Referral Code Wiki, QR Code Tattoos, and Uber for Car Mechanics

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I'm Scott.

I'm Russell.

And I'm Leo.

This is Spitball.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Welcome to Spitball, the Pitchin' Kitchen,

where three lovable scamps-- that's us--

empty their heads of startup and tech product ideas

that they have stuck up in there so you

can all have them for free.

Anything that we say here is yours to keep.

- Guys, I gotta say something real quick before we start.

I've been listening to our podcast,

and what I've realized is the more I listen to it,

the more ideas I come up with.

And I think, I think there's something

where if you listen to other people's ideas

or talk about your ideas, you're gonna come up with more.

- Yeah, dude.

- Better ideas, killer ideas.

- That's why we're here.

- The idea that you've been looking for.

And I just wanna recommend that people continue

like and subscribe on this podcast so you can think of more ideas one at a time.

Listen to how great we are.

Yeah, and also if you your idea is inside you just got to listen this podcast and eventually

boom idea.

One of the, you just keep throwing stuff at the wall one of them will hit.

That's right.

And then you'll bring it on this podcast or do it yourself.

Bring your other the bad ideas you know to this podcast.

The ideas you know.

That's great for Spitball.

So brilliant.

- Yes, all right.

Leo, what is an idea you would love to do,

but just don't have time for?

- All right, this one hurts because it's a small website

and I think I could do it, I just don't have the time for it.

So every once in a while I want to go and buy a product

that I know at some point has been advertised

on a podcast that I enjoy.

And I cannot for the life of me remember

what the coupon code was or the referral link

or the whatever I have to do.

I'm not going to go through their back

catalog and try to find whatever fricking

episode that was on three years ago.

Right.

I know that there's a retail me, not

another referral code websites and stuff,

but those are different than what I want.

I want is specifically look up a product

or a podcast and see the database of all

of the referral codes that they've ever

used, if, and when they still exist, maybe

even a link to the various websites or

whatever, if you've got to buy a mattress,

you want to support that one show that

you really love so much, right?

But shoot, how did I do that again?

Was that the name of the show or the name of the people on it or whatever?

I want a database of coupon codes that are only specifically tied to a show that use them

so I can support both the business and the show that I heard it from.

Gotcha.

So is this like some kind of API plug-in that the podcast would host on their website?

I was thinking like crowdsourced.

You go in and you whenever there's a new show, if you want like a wiki type thing,

You go and you submit the things that they used this week if and when they had some sort of expiration date

For this you got to go to squarespace.com slash planet money or whatever.com slash my brother

Whatever it is, right and and enter in the coupon code here to get your stamps comm shit, dude

I know I just need to remember where those all are right whenever I need to renew my Nord VPN

I go on a bunch of YouTube digital channels

Until you get an ad for it

right? It's literally what I do. It just yeah.

I it makes sense. It's just how do you make money? It's one

more to just forever solidify that oh these people sponsored

us in the back. If we ever had a time where like I can't

believe we got sponsored by. Exactly. I don't know. Big

tobacco or something like they really love Spitball for some

reason. Another so this has an obvious revenue generation too

which is the site itself can put its own thing in the list

I look up, shoot, what was all the mattress company coupon codes?

If I don't see any shows that I recognize in the top 10 or whatever,

the very top sticky one could be the referral deal that I've hammered out with Squarespace.

You know what I mean?

So then you have your own if you want at referralcodes.podcast.biz

and then you can send them with your own.

Dang.

It's something that I think about once in a while.

once in a while I'm like man, I do wanna try,

what's the clothes try on one?

- I was trying to remember the cereal.

- The cereal?

- Yeah, the natural cereal.

- Exactly, so you look up, this is the problem, right?

You look up the show and there's all the stuff

that they talked about in the last few weeks and boom.

- My problem right now is I can't remember

where I heard the cereal from.

- Oh, there's that too.

- They're just like advertising like crazy to every podcast.

What the hell?

The homepage of this thing should be just boom, search box, right?

You don't need much else.

Just cereal.

Just cereal.

But then you're like looking through the list of all the different podcasts and YouTubers

that you're, or is it the other way around?

Do you go to your YouTuber and you put in all of your favorite YouTubers and you find

ways to support them?

Like even Amazon referrals or like, you know, the Amazon smile, right?

Or whatever.

