Is The Rock Going to Make $1B+ From Tequila? + Placebo Water, STR Update, and More

Sam Parr

He he

Shaan Puri

He texted me, "You know, I just expanded the vision for what I'm doing. I mean, this is eventually gonna be the next BlackRock, bigger than BlackRock. I think I can be a trillionaire in the next 50 years."

Sam Parr

Oh my gosh! Alright, what's going on?

Shaan Puri

not too much dude we is the last episode the ryan holiday 1

Sam Parr

yeah what did you think

Shaan Puri

I wanted to debrief that real quick because I thought he was really great. I said, I think I said this maybe... I don't know if this was on air or if this was afterwards, but he felt to me like one of the happier, more calm, and peaceful people that we've ever had on the show. He just had this vibe about him. A lot of people come on the show and they try to put on a show. They are trying to perform, or they're trying to kind of play up something. They're trying to sell you on something; they're trying to present themselves as bigger than they are. That's not just on the show; this is life. You meet somebody and they're kind of like... you know, they have the disease of "more, more, more, more." I know it because I have it myself in many ways, where I kind of want, you know, more success, more whatever. I just felt like he was a guy who was curious about certain things, like to do certain things, but he didn't have this... he didn't seem like an itchy person. He didn't seem to have all these itches across his body that he was trying to scratch. He seemed at ease, and I thought that was just one thing that... I don't know if it comes across on a podcast because you're listening to it, or if you see the guy, you don't necessarily pick that up. But that was the one thing that stood out to me.

Sam Parr

I think he's really like that. I've been friendly with him - I wouldn't say we're close friends, but friendly for a couple years now. But Neville and Noah are really good friends with him, and they said that he pretty much just stays at home most of the time. If you want to see him, you've got to drive out to his farm. He's a homebody and he just knows what he likes, and he does it.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I thought it was interesting because his reputation, at least for me, in my head, right? The image I had was of this guy as an internet marketer, a growth hacker, which is usually one breed of person. That comes with a certain package, usually. Then, you know, we had this kind of... he's an author, and his books are all about interesting things. He's not writing boring, normal, calm books. He's writing about conspiracy theories and how the media is messed up. Then there's "Trust Me, I'm Lying," right? These provocative books. Then he had "The Daily Stoic," and I was like, "Oh, okay." It reminded me a little bit of, you know, Tim Ferriss. I think he's kind of like this too. Tim Ferriss started off selling brain supplements, which is again like an internet marketer type of thing. It comes with a certain package to create a brain supplement company. Then, second to that, he became an author, and now he's extremely zen and into mindfulness, detoxification, and digital detoxing. He moved away from San Francisco, you know, just trying to get away. But usually, when I find people who are gravitating towards things like meditation, stoicism, and microdosing psychedelics, they feel like they're still on the search for that calmness. He felt like he found the calmness, and that was kind of the distinction.

Sam Parr

I think I was envious of him for two reasons: 1. The first was he said that he dropped out of college because he wanted to be a writer, and he *is* a writer. I was incredibly envious that he had found what he loved and he found it very early. 2. ... [second reason implied but not stated] He actually loved [writing, presumably].

Shaan Puri

He said he met his wife when he was 20. They've been dating since they were 20 or something like that, right? This guy fell in love early.

Sam Parr

I was envious of that, and the second thing was... he did a really good job of... maybe not envious, but what I learned was he did a really good job of basically... you know, you and I talk about ideas and all this stuff, and we know a lot of successful people, but at the end of the day, once you get past a relatively low [level], it's about being happy. And he did a really good job of putting that into perspective, you know? Even Rod Deere...

Shaan Puri

Action... I would say, like, you know, it's one thing to say it; we all say it. It's another thing to actually do it. You know, it's like, "Oh, okay, you got this money. You made this money doing this." Are you using that to parlay your fame and whatever into more and more? It's like, "No, I like writing, so I keep writing." Right? And it's like, "Okay, you know, what do you do with your investments? Are you into crypto, trying to hit the next big home run?" I bought a bookshop. It's like, "Oh, shit, this guy's extremely grounded."

Sam Parr

So Rob Dyrdek made one line on our pod that always kind of stuck with me. He's like this happy guy, but then I made a comment like, "Yeah, I didn't know that you're gonna be this big," and he goes: > "Yeah, like I'm on my way to becoming the billionaire I deserve." I thought it was funny that he definitely had a chip on his shoulder, and he was like "more, more, more, more, more," which isn't bad - that's very human. But that was interesting, and I almost felt like Ryan didn't necessarily have that.

Shaan Puri

We have a buddy who texted me yesterday. You don't know him as well, but I think you can mention him. I don't know, maybe I shouldn't say his name because it's a funny, funny quote.

Sam Parr

well say it say it and then say his name then bleep him

Shaan Puri

I guess he'll

Sam Parr

bleep it out

Shaan Puri

He texted me and said, "You know, I just expanded the vision for what I'm doing. This is eventually going to be the next BlackRock, bigger than BlackRock. I think I can be a trillionaire in the next 50 years."

