How To Get Billion Dollar Business Ideas From Investment Bankers
Famous People, Live Events, and Bankers - April 22, 2022 (almost 3 years ago) • 30:29
Transcript:
| Start Time | Speaker | Text |
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Sam Parr | So, bakers are basically people who help others sell and buy companies. When you sell a company for anything north of probably $50,000,000, they likely have a banker involved.
I've been contacting bankers, and my pitch to them is this: "Hey, I'm thinking about starting a company in this space. You've sold a few companies in this space. Tell me everything about why this company was bought, as well as what opportunities the buyer was looking for."
Maybe in 5 or 10 years, I'll let you sell my company. I've been able to line up meetings doing this, and it's...
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Shaan Puri | Genius! I've been a part of one or two of those types of conversations, and I was like, "Oh wow, these guys are like vaults filled with..." | |
Sam Parr | I met a famous person this weekend. I went and saw Jimmy... is it Yang or Wang? The comedian, I think Jimmy O.
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Shaan Puri | o yang or something like that | |
Sam Parr | Oh yeah, it was Jimmy O... I forget his last name, but his character in *Silicon Valley* was Jin Yang.
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Shaan Puri | jing yang yeah | |
Sam Parr | And he's a comedian. He was an awesome guy, and my friend is dating him, Bree and Brie.
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Shaan Puri | funny in person or not | |
Sam Parr | yeah he's awesome he was awesome | |
Shaan Puri | Was he even funny? Like, you just talked to him. Were you like, "Wow, this person should be a comedian if they weren't?" | |
Sam Parr | No, he was just really insightful. He had really strong opinions and told stories well. I mean, I think you could actually do it if you were to sit down and write a bit. I actually think that you have the same traits.
But no, he was just a really nice, thoughtful guy. He was like legit famous, to where everywhere we went, people would talk to him. It was pretty cool to see, and I imagine quite annoying for him because the people who are fans of him... he doesn't actually talk like that, you know? He's American, right?
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Shaan Puri | right right but they're fans of him they're fans of jin yang | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, well, they are fans of him, particularly the Asian community. They love him because he's just like... he's represented nicely.
But basically, a white guy came up to him and kind of said something a little inappropriate. It was rooted in the Silicon Valley show, right? They think that he has an accent and things like that, and that's super annoying, particularly in Austin where there are tons of like... white bros.
So, I imagine that could be annoying, but he was legit famous, and it was kind of cool to see.
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Shaan Puri | When you're around people who are, you know, famous in their world, how do you act? Do you:
a) Treat them like a normal person, in fact, almost disregard their fame?
b) Nerd out about, you know, asking them a zillion questions about the show and whatnot? Basically, ask them all the questions they've probably heard before but with enthusiasm?
c) Something else?
What do you do?
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Sam Parr | Dude, so I do the... I do B, but I do it in a very direct way. Kind of like the podcast where it could tell that I'm really confident, but I'm asking questions that everyone wants to know. So I'm like, "So what's...?" | |
Shaan Puri | the nagging them | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, so it's like... what's it like? Here's a tiny example. I've got a friend of a friend who had cancer and he lost his leg. When I first saw him, I was like, "What's going on, man? Are you crushing it at pull-ups because you're lighter now? How many pounds did you lose off that leg?"
He really quickly opened up because he was like, "Oh, you just got that out. You got it. You got it all the way."
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Shaan Puri | You're not mixing... like it's not here, but you're also not making a huge deal out of it.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's like how I usually approach it when I'm with famous people. I'm like, "So what's it like? You're pretty famous. Is that cool or is it bad?" It's very direct, and I typically find that it makes people lighten up.
They'll open up because you're nagging them in a sense, but you're also congratulating them. They really will just open up.
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Shaan Puri | you're like you're better looking in person I watch the show | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, you're way taller than I thought. You're not nearly as slight of build as I was expecting.
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Shaan Puri | yeah you're you're actually funny | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, I don't know. You're... it's like, you know, I don't care what people say. I think you're great. | |
Shaan Puri | Dude, my brother-in-law has the best celebrity move. If he sees a celebrity, he greets them like a long-lost friend.
