The Mysterious Founder Behind $1,000,000,000 Celebrity Brands (#485)

Shaan Puri

So, here are some quotes I'd like to read to you. Okay, on blowing a $100,000,000 quote: "It happens."

Sam Parr

next quote

Shaan Puri

When you talk about blowing $100,000,000, I know cats that blew double that. That's the second response. It continues: it can happen to anyone, which I'm not.

Sam Parr

a turn

Shaan Puri

I don't think it can happen to anyone. Alright, what's up? We got a fun episode here! So, we're going to play a little game. The game is that Sam and I want to go back and forth, kind of like we do when we hang out. If we were just back in the day when we both used to drink a beer or two, we would try to entertain each other, sort of one-up each other with stories. I'll tell you a business story that I think is pretty juicy, and you tell me a business story that you think is pretty juicy. We're going to see who can tell the juiciest backstory behind celebrity brands. Now, I texted you last night and said, "Celebrity brands, but not the celebrity part, the juicy backstory." And that's all we said to each other.

Sam Parr

Like, for example, we don't use this one, but what's the name of the Kylie Cosmetics brand? Kendall... what's her name? Kylie Jenner. Kylie Jenner has this lipstick company that does $100 million in revenue. She's obviously not the one running the show; she had to partner with someone. She's a number two, a behind-the-scenes person. We're going to talk all about behind-the-scenes people.

Shaan Puri

Who is that number 2? How did they make this come about? How did they get the celebrity partnership? What made it work versus many others that failed? Who are these sharks that are behind the scenes? Who's the number 2? I dare say we're going number 2 today, and we're doing the live with all of you. Alright, that's how this is gonna work.

Sam Parr

And we rate it from raisin to grape, with the wine being a 10 out of 10 and grape being 9 out of 10.

Shaan Puri

of 10

Sam Parr

I don't actually know what's the in between stages of raisid and grape but

Shaan Puri

Is it juicy like a prune, like a raisin, like a grape, or is it straight wine? That's how juicy this is. Juicy juice boxes—that's how good these can be. Alright, so...

Sam Parr

Dude, I have a low juicy story I wanted to ask you about or get your opinion on before we get into this. Yeah?

Shaan Puri

go for it

Sam Parr

This weekend, I went to Miami for this Hampton thing. We went lobster diving, and it was awesome! I stayed at a very fancy hotel. I'm not going to name the hotel yet because I want to wait until the end of the story. I was working out, you know those cable machines? It's like cable machines where you use that rod to change the weights at the bottom. You know how there's usually a 2.5-pound weight at the top that's adjustable? Well, I was fixing the weight, and the machine was broken. Apparently, I didn't notice it was broken, and that 2.5-pound weight fell on my finger. My finger looks like a grape!

Shaan Puri

can you

Sam Parr

see that is it all purple

Shaan Puri

yeah I can see

Sam Parr

Alright, the question is: What type of petty court do we go to about this? Is this just like a free stay? Like, do I get my money back? Is it like I want my money back *plus* like another free stay?

Shaan Puri

Well, you have to find a way to talk where you're waving that. You gotta change your gestures. You need to have like this Obama-style gesticular, you know, motions when you're talking. Because you need to see the manager. The manager needs to see the finger. And the finger... I mean, you're not trying to wave it in their face. It's just you need to do one of those where you add it. You're like, "What am I supposed to do about this?" I mean...

Sam Parr

I need something for this. This is off your property.

Shaan Puri

sure did

Sam Parr

Yeah, so if I go to a fancy hotel, I expect a fancy gym, right? Not like where the screws come out of the freaking equipment. So my finger looks like a grape right now. It's one of those injuries that you don't do anything with... a broken finger. You do nothing, but goddamn, it hurts.

Shaan Puri

This is like when Rose Reid limped into Game 7 of the NBA Finals from the tunnel and the crowd goes crazy. They said, "No, it's not possible! He couldn't possibly be playing with that injury." That's how people playing this podcast today should feel about your ability to persevere through that injury.

Sam Parr

I'm a blogger, bro. I'm a... I'm a tweeter. I tweet and also I can't exercise now for a week. That's why I make a living - with my 7 out of 10 body. Yeah, that's how a cat feels.

Shaan Puri

when they lose one of their lives

Sam Parr

So anyway, maybe I'll have an update to the story. Maybe I'll get a free stay at [hotel name]. We'll see if I can persevere with this aching finger, but I think we could do it. Do you want to go first?

Shaan Puri

Your best? Okay, so there's this woman named **Emma Greed**. Do you know that name? No? **Emma Greed**—first of all, she's destined to be famous with a name like that: **Emma Greed**.

Sam Parr

greed like greed like money greed

Shaan Puri

Yeah, but it's G-R-E-D-E. She has her own spin on it. She is the business shark behind a bunch of the Kardashian brands. She was a founding partner in Skims, the multibillion-dollar shapewear brand for Kim Kardashian. Her husband is the CEO of that, by the way. So, the couple is behind this. The next one is she co-founded Good American, the massive jeans brand that probably does $300 million a year in revenue, you know, with Khloé Kardashian. That's how she broke into that. Then, with Kris Jenner, she goes to the mom and co-founds Safely, a plant-based cleaning product brand, with her and Chrissy Teigen. This woman is so impressive. If you've ever seen her, a lot of people now have seen her because I think she's on Shark Tank this season. So, if you are into that form of entertainment, you've seen her. She's super polished. She's this woman who's half Black, half White, super good-looking, with a British accent, and an absolute savage in terms of business. This is what I've gathered from watching a bunch of interviews of hers.

Sam Parr

By the way, did you see the recent raise for Skims? I think Skims raised $200,000,000 at a $3,000,000,000 valuation. Is that right?

Shaan Puri

And she owns, oh my gosh, she owned 8% of that. I don't know after dilution what she owns, but she owned 8% of that. So her stake in Skims alone is basically a multi-hundred million dollar stake. Forget about Good American, where she was like, you know, it was her idea. She was the kind of the CEO; she's the operator behind that. So, here's... you want to hear her story? It's...

Sam Parr

it's pretty

Shaan Puri

good so she's she's daughter of a single mom which is the start of every great entrepreneurial story by the way second thing she she basically is like a hustler when she's young she's got a paper route she's like working at a deli she's just working all kinds of like blue collar jobs and she's like okay you know what I wanna make it in fashion and so she goes to the london college of fashion and she's 14 15 years old she's already like interning at gucci she's like hustling her way into like these like low level internships at fashion brands and she drops out because she's like dude I'm hustling on the weekends and after school like these fashion shows or in my internship I'm networking with all these people I feel like I'm learning way more and building a way more valuable asset which is my network outside of school than I am inside of school so she drops out and she starts working for a couple of like she works for like a runway company and then she starts her own agency she's like oh okay here's what I'm gonna do I'm gonna create this agency called itb she's 26 years old I think at the time and she's like she'd been hustling in the fashion industry so now she's got connections so she's like hey let me just be a dot connector and so she's like I'm gonna connect all these fashion brands want to do collabs with influencers and celebrities and I'll create an agency that does that for them so oh you know the way she kind of got her break was calvin klein wants to do a campaign for their new launch of whatever the new thing is she sources 70 different models and influencers for them signs all the contracts one of those people is kendall jenner to do that deal she meets kris jenner and so she becomes somewhat friendly like they've done a couple of campaigns together she's booked her out she has a little bit of respect so here's what she does then she's like okay this model of connecting like using kind of celebrity influencers is working for these brands but they kind of do it in a inauthentic way it's like only transactions like when when you need the when you need them to promote x product they show up and then they disappear she's like no no no I think we should have a story and a celebrity at the beginning of these brands and so she has this idea for good american a denim brand that is I don't know if you're how familiar you are with it but it's basically like their thing is it's kind of like all sizes it's sort of like body positive early on and she was like you know we're gonna have we're gonna carry like from size 0 to size whatever like 24 or something like that

Sam Parr

Imagine that pitch to one of the Kardashians. So it works like this: because she's like, "I know, but look, here's the thing, Khloe." She's like, "Why me?" Well...

