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3 Startup Ideas: Mouse Jigglers, Employee Monitoring Softwares and Photoshop Copycats

Episode 608: Sam Parr and Shaan Puri react to the $22M "fake-work" app, mouse jigglers & Ryan Serhant’s Netflix show.

Sam ParrhostShaan Purihost

Jul 12, 202453mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

60 min read · 11,998 words

0:00 – 6:50
Devices helping the overemployed cheat on their bosses
1. SPSam Parr
  All right, so here's the deal. I have an update on a story that we talked about about two years ago. Partially I wanna, like, tell you something cool. Partially I just wanna nerd out with you on this topic because I'm shocked by it. [upbeat music] So the pandemic hits in, what, 2021. We all go remote, and you and I start talking about something that was fascinating. So basically, there's this weird Venn diagram of MFM listeners. There's this shithead, and then there's this ambitious person, and they overlap to create these ambitious shitheads.
2. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
3. SPSam Parr
  And what do ambitious shitheads do during the pandemic when we all go remote? They do this thing called overemploy. Have you heard of overemployment?
4. SPShaan Puri
  I think is overemployed when you basically, one guy has three jobs, but the three jobs don't know each other.
5. SPSam Parr
  Yeah. It's like a culture. It's like this tactic, it's a strategy. I don't know what you call it, but it's very weird, and it ex- it explodes. And basically, a small group of people, they go and get multiple jobs because they're like, "Dude, I'm working at Airbnb. I'm only working 20 hours a week. I get paid $150,000. I definitely can also try and get a job at Facebook."
6. SPShaan Puri
  Right. Working remote was the key unlock, right?
7. SPSam Parr
  It was the key unlock where they could kind of hide. And this story we talked about, the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times has talked about. It's kinda been popular, but I have an update on this story, and it's very fascinating to me. So last week, Wells Fargo made an announcement where a couple dozen of their employees, specifically ones who worked in the wealth management unit, they laid them all off. And they laid them off because they found that they were using these devices that you put your mouse on top of, and it's almost like a treadmill. And it makes it seem like the mouse is constantly moving on their computer. And they also did it with keypads where they had this device above their keyboard where it was typing stuff. And the reason they did that is because what has happened recently since the pandemic is there's been software that has absolutely exploded where it monitors employees' work. Now, this has already existed in remote-first companies, but now many people are remote, and this type of software has exploded to the point where something like 50% of all employers who have remote workers use some type of spy software. That's not the right word, but you know what I mean. Like, some type of, like-
8. SPShaan Puri
  Productivity detection monitoring. [laughs]
9. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, spy software is more realistic, but that's, but that's, like, int- interesting. Uh, but all right, and so back to that Venn diagram of shitheads and ambitious people. Here's what they're doing. They're using these things, I'm gonna tell you all about them, where they're exactly what, what, what the Wells Fargo folks were using, where they're like a treadmill for your mouse. So they're called mouse jigglers, and they're ... It's crazy. Now, there's a company called Hubstaff and, uh, Teramind, I think it's called. There's two of them. They have something like 5,000 companies amongst them, and they are employee tracking software.
10. SPShaan Puri
  Okay.
11. SPSam Parr
  And they did this survey where they looked at a million of their customers or a million users using their spying/tracking software, and they found that roughly 7% of the million people who are using this software were using these mouse jigglers or something like it.
12. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
13. SPSam Parr
  And then the, one of the CEOs of the companies, they go, "The true number is actually probably almost certainly higher," because they found out that they, like, were kinda being really conservative about this. And I was shocked. This market is so much bigger than I ever thought, and I wanna tell you about a few people who are winning in this market. The first one. On Amazon, go to Tech8, so the word tech and then the number eight USA.
14. SPShaan Puri
  So Tech8 USA. This is another mouse jiggler. By the way, mouse jiggler is my new go-to diss for somebody who works at a computer all day. [laughs] Oh, he's just a mouse jiggler. [laughs]
15. SPSam Parr
  It's the best. So there's this company called Tech8 USA. They're based in Austin, Texas, and what they do is you can buy these things for, like, 30 or $40, and you can, like, add, like, a cool design to it. Like, what they're doing-
16. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs] Like a croc
17. SPSam Parr
  ... is they're basic- They're helping you to commit fraud or do something a little bit strange, and you could add, like, a cool, like, USA flag to it. Or you can add-
18. SPShaan Puri
  By the way, best sales pitch ever. Look at this thing. The, in the product description, the last one: "A thoughtful gift for loved ones. Our undetectable mouse mover makes excellent gifts for anybody-"
19. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
20. SPShaan Puri
  "... who spends a long time at their computer. Whether it's a hardworking professional or a dedicated student who values convenience and efficiency, this mouse juggler is a practical and thoughtful present. Show your appreciation. Help them stay productive and stress-free." [laughs] What?
21. SPSam Parr
  It's sorta like, it's sort of like when the vape makers ... Like, when I was in high school, we would buy vape machines when weed was still illegal, and, like, they're like, "Yeah, it's for tobacco," but, like, they put, like, a, they somehow use, like, the equivalent of a wink in all of their, like, description, like-
22. SPShaan Puri
  But look, look at this, like, picture. It's like, "Balance your work life," and it just shows someone's computer and the mouse jigglers just ran. Like, the person's not sitting there. The mouse jiggler's just moving the thing, and it, it says, "Walk the dog. Relax. Water the flowers. Have a party with friends [laughs] while your mouse does the work for you." By the way, was there any doubt that the laziness device would be made in America? Like, of course, it's made here. Like you [laughs] we, we didn't think it was gonna be made in China. [laughs] This thing's gonna be made here.
23. SPSam Parr
  Well, and I looked up ... Like, I was trying to figure out who's the founder and, like, it's, like, a weird business where they don't talk about it. And I also think it's maybe weird to be making these devices, particularly if your company is remote. Like, the CEO of this company's like, "Yeah, not a chance. We're not gonna go remote." But it's really fascinating that this business is, I think, thriving. So Tech8 USA, one of the winners in this category.
24. SPShaan Puri
  Dude, they stole your dating profile. Smart, beautiful, undetectable.
25. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
26. SPShaan Puri
  That's yours. [laughs] How dare they?
27. SPSam Parr
  It's pretty funny that that's, that, that's a thing. The second thing that's thriving, and this is, uh, the third thing is the most interesting, but I'm gonna tell you a quick one about Hubstaff. So Hubstaff is a software company that does the tracking to see if you're using th- these devices. The guy started it in, like, 2019 as, like, a side project, and if you Google Hubstaff revenue-
28. SPShaan Puri
  By the way, not to be confused with today's sponsor Cue the ad.
29. SPSam Parr
  All right, guys, really quick. So back when I was running The Hustle, we had this premium newsletter called Trends. The way it worked was we hired a ton of analysts and we created this sort of playbook for researching different companies and ideas and emerging trends to help you make money and build businesses. Well, HubSpot did something kinda cool. So they took this playbook that we developed and we gave to our analysts, and they turned it into an actionable guide and a resource that anyone can download, and it breaks down all the different methods that we use for spotting upcoming trends, for spotting different companies that are gonna explode and grow really quickly. So if you wanna stay ahead of the game and you wanna find cool business ideas or different niches that most people have no idea they exist, this is the ultimate guide. So if you wanna check it out, you can see the link down below in the description. Now, back to the show.
