8 Profitable Side Hustles For The Halloween & Christmas Season (#381)

Shaan Puri

What they're doing is they basically take a vacant property, the same thing as the spirit store. They take a vacant property and say, "Hey, we'll cut you a check for $10,000 to $15,000 if we can use your house," or they'll rent a property or find a vacant property. They basically just use it for the month. They have this operational thing where they can just spin up the haunted house, and then they charge like $40 to enter. You can sort of do the math and realize, man, they're probably making half a million to a million dollars in about a month.

Sam Parr

alright you wanna go with rahul or do you wanna go

Shaan Puri

with I'll

Sam Parr

play with rahul alright

Shaan Puri

Troll of the year! We haven't even done our Miley Awards for the end of the year thing that we always do. I'm calling it out.

Sam Parr

the troll of the year give the background

Shaan Puri

So, Elon takes over Twitter. I guess the purchase went through. I feel like there was never any confirmation that he actually wired the money. He just literally showed up at the office and was like, "Yeah."

Sam Parr

there there there hasn't been like a proper ribber ribbing ribbing ribbon cutting moment like it's not like it

Shaan Puri

Was ridiculous. Water, you just like went into the office and they're like, "I guess you own it now. You seem to be here." It's mine. Yeah, it's mine. Like playground rules. Like, wow, that's all it took to have Twitter.

Sam Parr

Have you ever heard of a coup? Like a coup d'état with governments? You know, I read a lot of... yeah.

Shaan Puri

they're pretty coup

Sam Parr

yeah they are

Shaan Puri

that joke

Sam Parr

I read a lot of history books... or history jokes. I read a lot of history books about whatever, and they talk about a coup. I'm like, "So you literally just walked into the White House and you just said, 'This is mine,' and the general has promised me that he's going to commit these soldiers to attack." You know what I mean? It's like an interesting concept. You're like, "So it's all just made up, I guess." These rules that we live by, this is just fiction. That's kind of like what I felt he did. He just walked in and was like, "Well, I own this now. Thank you."

Shaan Puri

Did you see, you know, Derek Lewis, the UFC fighter? Have you seen that compilation of his where he says, "Just get up"?

Sam Parr

no

Shaan Puri

So they're like, "Derek, you're a big knockout artist, but the knock on you has always been, what if you get into a wrestling thing? You know, how's your jiu-jitsu? Are you training?" And he's like, "Ain't real, man." And they're like, "What?" He's like, "Man, you don't need jiu-jitsu. Just get up." And they're like, "What?" He's like, "Why? I don't want to stay on the ground with another man between my legs. No, I'm not into that. Like, I'm not."

Shaan Puri

gonna do jiu jitsu

Shaan Puri

I'm just gonna get up. They're like, "But you need jiu-jitsu to get up." He's like, "No, I'm just gonna get up." So then there's a clip of him saying that, and then there's like a 6-minute compilation of literally somebody taking him down. He doesn't do jiu-jitsu; he just stands back up. He's so, so powerful. That's how I feel. That's what Elon Musk did. He's like, "Nah, just walk in."

Sam Parr

Yeah, take it. What do you mean? He's like, "Well, I'm just gonna walk in with a sink and take it." So anyway, he does this thing where he just says, "This is mine," and there are all these reporters outside of Twitter's office, and something is written.

Shaan Puri

For a story, they're waiting for something to go wrong. Elon comes here, and oh, there's a protest, there's a walk. So what happens is the first big story that occurs is a picture of these two guys. They look kind of nerdy, sort of engineering types, and they're holding giant cardboard boxes. It says, "These two data scientists were fired today from Twitter." Here, they're seen walking out with their possessions in their boxes. I saw it, and immediately something looked a little off. I thought, "This guy just looks so goofy." But I was like, "Wow, that's pretty believable." You know, there are many goofy-looking people that work in tech. But okay, oh my god, you look... wow, they really found the perfect character. He looks pretty goofy. Then I read the name, and it says...

Sam Parr

But he... but he... but he had a box in his hand. So each had a brown box, which is just foreign because if you work at a tech company, you don't even probably own anything. You own enough just to put in a book bag.

Shaan Puri

put your laptop in your backpack yeah

Sam Parr

and like if you do get fired do they even like is that a thing where you like hand people a box anymore

Shaan Puri

I don't know

Shaan Puri

you know

Sam Parr

what I mean

Shaan Puri

They played it perfectly. So then it says, "Rahul Ligma and Daniel Johnson were fired today." Blah, blah, blah. I saw that and I was like, "Oh my God, this guy executed a Ligma!" For those who don't know, Ligma is a little joke that people play on the internet. It's like, "Ligma..." You say something, blah, blah, blah, "Ligma," and then someone's like, "Ligma? What's that?" And then you respond, "Ligma nuts!" Alright, so that's the joke. They did this to basically... I think CNBC was the first one who reported it, and then the same photo kept getting spread everywhere because everybody wanted this story about the news.

Sam Parr

Building. She was this CNBC reporter, and the original tweet said something like, "We're at the scene of Twitter. These two engineers just came out who said they're the first to be laid off." It's just so clear how defeated they are. There's like an audible... or what does she say? She's like, "They're just visibly defeated and totally broken." Rahul Ligma says now he has no idea how he's going to be able to afford his Tesla payments. And then he's sitting there holding a Michelle Obama book. So it's like him with this box just holding this Michelle Obama book. I don't know why. He just said, and she tweeted out, "You know, this is just... they say the first of many that's going to happen." It was just like a crazy, crazy scene.

Shaan Puri

So, people have heard this part of the story, but now we got that "My First Million" exclusive juice on top of it. Somebody in our group chat knows this guy who did this, and he shared a text message that the guy sent before he did it. He goes, "Yo bro," and the person says, "Sup?" He goes, "Are you doing anything in the next hour? Wanna help me pull off a stunt? I'm at the gym and I need a box. Lol, I'm gonna walk out."

Sam Parr

in front of the

Shaan Puri

Twitter office with a box in my hand. There are a lot of TV crews outside. This is literally how he pulled up: he gets an empty box and a Michelle Obama book. There's nothing else in the box. He walks out, and the TV crews go for it. I thought that was amazing. I mean, what kind of genius is this person? Then he goes...

Sam Parr

there's helen tv crews let's go get them

Shaan Puri

And he goes, "Bro, the media is so dumb. I literally put 5 minutes of planning into this. Even my uncle in India has seen the picture." Now he goes, "The first thing goes, did you just see the cameras and just walk out there?" He goes, "Yeah, basically. I got to the gym; it's near Twitter's headquarters."

Shaan Puri

I saw all these cameras and so

Shaan Puri

I just went to it

Sam Parr

amazing that is so funny

Shaan Puri

the better

Sam Parr

who is this guy

Shaan Puri

so he's like a founder of like a tech startup basically he just did this for free

Sam Parr

oh my god

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I'm ready to invest. His thing says "stealth startup," so I'm like, I'm ready to invest in whatever he's doing, any valuation.

Sam Parr

hella tv there's hella tv cameras on

Shaan Puri

Name your price, Ligma. And then, so he goes, "Okay, so that was him." Did you see the interview with the other guy, Daniel Johnson? No? He also had a little gem. His was on video. So they're like, "You know, how do you feel about this today?" He's like, "I don't know. I just gotta go home, I gotta talk to my husband and wife, and regroup."

