Fitness Hotels, Steel-Manning, and Why the Creator Economy is Overhyped
Fitness Hotels, Peter Thiel, and Creator Economy - December 9, 2021 (over 3 years ago) • 01:16:33
Transcript:
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Sam Parr | Solving for demand problems sucks. Solving for technology problems... rot. So, we have two things going on. The first is we had a contest.
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Shaan Puri | I have a new intro philosophy. Have you ever watched a Peloton class? Yeah, they're always... they always do this thing. I don't even do Peloton, but I've seen 2 or 3, so I'm going to say always.
It's always like, "Alright everybody!" They come in like they were just having the best inside joke with somebody. They're like, "Okay, you're going to start with a ghost art. What's up everybody? Jamal here, and we are gonna rock to..."
It's like they always start with this laughter to make you feel like, "We were having such a good time. You're in a good place right now."
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Sam Parr |
Okay, well everyone, we've got... Alright, so here's the deal: We've got two things happening. The first is, last month we did a contest where people reviewed us and we gave out $1,000.
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Shaan Puri | or do | |
Sam Parr | we get $5,000 ben | |
Shaan Puri | $6,000 | |
Sam Parr | dollars to 6 different people | |
Shaan Puri | yeah wow so six people won | |
Sam Parr | Okay, so six people won $1,000. We even gave it to like two or three people who gave us negative reviews.
If you're watching on YouTube, you can click the link and you'll go to the end of this episode. That's where you'll see the names. You have to contact Ben if you're that person, is that right, Ben?
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Shaan Puri | The people commenting on YouTube get a bigger prize, which is that you and I go and reply to everybody who comments on the YouTube channel.
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Sam Parr | personally but that's talk shit | |
Shaan Puri |
Yeah, especially if they talk shit. But I like the people... There's really two [types] that I like:
1. There's the "great" when they say "Great episode!" I don't know what the hell they'll say back, so I just say like, "Yeah, thanks."
2. If they talk shit or if they reference some inside joke or call us out on one of our mannerisms or something we always say "that's stupid" or whatever... those are great.
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Sam Parr | It makes me uncomfortable when that happens. I get self-conscious.
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Ben Wilson | Was just gonna say, to summarize: yes, correct. We announced the winners at the end of a different episode.
We're going to link to that clip in the show notes of this episode, so click there to listen and see if you were one of the winners. If so, email me, and I will get you your $1,000.
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Sam Parr | And what's your email?
Ben, my email is **[email protected]**.
Alright, now the second thing—this is actually significantly cooler. We are giving away **$5,000** to **two fans**!
Here's what you have to do: you've got to take our content, whether it's audio or video (which they're all on YouTube), and you have to remix it. Basically, chop it up into little viral clips.
Then, use the hashtag **#MFMClips** on all the popular social media platforms. We'll find you!
We're going to do a combination of cool stuff, like cool content as well as popular content. We're going to give away **$5,000** to **two different people** who use that hashtag and create cool clips. I think that's going to be sick!
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Shaan Puri | There's somebody who did this for the All In podcast. There's just a TikTok channel somebody created called "All In Talk." They chop up clips from the podcast and put them up there. There's no contest, but this account is just getting hundreds of thousands of views because the content is already good. All you have to do is grab the best parts.
Okay, we're going to talk for an hour. You grab the best, kind of like a 30-second back-and-forth, and turn that into a clip. They don't all hit, but definitely like one per week is hitting. This account is getting so big, and it's just some fan account.
So that's actually what I would do. If you just made a TikTok account for this and put the best nuggets on there, just chopped it up, your account's going to get popular. That's more valuable than whatever. "We're going to give you $5." Great! But whoever does that, we'll just employ you, and also you're going to have an account that's...
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Sam Parr | Yeah, we’ve talked about doing this for like every month. So if someone’s good at this, we’ll just give you $5,000 a month. Maybe, I don’t know, maybe that’s in the cards.
But so, **#MFMClips**—that’s the hashtag. Just, you know, on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter. We’ll see. We’re going to follow it all.
So did I read what you told me? Did I do that correctly?
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Ben Wilson | It's good running. The only thing you didn't say is running through from now to the end of the year. So, you've got about a month to do it.
I have a question for you guys, which is: if you were betting, what is the over/under for how many views the top clip is going to get?
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Shaan Puri | I think on tiktok the top the top video will get over 50,000 views | |
Sam Parr | oh I was gonna say like I think someone will get half a1000000 on something | |
Shaan Puri | The right thing will go by if you just take something from the Rob Dyrdek podcast, or you take something from the Gary V podcast, the Tai Lopez podcast. There's a whole bunch of those, Andrew Wilkinson, there's a whole bunch of those that are good. Or just one of our rants or something funny that we did, you know, back and forth where we're yelling at each other. Those will hit. | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, I agree. Alright, that's that. Sean, I got a bunch of stuff I want to talk about. You listened to the Noah Kagan podcast?
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Shaan Puri | I listened to it. Yeah, so I listened to it in the car. It's great because I normally never listen to this podcast. I was there, we talked about it, and you know, it's awkward to listen back to your own voice. But this was different. I got to basically hear an episode of "My Favorite Murder" but just with somebody else on the other side.
What did you think of it first before I give you my thoughts?
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Sam Parr | didn't think it was that good I thought | |
Shaan Puri | it was good but here's what I thought I thought the flow was awkward yeah | |
Sam Parr | and I | |
Shaan Puri | I don't know if that's just how the podcast sounds when we're on it too, but there was something very start-stop about it that was kind of awkward to listen to. However, the topics were great! I liked the stuff you guys talked about; the content was excellent because it hit the thing that I always want, which is to feel like these are just two cool people who I would be friends with hanging out.
It didn't feel like a show. You would just be like, "Do you have a will?" and he's like, "Yeah, I got one, but I don't have kids, so I put it in my brother's kid's name." You're like, "That's so weird, right?" And he's like, "Yeah, it's weird, but you know..."
You were just talking about stuff that I don't know, just things that dudes would talk about, like, "Oh, what are you doing with your money?" "Yeah, is that good?" "Yeah, it's good, but you know, blah blah blah." It didn't feel like every other podcast, so I liked that it was a little start-stop.
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Sam Parr |
And stop... I think that there was either maybe a weird delay or something because it happened consistently where I would say something and then it... it was weird. There was just like this weird delay or it's like, "Oh, I'm sorry, you go ahead."
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, we have the opposite problem. We'll talk over each other, but that actually makes it flow a little faster. It's just like, whatever. I'm talking over you, you're talking over me, let's just keep it going back and forth rather than wait, "Okay, you go now, I go."
Right? And that's the problem with these Zoom pods in general. Why in-person podcasts are just like that extra 30% better is because in person, you can start talking over each other. That's a normal thing in a conversation; you can kind of interrupt each other.
But if you interrupt someone on Zoom, it's a very abrupt interruption. It kind of stops the flow of everything for some reason, just the way that the conference call tech works.
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Sam Parr | and what did you think of his peter thiel thing | |
Shaan Puri | That was cool! I liked, you know, some of the nuggets. I don't know if they're real. Like, does he really have a black Mercedes waiting outside of the building, running? The car must be running, and the jet must be fueled and on the runway at all.
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Sam Parr | times right here the book that's what it I was quoting the book | |
Shaan Puri | So, that was cool, but I didn't know if it was real. I liked the poker story where he was like, he bought a book game, then he had to go meet with Zach. After that, he came back and asked for his money back. I thought that was hilarious.
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Sam Parr | that should be a clip by the way | |
Shaan Puri | Those are the nuggets that... yeah, that should be a clip. Those are the nuggets that make you feel like you kind of get to know the psyche of somebody.
We already know the resume, so you don't need to talk about what Peter Thiel has done. You gotta talk about what it's like.
I've told this story... I think I've told the story in the pod, maybe not. I met a guy who, in college, was friends with a guy who worked under Peter Thiel at PayPal. So, Peter Thiel was the CEO of PayPal.
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Sam Parr | friend of a friend | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, a friend of a friend was an intern there at the time. He was in college, and the intern gets invited to go to Peter's place in Tahoe. He's going on vacation and invited like 20 people or whatever to come to his cabin. So, the friend tags along.
When he gets there, he said, "By the way, he listens to the pod, so I think he'll appreciate the story being told without giving away too much info." He gets there, and the first question Peter asked him was, "How much money do you have?" | |
Sam Parr | peter asked that | |
Shaan Puri | Peter asked the college kid, who was like, "You know, none based, I have a checking account at Wells Fargo. What is this question?" He goes, "No, I don't care how much money you have, but whatever you have, you should invest in a company called Facebook." This was back in like 2005 or something like that, maybe 2006.