So, he'll see someone like Mike Tyson and be like, "Mike, what's up man? How you been?" Then he'll dap them up and say, "Babe, good seeing you," and just keep going. The celebrities are left thinking, "Do I know this guy? Where did I...?"
He'll do the same with someone like George, saying, "Yo, how's Houston? Hi, George!" Then he'll just keep going, making it seem like they are reconnecting rather than meeting for the first time.
I thought, what a hack! What an amazing hack! These people meet tons of people, so they don't remember. They'll automatically go with your assumption that you sort of know each other or that you're equals in some way.
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Sam Parr | Have you ever been to a restaurant where the owner walks around, greeting people and asking how things are?
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Shaan Puri | of course yeah | |
Sam Parr | That is, I had a friend who told me he used to pick up women that way. He was just like, "I would approach this with the attitude like I wouldn't act like I was the owner, but in my head, I would act like the owner."
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Shaan Puri | how's robert doing here yeah yeah | |
Sam Parr | and I would just and I had that energy and I was able to meet so many people with that energy | |
Shaan Puri | restaurant owner energy dude that's so good | |
Sam Parr | it's a good one | |
Shaan Puri | that's so good | |
Sam Parr | And so, I like at HustleCon, when we're hosting HustleCon or when you and I are hosting one of our events, you kind of know everyone knows who you are. You have the feeling where you can just walk up to talk to anyone, and they'll know what's up. | |
Shaan Puri | right | |
Sam Parr | you have that energy when you're trying to meet girls and it's the best | |
Shaan Puri | Dude, that's so good! Like, I'm just gonna start wearing a small dish towel around my waist and go to restaurants. Then, I'll just walk around, have a drink, and greet each table, making sure...
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Sam Parr | you're and you're not lying you're not telling them | |
Shaan Puri | I never said it. You assumed based on my big restaurant energy here.
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Sam Parr | Alright, bro, I got a few interesting things to run by you. Do you have a lot left over from last time?
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, I kinda do. Can I tell you about one?
I don't know, like a business or ideas niche that's got my attention right now. So, did I talk about this the other day? I went to the Blippi show. Did I tell you about this?
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Sam Parr | no | |
Shaan Puri | alright so so do you know who blippi is have you ever heard of blippi | |
Sam Parr | I don't know what that is no | |
Shaan Puri | Alright, so, remember back there we had Barney or, you know, Pee-wee Herman? He's like... it's a dude. So, he kind of looks like Pee-wee Herman, but he's more like a Barney or Sesame Street-style show.
Basically, there's a guy who went on YouTube and created this brand called Blippi. He's entertaining. He'd be like, "Oh, and by the way," the funny thing that he does is there's no set. He just goes into places like, "Hey, we're at the aquarium," but they just go in after 9 PM when it's closed down. So, they have it all to themselves.
Like, "Hey, we're here in Las Vegas at this rock climbing studio." He just uses that to film this thing, but he gives it a shout-out at the beginning of the video. The video gets like 40 million views, so it's like, "Oh, well, you know, it's worth it to let these guys film there."
He just goes around and he'll basically play with toys. He'd be like, "I'm at an abandoned Chuck E. Cheese," and he'll go play with a bunch of toys, and there's music and whatever overlaid.
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Sam Parr | and it's the same guy I'm looking at him now it's the same guy every single time | |
Shaan Puri | It is, except for as he blew up and got famous, then they switched him out with just a stunt double for a bit. So, like, that guy is like a substitute teacher sometimes, and then sometimes Blippi comes back. But like, the main guy is the main guy. He wears his outfits, like this blue outfit with his orange glasses. He always looks the same.
So, anyway, my daughter loved Blippi. We used to watch a ton of Blippi, and all of a sudden, we see this ad that says Blippi, like the live show, is coming to Oakland. So we were like, "Oh, shit!" Instantly, my wife buys tickets for all of us, the family. We go to this thing last weekend, and it's at the same place you did Hustle Con. So it's at the Paramount Theater, and it is packed. You know, Hustle Con was like, you know, sold out-ish. This was like sold out, sold out. Even the back, "shitty" seats were sold out, and it's full of parents and their kids.
