$20M In ONE Day?! (#544)

Shaan Puri 0:00 So let's do a little public math here. Let's break a rule. He just launched this product. He had more demand than he was willing to let in. He let in 5,000 people. That's 20 million in ARR that he had on day one of launching this product. [upbeat music] All right, what's up? It's me and Sam, two guys who you can't live without. [laughs]

Sam Parr 0:29 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 0:30 You know, I should really think about what I'm gonna say before I start this podcast.

Sam Parr 0:32 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 0:34 I literally just start talking and whatever comes out of my mouth is fine. And then also, it's 9:00 AM for me. I, you know, I wake up, I don't talk to anyone from 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM. So these are the first words I say, period.

Sam Parr 0:46 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 0:46 And, uh, that's what came out. All right, well, here we are. We both have one topic in both of our lists, which is very, very rare that we have overlap here. We both have this topic because there's a business that sold for $500 million that is

Shaan Puri 1:00 a badass story, and it's called Follow Up Boss. I had never heard of this company before. I find out they sell for 500 million in cash. Tell me about Follow Up Boss. You, I think you know more.

Sam Parr 1:10 You know how I know about them. I know about them for two reasons. The biggest reason, they're a Hampton member, and so I saw them post that they had just, uh, sold. Man, this story's crazy. So I had never heard of this company. Have you?

Shaan Puri 1:20 Never heard of them till today.

Sam Parr 1:22 So there's not really a reason why we would've heard of them other than for we're just business nerds, but it's a real estate platform. So it's a, it's a vertical software. And so basically the gist of it is that if you are a real estate agent or if you own a company that has multiple real estate agents, you get leads from Redfin, Zillow, whatever else. Ideally, you get thousands of leads per month, as well as you have homes that you're selling and people who are buying homes. You have to track them all. It's basically kind of what HubSpot or Salesforce does, but specifically for real estate agents. The guy, Dan, he started it 12 years ago, I think. Do you know how he started it? That's what's fascinating about it.

Shaan Puri 1:57 I don't know how he started, but, but you're right. So the, the gist of it is it's a niched down CRM. So agents get leads. They need to follow up with those leads. You gotta keep track of all those leads. So it's a sort of HubSpot for real estate agents just zoomed in, zoomed way in on that one niche. Um, has a pretty insane exit. So how did they start it?

Sam Parr 2:18 So they... What was the final sale? $500 million. So $400 million, uh, upfront in cash, and another 100 million earn out. Listen to how this guy started. His name's Dan. He's from Australia, but they live in Wyoming now. So I guess it's, it's technically, it's a remote company, but they're a Wyoming startup. It's gotta be one of the bigger tech exits out of Wyoming. Man, listen to this. So he, he actually went through The Foundation. Do you remember that course like 10 years ago? It was like a course to teach you how to start a startup.

Shaan Puri 2:43 The Foundation? No, I've never heard of that.

Sam Parr 2:45 Yeah, that's what it was called. And, uh, it... So it's like their greatest success story, I guess now. But they, he went to this thing and he started just trolling Facebook groups and he was, like, working a normal job. He was a marketer at, uh, a normal big company, and he was like, "I wanna start a company. I need some ideas." And so he was like, "Well, I, I've got a buddy in real estate. That kind of interests me." So, um, so he started joining these Facebook groups for real estate agents and he just started, like, skimming in the, all the posts of like, what are people complaining about? What's, like, a common thing? And he saw this guy complain. He's like, "Man, I'm paying 500 bucks a month for this software that I hate for tracking all my leads. It kind of stinks. Like, how are you guys, like, tracking your leads?" And he saw, like, okay, that's interesting. And so he partnered with a guy who's a developer, a, a friend of his who's a developer. They build an MVP. They say that it took him, like, six, six months and they only had one customer paying 150 bucks a month.

Shaan Puri 3:37 [laughs]

Sam Parr 3:38 But he said, he goes, "Man, we built..." Like, uh, this interview that I read with him is a few years old, so I don't know if it was true till the end, but he's like, "We basically built our entire business on Facebook," but not Facebook ads. He goes, "I would just go into all these Facebook groups as the CEO and I would see them talk about like, uh, 'Hey, what's a good platform for this?'"

Shaan Puri 3:57 Yeah.

Sam Parr 3:57 And it wasn't even related to Follow Up Boss, which was his software company. He was like, "I was just, like, being helpful constantly, and people would click my Facebook profile and see that I was the CEO of this one platform or this one tech company, and then they would click off and buy it and I would call them and become friends with them." But he became-- They found this idea just through trolling Facebook groups and they would see people complain about stuff and he would DM them on Facebook and be like, "Hey, I think I'm building a solution for you. Uh, I don't care if you buy it or not, but, like, could you just give me 10 minutes of your time so I can figure out and make sure I'm solving the right problem?" And he did this so often that that's how they came up with this idea for this software. They bootstrapped the whole company. I don't know how much their revenue was. The s- the, the only source that I found was, uh, a source that I don't entirely trust online, but it was like 28 million a year in revenue, less than 100 employees, and a huge exit.

Shaan Puri 4:46 Don't people have to tell you the revenue when you join Hampton? Don't you just have this? Can't you just take a peek at the quick HIPAA record here?

Sam Parr 4:51 But I would never cite that, and so I'm tr- uh, so I just Googled like, uh, you know, Follow Up Boss revenue, and I'm just like, wh- what can I see that's public?

Shaan Puri 4:59 All right. Fair enough.

Sam Parr 5:00 So, so I don't know.

Shaan Puri 5:01 Yeah. This, this is a, um, an awesome story and a good example of kind of the niche down, uh, the niche down zoom in pivot. And I think that this is a... You know, there's many, like, um, business plan blueprints. So for example, those guys from 37signals, what they're doing is they just go, "Hey, what's a p- super popular thing but has too many features? We're gonna make it do less and take up less of your life." And that's like an ex- as an example. You know, Hey, their email client. They're like, "Yeah, just, it's just gonna do these things in this way. Less features, the better. Less clutter, the better." And they're doing it again with Once, where they're doing software that you only have to pay for one time. No monthly recurring. Right? So they, their thing is it's the stripped down version of X. I don't know if you saw... Well, I don't know if you saw, but the guys who started, uh, Tuft & Needle came out with a new company. Did you see this?

Sam Parr 5:50 Crazy. What's it called? Boring Mattress?

Shaan Puri 5:52 Boring Mattress. So the guys who created Tuft & Needle, they were part of the D2C... You know, m- mattresses were like the poster boy of the D2C wave that happened, where Casper and Tuft & Needle and Purple Got big, raised a bunch of money, burned a bunch of money, kinda didn't have a great exit. So these guys came back, and now it's just boring.co is the name of their website. It's like, "This is a plain mattress. Our friends told us that we should tell you about all the cool benefits, features that will make this, quote, different, and, quote, sellable. But we're not convinced. We don't think you'll fall for that. So here's just a really good mattress that'll last you a while, no frills." And they're selling it for $500.

Sam Parr 6:30 And it's only $400, right? Or it's like it's cheap.

Shaan Puri 6:33 Yeah, 500 bucks. And so that's their new thing. And so there's, that's one blueprint in a business is to do the same thing with less, less frills, actually. Like, you know, brand, less of a brand, uh, pomp or, or less features that you needed to, to, to use. Trello's a good example of this. Uh, all productivity apps had more, and more, and more features. Trello was like, "Hey, we're just gonna have less features," right? It's just the equivalent of index cards on the internet that you can move around.

Sam Parr 6:57 All right, everyone, a quick break to tell you about HubSpot, and this one's really easy for me to talk about because I'm gonna show you a real-life example. So I've got this company called Hampton, joinhampton.com. It's a community for founders doing between $2 million all the way up to, like, $250 million a year in revenue. And one of the ways that we've grown is we've created these cool surveys. And so we have a lot of founders who have high net worths, and we'll ask them all types of questions that people typically are embarrassed to ask but provide a lot of value. So things like how much the founders pay themselves each month, how much money they're spending each month, what their payroll looks like, if they're optimistic about the next year in their business. All these questions that people are afraid to ask, but, well, we ask them anyway, and they tell us in this anonymous survey. And so what we do is we've created a landing page using HubSpot's landing page tool, and it basically has a landing page that says, "Here's all the questions we asked. Give us your email if you wanna access it." And then I shared this page on Twitter, and we were able to get thousands of people who gave us their email and told us they want this survey. And I could see, did they come from social media? I can see, did they come from Twitter, from LinkedIn? Basically everywhere else that they could possibly come from. I'm able to track all of that. And then I'm able to see over the next handful of weeks how many of those people actually signed up and became a member of Hampton. In other words, I can see how much revenue came from this survey, how much revenue came from each traffic source, things like that. But the best part is I can see how much revenue came from it. And a lot of times it, it takes a ton of work to make that happen. HubSpot made that super, super easy. If you're interested in doing this, you can check it out, hubspot.com. The link's in the description. And I'll also put the link to the survey that I did so you can actually see the landing page and how it works and everything like that. [beep] I'm just gonna do that call to action then. And it's free. [beep] Check it out in the description. All right, now back to MFM. There's actually another takeaway here, though, which is how long... So you started an e-commerce company.

