Transcript 0:00 All right. Welcome back to another episode of Two Dads in Tech. Uh, this is episode thirty-two. Uh, every time I say the episode number, I feel like another week has gone by, and that's because it has. 0:10 Uh, today we are joined by none other than Charlie Light. Usually, there's gonna be Troy Munsen, on the other hand, but he is, uh, very sick today. 0:19 So for the first time in Two Dads in Tech history, it is just Daniel, uh, joined by a guest, Charlie Light. And why is Charlie Light joining us today, you might ask. Well, we're gonna find out. 0:30 Charlie's a great friend and, and somewhat a, an influence to me on Twitter and elsewhere on the internet. 0:36 He is the, the myth behind many of your favorite meme accounts, uh, including, I think, most recently, Chase Passive Income, although I think you might be up to some other projects I'm not even privy to. 0:49 And so, uh, today we're just gonna get into the grit of what it looks like to make money by creating meme accounts, uh, and kind of what the behind-the-scenes look like in Charlie's life as a dad, entrepreneur, meme lord. 1:04 Fill in the blank. And so thanks for joining today, Charlie. It's super good to have you. Yeah, Daniel. Thanks for having me. Honored to be here. Absolutely. Absolutely. I can, I can be the second dad. 1:15 I can be the second dad in tech today, so. You are. You are the two- Yeah... we are still two dads in tech today. So Troy- Yeah. [laughs]... Troy is the, is the lone survivor, just getting better from a cold. 1:24 But, um, you know, it's, it's fun. Like, it's... So right before this episode, Charlie and I officially met [laughs] for the first time. We have talked, uh, on Twitter DMs primarily for at least a year now, maybe longer. 1:39 Uh, we've done a little bit of collaboration together, but primarily I'm just [laughs] laughing at his tweets, posts now they're called. 1:46 Um, he has a lot of really good Twitter meme accounts and, you know, most recently I mentioned Chase Passive Income. 1:54 And so I'd love to kind of start off there to, to ask you, like, how do you fall into this extremely niche [laughs] universe of creating meme accounts that you keep just doing extremely successfully with? 2:06 I mean, tell the audience about that. Yeah, I mean, it just started really randomly. Like, I, I had always been a fan of, um, reading Twitter accounts. 2:16 I always followed parody accounts back before, um, you know, the, the term even really existed. Um, so I, I tried my hand at one during COVID and it took off. That was the John W. Rich account. 2:30 That was the absolute perfect time to get into this because everyone was going online to talk about the stock market, to talk about business. So I grew that one pretty quickly and realized it could be an actual business. 2:40 Um, so yeah, I just, you know, grew that one and, and decided, hey, I'm gonna try to get some clients. 2:47 Ended up getting a few clients kind of a few months into it and realizing, like, hey, this can actually be a full-time business. I can just post on Twitter for my job. And I think the... 3:00 I have developed good instincts for what will work on Twitter, but that's basically because of I don't know how many hours reading Twitter, writing tweets. 3:11 I calculated it the other day, I probably have written somewhere like sixty thousand tweets in the last five years. Um- [laughs] That's insane. 3:18 So it's just a lot of, like, experimentation and figuring out what formats work, and I feel like now I kind of just, I just know what'll work- Yeah... um, after, after practicing for so long. 3:30 So I have a follow-up question to that because the... I feel like there's, like, a theme. So John W. 3:38 Rich, and then you had Hunter Cold Calls, and then you, now you have Chase Passive Income, and I think there's a few other random ones in there. 3:45 Uh, I'm probably missing some, but they all have a very similar theme, like type of, of tweets, but then totally different personalities. And so I'm wondering, like, when does a new brand or a new personality launch? 3:58 Like, how do, how does a spinoff start? Yeah, I don't have an exact answer for that. 4:03 I've kind of wondered that myself 'cause I have all these ideas for other accounts I could do, but I don't necessarily want to cannibalize the ones I've already made. 4:11 And I definitely don't want people to think, oh, he's just ripping off his same jokes again. Um, it's getting kind of boring. 4:17 One, I would say at least the last two accounts, Chase Passive Income and Hunter, are really based off of, um, online gurus. And he-- I-it's funny because a lot of the online gurus actually do have... 4:32 Like, they don't specialize in one thing. So like Grant Cardone, for example, you could say both accounts are inspired by him because Hunter's a sales account. 