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My First MillionHow A YouTube Car Reviewer Sold His Company For $80M | Doug DeMuro (#456)
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EVERY SPOKEN WORD
95 min read · 18,710 words- 0:00 – 0:18
Intro
- SPSam Parr
Well, how's it feel to be wealthy now, after g- after grinding at this for so long?
- DDDoug DeMuro
It's better than before.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
It is, it is definitely nice. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[upbeat music]
- 0:18 – 3:13
Intro to Doug
- SPSam Parr
Doug, I wanna give you an intro because I've been a fan of yours forever. And I, in 2019 or 2020, when our podcast was much smaller, I told Shaan about you. I go, "This guy Doug is very fascinating. I think he should launch, like, some type of, like, car website. I'm not sure." Then you did-
- DDDoug DeMuro
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... and then we talked about it, and I'm like, "I'm pretty sure this is gonna be huge."
- DDDoug DeMuro
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
And so I wanna take a little bit, I wanna take, like, 1%, you know-
- DDDoug DeMuro
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
I helped you succeed. I get a little bit of credit, 'cause I, I picked you. You're my, you're my horse that I bet on.
- DDDoug DeMuro
You know, there's something real... I'm sure we'll discuss this, but there's something real about that. Like, I tell all my friends now in this space, like, "You need to start businesses. Like, this will not last forever. You need to start businesses." And I think smart people who live, learn the business world kind of realize that.
- SPSam Parr
And you were my, you were my guy. And so for the audience who, who don't know, um, so Doug DeMuro has a, uh... It started as a, you were just a YouTuber, I guess. I mean, you were originally a journalist for a bunch of different websites, where you would write these funny, quirky blogs. Then you parlayed that into a YouTube channel that I think now has, like, 4 million subscribers. But the reason why you're huge and lovable is for a few different reasons. One, you dress really funny. So, like, you'll wear, like, khaki shorts, like, from the early 2000s with, like, a red polo shirt, and then your white undershirt will be longer than the sleeves of your polo shirt. So it's, like, [laughs] hanging out with those sleeves. And, like, you're just dressed, like, horribly-
- DDDoug DeMuro
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... even though your videos each get, like, 2 or 3 million views. Like, you were on, uh, Jay Leno's, um, pod, uh, or you were on Jay Leno's YouTube, like, a few days ago, and you're wearing Saucony, like, running shoes. I'm like, "What are you doing, dude?" Um-
- DDDoug DeMuro
Well, Jay, Jay's is not like... Jay's dressing up, you know?
- SPSam Parr
Mm-hmm.
- DDDoug DeMuro
So I, I feel like I, I... there's not a high bar there.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Anyway, you're, you're just, like, you're very likable because of the way you dress. You're very funny. You're very, um, quirky, 'cause that's one of your things, is you talk about the quirks of a cars. You're very quirky. You're very relatable. And so you've grown this YouTube channel to, like, 4 million subscribers. You launched this company called Cars and Bids, which is, like, almost like eBay, but for different types of cars, cars enthusiasts, so cars from the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s. And then recently you sold the majority of the business to Cherning Group for around $40 million, I believe, when it was only, like, two or three years old. Um-
- DDDoug DeMuro
Yeah
- SPSam Parr
... and I've, I've bought cars from the website. So anyway-
- DDDoug DeMuro
Thanks
- SPSam Parr
... I'm a big fan.
- DDDoug DeMuro
Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you for having me on.
- SPShaan Puri
I, um, I just listened to... So I just bought a car a couple months ago, three or three, four months ago, and, uh, it was your YouTube video that put me over the edge. So I bought a Cada- I, I bought, bought an Escalade, and, uh, I was looking for a review. Your review has 1.7 million views. I was like, "Okay, this has gotta be the best one." Uh, like Sam said-
- DDDoug DeMuro
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... uh, I was surprised. Uh, 'cause I, I'm, I'm not a car guy at all. Uh, and also, I had never seen your stuff. I had only heard Sam talk about you on the podcast. So I actually didn't put two and two together that, "Oh, that's the same guy that Sam's been talking about"-
- DDDoug DeMuro
Right, right
- SPShaan Puri
... until I watched the video, and I was like, "I don't know why. I trust this guy."
- 3:13 – 7:50
The key to building trust
- SPShaan Puri
Uh, what's the, uh, what's the key to, uh-
- DDDoug DeMuro
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... to being this sort of likable, trustworthy guy? Is that just who you are? Did you, did, did you play anything up in your YouTube videos? Is there, is there any str- strategy here?
- DDDoug DeMuro
Mm.
- SPShaan Puri
Or is it all just, uh, that's just who you were?
- DDDoug DeMuro
No. That's a good question. And, and it... the answer is there is remarkably little strategy. Um, I just... I- in fact, if you go and watch the videos from before I had a lot of subscribers, they're pretty much the same. So it's not like, you know, it's not like I knew what the hell I was doing when I had 200,000 subscribers. It's not like I knew where this was gonna go. Um, but I really think, I think one of the reasons though that I kind of did it this way is that, uh, a lot of people come to me and they're like, "I'm gonna make the best car videos with 4K drones and high quality sound and s- music and all this stuff." And I just wanted to, like, kind of show people, like, you actually can do this. As long as the content is good, you can just do this. Like, you can just do it in your garage, you know?
- SPSam Parr
You're just using an iPhone, right?
- DDDoug DeMuro
Basically. The shots where I'm, like, in them, there's a, it's a cam, it's a Sony 4K camcorder, which isn't cheap, but it's also not, like, a crazy camera. And then an iPhone is, yeah, half the video is done on an iPhone.
- SPSam Parr
And, like, you're editing, if I remember correctly, up until recently, like, until the start of Cars and Bids, you were editing them. And, like, they're not, like, good editing, but in a way that makes it awesome. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's a very, it's, it's really funny. It's, it's, it's quirky. I, I like it.
- DDDoug DeMuro
It was just simple. My goal was just always to, like, overload people with info, and, like, cool stuff about the cars. And they could decide. If they decided that, hey, this, this quality's not good enough, then they could go find somebody else. But, like, I always felt that I had the most info. Like, the most, like, it, like the, when you bought that Escalade, like, seeing how all that stuff works, how it's, how it's gonna fit together, sitting inside it. So many other people focus so much on, like, driving experience. They're, they do 45 per, 40, like, like, 20-minute video, and, and, and 18 of the minutes are, "Oh, and here's how it goes through the corners." And I was just like, "You know, like, let's show people the little ins and outs of the car they are actually gonna buy." And I think that that's, like, proved to be quite useful.