Sam Parr

oh my gosh

Shaan Puri

And I was like, he says it with a straight face. He's not joking, which is, you know, amazing and delusional. And amazing again, right? That's how my brain goes. I'm like, "Wow." Then I'm like, "Wow, that's delusional." Then I'm like, "Well, you know, great. Good for you. That's what gives us..."

Sam Parr

a good insight capable

Shaan Puri

Is he capable of pulling it off? Yeah, like I said this early on. I met him when he was like 19 or 20, and I said, of all the people I've ever met, if I had to bet my life on which one of these people, who today is worth less than $5,000,000, will be a billionaire, I would have put my life on the line for him. He is singularly focused on just that. It's like, you know, Michael Phelps woke up every day and swam for three hours, consumed 18,000 calories, and did that for like 12 years straight without taking a day off. So, when you devote your life singularly to a pursuit, whether it's swimming laps in a pool or becoming a billionaire, that already cuts you away from 99% of the population that wants to be wealthy but also wants to be in a good relationship, have fun with their friends, and go out on the weekends. He cuts out all that. I think it gives him the odds, on top of being a very smart, capable guy. He's already among the high IQ people, and within that, he has an obsession with money that very few people have.

Sam Parr

Let me play devil's advocate, or as my other favorite podcast calls it, "devil's avocado." Let me play devil's avocado here for a second.

Shaan Puri

who says that

Sam Parr

So, Michael Bisping said it at his old... he goes, "Double's, double's avocado." Yeah, so two things. One, I'm reading this book, or I already read it, called *The Sports Gene*. They basically talk about genetics and they're just like, "Look, the closer you live to the equator, the longer your limbs are and the shorter your torso is." That just makes you like 15% better as a runner. What that means is, if your legs are longer... that just means that if we all work the same, the best people who don't have long legs and short torsos, some of them definitely can compete. But you have a 15% edge. When you're talking about gold medals and being the best in the world, that 15% is like a world of difference.

Shaan Puri

of 10ths of seconds some things yeah that helps

Sam Parr

Yeah, they're like that. It's like a giraffe versus a hippo, or something like that. That just matters. So, becoming a billionaire, which is an outlier, I actually think that you can kind of sweat your way to maybe $5 or $10 million in a lifetime. But becoming a billionaire is a huge outlier. I think it takes a particular type of skill. You have to be genetically predisposed to have it in your favor, and I think that matters here. I'm not saying this kid does or does not have it, but I think that it's more important than just training for 12 hours a day. I think that just being gifted genetically is more important than hard work. To be the best, though, you need both. Secondly, I definitely believe in the whole "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" thing, but in order to be, let's just call the threshold $1 billion, in reality, it's probably like $200 million or $100 million. There's so much luck that needs to be involved on a macro level, like which country you are born in. But on a micro level, it could just be like, well, did you just happen to meet...

Shaan Puri

do a do a refresh roommate in college you know

Sam Parr

Yeah, or are you able to stay healthy? Did you not fall in love and meet someone? Right? You know what I mean... There's all these tiny luck things that really matter. Like Jeff Bezos - I think... wasn't he adopted? [It's worth noting that Jeff Bezos was not adopted, but raised by his mother and stepfather]

Shaan Puri

yeah he's adopted

Sam Parr

So, like, that is a big decision, but it's a relatively small decision. It's a yes or no decision that changed everything.

Shaan Puri

totally

Sam Parr

or did you decide to go to princeton versus stanford like it's a you

Shaan Puri

Know what I mean? Bezos would have been successful no matter what. But there's a difference between a guy who made $10 million or $30 million in his lifetime versus someone who became the richest man on earth or the richest man ever to walk the earth, or whatever. You know, like, there was a variance. To me, success itself has very little to do with luck. The magnitude of success, however, has a lot to do with luck. That's why I was saying, you know, I'm creating a funny hypothetical. For people who are not already in a good financial position—let's say under $5 million net worth—they don't have some edge where they're just going to invest their way to success. Of those people who haven't already made it, who would I bet is most likely to make it? Well, I agree with you that if it was the field versus him, I'd take the field. But what am I going to bet on? For example, I think you could say, or like our buddy Jack Smith, I think you could say, you know, Jack is a quirky, curious guy who's actually not obsessed with money at all. He's just really into what he's into, and it's usually off the beaten path. That's going to usually win in a way. And he's super smart, also, right? Like, he's still in the top 1% IQ or whatever. That's going to have a good outcome, I believe that. But you're kind of betting that this guy's luckier, that his magnitude of success is going to have more luck than this guy. I think you can kind of tell who's going to get luckier or who's not, but it's really hard to place it. Like, who would you bet? If I said, "If I had told you that same situation," I don't know if you have a name, but before somebody had a bunch of money, who in your life did you run into that you're like, "Alright, if I had to say who's going to become a billionaire in my life, this is who I would pick?"

Sam Parr

I mean, when I met Moiz Ali, he had sold the company and he probably was worth less than $5,000,000. Immediately, within a few days of meeting him, I thought, "Oh, you're a shark."

