3 Killer Businesses Hidden in Plain Sight

Shaan Puri

Alright, so check this out. I'm going to tell you about three products that are hidden in plain sight. The genius of these products is that they take something that's free and they sell it. I'm going to give you one example that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars, another one that makes millions of dollars, and then another one that's made hundreds of millions of dollars. I want to tell you about a couple of business ideas. I'm going to start with one that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars, one that makes millions of dollars, and one that makes hundreds of millions of dollars. They're all products that are hidden in plain sight. We've all seen them, but you probably never even realized they're businesses. Secondly, the magic thing about all of them is that they sell a product that's actually free.

Sam Parr

What inspired this? Did you just see something?

Shaan Puri

Found one, found a second, found a third. Drew a line; three dots make a line. So that's kind of what happened here. First, I'm on Twitter and I see Joe Gebbia, who's the founder of Airbnb and a friend of the podcast. I see Joe tweet out something about a screenshot of an app that was checking water quality—the cleanliness of water. It was this app called Oasis. I thought, "That sounds familiar." Sam mentioned that, like, I don't know, six months ago. Sam mentioned that in passing, but I never really paid much attention to it. So, what's the story of this thing, Oasis? Here's one that's making $100,000 a year selling a product that is free and hidden in plain sight. It's just water quality testing. There's a kid who is behind this, and we chatted with him. Oasis is an app that checks the water quality. It'll tell you if your city's water is clean, if your county's water is clean. You can hold up a bottle of this Aqua Panna right here, and it will tell you if this Aqua Panna is actually clean or if it contains, you know, PFAS forever chemicals—what's in the water. It's a website and an app, and it started by this guy named Cormac. Cormac is from Minnesota, which is known for having really fresh water. He said growing up, he would just drink tap water—no problem. He'd drink hose water, like you, Sam, and that was what he did. Then he moves to LA and he just starts doing the same thing. He starts drinking tap water and notices it tastes a little bit different. He gets an upset stomach; he gets a little bit sick. Nothing life-threatening, but he's like, "Dude, that's weird. I just drank the water. Why is the water so much different here?" So he tries to look it up. He says, "How do I find out if my water is actually safe to drink out of the tap?" It turns out that you can go to any city and request a report about the water quality in your area. So he does that and finds, "Oh man, there are tons of contaminants in my water." He stops drinking tap water and goes to Whole Foods. He buys water from Whole Foods and says, "Well, let me see if this one is actually contaminated too." It turns out you can contact any bottled water company, and they have to provide you a report about the testing of their water. He finds that the water being sold in Whole Foods also has lots of contaminants in it. Then he's like, "What the... what's going on here?" So he creates an app really for himself, but for others too, to be able to check the quality of water—whether it's your city, your town, or bottled water that you're drinking. He's basically just aggregating free data that already exists that anybody could go request. When we first mentioned it, it was on the Jeremy Giffin episode a few months back. It was at $10,000 a month in revenue.

Sam Parr

And the way that you make revenue is... I think he has an affiliate scheme where, like, if you buy something that he recommends, he gets a cut. Also, you pay $50, right?

Shaan Puri

There's a paywall. Yeah, so you basically request a report. You can get some information for free if you want, like the full report or whatever. You pay $40 to $45, $49, something like that for an annual membership to this app. So you...

Sam Parr

Can continue to... And by the way, when I shared this, I knew it was a paywall. People were like, "Who the hell would pay for this?" I was in that camp at first. Then I started clicking around the website and I'm like, "Oh my God, my town's here!" Right? And it says it might be dirty, but I can't see the results unless I give them $50. So, I understand why it's actually incredibly valuable.

Shaan Puri

But if I mean, look at the numbers. It's doing, let's say, $40,000 a month now in revenue. So, $40,000 a month is basically half a million dollars a year. But if you do the math, at $45 for a subscription, he only has a few thousand subscribers to this thing. So, it's not like everybody's paying for this. A small number of people really care about the quality of water and are willing to pay to get the information. He structured it well. What he did was start off with all the free reports. Then, when he couldn't get the free reports or wanted to test more things, or verify their reports, he would do his own independent testing. But it's very expensive; it's like a couple grand to do independent testing of a product to find out if it actually lines up. So, he's slowly doing them one by one as he gets more money. He said, "We live in a world where we think we live in abundance. You could walk to Target or Trader Joe's and find 20 different protein bars and 30 different waters. But the problem is, most of it is filled with toxins. None of it is actually healthy." So, his mission is to build a 100% independent platform to test products and provide healthy alternatives. I think this is kind of awesome, right? The way that he's growing this thing is amazing. You might wonder how he gets customers for this. He just does TikToks that go viral. For example, check out this video about Liquid Death. He'll post this video on TikTok, just a very simple green screen over a product, and he's talking about how, "I used to think this was really healthy, but actually, it's full of chemicals." He adds, "If you want to figure out which products are actually clean, use my app." This video will get over a million views and drive a lot of attention, which leads people to download the app and sign up. It's a very simple way to drive traffic to this product, and it's something you can do over and over again. Apps like TikTok and Instagram Reels, to a slightly lesser extent, YouTube Shorts, allow you to find a format that works. You can literally repost the same thing, and the algorithm will just say, "Yep, humans like this," and keep serving it up to a lot of people, even if they don't follow you. When people figure out these simple formats that work, they just copy, paste, and post 90% of the same video over and over again. I know several people who are building multimillion-dollar businesses doing this.

Sam Parr

I'm so turned on right now! This is the greatest. Dude, this guy shows his revenue on Twitter, which is pretty cool. So, Oasis Metrics over the last 28 days shows a monthly gross revenue of $25,000. Then he shows his churn; he shows everything. I actually predict this is going to be a significantly larger product than I think it could be worth.

Shaan Puri

It can be.

