The $600M Protein Bar Founder is Back Again | Peter Rahal Interview
RXBAR, David Protein, and New Business Ideas - October 18, 2024 (6 months ago) • 58:29
Transcript:
| Start Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
Shaan Puri | Today, we have the creator of RXBAR on the podcast. This guy started in his mom's basement with $5,000 and built a protein bar that he sold five years later for $600 million. He tells us the story of RXBAR, his new protein bar, and why he's doing it again.
We also brainstorm four other ideas that he thinks someone could start today, including trends, opportunities, and white spaces in the market. He shares how he thinks about these ideas and how he even created RXBAR using the same process that he's going to outline today.
So, that's this episode with Peter Rahal.
Alright, here's how I want to start this. You created this little bar, the RXBAR, that you made, I think, in your mom's basement with your elementary school buddy. You each kicked in $5,000, and five years later, you sold it for $600 million, which is amazing!
Yep, and now you're back and you're doing this bar, the David Bar, which I've been eating pretty religiously.
Alright, let's talk a little bit about RXBAR, and then David, I want to hear kind of this story. I think generally the story is out there, so I don't want to make you rehash too much of it. Could you give us the cliff notes of the story? Then I want to hear about a couple of things. You said you read one article on Inc. and forwarded it to Jared, so I want to latch onto that. But first, just the cliff notes of RXBAR.
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, so the cliff notes: in Chicago, 2010, 2011, 2012, there was an emerging tech scene. Groupon was there, and it was sort of like if you were doing some sort of information technology, you were a loser. There was no attention or love for a food brand. It was just... no status.
We just wanted a good job; we wanted an opportunity to be successful. I had a background in food, which was really helpful on the supply chain side. Then Jared was like my total counterpart—very, very level-headed, reliable, and organized. I'm more of the creative type, I'd say.
I always like to trivialize innovation because, you know, as an entrepreneur, you have all these ideas. It was basically like I just wrote "ink," and I was like, "Hey Jared, I just sent it to him. For $10,000, we can do a nutrition bar." It was like some bad article, you know? Nothing to it. What was the premise of the article?
| |
Shaan Puri | What did it say?
| |
Peter Rahal | It was sort of like an inspirational thing of, "You can start a business!" There are very low-cost ways to start a company, basically.
| |
Sam Parr | And it said, "like a little protein bar."
| |
Peter Rahal | Nutrition bar.
| |
Shaan Puri | It's like a WikiHow article.
| |
Peter Rahal | Which, like, showed a wide of low status thing to do, right? Like, anyone can do it, you know? I always was into nutrition bars, and so we just started making it. We just started taking actions towards making it.
Right? Like, where you start is very different from where you end up. I was in CrossFit, and we saw a distribution channel emerge. It was very clear. I looked at Whole Foods and the traditional food retailers and had no idea how to get there. It was hyper-competitive. I was like, "How are we gonna compete?"
Whereas CrossFit emerged, these gyms were popping up in 2012 and 2013. There was no competition. You were not allowed on the shelf if you weren't paleo. So that was like the perfect example of an uncompetitive market—a small market that was growing like crazy that we could go build distribution in.
And we could make the product at home, so we just went for it. Once you burn the boats and just jump off the bridge, you figure out how to fly.
| |
Shaan Puri | You're literally making bars in your mom's basement, type of thing.
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, it was... We had a 5-quart [mixer], then we got a 20-quart vertical mixer. We didn't know how to form the products. We had to figure out how to form and package them.
| |
Sam Parr | And you said there's this really great article. You're like, "You know, it sounds cool. We were in there just like in the lab mixing these things together and making it." And you're like, "It didn't feel cool. It felt horrible." Like, people were making fun of us.
| |
Peter Rahal | Oh yeah, like I remember. I think another thing is you just can't care what people think. It's also a great test of who actually cares about you and who's a good influence.
You're the sum of who you surround yourself with. You want your friends supporting you and saying, "No, you have to work on the weekends," not trying to drag you out or pull you down.
But yeah, looking at it from the outside, what Jared and I were doing, there was no way it was going to be successful. It was just some local little thing.
| |
Shaan Puri | Were you doing CrossFit, or did you just literally see it as a distribution channel?
| |
Peter Rahal | I was doing CrossFit. Yeah, I got... I was in the part of the CrossFit religion, so...
| |
Shaan Puri | So, you take a box to your gym and you're like, "Hey, I made these."
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, I just show up with Tupperware. There were some little consumer insights, and I'm like, "Hey, what do you think?" Then I built a relationship with the owner. I'm like, "I would love to sell some product here." Of course, they're good people, and you know, it starts there.
In theory, if it's going to be successful at one CrossFit gym, why wouldn't it be successful across others?
| |
Sam Parr | What... what... what did it taste like? So, I eat RX bars all the time. By the way, I love them. But like, the first time you open it up, it looks different than a granola bar. You have to get used to it being out of date and it being dark. What do they say? "The dark bar." Were they any good at first?
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, it's... so they're really good at first because they're made to order. We never carried any inventory, so everything was super fresh. That certainly helped.
The cons? A customer back then was all paleo people who were very familiar with Larabar. So there was a familiarity to it that was helpful for the adoption. | |
Shaan Puri | And I think we had this guy from Fitaid come on, and he was saying the same thing at CrossFit. He used CrossFit as the initial distribution for the same reason. He's like, "I don't know how to get into retail."
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah. | |
Shaan Puri | But I know this community. I'm in this community, and what he realized was that he gave them mini fridges. They didn't have a fridge already, so he thought, "Cool, I'll give you the fridge, but then you stock my stuff in there at the beginning. If you want to switch it out later and put other stuff in there, fine. You get to keep the fridge."
But sure enough, they just kept it going. He used CrossFit to generate, like, I don't know, $20 to $30 million a year in sales, you know, with CrossFit as the main engine. I think at the time.
| |
Peter Rahal | And same for us. I know we merchandised on top of his refrigerators. That's it.
| |
Shaan Puri | Right, so you go and you're like, "If this works at one, it'll work at many." Then what? You're just knocking on doors every day? What was your schedule like? What was your life like?
| |
Peter Rahal | We wanted to get data on convenience stores, grocery stores, and other places of distribution to gain an understanding. So, we tested in all those other areas where we're more like normal markets, where there's regular competition, and the brand didn't work.
For example, velocities at a CrossFit gym would be maybe 80 bars a week, whereas the convenience store and a local grocery store were like 1 or 4 bars a week. So, obviously, we would rather be in every CrossFit gym or go in the country prior to any other distribution.