6:50 – 8:36
$22M ARR side hustle catching mouse jigglers
1. SPShaan Puri
  All right, we're back. [laughs]
2. SPSam Parr
  [laughs] So Hubstaff, the guy... If you Google Hubstaff revenue, you'll see that he started it, I think, in '19 or '20, pre-pandemic, and it was, like, a side project for him.
3. SPShaan Puri
  Oh, no way. 22 million in ARR?
4. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, and when he started it, he's like, "I just hit 10,000 in MRR. I just hit, uh, 50,000 in MRR." And then on Indie Hackers he's like, "I just hit 200,000 in MRR." Pandemic hits, explodes to where now it's doing 22 million in, in recurring revenue. Who knows what that, that's worth, but for sure nine figures, and it started as a side project, and he's completely exploded his business. Totally bootstrap.
5. SPShaan Puri
  You know it's exploding because it, he used to be building in public, like, he had a bare metrics page, and if you go to their public dashboard now, it's gone. [laughs] It, it got too big. Too big to be n- to need to, to grow in public here. But this is super impressive. So this is 20 million-plus ARR. He started this during the pandemic. That is so smart.
6. SPSam Parr
  It's awesome, right?
7. SPShaan Puri
  And it looks like it's got, you know, 15,000-plus paying customers. Wow, that's impressive. D- well, by the way-
8. SPSam Parr
  It's impressive
9. SPShaan Puri
  ... would you use something like this? Like, for Hampton, would you install something like this? 'Cause I'm not gonna lie, I'm more afraid of this than I am, like, my wife cheating on me. You know what I mean? Like, it would break my little heart to find out that somebody on my s- one of my teams is just running three jobs and they got a mouse jiggler all day, and, uh, that would really make me sad, and it kinda makes me wanna use something like this to find out if someone's cheating on me.
10. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, I think I'm, I'm open to it. I like to think that I'm s- our company is small enough that, and we like... I would, we would know. But yeah, like, it's, it's a very questionable, like I que- I, I, I have to ask myself, would I be open to this? And the answer is definitely maybe.
11. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
12. SPSam Parr
  Like, I'm not, like, against it.
13. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs] The answer is yes soon. [laughs]
14. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, so it's interesting. Now
8:36 – 11:18
Career polygamy support at r/overemployed
1. SPSam Parr
  let me tell you the third winner of this whole thing. So there is a subreddit called Overemployed, and Overemployed at the time when we talked about it, I think they were at 20 or 30,000 members on subreddit, on that subreddit. And it was basically they had this whole vernacular of, like, my J1, my J2, my J3, meaning their job one, job... And they have all these, like, phrases and things like that. Well, the moderator of that subreddit launched a website called overemployed.com, and if you go to that website, he talks about his background and why he started it. He also refers you to, like, personal finance tools, which is, like, an affiliate play for him, and he talks about, like, he reviews different mouse jigglers and things like that, which is, like, a clear affiliate play. However, he has a community. The community is partially free, partially paid. It costs $300 a year. I'm not sure how, what percentage of people pay $300, but it's a Discord community. He has 60,000 members on his Discord of people who are following the overemployed, like, lifestyle. And I went and tried to track this guy down. His name's Isaac, and he, you don't know his last name, but his LinkedIn, he calls himself a career polygamist, and he has a whole blog-
2. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
3. SPSam Parr
  ... all about overemployed.com, and it gets-
4. SPShaan Puri
  Who's the guy? Isaac what? What's his name?
5. SPSam Parr
  He doesn't say, so his, you just-
6. SPShaan Puri
  Oh, wow
7. SPSam Parr
  ... it's just Isaac. Because he tells the story about how he had three different jobs and how he got pissed off and this, and it's like an us versus them, like, founder story. But it's kind of weird, right? Because you're not breaking the law probably, but you're definitely doing something that you're probably slightly ashamed of, or at least as an employer I would be unhappy with. And so it's this whole community, this subculture of people that's significantly larger than I ever imagined, and they're talking about these things openly, and it's very fascinating.
8. SPShaan Puri
  I went to the website. "Welcome to the secret door to financial freedom."
9. SPSam Parr
  Insane.
10. SPShaan Puri
  I've always wanted a secret door, and, uh, and he's tapped into my needs. This is crazy. "Work two remote jobs. Reach financial freedom." That's the, uh, the slogan for this website. This is crazy, dude. It's not crazy that this... Like, I knew this was happening, but theSamParr special here was to go back and check back in on this thing that we talked about two years ago and go find this guy's blog and community and Hubstaff and the 22 million in ARR. It's crazy that there's a whole ecosystem that-
11. SPSam Parr
  It's an ecosystem
12. SPShaan Puri
  ... come, come up around this one lifestyle, right? Like, you had the 4-Hour Workweek, which is about delegation, automation, and basically, like, 80/20 prioritization. And now you have overemployed, which is like the messed up cousin to the 4-Hour Workweek, where he's [laughs] like, "Look, just lie to your, lie to your company. You're gonna work the same eight hours, but for three different companies." That I, I, I'm sur- I'm surprised, I'm surprised I'm not surprised at the same time at how popular
11:18 – 15:58
Is this a good strategy for financial freedom?
1. SPShaan Puri
  this is.
2. SPSam Parr
  And let me give you one more, and what I'm about to show you, it's kinda like the equivalent of teaching your children about safe sex but really hoping that they don't do it, like, they don't have sex until whatever. Then they're like, "Sex sounds awesome. I'm gonna go do it."
3. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
4. SPSam Parr
  Because there's this guy called the overemployedguy.com, and he, I, I clicked the About page, and he has this long history of, like, how he got J1, J2, J3. And part of the story, he's got this quote. He's like, "I had a bad job and I was upset, frustrated. I wanted more money. And then it wasn't until I heard the host of My First Million mention this new trend of people in tech-"
5. SPShaan Puri
  Oh, no
6. SPSam Parr
  "... working multiple jobs [laughs] simultaneously that I was woken up to this badass community." And this is, like, the second-largest site- ... amongst the over-employed
7. SPShaan Puri
  Dude, look at this guy's logo, by the way. It's the dude with three laptops open. [laughs] I think that's one of the, the cardinal rules of this, is like you must use one machine per thing because they're gonna be tracking you, so you have to, uh, have different laptops. Like, people get caught-
8. SPSam Parr
  And he's wearing a hoodie and a mask in, where it's like clearly we all kind of agree that this is a little bit strange that you're doing this. And so I wanted to bring this story up because I'm not shocked, but I'm still shocked.
9. SPShaan Puri
  Al- also, can I get your take on this? Because if somebody's listening to this, uh, th- this is back to the safe sex thing. Somebody's listening to this, you know, we find it fascinating that this is going on, but me and you have zero desire to do this.
10. SPSam Parr
  Zero.
