How I Live On $25,000/Month In New York City

Sam Parr 0:00 My wife is, like, insane about this stuff. She has a drawer full of coupons. So we went to Costco this weekend because we had a $20 off or something like that coupon, so it- we still use coupons or coupons. [upbeat music] All right. What's going on? This is Sam. Shaan's out with some surgery. I've been telling people he's getting a nose job. I don't know if that's true, but let's just pretend it is. But anyway, we are doing a quick 10 or 15-minute Q&A session. I asked some of the listeners and some of my Twitter fans what type of questions they had for, for me, and we'll talk about it. Let's get into it. So all right. What's the,

Sam Parr 0:42 uh, first question? What do we got?

Shaan Puri 0:44 Let's start with one that's really timely. You're about to be a dad. Someone's asking, what is top of mind as you become a dad?

Sam Parr 0:52 So I'm gonna have a child November 1. That's the due date. We'll see. A little girl. What, um... So in preparation of having this baby, I was, like, freaking out about, like, just the actual, uh, like, the physical, her physical wellbeing of raising her. And so I read the biography of Lewis and Clark because I remember that Sacagawea had a kid, like, on that journey or something like that, and so I wanted to read the book. And so it turns out she had a three-month-old that she carried, like, in a little sack across America for two years in, like, you know, in the winter. And, um, that kind of, like, encouraged me that, like, I'm not gonna hurt this baby, so I'm not too worried about that. I would say the biggest thing, though, that I am freaked out about is raising a spoiled kid and raising a kid that's gonna be a drug addict. Um, I'm very, like, like, that, like, I, I genuinely have, like, a deep fear in me, and so I've been trying to figure out how do I, like, in a very healthy way, withhold things from her? Like, how do I not give her what she wants just in order to instill some types of grit? Because this sounds kind of douchey, but I can give her anything she wants, like, in terms of, like, physical stuff, and I'm really freaking out about, how do I stay strong and not give her what she wants in order to create grit? And how do I make sure that she's not spoiled and works hard? But my biggest fear is raising, like, a kid who is freaking out over that or, or, or who, like, just feels like she doesn't need to work. And so my current thinking, this has not been settled, but my thinking, this is just me, not my family, me, is the only thing that I'll pay for is free tuition and free medical for life, and beyond that, give her nothing. Um, that's kind of, like, my current thinking. Um, that's what I had growing up. My parents paid for my school, and I never had to worry about getting braces or anything like that. And that's kinda, like, where I am now. I read the, um, Titan by John Rockefeller, and he was the richest person in the world, and his wife has this famous quote where she says something like, "The biggest joy that I have in life right now is withholding from my children things that they want, because I know it's gonna make them stronger." And I'm kind of in that camp at the moment on how to do that, but I, um, I don't feel very confident on the right way that I'm gonna do that, but my fear is the outcome of a drug-addicted, indulgent child who won't work hard. That, that's my biggest fear at the moment, and so I'm preparing by, like, getting my mind right on how to, like, withhold things from her and not give in, 'cause I do give in to a lot of things.

Sam Parr 3:30 Is that a good answer? You have kids. Am I, am I-

Shaan Puri 3:33 I'm, I'm a very withholding mother, so I totally get... And speaking of you being effing rich, this is a next question that I personally am curious about. It's, what's the biggest difference in your lifestyle now that you're effing rich?