- SPSam Parr
And you also have this thing at the end, I don't know if you saw this, Shaan, but, like, I watch ev- every single one of his videos, and he has this thing at the end called a Doug Score. And if, and Doug, you kind of like... By the way, it seems like I'm, like, insulting you constantly-
- DDDoug DeMuro
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... but in reality I'm in, like, love with you. But, like, I'm like-
- DDDoug DeMuro
No, I mean, it's just, it's just, I don't, I get what you're sa- Like, yeah, the, uh, the quality was never the goal. The goal was always, like, the quality of content, you know?
- SPSam Parr
Well, what I'm saying is-
- DDDoug DeMuro
And I agree with you
- SPSam Parr
... you have this thing called the Doug Score, which, like, I base my buying decisions off of. Like, I've bought a bunch of cars, I've, probably three or four cars off of your... Like, you've driven, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars of value, like-
- DDDoug DeMuro
Right
- SPSam Parr
... to whoever-
- DDDoug DeMuro
Sure
- SPSam Parr
... where I bought my car from. And you have this thing called the Doug Score at the end of every video. And I went and Googled and tried to find it, and you could barely find it. It's, like, on a Google Sheet, and you have to click File, Make a Copy, so I could sort it, 'cause I'm trying to sort it. I'm like
- DDDoug DeMuro
You know what I mean? I'm like, I want-- 'Cause you have two categories. You have the weekend category, which is- Right ... uh, you know, like a dad who wants to have fun. It's like McLarens and shit like that. And then you have, um, a family or a daily category, which is just, like, what's good for daily, whatever. And some days I'm like, "You know, maybe I'm in the mood to buy, like, a, a, a fast car." Like, let's go, let's sort by speed in the category of- Right ... um- Weekend, yeah ... and, but I gotta, like, go to Excel, and I've gotta, like, do, like, a, like a, like a, like a row freeze. And, like, it's so complicated. [laughs] Why don't you make this more, like, robust? It's a really-- Th-this database could be a business in itself. I know. I agree. I should do more with it. To be fair, the Doug Score came out in, like, mid '17, and for the first two years it wasn't really all that valuable- Mm ... 'cause it didn't really have that many cars in it. And so, like, late '19 it starts to become pretty valuable, and now there's gotta be, like, 1,000 data points in there. But what happened was I launched Cars and Bids. I just, priorities had to kind of take shape. And yeah, I probably should do more with that because I think it's valuable also. And I think the really valuable thing would be able to be to sort by, like, type of car. Like, if you want a fast wagon, put up all the fast wagons, and then you can just have that. But that's something that, that you could do at home. [laughs] I've decided, I've decided I'm gonna just do the videos and spe- I'm a big fan of specialization, and so I decided I'm gonna do the videos, and we're gonna let other people... And sometimes people email me, they're like, "I just did this great data project with all the Doug Score data, and here it is." And I look at it and it's really cool, and it's like, I should be doing that, but I'm not. At what point did you, uh... So the, the show, I mean, your channel, has it been growing very steadily? And was it making enough income to live off of throughout, uh, its existence? Yeah. So I launched the channel late '13.
- 7:50 – 14:26
When was the turning point for your channel?
- DDDoug DeMuro
Um, but the really big kinda turning point for the channel was in late '16 I flipped to two videos a week. Um, and I don't know that necessarily that is the turning point anymore for a YouTube channel, but in '16 it had a big effect. And, um, and almost right away after doing that, yes, it became enough money to live on. That, the, I, I did that, I made that switch in August of '16, and in December of '16 I made 20 grand. And I was like, "Oh my God," like, [laughs] "this is a thing." I did not, what I didn't know was Christmas, the ad revenue is way higher at Christmastime, and so in January I made, like, eight grand. And I was like, "Oh, well, I guess maybe this isn't a thing." [laughs] Like, I don't know what's going on. But that was one of the things I learned throughout. And so yeah, like, pretty quickly it, it, it kinda grew at that point to become something I could live on. And so y- when you were, made that switch, you're like, "All right, I'm gonna start doing two videos a week," is it because you had heard, oh, the algorithm likes that, or you just happened to do it and saw a bump? What was the, what was the reason? 'Cause I always wonder with people who get started with content, um, like, in retrospect and hindsight, it always makes sense. It's like, oh, of course people are gonna- Yeah ... wanna see a car before they kinda buy it or just, like, sit from the comfort of their home, like, get to see a review of a car. That makes sense. Uh, YouTube's the biggest video platform, so whoever does it on YouTube's gonna benefit. There's gonna be lots of search volume. So they'll probably get views just by a cert- by the search of the name of the car. And, um- Right ... yeah, that video's probably gonna charge a premium or, or be worth a premium or maybe make money on affiliate or something. I don't know exactly what it is, but I s- I can see how it'll make money. It all makes sense in hindsight. At the time, in 2013, when you start doing this, did you think there's a business here, and how did you get those initial views? How did you get the initial momentum? Was it because of your following as a writer, or was it separate? Yeah, that's exactly what happened. And I actually got really lucky. You know, I, I, I never, ever tell people to, like, work for, um, uh, like, promotional value. Like, a lot of times businesses will be like, "Oh, instead of paying you in money, I'll pay you in," you know, like, "exposure." And I think that's BS, but it actually worked for me. I, I wrote for Jalopnik, which at the time was a Gawker blog and was an incredibly popular one. It was the most popular car blog on the internet by far. And, um, I started inserting my videos into those articles, and that drove, the articles drove people to the videos, which then started to put me in the algorithm, which then started to get me subscribers. And Jalopnik was paying me, I swear to God, $25 an article. Mm. Which was not real money, but, like, the value was in the number of people coming over to my YouTube. I didn't know that at the time, but in the years, in the later years, as, as 2013 became 2015, it became clear to me, like, I think I'm actually a YouTuber and not a writer [laughs] anymore. Like, I think this is a reality now. And so when I decided to move to, to two a week, what happened was I left Jalopnik to start a blog with Autotrader, with Cox Automotive and Autotrader, and in order to promote that blog, I decided I would be shooting more videos. And within eight weeks, I was, I, the video content was suddenly earning, getting way more views and way more revenue than the- That's- ... than the writing content. And thankfully, that, the video channel was your own, right? The video channel was your own, even though these were guest blogs- Yeah ... on other people's platforms. Yeah. The agreement with Autotrader was that I would, uh, you know, promote on my YouTube channel these, this blog that we had started. And so I didn't realize that you've been doing this since 2013. I thought that I was, like, an OG by, like, watching since, like, '17. Um, like, so y- I mean, you've been grinding at this for- Yeah ... a while now ... but you pretty much are, because initially I, I made videos with my, my own cars, and those just never got as much traction. And what the big switch in '17 was, I switched to doing reviews of cars, and suddenly it was a lot less work because I didn't have to buy cars and then take on that personal financial risk. I would just, like, show up at a dude's house, film his car, and then peace out, and that was a video. And there was, like, no-- That didn't cost me anything except, like, the gas to get there. And so that was, that was a big change. It also allowed me to do more videos because you can just do more videos that way as opposed to your own cars. You have to kinda think up a new topic every week, which isn't always easy. And so in '17, I think that's when things really started to, like, really take off, when I started to do, like, car reviews and especially new car reviews. That's when I realized, like, okay, that's where the money is and that's where the audience is. But you make jokes sometimes where you're like, um, like for example, I watched your de- I, I'm, I'm, I'm thinking about buying a Defender, a new one, and I, like, watched your video on it, and you, like, make little jokes. You're like, "One day, when I'm able to afford blank, I'll get it." And I'm like, seeing your videos, I'm like, man, I think you could-- I bet you're making, like
- SPSam Parr
You know, at least low digit millions per year without Cars and Bids. I have to imagine this was significantly more lucrative than you, like, the vibe that you would joke about on-
- DDDoug DeMuro
Sort of, but-
- SPSam Parr
... on, on the videos
- DDDoug DeMuro
... but the thing that's, I think, important for people to understand, there's, there's, there's two components. Number one is you never know when it's gonna end. And so like, I, yeah, I was making a lot of money, but you never know when suddenly a comp- competitor shows up, and it can happen in a couple of months, and suddenly you're now third, fourth, fifth in search, and things are slowing down. And so you never really know, like, what that day is. And so unlike maybe an attorney or a doctor where you have this job s- you make a lot of money, less than I was, but you have a lot more job security over long term. For me it was like, yeah, I have a lot of money, but I saved so much of it because I was always just terrified that-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
... you know, I never knew exactly what was gonna, what was gonna happen.