11. SPShaan Puri
  And maybe that's because, all right, we kind of already made it in a way. We sold our companies. We, we don't, we don't have any jobs. We don't need a, we don't need a job period. But if you were young again, would you do this? Like, if you were just working at one job and you saw this, would you be tempted to go down this path?
12. SPSam Parr
  No. I mean, I would be tempted like I'm tempted to do anything bad, like drugs. But, like-
13. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
14. SPSam Parr
  ... at the, like, in the back of my head I'm like, I, this is wrong. I, no, I think it's wrong. I think that I would not be-
15. SPShaan Puri
  This is career molly.
16. SPSam Parr
  Yeah. Like, I, I-
17. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
18. SPSam Parr
  Like, maybe occasionally it's all right, but you oftentimes regret it. No, this goes against my ethical code. Uh, I am not, I'm not in favor of this. Are y- are you?
19. SPShaan Puri
  No, not at all. Not at, not just the ethical side. 'Cause the ethical side, I think it sounds okay, but I have like a relationship with the people I work with. You know what I mean? Like, it's not a, it's not this, this nameless, faceless, giant, big corp that doesn't care about me. Like, I- I've always worked in, you know, usually smaller environments where, you know, we're a team on a mission together. And if I was doing some other mission while we're on our mission, that would feel like a, like a pretty deep betrayal. But that's just, I always worked in that s- type of environment. The second thing, though, is I just don't think it's a good strategy.
20. SPSam Parr
  I think it's a bad strategy.
21. SPShaan Puri
  If you are willing to be clever and, and hardworking enough to figure this out, like, dog, just, just either start your own business or crush it at one job and you'll make more money and work less than you will having to do this, like, thing and have to juggle this in your subconscious at all times about these lies that you're living, right? Like, living a lie is very taxing emotionally. But also, you don't need to do this. Like, one great job or one big effort, if it's your own company, will pay off. Like, go, just go up the ladder in your own company or start your own company if you're willing to do all this shit. I, I just think it's a bad strategy. It goes back to the, the thing I said the other day, like, the dumbest person in the world is a professional blackjack player. If you're smart enough to be a professional blackjack chair, player, but you're dumb enough to use it on a game that's rigged against you, like, that's on you. You, you are the, the, the, the wrong middle of the Venn diagram of super smart and hardworking, and picks terrible games, and I think this is an example of that. You are super smart and hardworking to, to figure this out, to set this up, but you're playing a dumb game. And what's the thing? Play stupid games, win stupid prizes? That's to me... That's what this is to me. I don't want a J1, J2, J3. That's, that's a bad idea.
22. SPSam Parr
  I remember in high school I had this, uh, buddy who basically took a, uh, a water bottle, like a Evian or whatever water bottle, and they undid the logo. Like they took the plastic off of the bottle, and then on the inside they wrote all the equations for the math test that they needed to memorize.
23. SPShaan Puri
  Right.
24. SPSam Parr
  And it was beautifully done. It was, the handwriting was perfect. The equations were even at sometimes in code in case they got caught, that you couldn't decipher it.
25. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
26. SPSam Parr
  And I was like, "How long did that take you?" He's like, "It took hours, but like, I made this perfect thing." And I remember thinking like, "You could have just studied."
27. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
28. SPSam Parr
  "Like, if you just studied, like, you would've got, you probably... The, uh, outcome would be the same and it's, it's way less risk."
29. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
30. SPSam Parr
  That's sorta like what's going on here.
15:58 – 20:22
Big Desk Energy
1. SPShaan Puri
  transition, all right. So speaking of overemployed, speaking of doing multiple things, when I first heard about what the CEO was doing, I kinda groaned, 'cause I invested in this company, and the company was doing well. And then the CEO launches a newsletter, and I'm like, "Bro, why do you need a newsletter? Do you really need a newsletter?" And it's excusable because today's sponsor is Beehiiv. They make the easiest platform to create newsletters, so on one hand it made sense. He was using his own product, and that's, it seemed cute. But I didn't really fully get it until I talked to him and I tried to understand why is he doing this. And so this is the story of, um, of Tyler Dank starting Big Desk Energy. So basically, we've talked about this before. There's a great playlist on Spotify if you need work music called Big Desk Energy, and it this guy Tyler Dank, founder of Beehiiv, and he just made a playlist of songs he listens to while he works. And I like music, but I have poor taste, so I used to use this thing all the time because I was like, "Great, I, I don't know how to find cool music." Like, Tyler is kind of a cool guy.
2. SPSam Parr
  Right.
3. SPShaan Puri
  He's a cool-looking guy. He's a young guy.
4. SPSam Parr
  He's like a New York Manhattan hip kid.
5. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah, but he, like, he lives in the, on the beach somewhere. Like, he's, he's a cool dude. So I got to borrow his music. I was using his playlist. But then, then his playlist became a newsletter. Okay, interesting. Why? And now it has... It, it, he was like, "I wanna do this because I wanna dog food my own product, I wanna build in public, and I wanna just live and breathe all the pain points of my customers so that I can be better at building product." When he said that, I realized, oh, this makes a lot of sense because too many times do the product builders get so busy they get disconnected from the actual product usage. The analogy I'll give is every night my kids, I don't put them to bed. My wife puts our kids to bed now. We have, like, a new bedtime routine where she's able to do all three kids at once. And so the two older kids, they wanna eat fruit in bed every night. No matter what we fed them for dinner, they're like, "Can we have fruit?" Okay. So I have to do this, like, 20-minute fruit cutting exercise. I'm cutting apples and grapes and strawberries. I put it in a bowl. I make it look nice. I go deliver it to the bed. They're so excited. They're watching their, their little bedtime stories or whatever, and they eat the fruit. And I've been doing this [laughs] for like three weeks now- And then finally, yesterday, my daughter was just like, "Hey, can Mama cut the fruit?" And I was like, "What? Why? Dad always cuts the fruit. What do you mean?" And she's like, "Well, you do it bad." I'm like, "What do you mean?" She goes, "Well, you do it, like, the way you cut the strawberries, like, I can't eat it like that. They're too big." And I was like, "What do you mean? Uh, why didn't you say anything?" She's like, "Well, you're not there. You're downstairs cutting the fruit, and then you hand it to me. And, like-
6. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
7. SPShaan Puri
  ... by the time I try to eat it, you're not there for me to tell you." And so for three weeks, I had this no feedback loop. I didn't know how she likes her strawberries cut. And for too many p- CEOs, that's, that's them with their product. They don't know how the customers like the strawberries cut. And one thing that Tyler did that was very, very smart for Beehiiv was launch his own newsletter, figure out how to grow it to 30,000, figure out how to monetize it, do all of the things that a user of his product would wanna do. He did it as the CEO, and he told me that has been huge for them on their product development, 'cause now he can just look at the roadmap and be like, "That shit doesn't matter, these things do," because he's actually lived it, breathed it. He knows how the users want their strawberries cut.
8. SPSam Parr
  Well, and he built a lot of this at Morning Brew, which is... They, like, took a lot of, like, what they learned there.
