Finding +$1M Businesses From Weird Trends (#523)

Shaan Puri

Okay, so we've talked about one-chart businesses before. This is the idea that you could be the "midwit" in the midwit meme, where you have to explain and analyze, then give ten reasons why this might be a good idea—the pros and the cons. You're overanalyzing it. Or you could just be the badass—the Jedi—who puts the one chart up and says, "This is why I'm doing what I'm doing."

Sam Parr

Alright, we're back! It's just Sam and Sean. The band's back together for the first time in a long time. You have a bunch of topics, but I want to kick us off. Can I kick us off?

Shaan Puri

okay go

Sam Parr

have you ever read the book 48 laws of power

Shaan Puri

I've never actually read it but I've read some of the laws

Sam Parr

It's a wonderful book. It's cool, and there's one law—law number 25—that says something like, "Be able to reinvent yourself." The author states, "Recreate yourself with a powerful new image that stands out and draws attention rather than letting others define you. Then change your appearance and emotions to suit the occasion or stage, riveting dramas as backdrops for your actions." I love this book, and that's law number 25, where he talks about changing your image. There's a person I’ve recently discovered who has done this excellently, and I think you and I can learn a lot from him. So, there's a rumor about this guy: they say that if you arrange seats like a boardroom, he magically appears. Now, listen to his background. He graduated from Stanford, then he went on to join Google at the age of 22, where he was the lead product manager and helped create Google Maps. After that, he started a social networking site called FriendFeed, which he sold to Facebook. Facebook incorporated it, and one of the big things they took from it was the creation of the "like" button. He sold that for about $50 million. A few years later, he became the CTO of Facebook. After that, he founded a company that I can best describe as a note-taking company, but for enterprises. He sold that to Salesforce for $750 million. After a couple of years, he became co-CEO of Salesforce, which I think is worth around $100 billion—one of the biggest companies in the world. Then, he became chairman of the board at Twitter. He's also the chairman of another really large publicly traded company that many people haven't heard of; they make security cameras. He's on the board at Shopify, and last night, he was named chairman of the board of OpenAI. This guy is amazing, and he's only 43 years old. Do you know who I'm talking about?

Shaan Puri

the one and only brett taylor

Sam Parr

that's right dude have you ever like spoke or hung out with this guy

Shaan Puri

I had dinner once where he was there, but we were on opposite ends of the table. He was at the far end of the head of the table, and I was at the far end of the head of the table the other way. It was like a slope of success; the most successful person was on that side of the table, and the least successful person was over here. I was like the bottom of the puddle at the bottom of the slide. He’s a good dude, though. He had good energy and good jokes. It seemed like a good time, but he also seemed like the guy that could flip a switch and be incredibly serious if he wanted to.

Sam Parr

so the this guy is so fascinating and I'll explain why but that's funny that you're at a dinner with him because he credits that as being one of his reasons why he is where he is and so starting at stanford and then at facebook he started attending these dinners and he said that like marissa mayer when she was early in her career would go to these dinners he said that sheryl sandberg was there he he like mark benioff or not mark benioff the guy started zynga was there he said that like all these amazing people would go there and that's actually how he got to know mark benioff from salesforce was at these dinners and I was doing research on this guy and there's very on brett and there's very little stuff about him there's not too much stuff about him for given how impactful he is and I found this old video about 15 or 10 years ago with him and mark zuckerberg they're sitting at a table and they're it's almost like the like a post ufc fight press conference where they're just like sitting there and there's like reporters it's like really a press conference announcing the acquisition of facebook or a friend feed to facebook and he's wearing like a scruffy t shirt like he doesn't look good his hair is messy whatever he looks exactly like you would think an early facebook engineer looks and so I watch this video and then I see another video on youtube where it's with him and the figma founder at a conference and he's wearing something like what what I'm wearing which is like he looks like a corporate guy but he's still got charisma and the founder of figma dylan he asked him like what's been your biggest learning of your career and brett goes well you know I remember being at facebook and I was like it it just wasn't working out for some reason and sheryl sandberg said something to me that like changed my perspective and the next day I said to myself instead of getting the company to change to me I'm gonna change to do whatever the company or job that I'm at needs to have whether that means how I dress how I act and what you what you notice is a shift in his demeanor all the way from how he dresses so he starts wearing different clothing sometimes when he's supposed to be this like tech nerd and someone wants to come up to him with engineering advice you see him dressed like an engineer then he becomes salesforce ceo you see him start dressing different he's wearing the classic plaid shirt suit with brown shoes the classic sales look and it's really fascinating to see this guy's demeanor change and later on in some of these videos within these interviews the guy just like screams poise you know like when you think of the salesforce ceo you think of like one of these guys could be chair of a of an important board like twitter he just like scream like he definitely has charisma he's got poise he's not vulgar at all he's he he doesn't seem crazy emotional but he smiles at the right times and he dresses like the part and I thought it's really fascinating to see this guy's evolution and for him to say that at a conference and I thought it was exactly what robert greene talked about where he talks about reinventing yourself and a lot of times guys like you and me or people listening they think clothes don't matter they think you know I'm just gonna curse and people are gonna think that I'm real and all this stuff I've grown to think that's complete nonsense that like you know we act like we shouldn't play this bureaucratic political game but I think the more we deny it the the the more we actually need to embrace that and brett taylor is a really fascinating person because that's one of the examples that I've noticed with it

Shaan Puri

Your takeaway from this whole thing is that you tell this beautiful story and have these amazing points. But the big one that stood out to you was, "You gotta dress better." That was the whole thing.

Sam Parr

No, my... Is it that appearance and demeanor matter? Dress is one attribute of that. When I look at him, like, first of all, the guy's a genius. So when there's these stories about him, when he launched Google Maps, they're like, "The code sucked," and over the weekend, he rewrote it and it was awesome.

Hubspot

And by the way, the guy who tells that story is **Paul Buchheit**, the creator of **Gmail**. He built Gmail inside of Google and was one of the co-founders of **Y Combinator**. For Paul Buchheit to go and say, "Brett Taylor is not just a great engineer; he's not a 10x engineer. He might be a 100 or a 1000x engineer. He's that good," to get a compliment like that is significant. I mean, it's like **Picasso** saying, "You know, this guy's handy with the brush." That means something, depending on who it comes from—somebody who actually worked side by side with him. I think they co-founded **FriendFeed** together. Also, our software is the worst. Have you heard of **HubSpot**? See, most CRMs are a cobbled-together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous. I think I love our new CRM. Our software is the best. **HubSpot: Grow Better.**

Sam Parr

Yeah, so he's a genius. There's no doubt about that. He's got that part down; that's 90% or 80% of this. I mean, he's brilliant. He does a really good job of making big shots like him. There's an example where Marc Benioff was like, "Yeah, I used to attend these dinners with him, and he did a great job of asking good questions."

Shaan Puri

Those dinners are hosted by Michael Birch. So, Michael Birch is the host of this CEO dinner. Reid Hoffman is in it, Brett Taylor is in it—that's how I got to go. I think we did an episode on this a long time ago called "I Went to a Billionaire's Dinner" or something like that. I got to go as a guest. Each time they host, there are the mainstays, which include Reid Hoffman and others. Then there's Mercer Myers in there. The host can invite young bucks—two or three guests, like new people, fresh blood into the mix. So, I was one of the fresh bloods, I guess, that time.

