from Ben Greenfield Life wind up working on Ben Greenfield LLC, they invoice Ben Greenfield LLC- Oh, okay … and I turn around and pay them. Yeah. So, like, if I’m speaking at an event, and there’s affiliate revenue tied to an event, and that requires work from the social team at Ben Greenfield Life to technically promote something, that’s a Ben Greenfield LLC source of revenue.

[00:18:27] Uh, Ben Greenfield LLC is just paying the Ben Greenfield Life social team. So then, uh, under the CEO is, uh, vice president. Um, CEO’s kinda archi- architecting, visionary, you know, new products, new businesses. VP is, uh, a little bit more in, like, the COO role. Um, of- Okay. So like a ops type? Yep Yep. And then, uh, there’s also a dedicated ops manager just for Ben Greenfield Life.

[00:18:53] So this ops manager is like Life Network, Life Market, everything Life Enterprises, and then there’s another COO who’s just operating or- I’m just gonna go- … managing …

[00:19:04] Nathan: ops times two.

[00:19:05] Ben: Yeah. So it’s kind of like two COOs- Yeah … essentially. And then social team is, uh, two people. Editorial team, like articles, captions, stuff like that, is two people.

[00:19:18] One tech person who is kind of like gradually becoming like almost like AI architect also, so that has been a role that is expanding in terms of, like, value and responsibility. And then technically there’s also one IT person. Okay. So there’s kind of like one tech person and one IT person. We’ll

[00:19:35] Nathan: just go times two.

[00:19:36] Yeah.

[00:19:36] Ben: Social, editorial- That’s a pretty good breakdown … tech, partnerships, COOs, VP ops. Yeah. That… Oh- You got 14, 15 people … sorry, one other thing. Uh, coaching, right? So there’s- Oh, yeah … uh, technically… I mean, if we’re not counting- Coaches … the coaches themselves, right? ‘Cause there’s six coaches right now. Mm-hmm.

[00:19:52] But they’re working as independent contractors. Yeah. But then the actual coa- like, the staff for coaching is three people.

[00:19:59] Nathan: Okay. Yeah. Three plus six. Yeah. Yeah. And anyone listening knows-

[00:20:04] Ben: Yeah …

[00:20:04] Nathan: yeah, the breakdown of those two.

[00:20:05] Ben: Yeah. Yep. Yeah,

[00:20:06] Nathan: so that’s a good sized team- Yeah … running this, ’cause it’s a complicated operation.

[00:20:10] Like, there’s a lot of things Uh, a lot of things going on there

[00:20:13] Ben: If you really truly wanna, like, bring in that type of revenue from, like, podcast sponsorships, you’re just, like, managing a lot of advertisers. Right. And they’re all in contact with you every single week. Yeah. And that adds up when there’s, like, hundreds of them.

[00:20:25] Nathan: How’s the performance of this going? How’s- Right.

[00:20:26] Ben: Exactly …

[00:20:26] Nathan: the timing of that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.

[00:20:28] Ben: Yeah. So that’s a big one.

[00:20:29] Nathan: If someone else was, like, on, on track

[00:20:31] Ben: to- Yeah …

[00:20:31] Nathan: build something like this, what are a couple things that you would say to them of, like, “Oh, make sure to do this part,” or-

[00:20:37] Ben: Oh

[00:20:37] Nathan: uh, you should know Yeah … you know, here’s maybe a mistake that I made that you shouldn’t repeat. Um- Let’s say I’m at a million in revenue, and I’m looking to scale to the six million.

[00:20:44] Ben: Well, one we already mentioned, like, I think ad packages tend to create- Yeah … a lot more revenue and value for the partner than just- Mm-hmm

[00:20:50] selling dedicated ads. Another one would be, a ton of this is probably related to some of the other stuff we’re gonna talk about in terms of, like, just don’t focus on this pure branding, personal brand play as your- Okay … primary source of revenue. Because based on other businesses that I’ve built, my goal is to have everything that we’ve just talked about right here be optional when I get out of bed in the morning, because there are other revenue streams that go beyond that.

[00:21:21] So a big part of it is just, like, think as you create the business about, um, you know, can I go to the beach for a week, or- Right. How dependent is it? … am I obligated to, like, get out of bed in the morning and shoot a video? ‘

[00:21:31] Nathan: Cause

[00:21:31] Ben: you’ve got- I would say- … Instagram reel

[00:21:32] Nathan: to make or-

[00:21:33] Ben: Yeah. But if we wanna talk brass tacks, another couple of things is, um, from a…

[00:21:38] Like, this piece requires content. Mm-hmm. And I went for a long time, like, in a very reactive, like, whiplash mode, where you’d get partners reaching out wanting a video or a podcast commercial or whatever, and you’re just like, “Okay, so when am I gonna shoot this today?” I have two videographers, and they live five minutes from my house.

[00:21:57] Mm-hmm. And they come to my house once, about once every week and a half or two weeks, and we spend, like, four to six hours, and we just get it-

[00:22:03] Nathan: Knock out a- …

[00:22:04] Ben: all done really well. None of me trying to figure out stuff with, like… Literally, like, up until, like, two years ago, it was like, “Hey, River, Tara,” my sons.