9. SPShaan Puri
  But even then, he was just the growth guy. He wasn't the guy actually writing the thing, sending the thing, getting the feedback from customers. It's very different when you fully play it out. So the guy's cool. They've got taste.
10. SPSam Parr
  This is awesome. Oh, yeah, this is all built in Beehiiv. All right, this is pretty badass. All right, I'm on board. I just signed up.
11. SPShaan Puri
  Well, well... So if you wanna create a newsletter or you wanna grow your newsletter, go to beehiiv.com, B-E-E-H-I-I-V.com. By the way, Derek Sivers, do you know him?
12. SPSam Parr
  Yeah.
13. SPShaan Puri
  He said something once that I really loved. He goes, "I made this tool that was for hosting your own website." And they, they were like, "Why? Was that the biggest business opportunity?" He goes, "No, it was a magnet." He goes, "I realized that anybody who has a cool personal website, anybody who cares enough to make a personal website, you're my people." He's like, "So I just made a tool that was useful for them. It's not even that expensive. It's pretty cheap. I undercut the market price. It's not the best business in the world, but it was amazing because it brought all these people who I, I realize that's the highest, like, signal thing. If you have your own personal website, I probably fuck with you. Like, I, I like you."
14. SPSam Parr
  My signal if I like you is if you have, uh, an income north of $2 million-
15. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
16. SPSam Parr
  ... and also you listen to Kid Rock. If you do those two things [laughs] if you do those two things-
17. SPShaan Puri
  You're me [laughs]
18. SPSam Parr
  ... you're probably interesting. Um, all right, what do you got?
20:22 – 26:58
Life hack: Intentional internet consumption
1. SPShaan Puri
  I wanted to read you something. So I think here's another little life hack for you. [smacks lips] One of the great things about the internet is it is such a wide buffet of content. And I think a mistake most people make is that they go to the fast food chains of the internet. You go to your Facebooks, your Instagrams, your TikToks, and that's... You, you just make a diet, a content diet of only getting information from big, fast food chain social networks. I'm a believer that your info diet matters. Do you agree with that? Is that something you think about or, or care about?
2. SPSam Parr
  Y- yeah. Uh, uh, my fear is getting influenced by the wrong people, and I know that you've talked about this info diet for a long time, and it kind of influenced me.
3. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah, and I th- I had this thing. I said, "I'm, I'm, I'm going on the intentional internet," which is basically I'm not gonna just eat whatever the algo feeds me. When I log in or open up a tab, I'm gonna think about, like, what am I trying to get out of this session right now? And then I start opening up Kindle, or I start opening up different things. It's the intentional internet. So I have this idea I'm gonna create this, like, food pyramid of, like, the info diet. So the way the food pyramid was, like, you know, you have your carbohydrates, your proteins, your dairies, whatever. I think there's the same thing for the info diet, which is there's probably some plan you should have, some proportions you should have of different types of information if you wanna really, like, feed your brain in a way that's gonna make your brain healthier. One of the cool superfoods, I'll call it, like kale, like these nutrient-dense superfoods, is find a baller and then go find their early blog before they made it.
4. SPSam Parr
  Mm, I love doing that.
5. SPShaan Puri
  And so I was doing this over the weekend, and me and Ben, we were looking up, and we looked up, uh... Do you know who Brian Koppelman is?
6. SPSam Parr
  Is he a famous VC?
7. SPShaan Puri
  No, uh, there is a Josh Koppelman, I think. Brian Koppelman is the guy who created Billions. And, uh-
8. SPSam Parr
  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah
9. SPShaan Puri
  ... he's a, he's like a showrunner in Hollywood.
10. SPSam Parr
  Yeah.
11. SPShaan Puri
  And so we were, we were talking about r- Brian Koppelman for this other thing, and then we went and we looked up, like, does he publish anywhere? Does he post his thoughts anywhere? And we went and we looked up, and you basically wanna find things that are, like, you know, five-plus years old, and it's his blog. It's his old interview. It's the, that course he taught at NYU. You try to find something like that. So-
12. SPSam Parr
  You have to give a shout-out to his blog, briankoppelman.com. It's just a plain white and black blog. This is an awesome find.
13. SPShaan Puri
  And they're very simple posts. They're not, like, either the mo- they're not the most mind-blowing things either, which is, in itself, kind of an interesting thing. It's like, wow, this guy who achieved so much, it's not like he's writing this Shakespearean genius stuff that I couldn't have thought of. It's like, wow, this is a guy kinda like me that made it in a really unique way. So anyways, I'm gonna, I'm gonna read you the one post. Write What Fascinates You. That's the title. So I'm gonna read it to you. He goes, "This seems simple, right? Of course, we should write about what fascinates us and what we obsess over. But so many people approach writing, and especially screenwriting, as if it can be gamed, figured out, or strategized. And if you're somebody who can do that, congratulations. Rock on. Although, I wouldn't waste that kind of strategic brain power on show business. There's problems to be solved out there in the real world. If you're that type of person, go figure out how to arbitrage energy resources in a way that motivates buyers and sellers to create a more equitable market or something. I don't know. Because I don't think of it that way, but obviously you do. For the rest of us, we need to calculate less. We need to look inside to find our subject matter or outside at the world we see, but through a prism of enthusiasm." Prism of enthusiasm. He says, "Meaning, we must find subjects that are personally animating, inspiring, and engaging to us. Because once we do, we have a shot at making them inspiring and engaging for others as well. Because when the story's important to you, when it fascinates you, when the passion is tangible, the reader senses it. And without even knowing why, it gives you the benefit of the doubt. You have a story to tell, of course, and it still takes an enormous amount of effort and concentration, but the huge collateral benefit of telling stories that genuinely fascinates you is this: Forcing yourself to sit down and actually do the work is much easier than when you're writing something because you think it's marketable, because you think it could sell, or it's in a genre that's in currently in demand. So calculate less, write your obsessions, and have a better chance of, A, getting something really written, and B, turning your screenplay into something that excites and engages the reader."
14. SPSam Parr
  This is awesome. And he did this in 2013, over 10 years ago.
15. SPShaan Puri
  Yes. And I think this same advice, by the way, works for businesses a- as well. There's one way of doing business, which is the calculated strategic approach. You look at markets, you create a market map, you try to identify a gap, and then you're gonna reverse engineer something, and then you're gonna try to do demand testing and AB testing, and you're trying to validate your idea and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the other is, you work on things that fascinate you. Either it's a new technology that you think is really cool, or it's a new lifestyle that's being, you know, promoted that you're curious about, you're fascinated by, and maybe there's not enough products for people who want that lifestyle. Or maybe it's a problem that you have that you kinda get obsessed over and you're like, "Wait a minute. Am I crazy? Why am I the only one who's not okay with things, the status quo here?" Like, that's where the greatest companies get built and the greatest successes is, and it's actually easier. It's easier because you're excited about it, and it's easier 'cause you actually care about the problem. You're gonna actually figure out the solution. And so I just thought that this was awesome advice for content. Look at today's podcast. Like, I'm telling you about a thir- you know, 11-year-old blog post and you're telling me about a subreddit that's popping off and this, these, these bloggers that are over employed. Like, the reason this podcast works is 'cause we talk about what fascinates us, and it's because of that, it's not something anybody could compete with because nobody else has the same weird taste palate that we have. But if they did their weird taste palate, they would find their audience.
