SHOW TRANSCRIPT

This transcript is automatically generated by Descript.  Any errors or omissions are unintentional.

[00:00:00] Doc Rock: I am not a special human being.

[00:00:01] Doc Rock: As a matter of fact, I am probably more stupid than most. I am fearless to a fault. Like, why would I worry about something that I can’t control? I just don’t. When it comes to this content creating stuff, ain’t afraid of nothing. It’s like, “Why aren’t you afraid somebody’s gonna say something bad?”

[00:00:15] Doc Rock: Yes, they are. I’m born Black in America. I’ve had bad stuff said to me since I could hear. You know, like, it just, it’s not gonna stop. No one’s gonna not call me fat or old or whatever. Like, hey, I’ve been listening to all of that since I had the battles, what do you call? Granimals, the husky version.

[00:00:30] Doc Rock: Th’s right. So, like, who cares, bro? I don’t care about them people. I tell you what I’m not gonna do, not gonna not eat barbecue with rich. Because somebody said I’m fat, you know? I lost 70 pounds, people still call me fat. So what? I don’t care. Like, I don’t think about that sort of stuff because I have a purpose, and my purpose is to positively impact, the lives of so many people.

[00:00:52] Doc Rock: And the only way I can do that is stay true to myself. Hello, folks. Welcome to Creator [00:01:00] News Live. I’m Jeff Sieh, and you’re not.

[00:01:02] Paul Gowder: And I’m Paul Gowder, and this is the show that keeps you up to date with the creator economy and so much more.

[00:01:07] Jeff Sieh: How much of your business would still be standing tomorrow if your biggest platform disappeared tonight?

[00:01:13] Jeff Sieh: You ever though about, building on land that you do not own, renting the reach, renting the audience and hoping rules do not change on you? And is there a thing in your setup that other people need that nobody has bothered to make that you have thought about for years and never built?

[00:01:28] Jeff Sieh: If that sounds familiar, you are in the right place.

[00:01:31] Paul Gowder: Our guest today is Doc Rock. He’s the Director of Strategic Partnerships at Ecamm and co-host of The Flow and the creator behind Doc Pops. He spent four decades across TV, radio, film, and podcasting, and he’s on a mission to remove friction from the creation process for everybody else.

[00:01:46] Paul Gowder: When he could not find a product his students needed, he designed it, he, found a factory and pre-sold the entire run to his own audience without ever touching a crowd-forming platform. Today, he’s walking us through how he did it and what it actually cost.

[00:01:59] Jeff Sieh: So sit [00:02:00] back, clear schedule, clear mind to get ready for this week’s episode of Creator News Live.

[00:02:27] Jeff Sieh: That’s right.

[00:02:27] Jeff Sieh: we’re gonna dive right in. By the way, I wanna make sure that we, because Doc is here and we have some amazing stuff coming up, but this show is always sponsored by Ecamm. You can find out more about them by going to Ecamm.com/Jeff.

[00:02:38] Jeff Sieh: You can save 15% by using the code Jeff15 by putting that in the checkout. But Paul and I are gonna be there. Doc, of course, is gonna be there. But Camp, we’re gonna be talking about Camp today. It’s coming up very, very soon. actually next month at Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

[00:02:53] Jeff Sieh: We’re gonna be over there for September 28th through the 30th. Doc, what is on schedule for that? I mean, we have so many cool [00:03:00] things. I know you wanted to talk about it a little bit.

[00:03:01] Doc Rock: Oh my God. There will be so much. The, the thing that I, I really enjoy the most is, okay, we have. Just think about it as, as a conference that’s not a conference because we didn’t wanna do a conference were everybody sits around in a circle on Kumbaya.

[00:03:13] Doc Rock: it’s one of these things where you’re gonna get in, you’re gonna get your hands dirty, you’re gonna actually sit down and make some content. But honestly, my favorite part Billy was talking about this the other day. It’s the last day when we all get together and we go sing Karaoke for all you people who mispronounce karaoke, it’s, it’s karaoke.

[00:03:32] Doc Rock: There’s no E in that word at the beginning. And oh my God, it’s so much fun and we have an absolute blast. And it’s a great place for creators who have been kinda stuck in various places and are looking to get out of being stuck and they actually wanna get down and make something. It’s a great place to show up.

[00:03:49] Doc Rock: And if you use Jeff’s code, you can get 50 bucks off.

[00:03:52] Jeff Sieh: That’s right. And by the way, Paul is speaking there. He’s gonna be talking. What are you talking about, Paul? What’s your – All three

[00:03:57] Doc Rock: of us are speaking there.

[00:03:58] Jeff Sieh: That’s right.

[00:03:58] Paul Gowder: Yeah. I’ll be talking about [00:04:00] live streaming doing onsite productions.

[00:04:02] Jeff Sieh: And Doc, what’s your, what’s your session about?

[00:04:05] Doc Rock: Man, I forgot. Oh yeah. I forgot. Dude, you know what time it is? Mary Lou and I will be helping people get their studio together. We’re gonna help polish all the kinks out of your studio. And strange enough, I have been rebuilding my studio now and it’s been a lot of fun, so I can’t wait to get in and it’s always a, a catalyst for me to remove everything and rewire everything and slim line certain things down.

[00:04:30] Doc Rock: And yeah, it’s kind of fun.

[00:04:31] Jeff Sieh: Yeah, Doc and I’ll be, uh, nerding out about 3D printing because, uh, we’ve got, I got some new, files to share with you about some organization stuff that’ll be cool. But I’m gonna be talking all about how I set up the show with AI. Like this is like the actually how we put it all together, how you guys can, uh, do a, an amazing show flow for your live show.

[00:04:46] Jeff Sieh: Even your design, all that kind of stuff. It’s all gonna be talking about how we can use AI to help us do that while still remaining human. So go to Ecamm.com/camp to find out all about it. But we’re here to talk about Doc today. So we wanna [00:05:00] talk about how he actually has built this product, Doc Pops, but I wanna know from the audience, I want you to be honest, do you actually own anything in your business or are you renting all of it?

[00:05:11] Jeff Sieh: So tell me in the comments, put own or rent wherever you’re watching from, own or rent. I, I would say I mostly rent. I have a couple things that I own, but I wanna own more. So we’re gonna be talking about that today, with Doc. So Doc, I just wanna get right into it. You have spent four decades in TV, radio, film, podcasting, all of it you’ve been making content throughout.

[00:05:34] Jeff Sieh: So what made you decide on the next thing you built should be this physical product instead of course or a video or something like that?

[00:05:43] Doc Rock: You know, it’s, it’s funny that, that question because it is the typical answer for many people who end up in a situation like this. It scratch my own itch. Legit was scratching my own itch.

[00:05:54] Doc Rock: And once I decided to do it, I was like, you might as well just go all in. [00:06:00] Like if you’re gonna do it, you might as well do it because my dad used to say, like I would go to my dad and be like, “Dad, I need 20 bucks for so-and-so.” And he’d be like, “Give me 20 bucks” and be like, “Youre stupid.” I’m like, “What?” He goes, “You should ask me for 100.”

[00:06:11] Doc Rock: And I’m like, “Why?” He goes, “It took the same amount of energy to ask me for 100 bucks as it did to ask me for 20. Now I would’ve told you to, to, you know, pound sand, but I probably would’ve gave you 50. So you’d have walked out $30 in the positive.”

[00:06:24] Jeff Sieh: Mm.

[00:06:24] Doc Rock: And then I was like, “Yeah, you’re right.” And he goes, “Okay.

[00:06:27] Doc Rock: Also, don’t just ask me, ask me, as mom, as grandma, as granddad. Now you walking out with 200 bones.” And I’m like, “Yeah. Mom, can I get a horse? Why can’t you get a dog like the rest of the kids?” Okay. So I got a dog. Yeah,

[00:06:42] Jeff Sieh: yeah, yeah.

[00:06:42] Doc Rock: Believe what you do.

[00:06:43] Jeff Sieh: Mm-hmm. Very, very cool.

[00:06:45] Paul Gowder: So It started with a problem, right?

[00:06:47] Paul Gowder: You. And I know. Tell us about the product, first of all. Walk us through like how you realized that nobody was doing this and that you wanted to actually solve it.

[00:06:54] Doc Rock: Okay. So, well, there was a company that was making it, but couple things that I didn’t like [00:07:00] about the product that already exist. I. Most of what I saw available, the most primary one, I won’t throw their name under the bus, but it was a company that’s out of Netherlands and they were taking basically what we would, in the business would just call a, a, uh, thin stamped type of foam situation.

[00:07:17] Doc Rock: And the colors were bland, number one. The colors were just bland. And then they had a bunch of options, but they weren’t fancy. They were a little bit thin. They were actually thinner than what comes on most of the, uh, what we would call the inexpensive microphones. Now, you know, I love shore microphones and road microphones, things like that.

[00:07:36] Doc Rock: So they come with better screens, but they’re black. And I was like, “I want something that will allow people to show their invi – individuality. But I also wanted something that, well, popped.” And because that’s what the, you know, clients used to say when I’m doing graphic design. “Oh, can you make it pop? Like, what the heck does that mean?

