3 Startup Ideas: Mouse Jigglers, Employee Monitoring Softwares and Photoshop Copycats
Overemployed, Mouse Jigglers, and Netflix - July 12, 2024 (9 months ago) • 53:02
Transcript:
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Sam Parr | Alright, so here's the deal. I have an update on a story that we talked about about two years ago. Partially, I want to tell you something cool; partially, I just want to nerd out with you on this topic because I'm shocked by it.
So, the pandemic hits in 2021. We all go remote, and you and I start talking about something that was fascinating. Basically, there's this weird Venn diagram of MFM listeners. There's this "shithead" and then there's this ambitious person. They overlap to create these "ambitious shitheads."
What do ambitious shitheads do during the pandemic when we all go remote? They do this thing called "overemployed." Have you heard of overemployment?
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Shaan Puri | I think "overemployed" refers to when one person has three jobs, but the three jobs don't know about each other.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, it's like a culture. It's like this tactic, it's the strategy. I don't know what you call it, but it's very weird and it explodes.
Basically, a small group of people, they go and get multiple jobs because they're like, "Dude, I'm working at Airbnb. I'm only working 20 hours a week. I get paid $150,000. I definitely can also try and get a job at Facebook."
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Shaan Puri | right working remote was the key unlock right | |
Sam Parr | It was the key to unlock where they could kind of hide. This story, which we talked about, has been covered by the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. It's kind of been popular, but I have an update on this story, and it's very fascinating to me.
So, last week, Wells Fargo made an announcement. They laid off a couple dozen of their employees, specifically those who worked in the wealth management unit. They laid them off because they found that these employees were using devices that you put your mouse on top of. It's almost like a treadmill, and it makes it seem like the mouse is constantly moving on their computer.
They also did it with keypads, where they had this device above their keyboard that was typing stuff. The reason they did that is because, since the pandemic, there's been software that has absolutely exploded, which monitors employees' work.
This type of software has already existed in remote-first companies, but now many people are remote, and this type of software has exploded to the point where something like 50% of all employers who have remote workers use some type of monitoring software. That's not the right word, but you know...
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Shaan Puri | what I mean like some type of like productivity detection monitoring | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, spy software is more realistic, but that's interesting.
Alright, so back to that Venn diagram of shitheads and ambitious people. Here's what they're doing. I'm going to tell you all about them and where they're exactly what the Wells Fargo folks were using. They're like a treadmill for your mouse.
So, they're called mouse jigglers, and it's crazy. Now, there's a company called Hubstaff and Teramind, I think it's called. There are two of them, and they have something like 5,000 companies amongst them. They are employee tracking software.
They did this survey where they looked at a million of their customers or a million users using their spying tracking software. They found that roughly 7% of the million people who are using this software were using these mouse jigglers or something like it. One of the CEOs of the companies said, "The true number is actually probably almost certainly higher," because they found out that they were being really conservative about this.
I was shocked; this market is so much bigger than I ever thought. I want to tell you about a few people who are winning in this market. The first one on Amazon, go to Tech 8, so the word "tech" and then the number 8, USA.
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Shaan Puri | So, Tech 8 USA, this is another mouse jiggler. By the way, a mouse jiggler is my new go-to device for somebody who works at a computer all day. Oh, he's just a mouse jiggler.
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Sam Parr | It's the best! So, there's this company called Tech 8 USA. They're based in Austin, Texas. What they do is you can buy these things for like $30 or $40, and you can add a cool design to it.
What they're doing is they're basically helping you to commit fraud or do something a little bit strange. You could add a cool USA flag to it, or you could add...
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Shaan Puri |
Best sales pitch ever! Look at this thing. In the product description, the last one:
> "A thoughtful gift for loved ones: Our undetectable mouse mover makes excellent gifts for anybody who spends a long time at their computer, whether it's a hardworking professional or a dedicated student who values convenience and efficiency. This mouse juggler is a practical and thoughtful present. Show your appreciation, help them stay productive and stress-free!"
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Sam Parr | It's sort of like when the vape makers... Like when I was in high school, we would buy vape machines when weed was still illegal. They'd say, "Yeah, it's for tobacco," but they somehow used the equivalent of a wink in all of their descriptions.
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Shaan Puri |
Look at this picture. It's like "balance your work life," and it just shows someone's computer and the mouse jiggler's just running. The person's not sitting there; the mouse jiggler's just moving the thing. It shows:
- Walk the dog
- Relax
- Water the flowers
- Have a party with friends
...while your mouse does the work for you.
By the way, was there any doubt that the laziness device would be made in America? Of course it's made here. We didn't think it was gonna be made in China. This thing's gonna be made here.
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Sam Parr | Well, I looked up, like, I was trying to figure out who the founder is. It's a weird business where they don't talk about it. I also think it's maybe strange to be making these devices, particularly if your company is remote. The CEO of this company is like, "Yeah, not a chance. We're not going to go remote."
But it's really fascinating that this business is, I think, thriving. So, Tech 8 USA is one of the winners in this category.
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Shaan Puri | Dude, they stole your dating profile! Smart, beautiful, undetectable. How's yours? How dare they!
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Sam Parr | It's pretty funny that that's a thing. The second thing that's thriving, and this is the third thing, is the most interesting. But I'm going to tell you a quick one about Hubstaff.
So, Hubstaff is a software company that does the tracking to see if you're using these devices. The guy started it in like 2019 as a side project. If you Google "Hubstaff revenue," you'll find some interesting information.
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Shaan Puri | by the way not to be confused with today's sponsor cue the ad | |
Sam Parr | Alright guys, really quick. Back when I was running The Hustle, we had this premium newsletter called **Trends**. The way it worked was we hired a ton of analysts and created a sort of playbook for researching different companies and ideas in emerging trends to help you make money and build businesses.
Well, HubSpot did something kind of cool. They took this playbook that we developed and gave to our analysts, and they turned it into an actionable guide and a resource that anyone can download. It breaks down all the different methods that we use for spotting upcoming trends and identifying different companies that are going to explode and grow really quickly.
So, if you want to stay ahead of the game and find cool business ideas or different niches that most people have no idea exist, this is the ultimate guide. If you want to check it out, you can see the link down below in the description.