We were just laser-focused on putting the product where it's successful and meeting the customer or the shop. The whole plan was, "Let's just get to scale through this early adopter and this market, and then let's figure out how to cross the chasm once we have some scale and we're commercially produced around the kitchen."
So, that was the plan: to be the bar of CrossFit, get some scale, and then figure out how to cross the chasm once we're close to that stuff.
| |
Sam Parr | Alright, so when I ran my company, The Hustle, I think we had something like **2,000,000 subscribers**. We made money through advertising, but we didn't actually make that much money per person reading the newsletter because advertising, in general, is kind of a crappy business model.
I remember sitting down and thinking, "What are all the different ways that I can make money off The Hustle that aren't advertising?" To make sure that you don't make this mistake, Sean, me and the HubSpot team went and looked at a bunch of different ways to monetize your business. We put it all together in a really cool document where we lay it all out along with our research. We called it, very appropriately, **The Business Monetization Playbook**.
Go to the description of this episode, and you're going to see a link to that Business Monetization Playbook. It's completely free; you just click the link, and you can see it.
Back to the episode, I kind of triangulated a bunch of articles, and your revenue was something like **$2,000,000** a year, then **$7,000,000**, and then **$160,000,000** or something ridiculous like that. Is that accurate? And if that is accurate, I think that coincides with the rebrand, making your rebrand or your new labels the greatest value creation to ever exist.
| |
Shaan Puri | Best use of designers.
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, yeah, totally. Basically, it's like dot-com and Amazon for three years. We put our foot into some retailers, and the current branding, or the old branding, didn't work. It didn't have product-market fit with our core early adopters.
Wherever we started to go to just like the mass market, or not our core, it was like, "This ain't working." So, we timed the rebranding with retail. There was a year before the $161 million, which was $36 million. That was basically getting into, call it, early adopters of retail, like Wegmans and Publix—these regional ones that are really high quality.
Once that worked, the larger ones adopted. So, it was $36 million, and then most of the market at $161 million.
| |
Sam Parr | So, 736,161. That's insane!
| |
Peter Rahal | Well, the most of the same thing is actually like just the way we use profitable sales to finance the growth. There wasn't a big equity check that came in to finance inventory.
| |
Shaan Puri | So, how does that work? Because that scaling is so crazy, right? Even if you're super profitable at 7, how do you buy inventory for 36? Did you have a really fast turnover?
| |
Peter Rahal | A line of credit.
| |
Shaan Puri | Supply for us. | |
Peter Rahal | Line of credit personally guaranteed by your parents for $400,000, but we actually didn't dip into it, which is funny. So that's nice; it gives you confidence. | |
Sam Parr | And you started the business with **$10,000**? **$5,000** each?
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, it's brutal. And then, so just profitable companies give you cash. You ship products, so it's a cycle. It's much better. And then my point goes back to like, "Sales cures all," right?
| |
Shaan Puri | We talked a little bit about the rebrand before, but who did that? You did that? You hired an agency to do that? What was the genius behind that rebrand? Because this stood out to me, you know, from moment one. It sounds like I'm not alone; this helped explode sales outside of CrossFit.
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, so we hired an agency called Scott and Victor. They are very talented brand strategists.
But I think something I want to mention that's really, really important is that I get people coming to me who want to do rebrands all the time. They're so fixated on the agency, thinking the agency comes in and does it.
But really, the responsibility and accountability go on the brand owner to articulate the problem to solve and to communicate it in a brief for the assignment. This is essential for the creative team to figure out how to solve the problem.
| |
Sam Parr | What is your right in that brief? | |
Peter Rahal | So, the output of our design is very simple. We had a name problem. "Rx" meant prescription in the mass market, but in CrossFit, it meant doing something of a high standard. In the language and culture of CrossFit, doing something "Rx" was common. If you did a workout, the first question you would get is, "Did you do it Rx?"
So, it had a different meaning in this culture than it did in normal American culture. That was a problem—a name problem. It was very clear that "Rx" meant nothing, and it wasn't a valuable name. You remembered it, which is nice, but it was a source of confusion.
Okay, so you pull that through to the design. The logo and name are very small, so we minimized it. Secondly, when you formulate a product with minimal ingredients, and you design it the way ours is, you can claim anything: gluten-free, soy-free, dairy-free, high protein... the list goes on. None of that mattered when we sampled it to people.
The only thing that mattered was when I flipped over the back. It was an HR expert asking, "What is it?" And it would be like, "It's like eating 3 egg whites, 2 dates, 6 almonds, and 4 cashews." So, that back-of-label thing that I referenced earlier was a value communication.
Secondly, we're in the third...
| |
Peter Rahal | We're in protein no man's land. The market was at 20 grams of protein, and we're at 12 grams. You're talking about... yeah, so we're kind of like, for protein people, they're like, "Yeah, it's not enough."
But if you just lead with egg whites, so 3 egg whites is the first thing. Our hierarchy is actually 3 egg whites, and that creates a lot of consumer surplus. Because when you go shopping in a café for breakfast and you get egg whites, you get charged a premium.
So, egg whites are associated with premium, they're associated with quality, and they're more expensive. That was a great way to communicate sort of value and surplus.
So, all these things are in the brief. Like, the name doesn't matter. Here's the only thing that matters: we don't want to be paleo positioned because that is a death trap. It's a laziness trap.
All those factors are laid out in a brief, and then the designer really extracts, synthesizes, and calls that out. They're not just a designer; they're like a brand strategist.
So, it's very important for any entrepreneur. It's not just that you have to do the work and actually design and define the problems, and then you bring in the agency.
| |
Shaan Puri | You now have this thing, which I feel like you did an amazing job on the brand. I think we talked about this on the pod. We're like, "Dude, did you see the RX guy? He's back! He's got this new bar." I love the name and the branding right off the bat.
| |
Sam Parr | Can I read out some of these words? Some of the lines from his site, Sean?
| |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, copywriting on the site. Yeah, do it.
| |
Sam Parr | It's beautiful! Your new thing is a protein bar, and the whole shtick is that, like Quest, which is a leading protein bar, has only 20 grams of protein but 150 calories. You're roughly at 150 calories and like 26 or 27 grams of protein.
The copywriting on the website is beautiful. It says, "The genius of our product is it has the protein of a meal but the calories of a snack. We thank our predecessors in the protein industry, but we'll take it from here. Meet David, your protein bar idealized. I saw the angel in marble and carved it until I set them free."
All these are like Instagram quotes or copy from the website.