Shaan Puri 8:37 Yeah.

Sam Parr 8:37 How long until you hit your first 100,000 in revenue per month?

Shaan Puri 8:41 Like, three months probably. Yeah, third month.

Sam Parr 8:43 O- okay. Uh, you're involved in Shepherd. Uh, how long do you think it took them to hit their first 100,000 in, in revenue?

Shaan Puri 8:52 I have no idea. I'm gonna guess six months. Yeah. Quick.

Sam Parr 8:55 Okay, six months. So w- we're talking months. Uh, Hampton took a, a short amount of time, months as well. Uh, The Hustle, I think it took nine months. Do you know how long it took Follow Up Boss to get to 100 million in revenue? Or, uh, sorry, 100,000 in monthly, uh, sales?

Shaan Puri 9:09 Well, you said they had one customer for 150 bucks, like, hanging by a thread for a while. So i- is it more than a year to get to that first m- milestone? Four years? Four years?

Sam Parr 9:17 It took them four years.

Shaan Puri 9:19 Oh.

Sam Parr 9:19 Four years to get to a... So I, I was reading this interview with them. It took them four years, and they had 11 employees, and they were at 100,000 in, in monthly revenue. They say, they, they said around 100,000, so it could've been a little bit more. But what's crazy is these software companies... So I don't know what their revenue was. Like I said, I think it was between 25 and 30. If you just Google, like, Follow Up Boss revenue, that's what I saw. They sold for 400 to, uh, well, potentially 500, 400 upfront. What's crazy is these software companies, we, you and I both have this thing where we wanna go fast. We need to learn and have a little bit of this-

Shaan Puri 9:53 Well-

Sam Parr 9:53 ... attitude. It's crazy

Shaan Puri 9:54 ... I got 0% of this. You are more of a stick-to-it kinda guy. Do you think... I mean, hu- if you're under 100,000 in revenue four years in, are you doing this still?

Sam Parr 10:04 It's hard. So, like, all right, so I have an audience now. So it would be-

Shaan Puri 10:07 So yes or no, do you think, do you think you could've stuck with it?

Sam Parr 10:09 It depends where I was in life. If I was, if it was 26-year-old Sam, 50% chance. If it's where I am now, I would say 5% chance.

Shaan Puri 10:18 [laughs]

Sam Parr 10:18 It's, it would be really hard. It would be r- it, it would be hard.

Shaan Puri 10:20 Dude, I'd have to be going into those meetings and be like, "All right, guys, we're gonna review the metrics today. Uh, earmuffs, everybody. We're gonna say the revenue number."

Sam Parr 10:26 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 10:27 "And then everyone has to do this." And then I say, "We're at, we're at 42,000 in year four." And then [laughs] be like, "All right, but, but there's other things to be, uh, excited about."

Sam Parr 10:36 But we talked to Dharmesh about this, and Dharmesh is pretty, uh, he's pretty low-key about it. He's like, "It took forever." In reality, it, Dharmesh, uh, HubSpot, Dharmesh is the founder of HubSpot. HubSpot, I think, grew, like, actually a lot faster. But he was like, "Man, the first, like, six years, we only got to, like, 4 million or something in rev..." I forget exactly what he said. But he, like, conveyed the idea where he's like, "It's a slog at first." But the thing about soft-

Shaan Puri 10:57 Also, at that time, things just grew slower. Now things grow much faster, right? The benchmarks-

Sam Parr 11:02 Yeah

Shaan Puri 11:02 ... and the expectations are way different.

Sam Parr 11:05 But you have to have faith, and it, of course, we're talking about the one that worked. Uh, and there's a lot, there's so many more that don't work. But, like, to have that faith of, like, this can work, and to stick to it for 10, 11, 12 years, it, it, if you have the right, you know, metrics, this shit pays off. This, these software companies are so much cooler than what we typically start.

Shaan Puri 11:26 So I did a... I remember many years ago, I did a fireside chat with Michael Birch, who was, at the time, was, you know, my mentor. He was my boss. Uh, he's a guy who's built four or five super successful internet companies that scaled to millions of users. He's basically a billionaire at this point in Silicon Valley. And a bunch of entrepreneurs came over, and they were asking questions. One of the questions they asked was, "How do you know when to pivot or persevere?" Meaning you hear the stories about Follow Up Boss or Pinterest, where it's like there was, it was not taking off for a while, and then, you know, they stuck with it, and then it did. And then-

Sam Parr 12:01 Did Pinterest take a long time?

Shaan Puri 12:03 Pinterest took a long time. Um, like, the graph was, you know, not like some explosive social app at the beginning. And, um- And so they... And I, I turned to him 'cause I was like, "I wanna know this answer too." This is like th- this is the... I, I wanna know. What is the guy who's done it in Silicon Valley, what does he, what does he say? And he goes, "This is the hardest question for any entrepreneur. It is deeply personal and situational." He goes, "For every, you know, one story you hear of a Pinterest that just keeps going after 12 months even though there's no signs of life, you know, there's 100 people that did that and failed and you just never hear... They don't get to talk at the conference, right?" So he's like, "It's super hard 'cause you have the survivorship bias to know which story should you listen to." And so he's like, he's like, "This is the one where there's no real advice you can get from somebody else. The one thing that we figured out at our company was, like, we would set a time box. We think we can hit this milestone by this date. And setting that time box is really important because it keeps you honest. Up front when you're super optimistic... All right, let's say something then. We think that in the first, uh..." Like, I, I set one for this new company. I haven't, I haven't announced it yet on the pod, but I set one. I said, "I think we can get to 500,000 ARR in the first 60 days."

Sam Parr 13:14 Okay.

Shaan Puri 13:14 "Uh, so I think we can get to 500K, um, of revenue in the first 60 days." And I set that. Now, if we don't hit that, doesn't mean I'm gonna, like, throw in the towel or shut it down. It meant, like-

Sam Parr 13:22 But maybe. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 13:24 Yeah. Knowing me, you never know. [laughs] Life's on the line for these companies. No, but, but the reality is you set that so that you have to have a conversation about why you didn't hit your expectations. What did... What were you wrong about, or what assumption did you have that was incorrect? 'Cause it might be a fatal assumption or it might just be, "Oh, I was just... I underestimated how long it takes to do X." And that's okay. You can have that conversation. The s- the thing we did, uh, when I worked with Michael was we asked a question, "What metric gives us the most faith?" So what metric worries us the most and what metric gives us the most faith? So let's say four years in we don't have a h- a million or we don't have 100,000 in revenue. That's the one that worries us the most. We have very little revenue. Okay, but what gives us the most faith? It's, well, of the 52 customers we do have, they love it and nobody's churning, right? Then it's like, oh, okay. What can I hang my hat on to give myself the excuse to keep going? And so I think that's a useful question to ask if you, if you don't know whether I should pivot or persevere. I think what metric is giving me the most faith and what metric is keeping me up at night? And then you can almost kinda weigh the two against each other. Um, you know, if the thing that's giving you faith is like, "Yeah, that one guy told me he likes it," it's like, oh, that's not a very strong counterpunch to the fact that the evidence on your revenue and usage side is pretty low.

Sam Parr 14:35 But it feels horrible when you're in it. So I posted a link in our MDB document, okay? So it goes to a TechCrunch... If you... I remember it goes to a TechCrunch article, but I remember when we were running The Hustle, I looked up to b- there, there weren't that many media companies to look up to, and so I really looked up to Business Insider. And the reason I liked it was Henry Blodget was fairly transparent about their traffics. And so Henry Blodget, they wrote an article, it looks like, uh, maybe six years into the company, and he made a funny joke. He's like, "We eked out a net profit of $2,100 on revenues of $4.8 million. Uh, it's basically enough to buy a MacBook Pro."

Shaan Puri 15:09 [laughs]

Sam Parr 15:10 And, uh, and he reveals their traffic. And you see that it looks like this nice, like, arc where it's like... Or this nice graph where it's, like, exponentially going up. But it... I remember when I was running The Hustle, I was like, well, their graph looked amazing. Like, it looked amazing. But then I zoomed in on this picture and you could see that it's broken down by month. And if you really focus on it, what you could see is basically February of '09 they hit an all-time high, and then they didn't surpass that until something like December of '09. So basically for-

Shaan Puri 15:43 The whole year

Sam Parr 15:43 ... the, the, for 10 months. Yeah. The whole year, which I think they s- it looks like they started in '07. So for 10 months, two years into the company, the monthly traffic, which for a site like Business Insider, that's how they would gauge if they're doing a good job, it basically either went down or didn't go up. And when you do that every single day, every single week for 10 months, it feels miserable. And then you zoom out and you, like, see, like, okay, well, it has gone up, but these graphs are never a smooth going up. And a lot of times, sometimes I imagine for two years it'll be pretty shit. Three years. For years it'll be shit. And then after a while it starts picking up if you do a handful of things right. But that requires extreme faith, and it's very, very, very hard to manage your emotions every day when it's like that.