- SPShaan Puri
What amount of money did you feel like you kind of like, you made it or you looked at the number and you were like, "I can't believe this is mine. I have this." Uh, where, where was the milestone for you that it was kind of like your holy shit moment?
- DDDoug DeMuro
Uh, not until we closed the deal with, uh, with Turn10, believe it or not.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
I, I, I, I just never... E- earning on a, on an annual, or a monthly, or a weekly basis, like is just never, to me, like, that's just, there's always of some, some fear in that. [laughs] You know? Like, you're always just a little worried that the tap is gonna turn off. And so there was never a moment where I felt comfortable, like, spending or splurging on something, which Sam goes back to your point, like yeah, there were times when I said, "If I could afford this, I would buy it." But like, I probably could have afforded it, but could I have afforded it and then my business, and then YouTube slows down, and then I have to deal with the depreciation of it? Like, a new Lambo would be cool, right? But if that loses 200 grand in the first two years, I couldn't mentally justify that. Same with a new AMG wagon. I've always wanted one, but they were $150,000 when they were new. Well, was I comfortable losing 50 grand in a year? Mentally, no, because I was always afraid the tap might turn off, you know, at the YouTube channel.
- SPSam Parr
Did you, and when originally when you launched Cars and Bids, I was
- 14:26 – 16:31
Why did you think you could beat Bring A Trailer?
- SPSam Parr
a big fan of Bring a Trailer. Um, Bring a Trailer is similar to you, a different, different audience, but I think I heard rumors that when they sold it was like $300 million. And when you go to bringatrailer.com, it looks just like a blog. Like, it's a very, like, it, it doesn't look like a sophisticated business when in reality it, it is. And when you launched, I was like, "Yeah, this is awesome." But of course, well, a lot of like critics were like, "Well, but it, this, this thing already exists." And so like, what insight did you have to go down this path? And also, who did you partner with early on? 'Cause I don't think that you're a tech person, right?
- DDDoug DeMuro
No, no, not at all. As you can see from my video editing and, and u- heavy usage of iMovie. Um, no. Uh, yeah, Bring a Trailer is, it does exist, and they're huge, and they were huge then, and they're even huger now. Um, and that was the hurdle. What insight did we have? None. What were we thinking? In retrospect, I honestly wonder, like, what, what was going through our minds thinking we could compete with them. The only insight we had was that we had heard... I love Bring a Trailer, and I think they run a great business, and they have some great cars, and I have sold cars on there and whatever. But I, we had heard from s- that there was some dissatisfaction. I think at the end of the day, Bring a Trailer had gotten so massive that, like, stuff was taking a long time to get listed. There were, like you said, the quality of the, the, it's a WordPress blog ultimately. It had cau- it had caused people some issues, you know, in, in sellers, and buyers, and, and the functionality of it and everything. And, and we kind of thought to ourselves, "Hey, we can do this, in our minds, better, and we can make it modern." And so one of the big things that was our focus was doing cars just from the 1980s and up, like more modern era cars. We, we thought, "Hey, if we come with a modern website and f- focus on a modern audience, maybe we can kind of exist in a sort of a different space than Bring a Trailer, where it's like m- more millennial, younger people focused on these types of cars." And I think that that has largely teased out. Although now we're starting to kind of eat some of the Bring a Trailer cars. We just posted a Lamborghini Countach on the site today. Like, we're going down that road a little bit more.
- 16:31 – 27:07
How creator business partnerships work
- SPSam Parr
And who, who did you partner with early on? I mean, I'm, when I was doing research for the original pod, I remember I went to the person's LinkedIn. I was like, "I gotta figure out who he's working with."
- DDDoug DeMuro
Blake.
- SPSam Parr
So yeah, what was that relationship and w- you know, how did it come about?
- DDDoug DeMuro
You know, it's an interesting thing. Um, I get, I've h- my email address is in all my videos.
- SPSam Parr
It's like a Yahoo. It's just DougDeMuro@yahoo, right?
- DDDoug DeMuro
It's, it, it, yeah. I mean, and to be clear, like, my personal email address is not on Yahoo, but that's the email address for all the people who are gonna send me emails. 'Cause as you can imagine, I get, when you post your email address that publicly, you get some weird stuff going on. You know?
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Yeah, people think they know you. What's it called? Uh, people, you know, we get that, Shaan and I get that all the time. What's it called? A parasocial relationship?
