Meet The Farmer Who's Making $50M/Year With a Newsletter

Sam Parr

So, the background is this: There's a guy named **Kevin Van Trump**. He is probably in his fifties, mid to late fifties, and he basically... I think he worked in Chicago on like the commodities trading floor. So he traded commodities, but he's got a relatively thick Southern accent.

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

So he goes to Chicago. He probably makes 8 figures trading commodities. He sounds like this country bumpkin farmer, but you know, he's trading like corn futures and shit like that. It makes a lot of money. Then maybe 10 years ago, he starts this daily newsletter where he writes the whole thing by himself every single day at this point.

Shaan Puri

Like 17 years he's done that

Sam Parr

is it 17 years

Shaan Puri

some something like that it's like some almost 20 years he's been doing this every day

Sam Parr

And it makes something like **$20,000,000** a year in subscription revenue just to read more. Now, is it?

Shaan Puri

I I think it's like 30 40,000,000 a a year now

Sam Parr

So I've done calls with him and I'm just... and this guy, he's like, "Oh hey, check this song bitch out." That's what he'll say. Yeah, okay. So I haven't talked to you in like 2 weeks. You had COVID, you...

Shaan Puri

Dude, I had... I can't even explain what I had. I would apologize because I've missed so many recordings, but in a way, you gave me COVID. I got COVID because I went to this conference, which is a decision I made. Honestly, I wasn't really thinking about it. COVID has just been so present that I didn't really do the math of like, you know, if I go on a plane and I go to a conference with 2,000 people, what's gonna happen? And sure enough, I go to this conference that Sam hooks me up with. He's like, "Sam's like, hey, this conference is amazing. It's called FarmCon. These guys who run it, there's a super cool story, you know, it's awesome." And I was like, "Oh, I'm in."

Sam Parr

and I was gonna go

Shaan Puri

And I land, and I'm like, "Yo, I'm here, baby! Let's do this!" And Sam's like, "Oh, I didn't go, dude. I didn't want to get COVID."

Sam Parr

Well, I can't. I canceled like last minute. I thought that you knew that I canceled, but like...

Shaan Puri

how would I know that

Sam Parr

because we we had talked about you going and we hadn't said I don't know we had not

Shaan Puri

already mentioned that I'll see there say yeah yeah

Sam Parr

Yeah, and I thought you knew I canceled, so I felt horrible. But like a week or two prior to that... that's when Omicron and all this stuff happened. It's a farmer's conference in Kansas City. My... you know, I'm from Missouri, and I was like, "Oh, I think that COVID will be there," and I don't know if I will [attend].

Shaan Puri

COVID was for sure the main attendee, the main keynote speaker. Dude, we walked in. So, I walk in, and Ben went with me. We go in, and Ben and I are literally the only two people in the room with a mask. There are like 2,000 people in there, and I was like, "Ah shit, I didn't even really think about it." I was like, "Oh fuck, it's here." I thought, "Well, the odds of me getting it are pretty high, but I'm now here, so I gotta just make the most of it." So, anyways, I go to this conference, and everything that could happen to get COVID happened. Meaning, like, it's a conference in this ballroom. Great, it's 2,000 people in one room. Alright, that's not so good. They don't have masks on. Okay, the next thing that happens: I go to the gym in between sessions. Ben and I want to get a workout in. We go, we meet this guy, we're making small talk, and we're like, "Oh, you're here for the conference?" He's like, "No, I'm just quarantining here. My girlfriend has COVID, so I'm here." Oh my god, bro, I just shook your hand! What am I doing? So then this guy, my gym buddy, has COVID. I was like, "Oh great." Then I get on the plane finally to come back. I'm like, "Alright, I think I might have made it out unscathed. I don't know, I'm feeling okay." The plane gets stuck on the runway for three hours. I'm on a plane in a closed tube with a bunch of other people for three hours. I was like, "Alright, it's over. I got COVID." Sure enough, I get home, and two days later, I get COVID. Now, the dumb thing I didn't do was I didn't quarantine right away, which I should have just done. I should have just said, "Hey, even if I'm not feeling anything, I've been around a bunch of people. I should just leave." But I was like, "Look, I just left my wife at home with the two babies for like, you know, four days. I should come back and help." In trying to help, I ended up giving my wife COVID. Then we gave both our babies COVID. For the last ten days, it's just been someone in my house has had COVID at any given time. I've just been literally... I haven't gone to a computer, I haven't done anything. I've just been...

Sam Parr

ben get it taken care

Shaan Puri

Of it, Ben did not get it. I think Ben had it like a month ago, so he somehow came out unscathed.

Sam Parr

did sully get it he didn't go

Shaan Puri

He didn't have him going. He flaked the night of and was like, "Actually, it's super inconvenient to get there. I have to like change my flight; it has a stopover. Fuck this, I'm not going. We'll do something else."

Sam Parr

so was it and you but you were even though you're vaccinated you got sick

Shaan Puri

I got pretty sick... yeah, I got really sick for three days. Let me tell you about my COVID experience. I got really sick for three days, but it's just the flu with a side dose of paranoia because it's like, "Oh, this ain't the flu; this is COVID." So definitely, you know, fever and all that good stuff, whatever. Then the babies... everybody had kind of the same thing. But the bad thing is, I don't know how you are, but I'm like a huge baby when I get sick.

Sam Parr

me too

Shaan Puri

And my wife is like, you know, she never gets sick. She's one of those people who just never gets a cold, never has a runny nose, nothing. Even with COVID, she fought it off pretty well. It was pretty mild, you know? She was still doing...

Sam Parr

like a cold day generally tougher particularly moms are tougher when it comes to that stuff

Shaan Puri

Totally. But the hard part is when we both get the same thing and I go down like a, you know, bag of bricks.

Sam Parr

she's just got the fucking coke plane

Shaan Puri

Yeah, she's just like, "What is this? Why do you need so much sleep right now?" And I'm like, "I just can't explain." In fact, I saw this meme that was so perfect. It goes, there's this guy who says, "You know, it's so good that women have to give birth and go through labor because now they understand what happens when a man gets a cold." And that's how it is. I'm a huge baby about it, and she toughs it out with no problem. So that was kind of embarrassing.

Sam Parr

So, how many people... how many full-time employees work at your company? The D2C company?

Shaan Puri

maybe like 7 8 full time

Sam Parr

and and these in in americans full time and you and you like are running meetings and

Shaan Puri

Not all Americans, but you know, people for whom this is their main job. They work full-time, and when you’re not counting the warehouse staff...

Sam Parr

Do you have weekly meetings with them and run it like a company, or is it really, no, Sean? Is it run like Sean, very autonomously, with everything done via Slack?

Shaan Puri

Very autonomous. Everything is done via Slack. We have one meeting a week that's in Slack. I just say, "Hey, get in this channel right now." We just did it; it was at 10:30. It was like, "Alright, get in this channel right now." I just say, "Alright, is everybody here?" Then they just emoji react. I'm like, "Cool, this is like a real meeting," meaning don't go open 10 other tabs. When I say something, I want a response within like a second because it's like a live chat. I was like, "But calls are annoying. We all agree calls are annoying, so let's just humor me and try this meeting style." So we do it, and I kinda like it. Basically, I just say, "Alright, what's everybody's main priority this week? What matters?" Everyone's like, "Oh, we gotta do this, this, this." I say, "That doesn't really sound like it matters that much. Can we punt that?" They're like, "Yeah, I guess so." Then we disagree on the 3 or 4 things that matter this week. I say, "You're doing this, you're doing this, you're doing this." Then it's like, "Cool." I tell one guy, "Hey, check in on Wednesday," and everybody just says how they're doing on their things for the week. Then we check in on Friday and say, "Hey, how did we do for the week?" That's it.

Sam Parr

that's how much time does your wife spend on the company

Shaan Puri

She spends a good amount of time on her work. She's a stay-at-home mom, which is like her first job. During the day, she doesn't really work on it too much; she just kind of uses her phone in between watching the baby. At night, however, she basically works from 10 PM, when the babies are finally knocked out, to 2 or 3 AM pretty much every night. During that time, she focuses on the business, does the designs, and all that stuff.