Shaan Puri 16:30 I totally agree. This is a, uh... Tony Robbins said this thing. He goes, "The, the number one choke point of any business is the psychology of the owner." Like, every problem you think your business has, if you do the root cause analysis, it goes right back up to the root c- to the psychology of the, of the owner, right? Let's say, uh, oh, we're not growing fast enough. Why? Because, um, you know, we don't have, uh, our paid acquisition sucks. Why? Because we, the guy who's running our paid acquisition has been doing it for six months in his life. We don't have somebody experienced. Why? 'Cause we're not hiring the right people. Why? 'Cause our owner hasn't made that a priority and isn't willing to spend money, right? Or, or is afraid to spend money on, on talent. And so everything just comes back to the psychology of the owner, which is both empowering but also I think scary for some people. The empowering part is it's in your control. The, the scary part is, shit, it's my fault.

Sam Parr 17:22 And it goes back... Uh, you could also, like, go back to, like, what inefficiencies or, uh, or, like, where does the owner or CEO, where do they, like, suck? So, like, for example, I remember at The Hustle, I was always fearful of overspending, and so I was cheap about shit. And I was actually overly cheap. And when there, there was times when Facebook ads opened up and it's like, dude, we gotta spend more here. Looking back, I should've spent way more, but I didn't 'cause I was being too cheap. And, like, why am I cheap? Well, because of all this other shit that I experienced in life. And so, like, it's basically like, what do they say? Like, uh, a person with money is, they, it's just gonna, like, magnify the things that, the traits that they already have. Or, like, you always say that with people when they're drunk,

Sam Parr 18:00 like, oh, your, your, the true feelings are just gonna come out.

Shaan Puri 18:02 Right.

Sam Parr 18:02 It's ba- the same thing as with running a company, and you gotta, like, master that inner game, and it's really hard.

Shaan Puri 18:08 Yeah, for sure. Let's do another one. Um- I wanna talk about, um, let's do... You have this one, Pieter Levels is insane. Tell me the Pieter Levels is insane one. That's a good headline.

Sam Parr 18:19 I love this guy. So Pieter Levels, we had on the pod. I think we've only had him once, but he's got an open invitation if he wants to come on again. So Pieter Levels, we both love him. He, uh, has, like, four or five different businesses that he runs. I think he's by himself doing it. Collectively, his businesses probably do 2 million a year in sales, and he's super transparent about all of it, so he puts his revenue in his bio on his, uh, Twitter. He shares everything. Really fascinating, thoughtful guy. Did you see what he did with his stock portfolio?

Shaan Puri 18:50 Yeah.

Sam Parr 18:50 So he basically... [laughs] So click that tweet and you'll see it, but he basically created a Google Sheet, and he... You can kinda ac- I don't... He doesn't explicitly say it, but you can do the math. He says, uh, "Here's how much my stock portfolio made me." Um, and it was up 32%, so you can kinda, like, just do basic algebra and figure out w- how much he has in his portfolio. And he reveals every holding that he has, and I think that, A, I'm happy he is doing this, B, I would never, ever do this though. Like, it's... This is, like, his transparency is wild. But it's super fascinating to see what this guy is doing when it comes to, like, sharing his numbers, uh, out in public. It's pretty, pretty fascinating.

Shaan Puri 19:35 I gotta say two things about Pieter. So, uh, first, Pieter, come back on the pod. We miss you. Uh, you've done a bunch of interesting stuff. This, plus your new AI stuff that we didn't talk about yet. So I wanna do that. Second, we've had a bunch of people on this podcast, some that have big names, some that have, you know, big, uh, big track records, or billionaires, or built this $100 billion company or whatever. Nobody, and I mean nobody, has a higher approval rating amongst entrepreneurs on the internet than Pieter Levels. Have you ever met anybody-

Sam Parr 20:07 Yeah

Shaan Puri 20:07 ... that is not a fan of Pieter Levels?

Sam Parr 20:10 I've had billionaire friends, like, or associates in a, in a c- in a conversation, and they'll go, "That guy's doing it right." Everyone likes this guy.

Shaan Puri 20:19 Put this guy's profile picture up on the, on the fucking screen. Go, go to YouTube and just look at this guy's profile picture. This is your personal branding seminar.

Sam Parr 20:30 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 20:30 Look at this guy's profile picture. It's him on a couch in the, like, international pose of, like, guy scheming on the internet, just messing around, having fun on the internet by himself. He's on a couch, half of his body's dangling off. He's got his laptop. He's no- wearing no shirt. He's got his laptop up on a pillow, 'cause, you know, the laptop starts to just scorch you after a while. And he's at this messed up angle, his neck's all messed up, but you know this guy is a one-man band just having fun. And I... This is why. You're right. CEOs of, like, [laughs] you know, major companies are like, "That guy. That guy's doing it right." 'Cause everybody is jealous of being able to be this guy, a guy who's just one man and a laptop, travels around the world, builds projects, whatever he wants for fun. He builds cool stuff like an artist that, um, whatever he builds tends to have some, some juice behind it because he's a very creative guy. Um, he's had many failures, but who cares? And he's got a bunch of successes. He's very open about them. He's not trying to sell you anything. Pieter Levels is a hero amongst makers, and nobody, I, I will contend this, nobody has a higher approval rating on the internet amongst entrepreneurs than Pieter Levels.

Sam Parr 21:36 He's great, man. He's great, and I think on this podcast a lot of people will be like, "Oh, you're talking about just big companies too often," or whatever. And it's like, we always reiterate this, it's like we like people who carve their path, and that path could lead to a huge exit. It could lead to something really small, like, uh, just... You could just be a great artist. It doesn't matter if it's a big money thing or not. And Pieter Levels, the reason why he's so fascinating is he has carved the hardest path, and he sticks to it. He's very value-based. Really, really, really cool guy.

Shaan Puri 22:06 He, he did a tweet that he goes, he goes, "Only 4 out of the 70 projects I've ever done have made money and grown. 95% of everything I ever did failed. My hit rate's only 5%. So ship more." This has 15,000 likes, and it's just literally a, uh, like a, [clicks tongue] you know, like a VS Code, like a, a screenshot of projects that made money and grew. Four. He's got Nomad List, Remote Talk, Rebase, and the YouTube Network. This is before his AI thing. And then here's all of his li- all of his projects, and it's stuff like Ice Cream Chat, Tubelytics, GiftBook, tel- [laughs] tailored Telegram chatbot, su- startupretreats.com, um, Places to Work, Fire Calculator. I don't even know what any of these are, but each one of these is like, you know, uh, a, a great we- it's like, you know, a great weekend, uh, that, that was had by, by him doing, doing these projects.

Sam Parr 22:53 You know that meme where it's like, uh, "Babe, wake up, Shaan Puri just tweeted again."

Shaan Puri 22:58 [laughs]

Sam Parr 22:59 Or like, "Babe, wake up," you know, like-

Shaan Puri 23:01 Pieter Levels bought a domain.

Sam Parr 23:02 [laughs] Yeah. Whenever Pieter replies to one of my tweets, it's like one of those.

Shaan Puri 23:06 [laughs]

Sam Parr 23:07 It's like, "Babe, wake up, Pieter just said he liked what I'm doing." That's how I feel, uh, about this guy. He... Really cool guy and-

Shaan Puri 23:14 [laughs] I have a theory that people... Ultimately, what, what is lacking in most people's lives is, um, that they don't live life on their own terms, and then the way that that expresses itself is, uh, you have a lot of fun when you're living life on your own terms. When you're just doing your, not your thing, you're doing your thang. And if you're doing your thang-

Sam Parr 23:34 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 23:35 ... you're hav- you're having a good time. Pieter Levels, that profile picture of him on his couch l- like, all crooked, just on his laptop, he's doing his thang. And I feel like this is... Honestly, it's a bit of why people like this podcast. We're not the most prepared, or researched, or well-spoken, whatever. But people can tell we have fun in our lives, that we, like, we literally just do the shit that we wanna do and we're having a good time. And it might be that the things we do are not at all the things you wanna do, right? Sam's, like, buying a ranch and, like, you know, tipping cows and I don't know what all the [laughs] shit you do.

Sam Parr 24:05 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 24:05 I don't wanna do all that stuff. But I can tell that you wanna do all that stuff, and that's awesome. It's great that you wanna do all those things. You know, you build your, like, gym, and your farmhouse, and whatever. All that good stuff. I think that- Pieter Levels is a great example of somebody who's just living life on his own terms, and that is one of the most attractive traits that people have in general. And it's so funny, 'cause what most people do is the exact opposite. Pieter Levels has a bunch of influence, but when most people try to become influencers, they, uh, you know, strip down their personality and try to, um, appeal to others and, and people can sniff that out.

Sam Parr 24:38 Yeah, I, I, I, I just think he's the best, and I DM him on a regular basis. He replies to me 10% of the time.

Shaan Puri 24:45 [laughs]

Sam Parr 24:46 So Peter, if this makes it f- to you, come on the pod, man. Come on, come back on.

Sam Parr 24:50 What do you got?