Shaan Puri

khloe you might wanna sit down for a second

Sam Parr

yeah yeah like I

Shaan Puri

don't know what you have to say one of those

Sam Parr

things like shit

Shaan Puri

I'm not racist, but it's like I'm not trying to be offensive. You're the perfect fit for this brand.

Sam Parr

I don't know which one is Khloe, but they're all obviously fit and skinny. Maybe she's like the...

Shaan Puri

She's the one that kind of went up and down in weight. At first, she was the bigger one of the sisters, and she had these sisters who were, you know, size 0. That was insecurity. Then she got super, super skinny, but then she kind of... you know, naturally people's weight fluctuates.

Sam Parr

Imagine that conversations with, like, Weight Watchers or one of these brands come to you, you know what I mean? Or, like, when...

Shaan Puri

I'm honored

Sam Parr

You know how Jamie Lee Curtis is the spokesperson for that yogurt company that makes you poop regularly? What's it called?

Shaan Puri

I don't know which one

Sam Parr

It's like a yogurt that elderly people are supposed to eat so it makes them go to the bathroom on a regular basis. Like a... mesh shit. We're gonna call it "Oops, I Cracked My Pants" and we want you to be the face of it.

Shaan Puri

you know what I mean

Sam Parr

like that that's a weird money scene

Shaan Puri

Well, what? Who cares? I don't care. You know, there's no problem with this. So, she pitches Kris Jenner. She goes, "Kris, I bumped into it very fast because I got an idea for a brand." She was expecting, like, "Look, I know you guys get hundreds of offers," but she's like, "I've already seen how much of a hustler you are. I've observed the way you operate. I already kind of cosigned this. You should just meet with Chloe directly, see if Chloe likes it. If she likes it, you already have my blessing." So, she meets with Chloe. Chloe's in, and they basically start this brand. The brand has scaled up now into the hundreds of millions. It's one of the fastest-growing denim brands and jeans brands. From there, she then approaches Kim and she's like, "Kim, we should do a shapewear brand." Her husband, who's also in the fashion industry, became the day-to-day person because she was busy with Good American. Together, they create Skims, which becomes a multibillion-dollar shapewear brand. Then she does this one with her mom as well. I just found this fascinating—what this family is doing. So, they basically have a holding company.

Sam Parr

the glebe family what's that the glebe family the greed family or so james greed

Shaan Puri

And Emma Greed, so they basically have a holding company called Popular Ventures or something like that. They also did Brady, the clothing brand with Tom Brady. So they're spinning up these fashion and consumer product brands with celebrities. They've built their own place on the Forbes list now. These guys have a net worth of like $450 to $500 million, just co-founding these brands with the Kardashian family and with, you know, Tom Brady and whatnot. It's impressive to have pulled that off behind the scenes.

Sam Parr

and what's frame they have another one called frame is that

Shaan Puri

That's the fashion brand that the husband started. They sell $300 t-shirts. I don't get it, but you know...

Sam Parr

have you seen what they look like this husband and wife couple it's hard to like them because

Shaan Puri

so good looking

Sam Parr

They're like, "Perfect!" Yeah, like they're so good looking. They both look like influencers.

Shaan Puri

Definitely reading it, and I was like, "Yeah, but they probably don't have a good relationship." I was trying to find some crack.

Sam Parr

I was like you might have

Shaan Puri

cholesterol issues you never know nobody's got it all

Sam Parr

Yeah, yeah, but this guy probably broke both fingers, not even just one. They’re pretty perfect. Like, these guys look like influencers themselves.

Shaan Puri

And so, alright, where do you rank on the juicy scale, Emma and Jen's greed, from prune to wine?

Sam Parr

It's in the middle, so they're incredibly impressive. This is amazing that they do this. What's even more amazing is that John Rockefeller had this famous phrase. When he was trying to buy other companies, he would say, "Look, you should join my oil company. I make so much money." And they're like, "No, you can't make more." He would respond, "Look, I know I make money. I make money in ways that you can't even dream about. You have no idea how much money I make." That's exactly what the Kardashians are like. This Good American brand is just this little thing I've never even heard of that makes hundreds of millions of dollars. That's amazing! But there's no drama here, so I'm going to put it like right in the middle. Does a prune have juice in it? I think it does. We're going to give it a prune.

Shaan Puri

prune's the lowest prune's the raisin is the middle I think we're going with

Sam Parr

Then it's a raisin. This is a raisin. There's no drama here. I need some drama, but these guys are amazing. They're a perfect couple.

Shaan Puri

I understand. I tried to start with, like, you know, raising from a single mother because that was really the only story of not just badass winning, you know, but the humble origin story. But I agree with you, there was a...

Sam Parr

I Googled her name and there's a picture of her and Khloe Kardashian posing with, I guess, one of their brands. They look like models.

Shaan Puri

like I

Sam Parr

I was like, "Is this the founder or a model?" They look like models. This reminds me... I actually didn't do research on this guy, but it reminds me he is also in the Kardashian sphere. But have you heard of Brian Lee?

Shaan Puri

the honest company guy

Sam Parr

Yeah, so Brian Lee. Do you remember who... it's so weird. Do you remember Robert Shapiro? I don't know if you would remember him.

Shaan Puri

lawyer who is that

Sam Parr

The lawyer... okay, the lawyer. So basically, Robert Shapiro was one of the guys. I think he defended O.J. Simpson. That's what he was famous for.

Shaan Puri

do you

Sam Parr

remember that

Shaan Puri

their dad right

Sam Parr

No, so this is where it gets funny. So, Robert... the Kardashian family is famous because one of the Kardashians—I forget the name of the dad who's died—he defended O.J. Simpson along with Robert Shapiro. Robert Shapiro, you know, he's a lawyer, a big shot, probably a smart guy. He ends up partnering with Brian Lee. Brian Lee is this guy who did it in 2001. So, Brian Lee was only in his early twenties. He goes, "Hey, I have this idea for this legal company, but I need a celebrity to be the face of it." Somehow, he actually cold-called Robert Shapiro and said, "Hey, do you want to be a partner on my new legal company?" Shapiro replied, "Yeah, come to my office, let's talk about it." He woos him, and it works out well. That company is now called LegalZoom. I don't know if it's quite a billion-dollar company, but it's in that range. Yeah, it's a really successful company. So, Robert Shapiro and Brian Lee were like, "Hey, this worked. Who else do you want to do it with?" Robert Shapiro was like, "Well, I got these friends. You know, I worked with their dad, the Kardashians. What if we worked with them?" So, he does it again and creates this company called ShoeDazzle, which doesn't end up working out amazingly. It was actually pretty early; this was in 2009 with Kim Kardashian. He partnered with her, and it was like a subscription shoe company. It didn't work out that well. His third company he did was called The Honest Company, which I think they went public. Yeah, did they go public? Yeah, they were public. He partnered with Jessica Alba for that and ended up selling, like, I think $30 million worth of his shares before it even went public. Now, he's doing it again where he co-founded another company with Derek Jeter, and it's a digital sports card collecting company. So, this guy, Brian Lee, has been doing the same thing, very similar to the Kardashian sphere, just like being the operator. He's a pretty amazing guy. So, Brian Lee's an interesting guy as well.

Shaan Puri

Dude, we could pull up Honest Company's stock. By the way, it got absolutely hammered.

Sam Parr

that now

Shaan Puri

So, when it debuted in 2021, it was at $20 a share. It's currently at $1.40. It is now only worth a $130 million market cap.

Sam Parr

Is it really? I think they do like $100,000,000 in sales. So, I guess it's straight for one times revenue.

Shaan Puri

Ouch! It's got a great brand. I wonder who's going to buy that. I feel like that's a great target to buy.

Sam Parr

Yeah, it's an interesting one. But this guy, Brian Lee, has been doing this stuff. We'll put him in the same category, though. That's only a middle one. When you're with the Kardashians, it's kind of a...

Shaan Puri

stacked deck

Sam Parr

yeah it's a stacked deck

Shaan Puri

alright you do one alright

Sam Parr

I have one. So this one's kind of popular right now, but there's a really interesting story behind it. So, Virtual Dining Concepts— or is that what it's called? Sorry, Virtual Dining Company. So basically, a couple of years ago, Mr. Beast launched Beast Burger. The idea, I think they actually did... did they tell us in the pod? I think he mentioned this in the pod, right? His manager.