16. SPSam Parr
  And it's really hard to stay unique as you get bigger, whether whatever you're doing, as it gets more successful, everyone wants you to tone it down.
17. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah.
18. SPSam Parr
  And it's incredibly challenging to not give into that.
19. SPShaan Puri
  We have this right now. You've seen it, me in Slack, I'm on a rampage 'cause I'm like, "Dude, our titles and thumbnails that are on YouTube are too YouTube optimized. They're calculated. It's, this is gonna get somebody to click instead of this is how we want it to feel, or this is what would make me interested." It's like, no, no, what would make the mass populous interested? Well, it's like maybe we don't necessarily need the mass populous. Maybe we need the type of people that we want to attract 'cause they're the ones that are gonna actually like the podcast, 'cause they're the ones that actually will, will resonate with it and stick with it. And I think that we have made a mistake in, in part of our world, which is I don't think... I think we kept the content pretty pure and sacred to what we want, but I think the packaging we've sort of s- tried to sell out and calculate and try to like maximize clicks and views, and I'm trying to roll that back.
20. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, I agree with that by the way, and that's also why I like a lot of YouTubers because there's not a committee. Usually it's just one person where he's like, "This is my show. I'm gonna do whatever the hell I wanna do."
21. SPShaan Puri
  Right.
22. SPSam Parr
  Like, there's this guy I follow named WhistlinDiesel. He's this guy, he's not a kid anymore, but he's this guy in Indiana, and he does the stupidest, craziest stuff, and he's hilarious, but he's a representation of like the most interesting YouTubers who don't really even... They don't really sell out, and they keep it real. And, uh, it makes them way more successful.
26:58 – 32:44
Indie hacking on steroids
1. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah, I love it.
2. SPSam Parr
  Let me give you an example of a person who fits this mold wonderfully. So you and I are a fan of Peter Levels. He fits this mold perfectly. I saw that he shared something recently, and I went down this rabbit hole. So there's this guy, I'm gonna struggle to say his name big time. I, I believe he's French. I don- I don't know exactly. Clement Picque- I, I can't say his name, dude. I-
3. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
4. SPSam Parr
  Look at his name. Do you see it?
5. SPShaan Puri
  Honestly, I was gonna make fun of you, but that is not any... Piccolape- Piccolapeta.
6. SPSam Parr
  Piccolapeta, I think his name is.
7. SPShaan Puri
  Piccolapeta. [laughs]
8. SPSam Parr
  So listen to what this guy did. So I looked at his website. His website is kind of hard to figure out. So he was a, or he is a DJ, like a DJ in clubs. But I guess while he was DJ-ing and trying to pay the bill, bills, he was also a software developer, where he would like make random software. He just released something two or three days ago that's amazing.
9. SPShaan Puri
  Wow.
10. SPSam Parr
  So-
11. SPShaan Puri
  This is sick.
12. SPSam Parr
  Yes. So let me tell the, the story a little bit. So we talked about Photopea. So Photopea is a free, basically, um, I, I'll call it a clone of Photoshop, but I don't know if it's exactly a clone. But it definitely started that way. So Photopea is a free version of Photoshop created by this guy named Ivan, and Ivan was, he's one of these indie hacker guys where he was really open about it. So he built this, uh, Photoshop clone, which is, obviously Photoshop is huge, and it took off right away. And I think in 2021, he posted that he made a million dollars in revenue, 90% of that being ads. And then 2023, he said that he was now making close to $300,000 a month from this Photopea website. And it's huge. It blew up.
13. SPShaan Puri
  It has 15 million visitors a month.
14. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, massive. Massive, massive, massive. And for all I know, it's just one person. Well, this other guy, we're gonna call him Clement 'cause I can't say his last name, what Photopea did to Photoshop, he did with Adobe After Effects, and he calls it Pikimov or Pikimov. What do you, how do you think you pronounce that?
15. SPShaan Puri
  I have no idea. Pikimov. I don't know.
16. SPSam Parr
  Pikimov. So you'll have to... It's P-I-K-I-M-O-V. And you have to go to this website. So basically, this guy, he posted it on Hacker News, and then he posted it on Reddit and Twitter, and it blew up on all three of those places. And he said, basically, he was like, "I'm on this, uh, Linux machine, and I've been trying to like use the Photo After Effect, and it wasn't really working, and it wasn't doing what I needed it to do. So for the last year, I basically just built this version of it for myself, and it's free, and now I'm letting the world use it." And he was very underwhelming with his announcement. He was like, "So here's this thing. You guys can use this." On Twitter, it gets something like two million views. Hacker News, it's the number one post. Reddit, it's massive. It's completely blown up. And it is so awesome that one person built this thing. So you went to the website. What did you see?
17. SPShaan Puri
  It b- I mean, it looks like After Effects, and it just says, "Free, free alternative to editors such as Adobe, Adobe After Effects. Web-based, nothing to install. Works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. You can do everything you can do [laughs] on After Effects. And, uh, your files stay on your computer. They're not uploaded to a server." When we talked about Photopea, I think we've talked about Photopea a few times. It was one of the earliest episodes of this podcast. You, you had showed me Photopea, or I showed you Photopea. I don't remember what it was. But that was a, a kind of like a miracle looking product. These are like the, um, radioactive indie, indie hackers. Like the indie hackers that got bit by the bug and now have superpowers, where one man can recreate all of Photoshop, like every feature of Photoshop in a browser, and it actually works. And he's willing to give it away for free and just maintain it himself for the rest of his life. And now somebody's doing it with After Effects. This is super impressive.
18. SPSam Parr
  It's incredibly impressive. And he tells the story where on Twitter people are like- "This is amazing. How on earth did you do this?" And he's like, "I just did it on nights and weekends by myself, and I figured it out."
19. SPShaan Puri
  Dude, this is sick, by the way. L- look at this. So, so [laughs] somebody in Hacker News, the comments, they go, "As a motion designer, I'm curious what featured, what features does this have that, uh, After Effects doesn't?" And then somebody came in and says, "I'd say the main feature it lacks is that there's a subscription payment requirement." [laughs]
20. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
21. SPShaan Puri
  So good. [laughs]
22. SPSam Parr
  It, it's awesome, and it was a total underwhelming launch in that he didn't, like, over-hype it. He just said... He put it out in the world, but it was one of those products that you go to it and you're like... It's sort of like seeing, like, a huge Lego setup, where you're like-
23. SPShaan Puri
  Yes. Yeah, what a great analogy. [laughs]
24. SPSam Parr
  "The fact that you spent a year putting this together, I'm impressed. I don't have to know anything about this, but this is just epic just for being epic."
25. SPShaan Puri
  Right.
26. SPSam Parr
  Do you know what I mean?
