How I Manage My $100M Portfolio In A Google Sheet | ft. Moiz Ali

Shaan Puri 0:00 I texted your brother. I said, "Hey, I'm about to record with your brother," and he goes, uh... He got progressively more truthful. He goes, "Tell him I said hi." Then he goes, "Tell him I said honor the Ali name."

Moiz Ali 0:11 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 0:12 Then he goes, "And tell him to stop [beep] ." [laughs]

Moiz Ali 0:15 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 0:16 That was his, uh, his advice. [laughs]

Moiz Ali 0:20 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 0:21 So yeah, I've delivered the message. [upbeat music] All right, we have, um, Moiz Ali here. You've been on the pod before. Uh, people know you because you created Native Deodorant, which is sold everywhere I look, in Target, online, in my wife's bathroom. It's there everywhere, so congrats. You built that. You bootstrapped that business yourself, uh, literally, like, off of a kitchen table to $100 million exit to Procter & Gamble. You spent a couple years there. You currently, uh... You invest in a bunch of e-commerce things and non-e-commerce things. You have a podcast called Limited Supply, which is great, and then you, um, you also do- You, you and your brother are sort of like business sharks. And so, uh, you know, if I just say, "Hey, there's, like, a... There's a hotdog stand going out of business over here," you'd be like-

Moiz Ali 1:16 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:16 ... "Let me get my jacket. Let's go." Uh, you own real estate. You own a bunch of random things, and so always fun to have you on, man. Uh, thanks for coming.

Moiz Ali 1:24 Well, thanks for having me. Super excited to be here.

Shaan Puri 1:27 Is that the intro you want, by the way, or do you feel like I let- I didn't do you justice in one angle?

Moiz Ali 1:32 Uh, no, that sounds, uh... That sounds like, uh, more justice than I deserve. [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:37 Well, you're also good at one-lines. Uh, you have a lot of, like, one-liners. You're, you're very good with language. You, um... You've said a few things. You said, "My two favorite words in the English, English language: distressed asset."

Moiz Ali 1:47 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:48 And then one time we were talking to this person. It was you and me and this person, and they were explaining what they do, and it was, like, a supplement company and how great it was gonna be and how they're raising all this money. And she, she or them or he, whatever, walked out the room, and you said, "That person's business is one Google away from me ruining it." Uh [laughs]

Moiz Ali 2:06 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 2:07 [laughs] Yeah, you have a, a couple other classics. Uh, I read an interview with you where it's [laughs] ... where you said, uh, you said... [laughs] I forgot how you phrased it, but you go, "I was put on Earth to do one thing: raise earnings per share." [laughs]

Moiz Ali 2:21 Earnings per share, yeah. That wasn't me that said that, actually. It was the founder of some other company. I forgot what it was, and it was such a great quote. I loved it. Uh, uh, so I, I stole that quote. Um-

Shaan Puri 2:31 Yeah, you're like, "I killed him, and now it's mine." Uh-

Moiz Ali 2:33 That's right, yeah, yeah.

Shaan Puri 2:35 The other one that I, I, I attribute to you, I didn't... I wasn't there for this story, but I've told this story to, like, hundreds of young entrepreneurs, and they get a kick out of it every time, which is, uh, like, yeah, Moiz started Native Deodorant. It's super successful now, and when he first had the idea, he told people, "I'm gonna create a natural deodorant brand." They're like, "Moiz, like, d- do you know anything about deodorant? Do you wear deodorant, Moiz? What's going on? What are you talking about? You're gonna create a deodorant company?" And you said, um, "Yeah, t- I know nothing about deodorant today, but in six months I'll know everything there is to know about deodorant." And that-

Moiz Ali 3:08 That's right

Shaan Puri 3:08 ... that attitude to me is, like... That's the core of what we do on this podcast, so... I don't even know if that's a real story, by the way, but I'm gonna keep telling it.

Moiz Ali 3:17 That's a real story. I remember it was in San Francisco. I was with, uh, one of my law school classmates, and it was her boyfriend at the time, now her husband, who told me that. And he's like, uh, you know, "What the hell are you doing here?"

Moiz Ali 3:30 He worked at Pinterest, and he's like, "What the hell are you doing starting a deodorant business? I've never heard anybody do something so ludicrous." And I still remember the bar we were sitting at where it happened.

Shaan Puri 3:39 All right, so let's do a little segment that I'm gonna call Story Time with Moiz Ali. So-

Moiz Ali 3:44 Okay

Shaan Puri 3:44 ... uh, cue the music. Okay, so I'm gonna ask you a question. I want you to give me your answer. Moiz, what is the, um, [laughs] what i- what is the worst way that you've ever made money?

Moiz Ali 3:57 Yeah. Uh, you know, this is, um, uh, this, this is, uh, a great story I, I think we, uh, we don't tell enough, or my brother and I don't tell enough, which is when we were growing up, we owned gas stations, and this is really a family way we made money and not my particular way. Anyway, we owned a bunch of gas stations, and we would cash checks for people as a service. So if you brought in a check, uh, Shaan, and you're like, "Hey, look, this is my payroll check. It's $200 for this week or $2,000 for this week," we would charge you a percentage of that check and give you cash for it, and we would take the check and deposit it into the bank. And, um, by the end of our gas station careers, we were doing this at massive scale. Like, uh, one of our stores would cash $250,000 worth of checks on any given Friday. Like, a quarter million dollars of cash was going through our hands. We'd have, like, Wells Fargo coming over and giving us cash. Um, and you know, we'd be giving it... Like, you know, we had these crazy thi- Like, a bus full of Hispanic immigrants who are roofers would come to our store. The door would open and, like, it felt like 40 immigrants just came out to cash their checks with us. But a long time ago, like, what happened early on in our check-cashing careers was this guy named FM Porter who came in with a check for his business, and it... The check was, like, you know, it was $2,000. And we charged a lot because... I don't remember why we charged a lot, but we gave him, like, $1,900. We charged 5% of the check, and we were gonna deposit the check and earn $2,000. Um, and you know, uh, traditionally what happens is if you're cashing a check, this doesn't happen so much anymore, but it used to happen 15 years ago, you'd endorse the back of it and you'd deposit it at the bank, right? So he endorsed the back of it. We gave him the $1,900. We deposited it, and it bounced. And we're like, "What the fuck?" Uh, this was a ton of money for us. Uh, you know, we were poor immigrants. We were working at this gas station probably in 1997 earning $40,000 a year with all five of us working at the store.

Sam Parr 5:46 How old were you?

Moiz Ali 5:47 Uh, I was probably, like, 13 at the time. 12 or 13 at the time, and, like, this was going on.

Sam Parr 5:52 And so there's just... Are you... Is... I just imagine, like, 13-year-old Moiz, like, pacing, smoking a cigar, just be like, "What the fuck, man?" [laughs]

Moiz Ali 5:59 [laughs]

Sam Parr 6:00 Like, is that what it looked like? I mean, just, like, I, I imagine you being the exact same way as you are now when you were 12.

Moiz Ali 6:08 Well, uh, yeah, I feel like I was the same way, but I didn't have as much confidence, so I couldn't take the cigar. I, I couldn't order people around. But anyway, the c- check bounced, and we all freaked out. And, uh, we track down this guy, uh, and we're like, "What the fuck?" We knocked on his door. I forgot where he lived. He lived in, like, a small house out in, like, you know, it was just local community. And we knocked on his door, and we're like, "What the fuck, FM Porter? This check just cashed. We're gonna kill you. We're gonna call the cops."

Sam Parr 6:32 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 6:32 "We don't know what to do. We're broke now."

Sam Parr 6:34 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 6:34 "Uh, give us our money." And he was like, "Relax, guys. There's a pro..." Like, you know, the check was made out to his business instead of him, and so it took, like, 45 days, uh, to figure out all the, uh, rigmarole to get the check made out to him instead of to, uh, his business. Uh, and then we cashed it, and we, uh, deposited the money. And I remember it went through the second time. We, you know, we made $100 on 45 days of d- we ex... Uh, you know, possibly losing $2,000. And I remember it went through, and I told my brother, "Hey, it went through." And he's like, "That was the easiest $100 we've ever made." And I remember it was, like, the worst $100 we've ever made.

Sam Parr 7:10 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 7:10 It was just cashing checks that were going bad and constantly being afraid that they were... Like, this, this was early on in our career. We weren't sure if we should do this as a service for our business. It ended up being super profitable. Like, when you cash $250,000 of checks on a Friday, you're gonna make 2,500 to $3,500 on that just for your business on that day alone. But I remember early on we were taking all these risks, and we were like, "What just happened? We think that, like, you know, we're not gonna be able to pay our rent for the apartment that our, my family lives in."

Sam Parr 7:38 That's insane.

Shaan Puri 7:39 Were you just going back to, like, math class after your shift? Like, how were you [laughs] were you going after school? What was your... [laughs] How did you do this?

Moiz Ali 7:47 Oh, to the gas station, you mean?

Shaan Puri 7:49 Yeah, 'cause you're, like, 13 years old. [laughs]

Moiz Ali 7:51 Yeah, yeah. We'd go on the weekends, like, uh... 'Cause, you know, we'd, like, um... Yeah, we'd go on the weekends. When I turned 16, I could drive, and I would go, you know, yeah, after class or, like, on the weekends. I wouldn't go every day, uh, even when I was 16 years old, but I'd probably go at least one weekend or maybe both weekends of the, uh, uh, when I started having a car, certainly.

Shaan Puri 8:08 [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.

Moiz Ali 8:23 Our software is the best.

Shaan Puri 8:25 HubSpot. Grow better.

Sam Parr 8:27 We're in the story, we're in the story, uh, part of the

Sam Parr 8:30 show, so let me ask you one thing that I don't know is true, but I want you to confirm it. So right by our office, the one that you and I shared, there was a cafe called Native Coffee, I think it was. It was the Native Cafe.

Moiz Ali 8:41 Native Juice. Native Juice Co.

Sam Parr 8:42 Native Juice. It had the same color and the same logo as Native Deodorant.

Shaan Puri 8:48 [laughs]

Sam Parr 8:48 Did you... And it, and it was right by the BART stop, I believe. So if I'm imagining what happened, you went on- you were on BART, and you were just walking around SoMa, and you saw it, and you go, "There it is. That's mine now." Is that tr- true or false?

Shaan Puri 9:00 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 9:02 That's false.

Shaan Puri 9:03 Subconsciously.

Moiz Ali 9:04 That's false, but there is some truth to it.

Shaan Puri 9:04 No, it's not. It's not false. Oh, Dave.

Moiz Ali 9:06 I love this story.

Shaan Puri 9:07 We gotta put the picture up 'cause th- they're identical. It's an identical-

Sam Parr 9:11 Yes

Shaan Puri 9:11 ... like it's a-

Sam Parr 9:12 I actually think they changed their branding in the last three years, but you can still find old logos on their Yel- Yelp page.