Sam Parr

so when you guys were both sick how bad like who's

Shaan Puri

we did no work

Sam Parr

you just we just like you just have a a a a person who you trust and you say just handle it

Shaan Puri

Yeah, wow. We're like, you know, just do what you can do, and then whatever doesn't get done, doesn't get done. We're not going to worry about it. We're not going to add stress to our life that says, "This week we also have to work." It's just impossible.

Sam Parr

So, let's talk about this conference for a second. I have been telling you about this guy for a long time, and I think that you... you humored me, and the audience has humored me. They have been like, "Oh, that sounds neat." But when you got to meet him, did you understand what I was saying?

Shaan Puri

Dude, this guy is amazing! What he's built is amazing! I want to go through a bunch of thoughts, so let's start with them. The conference is called PharmCon, and the family is called the Van Trump family because that's their name. So, it's Kevin Van Trump and Jordan Van Trump—those are the two core principles, the father and son. I'm just going to describe what happened when I got there because it wasn't like a normal conference. A couple of unusual things: I go in, and there's a normal stage, you know? They have that typical wallpaper behind it with every sponsor's logo on a step-and-repeat banner. Okay, cool, everything's normal. But this main speaker, Kevin Van Trump, is not sitting in a chair. He has this mahogany desk that was put on top of the stage, and he's sitting behind it. He looks like a judge in a courtroom! He has this humongous oak wood table that he's sitting behind, and he literally has a gavel. He's talking into the mic, and it's like a free-form agenda. He'll just say something, and then he might say, "I walked in, and that's why I don't hire any Ivy Leaguers. Here's the problem with Ivy Leaguers..." and he'll just go on a rant. There are like five panelists sitting there, and then he'll tell a story. The crowd loves him! I loved him! He is an amazing, charismatic speaker who is smart and very real. His style is so likable; I can't even express it!

Sam Parr

The background is this: there's a guy named Kevin Van Trump. This is all from memory. I met him 4 or 5 years ago at a conference, and since then, I've kind of brought him into our circle of friends. He is probably in his fifties, mid to late fifties. I think he worked in Chicago on the commodities trading floor, so he traded commodities. He's got a relatively fixed southern accent. Kansas City, Missouri, isn't really considered the South, but it can be pretty country. I don't know where he's from, though. He goes to Chicago and probably makes 8 figures trading commodities. He sounds like this country bumpkin farmer, but you know, he's trading corn futures and stuff like that, making a lot of money. Then, maybe 10 years ago, he starts this daily newsletter where he writes the whole thing by himself every single day.

Shaan Puri

For like 17 years he's done that

Sam Parr

is it 17 years

Shaan Puri

some something like that it's like some almost 20 years he's been doing this every day

Sam Parr

And it makes something like **$20,000,000** a year in subscription revenue just to read more now.

Shaan Puri

I think it's like 30 40,000,000 a a year now

Sam Parr

So, I've done calls with him, and this guy, he's like, "Oh hey, check this song, bitch out!" That's what he'll say. He's pointing at his new Picasso. I've done video calls with him, and he's got this beautiful chopper in the background—a fancy customized motorcycle. He goes, "Oh, we just picked up this song, bitch! We just got this song, bitch the other day. We really love the Picassos." That's how he talks. Now, his family—Kevin or Jordan, his younger son—runs this other business in the commodities world, this farming world. They are gods. I've met a bunch of people who are like them—New York-ish type folks who have $50 million to $100 million and are traders. They revere him and they love him.

Shaan Puri

dude so so have you read any of his newsletters

Sam Parr

they're so good yeah must pay subscribers

Shaan Puri

First, they're like, you know, it's a 20-page PDF. So it's not even a short thing; it's a long thing. He basically is writing about what he thinks is going on in the market. He'll be like, you know, "Bean futures" or "rice" or "corn." These are different commodities he's talking about. It's really important for people in agriculture because if you're a farmer and you're growing corn, you have to decide: Do I hold this corn and try to sell it myself? Do I need to take on some insurance in case the price of corn drops? Should I sell all of my corn in this futures market, or should I take a hedged position against what I'm producing? You have to decide what you're going to do with your crop. For most people, investing is like a side thing. You do your job that earns you your money, your business that earns you your money, and then you invest in the stock market. Those are two separate things. For a farmer, these are not separated. This is part of the core of what you do: managing your risk.

Sam Parr

And these aren't guys that have like a farm that they just get by on. These are folks that supply the corn to places like McDonald's. We're talking about farmers who have turnover of $20, $30, $50 million each year.

Shaan Puri

Like, here's that. Yeah, he's like, "You know, you'll meet the guy who makes all the rice for Chipotle." He's like, "Whoa, that's crazy! That's crazy volume." Then I would meet people who were like what you call "gentleman farmers." They're basically people who don't need to farm; they just grew up that way. They're like, "Yeah, my family, I like living on a farm. I want my family to have a farm. I farm on my weekends and nights." There's one guy, he's a CEO of a large company, and he was just farming for fun, you know, nights and weekends. And that's why he was, you know, like there. It was like such a bad use of time, but it's not. It's not a bad use of time because it's a hobby. It's a pleasurable thing for him. What this manual work is, is like how he relaxes. How many people...

Sam Parr

were there

Shaan Puri

So, it's about 1,500 people. Let me explain to this guy their business. They have what I'll call **three separate components**, maybe four. Okay, so there's the newsletter—the paid newsletter that you basically subscribe to. You pay $1,000 a year, and I believe, based on some triangulation, that it's making about **$30 to $40 million** a year in annual subscription revenue. He's writing that, you know, like we'd be hanging out. It was maybe midnight, and he was at the hotel bar or whatever. We're hanging out, and I was like, "So, like, you know, who on your team writes the letter?" He's like, "I wish! I write the letter. I gotta go right up to my room right after this to go write that, you know, some b****."

Sam Parr

how he talks

Shaan Puri

Yeah, he's like, "I don't know why the fuck I did this." He's like, "I created a job for myself." I told my kid, my son, "You need to know the best job in the world is investing. You should invest. Don't do what I did. I created a job for myself and I have to write this thing every day." But you know, I love it, whatever, and it's...

Sam Parr

Really ugly. Have you seen it? It's like, it's not mobile-friendly. It's just a PDF and it's like 3,000 words with PowerPoint.

Shaan Puri

Images: substance over style. There are a few memes in there which I like. It's like, you know, just some jokes. I think that's very on brand.

Sam Parr

good the writing's great

Shaan Puri

The writing is really great, and the insights obviously matter; otherwise, people wouldn't be paying for this thing, right? They're genuinely getting value. At the conference, he's a god. People love this guy. They respect his knowledge and his content, and they just really like him. Again, he would say, "I literally wrote down verbatim things that he was saying because I was like, this is just so entertaining." For example, I'm just going to read you a couple of quotes from what he was saying. He said, "I hate hiring Ivy Leaguers because they're too afraid of failure." He explained, "They've done so well their whole life; they're not used to looking wrong or looking silly. You know, go try NFTs. Go put your hands on the wheel. Go get... go fall, go scrape your knee." He shared, "That's how I grew up. My dad would take us to the car and say, 'No, no seat belts, baby. That's how we roll.' We're going to take some risks. We're going to get skinned up, we're going to break some bones, we're going to fall off the bike." He emphasized, "That's how you gotta treat your kids. Even if they're smart kids, you gotta..." He mentioned one of the big concerns: "How do you get your kid—you're 60 maybe now, and you got your farm. Your kid's 30; they don't want to take over the farm, or maybe they want to, but they don't know how to do anything."