Shaan Puri 24:51 All right. Uh, let's do, um, so another person who has gone from zero to hero, Bryan Johnson.

Sam Parr 24:59 Have you seen the T-shirt that he wears lately?

Shaan Puri 25:02 Don't die?

Sam Parr 25:03 Yeah, don't die.

Shaan Puri 25:04 Don't die, that's the new br- that's the new brand.

Sam Parr 25:05 It's great.

Shaan Puri 25:06 You know what I like about it? It's the same look as the Austin 316 T-shirts. [laughs]

Sam Parr 25:11 Yes. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 25:12 And I guess he should've just done Johnson 316, don't die. [laughs] In fact-

Sam Parr 25:18 It's good, man

Shaan Puri 25:18 ... I might go make Johnson 316 don't die shirts, because that's who he should become. Um, all right, so I was looking the other day, because I saw that Bryan Johnson finally started to sell something, and me and you had made a prediction. About six months, a year ago, we said, "You know what? I don't think Bryan's doing this for the money. I don't think he's doing this for the fame, although he's gonna make a lot of money, and I'm sure the fame, you know, the attention feels good in the moment." Um-

Sam Parr 25:44 Very obvious prediction

Shaan Puri 25:45 ... very obvious prediction, but we said, "Dude, is this the greatest pre, like, pre-launch marketing stunt ever?" 'Cause what he did was he basically turned himself into a character, and a lot of people have done this in the fitness niche, but he's not a fitness influencer. He, he branded himself as a longevity influencer, a live forever, a don't die influencer, and he spent a couple million bucks on tests and content and building his brand. He came on pods like ours, and if you look at Google Trends, you could see the interest in Bryan Johnson growing over time. Actually, we should map out when our podcast was with him on that trend, 'cause I'm curious where that was. And he has built an, an amazing following, and he's doing everything you should do as a, as an influencer. Not that he wants to be an influencer, but he's doing everything you should do. Like, I don't know if you've seen his meetups that he's having lately, these, like, runs that he's doing.

Sam Parr 26:34 Yeah, they look awesome.

Shaan Puri 26:35 He's taking people and they chant, like, "Don't die," and then they, like, run up a hill, [laughs] or something like that. And then they get at the bottom and they eat, like, just, there's a pot of lentils and they're all eating lentils.

Sam Parr 26:46 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 26:46 It's amazing. And so he's building his little cult, and it's, it's a great thing. So he came out with his first paid product. Did you see it?

Sam Parr 26:53 It was... It, it's the meal service, right?

Shaan Puri 26:55 No. No, no, no. So he came out with, like, a... Well, it's kinda like a meal service. It's, like, basically it's a sh- uh, a part one of his blueprint diet as a read, you know, ready-to-eat sorta, like, delivery package. I think you pay 330 bucks a month and you get this thing. 12,000 people applied. He-

Sam Parr 27:11 Wait, wait, wait. But what is... How is it not... You, you said I w- you implied I was a little wrong with meal service. It is a meal service then, but it's just, like, powder, right?

Shaan Puri 27:19 Yeah, yeah. Ex- It's not like meal delivery. It's not like Blue Apron, but it is, like, you know, the supplements and the drink and the what- whatever. It's like some version, some skimmed down version of the, um, uh, of his, like, anti-aging protocol.

Sam Parr 27:31 Got it.

Shaan Puri 27:32 It's the Blueprint Self-Experimentation Study, and there's, like, a level one and there's, there's gonna be a level two and level three. So there's 67 interventions in this, and it looks like there's a couple of powders, there's a bottle of olive oil, and then there's a bunch of pills.

Sam Parr 27:46 I like all those things. Powders, pills... Powder, pills, and oils. [laughs] Sign me up.

Shaan Puri 27:50 There you go.

Sam Parr 27:51 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 27:51 So he, um, he got 5,000 p- he got 12,000 people to apply, 5,000 people paid. So let's do a little public math here. Let's break a rule. He just launched this product. He had more demand than he was willing to let in. He let in 5,000 people. That's 20 million in ARR that he had on day one of launching this product.

Sam Parr 28:11 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 28:12 And 20 million of ARR for a subscription supplements business essentially is, like, a $200 million business.

Sam Parr 28:20 What do you think, uh, Athletic Greens is at revenue-wise? They, they raised at a 1.2 billion in, in valuation.

Shaan Puri 28:25 I bet they're at, like, 100 to 150 is my guess, maybe 200-

Sam Parr 28:28 Wow

Shaan Puri 28:28 ... max.

Sam Parr 28:28 Okay.

Shaan Puri 28:29 Not, uh, y- you know, but this is day one. D- day one, come out the gate with 20 million, and this is al- he let in less than half of the demand that he had, right? So he could've been at 40 million if he, if he wanted to. Again, I don't think he's doing this for the money, but goddamn, that's a-

Sam Parr 28:43 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 28:43 ... that is an impressive start to a business, and it shows that... I have this phrase now that I say, and my wife doesn't think it's cool and she's the only one I've tried it on, but I say this. I say, "All content is now marketing, and all marketing is now content." And this is what Bryan Johnson did. He was putting out content. It happened to be marketing, and that, that marketing is now leading to a lot of sales, um, for his new protocol.

Sam Parr 29:05 When you say that to your wife, I can just hear the world's loudest eye roll-

Shaan Puri 29:08 [laughs]

Sam Parr 29:09 ... of, like, [laughs] she's like, "Shut the [laughs] fuck up, Shaan. That shit works on those fucking dorks that listen to you, but take out the fucking trash, Shaan." [laughs]

Shaan Puri 29:18 [laughs] Did you warm up the mac and cheese like I asked you to or not?

Sam Parr 29:21 Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 29:21 What are you t- what are you talking about?

Sam Parr 29:24 This is awesome. It's sort of like a... Have you seen that... What's that movie where they talk about... The Biggest Short, and, uh, Ryan Gosling's character, you know, they're like, "What are you getting out of this, Ryan?" He goes, "Look, like, listen, Vinnie, you're getting the ice cream, you're getting the nuts, you're getting the chocolate syrup, you're getting the whipped cream, and when this works out, I'm gonna get the cherry on top."

Shaan Puri 29:41 [laughs]

Sam Parr 29:41 That's my fee. I just get a little bit of, of this. That's, that's, that's what, uh, Bryan Johnson is doing with this business. He, he's doing everything else I think actually just 'cause, 'cause he's a dork and he enjoys this shit. Then it just so happened that he got famous, and now he's like, "Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool. Okay, fine, I'll do that, too."

Shaan Puri 29:58 [laughs]

Sam Parr 29:59 You know? And, and I dig that. And isn't it weird? Like, why do you think we have so much trust and faith in this guy? It's... Part of it is because he already has, like, the F you money, and so we think, like, he doesn't give a shit. He's just doing this just 'cause. But the way that he's turned himself into character is actually really interesting. In his case, it, there was a high barrier to entry. He spent millions of dollars, it seems, doing this. He also- ... kind of live like a hermit for two years to, like, perfect this. But the idea of turning yourself into a character and then doing it in front of a lot of people, that's actually a really appealing, that, that's an exciting route to go for a lot of people, where it's just like you change your identity and you go all in on this, and you could actually make an, make a great living by doing this. And that-

Shaan Puri 30:40 It's the same reason I bought shoes from Knees Over Toes guy, right? I probably never bought shoes from any brand besides Nike in, like, 20 years. And then I see this guy who's over 40 years old dunking a basketball. I see what he looked like before he was doing his thing and how he had knee surgeries. Undeniable proof is a very, very powerful lever. Uh, this guy literally just does, like, a somersault, then he gets up and dunks the basketball, and he's, like, this 45-year-old white guy.

Sam Parr 31:08 Which shoes?

Shaan Puri 31:08 He came out with, like, a pair of shoes, um, that are like, you know, the Knees Over Toes, like, thing. Not great shoes, by the way, for the record.

Sam Parr 31:15 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 31:15 Um, [laughs] definitely don't buy V1 of anybody's anything. Um, so, so, you know, it wasn't great, but I have a, a high amount of faith and trust in this guy because, again, all content is marketing. So for two years he was just putting out free content, didn't sell a thing. And so for two years all he did was put out very helpful content and showed an undeniable level of proof that this guy was in incredible shape, that his legs were super, super strong, and that, you know, where he started to where he was is a very powerful transformation. So anybody who wants to have that transformation will trust him. And then when he comes out with a thing and he says, "Hey, this is what I use," people will buy it, and it, it's very, very effective.

Sam Parr 31:51 By the way, I also bought Knees Over Toes shoes. Before he came out with that shoe company, he was always wearing these other shoes, and I also bought them.

Shaan Puri 32:01 I also bought those.

Sam Parr 32:01 So [laughs]

Shaan Puri 32:01 That, that white shoe that looks like it's-

Sam Parr 32:03 Yes

Shaan Puri 32:03 ... from Japan that's, like, $70 or something, $45. Couldn't even really get it on. I have, like, a thick American foot or something.

Sam Parr 32:09 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 32:09 It like, it doesn't fit in this, like, European shoe.