Sam Parr

wait what he goes I

Shaan Puri

I don't know I just

Shaan Puri

I just really wanna go home

Shaan Puri

I just really want to go home, talk to my husband and wife, and just revert to the most San Francisco thing ever.

Shaan Puri

to happen husband and wife

Sam Parr

did anyone comment on that

Shaan Puri

The news didn't even... they just played the clip. When I saw that, I was like, "Wow, that is the funniest thing I've ever heard!" Perfect timing! These guys are like, you know, comedic geniuses basically.

Sam Parr

yeah this is pretty gold

Shaan Puri

Amazingly well played! Yeah, do you want to talk about the Elon war room? Like, what he's actually doing in there? Do you want to talk about that or not really? Have you followed?

Sam Parr

Not really. I mean, I read that he said, "Hey guys, you have a week to get this one thing done," and I think that that's cool. That's a good way to run things. I'm nervous he's going to screw it all up because I make money from Twitter, so I don't want it to go away. But I...

Shaan Puri

got forced to shill bro yeah

Sam Parr

Yeah, like I have consulting calls to take, so I don't really care. When he talks about this stuff, I'm like, "This doesn't impact me that much." I don't care what you're going to do.

Shaan Puri

Well, I just want... I don't care; it's not going to impact me. But I do find it interesting how he's going about this. So basically, the report is that he goes in, and the first report I thought again was another troll, but I guess this is real. Do you see this? He told every engineer to print out all the code that they've committed and that they've written in the last 3 or 6 months and have it ready for review. Did you see this?

Sam Parr

why print so you could just see the the

Shaan Puri

They linked the pages and then changed their mind. I guess they realized how bad of an idea that was. Like, you know, an hour later they're like, "Shred the papers. Actually, we're going to review on the computer. Just be prepared to review." So people, like all these engineers, are printing out, you know, 300 pages of code. So I guess I'll just shred this. I don't know what's going on here.

Sam Parr

Dude, and what's crazy is, if you go to BusinessInsider.com, the headline is like, you know, I think it says, "The Toil of Working at Twitter." It's painting it like these people... here's the code of what, yeah, this is what it's like to toil at Elon Musk's Twitter. The expectation is literally to work 24/7 and does...

Shaan Puri

It really says that. I swear to God, straight clown behavior. I cannot believe they're doing that.

Sam Parr

I can believe it. One of the people familiar with the situation described the feeling of the company under Musk: "Your job is on the line." It's like, dude, your job's always on the line! This isn't your right to work at Twitter, you dumbass. But I thought it was funny because, come on man, you're coding. This is it! Yeah, you're going to have to work 50 hours, maybe for a little while. But also, I think a lot of employees at Twitter are probably like, "This is awesome! We've been sitting on our ass. Let's do it!" That side doesn't seem to be getting covered a lot.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, and so he created, I guess, a war room. He basically brought in a bunch of people he trusts. He brought in people from his other companies, like his chief legal person. That guy's now like the general counsel. Basically, he created a war room, and now here's who's reported to be in the war room: it's Elon, his chief counsel, and then it's Jason Calacanis.

Sam Parr

oh and then it's I think jason's jason's amazing but like what the hell does he know yeah I got something like then

Shaan Puri

It's Sriram from a16z. I'm just a venture capitalist who's a former PM. He used to work at Twitter and also had a run at Twitter.

Shaan Puri

and

Sam Parr

clubhouse and snapchat

Shaan Puri

Yeah, and then also, I guess like some other people, some engineers or people from like Boring Company or Neuralink or whatever, like some people he trusts, like his cousin, is there. They basically just set up shop and they were like, "Alright, well, we're gonna do this thing." And they're like, "Change the logged-out page. It forces you to sign up." No, you should be able to read tweets before you sign in, you know? You sign up, and then, which is like an experiment that's been tried many times before. And then it's like, "You know, we need to have this verification program. We have, you know, 5 days to deliver this," I guess. So they're sort of trying to figure this out: who stays, who goes, what are we building, how are we gonna turn this thing around. It's fascinating. I wish I could be a fly on the wall in this war room. I think that would be like probably the most interesting thing to do right now.

Sam Parr

I think it would be awesome. I hope they don't screw it up, though, because I have some *fucking* courses I gotta sell. So, don't screw it up! You're gonna screw it up.

Shaan Puri

my my. Of view

Shaan Puri

Has always been very simple. All the things he complains about are things that power users would be annoyed at on Twitter, like the bot problem, verification, or the algorithm not serving me the tweets I want. The problem is that I don't know whether like 300 million people use Twitter, and it's like, you know, five times smaller than the other big social services. It doesn't really grow that much. It's not like, you know, my mom doesn't use Twitter because she's like, "Oh, there are too many bots." If I tweet about crypto, that will tell me to buy crypto. That's not her problem; she just doesn't see value in it. And like, you know, you gotta...

Sam Parr

she just says I don't get it

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I don't get it. I don't know why I would need this. You know, I don't need to check this. Whereas Instagram, WhatsApp, and Snapchat have all given her a reason to have it. She needs to have Snapchat if she wants to see more pictures of her kids. She needs to have Instagram if she wants to keep up with what's going on in Bollywood or whatever, right? Everybody finds a need in the service, and that's the core problem with Twitter. The core need it addresses is only for people like us, and it doesn't address the need for a whole bunch of other people on the planet. If they wanted it to be more valuable, then they would need to do that.

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Sam Parr

Happy Halloween, dude! Yeah, you too. Since I'm not 12, I don't dress up. I don't understand.

Shaan Puri

like shots fired at producer ben

Sam Parr

Well, I just don't understand why people obsess over Halloween. To me, it just seems like when your wife was buying a wedding dress, were you like, "This is bullshit! You're going to spend all this money for something that you're literally going to use for 3 hours in your entire life?" That's how I feel about Halloween.

Shaan Puri

wow shots fired at wives shots fired at halloween shots fired at weddings

Sam Parr

Well, I mean, our... like, you know what I mean? I just find it to be the most impractical thing there is. It’s just a lot of work for like a few hours.

Shaan Puri

Bro, you probably bought like a giant sled so you could do sled pushes in your backyard. You know, come on! I'm sure you have some ridiculous purchase up your sleeve too.

Sam Parr

I have a sled

Shaan Puri

call it producer ben what

Shaan Puri

are you you you look more like a figure skater or some like

Shaan Puri

Like a figure skater in between rounds. That's a... I don't...

Sam Parr

I don't always want to put the hood on, but it's a narwhal. It's got like a little horn on top. A little horn because my wife has a matching costume. A narwhal is just...

Shaan Puri

fake creature

Sam Parr

That has a... yeah, if you're a parent, then I get it. But for the people who work really hard at this stuff, to me, I'm just like, that just seems like such a waste of time. My wife loves it; she's this person.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, my wife too. We bought a bunch of costumes. I'm Aladdin, which is pretty, you know, stereotypical. I felt, you know, lean in, bro.

Shaan Puri

is it

Shaan Puri

is it racism if it's your wife yeah lean in

Sam Parr

I say lean into it

Shaan Puri

I got the sheryl sandberg book I'm gonna lean into it

Sam Parr

cut some shit man lean into stereotypes

Shaan Puri

But speaking of Halloween, I did a bunch of research about it and I wanted to rant about it to you. I'm sure you know a lot about Halloween because I feel like this is a rabbit hole that's kind of obvious. I say that because I went into this rabbit hole and I saw some footprints on the way out. I was like, "I think Sam's size 11 right there." I don't know.

