Investigating The Profitable Business Of Public Speaking

Sam Parr

How much do you think obama charges

Shaan Puri

I would have guessed **$250,000 to $350,000**. That's my guess for a speaking engagement, but honestly, it could be more. It could be like double that.

Sam Parr

Dude, so I think I heard rumors it's in like the $1,200,000 range, and that makes way...

Shaan Puri

sense wow

Sam Parr

Obama is not gonna get out of bed for less than $1,000,000. Alright, what's going on? I have been bursting at the seams to tell you a story.

Shaan Puri

You sent me the teaser. You said, "I got the best story." I was like, "Alright, let's hear it." And you're like, "On the podcast, not here." I was like, "Okay, well give me a clue." You can't say anything on the podcast, so I'm here now, two days after the tease. Let's hear it!

Sam Parr

Alright, so there was this guy who you had on the podcast, the comedian **Hassan Minhaj**.

Shaan Puri

minhaj yeah

Sam Parr

Is it with an H? Yeah, so I was out to eat with my friend Jason - Jason Janowitz from Blockworks - on Saturday night. We were sitting outside in New York City just having dinner, and I see Hassan walk by. I forget his last name, but it was Hassan and his... I was like, "Oh shit, I can't remember his last name!" So I don't wanna scream about his last name, but you know, I know it's Hassan.

Shaan Puri

by the way he he pronounces it hassan joe but but let's keep going

Sam Parr

hassan sorry yeah and I see him walk by and I go oh jason there's that guy that he he was on our pod I wasn't there but he was there should I should I go say what's up to him and jason was like yeah just go do it it's like alright fine he already made it down the block but that's okay I'm gonna run and so I get up from dinner and I kinda like chase him down I was like oh man I'm gonna look like a weirdo but whatever he'll know and I go hey hey and like people like look at it like see me like they think something's up I was like no I'm just gonna just gonna grab him and I cross the street and I finally grab him I go hassan what's going on man and he turns around I go what's up dude sorry I didn't mean to bother you he was with he was with his girlfriend or someone a girl and I was like hey man it's me sam parr I think we chatted once or twice on twitter but you're close with sean and you were on the podcast I wasn't there but I just wanted to say hey I love your work and he goes what I go yeah I'm just like you know I'm sam from my first million and he goes dude I've never been on a podcast before and I was like what do you mean you were just on it he goes what do you think I am I go you're hassan the the comedian the comedian right and he goes no that's not me and then I was like oh my god I am so embarrassed dude I am I was like surely you get that a lot right he goes yeah like sometimes but like hassan's tall I'm short and I was like well I it was for a podcast and I only saw his like upper torso and like why am I even explaining this like this doesn't even make sense so I I turn around and I walk away and he and he and he goes hey man and he and then he chases me down and he goes what what podcast did you say I was like I told him originally mfm I go it's my first million and he goes are you sam parr I go yeah what's going on and he goes check this out and he holds up his phone and he had my first million up on his spotify and he was like you know previously listening and he totally knew what was up and his girlfriend started laughing and it went for being like the most embarrassing thing I'd done all year to it kinda worked out after a while it was horrendous like I'm getting chills just discussing I I can't I was so embarrassed like I'm so thankful he didn't say like what do you think all indian guys look alike but it it it was quite bad

Shaan Puri

That's hilarious! So, the whole time when you were first talking to him, he didn't say, "Oh, by the way..." He waited to realize that this podcast he was listening to was about him.

Sam Parr

Yeah, he was like, "Wait, are you...?" And then he... it was just like a... the whole interaction was incredibly uncomfortable. Yeah, it was a very weird interaction. But like, it went from being... I was like... I made this face, like I made a cringe face to him. I'm like, "Oh my god, I can't believe this is gonna go on the internet." Like, this is gonna be known as "this guy... we all look alike." And it... it worked out okay.

Shaan Puri

Dude, I don't have real nightmares, like scary stuff happening to me. My nightmares are situations like this: I'll have a nightmare where I'm at a dinner, and I'm trying to butter up this person. I'm trying to be friends with them, talk to them, and make jokes. The whole time, I'm calling the guy Ross, and at the end, somebody's like, "Why are you calling him Ross? His name's Rick." I'm like, "Fuck! I've been calling him Ross for an hour." It's just these micro cringe moments.