Moiz Ali 9:17 Yeah. So the quick... Uh, it's, you know, a little funny. Like, it was actually a block away from where I lived. Um, so I'd walk by it all the time. But, uh, you know, the color, I'm not sure if the color was the same. I know the font was the same. Uh, we actually didn't steal the font from them, although I readily admit we did steal the font. We stole the font of our w- website from Harry's. So if you look at Harry's font, it's the exact same font as ours. And if you look at the colors of our site, it was, and I'm not sure if it still is, the exact same color as the Casper had. So like, you know, when I was launching Native, it took me about, you know, three days to do the whole website, and I was just like, "Okay, you know what I'm not gonna do, is hire a logo designer and spend a fortune building a logo and spending a lot of money on branding. I'm gonna steal the logo that Harry's has, which is just their name written out in a font. I'm gonna do the same thing. Uh, I can't steal their colors as well because that'd be too, too blatant. Uh, so I'm just gonna steal the colors of another website," which was Casper at the time-

Shaan Puri 10:13 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 10:13 ... 'cause they were doing really well. And so that's how the, uh, that's how the font and the colors came together to be what Native is today. Um, but I, I would walk by that store all the time. And, like, believe it or not, right next to Native Juice Co. is the post office. And I was packing all of the deodorants in my own apartment, uh, for the first six months or a year of the business. And so I would walk by Native Juice Co. with these bags of, like, you know, filled with boxes of deodorants, and I'd go to the post office, and I'd hand them to the post office. And they were like, "Is this from next door? Is this, like, the juice company you guys... It says Native on the packaging." And I was like, "This is not the same Native. It's a different one."

Shaan Puri 10:48 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 10:48 Uh, and then what would happen is, like, you know, two and a half years into the business, Native Juice Co. ca- like the woman who started that business came to our office, and she's like, "I'm getting so many fucking phone calls for your business for customer service issues. Where's my package?" All this shit. People are just googling Native San Francisco. We didn't have a phone number. We st- I think Native still doesn't have a phone number posted. So she would be like, "I'm getting 40 phone calls a day for you. This has gotta stop. You gotta figure out a way to stop this." And we're like, "We can't... We don't know what to do." Like, you know, people just google Native San Francisco, and your name comes up. It's not... We're not saying call you. And so she came in, like, several times. And then, um, you know, I was like, I told the doorman of the building, I was like, "Don't let her up any longer."

Shaan Puri 11:28 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 11:28 And that seemed to put an end to it. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 11:32 If she has juice-

Moiz Ali 11:33 Uh-

Shaan Puri 11:33 ... accept it, but don't let her in.

Moiz Ali 11:34 Yeah, that's right, yeah.

Shaan Puri 11:35 Um, all right. [laughs]

Moiz Ali 11:36 But then the problem for us, we would still order juice from her to our office all the time.

Shaan Puri 11:40 Yeah.

Moiz Ali 11:40 But I was like, "I'm not sure if they like this or not."

Shaan Puri 11:42 [laughs] Yeah.

Sam Parr 11:43 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 11:43 Definitely-

Moiz Ali 11:44 The truth of the matter is like-

Sam Parr 11:44 And you definitely drink a lot of her spit-

Moiz Ali 11:46 Yeah

Sam Parr 11:46 ... I have to imagine. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 11:47 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 11:48 Yeah, that's probably true too, yeah. But the reality is-

Shaan Puri 11:51 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 11:51 ... we, like, um, the, the logo didn't come from Native Juice Co. It came from Harry's.

Shaan Puri 11:56 She just happened to also copy the Harry's logo.

Moiz Ali 11:59 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 11:59 That's what happened.

Moiz Ali 11:59 She might have done

Moiz Ali 12:00 the same thing. That's right. Yeah, yeah.

Shaan Puri 12:01 [laughs] All right. So you said you had some ideas for us. Um, what business ideas do you have on your brain right now?

Moiz Ali 12:08 Um, okay. I, I thought about m- a lot of these ideas for a while. Um, I think the first idea that someone should start, if I, if I were starting a business today and really excited about it, I'd start with a stock market for all residential real estate. I would say, "Okay, I'm gonna start buying residential real estate and sl- sell, uh, you know, selling shares of that real estate that's rented out." So I'd buy rental homes, and I would sell shares of that real estate, sort of like a traditional LP would invest, but I'd make a really liquid market on my site. So I'd say, "You know what? Rents have gone up. You paid $10,000. You're waiting for us to sell this home." It'll be like, you know, if you buy an apartment building today, if you're an LP in an apartment building, you're waiting for the GP to sell the apartment building before you get r- or you can realize all of your cash back. You might be getting a steady stream of income every quarter, but when the GP sells the apartment building, that's when you get most of your money back. I'd just create a liquid market for all of these things, and I would slowly start buying every single house in a neighborhood. And I would say, "You can only buy and sell shares of this house on this platform." Uh, and then what I would do is I would empower local entrepreneurs to buy and sell houses on the platform themselves too. I'd say, "Okay, you know what? Shaan is gonna buy a house. He lives in this neighborhood in s- uh, in California. He can buy a house, put it on this platform, raise money, and buy and sell... And other people can buy and sell shares of this house through this platform." And then Shaan will get reviews, just like on Amazon, and, like, if he does a really good job, people will give him five-star reviews because they're getting a lot of money from him. If he does a really shitty job, people will give him one-star reviews 'cause he's doing a really shitty job. And then when you go to underwrite new deals, people will be like, "Shaan is trustworthy. Shaan is not trustworthy." And I think people have tried this in the past with things like realty shares and a bunch of other shitty models of this, and I think they've done a terrible job, in part because they're not doing a good job underwriting. In part they're doing it, uh, they're, they're betting on commercial properties, um, and in part because they're not creating a liquid market for it. And so I think that, um, when I think of, like, the biggest idea possible, I think that this idea could re- realistically own, you know, 200 years from now, this business should own the majority of real estate in the United States.

Shaan Puri 14:07 [laughs] Uh, so let's break that down. So you said-

Moiz Ali 14:10 Sure

Shaan Puri 14:11 ... the reason that the current kinda like buy a fraction of, uh, you know, uh, of real estate or buy shares in real estate, which there's several, or crowdfunding for real estate, there's, like, Fundrise, RealtyShares. You're saying the problems that they have is, uh, let's take them one by one. So you said they're focused on commercial. Why is residential better than commercial for this?

Moiz Ali 14:31 Uh, way easier in terms of steady income streams. So, like, um, if you build... If, let's say you buy a building that Starbucks is using and has a five-year lease on. When Starbucks leaves that building, uh, it's unclear who will be a good fit for that building. Like, it's not easy to rent that thing out. While if it's a house, everyone in the world needs a three-bedroom, two-bath house, uh, in a neighborhood. And so it's a lot easier to relet properties that are residential as opposed to commercial.

Sam Parr 14:56 I invested in the company, uh, Somewhat in the Space. It was called Doorzy. It was, um... I- it didn't work out, but the guy who started it previously started StayAlfred, which I don't know if you remember that one or not. But basically you could... It was like an... It was an auction website for homes. And they were, they had two issues. One, it, which is, I'm shocked by this, but people just didn't wanna buy a home online. It was just, like, a big... It was a, it's a big thing that they couldn't figure out how to address. Uh, I think someone will figure it out. But the second thing was negotiating the whole broker industry, which, like, it seems like the broker industry, I know there was just, like, a big settlement, like, five days ago.

Moiz Ali 15:29 Sure.

Sam Parr 15:29 The broker industry has, like, has this industry by the balls, it seems. Uh, it's real- it seems really challenging.

Moiz Ali 15:36 Yeah, and it wasn't a settlement. It was a jury verdict of $2 billion that went against the-

Sam Parr 15:41 Yeah, not settlement

Moiz Ali 15:41 ... National Association of Realtors. Like, yeah, yeah. And so, like, yes, the, the, I think the broker industry is broken, but the re- the, the, like, the liquidity market for real estate investing is huge. And when you think about it, like, you know, all these retail investors are now like, "Let me invest in a startup." You know how crazy it is for, uh, for you to invest in, like, Native when it's early on? Like, I have no fucking idea what I'm doing. I don't know if I'm gonna get hit by a bus tomorrow. I might just be like, "Fuck it, you know what? Like, uh, I'm dating this crazy girl, and she wants to go to Hawaii for three months. Fuck this. This is gonna be way, this is gonna be way more fun than running a business for the next three months."

Sam Parr 16:15 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 16:16 So, uh, investing in re- like, if you can invest in startups, what would... Like, you know, you know what's way safer than investing in a startup? Investing in real estate down your street where you're like, "I know who's gonna rent this house. I, I, like, you know, I can monitor it. I can drive by it. It's a tangible piece of property. It, it, like, you know, if this guy doesn't pay rent, somebody else will. It's not going anywhere." It's way safer, and I think when I th- when I think of retail investors, I think retail investors would be way more excited about investing in the local community they live in and being like, "Yeah, I own a share of this house," than they do being like, "I invested in this Pakistani guy who, uh, really likes [censored] and he seems not to be that reliable."

Shaan Puri 16:50 [laughs] And so you, you have, like, uh, this idea. Why do you think that the person who's buying these rental properties wants to do this? Just because they want the liquidity so they can go buy more properties? Uh, like, what, what, what happens here? And how much of the property you think would go on the platform versus they own? You know, like, would they... Like in an IPO, you know, they, they issue 20% of their stock or whatever to the public. What would you... What would it be for the house?

Moiz Ali 17:16 Yeah, I think it's really the GP can be like, "Look, I wanna..." Like the guy who's sort of is underwriting the deal and sponsoring the deal for better or for w- uh, worse is could be like, "Look, I'm gonna put in... This house costs $200,000. I'm gonna put in $50,000 of my own money," or, "I'm gonna put in $20,000 of my own money." And in that same way that other... Like right now, if you invest in a much larger, uh, if you invest in a private equity fund, one of the common questions you'll ask is, "The guys who are running the private equity fund, how much of their own money is at risk?" Because that means that they care and believe in their private equity fund. Similarly here, it could be the same question. How much of your wealth are, or how much investment are you putting in this real estate when you, uh, purchase it? And the reason that the sponsors would wanna do this is several-fold. One is, yeah, they wanna create a liquid mar- They, they wanna raise money, right? Like, they wanna raise

Moiz Ali 18:00 money from retail investors, and it's really hard to r- raise money from retail investors. Uh, two is they can buy and sell shares, uh, later on for themselves as well. They could be like, "You know what? I bought $40,000 worth of this house. Five years later, that 40,000 is worth 80,000. I want some cash off the table, but I still want some liquidity. I'm gonna sell $40,000 of shares, uh, in this house and keep some, uh, money in- invested as well." So I think for the same reason that people wanna invest in the stock market or, uh, you know, sponsors, uh, uh, invest in their own deals, uh, you know, sponsors in this would invest as well.

Shaan Puri 18:32 So Moiz, I'm gonna pitch you three other real estate ideas re- in rapid succession, and I want you to tell me your favorite to your least favorite.

Moiz Ali 18:40 Okay.