[00:07:53] Doc Rock: So I, so as I was looking around and I was like, you know, nothing out here exists. I, [00:08:00] I got, a white one and I hit it with some airbrush paint and I was like,” Uh, it’s, it’s getting there. It’s getting there. “But I realized what the biggest problem was, is that the foam was thin. I. Only place I can get it from was the Netherlands, and to ship it back to the US was literally like 65 bucks long before tariffs even existed.

[00:08:19] Doc Rock: So I can imagine what it would cost today. Yeah. And I was like,” No, that’s just crazy. “So I just said,” Wha happens if I tried to make it? “And well, I started a, one of these ADHD hyperfixation rabbit holes got myself in a whole bunch of trouble.

[00:08:34] Jeff Sieh: so like most creators think that the only options are like courses, coaching, or sponsorships, right?

[00:08:40] Jeff Sieh: Like I’ve done all of those. So what does owning a physical product give you that those three do not as a businessman?

[00:08:48] Doc Rock: It sounds crazy, but it’s something that you normally can easily turn into other things. It. I don’t know. It sounds corny, but it’s something [00:09:00] tangible. You literally have it in your hand.

[00:09:02] Doc Rock: You can, you know, you can. It’s tactile. You can, you know, put some oof behind it. And honestly, I think because of the level of difficulty, people take it a little bit more serious. And I don’t really care what they think per se, but they just do, right? You know, like it is one of those things where I do believe people just take it more seriously.

[00:09:23] Doc Rock: I don’t understand why, but –

[00:09:24] Paul Gowder: Well, I, I, it’s.

[00:09:25] Doc Rock: I’m not a brain scientist.

[00:09:26] Paul Gowder: Yeah. I, I think it’s like writing a book. Like it, it does give you a certain level of respect and authority. Having your own physical product is different than just a, a digital product. Now –

[00:09:37] Doc Rock: Just call it gravy toss.

[00:09:39] Paul Gowder: Yeah. Gravy

[00:09:39] Doc Rock: toss.

[00:09:41] Paul Gowder: So you’re manufacturing your, with your old radio program director who lives in China and is making Funko Pops.

[00:09:47] Paul Gowder: So how much of that was a plan and how much of it was just your network paying off years later?

[00:09:53] Doc Rock: Well, it became a plan because one day as I was sitting around fighting the idea, I was like, “You’re such a dummy. You can make [00:10:00] anything in the world you want.” I look in my office and I’m like 99.8% of the stuff in this room is made in China with the exception of me and the roaches.

[00:10:11] Doc Rock: So I was like, “Hey, I should just hit up, I should just hit up out.” And not only is my program director, but literally one of my best friends in the whole planet, you know? And I was like, “Yo, it’s really dumb. Like why, why didn’t you think of this?” And so as I, as we did the, the work together and stuff like that, he goes, “Hey, if you know anybody else who needs to make anything, let me know.”

[00:10:30] Doc Rock: And so I talked to Kathy Hester because she says, “Yeah, I have this idea for a kitchen thing that I’ve been noodling through my head forever.” So I connected them together so they could work on products. And also realized after. And around about the same time, I wouldn’t say after, because it’s not like it was a callus or anything, a bunch of other creator friends started making products.

[00:10:47] Doc Rock: Now, there’s a couple different ways to do this. One is you make your own thing. Or two, if there’s a brand that you really, really like and you work with them a lot and, you know, you already have that sort of established thing together, you can talk to them about an [00:11:00] idea that you have and maybe they already have the means and the marketing channels and all of that stuff to build something.

[00:11:04] Doc Rock: And I just realized yesterday, one of my favorite YouTube creators, Chris Brockhurst, also a friend of mine, he just came up with a new camera mount that he’s, you know, selling through Condor Blue. And Condor Blue collaborates with, you know, the, the camera creators a lot. They, they make a lot of various things.

[00:11:20] Doc Rock: And my buddy Cam Magi, he is a really incredible photographer, does a lot of work with, you know, the First Nations and Native American sort of models and things of that nature. He did a light last Christmas with Zi Yun, which everybody calls, uh, the wrong name, but it’s Zion. And he has a really incredible light that they put up as the Cam Magi Rambler light.

[00:11:42] Doc Rock: So you, it can be done various ways. You don’t have to go and run out and find a whole marketing force, but man on man, on man, it is well worth it if you see a results and say, “Hey, results.” “I wanna put, like, a shirt for other people that are, like, you know, podcasting [00:12:00] or something of that nature. Like, let’s get the Gowda shirt.

[00:12:02] Doc Rock: I’m buying one.”

[00:12:03] Jeff Sieh: That’s right. Paul has some amazing shirts, but he, you need to design your own. I’ve been trying. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve

[00:12:09] Doc Rock: been trying to get them into all. Yeah, design your own and, and, and link up with results. I’m sure they would do it for you, you know, especially if you could come up with something that’s kind of incredible.

[00:12:16] Doc Rock: I would do it, for sure.

[00:12:17] Jeff Sieh: Yeah. So I wanted to ask, because a lot of people in the comments, they’re, they’re saying, when I ask, you know, “Do you wanna own or rent?” A lot of people are. They w. Some of them own, but a lot of people wanna own more. Like, uh, Linda says, “I. 54 – fifty fifty own rent using AI to own more.

[00:12:32] Jeff Sieh: Super smart, Linda.” But what would you tell somebody who’s kind of gone, like, ” What did you get wrong about how hard this would be?” Like, looking back at putting this together, what did you get wrong that was how hard it would be?

[00:12:44] Doc Rock: Jeff, why gonna drag me through the dirt? Um, so one, one of the first things that I totally, totally forgot about, and I should know better because when, when my buddy’s company started doing work with, uh, the [00:13:00] Funko company and helping them make Funko Pops and things of that nature, I went to go teach them some project management stuff, and I got to hang out there for dang near a month running around and doing all these things.

[00:13:10] Doc Rock: When you go to produce something that has to be molded, you have to build molds. And I got the crazy idea to add pod mic as one of the shapes.

[00:13:22] Paul Gowder: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:22] Doc Rock: And the pod mic mold didn’t exist, so I had to build a mold for that. And then what the capabilities were for the molds that were out for SM7B and MB7 was not as thick as I wanted and could not handle the heat of the acoustic foam when it’s in liquid format.

[00:13:42] Doc Rock: So I had to produce molds. And when you have to produce mold, yo, that can get expensive, right? Molds are not cheap, especially depending on what material you’re pouring. And so my molds were almost 40Gs.

[00:13:56] Jeff Sieh: Wow. Okay. Before you take this, that question, Paul, I wanted to ask, [00:14:00] I want to ask this. So, because I know pricing, no matter if you’re a service-based or you’re doing, you know, a product, how did you figure out the end pricing?

[00:14:09] Jeff Sieh: ‘Cause I know, like, it’s actually. I think it’s either, like, a dollar cheaper than it used to be, or. I mean, I know you’re doing sales and stuff like that. So how did you decide on the, the final pricing or the launch pricing, actually, uh, when you, when you first went out?

[00:14:22] Doc Rock: Two things I did. Number one, I didn’t wanna be in one of those situations, and I’m not gonna say this is set in stone because I might change my mind one day.

[00:14:31] Doc Rock: I didn’t wanna be in this situation where, I’m like, “Oh, um, this is the only time it’s ever gonna be this price,” and then later on, “Oh, look, it’s this price again.” Like, I don’t know. It drives me crazy when people do that. Especially when you hit those websites, people who use a site that rhymes with Pilabi, where every time I go in, I only have 15 minutes to get it at this price.

[00:14:53] Jeff Sieh: Right.

[00:14:54] Doc Rock: I don’t know. I have a feeling about it, you know? Like, I’m, I’m. I, I guess I’ll be truthful. I think I’m a very [00:15:00] particular guy. I am very particular about very particular things. That one is like, “Come on, son. Come on.” Yeah. And so I didn’t wanna go through that, but I also wanted to make sure that everybody in the planet could get a hold of this with, like, a set shipping.

[00:15:15] Doc Rock: So the hardest thing was be. When I was able to ship it directly from Hong Kong, I could get it to anywhere in the planet for 12 bucks.

[00:15:23] Jeff Sieh: Mm.

[00:15:24] Doc Rock: And again, our friend put tariffs on and ruined my life because I immediately had to stop international shipping. Because now, if I wanted to ship something to, like, my buddies in London, yo, it’s back to, like, 50 bucks.

[00:15:37] Doc Rock: And that was terrible. Like, when I had it all coming directly out of Hong Kong. So the other big slap in the face was, after about seven, eight months into it, everything’s moving just quickly, so fast, so gorgeously, I had to fly everything home from Hong Kong to Honolulu, and I had hit with, like, eight grand in tariffs.

[00:15:56] Doc Rock: So pick something light. My stuff is light. Imagine if it was heavy. [00:16:00]

[00:16:00] Jeff Sieh: So how do you, how do you navigate that? Like, because that stuff just happens in, like, do you just have to rush and change your pricing or go to your website and take it down?

[00:16:07] Doc Rock: I didn’t change my pricing. I left my pricing the same.

[00:16:09] Doc Rock: I just ate the eight grand because I set a standard for my people and, you know, it’s just funny. And I, again, don’t think I’m special. Matter of fact, I’m probably the stupidest businessman to ever walk in the face of the earth. Everybody else would’ve said, “Raise the price, move it on to the customers.” I didn’t wanna do that, so I just ate it.

