He launched a sweaty startup in high school. Now he'll be a millionaire by 18

Shaan Puri

Today, we're trying something new. We have three high school students—ninth graders, tenth graders, and eleventh graders—who are all running their own businesses while they're in school. And not just like, "Oh, here's my idea." These guys have real revenue—tens of thousands of dollars in profit that they're making as, I don't know, 14-year-olds. It's crazy! So, we invited them in and we're doing office hours with them. They bring us their biggest problem, and we try to help them solve it in about ten minutes. Whether you're a high school or college student, or you're just running your own business, I think there's going to be something in this for everybody. There's a beauty in these kids who say, "I just don't know anything," but they're crushing it.

Sam Parr

Yeah, there are a lot of people who listen to this podcast that want to start something, and they overthink it. There's a beauty to being ignorant, and these kids are ignorant. Because of that, they create amazing stuff. I think that you should steal that attitude.

Shaan Puri

Alright, we're doing something fun today! We have high school students who have existing businesses. They're running businesses, making a lot of revenue, and they're here for office hours. This is all part of our buddy Anand, who's here with us. He's running this new initiative called the **Formidable Fellows**. I think, Anand, this is like a precursor. You want to launch a school someday—a new school for entrepreneurship—and this is kind of your MVP, is that right? You started giving out grants to middle and high school students.

Anand Sanwal

Yeah, so we're building a national network of schools for entrepreneurship. It takes a while to build physical schools, so my friend Raj and I started something called the **Formidable Fellowship**. We kind of think that Gen Z is probably going to be the most entrepreneurial generation. We saw a lot of them out there, so we started a nonprofit with $500,000. We're giving $1,000 grants to middle and high school entrepreneurs. We just had our first class with 23 grantees. You'll meet three of the great ones today. Along the way, other awesome entrepreneurs like Dharmesh from HubSpot, Sean Griffey from Industry Dive, and a bunch of other folks have been contributors. So now we've got even more capital to give out to these young entrepreneurs.

Sam Parr

This is like your second mountain. So basically, you started a company called CB Insights that is in the range of a hundred million dollars in revenue or something like that. Now, is this like your... this is what you do after you've made a bunch of money and you want to impact the world positively, besides creating, you know, business intelligence tools?

Anand Sanwal

Yeah, it's the second... it's the second mountain. I think that's a good way of putting it, right? I think if you could build a system that increases human potential, like, that's a pretty tremendous thing to do. I believe we can do it in a way that will make money and eventually rival the public school system. That's our goal.

Shaan Puri

Alright, well, $500,000. How did you find these kids? Did they reach out to you, or did you reach out to them? How did you find all these founders?

Anand Sanwal

Yeah, we reached out to a lot of entrepreneurship teachers at schools. That was, I think, primarily the way. A little bit of social media, some parents who found us on Twitter and LinkedIn. But yeah, I think a lot of them just, you know, word-of-mouth. So, we got a few hundred applicants the first go-around. You know, qualifications were that you had to have revenue, so that was kind of a hard filter. There were a lot of folks who have sort of a dream or are starting something to burnish a college application, and we didn't want that. We wanted people who were actually building. So, yeah, we narrowed it down pretty quickly and found some of them.

Shaan Puri

The stuff about revenue in middle school or high school... I barely had facial hair.

Sam Parr

Yeah, it's pretty insane. When I was a kid in grade school, it was like, "Make a business plan and fake present it to a board of directors." You think that like, you know what I mean? "Dear board of directors," and it was nonsense. I'm seeing their bios, and this is so much more interesting than what we were doing. What were you doing? I mean, at 14, I don't even think I knew what that word "entrepreneur" meant.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I definitely didn't. My business plan was like mac and cheese, but with double the cheese. That was that.

Sam Parr

Was the whole thing alright? So, I have this notebook here, and the reason I have it is that I take notes whenever we have a guest. Not because it's my job as a podcast host, but because a lot of times what the guests are talking about is just so interesting to me as a human. I just want to go and implement it in my business or my life. The person I took the most notes for was Jesse Itzler. If you haven't heard that podcast, it's the best. Like, it legitimately changed my life. So, I thought, let's share our notes. With the help of the team at HubSpot, we went and took all of the notes from that episode and turned it into a 10-page document you can download for free. That episode changed my life, and I think it might change yours. So, check it out! The link is below in the description. Again, notes with Jesse Itzler down below.

Shaan Puri

Alright, so we're going to do this. We're going to see what we got. They're calling in literally from school, by the way, which is hilarious. Someone came on and the lunch bell for recess came on or something. That was amazing! Alright, so let's try this out. Let's go, Lincoln.

Lincoln Snyder

Alright, my name is **Lincoln Snyder**. I'm a senior at **Lake Dallas High School**. My business is **Sunshine Exteriors**. We clean windows, gutters, power wash, do fence staining, and holiday lighting. We're located in **Denton, Texas**. The main goal is to help homeowners protect their investment. Obviously, I'd like to have a clean home year-round. My business is two years old. Last year, we did **$60,000** in revenue at about just above **50%** margin.

Shaan Puri

Hold on, pause real quick. Sam, you know why he's good? Did you hear what he did there? That was some sophisticated, high-level stuff he just did. He goes, he's talking about cleaning gutters, and he says, "We help homeowners protect their investment." He didn't say, "We clean your gutters." What's the biggest investment in your life? Your home. Wouldn't you want to protect it? Wow, Lincoln, I'm already impressed. Continue.

Lincoln Snyder

Yeah, so last year we did $60,000 at just above 50% margins. This year, I plan to grow by 50% to $150,000.

Sam Parr

So, you made $30,000 as a junior in high school? Is that about right?

Lincoln Snyder

I was a senior. It was this year.

Sam Parr

This year, okay.

Lincoln Snyder

Well, but yeah, last 2021.

Sam Parr

Year... yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, wow. Alright, that's wild.

Shaan Puri

Just to recap: you go to homeowners, you'll power wash, you'll clean their gutters, you'll clean the windows, you'll put up Christmas lights—whatever you gotta do. Home services. You did $60,000 last year as a high school senior, and you think you're going to do $150,000 this year. That's the subject.

Lincoln Snyder

Correct.

Shaan Puri

Alright.

Lincoln Snyder

Yes, and then it's me. I have two 1099 subcontractor employees. Right now, I'm completely off the field, which means that they're doing all the jobs. I'm the one in charge of booking, scheduling, and finding the clients.

Shaan Puri

And how do you do that, Lincoln? How do you get customers?

Lincoln Snyder

So, the primary acquisition source right now is Nextdoor. It's a neighbor platform with surrounding communities, and you can kind of close them.

Sam Parr

We complain about stuff all the time on Nextdoor. No need to explain.

Lincoln Snyder

Yeah, so I kind of go on there. My angle is I'm a local high school student. I own a window cleaning and pressure washing business. We do those services. If you'd like a free estimate, check out our website. We'd be happy to give you a quote.

Shaan Puri

And Lincoln, how do you do that? Because my understanding is you can't post on Nextdoor unless you've been verified as having an address or you got a postcard that shows you live in the neighborhood. They don't want people from outside the neighborhood messaging. How do you do that? Is that a new feature or am I just out of the loop?

Lincoln Snyder

So, I post in just my neighborhood. I guess in that area, I am confined to my neighborhood on that app. But it's been enough homes to keep me busy. I think we got maybe 90 customers last year off Nextdoor, just between March and...

Sam Parr

September. If you're listening to how many people have we had on this pod saying, "I don't have an idea," "I don't have this," "this doesn't scale," all this bullshit. He's 18 years old and he made $30, and it was from posting on Nextdoor in his neighborhood only.

Shaan Puri

In his own personal neighborhood... yeah, that's insane.

Sam Parr

That's, and by the way, how did you hear about... you know, Anand is a tech guy in New York City. How does someone in Texas who does power washing hear about this internet stuff?