Shaan Puri 18:40 All right. Uh, the first one is this company I didn't invest in, but I regr- I regr- I don't know how it's doing. I haven't talked to the guy in a while, but I re- I regret not investing, 'cause I, I thought it was a good idea. It's called Home Options. So what he's doing is, this guy goes to, uh, Sam. Sam owns a house. He goes to Sam and says, "Sam, I know you're not trying to sell the house right now, but here's the deal. Um, I'll give you $1,200 right now, and all I ask for is that when you do decide to sell, um, you let me, you know, I own the option to be the broker on the house. So, like, you know, I'll be your agent. And, uh, and actually what I do is I'm not myself the agent, but I partner with top agents in your network. And they don't know when you're gonna sell your house, and they don't wanna keep having to knock on your door and bother you. So I'll give you cash today so that they can be your broo- you know, and one of these top agents gets the right to be your broker 20 years from now whenever you sell." And, um, they're just buying up options, uh, the, the right to sell these homes. 'Cause a, a home, when you sell, you know, the brokers take, let's just say-

Moiz Ali 19:39 Sure

Shaan Puri 19:39 ... let's just say the sell side's gonna take 3%, um, you know, they're, they're get- uh, let's say the average is $15,000 or something for that, for that sale. They're willing to buy that option today for $1,000. And so, uh, that's idea number one, Home Options. Going-

Moiz Ali 19:52 Got it

Shaan Puri 19:53 ... going through and buying them. Uh, all right, idea number two-

Moiz Ali 19:56 Hey, Shaan

Shaan Puri 19:57 ... is, yep.

Sam Parr 19:57 I invested in it.

Shaan Puri 19:59 Oh, no, you didn't. [laughs]

Moiz Ali 20:01 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 20:02 Fuck. The only thing that could've made me feel worse about not investing in this is that Sam invested in this. Is it doing well? 'Cause I, I, every, like, three months, I think about this business, I think, "That's gotta kill"

Sam Parr 20:13 I went through my email, and I haven't gotten an update from them in, like, a, a while, so that's not a good sign.

Shaan Puri 20:20 Yeah. Which unfortunately means it's probably not... Or it's absolutely crushing it, one of the two. Um, you know, I, I used to think that's always a bad sign, but then I started hanging out with, uh, Moiz's brother, and he never... He's like, "Investor update? Why would I... I'm gonna kill it in this business. Why should I tell you about how it's going? I need to know this."

Moiz Ali 20:37 Yeah, [laughs] that's right, yeah.

Shaan Puri 20:38 Do, are you that way too, Moiz? Do, do you like-

Moiz Ali 20:40 Yeah. We have-

Shaan Puri 20:41 Do you provide updates or read?

Moiz Ali 20:42 One of our investors, uh, was this guy named Jeff Hollander from Seventh Generation, and he's like, "You know what would be nice, is like a monthly or quarterly investment update." And I was like, "Here's your money back. I'm, uh,"

Shaan Puri 20:52 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 20:52 "You, you and I will never chat until I call you. Uh,"

Shaan Puri 20:56 Update.

Moiz Ali 20:56 "And if you're not okay with that-"

Shaan Puri 20:56 You're not an investor anymore. [laughs]

Moiz Ali 20:58 "... here's your money. I don't ever..." Yeah, yeah. I'm like, I was like, "I couldn't care l- like, I will never send you one piece of information about this business unless, uh, I want to. Unless I need something from you."

Shaan Puri 21:06 But don't you think it's good hy- good hygiene to, like, you know, just kind of even for your own thoughts to c- be like, "How are we doing? What's this... Let me take a step back here for a second and just write down kind of for my own clarity of thought," or no?

Moiz Ali 21:18 Um, I think that is good hygiene, but I don't think you necessarily have to share that with other people, especially with other pe- like, you know, um, I think the three of us are probably investors in similar businesses. And, you know, oftentimes I walk around, and people are like, "Here are the numbers of this other business," and I'm like-

Shaan Puri 21:32 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 21:33 ... you know, somebody has leaked it to them.

Shaan Puri 21:35 Yeah.

Moiz Ali 21:35 And I'm r- I, I try to be really careful as an investor to never leak information, 'cause I know I would never want my information leaked. But, like, that information gets around the street. And, uh, I, you know, I've seen so many startups launch 'cause they're like, "I heard this guy was doing really well, so I should just do the same thing." Like, how many competitors of Athletic Greens exist because everyone's like, "Yeah, we know Athletic Greens is doing really well"?

Shaan Puri 21:54 Right.

Sam Parr 21:54 What are the other two, Shaan?

Shaan Puri 21:55 All right, second, second idea. This is your brother's idea, actually. I don't know if he told you this one. Um, Pipe for real estate. So, uh, uh, I think I can share this now, 'cause he t- he's talked about this, like, I don't know, a year ago and d- didn't end up doing it.

Moiz Ali 22:08 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 22:08 Um, Pipe for real estate, the idea here is, uh, you're a landlord.

Moiz Ali 22:13 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 22:13 You're gonna collect m- rent every month. Uh, Pipe came through and was like, "Hey, let me turn those, uh, monthly checks into one annual check, and I'll take a 8% fee off the top." So let's say you were gonna get 100 grand of rent from this property. Um, I'll give you 92,000 today. I get to keep the 100, um, and you get, you get 92,000 that you can go invest in your next property. You get... Or, or put into tenant improvements that will let you raise rents or something like that. Here's cash flow today upfront. So Pipe for real estate. Uh, real estate's a huge market. Uh, why, why do landlords have to wait to collect the check? Um, no more waiting is our slogan. All right, now idea number three.

Moiz Ali 22:52 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 22:52 Final idea. Uh, I did invest in this one, so Steady Capital, so steady.capital is their, their URL. So they were like, "Hey, look, everybody knows that most w- most millionaires build their wealth through real estate. That's, that is a time-tested, you know, approach to wealth building." Um, most people actually even want to, they would love to own a rental property and be getting a rent check every month. But most people don't know, don't trust themselves to find a property, you know, vet it, buy it, manage it, all of that. And so they were like, "We'll do a R- Robin Hood for real estate type of thing, where you just decide how much monthly you wanna put into real estate." You say, "I'm, I'm willing to put away $500 a month into real estate," and they basically let you take the 500 bucks. They'll put it into a real estate project that they are kind of vetting, uh, from, like, proven, uh, operators. And then they every month they'll say, "Hey, y- here's an, you know, you got $112 of, you know-"

Moiz Ali 23:47 Sure

Shaan Puri 23:47 ... "rental income from your property this month."

Moiz Ali 23:48 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 23:49 Uh, or, "You, you now own fr- you know, pieces of these six properties in six different markets, and you're making $600 a month of rental income." Like, I, I put five grand into one deal, and I just get this check every month now.

Moiz Ali 24:00 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 24:00 And it's actually the first real estate that I've done that I didn't own, because otherwise it just stayed on my to-do list. All right, so those are the three ideas.

Moiz Ali 24:08 Yes.

Shaan Puri 24:08 Home Options, Pipe for real estate-

Moiz Ali 24:10 Yep

Shaan Puri 24:10 ... and Robin Hood for real estate.

Moiz Ali 24:12 And Steady Capital. Yeah.

Shaan Puri 24:13 Uh, the, yeah, Steady Capital. Um, give me, rank them from your most favorite to your least favorite. Go ahead.

Moiz Ali 24:18 Okay. I, I w- I wasn't like, uh, I was expecting, uh, Home Options would be number three when you told me about it, but in fact, it's number one. Uh, Steady Capital and then Pipe for real estate. Uh, and I'll tell you why. Um, PIPE for real estate exists, and it's just called a cash-out refi. Like, you know, that already exists, where you're like, "Look, I'm getting real- you know, I'm getting money from these landlord, uh... from these tenants, and I can take cash off the, uh, out of the property." Like, you know what's not gonna happen for PIPE for real estate, is someone's gonna come in and be like, "Wow, you're 100% levered up with this debt. Let me also give you more cash." Uh, you are already paying for the debt. You know, you're already levered. Uh, so I think PIPE for real estate exists. Uh, and I think, you know, Mark Lore started this company and he's just raised $350 million. Did you guys read this thing? Uh, I'm not entirely sure what it is, but it appears to be, like, a restaurant delivery business, uh, where he partners with, like-

Shaan Puri 25:07 It's, uh, Wonder-

Moiz Ali 25:08 ... you know, fancy-

Shaan Puri 25:08 ... I think

Moiz Ali 25:09 That's right, yeah, yeah. And, um, so I, I feel like, I'm not sure if this is the case, but it seems like that's sort of like a, a startup branding to something that kinda exists in the, in this space. I feel like PIPE for real estate is the same.

Shaan Puri 25:20 Mark bought Blue Apron.

Moiz Ali 25:22 Oh, he bought Blue Apron. I knew they s- uh, sold for $102 million. I didn't know he was the cash behind it.

Shaan Puri 25:26 Yeah [laughs] , he bought it. Yeah, so he is, you... I think you're, you've nailed it. That sounds like that's what he's doing, but go ahead.

Moiz Ali 25:32 Yeah. Um, HomeOptions is, like, like, you know, I think the hard part about HomeOptions is right now, like, particularly in the last week, right now we don't know what realtor commissions are gonna look like in the future. And you also just don't know how long an option this is. Is the $1,200 in the ground today for 20 years or 30 years? That's a really long period of time. For instance-

Shaan Puri 25:50 Well, I, I think what he's doing-

Moiz Ali 25:51 Yeah

Shaan Puri 25:51 ... is he's just reselling it right away. Or at least that's what I would do, is I would buy the option, I would bundle them up-

Moiz Ali 25:57 It all would be tribal

Shaan Puri 25:57 ... and I would go sell them to the brokerage tomorrow, you know, and just say, "Hey, you, you can hold these," and, you know, uh, try, try to get the... I don't know if the economics all work. I don't know if the brokers are willing-

Moiz Ali 26:06 Sure, yeah, yeah

Shaan Puri 26:07 ... to do things like that.

Moiz Ali 26:08 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 26:08 But, like, I think that's the idea.

Moiz Ali 26:10 Yeah, I like it. It's innovative and, like, different and un- like, you know, unclear what'll happen, but, like, you could revolutionize an industry that, you know, has been the same for the last b- 150 years.

Shaan Puri 26:20 Goddammit, Sam's gonna be a part of that revolution.

Moiz Ali 26:22 It could also be the 6% drops down to 2% in the next, you know, three months, because, you know, the National Association of Realtors is almost

Moiz Ali 26:30 certainly bankrupt at this point.

Shaan Puri 26:31 What was the settlement, and what's changing about this broker situation?

Moiz Ali 26:34 Yeah, it wasn't a settlement. It was $2 billion. I'm not entirely sure what it w- what it was. It was, like, price fixing across realtors, uh, basically saying, "Hey, you can't be on MLS unless you agree to pay everyone, like, a 6% or 5% brokerage." Something to that effect. I haven't gotten to, into the details of it. But, like, the judgment was $2 billion, and I read this Wall Street Journal article where once the judgment was had, big, uh, plaintiff's firms, uh, you know, file lawsuits against the National Association of Realtors in every single state. And they're like, "We think that we'll get $40 billion in judgments as a result of this," which will certainly bankrupt that organization.

Shaan Puri 27:06 Can you talk a little bit about this Founders Card thing? Because I know you've been tweeting about that for, like, two years now, and I'm, I... And that actually surprised me that you were interested in it.

Moiz Ali 27:14 You know, there's... I feel like there's, uh, there's, uh, a, a, a club that I'm a part of, or, like, a Founders Card sort of thing that I'm a part of, that I can't talk about the, uh, the name of it, 'cause they would ask me not to. But with, like, as a result of paying my $100 a month, um, ed- uh, monthly f- uh, membership fee, I get a discount that's worth, like, you know, $800 a month to myself.