Protein is essential to maintaining your skin's firmness and elasticity, as well as hair, scalp, and nail health. It participates in practically every process of a cell in your body.
So, you're explaining how important protein is, but then you have this one line where you include a graph on your website showing how many grams of protein per calorie. You include Quest, Luna, and a couple of others, or Larabar, something like that. But then you even include cod, which I thought was ridiculous because when I saw that graph, I was like, "Wait, you're telling me that David is even more protein-dense per calorie than cod?"
So, it's quite good! Oh, here's the part that I love: you say, "We are a company that is here to make your bodies better. We're going to give you protein, and it just so happens some of our products might be edible, but some in the future may not be."
| |
Peter Rahal | We focus on making... we build tools to help you increase muscle and decrease fat. I think that's our mission.
Whether that's food, beverage, or apparel, that's what gives us permission to go create and serve. That came from my observation in the nutrition market space; it's the most fundamental thing people want.
So, we want to deliver that in the best way possible.
| |
Shaan Puri | The thing that would be the most fun for us is if we got to sit down with the founder of RXBAR and just shoot the shit and brainstorm business ideas.
We asked you beforehand, we said, "Hey, this is what we like to do. Are you the kind of founder whose brain never turns off? You're always seeing opportunities that somebody could go do."
You sent us a little list, so let's start with that list. I think the fun way to do this is I'll just read the name of the thing you wrote. You didn't give us any details, and you kind of pitched the idea of what you see as a potential opportunity here.
So, idea 1: **Vasodilator**.
| |
Peter Rahal | Yes, okay. So, I'm a big believer that history is really important to study in business. I think it doesn't get enough credit to look for the patterns in history.
For this one, in 2003, a product called NO2 came to market, and it just blew up the supplement industry in a good way. Pre-... | |
Shaan Puri | Workout, right? | |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, it was like they're saying, "You got these big pumps."
| |
Sam Parr | Was that like, "No explode"?
| |
Peter Rahal | That turned into an explosion.
| |
Sam Parr | Ari and I were just talking about it. She said she likes Straight A pre-workout, and I remember the days of taking that. It would make me... explode out of my butt! Like, it was...
| |
Shaan Puri | The worst.
| |
Sam Parr | It was like cocaine, except it would make you have diarrhea.
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, and so what happened is people started adding different features to it. But having healthy blood cells is really important. If you look at the market today, it's like super... I call it "chains and gains," like screaming to a not-so-sophisticated audience. It's just for pure gains.
I would say there's probably an opportunity to commercialize something on just the broader benefits of healthy blood flow. You know, for men, erectile dysfunction (ED) is a huge one. I think the positioning of the market is very bodybuilding-oriented, and I think there's one for more general consumers.
| |
Sam Parr | Did you remember the one, Sean? The deer one? It's like... it's... | |
Peter Rahal | Like the amber.
| |
Sam Parr | Bucked up.
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. It's sort of like analogous to "dick pills" in gas stations.
| |
Sam Parr | Versus him. | |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, versus him. Yeah, exactly.
| |
Shaan Puri | There was a guy who came and spoke at one of Sam's conferences. He created the method SOAP, and then he created the Band-Aid brand. He also created Ollie gummies, or whatever, like vitamins.
Yeah, Airbrine, that's the guy. He's created three brands that are all big in Target across different categories. He talked about how he could just walk through a department store, like Target or a grocery store, and he said, "What are you looking for when you're walking through those aisles?"
He goes, "I'm looking for a sea of sameness." Anytime he sees a category on a shelf where they're all positioned the same way, or they're all chasing the same target, he gets concerned.
For example, he said Band-Aids were all sort of boring and neutral, trying to be the color of your skin, blah blah blah. So they made a Band-Aid brand that was the opposite. It was very loud; it was a badge of honor for a boo-boo.
Vitamins looked a certain way, and they came in and tried to do it differently.
So, do you have a similar sort of philosophy? Where you see, let's say, these vasodilators, and they're all "broed out," and you're like, "If I just reposition the same product, I would have a new audience?"
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, like I think Eric's strategy is very much design-oriented. It's about differentiation through design.
That's like looking for... I don't have a clear strategy. I just really focus on differentiation and actually determining how competitive a category is.
And how easily you can just differentiate with what I call "valuable novelty."
| |
Sam Parr | Does that mean that you actually want it to be the most competitive? So then being very different stands out.
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, so it's like you want it to be perceived as very competitive. But then when you actually apply some rigor and look at it, it's actually not that competitive.
The protein bar market is a perfect example of that. The barrier to entry is pretty low, and there's lots of noise on the surface, making it seem extremely competitive. But if you look at it, there are actually like three major players and then a long tail.
You know, it's like you want an uncompetitive market. So, where can you find an uncompetitive market in a perceived competitive market? I'd say because food leverage is just too easy. It's easy to make food relatively, so it's unavoidable. Of course, everything's competitive.
| |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, it's like Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel talks about how the best investments are the ones that seem like bad investments but are actually good investments. Conversely, the things that seem like good investments often don't yield the returns you expect.
So, you need to be **counter-consensus**. This means you need to find something that looks one way but is actually another. For example, something may appear super competitive, but when you break it down, you realize there's actually a pretty big opportunity. It's not as competitive as it looks on the surface. | |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, I mean, exactly. It's just as simple as this: people will come to me and say, "Oh, protein growers are so competitive." I always ask, "Oh, tell me about that." You know, I just ask a couple of questions, and it would be interesting that one can't even... | |
Sam Parr | What are those questions? What are the questions?
| |
Peter Rahal | Tell me, please explain more. What do you mean? They're like, they just can't explain the competitors. They can only reference the volume of the category, like the volume of brands, but they're not necessarily actually referencing who’s good and who’s not.
Then, a lot of times, they're not even consumers of the category, which to me is the opportunity. It's like, "Alright, well, why aren't you the consumer in the category?" It's some dissatisfaction with taste, texture, usually price, or something else.
So that's the opportunity, actually. It's like, how do you bring new people to the category? So yeah, just stuff like that. It's just funny.
| |
Shaan Puri | That's cool. So, let's take this vasodilator thing. For you, saying in the first 90 days of that, what would you be doing to figure this out? Like, what do you actually go do to get these answers?
| |
Peter Rahal | Oh, so first I'd figure out, I'd look at the literature. Is it good or not? So, I just... it's like two searches.
