+$1 Billion Businesses You've Never Heard Of (#497)

Sam Parr 0:00 there's like stories where she's raising funding and, uh, a guy leans over the table and was like, "So why should I trust you to be the CEO of this company?" And she leans back over, she goes, "'Cause I'm a complete and total animal." And the guy leans back and he's like, "All right, I'm in."

Shaan Puri 0:15 [laughs]

Sam Parr 0:16 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 0:18 [upbeat music] Okay, what's up? We are here, and

Shaan Puri 0:30 I got two little special announcements for you. First one, we got merch. The boys got merch. Uh, we're a little late to the game, we're a little slow. Uh, most people start selling merch as soon as they get a following. Took us four years, but Sam, we figured it out. You gotta sell T-shirts on the internet.

Sam Parr 0:46 And hoodies.

Shaan Puri 0:47 [laughs]

Sam Parr 0:47 But that's, I think that's all we have.

Shaan Puri 0:49 [laughs]

Sam Parr 0:49 Uh, we'll, we'll, we'll add, [laughs] we'll add more stuff, but we have a few stuff. It's pretty stupid that neither of us are wearing it today. Mine's in the, in the dryer at the moment.

Shaan Puri 0:59 Yeah, again-

Sam Parr 0:59 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:00 ... slow and stupid.

Sam Parr 1:01 Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:02 Yeah. [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:02 So, but yeah, it's pretty cool. We have stuff that's, has some of our, uh, favorite sayings. And, uh, dude, the No Small Boys stuff shockingly caught on.

Shaan Puri 1:11 Cau- caught on in a big way. I'll tell you something. I don't know if you listen, but I did an episode with Samir from Colin and Samir, and they basically are like, they're YouTubers that study other YouTubers. So they're like always studying creators. And he handed me two things when he came to the interview. He handed me a newspaper. Did I s- did I tell you about this?

Sam Parr 1:28 No.

Shaan Puri 1:29 He, he handed me a newspaper that was, they made their own newspaper edition, like one, one edition, special edition for their, like they hit some milestone, so they printed a m- a newspaper and it was like all of the like kind of content or interviews from their show were like, it's like here's the, here's the monthly magazine or whatever. Here's the thing for, for our stuff.

Sam Parr 1:50 Dude, let's do that. That's a great idea.

Shaan Puri 1:52 It's a great idea. It looked like a normal thing, but they, they made it using their content, and I was like, "I love this." He gave me one. He's like, "This is the last one we have." I don't know if that's true or not, but man, you know how to make a boy feel special when you say that. Uh, and the second thing, he handed me this hat that was a dope hat that says, uh, Press Published. It's like this blue hat they have. It's super high quality, and I was like, "Oh, this is like much higher quality than normal merch." And he goes, "Oh, yeah, yeah. Here's how I think about merch." He goes, "If you're Logan Paul or you're MrBeast, you make consumables. Think prime energy drink. It's a consumable. I'm selling this to you. You're gonna drink it, use it, whatever." And he goes, uh, "MrBeast, chocolate." He's gonna... Or even MrBeast merch, his T-shirts. These are all just consumables. And he goes, "We don't make consumables. We make collectibles." He goes, "And if, if you're a creator, you should pick one of the two paths."

Sam Parr 2:39 That's smart.

Shaan Puri 2:39 And I love this collectibles idea. He's like, "Because what you want is, you want a way... You're, look, you don't need to make a f- you're not gonna make a fortune. You don't need to make a fortune through your merch." And which is why we've never done merch, 'cause it's like, I don't know, do we-

Sam Parr 2:52 Why?

Shaan Puri 2:52 We don't, we don't really care about-

Sam Parr 2:54 Yeah

Shaan Puri 2:54 ... making a couple thousand bucks on, on T-shirt sales. Never been the, never been a motivator m- for us. Um, 'cause we're rich, if you missed that part. All right. So the-

Sam Parr 3:02 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 3:03 But the reason is-

Sam Parr 3:04 Oh my God, what a... [laughs] Should we put a like... [laughs] Is that the n- our new collectible, like douchebags R Us? Is it?

Shaan Puri 3:12 [laughs] Yeah, yeah. Coming to a store near you. Um, but the collectibles thing made total sense to me, where he's like, "You want the people who are like kind of your, your thousand most, but most like kind of devoted people. People who actually give a shit about what you do. They're all about what you're all about. They think the way you think. They act the way you act. They're very similar to you." They're like, for them, this is like collectible badge of honor. So make a limited edition number of units. Um, and when it's gone, it's gone. It never comes back. And on top of that, you, um, it's a signal, so that anytime anybody else sees them with that, they know, oh, like-

Sam Parr 3:49 They know you're part of the tribe

Shaan Puri 3:50 ... they know you're part of the tribe. Like, if I meet somebody, uh, Ben said this to me the other day. He goes, he goes, "Oh, you know what I like?" 'Cause he, he, what he'll do often is he'll talk to people who come through my DMs or email us or whatever. He loves to go meet them and talk to them. And I'm like, um, "That's great. You get a lot of energy from that." I'm more introverted, don't like doing that as much. Um, but he goes, "No, it's..." He goes, "The reason I like it," he's like, "normally I don't like just talking to strangers." But he's like, "If you like MFM, there's like a 95% chance we're gonna be friends." He's like, "'Cause it filters in people who think the way we think and act the way we act, and like, you got a sense of humor," and this like... You're not gonna like this content if you don't, if you're not a bus- total business junkie and nerd. You don't like to nerd. If you, if you like, don't like to l- nerd about business, you're not gonna like this podcast. And if you like everything buttoned up and serious, you're also not gonna like this podcast. And so it's a great filter.

Sam Parr 4:39 It's sorta like when I see another grown man drinking a glass of whole milk for dinner, you know what I mean?

Shaan Puri 4:44 [laughs]

Sam Parr 4:44 Like at dinner. Like, oh, hey, we probably have similar values.

Shaan Puri 4:46 Cheers. [laughs]

Sam Parr 4:49 [laughs] Good, good Catholic. What's up? Uh, so yeah, I, I feel that.

Shaan Puri 4:54 Right. If you got a favorite flavor of Skittle, Sam, Sam knows-

Sam Parr 4:58 Yes

Shaan Puri 4:58 ... you're his guy. [laughs]

Sam Parr 5:00 [laughs] What's the second thing you have?

Shaan Puri 5:03 So, um, okay, that's the first surprise. Second

Shaan Puri 5:05 surprise is a clips channel. So this one actually we should've done a long time ago. Um, if you go to clipmfm.com, so this is our new clips channel, which is basically you, we do these podcasts are about an hour each. What Clip of MFM does is it's a YouTube channel for only the clips of the best bits from the pod clipped out for you so that you can watch them in sort of like three, four-minute bursts. And for every episode, we're only pulling out the one to three moments that actually mattered. So where somebody told a great story, had an amazing idea, or shared something about the, the way their business works or broke something down in a level of satisfying detail. And, um, at first I wanted to outsource this, and then I was like, no, fuck that, I'm gonna hand curate these clips myself, 'cause I'm like, I want the channel that I would wanna watch. Because this is how I consume a lot of podcasts. Like, if you're like, "Oh, do you like Lex Fridman?" Yeah, like it, love the pod, great pod. I never actually watch the full ones.

Sam Parr 6:03 What do you search to find it?

Shaan Puri 6:05 If you just go to clipmfm.com, that'll take you there. Or the, you can just search My First Million Clips. And, uh, I tweeted it out. It's got, like, 700 subscribers now, but I need this to get into the tens of thousands of, of subscribers. 'Cause if you listen to this podcast, you're gonna want to... Like, why would you not want to just get the best stuff faster, um, or, like, in a more simple way? Um, so yeah. Anyways, that's my, that's my sales pitch for both the merch and the, uh... The merch is collectibles, limited number of units, and it's, uh, it's just a way for our tribe to kind of signal to each other, "Hey, this w- you know, I'm in the, I'm in the club." And, um, on the other side, we have the clips channel. How did I do with my sales pitch?

Sam Parr 6:42 That was a great pitch, and the Skittles joke was very funny, and you made me feel very guilty, because my w-... Listen, listen. My wife, ha- her birthday's this Sunday, and I was gonna surprise her with a pinata. Hopefully she doesn't listen to this episode. And I have a closet here in the studio room that is where I've hidden the pinata, and I've also hidden tons of bags of candy that I went and bought from Party City. Lots of Skittles.

Shaan Puri 7:06 [laughs]

Sam Parr 7:07 Un- unfortunately, I've gotta go back to Party City today because I've eaten all, all of the bags-

Shaan Puri 7:13 [laughs]

Sam Parr 7:13 ... [laughs] of Skittles. So you nailed that one. It's all, they're all empty. There's a, there's a, a, a whole bunch of empty Skittle bags over here.

Shaan Puri 7:20 It looks like a raccoon-

Sam Parr 7:21 So, yeah

Shaan Puri 7:21 ... went through that bag. That's not even, like, a small hole. You-

Sam Parr 7:24 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 7:24 Why, why did you need a face-size hole in that bag?

Sam Parr 7:26 Because when I do nighttime eating, I go into bear mode, and I'm like [laughs] I'm like a bear getting, like, a, like a, like a beehive. You know? I'm just, like, [laughs] I'm just like... Imagine just, like, using your fists instead of your fingers. That's, like, what I am at night. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 7:39 My sister says this thing to her girls.

Sam Parr 7:41 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 7:41 Like, she wanted them to, like, just go to their room and t- put themselves to bed. So she invented something called nighttime sister playtime so that they would feel excited about it. It's like, "Oh, do you guys wanna do nighttime sister playtime?" And they're like, "Oh my God, yeah. Nighttime sister playtime." So they go to their room by themselves, they play, and they fall asleep. And so I created nighttime daddy playtime, which is just when my kids are gone, and I get to just eat and be on the internet, and that's nighttime daddy playtime, and I celebrate it every single night.

Sam Parr 8:07 Dude, I, like, am, like, putting my fist in a, in a jar of peanut butter at night.

