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65 min read · 12,885 words- 0:00 – 2:20
Intro
- SPSam Parr
What does Nate Diaz say, one of our favorite fighters? He goes
- SPShaan Puri
I stay ready so I don't have to get ready. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Nate goes, "Warriors are always ready to roll."
- SPShaan Puri
Right. I'm a ninja. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Ninjas don't warm up. Uh, so [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[upbeat music] All right, we're live. Shaan, and to the listener, at the end of the, this next 10 minutes little opener I have for you, I'm gonna need you to make a promise to me.
- SPShaan Puri
Okay.
- SPSam Parr
And I need the listener to do the same to themselves. Now, before I get to that promise, let me tell you a little story. So there's this guy named Marcus Elliott. I read about him in this wonderful book called The Comfort Crisis, and Marcus Elliott is an interesting guy. You can Google him. He's like this ripped older guy now, he's a doctor, whatever, but his story is that he got his MD from Harvard, and he thinks he's gonna go down this route of being a doctor, but he kinda hates it. He's not really into it. And so he goes into sports, a world you know a lot more than I'd, uh, than I do, and he decides to work for the Patriots. And the Patriots had an issue where they had something like 21 hamstring pulls per year, and they're like, "Dude, our guys keep getting hurt. We're, it's losing us millions of dollars. Help us out." So Dr. Elliott helps them out, and they reduce their hamstring pulls by, uh, to, to only three per year. The MLB sees this and they're like, "Hey, you're the man. Come and do that for us." He works for the, uh, Major League Baseball, and he helps reduce injuries significantly. Eventually, he opens up his own facility where athletes, all types of athlete, basically most NBA players, a lot of baseball players, they go. And he's got this beautiful facility where they do, like, 3D analytics, and they look at your body and they're like, "You have a weakness here. You have a strength here. Let's capitalize on this. We need to fix this, otherwise you're gonna get hurt." And so LeBron, all these guys go to him. And so the picture I'm trying to paint here, super data-driven scientific guy. He's all about the numbers, whatever. However, there's this one thing that I read about him that didn't exactly fit with what he talked about, and it got me super invigorated, and this is where the promise that, uh, I'm gonna need from you in about five minutes comes into play. So there's this thing called misogi. You've never heard of misogi, have you?
- SPShaan Puri
I think I've been called one. A misogynist or something. Is that-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
No. Something else.
- SPSam Parr
All right.
- SPShaan Puri
What, what do you got?
- SPSam Parr
Close.
- 2:20 – 5:13
Sam challenges Shaan to a Misogi
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
All right. So misogi is this, it stems from this Japanese myth. So basically there's a story in Japanese mythology of this guy who goes into the underworld to save his wife, and it's this hard, tumultuous physical journey. When he gets done and saves his wife, he comes back to this waterfall and he cleanses himself, and that's like, "I'm cleansing myself of this journey I just went through. I'm now a new man," whatever. Well, a lot of people, including one of your favorites, one of my favorites, Jesse Itzler, has kinda taken this term or this myth, uh, of misogi, and they've kinda changed it to this thing where it means a huge physical challenge. Basically something that you need to do one day out of the year, but it takes 364 days out of the year in order to prepare and get ready for, and it changes the rest of your, your year because of how challenging and, uh, y- you're, you're preparing for it.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah. I think Jesse calls it kinda like his one, it's like his one big annual mission or challenge or adventure that he's gonna go on, right? The, his misogi. Misogi-
- SPSam Parr
Yes
- SPShaan Puri
... or misogi? You know?
- SPSam Parr
I've been calling it misogi, but it's-
- SPShaan Puri
All right
- SPSam Parr
... one of those words that you read, you don't say. Uh-
- SPShaan Puri
To each their own. Yeah. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. [laughs] This is why it's a myth. It's rarely discussed and only read about. And so I'm not exactly sure. But Marcus gets into this, where, uh, this doctor that I- I'm referring to, he gets super into this, and he's like, "We have to have our guys do this." And so he starts doing these misogis. So he'll do one where he'll, like, drive to the mountains, and just the highest peak that he sees, he's just like, "By the end of the day, I'm reaching the top and I'm coming back down no matter what." And he starts having his athletes do it, and one athlete in particular who gets super into this is Kyle Korver. [smacks lips] This is where you come in. I don't know too much about Kyle Korver, but he's a great three-point shooter, I think. I don't even know which-
- SPShaan Puri
He's one of the best shooters in the NBA. Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Yeah. I know nothing about him other than, uh, I know that he's, he's into this. And basically, Kyle Korver kinda becomes, like, a, a Dr. Elliott disciple, and they do crazy things. So here's one of the things that they do. They carry an 80-pound rock underwater for three miles. So basically they're out in the Santa Barba- the ocean off of Santa Barbara, and they grab, there's this rock at the bottom of the ocean. They gotta swim like 10 feet down, they gotta grab it. They can only carry it for like 10 seconds. They drop it, they come up for air, and they do that for 10 hours until they complete 5,000 meters, so 3.1 miles.
- SPShaan Puri
Wow.
- SPSam Parr
Um, it's insane. Another thing they do is they're, apparently in Santa Barbara there's, like, an island 25 miles away, and they're like, "Today..." He- Dr. Elliott just calls Kyle Korver. He goes, "Look, get ready, clear your schedule. Today we're-"
- SPShaan Puri
It's misogi day, bitch.
- SPSam Parr
It's misogi day, bitch.
- SPShaan Puri
Get over here. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. Today we are paddleboarding to this island, and it takes them 15 hours to do it. And it's like a, and it's like a thing where they're bleeding and they're like, "This just sucks." It makes you wanna quit. But the point of all this is to help you live life so you're not sleep- sleepwalking through life. These types of challenges, they make you appreciate life, they make you be a little bit, um, disciplined. They make you be, uh, purposeful. And Dr. Elliott, he's got two rules for these challenges.
- 5:13 – 13:12
The rules of Misogi
- SPSam Parr
Rule number one: you ha- can only have a 50% chance of actually completing the challenge, and there's many examples of where he has done a challenge where he's failed. The second thing, this is a really easy rule: don't die. That's the second rule.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Besides that, there are no rules. And so here's where it gets to my challenge to you. You've been talking about getting abs for, like, the last, like, three months, and you're doing great. You look great. I, I've been inspired by this because I see the YouTu- com- YouTube comments. Every freaking comment is about how great you look. I think you need, and so do our listeners, you need a misogi. I've, I've-
- SPShaan Puri
Well, what, what, does he list them somewhere? You said he's been doing this for years. What are, like... I need some, I need a, I need some options 'cause, uh, I would've never thought of carrying a rock underwater, a 80-pound rock underwater for three miles. That's, you know, it's hard to even brainstorm. Does he have good ones?
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. So they, they, they can be fairly random. And so he actually chooses to not train a lot for them, but in your case, it could be like- Today I'm gonna walk 30 miles, or today I'm gonna walk 20 miles. And you actually don't, a lot of times you don't wanna plan for it too much because then that gives you too much of an edge to actually get it done. Or it could be like I'm going to, in your case, it could be I'm gonna carry two 45 pound kettle bells for 10 miles, and that will take you probably 12 hours. Something like that. Like a crazy challenge. Or, uh, you're gonna ride your bike from LA to San Francisco. Uh, just like a, a, a crazy challenge like that that is only a 50% chance of completing it. And so I need you to have one of those.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] What about you? What, what's yours? [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
I've picked one.
- SPShaan Puri
Okay.