[00:16:25] Jeff Sieh: Mm. Well, that –

[00:16:27] Doc Rock: And this, I just l – chalked it up as that when, when I see Jeff and Paul, we drinking tapered whiskey.

[00:16:33] Jeff Sieh: Not with Paul. Paul.

[00:16:35] Doc Rock: Yeah, not with me neither. I don’t even know why I’m out here lying. Don’t even say that. I do not know why I’m out here lying.

[00:16:41] Paul Gowder: I’ve got some good samples that may, uh, may come with me when we head north in September,

[00:16:44] Doc Rock: so.

[00:16:45] Doc Rock: So I was talking to Jeff earlier. I was like, “Yo, I gotta, I gotta step my game up this year. I’m gonna bring some Japanese stuff out here to Paul.” Yeah. All right. And, you know, normally, I carry on only, but I have to actually check a bag so I can bring some, some good Japanese. I got some, some Tokubitokoto, otherwise, [00:17:00] special stuff that I got directly from the factories.

[00:17:02] Doc Rock: Ooh. And sadly enough, right after I come back from camp, I’m going to the Niko factory in Sapoto, like, about two weeks after camp.

[00:17:08] Paul Gowder: Sweet. Nice. Sweet. All right, so for the creator that’s sitting out there that, like Kathy, who has this idea in their head and have always wanted to do this, what would you tell them?

[00:17:19] Paul Gowder: How to get started? They have zero product ideas. They have zero manufacturing conte – contacts. Where do they get started?

[00:17:25] Doc Rock: Man, you know what’s really cool? My buddy Jeff is super, super like me, like, Lives in AI. I would be like, “You listened to all my content. You made all of my content. You helped me do stuff.

[00:17:37] Doc Rock: What would be a physical product that I would be proud of and my audience would dig?” At the time I had this though, if, if Chat or Claude was around, I probably would have never made Doc Pops. It would have been like, ding dong, this is gonna – Too expensive. This is gonna set you back. It’s gonna set you.

[00:17:53] Doc Rock: You know how many Leicas you could’ve bought with all of that craziness? So, yeah. But I would definitely say that, right? [00:18:00] Like, I would look at somebody like, like Jimmy or even Dustin, man. I would make a, I would make a, a magic wand or something that, you know, just is a, a. It’s almost like a merch, but it’s also something because product is magic.

[00:18:14] Doc Rock: And so make a magic wand. All the fans just buy. Something that’s a little bit different than a T-shirt or a hat or a cup or whatever, you know. Make a ma- Magi patches, you know, different levels of cool. I don’t know. Yeah. Which I’ve made patches before. I made hats. I made. I guess because I had a clothing company, I had some, I had some experience in making things, so yeah, that’s my first step would be talk to your bot and ask them or talk to your audience.

[00:18:38] Doc Rock: Like is there something that’s missing, something that drives you crazy? For us 3D printer people, for instance, the thing that drives all of us nuts is the amount of crap that goes into what we affectionately call the poop shoot. Right. And there is two or three of them on the market right now. I don’t think that means there’s too many.

[00:18:55] Doc Rock: There are a couple of different ways to take all of the poop and dump it into something that [00:19:00] can grind it up and turn it back into filament. And again, I can only think of two or three in the market right now. Look at two of those, look and like, these would be good if they had X. Here’s what drives me crazy.

[00:19:09] Doc Rock: And you know this. This, next week, next week, Apple’s gonna be like, “Hey, here’s a brand new phone.” And everybody’s gonna go like, “Blah, blah, blah. It should have this. It should do this. It should do this.” I- instead of it shoulda do, make something. If you think you could do better, then make it yourself. Now, you may not be able to have the, the money to come out and generate a whole ass phone, hey, but a whole bunch of other companies did, right, that aren’t as big as Apple.

[00:19:30] Doc Rock: Like the nothing phone came out. Here’s a guy who was living in thing. I like all these things all these phones make, but it’s missing these things. So he made a nothing phone. Same with, uh, a couple of other different phones that are out there. So yeah, like if you really got, if you really wanna talk that game on the internet, then make your own.

[00:19:45] Jeff Sieh: so would you say like something, like let’s say, maybe they’re a YouTuber or a, they, they host webinars or a podcast. Would you say the first thing to dip your toe in the water is to use like maybe Fourth Wall, create those stickers, those t-shirts, that kind of thing? [00:20:00] Like, do you, do you survey your audience first and ask what they want or you just put it out there?

[00:20:03] Jeff Sieh: Like what, what would you, when you would walk a creator who’s like, “Hey, I wanna have a product. I don’t know where to start. I’ve heard Fourth Wall’s good.” What would you tell them?

[00:20:10] Doc Rock: I would def – Fourth wall is the answer, 100%. And I would definitely surf the customers first and be like, “Hey, gang, is there anything out here that you would really, really wanna see?”

[00:20:22] Doc Rock: I see so many of the creators doing things like, “Hey, we’re gonna do this writing challenge. We’re gonna do this gratitude journal, gratitude journal challenge X, Y, Z.” You know how easy it is to get a book made, like a plain book with no words in it?

[00:20:35] Jeff Sieh: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:36] Doc Rock: I mean, you guys know what it’s like to make a book with actual words in it.

[00:20:39] Doc Rock: You know you could call the same company and be like, “Let me get a book made with no words in it.” And then if you have writing prompts, the same writing prompts that you’re gonna send them via kit.com or whatever, put them in paper and, and you could build it in Canva and you can send it to Amazon ADP.

[00:20:56] Doc Rock: KDP. I mean, if I’ve used the wrong words, Google it, fam, don’t get me stuck. [00:21:00] Well, Paul’s done it. Yeah.You could le – Yeah, yeah. You could legit make the, make a book with all your stuff in it. So if you have all of your, your greatest hits, send it out through Amazon ADP and, and produce a, a book out of it.

[00:21:13] Doc Rock: Like, it, again, it’s more tangible. It is legit more tangible.

[00:21:17] Jeff Sieh: Yeah. So I know one, and Paul, I’d love to have you talk about the KDP program a little bit, just to, if people wanna do what Paul Doc was saying. But I, like, the first one I remember was, and he’s a speaker at Creator Camp, is Michael Hyatt came out with his productivity journal way back in the day.

[00:21:32] Jeff Sieh: Yeah. And I bought that and I got the, like, he even sold the digital version of it, which I don’t think he does anymore because it’s easy. It’s just like. Yeah, exactly. And you can, you could do something like that specific. I though about doing one for a, like, what I do with AI and, and production kind of stuff.

[00:21:47] Jeff Sieh: But Paul, talk about how easy it is really quick on the KDP, because I think a lot of people are interested in that, taking it that direction.

[00:21:53] Paul Gowder: Yeah, it’s a super simple process. Literally, like Doc said, you can go to Canva, design it, and this, just export the [00:22:00] files and upload it straight into KDP. They’ll walk you through the steps of laying out the cover, putting the, uh, barcode on it, all that stuff is, is, yeah, it’s just, it’s a wizard, you know, wizards step by step by step.

[00:22:11] Jeff Sieh: Yeah.

[00:22:12] Paul Gowder: I’ve got, what, four or five books in there now? Super easy. Yeah, it’s

[00:22:16] Jeff Sieh: great. And, and you’ve even done a coloring book, right? Like for –

[00:22:18] Paul Gowder: Yeah, we’ve got three different coloring books. Yeah.

[00:22:21] Jeff Sieh: Yeah. So So – I’m

[00:22:22] Doc Rock: gonna show you a small one, Jeff.

[00:22:24] Jeff Sieh: Sure.

[00:22:24] Doc Rock: This here is called 33 Glasses of Whiskey. It is a pocket size notebook.

[00:22:30] Jeff Sieh: That’s what Paul

[00:22:30] Doc Rock: eat drinks for lunch. That has. Yeah, like, whiskey name, distiller, origin, age, price, samples, star ratings, notes. It has a color meter and then, like, a cue wheel at the bottom. A Q wheel is like a tasting. And, like, again, not even expensive. You could probably sell these suckers for what I would say is, like, 10 bucks a piece, and, or maybe less.

[00:22:50] Doc Rock: That’s up to you, but this is very easy to make, and you can pull this together in Canva in about, mm, two prompts.

[00:22:58] Jeff Sieh: Right. [00:23:00] And that’s something like our friend, Jennifer, who does the bourbon cabin, that would be something amazing for her to do really, really easy. So, yeah, don’t, don’t think about it. Wait,

[00:23:08] Doc Rock: where’s the bourbon cabin?

[00:23:08] Doc Rock: How do I get there?

[00:23:10] Jeff Sieh: Well, Paul’s got directions. And then Dustin says –

[00:23:13] Doc Rock: Thanks Paul.

[00:23:13] Jeff Sieh: So true. And it’s. I’m so excited to have him at camp, but he says if it wasn’t for Michael Hyatt, he wouldn’t be where he is today. He’s a legend. So, yes, big shout out to Michael Hyatt. Amazing. So, I wanna ask, because we’re gonna get into, like, how Doc actually launched it, kind of his strategy behind it.