4:40 A lot of the jokes are based off stuff that Grant Cardone has done. 4:44 And same with the Chase Passive Income, 'cause he, Grant Cardone also talks about investing, and he talks about real estate and all sorts of other, uh, things he's got going on. 4:53 So I feel like it works in a way because every big online guru, when they become big enough, they become an expert in literally everything, so- Yeah. That's true... 5:04 the accounts can kind of, you know, Chase can start out with just... Like, at first I was just talking about buying businesses, but 5:11 that didn't have the mass appeal of, like, vending machines and other passive income schemes. But what's nice is you can kind of just... 5:20 Like a real guru, I became, you know, the meme accounts become an expert in everything at a certain time- Yeah... or at a certain point in, you know, having a large enough audience. 5:30 But I, I don't necessarily have an answer for when I launch a new one. I don't think I really have, like, some formula for, okay, now I'm gonna launch a marketing one. 5:39 I, I do, in the back of my mind, have a list of topics I want to make meme accounts for. All of them are topics I'm interested in, so like, obviously I'm interested in finance and sales and investing. 5:53 And I mean, the other topics would be marketing, maybe even a specific, like, ghostwriter or content parody account. That might be a little too niche, butI think, you know, a crypto one would be funny, but it's, 6:07 the main constraint is just to make a really good account you have to be totally obsessed with it. So I think- Yeah... for Chase, I've tweeted or posted something like 4,000 times in seven months. Oh my gosh. 6:19 So there's not a lot of room to, you know, make five of these accounts at one time. Um- Right... I've just got to look up what 4,000, or how, how many times that is per day. Um, 6:31 oh, it's something like 20 or so per day, every single day. But- I remember you and I talked- Yeah, I don't know. I kind of-... something about that. Yeah. What's that? 6:40 Yeah, I mean, I, I, I just remember a conversation we had a few months ago, like how many tweets it takes before one really pops off, and 6:48 i- it was, I can't remember the number you shared, but it was something to the effect of like 30 to 40 tweets a day for sometimes months, uh, where you're like, some of them get a little bit of traction, but then eventually... 6:58 And you saw this with Chase Passive Income like a few weeks ago. What did you go from like 40,000 to 80,000 followers in the last month or something? Yeah. 7:07 So I, yeah, so on July or on June 30th, I had like 41,000 followers, and now it's at- Crazy... uh, 92,000 or 93,000. 7:17 Um- And like every day I see a new tweet that has hundreds of thousands, if not over a million impressions from Chase. It's just insane. Yeah. And there's basically three stages of growth so far. 7:26 It was like the very first month or so was just grind it out, like post a ton. A lot of them got like two likes, but I was kind of having slow, steady growth. Like I'd gain a few followers a day. 7:38 Then after that first month, like once I got to maybe 1,000 followers or so, it just became a little bit easier. Like I knew that if I put a good post out, it would get good reach. 7:47 And then I kind of slowly went from 1,000 followers to, um, yeah, like 40,000 in five months. So- Yeah... about, you know, 5,000 or 10,000 a month. 7:59 And then this last like two weeks basically have been a massive, you know, more than double the audience. And it's kind of a combination of 8:08 getting to a point where I'm big enough that if I have some good tweets, they'll get really large reach. And I've also just found what the audience likes with that account. Yeah. What do you tell... You're a dad, right? 8:21 How many kids do you have? Yeah. Two. Two kids. Your kids ask you what you did today at work. Like how do you explain this to your kids? [laughs] What do they think you do? Yeah. 8:32 So my, my oldest son, who's almost three, so like I'll go off to work, he'll, he knows, you know, I drive somewhere for work. He'll pretend to do the same. 8:40 Like he'll get in his toy car and say, "Okay, I'm, I'm going to work. Bye, guys." And we ask what are you- I love that... gonna do today, and he says, "I'm gonna write some tweets." 8:48 [laughs] So he basically says Dad writes tweets. And so he'll like, if he sees my computer, he'll pretend to type on there and say, "I'm writing tweets." I love that. Um, he doesn't know what Twitter is. 8:56 Do you have like a co-working space or, or do you rent a, an office somewhere or? Yeah. I actually, I just rented an office. It's not, not ready yet, but I'm gonna move into it whenever- That's cool... 9:06 whenever they're ready in, in a couple weeks. Um- Yeah... yeah, I've kind of... So I have this office, I'm at home. It's- Sure... it's definitely a lot harder to work from home with [laughs] 9:17 so I've, I've an almost three-year-old and then a year and a half. I'm in the same exact boat, three and one- Okay... on my, on my side, yeah. Yeah, so it's definitely hard to like have, 9:26 um, to stay focused throughout the day if I'm always working from home. Yeah. So I found, yeah, it's just easier to go somewhere. I can do my work more quickly- Yeah... and be more focused. Um, but yeah. 9:37 I thought about doing the same. They, uh, yeah, so and that's, that's what I tell like our neighbors, that I just write tweets. Uh, most of them don't really, um, 9:47 it, they don't really, I don't know, they don't understand how that's a job. Sure. They're like, "Oh, okay, so your wife's the breadwinner." So I'm, I'm just- Like they probably don't even get it. Like [laughs] Yeah. 9:58 So like we're in the suburbs of Minneapolis, so it's really not a- Sure... startup. 