How to be an Entrepreneur: Advice & Mindset (See Business Opportunities) | My First Million Podcast

Shaan Puri

Was just like, to me, such a cool, clever idea. I couldn't find their revenue; I didn't have a chance to check. But you can go on the site and it's like...

Sam Parr

called again

Shaan Puri

So, I've been trying to find out what these deductions are, how they work, and whether I qualify. An interesting market that I saw was when my father-in-law mentioned solar energy. He said, "Yeah, you know, with solar..." I responded, "I don't own a building." He explained, "If you own real estate, you can depreciate the real estate and do solar." I reiterated, "I don't own a building, so what do you want me to do here?" He suggested, "Well, technically, you could buy the solar for another building and lease it to them. Then you write off your whole capital expenditure (capex) or whatever." What I found was that there's this business model. Have you ever noticed when you drive by schools that they all have solar panels on top? Sometimes, yes. In California, especially, every middle school and high school has solar panels all along the roof. The way this works, I found out, is that companies like Chevron and Exxon want tax credits. They go to the school and say, "Hey, we will buy solar for your school." They purchase solar panels for the school, which becomes a tax write-off for them. The school then leases the solar panels from Chevron, so Chevron gets a monthly payment from the school, and the school benefits from lower utility costs without ever spending a dollar out of its pocket. I thought this was very interesting. I don't know much about it yet, but I plan to dig into it. It seems like there's a business opportunity in pairing up schools, churches, and other entities that want solar and need lower utility bills but don't have the money to invest in the infrastructure. On the other side, there are businesses looking for tax write-offs. The idea would be to create a system where you push a button, the project happens, and you receive your paperwork that says, "Here's your deduction and here's your income stream coming from the lease." I believe there's a business to be built by connecting these two sides of the marketplace: a physical building like a school that wants solar but doesn't want to pay any money or do any work, and a company that's looking for tax write-offs and is willing to provide that school with solar in exchange for the tax benefits.

Sam Parr

Love it! I'm going to tell you something very similar as well, and this is in the same vein of "half-baked," "10% baked," or "1% baked." Most highway medians and government property, or public property, have grass. The reason it has grass is that grass is the cheapest way to cover land.

Shaan Puri

okay

Sam Parr

But grass is actually incredibly expensive to upkeep. Okay, like if you're in a median, you have to mow it. The way that the math works out... it's something like... I forget the exact numbers, there's math behind this, but having to mow it and water it and do all this stuff, it's incredibly expensive. In LA, I have to remember the numbers, but I think that like 20 or 30% of all water went to watering lawns.

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

And so what they did was they tested this out. They gave turf to the residents; they just gave it away. They said, "Here."

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

Here, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, and it reduced water usage significantly. I started thinking about it, and I'm like, that's kind of interesting. What if you just went to the government and you're like, "We're just gonna turf all the medians in America"?

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

I heard on NPR that they did this whole thing about how bad grass is. I thought, "That's pretty amazing! I gotta look into this." However, I have not looked into it yet. I sound like a complete idiot for this whole episode, but... no, no, no. So, let...

Shaan Puri

Let me give you one more. Okay, so here's the general theme of these really random topics we're talking about. When you look around the world—and this is what I'm now training my brain to do—when you see some item, object, or patch of grass, just think to yourself, "How did this get here?" What you realize is there is a business underneath every single thing. Like, this is going back to when we said, you know, in offices you have that poster about the kind of HR hazards or whatever, like the stupid labor law poster you have to put in your office.

Sam Parr

that's like a

Shaan Puri

it's a huge business that's a huge

Sam Parr

business business

Shaan Puri

I was blind to this, right? I just saw this poster. I didn't ask how it got there. I didn't ask why it had to be there, why every office has this. But whoever asked that question realized there's an opportunity here, and they started laminating these... posters and making $50,000,000 a year giving you this annual poster that you have to update in your office. So that's the test for the listener: start to look at the world and say: 1. How did this get here? 2. Who wanted this here? 3. What is the economics of this getting here?

Sam Parr

Oftentimes, that's a good... great point, Sean. A lot of times when people... they don't think about that stuff. And if you dug deep, a lot of times you could realize that there was some bureaucratic decision that was a **horrible** decision.

Shaan Puri

right yeah and there could be opportunity it could be a totally

Sam Parr

**Broken system opportunity** A lot of times there is a scrappy entrepreneur who comes up with something cool, like that sign business. Other times it's like, "Well, why did you guys decide to make the screws 5 inches instead of 6 inches?" It's like, "Because the 6 on the keyboard was worn out."

Shaan Puri

Right, you're right. Alright, so here's another example of these hidden-in-plain-sight businesses. You go to an airport, you take a flight, and you go to baggage claim. Okay, cool. Nine times out of ten, your bag's there. Now, the other ten times out of a hundred, or whatever, you know your bag is lost and they recover it. But there still ends up being this 0.3% of luggage that's never claimed.

Sam Parr

and is. 3 is that the number.