Shaan Puri

and what was it yeah shark is a good word what made

Sam Parr

You feel like he was a shark. He had a singular focus. I mean, he was customer-focused, but singular focus. He's like... and really high intensity. Very high intensity, singular focus.

Shaan Puri

uncomfortable intensity I'm uncomfortable when I talk to him

Sam Parr

Yeah, uncomfortable. Also, he was a lawyer from Harvard, so like top of the top of the top. And then his brother is uber successful, so I'm like, "There's no reason why you should screw this up." And so when I met...

Shaan Puri

He has these great one-liners. Moyse said something that was like, "You know, some people were put on Earth to run." You see Usain Bolt, and you say, "That guy was put on Earth to run." You see Michael Phelps, and you look at his body; he was put on Earth to swim. I was put on Earth to do one thing: increase earnings per share.

Sam Parr

He always... One time he told me, "You know, the worst phrase I hate on earth, when I hear it, it makes me cringe and I run the other way: 'blue chip stocks.'" He goes, "You want to talk about words that I love..." What did he call it?

Shaan Puri

distressed assets

Sam Parr

"Distressed asset." That's what he said. He goes, "The two most beautiful words in the English language: distressed assets." And when he said that, I was like, "Oh my God." And then one time...

Shaan Puri

I heard him he's amazing one liners

Sam Parr

One time, I heard him say... we met with this person who has a vitamin company that's doing really well. He was being really cordial and nice, just saying hi. Then, this person walked out of the room, and he looked at me and said, "That person's business is one Google search away from me ruining it." It's like, "That's one Google search away from me copying their company," because he's like, "The formula is nothing." That was the first line that he said. He is really... he's a poet. Alright, I've got an idea. So, Andrew Wilkinson texted me because he's in my STR group. STR stands for short-term rentals, my latest obsession. We'll see if it sticks, but I'm very interested in it.

Shaan Puri

Think to rebrand that. By the way, way too like STD. You know, like does anybody know what an STR is? No? Why don't we just say like...

Sam Parr

holly dorks

Shaan Puri

you know my like real estate or airbnb you know or whatever vacation rentals group

Sam Parr

Dude, here's the truth: I made this group when I was going to the bathroom and I just tweeted it out. You'll notice the picture is just a boot. That's just because I googled something... like, I googled something like this.

Shaan Puri

is a shoe

Sam Parr

Yeah, it's just a shoe. I don't remember, but that picture was available.

Shaan Puri

This goes back to your... You did a [post] a long time ago that people got really upset with you about. You were like, "Don't think about a name" or "Don't buy a domain... a good domain" or something like that. People got really pissy about it, and you were basically saying: > Don't let figuring out the branding and the name hold you back from the thing, which is getting it out there.

Sam Parr

Yeah, so that's what I did. I literally did it when I was going to the bathroom. This was like a two-minute thing, and it just... what's it called? Sam's STR crew? No, I keep wanting to say STD. So, 1,200 or 1,500 people... you know what? I think I could turn this into a newsletter business. I think it could be a really good business, and I'm going to explain why. Have you ever heard of OC Davis, the headphone guy, Daniel OC? No? Okay, so look up Daniel OC. I think he's probably worth $8 or $10 billion. So, OC Davis is like a famous hedge fund. This guy, like, I think that I'm almost positive that when Elon Musk got shorted, this guy was one of the ones who sent him a pair of shorts, if I remember correctly. It's this $1 billion, multi-billion dollar hedge fund—maybe $40 billion. Anyway, it got started because Davis was this guy named Ziff Davis, who started... sorry, his name was Bill Ziff, who started Ziff Davis Publishing Company. Have you heard of Ziff Davis?

Shaan Puri

no

Sam Parr

Okay, so Ziff Davis was basically at this... It's still around. It has a **$5,000,000,000** market cap and does over **$1,000,000,000** in revenue. It's been around since probably the sixties. It got its start because it owned magazines in a ton of different, super specific but high-end industries. For example, they owned the most popular magazines on popular electronics, sailing, and flying. They also owned something called *MacWeek*. They eventually started CES, which was originally called something else and has now become CES.

Shaan Puri

I thought masa san started ces no

Sam Parr

masa san bought it from ziff davis

Shaan Puri

okay

Sam Parr

And so he, like, it was all niche publications and it's still a business. I think I could do something like that for STRs [Short-Term Rentals] where you create an empire based on things that aren't exactly side hustles but have serious money going into them. For example, this industry probably isn't big enough, but I have been [talking to] a bunch of people that have bought like 10 cars just for Turo and...

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

And all that kind of thing. I've also... So that's kind of intriguing to me. I just think that something can be done here. There's this company called The Penny Hoarder, which sold for like $100+ million, and they basically wrote blog posts on this. They drove traffic to it and made money. But anyway, I thought that was interesting. Let me tell you one last thing: have you heard of this website called Speedtest?

Shaan Puri

speedtest like the internet speed test

Sam Parr

yes

Shaan Puri

yeah of course I go to it all the time

Sam Parr

alright that's owned by ziff davis

Shaan Puri

oh no way

Sam Parr

So check this out: on SimilarWeb, it gets 100,000,000 visits a month. If you scroll all the way to the bottom and click a button that says "Advertise," that's what you always want to click for these types of websites. It tells you all about their traffic. According to their website, it says they get 10,000,000 visits a day.

