Shownotes Transcript
If you love iPhone, you'll love Apple Card. It comes with the privacy and security you expect from Apple. Plus, you earn up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase, which can automatically earn interest when you open a high-yield savings account through Apple Card. Apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app. Subject to credit approval, savings is available to Apple Card owners subject to eligibility. Apple Card and Savings by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch. Member FDIC. Terms and more at applecard.com. ♪♪
When I was a kid, it was all about Charlie the Tuna. He was the Starkist mascot. There was a cartoon of him. And he was the one that was always saying, you know, I want Starkist Tuna. It was fun. You'd see him on TV all the time. Everyone knows Starkist Tuna is the tuna you can trust. I mean, since I was a kid, I was watching old Charlie the Tuna on TV. Well, guess what? They make these Starkist Tuna pouches. It's this great Starkist Tuna, but it's in a little pouch, which means you can just rip open that pouch.
and get you the protein that you need right away. I love pouches. Makes it easier than ever to fuel up with lean protein and a natural source of omega-3. And you look at my body, you know that I'm eating a lot of lean protein, don't you, Sarah? Yeah, you're a god. Hey, hey, come on. I'm married. Back off, lady. This one's taken. No, it's great. These tuna pouches, they're in convenient single-serve pouches. They're ready to eat anywhere, anywhere. I don't care if you're tight-roping, walking across Niagara Falls. Need a little protein.
Rip, munch, munch, munch. StarKist has 20 plus great flavor varieties. They also offer salmon, chicken, and beef too. Pick up StarKist pouches at your local store or check out StarKist.com. Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit TeamCoco.com slash call Conan. Okay, let's get started.
Hi, Sam. Welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan. Hey, how are you there? Hey, Sam. How are you? I'm doing really good. How are you doing? Doing great. First of all, loving the hair, Sam. Thank you. I know. I felt inspired. I love, I'm not egotistical enough to say it's the Conan swoop.
Because, you know, I didn't invent it. I think Bob's big boy invented it. But it looks very cool. So I'm loving that. Tell us a little bit about yourself, Sam. So my name is Sam and I live in Chicago. And, you know, been a big fan of yours since, you know, forever. Thank you. Actually, with my first paychecks, I actually bought a TV set.
It was like back in like 2003, a little tiny LCD TV that I could watch Conan, like your guys' show, in my room right before I went to bed so I wouldn't keep everyone else in the house up. Wow. So you have excellent comedy taste and you're considerate. Yeah.
That's a great combination. Yeah, I try to be. And my brother, whose name is also Matt, also has always loved you two. He's about as tall as you two. Oh, wow. Okay. I would have been as tall as you if I had a Y chromosome, but I am a trans guy. Okay. Which means that I started life as a girl, and when I was 33, I transitioned to being a guy. Okay.
Okay. Yeah. And tell us, so how old are you now? How long ago did you transition? So I transitioned when I was 33 years old. I started and I'm going to be 39 next month. You look fantastic, by the way. Thank you. You look like you're like 22 years old. Yeah.
I know. Well, that's kind of like one of the perks of like, you know, transitioning a little bit later is, you know, you look, you always look a little bit younger, like when you're transitioning from, uh,
female to male. But like for me, like for some people, like in their early twenties, like that's not so great. But like when you're in your thirties, you know, I'll take it. I'll look younger. I was going to say, I was thinking I want to transition from a man my age to a man who's much younger. Someone figured out. Don't we all though?
Yeah. I got to figure that one out too. If I could figure out how to transition my joints and all of my problems. Oh, they're going to figure it all out. Have you watched The Substance? Yeah, we'll figure it out. They're working on it. Demi Moore is working very hard on this. It worked out great for her too. Yeah. It looked like it did to me.
Um, so Sam, uh, what do you, uh, what's your, what's your, what's your gig? What's your job? What do you do? So, um, pretty much, uh, I, I run my own business. I actually make adult toys. Okay. Um, and, uh, we, uh, when I, I've actually been in the industry since 2008. Um, but when I started transitioning, which was, I think it was, that was like 2019, um,
I kind of noticed that there wasn't toys on the market that like were super compatible with like trans anatomy and like the changes that your body goes through. Oh, that would be true. Yeah. Yeah. So I was like, hey, I've got these skills from working in the industry. Can I translate that into something that works good for, you know, for a variety of different body types? Yeah.