Sam Parr 3:48 I have nothing to do with picking these questions. I just wanna say that. I hate talking a- I, I don't like that topic, but I will discuss it. So basically, before I sold my first company, I, my four years of salary leading up to it was 20,000 a year, 20,000 a year. I think I paid myself 150,000 a year, and then the last year I think I paid myself $350,000 a year. So for the first while, I didn't have a lot of money. I was, I was... I, I didn't have much. And then all of a sudden I sold a business and I, I had enough. Uh, at first I did something that I advise everyone not to do, which is I bought a few things. I bought some real estate. I think that I bought a fancy car. I think that that brings close to no happiness, um, and might be one of those things that you have to go through in order to, um, to truly appreciate. But I think that if you do have a windfall, you likely shouldn't buy anything crazy fancy for the first year or two, and just get used to it. But I've also learned, there's this, like, um, story about a, um, this study about these people who have studied, uh, amputees, and they found that after six months the level of happiness went back to where they were when they had both legs. So y- you, you get hurt, you lose your leg, you're bummed for a little while. After six months, you go right back to feeling as good as you did with two legs. That kinda happens, um, when, I think when you make some money. Um, but the biggest thing that it did was not what it could purchase you, but the biggest change is my confidence. My confidence went through the roof. I'm incredibly confident in my ability to start something and to see it through to be a success. I don't think that I have the confidence where I think everything I'm gonna do is, is gonna be a success. I think I still have paranoia that I'm gonna lose everything, and I still have massive fears about going broke. Um, that is something that my therapist and I are working through still. Um, but it hasn't changed significantly. I think that someone had asked a question about monthly expenses. Before I sold, I think I was spending anywhere between 10 and $15,000 a month. My apartment at the time was $4,000 a month. I thought that was astronomical. I had a girlfriend, my wife now, we live together. So it was 2,000 each, and I was like, "That is insane. $2,000 in rent? I can- That is just like, that's evil," I thought. Um, now when I rent the place, it's a bit more. It, I, you know, 10 or 12 or 13,000 sometimes when I go to, um, New York for the summer. And so I increased my rent price. My home that I live in in Austin, I paid $900,000 for it, so my monthly nut or my monthly mortgage and taxes, I think it's 5,000 or s- or 6,000, somewhere in between that with taxes. And so I think I increased my spend from like 10 to 15 a month to like 20 to 25,000 a month. Maybe 20,000 a month when I'm not in New York. So I don't spend what I think is a significant amount of money. I don't have any car payments. I have two cars, a Tesla and a Mercedes. Those are paid off. I have a cleaning lady who comes once a week. That's $120 a week. Um, I do some health stuff, so I have a fancy gym, and I go to fancy doctors. Collectively that's $1,000 a month. I don't own any jewelry. I'm, I wear, I'm wearing a fresh clean tee. It's a $10 T-shirt. I wear those constantly. Um, so I don't buy a lot of fancy things. So my burn I think is relatively low. Um, when I go out to eat I don't look at prices, and when I go to Whole Foods I buy the fanciest stuff, and that's basically... Besides that, I budget everything else out. And so like I have a, my wife is like insane about this stuff. She has a drawer full of coupons. So we went to Costco this weekend because we had a $20 off or something like that coupon. So we still use coupons or coupons. Um, but it has not changed significantly. I guess one significant

Sam Parr 8:00 thing, I hate flying. I do not like to fly at all. So typically if I have to go somewhere, even if it's like 12 hours away, I tend to drive. I do not like to fly. When I fly now, I fly business class. Um, and so that sh- makes a $300 flight $800, something like that. But my increased expenses, rent went up, um, um, business class, but I don't fly often. Um, and then my home doesn't have fancy furnishing. My whole house cost $30,000 to furnish. So it hasn't really changed significantly other than my confidence. My confidence has changed significantly. The idea of like creating something from nothing, that changed significantly. How was that? Did that answer those two questions?

Shaan Puri 8:47 Love- loved every minute of it. So now you can get out of the hot seat of your personal life, and I'm gonna throw to you the next... This was the most liked question. So what were your alternative business ideas if you didn't do Hampton?

Sam Parr 9:03 So I, um, I'm, I think I mentioned this last podcast. There's this thing called Ikigai that I'm totally bought into. I'm very fascinated with Japanese culture. Japan has this like this philosophy where, I think I said it last time, it was like a Venn diagram of like what the world wants, what the world wants to pay for, what you're good at, what you love doing. I try to find something in the middle. One thing that I'm obsessed about is data and numbers. I really am, um, like I... If you search, if you go to my personal blog, which don't judge. I started it when I was 21, and I quit blogging there. But I used to have this document called the CEO Document, and I tracked hundreds and hundreds of people. I read lots of biographies, and I tracked when they're born, when they started their apprenticeship, when they found success, and then like what the success was, and I made these like in-depth databases. I'm obsessed with databases. I'm obsessed with researching things. So I have hundreds of pages, pages of my Notion document where I deconstruct how different companies work. So I thought about creating a research company or a database company. The r- the, the reason I didn't start it was because I couldn't find an appropriate problem to solve for. So I have all these databases of information, and I like to analyze them and figure out what they mean, but I couldn't find a good use case, or I couldn't find a reason why people would pay money for it other than it's interesting. But I sought out like s- for six months, like different companies in the space, and I couldn't figure out the right like go-to-market strategy. So I wanted to start a database company or a research company because I love it. I thought about starting a media company. I do have a non-compete, so I can't start like a business news email for another one year, I think. Um, and so I couldn't do that. And so I kind of fell into Hampton because I thought it was a, it was perfect in my little Ikigai. It was like what I'm good at, what the world wants. But I was really obsessed with research businesses. We just had Jason Yanowitz on the pod. This episode will go live, but he came, uh, the episode before this, and I asked him a lot about research businesses. I think they could be really big. I also think that there's not a lot of like young-ish entrepreneurs attacking that space because it's a pretty stodgy, old space that hasn't had a significant amount of innovation, and I'm v- but I'm very fascinated by it. So research and data-based businesses is what I wanted to do. One of my favorite examples is CB Insights. I love CB Insights.