Sam Parr

Many tens of millions of dollars, or even more. The reason being is the way that these review websites work. You typically have to hire a lot of freelancers in order to go out and write all of the articles. But if you're just using data to organize as a table, it's way more profitable. Also, he's getting in early on a trend. I think this water thing is still tiny, tiny, tiny compared to what it's going to be like in the next 10 to 20 years. I think he's on to something life-changing for himself.

Shaan Puri

Absolutely.

Sam Parr

Alright, so a lot of people watch and listen to the show because they want to hear us tell them exactly what to do when it comes to starting or growing a business. Really, a lot of people who are listening have a full-time job and they want to start something on the side—a side hustle. Now, a lot of people message Sean and me and they say, "Alright, I want to start something on the side. Is this a good idea? Is that a good idea?" What they're really just saying is, "Just give me the ideas." Well, my friends, you're in luck! My old company, The Hustle, put together 100 different side hustle ideas, and they have appropriately called it the **Side Hustle Idea Database**. It's a list of 100 pretty good ideas. Frankly, I went through them and they're awesome. It gives you how to start them, how to grow them, and things like that. It provides a little bit of inspiration. So check it out! It's called the **Side Hustle Idea Database**. It's in the description below; you'll see the link. Click it, check it out, and let me know in the comments what you think.

Shaan Puri

Okay, so I promised you I would tell you about a company that's hidden in plain sight that is using free selling, free information, and making hundreds of thousands. Now, I want to tell you about one that's making **$1,000,000**, and then we'll go to the hundreds of **$1,000,000**. So, the **$1,000,000** company is one we've mentioned before, but it was years ago, so I want to bring it up again. If you've ever been to a company's office and you walk into their break room or maybe their kitchen where they have snacks, you'll always notice on the wall that there is this poster. Our eyes just glaze over it; we never really look at it. It looks just like, you know, when you're on an airplane and you see the safety instructions in the seat back in front of you. It looks like that, but it's on the wall. This is a **labor law poster**, and the reason that your office has it is the same reason that all offices have it: it's required by law that you have to post this in your employee break room or open area. These labor law posters update every year, so you have to get a new one every year, and they're required by law. So, that's the good news. The bad news is you have to buy them... or do you? Here's the interesting thing about this business. There are a couple of companies that do this. I don't have all their names and information here, but I remember finding one that was based in Minnesota. What the guy was doing was, all he does is print labor law posters. What they'll do is they'll mail you a letter to your business, and the letter looks a little bit scary. It says, "Hey, if you don't have this poster up, you are in violation of California labor laws right now, and you must have this up. It is a requirement by law. It costs **$45**. Tick this box, send this back to us, and we will send you your poster." You do that, and they send you the poster. You put it up on your wall, you forget about it, and you move on.

Sam Parr

And this is a private company that sends that letter, correct?

Shaan Puri

Now, the thing is, these labor law posters are actually free. You can just go to your state labor law website and get the labor law posters. However, companies have realized that using this sort of awareness tactic—making it easy and sort of scaring the hell out of you—is a way to make a couple of million dollars a year on super high margins. All they do is print the same poster, a single SKU, a single product, once a year, and then they just send it out to businesses.

Sam Parr

They fair enough. I'm on the government's website, and figuring out how to order the poster for free is actually hard.

Shaan Puri

Of course, of course. Just like filing your taxes is a little bit confusing, TurboTax and others have made it easier. They turn the buttons into bright shiny green buttons instead of small gray buttons that you don't know which one to click. There is a tremendous amount of value in simply aggregating and structuring data, making it available for people, or helping you comply without having to figure out how to comply. Maybe the $50 tax is worth it every year as your subscription, but that's what these companies do. Labor law posters are a way to make a million dollars selling a product that's free. It's a business that is hidden in plain sight. I bring this up because one of the great things about this podcast, that I hope we do for people, is that you will go from a mindset where success seems rare and hard to grasp. You might be thinking, "What is it I need? A great idea?" Great ideas are rare; they're hard to find. To a mindset where you realize that everything you see in your life, every object in your view, is not there by accident. That sign is there for a reason. That cable is there for a reason. Somebody realized you needed that and they created it. Once you realize that, you think, "Oh my god, business is everywhere! This is a business, this is a business, this is a business." Then you realize, "Wow, all I gotta do is figure out one of these. That seems easy, right? It's like picking one from a jar full of Skittles. It doesn't seem that hard." That's what I hope to achieve by bringing up these businesses. Not only are they clever little business models, but they also point out that your eyes are glazing over at a million-dollar opportunities everywhere you walk. They are literally everywhere. You go into a parking lot, look at the ground. Somebody painted those stripes. When you go look at it, you can ask the owner of the real estate, "Who paints the stripes for your parking lot?" They'll say, "Oh, we use these guys." You go talk to them and say, "Wow, you just paint straight lines in parking lots? That's what you do?" They say, "Yep." You ask, "How much money do you make? Is this a small business?" They might respond, "Oh, we did $7 million last year in revenue, no profit." Oh my god, right? Then you realize, "Oh my god, there's somebody who makes $7 million a year profit painting white lines on the road."

Sam Parr

Dude, when I first moved to San Francisco, I lived with this guy. He was one of my roommates, and he was a piece of crap. But he was telling me how he was making **$100** a month because apparently the Church of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) allows you to order a Bible for free on their website. I guess it's like lead generation, and they'll come and hand deliver it, but they'll try to convert you to their faith or whatever. He created an online store selling Bibles for **$20** and somehow ranked on Google. He just went and took the person's information and put it into the Mormons' website. On his website, it said something like, "We hand deliver Bibles" or something like that. It was hilarious! I remember thinking, "This is a horrible scam; that's amazing!" But it was very funny, and he was making like **$500** a month doing this. That is so funny! Oh my gosh, his name was... who is...

Shaan Puri

That guy... what happened to that guy?

Sam Parr

I... he's one of those guys. You know how like you have these friends? Frankly, you and I are those people. Maybe where they're like... do hacky shit.

Shaan Puri

You have those friends. It's like, "Dude, do you remember how we met?"

