6 Profitable Business Ideas You Should Start in 2022

Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) and Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) talk about six businesses that you can start right now.

Shaan PurihostSam Parrhost

Apr 23, 202222mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

25 min read · 5,009 words

0:00 – 0:10
Intro
1. SPShaan Puri
  [upbeat music] Okay. [laughs] This idea is called
0:10 – 6:05
Business Idea 1: Milo Again
1. SPShaan Puri
  Milo Again. [laughs] Okay, so-
2. SPSam Parr
  What is Milo?
3. SPShaan Puri
  So Milo is a company that got started back in the day that a guy who came on the pod, Jack Abraham, started.
4. SPSam Parr
  Yeah.
5. SPShaan Puri
  And what Milo did was a very simple thing. Milo said if you, if you said, "Oh, I need to go buy Scotch tape," it would say... You would just type it. It was a search engine for finding where you can go buy a specific product in person. So you'd be like, "I wanna buy," uh, you know, a whatever, like, um, whatever, a Philips razor or something like that. You just type it in, and it would be like, "It's in stock at this Target near you." So it took where you are, and then it knew all the stores' inventory, and it just t- told you if the product's in stock right there. And, like, there's, like, the world is moving towards e-commerce, yes, but there's still like a n- [laughs] a very healthy slice of people that go shop in real stores and/or they want something now, today, and they don't wanna wait for it to be delivered in, in, in an X amount of time. And so this idea of Milo, Milo got bought by eBay for, like, 75 million, and then-
6. SPSam Parr
  After, like, a couple years
7. SPShaan Puri
  ... and then it kinda, like, you know, like many acquisitions, it just sorta faded away and disappeared inside of eBay, but this idea is still a great idea, dude, like-
8. SPSam Parr
  I completely agree, man. I tried buying something the other day, like some chairs or something, and I had to go to, like, eight different, like, homedepot.com, tractorsupply.com, lowes.com, walmart.-
9. SPShaan Puri
  And even when you go-
10. SPSam Parr
  It's-
11. SPShaan Puri
  ... you're seeing the generic thing. You're not seeing, like... You're seeing, like, "Does Home Depot carry this?" Okay, yeah, now let's go to store locator, type in my thing-
12. SPSam Parr
  It sucks
13. SPShaan Puri
  ... go, and then I have to go to each one and do that, and it's like-
14. SPSam Parr
  It sucks. I completely agree
15. SPShaan Puri
  ... like, I, I needed kids' cough medicine, and I was like, "Dude, I just need to know. Do you have kids' Robitussin or not?" Like-
16. SPSam Parr
  And then, like, usually, like-
17. SPShaan Puri
  Where is it?
18. SPSam Parr
  ... C- CVS or Home Depot or wherever, they, you type something in, and then they're like, "This isn't near you." And it's like, oh, well, because up here it says my ZIP Code is, like, you know, eight hours away when I was on vacation.
19. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
20. SPSam Parr
  You don't have, like, an easy way where it just, like, search... You know what I mean? Uh, it ta-
21. SPShaan Puri
  Totally
22. SPSam Parr
  ... I completely agree. It takes forever. And I was trying to do this the other day. It's a pain in the ba- pain in the ass. I was using Google Shopping, but it's not easy.
23. SPShaan Puri
  Exactly. And I know it, it's also hard to build, right? 'Cause you have to have, like, real-time inventory of physical stores.
24. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, but that's not that hard. If you go to Target and ask for, like, a vacuum, you, they go to target.com and, like, type in, like, that vacuum to figure out where it is in the store.
25. SPShaan Puri
  Right. So it's in some system. So you would need to build, like, integrations with, like, the major back-end inventory systems in order to be able to do this, and you have a, a really strong reason why they should give you that access. It's like, "Hey, dude, I'm gonna send you a customer. Like, I'm gonna send you foot traffic to your store." Like, is there anything a store wants more than foot traffic to the store? I don't think so. So, you know, like, to me, Milo is an idea... And by the way, this just gen- general thing, which is companies that go get ac- that get acquired and then, like, kind of, like, dissolve in the big company, just go [laughs] restart those companies, like, three years later. Like-
26. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, I actually think that's a really fantastic idea.
27. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
28. SPSam Parr
  That's one of... So that business model, I have said that I hate the advertising business model. I don't entirely hate it, but I do hate that when you're a publisher and you have to say stuff that you don't really want to because of an advertiser. But... And so I don't love that model, but I love non-publishing business advertising models because it's the perfect alignment. So basically with Milo, you have a site that gets lots of traffic.
29. SPShaan Puri
  Right.
30. SPSam Parr
  And then you allow someone to pay money for a per-click or a per-view basis, and it's very fair. It's the easiest sales process, I think. I'm all about that.
6:05 – 8:45
Business Idea 2: Waiting room experience for Zoom
1. SPShaan Puri
  I can't say. But we, um, but Zoom needs this. Zoom needs a waiting room experience. This is a, a feature for some product manager at Zoom. We need a dope waiting room experience. Or even, even it can be built off Zoom, right? There's like, whatever, a trillion Zoom calls a day. Give me a dope waiting room where I can send somebody that's connected to the Zoom call, and then when they're ready they can come in. But before that, they get a branded, they get a, a branded experience, a virtual office, a virtual vibe of who they're dealing with, what that person's all about, and, uh, create a little, a little website, a little website space for them to, uh, to hang out and have some fun, have a drink, enjoy themselves.
2. SPSam Parr
  Dude, I did this call with a company. It w- I forget what they were making. Maybe they were making a game. And I logged in, and I was, like, a little bit early, and they had, like, a teaser video, like a one-minute-long teaser video.
3. SPShaan Puri
  Jesus.
4. SPSam Parr
  And because they were the host of the Zoom, it automatically played. And so when I got to have the meeting, I was, like, pretty-
5. SPShaan Puri
  You were pumped
6. SPSam Parr
  ... psyched up. Yeah.
7. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
8. SPSam Parr
  I was psyched up. It was awesome. It was really cool, and it almost felt like they were, like, buy... It, it, it... I was like, "Is this? What is this new feature? Is this, was that an ad that you paid Zoom to play?" And they're like, "No, they have this new feature where they allow you to show, like, an amp-up vid- like a video prior to the meeting starting," and it was really cool. But dude, how about the fact that Zoom has been... We've been in a pandemic for three or two years, and it's, like, the same shit over and over and over again.
9. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah. No features, and the stock cut in half.
10. SPSam Parr
  Yeah. [laughs]
11. SPShaan Puri
  What's going on, Zoom? [laughs]
12. SPSam Parr
  Yeah. [laughs] This is not good. It's like-
13. SPShaan Puri
  I'm more mad about one of those than the other. I'll let them figure out which one [laughs] is actually bothering me.
14. SPSam Parr
  And, and there's so many people that go to that, uh, landing page where it says, like, "Click here to open up Zoom"-
15. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah
16. SPSam Parr
  ... and it's just a blank p-
17. SPShaan Puri
  Or page. [laughs]
18. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, it's a blank page. There's so much-
19. SPShaan Puri
  And by the way-
20. SPSam Parr
  ... real estate there
21. SPShaan Puri
  ... I get there when I've already clicked a Zoom link. Guess what? I do wanna open Zoom.
22. SPSam Parr
  Yes.
23. SPShaan Puri
  You didn't have to re-ask me, right?
24. SPSam Parr
  Dude, it's like-
25. SPShaan Puri
  Yes means yes, Zoom.
26. SPSam Parr
  On Similarweb, zoom.com gets 1.7 billion visits a month, and it's the 26th most popular website in the world, and that page is just this blank page. I cannot believe that. They could make maybe hundreds of millions of dollars-
27. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
28. SPSam Parr
  ... a year just in, like, an ad-
29. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah
30. SPSam Parr
  ... putting it there.
