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My First Million9 killer $10M+ business ideas in 56 minutes (take notes NOW)
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Transcript
60 min read · 12,163 words- 0:00 – 2:07
Intro
- SPShaan Puri
All right. If you're out there, raise a glass. We are doing a favorite of this podcast, one of the favorite episodes. The people demanded it. The people begged for it. This is Drunk Ideas. [upbeat music] The premise of Drunk Ideas is I have a lot of business ideas that are awful, and if I came to the podcast and I told you the awful ideas were great, you would think I'm dumb. So we created Drunk Ideas where I could take my bad ideas-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... and under the guise of alcohol, mm, you know, more things go, right? It's a... You laugh it off. And so these are ideas that are half-baked. They're, they're, uh, a little silly, but there's a nugget. There's a nugget of something in all of these ideas, all right? They're not just completely silly. Um, so that's Drunk Ideas. We've done this a few times before. I always love doing them. I, I beg Sam to do it. I don't know if Sam loves it as much as I do, but I'm like, "Dude, you ready for one? I've got, like, 20 ideas in the hopper." And he's like, "All right, fine."
- SPSam Parr
Well, you're, you're, you're, like, the funny guy, but also, is it true that you actually keep a running list of this?
- SPShaan Puri
Of course, yeah. Like, in my Slack, I just write the ideas, and I write, uh, Drunk Ideas, so then when the time comes, I just search drunk idea, and I got my whole list filtered for me already.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] What, what are some... Okay. Th- that-
- SPShaan Puri
I think that's in Atomic Habits. Well, that system I just described-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... I think that's the featured case study.
- SPSam Parr
How, uh, how long is that Slack, and who is in it? And are the p- other people in it like, "Dude, shut up"?
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Yes to the last one. I don't even know what the first two questions were. Also, producer Arie is actually not producer Arie today. Co-host Arie today. Arie, how does it feel? We brought you out of retirement back onto the pod.
- SPSpeaker
Back by popular demand. Is that the phrase? I don't know.
- SPShaan Puri
Actually, no. It's, like, back by, um, like, assistance. We were like, "Sam, do you have any ideas?" And Arie's like, "For example." And then she said a great drunk idea, and we were like, "No, no, no. That's your idea. You have to bring-"
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
"... that to the table." [laughs] And so now she, she got dragged onto the show.
- SPSam Parr
I've got a couple, Shaan. I've got a couple that actually are pretty awesome, but you wanna go first?
- SPShaan Puri
I'm...
- 2:07 – 6:03
IDEA 1: Reverse vacations
- SPShaan Puri
All right, I'll start. Uh, there's a lot. Let me give you a little diagram. All right? Let's make it visual for all our visual learners out there. Sam, this is you, normal routine, Monday through Friday. Saturday and Sunday, you do whatever you do. You have a certain level of productivity, a certain level of happiness, a certain, uh, autopilot that you go into. Now, when you wanna relax, and you want to be less productive, more relaxed, and more happy, we call that going on a...?
- SPSam Parr
I don't know. What, what, what am I s-... Break?
- SPShaan Puri
Vacation.
- SPSam Parr
Vaca-
- SPShaan Puri
Correct.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Thank you, David. So, all right. So that's called going on a vacation. So you could think of that like the pen moving down in productivity but up in other factors like relaxation and enjoyment. Now let's go back to our baseline. Now, Sam, when you wanna be way more productive for a week, if you wanna kick ass for a week, if you wanna truly lock in, what do we call that? Is there a word for that? I think not.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] And so I am gonna pitch you my first drunk idea, which is reverse vacations. It's basically a lock-in camp. You take a week off of your normal routine, but you're not going to relax. You're not going to sit, sit in a cabana at the beach. You're going to lock in, and it's... You go to these essentially, um, like, professional penitentiaries, and you go, and you lock in. You are literally locked in. You set a goal.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
You are given, like, robe, like, uh, new clothing. Like, you're wearing, like, you know, a track jumpsuit. Like a... Maybe not, like, full, like, prison garb, but maybe, like, an Adidas tracksuit-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... I'm thinking, and something that just changes your identity. You're not normal Sam. You are here on a mission. You are here to do a thing. It's not... Again, it can't be luxury. We're not trying to get you to relax. This is David Goggins is playing, like, kind of, like, on the ambient sound. Um, you know, there's just pull-up bars in random places.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, ice baths everywhere.
