3 Profitable Business Ideas From A Private Equity Guy | Sahil Bloom (#384)

Sahil Bloom

Mobile podcast and video studio. Buy a few vans and kit them out with a pretty impressive setup in the back of a normal-sized van. It doesn't even have to be an RV. You could fit 2 to 3 people comfortably. Deck it out with a few good DSLR cameras that can do the recording, like dual camera setups, so that you have a few mics hanging off the sides. Basically, go and post one van in each major city. Rent it out for about $500 for 2 hours to do podcast recordings, or a couple hundred dollars for people to come in and film Instagram shorts, TikToks, and stuff like that. If you put one in Los Angeles and one in New York City, I bet you could really succeed.

Sam Parr

what's going on who's who's the guest sean

Shaan Puri

We got Saha here, the man who answers the question: "What would happen if Sean was better looking, smarter, and harder working?" Saha Bloom is here.

Sahil Bloom

definitely not smarter

Shaan Puri

yeah but don't dispute those other 2

Sahil Bloom

I'm just screwing with you so what's up guys happy to be here

Shaan Puri

how often do you get your haircut let's start with the most important question

Sahil Bloom

You know, like every other week at this [point]. Now my wife is making fun of me for this because... it used to be that I'd go once a month, wasn't a big deal. And now I'm going like every other week because I like to keep it tight. She keeps giving me shit because we have a little newborn at home and I'm like, "Oh, I gotta go, I gotta go!" Right? So yeah, it's become an issue.

Shaan Puri

Don't call it a hair appointment. That's the only thing you can't do. If you say, "I got a hair appointment," then you're out as a guy.

Sahil Bloom

the place just can't be called a salon that's always been my

Sam Parr

rule it's

Sam Parr

easy to

Sahil Bloom

barber shop

Sam Parr

seem like you seem like a salon guy though

Sahil Bloom

The person you're wearing like a... you got like a Werther sweater on. You look like you're getting ready for Christmas. It's like 85 degrees in Austin, Texas today.

Sam Parr

yeah are we

Shaan Puri

are we at your like book reading for your for your book right now sam what are you doing

Sahil Bloom

It actually does look like you should have a fireplace in the background. You're going to be reading us nice stories in a soothing voice.

Sam Parr

I'm definitely drinking tea right now. So, basically, your bio is pretty easy. You were a nobody private equity guy. The pandemic hit, and you're like, "I'm gonna be somebody." In a matter of two years, you got famous on Twitter. What do we have? 900,000 or 800,000 followers? So, you got famous on Twitter and basically transformed your life all because of Twitter and COVID. Is that right?

Sahil Bloom

I mean, the "nobody private equity guy" designation is not unreasonable. I think that's totally fair. There are a lot of nobody finance guys that are making bank.

Sam Parr

out there though right like

Shaan Puri

That would’ve stung, but now you’re like famous and stuff, so now it’s okay to laugh at it.

Sahil Bloom

I mean, I don't know. Do you think it stings? Like, if you're making pretty good money doing something like that... I mean, VPs in private equity at this point, if you're doing well, you're making 7 figures as a VP in private equity.

Shaan Puri

name 4 of them

Sam Parr

Yeah, what about, dude? I hung out with some private equity (PE) guys the other day, and I didn't know them well enough. But obviously, in the back of my head, I was thinking, "How rich are you?" That's just what I wanted to keep asking. If you own a PE shop, is it safe to assume that you're just wealthy? And how much do they actually earn?

Sahil Bloom

Yeah, I mean, if you are a GP, so like one of the principal owners of a private equity fund, and you've been doing it across multiple funds that have performed well over a period of time, it's pretty safe to assume that you've got a net worth north of $50,000,000. I mean, you just do simple math on it, right? Most of those funds are taking like 1.5% to 2% management fees. If you're running a big fund, say $500,000,000 or $1,000,000,000, if it's a real substantial fund, there's $20,000,000 or more coming in a year on a $1,000,000,000 fund. Realistically, most of them don't have that many employees, so they're not having to actually pay out a ton of that in terms of operating costs. Then you have carry, and they're taking 15%, 20%, or 25% of profits above their hurdle rate, whatever that is, say 8%. So, you're talking about if they double the funds, there's $200,000,000 or more of carry to go around, and the principal owners of those are taking the lion's share of that.

Sam Parr

which is how much carry

Sahil Bloom

I mean if there's 200,000,000 and their principal owner owns 20 30% of that it's

Sam Parr

A shit ton of money. I think that I've always... I can't decide if it's jealousy because I'm like, "You guys are making a lot of money for what feels like not a lot of work," or if it's actually that I dislike them because I feel as though they're just like "Excel sheet monkeys" and they're not actually creating value. What is the reality?

Sahil Bloom

No, I mean, they work crazy hard, man. I don't know anyone that is a long-time GP in private equity that doesn't work, you know, 70+ hours a week of like stressful work. I mean, it's the type of thing Sean would absolutely hate. Like, you think about people that care about leverage on their time; it's like pretty poor leverage and it's high-stress work because you're putting a bunch of debt on these companies, typically. And, you know, during a downturn like right now, it's hugely stressful because you're constantly dealing with breaking covenants on the debt and having to restructure. What ends up happening is you spend 80% of your time on the couple of losers in the portfolio. The winners, you just kind of get to set and forget it because they're growing. You're getting like a levered upside on them because you put, you know, 70% leverage to buy the company or 60% leverage to buy the company. You're just eating off those couple of winners, but you're dealing constantly with the ones that are losers.

Sam Parr

So, Sean and I have our hand in this world where we've definitely sold courses and information stuff. We also have a podcast, and that's like this personality world. But then we also have built nicely sized companies, and we will likely continue to build much bigger companies. So, we have our foot in that world. For you, you have your foot in the private equity world as well as the information space that we're in. Where do you think... do you think that the information world, or whatever we call this thing, is actually an equal revenue or net worth driver as some of the traditional company building or private equity stuff?

Sahil Bloom

Yeah, I mean, I think you have to think about it in terms of your profit potential multiplied by the freedom and time freedom that comes with it. To get to an adjusted profit that you can generate from something, doing it in private equity (PE) and making $50,000,000 in PE from a time-adjusted standpoint is a pretty grindy way to go about it. It's like high certainty if you're at a good fund, rolling with a good fund, and you're going to be a partner there. You'll get more and more carry across bigger and bigger funds. It's a pretty low beta way to generate that type of net worth, but you're going to be working your ass off until you're like 60 years old doing it. Versus, you know, if you go on the information side into the information economy, you're doing newsletters, podcasts, courses—stuff that you guys are doing. For example, Sean might do his course and, in a week, make $300,000 and then be able to chill for 2 to 3 months if he wants to because who cares, right? It's just a totally different time leverage. So, I don't know, it sort of depends on what you want to do in that regard.

Sam Parr

dude what's your what's your job now

Sahil Bloom

I mean, I kind of do like 10 different things. I've got the fund, you know? So I ended up raising the fund. I didn't do the rolling fund like Sean, but I've got a **$10,000,000** venture fund that I raised from a handful of institutions and then a bunch of the GPs at big funds invested in it. Basically, I kind of share deal flow. I've got the newsletter, which monetizes well. We could talk about it, but with newsletter sponsors now, it's about **125,000** subscribers. It makes anywhere from **$3,500** to **$6,000** per send right now, and I send it about 8 to 10 times a month. So, it's a pretty nice business that scales with your time leverage. I write the same two newsletters a week, and it's a pretty nice business. Then I had this agency business that frankly started just because it was something that I saw as an arbitrage opportunity early in **2021**. It ended up scaling into, you know, an order of magnitude probably close to **six figures** a month in gross revenue with super high margins. So, I kind of just kept doing it and kept walking into different areas with it.

Shaan Puri

And I don't know if you guys talked about this already, but you had come to us or you were kind of talking in our group chat about the "fork in the road" moment you had. You were, like we said before, a no-name private equity guy making good money. You had started tweeting out stuff pretty regularly, I would say about 6 months to a year before that. It was clear you had momentum; it was clear you were good at that. You were getting followers—maybe you had 100,000 or 200,000 followers at that time. I'm just rounding up. But you didn't have all these other things, like a clear fund, a newsletter that makes money, or an agency that makes money. So, you didn't know exactly what was on the other side of that hill. You were debating, "What should I do? Should I stay in my job, which is a good cushy job, or should I take this leap of faith into the unknown?" Give us the 2-minute story of how you thought about that, how you decided, and whether that was the right way to think about it.