Shaan Puri 8:11 [laughs]

Sam Parr 8:11 Like, I wake up and there's, like, bear claws a- all over the place. So listen,

Sam Parr 8:15 I wanna bring up a topic. You put it on your list, and it's so funny you put it on your list. Don't say what it is yet. But you put it on your list, and I did a ton of research on this topic, and it's incredibly fascinating. So I'm gonna tell you about this, all right?

Shaan Puri 8:28 Well, we gotta give credit. There was a reason we both have it on our list. Someone tweeted at us.

Sam Parr 8:31 They did. They go, "You should do a..." They just said, "You should break down this particular company." And I was like, that's one of the very few times where I go, "That's a great idea, sir."

Shaan Puri 8:39 Right.

Sam Parr 8:39 That's a g- that's a good one. We're gonna do that. So let me tell you how I got started. It's super fascinating. So there's this guy named Steven Brill. You have no idea who he is, but I bet you know Court TV. He started Court TV, o- one of my all-time favorites. You know, predecessor of Cops, my favorite show of all time. And, uh, it turns into a huge success, and then he also starts American Lawyer Media, which is, like, a 6 or $800 million lawyer media company that he sells. So his next company, it's called Verify Identity Pass. It started in '03 after 9/11, and he wants to come up with an interesting way to make getting onto a plane easier and safer. He comes up with this thing where it's like a credit card, and you could swipe it, uh, in, in order to, like, prove that you're, I guess not a terrorist, something like that. And it gets, you know, a little bit of traction. He raises $100 million to start this business. He gets, uh, 200,000 pe- people to sign up. It flops. Doesn't work out. So, uh, there's this woman, her name's Caryn. I forget Caryn's last name, actually. But she's got this, uh, uh, hedge fund, very successful hedge fund. What are you laughing at, at her name Caryn?

Shaan Puri 9:44 Oh, just anyone named Caryn, I just always think, damn. Uh, what a, what a sideswipe they got in life by, uh, by this m- this trend that just started in, whatever, 2022, and all of a sudden their name was never the same again.

Sam Parr 9:57 She spells it C-A-R-Y-N, which somehow makes it better, to be honest.

Shaan Puri 10:01 I would too. [laughs]

Sam Parr 10:02 Yeah. It, it, it does, it does make it better.

Shaan Puri 10:05 I, I'd spell it, like, Caron if I was, uh, if I was named Caryn.

Sam Parr 10:07 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 10:08 I'd just have to make a slight-

Sam Parr 10:09 Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 10:09 ... pr- like, you know, pronunciation change.

Sam Parr 10:12 Yeah, like how I call, like, uh, La Quinta hotels La Quita.

Shaan Puri 10:15 [laughs]

Sam Parr 10:16 Uh, it, it, it's just a slight rebrand. Um, so anyway, she has this hedge fund. It's successful and all, but she hears about this company going out of business, and she's like, "You know, this is actually interesting, and I think they made a, a, a mistake. They didn't brand it correctly. I think this should be more of a luxury good company." And so she buys the business out of bankruptcy for $6 million. Then she goes on and raises $50 million, and she renames the company, and she calls it Clear. Clear is that thing that a lot of you folks see at the airport. They, uh, are at around 53 airports, I think. It's kind of confusing at first when you see it, because you're like, "Oh, there's two lines. There's a TSA line. There's a Clear line. What the hell is going on?" Turns out, this company is crazy successful, and it actually has a lot more implications than I ever imagined. So Clear does something like $600 million a year in revenue, market cap of $3 billion. And what they do is they built this technology at that stand where it looks at your eye, and it uses biometrics. So it looks at your eye to, to, uh, figure out who you are. It looks at your fingerprint, and they, like, fast-track you in that line. But have you ever wondered how they, like, get these contracts at these airports? It's like a monopoly.

Shaan Puri 11:19 Yeah. I don't know how they do it.

Sam Parr 11:21 So they give away 10 to 13% of their revenue, uh, to the airports, and what that comes out to be is something, like, of their, uh, revenue in 2019, they were doing, like, 350 million in revenue. They gave out $35 million to airports. Their most popular airport was LAX. That made them around $25 million in subscriptions, of which they gave 3 million back to LAX. And so they're kind of, like, in bed with the government a little bit, and they have all these people on their board who are, uh, um... They took funding from Delta, and they have Delta employees on their board, so, like, the head of Delta. They have, like, the former head of TSA security on their board. And it's crazy fascinating, because what they're doing now-

Shaan Puri 11:57 Wait, but Sam, I was doing bad listening 'cause I was looking it up while you were talking. W- how did they get into... How, what... Like, what was the thing that got them in? 'Cause it's like, seems like once you're into the airport and you're the, you're the one- Of course this is an amazing business. But what did they do to get in?

Sam Parr 12:12 Because-

Shaan Puri 12:12 What did she, what was the miracle that they pulled off there?

Sam Parr 12:15 They promised airports that they would give them a percentage of the revenue, so they would open up a new revenue stream. And also what they did was they took funding from, uh, a couple airlines, and they, on their board they added, like, former head of TSA and things like that.

Shaan Puri 12:30 Ah.

Sam Parr 12:30 And so, like, they like-

Shaan Puri 12:32 Some old-fashioned, some old-fashioned gentleman's agreement. [laughs]

Sam Parr 12:34 [laughs] Yeah. Yeah, so it's pretty fascinating what they did. But what's even crazier, A, Karen's actually pretty amazing. There's, like, stories where she's raising funding and, uh, a guy leans over the table and was like, "So why should I trust you to be the CEO of this company?" And she leans back over, she goes, "'Cause I'm a complete and total animal." And the guy leans back and he's like, "All right, I'm in."

Shaan Puri 12:58 [laughs]

Sam Parr 12:59 [laughs] And so they're, but they're killing it now. They have 17 million users. But here's where it gets really interesting. What they're doing, and I went and read a bunch of their, like, annual reports. It's, it's super fascinating and also scary. What they're doing is you can now sign into LinkedIn using Clear. So you can create an account verifying your identity. You can also go to certain stadiums and buy beer using just your, your eyes. And so her whole theory is like, "Look, we're gonna start with the airport, but eventually you're not gonna use a wallet anymore. You might use Apple Pay for some stuff or s- for, but for something that involves your identity, you don't need to pull out your license anymore. We're just gonna look at your eyes." And it's super fascinating what these guys have pulled off, and I didn't realize... I kinda thought it was like a douchey company, because I'm like, "Uh, this is $50 for TSA for five years. This other thing is, like, 150 bucks for one year. Why do I need this thing?" But people still buy it. I, I think I was with you one time and you bought it. You even know what it was, right?

Shaan Puri 13:56 Well, we were late. We were about to, me and you were about to miss a flight to Miami, and so I was like, "All right, MacGyver this line. How do we do this? Okay, let me just sign up for Clear real quick and see if we can jump the line," and it, it worked. You had TSA, I didn't have it. And so, uh, I cleared my way in and we, we got on the plane.

Sam Parr 14:13 It totally worked. And so it saves you just a little bit of time. But, like, what's crazy is that, uh, their vision is huge, and it actually is, like, a super interesting vision that they have on how this business can be, can be much bigger than it is now. And it just, like, goes way more in-depth than I ever thought.

Shaan Puri 14:30 Yeah, I'm not sure I'm a believer in the rest of that vision, 'cause, like, I don't care, uh... Like, the amount of effort it would take for the, you're at a ball game and you wanna buy a beer, and now each beer vendor is gonna buy hardware to, uh, scan my retinas and I have to stand still for seven seconds while it scans my eyes just to verify my age. Like, I feels like that's not the right payoff. Like, the airport one makes sense, 'cause it's like, hey, look, airport security, it's a big deal. Okay, you can skip this line and if you're a business traveler, you're gonna miss a flight, those are high stakes. Um, that's important. And so it seems like the right payoff to kinda, like, work ratio. I wonder where else that really exists where you actually need to on the spot verify your identity.

Sam Parr 15:12 So last summer, um, a new law was enacted. And so right now if you live in, I believe it's Virginia, and you go to pornhub.com, uh, or a bunch of other porn sites... Yeah, go for it. Uh, I see you typing. [laughs] You have to-

Shaan Puri 15:27 Ooh, interesting, interesting website you-

Sam Parr 15:28 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 15:28 ... referred me to.

Sam Parr 15:29 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 15:29 I'll bookmark this one.

Sam Parr 15:31 So there was a new law enacted that for people in Virginia you have to verify your identity in order to go to certain porn websites to prove that you're over 18 [laughs] . And so it, like, brings up, like, a camera where it wants to take your picture from your computer lens to, like, check your identity.

Shaan Puri 15:49 To shame you. It just starts, shame-

Sam Parr 15:50 Yeah [laughs]

Shaan Puri 15:50 ... just starts coming through your headphones.

Sam Parr 15:52 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 15:53 Like Game of Thrones. Shame.

Sam Parr 15:55 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 15:55 Shame.

Sam Parr 15:55 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 15:56 Shame.

Sam Parr 15:56 Yeah, like, the avatar's like a, it's like a nun-

Shaan Puri 15:58 [laughs]

Sam Parr 15:58 ... holding a rosary. And, uh, she's like, "Are you sure?"

Shaan Puri 16:01 [laughs]

Sam Parr 16:01 Um, but, uh, but, like, there's, like, a, a few instances where this actually is interesting. Uh, by the way, those porn companies, w- uh, some of the thing that they're doing is they're putting it on... They're, they're making it so if even if you're outside of Virginia, some porn websites are still making you register in order to, like, make you pissed off at the Virginia congressman who approved this.

Shaan Puri 16:22 [laughs]

Sam Parr 16:22 And so you, like, email them-

Shaan Puri 16:22 They should put his name there

Sam Parr 16:23 ... which is-

Shaan Puri 16:24 "Hey, Mark Ingram in Virginia is-

Sam Parr 16:26 Yeah [laughs]

Shaan Puri 16:26 ... forcing you to open your eyes and get scanned before you watch porn."

Sam Parr 16:29 [laughs] Yeah.

