How Much We Make From A Podcast With 3 Million Downloads/Month (#368)

Sam Parr 0:00 [upbeat music] We're gonna talk about one thing that I think everyone will find interesting. It's, like, inside baseball. It's, like, behind the scenes of the pod, what our current numbers are, the revenue we're making from it, and, like, how we grew it, and things like that. And also yours as well, because you're earlier in your journey, so that'd be interesting to people.

Ben Wilson 0:26 [laughs]

Sam Parr 0:27 We'll start with the-

Ben Wilson 0:27 We got Jonathan on here too, who... Jonathan's our numbers whiz. He knows all about growth and how we grew it.

Sam Parr 0:31 I'll do... I'll kinda say what the high-level numbers are for My First Million, and you can do the same for your pod.

Sam Parr 0:37 So I just looked in Megaphone. That's the software we use. So this... Every number I'm gonna say is the trailing 30-day numbers. So trailing 30 days for My First Million, when we say the word downloads, we mean YouTube and also, like, podcast downloads, which is basically Apple and Spotify, and then a s- much smaller percentage is, like, Stitcher and all the other podcast stuff. And so for that, for the podcast downloads, we did one point... uh, uh, round up, 1.3, so 1.255 it looks like, million downloads on, like, the podcasting platforms. Then our YouTube page right now has 110- or maybe 112,000 subscribers. And in the trailing 30 days, we did 2.7 million views, of which a lot are YouTube Shorts. So maybe in, maybe 1 million to 1.5 million is actual episode do- uh, episode views, which is, like, any video that's more than, like, six or eight minutes long, something like that. Previously, not this past trailing days but the one before that, I think we were at 3.6 million, so we're down a little bit, but ... 'Cause we had a few Shorts go viral. So 1.3 plus 2.7, that's 4 million, so that's about how many people saw our stuff. And then there's, like, uh, all the social stuff. So my personal socials have been viewed, I just looked this up, over the trailing 30 days on TikTok I think I have 2 or 3 million views, and then on Instagram I have, like, another 2 or 3 million views. So that's, like, the total reach right now. What are you at for How To Take Over The World?

Ben Wilson 2:09 So right now monthlies are at about 70,000... uh, sorry, 80,000 downloads. Um, and then my per episodes, you know, stuff that's mature, so, like, a good example, Walt Disney has been out, uh, since January, so it's been out for a while, and that's hovering around... That one's got 39. Alexander the Great has, uh, 43, so around 40,000. My biggest episode is, uh, now almost, uh, it's 54. Um, so, like, kinda 50,000-ish, uh, per episode. And my numbers, like, obviously the totals are way different and weird because my volume is so much lower. Um-

Sam Parr 2:48 What's our volume?

Ben Wilson 2:48 Sure.

Sam Parr 2:48 What's My First Million's volume?

Ben Wilson 2:50 Well, as you mentioned, so we're going three times per week. Um, and then we've got the Shorts on YouTube, and then we've got the clips on YouTube, which drives a lot of the volume, as you were mentioning.

Sam Parr 3:03 Uh, My First Million's downloads per episode, that's the number that matters most, it ranges from, like, 50,000 to 150,000, right?

Ben Wilson 3:12 That's right. Depending on if you include YouTube. Uh, because if you include YouTube, we have some that pop, um, up to the, like, half million. Um, may- maybe a little less. Um, but, like, the Dharmesh episode did really well. The Peter Levels episode did really well. And those have hundreds of thousands of views just on YouTube alone, so.

Sam Parr 3:33 What are you doing to grow?

Ben Wilson 3:34 S- for me, the big thing is just fixing my production process, which is totally broken for How To Take Over The World. It's, it's really just a volume, uh, game at, at this point for me. Uh-

Sam Parr 3:43 Are you making money from it?

Ben Wilson 3:45 I'm making a little bit of money. I mean, at least I am making money. Um, I used to... I was negative for a long time, and then I was neutral for a couple months. Now I'm positive.

Sam Parr 3:53 How much do you charge for an ad?

Ben Wilson 3:55 About 1,000 bucks per, per placement.