- SPSam Parr
So this, this, this August I'm doing a 50 mile running race, and I'm gonna try and run that race at 10-minute per mile pace, which is really challenging for me. And the ch- most challenging part is I don't even know I'm gonna be able to finish this. But... Or, 'cause I think I'm gonna get hurt. I think, like, there's a good chance I get hurt just training for it. But I want you to pick one.
- SPShaan Puri
Let me tell you why I like this. Let me tell you why I like this. Number one, anything that's like, there's this Japanese word that we don't have. I always love the end of those sentences. So that's, that's the first thing. The first company I ever started was called Sabi, Sabi Sushi, and Sabi is this word that, uh, the Japanese have for basically finding, uh, beauty in the imperfection of things. And, like, we just don't have that word in English. And, and, you know, I... So I like this. Any time there's a Japanese word that we don't have the equivalent of. Second thing I like about this, I like the way that he did it where it's not a thing you're training for all year that you know about. You kinda said both ways. You were like, "You prepare all year and then you do the thing," but then you also said he's, he would just be like, "F it. Today, clear the schedule. We're doing a really hard thing. I found a hard thing. We're doing the really hard thing. Today is the day." It do- it's not about preparation, it's about guts, it's about courage. It's about being in a ready state of mind and a ready physical state all year so that whenever adventure calls, you can do it. I kinda like-
- SPSam Parr
Exactly
- SPShaan Puri
... that a lot more.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, so Jesse Itzler is the one who adapted it to the 364 days. He, that was a, a beautiful phrasing I think. But it is more so, uh, are you ready to do this? And so you have to be ready at all times.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
What does Nate Diaz, what does Nate Diaz say, one of our favorite fighters? He goes-
- SPShaan Puri
I stay ready so I don't have to get ready. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Nate goes, "Warriors are always ready to roll."
- SPShaan Puri
Right. I'm a ninja.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Ninjas don't warm up. Uh, so, [laughs] so I do like the idea of misogi. I am down to do a misogi. I wanna kinda brainstorm what a fun one might be. Or I might just go the, the other way, which is to say, sometime in the next, let's call it three months, I'm gonna find something. I will notice something, a challenge that kinda scares me, and that's the day that I have to do it. That's the day. Cancel the podcast, cancel the meetings. I gotta do this. And you know, one misogi that I think everybody could take right now, one mission-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... is to go to youtube.com, type in My First Million, and subscribe to the channel, because we have crossed 400,000 subs. And I gotta tell you, dude, I'm at gymnastics yesterday, and, uh, you know, gymnastics is basically like part kids' gymnastics, part, like, fatherhood anonymous. It's, like, all dads in there with their daughters usually. And, um, we're all just, you know, taking part. So one guy, he goes, "Hey, were you the guy who did that... Did you talk to Tony Robbins?" [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
I was like, "Oh." Yeah, he's like, "Dude, I saw you on YouTube." And I was like, "Oh yeah, that's great. Did you watch it?" He's like, "Yeah, it was awesome." He's like, "What is that?" I was like, "Oh, I got this podcast." Next week he comes in and he goes, "Dude, I saw three more episodes. Really like it." He goes, he goes, "You know, I'm impressed. You guys got like 400 something thousand subscribers. But also I feel like you should have a million." [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
I was like, "Wow, the audacity [laughs] to, to tell me how many subscribers we sh-" He, he... But he said it in a complimenting way. He was like, he's like, "You guys are dropping gold." He's like, "That thing about the A+ problems, I love that shit, man. Those, that was good."
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
He's like, "I'm surprised you don't have a million subscribers." And I was like, "I'm surprised, too." So to save me from future gymnastics embarrassment, go to YouTube, subscribe to the channel. All right.
- SPSam Parr
That's a g- that's a great reason. All right, everyone, a quick break to tell you about HubSpot, and this one's easy because I'm gonna show you an example of how I'm doing this at my company. When I say I, I mean not my team, I mean I'm the one who actually made this. So I've got this company called Hampton. You can check it out, joinhampton.com. It's a community for founders. And one of the ways that we've grown is we've created these surveys where we'll ask our members certain questions that a lot of people, a lot of times people are afraid to ask. So things like what their net worth is, how their assets are allocated, all these, like, interesting questions. And then we'll put it in a survey. And I went and made a landing page. So you can check it out at joinhampton.com/wealth. You can actually see the landing page that I made. And the hard part with this is with Hampton we are appealing to a sort of a, a higher end customer, sort of like, like a Louis Vuitton or a Ferrari. So I needed the landing page to look a very particular way. HubSpot has templates. That's what we used. We just changed the colors a little bit to match our brand. Very easy. They have this drag and drop version of their landing page builder, and it's super simple. I'm not technical and I'm the one who actually made it. And once it's made, I then shared it on social media and we had thousands of people see it and thousands of people who gave us their information. And I can then see over the next handful of weeks this is how much revenue came in from this wealth survey that I did. This is where the revenue came from. So it came from Twitter, it came from LinkedIn. Whatever it came from, I can actually go and look at it and I can say, "Oh, well, that worked, that didn't work. Do more of that, do less of that." And if you're interested in making landing pages like this, I highly suggest it. Look, I'm actually doing it. But you can check it out. Go to the link in the description of YouTube and get started. All right, now back to MFM.
- SPShaan Puri
All right, so back to misogi. So the... I like the idea of the challenge. I accept. I will find what it's gonna be. Um, but you know what I really like about this? I have avoided things like this. Like, any time somebody's like, "Oh, I'm doing a Ultra, Ultraman race-"
- 13:12 – 15:34
Shaan challenges Sam to not be bothered
- SPShaan Puri
I have a challenge back to you. You gave me a challenge that's gonna be very hard for me, 'cause you know I'm a lazy motherfucker. I'm a, I'm a dainty guy. I don't really get my, I don't like getting my hands scraped up. So I accept your challenge, but I'm gonna give you one back. So you gave me what I'll call the macro challenge. The big p- the big, hard spectacle challenge, right? I'm gonna climb this mountain with my fingernails. Like, whatever. Some shit like that. I'm gonna g- [laughs] I'm gonna give you the micro. The micro challenge that I've given myself many times, and I've actually never completed this, but I've tried many times, that I will give you, 'cause I think for people like you, the hard thing, honestly, let's be honest, is not that hard. You're gonna do this 50-mile thing. You're gonna succeed at it, and you know that. That's the thing about you, dude. You know you can do stuff like this.
- SPSam Parr
No, I, I-
- SPShaan Puri
That's why you're attracted to this. Just be honest
- SPSam Parr
... I'm, I'm attracted to it because I love the glory of, like, getting it done, and I love-
- SPShaan Puri
Correct
- SPSam Parr
... like proving to myself.
- SPShaan Puri
And you believe-
- SPSam Parr
But no, I'm, I'm scared
- SPShaan Puri
... you believe you will get it done. But you believe you will get it done.
- SPSam Parr
I believe I will get it done.
- SPShaan Puri
Okay. Agreed. Here is a hard one for you. For the next 24 hours, or for any 24-hour period, I challenge you to not be bothered by anything for 24 hours. A zero complaint and a zero bothered 24 hours.
- SPSam Parr
That's a great challenge.
- SPShaan Puri
See, see if you can do it. It is so hard. I have tried this for, like, for years. [laughs] And I've tried it, like, consciously, meaning like, "Okay, today I'm gonna do it," probably at least 50 times, and I'm over 50, but I get closer and closer each time, and it really points out, it's like, damn, I threw it all away for that just because that little thing happened. And-
- SPSam Parr
Is it challenging-
- SPShaan Puri
That's my challenge
- SPSam Parr
... is it, d- so I can't complain about something mentally or, or, or only verbally?