They basically just created a little play, like a little mini musical for one hour because kids don't have that long of an attention span. It's just kind of like music and, you know, lights and colors. He's like, "Oh, dinosaurs! Oh, rocks! Oh, how..." | |
Sam Parr | much did it cost | |
Shaan Puri | so every ticket I want to say was | |
Sam Parr | that venue seats | |
Shaan Puri | maybe like $60 a seat something like that | |
Sam Parr | so that venue seats between 25,03,000 I believe | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, so I think there were 2,000 there, and I believe the tickets were something like $50, $60, or $70, something like that. | |
Sam Parr | so we're in like a 120,000 and so | |
Shaan Puri | And he played four shows in a row that weekend, and then he went to the next city. So it was like, he made no... he had done eight shows, or he was doing something like that. It was some crazy thing where I was like, "Oh wow, this weekend they made whatever, $800,000."
Yeah, the tickets basically range from like $60 to $90. And the place is lit, by the way. So, you know, he comes on stage, kids go crazy. He's like, "What does the bubble do?" and everyone's like, "Pop!" And he's like, "When I say pop, can you say pop?" So it's not a quiet show, because kids are loud anyway.
Some kids are just not paying attention. My daughter, during intermission, was like, "I wanna watch Blippi on YouTube." So we had to open up YouTube on our phone and give it to her during intermission because she couldn't go five minutes without stimulation.
And then they have the merch and the concessions; they have all that stuff, right? So it's pretty dope, actually. I was like, "Wow, this is kinda genius." They just took YouTube IP, and this guy who was there... the guy on stage was just some theater kid who didn't make it, you know? So he's like, "Alright, plan B, I'll be Blippi."
They took the IP but made their own show out of it. I started looking into this, and there's a company that does this called V Star Entertainment. Awesome! So V Star, what they do is they go license these kids' brands and then they put on kids' Broadway, basically, and they tour around the country.
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Sam Parr | awesome | |
Shaan Puri | and so | |
Sam Parr | and blupbeat is just a guy with a guitar right or were there more instruments | |
Shaan Puri | no guitar he just just him he just walked in | |
Sam Parr | were there any instruments or was it just like a soundtrack | |
Shaan Puri | just soundtrack and like lights and stage props | |
Sam Parr | so wow so he he only had backup dancers | |
Shaan Puri | like you know if they came out as sharks like a bunch of little backup dancers came out as sharks and then they whatever | |
Sam Parr | that's awesome it's a | |
Shaan Puri | Mini theater show, right? So, Vistar Entertainment, they do another brand that you've probably heard of, or you may have heard of, called Paw Patrol. It's basically another kid's cartoon.
So, guess how much—this is my kind of triangulation—guess how much they sold in Paw Patrol tickets last year. Just take a guess.
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Sam Parr | 20 20 mil | |
Shaan Puri | $40,000,000 and | |
Sam Parr | $40,000,000 in event tickets | |
Shaan Puri | in event tickets for and that's just the tickets not the merch | |
Sam Parr | that was just last year in 22 | |
Shaan Puri | I don't know, it's like this is just before COVID numbers, so like I don't know, 2019, 2020, something like that.
Wow, so they got bought by Cirque du Soleil.
So first, the backstory is some guy decides, "Oh, you know what? Like, he's watching Sesame Street, and he's like, 'Sesame Street should do a live show.'" He goes and he basically raises $500 from this guy. He mortgages his house and gets an extra $25,000 out of his home equity, so he's got $525,000. He goes and he gets the license to Sesame Street. He started with the Sesame Street show, then the Muppets, and like, you know, he did...
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Sam Parr | but that must have been years ago | |
Shaan Puri | this was in the like 1980 something like that | |
Sam Parr | yeah | |
Shaan Puri | And then this other guy was doing it. They merged, and that whole thing got bought by Cirque du Soleil last year.