Sam Parr

Yeah, where it was like, you do this hacky stuff and you're like, "This is gonna go one of two ways: it's gonna go the right way or the wrong way." Miles was the wrong way. So, like, he kind of disappeared. He probably got in trouble for a crypto scam. What's the... yeah, it was crazy. But, on his about page, he was like, "Why did the person who delivered my Bible want to talk to me?" And his thing said, "Yeah, they tend to do that. Mormons loved it." So, like, it said...

Shaan Puri

Like it.

Sam Parr

Just explained how, like, you're gonna get hand-delivered by these Mormon guys. What's the third one?

Shaan Puri

Okay, third one. Here's a product that is used, I believe, **6 billion** times a day. It is a product that *Time Magazine* said is one of the **50 things that made the world economy work**. Do you want to take a guess what this is? It's a hard one.

Sam Parr

I know this is pretty fun to do.

Shaan Puri

You have one or two more hints. Like many great inventions, it was invented maybe 20 years before it actually got used. So, somebody invented this thing, and they're like, "This is cool, but how do we... what do we use it for?" They couldn't find a use case. Finally, they found a use case. Oh, I'll give you another example. Every time you buy a product, you use this product. I feel like I'm doing those annoying riddles where it's like, "I'm awake at night but not during the day. What am I?"

Sam Parr

You could sit on me, but not take me with you. Okay?

Shaan Puri

Alright, I'll end the suspense.

Sam Parr

The answer, by the way, is a chair. What is that?

Shaan Puri

It's a barcode, so...

Sam Parr

Oh, that's cool.

Shaan Puri

Do you know the story behind the barcode? No? Alright, let me give you a little history lesson. I know you like history. The barcode was invented by two guys, Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver. These guys were inspired by Morse code. They realized, "Wow, Morse code is so simple. It's basically just dots and dashes." The dash is like a rest, and the dot represents the sound. They thought, "Could we create another system that's like that? Maybe a visual system?" So, they created a system that actually looked like a circle at the time. They thought, "Oh, look! With thin lines and thick lines, we can create basically an infinite number of unique tags for something." They patented it, but there wasn't really a good use case for it. People tried to use it for a couple of things. They realized, "Oh, you know what? We could track train containers. We're always wondering where those containers are, where they are in the route, and if they ever get unloaded." So, they put a barcode on the side of a train container, and it worked great! Everyone was really excited. That worked well for a second, but then the problem was that trains are outside, and they get dirty. As soon as any dirt got on the barcode, it ruined it. So, they thought, "This is a bad idea. Take it off. Scrap it." They tried it on something else, but it didn't really work either. Basically, for a couple of decades, nobody was using barcodes. At the same time, in another part of the world, the invention of the laser occurred. The laser is a really great way to scan something, which became interesting. But they didn't really know what they were scanning for. Lasers have multiple uses, but that invention was made. Then, in the third part of the world, three things came together. Grocery stores were having a really tough time because they were trying to stock inventory. They were keeping track of all the inventory by hand. Think about this: in a store, there are so many units, and it's taking so many hours of labor. If any customer checks out, it's so slow because for every item, you have to punch it into the register. You have to remember the prices or write them down, and then keep stock of the inventory levels. It's a pain in the ass. So, they created...

Sam Parr

Do you think that, like, when Walmart was invented, created, or founded almost around this time, a barcode is one of the reasons? Would that have prevented companies from scaling? It's just the operational... 100%.

Shaan Puri

So, Walmart opened their first store in 1962. This was now 10 years later, in 1974, when this starts to happen. They were hearing this problem: it's too slow, too much labor, and too expensive. So, they create the ad hoc committee for the Uniform Grocery Product Identification Code. They go into the lab and they're like, "Alright, we need something." They find this technology and they're like, "Oh, remember that guy Norman who is always talking about the goddamn barcode? What if we use that? What if we use this laser?" They come together and they create the barcode. They change the shape of it from a circular shape to the rectangular shape that we all know and love today. The first barcode ever gets scanned is a pack of Wrigley's gum in 1974. And they're like, "Wow, that just took the price! It took me one second and it's deducted my stock level by one. Oh my god, this was magic!" So, you know, this is like the blockchain getting invented, right? It's like, "Oh my god, how..."

Sam Parr

Do they convince all of the manufacturers to put this on their products? They just rally?

Shaan Puri

Around them, demand it. So the retailers are saying, "This is going to..." They're the ones with the hair-on-fire problem, right? They're spending all this money and time on labor. So they say, "Hey, if you want to be in our store, you gotta start adding these things to your product." For a manufacturer, you're like, "Oh, if I want shelf space, which is the most important thing for me, I'll happily stick this on here." The problem is, where do they get the code? How do I make sure that your code is not the same as my code? What's going to prevent that? Well, we all gotta go through some central thing that's going to give us the barcodes that I can use for my product to make sure nobody else can use it. It's like reserving a namespace or a license plate. How do I get my exact license plate that nobody else is going to have? And there became what's known today as GS1. GS1 is the nonprofit that issues these barcodes and keeps track of who owns the barcode space. To get barcode space, you gotta pay. But again, remember, every store has standardized on one thing. So if you want to be in a store or you want your goods in an Amazon warehouse, for example, you now need to use their system, which means they have infinite pricing leverage. They charge a lot for these barcodes.

Sam Parr

Is that GS1 who's charging?

Shaan Puri

GS1. So, GS1, we saw a little bit about this nonprofit. You can go look them up because they're a nonprofit. Last year, they had $81,000,000 in revenue. Barcode sales make up 90-93% of this. And again, a barcode is nothing; it's literally just a set of lines that they're selling for $90,000,000 a year. They now have $416,000,000 in assets that they've just been stockpiling. The CEO makes $3,000,000 a year, the CFO makes $1,000,000 a year, and the SVP of Community Engagement—God knows what that guy's doing—makes $800,000 a year.

Sam Parr

This might be...

Shaan Puri

The easiest job of all time.