Sahil Bloom

Yeah, I mean, like a lot of people, I had the COVID moment of, "What the fuck am I doing with my life?" You know, "Am I happy doing it?" All of a sudden, for the first time in my life, after I guess it had been 6 years working in private equity, which at the time was like 80 to 100 hour weeks, right? So you don't really have time to look up. You don't think about anything because you're just working. You're making more and more money, and so you're like patting yourself on the back. Things are good. You're, you know, you're Indian. Sean, like, your Indian mother thinks it sounds impressive. You know, things are good. She probably wants you to go get an MD, but it sounds pretty good.

Sam Parr

is that what your mother wanted you to do sean

Shaan Puri

My mom, yeah, she was... yeah, all those things. She definitely was like, "Don't leave a good paying job." That was just a general rule or a general rule of thumb.

Sahil Bloom

I mean, my mom to this day still asks me why I didn't go to medical school or why I didn't get a PhD. In all seriousness, the Indian mother thing is sort of a meme, but it's also very real. You know, "You should go work for McKinsey if you're going to work in professional services. That's the only place that is respectable." But yeah, man, I mean, I was doing that. Then COVID hit. All of a sudden, I was like, "What am I doing with my life?" I had time on my hands to actually think about other stuff for the first time in my professional life. So I started... I mean, the Twitter thing, I just started writing. I didn't ever think of it as a potential way to make money or get another job or do something else. But as it started to grow and spiral, you know, we were in this group chat together, right? I started seeing friends from the tech world leveraging platforms like Twitter to make money. I was like, "I wonder whether there's a way that I can actually build a little side hustle with this." You know, whether it was courses or whether it was an agency business or whatever it was. I never really thought about the fund or investing side at the time. Then, candidly, I had a conversation with you, Sean, that I remember being really impactful. I was at a real crossroads and thought I was going to join another type of investing firm. We were going to move back to the East Coast to be closer to family. I was going to do that. I remember you saying to me, "It sounds like you're just going to go do the thing that kind of sounds like it sucks instead of doing the thing that you actually get a lot of energy from, which is all this new stuff that feels scalable and that you're fired up about. So why are you making that decision?" Until someone reframed it for me like that, I had never thought about it. I was just going to continue down the path that felt safe.

Sam Parr

so it

Sahil Bloom

was like a stupid conversation frankly but had a pretty big impact

Shaan Puri

You had described it. You were like, "I'm thinking about path A or path B." But the way you described it, like, path A sounded like shit. It sounded super hard and not that much fun. Path B sounded like a lot of fun with just, you know, some unknowns, but definitely good was going to come of it. I was like, how is this even a decision? It sounds like you're saying I'm choosing between a bad option and a good option. Go with the good one!

Sahil Bloom

Funny story about Path A. At the time, Path A was to join a crossover hedge fund—like a hedge fund that also invests in private tech companies. In my final interview, I had to pitch a stock. The stock they gave me to pitch was Stitch Fix. I had to decide whether it was a buy or a short, like if it was a long or a short. I did a week of research and made this long deck. I did all this work; I mean, it was miserable. At the time, it was trading at around $46. It had previously gone up to about $100, and then, with the whole Archegos situation—Bill Huang was pumping up stocks by buying the swaps—it pumped all the way up and then came down to $46. I pitched it as a buy, but I got rejected because my pitch was terrible. Now, that stock is trading at $3.56. So, I would have taken Path A, and I would have gotten fired within six months for sure.

Sam Parr

Dude, something that's interesting is that I get, and I know Sean does too, asked maybe five times a week if someone can write tweets for me or cut videos for me and all this stuff. It's pretty crazy. I don't know if it only happens at a certain popularity level where you start getting those inbound requests, but I get it so often. There's this weird thing where I get people asking me all the time, "Are you in Sahel or are you in this person or that person? Is Sahel friends with this person?" There's this weird circle of a Twitter world, and it feels as though you are connected to many, many tens of millions of followers and reach. It seems like there's this weird behind-the-scenes thing going on with your agency.

Sahil Bloom

It's the dark underground cabal that runs Twitter. No, no, I mean, Sean, you actually remember this, right? Didn't some kid hit you up and say that he ghostwrote tweets for me? Then you just texted me and were like, "Does this dude ghostwrite for you?" I was like, "No, I've never heard of this kid in my life." He was just lying. Then I hit him up saying, "Yo, why are you lying to this person?" and he completely panicked. But yeah, man, I mean, the world of ghostwriting tweets has now become, again, a meme. Because what was it? Like, Business Insider wrote an article about VCs getting ghostwriters to write tweets for them. That wasn't at all how my agency thing started. It started in late 2020 because I had started to figure out that threads were the way that people were growing on Twitter. And keep in mind, Sean, you were around the group chat at the time, but that was before threads had become the thread boy meme that they are today. So there was legitimate arbitrage in writing quality threads. I had all these startups that I had invested in, the founders of which were like, "Wow, we see a ton of value in having a platform and a brand. Can you help us think through how to do this? Because you've done it."

Sahil Bloom

Gotten to 75,000 followers or so, and I was like, "Yeah, let me..." you know, I basically started an LLC, like an advisory business. I started giving strategic support to these startups on how to think about content and then how...

Sam Parr

much would you charge them

Sahil Bloom

I was charging $5 a month to a startup for basically, you know, it was like texting and then maybe one call every other week. It was so low because it required very little time from what they needed from me. The founders didn't want to actually spend a ton of time on it; they just wanted to be able to kind of understand it. Then, they would have people on their end who just went off and did things.

Shaan Puri

So, what were the high-level, like, 1, 2, 3 bullet points that you would tell these founders so that they could just be better at this?

Sahil Bloom

It was basically like you need your 2 or 3 pillars of content that you're going to be able to talk about consistently. These should be valuable for you as a startup or as a founder. So, if you're a founder, I mean at the time it was like, if you're a founder, talk about building companies and the things you're learning along the way. Which now is like ultra-saturated on Twitter, right? There are like a million people that aren't necessarily credible writing about that. At the time, there weren't that many founders doing it. I don't know if you guys have seen the Copy.ai founder. I forget his name... Paul, hmm.

Sam Parr

yeah he might

Sahil Bloom

be an investor sean you know that business

Shaan Puri

sammis not me

Sahil Bloom

Oh yeah, yeah. He was like the first one who was really building in public, quote unquote, and sharing about their journey and the things they were learning. So I was basically telling founders, "You have to establish what your 2 or 3 pillars are that you're going to be writing about." Maybe it's building in public, maybe it's the industry you're in, or maybe it's sharing your losses along the way and being vulnerable. People find that endearing. It's called the **pratfall effect**. Have you ever heard of that? It's when people who you perceive to be perfect show "chinks in their armor." We find it very endearing as humans, and it actually makes us like them more. So you're playing on that by sharing your losses along the way. I was basically telling them versions of that on a regular basis and helping to craft and advise them on the content they were putting out. It was like $5 a month, and I probably had about 5 clients. I think they were all startups, either the founders I knew or I had invested in the companies. I was kind of around, and it was beneficial for me to see them continue to grow and do that.

Sam Parr

so you like invest in the companies and they give you that money right back I like that

Sahil Bloom

Yeah, it was a good way to hedge. I mean, this was personal investments at the time. So this was like, you know, I might invest like $25,000 in a company, and if I was making that back in 5 months, that was pretty good.

Sam Parr

cash on cash return on the

Sahil Bloom

original investment but then like you know like

Shaan Puri

but then like you know like after you

Sahil Bloom

The ghostwriting thing was interesting because, basically, in early to mid-2021, I had a few clients come to me and say, "You know, the biggest struggle for us is that we don't have people who can write this content. We don't want to build out a content team when we're focused on product and engineering and all that stuff. Do you have people who can write?" At that time, I had completed a course with Julian Shapiro, our friend. We did a Maven course on how to build your audience, which was mainly focused on building your audience on Twitter. Half of that course was about how to write good threads and how to write for Twitter. I had this pool of about 400 students who had gone through the course, learned the principles, and knew how to do it. I was then able to be a connector between freelance writing talent and these startups. The fundamental of any agency business for anyone starting one is effectively creating price arbitrage. You're charging a client $10 for something that maybe costs you $2. The reality for most of these people is that you can pay $1,000 to $2,500 a month, maybe depending on the output, and you can easily charge a startup or a brand $5,000 for that. You can also charge a founder or entrepreneur who's doing really well and just made a bunch of money $5,000 just for being the connector between the two points. That was when I would say it really started to scale. But it was never for VCs for me. I've never had a client that was a VC. It's all been founders, and it's been half tech founders and half just nuts-and-bolts, meat-and-potato type founders, like Sam's guys.