Shaan Puri 27:33 What do you get a discount for?

Moiz Ali 27:34 Just SaaS software that I, like, uh, really want, that I have to pay for.

Shaan Puri 27:38 But do you have to be a new cu- a l- a lot of those cards, you have to be a new customer.

Moiz Ali 27:42 No, this one you don't, yeah.

Shaan Puri 27:43 Wow.

Moiz Ali 27:44 You just pay $100 a month, and they're like, "Here's discounts to, like, let's say Mailchimp and let's say Shopify," and, like, all these other SaaS platforms that an e-commerce company wi- might wanna be a part of, or might want discounts to. And so then you go and say, "Great, I paid $100. I get all these discounts, and I'm gonna go use those discounts for, um, for, for, for, for my business." And so you never are gonna cancel that $100 a month subscription, 'cause that $100 is actually saving you $1,000 a month. And, um, I don't understand why there aren't more of these for smaller niche industries, and I think, like, e-commerce is a great one. Like, uh, you know what P&G does? They go and they, uh, they go to, like, Snapchat and Pinterest and Facebook and they say, "Look, we're gonna spend 50 mil- uh, $250 million across our portfolio on your platform, but we need a discount because, uh, you know, we're spending so much money." And they get that discount. They get it from Facebook for sure, 'cause I've seen it. I'm pretty sure Pinterest and I'm pretty sure Snapchat. But I guarantee you they get a Facebook, a discount for Facebook 'cause I've seen it. I, I, you know, I saw it when I was running Native as a part of P&G. And so I'm not sure why smaller businesses don't organize and say, "Look, we're spending this much. Let us also try and negotiate discounts with platforms." Why don't we all negotiate a discount with Yotpo or with Okendo or with Postscript or with Klaviyo and say, "Look, there's gonna be 400 of us together. A lot of us are gonna use this software, but we need a big discount that's a lifetime s- l- that's a, like, a lifetime monthly recurring discount."

Shaan Puri 29:08 And so, sorry, you have one of these c- this is not an idea. You're saying you have one of these cards, but you're saying you, uh, it's like a secret? Like, you don't, uh, they don't, they don't want more people to have the card, or what?

Moiz Ali 29:17 Correct. They would not want me to talk about who they are, but yes, as a result I get discounts to software that I wouldn't w- uh, get otherwise, and it costs me 100 or $140 a month.

Shaan Puri 29:25 Why don't they wanna talk about it?

Moiz Ali 29:27 Yeah, great question. I'm not entirely sure, but I'm sure they would tell me not to talk about it. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 29:31 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 29:32 Do you think they'd lose more than $100 a month?

Shaan Puri 29:34 Illuminati shit. Well, like, there's-

Moiz Ali 29:35 Yeah, wouldn't they want more customers?

Shaan Puri 29:36 ... uh, Spidey s- uh, some Spidey sense is going off here. Uh, you know, like, what's going on? Why... I- I mean, is this, uh, a shady thing?

Moiz Ali 29:43 Sam, this was, this was your idea. Um, like, uh, you... Uh, not your idea originally, but, like, Sam told... I mean, I don't know, seven years ago when you were running The Hustle, you were like, "I'm trying to think of a new product," and you had three ideas. And I remember one of them was basically Trends, which is the thing you ended up launching. Another one was, uh, this idea for the Founders Club card-

Shaan Puri 30:06 Yeah

Moiz Ali 30:06 ... or whatever, which was, I think you were comparing it to the AARP. You're like, "AARP for kinda like millennials or founders" or something. Uh-

Shaan Puri 30:13 Well, A- yeah. And I can talk about the AARP in a second, but yeah.

Moiz Ali 30:16 That was, uh, the second one. What was the third one? You had, you had one more. I don't remember that third one, but-

Shaan Puri 30:20 And I thought the card was the best idea. I was like, "Oh, you should for sure do this card. If I had this on..." And in fact, I actually now I'm just gonna do the card off of the MFM audience 'cause I'm like, "This is way better and it's a win-win." Um-

Sam Parr 30:30 Uh, I, I might be a few months ahead of you. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 30:34 But why didn't you do that card?

Sam Parr 30:36 The reason why I didn't was I couldn't find, uh, I couldn't figure out entirely how to differentiate from all the other offerings that already existed. Um, it was also quite challenging to get in with some of the brands in order to negotiate bulk deals, the argument being, "Well, you know, these companies already spend with us. Why am I gonna give them a discount?" And I couldn't come up with, like, the perfect rebuttal for that, and that, like, that, that is where I, I was trying to figure out how to make it happen.

Moiz Ali 31:03 And what is the rebuttal to that?

Shaan Puri 31:05 The rebuttal for that is your competitors are offering it, right?

Moiz Ali 31:08 Exactly.

Shaan Puri 31:08 So you basically have to go get the number two-

Moiz Ali 31:10 Yes

Shaan Puri 31:10 ... of every space and say, "Hey, we can move you some customers if you make this attractive." And then you go back to number one, you say, "Hey, number two's offering this and they're... people are moving. Um, you should match it."

Moiz Ali 31:22 Yeah, and, like, new people who get, get in are gonna use number two instead of number one because they get the discount.

Shaan Puri 31:27 Exactly. Exactly. And we, we continue to have new customers, and we're just gonna keep telling them-

Moiz Ali 31:31 Yeah

Shaan Puri 31:32 ... go with this company 'cause they offer, you know, a benefit.

Moiz Ali 31:34 Yeah.

Sam Parr 31:34 And the reason why I was interested in it is AARP. So AARP, uh, I actually don't know what it stands for, but it's a club for people above 60 or 50. I think 50.

Moiz Ali 31:44 American Association of Retired Persons.

Sam Parr 31:45 Yeah, is it so-

Moiz Ali 31:46 Or retired people

Sam Parr 31:46 ... so, so I guess it's 60. Um, they do about $1.5 to $2 billion a year in sales, and they have millions and millions and millions and millions of members. The way they make business, uh, uh, revenue is I think they only charge about $100 a year to be a member, and, like most everyone, when you turn 60 you get an, an invitation in your mail. And what you do is you get discounted health insurance, and they make, uh, another side of their business is making money. It's, uh, basically an affiliate fee. So I think they partnered with UnitedHealth and they have UnitedHealth AARP Plan, which is discounted plan, but also a plan specifically for whatever, you know, 60-plus people have. Uh, and they are, I think, one of the largest lobbying groups in America. It's a huge lobbying group. They, they, they basically, uh,

Sam Parr 32:30 like, kinda shape the government in, in some regard. And so I thought that was super fascinating. It's a really fascinating company that's existed for decades and isn't gonna go away anytime soon.

Moiz Ali 32:39 And there's al- already other businesses doing this. Like, think about Y Combinator. We can get into Y Combinator. I think they're, like, you get, you know, $250,000 of AWS credits. You get a bunch of, like, stripe, uh, processing charges for free. And, like, those businesses are like, "You're gonna grow. We're gonna make money at the end." Uh, but it also makes, like, you know, when Y Combinator is selling you on giving you $120,000 for 7%, they're also like, "Here are the other benefits that you get in this business."

Sam Parr 33:01 Right. Um, so anyway, I'm on board with this. Do you wanna do one more?

Shaan Puri 33:05 Yeah, what's the other idea? You had something around Shopify for high-end or something, for high-end D2C. What was that idea?

Moiz Ali 33:11 Yeah, sure. Um, you know, uh, Shopify is fantastic. I'm a big shareholder in Shopify. I love them. You know, I built my career on, in e-commerce. Uh, the reality is it's wonderful for businesses going from zero to $50 million. It's awful for businesses nor- It's not awful, but it's not good for businesses north of $100 million that are ready to spend a lot more on improving their conversion rate on a custom checkout page. And, you know, if the Shopify people were here, they... Uh, if the Shopify people were on this podcast with me, they'd say, "That's crazy. We have big businesses like Fig's and Allbirds and, uh, a lot of other big businesses on it." But the reality is there's so many li- Look, you can't customize so much, and it's so difficult, particularly on the checkout page, that I think there is room for somebody to come in and say, "I'm gonna build my own Shopif- I'm gonna build Shopify but for businesses doing north of $100 million." And there's a lot of businesses doing north of $100 million that have left Shopify, you know, Away Travel, Ritual vitamins, because they're like, "Look, we've outgrown this platform."

Sam Parr 34:07 Where do they go?

Moiz Ali 34:08 Probably, like, usually a custom-built stack, sometimes with, like, this backbone of an old brand, of an old business called Spree, which I think was, like, this open source e-commerce platform when you were growing your business, but I don't think it's around anymore. Uh, but the... I'm like, you know, they'll often go to their own custom, uh, tech platform because they're like, "Look, we're doing enough business that this makes sense."

Sam Parr 34:25 Which is a pain in the ass.

Moiz Ali 34:26 It is a pain in the ass, but, like, you know, it's... a pain in the ass is worth it when you're doing $500 million in revenue and a quarter f- uh, you know, a quarter percentage point bump in conversion rate on your checkout page is gonna lead to an extra 10, $20 million in revenue. It's, it's, it's, it's completely worth it then. And, um, you know, like, Shopify's one, one page checkout, like, they launched that in the last six months. That's been something that people have wanted for a really long time. Shopify subscriptions has been really bad. Like, all the subscription platforms have been really bad until more recently. So I think Shopify's trying to catch up on that larger, uh, segment, but I think they've done... Uh, that, that's not their focus. Their focus is you've decided you want to start a business. You go d- uh, you know, in the shower, you come downstairs and you start a Shopify store. If that business is doing $100 million in revenue, you know, there are solutions that are competitive or more competitive than Shopify is, uh, and they're worth it because small changes in your website are gonna be worth so much, and they're harder to do in Shopify than they are to do in other brands.

Sam Parr 35:21 Yeah. [laughs]

Moiz Ali 35:22 Candidly, like, you know, Native was a $50 million e-commerce business built on WordPress, and the reason we did WordPress was because it was cheap, way cheaper, and 'cause it allowed us a lot more customization. We could do post-purchase pop-ups and add to cart pop-ups at a time where you couldn't on Shopify. We could do subscriptions that didn't charge us now, or aren't allowed to have subscriptions that you c- still can't do on Shopify. Uh, you know, we could have our own servers, which, you know, you may or may not want based on Shopify. We could do instantaneous page loading, which you couldn't do on Shopify. And so there were a lot of benefits for a business, uh, for... because it was open source versus Shopify.

Sam Parr 35:54 Yeah, you used the, uh, $300 a year WooCommerce, which is like the steal of the century and the miss of the century

Sam Parr 36:00 for WordPress.

Moiz Ali 36:00 Yeah, it's not $300. It's free. It's free.

Sam Parr 36:02 Wa- Is it free? Yeah, I mean, I, I used it too.

Moiz Ali 36:05 Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Parr 36:05 I thought it-

Shaan Puri 36:06 Yeah, you know all those features-

Moiz Ali 36:07 Yeah

Shaan Puri 36:07 ... that he just said were benefits? Uh, that's not why he did it, to be clear. He picked it 'cause he was like-

Moiz Ali 36:12 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 36:12 ... "$3,000 for Shopify? Outrageous. Over my dead body. [laughs] I would rather this business fail than pay you $3,000."