Sam Parr

Or, like, when someone nice or someone who you want to impress... I remember I had this guy I was trying to work with at their company. I was interviewing, and he's like, "What's going on?" and you reply with, "Good." It's the worst.

Shaan Puri

have a good flight you too

Sam Parr

yes oh right now

Shaan Puri

you weren't here never mind I'm sorry that I said that

Sam Parr

it's one of those things I alright let me let me ask

Shaan Puri

You a question... actual horrible. Can I tell you the actual horrible? This is not even funny; this is more like a confessional for me. You're like, "You know, forgive me, Father, I have sinned," type of thing. I was at a holiday party once, and some woman came up to our table. She knew the person I was talking to. I didn't really know her, but I think I had met her once before. It was so vague in my head. I was like, "Oh, when's the little one due?" or "When's the little one coming?" She had just had the baby. Uh-huh. And I was like, "Oh my..." I was a 24-year-old dude, and in that moment, it took me a second to even understand what I had done and how bad it was. I was just sitting there with a stupid look on my face, and I didn't know what to say. Too much time passed; even like two beats had passed. Now I couldn't even apologize to her. She tried to move on to spare me the cringe, and I knew she was feeling bad, and I was feeling equally bad. I literally... this is 10 years ago, and I still feel it the same way I did in that moment. I've never recovered; it's been the same feeling for 10 years straight.

Sam Parr

yeah that's embarrassing it makes me feel horrible yeah I get it

Shaan Puri

Say anything, dude. Don't talk to anyone. That's like the only motto: do a podcast with your friend and speak to nobody else. That's the only way to...

Sam Parr

I mean, that mistake you made... I think that's a mistake that many people make one time and one time only. Then you just never ask about pregnancy again. The most awkward thing is sometimes if they ask you if you want to touch their belly. I don't ever do that.

Shaan Puri

dude who asked you nobody asked that dude I remember do you touch my belly

Sam Parr

Well, like, you know, there are kids... when you're younger, it's like, "Hey, do you want to feel the baby kick?" When I was about 4, I remember someone asked me that right when I crossed that threshold of when it's like, "No, I don't want to."

Sam Parr

touch a grown woman's stomach and like I I distinctly remember that around like 14 years old or 12 years old

Sam Parr

I was like, "I think I'm past that." We went to the point where I don't want my parents to see me naked anymore. Like, whenever that age is, you know what I mean?

Shaan Puri

when I was 15 I stopped showering with my mom yeah that's what

Sam Parr

it's just like there's like a distinct it's like it's hard to say what it is but you know it's before and after

Shaan Puri

Yeah, life is actually... people say, "What's the meaning of life?" In life, the meaning of life is to just avoid those exact moments that we're talking about. That's really the only purpose of life: to try to just avoid these horrendous seconds that can and will come up. Dude, can we brag about being the number one podcast? Wouldn't that be like a thing?

Sam Parr

Yeah, so this weekend we were number 1 in the business category. We were number 1 in entrepreneurship and number 40, I think, in all of America. What are we right now? Did it stay the same?

Shaan Puri

I don't know, I didn't check. That screenshot was incredible! I mean, like, you see Tim Ferriss' podcast. It's like, dude, I remember I've been listening to that and been a fan of him for a long time. Even though I know these charts are... they're not like, that doesn't mean we're bigger than their podcast. It just means, like, the velocity... like the...

Sam Parr

does that mean

Shaan Puri

We grew fast, and so it moved us up higher that week or whatever. There's some like secret formula, but even still... that secret formula, the fact that whatever the secret formula is, if we can be in that conversation on any secret formula, that's kind of a cool moment. I don't know if it's because we had some pretty dope episodes with Dharmesh and then Peter Levels, and maybe some of the growth stuff that Jonathan's doing. I don't know exactly what it is.

Sam Parr

the above

Shaan Puri

kind of amazing

Sam Parr

I think it's all of the above. I know that they're spending money to grow and they're doing some promotions. I don't exactly know what. Then, Dharmesh was popular. Whenever Dharmesh comes on, I always see him doing stuff like emailing it out to his email list and doing things like that. So he's always promoting it. Peter promoted his episode a ton, so I think that's why it happened. But yeah, we were like, you know, we are beating legitimately famous people. If you scroll through the top 50 podcasts in America, you're like, "Oh, that person! If I saw them, I would ask for a picture." And we're ahead of a lot of these people.