Is it Cirque du Soleil, by the way? Like, guess how much Cirque du Soleil's revenue was. Have you ever been to a Cirque show?
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Sam Parr | No, I've not, but I do know that the guy who started it is a Canadian guy. He's a billionaire. I read Dan Bilzerian's book, and they talk about that guy a lot. I think he's like... I mean, he started a circus.
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Shaan Puri | or whatever | |
Sam Parr | yeah he's really eccentric and wild and everything so it made him a billionaire how much revenue does it make | |
Shaan Puri | Ben, have you been to a Cirque du Soleil show? Cirque du Soleil does $1,000,000,000 a year in revenue, which is insane. **10% to 5%** of all Las Vegas tourists go to a Cirque show when they're in town.
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Sam Parr | is that what you what what's that at cirque is that the is that like your name | |
Shaan Puri | They have like 10 shows, right? It'll be like, "Oh, and then they have Zumanity." They have like whatever.
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Sam Parr | And the Beatles? Yeah, I know all about it, and I'm into it. It's publicly traded, or at least it was before it was acquired by private equity, right?
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Shaan Puri |
Yeah, private equity owns it now and it's a pretty badass business. The idea was to do a circus but with no animals. So it was like only human performers, and to do that they did crazy acrobats and great costumes.
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Sam Parr | it's basically its own genre at this. Though | |
Shaan Puri | Right, and so he built that thing into a real juggernaut. Cirque then bought Blue Man Group and VStar Entertainment.
So they got Blue Man, which is like an ad. What they had said was, "We do $10,000,000 in ticket sales a year for Cirque du Soleil." Blue Man adds another $2,000,000, and then VStar adds another $2,000,000. But they're all like different ticket prices. So, they do $14,000,000 in tickets sold per year.
This live entertainment thing really has caught my attention because I think as the world moves more and more digital, the demand for these one-off experiences—like, "Hey, let's get out of the house and go do something"—is just going to keep going up. Music festivals? That's a winner.
Then there's plays and musicals; I think they're going to be a winner too. I believe they're going to be bigger than they were before, even though the world moves digital. In fact, because the world moves digital, what do you think about all this?
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Sam Parr | I 100% agree. Earlier today, I sent you a Notion document with some of my notes on peer businesses. This is basically where you pay money to be part of a club and meet up with other members.
I can't talk too much about the names of the companies, but one of them makes $100 million a year in profit. They have 2 or 3 meetups a year, and executives pay $50,000 a year to be part of it.
I think these types of businesses are going to completely boom. Conferences right now are interesting, but they can be really hard to organize. This model seems way easier to pull off. All types of meetups, like Airbnbs, I'm 100% on board with. I believe that in-person interactions are the way to go.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, I think that... so then I started thinking, what are the other opportunities?
I think you could just go compete with these guys on either the same brands or other brands. What they did was the VStar guy took TV IP and turned it into a live show. What the Blippy guy is doing is taking YouTube IP and turning it into a live show.
I think you could even do this for more. We've talked about religion, which is the greatest free IP in the world. So I think somebody could do this for religion, which would make it extremely kid-friendly, in fact, kid-focused. Like a Christianity show, basically.
I think you could do this for dinosaurs or science as a generic genre. Because, like, if kids love trucks and dinosaurs or whatever, you could just basically create the show, you know, "A Day with the Dinosaurs" or something like that.
Once you get a certain level of quality, moms will spread this. They will talk about it in their mommy groups, and they will help you sell these tickets. I just feel like it's not that hard. You build one show, and then you sell that one show a thousand times, right?
The show goes on tour. "Mamma Mia!" has made, like, I don't know, some stupid amount of money just being the same show on tour while replacing the low-cost actors over time.
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Sam Parr | I'm trying, while we're talking, to find the numbers.