Shaan Puri

bruce giving away the tricks of the trade here on how you get these numbers

Sam Parr

I am... and so it says they get, I think it says 40 or 50 million monthly uniques, but 10 million total visits right now. Go back to that home page, Ben.

Shaan Puri

Well, I've always had AdBlock on, so this is my first time seeing it with ads. Dude, it's like... so there's a button that says "Go" to test your speed, and it's... it's like an army. It's like you're surrounded. There's nowhere to go. You are gonna look at these ads. There's a Mailchimp ad up top and on the right, and on the bottom and on the left there's a UFC ad.

Sam Parr

So, look at this. That's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ads right there. I don't know what the current CPM is on Google, but let's just say that all of those, because this is a relatively high-end potential market, let's say that's $15 per CPM. It could be $10, but I bet you it's between $10 and $15. On 10,000,000 visits a day, that's $50,000,000 a year just from these ads. Also, go to the top right, Ben, and click where it says "Developers." They also sell all these solutions, so you can test the internet speed. I actually don't know why anyone would use this. There's a world where this is a $200,000,000 a year business just from this simple webpage.

Shaan Puri

that's wild and then there's also I think who who came out with a competitor I think netflix did or somebody

Sam Parr

speed.com or fat yeah

Shaan Puri

yeah yeah somebody came out with that as well but I think this one's like pretty entrenched

Sam Parr

It's... I looked up... There are some websites, they're called... I forget what they're called, but Ben, if you Google "speedtest.net" or whatever the URL is, and then the word "revenue," there are all these websites that tell you how much your traffic is worth. They're not really that interesting, but they kind of are. This one, it says... $1 billion. It says this URL is worth $1 billion by the...

Shaan Puri

Do you have a mobile version of Speedtest? Is there an app that you can just open up and it tells you how fast your internet is right now?

Sam Parr

and

Shaan Puri

like with the ios widget you can just

Sam Parr

"Leave that open all the time." Great question! So, in order to get all this information, I went and read a lot of Ziff Davis' annual reports. They just acquired a company that they want to integrate into this company that does that for mobile. So they're working on it, but clearly there's opportunity here.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, that's funny. The thing with Speedtest is that they get free customers. Anytime somebody calls their internet provider, like Comcast, they're often told, "Hey, can you go run a speed test? Go to Speedtest," and they send you the link. So, it's like every troubleshooting IT person sends you this link, which means they're not paying for customers; they get them for free that way. It's interesting. But you kind of said two things. So, Ziff is interesting, but then you were saying, "What can I do with STR?" There are kind of three paths: 1. **Default**: Do nothing. 2. **Path 2**: Keep this Facebook group and actually do the short-term rental, which would be like the equivalent of the Alex Hormozi guy building out more gyms. You can actually make a lot of money if you just focus on short-term rentals and put your energy there. 3. **Path 3**: You could put your energy towards building the community and content around people who are interested in short-term rentals. There's clearly an appetite; your group has about 1,000 members, and there's super valuable, interesting content being shared there. So, there's clearly value in either a paid community or a paid newsletter plus a paid community or something like that. How do you think about which one is a good thing to do?

Sam Parr

Well, I might do the first one, which is to do nothing. I didn't create this to build a business; I did it just because people were reaching out to me. I didn't want to talk to everyone, and I needed a way to communicate. But if I want to, maybe I will, and maybe if I never want to, I won't. I think the way to go about this is to do one of two things. I would create either a weekly or a biweekly newsletter that explains the news impacting this business and regulations. Followed by that, I would do what you do, which is take the five most interesting tweets from the week of STRs (short-term rentals) and explain my opinion on them. I would do that, and I would also create a paid tool. So, I would create the best sheet. Whenever you look at these properties, you create a sheet where you input your data.

Shaan Puri

in yeah

Sam Parr

Yeah, and then it would say, "Look, a lot of people are currently getting a 20% cash-on-cash return." So if you're above that, do it; if you're below, don't. Here's how your math should look. I think you could create something like that and sell it for maybe $300 to $500 a year. Then, if you wanted to, you could do a higher-end option for $10,000 for people who already have 3 or 4 Airbnbs. You would talk to all the experts who have scaled this up successfully to like 10 or 20 units and done it relatively hands-off. I think you could charge $2,000 to $5,000 for that.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I think there's a ton of options. So, I think you've stumbled into a very cool niche that you're genuinely interested in. I think it'll play out how it plays out, and I don't know.

Sam Parr

it's cool right

Shaan Puri

It's very cool. Yeah, it's one of the more interesting little things that I've kind of seen one of our friends doing recently.

Sam Parr

yeah I think it's intriguing

Shaan Puri

I have two silly ideas for you. Silly idea number one: I was looking at... remember the guy from Liquid Death? He came on, and I don't know when that was—maybe like a year ago or less than a year ago.