8:45 – 13:00
Business Idea 3: Give me a personality
1. SPShaan Puri
  I Don't Have A Personality, Give Me One, or I'm Not Funny, Make Me Funny. It's a s- it's a store like Spencer's back in the day. Remember Spencer's? Or what was it called? Like-
2. SPSam Parr
  Yeah. [laughs] I just went to... Hot Topic. I just went to one the other day.
3. SPShaan Puri
  Hot Topic. [laughs]
4. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, it was awesome. [laughs]
5. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs] All right, that's the joke.
6. SPSam Parr
  Dude, for-
7. SPShaan Puri
  That's the actual joke. [laughs]
8. SPSam Parr
  For, for me and Sarah, we w- uh, we had, like, a date night on Friday, and we're like, "You wanna go walk around the mall and go to the food court?"
9. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
10. SPSam Parr
  So we did, and it was awesome.
11. SPShaan Puri
  High school date night. That's awesome.
12. SPSam Parr
  It w- it was awesome, man. It was so much fun.
13. SPShaan Puri
  So Spencer's is still a thing?
14. SPSam Parr
  Yes, and Hot Topic. We went to both of them.
15. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
16. SPSam Parr
  And this shirt that I'm got- that I'm wearing, I bought it from Abercrombie.
17. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs] What the... [laughs]
18. SPSam Parr
  [laughs] Dude, Abercrombie's cool right now.
19. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs] I believe you.
20. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
21. SPShaan Puri
  I believe you. Um, so my idea is it's the B2B version of Spencer's, so it's just shit for you to put around the office-
22. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
23. SPShaan Puri
  ... that's gonna make your office more fun and interesting. It takes-
24. SPSam Parr
  I think we should workshop that name a little bit, though. What, what was your name? I Don't Have A Personality, Please Give Me One.
25. SPShaan Puri
  Give Me One.
26. SPSam Parr
  Yeah. [laughs]
27. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs] Maybe there's an acronym in there we, we can... [laughs]
28. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
29. SPShaan Puri
  Um, yeah, like, we want... Like, it needs to be a word that's like Botox, but it's for injecting personality into your company-
30. SPSam Parr
  Uh-huh
13:00 – 16:30
Business Idea 4: Discord property managers
1. SPShaan Puri
  Discord property managers, 'cause I can't think of a name. Okay. So basically, there's a ton of Discords out there now. Basically, this is like community managers is a job title, right? A lot of people have communities. Communities are all the rage now. And there's a ton of Discords, especially in the crypto world, there's a ton of Discords-
2. SPSam Parr
  Dude, they're so hard to figure out
3. SPShaan Puri
  ... that are just like noisy, there's spammers and scammers, and then there's new people coming in, they never used Discord, they never used crypto, this is like confusion all around. I think somebody should build the best property management company for your Discords. Just be like, "Dude, we are the best at managing Discords, and we will manage your Discord for this flat fee," and just build a brand around being an amazing property manager for your digital property, for your digital spaces.
4. SPSam Parr
  That's a great idea. So VaynerMedia, w- or who, we'll talk about them again, when they started, their whole thing was like, "Social media's new. We're like the guys, you know? We know how to handle it."
5. SPShaan Puri
  Right.
6. SPSam Parr
  And basically, most of their job titles were called community managers. Early on, a, a popular job title at their company was community manager, which basically just meant we'll comment on everyone's comment. Uh, you know, if you're, uh-
7. SPShaan Puri
  Right
8. SPSam Parr
  ... Oreos and someone like makes a comment on, about Oreos, we just reply.
9. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah.
10. SPSam Parr
  And I actually think that you ... I, a- and they got big that way. I bet you VaynerMedia makes 200 plus million in revenue.
11. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah.
12. SPSam Parr
  It's a big-ass company. And you do the exact same thing, but now the new community, or the new social is community. And I think that you gotta-
13. SPShaan Puri
  Our, our buddy, uh, you know David Spinks?
14. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, of course.
15. SPShaan Puri
  He was just, he was just early.