Shaan Puri

what your guys

Sam Parr

wait am I a meat and potato guy or not in the pool

Sahil Bloom

no you're a meat and potato guy sean's my tech guy you're my meat and potatoes guy

Shaan Puri

And if something's cool or interesting, then it's kind of more my thing. If something's really boring and generally correlated with obesity, it's your thing.

Sam Parr

so sahil I I wanna ask

Shaan Puri

You a bunch about like kind of your big vision because you're going to be president someday. I don't know if people know this, but there's a future president sitting with us. Before we do that, people always tell us, "Yo, you gotta do ideas with the guests," meaning they want to hear, "Okay, you're Sahil. You see a bunch of different things. You see a bunch of different worlds. What opportunities do you see that you think somebody should be doing? Or a cool startup idea, a cool business idea, a niche opportunity, something maybe you're not doing or whatever." Do you have any kind of ideas on your cheat sheet?

Sahil Bloom

yeah I've got 3 for you guys

Sam Parr

okay good

Sahil Bloom

Let's go through them. First, on the agency side, I think there are two really obvious opportunities that anyone listening could probably take action on if they wanted. One is LinkedIn growth agency stuff. There’s a massive opportunity here. I mean, you guys know a couple of our friends, and a few of us are starting a spin-off agency that’s just going to focus on LinkedIn because it's a massive arbitrage opportunity right now in audience growth. Twitter has become a lot more saturated because of the "thread boy" phenomenon and how many people are going and doing it. On LinkedIn, you can post a few things and immediately start getting to 10k+ followers. For founders and business builders, there’s so much business on those platforms. It’s huge for recruiting. So basically, if you were to start this, the way I would do it is to go to someone who has a Twitter presence. You can create a service like TweetPic, which is the web service I use. You can turn tweets that are proven with social proof into these carousels on LinkedIn. That’s the big growth hack on LinkedIn. If you go do that for them and just say, "Look, I’ll take over your entire LinkedIn presence. You never have to open LinkedIn because people hate opening LinkedIn," you can create carousels for them off of proven tweets and then post it for them two to three times a week.

Sam Parr

off of their tweets

Sahil Bloom

Yeah, off their tweets or off of other writing that exists, that they've put out. Like, say they've written blogs. I don't know, I mean, if you went and found, you know, say it's like Ryan Holiday, and he's written a ton of blogs that are all over the place but doesn't have a massive LinkedIn presence, you can go and turn his blogs into just shorter form writing that you put into posts on LinkedIn. You could say, "Hey, I'll post for you three times a week. You never have to log in, don't even worry about it, and we'll grow you to like 50k by the end of this year." You could either charge a success fee, like if you get to this level, you pay me this, or you could just say, "Pay me $5 a month and I'll do this for you," or "2,500 a month and I'll do this for you." The amount of time it would take you is literally like, I mean, you could probably do like an hour a week to cover a single person, so call it four hours a month and make $5. It's like an awesome, awesome arbitrage opportunity. So that's one. Any thoughts on that, Sam?

Sam Parr

I I think it's awesome yeah I'm writing with stuff

Shaan Puri

I hired this guy as a content remixer for me. Basically, it was to take content from the podcast or Twitter and remix it into content on other platforms. I focused him on LinkedIn because I had a hypothesis that what you just said is true. I'm now at **38,000 followers** on LinkedIn, and I haven't opened LinkedIn once. So if you see something on LinkedIn, stop me and say, "It's me!" I mean the same.

Sahil Bloom

thing happened to me

Shaan Puri

but it's not me writing that

Sam Parr

but hold on sean so you got 38,000 let's say that you post

Sahil Bloom

a product this is like

Shaan Puri

in 2 months or or something like that

Sam Parr

Let's say you post a product that costs $1,000. If you sell a $1,000 item to your 38,000 followers, how much revenue will you make from that?

Shaan Puri

I don't know. I haven't tested it. Sahil, you might know better, but I also haven't been doing it for long enough. I wouldn't expect to be able to get value because I don't think I've given enough yet. Like with Twitter, same thing. You know, people see, "Oh man, you guys just sell a course. You can just say you're doing this new thing, you get a bunch of sign-ups." It's like, yeah, but I've been doing this podcast for three years. I've done 300 episodes, you know? The hundreds of hours of content that somebody's listened to. So yeah, they trust you, and they know they've come to a decision whether you're smart and interesting or whether you're full of shit. They've made that decision; they've done all that work, and I've done all that work beforehand. So then when you make an offer, it's just a simple yes or no. Does it fit their life? Do they think it'll drive value? They already trust that you could do it. On LinkedIn, I wouldn't bet that that would happen yet because it's just been so recent.

Sahil Bloom

Yeah, I think you have to get... I mean, there's like a low... there's a bar that I think you have to get over from a follower count standpoint. If you use that as a proxy, before you can conceivably harvest value, you gotta like, you know, plant enough seeds over a period of time. I think like 100k is probably the threshold at which you can start harvesting value from LinkedIn. Justin Welsh is this guy that you might have seen on Twitter or LinkedIn. He was like kind of the godfather of LinkedIn influencers. I think that dude now is making like $100k+ on not even cohort-based courses, just like auto courses that he generally promotes through LinkedIn. He has a newsletter now that he's built through LinkedIn, built on the back of LinkedIn, and now he's bigger on Twitter because he's managed to cross over all of those platforms. But he's doing over $100k a month in sales revenue on his courses, which are just like, you know, they're not cohort-based. So he's like putting in no time now but got them stood up.

Sam Parr

this is interesting sean have you seen what sahil's been doing on instagram

Shaan Puri

on instagram no

Sam Parr

I've been doing on instagram

Sahil Bloom

your boy's blowing up

Sam Parr

so listen to this

Shaan Puri

so

Sam Parr

around the same

Shaan Puri

time dad content

Sam Parr

no listen it was just hair

Sahil Bloom

it's just mostly hair

Sam Parr

and shirtless mix and abs

Sahil Bloom

there's traps

Sam Parr

But around the same time, Sahel and I both decided, "Alright, let's take Instagram seriously." So, I started doing it and I was beating him nicely, adding a thousand people a day. I think I started with 5,000 followers and I got to like 48,000 or 50,000 in a very short amount of time. He was doing his thing, and I was like, "You need to post twice a day." I think he started doing that, and then he just kind of rocketed past me. Now, he's got to 62,000 followers in a very short amount of time, adding 1,000 or 2,000 people a day. He's doing this exact same thing where he's taking his tweets that do well and just posting them on his Instagram. So, two points here: 1. There's a world where this is just total vanity nonsense and a complete distraction for people who have their main thing. 2. On the other hand, what I'm curious about is how much revenue can this drive for people if their goal is not to be a famous person, but rather to sell more of whatever they own already. So, I'm curious, Sahel, does this actually drive revenue for things other than email?

Sahil Bloom

Right now, it's generating about... so Instagram, this past month, I think generated 1,000 newsletter subscribers for me just through the link in my bio. On average, I probably had 35,000 followers during the month, and it generated that many. So, conceivably, as it continues to scale, it'll drive well north of that as it moves. If you think a newsletter subscriber for me is worth, you know, just off of my sponsor revenue, probably like $3 to $4 per subscriber. Then, if you take into account my book that's going to come, where it's extremely valuable to me if they buy a book... I mean, it's a bunch of money a month that's coming off this that scales over time, right? And that's just Instagram. If you think about LinkedIn, that's another big driver. You know, all of these platforms...

Sam Parr

so I'm

Sahil Bloom

And like, there are ghostwriting agencies. There are people selling products, mostly on Instagram, without ever posting their face. These guys are literally making carousels of images and stuff, and they're doing $50,000 to $100,000 in revenue through it.