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

that's the type of person who I'd be embarrassed if I said good and when they ask what what's up

Shaan Puri

My favorite... there's this tweet from this guy, @bangali_87. This is the tweet: "Best business/entrepreneurship podcast out there. Big money, that is no small boy stuff."

Sam Parr

I'm gonna say it's not

Shaan Puri

Sean VP, I was like, "Dude, if that's not the new motto of the podcast..." **"No small boy stuff. Big money. Big money stuff."** No small boy stuff. That is... big money.

Sam Parr

I had... that's just incredible! When I was walking around New York this weekend, I had a couple of people throughout the day come up to me and say they're listeners. A few of them said, "I'm your dog." You know, because that guy... we had an episode where he said, "Hey, I wanna work for me. I wanna be your dog."

Shaan Puri

you're the dog

Sam Parr

I'm Dylan the dog. I'm your dog. Alright, let me ask you something.

Shaan Puri

that's good shit

Sam Parr

yeah you get paid to speak sometimes right

Shaan Puri

sometimes I say no most of the time because yeah I say

Sam Parr

no most of the time but I've done

Shaan Puri

It's kind of crazy... I've done it a couple times and it's kind of crazy when you say the number. You're like, "Alright, yeah, okay, I'll come talk, but it's gonna be $10," and they're like, "Okay, great." And you're just like, "Wow, $10 just to talk?" You know?

Sam Parr

so I think that's under charge

Shaan Puri

Like, you know, I... I like, not that I would do this for free, but it just seems like something you shouldn't have. It seems like something that's so weird to pay for. I know, I get it. I get the logic. It's like you have an event, and you kinda need someone to give an appearance. If that person matters to your community, that's cool. If you think they're gonna add some value, great. But it is just wild! Like, isn't there a part of you that just still remembers being totally broke? And you're just like, "What the hell is happening?" You could just... I can do this one Zoom call for $12. That's insane!

Sam Parr

Well, I've never done a Zoom call like that. But HubSpot, they have their conference coming up. Are you going to speak at the conference? We're supposed to speak. Are you going to fly out or no? TBD.

Shaan Puri

only if they pay me $50

Sam Parr

Yeah, you'll have to take that up with them. But if Obama is going to talk, Obama is talking. And then, like, a couple of years ago, they had Oprah talking. I did some research. How much do you think, if you're Obama and Oprah, I would put them in similar categories? Maybe Obama a little bit above in terms of influence, but not like terribly above. How much do you think— and I didn't ask them, I just researched it— how much do you think Obama charges?

Shaan Puri

I would guess something between $250,000 to $350,000. That's my guess for a speaking engagement. But honestly, it could be more; it could be like double that.

Sam Parr

Dude, so I think it's... I heard rumors it's in like the $1,200,000 range, and that makes sense. Obama is not gonna get out of bed for less than a million, and I hear Oprah is around the $1,000,000 range.

Shaan Puri

boy stuff for obama too

Sam Parr

No, definitely not. And so here's why. I've heard rumors, and I talked to people that have had them before, and that's kind of how I came up with that number. But let me give you some insider numbers. I only had one paid speaker ever at HustleCon. So at HustleCon, collectively, we probably had 200 or 300 speakers over a couple of years. Casey Neistat was the only speaker that we had who we paid. I was supposed to... you're not supposed to talk about how much you pay him, but this was years ago, so I can do it. This was, I think, at the height of his popularity. I only paid him $25,000 plus a private flight from LA to San Francisco for $6,000, or from San Francisco to LA. I forget, but one way it was only $6,000 plus $25,000. That's nothing, right? $25,000.

Shaan Puri

cheap compared to what because he was at the peak of his powers at that time too right it's not like that

Sam Parr

yeah for sure he was not blogging

Shaan Puri

Not like some C-list, you know, person who used to be famous. It's like, no guys, his... and his was a big deal then. He's a big deal now too.

Hubspot

So, I tried to get Gary Vaynerchuk to come speak at an event once. His asking price was $100,000, or I think he said that you would have to buy $100,000 worth of books. That somehow pushes him up the charts or something like that. So, Gary Vaynerchuk was at $100,000, and I spoke somewhat recently. I got paid between $20,000 to $25,000, or maybe it was $20,000 plus flights. Then, I think we had Ashton Kutcher speak at an event that I was at, and the organizers kind of implied that they paid him around $150,000. Our software is the worst. Have you heard of HubSpot? See, most CRMs are a cobbled-together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous.