[00:23:28] Jeff Sieh: But I wanna know, in the audience, have you ever pre-sold something before it actually existed? So, type yes or never wherever you’re watching from. And, uh, I’d love to know what you guys think. Have you ever pre-sold something? I’ve done it, mm, a couple times for digital things. Paul, did you. And Doc, when.

[00:23:45] Jeff Sieh: Did you pre-sell. Um, you did pre-sell your Doc Pops, correct? Didn’t before you

[00:23:50] Doc Rock: started?

[00:23:50] Jeff Sieh: Yes, I did. Okay.

[00:23:51] Doc Rock: I, I basically did it as a fourth wall style launch, and yeah, it’s crazy. I though about doing a Kickstarter, but [00:24:00] I’m like, at the moment that I decided to go ham on these molds, and then, of course, I did the thing you probably shouldn’t do.

[00:24:08] Doc Rock: It’s. I just slapped them on the Amex, dog. Amex ain’t got no limit. I was like, “Yo, wait a minute. You got 30 days to, like, pay that Amex bill.” So, I. If you do Kickstarter and you miss, you get nothing.

[00:24:24] Jeff Sieh: Yeah.

[00:24:24] Doc Rock: So, I was like, “I don’t even wanna take that chance. I will take what I get. It won’t be as much as if I did Kickstarter, but at least I know it’s coming, something’s coming.”

[00:24:33] Doc Rock: So, that’s why I did Self-Starter as opposed to Kickstarter. And I’ve actually successfully run 11 Kickstarter campaigns for various people, so I had a lot of experience running Kickstarter, so I know what the, the, the hiccups and the foibles were. And Kickstarter’s a platform kinda lost me because I, I love Peak Design.

[00:24:52] Doc Rock: One of my favorite brands on the planet. I have a whole bunch of Peak Design stuff. They should not be allowed on [00:25:00] Kickstarter.

[00:25:01] Jeff Sieh: I, I agree.

[00:25:02] Doc Rock: It’s just not, it’s not what it’s for, dog. It’s not for you. And when I see the bigger companies launching a product on Kickstarter, I’m like, “Bro, you’re jacking it up for everybody.

[00:25:15] Doc Rock: You have a whole marketing team.” And Kickstarter literally says in the paperwork, it’s not designed to be a pre-sales thing, right? It’s designed to help people launch products. So, here’s companies that you got the $2 million to go start the new bag, dog. Like, get your butt off the platform and stop using it for pre-sales.

[00:25:35] Doc Rock: And I would tell them to their damn face. I love their stuff. And I’m like, “You guys…” I’ve been saying that since their second product. Yeah. After they launched their second one and it was successful, when they tried to do number three, I was like, “Get off the platform, my guy.” And I, it’s. I’m on record. I’m on eight podcasts saying it.

[00:25:50] Doc Rock: I will go straight to their office and tell them to their face. They’re ruining it for normal folks.

[00:25:54] Jeff Sieh: Yeah.

[00:25:54] Doc Rock: Because I, at that point, I was on, like, Kickstarter campaign number 10. And we happened to launch the last [00:26:00] one on the same day Peak launched, which is terrible. You don’t wanna be after Peak or somebody who has feet in the game doing the same thing.

[00:26:07] Doc Rock: Uh, Keychron, my favorite keyboards. They be on there everytime. Yeah. I’m like, Keychron, cut it out, bro. Yeah.

[00:26:11] Paul Gowder: And Peak’s on there all the. They’re, they’re launching every product through it now, it seems like.

[00:26:15] Doc Rock: Yeah. Nova does the same thing. The platform lets them get away with it because they get their cut.

[00:26:19] Doc Rock: I mean, I get it. I get it, Kickstarter. You get 5% of their cut when they do 10 million a bag, $2 million of bags in two days, they get their 5%. So I get it. For Kickstarter, like, it, it probably keeps them afloat, but I don’t know. It just, it just ruined the idea of the platform, so –

[00:26:34] Jeff Sieh: Yeah.

[00:26:34] Doc Rock: Yeah, just though it was safer not to do that.

[00:26:35] Jeff Sieh: It seems a lot of them are doing that. Now, I have a friend who was pretty successful until what you were mentioning before, the tariffs. He, he had a, a physical, board games. He would create board games and he would sell them on Kickstarter. And there’s a huge gaming community over there that – Oh, yes.

[00:26:48] Jeff Sieh: That will do that. But then the, like, he’d have to buy containers full of these games and pieces and, like, it just got crazy with the tariffs and it, it really hurt his business. But, yeah, it can be really good for some people.

[00:26:59] Doc Rock: One thing [00:27:00] I’ll say about that, MOQ’s, uh, medium order quantity is smaller than most people think, though.

[00:27:06] Doc Rock: A lot of the manufacturers will tell you that their MOQ is 10,000 or 20,000. That’s what they say, but they also don’t wanna not work. So if you’re like, “Listen, we’re gonna do a 2,000 unit sample run and you’re gonna be cool with it.” And because mine told me, like, my MOQ was 100 grand, and I’m like, “No, I’m not doing 100,000 pieces.”

[00:27:26] Doc Rock: But I did have to do. I had to do, like, 4,000 of each. Yeah, each color.

[00:27:32] Jeff Sieh: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:32] Doc Rock: And I was like, “No, here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m ordering six colors, and what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna add up until we get slightly higher than the number you want, but slightly less than the number that I want.”

[00:27:43] Paul Gowder: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:44] Doc Rock: Right? And then we’re gonna make it work, and we’re gonna count each color, each model. So SM7B is one model. I don’t care that they’re in different colors. And the same with the, the, the pod mic version and the MB7 version. And we fought back and forth a little bit, and then they were like, “Okay.” We [00:28:00] didn’t want.

[00:28:00] Doc Rock: They didn’t wanna lose the things. I was like, “I was just gonna say forget it.” But then they were like, “Yeah.” They hit me back, like, two days later, go, “Okay, yeah, we’ll do it.” Now, it did cost me a little more to make all the various colors, and so I love when people just say, “Hey, can you make yellow?” Bro, I’m not sitting here spray-painting myself, my guy.

[00:28:14] Doc Rock: Like, if I make yellow, I gotta order 4,000 of them. Mm-hmm. Do you got 4,000 other friends that want yellow? You know? And so that, that part becomes a little challenging. Or My favorite one, and again, I, I understand people don’t know, and I think people would buy better if they knew how stuff was made.

[00:28:31] Doc Rock: People were like, “Oh, are you gonna make some that fit like the DGI Mike three?” And I’m like, “No, like absolutely not. Dude, you could use a cotton ball from your dang wife’s dresser.”

[00:28:42] Jeff Sieh: Right.

[00:28:43] Doc Rock: Sorry.

[00:28:44] Jeff Sieh: Right.

[00:28:44] Paul Gowder: Oh,

[00:28:45] Doc Rock: sorry. You guys know I’m feisty at. I know, I

[00:28:50] Jeff Sieh: know.

[00:28:51] Paul Gowder: I, I mean, I think yellow, you need to just go find all the Savannah Banana – Oh, that’s right.

[00:28:55] Paul Gowder: Podcasters out there.

[00:28:56] Doc Rock: Man, see, I should’ve collabed with the bananas. Dude, [00:29:00] they have grown so much. I love them so much. They are so funny.

[00:29:03] Jeff Sieh: So good.

[00:29:04] Doc Rock: So

[00:29:04] Jeff Sieh: good to see you.

[00:29:05] Doc Rock: Quite amazing.

[00:29:06] Paul Gowder: All right. Let’s go back to the creator who’s out there and listening today and, and spinning on all the stuff they could do with the product.

[00:29:11] Paul Gowder: You talked about, you know, putting it all on your Amex and, but what should a creator think about as far as like the, the gap between taking presales and actually putting the product in hand? There’s some cash flow and managing the nerves of that too. It, it’s kinda hard. So how did, how do you actually advise people to get through that step?

[00:29:29] Doc Rock: Okay. One thing is I don’t think a lot of people tell their. I don’t think a lot of people who buy stuff from Kickstarter understand or a lot of people who do things or kick oriented campaigns or self-funded campaigns do. The person who’s making this thing will 112% run into manufacturing hiccups. If they do not, they were cheating and they were preselling a product that was already made that they slapped their name on.

[00:29:51] Doc Rock: Let’s be dead honest with that. I’m gonna put that down to brass tacks. It is very hard to get all of [00:30:00] these things with no trouble. So when I see people on, you know, various platforms yelling at some company because they put something out and they didn’t get theirs yet, I’m like, “Bro, this, what they’re doing is hard.

[00:30:10] Doc Rock: Relax. Give them a second.” You know? Now, have I bought things on the, on the start that just never came out? Absolutely. But it says in the documentation, don’t put money on this unless you’re willing to throw it into the wind, right? But that is the whole point of being a micro investor, if you will. That’s a good way to think of it, right?

[00:30:29] Doc Rock: Mm-hmm. If we were gonna start the Doc Jeff and Paul Whiskey Cafe, and then everybody put money in, at some point James is gonna be like, “Are y’all actually gonna open it? Y’all sitting in the back drinking the profits?” And we’ll be like, “Jimmy, you’re the dummy that gave us the money. Hey, you should check out this single malt.”