Like whenever I buy a new AirPod pro thing,

I'm gonna go through MKBHD's Amazon referral link

or something, right?

- Totally, totally.

So there's two services,

there's songwhip.com and pod.link.

And these, both of these services are the same thing,

one for music and one for podcasts.

They are a stick in your song,

stick in your podcast episodes,

stick in your artist or whatever.

And it generates a link that you can then share.

And when the person that you're sending it to clicks on it,

says, great, here's your song.

Here's your artist.

Here's your podcast.

Here's every freaking streaming service

that you can listen to it on.

Cause if you want to share a song with

somebody, you don't know if they have

Spotify or title or YouTube music or

Apple music or whatever.

Right.

So you go to songwhip, you pull up

your thing, you give it to them.

Those two services have the same business

model where they go to artists and they

say, if you want, you can have custom

colors and a custom vanity URL and stuff

to take over your page if you give us a

few bucks.

So in this thing, the referral codes could also go to MKBHD and go to whatever

and have them stick their referral codes in and keep them up to date themselves.

You could have a direct line with the content creators.

If you get this popular enough.

Dude, that's hard.

You got to get it popular enough for that in order for them to take an interest in

it, but if you do, that's a, that's awesome.

Yeah.

Relying just on wiki has the whole content moderation problem.

Use coupon code, Dick's Dick's Dick's.

Oh, well, okay.

Right.

You're going to get some of that.

So there's got to be some like upvoting.

It's memorable.

I'll give them that.

I will have forever.

Remember that coupon code.

Dude, that's like a different way to monetize anything now.

All any content you could just create different means, right?

You have your coupon codes from your referral partners,

but then you have all these other means for them to support you.

Like I think it can blow up between a different way to get your YouTubers

help, provide them help, and then.

Yeah.

Like, oh, here's like five ways.

So you got Patreon, buy me a cup of coffee and then you have this.

It's like, yeah, keep doing what you're doing in real life

and buy your shit through this link.

Yeah, totally.

The stupider and easier you can make it to support them.

Like I would do that.

I love this guy.

I love this YouTuber, but like I'm not going to go out of my way to support him.

Yeah.

You just gave me a button in front of me that I could hit and he would

something nice would happen to him.

I'd do that.

So slick deals and honey and a few others are Chrome extensions

where they you press a button and they'd like try a bunch of coupon codes.

You could have the honey, but for this and you say what 12 subscribers you want to support.

Oh, and then every time you're going to check out on whatever shop.com, it says, hey, by the way, there's a coupon code.

Yeah, it proactively tells you, by the way, we have something in the database for MKBHD

and you should use this to get your 5% off and support them.

That's cool. I love that. Yeah, that's cool.

And all the persons responsible for doing is just feeding into this list who I like.

And that's it.

It'll figure out the rest of them there.

And the real altruistic noble people who want to really support their whatever

can content community, you know, like contribute the codes that they know exist.

It's the wiki style.

That's so good.

I really like like I don't I don't want to subscribe or pay money to any Twitch

streamers or YouTubers or patrons like it's just not what I'm into.

I don't know.

It feels a little weird to be giving money through that.

This would be way more approachable to something like me who's like,

Absolutely, I'm already buying something.

Yeah, might as well give them a credit card.

Do you go in like the get a little crazy here, right?

Like you can like you take a credit card company, you say use this credit card on

stuff and then you can give instead of taking 3% you're given the 1% to different

subscribers or like a bank and then you can I don't know, maybe not full credit

card like company, but something in between.

Like how do you generate like you?

You take your 3% credit card purchases

and you apply it to your favorite content creators

instead of using points.

Like would you give up your points to content creators?

Oh, some way for sure.

There's probably people out there

that would think about it that, but it doesn't.

It's like now you get bits on Twitch or whatever, right?

Like some micro, right?

It's just yeah, there's something.

Yeah, I love that.

Listeners can help generate the next one, right?

Like, but this when you passive, uh, small, um, collective, uh,

right.

You guys know the acorn app, the roundup thing.

Oh yeah.

Rounds up your dollar or whatever amount you spend in order to put it

into an account that invests feels a little good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I'm excited to use the service when somebody else takes it and makes it.

[Music]

Alright Scott, I think you're next bud. What do you got?

Alright, bear with me on this one.

QR code tattoos.

