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My First MillionHow To Bootstrap A SaaS Company From $0 to $200M | ProfitWell Founder Patrick Campbell
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85 min read · 17,027 words- 0:00 – 0:13
Intro
- SPSam Parr
[upbeat music] All right, we are live. Uh, what's going on, man? How are you?
- PCPatrick Campbell
What's up?
- SPShaan Puri
What's going on, gentlemen?
- 0:13 – 6:35
Patrick Campbell background
- SPSam Parr
So we have Patrick Campbell. What... The company was ProfitWell?
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah, so started as ProfitWell.
- SPSam Parr
But originally it was- It was something else for- first, right?
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah. We called it Price Intelligently. So we did a little piece of pricing software, morphed into pricing software and service, um, a lot of service actually, and then started building this metrics tool and all that kind of fun stuff. And then recently sold to Paddle, which is a payments infrastructure product, if that makes sense.
- SPSam Parr
And the headline, the headline price was $200 million, and you bootstrapped the company, and I think in a tweet you said you owned... I don't know if it was you and your co-founder or company-owned, but, like, you guys owned almost all of it, right?
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah. We, we were bootstrapped, so we owned 100% of it. Um, and so we, uh... Yeah, but we were pretty generous. I think I tweeted about the, the fact that we were pretty generous about giving out equity, so it wasn't like I had 100%. Um, we had, I think [laughs] the headline number is we had 13 millionaires, we had, like, 30, 35 people made 6Ks or more, and then I think there was, like, 120 people all in, people who had worked at the company previously and the current employees who got some sort of consideration out of the deal. So-
- SPSam Parr
And the price was-
- PCPatrick Campbell
Kind of shared the love. I think the-
- SPSam Parr
It was 200?
- PCPatrick Campbell
Uh, it was over 200. Uh, it was over 200 technically. Like, we're not public. I, I don't know, it's so weird about these numbers. It's like, what are you public with, what are you not? And I have a board and a boss now, so I have to, have to be a little careful. Not that careful, but a little careful about all the things I say.
- SPShaan Puri
You do, you do seem like you're cultivating that trillionaire energy that we like to see, so-
- PCPatrick Campbell
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... I, I gotta say, I, I'm getting the vibe. I'm getting that, I'm getting that extreme satisfaction and relief vibe that comes when you sell [laughs] a company.
- SPSam Parr
Well, Shaan, a- ask him where he just moved
- PCPatrick Campbell
If only you knew how tightly wound I am, so yeah, that's interesting. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Ask him where he just moved to. Go ahead, tell him.
- SPShaan Puri
Where, where did you just move to?
- PCPatrick Campbell
Uh, I moved to Puerto Rico for all of the obvious reasons, just to put it out there. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- PCPatrick Campbell
Um, just to be very clear, uh, very obvious reasons why I moved here, and it's 80, and I'm not a huge fan of the heat.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- PCPatrick Campbell
But, uh, I am, like, basically recording with a 6K camera right now, and that's, that's that trillionaire energy where it's like, where do you put the money? I don't like cars, so I got a really cool, like, dope setup, basically.
- SPShaan Puri
Right. I mean, that bookshelf needs a little upgrade too if I'm, if I must be honest here. I feel like, you know-
- PCPatrick Campbell
This was literally, like, IKEA, I don't have anything behind me.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- PCPatrick Campbell
Like, let's throw some books up and kinda go from there. So we'll, we'll get there, we'll get there.
- SPSam Parr
So what, what exactly did you guy... Well, I, I, I... We used you, I believe, but I think we got, I think we used you for free, and I was like, how did these guys make money? What exactly did, did you guys do?