- DDDoug DeMuro
Yeah. Right. That's exactly. People will email me and be like, "Hey, man, I'm making 84 grand a year. I got two kids. One of them's in private school. I'm thinking about leaving my wife. What car you think I should get?" And I'm like, "Why are you telling me all this crap?" [laughs] But so I got, I, so I get random emails, and so a, a viewer emailed me named Blake, and he said, "Hey, I know, I know we live close by in San Diego. I have this car. You ever, you know, if you ever wanna get dinner." And this was before I had a, a kid, and I, I would, I would meet up with random re... I did this many, many times, probably 100 times. I met up with just random people on the internet, just, it was how I made friends when we would move to new cities. And so I met up with him, and I learned that he did something in tech, which is how non-tech people view all tech people.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
You know? [laughs] And so, and so, um, it hit me that I kind of wanted to do this only a couple of months after our meeting, and I called him and I was like, "Hey, I know you do something in tech. Can we do this? And what do you think of this?" And he had actually just sold a car on Bring a Trailer and kind of recognized some of the deficiencies, and he said, "Yeah, this is a great idea." And so we used some seed money from his company to kind of just get, get off the ground and get started. And then we launched and, and right away we were e- quickly earning revenue and quickly profitable.
- SPShaan Puri
W- was any of the... What was the split? So I, I always wondered this about creator kind of businesses where it's like, are you just promotion or do you have to do anything with operations? Uh, are you, do you have to put in money? What's the equity split? How did you guys decide kind of roles and then the, the ownership split?
- DDDoug DeMuro
It was tough to decide, um, and there was a lot of back and forth, and it kind of almost killed the thing. But I ended up with, with sort of a substantial majority because I was... Even though they had put down the money, I was coming with the audience. And one of the interesting things I think about these businesses, you'd mentioned Bring a Trailer and how could you compete with it? You would be shocked at how many other auction sites have shown up and failed since we launched. Um, mo- uh, m- most of them never even make it on anybody's radar. Of course, we watch them like a hawk 'cause it's, like, our business, but you'd be stunned at how many of these have shown up. And we learned that, like, you can make a great product, and that's important, and we did that, but, like, having an audience, showing up with an audience is so crucial for the success of this, and that's what's caused all the other ones to fail. And so, um, th- as a result of that, I think they understood that the, a large portion of the value, at least initially, was me. And so even though there was sort of a, a tangling in it, um, I ended up with, with the majority. And yes, I ended up doing an enormous amount of operations work. Like, I was... Personally, the first few weeks, I was approving or denying all the cars that got submitted. We, we didn't know it would blow up so much right away is what happened.
- SPShaan Puri
But you get a thou- I think you got 1,000 in one day, right?
- DDDoug DeMuro
It was, like, the craziest day of my life. We got 1,000. W- w- we offered-
- SPShaan Puri
And, and you give like a, you give like a three-sentence description of each car, I think.
- DDDoug DeMuro
Yeah. [laughs] That was another thing. What the hell was I thinking marrying myself to that idea?
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
But, um, what happened was when we first launched, we had this, we had this idea that in order to attract sellers, we would offer $1,000 for the first 50 cars on the site and $500 for the next 50 cars on the site. It was a brilliant idea. It was, it was spending whatever that works out to be, 75 grand or whatever, but it was the greatest 75 grand we ever spent because we got so many submissions right away. However, um, then we had to deal with them, and boy, was that a, that was a day.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
And it was all me doing it, basically. [laughs] It's a nightmare.
- SPShaan Puri
And what's the, what's the business model? The business model is you, uh, probably if I... I, I don't remember exactly, but is it that buyers, buyers of cars have to give you, like, 3 or 4 or 5% of the total purchase price?
- DDDoug DeMuro
That's right. Sellers pay nothing. Buyers pay 4.5%. Um, and now we've got a few other kind of drivers of revenue as well. There's a shipping component. We just launched inspections, which is really cool. Sellers can get their cars inspected, um, which we have already seen increases the number of bids and the num- the sale price and everything. So that's, I think gonna be a big, um, benefit going forward. Um, but mainly it's that, yes, that the, we get this buyer's fee. And then, of course, we've now rolled up the businesses into one business that the YouTube channel and the, uh, auction site, and so obviously my content revenue is a, is a part of the business too.
- SPShaan Puri
A- and you did, I, I believe in 2021, you did, like, something like 75 million in gross s- sales.
- DDDoug DeMuro
Yeah, that feels right. I should know what the numbers were.
- SPShaan Puri
Well, what was, like, the first month? So you get this immediate surge of ev- of listings, but, you know, getting a marketplace off the ground could be hard, but I, I, I suspect with your audience and it kind of just took off probably fairly quickly. What, what... Do you remember anything about that first month? What, what were the numbers?
- DDDoug DeMuro
Oh, yeah. I'll never forget.
- SPShaan Puri
The first, the first car was your car, right? The AMG wagon.
- DDDoug DeMuro
The first car was my car. That's right. The first car was my car, and I've since sold four or five. Um, although I haven't bought yet. I gotta do that. Um, the first month was chaos. I mean, it's like you hear from any startup founder, um, who's successful, right?
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
Which is that, that, that it was absolute chaos. We had, we had the good problem of not having planned for what would come, uh, the success that came, but the bad problem of then having to do it on the fly. And we were hiring people, like, talking to them on a... Uh, we didn't even have an office. It was COVID. We launched in June of '20. There were no offices. We did this, we launched the whole business from my back patio. And so we're, like, talking to people in the pool. I mean, this was, the whole situation was a complete disaster. Um, and that month was definitely the most chaotic and most ridiculous of my entire life. The first two months, really. And we started to build more of an infrastructure and more of a team, and that kind of started to make things easier. But I was still, like, in the ground, on the tra- in the, on the ground, in the trenches doing everything, um, until the Chernin investment came and we got a little more cash, and we could finally start, like, putting people in their roles, and I could go back to my biggest asset to the business, which is, of course, you know, doing the content.
- 27:07 – 47:37
How does your brand change as you gain wealth?
- DDDoug DeMuro
relevant.