Sam Parr 11:30 I love PitchBook. I love those companies, and I wanted to build something like that.

Host 11:34 All right, I gotta tell you about one thing that's one of the great joys of my life, and I'm not a cars guy and I'm not a watch guy, but there's one thing that gives me a lot of joy, and that is having a virtual assistant. Uh, you know, here's the scenario. I'm running my companies, and even though I'm supposed to be this, uh, CEO, we all know I spend 20, 30% of my time just doing random bullshit, stuff that is not high value but it's just tedious. It's stuff that has to get done, but it's not creativity. It doesn't require me and it doesn't add a bunch of value to the business. It's just stuff, just stuff that has to get done. And so that stuff ... is what a virtual assistant does. Like, just this week alone, you know, I lose my wallet, so she goes to the DMV website, fills out a bunch of forms, and gets me a new license. Or, um, you know, every morning, people have their morning coffee, I have my morning metrics. And my morning metrics are basically all the business metrics that I care about compiled. She goes, she finds 'em for all the different sources, puts it in an Excel sheet, takes a screenshot, texts it to me so that when I wake up in the morning, I don't go on Twitter or check my email. I'm looking at where, where are the metrics at and what do I need to do? I'm s- focused on the right things. So having a virtual assistant is a no-brainer. Whether it's travel booking, email inbox, or just knocking stuff off your personal to-do list that would've just lingered there forever, um, I think it's a no-brainer. If you're a business owner, you should definitely do it. Um, I, I think one of the best places to find a, a assistant is Shepherd, so go to supportshepherd.com. You know, I pay my assistant, I think, $8 an hour, something like that. That's double what she was making in her previous job, so it's a win for her, and for me, it's super affordable. It's something that, um, you know, you don't need to have the biggest business ever or be the biggest big shot in order to afford it. So it's amazing. I now do this for my COO and my CMO too, like, I just give them assistance without them even asking because I know it makes them more productive. That's ... It does that for me, so of course it's gonna do that for them too. So go to supportshepherd.com, check 'em out. Um, get an assistant, and tell 'em I sent you. They'll take good care of you if you do that. So supportshepherd.com, check it out.

Shaan Puri 13:21 [upbeat music] Our software is the worst.

Host 13:26 Have you heard of HubSpot? See, most CRMs are a cobbled-together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous.

Shaan Puri 13:33 I think I love our new CRM. Our software is the best.

Host 13:37 HubSpot. Grow better.

Shaan Puri 13:39 Okay, this next question I love, although it's painful for me even to ask it, 'cause it's really, it, it cuts deep. Uh, this comes from Omar. "What was the most painful thing someone told you, and how did it change you?"

Sam Parr 13:54 Okay. I saw that question, and I was trying to think of a good answer. My answer is boring. So my best friend, his name's Neville Madora. I met him because he had a great blog on copywriting. And one year, in 2013, I think it was, '14, I cold emailed him and I said, "Neville, my name's Sam. I'm gonna host this conference, and I want you to come speak, and I'm gonna pay for your flight, and I'm gonna take care of your accommodation." Well, the conference was really, like, 15 of my friends hanging out talking, and I bought him a $250 Southwest flight, and he slept on my couch, and we became best friends after that. And when he was there at my, in my couch, I gave him a towel to, like, take a shower, and it was, like, a moldy towel. And he was like, "Dude, you are disgusting. You're acting like this bachelor 23-year-old, which you are, but, like, you need to be a man. You need to get your act together. This is disgusting." And I remember that changed my life when he ... And so I, like, got together some of my, like, my, uh, my domestic skill set. I also, like ... I was like, "I need