He said, "You should invest every bit of it into a company called Facebook." At the time, Peter was the main investor of Facebook. The guy was like, "Okay, like the college thing, we do like the app we waste time on, like the website we waste some time on." He was like, "Okay, maybe, but I'm not comfortable just investing all my money in it. I just met you."
So this was just super direct. Every question he asked me was very thought-provoking or reaction-provoking. That's something I've heard from many people who have met him. He has pretty much zero interest in small talk. He's looking for original thinkers.
He'll ask you a question, and then he'll hear you. If you're just saying the same stuff that everybody says, very herd-like thinking, I think the impression I get is he's mentally bucketing you as, "Okay, this person is not going to give me original thoughts."
If you do have original thoughts, he doesn't really care what your pedigree is or what your accomplishments are. It's like, "Okay, you're in. You're in the circle of people I want to talk to because you have original opinions."
This goes back to Peter Thiel's famous interview question, which is, "What's something you believe that few others would agree with you on?" He's asking for the secret. What's a secret you know? What's something you think is true but others don't think is true? That being one of your main questions will filter for people who have these unique insights.
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Sam Parr | I've also noticed that he has another thing that's actually pretty interesting, and I think this is one of the reasons why he's hated by a lot of people. He's shockingly open-minded, almost to the point of seeming stupid. For example, when he supported Trump, people were like, "What are you doing? That's the worst thing!"
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Shaan Puri | right | |
Sam Parr | And I heard his explanation. I actually don't remember what it was, but the feeling that I had was like, "That's logical." However, I don't like Trump, and my emotions feel this way, so I just can't go along with it.
But he was very logical. He does this thing where he says, "If someone asks, do you think drinking 8 glasses of water is good for you?" He would say, "Well, you know, a lot of people think that it is great for you because the doctors and research have proven that X, Y, and Z."
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Shaan Puri | on the other hand hydration plays a role in health right | |
Sam Parr | But on the other hand, it's actually overrated, and you should consider doing this. A lot of people think that that's true.
He actually presents both sides when he answers a question. He goes, "Well, a lot of people believe this, and then other people believe this, and then some people believe that." It's kind of intriguing.
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Shaan Puri |
So, I heard you say that on the pod and in my head I was doing the thing listeners do where they're like, "Oh, I have something I would add to this conversation." So I'm glad you brought it up because that's a technique. Have you ever heard of this technique called **steel manning**? No? Do you know what **straw manning** is?
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Sam Parr | Yeah, it's an example. Like, well, I can't even think of a good example.
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Shaan Puri | okay straw manning is basically when you let's say you are debating somebody some way about something you're arguing about something or debating or having a conversation and you kind of pigeonhole somebody's view into like you kind of create this really weak version of their argument so that you can knock it over really easily right like imagine a man made of straw you could just blow it you could just blow a gust of air and it would just fall over right away so it's like saying well sam I know that you you think that everybody just needs to shut their eyes and put their money into the vanguard etf no matter no matter what it's like well no that's not actually my argument but if you make it sound so if you make if you make a weak version of my argument then yeah it's gonna be really easy to contradict it and that's what most people do so that's the like what I would the common person habit is when there's something you disagree with you sort of if to present their side you present the straw man which is the absolute weakest version of that argument so you could knock it over and put your put your view in place and what the smartest people do is the opposite they do something called steel manning which is even if they disagree with something they'll they'll go into it and they'll say you know people who believe that you should do x would say and they will they'll make the strongest possible argument for that thing right they'll it's almost like an in good faith way of figuring something out so the the straw man is like a bad faith way of doing it it's like I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of like cherry pick the weakest parts of your argument present that as your full argument and I'm gonna get rid of the the the nuance or the context or whatever else and the steel man would say you know trump supporters people who who who support donald trump you know the straw man is they're just racist people who you know hate mexicans or whatever right like they're they're just you know whatever and the steel man version of it is you know some people are the top priorities for them are their economy especially if they live in states like ohio and you know michigan or whatever and they've been decimated for their jobs and they actually see that trump is willing to invest in their jobs and so it could actually be really great for this this and this reason although he says some things that are very like uncharacteristic and offensive to certain groups he really you know he's he doesn't do a good job of that but the pros outweigh the cons so that would be the reason you would support donald trump and so steel manning is this tactic that I think if you wanna be if you wanna like build yourself into a learning machine who gets smarter over time you wanna learn steel manning which is how do you understand the other person's viewpoint and actually build their argument stronger than they could build it themselves so that it doesn't mean you have to agree with it it means you have presented the strongest case on both sides and then you decide which one resonates with you which one is the the more true version or the more correct version that you should go with rather than making a a unfair fight | |
Sam Parr | I think that's a legitimately life-changing skill. I've just learned, not a skill, but like a lesson.
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Shaan Puri | Right, I'm going to put you in that now. I think Peter Thiel does that.
It's not that he says, "Oh, some people would say this and some people would say that," so I don't know. He steelmans both sides of the argument and then he decides which one he believes is the correct one. I think that's a really powerful thing to do.
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Sam Parr | that's a good one | |
Shaan Puri | that him and other smart people I know do | |
Sam Parr | That's great! I'm going to start doing that. I wasn't sure what that was, and I don't actually know too much about logic and arguments and things like that. I don't understand it entirely, nor do I study that. Let me...
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Shaan Puri | Give you one other thing I've been observing, which is that people who grow up doing speech and debate in high school or in college tend to be common among successful individuals I know.
There are really about three or four common success paths that I've noticed. If I look at a whole bunch of successful people I've met and trace back their experiences, I find that this cluster of people all had similar experiences growing up. It's interesting to see how this group shares certain traits.
One of these paths is speech and debate. This is particularly evident among entrepreneurs, investors, or salespeople. They are able to effectively present their arguments.
Actually, when I did the episode with Hasan Minhaj, the comedian, I mentioned, "You’re like me. You're an Indian kid, and stand-up comedian is not usually a career choice. When did you figure out you wanted to do that?" He responded, "Oh, I went to a Chris Rock show. As soon as I saw it, I realized I was a speech and debate kid in high school. I saw this as humor in speech and debate."
I noted that he has a stance he needs to take, like, "Women love behind things," and then all it is is supporting arguments that ladder up to reinforce that argument at the end. The supporting arguments don’t have to be super literal; they can be humorous.
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Sam Parr | I think that my speech and debate class in college was the only effective class I ever took.
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Shaan Puri | you were 1 too I didn't even know that you were a speech and debate kid too oh my god that makes perfect sense | |
Sam Parr | And I could... and I remember all the ones that I gave. The really good part is when they make you argue about stuff that you don't actually like.
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Shaan Puri | Right, yeah, totally. Because that's the thing in debate: you don't get to choose the thing you already believe in; you're assigned it. It's like, "You're gonna argue for this thing whether you actually believe it or not." So you have to get good at like **steel manning** that argument, basically.
So, okay, speech and debate is one. I've traced another one: **hardcore gamers**. These are people who get really freaking good at video games. I'm talking about competitive players or those with complete obsession. If channeled properly, that same type of person can use the same kind of strategy, cooperation, grinding mindset, and ability to understand the rules of the game. They can find the shortcuts, the hacks in the game, and the glitches to get, you know, the infinite money hack, basically.
I know a whole bunch of people who got super successful in crypto. They all came from this **Runescape mafia**. It's basically a bunch of dudes who used to go in this game called **Runescape** and they were trading in the arena. They would buy and sell; they would go farm and get some virtual goods, and then they would go flip them. They were basically digital flippers.
And guess what? That same group of people is really good at crypto. They figured it out early. They were good at poker. That same skill set applies to a whole bunch of things that can lead to success.
So, hardcore gaming is another one. There's an obsession and a strategy component to it that I think plays well later. These are ironic because that's one thing your parents, if they saw you doing it, would be like, "What a waste of time! Why are you wasting your time playing video games? Go learn something useful!" When in actuality, the skills you build from gaming are so applicable later. | |
Sam Parr | I think that there was a time recently where I forget exactly what it was, but someone was trying to solve not a math problem, but some type of code where you had to sequence DNA.
I forget exactly what it was, but you had to do a series of incredibly hard problems in order to solve something very important. No one could figure it out. Then, this medical board put it out for gamers and turned it into a game. They solved it in like a month or something like that.
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Shaan Puri | No way! Yeah, that's amazing.
We both invested in Synthesis School, which is basically teaching kids through games. It's a riff off of when Elon Musk was at SpaceX. He designed a school for his own kids to go to, and they called it "Ad Astra," which means "to the stars." It was a school inside of SpaceX that only the rocket scientists' kids could attend, and Elon's kids went there.
They basically spun that out. The premise of the school is that kids will learn more when they're having fun and engaged. Nothing is more fun and engaging to a kid than a game. When they start to play the game, they will begin to learn all these necessary skills, strategies, and tactics to win that game.