Sam Parr

was it awesome

Shaan Puri

Yeah, it was awesome. I mean, it was amazing. You know, it's amazing to be at that table. I guess the interesting thing was, like I've said before, if you want to stop making money the priority, hang out with people who have a lot of money. The conversation was not about business, money-making, the markets, or investing, or hot deals. These guys are like post-economic; they're past that. It's not that they don't do those things; it's just that it's like if somebody brought their to-do list to dinner. It's like, "Oh, come on, man! We're here to have a good time. What are you doing here?" So, all the conversation at dinner was about things that were non-financial. It's like you got your status by having non-financially related things to say, if that makes sense.

Sam Parr

yeah yeah yeah money was lower low on their hierarchy of needs

Shaan Puri

You were only addressing the low things that are super satisfying to them. But if you had a really unique experience, or you're like, "Oh dude, I take this drug. It's this... I lick the back of a horned toad and I trip out for 4 hours," everyone's like, "Tell me more!" It's like, wow, you guys really want to talk about tripping balls. It's like, yeah, that's what they want to talk about. There was a neuroscientist there who was talking about his lab where he studies the brain and the effects of both these drugs, but also a whole bunch of other interesting psych studies, essentially. Everybody's fascinated by the brain doc. It's like, you know, if Huberman was at the dinner, everybody wanted to hear Huberman. They didn't want to hear about this great private equity deal that you did and how you're getting a 45% cash-on-cash return. That just doesn't matter at that table. To me, that was the biggest takeaway. At these things, humor matters, stories matter, different things matter. But it's pretty interesting to hang out with people who have achieved all the things you want because they no longer care about all these things. It's a good reminder that you shouldn't get too wrapped up in just the business. I am a business nerd; I do like that stuff. But the people who have played this game at the highest level, their game is now about a variety of experiences and totally non-financially related things that they talk about. By the way, sorry, one last thing...

Shaan Puri

On that note, if we hang out in a group of our peers, how many times is the conversation about who knows what? You know, content and followers, investments, deals they're doing, or businesses that they're bootstrapping or creating? It's just the contrast between our group, which is kind of in the early thirties age range, and these guys who are all probably closer to 50. In that 20 years, I think what changes is that if you're talking about how this piece of content went viral and popped off, and you got all these followers, you're literally a loser if you're talking about that at that table. So, at each table, what's the discussion like?

Sam Parr

well and the minimum net worth at that table was probably $500,000,000

Shaan Puri

well I was there so no the minimum was lower than that but the median was probably that yes

Sam Parr

Well, when you were there, here’s one of the reasons why I’m fascinated with this person, Brett. It’s because smart people referred him. When I think about it, I’m not in the league where I even totally understand the chairman of the board and how it interacts with the CEO of a large company. But I imagine that it’s like part therapist, where you don’t really need the answer, but you’re good at asking the right questions. In order to be a good therapist, you have to have this image, a reputation, and a track record of like, “This guy somehow helps me get to the right answer.” He has that sensei vibe. I don’t know if he’s particularly smarter than anyone else at that table. I imagine they were all just the best of the best. Was there something about his energy that stood out, or was everyone quite good at that?

Shaan Puri

he was very poised he had a booming laugh and at about 2 hours into the dinner he was like that's all for me boys jacket on left and like and the dinner like dragged on for like you know another hour and people trickled out from there but he was sort of like I've had a great dinner I also have things to do and I own my time and my schedule I'm out of here and I thought that was like a very obvious like it's like a very obvious moment where he was like cool I've you know 80% of the meat is off the bone now fantastic you know I got kids I got I got a board we go go beyond or whatever and he bounced it was just gonna that part was kinda funny but again I was on the other side of the table I didn't talk to him directly too much I will say a couple of things so I think your reinvent yourself is actually the right takeaway I think this guy's had a prolific career as a pm at Google then a start up founder then cto of facebook then start up founder again but now b 2b enterprise and then sold that to to salesforce and you know they they kind of marc benioff was basically grooming him to like to you know take it over even the twitter thing he's not just a board member like he was the board member that basically forced elon to stick to his offer he stood up to elon and and basically forced elon to buy and got an amazing deal for the twitter shareholders whereas you know elon was applying a lot of pressure at that time to and and brett stood up to him in a way and he's just a trusted neutral third party like in crypto this happened where there was this one guy who was this like meme poster but the whole community just trusted this guy because he had been in it for a long time he had because he had been in it for a long time he'd already gotten rich in crypto so it didn't seem like he was trying to get rich off anybody or make a buck off anybody he had a podcast that people heard him talk it's got kobe and he had a podcast that people heard him talk all the time and so whenever somebody needed to make a deal and crypto is like a bet like a $10,000,000 bet they would just wire the $10,000,000 to kobe as a trusted neutral third party and I said that was kind of amazing like this guy there's no contract there's no nothing it's just a social social reputation and I think that's the brett taylor thing like they brought him into this open ai thing because he has a social reputation people find him where they need somebody who's gonna be a you know a voice of reason a stable third party a trusted neutral voice and that's that's just an interesting job to be done so so yeah I think this guy is very fascinating

Sam Parr

My intention is to do the right thing. It's actually not terribly challenging. To be this Kobe guy, where you're trusted, is like, well, you just have to follow through no matter what. Carefully crafting a reputation, I think, takes a lot of discipline, and I find that to be challenging. I'm really fascinated by these guys who are able to do that. You have to have a lot of discipline. You can't let anything slide; everything matters, whether it's your dress or your website.

Shaan Puri

All that stuff about dressing well right now, and you're looking for examples. You're like, "See, that justifies my enthusiasm around this right now."

Sam Parr

let me give you another example so josh kushner

Shaan Puri

Wait, wait, hold on, hold on. True or false: you had decided you wanted us to level up your style before you had this epiphany about Brett Taylor, correct? Like, every recently, like the last few months?

Sam Parr

Somewhat, I want to figure out how to become... I want to level up my life, and dressing is one way to do that. What did Deion Sanders say? He said, "Dress good, look good, feel good, play good." That type of vibe.

Shaan Puri

okay fair enough

Sam Parr

Fair enough. Another example is Josh Kushner. A lot of people know the Kushners because Jared Kushner was... I don't even know what his role was in the Trump administration. But Josh Kushner is another guy who's really fascinating. He has a similar vibe. At 24 or 25, he started Thrive Capital. I mean, he came from wealth, so it's not like he came from nothing. But he raised money from, I think, Benchmark or General Catalyst in order to create this venture fund. He invested in Instagram, and a few years later, he started Oscar, which went on to become a multibillion-dollar health tech, I think health insurance, business. He started... what was the other one? It's not Compass; it's another real estate investment platform that is a fairly large company. Throughout this OpenAI drama, as well as other stuff, he's been in the mix. He's done a really good job of building up this reputation. If you go to Thrive, I think it's ThriveCapital.com, their website says nothing. It literally just says "Thrive Capital." You can't... like, the guy... but here's the thing: he does zero flexing, which in itself is the flex. That, in itself, is like the reputation building. Do you know what I mean? I find it fascinating to figure out how people are shaping their image and how deliberate they are being. Both of these guys' examples, I think they're very deliberate. Even if they try to give the image that they're not trying, that in itself is trying. You know what I mean? Let me give...