Sam Parr 36:19 I had a business that was doing millions a year, and we used WooCommerce. And I remember, uh, it's owned by WordPress now, I think, and I remember, like, looking at WordPress's revenue. I'm like, "Okay, so WordPress controls a third of the internet

Shaan Puri 36:30 And Shopify makes this much money, and yet they're giving this to me? What a bunch of idiots. You guys, like-

Moiz Ali 36:36 Yes. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 36:37 Like, you're... [laughs] It's a massive missed opportunity for WordPress. And WooCommerce is great. You just need a developer sometimes to help you do some stuff, but it's still way cheaper than Shopify.

Moiz Ali 36:46 That's right. But I'm like, really, it just goes to do, like, you know, we could- we did a post-purchase pop-up at Native, which was after you click checkout, we showed you a pop-up saying, "Buy travel size deodorant." We probably sold $700,000 of those travel size deodorants every single month, uh, and made, you know, $400,000 in net profit off those travel size deodorants. Uh, and we could only do that in WordPress. We could not do that in Shopify.

Shaan Puri 37:08 You, uh, you also had something, you were like, "I would do sh- uh, Shopify apps for India or something."

Moiz Ali 37:14 Sure. Yes.

Shaan Puri 37:14 And I found this interesting because our Shopify app bill... Now granted, I could go through and prune some apps that we're not using anymore that are probably still just recurringly charging me. But I think we spend, like, 10 grand a month on Shopify add-ons.

Moiz Ali 37:28 Do you really? Wow.

Shaan Puri 37:29 It's insane. Because whatever you wanna do, they're like, "Oh, would you like to collect email addresses? Well, pay me $1,500 a month." [laughs] It's like, "For this pop-up? Like, what are you talking about?" And they're like, "Well, your store is big." And it's like, that doesn't matter. This is an email pop-up. Well, who do- what do you care how many people type the, into the form? Like, Google Forms is free. What are, what are you talking about? And like, um, every little thing. Like we added a, um, a post-purchase upsell, and it was like $900 a month. And it was like, what is happening? Why, why would this be so expensive? Um, all the review platforms are crazy expensive. Shopify apps are a, you know, an absolute, like, rip-off in the pricing.

Moiz Ali 38:05 Definitely. And, and I think that, you know, if I were s- if I were a developer in India, I'd be like, "I'm gonna hire a team of you guys. We're gonna knock off every single app, and we're gonna charge $20 a month. And that's gonna be our entire business model is $20 a month." And like, you know, uh, the, the other thing I'd say is the more apps you use, the cheaper it gets. So if you're using five of our apps, instead of paying $100, you're paying $75. Get the f- you know, like, there is no reason that Justuno pop-ups should be $1,500 a month. There's no reason that a post-purchase p- upsell should be a percentage of revenue and not $30 a month. And, uh, the reality is that everyone's tiered percentages of revenue, 'cause you can make so much money doing that, and this is software that, like, you know, could've been written within a week or a week and a half by almost anybody, um, and should be $30 a month.

Shaan Puri 38:50 I talked to a guy. I tried to buy this one Shopify app that, um, all it did was it added a maximum to your cart. Like, a feature people don't even think... It's like, why would I ever stop someone from buying more?

Moiz Ali 39:01 Sure.

Shaan Puri 39:01 And it's like, ah, let's say you're doing, like, a limited edition thing. You don't want, like, the resellers to go buy all your shit. And, um, these guys, you know, for, for, like, seven years they've been doing, like, 2 million a year with a million dollar, a million and a half dollars of profit o- just on one Shopify app that just caps the maximum somebody could, could buy of a, of a unit. And that, that's gotta be, like, you know, that should be, like, two lines of code or something. Like, it's crazy. Uh, but there are so many of these that, that exist out there, and people have smartly tried to roll some of these up.

Moiz Ali 39:32 Yeah. And how many of those, how many of the customers of that app are probably customers who don't look at their bill on a, every, a monthly basis and they're like, "Oh man, I'm getting charged $200 a month and I never think about it"?

Shaan Puri 39:43 Yeah, yeah. 'Cause it's to- it's built... First, you never whip out your credit card. You just, once you connect to Shopify, it's gonna pay you-

Moiz Ali 39:48 That's right

Shaan Puri 39:48 ... through Shopify.

Moiz Ali 39:49 Yes.

Shaan Puri 39:50 And then it's buried in the billing tab under all this stuff.

Moiz Ali 39:52 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 39:52 So yeah, there's definitely, uh, s- there's, like, low, very low friction in, like, i- racking up those charges.

Moiz Ali 39:58 There's a massive business to be built

Moiz Ali 40:00 here, which is cloning the top 100 Shopify apps and just charging a flat fee.

Shaan Puri 40:04 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 40:04 Like, you know, it might be a longer term business 'cause you don't have a sales team and you're not going out calling everyone being like, "Switch from, you know, Yapo to me." But it is, uh, every single new business is gonna go to you because it's way easier to use.

Shaan Puri 40:16 You have some controversial opinions. You have a lot of them. Um, a few of them, data's overrated.

Moiz Ali 40:20 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 40:21 Wealth managers are just used car salesmen. You, uh, hate real, Twitter real estate. I wanna hear some of your thoughts on, on those things. We'll start with, um, we'll start with an easy one of data being overrated. What's, what do you mean by that?

Moiz Ali 40:32 Um, let's start with an easier one, which is T- uh, Twitter real estate-

Shaan Puri 40:36 Okay

Moiz Ali 40:36 ... if you don't mind. Um-

Shaan Puri 40:37 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 40:38 They're like, uh, there are-

Shaan Puri 40:39 Oh, wait. Say, say the unpopular opinion. What is it about Twitter real estate?

Moiz Ali 40:42 Uh, it's full of complete shit.

Shaan Puri 40:44 Yeah. [laughs]

Moiz Ali 40:44 They're full of frauds, and they're... Like, I, I can't begin to tell you how many people where I, like, read their tweets, some deals I'm in, and I'm like, "You, how is nobody calling you out on this?" Like, um, you know, people are like, "Are you on..."

Shaan Puri 40:56 And g- and g- me- give the listener perspective here. So you own do-

Moiz Ali 41:01 Yeah

Shaan Puri 41:01 ... maybe, maybe dozens or a hundred, or a hundred-

Moiz Ali 41:03 Hundreds

Shaan Puri 41:03 ... hundreds of s- either single family homes or multifamily homes. Is that right?

Moiz Ali 41:07 That's right, yes.

Shaan Puri 41:08 Okay.

Moiz Ali 41:08 And then I'm an investor in dozens of real estate deals through, as being an LP.

Shaan Puri 41:12 Okay. So y- that's your perspective.

Moiz Ali 41:14 That's my perspective. I'm a, you know, an LP in a lot of the people's... You know, people will be like, "Did you unfollow me because of my opinion on the Middle East crisis?" And I'm like, "No, I unfollowed you because you're a fraud, and you're pretending like you're a good real estate investor, and you're a fucking complete criminal, and I know it because I'm an LP in your business."

Shaan Puri 41:30 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 41:31 Uh, I get, like, you know, even now I can feel my blood boil.

Shaan Puri 41:34 And what do they do that they're tweeting out inflated numbers or what?

Moiz Ali 41:35 Yeah. They're just tweeting out their returns. They're like, "Here are our returns." And I'm like, "These are not returns that I've realized as an LP in your de- uh, as, as an LP in your businesses." And, you know, they have the audacity... Like, you know, I'll be like, "Hey, uh, we're..." Like, you know, before interest rates were going up I was like, "We, we have floating rate mortgages. What the fuck is gonna happen when interest rates go up?" And these guys are like, "Ah, it's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine." And now they're like, "Actually, we need more money." And like, you know, uh, startups are one thing where you might need more capital as the business grows because you're trying to expand for some reason or another. Real estate is a business where once you own the asset, you should not need more cash. You're not, like, expanding the real estate in any way. You're operating an apartment building. The problem is what happens is when the interest rates go up and you have more debt to pay every single month because you're on a floating rate, you need more capital to be able to pay that debt because the rents don't service it. Rents are going down, interest rates are going up, and these guys who have promised, you know, uh, making fortunes are like, uh, are caught with their pants down. And then what they e- which is crazy, then they have the audacity to say, "Hey, actually, well, our returns are fantastic." And then they have the au- like, the other audacity that they have is they're like, "Okay, the, all of the deals you invested in with- in the last five years with us are bad because interest rates are up. But now we can buy things at a lower price because prices have gone down and our interest rates are up. So buy with me. Now I'm a good... Now it's a good time to invest with me."

Shaan Puri 42:52 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 42:53 And I wanna be like, "I wanna fucking kill you," is really the answer.

Shaan Puri 42:56 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 42:57 Um, like, I, you know, I hate that type of bullshit.

Shaan Puri 43:00 You said, "Why isn't anyone calling these people out?" Um-

Moiz Ali 43:02 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 43:03 Why aren't you calling them out? Would you like to name some names? We got a great audience here that would love to hear-

Moiz Ali 43:07 Yeah

Shaan Puri 43:07 ... the names of some of these folks.

Moiz Ali 43:09 Yeah. I don't wanna name names because I want them... Like, you know, some of these people I'm friends with, and I'm like, "I know your wives and your families, and I don't want you to, like, suffer." I was like, "I don't wanna see you sort of suffering in that way."

Shaan Puri 43:20 You just wanna kill them.

Moiz Ali 43:21 Uh, but, like... [laughs] Yes, I do wanna kill them.

Shaan Puri 43:24 Famous. I do famous.

Moiz Ali 43:25 Uh, I, I do think they're like... I, I, I... Like, there are very few people I would ever invest again with in real estate Twitter. The one exception to that rule, maybe exception rather than the rule itself, is Moses Kagan, where I've invested in several deals with him, and I'm like, "This guy underwrites conservatively like I underwrite." Um, and he's, like, thinking about the game in a longterm way, where he's like, "I wanna manage my reputation. I want people to make money. I'll make money when people make money." And I would invest with him again. In a lot of other deals that I've done with r- people on real estate Twitter, I'm like, I would need, uh, you know... I would have to be a heroin addict to invest with you again.

Shaan Puri 43:58 [laughs] You said last time you were on the podcast, uh, you did a pie chart, um, which normally people do as percentages, and you did as dollars, which I thought was such a boss move and really enjoyed. So I want you to tell me how it's changed since then. So you said at the time, this was 2022, mid 2022, so it's been about a year, um, since then, a little more than a year. You said, "I got $10 million of pri- in private equity."

Moiz Ali 44:24 Okay.

Shaan Puri 44:24 $40 to $50 million in cash, which is short-term bonds. I'm waiting for bond prices to come up, you said. Then you said-

Moiz Ali 44:29 Wow, that was so smart.

Shaan Puri 44:31 [laughs] Then you said 25, 30 million in real estate, um, that we own and operate ourselves, and then 10 million in real estate as a LP in other people's funds. You said 10 million in startup investments and 10 million in the stock market. Um, what do you... Has that changed? Have you, have you made shifts since then in how you are investing?