[00:22:12] Like, “Where are you? Grab the phone,” or, “I’m gonna set this up on a tripod,” or, “I’m gonna lean this against a fruit bowl in the kitchen.” And that was just… And it was super distracting.

[00:22:20] Nathan: Right.

[00:22:20] Ben: So batching content- Mm-hmm … that’s a big one. Um-

[00:22:23] Nathan: Now, are those… We didn’t list the… Are the videographers in the three? We,

[00:22:26] Ben: we re- You know what?

[00:22:27] We did leave a couple things out, and I was thinking about this. Um, not that we wanna look like total amateurs, but I’m gonna blame it on you- … ’cause you’re holding the marker. Yeah, so. We left out, um, podcast editor.

[00:22:37] Nathan: Okay.

[00:22:37] Ben: And we left out videographers. Okay. And that’s a total of three people. Those are really a lot of the big things as far as lessons go.

[00:22:45] I mean, we, you know, of course, from a lifestyle design standpoint- Um, I have so many boundaries, just like, yep. Yeah. Family devotions and family huddle at 7:00 AM, and I cannot be in my office then. And family dinner starts at 7:00, and, like, work is totally done by then. You know, typically it’s, like, family pickleball or ping pong or tennis or something that starts at, like, 6:00.

[00:23:06] So usually I’m out of the office even before then. Um, no calls or anything allowed on my schedule between 2:00 and 3:30 PM, so I can, like, siesta, nap- Yeah … test out biohacking toys, whatever. So all of that might make it look like I work pretty hard, but I actually, I am very, very much sold on the idea of having a lifestyle-based business, being with your family every day, having family dinner every night, like, getting your workout in every morning.

[00:23:32] So I’ve built a lot of this, obviously, very slowly, over a long period of time. Uh, and, um, and I’m super happy with, like, my day-to-day routine. Yeah. I, you know, I, I, I feel like with that team and having things spread out like that, like, it’s still, it’s still all pretty doable for me.

[00:23:49] Nathan: I love that. Okay. Well, let’s dive into the other businesses.

[00:23:52] Ben: Okay.

[00:23:53] Nathan: What’s the… Like, you have an e-commerce brand. What’s the name

[00:23:55] Ben: of it? Yeah. I’m doing that travel blogging, and I’m like a race car, right? Like, I- Yeah … in spandex, and I’m competing in all these triathlons all over the world, and then I raced for Reebok for four years in obstacle course racing, and I found that I could create a lot of value for sponsors by helping them sell their products while I was out racing.

[00:24:13] Mm. Um, some of those sponsors were supplement companies, and like, at one point during my racing career, uh, just like super nerded out type of thing that home schooler would do, I figured out how to, like, basically write out a PHP script that would allow people to submit their credit card information and payment processing on my end, and then get that drop shipped by the affiliates.

[00:24:38] Like, I had like 10 different companies just, like, in the supplements industry alone, just drop shipping stuff-

[00:24:43] Nathan: Okay …

[00:24:44] Ben: um, just based on a personal relationship I had with them, ’cause they were, like, getting me up to Thailand to do a triathlon or whatever. And I was kind of, like, looking at the numbers and realizing, oh, gosh, like I am selling a lot of supplements for a lot of people at like, you know, 10 to 15%, you know, affiliate revenue.

[00:25:01] And, um, and they’re all drop shipping it for me, and like, they own a lot of the customer data and the follow-up, and I think I could probably use my own knowledge of biochemistry and love for the supplements industry to just, like, start to do a lot of this on my own. So I took what was at the time called Greenfield Fitness Systems, which was kinda like the branch that I had devoted to a lot of this, this, like, sponsor stuff, and I started a company called Kion, a supplements company.

[00:25:28] Ki meaning like life force, energy, named after the Japanese kanji symbol tattooed on my right shoulder for Ki. A mistake made in college that wound up being a business. Um, so, so Kion… Actually, what happened was I flew a branding agency up to my house that one of my friends had recommended to me, and I’m not gonna call them out, but I didn’t like them very much, and I thought they super sucked.

[00:25:52] But one guy was really cool, and his name is Angelo, and I basically didn’t wind up doing much work at all with the branding team, but I offered Angelo a job as the operations manager- Mm … for Kion to help me build it and scale it. And he’s awesome. Uh, still is awesome. He’s the CEO of the company now. So, uh, he vested over, like, four years into about 46% ownership- Yeah

[00:26:15] in the company, which is a good way to scale if you, if you, you know, want a good operations manager or CEO, but maybe you’re bootstrapping and, you know, can’t afford to, to pay him a full salary right off the bat. So Kion is, uh, it’s super simple stuff. Okay. It’s like creatine and whey protein, and, like, amino acids are our top-selling product, and fish oil, and an immune product.