So, they spun that out as Synthesis School, and now it's available to anybody. People are doing it, making a few million dollars a year in recurring revenue from tuition based on people sending their kids there.
The entrance application to apply to the school is this game, and I played it. I couldn't even beat the game that basically an 8-year-old is supposed to beat in order to get into the candidate pool for Synthesis.
All it does is have you versus a computer. There are dots on a screen, and you make a move, the computer makes a move, you make a move, the computer makes a move, and then eventually the computer wins. You're like, "Oh, okay, so you're supposed to get to the green dot. That's how the computer won."
Alright, now I'm going to try to get to the green dot. How do I beat... oh, I see the computer can move diagonally. Let me try doing that. It's this trial-and-error figuring-out process that has your brain fully locked in.
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Sam Parr | By the way, it's called... there was basically an AIDS-like virus, and scientists for a decade or two couldn't figure out the structure of a protein-cutting enzyme. They set it out to gamers, and they figured it out in three weeks.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, all of the world's problems, like, you know, peace in the Middle East, all it requires is a video game. If we want to pull it off, just give it to the gamers.
Even Ethereum, by the way, I don't know if you know the founding story of Ethereum, but the guy who made it, this guy Vitalik, is this ultra-nerd looking guy... alien, super nerd, alien looking guy. Brilliant guy! If you read his blog posts, they are so thoughtful and brilliant. He has next Zuckerberg, next Bill Gates type vibes for sure.
He actually credits that he was a hardcore World of Warcraft player. He was grinding like crazy. He got to level 60, which was the max at the time, and he had leveled up his character and earned all this stuff. Then, the game maker changed the rules of the game. They changed the way the items worked, and some of his character items that he had worked so hard for got taken away.
He was inconsolable for three weeks. He was just so upset; he couldn't believe it. He found it so unjust that the game maker could just change the rules. He didn't own his items; the game maker owned the items and could just rug pull them at the last second.
Ethereum is basically this global computer where the users own their own tokens, own their own items, and have their own private keys. There's no company. The whole platform is designed so that the app makers could never do that to you. He credits that experience as a pretty major influence in his thinking and it sent him down a rabbit hole of, "Why is the world the way it is, and how can I change it?" | |
Sam Parr | I had never heard that story so what what's the what's the last one or 2 | |
Shaan Puri | last one or 2 so arbitragers so these are people you've probably met a bunch of people who are like yeah I got | |
Sam Parr | like gamblers or | |
Shaan Puri | They're successful now, but they're like, "Yeah, I got my start doing, you know, kind of like affiliate ad networks online, sending traffic to porn sites." Or like, "Yeah, I realized you could just buy this T-shirt. Oh, you can drop ship this T-shirt, and I could get this 10% vig just in the arbitrage between this ad network and this place, this click and that click."
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Sam Parr | they just love the action | |
Shaan Puri | They love the action. They learn how to do internet marketing at a very fundamental level.
At some point, they get sort of disillusioned, like, "Okay, what am I doing here? I'm just sending clicks to Plenty of Fish and I make, you know, all $7 per click margin." And I'm just like, "Who am I? It doesn't... what am I doing here?"
Could I apply the same skill to a brand that I create? To a product I genuinely believe in? To an education app that I make? Whatever.
And they go on to do some pretty great things. So I've noticed that that's one more archetype. There are actually a few other archetypes that I don't want to spend the whole episode discussing.
Like teachers, for example. I met the founder of Alibaba, Jack Ma. He was a former teacher.
When did you meet him? I met him in college. There was this trip organized; there's this thing called Kairos, which they named...
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Sam Parr | I think | |
Shaan Puri | Kairos 100: Top 100 College Entrepreneurs. It was total horseshit. We applied the night before; they didn't know anything about us. We got in because I went to Duke, and they needed a quota of a kid from Duke.
So, we got into it even though we had done nothing. Just to show you how fake the world is, we got into that 100 Entrepreneurs thing. The event took place at the New York Stock Exchange. They had it shut down because the guy who started it has a dad who's mega loaded and super powerful. Bill Clinton came to speak, so it seemed like this ultra legit event.
It was not legit at all. It was just a total party and meet-up for random college kids. | |
Sam Parr | like the forbes 30 and 30 | |
Shaan Puri | Then CNN shows up, and I get on CNN. I have this clip of me pitching my sushi restaurant as like the next big thing. CNN runs it as, "Oh, college breakout success! This business is one of the best businesses in college right now."
So, it's like, if you believe CNN, you would think, "Oh, this is a great business idea that they're featuring." No, it just happened to be that I was in front of the camera, and CNN didn't care. They were just recording stuff and filling airtime. They didn't care; there was no filter, no quality filter.
At the end of that, they were like, "Hey, you know, through our connections, we got the CEO of Alibaba to pay for all of us to go on an all-expenses-paid trip to China for a week to hang out with him and see their headquarters." So, I got to go on that.
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Sam Parr | with jack ma | |
Shaan Puri |
With Jack Ma, we talked to Jack Ma and he tells a story. He goes, "People were asking, 'What are the keys to success?'" And he goes, "In China, there are two successful CEO types."
"Can I guess?"
"Yeah, go."
"Teachers? Teachers is one."
"He was a teacher, yep."
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Sam Parr | military | |
Shaan Puri | correct okay I don't know how you knew that that was amazing have I told that story before you just knew that | |
Sam Parr | it's a guess | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, he was like military, you know? The rigor of operations that you need in business—there's no better training for that than the rigors of the military. The systems, the timing, the production, the detail-oriented nature.
He's like, "So any manufacturing business in China, the best leaders, the best CEOs are ex-military."
Then he goes on to discuss non-factory type businesses, like Alibaba. He mentioned that teachers tend to do pretty well. We said, "Why? That doesn't make any sense to me."
He explained that a teacher is one of the only professions where the success of the student matters more than the success of the teacher. They care more that the people under them succeed.
He said, "In management, the best principle for breeding great managers is if you were like a teacher and your success was not in how high you climbed, but how great your managers became."
So that was his reasoning. I don't know if that was correct or not.
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Sam Parr | not sick | |
Shaan Puri | but I thought that was tight | |
Sam Parr | I can't believe I've never heard that! You tell me that story about how you got to meet Jack Maile. It's actually badass.
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Shaan Puri | yeah there there were some crazy stories there but we have some other stuff we should talk about | |
Sam Parr | let me tell you about something go to rock auto rock auto.com | |
Shaan Puri | alright I'm going rock auto like auto like car okay | |
Sam Parr | yeah | |
Shaan Puri | Alright, I'm on a Craigslist-looking site. What is their traffic? This is a sampler classic here.
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Sam Parr | so this company is called rock auto rock auto I don't know what | |
Shaan Puri | to say 20,000,000 monthly visits | |
Sam Parr | okay so I was listening to an mma podcast michael bisping's podcast | |
Shaan Puri | what is going on | |
Sam Parr | And he does this ad read. He goes, "If you're buying car parts, go to RockAuto.com. They've got every car part you could ever want."
I had never really heard of it. I know Toyo or something like that sponsors a lot of sporting events, so I understand it's a lot of like meathead car people. But I've never heard of an auto parts store other than like Napa and the famous one.
I went to this website, RockAuto.com, because they were sponsoring a bunch of podcasters, and it's the most bare-bones site I've ever seen. I was trying to do research on it, and there's close to nothing out there. There are a few articles from like 5, 6, or 7 years ago, but basically, it started by two brothers, I think, in Michigan.
They've got over a million parts, and the traffic is nuts. So according to SimilarWeb, it's like north of 20 million, and look at the source—mostly all direct. So these guys...
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Shaan Puri | This must be something that car repair shops go to order, or is it just customers that are going?
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Sam Parr | No, it's meant for just individuals, just nerds, just guys who are tinkering. Or if you just like, "Wow, for example, something broke on my car." I just need this little part; I could replace it on my own. It's just like a little door handle thing. So I was trying to figure out where to get it, and they had it.
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Shaan Puri | no way so do they own the do they like inventory the parts themselves | |
Sam Parr | So, they don't... What they do is connect with dozens or hundreds of suppliers. They have this intricate system of distributors all over the country. They send you the part you need, and their goal is to have one part for every car. If you ever need anything for a car, they can get their hands on it.
You know, kind of like how Bezos said, "If there's a book in existence, we should sell it." That's kind of the idea with auto parts.
I was thinking about this for a few different reasons. The first is with e-commerce. I was like, "What doesn't Amazon crush it in?" And they don't crush it in hardware, like Home Depot-style stuff. | |
Shaan Puri | right | |
Sam Parr | HomeDepot.com is like the 4th, 5th, or 6th largest retailer in the world. They haven't really been hurt by Amazon at all... or maybe a little bit, but not in terms of buying screws online.
Another thing is auto parts, whether for cars or motorcycles. There's this company called RevZilla, which was recently acquired for about $500,000,000. They sold motorcycle gear and motorcycle parts. I was also looking at RockAuto and a bunch more.