So, we used to do events. We had this big one called **Hustle Con**, where thousands of people would come. Then we did this thing called **2X**. 2X was basically from 7 PM to 10 PM, and we would have 10 to 15 women, all in tech and business. Not that many of them were well-known, but they would have 10 minutes to tell a story. We charged about $25 for tickets, but we would get tens of thousands of dollars in sponsorships.
We got to the point where we could pull this off almost weekly in other cities. When we started doing this, **The Hustle** wasn't that popular, but we were making around $30 a night when we were doing it. We had one employee running it, and she would use a team of contractors. We didn't supply much; I think we had free wine, but I don't even know if it was free.
However, when we had corporate sponsors, we crushed it. In my head, I'm like, "I can always fall back on this to make a living," because it was so much easier than people thought.
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Shaan Puri | right yeah | |
Sam Parr | it | |
Shaan Puri | Was that pretty good for a tech bro? A tech bro business, like all of you, you were running one of the best women's entrepreneurship events. Yeah, because you got labeled wrong, dude. | |
Sam Parr | I... yeah, there I'm like an onion, man. There's layers.
So, basically, we used to do this thing called "Pizza in Forties," where we would have a meetup. I would interview someone, and they would drink a 40-ounce beer. When the 40-ounce beer was done, the talk was done.
But then, like, women were like, "This is like, there's all dudes here." So we created a wine version, and that had way better engagement. It was called something like "Cheese and Wine." I don't even remember, but that had way better engagement.
So we were like, "Oh, let's pursue this vein. There's clearly an opportunity here." We created "2X," which comes from "2X chromosomes." I thought it was clever; I stole it from Reddit.
Anyway, we did, I think, 10 or 12 in one year, and every single time it was like $20 or $30. The cost was nothing; the cost was renting the venue, which cost like $3,000, and we would make like $20.
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Shaan Puri | you and you also you had readers in every city right so that's how you sold the tickets is that | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, yeah, but we weren't... Basically, the speakers sold the tickets. The reason why we had 15 speakers was that I was like, "I bet each of the 15 will get 25 people to come." Plus, our little bit of our engine... like, this is easy.
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Shaan Puri | and you weren't making the money off the tickets you're making out sponsors really anyway | |
Sam Parr | The tickets paid for the event, and then the conference sponsors were all the profit. But there are two things going on:
1. Whenever you have an underserved community, sponsors are definitely willing to pay more.
2. It had a B2B component, so it wasn't a kids' component, which I think would alter the economics.
My point is that I think it was far easier than people thought. It was way more rudimentary and raw than people thought, and it worked. We just used Splash. If you Google "2x the hustle," you'll see that Splash is basically Eventbrite. It was nothing special, and it freaking worked.
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Shaan Puri | that's dope alright what else we got | |
Sam Parr | Alright, let me... I just got kicked out of the document. Alright, I got it.
So, one thing—tell me what you think about this. One thing that I've been doing as I'm now starting to get back into the game, or thinking about it, is I've been setting up calls with bankers. Bankers, which I didn't even know what those were, when someone—when Sarah, my wife, went to Penn and...
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Shaan Puri | work at a bank | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, and she... I would always make her friends. We're like, "Yeah, I... you know, I'm a banker. I work at a bank." I'm like, "Oh, which branch?"
So, bankers are basically people who help others sell companies and help them buy companies. When you sell a company for anything north of probably $50,000,000, they likely have a banker.
I've been contacting bankers, and my pitch to them is this: "Hey, I'm thinking about starting a company in this space. You've sold a few companies in this space. Tell me everything about why this company was bought, as well as what the opportunities are that the buyer was looking for. Maybe in 5 or 10 years, I'll let you sell my company."
I've been able to line up meetings doing this, and it's way...
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Shaan Puri | Genius! I've been a part of one or two of those types of conversations, and I was like, "Oh wow, these guys are like vaults filled with gold."
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Sam Parr | they're so much | |
Shaan Puri | bankers need podcasts like why are they why are these guys not talking | |
Sam Parr | well they can't | |
Shaan Puri | So much info. No, but they can talk. Generally speaking, they don't, they can't talk about any specific deal, but like they know a lot, dude. They actually know everything. It's like your accountant. It's like accountants and banks, everything.