Lincoln Snyder

Like, what's he doing? So, there is a teacher who's a part of a teacher blog. I'm not well known, but some of the people at my school know that I own my own business and do kind of power washing, window cleaning, things like that. She told me about it, and then I submitted my application.

Shaan Puri

Wow, this is cool, dude! Okay, so what's your question, Ryan, before I start brainstorming? Because I'm fired up!

Lincoln Snyder

Alright, so it's a pretty deep question. I'm trying to figure out how to reliably acquire customers through paid advertising. My current struggle is advertising on a small budget and not having the skills. My question for you guys is: should I pay to acquire those skills through paid courses? So far, what I've been doing is kind of trying to learn on YouTube. I don't think that it's in-depth enough to learn fully, so I think that I might get more out of paid courses and content seminars, whatever that might be. Or do you think it would be smarter if I just allocate a semi-large budget to paid advertising and learn the skill on my own, kind of having to figure it out as I go?

Shaan Puri

Alright, I got a bunch of opinions. Sam, do you want to go first, or do you want me to go?

Sam Parr

I have a bunch of opinions. I think yes to all, basically. I don't know what your definition of a large budget is, but the best way to learn is to do it. A lot of people will criticize online courses, but I think that's nonsense. Most of what I've learned in this internet world has come from buying an online course. I bought a copywriting course that changed my life. I would suggest you do that. I don't know what the course offerings are, but if there's a local services paid marketing course, 100% do it. I don't know what a lot of money is for you, but if you have to spend up to $2,000, as long as it has good reviews, do it.

Shaan Puri

By the way, I think if you emailed anybody who runs that course and said, "Hey, I'm 18 years old. I badly want to learn this, but I don't have the cash to put that up," or "I'm willing to pay it kind of next year using the profits from this, and I'll be your best testimonial for you," I think you could get those courses for free out of goodwill. So, I wouldn't even let cost be a barrier. But like Sam said, I think learning is an attack on all fronts. You've done the right thing; you figured out what to learn. If you're committed to being obsessed with it, then it's do it yourself, watch free YouTube stuff, do a paid course of some kind, buy a book, whatever. The last thing you didn't mention that I would do is what helped me when I went into e-commerce. Five years ago, I had never done an e-commerce physical brand before, and I had never done paid ads before. Fast forward to now, I probably run $4 to $5 million of paid ads and have gotten pretty good at it. So, what was the learning curve? One thing that really helped me was instead of just going straight to a course, I started doing it myself. This way, I had my bearings and knew what I didn't know on a very low-scale budget. Then, I found somebody who was already winning with that method. I found either a friend or someone nearby and said, "Hey, I really think what you're doing is great. I'm young, and I want to learn." I basically went and asked, "Can I come by for the day? I just want to ask you a couple of questions about paid ads." They would say, "Yeah, sure, come over." Then, you come over, and you end up opening up their Facebook ad account with them. You start asking them questions. If you do it right and if you're an earnest, genuine person—you're likable, like it seems you are—you'll find somebody who will also give you that kind of real-world, real-time mentorship. They'll tell you the ins and outs, and they'll also say, "Oh, your ad account got shut down? Email this guy," or "Hey, that's normal; here's what happens." They'll tell you stuff that you can't find just generically on the internet. So, I would also do that. It's a war on all fronts when it comes to learning. You should be doing all of them, and then focus more on the ones that are giving you a more rapid rate of learning as you go. You'll figure out what works for you.

Sam Parr

I would also suggest... So, I'm looking at Nextdoor. Nextdoor is not a big company; if I had to guess, they have a thousand employees or less. I would Google "Nextdoor account manager," or I would go to the top. I'd Google "Nextdoor CMO" or "Nextdoor Director of Marketing," something like VP or above. I would email them and explain, "This is what I did. I just built a business that is about to do six figures as a senior in high school. I'm going to advertise on Nextdoor. Do you have any type of first-time customer credits?" I would bet a lot of money that they will give you $1,000 to $2,000 in ad credits on Nextdoor to learn their platform. Then, I would do the same thing for... what's the other one, Sean? The guy who started Athena started Thumbtack.

Shaan Puri

I would do.

Sam Parr

The same. I would do Nextdoor and Thumbtack. I would email as high a person as you can in marketing, probably starting with the CMO.

Shaan Puri

You run Nextdoor ads.

Lincoln Snyder

Yeah, so that was kind of part of my question. What I did last year for Christmas light installation was run ads. Oh, you do that too? I do! If you need Christmas lights, hey, I could fly out if the price works out. But yeah, I ran the ads and they did extremely well. It's almost frustrating to see that it worked, and now I can't get it working again. I think that's kind of how paid ads work; they don't work for a while, but when they do work, it explodes.

Shaan Puri

Paid ads... it's just a constant game of cat and mouse. It's constant iteration, constantly trying things. It goes up and then goes down, and that is completely normal for paid ads. But you just have to zoom out and say, "Wow, this is a magic money machine! I'm putting in a dollar and I'm getting three back out every day. This is incredible! How do I do more of that?" And so, that's totally normal. Yeah, I think Sam's idea of reaching out to their marketing team and finding their account rep is great. You could say, "Hey, I'm a kid. I got this great story. I want to learn this. Where do I learn from? Who's the smartest at this? How can you help me? Do you guys have ad credits available? I would love to be a testimonial for it." Same sort of thing again: use your assets to try to make it happen. If you need help, by the way, I think I know people at Nextdoor that I might be able to connect you with. So, okay, so that's by the...

Sam Parr

Way, hold on! But before we move on from that, don't do what we're saying first. The first thing you should do is type out a letter and print 1,000 copies on your printer at home. You want to make this look **not professional**. I don't want this to be professional; I want it to be a typed letter from you that's shocking.

Shaan Puri

A paper-clipped photo of you, like on the thing, or like not a...

Sam Parr

Act like a senior in high school... a mature senior in high school. Print it out, fold it up, put it in an envelope, and go put that in a thousand homes.

Shaan Puri

And I want you to Google the "Gary Halpert Dollar Letter." There's a famous copywriter, Gary Halpert, and he wrote this letter. He stapled or paper clipped a dollar bill to the top of it, and that was very attention-getting. People had to pick it up and ask, "What is this? Why is there a dollar on this thing?" That $1 took his open rate and read rate from, you know, zero to 95%, type of thing. Then he wrote this letter. You could do your version of the dollar letter; I think that would be tremendously successful. So, I think Sam's idea is great here, but I think there's even something you can do before that. You already have something working. We're giving you new ideas. Why don't you advertise? Why don't you do Yelp ads, Craigslist, whatever? You already figured out that you could go into a community's Nextdoor. Something like $60,000 came out the other side. So, how do you just do that again in the neighborhood next to yours? Can you find a friend or a kid in that neighborhood and say, "I will pay you $100, and you are going to type this message in your Nextdoor on this sequence"? They can post because they live there, right? So go get activated. Basically, activate your brand reps, your affiliates, to just clone the script you did in your neighborhood in the two neighborhoods next to you and see if that gives you another $60,000 per neighborhood.

Lincoln Snyder

Yeah, so I'm doing something similar. I'm not sure that I would say it exactly the way I'm doing it because I'm not sure that's necessarily the right way to do it. I know that next door, you're really supposed to be a neighbor in the community, but to your... I am doing, I basically... [I’m not sure what follows here].

Shaan Puri

This hat is gray. I'm good with that.

Lincoln Snyder

I'm at that region. I'm kind of going by the radius of different next-door neighborhood communities and going from there.

Sam Parr

Yeah, you're hacking the system. That's good. You're hacking the system. Can we...?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, just become your angel investor real quick. And like, absolutely, I kind of want to see where the story goes over the next two years. This is going to be kind of insane.

Sam Parr

Lincoln, have you heard of... do you know a guy named Brian Scudamore? Have you ever heard that name?

Lincoln Snyder

Sounds familiar, but I know.