Sam Parr

what's going on

Shaan Puri

But let me tell you some things I found. Okay, so first and foremost, Halloween. What the heck is this? It's kind of crazy that today Halloween is this family neighborhood thing where everybody, you know, young kids are going out and getting candy. Older kids are dressing up, you know, with an excuse to dress up kind of slutty. This is like a giant occasion where people are spending **$10 billion** a year on Halloween, which is kind of crazy. That's more than almost any other holiday except for Christmas, which is off the charts at almost **$1 trillion** spent on Christmas. So I was like, what the heck is this holiday? Who made this up? Where did this come from? First of all, it's like some weird part of the Celtic calendar. I don't even know what it is, but basically, it's like... yeah, the Boston Celtics, as you know.

Sam Parr

yeah so this new thing called yaging it just has a soft j up there

Shaan Puri

So, there was this festival where they would say, "Oh, the demons are coming." They would dress up as demons themselves and dance around, which was meant to ward off the demons. The logic was, "Hey, we're already here," which is pretty weak logic if you ask me. Then, something happened where the Pope said something like, "Oh, November 1st is the Day of the Saints" or whatever.

Sam Parr

and so day baby we in catholic school we used to celebrate it every year

Shaan Puri

And so then the 31st became All Hallows' Eve. So, how did it go from that to kids dressing up as Aladdin and going trick-or-treating? What was the gap? Basically, for a while, it was this kind of low-key holiday. Nobody really spent money on it; it was more like an adult, dark holiday where you would buy certain things and have people over for dinner, maybe things like that. Over time, it got commercialized. What I was trying to figure out was where it got commercialized. How did we go from this obscure pagan holiday to this mainstream $10 billion a year thing? The best explanation I could find was that there was a societal shift. People wanted a holiday as a good excuse to celebrate. They liked that it could be community and family-oriented over time, rather than just this kind of adult thing. The last thing was that retailers, like Walmart, became the biggest winners from Halloween. Walmart makes a killing on Halloween. It sells candy, costumes, decorations, and it sells to everybody across America. What happened was retailers would have this giant spike in sales in the spring, maybe a little bit of summer, and then there was this dead time until the winter holidays. They were like, "Okay, sales always dip. Let's figure out what we could do to make sales not dip during that time." So, they kind of needed to invent an occasion for you to spend on, and so they started...

Sam Parr

which is pretty common right like if you think about like you know like there's

Shaan Puri

like the the hallmark lobby man they've like really been pushing valentine's day on us for years I mean

Sam Parr

I think that the lobby, man, they've really been pushing Valentine's Day on us for years. I mean, I think that there's a... that's a pretty common tactic. I imagine Amazon is thinking like Prime Day is going to be a holiday of just random deals.

Shaan Puri

you know

Shaan Puri

What I mean is like a coordinated attack, but it is a bunch of people who all have an incentive. They have an incentive to sell more stuff and put something in the store that's going to drive people to come by. So, I just want to break down a couple of the numbers and a couple of the businesses. Like I said, about **$10 billion** in spending. **$3 billion** of that is for costumes, and **$700 million** of that is for pet costumes, which is kind of crazy. There's basically **$3 billion** on candy, and there's a huge amount—like, I don't know—almost half the country is going to give out candy during Halloween, which is kind of an insane level of adoption that's going on. So, Walmart's the biggest winner. They not only make a bunch of money, but they also spend a bunch of money advertising during this time. They'll spend like tens of millions of dollars in the week of Halloween just blasting ads. So do all the companies that are stocked inside there—Skittles, Cheetos, Lunchables—everybody's got a Halloween-themed thing. A couple of the interesting finds I had when I was doing this: the first is a lot of people know about Spirit, the Spirit store, right? People have heard about this, but the backstory of Spirit is kind of cool. Have you ever heard the backstory of how it got started?

Sam Parr

it's owned by a popular company what's who's it owned by

Shaan Puri

oh your favorite it's your your 1st thursday night date night spencer's

Sam Parr

Spencer's, that's what I thought. Yeah, like Spencer's, you know, like a Hot Topic alternative. Spencer's also owns Spirit Halloween.

Shaan Puri

so they so the way this started was it's like in california in the eighties this guy owned a woman's clothing store and he was in october again traditionally a super slow sales month and so he's just sitting there not really getting much sales he looks around everybody's struggling except for one store he sees that this one halloween store has a line out the door and so he's like well I'm not selling shit anyways and so he just turned like 3 fourths of a store into a halloween store just for the month of october and so it's this women's boutique so there's like women's clothes in like a quarter of the store and then 3 fourths became halloween stuff and it it really works and so he just does that again the next year he's like oh that's my halloween playbook but now he's like alright just forget my store I'll just open up another store and another store just for the month and so that's their model these guys basically what they do is they go find vacant property so you know an empty box and they say hey landlord you don't have a lease well I'll lease it for 2 months how about that and the landlords initially were like well no like what what am I a 2 month lease like no thank you and they're like okay well look here's my offer if you don't have a tenant by july might as well take it some revenue is better than no revenue and like especially after the 2008 real estate crash this became like a pretty enticing option for landlords to try to recoup some money and so they do these 2 month leases and it's a pop up halloween store same place every time no different places they even have a kick out clause so they say hey look you could take how can I get more real estate look if you find if you do find a good tenant who you want to do a long term lease you can just kick us out like like anytime you can just kick us out basically and so they found this like no brainer proposition to landlords and so they do these pop ups they now have 1400 stores so like fast you know rewind back to you know like 2010 they only had you know 700 stores and the whole halloween spend is on the same trend so like I said 10,000,000,000 this year well rewind to 2010 that's when I graduated from college it was 5,000,000,000 rewind to 2005 it was only like 3,000,000,000 and so that's like kind of a big like just during our you know lifetime our adult lifetime this thing is like you know more than doubled in in size and so

Shaan Puri

and so

Sam Parr

Imagine that, by the way, all that work for a week. I know a guy who owns a Christmas tree light show business. I can't reveal how big it is, but whatever number you're thinking of for how much revenue it does, triple it and then multiply it by 20. We're talking like 9 figures.

Shaan Puri

and christmas tree light show means what

Sam Parr

You pay $20, and you and your family drive through a park to look at light shows. Basically, he's got a staff of, I don't even know how many staff he has—I think over 100. They work all year round for 4 weeks of work. Can you imagine what your company is like? What happens if there's a terrorist attack or, you know, whatever? Or a COVID situation? I mean, something happens where it's just like all 50 weeks' worth of work is ruined for those 2 weeks. Do you know what I mean?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, that is the risk. That is the risk with these... Right now, like it's Halloween. Today, the whole company is working on next year's Halloween real estate. They have to figure out the logistics because they can't just get an empty shell. They have to pop up the whole store, get all the inventory there, do all the decorations, and then run the store just for this, you know, real blitz. Ninety percent of the traffic comes in the two weeks before Halloween because their main proposition is for people who procrastinated. It's like, "Hey, it's too late even now to order online, so just come into the store and get what you can." It's that big of a business. They do about $1,000,000,000 a year in revenue at the Spirit Store. That's just kind of crazy for $1,000,000,000 in basically a three-week time frame. For the majority of that spend, 8% of all candy sales of the year happen on Halloween. It's really crazy.