1. What does the internet say? What is the reputation of it? What does culture say about it?
2. What does the actual literature say? So, like, what are the ideas of the world? What do Huberman, Wayne, and Norton believe through syndicating the actual literature?
| |
Sam Parr | So does that basically just mean, like, is the perfect blend of that? Like, a vasodilator is good, and then you also see like NO Explode looks way too "bro-y" and is lame?
| |
Shaan Puri | Do you want... yes, yes on the culture? Or do you... why? Why the two? What are you looking for as the perfect answer for those two?
| |
Peter Rahal | So, on the cultural thing, the second would be like a landscape—what does the market look like? But before that, I would just say, is this a reputation that I can overcome? Is there some sort of stigma? It's good if it's okay to be contrarian, but is it actually something so bad that I can't overcome it?
What is reputation, just in general? Then, the second would be, alright, well, what is this market map? How do I define this market? I would probably just define it simply as bodybuilding-oriented. There isn't actually a continuum of, you know, natural people and bodybuilders; that's like a natural opposing continuum.
So, just sort of study the market reputation of the market. Most importantly, because if the market says this is bad, but the literature says it really has all these benefits, then that's a contrarian thing. It's like, alright, people disagree with you, but then there's... so it's sort of triangulating those things.
| |
Shaan Puri | Sam, you invested in Lucy, right? Yeah, so Lucy, the nicotine gum, our buddy John Coogan's involved with it. There's... it's a... | |
Sam Parr | And now it's a pouch.
| |
Shaan Puri | Pouch. Yeah, at the time, I think the sort of cultural stigma before Zen became really popular was that nicotine equals bad. Right? Aren't we supposed to be not having cigarettes? Bad nicotine, bad... blah blah blah.
Science actually showed that there were some, I guess, benefits. Then what they did was they were like, "Cool, can we overcome this?" It took many years, but the business is now exploding. For years, it was kind of just trying to get enough momentum culturally to get over the hump.
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, and that... that's so like Peter Thiel's approach to consumers. It's actually how you make money in this business. There are plenty of examples, like kombucha and protein bars. They're constantly being produced because no one thinks there are too many of them. Collagen was one, nicotine's one.
| |
Sam Parr | You know, another one that's happening right now is creatine.
So, creatine—the science is that it's one of the most studied supplements of all time. There are so many benefits, but for years it was like, "This is only for football high school bros," you know?
Now we've made it cool. Women are realizing, "No, there's actually a lot of benefit here," and normal average Joes are seeing that there's a lot of benefit as well.
The whole creatine movement—Sean, have you seen that right now?
| |
Shaan Puri | Yes, definitely. | |
Peter Rahal | I would say, like, the way you figure it out is just ask your friends, "Hey, what do you think of this?" It's like, oh, it's sort of... that's like cultural reputation.
| |
Sam Parr | Right.
| |
Peter Rahal | So, that's people who are kind of disagreeing with you. If you were to ask what my pattern is for consumer investing, it's really that: what is something on the fringes? Or what is something people disagree with? Or is it in culture that, actually, if you look at it from a first principles perspective, there's something there.
| |
Shaan Puri | So, let me ask you one more question before we move to the next idea.
I'm a smart guy; I can almost talk myself into anything or talk myself out of anything. I have a very good debater in my own head.
What you're giving examples of are maybe things that are misunderstood or look competitive, but actually, they're not. I can almost see myself justifying anything under that umbrella. You know, "Hey, Peter kinda said this," and I just don't have the actual judgment to be able to do it correctly.
| |
Sam Parr | Well, what's an example of an idea, Sean, of a product?
| |
Shaan Puri | Well, I actually want to ask you about the opposite. What are categories that you think you would like to run away from? You're like, "No, no, this is the type of thing I wouldn't go into for these reasons."
| |
Peter Rahal | Fast. Anything fast. Following, like, Liquid Death, following Alipap. You gotta be the first one in the controversial, disagreeable thing. You can't, you know... | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, because you're trying to win big. I think I read something the other day in the AI category that Sequoia was talking about. They said that if you just study all markets, the market leader—whoever becomes number one in a new category—will take something like 75% of all the profits and 50% of all the revenues. The spoils really do go to the winner if you're trying to win the biggest. | |
Peter Rahal | And I think you could be looking at history. This is why I think history is something I just find so important in studying consumer behavior. That would be true with the kombucha collagen market. These sorts of big breakthrough new markets that emerge—like the first one to do it well takes all the profits.
| |
Shaan Puri | Are you... when you say?
| |
Sam Parr | You're studying history. What does that mean? Like, are you reading biographies? Are you looking at old financial statements? What are you doing?
| |
Peter Rahal | It's... it might be like what one would be looking through your phone at the old category. So, like, what did photos of that category look like in 2012?
For me, it's my own experience going through it and remembering the different trends and the new products. It's important to keep that recollection.
I think it just isn't talked about when I see people starting consumer brands. It's kind of like, "Oh, here's today, here's the future." It's such an important piece of the equation of whether this is going to work or not.
But yeah, I don't... there's no one writing books on this stuff, and no one cares. So, it's really something you have to just...
| |
Shaan Puri | You have to piece together your own history.
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, piece together and yeah.
| |
Shaan Puri | Alright, let's go to idea number 2. I don't even know what this means: "night occasion" in general. I don't know, is that an idea? What is that?
| |
Peter Rahal | Okay, so again, I feel I could view myself as like an anthropologist. If you look at the morning occasion, it is very fixed, right? It's all around coffee, waking up, sunlight...
Sunlight observation is a new one, thanks to, I think, a curated big change in culture that way. So, circadian rhythm, taking supplements, maybe morning pills, whatever rituals there are. The morning occasion is kind of clear in terms of what products or services are there.
Sleep hygiene and the sleep occasion is something that has become very clear; that's super important. If you look at that, to me, it's wide open. There isn't a coffee of the sleep occasion.
| |
Shaan Puri | At night, you have what? Like magnesium, maybe? Or something like that, right? It's like one, maybe, cat product.
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, no one's owning it right now. You brush your teeth, right? So there's like Colgate's got it. But there is a huge opportunity to sort of be the brand for that occasion. There are some obstacles, obviously, but to me, that's like the... if I'm an entrepreneur, I'm really studying that. | |
Sam Parr | That's a strange insight to have. What made you get to that conclusion?
| |
Peter Rahal | You just gotta think about everything as occasion-based, right? Like, the best example is champagne. It dominates a celebration occasion. Outside of that, it's a terrible problem, right? | |
Sam Parr | For RXBAR, it's like I'm driving somewhere. I'm going to a gas station and I want to get something healthy.