Now, back to the show.
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Shaan Puri | alright we're back | |
Sam Parr | So, Hubstaff... if you Google "Hubstaff revenue," you'll see that he started, I think, in 2019 or 2020, pre-pandemic. It was like a side project for him.
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Shaan Puri | oh no way 22,000,000 in arr | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, and when he started it, he was like, "I just hit $10,000 in MRR." Then he said, "I just hit $50,000 in MRR." On Indie Hackers, he mentioned, "I just hit $200,000 in MRR."
Then the pandemic hit, and it exploded to where now it's doing $22,000,000 in recurring revenue. Who knows what that's worth, but for sure it's 9 figures. It started as a side project, and he's completely exploded his business. Totally boojish.
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Shaan Puri | Exploding because he used to be building in public. He had a Baremetrics page, and if you go to their public dashboard now, it's gone. It got too big—too big to be mute to need to grow in public.
Here, but this is super impressive. So, this is **$20,000,000+**. He started this during the pandemic. That is so smart! It's awesome, right? And it looks like it's got, you know, **15,000+** paying customers. Wow, that's impressive!
Do you, by the way, would you impress something like this? Like for Hampton, would you install something like this? Because I'm not gonna lie, I'm more afraid of this than I am of my wife cheating on me. You know what I mean? Like, it would break my little heart to find out that somebody on one of my teams is just running three jobs. They got a mouse jiggler all day, and that would really make me sad. It kinda makes me wanna use something like this to find out if someone's cheating on me.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, I think I'm open to it. I like to think that our company is small enough that... and you would know, but yeah, it's a very questionable situation. I have to ask myself, "Would I be open to this?" and the answer is definitely maybe. I'm not against it.
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Shaan Puri | the answer is yes soon | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, so it's interesting. Now let me tell you about the third winner of this whole thing.
There was a subreddit called **Overemployed**. At the time when we talked about it, I think there were about 20,000 or 30,000 members on that subreddit. It was basically a community that had this whole vernacular, like "my J1," "my J2," "my J3." I mean, their job one, job two, and they had all these phrases and things like that.
Well, the moderator of that subreddit launched a website called **Overemployed.com**. If you go to that website, he talks about his background and why he started it. He also refers you to personal finance tools, which is like an affiliate play for him. He talks about reviewing different mouse jigglers and things like that, which is also a clear affiliate play.
However, he has a community that is partially free and partially paid. It costs $300 a year. I'm not sure what percentage of people paid the $300, but it's a Discord community. He has 60,000 members on his Discord of people who are following the Overemployed lifestyle.
I went and tried to track this guy down. His name's Isaac, and you don't know his last name, but on his LinkedIn, he calls himself a "career polygamist." He has a whole blog all about Overemployed.com, and it gets...
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Shaan Puri | who's the guy isaac what what's his name | |
Sam Parr | He doesn't say, so it's just Isaac because he tells the story about how he had three different jobs and how he got pissed off. It's like an "us versus them" founder story, but it's kind of weird, right? Because you're not breaking the law, probably, but you're definitely doing something that you're probably slightly ashamed of. At least as an employer, I would be unhappy with it.
So, it's this whole community, this subculture of people that's significantly larger than I ever imagined. They're talking about these things openly, and it's very fascinating.
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Shaan Puri | I went to the website "Welcome to the Secret Door to Financial Freedom." Insane! I've always wanted the secret door, and he's tapped into my needs. This is crazy.
**Work two remote jobs, reach financial freedom.** That's the slogan for this website. This is crazy, dude! It's not crazy that this is happening; I knew this was coming. But the special part here was to go back and check in on this thing that we talked about two years ago and find this guy's blog, community, Hubstaff, and the $22,000,000 in ARR.
It's crazy that there's a whole ecosystem that has come up around this one lifestyle, right? Like you had "The 4-Hour Work Week," which is about delegation, automation, and basically like 80/20 prioritization.
Now you have "Overemployed," which is like the messed-up cousin to "The 4-Hour Work Week," where he's like, "Look, just lie to your company. You're going to work the same eight hours but for three different companies."
I'm surprised... I'm surprised I'm not surprised at the same time at how populated this is.
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Sam Parr | And let me give you one more example. What I'm about to show you is kind of like the equivalent of teaching your children about safe sex but really hoping that they don't do it... like they don't have sex until whatever.
Then they're like, "Sex sounds awesome! I'm gonna go do it."
There's this guy called the OveremployedGuy.com. I clicked the about page, and he has this long history of how he got J1, J2, J3. Part of the story includes this quote: "I had a bad job and I was upset, frustrated. I wanted more money. Then it wasn't until I heard the host of 'My First Million' mention this new trend of people in tech working multiple jobs simultaneously that I was woken up to this badass community."
This is like the second largest site among the overemployed.
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Shaan Puri |
Look at this guy's logo, by the way. It's the dude with three laptops open. I think that's one of the cardinal rules of this: you must use one machine per thing because they're going to be tracking you. So you have to have different laptops.
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Sam Parr | And he's wearing a hoodie and a mask. It's like clearly we all kind of agree that this is a little bit strange that you're doing this.
I wanted to bring this story up because I'm not shocked, but I'm still shocked.
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Shaan Puri |
Also, can I get your take on this? Because if somebody's listening to this... this is back to the safe sex thing. Somebody's listening to this, we find it fascinating that this is going on, but you and I have zero desire to do this. *Zero*. And maybe that's because, alright, we kind of already made it in a way. We sold our companies, we don't have any jobs, we don't need a job.
But if you were young again, would you do this? Like if you were just working at one job and you saw this, would you be tempted to go down this path?
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Sam Parr | No, I mean, I would be tempted. Like, I'm tempted to do anything bad, like drugs. But in the back of my head, I'm like, "This is wrong."
No, I think it's wrong. I think that I would not be a career molly. Yeah, like maybe occasionally it's alright, but you oftentimes regret it.
No, this goes against my ethical code. I am not in favor of this. Are you?
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Shaan Puri | No, not at all. Not just the ethical side, because the ethical side I think sounds okay. But I have a relationship with the people I work with, you know what I mean? It's not like this nameless, faceless giant corporation that doesn't care about me. I've always worked in usually smaller environments where we're a team on a mission together.