Sam Parr

well they're soft

Shaan Puri

he's like he's like you gotta segment off a portion of the farm let them fail but let them have the skin in the game he's like you know I wanna have kids that don't melt down when the rug gets pulled I wanna be able to go to them and say hey things things have changed and we're changing tonight and he's just like going on this rant and dude I'm sitting there in the crowd and I'm like world star I'm like this is this is such a hype monologue and had nothing to do with whatever they're talking about like bean bean futures 5 seconds before that but he would frequently go on these and every time I'm just nodding my head I'm like preach like we I was at this dinner with him and people were like it was kinda like these guys organized this dinner they're paying for it but then they as you know like sort of what what's what's the what's the catch it was we're gonna pitch our idea to to kevin and a couple other guys who we want to invest in it and they pitched their idea and he's like cool so who's the who's the who's the audience who's who's the customer for this and they're like well you know we've done extensive psychographic research here's a they slid over this thing he's like psychograph I I don't know what that means man what the fuck are you saying who is the customer and they're like it's it's not he's like it's a psychographic profile of he's like no like name them do you know 5 people who want this product like would this guy want this product hey you over there at the table would you want this product and the guy's like no I wouldn't want it and then he's just like and the and the guys are like kevin you're not like being open minded he's like I'm trying to help y'all he's like I've heard this idea 10 times and it failed I invested in this one it failed I invested in this one and why did it fail because there was no customer for this product and he he's like trying to give him real talk and it was so good and the whole time I'm just like wow this guy's core business instincts are very strong and his delivery method is fearless I just I I'm trying to do the impression because I want people to feel like what it felt like to hear this guy off the top of his head it's so different than corporate america it's so different than new york sf where everybody's hedging every word and packaging everything and trying to deliver it and trying to make these fucking you know like criticism sandwiches where you say a positive thing then a negative thing then a positive thing to like you know deliver the blow whereas he would just say the thing and he did it in a way that came off great I loved it

Sam Parr

Alright, so you have a list of a bunch of things that you've learned here. Let's just rattle them off. I found them to be all wildly interesting.

Shaan Puri

Let's do a couple of things. So, the rest of his business, he tells me, "I'm doing... I got..."

Sam Parr

I I know for sure his build business was doing in the $25,000,000 range years ago

Shaan Puri

right so that's so there's the newsletter component yeah then he's like well

Sam Parr

2 employees by the way I think it's just 2

Shaan Puri

Right, and he's like, "You know, there's never been a sponsor." For 15 years, John Deere comes to me and they say, "We would love to sponsor." No trust for the... He had these principles. He was like, "These people are gonna trust me because I'm not gonna be selling them to somebody." So he was like, "You know, I'm gonna do it this way and I'm gonna stick to my guns." And he's never run ads to advertise this thing. It's all organic, word-of-mouth. One person sharing it with another, saying, "You gotta check this thing out," forwarding it to somebody else, saying, "Hey, you see what he's saying about where the market's going?" Then that person is like, "Shit, I need these insights." And so that's amazing. You know, that's probably 90% profit, 95% profit, like on that $30,000,000, right?

Sam Parr

I think he uses... I like what someone's talking about which email... it's so raw. I think he uses Salesforce to send it out, right? Like that's his email service provider. It's pretty raw.

Shaan Puri

so then the second piece of the business was I I think that there's now a secondary thing that's happened many many years in which is like a big company will come to them and say hey you know let's just I'm just gonna for for arguments like chipotle is like hey we need we need somebody who's gonna grow soy in this region so he's just like hey I know like they're like you know everybody and so he's like cool yeah I can find you people who can produce what you need and they were like cool if we pay them let's call it $5.5 a bushel you know we'll make it 5.50 and you keep your 50¢ as the as the broker fee so I think that now produces as much as the newsletter so so let's double it basically let's tack that on now the third thing is investing so they basically had this you know they're like well everybody keeps coming to pitch us agtech they don't they don't know what the fuck they're talking about we know everybody in this space so they then started investing and I think they just had their biggest hit it's something called benson hill or benson's hill or something like that that went public so you know like the first kind of like public unicorn that they seeded and the last one is the most interesting one of all this is what the sun is doing so do you know about this yeah ag swag so here's the backstory that he tells about this and I I'm not sharing anything private like he told this on stage he goes met a guy who he like moved into my neighborhood type of thing and he used to be you know big shot exec at some company and he's like cool like what are you doing now he's like oh I'm I'm doing this kinda like either this buyout like leveraged buyout or I'm gonna become a ceo of this company called american identity we make t shirts and hats and he's like alright kinda lame like you sell t shirts now like you've done some big shit why are you doing that few years later fast forward that company american identity identity sells to staples for $8,000,000,000 and he he looks at it he's like what the hell he's like that t shirt company what what what the hats custom hats like what what do you what the fuck and he's basically like yeah he's like who are your biggest customers he's like oh yeah my 3 biggest customers are cargill adm and john deere and he's like uniforms what's that

Sam Parr

Are they making uniforms, or are they just making licensed merchandise? So, like, by John Deere, are they just printing it for a form?

Shaan Puri

They're printing. They're making it for John Deere. John Deere might have employees; they have, you know, 2,000 employees they want to send.

Sam Parr

out to

Shaan Puri

Or a vest with a John Deere logo or whatever. So he's like, "Those are your top accounts. Those are my buddies; I know all those guys." After they sell or whatever, it's him and his son who create **Ag Swag**—agricultural swag. It's the same idea, but now they go to all those accounts and say, "Hey, you want vests, fleece, hats, and whatever? You've got 100 employees in your office in Brazil; you need to send some stuff? Cool, we got you." I think this is going to be a really big business as well. They are doing very well. He was saying they outgrew their warehouse and are trying to expand. He was telling me, but I won't say any of the numbers for that part. He mentioned some of the square footage they need in the warehouse, and I know from the D to C space that if you need that much square footage, you are putting out pretty crazy volume. I thought that was amazing as well. What an example of just being a big fish in a pond—not even a really small pond, right? It seems like a niche, but it's agriculture.

Sam Parr

Yeah, I know, huge niche. You know, ag [agriculture] ... like, my parents are working in this industry and that's why I like this guy, because I got to know him. But the thing is, people like you and me, and people listening to us, we're these tech folks and we dismissed this. But literally everyone in America has an onion in their home or a product made of an onion.

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

And you're gonna buy it multiple times a week. But that's what my dad does - my dad sells onions. I remember I would make fun of him, and he's like, "Go look in your cabinet. You have stuff that I have owned at one point, I bet." And so it's not as small as we think.

Shaan Puri

Oh, I mean, obviously, it's not like... for example, the founder of Square, this guy Jim McAvoy. I want to talk about him too. He was the keynote speaker. So he comes on the stage, and he was also a very good speaker. I kind of have a high bar for that kind of thing, but he was very impressive. He gets on stage, and the very first thing he says is, "I just want to say thank you to everybody in this room for feeding my family." You know, it's like... it's such an obvious thing, but I say, "Yeah, of course! Where all the food we eat comes from somewhere." And in my mind, this is going to sound super dumb and ignorant, but it's true. Before this conference, I really spent 0% of my time thinking about where the heck the food comes from. Where the heck...

Sam Parr

food comes from and if you thought of a farmer you probably had stupid stereotypes of like dumb idiots

Shaan Puri

For sure, I was like, "Oh," and going into this, I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna go meet a bunch of hillbilly, like, rednecks," basically, was my...

Sam Parr

They do talk like that. I'm from there; they definitely will talk like that. But they are wearing like a $50,000 Rolex.

Shaan Puri

And when I get there, they're like, "You know, yeah, you know, put options on bean futures." With Brazil coming on board, they're saying, "I'm going to take this hedge position against corn." I was like, "Oh wait, y'all are like fucking Wall Street traders? Wait, what?" I thought maybe it was just a couple of these guys. Then I would meet guys in the hallway and I'd ask, "What do you do?" They'd respond, "Oh, my family has always owned a farm in South Dakota for 40 years." Okay, cool. So I asked, "Do you do this kind of like fucking soybean oil futures?" And they're like, "Yeah, you got to." I was like, "What? How do you know that?" They said, "Well, we got a broker, but you know, it's key to the business. You gotta be doing it." I was like, "Holy shit! You guys are more sophisticated financially than anybody I know. I could go to Silicon Valley, talk to engineers or angel investors, VCs, and I could say, 'Hey, explain to me how a derivatives contract works' or 'Explain to me how the corn futures market looks.' Nobody would know what the fuck they're talking about. Nobody would know what to say.

Sam Parr

Dude, now... okay, so you've not made fun of me, but you've teased me a little bit about loving trucks and farmers. Now do you understand why I think it's so cool? Like, these guys are sophisticated and everything, but the people you and I hang out with in our coastal cities, they don't give a f*** about these folks. And I'm like, "Man, if you could make those collide, it'd be awesome."