Shaan Puri

You a different example. So, a different guy, very successful, who has reinvented himself. In my opinion, this is like doing money the right way. This is what I want all my rich people to go do. Not all. If you're just wired like a psychopath, you gotta go keep creating. You're Elon Musk; you gotta go keep creating the next big thing. Alright, fair enough. But here's something I do like. So, the traditional money path in our world is: you start a company, you grind it out for 7, 8, or 10 years, you sell it, and then you're rich. You take a year off, you travel, you get interested in health, you go on a health kick for a little bit, and you spend time with your kids. And they're just like, "Okay, this is cool, but I kinda like this in small doses." Alright, I guess I'll now start investing. I'm a VC. I think I start... the vest materializes on top of your chest magically, and you're like, "Should I be on the board of this company? Am I Brett Taylor?" You're on boards, you're writing important checks into important groundbreaking companies, and that's your life. Then you just do that life for a while, and then you...

Sam Parr

you say things like my founders or one of our founders is doing this yeah

Shaan Puri

You start using the royal "we" as if you're involved with those companies. You know, your 5-year-old is paying $82,000 a year to send her to kindergarten in San Francisco. You made a donation, and there's a bench in the library with your name on it. Although they kind of promised that the whole library would be named after you, it's just a bench, and you're a little bit pissed off about that. But you don't want to say anything; let's not cause a scene. So, you know, this is your life. And here's an alternative: okay, you are TJ Parker. Do you know who TJ Parker is?

Sam Parr

no who's this

Shaan Puri

TJ Parker was the founder of PillPack. He looked like he might be going down this path. He starts PillPack, you know, to "democratize the pills" or something. I don't know what the tagline was, but he starts PillPack, and it's some sort of pharmaceutical online pharmacy type thing. He sells it to Amazon for $1,000,000,000. Okay, stage one complete. He becomes a VC immediately, stage two complete. But then he starts doing some dope stuff. If you go to TJ Parker's website, you can see some of the dope stuff he's doing.

Sam Parr

looks and he looks cool

Shaan Puri

looks cool first of all looks more like wim hof than he does jamie dimon so you already know this guy's going in the health kick you know the right direction he's out in nature he's barefoot sometimes like he's doing that kind of thing so check out this thing called the warehouse if you're one of these people who's into dope cars which I'm not but but you know you you kind of are you're into these like cool you know old fashioned cars and stuff like that you need you need a place to store it and a lot of people do the jay leno thing and they get like an elevator in their garage and they try to stack 4 cars in their garage 8 cars in their garages it just gets tough so instead they built a beautiful warehouse to park and store your beautiful cars and you could share it with other people but they're like cool guess what you guys will all probably get along too this is not just storage so first they were like we're not just gonna store cars you might have some wine guess what 25 100 wine cellar temperature controlled humidity controlled beautiful wine cellar here too so store your wine store your cars and come hang out come hang out we got a cigar bar we got art displays we'll watch the games together and it's a car social club so it's basically soho house for dudes with a little grease on their hands and I love this idea this is a brilliant idea and the photos make it look so badass I don't even like cars and I saw these pictures and I was just like I guess like hey drek here clear my calendar I gotta go learn how an axle works like I I wanna be a part of this just on seeing the photos and so I think this is a brilliant idea I think this could franchise and be across the country I think you could have you know locations all all across the country for this I think guys need community friendships male bonding and but they don't wanna you know it's like guys will start a podcast instead of do therapy guys will join us get a car hobby and drop you know $300,000 on cars and join a car club rather than you know go to go to men go to a men's group and they will function as such and so I think this is a brilliant idea that has national no wait international consequences if they wanna roll it out

Sam Parr

where is this it looks like so they don't say the location exactly

Shaan Puri

It's in Utah because that's where this guy is. Also, classic move picking Utah. Here are some of the other projects he's working on. If you go to just teacherparker.com/backslash/current-projects, you'll see what he's got going on. He's producing a documentary—dope! Love that—on cars. He also has a company that makes really high-quality bags and gear for people who are going outdoors. He's like, "Look, we're going to hold the quality bar." This company is called Lazy Sun. He owns a 12-acre farm and says, "Yeah, farming? I do that too. I'm a gentleman farmer." This guy is doing even better. He has a business that goes to children's hospitals and transforms them into art galleries for the day. This way, the kids have something awesome to see. He believes he can heal kids through art, capturing their imagination and distracting them from the mundane. If you've ever been in a hospital environment, it's one of the worst environments—it does not pass the vibe check. The fact that he's like, "Oh yeah, we're going to do these pop-up art exhibits inside children's museums to shift the vibe," I really respect that. So, this is a guy who is successful but uses his money and time to craft a dope life around the hobbies he loves. He went the Joe Rogan path versus the Elon Musk path, which is all about working 95 hours a week for bigger, better, more money, more fame, more power, more prestige, and more suffering. I just resonate more with the T.J. Parker path.

Sam Parr

Well, by the way, I'm not saying necessarily that I think the Brett Taylor path is... I just, I guess what I'm saying is I appreciate paths. I appreciate people who do the damn thing. You know, I can get as much inspiration from an artist as I can from a billionaire. Just people who put their stake in the ground and say, "This is what I am and I'm doing it." Yeah, yeah. How much do you think this guy... so they raised $100,000,000 and sold for $1,000,000,000. Was he the only founder?

Shaan Puri

I think there was 2 guys

Sam Parr

wow

Shaan Puri

okay this guy right

Sam Parr

this is amazing

Shaan Puri

By the way, one of the things that both of us really like to do, that I don't think we really put a name on, is I am fascinated by... If I could say what is the number one thing I am looking for in life, what are you looking for? Are you looking for a partner, a project, a way to make a buck, or a way to get famous? No, no, no. I am searching long and hard for people who I think are playing the right game the right way. So, I'm interested in different blueprints of what people are doing with their time and their talent. O'Brien Johnson said, "I'm gonna fucking donate my body to science while I'm alive." He's trying to reverse age, which is like just a badass science experiment mixed with a badass health kick and investment in himself, mixed with just, you know, picking a project that was not another business. I think that's cool, but it's not for me. And I think what you described, you know, the Brett Taylor, where you start multiple companies, become a board member, and become this respected luminary of Silicon Valley, and you're the CEO of a publicly traded company... Cool game, definitely not for me. And you know, you see some guys who are like, "I'm gonna tweet every day, and I'm gonna be super consistent, and I'm gonna do this." Not for me. But if you and I just look around, I see I'm looking for people who are playing a beautiful game. The sad thing is, for me, it's very hard to...

Shaan Puri

To somebody, I can't give you names. I'm looking hard for this, and I can't name more than like 2 or 3 people whose game I really respect. I think, "Oh, they have a great blueprint for what they're doing in life." I think that's the most important thing because once you have that blueprint...

Sam Parr

blueprint for you for you

Shaan Puri

For myself, yeah, like, you know, I really like how this person has architected their life. I like what they're working on. They seem to be really happy. They have a great mix of family, fun, challenge, and whatever else. They're doing good in the world in their own way. I want to see examples of people doing that really well. So, I think when you bring up Brett Taylor or TJ Parker, these are part of that search I have, that quest I have. It's the thing I am most interested in right now. I think that once you get past the stage where your needs are fulfilled, instead of striving for "fuck you" money, you should strive for what is the right game to be playing. What is a great way to use this thing called life? Get inspiration from a bunch of people, then sort of craft your own version of that. That's what I'm trying to do, at least.