Sam Parr

You should Google this guy. He started very similar to you. It took him years and years to get traction—ten years to get traction. Now his company is called "1-800-GOT-JUNK," and he wholly owns it. It does a billion in sales a year, so he's a billionaire. You should write to him, or I can introduce you. He's a friend of mine, and he will absolutely talk to you. But you just gotta shut up and do this for about twenty years, and the results are going to be pretty, pretty great. Yeah, that's how this business works, right? You just kind of put your head down and get after it.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, but the beauty is you don't know it's twenty years at the beginning. You just think it's right around the corner, and you just think it's right around the corner for the next twenty years.

Sam Parr

Well, he can get rich. You're going to get rich as you go if you own the whole thing. These companies can be great if you do it right.

Shaan Puri

Are you going to college? It sounds like you graduated now or you're about to graduate.

Lincoln Snyder

I'm about to graduate. I'm going to college. Yes, Michigan is the goal. I got introduced through the Formidable Fellowship to someone at Michigan who’s going to introduce me to people on campus. They have a good business school and... like, chicks, what are...?

Shaan Puri

You talking about who? Who are you trying to meet on campus? What are you talking about?

Lincoln Snyder

Some professors, some deans, some people... because I haven't gotten accepted yet. It's still in.

Shaan Puri

Do they need their gutters cleaned? I don't understand. Why do you care about that?

Sam Parr

Their professors and deans, yeah.

Lincoln Snyder

I have good grades and everything, but the kind of effort it takes to get out of state and to that good of a school...

Sam Parr

What do your parents do?

Shaan Puri

Have like a teal fellowship part of this where you just pay people to drop out once you realize that they should just keep going as an entrepreneur.

Lincoln Snyder

Yeah, I mean, I could probably pay one person, but bank on that. My dad is a VP at Spectrum, so not really entrepreneurship, but he does kind of work in the business realm. My mom's a nurse.

Sam Parr

Do they understand? Do they not criticize? They probably don't criticize you, do they?

Shaan Puri

Do they put respect on your name?

Lincoln Snyder

Yeah.

Sam Parr

Yeah, like...

Shaan Puri

Do you get to sit at the head of the table now at dinner?

Sam Parr

No, do they... are they like, "This is a fun hobby, but you know, maybe you should consider something more serious?" Yeah, or do they... and you don't disrespect your parents publicly, but... or are they like, "Hey, you got a gift. This is working, keep going?"

Lincoln Snyder

They're very traditional in the way that they want me to go to college and they...

Sam Parr

Think it's...

Lincoln Snyder

It's a fun thing to do. I'm in high school, but yeah.

Sam Parr

Anand, do you have a service where you talk to these kids' parents?

Anand Sanwal

No, we don't. You know, I think so. Yeah, I posted about Lincoln getting into the University of Michigan, and I guess luckily some people have reached out, right? Because that's where he wants to go. I mean, any of these guys probably could skip college and just go pro in business, but you know, I gotta respect what they want to do, of course. But yeah, no, obviously if any of them wanted to, I'm not sure they would. You know, they could be formidable without college, for sure.

Shaan Puri

Just to put it in perspective real quick, you said you did $60,000 last year. You'll do $150,000 this year in revenue.

Sam Parr

You're going to make more money than your professors.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. Roughly a **50% profit margin**. 50%.

Lincoln Snyder

So, last year, it was a little over $30,000 in profit.

Shaan Puri

Let's say you can roughly hold that you're getting close to having a million-dollar business already. So, let's say you're doing $100,000 a year in profit right now. You've basically doubled the business. Arguably, that could be somewhere between a $400,000 business to a million-dollar business.

Sam Parr

It's like one more year after that, and you're a millionaire.

Shaan Puri

Seasoning, exactly. Just to put that perspective of like the opportunity... I guess I want to make sure I wouldn't have known that when I was your age. Well, I wouldn't have known how to do any of the stuff you did. But even if I was there, I wouldn't have really had that perspective. As a business owner, especially a small business owner, you sort of value your business just on what you eat at the end of the day. So you're like, "Oh, I made $30,000. I did a whole bunch of work. That's great." But you know, that doesn't pay for one year of college. Whereas you look at it and you're like, "I'm one year away from being a millionaire if I just literally get two more neighborhoods on board or one more neighborhood to do the same thing that I just did." So you are very close to a very meaningful-sized business, and I hope you continue that as your...

Sam Parr

New.

Shaan Puri

Angel investor, I hope you...

Sam Parr

Like, I don't think people truly grasp this. If you do, this is a huge generalization, but if you do roughly $300 of seller earnings—or, sorry, of business owner earnings—ballpark, in most cases, you are worth $1,000,000. I think that if people understood that, they would probably keep going a lot harder. I would bet that a lot of the people teaching business at Michigan, some percentage of them, you would be richer than them before you graduate college.

Lincoln Snyder

Yeah, I definitely understand what you guys are saying. The way I think about it is I compare, okay, a $30,000 salary—which is what I made last year—to an entry-level job anywhere. But going to the idea of doubling it every year...

Sam Parr

You're not going to double it every year, but you're going to double it for a few more years, maybe.

Shaan Puri

You should, honestly, based on what you just described to us, you actually have a path where you could probably **4X** this business in one year. You've done all of this in a single neighborhood, and guess what? A lot of businesses are like this, where they're what I call **pond businesses**. If it works in one pond, it'll work in all ponds. For example, any app that takes over a high school will actually be able to take over every high school. When Snapchat got hot, it got hot in two LA high schools. Investors who were smart knew right away that, sure, on the surface, that only looks like a few thousand users. But if it works at one high school and two high schools, it's going to work in 14,000 other high schools because all high schools are the same. In the same way, your neighborhood is probably similar to a thousand other neighborhoods or more across the country. You should be able to sell local services using the same exact blueprint and model that you're doing in those neighborhoods. What you haven't done yet is just replicate it. You know, do it in another neighborhood. But you said that your Nextdoor ads were working, and you mentioned that you're starting to be able to post in new neighborhoods. I would actually be surprised if you can't **triple** this business just by doing that... just doing that properly.

Lincoln Snyder

Yeah, so the Nextdoor ads from last year... I'll kind of run through the numbers. It was a **$9** cost per lead, **$30** customer acquisition cost, and a **$650** average transaction value. So, that's a **21 to 1 ROAS**. I think that just based on **21 to 1**, by the end of this year, if I just pump as much as I can into those ads, I think I'll be...

Shaan Puri

And look, it'll go down. It won't stay at 21 to 1, but it doesn't matter. Three to one, you're laughing. So, wait, huge margin of safety.

Sam Parr

I thought you said you didn't know what you were doing? Like, you said for...

Lincoln Snyder

Christmas lights, I guess. But window cleaning? I don't know, I guess.

Sam Parr

Well, the Christmas lights are because there's a time constraint; there's an urgency on that. So that's why it's such an easy sale. But your website's great! Have you seen his website, Sean? No? I gotta get it. I think it's hhpressurecleanings.com. The URLs are a little funky, but we need to work on that.

Lincoln Snyder

The domain.

Sam Parr

The website's great.

Shaan Puri

Welcome to Sunshine Exteriors. Okay, why not visit sunshineexteriors.com?

Lincoln Snyder

I have a Sunshine Exteriors Texas, but it's saying I need six months before I can transfer the domain. I just bought it on a different hosting platform because I needed emails with a branded domain. There's a... you.

Shaan Puri

Could definitely transfer a domain faster. Whatever. Yeah, that part's not right; it doesn't take six months. But okay, great. Let me ask a different question: Do people come back? Do they do it again? Have you been in business long enough to know the repeat rate?

Lincoln Snyder

Yeah, so I didn't do a great job of tracking it, and I don't quite have enough information to know the repeat rate. I'll start seeing the repeat rate this year because most of my customers were from last year. From the first year to the second year, I would say it's probably close. It's low, probably around 10%.