[00:26:38] But the, the idea is super high quality, very simple. We don’t want a whole bunch of crazy, like, whatever. They’re great products, like Athletic Greens or IMA or whatever. We don’t want, like, 90 different ingredients that we gotta go out and source newer ingredients for when something goes out of stock. Uh, we don’t do Whole Foods or, uh, like GNC or super stores- You’re all direct-to-consumer

[00:26:59] or anything. We’re all D2C, Shopify, Amazon, um, for two reasons. A, we don’t have to worry about shelf life and stocking and shipping, and then B, it becomes kind of a math game when you’re D2C. We know, we, we know exactly the cost of every new customer that we’re bringing in. Um, you know, we’ve got our own internal last click acquisition software that we built, and it’s essentially just, like- Yeah

[00:27:28] it’s, it’s math. Um- So on this- On, on very simple but effective products, so doesn’t get misuse. Yeah, like how

[00:27:33] Nathan: many SKUs do you have? Is it-

[00:27:34] Ben: Well, uh, fewer and fewer every year. Okay. You keep simplifying. Uh, that’s what I love about… So, so I’m, like, an idea man. I’m a visionary, and I’ll come up with these ideas for, like…

[00:27:42] or used to come up with these ideas for, like, multi complex, like 20-ingredient formulas. Yeah. We’re gonna go, like, the longevity formula to rule them all. And Angelo, you know, our CEO, he’s just like, “No, that’s a stupid idea.” Like- … he realizes, like, how expensive that’s gonna be- We’re Angelo now … and you’re gonna have like 1,000 people who wanna buy it and that’s it.

[00:27:58] And so we have I think nine SKUs-

[00:28:01] Nathan: Oh,

[00:28:01] Ben: wow … right now.

[00:28:02] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:28:02] Ben: Um, and- It’s a very lean business … we have literally considered going down as low as one SKU.

[00:28:07] Nathan: Mm.

[00:28:07] Ben: Like aminos outsells everything 10X, just essential amino acids. It’s kinda like our wedge for the other products- Yeah … in terms of, like, people find us through essential amino acids, and they like them for, like, muscle gain and fat loss and satiety, and they, they do a lot.

[00:28:20] They’re like a Swiss Army knife. So yeah, that’s Kion. And Kion, again, same thing with SKUs, like pretty lean mean team. I think we have Nine people right now Okay.

[00:28:28] Nathan: Well, we’re not gonna share the revenue numbers for Kion, but it’s many multiples of what we have going on over, over here in the Ben Greenfield Life world.

[00:28:35] Yeah. Ki-

[00:28:35] Ben: Kion does very well. Yeah.

[00:28:36] Nathan: Yeah. Just so people know what we, we have this other, the circle that is so big.

[00:28:41] Ben: The moon. The planet. There’s

[00:28:44] Nathan: no moon.

[00:28:45] Ben: And you know, you know what we should mention though is like Kion, um, started off like with me as, as kind of like the l- like the rocket booster, right? Like I was, I was the content machine, I was the face, I was the name of the brand, and I think that can be useful for launching a brand.

[00:29:01] But back to the lifestyle-based business thing, um, and also kind of like the acquisition piece, if you’re building a company to sell, which is what we’re doing with Kion, and you have a key person issue, meaning like let’s say I was still the name, the face, doing all the content, all the videos, and they were heavily- Right

[00:29:17] reliant upon me as a main influencer, that’s, uh, that, that’s a, a key person problem that makes it difficult for whatever, you know, PE or whoever’s gonna, gonna buy your company to actually swallow when they realize, oh, if this person gets, gets hit by a bus, like that’s gonna drastically affect revenue. I advise a energy drink company that recently brought in Kim Kardashian.

[00:29:37] I’m like, “That’s, like, not the greatest idea” because, you know, not that she’s like a bad person, I don’t know much about her. I would much rather do like what we did at Kion where we’ve got like 100 plus micro influencers- Mm … you know, the mommy blogger and the rock climber and the triathlete and, uh, the dancer.

[00:29:53] And so we’re, we’re spreading out our influence across a lot of different personalities, but none of them are clutch.

[00:30:01] Nathan: Mm.

[00:30:02] Ben: Um, I’ve seen companies in the supplements industry actually get a pretty low valuation because they didn’t disentangle some, like, controversial or lightning rod-esque type of former CEO or founder from the company.

[00:30:16] And so that person’s out whatever doing blogs and podcasts and content that might be considered to be controversial, and that can affect acquisition or valuation later on. And then the other issue that you run into is that if I were to take all the Ben Greenfield Life content, like I originally did when I launched Kion, and use that as SEO to drive traffic to purchase supplements, uh, and that company gets acquired, then whoever acquires Kion acquires all my IP that I’ve been working on for 20 years and can do whatever the heck they want with it, in many cases, depending on how the contract is written.

[00:30:52] And I’m not just making this up. Like I’ve seen, uh, you know, one very popular supplements company get a low valuation because their founder is a controversial person. Um, you could find articles on my website about like LSD and plant medicine and sex, just like stuff- Right … that people would consider… Not, not bad.

[00:31:10] Like I don’t write this stuff to be offensive, but there’s just like- J- it’s just stuff. It’s not private equity friendly. It’s just real stuff. Yeah. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not PE friendly. Yeah. And then the other issue is I’ve also seen people who have had, like, really, really great content websites sell to big companies, and the companies just nuke the content ’cause they don’t wanna go through 20 years of content and scrape stuff to make sure it’s safe.

