From $0 To +$100M With Gas Stations & WP Plugins | Syed Balkhi Interview

1. 0:00 – 7:00

   Intro

   1. SPSpeaker0:00

      Yes, in the early days I saved everything. I mean, I did, I did not mi- buy a bed until I got married, dude. Just to put in perspective. [laughs]

   2. SPShaan Puri0:07

      Even when you were dating you- [laughs]

   3. SPSpeaker0:09

      No, there was no bed. I... [laughs]

   4. SPShaan Puri0:21

      What up? Dude, this is a long time in the making episode here. I think we've been talking about you for, like, two years. I think you told us, you were like, "Hey, hey, guys, don't put me on blast like this." Uh, we were like, "You gotta come on the show."

   5. SPSpeaker0:34

      [laughs]

   6. SPShaan Puri0:34

      You're like, "Nah, you're just gonna ask me how much money's in my pocket right now, and I don't know if I wanna do that." But somehow, some way, we convinced you to come on. Syed Balkhi, you're here. Uh, first, why did you just change your mind? How'd, how'd you decide to come on?

   7. SPSpeaker0:48

      You know, I was talking with Sam over Twitter DM, and that's how it happened. [laughs]

   8. SPSam Parr0:52

      Well, what I told you, a lot of people think that Shaan and I are, like, really aggressive about questions, but what they don't realize is, like, we'll ask an aggressive question, but if you say, "I don't wanna talk about that," we just go, "All right, cool. We'll, we'll move on." Like, we don't... We're not, like, digging that hard.

   9. SPShaan Puri1:08

      [laughs]

   10. SPSam Parr1:08

       Uh, so hopefully that changed your opinion.

   11. SPSpeaker1:10

       It... That did, that did.

   12. SPShaan Puri1:12

       So Syed, you're kind of an amazing guy. So let me just set the table here for people. Let me just give you a little... Let me just tease everybody with the appetizer. So I think you are one... You've done something that I don't even know five other people on earth who have done what you've done, which is that you've basically bootstrapped a unicorn. You've bootstrapped a billion-dollar company. Um, you've done it... You're only 32 years old, so you did this by 32. You also didn't, like, invent the next big thing. It's not like you did this because you're super genius. You know, you're not... You, you didn't... You, you're not like a, a, you know, Vitalik, you know, and you're creating Ethereum on the blockchain or something crazy like that. Like, you just did a very specific set of, like, prudent, smart actions, and it just added up in an amazing way. We're gonna talk about it. Um, but also, I didn't know shit about you. Sam's known you for a little while. He brought you up on the pod a while back. He goes, "I know this guy," or, "I met this guy. He's really interesting. He does this WordPress stuff. Have you seen him?" And I was like, "No." We went to your personal website. I don't know if you ever got this clip, but, like, way back in the day, we went to your personal website, we were talking about you. But we didn't know too much. Then we do Camp MFM, which was my, my basketball fantasy camp where we invited, like, 25 other founders, and we had an NBA guy come basically treat us like we were... You know, pretend we're a pro for the weekend. And, uh, when we were there, there were so many people to get to know. Again, I wa- I didn't really get to know everybody at the same time. But then MrBeast did something amazing. So one night we were all in the kitchen, basically. We're all hungry after basketball. And MrBeast just sets a chair in the middle of the ta- in the middle of the room.

   13. SPSam Parr2:50

       [laughs]

   14. SPShaan Puri2:50

       And he goes, "I don't know who any of you guys are" [laughs] because he's like, "Yeah, we've just been playing basketball all day, and now I'm curious. Like, who the hell are you guys? You tech nerds, basically." Uh, and he's like, "Sit down in this chair. You, sit down." And then he would just interrogate that person and be like, "All right, what do you do? Who are you? All right, how does that work? Is that big? What's your dream? Okay, cool." And then he would, like, go to the next person. [laughs] And I think you were maybe the third or fourth person in the hot seat, and I was like, "Oh, this is great. I actually don't know too much of Syed's story." And then you just blew us away. [laughs] You blew us away. Your story was so good, MrBeast was, while he was interrogating you, I thought, um, it was just, like, the perfect interview. If we had just recorded that podcast, I would've been happy. So we're just gonna try to recreate that moment right now.

   15. SPSam Parr3:33

       Well, and Syed, you, you were the, one of the quieter, more humbler people there, and probably the most impressive in terms of, like, traditional business, uh, accomplishments. And it was-

   16. SPSpeaker3:46

       Thanks, man

   17. SPSam Parr3:46

       ... very fascinating what you've done. I basically heard about you through my friend Neville Medhora, and what I know about you is that you had this blog called WPBeginner, which wrote really, uh, a ton of articles, some of it really simple, like, "How do I set up a WordPress site?" And I think that ended up getting, or it still does, has a ton of traffic. And then if I remember correctly, and this is just from an outside perspective, you'll have to tell me if I'm right or wrong, you basically started buying different WordPress plugins that I imagine you saw were popular on your blog. So it was like, "How do I set up, um, a form to capture emails on my WordPress blog?" And you... It probably got lots of traffic, and you're like, "Oh, I should just go buy one of these." Or, "Here are the best-

   18. SPShaan Puri4:28

       [laughs]

   19. SPSam Parr4:28

       ... Here are the five best plugins for this thing." Or, "Here's the five best themes, and if you put your cursor over the links on WPBeginner, you'll see which of the links are affiliate." And I just g- I'm guessing that, like, of the top five, let's say, forms for WordPress, based off the URL, you own, like, three of the top five.

   20. SPShaan Puri4:48

       [laughs]

   21. SPSam Parr4:48

       And through that, you've, like, built this into a business. By the way, you've never told me, I'm just guessing, that makes high tens of millions of dollars in revenue.

   22. SPShaan Puri4:57

       No, no, no, Sam.

   23. SPSam Parr4:57

       [laughs]

   24. SPShaan Puri4:58

       Not tens of, not tens of millions.

   25. SPSam Parr5:00

       [laughs]

   26. SPShaan Puri5:01

       Nine figures of revenue. Over $100 million of revenue.

   27. SPSam Parr5:04

       Oh, I did not know that. Okay, wow.

   28. SPShaan Puri5:06

       So just to paint the picture here. You have, uh, WP Engine, and we'll talk about how... Or, sorry.

   29. SPSam Parr5:11

       WPBeginner.

   30. SPShaan Puri5:12

       So WPBeginner, and we'll talk about how you got to that. But that's the content site. That's just providing free help, you know, content to other people like you who are trying to make sites in the WordPress ecosystem. That's the, the mainstay. And so I'll draw an analogy here, 'cause, uh, we've had Andrew Wilkinson on the pod, I don't know, a dozen times or something. He's probably one of the most famous guests, and w- most, uh, favorite guests of the audi- uh, uh, of, of our community. So, [lips smack] um, you have a business that's a lot like his. He's got a portfolio of companies. You've got a portfolio of companies. He had Metalab, which was kind of his, like, core business cash cow thing that allowed him to buy these others. You had your, uh, your WordPress site that w- the, the content site that was your core engine. Um, in... But I think you've actually done... I think your model actually might be a little bit better. That's no knock on Andrew, it's just to get people excited here. So basically you- I think have a more, like one ecosystem. You're like, "Okay, I'm gonna like dominate this WordPress ecosystem." And the good thing is that WordPress I think powers like 30 or 40% of all websites, so it's, you know, it's huge. It's basically like, you know, a huge chunk of the internet. Um, and then all your stuff fits together. So you, you know, you have one customer, they're trying to, you know, uh, m- make a successful website and grow and, and solve all their problems. You're like, "Great, I have the content that will help you, then I have the tools that'll help you." And you either buy them or you build them. And you've created this portfolio that now does, you know, nine figures of revenue, probably worth a billion dollars. You own the whole thing yourself with no out- no outside investors. You're only 32 years old. Uh, you know, you- you've built kind of an amazing thing. So that's the, just to sketch out like the, the blueprint here for what you, what you've done. Um, Sam, does that... Y- y- you think... Would you add anything to that description?
2. 7:00 – 12:00

   Starts first business at 13

   1. SPSpeaker7:00

      and he's like, "I bought a gas station," or, "I bought like eight or 10 gas stations."

   2. SPShaan Puri7:03

      Right.

   3. SPSpeaker7:03

      So that's like a whole another conversation, but yeah, that, that's, uh, that's about it.

   4. SPShaan Puri7:06

      So let's do a quick thing on the, on the origin story so that people, people have it. You told me once on the phone, you said, I think you were doing consulting or something. You had like an agency. You were like, "Oh, I was helping people make websites, and I was building like CRMs or whatever for them. And then WordPress came out and I was like, 'Oh, this is way better. They should u- they should be using WordPress.'" You started helping... You just were a service agency, right? And then you started... Then WordPress became-

   5. SPSpeaker7:28

      Yeah

   6. SPShaan Puri7:28

      ... your, your s- core service, and then you were like, "Okay, I'm just gonna help people make WordPress, uh, sites for their business." Is that right?

   7. SPSpeaker7:35

      Pretty much. So remember, uh, the very first websites that I built were online proxies, because I wanted to play games in school. Um, and I was making ad revenue on proxies and some arcade turnkey sites, and I was helping small other, you know, local businesses set up their websites. I tried making my own CMS, uh, with PHP. By the way, I, I can code. I'm not the best at it. Uh, I would say now I probably suck at it.

   8. SPShaan Puri7:59

      And what age, what, what, what age was this?