Shaan Puri

Right, and so a couple of things on that note. When I was at one of the dinners, they were talking about the "Who's the Customer" dinner. They were discussing something, and then something came up. They said, "You know how long we've been here? About Whole Foods and, you know, plant-based this and oat milk that." He said, "This is still tiny fringe shit. America eats cornbread and milk at scale. This is what America wants." They needed to know how much volume Whole Foods has. Then I was thinking, "Dude, in my bubble, everybody eats like that. Everybody eats the fringe shit." So it was just an awareness of two things. One is that in the future, maybe what we're doing ends up becoming more mainstream. I do believe that, but still, how not mainstream it is is crazy. The scale difference between, you know, corn versus the non-Whole Foods versus Whole Foods is like... to them, Whole Foods was this rounding error. I thought that was hilarious because to me, that's like, I don't know, where I shop every day. It's the main thing. Again, all this is going to sound really dumb, but I'm dumb. That's, I guess, the answer. When I was there, I was learning how dumb I was about everything. There were so many different things like that that I was learning. Can I just rattle off a couple of other things? Okay, so...

Sam Parr

Jonathan wrote us in the chat, "Is this... I could talk about this all day. I think this is the coolest shit ever."

Shaan Puri

So, I'm going to give you a couple of pain points and/or business ideas that I saw or heard when I was there, or just am making up because I thought, "Oh, maybe this." One thing is, even though I'm like, "Oh, these guys are really sophisticated," there's no way that they want to be that sophisticated about all these financial products they have to use for hedging the crops they produce and the insurance and all that good stuff. So, I think that some kind of Wealthfront-type robo-advisor that basically just does all the work for them to manage their risk would be beneficial.

Sam Parr

that's it

Shaan Puri

Is this going to be important? Because every single one of them is like, "Yeah, we have a broker we call, and we talk to him. He tells us X, Y, Z, and he tells us what he thinks we should be doing." We come up with a position we want to take, and then we take it. So that, to me, felt very old. I feel like if somebody does a robo-advisor thing, that's interesting. Kevin Van Trump had an idea. He goes, "I want to make a Rally Road." I think we've talked about Rally Road on here, which is basically an app you open up, and you can buy a fraction of cool memorabilia. So, it would be like a sweet old car or a first edition Harry Potter signed book set. It's awesome.

Sam Parr

it's in in my opinion rally road has one of the best apps I've seen in like the last 2 or 3 years

Shaan Puri

Super nice app company! I wish I had invested in it, honestly. I feel like I've been saying that for a year. I probably should've just done it at this point. But it's a really cool product, a really cool app. So he was saying, "I feel like we could do Rally Road just for our stuff." I was like, "What do you mean?" He said, "You know, just like the original motorcycle from *Dukes of Hazzard*," or something like that. Again, all the references flew over my head; he said them really fast. But basically, just cool, hick stuff. I was like, "Oh, that's probably actually a really good idea." Because these guys have money, they care about this stuff, and there's like a network effect of just speaking to that audience.

Sam Parr

Didn't I tell you? You know how I used to work for that show *American Pickers*? Do you... I don't... You were not in the market for that because you were in... were you in Australia at the time? Whatever. But you, if... if the show was around now, you wouldn't watch that. You don't fit that bill. But do you know that show *American Pickers*? So, for those listening, I used to work for the show *American Pickers*. It's basically like *Pawn Stars*. We'd go...

Shaan Puri

what did you do for them

Sam Parr

So, the main guy in the show, his name is Mike Wolf. He's the main character and he owned a store called "Pickin'." You go and knock on doors, visit barns, and find old memorabilia. You either sell it in your own stores, to antique shops, or on eBay. The antique shops have to get their items from somewhere, and they get them from pickers. This guy would buy old bicycles, which is a big market, or he would buy an old 1936 Harley for $10 and sell it for $30. He owned the store and started filming himself pre-YouTube for about five years to make the show popular, pitching it to the History Channel year after year, getting declined. Finally, they said, "Alright, this is cool. He's a good-looking guy, a charismatic guy," and they picked up the show. He was not rich off the picking stuff, but he was making a living. He got rich because he licensed the show; he was the producer and owned all the rights. I worked at the store where we sold the stuff that he bought—his picks. So many people would come to the store that we sold about $30,000 a day in T-shirts and shot glasses. Eventually, he wouldn't even sell the picks anymore because he needed stuff for people to look at when they were in the store. His business was probably doing $30 to $40 million a year off all of his merchandise. When the show was live—it's still live now, but it's past its heyday—we were the second or third most popular show on TV. We would have people fly in from all over the world just to come and look at the stuff. I helped run the store, but half the time I was just holding the door and making sure we weren't at capacity. The reason I'm bringing this up is this whole "Rally Road for Middle America" thing. This is the real stuff. Buying rare baseball cards or whatever it is—that's the fringe. Rally Road has built a great business on top of that.

Shaan Puri

Exactly. And by the way, if you were going to start this, I would email Sam and CC me just so I’d get to know. But I would go to these guys, like Mike Wolfe. I would find these kind of all-American influencers and I would use them to help promote the app and get them on board to grow this thing. I think this is kind of like going where nobody else is fishing. I think there's just not much competition to build technology products in that space. Let me tell you a couple of other ideas that were in there. Any kind of fintech for farmers. Part of it's like this Wealthfront idea, but also just like I've invested in six companies that are all just variations of, you know, Brex or Mercury Bank. So basically, there are two startups that got big that were serving entrepreneurs and tech startups. One is Mercury, which is just saying, "Hey, instead of going and using Bank of America or Wells Fargo, just use Mercury as your bank." We have a slick interface, it's a mobile app, you never have to talk to a banker, you know, free wire transfer... but it's...

Sam Parr

Not really a bank. They're partnering with another bank and they just layer their branding on top of that bank.

Shaan Puri

They're on top, exactly. But they've done really well; they're now valued at over $1,000,000,000. You know this guy who built it, Imad? He's kind of in our friend's group.

Sam Parr

he's awesome

Shaan Puri

And you know, he's great. He came on the pod. So, Mercury was a bank for tech startups, and then Brex was like Visa for tech startups. The same thing, not... you know, they are built on top of the Visa rails or the Mastercard rails or whatever, but it's just a credit card for startups. It was taken advantage of the idea that, "Hey, we understand startups." So, for example, you might be a startup that's raised $10,000,000 of venture capital, but your credit card limit is $5,000 because the bank's like, "Dude, you have no income, no history, no nothing, no credit. We can't give you money." And they're just like, "Dude, we just raised $10,000,000. We have the money in the bank!"

Sam Parr

They won't cap points on ad spend because they know that startups spend most of their money on advertising.

Shaan Puri

Exactly like that. Or things like, you know, just the like, "Hey, you can fill out the application online. You don't have to talk to a human, and it'll be sent to you in 2 days." Or like, you know, you want this to easily autofill online. There are just little things that make it work well for that audience.

Sam Parr

the mercury for farmers on board

Shaan Puri

So, Brex became a multibillion-dollar company. Mercury did as well. I've now invested in versions of either Mercury or Brex for teenagers, for teens in India, for businesses in India, and for Canadians.

Sam Parr

creators is the one that everyone

Shaan Puri

for creators I did that one too creators

Sam Parr

Make this for food creators. It would be so much better to do this for creators. Yeah, it's going to be creative.

Shaan Puri

That's what we call farmers. We're going to rebrand farming as the **creator economy**. They're just creating food.

Sam Parr

Yeah, yeah. Seed Creators, dude. It's so much... that would be such a better company.

Shaan Puri

And they're spending a lot of money, right? Because, like, all of it—the equipment, the fertilizers—these are huge bulk purchases.

Sam Parr

My cousins, I have an aunt and cousin who are a mom and son. They have 1,500 acres with about 1,000 cattle or so. I've gone out and hung out with them. They basically raise bulls; it's called bucking bulls. So, at a rodeo, the bull that is bucking is called that. The cowboy who stays on wins money, and the bull that bucks the hardest also wins money. You can also make money if you have a really good bucking bull by getting its semen out there. All the females they have are killed and turned into beef, and they make a living doing this. I don't know, they're probably millionaires, but they are hard workers. When they walk around places during a workday—because when you're a farmer, you're constantly driving to get feed or whatever—they'll have $20,000 on them in cash. Wow! They just have fat loads of cash. When they go to the rodeo, I've seen them have like $10,000 on them because they have to buy things while they're there. They have to make their bets. Anyway, these farmers have loads of cash because they're still doing stuff with cash. So, this is interesting.