So, a co-worker...

[Laughter]

Put it on me.

A co-worker was telling me about how he met someone with a big barcode on the back of his neck.

And he was talking about it and he was like, "Oh, this is...

This is my grandpa was one of the original inventors

of a barcode of the barcode.

And so he got a tattoo to remember him.

And the whole time he's telling me this story,

I'm thinking like, if that was a QR code

and I just saw that on a random person,

I would do everything in my power

to subtly take a picture of that

and try to figure out where that QR code goes.

That just, my curiosity would be so peaked

if I saw a random person with a very large,

like whatever QR code visible on them,

which got me thinking on here,

there has to be a way to,

we're gonna get a little dystopian here,

but there has to be a way to monetize off of that, right?

Could like Taco Bell go out and sponsor people

to get maybe not full tattoos,

but like temporary tattoos or henna or something on them

where every time if I have this Taco Bell QR code on me,

anytime it's scanned and someone lands on that homepage,

or maybe makes a purchase of it,

going back to your coupon codes thing,

I get a little cut of that profit on there

'cause I was the one who directed them that website.

And people are industrious,

they would figure out ways to get that QR code

in front of as many people as possible

if it was associated with me and if I profited off.

- Strippers would love this, I think.

Absolutely love this. (laughing)

- Their Venmo.

- Yeah, their OnlyFans.

Like, Venmo on it directly.

- Scott, we have had the conversation in my household

of what tattoo would you get,

which I think every household has to have

at some point in their life, right?

I literally said, I would love to have a QR code.

And you, so I don't know if you know this, there's a

dot tattoo TLD even.

So you go and you registered Scott dot tattoo.

You keep, you make sure you pay that bill on a valid

credit card for the rest of your life.

You get that domain on your tattoo, on your skin, and

then you can point it toward the Taco Bell reward this

week, or you point it toward your homepage or your

contact card or your whatever, right?

Just change where it redirects to.

So that's it.

You just create a channel using that service that I can redirect to wherever

for profit, whether I'm sponsoring Taco Bell or I am a stripper with a QR code.

I don't know how that works actually.

That was just a good idea just to have your Venmo tattooed on you.

I mean, what other better way to make money, right?

Just people are going to sneak up and take pictures of my QR code, like send me money.

And it's just a Venmo request for 100 bucks

and hopefully those hit enter on accident.

- Right.

- Dude, you can turn this into like temporary tattoos too.

People like are interested in it.

You could totally sell the temporary tattoo.

- Taco Bell could just give out a bunch of that.

Well, I don't know.

Then I couldn't monetize off it

if they're mass producing these guys.

It's gotta be associated with me personally.

- I don't know.

I mean like you could just give out

a hundred thousand temporary tattoos

and people with children are sticking it on them.

like, oh, Evan, Evan, my buddy at middle school is wearing a QR code tattoo, right?

You're like, then all the sixth graders with their brand new smartphones are

going to take pictures of the McDonald's happy meal about to blow up with these QR codes.

I think my brother, my brother and me's munch squad had a couple of months ago,

some it was like subway or somebody did a, the first five people that tattoo our

mascot get free subs for a year or something.

So this is not completely uncharted waters,

but the QR code is great.

You could make it.

Because that is dynamic.

You can make it do whatever you want.

Yeah, I love the idea of it being able to redirect to whatever.

Today I'm doing Taco Bell tomorrow.

People just get Rick rolled if they take this picture.

Yeah.

I'm a little afraid of the steady hand required by a tattoo artist

to get the precision of the dots. Right.

Oh, is there some sort of tattoo template that they can do or is everything?

I've only ever seen free and right because if they get a couple of those dots switched

You're stuck with a dead doesn't actually resolve QR code on your skin for the rest of your life

I think you just came up with a amazing idea. You create a 3d printer for tattoos. Boom. Yes, perfect

He just that's like it's like automating a haircut like I don't want that machine near me you're right

Oh, I guess that makes sense

That would be so awesome you get precise pixel perfect tattoos on your body instead of like terrible. Yeah

Yeah, you can have it resolved to an actual photograph of something or whatever that I'm I like this you could oh

You know those cool like pick those new QR codes where they're integrated in like the art form itself

Like you don't even know that you are code. It's just like yeah. Yeah the stable diffusion ones. Yeah that

That would be cool, you know, so you get some scene of a Japanese village or whatever, but it's actually something scannable

That's fun. I mean that people brings you to talk

All right, Russell, what's an idea you want but don't have time for this is the best idea

I think I can give away right now episode 3 best idea. Okay

Here's my problem. I have issues with my car every once in a while. You gotta go to your brake change your oil change

Scott knows he helped me move my car recently my brakes need to be replaced

Once they are past the sound they're they are grinding. Oh, yeah, I'm

Anyways, it's cuz I'm too damn busy. Okay?