Shaan Puri

yeah I think so

Sam Parr

He was basically like, "We had this idea, and we went from idea to execution in such a short amount of time," which was a huge mistake. I think he said they did it in like 60 days or 90 days—something crazy. But they partnered with this company called Virtual Dining Concepts, and they launched this thing. Two years later, now it's like a shit show. So, Mr. Beast is tweeting, and he's actually deleted a bunch of the tweets, but he's basically said, "This company has ruined my reputation because the burger sucks, and the quality control sucks." Now they are both suing each other. So that alone is a story, but that's not even the interesting part. The interesting part is the guy behind it. His name is Robert Earl. Robert Earl is interesting because, in his early twenties, he started a company that was just a restaurant. I think it was like a medieval restaurant. Have you ever seen those in movies?

Shaan Puri

No, but every time I would go to Vegas, I would stay at... what's that castle one called? The medieval castle. It's like that terrible hotel. That's where I always stayed.

Sam Parr

Well, he started this thing. I think it was called **Beefeater**, and it was in England. He's from England, and it was called Beefeater. It was like a medieval-themed restaurant. So, he starts growing that, and after a handful of years—like 10 years—he sells it and makes like **$60,000,000**. He's like, "Alright, what next?" His next thing is **Planet Hollywood**. Do you remember Planet Hollywood? Of course! Planet Hollywood was a restaurant concept where it was like, "We're gonna go big with all the stars." His big stars were Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and then Demi Moore and Cindy Crawford. He had all the stars aligned with this restaurant. He gave them all equity and said, "You guys are gonna be the face. We're gonna do Planet Hollywood." You go to the restaurant, and there are wax figures of all the celebrities. Whatever it was, it was a big deal at the time. He expands it and eventually goes public, but they expand way too quickly and eventually go bankrupt. It's still like a famous failure in that it actually probably could have worked, but they expanded too quickly. Then he keeps doing this stuff, though. So, he eventually buys...

Shaan Puri

can't stop he's a he's a concept junkie this guy

Sam Parr

he's a concept this guy is a concept junkie so he ends up buying a lot

Shaan Puri

Brainstorming with this guy... This guy would not stop. I feel like, yeah, I gotta be... I need to get in a room with Robert Earl and I need to have a brainstorm.

Sam Parr

Well, he's really interesting. So now he's got this thing, I think it's called "Look Up Earl Enterprises." He owns about 30 different restaurants now, and it does something like $500 to $600 million a year in revenue. Some of the brands include a chicken restaurant with Guy Fieri. Do you remember Balducci? It's like Italian sandwiches and pasta restaurants. Yeah, Bertucci. It's like better than Applebee's, a little bit, you know? They're like...

Shaan Puri

barely better than applebee's is the bar we hold and maintain vigorously for all of our

Sam Parr

Yeah, that's like the thing. None of them are crazy fancy, but they're all like, you know, it's like $25 a meal type of thing. He owns a ton of them, and many of them have a celebrity behind them. So he gets this idea when ghost kitchens start popping up with Uber and DoorDash. He gets his son to help co-found this new company with him, and that's what virtual dining is. He has one with Barstool called "Pardon My Cheesesteak." It's a cheesesteak business. Then he decides to do the same thing, except this time he does it with Mr. Beast Burger. It takes off, but then obviously they have their issues. Still, he has done it with a ton of people. He's done it with Mariah Carey, so he has "Mariah's Cookies." He's also done it with rapper Tyga, which is crazy to me that Tyga is even relevant. But I think, by the way...

Shaan Puri

how does he have that much pull

Sam Parr

well tyga dated 1 of the kardashian girls so maybe that's how I I don't know

Shaan Puri

Now, you could walk into my house right now, and I would say, "Hey sir, what's your name?" I would not know who Tyga is.

Sam Parr

yeah it's weird so he has tyga bites they have part of my cheesecake

Shaan Puri

I need to meet somebody who's just eating Tiger Bites. Like, who are the custom Tiger Bites?

Sam Parr

yeah yeah yeah

Shaan Puri

they are strong and you don't need to

Sam Parr

I think he's working on **Hoobastank Hoagies**. That's going to be the next one. Yeah, I don't know what the deal is with **Tyga**, but he's done this a whole bunch of times where he has this pretty massive empire. Right now, he's being sued. They made a comment saying, "Look, a lot of people are complaining about **Beast Burgers**," but he goes, "That's just normal. When you serve all these people, people complain." He said, "Look at all of our restaurants. People complain. It's normal. People complain about all our stuff." But the guy's got a ton of things going on. He owns a casino, the **Aladdin Resort and Casino** on the Las Vegas Strip. He still owns **Planet Hollywood**, and they're trying to make it come back a little bit. He owns a couple of them. He also owns a soccer team, the **Everton Soccer Team**. Have you heard of that?

Shaan Puri

yeah of course

Sam Parr

Yeah, and he and his wife live in a 25,000 square foot mansion in Florida. I mean, the guy's a baller. If you Google him, he's like this old-looking guy who kinda wears tacky shirts, but he looks like a blast to hang out with. He has a TV show now where he's... it's almost like, what's that TV show called? "Somebody Feed Phil"? Where it's just like a dorky guy talking to restaurant owners and learning about the local cuisine. He's got one of those things. So he seems like a...

Shaan Puri

that's his show

Sam Parr

then that's not his show it's like it's very it's very similar to that but this guy

Shaan Puri

Dude, these people who have these sprawling empires where they're like, "Yeah, I own Planet Hollywood," but then I got this juice brand, and then I have this hotel over here, and then I own this soccer team. Is that who you want to be? I'm curious because I think some people really want that. I'm not sure that I would want that. That seems like just a lot of stuff in the knowledge.

Sam Parr

it seems like a lot

Shaan Puri

yeah like it

Sam Parr

seems like

Shaan Puri

is that a goal of yours or I definitely respect it from

Sam Parr

far but

Shaan Puri

I don't think I wanna be that that guy

Sam Parr

I think owning a sports team would be cool, but I don't want to own like 500 restaurants. So, like, he owns... I don't know if you've even heard of any of these: Asian Street Eats, The Breakfast Club, Berducci's. I've heard of that. Brio Italian Grill, Bravo Italian Kitchen, Chicken Guy—that's Guy Fieri's. 2 J's Cafe Hollywood. Have you heard of any of these?

Shaan Puri

no not really

Sam Parr

They're all like restaurants that have 10 or 20 locations, and hopefully each location makes around $5,000,000. It's highly profitable. Another guy who does this in a similar category is Tillman Fertitta. Do you know who that is? You probably know him because he owns the Houston Rockets. I read this interview with him, and he said, "I think I am one of the largest companies in America that is fully owned by one person." He owns 100% of Fertitta Enterprises, which does something like $4,000,000,000 in revenue and $1,000,000,000 in EBITDA. He owns a variety of businesses, including some nice restaurants. He owns places like Ruth's Chris Steak House, and he also owns Bubba Gump Shrimp and other brands. Some of these restaurant brands charge around $30 to $50 a meal. Apparently, they must be really profitable because I've read about a few of these guys, including Robert Earl and Tillman Fertitta. So, I don't know, I guess it works, but it seems like a pain in the ass to deal with all these types of people.

Shaan Puri

yeah let's move on to the next one

Sam Parr

let's what's that one oh yeah

Shaan Puri

We gotta rank that one on the juicy scale. I'm gonna give it... I think that might also be a raisin, partly out of revenge and partly because this guy owns a bunch of mid-tier things. So, I feel like I can't possibly rank him above... I don't want to eat at any of his products, let's put it that way. So, you know, yeah, I do think that. But, you know...

Sam Parr

wait did did you go to but didn't you go to chuck e cheese's this weekend

Shaan Puri

did not wish wish I had did not

Sam Parr

I thought you said you were taking your kids there

Shaan Puri

You're thinking of someone else. I went to putt-putt golf at this place, and it's hilarious. These guys opened up a putt-putt course; they just took a parking lot and, like, a husband and wife built a few holes out of plywood. They charge you $10 to walk into that area of the parking lot, and they'll give you a club. My kids love it, and we go there like twice a month. It's kind of this insane business plan that makes no sense.