- SPShaan Puri
You can't have the thought. No, no, no, forget about saying it. That's easy. You can't have the thought. Don't be bothered.
- SPSam Parr
All right.
- SPShaan Puri
Do not feel bothered for 24 hours. See if you can do it, 'cause obviously we all know logically we have a beautiful, charmed life. Like, all of us. Anybody who's, you know, healthy, living in the Western world, like, life is better than it's ever been in all of history. Um, yet we are in our heads complainers, and we are annoyed by things, and we are upset by things, and we are frustrated by things. We really shouldn't be, and this is a, it's a micro challenge, and you get no medals for this. Honestly, you get no glory for this, but I think it's very valuable, so I give you that challenge back.
- SPSam Parr
I, I think that's a great challenge, and I'll, I wanna r- I wanna wrap this up, and I'll only spend, uh, uh, two minutes on this, but there's three challenges that I think are interesting if the, if they interest you.
- SPShaan Puri
Okay.
- SPSam Parr
I don't think, I don't think you could do the f- uh, we'll see. One, and we gotta talk about this is, like,
- 15:34 – 16:38
The Speed Project
- SPSam Parr
a business podcast. These guys have turned these into businesses. The first one is called The Speed Project. I keep seeing people talk about this, but check this out. It's an underground race, meaning there's no website. You, you can't really find details about it. I don't even... You have to apply for it, and I don't even know how you apply for it, but it's a race from Santa Monica to Las Vegas. You get four friends to do it, and you, and there's no rules, there's no route. They, they just show up at the start line and they go, "All right, go. See you in Vegas." And the, and the organizers go to Vegas, and the first group of people who arrive, and you have to run the whole time, and you can't go on highways. Those are the only two rules. The first people who get it, they win. The second one, and this is called The Adventurous, of which we've talked about. They do this thing called a monkey run, where you're on a mini motorcycle throughout Africa, and it's something like 1,000 miles or something like that, and it takes, like, uh, eight days or something like that. These guys are hilarious. I met with the owner.
- SPShaan Puri
Are these the guys with amazing website copy?
- SPSam Parr
The amazing website copy.
- SPShaan Puri
That's what it is.
- SPSam Parr
I met with the owners. They're doing millions of year, uh, in revenue, and I actually think this could be a potentially much larger business than it already is. I think it's a decent
- 16:38 – 17:30
The Monkey Run
- SPSam Parr
business.
- SPShaan Puri
So let's, let's go into this. All right. So website, so theadventurists.com. It says, "Giant adventure. Tiny motorcycle." All righty. Great headline. Then it says, "The Monkey Run," and it goes, [laughs] "The Monkey Run is pretty stupid. It's like a jungly, mountainy, deserty velvet glove of adventuring joy, so grab your sweaty hand and shove it inside. There's nothing like the sensation of a monkey bike between your thighs as you thunder slowly along dirt roads with absolutely no idea where you are. As you glance up, there, staring down at you like a baby ant in a tininess competition, might be some of the highest mountains on earth. Imagine endless jungles lying in wait to punch your cheeky face with a fist of adventure. Imagine deserts that stretch far beyond the horizon at your woefully underpowered two-wheeled children's toy."
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
"Behold." The p- behold, people, The Mighty Monkey Run.
- SPSam Parr
That's awesome, right? It, I think it's, like, five grand, and they do a ton of these, and they're picking up steam. And
- 17:30 – 19:58
Barkley Marathon
- SPSam Parr
the last one, this is the craziest one. It's called the Barkley Marathon. It's created by this guy who has a nickname called Lazarus Lake. I don't know why. But basically he started this [laughs] marathon. It's 100 miles in the mountains of Tennessee. The reason he created it was James Earl Ray is the guy who assassinated Martin Luther King. Well, he had one, at one point escaped from prison for, like, three days, and it took him something like, oh, and, or he was gone for 60 hours, and he only ran 12 miles, and this guy Lazarus Lake was like, "What a softie. I c-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... I easily could have done 100 miles through that route." And so he creates this 100-mile race inspired by the route that James Earl Ray took. And they do some crazy stuff. Uh, basically in order to get... They only allow 40 people a year to join, and they get thousands of applicants to join this 100-mile race. It has a 60-hour cutoff, so it's pretty intense. In order to join the race, you have to pay a $1.60 application fee. For some reason, dollar fi- $1.60. You also have to write a letter as to why you are good enough and why, like, this is important to you. And if you get in, he sends you not a letter of acceptance, he sends you a letter of condolences. Just says like t- this is the day that you might die.
- SPShaan Puri
Great branding. These guys are masters of branding. I remember-
- SPSam Parr
Wait, listen to this. So, I mean, we'll talk about branding, but listen to this. And then once you get accepted, the registration fee is you have to bring a license plate, for some reason a license plate. You have to bring flannels, socks, and underwear because that's what this Lazarus Lake guy, that's what he needs to, in order to live throughout the rest of his year.
- SPShaan Puri
And a vial of blood.
- SPSam Parr
And [laughs] and the, and the race starts not with a gunshot. It's when Lazarus Lake, uh, lights his cigarette, and that's when the race starts. And the, and ju- [laughs] and he made a video a few years ago where he goes... He was trying to, it was like a clickbait video where he goes, "Women are physically, uh, not capable of completing this race." And he goes on to say why, and he goes, "And if you think I'm wrong, come and prove me wrong. No woman has ever done it." Well, this year a woman finally did it. She's one of the o- uh, I think only 18 people have ever finished this race, and now she's one of them. And so he does this hilarious branding stuff, and Google this guy. He looks like a redneck hillbilly who wears Walmart camouflage and, like, fluorescent red hats like he's going hunting.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
And he smokes cigarettes all day, and he just thinks of all these insane obstacles that he could have. And so, yes, the branding on these things are, are amazing.
- SPShaan Puri
Iconic.
- SPSam Parr
And it's just so f- it's so fun, so, uh, to, to create these things, and I think there's a lot of interesting opportunities here. You just have to do whatever you think is opposite-
- SPShaan Puri
Dude
- SPSam Parr
... of the right thing
- 19:58 – 21:32
Iconic branding
- SPSam Parr
about business.
- SPShaan Puri
Look at the branding of this thing. Well, just l- I'm just on this guy's Wikipedia page. I've never heard of this one. So, um, Trail Runner Magazine calls him an evil genius, the Leonardo da Vinci of pain. [laughs] Dude, so good.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Uh, like his icon, which is him in the orange beanie lighting up the cigarette, genius. The kind of like, you have to try so hard just to even get to the starting line. Like I remember we did one of those, like a Spartan Race or Tough Mudder or whatever once, and, uh, you have to climb a wall to get to the starting line. It's like the, before the race-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... you better get through this wall. If you can't get through this wall, you're not, you, you, you should not even do this race. You, you started this by talking about the comfort crisis. I think there's something to, like this deep inner knowing that we've all become very, very soft, and, um, and people are willing to pay for pain, which sounds insane, but it also probably would've sounded insane back in the day when we all worked on, like, fields and did labor, that we'd be like, "Yeah, you know what? At some point we're all just gonna sit all day for our work." And so then there'll be a place with heavy objects. You'll just go voluntarily, pay a membership fee, and you'll go there just to lift, lift heavy objects. You know, like, "To, to move them somewhere?" "No." It's like, well, there must be crops that we're lifting.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
No, no, they're just metal. You just lift it, then what do you do? You put it down.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, you lift things up and put them down again.