Sam Parr

no I think it was like 2 years ago and and because I I I I was

Shaan Puri

doing this thing 2 years

Sam Parr

Well, you're right, but I still had an office. We closed the office a while ago, but he... and we were... I thought we were late. He had raised like 20 or $30 million. I think the other day he raised like $100 million or something crazy.

Shaan Puri

So, it's just continued to do super well. I've seen a bunch of different water beverage companies. By the way, did you see this funny thing that happened? This is kind of a tangent. Did you see this? Austin Reif, the guy from Morning Brew, tweeted out, "Hey, you know the Rock is going to become a billionaire off of his tequila." Did you see this tweet?

Sam Parr

yeah and then the rock replied

Shaan Puri

So, I'll explain it. Yeah, so he goes, "The Rock's gonna become a billionaire from this tequila." And he goes, "You know, Ryan... oh, who is it? Oh no, George Clooney. George Clooney's Casamigos was sold for $1,200,000,000 and was doing like 170,000 cases. The Rock is already doing like... whatever, I don't know, it was like 3 and a half times that." So, you know, The Rock's doing whatever... no public math, X times more cases. He's gonna become a billionaire off this business. And The Rock replies, which is kind of amazing because The Rock is one of the most famous people on social media, like in the world. So, pull that tweet up. By the way, this Ben screen sharing thing, in the words of Sam Parr, can you say "game changer"? So, make that a little bigger. We need a name, you know, like "Powerful Young Jamie." We need, you know, like "Powerful Mormon Ben." We need some killer nickname for you. Could you just make the font bigger so I could see it? Alright, there we go. So, he gets... so Dwayne Johnson replies and says the following. Let's scroll that down. Wait for it... "Okay, cheers, Austin," [emoji of a tequila glass]. "I don't know about that first line, lol, but I can speak to the other parts of this tweet." [blushing smiley face] Like, The Rock is flirting with him. And he goes, "Our projections to 1,000,000 cases is pretty mind-boggling and expedient." Which I just like... when he said "expedient," I thought it was so funny. I was like, "Yeah, I know."

Sam Parr

he's right like

Shaan Puri

A weirdo from left field goes, "Big exciting Terramana announcement coming next week! Stay tuned!" [He included] a picture emoji of the Earth and a fist pound emoji, which I don't know if that's the symbol of Terramana.

Sam Parr

that's a weird

Shaan Puri

but that's a weird

Sam Parr

reply but that's cool

Shaan Puri

so funny to me like I lost it

Sam Parr

wait what what were you even talking about in the first place

Shaan Puri

anyways okay so I'm talking about

Sam Parr

beverage fans wait let me tell you really quick

Shaan Puri

yeah

Sam Parr

Austin texted me and he goes, "Hey, some kid that we just hired at the Morning Brew said he listened to your podcast." And he said... because Austin asked this new guy, "Alright, now who else should we hire?" and the kid goes, "Well, I just..."

Shaan Puri

in their employee onboarding they they say we just hired you who else should we hire which is like a ridiculous

Sam Parr

A guy raises... Yeah, and this kid raises his hand. He goes, "I listened to this podcast with this guy named Sam Parr. I don't know what he does for work. We should hire him!" He goes, "Like, he seemed like a pretty good podcast host. Maybe we should hire him."

Shaan Puri

yeah

Sam Parr

And just the other day, Sean got an offer to be, or like, asked to interview for the Head of Digital for Playboy Enterprises. I'm getting offers at Morning Brew too...

Shaan Puri

be a staff writer

Sam Parr

"Yeah, to be a... They want me to be a junior associate writer at Morning Brew, or I could become a head... Comes out on top." What's your reaction to the job offer? What do you...?

Shaan Puri

think about that you know like I I'll have to talk to my family we'll have to talk to

Sam Parr

my family at all to see what we can do I'm excited to announce my next chapter

Shaan Puri

That's so funny! By the way, at one point, I remember when I was running my startup. This was one of my thoughts: I thought this was fair game. All is fair in love and business. But I think other people would think this is completely unethical. I told people on my team, "Oh yeah, you should go interview or maybe even just... go work at one of these companies. You know, while we're building this thing for the next three months, go find out some information about these other companies that are not our direct competitors. But if I knew information, it would be quite valuable to me." I remember, to me, I literally didn't even think twice about it, which is maybe where my moral compass is broken. Half of my team was like, "Oh, great idea!" and one person was like, "You know, I don't know if that's the best idea." I was like, "What? Why? What did I say?" Then I realized, "Oh yeah, I guess that could be seen as kind of... you know, dirty, I guess." So I was like, "Oh, whoops, my bad. Never mind. If I ask you to do anything that is considered bad, cancel the plan."

Sam Parr

The other tactic is you just try to recruit the other people's team, not intending to hire them for a particular role. And you say like, "Super high salary!" Yeah, yeah. And they're like, "Well, why would you consider leaving this company?" "Oh, you don't like how it's run? What don't you like about it?"