Shaan Puri 16:30 "If you feel any kinda way about that, [laughs] push this button."

Sam Parr 16:33 Well, they even have, like, a Gmail login for some of these porn... It, it's, it's, it's weird. It's weird is what it is. Uh, but, like, I, uh... It's, it's crazy. But there are a few instances. But the most crazy thing about Clear is, like, this is a total monopoly, uh, that they have in airports, and I'm shocked that they've had this. I don't know anything about public valuations. It seems potentially like an undervalued company.

Shaan Puri 16:56 What is it valued at, and what was the revenue again?

Sam Parr 16:58 It's in the 5 or $600 million range. Um, they claim they have 90% retention, so it's not, like, as good retention as software. But it looks like, uh, their market cap as of today is $3 billion.

Shaan Puri 17:11 I mean, w- that's kind of an amazing... Like, a $3 billion company that does such a simple thing. And you said they're only in, like, 63 airports or something like that? That's g- that's crazy that it's so, so big with such a small footprint, and it's such a simple product. Uh, very impressive.

Sam Parr 17:26 Yeah, they're in, uh, 53 airports in, uh, they're, they're... The trailing 12 months they've done $530 million in revenue.

Shaan Puri 17:34 Wow. That's impressive. Uh, here's a random related, uh, startup. Did you ever see this company called Evolv? They, uh, they make metal detectors.

Sam Parr 17:43 No.

Shaan Puri 17:43 So their big thing was they're, like, uh, it's a, one of these businesses, like... One of the meta takeaways of, of this podcast is all the businesses are hidden in plain sight. They're right in front of you. And if you just start, once you start paying attention you're like, "Oh, this didn't just get here. Who put this metal detector here? There's a company that does this. How do they work? Um, is this the same company at all of these places? How did they get that contract?" And so metal detectors are at every big venue, right? Um, sp- you know, stadiums, concert for, whether it's for concerts or sports, uh, airports, that sort of thing. And so there's a company that had raised money from Lux, uh, Lux Capital, like a- A VC firm that does, like, whatever. A slightly hard tech or, or hard tech. Um, and what these guys did was they made a metal detector

Sam Parr 18:26 [laughs] Good, good pitch for them. [laughs] They do, I don't know, whatever. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 18:30 Well, I was gonna say, like, cutting edge hard tech, and then I was ta- I'm telling you about this metal detector, and it's like, uh, I mean

Sam Parr 18:36 [laughs] You know

Shaan Puri 18:38 ... those guys at, those guys at the beach who are nuts also hold metal detectors.

Sam Parr 18:42 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 18:42 I can't really call this cutting edge. Um-

Sam Parr 18:44 [laughs] Yeah. Sli- we do slightly hard stuff. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 18:49 Yeah. Har- harder than e-commerce. So they, um... But they... And their actual demo is pretty cool. So what they're doing is it's a metal detector that can let you just walk straight through much faster. So, like, you don't need to... I think it's, like, you don't need to, like, um, take... You don't need to take out everything from your pockets, and you don't need to, um, like, y- y- you know, like, I guess, like, it could just detect it faster so the flow of traffic is faster than a tr- a traditional metal detector. Um, and that's kinda just crazy to me that that's, like, such a simple idea that I'm like, "Oh, yeah, I guess, like, I guess that's true." Like, if somebody just made a better metal detector, going forward, they're gonna win a bunch of contracts. All right, I gotta tell you about one thing that's one of the great

Shaan Puri 19:33 joys of my life. You know, I'm not a cars guy and I'm not a watch guy, but there's one thing that gives me a lot of joy, and that is having a virtual assistant. Uh, you know, here's the scenario. I'm running my companies, and even though I'm supposed to be this, uh, CEO, we all know I spend 20, 30% of my time just doing random bullshit, stuff that is not high value, but it's just tedious. It's stuff that has to get done, but it's not creativity. It doesn't require me, and it doesn't add a bunch of value to the business. It's just stuff, just stuff that has to get done. And so that stuff is what a virtual assistant does. Like, just this week alone, you know, I lose my wallet, so she goes to the DMV website, fills out a bunch of forms, and gets me a new license. Or, um, you know, every morning, people have their morning coffee. I have my morning metrics, and my morning metrics are basically all the business metrics that I care about compiled. She goes, she finds it for all the different sources, puts it in an Excel sheet, takes a screenshot, texts it to me so that when I wake up in the morning, I don't go on Twitter or check my email. I'm looking at where, where are the metrics at and what do I need to do. I'm s- focused on the right things. So having a virtual assistant is a no-brainer, whether it's travel booking, email inbox, or just knocking stuff off your personal to-do list that would've just lingered there forever. Um, I think it's a no-brainer. If you're a business owner, you should definitely do it. Um, I, I think one of the best places to find a, a assistant is Shepherd, so go to supportshepherd.com. You know, I pay my assistant, I think, $8 an hour, something like that. That's double what she was making in her previous job, so it's a win for her, and for me, it's super affordable. It's something that, um, you know, you don't need to have the biggest business ever or be the biggest big shot in order to afford it. So it's amazing. I now do this for my COO and my CMO, too. Like, I just give them assistance without them even asking because I know it makes them more productive. That's... It does that for me, so w- of course it's gonna do that for them, too. So go to supportshepherd.com, check 'em out. Um, get an assistant, and tell 'em I sent you. They'll take good care of you if you do that, so supportshepherd.com, check it out. Uh, I have this thing called Cricut I wanna tell you about.

Sam Parr 21:20 They spelled this funny.

Shaan Puri 21:22 Do you know what this is, by the way? Have, have you ever h- have you ever heard of a Cricut machine?

Sam Parr 21:25 No. So it's C-R-I-C-U-T. Cr- no. What is that?

Shaan Puri 21:30 Okay. Yeah. Uh, Ari. Uh, new producer Ari is here, by the way. First episode, so if you, uh, if you like how this produ- this episode's going, if you like how it's edited, credit to Ari. If you hate this episode, blame on Ari. All right. So Ari, have you ever heard of this machine, the Cricut machine?

Sam Parr 21:47 I have not.

Shaan Puri 21:49 Okay. This is... It's a DIY, like, home crafting machine. It's 20 years old. This company makes a billion dollars a year in revenue, $100 million of free cash flow a year, Sam. How does that sound?

Sam Parr 22:03 I like the sound of that.

Shaan Puri 22:04 And what it is is it's basically a cutter. So you put in some material. It could be plastic, could be a sticker, like, paper, and then it'll cut the shape for you. So you could do, like, die cuts, like, stickers or whatever. By the way, I barely understand how this works, so I'm gonna butcher some of this, but like-

Sam Parr 22:19 Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm looking at it now. It, it, it looks like a printer, but I guess it cuts stuff

Shaan Puri 22:23 It's like a printer, but it, it's more for cutting than for printing. Yeah. So it's basically a way to cut different shapes of things. So you wanna put something on a water bottle, you wanna make a label, you can cut it using your Cricut home c- home cutter. So-

Sam Parr 22:35 It, is this an invention that they made, or is this a style? And is this, like, a Kleenex tissue type of thing?

Shaan Puri 22:41 No, it's more like, um, when Steve Jobs was like, "I want e- you know, every..." Or Bill Gates or whoever was like, "You know, every home is gonna have a personal computer." He's like, uh, you know, "A computer on every desk." And that, that's basically what these guys did. So there was like, these machines were there before for, for, you know, for people, for industrial application, and then they st- what the, the company that started it was called, like, ProvoCraft or something like that. They were making these machines for craft shops. So you would take your design to a craft shop, and you'd say, "Hey, I'd like you guys to cut this for me this way," and they would have the machine on the, on the countertop to cut it for you 'cause you're not gonna have your own machine. These are expensive. And what these guys did was they s- made it smaller and made it more affordable so that people could just have these at home. And, um, and so, you know, if you go look at Etsy or you go look at things like this, a lot of those people know all about the Cricut machine 'cause they have them at home and they use it to make their goods.

Sam Parr 23:32 Wow.

Shaan Puri 23:32 So how do they cut your name out in this cool-looking font? They don't do it by hand. They have a Cricut machine that will cut it for you. And so just an incredible business, and, um, I saw... Uh, I heard about this because we were looking at it in an investment. So we're looking at investment from some of the original guys who were early there, and they've spun off, and they're doing, like, a new f- a new, like, better version of, of the Cricut machine. And I'm like, "Yeah, I just don't know how big this space can be." He's like, "Well, I think it's gonna be bigger than Cricut, which does a billion dollars a year and is l- spitting off $100 million of free cash flow and, you know, is a public company." And I was like, "Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, uh, my bad." And he's, he was telling me some pretty incredible things about the crafting community. So he's like, "You know stores like Michaels?" Um, they... He goes, "Michaels, if you go read their kind of, like, uh... uh, talk to their leadership or read their earnings statements or whatever," he's like, "Michaels believes that every single person who walks through their door is an Etsy seller. Their default assumption is that if you come to a Michaels-" You are gonna sell on Etsy. And because it's, like, more the majority than the minority, which is kind of amazing. And Etsy's this, obviously, this marketplace to go sell your goods. But if you look, okay, if that's how you sell your goods, well, then how do you make them underneath that? And so I am very tempted to invest in this, uh, space because it is such a big space.

Sam Parr 24:46 What's their product do?

Shaan Puri 24:48 Um, I don't wanna give it up, uh, just because it's, like, kinda proprietary, but it's like-

Sam Parr 24:51 Some- something like Cricut?

Shaan Puri 24:53 Something like Cricut, but better, it does more things. So the Cricut just cuts, this does other things in addition to cut.

Sam Parr 24:57 Got it.

Shaan Puri 24:58 So, um, now ag- this came, by the way, through our buddy Al Doan. So if you go back and listen to the episode with Big Al Doan, Al and his mom start a company in the-

Sam Parr 25:08 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 25:09 ... quilting space.