Sam Parr

No, and that's exactly the point I was trying to make. Whoever we talk about, I don't necessarily want to emulate that, but I emulate the people who are making the life that they have chosen to create. I consider that to be success. One thing that I've learned from hanging out with some of these people I admire is that even though it looks amazing on the outside, everyone still has similar issues, whether it's family issues or pressure from this or that. I always enjoy getting to know these people. For example, Rob Dyrdek—I’ve loved having him on, and I've been able to talk to him once or twice afterwards. It's like everyone's "stuff" still stinks once in a while, though. That realization has given me a ton of confidence and actually made me happier. You know what I'm saying?

Shaan Puri

right right right

Sam Parr

what do

Shaan Puri

You wanna do? Alright, I'm going to do a quick one. So, this is called the **Doctor Dre question**, and this is a question that is useful when you are hiring. I was watching this old Tim Ferriss episode where he interviewed this guy that I'd never even heard of, **Cal Fussman**. You know this guy?

Sam Parr

is he a journalist

Shaan Puri

he was kind of like a journalist or he's like a writer but basically he's like a man who lived a very interesting life like he boxed julio chavez and like he did like a bunch of interesting things during his life and so anyways old episode tim ferriss actually it's a very good episode and one of the things he talks about is so his his things like you know the art of asking questions and you know one thing I like to do is study people's lives another thing is I like to call I'm a collector of questions a great question is like very valuable to me so I was interested in this episode and during it they say there's a part where they go okay you know you've talked to him about asking questions what's you know who who have you helped you know who's come to you for help with asking questions he describes a a a set of founders and they said they said you know we have this problem with our company we are super passionate about our business but when we're hiring we don't know what to add we're we're like kind of hiring the wrong people because we just can't seem to find people that are as passionate about our business as we are and like on one hand we could say maybe just nobody's gonna be as passionate about our own business as we are but we just want people at least close to it right like people just have a lot of passion we don't know how to filter for that because if you ask somebody you're passionate they say yes so what do we do and he goes he goes oh that's easy just ask them the doctor dre question and he goes he goes here's the story he goes I was interviewing doctor dre when he was like a journalist and he's like I said to him what's hey dre doc what's the longest that you've gone what's the longest that you've gone on on a project without sleeping and he goes oh man when I'm really into something I care about I'm in the zone I don't even think about sleep I forget to sleep I'll just keep going until it's done or till I you know pass it could be 20 72 hours and he goes so I thought I took that idea 72 hours he goes just ask that ask the person this what's the longest you've ever gone on a project you were passionate about without sleep and their answer will tell you a lot either they'll struggle to even come up with a number because they don't they've ever actually had an obsession a project they're so passionate about that they kind of became a degenerate they let other parts of their life go like sleeping and eating and talking to people and answering the phone and they just got completely lost in it either they'll that will be unfamiliar to them or it'll be familiar to them and you'll be able to tell that right away so that's a fork in the road and he goes and then it'll tell you a lot about the person if they say you know what I get 8 hours of sleep every night because that's I function best when I'm like that and I'm fully charged and you'll know okay you might not be the right person for this you might be right you know that's what I want my cfo but it might not be who I want as my you know head of product right hand man during you know we're all figuring out this project from scratch and so the doctor dre question I thought is a wonderful little thing I'm stealing a question I've collected in terms of being able to find the people that have that same streak of obsession and degeneracy that is like if you have that it's a very high likelihood that we can work together or we get a what's your answer

Sam Parr

what's your answer

Shaan Puri

48 hours would be mine. I've never done 72, not even close, but 48 hours for sure, multiple times. The funny thing is, it's on really stupid stuff. Like, I basically did that with that "All In" video the other day. I was up all night editing it because I was like, "I just want to ship this. I'm going to finish this." I also didn't want to work on this for more than a day, so I decided to work nonstop for 24 hours on it. That day, I was a bad dad, a bad husband, bad at fitness, bad at sleep, and bad at eating. But I was **amazing** at that video. That's happened to me many times in my life. I remember when we were doing our first startup. Many times, my buddy Trevor and I would stay up. Trevor's answer would be more like 72 hours, but we would stay up. We'd see a cool commercial and I'd say, "Can we recreate that?" It was like, "I don't know, download Adobe. Let's find a cracked version of Adobe on Napster and download this stuff." Then we'd say, "Okay, Adobe Fireworks is a way that you can animate something." We would sit there, try to learn it, watching tutorials, and just try to get better at it. I would pass out and go to sleep after the storytelling part was done, and Trevor would stay up. He taught himself Photoshop and After Effects and all these things. But he didn't teach himself over years; he taught himself on like four projects that were just these 72-hour binges. After that, he just knew how to use those tools. Now, his whole career is like that. But at the time, it was unnecessary. We weren't getting paid for it, and the things we made weren't even that good. They were still kind of janky, but it doesn't matter.

Sam Parr

is is 72 hours 3 nights is that 3 nights

Shaan Puri

I think you... So I would count 72 hours as you basically wake up, work, skip that first night of sleep, work through the next day, skip the next night, or get a couple of hours the next night. Then you wake up and finish the next day.

Sam Parr

That's insane! I mean, I've done overnight stuff a bunch of times.

Shaan Puri

an all nighter

Sam Parr

Right, yeah, an all-nighter and then all day the next day. But usually, it's like I've been at the office and I'll sleep on the couch in the office for like from 4 to 8 or something like that. So it's really hard to do an overnight shift and then keep going the next day. That's challenging. Maybe it'll be like 3 hours. I've done overnight stuff a bunch of times, but it's hard to go more than that.

Shaan Puri

Let's say you had a New Year's Eve party that was going to get a little crazy. You have this friend, and you're like, "Okay, I hope it's not too crazy for my friend." If you just asked him the version of the doctor questions, it's like, "Hey, have you ever blacked out when you drink?" If they're like, "No" or "One time," it's like, "You should probably hang back from this party." But if they're like, "Oh, dude, embarrassing number of times. I can't count the number of times," then you can talk about how it happens. You know, there was a phase in my life when it happened a lot, and now it happens less. It's like, "Okay, you should come to this party; you'll have a good time." There’s a version of the doctor questions for partying, and there's a version for parenting. I know a version of the question for parenting is, "What's the grossest thing your kids have ever done?" If they're like, "Oh, where do I start? When they licked the urinal? When they decided to roll around on the ground at the airport?" This is like a constant stream of fiascos. I've had experiences like, "Oh, well, they pooped in my bare hand because I couldn't find the diaper in time." Yeah, these things happen. I'm a seasoned parent; I've been through the wars of parenting. You can tell a first-time parent versus a second-time parent based on the number of stories they have.

Sam Parr

In college, when I was a degenerate, my friends and I used to say, "What's the best way to get through a blackout and manage it effectively?" **Practice.** We would practice all the time. "Who's the most experienced? Alright, we want to do another one."