Shaan Puri

right I definitely talked to ex employees so I've done this twice I found somebody who worked at a place before I'll call them up and usually like somebody who's like you know left the company they don't really mind sharing they're not sharing like confidential information but like they'll tell you like you know we thought initially we thought about things this way but then we learned this it's like I I saved I remember once I just pivoted my business because we were gonna do this one thing and then I talked to this guy and actually it's funny because this actually played out I was building a thing that was getting really popular amongst teens doing group facetime so this is before the iphone let you do groups and and so it was like we kinda started to grow really fast amongst teenagers and I was like how has nobody thought of this before there's not like a new idea just like instead of facetime group facetime and so I went back and I talked to the I forgot who it was like there's some app that like had blown up 7 8 years before that before house party so we did this and house party was just starting to do the same thing and I went and talked to somebody from like voxel or I forgot what it's called there's like some app like that that like had done this before and they had gotten pretty far like they had raised like tens of 1,000,000 of dollars they had 1,000,000 of users they were like sponsoring concerts that like teens were going to and be like oh download our app and then group facetime yeah group facetime when you go home and like it was like the thing and it like didn't work so I'd asked the guy I was like hey I'm kind of building group facetime now like what went wrong for you guys and he's like buddy let me tell you here here's how your future is gonna play out and he basically described kinda like word for word a bunch of things and I was I was like so in my head I was thinking it's good input it's good feedback good like real world data do I in my mind do I have a compelling counterargument to why my fate is gonna be different than this person's fate and I did not and so I was like yeah I think the things he's saying I have really no like I think basically his like main thing was it'll grow but it won't stick and you'll never make money and it won't you know

Sam Parr

which was like the whole whole. Of the clubhouse thing

Shaan Puri

Yeah, which is very similar to what ended up happening with Clubhouse before Houseparty. So, the guys who created Meerkat pivoted to Houseparty. Houseparty blew up, and VCs are funding it with tens of millions of dollars, doing group FaceTime. I remember telling one of the VCs who invested, "Hey, here's why we pivoted away from this just a couple of months ago, even though we kind of had similar explosive growth." I saw some problems with churn, and I couldn't think of what I would do to mitigate it. Then I talked to this guy, and he was like, "Yeah, here's the problem. They'll come home from school." He said, "There's a sweet spot in age where they have friends but they don't have a car. So they come home, and they're like trapped. They just want a group. They'll just go home, go to their room, and they'll just call their friend for like six hours straight." He said, "Let me guess, dude. In your data, you're seeing six-hour sessions?" I was like, "Yeah, we are." He said, "Yeah, cool. That's normal." I was like, "Oh, I thought we were special." He said, "No, that's exactly how they'll use this. Then they get a car, and when they go to college, their freshman year, they'll use this a ton with their friends from high school. Then they'll never use it again because they stop talking to their friends from high school. In college, their friends are all around them, so they don't need group FaceTime. Then they become adults, and they never need group FaceTime." He said, "So this is a good thing."

Sam Parr

do with the why do these get funded then

Shaan Puri

Because you see the chart, you see growth. Like we were saying, you see 6-hour sessions and you ask, "Is this the next big social network? Maybe this is the next Snapchat or TikTok." So you bet, and sure enough, Houseparty sold for not a lot to Fortnite, basically, in the end, as a team and technology acquisition. That never saw the light of day again; it didn't work out. But, you know, I think other people should do what I did, which was talk to past competitors. They're always going to be jaded, so they're never going to say, "This will work," because their stuff didn't work. They think they're smart, but when you hear their argument for what went wrong, you should ask yourself: "Does that match my data and experiences?" Then, secondly, "Do I think anything has changed? Is the 'why now' any different?" In my case, it was not.

Sam Parr

Damn, that's crazy, man. We gotta... when I see some of these things get invested, I also get intoxicated into them as well. I'm like, "Oh wait, this is not gonna work." Yeah, and consumer [products] is just so hard.

Shaan Puri

Honestly, it's still a fine bet. Somebody was saying this when I did that Clubhouse thing, and a bunch of people were like, "Oh, I think that's true. I think that's how it's gonna play out." A couple of smart people pointed out that these guys invested, I think, like $100 million. I think Andreessen invested $100 million at a $4 billion valuation for Clubhouse at its peak. Since then, the chart just shows it going down, down, down. But they're like, you know, their fund is this big, so this is not a major risk. It's not like they're betting the house on this. Their normal size bet is just a big number to you. Secondly, it's a pretty binary option. This is either gonna go big, and this price is gonna look cheap, or it's gonna go to zero. If it goes down, they're gonna be able to sell this for something, and they have preference. So they're gonna make back, you know, if this thing sells for $50 million eventually to Twitter or whoever, they're gonna get the whole $50 million because they get the money first. So, you know, on the whole, it's not that bad of a bet, even if it doesn't work out. And if it does work out, you know, you're a genius, and great, everything worked out great.

Sam Parr

so yeah I do it was whatever what what what okay

Shaan Puri

I was gonna tell you an idea

Sam Parr

yeah well you were talking

Shaan Puri

About my ideas for a beverage company. Okay, so I was thinking about it and I was like, "Damn, everybody's done every variation of this." That's like bottled water, boxed water, Liquid Death, and there's water in a can that looks like a beer shake.

