Live Q&A With My First Million (Austin Live Event)
Podcasting, Copywriting, Investing, Community, and Founder Support - May 12, 2023 (almost 2 years ago) • 18:28
Transcript:
| Start Time | Speaker | Text |
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Sam Parr | Think at this. Nick right | |
Nick Gray | yes we're ready for questions | |
Sam Parr | Alright, so what we're going to do is a little Q and A, and we'll riff on some of that stuff.
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Nick Gray | Fantastic! Let's see... Please, can I have the house lights? I would like to see hands up for questions for the panelists.
I see one here in the center, and I see one over here. Thank you, guys! I'm going to ask you to raise your hands again, and we're going to try to go through these fast. Please say who your question is for.
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Sam Parr | My question is for Sam: Where do you think podcasting will be in 10 years? Will it be positive or negative?
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Shaan Puri | questions stress | |
Sam Parr | You out, what's man's role in the universe? I don't know.
Like, do you want to have some light discussion? Where will podcasting be?
So, when it was Sean's idea to start our podcast, he came to me and said, "I've got this finished episode. Will The Hustle publish it? Be our publisher?"
The original version of MFM was not what it is now. It was him interviewing people, and it was still good.
Then one day, someone didn't show up to the studio time that we had already paid for. He said, "Oh, just come in and do the thing that we do." And that's kind of how it came to be.
And by the way, you know...
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Shaan Puri | that story is not true right | |
Sam Parr | no that's not actually how it came about I did not know that | |
Shaan Puri | because I heard you tell this I'm like is he telling this because things | |
Sam Parr | I thought the guest bailed | |
Shaan Puri | No, I told you that what happened was... it's a good time to come clean right in front of us and our 500 closest friends.
What happened was the hustle wasn't promoting the podcast enough. I was like, "How do I get them to promote it? Maybe I could tell them what's in it for them. Maybe I could make better content, or maybe I could just invite Sam on the podcast, and he will for sure make them promote it."
So, you guys are launching trends, and I was like, "Hey, come on, and let's just bullshit about upcoming trends and startups." I was like, "They have to promote that episode because it's like that's their thing."
And the guy's like, "Let me do that every Friday."
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Sam Parr | then that became the pod they | |
Andrew Wilkinson | call this the prestige yeah | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, you honey punted me at work. My... being, when we got into this, I thought podcasts were stupid. I was like, "Oh, it's played out. There's too much."
What I've learned... I'm not going to entirely answer your question because the answer is, I don't know. But I'm going to try and get around to it. What I've learned is that I think it's the most powerful medium that we've ever come across.
This sounds weird, but when you're in someone's ear, it's like literally the headphones matter. When you're in someone's ear for like 40 or 50 minutes per session, like three times a week, it's insane how much people learn about you. It's way better than like an 8-minute YouTube video.
So where do I think... I don't know, Andrew. Where do you think it's going to go? Well, Andrew owns a podcasting company.
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Andrew Wilkinson | I own a company called **Supercast**, and we help people like **Andrew Huberman** and others monetize their podcasts. I was talking to the guy who runs it, actually, yesterday. Weirdly, he said that podcasting has a **62% penetration** in the United States. So, like, **62%** of people are aware of it, but there's only **$2,000,000,000** in the market.
All of that is from podcast advertising dollars and stuff. If you think about **FM radio** and how big that market is, I would just look at FM radio and be like, "Okay, how big is that?" If every podcast was monetized like FM radio, it's probably that big. So it could probably be like **20x, 50x, 100x**... I don't know.
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Sam Parr | would you agree that podcasting is the hardest medium to grow | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, for sure. I think that it has the benefit of what you said: people become really loyal very quickly. But it's the hardest to grow.
You can go on TikTok and you'll get a bunch of followers, but if you said, "Hey, we're doing a live show in Austin," you're not gonna get anybody to show up. In fact, there are funny TikToks of these TikTokers doing meet and greets that no one shows up to because they thought, "If I have 100,000 followers, for sure people are gonna show up."
So, you know, the trust is what matters, not how many fans.
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Andrew Wilkinson | Well, also, I'd say it's... I'd argue it's the best medium to have subscribers on. Because someone will see it in their app and there's no algorithm that's going to get in your way.
Whereas on YouTube or something, yeah, you've got the same monetization opportunities of doing events, promotions, ads, and all the other stuff. But it's so easy for the algorithm to just go away from you and you forget about the person.