Shaan Puri

I think

Sam Parr

I love our new crm our software is the best hubspot grow better

Shaan Puri

This has always been the playbook. I met a guy once who was writing a book, and I was like, "Nice! What are your goals for the book?" He was kind of answering me, but I got the sense that he was leaving out one important detail that makes all of this make sense. You're not saying the wrong thing, but I feel like you're just not saying whatever the right thing is. Sure enough, about 20 minutes in, he said, "Yeah, basically you write books so that you can get paid speaking gigs." It doesn't matter who reads your book or how it's received; you just need to be a guy who writes a book. Then you pay a certain amount to get up in the charts so you can say you're a New York Times bestseller or an Amazon bestseller. That just increases your paid speaking rate by like $15,000, and that's how you make your money back for this whole book process. I was like, "Oh, okay, that makes way more sense. Now I understand." I asked him, "So this paid speaking gig, how does this work?" He kind of broke it down for me step by step. I remember being intrigued but also considering the cost of it all. The idea of flying around all the time, never being home, was a lot to take in. So, he was at that.

Shaan Puri

Trying to figure out the next step after this, I started thinking about what the move straight to the end version of this would be. I was like, "Oh, okay, I think I know what I would do." I was thinking about creating a podcast at this time. I thought, "I could just record right here whenever I want, maybe in batches." As long as the conversation is fun, I don't think I would care about making any money off that. I feel like if I could do that, what if a million people were fans of the podcast? I think that would just jump me to where all these guys are trying to go. Ultimately, I think what a lot of these people want is to have a topic that they're really curious about. They like to research and do experiments in that area, and they're just trying to figure out a way to get paid to be professionally curious about it. I think that's the generous version of how to think about this. There's also the skeptical version, which is just, "Oh dude, you're just some motivational speaker, like a sort of scammy guru guy who wants to go around and blah blah blah." But I think the earnest people just want to be professionally curious. It's like, "How do I get to spend 90% of my time digging into this topic I'm a nerd about, and then somehow translate the other 10% of my time into enough money to fund me to do that in a cool way?" So, that's how I think about this stuff.

Sam Parr

What I've been doing for speaking is, I actually haven't asked to be paid lately. But I do tell them I need **two** first-class flights, and I want you to pay entirely for the hotel for a week. I will only say yes if it's a cool place for my wife and me. Let me tell you something interesting. So, Robert De Niro... the Wall Street Journal did this thing, and our friend Ramit shared it. So, listen to this: Robert De Niro got paid **$11,000,000** for a movie called *Savage Salvation* in September 2020. He was going to be there for **eight** days. He asked for round-trip private air transportation on a Gulfstream 5... or a 6? I don't know how Roman numerals work, but a Gulfstream jet. He got to keep all of the costumes, wigs, and prosthetics—all the stuff that he wore in the movie. He wanted an additional fee for his personal trainer, who had to be flown there and put up at the Ritz Carlton. In addition to the **eight** days he had to be there for production, he wanted a **seven**-day all-expenses-paid vacation at the Ritz Carlton, followed by a vacation in Puerto Rico. They also had to pay for his jet, which had to take his whole family to and from. Finally, he wanted **one** round-trip private flight between New York and LA, for a **five**-day stay, anytime within **twelve** months. Those were all of his asks in his contract for just **eight** days of work. That's not bad!

Shaan Puri

This is cool! I mean, it's like a hostage negotiation. It's like, "I need a briefcase with the cash, and I need a jet that's fueled with the engine on, and I'm gonna get on it." Dude, check out this website I just sent you: wsb.com. So, I had once heard that, you know, Coach K, who's the basketball coach at Duke, I remember back in the day he kind of had a salary of like... I want to call it like... not back in the day, but he's the number one college basketball coach, the most winningest coach of all time.