- SPShaan Puri
The showers are all cold.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
You're eating slop. We're not optimizing here. It doesn't... Your health doesn't matter here.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
This is actually, like, a, uh, not a wellness retreat. You should feel a little unwell by the end of this.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
But you know what you're gonna do? You're gonna lock the hell in.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And we're gonna give you something to brag about. It's gonna have a little bit of status to it, that, like... It's kind of like people when they sign up for a marathon or an Ironman. You know, what's the first thing they do? Is it train? No. It's tell friends that they've signed up for an Ironman. And so similarly, I need this to be a place where you have... You're pseudo-bragging, like, workaholic style of how hardcore you are. Like, there's no way to tell people you're being hardcore about your projects right now, and I think we need the reverse vacation. What say you?
- SPSam Parr
That's... That, I think that you, you came out hot. That's a 9 out of 10. I just watched this YouTube video of this guy, and the title was, "I Spent 11 Days Walking in the Mountains in Order to Break My iPhone Addiction," and it was pretty amazing. And, uh, I'm so on board with the, uh, with screen addiction stuff but also with the reverse vacation. I think this is fantastic. Have you ever, uh, had any buddies who have gone to the silent meditation retreats?
- SPShaan Puri
Have I ever? They don't shut up about it. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. They saved up all their talking to, to tell you about it.
- SPShaan Puri
Exactly. [laughs] Like, that, that's, like, a... It's a extreme way to do the kind of, like, self-introspection, but I'm just shocked. There's no... Where is the extreme way to go be super productive? You can do it in fitness, right? You can go put yourself through a really hard fitness challenge. There's lot... HYROX. There's Ironman. There's other... Marathons. There's plenty of ways to do it in fitness, but what about in work? Like, why is there only normal work with deadlines and whatnot, but there's not, like, a place. There's not, like, a way you can opt in and go be hardcore for 48 hours or 72 hours, something like that.
- SPSam Parr
That's pretty awesome. I, I dig it. I give that a 9 out of 10.
- SPShaan Puri
This was-
- SPSam Parr
Let's-
- 6:03 – 13:18
IDEA 2: Rap battle + UFC fight
- SPSam Parr
All right, let me give you a related one.
- SPShaan Puri
Hey, I wanna tell you about something pretty cool. We have a database of all of the business ideas that have been discussed on this podcast. So hundreds of episodes, the team at HubSpot went through, they pulled out all the simple, relatable, interesting, profitable, uh, ideas that we have brainstormed, and they're all available for download for free. Just click the link in the description below. Thank you to our friends at HubSpot for sponsoring this podcast and putting together this free resource for you guys. Back to the show.
- SPSam Parr
Shaan-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah
- SPSam Parr
... have you guys, and Arie, have you guys ever seen or like the meme or a video or in real life of like a ripped Black guy doing pull-ups like in the corner of a busy street and just looking yoked?
- SPShaan Puri
Yes. Love those.
- SPSam Parr
Did you ever wanna monetize that? [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Well, so wasn't my first thought, but I'm curious. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
So, [laughs] so check this out. I just, uh... Rolling Stone did an article on this thing, and it didn't get a l- it didn't get picked up a lot, but it's, uh, it's, it was so cool.
- SPShaan Puri
You took that as validation?
- SPSam Parr
So it doesn't have a name, but it's very similar to a UFC event.
- SPShaan Puri
Okay, it just starts with just, first of all, there's just people kinda hooting and hollering, just screaming in the background right now. This is to start the video, but this guy's doing pushups, squats, dips. [laughs] Okay, so what am I watching? This looks like-
- SPSam Parr
All right
- SPShaan Puri
... a rap battle, but they're just working out instead.
- SPSam Parr
Exactly.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
So check this out. There's no name for this. There's only a couple posts about it. But there's this whole community of people, and I followed them on Instagram, and they're obsessed with calisthenics. This one guy, he basically, I think is, he changed his name. It's like Abu. He went, went to prison, he got into calisthenics, and he got out, and he decided to [laughs] turn it into a competition, and it's exactly like a rap battle meets a UFC fight.
- SPShaan Puri
Mm.
- SPSam Parr
And so basically there's, looks like there's 100 people in a room, and they are all crowded around a very small circle where there's a pull-up bar. There's like an area to do-
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, dude, it's great. There's a guy doing a walkout, like a UFC fight, right?
- SPSam Parr
Yes.
- SPShaan Puri
He's coming out with his own-
- SPSam Parr
Exactly
- SPShaan Puri
... and he's got like a ma- he's got like a character. He's got like a mask on and like a cool-looking chain, and he's like-
- SPSam Parr
His name is Extra Money.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
So it's Extra Money versus Calisthenics The Prince, and it's basically-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... they are, they are the final... They are the, uh, they're the main event. But leading up to it-
- SPShaan Puri
Okay
- 13:18 – 20:39
IDEA 3: Giant claw machine
- SPSpeaker
I've got an idea that I'm gonna run by you. What's more profitable than casinos?