Shaan Puri

Okay, wow, this is great! Congratulations! Is there anything else, Lincoln, before we let you go? This was kind of great.

Lincoln Snyder

One question: if you guys were in my position, right, and you were going against your parents' judgment by not going to college, what advice do you have for someone in that position?

Sam Parr

Alright, so the pitch is like this: you're going to sit them down and you're going to say, "Mom and Dad, let me show you the potential outcome." So, what's... what... what you're near A&M? Maybe... I don't know where you... yeah.

Lincoln Snyder

Okay, that's another college.

Sam Parr

I would say, look, the average salary that a graduate from the Business Administration school is... I don't know what it's going to be, probably around $80,000. I'm already going to make that. And if you go to... what's the broker that we like? Sean, Quiet Lite Brokerage?

Lincoln Snyder

Yeah.

Sam Parr

You go to Quiet Light Brokerage dot com and you say, "Here's how much these businesses sell for in one year." I'm going to already be well above the average in terms of earnings for a first, second, and third year postgraduate A&M Business Administration graduate or whatever. I'm going to be already out earning that. All I'm asking for is one year. You don't need to support me financially. All I need is your blessing. I just want you to say, "Get after it. Go and achieve your dreams." Because look, if you look at all of the change in the world, a lot of it is due to someone who just went out and got after it and made a lot of money. I'm trying to do that, and if it doesn't work after one year, I'll do what you've asked me to, which is go to a great school. But just give me twelve months to make this happen, and I don't want anything except for your emotional support. How's that pitch, Sean? Is that good enough?

Shaan Puri

It's great! That's exactly right. You want to ask for the gap year, not the full four. You don't have to make this like a long-term, life-altering decision. Just say, "Hey, I'd like to take a gap year and really give this my all." I think I'm going to learn a lot. I'm already learning a lot, and I think this could really grow into something. As you know, after school, school is about learning. The way I see it is, "Hey, school’s great, but an education is more important." The thing I would go to school for is to learn about business. I'm already learning a ton about business this way, and I'm going to learn so much more if I just take this year and focus on it. And hey, at the end of this year, you know what? Maybe I will actually decide, "Hey, college is the right move. I want to be around friends, and I want to do all that." In which case, no harm done—just one gap year. If this really takes off, we can reassess at the end. I can go the other way and maybe continue on this path. But I want to take a year, and I think I would start with that. So I think the ask is a year, not to never go to college. And then you let them know the reasons why and how you're thinking this through, and that you want their support—that they believed in you, you know, all up until this point.

Shaan Puri

You just want them to keep believing in you, and you see how that lands. So, you’ve got your little emotional manipulation; you have your puppy dog clothes. You’ve got it all under the hood. We have a lot of stuff going on there, but that's what you want to do. Then you see how that goes. But at the end of the day, sometimes it might come to this. I hope it doesn't, but it might come to a point where they say, "No, you gotta do this. This is you. You don't know what you're talking about," blah, blah, blah. You may have to decide for yourself what's most important. Right? That's the coming-of-age, that 18-year-old thing. There are plenty of stories of people who do it, and then years later, the parents are like, "You know, holy crap! I didn't know. I didn't understand at the time." You know, they come around to it. At the end of the day, you gotta take control of what you want for your life. But I think that the one-year ask should land. I think you have about a 50 to 70% success rate with that.

Lincoln Snyder

Alright.

Sam Parr

The median salary of an accounting student at A&M is $60,000. Yeah, you're going to beat that this year. That's gotta be the number that you present to them.

Shaan Puri

Alright, well, they might not all be about that. You know, parents ultimately just want what's good for you. They’re like, "We want you to have this education. You have your degree; that's just like a safety net idea." Plus, they want you to have that experience. You're young, blah blah blah. So, there are other factors too. I wouldn't... I would try to understand. So, let's say they say no. Before you start arguing with them, just ask them. Get curious. Be like, "Okay, so, you know, it seems like school’s got a couple different parts, right? There’s the learning part, which I think I’m getting a lot of here. There’s friends and social life, and then there’s the safety net of having your degree. Which one is it for you? Why do you feel like it’s so important? What is the part that really... you know, let me help me understand." Then let them articulate it. After that, you’ll know exactly what you need to address because they’ve served it up to you about what the reason is that they think you gotta go to college. That’ll work! That’ll work. We’re gonna try Ayan. Let’s give you a shot. Let’s see if your audio and video are working. So, Ayan, do you want to do an intro for him? You want to be his Bruce Buffer, his Dana White here?

Anand Sanwal

Yeah, so Ayan is a ninth grader. Fun fact: he went to the same high school as me and has built an awesome baking business. I think he'll fill you in; he's a phenomenal entrepreneur.

Ayaan Jain

Hi, my name is Ayan. Like Alon said, I'm a freshman at Hunterdon Central High School in Ringo's, New Jersey. I am the founder and CEO of Teens to Table. We sell homemade baked goods to local establishments across New Jersey and school suppliers as well. My business is one year old, and last year I did $4,000 in revenue. This year, I expect to grow over 600% and aim to do at least $25,000, which is really exciting. In addition to my business, I am also a competitive chess player. Right now, I'm trying to figure out how to hire people to help with my production while also maintaining both efficiency and quality. Currently, I bake everything myself, from cookies to brownies, which ensures my consistency. However, I'm considering bringing on a small team to keep up with the growing demand that I'm currently experiencing.

Shaan Puri

So, before we go into your question, let's just get a little more context on the business. It's baked goods. You sell it to who? You said classes and teachers, or who are you selling to?

Ayaan Jain

Yeah, so I sell to local establishments like bakeries and ice cream shops. I also sell to schools, so when schools serve food and lunch, there's usually my cookie on the shelf as well.

Shaan Puri

Okay, gotcha. You're making all the cookies right now. You're going and you're selling to them. How are you getting that sale? You're going, you're knocking on doors. What's the pitch?

Ayaan Jain

Yep, so the pitch right now is I usually either go to the bakeries or the ice cream shops. I just go in person or call them on the phone. I say, "Hey, I'm 14 years old," and this actually astonishes a lot of people, which I find really interesting. So, I tell them I'm 14 years old, I'm the founder of Teens to Table, and I pretty much explain what I do. Usually, when I go in, I bring samples of my cookies just to make sure they like it and everything's good. Then, I start with the pitch: either can I sell and put a table up, or can I put it on your shelves?

Shaan Puri

Gotcha, okay. You said you're going to grow the business by 600%. So how are you going to go from $4,000 to $25,000? Is it just knocking on more doors, or is there something more to it?

Ayaan Jain

Yeah, so now it's more into the school suppliers. I'm currently supplying to Macchio's and Pomptonian, which are two school suppliers in my local area. I'm hoping to get more districts and more schools. Currently, I just got an order for 700 cookies between the two suppliers. I'm in contact with two other suppliers, Aramark and another supplier in the local area for my school. So both of these, plus Macchio's and Pomptonian, should hopefully get me to $25,000.

Sam Parr

And why do you have a bunch of some type of curry and other pizza and stuff on your website? Is that just stock images that are placeholders for now, or are you actually going to make more stuff?

Ayaan Jain

Oh, so that's actually the future goal: to bake more stuff. Those are the things I've made so far. Along with baking, I love to cook. I enjoy cooking Mediterranean food, Indian food, and Mexican food. So apart from baking, that's just another one of my passions. Hopefully, as I go further along in my business, I can incorporate those as well.

Shaan Puri

Have you thought about putting cookies on your website?

Ayaan Jain

I believe there are cookies on.

Sam Parr

There’s a lot of Italian food, like tomatoes and avocados, but a cookie would definitely be cool.

Shaan Puri

Alright, so... sounds like you are going full "Breaking Bad," dude. You're going up the supply chain; you're finding the distributors. How good are these cookies, by the way? I need to know, what are we dealing with here?