10:03 I, like if I was in Austin, I'm sure I'll, most of the neighbors would get that then if, they'd be like, "Oh, awesome, like do you know whoever?" 10:10 But yeah, most of the people in my neighborhood like work for UnitedHealthcare or some corporation like that, so they just have no idea what the hell I'm talking about. That's so funny. But yeah. [laughs] Yeah. 10:21 No, I, I love that. How do you... It seems like with, with Chase, and I'm sure with Hunter and all your other meme accounts in the past, you got to a point where you like were, you knew a, a tweet was gonna pop off. 10:33 Like how do you plan through your content? Do you just scroll and post all day every day or do you have like a rhyme to the madness? No, I, I don't have much of a system. 10:42 Um, most of them I, I kind of think of in the moment and I just post it. I guess sometimes I'll schedule, maybe I'll think of three or four at once and I'll schedule them out for like a day or so. 10:54 But yeah, a lot of them, I, uh, I mean, most of them I, I really, I don't think of my best tweets while I'm on my computer. 11:03 Um, I think I'd wrote about this a little bit in my personal, on my personal account, but I had a, a tweet about golf or a post about golf go viral, like basically a picture of a golf hole saying, you know, "You're 50 yards to the pin, 80 yards to the house behind it. 11:19 You own the, the window replacement company." [laughs] I saw. What, what funny. So that one, like I just thought of while I was playing golf. Um- Yeah... and I, I'm definitely more creative when I 11:30 am not sitting at my computer saying, "Hey, I need to come up with 10 tweets right now." Right. 11:36 Um, but yeah, it's, it's basically all spontaneous and it's, I think, a byproduct of like always thinking about these things. 11:43 Like half my posts are seeing some- something in real life and then thinking, "Oh, that would be a good tweet." Like what if it was a more ridiculous situation? Um, 11:54 like actually I was talking to a guy who runs some meme pages about how, um, half the reason I take my kids to the arcade that's in our town is basically to come up with like-Child gambling related tweets. That's funny. 12:08 Because they have... Like, the arcade has, like, Minecraft slot machines, basically, and other stuff like that. So I always get good ideas- Yeah... per post there. That's very funny. How do you... How is this a business? 12:20 I know you make a little bit of money from Twitter, like, directly, but, like, what's the, what's the hope with some of these meme accounts with, like, the actual funnel for your revenue? Yeah, so I... 12:30 Well, I would say, like, the hope is that Chase himself could be a susta- a sustainable media business. Um, I mean, right now it's more like side income, so my last payout from X was, like, 850 bucks. Mm-hmm. 12:44 So, you know, that's like basically 15 or 1600 a month, which is pretty good. Yeah. But at the same time- Right... that was, like, the absolute highest one I've gotten- Yeah... so far. 12:52 And then I can do some sponsored posts. So I've done a few. I- there's definitely... I could do more of those. So I, I, 12:58 I think an account like Chase, if you really tried to maximize the advertising partnerships, you know, you could maybe do 45 or $10,000 a month, um, with the account. And I've, I've kind of held off. 13:11 Like, I don't necessarily want to maximize the amount of ads I'm doing 'cause I also don't want people to- Yeah... think the account is uncool if I'm constantly doing ads. Right. 13:19 But the way I actually make money now is basically consulting and doing content for founders or brands. So kind of the business model is a bunch of people love the Chase account. 13:29 A small percentage of them follow my actual account, where I post my actual insights and advice, and then they say, "Hey, I wanna hire you for this project." Um, and that's been the big moneymaker, and that's how I... 13:41 The last five years or so, that's how I've made money. Originally from, like, the John W. Rich one. And we can talk about this too. 13:48 It, along the kids theme is, you know, before kids, I would just take on every single client I could. Yeah. And I was doing something like, 13:56 like in 2022, I would do 40 to 45,000 a month in revenue, just do all the client work myself. Just from ghostwriting and, and Twitter stuff? Yeah. Um, that would be... Yeah, almost, like, n- 90% of it was... 14:10 Or no, like 80% was ghostwriting and then probably- Yeah... 20% was advertising. But that was kind of also... So that was early 2022. That was one of the... That was still a great time for advertising revenue. 