Sam Parr

what's the name

Shaan Puri

I'm really curious, how much does he make? Krzyzewski is his last name; it's spelled with a K and then a bunch of letters. So, he's now like 75. He's at the top of his game and just retired. He was making $12.5 million a year to coach college basketball at the time. I remember when I was in school because I went to Duke. I remember reading that his salary was maybe half that, closer to $4 or $5 million. He had gotten offered a contract with the Lakers that was going to pay him over $10 million, and he turned it down. I remember just thinking, "Wow, this guy turned down basically an extra $50 million to do this deal." That's pretty impressive! Why did he do that? I started looking into how he makes his money, and basically, he makes more money—at least at the time—through his endorsements, speaking fees, books, and tours than he did from his actual day job. If you go to the site wsb.com, he's listed there. You can see a bunch of speakers and how much they charge. For example, Bob Iger, the chairman of Disney, has a contact for fees for Coach K, and it says his speaking fee is $70,000+. So, if you want to get this guy, it's $70,000+. There are these businesses that are basically booking agencies for well-known speakers. I feel like this is a really interesting little niche business to be one of these middleman agencies that just aggregate demand for this roster of speakers that they can book out.

Sam Parr

So, you know how basically like maybe 8 years ago we kind of laughed at YouTubers? It's like, "They're not real celebrities. They're just internet celebrities," or "They're not going to be real business people." But now, you know, there's a world where some of them are going to be billionaires.

Shaan Puri

yeah it had a vibe that was like oh you make videos that's cute

Sam Parr

Yes, yes, yes! It has a condescending type of vibe. Now, we had the guy—I forget his name—but he was on the pod. He's the founder of the management company that manages Mr. Beast. What was his name? You know what I'm talking about... Reid! Yes, Reid and Knight Media. It's like this is potentially going to be a pretty large business. Do you think that these types of speaker bureaus and some of these agencies... when are the Twitter boys going to get their love? Do you think there’s going to be, like, you know, "We Dem Boys"? Is there going to be a Twitter agency for Sahil Bloom and Deshaun Purry anytime soon?

Shaan Puri

Well, there should be, right? You said you're getting paid to speak, Sahil gets paid to speak, and I get paid to speak. So obviously, there is demand. We are already doing the behavior; we just haven't gotten rolled up like these guys. You know, we don't have enough sort of gray hair on our chest to get onto one of these rolodexes, like the Washington Speaker Bureau. But why not, right? I do think so. I think Cameo kind of shows the demand for this sort of thing because people are willing to pay, you know, $100 a pop for these 15 to 30-second videos from, like, tier 2, tier 3, or tier 4 celebrities, you know, just saying "Happy Birthday" or whatever. I think Cameo is trying to go upstream where they're like, "Yeah, you could do meet and greets, you could do corporate appearances." I think Cameo is trying to move into that space. But yeah, I think definitely somebody could create a little bit of a, you know, one of these speaker businesses that basically books out podcasters, YouTubers, Twitter influencers, and TikTok stars to go and talk at, you know, corporate events and marketing events, stuff like that.

Sam Parr

guess how much revenue this company washington speaker bureaus does

Shaan Puri

oh god okay my guess 30,000,000 a year

Sam Parr

So, they were acquired in the year 2000. The year they were acquired, they were doing $15,000,000. They were bought by this company that I forget; it's one of the ad agencies that sounds like the COVID name. Is it Omnicom? I forget what it was. There are basically like five ad agencies that own everything; I forget which one it is. When they were acquired, they were doing $15,000,000, but that was in 1999. In 2017, they did $150,000,000 in revenue. **Fucking crazy**, right? Yeah, that's great. **Wild**, right?

Shaan Puri

You want to know a homie move? A homie move is whenever somebody asks you to guess something, always guess low. There's no bigger letdown than when you guess too high. They're trying to impress you with some fun fact about how cool this thing is, and if you guess too high, they're like, "Well, no, I mean, it's not that good." That sort of takes all the wind out of it. So, the homie move is always to cut whatever you think it is in half. That way, they can have the win of being like, "No, it's even more!" And you're like, "What? That's crazy!" Right? That's how you do it.

Sam Parr

that's good what do you wanna do now oh sir moore

Shaan Puri

Come on, Hunter! Scrolling this thing... Dude, Terry Bradshaw, $40K! We can go get Terry Bradshaw. This guy's got 4 Super Bowl rings. Good old Terry... we can get him for $40K, dude!

Sam Parr

I don't care about him that much, but yeah, we should get some more people. I heard a rumor—another rumor—that we could have gotten Arnold Schwarzenegger on our podcast for $100,000. I don't know if that was like a one-off thing, but there was some consideration. I'd heard about it, and I mean, Arnold's pretty cool. I don't think I would spend $100,000. I don't think he could give us a $100,000 worth of promotion for the podcast, right?