27. SPShaan Puri
  Instant, instant internet respect for, for this. This is so impressive. I'm never gonna use this, 'cause I don't use After Effects anymore, thank God, but this is awesome. This guy has my eternal respect, and, uh, I'm glad we're sharing it here. I'm gonna tweet this out also. This is so sick.
28. SPSam Parr
  It's really awesome, and if you Google his name, you can't find photos of him. So most all of his photos, they're not even, like, avatars. They're just, like, silly... They're, like, uh... I think it's a, a shark or a whale or something. It's his avatar. Like, you really can't find a lot of pictures, uh, about this guy, and if you go to his website, there's nothing there. He d- barely explains who he is, and so this is like a true one of one, these rare individuals that I particularly love and I know you love, too, where it's like he's just almost... It's almost like a hacker, but they're not doing anything wrong. Do you know what I mean?
29. SPShaan Puri
  Right.
30. SPSam Parr
  It's, it's like a weird subculture of people that I'm obsessed with, where they're, they're artists who know how to c- uh, program, is basically what they are, and you can't find anything about this guy. It's like he's doing it almost for art's sake.
32:44 – 36:50
Shaan tries a self-driving car, becomes evangelist
1. SPShaan Puri
  do you want me to do? I have two topics. You pick. The Ryan Serhant Show or my self-driving car experience.
2. SPSam Parr
  Self-driving car, for sure.
3. SPShaan Puri
  Okay, so self-driving car. Uh, so I went into San Francisco last week for a couple meetings, and the new Waymo, Waymo app is now open for everybody. So I don't know, are you, like, fully in the loop of what's going on? Basically, there's, there's actual self-driving cars that just drive around San Francisco like taxis, and it's happening, and it's not, like, limited or fake in some way. It's on a demo. You push a button. It shows up. It's got your name written on the top of it. You push unlock. It opens up. There's no driver in there. You get in, and it takes you to your destination. It is magic.
4. SPSam Parr
  I think it's awesome.
5. SPShaan Puri
  It works super well. I would've been pretty nervous to get inside this, but I had so many friends who've been using it, 'cause they were in the ba- the private beta, that were like, "Dude, this thing is so good. It's so good. It's better than Tesla's autopilot by far. This is, this is really, really good." So I got in. I feel like here's a couple of thoughts on this. I don't know exactly what I wanna say, but I just wanted to come to you with a few, few random thoughts. You tell me... You help me make sense of this. So the first thought is just I can't believe this is happening. Like, I can't believe in my lifetime this is just gonna happen, where we're just gonna shift from, like, nobody drives cars. And it's so obvious the first time you get in one. Like, I had to take an Uber back, and literally it was comical. It was, like, the worst Uber experience you could have. It was like 100 degrees in the car. He wouldn't open the windows, and he wouldn't turn on the AC, and every time I'd ask him a question, he was, like, super grumpy. And I was like, "I just never wanna have a driver in the car [laughs] again." I just... I went from the Waymo seamless private, you know, uh, fully in your control autonomous experience to, like, back to what felt like a rickshaw in India. Like, it felt terrible. And so I can't believe this is happening. I feel like this should be a much bigger deal, and nobody's really talking about it. It's not that it is a secret, but I feel like nobody cares, and that's very strange to me, because th- the coolest AI thing that e- that's gonna happen is that the cars are gonna drive themselves, and then we're just gonna sleep, eat, play video games, and chill inside cars from now on, and nobody's gonna get in car accidents. That's gonna be amazing, and I feel like nobody's really excited that we're now, like, right here on the cusp. 'Cause if this can do this all throughout San Francisco, and San Francisco's kind of a complicated place. Like, it's a city street. There's people walking, uh, jaywalking everywhere. There's construction. That's, that means it's gonna work in a lot of places. So I can't believe this is happening. I was surprised that it cost as much or more than an Uber, and I was totally fine with it. I thought that the whole point of the self-driving car was gonna be that it's gonna be cheaper, and I think eventually it will, but right now these cars are very expensive. But I was more than happy to pay a premium to go in the driverless experience, which was very surprising to me [laughs] uh, because I thought the reason I would want it was 'cause it's, it's less expensive. It's just better. Uh, I, I don't mind paying more.
6. SPSam Parr
  How much more expensive was it?
7. SPShaan Puri
  Like, 20, 30% more expensive.
8. SPSam Parr
  Oh, that's nothing.
9. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah. Not, not bad. Obviously, there's a little bit... You know, there's some small hiccups, meaning it's, like, more polite. So for example, if you're standing right there, it won't just stop in the middle of the road, block everybody's traffic just to let you in.
10. SPSam Parr
  Right.
11. SPShaan Puri
  It'll, like, try to... It'll go up 30 feet and pull over, and you gotta walk 30 feet, and you're like, "Ugh, I can't believe I couldn't just stop all of the street traffic to get into my car." So there's, like, little things like that that are kind of annoying but actually understandable. But man, I was impressed. Have you been in one of these?
12. SPSam Parr
  No, but I, I'm looking forward to it, because I have a Tesla, and I hate my Tesla. I think a Tesla is a horrible car. I hate it.
13. SPShaan Puri
  Which one do you have?
14. SPSam Parr
  The X. And I think it's horrible, but there's one feature about it that makes it absolutely worth it, which is the self-driving stuff, which you keep your hands on there. But I drive that car all the time, and I only use the self-driving. I am significantly more comfortable with that than my wife or me driving the car. I think it-
15. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
16. SPSam Parr
  ... I think it is way safer So from now on, all of the cars that I'm buying in the future are gonna have some type of driver assist, and it's so much better.
17. SPShaan Puri
  Let me correct you. In the future, you're just not gonna buy cars. You're just gonna push a button, and the car's gonna take you where you want, and you're never gonna need to own a car.
36:50 – 40:16
Secondary effects of autonomous vehicles
1. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, I could see that. So there's something like 40,000 deaths in America from car accidents, and I, I, I... There, people will still die because of this, but it's gonna be drastically reduced. Additionally, if you've ever been in traffic, have you ever, like, studied what causes traffic?
2. SPShaan Puri
  Sure haven't. [laughs]
3. SPSam Parr
  [laughs] Well, like, it's like a, like, like if you ever see, like, those weird GIFs or, uh, on like how stuff works, where you'll be like, "Here's how, like, a traffic jam starts." And you see, like, one person abruptly stop, which causes another person to abruptly stop, and then, like, it's like a tra-train re-
4. SPShaan Puri
  Right
5. SPSam Parr
  ... chain reaction, and it's like a really weird... It's more of a, a psychological problem almost than anything, where you're like, "Wait, why is this person stopping?" which caused this-
6. SPShaan Puri
  Right
7. SPSam Parr
  ... which caused this. And it's really fascinating. But when you think about traffic, that can basically be, not solved for, but incredibly improved upon because your margin of error, it, it, it's not a human making that mistake. You're like, "No, I know-
8. SPShaan Puri
  Totally
9. SPSam Parr
  ... I can drive within 10 feet of the driver in front of me because I know that I'm, like, I'm not just gonna hit the brake too late," whatever. That's gonna be solved. We're gonna save hours and hours and hours every month because of this type of stuff, and let alone the lack of death. So I'm, like, incredibly excited about it.
10. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah, and parking, you know. Uh, I think cars have only, like, a sub 10% utilization rate, meaning 90% of the time a car is just sitting idle, doing nothing, and that's gonna change because if a car can drive itself, it's gonna go in- instead of sitting idle, it's gonna go and earn money for you. It's gonna go drop people off and earn cash, and it's not gonna be s- stay parked. So when utilization rate goes up, you don't need as many cars total because now each car is being used more. So now you have way less cars being used way more, which means way less parking, which means way less buying cars. It's a, it's a big change that's coming, right? In, in addition to the lifestyle change of we got in a self-driving car, and you're talking about, like, you know, you have to keep your hands on the wheel. For the Waymo thing, you just sit in the back. You're just chilling. The wheel is just turning itself. You don't even, you don't even look outside. We had a full meeting, and we could talk about numbers and everything 'cause there's no driver sitting there, and we just... It was a productive 20 minutes. It was great. And if I wanted to just sleep, I coulda just fully slept. I coulda done anything. That's, that's amazing 'cause I don't know how much time the average person spends in a car, but, like, an average probably not even right. It's probably, like, of the people who really have a commute, they're probably spending, like, two or three hours a day in a car versus, you know, what will become, you know, e- either an incredibly productive or relaxing time to be going from one place to another.
11. SPSam Parr
  I, I, I remember I, I would explain this to my parents or in-laws, and they're like, "Well, aren't you afraid that you're in this machine and it's controlling thing?" And I always say, "Well, no, because at least I'm sitting at the wheel, so I could take over, so there's, like, I, I'm part of the loop." But number two, it's like, well, are you afraid when you get into an elevator?
12. SPShaan Puri
  Right.
13. SPSam Parr
  Like, I'm not, I'm not afraid when I get in an elevator. I trust that that button is gonna do the right thing, and it's gonna bring me where I wanna go, and it's not just gonna drop me. I'm also not afraid when I fly in an airplane. You know, the pilot-
14. SPShaan Puri
  Right
15. SPSam Parr
  ... is sitting there at the seat, but it's like an autopilot plane. So no, I'm not afraid. Now, I, I am a little bit nervous because the technology is new, but, like, in 10 years when... Or a lot of times people are like, "This is never gonna be a thing." It's like, no, it's definitely gonna be a thing. In 10 years, it's gonna be significantly better than it is now, and it's pretty good now. So yeah, I'm not afraid of it at all, and I'm incredibly bullish. From now on on- the cars that I buy on a daily basis are all gonna be the, have some type of driver assist. Like, you use it on your Tesla, and you're like, "This is the way the world should be."
16. SPShaan Puri
  Right.
17. SPSam Parr
  At least that's what I think. What about this, uh... Which one do you wanna do? You, we'll do one more or-
18. SPShaan Puri
  Uh,
40:16 – 45:28
Ryan Serhant’s Netflix show
1. SPShaan Puri
  let's do the Ryan Serhant Show. So I binge watched the new, um, it's called Owning Manhattan. It's just, like, a random Netflix show. It's nothing, like, super special. No- most people wouldn't care about it. I, I liked it. It wasn't, like, the best show ever, but I, I happened to binge watch it. I stayed up till, like, 4:00 in the morning watching this thing.
2. SPSam Parr
  So who is this guy? I just know he's a, a silver-haired guy that sells real estate.
3. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah, he's a real estate broker, and he was one of the, like, kind of high-end brokers in New York. He got famous because he was on a show called Million Dollar Listing since I think he was, like, 25 years old. So he spent basically a decade on TV, but it was, like, Bravo TV, and it was him and a bunch of other brokers. And what happened is he leaves the show in, like, the 10th season, and he takes a little break, and then he comes back with his own Netflix show. And obviously, it was kind of like Selling Sunset was this huge hit reality show, and the genre of, like, real estate reality became, like, a thing. They're selling OC, they're selling Miami, they're selling sunset. There's, like, a whole bunch of these, like, real estate shows. So he comes back, and he's got one called Owning Manhattan, and it's basically the story is Ryan Serhant, who's, like, the, uh, Ryan Seacrest of [laughs] the real estate world. He's, like, this super good, you know, super good-looking guy who loves to be on TV, he's just made for TV, who's got great skin and sells real estate. That's the guy. And so he takes this show, and he's, um, the quest is basically he leaves, he, he left his brokerage. He starts his own brokerage firm. So, you know, you have Sotheby's, and you have Compass, and he's trying to create Serhant, like, his own brokerage. And he hires up, like, 200 or 300 agents now, and the show is following him trying to go, trying to become the number one brokerage firm in New York. And I think they only serve, like, the New York area. They're not even, they're not nationwide, but he's trying to become number one in New York, which is the number one real estate market in the world. And I gotta say, the show is pretty interesting, and it's interesting for a couple reasons. Number one, uh, you know, he's, he's good at TV, meaning he's kind of obnoxious, but it grows on you. He's, like, obnoxious, but then it, it starts to get better. Uh, but also all the agents, it, you know, it's a perfect cocktail. It's like you have house porn, luxury, like, luxury real estate. You have big dollars flying around, deals that are closing or not closing. Then you have the agents who are, like, you know, peacocking. They each have, try to have their own brand and personality and try to be the best in their own way. And then you have, like, the drama of, like, a, uh, a soap opera or, like, a, you know, reality TV show.
4. SPSam Parr
  Why is he obnoxious?
5. SPShaan Puri
  Like, it's almost, like, his style. Like, his style is You know, he tries to do cocky funny, basically. I, I don't know. I have to do a bad impression of it, but he'll be like, he'll be like, "Real estate is hard. Not for me. I mean, I make it look easy, but for other people it's hard." And he'll like, every interview he's doing that. And so at first you're just like, "All right, whatever." But over time, i- you know, you do get to, you get to see the guy sweat. 'Cause this guy's, you know, the, the way the show makes it feel is that he's hanging on by a thread. Each, each of these deals has to go through, otherwise bad things happen, which is, you know, just normal TV drama.
6. SPSam Parr
  He gives off the vibe that he's, like, super alpha, where it's almost like you have a stereotype in your head of, uh, like a, like a high roller hedge fund guy, but for real estate.
7. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah. And also kind of metro also. So he's not, like, just macho. [laughs] He's, he's like, [laughs] he's, he's, like, kinda got, like, both sides of it, where he's, like, kinda like got the style and the fashion and the, like, the, the light touch, but then he's also, like, a cutthroat killer trying to win.
8. SPSam Parr
  He's like a wake up at 5:00 AM, work out, eat healthy, at the office by 7:00. At h- you know what I mean? He's, like, that type of guy.
9. SPShaan Puri
  Yes.
10. SPSam Parr
  Where it's just like, uh, he, he's intense.