Sam Parr 3:58 So w- everyone asks My First Million, I get messages all the time h- saying, "Hey, can we advertise on the pod?" So My First Million, I said we're gonna talk about how much revenue it makes. It makes zero revenue because HubSpot, when they... So the way the, our process worked with My First Million was Hu- uh, The Hustle owned My First Million. So Shaan actually came up with the idea. And he goes, "Hey, can I do a... I wanna create a podcast. Do you guys wanna be my publisher?" And I said, "Yeah, but we're gonna own it." And he said, "That's fine." Um, and so we did a revenue split. I don't remember what we did, but I think we did 50/50. So let's say The Hustle sold, uh, $10,000 or $10,000 worth of ads. The Hustle, uh, gave him 5,000 and we kept 5,000. And then we also paid for it, which I don't know if that's actually a good deal for him or us. I don't know. But when we sold the company, HubSpot bought The Hustle, and they bought the podcast with it. And now HubSpot is the only advertiser on the pod. But we don't make any money from it, so, directly, although they can calculate how much money they would make off of it if they had to go and buy those ads elsewhere. But I think... So I went and talked to a friend. My friend has a podcast in the health and wellness space. And I asked him, "How much revenue do you guys do?" And so they get 7 million downloads a month. And they are currently doing 3 million in ads, 5 million selling, like, uh, programs, like fitness programs, and then, like, another half a million in, like, merch and affiliate deals. And so collectively they're doing around 10 million in revenue with about 65% profit margin, so it's quite good. And so I think that our pod, just off ads, would maybe be in the 6 million range. So it would be around 75 to $125 per 1,000 downloads, and that would be separated in, like, a bunch of different $30 per thousand downloads ads. So we could probably charge 25 to $40 per ad, and then you have, like, two or three ads in the, in each podcast. And that's how you get to, like, that 5 or 6 million range. Then another, like- Three or four million just off some, like, courses or paid community

Ben Wilson 6:09 Yeah, and that's not, uh, taking into account costs because if we were selling our own ads, we'd probably have to get an ad guy to actually sell it, and he'd take a cut-

Sam Parr 6:16 Correct

Ben Wilson 6:17 ... uh, and stuff like that. Yeah, I, so

Ben Wilson 6:19 I was talking to s-

Sam Parr 6:19 What, what are our costs now for, f- for MFM?

Ben Wilson 6:22 Jonathan, do you know?

Speaker 6:23 For production side, you know, between... We got Ben, you know, producer. We've got, uh, Ezra, who does the video and audio cutting, uh, uh, video and audio editing. We have the short-form clip folks. We have our YouTube producer. So between that whole team, it's like 25K. And then-

Sam Parr 6:43 A month?

Speaker 6:44 Yes. And then if you include, you know, other ways to grow the show, whether it's buying ads on other podcasts, other platforms, um, it could be anywhere between, like, 25K a month to upwards of, like, 50 to 100, just depends.

Sam Parr 6:58 So, like, it, our costs right now, not including me and Shaan, it's like, uh, $500,000 a year?

Speaker 7:07 Roughly, yeah. I mean, and, and you can scale that up and down. It's just, like, we're being aggressive with our growth goals, so we're putting a lot of investment into that.

Sam Parr 7:16 And our growth is basically you buy ads on other people's podcasts. And that works decent it seems, but actually hard to track. But that's decent. And the other thing, you tried, like, buying ads on YouTube channels and things like that, right? Do any of them actually work, do you think?

Speaker 7:30 We ran some ads on YouTube, and it definitely drives, like, a lot of views and some subs, but it's not necessarily sustainable. And you always kinda question the quality of those subs. Um, yeah, I don't know. We've kinda tested everything, and, like, the thing that we're most bullish on is obviously the short-form clips. It's also not easy to tell how well those are kind of performing in terms of viewers and listeners to, like, the RSS feed. But, um, you know, I... That's just, like, a long-term play. And as you're seeing, like, your growth on Instagram and TikTok is, um, largely driven by these clips from the show. And so it's just, like, you're not gonna... Maybe that viewer isn't gonna convert the first time they see it, the second time they see it. But hopefully by the 50th time they see your face, they're like, "Fuck, I just need to check out [laughs] what he's up to and check out the podcast."

Sam Parr 8:16 Ben, w- are you doing anything to grow?

Ben Wilson 8:18 No. Basically just working on more production. That's basically it.

Sam Parr 8:23 But, like, so do you-

Ben Wilson 8:23 Like, my organic growth has been huge. Like, honestly, as long as I produce more episodes, like, it's gonna keep growing. I've done a little strategic, uh, like, who I choose in order to grow a little bit, like what I cover. And I think probably with podcasting, that's the biggest driver of growth.