Sam Parr

I think that makes tons of sense

Shaan Puri

I mean, there's just no putt. It's putting without the green. You're putting on concrete, trying to get a... oh.

Sam Parr

there's there's no there's not even turf no turf

Shaan Puri

There's a little bit of turf, but the whole thing is very... the whole thing is like made of concrete. So, yeah, it's not a great look.

Sam Parr

yikes alright what do you got

Shaan Puri

Alright, I'm going to do one that actually we've done. I was trying to do research for this, and the best breakdown of this business was our own podcast from like 2 years ago. But the fact that I had forgotten it means that everybody forgot it. I'm going to talk about Guthy-Renker. These are the legends, the geniuses behind a bunch of celebrity things. Let me pull up my notes here for the backstory on these guys.

Sam Parr

including one of my favorite books

Shaan Puri

Which one? *Think and Grow Rich*? Well, yes, exactly. So, okay, here’s the way that the business works. Guthy Ranker—one of the guys, Guthy, his last name is Guthy—he has a business that’s basically audio cassette tape copies. So, you have an audio tape and you want to make 10,000 copies to sell your music or whatever. He makes the 10,000. I think it was even called something like "Audio Tape Duplication Enterprise" or some other name. It’s an okay business, but then suddenly he gets a call from a guy.

Sam Parr

By the way, I love names like that. Let's just start bringing that back. I'm sick of the cute names that end in "ly," you know? Like "Capley." Yeah, I mean "Hampton." Audio? Yeah, "Hampton."

Shaan Puri

why isn't it you called a bunch of dudes talking about their feelings

Sam Parr

I tried to make Hampton a little bit like Jordan Belfort named his company Stratton Oakmont. Jordan Belfort's the "Wolf of Wall Street" guy. They're like, I...

Shaan Puri

see you wanna model your

Sam Parr

Company, after he was like, "Why'd you do that?" He's like, "I don't know. I just thought of these two words and it sounded like an official thing." I was like, "I kinda like that." But I do prefer... I do like Audiotape Enterprises.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. Our software is the worst. Have you...?

Sam Parr

Heard of HubSpot? I see most CRMs are a cobbled-together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous, I think.

Shaan Puri

I love our new crm our software is the best hubspot grow better okay so he gets an order he gets an order for a 120,000 tapes he's like a 120,000 oh my god who who is this so he calls up the guy hey just wanna make sure your order's correct a 120,000 or what did you mean 12,000 no no 120,000 he said I've never heard of you before what do you do turns out the guy is a real estate guy in arizona but what he started doing was he was like oh yeah I was a real estate guy but then I realized I could just teach people how to make money in real estate and it's going gangbusters and he's like what how is this guy doing it he's like I just ran a commercial for 30 minutes about that I could teach people to make money in real estate you can't do a 30 minute commercial and he's like yeah turns out that there was as you like to say an inflection and the inflection was that in 1984 the fcc deregulated the ad limits so they said you know before that there was some rule you could only have like 12 or 16 minutes of ads per hour of tv they removed the limit and so now what people could do was they could just go to a channel and be like hey can I just buy like your 11 pm slot for like 5 grand and they're like sure and they would just buy they would just buy the hour of television programming and they would just run a giant commercial an infomercial and so guthy hears this and he goes to he goes to meet up with his buddy this guy rinker and he's like yo rinker is working at his family's hotel resort at the time and he's like you know he's kind of like the pool and tennis guy he's just like sitting around doing nothing and he's like this guy ordered 120,000 tapes this is amazing I think this might be a better business than the tape business like you know rather than copy the tapes why don't I copy his business he's like he's like all right so what do we do he's like this infomercial thing I think we could do this he's like well alright so they go they buy every book they can read on commercials or like but there wasn't really even the word at the time because again the rule just got changed there wasn't even a category called infomercials at the time they they started studying copywriting and direct response marketing and after a few days of just like cramming ranker's like I think we could do this they're like what should we start with they're like well we could try the real estate thing but neither of us know anything about real estate nor do we like have a passion for that let's at least for this first one start with something we both the what's the common ground that we both think is like awesome like the the thing we became friends on was this kind of self self help self development personal development category

Sam Parr

So, this is like that sign that Cartman has when he's coming up with a startup idea. He's like, "Look, step 1, we're gonna start up. Step 2, we're gonna scale up. Step 3, we're gonna bro down." Or like when they're talking about stealing the underwear. They're like, "Steal underwear, then prop." Yeah, and they're like, "Well, what comes in the middle exactly?"

Shaan Puri

And it worked. That actually is how most startups work, by the way.

Sam Parr

I think that's you know

Shaan Puri

It seems like you're making fun of them, but honestly, that's actually more true than the other way. So, they go, and they're like, "Okay, we can..." They realize they could buy the rights to the book *Think and Grow Rich*, one of their favorite books, because it's such an old book that the copyright had lapsed or something like that. They could basically buy the rights to it for $100,000. So, they scraped together their savings and said, "We're going to buy this." They buy it for $100, and in the next three years, they make $10,000,000 in sales off that. So, really awesome for them! But in the grand scheme of things, it turned out to be kind of like just a base hit compared to what they then go on to do.

Sam Parr

but what what year did they buy the book in the eighties

Shaan Puri

yeah it was like early it was kinda like I think early to mid eighties something like that

Sam Parr

So, like, $300 was not a small bet for your first time going at it.

Shaan Puri

But one thing leads to another in the infomercial that they create. They get Frank Tarkenton, the NFL quarterback, and they're like, "Oh, let's get anybody they saw that had mentioned they loved the book *Think and Grow Rich*." They're like, "Hey, come be a part of this infomercial." If you watch the whole infomercial on YouTube, you can see what they do. They don't tell you about the product at the beginning. You just hear Frank Tarkenton saying, "You know, I always used to feel blah blah blah, but now I'm blah blah blah." Then somebody else comes in and says, "You know, I was struggling blah blah blah, and now I'm..." They don't tell you what the product is that gave them that transformation. This is the genius of marketing because you sell this benefit, this transformation. You want people banging down your door saying, "What's the pill? What's the product that gives you that?" This is the Ozempic thing. "How the hell are you losing all this weight?" And it's like, "Oh, I take this thing." Okay, you know, "Let me have it. Let me have the magic pill." At the end of the video, they say it's *Think and Grow Rich*. They do $10,000,000 in sales over three years. By the way, this video on YouTube has like 900 views. Nobody is studying this thing. It's crazy to me that a video like this would have so few views. They tell the story around the book that the richest people in the world, you know, Carnegie, the Rothschilds, they wanted this guy to write this. So Carnegie commissions, what's his name, Napoleon Hill, to go study the most successful people in the world and find out their secret. And he did, right? So that's how they sell this book beautifully in the infomercial.

Sam Parr

this is an awesome infomercial

Shaan Puri

They have one guy come on who's a 24-year-old wonder kid. This guy is just getting started; he's on the up and up. Tony Robbins, a guy named Anthony Robbins, comes on and talks about how much he loves the book. Unpaid, by the way. They're like, "Hey, will you do this? I heard you love this book." He's like, "I'll do it." He does an unpaid spot, and they're so blown away by his charisma on camera that they're like, "We got to be in the Tony Robbins business next." So they go to Tony and they're like, "Hey, love your book. We want to do the same thing we did with *Think and Grow Rich* but with your book." He's like, "Okay." So they're like, "We'll brand it, we'll figure out the infomercial, blah blah blah." They do it. They create a program in 1988, the year I was born, called *Personal Power*, and it becomes the best-selling self-help program of all time. It does $20,000,000 in year one, and you know, it just goes on to...

Sam Parr

I'm looking at this. Tony Robbins has the original infomercial on his YouTube page for his Personal Power. How old is he here?

Shaan Puri

he's like 25 years older than that

Sam Parr

that's crazy man he's got a huge jaw

Shaan Puri

Yeah, he had a growth problem, a pituitary growth problem, which is why all of his hands, teeth, and jaw are also oversized. He's a huge guy. If you've ever seen him in person, I want...

Sam Parr

a pituitary growth problem he's he's a great

Shaan Puri

Life... he did it. I think he liked it. It was causing him to have secreted like 10 times more HGH than he was supposed to. Then they removed it at the right time before he became like an actual 9-foot giant. So, you know, he got the benefits of that thing. It's an amazing, amazing sport.