Moiz Ali 44:51 Yeah, sure. Um, good question. Uh, it hasn't changed dramatically. Um, I would say the $40 to $50 million in bonds is probably somewhere at 60 to 70 today, but it's still in short-term bonds, which are yielding a lot. Uh, I'm starting to get a little bit longer as, like, the yield curve starts to flatten. Like, right now, if you buy a one-year bond, you'll get about 5.5% interest, uh, in a year. If you buy a 10-year bond, it's a little bit under five. Uh, you know, a year ago, it was, like, five... It was, let's say 5% for a year, but 4% for 10 years. And now the, the, like, the curve was inverted, and now it's starting to flatten a little bit. And as it continues to flatten, I invest in longer-term

Moiz Ali 45:30 bonds rather than just short-term bonds. Uh, I probably have $15 to $20 million in the stock market at this point, uh, heavily concentrated in Facebook and, uh, uh, and Shopify. Uh, probably li- and probably PMG.

Shaan Puri 45:44 You tweeted out this funny thing. You, it was, uh, your, your IRR versus, uh, S&P, and you're like, uh, you quoted-

Moiz Ali 45:51 That's right

Shaan Puri 45:51 ... you quoted Legally Blonde. You're like, "What? Like, stock investing's hard?" Uh-

Moiz Ali 45:54 It's hard. Yeah. [laughs] That's right. Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 45:57 And what, what were, what was the returns? What was the comparison?

Moiz Ali 46:00 Um, yeah, I was probably up 30% for the year.

Shaan Puri 46:02 Yeah, versus S&P was, like, 3 or something, or, or-

Moiz Ali 46:05 10, 12 or something like that. Yeah.

Shaan Puri 46:07 Uh, but y- I don't... You didn't say what you owned. And in my head, I was like, "I bet that is literally just Facebook."

Moiz Ali 46:12 Facebook.

Shaan Puri 46:12 [laughs] Yeah.

Moiz Ali 46:14 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 46:14 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 46:14 It's, it's a lot of Facebook. Um, Facebook and Shopify and P&G.

Shaan Puri 46:19 You and your brother kept buying the dip. Like, Facebook was getting crushed, like, uh, you know-

Moiz Ali 46:22 Yeah

Shaan Puri 46:23 ... I don't know, a year and a half ago to, to like-

Moiz Ali 46:25 Yeah

Shaan Puri 46:25 ... you know, up until six months ago or something.

Moiz Ali 46:28 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 46:28 And, um, every time it went down, I remember your brother and I think you also were like, "Uh, hey-

Moiz Ali 46:34 We're buying

Shaan Puri 46:34 ... is everybody insane? Uh, great.

Moiz Ali 46:36 [laughs] Yeah.

Shaan Puri 46:36 I can't wait to go buy more Facebook today." And the earnings were-

Moiz Ali 46:38 Yeah

Shaan Puri 46:38 ... and psychologically, it's hard, right? Earnings come out or, or, um, you know, s- big stock move happens, goes down, and to be like, "All right. Whoo. Let's go. But let's, let's buy in more. Buy in more"-

Moiz Ali 46:50 Yeah

Shaan Puri 46:50 ... that takes a totally different mindset. Uh, what's your... What drives the conviction? Because it's obviously not a reaction to the... You're not reacting to momentum. In fact, you're going-

Moiz Ali 46:59 Yeah

Shaan Puri 46:59 ... you're betting against the current momentum.

Moiz Ali 47:01 Sure.

Shaan Puri 47:01 So what made you believe that that's, like, a place that you wanted to be investing?

Moiz Ali 47:06 Um, I would say t- two things. One is literally every single pr- business I know, if it's an online retailer, is entirely dependent on Facebook, whether they realize it or not. Like, anybody, any... Like, the best businesses in direct to consumer are entirely dependent on Facebook. The worst d- businesses are diversified, and it's that simple.

Shaan Puri 47:25 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 47:25 If you're entirely... If you're like, "My business lives or dies by Facebook," I'm like, "You're gonna have a better outcome than if you think your business lives and dies by YouTube ads." Brick and more... Uh, actually, brick and mortar is an exception to that, but, like, YouTube ads. I'm diversified with my advertising strategy. I'm investing a lot in TikTok. That means you can't get the thing that works for everybody and is the biggest advertising engine in the world to work for you. You're gonna miss out on a ton of opportunity. Um, and, and so I'd say that is one of them. But, like, the reality is, and this is a little bit of a longer story, when the financial crisis hit, my father, who had been conservative his entire life, he was probably, like, 70 years old at the time, and he's like, "This doesn't make sense how cheap these houses are." And so, um, he bought one house and, um, it was probably like a 1,500 square foot house, and he paid $150,000 for it, and it had just sold for, like, 225, uh, like, you know, a couple months beforehand. And he's like, "There's a $75,000 discount after 60 days." And then the ne- 60 days later, that 150 was probably worth, like, 75,000. And rather than get scared and be like, "Oh, fuck, I lost $75,000," and we don't have a lot of money at that time, he's like, "This doesn't make any sense. Uh, now this house over here that sold for 250 four months ago is for $75,000." And so he kept purchasing real estate. And, um, you know, there was one half duplex that he purchased for $8,000, and it generates, like, $1,900 in rent a month today. Like, within, uh, you know, within a year, we purchased back the entire duplex every single year. And, uh, he never lost conviction. He's like, "This is a deal of a lifetime, and, um, I've got the conviction that I'm right here." And, uh, you know, uh, honestly, you know, people talk about my brother and I and how we've, like, uh, had financial success. The reality is that financial success is based on the idea that we will not need a lot of money in the future. Because he pur- he started purchasing real estate and created this steady stream of income for our family that would be very hard to lose. Uh, we had the benefit of that and sort of the solid foundation of, like, not worrying about money and sort of being able to take a lot of risk because we could fall back on real estate. Um, and that gave me a lot of conviction where I'm like, "Wow, it, it is possible to buck the trend here and say, you know what? These people are wrong." This... Th- Like, you know, this is on sale and you're selling this incredible asset and it's 50% off. And I know it 'cause I'm looking at, you know, 25 ad accounts on a daily basis and seeing that these people are still investing ad dollars on Facebook. Um, so how could it be 25 per- how can it be 25% off? How could Facebook stock be 50% off? This is a buying opportunity, not a selling opportunity.

Sam Parr 49:50 Of your, uh, portfolio now, what percentage of it came from Native? Uh, was... Did Native make up the bulk of it and then it's just, it's grown nicely since then?

Moiz Ali 50:01 Um, I would say Native is, uh, y- [laughs] you know, it, it's hard to answer that question 'cause, like, Na- a lot of these... So when Native sold, uh, let's say I, I made virtually the entire amount. Um, but that, you know, like, the, the... My net worth is significantly higher than that now, but like, you know, it's based on... Like, you know, I wouldn't own $50 million in bonds were it not for the $100 million I got from Native's sale. So, like, yeah, while the interest i- I don't know if the interest is attributable to Native, uh, or i- it is not. Presumably, it is. Um, you know, certainly if I were getting a divorce and I didn't have a prenup, I'd say, "All of this is Native money." Like, it all came from Native.

Sam Parr 50:35 Right.

Moiz Ali 50:35 That's pre-, uh, pre-marriage. Uh, and so, um, you know, the, the bulk of my, uh, financial net worth is a result of selling Native, but at this point, the cash itself from Native is probably less than a majority of my net worth.

Shaan Puri 50:48 When you, um, you talk about like, you know, '08, your dad saw that opportunity-

Moiz Ali 50:54 Yeah

Shaan Puri 50:54 ... this is underpriced. When Facebook stock is crashing, you feel like this is-

Moiz Ali 50:58 Yeah

Shaan Puri 50:58 ... an underpriced asset. Um, what do you feel like are the kind of underpriced opportunities or assets today?

Moiz Ali 51:04 I think San Francisco real estate, and possibly office real estate in a lot of other cities. But I do think that, like, um, that un- Like, you know, the qu- the question is how do you wanna get in there? Um, uh, when, when we were buy- when my father was buying this real estate in '08, I was an att- It must've been, like, a little bit later, actually. It must've been, like, 2010. I was an attorney, and, uh, all these, like, wealth managers try and talk to attorneys. And so I was like, "Look, I need a loan, um, for 500... My family needs a loan for $500,000. We bought a million dollars of real estate. We just want 50% LTV." And Wells Fargo would be like, "The only way we're gonna give you a loan is if you give us a million dollars in cash, then we'll give you a million dollar loan." And I was like, "I don't understand if you guys know how money works, but if I had a million dollars in cash, I wouldn't come to you for a fucking million dollar loan. I wouldn't give you that." Um, but, uh, uh, so anyway, like, we were str- we were strapped for cash and trying to deploy it, and then what my father did is he dollar cost averaged into the real estate. Uh, and he didn't know that that's what he was doing. He was just like, "Well, okay, we got, like, another, you know, $50,000 to spend. Let's go buy a house." And, um, he would get that $50,000 from rent that he was collecting. And so, uh, he just dollar cost averaged his way in and was really aggressive. Um, I'm... If, if you were dollar cost averaging your way into office space, I'd probably start, you know, in 2023 or ear- or very early 2024. If you were like, "I'm trying to time the bottom," which is really hard to do correctly, obviously, I'd probably still wait four to five months, 'cause there's probably still some, uh, you know, some deals that have to go, uh, that have to light on fire before the rest of the, the world realizes, "Okay, my real estate is not worth 100 billion. It's actually worth 30 million today."

Sam Parr 52:39 Yeah, I, I agree with the San Francisco thing.

Moiz Ali 52:41 What do you think? What was your answer to that question?

Shaan Puri 52:42 I didn't have an answer, but I wanted to know your opinion on, like, uh, some of these D2C companies that have just got smashed in the stock market. So, like, you know, an Allbirds brand, which I don't know what the market cap is, but it's like $50 million or something.

Moiz Ali 52:54 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 52:55 It's like come down, come way, way, way down.

Moiz Ali 52:57 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 52:57 Revenue's over 100 million. Market cap, you know, 50 million.

Sam Parr 53:00 No, today is 138.

Moiz Ali 53:02 Yes. Yeah. No, I think it has to go bankrupt before you can touch that.

Shaan Puri 53:04 And w- why is that? They just totally mismanaged it, or it's too much debt? Like, what's the problem with that, that business? I, I haven't looked into it.

Moiz Ali 53:09 Uh, probably, like, real estate, uh, is probably not good. Their team is too large. They might have some f- like, financial obligations probably to their suppliers that are really holding down their... They have a lot of accounts, uh, payable. Um, and you need to wipe that all out before you can get into it. I, you know, I looked at this with Honest as well, and I was like, um, I talked to some serious people and I was like, "Hey, I wanna buy... I'm thinking about buying Honest." Um, and, uh, that business was... That business had different problems. That business had gross margin problems, which was they tr- if they sell a diaper for a dollar, it actually costs them 70 cents, and generally in this industry, you, it actually costs you, like, 30 cents. You should have, you know, 60, 70% gross margins. These guys had 30% gross margins. So they had, they had a different problem. But, like, um, I, I think with Allbirds, it's, uh, it's more severe. It's, uh, you know, it's systemic. It's a brand, uh, like, you know, it's a brand. Like, it needs to... I think it'll have to go through bankruptcy in order to be, uh, fixed.