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Sam Parr | The problem with it is, unlike blog articles and things like that, you can't fake it. I can fake a blog article and get you to click on it. Podcasting is very hard for that reason.
I always joke that the best way to circumvent someone's bullshit detector is to not bullshit. The best way to get successful in podcasting is to be talented or really good, and that's super hard.
You don't actually have to be good at a bunch of things like blogging and even newsletter writing. You should be pretty good, but you can kind of be pretty bad and still succeed. Podcasting is a lot more challenging.
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Andrew Wilkinson | who else | |
Listener | Hey, this question is for Sean and Sam. I'm building a website called **AskThePod.com**. It's meant to be an AI companion for podcasts, so you can listen to the episode and go back to ask questions like, "What are the books mentioned?" or "What are the links mentioned?"
So, is it okay to add **My First Million** on the platform?
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Andrew Wilkinson | the pictures are literally pictures | |
Shaan Puri | are moment yes next question who's got a question | |
Nick Gray | I wanna see one from over here hand up pass the mic down please | |
MFM Listener | Hey guys, thanks so much! I love the podcast. My question is for Sam. I'm a copywriter, and I'm just wondering what your number one tip is for getting better at writing persuasively, specifically in copy.
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Sam Parr | These are some boring questions, guys.
So, copying word for word other people's work, what I like to do is print out whether it's a movie script, a great blog article, or a really good piece of copy that I like. I copy it word for word.
It's almost like learning music. You play other people's music and you see the texture of what makes greatness. Then, you steal from a bunch of different places and make your own.
That's what I like to do. Spend 6 months doing that, 1 hour every day, and you'll get pretty good.
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MFM Listener | awesome thanks | |
Andrew Wilkinson | should we get people to line up maybe just so that there's no delay | |
Nick Gray | Sure, yep! I'm open to that. If you have a question, which we would love to hear, come and meet me on this side of the state. This guy...
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Sam Parr | I could tell you this guy's got a good question: "Where have you been all my life, man?" Maryland... womp womp.
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Shaan Puri | you're one joke away from getting this next seat on the on the stage here | |
MFM Listener | so I mean he said I love the podcast I hate the podcast my fault but | |
Andrew Wilkinson | you hate podcasts you hate the podcast | |
MFM Listener | no sarcasm | |
Sam Parr | oh I'm just kidding you | |
Listener | can we fuck | |
Nick Gray | hey excellent question come on up next one is austin | |
Listener | Alright, this question's for Andrew. What have you learned about the commonalities of the bottom 20% of investments that you've had versus the top 20%? What differentiates the bottom 20% from the top 20%?
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Shaan Puri | the big the | |
Andrew Wilkinson | The biggest mistake I would say I make over and over again is when I bet on the business, not the jockey. I get really excited about the business and the business model. I think, "Oh my God, this is a great idea! If I ran this, or someone like me ran this, it would be amazing," even if I don't believe in the entrepreneur.
I've realized that betting on the entrepreneur is 100% of the game because they'll figure it out. | |
Sam Parr | but don't you wanna have a business that any idiot can run | |
Andrew Wilkinson |
Oh yeah, for sure. But I'm saying like the ones where I've lost... I actually haven't lost that much money in businesses where I'm buying the whole thing. Almost all of those work. It's the ones where I'm doing venture, or I'm betting on something, or I'm trying to start a business - that's where I lose all my money.
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Nick Gray | excellent next question | |
Listener | Hi Massie,
I wanted to ask, how do you feel about community building? Obviously, it's become really big for creators. How do you see it in the podcast genre, sort of that asynchronous communication with your fandom and building the superfans?
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, I think for podcasts, you don't really want to build a community as such; you want to build a cult. So basically, you're like, "What is it that we believe that not everybody believes?" Let's put that on blast. Then a bunch of other people who believe that too are going to be like, "Finally, someone said it!" or "Finally, they do things the way I do things."
For most of you here, I would bet... hands up if you consider yourself a real fan. Like, "I truly love the pod." I feel like when you guys are doing the pod, I could be sitting there right with you guys, kind of bullshitting.
I bet... leave your hands up for a second. Keep your hand up if the following statement is true: It's not that you learned that much from us, but it's kind of like you feel like you're hanging out with us, that we are like you, and that if we just happened to have met, we would have been friends.