It's incredibly fascinating because there aren't that many new players in this space, but it seems like a pretty huge market. You know, Morgan Stanley had this report, and they said it's a $70,000,000,000 a year industry.
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Shaan Puri | By the way, I just looked up the CEO of Rock Auto. He looks like Jeff Bezos before Bezos got ripped. Yeah, he looks like the "before" photo of...
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Sam Parr | gh bezos | |
Shaan Puri | yeah he looks like the before photo of jeff bezos | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, and it's amazing. I think it's interesting. I've always thought this space is... because something broke in my car, like I said, and I tried to figure out how to buy the part. It's a pain.
But the problem with this is that you'd have to have so many SKUs. I mean, yeah.
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Shaan Puri | I'm looking at, let's see, BMW. I have a BMW X5. Or not even that, if you just go to BMW, it's like you can look at a car from 1939. It's like, "Okay, here are the models, here are the makes in 1939." You'd then find a part for the cooling system of the 1939 BMW... blah blah blah. It's amazing!
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Sam Parr | Right, it's so hard. It's a really hard problem to solve. But what's interesting is I don't think this is a demand problem, which is cool. Solving for demand problems sucks; solving for technology problems rocks. If you could figure out how to build a mousetrap that's far better, that's much better than figuring out, like, are mice even going to go into this thing?
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Shaan Puri | right | |
Sam Parr | you know what I mean and totally so that's why I just | |
Shaan Puri | you you wanna be supply constrained not demand constrained when you yes when you do something | |
Sam Parr | And this is just incredibly interesting to me. I think in order to get popular in this space, you would have to crush SEO. That's how you'd have to do it.
I think you could achieve this by sponsoring a lot of YouTubers and things like that. It's just an interesting business that I don't think has taken off yet. It's an interesting industry. I know Amazon has thought about going into that space, but it's pretty... | |
Shaan Puri | fast paced | |
Sam Parr | Is worth... I bet you Rock Auto. I was looking online, trying to triangulate some of their stuff, and I found some old interviews.
But if they... I would think they have to do at least $100,000,000 in sales. I don't think they, other than recent podcast stuff, spend any money on marketing other than maybe sponsoring some car shows.
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Shaan Puri | wow unbelievable | |
Sam Parr | that's crazy right that's a good find | |
Shaan Puri | great find great find gotta give you props on that one that's a that's | |
Sam Parr | A really good tool is SimilarWeb. If you look at where their traffic is coming from, virtually 100%—practically all of it—is coming from search and direct. So, people are typing in "rockauto.com."
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Shaan Puri | amazing what else you got what's this hotel thing you got | |
Sam Parr | Okay, I'm going to start a hotel. I don't know if I'm going to do it today; I'm definitely not going to do it today, but I'm going to do it soon.
Let me explain what I'm going to do. I went and met with some Olympians the other day. This guy, who is an Olympian, DM'd me. He's a runner and heard that I liked running, so he asked if I wanted to get dinner. I went and got dinner with him and about eight of his athletes.
He was an Olympian and now has an agency with 41 track and field athletes. Not really popular for most people, but for me, it was cool because I knew who they were—like a triple jumper, a miler, whatever. I was talking to them about money, and they don't make anything. Some of them have little Airbnbs on the side or bought a car to put on Turo. One of them is an American record holder in her event, and another one won a gold medal.
I was interested in that because I thought, "Man, if I wanted to pay you to be my coach, I bet you I could get you to do that. You can't be that expensive." I started thinking, have you heard of the UFC? They have this thing called the Performance Institute.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, yeah, yeah. They built these kind of state-of-the-art UFC gyms where the athletes can go train. But I think it's also kind of a tourist destination. Not a tourist destination, but there's a public-facing component to it, right? Like, you can...
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Sam Parr | I don't think there is. Because when I've heard about this, I'm like, "I want to go there. I want to work out there." Do they have a hotel? I would love to stay there.
I think I could create a hotel or a large piece of property. Here's how I'm going to test it. In this order, here's what I'm going to do: I think I could figure out if there is a demand for this. The way that I could do it is by getting a bunch of these Olympians, whether...
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Shaan Puri | the idea first is it is it a man for this this being what just a general | |
Sam Parr | I think I could create a resort where you go just to train and work out with competitive athletes.
I believe I can convince the competitive athletes to live there for most of the year as a training place. They would do a camp in the morning, train for the rest of the day, and get paid to do that.
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Shaan Puri | gotcha okay | |
Sam Parr | I think I could solve that. The way I would try to solve it is by contacting a really nice hotel. I'm going to explain to them what I'm doing.
Then, I'm going to contact some of these athletes and say, "Hey, I'm going to pay you this much money. I'm going to charge these people a hotel fee plus a fee on top of that, and I'm going to give you a cut of the money."
I think I could host an event at some of these places and make it work.
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Shaan Puri | So, my brother-in-law, who's been on the pod before—Brother Aaron, for the OG listeners that remember him—he loves jiu-jitsu and any combat sports. He loves training in boxing, muay thai, and jiu-jitsu.
He wanted to create this thing called **Bali Fight Club**. What he's doing is almost exactly what you're talking about. He said, "Alright, I need to create an MMA-style vacation."
Basically, a lot of people are interested in going to Bali, being on a beach, or going to a resort. He used to live near Bali, so he knows the perfect spot for this. There are a bunch of little villas that are just dope. You're on the most beautiful beach, in a private villa, with a chef cooking for everybody.
Each family gets their own villa, or you can buddy up or whatever. There are all these little huts, little villas, right on the beach.
Then he said, "Dude, the best trainers in the world for combat sports are often in Thailand." He met a pro boxer while on vacation in Mexico, and the guy said, "Okay, I'm in."
So, he has a pro boxer, a pro jiu-jitsu guy, and a pro muay thai guy coming on the trip too. They want a vacation as well, and they're basically like, "Yeah, we'll train the people."
You get to train like an athlete trains. They're going to do two-a-days, and you'll have a massage in between to recover your body. So, you're going to get to train like a pro athlete while also being on vacation. The whole thing is like $5,000 or something like that—$5,000 to $6,000.
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Sam Parr | and this is live | |
Shaan Puri |
This is what he's creating right now. So he's basically got like 2 people, he's just waiting till he gets to like 8 people. When there's 8 people, the trip will happen. So that's what he's doing, which is very similar to your idea, but instead of being a hotel, it's more like a... a getaway. Like a...
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Sam Parr | I would do getaways. I would do getaways at first, and then eventually, I would acquire a piece of property within an hour of a major international airport.
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Shaan Puri | right you do it in the us | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, like I think you could do it in Austin. Probably because Austin is becoming like a mini center of health nerds, right? I think that you could maybe do it in California. You for sure could do it in Boulder or somewhere in Florida. Yeah, I think you could.
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Shaan Puri | amazing yeah I think it's a cool idea | |
Sam Parr | I think it's sick | |
Shaan Puri | Especially because the getaway is a great MVP for something like that, right? You can build up the momentum, and that's not hard to do. So, yeah, I feel like that's pretty great. | |
Sam Parr | Let me tell you one more thing. Go to manuals. It's called "manuals," like an owner's manual.
You can find it at **manualslib.com** (like "library"). | |
Shaan Puri | the ultimate manuals library | |
Sam Parr | so it's a website that's just full of manuals okay but get this | |
Shaan Puri | This is great! I wasn't building, so I'm assembling something. I don't have the manual, or I need to figure something out of the manual. It's just here. It's like, "Here's my KitchenAid."
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Sam Parr | Item: This website, according to their about page, provides insight into how to determine if a business is interesting.
If they make money through advertising, you can scroll down and click "Advertise with Us" to find out more about them.
According to their media kit, they receive at least **16,000,000** monthly unique visitors, of which **90%** is nearly from search.
They have around **3,800,000** products listed, along with **5,200,000** manuals, **106,000** brands, and **3.2 terabytes** of data indexed.
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Shaan Puri | And hilarious, dude! They just have every manual. They scan it and they like SEO the shit out of their rankings for when people say...
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Sam Parr | More interesting... it gets more interesting. I was researching this, and I cannot find anyone on LinkedIn or anyone online who mentions these guys or works there. I can't find a thing about it. I've looked all over.
I found one person who, on their LinkedIn, says that they were a freelancer and they're based out of Europe. That's pretty much all I saw.
Their main competitor is... get this... their main competitor is a company called OwnerIQ, and they own a website called ManualsOnline.com. OwnerIQ is kind of a weird business, but basically, if you're going to buy something, I don't know how they do it, but it's kind of like TechTarget. That's another publicly traded company that does that.