Sam Parr

Does he host happy hours?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. Like, what?

Sam Parr

Do you do?

Shaan Puri

And they, you know, they stashed **$30,000,000** in overseas places like the Caribbean and Central America. All of their expenses, pretty much—I mean half of their expenses—are covered.

Sam Parr

Are they like staff salaries lobbying against the QR code? Is there like a barcode QR code lobby where they're just fighting each other?

Shaan Puri

I think QR codes are just a type of barcode. They're just a three-dimensional code.

Sam Parr

It’s okay.

Shaan Puri

Or, sorry, so yeah, isn't that crazy though? This nonprofit now has half a billion dollars in assets just from selling barcodes. Any retailer, anybody who's ever had to get their products, you know, let's say you want to sell on Amazon. Amazon says you gotta do this. It's a racket. You end up just having to pay whatever they demand in order to get your products on the shelves.

Sam Parr

Do you know how there's been a lot of cool movies lately? There's been a cool movie about the guy who created Blackberry. I think there was one on the person who helped create Tetris, and then there was another one for the person who helped create the Pop-Tart. Those are kind of cool product creation stories. I wonder if there's an interesting one here.

Shaan Puri

Somebody just said, "What if podcasts were movies?" Then they just turned every episode of *Acquired* or *How I Built This* into a documentary.

Sam Parr

Dude, well, this guy Bernard Silver... like, this is actually a way more interesting story than I would have thought. This is something that changed culture. It changed so many things. You know, we talk about inflections and how, like, the iPhone was invented, which had all these ramifications, including GPS being there. This now means that Uber has the ability to exist. There are like a million examples of that. This is one of those inflections where, like, this barcode helped to create, let's say, or made Walmart possible or made this other thing possible, which literally shaped history. And this is actually really fascinating stuff.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. So, this is just a space that you, again, you don't think about. You don't even think, "Where does this come from? Where does this little thing come from?" And again, it doesn't come from nowhere. Somebody creates it, and then that person who creates it now has, you know, something they could charge for. There's business everywhere.

Sam Parr

So, it's so funny that this episode is accidentally turning into a theme. A theme of things that you don't really think about, but how they became a thing. I have actually an example of one of those. Can I tell you it?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, go.

Sam Parr

Alright, so in the 1960s in Hawaii, it started to become common. I think it was because of one hotel where employees were allowed to wear a Hawaiian shirt to work on Friday. For the most part, you had to wear a suit to work. You know, dressing formally was how business people operated all the time. This whole "Casual Friday" idea started getting popular in mainland America. In the 1980s, HP was like, "Hey everyone, you can wear a Hawaiian shirt to work on Friday," which was a big deal because they employed tens of thousands of people. It was kind of like a statement. However, up until the late 1980s and early 1990s, virtually everyone wore suits to work all the time. Then, an executive at Levi's had a brilliant idea. Levi's had just launched Dockers, which were khaki pants. Up until then, khaki pants were almost considered... you know, if you look at the history of fashion, suits were considered the standard. That's what you did. Khakis were basically casual wear, even though now we don't look at them as casual. Levi's created Dockers because they wanted to make the khaki business, but still, people were like, "This is too casual. We can't wear these any other time except for Saturday and Sunday." So, this marketing executive at Levi's printed up 40,000 pamphlets that explained to HR professionals this new thing called "business casual" and "Casual Friday." It outlined the rules of this holiday or this new tradition. It was just an 8-page pamphlet. It didn't promote Levi's or Dockers, though. But in all of the photos, you'd see a picture of someone wearing jeans with a Levi's logo, or you'd see a picture of someone wearing khakis, and you just assumed that it was Dockers. So, this thing took off. It worked, and they thought, "You gotta..."

Shaan Puri

Read this: "A Guide to Casual Business Wear." It offers ideas for dressing professionally at work. It shows options like pants and jeans, providing various ideas for casual business attire. So, what are the rules they mentioned?

Sam Parr

Yeah, it says don't wear tattered jeans, but they should be nice, new jeans.

Shaan Puri

Right.

Sam Parr

They can't be stained, or what else does it say?

Shaan Puri

Sleeve... no sleeveless... no tanks. Oh man, I mean discrimination! Baby steps, baby steps. We're going... we're going from sets.

Sam Parr

To khakis, like, you know, it takes time. I mean, should we try?

Shaan Puri

Guns out Wednesday. Do you think we can make this happen?

Sam Parr

I, I, I... well, I'm actually going to talk about that.

Shaan Puri

In a second.

Sam Parr

But, it's a good...

Shaan Puri

Avoid lingerie. Okay, fair enough. Save athletic wear for after work, and don't forget to check footwear. Open-toe sandals are gross. No, no, it just says not appropriate.

Sam Parr

Yeah, it's a great little pamphlet. They sent this out to literally 40,000 HR executives. They even went as far as to create an HR hotline. So, if you work at IBM and you're like, "You know, I actually don't know the protocol for like, are open-toed shoes or sandals allowed?" you could call this hotline and ask the inventors of Casual Friday. You could say, "Hey, can Sydney wear open-toed shoes? Are toes allowed to be seen even if their toenails are polished?" You could ask these questions, and it took off. Casual Friday officially became a thing. It literally shaped culture, and it was all because Levi's was like, "We gotta sign these guys up. We gotta start selling some of this stuff." Back then, the American apparel industry was a little bit in a rut; they weren't doing that great, and this changed everything. People started buying Dockers and Levi's because this movement of Casual Friday totally picked up. It got me thinking, this is some pretty brilliant marketing. I call this marketing "cultural shift marketing" or "tradition hijacking." People who have found little traditions blow up the tradition or the idea and then say, "By the way, if you want to buy an inside idea, we just so happen to have the thing that can make your life feel..."

Shaan Puri

Even better.