So, like, most people leave their hand up, right? I kind of confuse them, but that's kind of what you go for. I think most people, when they do content, they're trying to be heavily informational. If they think they're talking down to people, they're thinking they're educating them and whatnot.
What we do is we just talk about stuff we're interested in, and then it just happens to attract a bunch of other people who think the way we do. That's kind of more like a cult than it is a community of people where we all gather around and serve each other.
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Andrew Wilkinson | Huberman is a great example of that. We were just talking about this backstage, actually. He does these two-hour crazy podcasts on weird, nerdy science stuff.
But he makes these subtle little comments about his dog, and he seems like a real sweetie. All these things help people connect with him. Plus, he's handsome. | |
Sam Parr | what does he look like shirtless | |
Andrew Wilkinson | Ridiculous!
Okay, so Mike [Andrew Huberman] invited me over to his house and he goes, "Let's do a sauna and a cold plunge." I've never met him before, and I was traveling with my girlfriend. I was like, "Oh, Zoe, do you want to come with me to Huberman's?" She didn't know who he is, and she's like, "No, I'm good."
So we get there, and he takes his shirt off. He's just shredded! You could shred cheese on his chest—8-pack, bulging arms, tattoos. And I'm there, just folding myself into a little ball. I was like, "Thank God I didn't bring her."
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Hubspot | Our software is the worst. Have you heard of HubSpot?
See, most CRMs are a cobbled together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous.
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Hubspot | I think | |
Hubspot | I love our new CRM. Our software is the best: HubSpot. Grow better!
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Sam Parr | we'll do 2 or 3 more yeah alright next question | |
Hubspot | Hey guys, my question is: what can partners or founders do to support them on their journey? I see that some of your wives are here, just wondering.
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Shaan Puri | yeah let's hand the mic to them let's see what they have to say | |
Sam Parr | We don't do it, everyone. We've gotten requests where people have said, "Bring your wives on," and we're like, "No, we're not doing that."
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Shaan Puri | this is the one thing I have don't give it to her | |
Sam Parr | I’ve done a good job of partnering in business and in relationships with people who are very emotionally stable because I am not. That has been awesome.
There have been many times where I'm laying on the floor and I say, "Fuck this! I'm out. This sucks. I'm bailing. I'm going to quit." She'll just sit there and be like, "Okay, okay," and then not really reply other than, "Alright, you done now?"
That has been pretty wonderful—to have someone who's emotionally stable to balance out someone who's pretty neurotic.
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Shaan Puri | For me, I remember when we were going to... I always say, "Oh, we sold Bebo," as if it was this easy thing that was for sure going to happen.
What actually happened was the business wasn't really going the way I wanted. I thought, "I gotta just do something else." So I said, "I'm going to try my best to sell this business, but if it doesn't sell, she's going to shut it down." I didn't know what I was going to do next. I thought, "I'll figure something else out. I just gotta change it up."
I went to my wife, Sonia, who's right here, and I said, "Hey, I'm thinking about doing this." We were pregnant with our first child, and I asked, "How do you feel about me either selling this or, more likely, it's just not going to work out and we get zero? We have no job, no health insurance, and I don't know what I'm going to do next."
But I just kind of failed for five years straight, so that's the track record I had going here. And she was like, "Let's go for it!" No hesitation. It was just like, "I believe in you. Let's do this."
There was no kind of hesitation about going for the upside and not worrying about what happens if things go wrong. That really helped me because I thought, "Oh cool, even if we strike out, I don't have to beat myself up more if things don't go well." I didn't have to keep hedging; it was like, "It might not work out."
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Sam Parr | Muttering like a broke-ass motherfucker, see? So I...
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Andrew Wilkinson | I would say there are three things.
Number one: **empathy**. But empathy without understanding is useless. In previous relationships, it would be like, "Oh my God, this person at work has given me so much trouble." The reason is that they want stock options, and that means this or whatever. My previous partners would glaze over and say, "Oh babe, that's so hard," but it felt hollow, right? There was no understanding.
What I found really works is not going into business and obsessing over it, but just making a bit of an effort to understand the actual problem. For example, my girlfriend will listen to "My First Million," or my girlfriend will read it.
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Shaan Puri | our girlfriend our girlfriend | |
Andrew Wilkinson | Not their girlfriend exactly, or yeah, so she'll make a bit of effort.