If I was doing some other mission while we're on our mission, that would feel like a pretty deep betrayal. But that's just how I've always worked in that type of environment.
The second thing, though, is I just don't think it's a good strategy. I think...
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Sam Parr | it's a bad strategy if you | |
Shaan Puri | Are you willing to be clever and hardworking enough to figure this out? Like, just start your own business or crush it at one job. You'll make more money and work less than you will having to juggle this in your subconscious at all times about these lies that you're living.
Living a lie is very taxing emotionally, but you don't need to do this. One great job or one big effort, if it's your own company, will pay off. Just go up the ladder in your own company or start your own company. If you're willing to do all this, I just think it's bad strategy.
It goes back to the thing I said the other day: the dumbest person in the world is a professional blackjack player. If you're smart enough to be a professional blackjack player but you're dumb enough to use it on a game that's rigged against you, that's on you. You are in the wrong middle of the Venn diagram of super smart and hardworking, yet picking terrible games.
I think this is an example of that. You are super smart and hardworking to figure this out and set this up, but you're playing a dumb game. And what's the saying? "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes." To me, that's what this is. I don't want a J1, J2, J3—that's a bad idea.
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Sam Parr | I remember in high school, I had this buddy who basically took a water bottle, like an Evian or whatever, and they undid the logo. They took the plastic off of the bottle, and then on the inside, they wrote all the equations for the math test that they needed to memorize.
It was beautifully done; the handwriting was perfect. The equations were even sometimes in code, in case they got caught, so you couldn't decipher it. I was like, "How long did that take?" They said it took hours, but they made this perfect thing.
I remember thinking, "You could have just studied. If you just studied, you would have probably gotten the same outcome, and it's way less risk." That's sort of like what's going on here.
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Shaan Puri | exactly perfect analogy perfect story | |
Sam Parr |
So that's my story on overemployed. I thought it was fascinating. Do we have a guy, by the way... today's sponsor who was overemployed a little bit where he had a side hobby? Was that a good transition?
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Shaan Puri | That's a pretty good transition.
Alright, so speaking of being overemployed and doing multiple things, when I first heard about what the CEO was doing, I kind of groaned. I had invested in this company, and the company was doing well. Then the CEO launches a newsletter, and I'm like, "Bro, why do you need a newsletter? Do you really need a newsletter?"
It's excusable because today's sponsor is Beehive. They make the easiest platform to create newsletters. So on one hand, it made sense; he was using his own product, and that seemed cute. But I didn't really fully get it until I talked to him and tried to understand, "Why is he doing this?"
So this is the story of Tyler Denk starting Big Desk Energy. Basically, we've talked about this before. There's a great playlist on Spotify if you need work music called Big Desk Energy. There's this guy, Tyler Denk, founder of Beehive, and he just made a playlist of songs he listens to while he works.
I like music, but I have poor taste, so I used to use this thing all the time because I was like, "Great! I don't know how to find cool music." Tyler's kind of a cool guy; he's a cool-looking guy, and he's a young guy.
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Sam Parr | he's like a new york manhattan hip kid | |
Shaan Puri | yeah but he like he lives in the on the beach somewhere like he's he's a cool dude so I got to borrow his music I was using his playlist but then his playlist became a newsletter okay interesting why and now it has he was like I wanna do this because I wanna dog food my own product I wanna build in public and and I wanna just live and breathe all the pain points of my customers so that I could be better at building product when he said that I realized oh this makes a lot of sense because too many times do the product builders get so busy they get disconnected from the actual product usage the analogy I'll give is every night my kids I don't put them to bed my wife puts our kids to bed now we have like a new bedtime routine where she's able to do all 3 kids at once and so the 2 older kids they wanna eat fruit in bed every night no matter what we fed them for dinner they're like can we have fruit okay so I'm just doing this like 20 minute fruit cutting exercise I'm cutting apples and grapes and strawberries I put it in a bowl I make it look nice I go deliver it to the bed they're so excited they're watching their their little bedtime stories or whatever and they eat the fruit and I've been doing this for like 3 weeks now and then finally yesterday my daughter was just like hey can mama cut the fruit and I was like what why dad always cuts the fruit what do you mean and she's like well you do it bad like what do you mean she goes well you do it like the way you cut the strawberries like I can't eat it like that they're too big and I was like what do you mean why didn't you say anything she's like well you're not there you're downstairs cutting the fruit and then you hand it to me and like by the time I try to eat it you're not there for me to tell you and so for 3 weeks I had this no feedback loop I didn't know how she likes her strawberries cut and for too many ceos that's that's them with their product they don't know how the customers like the strawberries cut and one thing that tyler did that was very very smart for beyhive was launch his own newsletter figure out how to grow it to 30,000 figure out how to monetize it do all of the things that a user of his product would wanna do he did it as the ceo and he told me that has been huge for them on their product development because now he could just look at the road map and be like that shit doesn't matter these things do because he's actually lived it breathed it he knows how the users want their strawberries cut | |
Sam Parr | Well, he built a lot of this at Morning Brew, which is where they took a lot of what they learned there.
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Shaan Puri | But even then, he was just the growth guy. He wasn't the guy actually writing the thing, sending the thing, or getting the feedback from customers. It's very different when you fully play it out. So the guy's cool; they've got taste.
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Sam Parr | This is awesome! Oh yeah, this is all built in beehive. Alright, this is pretty badass. Alright, I'm on board. I just signed up.
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Shaan Puri | So, if you want to create a newsletter or grow your newsletter, go to **beehive.com** or **beehiiv.com**.
By the way, do you know Derek Sivers? Yeah, he said something once that I really loved. He goes, "I made this tool that was for hosting your own website." They were like, "Why was that the biggest business opportunity?" He goes, "No, it was a magnet."
He realized that anybody who has a cool personal website, anyone who cares enough to make a personal website, "you're my people." He's like, "So I just made a tool that was useful for them. It's not even that expensive; it's pretty cheap. I undercut the market price. It's not the best business in the world, but it was amazing because it brought all these people who I realized that's the highest signal thing. If you have your own personal website, I probably fuck with you. Like, I like you."
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Sam Parr | I like you if you have an income north of $2,000,000 and also listen to Kid Rock. If you do those two things, you're me. You're probably interested.