Sam Parr 25:10 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 25:11 Um, and the little breadcrumb trail is we have Patrick Campbell on the podcast. Patrick Campbell runs a payments company called ProfitWell. And we were like, "Hey, you see the payments of, like,

Shaan Puri 25:20 lots of companies. Like, any cool trends in the payment space that we wouldn't have thought of?" He's like, "Quilting." And we're like, "What?" He's like, "Quilting is enormous." It's like, "Quilting like the grandma hobby?" He's like, "Yes, enormous. There are companies that do blah, blah, blah, blah." And so he told us about that. Afterwards, I get a DM from Al Doan, he's like, "Hey, I'm one of those companies that we make 100, you know, 100 million plus a year. And my mom, you know, Jenny, Jenny Doan or whatever, started this business and I joined her. And, like, yeah, we sell, like, kinda crafts for quilters, home quilters."

Sam Parr 25:52 Like, the squares, right? They sell, like, the squares?

Shaan Puri 25:54 The patches, the squares, the, the fabrics, and they do, like, a daily flash deal. It's like, "Oh, here's the quilting thing of the day," and, like, that's how they do it. And so they built this huge thing, to the point where he now bought a small town and he turned it into, like, the mecca of quilting. It's like-

Sam Parr 26:09 The Disneyland for quilting

Shaan Puri 26:10 ... the Disneyland for quilters. It's like if you're a quilter and you wanna take a trip to, like, indulge in your hobby, this is where you go. And I'm like, "Wow, this guy's thinking big. I love this guy. He's a funny guy." And so he was talking about quilting, and then he introduced us to this deal. He's like, "Yeah, I'm investing in this thing 'cause I'm in this craft space and I, you know, this is, like, one of the best kind of concepts we could do here." So I'm just get- I'm just scratching the surface on, like, this space I know nothing about, but I'm very fascinated by this and I wanted to share that with you.

Sam Parr 26:36 Dude, the Etsy platform is wild. Have you looked into, like, how big some of these sellers are? My mother-in-law started an Etsy store, and she's making hundreds of thousands of dollars, uh, selling pillows on Etsy.

Shaan Puri 26:49 Right.

Sam Parr 26:49 And-

Shaan Puri 26:49 Well, one of the cool things about Etsy is you can go to the store and it'll show you how many lifetime sales, how many transactions have happened at that store. It's visible on every profile.

Sam Parr 26:58 Yeah, and you'll, like, look up something very obscure, and you'll see that they've sold 50,000 versions of whatever they're, whatever they have. It- it's wild how powerful Etsy is.

Shaan Puri 27:07 By the way, I believe this is how Moy started Native Deodorant. So I think the, like, public story is, like, "My sister got pregnant and I was concerned for her health, and I wanted her to have aluminum and paraben-free deodorant."

Sam Parr 27:19 Bullshit. I interviewed him about this.

Shaan Puri 27:20 The real story is what?

Sam Parr 27:21 Basically he was just looking ar- I think he was like, "Maybe I'll do mattresses. A lot of people are buying mattresses." This all, this is right when Casper was getting going. And, and he called that. So he's like, "Yeah, mattresses." But then he's like, "Shit, these are heavy. This is hard to ship. I don't know if there's, like, a lot of repeat buying on this." And then he randomly came across a lady selling, uh, chemical-free deodorant on Etsy. He ordered that, and then he ordered, like, five or 10 other ones. And he asked everyone in the office, like, "Put this under your arms. How's this feel?" And it w- like, some of it was good, and he's like, some of it was, was bad. But he found one that was great, and he goes, "Hey, lady, can I, uh, slap a Native label on this and we just resell your stuff?" And that's how it starts. And then eventually he gets big and gets traction. He's like, "All right, now we're gonna make our own. Thank you very much." And I think, I think she helped him, like, formulate it and, and, or something like that.

Shaan Puri 28:09 Well, she, she couldn't keep up with the demand. She was like, "Dude, I don't wa- I'm not trying to scale this to this level. Like, I am, you know, my fingers hurt, sir. Like, you know, can I- "

Sam Parr 28:17 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 28:17 "... can I take a break here?"

Sam Parr 28:19 Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 28:19 And, um, she was like, "How about this? How about I buy the formula..." He's like, "How about I buy the formula off you, and you help me figure this out? And then we'll, we'll bring this to a manufacturer, 'cause we've outgrown your scale now, like a thousand, 60 day or whatever."

Sam Parr 28:28 Yeah, and then he, and then after two years, he sells the business [laughs] for $100 million in cash. And he, that was like, you know, I think the business probably does, like, 200 million a year in sales. So you could argue it was early, but I think he turned out all right. But he, like, sold the business, like, right before, eh, maybe two years, three years before, like, the whole D2C thing was like, "All right, this is more challenging than we thought."

Shaan Puri 28:47 But, but one of the insights was this is, I think it ma- I think natural deodorant was one of the top selling products on Etsy, and that's why he kn- he had ma- market validation that there's something here. Um-

Sam Parr 28:57 Aluminum-free deodorant, I think was the spec

Shaan Puri 28:59 ... and this is not like, like, hi- him and many other people do this, where, like, you know, the business has this, this, um, you know, touching origin story. This is this wonderful backstory. But, like, these are often w- uh, you know, r- reverse engineered later. Um, you know, uh, the, that's not how a lot of these business work. One of my fun things is, like, let's just be honest on this podcast and, like, say what it is. Um, you know, like,

Shaan Puri 29:20 I started it, like, I started The Milk Road because I was interested in crypto. I saw what you did with The Hustle, and I was like, "Oh, I get it. I could do that." And I just did that with, uh, with M- Milk Road. It hustle for crypto. And I just, like, went down that road and did it. And my goal was to make a business that made a bunch of money, right? Like, that's the, that's the thing. And I thought, "Oh, cool. Doing this, I'll learn about, a bunch about crypto." That's my tr- that's the transparent story. There wasn't, like, some, some origin story where, you know, my cousin needed help.

Sam Parr 29:45 And then it hit me.

Shaan Puri 29:46 Yeah.

Sam Parr 29:46 And then it hit me. I should just write this email for my cousin, uh, you know? A- and, and I didn't stop there. I decided, you know, let's just open it up for friends.

Shaan Puri 29:53 You're all my cousins. Yeah, exactly.

Sam Parr 29:55 Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 29:56 [laughs] And so, like, I think you could do that again on Etsy. I think you could always go back to Etsy and look for top-selling products and use that as inspiration for, uh, for the thing. And then, you know, for Moyes, I'm sure, I don't know this, but, like, I'll g- I'll put a guess out there, which is that, like an arranged marriage, he had a checklist. He's like, "What is under £1 for shipping?"

Sam Parr 30:14 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 30:14 "What is a, a recurring purchase that's consumable? What is something that has a, you know, a differentiation against a, a big market, but has a unique differentiator?" Like natural deodorant that's chemical free versus what Old Spice and these other guys were doing. And, like, he had a checklist. And he's like, "Oh, good. Deodorant. Lightweight." Re- [laughs] you know, um- Review purchase with a clear differentiator. Got it.

Sam Parr 30:36 By the way, these Cricut machines are awesome. I'm, I think I might get one of these. Uh-

Shaan Puri 30:40 [laughs]

Sam Parr 30:41 These are sick

Shaan Puri 30:41 All right.

Sam Parr 30:42 They're, they're expensive. They're at like a gra- a grand.

Shaan Puri 30:44 Use promo code Shaancraft at checkout for, uh-

Sam Parr 30:47 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 30:48 ... for, you know, 10 cents off. Um-

Sam Parr 30:49 These are awesome. That was a good find. I mean, it's not like it was, like, some, like, rare thing, but it was rare to us, I guess. But it was a good find.

Shaan Puri 30:56 Yeah, this is out of our bubble, um, for sure. I invested in this company that does this for, um, for bathrooms. And so they, they make, uh, women's, like, hygiene products. So like tampons, pads that go in, um, that go into, uh-

Sam Parr 31:14 Like the vending machine

Shaan Puri 31:15 ... w- women's rest- It's installed on the wall. And so-

Sam Parr 31:18 Right

Shaan Puri 31:18 ... uh, it's just, like, a better, uh, a better version of, um, of what used to be there. There was always something there, and it was just, like, kinda... It looked like a, something a janitor designed, and then they just made, like, a really beautiful version of one that was, like, easier to use, more friendly, just looked cleaner, like, looked more hygienic. And then what happened is that every state started enacting laws saying that, "Hey, yeah, every women's restroom needs to carry these products, just like you, you know, you have toilet paper, whatever. You need to carry these products." And so state by state, this is rolling out, and what they're doing is they're going state by state into, um, uh, into these, uh, uh, stadiums or schools, universities, and they're getting these multi, you know, multimillion-dollar contracts for installing their thing. And once they're installed, they're not gonna take them out. It's sorta like Clear. It's, like, these little monopolies that you can cr- you can get if you're the right product in the right place at the right time with the right sales pitch. Because once it's installed, I don't think they're ever gonna go uninstall these things and change vendors because somebody has a slightly nicer design.

Sam Parr 32:21 Is that company working?

Shaan Puri 32:22 Uh, yeah. Like, I mean, I haven't see, I, I can't share their, like, numbers right away. Um-

Sam Parr 32:26 It's like those disgusting baby changing stations. What are those called? Kangaroo jack or something.

Shaan Puri 32:31 Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Uh-

Sam Parr 32:32 Those are filthy.

Shaan Puri 32:34 Yeah. Her, uh, her name's Claire Coder. She's very, like, uh, she's a very strong, uh, like, leader kind of personality type person. And so she, she does a great job. Like, she's on LinkedIn. She's, like, super active with it. Um, it's called, the company, by the way, is called Aunt Flow. And so, uh, it has, like, a f- more, f- more, uh, you know, friendly

Shaan Puri 32:52 name versus, like, what was there before. And what she described, kinda, like, what the process was before versus after, um, you're like, "Oh, I get it." And I get why other people haven't attacked this space. Because if, you know, most of the VC funding is going towards men, a lot of, uh, f- founders who are trying to start-

Sam Parr 33:10 Right

Shaan Puri 33:10 ... these venture scale companies are men. They're not even aware of this issue. Never even been in the bathroom. You know, you can't, you wouldn't even know that this problem exists. Uh, but she's done an amazing job of, like, identifying the problem, and then building a, like, super, uh, like, uh, just a likable brand and a likable story where it's like, if you could choose between the default alternative or this, like, you'd obviously pick this.