Shaan Puri 54:02 Do you look at things like AI? Do you pay attention to it? Or are you just like, "I'm a merchant. I used to cash checks at a gas station-"

Moiz Ali 54:09 Yeah. Yes

Shaan Puri 54:09 ... "and then I sold deodorant, uh-"

Moiz Ali 54:11 Yeah

Shaan Puri 54:11 ... "you know, through Facebook ads, and now, you know, I..." Uh, you know, are you like, "Real estate, you know, the only things I can touch and feel," or do you pay attention? Do you get swept up at all in the, kind of the, the crazes of, of the day, like AI?

Moiz Ali 54:24 Um, I think I get swept up a little bit, but I'm probably more cautious, where I'm like, "I wanna see how this thing makes money." Uh, I remember our last podcast, Shaan, you were like, "How much do you have into Bitcoin?" 'Cause that was one thing on my pie chart I did not talk about. And I was like, "You know, probably less than $500,000." And today it's, you know, prob- like, probably less than $200,000. Um, you know, I like to know how I'm gonna make money, and I guess I'm far more risk-averse than most entrepreneurs. Um, and that risk aversion means that I probably won't invest in businesses unless I have a good idea of, like, how does this business make money, or who, who purchases this business, or

Moiz Ali 55:00 how do we, how do we exit this business five to 10 years from now? I need, like, a realistic vision of that. And if I don't have that, I'm probably less inclined to get behind it. And so I think that's made me shy away from Bitcoin, that's made me shy away from AI, probably to my own detriment.

Sam Parr 55:13 Are you managing everything yourself, and what tools are you using? Is it just a, a sheet? Just a-

Moiz Ali 55:17 Um-

Sam Parr 55:17 ... Excel sheet?

Moiz Ali 55:18 Yeah, there's a Google Sheet my brother and I share where we're like, "Here's your investment." Like, you know, if it's a, you know, "Here's a fund, here's how much we've, uh, committed, here's how much we've invested." If it's a startup, it's, "Here's how much we've put in." Um-

Shaan Puri 55:28 Do, do you guys still have, like, one bank account? He told me once, he was like, "Yeah, it's kind of just like a family pot of money." I'm like, "How does that work?"

Moiz Ali 55:34 Yeah, a little bit.

Shaan Puri 55:35 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 55:36 A little bit. Uh, a little bit, yes. Uh, it's the honest answer is yes. Still, uh, in, in very many ways I think the answer is yes to that. Um-

Shaan Puri 55:44 When you see him buying something stupid, you're like, "You're spending our money, bitch. What are you doing?"

Moiz Ali 55:48 [laughs]

Sam Parr 55:49 Well, I knew he was gonna buy you a gift one time.

Moiz Ali 55:51 Yeah.

Sam Parr 55:51 And I was like, well, he's kinda buying himself a gift, right? You, you-

Moiz Ali 55:54 [laughs]

Sam Parr 55:54 ... if, if it's, it's our money. Uh, you, you don't like-

Moiz Ali 55:57 That's right [laughs]

Sam Parr 55:58 ... you don't like wealth managers. Uh, so do you manage everything yourself?

Moiz Ali 56:01 Uh, yeah. That's right.

Sam Parr 56:01 'Cause that's, that's a full-time job almost.

Moiz Ali 56:03 That is a full-time job if you wanna be good at it, and if you don't get... Like, if you don't wanna be good at it, it's less of a full-time job. Like, at this point I'm, I'm mostly content with if I'm not making a startup investment, I'm generally gonna think of, uh, the S&P 500 or a US Treasury. I'm not, like, chasing the extra yield, um, where I'm like if I put a lot of effort into this, instead of the US Treasury, maybe an Uber... Like, Uber bonds that are dated in 2025 are paying 6.2%, but you have to analyze what's the tax implication of this Uber bond versus a US Treasury to, to determine net yields. Uh, I'm not, like, that. Uh, I- I'm just like, give me the US Treasury. The extra 1% yield isn't worth it. I'll go make a percent elsewhere. Um, my wealth managers, I've been through several now. Um, I've been through Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs, you, you know, uh, I... Like, Goldman Sachs was like, "Always consult us before you make an investment. We'll just give you our real opinion." And I did that for a while, and I was like, "Okay, I thought you guys were just gonna be like is this a good idea or a bad idea?" But they're always like, "No, give us the money instead." Uh, I used to tell this story.

Shaan Puri 57:05 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 57:05 I, I told the, I, I told... I went to, like, my Goldman Sachs's, uh, like, my wealth manager's boss. I had her come over to the Native offices and I was like, "Look, I believe that if I told my wealth manager that Bill Gates was ready to give you a billion dollars tomorrow if I let him borrow this pen, and he signed a contract to that effect, and put the billion dollars in a briefcase and give you that, give me the briefcase, you would say, 'Don't do that deal. Give us the pen instead.'" Like, uh-

Shaan Puri 57:30 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 57:30 ... they would not, they would... Like, they would not let you loan a dollar to Bill Gates if he was gonna give you a billion dollars tomorrow and he pre-funded the billion dollars. They'd say, "Give us the dollar and we can do better with it. Uh, let us earn fees on your dollar. Don't take the billion dollars. Let us earn fees." And I told my Goldman Sachs wealth manager's boss, I was like, "This is how I feel at your organization. It is fucking horrific."

Shaan Puri 57:49 [laughs] Jesus Christ.

Moiz Ali 57:50 Um, and, uh-

Shaan Puri 57:51 What did they say?

Moiz Ali 57:52 ... you know, I still feel that way about them.

Shaan Puri 57:53 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 57:54 Uh, like, you know, I'm still angry at them. Um, and then I went to this-

Shaan Puri 57:58 You're like, "Tell me how you really feel." [laughs]

Moiz Ali 57:59 Yeah, yeah. I, I'll tell 'em. I-

Shaan Puri 58:01 Bill, one of the funniest tweets I ever saw was you go, "Oh, here's a photo of every, uh, 3PL owner that I've ever seen," and it was a picture of the Hamburglar. [laughs]

Moiz Ali 58:11 [laughs] That's right. Yeah.

Shaan Puri 58:13 It was so funny.

Moiz Ali 58:14 Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 58:15 That was so funny. Oh my God. I... And I couldn't even imagine what you were going through that would get you to the point-

Moiz Ali 58:21 That's insane

Shaan Puri 58:21 ... where you're like, "I'm gonna tweet this out," and where's, what, where's a picture of the Hamburglar?

Moiz Ali 58:26 Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 58:27 'Cause that's, that's how clown, clownishly criminal these guys are with how they rip you off. Um-

Moiz Ali 58:32 It's so true

Shaan Puri 58:32 ... that was so funny. [laughs]

Moiz Ali 58:34 My last wealth manager, um, was like, uh, uh, about a year and a half ago was like, "You should invest everything into, uh, bonds right now. We think the Fed is gonna engineer a soft landing and everything's gonna be perfect. And so you want this three... You'll get a 3% yield if you invest in a five-year duration." So basically the, you'll get 3% a year, but you have to commit to that money being invested for five years. And, um, so I put, like, uh, I think it was, like, $5 or $7 million to that and, uh, uh, against that strategy. And then a quarter in, like, probably three months later, I was like, "You know what? I don't believe in this. Sell everything right now. I'm gonna take a loss. I don't think we're gonna engineer this soft landing. Interest rates are gonna go up. Inflation's 9%. The fuck are you guys thinking that we could engineer a soft landing here with, uh, with interest rates staying the same, uh, interest rates remaining the way they are and inflation being nine fucking percent you think that I should get a 3% yield?" And so, uh, we sold the $7 million. I probably lost 150 or $125,000 or $150,000 in that three-month period doing this. Three months, lost $150,000 because I bet against them and, uh, you know, people started to realize interest rates would rise. And, uh, since then I've just invested in, like, you know, three-month, six-month, one-year Treasuries, um, uh, to ta- take advantage of the yield. And so, like, you know, these guy, the guys who are the wealth managers, their job is not to understand markets. Their job is to understand, um, how to sell you an asset. They're just car salesmen who sell ca- like, you know, financial, uh, instruments rather than cars. And they're, like, just as, uh, sleazy and just as, like, slimy and just as charismatic as well. And, um, you know, I trust... You know, uh, have you seen, like, Seinfeld where George Costanza is in a car dealership and a car dealer's, like, walking towards him and he's like, "Stop right there, otherwise I'm gonna leave"? That's wh-

Shaan Puri 1:00:20 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 1:00:21 ... whenever my wealth, uh, manager is like, "Let me sell you this asset," I'm like, "Stop right there. I'm gonna hang up the phone if we continue this conversation. VOO or, you know, US Treasuries. Don't try and sell me anything else. I know how you guys think."

Sam Parr 1:00:34 Are you ever gonna start another company again and, and make that your thing? You missing it?

Moiz Ali 1:00:39 Yes, definitely. Um, you know, I think that, uh, I can't turn $100 million into a billion dollars. Uh, I can only start a business that sells for a billion dollars, so I think the answer is yes. In fact, I'm certain it is.

Shaan Puri 1:00:50 Hey, what, what happened to the guy on Twitter who said, uh, "Hey, money's not gonna make you happy. Uh, it's your friend and your family and your..." What did you-

Moiz Ali 1:00:58 Yeah

Shaan Puri 1:00:58 ... what did you say? You had some tweet about this the other day-

Moiz Ali 1:01:00 Yeah, yeah

Shaan Puri 1:01:00 ... and I was like, uh, you, do you have a ghostwriter? Who, who is this? This is not on brand.

Moiz Ali 1:01:04 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:01:04 This is not the guy who said, "I was put on Earth to increase earnings per share." I like the old Moiz.

Moiz Ali 1:01:08 Yeah, yeah, me too.

Shaan Puri 1:01:09 The guy who was like, "I'm here-"

Sam Parr 1:01:09 It all, it all can be true. It all can be true, right? You could... He wants to get after it You don't have to do it just to make you happy. You do it just 'cause it's exciting.

Moiz Ali 1:01:17 And I think, like, it all depends on the mood you're in, where you're, like, lonely or spending a lot of time with friends, and you're like, "Wow, this is great." And then you... You know, uh, I'll spend time with friends, and this guy will be like, "Yeah, I'm making... I started this direct-to-consumer business. We're doing $100 million. This is our second year, $20 million EBITDA." And I'm like, "Fuck friendship. I need to get that."

Sam Parr 1:01:35 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 1:01:35 Uh [laughs] , and so I think it's all... Like, the grass is always greener. Um, and so sometimes I'm in the, like... You know, I had this other tune where I'm like, sometimes I wanna be like a warrior and, um, make a lot of money, and other times I wanna be like a civilian and, um, just spend time with loved ones. I don't have a good answer to that. I see a therapist, and she doesn't have a good answer to that for me either. [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:01:54 Hey, no. There's, uh... What is it? Sun Tzu: "It's better to be a, a warrior in the garden as opposed to a gardener in war." So, uh, you know, you could still be this crazy person and chill every once in a while.

Moiz Ali 1:02:04 Wow. That is a great quote. I've never heard that before. That's awesome.

Sam Parr 1:02:09 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 1:02:10 What are business ideas that you guys have? What are the... What's a business idea that I should start? You know, if I wanna start a business, what, what's one? You guys talk to a lot more people than I do. What's a business idea I should start?