Alright, what do you got?
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Shaan Puri | I wanted to read you something. I think here's another little life hack for you. One of the great things about the internet is that it is such a wide buffet of content.
I think a mistake most people make is that they go to the fast food chains of the internet. You go to your Facebooks, your Instagrams, your TikToks, and you just make a content diet of only getting information from these big fast food chain social networks.
I'm a believer that your info diet matters. Do you agree with that? Is that something you think about or care about?
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Sam Parr | Yeah, my fear is getting influenced by the wrong people. I know that you've talked about this **info diet** for a long time, and it kind of influenced me.
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Shaan Puri | Me, yeah. I had this thing I said: I'm going on the **intentional internet**. Basically, I'm not going to just eat whatever the algorithm feeds me when I log in or open up a tab. I'm going to think about what I am trying to get out of this session right now.
Then I start opening up Kindle or different things. It's the **intentional internet**.
So I have this idea: I'm going to create this food pyramid of the **info diet**. The way the food pyramid was structured—with carbohydrates, proteins, dairies, and whatever—I think there's a similar structure for the **info diet**. There are probably some plans and proportions you should have of different types of information if you want to really feed your brain in a way that's going to make it healthier.
One of the cool superfoods, I'll call it, like kale—these nutrient-dense superfoods—is to find a baller and then go find their early blog before they made it.
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Sam Parr | I love doing that | |
Shaan Puri | And so, I was doing this over the weekend. Ben and I were looking up, and we looked up, "Do you know who Brian Koppelman is?"
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Sam Parr | is he a famous vc | |
Shaan Puri | no there is a josh koppelman I think brian koppelman is the guy who created billions | |
Sam Parr | and oh yeah yeah yeah | |
Shaan Puri |
Yeah, he's like a showrunner in Hollywood. We were talking about Brian Koppelman for this other thing, and then we went and looked up if he publishes anywhere or posts his thoughts anywhere. We looked him up, and you basically want to find things that are, you know, 5+ years old. It's his blog, his old interviews, that course he taught at NYU... You try to find something like that.
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Sam Parr | So, you have to give a shout out to his blog, **briancobleman.com**. It's just a plain white and black blog. This is an awesome find!
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Shaan Puri | And they're very simple posts. They're not the most mind-blowing things either, which is in itself kind of an interesting point. It's like, wow, this guy who achieved so much isn't writing genius stuff that I couldn't have thought of. It's like, wow, this is a guy kind of like me who made it in a really unique way.
So anyways, I'm going to read you one post titled "Write What Fascinates You."
He goes, "This seems simple, right? Of course, we should write about what fascinates us and what we obsess over. But so many people approach writing, and especially screenwriting, as if it can be gamed, figured out, or strategized. If you're somebody who can do that, congratulations, rock on! Although I wouldn't waste that kind of strategic brainpower on show business. There are problems to be solved out there in the real world. If you're that type of person, go figure out how to arbitrage energy resources in a way that motivates buyers and sellers to create a more equitable market or something. I don't know, because I don't think of it that way, but obviously you do.
For the rest of us, we need to calculate less. We need to look inside to find our subject matter or outside at the world we see, but through a prism of enthusiasm. A prism of enthusiasm, he says, meaning we must find subjects that are personally animating, inspiring, and engaging to us. Because once we do, we have a shot at making them inspiring and engaging for others as well.
When the story is important to you, when it fascinates you, when the passion is tangible, the reader senses it. Without even knowing why, it gives you the benefit of the doubt. You have a story to tell, of course, and it still takes an enormous amount of effort and concentration.
But the huge collateral benefit of telling stories that genuinely fascinate you is this: forcing yourself to sit down and actually do the work is much easier than when you're writing something because you think it's marketable, because you think it could sell, or it's in a genre that's currently in demand.
So calculate less, write your obsessions, and have a better chance of a) getting something really written and b) turning your screenplay into something that excites and engages the reader. | |
Sam Parr | this is awesome and he did this in 2013 over 10 years ago | |
Shaan Puri | Yes, and I think this same advice, by the way, works for businesses as well.
There's one way of doing business, which is the calculated strategic approach. You look at markets, create a market map, try to identify a gap, and then reverse engineer something. After that, you're going to try to do demand testing and A/B testing to validate your idea, and blah, blah, blah.
The other approach is to work on things that fascinate you. Whether it's a new technology that you think is really cool or a new lifestyle that's being promoted that you're curious about, you're fascinated by it. Maybe there's not enough products for people who want that lifestyle, or perhaps it's a problem that you have that you kind of get obsessed over. You might think, "Wait a minute, am I crazy? Why am I the only one who's not okay with the status quo here?"
That's where the greatest companies get built and the greatest successes happen. It's actually easier because you're excited about it, and you care about the problem. You're going to actually figure out the solution.
So, I just thought that this was awesome advice for content. Look at today's podcast: I'm telling you about an 11-year-old blog post, and you're telling me about a subreddit that's popping off and these bloggers that are overemployed. The reason this podcast works is that we talk about what fascinates us. It's because of that; it's not something anybody could compete with. Nobody else has the same weird taste palette that we have. But if they did have their own weird taste palette, they would find their audience.
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Sam Parr | It's really hard to stay unique as you get bigger. Whatever you're doing, as it gets more successful, everyone wants you to tone it down. It's incredibly challenging to not give in to that. | |
Shaan Puri | We have this right now. You've seen it—me and Slack. I'm on a rampage because I'm like, "Dude, our titles and thumbnails that are on YouTube are too YouTube optimized." They're calculated. This is going to get somebody to click instead of, "This is how we want it to feel," or, "This is what would make me interested."
It's like, "No, no. What would make the mass populace interested?" Well, it's like maybe we don't necessarily need the mass populace. Maybe we need the type of people that we want to attract because they're the ones that are actually going to like the podcast. They're the ones that will resonate with it and stick with it.
I think that we have made a mistake in part of our world. I don't think we kept the content pretty pure and sacred to what we want, but I think the packaging we've sort of tried to sell out and calculate, trying to maximize clicks and views. I'm not trying to roll that back.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, I agree with that, by the way. And that's also why I like a lot of YouTubers. Because there's not a committee, usually. It's just one person saying, "This is my show, I'm gonna do whatever the hell I want to do."