Shaan Puri

Yeah, yeah, I got another one. Okay, so we've talked about one-chart businesses before. This is the idea that you could be the "midwit" in the midwit meme, where you have to explain and analyze, then give ten reasons why this might be a good idea—the pros and the cons—and you're overanalyzing it. Or you could just be the badass, the Jedi, who puts the one chart up and says, "This is why I'm doing what I'm doing." The first example we gave of this was... what's it called when you don't get buried? **Cremation.** It was like a chart of the percentage of funerals where people are choosing to be cremated. It went from 10% to over 50%. The guy sent us the pitch deck and was like, "Yeah, we made cremation easy, but this one chart is the reason for our business's existence. This is our business plan. We are gonna ride this wave." You've talked about how Jeff Bezos did that about the internet. Why did he quit his job in finance to start an internet company? Because the internet was growing 23,000% a year or something like that. He said, "Nothing grows that fast except for bacteria in a petri dish, so I'm gonna go surf that wave."

Sam Parr

Yeah, I mean, there's the internet and mobile phones, you know, like those big ones. But cremation was a smaller one that wasn't as obvious. What are you saying is the other one?

Shaan Puri

So, there's a new chart I saw yesterday that is not as strong as those but is legit. It's about the growth in homeschooling. We kind of knew when COVID happened that there were a bunch of people creating little homeschools or whatever because schools were closed. What were you going to do? But it's actually sustained. Now, the 2023 data is out, and homeschooling has grown, I think, like 40 to 50% year over year for three straight years. That's pretty aggressive. Public schooling is growing at, you know, whatever, 3%. Private schooling is at 7%. But homeschooling is at 40 to 50% every year, compounded for three years. I don't know if that's going to continue or not, but let's assume that it might. That means a whole bunch of businesses that were not really viable or were too niche are now perfectly niche. So, there's this trend of microschools. I think OutSchool has grown like crazy.

Sam Parr

yeah is is a microschool considered homeschooling

Shaan Puri

So, there's homeschooling. Traditional homeschooling is like, "Jenny's at home, I'm just going to teach her myself. We're going to print out worksheets, and she's going to do them." I'm the teacher. Then there's micro schools, which exist for a variety of reasons. Some people don't want their kids to go to traditional school. For some, it was COVID; for others, it was school shootings. Some parents are concerned about the quality of instruction, while others worry about social peer pressure and bullying. There are a whole bunch of reasons why people might want to take their kids out of traditional schools. A micro school is where you hire a teacher. It's typically six families that get together and say, "Hey, for the cost of private school, we can actually just have a literal private school. We can have our own pod here."

Sam Parr

like a a higher teacher

Shaan Puri

A higher gun teacher makes double what they would earn in a public school. So, instead of making, say, $50,000 a year, they make $100,000 a year. This means we can get a great teacher and pay them extremely well. They only have six kids to worry about, allowing them to invest deeply in each student. The teacher-student ratio is going to be really good. Instead of one teacher for 25 kids in a class, there will be one teacher for six. The children will have friends and socialize, so it's not like homeschooling; they still get the socializing aspect of it. The age range of the children is usually a bit broader, maybe like a year and a half to two years. There will also be an indoor-outdoor component. Sometimes they have a dedicated facility, and other times it's in a backyard, rotating through the parents' backyards. Sometimes it's a mix of indoor activities, followed by long walks, hikes, or playground time. The teacher takes them indoors and outdoors, providing a better mix than just sitting at a desk all day. This makes all the sense in the world to me. I'm actually super interested in doing this; I think it's a pretty dope idea. There's also a business called Primer that Ryan Delk started. Are you familiar with Ryan Delk and Primer?

Sam Parr

Yeah, Ryan... Ryan's cool. I like Ryan a lot. But his company that he started pre-COVID, it was that company, right? It was... it was homeschool.

Shaan Puri

I think they pivoted they started with more of that traditional homeschool like what do you do if you're if you're actually at home and then now it's pivoted last year to I I think it's pivoted to my these micro schools and it's basically like an operating system it's like hey if you're a teacher push this button it's like stripe atlas like you could spin up your micro school it'll be compliant with your state's regulations you'll be able to accept all the school's choice vouchers so that's the other one chart in this is that the number of like I don't know this space very well so I might get this slightly wrong but apparently there's like a school's choice angle where like as a parent you get like a $10,000 voucher and you get to go shop around and figure out what school is the most worthy of getting your tuition so this the government instead of just paying the public school pays the family the family shops around with that voucher and picks the school that's doing the best or that sells themselves the best in order to send their kid there and so the schools have to kinda earn all the federal funding or state funding that they're getting from from the government makes a lot of sense so now that thing is on the rise like the number of states that do this voucher program has gone up and up and up like crazy and there's now thousands of you know whatever you know these like vouchers that are very high ticket vouchers so if you build a successful school you can attract these vouchers you could basically get a bunch of revenue that the government has given the families to pay you and so what primer does is they're like alright spin up a school be compliant accept vouchers and have like your website have all that shit done for you your back end parents here's a parent portal students here's a student portal we are the operating system for micro schools I think they have like 3 micro schools now they're trying to get to like 6 and then they're gonna get to like 18 and you know each of these micro schools basically generates like I don't know 75 k profit for the the owner right now or could become a 100 k of profit for the micro school owner after you pay the teacher so let's say you you might if you're the teacher and you do this you might be able to make 75 to a 100 k on the teacher wage + another 75 to a 100 k for your little franchise school your the the little chipotle that you built here and so I think this is kind of a cool trend and I'm I don't know if their company is gonna be the the winner or like what's the right wedge to attack here like I would invest in this yeah

Sam Parr

it's gonna ask is this

Shaan Puri

The team is too legit. The price is going to be too high. They've already raised a bunch of money because they've been going at this for years, and he's very well connected to Silicon Valley. I don't even know the price, but I already know it's too high for me. However, I think this idea is actually really great and highly investable because of where the puck is going.

Sam Parr

would you say are you gonna your your kids are gonna be close to school age are you gonna consider this

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I definitely want to consider this. I want to either make my own pod or find a school or a pod that's around here. My daughter's about to go to school, and she currently goes to preschool two days a week for three hours, just to get acclimated. It's kind of underwhelming when you go because you're like, "Oh, this is like... you could pick up the toy and be like, 'This is from 1984.' Is there new stuff anywhere here?" You know, that one teacher is supposed to manage all of them. That's tough, right? A 10 to 1 teacher-student ratio sounds really high. I guess I could shop around and try to figure this out, but I don't know. I'm willing to be sold by a service like this. I'm ready, and I think a lot of people will be too.

Sam Parr

Yeah, I'm well. So, I went to private school almost my whole life in Saint Louis. You go to private school, and private school sounds a lot fancier than I'm describing, but my grade school was like $800 a year. Then I think my high school was like $10,000 a year. Nowadays, I met like a lot of private high schools are like $50,000, which is crazy. Mine was nothing like that. But what I loved most about it was that the teachers could do things to me that public school teachers couldn't. Whoa, yeah, that sounds weird when I say it, but when I was being an asshole, I remember one teacher. I was in the hallway, and I was being rude. He kind of pushed me against the locker and said, "What the fuck is your problem?" He grabbed me by the collar, and I felt a little bit of fear. I remember thinking, "Alright, if I act up, there are going to be consequences." Whereas my mother was a public school teacher, and she mostly worked with handicapped kids. There'd be times where the kids would literally shit themselves, and she'd say, "I can't go to the bathroom with you. I'm not allowed." I remember the difference in how much they could care and where that line was, and it made a big difference to me.