Shaan Puri

what's an example of that

Sahil Bloom

There's this guy, Dakota Robertson, like "Wrongs to Right," I think that's his Twitter handle and maybe that's his Instagram handle too. He's got, I don't know, 250,000 followers now on Instagram and he blew up really fast there just from posting his viral tweets over to Instagram. He almost never shows his face, and dude has a thriving ghostwriting business through this.

Shaan Puri

Gotcha. I'm torn because, on one hand, you are the perfect execution of a strategy that I now hate. So, I respect you, but I don't even want to talk about this because I know what's going to happen. There are now going to be 9,000 new people who go, "This podcast is going to breed 9,000 new people that are going to say, 'This is my thing. I'm going to do this. He said I could make X amount of money per month.'" Their execution is going to be nowhere near yours. In general, this is a pathway that definitely works, but it's like... like the...

Sahil Bloom

soul sucking

Sam Parr

the soul sucking yeah it's like the window opportunity

Shaan Puri

is closing and it provides well

Sahil Bloom

I think the window for security is closing. That's important. Yeah, I do think, like, look, I mean, when I started writing the threads, I mean, Sean, you were the same way, right? Like, any thread you wrote would blow the hell up early on because there just weren't that many of them. So it was like a market; it wasn't saturated. Now, it's pretty hard to get a thread to really take off unless you're doing the "10 YouTube channels that will change your life for free."

Sam Parr

But that's his. Which is the thing that it's like getting fit through power walking. Is power walking gonna burn calories? Yeah, for sure. Are you probably not gonna get injuries? Yeah, but like you have to look like a doofus doing it in the process.

Sahil Bloom

everyone in the neighborhood

Sam Parr

is gonna know you as that weirdo power walking

Shaan Puri

Like, you know what I mean? I'm guilty of this too, right? I did this strategy as well of being like, "Oh, I'm gonna create content for fun initially," this podcast, Twitter, that sort of thing. Then, oh shit, okay, if I kind of sell 5% or 10% of my soul to the algorithm, I think I can get this bigger. I started doing that, and then it's like, "Oh, I can make good money doing this." I make some money doing that, and that feels fun. But I just want to say, as a public service announcement, there are some people who are gonna go do this. But let's say you're somebody who's awesome. I'm just gonna say this: it was awesome to do when it wasn't figured out. Now that it's figured out, this is certified official small boy stuff, and I do not recommend this to anybody else. I myself have stopped doing this too. I haven't posted a thread in...

Sam Parr

but if you are interested in this lame ass shit sahil's

Shaan Puri

The guy, Sahil, is perfect execution. That's the difference, though. Anything like... I’ve tweeted this.

Sahil Bloom

sitting in this house because of it

Shaan Puri

I I tweeted this in a

Sam Parr

it's a

Sam Parr

lovely house it's a lovely house

Shaan Puri

I go I write to me look you do you you

Sahil Bloom

You have to figure out what the area is where you're going to do it. It shouldn't be crazy saturated and cringe. You need to determine what percentage of cringe you are willing to accept. For example, if writing a thread is 10% cringe, what level above that is just your natural baseline?

Sam Parr

when are

Sam Parr

you gonna figure that out

Shaan Puri

are you talking me

Sahil Bloom

What? No, I'm willing to accept that already. Like, 10% of people just immediately see it and are like, "Oh, this is super cringe." Then you just have to decide what level you're willing to go above that. If 100% is like "10 Chrome extensions that'll change your life," and 50% is like, "Here are the TED Talks that changed my life," what's like 20%? Is it some of the stuff I post? Probably. And if that helps a few people out there, and a bunch of people get pissed and think that it's not for them, I don't really give a shit personally. If I help one person, and you know, someone hits me up and says, "Hey, that changed my perspective on X, Y, or Z," that's what Gary Vee's been doing for decades, man. That guy's a legend for putting out content that's like listicles and motivational stuff. Tony Robbins, Grant Cardone—these guys get hate because it freaking works and it helps people, right? So, I don't know.

Shaan Puri

The thing I would say is, have you ever been to a Tony Robbins event? Yeah, and I'm sure if you went to like, you went to what, like an "Unleash the Power Within" or something?

Sam Parr

yeah

Shaan Puri

Great! I went to [the event/film] and loved it. I thought it was amazing. I don't know if you liked it; you could give me your quick reaction, but I have a different opinion. Yeah.

Sahil Bloom

I love it I mean I love tony robbins stuff

Shaan Puri

Me too. He gets on stage and he's doing all the things that you could criticize somebody for. He's clapping, he's saying, "Get up and jump." He's asking a very basic question and the only answer is "yes." But the whole crowd says "yes" like a cult. You're like, "Oh, he's doing all the things," but he's doing it at like an A+++ level. He is totally, in my opinion, the best public speaker I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot.

Sahil Bloom

next to like obama

Shaan Puri

Yeah, yeah, he is... I think he's even more powerful than Obama. Because Obama is smooth, but Obama doesn't get people. Tony Robbins will get you to walk across coals and shout your greatest fear out loud. I've never seen Obama control a crowd for 12 straight hours like Tony Robbins was doing at an event. But here's what happens: you look around in the crowd and you're like, "There's a whole spectrum of people." At the one I was in, there were celebrities there. You know, the guy from *300*, what's his name? Gerard Butler. He was there, like, two rows down from me. I was like, "Wow, this is interesting. There are some interesting people here." Then, in the hallways, I would meet a bunch of people who thought they were the next Tony Robbins. They were life coaches, motivational speakers, change consultants... every cringe name you could think of. Then you go look at their stuff, and it's the same concept but not executed at that level. They didn't have the hard-won life experiences that that guy had to actually create this content. They didn't have 40 years of sharpening their craft and becoming the best. They didn't have the natural talents, charisma, and larger-than-life presence. So, you can look at the best. You can look at Gary Vee and Tony Robbins. You can look at you on Twitter and say, "That's dope, you know? I could do that." For a very small amount of people, they can do that. For most people, they will fall into the pit of cringe because they're not going to execute it at that same level. They didn't have those hard-won lessons of actually knowing what they're talking about, and they're going to end up in this weird middle ground. I think that's the scary part. I can't find this client info.

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Sahil Bloom

I mean, that's kind of like any market, though, right? You know, someone starts a company, and it's the A+ version of something, like a restaurant chain. Someone starts a restaurant chain that's like the A+ of that thing, and then a bunch of people come in to try to mimic it. It's like the B+ version. You know, like, say In-N-Out is the A+ burger version, and then someone tries to come in and start the like Five Guys or whatever. I'm probably gonna get hate for saying In-N-Out is better than Five Guys, but you know, whatever. You kind of have the diluted versions. The question is, do you care that you're the diluted version of Tony Robbins if you're making money doing it and taking care of your family? Because I know a lot of people that are just like, "I don't give a shit." You know, I grew my audience with super cringe stuff, and I'm making $25 a month. I was making $5 doing my prior job or $10 doing my prior job. I'm making this sitting at home, and I could spend time with my kids. What do I give a shit if a bunch of tech people think that I'm cringe? I'm making money; it is what it is. So, I kind of appreciate that too. The other thing I would say is, what game are you playing? What is the long-term game you're playing? For me, I was always thinking about what is the thing I'm trying to build long-term. I wasn't trying to be, you know, the Twitter thread guy. That's not my long-term vision of what it was. It vaulted me from being a nobody private equity guy, as you said, to like, I signed a book deal last month—a big book deal last month. You know, I raised a fund. I never would have been able to raise a fund as this nobody VP in private equity. So, to me, it's like, what are you actually parlaying that into as you continue to go? If you're able to find the thing that you think you're A+ at, even if it's for a short time...

Sahil Bloom

Of time... How are you using that to vault yourself into that next level? Where you're like, "I'm not even in the same class as these other guys that are doing the thing I was doing previously," because I moved into whatever that next, you know, that upper echelon is.

Sam Parr

dude are you worried about elon screwing it up for you

Sahil Bloom

not really

Sam Parr

You know what's funny? Well, did you see what he said really quick? He like said something and then Steph, my old coworker, asked, "Does this mean that the thread boys are gonna go away?" I actually forget his reply. What did he say? But it sounded like he was saying that.

