Nicotine Gum, Dating Apps for the Elderly & Vested Shares Tax | My First Million Podcast 03-03-2020
Building Businesses, Investing Wisely, and Sharing Secrets - March 12, 2020 (about 5 years ago) • 52:14
Transcript:
| Start Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
Shaan Puri | What up | |
Sam Parr | what's going on did we ask people to subscribe and unsubscribe did that work | |
Shaan Puri |
I don't think it worked. We got a bunch of videos of people doing it. Thank you for doing it. In my opinion, that experiment doesn't... like, it doesn't move the needle too much. So I don't know if that technique is a big technique.
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Sam Parr | let's answer the | |
Shaan Puri | podcast keeps growing organically but we didn't see a spike because we asked people to do it | |
Sam Parr | let's answer all their questions do you wanna answer them today | |
Shaan Puri | or I think next step thursday because I didn't have them I don't | |
Sam Parr | I got a lot of them. Yeah, the problem is, and I apologize to people who send me things on Instagram, I don't check that ever. Oh yeah, I didn't even know there's two inboxes on Instagram.
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Shaan Puri | facebook always does that with | |
Sam Parr | their show I didn't know that that was even a thing and I had all | |
Shaan Puri | these nice people sending me | |
Sam Parr | reviews you find it like a year later yeah and I didn't | |
Shaan Puri | Even know that? So, apologies. I listened back to one of the episodes, which is the most uber uncomfortable thing you can do.
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Sam Parr | not listened to one ever | |
Shaan Puri |
Yeah, and I don't blame you. I listen back and... you know, you were saying you're very self-conscious now because we do the video. That's how I am about the audio because I listen to it and I'm like, "What the fuck is wrong with me? Why am I talking this fast? Why am I breathing like that?"
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Sam Parr | I think, no, I think you guys actually have a great voice. I think you have good cadence. Someone at one of the meetups asked me, "Do you guys cut out silence?" and I was like...
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Shaan Puri | on the audio we do | |
Sam Parr | you do | |
Shaan Puri | yes sean does that yeah | |
Sam Parr | oh I thought we didn't and he was like you guys are talking so fast | |
Shaan Puri |
Yeah, so he cuts out "ums," "ahs," or big repetitions. Like if I say the same thing two different ways for no reason, he'll remove that. I think he also cuts a little bit of the gap between us when he edits. He's like a perfectionist. I told him not to do it because it takes him like 6 hours.
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Sam Parr | to do | |
Shaan Puri | keep doing it time he's like it makes a difference and I was like I don't know if this shit makes a difference | |
Sam Parr | I got compliments from it | |
Shaan Puri | okay alright well he's he's gonna justify it now | |
Sam Parr | that's crazy I just thought we were talking fast no people like the | |
Shaan Puri | We do talk fast, but it's the in-between where he speeds it up and then he cuts out any extraneous bullshit.
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Sam Parr | people like it you know I also got tons of compliments from stu a few episodes back people liked him | |
Shaan Puri | People like Stu. Yeah, high approval rating. People like Stu. He doesn't have to drop out of the presidential race like everybody else.
Alright, what do we have today?
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Sam Parr | speaking of presidential did you wanna talk about bernie is that your first thing up here | |
Shaan Puri | I have a thing up there, but I didn't research enough. I'll talk about it just quickly.
A bunch of people on Twitter were freaking out because Bernie is proposing this tax on vested shares that you haven't actually cashed in yet. Tech people were like, "Oh, okay, there goes the startup scene."
Well, you know, if you're going to tax people on vested shares that they haven't actually received, the company is not liquid.
But there are some nuances. It's written here that it's taxed on nonqualified stock options of at least $100,000. You know, if you have over $100,000 in stock options that are vested and your employee is making at least $130,000, so it's not everybody and it's not all types of things. It's not RSUs; it's ISOs, I believe.
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Sam Parr | Okay, so I'm not an expert in this stuff at all. I'm not an expert in politics. I know what I believe, but I don't know the technical details. | |
Shaan Puri | well let's agree to talk out of our ass for | |
Sam Parr | I'm not going to talk about that, actually. But here's what I am going to talk about: starting a company and how it worked for us.
I know that a lot of people think, "Oh, the rich are doing this; they don't understand things." So, when we started The Hustle, I saved up $25,000 to start it. With that $25,000, I made $60,000 in profit in 6 weeks, which is pretty good.
In the first year of business, we generated roughly $380,000 in revenue, and most of it was profit because I paid myself. I think we were an LLC. I withdrew $2,000 a month in salary, and that's how I paid my bills. My rent was very cheap—just a couple of hundred dollars a month—and I lived off $1,200 beyond that. I lived very, very frugally.
Then we decided to raise a little bit of money. I raised, I think, $300,000 from people at a $3.5 million valuation.
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Shaan Puri | and you had to change from being an llc at this. Right | |
Sam Parr | yep change to be from an s corp I think it was an s corp | |
Shaan Puri | probably a c corp | |
Sam Parr | I don't remember I see this is I'm not an expert in this yeah | |
Shaan Puri | You want to be a C Corporation (C Corp) if you're going to take investment. You don't have to study all the differences between them, but if you're going to take traditional investment, they're going to want you to be a C Corp.
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Sam Parr | So, we converted it. It cost $500,000 to do that. We probably had half a million dollars, around $300,000, in the bank account. I don't remember if it was between $305,000 by the end of our first year.
We raised money at a $3.5 million valuation. Then, once we started doing stock options and stuff like that, we signed up for Carta, and they gave us a... what's it called? The 409A. Yep, where we got...
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Shaan Puri | So that 409A just values your company at some numbers. Yeah, but you guys had revenue, so they probably took some standard multiple. | |
Sam Parr | of revenue valued us | |
Shaan Puri | and you want it to be low at this stage | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, so they valued us in the $1,000,000 range. I don't remember; it could have been $3.5 million or it could have been $6 million. I don't remember the number. Whatever these types of businesses are, that's what they value.
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Shaan Puri | Want it to be low because that's what your share price is. That's what your stock options are going to be. If you're an employee, you want to get in at a low valuation. So when it sells at a high valuation, you get this increase in value. But if the 409A comes back high, then you're not going to get as much of a lift on your share price. | |
Sam Parr | And so, at this point, our 409A is many tens of millions, which is nice. That's cool; we have a valuable business. But when we started, it was single-digit millions, which was still a lot. I was 24 at the time. I started with $25,000, and I was taking $2,000 a month. I was not saving any money.
Right, okay, I'm not complaining because it worked out. But on paper, I was a millionaire, a multiple millionaire. If I had to pay... I think I forget what this is. I don't want to act like I know what I'm talking about. Let's say if I had to pay 20% in taxes on that multiple million dollars...
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Shaan Puri | wouldn't have had money | |
Sam Parr | I literally wouldn't have had any money to do it, right? Even if I wanted to withdraw money from our business account, I would have had to lay people off.