Right? Like, there's this guy I follow named Whistlin Diesel. He's not a kid anymore, but he's this guy in Indiana, and he does the stupidest, craziest stuff. He's hilarious! But he's a representation of the most interesting YouTubers who haven't really sold out. They keep it real, and that makes them way more successful.
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Shaan Puri | yeah I I love it | |
Sam Parr | Let me give you an example of a person who fits this mold wonderfully. You and I are fans of Peter Lovells; he fits this mold perfectly. I saw that he shared something recently, and I went down this rabbit hole.
So, there's this guy—I'm going to struggle to say his name big time. I believe he's French. I don't know exactly, but it's Clement Piccolo. I can't say his name. Dude, look at his name. Do you see it?
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Shaan Puri | honestly I was gonna make funny but that is not and he's piccolo p piccolo pita | |
Sam Parr | **Piccolo Pita**—I think his name is Piccolo Pita. So, listen to what this guy did. I looked at his website, and it's kind of hard to figure out. He was—or he is—a DJ, like a DJ in clubs. But I guess while he was DJing and trying to pay the bills, he was also a software developer. He just released something 2 or 3 days ago that's amazing.
So, this is sick! Yes, let me tell the story a little bit. We talked about **Photopea**. Photopea is a free... basically, I'll call it a clone of Photoshop. But I don't know if it's exactly a clone; it definitely started that way.
So, Photopea is a free version of Photoshop created by this guy named **Ivan**. Ivan is one of these indie hacker guys who was really open about it. He built this Photoshop clone, which is obviously huge, and it took off right away. I think in 2021, he posted that he made **$1,000,000** in revenue, with 90% of that being from ads. Then, in 2023, he said that he was now making close to **$300,000** a month from this Photopea website. It's huge; it blew up!
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Shaan Puri | it has 15,000,000 visitors a month | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, massive, massive, massive, massive. And for all I know, it's just one person.
Well, this other guy, we're going to call him Colette because I can't say his last name. What Photo P did to Photoshop, he did with Adobe After Effects, and he calls it "Pikimov" or "Pikimov." How do you think you pronounce that?
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Shaan Puri | I have no idea pikimov I don't know | |
Sam Parr | Pikimov. So you'll have it's P-I-K-I-M-O-V, and you have to go to this website.
Basically, this guy posted it on Hacker News, then on Reddit and Twitter, and it blew up on all three of those platforms. He said, "I'm on this Linux machine, and I've been trying to use the photo after effect, but it wasn't really working. It wasn't doing what I needed it to do."
So for the last year, he basically built this version of it for himself, and it's free. Now, he's letting the world use it. He was very underwhelming with his announcement. He said, "So here's this thing you guys can use."
On Twitter, it got something like 2,000,000 views. On Hacker News, it was the number one post, and on Reddit, it's massive. It's completely blown up, and it is so awesome that one person built this thing.
So, you went to the website. What did you see?
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Shaan Puri | It looks like After Effects, and it just says "free alternative to editors such as Adobe After Effects."
It's web-based, nothing to install, and works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. You can do everything you can do on After Effects, and your files stay on your computer; they're not uploaded to a server.
When we talked about Foto B, I think we've discussed it a few times. It's one of the earliest episodes of this podcast. You showed me Foto B, or I showed you Foto B; I don't remember what it was, but that was a kind of miracle-looking product.
These are like the radioactive indie hackers—the indie hackers that got bit by the bug and now have superpowers. One person can recreate all of Photoshop, like every feature of Photoshop, in a browser, and it actually works. He's willing to give it away for free and just maintain it himself for the rest of his life.
Now, somebody's doing it with After Effects. This is super impressive.
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Sam Parr | It's incredibly impressive. He tells the story where, on Twitter, people are like, "This is amazing! How on earth did you do this?" And he's like, "I just did it on nights and weekends by myself, and I figured it out."
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Shaan Puri |
Dude, this is sick by the way. Look at this:
So somebody in Hacker News comments, they go, "As a motion designer, I'm curious what features does this have that After Effects doesn't?"
And then somebody came in and says, "I'd say the main feature it lacks is that there's a subscription payment requirement."
So good!
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Sam Parr | It’s awesome, and it was a total underwhelming launch in that he didn’t overhype it. He just put it out in the world. But it was one of those products that you go to, and you’re like, it’s sort of like seeing a huge Lego setup where you’re like...
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Shaan Puri | yes yeah what a great analogy | |
Sam Parr | The fact that you spent a year putting this together... I'm impressed. I don't have to know anything about this, but this is just epic. Just for being epic, right?
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Shaan Puri | do you | |
Sam Parr | know what I mean | |
Shaan Puri |
Instant internet respect for this. This is so impressive! I'm never gonna use this because I don't use After Effects anymore, thank God, but this is awesome. This guy has my eternal respect, and I'm glad we're sharing it here. I'm gonna tweet this out also. This is so sick!
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Sam Parr | It's really awesome. If you Google his name, you can't find photos of him. Most of his photos aren't even avatars; they're just silly images. I think it's a shark or a whale or something as his avatar. You really can't find a lot of pictures of this guy. If you go to his website, there's nothing there. He barely explains who he is.
So, this is like a true one-of-a-kind, rare individual that I particularly love, and I know you love too. It's almost like a hacker, but they're not doing anything wrong. Do you know what I mean?
Right, it's like a weird subculture of people that I'm obsessed with. They're artists who know how to program, basically what they are. You can't find anything about this guy; it's like he's doing it almost for art's sake.
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Shaan Puri | how long did it take him to make this do you know it | |
Sam Parr | he said early 2023 so that would be a year and a half | |
Shaan Puri | a year very talented that's cool | |
Sam Parr | It looks great! I don't know anything about After Effects because I don't use it either. But I go to the website and I'm like, "This is special."
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Shaan Puri | do you | |
Sam Parr | know what I mean oh yeah | |
Shaan Puri | Oh wow, okay. Alright, I'm impressed. This is great!
What do you want me to do? I have two topics: you can pick the Ryan Serhant show or my self-driving car experience.