14:23 So, like- So you're talking-... companies... five, five, 600 a year from writing? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's great. I mean- Um... it's phenomenal. Yeah. And so 14:35 i- it definitely became a little bit harder to pull that model off with kids. I mean, still possible. Yeah. And I've also gotten better at, like, managing clients or at least picking the right clients as well. 14:43 That's a huge part of, of ghostwriting, I feel like, is picking, picking a client you can actually get good results for and you can actually write well for naturally without... You know, there's certain clients, like, 14:58 who are just outside my area of expertise, so I'm gonna have a really difficult time writing good stuff for them. Right. Yeah. It's interesting. 15:08 I, I feel like, I don't know if this is true, but I, I was following your personal account when Chase started. 15:14 Um, and I feel like you've been a lot more personal and giving a lot more insights with Chase than you did with your prior accounts. 15:22 Maybe it's just because I didn't follow you as closely, but I didn't see as many insights from you on your personal about Hunter, about John W. Rich. 15:30 But then I'm like, I'm like pretty tuned in to what you say about Chase 'cause I'm like, "Well, I wanna replicate this with, like, the different meme accounts and just in my own, like, ghostwriting," and honestly, I just have fun on Twitter, and so I like to know, like, okay, what, what makes Twitter tick? 15:44 And you've, like, hacked the, the, the bomb, like, over and over and over again. And so is that true, or was I just following you at different times and different places? No, that's probably true. 'Cause I think, um, 15:57 yeah, part of that would be that I don't own John and Hunter anymore. So that was... They're with the company that I sold my agency to, so it's kind of a little tricky. 16:04 Like, I couldn't necessarily give away all the secrets 'cause they're supposed to be benefiting from it. Um, so that's, that's also one reason it's, it's kind of nice to be, uh, like a free agent. I can kind of... 16:15 I don't necessarily have to worry about- Yeah... you know, i- i- I mean, it really helps me to have an account like Chase where I can do whatever I want on it, and then I can freely write about what I'm doing. Yeah. 16:27 And I know a lot of agency people get stuck in this loop of, "Oh, we're doing all this great agency work, but I can't share any of it publicly," 'cause obviously the client doesn't want me- They're all clients. Yeah. 16:40 Right. Like, they don't want me posting the analytics. They don't want me posting the strategies I came up, came up with, even though they're good. 16:46 Um, so that was kind of a little workaround I found at the beginning of if I just have my parody accounts, even if I make $0 from it, it's totally worth it because it gives me this real-time case study I can write about. 16:58 And that's what I've encouraged other writers who ask me for advice. 17:01 I tell them, you know, "You should have something you write in public that can basically be your, um, case study or your testimonial, even if it's something that you 17:12 own," and it probably has to be something you own, 'cause, yeah, just clients don't want you openly sharing the strategies and the, the results you've gotten for them. Yeah. 17:21 Depending on what, what type of content or what type of agency you are. But yeah, usually clients don't want, like that. Yeah. How do you... 17:29 You mentioned earlier you- you're, you're into, like, investing, um, real estate, some of that. Like, where did all that come from? I mean, how did you start becoming, like, the de facto expert in let's talk finance? 17:41 I mean, obviously with John W. 17:43 Rich specifically, a lot of your memes were like, oh, like, it's hilarious, but also you clearly know what you're talking about with finance and r- and, you know, all the stuff you talked about. 17:53 So tell me kind of where all that came from. Yeah, I mean, that was basically the... Well, I studied finance and accounting in college, so I'd always followed the stock market. Um, 18:03 definitely was not an expert, but I knew enoughTo, like, actually talk about stock market, the, talk about the stock market. I had just naturally follow... 18:13 Especially in 2020 and 2021, there was so much going on with the stock market that- Yeah... I was following it closely. 18:19 Like, I feel like on Twitter there was, every month or two there was some story that would dominate and, you know, most of your memes would just be about that. So, like, I was following, 18:28 you know, Zoom extremely closely for a while, and all those types of companies. And then right after that was, like, GameStop and AMC, so that was kind of the perfect time to be talking about stocks. 18:40 I don't know if I'd ever will top that month or... Well, I guess I could with Chase now, but I think with the November 2021, or just January 2021, that's when GameStop and AMC happened. I forget. 