Shaan Puri

Great market! Yeah, the other one is automation. I think the number one thing that was on everybody's mind is automation. How do we get more automation? From the beginning, technology has helped farms. Before there were tractors, everything was horse-pulled. Then tractors came out, and it became a big deal. John Deere is trying to develop self-driving tractors, and everybody's trying to implement automation. So, if you're sitting at MIT or Carnegie Mellon in some robotics lab, and you're thinking, "Okay, I can keep making things that I understand, like this gadget that turns off my light switch in my room because I don't like to get up once I lay down," that's fine. But instead, I suggest you go to a farm for about three weeks and just watch what's going on. From there, you can come up with the automations and ideas you want to pursue. I've invested in a few companies.

Sam Parr

In that space, it's automations and precision agriculture they call it. Which I think automation falls under precision agriculture - that's like the term, I believe. It's incredibly interesting. So, like you talk about autonomous cars, autonomous tractors... it's incredibly intriguing.

Shaan Puri

Right, and there's also sensors. Soil quality, or soil health, is one of the most important things. If your soil health is bad, your crop is in trouble. So, just being able to come up with models where you can put sensors in the ground and get real-time soil health data is crucial. This can alert people, saying, "Hey, this plot in this area is not going to grow very well because of this." That also seems like a big deal. Now, the last topic is family succession planning. One of the biggest challenges is figuring out how to pass down your farm. If your kids don't want to take it over—and increasingly, kids don't want to do it—what are you going to do with this farm? There are places where you can sell farms, which I think is one opportunity. There's also creating your estate, your will, and all that stuff. Renting it out to other people is another option. There was just a whole bunch of discussion around the fact that if a billion dollars' worth of farms is going to trade hands in the next ten years, who's going to be in the middle of that?

Sam Parr

I think working with... Remember, we had one episode where we talked about picking your customer? We were talking about this company UserVoice or UserTesting - which one does your mom work for? "User Testing." And I was like, I think that's so cool because it gives people like your mom - like moms who raise kids and can't have full-time jobs - it gives them work that's admirable, that's exciting, that's incredibly motivating. I think you could easily put farmers in that same situation or in that same category. It would be really exciting and fun to work with those guys.

Shaan Puri

Right, right, totally. There was a couple of startups that I liked. One was called AcreTrader. So these guys have now raised like $60,000,000. I think Peter Thiel invested in them. Basically, it's just fractional land ownership of farms. The idea is you can buy... I could go on there today and I could put down $1,000 and buy a piece of a farm in North Dakota. I can make 8 to 11% a year on that investment. I could diversify; I could own pieces of five farms in five different states that do five different things. Then there's a farmer on the farm that does the work, leasing the farm from you. You're just owning the land. I think the average farm that they were doing was like $2,000,000 in size, and they did like 80 farms last year or something like that. So I was like, "Okay, that's actually pretty good." They basically buy the land and then fractionally sell it off. They take a broker fee and a management fee of 0.75% a year on top of that just to manage the property.

Sam Parr

so it sounds like this conference is badass you you changed your perspective on some stuff

Shaan Puri

For sure. In fact, I actually just want to say that conferences, in general, often get a bad rap. People say they are a waste of time, and you'll see that a lot on Twitter, especially from smart people. I think the exact opposite. I believe conferences are pure **fucking alpha**. There are so many gains to be had at conferences. Number one, you leave your routine, and that just frees the mind. It helps you get out of the weeds and into a different space. When you meet somebody at a conference, there's something special about meeting people in person. It's so... it's so crazy. You don't have...

Sam Parr

To buy anything, I met Kevin. I spoke at a conference and was just hanging out in the lobby when Kevin Van Trump came up to me. He was wearing cowboy boots and a Ramones t-shirt. I thought he was a bit of a weirdo. I did think he was legit, but he was talking a big game—not bragging, but kind of. He told me about his business and mentioned that he had a $100,000 watch on. I was like, "Wait, you're telling me..." He said, "Yeah, I got 20,000 subscribers." I was like, "Oh, so you guys make money through ads?" He goes, "Oh no, paid subscription." I was like, "Wait, who are you?"

Shaan Puri

By the way, he remembered you! He gave a great intro when he was introducing me. He said, "I met this guy, Sam, you swore from American Pickers and Bo." He told the whole conference about you and how great you were. It was awesome!

Sam Parr

And so anyway, I met Kevin at a conference. Which now you've been brought into the fold, this is gonna influence you in some capacity. You're gonna bring other people into the fold. That's why conferences are cool.

Shaan Puri

Conferences are cool. Secondly, go to weird conferences. If you just keep going to the same insular events, you miss out. I actually think that attending conferences outside of your industry is something that nobody really does, but I've always done it. I remember going to a restaurant trade show conference and a gym equipment owners conference. That's cool! When you go, you meet a whole bunch of people from a totally different walk of life. You see what they're thinking about, what their problems are, and what they're worried about. I'm sure out of this, I'll get some investors for my fund, some new ideas, and a fresh perspective. It just makes you a more interesting person. So, I would highly recommend going to trade shows, specifically in different industry niches that are not yours. Just go to a sneaker conference and be like, "Oh, what the hell are these sneakerheads doing? Who are these people? What do they do?"

Sam Parr

yeah right

Shaan Puri

I know it's like a luxury if you have the time. But if you work remotely, anyways, go to one of these things. Spend 4 hours on the floor and then spend the other 5 hours or whatever at night, you know, working. Just work from there for the week. Or if you're young and you don't know what to do, don't just take a job. Go dabble, go travel around to 3 of these, and you'll just have a totally different lens on things. So, I think that's like a hack that I wanted to bring up. Yeah, it was crazy, by the way. These guys, the farmers, the best thing I got from them was their little one-liners. One guy was telling the story about this investment he lost a bunch of money on. People were like, "Damn, you like that? Holy shit, you must have lost a lot." He goes, "It was a sad day, but you know that's why Johnny Walker makes a blue." And then he was just like, "Move on." I was just like, "I'm writing these down. These are bars, dude. These guys are amazing."

Sam Parr

can we are we allowed to talk about

Shaan Puri

I think so why not

Sam Parr

alright let's talk about so do you wanna give the bat we

Shaan Puri

might wanna bleep out his name so let's let's bleep out his name just

Sam Parr

Well, let's talk about his... Let's... we'll ask him after this, but alright. There's this guy named... I didn't really know much about him. Somehow I got brought into this group chat that you're in, and in a weird way, I feel like I'm good friends with him now even though we've only texted. Yeah, he... How does he talk about what happened over the weekend about this app?

Shaan Puri

Okay, so basically, here's his short story. He's built a couple of products but honestly never really had a big hit. He and his friends have been working on a startup for a number of years. They were just grinding, running test after test, and they were really building a lot of stuff in the social space. He learned a lot and kind of cut his teeth trying to build the next Twitter, the next TikTok, or whatever. They were about to fail, and the last thing they built, the hail Mary, was, "Oh, let's just create this quiz app, this superlatives app." It was like, "Oh, who at your high school is most likely to become a professional dancer or go to jail?" And it goes viral. It's called TBH, and it hits number one in the App Store. The flow is basically: you open the app, you start answering these questions about your friends, and they would text your friends saying, "Hey, Sean said you're most likely to [fill in the blank]. Click here to see what else he said." I was like, "Oh dude, I'm going to click that." Then you click that, and it would go on something along those lines. So, TBH goes viral, and Facebook ends up buying it. Smart move, but they knew this thing didn't have legs to actually be the next hit social app.

Sam Parr

but it made them like you know a good not like I I don't think it sold for what it was reported as yeah

Shaan Puri

it's reported as like $100,000,000 I think it was

Sam Parr

a loss from that made you know a lifetime of money

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. So these guys, they pull it off in the end, right? They went from literally being about to shut it down. He's like, "Oh, fuck it, let's just launch this last thing." And that thing hits. So then he goes to Facebook and stays there for like four full years. He hits the full vest, and the whole time, I don't know, he's probably bored. He's just on Twitter, and he's what people call "shitposting," which is basically just posting jokes on Twitter and oftentimes making fun of the tech industry—making fun of the stuff that people in the tech industry are doing. So anyway, people like to follow him because he's funny. Over the weekend, he tweeted something out last week that was like, "Hey, I'm working on a new project. I finally left Facebook or whatever. I'm working on a new project. I want to work with a designer. I'm looking for a founding designer if you want to, you know, build something amazing and work with a team that's built apps, blah blah blah. You know, DM me." Something along those lines.