   9. SPSpeaker8:02

      13, 14. Um, so, so I s- would, I would build these websites super cheap. Call it like $250, $300 I would make you a website, uh, back in the day and... But what happened is that these clients would always rely on me to make changes to it, changes to the websites. And as I started doing consulting at a bigger scale, um, I didn't want to do these, uh, the small and, the small ending things. So, and I discovered WordPress around this time. This was 2006. Um, and I said... WordPress was only in inception for three years. So WordPress started in 2003. So I discovered it in 2006. To, to put it in perspective, I've be- I'm 32 now. I've been in WordPress half of my life. [laughs] You know, this is, the result is compounding in one thing for half of my life now.

   10. SPShaan Puri8:50

       By the way, you're-

   11. SPSpeaker8:51

       Right

   12. SPShaan Puri8:51

       ... you're 13, 14 doing this. Are you like at the dinner table at night being like, "Ah, my clients are pain in the ass right now, Mom." Like, you know-

   13. SPSpeaker8:58

       [laughs]

   14. SPShaan Puri8:59

       ... what, what are you saying at home? And, and also how are these people finding you? Are they coming to your middle school and you're handing out flyers? What's going on?

   15. SPSpeaker9:05

       N- no, no, no. So we moved from Pakistan to US when I was 12, okay? My dad had a mechanical engineering degree, but it did not validate when he came to US. So he was working 16 hours a day as a gas station clerk attendant, you know, just swiping things. 16 hours a day, kid you not. Every day, Monday to Friday, and on the weekend he had his third job. So I didn't really see my dad. Uh, my mom was busy, 'cause there's three of us and a fourth one on the way, right? So my youngest brother on- was born in US. So there was not many dinner conversations happening.

   16. SPShaan Puri9:39

       [laughs]

   17. SPSpeaker9:40

       Um, I wanted to figure out a way to have some chunk of change in my pocket so I can buy junk food like Mountain Dew and Kit Kat and Snickers and all, all the shit that you buy when you're in high school.

   18. SPShaan Puri9:52

       Dude, your dad was at the gas station, man. You had the hookup. You just, uh, you just needed to ask. [laughs]

   19. SPSpeaker9:57

       [laughs]

   20. SPShaan Puri9:58

       He was, he was not cutting you any, any breaks there? He's like, "No."

   21. SPSpeaker10:01

       No way. No way. My dad would never do that.

   22. SPShaan Puri10:03

       By the way, you went to high school at age 12 also, right?

   23. SPSpeaker10:07

       Yeah, I started... So I moved here. I had just finished seventh grade in Pakistan, and I came here in March, so there's this two-month gap. The school system is like, "Well, we can put you in eighth grade, and worst case scenario you'll repeat eighth grade because that's where you're supposed to be in anyways." But our education system in Pakistan is far better than the one we have here in US.

   24. SPShaan Puri10:26

       [laughs]

   25. SPSpeaker10:26

       So they're like, "You can go to high school." So I'm like 12 in high school, the youngest person in school. I did not speak English that well. Um, I would say probably very little English. It w- I knew how to read English, 'cause we were taught alphabets and such, but my communication skills were not there. Um, so yeah, that, that was, that was a pretty challenging time for me, and I spent most of the time in the library. During lunchtime, I was in the library, and I wanted to play games 'cause I'm like, "I can't talk to humans." So [laughs] I, I would just play on the computer, and those game sites were blocked. I'm like, "How do you unblock this thing?" And that, you know, drove me down. In terms of how I was getting clients, it was through these forums online, right? So you had forums like DNForum, Digital Point, NamePros, bunch of these, you know, OG communities online th- where you can get, you know, business, and my cousin got me into one of those.

   26. SPShaan Puri11:17

       They don't know you're 13. You're just a guy in a forum.

   27. SPSpeaker11:19

       No.

   28. SPShaan Puri11:20

       Yeah.

   29. SPSpeaker11:20

       Well, like, so we had like a family friend who needed a website and, you know, they had a b- local business. They knew how old I was, and they're like, "Oh, you can do it, and I'll pay you $300 to build my website." I'm like, "Okay, sounds good." And then, you know, that, that's how that, that funnel started.

   30. SPShaan Puri11:34

       So you're doing sites. You're trying to make your own CMS. You discover WordPress. You're like, "Oh, this is way better. Here's a CMS out of the box." Uh, what's, what becomes the aha moment, and, uh, when do you create the blog?
3. 12:00 – 17:00

   Starts WPBeginner at 16

   1. SPSpeaker12:00

      so I had these m- I created these MySpace profiles. They, they were fake profiles, um, and got hundreds of thousands of followers, and I would send bulk, you know, DMs equivalent, which were called bulletins on MySpace, right? So I just wanted more traffic, and I Went down the rabbit hole of SEO, which brought me to WordPress, and, and then, 'cause WordPress was dynamic content. So I added the blogs to the directories, started using, uh, WordPress for the clients, and I had these social media profiles, uh, on Digg and StumbleUpon that were super power users and such. And essentially, when I wanted to get rid of this business, the consulting business, I wanted to figure out how, how do you do this? I asked other agency owners and they're like, "Well, you know, we just have these PDFs that we give to our clients." And I'm like, "But WordPress updates all the time. How do you keep those PDFs updated?" And they're like, "Oh, no, we, uh, we update the PDFs." I'm like, "That's dumb. You should use WordPress to update those documentation." So essentially, WPBeginner started that way. It was the unofficial documentation for WordPress. Now, WordPress had documentation, but it was, it was written for developers by developers. Nothing was for business owners and beginners.

   2. SPSam Parr13:05

      And what year was this?

   3. SPSpeaker13:06

      2009.

   4. SPShaan Puri13:07

      Well, one good point here is that that's now six years after WordPress started, and you're making the-

   5. SPSpeaker13:13

      Yes

   6. SPShaan Puri13:13

      ... beginner site, and there really wasn't a great one. M- most-

   7. SPSpeaker13:16

      Yeah

   8. SPShaan Puri13:16

      ... people, I think, uh, there's a lesson I've seen many, many times as we talk to different guests, which is, uh, sometimes you feel like you're late, but you're rarely ever actually late to the wave. And, uh, Kevin VanTrump told us this one time, he goes, "For all the best things, you always get a s- there's always a second turn to get on the train." Like, uh, you feel like you're late, you feel like you missed it, but often, uh, you're not, you're not that late, actually. Don't talk yourself out of it. Uh, there's, there's almost always another, another, another chance to hop on.

   9. SPSam Parr13:44

      It look- according to Similarweb, right now you get, like, 2 or 3 million visits a month. The early website shockingly doesn't look significantly different than how it looks now.

   10. SPSpeaker13:55

       No. [laughs]

   11. SPSam Parr13:55

       You kind of nailed it right out the gate. It's like it was a simple website, um, where you just have articles about picking the right name, how to install W- WordPress, selecting the right theme, picking the right web hosting. But were you writing this stuff? Because I know you're an English as a second language person, so were you... are, were you actually writing these articles? 'Cause a lot of them are long. Like, look, 55 of the most wanted WordPress tips, tricks and hacks.

   12. SPSpeaker14:18

       Yeah.

   13. SPSam Parr14:19

       Like, these are, like, pretty, like, in-depth articles, as well as you're playing the game of SEO and, like, you clearly understand, like, English.

   14. SPSpeaker14:27

       Yeah. No, by, by this time, I was already in college, right? So I, I started high school at 12, started college at 16. By that time, my English had gotten, uh, much, much better. So I was writing, uh, these articles on WPBeginner. I had a team, um, of two other people that were helping me, uh, with, with, with the website. The website looks similar now and what it was in 2009. There was a period when, when I changed it, and that was a mistake. [laughs] People... You know, I changed the color scheme too much, and the audience were like, they, they didn't resonate with it. So I changed it all back, uh, and haven't changed it since then. 'Cause the big lesson was, you know, big companies don't really change their stuff because they know if it's working, don't, you know, break it. If it's not broke, don't fix it. Don't interrupt compounding unnecessarily, as Charlie Munger says. Um, so I made it go back to what it looks like, [laughs] and it's been that way since 2012.

   15. SPSam Parr15:17

       And what tools do you use to figure out... Well, 'cause I, I imagine most of these articles are, you're writing them based off of what people are searching for, is that right?

   16. SPSpeaker15:25

       Yes. Uh, it's a combination of that and what they're asking us through our contact form, what they're asking us in our Facebook group. I think our Facebook group has probably over 90,000 members, um, and support requests are coming. So yes, we have our own keyword generator. If you go on WPBeginner, it's kind of hidden on the free tools page, is a keyword generator, and you can put in anything in there, like WordPress, and it will tell you what people are searching for. Um-

   17. SPSam Parr15:48

       And you have a lot of comments early on. June, on, in 2010, a year or two after starting, you already had 26 responses on just, I just clicked on a random article, so you're, like, getting traction.

   18. SPSpeaker15:57

       Yeah. So a couple things happened that, that worked out for me. One, do, do you guys remember digg.com?

   19. SPShaan Puri16:04

       Yeah.

   20. SPSam Parr16:05

       Yeah.

   21. SPSpeaker16:05

       It was, it was really popular. So I had a power user profile there. So what I... Like, if one out of two articles that I would submit would hit the front page. So of course, I used that to my benefit, and I used that network to my benefit. So I would create this con-

   22. SPShaan Puri16:17

       How, how did you get a power user profile? 'Cause, uh, there was, uh, there was legitimate ways and illegitimate ways to do that. I'm curious, what, how did you end up having that?

   23. SPSpeaker16:24

       It, it, it's just a social circle, right? So there, there's these engagement pods that, that you go on, and back, back in the day was on MSN Messenger and, [laughs] well, um, AIM. So, so we just had the engagement pods. So if I submit something, like, you know, it was a group chat and everybody would jump, dump their items in there, and you would upload it. So, so yeah, it was an engagement pod.