Shaan Puri

People have asked me this before: What do you think is the... what would be your dream guest? If we just had one, if there was just a $100,000 budget that was going to go to somebody guaranteed that they come on the pod, who would be your person that you would put on there?

Sam Parr

I mean, it's got to be someone really famous. So definitely like an Elon [Musk] or like an Obama or a Trump... like a president. Like, who would be the most famous person that you could ask some questions?

Shaan Puri

Is that because you're thinking about what drives the most clicks? Or is it more like, "That's the person I would want to have a podcast with?"

Sam Parr

No, I don't think I would enjoy a conversation with Elon. I think that would be an uncomfortable situation. I don't think that would be particularly enjoyable.

Shaan Puri

You know, I 100% agree with you. I think it would be honestly sort of uncomfortable in a giant setting. It's almost an automatic letdown. You're going to have such high hopes and expectations. I want it to go so well, but it's going to be kind of a difficult conversation. It's going to fly by really quickly. There are going to be 15 minutes where you're like, "Shit, we've been talking about this for 15 minutes!" Oh no, I need to switch course here. He's not going to know the vibe. He's not going to come ready to do what we do well, which is, you know, shoot the shit, brainstorm, and tell stories. So, I'm not sure that would be the best approach. If I were going to pull someone like that, I would just think, "Who is the best person that would actually love the type of conversation we have and be great at it?" I think that's a little bit hard. You'd have to take this archetype of who is kind of an idea machine but also has a name and reputation and has done stuff.

Sam Parr

I I think peter thiel is a show

Shaan Puri

give a shit

Sam Parr

I think peter thiel might be interesting but he's not that famous so I don't know how much traffic he would drive

Shaan Puri

Oh, I think he drives a good amount, especially in our niche. I think people... because he doesn't do a lot of content, right? Like, you can go get Daymond John from *Shark Tank*, and it's like, "But for $40K?" But he's everywhere, dude! First of all, come on. I mean, Fubo was cool, but like, it's what we want. And secondly, I don't think he... and he does appearances everywhere. So, you need somebody who people are sort of starved for content from. Maybe it's like a Naval or Peter Thiel—somebody who intentionally limits their number of appearances so that you have high search demand and not a lot of hits coming up.

Sam Parr

Yeah, I don't know. I wouldn't want it to be him. I don't care about that guy. I can't think of any other examples, though. I don't know. I would be uncomfortable with anyone who's intimidatingly good. I would be uncomfortable being around them. Like, if I made a joke to Elon, he wouldn't laugh. I don't think he would laugh. I think Obama would definitely laugh at everything. Even if it's one of those types of situations where you would say something and he would giggle, it's like, "Wait, what did I say?" He's like, "I don't know. Just the tone of your voice made me think I was supposed to laugh, so I did."

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

no I don't know

Shaan Puri

So, I'm trained on socializing that I don't actually need to be here for this. I could just autopilot and mimic all of the things I need to do socially for this to be a positive experience for you.

Sam Parr

Right, I don't know who I'd want for a $100K. Alright, so we have someone here, but before we get to that person, tell me about Sarah Moore.

Shaan Puri

Can I do the Sarah Moore update? Okay, this is kind of incredible. In fact, this should probably move to the beginning of the episode. It's probably the most interesting bit. So, a while back, maybe a month ago, I came on here and I was like, "Dude, there's this business. Have you heard of this business called EggCartons.com?" And you're like, "No, what is that?" Well, it's exactly what it sounds like. You go to EggCartons.com, and it's a place where you can buy the packaging, the carton for eggs. But also packaging for a bunch of different varieties of eggs—like huge shipments, small ones, eco-friendly, not eco-friendly—but also just like, in general, other packaging materials as well. So I was like, "Yeah, fascinating business, right?" You go there, it's an old-school looking website, you know? It's like, "Dial 1-800-EGGS.com," you know, whatever, to call us to place an order. I was like, "This is fascinating." So I dug in. I was like, "Who's behind this?" I found that it used to be owned by this guy who ran it for 24 years. I was like, "Okay, this sounds about right." His LinkedIn picture was him with a phone with a cord in it, and he's got it up to his neck, sitting at a messy desk. I was like, "This looks like the guy who started EggCartons.com 25 years ago." But now I noticed, oh, it says he ended his ownership one year ago. So, who's behind this? I saw that there was this woman named Sarah Moore, who was not what you would expect. It's like, "Oh, this person should be like the CEO of Lululemon or something like that." Why is she getting into egg cartons of all businesses?