Sam Parr 33:31 That's cool. I got pitched on a bunch of those. I passed on all of them because I don't know. But, like, that, that sounds good that it's working. Hopefully it, it makes them money. I mean, getting those... I, when I saw it, I was like, "I don't know, man. Selling, like, $2 things in the bathroom. It cannot be a big thing." But y- you said they're getting million dollar contracts. Who pays for it?

Shaan Puri 33:49 The v- facility. The facility has to ha- has to do that.

Sam Parr 33:52 Wow.

Shaan Puri 33:52 Right? So, like, the facility needs to stock, uh, this product, and it's a recurring thing, right? They install the dispenser for, let's just call it, like, $500. So it's $500 to install the dispenser, and then you're every, you know, every month or every quarter you're gonna, like, have to do refills. And again, that thing's gonna sit on the wall forever. Uh, it's not gonna go anywhere. And so to me, this is like owning a piece of real estate in all these that's gonna pay your rent. And, uh, I think that that's just, like, I don't know if this becomes, like, a $10 billion company. You know, that, that's, like, different ne- next level stuff. But it's clear that this is a defensible business. It's clear that it's gonna have recurring revenue. It's clear that, um, while there's a lot of facilities out there, and they're all gonna have women's restrooms, multiple of them per building, and each one of those is gonna need to have this in it, so it starts to add up pretty quick. [upbeat music]

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Shaan Puri 34:54 Okay, so let me tell this story. You know, actually, these guys much better than I do. I only know it secondhand, but I'm a, I'm a fan of this. So back in the day when you were doing The Hustle, one of the very first things, before I knew you, one of the very first things you created was this infographic about a business that I found fascinating, and it was a business called iCracked. And I think what you were doing was you were trying to sell, uh, tickets to your conference. He was a speaker. And-

Sam Parr 35:20 Yeah

Shaan Puri 35:20 ... in your genius, you were like, "Okay, instead of saying, 'Come to my conference. Buy tickets,' you said, 'Look at this incredible story of iCracked.'" These guys were in their, you know, whatever, college dorm room, uh, AJ and Tony, and they realized that smartphones are taking off. And so they decide, "Hey, everyone else is building apps. Let's just try to fix people's cracked phones." 'Cause there's g- the more cell phones there are, there's more cracked phones there's gonna be. And they made this, like, on-demand service. So if you crack your phone, same day, they know that's a big problem for most people, same day they'll come to you, grab your phone, and fix your phone. And it had this crazy NPS score, and it starts scaling. They get to, like, I think in the first, um, you know, they only raised 500K and they get to seven and a half million in, uh, revenue. And you write this, you make this great infographic and I'm like-

Sam Parr 36:08 This was in the infographic heyday. Infographics were, like, the thing back then.

Shaan Puri 36:12 Were they? Uh, you were the only one I saw do with them, but they were great. You and, uh, what's his name? John, I think he was their desi- he was the design guy. You guys did an amazing job.

Sam Parr 36:19 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 36:19 It was just you two doing the hustle. Um, and so, and then you, what you did was you're like, "Love the story. Wanna hear more stories like this? In fact, wanna hear AJ tell this story himself?"

Sam Parr 36:28 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 36:29 "He's speaking at a Hustle Con in three weeks. Buy your ticket." And then, you know, I didn't, one, I'm not just gonna buy a ticket, but you would release one every, what? Like, week or so? Uh-

Sam Parr 36:37 Yeah, one a week.

Shaan Puri 36:38 One a week. And by the third week I was like- Damn, I love these stories. I don't... I'll- all right, I'll go to this conference. Like, sounds like-

Sam Parr 36:44 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 36:44 Sounds like these are great stories.

Sam Parr 36:45 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 36:46 And so I went to Hustler Con, and I met you, and the, you know, the story, uh, you know, happy, has a happy ending. So these guys... Okay, so, so let me finish their story now, 'cause they're, what they're doing is pretty interesting. So they go, they... What they realize is, "Okay, we ne- people are gonna have cracked phones. We need to scale," and they scaled through colleges. So they're like, they looked at this business c- like, uh, iTech, I guess, which is like, you know, sort of like a Geek Squad-type thing, and they were like, "All right. Um, basically we just need to copy/paste what we're doing to like..." Uh, uh, actually, I don't know if iTech was the company they're copying or that's what they called their people, but like they looked at, like, how to scale this. They figured it out on one college campus, like, "Okay, we need these runners who are gonna be able to h- cover this radius and repair these phones this way," and they just copy/pasted it across college campuses. And-

Sam Parr 37:32 They basically, they, they taught college kids how to repair phones, and iCracked would send them the leads, and they'd be like, "All right, you gotta go show up at this guy's house. You're gonna charge him $300. It's all done on the phone. You get 100, we get 200," whatever it was, something like that.

Shaan Puri 37:43 Exactly. And so to scale, they blitzed, and in 30 days they were on 28 college campuses, which is amazing. They had booted up 28 campuses in 30 days, which I love. Uh, they get into YC. They're one of the only non-technical teams to even get into YC, and it's because this hustle was, like, obviously very appealing.

Shaan Puri 38:01 And, um, and so [laughs] th- a- at one point they even buy, like, uh, 200 smart cars that they, like, wrap in their iCracked logo and they give to their iTechs-

Sam Parr 38:12 Right

Shaan Puri 38:12 ... and they're, so they're all running around San Francisco fixing iPhones and shit. It was pretty cool. And then, uh, it's like, "Okay, so how did you scale from there?" They go, "Well, we started using SEO and press." And they're like, "We've realized that the press loves to talk about the following headline: 24-year-old making millions doing relatable thing." And it's like, he's like s-

Sam Parr 38:30 Started out of his col- college dorm room

Shaan Puri 38:31 ... started out of his college dorm room.

Sam Parr 38:32 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 38:33 And they're just doing something that all of us need, repairing your cracked phone. And these 24-year-olds say they're making millions. And so they just took that story and they did it at the local level. So these Cincinnati, uh, you know, [laughs] these Cincinnati, uh, th- this guy grew up in Cincinnati. He's making millions. Other guy grew up in wherever. He's making millions. Whatever college they went to, they did it locally there. Um, and oh, they just booted up at this college campus. So they did it locally, then they did it nationally, and they started stacking so that when you searched "fixed cracked iPhone," they could show up organically at the top through SEO from these high-authority publications that were writing puff pieces about them. Loved it. So these guys are great. Now, here comes the problem. They're, they've only raised 500K. They're at seven and a half million. It's profitable. Business is growing fast. They never announced this, but they go and they raise $50 million to scale the business, and that 50 million gets them to go international, and at peak they get to 36 million in run rate, but it's just getting s- harder and harder to keep the gr- to keep, to keep up with the growth monster. And the growth monster's demanding that they get to 100 million in revenue. 'Cause you raised 50 million, that means you gotta go huge. You've, you've cut off your options. And so they just couldn't do it, and they just could not scale the business beyond that. And, uh, they end up selling it to Allstate. [laughs]

Sam Parr 39:53 Yeah, insurance company.

Shaan Puri 39:54 And so they, the, one of the guys, he stays there for three years. He earns out, uh, his deal, and he decides, "All right, after year three I'm gonna quit, start my next company." And that takes us to Cloud Poker Night.

Sam Parr 40:05 I used it.

Shaan Puri 40:06 Oh, you-

Sam Parr 40:06 I was in buddies with the founder-

Shaan Puri 40:07 Oh, you did it for Hampton, or what'd you do?

Sam Parr 40:08 ... uh, uh, yeah, well, we tested it. I was an, a beta user, and it didn't quite work out when we start, when-

Shaan Puri 40:13 You would be a beta user.

Sam Parr 40:15 I am beta. [laughs] I'm, I-

Shaan Puri 40:17 They called the right guy.

Sam Parr 40:18 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 40:18 "We need a beta."

Sam Parr 40:19 Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 40:19 "Get Sam on the phone."

Sam Parr 40:21 It, it, it was a little rough when we first started 'cause he was only a few weeks in, but I think now he, like, nailed it, and it was actually really fun.

Shaan Puri 40:27 So I wanna do two things. I wanna show the homepage because I love what they wrote as the landing page, the copy on this homepage.

Sam Parr 40:35 It's good.

Shaan Puri 40:35 Have you been to it? It's so good. Read it, read it off.

Sam Parr 40:37 Yeah. So it says, "Poker is the new sport for business minds. Golf is yesterday's news. Request access." And then there's a photo.

Shaan Puri 40:46 It's a cute dealer dealing to, um-

Sam Parr 40:49 That's Anthony's wife. That's the founder's wife doing it.

Shaan Puri 40:51 Okay, great.

Sam Parr 40:52 By the way.

Shaan Puri 40:52 Cute dealer. Um, so sh- so and then there's like whatever, people playing, and you could, you get a demo of the product. So super strong landing, uh, landing page. Then you scroll down, it says, "Business minds who love poker." So just think about the positioning. So almost everybody would be like, "Online poker night," right? "Cloud-based poker for," you know, "poker software," right? Like, this is like the generic shitty way to market this. But instead they not only say the benefit of it, they go even bigger. They just say, "Big picture, golf is the old way. Poker's the new sport for business people." That's the, um, that's the we don't sell saddles deal m- uh, s- we don't sell saddles here, here, uh, mantra. Like when Stewart Butterfield created Slack, he wrote this great memo. If you've never read it, go read it. It's called We Don't Sell Saddles Here. And he's like, "Look, guys, we made Slack. We know it's awesome. Now our job is to teach the world that this is awesome. Here's the problem. Most people you talk to that run a company are not in the business for chat software. They're not looking for a team chat tool. It's just not a thing they even do. They're not even looking for it. So even if we say we're the best team chat software, doesn't matter. They don't care. They're not into it." He's like, "Lululemon made you want to do yoga, to live the yoga lifestyle." And he's like, "We need to do the same thing. We need to, we need to sell... Instead of selling saddles and saying we make the best saddles, we need to sell the joy of horseback riding. And then when they... Once they fall in love with the idea of horseback riding, they're gonna say, 'Where do I get a saddle?' And we're gonna say, 'We provide... Well, yeah, we sell the best saddles.'" And so same thing here. I love what he's doing by saying poker is the new sport for business people. Um, that's the, that's the selling the dream, and then okay, how are we gonna go play poker? Use our software.