Shaan Puri

93% of luggage is claimed, and only 3% of luggage is unclaimed. I saw this business called Unclaimed Baggage. What they have done is partner with every airline and said, "Hey, we will take the unclaimed baggage." Airlines have some protocol; I don't know what it is, but after 21 days, if no one claims it, they are just stuck with it. Someone realized, "Hey, that's not just junk; that's a suitcase and some stuff inside." So they were like...

Sam Parr

Have you seen the *60 Minutes* episode on this? It was like a series. Are they based in Alabama? Birmingham, Alabama, I believe.

Shaan Puri

They're based somewhere random. They have a physical store in Scottsboro, Alabama.

Sam Parr

yeah I'll I know this company well I love it

Shaan Puri

So, you can go to their website, **unclaimedbaggage.com**. There's a tagline that says, "the nation's only retailer of lost luggage." That caught my eye. Anytime you say "only," that means I locked up an exclusive on this. I'm so happy that I can be the only player, which means I'm going to extract a lot of value here. What they do is they donate a bunch of stuff that they get from bags to charities. Cool! There's a feel-good component to this. They take orphaned bags, recycle them, sell them, or donate them. Those three combined create a business. To me, this is such a cool, clever idea. I couldn't find their revenue; I didn't have a chance to check, but you can go on...

Sam Parr

the site and site

Shaan Puri

What's it called again? **Unclaimed baggage**. Like, you'll buy this... there's a Rolling Stones collector's limited edition leather motorcycle jacket for $500 up on... up.

Sam Parr

for auction on this thing what's

Shaan Puri

it called unclaimed baggage unclaimed baggage.com

Sam Parr

Well, we could find this out. I remember *60 Minutes* did a big exposé on this a while ago. It was like... they have tens of thousands of square footage.

Shaan Puri

Right, yeah, yeah. They have a huge, huge facility there. The other one that's like this, which I think is more popular and people know about more, is the group that takes the... okay, you go to a hotel, you use, you know, two squirts of shampoo out of the mini bottle, and now there's still three squirts left. Then you check out, and they don't want to give that empty or half-empty bottle to the next guest, so they ditch it. Some guy was like, "Whoa, that's a lot of waste of plastic and shampoo." So someone started going into hotels and partnering, saying, "I will take all your used shampoo bottles, conditioner bottles, body wash, whatever." And so they built a huge business just recycling this stuff.

Sam Parr

I love that

Shaan Puri

They take it, they reuse the goods, and they donate certain things to charity. It's such a good business; it's like doing good while doing well. I think those are great.

Sam Parr

I love that! Here's why: I just googled Doyle Owens. He's the founder of Unclaimed Baggage. He's dead now; he died recently. If you Google him, he's just like an old Southern [gentleman].

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

white looking dude I mean just a normal ass looking dude and

Shaan Puri

the guy who watches billy madison 3 times a day

Sam Parr

Yeah, well, the reason why I like him is because I think that people tend to overcomplicate things. I'm very passionate about the mission of reducing waste. I just don't like the idea of consuming what you don't have to consume and just being wasteful. I was raised Catholic, and this idea of gluttony and waste is just in my blood. I hate it. This guy is like the definition of turning shit into gold. It's super simple; it's not fancy. It's in Alabama, which, you know, I'm from the South. No disrespect to the South, but people look down on that because they think they're in Silicon Valley and they're special. But this guy reduced waste significantly and got very wealthy in the process.

Shaan Puri

right love it

Sam Parr

And he probably created maybe thousands of jobs for low-income people. This guy is the best! I love this.

Shaan Puri

If you know about a business like this, I'll call these "hidden in plain sight." You know, super simple ideas, just things that when you look around the world, most people just take them for granted. And then somebody out there is like, "No, wait. How did this get here? Who picks this up when it's done? What's the business of that?" Tweet those at me. I want to know what other businesses are like this out there.

Sam Parr

did you. Did you make that collected them do you make that term up in hindsight

Shaan Puri

No, I think they use that term for like serial killers that are just in society. So, like, that's where I've heard it. It's like for criminals in some way, but I don't know. Yeah, it's a phrase.

Sam Parr

Dude, Doyle Owens is this guy's name who started Unclaimed Baggage. I love this guy!

Shaan Puri

doyle I hope you listen to this

Sam Parr

he's dead

Shaan Puri

I'm sorry I said you oh no oh no

Sam Parr

he's dead I'm looking at his obituary he's he's dead

Shaan Puri

damn

Sam Parr

This guy is **fucking awesome**! Don't no one go into this market. I want this family to be... I love this family.

Shaan Puri

three seconds of silence for doyle

Sam Parr

There's a big New York Times article. I gotta cover this on The Hustle. This is a super interesting story.

Shaan Puri

An example of this that you guys covered on The Hustle is the mannequin lady in Oakland. She takes either used or damaged mannequins out of stores. Again, what do you do with this hunk of plastic? Who needs this mannequin? She's just got a warehouse of mannequins and then ships them out, making a killing. So, there’s another example of these... oh, like these are parts of the world that you didn't realize are businesses.