Sam Parr 8:41 A- and you are basically at... How many... So the way, uh, that we found Ben was I was just... I was actually taking a flight at, like, 5:00 AM, and I was, like, t- exhausted. And I was like, "I need some inspiration." And I think I looked up, like, Napoleon or something like that. And I saw your pod. And at the time, roughly how many downloads did you have at that point?

Ben Wilson 9:02 Monthly downloads would've been in the, like, hundreds to maybe low four digits. And I was getting, like, a couple thousand, uh, per episode.

Sam Parr 9:11 And then we mentioned you on the pod. And is that, like, the thing that was, like, the big up... Like, we, we did this, like, pretty big thing about you where I was like, "Shaan, this is, like, the greatest intro song and pod I've ever heard of."

Ben Wilson 9:22 [laughs] Yeah.

Sam Parr 9:23 And, uh, how much did that boost?

Ben Wilson 9:26 So I've gone from 2K to, like, 40K. And I would say that it's been, like, half and half. So half of it was, like, a big upswing. Like, I immediately went up to, like, 10 to 20. And then since then, it's been steady growth from 20 up to 40.

Sam Parr 9:45 Dude, that's the thing about pods. Everyone talks to me. They're like, "I wanna, I wanna do this." And I go, "Just so you know, it's very, very,

Sam Parr 9:51 very hard to grow." So at The Hustle, we had maybe one point... eh, between one and 1.5 million subscribers when we launched this pod. And so Shaan was like, "Hey, I wanna do this thing." I said, "All right. Great." He goes, "In fact, I already have, like, a pilot episode." He sent it to me. I was like, "Oh, dude, this is, like, great as is. I'll give you three weeks or four weeks to, like, get, like, ahead of the game, and then we'll relau- we'll launch one a week." And basically that first week we launched, I think that first episode got 50 or 60,000 downloads. The next episode got, like, 30 or 40. And then it just, like, ticked down until it was, like, 5 to 15,000 downloads per episode because we blasted it to The Hustle, got traction. And this is how all pods, and maybe s- maybe, like, all, not all, but many products work. Your launch is, like, epic. Then you go down. And then you just, over a period of a couple years, wor- slowly work your way up. And then one day, someone didn't appear to one of his, uh, to one of his, uh, sh- uh, like, one of his guests didn't show up. And he was like, "Hey, you know how we do that thing?" So me and Shaan used to meet, like, every two weeks, and we would just, like, brainstorm in front of a bunch of people. And he'd be like, "You know that thing that we do? Uh, can you show up in, like, an hour and just come do it with me?" The, uh, person didn't show up. And I was like, "I guess." And the results were, like, decent enough that we're like, "All right. I guess we'll just make this the thing, and we'll just keep trying." And from there, it slowly went up. And when we got acquired, we got acquired in February of, like, 18 months ago. I think we were doing 600,000 downloads per month. And then it, like, went up from there a lot. And I don't, actually don't know why it went up. I, I don't know what happened.

Ben Wilson 11:30 That's interesting. Uh, so, like, the idea for What My First Million became was basically an accident. Is that right?

Sam Parr 11:37 Yeah. So it was a- Like, first of all, I didn't wanna do a pod forever. I thought it was a total waste of time. I was like, "We have to focus." And he was like, "I have this thing." And basically Shaan at the time was not a content person. He is now, and he's great. But at the time, he was just, like, uh, my friend who just, like, was, you know, he wasn't on, I don't even think he was on Twitter.

Ben Wilson 11:57 He was a startup guy. He's more of an operator than a content guy.

Sam Parr 11:58 He w- Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was just, he was just my buddy who had a company in the gaming space. And obviously he was always charismatic, and he was pretty good at storytelling, although I would say that's even improved a significant amount. But he was like, "I just interviewed my, our buddy, Suli." Here, just here's the pilot. And I heard it, and I was like, "Oh, dude, this is, this is baller. This is awesome." It wasn't actually that different than anything else. It was called My First Million, 'cause he was gonna talk about how people got their first million users or revenue or do- or profit, whatever. And it was all about the early days, but which frankly isn't that unique, but he was pretty good at it. And then, like, six months in or three months in, someone didn't show up, and he was like, "Hey, come do this." And me and Shaan loved this podcast called The Fighter and the Kid, and it was Brian Calan and Brendan Schaub, two guys sitting on chairs just, like, goofing around. And we're like, "Oh, that... I think we could do that." And so, uh, we just kept doing it.