Shaan Puri

so with the private school that was allowed or this teacher just crossed the line and it happened because sounds like that's

Sam Parr

probably allowed to grab a

Shaan Puri

kid by the collar shove them in the locker and be like hey get your shit together the way that I'm describing

Sam Parr

It's a little bit more serious than it actually was, but I remember doing something stupid in the locker in the hallway. The teacher just got in my face and kind of pushed me—not aggressively, just enough to say, "What the hell is your problem?" There were other times when I got in trouble at home, and I had to go to the teacher in private school and tell them what was up. They were like, "Alright, we'll help you out." I just remember the line was different. By the way, in high school, I went to an all-boys school, which I freaking loved. All-boys schools are awesome! I remember being in 9th grade, and the captain of the football team could also be in a play. When kids came out as being gay, at first, we thought, "Oh, we're going to tease them," but then it was like, "No, we are not here to impress a girl. We can all be homies and buddies." There wasn't as much of a cool kid club. Anyway, I loved all-boys schools. In private school, they could do things that my public school teacher mother couldn't do, even though I felt it was incredibly necessary. The rules were different, and I really appreciated that private school environment. So, we're debating at home—though we have plenty of time—about what we're going to do with our kids. I'm considering private school, or I would totally do one of these micro schools. I think that's awesome! The only downside is, "Are you going to be a weirdo?" You know what I mean? That is my biggest fear: "Are you going to be the wrong type of weird?"

Shaan Puri

At least they're with other kids, right? It might not be... you know, because I remember a lot of the source of social anxiety when I was a kid was the fact that I felt like I was... you know, have you ever watched "Finding Nemo"? Where he's looking around and all the other fish are swimming really fast with nowhere to go? That's how I felt most of school. I just felt like everybody else knew where to go, knew what to say, knew what to do, and I was just sort of lost, I guess. I don't think I was actually that much more lost than anybody else, but it certainly felt that way. Because it's so big, it's easy to be lost. It's easy to be lost in the shuffle. It's easy to just be quiet, and you know, the teachers would say, "He's just a quiet kid, that's it." You sort of give up on them; you just label them. That's who they are. I don't have time to go rescue every quiet kid and try to get them out of their shell. Whereas I think if you're in a school of like 6 to 8 kids, even if you're on the quieter side, I think the teacher and just the dynamics would allow you to come out of your own shell a little bit more. You could be more of a big fish in a small pond, and I think that's really good when you're trying to get your legs under you and trying to get your social legs under you.

Sam Parr

Yeah, I think for a lot of personalities, that could be beneficial. You and I have a friend whose kid went to an alternative style school where there was like no homework and no teachers; they were guides and all this. He was like, "Man, he's just lacking structure." So, he sends him to a Catholic school where it's like, you're there at 8, school ends at 3, and you have homework. The kid needed the structure; he needed the discipline, and he started thriving in it. I get nervous because a lot of people, they just need to learn how to, in order to be successful in life, figure out how to follow rules, how to work within the rules, and not be free-roaming all the time. They need to figure out how to master grade school so they can get into a good high school. They have to master high school just so they can get to a good college. Then, they have to do well in college just to get a job with a high starting salary. Then they're going to do that until 55 or 65, and then they're going to retire and have grandkids. For a lot of people, I think that linear route of discipline is the right decision. I get nervous with some of these schools that that would happen. Of course, you and I are always going to say our kids are going to be different, or we're in a different situation, and we're going to figure it out. Maybe that's true; maybe that's not true. But that's what I get nervous about with some of these schools.

Shaan Puri

yeah yeah I think it's definitely but you also wonder how much of it's self fulfilling meaning like how much of it is nature versus nurture and and and like if you had that environment or if you were if that was the expectation or the norm for you that you were not expected to go down that that linear path you just described then you'd be like well I guess that's what I'm doing like you know my wife she grew up and in her family everybody did business so for her even when she had a job in her head she's like oh this is the temporary part before I have my own business and sure enough now she has her own business like you know like that happened whereas for me I grew up every single family member aunts uncles cousins parents everybody it was what you described good school get to good college good college get to a good job get a good salary get to a better salary over time work your way up become a good manager right what whatever it was I knew 0 people that did their own business now I'm lucky that I got off that track and I was able to to go to the world business through other influences but it would've but that was not the default and in fact I think if I played my life out you know 8 times out of 10 I would've been on the the job side just because that's all I knew that's what normal was and you know I think if there's any like takeaway there it's you you know if you want something if you have an inkling that you want something out of your life you gotta go where that's normal that's why I liked moving to silicon valley it was very normal here for people to be starting a company with a half baked idea and that was what the smart capable people were doing it's not what the like you know fringe weirdos were doing whereas everywhere else I lived anybody who's like I quit my job I'm gonna go work on this app for checking into restaurants people would have been like this guy's just weird and he's off the he's off track and so you know in silicon valley if you're like hey I took this job at this you know working at jpmorgan it's like bro you better have a side hustle if you're trying to like get any respect around here like you know you're that is not what's the respected path it's literally just moving my body moved me in the direction of who I wanted to be because I just moved my body into a place where the norm and the default and the expected was you're gonna go create a company right that's what we do here and so I kind of think it's the same thing with schooling like if you're around if you're in a school environment that expects you to be creative or dynamic or like work on projects and not just be like you know sit down and take tests like I think that that's it's gonna be self fulfilling in a way

Sam Parr

Dude, I remember being in San Francisco. I would meet people who worked at JPMorgan or just had a normal job, but they would introduce themselves as the founder of this thing. We'd be like, "What is this thing?" And they'd say, "Oh, it's just a project I'm working on." I used to make fun of that back then, but I kind of like it now. I kind of like it.

Shaan Puri

like like their side hustle or their main their main work at their at jpmorgan

Sam Parr

No, like the... well, I'm going to get this app off the ground. But as a side hustle, I work 9 to 5 at JPMorgan. Exactly.

Shaan Puri

No, no. They turn into cheating husbands. They're like, "I work at JPMorgan, but it's not what it looks like." Okay, this is just a thing that's temporary. There's not an emotional connection to it, I swear. I just had to do it, you know? Like, I just need 2 years. That's all. Then I'm going to do the real thing.

Sam Parr

I love that you wanna wrap up talking about poop

Shaan Puri

Yeah, let's talk about it. Thanksgiving! I'm around a lot of family members. There are about 13 or 14 people in my house right now, so there's a lot of bathroom time going on. Fiber is everywhere, dude! I think fiber supplements are a little opportunity. You know, a lot of people aged 36 and up are taking fiber regularly. When I look at these supplements, you know, Metamucil, Benefiber—like, these brands just sound like poop, which maybe is intentional. But I think there's an opportunity to make a fiber supplement that is... you know, just...

Sam Parr

You know what's going through that right now? What’s going through that right now is creatine. Do you know what creatine is?

Shaan Puri

bro don't make me flex of course I know what creatine is

Sam Parr

Creatine is, I believe, the most studied supplement of all time. It's been proven consistently to make you stronger and build more muscle mass. I don't know by what percentage; it's like 1 or 2%. Historically, creatine was in powder form. It doesn't necessarily have a bad taste; it's mostly neutral. But there's this guy who says it tastes fine. It's mostly neutral, but when you drink it, it's kind of chalky. However, it's no big deal. I take creatine all the time; I love creatine. When we were kids, in high school, that was just what the jock football players would... oh wait.