[00:30:46] Doc Rock: So you have to know that that’s a possibility. So I did think that stuff through. I, I, even my product came out like a month later than I wanted it to, but I was, I was foot in the butt of them like every day, like, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, like whatever. [00:31:00] And ev – they run into problems when you’re producing like, you know, 30,000 units or something.

[00:31:04] Doc Rock: It just happens. Mm-hmm. Um, I also think that when it comes to like, you know, figuring out pricing is extremely hard no matter what. I am not a special human being.

[00:31:13] Doc Rock: As a matter of fact, I am probably more stupid than most. I am fearless to a fault. Like, why would I worry about something that I can’t control? I just don’t. When it comes to this content creating stuff, ain’t afraid of nothing. It’s like, “Why aren’t you afraid somebody’s gonna say something bad?”

[00:31:27] Doc Rock: Yes, they are. I’m born Black in America. I’ve had bad stuff said to me since I could hear. You know, like, it just, it’s not gonna stop. No one’s gonna not call me fat or old or whatever. Like, hey, I’ve been listening to all of that since I had the battles, what do you call? Granimals, the husky version.

[00:31:42] Doc Rock: Th’s right. So, like, who cares, bro? I don’t care about them people. I tell you what I’m not gonna do, not gonna not eat barbecue with rich. Because somebody said I’m fat, you know? I lost 70 pounds, people still call me fat. So what? I don’t care. Like, I don’t think about that sort of stuff because I have a [00:32:00] purpose, and my purpose is to positively impact, the lives of so many people.

[00:32:04] Doc Rock: And the only way I can do that is stay true to myself.

[00:32:07] Jeff Sieh: That’s right.

[00:32:07] Doc Rock: They’re like, “Well, I though it was 150.” That was before I had to unF somebody else’s problem. So now I gotta unf somebody else’s problem if there’s a penalty for that.

[00:32:16] Doc Rock: But yeah, you really have to think it through and be, be willing to, A, know you’re gonna run into hiccups, be very upfront with people that you’re gonna run into hiccups. Tell them that they probably will run into hiccups also do a little thinking about your price. Again, your community can help you with that.

[00:32:32] Doc Rock: They can tell you what they think they’re willing to pay. And the advantage of pre-selling it is you know what you’re gonna do. So if you’re gonna do a course, right? I, some of the best course creators I heard told me that they sold the course before they wrote the course.

[00:32:46] Paul Gowder: Mm-hmm. So

[00:32:46] Doc Rock: that way they knew it was a viable situation.

[00:32:49] Paul Gowder: Mm-hmm.

[00:32:49] Doc Rock: And then if you give yourself. Actually, when I did my first course, I sold the course before I fully wrote it. I had the outline, I put the upline up to see if anybody would buy it. I launched it and [00:33:00] then I got like 50 some odd students on like the first day. I was like, “Oh, this works. This covers it.

[00:33:06] Doc Rock: It will be worth my while to do this.” So then I sat down and I did the course.

[00:33:09] Jeff Sieh: Mm-hmm.

[00:33:10] Doc Rock: And I, I learned that from about seven different people.

[00:33:12] Jeff Sieh: Yeah. I want you to talk a little bit about the, the lead off into like, you know, actually manufacturing. Like let’s walk me through the sample rounds. Like how many prototypes did you have before you were happy with and felt good about putting your name on it?

[00:33:25] Jeff Sieh: Like how long did that process take?

[00:33:27] Doc Rock: Year.

[00:33:28] Jeff Sieh: Really?

[00:33:29] Doc Rock: Wow. Okay. Yeah. Okay. ‘Cause I’m a, I’m a Virgo a-hole in particular, like yeah. All right, so for instance, the, one of the manufacturers we talked about before, and I won’t throw the name on the bus, they do what would. I was looking for a second one, so I’m gonna make noise.

[00:33:43] Doc Rock: Everybody hold your ear. If you look inside of mine, it’s flat, it’s clean, like it doesn’t have any, it doesn’t have anything where somebody actually pulled the things out. Mm-hmm. On the, the cheaper models, they basically take a hot knife and it goes around to make the hole and then somebody just [00:34:00] pulls all the stuff out.

[00:34:01] Jeff Sieh: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:01] Doc Rock: And that’s what they sent me. And I was like, “What are we doing here?” And they was like, “Oh, that’s how you do it.” I was like, “No, no, no, no. I need my cutout.” And they’re like, “Well, that means we need to have a, a machine that’s gonna invert it and then a machine that’s gonna cut it clean.” I was like, “All right, cool.”

[00:34:13] Doc Rock: And they’re like, “Well, that’s gonna raise the price by about $1.25 a unit.” And I was like, “Okay, cool.” And they’re like, “But you already set the price on the thing.” I’m like, “Yeah, I’ll eat that too because I am not putting out a plucked out inside because on the top, we address the top of the mic.”

[00:34:29] Jeff Sieh: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:29] Doc Rock: If it has various levels of sponge, i- it’s not working.

[00:34:34] Doc Rock: There’s not a decoration, dude. Mine work. They’re designed to Peter Piper pick the pepper pickle peppers. They’re not just, “Oh, look, a cute cover.” Yeah. A whole bunch of people buy it because of cute cover, but as an audio file, it had to work. So I wanted mine to work. Where the other ones are kind of just like, “Oh, I put draws on the pig.”

[00:34:52] Jeff Sieh: Is there a special foam? Like is. I mean, you couldn’t just go with any old foam. Did you have to find the right kind of foam to do?

[00:34:57] Doc Rock: You could use any old foam, but I went [00:35:00] with acoustic. I went with a acoustic quality memory foam, again, because I’m an audio file, I’m a nerd. I have pet peeves when it comes to sound.

[00:35:08] Doc Rock: Yeah, super crazy. Ooh, I, I have to do a quick shameless plug, Jeff. Apologies.

[00:35:14] Jeff Sieh: That’s right.

[00:35:14] Doc Rock: There is a creator, I think he popped in a chat a second ago. Uh, my buddy, Raf, he made a plugin that’s designed for Phonica Da Vinci Premiere that will fix your audio. The way that I go crazy about Alfonica or everybody else does like Adobe podcasts.

[00:35:29] Doc Rock: And I was like, “Bro, can you make your work live inside of Ecamm with the Ecamm, you know –

[00:35:33] Jeff Sieh: uh-huh.

[00:35:34] Doc Rock: Plugin.” And then he was like, “Hold on, let me see.” I was making toast, bro. Before I finished buttering my nice sourdough. He was like, “Hey, it works.” And I was like, “Shut the front door.” He’s like, “Yeah, go test it.” It says, “I need to make one minor tweak, but I can do that real quick.”

[00:35:49] Doc Rock: And so he made it so that you can press the button and you talk for like 10 seconds and it will auto EQ according to your voice and auto do all funnex, you could do a while recording instead of after you [00:36:00] record. And if you do, again, shameless plug, docroc.live/power, it will take you to his store and you’ll see Power EQ.That’s the one.

[00:36:09] Jeff Sieh: So –

[00:36:09] Doc Rock: Oh my God, it’s phenomenal. I’m using it right now. Don’t sound cute.

[00:36:13] Jeff Sieh: I gotta go, uh, play with it. So docrock.live/what? Power. Power. Okay. I wanna make sure that’s

[00:36:20] Doc Rock: clear. He has a bunch of plugins that he made for final cut, but the Power EQ is the one. And then because I know you like your favorite product for easy paper edits, he made a version of that for people who don’t wanna buy that thing that you love so much.

[00:36:32] Doc Rock: I won’t say their name, but you know what it is.

[00:36:34] Jeff Sieh: The script?

[00:36:34] Doc Rock: He basically made a version of that that works with Premier Funnel Cut – Okay. Da Vinci. Yeah, it’s dope. You’ll see it.

[00:36:40] Jeff Sieh: Okay. Cool, cool, cool.

[00:36:41] Doc Rock: You need to have him on your show.

[00:36:42] Jeff Sieh: Yeah, I’d love to. Yeah, so if he’s listening, I, I –

[00:36:44] Doc Rock: Ra- Raphael, if you’re in the chat, send Jeff a hay.

[00:36:47] Jeff Sieh: All right.

[00:36:48] Paul Gowder: Yeah, I’m gonna go look at that now.

[00:36:49] Jeff Sieh: Yeah. So one of the questions. So I’m gonna let you get to the next one, Paul, but I wanted to ask, I s – I still think. I don’t understand how this works between you and China. Like, so you have these [00:37:00] colors, like, insanity orange, Blue Hawaii, all that stuff.

[00:37:02] Jeff Sieh: So how did you figure. ‘Cause, like, I don’t care if they send you a picture of the color, it’s not gonna be the same as actually the product. So were you having to wait, like, three, like, a month to get the sample and, like, oh, that color, that’s too green, I need it lighter, or whatever? Like, how did that work back and forth with these factories?

[00:37:20] Doc Rock: Yeah, so one of the colors that I wanted to produce was Buck Blue, because me and Tom are friends, and I like the color blue that Tom uses for everything. And so, I gave them particular color, and for some reason, we couldn’t nail that color. So, the blue Hawaii ended up darker, but I. They sent me a, a couple of different blues that they could do.