Ben Wilson 12:50 Uh, that's interesting to me because a little bit, when I started my podcast, it was the same thing, th- uh, of just that it was kind of an accident. I was sitting there. I had been reading this Napoleon biography, and I thought, "I wanna remember this. Like, I wanna retain more of this information. I cr- I should create something. I should make, like, a blog post, uh, or a, a, a, a tweet storm or something." And then I had all this audio equipment lying around, and I thought, "Oh, I'll just do a podcast about it. Um, and I bet people would like to hear what I learned from reading this biography of Napoleon." And I think a lot of really good podcasts start that way, of as not someone sitting down and, like, gaming the system of, like, "All right, where's a niche that... I, I wanna make a podcast. Where's a niche?" But people who are just kinda doing stuff, and, uh, and then it turns into a podcast and becomes successful. Do you think that's right?

Sam Parr 13:38 Maybe. I think you can, like... I think there are worlds, like iHeartMedia does this nicely. I think Parcast, which is a podcasting company, does this nicely. Gimlet Media does this nicely. Who else does this? Um, there's, uh, Wondery does a decent job. Some are still better than others, but basically, where they come up with ideas, and then they launch them almost like a movie, where it's, like, planned and hopefully successful. And then other times, it's organic. I think the, the problem with podcasts, there, there's a bunch of upside. I'll talk about the upside in a second, but here's the problem. The problem with podcasts is the same problem that I have with copywriting and hiring writers, which is everyone can talk, and everyone... A lot of people like talking with their friends. Therefore, the noise-to-signal ratio of people who want to do it versus who are good at doing it is, like, really, really hard to determine who's, like, great. And so you have a ton of people launching podcasts that are, A, they're not committed to, like, the long-term, like they're not committed to making this and b- and treating it like a job where you... You know me and Shaan, we re- we record every single Monday and Wednesday unless of an emergency. Um, so they're not committed to that. B, they're not actually good at... They don't actually have the skill or the talent, and they think they do because they talk with their friends a lot. And so there's, like, a lot of crap out there. And C, it's not really, like, well thought out, where it's like, you know, Shaan and I joke. We're like, "You need some attributes, man." Like, you either have to have this, like, crazy, like, interesting niche, or, and I would say this is definitely in Shaan's case, slightly in my case, you just have to be really charismatic and good at storytelling. Or you have to have, like, some crazy experience, so, like, you're just an expert in X, Y, and Z or, like, you know, you were in the NBA for 20 years, so you can talk about, like, what it was like being in the NBA. Like, you have to have something that's intriguing and a weird angle, or you have to be super talented, like a Malcolm Gladwell or something like that. Do you know what I

Sam Parr 15:28 mean?

Ben Wilson 15:28 Yeah. So w- you've touched on something that there's this guy, Eric Nuzum, who's... His background is in public radio, and then he was kinda one of the OGs of podcasting. And he's got this framework that I love for creating a hit podcast. So he calls it a diamond, but there's really four attributes on which you can be unique, and you need to be unique on at least, well, really two of them in order to be a successful hit podcast. So the four ways you can be unique are what the podcast is about, who hosts it, who it's for, or the way you tell the story. Okay? So it's who... So it's how it's told, what it's about, who it's for, or who it's by. Okay?

Sam Parr 16:08 So basically-

Ben Wilson 16:08 And the main-

Sam Parr 16:09 ... like, the concept or the person.

Ben Wilson 16:11 Exactly. And most people only do one, and that's where they fail. They're like, "Oh, I'm gonna make a podcast about gorillas 'cause there are no podcasts about gorillas." And it's like, well, are you Jane Goodall? Like, are you an expert? You need that second thing, um, to make it successful. And it... You, maybe you don't have to be the expert, but if you're not the expert, then it's like, uh, then you have to differentiate in terms of how you tell the story. You have to give it really high production value or, uh, you know, you need to, like, have gorillas on the podcast or something like that. Like, you... But most people are just think of one new idea and stop there. Whereas I think My First Million is successful because, A, what it's about is unique in that it's kind of an entrepreneurship podcast that covers everything from, like, little side hustles all the way to, like, big, you know, tech ideas that could be, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars. So it's unique on what it's about. It covers everything. And then the, the who. You and Shaan have the experience and are really funny and super engaging. And, um-

