0:00 [Music] And welcome back everybody to another awesome episode of the Careful Boys where we have Steve Chen today. Y'all very good. Very good. Very nice. All right. Um, hey, at the very very beginning of our session with you, you know, you were asking some questions. love would love for you especially with your business mindset, financial mindset to just ask us as JK any questions about how our finances were. Sure. Don't even ask if it's okay with us. Just volunteer. Okay, fine. I'll tell you. We lost 5 million. Okay. Don't start with that. Okay. Um well, I mean, I'm just curious overall. just I don't know anything about the podcast space or anything like I just want to know like how do you guys
0:52 make money? AdSense mainly and then Patreon. Okay. Yeah, I see. I see. Cool. Um and merch. Sometimes we do merch, sometimes we do fun things. We're trying to have a fun little um game and we can't call it a raffle cuz it's not a raffle and raffle's considered gambling, but we're trying to figure out a really fun way to do giveaways. Giveaways. Yep. like a sweep stakes. Okay. Yeah. But like crowdfunding. But once I figure out the right wording that doesn't get us to jail, that's what we're going to do. The right loophole. There's also sometimes like ad reads, right? Which is different from AdSense. Yeah. Like little brand deals that will do like this episode's brought to you by like this thing, you know, like that. You guys have sponsorship pure water. Oh, yeah. And over the years it's been different. Like we discussed earlier, the pie it goes. We we used to do live
1:43 shows, too. So that was a that was another like income that we also would just put back into the company like you know we wouldn't take that into our pocket. We would just funnel it here. Yeah. Gotcha. Gotcha. Wait. So are you the main Oh yeah. So me and Bart were the were the owners. But we but we're not employers. We're just owners. We're independent contractors. These guys are on their own will here. They're independent contractors and they do not work for us. I see. At all. We're like more like equals. They kind of tell us what to do. So, so what's in it for you guys? You know what? Nowadays, it's like the variety for us, right? Cuz it's like this is for me, Ryan, Anthony, and Steve, this is like a side thing that we do for fun. You for me and Joe, too. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. The way it's evolved. Yeah. Yeah.
2:34 It It was our main thing, but now it's all like a cool little side gig that everyone gets together and have fun, and it's like our excuse to like have guys time. Yeah. Yeah. I see. That's cool. Yeah. You guys hang out and have fun. Yeah, that's right. Cool. Cool. Yeah. Yep. Ask Ask us how often we're here. What's that? Ask how often we're in this room. How often are you guys in this room? 4 days a month. 4 days a month. Sometimes 5 days. Yeah. Sometimes five. And then the rent. Yeah. How's how can I ask more? Yeah, dude. The rent used to be a,000 a month. What is it now? It's like four or 5,000 or something. Four or 5,000. But I just recently uh got a little bit of a discount. Yeah. So it's like 3,900. Oh, is that Hey, that's tight. That's tight. That sucks. Some I'm just kidding. Uh no, we just asked our tenant advisor to help us renegotiate and then like Yeah. Uh I
3:24 mean, we got a few few points, but really we're trying to get the ████ out of here. So kind of shot myself in the foot there cuz we were doing year to year. Yeah. But the stupid thing is like, okay, we've been in here for over a decade. So, we could have had just backto-back long-term leases that grandfathers in to a good rate, right? But because we went to like one-year leases and we're like, "Oh, we're moving next year. We'll just do one year. Okay, we're moving next year." You know? So, they just obviously jacked it up to market rate every year, right? And then we're like, "This year we're ████ leaving." And then we signed a 5-year lease. So that's kind of how our business works, you know. That's great. Yep. You guys are moving for sure. It makes most sense cuz five of us live over there. Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. Gotcha.