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Sam Parr | self driving car for sure okay | |
Shaan Puri | So, self-driving cars. I went into San Francisco last week for a couple of meetings, and the new Waymo app is now open for everybody. I don't know if you're fully in the loop of what's going on, but basically, there are actual self-driving cars that just drive around San Francisco like taxis. It's happening, and it's not limited or fake in some way.
It's not a demo; you push a button, it shows up, it's got your name written on the top of it. You push unlock, it opens up, and there's no driver in there. You get in, and it takes you to your destination. It is magic! I think it's awesome; it works super well.
I would have been pretty nervous to get inside this, but I had so many friends who had been using it because they were in the Bay Area's private beta. They were like, "Dude, this thing is so good! It's better than Tesla's autopilot by far. This is really, really good."
So, I got in, and I feel like I have a couple of thoughts on this. I don't know exactly what I want to say, but I just wanted to come to you with a few random thoughts. You tell me; help me make sense of this.
The first thought is just, I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe in my lifetime this is just going to happen where we're going to shift from nobody driving cars. It's so obvious the first time you get in one.
I had to take an Uber back, and literally, it was comical. It was like the worst Uber experience you could have. It was like 100 degrees in the car, he wouldn't open the windows, and he wouldn't turn on the AC. Every time I'd ask him a question, he was super grumpy. I was like, "I just never want to have a driver in the car again."
I went from the Waymo seamless, private, fully in-your-control autonomous experience to what felt like a rickshaw in India. It felt terrible. I can't believe this is happening.
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Sam Parr | I feel like this should | |
Shaan Puri | Be a much bigger deal, and nobody's really talking about it. It's not that it is a secret, but I feel like nobody cares. That's very strange to me because the coolest AI thing that's going to happen is that the cars are going to drive themselves. Then, we're just going to sleep, eat, play video games, and chill inside cars from now on. Nobody's going to get in car accidents. That's going to be amazing!
I feel like nobody's really excited that we're now right here on the cusp. If this could do this all throughout San Francisco, and San Francisco is kind of a complicated place—like it's a city street, there are people walking, jaywalking everywhere, and there's construction—that means it's going to work in a lot of places.
I can't believe this is happening! I was surprised that it cost as much or more than an Uber, and I was totally fine with it. I thought that the whole idea of this self-driving car was going to be that it would be cheaper, and I think eventually it will be. But right now, these cars are very expensive. However, I was more than happy to pay a premium to go in the driverless experience, which was very surprising to me because I thought the reason I would want it was that it would be less expensive. It's just better. I mean, I don't mind paying more.
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Sam Parr | how much more expensive was it | |
Shaan Puri | Like 20 to 30% more expensive? Oh, that's nothing! Yeah, not bad.
Obviously, there are a few small hiccups. For example, if you're standing right there, it won't just stop in the middle of the road and block everybody's traffic to let you in. It'll try to go up 30 feet and pull over, and then you have to walk 30 feet. You're like, "I can't believe I couldn't just stop all of the street traffic to get into my car."
So, there are little things like that that are kind of annoying but actually understandable. But man, I was impressed! Have you been in one of these?
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Sam Parr | No, but I’m looking forward to it because I have a Tesla, and I hate my Tesla. I think Tesla is a horrible car.
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Shaan Puri | I hate which one do you have | |
Sam Parr | The X... I think it's horrible, but there's one feature about it that makes it absolutely worth it, which is the self-driving stuff. You keep your hands on there, but I drive that car all the time, and I only use the self-driving. I am significantly more comfortable with that than my wife or me driving the car. I think it is way safer.
So from now on, all of the cars that I'm buying in the future are going to have some type of driver assist. It's so much better. Let me correct you: in the future, you're just...
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Shaan Puri | not gonna buy cars you're just gonna push a button and the car is gonna take you where you want you're never gonna need to own a car car | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, I could see that. So, there's something like 40,000 deaths in America from car accidents. There will still be people who die because of this, but it's going to be drastically reduced.
Additionally, if you've ever been in traffic, have you ever studied what causes traffic?
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Shaan Puri | sure haven't | |
Sam Parr | Well, it's like... if you ever see those weird GIFs or videos on "How Stuff Works," you'll notice how a traffic jam starts. You see one person abruptly stop, which causes another person to abruptly stop, and then it's like a chain reaction.
It's really fascinating because it’s more of a psychological problem than anything. You start to wonder, "Wait, why is this person stopping?" This leads to a series of stops that create the jam.
When you think about traffic, it could be not completely solved, but it can be incredibly improved upon. Your margin of error isn't a human making that mistake. You know you can drive within 10 feet of the driver in front of you because you’re aware that you won’t hit the brakes too late.
This is going to save hours and hours every month because of this type of technology, not to mention the reduction in fatalities. So, I'm incredibly excited about it.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, and parking... you know, I think cars have only like a sub-10% utilization rate. This means that 90% of the time, a car is just sitting idle, doing nothing.
That's going to change because if a car could drive itself, it's going to go out instead of sitting idle. It's going to earn money for you. It will drop people off and earn cash, and it won't just stay parked.
So when the utilization rate goes up, you don't need as many cars total because now each car is being used more. This means way fewer cars are needed, which leads to less parking and less buying of cars. It's a big change that's coming.
In addition to the lifestyle change of having a self-driving car, you know, with the Waymo thing, you just sit in the back and chill. The wheel is just turning itself; you don't even look outside. We had a full meeting, and we could talk about numbers and everything because there was no driver sitting there. It was a productive 20 minutes; it was great.
If I wanted to just sleep, I could have fully slept. I could have done anything. That's amazing because I don't know how much time the average person spends in a car, but it's probably not even right. For those who really have a commute, they're probably spending like 2 to 3 hours a day in a car.
Versus, you know, what will become either an incredibly productive or relaxing time going from one place to another.
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Sam Parr | I remember I would explain this to my parents or in-laws, and they're like, "Well, aren't you afraid that you're in this machine and it's controlling things?" I always say, "Well, no, because at least I'm sitting at the wheel, so I could take over." So there's like, I'm part of the loop.
But number two, it's like, "Well, are you afraid when you get into an elevator?"
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Shaan Puri | right | |
Sam Parr | I'm not afraid when I get in an elevator. I trust that button; it's going to do the right thing and bring me where I want to go. It's not just going to drop me.