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, like RXBAR was obviously on the go. It was a big occasion, but to be honest, it was the egg whites. There were some signals that it was breakfast. It was sort of like a great fast breakfast.
But I think about how everyone's talking about sleep. You have 8 Sleep, you have all these brands kind of getting there. On the consumer side, like the food, beverage, or supplement side, there are always sleep packs.
But the real opportunity is: how do you be the coffee of sleep? That's where I would spend time. You know, coffee is the best drug; it's the biggest drug. So is there something like that? There are some brands working on it, but I think there's potential there.
| |
Sam Parr | Which promising ones?
| |
Peter Rahal | There's one called **Moonbrew** and another called **Beam**. I use both of them. One has melatonin, and one doesn't. That's the big controversial one.
Melatonin is actually something that could be considered contrarian. People say it's bad for you; it's an exogenous hormone. But then there's also literature that discusses timed antioxidants, which are good.
My fiancé and I find ourselves having this beverage at a small dose before bed. It's like a nice ritual. | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, I think that's brilliant, actually. The idea of looking at moments and searching for openings is key.
There's a Chinese company—I think it was maybe ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, or perhaps it was the one that owns WeChat. I'm not sure. But I remember going and watching their annual meeting, which was weird because it was all in Mandarin. I don't speak Mandarin, but I was sitting there trying to translate these slides because I wanted to learn from where other people are not learning from, to see if there's any alpha there.
One of the key interesting things was that their opening slide showed all of the moments of the day, broken into 15-minute intervals. What they did was say, "We want to have a product or an app for every moment of your day."
| |
Sam Parr | That's.
| |
Shaan Puri | True. Like, totally dominating philosophy. Like, insane American companies. You couldn't come out and say it, but obviously, Zuck probably feels the same way.
Yeah, but they were like, "You're in line for coffee." What's the in-line coffee app? Like, we need an app that is designed to be awesome for that moment.
Okay, now you have an hour in bed scrolling at night. What do we have for that? That's like the TikTok app, where you're just going to infinitely swipe and be amused.
So, seeing them think that way, I was like, "Oh wow." And then that creates white spaces. So you say, "Oh, you might think photos is a crowded category." It seemed like photos were dominated by Facebook and Instagram. Then Snapchat came out, and it was like, "Oh, we'll use photos for messaging instead of photos for memories."
The way they looked at it with a different lens suddenly made photos a totally wide open multibillion-dollar opportunity. You had to look at it from some other angle in order to see it.
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, and I would just emphasize that the consumer is all that matters. Putting yourself in their shoes, empathizing, and going through that experience is where it all starts, in my view. | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, I like that. Do you also look for product inspiration from other places?
I know some people in CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) who travel a lot. They'll be like, "Oh yeah, in Thailand they drink this. What is this?"
Well, if we just take this and wrap it in a new label that's more American-friendly, we might be able to create a product here.
| |
Peter Rahal | So, like, basically you want to consume as much information and collect as many dots so you can connect the dots at some point.
The best example of that is, I had an internship in Belgium where we supplied Innocent Beverage, which is a smoothie company. In their label, the innovative thing they did was list the ingredients like "one apple, one banana, and half a lemon" or "a pinch of lemon."
Obviously, I took that dot and connected it to our X Bar, which on the back of our label was "2 dates, 3 eggs, 6 almonds, 4 cashews," etc. But that insight was from just purely observing different markets and different brands.
| |
Shaan Puri | You're just like journaling to keep track of these, or it's all...
| |
Peter Rahal | Just in your head, it's in a way. Yeah, it's just in a way.
| |
Shaan Puri | Alright, let's finish up these ideas. I want to ask you about the bar businesses.
Alright, so idea number 3: **continuous testosterone monitor**. This is fantastic!
| |
Peter Rahal | Oh yeah, I think the American male cares so much about testosterone. I don't know if this is feasible. I mean, we do blood tests, so I actually looked into this for about 10 minutes.
But if you were to have some way to measure testosterone or some broader hormones in a continuous way, like when you wake up, that would be great. I think there's a lot of demand for that, and I believe the American male would love it.
| |
Shaan Puri | Sam, you're the American male. What are your T levels right now? Dude, I want to know. If I teach 247, are you at 400? Where are you at? Is it higher than your math SAT score? That's the test.
| |
Sam Parr | I don't even... I don't know what the SAT is, Adam. | |
Shaan Puri | What do you not...?
| |
Sam Parr | Get your... don't get yours checked, Sean.
| |
Shaan Puri | I've never gotten a check. I don't think I've ever really... I definitely am not the typical American male.
| |
Sam Parr | Wait, Peter, do you get yours checked?
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, I do it quarterly.
| |
Sam Parr | Do you have... by the way, I was an investor. I am an investor in that thing called Levels, which is a continuous glucose monitor.
And like, yeah, everyone has to figure this out. If you do figure it out, it's pretty awesome.
But do you have some... because you're friends with, like, I think Peter Attia is one of your investors. You're a young, rich guy in the health space.
Do you have some crazy Brian Johnson setup where you have someone measuring your nighttime erections and all this crazy stuff?
| |
Peter Rahal | No, I've gone from getting close to being obsessive about measuring everything to just being totally over it. It's so much easier to do it this way.
My routine is that I'm currently off supplements right now. I just want to get a baseline of my blood markers. I test it quarterly, and then normally I take supplements in the AM and PM.
| |
Shaan Puri | I think culture is going that way. This is my prediction for 2025: I believe everybody got really inspired and sort of overanalyzed everything through Huberman and Brian Johnson. I love those guys, but I think the average person finds it way too much work for way too little payoff.
We all kind of know the core four or five things you should do, and most people don't even do those. So, without doing the basic fundamentals, none of the rest really matters—the fine-tuning and optimizing.
I think there's going to be a giant retreat back to simplicity and basics for the health craze.
| |
Sam Parr | So, for the listener, Brian Johnson is like a tech billionaire who likes the headlines. He spends **$2,000,000** a year on his health to live forever. He has this thing called the "Rejuvenation Olympics," where you can get your blood work done, and it ranks you among tens of thousands of other people to let you know how good your blood work is and how long you're going to live.
There is this woman in the Wall Street Journal; she was a substitute teacher. She states her income, saying, "I'm making like **$50,000** a year, and I just go for walks and eat healthy." She was number one on the list, while Brian Johnson was number six. It was pretty funny that all these guys are dedicating their lives...
| |
Shaan Puri | And all their resources for bingo night that you need for the community.
