MFM #157



Rewarding hustle: MFM is hiring two kids to do video production because they took the job without permission. They heard Sam complain about needing a recording studio and offered to do the work https://twitter.com/DylanJardon/status/1366274333858017282?s=20. 

This is how you get the job you want. Don’t send a resume. Do the work instead. Don’t ask for permission.


Food topics


The food companies of Instagram: Companies mycookiedealer.com, 1-900-Ice-Cream, and Allie’s Banana Bread are crushing it on IG with food drops that sell out in seconds.


Why it’s big: These work because it’s at the intersection of many trends: cloud kitchens (no need for expensive restaurant infrastructure), DTC (no need to get costly distribution deals and shelf space) and have virality baked into them.


My Cookie Dealer is estimated to be doing $200k per weekly drop. This is a potential $10m business today.


Formula: Sam breaks down how these companies are going viral, and how you can copy.

Make a side ingredient the main thing (cheese, cookie dough)

Make it in an unusual color (rainbow bagel, rainbow kettle cork, green ketchup, cloud bread)

Make it huge (huge sundae, massive pizza cookie, sushi-rito, massive KitKat)

Frankenfood: combine two different foods (cronut, pancake cereal, donut cereal, cream cheese, bell pepper, desert burger, ramen burger, spaghetti donuts, fairy bread)

Food allergy or remove stuff from it (vega ice cream, Banza)

Make junk food or simple food ultra-fancy (tater tots, mozzarella sticks)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IFYt20QON8 


Tiller money


Spreadsheet plugins: The guys have talked Chrome plugins and browser extensions in the past, but an overlooked niche is spreadsheet plugins.

Plugins are great businesses because they are sticky and capitalize on an existing platform and user base. They can be light, simple tools that can gain huge adoption quickly. 


Tiller Money (https://www.tillerhq.com/): Personal finance nerd Sam loves the simplicity of this plugin. Most people already manage their money on a spreadsheet, Tiller Money just makes it easier to do so.


Supermetrics (https://supermetrics.com/): Marketing data plugin Sam uses. He predicts the business does 8-figures in revenue.


Open salaries


Open salaries: Should companies publish employee salaries? Open salary data is becoming a legal requirement, starting with ? Colorado: "From 2021 employers must disclose pay rates or ranges in job postings for jobs that could be worked in Colorado (including remote)" Source


Open salaries is part of the culture of some companies. Buffer used it as a growth hack. The company continues to publish a lot of it’s financials and all employee salaries.

Companies doing it now:

Glassdoor shows average and anonymous salaries but can be inaccurate They were acquired for $1.2B in 2018. At the time did $170m in revenue with 700 employees 

Founded by Rich Barton (we’ve spoken about him a few times before). Famous for saying “Information wants to be free”. Started Zillow, Expedia, and Glassdoor off this principle.


Levels.fyi: A helpful guide to understanding what employees at top tech firms should be making. They even help you negotiate a salary. 


Take: Open salaries tend to benefit employees (more transparency means higher, more equal pay) and is more detrimental to employers.

Apple stopped doing it. Buffer has also said it’s not helpful anymore and was only good for initial growth.


Pat Flynn published his income for several years, but eventually stopped as he started getting hate. 

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Editing thanks to Jonathan Gallegos (@jjonthan)