When people say certain individuals are hoarding money, a lot of times it's not true. I have a lot of founder friends who have businesses that are on paper worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
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Shaan Puri | right | |
Sam Parr | and they have tens of 1,000 of dollars saved that's | |
Shaan Puri | bank account yeah so they're not liquid | |
Sam Parr | yeah I think people need to | |
Shaan Puri | And this also happens if you're an employee. You leave a company, and you usually have what they call an "exercise window," which might be 30 days, 60 days, or 90 days. I think the normal is 90 days. So that gives you 3 months to come up with the money to buy your options, or you lose them.
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Sam Parr | yep | |
Shaan Puri | And a lot of people don't have that money because, like, you know, they leave one company, it's a startup, and now their shares are worth $80,000 or $180,000. They want to go do a different job, and now they need to come up with $80,000 or $180,000 to buy out their options.
That's not still a guarantee that that money's coming back, and often people don't have that money sitting in the bank. So they'll forfeit their options, which is a true bummer. Some companies are being cool about it. Pinterest, a couple others—I don't remember, maybe Stripe—they increased their exercise window to 6 or 7 years.
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Sam Parr | that's crazy | |
Shaan Puri | So, they're like, "Look, that's cool. We know this practice is a little bit crazy. It's hard to come up with that cash, and you worked here; you earned your shares. So, we're not going to try to take those back. You have the longer window because we might be private for longer." It's kind of a cool trend.
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Sam Parr | so my w | |
Shaan Puri | company should do that | |
Sam Parr | My W-2 income... so at this point, I make money in 8 or 10 different ways. I have loads of things that just... it has added up over time, and that's great. I still pay myself a salary. I pay myself not that much; I'm not the highest-paid person here. | |
Shaan Puri | yeah | |
Sam Parr | And I, but my W-2 salary... we're going to be 4 years old. I've been working on this as a project since 2014. We're going to be 4 years old officially in April, oh, next month.
My W-2 salary in year 1 I think was $24,000. Year 2 maybe $36,000, and then year 3, then I started going higher, right?
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Shaan Puri | because the business was established at that. | |
Sam Parr | But my W-2 income historically has been low, right? Quite low. So when I saw this and I saw people getting mad at rich people, I'm like, "I bet people thought I was rich."
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Shaan Puri | but I wasn't | |
Sam Parr | you know what I mean | |
Shaan Puri | And you wouldn't have qualified for this because it says you have to be making at least $130,000. But, like, you're gonna...
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Sam Parr | Earning 30 years' worth of tax on my stock now would be painful... fucking hard.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, you'd be in a really tough spot. So, you know, Bernie... I like Bernie, but this is a little bit crazy. This will really screw up the way the startup ecosystem works, but it can also adapt.
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Sam Parr | I'm not even going to take a stand on whether it's crazy or not. I just want to give a perspective on my business. I think I have a lot more cash than even most people who have companies that are huge.
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Shaan Puri | what's your biggest regret in the way you set up or organized or structured the company | |
Sam Parr | I wish I wouldn't have raised money. I would have just owned it all.
And why's that? Because I would be greedier and richer.
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Shaan Puri | didn't end up needing that capital | |
Sam Parr | It's hard to say because it worked. It worked. If I wanted to start fresh again, I would have been able to do it. I can start now.
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Shaan Puri | What about advice? A lot of people think, "Oh, this person's so successful." Right? You raised money from a bunch of cool, smart, successful people, either in media or not in media.
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Sam Parr | yeah so that was helpful | |
Shaan Puri | was that truly like so did you get your sort of values worth on the advice component | |
Sam Parr | yes | |
Shaan Puri | because I don't I'm not sure that that typically plays out that way but I think you yeah | |
Sam Parr | It worked. Okay, so look, our network is so powerful. Me and you, our network is so powerful. I have, I think, 35 investors ranging from Tim Ferriss to the founders of NerdWallet, which is worth who knows what, $1,000,000,000. The founder of The Chive, founders of Bleacher Report... who else? Just look it up. A lot of people. And I text them. I just text them. I'll say...
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Shaan Puri | You get a lot out of them, and I'll tell you two things that you do that gets a lot. First, your investor updates, which you send. You used to send them more frequently.
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Sam Parr | now I send them quarterly but before I for | |
Shaan Puri | monthly right | |
Sam Parr | 36 months I send them every single month | |
Shaan Puri | Every single month, it was so well organized. It was basically like, "Hey, here are all the key metrics." You don't beat around the bush. It's like, "This is how much cash we have in the bank. This is how much we made this month. This is how much the email list grew. This is how much our open rate was."
Boom! That's number one.
Number two, what was your second sort of suggestion?
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Sam Parr | I set it up by saying, "Oh, numbers!" I just presented the numbers—there's no interpretation; it just is what it is.
Alright, let's get into it. Numbers, boom!
Then I go into things that are going well and things that are not going well. I need your help. Yes or no?
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Shaan Puri | It was great, and you sent that to... so you did the work to keep them engaged and stay top of mind. Do not underestimate this if you're doing your business. If there are people who are willing to help you out, you’ve got to find a way to stay top of mind.
Part of it is you share frequent updates. It's a very good sign if you're an investor that if one of your companies stops sending their updates for a bit, that company is about to die or they're on their way to dying. They go into a shell.
Paul Graham has this great post which is just like, as an investor, when you see that, you know it's time to go check in. Ironically, as a founder, that's when you need the help the most.
So, don't go quiet when you need the help the most. That's when you need to be talking and asking. Maybe you actually won't die if you can keep that going.
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Sam Parr | what other mistakes have we made | |
Shaan Puri | So, I always regretted that the normal way people give out equity is a little too founder-greedy. I wish I had given more equity to my team.
Basically, I wish I had just negotiated it better between what I get, what the investors get, and what my team gets. I think it was imbalanced. Some of what the investors got, the team should've received. Some of what I had, the team should've gotten because really, the people who are there as person 4, 5, and 6, they're taking just as much risk as you are. They were there when it wasn't obvious that this was going to work.
So, for the all-stars, I wish I had given more. Next time, with my next company, I'll do just that. I will make sure that the core 4 or 5 people are taken care of. It shouldn't be like... typically in a company...
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Sam Parr | pool be so I I | |
Shaan Puri | Don't know exactly what the pool will be, but let's say, let's go with what's typical.
So, a typical company has two co-founders. You start with a 50/50 split. You're going to raise some money, and they might end up taking 25 to 30% of the company, depending on how it goes. Let's call it 25%.
As the founders, you've diluted down, so you're at, I don't know, my math's bad, but let's say you're both at 30-something, 35% each now. And so, you know, that's where you're at.
Then, your team—the option pool—typically is around 10 to 15%. That's your sort of option pool.
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Sam Parr | yeah | |
Shaan Puri | So, the first few employees might have, like, you know, the key person might get like 1 to 3%. Then, everybody else is below that, essentially below 1%. I just think that's a pretty hard skew.
I would try to get multiple people in the sort of 1 to 4% range. I would try to have my core team all be in the over 1% range for sure. Whether that means I take the haircut or investors take the haircut, that's what I would do if it's a tech company.