They sell data to retail stores or brands that somehow helps them figure out who's buying their stuff. I don't actually know what they do with it, but OwnerIQ owns ManualsOnline, and they do well over $100 million in revenue. ManualsOnline is one of their products. Is that nutty?
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Shaan Puri | This is wild! Also, if you look at their traffic, you know, they really grew starting in 2012. They shot up the ranks to become one of the top sites.
So, it was definitely created in 2012, and it just, like, pretty instantaneously, within the year, became an ultra-popular site.
Yeah, these types of businesses print money now. This was an ad-based business, so I guess they're trying to get you to... I'm looking for a manual for the thing I bought, and then I'm like, "F*** it, I'm gonna buy something else," because I don't want to deal.
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Sam Parr | With this, I agree... kinda.
So, there's this company called TechTarget. They're publicly traded, and their market cap is not great, but they still do like nine figures in revenue. It's called TechTarget, and I believe, if I'm not mistaken, TechTarget owns websites like CFO.com and a bunch of other sites.
If you are a buyer, they own SecurityDocs.com, they own TechGuide.com, and things like that. Basically, if you're the CFO of a 5,000-person company and you are the decision-maker for buying, like, this is an oversimplification, but you're going to say, "Our company now needs to use QuickBooks instead of this other software."
That's a $10,000,000-a-year product that we're going to have to purchase. So, this company called TechTarget will create CFO.com and generate news, just hoping that the CFO will read it when deciding between QuickBooks and this other software. They'll figure that out, capture their email and contact information, and sell it to QuickBooks and then all their competitors.
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Shaan Puri | right | |
Sam Parr | so basically it's rooted in | |
Shaan Puri | lead gen | |
Sam Parr | influencing I feel like what you buy yeah | |
Shaan Puri | That would make sense to me. I don't know what the manual one would be because that assumes you've already bought the thing, so I guess that's a little bit different.
But yeah, these are great little, like, kind of secret jam businesses. When Andrew Wilkinson came on, we asked him, "What type of business do you want to buy? High growth, high profits?" He said, "I want to buy a New Zealand business," which is a business that is just independent and sustainable. It does not rely on one, you know, like Facebook ads or something, like some paid channel to grow. That could change at any minute.
It's not going to be competed against by Google, Facebook, and Amazon. They'll never care to compete against this, and that's a New Zealand business that he can safely buy. These are, to me, New Zealand businesses that you've identified—two New Zealand businesses here.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, they're neat. I think they're cool. I think that like TechTarget, that I mentioned, they're based out of Newton, Massachusetts. This other one, Rock Auto, I think that they're in Madison, Wisconsin, where the University of Wisconsin is.
Then Manuals Lib, they're like in Croatia. I can't find a thing about them. I can't find a thing. | |
Shaan Puri | There's a business you can create.
Okay, so let's say you wanted to create something like this. I think you could. You'd have to look at, "Okay, what's new? What's a new thing where you need manuals?"
So maybe there are some new products or types of products out there that need something like this. For example, it could be software or things like that, but software is not new enough.
Another option you could consider is any professional search. For instance, what's something that only dentists are going to search for? That's really obscure but also really important to them. Maybe it's around certain tools, the software they use, or manuals for the equipment they bought. It could also be related to treatment or prescriptions.
Some people have tried to create a separate Google for doctors because doctors search for information extensively. However, I think that's really hard.
Another way, which is easier but less valuable, is to figure out how to rank at the top for everything that a doctor would search for. You could become the definitive authority in some profession, whether it's car mechanics, dentists, doctors, insurance agents, or real estate agents. Look for something that has a lot of searches for which nobody has created a definitive central repository of information.
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Sam Parr | That's a perfect segue for what I'm about to say. Now, listen to this. Speaking of dentists, it's not even a segue; I'm adding to it.
I was reading this article about the top creators on YouTube this year. Number 3 for the most popular creator of YouTube Shorts is called **Dental Digest**. It's a kid who makes, here's his description of his thing: "satisfying dental reviews, dental education, and dental lifestyle content."
This kid's got **6,100,000 subscribers** on YouTube, only doing dentist stuff. Is that ridiculous?
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Shaan Puri | wow I'm looking at one of his right now so | |
Sam Parr | And it, I think it says, "What did he say?" Like, "I'm a third-year dental student."
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Shaan Puri | His about... yeah, his about is a third-year dental student who wants to help you discover your best smile. It's satisfying dental reviews, dental education, and dental lifestyle content. How crazy!
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Sam Parr | is that | |
Shaan Puri | He's represented by Knight Media, which is the guy Reid who we had on. He came on a podcast and he represents Mr. Beast. Also, amazing right? Designer toothbrush from France, 8,000,000 views.
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Sam Parr | dude number 6 on this list is also a dentist | |
Shaan Puri |
Dude, what's going on? It must be that dental content is just interesting for non-dentists. That's the only explanation for this because... like, how many dentists are there? There aren't even 8,000,000 dentists in the country.
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Sam Parr | But this guy, the Dental Digest guy, I don't think he's doing like popping videos where you watch someone pull a tooth. I think he's like...
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Shaan Puri | he's reviewing products | |
Sam Parr | Reviewing... yeah, he's doing stuff that is not... anyway, it's kind of interesting. So, I don't know where we go with those, but that.
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Shaan Puri | was so weird I just watched the video it was so weird | |
Sam Parr | it's weird right the world's funny | |
Shaan Puri | I'm sure there's | |
Sam Parr | So much opportunity out there! We've just identified dentists, manuals, auto parts... we've talked about so much stuff in just a short amount of time. What do you want to do?
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Shaan Puri | Let's wrap it up. I have some other ideas, but let's save those for the next podcast.
Let's wrap it up with one other topic. Which one do you want to do?
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Sam Parr | you tell me you pick do I don't care | |
Shaan Puri |
Let's do... Okay, I'm not really ready to talk about this. Okay, I'll talk about this. Okay, so here's... Actually, I kinda wanna hear you talk about this. Let's do this work week / creator economy thing. We never really got to talk about that.
So I saw that Adam... Adam Ryan, I think is his name. He used to be president of The Hustle, something like that. Like he...
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Sam Parr | was like yeah I let our sales team he works for me leading sales | |
Shaan Puri | So, he worked for you. He was kind of like your number two guy, basically at The Hustle for a period of time. He had left and went and did a couple of things. I don't know exactly; he was like a new IRS [Internal Revenue Service]. | |
Sam Parr | competitor or something like re recourse or recount I don't remember | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, so he did some education thing. I don't know what happened. I guess he left that or it didn't work out or something like that.
So, he came out with a new company recently, and it's called Workweek. Can you give people a simple description of what it is? Then, I want to hear your opinion on it.
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Sam Parr | I don't entirely understand what's the url workweek.co or.com I | |
Shaan Puri | think it's dot com I think they got a nice domain there workweek.com | |
Sam Parr | Workweek.com. So it looks like... it says Workweek.com. It says, "What's their name?"
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Shaan Puri | I'll read about it. It says it's a new kind of media company. So, he's creating a media company that focuses on following people, not institutions.
I think what he's doing is bringing together a bunch of creators who have their own niche. For example, there’s a dentist guy who might have been a fit. His name is Jared Dushevski, and he's doing the "Healthcare Huddle," which would be like, I don't know, is it like a Substack or something? It's like a newsletter, a podcast... | |
Sam Parr | a course | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, and it's all about health care. So, he's covering the vertical of health care. There's Nicole, who's covering the vertical of fintech. There's this guy, Matthew, who's covering the vertical of cannabis.
I think they were already creating content, so they were already content creators. He kind of like is scouting them and saying, "Okay, they have a good newsletter," let's say. And he's kind of like bringing them all under one umbrella. I think he gets the rights to their content in exchange for distribution and money; that's kind of my guess.
The website's very nice. I like the design of the website very much. But this idea is kind of interesting to me, and you're my go-to on the media side. I know you like Adam, and you're not going to say this is a terrible idea or...
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Sam Parr | I also I'm | |
Shaan Puri | Not just gonna say it's a great idea if you don't believe it. So, I want to know what is your honest opinion of this idea because you know media better than anyone.
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Sam Parr | Know the way.
Okay, a few things. The way that it's positioned now, it looks like it's just an ad agency, which in itself isn't horrible.
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Shaan Puri | like we represent these creators yes right | |
Sam Parr | I think the hard part here is that the creators they represent are nobodies. Maybe they'll be somebody one day, right? But at the moment, this is cannabis health.
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Shaan Puri | yeah I've never heard of any of these people | |
Sam Parr | The cannabis thing... it looks like the guy DM'd me one time. He had like 2,000 subscribers.