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah. Yeah, so the, the headline kinda positioning is we, we basically exist to s- uh, run and grow subscription businesses automatically, and the automatically thing was the thing that, like, really worked well for us. Um, and what I mean by that is, like, in the perfect vision world you should be able to plug in ProfitWell to any subscription business, so into Stripe, Chargebee, Zuora, whatever you're using for your billing, and then automatically, like, you get all of your metrics for free, which is probably what you're referencing, and then, um, we reduce your churn, your cancellations automatically, um, optimize your pricing automatically, and now with the whole Paddle deal we, like, take care of your taxes automatically, chargebacks, all that kind of fun stuff. And so, yeah, I think the, the, the big thing for us was when we were this pricing service, um, we wanted to get to something that was more pure software, and we were helping a company with their pricing that was about to IPO, and we actually discovered they were calculating MRR and churn completely wrong, um, which was really fascinating. Um, and so we kinda put those two insights together and then started producing this metrics product so you get all of your financial reporting if you're a subscription or a SaaS company. And then there were, like, 30 competitors, [laughs] and it was, like, all overnight, like, the space where we thought we were gonna be billionaires for, like, metrics, all of a sudden it was like, oh my God, like, everyone and their mother is building a Stripe integration. And so, um, we did some homework, we did some research, all that kind of fun stuff, and basically discovered that, like, either this is a terrible business and we should stop doing it because no one is really great at monetizing metrics, or the free route, which is what we did. And, um, I think that's probably when we should've raised money, like, in, in hindsight. Um, but long story short, that's what grew, and we had, at the end... Well, still going, but we had 30,000 companies using ProfitWell, um, basically when we sold, and that number is just kinda going up every single day, which is great.
- SPShaan Puri
And when you r- you reached out to us and you were like, "Hey..." I think you... Do you listen to the pod? Is that kind of why you reached out?
- PCPatrick Campbell
Of course. Yeah-
- 6:35 – 18:37
Surprising businesses: Quilting and craft industry
- SPShaan Puri
much?" Right? There's, like, some surprising niches-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... that, that make a lot of money, and then there's maybe some trends or benchmarks. So, so take it where you want it, but I think that's one that's gonna be super interesting for... I know I, I wanna know what... I wanna know the answer, so I know people listening will too.
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah, totally. So there's, there's, there's a couple things. So one, like, just to give an example, like, um, we, we would always, like, so we study the data in aggregate. That's what helps, like, train our algorithms for, like, churn reduction and all that kind of fun stuff. But then the other really interesting thing is, like, we publish a lot of content on this. So a lot of SaaS companies, it's like, "Oh, what should our churn be? What should this look like?" So we publish a lot of that. The other thing that got really interesting was we would basically be kind of like a hidden, like, helper for deal flow for a lot of VCs, and we would never, like, reveal someone's, like, particular numbers, of course not. But, like, what was really fascinating is when kind of the, the Jungle Scout, Amazon, you know, kind of play was happening, like, we would all of a sudden have, like, all of these apps just break our QA scripts. 'Cause every time, like, someone was growing too fast, we would go, "Oh, something must be broken with the metrics," right?
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- PCPatrick Campbell
Um, so that's a little bit of context. Um, there's like three or four really fascinating industries, especially going into a recession, that I think are, are really good for, like, people who wanna fast move into them. One, um, one of these industries that's kinda crazy to talk about, quilting and crafts. Um, quilting and crafts subscription companies are, like, growing insane. Um, what's fascinating is the quilting space, if the, if you didn't know, quilting is, um... It's about a $4.5 billion per year industry. Um, the average quilter spends about 8 to $9,000 per year on, like, quilting supplies. Um, most of that comes not just online, but it comes through quilt shops. Um, so there's a really interesting local play that we've seen some of these companies, um, use. And some-
- SPShaan Puri
Sam
- PCPatrick Campbell
... of the more popular apps-
- SPSam Parr
Quilting just means, like, making a blanket that has, like, designs on it, right?
- PCPatrick Campbell
Uh, for the most part. Um, now, a- as a mom, a Midwest mom who does hardcore quilting, like, there's a lot of other stuff. Like, our house, we didn't have pictures up, we had quilts that were hung-
- SPSam Parr
Right
- PCPatrick Campbell
... of, like, different designs and all kinds of stuff.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- PCPatrick Campbell
But yeah, every major milestone in my life, I got a quilt. Like, I have-
- SPSam Parr
Right
- PCPatrick Campbell
... six quilts in Puerto Rico that are useless to me-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- PCPatrick Campbell
... just given how, like, warm it is here. Um-
- SPShaan Puri
But Mom, what's... There's, there's paint. I see... Went to someone else's house, they had a painting on the wall. It's like, "No, no, you don't need that. Just put a blanket-"
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah, I know
- SPShaan Puri
... "on the wall."