I'm also not afraid when I fly in an airplane. You know, the pilot is sitting there at the seat, but it's like an autopilot plane. So, no, I'm not afraid.
Now, I am a little bit nervous because the technology is new. But like, in 10 years, a lot of times people say, "This is never going to be a thing." It's like, no, it's definitely going to be a thing. In 10 years, it's going to be significantly better than it is now, and it's pretty good now.
So, yeah, I'm not afraid of it at all, and I'm incredibly bullish. From now on, all the cars that I buy on a daily basis are all going to have some type of driver assist. Like, you use it on your Tesla, and you're like, "This is the way the world should be." At least that's what I think.
What about this? Which one do you want to do? Do you want to do one more?
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Shaan Puri |
Let's do the Ryan Serhant show. So, I binge-watched the new show... it's called "Owning Manhattan." It's just like a random Netflix show. It's nothing super special; most people wouldn't care about it. I liked it. It wasn't like the best show ever, but I happened to binge-watch it. I stayed up till like 4 in the morning watching it.
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Sam Parr | so who is this guy I just know he's a a silver hair guy that sells real estate | |
Shaan Puri | yeah he's a real estate broker and he was one of the like kind of high end brokers in new york he got famous because he was on a show called $1,000,000 listings since I think he was like 25 years old so he spent basically a decade on tv but it was like bravo tv and it was him and a bunch of other brokers and what happened is he leaves the show in like the 10th season and he takes a little break and then he comes back with his own netflix show and obviously it was kind of like selling sunset was this huge hit reality show and the genre of like real estate reality became like a thing they're selling oc they're selling miami they're selling sunset there's like a whole bunch of these like real estate shows so he comes back and he's got one called owning manhattan and it's basically the story is ryan serhant who's like the ryan seacrest of like the real estate world he's like this super good you know super good looking guy who loves to be on tv he's just made for tv who's got great skin and sells real estate that's the guy and so he takes the show and he's the quest is basically he leaves he he left his brokerage he starts his own brokerage firm so you know you have sotheby's and you have compass and he's trying to create cerhance like his own brokerage and he hires up like 200 or 300 agents now and the show is following him trying to go trying to become the number one brokerage firm in new york and I think they only serve like the new york area they're not even they're not nationwide but he's trying to become number 1 in new york which is the number one real estate market in the world and I gotta say the show is pretty interesting and it's interesting for a couple of reasons number 1 you know he's he's good at tv meaning he's kind of obnoxious but it grows on you he's like obnoxious but then it starts to get better but also all the agents you know it's a perfect cocktail it's like you have house porn luxury like luxury real estate you have big dollars flying around deals that are closing or not closing then you have the agents who are like you know peacocking they each have try to have their own brand and personality and try to be the best in their own way and then you have like the drama of like a a soap opera or like a you know reality | |
Sam Parr | tv show obnoxious | |
Shaan Puri | Like, it's almost like his style. His style is, you know, he tries to be cocky and funny. Basically, I... I don't know, I have to do a bad impression of it, but he'll be like, "Real estate is hard. Not for me! I mean, I make it look easy, but for other people, it's hard."
And he'll do that in every interview. At first, you're just like, "Alright, whatever." But over time, you know, you do get to see the guy sweat because this guy is... you know, the way the show makes it feel is that he's hanging on by a thread. Each of these deals has to go through; otherwise, bad things happen, which is, you know, just normal TV drama.
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Sam Parr | He gives off the vibe that he's like super alpha. It's almost like you have a stereotype in your head of a high-roller hedge fund guy, but for real estate.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, and also kind of metro. So he's not just macho. He's like, hey, he's got both sides of it. He's got the style and the fashion, and the light touch, but then he's also like a cutthroat killer trying to win.
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Sam Parr | He's like, "I wake up at 5 AM, workout, eat healthy, and I'm at the office by 7." You know what I mean? He's that type.
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Shaan Puri | of guy | |
Sam Parr | where he's just like he he's intense | |
Shaan Puri | Exactly. So, I wanted to read you what... why did I want to share this? Really, there are two things I wanted to share.
First is, hey, it's a TV show I liked. If you're looking for a TV show, you might like this one. That's the little thing.
But the bigger thing would be there's a moment in the episode... or in the show. So, I'll just give away a little bit of the show. There's one young agent who's basically the kind of controversial guy on the scene. He's talented, but he's an asshole, right?
Oh yeah, that's a great character!
So, he's a guy who's fully tatted up. He used to be like a model in Norway or something like that. Super good-looking, super tatted up guy who's super cocky and arrogant. He's only 25 years old, but he's like, "Why would... if you're young, if you made it on YouTube or you're a rapper or whatever, you don't want to buy from this..." and he's talking about his coworker, who's some bald-headed used car salesman-looking guy in a cheap suit.
He says, "You want to buy from me. I'm just the next generation. People want... the next generation of rich people want to buy with me."
So, he's very cocky and whatever. Ryan believes in this guy because he's clearly talented, but he's also like, "Dude, why are you such a jerk around the office? You're making my life hard by being a jerk."
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Sam Parr | his name is jonathan I'm looking at jonathan | |
Shaan Puri | He rides a motorcycle everywhere. By the way, this guy is fantastically dressed at all times. I tried to find this guy's stylist. Who is this guy's stylist? Because this guy's got great style.
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Sam Parr | dude he has neck tattoos I'm not buying real estate from a neck tattoo guy | |
Shaan Puri | But you kinda want to, like, it's kinda like when the bad boy likes you. Yeah, yeah, all of us were like, "Me? Yeah, he's given me attention." There's a certain part of you that wants that.
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Sam Parr | dude if you have a tattoo that goes over your adam's apple I don't know like I don't | |
Shaan Puri | I don't know if that's the line | |
Sam Parr | yeah like I'd wanna hang out with you baby but I don't know if I wanna do business with you I mean you you | |
Shaan Puri | clearly have a visible in a turtleneck we got problems | |
Sam Parr | alright and what about this guy | |
Shaan Puri | So, there's a scene at the end where I thought there was a great quote. Ryan is kind of confronting this guy because he's been causing a bunch of drama. He says something I thought was just really great:
"You spend so much of your time trying to get noticed instead of spending your time trying to be great. If you spent half the time just trying to be great, you'd be so great that everybody would have to notice you."