Sam Parr 17:08 It's like, it's like the All-In pod. Like, people talk about that, and I'm like, you know, I think that they're, like, pretty okay hosts themselves. I think Jason's pretty great, but, like, you're gonna listen to anything that they say because they are so successful. Their worldview is so much grander than mine. And you know, they're hanging out with, like, ex-presidents, CEOs of, you know, Fortune 500 companies. Like, they've built billion-dollar companies. Like, they have access to things that I don't. Therefore, they don't even need to be... And I'm not saying they're not charismatic, but I'm saying they don't even need to be that charismatic in order for it to be awesome.

Ben Wilson 17:40 Right. Exactly. They have that second angle. The second angle doesn't have to be that you're a great entertainer. Like, you could have very unique insights like those guys do. But you gotta have something for that second angle.

Speaker 17:48 [upbeat music] This data is wrong every freaking time.

Speaker 17:53 Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated.

Speaker 17:58 Whoa, I can see the client's whole history, calls, support tickets, emails, and here's a task from three days ago I totally missed.

Speaker 18:07 HubSpot. Grow better.

Sam Parr 18:10 But let's

Sam Parr 18:11 talk about the upside. So The, the upsides to a pod is I have never expe- I don't, I'm not popular. I mean, I'm somewhat popular on social media, but I'm not, like, that popular on the video or picture based social medias. And so I've not experienced what it's like to have fandom there. But for our pod, the benefits of having a podcast, and I notice this in myself while listening to other people, is I truly become, like, fans of these people 'cause I get to know them so well, and that is, like, a huge benefit. And so, like, I'll mention... Like, sometimes people will come up to me and they'll say, "Yeah," like, "I'm, I eat this food because you talked about it," or, "I read this book." And I'm like, "I don't even remember mentioning that." Like, I just said I talk so much that, like, I don't even remember all of it. But people, like, listen so much that they get to know you, and it's like creates true fandom. I think you probably could get that out of other, uh, platforms, but I think it's more so this because if they're 30 to 60 minutes long, they really get to know you. And also the d- the hard part, though, is you know the best way to circumvent someone's bullshit detector? Is just not bullshitting, and that's the hard part about-

Ben Wilson 19:14 [laughs]

Sam Parr 19:14 That's the hard part about, about podcasting, is when you talk for 45 minutes or an hour and a half, five or three days a week, or whatever it is, you, you ha- you ha- you can't lie a lot. You can't lie at all 'cause it's gonna ca- catch up to you. You have to be authentic. You have to. Or if you're gonna b- play a character, you gotta play that all the time. I mean, like-

Ben Wilson 19:32 Totally

Sam Parr 19:32 ... you really have to be authentic.

Ben Wilson 19:34 Y- the, the greatest thing and the worst thing about podcasting, it is such an intimate medium. Like, you're in someone's ears. They're doing wh- when they're doing the dishes, when they're commuting, um, they feel like they're friends with you, I think more so than YouTube, Instagram, like any other media format, TV, whatever. People really feel like they have this relationship with you, which is a little weird. And, like, uh, as you alluded to, I think the most difficult thing about podcasting is that it's really difficult. It's like hand-to-hand combat to build a big audience. But the best thing about it, the best thing about podcasting is that you can build, uh, a really valuable following with very few followers. If you have 35,000 followers on YouTube, you just can't do much with... Like, you're nothing. And I talked with someone the other day who has 35,000 downloads per episode on his podcast and is making a half a million dollars a year from it. And-

Sam Parr 20:28 What, uh, genre or category?

Ben Wilson 20:30 Productivity. Yeah.

Sam Parr 20:31 All right. So 35,000 downloads an episode, and he's doing half a million in ad revenue?

Ben Wilson 20:35 Yeah.

Sam Parr 20:36 And then he could be doing way more off, like, courses or whatever else he wants to sell. He could be doing-

Ben Wilson 20:40 Totally

Sam Parr 20:41 ... three or four times as much as that.

Ben Wilson 20:42 Yeah. And he's talking about doing that stuff. He's not doing it yet. So, like, I don't even feel like that's the limit of what you could do with that many followers. So, um, I do think that's the beauty of podcasting, is if you can, like, grind out to get a decent following of a few tens of thousands, you can make, like, real money in podcasting.