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, and I think it actually causes emotional regulation. Not being stressed or anxious is probably more important than obsessing about some other stuff.
| |
Shaan Puri | Exactly! Alright, let's do the most exciting idea you have on this list: **new religion**. Talk to me; I'm ready. **Preach!**
| |
Peter Rahal | Sort of, religion is... I think it's a bad word. It's like something to belong to that helps you guide morality and ethics. It can be a ritual or tradition that we all can bond over and feel aligned on.
My hypothesis is that there's no money to make in religion, so no one joins. No talent, no good leader joins the church, and therefore it hasn't been innovating at all. The economics aren't there for a priest, and so therefore there's no innovation. There's a desperate need for innovation.
And then second, no one wants to be Jesus, and someone has to be Jesus. That's why I think we are where we are right now. So if someone wants to be Jesus, I think there's a real opportunity to... well.
| |
Sam Parr | Have you guys ever gone to a Shabbat?
| |
Peter Rahal | No, it's something like that.
| |
Shaan Puri | Dude, it's the best.
| |
Sam Parr | It's the best! Shabbat is the shit. I love it! It's like basically a Friday meal where you don't use cell phones, and you tell everyone how much you love each other.
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, and like Saturday, I'm not working. It's forced, and I just think that's pretty obvious. We want that.
| |
Shaan Puri | Why are you saying there's no money in it? These mega churches have a $100 billion run rate. The priests are flying in private jets. Have you seen Joel Osteen? That smile—that's a $1 billion smile right there.
| |
Peter Rahal | So, I think maybe it's actually the best business of all businesses. It just...
| |
Sam Parr | Yeah, I’m pretty sure that the Catholic Church is the largest landowner in the whole world. | |
Shaan Puri | Not to reference Peter Thiel, but he talks about monopolies. He says that all the companies that brag about how much of a monopoly they have and how dominant they are are usually the most vulnerable.
The ones that are super dominant always try to downplay their dominance because they don't want anyone to take aim at them, you know, for antitrust issues.
I think it's the same thing with money. The folks that are bragging about how much money they make are the dropshippers. Meanwhile, the people who are silent and pretend it's not about the money often have all the money. And that's the churches.
| |
Peter Rahal | Well, you're right. I think it's probably totally right. I misread this, but maybe I should be a priest.
| |
Shaan Puri | Well, I've thought about this in a bunch of ways. I think you can either **unbundle** it. One strategy for business is to unbundle things.
Take things that come in a bundle. For example, you get God and a higher power, community, a rich Sunday ritual, and an operating philosophy for life. That's the current religion bundle.
Then you see things like, you know, look at the NFL every Sunday, look at SoulCycle. These are examples where they have two other components but not the other three.
Then there's Tony Robbins. He'll maybe give you the operating philosophy without God. For me, that resonated. I was like, "Cool, I want this without the other components." But I’d like to be in charge of it and not have it decided by fate.
So, I think some people have unbundled this, but it would be very interesting to see somebody actually try to provide a new bundle. | |
Peter Rahal | And I think you could really just, like, it's a first principle approach, but across the different domains of life.
Like, who's got it right? The Buddhists have got stuff right. The Jews have got stuff right. Purism has got stuff right. Christianity too.
Just sort of look at it from that perspective. I bet you'd come up with something great.
| |
Sam Parr | You actually have a fairly academic view when it comes to operating a business, and I think that's actually pretty cool.
I think it's considered "cool" to not care or to say, "I'm just going to follow my gut," which I tend to fall into that category. But to hear your kind of academic perspective, I actually think it's pretty neat.
| |
Peter Rahal | Thank you. I wouldn't call it that, but I guess maybe from where you're coming from, yeah. I mean, I'm not a terrible student, but I study a lot.
| |
Shaan Puri | What does that mean?
| |
Peter Rahal | I was literally a terrible student, but all I do in my free time is study.
| |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, it's actually nice for me because I kind of do the same. Then sometimes I meet people who are ten times more successful than me, and they're like, "Yeah, I don't even think about all that stuff." I'm like, "Oh wait, am I wasting my time?"
But you're like, "Oh yeah, we looked at this. It seemed like really good distribution," or "I really thought that, you know, for the design agency, the inputs matter as much as the inputs will dictate the outputs."
I was super clear on this, whereas I think a lot of successful entrepreneurs just sort of handwave. I get the sense that it's not really as handwavy as they think. Either they're downplaying it, or they're kind of like Michael Jordan. You're like, "How do you shoot a jump shot?" It's like, "I don't know, I just do it. I don't really think too much."
But I like that you're able to articulate some of these things because, at least for someone like me, that resonates. That's how I think. So, you know, it's...
| |
Peter Rahal | I would perhaps say that they're not as introspective. They're probably going to be analyzing why they came up with what they did.
A lot of entrepreneurs are all about charging forward and moving ahead. I'm always sort of looking back and studying the past. I ask myself, "Why did this work? Was it a framework? Can I come up with a framework? Was it a pattern?"
| |
Shaan Puri | Well, let's do a little introspection on why, David. Because you've, on one hand, one way of looking at this is you've already beat this level of the video game. You created a protein bar, you won $600,000,000, you got the nice house in Miami, and it's all done, right?
Of course, you could go back and do it again, but maybe you should do a new thing. That would be one argument.
We, me and Sam, talked about this before. There are two types of entrepreneurs: Type 1 and Type 2. Type 1 entrepreneurs are always looking for variety, the next new thing, even though they're most equipped to actually do the thing that they know really well. They don't want to do it.
Then there are other people we call "speed runners," which is Type 2. They feel like they have a new view, a new mastery of the game, and they're really excited to go do it. This is just in their blood; it's in their DNA. They just want to go back to the same space.
I don't know if it's as simple as that, but why did you decide to do it again?
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, so it was in process. I had an aguapete, so that was a constraint. But then I wanted to actually prove to myself that I wasn't just a CPG entrepreneur; I could go do this in other industries. So, I actually went to explore different industries and tried to, like, start and stop a lot of times.
| |
Shaan Puri | What sorts of stuff give us a sense?
| |
Peter Rahal | **Synthetic biology** I think is fascinating. That's a perfect example. I was like, "This sounds like science fiction." **Biotech** is incredible! If we can actually control biology, that would be an amazing thing.
So, I started studying it. And you know, this is where I think Elon is not a good influence. I was like, "Oh, I can learn anything." Then very quickly, it was like, "I can't fucking learn this stuff!" Biology is complex; these people spend their whole careers learning this. I was like, "I'm not that smart. I can't learn new things."