   24. SPShaan Puri16:45

       And-

   25. SPSam Parr16:46

       And what year did this, did WPBeginner cross a million in revenue, in annual revenue? How long did it, how long did that take?

   26. SPSpeaker16:53

       Maybe a year and a half or so.

   27. SPSam Parr16:56

       Oh, damn, you crushed it right away then.

   28. SPSpeaker16:57

       Yeah, a year. So, you know, we had a good revenue

4. 17:00 – 22:05

   Syed’s 1st million at 21

   1. SPSpeaker17:00

      stream. So let's, let's, let me take a step back. So there was this business and the Listicle business. So collectively, passed a million, uh, in, in a year and a half. So about 2011, 2012.

   2. SPShaan Puri17:14

      And so you're early 20s, uh, basically at that stage. You're a millionaire. Um-

   3. SPSpeaker17:19

      That was my first million

   4. SPShaan Puri17:20

      ... how does that feel? You said you grew up, your par- you know, your dad worked... Like, you told me you were like, "Yeah, my dad worked at a gas station," and I thought, Pakistani guy says gas station, you, I know you own gas stations. I was like, "Oh, so your family owned gas stations." You go, "No, no."

   5. SPSpeaker17:32

      No. [laughs]

   6. SPShaan Puri17:32

      "He sat in the gas station. He wor- he swiped the cards in the gas station." Uh, and you were like, "Everybody in my family I knew, you were either, you worked at a gas station or you're like, 'Oh, you're, you're real smart,' like, 'You, you get to be a bank teller.'"

   7. SPSpeaker17:43

      Right. [laughs]

   8. SPShaan Puri17:43

      And that's all you knew in your bubble. So tell me two things. How did you get... 'Cause you gotta kind of see the possibility of being a business person or being wealthy before you're gonna even do it. Uh, so how did that happen? And how did it feel when, like, the name of the podcast is My First Million. I'm curious, how did it feel when that first happened? What was... Do you remember your reaction?

   9. SPSpeaker18:03

      Yeah. So I'll tell you how it, how I knew it was possible. So I used to play cricket, um, which if you have a lot of listeners in Pakistan and India, you know, they love cricket. We love, I love cricket. So I was playing cricket, and there are many leagues in US. In South Florida there was one, and there's many now too. I met this Pakistani gentleman, and he was a sponsor for our team. He's a crazy cricket fanatic, and he became my mentor, and now he's a family friend. Um, but back then, I just see this Pakistani guy, you know, driving a S Class and, you know, just super humble, super nice, and I'm like, "What do you do? Are you, are you, like, born into money, or what [laughs] what's your, what's your spiel?" I was pretty blunt as a kid. Um, so, so he's like, "No, I have real estate. I came to the US with, like, $500 in my pocket or $100 in my pocket." You know, those typical immigrant story. Um, and then he, you know, after we would win the games, he would take us out to eat. Sometimes he would invite us all to his house, which is, like, you know, big mega mansion, right? You know, 15, 18,000 square foot house. Um, and his kids were my age, so we'll just kinda go over to his house, hang out. Sometimes we would go over to his house to watch cricket games because they're happening on the other side of the world, so time zones are different. And in between breaks, I was the one who took interest in his business, you know? And his kids were all roaming around, but I was... I'm like, "Tell me how this works. Tell me how this works." Right? So he would tell me stories like, "Oh, this is how I took over a Burger King for free," or, "This is how I did this, and this is how I started." So I, I absorbed a lot of the earlier lessons on business, finance, just hustle from him, right? And he was always super encouraging. He would ask me, "How's, how is this going? How..." You know, and I felt like I could talk to him about it. So that's, that was the early stage of me knowing, oh, this is possible. Because nobody in my family, um, had any, any wealth. Uh, they were just working at gas stations, all my uncles, everybody, and if you were r- really smart, you were working as a teller at the bank. Um, so, so that was the motivation part. In terms of how it felt when I hit my first million, you know, you would think it would be, like, the joyous moment of, "Oh my God, look at this." I was more scared [laughs] than, than, uh, than anything because I was, "Is this gonna, is this gonna last?" That's the question that you have, you know? In your 20s, you're like, you come from nothing, and you have this thing. You're like, "Is this going to last forever?" Like, what, what is the... What am I supposed to be doing? I have no guidance. So there was, like, this inherent fear, so I always lived below my means. Like, way, way, way below my means. So when I was in college, I, uh, I did not buy any furniture. I just slept on a, on a floor, on a, on a blanket. 'Cause I mean, that's how I grew up in Pakistan.

   10. SPSpeaker20:44

       [laughs]

   11. SPSpeaker20:45

       So I'm just like, "I'm not gonna buy any furniture. Why, why, why waste time and money with this?" So in my, in my apartment, I had a, a blanket, and I, I got a desk from Goodwill. So that's what I worked on.

   12. SPSpeaker20:55

       [laughs] And w- w- and I mean, what's amazing is you said I, I would have thought the first million came sooner than 2012, but because in 10 years you've grown that from 1 to 100 plus or whatever it is. When were the inflection points where you were like, "All right. Blogging is cool, and it's working"?

   13. SPSpeaker21:18

       Yes.

   14. SPSpeaker21:19

       Uh, l- let's get beyond.

   15. SPSpeaker21:20

       Yeah. So I launched OptinMonster in, uh, 2013, List25 in 2011. Um, these things started really cranking. I had some really sweetheart affiliate deals with certain companies. Um, that worked out really, really well for me. And so that was good. In that time, you know, we were coming out of the economy, the recession, so real- there's still, like, some real estate deals to be had. So I bought my gas station, the first one, primarily because I wanted to offset, uh, offset expenses-

   16. SPSpeaker21:53

       [laughs]

   17. SPSpeaker21:54

       ... with an appreciating asset, which was a lesson I learned from my mentor, right?

   18. SPSpeaker21:56

       Yeah. L- let's, let's, let's talk about that one real quick. So just do a quick, quick little monologue on why did you buy a gas station when you found out you were

5. 22:05 – 28:20

   Buying gas stations

   1. SPSpeaker22:05

      having a kid? [laughs]

   2. SPSpeaker22:06

      [laughs] So one of the things I learned from my mentor early on-

   3. SPSpeaker22:10

      [laughs]

   4. SPSpeaker22:10

      ... I was like, "How do you, how do you, like, aff- justify buying a Mercedes? 'Cause that's a depreciating asset." And he's like, "Yeah, but, you know, when I drive in this, people think of me better. Like, you know, there's the impression game, et cetera. And how I justify it is I buy something that's an appreciating asset, like real estate, and I just use the income from that to off- pay my lease payment. So my principal never disappears." And I was like, "That's a good idea." Your principal continues to appreciate, and you're using something, uh, you know, the income from it to offset, and it also helps you stay disciplined because you're not gonna go, you know, overspend your money. Because normally when you get a raise or something like this, everybody just thinks in monthly payments, so this takes you away from that monthly payments mindset into thinking a little bit bigger. So when I was about to have my son, uh, I was 26. By this time, guys, like, I was, I was doing all right, you know? I, I had, I had all these VC firms [laughs] reaching out to me, you know. I, I could, I could have had a, a solid eight-figure exit, like, you know, to a high eight-figure exit. I had offers for that at the time. And I'm just like-

   5. SPSpeaker23:17

      High eight figures?

   6. SPSpeaker23:17

      Yeah.

   7. SPSpeaker23:18

      As in, as in 90?

   8. SPSpeaker23:20

      As in 70 at the time. 70. Uh-

   9. SPSpeaker23:22

      For the, for WPBeginner?

   10. SPSpeaker23:24

       No, no, no. I had OptinMonster at the time, and I had, uh, uh, the Gallery Solution at the time, and I had, uh, I had WPForms. I had Analytics. So the-

   11. SPSpeaker23:33

       Were you close to taking it, and how did you decide not to?

   12. SPSpeaker23:36

       Yeah, I, I, I, I definitely thought about it, but then I was like, "What will I do afterwards?" Like, my son is gonna, you know, grow up seeing me not work [laughs] because I'm like, "I'll be set with that money," right? [laughs] Like, I would not, I would not go do anything if you... I mean, if you have $10 million, $20 million, you, you put it in the bank, and you're like, "Okay, this, this is it." I wanted-

   13. SPSpeaker23:54

       But you were gonna have a lot more than-

   14. SPSpeaker23:55

       Yeah. I was gonna have a lot more than that. That's, that's what I'm saying.

   15. SPSpeaker23:58

       [laughs]

   16. SPSpeaker23:58

       Even after paying taxes, I, I would have a lot more than... I would be set. So the, the, the, the factor that my wife and I talked about was what instilled my work ethic was watching my dad work, and I wanted my son to at least see that, right? So-

   17. SPSpeaker24:15

       What, what was the, what was the multiple on that for, to get to 70 million? Is it as high as 10X multiple?

   18. SPSpeaker24:21

       At that time? Um, no. It, it, it, it was lower than that.

   19. SPSpeaker24:25

       So, so you turned that down.

   20. SPShaan Puri24:28

       And-

   21. SPSpeaker24:28

       I turned that down

   22. SPShaan Puri24:29

       You turned it down? W- was it really... You turned it down because you were like, "I want my son to see me work?"

   23. SPSpeaker24:34

       Yeah. And a- also, I didn't, I did- I wasn't ready to give up my baby.