I just thought that was a wonderful line, a wonderful quote that I feel like I could have forwarded in an insulting way to like ten people I know in life. These are people who are very active on social media, and it's like instead of trying so hard to get noticed, just try to be great.
If you spent half the time just trying to be great, you would be so great that everybody would have to notice you. Like that guy who did the After Effects thing—he could have tried to promote himself, blog, and do all this stuff. Instead, he just did one great thing, and we all have to notice him. We all want to follow him; we want to be a part of this guy's world versus him trying to push his agenda out there.
I just thought that was a great quote that a lot of people need to hear. I am going to read between...
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Sam Parr | Are you becoming introspective lately? Is this like a thing? Are you trying to work through what type of man you want to be? Because I kind of like it, to be honest.
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Shaan Puri | I'm doing the work as they say | |
Sam Parr | You know, someone made a comment to me where they said, "Sam, I could tell what phase of life you are in because I listen to the podcast. I hear what you're talking about and who you're getting influenced by."
They were like, "Before you were having children, before you even said that you were going to have a kid, I kind of guessed it based off of what you were talking about."
I'm kind of doing the same with you, where it's actually exciting to see the quotes, or in this case, the quote that you're interested in. You're thinking, "That's how I should live my life a little bit more."
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Shaan Puri | do you | |
Sam Parr | know what I mean of course | |
Shaan Puri | of course | |
Sam Parr | and I think that that's cool | |
Shaan Puri | If you spot it, you got it is the rule, right? I think this is insightful because I have the problem that this insight cures. It resonates with me because there's a part of this that is true for me and true for people I know that I care about. You know, I wish I could shake them to hear it too. So, yeah, I'm very into this.
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Sam Parr | You also, if you read the comments on our YouTube, have a large fan base of young men who look up to you and think that you're cool, which you are. They would be shocked at how "basic" your TV choices are because you are... you.
So true, Sean! My wife will text about "The Challenge" or like, I know you're a "Bachelor" guy or whatever. I don't even know what these shows are, but I love that this is the one part of you where you are a mainstream type of person and you're into this stuff.
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Shaan Puri | I just try to keep in touch with the common folk you know | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, I don't know if this is common folk, but I love how simple some of your tastes are. Look, you're a very complex person with deep taste and a rich personality. But this is the one part where you're just like the rest of us.
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Shaan Puri | Everybody's like that, right? You like to go build Legos in your free time. When we want to switch the light off, we don't want to just dim it; we want it off.
It's like when I want to relax, I want to go mindless. I want to veg out. I want to completely indulge in a non-intellectual pursuit because I already do that.
Even then, you could see how I somehow turned that into podcast content and lessons for life. When I'm supposed to just be looking at people's pretty outfits and stuff, I can't really fully turn it off. But I try to go and just do the things that I truly enjoy without trying to make it also be cool and intelligent. | |
Sam Parr | This guy, Ryan, by the way, gives off a strong impression. I've seen him talk before, and I found him very off-putting at first. I felt like he was like Grant Cardone or something, trying to sell me something or scam me.
Then I got to know him, and I realized, "Oh no, you're the real deal." He's just intense, and he's legit. He has a company called Sell It. Have you seen SellIt.com?
No? So basically, it's like a course and one-on-one training business that you give to your real estate agents. That could go one of two ways; it could come off as scammy and kind of bottom feeder type of stuff.
When I go to the website, I do not get that vibe at all. I feel like it's legit. He owns, I believe, his real estate brokerage firm, which is incredibly successful. I've heard rumors that this business is doing something like $30 or $40 million a year in revenue, and he's building up a legit media empire of courses.
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Shaan Puri | **Brokerage.** I buried the lead of why I wanted to talk about the show. The reason I want to discuss it is that I watched it and thought, "Oh my God, he's doing the Kardashian model!"
But instead of selling $9 lip gloss, he's selling $9,000,000 apartments. This is genius! What I mean by that is he is using the Netflix show as the greatest marketing vehicle for his own agency.
It's like he has hit media that creates more business, and it is a perfect content-market fit. I just thought, "Wow, this is incredible!" This is just like what the Kardashians have done, where they use media to build their beauty empire. He's doing this to build his real estate empire or his sales empire.
The funniest tweet I saw on this was someone who said, "The greatest sale that Ryan Zimmerman ever did was selling Netflix an 8-hour infomercial without them realizing it." Because the show is an infomercial for him, for his brokerage, and for his agents.
It is going to be tremendous, right? It's the way that HubSpot treats this podcast. It's negative CAC. This show entertains you, and it's profitable for them. So it's good media and good business.
Once I saw this, I was like, "Wow!" Applying that to one of the highest ticket items in the world—a home, luxury homes at that—is a very, very powerful combination.
You're just going to keep seeing examples of this content-market fit happening, where people can figure out a way to make really juicy, stand-alone entertainment that will inherently market you and your business. This is an incredible job of that.
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Sam Parr | And you and I, you're really close to this person. He bought his apartment, I think, from Ryan.
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Shaan Puri | yeah yeah we have a couple of friends that have bought from him yeah | |
Sam Parr | And I asked my buddy, or our buddies, about the experience. They're like, "Yeah, he showed up and he was there, like, showing me around this $8,000,000 apartment." He was real; he was actually doing the work. So, I think this guy's a workhorse.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's got the New York, New York energy, right? The New York hardcore, overdrive, overworked personality.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, no, I'm a big fan of this guy. He definitely was one of the types of people who I initially thought, "I don't like you at all." Then, I started learning more and more, and I was like, "Oh, you're awesome. You're legit."
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Shaan Puri | yeah you come to respect the hustle | |
Sam Parr | I respect this guy a lot. I think he's the man. It's kind of like having an Adam's apple tattoo—not for me, but I still respect it. That's kind of like what this guy is. I'm like, I can't imagine grinding that hard because he really gets after it. But I love that he exists and that he does this. So yeah, I actually do like this guy a lot.
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Shaan Puri | alright right on I think that's it | |
Sam Parr | alright that's | |
Shaan Puri | the pod |