#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

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Editing thanks to Jonathan Gallegos (@jjonthan)