Sam Parr

that's wild and so what a wild stat

Shaan Puri

here's some other interesting little businesses that were around this okay so have you ever heard of ruby's

Sam Parr

no what is ruby's

Shaan Puri

<Ruby's is probably the biggest costume maker. I don't know if they're still the biggest that they were at a time. So here's the kind of interesting story: Ruby's started in New York. They were doing decorations and costumes for Halloween. Halloween wasn't as big of a deal back in the seventies. At that time, Halloween costumes were all the same; it was all just ghosts and witches. But then, in the seventies and eighties, it transitioned into basically Hollywood. Movie characters and TV characters became the big thing. Ruby's kind of fell behind because there were these other companies, Collegeville and Ben Cooper, that got all the licenses. They were winning; they were crushing it. Poor Ruby's was just sort of puttering along until that fateful thing happened. I didn't even know about this, but there was something called the cyanide killer. Have you ever heard about this? There was this big scandal where, I guess, in Tylenol packages...

Sam Parr

bunch of

Shaan Puri

tylenol got

Shaan Puri

laced with cyanide and people died

Sam Parr

and they never caught they never caught the person

Shaan Puri

never caught the guy and it scared a bunch of people it's like holy shit tylenol like this like safe thing

Sam Parr

how many people died like 3 or 4

Shaan Puri

I'm not sure. I think it was more than that, but it was a big story. It definitely was big news. So, people... candy sales plummet. You know, people start getting pretty afraid. These companies got a little over their skis because everything was going so great, and they started to falter during this sort of crash when Halloween sales dropped. People did not want to go eat candy from strangers during the sort of cyanide rush, I guess. So, Ruby's ends up buying up Ben Cooper and Collegeville, and basically consolidates all the licenses under one roof during that time. Now they have Disney, Marvel, whoever they are. Their job is basically... you would think this is like, I don't know, a bunch of theater geeks that run this company, but in actuality, their big thing they have to do is operations for the supply chain.

Sam Parr

cash management

Shaan Puri

No, no, no. Forecasting... they have to predict who is going to be popular next year for Halloween. So they're like, "Okay, Donald Trump is going to be here or here or here." Then they work with all the studios. The studios give them a little sketch sheet of, "Hey, here are the movies coming out next year and the year after. Here’s who the good guy is, here’s the bad guy, and here’s what their costumes look like." You know, you're under extreme lock and key, but we make a lot of money. The movie industry makes $100 million off of Halloween costume royalties. They get like an 8 to 10% royalty. So they're like, "Alright, fine. You can get access to these designs in order to start prepping for..."

Sam Parr

Dude, I wonder about future costumes. I wonder what their research methodology is. You know, we've talked about that company WGSN. It always interests me. It's a $100,000,000 a year business that does like $30,000,000 in profit. Yeah, and all they do is help predict which color is going to be popular. So, Starbucks makes sure that their labels on products are the right color, like pink. Or, apparently, they predicted that pineapples were going to be popular. Did you know that pineapple was a popular thing this year?

Shaan Puri

yeah yeah I'm all about it

Sam Parr

and they like somehow knew that and they're saying next year it's gonna be the lemon which I don't I don't know

Shaan Puri

is that really what they said or you're just making that one up

Sam Parr

I think it... Yes, I think it was the lemon. Next year, lemons are going to be like a new thing instead of pineapple. I don't even know how you would draw a lemon on an iPhone case. I mean, it just looks like the sun. But anyway, they said that lemons are going to be...

Shaan Puri

such a a wonder problem your brain just went too

Sam Parr

Well, like, have you ever seen pineapples on iPhone cases? It's like, how do you make a round, yellow thing? There's like no density to it. Like...

Shaan Puri

I don't know

Shaan Puri

We can workshop that afterwards. So, I think you know these guys probably... you know, like that meme, "Hello, hello, fellow kids."

Shaan Puri

or whatever hello fellow children

Shaan Puri

Like, the guy shows up at the high school. He's like 40 years old, he's got a skateboard on his back, and he's like, "Hey, hello kids! What's the good buzz this year?" They're trying to figure out what's going to be hot. I don't know the research method, but I am intrigued. Basically, they have to be fortune tellers. They need to figure out, through movies, politics, all that stuff: Is it Pokémon? Is it Wonder Woman? Is it Trump? What is going to be the costumes? So, that's one interesting thing. A couple of other pretty interesting things... I'll give you some smaller niche side hustle ideas. So, first, haunted houses. Apparently, haunted houses do $300,000,000 a year. It's kind of a...

Sam Parr

that's crazy

Shaan Puri

kind of

Shaan Puri

a big number for something that's like useful you know like for dude

Sam Parr

I hate haunted houses like a

Shaan Puri

way to go what

Sam Parr

do you go

Shaan Puri

I've been... I'm not a big thrill seeker, like roller coasters or haunted houses, kind of guy. Yeah, dude, I'm...

Sam Parr

not like afraid of money to be afraid

Shaan Puri

of it

Sam Parr

I'm not... I don't pay money to be scared. That's my rule with movies and haunted houses. I pay money to do the opposite.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, it's like, you know those guys who pay girls to, like, slap them and stuff? It's like, no thanks. I'm pretty sure I should be getting paid if I'm getting scared or slapped. That's my rule, and I'm sticking to it. So, there's like, you know, haunted houses. It's kind of interesting. There's a guy who tweeted this at me. They were like, "Yo, there's this local one near our place." I did the math. So, this basically was like a small haunted house. What they're doing is they take a vacant property, same thing as the Spirit Store. They say, "Hey, we'll cut you a check for $10,000 to $15,000 if we can use your house," or they'll rent a property or find a vacant property. They basically just use it for the month. They have this operational thing where they can just spin up the haunted house, and then they charge like $40 to enter. You could sort of do the math and realize, man, they're probably making half a million to a million dollars in about a month just off these things. It's pretty crazy how, like, as a little side hustle, you could do a haunted house. Let me give you some other ones that I think are kind of interesting. There's a guy who created this website called Zombie Pumpkins. You ever seen this? No? So, it's like, I think it's zombiepumpkins.com. Two million people a year go to this site just to print out a stencil that they can use to carve their pumpkin. He was like, "You know what? If you go try to do pumpkin carving, it's going to be a pretty generic face. I'm going to make, like, super accurately drawn things so that you could have a really dope looking pumpkin."

Sam Parr

is a really cool site

Shaan Puri

A really, like, you know, Michael Jackson-looking pumpkin. It'll look like it if you just follow my stencil. So, you know, 2,000,000 people go to this thing. It gets like a million of those hits, you know, like in the last week of October or something. He donates a bunch of the money that comes from this to charity, which I thought was pretty cool.

Sam Parr

and he charges money so you pay money and you get stencils

Shaan Puri

Yep, and every year he releases new ones. Okay, here's another one: **Pumpkinsteins**. So, how would you like a pumpkin that, instead of carving a pumpkin to look like something, what if the pumpkin just grew and only looked like a Frankenstein head? That's what this guy did. This guy's got a crazy story. He's like a... I don't know, he's like some farmer somewhere, and he spent 4 years trying to solve this problem. He's like, "What if I could just grow a pumpkin that was already a decoration so you don't have to do any work?" So he tried... like this... How do...