- SPShaan Puri
And so how-
- DDDoug DeMuro
Right
- SPShaan Puri
... how does this work, though? Like, if I'm... Uh, this may be a question for, for Mike and those guys at Turn10, but, like, you buy a creator-led business. Creator wants to go chill on the beach now. You gave 'em, give 'em millions and millions of dollars, but you need their face still. It's tied to their face. Is there, like, a long transition plan where you, you... It's like Blippi, where they just changed out the guy. A different guy came in and started wearing the stuff on YouTube, and everyone in the comments is like-
- DDDoug DeMuro
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... "Hey, uh, that's not Blippi." Um-
- DDDoug DeMuro
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... what's the plan here? [laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
You know, you know, I've been on, I've done a, a few podcasts and interviews and all sorts of things with, after this deal was closed and you're... I think about your question constantly, and you're the first person on one of these who's actually asked it to me. Because, yeah, I think they're nuts.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
I, I truly think they're crazy. Like, if you really think about it-
- SPShaan Puri
Best answer. [laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
If you really think about it, like, like, the whole... It's a great idea when it works, and for them, it's worked wonderfully, and I suspect that relates to the diligence they do on the creator. Like, they, they know that I'm not gonna do that, right? Because they know me. They got to know me through this process. It took, like, six, eight months, and we really got to know each other, and they realized I wasn't about to just bail and go sit on the beach or do something insane, like start saying crazy stuff on Twitter and get canceled, whatever. They knew that. But, like, it, I could.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
Like, I still, if I were them, I'd be terrified. Like, they're making massive investments into businesses that have dudes like me who could just go off the rails one day, and I think that is a crazy business model. But they would retort by saying, "A, we do the diligence, but also, like, this is how businesses are gonna be." Like, creators have these audiences. This is where people want to get their stuff, whatever it is, kitchen products, cars, doesn't matter. They wanna get it from people who they love and who they care about, MrBeast Burger, all that stuff. And so if you're gonna do it, you gotta take that risk. And, but the benefit is you don't have to spend a lot in, like, paid marketing, because the audience is there, and they want to be there. And so there's, like, a huge benefit to that, but also a very scary potential drawback.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
It's funny.
- SPShaan Puri
We've had, we've had MrBeast on the pod. Uh, we recently did an episode with, uh, Danny Austin, who, who created a, a hair, hair, hair care brand, basically a, a scalp brand, um, also doing really, really well. What creator brands are awesome to you that you, you think have done a good job? And is there any that stand out or you took inspiration from?
- DDDoug DeMuro
That's a good question. You know, when we, when we launched this, when we came up with the idea and launched this in the summer of '19, it wasn't as common. Like, it's, having a creator kind of pivot into a brand was, like, less of a thing. A lot of guys were doing, a lot of guys, I say guys because it was car people, but just generally, people were doing merch. That was a big thing. And some of them even had lines of products, whatever, but they, the pivoting of doing this has become more of a thing since then. And so I wouldn't say any of them were necessarily an inspiration. It was more that I was just terrified that I had this giant audience, and if I didn't do something with them, they were gonna start to go away eventually, and I had to do something. And so it was more based out of fear and anxiety than, like, than, like, being inspired by someone [laughs] which is great. Um, but obviously since then, a lot of others have come, and, and I give this advice to everybody I know, everybody in this space, all of my car creator friends. I tell them, like, "Start a business. Start a business. Start a business. You never know when your audience is gonna go away. Please, like, take your audience right now and start a business. Do something." And they, they look at me like I'm nuts some of the time, because they're like, "What do you mean? I'm already traveling five days a week, filming and doing all this stuff and editing late at night, doing, I, you know, me writing scripts. How can I start a business on top of that?" And my answer is, like, "I don't know, but you gotta, you gotta figure it out, because that's the, that's the next way to take what you're doing." [upbeat music] I can't find this client info.
- SPSpeaker
Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application. Every team can stay aligned. No out-of-sync spreadsheets or dueling databases. HubSpot, grow better.
- SPShaan Puri
Have you seen, uh, I wanna ask you about two ideas. Have you seen, have you guys seen, um, what's it called? Uh, Exotic Car Hacks, I think it's called. No. Dude, it's this... The, the guy, I, I think that he's like playing a douche on TV. I think he's, like, trying to be an asshole. Like, his, so his whole sh- he's definitely, this guy's, like, a, a total jerk. But he, uh, he's got this course, I think it's a course. I don't know if it's a community or it's a course. But you pay, uh, a little bit of money and he teaches you how to hack exotic cars, which I have not taken it. I think what it means is, like, you buy a car that's, like, four or five years old, usually around the $20,000, uh, or 20,000-mile range, and then you drive it for one year, and you can sell it, and you have hopefully only, you know, you, you've c- mostly broke even. I think he also has a thing where you can, like, become a licensed dealer, which I don't understand how that works. But I heard a rumor that he sold the course to PE. Is that true or totally made up? I don't know. I, I haven't heard that. Have you seen that, Shaan? I haven't looked at him, man. Have you looked at this guy, now? But [laughs] his, his YouTube banner is, like, uh, Tim as a Grand Theft Auto character. [laughs] So that's, that's solid to start. [laughs] And then I think you're right, it's basically, like, how... It says, "Learn how to buy, sell, and trade exotic cars for fun and profit." Uh, which is, h- honestly, it's a good, good niche. Um, in fact, my only- Yeah ... criticism of this guy is, uh, he doesn't look douchey enough. Like, once you go into the video, he's just, like, a guy wearing, like, a V-neck. He doesn't look like... Yeah, he's just kinda got, like- No, dude. He's like, uh- He needs- I watched a video of his and he was like- ... sunglasses and, like, 10 times more jewelry than they... than he's wearing. Like, this guy, like- [laughs] Yeah ... he needs to piss me off, but also make me want him, right? Like, that's the trick. Well, h- uh, he was driving a Land Rover Defender and he goes, "See, the problem with the Land Rover Defender is my watch is worth five times this Defender." [laughs] He's like, "I can't deci-" So maybe I need the audio. He, he's a verbal douche. [laughs] He goes, "Even though it looks cool, I can't decide if I'm poor, because five of these still wouldn't equal the price of my watch." Well, I think more people should do this. I, so, so Doug, our, uh, one of the companies I built, we got bought by Twitch. When I was at Twitch, you know, you spend a bunch of time on Twitch, and you see what people are doing, and it was like everybody's kinda doing a very similar thing. It's like, um, you know, there's, like, two classes of people. There's, like, you know, really good at the game... Or, uh, three classes, say. Really good at the game, the people watch them because they're so awesome at the game. And they guys, they have no personality. Right. People just like them 'cause their aim is good. And