Sam Parr

like beautiful harvard graduate yeah like you looks like a celebrity a

Shaan Puri

A little bit of celebrity, and so I tried to reach out to her. I couldn't get a hold of her, but I couldn't resist. So, I came on the pod and told the story. I was like, "Yeah, so basically it looks like she purchased this business. She did like one tiny interview about it and blah blah blah." But I had done one thing that I didn't tell you about that day, which is I've been experimenting with a format that I wish people would use more on me. When people reach out to me and say, "Oh, I'd love to talk to you sometime," I tell them, "If you have a question, just send me the question. In fact, if you have a bunch of questions, just send me a Google Doc. I'm going to look at it, and if I want to answer, I'll answer. If I don't, I don't." So that's what I did with her. I sent her an email and said, "Egg cartons!" with five exclamation points. I said, "That's hilarious! What a hilarious niche. We got this podcast; I'd love to feature you on it. I have five questions for you on this Google Doc. If you answer them with bullet points, I'll tell your story on the podcast. We get $20 million a year; it would be great for your business." I also included, "This is me on Twitter, by the way." I sent it, and there was no reply for 20 days. Then she emailed me out of the blue and said, "I couldn't have paid someone to make me sound as cool as you and Sam did on the podcast last week. Thank you so much! I filled out your Google Doc; I think those answers your questions. I would have responded earlier if I didn't think this was spam. Blah blah blah, send me your address; I'll send you some world-class egg cartons." Alright, so I want to read you what she... what I...

Sam Parr

read to her

Shaan Puri

and what she replied

Sam Parr

but did you want any are you gonna are you gonna accept those cartons

Shaan Puri

very nice it's really

Sam Parr

like very nice very nice of you sarah but thank you but no thank you

Shaan Puri

No, dude. Everything in the house can turn into a toy storage container. I have toys forever, all shapes and sizes. Alright, so... alright.

Sam Parr

what did you say

Shaan Puri

So, I basically said, "Here's my question." I asked, "You bought EggCartons.com. Did you buy it alone, or was it part of a private equity firm?" She replied, "Alone-ish. I started a private equity firm alone to buy a business, but it wasn't your typical private equity firm. My office, my 'quote unquote' office, was just a library at school. There was no fund, like no money. I had a lot of help. I had over 50 unpaid interns come from Craigslist, and I had them sift through over 400,000 private companies for a year and a half before I found EggCartons.com." "What?!" I exclaimed. Then I asked my second question, "How the heck did you buy it? Or no, why the heck did you buy it? What about the business made you want to buy it? Was it the name, the customer retention? What drove you to it?" She explained, "My goal was to buy a business with all debt so I could have 100% ownership. I had no collateral, though, except for my 2012 RAV4. So, I was trying to find something that was already stable enough that I could pitch a bank, that the business itself was the collateral instead of my RAV4. I needed historical cash flows. This business fit because it had been profitable since it started in 2001, had a high barrier to entry given the domain name, and over 100 other similar domain names that they own, like EggCartons and misspelled versions like EggCarton.com, blah blah blah." Then she said, "The founder has strategically purchased all these domains over the years to protect their brand. It was simple enough. It was also a simple enough business that somebody with zero operational experience, like me, and average intelligence, could operate if they tried hard enough." I was like, "Wow, this is incredible." Then I said, "I live in Silicon Valley. People here are obsessed with crypto, AI, blah blah blah. They would underestimate EggCartons.com. Can you give us a sense of the scale of the business?"

Sam Parr

that's a really good way to frame that

Shaan Puri

10 minute write down

Sam Parr

That's a beautiful way to frame that question. Because you nagged her a little bit, like you said something a little rude. You're like, "Yeah, you know, it's probably not that big, but maybe it is. You know, like impress me."