So and that's what I've been doing pretty much since then. It's it's mostly just been me, my designer who lives in Denmark. And then just recently, one of my partners started helping me make toys like just, you know, to keep up on orders. Now, I'm curious. So you were in the adult toy business before you transitioned. Is that right? Yes. I see. OK. OK. And then realize that, hey, wait a minute. There needs there's a market here that's not.
being taken care of. Yeah, exactly. And it was like, I mean, there was definitely stuff out there. And I swear I probably
I probably bought like one of everything just to see. And then it's taken, you know, it's taken a while, but like we've, we've like one of our toys took like four years to finally design. So it would be combat compatible. And then another thing we completely came up with that nobody else has done is we came up with what's called a grindable.
which is like halfway between like a sleeve and like a grind pad, which is something that like some people use, like, you know, like cis women will generally use to like grind up against. So we kind of invented something that was halfway between
between that me and my designer. And then when it's ready for market, how do you get the word out? So one of the things, like, so our toys are cryptid themed. So they're basically like fantasy toys themed. So that was like what my old business did. So I kind of just kept going with that. But
Mine are cryptid based. Meaning like monsters and stuff like that? Yeah. So they're based on like monsters and, you know, folklore. Oh my God. We have like a Mothman. We have Minotaur. You know, we've got the Jersey Devil. You know, we're trying to come up with more stuff. What's the Mothman one like?
I think you have a customer here. I'm going to show you. Yeah. So this is our Mothman. Oh, wait a minute. Yeah. So this is our medium. No, it's not. That's a medium? Yeah. What are you talking about? What's the big deal?
And two sizes bigger. But yeah. And then these are all made of platinum cure medical grade silicone. So these are not like the toys that you just buy like, you know, online that are just made of unknown materials, you know. Right. You want to make sure you're using medical grade. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So, yeah, we, you know, that and then we and then we make these we can say I like one of the cool things that I can do is I can fade the silicone. Yeah. Like this is this is you start with what it's one bucket and you fade all the way down to a different color. So it's so much. It's fun. I mean, like I have a background in art, too. So that's. Oh, that helps. It is beautiful. Art and comedy. So, I mean, you have to have a sense of humor to do this. Oh, you do comedy as well? Yeah.
Yeah. So, you know, all throughout high school, I did improv and theater and all of that. And then when I got out of high school, I was like, man, I really miss this. So I ended up starting a we go to furry conventions, which is another way that we market because there's a big market for like. And explain for anyone who's listening who doesn't know, including me. Exactly. The fur. What is the the furry world is like?
So the furry fandom is just like a group of people that enjoy anthropomorphic animals. So we're talking stuff like, you know, as you know, like, like, like Bugs Bunny all the way up to like Zootopia, things like that. People just enjoy that. And, uh, for the most part, it's, you know, it's, it's very just like family friendly, but there is a, like a not safe for work kind of side of the fandom. Um, there's a, there's a not safe for work, uh,
Version of everything. Of every fandom. Yeah. Including probably Team Coco. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This work is not safe for work. Well, I did hear those, someone was reading those fan, I think it was Sona had the fan fictions that- Yes, yeah. No, no, there's that echelon in every world. You can't go, if you're a geologist, there's a not safe for work fandom. Yeah.
Oh, yeah, 100%. And the same goes for like the cryptozoology stuff. And that's why there's like a whole monster lover community, things like that. So you do comedy because you have all these different worlds that you're exploring or that you're part of. And you said that you're also in the comedy world, but in the furry world as well. So do those cross over? Do you do comedy?
At furry conventions? Yeah. So I really missed doing improv specifically. So one year I asked a convention if I could host an improv panel, and we just called it Who's Lion? So it was like an animal pun on whose line is it anyway? Yeah.
I don't know why, but I think that's a very marketable idea. Who's lying? It's really funny. I like that. And we ended up, our first show had like 60 people. And what we ended up doing was we just kind of let the audience come up and participate. Like I would work and play the games. I was just basically like running like, hey, we're playing this game now. And, you know, we've had like up to...
500 people at one show. I mean, obviously not everybody can participate at that point when there's like that many people. But we do try to get as many people up as possible to play in these games so we can just share. And everyone's dressed as animals.