Sam Parr

logan paul has one

Shaan Puri

There's vitamin water, there's non-vitamin water, there's flavored water, there's sparkling water, and then there's like 10 of each of these, right? I was like, "What haven't people done? What's the...?" So I came up with this brand, and this is free for anybody to run with. Just... what's it?

Sam Parr

like hot dog water

Shaan Puri

Boys in... cuts your boys in. If you do this, I'm calling it "Felix Felicius," which is... I don't know if you've ever read Harry Potter, but it's basically this potion that Harry gets. He wins this thing, and the professor gives him this potion. It's like, you get one drop of this, and it's going to give you great luck for one day. For 24 hours, everything's going to go your way. The potion was called "Felix Felicius" or something like that. I don't know how you say it, but in my head, when I was reading it, I called it "Felix Felicius." So we're going to go with that. Basically, it's good luck water.

Sam Parr

felix felicious and it's like you're one lucky cat

Shaan Puri

I don't know... I bet I'm just butchering the pronunciation, and I don't know what it is, but what a great slogan that you just came up with as we build this brand in public here. Yeah, it looks delicious. You're one lucky cat! The brand is basically water that's infused with things that give you good luck. I don't know what that is; it might just be good vibes. It might be like some crystal, like you know that Goldschläger liquor? There are like some flakes at the bottom that are your little good luck charms. This comes from, you know, the Himalayas. It comes from whatever the luckiest place on Earth is. I don't know what that is; we'll find out. That's the idea. It's just placebo water, and it's openly placebo water. But you know what? I like when I feel like I have a little good luck charm at the start of my day. I like the idea that, hey, you know, I got that big test today. From what am I gonna go grab? Vitamin water or lucky water? I'm gonna go grab the lucky water just in case!

Sam Parr

This looks real. I've heard a lot of ideas on this podcast, and that is definitely one of them. That's what I would say about that.

Shaan Puri

okay my second silly idea

Shaan Puri

my second silly idea is

Shaan Puri

Again, another great name: it's called **Gallimony**. What's Gallimony, you ask? Gallimony is alimony for your girlfriend. So here's the deal: let's say you're a girl dating a guy who's super into crypto. He keeps talking to you about Ethereum, Bitcoin, Zcash, and the next big thing. He keeps telling you that Web 3 is the future, and you know, smart contracts, and that the dollar's gonna crash. He never needs to talk to a lawyer again because of smart contracts. You say, "Oh, that's cool! Actually, I have a great smart contract idea for us." And he's like, "Oh, I'm so glad you're finally getting into Web 3! This is the future." You're like, "Yeah, yeah, it's the future for sure. Hey, why don't you just use your MetaMask to log in to Gallimony?" What you do is put up 1 ETH, and if we break up, I get half. It's basically a divorce for non-married couples where the boyfriend is obsessed with Web 3, and you're the girlfriend thinking, "How do I profit off of this guy's annoying obsession with Web 3?"

Sam Parr

that's actually good dalamoni that's good

Shaan Puri

A smart contract that would go viral. You both lock up your ETH, or maybe he locks up your ETH. He locks up the ETH, and actually, here's... okay, let me make it better. Let me just riff with myself here; this is a one-man brainstorm. He puts in the ETH. The ETH is never at risk. Because, you know, maybe he's like, "Why would I take this deal?" He's like, "The ETH is never at risk, my friend. If we break up, you'll always get your ETH back." But while we're dating, this is going to be automatically yield farming interest, and I get to keep the interest on this thing because I'm putting in this time dating your schmuck ass who's going to be obsessed with Web 3. So, put a little collateral up. It's going to be farming. We get to have a Web 3 experience. This is the future, am I right? That's what I would be doing if I was dating.

Sam Parr

web 3 bro so so how does she get paid she like puts a button says we

Shaan Puri

We broke up. Actually, maybe it's tied to your Instagram account. I don't know. Maybe both sides have to confirm that you're broken up.

Sam Parr

yeah but why would I ever confirm that

Shaan Puri

I was like, "Oh, you start dating the next girl, I'm just gonna send her this link that says he signed in with a cryptographic signature that only he could do with his private keys, saying we are not broken up." So, you know, you kinda need that proof of relationship to be accurate. Otherwise, you're leaving a little liability out there by saying with the utmost truth that you are in a relationship. So he's gonna have to be true.

Sam Parr

have you heard young kids what they say now is receipt

Shaan Puri

yeah these are receipts

Sam Parr

Yeah, like, show me the receipt. That's what we're talking about here. I just learned that from that TV show you just discovered for everyone else called *Cheer*.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, you know, I'm just like... I basically go to these indie festivals, just finding these hidden jams. Like, cheer!

Sam Parr

yeah so gallimoney I'm on board with I think that's cool that is a viral idea

Shaan Puri

Ben, young, powerful Mormon. Ben, can you come out here and tell us? Give me your rankings from 1 to 10, with 10 being "I'm quitting my job and starting this," and 1 being "I can't believe you just said that idea." Give me Felix Felicis, where you're at.