4:14 And for me, I I mean, it doesn't matter if I'm flying in to LA or Vegas, I'm flying in, so it doesn't matter. Yeah. Gotcha. So 4K going out and then in terms of money coming in, man, that's a random hot question. It's okay. We won't disclose that one. Sorry. It's okay. It's okay. No, no, no, no. We can cut it. We can cut it. I'll tell you something funny though. Um, yeah. I'll tell you something. No, no. Okay. I want to tell you, so about a year and a half ago, me and Bar just didn't pay ourselves for like 6 months. Yeah. So, we were basically in the red. Yeah. But we kept the ship going cuz we love doing it. Like, it's literally like, I just want to come here and chat with you guys. M but the funny thing is we did absolutely nothing to improve the business or the situation until the last minute. I see. Which we
5:06 had a blowout sale with merch and all that. And then it was like cool, we did it, guys. All right. Now time to go back to doing nothing again. [Laughter] Do you feel like Caleb Hammer? We just want to yell at him. I know these guys are not happy. No, it's fine. We're having a good time. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Well, is this um is this kind of like your guys' like So, it's a part-time thing. Um Well, I I the thing is what's the main What's the main like for you guys independently? What's the main revenue generating as individuals? As individuals. Yeah. Like what do you guys all do? So for example for me uh I prior my primary source of income actually is for like dance and choreography services. So I have like my
5:58 dance crew and company the Kindas. So we have like performances we'll sometimes do brand deals. I personally do a lot of like teaching performances judging at different events um international workshops or choreography services for like uh artists artist choreography tours video games whatever just dance services. Um, so this, yes, is like my my side gig just like everybody else. Um, but at the same time, uh, I personally would love this to be actually a larger part of my both income and just lifestyle in general for a couple reasons. number one, especially if it moves to Vegas, it keeps me grounded in a spot versus like the gig related work of like constantly needing to like I as much as like I feel very fortunate for uh however far my dance career has gone, it's all gig gig based.
6:50 I don't know when the next big thing comes in and if something big comes in because it's a big opportunity, I have to uproot my life for like 3 months to go do a tour or something like that. That's wild to me that this is your stable job while the other thing is like your wild and then this is already a wild job. Yeah. This is a wild job. Well, it's not stable. We're in entertainment. The idea of us like moving out to Vegas and stuff like that. Like there are like whispers and ambitions of us being able to maybe, you know, a number of us maybe being able to like dedicate a little bit more into it, evolve it, adapt in some way where we can both still have like a really really good time doing what we like to do with people we like to do it with. A possible sixth day of the month, but really like I I would love for this to um grow personally. I'm just
7:41 selfishly speaking right now on my own. I would love for this to grow into something that would pull me away from a lot of my other, you know, things because it it'll keep me in one space. My wife is in Vegas right now where I'm not there because we're shooting this here in LA. currently. I think it's a it's a timing because it's one of those things where we were all busy in our other stuff cuz like Bart was full on with barbell and then this was I'm talking maybe 3 4 years ago when we assembled as a new group and then um but that's when we were in that weird transition where JK wasn't our full-time anymore and then we started pivoting to doing other things full-time and then um that's when when these guys came in it was more like everyone's got their hang like he's a jiu-jitsu coach, fitness coach. He he works at a gym, you know. Um Ryan is a is a dance mogul. I'm like
8:33 the music version of that. Yeah. No. Yeah. He's a real real gig based for like film score and for music direction. Gotcha. Gotcha. Then live shows, stuff like that. But that's their main stuff, right? And then we just kind of have this space that we come to. So to me, it's like a good I don't want to say placeholder, but it's it's like a good thing where it's like, oh, I can see where it's going, but all of our main hours are the other thing. But maybe when the other thing, that phase in life is a little bit like more tucked away or done, then this can be a a new evolution of something. Yeah. cuz the passion's there or the momentum of this just organically builds for whatever reason. Like for example, I would have never predicted I was going to move to Vegas, nor did I predict I was going to move to Vegas when we started like I started giving myself more time to this as well.
9:25 So just if it organically gets in that position and again like I said it pulls me away like I don't mind, you know, turning down a gig over here because I love what I'm doing here. Just the idea of it like growing and becoming more of a thing um is again an ambition. Gotcha. That's that's kind of like the tough part cuz it's kind of like a a sixhand Ouija board, you know, like all hands on here like are we go where are we going? Are we going? It's kind of like that where it's like, okay, cool. Anthony has more time, but then he gets booked to do another Bollywood movie or like oh maybe Bart has more time. Oh ████ Joe's going to have triplets. And so it's like it's just like it's just kind of like this like we're all asking it how do you break a lease and we're all just like yes and no
10:15 question where is this business going and all of our hands are like you know like like like allina burn down how many more things need to burn down before Nick move and the funny thing is I think the way me and Bart has approached this company was never like a It's always been a playground. I see. Since the day that we started YouTube, it's never been a strategy. We learned to make money as a way to keep and maintain a lifestyle. But everything outside has been treated more like a serious business where you look at the numbers, you try to, you know, b like so my mind I think it's it's not like it's the same thing as like building like this um habit with something, right? So like this is kind of a sacred thing where I just don't want to think and I I just want to play and then so like
11:07 there'll be that season but I that that bandwidth of treating something like a business that takes up 24/7 of my time is on my other projects. Yeah. And then so this is my relief where I'm like all right I get to come here and talk to my buddies and it might even feel like you might corrupt the fun of the place. That's the sensitive part too. Yeah. But then also when things do come up and because we don't have staff anymore and I do have to deal with ████ like the ████ we dealt with recently. I was on a hike and I'm like, "F███ this ████ ████ you two. ████ I don't want to do this anymore." And then I come here and I talk to you guys and I'm like, "Let's keep this going, guys. Let's do it." That ████ sucks. Yeah. I mean, but that's life though. Like I feel like when you're an entrepreneur, like all these interruptions just happen like it all day. I can see two phones though. Yeah, if I didn't even ████ talk to
11:57 me ████ day it happens, dude. Just like last night when my ████ employee got scammed. Like I was going to buy hotel tickets with ████ oro hotel plans with with Hannah on her trip. We're like vacation time. And she's like, "Oh my god, we just got scammed." And I'm like, "Motherfucker." His cashier got scammed out of money in the register. Yeah. But I mean, that's the that's the entrepreneurial thing that it's like the battle of like, "I don't want to ████ do this. I just want a 9 to5. And then you go back and you're like, "Okay, let's do it. Let's do it." All that stress. And then he walks in and goes, "Say hello to Steve Ch." And he's like, "Back to normal." Seriously? Yeah. Do you ever do you ever feel like that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're speaking a foreign language. Yeah.