18:51 I, I wish I could have the actual numbers, but I think with the John Rich one it was, like, went from, like, 30,000 followers to, like, 110,000 followers or something like that- That's nuts... in that month. Yeah. 19:01 And a lot of the other big stock market related accounts basically doubled, um- Really?... around that time, just 'cause so many people were coming from Reddit to, to talk about stocks. Yeah. 19:12 Where do you see Instagram and, like, TikTok and even LinkedIn fit into the overall content strategy of what you're doing? I think... Okay, so, uh, uh, I don't know if I can speak to TikTok. 19:25 Like, you probably have way more insights there. I don't think I've ever had- Little bit... more than, like, 200 followers on TikTok. Um- I don't have many on TikTok either. I, I- Okay. [laughs]... 19:33 I'm more of a, more of a passive consumer there, but I didn't know if you had anything there. Okay. 19:38 So, I mean, with Ins- it seems like with any platform you just really have to learn, like, the nuances and the culture of each platform. So, like, I've gotten decent at Instagram. 19:49 Um, I've built a few of my accounts up to, like, you know, 10 or 12,000 followers. At first I would just post, like, screenshots of my tweets. That's kind of the lazy way to do it, and some of them would do really well. 20:00 With the Chase account it's been nice because that, that account's grown from, like, 1,000 followers to 4,000 followers in the last week or so. Wow. 20:09 But I've kind of been learning, like, what are the Instagram specific rules? And it seems like, you know, the, 20:15 my formula's been create, find or create some stupid image that represents a tweet and then put the, the screenshot of the tweet in the front of the image, kind of transparent so it looks like a inspirational graphic or something. 20:28 But I feel like you really do need to learn, like, all the, the specific culture of each platform. Yeah. You can't really, 20:36 you can't just take what works on Twitter and then just start reposting it on LinkedIn, um- Yeah... without at least experimenting, figuring out, like, what kinds of things you can and can't say. 20:46 Like, for example, with, I mean, Twitter is just way more crass than LinkedIn. So- Yes [laughs]... 20:52 like, I posted from Chase yesterday a, a, a thing about, "I did not install a vending machine at any of Jeffrey Epstein's properties." [laughs] I can't imagine trying to make that kind of joke on LinkedIn. 21:06 I just don't know if that would... I guess you could, and some accounts do it, but... Like, that's just something that's okay to, you know, joke around with on Twitter, but on LinkedIn- Yes... I, I just don't think... 21:17 Yeah. And there's a lot more examples like that where, you know- Yeah... Twitter has a specific humor, uh, that, that- Yes... won't necessarily work on LinkedIn. 21:27 If anyone's listening and does not already follow Chase Passive Income, it's @chasedownleads on X. It is, it is the best account on Twitter in my opinion right now. It's, like, every single day it's just so funny. 21:42 And the reason I ask about the other platforms, in my opinion I, I do, I'm, I'm, uh, let's call them LinkedIn creator. 21:49 I mean, that, I hate even calling myself that because it makes me sound like such a dweeb, but I, I am. 21:55 And I think memes do so well on LinkedIn, almost like what Facebook used to be when you were, like, a creator on Instagram. And it's like people are so... 22:04 They don't expect it, a- and they think everything that's even a little bit funny is so funny. 22:10 So I feel like in my experience, even my worst performing tweets will just pop off on LinkedIn, 'cause people are like, "You're the funniest person to ever walk the face of the planet," but it's- [laughs]... 22:20 'cause LinkedIn just, the feed is just so boring usually. So things, like, a little bit funny are just, like, diehard hilarious. So, like, I almost imagine, like, what if Chase Passive Income made a LinkedIn account? 22:32 Have you considered that? Yeah. I've tr- so actually 22:36 I have, from my personal account I have posted, like, one or two of my Chase posts and, like, explained, you know, how I came up with it, and those have always done extremely well even though I don't necessarily have an audience. 22:48 Yeah, so I don't know. Actually, I don't even know enough about LinkedIn. I, I know that I can't really create, like, a personal account for him because- I don't know... he's not a real person. Yeah, there's... 22:57 You'd probably eventually get kicked off, uh, if you did. But, like, I don't know. I've seen some people do it. It's... Yeah, I don't know. There's, there's verification processes. 23:06 But, like, if your personal is posting, there, there's opportunity somewhere. Yeah, 'cause there's definitely a lot of good shitposting accounts on LinkedIn, but all the ones I know of- Yeah... 23:14 it is a real person using their real identity. Yeah, that's true. Um- Like Chris Back and, you know, another Cohen, me. [laughs] I'm just kidding. [laughs] I'm not actually kidding. Right. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. 23:24 [laughs] So, no, I... And even just posting, like, the screenshots of Chase and, you know, like, that usually does well, 'cause people might not even read the caption and they just like the meme. But- Yeah... 23:35 you know, that is- No, there's- Yeah. There's something there. I mean, even, like, it's interesting 'cause Twitter pays you, but LinkedIn doesn't. 23:42 But I mean, I make, I make so much more from LinkedIn than I do from Twitter just because, like, even, like, brand partnerships and stuff, like, obviously sponsored posts on, on Twitter do well if you wanna, like, sell out your account a bunch, but there's a lot more creative ways in my experience to do those on LinkedIn. 23:59 And I don't know. Like, the, the engagement on LinkedIn is very strong right now, so I'll get, you know, several hundred thousand impressions on sponsored posts even sometimes, and I only have 20,000 followers there. 24:10 Uh, so it's like-You know, brands love it, and a lot of brands don't know how to do it. So I think Twitter is similar. 24:16 Like, there aren't a ton of brands doing Twitter well, uh, but then you think, like, Wendy's and, you know, you know, I don't know, GameStop obviously did it for a little bit and it's interesting. I don't know. 24:27 Chase, I feel like Chase could do so much outside of Twitter if you went all the way down the rabbit hole and made it into a real like media company like you were describing. It'd be interesting. Yeah, and here's... 24:38 We can get into the idea for that. I think I've been- Yeah... thinking of, you know, making a media company of these various parody accounts. 24:45 So right now, Chase could be the face of it just 'cause he's so re- well-known. 24:49 I could do, you know, a parody account in like a smaller niche, do the humor for that niche, and then have some sort of- Chet Newsletter Guy. Yeah. [laughs] Should we, should we open that can of worms? Yeah, yeah. 25:01 Never, never before. Are you Chet Newsletter Guy? Yep. I am. [laughs] Oh, it's so funny. So- So that's like one experiment- It is... where that's a specific one. Um, where like- It is. 25:13 Charlie and I launched Chet Newsletter Guy- [laughs]... uh, last year, and it's just something we have so much fun doing. I've confused so many people. 25:20 I can tell a lot of stories there, but I think there's just so many, there's so many spinoffs Chet could do so well. It'd be so funny if like Matt McGarry heard me say this 'cause of [chuckles] one of the tweets at him. 25:32 Um, you know what? I'll just tell the story, whatever. We're here. We got a few more minutes left. 25:36 Um, I was at a newsletter conference in Austin, and Matt McGarry sat down next to me and said, "Dude, do you know this Chet Newsletter guy? 25:45 'Cause he just tweeted at me while I was on stage, and he wrote like this like really weird, like slightly romantic tweet." And I'm like, "Who is this guy?" I was like, "Oh, Ch- w-who? Chat?" He's like, "No, it's Chet." 25:57 I was like, "Oh, I've never heard of him." [laughs] And then I tweeted again. It, it's just me. I, I am Chet Newsletter Guy tweeting at him. 26:04 Uh, it's just so funny, but, uh, you know, the five listeners we have at this episode will now know that I'm Chet Newsletter Guy, and we'll see if it gets to, to Matt McGarry. But dude, I, I love... 26:14 I'm like, there's just so many little micro instances of me like catching the bug of creating little meme accounts and I'm like, "Dude, what you've done, like everyone, everyone wants to do what you've done," but you just keep doing it so well. 26:26 It's so impressive. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I... Yeah, so creating the accounts is spot. I think that's what I have to figure out is 26:34 how worth it is it to create different accounts knowing that it does take a ton of time to really build it up into like a known brand. 26:42 I feel like I can do it for maybe two or three at a time, potentially, depending on what the topic is. Um, but at the same time, I always debate, like, "Okay, should I, you know, start more of those? 26:55 What's the benefit of doing like a fresh new one versus just putting more time into Chase and, you know- Yeah... getting another 10,000 followers for him?" 27:02 And I mean, there's probably some sort of balance there, but yeah, I think I have been working on, okay, what's like the next account and how does it fit into a bigger vision of, of an actual media business? 27:14 How do you, how do you like strike a balance with being a present dad and husband and then the almost hyper now-ness of being effective on Twitter? 27:25 Like, do you, do you put your phone down and just say, "That's enough for today," or are you pretty much always kind of tuned into what's happening? It's like off and on, depending on what we're doing. 