Sam Parr

When he quit and announced that he was leaving Facebook, it said: "I've been at Facebook, they bought my app, I've been there for 4 years. It really was... just... there was a lot happened and I wanna give a thread on everything that I learned." And it pointed down, down like the down emoji, and there was no other thread. That was it.

Shaan Puri

there's nothing there

Sam Parr

yeah and it was hilarious

Shaan Puri

Here's what I learned from four years of Facebook: nothing. So, yeah, that was hilarious. People were like, "Oh!" People generally are excited about the next big thing, especially all the kind of venture investors and angel investors. This is the kind of entrepreneur you like to back—someone who you think is smart, a serial entrepreneur. It's not their first rodeo, but they also haven't had the big win yet. They still have a huge chip on their shoulder and want to make it big. So that's a great entrepreneur to invest in. He's pretty well-networked and well-respected, so people want to invest in him. He tweets that he's looking for a designer, and then two days later, someone else tweets, "I saw a mock-up of a new app. Holy shit, it's going to change everything!" This guy is also a bit of a shit poster. I think his handle is something like "Another Cohen." By the way, you've seen the image he's talking about; he's posted it in our text thread before. It's like, "Here's an idea; I might make this thing." If I remember correctly...

Sam Parr

it wasn't even like

Shaan Puri

it's not a business it's like oh it's it's like a it's just like a silly idea it's a company

Sam Parr

still he's still ideating he doesn't even

Shaan Puri

Yeah, so anyways, people then start memeing that guy. They're like, "I just saw a new app for the first time, and you know, this wart that I've had on my toe for years just went away." And then the next person would be like, "I showed it to eight children who were starving, and now they're not hungry anymore." So this goes viral as a meme on Twitter. I'm going to read you some of the good ones.

Sam Parr

they're great they were great

Shaan Puri

let's see

Sam Parr

There was a guy saying, "We're happy to announce that it was Andrew Chen. We're happy to announce that we just led a $100,000,000 round into a new app."

Shaan Puri

Right, I can't believe they're extending. I just got to a session with my therapist. She ended up asking me for tips on how to get allocation into a new company. So, it just became this meme in the tech industry. A lot of people were saying, "What's this app?" By the way, this idea, this kind of "quote unquote" growth hack, was accidental but really effective. It drummed up a bunch of interest and a lot of hype around what this new app could be.

Sam Parr

And so what he did was he created an NFT with... I think he sold... So he's got, oh my god, he's got this really stupid-like image for his Twitter picture, but it's kinda funny. He made different Twitter images based off of his, 69 of them, and if you bought one, you get early access as a beta user to his app, right?

Shaan Puri

I don't know was that the promise I didn't know that

Sam Parr

that's the promise look at the floor price of the what those are

Shaan Puri

So he goes, "Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce Dena Shipposting Club, a collection of 69 owners who will get access to the quote app." [Parenthesis: There is no app.] It is now available on a busy [platform], and so he links it, and it sells out as NFTs do. I think he made... what did he make off this thing? Alright, oh, the floor has dropped. So anybody who bought this, I think, is probably not doing so hot. The floor is now only 0.36 ETH, so that's not great. But anyway, it's still $1,000. So, 69 pictures for $1,000? Okay, not bad.

Sam Parr

So here's what I want to ask you... I want to ask you a question because you have done something similar. I didn't know before you and I... you introduced me to him. I knew him as like a guy who built an app, but it seems like people revere him. They consider him an expert on consumer apps, which... not saying that he isn't. He certainly is pretty successful, it seems.

Shaan Puri

but also what the fuck

Sam Parr

But also, his reputation is so big where it's like, "Yeah, is anyone *that* good?" That's kinda what I'm gonna get. And you've done a good job of that as well, creating this... like mystique almost out of nothing. Right? Not that you weren't successful ahead of time, but you've done a really good job of building a brand.

Shaan Puri

Call it what you will, but I sold my startup for less than what my investors had put in. Now, you know the way it worked. The team still did well, and I made good money off of it, but that's not the definition of a successful business.

Sam Parr

Because there's a lot of people that have sold their companies for a lot of money... We have a handful of buddies that are like uber-rich. No one knows who they are, and even if they told you what they did, they'd have to beg to speak at a conference. Whereas guys like you, you've got *The Daily Show* reaching out to you. You've got celebrities reaching out to you who want to get on board with you and them [the uber-rich friends] the same thing.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, because you can make it sound good. I could say, "I sold my last startup to Amazon." Technically, I did. Technically, I made money, but like... oh.

Sam Parr

that's not it

Shaan Puri

that doesn't make it a like a huge success you know it doesn't make me like a thought leader

Sam Parr

I don't think that's the right way to say it because you're acting like you're tricking people. You've never tricked anyone ever, and I don't think he has either. But what you've both done is create a little bit of mystique about it. What I want to know is, can you use the example? How does someone— I guess I'm asking for myself— how do you create so much of this brand equity like you guys have?

Shaan Puri

Well, I think in both cases, it's basically you put your thoughts on blast. You know they're the real answer. And by the way, I say that not to make fun of anyone. I think it did sell for a profit, so good for them. I'm saying I know that I've gotten disproportionate credit for my track record of success when in reality, the best thing I've built is this D2C company that I don't tell anybody the name of. That's the profitable business that's doing 8 figures a year. But like, that's not actually why people know me. My reputation came before that, so you know, that's kind of weird, right? So where does the reputation actually come from? It comes from two things. One is you meet people in real life. You go meet, you know, the investors at these different big funds or CEOs at different companies. When they're talking to you, they're making an independent assessment of your caliber based on your thoughts. So first, it's like a hand-to-hand combat thing. You meet a bunch of people, you earn their respect one-on-one. When they're talking about some deal they're doing or a company they're building, you actually contribute by adding value. You point out things, give them criticism, or provide feedback on what's really great. You identify to them other things that are really cool, and they say, "Wow, this guy really... I got a lot out of this conversation." So you do that with like 300 people, and those people matter, right? Because they have influence and trust themselves. For example, Josh Elman is a good example. This guy was early on at LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Robinhood. He was early as Sean, meaning he was head of growth at a bunch of these companies.

Sam Parr

yeah yeah yeah he's a big deal he's been on our podcast

Shaan Puri

And so, he's got... you know, people have a tremendous amount of respect for him because he's had a tremendous career. Well, both Josh and I have, you know, on separate occasions, met with Josh. When we're talking about our startup, whether our startup succeeded or failed, Josh knows, "Look, you're playing in the sort of like the startup lottery, startup Olympics." A startup can fail, and an entrepreneur can still be really great. If out of that conversation, Josh walks away thinking, "Oh, this person's really smart," then he connects you to some other people that he knows. Those people say, "Wow, Josh, thanks for the intro. Sean was really great." You develop a reputation amongst people who have a reputation. So that's the first step. Through real-life interactions, you develop a reputation with people who already have a reputation so that they will retweet your stuff, so that they will vouch for you when you have a project or you're doing something. That goes a long way in the marketplace. For example, I've had Josh, or Balaji, or different people who have their own big following and their own respect. If they share me or they say, "This person's great," then a whole bunch of other people just inherit that reputation. They just say, "Oh, okay, if Josh says he's great, he's great. If Balaji says he's great, he's great."

Sam Parr

It's such a unique way of... it's almost like credibility hacking or something like that. But...

Shaan Puri

But that's the thing I think is important. I'm telling you how the mechanic works, but the reason it's not a hack is because your thoughts actually have to be interesting. You have to actually...

Sam Parr

Mean hack... like you're a hack. I just mean like you're getting the desired outcome through the process of getting there.

Shaan Puri

Right, the second thing is we both created content. Now, tweets are mostly making fun of people who create content, threads, and teach courses. But before that, he was doing it himself. He was saying, "You know, when you're building a social app, blah blah blah," or "Here's how we grew inside high schools for tbh." And why did I respect him? Because he released this memo that actually got leaked from inside Facebook.