- SPSam Parr
More profitable.
- SPShaan Puri
I do not know [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Church? I don't know.
- SPSpeaker
I'm thinking, uh, casinos for children.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
So have you guys-
- SPShaan Puri
I love it. Arie coming in with pure Dr. Evil. Uh, uh, okay, go on [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
So have you seen one of these? It's a claw machine arcade.
- SPShaan Puri
Yes.
- SPSpeaker
They have one in my town, and there's pro- it's just like this small space. It probably has about 150 claw machines in it, and it's token based, so you're like, "It's not real money."
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Super colorful. They're using like toys that kids go insane for, like Neatos, w- LabooBoos. It's, uh, it's absolutely insane.
- SPShaan Puri
And there's no, is there no other games besides claw machines? So it's like just pure claws?
- SPSpeaker
It's claws, and it's those like totally rigged like try to cut the thread-
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, okay, okay
- SPSpeaker
... and get like a 50 pound LabooBoo.
- SPShaan Puri
Looks like, looks like one of them has like the, uh, the punch machine.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, exactly, where it's just like you try to get the thing to fall off the edge. Um, I went to one, and there was probably 15 people, 15 parents in there, and they, they, they give you a shopping cart, so they- they're setting the tone. Like-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
... you're gonna, you're gonna be in here a while.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Dude, that's genius actually to give you a box to fill up [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Challenge accepted, right?
- SPShaan Puri
I've never found a box I didn't wanna fill up if handed to me [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
But, uh, did your kid win anything?
- SPSpeaker
So I, they do a good job of like... I think the odds are better than like your typical grocery store claw machine 'cause you do, like you see other people with things in their carts, um, TBD how long they'd been there, how much they paid for that ultimately. But I mean, of course like the toys they're giving away, the, the machines that have the most like put out are probably giving away toys that cost 30 cents, and it's basically you're averaging like $2 a game-
- SPShaan Puri
Is this-
- SPSpeaker
... like a, a go
- 20:39 – 27:32
IDEA 4: Butter dispenser
- SPSam Parr
right, Shaan, what do you got?
- SPShaan Puri
All right. Next idea. Okay, Sam, do you cook much?
- SPSam Parr
S- seldomly. Sometimes.
- SPShaan Puri
If you do cook, you ever cook with butter?
- SPSam Parr
Love butter. Tons of butter.
- SPShaan Puri
Tell me... T- l- let's get a little detailed. Tell me how you, h- tell me how you butter up. So are you, uh... You take the s- are you a stick guy? You a spray guy? What are you, what are you doing?
- SPSam Parr
Definitely not spray. I'm the-
- SPShaan Puri
Agreed
- SPSam Parr
... um, what, what's it called? The Irish, uh, Irish-
- SPShaan Puri
Irish Gold
- SPSam Parr
... Irish Gold.
- SPShaan Puri
Or whatever it's called.
- SPSam Parr
Um-
- SPShaan Puri
Kerrygold.
- SPSam Parr
Kerrygold.
- SPShaan Puri
So, so you, you slice.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
You drop it in the pan. It starts melting. Did you put too much? Did you put too little? Well, your pot committed to whatever decision you just made.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
You put too little, now you gotta have catch-up butter, where you're trying to catch up by adding more, but now you got two butters melting at different rates. One's gonna start... Right? That's a problem. Put too much, now you're just a butterball. Pan's... So that's a problem. You gotta nurse the thing. You're sitting there swirling. Well, I saw something, and, um, I'd like to show this to you, and you're, you're gonna think this is a stupid idea, I can tell you that right now.
- SPSam Parr
Isn't that the point?
- SPShaan Puri
Well, the secret point is I think I want you to like these ideas, but I, but I wanna just, uh, explain this thing. So you're gonna see this video. You're gonna think this is stupid.