Sam Parr

He looks awesome, man! His jawline... he looks like the ultimate "Chad." He's got the charisma of a nice guy but the looks of a Chad. That's a killer duo!

Shaan Puri

you know I thought that might be your takeaway from all the things I just said so I'm glad you picked up on the important bit so they do by by 1990 now they're they're 3 years in they're doing 36,000,000 a year they almost go bankrupt because the gulf war starts in 91 and all television attention goes to that so the infomercial business just sucks and they have to basically fire everybody just to stay alive during that year because they were infomercials just not converting the war was was taking everybody's attention so then they go on and they're like okay here's our here's our model and I've watched there's again this the research for this was so fun there's interviews with this guy if you want to Google it his his van de van de bundt this is the guy who who joined really early he's been the ceo now for like I don't know 15 years really want to meet this guy I want to have him on the pod he's there's no interviews with these guys really out there they don't go podcasts or anything like that but this guy van de bunt went on did a talk at some school I think at usc and they chopped up his talk into 1 minute clips and I must have binged like 45 one minute clips last night of this guy love this guy guy he's got such a good attitude and was saying things but he's like he's like look here's here's our process real simple like we find the market need like how do you find it he's like well if you see 1 person with good skin and 1 person with bad skin trust me there's a market need like you see some 1 person with brown teeth another person with white teeth that's gonna be a big market need and I can just sell it to you by showing before and after so that's the first thing it's like then we find the products and we try to license or own them then we tie them up to a developer or a celebrity or a story because nobody wants to buy from an ivory tower that says we have the solution no they want to buy from a person who says I figured this out I spent my life working on this and I figured this out and he's like we we marry the market need with the marketing technique and so the the market first marketing technique they did was that infomercial technique that drove them for a long time and now they've shifted to more like internet marketing since then and like to do the like the television just the the depths that they went to so they were so early in this they're shooting these these things for like you know all their brands like they created proactiv the acne brand with justin bieber as one of the celebrities and like these doctors as the celebrities they created principle secret they got this actress victoria principle and they were like okay we think this is good but we don't know exactly how to sell this product so you know what they did they put her on qvc they were like let's overpay to be on qvc like is it gonna break even probably not but at qvc if you ever seen how a qvc thing goes you can go backstage because during qvc people are calling in to buy and he's like basically on a like 10 second interval you can see what gets people to buy so they did this almost as a study to test the content so they have her talking for an hour and they could see what are the things she's saying that's causing the sales board to light up and they had they took a product that really wasn't working they went and reshot the infomercial with that intel of like what what lines and what talking points were driving the most interest they reshot the infomercial and now it's a $2,000,000,000 revenue generating product that they that they created out of that

Sam Parr

holy shit

Shaan Puri

They created Proactive. They created a Pilates brand and a brand with Cindy Crawford. They did all this stuff, so they are 100% privately held now, with no external investors—just Guthy-Renker. They've been doing this for over 30 years and they generate a couple billion in revenue profitably. I was like, "How is this possible? How do they scale with their outside revenue?" Here's the funny thing: there’s actually a story about this. Along the way, they did take investment. So, it's 100% owned now, but at one point in time, they gave up 33% of the business to this guy Ron Perlman, who himself is a prolific figure. He owns TV networks, he owns Revlon, and he owned Marvel at the time.

Sam Parr

Yeah, I think he's one of the guys who is one of the richest men in America. I believe he's worth around $40 to $50 billion. He helped with the buyout of Revlon, which was the largest leveraged buyout at the time. He kind of pioneered the leveraged buyout. I read his biography a few years ago.

Shaan Puri

He has about **$4,000,000,000**, but maybe it's gone up since then. Oh, I guess Paul Pearl was previously worth that for a while.

Sam Parr

was huge

Shaan Puri

yeah why did he go why did he go down so much

Sam Parr

Maybe because of Revlon, but I don't even remember what Revlon did. I think it was like makeup, but it was a conglomerate that owned all this type of stuff. He bought it for many, many billions and he kind of pioneered the leverage buyout. Eventually, like the American population, it was one of those things in the eighties where it was just absolute greed. There were like, you know, "barbarians at the gate" type of situations.

Shaan Puri

ron perlman 5 marriages

Sam Parr

yeah there's there's a price to be paid

Shaan Puri

The AI that's studying right now might be suggesting that getting married five times causes you to be a billionaire. No, no, no, it's correlation, not causation. You know how rich a guy is if he's had five marriages.

Sam Parr

okay

Shaan Puri

So they sell it. They sell him the stake. He gives them $25,000,000. They're like, "Beautiful!" And he owns these TV networks. They're like, "Oh great, we get dirt cheap airtime and we get $25,000,000 to invest." They use that to grow like crazy, pay off these... pay celebrities to be the endorsers, like Justin Bieber and all this stuff to do that.

Sam Parr

I think they had Cindy Crawford. They had a makeup thing with Cindy Crawford. I think they have one with Jennifer Lopez.

Shaan Puri

They had a thing with J.Lo. Yeah, exactly. Eventually, Murdoch buys Ron Perlman's TV networks or whatever. Then, basically, they're like, "Oh, we get this stake, this 37% stake in these Guthy-Renker things." It just got lost in the Murdoch empire over time. They went back to the...

Sam Parr

couch cushions

Shaan Puri

Can we just buy this back? They got it back for like, you know, some tiny amount. So I'm like, you know, they were able to buy back and own 100% of it. Then I think now, like recently, finally, Goldman bought a minority stake in the business, valuing it at $3,000,000,000.

Sam Parr

But, here's how you know they're really rich: the CEO, who you mentioned, Van... what's his name? Van Bunt.

Shaan Puri

van de bunt yeah

Sam Parr

He just bought a **$25,000,000** house. Whenever I hear about these people, I'm like, "Let's see how rich they really are." You can always find out through their real estate holdings. He just bought a **$25,000,000** house. Then, Bill Guthrie... if you Google him, he doesn't come up because of his business. He comes up because of **Prince Harry**.

Shaan Puri

his house just living for a minute

Sam Parr

Yeah, they lived in his estate. It's not a house; it's an estate. When they were, you know, homeless for a few minutes, they lived in his estate. So, and then also, he owned a home that one of the Jenners, Kylie Jenner, bought. So it all comes back to the Kardashians.

Shaan Puri

They're everywhere. At these guys' peak, they owned 35,000 toll-free numbers. Their phone bill was $150,000,000 a year.

Sam Parr

that's insane

Shaan Puri

He's like, "Yeah, we did that." They're like, "Did you need that?" He's like, "We did it for attribution." He explains, "We needed to know what converts better. The way we did that was every time we would try a new variation of our content, we would give it a new number. So we could just attribute which number is getting the most calls versus the spend, and that's how we did our performance marketing in the telephone days." I thought that was pretty dope. I was like...

Sam Parr

But you're also... you didn't even mention their most successful product that everyone who's listening, who's at least 30 years old, will know this product.

Shaan Puri

which one

Sam Parr

proactive they did proactive I did did you meant 3 days say proactive yeah

Shaan Puri

yeah that's the one they did with justin bieber yeah

Sam Parr

well I think you didn't put enough emphasis

Shaan Puri

I needed to pause pro

Sam Parr

Yeah, they did Proactiv, which made like over $1,000,000,000. I bought Proactiv. I mean, everyone bought Proactiv. Did you use it?

Shaan Puri

No, I didn't use it, but I watched a bunch of those infomercials. Their infomercials are very entertaining; you could just watch it as a show. It was actually pretty interesting listening to their method. So, he's like... he always says the same thing: "If you just come to me saying X, I can't change this channel fast enough." You can just tell that that's the guiding principle. It's like you don't want them to change the channel, and everything trickles down from that one principle. So, he's like...

