My First MillionHow to find and exploit the "glitch" that can make any business take off
My First Million
The Aura Brush Problem 0:00
The guest, a university student, met Dr. Bob, a dentist who had invented a tongue scraper called the Aura Brush and had boxes of unsold units sitting in his garage. Classmates told Dr. Bob to abandon online sales since only 8 percent of people wanted to buy that way, but the guest pointed out that 8 percent of Americans still meant 30 million potential buyers, which impressed Dr. Bob enough to ask him to work together.
Early Marketing Missteps 3:01
Their first move was spending 5,000 dollars to buy a Facebook page called Kisses with 1.3 million followers, renaming it Our Brush, and spamming those followers, but sales barely moved and Google ads lost money at a rate of 3 to 5 dollars spent for every dollar earned.
Building the Viral Video 4:30
Inspired by early YouTuber iJustine's jump-cut style, the guest recruited a film-major roommate and a screenwriter roommate, then drew on his own door-to-door sales experience from a two-year Mormon mission in Ireland and selling Idaho potatoes to script a video called how to tell if you have bad breath, built around scraping and smelling your tongue since it causes 90 percent of bad breath.
Finding the YouTube Glitch 8:30
The 500 to 600 dollar video launched just as YouTube's new ad platform offered views for less than a penny each, letting them turn one dollar of spend into two or three dollars of sales covering ads, shipping, and the brush itself. The guest calls this kind of early, temporary advantage a glitch, comparing it to a Normandy beachhead you secure first and expand from, and the company eventually sold for about 10 million dollars.
Principles Behind Finding Glitches 11:00
The first principle is solving a problem you personally face, as Dr. Bob did for his missionaries' bad breath and as Airbnb's founders did when selling air mattress floor space to pay their own rent, an idea echoed in Jeff Schwartig's book The User Method. The second principle is watching for marketing channels others ignore, such as shopping through AI agents like Grok instead of Google, since businesses that optimize for agentic shopping can reach a fast-growing group of users who no longer want to search or click themselves.
Building VidAngel to filter content 16:01
Ben describes creating VidAngel because he wanted a legal way to watch filtered versions of shows like Game of Thrones without sex, nudity, or rape scenes, something he noticed millions of people were already doing illegally through pirated torrents. He points out that this was a classic small niche, maybe a million people worldwide, far from a typical sample of viewers, yet it grew into a public company doing about 90 million dollars a quarter from only around two million subscribers paying roughly 13 dollars a month.
Testing The Chosen with a 19 minute ad 20:00
Ben explains how his team uploaded a full 19 minute pilot film as a skippable YouTube ad, reasoning that even if only 3 percent of viewers watched to the end, those were the true fans who would invest. This came from his earlier work building Harmon Brothers campaigns for PooPourri, Squatty Potty, and Purple Mattress, where YouTube asked him to help design the skip ad button, letting viewers skip after 5 seconds in exchange for unlimited watch time if the content earned attention.
Crowdfunding The Chosen into a hit 23:01
That approach helped 17,000 people invest 11 million dollars into The Chosen after spending about 800,000 dollars on ads, roughly 8 percent of the raise, comparable to Wall Street fundraising fees. Daryl Eves helped run live streams showing real time investments and locations during the final fundraising hours. The show, once an Angel project, became a top five global series with about 200 million viewers, now on Amazon, with season seven just filmed and the crucifixion episode planned for next Easter.
Marketing instincts behind viral brands 26:01
Ben recounts personally testing products like Squatty Potty and PooPourri before marketing them, and meeting Susie Batiz, who pitched PooPourri by flying him to Hawaii. He describes writing the PooPourri ad with writer Joel over three or four days, landing on the idea of a composed British woman casually discussing pooping on a toilet, a juxtaposition that defined the brand's tone.
Retreats that force creative breakthroughs 28:30
Ben describes locking writers, attorneys, and stakeholders together in a cabin for two or three days until they emerge with a signed, approved script, arguing that face to face collaboration prevents scripts from being slowly neutered through endless email edits. He says it is easier to train a comedian to be a marketer than to train a marketer to be funny, so comedians are sent products weeks ahead to prepare rough scripts, then every joke in the final ad must directly reinforce the product's message or it gets cut.
Warming up a celebrity's face online 31:00
For Angel Studios, the team still builds scripted comedic ad campaigns, like one with Alan Ritchson and Owen Wilson for the movie Runner that drew around 100 million views, promoting Angel's model of paying 20 dollars a month for two movie tickets. For the film Somewhere in Italy, Kevin James agreed to become a fictional art teacher character on Instagram and TikTok, with a team living with him to produce content. Jeff explains that platforms hash faces into their algorithms, so reposting older Kevin James clips warmed up his face recognition before the new character launched, letting the new channel instantly ride his existing trending status.
Super Bowl stunt and viral mystery 40:02
The campaign culminated with Kevin James appearing at the Super Bowl in character, seated among empty bought seats with influencers posting speculation about his identity, generating over a billion views without ever mentioning the movie directly. Jeff compares this clipping and face-hashing strategy to how creators like Andrew Tate use armies of clippers. He also describes Angel's values based content strategy, contrasting it with nihilistic storytelling, and explains how member voting shapes which films reach theaters, citing Sound of Freedom's 14 million dollar budget turning into 250 million in box office.
The Angel Guild Model 47:30
Angel Studios built the Angel Guild, where about three million members pay twelve to twenty dollars a month to help choose and fund films, much like fantasy football but for movies. The guild has paid out three hundred million dollars to filmmakers, who keep fifty percent of profits while Angel reinvests the rest into growth. Despite losing fifty million dollars last year, mostly on marketing and member acquisition, the founder insists Hollywood's real problem is cost, not revenue, since America's media exports remain enormous. He described the industry as a knife fight, quoting an executive who said his best friend in Hollywood was worse than his worst enemy in Las Vegas, while pointing to A24's community-building and Crunchyroll's twenty million anime subscribers as examples of smart niche focus.
Vibe Coding And Life Lessons 54:32
He described using a personal "vibe coder," someone who turns his AI-built prototypes into real products once they hit minimum viable product stage, letting him build things like an automated trailer A/B testing tool. He argued AI won't cause mass unemployment, since making workers ten times more effective means needing more people, not fewer. Reflecting on younger years, he said nothing in work compares to marriage and having kids early. He recalled a mentor's advice not to fight battles under five million dollars, and a Bible verse his brother found about giving up your coat too, which led him to drop a costly dispute and instead pursue new opportunities with an abundance mindset.
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