- SPSam Parr
It's a person who is putting a stick of butter, she's melting it, and she's putting it in an empty deodorant canister. This way she's gonna roll out the deodorant, AKA the butter, and put it on the pan.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] So she's, she's doing it on the pan. She's doing it on her toast. She's just rolling the butter like a deodorant stick. Super easy, no mess, control your volume, spread evenly, tons of dispensing problems solved. Now, you might think, again, stupid idea, but I just... I would like to draw your attention to the numbers in the corner. 2.8 million people have liked this video. 27,000 people have, uh, commented on this video. They love it. They hate it. Doesn't matter. It grabbed their attention. It's a very attention-getting product. And I just wanna point out that in the comments, if you go study the comments of this post, as I did, and I ran a sentiment analysis and, uh, you know-
- SPSam Parr
You crunch the numbers.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, yeah. It was pretty, pretty advanced statistical stuff. I don't wanna, you know, make you feel dumb by, by telling you everything that I did, but I will tell you one thing that I found. There is a non-zero number of people who are like, "Oh, I do that. I've been doing that for years." [laughs] And I don't know if you've ever seen... Have you ever seen a diagram of what's called a happy path? Do you know what a happy path is?
- SPSam Parr
No. Is that the thing where it's, uh, someone walks across the grass and diagonally?
- SPShaan Puri
Exactly. Like, they... Somebody paved a, a sidewalk to walk to d- uh, someplace, but then everybody wants to walk a different direction, and, and so many people wanna walk a different direction that they basically... It forms a trail, and it's a trail of evidence that this is actually what people wanted. That's what I found. I found a happy path here.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
I think that people want a new form factor for this, and if you think that's silly, I'd draw your attention to something else very cool. Have you seen the new Vacation whipped cream sunscreen?
- 27:32 – 35:35
IDEA 5: beepers for kids
- SPSam Parr
Arie, you seem like you're, you're itching to say something. What do you got?
- SPSpeaker
All right. Have you guys seen this? Go to, go to tincan.kids.
- SPShaan Puri
Oh my God, I've heard about this. So tincan.kids. Can you explain this?
- SPSpeaker
Uh, everyone is sharing their numbers for their kids. So this is like a, it's a landline, but it works through the Wi-Fi and you can like pre-program numbers in it. Um, and-
- SPSam Parr
This is so awesome
- SPSpeaker
... it's super, super safe to use.
- SPShaan Puri
So it's, it's physical phone, right? It's like a-
- SPSpeaker
It's a physical phone with-
- SPShaan Puri
... physical phone, old school, with like a-
- SPSpeaker
... punch numbers
- SPShaan Puri
... the swirly cord that was always fun to play with while you're on the phone.
- SPSpeaker
Look, look, they feature it right on there. "Twirl that cord," okay?
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] They know.
- SPSpeaker
So [laughs] speaking my language, but this reminded me of a time a few years ago where I was like, you know what? I'm not, I'm gonna get rid of my smartphone, and what ended up happening with that was that I was like, okay, well now I need a Garmin, uh, GPS. I need an alarm clock. I need to get a camera. You have to like unbundle all of these things. So when I'm looking at this I'm like, okay, so these kids can reach each other at home, but how are you gonna catch them? So I was like how about beepers for kids?
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] I love how some entrepreneurs right now are trying to ride the AI wave, and Arie's like, "I'm gonna ride this tin can wave." [laughs] Not a lot of people surfing this tin can wave right now, but, uh, I see the future. [laughs] Wait, by the way, a little stat on this. So the, so the thing costs like 10 bucks a month as a subscription, uh, to, to use, and they say they've sold hundreds of thousands. They just raised, they've raised a total of $15.5 million-
- SPSam Parr
Wow. I'm looking at it now
- SPShaan Puri
... to, to grow the business. Uh, you, so you buy the phone for 100 bucks and then it's 10 bucks a month to be able to call non-tin can phones. So, okay, free to call other tin cans. 10 bucks a month to be able to call normal people's phones.
- SPSam Parr
This is awesome.
- SPShaan Puri
The, a school in Kansas delivered free tin cans to 200 plus families and students. Uh, it's a, it's like kind of riding the trend of getting kids off of smartphones, as you said, and it's super like viral like looking product. Like it makes you kinda stop, and the name is great, and stuff like that.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, they keep selling out.
- SPSam Parr
Have you guys seen, um, y- uh, what's the little radio, Shaan, that I have at my house?
- SPShaan Puri
To- Tonies?
- SPSam Parr
Toni- there's, Tonies is one and then the other one is called like Yoto. Is it called Yoto?
- SPShaan Puri
Okay.
- SPSam Parr
Uh, it's like a, a little box and there's cards. You buy the cards for $10, and cards are sort of like a CD album where you, like one card, uh, each will have an album. We have Beatles, we have Frozen, and then you can also record your own. And you put it in this box and it plays music, and it's screen-free music. It's so good, and I think that business is doing north of $100 million in revenue.
- SPShaan Puri
It's music, but it's also like nighttime stories-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... and, uh, things like that. They'll, they, they do a little bit more too.