12:47 Do you ever have a ████ teenager call you crying because she got scammed by a ████ cop impersonator? Right. Exactly. Gotcha. Gotcha. But that's why this is your fun. Selfish ambitions. I see. Because of Gotcha. And in like what space also like we talk about this all the time just even the format of the way we do things here. Like I talk to these guys more than I talk to my wife about random worldly things, you know, cuz we constantly are like reflecting on happening in the world. In what other space you are you like talking for like 8 to nine hours with people about stuff? Everything too or sitting down with like a new guest like every month and like learning something else about somebody else's success stories or hardships or lifestyle or
13:38 perspectives. And it's like it it feeds us in a completely different way outside of money. We're just hoping it feeds us the same in money. You know, we're trying to balance it out. It'll get there, guys. I believe in it. Yeah. I like that you guys are enjoying it. You know, just broke bonding time and Yeah. Just fun for you guys and send out for you guys. Are you enjoying it, too? I hope you enjoy it. I was worried because the way you were saying it was like, "Oh, good for you. You haven't looked me in the eye one time, cuz we're having fun with you, Steve. I got worried. I was like, I should check. But you know what's funny, though, is I'm having This is like one of the best eras of JK for me. And I'm having the most fun, but I'm not making
14:28 the most. So, there was a period we're making like 200 G's a month. And that was probably the most stressful. Yeah. Right now it's way under there. Way way astronomically, but it's but it's way more fun. No, during that time we would book a vacation to Hawaii just so we can sleep because that that we would sleep 3 hours a night every basically every night and we would just be filming from like ████ 8:00 a.m. till midnight like 6 7 non-stop. It's like it's like we I felt like my opportunity would would have come back like ever again. So I had to take every deal, say yes to everything, right? And then um our all of our like relationships were suffering, our personal friendships were s we were more work friends than we are actually friends. And we're just like what the ████ are we doing? So there's a balance
15:18 there, right? But like I think maybe that's the thing is like first off, you don't know what you're made of until you burn out. And then it's like when you're burning out though, you feel like a little ████ for burning out. Yeah. And then but then you got to know that that barrier of where's that and but then also you go to the other end of like ████ it, I don't want to do it at all, you know? But it's like you got to find that balance where how do you make that good amount of money but you also have like that sanity a piece of work. Yeah. But I think this is like a good balance for me as of now cuz I really like the conversations we're having. Yeah. And then it's like we're surviving. We're not dying. Yeah, but I would like to grow and I would like to change it up a little bit. But then that's like, okay, when we're done with this chapter, I'm fully out of Hawaii. I move in, you know, back to Vegas. We're
16:08 like game time, guys, you know. Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Thanks for sharing. No, this is good. I'm I'm learning a lot from you guys, too. Well, when you guys were in your top heyday, like what was the like was it just YouTube making the videos or Well, we had about a 25 plus person team. Yeah. And back then we had an editing team. Um that was probably half of the group. We had about jeez three channels. At once we had four and then we had independ individual channels cuz vlogging was really popular. So even on our vlog channels we would make like five 20 five to 20 grand a month just on vlogging. And then so like so we had uh all of the JK network and and another thing we did was we paid out everybody 11 months. No, we paid out 12 months for
16:58 11 months of work. So, we would all get uh December off and go on an international trip together. Oh, yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. So, like we had a lot of fun. Like it was all built to go How do we make a ton so we can play a lot and we blew it all on playing? 17,000 square foot uh like film studio, production studio pretty much. Oh, cool. Where? And where was that? I was in downtown LA. Oh, yeah. And I wish I had a mentor at that time to tell me, "Slow your freaking roll, dude." Or like maybe like balance it because it was me and me and him egging each other on. He's like, "We got to do we got to do big." And I'm like, "Yeah, we do got to go big cuz if you go big, everyone thinks you're successful." And we're like, "Yeah." And then he's like, "You know what? We need to We're not professionals. We need to get someone from the industry." And
17:48 then they're like, "All right." And then they're like, "It cost $700,000 to build this." were like, "Yeah, that sounds about right." So, versus we should have just bought more investments, bought some, dude. We could have ████ bought a house and made that into a film set. Like, there's It's one of those things like you said earlier, you ████ up and then you go, "If I did it again, that's how I would have done it." Yeah. But, I only knew. Yeah. Every step of the way is if I only knew. If I only only knew. What do you guys think the biggest lessons that you guys were um yeah that you guys learned maybe like the top two or three lessons? Well, for me it's um before I'm so convinced immediately that this is the ████ that I must do now.