- SPShaan Puri
You do three sets of five.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Like three sets of five? What are you talking about? And so I think, uh, these are just the modern day gyms, right? Like these are the modern day gyms, and the beautiful part about this is not only do you get the pain, you get a story to tell too.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
You get to go, you get the social, social cred, uh, which is the key part of all these businesses.
- 21:32 – 23:18
"The definition of luxury is dominating your customer"
- SPSam Parr
I heard this quote the other day from the CEO of a luxury brand, and he goes, "The definition of luxury is dominating your customer." And I was like-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... "That's one of the greatest things I've ever heard."
- SPShaan Puri
Wow. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Because if you think about it-
- SPShaan Puri
Say that again, dude. Say that again.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
That's a MFM classic right there. W- w- what, who said this?
- SPSam Parr
Um, I s- heard it on Acquired, the podcast. I think it's attributed to the guy who runs, uh, Louis Vuitton Group. Uh, and I think, what's his name? Um-
- SPShaan Puri
Arnault
- SPSam Parr
... Bernard. Yeah. And he goes, uh... I think. Uh, but he says the d- he goes, "Luxury means dominating your customer." And what's that mean? So Ferrari, in order to buy a Ferrari, you have to get on a wait list. If you wanna sell your Ferrari after w- you're done with it, you can't. You've gotta, like, jump through all these hoops. If you wanna go and buy a Louis bag, I believe you ha- in mo- in many cases, you have to go set up an appointment to go and, um, and actually purchase the thing. And so I heard this quote, and this has changed so much of my thinking. Uh, and it relates to this race. It l- relates to other things, of making your customer jump through hoops in order to acquire the good makes it so much more valuable. The problem is, is that's really hard to pull off. But if you can pull it off, if you have the, the will and discipline in order to, like, take this risk, it's pretty badass and it creates a true cult.
- SPShaan Puri
I, I think that's a, an awesome insight. I'd like to tell you about a luxury brand that I was gonna bring up anyways. Now, when you think of luxury, typically you'll think of what? Like Louis Vuitton, like, you know, these sort of, uh, fashion, fashion brands, right?
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
How much does a Louis Vuitton bag cost?
- SPSam Parr
A cheap one maybe is 2,500. I imagine a really expensive one is 20, 20 grand.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, let's say five grand on average for a-
- SPSam Parr
Okay
- SPShaan Puri
... for a, a LV bag. Okay, five grand. That's, that's okay. Also maybe child's play compared to some other luxury brands. You talked about Ferrari. Ferrari average price point is what, like-
- SPSam Parr
Maybe 250 or 300. I don't know
- SPShaan Puri
... Yeah, that's
- 23:18 – 28:46
Shaan's favorite luxury brand: Harvard
- SPShaan Puri
what I thought. Okay, so I have another luxury brand that costs about 200 to 250K. Um, do you know which one I'm thinking of?
- SPSam Parr
No. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Harvard.
- SPSam Parr
Harvard. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Colleges. Top, top flight universi- uni- universities are part luxury brand, part daycare, part education, part insurance policy. Shout out to Peter Thiel, who first pointed this out. And, um, I just wanted to use this to talk about a very fascinating business. So there's a tweet that, uh, somebody put up. Uh, this guy pointed out one of the, one of the great examples of niches and riches. And the niche that he chose is basically this guy's in China and opens up a college merch shop. And he's like, "Dude, I walked into this merch shop. It's busy as hell at all times." And he's like, "They're just selling, like, Harvard sweatshirts and Yale sweatshirts and Princeton sweatshirts to- Chinese people who don't go to Ya- Harvard, Yale, or Princeton and don't have any intention to. It's just a luxury brand that is [laughs] that is being, uh, you know, promoted here, uh, in this here. He goes, "I wanna import American college merch in China. This shop here sell- sells Harvard and Stanford branded hoodies, and they print millions of dollars." But I saw this firsthand. So when I lived in China, I finished high school in China. And, uh, you know how here you have like Kaplan and you have like other like kind of SAT prep courses?
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
Uh, I think when I was... So I went to school in Texas, and then I moved to China. And in Texas, the number of people who were doing these SAT prep courses were kinda like who you would expect. It's the kids doing AP classes, honor roll type stuff. Maybe 20% of my school was doing it at the time. I don't know if that's just my experience, but that's what it was. One out of every five. In China, it was six out of every five. Every single kid did SAT prep. Every single kid wanted to go to US universities, and every single kid and their parents, like revered these American university brands. And I just, uh, you know, in America you could start- you could sell these licensed college gear. By the way, these are not dupes. These are, these are like officially licensed, I guess. And so you could sell officially licensed college gear, and it does okay. It's not like the best niche to be in. But it's just a great example of like finding a niche where the market is actually bigger if, like, you know, the market for water is bigger, um, in a desert than in a grocery store.
- SPSam Parr
Right.
- SPShaan Puri
And basically that's what this guy did. He took the water to the desert and, uh, took these luxury brands over there, or took these luxury college brands over there. And I thought this was great.
- SPSam Parr
He's doing it right now?
- SPShaan Puri
No, this guy just posted about the store but I guess it's this, uh, Brandy Melville store that's doing it. But I just thought this was a very smart thing that this company is doing selling this gear there. And I've seen kind of like the demand for US college elite universities as like a Louis Vuitton style, uh, you know, symbol.
- SPSam Parr
Do you wanna know a little bit of history? This is very weird, but I recently [laughs] read a book called How j- how J- Japan Saved American Fashion. And the story is basically after World War II, America takes over Japan. The Japanese are like, "These Americans are gonna come over and crush us." Well, uh, America's rule at the time was we're gonna try and be kind, and hopefully they're gonna, we're gonna buy some goodwill and it's gonna turn out okay, and they did. And so these Japanese start becoming friends with the American soldiers. They start learning about American culture. And for some reason, this guy named, uh, uh, Kensuke Aschi- Ashizu, um, he creates this fashion brand and he calls it Ivy Prep Fashion. And, [laughs] and so he like sees old pictures, or they're not old, but at the time from the '50s, of like Brooks Brothers, uh, ads. He just sees these 'cause one of the American soldiers has it and he goes, "Wow, everyone who lives on Harvard's campus must dress like a Brooks Brother magazine. We're gonna make this popular." And at the time, uh, the Japanese were very conservative with their dress. The prep fashion was considered a little bit less conservative. And so he makes this a huge thing. It becomes a massive company. And that's one of the reasons why in, in some Asian cultures, this Ivy League prep is popular over there. It turns out-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, it's very popular there
- SPSam Parr
... but it t- turns out he ran this business for 10 years without ever going to America. So he goes, "I need to finally get over there to America and see what's it, it's all about." He goes to the campus of Harvard and he walks around and he's like, "You guys are wearing like cargo shorts. Why aren't you dressed like the magazines?"