then you have people that are- Right ... super cute, right? Hot girls, they do well, too. And then you have, uh, like, the third group, which is, like, super likable, like, kind of the group you're in, I would s- I would say, where it's like they're not, they're not, like, the most technically good at the game, but they're- Right ... likable, they're fun, they play a ver- they're called a variety streamer. They, they stream a, a bunch of different games. They keep it interesting. Good, good fan interaction. And there was one guy that just took it in a whole different direction, this guy DrDisRespect. Have you seen him? Yeah, I've heard of him. So he created a whole character. He comes on and he, he himself was, like, a college basketball player, so he's, like, 6'8". So he's this huge guy, but he wears this, like, mullet wig. He wears, like, a bulletproof vest, like a red bulletproof vest. He looks like a character from the '80s, and he created his na- he, he created this thing, DrDisRespect, and then he has his, like, his catchphrases. He was basically a wrestling character. So he basically was like The Rock, where he would, um, he had this persona, and he had these catchphrases, and then everybody in his life became a character. His wife became a character. Like, if she would come on the screen, like, you would never see her, only her hand, and she would feed him while he was playing, like, feeding him grapes, basically. [laughs] And he would do everything ridiculous. And then to add to that, he would, like, go sit courtside at an NBA game, but dressed fully as DrDisRespect, and that investment of, like, that $5,000 courtside seat was actually, like, really valuable to building this persona, this brand of, like... And he always called himself the, the 1994, 1995 two-time Blockbuster NBA Jam c- uh, whatever, like, champion. Like, he's got these, like, phrases that he would always go to. Just purposely trying to be hateable. Yeah, just trying to be, like... Exactly. He created a, a whole character and he just stayed- Like when- ... he stayed in character the whole time ... like when Floyd Mayw- wh- when Floyd Mayweather became Money Mayweather. Exactly. You know? He's like, "I'm, I'm going full heel." Exactly. Right. But even more, like, it was more like wrestling, 'cause he's got a costume also, like, on top of the whole thing. And I actually think that for content creators, it's surprising you don't see more of this. Like- Yeah, that's such a good point ... there are these archetypes. Like, in wrestling you have the, the, the faces, the good guys. Right. You got the heels, the guys that are intentionally bad guys that are gonna get- Right ... a, a, a big following because you'll love to hate them. Right. Floyd Mayweather did this in boxing. He was not making any money, and he, uh, he became Floyd Money Mayweather, this obnoxious, arrogant, you know, money-in-your-face guy. Then he started getting really, really popular 'cause people wanted to see him lose. Right. And there's a, there's a guy in the UFC that did the same thing. He, uh, he was basically about to get cut. The UFC told him, "You're too boring. We're gonna cut you." And so that night he went on and he just started saying all this offensive stuff on the microphone against Brazilians, and the, this one fighter, and whatever. And they were like, "Well, now we gotta keep him to fight that guy-" [laughs] "... 'cause he just created a feud." And he's like, this guy just took it to the t- like, to the, you know, to level 10 of being this heel. I, I, I'm surprised there's not more of this on YouTube and- You know, the best car guy who's doing that right now is this guy WhistlinDiesel. Have you ever seen his content? I love WhistlinDiesel. I heard that he's a sweetheart, by the way. There is no car content creator who I like more than WhistlinDiesel. I've never met him. Tell, tell Shaan, tell Shaan what he does. Okay. This dude, it's the cr- it's like MrBeast, but, like, for cars, and he, and he just does things that make people hate him. So he buys a Ferrari to destroy it, and he put it... Y- you know, you, you know you can buy those, as an example, you know you can buy those garage bubbles? Like, like, boomers have the, you know, they put their old Corvette in them inside their garage. It's like a, it's, like, an inflatable bubble that makes sure nobody ever touches the car. He bought one of those for his Ferrari and just started throwing stuff at it, ladders, and shovels, and, and anything he could- Sledgehammers and stuff, yeah ... a sledgehammer, saw, to see if it worked. He would off-road the Ferrari. [laughs] He put giant 20-foot-tall wagon wheels on his Tesla. I mean, all sorts of just dumb stuff. [laughs] And I just am obsessed with it. I'm like, "This is the kind of content I wish I was making." [laughs] How does he af- how does this guy afford it?
- DDDoug DeMuro
I assume, I assume he's doing the same thing that MrBeast is doing, where he's taking basically all of the money that he's pulling in from revenue-
- SPShaan Puri
Reinvest
- DDDoug DeMuro
... and from, you know, placement, ad placements, and just putting it right back into doing more dumb crap. Like, he, he dropped the G-Wagon into a house when he was in the G-Wa- I mean, everything.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
It's just incredible. It's incredible content. It's so cool.
- SPShaan Puri
There's a, he-
- SPSam Parr
What are some of the titles?
- SPShaan Puri
Uh, using $35,000 Nike Air Mags as work boots. So he bought-
- DDDoug DeMuro
Yep
- 47:37 – 52:11
How does it feel to be wealthy?
- SPSam Parr
Does it, uh, well, how's it feel to be wealthy now after g- after grinding at this for so long?
- DDDoug DeMuro
It's better than before.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
It is, it is definitely nice.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
Aside from that car, I didn't, like, splurge on anything. I kind of, like, live a certain life, and that's sort of how it's gonna be. But, um, but it is nice to have a little... I think I am a little bit more anxious about money than a lot of people, and it's nice to not have any of that anxiety anymore. And I'll tell you, it came at the perfect time 'cause I just had a boy, and, like, it's amazing to be able to, like, detach and just, like, be with him without having to worry about, like, grinding for the next video, every little dollar, you know, did I place this thing perfectly in this video? Um, it's a, it's, like, an, an amazing sequence of events.
- SPSam Parr
Do you think, um, how big is this business gonna get? I mean, I think, I, I... By the way, Shaan, have you seen Bring a Trailer? It's basically, like-
- DDDoug DeMuro
Yeah
- SPSam Parr
... a blog. I think it is actually, in fact, WordPress blog.
- DDDoug DeMuro
It's a WordPress, yeah.
- SPSam Parr
I was using it in-
- DDDoug DeMuro
By the way, the whole, whole time we've been doing this interview I've also just been shopping Cars and Bids, so I'm, like, currently, like, my finger is hovering over this 1994 Toyota HiAce s- super custom wagon.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
This, I can just buy this van for $5,000 and I'm very, very tempted to do this. This is a pretty sweet looking van. [laughs] I don't know why I want this, but I really, really want it. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
It's awesome. The site's awesome. I'm looking at, uh, you have this, like, three-wheeler, a Vanderhall, 'cause I was looking at a Mor-
- DDDoug DeMuro
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... a Morgan three-wheeler.
- DDDoug DeMuro
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
I mean, all this-
- DDDoug DeMuro
Should I buy this car or do I need to close this tab? It's, it's buy or close the tab. Those are my two options. [laughs] Right. Right. Exactly.
- SPSam Parr
Well-
- DDDoug DeMuro
That's kind of the fun of it.
- SPSam Parr
Well, you ha- you ha- Bring a Trailer, which was, before you guys, it was basically just a blog. I don't know if you know this, Shaan, but the guy who started it, his name is, one guy's name is Randy, but the other partner was Gentry Underwood, who started Mailbox.