I'm never going to start a business where I have to pick up the phone to fix the problem. If I don't have the competency to fix the problem or understand it, it's a position I'll never want to be in. That was a bit of self-awareness—a humbling moment.
Then I spent some time reflecting. When my non-compete came up, I was like, "Oh my god, I see it!" I couldn't help but envision something to do. So I thought, "You know what? I'm okay with just being called a type 2."
I'm okay with it saying on my gravestone, "Nose protein bar." That's what I'm going for! And it goes back to self-awareness. You gotta do what you're good at.
One thing I've learned as I've gotten older—I'm 38 now—is that I find it harder to learn new things. I'm a later adopter. But what I do see is a huge opportunity to grow the market, delight customers, and it's fun!
| |
Sam Parr | Are you calling the shots? Are you the CEO? And are you a very hands-on CEO, or are you doing it differently?
| |
Shaan Puri | Are you the chairman?
| |
Peter Rahal | No, I'm the CEO and I'm in the office every day. I'm at manufacturing right now. I only have one way.
| |
Sam Parr | When you have a 4-month-old kid, it sounds like you're going to get married soon. You know, a lot of people in your position who imagine you have roughly in the ballpark of 9 figures liquid—that's enough money for many generations. You have a new kid where you could be at home with them. Why do you even give a shit about starting this new thing?
| |
Peter Rahal | I think the **idle mind** is a **devil's playground**.
| |
Sam Parr | But you've had an idle mind for the past few years.
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, but I still made myself busy. However, it was idle... it was idle relative to now. Yes, I just think it's dangerous. I need to produce; I need to make stuff. I need stress, I need to be challenged, and I need risk. I'm a way better man with responsibility.
Secondly, I want to make sure my son sees Daddy working hard. I need to be a role model for him. I need to be in an office; I need to be sacrificing. At a fundamental level, as a human, I'm just not happy if I don't have risk or responsibility. So that was... does.
| |
Sam Parr | That means you were kind of bummed out for the past few years?
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, I just was unfulfilled. I was just like... being an investor sucks. I like... | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, dude, it's pretty boring, isn't it?
| |
Peter Rahal | I like... well, the only good thing about it is you have more freedom of time and responsibility. That's the great thing about it, and I just don't actually like that.
| |
Shaan Puri | Have you ever seen this Reddit post by this guy, Jake, who started Movement Watches?
| |
Peter Rahal | no
| |
Shaan Puri | They were one of the early D2C (direct-to-consumer) brands and created a watch brand that got really big off of Instagram. He wrote this thing on Reddit, which you would never expect this guy to be on, right? They sold it for, I think, $100,000,000. You would never expect him to just be lurking in random beginner threads about entrepreneurship.
He wrote a thread that says, "I sold my company for $1,000,000 and I'm lost more than ever." At 31 years old, he says it pretty openly: "I sold my company, Movement, for a lot of money. I thought all my problems would be solved. It made my life really cushy and comfortable. I optimize for being as stress-free as possible. I play video games when I want. I wake up when I want. I have really no reason to get out of bed if I don't want to."
I always thought this was the dream and that I'd be happy forever... until I wasn't. I realized I'm in this incredibly unique situation and I want to share something.
Then, I'll just fast forward. There's a bunch of stuff he talks about. I've been separated...
| |
Sam Parr | For the company for two years. | |
Shaan Puri | I'm 31, single, and I never have to work again. However, I'm also lonelier than ever and deeply depressed. I really believe that we need purpose in our lives to be happy. For some, that's raising a family; for others, it's their career.
Then he goes to the bottom and he just says, "We can plan and analyze forever, but there are lessons that are unknown until you start moving forward. You cannot live without struggle and pain. We either choose our struggle and pain, or it will find us through depression and loneliness."
I thought that was really powerful, yeah, what he wrote.
| |
Peter Rahal | And you and my feedback to him would be like, "You have to work." He said, "You don't have to work," but you have to.
| |
Shaan Puri | It wasn't just for money; it was for yourself.
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like you need to produce.
| |
Sam Parr | I want to break up this article that you got written about you. It was on Medium. You know what I'm talking about?
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, it was like a super sensationalized, terribly inappropriate, and she was just projecting.
| |
Sam Parr | I thought that was going to be the case. I told Sean I was going to pick it up, and he goes, "This is what he's probably going to say." Sean nailed the prediction.
For anyone who's talking about or thinking about the article I'm describing, it's basically the headline. It has beautiful photos, but it kind of paints this article as the lost young rich guy who doesn't know what the hell he's doing in life and is unhappy. The photos are like him looking off into the distance, but there was one pretty amazing shot. | |
Shaan Puri | **Pro tip for founders:** Anytime somebody wants your article about you and they want you to just take photos looking longingly out the window, they're about to **screw you**. That's what they're trying to do. Just don't take the photo and don't do the article.
| |
Sam Parr | Peter bought a fully furnished house for **$19,000,000** in May. He splits his time between here and Chicago. He chose Miami because there are no income taxes. He has a Ferrari and a Vespa parked in the driveway. A housekeeper who comes daily keeps the **seven** bedrooms spotless, though most are usually empty.
| |
Shaan Puri | Like just little jabs right there.
| |
Sam Parr | It's true. She basically says, "This looks like a place that ticked the box requesting the newly rich bachelor package." This setup fell straight from the sky, just like constant jabs.
| |
Peter Rahal | Why, dude? And first... | |
Sam Parr | Is it crazy that you probably spent the whole day with this woman? You probably became friendly with her, and then she just kind of... | |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, and it was like... she couldn't. I'm very introverted, and I love being alone. I never once said I was unhappy. It's more that she was projecting what she would be like. She couldn't imagine living here alone, and I'm like, "This is fucking great!"
It was just funny. It shows that you can't trust media. The story was supposed to be about my process for finding my next business.
| |
Sam Parr | But it was still a good article. There were some cool insights in it. It's like, what a little bit about your background story. And the photos are dope. One of the...
| |
Shaan Puri | Things Sam and I like to talk about: when we both sold our companies, there was this whole process—the journey of it all. Then, when you're not going to sell, that's kind of a stressful time.
This is kind of like relief when you sell. At least, that was how it was for me and him. It's more than what you think should be just exuberance; it was actually just relief that the process finished and it was successful. Your employees are all in a good spot; everything worked out.
But then there's that post-exit phase, right? Figuring out what you want to do. You go to the ATM, print out the balance for the first time, and you're like, "Holy shit, this is cool!"
Do you have any of those moments that you remember? Just unique human life experiences that you had going through it?