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
And so have you ever like hung out with some of your like, uh, Asian friends who just came over and they dress a lot nicer than you and they like-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] That's so true
- SPSam Parr
... they like wear a better American fashion? That, that's kind of what happened with this like f- whole fashion trend was like we took the American style but we cranked it up to the extreme, so we're now like more American. We're, we're... They're the American caricature as opposed to what they really are. And so-
- SPShaan Puri
Dude, well, at Duke, uh, so Duke is kinda like these like old school like it lo- the campus looks very much like Yale or whatever. Um, it's like the Ivy of the South they call it. There was a guy named Bobo and, uh, I don't know what his real name was. I think his last name was like Bobadilla or something like that. But everybody called him Bobo. And I think he was in the international dorm but this guy would always walk around dressed to the nines. So he had like the vest, the blazer, and he was like wearing khakis. He would never wear shorts. He would never wear like athleisure shit. And he had a rolling like briefcase that he would take with him-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... ev- to every single class, no backpack. And he had like that like kinda like the beret type of cap. And at first we all kinda laughed at him but by like week three we were like, "Bobo looks pretty fly actually" [laughs] like-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And we, uh, I think, I think that's what happened. This guy came over internationally and was like, "I think this is how I'm supposed to dress." [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Right.
- SPShaan Puri
And that's all he had in his wardrobe. It was amazing.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. And, and that tends to happen. I've had a bunch of Asian friends who come over and I'm like, "Dude, you are dressed as if you read an American magazine and think that that's how we all behave, and you look way better than us."
- 28:46 – 30:39
How to put a 10% remix on an idea
- SPSam Parr
Um-
- SPShaan Puri
Well, this gave me an idea which was like, you know, how do you just, how do you put a 10% remix on an idea? So, um, I don't know if you read my 522 Tuesday thing I sent out but I had this one-
- SPSam Parr
I did
- SPShaan Puri
... um, picture in there. Do you see the McDonald's merch I put in there?
- SPSam Parr
No. Let me pull it up.
- SPShaan Puri
So there's this guy on Twitter. He's a f- he's a great follow. He's, uh, I don't know how you say his name. It's like the most French name I've ever seen. Guillaume Huyn. I don't know how you say it. Um, he's the senior marketing director at McDonald's. He's the ex-head of social. He tweeted this thing out and I, I follow this guy and he's great. He just has like really great McDonald's like marketing stuff that I, that I like to follow. And so he tweeted this thing out. He goes, "The merch from McDonald's France is a big oui" like a big yes. And, um, there's this jacket that just looks so fly and I'm like, oh my God, I want this jacket. This jacket looks amazing. I never wanted a McDonald's jacket until now I must have this McDonald's jacket. And it kinda gave me this idea which is if you take this kind of like luxury high fashion street wear type of like designer but you use them on licensed IP that's usually pretty low end casual, you get kind of an interesting result. So he did it with McDonald's. I, when I saw this college thing I was like, oh, you know, the college gear that pretty much every store sells is the same. It's sweatshirts, it's hoodies, it's like sweatpants and like T-shirts. And nobody really takes those, that same IP and does it in kinda high fashion or any kind of like luxury interesting way.
- SPSam Parr
Or sh- or street wear.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah. Or street wear. And I think that would be a good remix that you could do, um-
- SPSam Parr
I agree
- SPShaan Puri
... on this
- SPSam Parr
I agree. It's awesome. Um, I totally agree. I actually own four or five different Ivy League [laughs] sweatshirts because I got so obsessed with this. I took tours of them. I always tell people, "I toured Harvard once." It's like I, I, I bought a Groupon.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah. I have a Harvard sweatshirt.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] But I c- I completely agree. I've got my Stanford one. I completely agree. I'm
- 30:39 – 32:20
Remixing corporate merch
- SPSam Parr
into this.
- SPShaan Puri
I really wanna do this with, uh, company brands. So I wanna create a, uh, like, a rogue, uh, merch company that just does absurd merch for, uh, for tech companies 'cause, um... For two reasons. One, all merch is... All corporate merch is the same. It's the same thing. It's all hoodies, T-shirts, backpacks, vests. Like, the same socks. Like, the same shit. Um, and it's all tends to be pretty cheap. And I just thought it'd be interesting if you sold... If you did a, a, a merch company called the Absurd Merchandise Co- Corporation, um, or the Ridiculous Merchandise Corporation. And so I was like, well, what we would do is you take... First, you make categories that are not already made. So for example, um, when you were at The Hustle and you guys did ad sales, did your sales team have a gong?
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
And you bought that gong, and it's kind of an unbranded gong. You bought it off some, you know, shitty-
- SPSam Parr
Craigslist.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah. [laughs] I think somebody should make, like, the sales gong, the deal trophy, the, like, series A ring, like a class ring or an exit ring. Like, if you sell your company, you get a ring. Like, somebody should make all categories that other merch companies don't even touch. And you do limited quantities but high price points. And then the other thing I think you do is you do, like, more unique fashion, super high quality, super high price point of corporate merch. And that's like what... Like that McDonald's jacket. Like, do the equivalent of that. Um-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, man. Dude, I... If I ha- If I could purchase, like, a really cool old, uh, Apple or Mic- Like, remember how Apple used to have the, the Apple that was m- a rainbow, or how Microsoft had-
- SPShaan Puri
Yep
- SPSam Parr
... the s- the four squares that had, like, a-
- SPShaan Puri
The retro, vintage throwback stuff. I-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, man
- SPShaan Puri
... I went on Etsy the other day looking for this stuff, and I bought a bunch of things on Etsy of, like, vintage, retro tech stuff. There's not a lot out there.
- 32:20 – 34:28
Greg Isenberg gets a free jacket, starts a movement
- SPShaan Puri
But I was inspired because I went out to dinner with, uh, our buddy Greg Isenberg, and Greg shows up. [smacks lips] I haven't seen Greg in a few years.
- SPSam Parr
And he, he's, like, a cool guy.
- SPShaan Puri
And Greg's very cool. Greg has, um... Greg is like mood music. Like, if you just hang out with Greg, your n- your head starts to nod, almost like there's music-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... playing. And you're like, "Why am I just in a good mood? Why is my foot tapping?"
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
It's 'cause you're hang- It's like there's a Greg Isenberg within 10 feet of you. Um, so I'm hanging out with him, and I'm like, "Is that an IBM jacket?" Have you ever seen his IBM jacket?
- SPSam Parr
No, but it was an old?
- SPShaan Puri
So, so he's got, like, a 1980s IBM windbreaker jacket.
- SPSam Parr
That's awesome.
- SPShaan Puri
And it doesn't quite fit exactly right, but I'm like, I'm like, "Where did you get this, dude? The... What is this?" He's like, "I was in Japan." And I was like, "Okay, of course." And so he goes, "I was in Japan, and I'm on a, a train, and I'm sitting next to this guy, this older guy, and he's wearing this jacket." And I'm, like, talking to him. He's great. We have a great conversation. And at the end of the conversation, he gave me his jacket. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
I was like, "What?" Most Greg Isenberg thing to do, strike up a great conversation with somebody to the point where they're just like, "I like you. Here's my jacket." And so he, he's got this jacket. And what I told Greg, I go, "Dude, you should just turn this into one of those, like... One of those things that exists in the world for no reason but is awesome, which would be you should... And next time you have an amazing conversation with somebody, you have to give them the jacket, and then they have to give the next person the jacket, and let's see how far the jacket goes." And so I kinda wanna start this, and I wanna... So I bought one off Etsy. And I was like, [laughs] "I'm gonna buy this jacket, and I'm gonna do this. The next time I have an awesome conversation, I'm gonna give it to him, and I'm gonna say, 'The next time you have just a lovely conversation that just leaves you lit up with somebody who just spontaneous, serendipitous, not somebody you know, you must give them the jacket.' And let's see. And then when you give them the jacket, I'm gonna make, like, a Google Doc, be like, 'Jacket handed to Japanese man on train,' you know, with the date. And let's just see how far [laughs] this jacket goes."