   24. SPShaan Puri24:38

       Okay. And, uh, okay, so fair enough. So you, you, um-

   25. SPSpeaker24:42

       So basically, so here's the thing. So, so at this time, my son is about to be born, and I'm like, "Okay, how much does a baby cost," right? [laughs] Like, what, what, what, what are the costs of this baby? And you're like, okay, well, you know, you're gonna have diapers, you're gonna have, you know, schooling, and this and that. And I'm like, well, what if I buy something that gives me at least five or six grand a month net, net, net, um, and then the baby costs are covered for? So, like, you know, it's gonna give me 60 to $70,000 a year, um, and now I don't have to think about it, and my family is taken care of no matter what happens to me. So yeah, that's, that's, that's what I, I got for a baby shower.

   26. SPShaan Puri25:20

       So m- most people take the money they make, and then they're like, "All right, that's what I have to spend," and they spend it. What you do, from your mentor, is you take the money you make, that has to now go to buy an appreciating asset that will spit out cash flow. You... And then you can spend whatever that one makes. So it's kinda like a, a, a savings program, basically. Um, so you, you, you spend what the... You, you go buy the gas station. The gas station's gonna pay you, and you're like, "That will pay, uh, for this child," you know? Like, I'm gonna provide my-

   27. SPSpeaker25:48

       Right

   28. SPShaan Puri25:48

       ... I'm not gonna provide my, for my family. This gas station is gonna provide for my family. [laughs] I'm gonna put food on the table.

   29. SPSpeaker25:53

       Dude, it allows me to, one, sleep better at night, and two, be more bullish in the deals that I'm doing.

   30. SPShaan Puri26:00

       How many gas stations do you own now?
6. 28:20 – 31:00

   Recurring revenue vs. Re-occurring revenue

   1. SPSpeaker28:20

      o- over $100 in a lead.

   2. SPSam Parr28:21

      Has the WPBeginner revenue grown like the rest of the business, or is that just, like, you're like, "I'm h- I'm perfectly fine with it just being a steady 10 or $15 million a year thing, and I use..." I bet you it's super profitable. I'm looking at your team page. I would bet you make 50% profit or something crazy, and you're like, "I'm just gonna take that profit and buy more stuff, and I'm okay with that being steady."

   3. SPSpeaker28:42

      Pretty much. You know, on, on a content business, you cannot compound it as much. You know, eventually, what, what happens is you will hit the traffic mass that you hit, um, and you can unlock as many levers as you can, but it, the compounding will stop because it's a reoccurring revenue. You know, like the person that I referred this year to something is not gonna compound next year. I'm not gonna get that plus new customers, which is what happens in a software business which is recurring revenue. So yes, your assumption is right, that while WPBeginner has grown, it hasn't grown at the same pace as the software companies. And that's, like, a very big, you know, mental shift in, uh, between recurring revenue and reoccurring revenue for all the creators that are listening. Um, because once you understand that, you'll start thinking about your business a little differently. So I, I took all of our profits and s- invested in, um, you know, software and tools. I, I still have niche tools that are not even related to WordPress, um, that I bought off of Flippa, and sometimes just private outreach because I knew those verticals were gonna be lucrative because I had a better offer than they were promoting. And I paid, like, one guy I think, like, $15,000 u- upfront, and in the very first month, it made me 18 grand. And now every month it makes me over 10 grand. Like, and it's pure profit. Nobody touches that tool, right? So I think about that just as good as a gas station. 'Cause, like, my hosting cost for that tool is maybe, like, $8 a month, right? Maybe 10. Um, and, and that's it. So, so you can have these cashflow income streams that come through, and that's how I was able to buy the businesses that I did without any outside financing, without any outside debt. I was also in a market that wasn't fully mature, so, so, like, there, there was that advantage that, you know, those shrewd PEs and VCs are not in, in the, in the market. They didn't understand the market. Um, and I could see what the potential of a business. So I, I might buy something and you're, you're saying, "Well, this, this has no revenue, it just has user base." And I can come in and say, "Yeah, but if I do this and this, it can, it can be a seven-figure business." So I might buy something for like, you know, six figures, and then in two years that thing will make seven figures in profit.

   4. SPShaan Puri30:58

      You told me something once that

7. 31:00 – 34:20

   Heads I win, tails I don't lose (much)

   1. SPShaan Puri31:00

      sounded almost like a real estate, um, philosophy. So like in real estate they always say, or some people say, "You make money on the buy, not on the sell." Meaning like-

   2. SPSpeaker31:09

      Yes

   3. SPShaan Puri31:09

      ... you should buy something knowing that it has both a margin of safety and that you have the plan for what it's gonna- how it's gonna be different than what the current owner values it at. And I think you had-

   4. SPSpeaker31:19

      Yeah

   5. SPShaan Puri31:19

      ... a similar thing. I for- I forgot what the example was, but it was sort of like, uh, like le- let's say for example, you're like, "Great, I buy this company and they're paying 3.5% on their payment things, but I have a contract with that same payment provider, 'cause I have more scale, that's at 2%. So now I know I have-

   6. SPSpeaker31:34

      Sure

   7. SPShaan Puri31:35

      ... 1.5% off, just off the gross from day one, because I ha- I have this contract." Uh, and you kinda have these-

   8. SPSpeaker31:41

      Exactly

   9. SPShaan Puri31:41

      ... this principle of like, almost like you make the money on the buy 'cause you already know, "Well, I have... I know I can throw this much traffic at it," maybe from WPBeginner. "I know I can renegotiate these payment terms 'cause I already have the contract with the payment provider, or the affiliate contracts with the companies on the other side." Is that, uh, is that accurate?

   10. SPSpeaker31:58

       100%. 100%. So this was one of the lessons I learned from, from a mentor, right? If... And who had a real estate [laughs] background, so the philosophy is very much derivative of real estate. You make money on the buy. You have to be. Otherwi- if you're paying a high multiple, thinking based on future, I mean, yeah, that might work out, but it has a bigger risk. So from my perspective, you know, I wanna have heads I win, tails I don't lose much. And I got that, you know, formula from reading Mohnish Pabrai's book. Was a huge fan of his, now we're friends. Um, but, but yeah, so that's very much finding margin of safety.

   11. SPShaan Puri32:33

       Explain that more. Heads I win, tails I don't lose much. Um, what, what does that mean, and what's an example?

   12. SPSpeaker32:39

       So a good example would be that if, if a business, in your perspective, intrinsic value of it is a million dollars, and you end up paying $700,000 today, heads, you know, you're gonna win, if this business continues growing. Tails, you know, you, you'll still have so much of upside that, you know, 'cause you, you paid 300 grand less, 30% less than market value, um, that in case something don't, doesn't go right, it'd have to be like 40% [laughs] doesn't go right and you still only lose 100 grand in that, in that situation. So you need to be able to look at the deal and say, "What are my downsides?" You have to invert the situation. Um, think about, like, how you're gonna die in this, and then don't go there sort of thing.

   13. SPSpeaker33:23

       [upbeat music] Our software's the worst. Have you heard of HubSpot? See, most CRMs are a cobbled-together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous. I think I love our new CRM. Our software is the best. HubSpot. Grow better.

   14. SPSam Parr33:41

       You, you sort of have this like pay attention to the cents and the dollars will follow type of vibe, where, like, you're really not, you're not... I guess I'm surprised at how, maybe, I don't know if it's still the same way, I'm surprised at how small some of the things that you do, and yet because you own 30 or 40 of them, they're really accumulating.

   15. SPSpeaker34:05

       Exactly. So, dude, when you come from nothing, you have, you have to have a good sense of where the money's gonna go, [laughs] right? And you have to be very conservative to not lose it all. Because I came from nothing, I don't wanna go back to that. So I, I'm very, very cautious. The funny

8. 34:20 – 44:00

   Mismanaged gems

   1. SPSpeaker34:20

      thing about compounding is that if you compounded a healthy rate, and I, I have a very, very good compounding track record.

   2. SPSam Parr34:26

      What, what is it?

   3. SPSpeaker34:26

      I, I've, I've been compounding at a, in double digits in, for, for the past seven, eight years.

   4. SPSam Parr34:33

      What's that mean, 20%?

   5. SPShaan Puri34:35

      Like, what would, what would be considered good? Like, uh, you know, like for, for, for you. You're like, all right, 30% or 40%, that's like... I mean, that's amazing. You can't get that in any normal investment, right?

   6. SPSpeaker34:44

      Exactly. So mar- mar- market compounds at what? 8%?

   7. SPShaan Puri34:47

      Yeah.

   8. SPSpeaker34:47

      Um, private equity might give, might get you in teens.

   9. SPShaan Puri34:50

      Right.

   10. SPSpeaker34:50

       You know? I, I'm way, way... I'm double private equity. More than double. So, so that... So, and that only happens when you can identify a mismanaged gem, okay? Um, when y- when some- somebody has a, uh, has a business and they might only be thinking about monetiz- monetizing from one angle. They're not thinking about it from a full perspective. So I can look at it and say, "Well, yes, this is the current revenue today, and I'm getting a bargain on today's revenue, but here are my contracts that I have with so many different partners and vendors and such, that I'll be able to unlock extra revenue here, here, here, here, here." So I turn this business that has one revenue stream to having, like, multiple revenue streams. Um, and, and that's how you take something that was doing, like, no revenue to, or, or very little revenue, to having, you know, five, eight, $10 million in revenue. Um, and you do it enough times and you just let it compound. Like, these businesses are not rocket growth, right? So this is not a, um, business that's gonna hit, one business that's gonna hit a billion dollars in revenue. That's not what's gonna happen. But these businesses are gonna consistently compound because more people are gonna need websites. Um, the web presence just keeps growing.