Sam Parr 42:31 And they all, they, they have all these, like, quotes about, uh, you know, uh, successful people who have played poker. And I r- I recognize a few of these people. There's Warren Buffett, there's Sam Altman, there's Paul Graham, Peter Thiel. And look at that. There's- The chairman of The Milk Road is on their website

Shaan Puri 42:48 Am I on there?

Sam Parr 42:48 Have you noticed it?

Shaan Puri 42:49 Oh, wow. Uh, that's-

Sam Parr 42:49 You're on there

Shaan Puri 42:50 ... that's insane. I had no idea.

Sam Parr 42:52 You're, you are on there.

Shaan Puri 42:52 Okay, I did not set this up for that

Sam Parr 42:53 Shaan Puri. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 42:54 I did not, I did not know that.

Sam Parr 42:55 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 42:55 I, I'm on the page two of the carousel if you swipe, so I never got that far. But what they did was they go, "Business minds love poker," and then it's a quote and it says, "Which leader said this? Warren Buffett, Chamath, or Paul Graham?" And you're like, "Oh, that sounds like Chamath." Uh, nope, it was Paul Graham. Okay, cool. And then it asks, and it shows you another one. So again, v- uh, using sort of the, the people you already trust to say that poker... Uh, it, they're not saying Cloud Poker Night is great, but they're saying poker is the be- is the sport for business people. Um, and then it's why poker is so great, blah, blah, blah, and then it says why you should use our software, which I love. So I think this landing page is amazing.

Sam Parr 43:29 But you have to explain how it works. So basically, w- well, I've, I mean, I've used it. So what it is is you, uh, we are gonna use it for Hampton and we, and we're still going to, but we did it for a team night. And the way it works is it's almost like Zoom meets poker. So they have, like, a professional setup. In, in my case when I used it, it was Anthony, the founder. He's got this, like, home setup that's a, that's a card table, and then there's a camera on him. And you see him dealing the cards, and you see him talking to you and interacting with you, and you could see all your other teammates also playing. But he puts the cards over another camera of which only you, your, you know, the u- user, you see your own cards. So it's really like live poker.

Shaan Puri 44:05 Right.

Sam Parr 44:05 Uh, and there's even a dealer who's, like, shootin' the shit with you and, like, asking if you wanna hit it. It's, it's really fun. It's very interactive. It's awesome.

Shaan Puri 44:11 So I think it's a great business idea, uh, for a bootstrap business. I, I love this idea. Um, yeah. I, I love poker. I played poker my whole... I, I l- I really, I think this is a cool idea. I would love to do an MFM version of this, so like-

Sam Parr 44:23 That's a great idea

Shaan Puri 44:24 ... let me, hold on. Let, I think they did make one for us. So I asked the guy this morning. I go, "Hey, this would be amazing. I don't li- like, the live shows we did were cool 'cause we got to meet people who listen to the pod. That's awesome. But I don't like traveling. I like leaving my house." And so this is great 'cause we get to play poker, we get to be on camera, meet other people who are, um, listeners to the show, and we could just host our own tournament. And so I think he's gonna do, uh, cloudpokernight.com/mfm. So th- there will be a, uh, a something there, he says, to, to, uh, RSVP for this. So if anyone wants to play in a poker night, we should do that with people who listen to the pod. I think that'll be, that'd be kind of amazing.

Sam Parr 45:01 By the way, the other founder... So you talked about Anthony, Anthony Martin. He's one of the co-founders of iCracked. The other co-founder, AJ, he's one of my great friends. He's a crazy person. He's one of the wildest people I've hung out with. His other company, or his new company that he started, it's a [laughs] they call it a, like one headline called it the Tesla for chicken coops. So if you go to coop.farm, it's a smart chicken coop. And he, like, keys into, like, beekeeping, and he's always had chickens and animals and shit like that. So he made a

Sam Parr 45:30 smart chicken coop that, like, opens the doors automatically and feeds the chickens automatically. It's pretty funny. Um, I almost invested in it, but I'll explain one of the reasons that go- made me nervous is the, like, the day or a few weeks or something like that before the round closed when the Ukraine thing happened, AJ went to Poland for, like, a month and was a volunteer helping, like, Ukrainian refugees, and, uh, the guy's crazy.

Shaan Puri 45:57 Is he Ukrainian?

Sam Parr 45:58 No. He just is into that [laughs] shit. He just does wild shit all the time. Like, I'll be hanging out with him and he's like-

Shaan Puri 46:03 Didn't he use the boat to work? [laughs]

Sam Parr 46:05 Yeah, he, he lived r- right near, uh, Oracle, and the office, his iCracked office was in Redwood City, but it was across this little bay, and he would take this little boat to work. But every once in a while, they had offices at SoMa, and he would ride his... This was like a small boat, literally fit two people. He would ride this little boat 20 miles up the bay to SoMa and dock his boat there.

Shaan Puri 46:26 [laughs]

Sam Parr 46:26 The, the guy's crazy. He, he would do cra- no, and when I say boat-

Shaan Puri 46:29 I remember you told me that like a decade ago, and I still remember. You were like, "Yeah, my friend, he's kayaking to work." [laughs]

Sam Parr 46:35 By the way, boat's not the best word. Uh, it's better described as a j- a jet ski that you stand up on. So, like, he would jet ski to work basically.

Shaan Puri 46:43 Oh, that's way cooler.

Sam Parr 46:44 That's how small this thing was.

Shaan Puri 46:46 So was he paddling or it was a motor?

Sam Parr 46:48 No, it had a motor.

Shaan Puri 46:49 [laughs]

Sam Parr 46:49 It had a motor, and he would, like, motor... It was like a jet ski. He was like, he was like Kenny Powers. He would, like, jet s-

Shaan Puri 46:54 [laughs]

Sam Parr 46:54 ... jet ski to work. Uh, he's, the- AJ's crazy. He's a, he's a crazy person. Um-

Shaan Puri 46:59 Didn't this raise a bunch of money from Peter Thiel and stuff?

Sam Parr 47:01 Yes. Yeah. They raised [laughs] money from Peter Thiel. Like-

Shaan Puri 47:04 He's like, "Peter-

Sam Parr 47:04 It's like, uh-

Shaan Puri 47:04 ... I see you're crazy, and I raise you." Uh. [laughs]

Sam Parr 47:08 [laughs] It's like, "Say it with me, Peter. Chicken coop."

Shaan Puri 47:12 Chicken coop. [laughs]

Sam Parr 47:13 Uh, yeah. [laughs] It's, i- it's a, it's a, it's a weird business, but I think it could work.

Shaan Puri 47:20 Yeah, that's amazing. Um, so I think this is a really cool business. I wanna see, uh, how this goes. I actually wanna invest in this. I w- I wish I could own a piece of this and, uh, just host poker nights. 'Cause one of the great things about businesses like this is, um, the virality. So I'm very interested in products that can grow virally, and most people get this wrong. Products that grow virally are not products that succeed through word of mouth. Like, if you talk to a normal person, "Oh, yeah, it spread virally. People used to go tell their friends 'cause they loved it so much." No, no, no. That's called word of mouth. Viral is literally like the word sounds. It's like a virus. You, you're not even trying to get it on other people, but it gets on them. It, they catch it from you. So, like, the classic example of this was Hotmail. Um, at the end of every email it was signed, like, you know, sent through Hotmail, you know, sent with love through Hotmail-

Sam Parr 48:07 Yeah

Shaan Puri 48:07 ... or something like that. So you weren't g- trying to tell somebody, "Hey, you should start a Hotmail account," but it was added to every email as almost like, you know, a, a little, little virus that was attached to the email that basically said, "Sent through Hotmail. Get your free account today." And so people started signing up and had this crazy viral coefficient. And products like Cloud Poker Night have a different kind of virality, which I think, I don't know what, what it's called, but group virality or something, um, similar to how Eventbrite grows or Meetup.com grows, which is an attendee becomes a host. So a host creates an event. Naturally, they need to invite a bunch of other people 'cause that's how an event works. And then you might be in the w- 100 people that a- attend some event. And if you liked that experience, the next time you're thinking about hosting an event, you'll go use that same product, 'cause you got sort of... It, it was incepted into your brain through somebody else. So I think the same thing will happen here. What I would wanna do is I would wanna host a bunch of these for fun using the MFM community, but then guess what? The MFM community, when they have a good experience as a player, would then host it for their-

Sam Parr 49:05 They're gonna use the event

Shaan Puri 49:06 ... team bonding night or their corporate events or sales, sales events or whatever, um, for, for their businesses, and I think that's how these businesses can grow.

Sam Parr 49:13 Yeah, I think it's cool. What's, uh, what, uh, what do you wanna do? Cricket, Cricut, or gamer dating idea?

Shaan Puri 49:19 I'll, I'll do the gamer dating. Okay. So, um, Sam, here's why you should date a gamer. I know you're married, but if you could go back, here's why you should have-

Sam Parr 49:28 Yeah

Shaan Puri 49:28 ... dated a gamer. And me too. I've... My, my wife, she doesn't play any games. Um, I just bought a PS5 hoping that maybe that would sway her. She instead just got upset. So here's why you should date a gamer.

Sam Parr 49:40 You're not a gamer, are you?

Shaan Puri 49:42 I'm, like, the least gamer gamer. I'm in the club, but just barely. I'm by the door. I'm by the-

Sam Parr 49:47 Yeah

Shaan Puri 49:47 ... I'm by the exit door.

Sam Parr 49:49 I played Call of Duty last night for, like, the first time in a year. It's... Shit's impossible. These kids are too good.