Sahil Bloom

Did like a crying emoji. I mean, yeah, like I think it was something about he said, "You know, you could basically put a long-form text onto a tweet." So you don't have to... like people were used to taking a screenshot of their notes app on their phone to post a long-form thing. I think all that stuff is good. I mean, look, I’ve already benefited from being early to a market. Like, I grew to a big level. I built a brand that now extends into things that I own, like the newsletter. You know, that's gotten quite large and is growing faster, like the fund or the book, whatever it is. I would be more worried if I was just starting out in any one of these things and had dedicated all this time. You know, if you rewound me a year and I was just starting to get all these things going, I’d probably be a little more worried. But the reality is, it's like eat or be eaten, man. If you're not figuring out the new way to be on the front of something and building in these other areas, you're in for a tough time no matter what.

Sam Parr

let's talk about this newsletter thing

Sahil Bloom

So, this is the second idea. The biggest issue I have with my newsletter is that I want to write it. I love writing; that's my number one thing. It gives me a lot of energy. However, I freaking hate thinking about and dealing with any of the business or growth side of the newsletter. The business side is very easy to outsource. There are ad agencies now, and ConvertKit has an ad network where they'll manage the whole backend of your newsletter. They'll bring in sponsors for it and send you the money. It's super, super easy. It's amazing. Nathan crushed it getting that thing out there. But the growth side of newsletters is completely untouched. There's no one out there that I've been able to find that is like a full suite growth service for your newsletter. When I say growth suite, I literally mean I want someone thinking about my landing pages and optimizing them. I want someone thinking about referral networks and newsletter swaps. I want someone thinking about paid ads and SEO for my website to drive subscriptions. I want to know how to optimize it across my different social channels. I literally just want someone that's sitting around thinking about growth for the newsletter so that I can focus on writing. I'd be willing to pay a lot. My willingness to pay, given the size of my newsletter and what newsletter subscriptions are worth to me, is very high. I would easily pay $10 a month to someone that could figure that out and do it in one place, on top of whatever I would spend on paid ads, etc.

Sam Parr

do you

Sam Parr

think that that thing workweek is gonna do that

Sahil Bloom

No, dude. I mean, like, I don't know how much you guys know about Workweek. I don't know a whole ton about it, but from what I can tell, it's mostly the back-end services of newsletters. There's another one called SmoothOps that I think spun out from Morning Brew. Didn't Workweek spin out of The Hustle?

Sam Parr

it

Sam Parr

not spun out they they worked for

Sahil Bloom

The guy was there. Yes, same thing with the Morning Brew smooth ups. My understanding of all of those is that they're much more focused on helping you monetize and managing your business so that you can focus on writing. I literally just want someone who thinks about growth all day, like an absolute killer. I mean, Sean, did you have someone like that? Or was Ben like that at Milk Road?

Sam Parr

my guy was right sean

Shaan Puri

No, Ben was the guy who woke up every day and just said, "How do we get more subscribers?" That was his mission, and that's what he did. But you know, we needed... it's like, you don't have a Ben. That was more of a company approach, whereas most people's personal projects are not like that. You're at a size where there just aren't that many newsletters that can afford to pay for something like that. You know, how many people could afford to pay $10,000 per month to try to drive growth?

Sahil Bloom

The... so I think a lot. My hypothesis is... I tweeted this and a bunch of people were replying, saying they would pay for it in different ways. My hypothesis is that there are a ton of successful founders and entrepreneurs who want to build a newsletter, an owned list, or an essay-type thing like what Sam Altman or Paul Graham have. They have SEO and newsletters, you know, like emails that are coming to them. They're willing to pay a lot because they have been successful and just have a bunch of money. They don't need it to be revenue-generating at the outset. I think, I mean, I bet if you develop some sort of core competency and basically partner with someone—say someone partnered with me and proved it out over like 2-3 months, "Hey, it drove this," and then we're able to use me as a case study. Maybe I own a percentage of it, you know, on the upside, and so I'm incentivized to bring them new referrals. I bet you could grow a pretty big business there quickly.

Shaan Puri

mhmm yeah you only need like 20 clients basically to make this like you know worthwhile yeah

Sahil Bloom

I mean, if it's a personal business, you don't even need 20 clients. You can get 10 at $5 a month or 10 at $10 a month, and you have like, you know, it's an 80% + margin, probably. Business if you're...

Sam Parr

just running

Sahil Bloom

it simple

Sam Parr

but are you having the headache of having a service business

Sahil Bloom

yeah

Sam Parr

I mean yeah

Sahil Bloom

it's definitely not productized

Shaan Puri

I've thought about starting an agency maybe 20 times in my life. Then, literally 5 minutes later, every single time, I'm like, "Don't go in the service business. Don't go in the service business." Now, we have several friends that have done it right. Like, you know, Andrew Wilkerson did it with Metalab. Our buddy Greg is doing a great job with it at Late Checkout. You're doing it now with your thing. So, you know, maybe I have the wrong bias here. What do you think?

Sahil Bloom

I mean, what you have to do is hire a great operator. If you want to be the owner of some percentage of it and not have the headaches, you’ve got to just recruit a killer operator who’s going to run all of it. I mean, that’s what we’re doing with the spin-out agency that we’re working on now around LinkedIn stuff. We’re just going to hire someone exceptional and give them like 15% of the ups. We’ll just say, “You’re a hustler, you’re a killer, you can get a whole ton of that.” That was awesome! What? Man, that’s my finance team, man. Never.

Shaan Puri

heard that

Sam Parr

that was awesome really

Sahil Bloom

Oh no, no, no. That's the no-name PE guy coming out of me right there. Yeah, I thought earlier...

Shaan Puri

guy was a guy who likes you know dodgeball and recess like that's what pe is to me

Sam Parr

Earlier, he was talking about beta, and I was like, "You're talking about nerds." I don't understand what the hell beta is.

Shaan Puri

beta's a good thing

Sam Parr

yeah peter's talking about beta is like a a good thing I was like I don't understand what that means

Sahil Bloom

You're kind of a low beta guy, actually, Sam. If I think about it, you're kind of like even-keeled. I feel like I know what I'm going to get out of you any given day.

Sam Parr

I I I think you're complimenting me but I don't under I I I

Sahil Bloom

You know, you show up. You tweeted about that recently. You hate when people say they're going to do something and then not do it. Like you, you take pride in being low beta. People know what they can expect from you on a given day.

Shaan Puri

By the way, what a stupid thing to tweet. Yeah, like, "I like long walks on the beach and movies." Who likes somebody who says they're going to do something and doesn't do it? What an obvious tweet.

Sam Parr

Yeah, first of all, give me the clout that I deserve. Like, don't hate. What did Sahil say? "Don't hate." Number two, I'm not saying it's like people who say they're afraid of heights. Like, yeah, everyone's afraid of heights, but some people just... I don't know. It's like, what's high on your list? I don't think that... I don't know. Like, there are a lot of things that annoy you, Sean, that don't annoy me, and vice versa.

Shaan Puri

like what what's

Sahil Bloom

what's one thing that annoys you sean that you don't think annoys sam

Sam Parr

I don't think anything annoys him

Shaan Puri

Nothing annoys me. That's it. I... that's the beauty.

Sam Parr

wait really you don't think anything bothers you

Shaan Puri

no I think yeah

Sahil Bloom

now I wanna dig into this what bothers you

Shaan Puri

I guess what bothers me is usually things with myself. So, like, if I find myself in a bad mood or getting annoyed with something, or getting bothered by something, or getting impatient with something, that's actually the thing that bothers me. I'm like, "Oh man, I let this get to me for that second." That's the thing that gets to me, right? So usually, it's not something that frustrates me or annoys me. It's either impatience, boredom, or feeling cranky or tired, or something like that, you know? And I'm like, "Oh no, I don't want to be that way." That bothers me.

Sam Parr

So, for years, I used to say to Sean, "I think I'm going to have a pretty steady path to wealth creation." Sean, you're either going to... it's not going to be as extreme. We joked around with Mr. Beast, where, you know, 6 out of 10 times, if you were reborn, you would be a degenerate, like a gambler or drug addict. And like, 4 out of 10 times, you'd be successful. With Sean, it's not that bad, but it's like, you know, you're the type of guy who can roll the dice, and you might actually hit it big. There's a good chance, or you might just be only okay for a long time. So, I was basically saying, "Yeah, your likelihood, I think, of being a billionaire is actually higher than mine, but your likelihood of being like a degenerate is probably also higher."

Sahil Bloom

yeah high beta

Sam Parr

Yeah, but here's the problem with Sean. I've just realized over the past handful of months that he is too emotionally healthy to probably be incredibly successful. He has this problem that few people have, which is he's just happy. You know what I mean? He's got this... it's just this massive.