   11. SPShaan Puri36:07

       You, you had a tailwind, which was WordPress was just gonna keep getting more and more and more popular, right? That's a huge-

   12. SPSpeaker36:12

       Yes

   13. SPShaan Puri36:12

       ... tailwind. That's like a generational-

   14. SPSpeaker36:13

       Absolutely

   15. SPShaan Puri36:13

       ... tailwind. That's huge.

   16. SPSpeaker36:15

       Yeah.

   17. SPShaan Puri36:15

       This is, already it's gonna grow faster than, like, an average growth rate because of that. Then you can-

   18. SPSpeaker36:20

       Yep

   19. SPShaan Puri36:20

       ... do things smart operationally. But I gotta ask you a question. So our buddy Moyes has this phrase, he goes, "The two sexiest words in the w- in the [laughs] English language are distressed asset."

   20. SPSpeaker36:30

       [laughs]

   21. SPShaan Puri36:31

       Uh, and you just said mismanaged gems as a-

   22. SPSpeaker36:34

       Yes

   23. SPShaan Puri36:34

       ... as a catchphrase of something you look for. I like that idea, but also I'm kind of a lazy motherfucker, and when I hear-

   24. SPSpeaker36:42

       [laughs]

   25. SPShaan Puri36:42

       ... distressed asset or mismanaged gem, I think work. Oh, I gotta go clean up. I gotta manage this better. Um, isn't that gonna take a bunch of work and a bunch of mind share to turn things around versus... It's kinda like the Buffett cigarette butt companies versus like just buying a beautiful business that's already working and letting it, letting it grow for a long period of time. Um, am I wrong? I must be wrong about the, the amount of effort that goes into fixing a mismanaged gem or a distressed asset. What do you think about that?

   26. SPSpeaker37:09

       So I think a distressed asset from a real estate perspective, I would say is slightly different than what a mismanaged gem is. My real estate buys, uh, Shaan, that I did, uh, in, in the early days were distressed assets, okay? Um, but it was just the banks needed to get, get this off their books, right? And I was a cash buyer. Um, you know, I'm not looking to finance anything. I'm, I'm a cash buyer. I had the right contacts, so I was able to buy some of those gas station properties. They were already leased out to, uh, temporarily leased out to, like, Couche-Tard, the Canadian multi-billion dollar company that owns Circle K. All I had to do was just give cash to bank and take, take the, you know, deed over. So those are distressed asset, and I, I got lucky. I mean, I bought a gas station. Um, when it was all said and done, I paid 90 grand for it. And you're like, "Holy crap, how'd you do that?" Uh, that was a distressed asset because you had to do environmental cleanup on that thing [laughs] okay? That was work. So, so those are distressed assets. When you're thinking about a mismanaged gem, um, this is a property where somebody, maybe due to the lack of effort or lack of experience, have not fully understand the potential that is there.

   27. SPSam Parr38:20

       What are the commonalities of not realizing potential or common mistakes?

   28. SPSpeaker38:24

       So, you know, you might, you might be a creator and you have a lot of user base and you just haven't think about monetization f- you know, all the different potential monetizations-

   29. SPSam Parr38:33

       Right

   30. SPSpeaker38:34

       ... that, that, that can be had in that, in that one business.
9. 44:00 – 46:00

   Business Idea #1: Content Agency

   1. SPShaan Puri44:00

      would be more helpful is, like, what ideas or opportunities do you see that, like, somebody else could do? You're too busy to do them or they're too, too small for you now. Um, what ideas or opportunities do you see that other people could do?

   2. SPSpeaker44:11

      I think about cash flow. So if I had nothing, you know, of course it's a lot easier for me now. I can say, "Hey, Andrew, I wanna spend, I wanna invest in Tiny. I wanna go do this," and I can do a lot of those with the means that I have now. But if I was starting all over, the first thing would be to go build cash flow again. And the easiest way to build cash flow is services. Um, you, you know, agency business. Right now, uh, content agency, since I know content well, using AI, I would crush it [laughs] . You know, because I already know that brands like Shopify, et cetera, are using AI agencies to create top-of-the-funnel content. So of course there's some human editing involved, but this changes the game because if an article used to take maybe four hours to write, now you can do it in 45 minutes, right? Because you could, if, if, if you know the game right. So a hustler, a younger version of me, that's what I'd be doing. Content agencies, copywriting agencies, all AI-powered plus human review. I would, I would use like tools like, uh, clay.com. I'm not sure if you've, if you've seen clay.com, but it, it helps you automate your sales outreach. Uh, you dump a profile in, it finds all the data on, on that person. So you can write, you can use GPT to write emails to them and then just hit them up, right? Just cold outreach, cold outreach, cold outreach because some, like, not everybody, but a small portion will, you know, take, take you up on it. Deliver great service, go above and beyond with them, watch the word, word of mouth take you places. You raise prices, um, and I think that's, uh, that would be the way to go for me if I, if I wanted to start all over again. Step one, build cash flow, then figure out how I can take this cash flow to build some recurring revenue stream. Because an agency, you're, you still only have reoccurring revenue stream.

10. 46:00 – 51:30

    Going from creator/operator to capital allocator

    1. SPShaan Puri46:00

       And so, uh, then you would, uh, would you buy versus build from there? And y- y- talk about that distinction 'cause you started off as a builder.

    2. SPSpeaker46:08

       Yes.

    3. SPShaan Puri46:08

       You've now bought like, I don't know, 30 companies or something like that along the way.

    4. SPSpeaker46:12

       Yep.

    5. SPShaan Puri46:12

       And I think you studied not just Charlie Munger and, and Warren Buffett, but also, um, Mark Leonard at Constellation, and you had told me something-

    6. SPSpeaker46:22

       Yep

    7. SPShaan Puri46:22

       ... like you read all his annual letters and there was one thing in there that really stood out to you about building versus buying. What was that?

    8. SPSpeaker46:28

       Yeah. Uh, it was one of his earlier letters, maybe, maybe like a third one or fourth one or something, something like that, um, where Mark talked about that there was three types of growth that Constellation was experiencing. One was growth through organic, which is just your, your business growing organically. In, in their case, maybe 7, 8%, whatever. Um, the second part of revenue growth was coming from acquisitions, um, where they would just go buy revenue. And the third one was initiatives, and initiatives would be things like new builds. I have this product and I'm gonna build a second product. And he was like, "These turn out to be very expensive because it required more resources than time that you planned for. It takes away time of your senior people, um, and you're not even counting those things, so they're distracted." And he's like, you know, "I'm a capital allocator, and from a pure capital allocation perspective, the return on invested capital isn't always great because builds have higher risk, so if it doesn't work out, it's crap. Um, for the first year or so when you're building, there's 0% return on your investment in that time, so the compounding return is lower." Um, and this, this was my take was, you know, you can have ad spend of three years CAC. At that point, might not just go buy a company that has guaranteed revenue, and then you can cross-promote. So, so that sort of took me away from the initiatives idea, so most of our focus, if not all of our focus, is on, um, is on buying.

    9. SPSam Parr47:56

       One thing that I, I, I imagine Shaan is a little bit like this, but I'm definitely l- like this, where creating products and, uh, new businesses is, is part self-expression where, like, it's just exciting. It's fun to do that shit. And I'm not, like, the most disciplined person when, like, the reason I don't like real estate is I'm like, dude, like I, I'm not very great at just looking at this Excel sheet and unlocking value. Like, that's not m- that's not m- what I'm skilled at, and I don't know if I even particularly like that. Where did you learn how to, like, unlock, like, find value that you could unlock, and what are some of the, like, common themes that you see, uh, with that? I don't know, Shaan, are you like that too?

    10. SPShaan Puri48:34

        Yeah, I am. Uh, but then I'm also a short, uh, a, a natural short-cutter. I like to find the simplest path to the solution, and that, so, like, while creating, like you, you had this thing you said on the pod that was hilarious where you're like, "I'm an artist, bro. I'm just an artist. I gotta create."

    11. SPSam Parr48:51

        [laughs]

    12. SPShaan Puri48:52

        And I definitely feel that. I have a creative itch to me. But I also have a, uh, path of least resistance itch to me, where I'm like, "Oh, there's some beauty in just finding a simpler s- a simpler way to win." Um, you know, like-

    13. SPSam Parr49:04

        I agree with that. I also think it's fearful or, or it's, it's fear to, to outlay, to, to pay... Like, with the internet you could start with nothing and spend time, and you can get something.

    14. SPShaan Puri49:14

        Yeah, but I think that's his point.

    15. SPSam Parr49:15

        Or you could-

    16. SPShaan Puri49:15

        He's like, "You could build something new. High chance it's just not gonna work. It's a zero."

    17. SPSam Parr49:20

        T- totally.

    18. SPShaan Puri49:20

        It's also gonna take a long time. If you're buying something that's already working, yes, you outlay cash, but are you actually taking more risk? There's a difference between-

    19. SPSam Parr49:28

        Totally

    20. SPShaan Puri49:28

        ... putting out cash and putting out risk, and I think what he's saying is that

    21. SPSam Parr49:31

        But that's what I'm asking, is the difference be- I, I'm, I'm asking the difference between putting out ca- Like, how do you make that gap small?

    22. SPSpeaker49:38

        So I'll, I'll, I'll say this. So when I started, Sam, I was very much an artist like you. I enjoyed my creation. I enjoyed putting my, you know, fingerprint, footprint, whatever you wanna call it, on those. So when... If you were looking at the early day of the OptinMonster or those products, you would have my footprint on them. And-

    23. SPSam Parr49:58

        Then you had, like, a $20,000 bill to the Serengeti with your family of five.