Shaan Puri 49:53 Oh, my God. It is so difficult. Un- unbelievably difficult.

Sam Parr 49:55 It's so [laughs] It sucks.

Shaan Puri 49:57 Also, all the popular games out-

Sam Parr 49:59 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 49:59 ... they're like PUBG. It's like, yeah, you jump out of a airplane. I'm like, "Oh, wow. That's, sounds exciting." And then it's like you land, and now you just sort of walk around, collect stuff-

Sam Parr 50:08 [laughs] You just live

Shaan Puri 50:09 ... for 20 minutes.

Sam Parr 50:10 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 50:10 And then you're not gonna see anybody during that whole time. You're just gonna be collecting supplies. I'm like, "Okay, cool, but for what?" It's like, 'cause then when you do see someone, I'm like, "But I never see anyone." They're like, "Yeah, that's the problem. You're just gonna get shot in the head, and then it's gonna start again." And it's like these games where nothing happens. It's crazy. Um, anyways, here's why you should date a gamer.

Sam Parr 50:28 Dude, by the way, I, I, I played [laughs] I played Call of Duty last night, and I played this thing where it's three guys. We're on a team, and we have to do shit together, and it was two guys that must have been friends, and they were s- talking to each other in Spanish. And I was so, [laughs] I was so bad that I couldn't see or hear or understa- they were writing. I couldn't understand any of the words that they were saying other than, "Bot. This is a bot."

Shaan Puri 50:48 [laughs]

Sam Parr 50:48 "He's so bad, it's a bot. Vamanos." And they quit on me because I was so bad. Just, "Bot, vamanos." Like, that's all... [laughs] That's how bad I was.

Shaan Puri 50:55 I remember I... You got called a bot.

Sam Parr 50:57 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 50:58 And I thought it was a good thing 'cause I was like, "Oh, aimbot. I must be on, like, on lock that they're calling me a bot." And then I was like, "No, this is... They're, they're saying, this is, like, an NPC." All right, so here, let me do my bit here. Here's why you should date a gamer. They're smart. They, um, you'll never have to worry about where they are on a Friday night. You know they're just gonna be in the room playing, you know? And they're not at the club. They're not, not doing anything scandalous. Um, they'll fight for you, should date a gamer. They'll, they'll stand up for you. They're used to going to war on these things. Um, they're easy to trick into doing things 'cause you just give them a, a badge-

Sam Parr 51:29 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 51:29 ... or a level or some sort of m- you know, medallion, and they'll just grind for that, for that prize. Uh, they're tech-savvy. They can set up your internet and fix stuff whenever anything's broken. Um, and they'll always give you space. If you're ever the type of person that needs space, they'll give you space. But here's the problem. You may wanna date a gamer after that great sales pitch, but the problem is there's no gamer dating app, and that's my idea. I think there should be an app for gamers to meet other gamers. Here's why this matters.

Sam Parr 51:58 Wouldn't it be a sausage fest? I mean, how many gamers are women?

Shaan Puri 52:01 All dating apps are sausage fest. That's the trick. They d- it... The guys only see the girls.

Sam Parr 52:05 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 52:05 The girls only see the guys unless you switch the settings, right? So it's like, um, yeah. Yes, like all dating apps, the ratio will be 30 to 1. [laughs] That, that's, that's expected. Uh, but that's, that's normal for a dating app. Here's why I think it's cool. Um, I think gamers have a lot in common. I think gamers are a pretty big market. There's hundreds and hundreds of millions of gamers out there. Like, gaming, the gaming industry makes more than, money than Hollywood, right? So it's like if you think people like movies, people like games more. Um, but there's no easy way to m- meet a gamer. And if you meet a gamer, you actually have a lot in common, and you might have things to do in common. And so I think one of the hard parts about dating apps is that they're all profiles, um, and flirts, and n- not really dates. And then a bunch of companies came in and were like, "We're gonna get you on a date." Um, but then the reality was, like, getting people out into the real world to go on a date is kinda, like, really, really high friction.

Sam Parr 52:53 And matching them was a pain in the ass. I did a bunch of those.

Shaan Puri 52:55 I think that gamer dating would work because you could be like, "Cool, you matched. You guys are both interested in each other, and you might pl- you have some games in common 'cause that's part of your profile, what games you guys both like to already play. Go squad up. Play a game. Go play Call of Duty together." And in doing so, you're gonna be talking. You're gonna be doing something together. It's like going bowling or going putt-putt golf but just more fun. And so I think somebody could cr- I... This is a legit idea. At first I was gonna save this for a drunk ideas episode, and then it kinda grew on me. I was like, "No, no, no, this could actually work." Like, if you think this can't work, let me remind you that there is a dating app called Farmers Only, right? [laughs] There's, there's dating apps called Black People Meet, and those, those work. If you think those can work and gamer dating can't work, you're nuts. Gamer dating could definitely work, and it could definitely be big. Definitely go sell it to Match for, like, $75 million in three years.

Sam Parr 53:44 Is Farmers Only still a thing?

Shaan Puri 53:47 Uh, yeah, I haven't checked in on it in a little while, but they used to run, like, TV commercials.

Sam Parr 53:50 [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You haven't been keeping tabs? Their-

Shaan Puri 53:54 Site's still up

Sam Parr 53:54 ... website looks very old.

Shaan Puri 53:55 They, uh-

Sam Parr 53:56 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 53:56 ... still paying the, the hosting b- fee. All right, they're doing 700K in monthly visits, so not bad.

Sam Parr 54:01 [laughs] That's so funny. Um, what's your name for it?

Shaan Puri 54:05 Uh, I don't have one just yet. You know, working title, TBD. Um, open to suggestions.

Sam Parr 54:11 Yeah, I think it's a pretty bad idea.

Shaan Puri 54:14 Well, I sold it pretty hard, so-

Sam Parr 54:17 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 54:17 ... disappointing.

Sam Parr 54:21 I mean, maybe. Dude, dating, dating apps suck. The, that's the worst business there is, man, 'cause only, like, three or four of them... It's like a winner-take-all market, you know what I mean? I have a friend that started-

Shaan Puri 54:30 Not a winner-take-all market. There's tons of dating apps.

Sam Parr 54:32 It, it, it... I mean-

Shaan Puri 54:33 Who's the winner that took all? Tinder? No. What, Bumble? No. Uh, Match, eHarmony? No. OkCupid? No.

Sam Parr 54:40 It's like social media, where it's like there could be, you know, there's hundreds of social media platforms, but there's, like, four that matter. Um-

Shaan Puri 54:46 Dude-

Sam Parr 54:47 You know what I mean?

Shaan Puri 54:47 ... I remember when I was at Monkey Inferno. A guy came to the office, a guy named KJ, and he's like, "I'm gonna make an Indian... Like, you know, there's Jewish dating apps, there's farmer dating apps, there's Black people dating apps. I'm gonna make an Indian dating app." I was like, "All right, that's, you got a good idea, I guess." And I was like, "Do you have any background in this?" He's like, "I'm Indian and I'm trying to date." And he's like, "You know, that's my background."

Sam Parr 55:08 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 55:08 And I was like, "Okay, I guess super qualified." And then he's like, um, he's like, "Here's what we're gonna do differently." And he's like... I was like, "So what are the features? Like, uh, what, what, like, what do you have to do to, to differentiate?" He's like, "Well, I told you, it's a Indian dating app, so the app's gonna say, 'This is for Indians trying to meet other Indians.'" And I was like, oh, he's right. That is actually the main feature, is that you're gonna curate the people-

Sam Parr 55:29 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 55:29 ... and sort of filter for people who wanna meet other Indians, for farmers who wanna meet other farmers, whatever, for Jewish people who wanna meet other Jewish people. And so I was like, okay, I guess that is already better than Tinder if you're an Indian person who wants to meet an Indian, 'cause you're gonna get 100% hit rate here versus maybe a 5% hit rate on a, on a generic dating app. And I was like, "Okay, so how will you make money?" He's like, "Do you know how much people pay for dating apps? Like, the, is it, I'll use the same business model." I was like, all right, I'm trying to poke holes, but he's just got it covered. And I was like, "But how are you gonna, like..." I was like, "What do Indians care about more than others?" And he goes, "Oh, that's where I'm gonna do something different." I go, "Okay, here it is. What's the big feature? What's the big tech breakthrough?" He's like-

Sam Parr 56:04 Like, your mom is your, like, co-user?

Shaan Puri 56:06 You log in with LinkedIn. [laughs] And I go, "What?"

Sam Parr 56:09 Ah.

Shaan Puri 56:09 And he goes, "Yeah," and he, he's, because I don't know if people know this, like, Indian culture, it's, like, a big deal of, like, a... There's, like, a che- Indian people date on, like, a checklist. It kinda stems from, like, the arranged marriage background where literally you marry on a checklist.

Sam Parr 56:21 You know what the pickup line is for, like... I, I have, most of my friends are Indian because you and Neville, my best friend's Indian. The pickup line when you're around other Indians is, "So what do you do?"

Shaan Puri 56:31 [laughs]

Sam Parr 56:31 That's basically, like... [laughs] That's, like-

Shaan Puri 56:34 Right

Sam Parr 56:34 ... what they do. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 56:36 [laughs] Yeah, so basically he's like, "You're gonna log in with LinkedIn so we know that you have a, like, a legit job." And, uh, I was like, "Okay. And then?" And he's like, "Yeah, that's, like, the main thing that, you know, helps separate people."

Sam Parr 56:48 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 56:48 You know, I was like, whoa. Um, so he builds this app, it's called Dil Mill, and he, uh, which means, like, hearts meet. Um-

Sam Parr 56:56 How do you spell it?

Shaan Puri 56:57 D-I-L M-I-L. He builds this app, and I'm keeping track of it, this guy, and he, uh... And sure enough, he just starts going into, like, all the niche communities, newsletters, blogs, YouTubers, starts promoting it, running ads, basically saying, "Hey, if you're an In- Indian person and you're tired of striking out on dating apps," 'cause Indian people have, like, terrible success rates on Indian apps, on, on, on normal dating apps. I think OkCupid said that, like, the worst, like, in the, in the free market of dating, I think the absolute worst was an Indian male. Second, a close second was, like, Chinese male. Um, they were, like, the two least desirable o- according to the OkCupid match data that they released back then.