Sam Parr 32:12 [laughs] Dude, I wore the shit out of them. I love those shoes. I, like, I remember seeing the picture and, like, Googling, like, "What are those shoes?" Those, those are awesome.

Shaan Puri 32:19 They're not very comfortable. They look cool, though. What are they called?

Sam Parr 32:21 They look great.

Shaan Puri 32:22 They're, like, Fuye or something like that?

Sam Parr 32:23 Like Fugazi or-

Shaan Puri 32:24 Yeah [laughs]

Sam Parr 32:24 ... it's like touched an F. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 32:26 I love the Fugazis too, man.

Sam Parr 32:27 [laughs] Yeah.

Shaan Puri 32:27 They were, they were Fugazi as hell.

Sam Parr 32:29 The, um, can I do a quick thrill to shill, by the way?

Shaan Puri 32:31 Okay, go.

Sam Parr 32:32 All right, so basically at Hampton we've got access to all this data.

Shaan Puri 32:35 Mm-hmm.

Sam Parr 32:35 And so in order to grow-

Shaan Puri 32:36 Love data

Sam Parr 32:36 ... we decide... I love data, you know? They say data's the new oil. I already mentioned I love oil.

Shaan Puri 32:41 [laughs]

Sam Parr 32:41 I don't know how to, I don't know how to make money off of it yet, but somehow oil's good. We've been doing these surveys where we survey different industries and we get benchmarks for different, uh, different industries. Right now, we just did one on agencies. And so we did this thing where we surveyed 60 agencies. They gave us all their revenue, all their profit, and we did, like, a, the school survey, where we show here's the benchmarks for profit, uh, per employee, revenue per employee. You can find it at, if you just go to joinhampton.com, and then you go to our blog, you'll see the surveys. We did one on wealth, so, like, people say their net worth, how much money they're spending each month, how much income they're making each month, how much they're working each week. We just did one on agencies, so if you're an agency owner, check it out. But more so, that's, that's the shill. Here's the thrill part. I think, Shaan, that if I, if I decide to do this, have you ever heard of the, have you ever... I think this could work. Have you ever heard of, like, benchmarking? Like, I, I, I didn't know anything about this industry. Do you know anything about benchmarking?

Shaan Puri 33:33 Yeah, of course.

Sam Parr 33:34 So I didn't know that people would ever pay for this, and so there's, the, the, the most common form of ben- benchmarking is salary benchmarking. So there's a company called Salary.com, and then there's, like, 10 or 20 other ones who have raised hundreds of millions of dollars, whatever. I think in a couple years if I get enough data, I think we could, I can spin this off and create a data company where I do benchmarking for different industries, and the problem that we'll be solving is let's say that you're an agency, let's say you're an e-com business and you're above 50 million in revenue. You wanna know, are we spending the right amount for ads? Are we spending the right amount for employees? Whatever. I think we can build a cool data business off this. So that's the thrill to shill. But I just wanted to call my shot and say maybe eventually I think we're gonna do this.

Shaan Puri 34:17 [laughs] I don't think it's a call your shot if you say maybe eventually. [laughs] Call your shot is, "I'm going to do this." [laughs] That's like the def- it's like the only requirement of calling your shot is to say, "I'm gonna do this."

Sam Parr 34:28 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 34:29 Not, "Calling my shot."

Sam Parr 34:30 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 34:31 The customer happened to me, if I so happen to do this, which I probably won't. But it could kind of work.

Sam Parr 34:36 [laughs] It's like if Babe Ruth just went like this. It's at the point, he just went like, like-

Shaan Puri 34:42 He just kind of shrugged.

Sam Parr 34:42 You know? [laughs] He just went-

Shaan Puri 34:43 Eh. Might go out

Sam Parr 34:44 ... he just waited to see it, and he's like, "Ah." [laughs]

Shaan Puri 34:49 Dude, also, you reminded me of something. Uh, I don't mean to, to rain on your, your thrill or your shill here, but do you remember, have you seen these leaked, these... I'm sure you've seen

Shaan Puri 35:00 this, 'cause we're both internet, like, uh, what's it called? Like, the people who look for fossils or whatever. Archaeologists.

Sam Parr 35:05 Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 35:07 Um, when Mark Zuckerberg had his old, like, AIM messages leaked when he was 19 years old starting Facebook, and he goes-

Sam Parr 35:14 Where he's like, "These, these effing idiots are actually downloading this thing"

Shaan Puri 35:16 ... he goes, here's the transcript. He goes, he just DMs a friend, just 'cause he can't wait to brag. He goes, "Yeah, so if you ever need anyone, an- if you ever need any info about anyone at Harvard, just ask. I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, Social Security numbers." And his friend goes, "What? How did you manage that one?"

Sam Parr 35:31 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 35:32 People just submitted it. I don't know why. They, quote, "Trust me. Dumb fucks."

Sam Parr 35:37 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 35:38 This is Sam in his Slack about Hampton. He's like, "Yeah, every agency just submitted their profits, their revenues, their growth tactics. They trust me." [laughs]

Sam Parr 35:47 For the record, I wanna say-

Shaan Puri 35:48 You're like, you're like the next Zuck, dude

Sam Parr 35:49 ... dude, [laughs] I wanna say I have access to zero of the documents that people, uh, submit for, in order to join Hampton. I've got zero access. I purposely did this. Just like for years, I purposely didn't ask your name of your e-com business. I just was like, "I don't wanna know," 'cause I don't wanna accidentally say anything. I have zero access to this. Not only because I don't wanna say anything, and also because I just literally don't know how to, you know, like, use computers and, like, log in, and I don't have a password. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 36:22 Dude, that was the equivalent of, uh, you know, no habla Ingles.

Sam Parr 36:25 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 36:25 Like, oh, I got pulled over. I don't, I don't even speak... I don't even know how to use my computer. I, I can't access the stuff. Trust me. All right. Let, let me stop making funny about that. Let's, let's move on. Let's do another one.

Sam Parr 36:35 All right. So last year I invested in this company called Consensus, and they basically... It was like an AI company for research, for, like, scientific research. So if you wanted to, like, figure out, like, um, you know, instead of, like, reading individual studies, this website would just tell you in aggregate what many studies would show. And they were only doing okay. They're... It was basically just two guys, and they were still just trying to figure it out. Like, it, it was like, "This sounds interesting, but, like, I don't even know if this is gonna work. Let's see." Well, something happened a few weeks ago that I think is gonna change their business, but I think that there's an inflection. So basically, like, when the iPhone came out, the App Store happened, and we heard stories about Pandora. So Pandora was a company before they were the music service. The App Store came out and they're like, "Oh, let's just use our service and pivot and build an app." They were one of the first apps. That's what made Pandora popular. When COVID happened, there's companies like BetterHelp, which is, like, uh, uh, therapy online, or there's, like, telemedicine because the laws during COVID changed where a doctor can prescribe meds cross state lines. There's been a lot, uh, a bunch of these. Right now one just happened, so I think January 14th, so I think it was 10- or January 10th, OpenAI created an app store. They've kind of d- done this where they've, like, made their own, like, you can make your own GPT and all this other stuff, but they've... They created an app store. I don't even s- think they said what the pricing was. So with the iPhone App Store, I think the developer gets, what, 70% of the revenue, Apple gets 30%. OpenAI hasn't even said what that, what, what it's gonna be, so it's still really early. And so this company that I invested in, they're like, "Oh, well, like, our thing is going okay, but, like, what if we just, like, went all in on this, like, plugin for OpenAI's store?" And so their version is basically, like, you just type in... You ask it questions, medical questions, and it just gives you a slightly better answer than OpenAI, but it's a lot better or at least enough that you wanna pay for. And there's not that much traffic right now or not that many new apps in the OpenAI, OpenAI app store, but this is one of those inflection moments. So here's, uh, two more examples. So you remember Honey, that company that was like, uh, a, a, what do they do? D- coupon codes for a website, and then Grammarly did the same thing. They both did that with the Chrome Store. You have a bunch of friends, because you kind of ran in that world, where people did this with, with the Facebook, uh, platform. So Zynga, I don't know how much money they eventually made, but it was at one point a multi-billion dollar company. I think right now we're gonna see, like, a Facebook store. You're gonna see, like, all these mafia

Sam Parr 39:00 wars, all these, like, weird games. I think you had a buddy, what was the guy's name? Dan, who went to Camp MFM, who started, like, OMGPOP or something like that. What was that called?

Shaan Puri 39:07 Draw Something was the game that everybody played.

Sam Parr 39:09 And it, I, I think he had a multi-hundred million dollar exit. I think this is right now about to happen with the OpenAI, like, plugin store. It's really fascinating what's happening.

Shaan Puri 39:19 I thought this was interesting. You asked the guy, or somebody asked the, the, the founder. He said, "I think it's gonna be something between, like, more than the Chrome extensions market, but less than the App Store." You know, short term it's awesome for marketing and functionality for users, um, and OpenAI is footing the bill on a lot of the compute costs. Um, in the me- medium term we have 2X the usage of the next biggest GPT, and I think Canva is the next... So this is the number one GPT.