Shaan Puri 1:02:20 Well, my honest opinion is that you now have new advantages. And so, like, you could start a new business from scratch, but I really do think the thing you should do is take a huge slug of capital, buy something that is, like, you know, already worth $100 million. Like, you could, you could take something from 100 to 500 or 100 to a billion much easier than going from zero to 500, uh, with, like, a new product in the marketplace. And so I, I think that's what I would... That's where I would start the process of thinking-

Sam Parr 1:02:51 Yeah

Shaan Puri 1:02:51 ... uh, thinking about that. Uh-

Sam Parr 1:02:52 I think you'd be very successful doing that or, or buying, like, a... I forget the guy's name. Nat, Nat something, the guy who bought, uh, the trading card company.

Sam Parr 1:03:00 Like, like an old, uh... What was it called, Shaan?

Shaan Puri 1:03:02 Yeah.

Sam Parr 1:03:02 Nat Turner? Is that his name?

Shaan Puri 1:03:04 Uh, that Turner.

Sam Parr 1:03:04 Yeah, he bought, like, a trading card company, and he's like, "I'm gonna make this cool again." I think you would succeed doing that. But my read on you is that you are significantly more of a creator and an artist than you want people to think, and I think that you have to... 'Cause I, I saw how, like, careful you were about customer service and about the brand. And even though you wanna act like this tough guy, like, you are like, "I'm gonna answer 200 customer service emails, and I'm gonna, like, delight them." And I remember-

Shaan Puri 1:03:29 Yeah

Sam Parr 1:03:29 ... you talked about the website. Like, you act like, "Oh, I just copied this. I copied that." There's a lot more thought and care than you l- than you give that vibe out.

Moiz Ali 1:03:37 Absolutely.

Sam Parr 1:03:37 And so if, if, if I had to tell you what to do, it would be, uh, start something from scratch and make it art, and then also have that 50% of you that, you know, only cares about EBITDA or, you know, or whatever, uh, that-

Shaan Puri 1:03:48 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 1:03:48 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:03:49 But I, I, I... My opinion is, of who you are, is you need to be a little bit more of an artist than you have lately.

Moiz Ali 1:03:56 I couldn't agree more. I appreciate that.

Shaan Puri 1:03:57 Yeah. I, I actually agree with that. I, I also think, uh, what I would not do is I would not do another D2C brand, even though you know how to do it and you could do it, like, you know, in your sleep at this point, um, just because you're playing the same level of the video game that you, you already beat. And, like, you know, what's more valuable than the money you would make in that is, like, you have, like, certain number of years of, like... You're, you're in, like-

Sam Parr 1:04:18 Yeah

Shaan Puri 1:04:18 ... peak mental, physical, like, abilities right now. And, like, use those years wisely. Either go do just the funnest things you can think of, you know, around the world, and travel and do all that good stuff, or if you are gonna do a creative project, make it one that, like, i- you know, puts those to good use and to good challenge. You know, like, if you s- if you came to me and you said, uh, like, "You know, I'm starting another D2C brand, and it's gonna be, um, you know, not deodorant, but whatever, some other thing," you know [laughs] , uh, yeah, I would be like, "Oh, yeah, that's cool. You... I'm sure it's gonna be successful, but, um, I don't think that's what ma- will make you more successful."

Sam Parr 1:04:54 Yeah, but that's bullshit-

Shaan Puri 1:04:55 Yeah

Sam Parr 1:04:55 ... because Native deodorant... Like, I use the soap because, like, I trust the bra- Like, he built a brand. I mean, it's a, it's a trusted brand. Uh, partially because I know Moiz. I don't know the, the owner now, so I don't, I don't know actually if they're sticking to what the prom-

Shaan Puri 1:05:08 You don't know Proctor?

Sam Parr 1:05:09 Well, I, I don't know if they're... Actually, it's the opposite.

Shaan Puri 1:05:12 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:05:12 I think if they own it, they're probably gonna ruin it. Uh, but, like, if you were to create, like, some type of food that is a healthy option or something, baby formula, that's a healthy option, I actually think that that would start and look silly, but it actually has massive implications and would make... I don't like even saying this, but it could make the world a, even a slightly better place, and you could find some fulfillment in that. Uh, and it would look just like another e-com brand. But as long as it's not, like, something stupid that doesn't, that doesn't matter to people, like, for example, another Allbirds thing.

Shaan Puri 1:05:40 Yeah.

Sam Parr 1:05:40 But something that I put in my body, uh, you know, or something that makes my kid healthier, something like that, I, I, I think that could fulfill you.

Moiz Ali 1:05:48 I appreciate that, and I appreciate that inspiration as well. I think there's, uh, truth to both those things. Like, I, I wanna build something big. Like, one of the reasons that I haven't really gotten excited about anything is 'cause I want something to be, you know, 10 times bigger than my last business, and that's, um, you know, that's hard to do and hard to be excited about and hard to say, "You know what? I'm gonna spend the next 10 years of my life building this business." Um, and that's, uh, you know, that's what's made me really cautious about it, but in a way that I think is, um, you know, making my mind less flexible than it was five years ago.

Sam Parr 1:06:18 Well, you better get on it, man. You don't wanna be a has-been or a one-hit wonder. I, I, I, I think that-

Moiz Ali 1:06:22 Tell me about it

Sam Parr 1:06:23 ... I think that Native is only... It's a home run for everyone else. I think it's a base hit for you. Um, but I'm, I'm, like... Every day I'm like, "What's he doing? What's he doing? Is he doing it?" I'll see you tweet something.

Moiz Ali 1:06:32 Yeah.

Sam Parr 1:06:33 I'll be like, "Is that gonna be the thing? Is that gonna be the thing? Is it gonna actually fall in?"

Moiz Ali 1:06:35 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:06:36 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:06:36 You know? You're gonna be, you're gonna be like Uncle Rico bragging about how you almost took state in high school. Like, I want... You know what I mean? [laughs]

Moiz Ali 1:06:41 That's right. Yeah, yeah.

Sam Parr 1:06:43 I need it.

Shaan Puri 1:06:43 What a, what a neg. What an amazing neg. [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:06:45 Well, hey, look.

Moiz Ali 1:06:46 No, that's great. In fact-

Sam Parr 1:06:46 I- it's not a neg. I, I'm saying you're, you know, I-

Shaan Puri 1:06:50 It's a compliment.

Moiz Ali 1:06:50 No, it's, it's a hard compliment.

Sam Parr 1:06:51 It's, it's a compliment. Look, it's a compliment.

Shaan Puri 1:06:52 Yeah.

Sam Parr 1:06:52 I... You're gonna, you're gonna do great things.

Moiz Ali 1:06:54 Yes.

Sam Parr 1:06:54 But whether you're gonna finally nut up and actually do it, uh, and that's what I'm eager for. [laughs]

Moiz Ali 1:06:59 Yeah, yeah. In fact, my, um... Uh, my banker from, uh, the Native sale texted me yesterday, and he's like, "You know, November 8th is the six-year anniversary of the sale." And so like it's been six years since I've been out, uh, you know, sold the business and, you know, I think so far it's been my magnum opus and that's not good.

Shaan Puri 1:07:15 He's like, "Hey, Moiz, you wanna, you wanna feel some anxiety today? It's been six years since [laughs] ..."

Moiz Ali 1:07:18 [laughs] Yeah. Yeah.

Shaan Puri 1:07:19 "You wanna fuck up your day? Here you go." [laughs]

Moiz Ali 1:07:21 You know what that is? It- he's doing, uh, HomeOptions for investment banking. He's like-

Shaan Puri 1:07:25 [laughs] Yeah

Moiz Ali 1:07:25 ... texting me once in a while being like, "Hey, when it's time to sell this, your next business, don't forget about me. I'm still texting you."

Shaan Puri 1:07:30 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:07:31 What was the, um-

Moiz Ali 1:07:32 Totally

Sam Parr 1:07:32 ... what, what's the sales now of Native? I, I bet you that's doing 200 or 300 million a year now, right?

Moiz Ali 1:07:36 500 this year.

Sam Parr 1:07:38 500. Oof.

Moiz Ali 1:07:40 Yeah.

Sam Parr 1:07:40 Coulda, woulda, shoulda. No, I'm, I-

Moiz Ali 1:07:42 It's a lot

Sam Parr 1:07:42 ... I'm joking. You, you-

Moiz Ali 1:07:42 It's a lot

Sam Parr 1:07:43 ... I would've sold probably as well.

Moiz Ali 1:07:44 Yeah. I, you know, I don't think I could have done... Yeah, I don't think I could have done what P&G has done without them. Like, they've made it an amazing brand. They think about like, um, you know, product development. They think about shelf space. They think about things in a way that's really spectacular. And, um, not to say that there are things where I look at them, I'm like, "Ooh, I wouldn't have done that." Like, I definitely see that once in a while. But ultimately, like, um, you know, the reason that I sold when I did was I wanted to learn from people who are masters at something about how to grow something from, you know, 30 to 100 or 500, and I think I learned a lot of that while I was there. And so, uh, you know, there... People are always like, "Do you regret it?" I... There's not a day that goes by where I go to bed and I'm like, "Man, I shouldn't have sold." I'm always like, "That was the right decision."

Sam Parr 1:08:23 We'll wrap up with this one line that you told me. Um, you, you were, you were saying, uh, you were telling me about the sell- the sale process, and they were like, "So how are you gonna expand?" And you looked at them all dumbfounded. I go, "Are you..." And you go, "Well, can you write the words Native on a shampoo bottle?"

Moiz Ali 1:08:39 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:08:41 How, how about on toothpaste? Can you write that? Okay, that's how you expand.

Moiz Ali 1:08:45 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:08:46 And that's exactly what they've done. I actually don't use the deodorant, but I use the soap. You, uh, the soap is my favorite. You, you've even had like Melissa's cupcake soap, and you have all this other soap. I, I, I love the soap.

Moiz Ali 1:08:56 Yeah.

Sam Parr 1:08:56 And so, uh, your, uh-

Shaan Puri 1:08:57 The body wash.

Sam Parr 1:08:58 You-

Moiz Ali 1:08:58 Is that what it-

Shaan Puri 1:08:58 Yeah

Moiz Ali 1:08:58 ... the body wash?

Sam Parr 1:08:59 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Moiz Ali 1:09:00 Yeah, yeah.

Sam Parr 1:09:00 Yeah.

Moiz Ali 1:09:00 Yeah, the body wash.

Sam Parr 1:09:01 And your, uh, body wash. And you, um, your smartass reply was their strategy, and it worked, so congratulations.

Moiz Ali 1:09:07 [laughs] Yeah. That's right. Yeah.

Shaan Puri 1:09:08 They're like-

Moiz Ali 1:09:08 Thank you very much

Shaan Puri 1:09:08 ... there's like a guy in the back just taking notes.

Sam Parr 1:09:10 [laughs]

Moiz Ali 1:09:11 [laughs] Taking notes.

Sam Parr 1:09:12 Yeah. He's gonna call someone, "Hey, guys, can we write Native on this bottle?" [laughs]

Moiz Ali 1:09:16 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:09:17 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:09:18 "Can we do that?"

Moiz Ali 1:09:18 It was bananas. I remember that.

Sam Parr 1:09:20 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:09:21 Right on. Uh, Moiz, thanks for coming on, man.

Sam Parr 1:09:22 And we appreciate you coming on. Thank you very much.

Moiz Ali 1:09:24 Talk to you next time. [upbeat music]