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Sam Parr | I think | |
Shaan Puri | this is good to go different if you're not a high growth tech company would you | |
Sam Parr | start in san francisco again though | |
Shaan Puri | I'd start it wherever I live. So if I want to live here, I'd start it here. If I wanted to live somewhere else, I'd start it somewhere else. Now, you can start it definitely anywhere, so it's just about your preferences.
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Sam Parr | If I was going to start again, another thing that I would do is go and get a job somewhere. When I started, I hadn't... I was always self-employed, mostly. I wish I would have worked somewhere, maybe for a little while, before I started my own business. | |
Shaan Puri | did it or you mean as a do something as a side hustle before you just get the experience | |
Sam Parr | yeah I think it would have been nice and to save money | |
Shaan Puri | that's interesting I wouldn't have thought you'd say that | |
Sam Parr | I think it would be helpful to to understand how things work | |
Shaan Puri | I think if you did it for 3 months you'd be like okay I'm done | |
Sam Parr | it would have been nice | |
Shaan Puri | I got it back some | |
Sam Parr | money away | |
Shaan Puri | yeah that's fair but hey it all worked out | |
Sam Parr | you wanna talk about some stuff | |
Shaan Puri | yeah let's talk about some ideas okay run the world I'll start there so | |
Sam Parr | cool perfect timing | |
Shaan Puri | Perfect timing! So, these guys have been working on this, obviously, before this. I think it's for female founders.
What this is, is it's a digital conference. Especially with coronavirus, you've had major, major conferences shutting down. So, Facebook's F8 conference is done, I believe canceled. I believe GDC is done, you know, like...
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Sam Parr | I predict south by southwest but this episode will air in a couple days I bet you they're gonna cancel | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, so tons of these conferences are closing. I've always thought this is a great experiment because I've always wondered, "Why aren't there more digital conferences?"
Now, we built a product called Blab that was sort of like this. People used it this way; a bunch of podcasters threw a conference on our platform. I just thought, "Hey, this is cool because you could be remote. You could be anywhere in the world and attend this thing."
What does a conference have? It has speakers. Cool, you can stream that online, no problem. It has exhibitors. Cool, you could do that online if you want to. And it has networking, and that's a little bit harder to do online, but you could do that as well.
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Sam Parr | it's missing the biggest component though which is what serendipity | |
Shaan Puri | yeah you have to engineer that serendipity into the product | |
Sam Parr | that's the biggest part | |
Shaan Puri | So, these guys claim that they have sort of recreated all of that. I don't know; I haven't used it yet.
But the cool thing is we're now going to find out because with all these conferences canceling, Run the World is taking advantage. They're going to all the conferences and saying, "Hey, host it on our platform. We make this really easy for you."
They have a cool model where basically it's no money in; they just take 25% of the ticket sales.
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Sam Parr | who whose computer is up here can you Google run the world | |
Shaan Puri | oh yeah | |
Sam Parr | pull pull | |
Shaan Puri | it up and so they've raised a bunch of money from andreessen horowitz this week | |
Sam Parr | a lot of money | |
Shaan Puri | They announced it, and it's funny. Henry just googled "Run the World," and the Beyoncé song came up, which is hilarious.
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Sam Parr | my friend had a company called little things which is the | |
Shaan Puri | is that another song | |
Sam Parr | it's what's the boy band with harry styles that | |
Shaan Puri | oh it's a what are they called 5 something something like that | |
Sam Parr | that's right you could talk alan | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, "Run the World Today" is the URL: runtheworld.today.
So, live events worldwide. Anyway, I think this is cool, and we're going to find out if they've been dealt the best hand for their product right now. We'll see if they can pull this off. | |
Sam Parr | that's interesting do you think that the | |
Shaan Puri | I think we should do one of these for the listeners, just like you did for the New York meetup. I think we should try to take this for a test drive. Let's do an impromptu one and hang out with people. Let everyone meet each other.
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Sam Parr | I'm down. If we had to make predictions about whether this is going to work, I would say the safe bet... | |
Shaan Puri | the safe bet's always no | |
Sam Parr | The safe bet's always no. Okay, but if you had $100,000,000, would you invest $2,000,000 into this business?
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Shaan Puri | I don't know who these people are, and I haven't played with the products. That's the caveat.
Let's say I met the people and I played with the product. If I felt like they did the thing you said, which is that it wasn't just a livestream of content or a chat room, but there was some way to engineer the serendipity of networking in a conference or the discovery of new products.
If I felt like they did something different besides just a teleconference or livestream, then I would buy it. But that's gotta feel the magic.
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Sam Parr | That's a stock photo. So, there's Henry pulling up a photo right now of a mug that says "Hustle." We use that photo. That's from Splash. He was looking at it and thought that they stole it.
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Shaan Puri | henry was writing up a cease and desist like during the podcast that's great | |
Sam Parr | okay run the world internet conferences | |
Shaan Puri | you're in or out | |
Sam Parr | I am going to say 51% in. Okay, alright.
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Shaan Puri | We'll take it. So, here's what we'll do: by the time this airs, I'm going to have set up the Run the World Conference. The link to it is going to be in the show notes, and we'll figure it out. So, go in the show notes right now if you're listening to this.
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Sam Parr | well let's set up | |
Shaan Puri | And get a ticket to attend our conference. We'll try this out well, and then we'll let everyone decide: is this cool, or is this like one of those ideas that sounds good in theory but misses the magic and never works?
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Sam Parr | Henry, go to GoDaddy.com real quick, pick a URL, and we'll send them to that URL as well.
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Shaan Puri | I mean | |
Sam Parr | I hate going to the show notes | |
Shaan Puri | Okay, either way, let’s just put it on our My First Million podcast website, myfirstmillionpodcast.com.
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Sam Parr | my first million.com | |
Shaan Puri | my first million podcast.com | |
Sam Parr | okay my first million podcast.com yeah there will be a | |
Shaan Puri | copy of it to this | |
Sam Parr | do you wanna charge for it | |
Shaan Puri | yeah yeah tickets will be whatever I don't know we'll pick a number | |
Sam Parr | Okay, we'll make it cheap: **$20**. What will it be?
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Shaan Puri | We'll invite our friends. We'll invite some of the people that we think are the most interesting. We'll do a talk on, "Hey, how do we build?" You know, we'll get a couple of speakers, have a fireside chat, and then networking where people can meet each other.
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Sam Parr | Okay, and we'll limit it to **100 people**. Yeah, okay, **100 people**. That's some amount of money. [Visit] **myfirstmillionpodcast.com**. There you go.
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Shaan Puri | try it out alright sweet what else we got on the on the agenda | |
Sam Parr | Oh, I have one! Scroll down. You want to talk about some book club stuff? Yeah, okay. So, scroll down more. Keep on going.
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Shaan Puri | If you haven't seen the notes we used for this, this is hilarious. It's one long-running Google Doc with just bullet points for every possible thing we might talk about.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, that's great.
Okay, so we were going to talk... I was going to talk about this a few weeks ago.