Sam Parr 39:47 Yeah. Yeah, it's taking off. And these guys, they're smart guys, but it was still... When they were starting their company, when we invested, it was like, "Uh, I don't know. Hopefully we'll figure it out." And there was a time where I was like, "You guys better figure this out soon. Like, I don't know if this is gonna work out." And then this inflection happened. This change happened. And it-

Shaan Puri 40:03 Dude, this product is awesome. I just went to their site. Like, I didn't do the ChatGPT thing, but just their app is really cool. So you go there, you ask any question. So I just did, "Are microplastics dangerous for humans?" And then it has all these papers, but then you hit synthesize, which I think is the credits that you have to buy if you... But you start with 20 free credits, and it says, "Summary: We looked at 10 papers. The study suggests microplastics are dangerous for humans, and they carry toxic chemicals, um, contaminate ecosystems, and are linked to various health issues including cancers and im- immune sy- system de- disruptions." And then it says, "We looked at the 14 papers. Yes was 43% of the time, possibly 57% of the time, no 0% of the time." And that was the, like, that was the thing, and then you could see below each specific paper, and it's, like, tagged like, oh, this is a rigorous journal. This is highly cited. Um, and you can kinda get AI to summarize each of those papers. This is, this is a sick, like, this is a sick product.

Sam Parr 40:54 It's cool. And it... But it, by the way, it... Just like all great stuff, it did not start that way.

Shaan Puri 40:59 I'm mad you didn't tell me about this. This is, uh, I... Why didn't I invest in this? This is great.

Sam Parr 41:02 It wasn't obvious. It, by the way, it's still not obvious. This company, just like any o- any startup, it could still totally fail and not work.

Shaan Puri 41:08 No, but it's a very interesting bet, right? Like, to do a verticalized Google specifically for scientific papers, and AI being the, the, the why now of what you could do differently than you could do before, this makes a lot of sense.

Sam Parr 41:21 And it was, uh... I'll give the shout-out. It's consensus.app. That's their website.

Shaan Puri 41:25 [laughs]

Sam Parr 41:25 But the point being, A, Consensus is great. I think it's actually gonna work out, and these guys, uh, they, they kind of put their head down for, like, 24 months and, like, uh, are really starting to figure out. There's gonna be a lot of stuff just like them on the ChatGPT store. Because I think when we invested in them, I don't remember exactly, I'm almost positive the word AI didn't come up one time. Like, it wasn't like... It was like we have this, like, i- we know what the outcome that we want to, what, what, what we want it to be, but we're not entirely sure how we're gonna come to that. And then they started figuring it out, AI got more popular, and then this ChatGPT store opened up, and they're like, "Boom, we found the path." And I think that path is opened right now. Now, it's more competitive than, than the App Store, and it's more competitive than Chrome because there's more people who are doing this stuff. OpenAI is already huge, but that inflection is happening right now. This is one of those things that's happening in real time, and I wanted to call out because I think OpenAI even said, "We don't even know how, what payment terms we're gonna give these people." Like, we're s- they're still all figuring it out, but this is happening this second right now. There's an opportunity here for a lot of different companies.

Shaan Puri 42:24 They're like a ro- Like, you know some celebrity relationship. They're like, "Oh, we don't, we don't know, we don't wanna put a label on it yet."

Sam Parr 42:29 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 42:29 "We're just, we're just exploring each other and figuring out, you know, who we are together and individually." [laughs] It's like, what?

Sam Parr 42:35 Yeah, it's definitely trying to figure it out. Have you seen, um, Perplexity? Have you used Perplexity?

Shaan Puri 42:40 I don't like it. I don't know why people are going nuts for it.

Sam Parr 42:42 It's pretty cool. It's just like OpenAI, but for some reason it's like, has a science bent

Shaan Puri 42:47 ... That's one of these companies I, I don't know, I don't know much about it. I, this is a uninformed opinion, but I feel like every VC who missed, like you can't get into OpenAI, or if you could get in now, it's at $100 billion valuation. There's not much money to be made as an investor there. And so all the capital r- you know, realized, all the investors realized, holy shit, this is the big thing. And they're like, "What's the next best competitor?" And they're like, "All right, uh, Stable Diffusion and-

Sam Parr 43:12 It could be

Shaan Puri 43:12 ... Perplexity and the next thing, and the next thing," and these, they get these super inflated valuations. And, um, I don't know. I'm not, I'm not really a believer in that. I, I think those get way ahead of the skis, and I just seen that story many times. This happened in crypto. This happened in, uh, you know, when mobile, when mobile was happening and you would get, you know, for every Instagram you would then get the 10 super funded other apps that didn't make any sense. And, um, yeah, I, I'm, I would take, I would take the under or I would short that, uh, that-

Sam Parr 43:43 Uh, after the pod, go to your email and type in Consensus. I'm almost positive that I heard about this company and you were CC'd on the email.

Shaan Puri 43:51 [laughs]

Sam Parr 43:52 Just, I just wanna put that out there.

Shaan Puri 43:53 Oh.

Sam Parr 43:53 Um, I, I, it was, uh, 2000... It was two years ago. I'm almost positive. If you type in Cons-

Shaan Puri 43:59 You're like, "After the pod,

Shaan Puri 44:00 take some lighter fluid, pour it over your pod."

Sam Parr 44:03 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 44:03 "Light it back up." [laughs]

Sam Parr 44:05 [laughs] And hope no one finds what, finds out what happened. We're gonna burn it down and hide it. Uh-

Shaan Puri 44:11 Can I do a rant about something? So I've had a realization that my world, like, a lot of the content I'm consuming was algorithmic. All right, that's pretty obvious. You, everyone's gonna go through.

Sam Parr 44:26 What does that mean? Just Twitter, TikTok, whatever?

Shaan Puri 44:28 Yeah. Everything I was using. You'd go to, um, you go to Twitter, it's an algorithm telling you, "Here's the content you need to see." You go to TikTok-

Sam Parr 44:35 It's all tech and business shit

Shaan Puri 44:36 ... algorithm. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, yes, all of that. Even, uh, email. Email is not really algorithmic exactly, but it's, um, you go there and it's here's what other people want you to s- to look at. "Here's my problem. Hey, here's my problem. Read me." Right?

Sam Parr 44:51 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 44:51 Uh, and then same thing, same thing with, you know, all news. You go to a news website, "Hey, here's everybody's problems on the other side of the world. Here," you know, "Pay attention to this." I'm calling it the intentional internet, which is I started really being intentional about, oh, no, no, no. If I'm going on the internet right now, what is it that I wanna see? What is it I'm curious about? What is it that I want to learn about? And then I go in and I'm stiff-arming algorithms left and right. Uh, you know, I'm Marshawn Lynch on that one run where he just sheds eight defenders and goes all the way and just rumbles to the end zone. That's me on the internet now, and I think more people should be doing this. Join me on the intentional internet, where you get on and you don't just, you're not just a, you know, little puppy just eating the puppy chow that the algorithms give you. Go on with some intent and say, "What is it that I'm looking for?" I want ... Maybe it's I want certain type of entertainment. Maybe it's I want a certain type of information, or I wanna be inspired. Okay, so then go look for the things that will give you that-

Sam Parr 45:52 Dude, but you follow-

Shaan Puri 45:53 ... and use the internet that way

Sam Parr 45:53 ... you follow 13,000 people on, on Twitter. Like-

Shaan Puri 45:57 Oh, the trick is you don't go to Twitter, right? You s-

Sam Parr 45:59 What do you do?

Shaan Puri 46:01 Well, Twitter's not a great place for this, right? Because if you go to Twitter, you're gonna get, your first thing you're gonna be served up is the feed, and you're gonna start scrolling.

Sam Parr 46:08 What are you gonna start reading books? That's very unlike you.

Shaan Puri 46:10 So I make a little list. I say, "You know what? I'm curious how this started" or I'm, "I wanna learn more about this." And then I'll go to YouTube or Google or wherever looking for that. But just that p- adding that little paper step in between me and the internet has been very, very useful, and I learned a bunch of interesting things in the last three days. I got more out of the internet. So I'm just putting that out there. For anybody who, who-

Sam Parr 46:32 What's been on your list?

Shaan Puri 46:34 I'll give you an example. Um, I was doing research for one thing and I saw this name. Do you know this guy, Eric Van Veen?

Sam Parr 46:45 Yes. He's amazing. I have got him... Oh, wait. Are you talking about Ricky Van Veen or Eric?

Shaan Puri 46:50 Uh, oh, maybe he's Ricky. Ricky Van Veen.

Sam Parr 46:52 Ricky.

Shaan Puri 46:52 Ricky Van Veen.

Sam Parr 46:52 The Facebook guy?

Shaan Puri 46:53 Yeah, the Facebook guy.

Sam Parr 46:54 Dude, dreamy. Super dreamy. This guy's dreamy as shit. I've talked to him a bunch, uh, via email a handful of times.

Shaan Puri 47:02 He looks like the internet Pete Buttigieg or something. [laughs]

Sam Parr 47:05 [laughs] No, man. This guy's great.