Sam Parr 21:02 Yeah. And the best way I think you do it is if you already have a business. So for example, I didn't know this, but you know that guy Patrick David Betts, I think his name is? He's got that YouTube channel called Valuetainment. So I just thought that he was, like, a personality. And he recently had a life insurance, I think it is, company that he sold for, like, $300 million. And I didn't even know about that, and that's way more valuable than h- I mean, his YouTube channel's very valuable, but not 2 or $300 million valuable. Same with Dave Ramsey. Dave Ramsey, I was researching him. His company's worth something like 7 or 800 million bucks, and it's a collection of real estate and selling, like, personal finance stuff. And the radio show is definitely awesome, but it's not a, it, it, it alone ain't worth that. It's not the monetization engine. And so if you already have that monetization engine and you build a podcast, I think it's lights out, man. I think you can crush it. I, uh... And what's interesting is our pod's not even big. So let's just say we're between one and three million downloads, depending on, uh, a combination of YouTube or not YouTube. I, uh, and it's, it's not YouTube first, so, like, we, we, our faces aren't out there. If I'm walking around a top 10 city, so, like, a New York down to, like, a Denver, I will get recognized maybe once a day, and that is a very small audience. That is not a... There's 350 million people in America, and we only reach one or three million of them a month, and I get recognized probably five times a week. Um, or, like, yesterday I went to Lululemon, and I had to give her my email, and my email is, is my name. And I told her my name, and she looked up, and she goes, "Wait, from My First Million? Are you Sam from MFM?" I was like, "Yeah, what's going on?"

Ben Wilson 22:42 [laughs]

Sam Parr 22:42 And she goes, "I thought I recognized your voice." And, uh, like, that happens all the time. And that's one of my biggest surprises, is that we get recognized on such a small audience. And the people are, like, pumped. They're excited. Which I would be too if I, if I, uh, you know... Like, Brendan Schaub is someone I really admire, and you d- probably have no idea who that is. And he's not, like, famous, A-list famous. If I saw him, I would be like, "Dude, can I get a picture?" You know what I mean?

Ben Wilson 23:06 Yeah.

Sam Parr 23:07 It is. So it's, that's the interesting thing about podcasts.

Ben Wilson 23:09 Do you get, like, Instagram models that slide into your DMs?

Sam Parr 23:13 So [laughs] that's funny. Uh, n- I surveyed my Twitter audience, and I said, "What gender are you?" And it was 93% dudes.

Ben Wilson 23:21 [laughs]

Sam Parr 23:21 And if you go to our meetups, we had a meetup in New York. Um, we had, uh, 1,500 people RSVP. I don't know how many people sh- actually showed up, but let's just say 800 or 500 people showed up. I'm pretty sure it was 90% men as well. So my stuff is mostly all men. And also, on all of my social media profiles, there's a picture of me and my wife is as either the main picture or the cover picture. So most every- And I always talk about her, so most everyone knows that I'm married. Um, so do I get, like, women DMing me in the, in the sexual sense? No. But that's, not really. Like, it's happened, like, maybe at most once a month. But, like, you have to remember that, A, this is, like, a tech and business podcast, and B, I'm, like, a Midwestern seven. So like, you know [laughs]

Ben Wilson 24:06 [laughs] Dude, I'm, that's funny-

Sam Parr 24:08 I'm a, I'm a Missouri seven and like a New York six

Ben Wilson 24:10 [laughs] Do you realize that like 99% of our audience, if they had Instagram models sliding into their DMs once a month, would not be like, "It's not that much." They'd be like, "I got Instagram models sliding into my DMs once a month, baby. I'm rich, I'm famous."

Sam Parr 24:23 Well, I get s-

Ben Wilson 24:24 [laughs]

Sam Parr 24:24 And I get, I ... Now, how many fake hi- uh, profiles do I get sliding into my DMs? Once-

Ben Wilson 24:31 Yeah, of course

Sam Parr 24:31 ... or five times a day.

Ben Wilson 24:32 Yeah, yeah.

Sam Parr 24:33 So that goes, so I don't know how many of these women are actually real. But I would say maybe one time a month there's someone who ... Like, I'll even, I'll be sitting next to Sarah, my wife, and I'll be like, "Hey, this is crazy. Check this out." And like, we'll laugh about it. Uh, and I'm like, "You know, I ain't touching that. But just so you know, like, this exists."