[00:37:39] Doc Rock: They definitely mixed the colors for me, and I was like, “Okay, I’ll accept this one because it has enough pop.” The original purple was a little dull, not enough abergine, and I was like, “Come on, son. I need to be. I need a parbo that screams.” And they’re like, “Okay, okay.” So we went back and forth on that. And then I gave up on the second blue.

[00:37:57] Doc Rock: So there was gonna be the dark blue that I got, the blue Hawaii, and then there was gonna [00:38:00] be a buck blue. And again, the colors, I. They’re my stuff, okay? Simply red, I’m a music dude, right? Mm-hmm. Insanity Orange, Netherlands is my favorite, uh, international football team. Orange is the color of insanity, is their, is their thing, right?

[00:38:13] Doc Rock: Blue Hawaii, hello, I live in Hawaii. Green AF is because Aubrey’s favorite. I know what you though. Get your head out the gutter. Dang it, people, it’s 5: AM. No, my buddy, Aubrey, loves green, and so green AF is Aubrey’s favorite.

[00:38:29] Paul Gowder: Very

[00:38:29] Doc Rock: cool. Actually, I, I would’ve taken the first one, but – I know. They told me, never explained that, never explained that one on, on the internet.

[00:38:35] Doc Rock: Right. So yeah, even the colors, like, I just went up with goofy names because I just thought it would help. And Purple Rain is definitely to Prince, you know, that, that one sort of mattered. And yeah, it’s just one of those really things, but I definitely went back and forth. I went through tons of samples, and that’s what took me a year.

[00:38:52] Doc Rock: I was being kind of particular about the blue, and then I ended up defaulting. I wasn’t gonna do green because [00:39:00] I though, what happens if someone does a green screen and have a hole in their neck?

[00:39:02] Jeff Sieh: Oh,

[00:39:03] Doc Rock: that’s a good point, yeah. But I was like, “You know what?” After I thought about it, I was like, “You know what?

[00:39:07] Doc Rock: Nevermind them people. They can figure out how to fix it.” Right. And I was like, “There’s a way to fix it with Ecamm and things like that.” So I was like, “I’m just gonna do it.” It turned out to be one of the favorite colors is this dang green. So Aubrey, thanked to her – uh-huh. For pushing me to do green. She kept.

[00:39:22] Doc Rock: Every time I would get in the meeting, we’d be talking about it in my class, she was like, “Just do green.” I was like, “Uh, don’t. It’s not gonna work with green screen.” And you know what? It’s like, “Dude, you hate green screen. Why do you care?” I was like, “Yeah, you’re right.” “You’re right. Dang it. Aubrey, why you gotta be right?”

[00:39:37] Doc Rock: So that’s what happened.That’s

[00:39:39] Jeff Sieh: awesome. So Paul’s got a, that’s a great question, but remember, when you’re answering this doc, remember this is a family show. I’m just gonna preface it with that. Okay. So, so go ahead, Paul.

[00:39:49] Doc Rock: You guys are my family. Weird family.

[00:39:51] Jeff Sieh: That’s right.

[00:39:52] Paul Gowder: I mean, you’ve talked about some of the surprises you’ve gotten along the way, and, but on your product page, you, you talk about, “Hey, Google, YouTube, [00:40:00] this is not an adult product.”

[00:40:01] Paul Gowder: So tell us about that backstory. What happened?

[00:40:04] Doc Rock: Oh my God, Paul, I’m gonna cry. Okay. So I keep getting my product removed from my YouTube shop, and it, it legit, like, I was, like, sending the thing into Google, like, “Hey, s – what the heck is going on?” And they’re like, “Oh, this product was flagged as an adult product.”

[00:40:22] Doc Rock: And I was like, “It’s a microphone cover, my guy. What are you doing?” So I think it might’ve been their, their little robots just looking at it and, you know, maybe the pink one gives off a different bot. I don’t know. But I had to fix it, like, 10 times. And I just finally got mad and I put it in description hoping the, maybe if the bot looks at the picture, maybe the bot also can read, because I’ve had it kicked out of the store so many times I’ve had to, uh, file an appeal and it goes right back in.

[00:40:50] Doc Rock: But creators, since this is a creator new show, pay attention to this. As of yesterday, Amazon Products Jeff are [00:41:00] available to tag – I know. On YouTube videos.

[00:41:02] Paul Gowder: Yes.

[00:41:03] Jeff Sieh: I saw that.

[00:41:03] Doc Rock: Son, do not be a person sleeping on money talking about, “I can’t afford to buy this new thing that’s $200.” Well, tag your products, player.

[00:41:11] Doc Rock: You can afford whatever you want in no time. Now Amazon’s in there. Come on, son.

[00:41:16] Jeff Sieh: So are, are doc pops on Amazon too or not? They’re not, are they?

[00:41:19] Doc Rock: No.

[00:41:19] Jeff Sieh: Okay.

[00:41:20] Doc Rock: I purposely didn’t, but I’m thinking about, now that I’m so busy doing other stuff, I, I manually ship every order, which is a pain in the butt.

[00:41:27] Doc Rock: just because it takes me now that I, I am not having them fulfilled by my fulfillment company and I have to do them by hand. Thank you person who decided to make tarots for nothing. Yeah, it’s a, it’s a lot of work. I, I unpack five orders when I get off of this before I go back to bed.

[00:41:42] Jeff Sieh: So how much inventory.

[00:41:43] Jeff Sieh: Like did you have to get warehouse space or were you able to all put it in your garage? Like how. ‘Cause that’s a, that’s a real issue depending on the size of your product that you make – Yeah. Like storing this stuff. So like how, how did you decide how much in- inventory to have on hand? How much before you make, make another order to, from China?

[00:41:59] Jeff Sieh: Like how does [00:42:00] all of that play out when you’re, when you’re making these products?

[00:42:03] Doc Rock: Oh, it’s really how much space you got. And I don’t have a lot of space, so luckily my product smashes down to next to nothing. Noise for a second. So in its compressed form, it’s about yo big.

[00:42:14] Jeff Sieh: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:15] Doc Rock: Right? So I just smashed the crap out of them and then they just grow back when they’re ready.

[00:42:20] Doc Rock: Okay, noise people. So I can compress them a lot. I vacuum all of them. I can fit 100 into like little flat, like medium-sized thing that you use for travel. Mm-hmm. Like when you take it on a boat.

[00:42:35] Paul Gowder: Yeah.

[00:42:35] Doc Rock: So I can, I can fit a lot in a little bit of space. It’s funny when I have to open a new pack to watch the pack go, shh.

[00:42:43] Doc Rock: Good Lord, this is huge. But before, every time I put them back, I vacuum them back out again, and now I just use the squeeze bags because it’s faster. Mm-hmm. And I got tired of making that noise with the vacuum. But yeah, think about how much space is gonna take up. Do you have that type of space? Do you have that [00:43:00] type of sort of storage and things like that?

[00:43:01] Doc Rock: And again, I was lucky at first I have fulfillment. I will tell you, if you don’t mind, it’s probably worth it going through Amazon fulfillment or something like that. Again, you’re gonna have to have a decent amount of profit margin for that. I didn’t wanna make mine super expensive, so I purposely took out a bunch of the things that add to the cost, because I was thinking at the time I wanted to make an affordable product.

[00:43:24] Doc Rock: And this is crazy. And just being a, a proud dad, like, mine is 10 times better than the other one, but we’re the same price. What I should’ve did was made mine more expensive and then sent him, just stay in fulfillment, eat the tariffs, the whole nine yards. And if I had to do it again, I probably would do that.

[00:43:40] Doc Rock: But I, I just though I’m gonna be, you know, a superhero and keep ’em the same price and eat the tariffs, which was dumb. Nobody else is eating it. That’s

[00:43:49] Jeff Sieh: right. All right. So real quick, while we’re wrapping up, kinda have one more section to talk about. But don’t forget, guys, camp. All of us are gonna be there.

[00:43:57] Jeff Sieh: You can find out more by going to Ecammp.com/camp. [00:44:00] It’s gonna be amazing. Paul’s gonna be speaking. I’m gonna be speaking. Doc’s gonna speak. So many people. Pat Flynn, uh, Michael Hyatt, all the cool kids are gonna be there. So make sure you guys go check it out at Ecamm.com/camp and, uh, go check that out because I don’t think there are many tickets left because they cap it at 100.

[00:44:17] Jeff Sieh: So I think you guys are pretty, are getting up there. So make sure you get it before it goes away. All right. Let’s talk about building it in public. This is what you’ve done with actually Katie, because this is, this is really interesting to me because it’s, it’s also about building things and putting something together.

[00:44:34] Jeff Sieh: And this was kind of a different one where back in January, you and Katie stopped a show with 127 episodes behind it, and then redesigned the whole thing on camera. that was pretty impressive. So, you know, most people would rather build it in pu – in private. Like, if I wanna do a new, a new show look or feel, I wanna get it all right and then I’ll launch it.

[00:44:53] Jeff Sieh: But you did it, like, live. So I wanna talk about what it actually costs to do this kinda with everybody seeing it. So whose [00:45:00] idea was this to redesign The Flow, which is the name of the show? And what were you afraid would happen or what were you hoping would happen?

[00:45:07] Doc Rock: I think it was a collective idea. We were just like, “Hey, it’s, it’s time to, like, you know, make the show more showy.”