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Sam Parr | They know everything, and they've been telling me so much information. They'll basically say, "Here's why this company was doing well. Here's why it was succeeding. Here's why they bought it." And I'm like, "Alright, great! What other companies was that buyer trying to buy and why?"
They're like, "Well, they always struggled with blank." And I'm like, "Boom! Thank you!" Then I'll say, "You sold three businesses in the same space. Which one was more fun to run?"
For example, I'll give you a concrete example. The business that I'm interested in now, we've talked about a bunch. It's like Vistage, which is basically a peer group. So, companies that are in a group of 10 or 40 people who all have a similar job title meet together and discuss their problems. It's like a safe space to discuss things you can't talk about on the internet.
Some of them do huge numbers. One of them, I can't say which, does over $100 million in profit a year, and they're just like meetups in real life. I'll just be like, "Well, what job titles was Gartner or whoever buying these companies trying to get to, and which ones are they really struggling to reach?"
They'll just tell me, and I'm like, "Oh great! I can create a community around that." I think I could build it to sell it.
What I want to know from your perspective is: Is that even a good plan, building to sell? Part of me is like, "Yes, it's a clear path to make money." Another part is like, "It's kind of lame though."
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, well, I think where you're at now, let's take three options.
**1. Build to Sell:** This is basically optimizing for, like, "Is there a sort of flip? Is there a buyer on the other side of a business like this?"
**2. Build to Win:** For example, when I talk to these bankers, what I'm trying to figure out is which of these businesses is not a "special snowflake." It's not about a founder who "caught lightning in a bottle" at the perfect time with their perfect background and got really lucky about one thing. I want to emulate the businesses where I think somebody could start that same business today and do just as well, or do well in an adjacent space. You don't need to be a genius for that.
**3. Build for Fun or Build for Mission:** This is about going for something that you would never want to sell. It's something you're willing to do even if there's a low likelihood of success.
I think we all know the answer is to do that last bucket, right? The question is: how much security do you need before you go do the thing you know you should do?
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Sam Parr | Well, it could be a combination of all three. It could be that you enjoy winning, or you enjoy this space and you want to make it successful.
But there's a great clip from you and David Friedberg. There's a great clip that I shared where he basically said that founders always sell themselves short. They go for these small ideas because they think it's more reasonable.
However, when doing that, they kind of screw themselves because it's actually easier sometimes to pursue much grander, bigger ideas. This approach attracts the crazy types of people who you want to work with.
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Shaan Puri | Least competitive because nobody else... No, not every Joe is going to try to, you know, start a railroad business or whatever.
Versus an FBA business, it's like, "Oh, they're both going to take all your time," so that's equal money. Well, you're going to have to go raise money from investors. One will let you just raise... You're still going to get the money you need from investors. Just one, you may raise more at a higher valuation, and the other one, you'll raise less at a lower valuation, right?
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Sam Parr | but did you agree do you agree with him | |
Shaan Puri | I do agree with him. I've thought this for a very long time. I remember back in the day, did you ever hear about this thing called the Unreasonable Institute? I don't even think this is around anymore.
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Sam Parr | that's a great name | |
Shaan Puri | It's sort of like the same guys who did Summit. It's not actually the same guys, but it's the same idea.
The Unreasonable Institute was basically based on this one word: **unreasonable**. In the same way that **Hustle** is built on the word "hustle" and **Trends** is built on the word "trends," the Unreasonable Institute was exactly that. It was about the idea that it's going to take unreasonable people to do unreasonable things for the world to move forward.
It was very inspiring. They met with a bunch of people, you know, the sort of Elon Musk types who went and did unreasonable things. Then you start to look at it and you're like, you know, all things equal, I guess like your inputs are sort of the same. It's just your time and energy, and then the outputs can be very, very different because...