    24. SPSpeaker50:01

        [laughs]

    25. SPSam Parr50:02

        [laughs]

    26. SPSpeaker50:03

        No, that, that-

    27. SPSam Parr50:04

        'Cause you're like-

    28. SPSpeaker50:04

        I, I, I was not doing Serengeti when I was building the business. You know? [laughs] I'm not doing Serengeti when I was building the business. I was very, very much involved. Um, but a big mindset shift that happened in my career, which has led to, I would say, tremendous growth for Awesome Motive, is the mindset of going from a creator and operator to a capital allocator, right? And this happened when I was studying, uh, Buffett, Munger, uh, Mohnish, et cetera. Buffett says, "I'm a better investor because I'm a businessman, and I'm a better businessman because I'm an investor." Now, you, you read that and you're like, "Okay, sounds good, too," right? But when you think about that from a first principles point of view, what's the commonality between the two is that both investors and the businessmen are resource allocators or capital allocators. So when you can, when you tie that together, that was the aha moment for me when I, when I think about, okay, if I start this new thing, yes, I will make X. But if I buy something, if I, if I shortcut it, and let's say I buy something that's doing $2 million in revenue, I, you know, 20% or 30% of two million is always gonna be better than, you know, 10% or 30% of 100,000, or 100% of 100,000 for that matter. You see what I'm saying?

    29. SPSam Parr51:10

        W- what's the biggest, what's the biggest deal that you've bought?

    30. SPShaan Puri51:13

        You don't have to say which one, but, like, uh, what checks out? What check made you sweat?
11. 51:30 – 55:30

    Straight cash, homie

    1. SPSpeaker51:30

       No. No. Have not bought anything in the tens of million dollar range. These are-

    2. SPSam Parr51:35

       But si- so s- single digit millions, and then do-

    3. SPSpeaker51:37

       Single digit millions. Single digit millions.

    4. SPSam Parr51:39

       It's, it... That is fucking insane that you've built that much value with, like, these little small, like, what's that? Whatever Shaan said, the cigarette butts, like, you've made the cigar with it. But, um... And are you doing all cash up front, or I... There's no way you do that. You're, you're, you're-

    5. SPSpeaker51:52

       Mostly

    6. SPSam Parr51:52

       ... way too sophisticated.

    7. SPSpeaker51:54

       Mostly. Mostly all cash up front.

    8. SPSam Parr51:57

       You do do that?

    9. SPSpeaker51:58

       But there, there might be some pieces of, like, seller financing. But one of, one of the advantages that, that we have, uh, compared to somebody offering, like, a higher valuation, is that we can make the process really seamless for, for the seller. Um, that also allows us to have, get, get a better and a more attractive valuation. Um, but you know, you, you know, if, if you try to ever sell to, like, a private equity or a VC, mostly private equity, you [laughs] you'll be on, in, on the hook for, like, six months. They'll be dragging you, asking you for all sorts of nonsensical stuff, and by the time the entrepreneur's just burnt out, and it's just a shitty feeling. Um, with us, you know, you send, you send me s- a message over the website and my assistant sorts through it. I'll look at it and say, "Okay, yeah, this is good." Um, we- we'll, like, look at it and ask you for the P&Ls. Within, like, a week or, week or so time, we'll give you an LOI, and then we can close in 30, 40 days after that.

    10. SPSam Parr52:49

        Holy shit. Are you the only decision maker?

    11. SPSpeaker52:52

        Yes.

    12. SPSam Parr52:53

        That's insane.

    13. SPSpeaker52:54

        I, I, I, I like to think that I'm the chief risk officer of the company. [laughs] And-

    14. SPShaan Puri52:58

        You told me a story about risk. You... 'Cause I, I was like, "Okay, you buy all this stuff. Um, like, how much debt do you have?" You're like, "No debt."

    15. SPSpeaker53:05

        Yeah. No.

    16. SPShaan Puri53:06

        And you're buying, you know, with a margin of safety, and you're like-

    17. SPSam Parr53:09

        Even with his mortgages, he says no mortgages.

    18. SPSpeaker53:11

        No mortgages. And, and look, look, there's gonna be a lot of financially savvy listeners here, and I have many, many financially savvy friends who are billionaires, uh, and they disagree with me on this be- you know? But, but the way I was raised in, in, in Pakistani culture, debt is considered bad. It's considered taboo. And sure, leverage can help you grow faster, especially when used in a smart way, but it also takes away the margin of safety, which in troubled times can really destroy your autonomy if you're not being careful. So, you know, I'm okay with getting rich slowly. Um, and I think I've done all right f- [laughs] for where I am. I see myself as a turtle in a rabbit race.

    19. SPShaan Puri53:51

        Bro, you're a 32-year-old, like, pretty much billionaire, dude. [laughs] Yeah, you didn't go that slow. [laughs]

    20. SPSpeaker53:57

        You know, in, in 60 years, I think I'll be okay. Um, it helps me sleep better at night, be more bullish. I don't know, Shaan, Sam, do, do you know about, uh, Charlie and Warren's third business partner?

    21. SPSam Parr54:08

        No.

    22. SPShaan Puri54:09

        No. Tell the story.

    23. SPSpeaker54:10

        Yeah. See, nobody knows about the third business partner. Um, so they did have a third business partner. [laughs] Uh, his name was, uh, Rick, right? Rick Guerin or something like this, and he was just as smart as them but was in a hurry to get rich. And Mohnish asked Warren about what happened to Rick at one of the lunches that he, he had. And this is public. I'm not sharing with you anything-

    24. SPSam Parr54:28

        Warren's like, "Rick's a bitch." [laughs]

    25. SPSpeaker54:30

        No, no, no. War- War- Warren said, War- Warren said something along the line with, like, "Charlie and I always knew that we would become, like, you know, incredibly wealthy, but we were just not in a hurry to get wealthy. We knew it, it would just happen. Rick was just as smart as us, but he was in a hurry." So, like, in the '70s, like, '73, '74 downturn, what ended up happening was that Rick had margin loans. He was highly levered, and the stock market went down 70%. So all those margin calls happened, and he had to sell his Berkshire shares to Warren. And, um- More on bottom for like 40 bucks a piece, right? [laughs] So now the same share is like half a m- half a million plus.

    26. SPShaan Puri55:08

        I'm gonna get a framed picture of this guy Rick on my wall, and it's just gonna be a reminder every day, "Don't be in a hurry to get rich. It'll happen. Don't, don't be in a hurry." I- that's going on my wall.

    27. SPSam Parr55:18

        Uh, Shaan, I cut you off. What were you gonna ask him?

    28. SPShaan Puri55:20

        Um, oh, I, I wanted him to tell that story, but also, uh, wanted to go back to ideas. So you had given us the first move. Uh, if I needed a cashflow right away, I would do

12. 55:30 – 57:00

    Idea #2: AI Wrappers

    1. SPShaan Puri55:30

       service agency, maybe something around creating content for brands using... And use AI for leverage, or generating leads for brands and create a lead agency using AI for leverage. Um, okay, that's the get started plan. But you don't wanna be in the service business forever, and you wanna, you, you wanna get out-

    2. SPSpeaker55:45

       No

    3. SPShaan Puri55:45

       ... that's just the get, you know, the, the escape from broke jail pr- plan. Okay, now you've done that, what are... what's kind of like level two type of ideas or opportunities you see?

    4. SPSpeaker55:56

       I, I, I would look into the quick cash cow of tools. Right now there are these AI wrappers, right? So you think like upload your PDF and we'll turn this into a ChatGPT. There's several of those out there right now, but you can make it vertical focused. That's what I would do. I would like ChatGPT for lawyers. Add all of your internal SOPs and now your team can just talk to it. Um, real estate, internal processes, you can do this. My team built this internally in about a week. So it's not very hard to build. You can pay somebody on, somebody on Upwork to do it, and then work with the different, uh, AI influencers on TikTok, IG, et cetera. And this can easily get you to 10K plus a month. I know as a matter of fact, like several kids that are making 10K, over 10K a month and some even over 100K a month, uh, doing just this, just the AI wrappers. So I think that's, uh, that, that's, that's pretty easy. Um, I would, I would look at how I can, um, leverage the Freedom of Information Act to my advantage. Um-

    5. SPShaan Puri56:58

       What is that?

    6. SPSpeaker56:58

       ... trying to go into the student businesses.

13. 57:00 – 1:00:50

    Idea #3: Freedom of Information Act Arbitrage

    1. SPSpeaker57:00

       Are you familiar with FOIA?

    2. SPShaan Puri57:01

       No. What is that?

    3. SPSpeaker57:02

       Okay. So basically in the United States, this works only if you're in the United States, we have such thing called a Freedom of Information Act. That allows you to request any kind of data from any government run, uh, authority. So this could be-

    4. SPSam Parr57:18

       Usually journalists use it. So we used to use it-

    5. SPSpeaker57:20

       Yeah

    6. SPSam Parr57:20

       ... at The Hustle all the time. So like when big stories break-

    7. SPSpeaker57:23

       Yeah

    8. SPSam Parr57:23

       ... oftentimes it's because a journalist did that and they like un- uncovered some, you know, controversial fact.

    9. SPSpeaker57:28

       So now, now you can, you can get creative with it, right?

    10. SPSam Parr57:30

        Yeah.

    11. SPSpeaker57:30

        So you can, you can go and say, um, to a government agency, maybe a university or whatever, uh, "Hey, I wanna see the contracts of your last three or five construction projects that you undertook." Um, and that, that will give you an advantage, um, uh, in terms of how to approach terms and pricing that was approved before. So when you're submitting your bid, it's, it's better.