Ayaan Jain

So, the cookies... they're really big. Have you ever tried Levain cookies from New York?

Sam Parr

Yeah.

Ayaan Jain

That's how they are. So, that was my goal: to design those recipes. I think I cracked the code there, so that's how the cookies taste.

Sam Parr

How much money do you have in the bank? You did $40,000 last year. I imagine you're just doing a checking account.

Shaan Puri

4K

Sam Parr

Four K. That's what I said, four K. You are doing like checking account accounting, which is basically just like, "Is my bank account going up? How much do you have in your bank account?"

Ayaan Jain

I have around $2,100 in my bank account.

Sam Parr

Alright, cool. Understood. That's pretty good.

Shaan Puri

Okay, and so now your question was something around scaling up or hiring, right? What was the question?

Ayaan Jain

Right, yeah. So right now, I'm trying to hire people because of the new school suppliers that I'm getting, and then Macchio's and Pomptonian. It's really hard to do this myself now, especially since it's going to be around, hopefully projected, 1,000 to 2,000 cookies per week. So, I'm considering bringing on a small team to keep up with the growing demand. My biggest concern for this is that I use a commercial kitchen because I can't do this really in my house. They charge by the hour, so if I hire people to work, am I going to lose my profits and all of my money because they're not going to be as efficient as me when I bake the cookies? At the same time, I worry that the quality of the cookies could suffer because the people I hire might not follow the exact same process. If they add one more teaspoon, let's say, of baking powder, that might skew off the whole recipe.

Sam Parr

Wait, so you said that you're doing 50,000 cookies a week? That's 52,000 a year. And how much in revenue?

Ayaan Jain

So, revenue is going to be around **$25,000**. That's the projection.

Sam Parr

Okay, so cheap, right?

Ayaan Jain

Yes, with the cookies, since they're bulk ordering, I don't make a lot of profit off of them right now.

Shaan Puri

Let's walk through that. You get an order. A typical order will be how much? How many cookies?

Ayaan Jain

So, a typical order is around 600 cookies.

Shaan Puri

Great! 600 cookies. What are you charging that end customer? Or, let's assume it's not going straight to the customer, but you're selling to the school district, or the bakery, or the wholesale relationships. How much are you charging wholesale for that?

Ayaan Jain

Right, so for wholesale, it's **$0.80** per cookie. So, between **700** and **800**, I make around **$400** in revenue.

Shaan Puri

Okay, and then what does it cost you to make those cookies?

Ayaan Jain

Yep, so I make two types of cookies: an oatmeal chocolate chip and a chocolate chip. The oatmeal cookie costs **27¢** to make, and the chocolate chip cookie costs **28¢** to make.

Shaan Puri

Okay, gotcha. So you're basically at **66% gross margins** on the cookie itself. Does that include the kitchen cost and everything, or is that literally just the ingredients?

Ayaan Jain

Yes, so that includes everything from packaging to the commercial kitchen and to the ingredients.

Shaan Puri

Do you have your Excel file that basically shows your unit cost and your percentages? When you add in the labor, what do you see? Do you notice that the profits go to zero, or do you...? That was your question, right? If you're wondering, "Will my profits go away?" that's kind of an Excel question, not really a Shawn and Sam question. So, what does Excel tell you?

Ayaan Jain

So, it really depends, just based on minimum wage, say $15 or $16 per hour. It depends on how many actual people I hire. Right now, I've been trying to experiment with two or three and see if that works in a spreadsheet. My profits are going pretty much to zero. I'm making like $20 to $30 per order. I just wanted to see if there was a better, more efficient way to do this without choking all my profits.

Shaan Puri

Raise your prices. That's the easiest way.

Sam Parr

So basically, I think there are only two or three ways to grow a business. You can sell more of what you already have. This means selling the same stuff to your current customers but getting them to buy more, whether that's a larger quantity or more often. Alternatively, you can raise prices. Those are the options. There's a great book called *Getting Everything You Have Out of Everything You've Got*, and it just walks through that those are the only three options. It sounds like you're selling a lot more stuff if you're going to grow by 600%, but you probably should charge more. I don't know anything about the cookie business, but I think that sounds really cheap. How hard is the sale? Is the sale really easy? If the sale is really easy, you should charge more. How often are you turned down when you're asking these people to buy your stuff?

Ayaan Jain

So, it's quite a bit. Right now, with Macchio's and Pomptonian, I signed a contract with them. That's pretty much going until the end of the school year for me, so until June. With Pomptonian, they are actually only taking 40¢ per cookie. To me, that's a really cheap thing because I'm only making 12 or 13¢ of profit per cookie. So, with them, I'm making a total of barely anything for profit. With Macchio's, on the other hand, I make 80¢. So, they charge you...

Shaan Puri

I hope they're not listening to this... uh-oh, we're giving out all the leverage.

Ayaan Jain

So, I make around **80 cents** from them as they charge me **$1**. I feel like... and my question, like a follow-up, is: if I raise the prices, do you think they would say, "We don't want you to put your products anymore," or is that a possibility?

Shaan Puri

Well, it's definitely a possibility, but it's one you gotta figure out. There are two ways to approach this. You can go to your existing customers, assuming you have a good relationship with them and that they're happy. You could ask them, "Hey, how is this going for you?" If they respond with, "Oh, it's great," you can say, "Awesome! I really love working with you." You know, I'm 14 years old, and I'm figuring this out as I go. One thing I'm learning is that I'm providing you guys 500,000 cookies right now, and I cook all of these by myself. I need to bring somebody in, but if I do that, I'm not going to make any profit. So, I was wondering, would it be possible for us to raise the price to a dollar a cookie or 95 cents a cookie, whatever it is? That way, I'm not losing money providing you business. See what they say. They might look at you with your puppy dog eyes and just say yes. They might say no, and you'll find out, right? Then, when you go to that next bakery, you're going to go in cold. They won't even know about the 80 cents. You go to them straight away and say it's a dollar ten a cookie. You can say, "These cookies are amazing! Have you ever been to the bakery in New York? This is a New York City cookie that I'm bringing to you." You have to up the perceived value of the cookie through your packaging, your story, and the benefits they get from working with you. You could say, "Hey, I'm going to be able to tell everybody in our local community that you guys support these young entrepreneurs," blah blah blah. So, you gotta find a way to charge a higher price. I think that's your easiest lever because you're not going to be able to get labor for that much cheaper, but you can get more margin out of every cookie that you sell. You don't want to grow broke. If you have the wrong model and the wrong cost structure today, let's say you do get these bigger contracts and you're cooking ten times more cookies. You're literally going to grow broke if you do that because you're going to have to hire to fulfill those orders. If you don't have the margin to support it, you will go out of business. By the way, I think you could test these things. First, test it in Excel, then break it down with one other person. You can always cut bait with that person if it turns out that you're not able to optimize them fully to get the costs down and the benefits out of it. Just take it one step at a time. I wouldn't go get two or three people; I'd start with one, then move to two, and then to three as you figure out that model.

Ayaan Jain

Right, okay. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Thank you.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, you might also want to try to sell to a richer customer who is going to be less price sensitive. If you go to local businesses, you could approach real estate agents—like the guy who's killing it in real estate down there. You could also go to the dentist or to people who are themselves local entrepreneurs, making enough money where they don't care if it's 80 cents a cookie, a dollar a cookie, or $2 a cookie. Really, they like the story, they like you, and they want to be supportive. I think that might be helpful versus going to somebody like Aramark. Aramark, I think, literally provides food to places like prisons and school cafeterias. It's going to be harder to get wiggle room with them than it is to get the local dentist to say, "Sure thing."

Sam Parr

Yeah, or local car dealerships, things like that. That story is so much better when you have your face on it, with a story and then your stuff right there.