When I moved to San Francisco, I started a book club called the **Anti-NBA**. I did it because I didn't go to an elite Ivy League school, but I was always envious of those people. When I moved here, I didn't know a single soul, and I felt I always stereotyped people as tall, beautiful, with white teeth, wearing Patagonias, and they had lovely networks.
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Shaan Puri | that's what you saw all around you | |
Sam Parr | yeah just like these like rich white people who that's how I I was like | |
Shaan Puri | right | |
Sam Parr | That's how I imagined it, and it kind of was that. I was always envious of that. So, what I did was create a book club meeting where we would meet every week, and we would read one book a month. I would convince an expert on the...
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Shaan Puri | how'd you convince people to join this where'd you throw it up on your blog or what | |
Sam Parr | I'm just a cold email guy. I learned how to cold email people, and I did it online. Each week, we would have 30 people show up, and I probably had an email list of 5,000 people who would do this.
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Shaan Puri | was not in person | |
Sam Parr | this is all online 30 people in person sieva | |
Shaan Puri | yeah | |
Sam Parr | All a lot of my best friends I met this way. Thirty people. My friend had an office and he let me use it. We would just meet up, and I would read a week ahead of time, make notes, and lead discussions. Sometimes we would have an expert.
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Shaan Puri | okay | |
Sam Parr | And then I would send show notes or meeting notes to the list, and people loved it. I made close to no money off of it, or I don't think I made any money off it. I just did it for fun, and it was very successful. A lot of people said that we should make it a thing.
I thought it was a stupid idea, but book clubs are actually kind of interesting. There's this business called Book of the Month Club. It was started in, I believe, the 1930s. It's owned by Bertelsmann, which is a large publisher—a multi-billion dollar publisher. Recently, a private individual bought it for single-digit millions of dollars.
In the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, this was massive. I mean, millions of people paid for it, so it was quite a large business—hundreds of millions of dollars probably in the 60s and 70s. It's gone away since Amazon came around. A guy bought it a couple of years ago, and it's quite large still. What they do is... scroll down a little bit.
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Shaan Puri | this is 90,000,000 users what the hell | |
Sam Parr | no that's goodreads | |
Shaan Puri | oh that's goodreads | |
Sam Parr | And so, the Book of the Month Club now has **100,000 active paying customers**. Wow! This means they're in the revenue range of **$10 to $15 million** a year in recurring revenue. The founder said in the interview that his goal is to grow **5x a year**.
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Shaan Puri | 5 x a year nice | |
Sam Parr | For the next year, not consistently. I don't know if that's... I think that's bogus. But "Book of the Month" is kind of an interesting thing. I suspect I've always thought that it would not work. Now my opinion has changed.
So, Goodreads has 100 million users. There's this thing called Wattpad. Have you heard of Wattpad? I've heard of it.
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Shaan Puri | of it yeah | |
Sam Parr | Wattpad. A lot of people don't know about it. Wattpad is owned by a guy in Canada, and they have 400 employees. It's a multiple $100,000,000 a year business. I believe it's a book club for... it's not a book club; it's more...
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Shaan Puri | write on it you you write original stories on it | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, but their category is Roman middle America romance novels. So if you're a 40-year-old woman, you probably have heard of Wattpad.
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Shaan Puri | you're saying that's the most popular category or | |
Sam Parr | yeah but that's pretty much all they do | |
Shaan Puri | oh really okay | |
Sam Parr | It's basically for women who... it's like men do video porn; romance novels are woman porn. I mean, that's basically what it is. It's a huge business, and now I'm quite bullish on these books.
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Shaan Puri | clubs yeah | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, Reese Witherspoon has a book club. My wife uses it, my sister uses it, and so many people have. Have you heard of this?
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Shaan Puri | no what's called | |
Sam Parr | that one sunshine some fucking thing | |
Shaan Puri | But Oprah had hers, but hers wasn't a paid membership. This is really smart. What you're describing, I'm like, "Oh, this is good."
I think you probably don't have to have, but it's advantageous to have a brand like Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow, or whoever. Or like The Hustle could do a book club.
You could do a book club. I think that you have to have a bit of cachet to organize people around and to get the energy going—the initial energy you need.
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Sam Parr | so here's one angle you buy the rights to the book which is expensive | |
Shaan Puri | yeah why would you do that | |
Sam Parr | Well, because I think the margins in books are quite small. I've talked to Tim Ferriss about this. He told me that he earns... I mean, I think that he does about $1,000,000 a month in revenue from his podcast. He told me that he has made 10 times more money off the podcast than all of his books combined.
Right? So, I don't think people get paid a lot of money for books. Right? So, margins are just...
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Shaan Puri | so it might be a cheap asset you're saying | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, I think it's quite cheap. So, my goal would be to buy the rights to the book and make it popular. You know, have you heard of this company that owns the company that owns Proactiv? It's called *Gott*... I know what you're... | |
Shaan Puri | talking about it's the skin care | |
Sam Parr | It's a direct marketing company. The guy who owns it has quite a large business. He got his start because he bought the rights to *Think and Grow Rich*.
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Shaan Puri | oh really | |
Sam Parr | And he helped make it popular again. Oh wow, through infomercials.
So that's what I would do. I would want to buy the rights to all the books. There's another company called MentorBox that does this, and Tai Lopez is one of the owners.
It's incredibly scammy. I mean, like, you sign up for like $20, and then it rolls into like a $400 a month thing. It's like... stupid. But book clubs are super interesting to me.
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Shaan Puri | So, would you do this? Like, if you were going to do this now, how would you attack it? What would you do? So, you buy the rights of the... you buy the rights.
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Sam Parr | of which books if I wanted to bootstrap it no you can't how | |
Shaan Puri | how would you do it | |
Sam Parr | So, what I would do is look at what "Vinyl Me, Please" is doing. Vinyl Me, Please is my friend's business; it's probably a couple million dollars a month in subscription revenue.
What you do is give them $50 a month, and they send you a vinyl record once a month.
I would do something similar but for a particular type of category. I would create a Facebook group and say it's $30 or $50 a month. We would read one book a month, and I would get one expert to come and talk about the book each week.
Each month, we would do it in a Facebook group, and I would send you notes about the whole book.
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Shaan Puri | And what category do you think you'd choose? Would you do the romance novel, or would you do business, or would you do self-help?
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Sam Parr | just because I have such a network in business that I could just crush | |
Shaan Puri | it off the bat business | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, but romance novels... I know this from experience because I've invested in these types of things. Romance novels have the highest liquidity, as in people consume them the most, right? So I would... they're.
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Shaan Puri | like voracious readers 5 5 times the number of books read | |
Sam Parr | The romance category is probably one of the most... it's probably the most popular category on Kindle. Yeah, I bet you it is. So, okay, me personally, I would start here. But if I even slightly was interested in romance novels, I would...
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Shaan Puri | And I like what this guy did: buying the rights to the Book of the Month Club. It's a popular asset that has sort of decayed over the last 30 years. Let's see if he can revitalize it on the cheap. I think these are interesting businesses.