Sam Parr

called the slippery slope baby you gotta make a pot on that slippery slope

Shaan Puri

Like, these guys come in and they start pitching me a cyber safety product. They've been doing it for like 7 years. The highest it ever grossed was $1,000,000 a year. He's like, "Okay, so what's the product?" He's like, "Cybersafe." So, you know, we help make your computers... computers are the new thing. We make your computer safer so you don't get hacked and you don't have a virus on your computer. He's like, "Oh man, if I'm watching TV, relaxing at night, the last thing I want to do is get stressed about a problem I'm not already stressed about, which is like, 'Oh, now my computer's gonna get a virus. I'm gonna lose...' " He's like, "I couldn't change the channel fast enough." But before they walked out of the meeting, he goes, "Hey, I got a question for you. You know, we have this thing called need, greed, vanity. That's what we try to tap into. When you fix the computers to make them safer, does that also have any other benefits? Like, does it make it faster?" And they're like, "Oh yeah, for sure! Because, you know, no viruses, your computer goes faster." He goes, "Alright, come back next week and pitch me the fast thing." They come back and then they launch this product called "Double My Speed." That business, which had never done more than $1,000,000 in 7 years, all of a sudden does $75,000,000 a year at the time he was giving this interview, which was a while back for "Double My Speed." And he's like, "You know, I just... there's too many smart people." And they're like, "How did you do it? Did you do like internet advertising for this computer product?" He's like, "No, we did radio ads. It was just a radio infomercial." He's like, "You know, there's too many smart people online. I don't wanna compete in a knife fight unless I have a gun." And he's like, "So we went to the radio because really no smart people were advertising on the radio, and we could just get a bunch of inventory for cheap and we could just create content that was better than the current stuff on radio."

Sam Parr

I was like man this guy's awesome they were like how are they doing now with infomercials not being as relevant

Shaan Puri

So, he talked a little bit about it, but I don't know, there's not that much info out there. He goes, "So, they were like, how'd you make this a success? You know, they're like, 'Vant de Bunt,' whatever his name is." And they're like, "You joined at what revenue?" He's like, "It was $12,000,000 a year." They're like, "What is it now?" He's like, "Like $1,700,000,000." They're like, "Amazing! You hear that?" The whole audience is like, "Wow, you know, that's amazing." And he's like, "Yeah, when you say it like that, it sounds crazy. But you don't see that far. When you're at $12,000,000, all you're thinking about is $25,000,000. There's some wall between you and $25,000,000, and then you break through that wall. Then $25,000,000 wants to get to $60,000,000, and there's another wall to get to $60,000,000. You just keep doing that. We just did that over and over and over again until you figure out the right thing." And he's like, "For six years, when we were doing the infomercial thing, we were so early to that channel. We were just the best at that channel. Honestly, we didn't learn that much during that time. All the learning came in these..." He says this funny joke: "There was some year where infomercials started to tank, and the internet started getting more popular. We had 30,000,000 people that were on a reorder program." Meaning, he's like, "Our business model is we get you interested in a product, you call up our phone, we pick up, and we tell you that that product's gonna be great for you. And we may have some other products that are great for you. And actually, you know what? If you do this right now, we'll keep sending you this product for the rest of your life." He's like, "That's the business model." And he's like, "It felt like one day all 30,000,000 people on our reorder program called each other and were like, 'You know what? Let's cancel this shit.'" And he's like, "The way the world was caving in, then we had to get smart again and figure out, like, 'Oh, we haven't even had to fight to win in so long. Let's be smart and let's figure this out.'" And you know, I just think these guys have built an amazing business, and nobody really talks about them, at least in our circles.

Sam Parr

Well, they don't talk about it because, like, it's not sexy. I mean, the money part is sexy because, like, when I... you make this sound so cool. But in reality, this probably looks like *Workaholics*. You remember that TV show *Workaholics*? They're just sitting around making phone calls. That's probably what the office looks like. We're just a bunch of, like, morons sitting in this shitty cubicle, wearing a badly fitting tie and suit, just answering these calls. I mean, that's, like, not that fun to do on a day-to-day basis. I imagine it's really fun when it's crushing it, though. They also don't get talked about because they've been around forever. It looks like the company was launched in '88, and before that, they were doing different stuff. So, it's been around for 40 years now.

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

But yeah, I love these guys. I want to know what they're doing with digital because I remember, like, P90X.

Shaan Puri

yeah the workout program I love p 90x

Sam Parr

that's another company it's called something beach

Shaan Puri

beachbody

Sam Parr

Beachbody... it's so they own... they're just like Guthrie Baker, but they own like P90X style companies. They owned a bunch of them, and I remember them.

Shaan Puri

well you know what they did they they pivoted

Sam Parr

Yeah, they had to because the internet was like coming around and they were like, "We have to keep up." So now they have like a... it's almost like a Netflix-style business.

Shaan Puri

It's an MLM subscription. So basically, they changed the sales model from this direct response infomercial model to MLM. Now they have Beachbody trainers and Beachbody associates that will sell people on joining Beachbody. They get people to post on social media that not only have they gotten in shape, but they now work for themselves. They are independent and they're making more money than they ever were working before. If you're interested in hearing how you can turn your life around, they say, "Slide into the DMs." Then they basically tell you that you too should start selling Beachbody programs to people around you, and you could make a lot of money and be fit.

Sam Parr

Dude, that's the worst. That totally... because I remember when I was in Australia, when I was living there, I didn't have a gym. We... I did P90X. I... I did it. I thought it was awesome, but when you go the MLM route, it makes me hate you.

Shaan Puri

yeah wasn't it tony tony horton

Sam Parr

tone dude tony was ripped tony horton was ripped I I even even like side characters

Shaan Puri

But it was like, you know, whatever. He's be like, "The chef is here, the Russian blah blah blah." That's just... that was a great program.

Sam Parr

I wonder what he looks like now is he still jazzed

Shaan Puri

he is

Sam Parr

yeah he's still jazzed I think

Shaan Puri

he has some yeah

Sam Parr

he looks great

Shaan Puri

some disease he got some disease and then kinda bounce back or something

Sam Parr

Well, he still looks amazing. If you Google Tony Horton, he's 65 years old now and he looks great. So it worked! But anyway, I'm a big fan of studying these companies. I also like studying them because a lot of people in the tech startup world are like, "Well, this shit doesn't work anymore." And I'm like, "Wrong! It 100% does." Maybe it looks a little different. Well, dude, this is what every EDC...

Shaan Puri

Ecom business is doing well, right? Like, that's the thing. The first business I featured was, you know, the Creed family doing this with the Kardashians, creating a shaper brand with the Kardashians. This is no different than the cosmetics brand with Kylie Jenner. They're no different than what Guthy-Renker has been doing. They just used Instagram and Instagram celebrities instead of Hollywood celebrities and TV. It's the same model, same thing.

Sam Parr

So, this one's great! You win. This one's definitely the most interesting one; it's incredibly fascinating. One thing that I was trying to research, but couldn't find, and I think there's a bunch of people in our world working on this, is everything that we've discussed. It's mostly consumer products. What I'm curious about is why this hasn't worked for more of a B2B product. So, in a weird way, we aren't this, but HubSpot...

Shaan Puri

Was about to say, "Bro, you're like a fish being like, what is water?" It's like, yes, we are this for HubSpot, you know that.

Sam Parr

Yeah, but we're not the founders of the company. You know, we're not like, "Oh, you know, we own..." We're maybe half.

Shaan Puri

kylie jenner in this case right they basically

Sam Parr

Yeah, but Kylie Jenner owns 50% of that. We, you know, I own... that's why we gotta renegotiate, man. Yeah, and so I don't own that much of HubSpot, but I remember they... what was the company that did this with the... what was it, Rackspace? They did it with a guy.

Shaan Puri

robert skobel

Sam Parr

What was this about Robert Scoble? They were early with that, but I don't know if it worked out wonderfully or what happened to that. I know there are a few other companies. There's Assembly Brands. I work with this guy, Hunter. We launched this thing called Viral Cuts, where I own part of the company. It's like an agency that clips podcast segments. But it's going to be small; it's not going to be a multibillion-dollar company like this.

Shaan Puri

Well, I just did this. I wonder why Shepherd is a good business. It's like... it's a business that fits our audience, right? Every entrepreneur needs to hire people. If you can hire talented people overseas for 10 times less, this is like a no-brainer product. So Shepherd was already working, and then they bring me on, and now I own a piece of that company. Enough of a...