- SPSam Parr
You better-
- SPShaan Puri
It'd be amazing
- SPSam Parr
... you better buy old stuff. Otherwise, the person will be like, "No, thanks. I'm good."
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
You can... No, it's yours. You can keep it. Um, dude, pick one of these other topics. Uh, some of these, I... sound like they might be funny, and I feel like laughing. What do you got?
- 34:28 – 38:31
Marissa Mayer's hilarious launch
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Okay, I got a funny one. Uh, if you want it funny, I got a funny one. Uh, this is... Some people are gonna be like, "You shouldn't make fun of this," but that's what this podcast is.
- SPSam Parr
I'm in. I'm in. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
This is an, an honest conversation amongst friends. [laughs] And so did you see the Ma- Marissa Mayer, uh, new app launch?
- SPSam Parr
No. What happened?
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, my God, dude. Wow. [laughs] This is, this is insane. Okay. So Marissa Mayer, who... Do you know her backstory, who she is?
- SPSam Parr
Early at Google, one of the first 20 Google people, climbed her way up, gets wealthy, then becomes CEO of Yahoo.
- SPShaan Puri
She created the product manager, like, program at Google, which then trained a bunch of people who then went on to go work at Facebook, a, a whole bunch of product people. It's like this long family tree. So she... And she's famous. She was like, you know, tested the shade of blue on the... of the Google b- search button, you know, fif- 42 times before finding the optimal shade of blue, right? Like, you know, whatever. S- pr- uh, she's supposed to be, like, you know, high product chops. Goes and then becomes the CEO of Yahoo. She's this amazing CEO apparently, but then kinda like Yahoo falters, so people are kinda like, "Was she good? Was she bad?" I don't know. Maybe it was hard to turn that around. Anyways, haven't heard from her in a lit- a little while. So she comes out of nowhere and just posts a Twitter thread and is like, "You ever been at a party and you, uh... And somebody says, 'Hey, share that photo with me,' and then they don't? Well, I'm gonna solve that problem [laughs] with my new app, Shine." And all I want you to do... And so, so look at this app. So she b- It's 2024. She creates a photo sharing app, which is, like, the most 2012 thing possible that you could do, which is the last time anybody heard of Marissa Mayer. It's like she was frozen in time, and somebody un- she's... Somebody, like, thawed her out, and she popped out and just made the same app you would make in 2012 [laughs] when the iPhone was, like, you know, just popping and people were doing photo sharing apps. So she posts this thing, and you'll see that the thread has, like, thousands of, like, you know, retweets and whatnot. And the reason why is because- Some people are like, "Oh, this is cool." And a lot of people are like, "Why is this the ugliest app I've ever seen?" [laughs] So look at the design of this app. So the-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
So just look at the pictures. I want you to give me your reaction, and then I wanna read you some of the funny comments that I saw on this.
- SPSam Parr
Uh, she's maybe past her prime in terms of, uh, knowing what's up. Like, knowing what's cool.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Like-
- SPSam Parr
Right?
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Yeah, I think so. Basically, the thing looks like a test flight app. Like, [laughs] everything is rectangular, all the colors, all the buttons are too big, all the colors are too, too boring. The fonts she chose for the main thing, literally, like... [laughs] Somebody retweeted this, they go, "Okay, cool, but why does it look like an Indian wedding invitation?" [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Which is so spot on. The font literally is the Aladdin font. It's crazy. Um-
- SPSam Parr
Why is she, why, why is she do- So Marissa Mayer is probably, I bet you, if she's not a billionaire, I bet you she's, like-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, hundreds of millions
- SPSam Parr
... w- within that, that ballpark. Why is she doing this? This seems, like, way beneath her.
- SPShaan Puri
I mean, it's fun to build things, and I think she felt this problem of like, oh, it's hard to do group photo sharing at events. Uh, you go to a party and you wanna see everybody's pictures, and it's not easy to do still. And there was a famous app Color that tried to do this way back in the day. Many, many people have tried to do the same app. And, uh, maybe it's time.
- SPSam Parr
Uh-
- SPShaan Puri
Or maybe it's time to hire a designer. One of the two things are true, [laughs] and we're gonna find out which one it is.
- SPSam Parr
I like her. I like this woman a lot. I hope, I hope she wins. The, I'll, I'll leave it at that.
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, did we do a good cop, bad cop thing there? I liked that. That was nice.
- SPSam Parr
You like her, too. I mean, she seems great.
- SPShaan Puri
I, I don't know her. I, I, I don't have anything against the person.
- SPSam Parr
I don't know her either. I, I, but her Wikipedia left a wonderful impression on the Reddit. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
But here's the thing. If you are successful and famous, and you put out a product and the product looks ugly, it's not... I, my personal belief is that it's not mean to say that the app looks really ugly. And I'm not the only one to say this. There's a lot of people saying this.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
I found it very funny that this was the case. [laughs] That's all I'm saying. I wish her well, and I have nothing against her personally. I do not know her, and, uh, she's obviously very smart. More successful than me, smarter than me, and all those usual disclaimers.
- SPSam Parr
Uh, all right, you do one more thing.
- 38:31 – 49:25
Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey?
- SPShaan Puri
Well, uh, all right. It's time for the Thrill of the Shill, which as you know is when we shill one of our companies. But before we shill, we thrill you with something interesting. And, uh, all right, so here's the interesting thing. So me and Nick, uh, Huber, we're part owners of Shepherd, but we, one of the things we've done that's been pretty cool is we do these, like, workshops or, uh, you know, haters would call them webinars, and our fans call them workshops. [laughs] So we do these together, and I thought going in, I was like, "Okay, cool. So what are we gonna do, just show up and be like, 'You Shepherd?'" And he's like, "No, no, no. Like, let's add a bunch of value." I was like, "Okay." He's like, "So let's talk about the stuff we're doing at our companies that actually works, that's not obvious, and like, kind of was an unlock for you as a CEO or manager. Like, your life before you did this tactic was one way, and after was better." And so I'm big on that. I'm like, "Oh, great. I'm gonna shine here." And we get on, and Nick tells a story that's so good that I'm like, "Where the hell did he get that from? That was awesome." And I had to follow that, and I was like, "Oh, yeah. I, I, I do metrics and KPIs." Uh, you know, just whatever. Nick's thing was so good I didn't even need to say anything else. So Nick go, comes in there and he starts talking about a monkey on a desk. Have you heard this story?
- SPSam Parr
No.