[00:31:29] So they just, like- They delete it all … get rid of it. And you lose it all.

[00:31:32] Nathan: So, uh, with Kion, you used your brand to launch it initially.

[00:31:37] Ben: Right.

[00:31:38] Nathan: And to-

[00:31:38] Ben: Almost like a rocket booster, yeah.

[00:31:39] Nathan: And then you’ve been very deliberate about how reliant Kion is on you for your time, but especially-

[00:31:46] Ben: Oh, yeah …

[00:31:46] Nathan: for your brand, for marketing, for customer acquisition, and all of that.

[00:31:49] Ben: You cannot find… You would be hard-pressed to find my name, my face, my involvement anywhere on the actual Kion website. You could find it- Yeah … on the internet that I’m, like, whatever, co-founder- Mm-hmm … or whatever. But, um, I’ve extracted myself quite a bit from the company. Even Angelo, like, he’s doing fewer and fewer podcast appearances.

[00:32:06] Nathan: Mm.

[00:32:06] Ben: Uh, just because, like, we want the company to really, like, be reliant upon, like, our product and how good our product is- It stands on its own … and no key person, and it stands on its own. Uh, and it’s- ‘Cause

[00:32:17] Nathan: then if you have a situation like, you know, think about acquisitions in our space, um, whether it’s Primal Kitchen or tons of these other ones- Any of these acquisitions that, you know, you want them to buy it for the product- Yeah

[00:32:29] the, the power of the engine behind it and all that, and not the fact that, oh, now you- Right … as the founder- Right … you’ve gotta come with it.

[00:32:37] Ben: Yeah.

[00:32:37] Nathan: You now are on

[00:32:39] Ben: a five-year deal. And there, there’s a certain, there’s a certain aspect of, like, cool kids marketing. Like, like, another, like, yesterday, the this big circle, like, uh, I just brought on Tom Brady, right?

[00:32:48] And so, like, he will bring in traffic as, as a big face, big name. Um, and for the initial phases of a launch, I think sometimes that can be useful to- Right … get momentum. Um, you know, I’m launching a documentary right now, and Zac Efron is the executive producer. And, like, that kind of big name is good, but I, I wouldn’t want people to view the documentary ’cause they know who the executive producer is.

[00:33:13] It’s like- Mm … that’s a little bonus that might get more people in the front door, but then I want that documentary to be popular because of word of mouth and its value to people. But you don’t wanna completely ignore, like, star power that you might- Mm-hmm … have on your team or have access to, but you don’t wanna make a company that’s relying on that.

[00:33:29] That’s dependent on it. Even if it sounds cool. Yeah,

[00:33:31] Nathan: or dependent on it. What are some other lessons learned as you’re launching Keyon and really, you know, taking the attention- Yeah … that you have and saying, “Okay, I wanna build a sellable asset- Yeah … on another scale within this business”?

[00:33:41] Ben: One thing would be, I kind of already alluded to this, but just, like, simplicity.

[00:33:47] Like, understand that you, if you’re watching this or listening to this, are probably just by the nature of you being a creator, like, a real visionary. If you’re going to build a company that’s gonna generate revenue outside of yourself as a creator, but you’re gonna use yourself as a creator to give the initial, like, rocket booster lift to that company, then try to have somebody at the helm who’s, like, holding the reins.

[00:34:10] Mm-hmm. Who’s almost, like, frustrating you when you get on the phone and you’ve got 10 new ideas, and, like, they’re really the type of person who’s gonna say, “No, diluted focus equals diluted results. You know, these are all, like, dumb ideas,” or, “We don’t wanna waste our time- Right … on these.” And you need to trust that person and let them just focus on- Uh, really the numbers, what’s working, and keep things simple

[00:34:32] Nathan: I’ve seen that a lot where exactly what you’re saying, where the founder and I do this, you know, more and more and more, and so you end up with all of the surface area of all- Yeah

[00:34:41] of these things that you’re doing, and they’re all moderately successful.

[00:34:43] Ben: Yeah.

[00:34:44] Nathan: And then really when you find, okay, this is what really works, let’s cut off these other things- Yeah … and let’s dump it in and, and-

[00:34:49] Ben: Right …

[00:34:50] Nathan: scale it up. You

[00:34:50] Ben: need someone who’s just gonna, who’s just gonna, like, destroy your dreams.

[00:34:53] Like- Yeah …

[00:34:53] Nathan: for the most part. Yeah It’s this one thing is actually

[00:34:55] Ben: working. Yeah, yeah. ‘

[00:34:55] Nathan: Cause you had… If I remember correctly, you had, like, 18 to

[00:34:59] Ben: 20 SKUs before, and you gradually- Um, we had more. I don’t remember exactly how many, but we had more.

[00:35:04] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:35:05] Ben: Um- And then you gradually narrowed it … or we had SKUs with lots of ingre- I don’t, I don’t think we have a single SKU with more than four ingredients-

[00:35:12] Nathan: Mm

[00:35:12] Ben: which is actually not that common in the supplements industry.