That's the first question. The second would be: if your cousin or your brother was going through this or was about to do it, what would you kind of tell them? What would you advise them now that you've been through it?
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, I would say that by going through the process, it took me a while to actually comprehend the money. | |
Shaan Puri | Had you taken money out of the business before that?
| |
Peter Rahal | No, no. So, I went from basically like $75,000 a year to just like really crazy money. That process took me a while.
In general, like that's just financial literacy. It's just not... I don't have good instincts on it for some reason. So, it took me about a year or two to realize what it was.
Then, going through it, I just... I maybe had kind of low self-esteem for being dyslexic, I think. So, I didn't think I was great, you know what I mean? I just don't think I'm that special. Then, I didn't realize you just get treated differently.
| |
Sam Parr | You also were living in maybe not the most friendly environment. Miami is not the best place to be, I think.
Well, you could say it's the best place to be for the newly rich, or you could also say it could be a pretty bad place to live if you're a newly rich young man who's single. It could be... you could become a degen pretty easily.
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, if you're able to have discipline, it's a really dangerous place, but it's actually a great place because there are a lot of high-net-worth people there that you can learn from.
The issue with Miami is that there is no residue of the actual building; it's just the outcome. You don't see the office, you don't hear the stories, you just see the outcome. So, it's a bunch of... it's a byproduct of all of it. You don't see the process or any remnants of the process, and so that's what's dangerous about Miami in wealth management.
I would just define the different sorts of options. You can go with Goldman; they're going to see you, they're going to make you feel good. You know, just go through how to manage this money because that's what you need to do. You immediately need to figure out what to do and how to do it.
There are different categories and approaches based on your risk appetite or what you want to do. So, that's what I wanted to help with. I would help someone by saying, "Here's how you should think about it," and help them not waste their time.
| |
Shaan Puri | Alright, I want to ask you two questions. The first one is really simple: How big can this be, David? As I'm 75% of the way through this bar right now.
| |
Peter Rahal | I would say the market size is around $8,000,000,000 for the protein subcategory. For me, the big exciting opportunity is to convert non-protein bar consumers and bring them into the category.
In my interviews, people often say, "I'm not a protein bar consumer." So, if we can achieve the mission of converting as many non-protein bar people into protein bar consumers, that would be huge. I see a clear path to $1,000,000,000 in top-line sales.
| |
Sam Parr | Is that your threshold for success?
| |
Peter Rahal | That's a good question. **Enterprise value**... yeah, I would say I would want **$1,000,000,000** in top line.
| |
Sam Parr | What's that worth?
| |
Peter Rahal | Depending on growth and EBITDA, you put a 3 or a 5 on it.
| |
Shaan Puri | I love how you don't shy away. We have a lot of people that come on this podcast who want to win big. They want money, and they want things. Sorry, we all want things.
Whenever Sam asks a question like, "Would anything less than that be considered a success for you?" they always go back to what they think they're supposed to say. "Oh no, no, no, this doesn't define me. As long as I wake up every day and my wife kisses me on the cheek, I'm good."
I love that you don't give a fuck. I see that in a bunch of your quotes. We have this quote section, and I just want you to react to some of these. My favorite, by the way, is: "Don't trust a guy who celebrates his birthday."
| |
Peter Rahal | I know he's coming.
| |
Shaan Puri | Through, but I'm not against. | |
Peter Rahal | It, but it's kind of true. Well...
| |
Shaan Puri | You talked about how most people don't really experience any adversity, and you said, "Most people are soft as baby shit." Can you expand on that?
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, I just think **character** is important. I think anyone with really high character usually has some trauma. That trauma is relative. If you haven't gone through trauma, it's fine, but just being self-aware of it is the first step.
| |
Shaan Puri | You do things now, even though your life could be very comfortable. You have a bunch of money; you could make your life as comfortable as you want it. Do you do things now that kind of voluntarily make your life less comfortable than you otherwise could?
| |
Peter Rahal | Without sounding like a rich asshole... I mean, I'm truly.
| |
Sam Parr | I like the rich, arrogant version of you.
| |
Shaan Puri | Feel free to sound.
| |
Peter Rahal | Like that advice, like... | |
Shaan Puri | He's like, "I have one butler, not three." Now, yeah, I know it's tough out there. It's like, "Oh, Jordan Wagner." It's like, that's such a...
| |
Peter Rahal | Like, you know, it sounds so terrible. No, I mean, I think that being physically active and doing hard physical exertion is the easiest way to face adversity. That's why you see a lot of people doing that; it's easy.
But my company is a priority, and the first thing to go is my health. It's my company, my family—my family is probably more important now. I'm not as important; my family is more important than my company and than me. So, my health is the first thing to *fucking* go. | |
Sam Parr | Is your new company in-person or remote?
| |
Peter Rahal | What do you think?
| |
Sam Parr | Yeah, I made the biggest mistake, dude.
| |
Shaan Puri | He's like, "Have you been listening?" | |
Peter Rahal | Oh my god!
| |
Shaan Puri | I was hoping there was like a...
| |
Sam Parr | I was hoping there was like a 3% chance my company... We started it right after COVID. I've made such a mistake, dude. We did remote, and it's like an irreversible thing. | |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, if you want a high-performing company, if you want to win, you obviously have to do it. The thing is, my work's fun, so be in the office.
| |
Sam Parr | Yeah, well, that's why I'm doing it. I don't care about winning; it just is fun. It's fun to be around you, like to become your friends.
| |
Peter Rahal | Oh, and that's the thing. My social bucket is fulfilled through my work colleagues, so I don't really socialize outside of my work.
| |
Sam Parr | Yeah, I mean, I was in the same boat. You just give someone a job, you're hired, and you want to be friends.
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah. | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, my paid friends are the best friends I've found. My W-2 friends are awesome!
| |
Peter Rahal | Yeah, it's fun.
| |
Shaan Puri | Well, dude, Peter, I know we're a little over time, so we'll let you go. But you're awesome! I really appreciate you coming on. I think your story is dope. I think you're very truthful and self-aware, and that's a pretty deadly combo.
It's something, you know, I think two virtues to strive for. I think you have a hardcore approach to this at a time when it is unpopular to be hardcore. You almost have to apologize for caring, trying, and working, and prioritizing stuff.
I think there's a bunch of people who will listen to this that want that also and will feel more empowered to do it. In the same way that you were saying, like, Elon lets you think, "Wait, shit, can I do anything?" right? It gives you permission to be the way you want to be, and I think you've done that today on the spot. So, I appreciate you coming on. | |
Peter Rahal | Thank you, guys.
|