Sam Parr

oh yeah yeah yeah

Shaan Puri

And the memo basically said, "Hey guys at Facebook, here's some of the stuff we did to grow among teenagers." I know Facebook wants to grow among teens, so here's some of the stuff we did at TBH. For example, for every high school, we would create an Instagram account branded to the high school. It would be like, you know, "McKinley High Secrets," and that's the Instagram account. It would be locked, and we would follow anybody who had "McKinley High" in their profile. Then they would follow us. You know, 40% of people would follow us back. They would request to follow, but we were private, so we wouldn't approve anybody's request. Then, at 4 PM, when everybody got out of school one day, we would accept all the requests. So, everybody simultaneously would get a notification about our account. They would all go check it out, and then they would all see the link to download the app. As they were downloading the app, they'd be getting notifications that their friends were all downloading the app that day, and it felt like a big deal. That's how we hacked distribution into high schools. I similarly have told a very similar story about how our goal was always to get half of a high school to download our app in one day. We did it a completely different way, but I've shared that on podcasts, different places, or on Twitter threads. People read that and they're like, "Oh, fuck, this guy's smart. That's a really smart growth tactic. This guy really understands growth. This guy really understands teens. This guy really understands social." If you just... if I like, it's that quote my buddy Jason Hitchcock told me once. He goes, "You say one interesting thing, I say that's interesting. You say two interesting things, I say those are interesting. You say three interesting things, I say, 'Fuck, this guy's interesting.'" That's really what you gotta do with content. If you say three original interesting things around one topic, whether it's Bitcoin, media, robotics, or whatever, if I get three interesting things from you, I'll, in my brain, assign that tag to you: "This guy's interesting, worth watching." Then, if other people endorse it and say, "This is interesting," it goes even faster.

Sam Parr

Dude, this is exciting to me. I think this is a fire episode! I'm not gonna... I don't wanna talk about it entirely right now because I think we should wrap here, but... So last weekend, when you were sick, you probably didn't see this. I tweeted out about STRs [Short Term Rentals]. Did you happen to see that?

Shaan Puri

I saw it and I followed what you were talking about. It looks super interesting—your Facebook group. I want to hear more about that. You can save it for another app if you want.

Sam Parr

we'll save it but did you join the group

Shaan Puri

I didn't join the group yet no I didn't know the name it's called sam's strs or something

Sam Parr

like that I just made it in the car like my sarah was driving and I just made it in the car

Shaan Puri

Such a smart way to do things, by the way. It's going to sound super simple, like, "Oh, I just made this thing because you were curious and wanted to learn about it," right? Like, you hadn't decided to do it yet.

Sam Parr

but it's well I have now but I'm still looking for a property though but I

Shaan Puri

sam's str crew

Sam Parr

Yeah, I'll let you in. There are like 1,000 or 1,500 people. It's mostly all tech guys. Dude, I've met some guys there.

Shaan Puri

these people you you tweeted it out

Sam Parr

Just the tweet, that's it. It's all tech guys. Like, it's that guy AJ who owns the pet business, and then there's Nathan Barry, Marshall Hawes... I mean, there are guys in there that I've met. There are billionaires who have sold companies for **$1,000,000,000**. I met one guy who's making **$500,000** a month in profit. He's paying himself **$6,000,000** a year off of his handful of companies. There's another guy in there who owns **$50,000,000** worth of them. It's crazy! I'm learning all this in this group. It's amazing. So, you're going to have to browse through that, and I'll tell you some more.

Shaan Puri

Interesting stuff about it. We'll start with that one next time. Does that interest you? Dude, of course it interests me! Yeah, that's great.

Sam Parr

it's crazy who would have thought about about short term rentals and how they're crushing

Shaan Puri

It hits the highest level of interesting me, which is where you say, "What am I doing with my life? Why don't I do that?" Alright, he raised you to question your own life. That is the highest form of interest.

Sam Parr

The thing is... you don't need to quote "be doing it." You just need to have done it. There is a world where you not quite "set it and forget it," but it's not like you need to do shit all.

Shaan Puri

the time

Sam Parr

To it, right. And so I would say one of the criticisms - not a criticism, but one of my feedback for Sean and how Sean should evolve maybe - is to sometimes invest in some of these more boring, stable things. At least just a tiny portion of your money. And like, this is a really interesting asset class.

Shaan Puri

Have I told you about Steady? No? This is sweet! I think you'll like it. So, I actually think the website is cool. Steady... I want to say it's **steady.capital** or **steadycapital.com**. One second, let me pull it up.

Sam Parr

steady if I just type in steady okay

Shaan Puri

do steady.capital steady.com

Sam Parr

most okay

Shaan Puri

tell me what just tell me what you see

Sam Parr

It's a black screen and it says: > How do most millionaires build their wealth? 90% of millionaires invest in real estate. Steady lets you earn passive income from real estate for $100.

Shaan Puri

and then

Sam Parr

And you invest in... Okay, so **Steady** is a web dashboard for retail investors to buy shares of income-generating commercial real estate. Commercial real estate investments are made in senior financial reports in our dashboard, and you get monthly deposits from your investments directly to your bank account. We do not offer high-adrenaline [investments].

Shaan Puri

the part I wanted you to read yeah

Sam Parr

We do not offer high... This is really good copy: "We do not offer high-adrenaline investments. We don't have an app designed to keep your eyes glued to your phone. We pursue steady returns over hype. We are the tortoise in a race full of hares."

Shaan Puri

Wonderful, wonderful! So, I read this... This guy I used to play pickup basketball with, or he was on my intramural basketball team, his name is Dylan. He created this company. I just kind of saw his Twitter and I was like, "Oh, what's this guy Dylan up to?" I didn't even know he was a startup guy. He's just some dude we used to play ball with and has like City Capital. What's that? I read this landing page and I was like, "Dude, what is this? I gotta invest!" Literally, so I invested in both his company as well as I started putting my money into Steady. This is...

Sam Parr

why invested in steady

Shaan Puri

Yeah, because I was like, "Dude, this is what I want." I was like, "I want to own real estate and have income coming in, but I don't want to do the work of finding a property, diligencing it, underwriting it, taking out a loan for myself, buying the property, managing the property—all that good stuff." So what these guys do is they basically handpick sponsors. They'll have guys who have a good track record in commercial real estate. For example, they'll say, "Oh, this guy buys warehouses in the middle of Texas." They diligence the properties for you, and then all you do is set up auto-invest. So what I do is I just say, "I want to invest $5,000 a month," just as a starting point. I was like, "I'm going to invest $5,000 a month into commercial real estate." Cool! Over this year, I'll have $60 put into this, and then it just shows me, "Cool, you're going to break even in 18 months, but you're going to get your first check next month." Basically, what they do is they go to that sponsor and say, "Hey, you know you're going to raise money for this deal anyway? Give us half a million dollars. We have this cadre of investors. We come in as one line item on your thing, and we become an investor." Our investors want passive income through real estate investing. He's trying to do like the Robinhood model, where Robinhood made it so there was no fee, and you could invest for a very small amount of money. Normally, real estate has pretty high barriers to entry for knowledge as well as the amount of money you have to put in. So his mission is, "I want to make real estate investable for even $100." And even with $100, if you're earning 8%, great! You'll earn $8 of passive income.

Sam Parr

you're gonna be big you think it looks cool

Shaan Puri

I think it's a really hard business to do because, you know, it's like a two-sided market. You have to have really quality deals. But honestly, these aren't like... for example, with startup investing, I don't just give my money to anybody. I'm like, "Dude, are your deals any good or are they all dog shit?" With real estate, it's different. There’s so much data about the property. It's collateralized by the property. The guy's got a track record. You're not looking for the next Uber or the 1,000x return. You're looking for something that's going to generate 8 to 10% a year or 8 to 15% a year. And cool, like that's doable. That doesn't take a miracle. So I really like steady. I think there's currently a waitlist or whatever. People have to... like, dude.

Sam Parr

I just signed up for it it looks sick

Shaan Puri

Oh yeah, I'll email the guy to get you in. If people want to do it, they should. I think it's really good for people. I've had multiple people ask to invest in my startup fund, and I just say no. I'm like, "If you're not already wealthy, don't do this." Because this is not the way to get wealthy. You have much smarter paths to get there. If you're already a multimillionaire, cool! You should do this then to get some exposure to startups. But I think for most people, getting exposure to passive income through real estate is a much better place to build wealth if you're not already wealthy through your business or whatnot.