[00:45:12] Doc Rock: And the strangest thing about wanting to make this show more showy came from, you know, I’ve been long time pounding sand about how YouTube is becoming more and more TV-like, and how everybody who has a podcast should get their podcasts on YouTube. And I caught a whole bunch of flack. I was three years ahead of the game.

[00:45:33] Doc Rock: It took me two years of proving myself right. And then we were at podcast movement in Denver when Kai came in and said, “Okay, YouTube is launching YouTube podcast.” And then I just did moonwalks and be like, “Told you suckers.” And, it just made sense. It was, it made the most logical sense. And then, of course, there became a year and a half of fighting about, “YouTube doesn’t have an RSF.

[00:45:52] Doc Rock: Nobody gives a dang a bunch of RSS.

[00:45:54] Doc Rock: Dave. So then then Jeff, that’s the inside joke, Jeff [00:46:00] got it. Mm-hmm. Um, and then, you know, last year, right about January, Neil Mohan put out the numbers, what YouTube did in podcast that first year of YouTube podcasts. And they were like, when we crushed over a billion hours of podcasts alone, no shorts, no cat videos, no crafting, podcasts only on televisions, not phones, not cars, not refrigerators, not iPads, on television.

[00:46:25] Doc Rock: Not even the back of seat planes, airplane seats, just TVs. And I was like,” See, it needs to be more like a show. “So we decided to rebuild it to make it like a show. Who knew? Eight months later, they’re gonna announce YouTube shows. And again, I just, you know, I’m not clairvoyant. I have common sense, my guy.

[00:46:42] Doc Rock: Common sense. You go where the people are going and then that’s what the people are doing. Old people, those of us over the age of 40, we’re sitting down and watching YouTube on the couch because my whole reason for this idea in the first place is you have not seen a TV made anywhere in the planet in the last 12 years that doesn’t have a YouTube [00:47:00] button.

[00:47:00] Doc Rock: There is no podcast button. There’s no Facebook button. There’s no Instagram button. There’s no TikTok button. The only button on that remote is Netflix and YouTube, home, options, and mute. Right. A bunch of channel things. So, like, I knew that YouTube was gonna win sooner or later, and so that was why we won the format it as a show.

[00:47:20] Doc Rock: And trust me, people, if you haven’t done so already, sit down with your bot this weekend. You know, I’m not gonna ask you to go crazy, but at least get something a little bit better than JB – Jack Daniels. Get something slightly up. Sit down, ice, chill out, and figure out how to turn your thing into a show.

[00:47:34] Doc Rock: Jeff has been doing this since day one. This is definitely a show. So he could hit the show button and he’s off to the races.

[00:47:41] Jeff Sieh: Yeah. I wonder. ‘Cause I know Dave watches the show, so you guys can find it out even more, but I know, I know what you’re talking about when you

[00:47:47] Doc Rock: say – You know, they. The podcast people, I get it, bro.

[00:47:50] Doc Rock: Somebody snatched your eggs and they still mad about there’s no RSS. Nobody except us originally. I coded my RSS by hand back in the day. Mm-hmm. Right? Like, we had to do XML, [00:48:00] XML files by hand until Podler came out, a couple other tools. So trust me, I get it. But nobody cares about that anymore. People just hit the YouTube thing, and they watch a certain show every single time at the every single time because it’s just like television, and that’s eaSiehr to explain to Muggles than what, you know, syndication is and how to subscribe to it.

[00:48:20] Doc Rock: Half the people don’t even subscribe to the shows they watch. I am a good YouTuber and I try to be a good medicine of the platform. I realize now there’s a handful of shows I watch religiously. I have never hit the subscribe button. I’m amazed that when I hit a friend’s channel and they’re like, “I can’t believe you weren’t suscribed.”

[00:48:35] Doc Rock: I go, “Yeah, but I seen every video. I can tell you what they are verbatim.”

[00:48:38] Paul Gowder: Right. Yep.

[00:48:39] Doc Rock: But because the subscribe methodology is gone, and it’s sad that brand deals still go by subscriber numbers, but, like, subscribers don’t count. And the podcast numbers were a lie anyway, because you, every person listening, has a podcast player on their phone that they described, subscribed to some show that they haven’t listened to for over a year.

[00:48:57] Doc Rock: So the numbers were wrong anyway. It was always BS. [00:49:00] Let’s be factual.

[00:49:01] Jeff Sieh: Yeah.

[00:49:01] Paul Gowder: Here’s. Talk about being clairvoyant. I think Google calling it a show is the phasing out of the word podcast. I mean, this Weekend Tik, Leo talked about this a decade ago. It’s a bad word.

[00:49:13] Doc Rock: Who’s that? What is Dis Weekend Tech?

[00:49:14] Doc Rock: I, I should get on this show.

[00:49:16] Paul Gowder: it’s a bad word, right? It, it. For, like, my mom, she’s never gonna understand what a podcast is, but a show on YouTube, she’s gonna click it and watch it. So I, I, I think we’re gonna see that, that word going away. And- And,

[00:49:27] Doc Rock: and people say, “Ooh, my show is on.” Even for reels where somebody’s just arguing in the grocery store – Right.

[00:49:32] Doc Rock: “Oh, look, my show is on.”

[00:49:34] Jeff Sieh: My parents love watching YouTube. They watch YouTube more than anything on their TV now. Like, they’re in their – Yeah,

[00:49:39] Doc Rock: mine too.

[00:49:39] Jeff Sieh: La- later ’70s, and so I’m like, yeah, it’s where it’s at, so very, very cool. Yeah, Paul, go ahead.

[00:49:45] Paul Gowder: Yeah, so you guys did all this on air. You, you, you did the reframing and, and all the layout and everything.

[00:49:50] Paul Gowder: So now that you’re several months in from redoing it and building it in public, how’s the feedback? How do you feel it’s working? Are you seeing a difference in numbers and [00:50:00] engagement?

[00:50:00] Doc Rock: Uh, yes. Actually, it is. And I think the thing that we added, which is a lot of fun, is the mailbag show. The mailbag part of it has gone really, really well.

[00:50:10] Doc Rock: There’s some polishing more that I wanna do to take it to the next level. And oh, I didn’t wanna skip over. Uh, Jeff, he, he asked a question and I didn’t answer it and I wanna answer it because there was a question there, like, “Were you afraid of X, Y, Z?” And I’m gonna say this again. I am not a special human being.

[00:50:26] Doc Rock: As a matter of fact, I am probably more stupid than most. I am fearless to a fault. Like, why would I worry about something that I can’t control? I just don’t. And I just wanna make sure that everybody understands that I. When it comes to this content creating stuff, ain’t afraid of nothing. It’s like, “Why aren’t you afraid somebody’s gonna say something bad?”

[00:50:42] Doc Rock: Yes, they are. I’m born Black in America. I’ve had bad stuff said to me since I could hear. You know, like, it just, it’s not gonna stop. No one’s gonna tell you. No one’s gonna not call me fat or old or whatever. Like, hey, I’ve been listening to all of that since I had the battles, what do you call? Granimals, the husky version.

[00:50:59] Doc Rock: Th’s right. So, [00:51:00] like, who cares, bro? I don’t care about them people. I tell you what I’m not gonna do, not gonna not eat barbecue with rich. Because somebody said I’m fat, you know? I lost 70 pounds, people still call me fat. So what? I don’t care. Like, I don’t think about that sort of stuff because I have a purpose, and my purpose is to positively infect them, i- i- impact, not infect impact the lives of so many people.

[00:51:24] Doc Rock: And the only way I can do that is stay true to myself. And so, luckily, Katie was like, “Okay, let’s go. Let’s do it.” And, you know, even her, who is probably more cautious and and more common sense, she was like, “Yeah, let’s run. Let’s go run into this brick wall at the same time and see what happens.” Because that’s the only way you learn, you know what I mean?

[00:51:42] Doc Rock: The only way you know how to throw a baseball is throw baseballs. Mm. So, yeah, to, to that point, but it has absolutely worked, and it has increased. And it also makes the people in the, community feel more of a part of the show because they also helped build it, built, built it. What a D. I swear I [00:52:00] can talk.

[00:52:00] Jeff Sieh: It’s early for you. We get it. And you have a line talking about posting and ghosting. It’s killing podcast growth, right? So, and a lot of creators are this way. I’ve, I’ve talked about it in my talks for a long time. Paul and I talk about it in our mastermind that we do. For somebody who publishes and immediately starts making the next thing, what would you tell them to do instead?

[00:52:18] Jeff Sieh: ‘Cause I think as creators, we’re always fighting, think we’re fighting the algorithm and we gotta hit the next thing out, and we never either think about w- what worked and what didn’t work, or we just rush into that, you know, the, the next thing, the next episode, the posting and ghosting like you’re talking about.

[00:52:33] Jeff Sieh: So talk about that. What should we do instead?

[00:52:35] Doc Rock: I would beg everyone in the chat to look at this Men in Black thing right here and then forget you ever heard the word algorithm. It is none of your business. You can’t outdo the algo. You never will. There’s probably 600 people in a room at the bigger platforms whose whole job it is to [00:53:00] manipulate the algo every week in order to best provide a platform for their viewers.