18:40 seek out opposing ideas and like just have a more empirical like method rather than like yo that sounds like a badass idea. If Ryan told me something and at that moment I go that sounds amazing. I'm calling up Bart and I'm saying look this is what we're going to do and then we're going to put a quarter mill into it right now and Bart's going to say ████ yeah. And that's I think one of the stupidest ████ we did because I didn't even know it was an option to go. Okay, wait a minute. What does Steve think? What does Cuz I thought after I I believe something, everybody else was stupid. That's what I thought. [Laughter] Once I was convinced, I'm like, "That's it, bro. Everyone else is You got it." That was one That was one of our first crypto investments. It was uh with OMG. Yeah. I remember Steve told Joe something. Joe's like, I think you put
19:31 like 300 G's in. And then I was like, well, since I know less than Joe, I was like, I'll put a 100 G's in. That makes sense. It's like from a fivem minutee conversation. Yo, but we came up like 800K though. So that's the thing is we're just going to sell where Yeah. So we didn't we didn't know the fundamentals of taking profits, right? So you see a number go up and you go, okay, I'm at 800K. Let it roll. Double down. Right. But then the fundamentals will tell you take some profits. You don't see this every day. So it's two times that we came up close to a mill or even over a mill that we didn't take any profits. Yeah. And then later I'm reading a fundamentals book and I'm like, "Ah, okay. Every time it goes up, you should take a little bit out." Yeah, that's true. That's good. That's my lesson. How about you? I saw the 100 turn into 300 and the 300 turn
20:22 into 25 grand. Oh my god. Oh ████ Said it all within Oh ████ That's not even That's a bigger investment. That's a different That's our first investment. That's when they should have learned the lesson and then they were like, "Well, let's see if it works again without applying the lesson." Hey, but you know why it's so hard? Cuz everyone was like trying to ride together and go to the moon. And we're like, "What? 2 million? Not enough. Let's go to 10." Two million not enough. I feel like everyone has to go through this. They they go through that huge loss. So what I learned, what I really like about psychology of money, he does talk about how everyone needs to learn. But he goes, "Learn with like five bucks, you know, trip and fall over five bucks, trip and fall over 10 bucks, trip and fall over for 100 bucks. Then you
21:12 learn all your lessons with cheap money, then you can start investing a,000 or whatever. But then I learned like with a hundred. So that's like ████ stupid, you know? But like, okay, the silver lining there, not to enable us or anything, I think it's made me feel more confident about large numbers. So, I don't sweat anymore when I see these numbers. And then now that I um, you know, built Jumbi out in Hawaii and stuff and then now we're, you know, ramping up to build out more stores, I don't get intimidated. I can make better decisions. And like seeing swings of 100K or not come in and out of the bank account, it doesn't stress me out. So I can think clearly. So it's scaled. It's scaled. Yeah. Yeah. So it's almost like okay well if you've dealt with these large numbers before now like you're emot you're not so
22:03 emotional about it anymore. Now it looks just like numbers. Yeah. And it's like okay now I can make a logical decision. But maybe in the past I don't know if I would have been able to scale the way that I've done and I would have maybe stayed at like a certain level because I'd be so scared your your risk. Yeah. Lowered it. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I tell myself. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Thank you for believing that. So, do you know how to break a lease?
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