Shaan Puri

You should maybe have a sign. Let's say I am the car dealership and I do carry your cookies. They could just give away a free cookie to every customer who walks in. By the way, they're selling cars. I think that's a pretty known sales tactic because, you know, Sam used to do this, right? You go negotiate with somebody off Craigslist. What's the first thing Sam brings?

Sam Parr

Oh yeah, it's called the **rule of reciprocity**. Basically, I do something nice for someone, whether it's something really small. For example, I might say, "Hey, you know, I was going to meet you to look at this car. I just bought a Coke. Do you want a Coke as well?" The rule of reciprocity states that when you do something nice for someone, they will always, or almost always, do something nice back. It's often not in proportion to the gift that you gave them. So, if you do one little small nice thing, they'll do something a lot bigger in return because you always want to just be even, right?

Shaan Puri

Okay, yeah. So, I would go to a local car dealer and just say, "Hey, I want to provide you guys cookies every week that you can just give out to customers when they come in." Trust me, have you ever heard of the rule of reciprocity? People are much more likely to want to buy when they're eating a delicious cookie and they feel taken care of. This thing's going to cost you a dollar, but if you close even one more sale this whole year, that's a $35,000 sale for you. You know, this pays itself back in spades. So, you can make a pitch like that and you can actually get contracts with people who are willing to pay more. The simple rule of business is to sell to the people who have money.

Sam Parr

And dude, I want to see you. I want to see him give a speech like in *The Wolf of Wall Street*, where it just ends with, "Sign on the dotted line for Christ!" You know what I mean? I want to see them pitch these hard.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, actually, that is one piece of advice I'd give you. Look, this probably won't be your last business. This is the first business; this is your starter business. You're going to learn a whole bunch. You're going to get more value out of the story you're creating than the cookies that you sell. My first business was a sushi business. We probably made, I don't know, $14,000 in profit in the one year of operations that we were working on that thing. But the story that I told about how we cold-called a Food Network chef, how I went door to door selling sushi, and how we reverse-engineered the POS systems to figure out all the sales of all Chipotle stores in the Colorado area—those stories got me bigger and bigger opportunities as I went. They got me speaking opportunities, they got me into accelerators, and they opened other doors. So, one tip for you is, while you sell the cookies, you should be building the story. For example, the story of how I went into the car dealership and gave a talk called "How You Can Increase Sales by 600% Like Me." I talked to the car salesmen about the rule of reciprocity and how they became customers of my cookies. Even if it's not a lot of cookies, it's an awesome story. Putting yourself in those positions will build your skills and build your story, which ultimately is going to be a lot more valuable than the cookies that you sell, I believe.

Ayaan Jain

Okay, yeah, that sounds really great. Definitely for the car dealership, that's a great thing to keep in mind for me. Even though I have these suppliers, I think it's good to start advancing and thinking about more places to sell. So, I think that's really helpful advice.

Sam Parr

Alright, thank you, man. You're killing it! Keep going. It's amazing how far you are at 14. Alright, next, Abigail, where you at? Abigail?

Abigayle Lett

Hi.

Sam Parr

Where are you from?

Abigayle Lett

I'm from Odessa, Missouri.

Sam Parr

Oh nice! I'm from Missouri too. Hey Sean, I posted Abigail's Instagram. I want you to click it and look at what her hobby is. So scroll down. You're going to see what looks like some prom photos, but keep on scrolling down. You're going to see that in her free time, she's a race car driver.

Shaan Puri

What?

Sam Parr

Yes.

Shaan Puri

Okay, triple threat: student, entrepreneur, sprint car driver. How did you get into that, Abigail?

Abigayle Lett

So, actually, I'm a third-generation sprint car driver. My grandpa drove race cars, and my dad has driven race cars. Then I kind of just passed it on down to me.

Sam Parr

That is awesome! Amazing!

Shaan Puri

Okay, so Abigail, how old are you and what's your business?

Abigayle Lett

I am a senior at Odessa High School. I'm 17 years old, and my business is growing and selling chrysanthemums, or "mums," which are something you'd put on your front porch during the fall season and Halloween. So, that's what I do right now. My business is two years old. Last year, I made $15,000 in revenue, and this year, I expect to grow by 100% and aim to do at least $30,000 in revenue.

Shaan Puri

Goddamn! Okay, so explain the business to us. Where do the flowers come from? Who do you sell them to?

Abigayle Lett

So, how my business works is I actually order the mums, which we call plugs because they're about this big. I order them from a company in North Carolina. I also have to order fertilizer to ensure the plants get the nutrients they need. Additionally, I need to order the soil and the pots for them. All of this goes into the price for the mums. Then, we have about a two-week-long process of putting it all together. We have to mix the soil, put it into color blocks, and then place the mums in the color blocks. It's a really long and tedious process. After that, we put them on our "runs," which are big tarps with watering lines. For the next three to four months, I spend my time watering them. Once they're ready to go, fertilized, watered, and grown to about as big as they can get, we market them to schools and fundraisers. I also do retail at my own house, so I try to post that on social media. I also hand out flyers to local towns and post them at local businesses.

Shaan Puri

Wow, that is a lot of work! Yeah, I'm looking at this picture, which is just like a field or these long, long rows of potted plants with a watering system. Is this where you do this? Is this your backyard? What is going on?

Abigayle Lett

I live on 40 acres, and about 30 acres are leased out for farmland. The rest of it is for my mom's [plants/flowers]. So, anywhere we can put them in the yard, we pretty much put them there. Right now, we're in the process of building a greenhouse. With my profit from my mom's [business], I've been able to buy a greenhouse. This will provide a place to start my mom's [plants], and a greenhouse is also a good way to have a steady revenue for the other six months out of the year when I'm not growing [them].

Shaan Puri

So, you... sorry, I missed the part about you selling. You're selling to, you said, school fundraisers and businesses, and you're handing out flyers. So, who's the core customer? Who's the main customer?

Abigayle Lett

So right now, we're trying to do wholesale as our core customer. What we do is, I'm in FFA [Future Farmers of America], so FFA chapters will sell it for a fundraiser.

Sam Parr

Sean doesn't know what the FFA is. You gotta spell this out.

Abigayle Lett

Okay, **Freedom of Fire (FFA)** used to stand for **Future Farmers of America**, but we've kind of veered away from that. We don't want it to be stereotypical about cows and farming. What we really do right now is promote youth in agriculture and leadership in agriculture. We're pretty much growing the next generation of agriculturalists.

Sam Parr

So, Sean, if you grew up in a more rural environment, if you're in high school, you kind of by default joined the FFA. There are millions and millions of members, and it was kind of like a thing—like instead of Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, or maybe not instead of, but it's similar to that. In rural areas, you join the FFA, and you get your FFA jacket, and they're pretty famous.

Shaan Puri

What do you do once you join? You go out and...

Abigayle Lett

For me, I currently serve as my local chapel chapter president in Area Six Sentinel, and I'm running for a Missouri FFA state office. What I really do is public speaking events and stuff like that. It's really shaped me into who I am because right now, talking to you, I am not nervous. I know that my freshman year, I would have been completely nervous because I never did public speaking. It kind of just shapes you to get those life skills that you need in the long run.

Shaan Puri

Okay, college acceptance letter. Alright, that was a great, great essay. So, you... okay, so, sorry. Your call, you said your core customer's wholesale. What does that mean? Who's the buyer?

Abigayle Lett

So right now, we're trying to do contracts with hardware stores around us. We have a couple of hometown hardware stores and then some bigger ones that are all across Missouri. Right now, we're just kind of focused on Missouri because delivering my product is one of the hardest parts. We actually get to use my sprint car trailer to deliver all of the moms, so that's kind of funny how it clashes.

Sam Parr

And how much profit did you make?

Abigayle Lett

This last year, we did $15,000.

Sam Parr

And you did $15,000 in revenue, I thought you said. Yep. How much in profit?

Abigayle Lett

Our profit was about, I think, $7,000 to $8,000.

Sam Parr

Wow, alright, that's good.