- SPSam Parr
And you could also record your own. So I actually recorded like m- m- or we had grandparents record a story, and we put it on our phone, and then the phone can then be attached to a card and, and it's like, uh, it's absolutely amazing. This business is so good.
- SPShaan Puri
But Arie, I think your beeper idea is genuinely a good idea. I don't even... I mean, I almost feel like are we gonna need to edit it out of drunk ideas and put it into a main episode? Because kids love, like, uh, my kids love anything they can take with them. In fact, it's the bane of my existence that anywhere we wanna go, they bing- bring, like, so much junk. It's like he's bringing his Pokemon book collection when we're going swimming. It's like, you don't need a binder full of Pokemon cards. It's completely irrelevant. Or we're going to a doctor's checkup and they pack like a backpack of junk. And so they like having things with them, and they, uh, they like wearing things. They like, you know, if you give them like a, a bracelet or a necklace or a chain or whatever, they like that type of stuff. Uh, we got them like a fanny pack. They loved a fanny pack. Like, they kinda just like having their own stuff that they can bring with them when they go out. And so the idea of a clip-on beeper, I know for a fact my kids would love that. Now, the question is, what do you do with it? Who beeps them, and what is going on? [laughs] And so, like, you know, 'cause if I'm with them, you know, they're never really alone, right? My kids are not really, like, by themselves where I would need to page them or beep them to get them to, like, do anything.
- 35:35 – 40:01
IDEA 6: Mexican Benihana
- SPSam Parr
All right. What do we got, Shaan? What do you got?
- SPShaan Puri
Okay, here. I'm gonna... Okay, here, I have one that's an AI defense called Slopstopper, and then I have another one called Mexican Benihana, which I think-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Mexican
- SPShaan Puri
... you kind of understand the idea. You tell me which one you want.
- SPSam Parr
Is Me- is Benihana's not Mexican? What is it? Japanese?
- SPShaan Puri
Benihana's, what is it? It's like hiba- hibachi, which is Japanese.
- SPSam Parr
I don't know. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
I mean, they make, like, fried rice, and they toss, like, shrimp into your mouth, so it's not Mexican food.
- SPSam Parr
As Japanese are known to do.
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, yeah. It sounds like, sounds like you want a, you want Mexican Benihana's. All right.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
So here's the thing. You know it-
- SPSam Parr
The stove queso-
- SPShaan Puri
... already from the name
- SPSam Parr
... in your mouth.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, exactly. Chips, dips, guac cannon in the third course. Tell me you wouldn't want the guac cannon. Open your mouth. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
I'm not opening my mouth.
- SPShaan Puri
So, so the best cuisine is Mexican food. I don't even think we really need to talk much about that. It's the best cuisine. The most fun dining environment is chef making food where the table is the stove. The guy's making it for you fresh as can be. Food to mouth, doesn't even hit the plate. Unbelievable experience. Pre-canned jokes, magic tricks, blah, blah, blah. You're sitting in a semi-circle. So I think Benihana's has already, like, found an optimal food social experience. I think Mexican food has found the ideal food. One plus one equals three.
- SPSam Parr
Great. I'm in. [laughs] Have you, um, have you seen the-
- SPShaan Puri
I'm gonna do a fajita, just a f- uh, just a open casket fajita right in front of you right there.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
You know, when they, when you bring fajitas to the table, they already bring it in a s- flaming skillet. Come on, let's make the table the skillet. M- Mariachi bands, entertainment is built in. I've already mentioned the guac cannon, and I also have one more innovation that I was planning to keep close to the vest, but in the spirit of transparency, salsa lazy river running around the table at all times.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Constant motion salsa, just dip as you go.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] That's... [laughs] Were you laughing at yourself?
- SPShaan Puri
Maybe I should've saved this for the end. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Were you laughing at yourself when you wrote that down? [laughs] "Babe, I got it." [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
No, I was like, "Salsa lazy river, that is primo shit."
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
I was, like, impressed with myself last night. I was like, "That is a great..." I mean, that was the cherry on top.
- 40:01 – 44:10
IDEA 7: bulk custom gifts
- SPShaan Puri
Rocky. All right, uh, who's got one? Sam.
- SPSam Parr
I blew my load early on, dog.
- SPShaan Puri
You had one?
- SPSam Parr
It was kinda one and a half.
- SPShaan Puri
Bro, I was setting the expectations low, and you somehow, you somehow [laughs] came in below the expectation. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
All right. They're just... I've just... They're just so much lamer than y'all's. Okay, listen to this. So about eight months ago, we did this thing. So with Hampton, we, we build core groups, so it's a group of eight people and-
- SPShaan Puri
Are you doing a Hampton ad instead of a drunk idea?