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Sam Parr | There are so many books that I love, written in the sixties and seventies. Then you try to buy them on Amazon, and they're $100 because they've just been forgotten and they don't reprint them.
I just tried to buy a book the other day that someone mentioned on Twitter, and it was $900.
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Shaan Puri | what book | |
Sam Parr | It was... so I just tweeted about Agora. That's the scammy company, which we can talk about if we want. But it was all about copywriting. It was $900.
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Shaan Puri | okay yeah let's talk about agora | |
Sam Parr | okay you wanna hear about agora okay | |
Shaan Puri | so agora is is what it's a b to b paid newsletter company | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, that has absurd revenue. Go to my Twitter account.
Okay, so here's another interesting company. I know this because I'm in this world and it's directly related to us.
Agora has a crazy interesting background. Agora was started by this guy named Bill Bonner in the 1970s. He was a publisher and had a magazine about money and investing and things like that. Then he decided to start changing how he did his marketing. He created a newsletter that became quite popular.
You'll see it; it's the most popular one. No, up higher at this. They make, it's rumored to be $1.5 to $2 billion a year. The way that they do this is they own 20 to 40 different newsletter publishers. What they do is buy a ton of traffic to their funnels, their marketing funnels, and right off the bat, they'll sell you a $50 product.
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Shaan Puri | right | |
Sam Parr | And once you buy that **$50** product, they now have a large database and email list of qualified buyers who are interested in a particular topic. They typically lose money on this first purchase.
So, let's say that they have a book that's **$50**; they'll spend up to **$200** to acquire you. Meaning, they'll buy a ton of ads and they'll lose money on you, but they'll make it up because on the... they call it a "back end."
On the back end, they sell you a **$2,000** paid newsletter. This company, in particular, even sells supplements and other products. Now, some people think that they... some people legitimately create great products.
Right? What's their best product? **MoneyMapPress.com** or yeah, **MoneyMapPress.com**.
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Shaan Puri | so this is for hedge funds is it for for financial traders no | |
Sam Parr | who who | |
Shaan Puri | it was | |
Sam Parr | Yes, some financial traders, their typical audience is white men between 50 and 70 who are conservative and believe that the government's going to come and take their money. I mean, it's because I signed up for some of their funnels, and there was stuff like, if you go to Breitbart.com, you'll see an ad that says, "Nancy Pelosi's coming for your money" and things like that. And you sign up.
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Shaan Puri | takes you through one of the agora funnels uh-huh | |
Sam Parr | And it's a $5 book. Then, yeah, you'll go through these funnels.
Now, let's just get rid of the whole unethical part because you can learn from everyone. Who cares if it's unethical or ethical? It's fascinating regardless, and you could learn from it.
What they're experts at is copywriting. In Silicon Valley, not everyone, but you get the idea. It's all about design. It's gotta look good; it's gotta be aesthetic. Their websites are a blank page with text. Not just text, but like 5,000 words and a "Buy Now" button at the very bottom.
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Shaan Puri | It's crazy! That is fascinating. I think you're... you know that Peter Thiel quote where it's like, "What's something you believe to be true that few would agree with you on?"
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Sam Parr | yeah | |
Shaan Puri | I feel like, you know, you might have many, but one of them would be copywriting over design any day.
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Sam Parr | copywriting over design 100% any day | |
Shaan Puri | I remember when I learned the word **copywriting**. I was like, "What is... what is even talk? What is copy? Why does everyone keep saying this?"
I literally was at work, and people were like, "Hey, can you give me some copy?" I was like, "Coffee? What did she just ask me to go get a coffee for her?" I had no idea what the heck she was talking about.
Then I sort of learned, "Oh, copy means text that's going to go on the website." Through you, I realized, "Hey, wait a minute, the text that's on your website is essentially your salesman, and sales gives you the money. I should probably learn how to do this."
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Sam Parr | copy and I went | |
Shaan Puri | deep on it | |
Sam Parr | It's the most important skill you can learn because I've spent years learning it. If you just give me a blank web page, I will...
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Shaan Puri | I will make money | |
Sam Parr | Till I die, right? I will always have a job because I could do that. Right now, what I could do is really unethical stuff and scam a lot of people really easily. But if you know how to copyright or you know how to persuade via the written word...
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Shaan Puri | **Yeah, I would say persuasion is the most important skill.** Whether it's through the written word or verbally, you know, I don't know if there's some other...
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Sam Parr | but copywriting is | |
Shaan Puri | just a variation | |
Sam Parr | Copywriting is just a form in which you learn. Now, the way that I describe it is: if you're a good copywriter, you understand what motivates people. If you understand what motivates people, you can create products that they'll want, products that will appeal to them.
When you do copywriting, you learn what motivates people, and then you just happen to use the written word to communicate that. | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, when you mentioned the Boron letters, I just went deep on that. That was like my foray into this. So, we'll do a whole section on it.
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Sam Parr | you read the boron | |
Shaan Puri | yes and then I started like doing all the things in it because I got obsessed | |
Sam Parr | so the boron letters if anyone's curious gary halbert is his name he's dead now he died of a heart attack | |
Shaan Puri | actually kinda hard to find | |
Sam Parr | it's hard to find | |
Shaan Puri | but there's there's one link and if you get to it it's like chapter 1 2 3 | |
Sam Parr | and it gets | |
Shaan Puri | to 19 or whatever | |
Sam Parr | It's this copywriter who's one of the best copywriters of all time. What he would do is, he was such a good copywriter that he kind of turned into a crook. He would write these sales letters to buy encyclopedias or, you know, buy like... anything, just shit.
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Shaan Puri | so the boron letters are the way it starts it's like he's writing to his son | |
Sam Parr | he's in jail | |
Shaan Puri | He's in jail writing to his son, and he doesn't start off by saying, "Here's how you copyright." He's just writing to his son, and it's one by one. Each one's a teaser; every sentence teases the next sentence, and every letter teases the next letter. By the time you get 20 deep, you're like, "This guy's a master."
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Sam Parr | it is awesome so read that alright what do you got sean | |
Shaan Puri | A couple of others... Okay, so here's an idea. I was talking to my cousin, and we were discussing one of my younger cousins. He goes on dates and uses the apps—boom, boom, boom. Our aunts and uncles are always like, "Oh my God, look at him! He's just swiping left and right. He goes on dates!" It's a really foreign concept to them.
So that was one data point. I kind of noticed, wow, my aunts and uncles really don't get it when it comes to this online dating thing.
Data point two: I'm watching the debate, and I realized I watch so much online content that when I watch traditional TV, first of all, it's so slow. Secondly, I start to see the commercials and think, "Oh, this is what's being advertised to mainstream America." Like cars and drugs—fascinating!
For example, Noom was on there, which is like the diet and nutrition plan thing. Yeah, they do really, really well. N-O-O-M. We should break them down later. | |
Sam Parr | they advertise | |
Shaan Puri | For me, it was this gray-haired woman who comes on the screen and she's like, "Oh, online dating, where do I start?"
Then it's like, "Well, open up your browser, type www. and then the URL." It's like, "Then start clicking around."