Sam Parr 15:00 to act like a man. I need to dress better. I need to, like, be more appropriate. Like, I gotta get, I gotta get my act together," so that helped me a ton. He also ... He, Neville does this a lot. He criticizes me all the time, but in a really nice way where he's like, "I'm gonna tell you this because I love you, but I'm gonna give you feedback." And another thing was when I f- met this woman that he was, like, dating, or maybe one of his friends. I think it was one of his friends. He was like, "You're asking way too many intense questions the first time you meet someone. You need to ch- chill and quit talking about work." And that was, like, painful to hear because that was my identity, and so that changed how I, uh, had conversations. And so he's done a good job. Neville's a, uh, six years older than me, so he's kind of done a good job of, like, being my brother a little bit and, like, teaching me how to, like, act like a man. So that was, like, a good thing. I remember when I started my first company, The Hustle, and this CEO of a large multi-billion dollar media startup that everyone knows, I'm not gonna call him out, he told me ... I go, "I'm gonna start this thing called The Hustle. I think it could become a huge thing." He said, "This will never make more than a million dollars a year. Just come and join my company." And I was so hurt, because I admired this guy so much, and my admiration for him turned to hatred. Not really hatred, but, like, rage. I was like, "I wanna, like, I wanna destroy you now." And the reason I thought that was because I was so hurt. My feelings were so hurt that this guy that I admired just totally shit on me. And he was wrong, but I believed him for like six months. I, like, doubted everything. I was like, "This is stupid." But he told me that. He won't even remember saying this, this guy, by the way. He probably made ... He thought it was, like, an offhanded comment or that ... or something like that, but it hurt my feelings so badly that I remember that, uh, like, terribly. And then the last thing was, like, any time a girlfriend has ever, like, broken up with me, that, like, that has always, like, stung me. I, I'll, I'll, I'll remember that for, for decades. Like, I'm still, like, trying to, like, prove them wrong. So, like, I'm pretty sensitive, uh, to, like, rejection.

Shaan Puri 16:58 Yeah, for sure the most painful

Shaan Puri 17:00 moments always come from high school. I think everyone can agree with that.

Sam Parr 17:03 Yeah, like high school and college girlfriends where you're still trying to figure out yourself a little bit, and they, like ... And you get ... And the- and, and they're right, like, you're not doing things the right way, but ... And they're rejecting you, it's like, ugh, it's the most painful thing ever.

Shaan Puri 17:16 Girls are so brutal. Okay, this next question is from Caitlin. "What is one trendy business model, uh, you think is overhyped?"

Sam Parr 17:26 Um, I think the NFT and Web3 stuff is just complete nonsense. I think it's inferior entrepreneurs slapping their Web3 name on crap that no one wants and hoping that it's gonna work. So ... But everyone knows that now. Um, I think, um, what's overhyped? I think starting a newsletter is really popular right now. Most people don't realize it is a treadmill. It is very challenging to create new content. Just like this podcast, it's hard. This is a hard job. I like it 'cause I think I'm good at it, or I'm decent, but it is very challenging. Any type of content business, very, very, very, very hard to do for, like, two or three years. Um, and newsletter, the, the newsletter space, significantly different than when I started. It is way more competitive, way more challenging, so I think that is a bit overhyped, although I would still start one because I like it. I think that most of the people in the space ... are not gonna work, and it's pretty bad. Their content stinks because it's just a rinse and repeat of what already has existed. So I think that's quite overhyped. I would say getting popular on the internet can be awesome because you get an audience. But, um, in general, I think that creating businesses based off your... Or, like, getting popular on Twitter, and, and Instagram, and things like that, I think it's incredibly empty feeling for most people, and I think it's complete nonsense, and your time would be spent building a company or focusing on your family than getting popular on social media. I think it's empty. I think that it's, like, small-boy stuff. I just... And I find it incredibly uninteresting, and there's many days that I regret trying to, like, become popular on the internet.

Shaan Puri 19:07 Okay. Are you up to do one more?

Sam Parr 19:09 We'll do one more.

Shaan Puri 19:10 Okay. This one comes from Jared Sudol. He is moving to San Francisco. He's curious about this idea of proximity to power. So he's moving to SF with the clear intention to start a company and surround himself with high achievers. His question is, what did you do when you arrived, uh, or what did Shaan do when he arrived in SF to start laying the foundation to meet interesting people and business builders?

