Michael Girdley

NEW LONG FORM VIDEO: Why America stopped eating cereal In February 2020, the CEO of Kellogg’s, the company famous for breakfast cereal, went on CNBC and made a surprising suggestion. He encouraged families to consider eating cereal for dinner because it was an affordable option. His name was Gary Pilnick, and he was earning more than $4 million a year. When he made that comment, the internet reacted harshly. TikTok users organized boycotts, and many people compared the moment to a modern version of “let them eat cake.” But what most people missed was that Pilnick wasn’t trying to insult customers. He was trying to save a struggling business. Cereal, once a staple of American households, had been in steady decline for decades. Many of us grew up eating it, everything from Cap’n Crunch to Grape-Nuts, but consumer habits had changed. Kellogg’s had once invented and dominated the cereal category. Yet after nearly a century, the company decided to exit the business entirely. The cereal division was eventually sold to an Italian confectionery company in what many saw as a fire sale, and the Kellogg name disappeared from the stock exchange after generations. So how did cereal go from a $14 billion a year industry in the United States to a product its own creator no longer wanted to own? This is the rise and fall of cereal.

Hypothesis: Having enough money to do whatever you want but not so much to retire early is ideal.

All my free stuff in one place. girdley.com/resources

@ShawnChittle @BarredinDC It's all fun and games until your business gets shaken down by the plaintiff's attorneys on contingency.

@girdley @BarredinDC Sign on the door should do it.

There is a bar where they lined the walls and ceiling with wire mesh so no EM can get in or out, effectively making a SCIF in the bar. This is technically legal where the bar is (UK) but not sure if you can do it in the US (@BarredinDC might know?)

@sodacitysimpson Thank you, my friend.

@girdley Haha congratulations man You’re killing on YouTube

I'm about to have more YouTube subscribers than X Followers. Crazy.

@HighyieldHarry On 3, I used to play a game when posting something there. I'd see if I could get 1 like per second after posting it. It felt like a video game and encouraged me to spend a ton of time making "great" posts. That's all blown up now.

Thanks. Probably a combination of factors. 1) Rising tide lifting all boats over there. 2) Algorithm rewards consistency and doesn't just hunt for "bangers" that it pushes widely. 3) Better gamification of publishing. For example, YT's publisher application is super smart. Every time you open it, they push the compliments from viewers to the top of the comments. There may be more.

@iSpoogeDaily Still hard to believe.

@girdley Congrats. That was crazy fast, wow.

@CollinWilkins7 Thank you.

@girdley you earned every one

@SuccessWithJake :-)

@girdley Won’t be long before you have double on YouTube Let the compounding begin!

@shawngorham Reminds me of my new rollup. Long Shore Design. Or LSD for short.

Ismael sold Nexgen for a rumored $150 mm - his non compete just expired and the dude is launching another plumbing HVAC business. I get love of the game, I get it But $150 mm would have me on the bench, doing speaking engagements and enjoying life without running a really hard service business Dude is built different (which is why he had a big exit)

@RaphaelKahan I hear Marseille is nice this time of year.

@girdley Paris suburbs? I wish

A challenge I think is impossible: 1) Take $1,000,000 2) Build a portfolio that a smart person would think is smart 3) Lose all the money (every cent) in 3 years Can you do it?

@bandholz Yeah, so all of those have to be a zero within three years.

@girdley Hmm, if I were to go from 100 to 0, I'd focus on high risk all or nothing bets. So likely a ton of Angel investing. I'd highlight companies in interesting verticals, with clearly incompetent founders that don't have the charm to raise money and are already burning cash.

@RaphaelKahan You still buying toxic waste sites in the Paris suburbs?

@girdley Yes easy And no i can't build the opposite portfolio

@Seanfrank Love it.

I have personally seen 6 brands restart growth using the "hudson method" we are talking 5m a year brands to 100m a year brands. the steps: 1- seed hundreds of creators on tik tok small, new accounts, no one famous 2- pay them per video PLUS commission BUT heavily incentives them to post LOTS of videos bonuses for posting 100+ videos a month 3- take all the creative, load it into every ad channel you just solved creative bottlenecks and unlocked infinite ad angles 4- scale ad spend on EVERYTHING, while still paying the creators commission on the ad sales -- it isnt about tik tok shop sales. it isnt about gmv max. its all of it. you get free cpms on tik tok. you get unlimited content. and it jump starts the whole business more ads, more angles, more channels. this is named after the legendary founder of comfrt, hudson. all hail the ugc king.

Prediction: more bars and venues will have "no cellphones allowed" policies over the coming years. Everything changes when you're not paranoid you'll be posted online for being yourself.

@CoachKetcham Thank you very much. The answer is DJI Pocket 3. It's designed for precisely the use case I'm using it for.

@girdley i’ve been working through your video that I recover from knee surgery, and enjoying them a lot. My wife asked a question. I don’t know the answer to. How do you have such a steady camera when you’re walking?