Sam Parr

are the cindy crawford

Shaan Puri

I am you're the cindy crawford

Sam Parr

that's what

Shaan Puri

I've been telling them, and they looked at me a little funny when I said it. But you know, this is what I bet. Since we joined, first it was Nick Huber who was doing it with him.

Sam Parr

You're no... you're more like the Chloe. You're the... you're the... you're the Chloe. You're the Chloe.

Shaan Puri

Oh, that's good. A+ about it. But it's the same thing, bringing on kind of like an influencer to promote a B2B product. Revenue [is at an] all-time high last month, all-time high this month. It just keeps happening now every single month by doing that. So, I think it is happening more in the B2B space, and that's why...

Sam Parr

it's happening more but it's not nearly as common and I think it will be or should be

Shaan Puri

It's a big opportunity for sure. The thing that's interesting is, Austin Reif tweeted this out over the weekend. I don't know if you saw him say it.

Sam Parr

This... he said every D to... I think he said D to C though. I think he said every e-commerce company is going to have a content creator that's highly paid, more highly paid than many of...

Shaan Puri

The executives say that over the next five years, every D2C (direct-to-consumer) business will have full-time content creators on staff. The best creators will be compensated more than the executives and will drive more value than anyone else in the business. The math will make sense to hire, build, and invest in creators who could become a part of your company narrative, versus spinning off one-off influencer campaigns. The key difference between a creator and a social media manager is that a social media manager just creates and posts content, while a creator is the content. Of course, the best companies will be founded by creators, like Happy Dad, Feastables, Prime, etc. When people hear "creator," they often think of MrBeast and Logan Paul. However, I'm not referring to famous creators, just people who create content full-time. This is something that we're seeing with our D2C business. In general, I think you just need to take out the word D2C. Dharmesh had the same insight; he said that every software company is going to have its own media company. Why? Because creating your own media will bring inbound leads and will be a more efficient channel than doing outbound paid ads.

Sam Parr

And Darmash is sort of like that with HubSpot. I mean, our most popular episodes are Darmash, so he's pretty much doing that for his own company.

Shaan Puri

yeah exactly exactly okay you wanna do you have more or you want me to do one

Sam Parr

You wanna do one more, or let's do Scott Storch? Yeah, okay. I wasn't sure if that was in the same category, but I wanna talk about it.

Shaan Puri

So here's another version of the "guy behind the scenes," the engine that makes the thing work. We did it with business, with D2C products. Well, how about music? This guy's going viral recently for a bunch of TikToks because he's got an amazing story. This guy, Scott Storch, he is a producer.

Sam Parr

sober now and he's like he's like out of the keys like left the cave

Shaan Puri

He's a producer, he's a songwriter, and he's famous for a couple of things. He produced some of the biggest hits, like "Still D.R.E." You know the little piano keys at the beginning of "Still D.R.E."? That's Scott Storch sitting at a piano. Dr. Dre was in the kitchen eating a sandwich, poked his head in, and said, "That's it!" That's how the track "Still D.R.E." happened.

Sam Parr

I love those stories I love those stories

Shaan Puri

He did "Candy Shop," he did "Naughty Girl," and he collaborated on a bunch of songs with everybody you can imagine: Beyoncé, Dr. Dre, 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Justin Timberlake, Chris Brown... all of them. He amassed a fortune of about **$100,000,000** doing this as a producer behind the scenes that you didn't know about. He was just killing it. However, he is also famous for blowing all **$100,000,000** because he got addicted to two things: spending and cocaine. He was basically just partying too much and blowing through all his money. Now, he reset. He went to rehab, got clean, declared bankruptcy, and is trying to rebuild again. I thought this guy's story was pretty crazy. What do you know about him?

Sam Parr

Yeah, so we did a bunch of interviews lately where he was like, "I was spending $2, 3, 4, $5,000,000 a month." He was like, "I had houses that I forgot about." He said, "We had this one house," and he goes, "I had $5,000 worth of like glass figurines that I had a party." So, you were collecting cars or shoes?

Shaan Puri

He goes, "I collected everything that could be collected. Stuff I didn't even care about." And he's like, "I had $1,000,000 worth of crystal figurines."

Sam Parr

he's like they I had a party and they fell over we just like sweep them up at the dustbin he

Shaan Puri

He goes, "I had a $500,000 crystal bottle of perfume." The guy was like, "Do you even wear it?" He goes, "Nah, some drunk girl at a party knocked it over and broke it." And he's like, he had a $4,000,000 pinky ring. If you think you're balling and you don't have a $4,000,000 yellow diamond pinky ring, like you need to step down because Scott Storch has it on. He is a character in Grand Theft Auto because he's so prolific as a guy in Miami who's, you know, in the scene.

Sam Parr

There's this one story from 2013 where he says he spent something like $100,000,000. One says $30,000,000, and one says $100,000,000 in 6 months. He's like, "Cocaine, houses, and cars." Yeah, and he just went hard. I love stories like this, by the way. I like it because hopefully this will have a happy ending, but I just love people that fly close to the sun, man.

Shaan Puri

He's also a genius because he dropped out of 9th grade. You know that? So, he dropped out of 9th grade, and you know how he made his original breakthrough? No? He was the keyboard guy for The Roots. So, he's in 9th grade, he drops out, teaches himself how to play the piano, and he's like, "Yeah, I didn't take any courses." He's like, "I couldn't afford a class. I actually enrolled in one class, but I couldn't afford to get to it." So, I was like, "Ah, I guess I'm just not gonna... I'll just try to sit here." He's like, "I would have a tape player, and I would put it on the piano and I would hear it." Then, with one finger, I'd be trying to recreate what I just heard. He said he just did that until he could learn how to play the keyboards by ear. Then he discovers The Roots before they were big. He joins them, and he's the only white guy in The Roots. They're just going and playing literally on corners. He'd go down to New York, play for a day, and then come back to Philly. He would just do that all the time. The Roots start getting popular, they get signed, but then he leaves The Roots. They're like, "Why do you want to leave The Roots?" It's like, "Man, I heard 'that white boy from The Roots' one too many times." He's like, "They don't even know my name. I'm gonna go create my own music." So, he decides to create his own music. Through The Roots, he had met Dr. Dre. He goes and hangs out with Dr. Dre, and Dre's like, "Yo, this guy's got talent." So, he makes some songs with Dr. Dre. At this time, Dre is the biggest producer in the world, the most in-demand guy. Scott Storch makes his $100 million fortune, as he says, off of "eating crumbs at the end of the table." Basically, Dre would get a project, and he's really picky. He's like, "I'm not gonna do just anything." So, he would just take all of Dr. Dre's rejected projects and do them himself, making $100 million doing that.

Sam Parr

Dude, how good is Dr. Dre, by the way? The fact that when Eminem came around, you know, he raps about it. He's like, "You walked in with a yellow jumpsuit and you're a white guy," and everyone's like, "Dude, you can't play with this guy." What do you keep from white rappers? That's ridiculous. If you Google Scott Storch, my wife's from Long Island, so I've gotten to know a bunch of Long Island people. This guy looks like there's the Long Island Medium and then there's Scott Storch in terms of the way that they look, in terms of stereotypes. He looks like the most Long Island guy ever, wearing like Ed Hardy t-shirts and True Religion jeans. And Dr. Dre sees past that and sees talent. That's pretty amazing.

Shaan Puri

Exactly. He even says that Dre's number one skill is that he's very technically talented, but his real skill is that he can hear ten things and tell you which one is hot. He'll play the same thing five different times and say, "Number four is the one that sounds the best." Dre just has that ear for what's good, what's hot, what's next, what's different, what's unique, and what's going to stand out. He mentions, "I never had that to that extent," but he was good enough to still make, you know, 100 hits. He would get paid $100 to do a single track and would do ten a week. In his prime, that's how he was making his money. He said, "Dude, I'm just rolling in money here." Then he stopped working and thought, "I'm just going to party now." The problem was, he was spending money like he was still making it, but he stopped working three years ago. He was just spending money like crazy. So, here are some quotes I'd like to read you: - "It happens." - "When you talk about blowing $100 million, I know cats that blew double that." - "It can happen to anyone," which I gotta say, I don't think it can happen to anyone. Then he says, "You know, I grew up a poor kid, and then all of a sudden I have infinite money, infinite options, and I just didn't know how to say no." When they were asking about how to make a hit song, he said, "In the real estate game, it's location, location, location. In the music game, it's melody, melody, melody." He emphasized, "It's melody, melody, melody. If you can make a memorable melody, that's what it takes to make a hit song, and that's what I focused on being able to do." So yeah, this guy, Scott Sorge, is a prolific character.