[00:53:06] Doc Rock: Creators got this thing in their head where they think the algorithm’s for them. It’s for you when you’re a viewer, it’s not for you when you’re a creator. The algorithm’s job is to serve the best video to the best person at the best time so that they will spend more time with their butt stuck to the platform.

[00:53:22] Doc Rock: You’re talking about like, “Oh, I need the algorithm to send people to see my video.” If you, if we opened their restaurant and we sat around and waited for folks to walk in, ain’t nobody coming. I can cook, Paul can cook, Jeff can cook. Together, we make some sick food. But ain’t, you know what the best part about our.

[00:53:39] Doc Rock: We’d have Hawaiian barbecue, Carolina barbecue, and Texas barbecue in the same joint.

[00:53:44] Jeff Sieh: That’s right. Yeah.

[00:53:44] Doc Rock: We need a Korean friend to step up. Like we would have all of the barbecues in the same joint and ain’t nobody coming. But what we would do is Jeff would hit his mailing list and Paul would hit. God, Paul’s mailing list would cover us for months.

[00:53:58] Doc Rock: Oh, yeah.

[00:53:58] Jeff Sieh: We wouldn’t have to worry. [00:54:00]

[00:54:00] Doc Rock: I hit my mailing list, and you know what, folks be outside. Hey, let me get some of that Kahlua Pig, you know? Oh, let me get some of that Carolina baby backs, right? Our restaurant would be off the chain, because each one would come with a single malt. But ain’t nobody coming if we don’t do any of that.

[00:54:14] Doc Rock: Creators think you’re gonna post something and ghost it and people just gonna find it. And I’m like, “Well, what did you do to get people to come to your thing?” And they’d be like, “What you talking about, Willis?” And I’m like, “Bruh, the algorithm ain’t gonna send nobody to you. That’s not how it works. You gotta go get your folks.”

[00:54:29] Doc Rock: But then those folks faberge, and s – they tell two friends, and then they tell two friends, and then so on and so on and so on. And that’s where this quote unquote virality comes from. So please stop depending on the algorithm. And if you ask anybody who knows what they’re talking about, the number one statement is algorithm equals audience.

[00:54:47] Doc Rock: What your audience wants is there. And they, “Well, I don’t have one.” Then go get one. And I was like, “Okay, what do you…” Uh, so Paul was doing this thing where he’s doing, uh, piano for, you know, people, seniors, like, “Yo should jump in the piano. It helps stave off [00:55:00] dementia. You have a lot of fun. You know, most of us had to do it when our mom were hitting us with a ruler, but now go back and do this and have some fun.”

[00:55:06] Jeff Sieh: Yeah.

[00:55:06] Doc Rock: And so Paul started. At first, he was just nervous, just doing his thing. And then, you know, he told the other people in his building, it’s a, you know, a senior building, and all of a sudden they started watching it, and then they started dragging other people. Let’s, you know, p- Paul got people at his show, my moderator, Paul, not this Paul, he’s not that old.

[00:55:22] Doc Rock: But you have got to go, do, go to the Piggly Wiggly and put a thing on the bulletin board and be like, “I make a podcast about crocheting. Anybody crochet, come and check me out, hit me up on this number. Yo, they will let you put that on the board at the Piggly Wiggly for free.” But people were still out here like, “Oh, I’m waiting for YouTube to send people to Sorry, no.

[00:55:42] Paul Gowder: Yeah. No,

[00:55:42] Doc Rock: that don’t work, bro. Like, they find you by accident, cool. But then if they find you by accident, you have nothing to make them stay, so you have to have that depth. And Jeff is the king of this. Jeff’s repurposed skill allows it that if you bumped across, you know, anything that Jeff’s doing and you wanna know more, [00:56:00] there’s more.

[00:56:00] Doc Rock: But if somebody opens the door to there’s more and there’s nothing back there, Wizard of Oz, show over. That’s right.

[00:56:07] Jeff Sieh: Well, I mean, and you’ve talked about it before, like, I, because the stuff you, Docs and, and Paul and most all of my guests are evergreen. And so that stuff lasts forever. So, like, I’ll, you’ll see stuff from when Doc was first on the show, like, five years ago still come surface because it’s still good.

[00:56:24] Jeff Sieh: Like, I just feel as creators, we, we’re like, “Okay, we did the show, next thing.” And we gotta, like, squeeze all the juice out of it because this stuff’s hard. Like, it’s hard to be a creator and make content. So, I just encourage everybody to, you know, think of some repurposing things. And by the way, we’re gonna be talking all about that at Creator Camp.

[00:56:41] Jeff Sieh: Make sure you guys go to Creator Camp and find out all you can about everything Ecamm. It’s awesome. Ecamm.com/camp. Doc, this has been amazing, as always. Tell us what you got going on, where we can find you. I know you mentioned you’re gonna be in Dallas, uh, not too long. You and Rich are gonna eat some BBQ, which will be awesome.

[00:56:59] Jeff Sieh: [00:57:00] What’s going on with Doc?

[00:57:01] Doc Rock: So after a car party is over, then it’s gonna be camp. I can’t wait for camp. Camp is absolutely incredible. And then I’m gonna go take a well-loved creator break in Suporo, Japan for a little bit, then head off to New York to go do some stuff with OpsBot. Cam, they got some new stuff coming out, so you’ll be hearing me yap about that.

[00:57:19] Doc Rock: And honestly, I just want everybody to go create something. And if you need help, I’m always available. Jump on the YouTube channel, find me any of my social medias and be like, “Hey, I wanna do this. Like how do I do it?” If you wanna make a product, let me know, like I’ll help you figure it out. Like I just want people to make stuff because my, the thing, Jeff, that drives me crazy every day is when I open the news or I’m in a grocery store and I hear somebody talking about how terrible social media is, and I’m like, “Hey, so have you used it to do anything positive?”

[00:57:51] Doc Rock: And they’re like, “What? No, I don’t like social media. I don’t either.” It’s like, you can’t tell me that it has the power to blow up the world and doesn’t also have the power to save the world.

[00:57:58] Jeff Sieh: Mm-hmm.

[00:57:59] Doc Rock: Because [00:58:00] 225 tons of pulling force is 225 tons of pulling force to pull something down. It’s also the same pulling force to pull something up.

[00:58:08] Doc Rock: It’s still 225 tons of pulling force. So it’s just what you do with it, right? So if you create good, you create happy, you create stuff that makes people’s lives better, then eventually we can drown out the noise that you claim you don’t like. So just outproduce the dumb stuff. That’s all I, that’s all I ask for.

[00:58:28] Doc Rock: That’s what I’m out here preaching and hopefully somebody come to church of Doc and we’ll make something fun.

[00:58:33] Paul Gowder: Yeah.

[00:58:33] Jeff Sieh: And you

[00:58:33] Paul Gowder: gotta Preach, preach, preach. That, that was awesome. Yeah. The last 10 minutes, Jeff, I think you’re gonna have like 18 clips out of this. Doc is, is talking gospel here.

[00:58:42] Jeff Sieh: Oh,

[00:58:42] Doc Rock: he

[00:58:42] Jeff Sieh: woke up. He woke up.

[00:58:43] Jeff Sieh: The coffee kicked in. See,

[00:58:44] Doc Rock: Jeff, I told you to do it an hour

[00:58:45] Jeff Sieh: later, bro. Coffee kicked up. Where can people find the amazing Paul Gowder?

[00:58:49] Paul Gowder: Paulgowder.com. I’m also doing a Facebook challenge if you want to find out how you can use social media for good, pauder.com/facebookchallenge.

[00:58:57] Jeff Sieh: So real quick, uh, Doc, I know you gotta go, but I [00:59:00] wanted to, this is a great quote by your pal rich.

[00:59:02] Jeff Sieh: He goes, “All the catch in the world doesn’t fix the crummy taste of tariffs,” which I though was great. And, and then, uh, a last question, uh, here is from Cartoon says, “Is there a specific version of Power EQ that will work as a plugin inside of Ecamm?” Is that the, the one you

[00:59:17] Doc Rock: mentioned? Uh, the, there’s only one.

[00:59:18] Doc Rock: The other one has been phased out, so the standard Power EQ would just work. The other ones were there, but if you note, if you look at them, it’ll say has been replaced by it. So look at that thing real carefully, but the main one is just Power EQ. Yeah. And it just works. You can download the trial and play with it and you’ll be like, “Oh my goodness.”

[00:59:35] Doc Rock: ‘Cause I know Ed is always talking about like how to make his Pyanner stuff work better. And I’m like, “Bro, you can play Pyanner and make it sound perfectly exactly how you want it to sound now because you can EQ on the fly inside of E-Cam. It’s so good.”

[00:59:47] Jeff Sieh: Yeah. And by the way, we talked about cool stuff that we’re building and making.

[00:59:51] Jeff Sieh: Well, I have the new jeffsieh.com/cheatsheet you’ll get at about three o’clock, 3:30 today, all of this wrapped up into a cool little [01:00:00] cheat sheet that is totally free. Uh, all the links that we’ve talked about, everything that we’ve mentioned on the show today will be there. So make sure to check that out at jefc.com/cheatsheet.

[01:00:09] Jeff Sieh: Thanks to everybody in the comments, they were amazing because we have

[01:00:26] Jeff Sieh: Have a great rest of your day. See you guys next time. Bye everybody.