Sam Parr

you spell it

Shaan Puri

Pumpkin Stein, like Frankenstein. Yeah, he tries to grow it, but it doesn't work... doesn't work... doesn't work. Finally, in the fourth year, he's like, "What if I tried this, like, I don't know, type of seed or whatever it was?" He got it to grow into this mold, and the mold basically just looks like a Frankenstein head. So he started selling them, and he does, like, you know, a few hundred sales. Then he does a few thousand sales. Retailers start coming to him. He opts to go with Sam's Club because he's like, "You know what? I was selling these for $100 a pumpkin. But with Sam's Club, we could sell them for $30 and make money doing that with their volume."

Sam Parr

and so are amazing these are amazing

Shaan Puri

And so he goes and he's like, "Alright, this could be kind of a thing." He said he got 90,000 orders last year, so that's like $4.5 million in sales of these pumpkins. He started going to other farms and bribing them, being like, "Hey, I'll pay you $11 a head. Follow this blueprint; I need more production. I cannot possibly keep up with the production at my rate." So he goes and gives other farms like $11 per pumpkin that they can produce to be sold this way. Then they had a malfunction. The face still looked right, but the back got all screwed up, and it looked like it exploded. That was way more popular! People were like, "Oh, that's cool! It exploded in the back." And he's like, "Oh shit, now I gotta figure out how to do this intentionally." It's like this crazy little accidental side hobby.

Sam Parr

wow these are cool

Shaan Puri

Another one: Home Depot. Have you heard about the 12-foot skeleton? No? So, this is like one of these viral things, I think maybe from TikTok. I don't know where, but my wife has been talking about this. She's like, "Oh, I really want to get the 12-foot thing. It's always sold out." I was like, "It can't be that. I mean, let's just go to Home Depot and get it." If you've seen Home Depot, it's just like full of stuff. There's no way they're out of it at every Home Depot. She's like, "You don't understand," and she shows me there's buy and sell groups on Facebook where people are buying these things for $1,000+. They retailed for like $300 or something like that, and on eBay, they're selling for $1,000. It became such a hit that Home Depot figured out this giant lawn skeleton was the big hit. Then Lowe's came out this year with the 12-foot mummy. I was like, "Wow, you know who's going to come out with the 12-foot 1-inch ghost next year?" It's like this crazy little trend. All these things that really weren't categories before are becoming categories. The inflatable lawn decorations are surging in popularity, different types of candy, different types of costumes—it's all sort of surging in popularity because people are just more and more willing to spend. I got to thinking, "Why is Halloween so awesome?" I love Halloween. You don't have the spirit; you're sort of the Grinch of Halloween, as you're known. And I realized it's because Halloween...

Sam Parr

I'm known

Shaan Puri

Halloween is the anti-holiday. It's not the cookie-cutter, warm and fuzzy type; it's dark, it's kind of more adult, and it's more creative. It's one of the few creative holidays. Social media is a boom for Halloween because, what is social media? It's a "hey, look at me!" moment, and Halloween is the perfect "hey, look at me" occasion. It's "hey, look at my house," "hey, look at my costume," "hey, look at my body," "hey, look at my candy," "hey, look at my kids," "hey, look at everything," right? So, it's the "hey, look at me" thing. It's also an excuse to act like a kid. I'm bullish on anything that gives people an excuse to act like a kid. I think that's why Burning Man is popular. I think that's why Halloween is popular. Even things like the Ice Cream Museum and stuff like that are really popular for that reason.

Sam Parr

Dude, it feels like you just prepared a debate on why Halloween's great and why I should dig it. You have totally won me over.

Shaan Puri

so you're

Sam Parr

Saying there's a chance... Yeah, like you just put together this big speech on why Halloween is cool, and I'm into it. I think it's awesome! This 12-foot skeleton thing is awesome, this pumpkin stein is awesome. I'm all about it. This is awesome!

Shaan Puri

And so, let me tell you more ideas or little niches. So I'll tell you a couple niches and a couple ideas: Niche thing: We had a guy come rig up lights to our house this week because he did every single house in our neighborhood. We just moved in to this place, and then our neighbor was like, "Oh yeah, you want lights? You gotta hit the lights guy. He's booked, but like, if he can try to squeeze you in, you'll have lights for this season." And we're like...

Sam Parr

Oh no, sucked into all the suburban traps! By the way, for the listener, I went to Sean's house the other day for dinner, and I walked in... I'm like, "Oh, that's a really cool kids' shopping cart." He's got like a play checkout aisle, and I was like, "Wow, that cart says Target on it." And he goes, "Yeah." Or maybe it was your wife, but it's one of you guys who were like, "Yeah, this has been one of the most in-demand toys. We had to find this cart on eBay for... [some time]." It's about...

Shaan Puri

flipped 1 and we bought the other

Sam Parr

Yeah, you're like, "We had to get this cart." The kids wanted this cart, which they didn't, but you guys did, I think, probably.

Shaan Puri

the moms want this cart

Sam Parr

Yeah, the moms want... It was like we wanted this Target toy cart, and I just thought, you know, that's kind of interesting. Now I'm hearing this... You are totally becoming a suburban dad! This is awesome. I... I like this side of you.

Shaan Puri

Sir, you know I have a fanny pack. I was equipped for this life. So this guy comes over and I'm like, "How much for the lights?" He's like, "I'll do it this day in the morning. You get like a 1-hour window and it's $600 to put up the lights. You know, like $200 for the lights themselves. They last you for 10 years, and then it'll be like $60 to take them down in January." I was like, "Alright, but I guess I'm not gonna climb up there, so yeah, go ahead." You know, either we're not gonna have lights or we're gonna get in the spirit of things. This guy just cleaned up around the neighborhood. It took him an hour.

Sam Parr

But why would he do it this way? He should do it where I'll come and pick them up right after Thanksgiving. And hey, by the way, while I'm here, do you want Christmas lights?

Shaan Puri

well these were christmas lights actually it's like they they start the christmas stuff now and then you get

Sam Parr

I feel you okay I thought it was halloween lights whichever that whatever that is yeah

Shaan Puri

I don't even know, but he should start being like, "You want Halloween? I'll do a bulb change in like November." He should be upselling. He was too honest of a guy in general because he was like, "$60 to take them down." I was like, "Bro, once you put the lights up, you could charge me $6,000 to take them down. What am I gonna do?" You know, like, where's the gouging? He shouldn't have even told me that price until like January 1st. He should have called me like, "Hey dude, you need those down. It's actually illegal to have those up here right now."

Sam Parr

Yeah, you look like a... you look like a redneck. You gotta take those things down. We were pretty redneck when I was young, and we'd leave them up all year round. We'd call them "party lights."

Shaan Puri

Yeah, well, they're called February lights now. They're March lights and April lights. So this guy, I'm pretty sure he made like $20,000 this month in my one neighborhood with essentially zero cost. All he had to do was know how to string up lights. That's a skill that I think could be learned. So, you know, there is a neighborhood side hustle here that I think could be a $10,000 to $20,000 side hustle. There are probably like 100 houses in this area. Flyer them and then go start putting up lights. Just say, "Hey," knock on the door, "we just put up their lights."

Shaan Puri

would you guys want lights this year like I think that's

Shaan Puri

That's kind of an easy win. Okay, let me give you some ideas. So, you don't like haunted houses? I'm fine with a haunted house, but man, the effort to get out there is probably going to be cold. I gotta get the kids ready, gotta go in the car, you know, all that stuff. Why isn't there a haunted house I could just do from the seat of my chair at home? That's right, a VR haunted house! If you ever put on a VR headset, there's one thing VR is kind of amazing at: it provides an immersive experience where you can...