Sam Parr

this is a this is a good episode cool I'm interested in city

Shaan Puri

I have a whole bunch of other topics still, so I'll save those for Wednesday. I appreciate you holding down the fort while I was away.

Sam Parr

It was hard. It was really hard, I think, because I had to do it with Ben. Ben's great, but... and then I did it with Noah, and Noah's great, but you and I are... I mean, you're talented, which I talk about all the time. You and I together are talented, and it was very hard with... it was way harder without. It was work.

Shaan Puri

I love to hear it I love to be needed

Sam Parr

It was work, dude. It was work. There have been times where I'm like, "Oh, fuck, I can handle this." It was work. I felt like I was working.

Shaan Puri

By the way, if people haven't listened to the episode you did with Ben on the Silk Road, it's on our feed. I think it's called "Special Episode: Silk Road." I don't know what it's called, but go listen to that. I listened to it while I was sick, and I *fucking loved it* because I've been meaning to read *American Kingpin* for so long. You told me it was so good, and I'm just like, back to that, I'm just not reading it. So, listening to that gave me my fix. It's like, you know, the best kind of Netflix shows where after it's done, you then go down the rabbit hole and research more for like an hour on your phone in the middle of the night under the covers. That's what I was doing about the show afterward.

Sam Parr

That one, I think we were prepared for 45 minutes. It wasn't a lot, but we were both so fascinated by that topic. And I think something happened where you weren't able to come, and we found out last minute, so we're like, "Let's just do this, Ben." We're gonna do another one on a guy called... I forget the name. There's another version, there's another like juicy one, but I just bought the book. I'm gonna go read it and do it. Those episodes were fun, and Ben's really good at that stuff.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. You guys play off each other really well. The one thing I really wanted to know, because while you're here, I'll get you: how did they catch him? So, you had said, like, basically they traced his... you had said, okay, he had originally posted on this forum saying...

Sam Parr

yeah

Shaan Puri

Hey, has anybody seen this thing? And then also, they caught him in the library right down the street from you. So, I got those bits, but I wanted...

Sam Parr

to know like know it was him

Shaan Puri

Yeah, and I think there were a bunch of details about the investigation, like the cop chase, basically.

Sam Parr

yeah so basically was

Shaan Puri

there more there

Sam Parr

It's so funny, there's this episode of South Park where they're trying to track a terrorist, and the boys are like, "Dude, just do a reverse Google search... just use Google." And that's what they did. So, the very first post ever about the Silk Road was written from a username, and that same username posted a few weeks prior to Stack Overflow saying, "I'm building a website that is trying to do this."

Shaan Puri

myself

Sam Parr

yeah can you please email me [email protected]

Shaan Puri

and then

Sam Parr

They used a web archive because once Ross caught on, he changed his username from "Altoid" to something like "Frosty." But it was on the web where he had used a username to post, "Has anyone heard about this new thing called Silk Road?" That was the first time anyone ever mentioned it. However, just weeks prior, that same username had asked about how to build an exchange or something like that. The investigators were able to connect these posts because they used the web archive to trace the history of his online activity, even after he had changed his username.

Shaan Puri

got it

Sam Parr

And then they found out who this Ross guy was, and they realized, "Oh, we just went to this guy's house recently as Homeland Security because he ordered like 18 IDs with his picture but for different states with different names. Let's keep an eye on him." They found out basically it was... alright, whenever... and so they had a fake FBI guy become an employee of the Silk Road.

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

And Ross, or Dread Pirate Roberts, the owner, would say, "Alright, I gotta log off to go blank." They noticed that Ross would walk out of his house and go for a walk, right? They just tracked him or they were like, "Alright, I gotta go to the Dominican Republic to do blank," and they were like, "Oh, Ross is in the Dominican Republic on vacation according to his Facebook." So they knew. The FBI, the day he was arrested, he got arrested in the library right down the street from my house in Glen Park. They said basically, "The FBI was, do not arrest him, we gotta get a SWAT team." And they're like, "Dog, he's on his computer right now. We're chatting with him."

Shaan Puri

and they like tackled him right

Sam Parr

He's logged in. At this second, we know we're having a conversation with him. So, they had two FBI agents. He was sitting at a desk in a chair in the library that he used to go to. They had two FBI agents dressed kind of like homeless people go right behind him and get into a fight. One guy was like, "Bitch, what are you doing here?" and the lady was like, "Fuck you, man! You don't know..." They were creating a domestic disturbance. So, he turns his back, and when he turns his back, one FBI agent tackles him while the other one swipes his computer from the desk. Good. They run it straight to the van, and they plug it in. They already knew that he was using a PC, so they had the outlet right there. They turn the video camera on and start filming. They say, "Look, here's the... he's on the dashboard right now as we speak. Here's us; we were literally just talking to him." Then they plug a USB in and manage to get a lot of the stuff out before the computer goes to sleep and locks. And so, that's how it is.

Shaan Puri

There’s no movie. I know there’s like a kind of *shitty* guy’s *shitty* movie. Why isn’t there an amazing movie about this?

Sam Parr

There needs to be... It's such a good story. The book *American Kingpin* is the best book I've read in years. It is such a fascinating story, and it's also, as we said on the podcast, an incredibly challenging story for someone like me. This guy, Ross, looks like me, right? When you hear about gangsters and stuff, they're usually poor, oftentimes minorities. It's like, well, that's the other; that person's not... you know, I don't relate to that person. Ross was from a good family, a white guy, a good-looking dude who lived in San Francisco, played on computers, and had these ideals of wanting to help the world. You're like, "Oh, he's just like me," right? But he's a criminal who supposedly wanted to kill people and sold more drugs than Al Capone. So it makes you question what's right and what's wrong.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, dude, it's so good! Go listen to the episode if you liked that little bit. It was really good. That definitely got me through one of the COVID fever nights. I'm in, I got my fever going, I'm listening to the Silk Road, and I got all kinds of crazy ideas in my head. It was awesome!

Sam Parr

Alright, that's the episode. Oh, we have to do one thing before we go. So, we two or three weeks, four weeks ago, did a contest on TikTok where we were going to give $5,000 to at least one person who created videos about using our YouTube videos. They chopped them up and posted them on whatever platform, using our clips. The end result on TikTok alone, our hashtags in like the first two weeks got something like **30 million views**. Do you know that? Damn! And we're giving... Jonathan, confirm in the chat, are we giving it to the people that I think? Is it the cartoon? Let me know. But the first guy that we're giving it to, his name on TikTok, I believe, was **mfm minis**. I think his name is Michael, and he posted a bunch of videos. A few of them got more than **1 million views**. No, no...

Shaan Puri

no it's m f cuts right

Sam Parr

I'm sorry, and is it... oh yeah, I can't get that wrong because there was an MFM Minis as well. Jonathan, tell me exactly who the winner is in the chat. I can't get that wrong. MFM Cuts is the winner! This person got something like 30,000 followers on their TikTok channel in like 10 or 15 days, with millions of views. They won! Then the second place person, who also gets $5,000, I think they're called Toon Pods. Is that what they're called? Pod, say it again.

Shaan Puri

**Podtoon, Mister Podtoon!** So, they turn podcasts into cartoons, like South Park style. We've retweeted a couple of them because they're awesome.

Sam Parr

And they are hilarious! They are really good. The best one was where I was making fun of you for not wearing a shirt. Hilarious, really good. I have a feeling both of these guys are gonna end up making a lot of money by turning this into a business... and I bet they already have.

Shaan Puri

yeah exactly good job good job by them

Sam Parr

By the way, MFM cuts the guy. He is still in university. When I emailed him, he was 19.

Shaan Puri

I love it! Good job by them. So, can... is this still going? Can people still win? Like, next month, could a different person win or no?

Sam Parr

Yeah, we're gonna keep doing it. We gotta wait... I gotta wait till Jonathan tells me we're allowed to announce it, but we are going to continue doing it. Because we saw in December, our podcast... basically in November we were like just shy of 1,000,000. In December we basically skipped over 1,000,000 and went straight to 2,000,000. And I think that TikTok thing was one of the reasons why it happened - one of a couple reasons.

Shaan Puri

yeah and did we do this other winner too the 60 minute thing

Sam Parr

we'll announce that next time

Shaan Puri

okay sounds good alright I gotta go good stuff good seeing you again

Sam Parr

alright I'll talk to you soon good episode