And then what was my third thing? Shit, brain fart. I'll remember it later. I'll take great.
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Nick Gray | So, for those that are in line, I'm going to walk down. You're very quickly going to say your question. I'll try to do 5 or 10 real quick. They will not be answering them, but they may give an answer later.
First up, what was the reasoning behind going public, taking Tiny public, and what was the biggest lesson learned? Excellent. Next question.
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MFM Listener | Question for Andrew: I was curious about your follow-up to your personal episodes regarding your emotional dip and what that has been like in the last 12 months, for instance.
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Nick Gray | awesome few more | |
Shaan Puri | andrew how did you start and grow your agency business | |
Nick Gray | excellent next | |
Andrew Wilkinson | Yeah, for the panel, I built a few businesses that did $1,000,000. Now, I find myself complacent and lacking purpose. I'd just like to know your answer to that. Okay? | |
Nick Gray | alright next one | |
MFM Listener | Without turning it into "Billy of the Week," Andrew's impressions on meeting my boss's boss's boss's boss, Michael Dell, this week. This is the stuff that you didn't put on Twitter already.
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Andrew Wilkinson | well let's pause the quiz ask the question | |
Nick Gray | Yeah, do we pause this? Yep, we're going to pause. For those of you that are standing and waiting for questions, take a seat and we'll do another round of Q and A soon. | |
Shaan Puri | thank you guys | |
Andrew Wilkinson | The first one was going public and why. I would say that going public, if you're an investor, represents the greatest opportunity. You can raise capital at a great valuation, buy it back when it's cheap, and use your equity to buy businesses. Those are just kind of boring business reasons, to be honest.
The reason kind of relates to my dip. Over the last two or three years, I went through a bit of a funk. It came from this feeling of, like, I don't know why I'm making more money. I don't have a thing, right?
So when I started, it was because I was like, "Okay, I want to wake up whenever I want, and I don't want to have a job." Then it was like, "Okay, I want to have a sweet house and a car." After that, it was, "Okay, I got a sweet house and a car. Now I want to pay off my parents' mortgage." Then it was like, "Okay, I want enough money that I can be fine and stop working."
But after that, which I reached seven or eight years ago, I just didn't know what to do with it. I tried all these different things. You know, I would go and buy wine, fancy cars, and go on fancy vacations. All these things, and nothing really made me happy.
So over the last couple of years, I've been trying to figure that out. I tweeted about this earlier, and I mentioned this, but I've been really admiring people that do two things.
One is they use money to live life in a very interesting and creative way. Nick is a great example of that. Nick's a multimillionaire; he exited his business, he's done very well, and he just has an investment portfolio on autopilot, invested in Tesla really early on. Now he just focuses on meeting interesting people.
So that's one piece, and I've done a lot of that—just meeting interesting people. The second piece is figuring out how to give it away and actually impact my community.
So, like, I did that local journalism thing; I think you guys know about it. Going public in Canada allows me to actually give my shares to my foundation, so I can actually do that. It enables that. | |
Sam Parr | Andrew did the biggest flex on us when we saw him for dinner the other night. We were like, "Oh, what have you been doing?" and he goes, "Philanthropy." We were like, "Oh, okay, okay, big guy."
And then he didn't pay for dinner. He didn't donate to the Sam and Sean Foundation, yeah, the $500 dinner.
The other question was about Michael Dell. You met Michael Dell this weekend?
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Andrew Wilkinson | Yeah, Michael Dell... he was so... okay, so like Michael Dell is what you hope capitalism is, right? I met him, and he was the nicest, most down-to-earth, engaged, pleasant guy.
I've met a lot of rich people. I've met billionaires, multi-billionaires. He's worth $50 billion, so he's worth like 10 times any of the other people, and he was just really genuine and nice.
I asked him, "Okay, what are your vices? How are you not like... do you have like a super PAC? Like some weird libertarian island where you hunt and kill people? Are you building like penis rockets to Mars? What are you doing?"
And he just goes, "No, I got a couple nice houses, I've got a jet, I just like to work and build my business, and I give it all away to my foundation."
And I was like, "Okay, that's pretty cool."
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Shaan Puri | he's like the human version of a dell computer yeah | |
Sam Parr | he's like the | |
Shaan Puri | most the basic computer | |
Andrew Wilkinson | totally but it like a nice a nice computer that works well for you |