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Sam Parr | The inputs aren't the same because it is possible to build something pretty cool and not work that hard. However, it's kind of impossible to build something huge and not work very hard. | |
Shaan Puri | Alright, who do we know? Let's do real examples. I'm not saying it's not true, but who do we know that's building successful, awesome businesses without working too hard?
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Sam Parr | well how about sully I actually don't know what's his schedule does he grind constantly | |
Shaan Puri | he works hard yes he he works hard | |
Sam Parr | so then no one you don't we don't know anyone but you and me | |
Shaan Puri | Maybe I'll give you one nuance on it. He got there faster than the normal person, so it looked like it came easier. But that's just because he was better. It wasn't because he worked harder; he wasn't putting in a tenth of the hours. He was putting in the same number of hours and getting there ten times faster, which is... I | |
Sam Parr | Just think that, like, there's a world where you have Business A, and it doesn't grow nearly as fast. You're working 40 hours a week.
Then you have Business B, which is growing significantly faster, and you have to work 100 hours a week. Like, that is a reality.
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Shaan Puri | yes that's true | |
Sam Parr | That's what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about very little; I'm talking about normal versus not normal.
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Shaan Puri | There's also things like this podcast, or people who have newsletters, blogs, or something like that. They teach a course, it's like... you know, let's just take your buddy Neville, right? So, Neville, I don't... | |
Sam Parr | think you and me | |
Shaan Puri | Well, because I'm doing multiple things, right? So it's like on each one, I'm not putting in as much time. But overall, I'm working harder. If I didn't do those other things, that one thing would just expand in time. I would just do more. I would.
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Sam Parr | just wait how how often are you working now a day normal work hours | |
Shaan Puri | I work the equivalent of 8 hours a day, although not during normal hours.
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Sam Parr | got it okay | |
Shaan Puri | just not all to you not not all continuously | |
Sam Parr | alright but back to what was the original. | |
Shaan Puri | So, my, my, my... was like, "Is it really true that you can kind of chill and win?" And like, no.
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Sam Parr | I didn't mean to chill... I mean chill more, work less.
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Shaan Puri | yeah wait so then | |
Sam Parr | Bro, if you agree with Friedberg, which I think I do, why are you not going after like one big grand thing?
I started a newsletter. That's not exactly, you know, world-changing entirely. It's neat, but I would put it at a 6 out of 10 in terms of big ideas, maybe even a 5.
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Shaan Puri | Right, yeah, I agree with you. The reason why is because, to me, it's not a bigness contest. It's about whether I have a clear picture of what I want my life to be.
Then, can I make that happen? It's about knowing what I want and then getting what I want. If what I wanted was not to work the 100 hours, right? Even though I agree, like, that's cool, it's fun.
If I did do it, I do think there are all these extra benefits. You would get amazing talent to come join you, you would make a bunch of money, and you would have a bunch of fun. There are great benefits if I did the big one, the big, big, big one. But I decided that what I wanted...
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Sam Parr | what you wanted yeah | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, what I wanted more was a 40-hour work week, but hours spent on doing these types of things.
I love teaching. Teaching's not the most world-changing, unreasonable, institute-style idea, you know, like "let's go land a rocket on Mars" type of idea. But I have the most fun doing it.
So, I'm just optimizing for a different thing rather than bigness. I'm optimizing for my own enjoyment. That's why I'm not going after that.
I need things that are sufficiently interesting so that I'm engaged, and big enough so I don't feel like I'm wasting my time. But it's not maximally big.
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Sam Parr | Right, I feel you.
To wrap up the bank thing, I think it's been kind of interesting. I'm going to continue doing it. Maybe I'll... I didn't ask the people I spoke with today if I could talk about what we discussed, so I'm not going to bring it up. But it was very useful. I sent you the notes; they were cool.
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Shaan Puri | They're great. Also, this technique—whether it's a specific technique or a similar one—it's like there are people who just know a lot of things. You know, people who invest other people's money, accountants, bankers, and people like VCs. They see hundreds and hundreds of businesses a year.
So, it's like those people, if you want to speed dial your learning, you can go to them and you can get basically free learning off of them.
Alright, that's it. That's the episode. |