Shaan Puri 47:07 So this guy created CollegeHumor.

Sam Parr 47:10 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 47:10 And then he created, um, a couple other things. What did he create? He created Hu- CollegeHumor, and then he bu- he created a few other things like Cracked or whatever. Then he bundled it up, sold it to IAC, and he was running media at IAC. And then he-

Sam Parr 47:25 You're forgetting the biggest thing they started.

Shaan Puri 47:27 Which one?

Sam Parr 47:28 So at CollegeHumor, this was like pre-YouTube days, they create... This was like eBaum's World days. They created a better way-

Shaan Puri 47:37 Oh, yeah

Sam Parr 47:37 ... to host videos.

Shaan Puri 47:38 Yeah.

Sam Parr 47:38 And that's what Vimeo is, which they sold to IAC. IAC spun off and became a billion dollar plus publicly traded company.

Shaan Puri 47:45 So creates Vimeo, creates CollegeHumor, goes to IAC. IAC is a super interesting company with like a very cool pedigree of people that come out of it, like Tinder came out of IAC. Um, you know, there's, there's a bunch of really interesting things about IAC. They, they're sort of like the c- they're the Procter & Gamble of the internet. They're a conglomerate of internet sites, mostly media. And then-

Sam Parr 48:06 Match.com I think came out of there

Shaan Puri 48:08 ... now he's head of, like, cre- head of, like, video or head of creative content at Facebook. And I was like, oh, this guy's interesting. I kind of just noted it, uh, 'cause I, I think I was thinking about CollegeHumor and, um, so I just, "Who, who's behind that? What are they doing now?" And I think this, this what are they doing now has been one of my threads. So I'll, I'll think of something that was cool, and I'll be like, "Where did they go? I haven't heard about their new album. What, what are they working on?" And I'll go look at that. And that's just a very, it's a very useful, um, way to go look at things. So-

Sam Parr 48:39 By the way, Ricky, Ricky ended up marrying, and I don't think they're together anymore, but he-

Shaan Puri 48:43 Yeah

Sam Parr 48:43 ... like, if you just, you could just Google, like, tabloids or whatever. He married Allison Williams, you know, the famous, like, actress whose father is Brian Williams, the famous newscaster. And if you Google his name, the guy's just, like, hanging out with, like, all these celebrities and stuff, and he's like Seems so cool.

Shaan Puri 48:57 [laughs]

Sam Parr 48:58 Like, he- this, this guy's dreamy as shit. Can we acknowledge that?

Shaan Puri 49:00 So he's the global creative strategy at Facebook. So anyways, what, what, what's my point? So I, I'm, I'm d- I have a list of y- cool companies or cool things that were built, you know, 10 years ago, and I'm wondering, what are those people doing now? CollegeHumor was one of them. So I go look at this guy, and then I'm like, I'm researching Vimeo and I'm, I'm looking at him, and then I'm like, he gave this talk in, um, 2008 at this media conference, and then he comes back again eight years later. I don't know if you've ever seen this talk, but it's a, it's a pr- I mean, it gets no views on the internet, but for nerds like us who create media and content on the internet, it's very interesting to see what somebody thought in 2008, which is like the iPhone has come out, but it hasn't changed the world yet. And like literally the presentation, he's like, "Yeah, kids with their BlackBerrys are not gonna be doing X, Y, Z." And back then, um, you know, when he created CollegeHumor, it became the number one, um, comedy entertainment site on the internet, way bigger than Cartoon Network and all these other like incumbents. Okay, that's interesting. Then he comes back eight years later and he's like, "Here's what I got right and here's what I got wrong," and one of the things he was talking about on it, he's like, he's like, "At some point people on the internet will stop leaving the internet. Like they won't, they'll, they'll stop using the internet as a springboard to go onto Netflix or onto get, get cast into a TV show or whatever. Like they'll realize that their YouTube channel is worth more than, than those shows and they won't wanna leave, um, to, to go do those. They won't view this as just a stepping stone." And that's happened. And he basically had like four or five predictions about where the, where the world was going. He put up the, all the sites like, uh, ViralNova and Upworthy and whatnot. He's like, "Right now these are the hottest sites in the world. Their traffic is crushing ours and they're, they're getting more traffic than anybody, more traffic than God." He's like, "I think all of this is going to zero. I think this is highly commoditized and it's not gonna work for these reasons." He was absolutely correct. And so it was, uh, very interesting to go learn from this guy who's kind of a master at what he does. And I've done this before with like, um, when I looked up all the infomercial kings, so the guys who created like, you know, Proactiv, that acne, uh, you know, medicine. Like how did that story happen, right? But if I just log onto the internet and I just take the, the, the, the last thing that somebody tweeted or the la- latest TikTok somebody uploaded, you know, I'm playing defense. I'm playing their game, not mine, right? And so I'm just trying to have a little bit more intention when I, when I, when I use the internet. It's, you know, I'm not the type who's just gonna go, uh, like total digital detox and just not use the internet, but when I do use it, I'm trying to use it in a bit of a healthier way.

Sam Parr 51:21 So Ricky, did he, he predicted that the ViralNovas of the world are g- He predicted that it was gonna go to zero and they did?

Shaan Puri 51:26 Yeah.

Sam Parr 51:27 Did I ever tell you the story about my partner Joe

Sam Parr 51:30 and Hampton, um, and a bunch of other stuff? Did I tell you a story about Little Things?

Shaan Puri 51:34 You've mentioned it before that he got like really big-

Sam Parr 51:35 Let me tell you this

Shaan Puri 51:36 ... like the most trafficked Facebook referral, right? And then he had an offer to sell and he didn't take it or something?

Sam Parr 51:40 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 51:41 Is that the story?

Sam Parr 51:41 So Joe, Joe's an g- an amazing entrepreneur. So he started his first company, it was an ad tech company. He sold it for hundreds of millions of dollars when he was like 25. So he just had this like huge success at a young age. Then his next business he started was called, uh, I forget exactly what it was called, but it, uh, PetFlow. It was a pet food company and they started it before Chewy, except he was a little conservative and he was like, "We have to spend money profitably on ads and that's hard to do, and so we're gonna go a little bit slower." Chewy comes in and goes, "Nah, F that. We're gonna lose money for the first 6 or 12 months at a customer and we're gonna do such a good job that they're gonna come back." And Joe was like, "That's a dumb strategy." Turns out it was right. But in order to make l- uh, PetFlow grow, he created a blog where they just wrote content on pets and within a ver- very, very, very short amount of time they started getting 10, 20, 30 million people a month coming to this blog on pets and he's like, "Ah, screw that. Let's just do this blog." And so within four years they were the most shared website on Facebook, bigger than ViralNova, bigger than BuzzFeed, bigger than, uh, HuffPo, all these publishers that were huge in the 2014, '15 era. And it started getting something like 250 million uniques a month to their website and they were scaled up I think to 90 million in revenue in four years. It was a huge company. I went to, I cold emailed him. I went to his office. He had these studios and they're like, "Facebook Live's the next big thing. We just built out this $250,000 studio in the, in the Manhattan office and it's gonna be the greatest thing ever. We have 150 employees. This is gonna be the biggest thing ever." The problem of course that we all know was Zuck does what Zuck wants and they built this entire company, LittleThings.com, on the back of Facebook and they got a, an LOI to sell the business and they were literally three weeks from selling. They were gonna sell for hundreds of millions of dollars. Facebook puts out this annual report where they go, "We're actually changing. We're pivoting from this thing to this thing." And three weeks away or something like that from this deal closing for hundreds of millions of dollars, the company, uh, backed out and within six months the business basically laid off everyone and had to shut down all in a matter of like six or seven months of like we're on top of the world making hundr- 100 million a year to now we are not. And it's a crazy, crazy story. If you Google like his name, Joe Speiser, Little Things, you'll see the story. It, it, uh, I think, uh, Inc. just did some big story on it, but it's pretty wild.

Shaan Puri 54:05 Oh, the lessons we learn unfortunately. That's, you know, that's like, uh, it's, it's cool to be like, "Yeah, you learn so much from failure," but it's like, God, sometimes it's so painful. [laughs]

Sam Parr 54:13 Yeah, he was basically i- and he-

Shaan Puri 54:15 Sometimes you'd rather just win

Sam Parr 54:16 ... he posted this publicly. He was like, "I was set to make $50 million and three weeks away from the closing it went away." And I, he like has all these crazy stories like that.

Shaan Puri 54:25 And by the way, what's he like to work with? 'Cause you picked him as your partner for Hampton.

Shaan Puri 54:30 Uh, why'd you pick him?

Sam Parr 54:32 He's the best, man. He's the best. He's the best. He's a harmonious partner. He's even keel. He's very easy-

Shaan Puri 54:37 Yeah, but, but not like the partnership dynamics 'cause you've told me about those. What is he, what's his edge? What's he great at? What's, uh, what is he g- like what is he amazing at?