Sam Parr

look left

Shaan Puri

Look, right? You could just get scared. Like, if you've ever done the demo where you're rock climbing and they're like, "Look down," or you look down, it's legit scary. Then they'll make your character start to slip. You get that feeling in your stomach. So, a VR haunted house? No brainer. I don't know if there is one or not, but there are, I think, 100 VR apps that do over $1,000,000 a year. I feel like the VR Halloween app, the VR haunted house app, you know, you could sell this thing for $20 a pop and probably make, I don't know, a couple hundred thousand, if not $1,000,000 in a year just with the amount of sales that go on in VR. Because you'll be competing against nobody, and they'll feature you, right? Because you're cool content for that month. So, you'll get free promotion basically through the Oculus store.

Sam Parr

that's an 8 I dig it

Shaan Puri

My next one is going to be a Spirit Store for Christmas. Am I dumb? Is there no Spirit Store for Christmas?

Sam Parr

I don't know, but I do know that my wife is like your wife. This weekend we were walking around and she was like... anything that had a pumpkin-flavored candle, she was walking in. She bought a caramel apple and said, "I gotta get a caramel apple today. We *have* to have one today!"

Shaan Puri

Today, before Halloween, that motherfucker Pavlov has been doing to our wives, man. Like, there is something with this certain scent and certain color that, like, you know, I must have... must have.

Sam Parr

Just come into my life. I just learned this weekend. Have you ever heard of nesting? Do you know what that is?

Shaan Puri

yes

Sam Parr

I didn't know what that was so I just learned it real it's like

Shaan Puri

dude by the way

Sam Parr

it's and so like for for the single guys listening I guess for for

Shaan Puri

98% of our audience yeah

Sam Parr

yeah to all the neck beards out there

Shaan Puri

For all the people listening to this on a Peloton in your one-bedroom San Francisco apartment.

Sam Parr

But basically, when a woman... I guess it's like, I don't know when it happens, but I think later in the pregnancy, part of the pregnancy, she starts to "nest." I guess that means you start preparing for the baby. You want to clean constantly, basically. You want to have an environment where the baby can come to and be safe. So you want to clean, you want to organize, you want to make sure that there are no corners... That's a real thing.

Shaan Puri

It's... well, I definitely experienced it. We were like, "What's going on?" Other people who had already acted were like, "Oh, nesting! Yeah, baby's coming soon." You know, you could sort of feel this. It's like: Is your wife suddenly cleaning, organizing? All of a sudden, the to-do list just gets knocked out because there's a burst of clarity and energy, and like urgency around preparing the home for a certain thing.

Sam Parr

That's crazy! So, you know, it's interesting. We think that we are these civilized creatures, different from animals. But then there are these situations that happen. For example, if you're a man and someone disrespects you publicly, you start feeling this rage inside of you. It's like, "I want to go fight right now." Or, with a woman, it's like the nesting instinct. Having a kid is a really good example of when these weird things just start happening. I thought I was different; I thought I wasn't just one of those animals. But it turns out I'm just a beast, like the rest of the animal kingdom. Nesting is one of those instincts. And maybe there's something about Halloween where Sarah just has to drink or eat pumpkin-flavored things constantly. Well, it's the same way with Christmas. She's like, "Oh, we gotta go get the cinnamon thing." I'm like, "We don't need it." But she's like, "No, no, no."

Shaan Puri

Don't need the hot thing that I'm gonna hold with both of my hands near my nose like a small koala. It's like, what is this position that all women assume during the winter? So, the Spirit CEO even said this. He goes, "Fall, the turning of the leaves, the pumpkin spice latte, and the Spirit store. We have become a symbol of the changing of seasons. People now wait for our store to pop up. That's how they mark time, the passage of time in their lives." So anyways, I thought, you know, why isn't there a Spirit for Christmas? What does Spirit do? Well, decorations, desserts, and, by golly, good gift ideas. That's the 3 D's.

Sam Parr

Of spirit, you are suburban. I'm gonna start calling you Ted... Ted Purr. Ted Purr, use the word "for" like...

Shaan Puri

That's interesting, Dagon. Yeah, the Dagon. I need to know good gift ideas for Christmas.

Sam Parr

little piece

Shaan Puri

Yeah, Triple D has decorations. It has specific desserts like eggnog and candy canes, all this stuff. You need gift ideas; you need to go try out toys and things like that. Hallmark tries to capture this, but I think they're doing it wrong. I think Spirit needs to get in the spirit of things. Spirit needs to pop up for Halloween, stick around for Thanksgiving, and then make the Christmas push. After Valentine's Day, they should wind things down. That's the spirit you need to get. You need to get on this 6 to 8 month program. I'm sure you've thought of this and you have a good reason why you don't, but I like to play pretend seeing that.

Sam Parr

You know, I think that's something that you and I, or whoever's listening, don't think about enough. When you're thinking about a company to build, you rarely think, "This would be awesome to run." Being CEO of the holiday company would be awesome. Yeah, I mean, that would just be like a fun thing. Are you changing the world? Nah. Are you having a blast? For sure. You know what I mean?

Shaan Puri

I mean the season as we say at the holiday company

Sam Parr

Yeah, that's the... this is the holiday code. 'Tis the season. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What a beautiful word.

Shaan Puri

yeah tis clearly underused

Sam Parr

yeah I love the tis yeah so I'm I'm about this we're on to something

Shaan Puri

So, okay, a couple of other interesting things. This pet costume trend is significant. You know, we've seen pet vitamin companies like Zestipaw sell for $600 million. Pets are a huge niche. If $700 million is spent a year on pet costumes, I feel like there's a lot of potential. I mean, I can't tell you off the top of my head who the go-to brand for pet costumes is, and that tells me there's more than enough room on the e-commerce side for it. The story behind HalloweenCostumes.com is also crazy. It's all the same thing; basically, someone stumbled into this idea and then couldn't even keep up with demand as Halloween grew. Now, it's huge!

Shaan Puri

alright

Shaan Puri

so that's my that's my halloween rant that's my that

Sam Parr

was a good one

Shaan Puri

you know breakdown and backstory let's see did I miss anything

Sam Parr

We... so I wanted to talk about a few things. Well, we can go to this one topic really quick. I think it's only okay, so I don't want to spend that much time on it. But then I want to hear your Sully story, the Twitter thing, and the Warren Buffett thing. I think those are all awesome. But this is just one thing to put on your radar: have you heard of this company called Humane?

Shaan Puri

**Humane**: Is this the, like, phone on your chest? **Yes**, so basically this...

Sam Parr

is just it's it's sorry for the

Shaan Puri

shitty pitch humane

Sam Parr

Yeah, I don't actually know what it is, and I don't think anyone knows what it is. But basically, I saw this YouTube video talking about it. It's the first time I've ever heard about it, which is interesting because they've raised $130,000,000 from some of the best VCs out there. The people who started it are this husband and wife company. I think the husband spent 20 years at Apple building the iPhone. He was one of a 6 or 10 person team that came up with the original iPhone. His wife was also a director of engineering at Apple or something pretty impressive like that. They've recruited over 100 employees, most of whom are from Apple—about 60 or 70 of them. They're like "Apple ballers," not just average entry-level people. So, it's kind of an interesting signal. They filed for all these patents. One is for a wearable multimedia device and cloud computing platform with laser projections. Another one's for a portable battery pack. I mean, they’ve done all these amazing things, and they don't even have a website. You can't really learn anything about it.