- PCPatrick Campbell
We need quilts.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's great sound deadening. It's really good sound deadening. But yeah, it's really interesting 'cause, like, that market has gone wild. Like, even, like, knitting, like, crafts, that type of stuff. And what's really interesting about it is, like, especially in the subscription space, there's a lot of these built-in type projects that these companies have started taking advantage of. So there's this thing called Block of the Month Club that has been around since quilters have existed. You create a block of a quilt every single, you know, month basically, and it's like a community type thing. Um, so there's something there. Quilt retreats are a huge thing. Like, quilt retreats.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- PCPatrick Campbell
Like, I didn't know about that. Like, all of these mostly, like, middle-aged or older women coming together, like, hanging out and staying up all night talking and, like, you know, quilting. So that's one space. The craft space, knitting, all that kind of stuff is really interesting. Another one that's interesting is, uh, basically old people, uh, with kids-
- SPShaan Puri
Wait, but, but before you move on, before... Sam?
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
Do you know stuff about quilting? I feel like you randomly-
- PCPatrick Campbell
No
- 18:37 – 23:03
Chili's and Applebees
- SPShaan Puri
Chili's and Applebee's, baby.
- SPSam Parr
Have you really been to an Applebee's?
- SPShaan Puri
Yes, I have.
- SPSam Parr
That's hilarious. Um, so do you know how their whole shtick is, like even though it's a chain, it like, they- they put like the neighborhood baseball team-
- SPShaan Puri
The neighborhood, yeah
- SPSam Parr
... on the wall.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
Which, who knows if it's ac- they're actually from that neighborhood. Like, you know, whenever you go there, they make it feel like that. Well, I had a friend that worked on the advertising b- part of- of Applebee's, and one time we had to go there and like order everything on the menu, and drink and eat it all, and it was horrible. But I was like, "Tony, this food is like quite bad. Like this is horrible. I don't... Like I don't, I don't think you're gonna be able to build a- make this cool." Like y- you know, you're telling me like a... We- it was like a nuclear green, like limeade.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Like I was like, "Dude, this is horrible. I don't wanna drink this shit. This is awful." Or like one time I thought-
- SPShaan Puri
Why- why does the cheese taste like beans and the beans taste like cheese? What's going on over there? [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. Well, they- they sent over something, I'm like, "I don't know what this is." And so we dipped it in there, and it was icing.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Uh, like it was like a side of icing. And I was like, "Dude, this is horrible. Why do people like this?" He's like, "Well, it's mostly middle America, and they call..." I believe that they called their ideal customer a Jim Bob, which is someone who-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... is in their 50s, 60s, and 70s, and has a little bit of money, but wants to continue going there because it feels like it's the last like hoo-rah for the neighborhood, and they're supporting their neighborhood, and they're willing to put up with the crappy food because it somehow feels like their way of life is under attack, and this is like the last like thing that represents their neighborhood, even though it's some huge national chain. But-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, the world is changing so much, and this is all... This is the one staple that like you walk in and it s- feels exactly the same [laughs] as it did when you were 14.
- SPSam Parr
Right.
- SPShaan Puri
Dude, I-
- SPSam Parr
Uh, what, what were... What yeah, what were you gonna say?
- SPShaan Puri
I literally wrote this last night. So I'm lo- I'm reading a Slack message. Last night, 12:35 AM, so right after midnight. I just Slacked this to myself. I- I wrote, "If you're selling a cool thing to a cool person, you're playing the game wrong."
- PCPatrick Campbell
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
That is hard mode. And th- this is all of... You know, you- you meet most people in D to C, most people in Silicon Valley, it's like they're- they are in their 20s. They're cool and new in the world, and they're selling to cool and new people in LA and New York and San Francisco. And they're like, "Yeah, of course. Like, you know, I'm gonna create this new cool thing and I'm gonna sell it to new cool people." And what you wanna do is you wanna sell simple things to simple people. And so, um... And I had a- a buddy tell me this with- with um, a project I was working on. He goes, he goes, "Okay, so what's your main like sales channel?" I was like, "Oh, Facebook ads." He goes, "Okay, so that means your customer at scale is an overweight, overworked mom in Texas." And [laughs] he's like, "So I look at your website and I don't see anything that like appeals to her."
- PCPatrick Campbell
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Uh, like it doesn't have to look like her, at least to look like how she wants to look. And um, and his... It basically was like, you know, if you can't sell to an overweight, overworked mom in Texas, like you can't scale. And [laughs] and I was like, "What the hell?" Like [laughs] okay, okay. Let- let me take that to consideration.