Ben Wilson 24:50 I was talking to someone who is more conventionally famous than either one of us, and, uh, and they were talking about how they get like real, like verified models, uh, sliding into their DMs all the time. This person has a girlfriend and, uh, and is in a long distance relationship. It's very hard for them that just like all the time these people are sliding into their DMs.

Sam Parr 25:13 That's crazy. No, I, I get like a, I get like the hand models. I don't get the face models-

Ben Wilson 25:18 [laughs]

Sam Parr 25:18 ... or the body models. No, I, I don't exactly get that. But what, what happens a lot is if, when it's warm outside, I always work out outside, and I'm always shirtless. Uh, there seems to be a r- like just an unlucky pattern of I get recognized shirtless a, a fair bit, and I always put my shirt on right when I've ... 'Cause like me and Sarah have been on walks where I've been shirtless. And like a guy will come up with like, with his like four-year-old daughter and say like, "What's up?" And I'm like, "Oh, dude, I'm totally making this little girl uncomfortable d- being this shirtless dude right here." So like, that's our joke is like I try, if I'm ever gonna be shirtless, I'll wear like glasses or something 'cause I don't wanna be like that one time that I see someone that it's like uncomfortable for them. Uh, [laughs] but that happens all the time. It happened yesterday.

Ben Wilson 25:58 Uh, you're, so you're saying your body's more famous than your face is?

Sam Parr 26:01 No, I'm saying it's coincidence that I usually, when I'm outside during the day, I'm shirtless. And again, my body-

Ben Wilson 26:07 I'm saying maybe it's not a coincidence. Maybe they're just l- and maybe they don't recognize your face, but they're like, "That, those are Sam Parr's pecs."

Sam Parr 26:13 Yeah, that's like-

Ben Wilson 26:14 "I can tell those are Sam Parr's abs."

Sam Parr 26:15 I would ... And, and like I've got like a, I've got like a New York 7.5 bod. So like-

Ben Wilson 26:21 [laughs]

Sam Parr 26:21 ... it's not always embarrassing. But, um-

Ben Wilson 26:23 The other ... So the other day we released an episode that was, uh, about like fitness. And so we had a before and after.

Sam Parr 26:30 Dude, people loved it. People loved it.

Ben Wilson 26:30 Yeah, people loved it. It was a great episode. But Sam DM'd me and was like, "Hey, can we change my after pic? I don't think I look ripped enough," and started sending me like five to 10 shirtless pics. It was like-

Sam Parr 26:41 Dude, if I'm gonna be shirtless-

Ben Wilson 26:42 Well, where do, when does my body look best? [laughs]

Sam Parr 26:44 If I'm gonna be shirtless on the internet, like I, I would prefer like the best.

Ben Wilson 26:48 I get it.

Sam Parr 26:48 Paint me in the best light.

Ben Wilson 26:49 Yeah.

Sam Parr 26:49 So like that-

Ben Wilson 26:50 Yeah

Sam Parr 26:50 ... but, uh, so anyway, that's the update on the pod. Do we wanna talk any more about that?

Ben Wilson 26:54 Just like one other thing.

Ben Wilson 26:56 Uh, uh, just like a couple frameworks that I think are interesting. So I've been thinking this for a little bit. It's interesting. We do interviews, and it's always surprising which episodes actually pop off. Like, we'll get someone really, really famous, and their episode will do okay. And then we'll get Peter Levels or we'll get Dharmesh, and the episode will go crazy. We'll do super well.

Sam Parr 27:18 Dude, because we need-

Ben Wilson 27:19 And-

Sam Parr 27:19 ... more unique, weird people. Sometimes we're-

Ben Wilson 27:21 That's it

Sam Parr 27:21 ... cloud chasers. You need unique people.

Ben Wilson 27:24 Yes. And it's like when you get unique people that have a super engaged audience that want to hear from them but don't get to hear from them often, then it totally blows up. So I've been thinking about that recently, um, with my pod in terms of what I do. So I could go the route of like, uh, doing more episodes like Julius Caesar. Like, I could do a, a Charlamagne or a Winston Churchill or a Muhammad Ali.

Sam Parr 27:46 Yeah.