Sam Parr

I'm honestly at like a 9 or 10

Shaan Puri

thank you thank you you you

Sam Parr

You threw out the term, though. You just kind of threw away "placebo water," which I also think is like a separate brand, maybe for science nerds. But same idea, and the tagline is like, "At least we admit we're full of shit."

Shaan Puri

No, no, it's... it's actually placebo. Water is actually part of the category. I'm a category creator in addition to being an entrepreneur, designer, and fashionista. So the category here, it's like plant-based, but it'll just be called **placebo-based beverages**. These are placebo-based beverages, of which we have launched the first one.

Sam Parr

Okay, and what about "I'm on board and galamoni"? That one's not quite there, not quite to the level of Felix Felicis. I'm gonna say that's more like a... 6. There's something there, but you need to develop it a little bit more.

Shaan Puri

okay

Sam Parr

I don't know anything less than an 8 is a 0 by the way

Shaan Puri

feedback is a gift so I I thank you for the gift ben

Sam Parr

Can I tell you about one thing really quick that I just discovered? Have you heard of the Twitter handle **Elon Jett**?

Shaan Puri

elon jet no what is that

Sam Parr

dude there's this young kid who created

Shaan Puri

is he just basically elon's jet is that the guess

Sam Parr

Who just tracks Elon's jet? As of now, he's near where our friend Jack lives in Hawaii.

Shaan Puri

that's so funny

Sam Parr

and so basically when you have a jack

Shaan Puri

followers does this have 83,000

Sam Parr

and so it's a 20 minutes

Shaan Puri

To the poor guy who's trying to produce high-quality content every day and is grinding to like 12,000 followers, and then Elon's jet just zips to 83,000 followers overnight.

Sam Parr

It says something like: > Alright, took off from Kailua, Hawaii. Now going to Austin, Texas. Arriving in 6 hours and 17 minutes. Landed in Austin, Texas. Approximate time: 6 hours and 21 minutes. It's pretty wild, I think.

Shaan Puri

This... I mean, you're not a big sports guy, like a mainstream sports guy, but this became a big deal every year for NBA free agency. So basically, you know, Kawhi Leonard becomes a free agent. He just won the finals; he's the Finals MVP. He's like the hottest free agent, and nobody knows where he's going to sign. All the reporters were trying to work their sources, but their sources are basically teams leaking information that makes them look good, and the agent leaking information that is just like a negotiation in public against other teams. And Reddit actually solved the case. They're like, "Hey, we can just track Kawhi's jet." Oh look, he's going to LA. I bet he signs with the Clippers. And sure enough, he signed with the Clippers. Like, wait...

Sam Parr

what type of jet did he have like why so I I I well how does jet registration work

Shaan Puri

So, they could track basically any private flight. Private flights have to go through air traffic control. That's how these guys do all the stuff.

Sam Parr

so so they they have the so what they do is they just passenger

Shaan Puri

They just figure out once what they don't know. You don't know who's the passenger, but you figure out whose jet it is. For example, this is Elon's jet. What they were tracking for Reddit, I think, was the owner's jet. So they knew which owners and which teams were going to pitch him. It would be like, "Oh, a flight from Miami to Toronto just left. That's the Miami Heat owner's jet." So that's them going and pitching their case. Oh, they got a second meeting, so that means they're doing better than the Knicks, who didn't get a second meeting. They were tracking that. I forgot how, but I think what it was, was like someone had let them know. Basically, they know who the billionaires' jets are, and you can't shake that. Once that's tagged, it's tagged. From there, they knew. Somebody was like letting him use their jet. It wasn't Kawhi's jet, but something like that was going on where a rich guy was letting Kawhi use his jet for these purposes. So they knew before the professional journalists did where he was going to sign.

Sam Parr

This is badass! I've never heard about this. This is awesome. I knew that jet tracking was like that, but I didn't realize it was that good—that you could track basketball trades.

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

it's really scary it's kinda muffled

Shaan Puri

you shouldn't be able to do this

Sam Parr

Dude, what's crazy is my head automatically goes to like crazy stuff, like JFK shit. Like, yeah, I'm like, "Oh, I could go kill Elon."

Shaan Puri

yeah some kidnap or something like yeah

Sam Parr

like like just with a with a good enough shot you know I got this

Shaan Puri

Right, he needs Harrison Ford flying with him, Air Force One style. If we're going to put Elon on a jet, he needs to get off.

Sam Parr

my plane

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly! That was pretty good. Wow, I'm impressed. Alright, we're at the top of the hour. I think you got to jet, so we'll track where you go on Jetpacker.

Sam Parr

yeah right

Shaan Puri

yeah can someone make one of these for us and just leave it like yeah

Sam Parr

like I have one for southwest

Shaan Puri

Yeah, just put my... I'll send you my Southwest Anytime flight details. I'll just give it to you, and you can just post it.

Sam Parr

yeah this hertz car rental like like they put an air tag in my ford taurus

Shaan Puri

yeah sean's still in the burbs he went to the bar for his kid

Sam Parr

still there

Shaan Puri

hasn't left

Sam Parr

Oh, Chick-fil-A! Oh my God, this is so stupid. Alright, we're done.