Sam Parr 54:46 You ever hangout with Israeli guys? And like Israeli guys have a culture of like they're quite competent because they served in the military and they're like really good at stuff. Oftentimes they're good at spotting opportunities 'cause that's also part of the culture of like just like negotiating well and like finding interesting deals. He is so good at spotting opportunities, and he's technical and he's so fast. I've never met someone who's, like, significantly faster than I am at making stuff and going all in. And, like, he'll just find an opportunity, he'll build a website for it, and he's like, "Yep, this is what I'm doing now," and he pounces so fast. I've never met someone who moves faster. One thing that we did that was so great... Did you ever have this with Ben or any of your other partners where you do, like, a, um... You're like, "Look, before we, like, hop in bed and before we get married here, let's just sit down and map out what do you want your life to be like? What do you want in 5 years, in 10 years? What do you want on a day-to-day basis?" And you, like, write out, like, how you wanna live, what you're willing to s- uh, what you're willing to give up, what you're not willing to give up. Have you ever done that?

Shaan Puri 55:42 Not exactly, but, you know, you told me you did that. I think there's a version of that that I do, but I'm not... I think everything changes. Uh, so I... You know, it sounded really great in theory, and I think it's a useful exercise just to clarify your own thoughts. But I don't... I think people themselves are quite incongruent in general. Um-

Sam Parr 56:03 Well, yeah, you change.

Shaan Puri 56:04 You ch- uh, you change, but also you don't know what you want. And also, you say one thing 'cause it sounds good or you think you want it, but then something comes, you know, something comes up and you're, you know, it's your stated preference versus r- revealed preference. And I think it's very hard to get to people's revealed preferences, their true preferences, or their true, um, their true, you know, desires or, or whatever. And so I think it's a good exercise to do, but I don't put as much weight in it as you did, I think.

Sam Parr 56:31 Well, I think that, I think that, A, it starts a really good conversation. So it's like, "Look, let's be transparent," just like you should with, like, your wife or y- uh, girlfriend. You're like, "Let's talk about, like, what type of life that we potentially want, and let's be very open about that." So I think that that, like, creating that, like, let's just be very clear about, and we'll, we'll acknowledge that it will change. So I think it creates a great version of that. I... But Joe's also 42, I think. He's older than me. And so I would think that at that age he has a little bit of solidified the values that he stands for, and so it was helpful. I think if I did that exercise when I was 24, it would not have been good. In fact, I did do that exercise when I was 24 and it sucked.

Shaan Puri 57:06 [laughs]

Sam Parr 57:07 I said I wanted... You wanna know what I said I wanted when I was 24? I said, "I want 10,000 employees." I go, "Wouldn't it be awesome if we had 10,000 employees?"

Shaan Puri 57:14 Yeah, exactly. [laughs]

Sam Parr 57:14 And then I hired three people and I, and I'm like-

Shaan Puri 57:17 Shit went out the window.

Sam Parr 57:18 [laughs] I'm like, "Yeah, that's, that, that's a no from me, dog. Like, that, that ain't gonna work." But, so I think if you're a little bit older and you have some experience, you might know a little bit more what you want. But when I was younger, no, that wouldn't have worked.

Shaan Puri 57:28 My, uh, thinking on this is, uh, the Buffett thing of you want some- a partner with en- energy, integrity, and intelligence, I think that's the, like, core thing you, I look for at least, which is basically... And in order. Energy's the easiest to spot, and it's the easiest one to try to write off if somebody doesn't have it. Um, meaning seems like a, seems like a nice to have. It's actually not a nice to have for me. It's a must-have for me. Um, and, and, and so energy is the first one that shows up, and it's the easiest one that I've tried to talk myself out of with certain people, and that's been a mistake every single time I've done it.

Sam Parr 58:04 Who have you worked with that's high energy and, like, almost exhausts you because you're like, "I can't keep up"?

Shaan Puri 58:10 Suli's like that. Uh, he's super high energy, but not in a exhausting way, in a... Like, I get energy from that, so it's all good.

Sam Parr 58:16 I don't mean exhausting like they wear you out, but you're like, "Oh my God, dude," like, "you're, you're almost hard to keep up. You move so fast. That's inspiring."

Shaan Puri 58:23 Yeah. Everybody that, uh, th- yeah, it's a... But it's in a good way. Um, like-

Sam Parr 58:27 Yeah. I mean in a good way

Shaan Puri 58:28 ... I like people that push the pace and that they bring their own energy to the table. I'm not bringing it out of them. Um, Ben is a fun f- so Ben Levy, who's my current business partner, on the surface when you meet him, he's a more quiet guy. He's more reserved. He's not like... He doesn't come across like this huge, booming personality. But Ben's got that energy where it, it's just, it comes out for him, like, through text message or through, like, you know, he, he'll just wake up and do something, or he can't sleep at night 'cause he's thinking about something. And so energy reveals... Energy is not just being a wacky, flailing arms guy. It's do you have the... Are you driven yourself? Do you take action quickly? Do you think about things all the time, or are you... Am I trying to force you to, to... Am I dragging your brain into the conversation? And do you get excited about things? Are you t- when an opportunity arises, does your, do you shift gears up? So energy is the first one. Then it's, um, intelligence or competence, which is, like, what are they great at? Oh, this person's great at selling. This person's great at building. This person's great at, um, just pushing the ball forward every day, uh, whatever it is. And then the last one, which is integrity, is the hardest one to get a feel for, which is how is this person gonna treat me when they have the opportunity to be selfish? Will they be selfish when they have the opportunity to be selfish? And it's very, very hard to know that. You can kind of only talk to people they've worked with before or ask them questions and try to see if they're, they're pretty honest about that. Um, and then I just work with them on something first before we commit. So it's like we have that conversation, sure, but let's, like... You know, I would always trade an experience for a belief, and if I can have an experience working with you on something for three weeks, that's gonna be way better than me trying to put, take

Shaan Puri 1:00:00 a leap of faith on a bunch of things you said or you wrote down in a Google Doc.

Sam Parr 1:00:04 Did you just make up that word or that phrase?

Shaan Puri 1:00:07 Tony Robbins special, baby. Quote.

Sam Parr 1:00:08 Oh.

Shaan Puri 1:00:09 Yeah. [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:00:09 I was gonna say, that's, that's yours now.

Shaan Puri 1:00:11 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:00:11 Do you, uh... What, how late into the evening are you working on business stuff versus family time or fitness or whatever else there is?

Shaan Puri 1:00:21 Um, I basically, I work out in the middle of the day 'cause I work about 2, 2:00 PM. Uh, so it's basically like I've done, I've done enough where I could stop working. I wake up and I work. I wake up, I do my morning routine, then I work. And then I take a break to work out, and then I'll either just, if I've done enough that day, I'll just play with my kids. I'll start playing with them and just hang out. If I ha- if I haven't, I'll do another hour or two of work. And then I do family time till about, till they go to bed, so they're, you know, usually fully asleep 8:30 or 9:00. And then I chill out/work, one of the two. They're both kind of the same to me. So sometimes it's just, like, watching a show. Sometimes it's working or reading something, and I'll do that till 11:00 or 12:00 and I go to, go to sleep.

Sam Parr 1:01:02 But between that 11, or between kid, kids going to sleep and you going to bed, are you on the phone talking to people ever?

Shaan Puri 1:01:09 No, no, no. That's me time. That's, uh, me on the internet.

Sam Parr 1:01:12 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:01:13 Uh, I'm not talking to people, no.

Sam Parr 1:01:15 I, uh, I've got a bunch of friends who are like that, and they'll, like, one call-

Shaan Puri 1:01:18 Even my, my wife, she'll try to talk and I will be like, "I'm doing no talking." That's my phrase.

Sam Parr 1:01:23 Well-

Shaan Puri 1:01:23 "I'm doing no talking right now." [laughs] It's a, it's a nice way of saying, like, "I don't wanna talk to you. I, I'm doing no talking." [laughs] That's it.

Sam Parr 1:01:30 We do the same... There's, like, this, like, unspoken rule at my house where, like, at 8:00 or 9:00 when she wants to, like, ask me, like, "Hey, what dates do you wanna go, uh, to this place?" And I just mumble. I go... That means, like, [laughs] "Dude, I just shopped at IKEA all day. I'm overwhelmed. I, I can't look at anything. I'm... I can't think. Don't ask me a date. I'm not thinking about anything."

Shaan Puri 1:01:51 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:01:51 Do you know what we've been, do you know what we've been doing lately? It's fucking Legos. Have you ever done Legos?

Shaan Puri 1:01:56 I've never done Legos. I, I have a whole separate pod topic about adult Legos 'cause I think it's a thing, and you're one of those, so we should ta- we should actually do a full segment on it.

Sam Parr 1:02:06 I'm so into it. I'm so into it. That's all I'll say. I am so... I just got into it in November. I'm a Lego guy now.

Shaan Puri 1:02:13 I love it.

Sam Parr 1:02:13 It, it-

Shaan Puri 1:02:13 Okay. We're gonna talk about that next time. I gotta jump. Uh, this has been good. This is the pod. That's the pod.

Sam Parr 1:02:18 That's the pod. [upbeat music]