I what I'm gonna go sit in some frickin waiting room for an hour while they change my brakes

like what a giant ass waste of time.

Like I can't think of something more painful

than sitting in a waiting room,

letting somebody so that I can pay to have my brakes

like fix, it's like double negative.

I don't know.

So here's, here it is, okay.

People come to you to do all your maintenance, simple.

Okay, they do this for windshields right now.

Safe flight repair, they're not an advertiser,

but they go in.

They're locksmiths, right? Locksmiths will help you get back in your locked car.

There we go. Oil changes, how hard is that? You just go in the parking lot,

shove one of those oil pans in there, do the thing. I mean, it's not like... And those are...

You go to Jiffy Lube and you do the same thing. It's so easy. There are just shops that make

insane amounts of money by having quick change oil changes, right? You sit in your car while

it happens like boom take that up a notch right do some corporate plans go

to like you know oh everybody's got has their cars sitting in a parking lot

right five oil changes corporate benefit I save money company saves money oh I

see what you're saying dude and now it's an employee of your insurance plan or

whatever yeah it's an employee benefit uber for car repair for car repair so I

feel like garages usually have a lot of specialized equipment and the whole like

getting under the car gang thing. That's a tow truck. You just do tow truck.

Mobile mobile jacks. Like is a tow truck. Could you just get a fancy tow truck? Like

you just buy one of those. Oh, you could. I actually really like that. You could invest

in some big F-150 or something that has a trailer behind it that'll just hitch it all up and then

all the tools in either in the car. Dude. Yeah, it's super easy. You just and here's where it

gets better, right? You can do AAA services right on your downtime. So if people are pulled

over on the side of the road and they have a broken tire, like you can replace AAA better

than AAA because they kind of suck. Like you can now you have. Oh, they're great if you're

good waiting four hours. Exactly right now. AAA has a different monetization model. They're

changing oil over here and then they're like, oh, cars are pulled over here. Boom, right?

have all these tow truck companies that have tow trucks

that sit all day waiting for their call.

Like now they're just always on the road circling

for that oil change request or the brake repair or whatever.

And you're just, there's so much work out there.

They, all these cars sit in parking lots all day just.

- If we want to play a terrible insurance game

I almost want to one up this and be,

I love the idea of them coming to you,

but also they come to you

and they take your car to a mechanic,

either do the waiting or whatever there for you,

and then bring your car back while you're at work

or at a movie or something.

Sounds like a scheduling and insurance nightmare,

but man, I would love that.

- Insurance?

Well, it's like a tow, I mean, tow trucks don't have to,

well, I don't know anything about tow trucks, right?

- Oh, I guess you could do it with a tow truck.

- Oh, yeah.

Everything is, like my whole model.

- I was just thinking some guy drives their car off

into there and hopefully it doesn't crash it.

Oh, that's not a bad idea to I guess.

I'm yeah, I think you can.

No, I was I was just thinking you just like take tow trucking,

blow that up a little bit, add a bunch of monetization around repair.

You need one.

And like, that's it.

Just buy a tow truck.

Put all the upselling inside the app itself.

Like, do you need your filter change?

Do you want your. Yeah.

I will deca would detail the inside while we're at it or something.

And there'd be a home base they come dispatched from so you'd have all the supplies and stuff there

But they would know what appointments are hitting today

So they can bring only the break that they know what they're your model, right?

They don't have to tote around an entire facility exactly you need only the tools for that day

So they in the morning drive into headquarters and it says alright, you're gonna need these five Allen wrenches

Oh, yeah, I own wrenches rent. What is it called the?