Sam Parr 19:36 Moving to a big city when you are young and have no family, I think is absolutely awesome. My time... I lived in SF for eight years. I got angry at the government, and I left because it was dangerous. Otherwise, I would still be there in a heartbeat. I have no problem paying the high taxes in order to live there. I think it's a beautiful place. I would still even go back there today if my wife wanted to maybe. So 100% worth it. I loved it. Um, what I did when I got there was I went to meetup.com, and I went to crazy amounts of meetups. I also did, uh... I started an event. So I created... [scoffs] It's so funny. Sieva Kazinski. So Sieva's one of my best friends. Sieva has a business that does, like, close to 100 million a year in revenue. We've had him on the pod. You guys maybe have heard of him. Um, he... So I created this book club called The Anti-MBA, and the idea was we're gonna read one book per month, and we're gonna break it up into quarters. So week one, we're gonna read a quarter and discuss it. Week two, the, the second half or whatever. And I would have an expert come in on the book's topic, and we would just shoot the shit on... with, like, 30 or 20 people on this book. And I, um, posted ads on Craigslist, on meetup.com, and where else? I think I bought an ad in the newspaper for, like, $200. Like, I just posted these ads, and Sieva was one of the people who replied. And after doing that for every week for about a year, I had an email list of, like, 2,000 people who were, like, following this book club online because I would write out my notes from the, the meeting. And doing that book club changed my life. So I just hosted a book club, and it was awesome. It was so good. It was, uh, such a fun way to meet interesting people. And so that's what I did in order to meet interesting people is we just read cool books, and we brainstormed and talked about them. Most people, by the way, didn't even read the book. They just wanted to talk about it because I wrote notes ahead of time on... Like, I wrote a summary on the book. So that changed my life. The way that I met Shaan was I had this event called Hustle Con, and there was this article in TechCrunch about Monkey Inferno, which was this incubator that Shaan ran. And I saw a picture of the, his office, and it was magnificent. And I cold emailed Shaan, and I said, "Hey, man. Um, I'm hosting this event. Can I host the pre-dinner at your office? We'll, we'll take care of all the food. I'll even hire someone to clean it up. But can I just, like, host it at your sick office? And in exchange, you can come to the dinner and meet all these wonderful speakers and attendees." And he said yes, and that's how I met Shaan. And so I think what I did, what I think more people should do, is you just reach out to tons of people. And I would say don't even reach out to, like, ballers or people who are, like, ahead of you. Find other peers who seem like they got the juice, who got the, the charisma, or who ha- who seem like they're going someplace. Like, for me, it was Ryan Hoover. Ryan Hoover started this thing called Product Hunt. We were buddies before he even started it. And I've got lots of friends that are now incredibly successful, um, where we were just all, like, losers who were ambitious, but we had nothing. And w- and I did a good job of, like, cold emailing those types of people, and we hung out a lot, and we just... I, I became wonderful friends with them. And it was through my book club. It was through cold emailing. Twitter wasn't popular. I didn't even have a Twitter back then. So I just cold emailed tons of people, and I would highly recommend that's what you do, is find peers who you think are gonna go places, and you guys all try to succeed together. And you try to be pretty selfless in the sense of, like, um, like when I hosted my events, they all volunteered to help me out. When they needed something, I helped them. And so just, like, succeeding together, I think was a really big deal. Now, the issue is, is that takes, like, 10 years or 15 years, but it's worth it. Um, and you're not doing it just because someone's gonna be successful. Like, I had friends who were artists, and, like, they financially weren't successful, but it was just people who were, like, kicking their dent in the universe, and that was addicting to be around that. And we all kind of did it together, and that's what, what I did. I, I had a book club. The Anti-MBA is what it was called 'cause I was so jealous of the... I, I didn't go to a fancy school. I remember when I moved to San Francisco, I took a bus out or a train out to s- Stanford because I was like, "I wanna see what this shit's about. Like, what's, what's so special about this place?" And I felt, like, in awe, and I was, like, so jealous that I didn't know what Stanford even was when I was in high school. So I was like, "I need to create my own Stanford 'cause I'm jealous of all these people that went here." And so that was kind of the idea. It was The Anti-MBA. It was free, and I organized it. So I would suggest book clubs, meetup.com. I don't know. Is meetup.com still a thing? I bet you it is. Right now, when I was in San Francisco, I went there, like, six months ago, and there was... And someone, someone, like, recognized me, and they go, "Sam, I love the pod. We're hosting a AI meetup and a hackathon right now. Do you wanna come?" And my wife and I were like, "Yeah, let's go." And so we just... "You got a car here?" We were, like, at the farmers market, and they're like, "Yeah." I was like, "All right. Come on. We're... I'm going with you." And so we went to this guy's meetup, and it was magical. I met all these AI people who I knew nothing about, and it was magical to be in those meetups at these places where you have, like, uh, a homogenous group of people working on something that is not mainstream. It felt really magical. So I, I would say go to those events.

Shaan Puri 24:44 All right. Awesome. Book club, another thing that you and Oprah have in common. I love it.

Sam Parr 24:49 Yes.

Shaan Puri 24:49 So [laughs]

Sam Parr 24:51 We have a lot in common, me and Oprah.

Shaan Puri 24:53 So there were a lot of other questions we didn't get to, but we'll do another one a little later.

Sam Parr 24:59 Let me know if you guys like this stuff. Peace. [upbeat music]