11. SPShaan Puri
  Exactly. And so, uh, I wanted to read you what... So, uh, why did I wanna share this? Really there's two things I wanted to share. First is, A, it's a TV show I liked. If you're looking for a TV show, you might like this one. That's the little thing. But the bigger thing would be, um, there's a moment in the episode, so, or in the show, so he, uh, I'll, I'll just give away a little bit of the show. So there's one young agent who's basically the kinda like controversial guy on the scene. He's talented, but he's an asshole, right? Okay, that's a great character. So this guy who's, like, fully tatted up, he used to be, like, a model in Norway or something like that. And so super good-looking, super tatted up guy who's super cocky and arrogant. He's only 25 years old, but he's, he's like, "Well, why would..." He's like, "If you're young, if you made it on YouTube or you're a rapper or whatever," he's like, "you don't wanna buy from this, like..." And he's, like, talking about his coworker. He's like, "Some, like, bald-headed, used car salesman-looking guy in a s- in a cheap suit. You wanna buy from me." He's like, "I'm just the next generation. Like, people wanna... The next generation of rich people wanna buy with me." And so he's, uh, he's like very cocky and whatever. And Ryan believes in this guy, 'cause he's clearly talented, but he's also like, "Dude, why are you such a, like, a jerk around the office? Like, you're making my life hard by being a jerk."
12. SPSam Parr
  His name's Jonathan. I'm looking at Jonathan.
13. SPShaan Puri
  But he rides a motorcycle everywhere, and he's... By the way, guy is fantastically dressed at all times. Like, I, I tried to find this guy's, like, stylist. Like, who is this guy's stylist? 'Cause this guy's got great style.
14. SPSam Parr
  Dude, he's, he has neck tattoos. I'm not buying real estate from a neck tattoo guy.
15. SPShaan Puri
  But you kinda want to. Like, it's kinda like when the bad boy likes you. Yeah, yeah. All of us were like, "Me? Uh, yeah, he's giving me attention?" There, there's a certain part of you that wants that.
16. SPSam Parr
  Dude, if you have a tattoo that goes over your Adam's apple, I don't know.
17. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
18. SPSam Parr
  Like, I don't, I don't know-
19. SPShaan Puri
  That's, that's the line?
20. SPSam Parr
  Yeah. Like, I'd wanna hang out with you maybe, but I don't know if I wanna do business with you. I mean, you, you clearly have a-
21. SPShaan Puri
  If it's visible in a turtleneck, we've got problems.
22. SPSam Parr
  All right. And what about this guy?
23. SPShaan Puri
  So there's
45:28 – 53:01
Don’t try to be noticed; try to be great.
1. SPShaan Puri
  a scene at the end. I just thought there was a great quote. So, uh, Ryan is kinda confronting this guy 'cause he's been, you know, causing a bunch of drama.
2. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
3. SPShaan Puri
  And he says something I thought was just really great. He goes, "You spend so much of your time trying to get noticed instead of spending your time trying to be great. If you spent half the time just trying to be great, you'd be so great that everybody would have to notice you." And I just thought that was just a wonderful line, a wonderful quote that I feel like I could've, you know, forwarded that in a insulting way to, like, 10 people I know in life, people who are very active on social media. And it's like, instead of trying so hard to get noticed, just try to be great. If you spent half the time just, just p- trying to be great, you would be so great that everybody would have to notice you. Like that guy who did the after effects thing, he, he could have tried to be, you know, promoting himself and blogging and doing all this stuff, and instead he just did one great thing and we all have to notice him, we all have to follow him. We want to be a, be a part of this guy's world versus him trying to push his agenda out there, and I just thought that was a great quote that a lot of people need to hear.
4. SPSam Parr
  I am gonna read between the lines here. Are you becoming introspective lately?
5. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
6. SPSam Parr
  Is this, like, a thing? Are you, you're, you're tr- are you trying to work through, like, what type of man you wanna be? Uh, because I kind of-
7. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
8. SPSam Parr
  ... I kind of like it, to be honest.
9. SPShaan Puri
  I'm doing the work, as they say. [laughs]
10. SPSam Parr
  You know, uh, someone made a comment to me where they said, like, "You know, Sam, I could tell what phase of life you were in, uh, because I listen to the podcast and I hear what you're talking about and who you're getting influenced by." They were like, "Before you were having children, before you even said that y- you were gonna have a kid, like, I kinda guessed it based on what you were talking about."
11. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah.
12. SPSam Parr
  I'm kinda doing the same with you, where it's actually exciting to see, like, the quotes or, in this case, the quote that you're interested in, in, in. You're, like, thinking, like, "That's how I should live my life a little bit more." Do you know what I mean?
13. SPShaan Puri
  Of course. Of course.
14. SPSam Parr
  And I-
15. SPShaan Puri
  Yes
16. SPSam Parr
  ... think that that's cool.
17. SPShaan Puri
  If you spot it, you got it is the, uh, the rule, right? And it's like, I think this is insightful because I have the problem that this insight cures, right? [laughs] It resonates with me because there's a part of this that is true for me, and true for people I know that I care about, you know, that I wanna, you know, uh, I, I wish I could, you know, shake them to hear it too. And so, yeah, I, I'm very into this.
18. SPSam Parr
  You also, if you read the comments of our YouTube, you also have a large fan base of young men who look up to you and think that you're cool, which you are cool. Uh, they would be shocked at how basic bitch your TV choices are 'cause-
19. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
20. SPSam Parr
  [laughs] You, you are, you [laughs]
21. SPShaan Puri
  So true
22. SPSam Parr
  ... Shaan and my wife will, like, text about, like, The Challenge or, like, uh, I know you're a Bachelor guy or whatever the sh- I don't even know what these shows are. But you, the, I love that this is the one part of you where you are a mainstream type of person and you're into this stuff.
23. SPShaan Puri
  I just try to keep in touch with the common folk, you know?
24. SPSam Parr
  Yeah. I don't know if this is common folk.
25. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
26. SPSam Parr
  But I love how simple some of your tastes are. Look, you're a very complex person with deep taste and a, and a, and a rich personality, but this is the one part where you're, you're just like the rest of us.
27. SPShaan Puri
  Uh, everybody's like that, right? You like to go build Legos in your free time. Like, when we are a- when the light, when we wanna switch the light off, we don't want it just dim, we want it off.
28. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
29. SPShaan Puri
  It's like I, when I wanna relax, I wanna go mindless, I wanna veg. I wanna just, I wanna go completely and indulge in a, in a non-intellectual pursuit because I already do it. And even then you could see, like- I somehow turned that into, like, podcast content and lessons for life when I'm supposed to just be looking at people's pretty outfits and stuff. And, uh, you know, I can't really fully turn it off, but I try to. I try to go and, and just do the stuff that I truly enjoy without trying to make it also be cool and, um, intelligent.
30. SPSam Parr
  This guy, Ryan, by the way, he gives off... So I've seen him talk before, and I found him, I found him very off-putting at first, where I'm like, "I feel like you're like Grant Cardone or something. You're gonna, like, sell me something, or you're trying to scam me." And then I got to know him, and I'm like, "Oh, no, you're... I think you're the real deal. You're, you're just intense, and, uh, you're, you're, you're legit." He has a company called Sellit, so sellit.com. Have you seen sellit.com?