We all know exactly what we're talking about

Drivers I

Hold the flashlight

But yeah, you get it you only have to live what you need so it doesn't have to travel

I mean you got to be able to jack the car you got to be able to get underneath there

You got to be able to do some basic stuff

But you don't need every tool under the Sun because you have it booked out a week in advance

You know what to bring to you dude like changing your tires sucks like Costco has a whole tire center

Like sure, somebody help me.

I just want somebody to fix my brakes.

And here's another thing.

You could just have a truck in your driveway and Uber model it right.

Just today I'm going to work, find the nearest thing, go to AutoZone

and fricking buy the stuff and then go to your your appointment.

Like you don't.

I really think the hardest part of this is just figuring out

how to jack up the car safely on the side of the road or driveway or something.

And then everything else fits.

You've got the scaffolding of a car carrier,

right, that takes 10 of those cars in, but

you just get a little bit more elevation

and only one shrink down the length a little bit.

You could have it be wenched onto a pickup

or a tow truck kind of thing that is just

higher up or lifts up.

Oh dude, it's like the scissor lifts.

It just goes up 10 feet in the air.

Ground level is the basement of the oil change place.

Car is up 10 feet in the air on a scissor lift

and you're underneath it doing whatever.

Dude, and the advertising, like while you're doing the oil change,

you literally cars are driving by people getting in their cars

and like as your car is 10 feet in the air and just have a big sign out of like

never wait for an oil change again or something.

That's that's pretty smart.

Yeah, it's just a marketing monster makes money.

It's easy. I think it's easy.

It's easy. It's easy.

I wouldn't I wouldn't stand under a scissor lift with a car.

Someone would.

OK, wait, there's the one of the cars, the transporters, the car transporters.

You get one of those.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm just picturing some poor Uber for mechanics driver

in the middle of a Midwest winter.

So we got to change my oil and it's negative four degrees out.

That's true.

On this side of the road might need some.

Then you put it in a semi boom.

We bring a semi to you drive into it.

Just start the car, man.

I mean, if they can put formula cars in the back of a semi and work on them, right?

I really love the idea, though, of like a company sponsoring this,

like who needs oil changes, sign up here and we're just going to have it in the lot

and we'll take care of all year by the end of the day.

All to people be all over that.

Yeah. And it's like your your business.

It's like food cart.

It's like a food truck, but for mechanical repair.

OK, Scott, give me a industry that you interacted with today.

Gutter cleaning.

Russell, give me the last business that you interacted with that royally screwed you over.

I got really screwed over by Amazon.

They left it in the rain.

That's fine.

How could Amazon integrate gutter cleaning services?

You know, I robot, the people who make room was used to have a gutter cleaning bot and they had one model and I tried to buy it and then it was like discontinued and they've never made one again.

It looked like a long, skinny square, like a brick kinda.

And at the front it had a little propeller rotor and you'd stick it on one end of the gutter.

They would just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom and like push it, flipping the stuff out as it went across.

And it looked awesome.

And nobody has ever made one again, to my knowledge.

And I tried to buy one.

I can't.

Yes, Amazon needs to make Alexa enabled Alexa clean my gutters

better cleaning.

All I'm picturing is like getting a notification on my

Amazon app to be like your gutters are cleaned and then I

come home and my gutters are just gone.

Dude, that's exactly what I robot does like half the time

your vacuums underneath your like upside down in your car.

Yeah.

How did you get in this position?

How did you climb the stairs?

This is how Amazon does it.

They pour a little bit of gasoline down the drain,

light a small fire, boom.

Okay?

(laughing)

Burn the debris.

- Someone wise once said,

"Wood and coal burn, gasoline explodes."

I don't know if gasoline's the move.

- Liquid coal.

- You probably want-- - Liquid coal.

- Yeah, just kerosene or something, yeah, right.

-Okay. -Controlled explosions to clean gutters.

-There we go. -Done by Jeff Bezos.

-Here's another way. -Okay.

-You get the Amazon drivers that are, you know, when they drop off a package.

-Put on your gloves.

Would you like to add on gutter cleaning for $20?

Hell yeah, I would.

I'm in prime.

-These poor drivers.

-Some guy's going to deliver your package just soaked in mud.

You're like, "Oh, the last guy must have."

-They'll also take out your trash and bring your kids to the daycare.

chimney cleaning are you sure neighbor that poor guy that's perfect man you

already got labor at your door just need them to stay a little longer thank you

for listening whoever enjoyed yourself our website is Spitball.show please we'd

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