[00:35:15] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:35:15] Ben: And so when you see a product launch, uh, and they’ve got, like, a dozen plus different ingredients, and they’re on every podcast advertising, and who knows how much equity they’ve given away in the company to get the dollars for that marketing- Mm

[00:35:31] and for those products, um- You don’t see those companies lasting that long- Mm … in many cases in the supplements industry. So yeah, simplicity, concentration, focus, um, I think it’s, it’s a pretty good equation.

[00:35:44] Nathan: Okay. So now le- let’s go to this, this giant circle, um, which is- Yeah … a company that you’ve just launched.

[00:35:50] Ben: Uh, yesterday. Yeah. Yesterday.

[00:35:54] Nathan: Yes. Coming to

[00:35:55] Ben: you live. Yeah, yeah,

[00:35:56] Nathan: yeah. What’s the, what’s the name

[00:35:58] Ben: of this company? Make this company go. Life Enterprises- Okay … is the holding company for- What’s the name of the

[00:36:02] Nathan: product?

[00:36:03] Ben: Triumph Coaching, Life Network, and, uh, Life Markets. Um, and then we have Ben Greenfield Life and Ben Greenfield LLC, and this new company is called Life OS.

[00:36:17] Nathan: Okay.

[00:36:17] Ben: And Life OS is, as the name implies, kind of like an operating system, but it’s a clinical play. Um, this is gonna be super fun because this is the first podcast I’ve ever done where I can- Yeah … talk about this. We recognize a need, and by we, I mean me and, uh, some friends who are in the functional medicine and physician space, um, and a pharmacy company and, uh, our CEO of Life Enterprises, Caleb Applegate, also happens to be my b- my best friend and live like 20 minutes from me up in Idaho.

[00:36:51] That’s awesome. So it’s super fun. We, um, recognize that, um, people are really wanting things like peptides, bioidentical hormones, I mean, all the way down to just, like, you know, medical cannabis, like, all these things that, um, that can technically be fulfilled online direct to consumer, uh, but that are kind of dangerous, like sold for, you know, human research only, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

[00:37:20] Yeah. Uh, or, um, are just, like, cheap imports from, you know, China, uh, you know, synthetic ingredients. Um, you can’t even make dosing recommendations ’cause that’s illegal, uh, if you’re selling stuff for human research. Um, and so that’s problem number one. Problem number two is that, uh, physicians, a lot of times, uh, have patients who have, like, wearables, labs, blood biomarkers, previous prescriptions from other doctors, peptides they wanna try, a fitness plan, a certain nutrition or dietary plan they’re supposed to be following, and this is all just, like, not concentrated in any way for a doctor.

[00:37:56] It’s all over the map, and a lot of it isn’t even HIPAA compliant, meaning it’s not secure. And- Mm … and a doctor technically is not supposed to be using, like, Claude, and GPT, and Gemini and- Right … feeding labs through that and using all these different APIs. Uh, that’s not even legal. Um, and then finally, there, um, there, there’s no way for a doctor to actually take all of that data- Be able to feed it through AI to get personalized recommendations for each patient, and simultaneously, in a secure manner, get that patient the pharmaceuticals that they need, the peptides that they need, that are actually, like, above board, sold not for human research, but for medical use.

[00:38:36] Yeah. So I realize that’s a lot, but long story short is we really busted butt for the past 12 weeks and solved all those problems. So basically, we’ve developed a, kind of like a B to B to C play- Mm-hmm … where we are handing a clinic, uh, essentially a tool, um, in the form of a website and an app that allows them to, in a completely secure format, keep track of all their patients’ blood biomarkers, labs, data, run new labs whenever they need to, get peptides, get hormones, get anything else that they need for the client whenever they need to, um, and be able to use AI if a physician is, you know, just needs help, you know, managing all of this.

[00:39:21] Custom-built AI based on 20 years of clinical data, and then we’ve also fed in your fitness, your nutrition, your wearables. It’s just, like, one platform that’s a single source of truth for a clinic or a physician. So we have been just, like, onboarding clinics right and left, uh, like, for the past four weeks at least, because shockingly, this doesn’t exist.

[00:39:45] It doesn’t sound super complicated. Um, it’s a little complicated, but it’s not super comp- Yeah … it’s not a super complicated tech play. The issue is that nobody’s kind of put all the pieces together.

[00:39:55] Nathan: In one

[00:39:55] Ben: place. Um, and/or had access to big enough pharmacies and big enough clinics and physician networks to be able to roll it out successfully.

[00:40:03] We launched yesterday with around 100,000 patients, uh- … and-

[00:40:10] Nathan: Just did …

[00:40:11] Ben: uh, a lot of- Significant scale … signing, signing up. We, we did a very small We raised about 500K, just friends, family, uh, and a few key influencers, like I mentioned, and that’s just for… Basically, all we need money for is initial marketing, and we had to kinda like scale the engineering team a little bit just to roll this out, uh, in a timely manner.