Shaan Puri

You go to the website... First of all, if you go to the website, you gotta commit 3 typos to get there. It's **hue.ma.nitten** [sic] but split up with 2 different periods. And then you get there, and it's a picture of like the sun.

Sam Parr

the sun yeah

Shaan Puri

And it just says, "What did it say? Is it like... I forgot what it said. Like, change everything?"

Sam Parr

Yeah, so I have a strong take on that, but let me finish this, which is basically their whole view. They see phones as a divider between us and the world. They want your phone, or whatever it is going to replace a phone, to be an extension of our bodies. That's pretty vague; I don't know what the hell that means. But I guess it means they want to build a new iPhone, but it's not going to be a handheld device. It's going to be like clothes that you wear or lenses in your eyes. I'm not exactly sure. But two takes: 1. I completely agree, and I think that as an industry, we're way too early to say that there's something actionable right now. However, I do think in like 10 to 20 years, we're going to be anti-phone. We're going to be like, "What the fuck? You're looking at this shit? This is like cancer. Why are you doing this? What are you smoking?" That's kind of how we look at smoking. 2. I think, unfortunately, I don't know you guys—Bethany and Imran. I think those are the two founders. I'm sure you're wonderful people, but I think any company that raises that much money and has a site that says "Change Everything," and has raised $120,000,000 without ever showing anything, I think they always fail 9 out of 10 times. I think they're going to fail because of their hubris. It's like, "What the hell are we making here?"

Shaan Puri

What's one that didn't fail? Is there an example? Like, Quibi was the most recent one that was like this, and Quibi failed. Magic Leap before that... Magic Leap failing in progress. What were the other ones, you know?

Sam Parr

juicero that one failed I mean

Shaan Puri

the only one I can think of is jet.com and

Shaan Puri

but

Sam Parr

One would argue that it didn't succeed. Well, I could say it didn't fail, but they probably sold slightly above the valuation at which they raised debt.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, like I don't know if the underlying business was healthy or not. I didn't feel like Jet.com became this main, you know, big consumer thing that was going on. But, like, you know, who knows? The world is really big. Maybe there were a ton of loyal Jet.com users who were, you know, using it all the time and the business was working. But it did seem like it was the team, the story, the technology that got acquired by Walmart in order to make Walmart's online thing better. But nonetheless, still a definite win. Mark Laurie, friend of the pod, love the guy, you know.

Sam Parr

owns a fucking nba team so like it worked you know in terms of wealth creation

Shaan Puri

owns a place in

Sam Parr

my heart small more importantly

Shaan Puri

But like, you know how many of these "dream big, raise big, hype big, build in stealth for multiple years" and then launch with the world-changing device or world-changing product? Yeah, no... I'm reviewing the track record here.

Sam Parr

Yeah, yeah, yeah. If I had a nickel every time that happened, I mean, I would maybe have a dime. You know, it doesn't happen a lot.

Shaan Puri

You're a funny game, Minesweeper. It looks like that, you know? Okay, so here are a couple of things. Number one, we did talk about this before because when it came out, the patent I think got leaked. At that time, the device was some kind of clip-on camera that you would basically wear on your chest, sort of like a GoPro but for everybody. I don't know if this is still the product or not, but I remember that was the idea. It was like, "Oh, that's cool!" You'd kind of have this hands-free camera audio device, that sort of thing.

Sam Parr

oh yes I do remember that

Shaan Puri

And so, that was kind of interesting, but that would only be to capture. It wouldn't be something you could look at and read or watch a video or anything like that. So, it wouldn't totally replace the phone. But I'll say a couple of things: I think they're solving the right problem, which is that the phone is not the last frontier. There's certainly going to be some kind of wearable device after this. Is it a watch? Is it glasses? Is it something like this? Is it a drone that's floating above your head all the time? I don't know, but most likely it's going to be glasses. You know, that seems to be where everybody is going. So, we'll see, but it will definitely happen and will definitely change the world when whoever gets that form factor right. In my opinion, it is inevitable. The next thing is that the phone really is causing a lot of damage and problems in terms of how society functions. You know, with the extreme strain that came from this device, it helps us never get lost, never be bored, and never be alone—all that good stuff. I remember going to a doctor, and he did a scan. He said, "Oh yeah, you have a little, you know, slight thing up your C4, C5, whatever, like your vertebrae." I was like, "Oh shit, what did I do?" He said, "Oh no, everybody has this now. It's from looking at the phone." He said, "It's like the most chronic problem in the country right now. People's vertebrae are messed up because their neck is always craned down." I was like, "Oh damn, man, I gotta really start raising my phone higher when I'm looking. I gotta really get like a selfie stick or something. Is there a neck brace that he has?"

Sam Parr

and he sells them

Shaan Puri

yeah then the doctor sells them on his like

Shaan Puri

Drop shipping store. So, okay, I think they're solving the right problem. I also think that the common thing people would say—and this is kind of the "white knight" thing that I hate—is, "I don't want to have more technology. I don't want to have glasses that have my phone on them and my eyes all day." Like, "Shoot me now." I'm like, "Alright, I will shoot you now." Your impression? I'm gonna kill you.

Sam Parr

I'll shoot you too. Your impression of a white knight... You're basically like a white Californian guy. I think you put a little more *lowness* in your voice, and I think you've got the best white guy impression I've ever heard.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, social media... all I can say is they need a Rahul Ligba in there.

Sam Parr

life so we'll

Shaan Puri

talk about him in a second but but dude so so I think that there's this idea of like oh you know social media is too crazy I wanna detox I wanna I'm not going to I don't want more technology oh my god I don't wanna live in a world like that guess what it's coming and you're gonna love it and you're gonna do it and like yes it will have some negatives associated with it like anything but like it is gonna happen what one thing that's gonna happen with it is is zuckerberg has this law he he said I I don't know if you remember this back in the day but he he coined this term zuckerberg's law did you ever hear what this was no he tried to get away from it he said it one time in an interview and never said it again because it was like sounded bad but like it stuck with me which was because every year people are basically willing to share up to twice as much as they were willing to share the year before so in terms of like you know we weren't sharing our status updates about what we were doing all the time but then like you know when twitter comes out and that people are just you know sharing every random thought on their mind we weren't sharing our location before but then foursquare and others came out now we started sharing location photos we were only sharing you know we weren't sharing online then we shared albums then we shared a single photo and then with snapchat we'll just share like you know tons of photos because they all disappear so like basically as long as a product can unlock there is like pent up demand to share twice as much as you're currently sharing and I feel this all the time there are so many moments of the day that I wish I had captured my kids did something cute or somebody you know my trainer said something awesome to me in a workout and I'm not you know I don't want my hands on the keyboard at that moment to capture that video that note or that that image and so I think that there is like big pent up demand to be able to share way more moments or capture way more moments and share some portion of those than is happening today and that will happen with either glasses you know like maybe a drone camera or like this wearable thing on your chest so I think those things are all working for it the thing that's working against it is once you get this cute ass domain and you raise like a $100,000,000 and you go into stealth and you hire a 100 people and you're basically like we're gonna change the world you're basically saying I'm going to you know like follow this path you know I'm gonna walk off this cliff like the many before me that that many companies before me that have done this like hey magic leap I could see you down there right like you know that is the the challenge with some of this stuff

Sam Parr

yeah I I don't think it's gonna work but I think it's a cool

Shaan Puri

I think it's a

Sam Parr

cool move I'm glad they're doing it yeah yeah it's like what

Shaan Puri

what do

Shaan Puri

you say face tats and coronavirus

Sam Parr

Yeah, it's like, "Hey, what's he say to his wife?" I'm like, "Hey, you want to feel what it's like to spend $130 billion?" You know what I mean? You feel like spending money like... They just [are] coming over the way just to blow this cash. But pick one more of these things for the last few minutes. Sully or Warren Buffett? They both are incredibly interesting.