Not everybody. So I would say like 10% of a furry convention actually has costumes. But then these are just people who are coming to hang out and we have a common interest and they want to come up on stage and have a good time. And some of them are in suits.
Like I've done it in suit. Like when we do a charity version of Who's Lyin', I'll generally be in my fursuit. And what's your fursuit? So my fursuit's an African wild dog. I've had like a bunch of different fursuits throughout the years, but my current one is an African wild dog. Hmm.
So you're on stage doing comedy dressed as an African wild dog. Yes. Okay. There's so many. I mean, my mind is expanding in so many amazing ways. I'm still on that Mothman schlong. Yeah, the Moshman schlong. There's this great new thing I've heard about where you take a trip, you go someplace, okay? Mm-hmm. And...
You Airbnb your apartment, your house, your pad while you're gone. Yeah. And that way you make some money or as I call it, some scratch. Yeah.
And you just have people staying at your house. And it's completely cool. Blay, have you done this? Yeah. And you know what's interesting is my sister recently moved back to Michigan. So I've been traveling there a lot. And so with Airbnb, I can host people at my apartment while I'm gone back in Michigan and make a little extra, as you say, scratch. I mean, it completely makes sense. Why should your apartment or your home sit
Exactly. Now, do you have to spruce it up a little bit, make it nice? Well, your place is pretty nice anyway. It's pretty nice, but I do have a lot of comic books and a lot of horror movie paraphernalia. So it's a bit Batcave-ish in terms of if Bruce Wayne was a virgin. Well, you're never fully developed as a human being. So I just think what you want to do is put all that stuff in a cabinet place. So they think they're getting an Airbnb from a fully developed adult. You know what I'm saying? Right.
I don't think it's all going to fit in one cabinet, but I can certainly try. Just whatever. I know your place. It's a nice place. Come on. I will host you. It's a nice place. You have a dinosaur egg. I have a real brontosaurus egg. That's true. And seven life-sized Iron Men.
Welcome to Blaze apartment. The Mark three, the Mark six, the Mark. Just don't leave money on the table this year. When you travel, make sure that you look into Airbnb and be an Airbnb host. That's right. Your home could be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host.
Hey, you see a lower price somewhere else on a mattress? Mattress Firm will match it up with their low price guarantee. I love it when people have that kind of self-assurance. I know, me too. Mattress Firm will find you the right bed with their wide selection of quality mattresses at every price. Every price. You want your perfect bed? You want it quick. That's why Mattress Firm offers free and fast delivery. I love that. I don't want to be hauling a mattress around by myself. I like free and I like fast. You like free and fast? Yeah. Me too.
Finally, we agree. Get matched at Mattress Firm's President's Day sale and sleep at night. Text Conan to 76693 for $100 off your next purchase at Mattress Firm. Restrictions apply. See mattressfirm.com or store for details. This episode of Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend is brought to you by McDonald's.
An up-and-coming concern. It's a new restaurant, I suppose. So many tiny but special moments that McDonald's makes possible. This is in my opinion, like when you think you're out of fries, then you discover one at the bottom. Wow, I love that feeling. Sometimes I find one in the seat cushion. Oh, that's weird. Nope, like that too. Okay. That's how good the fry is. I'll eat it that way too. And waiting for the perfect moment to ask a friend for one of their McNuggets is always thrilling. I always get a no.
You've never given me a McNugget, Sona. I never will. And of course, when you're at McDonald's and you spot your fries being scooped into the carton, man, time just slows down. Beautiful. Yeah. Isn't that a great thing? It's art. Yes. It defies the laws of physics. Get your favorite McDonald's meal today. Do it.
You know, one of the hardest parts about B2B marketing is reaching the right audience. You put so much effort into a campaign only for it to get wasted on the wrong people. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. It's ridiculous. It's crazy. Yeah. It's like, hey, Santa Claus, get your bathing suit over here. Oh, my God. Hey, he doesn't need a bathing suit. He's up at the North Pole. What did I waste my time for? Yeah, and he's got elves. Exactly. They can make it. Okay, you're ruining the point I was trying to make.