- DDDoug DeMuro
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
That's that company that sold I think for $100 million pre-launch to Dropbox. And I emailed him because he used to have Throttle Yard, which was that for motorcycles. It, it had all the stuff, and I was like, "Tell me about this business, uh, Bring a Trailer," and he says, "It's the hardest slog. Like, it was the hardest thing ever to get going. It took years and years and years." And then I heard a rumor that it sold for many hundreds of millions of dollars. Do you know what it sold for, Doug?
- DDDoug DeMuro
I have an idea, but I don't, I'm not gonna speculate on Randy's business. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
Was it to, uh, private equity or who, who bought it?
- SPSam Parr
Hearst. Hearst.
- DDDoug DeMuro
Hearst Media bought, like, half of it is our understanding.
- 52:11 – 1:08:04
Doug's feud with Car Dealer Guy
- SPSam Parr
Car Dealership Guy. So basically, the story behind this is Shaan and I have been obsessed with... So Shaan and I are both popular on Twitter. We've been obsessed with this idea of like, look, there's gonna be a billionaire YouTuber. MrBeast at least is getting there. M- might be around that. Um, there, we've seen that happen on Facebook. We've seen billion-dollar companies start on Facebook. We've seen that on Instagram. No one's done it on Twitter, but it will happen. And in particular, we're interested in these, like, there's, like, these guys called, like, the guys.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
So there's, like, the Strip Mall Guy-
- SPShaan Puri
Yep
- SPSam Parr
... who talks about investing in strip malls.
- SPShaan Puri
Yep.
- SPSam Parr
There's the Watch Guy, who talks about old watches. And we're like, what's gonna happen with these quote guys? Like, what are they, what are they gonna do? And then there's the anonymous Car Dealer Guy, and I think Shaan, like, DM'd him asking, like, "Which car should I buy?" And he told him to get the Cadillac, and then you watched your review, and then you just wired some guy money and got the Cadillac. What do you think? First of all, I don't know why you'd be-
- SPShaan Puri
No, no. I, I said, I-
- SPSam Parr
I don't know what happened with you and that guy
- SPShaan Puri
... said, "I wanna buy this car. I'm looking for this car. Can you find it for me and buy it for me and get it to my house?"
- SPSam Parr
That's right.
- SPShaan Puri
"And I don't wanna do any work." And he did, he did exactly that. [laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
Um, okay. Here's, here's the, I'll tell you the genesis of the feud, and then I'll, I'll tell you what I think of that. Um, the, the, here's the thing about success on Twitter for a, for one of those guys, and I love all those guy tweet Twitters. I think they're all really interesting, including Car Dealership Guy. But the problem is, in order to be successful on Twitter, and I have a suspicion that this is even more true in the new age of Twitter, you gotta be really controversial, and you gotta be pretty, like, I wouldn't say blasphemous, but you gotta be, like, out there with, like, your takes and your opinions because that amplifies more. And I think Facebook found out years ago that, like, they can do that, but that doesn't necessarily lead to a great community, and a lot of times there was all this election misinformation or all this fear-mongering, and so they, like, dialed back some of that. And it sounds to me like Twitter right now is actually magnifying it. Like, it seems every crazy take is at the top with all these engagements, and that's what they're trying to maximize for. And the problem that I have with Car Dealership Guy is that, like, his, i- if you read his posts, some of them are just, like, the most insane [laughs] fear-mongering stuff you'll ever read. Like, the reason we got into the feud was I, he posted, like, "Ford has done this crazy thing. They're gonna go out of business. It's gonna be the worst thing in the world." And I'm like, [laughs] "This is, this is so insane." And I went into the data of what he was talking about, and Ford had to do some big writedown on some investment this year, and so their profits were low, and he didn't mention that. He only mentioned that the profits were off 80% compared to last year, and it was like maybe a little bit of context-
- SPSam Parr
Or he'll say, like, he'll say, like, uh, a lease, lease, uh, I forget what it's called when you can't pay your lease, but, uh, link- lease delinquency is, like, at this time, which is the highest it's ever been, which means in four months something like this, so-
- DDDoug DeMuro
Everything is gonna blow up and-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah
- DDDoug DeMuro
... and I think the problem I have with all of those guy accounts is precisely that. And so I, I, I called him out on this Ford thing, and we got into a little, a little tiff. And unfortunately for him, everyone who was replying agreed with me once they saw the data-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
... and so he blocked me. And so, and then, but, and then I realized, though, I'm not the only person he has blocked. He, a lot of my car journalist friends, who I suspect have also tried to add context at various times, he has blocked them also. And so what I suspect happens is he's, like, kind of tried to create a little bit of an echo chamber around himself because that's what makes you popular on Twitter now. If you go into somebody's tweets and you see that they have a lot of like, "Whoa, that's amazing" types of replies, they're gonna continue to get magnified and get blown out. And I think the people who have a lot of dissent, it starts to become a little bit cloudier. And, but if you see somebody as, like, a real icon where everybody's agreeing with him, then it continues to make him seem more and more, like, elevated. And I, so I suspect he's blocking all the [laughs] people who disagree. And so I, I, in a, in an id- I like the idea of that Twitter account, but I think in order to be popular on T- I don't e- I don't even dislike him. I dislike the concept of in order to be popular on Twitter, you kind of have to just keep going controversial and these crazy takes And that's really the only way to, like make it work. And I think that that's less true on the other platforms.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, I, I think that's true. We have a friend named Nick who owns a, a- or part owns an agency that outsources a lot of like, uh, assistant, like executive assistant work to the Philippines. [laughs] And he'll do these tweets where he brags about paying his workers $5 an hour, and how that empowers them and, and everything like that. Which, like is or is not true. I, I imagine it is true, but he says it in such a way where he knows people are gonna get angry and share it, and at the bottom of the tweet he'll be like, "By the way, uh, if this actually interests you, you could like sign up here." And so he'll like tweet something that gets like, it'll go v- it goes viral every time. Like, it'll get like, you know, 50,000 likes and like, you know, three or four or 500 quotes of like people saying, "This guy is such a douche. Can you believe how tone deaf he is?" Whatever. And then he'll like text us, he goes, "Made 50 grand today."
- DDDoug DeMuro
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
And like-
- DDDoug DeMuro
Exactly. That's the, that's the problem I have with Twitter, at least right now. I think it's definitely gone to more of a controversy sells kind of thing. You can't just be like a nice dude and do well on Twitter right now. You have to have like hot takes that are controversial and kind of ridiculous in order to get anywhere. And I'm just ... I don't know. It's a shame.
- SPSam Parr
I wanna ask you one-
- DDDoug DeMuro
To-
- SPSam Parr
One last inside baseball question, which was-
- DDDoug DeMuro
Yeah
- SPSam Parr
... um, Shaan, you probably don't, this probably doesn't entirely interest you, but maybe, I think it would for you, Doug. Have you noticed that a lot of car museums are non-profits? So for example, there's like the Barber Museum in, I think Alabama.