Sam Parr

And so, there are a few other examples of this that I can present to you. The first one is De Beers. They’re a diamond company that’s been around for, I think, over 100 years. Actually, in the 1940s, they ran this campaign called "A Diamond is Forever." It was the idea that diamonds are special. Up until the 1940s, diamonds were special, but they weren't nearly as special as we think they are now. They also came up with this insane idea regarding how much you should spend on a diamond. They said roughly 2 to 3 months of your salary, which is outrageous. But that campaign is credited with helping shape the diamond industry. They even ran further campaigns that said on certain anniversaries, you have to get your wife a diamond. Another example is the idea that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Kellogg invented that idea. So, we grow up now telling our kids, "You have to eat breakfast; it's the most important thing." Kellogg invented that. Prior to that, people didn't always think that way.

Shaan Puri

Right.

Sam Parr

The two other ones are baby showers and wedding registries. Baby showers weren't a thing until Johnson and Johnson started running ad campaigns suggesting that you have to have a baby shower if you're pregnant. Macy's came up with the idea of wedding registries. They said, "You're going to get married, and people have to buy you all this stuff." In fact, you don't want people just to buy you random items because what if they buy you the same things you already have? Or if two guests buy you the same item? That's ridiculous! You have to create this registry at Macy's where you can register. Finally, spring cleaning is another concept that really wasn't a thing until Lysol came up with the idea of spring cleaning.

Shaan Puri

Wow, dude, these are great! I love... I don't know if other people get as fired up about these, but I get so fired up! I think it's because it's the same idea as, "Oh wow, these businesses are hidden in plain sight." You know, this object didn't just get here; someone made it come here. All of these occasions, these sayings, these holidays, they didn't just pop up out of nowhere. Somebody made them happen. And when you find out that it's some marketing dork... it's some marketing dork somewhere that was like, "You know what? Sales are slow. Spring sales are slow. Spring fling? No! Spring cleaning!" Spring cleaning is like, "Yes! That's how we're gonna get people to buy cleaning products this spring!" I love that! I love that just a mad ad man somewhere in the world can shift how people do things. There's a grip... We did an episode with Craig Clements about exactly this.

Sam Parr

Was it like leaky gut?

Shaan Puri

He did prebiotics, but he didn't talk too much about that. He was discussing the ones that have, like, the ones you're talking about. Why do we bake it for breakfast? Why do we drink orange juice? Where did orange juice come from? All these things today just seem like, I don't know, this is what we do. It's just staples of people's diets; it's just tradition. But it's like, no, that wasn't tradition. The classic example is toothpaste. He talks about how, at a certain time, only 6% of the population brushed their teeth. So when they wanted to increase sales of toothpaste, he said, "Well, we can't just sell more toothpaste to the 6% of people who already brush their teeth. We need to get the other 94% of people to start brushing their teeth. How are we going to do that?" That's when he came up with that campaign. Not Craig.

Sam Parr

But like Claude Hopkins, it was like rubbing the tongue on your teeth and feeling that film.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, one of them exactly. It was like, you know, basically saying, "Take your tongue, rub it on your teeth. You feel that film?" That's... and people did that. As soon as they read it, they would do it. They'd stick their tongue there, and then it's gross. You're like, "There's a way to get that off, and then you'll have that Hollywood pearl smile." People wanted that, right? So that created this movement. By the end of that campaign, something like 70 or 80% of people now brush their teeth in America. It was like a huge shift that happened just off of that one ad, man. That single big idea. I love this. I've really actually toyed with the idea of writing a book about just these crazy ad men and the way that they've actually shifted culture.

Sam Parr

Yeah, and that fascinates me as well. Another one is the Wall Street Journal. They tried to nail it, but it hasn't stuck with us. The idea is that once you graduate college, the gift you receive is a Wall Street Journal subscription. Just like I think Rolex did, where once you hit some sales quota, you get a Rolex for being in the President's Club.

Shaan Puri

Right.

Sam Parr

Like, you become president of whatever. So I was thinking, what other things haven't been hijacked that can be? I've got a few examples. The first one being **Friendsgiving**. Friendsgiving is what, like, 20-somethings who are single celebrate instead of Thanksgiving with their family. They do Friendsgiving in their town or in the city that they're living in. I think Friendsgiving is one that doesn't have a clear winner as to who owns it, but we can make it an entire week of being thankful for your friends. You would do various gestures, including having them over for dinner to show how appreciative you are that they are your friends. We could sell gift boxes, gratitude journals, digital cards, and all types of stuff. By the way, speaking of cards, Hallmark is like one of the inventors of Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, and things like that. The other one is **Graduation Season**. This is about turning it into a life transition, planning, or celebrating new life phases all because of graduating. So we're going to call it Graduation Season. What do you get for Graduation Season? You get financial planning subscriptions, productivity tools, career coaching, and travel discounts. That's for Graduation Season. You said you've thought about those. What are other ones that you've thought about?

Shaan Puri

Oh, I mean, come on.

Sam Parr

No, this is no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like examples of things where you're like, "That's amazing that they pulled that off."

Shaan Puri

Like Craig talked about the Otis elevator one, which I thought was amazing. Do you remember this? So he basically talks about how elevators were invented far before they were actually used. What does that mean? The elevator gets invented, but people didn't want to use them. They didn't want to... they didn't...

Sam Parr

They're scared.

Shaan Puri

They're scared because there were situations where elevators would just plummet, and you would plummet to your death. So it's like, "Okay, no thanks." The consequence of that is, think about it: if you don't have elevators, you don't have tall buildings, right? Because people are only going to go up so many flights of stairs. So, New York was like, you know, four stories high. There were just no buildings taller than that. Cities were kind of limited in how big they could be. Then this guy, Otis, ends up creating an elevator with automatic brakes. Okay, so Otis creates the automatic braking elevator. He's like, "This is it! This is going to be amazing. Everybody's going to buy my elevators." If you look today, by the way, you go to any elevator, you'll see a little thing on the wall that almost always says "Otis." But it didn't happen right away, and he couldn't figure out why. He's like, "This has automatic brakes; it solves the problem." But nobody believed it. So Craig talks about how one of the techniques that the marketers use is...