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] No.
- SPShaan Puri
That's an incredible pivot. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
So we, we made-
- SPShaan Puri
A Trump-esque double down on your part. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] I'm never saying sorry. Uh-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... we, uh, we make core groups in different cities, and so, like, if we have, like, six people in Austin, and they need a core group, we have to go out and find, like, three people that'd be a good fit for them. And so we hired this kid. We came up with this idea because we couldn't c- find a good service that did this. But we hired this kid, and we paid him $100 a person, and he went and he found, I think, 200 people that could be potential fits for that core group. And he researched each person, and we sent the, this thing we call, uh, bulk email. But that's like a, that's like a direct marketing term. But we sent a gift that was super customized and, uh, directly related to that person. So for example, there was a company called, like, Honey Beekeeping, or sorry, Honey Bookkeeping. It was, like, a bookkeeping service. And we sent them, like, this artisanal, like, amazing honey, and we wrote this, like, special letter just for them. And it's taken about six or seven months in order to get the ROI data on this, but it was one of our best marketing channels, where we, like, made these super customized gifts. The problem was that I had to find a kid who, like, kinda knew how to do this, but we were just making it up as we went. And so I think that someone can truly make this a product where you upload your lead list, and you make heavily, heavily customized gifts based off the person's social media or their, uh, website.
- SPShaan Puri
That's a great story. Good recovery. There was a guy who was doing something called Jumbo Mail or Dumbo Mail or something like that, and his tagline was, "Every o- nobody opens their mail, everybody opens a package."
- SPSam Parr
That's great.
- SPShaan Puri
And, um, I was like, "Yep, actually, makes total sense." And it was, like, a big, kinda, like, what, what you call bulky, like, kind of, like, looking package, and then you put whatever you want inside. But I don't think he was doing the, like, full customization for sales. But that's pretty cool. I like that idea. How much would you pay to send those out, right? You have a pretty high LTV product.
- SPSam Parr
We were paying $100.
- SPShaan Puri
Per person?
- SPSam Parr
Per person, yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
That's probably too low for, like, buying stuff, putting it in a package, sending it out, doing the research. Like, that's doesn't make sense, right? It'd have to be, like, much more than that.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. I mean, it was just like a kid doing a one-off thing for us. So, like he probably made-
- SPShaan Puri
But like in- but you had to include the, the, the cost of the stuff inside.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. It, it could have been $200, but a lot of the gifts weren't expensive. They were just very relevant. So, like, someone could have tweeted out their favorite band, and it was, like, a vintage T-shirt of that band, or something like that. Like, it wasn't like... Or for the, um, bee thing, it was, like, a $20 thing of honey. Like, the... And but then-
- SPShaan Puri
Right
- SPSam Parr
... it was a handwritten letter, and the ROI on this marketing campaign that we did was amazing. It was really good. It was very, it was very, very, very good. And there's this other company called World50. Have you ever heard of World50?
- SPShaan Puri
No.
- SPSam Parr
World50 is a community for Fortune 5000 executives. It does hundreds of million a year in revenue. If you go to their website, you will not see, um, anything about it other than, like, a login. And the way that they get a large percentage of their customers is sending mail, like really cool letters to executives, and so that's where we were inspired by it. Very effective.
- SPShaan Puri
Very cool. Arie, did you have one more? Otherwise, I can bring us home.
- SPSam Parr
Are you just gonna s-
- 44:10 – 49:06
IDEA 8: Slop Stop
- SPShaan Puri
of ideas. And maybe-
- SPSam Parr
No, tell me, uh, Slop Stop.
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, Slop Stop. Oh, this is stolen from a guy. I gotta find him on Twitter. Basically, what he realized is, like, hey, you know how AI's making it really easy to do, like, mass outreach, mass personalized outreach? It's like, you know, here's an AI sales, uh, SDR, right? A sale- sales development rep. Um, so they, you know, they, they scrape email addresses. They email you. They text you. They call you. It seems like it's from a real person, but it's not. And so that's just gonna be, like, a huge problem in the future. So this guy said, "If you can't s- if you can't beat them, join them." So what he did was, uh, a very interesting thing. He created the defense. He was like, "I'll catch the slop." So he basically, you reach out to him, his AI will reply. It'll ask several questions. You need to now go research and, and re- reply to those questions. And he says, "You know what? I'm kind of interested in a call. Let's book a call." He books a call, and, and, you know, it basically, like, just wastes the other person's time right back.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And I thought, "Oh, that's kinda cool." And I thought, "He should go further." He should have an AI show up to the call, and on the call, he should ask more questions, and request detailed follow-ups that they have to go produce, you know, case studies and whatever else they're trying to sell. And then he should ask for the contract, be like, "I'm, I'm, I'm, I think I'm almost ready to sign here," and get the contract. Then he'll send back red lines, absurd red lines, and now you're paying a lawyer to have to deal with that. And at the last minute, he just ghosts you and never comes back, and I think that is gonna be the defense that you need to, to stop the, the ins- insane amount of slop you're gonna have coming at you from, from sales reps. If you have, if you have any, if you're any kind of business owner, you're just gonna get bombarded from all directions.