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Shaan Puri | like the health care guy has 500 followers on twitter so not not a huge fan | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, and so I think the problem... I mean, it's not really a problem. You're just building an ad agency, I think. But in Workweek's case, it's kind of a challenge because you don't have any ad inventory to sell. | |
Shaan Puri | yeah you do | |
Sam Parr |
So, I think it's going to be really hard. I think it's going to be a very hard business. I would never raise money for this. I think it could be a really cool business that potentially makes money, but from a creator's point of view, I have a few perspectives:
First of all, I don't love the language "a new kind of media company." It doesn't... Anyone who positions themselves as [that] is a dummy.
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Shaan Puri | that's basically a big mistake which is positioning yourself only to other media people | |
Sam Parr | yeah yeah | |
Shaan Puri | And like, they don't care. They're not your customer anyways, right? Like, that's not who you want. I guess this is the landing page for a creator.
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Sam Parr | This is jargon, is what it is. But whatever, that's a mistake that's easily fixed. From a creator's point of view, I think a few things.
1. I think this whole creator economy thing is incredibly overhyped. I believe that the vast majority of people who are going to be able to make a living from this is small.
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Shaan Puri | Let's do the steel mining thing.
When you say the creator economy is overhyped, that means something different to everybody. Everyone has their own perspective. For example, is my opinion overhyped? How do I know?
So, tell me, what are people saying about the creator economy that you think is incorrect?
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Sam Parr | So, people are saying that the creator economy is this new economy. Everything's new, and now anyone with a voice can make a living. And that's what... that's... I don't have a straw manning.
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Shaan Puri | You gave them a loser voice while you said their argument, which is hilarious.
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Sam Parr | So, they said that anyone... Okay, I'm going to try and actually do it the right way. A lot of people think that the creator economy means that a variety of different people, more than ever before, can create stuff that is seen by others and they can make a living.
That is true, and there are more than ever before, but the ratio of people that are going to succeed is still really small. I think it should be small; only the best should survive.
The best likely don't necessarily need you, or at least they wouldn't be silly enough to sell you their intellectual property (IP) or their content. You know, no one would be crazy enough to do that. It's the whole reason why "Call Her Daddy" bailed and started their own thing.
So, it's kind of like a paradox in that the ones that you can acquire, you don't want to acquire, and the ones that you want, you cannot acquire because they're too savvy. | |
Shaan Puri | or you acquire them right you did it all right you bet on them early they did in fact blow and | |
Sam Parr | they bail | |
Shaan Puri | And then when they blow up, they're like, "I'm gonna leave." And you're like, "But I bet everything on this creator. This is a personality." When they leave, I have no recourse. I have no leverage.
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Sam Parr | Exactly. It's just like there's a reason why none of the... what's that thing called that was on Twitch and on YouTube?
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Shaan Puri | mcn | |
Sam Parr | what's it called | |
Shaan Puri | It was called an MCN, a multichannel network. So, the big one is called Maker's Studio. I think that's the one you're referring to.
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Sam Parr | and they actually had a big exit I think | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, they kind of lucked into it. I wouldn't... oh yeah, "luck" is a little disparaging, but the business kind of wasn't working. However, they had a fantastic exit to Disney, and then you... | |
Sam Parr | know and the business fell apart good | |
Shaan Puri | for them yeah | |
Sam Parr |
Right, so they timed it well where Disney bought it before the truth actually came out. But I think what the truth is now is that maybe these things could work, but likely it's going to be needlessly hard.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, the same thing happened on Twitch. Ninja became the number one gaming star in the world when Fortnite became the number one game in the world. Ninja got picked up by Red Bull and was getting paid $1,000,000 every single month by both fans and advertisers. The guy was making $30,000,000 a year.
This team that had bet on him, Luminosity, basically acquired the commercial rights to his channel. It's all under contract. How?
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Sam Parr | much did they spend | |
Shaan Puri | You know, early on, they didn't spend much, right? Because he had no following at the time. It's kind of like, you know, Adam going and acquiring Healthcare Huddle at 500 followers. He picked up the option on the cheap, saying, "This guy's really talented. He could become something someday."
So, Luminosity had him under contract, but he was like, "Yeah, hey Luminosity, I'm not sharing any revenue with you." And they're, you know, this is my fictional account of what happened, but they're like, "But, but, but, but, but the contract." He's like, "Yeah, I just... I don't think that's fair. If you want to go try to enforce this, you can, but I will basically drag you through the mud as you're trying to bring me down."
Which is like the worst thing you can do for acquiring new players. You have everybody know that Ninja is so unhappy with you and does not want to deal with you. Ninja feels like you screwed him. So, Luminosity said to sit quiet and shut up and just take the loss.
They weren't getting paid the full amount or whatever. I don't know all the details, but they weren't sharing the revenue that they should have shared. They still got to be branded and associated with this brand, but they didn't get the upside of their great bet.
Then Loaded was this talent agency. So, Ninja goes with Loaded, and Loaded is like Work Week. They had all the stars; they had all the top streamers on their roster. Sure enough, Ninja starts getting a deal with Samsung, and now these deals are getting big. He's getting equity deals in this mouse peripherals company, accessories company.
And guess what? Ninja's not with Loaded anymore, right? Because why do I need Loaded? I can just do this on my own. They're taking too much. The same thing happened with Dr. Disrespect. He goes and leaves for a different agency that's going to take less.
You know, it's a race to the bottom, as I say, where you're competing with everybody who wants these stars to be on their roster. The next guy will do it for less because, hey, if I can get the top star, that's just good for me, even if they're a loss leader, even if I don't make money off them. So, the talent basically has ended up...
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Sam Parr | having to tosses luminosity and | |
Shaan Puri | So, Luminosity and the esports team still exist. They just, you know, they didn't get the... it's like the whole thing was based on, "We're gonna acquire this talent, we're gonna train them, we're gonna promote them, we're gonna cross-promote all the players with each other, and we're gonna build stars."
We were going to have this portfolio of stars that would bring in all this money, but that basically got torpedoed. Anyone who's smart knows this now. There might still be one or two teams where the team brand name is like the Yankees, where it ends up becoming valuable.
I think FaZe Clan is trying to go public in a SPAC right now, which is crazy to me. They had the same thing with the number one streamer, this guy Tfue. He was like, "Let me out of my contract. I don't want to be with you guys anymore," because he was getting great money. He was like, "Why am I giving 20, 30, 40% to these guys? I don't want to do that."
So, he's like, "Let me out," and they're like, "No." And he's like, "Let me out," and it was like "Free Tfue" became the big thing. The fans are always going to be on the side of the personality that they fell in love with. They're never going to be on the side of the team, and it's what's going on in the NBA right now. | |
Sam Parr | So, this business... I think, like, can these types of businesses work? Yes, but it depends on what your goals are. If you want to start a tech company or a VC thing, maybe I wouldn't go this route because I think it’s going to be a huge headache.
That doesn't mean it can't work, but I also think that one of my biggest fears is starting something in the prime of my youth when I have the most amount of energy. For most people, that’s in their thirties and forties. They have a lot of energy, some wisdom, and still have time to create something.
You go down this path, and you look back after toiling for five years and you go, "Shit, we should have done this other thing." I think there are potentially other opportunities that are even similar to this in that space where I hope that a pivot can be made. Otherwise, that five-year looking back is likely going to happen.
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Shaan Puri | that's what I | |
Sam Parr | would think | |
Shaan Puri | There's like a graph that shows how energy starts at a high level in your twenties and then gradually goes down over time. This energy isn't just about your actual physical energy, but also the amount of time and energy you can dedicate to your work.
For example, when you get married or enter a relationship, you have a little less time. When you have kids, you have even less time. Other responsibilities come up in your life, or you may just find that you get more fatigued.
When I was in my twenties, I used to work 15 hours a day. I wasn't necessarily super productive, but I was throwing 15 hours a day at the problem. I remember I slept in the office 200 nights in one year when I was about 24 or 25. That was my maximum energy.
Now, I work on average 5 hours a day. So, while energy goes down, wisdom, judgment, and skill go up. In your thirties, the lines cross; it's like you have the highest energy you'll ever have while also possessing good wisdom and judgment.
Then, in your forties, your wisdom and judgment continue to increase, but your energy goes down. It's no longer the peak. That's at least my opinion on it. | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, and my point with that is we are in this crazy world at the moment where if you want to work in the creator space, there are a few routes that people go. A lot of people are creating little pieces of software that they hope to sell for $5, $10, or $15 a month.
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Shaan Puri | 2 creators yeah | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, where two creators... and I'm like, I wouldn't do that. I think that those businesses, 9 out of 10 times, they're gonna fail. 99% of the time, they're gonna fail. You know, you look at the difference between Buffer, which is like a $5 Twitter sharing tool. It did good, or it's doing... I mean, it did well, but it plateaued.
Versus like HubSpot or Hootsuite that scaled way beyond that because they sold the same thing, but this...
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Shaan Puri | The tool we're using right now is Riverside. We use this to record our sessions. You know, they charge whatever, I don't know, $9 or $20 a month or something like that to random podcasters like us. They're hoping to be... yeah, you know, it's hard to imagine a world where a business like this gets to like $50,000,000 in revenue, right?