Shaan Puri

it it was like to in order

Sam Parr

to get muscles

Shaan Puri

Right, it was like, "Is this bad for you? It's gonna mess up your kidney and your liver or something like that." I was like, "Oh, I guess I should stay away from creatine. I'm not that... I don't need to be a bodybuilder."

Sam Parr

Yeah, and that's mostly nonsense. Creatine... it's just like, it's probably some health guy might yell at me for saying this, but it's basically just like consuming more protein. You know, like it should be almost part of a daily routine. It's a very stable thing; you're not particularly gonna get sick. Whatever, it's just gonna make you stronger and build more muscle. But what's the... what's the McCormick guy's first name? He started a creatine company that they basically made it like a Flintstone vitamin but for creatine. He shares all of his revenue online, and like six months after starting the business, I think it's doing like $800,000 a month in sales. I actually really appreciate that this guy's doing this because he's taking an old supplement that is wonderful but people are afraid of, and it's not really that easy to consume. So with his stuff, he made it into like a Flintstone gummy bear-style supplement where you could take it. Because you can't really take creatine in your bathroom unless you have a cup there, because you have to mix it with water. He did... it's a chewable that tastes kind of good, and I think it's really amazing what he's doing with creatine. So his name is... it's been very fast.

Shaan Puri

His name is Dan McCormick. I'm going to pull up whatever his last update is. So, $3,000,000 in all-time revenue. Basically, it looks like he's going to do about $3,000,000 in the first year. He started in December with $21,000, then $64,000 in January. After that, it basically goes up: $128,000, $172,000, $244,000, and then the last two months, August and September, were $550,000 each.

Sam Parr

Yeah, so what he's doing is he's taking creatine. He's kind of making it popular and making it easier to consume. There's another drug or vitamin that I like. It's called **ashwagandha**. Do you know what that is?

Shaan Puri

yes

Sam Parr

So, **ashwagandha** is something a lot of people use for anxiety. Then there's **kava**. I remember drinking it in Fiji. It looks like mud; it's a powder that you mix with water. In Fiji, they'll sit around a fire and drink kava. It kind of makes you a little bit high, but if you take it in small doses, you can buy kava at the store, and it calms you. **Ashwagandha** is another one like that. I like these ideas of taking a fiber, ashwagandha, or kava—something that has decades or centuries of proven usage. However, it's not packaged in a way that seems very approachable. I think that's a fascinating way to go about this. Years ago, people did it with **melatonin**. Melatonin wasn't quite popular, but now it's incredibly popular; it's a very accessible thing. I love when people do that with certain supplements.

Shaan Puri

Dude, I have a supplement story that's going to blow your mind. I'm not going to tell you now; I'm going to tell you like a year from now because it's playing out right now. I have a very small part in this, but it is wild to see what a successful supplement company can look like. It's too good right now; I can't say anything about it, but can you say...

Sam Parr

what the drug or what the vitamin is or what's

Shaan Puri

I'm not saying anything. That's how you know it's good, because I gotta just shut up about it.

Sam Parr

you're an investor in it

Shaan Puri

I'm not gonna say anything. A year or two from now, I will tell the story, and it's going to be unbelievable.

Sam Parr

Oh, alright. I'm very eager... I'm very eager, you know. At once, we had Derek from "More Plates More Dates" on, and he talked about his supplement business. I thought that was pretty amazing. I wonder if it's Derek... [blink twice].

Shaan Puri

I'm not saying anything. I'm saving this from you too because I want to see your reaction when it all plays out. I'm not going to give you any hints either before then.

Sam Parr

would you go into the supplement business

Shaan Puri

Yes, yeah, but I think my soundboard... Where's the Bezos? Hell yes! That's how I feel about the supplement industry.

Sam Parr

Yeah, so I have nothing to do with any supplement business. From an outside perspective, it just seems like an overcrowded space that's really challenging. But I know some of the...

Shaan Puri

It's very saturated. I don't think it's necessarily that anyone can play, but if you're good, it's the right type of e-commerce business to be in. You know, I'm in the wrong type of e-commerce—the hard slog type of business. If you're good, it's somewhat binary, I would say, in the supplement side. It's not easy to win, but once you get it going, if you have the right supplement, the right branding, the right go-to-market strategy, and the right advertising, if you can stack those blocks together in the right formation, it's a beautiful business. Why supplements? They have super high margins. Supplements are repeat purchase consumables. They get bought by bigger companies all the time, so the exit market is fantastic, and the multiples are good. Supplements can go into retail really well. The inventory is very simple; you usually only have a limited number of SKUs to deal with. Typically, they're made in the United States, so your cycle time is very low, which means you don't have a bunch of money tied up in inventory at any given time. You might even have negative cash conversion. There are all these benefits of the supplement category. If you can be in it, it's a clear problem-solution, so it's easy to market.

Sam Parr

And it's expensive. I probably spend **$100** a month on protein powders, creatine, and a few other things. It's expensive, yeah, for sure. Probably **$100**, yeah.

Shaan Puri

I mean like a 100

Sam Parr

I get a bag from whole foods it's like $80

Shaan Puri

I... so, my sister-in-law is in town. This is just a funny story. I was telling her about this supplement, and I remember because at previous Thanksgivings, she was like, "Tell me about... oh, leaky gut." I was like, "Yeah, what is that? I've kind of heard that. What the hell is that?" And she's like...

Sam Parr

it's brilliant branding

Shaan Puri

She's like, "Oh my God, you don't want leaky gut!" Imagine, like, a leaky gut. It's just like, you know, imagine your sewer has a hole in it, right? Your sewer lines... you don't want that getting everywhere. No! And she's like, "It's toxic, it's bad." I was like, "How do I know if I have it?" She's like, "You probably have it. Everybody has it." I'm like, "Oh my God, my gut health! I've just been totally neglecting my gut health over here. What am I doing? I'm sleeping on my gut health! My microbiome is just a mess right now." And so I asked her, "Hey, are you still into leaky gut?" I was like, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how into leaky gut are you?"

Sam Parr

last year

Shaan Puri

She goes, "500." I don't stop thinking about my gut, and I was like, "So tell me." I literally recorded a voice memo of her describing all of the things. She's like, "Oh, fiber! Yeah, you gotta have this. See, this fiber is bad because look, it has all these extra ingredients—natural flavors. You don't want that. You want this other one; it's super clean, a Garden of Life. It's got three different sources of fiber because then you get the blend. And when you get the blend, the three fibers..." She's drawing these diagrams, and then she's like, "And then, you just wanna have living water." I was like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa! What's that? I don't know what that is."

Sam Parr

like have

Shaan Puri

You heard of living water? No? So, she's describing living water and telling me about that. Then she's telling me about this other thing, and I was laughing so hard. I was just like, "You are like... if I could take my Facebook pixel and I could just show my Facebook pixel your face, I'd be like, 'Only advertise to this type of woman.'" You know, a rich woman who believes in all of these things. She's like the best market. She has to be spending $100 to $500 a month on just like... for her, for her kids, for her husband.