- DDDoug DeMuro
Alabama, yeah.
- SPSam Parr
Where ... So it's a non-profit. You can go on and like see their financials and everything. And I have a feeling, and this is like an interesting tax hack, but I don't know if it's true. I have a feeling what they do is they sell a business, sort of like we've all done, and what you've recently done, Doug. And they put their money, I think, in some type of like donor advised fund, which is like you can, uh, give away a certain amount of money to certified non-profits and then reduce your tax burden.
- 1:08:04 – 1:09:38
Will Doug ever fly private?
- DDDoug DeMuro
does this.
- SPSam Parr
What, when will you be wealthy enough to fly private you think? When are you gonna feel comfortable doing it?
- DDDoug DeMuro
Never. Do you know what it costs? Let me tell you a story. This is, I don't, this-
- SPSam Parr
Probably 30 grand from LA to SF.
- DDDoug DeMuro
Okay. So-
- SPSam Parr
Or LA to-
- DDDoug DeMuro
So this is the thing. I, I, we go to Nantucket. So I, so that's like the, I'm, I'm at like the poles of the country. San Diego's the extreme southwest, Nantucket is basically the extreme northeast. So, um- I th- I generally fly first class now. That is one of the splurges that I do. And so a, a first-class ticket across the country is 1,000 bucks or whatever, and I'm like, "1,000 bucks, this is great." And I thought to myself, "If I'm flying first class for 1,000 bucks, I bet I can fly private for, like, you know, 3, 4,000. I bet that's what it costs." This was me of, of, of, uh, naive Doug thinking, "Hey, it's probably only a few grand more, you know? What, how much more could it be?" And the answer is, I looked it up, $55,000 direct from San Diego to Nantucket. And so the answer to your question, when will I be able to fly private? Never.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
My dog and I will always pile into the car and end up refueling at these sketchy gas stations in New Mexico and Oklahoma. That will be our lives [laughs] for years to come.
- SPSam Parr
How often are, are people, uh, recognizing you on these road trips at gas stations? All the time, I imagine.
- DDDoug DeMuro
Um, no, it's rare on the trips. Um, and I'm, and I'm, like, I'm, like, obsessive about getting there quickly. Like, I just go. I don't ever stop and, like, look at people or chat. But in life, like, yeah, all the time obviously, and it's, it's always nice. It's always good interactions with people.
- SPSam Parr
Well, dude, this is awesome. We appreciate you.
- SPShaan Puri
Thanks for coming on, man. W- w- you wanna shout anything out, where people should find you or where to reach you or whatever?
- DDDoug DeMuro
Cars and Bids. No, we've talked about it. Every, people can, people will figure it out.
- 1:09:38 – 1:17:52
Sam gets flustered by Doug
- SPSam Parr
Well, dude, thanks for doing this, man. Uh-
- DDDoug DeMuro
Yeah
- SPSam Parr
... we'll, we'll, uh, we'll pimp out your Twitter, the YouTube channel, Cars and Bids, and, uh, you're the best, man. I- I've, I've been a fan for years. It's, it's awesome to finally talk.
- DDDoug DeMuro
Oh, I appreciate it. Thank you for having me.
- SPSam Parr
And congrats on the, all the success, um, even though you've been at it for, you know, decades. It-
- SPShaan Puri
Doug, I've never seen Sam like this. He is just fawning.
- DDDoug DeMuro
Oh.
- SPShaan Puri
He can't stop. He's just like, "Listen, man, if you wanna carpool cross-country sometime, I, I, I, I'd love... Our dogs can sit in the back, and we can sit in the front. It'll be amazing." [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, you need a friend? I got a friend. I'll be your friend if you need one.
- SPShaan Puri
Glad to have you on the pod. Glad that we're friends now, right? Would that be fair to say?
- DDDoug DeMuro
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
Would that be a reach?
- DDDoug DeMuro
Sure, dude.
- SPShaan Puri
Or would that be okay? [laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
No.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
Sam, I, I'm, uh, legitimately, I'm thrilled to find someone else who does this drive, and we'll, we should be in contact about that at the very least.
- SPSam Parr
Ooh.
- DDDoug DeMuro
I have become, like, a student of this drive.
- SPSam Parr
Oh, contact, eh? Yeah, yeah. We can start there. [laughs] I'm happy to start there. We can do that.
- SPShaan Puri
The funniest thing, by the way, Doug, we just did a live show in Austin, and, like, Sam is, Sam is, like, the opposite of this. When someone's a big fan of Sam, they know everything about him, they've been a fan for years, been following him, they've, they kind of fawn over him, huge turn-off to Sam. But when it, when it's somebody that he, he does the exact same thing to other people. This is hilarious to me. [laughs]
- DDDoug DeMuro
You know, I had this, I had this happen to me too. I, I met Jerry Seinfeld like, like a year ago, and Jerry tells me that he watches all my videos. And f- f- over the, at this point, I've had people coming up to me on the street for a year. Like, I've had ev- some of the interactions go great, some of them don't, and I know exactly what to say, what to, what I'm expecting someone to say to have it go great, you know? And I meet Jerry, and he's like, "I watch all your videos," and I'm like, "Uh, uh, uh, h- uh, d- do you like Porsches?" [laughs] Like, I had no idea. Just like, I was like, "I can't believe I've screwed this up after having so much practice before." [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Well, and by the way, I know we keep, like, we tried wrapping this up, and then we kept going. So, like, I just wanna acknowledge that because I actually do kinda wanna hear about this. Jay Leno, I don't know if you know about this, Shaan, but Jay Leno's like-
- SPShaan Puri
Massive car guy. Yeah
- SPSam Parr
... the car guy.
- SPShaan Puri
I know that part.
- SPSam Parr
Doesn't he have, like, four or five airplane hangars? Is that, what was that like?
- DDDoug DeMuro
Oh, it's inc- I've been there now three or four times. It is incredible. Um, yeah, he's got, like, four, uh, one of them might be an airplane hangar, but it's mostly just, like, buildings. It's like in an office park. It's next to an airport, but they're, if they're not, um... But anyway, they're giant buildings, yeah. I would say maybe six of them. One is just, like, a machine shop. It's incredible. I mean, his collection is truly unbelievable, one of the coolest things you'll ever see.
- SPSam Parr
What do you think it's worth?
- DDDoug DeMuro
Oh, man, hundreds of millions. Um-
Episode duration: 1:17:53
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Transcript of episode _4raYNafP-M