Sam Parr

They have to break the elevator and film it while getting caught.

Shaan Puri

Exactly. So, the World Fair was going on, and Otis decides to go all in. He creates this show, basically an exhibit where he's got an elevator suspended in the air, hanging by ropes and cables, like they would. He was inspired by Cirque du Soleil. He thought, "Oh wow, Cirque du Soleil! Their stunts and spectacles are so awe-inspiring; you can't help but look at it." So, he said, "I gotta do that." He gets somebody up there, stands in the elevator, and says, "Ladies and gentlemen, I've created the world's first safe elevator—the elevator with automatic brakes." He gets the guy at the top to swing an ax and cut one rope. The elevator starts swaying and swinging; it's hanging by a thread now, and everyone's gasping in the crowd. He says, "Cut the rope!" The guy swings and cuts the rope. The elevator starts to go down two feet, and then the automatic brakes engage, and it stops. He says, "All safe, gentlemen!" He says something like, "When you're in an Otis elevator, all is well; you will be safe." Elevator sales take off from there. When elevator sales take off, buildings can be taller. It literally reshapes the way that cities work, all because this guy realized he needed to think outside the box in terms of his marketing. He needed to do something that would break through the noise and shift culture, shifting perception about a product in a dramatic way. One tool in the tool belt is what Craig called the "hijacks of the human mind," the seven human hijacks. He said one way to hijack the mind is through a spectacle like this.

Sam Parr

Does Craig have a book? I gotta re-listen to that one. Does Craig have a book?

Shaan Puri

This after that episode, I hit Craig up and I was like, "Hey, I want to write this book with you." We talked about it, and we both got really excited about it. But we're both busy, so this might be the motivation to rekindle that project.

Sam Parr

Dude, the 7 hit human hijacks.

Shaan Puri

I wrote the sign-up. I wrote the intro for it. It's pretty dope! I'll read it to you sometime.

Sam Parr

Oh, that is awesome! I'm going to have to go listen to that because that was like two years ago. I remember listening to it and thinking, "He's amazing!"

Shaan Puri

Can I read you the intro to this book?

Sam Parr

Yeah, we.

Shaan Puri

Can we cut this out if it's boring? I just want to get your opinion on this. Alright, so I wrote this a while back. It's called **"Hijacks: 7 Human Hijacks - Confessions of a $1,000,000,000 Marketer."** Okay, so that's Craig. Craig sold over **$1,000,000,000** of products online himself. Here's how it goes: If you read this book, I need you to make me a promise. Repeat after me: "I promise to use these tactics only for good and not evil." Because the techniques in this book are not just tactics; they are hijacks. The same way a terrorist can hijack an airplane, marketers can hijack the minds of consumers to get them to buy products they didn't even know they wanted. You might be skeptical. In fact, I think you should be skeptical of somebody making such a bold claim. But I can tell you that these hijacks have been used to sell. I've used these hijacks to sell over **$1,000,000,000** of products personally. That's **$1,000,000,000** with a "B," in case you lost count. But rather than let me convince you, let me ask you: Did you brush your teeth this morning? More importantly, why? Who told you to do that? Your mom? Well, who told her? Her mom? Before that, who told all the moms to do this? It must be the dentist, right? But wait, who told the dentist? The answer turns out to be a man named **Claude Hopkins**. Before Claude Hopkins, only **7%** of the population brushed their teeth. Sidebar: Can you imagine dating back to **1913**? Nobody brushed their teeth! I feel bad for grandpa. After Claude Hopkins, **65%** of the population brushed their teeth. Claude didn't just sell toothpaste; he literally changed the world. He got millions of people to change their daily habits with one brilliant marketing campaign. I'll show you in Chapter 2. But before I show you how he did it... blah blah blah blah. Then I go on, and the chapters are like "How Diamonds Became a Girl's Best Friend" and blah blah blah, like each of the different products that got embedded into culture.

Sam Parr

What are the 7 human hijacks? Like, what are they?

Shaan Puri

Sounds like I succeeded and got you curious. You're going to have to pay $14.99 and get the book.

Sam Parr

Is it literally like 7 different tactics, or is it 7 different examples of no tactics?

Shaan Puri

Tactics, and then each one has an example, and you stack them. So what he showed was, like, you know, for example, one of the tactics is a spectacle, like I told you about the Otis elevator.

Sam Parr

So, like, a spectacle would be one of the seven.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, like spectacle is one of the seven. But, like, even the thing about taking your tongue and putting it on your teeth... it's like a magic trick, basically. It's the thing, you know? But remember the thing where people used to wear that power band or whatever those bracelets were?

Sam Parr

Yeah, and they made you hold your arm. They're like, "Look, you see how now you need to..."

Shaan Puri

Put your arms out and watch. I can't push you over, right? And yeah.

Sam Parr

Wow, the leg is like...

Shaan Puri

A good thing that's sort of... I forgot what he called it, but that sort of magic trick is one of those things where it's a powerful demonstration. You can demonstrate on the person themselves. You can get them to feel it themselves in order to want to buy a product.

Sam Parr

Did Craig come up with this idea of seven shipping hijacks, or did you come up with it on the pod?

Shaan Puri

So, he was going to come on, and it was like, "Cool, we could talk about your business. We could talk about whatever." I said, "You know, I have one really valuable question. What's the best talk you've given recently? Have you given a presentation or a talk at all that just really killed it? You could just tell the audience loved it." He said, "Oh dude, I did this one talk inside my company just to get them fired up." He's like, "Basically, my company is like a giant marketing company, and I wanted them to come into work and not just feel like, 'Oh, we need to raise sales by 7% this quarter.' No! I wanted them to realize, 'Yo marketers, you don't just drive some revenue or lift sales by X%. A marketer can literally change the way that society works.'" He's like, "So to get them fired up about that, I told them these examples of stories that they did. When I was putting them together, I realized it's the same set of techniques that they've been using across these 8 to 10 examples. Just the same set of tactics, these hijacks that they've been using." And he's like, "That could be cool." I was like, "Yes, do that on the pod!"