    12. SPShaan Puri57:52

        Mm.

    13. SPSpeaker57:52

        So but you can get really creative, uh, like that. I remember I was talking, this, this was a while ago. Um, I was talking to a guy, uh, he was in Atlanta area, and he would request student informations from universities, so public universities. Um, and he was targeting like nursing school graduates and so on. If you were coming out of nursing school, uh, you know, he, he, he wanted your information. And the schools have to give it to you, and you might pay them like a processing fee of like $100 or something like that. But you would get the whole graduating class's name, email address, the, you know, their physical address that the university have on file. They, they give, they give that to you. Um, and then he would send those students an affiliate offer for a student loan forgiveness program that was passed under the Obama administration, right? And so the affiliate offer was for a company that would fill out those forms for you, right? And they would charge the, charge you like, I don't know, 5- 500, 600 bucks, and they would pay this guy. And he was like, "I just send one email, I make six figures and then move on." So I, I would ex- find arbitrage opportunities like these to build up more cash flow. Um, and then I would go invest. So, but you know, Sam, when you, when you're talking about in the earlier days, you were very focused on the WPBeginner. But there was a lot of creative things that were happening like this that was helping my cash flow, um, grow. Uh, and that allowed me to invest in software.

    14. SPShaan Puri59:16

        What were some fun-

    15. SPSpeaker59:16

        Yeah

    16. SPShaan Puri59:17

        ... creative cash flow things you were doing at the time?

    17. SPSpeaker59:18

        I, I'm not gonna talk about this.

    18. SPShaan Puri59:20

        [laughs]

    19. SPSpeaker59:22

        [laughs]

    20. SPShaan Puri59:22

        There's gotta be one prolific one that, that is, uh-

    21. SPSam Parr59:25

        I've heard a bunch through friends of friends. I'm not gonna mention any of them.

    22. SPSpeaker59:28

        Yeah.

    23. SPSam Parr59:28

        But I've heard, I've heard some of your things. I mean, like the space that you're in, everyone starts sometimes black hat, gray hat, and then as you like start making real money, you're like, "All right, I gotta go legit."

    24. SPShaan Puri59:38

        [laughs]

    25. SPSam Parr59:39

        Uh, but I've, I've heard-

    26. SPSpeaker59:40

        Sure

    27. SPSam Parr59:40

        ... some crazy stories about what you used to do.

    28. SPSpeaker59:42

        [laughs] That's good.

    29. SPShaan Puri59:43

        But yeah, Justin Mares had a good phrase. He goes, "Uh, do whatever you gotta do to make your nut and then go on your noble mission." And, um-

    30. SPSpeaker59:50

        [laughs]
14. 1:00:50 – 1:03:15

    Net worth breakdown

    1. SPShaan Puri1:00:50

       do this." [laughs]

    2. SPSam Parr1:00:51

       What are you... Have you ever had liquidity from selling a business, or has the majority of your liquid wealth come through annual cash flows? And are you pulling out a significant chunk from the- From the business?

    3. SPSpeaker1:01:03

       Yes. Um, I'm pulling out m- massive chunks from the business. Um, in terms of liquidity event, yes, I sold, uh, two, two businesses, relatively small, you know, seven-figure exits on both of those. One was the YouTube channel business and another was a, was a software photography, software business. Um, in terms of the cash flow, you know, we, we operate with a very healthy cash flow. So I moved that out to the, to the holdco level, um, and then used that cash to invest, um, you know, in private businesses as well as in real estate and public markets.

    4. SPSam Parr1:01:45

       If you had a pie... A good question Shaan always asks is, "What do you do with your money?" If you had a pie of your, uh, net worth, what's that allocation looking like?

    5. SPShaan Puri1:01:54

       A pie chart, not just a pie.

    6. SPSam Parr1:01:55

       A pie chart.

    7. SPShaan Puri1:01:56

       [laughs]

    8. SPSam Parr1:01:57

       Or a pie.

    9. SPShaan Puri1:01:58

       Yeah, or a pie. [laughs]

    10. SPSpeaker1:01:59

        It's so heavily skewed towards my business, the online business portfolio. Extremely, extremely heavily skewed. Um, I would say then a g- good chunk is in the, in the public stock market, um, and then I have cash.

    11. SPSam Parr1:02:14

        Do you actively manage your portfolio or are you, uh, are you just doing boring shit?

    12. SPSpeaker1:02:19

        Big chunk of it is boring, er, you know, dollar cost average index. Um, I have begun to play with, you know, a little bit of money to, uh, to see what I can do with it. And I've d- I've, I've done all right.

    13. SPShaan Puri1:02:32

        Like stocks or other stuff?

    14. SPSpeaker1:02:34

        No, no, stocks.

    15. SPShaan Puri1:02:34

        Stocks.

    16. SPSpeaker1:02:35

        This is only, I'm only talking about public investments 'cause real estate is separate.

    17. SPShaan Puri1:02:38

        You, um, you talked about like kind of s- coming from nothing, literally sleeping on the floor, uh, because you're like, "Why would I buy furniture? I should not buy furniture," even when you had money. Um-

    18. SPSpeaker1:02:49

        Yeah

    19. SPShaan Puri1:02:50

        ... but I believe two things. A, money is a tool. It's not the, like, end goal. It's a tool to, to enable you to do something with it. And B, um, there's no point to money e- except for to, you know, i- uh, you know, enhance your lifestyle, other people's lifestyle, you know, im- improve lives in some way, right? It would be a shame to just, uh, have the money and never use it. Have you... And, and spending mon- and spending money is as much of a skill as making money. You just, you know, you just start

15. 1:03:15 – 1:06:40

    Learning how to spend money

    1. SPShaan Puri1:03:15

       it later in life. Um, have you learned how to spend money, and, uh, what have you learned? What, uh, what can you teach us?

    2. SPSpeaker1:03:22

       Yeah. Uh, yes, in the early days, I saved everything. I mean, I did, I did not mi- buy a bed until I got married, dude, just to put it in perspective. [laughs]

    3. SPShaan Puri1:03:31

       Even when you were dating? [laughs]

    4. SPSpeaker1:03:33

       No, there was no bed. I... [laughs] Um-

    5. SPShaan Puri1:03:36

       Ladies, find you a man like, find you a man with no bed. [laughs]

    6. SPSpeaker1:03:40

       So, so, you know, I, I, I met my wife in high school. Um, so, so, so she's known me since I was broke and, you know, her f- her parents weren't that well off either. [laughs] So, um, so yeah. In terms of learning how to spend the money, yes, now I have. Right? For me and the culture and how I was raised, w- we take care of family first. Um, and my first thing was to ensure my parents are retired, 'cause my dad worked really, really hard when I, you know, when we moved to US. So my, my parents are retired. I mean, they go to Pakistan maybe, like, four times a year. They're in Pakistan, you know, like, right now, for example. So, um, so yeah. So that, that, that, that was first thing first in terms of making that impact. Um, in terms of traveling, I, I, I realized that I get a lot of creativity and joy out of just going and seeing new places. Um, and I spend the money on those, those things.

    7. SPSam Parr1:04:36

       Are you giving equity to your, uh, people? Like, is the structure where is there, like, a holdco that you fully own, and then the holdco owns 80% of this company, 70% of this company?

    8. SPSpeaker1:04:46

       Yes. Yes. In the early days, that's what I did. Now I don't do that.

    9. SPSam Parr1:04:50

       Now you don't give equity-

    10. SPSpeaker1:04:52

        No, no

    11. SPSam Parr1:04:52

        ... to the operators. Do you regret giving equity?

    12. SPSpeaker1:04:54

        No, I, I enjoy working with those co-founders and I, I don't think I would be able to do what I did without them.

    13. SPShaan Puri1:05:01

        What now? You're only 32. Like, what are you gonna... Like, how do you get up in the morning, feel motivated, you know, what are you, what's, what's driving you now?

    14. SPSpeaker1:05:09

        I want to build a generational company.

    15. SPSam Parr1:05:10

        Sounds like you're there though.

    16. SPSpeaker1:05:12

        No, I think it's generational when my, like, you know, when my kid- kids are older and grandkids are around. I, I'm, I'm probably gonna be doing this till, till I'm dead. Um, I enjoy the game. I enjoy the fun of it. Um, I know Sam doesn't get excited about, [laughs] uh, about buying a business and fixing it up and growing it. I, I get, I get a thrill out of it, you know, 'cause for me, that's the opportunity. That's the hustle. Like, finding, finding the edge, um, getting that deal. Uh, you, you can say in, in some sense, um, take, just, just getting an unfair advantage. Um, but, but d- kn- knowing those tricks, knowing those tactics, giving me a head, like, you know, like, if you play basketball, I mean, we all play basketball and I sucked at it, right? But there were some people, like Alex was amazing, right? Because Alex had been doing this for a long time, and he had tactics. He could just cross you over or whatnot. Um, I like having those tactics in, in the business.

    17. SPSam Parr1:06:07

        Okay. What's crazy is you might be, like, probably in the top 50 richest, maybe, maybe top 100, top 200 richest under-40-year-olds in America.

    18. SPSpeaker1:06:17

        I've kept a very, very low profile, and the only way this would be validated is if I was ever to raise a round or if I was to exit, right? Um, so right now what I can see in looking at our, our, our numbers and what similar companies trade at and, and, you know, exit at, my assumptions are based on that. Um, but it actually doesn't matter

16. 1:06:40 – 1:09:00

    Thoughts on buy vs. build

    1. SPSpeaker1:06:40

       to me one way or another. I'm pretty, I'm comfortable.