Yes. Now, one of the hardest parts about B2B marketing is reaching the right audience. You put so much effort into a campaign only for it to get wasted on the wrong people. Fortunately, LinkedIn is a network of over 1 billion businessy people who might actually be interested in your business. You can target your buyers by job title, industry company, role, seniority, skills, or company revenue. So stop wasting budget on the wrong audience.
and start targeting the right professionals with LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn will give you $100 credit on your next campaign so you can try it yourself. Just go to linkedin.com slash teamcoco. That's linkedin.com slash teamcoco. Terms and conditions apply only on LinkedIn ads. ♪♪♪
You just had that ready to go. That was right off camera. Yeah. What else? I have a ton right off camera. Do a parade. Come on. Let's do a parade. So first of all, remember I talked about like the grindable. Whoa. So this is like our invention. We actually have the provisional patent on these. We have two of them. Oh, we have the serpent interface. That must have been a fun day at the patent office.
I can just picture a really nerdy guy. And tell me what you have. I have these. Me. Well, thankfully, my business lawyer is a patent lawyer. And he's just like, he's so cool about it. He's like, whatever. And then, you know, another thing that we did was we actually ended up scaling it up. Oh.
So cis men could use it as like a masturbatory. Wait, is that just friction based or is it electronic? Yeah. Professor. It's all silicone. I've never seen you this involved in the engineering of anything. You use it like you would a flashlight. Oh.
You use it like you would a flashlight. Oh, a flashlight. And it's all textured on the inside and everything. It's like a tube that you stick your dick into. It's a flashlight that you fuck. Yeah, you fuck a flashlight. But it's like, inside is not like a electronics. That's what a paper towel tube is for. My wife's always like, where's the tube? Why is a paper towel just everywhere? We want stuff that lasts a little bit longer than that, though.
Oh, I can make them last. You just got to shellac them first and bake them in the sun. Oh, God. My wife. Why are all these towels just all over the place? Oh, God. Sorry, dear. I was fashioning a fleshlight. Oh, my God. Wow, my marriage is over now.
You're gonna see me walking alone down the highway with a suitcase. And a paper towel. No, no, no. You open the suitcase and 15 paper towel holders fall out. Oh my God. This thing is broken. This thing is broken. So, all right. I'm picturing you
doing improv or stand up on stage dressed as an African wild dog. That must be a little challenging because it's hard enough to do improv, but when you're dressed as a, as a furry animal, that's gotta be really challenging. Yeah. I mean, like we have microphones on stage. So one of the funny things about it is that like when you do have like a fursuit and you are on stage and especially like, even if it's like a smaller crowd, like we still have to get the microphones on the, on the fursuiters. Um, uh,
Normally, I have no problem projecting, but even in suit, I have issues with it. So you have to put the microphone all the way in the fursuit mouth so it's up against your mouth in the head. So it kind of just looks like you're, well, deep-throating a microphone when you're doing that. Well, I'd hate for something untoward to happen. Yeah.
Yeah. So, but yeah, no, we always have like a really good time. I love how delicate you were about, oh, and it's, I don't know how else to say this. You just showed us nine different products. It would get me arrested in any airport. I just saw a purple spiked clam that was a sex toy. A clam? Yeah.
Well, I mean, like, I go through the airports all the time with these in my carry-on. Right. Well, they don't keep. Because I want to have, I want to make sure that they don't get lost because we've had, like, because we go to conventions to sell and I've had, like, packages get lost. Like, there's, in Boston specifically, there are two boxes of my toys that just never showed up to a convention in Boston that we were at. So those are just somewhere. Yeah.
No, they got delivered to the hotel and someone signed for them, but nobody could find them. Right. So I don't know where they are. They knew what they had. So now we put air tags in all of our boxes. They probably think there are staplers or something. Exotic staplers. Katinka, Katinka, Katinka. Hey, I got this new paperweight. Yeah. You mean the Mothman? Yeah. I have a paperweight and look, I have a stapler that looks like...
as you would call it a clam. Yes. Uh, listen, listen, I, um, you've expanded my mind in wonderful ways. And, uh, this is an impressive, this is an impressive business that you've got going here. And, um, do you have a factory? It, where is that? Where's the actual production done? So it's done right here at my house. Uh, my entire basement is, uh,
And like, it's a finished basement that we've like completely set up to do all the, we have, we have seven 3D printers. Wow.