Sahil Bloom

It depends on your definition of success, man. I would argue that Sean is the most successful then, man, if he's super happy.

Sam Parr

Yeah, if you define success by these superficial things like happiness and well-being and all that **bullshit**.

Shaan Puri

the stupid stuff yeah

Sahil Bloom

I do. I will say that Sean has had more like **high highs** and **low lows** this year, at least from my perceived view.

Sam Parr

but he's not a group text

Sahil Bloom

And like, he's totally unfazed. Like, Sean... I mean, flashback to, you know, the crypto crash, right? I'm like, "Yo, Sean's down bad." I'm texting Sam, "Is Sean okay?" Sean's texting the group chat, totally fine. I'm like, "Yo, is Sean broke? Is Sean doing a margin call right now?" I have no idea what's going on. Then Sean's like, "Yo, I sold all my stock." And I was like, "Holy shit! Sean sold the bottom!" The market's roaring in June, and then the market crashes again. Sean's a genius trader that sold the top of the market or something.

Sam Parr

do you

Sam Parr

This dude is just like, "Does that stuff bother you at all, Sean?" Like, first of all, what... prior to selling a business recently, what was your net worth down to? Just a significant amount.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, probably. I mean, it's hard to calculate that sort of thing. But let's say, liquid assets—so not counting equity in companies—it's probably down 50% or something like that. I mean, most of the investments I made, I didn't keep much cash. This was my investment strategy pre-2022. Right? My investment strategy pre-2022 was "cash is trash," and you know, fist bumps all around to my boys who thought cash was trash. Then, oh dude, is there a safer investment than Amazon? This blue chipper, right? Like, that's my version of safety. I'm going to put my money in some boring tech companies, you know, the Amazons, Googles, and Facebooks of the world. What could go wrong? And then lastly, I had a huge amount of startups that were getting marked up like crazy. Fist bumps all around! I was getting my ups, and then the last thing was crypto. I was like, "Oh, well, see, your boy's a genius," and moved a huge percentage of his net worth into Bitcoin and Ethereum. Oh, and then this Luna stuff that was popping—I was doing great! So, you know, that was me before. Basically, every single thing I had invested in has gone... you know, what's that thing? Like, my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day? I was basically having that for this year in terms of investments. But, you know, whatever.

Sam Parr

did it bother you

Shaan Puri

Well, I didn't like losing money, but did I let it bother me? No. You know, I basically...

Sam Parr

took steps

Shaan Puri

No, I took steps. I was like, "Okay, what matters here?" First, let me just get some perspective. Am I in any kind of hardship? Is my family doing poorly? No, they're fine. Secondly, what should I actually do? Do I need to make some adjustments? Was I wrong about certain things, or should I do some things to give myself more comfort? So, why did I sell? I sold because I basically margin called myself. I was like, "You know what? I think things are going to go lower, and I don't want to sweat this all the time." So, I'm going to sell this amount here so that I don't have to worry about anything. I'm going to move more into cash and book this loss because I think that'll offset against some gains that I have this year. Then, I won't have to think about this stuff for a little while. I will focus on these other things that I want to be focusing on because I'm not a trader. I'm not an investment genius, so that's not going to be my goal. And then, yeah, I don't know. I never got my happiness from when it was going up, so why would I get my sadness from when it's going down? It didn't make sense to me.

Sahil Bloom

You must have felt good when Luna... I think you originally plugged Luna in Milk Road at like $40. I bought some and I was like, "Yo, Sean's pretty smart. He knows this crypto stuff, hands down." So, I bought a bag of Luna, and that shot up to like $118. I was like, "Yo, Sean is my god! Sean, what other ideas do you have?" Then, we were supposed to interview Do Kwon on our old podcast. I had hit him up on Twitter, and he was supposed to come on the pod on a Thursday. That Sunday, Luna had been wavering; it had come down to like $80 or something. I get an email from his assistant that just says, "Unfortunately, Do will have to reschedule the interview for this Thursday." I'm sitting in bed, and I got a little bit of the heebie-jeebies. I don't know what this is, so I go downstairs and sell my entire bag at, I don't know, a small gain—not good. I sell the whole thing. The next morning, I wake up, and that stuff is at like $5. The whole thing unraveled overnight. Then, I get an email from his assistant saying he's going to have to cancel the interview. I'm like, "Yeah, well, this dude has a red notice out for him. No shit he's not coming on our podcast."

Shaan Puri

Yeah, that was a bad day. I was on vacation in Hawaii with my family, and I'm watching my investments. I'm like, "I don't even have my computer; I can't even get to my crypto. It's not on my laptop or whatever." So I'm like, "Well, I couldn't make a move if I wanted to." I guess I'll just lose all this money here and enjoy this vacation. There's nothing else I could do.

Sahil Bloom

At this, you were remarkably cool about it. I remember texting with you that day. The framework you've talked about in the past, which I love, is your local versus tourist thing. I think that's so good. You know, tourists freak out when the seasons change and just bounce. Locals, on the other hand, are aware that there are seasons and that it comes in swings. They are aware of the environment, so they can stick it out and be fine through it. I've always thought there's a third one, which is the stubborn local. Like the dude that lives in the coastal village and is like, "Global warming's not real," and then he's underwater, drowning, saying, "Global warming's not real" as he drowns. So I'm always just like, how do you make sure that you don't go from being the local, and you're proud of being a local, to the stubborn local that just sits there until you die?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, that's the hardest thing. I remember with startups, this was always the question. You'll hear a story like Pinterest, which had no traction for over a year and then finally started to work because the founder walked into an Apple store and started putting Pinterest as the default homepage on those computers. He hustled; he was determined. It's like, "Oh, okay, got it." So, determination—just keep going even when all the data's telling you that this isn't working. Then there's the exact opposite advice, which is, "Yo, you gotta be super data-driven, feedback-oriented. You gotta listen to the market. All that matters is, are you making something people want?" If you have no users, you gotta make adjustments; you gotta pivot. So, the hardest question as a founder is to know, "Am I being the right kind of stubborn?" Am I being stubborn because I'm right and I just need to tweak things, make small adjustments, and stay at it? Be determined and persistent? Or am I banging my head against the wall and need to listen to the signals and change my mind? Nobody can give generic advice about when to do what. It's super context-dependent, super circumstance-dependent. The same thing with investing, right? Like, "Should I still believe in something? Do I believe in Facebook stock now that it's getting crushed?" For me, I went and bought more recently because I was like, "You know what? Do I believe about this company, and has that changed?" So, the tourist versus local analogy is important. You gotta ask yourself, "Does the thing I believed about this change? Do I have new information that makes me update my thinking here? Am I holding on to this position just so that I don't feel like I'm wrong?" You gotta be willing to accept being wrong. You have to ask yourself all these questions and be able to be honest with yourself.

Sam Parr

that changed with crypto

Shaan Puri

has what sorry

Sam Parr

has your opinion of crypto changed in your conviction

Shaan Puri

No, my opinions and my conviction have stayed the same, but that's about crypto as a whole. Right? Then on each specific project or coin, you might have a slightly different opinion. You know, it definitely...