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Sam Parr | Yes, it's very hard. When I think of creators and that space, I'm like, "Man, that's going to be really challenging." Have some people done it? Yeah, Mailchimp did it, but there are way fewer examples.
Another route you could take is the ad route, and that could be cool as long as you don't want to hire a lot of people. You just want to make a lot of profit early on.
If I were in this, I would totally look at the markets. The markets are all about this DAO [Decentralized Autonomous Organization] stuff. If you use the word "DAO" in Web 3 in your memo or your deck, you're going to raise money, right? It's pretty crazy.
So, I'm just like, it's far easier to chase the market or just get in the mix than it is to strictly do what you are passionate about. | |
Shaan Puri | This brings me to one thought that's been rolling in my head. I didn't want to bring it up because I thought, "What does this have to do with anything?" But you actually kind of tied it in nicely.
There’s a certain luck with your timing in free agency. I thought about this with basketball because a funny thing happens in basketball: every year, the salary cap changes. It goes up or down based on how much revenue is being made. Then, like every seven years, they renegotiate the overall deal between players and owners.
There was a time in the late nineties where players could get these huge contracts—like $200 million for seven or eight years. There was no limit to the number of years. Then, owners got wise to that. In the next negotiation, they said, "Hey, this guy used to be good in year one of the contract, but by year eight, he was totally washed up, and I'm still paying him $50 million." So they decided to make the maximum length of the contract five years.
For players, whenever you become a free agent, that’s your time to negotiate your deal. It really matters. Like Magic Johnson, back in the day, I think he signed a deal where he had a 20-year contract making $1 million flat per year. At the time, it was the fattest contract because he was Magic Johnson. But what Magic Johnson made was nothing compared to today. A scrub in the NBA will make more than $1 million a year. So just the timing of that... | |
Sam Parr | barely over the minimum what's the minimum half a million | |
Shaan Puri | the minimum's like yeah like something like that like 500 600,000 and so you know magic johnson just by being in the eighties which wasn't that long ago like missed out on 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars probably $1,000,000,000 total like a star like that with off court endorsements would end up making a $1,000,000,000 over their career so you know that's just like luck of timing okay well there's also a luck of timing in when it comes to business not just in like oh I gotta time the market like oh you know let's say the market's going good and my company got acquired because everybody felt all the acquirers were flushed with cash versus a recession not even that what I'm actually talking about is like as an entrepreneur the time like the random time when you free up like you quit your job or your company gets acquired or like whatever that thing was there's so much luck involved in like what's going on in that moment totally I have so I I we have a friend sully who came on he was episode 1 of the podcast and he says the story which is like you know I was at Microsoft I quit my job I went home just to my family's house in florida and I was just kinda like okay well what the hell am I gonna do now and so he didn't have a grand plan but he had his what the hell am I gonna do now moment at the same exact day that the facebook launched its app platform so he's like I was doing nothing facebook launched its app platform so I was like okay I wanna build a facebook app now whereas if he was just still employed or had a different idea 6 months earlier and he would have been in the middle of that he would have never built that app which have never led to him come to silicon valley getting acquired and getting his first $1,000,000 and then that turned into so much more and like it's not to say all of his success was luck obviously he did a lot of good things but there is some luck of just when you're free and like what's going on in the market like where are the waves happening like right now we're doing I'm doing all this stuff like I have this ecommerce company if I didn't have this ecommerce company I would have been all in on web 3 I would have been investing more building more maybe we've started a company in that space because I would have been free to do that at a time when that's the obvious fucking thing to do right now is go work on web 3 invest in web 3 and build in web 3 or ai or whatever there's like 2 or 3 things going on right now where it's like that's the that's definitely the thing to do but if you're occupied you can't do it and so and | |
Sam Parr | That's a little bit of my perspective. I think that if you create a restaurant that's really good, like Momofuku or Milk Bar, it might not be particularly different. Maybe it's slightly better, but whatever, he made it work and became incredibly wealthy. That guy, David Chang, has a cool gig. It's awesome, and it would work in the 1920s as well as in the 2020s.
You can pull things off no matter what. There are some concepts that you can just make work, and if you give it enough time, you'll make that work. But then there are other things where it's like there's this tidal wave coming. If you just catch the wave, even if you're not great, it's going to be awesome.
I think Michael Acton Smith is his name, the guy who started Calm. He told me that he felt like he didn't know anything about meditation, but he was able to talk to a couple of people. He sensed that there was this huge wave coming, and if he could just paddle a little bit and catch that wave, success would be incredibly easy.
He told me that, and I was like, "Oh, you're totally right." If you just catch the right thing at the right time, it doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to be around the right time and kind of the right thing. It happened with us at The Hustle newsletters. Our newsletters weren't this tidal wave of a business. Our exit wasn't like $20 billion, but it was a nice outcome. It just so happened that we caught this little trend at the right-ish time.
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Shaan Puri | Well, there's a... I think most people would get some of the, like, the one part of what you said, which is just like, "Oh, this market's ready to explore." The market is ready, so it's like market timing. I think everybody kind of gets market timing, that, "Oh, that's a thing. It's important." But it seems very external. It's like, "Oh, I can't control that." And it's like, "Hey, you hope you get it, and sometimes you don't. You try to look out for it, but you never know."
What I'm talking about is even the one thing you can control, which is your own personal availability timing. So I think this has two things. One is like you should recognize that if there's a wave going on and you're occupied with something that's not ideal, like, get the heck out of there. Because you just need to be free right now. It doesn't even matter what you go do in that space. You don't even need the idea; you just need to be available.
You need to be single when all the eligible bachelors are walking down the street. If you're not single, if you're not on the street because that's when the parade was going on, you're not going to get picked up. So it's like being available at a certain time is really, really important.
Also, what that means is don't pick up a mediocre project that's going to occupy you because you just think, "Oh, well, you know, this can't hurt. I'll make some good money; I'll meet some people." It's like, well, it will hurt in this silent, invisible way, which is you're going to become occupied, and that might mean you're no longer in the market for good luck to happen to you.
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Sam Parr | And that lack of focus is, more likely than not, what ruins most everyone who tries to do anything interesting.
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Shaan Puri |
I tweeted out this thing to do a little research. I... I kinda messed up. I tweeted out:
> "Hey, what is the biggest problem in your work life right now? I don't care if you're mega successful or if you're just like a McDonald's employee. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter who you are, everybody's got some career challenge that's on their plate right now. What's yours?"
And I said, "DM me." So I got a bunch of DMs. I forgot how much...
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Sam Parr | did you get | |
Shaan Puri | I should... what I should have said is, "I'm not gonna help everybody," because that wasn't my intent. I actually wanted to do research. I wanted to know what problems you're about so I could make content that, like, maybe speaks to those issues. If I know anything about one of these problems, great! Then I could put it out there if that's a common problem people have.
So, my DMs versus comments... because some people, I didn't think would be comfortable saying what they're struggling with. How big is it? I don't know, at least 100... I don't know, 100, 200, something like that. It was a lot.
One of the most common ones was, you know, either some variation of, "I don't know what I want to do with my life, but I know this ain't it," or "I kind of know what I want to do, but I'm afraid to go do it." Like, I'm doing this other thing right now.
The answer to both of them is sort of the same. Whether you know what you want to do or you don't know what to do, if you know this is not what you want to do, the first step is to make yourself single. Get out of the bad relationship, right? That is the app because it is taking up space in a way that your brain is not gonna properly assess the cost of that. You're just gonna see the small benefits you're getting from it. What you're not gonna see is that actually, you know, nothing can fit in here because that's there.
I don't care if you're at Microsoft or wherever. So that was like the number one and number two thing. But to me, they're the same, which is, "I don't like what I'm doing now. Should I go do X or what should I go do?" It doesn't really matter. The answer to both is the same, which is you gotta get out of X. If you really care, if you want this to get to that amazing level... like, if you're okay with it as is, fine. You're okay with it as is. But if you want more and this ain't gonna give you more, you gotta get rid of it.
That's the only decision you need to make right now. You don't have to make the other decision yet.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, and I completely agree. I think that just like you guys, you gotta get a swing.
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Shaan Puri | I I told this to one one of our employees | |
Sam Parr | swings you'll get you'll get a hit | |
Shaan Puri | We have this guy who works for our e-commerce store. He's amazing! He's so good at website optimization.
He said, "Hey, I want to talk to you. You told me I can use this card one time, which is like, 'Hey, give me some advice.' So I want to use it."
He mentioned that he can't stop thinking about Web 3. He's super interested in it, but he doesn't know if he's just following a hype train. He wonders what's going to happen if the price crashes and if it's all a bubble.