Wow. We have a couple of vacuum chambers, you know, because we have to take all the air out of the silicone before we pour it. So there's no bubbles in the toy. And yeah, we just do everything here, like just locally, you know, and I get all my supplies locally. And there's no like, there's no, I mean, I'm thinking there's chemicals then in your basement. You would hate there to be, there's never could be an explosion or anything. Yeah.
Because you don't want these things raining down in the neighborhood. No, no, no. Dildo's not flammable. Look out! Put up your umbrellas! Like a meth lab? We do have a... Ka-blam! And I'm just picturing them coming down like missiles. All the dildos just raining from the sky. Yeah. But no, there's... Someone looks up and goes, oh, no! We have an exhaust fan. Gloop. Out of control. This is an out of control interview. Oh, my God. I blame you, Sam. This is your fault.
You know, you took a very serious, sober podcast. Mm-hmm. Yes. Oh, yeah. Uh-huh. Very serious. We're a very dramatic, serious podcast. Did Sam have a question for me? You have a question, Sam? Yeah. So one of the things that I always wondered is, do you ever wish that they still made the Otako? Mm-hmm.
At Taco Bell. Oh, that's right. I think I did a remote once. Did I do a remote once? Yeah, you did a remote. It's one of my favorites. And I went with... Who did I go with? Hayes. I went with Chris Hayes. That was a fun remote. Yeah, it was. I have to say, and I'm not...
We are not sponsored by Taco Bell or anything, but man, that was delicious. What was in it? Do you remember? I'm trying to remember. It was delicious. It was like corned beef hash, potatoes. Yeah, I was going to guess. And then I believe you dumped a Guinness on it. Yes. Yes.
Well, you can't go wrong dumping a Guinness on anything. But yes, I remember Taco Bell, they asked me to design something. And so I went all Irish on them. And I think I had one bite and then had a massive heart attack. Yeah, I'm shocked it's not like in every Taco Bell.
I guess Taco Bell decided not to go wide with it. But if you're ever at the Dublin Taco Bell, it's their biggest seller. The old taco.
But yeah, like ever since then, anytime I can get potatoes and tacos, like there's like a couple of places. I mean, like Taco Bell does do that. But like there's like other places that like sell mashed potatoes and tacos and stuff like that. I always have to get it because I always think about. Well, they rip me off, man. They rip me off. You've got to make sure no one's ripping you off, too. Hey, no, I mean, good question, because you're sounds like you're onto a market.
There might be people out there that are like, hey, wait a minute. I'm glad you got the patents. That's the important thing, especially on the moth. Yeah. For the for that one. Yeah. Especially. Yeah. It's still yeah. It's still provisional patents. So it's, you know, rest assured that's sitting on some government office somewhere waiting to get approved. So it's right on their desk. Yeah. It's right there. Yeah. Sam, it was very cool talking to you. You're very funny and best of luck.
with your business and we're very lucky to have you as a fan. Yeah, I'm lucky to have you guys to listen to because you guys...
are always on when I'm working on stuff. So I say, I always save the podcast for when I have like, you know, long days to, to get through orders. So that's very cool. The dildos. We do. Yeah, you do. There's a little bit of us in that thing. Yes. And every single toy. Uh, and then my, my one partner wanted me to show you this. Oh, team Coco colored. Look at that. Uh,
This is a biomech. Actually, that's exactly what mine looks like. Oh, my God. Well, I'm sorry, but I was in an industrial accident when I was nine. I was in a pumpkin patch that exploded. All right, Sam, we're going to take off, but thank you so much. Take care. Yeah, it was nice meeting you all. Really cool meeting you, Sam. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
Take it away, Jimmy.
Supervising producer, Aaron Blair. Associate talent producer, Jennifer Samples. Associate producers, Sean Doherty and Lisa Byrne. Engineering by Eduardo Perez. Get three free months of SiriusXM when you sign up at SiriusXM.com slash Conan. Please rate, review, and subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan wherever fine podcasts are done.
We all have our own ways of getting business done. Are you an early bird powering through emails before the sun rises? Or perhaps a night owl strategizing and planning long after the office lights dim? However you run things, Atlantic Union Bank can keep up. No matter your business size or industry, you deserve a banker committed to your success. Call, visit us online, or drop by an Atlantic Union Bank branch to learn more.
This Valentine's Day, be the he who went to Jared.
Now get 40% off select fashion jewelry. Visit jared.com slash radio for details.