- SPShaan Puri
Okay. So he tells the story, and again, it was so good that only recently I heard it again and I was like, "Are they talking about Nick's thing?" And I realized Nick got this from Harvard Business Review. It is the number one or number two most sold article of the Harvard Business Review.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
It was this monkey on the desk thing. I'm like, "Oh, that makes so much more sense." Still, all credit to Nick for teaching it to me, but, um, it, it got me thinking, "Oh, wow, I'm not the only one who likes this." This thing is, if it's a best- if it's, like, the second-best seller, um, in all of their, their j- their articles, then that's, that's pretty good. So here's, here's the idea. So it's a, it's a rookie mistake that almost everybody makes as a manager or CEO. You build a company or you're, you're in charge. You start to hire people, and you, you're, in your mind, you're like, "Great. I hired these people. Now they're gonna take care of all these things. Now my li- I'm gonna have less work because I hired these people," right? But of course, every kinda, like, first-time manager, CEO kind of learns, well, we all pretty much suck at delegating at the beginning. And so what happens is you hire somebody. That person comes in, they're trying to do a good job, and they do... Well, he, he has this analogy of the monkey. So the monkey is, like, a problem. So he's like, "An employee walks by your office and they [knock knock] 'Hey, boss, can I come in for a second? Um, I just want, you know, I, we have this situation. We got this problem.'" And you're like, "Oh, shit. Okay, let's talk about it." And he's like, "We have this problem. Here's the situation. This is happening. What do you think we should do?" And you're like, "Uh, okay, I don't, it's not an easy answer, so I'm not sure. Let me think about it. I'll get back to you. Like, let me, let me think about it, or send me the info. I'll read it and then I'll get back to you." And he's, and what he, what this guy points out is that that sounds very reasonable, but what's happened is they took a monkey, that was th- their problem that they were responsible for. And now you've said, "Let me think about it. I'll come back to you with an answer." Or, "Let me, you know, send me the materials. I wanna read them, and then I'll come up with a decision." They've given you the monkey. The monkey's on your desk. Then the next guy walks in and says, "Hey, boss, you know, wanted to get your opinion on this. Uh, I'm thinking about doing this." And you're like, "No, no, no, I don't like that. Let me, let me edit it. Let me, let me fix that for you. You, you don't know what you're doing. Let me fix that for you and, uh, and I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll come back to you." Again, monkey's off their plate, it's on your plate. And, you know, let's say you have five direct reports, only five employees that report to you. If even... And all of them will usually have one monkey a week of, like, some unsolved problem. By the end of the month, you have 20 monkeys crying in your office. And you're like, "What the hell just happened? I hired all these people, but somehow I have more work, uh, than I had before," right? Because I'm now responsible for solving a bunch of these problems. And so this article just basically talks about how you should handle that situation instead, like how to actually delegate it so that at the end of the day, they own that problem. So it's like first thing, you wanna be very clear with them who owns this problem. You own this problem. I don't own this problem, right? That means you're gonna be responsible for, uh, ultimately executing it, for the results of that execution, and for the final decision. If you need help or input- You can schedule a time with me. So you can't just come in and drop this problem off and now it's my problem, I gotta deal with this now. It's like we will have scheduled time where we will talk about any way that I can help you with your monkey. I can help you feed the monkey. Uh, I can help you, you know, you know, put the monkey to bed. Whatever you need to do, we're gonna have scheduled time. You don't get to just hijack my time with whenever this problem exists, right? There's only rare situations where you need to break the glass and hijack my time. Don't do it as a default. So part of it is like, um, you only help in scheduled times. The s- second is making sure they understand that this is their problem, not yours, right? You trust them with this. Nick's point is he's basically like, one of the things people do, they're very scared to do that 'cause what if they mess up? And he's like, "Well, in the short term that is painful, but in the long run it's great because what you're gonna find is people will go one of two ways. Within the first month of doing this, you're gonna either find out, wow, this person's really capable of solving that problem, like they can take care of this monkey and more monkeys. I should actually promote them. I should invest in them. They're, they're, you know, they're a keeper." And the other i- is, you know, sort of sink or swim thing. Like, if they can't handle the monkey when you give it to them, they are not the right person for the job. And you can give them feedback one time of how you think they should have handled the monkey, and if they don't do it the second time, you kinda know, well, this is not, not the right fit, and it filters them out. And so over time you only have competent people who can take care of the monkeys themselves.
- SPSam Parr
How did he tie in Shepherd?
- SPShaan Puri
Well, he's like, "You know, look, uh, you need... You need to hire great people, but when you hire them it's not like, like..." Yes, Shepherd will help you find great people, right? That's what we do. We're like, "In... You know, you need a bookkeeper. You need an assistant. You need a marketing manager. You need somebody to do SEO for you. Whatever it is that you need, we'll find you the person, but if you're not good at actually delegating them, you're not gonna ultimately get what you want out of this. You didn't come to us just for the hire. You came to us to have your problem solved with less workload for you, right? To scale your business with less work for you. That's actually why you come to Shepherd, not just to hire a person." And so his big thing was like, "If we can help people actually learn how to delegate, then they're gonna end up hiring more people 'cause they're gonna have successful hire after successful hire." Right? You're gonna have one great experience and it's gonna lead to the next great experience. And so that's kinda how he tied it in. But-
- SPSam Parr
Did-
- SPShaan Puri
... I really like this monkey on the back, um, thing, and I started to see it then. And every, every time I would come to, you know, an employee would come in with a problem, I would, you know, quickly differentiate between do we need to talk about this now, or should we just have time when we talk about things? And secondly, how do I make sure that they're not just giving me the problem? And my instinct is a problem solver. I'm a doer, and I trust myself more than I trust anyone else. So my instinct is just to do it myself just this one time. But that just this one time mentality never ends.
- SPSam Parr
But you-
- SPShaan Puri
So you end up doing that forever
- SPSam Parr
... you don't catch me as a regular one-on-one meeting type of guy, but are you?
- SPShaan Puri
I try not to have regular one-on-ones. So I think right now I probably have one, uh, uh, two, two. I have one with my assistant 'cause I'm like, hey, what I do with my assistant, which is great. So I hired my assistant off Shepherd. Uh, that's the plug. So what I tell her to do, I g- I just created a bullshit filter. I'm like, "Anything you see that comes into my inbox or anything I say in passing that is non-urgent, I need you to put it all together into one doc and schedule one hour with me, and we just knock them all out in that one hour of cleanups." Because, like, I hate when I have to, like, stop what I'm doing, my big task, and, like, just address this one little thing. Oh, my eyeglasses prescription thing. Oh, my, my kid, uh, their elementary school asked for this. Or, um, you know, this person's asking for their K1 or whatever it is, like random requests. This person's asking for this for a laptop or whatever it is. And so I said, "If, unless it has to be addressed right now, we do them on Wednesdays, we got a cleanup time, and there's one doc, and we just make a game." It's like, how many of these can we knock out in one hour? I'm just gonna make decisions on the fly, and it's not gonna interrupt anything else I'm doing. So she helps me with that. Um, and so I've delegated to her, like, the entire class of things which are stuff that has to get done but is not important. It's not gonna, like, push the ball forward on my, my hopes and dreams. It's just, like, shit that's gotta get done that, um, I would rather put all together and knock out in one batch. So I have that meeting, and I have one with the CMO of my e-com business where I just, we talk about how it's going. Those are the only two that we have.
- SPSam Parr
By the way, I, um, I think your deal with Shepherd might end up being pretty good. B- I mean, you already knew that, but did you-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
I won't even name the names 'cause we'll, we'll, we'll be a Shepherd, uh, pod. But one of your competitors just raised money at a $300 million valuation, I think. It was hundreds of millions, and they showed how much revenue they added in the last 12 months, and it was jaw-dropping. Jaw-dropping. It was insane. I had no idea these things could be as big as they are. I think they had added... Do you know what I'm talking about?
