Inside NELK’s $250,000,000 Empire (The Full Story)

All right, I want to know something: who right now is doing it like Milk? Nobody! There's nothing like us on the internet right now. Kyle's talked about it being worth a quarter million recently on a podcast. Um, I think Happy Dad alone this year will be worth 250 million. Wow! Evaluation, we're at the Full Sand Happy Dad headquarters in Orange County, California.

Okay, for those unaware, that's John Shahidi. Most people don't know this, but he's one of the masterminds behind the 250 million dollar business of Milk. And today, we're getting a behind-the-scenes look throughout their entire warehouse operation and strategy for soon running a billion dollar company. Enjoy!

This is cool! I love the Elon picture. That one’s, I think, one of the most magical moments of like Full Sand and Happy Dad. Every world just came together right here. I first saw Nelk, man, maybe a year before I actually met Nelk. Jake Paul actually still wanted to tell me, because I do, "You got to watch these guys!" He actually told me to go to their TikTok. He’s like, "Go to their TikTok." And yeah, that's when I started checking them out.

Then I brought up my brother. I was like, "Hey, have you heard of these guys that Jake's talking about? The Nelk Boys?" Yeah, of course! And I was like, "Dude, their TikToks are hilarious!" Like, their TikToks. He's like, "You should be watching their YouTube." And that was it. That was the beginning of it all.

Alright boys, so what made Milk stand out so much? Why did you want to work with them? They have the balance of reckless and fearless, Kyle. Alright, okay. They're not classless when it comes to things; they're just having a good time. And um, it's very unique. I think that's what makes Milk Milk and stand out so much more than anybody else.

You know, I think the Russia videos are a good example. I think one would think, "Oh, YouTubers going to Russia, they're going to do some stupid, you know." But um, that video, like, they went there, they respected everyone in Russia. They respected everyone, Islam's team, Hezbollah's team, everyone in Pakistan. You know, they went there and they really respected the people there.

And then you saw, like, behind the scenes of like a UFC fight and like a real fighter training. You just saw all these, then you also saw the boys having a good time together. Like, it was just like everything in one. We're here for the next two nights just to like hang with Islam and his camp, so I guess we're gonna train with them, do whatever they do. I don't know.

So this is wow! Yeah, this is the editing of Nelk, um, Folsom podcasts. A lot of the other podcasts that are coming. How many editors are in here? It's usually packed. It's usually, we have probably up to eight editors. Yeah, usually packed in here. This is the kitchen slash turning into a game room. Playing around with this room right now, we've had a lot of different ideas on what to do here. Do we create, make it a game room, or is it to get too loud? Um, did we make it a podcast set? You know, do we do some cooking shows out of here?

Um, alright hold on, I gotta try this now. Every single time I miss! No, no! Oh, I don't think I've made a single basket. Let's see, why did you decide to work with Nelk? What was the value that you brought?

It sounds weird to say this, but I really fell in love with Kyle, like, the person. Like, it was a sudden decision. It was like, "We're doing this that night!" Like, I was like, I told my brother, I was like, "Man, I love this guy! Like, I want to work with him." He's smart from a business standpoint. He thinks long term, but he also understands short term. Like, he knows things that'll hit now but also don't hurt him in the long run.

Uh, the opportunities were endless with this guy, and he's a very, very good person. And that to me was like that, it was really wanting to work with him. This is cool! So I love when you walk in, you just see this right here. Yeah, so this is the Happy Dad bar. Yesterday was Taco Tuesday, so the inventory is a little light.

How did the idea of Happy Dad come about? It was at that dinner that we had with Kyle. We were talking about creating a new product together and I told him, "You should have an alcohol! You should create an alcohol!" And he kind of rolled his eyes. I was like, "He's like, I hear that so much, but we never had the right partner." I was like, "Dude, I'm different than everyone else!" Like, he's like, "Yeah, he's like, no, I believe you! Like, if you can do it, do it!"

And reached out to a couple buddies of mine, the Bootel brothers. Story that I don't think I've ever told this story before, but maybe about 15 years ago or so, we had launched a tequila together. But we didn't have the marketing, we didn't know how to market it, so the company failed. So I called these guys and say, "Hey, what do you think about giving alcohol a chance again, but I need you guys to make an A plus product?"

Like, I got to, like, this is a crazy opportunity. We've got to make it a priority, but you got to make sure that it tastes great. These guys are not gonna want anything that tastes less than great. Brought them on board and I went back to Kyle's like, "Hey, I got the partners. In fact, we have samples, let's try them." We did that first sample, tasted great. I was like, "Alright, let's go!" And that's pretty much the beginning of Happy Dad.

We're gonna try out some tasting today, try some seltzers, talk about the business, kind of run through it for you guys so you understand a little more, kind of top to bottom, how it works. Any idea how much it's worth? Kyle's talked about it being worth a quarter million recently on a podcast. You know, so anyhow, I'll just call Kyle there.

Okay, these are the states that Happy Dad is currently in. This is kind of there to just remind me. I've been trying to educate myself on the population of every state, so I want to memorize that. These Latinx five states are launching next: Missouri, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Maryland. Canada’s going to be a big one! That one we're launching this summer, maybe even late spring. Yeah, that’s gonna be a big one! That’s gonna be crazy!

Do you guys self-fund this or did you have investors? We did no, no. So funded? So you guys own 100% of the company as of right now? Yeah, I think of the initial investment, which obviously returned pretty quick because um, the product sold so quick. You know, it’s about a million bucks. It’s actually not as much as I was expecting. I was thinking it should be like a five million dollar plus. It would have if we launched more states. We only launched the state of California first.