- SPSam Parr
So at The Hustle, we sent so many emails, and we would get, like, uh, tens of thousands of vacation responders and stuff like that in, like, the company inbox, and I would browse them to see if there was anything interesting. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
What, what would have possibly been interesting? [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Like, sometimes people would actually tell us, like, lit- like, it wouldn't just be s- it would be replies even if we didn't ask for a reply. People would reply back with, like, interesting insights. And there was this one service, you might remember the name of it. I can't remember the name, but it was like, "Hey," it, it would auto-reply, and it would say, "Hey, in order to combat spam, I make emails who I've never talked to."
- SPShaan Puri
Okay.
- SPSam Parr
"I make you pay me $1 to read your email."
- SPShaan Puri
Yep.
- SPSam Parr
And it was pretty brilliant. Um, do you remember what that was called?
- SPShaan Puri
There's been a few of those. Uh, Balaji started one called Earn that he ended up selling to Coinbase, but it's the same thing. It's a reverse inbox. So you, you publicly put out an inbox with a price, and it says, "I'll, I'll re- I'll read or reply to all messages that paid my vig." So it's, it's the only, like, true defense of spam is if you attached a, a price to everything you had to send. And if you're a normal person, that price could be so low, but a spammer spending, sending millions of emails, so you would make it expensive for spammers, but essentially free for normal people 'cause it's such a low, low amount. It was never implemented in the email system because there was no micropayments when email and the internet was early on. Now, with crypto, you could do it, but it's too late. We've already set up all our systems, so nobody wants to adopt these things.
- SPSam Parr
This thing was really cool. Um, I don't remember what it was called, but it was, I think it was really effective. 'Cause every once in a while, I would pay a dollar to reach them to, like, test it.
- SPShaan Puri
There was something, something else called, like, Ymail, or something like that. It was... There was, like, one other one, like Y- you know.
- SPSam Parr
That's what I'm talking about.
- SPShaan Puri
Something like that.
- SPSam Parr
It was called something mail.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah. It was in their email signature. It was like-
- SPSam Parr
Yes
- SPShaan Puri
... "By the way, if you really want me to reply, do this." You know what we should do-
- SPSam Parr
That was awesome
- SPShaan Puri
... by the way? I think... Why don't brands do this? When you send out mass mail, and then you get, like, a vacation autoresponder, like, "Oh, I'm back on July 15th. I'm in Aruba." You should just have the AI respond, be like, "How was Aruba on the 16th?"
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
So thoughtful, right? [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
I think people-
- SPShaan Puri
Nobody's ever, nobody's ever asked you how your vacation was after the vacation responder.
- SPSam Parr
What's... [sighs] I'm, like, horrible at names right now. What's the name of the company that I think we both invested in that does mailers for eCom brands?
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, uh, PostPilot?
- SPSam Parr
PostPilot.
- 49:06 – 55:43
IDEA 9: Take your roommate to work day
- SPShaan Puri
All right, uh, one last idea for you.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Very simple, very simple before we sober up and get out, get back to our day, day, daily life. By the way, if you like these episodes, in the comments on Spotify, on YouTube, tell us. I'm gonna read all of them after this. Uh, we'll do more, uh, 'cause I have to kind of cut, as you can see, coerce Sam into doing these episodes, so I need l- I need some ammo to back me up when we're doing these.
- SPSam Parr
Dude, I gave great commentary.
- SPShaan Puri
You did. You did. You did. In fact, I might have you just pitch this idea. I'm gonna give you the name. You gotta pitch it like debate club.
- SPSam Parr
Okay.