Shaan Puri

Let's do the Sully one. Alright, so he tells the story. He goes, "You know, when I sold my company, TinyCo was the name of his company. It was a mobile gaming company." He says there were two parts: there were our original games that we had been making, like *Tiny Monsters* and *Tiny Zoo*, and our licensed games, like the *Family Guy* game, the *Harry Potter* game, and the *Marvel* game. When we got acquired, the acquirer—the people who bought us—really wanted the licensed, famous IP games. So, after the acquisition, we decided to sell the first one. There were a bunch of potential acquirers, and one of them offered us $500,000 for it. I thought it was a good offer, but we could get more. So, I created a new bidder. I hit up a former engineer from TinyCo and told him to bid. I said, "You're going to need to offer like $1,000,000—like two times the current offer—to get the deal because you're just some random guy." And he did! It was a lot more than Jam City. Imagine, it was more than the market price, and as such, he won the bid. I was like, "Congrats!" Alright.

Sam Parr

you at a $1,000,000 right it was only a $1,000,000

Shaan Puri

I was like congrats you got it okay now here's the deal you we've under invested in these games you should you know just you gotta work like 60 hours a week just put some money into ads to grow it add these features that'll help you know retain it better and like you're gonna be able to 3 or 4 x the revenue in the next 12 months and the guy like you know sat there and he's like I got a better idea he's like I'm working today at as an engineer at this company I'm just gonna quit and then he's like I'm just gonna do the absolute minimum to keep this thing refreshed and working and so he goes instead of doing more work he goes you know what I'm good with this I'm just gonna tap out of the workforce at age 31 and I'm gonna retire I don't need to spend any more money I'm gonna live you know like within my means and like this app that I just bought for $1,000,000 is gonna keep giving me cash flow for you know forever I don't need a job anymore and I'll just always maintain it so it keeps bringing me that cash flow and and in the meantime I'm gonna work on my hobby projects and other software things that just scratch my itch and he goes then you know just like the world started working in his favor on top of that he goes you know like epic and apple got into a lawsuit apple had to change their rev share deal so they said for anybody making less than a 1,000,000 in revenue we'll give you 30% instead of taking a 30% cut we'll take a 15% cut so immediately profit went up by 15% for this guy he goes the business has generated more than 3,000,000 in profit since he bought it the purchase price assumed that revenue would go down over time but it remained steady and actually grew during covid and he goes takeaways the only way to win the rat race is to opt out this is a takeaway that I understand intellectually but I have not accepted emotionally frankly I'm still blown away by my friend's act of saying yeah I have enough and he goes number 2 when I tell you something to buy something buy it and when I tell you to work harder on something don't do it and and then he was like you know you know the self serving part of this thread was like you know a lot of businesses have these little baby businesses inside that are undervalued like if you have one of these like you know I wanna buy one I I think these businesses have a lot of value in them and so and so yeah so basically and I think by the way he didn't just buy the whole million with a $1,000,000 of cash upfront he financed oh

Sam Parr

he's selling finance yeah

Shaan Puri

so he put down maybe 3 400,000 and financed the rest as an example

Sam Parr

and so would you ever do that would you could you see yourself tapping out

Shaan Puri

yeah I think about that all the time you

Sam Parr

know really

Shaan Puri

Yeah, not tapping out forever, but I feel like tapping out in the sense that I really have this urge to work on whatever the most creative and fun project is... which might make $0 or negative dollars.

Sam Parr

but don't you do that now in a way

Shaan Puri

Like, that's how I started this podcast. My plan when I started this podcast was, I thought, "I’ll probably lose $10 a year all in on production." You know, paying my editor a couple hundred dollars a month and, like, booking the studio four times a month—that's $400. I was like, "I’ll probably net... will lose $10." I thought, "I’ll have some sponsors, but net will lose $10." I was totally happy to do that because I think this project is going to be a lot of fun. Instead of starting a new business, I started this podcast. This podcast turned out to be my favorite thing I've ever done—the best project I've ever started. It actually turned out to be a pretty good business on top of that. I kind of want to do that again. So, I want to look at, like, what's something I would be willing to lose money doing because it's that fun or intriguing to me? I think that’s probably a better signal of what I really want to do, and therefore, I will take an interesting shot at doing something.

Sam Parr

Dude, I think that a lot of people dream about retiring. I've... a few times in my career, I've taken as much as a month off to a year off.

Shaan Puri

sabbatical something

Shaan Puri

yeah I used

Sam Parr

To call it a sabbatical, I was like, "I'm on a sabbatical." At first, I love it, but at the end, I'm like, "Dude, I gotta go do something. I can't just do this." Your friends can't hang out with you on a Wednesday at, you know, 1 o'clock. You're just so bored, and you're like, "I need to go create. I need to produce." Then I just realized I am not built... and, you know, all people, but I can always speak from a man's perspective. We are not built to sit idle. We are, you know, created to work. I don't think we're actually created to work 100 hours a week, but I think we are created to work like 30 hours a week. That's the minimum where it's like you just have to produce and you have to contribute; otherwise, you feel pointless. I think you die sooner. Oh, jeez.

Shaan Puri

for first I

Sam Parr

don't think well yeah when people dude people are tired

Shaan Puri

I do think women are way more active in general men are more lazy yeah

Shaan Puri

sure

Shaan Puri

as a stereotype yeah

Sam Parr

I don't... I don't mean "man" in particular. I just mean "human." But also, I mean like, I only know my experience. I only know what men are like because I'm a man, you know? That's what I mean. So yeah, sure, all humans I'm sure are like that. I just haven't had this conversation with a lot of people. But I think that when you retire... I've got family members who say, "I'm going to retire." I'm like, "I don't think you should retire. I just think you should work a little bit less or do a six-month vacation." Because I think the sooner you retire, you've just actually taken off four years of your life. Do you know what I mean? If you're going to retire, you at least have to go volunteer. You gotta contribute in some way. You gotta have something that you're living for.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, totally. I wouldn't take a sabbatical. I would just pour my energy into a more creative project that's not the best business use of time. I have a bunch of ideas that I think could make a bunch of money, and then I have a bunch of ideas I think would be really fun to do that would probably not make any money. They might not even get anybody to use them or like them... maybe they'll turn out crappy, but I'm intrigued to do them. That's the temptation.

Sam Parr

You made me check that. All the things I want to do, they all cost money. So I'm like, "Fuck, I need to earn more."

Shaan Puri

yeah but you know

Sam Parr

what I mean

Shaan Puri

like like

Shaan Puri

in reality you don't

Sam Parr

Well, it's only... you know, I guess perception's reality. Who knows? Yeah, alright.

Shaan Puri

you gotta run

Shaan Puri

I could change perception right easier than you could change reality. So let's just change that. Yeah, I gotta run, but yeah, good episode.

Sam Parr

alright that's a pod