Sam Parr

she can consume all of it

Shaan Puri

And then she's like, "Yeah, I wish I was more on top of it, but I'm so busy with life." So, to supplement for it, I do my water fast. I do my three-day water fast because it's a detox. I was like, "You do all the things!" If that's really what you want, if you're going to build a product like this, you are advertising to women across America. There is this demographic of women that will buy all of these products. They will do the fast, and they want to alkalize their body. I'm not even saying that this is all BS; maybe it's all true, maybe it's all false. I have no idea. But they believe it's true, and as an entrepreneur, that's all that matters. There are people that are fully bought into a lifestyle. In that lifestyle, you could then tack on other angles. For example, who knew that water could be dead or alive? I didn't. That's a product positioning play, right? You know, who knew that you could sell collagen and all of these different angles to improve the quality of someone's health and body? It's just about can you tell a story? If you could tell a story, because she told me all the stories. She basically played back to me ads, Facebook ads that she has read and then gone down the rabbit hole of reading about. If you could tell the right story, that's fantastic! Like when Craig Clemens was on and he talked about probiotics and how he basically created the probiotics revolution. Did you listen to that episode? Do you know that part?

Sam Parr

no I didn't hear that part

Shaan Puri

you've you've heard of probiotics probiotics were like a semi big deal have you ever heard of prebiotics

Sam Parr

because craig clemons 5 minute abs craig clemons

Shaan Puri

Taught the world about prebiotics yesterday. When she was talking, she was telling me about prebiotics, and I'm like, "You know, my friend literally created that word." Like, maybe it existed, but nobody knew about it. I don't know if you've seen this, but Craig has this video that he created—this one ad that he talked about on the pod. I can share it here. He created one ad called "The American Parasite." Have you ever heard of this? Joe Rogan tweeted it out, and he goes, "Yo, this video is freaking me out." This was back then, 15 years ago. Now, the video is hard to even find online. I found it, but there's this ad called "Embarrassing."

Sam Parr

like a direct marketer video

Shaan Puri

No, this one looks a little different. This looks like a TED Talk where, you know, have you ever seen the drawing during a TED Talk? There's a TED Talk voice, but the hand is drawing on a whiteboard while the guy's talking. It kind of keeps your attention. So, he and Craig described this on the podcast. He said, "Basically, this video went insanely viral." I've heard him share on other podcasts that they started with a long-form sales letter, and they were selling these prebiotics. They did $10,000 the first day. They spent $10,000, and they made $50,000. He was like, "Holy shit!" They did that again, and they sold out within a week. Then they made a big bet. They ordered $1,000,000 of inventory for the free product because they believed that this thing would sell when it came time. When they relaunched it and got the inventory back in stock, the first day they did $500,000 in sales. The second day, they did $600,000, totaling $1,100,000 in sales in just two days. He created this video sales ad. It's a 30-minute documentary talking about how our food supply is messed up and how it creates a bad microbiome in your gut. He calls it "the great American parasite" that is eating away at your health. It's the reason you can't control your cravings, the reason you're gaining weight, and the reason for all your problems. It's not you; it's this parasite in your stomach. Isn't that a convenient explanation that someone wants to wrap their arms around? He took that, and basically, that video was viewed like 100 million times. People were sharing it like crazy. This was back when there weren't a lot of ads, and people were a lot more willing to share interesting videos on social media. So, this thing went crazy.

Shaan Puri

Where he said that Coke changed their formula for Diet Coke. They took aspartame out because this video was causing so much public awareness and an uproar over these fake sugars that people were putting in things. He's like, "And then over 6 months, Coke sales went down because Coke without aspartame doesn't taste as good." Then they put it back in like 6 to 9 months later.

Sam Parr

what was the name of craig's

Shaan Puri

chebiotics was the name of his company back then

Sam Parr

oh and it how much did it make

Shaan Puri

a lot of money

Sam Parr

oh my god

Shaan Puri

so he kind of popularized or created the pre the prebiotic market in the united states

Sam Parr

oh but that's insane yeah I'm looking at it now have you heard of do you know ancient nutrition

Shaan Puri

yeah that's the liver cake guy

Sam Parr

no it's a different guy oh no

Shaan Puri

it's a different

Sam Parr

Company? Yeah, well, no, a different one. Ancient Nutrition. They've raised $100,000,000, so I have to imagine they're doing $100,000,000 in revenue. It started because this guy named Josh Axe—Doctor Axe is what his name was, or his name is—and he's got...

Shaan Puri

a of course it is of course his name is doctor

Sam Parr

Axe... it's Doctor Axe, spelled like an axe. He had a blog, and the majority of the blog at the time talked about leaky gut. He would sell info products on how to fix leaky gut. Then eventually, they were like, "Alright, let's actually make stuff," and that's how Ancient Nutrition started. It's like a huge, huge business, but a lot of his whole thing was leaky gut. He helped popularize leaky gut. The branding of leaky gut is like... brilliant, brilliant! It's kind of like when people talk about doing a cleanse and they act like their blood is like a pipe, and like doing a cleanse is like... they...

Shaan Puri

need the

Sam Parr

Putting a pipe cleaner through it, you know, it's like... I don't know if arteries work that way, but it's a powerful visual image that now I automate. Yeah, like I don't even know if that's true. It probably isn't, but for some reason, you've made me believe that that's how it is. Same with leaky gut. You're like, "So, like, first of all, I don't even know what a gut is. Is that your... so like this organ that has poop in it is just leaking to the rest of my body? Is that what you're saying?" Of course, that's a huge deal. I don't want poison in my body. I have no idea if that's how it works or if it doesn't work, but they do a great job of making me believe it because of that phrase "leaky gut."

Shaan Puri

Right, right. Yeah, Scott Adams... I forgot what he called it. He had these two words that he said. He said he had one that was called a "linguistic kill shot," and he did another one that was about visuals. So, what did he say? I forgot what he called it, but let's call it a "visual kill shot." I think that idea of the pipe cleaner or the leaky gut—these are visual kill shots. It's words that make you see things, and there are things you can't unsee once you've seen them, right? And it's like, that's... and you know, Scott Adams used to say Trump did this. He called Jeb Bush, when Jeb Bush was the front runner in the Republican debates, because he's a Bush and, you know, he was the governor of Florida or whatever the hell he was. And then he goes, "Low energy Jeb." And basically, every time you look at Jeb Bush from then on out, you're like, "He does look low energy." And it just... yeah.

Sam Parr

sleepy joe

Shaan Puri

Sleepy... yeah, Sleepy Joe, right? Crooked Hillary, right? Like, she does not just go by "immoral Hillary" or whatever. "Crooked" is a visual word, right? The wall... it's going to be a big, beautiful wall, right? He wasn't saying "better border control policy." He said, "We're gonna build a big wall, a beautiful wall, the biggest wall you've ever seen." Right? You have a visual of the border being strong and protected. So, like, Trump was kind of a master at this stuff. And Scott Adams, he's pretty interesting the way he described, you know, what Trump was able to do with these visual kill shots.

Sam Parr

Okay, well in one year we're gonna play the clip of you saying, "I'm not gonna tell you now, but we'll tell you in a year." Because I'm very eager now... you've got me on the hook. You've used... you've gotten me hooked, and I'm so eager to know who it is. I'm eager to know everything about it. So I guess we'll end there, and you gotta come back in a year and tell me. Done. Alright, that's the pod.