Abigayle Lett

Just because each year it fluctuates, like how much the soil is going to cost or how much the pots are going to cost. Our really big cost this year was making those runs, and now we already have those. So it's something that we can pack away for the fall and wintertime, and then we can put them out next year. That's another cost we don't have to pay for.

Shaan Puri

So, Abigail, let me ask you a question. If you wanted to sell 10 times more to moms, how would you do that? Like, you said you're going to double your sales, but what if you wanted to go 10 times bigger? What would you do?

Abigayle Lett

I think that right now, that's kind of what I'm... My question to you guys was going to be, just because I like to do the wholesale part of it. But I also know that I can't grow as much as I want to just doing wholesale. I think really, right now, my biggest thing is going to be just getting my company out there and promoting it better to other companies. This way, they would possibly sign a contract with us so we can have that fixed amount that we're going to sell to them.

Shaan Puri

Like, you know, I went to FarmCon, which was this conference that Santa told me about. It was actually in Kansas City, and you know, there were like 5,000 people there. They were all farmers. If they had heard your story on stage, I think a lot of people would have handed you a card and said, "Hey, let me know how I can help. I love what you're doing. I'm so excited that somebody in this next generation is excited about agriculture. It's great to see it. I want to support that." I think there's a lot of that goodwill. I wonder if maybe the faster way to 10x your sales would be to connect with the CEO of whatever, Home Depot or whatever the wholesale store is that's going to carry...

Sam Parr

Your stuff... Ace Hardware or something like that.

Shaan Puri

Like, how do you go to them and be like, "Hey, I want to be in your store"? That is my goal, that is my dream, and I want to get my mom's products on your shelves. How do I make that happen? I think if you hustled more to the top, you could actually achieve more growth faster than going bottoms up in this case. Your story is your asset, right? The flowers might be great, but your story is the real differentiator. How many other people are there with your story? Zero. So, how are you using your story to unlock growth? That is what I would be doing. Whether it's telling your own story on TikTok, getting on stage at places like FarmCon or the FFA annual event, or sending cold emails every single day to the CEOs of all the major distributors and retailers until one of them takes your meeting and puts you on their shelves. If you listen to our episode with Nick Mowbray, he was this guy in New Zealand, literally on the other side of the earth, making toys by himself. He said, "I emailed every retailer in every country every single day." He just kept doing that until they finally cracked. They would tell him, "No, I'm not interested," but one day they would say, "Can I see a sample?" or "Hey, are you going to be at that show? I'm going to the show. If you're there, I'll take fifteen minutes and meet with you." He would fly there and make it happen. I think if you 10x your approach towards getting the major distributor, you might leapfrog into a much bigger space. Otherwise, the way you describe this, I'm tired just hearing how you grow these things. It is so much work to just get the product made. I feel like it's only worth doing that if you're going to be able to land some major sales. Otherwise, it's also double the work to sell to every school for a fundraiser and mom-and-pop shops. I think that's just too much work.

Sam Parr

There's also, for all y'all, a small window that you have where you're like this prodigy.

Shaan Puri

Young and lovable.

Sam Parr

Yeah, that's going to go away. But you've got this like two to maybe six-year window where you being persistent is just cute and awesome. Then, in a few years, it's going to be annoying and weird. So, while that window is open, take it. You know, take that opportunity. It's a... we have.

Shaan Puri

A friend who was 18 got written up in TechCrunch as the young hotshot prodigy. He's 23 now, and he feels washed up. He's like, "I can't use my story; my entire shtick was that I was young." He's like, "Nobody wants to hear about a 23-year-old prodigy. There's no such thing. You're not a phenom anymore."

Sam Parr

Yeah, it's like a... it's like a blind painter. You know, you gotta use everything you can. You can get away with a lot right now, and the same stuff that you're able to get away with now, you're not going to be able to in the future. So I would definitely do exactly as Sean's saying, which is to go hard on going to the top. You're not really annoying when you're 18 doing this.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, Abigail, in the next thirty days, do you think you could get a meeting with the CEO of either Ace Hardware or Home Depot?

Abigayle Lett

I think... I don't know. I think that is something that just sounds crazy to me. I feel like I probably could, just because I'd like to say I'm a very well-spoken person and very good with my words. But right now, I just have a lot of other things going on, so it's hard to focus all of my time on my business because I am a senior this year. So that's just kind of hard.

Sam Parr

That's the only time I think that this excuse is valid. I would say, okay, that is the only time that I will accept that excuse. I want to give everyone listening, and you guys, a little bit of feedback that I learned when I was a little bit younger. The most powerful people on earth are just one cold email away. Because of email and because of Instagram, which you guys have grown up on, and everything else on social media, you would be shocked at how small the world is. It sounds insane to say, "Email the CEO of this large billion-dollar, multi-tens-of-billions-of-dollars company." That sounds insane! But I think that you are literally... I wouldn't say one email; I would say you're one email and 20 follow-ups away from just about everyone on earth. There have been times where I even emailed [email protected], and I think I followed up like 20 times. I got a "no, thank you," but it's just proof that you are much closer than you think to just about every single person you want to reach, particularly some type of executive.

Shaan Puri

Alright, I'm going to show you something real quick, Abigail, before you know... fifth? Starts here, so just check this out. Alright, there's this guy on Twitter right now. His name's Soneth, or his Twitter handle is Soneth. He's building Z Fellows, which is another young student program. I think it's at Stanford. But just check this out. There's a cold email that my friend Nico, who's now a famous venture capitalist, sent. He invested in Snapchat really early on, again off a cold email. Okay, you might not be able to read this, so I'll read it to you. It's him emailing Elon Musk. Okay, so I'm giving you the context: the CEO of Home Depot and Ace Hardware. This guy emailed Elon Musk and he goes: "Dear Mr. Musk, I am a graduate student at Stanford and I'm taking this class... blah blah blah. I'm writing a paper about Tesla's strategy because I think you're such an innovative company. We're going to put together our recommendations on the future of your corporate strategy. Since you're the chairman of Tesla, I thought it'd be great if we could do a short interview with you in person over the next few weeks to talk about your strategy. I'm aware that you receive dozens of similar requests on a daily basis. That's why I'll do my best to make this not only useful but an entertaining experience for you and your company's executives. Hopefully, we're able to contribute first-class recommendations. I happen to sign an NDA... blah blah blah. I look forward to hearing from you. I would be grateful if you could participate in our research. Biko." And then Elon writes back, "Okay, if you can limit the meeting to twenty minutes or schedule for late in the evening." And this was Nico as a student. There's another email of him...

Sam Parr

By the way, that's not even a good email.

Shaan Puri

That's not even.

Sam Parr

A good email... that's not a good email.

Lincoln Snyder

That was.

Shaan Puri

Not let me show you another one I just saw literally today. The cool thing about following this guy on Twitter is that every day he's tweeting out cold emails that somebody sent. This is Corey Levy, who runs ZFellows. Now, this is him emailing Andy Roddick's mom. So, not Andy Roddick himself, but his mom. He finds her email address and writes: "Dear Mrs. Roddick, As you already know from my previous emails, my name is Corey Levy from Houston, Texas. I'm 12, turning 13, and I'm a big fan of your son, Andy. I know Andy's playing in this tournament in Houston, and I was wondering if I could meet him and/or hit with him. I've been dying to hit with him for the last two years. Please email me back." Then she responds: "Corey, thanks for the note. Andy's going to be in Houston. As the tournament gets closer, reach out again. I'll definitely make arrangements for you to meet him. I can't promise you'll hit with him, but I'll try. Please keep in touch and keep playing tennis; it's a great sport."

Sam Parr

Turns out Corey was like 34 when he wrote that email, though, so it was kind of weird when he showed up.