27:35 So yeah, I would say one thing is that I had to drop in, like, I basically when my... the first year of my oldest son's life is trying to run accounts that are extremely tuned into the news. So like, but the John W. 27:49 Rich one, that was definitely a lot more based off of, you know, whatever the newest headline is, make a meme about it immediately. I've kind of given that game up a little bit. 27:59 Like, I'm not gonna be the account that's most on top of the news cycle, and I've tried not working with clients that are like that where, oh, if something big happens, we need to publish something immediately. 28:09 Um, so like with Chase, none of it is really timely. I mean, some of it is, but it's never... I'm never like the first one to hop on a trend. Yeah. Well, or at least like a trend based on a news headline. Right. 28:19 So yeah, that would, that would be the one thing, 'cause I like, I am definitely checking Twitter or writing stuff at weird hours, but at the same time- Yeah... 28:27 you know, there's, there's times I can't be, and I have to be okay with that. Um- Yeah. I don't know. I would also say at least with like, I think there's always a, a, a small... 28:39 If I'm, like if I'm building up an account like Chase, there's always a few weeks or a few months where I have to really go hard at growing it. But at least with the account now, I've kind of established, you know, 28:51 the presence. I have 90,000 followers. I don't need to work as hard to keep the growth going. Like, I don't need to post as often. If I do three good posts a day, I'll probably still gain a ton of followers. And- Yeah... 29:04 so at a certain point, yeah, y- I, I need to tell myself, like, "Back off," you know. "I don't need to be gaining... I don't need to be tweeting 30 times a day for Chase." When you tell your wife- Sometimes I do... 29:14 that you're, you're launching a new account, does she like prep herself like, "Oh, no. This is gonna be two months of grind to get this off the ground?" 29:24 [laughs] No, it's honestly not like that, 'cause I, I feel like we're still pretty lucky that I can just do it from my phone at home. I... 29:31 Like, compared to some other, you know, like our friends or neighbors who them being busy at work involves going to the office for 14 hours a day or going on a business trip to Asia for two weeks, like it's really not that bad. 29:44 It's, it's really not like that where I'm... Yeah, it's not like I'm a doctor and like have to go be gone for a full day to work on- Yeah... I don't even know. [laughs] Um, but yeah, no, it's, it's really not that bad. 29:57 It's... I, I think that's a nice thing about this. It's such a high leverage activity that- Yeah... I can do it from my phone. Even like a super busy day for me isn't, you know, it's not 12 hours of working. 30:09 It's- Yeah... it's probably... And I've had to remind myself with creative stuff like this-Like on the 10th or 11th hour, I'm not really gonna be that effective. Right. 30:20 I feel like I do better when I have like, you know, maybe five or six hours of really focused, dedicated work, then maybe a couple hours of just catching up on admin things or whatever. And then 30:33 having some sort of break to reset, 'cause I do feel like if I do those really lo- like if I'm working all day every day, the next day I'm not gonna be very creative most likely, if I didn't give myself- Yeah... 30:44 some sort of break from it. Yeah. 30:46 I think there's probably a lesson there for a lot of people is, you know, people are going 50, 60, 70, 80 hours in startups and, like, how effective are you at the 60th hour or the 70th hour? 30:56 Like, eventually there's a point where you're probably less effective than if you just stopped and picked it up the next day. Yeah, exactly. And I... 31:03 It, it depends on the point of your career, too, 'cause I feel like I did that- Yeah... 31:06 I don't know how many hours I did, but when I was first starting this up, like I said, I took on every single client, and sometimes that meant I was working, you know, till 8:00 or 9:00, or 31:16 I was randomly doing something at 9:00 PM 'cause I, you know, forgot to do it and I had to do it that day. Mm-hmm. Or I was waking up at, like, 6:30 to have a call with someone who's in a later time zone. 31:27 Uh, but at least for me, I don't feel like my career always has to be like that. And I think, yeah, with kids, like, you just have to take a little bit more of a break 'cause then it's... 31:36 [laughs] It was hard to transition from, you know, before kids, I was working a lot more, and then I would get the break. But, like, now you don't necessarily get a real break. It's like, 31:48 now I'm done with work, just the second job begins of- Yeah... you know. Or the first job starts again. Yeah. Yeah, it's... Right. Yeah. You never get a break. 31:55 It's, uh- [laughs] There was, there was, there was a Slack conversation going on at one point, uh, where it's like yeah, there's vacation, like, there's a lot of opportunities to, like, get away from work. 32:05 But for parents it's actually just, like, still work. Like, no matter where you are or what you're doing, you're working either as a parent or as a coworker, you know, employee. So 32:15 it's a, it's a balance that's hard to strike. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it's... Yeah. 32:21 I, I don't know, it's hard to give advice on it, too, 'cause it's like you just have to figure out your own style, both with work and parenting, and it's also just different at each age group, too. 32:31 Like, at least now I'm, I'm glad now that they're at the age where, um, I feel like I could work in the same room that they're playing and they're not- Yeah... 32:40 like, uh, six months ago, that would've been impossible, at least with the younger one, who was one at the time. Yeah. Like, you can't, you know, you're not getting a more than two-minute break from them- Right... 32:49 reading something, basically. So. Yeah. No, I'm, I mean, like I said, I'm in the same boat trying to figure out, you know, how, how much my kids can be in the same room versus not. It changes every month, too. 33:00 So, uh, last question, I know we're coming up on time here. If someone wants to start a meme account, what should they do? What's the first step to take? That's a good question. 33:08 I would say, I feel like you just have to experiment a lot. Like, don't worry about the strategy, don't... I don't know, just start posting. And, like- Mm-hmm... 33:17 you probably have to post 100 times to get your first couple of posts to do well. And I'll say, like, with the Chase account, that wasn't even originally Chase Passive Income. Um, originally it was... 33:29 So, like a year ago, I started that account as, "Hey, I'll start up a new meme account." Uh, my first iteration of it was called the Finance Throuple, uh, and then it was- [laughs] Really? Yeah. 33:39 So I photoshopped, like, three headshots together, two women and one man. I saw that. One man. Yeah, yeah. [laughs] And so that got like a couple hundred followers, but it really- Oh. 33:48 It never really broke out like I thought, and I kind of ran out of material 'cause, like- Yep... I mean, there was probably more ways to be creative about it, but I just ran out of material. 33:57 Like, okay, the joke is that, you know, you could basically increase your income and savings rate by 50% by adding a second person or a, you know, second woman to your relationship. Um, 34:10 but yeah, so I ran out of material. So funny. I, I think it was something else briefly. I, I don't even remember it, 'cause I might have made some, like, marketing alpha male account, which I, I do still wanna do. 34:21 I think there's, there's a massive appetite for, like, the alpha male marketing guru guy. Like, it's funny to me in a few different ways that the alpha male, like, workout stuff is so prevalent- Yes... 34:33 especially for jobs that just require you to, like, type at your computer. Um- Yeah. 34:39 [laughs] Like, it's funny, there's actually a big, I feel like there's a big subsection of, like, ghostwriters who are really into, like, working out and supplements and... 34:49 Which is cool, but it's just funny, like, contrast of, you know, um- Yeah, the juxtaposition- Those-... is, like, why? [laughs] Right. Yeah, exactly. 34:57 But, but yeah, so even with the Chase account, like I ne- I didn't really... 35:01 That was not my first idea, and if you look back at some of the earliest tweets, a lot of them I kind of abandoned certain jokes that just didn't really pan out. So, like, I would joke a lot about- Yeah... 35:12 es- like, buying a, a small business with, like, insane leverage, and I still joke about that- Mm-hmm... 35:16 a little bit, but some of the earlier jokes were more specifically about, like, SBA loans, and they're just- Yeah... you know. Didn't land- Yeah... quite as well. Right. Exactly. Well, cool, man. 35:26 Um, where, where do people find you? How do you, uh, how do they get in touch with you if they wanna talk to you about work or pick your brain or pay you to, you know, work for them? Yeah. Just on, on X @charlewrich. 35:38 Charlewrich. Well, man, it's been a pleasure. Uh, this is episode 32 of Two Dads and Tech. If you're listening, please go ahead and subscribe to us at Two Dads and Tech. 35:48 Uh, we're @twodadstechandtech on Twitter, at Instagram, TikTok, uh, Two Dads and Tech on YouTube. Uh, this will be live, uh, every Wednesday, and so we're looking forward to just continuing the conversation. 36:00 Uh, thanks again. Charlie, any, any parting words for the audience here? 36:04 Yeah, I was just thinking that you and I, if we abandon our families and then live together in an apartment in Austin, we could probably increase our MRR by a lot. I think so. So why we not? 36:14 I'll chat with my wife and see if she's good with, like, a, a 18 to 24-month stint with Charlie. Be, "Hey, I ha- I have a g- a guy I just am dying to be roommates with." [laughs] That would be good. 36:28 Charlie, it was awesome. I knew this was gonna be a great episode. It did not disappoint. Uh, and we're looking forward to the next time. Thanks for joining Two Dads and Tech. Yeah. Talk to you soon, man. Yeah. Thanks. 36:38 Thanks again. Yeah. Bye-bye.