He has a good thing going for him, and as I talked to him, I didn't talk him out of it. I just let him talk out loud to where it was blatantly obvious that he needs to throw away a good thing to maybe...
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Sam Parr | be an amazing | |
Shaan Puri | Thing, which is me. I'm one of his clients. He's got a few clients, his business is doing gangbusters, and he's very good at it. But he's sort of like unstimulated by just e-commerce at this point.
He's super curious about this other thing, but he's like, "How do I let this go? This brings in money, and I'm good at it. My brand, all my identity is tied to this."
And it's like, well, okay. I asked him, you know, like, "I'll read two bits of it because in case this helps people." Which is, I go do...
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Sam Parr | You only talk with your employees via text messages or Slack? Well, I meant like text format.
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Shaan Puri | right yeah I try to I try not to do like calls | |
Sam Parr | I told them how many employees do you have | |
Shaan Puri | he's like can we do a call and I was like just type it here let's see if that works | |
Sam Parr | how many how many employees do you have | |
Shaan Puri | There's like, I don't know, probably about 12 in my main ships. Actually, maybe 15 people associated with it, between the fund, content, and e-commerce. That's a combination of virtual assistants all the way up to Ben, who's like, you know, my right-hand man. I call the shit out of Ben, but I just type everybody else.
So, he basically was like, "Here's what I'm thinking, blah blah blah." I told him, "First question, how much runway do you have? If life costs you $4,000 a month to pay for it, just make sure you have enough savings. Otherwise, you can't really make this decision if you don't have any. How much money?"
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Sam Parr | do you have | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, he was like, "I have, you know, like 6 months totally liquid, and I have another 6 to 12 months that I could totally eat into without feeling bad."
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Sam Parr | I think my when when I go whenever I talk to people I say 24 months | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, I just think that's a... that's like safe. That's very safe, I think. You know, you could do it.
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Sam Parr | but that's like a 100 we're talking like a $100 | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, but for people to save up, I mean, that’s what that means: wait. I think waiting is a very big cost to pay. So, you gotta be sure you’re willing to pay the price of waiting.
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Sam Parr | so so | |
Shaan Puri | Then I said, "Alright, you presented me with three options, but really there's two." You said I can take on more clients and lose all my free time. No, do not do this.
You can keep your current clients and have some free time. It's a pretty safe path. You can do that for six more months and then collect more data if you're just not sure about something. If you don't have conviction, or you could quit what you're doing, get rid of all your clients, including me, and go all in on it.
It's the riskiest path, the most radical. You should do this if you know what you want to do. It really just comes down to that: do you know what you want? If so, then go for it. Do not wait. Do not hedge your bets.
I said, "If you don't know what you want, then do path B, where you collect information, but be really specific about what you're trying to learn. Don't just wait for waiting's sake and hope that you'll feel more ready later. Talk to yourself about what it is that you're actually trying to figure out, and then figure that out in the next six months."
He said some other stuff, blah blah blah, and by the end of it, I was like, "You gotta ask yourself these three questions: If I wasn't afraid of failing, which path would I pick? Because that's what you really want to do."
Then I said, "Do you believe that if you put your mind to something, you're going to succeed at it?" I only asked him this because I could see he's a star. He's really good at what he does, so I know the answer is yes. If he puts his mind to it, he'll get good at something.
Then I said, "So if you know that, if you weren't afraid of failing, what would you do? If you put your mind to it, you could succeed. You believe that, correct?"
"Yes," he said.
"Okay, then what should you do?"
He's like, "Well, then the answer is obvious. I should go do that thing."
So I ended up talking myself out of it. I ended up talking one of my star guys off of my team, which kinda sucks, but...
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Sam Parr | so it happened | |
Shaan Puri | You know, it will soon... like, you know, who knows? People get cold feet. But he knows what the answer should be now from his own perspective.
I just asked questions. They were leading questions, yes, but at the end of the day, they were questions, and the answers were very obvious to him.
It was like, "So why would I not do this?" It all just traced back to some version of fear and anxiety.
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Sam Parr | that's great | |
Ben Wilson | I'm I'm never gonna see | |
Shaan Puri | How that story is about want, fear, and anxiety driving the car. They can be in the car, yeah, they're a passenger, but they're not allowed to hold the wheel.
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Sam Parr | Can we wrap up with one quick thing? Yeah, you see, Tyron Woodley is now fighting Jake Paul.
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Shaan Puri | yeah the other guy dropped out or something | |
Sam Parr | yeah oh crazy right what do | |
Shaan Puri | you feel about how do you feel about that | |
Sam Parr | so let down | |
Shaan Puri | yeah let down as well yeah woodley's just the most boring fighter so that just sucks | |
Sam Parr | I'm so bored. I'm so bored by this. I wanted Tommy Fury to fight him. Dude, Jake Paul though... I'm going to pay money to watch this stuff. Do you pay money to watch fights?
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, I pay when I feel like it's for somebody I really care about or want. Like, if it's a McGregor fight, I'll pay.
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Sam Parr | yeah | |
Shaan Puri | And I'll pay because, A, I don't want to hassle with like the bootleg stream crapping out at the wrong time. Also, I feel like I'm going to get my money's worth.
Whereas if it's just like two people I don't really care about, then I'll just watch clips or I'll stream it or whatever. I'll figure out another way, but I won't pay $60, $70, or $80 for that.
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Sam Parr | what website do you use to wait | |
Shaan Puri | Wait, wait. What are we trying to do here? You're trying to narc on me? Allegedly, you would narc now.
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Sam Parr | do you use a good one | |
Shaan Puri | yeah man do you | |
Sam Parr | have one that you go to all the time | |
Shaan Puri | I'll dm you some things that I do | |
Sam Parr | I used to use this website called **Project Free TV**. I don't think it's around anymore, and I would watch all my free TV shows on that. Now, apparently, there's this thing called **Crack Streams**, which is pretty good.
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Shaan Puri | may have may have may have taken a a glance at that one | |
Sam Parr | yeah but I do the same thing I I buy a lot of them I have like because | |
Shaan Puri | it's got a z in the name streams with a z | |
Sam Parr | I also pay for YouTube TV, so I get a lot of content there. Additionally, I pay for ESPN, so I get content there as well.
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Shaan Puri | yeah | |
Ben Wilson | same so | |
Shaan Puri | I, by the way, you've heard this story in the past about how... do you remember when Dane Cook, or yeah, Dane Cook, got popular? Did you ever hear the story of how he got popular?
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Sam Parr | was it from clickkazaar | |
Shaan Puri | yeah do you know what he did | |
Sam Parr | no | |
Shaan Puri | **Genius...** *fucking distribution hack!* This is one of the greatest growth hacks ever. When Kazaa, LimeWire, and all those different torrent-type downloading programs were out there, people used to download music and all that.
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Sam Parr | I can't believe that stuff existed | |
Shaan Puri | He created files that would say things like "Chris Rock Stand Up" or "Dave Chappelle" or "Eddie Murphy Best Stand Up." It would be 4 minutes of Chris Rock and Eddie Murphy, and then the next 56 minutes would just transition to Dane Cook.
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Sam Parr | and that's how he got famous | |
Shaan Puri | so people were searching for those guys they would download the thing thinking they're getting an hour special of that guy | |
Sam Parr | that's great | |
Shaan Puri | It would start with that. It'd be like, "And now, Dane Cook," and he would just start with a joke. Sure enough, people would listen. That's how he got his distribution. That's how he got his name out there initially. | |
Sam Parr | Well, if you think back to it, of course it didn't seem this way at the time. But the internet was so small that I remember waiting for something to get released. I knew all the titles and how many seeders were on there. I knew I could get that one; I knew all about it. You knew about Kazaa and LimeWire; you knew which ones to download for which stuff. Now, looking back, I totally could have manipulated it.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, like I wouldn't have even thought of that. But maybe me today would have thought of that back then. I don't know. Even when I heard that, I thought it was genius. It's so genius that I'm skeptical it's true, but I've heard it.
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Sam Parr | A couple of times now, I bet you that guy made so much money because he was able to make money when CDs were $18. That was like the best time in music and comedy because the CDs were like 50 or 80 cents or something. It was just a little piece of plastic.
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Shaan Puri | Right, that basically all went to zero. Now it's just only live shows. Back then, you had live shows plus the CDs and stuff. Then he got into movies. I think he became like the most popular comedian in the world for about two years. | |
Sam Parr | Remember that movie he was in with Jessica Simpson? I love that movie. Dax Shepard... "Checkout" or something like that.
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Shaan Puri | yeah where he | |
Sam Parr | Like runs like a Sam's Warehouse. I love that! I used to love Dave Cook. He's like the Dave Matthews Band or Coldplay; you're like embarrassed to talk about it.
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Shaan Puri | yeah except for me I'm like what this is good music what's the problem | |
Sam Parr | alright that's the episode |