Sam Parr 57:34 And then you know what the highest was? I think the highest, the most liked person I think was an Asian woman.

Shaan Puri 57:39 Yeah. I, I-

Sam Parr 57:40 Wasn't it?

Shaan Puri 57:40 Exactly. I think it was a, a Asian woman was, was number one. Um, 'cause they were getting all the attention from the Asian guys and the white guys, I think. It was, like, the, the data, what it, what it showed is, like, they get, like, it's, like, top preference amongst two big user groups or something.

Sam Parr 57:54 And then there's this, like, weird stereotype that, like, uh, Asian women are supposed to be more submissive and dumb shit like that, and I think that there's, like, some weird, like, kinks out there of, of, of-

Shaan Puri 58:02 Yeah. Spoken like a true white guy. Um, [laughs]

Sam Parr 58:05 Of, like... No, it's, like, men who have had, like-

Shaan Puri 58:06 You really captured the psyche

Sam Parr 58:07 ... oppressive, like, mothers. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 58:08 Of the average white male. [laughs]

Sam Parr 58:10 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 58:11 So-

Sam Parr 58:11 Hey, it's on the, it's on... Christian Rudder wrote that blog post, the founder of OkCupid. I think that's, like, the whole thing.

Shaan Puri 58:16 Their blog posts were great. That was a great strategy they had. Um, anyway, so he... And whatever. Five years later he c- he sells this thing. I think he sold it for 75 or $100 million to, uh, to the Match Group.

Sam Parr 58:26 No way.

Shaan Puri 58:27 And they were like, "Yeah, we... Match Group is a collection of dating apps. We have our, our generic catchall mass market app, Tinder, um, uh, and, uh, what's the other one? Um, Match.com." And then they have, like, all the niche apps. And so they own, like, 20 dating apps or something like that. And so if you just fill one of those verticals that they don't have a winner in, um, they'll buy you at, like, a preset multiple. And I was like, wow, that's pretty impressive.

Sam Parr 58:53 They paid $50 million for it. I don't know, man. This guy KJ is pretty good-looking, and now he's rich. I think he, I think he, he, he's probably doing all right-

Shaan Puri 59:00 He's single

Sam Parr 59:00 ... with, in the dating world.

Shaan Puri 59:01 I, I met up with him the other day, and he was like, "You didn't believe." And I was like, I was like, "Well, you're right. I didn't believe. And, uh, actually sort of, you know, when I didn't believe, I really wanted to be right. I'm sorry about that. I was kind of rooting against you in a way, but then you proved me wrong and you were absolutely right. Congratulations. You did a great job."

Sam Parr 59:21 Have, have you seen the Indian Netflix show where it's like your parents are setting you up with, like, this matchmaker?

Shaan Puri 59:27 Of course.

Sam Parr 59:28 Dude, so at first I thought that shit's the worst, where, uh, you know, like, your parents are just telling you what to do. But when you think about it-

Shaan Puri 59:35 [laughs]

Sam Parr 59:36 ... it's kinda like, it's kind of like the, uh, paradox of choice, right? Where they're just like, "This is it. This is the one. You are doing this." Uh, you kinda are forced to find happiness in that.

Shaan Puri 59:47 Right.

Sam Parr 59:47 And it doesn't seem actually maybe the worst, arranged marriages. Are they? I have no idea. Are, are they bad, or is it kinda they can be and they can't be?

Shaan Puri 59:56 I think the stats show it's about the same divorce rate as in America, but what that doesn't show is that Indian people don't get divorced. They, like, you know, they're like, "We will suffer in this unhappy marriage rather than get divorced and be happy and, but have society know that we failed at our marriage," or whatever, whatever. So I, I don't think there's a way to really know how successful or unsuccessful it is. Um-

Sam Parr 1:00:17 Me and, uh, me and... By the way, a quick Indian story. Me [laughs] and Neville were out to dinner with Dharmesh at HubSpot, and Neville was saying how he doesn't... He's like, "Man, India, like, that's where I'm from, and I go back there and it makes you grateful to be in America because, like, these guys got nothing, and, like, it's not very nice over there, this and that." And Dharmesh... And he was, like, not insulting, uh, like, poor Indians, but, like, saying, like, it's, like, a, a pain in the butt to be in that situation. And Dharmesh was like, "Yeah, that was me. I was that guy. I had nothing and I came here." Uh, we were... I was, like, one of those guys, like, we, you know, we had nothing, and, uh, they were all just talking about India. India sounds like a wild place, man.

Shaan Puri 1:00:55 [laughs] I love when people describe things like that 'cause how do you, uh... You know, you can only agree with that. You can't really disagree with, "X is a wild place." It's the same thing as our business pitch of like, "It's this, just beautifully done. We're just gonna do it beautifully."

Sam Parr 1:01:11 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:01:11 It's the same thing as like, "Dude, that's a wild place." It's like, w- what? The food? The, the culture? The crime? What are we talking about here? It could be anything.

Sam Parr 1:01:18 You- here's the story you told. The story you told is that when your mom came to America, I don't know if you were joking or not, you said two things that blew my mind. You said, the first thing you said, she [laughs] she had never used utensils.

Shaan Puri 1:01:30 [laughs] Okay. Did you really say that?

Sam Parr 1:01:30 You said that. Do you remember saying that? [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:01:32 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:01:32 [laughs] Dude, you... This is all on record. You're like, "She didn't use utensils." That's what you t- [laughs] that's what you said on this pod.

Shaan Puri 1:01:39 Blasphemy.

Sam Parr 1:01:39 And it-

Shaan Puri 1:01:39 Mom, if you're listening-

Sam Parr 1:01:40 I, I swear

Shaan Puri 1:01:41 ... I know you never said that.

Sam Parr 1:01:42 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:01:42 I didn't say that. I'm being bullied by Shaan.

Sam Parr 1:01:44 You, you... No, I am not s- I'm not putting any judgment here. I am repeating what you said. The second thing you said, you go, "When, when she went to hang up the phone, she didn't know how to hang up the phone, so she just let it-

Shaan Puri 1:01:55 That's true

Sam Parr 1:01:56 ... like, hang on the base phone."

Shaan Puri 1:01:57 That's true.

Sam Parr 1:01:57 And it was wild to hear that story. That, that was, it was like, it made me love your mom is what it did.

Shaan Puri 1:02:03 She told me the story. It was unbelievable. She's like, "I got on the plane. I'd never been on a plane before. My parents just dropped me off at the airport. I'm 17 years old. I've never been on a plane before. Don't even know what a plane is, really. I just get shuffled along. I show somebody my ticket. They send me here, send me there. Okay, I get on a plane." And she's like, "I think it's like a train. That's all I've ever seen is a train. And so I'm just thinking this is gonna be like a train ride." And she's flying like 14 hours.

Sam Parr 1:02:26 [laughs] They didn't tell her that it goes in the air?

Shaan Puri 1:02:28 Her parents didn't know either. They'd never been on a train, a plane either.

Sam Parr 1:02:30 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:02:30 They were just like, "This is how you get to America."

Sam Parr 1:02:31 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:02:32 And she's like, "Okay. Didn't ask, don't ask too many questions."

Sam Parr 1:02:34 That's insane.

Shaan Puri 1:02:34 And so she, she's like, "I..." You know, pl- plane seat belts are kinda funky. She's like, "I did it. I just like put it, pushed it, and I went in on the first try somehow, miraculously, and the person next to me looked at me and was like, 'Oh, you've flown before.'" And she's like... I was like, "Oh my God. Well, I don't even know what I'm getting myself into. No, I have no idea what I just did. I have no idea how I'll get this off. And, um, whatever. I guess I have a few hours to figure out how to unbuckle this by the time I need to get off to, at my stop." So then for 14 hours she's flying, and she's, stays awake 'cause she's like, "I don't wanna miss my stop." And she's like, "This thing's not stopping. What's going on?" She like doesn't know how planes work. I- I- it was crazy. The whole thing was insane. It was-

Sam Parr 1:03:13 Doesn't that make you feel soft? Your mom, your mother is so much more brave than we are.

Shaan Puri 1:03:17 It makes me feel, uh, incredibly lucky that, uh, you know, she did all the hard stuff so that I don't have to do it.

Sam Parr 1:03:23 Yeah. Shout out.

Shaan Puri 1:03:24 It's like, you know how-

Sam Parr 1:03:24 Shout out, Mom

Shaan Puri 1:03:25 ... bird moms like chew food and then just spit it in their baby's mouth so they don't have to chew?

Sam Parr 1:03:29 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:03:29 That's what I feel like she did with life. She just like chewed life for me and then spit it in my mouth, and I just have, like, the easy life.

Sam Parr 1:03:35 [laughs] Um, okay.

Shaan Puri 1:03:37 And on that visual, um-

Sam Parr 1:03:38 [laughs] Um, all right. Well, thank you. That's the pod. Uh, what is it, mfmPod.com? We got the merch, and then, uh, what, what's the clip website?

Shaan Puri 1:03:51 Uh, clip ef- clipmfm.com, or just go to YouTube and search My First Million Clips. And please subscribe. That way we'll have the... Like, when there's 500 subscribers, we don't have a lot of incentive to do the work of cutting, you know, picking the perfect parts, trimming them down, cutting them, and titling them and making them, like, available to you if you don't have time to watch the full episode or you wanna share just the best bit, bit with somebody. 'Cause, you know, sharing an hour-long podcast with somebody is like assigning some- you know, asking somebody to help you move on Saturday. Like, it's just a tough ask. But sharing a clip is like doing somebody a favor. And so, uh, go subscribe to that thing so that we, um, yeah, we're, we're, like, motivated to get, to do that. Wanna see that thing grow.

Sam Parr 1:04:27 All right, check it out. That's the pod. [upbeat music]