Sam Parr

Check this out. If you Google "7 Human Hijacks Craig Clements," the first post is on Reddit. It says, "Craig Clements on MFM talking about the 7 Human Hijacks and how to use them in your marketing." It links to this amazing post that this guy wrote where he lists the 7.

Shaan Puri

on r/marketing

Sam Parr

Yeah, it's so good.

Shaan Puri

So, one of them, for example, is he talks about the act of rebellion. How do you make your consumer feel like they're giving the middle finger to "the man" by buying your product? The example he gives is from back in the day when cigarette sales were flat. Cigarette sales were flat because, basically, cigarettes were only smoked by men. It was already super saturated; it was like, "Dude, we can't really get more men to smoke. They kind of all smoke already." So, they realized the only way to grow sales was by getting the other 50% of the population—women—to start smoking. At the time, it was seen as not cool; it was viewed as a kind of dirty masculine thing to do. The guy behind the campaign basically used influencers. Influencers are one of the hijacks. He got all of the "Kardashians" of their time—about 30 of them—all together at once. This was at a time when the big problem in culture or society was, I forgot if it was women being able to vote or some other issue where women were repressed in some way. He got them all to go to this parade or fair—the New Year's fair or the Macy's fair, whatever it was. They all stood on this float, and he gave them all cigarettes. He said, "Alright, when you turn this corner, you're gonna light that cigarette right when the journalists are all there. They all have their cameras pointed at you. You're gonna light the cigarette and defiantly smoke it in front of them. You're gonna do this thing that women aren't supposed to do."

Sam Parr

He called it... he called the cigarettes "torches of freedom." Exactly.

Shaan Puri

Exactly. And that's what the newspapers... He then put somebody in the crowd where the journalists were, and he said that out loud to the journalists, who then went and wrote that in their story. They lit up these "torches of freedom."

Sam Parr

You see those ladies up there, guys? Those are... those are the torches of freedom. That's what those are. That's what Jewel needs to do. It needs to be like...

Shaan Puri

These are vapes of freedom that these kids are using.

Sam Parr

Oh, look at that guy! That's a... that's a sex machine that he's using. He's going to have sex with so many people because he's using that thing. And even...

Shaan Puri

Even that same year, I think it was Lucky Strike or whoever, their brand color was green. Green was not in vogue at the time. He said, "Yeah, the women don't want to buy it because the cigarette box is not fashionable." It's like, do we need a rebrand? He said, "Hold my beer, don't rebrand." Instead, he got those same women to go to the big fashion events, you know, like the Met Gala type of thing, and all of them wore green. They all wore that same green color dress. So then, green became cool for women. It basically became trendy right after that, and the sales of that brand went up because he made the color cool. It's kind of cool to see somebody who can puppeteer society in this way. I'm summarizing it like a nine-month-old episode, so I might have some of the details wrong here.

Sam Parr

This Reddit poster said, "Side note, a lot of these stories are documented in this amazing book called *Propaganda*." Yeah, and that's the Bernays book, right?

Shaan Puri

It's a hard read, dude.

Sam Parr

I have wanted to read it, but it seems intimidating. What's so hard about it?

Shaan Puri

You know, these old books that are just so dense... it's not an easy read. I don't know, my brain is very simple. A lot of people recommend books to me. They're like, "Oh, this is a great book! Have you read René Girard's *Mimetic Theory*?" It's like, "Oh, I'm interested to go buy the book," but then I think, "I'm just too dumb to read this." I'm too dumb to read even.

Sam Parr

Read the... do not have the...

Shaan Puri

Attention span to read something like this.

Sam Parr

I read a summary book on memetic theory. What was that one that came out recently? It was still hard to understand.

Shaan Puri

I still read like I've heard that one.

Sam Parr

I read that. That was like the Malcolm Gladwell version of René Girard. I read it and I'm like, "So I want what other people want? Is that it?"

Shaan Puri

Right.

Sam Parr

I read the whole thing and I was like, "I don't understand why this is so many words. What am I missing?" When I've heard about this book, I've heard all about this book *Propaganda*. It would be fun to read, or at least try to read.

Shaan Puri

There's something about this book that's more than 50 years old. Their brains were just able to, like, you know, they spoke differently. They talked differently, and they wrote differently. For whatever reason, my brain can't really process it very well. So, I kind of need somebody to translate it into modern speak or into, like, simpleton speak for me.

Sam Parr

Yeah, I think maybe I'll try and do that. This guy... this seems like a cool book. Oh, the guy who wrote it was born in 1891 and died in 1995. Wow, I saw a lot. Alright, let me tell you about something that I did. So, on Friday, I tweeted that I'm going to Yale's campus. I tweeted that I'm going to check out Yale because it's like an old historical place, and I wanted to do something interesting for the weekend. Something easy. On Saturday, I tweeted it out and got a lot of replies. It was kind of overwhelming on what to do. So, Saturday morning, we just drive up there, and I go to the busiest part of the town, thinking I'll just figure it out when I get there. I show up and see a student tour. You know, like when you're a prospective student and you go with your mom and dad? I just slip in. It's pretty funny because it's Sarah and I, and I don't think either of us look young enough to be students. Plus, I've got my baby strapped to my chest. Well...

Shaan Puri

Gave it away.

Sam Parr

Yeah, so we're just like... we're at the back of this student-led tour, listening in. Then, out of nowhere, this kid—I guess he's not that much of a kid, but he's like 20 years old—he goes, "Hey Sam!" I go, "What's up, man?" He says, "Hey, I'm a big fan of the pod. I listen religiously. I saw that you were gonna be here, so can I show you around?" I was like, "Yeah, I would love that! What are you doing here? What are you doing today?" He's like, "Well, I saw that you were coming, and I just went to the most busy place there was, and I just hoped that I was gonna see you. And here you are!" So this kid gave me the...