Sam Parr

Well, he’ll be back. I mean, I feel like if you have that skill, you can make it work for you. You can make it work for a while, right? I mean, it's very similar to marketing. It's like if you understand what motivates people and get some to act—whether it's dancing or buying something—you'll come back. Have you ever met these guys? There are guys who say, "Oh man, I just got a hold of all these old rookie cards for this baseball player who's about to die. We should go and buy all of them for $50 and hold on to them for three weeks, then resell them." Or, "I just got this old supply of DVD players; it's only $50." They're always into schemes. I always meet these guys who love these schemes. Every once in a while, it works out. This is like a guy, Scott Stewart. You'll meet this guy and think, "Dude, you're an idiot. No way that's gonna work. Quit trying to scam me." But this is one of those guys who's made it work. You know, another guy who did it that way was the Dollar Shave Club guy. Dollar Shave Club came to be a thing because he saw a discount on a container of cheap razors and thought...

Shaan Puri

oh fuck let's just buy these oh wow

Sam Parr

Yeah, he's like, "Let's just get those cheap razors and figure out how to sell them." I don't know how we're gonna do it. I think his father-in-law had a deal on like 50,000 razors, and he's like, "Screw it, let's just do it." I've met a bunch of these people. For some reason, it's always a Long Island thing, by the way. And Scott Storch is a... for everyone out there who's just scheming on these types of weird things, this is your hero.

Shaan Puri

you know

Sam Parr

what I'm talking about you ever meet these guys they always have some weird hustle going down here I was one of

Shaan Puri

Those guys are counting cards while I'm trying to win the Monopoly game at McDonald's. You know, we are entering contests, and we realized that most people don't enter contests if there's any work involved. My buddy Dan was amazing at this. I actually wrote him off at first, but later learned this guy's a genius. Freshman year, he lived three doors down from me. We were like, "Yo, we're gonna go get food." Then we asked, "Who are you waiting for? Where's Dan?" We went into his room and said, "Dan, let's go, man! We're supposed to eat; we're hungry." He replied, "Oh, hold on. The deadline for this contest is in like 30 minutes. I gotta... I'm out." I asked, "What contest? Why are you entering a contest?" Duke is full of kids who play by the book, but Dan never really played by the book. He had his own little book that he was following. He said, "Oh, this is Stride Gum. They will give you free gum for life if you can make a 20-second commercial that's cool for Stride Gum." So, he took a little flip cam—there weren't even smartphones back then—and filmed this commercial of himself in his dorm room, saying, "Whatever, Stride Gum, the best goddamn gum in the world." He submitted it, probably one of three people who actually read the fine print and did the work to submit a commercial that filled in all the requirements. Guess what? Stride Gum provided free gum for everybody for the rest of college. We had free Stride Gum for everyone!

Sam Parr

really he won we

Shaan Puri

did another one he's like

Sam Parr

wait what type of package did the gum come in what's gum forever like they no you could just order with that

Shaan Puri

Amount, basically, you could just keep ordering by some limit. They needed another one for this sandwich shop called Spicy Pickle. They're like, "Hey, we're renaming our mascot." And of course, Dan's over there trying to rename the mascot. I'm like, "Dan, do you even like this restaurant?" He's like, "No, but I wanna win." You know, he's like the definition of "play stupid games, win super prizes," but he has so much fun doing it that you're like, "Ah, I kinda wish I was doing this like Dan." So he renamed the mascot. Currently, for Spicy Pickle, it's a pickle who's a spy called "Spy C Pickle." He's got a business card and he's a spy that will help you out. That's Dan; he created that character. Then we go to the ceremony at Spicy Pickle headquarters, and there are like 20 people in a circle cheering and clapping for him. They hand him a big check that says "free sandwiches," and he wins! So he just kept doing these things. Dan's from Jersey, and I feel like he always had this thing, which is like, "I'm gonna win. I'm gonna play these games. I'm gonna find these random edges, and I'm gonna win. I'm gonna just find these little arbitrages and I'm gonna constantly exploit them." Dude, we should do that!

Sam Parr

Have you read about the guy who did it with Snack Pack? Like, he put pudding cups...

Shaan Puri

no

Sam Parr

Like, you remember pudding? Okay, so they ran this contest that said... I forget exactly how the contest worked, but you could pull off the tops of the pudding and lick it. It would say something like, "You won this much in free airline miles." There were some contests around it. But this guy did the math. I just had to Google it now to remember exactly, but he only had to buy I think $31,100 worth of pudding, which is a significant amount in terms of how much space it would take up in your room. He had all this pudding, peeled all the packs, and was able to redeem it for 1,200,000 airline miles. He basically gamed the contest. At The Hustle, we used to do this with people gaming these contests. There's a community of people who go and find these contests and say, "Alright, where did they make the mistake? If you follow this exactly, you could actually milk it hardcore to the extreme." So, there was this guy who did this with pudding. Basically, you get 1,000 miles for every 10 labels. The whole thing was that for some reason, this pudding was supposed to be healthy. They said if you eat a lot of it, it's good for you, and they would reward you by giving you 1,000 miles for every 10 labels. They were $2 a piece, and he figured out that he could buy them in bulk. He found this arbitrage where it was profitable. In the end, he got 1,200,000 miles for $31,100. Wow!

Shaan Puri

There's a Netflix show about this—a different version of this. There's some guy trying to do this with, I think, he had to buy cans of Pepsi or something like that, Coke or something, to do airline. There's some show I haven't watched yet, but I saw it show up on Netflix.

Sam Parr

yeah then there's the mcdonald's one there's a a mcdonald's one too where they where they like but that

Shaan Puri

was just a scam they just

Sam Parr

They scammed it, yes. But it is fascinating. I do like reading about those; they're always fun stories. We should, one of these days, do an episode about all these people who have just gamed the system. We used to do that with The Hustle all the time, where we would give... I forget what it was, but it was like one email subscriber to us was worth $10. If you referred like 10 people, we would send you a T-shirt, which was a profitable thing for us. If you Google "The Hustle affiliate contest," all of these moms... there was mostly a stay-at-home mom website, and it's called like "Coupon" or something. All these websites were just people who entered contests. They were like, "Hey, look, here's another one! You can win a free pair of socks if you refer 50 people." It was like referral rings. We would get all of these people doing this, and we would catch it. We were like, "Why is this 38-year-old woman named Cindy winning all of our prizes? We've never heard of her, and she's won all this stuff. What's going on?" You could figure out that they listed your contest on these websites, and they gamed it like crazy. It's a pretty wild thing. So we had to create a double opt-in system because they just figured it out. You'd see them talking about it like, "Look, you don't even need to opt in with your email. You can just write like [email protected], [email protected]," and you just win. That's when we had to change it, but that's how I learned a little bit about this underground world of sweepstakes, they call it.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, yeah. Sweepstakes hackers. Amazing! Alright, should we wrap it there, or do you want to do any more of these?

Sam Parr

We'll wrap it there. So, I think the order of greatness... the least interesting one, I think, was either mine or the hot couple. The second...

Shaan Puri

the perfect couple we gotta put the perfect couple down there because they've been winning it every day their whole life

Sam Parr

Yeah, but it'll go perfect. A couple, old you and then Robert. Yeah, the perfect couple is the worst. There's actually something bad on the resume. It does feature sort of like ugly.

Shaan Puri

winners

Sam Parr

yeah

Shaan Puri

Like, the sort of more ugly and slightly shady you are, the higher you seem to rank on "My First Million." I don't know if that's intentional or unintentional, but it definitely happens.

Sam Parr

Yeah, so the hot people, they're your last. Then we'll go Robert Earl, and then the one above that is... oh, Scott Storch is going to go number 2. Guthrie Rinker, number 1. The juiciest, but Scott Storch is interesting too. I think there's more to learn about Guthrie Rinker.

Shaan Puri

alright

Sam Parr

so that's it that's it that's the pod