Ben Wilson 27:47 Bottom line is there's actually a lot of Muhammad Ali content out there. Uh, and you could probably find s- stuff that's as good as my podcast or nearly as good as my podcast out there. Um, and so I've pivoted to doing stuff that's a little more niche. And so I just did an episode on Brigham Young, who most people don't care about, but some people care about very, very passionately. And so it's actually on track to be my most downloaded episode. And so I'm trying to like adopt that Peter Levels ep- uh, Peter Levels, Dharmesh, like unique episode, uh, kinda framework of now I'm starting to think like, okay, Brigham Young, huge in the Mormon community. Like, people wanna hear about that. That's gonna down- that's gonna drive downloads, and then those people are into my audience. Who else can I do? Like, who is the greatest emperor of, of Cambodia? You know? Like, Cambodians probably don't get a lot of podcasts made about their heroes, right? So like, can I do that? Can I drive something for that audience? And then those people become super, uh, connected listeners-

Sam Parr 28:47 Dude, have you ever looked up-

Ben Wilson 28:48 ... that I take into the world

Sam Parr 28:48 ... have you ever watched Bruno Mars YouTube videos?

Ben Wilson 28:51 No. Are they good?

Sam Parr 28:52 No. So that's my point.

Ben Wilson 28:54 [laughs]

Sam Parr 28:54 So a lot, like Bruno Mars is one of those guys who like everyone knows about, but not that many people seek him out, even though he's pretty amazing. And I love his music videos, and I was watching some of them. And they have like one, two, three, even four, I believe, billion views. Bruno Mars has four billion views. And you, and I was wondering why. And I looked it up on Wikipedia, and then I looked it on the YouTube comments to see if it was like, if it, if I felt like it aligned. But basically, Bruno Mars, uh, his mother is Filipino, so he's part Filipino. And the Philip- Philippine, I mean, how many people live in the Philippines? Like a, you know, a ton, I think, like hundreds of millions.

Ben Wilson 29:28 Hundreds of millions, yeah.

Sam Parr 29:29 So it's not exact- it's not exactly like a small little country. But in terms of the amount of people who exist in that country compared to their cultural relevance on a global scale, uh, you know, they're not, uh, they're not exactly represented a ton. And so when this American Filipino guy, it's kinda like Jeremy Lin in the NBA, you know, there, there's a lot of Chinese, but there weren't a lot of Chinese basketball players. And so when Bruno Mars like got famous, like the Filipinos were like, "Yes, one of us. They're killing it." And so they just like get behind that person. Same with Bjork from Iceland. Iceland, like not exactly incredibly relevant on, you know, they don't exactly invent a lot of things, including entertainment that like gets recognized on a grand scale. And when Bjork like gets a little bit of, uh, love from America or Europe, they all pounce on that shit, and they go, "Hell, yes, one of us." It's like, it's like Nelly in St. Louis. In St. Louis, where I'm from, like, you know, my 65-year-old white dad is like, "Nelly's the man." He like-

Ben Wilson 30:21 [laughs]

Sam Parr 30:21 ... Sir, Sir Nelly. Like, people, everyone in St. Louis-

Ben Wilson 30:24 That's great

Sam Parr 30:24 ... is like, "Nelly's just our god. He's our mayor. We will do anything for Nelly," because he represented us, and we didn't have a lot of representation, St. Louisans. So anyway, I think it's the same way with different topics, where if you find that one or two things that it's okay if it's not that many people, but they're like passionate about it, and they can rally behind it, and they're like, "Finally, something for us," that just makes it so much e- so much easier to get popular.

Ben Wilson 30:47 It's a little bit of the Amazon strategy, right? Like, so Amazon is the store for everything online, right? But it didn't start out that way. It was a bookstore, and then it was a DVD store, and then it was a dog toy store. And it's like actually just a collection of niches that all got bundled. And that, I think that works for content as well. You can just go out and collect niches. And then it becomes like a big, broad audience, even though you don't start that way.

Sam Parr 31:11 Yeah. And so right, at this point, we're a little bit more broad. We're still not that broad, but we're more broad. And like we make dumber jokes, and we talk about Kim Kardashian every once in a while now. And, uh, but before it was just like, "This dude's making five grand a month on the internet." You know what I'm saying? Um-

Ben Wilson 31:27 All right. Is that the pod?

Sam Parr 31:28 That's the pod. [outro music]