[00:40:32] And then, yeah, we’re- and we’re able to do what’s called IRB studies through our platform, meaning that- Can you explain what an IRB study is? Even if somebody is not able to just, like, go online or get a prescription from their doctor for a certain pharmaceutical or compound, they could enroll in an IRB study, uh, which is basically like a research study that allows them to try or use the compound because it’s being researched, and they’re just basically, you know…

[00:40:59] They’re, they’re a research subject, and that’s how they’re getting access to the compound that they need. So our first major IRB… I don’t even know if I’m supposed to say this on the podcast, but I’ll say it, and then I’ll get in trouble, and we can remove it later on. But our first major, uh, IRB, uh, rollout that we’ll be doing is for Ibogaine, right?

[00:41:17] Okay, yeah. Which is, which is for, like, opioid addiction and alcohol. Like, people will be able to, through our platform, get access to that, you know, through a doctor as a part of a, as a part of a research study. Yeah.

[00:41:26] Nathan: And then the business model on this is that you’re able to make money on providing the-

[00:41:33] Ben: Yeah, we can negotiate- All of the products

[00:41:35] really good prices because they’re at scale from the pharmacies, and then the… It’s free for a clinic. Unless they wanna totally skin and white label this-

[00:41:46] Nathan: Right …

[00:41:46] Ben: uh, which is a little bit of an extra cost. It’s free for the clinic to use it to operate their clinic or their clinics, uh, but then it’s a rev split when they get any peptide or anything else from the pharmacy.

[00:42:01] The physician shares some of the revenue from that, uh, we get some of the revenue from that- Mm-hmm … and then the patient gets what they need-

[00:42:08] Nathan: Yeah …

[00:42:08] Ben: in a safe way- Right … through a doctor.

[00:42:10] Nathan: Yep. That’s very important. Okay, so I wanna address, like, why, you know, why we drew such a giant circle here. What I notice about all of this is you have the first business, which is in the single-digit millions, you know- Yeah

[00:42:23] at a, at a very meaningful scale.

[00:42:25] Ben: Yeah.

[00:42:25] Nathan: This one is, like, well into the double-digit millions, right? And then… Or, so, so we’re a seven-figure business, an eight-figure business, and then when you… I think about the potential of Life OS- Yeah … like, that’s a nine figures in revenue, um-

[00:42:41] Ben: Yeah …

[00:42:42] Nathan: obviously you launched yesterday- Yeah

[00:42:43] so we’ll give you a little time to get there, but, um –

[00:42:45] Ben: Yeah, so if you look at, like- It’s an, it’s

[00:42:46] Nathan: an order-

[00:42:47] Ben: Yeah, if you look at, like, 100,000 patients, and let’s say average order volume is around 150 to $200, uh, per patient per month, um, and that’s- That per month part is very important. Yeah, that will scale pretty quick, yeah.

[00:43:02] Nathan: So seeing the scale that that can get to is really impressive. Yeah. Another thing that I’m noticing, particularly about both of these businesses with Kion and Life OS, is they have recurring revenue. Right? Where-

[00:43:12] Ben: Yeah …

[00:43:13] Nathan: you know, you ha- a lot of products people are buying from Kion are either a one-time purchase that’s a consumable, and so, like, this is great- Yeah

[00:43:20] I’m buying it again, or it’s true recurring, where they’re like, “Great, get me on a monthly or a quarterly-” Yeah … subscription.

[00:43:24] Ben: Supplements company, uh, yeah, y- you, you want subscription. Yeah. Like, that’s the direction you need to be going.

[00:43:30] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:43:30] Ben: Absolutely.

[00:43:30] Nathan: And then Life OS is the same thing where, you know, they’re…

[00:43:34] If the… Someone’s buying a product that’s working for them, they’re going to- Right … keep buying it over

[00:43:38] Ben: and over

[00:43:38] Nathan: again.

[00:43:38] Ben: Right. Exactly. And then the, like… Not that we wanna get too into the weeds, but, like, the beauty of that is that AI is constantly adjusting that, right? Mm-hmm. Because let’s say you’re on a prescription medication, I don’t know, for thyroid, right?

[00:43:51] Yeah. But then your doctor’s also running quarterly thyroid panels. Well, there will be a point where our AI, uh, which is named Ellen, might pipe in and say, “Hey, like, Nate actually does not need to be on this thyroid medication anymore. Uh, but his, uh, you know, his vitamin D and his cortisol are a little off this month, so make sure you address those, but we can actually stop this particular prescription.”

[00:44:14] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:44:14] Ben: So yeah, so the SaaS model in medicine is, like, different. Again, I’m not a doctor. Please don’t- Yeah … take this as medical advice, anybody. Um, but yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a similar idea. It’s still, like, a SaaS-based model in that, you know, you have X number of clinics and doctors who are generating X amount of revenue per month.

[00:44:31] Nathan: And then in all of these cases, right, so launching Kion, it very much launched from your personal brand-

[00:44:37] Ben: Mm-hmm …

[00:44:37] Nathan: but then- Yeah … scaled well beyond that very deliberately.

[00:44:40] Ben: Right.

[00:44:40] Nathan: Life OS- Your personal brand, it’s really your relationships- That’s- … that got you into this,

[00:44:45] Ben: right? Yeah, that’s relationships. That’s either me speaking on stage like I did yesterday- Mm-hmm

[00:44:49] to a bunch of doctors.