Shaan Puri

He's still got a baby face, actually. So, Abigail, I say all that to say this: You should follow this guy because if you see a cold email that works every day, it'll go from sounding crazy to being perfectly normal. That's one of the reasons why people should listen to this podcast. It's also why you should follow inspiring people on Twitter. They will make the crazy seem normal, and that's all you need—to delude yourself into believing it's normal to actually make it happen. The second thing I'll say is you described the process of a multi-month potting, moving, arranging, watering, kissing, and touching the flowers to make them all work. Then I was like, "Hey, could you send a cold email?" You were like, "I don't know, I got a lot of class coming up." So I challenge you: I think this email is going to be the least of your worries. I believe sending a cold email every day will take you literally no more than ten minutes, and I think you've got that ten minutes. You just showed me your 10-acre farm that you're doing by yourself. What happens is that familiar work feels comfortable and easy, while unfamiliar work feels hard. You sort of talk yourself out of it. You tell yourself a story about why it's your senior year and you don't have time. In reality, the thing I'm telling you is a lot easier than the stuff you're already doing. So that's my challenge to you, whether you choose to accept it.

Sam Parr

Pick 100 people who you want to reach. Spend only thirty minutes a day for the next month and follow up with each of them 10 times until they say "no, thank you" or "yes." Your reply rate, if you're interesting or any good, is going to be about 10%. So, most everyone is going to say no or not reply. But I promise you, 10% out of a hundred is going to be awesome. It's going to change your life.

Shaan Puri

One more thing: go Google "Sam Parr cold email." Go read Sam's cold emails he sent to recruit speakers for HustleCon, this random conference that he was starting. The follow-ups are where the magic is. There's the initial email, which a few brave people are willing to send, and then there are the four follow-ups that Sam was sending that nobody's willing to do. I would go read those. The other thing is there's a great story about Tim Ferriss. Do you know Tim Ferriss?

Abigayle Lett

I don't believe so.

Shaan Puri

Wow, that's amazing, Sam! She...

Ayaan Jain

She doesn't know us.

Shaan Puri

**Tim Ferriss! Holy shit!**

Sam Parr

Dude, our heroes are their grandparents. You know what I mean?

Shaan Puri

Alright, so Tim has this great story. Tim wrote a book called *The Four Hour Workweek*, and he's a fantastic guy. He also has a podcast. He shares a story about when he went to a Stanford Business School course. He offered a challenge: he said, "I will give an all-expense-paid round-the-world plane ticket to anyone here who can get in touch with the hardest-to-reach person." So, the whole class reached out to whoever they wanted. Whoever got the highest person on the food chain would win the round-the-world ticket. By the end of the class, I don't remember the exact details, but you can go read it. He asked, "Okay, so who got who?" I think one person managed to contact someone like Bill Clinton or something like that. He was amazed and asked, "Who else did other people get?" Most people in the class—only four or five—actually got anyone. He then asked, "What was the difference? Was it your cold email script?" It turned out that about 85% to 90% of the class didn't even try. They just perceived it to be too hard. Anyone who tried managed to reach someone, and within that group, some people literally reached a former sitting president. I think there's a lesson in there: most people just won't even try. This is something that sounds hard, but it's actually not that hard, especially when you have your type of story. I think it will actually be trivially easy for you. You'll be surprised. If you emailed the CEO of Ace Hardware, you would be the most interesting email he received that day. Why? Because there aren't many 18-year-old sprint car drivers, young entrepreneurs who are selling or interested in agriculture, who are actually out there doing it and not just talking about it. There are only a couple, and nobody's emailing him. So, I think it's going to be a lot easier than you think.

Abigayle Lett

It's something I'll definitely have to give a try.

Shaan Puri

Alright, I'll take it.

Sam Parr

Thank you! Yeah, you too. You're fantastic. Happy to...

Shaan Puri

Cold email you every day until you cold email them. Alright, I think that's how messed up it is.

Ayaan Jain

Might be.

Abigayle Lett

A good reminder.

Sam Parr

I want you to invite us to Odessa. I want to watch one of your races. I want to drive the...

Abigayle Lett

Damn thing! Definitely. Where did you say you're from? Missouri?

Sam Parr

I'm from St. Louis. Yeah, I'm from St. Louis.

Abigayle Lett

You're from St. Louis? Yep, I'm from Odessa, which is just a little bit east of Kansas City.

Sam Parr

Yeah, where a lot of people, like if you told Sean that, he wouldn't know anything. But you know the difference between Kansas City and St. Louis is like Los Angeles and San Francisco, Sean. So, not that.

Abigayle Lett

Similar, much.

Sam Parr

But alright, who do we have next?

Shaan Puri

By the way, just to recap: Abigail, shoot your shot! Cold email. Use your story to go to the top. Think about how you could **10x** your business instead of **2x** your business.

Sam Parr

And follow up until you die.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, Sam cold emailed his way out of Missouri, and you can too. Alright?

Sam Parr

Anand, thank you for bringing these folks to us.

Anand Sanwal

Yeah, absolutely! Let me just plug real quick: March 14 is our next deadline, so visit **formidablefellowship.org**. I think this has given me an amazing amount of hope in the next generation. The stories you hear, like how everybody's just scrolling away on TikTok, wasting their lives... But we see, honestly, hundreds of amazing young people. You met just three of them today. So, if you like what these guys do, please support them by cooking for moms.

Shaan Puri

Are you just doing good in the world now? Is that what's happened? You're just doing good?

Anand Sanwal

No, I mean, this is fun. This is a lot of fun, you know?

Shaan Puri

Well, he... he puts.

Anand Sanwal

A lot of wind in my sails.

Sam Parr

He put up about $500 or something of you and your partner's money.

Shaan Puri

He's just doing good.

Ayaan Jain

This is amazing! He did, yeah.

Sam Parr

It's called **The Second Mountain**. This is what you do when you...

Anand Sanwal

We got $700 in donations now, so I mean we have lots of money for grants. If there are young entrepreneurs, if parents are hearing this, you know, we've had a lot of parents reach out saying this has inspired their kids to start a business. So hopefully, we'll see them in six or twelve months. Yeah, and I mean, it's pretty dope what has started to happen, and we're only four and a half months in, so we're still...

Sam Parr

**Super loving doing this.**

Shaan Puri

That's a great question. That's what I'm asking myself. This is like, this is really amazing. Alright, Sean.

Sam Parr

There are a few of these you can just...

Anand Sanwal

You can just join us, Sean. It's alright. All the infrastructure is set up. That took the longest, so just...

Shaan Puri

Do you need like a hype man? Because that's kind of my skill. Yeah.

Ayaan Jain

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't really have anything to add.

Sam Parr

Much else.

Shaan Puri

But yeah, yeah.

Anand Sanwal

Yeah, we need a hype man for sure. So, no, but these guys, you know, these guys are great. If you need to buy Mom's cookies, or if you want your home beautified and to protect that asset, as Lincoln said, you know where to go.

Sam Parr

Dude, it's also awesome not to hear about AI. Do you know what I mean? Like, which is great, but it's like, you know, these guys are actually doing the damn thing in real life. It sounds awesome to hear different stuff.

Anand Sanwal

Yeah, I think the other thing we have is a podcast with these guys called **Future Titans**. Ayane goes through a story of emailing and going door to door, like a hundred times, and getting rejected. I think the things that they learn from building their businesses are phenomenal. You know, Abigail walks through this horticulture issue, which is way above my pay grade, where the moms are getting overwatered in one area. The problem-solving they're doing is unreal compared to anything they might do in an academic setting. So yeah, no, it's super.

Shaan Puri

I'm going to send you guys a copy of our boy Nick Huber's book, **"The Sweaty Startup: How to Get Rich Doing Boring Things."** Because you guys are all doing sweaty startups, this is great! I'll send you guys a copy. Get us your addresses, and I'll send it out.

Sam Parr

You're way ahead of the curve. You know, we'll joke and we'll tease you guys and give you a hard time, but you're doing amazing stuff. I hope you're proud of yourselves, and thanks for coming on the pod. Alright, that's it.