That was literally the ad. It was like, "How do I even get started?" It's like, "Here's how you get started on dating." I don't remember the name.
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Sam Parr | oh come on | |
Shaan Puri | It wasn't like a match or anything; I had never heard of it before. So, I started thinking about how there are so many people in my extended family who are divorced and alone. I thought, "You know, it would be great if they found someone."
But the reality is, they don't do a lot of online dating because it's so scary and foreign. It's not the online part that's scary; it's the expectation that you then need to go meet somebody.
Let's take my uncle, for example. My uncle is, I don't know, 65 years old. He is divorced and gets lonely. His kids are all grown up, and everyone has left the house. It would be great if he met someone awesome, and they could just be companions for the rest of their lives. But he's sort of like, "Dude, I don't want to get out there. The last time I went on a date was 40 years ago. I think I'm just out of the game."
It's easier to be lonely than to put yourself out there.
So, anyway, long preamble for the idea. The idea is a service for older people, let's say 50 and up as a rule, and it's called "Just Talking." The expectation is that you're going to go out here with other people who are like you—sort of single, might be alone, looking for companionship—but it's just talking.
You can't meet; it's not their real names; it's nothing. It's just someone you could log on to the computer and talk to, either through audio or text. You could talk to them continuously, or you could switch and pick somebody else to talk to.
But it's just companionship as a service. It's not dating; you're not going to start going out with this person, and you're not trying to get remarried.
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Sam Parr | you're just getting the reps in | |
Shaan Puri | You just don't want to be lonely at home anymore. Honestly, you can have a virtual relationship, you know, through this. It's because I was also watching *Love Is Blind*. | |
Sam Parr | so good | |
Shaan Puri | and I was like dude somebody should make an app that's just this now off the back of the show | |
Sam Parr | good idea | |
Shaan Puri | and so anyways these are sort of some ideas | |
Sam Parr | What do you think about it?
I love it! I love it!
Witter, that's a winner. What I would do is go and do research on the sex hotlines that used to exist but probably don't anymore. I would want to learn how they worked. I bet they crushed it.
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Shaan Puri | so I'll shout out some like tangentially related so sex hotline related but obviously master | |
Sam Parr | p used to own one that for sex that killed it | |
Shaan Puri | then there's 1 a startup out here in san francisco called papa | |
Sam Parr | have you | |
Shaan Puri | heard of this | |
Sam Parr | papa | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, no. Papa is "Grandkids as a Service."
So, it's just young people that will come over to your grandparents' house and do stuff for them. They will talk to them, but they will also do their laundry and take out the trash.
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Sam Parr | I don't | |
Shaan Puri | I know if they're doing well or not. They just launched and raised a bunch of money because there's this huge aging population of baby boomers.
There's a wealth of opportunities for this largest generation of people ever in America, who are now getting old. I forgot this woman was calling it "the gray new world," you know, for gray hair.
So she's like, "The gray new world opens up all these possibilities."
One is Papa, which is "grandkids as a service." Another is Honor, because there's a huge shortage of caretakers for the elderly. Honor is an on-demand caretaker platform that is dispatching caregivers.
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Sam Parr | Are you going with caring for old people or helping people get laid? I'm talking about just talking. That's my idea, but I...
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Shaan Puri | was just tangentially saying there's some other businesses that are trying | |
Sam Parr | to help this thing out hero | |
Shaan Puri | what do they do | |
Sam Parr | I've never heard of that. No, Jack invested in it, and he says it's going well. It's called **Relationship Hero** (relationshiphero.com), and they teach you how to do online dating. | |
Shaan Puri | oh okay just coaching for online dating | |
Sam Parr | go can you go to relationship hero that's how it started as it might be a little bit different | |
Shaan Puri | for young yeah this this would be for younger people though it'd be for whoever | |
Sam Parr | I I think it could be I | |
Shaan Puri | I think if you just talked and ran a bunch of Facebook ads, you could get a lot of people to pay to be a part of a community. A community where they can have these online relationships. I love the expectation that you do not go offline.
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Sam Parr | I think it's great. You know why I think it's great? It's because the way that you're positioning it is as a marketplace. Those are notoriously hard to make, but once you have them, they're great.
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Shaan Puri | yeah | |
Sam Parr | the reason why I like this is you can kinda fake it at first yeah so you can just | |
Shaan Puri | hire people you can have | |
Sam Parr | some | |
Shaan Puri | operators yeah that are that are | |
Sam Parr | providing that companion I think | |
Shaan Puri | it's a great idea you could seed the marketplace | |
Sam Parr | with the operators yeah I think it's awesome we talked about onlyfans yeah that's trending today on twitter | |
Shaan Puri | is it | |
Sam Parr | yeah worldwide | |
Shaan Puri | because of what some shit must have gone down | |
Sam Parr | I didn't get the joke I clicked on it and tried to understand it and I didn't right I didn't get it | |
Shaan Puri | 1 out of 3 twitter trends | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, it was a top OnlyFans, which we talked about. OnlyFans is a great business, but I love just talking. I think that's a great idea. Thank you, thank you, thank you very much. No, I think that's a winner. | |
Shaan Puri | Alright, I have a question for you now. Before last week, I think maybe it was when I was with Stu, but I shared this anecdote or this sort of advice, which was:
"If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, you know, don't ask which seat. Just sit down and buckle up."
This is just career advice, which is if you're not going to start your...
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Sam Parr | own company for it | |
Shaan Puri | did I yeah oh I thought people loved it | |
Sam Parr | what what | |
Shaan Puri | do you mean oh well | |
Sam Parr | what was the criticism nice sized audience not | |
Shaan Puri | everyone's gonna be happy but what was what was the criticism based on | |
Sam Parr | It wasn't even controversial. Just stuff like titles. It was just comments, like people saying titles are important, but how much you get paid is more important. Things like that. | |
Shaan Puri | That's crazy! I disagree... hard disagree.
Okay, so anyway, the question was sort of that led to a different question, which is: What are the rocket ships of today?
By the way, somebody took that idea and made a rocket ship newsletter for jobs.
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Sam Parr | whatever johnson | |
Shaan Puri | But beyond that, I was just sort of thinking... just my thought experiment. What companies that today are worth $1 to $5 billion do I believe will be multi-billion dollar companies?
So, as a way of phrasing it simpler, what $5 billion company today could become a $500 billion company in the future? I say this because we have friends who bought Facebook secondary stock back in 2006 and 2007 when Facebook was valued at over $1 billion.
Today, Facebook is like whatever, a $500 billion company. It was clear it wasn't going to zero; it was clear it was a thing. The question is, you could have invested then and gotten a phenomenal return. I have several friends who did. I had a friend, Alex—oh no, sorry, Josh Buckley—who's a good guy, founder, and a British guy. Yeah, he's a British guy.
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Sam Parr | know him | |
Shaan Puri | He's... so he was telling me, we were just hanging out one day, and he's like, "Yeah, I'm buying secondary stock of Stripe as much as I can get." I was like, "Oh, like what do you mean? I'm not doing that. Why are you doing that? I should do that."