[00:44:51] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:44:51] Ben: Or it’s me literally, like, picking up the phone and calling a clinic. Or it’s me just having, um, you know, a specific conversation where, you know, just where, like, I’m, I’m going to be, you know, spending the morning with RFK on Tuesday.

[00:45:06] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:45:06] Ben: And I’ll probably mention it to him and, um, and then he might mention it to somebody, and it might wind up being a really good solution that, uh, that the U.S.

[00:45:16] government likes, right? Right. Um, one of the guys who’s running our company right now is in, uh, Qatar, and it appears that their medical board, like, wants to use this to run the medical system in Qatar. So, so yeah, there’s a lot of opportunities as far as, like, where this could be plugged into. Yeah,

[00:45:32] Nathan: I think what I wanna point out for, for creators is…

[00:45:35] Because I think a lot of them might be at 500,000 a month in revenue and, and they can see, “Ooh, I, I see a path to a million.”

[00:45:42] Ben: Yeah.

[00:45:42] Nathan: And here we mapped out, actually, that million could be six million.

[00:45:46] Ben: Yeah.

[00:45:46] Nathan: But then as you say, like, and that, that’s an incredible business, especially the way that you’ve designed your life around it and all that.

[00:45:53] But then showing like… And hey, this can be substantially bigger, and the relationships and the reputation that you’ve built can get you into-

[00:46:01] Ben: Yeah …

[00:46:01] Nathan: these opportunities on an entirely different- Yeah … scale. That’s something that I, I think a lot of creators should do, is to think bigger and realize the scale of opportunity that they have.

[00:46:08] I have an essay- Yeah … that I, that I wrote called Billion Dollar Creator, which gets into this of, like, how to take the attention and the influence that you have and turn it into these massive businesses.

[00:46:16] Ben: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:46:16] Nathan: But how do you think

[00:46:17] Ben: about it? If, if you want to. Um, you know what I mean, like, you and I both live in Idaho.

[00:46:21] You know, it’s dirt cheap to live here. Like, like, we don’t need this amount of revenue. I think some of it comes down to impact. Mm-hmm. Some of it comes down to, you know, especially for this piece of thing or, or this piece of the pie. Like, when I’m… I have, like, two and a half hours per day now of just consumptive activity, and by that, I mean reading research articles, reading books, preparing for a podcast, listening to a podcast, listening to an audiobook, to turn around and package that information somehow to make people’s lives better.

[00:46:49] Nathan: Yep.

[00:46:50] Ben: Um, which is just… Like, that’s what gets me out of bed ultimately, not to get super esoteric. At the end of the day, um, is, like, how many people can I tell, like, cool stuff to that makes- Mm-hmm … their lives better? Um, and so when it comes to businesses like this, I mean, even, like, Keon, it was like, I like supplements.

[00:47:09] I take supplements. Like, couldn’t I find better versions of these and take the stuff that- Mm-hmm … I consume myself every morning and make this available for people? Life what? Like, I like peptides. I don’t like it when my doctor is confused about what I’m on, or I’ve got, like- Right … four different doctors who have no clue, and none of them are talking to each other, and- And

[00:47:27] Nathan: none of them

[00:47:27] Ben: have access to- None of them are using-

[00:47:28] your miracles … AI intelligently- Yeah … or less than they could. So for me, a lot of it is just like, this is the stuff I’m passionate about anyways. Mm-hmm. And yeah, it does kick off revenue. But I don’t, I don’t think you necessarily, like- have to form, you know, other big companies like this that exist outside of you.

[00:47:47] I think the bigger message for me is like, if you do, figure out a way to do it, um In such a way that you as a creator who has been trained for everything to be about you and your face and your profile and your video and your audio could create something that exists outside of you long after you’re gone, that, like, the goal should be, okay, so how, how could I keep doing what I’m doing because I want to, not because I have to, when it comes to the personal brand of the creator standpoint?

[00:48:14] Nathan: Ben, you’ve built this massive business as a creator. I think there’s a lot of creators watching who are trying to decide, do I build an empire or do I build a lifestyle business?

[00:48:21] Ben: Yeah.

[00:48:22] Nathan: What would, what would you say to them?

[00:48:23] Ben: You could technically do both. So, so the empire piece, we wanna call the empire piece, like, all the stuff that’s making money while you’re asleep that you don’t necessarily have to wake up in the morning and pay attention to because you’ve, you’ve set up systems and delegated and created a team to run a lot of this for you.

[00:48:38] If we’re talking about the empire in those terms, I think the, the biggest key is when you’re thinking about creating something like that, that you make it, as we’ve talked a little bit about before already, not dependent on you. Like, set the ego aside. Doesn’t have to have, like, your face, your name, your brand.

[00:48:58] You don’t even have to, like, create, uh, a workflow such that you… Like, you’re expected to be on, like, the weekly meetings and a part of all the Zoom calls. Like, try to, from the get-go, create a business that, besides maybe a little bit of initial marketing from you, is not dependent on your name, your face, your brand, et cetera, that would allow you to, based on the revenue that it kicks off, make getting up out of bed in the morning to do your own personal videos and podcasts and everything either optional or not, like, a huge rush necessity.