16. SPSam Parr
  He was, he was, it was way early. He was way early.
17. SPShaan Puri
  He was just early, dude. He just, if he started that like la- two years ago instead of seven years ago, that would be like $100 million company right now. And, uh, he was just a little too early and he didn't-
18. SPSam Parr
  He was early
19. SPShaan Puri
  ... he didn't make it all the way.
20. SPSam Parr
  So David Spinks had this company called CMX Summit. It originally was a conference for community managers, then it was like an online community and everything, and he sold it. I don't even remember who, Bevy, he s-
21. SPShaan Puri
  Well, well, the big, the big idea was like you have a, you have a CEO, then you have a CTO, they handle, they're, they're in charge of the technical part of things. You have a CIO, they're the chief information officer. CSO, CMO for marketing. So you have all these C-suites, and the, he, his belief was that community's gonna be a big part of companies and so you're gonna have a CXO, a C- I think is, was the thing they were going for, which is like a, a chief community officer or some shit like that. I don't know why it was X, CMX, man, I don't know what they were trying to do. But like basically it was this is gonna be a job title at the C-suite level, and then you're gonna have then like a senior community manager, and then like a junior community manager, and like this is a whole new job function-
22. SPSam Parr
  And he was right
23. SPShaan Puri
  ... and people don't know how to do it. And he was totally right and totally early, which is the same thing as being totally wrong.
24. SPSam Parr
  Right. [laughs]
25. SPShaan Puri
  And that's what sucks. [laughs]
26. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, he was totally right and totally, uh, early. I, I completely agree. Uh, he was on that like, it felt like 10 years ago.
27. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah.
28. SPSam Parr
  But I think this is a good idea. You, it, it, it would be a pain in the butt to run an agency, but I think this is an agency that could crush.
29. SPShaan Puri
  Let me give you, uh... Okay, can I give you two ideas? So there's a guy, I, I'm gonna s- these are s- these are 100% stolen from another podcast I heard. So I listen to The Bill Simmons Podcast, a sports podcast, and Bill has this buddy, Kevin Wild or Wilds, something like that. He comes on and he does half-baked ideas.
30. SPSam Parr
  What's the-
16:30 – 18:40
Business Idea 5: Fit furniture
1. SPShaan Puri
  amazing at pitching them. He's even better than me at pitching these, these drunk ideas. All right, so first one is called Fit Furniture. Okay, Fit Furniture. You might be wondering, what is, what is, what is Fit Furniture? Been hearing a lot about it lately. Do we make the highest quality furniture? No, we do not. Do we have the best prices? Sure don't.
2. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
3. SPShaan Puri
  Do we have furniture that fits through doorways? You bet your ass we do, because moving furniture is a requirement of furniture, and all furniture is built as if everybody's home has just open walls that you can just drag these things through. So Fit Furniture is furniture optimized to fit through the standard doorway width. That's the idea.
4. SPSam Parr
  Do you know, do you know, uh, Lovesac? You remember Lovesac?
5. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah, of course.
6. SPSam Parr
  So their new-
7. SPShaan Puri
  The, the huge beanbags, right?
8. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, but their new shtick is furniture that fits through a door. It's modular.
9. SPShaan Puri
  Oh, my God. [laughs]
10. SPSam Parr
  It's a, it's a, it's a couch that you take apart. And I, I try... So at my Airbnb, the way it works, these guys are idiots. They put a spiral staircase going up, and you, on the second floor, and that's the only stairs, and you can't carry anything up a spiral staircase.
11. SPShaan Puri
  Right. [laughs]
12. SPSam Parr
  So I was like, "I can't get a couch unless I could take it apart." Uh, and there was this company in Texas, and they're the Couch Guys, and they take apart your couch just for this problem. They take the whole thing apart and they rebuild it wherever you want it. And I was like, "All right, well, I can't do that."
13. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
14. SPSam Parr
  So I looked at, I, I l- I, I looked at L- 'cause it's an Airbnb, I didn't want a fancy couch. So I looked at Lovesac. They're interesting, but it's like three grand for one of their couches, or four grand for one of their couches. So I ended up g- going with a futon, because I could build a futon upstairs.
15. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
16. SPSam Parr
  But, uh, dude, it was such a pain finding a couch that could fit into certain doorways that wasn't-
17. SPShaan Puri
  Right
18. SPSam Parr
  ... like at, over $5,000. I completely agree.
19. SPShaan Puri
  If you wanna pay five-star prices for that college experience, Sam's short-term rentals has got you covered. [laughs]
20. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
21. SPShaan Puri
  Sleep on a futon.
22. SPSam Parr
  Well, so-
23. SPShaan Puri
  Under the stars
24. SPSam Parr
  ... no, we don't call it a futon, because it, we call it a pull-out couch, because it's like- ... crazy comfortable. It's basically like a mattress that you can sit on sometimes. But, uh, yeah, I didn't, I was embarrassed to call people... I was embarrassed to call it a futon, that's for sure.
25. SPShaan Puri
  That was your nickname in college, right? The pull-out couch.
26. SPSam Parr
  Yeah. [laughs]
18:40 – 22:05
Business Idea 6: Bulletin board material
1. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs] All right, let me give you the second idea. His second idea is called Bulletin board material.
2. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
3. SPShaan Puri
  So this is for, this for, I think this is for you. I think you are the target market for this. So it's for somebody-
4. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
5. SPShaan Puri
  ... somebody who, you got a little chip on your shoulder and you like it. It's, that chip on your shoulder has made you who you are today. There would be no hustle if there weren't any doubters-
6. SPSam Parr
  Dude, they say-
7. SPShaan Puri
  ... and haters and skeptics
8. SPSam Parr
  ... chips on shoulders create chips in pockets.
9. SPShaan Puri
  Exactly. But what happens if you, you grew up around nice people? You don't have a chip on your shoulder, or maybe you had that chip, sold the hustle, and now everybody tells you you're so great. You don't have that same-
10. SPSam Parr
  Or you were so unlucky that you had a healthy father-
11. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah, exactly. [laughs]
12. SPSam Parr
  ... and a healthy mother who treated you well. Like, you know, like, fuck me, right?
13. SPShaan Puri
  Mommy and daddy loves you-
14. SPSam Parr
  Yeah. [laughs]
15. SPShaan Puri
  ... and tells you, you can, you can do anything. And, uh-
16. SPSam Parr
  I've had such a disadvantage 'cause I grew up-
17. SPShaan Puri
  Right
18. SPSam Parr
  ... in an emot- emotionally healthy household.
19. SPShaan Puri
  W- the biggest disadvantage there is.
20. SPSam Parr
  The biggest.
21. SPShaan Puri
  And, and so-
22. SPSam Parr
  With money
23. SPShaan Puri
  ... we help solve that problem. We are for the healthy middle-class family who has lost their edge.
24. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
25. SPShaan Puri
  And bu- what Bulletin board material is, is it is haters as a service.
26. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
27. SPShaan Puri
  And so what, what we do is we go and find the people, oh, p- my first... People love the podcast. Every day people love the podcast, but guess what? In some corners of the internet, there's people who hate this podcast. And so what Haters as a Service does is it compiles that information, and it takes out the real toxic stuff that's gonna, you know, give you nightmares at night, so there's some filtering, and it just drips to you a little motivation every week that just reminds you that some people believe you can't do it, that some people say you're not so prepared for this podcast. Some people say, "Shaan, your camera's not working, and you, you know, you, you gotta get that sorted." And so it just gives you that healthy dose of haterade so that you can be your best.
28. SPSam Parr
  It's like we, we... And we just hire a bunch of immigrant mothers whose children are grown and they have some free time, and they'd be like, "Well, you know, your brother's a doctor, Shaan." You know? [laughs]
29. SPShaan Puri
  Exactly. I actually know two women who could run this service single-handedly. [laughs]
30. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]