Yeah, about 18 months old now and you know, we’re still only in 16 states. But at the end of the day though, we also have control of the company. We decide what in the next flavors we decide if fruit punch is going to have blue, because everyone’s saying, "Oh no fruit punch should have been red." Guess what? It’s our number one selling product now! You know, we made that decision. We don’t have to go and ask anyone if that’s okay.

So I think, you know, that gives us the freedom. Or even on our socials, like, we don’t really have to get approval on what to post. We post what we want to post. Is him talking? Can I tell him to shut up? Well, he's probably getting us into some sort of crazy chain right now, is what he does, so that's why I can't like yell at him. But something, hey can one of you guys tell Steve Powell to either close this door or hush up? But don't distract them from whatever he's doing because it sounds like he's closing something big. Thanks, yeah!

This coming too, which I don’t think a lot of people have seen. This is uh, no, are you serious? So there’s a beef jerky that’s gonna be launched this summer! Everyone’s expecting Happy to come out with another alcohol. Yeah, but we’re gonna come out with another consumer goods product. Why jerky? You know, we have a lot of feet on the ground that visit the gas stations and the convenience stores.

Yeah, and we said, "Alright, so while we’re in the gas stations and we built all the relationships, the gas station convenience stores, independent liquor stores, or even grocery chains, what's another product there that we could actually get in that’s not alcohol that doesn’t compete with us?" Right? So with ourselves and um, we just felt the beef jerky space, like it’s just, no one’s really come in and made anything better than what’s pretty much offered.

Nelk’s business is really is merch. Um, e-commerce in general. Um, the stuff that we sell online, supplements as well. Yeah, the sponsorships that come in on the podcast as well. We don’t like to do too many of those. Kyle likes that, you know, he sees more value and I agree with him in like advertising our merch or some of our own products with the Full Sand Gray. We got the Full Sand Cold Beer and we got the new Milk Boys Cruise, super comfy, all made in Canada.

This is uh, some of the rules. Um, you know, the alcohol industry is very regulated. Some of these I would never think about, like, uh, do not post about Happy Dad before 12 P.M to not encourage morning drinking. It’s not even something I would ever think about. And then there’s the ones that like no giveaways related to Happy Dad. That one was literally written for Steve Will Do It, you know, because he loves giveaways.

Yeah, when he loves giving back, like, you know, but it’s like, dude, I got some bad news for you. Like, the giveaways you can do, but it can’t incentivize someone to buy alcohol. What do we have over here? We have a bit of a putting green. This is for the um, the boys. Kyle! Salim! Are you any good? Me? No, not someone, not, not a golf!

Yeah, how’d that work out? We are hiring five to seven new people every week to two weeks right now. This second we’re at somewhere around 50 employees. Okay, um, in November we were at 16. A year ago this time I think we were at five. Well, we have the YouTube channel. Yeah, Kyle’s Channel! Merch, the Happy Dad drink now sold out all of California in two hours!

What are some of the biggest challenges in running the business? One is like the product is wanted almost everywhere but we’re not available everywhere. It’s a good problem to have, but it could only have that problem for so long. You know, one thing we’ve learned about Happy Dad, if it’s seen, it’s purchased. You know, when you go on like our Instagrams and you see like these store displays, those displays are usually wiped within like a day or two.

Like, because when they’re displayed properly, people buy it! It’s just, people aren’t necessarily always looking for it, because they’re assuming it’s not available at that store because they’ve heard about our inventory shortages or you know, how quick it sells or just it wasn’t available at this chain or at this in the state or whatever it is.

ATM machine, we’re thinking about putting these in some of the bars and restaurants that carry Happy Dad. This is one that we’re kind of experimenting with. It’s actually a fan that pitched us the idea, which is actually what board jerky was, was another fan who pitched us the idea. I didn’t know, there’s no cash in it!

So I was like, you know what? I need some quick cash. And you know, you would think like an ATM machine, like if there’s no cash, it doesn’t withdraw from your account. So it never gave me that cash. I said it was out, and I looked at my bank account and withdrew the money. So someone took it! I think it was like 200 bucks! Someone took the money.

One thing people don’t know about Milk is behind the scenes. These guys love each other! Like, these guys will do anything for one another. If Kyle would have heard he’s in Israel that I’m having a bad day, I would have got, you know, someone would have said like, "Yo, John’s feeling down." I would have, I know I would get like a random text from like, "Hey bro, checking on you! How’s everything?" You know what I mean?

And that’s and it’s like, and it goes both ways. If he’s having a bad day, if he’s having his moments. And that’s one thing people don’t know, it’s like, it’s a real friendship. This is not just for the camera. Yeah, and that goes back to the thing I was saying earlier, it's like this is why I love being here. It’s like these guys are like my real friends. They're not just creators who are just like, "Oh yeah, John’s connected, John knows this person, that person on let’s have John around because he could get this person on the podcast." Like, that’s not really about that.

I think that’s a plus, but I think they really care and love me, and I feel the same with them. Hey, so one more thing I want to add! It’s Sunday night, I'm trying to get this out as fast as possible. If you guys enjoy this video, it would mean a lot to me if you hit the like button and subscribe! Tell them about the free stuff!

Oh, also there’s a free stock down below in the description with our sponsor public.com. Just use the code Gram and make a deposit because that could be worth all the way up to a thousand dollars! Again, the link is down below. Thank you guys so much and until next time!