[00:49:30] So my… I, I love my life. Like, I typically do not, besides just, like, checking in to make sure there’s no fires to put out on, like, Asana or Slack or whatever, like, I don’t really do much until about 10:00 or 10:30 AM, and up until that point, I’m with my family, I’m outside, I’m working out, I’m hanging out with my wife, I’m making a really complex, super tasty smoothie.

[00:49:57] Like, I have… I, you know, I ease myself in in the morning. I work like a horse with blinders, like, deep work from, like, 10:30 until 2:00 PM. Take an awesome nap every day, uh, every afternoon, ’cause nobody’s allowed to touch my schedule in the afternoons. Right. Uh, I catch up on phone calls and stuff between, like, 4:30 and 6:00.

[00:50:16] If it’s a busy day, I work till, like, 6:45. If it’s not a busy day, like, pickleball, ping pong- Mm-hmm … bocce ball, cornhole, like, all the yard games, come out with the kids. Around then, uh, 7:00 PM, it’s, like, father-son book club and, uh, family music and family games. And at, like, from, like, 8:45 to 9:00, well, I eat dessert every night, which is usually yogurt and dark chocolate and berries.

[00:50:42] I eat dessert while I look at my email inbox just to make sure there’s, like, nothing crazy coming up the next morning, and then by, like- 9:10, 9:15, we’re, like, gathering in mom and dad’s bedroom for our evening routine, where we’re all just, like, hanging out and talking about the next day, and praying together, and being a family.

[00:51:00] So I’m consistent. Like, that’s like-

[00:51:02] Nathan: Yeah …

[00:51:02] Ben: six days a week, and then I take a Sabbath day Sunday, um, which is pretty much off, uh, besides just, like, calling friends or whatever. But, um, but yeah, I feel like, like you, you could be a creator, and as long as you’re consistent and in it for the long haul, and not looking to, like, you know, become famous overnight, you know, ’cause I’ve been doing this for, like, 18 years- Yeah

[00:51:22] um, even before that, then yeah, it’s totally doable.

[00:51:25] Nathan: So what you’re saying is, if you’re trying to decide between a lifestyle business and an empire, it’s a false dichotomy. You don’t actually have to choose. Yeah. But you do have to be very intentional.

[00:51:34] Ben: You do gotta be intentional, yeah, and, like, you still have to work hard.

[00:51:38] And, you know, I, I say all that, but, like, if I’m writing a book, I won’t lie, there’s usually… Like, Boundless, right? It’s like 700 pages. It’s like the bible of biohacking. There’s typically, like, six months going into finishing a book, where I’m setting my alarm, like, an hour and a half earlier.

[00:51:52] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:51:52] Ben: Like, book launch phase, I’m up at like 4:00 to 5:30 AM.

[00:51:56] It’s just cleared for the book, and I’m an hour and a half less on sleep for those six months. Like, there’s, there’s sprints. Like- Yeah … there’s sprint phases, for sure. Um-

[00:52:02] Nathan: I’m in

[00:52:03] Ben: one of those right

[00:52:03] Nathan: now.

[00:52:03] Ben: But yeah, as a rule- … like, every day shouldn’t be like that, and I think too many entrepreneurs are just like, “Hey, I’m like, whatever.

[00:52:09] Yeah, Modafinil during the day, Valium at night, let’s go. Let’s push.” Um, and yeah, you just, you burn out.

[00:52:16] Nathan: Ben, this has been fantastic to see. One, it’s a huge gift, for the breakdown of how the business works, all of that. Like- Cool … thank you for shari- sharing all the numbers.

[00:52:25] Ben: Yeah, yeah.

[00:52:26] Nathan: Um-

[00:52:26] Ben: This is super… And by the way, I don’t get to talk about this stuff very much at all-

[00:52:28] so this is super fun. Usually people ask me, like, how to do- Wh- which peptide- … how to do a coffee enema. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, or whatever.

[00:52:35] Nathan: Um, where should people go if they want to follow the rest of your content and, you know, listen to the podcast, dive into your whole world?

[00:52:42] Ben: Probably bengreenfieldlife.com.

[00:52:44] That’s kinda like the central hub. Uh, yeah, you can pretty much find anything from there. Yeah. That

[00:52:50] Nathan: sounds good.

[00:52:50] Ben: Yeah.

[00:52:50] Nathan: Well, thanks for coming

[00:52:51] Ben: on. Sign up for my newsletter, which is not on the kit. Yeah.

[00:52:55] Nathan: We can fix that. We can fix that. Well, we gotta sign off now, because I promised you that we would play pickleball- Let’s go

[00:52:59] Ben: and

[00:52:59] Nathan: have a- Yeah … backyard barbecue.

[00:53:01] Ben: Yeah. And we’re doing that. Talk about lifestyle. Yeah. Let’s do it. Sounds good. Cool. All right, thanks for coming on. All

[00:53:05] Nathan: right, thanks, man. If you enjoyed this episode, go to YouTube and search The Nathan Barry Show, then hit subscribe and make sure to like the video and drop a comment.

[00:53:14] I’d love to hear what some of your favorite parts of the video were, and also just who else you think we should have on the show. Thank you so much for listening.