Sam Parr

well what's what's one thing that you think is bullshit now that you didn't think was bullshit a year and a half ago

Shaan Puri

so I'll give you an example where that's not not true then I'll give you an example where that's true so the not true one is like let's take luna for example the the bet on luna was always knowing that there's this the way it was architected was this thing is gonna rocket up because the sort of the what they call the ponzonomics right like the game theory incentive yeah but people don't understand like basically it's just like economic a series of economic incentives and so the incentives were were aligned such that this thing should go up during the during you know when as certain participants behave a certain way and from the beginning there was always these blog posts out there about what does the death cycle look like so what if this reversed course would this not because loon is the collateral would it not cause it to you know collapse really fast and the question was like will that happen or won't that happen so even when you invest in at the beginning we wrote our little investment memo to ourselves about like here's our one pager why we think this is a good idea and why we think this could go horribly wrong when it crashed it wasn't like something we had never thought of it was oh yeah that downside scenario we talked about that's exactly what happened right like basically there was a giant you know cell pressure that that caused that cascading down cycle yep that we always thought that could happen we had hoped it wouldn't happen we had thought that maybe there was a you know there would be a way to to put buy pressure back against it but nope it wasn't gonna work and so this is very fast example of basically just because it turned out bad doesn't mean that the doesn't mean I changed my position because actually at the beginning we said well here's why I'm not putting my entire net worth into this right I put 250 k into it that's not like a massive bet for me it's a solid sized bet right so it's like you know I put a appropriately sized bet because I thought it had upside and I thought there were some some key risks with it the thing that I would say I've changed my opinion most on is I thought man if people start to worry about inflation and they look at man you know I have the same 100 k in my bank but it just doesn't buy me the same amount it used to right they'll realize like people will become more aware that the money they have is diminishing the cash they have the us dollars they have is diminishing in value that they will probably look to go to a monetary system that doesn't have that problem and so the idea that bitcoin will do well if people start to if if inflation becomes something that people are more and more worried about with the us dollar and that hasn't happened inflation got as bad as it's ever been but people's response was more conservative than aggressive people did not make a change to the bitcoin monetary system which would not have that problem they sort of you know sort of stuck with it and actually the us dollars gained strength because other currencies got crushed even worse and so the dollars gained strength so that was one that I had thought that this was this was what would happen and it makes me reassess was my logic incorrect or or something else you know what what what did I get wrong about this idea that in a high inflation environment bitcoin should be something that people start moving more into

Sahil Bloom

I mean, the Bitcoin one is actually pretty interesting, Sean, because I've thought about that a lot too. Is there something just in the segmentation of how the price went up that is impacting that? Because I still think, basically, my assumption of why that didn't happen—like why that scenario of high inflation and people flooding into this— is that most of the price increase was actually just driven by this "number go up" mentality. You know, crazy loose monetary policy, people just pumping into speculative, high-risk assets. It wasn't really driven by believers like you, who were like, "Oh, there are really good fundamentals. The technology really makes sense," driving it up. It was mostly just my random friends who were like, "Bitcoin number go up! This is great!" And then they freaked out when it went the other direction and pulled out. You know, interest rates rise, and you pull out. I wonder whether, if you segmented it somehow—like the true underlying technology believers—my guess would be that the picture would look different. People who really are thinking about the technology and considering the underlying monetary policy that exists on the network, my guess would be those people think that this is a great time to be accumulating and buying.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right. But basically, in my mind, it was like a very simple picture. It was like you're playing one game, and the rules of this game are that the bank gives you some money. It's my game of Monopoly where the bank gives you some money, but every year your money becomes worth a little bit less. By design, they're trying to make it 2 or 3% worse per year. But sometimes, if it gets 10% worse per year, right? The game is set up that way. And hey, oh, yo, there's this other new edition of Monopoly that came out where that doesn't happen to your money. My assumption was like, "Oh, people will just start to move to the new edition because they're not going to like when their money becomes less valuable over time." But I don't think that's the message that has gotten across. It was basically, "Bitcoin's how you get rich," or "Bitcoin's how you lose your money." That's the narrative that actually played out because it was more aggressive. But "Bitcoin will make you rich" was an easier sell to people. Yeah, and it was also the reason why they'll start to sell their Bitcoin when they feel like, "Oh, Bitcoin's crashing."

Sahil Bloom

by the way I've got one more non agency business idea for you

Sam Parr

what is it

Sahil Bloom

Non-services, but maybe it's slightly service-oriented. Not that much services, more product: mobile podcast and video studio.

Sam Parr

yeah man dude it's such a pain in the butt

Sahil Bloom

Dude, it's a huge pain in the ass, but imagine buying a few vans and kitting them out with a pretty fire setup. Just in the back of a normal-sized van—it doesn't even have to be an RV. You could fit 2 to 3 people in there. Deck it out with a few good DSLR cameras that can do dual camera setups, and have a few mics hanging off the sides. Basically, you could go and post it up in a couple of major cities—like one van in each major city. It should have dope backgrounds, cool lighting, and you know, whatever. Do the neon signs and stuff in there. Then, rent it out for like $500 for 2 hours to do podcast recordings, or a couple hundred dollars for people to come in and film Instagram shorts, TikToks, and stuff like that. If you put one in LA and one in New York City, I bet you could kill it on cash.

Sam Parr

I just joined this gym called **The Collective** in Austin. It's like this fancy place, and everyone there looks like an Instagram model. They have co-working spaces as well, but they also have three studios for podcasting and picture taking. They just really don't know their audience. I went there, and everyone looks like they're the type of person who is, if you follow a shirtless, ripped guy on Instagram and they live in Austin, they're probably a member here.

Sahil Bloom

And I mean, if you catch them in bad lighting, they don't even look that good. But like, somehow in that lighting, you look unreal.

Sam Parr

I I I I think you're making fun of me I don't know

Sahil Bloom

The lighting makes a huge difference with these Instagram models, right? So, you just get good lighting on one of those things.

Sam Parr

I bet

Sam Parr

you could do it

Sam Parr

let me

Sam Parr

I do think these like mobile studio though you

Sam Parr

could crush it so let me

Sahil Bloom

ask you a question at these u haul box trucks

Sam Parr

so how much

Sam Parr

do these cost to buy so it

Shaan Puri

Looks like you could buy a used one of these for about **$25**. Right? So, **$25** and let's...

Sahil Bloom

you only have to put 5 down

Shaan Puri

Yeah, you put $5 down, but you're probably going to need to put another $5 into the kit to make the thing work. You probably need a dude operating the thing, but maybe you could get rid of that. Probably not; you probably have to have an operator on-site. So I think that's the tricky part where you gotta sell it as a membership. Basically, it's gotta be like a gym membership. You can use this studio; you can just book it when it's free, but you gotta be like a monthly member if you're doing $500 a month or whatever. Then you have a studio on demand, but that's...

Sahil Bloom

A genius idea to do it as a membership, actually. Because, dude, the thing that made me think of this is like in New York now, there are these couple of studios where people are doing all in-person podcasts. Like, there's this "What the Fuck Media" is one of them.

Sam Parr

and they go

Sahil Bloom

To the stream, and they're like, they're solid. They're not great, but they're having to pay New York City rent to do this. I can't imagine the economics are that great. If you got a truck and you just bought it, you could go post this thing up in a parking lot. Every two hours, just move to a different parking lot, and you never have to pay rent. You're paying the carrying cost of the truck and whatever $5 to $10 it takes you to actually get the truck out.

Sam Parr

we're gonna call it mudio the mobile studio mudio the mudio boys that's what we

Sahil Bloom

might get a branding agency to work on the name but yeah

Sam Parr

wait let me ask you something

Sam Parr

about brady

Shaan Puri

deafening silence as feedback on your

Sam Parr

Name, but it's Tahoe. Let me ask you a question. So, Sean and I are trying to get popular on YouTube right now with this thing. One thing that's kind of the elephant in the room when everyone talks to you—I mean, I know Sean talks about this constantly—is that you are just ridiculously good looking. Do you think that this shtick of yours, of having good hair and being good looking, is that image working for you? And what aesthetic shtick should Sean and I have?

Sahil Bloom

first off calling it a shtick is pretty hilarious newie

Shaan Puri

you

Sam Parr

know this shtick you have it's like a face to heart shtick

Sahil Bloom

face thing

Sam Parr

between your

Sam Parr

ears like that's chick like let's talk about it

Sahil Bloom

the the platforms that

Sam Parr

are visual it obviously helps to like when people are scrolling through

Sam Parr

things for like people to

Sahil Bloom

Stop and say, "Oh, the person is attractive." Right? Like, when you're scrolling through TikTok and you see attractive girls, you're...

Sam Parr

saying you're hot

Shaan Puri

that helps

Sahil Bloom

Oh, so you agree? Was that a *Mean Girls* reference though? Do you stop at a *Mean Girls* reference there?

Sam Parr

a millennial through it through

Sahil Bloom

the fact that I knew that it was a mean girls reference is just as telling you

Sam Parr

are a

Sahil Bloom

Mean girls? No, look, I mean for you guys, you're both good-looking dudes. I'm not going to sell you short. Sam, you've got like a little look with the fake glasses. I don't think those have a prescription on them, though.

Sam Parr

it's like a little bit of your look why does everyone think straight fake

Sahil Bloom

They're definitely fake, dude. And then Sean... Sean's got the, like, you know, my favorite line that Sean ever had is, "If you're not gonna be good looking, be interesting looking." I tell that to, like, everyone that I give advice to.