Shaan Puri

And now, I didn't think through what happens after that.

Sam Parr

But it was great! And, by the way, that's like the third time that's happened. I love when that happens because I feel like he's doing me a favor. I would love for a local to show me around, and he shows me all this amazing stuff. So, have you heard of Skull and Bones?

Shaan Puri

The secret society of Yale, where presidents are in... is it legit? What is it?

Sam Parr

It's quite a secret society, but I don't know how much of a secret it is when there's a building. It's like a nonprofit with an endowment, so I don't know what the secret is. But it was just cool to see this building that I've read about. Then we went and saw this old graveyard; it's the oldest graveyard in America. I was looking through it, and I'm going to explain to you why I'm obsessed with old stuff, particularly the Ivy League. It's kind of a nerdy thing of mine where I like... I've been to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and a bunch of others because I just love touring these old schools. They're just cool. We go to this old graveyard, and we saw Noah Webster's grave. You know who Noah Webster is? Have you heard that name?

Shaan Puri

Is that him from the Webster dictionary?

Sam Parr

The dictionary, Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, was created by the guy who invented the dictionary. I was looking at this old graveyard, and next to him was Charles Goodyear, the guy who created vulcanized rubber, which led to Goodyear tires. It was awesome! I’m actually really envious of you that you went to Duke, this historical old institution. It was so cool to be around history, where someone came up with something and literally invented or standardized the English language. Someone who shapes history and has still impacted the way we do things. It was an awesome, awesome weekend to see all this old stuff because it inspired me. You know how, when you get behind the computer every single day, you think, "I'm gonna do something that just makes a little bit of money"? Sometimes you kind of get into these ruts of thinking small.

Shaan Puri

Right.

Sam Parr

It was very inspirational to see Yale and experience this old institution that has lasted for centuries. The size and global presence of it was very, very cool. I want to give a shout out to that kid. I don't want to say his name because he said he wants to be low key, but I want to give him a shout out for showing me around.

Shaan Puri

That's awesome! The most "white person" hobby ever is to go to a graveyard. You'll never see non-white tourists hanging out in the graveyard. It's not a thing we do.

Sam Parr

Dude, it was awesome! It was great.

Shaan Puri

So, you saw the Webster's Dictionary Goodyear, and you're like, "Alright, I'm gonna come back and podcast." What was your move? What are you going to do?

Sam Parr

You know, it kind of put me into a little bit of a crisis where I was asking that. But, like, this podcast is definitely part of it. I don't know about you, but I sometimes think that a podcast is not as impactful compared to, like, talking to guys who are inventing robots that are doing X, Y, and Z or who are going to the moon. But a lot of these guys were authors whose graves I saw, and I was still inspired by them. So I felt a little bit of inspiration from that. However, there was a little bit of a crisis of, like, "Oh man, it's important to do something that can impact people for centuries."

Shaan Puri

I don't know, just putting that out there and see how that lands. I feel like you're good with coming up with alternative phrases for things, so instead of saying, you know...

Sam Parr

Well, not just because I don't know the real phrase and I can't pronounce the word. So when I mumble, it just sounds like... Did you get this feeling at Duke where it was cool to be around old, historical things that have lasted for a long time?

Shaan Puri

I know exactly what you mean. There is definitely a vibe and a feeling when you're at something that is not just bigger than yourself, but sort of timeless. The problem with Duke and other Southern schools that have this is like, you're like, "Oh wow, who made this?" You know, what is this? It's like, "This is the slave wall." It's like, "Oh, okay, never mind." It's like, "What's the name of this road?" It's like, "This is Tobacco Road. We had tobacco plantations." Everything has a sort of dark side to a lot of the history there, so that wasn't cool. But the rest of it is great. In fact, I used to love going to the chapel. The center of Duke's campus is the chapel, and I used to go there all the time, even though I'm not religious. Just the aura, the vibe... the vibe of a church is kind of unmatched, to be honest. That's great, and so yeah, I really love that.

Sam Parr

Here's why I like Silicon Valley and why I like old stuff. It's kind of similar. I love thinking about things that we take for granted. For example, buildings that have been there for a long time, or that are really large, or even just your streets or institutions like Yale. I'm like, "How did someone create something that became such an institution that we take it for granted?" We don't even reflect on how this became a thing. Silicon Valley is cool because ideally, the outcome is that you are creating something in real time that will become an institution, like Airbnb or Google, where it becomes a verb. You know what I mean? You get to see that happening, and I think it's really cool to be in Silicon Valley to see the beginning of hopeful institutions in the making. Then, you can also go and see the old stuff and think, "This is how it's done."

Shaan Puri

So, we just had Gary Tan on. Don't you think that Y Combinator (YC) should just have a campus? It should have this sort of gothic, you know, old-school institutional vibe. And even if they're not going to do it, why wouldn't I just create a campus? A small micro campus for YC people. Free, free, free room and board. So, a free place to live, free food that's healthy, and all I do is just cherry-pick investments from people on campus. I just get to invest in their companies. It would be... I don't even need YC to do this. Why wouldn't I do this?

Sam Parr

There's a... or even just a museum. Have you ever heard of the Museum of American Finance? It's this place in New York City where it's like a museum for the history of finance. Frankly, it's badass. It's awesome! It's just like a place to let go and physically explore all that Wall Street has done. It is kind of interesting.

Shaan Puri

It's just like Bill Ackman's loafers. What's inside this thing? What is the Museum of Modern... of what? Of finance?

Sam Parr

Yeah, it's a museum of American finance. If you look at a photo, it shows what the stock tickers used to look like. People would stand there and trade, like in the 1800s. Then it switched to having phones on the floor where you would do this... It tells the history of it and includes important things related to it. But it's a museum in downtown Manhattan.

Shaan Puri

That's cool. I like that.

Sam Parr

Dude, this is a fun episode!

Shaan Puri

That was a banger.

Sam Parr

Alright, that's it. That's a pod.