He was like, "Yeah, I just think Stripe's a great company, and there's secondary stock available, so I'm just buying it." I asked, "Well, what's the valuation? It's already like a $2,000,000,000 company." He said, "Yeah, but Stripe's gonna be big. I think Stripe's gonna be huge, so I'm just buying up secondary."
Now, Stripe's valued at like $20,000,000,000. So he took essentially like a no-risk bet, in my opinion, and 10x'd his money on a private company that was already a unicorn but wasn't yet on the stock market. It wasn't doing like 10% a year, you know? That's a 10x appreciation.
So, long story short, what companies do you think have that potential that are in the single-digit billions today or less that you think could be a Facebook, Google, or Amazon of our generation?
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Sam Parr | So, a few years ago, I answered this question. I thought it was Atlassian, and I went in on that. It worked. | |
Shaan Puri | okay tell me about that what do you mean it worked | |
Sam Parr | well | |
Shaan Puri | back then it was can | |
Sam Parr | You just look... go ahead, Henry. Look, go to Atlassian stock. You're busy today. I invested in Atlassian stock. I mean, it's not like I... yeah, Atlassian, spelled with...
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Shaan Puri | an a | |
Sam Parr | There it is. Yeah, and then go to "All Time." I bought at Last Max on the far right. I bought it when it went public. So, what did it go up by?
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Shaan Puri | it's 3x like a 3x already | |
Sam Parr | So, I 3x my money. I bought it last year because I read their annual report and I was like, "Oh, these guys are great," right?
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Shaan Puri | their market cap's now 35,000,000,000 yeah | |
Sam Parr | so I bought it right when it went out so that worked out well | |
Shaan Puri | what do you think can get to the over a100,000,000,000 billion it's very hard to get over a 100,000,000,000 | |
Sam Parr | how many companies are worth over a 100,000,000,000 like maybe very | |
Shaan Puri | Very few, especially if you think about tech companies.
Some of the tech companies that made it include Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Uber. Uber has not quite made it yet, but it's getting there. Tesla made it as well.
I think I invested in Tesla when it was at about this number: $5 to $8 billion.
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Sam Parr | oh really | |
Shaan Puri | And now it's almost $100 billion. That's a big lift for a company that's out there. It's not a seed-stage startup you're taking a bet on; it's a company that's established.
The other way to take a bet on it, even if you're not an investor, is to go work at one of these companies. For example, Airbnb was a good candidate, but now its value is too high to qualify for this. Airbnb is valued at, I don't know, $35 billion or something like that.
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Sam Parr | we'll see what happens with this | |
Shaan Puri | but it's not in the single digit billions anymore but when we when we moved to san francisco we could have done that right | |
Sam Parr | when I moved to san francisco I had a job offer at airbnb when it was worth a 1,000,000,000 | |
Shaan Puri | 1,000,000 | |
Sam Parr | maybe less I don't know there was only no it was less it was 2012 | |
Shaan Puri | right so so let's just say it was at a 1,000,000,000 which it wasn't but let's say it was you yeah | |
Sam Parr | I would have made $10,000,000 | |
Shaan Puri | I don't know, it's 35 times. So even if you had just gotten a sort of standard stock package, which was like over 4 years, you're gonna get $200.
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Sam Parr | that would've made 5 or $10,000,000 | |
Shaan Puri | yeah that's insane | |
Sam Parr | and I got fired before I even showed up to work | |
Shaan Puri | So, some other candidates that I put up here: Flexport. I think it is a candidate. Maybe... oh, you got some inside intel? That sounded like a juicy maybe.
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Sam Parr | Well, Ryan told me he thinks it's going to be massive or it's going to go bankrupt. Okay? Which is like, how are you going to be when you're... yeah.
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Shaan Puri | that's how you're gonna be | |
Sam Parr | that's how you're gonna be | |
Shaan Puri | So, some other... this was harder than I thought. I also tweeted this out, and the most popular answers I got were Airtable and Carta. I pretty much disagree with both of those. I don't know. I asked, and these are smart people replying. I was like, "Carta? Why Carta?"
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Sam Parr | we should get carta to sponsor this podcast by the way | |
Shaan Puri | yeah why are they not sponsored | |
Sam Parr | I don't know, you guys need a sponsor. And I'm gonna... I don't give a fuck about people's sponsors. I'm gonna tell you the truth: Carta is the best option out there, but it still needs a lot of improvement.
I use it. I give you guys $5 a year. I'm happy that I give you the money, but it can improve.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, so Airtable... it would have to basically replace Excel in the corporate world for it to do this. Otherwise, it will not be a $100,000,000,000 company. | |
Sam Parr | how about gusto | |
Shaan Puri | Gusto's a good one. I think there are a lot that are in the sort of either HR tech. You just need to be in huge spaces.
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Sam Parr | gusto and rippling | |
Shaan Puri | yeah gusto rippling I think | |
Sam Parr | I would bet I | |
Shaan Puri | 100,000,000,000 is a high bar, but yeah. So, other ones that I put up here are Stripe, but it's past this.
Coinbase, only if Bitcoin actually becomes the thing. If Bitcoin actually becomes the global reserve currency, then...
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Sam Parr | well it doesn't have to be | |
Shaan Puri | the largest bitcoin sort of company the large bitcoin brand would be I think | |
Sam Parr | a 1000000000 become bank of america can it become wells fargo yeah but | |
Shaan Puri | I think bitcoin has to become that relevant for coinbase to be | |
Sam Parr | yeah I buy I buy that | |
Shaan Puri | Open Door is another one, just because residential real estate is so big. If they actually have a working model, they could become a $100 billion company.
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Sam Parr | I don't buy that | |
Shaan Puri | because what | |
Sam Parr | because zillow and trulia aren't that huge | |
Shaan Puri | They don't do what these guys do, though. Zillow and Trulia sell leads to brokers. They're now trying to copy Opendoor, so now they offer what Opendoor offers. But Opendoor is literally buying and selling houses; they're flipping houses at scale, which is pretty crazy.
What else? This was tough. I don't know, that's all I had. But I put this on here. I wasn't going to talk about it initially, but I'm like, I want to bring this up. I want people to tell me what I'm wrong about or what companies I should be considering in this. I think it's a really important question because, for me, I'm going to go try to buy secondary stock in all these companies.
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Sam Parr | okay so I don't | |
Shaan Puri | and if you're working you should go work at one of these companies | |
Sam Parr | A $100 billion valuation? That's impossible. I won't even try to predict that because only a few hundred people or a few hundred businesses have ever probably done that. I don't know the number, but that's really hard to say.
However, if I had to make a prediction, I do think that there will be some new search engines. I also think that some of the new Chrome replacements could be quite large.
Brave is one of them. What's another one? Anything that is replacing browsers, I think, is kind of cool and could potentially be that big. I think there's going to be a lot of browser innovation.
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Shaan Puri | I think if any company nails AI, they will be able to do this. But that's a ways away, I believe.