- SPShaan Puri
Ready? Take Your Roommate to Work Day.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Go ahead. You have 10 seconds-
- SPSam Parr
Uh
- SPShaan Puri
... to think [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Well, uh, you are 22. Your roommate works at home and just faps all day, and you decide to get him out of the house, and you wanna bring him to, uh, learn how to be an accountant.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
It sells itself.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, something like that.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
So, you know, I was thinking about this, 'cause sometimes we get asked for advice, God knows why.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And, uh, and one of the things I consistently see is that there are smart, hardworking people that just never find their thing. In, in fact, if I look at, like, a lot of my friends from high school or from college, much smarter than me, much more, like, hardworking and kind of fastidious, they'll, they'll stick with things. They're, they're consistent. They have all the elements you need to be really, really successful. But I feel like when you... If you never find your thing, you'll never find out what you're made of, right? You'll never get to your 100% of what you can do. So I think although I'm not particularly intelligent or hardworking, I did find my thing, and in finding my thing, I got out... Whatever juice I had in my fruit got squeezed out, and I only got there through happenstance, through luck. I stumbled into... I met the right person at the right time, had the right conversation, got the right exposure, tried the right thing, and I stumbled and bumbled into it. I think people don't really h- there's not really great ways. There's no food courts for your career. There's not great ways to go even find out, "What are my options? What's on the menu? What's possible?" And so I kinda think if the world had a Take Your Roommate to Work Day where you could kinda go see what life is like at somebody else's job for the day, it would just broaden the exposure of what you even see, and you might, like, get inspired. You might realize, like, "Damn, the place I work is, is crappy. I need to get, like... Uh, this is my roommate. They're not, like... Why do they deserve to have such a better environment? I need to upgrade." So it might just cause you to raise your standards. It might cause you to have new ideas, to discover a new industry, to discover what a new role is like. So I think people don't really have good ways to get exposure to different career paths to ever find their thing, and instead they're just asked the question, "What do you really love? What's your passion?" And it's like asking my, you know, four-year-old, "What's your favorite food?" And he's just only eaten cheese pizza and mac and cheese. Like, and he doesn't really even know, and you know, I got him to try salmon recently. He loves salmon. He just had no idea, and, uh, you know, it's, you gotta broaden the, the horizons, and so that's Take Your Roommate to Work Day.
- SPSam Parr
I've always wanted, like, Airbnb experiences for different, uh, jobs.
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, you wanna go do it for the day?
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, 'cause I've always wa- Like, when I see Mike Rowe, remember the show Dirty Jobs? I was like-
- SPShaan Puri
Hmm
- SPSam Parr
... I want to try it. So you don't know that show?
- SPShaan Puri
No. What is it?
- SPSam Parr
So I don't remember which channel it was, but when you and I were, like, eight years old to 15 years old, um, it was on all the time, and he... It was called Dirty Jobs. He kinda had an Anthony Bourdain energy where he was, like, this... He was a successful, like, Hollywood guy, but he, like, kinda had blue-collar energy to him, and he would spend the day with a blue-collar guy explaining how this dirty job works, but it was more, like, teaching you about life and getting to know the character. So it was, like, a guy whose job it was to clean sewers or to do port-a-potties or garbage man or w- you know, like, sh- or work on a farm, whatever, and he would, like, explore. And now it's sorta become his shtick where he, um, has lobbied the government, and he's done well where he is getting funding in order to help, uh, fund electrician schools, or r- rather he funds scholarships to those things. And he's a little bit of an American hero if you ask me. Like, he, he's, like, pretty badass, and this show was on forever, and it was so good, and I always remember thinking, I'm like, "I wish I could explore," because I always was entrepreneurial. And when you're thinking of, like, a new idea, when you think of a new business idea that's totally outside of your realm, what do you do? You have to, like, figure out who the person that you need to contact is and then, like, beg them if you can come and, like, shadow them or do something like that. Like, our friend Austin has a new company, and it r- i- it's related to some type of blue-collar industry, and he's, like, cold emailed a ton of them, and he'll go for a day to, like, shadow them and search for problems that he could try to solve on their behalf.
- SPShaan Puri
Well, we at Take Your Roommate to Work Day appreciate your support for the idea. It's a little wind in our sails. Uh, all right, should we vote for our favorite idea, the winner of Drunk Ideas round three or four, whatever this is? I will remind you of the ideas. So I brought reverse vacation, butter deodorant-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... stop the slop, Mexican Benihana's, and Take Your Roommate to Work Day. Sam had last man standing, the calisthenics showdown. Uh, he had, uh, the jumbo Dumbo mail idea, and then Arie had the claw machines idea, the cl- the kids casino, and she had kids beepers, and so those are the ideas. I know what I'm voting for.
- SPSam Parr
Write down-
Episode duration: 55:43
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Transcript of episode EjjI5oLW-R4