    2. SPShaan Puri1:06:43

       This model of buy, don't build, and, um, of becoming a holdco and having a portfolio, like, there's a whole bunch of people who I know that are trying to do this right now. I'm sure you get a bunch of questions. I think I've called you asking you a bunch of questions about this. Um, what do you think, uh, they get wrong? What's the common mistake or trap you think smart people can fall into trying to do this path, or what's a misconception that smart people have when they come into this?

    3. SPSpeaker1:07:10

       One thing that I've, I've noticed, [laughs] uh, noticed c- several things, but th- this is, this is the primary thing, is that the excitement takes them away, so they, they will overpay on a deal, uh, and then regret it later on when, when they find out. Because oftentimes they have taken investors' money, um, they are on a timeline, you know, most of them are trying to raise a fund, you know, your typical 10 year plus two years whatever. So they have a... They're, they're not disciplined enough, uh, to wait, and I have no rush. Like, you know, if I don't buy a company this year, you know, doesn't make a difference. Um, but, you know, so, so it allows me to be more measured and disciplined in, in the deals that we do. Um, and that's, that's probably the biggest thing. Yeah. And, and/or underestimating the problems that exist in a business.

    4. SPSam Parr1:07:58

       The first interview that I saw with you was, it looks like it was on Mixergy, our friend Andrew Warner. It looks like it might have been 2014, but I think it was even before that. And Andrew was like, "How much revenue do you, do you do?" And you go, you go, "Andrew, I told you, I'm not gonna tell you this."

    5. SPSpeaker1:08:15

       [laughs]

    6. SPSam Parr1:08:16

       And, uh, it was pretty funny. And then I asked you to come on here, and you're like, "I'm not telling you these numbers." You've told us a lot of shit. Like, it seems like you're, you're, you're in a different, uh, sphere than you were before, where you don't mind talking about some cool stuff. And I think that that's neat, because y- you're, like, maturing from, like, this hacker, probably gray hat hacker from, you know, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, to, like, kind of a tycoon.

    7. SPSpeaker1:08:47

       I think, you know, when, when I was younger, I was afraid, um, uh, you know, just from a taboo things, but also I didn't... I wanna fly under the radar, and I still do. But I wasn't very vulnerable.

17. 1:09:00 – 1:16:40

    Closing thoughts

    1. SPSpeaker1:09:01

       Um, I struggled with vulnerability. And that, that changed as my network changed, as, as I continued leveling up. Um, you know, with, with... I mean, now my, my forum is amazing, and with YPO, but it's not a YPO forum, but everybody's in YPO. Um, and tho- those kind of, you know, groups really, really help you mature and find your blind spots and things like that. So, so I, I'm, you know, definitely appreciative of, of the friends that I have who call me out on those things, and they have helped me become better.

    2. SPSam Parr1:09:36

       I'm gonna have to use that little clip for my new company as an ad.

    3. SPSpeaker1:09:39

       Yeah.

    4. SPSam Parr1:09:39

       Thanks. [laughs]

    5. SPSpeaker1:09:40

       [laughs]

    6. SPShaan Puri1:09:40

       Yeah. We'll use AI to replace which, the company you said with Hampton. Exactly.

    7. SPSam Parr1:09:45

       [laughs] Shout-out Hampton there. [laughs]

    8. SPSpeaker1:09:48

       [laughs]

    9. SPSam Parr1:09:48

       Uh, no, man. I think, by the way, if your goal is to have a low profile, I have a feeling that's gonna change when the headline of this [laughs] of this podcast comes out, because, uh-

    10. SPShaan Puri1:10:00

        I, I don't think, honestly, that he's trying to keep a low profile. I just feel like you care about being humble, and, and, uh, you came across a lot of humility. Uh, you know, and not false humility. You know, false humility is basically like, uh, "I'm gonna downplay everything and not tell you anything." And, um, that's actually, like, a different form of sort of, uh, you know, I don't know, arrogance or narcissism.

    11. SPSam Parr1:10:21

        The, the non-flex flex.

    12. SPShaan Puri1:10:22

        Yeah, the not flex flex, right? Or the, it's sort of this close the door up, uh, behind me on the, on the way in, so, you know, I'm in, but you can't get in, 'cause I'm not gonna really do anything. Like, you know, I think the best people are the ones who sort of become the person they needed when they were younger, and I think that, like, you know, the younger version of you, if you heard something like this, was like, "All right, this guy came from nothing, moved here from Pakistan, didn't speak English," was, like, sitting in the library because he didn't know how to make friends in the school, was like, "All right, I wanna play video games." The library had a firewall, so his first business was creating a proxy to get around the firewall. And then he started giving that to other kids as a bo- both a way to, like, make friends and make a little bit of money, and then he took the money-

    13. SPSam Parr1:10:58

        [laughs]

    14. SPShaan Puri1:10:58

        ... and, like, he was like, "Okay, how do I get more customers?" And it's not like he's some business savant. He just kept asking, "How do I get more customers? Oh, what if a directory posted about me? How do I get them to do that? What's in it for them?" And, like, you know, you just one foot after another. So I think you, uh, yeah, I think you did a good job of basically, like, without, um, putting yourself in a position where you said something you're uncomfortable with, you know, you, you did share stuff that I think is, you know, for me at least, pretty, uh, pretty inspiring. You're somebody that, uh, you know, I gave Ben a list of, like, five people. I was like, "You know, who are the five people that we've met?" Because we met a lot of people the last two years. I said, "In the last two years, who are the people that we've met that were kind of the most inspiring?" They seem to have a blueprint for life, not just business, that was working for them.

    15. SPSam Parr1:11:41

        Yeah.

    16. SPShaan Puri1:11:41

        So, like, their business part of their life was working, but they were also, like, content, and they weren't, you know, like, in the first five minutes of meeting them, like, weirdly bragging about stuff or, like, saying something that revealed some, like, weird insecurity that's driving them still, and they haven't gotten over it. It's like, I don't know. Those people are... They're, they're characters. They're fun to be around, but, like, I'm not trying to be them. Um, you know, like, somebody who's, you know, has a family life that they actually care about. So we put you on that list, um, and I'm glad you came on because-

    17. SPSam Parr1:12:08

        For sure

    18. SPShaan Puri1:12:08

        ... I don't think most people even know, uh, your story, and that's a shame. You know? Like, uh, I think more people are gonna know your story now after this. Where should people, like, follow you, or where do you wanna send them to, uh-

    19. SPSam Parr1:12:19

        Well-

    20. SPShaan Puri1:12:19

        Go from here

    21. SPSam Parr1:12:19

        ... really quick, Shaan, before we wrap up, I wanna tell you something. So he has this website. So Google Syed's, uh, so it, uh, I want the listener to Google this. So S-Y-E-D, and then his last name, B-A-L-K-H-I, and then Google that and then the word net worth. He's got this hilarious blog post-

    22. SPSpeaker1:12:37

        Oh, this is yours?

    23. SPShaan Puri1:12:38

        Sam told me about this.

    24. SPSam Parr1:12:39

        Yeah. Yes. Where it says, [laughs] "What is Sy- what's Syed's net worth?" The first line. "You're probably thinking..." [laughs] And so his, his, his website comes up first, and it's a blog post. "You're probably thinking that I'm some sort of narcissist writing about my own net worth in third person. It's quite the contrary. I was looking through search traffic for my blog, and I noticed that I have a lot of type-in traffic for users simply searching my name, uh, and then the term net worth." And then he goes on to explain that it's like, it's always changing, but it's not... But knowing someone's net worth is not gonna help you succeed. And he's got this hilarious post that he, and he [laughs] and it was really funny. And, uh, then you also, I wanna give a shout-out. We talked a lot about money and shit. You've got, uh, amazing posts where you do an annual wrap-up. I've been reading that for years. I think you started in 2017.

    25. SPSpeaker1:13:21

        '15. 2015.

    26. SPSam Parr1:13:23

        2015. You, you put a-

    27. SPSpeaker1:13:24

        Yeah

    28. SPSam Parr1:13:24

        ... big emphasis on philanthropy. So, like, you have a school. Uh, I, I think you're big on schools, right? You build schools. I, I forget where. Pakistan, I think. And you, like, are giving away, uh, you, you put a lot of emphasis on, uh, philanthropy, and then it's you and your wife and your kid in a lot of these stuff, and you have your own foundation. You're giving away a lot of stuff. And so, um- I think it's awesome. I think that it, to, to reiterate what Shaan said about being like a, you know, he has this joke about being a total man. About, and, uh, in a, in a way that's kinda like what you are, is like you're like a holistic person, and your, your personal website does a really good job of explaining that.

    29. SPSpeaker1:13:58

        Yeah. You know, I, I started doing those write-ups when my son, when we found out we were gonna be, you know, we're gonna have our son. Um, I was like, "Okay, I should start recapping this." Um, well, we, we start trying to have a kid. I'm like, "I should start recapping, [laughs] um, what's happening in my life so that way, uh, 'cause I'm gonna forget it. And at some point, you know, I, I may wanna tell him, "Oh, check this out, check this out." And that's how those year-end reviews, uh, came about. And I enjoy writing them, and, uh, a, a lot of people love reading them, including you. Th- thank you, Sam, for reading it. And in terms of education, I do believe that levels the playing field, and that's why we're, you know, we do what we do.

    30. SPShaan Puri1:14:37

        Well, I was gonna say, Sam gave you a compliment. I'm gonna make fun of you. Uh, your homepage needs a revamp. You go entrepreneur, investor, and marketing extraordinaire, with extraordinaire in italics.

Episode duration: 1:16:40