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Sam Parr | how about zoosk is that what's called | |
Shaan Puri | zoosk the self driving car company | |
Sam Parr | yeah yeah | |
Shaan Puri | So that was the other thing. I considered all the self-driving car companies because I'm like, if one of them becomes a success, a successful self-driving car company, the market leader will be worth over $100 billion.
It's just more likely... I believe it's more likely to be Tesla or one of the incumbents. Rather, they'll buy one of these companies rather than that company independently going from where it is today, which is $1 billion, to $100 billion.
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Sam Parr | How about this: what companies are public now that could grow that much?
I was talking to Moyes the other day, and we were looking at Stamps.com. They were crazy undervalued. The next day, we were like, "Let's buy this!" But then, the next day, we didn't buy in time. It went up 50%.
Yeah, I love that. It was coincidental.
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Shaan Puri | Just saw an interesting stat. Over the last 10 years, if you had just bought the FAANG companies—Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google—you would have outperformed all VCs.
Sorry, it outperformed even the top expected returns of venture capital. So, in the public market, if you just bought the 5 most popular tech stocks, you did better. It was a 24% IRR over 10 years.
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Sam Parr | Okay, well, what's public now that could... I don't fucking know. That's a great question. It's hard. You gotta really bet on industries. What do you got? What about like whoever becomes the leader in sports gambling? It's gonna be... | |
Shaan Puri | sports betting | |
Sam Parr | sports betting good that's a good that's a good whoever is the number one whatever that is and if | |
Shaan Puri | the legislation keeps opening up | |
Sam Parr | that's a good call I would do sports betting I would bet on that industry that's a great call | |
Shaan Puri | Okay, we ventured off into stock tips, so I want to get back because we don't know anything about the stock market. That's not our promise. Let's tell them something else that we find interesting. What else you got?
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Sam Parr | you wanna do one more | |
Shaan Puri | I'll mention one of the cool company that's related to stocks actually publiccomps.com so publiccomps.com | |
Sam Parr | guy shows in trouble | |
Shaan Puri | He's just breaking down stocks for companies, which a lot of people like to do nowadays. But it's just good; you don't have to do the research. This guy does the research for you and he publishes it. I like it.
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Sam Parr | Let's do... let's wrap up with "Made Renovation." You talked about this in one of our very first podcast episodes.
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Shaan Puri | Exactly. So, one of our very first ones, I was like, "Hey, I saw this ad. I think this is an awesome idea."
If you don't remember because you're not a die-hard fan, what it was is a turnkey bathroom renovation. So, if you want your bathroom... the ad was just a dope-looking bathroom, and it was like, "If you want this bathroom, it's like $5."
You don't have to... like, because what happens today is you have to hire a contractor, and you have to come up with the vision board of what you want.
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Sam Parr | you want | |
Shaan Puri | You have to choose all these different materials. Then he sources it, and it turns out that it's like a one-off. They have four designs of bathrooms. You just pick which one you want. Do you want the old Victorian, cool-looking one? Do you want the modern one, or do you want the middle-of-the-road one?
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Sam Parr | yeah I always said that which barbers were like | |
Shaan Puri | And here's the price. You just push the button.
Yeah, it's like actually some barbers do this. You go up on the haircut, it's like "3." Yeah, I'll take the number 3, large. You know, no problem.
So that's what these guys are doing for bathrooms. I thought that was really smart.
It turns out this was not just some random startup. This is Roger Dickey who started this, and he's the one who started Geekster. He's done some cool stuff in Silicon Valley before, so he's not... | |
Sam Parr | a sort | |
Shaan Puri | Of a joker, and they raised $9,000,000. They came out of stealth, and I was like, "I gave myself a little pat on the back."
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Sam Parr | that's a good one that that's a good call that that's a pretty good call | |
Shaan Puri | I still think it's a very cool idea. I also believe that anybody could compete with them because this will not be a winner-takes-all situation. You have to be doing local renovations in the cities. They announced it this week. Good job!
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Sam Parr | Can I give myself a pat on the back? Yeah, one of my first angel investments was Lucy, [lucynicotine.com](http://lucynicotine.com). I think... or I don't even know what the URL is, to be honest.
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Shaan Puri | explain what it is | |
Sam Parr | people will see | |
Shaan Puri | people don't know | |
Sam Parr | I don't, but it's huge. It's like replacing a jewel. Yeah, so I invested in...
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Shaan Puri | all your what | |
Sam Parr | All my friends at school... all your friends are buying Lucy. People are, "Yeah, oh, fuck yeah! Money in the bank!"
Yeah, hey, so one of my first angel investments—I don't remember when this was, maybe 3 years ago—the founder of Soylent, Dave, who's my friend, Dave Renton, he started this thing. It was basically a Nicorette, so it's right.
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Shaan Puri | new age nicorette | |
Sam Parr | Nicotine gum. He told me about it, and I was like, "Alright, well, Dave, you started Soylent, so you're pretty smart. You scaled that thing up." I knew him well; he's a good guy.
It's a big market—it's nicotine. So I'm like, "Okay, well, I mean, this is retention."
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Shaan Puri | is gonna be good | |
Sam Parr | yeah I'm a I'm a nicotine user I like the gum I I chew the gum and I like the you | |
Shaan Puri | chew nicorette | |
Sam Parr | yeah I like the I prefer lozenges so I'll put them in my mouth okay and | |
Shaan Puri | but you don't smoke so you just do this just nicotine | |
Sam Parr | I like nicotine. I don't drink and I don't smoke. It's my vice, and it's a monthly subscription.
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Shaan Puri | yeah I | |
Sam Parr | was like yeah of course you'll fucking knock that one off the park | |
Shaan Puri | really smart | |
Sam Parr | And they just raised a lot more money. So, on paper—which is completely useless—it’s not going to buy me a house or pay my rent. But the valuation went up significantly, so I got a little.
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Shaan Puri | My corner store guy has it at the front by the register. I said, "Okay, whatever's at the front by the register, that's what's selling. That's what this guy knows will make him money."
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Sam Parr | is it really I really I didn't I | |
Shaan Puri | sent dave a picture I was like you're the shit | |
Sam Parr | henry although the guy the guy at | |
Shaan Puri | I asked him, "How well does this sell?" He's like, "It's pretty good. It's not jewel, but it's pretty good." Of course, it's...
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Sam Parr | Not Jewel? Are the kids buying Nick and Lucy? Yeah, oh, fuck yeah! Money! Congratulations!
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Shaan Puri | pay pay the taxes on it | |
Sam Parr | Oh, fuck! Money in the bag. I think that's a 5 or 6x so far. I'm proud that that would be a...
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Shaan Puri | that's a good investment I like that one | |
Sam Parr | That will be good ones. I think we are one of the first folks in on that one. **Fucking A**, I hope it works. Just for the while, it is awesome. I take that much credit, but awesome.
Alright, you want to talk about anything else?
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Shaan Puri | No, I think we're good. I think we're good. Let's set the same. We're going to do another one in 2 days. I got some other stuff for that. | |
Sam Parr | alright thank you give us a review and share with your friends | |
Shaan Puri | yeah tell your friends | |
Sam Parr | see you |