Sam Parr

I'm like

Sam Parr

sean's not interesting looking right now he looks like sean's

Sahil Bloom

interesting looking man look at this beard he's got the salt dude

Sam Parr

He's wearing a hoodie. He looks like literally every single person who shops at a generic grocery store in the suburbs.

Sahil Bloom

what's wrong with sean's dick that's a that's

Sam Parr

a vibe

Shaan Puri

a little bit

Sam Parr

like in

Shaan Puri

the tech world

Sahil Bloom

that's a little bit of a vibe

Sam Parr

but that's not interesting

Sahil Bloom

I don't know, man. I mean, I think you guys can play up the whole shtick of these two guys that look completely different but are somehow friends. You guys are like cat and dog. Man, you remember that show back in the day? No?

Shaan Puri

Cat, dog... we're going for... why are these guys famous? That's what we need to do. If we just get over the hump.

Sahil Bloom

so accessible people be

Sam Parr

like this

Shaan Puri

These guys, there's nothing special about them. But that's our thing, though; there's nothing special about this.

Sahil Bloom

Think you have to be that good looking on YouTube? By the way, you guys don't need to be like models on YouTube. If you look at the people that have crushed it on YouTube, it's not necessarily just hot dudes and hot chicks. Not that you guys aren't hot; I don't want you to come away thinking that. I don't want Sam to text me later being like, "Hey man, what you said wasn't nice." That's because I know I'm going to get that text later tonight from Sam.

Sam Parr

wait but you're wrong

Sahil Bloom

saying that

Sam Parr

I don't I don't hot dudes do better on youtube

Sahil Bloom

I don't think they do better. I don't think that's true. I mean, I'm not on YouTube yet. I'm going to get on YouTube here soon, and I'll let you know whether I think that's true. So, you're saying you think you're hot?

Sam Parr

Yeah, you're carrying this real burden, my friend. Well, like Alex Hormozi's got the thing where he wears those stupid cutoff jeans now, and he's just like yoked.

Shaan Puri

that nose nose strip and like the the nose strip the nose

Sahil Bloom

strip is a choice

Shaan Puri

**Level of being muscular**—that's a perfect example. You don't have to be great looking; you gotta be interesting looking.

Sam Parr

yeah dude he's peep peacock and hardcore and it and it's it's

Sahil Bloom

Kinda just a look. It's a look, man. Each of you guys has a look, and if you can just stick to a consistent one... It's like Chris Sacca with his cowboy shirts. You need your thing.

Shaan Puri

I've been actually thinking about this for a long time. I've been needing a uniform. I tweeted this out: "You know, I'm looking for a uniform. I want to look the same every time I'm on this podcast." So, I need something that works from here up.

Sam Parr

like a robe

Shaan Puri

is is gotta be yeah maybe a robe it's gotta be signature and

Sam Parr

I'm

Shaan Puri

In the market, so I'm taking suggestions. I'm going to put a bounty on this. Actually, I'm going to give a $1,000 bounty to anybody who can help me develop my chest-up look. That's what I'm looking for.

Sahil Bloom

I kinda wanna see you do like a traditional Indian attire for it. It could be kind of fire if you were wearing a dope kurta or some sort of Indian top. I think that'd be kind of fire, Sean Puri. It could be part of your whole angle with the name and stuff.

Shaan Puri

that's great okay you're you're eligible for the bounty right now

Sam Parr

I'm in the

Sahil Bloom

Worst place? I might throw into it. I also might match it just because I think it's going to be funny to see whatever your next shipping is. So, I'll say, "Baby, I'll throw in $1,000. I'll throw in $1,000 on top of it."

Shaan Puri

sam's lucky to have issues before he's on the hook for a 1,000

Sam Parr

yeah no I'm not I don't I don't give it a peer

Sahil Bloom

pressure shush shush shush you're breaking up I'll give it a peer pressure

Sam Parr

what did

Sahil Bloom

you guys say

Sam Parr

this is

Sam Parr

The stupidest thing ever. I'm not going to give someone $1,000 so they can tell Sean what t-shirt to wear.

Sahil Bloom

well you have a signature look already so it's easier for you to say

Sam Parr

yeah well my muscles to me

Sahil Bloom

Kinda like, no, you've got the little pretty boy thing going with the non-prescribed glasses.

Shaan Puri

not a grandfather type of thing yeah it's good

Sahil Bloom

Yeah, you are going to be a quintessential father. You're going to have a lot of stern talks with your child. I already know it's coming.

Sam Parr

I don't know what to say to this

Shaan Puri

sahil

Sam Parr

thank you

Shaan Puri

Yeah, yeah, wait! I want to hear this before you go. What is the grand plan? What is the grand vision for yourself? So you went from a no-name PE guy, as we established, to legendary thread boy, to now CNBC contributor, book deal guy, and author. I think you're going to be president! I joke about that a lot, but I genuinely believe you could become president someday if you wanted to. Do you have a grand plan for yourself? What's the vision?

Sahil Bloom

I could see that being in the cards long term running for public office I don't know if president is

Sam Parr

a

Sahil Bloom

role that you necessarily want I think it's like probably one of the hardest and worst jobs in the world

Sam Parr

don't go to the cato house

Sahil Bloom

Go in like Obama went in looking young, and then he, you know, leaves all gray, looking rough. It's like the highest stress job in the world. Running for governor would be... I don't know, that could be pretty fun to be a governor of a state.

Sam Parr

do you know anything about politics I've never known you to be

Sahil Bloom

a public public policy

Sam Parr

I did

Sahil Bloom

I did my master's in public policy dude oh yeah

Sam Parr

so that was always like

Sahil Bloom

what I wanted to do

Sam Parr

I mean I took a class on basket weaving like that doesn't like what like you know what I mean

Sam Parr

do you

Sahil Bloom

I think the people that are serving in public office today know a lot about politics. It's sort of like the naval thing of, "You don't read a business book to know business." There's no such thing as politics. It's about: Are you a reasonable thinker? Do you have the ability to change your mind, which right now politicians do not? And can you inspire people? Would you get people to move on things?

Sam Parr

which party would you be I don't even know

Sahil Bloom

I'm an independent man. I mean, I've voted Democrat and I've voted Republican in prior elections. So, I actually don't know what party I've got. I'm hoping that a third party rises over the next 20 years before I actually go do this because I hate the direction that, you know, polar politics has gone. It's just like the loudest minority on each side.

Sam Parr

I could see you being a good politician because you pretty much never take a stand on anything. Kind of like what you just did. You're like, I always call it, I'm like, you're PC, like the Rock, man. You never say anything inappropriate. You are like love.

Shaan Puri

it like the rock

Sam Parr

Well, yes, but Sahil never takes a stand on anything. He's always hedging everything he says. You could be beautiful for a politician.

Sahil Bloom

Alright, well, I'm counting on your fundraising support, Tim. I'll even introduce you as my hot friend, Sam, when you come up to the speech at my future event.

Sam Parr

you you

Sahil Bloom

already do it for me then you're already lying

Sam Parr

You're already lying like a good politician. Well, thanks for coming on. What do you want to do? Do you want to promote something? Is that a thing? Do you have something to promote? I don't.

Sahil Bloom

Know, man, people kind of know where to find me. I'm at **Sahu Bloom** on everything, and my newsletter is at my website, **sahubloom.com**.

Sam Parr

Well, I'm happy we finally got you on. We'll have to do it again. We're going to get another guest. I'm going to ask Austin Reef to come on. That'll be another group chat. We've asked Nikita to come on a few times, but he's, you know, weird.

Sahil Bloom

Nikita's busy right now, man. Nikita's busy, like basking in the glory of his gas app fame.

Sam Parr

no he's just he thinks it's cool to tell me no I think the the

Sahil Bloom

I mean, Nikita... Nikita right now, like, Nikita's been that guy that's like, "Oh my God, guys, I hate running this app. This is so tough." And then, like, you'll see on his Instagram him having a photo shoot at his house, like posing, looking like this.

Sam Parr

and his girlfriend is behind the scenes says oh my god this looks like an album cover

Sahil Bloom

Nikita's living his best life, man. More props to him because that dude had called his shot and has actually gone and done it.

Sam Parr

So, we'll get him on it. We'll get Austin on it. We gotta get a few more. We've had Huber on, but dude, thanks for coming and doing this. We appreciate it.

Sahil Bloom

thank you guys