Shaan Puri

Right, I would think this is small, but you know, I'd love to be surprised. Would you say that this is more than this and less than this? So, anyway, she came back with, "I'm in the middle of something that prevents me from sharing the numbers publicly. All I can say is that our revenue is less than $50 million." I was like, "Oh, okay, but that's not less than $20 million. If it was less than $20 million, I feel like you would have said less than $20 million. I feel like that would be the case." I said, "How'd you negotiate the deal?" She said, "God, there's a bunch of context here." She goes, "In summary, I harassed the owner until he replied. Then we hit it off. We came up with the valuation together. Then I contacted over 100 banks, most of which told me to f*** off. One of them threw me a bone and agreed to an uncollateralized loan. The final deal was 75% bank debt and 25% the seller's note." So, she bought this with no money down, like the bank financing and the seller financing. She said, "Before buying the business, I overpaid an accountant to check my work and do an audit of the business because frankly, I had no idea what I was doing. His fees got rolled into the deal itself." So, she used an accountant to cover her ass but also paid him out of the deal itself.

Sam Parr

this one's amazing

Shaan Puri

Any other fun tidbits or anecdotes I could share? Here's what she says: This is where it gets great. She goes, "While searching for their business, I participated in several research studies just to make money. While I was doing my search, I went legally blind from a deodorant study for a bit, so I had to take a break from working until I could read again." She goes on to say, "My response rate was awful. I started doing borderline insane things to get a reply. At one point, I took a photo of myself wearing a sweatshirt that said, 'I wanna buy your business' with a massive grin, and I faxed it out to thousands of businesses a day. To this day, I run into owners who recognize me from those faxes. One of those owners is actually my neighbor." Then she says, "The library we worked out of required a school ID to enter. Most of my interns didn't go to the school, so we had to get fake IDs for all the interns to get into the library. Every time we hired someone, there was a lag because we would need to get more IDs." "Before COVID, I used to fly to China and needed to examine the egg cartons. On my first trip to India, I got held by Indian customs and interrogated for hours because they didn't believe that I was coming to India alone. They did not believe that I was coming to investigate egg cartons related to India. I almost got killed there. I rejected a shipment from an Indian vendor; his whole family lived there. He was furious and started chasing after me. The hotel put me into incognito mode for my safety. My driver, luckily, was at the door that I ran out of; otherwise, I'd probably still be there, buried underground." She goes on, "When I bought the business, I considered it an egg company, but now I think of it as specialty packaging. Forty percent of our business comes from things entirely unrelated to eggs. You'd be very surprised by our customer base. Think big brands like Boeing, SpaceX, Disney, Madison Square Garden, Crayola, etc. Anything that requires protection and separation is fair game." Anyways, there's one more I should say, but dude...

Sam Parr

what's the other one

Shaan Puri

is sarah moore not my hero is she my hero or is she not my hero

Sam Parr

This woman is wonderful. Why didn't she talk about this publicly more often? I feel like there are tons and tons of stories there.

Shaan Puri

Dude, you know, there are some people who are so in the game that they're like, "Oh yeah, what am I gonna stop and chat about the game? I'm in the fucking game!" That's the feeling I get from her. I've met some people like this. They sort of don't realize how story-worthy their story is until quite a bit later. The second thing is, they either prefer privacy or they're like, "Yeah, I don't really know why I need to do that. Why would I do that? It's gonna be kind of braggy and weird. What's the benefit? Maybe I'd just rather be personal." I think that I know a handful of people that I'm like, "Dude, I wish I could tell their story on the podcast because they're epic!" But they just don't see the value in this. They're also not consumers of it. That's the other thing I've noticed: most of those people don't listen to a bunch of podcasts or take inspiration from it. So it's kind of a foreign idea to them. They're like, "People will care?" It's like, "Yeah, of course people will care about this! This is awesome!" So anyway, I was totally inspired by this story, and she is kind of amazing. She is one of us. No small boy stuff for Sarah Moore.

Sam Parr

So I think she's only... When you Google her, you basically can't find anything. I mean, there's next to nothing on her. There's like one or two pictures, there's very little. I found one article where it says that she's 28, and she answered a question: > "What inspired you to start buying companies?" She says, "Freedom." > "What is your mantra?" "Don't take counsel from your fears." Like, that's pretty much all she... She answered nothing. This woman's amazing! Why can't we find anything about her? There's a lot... There's a lot going on with her. We need to like, commit her to come [for an interview or appearance].

Shaan Puri

Oh, there's a 30% chance she's a fat guy named Craig. So, you know, we could be getting catfished here. I wouldn't put it past her, but I'm gonna go with what I see. I think... I think it's amazing.