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, yeah. Y- y- all the competitor, all, all the companies that are, were, like, doing this, like, the companies that are starting now I think are having a tough time or a much tougher time. It's not really gonna work out in the long run, but the ones that have been doing this for, like, four, five, six, seven years, they're benefiting from, like, this, like, work went remote, right? When work went remote, that was a big deal. Having offshore talent is just, like, a smart thing to do. It's just, like, more remote. That's fine. Uh, it's no, no extra organizational cost to you, right? The second thing, during the zero interest rate, you know, period, everything was about growth, growth, growth. Nobody cared about profits. Now everybody cares about profits. Well, one of the biggest costs to every business is their labor, and if you can basically reduce your labor cost by even, you know, percentage points, that all drops straight to the bottom line. And so your, your, your EBITDA goes up. When your EBITDA goes up, the company value goes up. Like, that became the focus for a lot of real companies now. Um, and I think the last thing is that, I don't know, people like me and others have, have started to talk more openly. Like, it used to be, and maybe still is, I don't know, kind of a douchey thing to be like, "My assistant," or whatever. Like, "I have an assistant." Like, it's kind of, like, a thing most people wouldn't brag a- about or talk about, but a lot of people are now more open about, like, "Hey, here's what I, here's what I did. Here's how it's benefited me. Here's how, here's the systems I used to set it up so that if you're in a similar position, maybe that'll benefit you." And that, I think that gospel started to spread.
- SPSam Parr
It was also more fringe. So, like, for example, before COVID, it was like, "This company's all remote? Wow, that's so crazy. It's almost as crazy as, like-"
- SPShaan Puri
Right
- SPSam Parr
... "a c- a company serves lunch. That's insane. They have, like, free washer. Like, they'll clean your clothes?"
- SPShaan Puri
He doesn't wear deodorant?
- SPSam Parr
Like-
- SPShaan Puri
Ah.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
Interesting. Bold choice. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Like, like, it was, it was insane, and then Shepherd and a couple other people actually did a really good job of kinda repositioning it- Uh, they packaged it a lot nicer 'cause obviously W- Upwork has been around forever. But it was still considered, uh, low status a bit, where it was like, "Oh, I just used Fiverr, and like I can't believe it actually worked." Whereas now companies like Shepherd, you guys, like, like your team is your team and it doesn't matter which country they're in. You know what I mean?
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
And so they've done a good job of, of repositioning it to make it seem... Well, not make it seem, 'cause it is the, the same thing, but just it made it feel better.
- SPShaan Puri
If you're not hiring with Shepherd Overseas, are you racist?
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- 49:25 – 55:07
$14K Specialty beds
- SPSam Parr
All right, let me tell you about something. So in 2017, this guy comes to my office. I was currently running The Hustle. We had just gotten going. We were probably only a year and a half in, but we had some, some, some hype, so people started talking to us. This guy named Caleb reached out to me. Caleb originally was my account manager at SendGrid, which is what we were using to send emails. I get lunch with him, whatever. I think that he's just gonna upsell me on SendGrid. Turns out he was like, "Hey man, I've been working on this idea. I've been working on nights and weekends on it, but I'm gonna make a bed for kids who have autism, Down syndrome, a, a variety of things like that because they need a special bed. They need a bed that helps with some sensory issues. They need a bed that has a camera that can be tracked more easily." And I was like, "All right, Caleb, that sounds cool. Do you have a kid with autism? Is, is that what inspired you?" And, and I think he was like, "No, I don't... I, I, I'm unmarried. I don't have children." And I was like, "Well, this is, this is just kind of a weird, uh, like problem to solve for." He's like, "Yeah. Well, I just think it's a, a, a good s- a good problem to solve." Um, and I was like, "Well, I, I just don't ever think you're gonna pull that off, so, uh, God bless you. Uh, [laughs] start a newsletter, nerd. Uh, [laughs] you, you, you work at S- at SendGrid." Well, about a week ago I see this guy who joins Hampton and he reaches out to me and he goes, "Hey, you remember me?" I go, "Caleb, of course I remember you. How are you?" He goes, "Well, that thing you told me that was silly, Cubby Beds, it's a thing now. And we bootstrapped the entire thing." And he was like... He sent me the website, so you guys can, you can check it out at cubbybeds.com. It's amazing. And I go, "I cannot believe you pulled this off." And he shows me pictures. He's like, "Yeah. Look, here I am in my garage. We are assembling the piping. No factory wanted to take us on, so I just had to like buy a bunch of piping in order to like make the original bed, the MVP. We s- we sold a bunch of it." I think the beds cost five to 10 grand, and people's insurance pays for it. And at this point he's gonna do many tens of millions in revenue this year. And so I think this is just proof that, A, I don't know if this guy actually looked up to me. Maybe he a little, he did a little bit because we had a little bit of hype and I told him it was stupid. So, A, don't listen to me, or don't listen to anyone, just do the damn thing. And, B, this is just awesome.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, this is amazing, dude. So okay, smart, smart beds for special needs. The thing looks amazing. I don't know why this is special needs. I would love to sleep in something like this.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
This, this amazing cocoon of peace and solitude. Why would I not? With like padded walls and whatnot, this is amazing.
- SPSam Parr
It's amazing. And, and if you go to the website, it looks awesome. It's like a, uh-
- SPShaan Puri
This is better than Eight Sleep. This is better than the Purple Mattress. This is better than all those companies. I love this company.
- SPSam Parr
And it costs... I, I don't, uh, I don't know the exact price. I actually am not sure if they even put it on there because people's insurance pays for it, which is just this, a whole nother beast. I'm like how on earth do you figure that out? Um, but it, I think it costs 5 to $10,000. It's quite expensive. And they are selling the crap out of these. And I was telling him, I'm like, "Dude, not only is this an awesome business, this is like one of the few things that you can make where you can make a lot of money and I think it's like actually good for the world-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, it's great
- SPSam Parr
... and everything like that." Um, can you believe this guy pulled this off? Like would you have had the same reaction to me a- as I did years ago?
- SPShaan Puri
No, I would've seen the genius in it and I would've invested on the spot.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And I would've told him, "You're a legend for doing this."
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Well, you and I are not the same.
- SPShaan Puri
So we're a little different.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Uh, but I wa- I gotta give a-
- SPShaan Puri
In the future, everybody bring your ideas to me, not Sam. He's a hater.
- SPSam Parr
I gotta give this guy-
- SPShaan Puri
Except for you, Marissa Mayer. You can go to Sam. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] I gotta give this guy a shout-out. I think it was awesome. He told me his story and I was like, "Dude, I haven't heard from you in like eight years. That's so awesome that you're doing well."
- SPShaan Puri
Well, I love, I love that it's, yeah, covered by insurance. I'm sure that was not simple to do that, to get that done. Um, but now you have this $14,000 bed that's, uh, yeah, I, I just put it in my cart. It's f- about $14,000.
- SPSam Parr
What are all the features that it has? So it has like a camera, a camera system that I guess is good, and it has the wi-
- SPShaan Puri
Remote monitoring. Yeah, like the kind of safety kind of like... It's like a contained thing that has like soft, you know, walls and whatnot so you can't get hurt. Um, it's a bed besides that, yeah.
- SPSam Parr
It vibrates. It has a light that come, uh, uh-
- SPShaan Puri
It has, has a camera
- SPSam Parr
... and it has lights that like dim with the sunset and come up with the, with the sunrise. It has camera, or it has speakers in there so it can help with meditation and like certain breathing patterns. It vibrates. It's pretty cool. It's a pretty cool bed and-
- SPShaan Puri
I, okay
- SPSam Parr
... it's been totally bootstrapped.
- SPShaan Puri
I honestly think somebody should make this for adults. Are you, am, am I wrong? Like should there not be a version-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... of this for like the Huberman acolytes who are like, "You know, I need to optimize my sleep"? W- why not?
Episode duration: 55:07
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Transcript of episode jXGsj75R_m0