- SPSam Parr
You don't even know any overweight, overworked moms in Texas, do you?
- SPShaan Puri
Well, I used to live in Houston.
- SPSam Parr
You gotta-
- SPShaan Puri
That- that turned out to be a valuable... It's just like you were saying, like you know, my mom used to drag me probably kicking and screaming to these quilting shows. And now that you're an entrepreneur, you're like, "Ooh, quilting niche? Tell me more." Right? Like-
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah
- 23:03 – 24:27
Why you should invest in unsexy businesses
- PCPatrick Campbell
Well, you end up not chasing fads. Like there's a lot of fads, like business built on, built on fads, right? And- and those are great businesses, right? Like we hear about them all the time. The guy who... What was it? The, um, the teeth. Like I can't remember, like the- the- the hillbilly teeth. You remember this at gas stations? Like apparently like $20 million like business, right? Like the Snuggie, huge fad. You know, hundreds of millions of dollars, I believe, in revenue. But like something like quilting has been around forever. It's not sexy, right? But the targeting gets really interesting. And like some of the other things, right? Like you guys talk about this a lot, where it's like services business, you know, lawn care, HVAC, all these other things end up being like stuff that sticks around for a long time, and, you know, through the businesses that you don't really hear of. And there's a lot of opportunity in terms of roll-up or like flipping the model that, you know, was basically being used by the folks that are the incumbents.
- SPSam Parr
So what are some of these other-
- SPShaan Puri
Right. Or- or- or if you're, if you're gonna innovate, innovate on just one thing. So it's like, oh, quilting people love.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
But there's not a lot of Instagram theme pages and communities on Instagram. Okay, that's like- It's just like I can do one new thing on top of nine old time, you know, uh, uh, nine things that are still gonna be the same-
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... and that's like a new thing, right? Sam did the news, but he did it through email instead of through, you know-
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yep
- SPShaan Puri
... printed papers, right? And so like one new thing, and then he didn't need to change everything else. Everything else could stay the same, 'cause the human needs stayed the same. All right, yeah, sorry.
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
We went a long-ass time on quilting, but-
- PCPatrick Campbell
Talking about quilting, baby. It's great.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- 24:27 – 27:35
Rolling up trades & things for old people
- SPShaan Puri
What el- what else you got? What are some other, uh, kinda niches that you like?
- PCPatrick Campbell
Uh, three other spaces, happy to go deeper. Uh, trades roll-ups, plumbing companies, HVAC companies, electrician companies. There's a lot of that stuff happening. It's not like machine shops or those types of things where it's just like hard to innovate. It's like skilled enough that there's a niche and there's like a moat, but it's not skilled enough that you can't roll it up. A lot of these guys and gals are looking for basically a way to retire, and it's kind of like accountant, you know, shops. Like, they don't get more than one X max-
- SPShaan Puri
Right
- PCPatrick Campbell
... right, in terms of their business. Um, basically things to sell to kids of old people. [laughs] That's the best way to put it.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, what, what, what is that? What does that mean?
- PCPatrick Campbell
Um-
- SPSam Parr
I don't know. Yeah, I saw you wrote that.
- PCPatrick Campbell
So-
- SPSam Parr
Products that prey on baby boomer-
- PCPatrick Campbell
But really-
- SPSam Parr
... kid guilt.
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah, yeah.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- PCPatrick Campbell
So a really good example, um, it's not a huge company, 'cause it's a one-man shop out of Boston, is Nanograms. It's basically a, um, I, I don't know if you email or you post it on Instagram and then it automatically sends a postcard to your nana or to, you know, whomever you wanna send it to. Um, so there's some-
- SPSam Parr
That's hilarious
- PCPatrick Campbell
... really interesting things that are happening there where like you have high disposable income in a certain group, low amount of time that wants to be spent necessarily with like, you know, their parents or their grandparents, depending on, you know, the, the personality. Um, and as basically the trend that's happening is there's a huge portion of the population that are aging. Um, so you're seeing like the multiples on things like, um, old folks homes or hospice care actually increasing pretty substantially, um, which is kinda crazy. And then there's, there's, there's gotta be more technology plays. I don't have like a giant technology play there. I just have seen like a number of people like start to build on that particular trend. Um, and then the last one, which I think is really interesting, is death. Uh, [laughs] which that sounded terrible. That I find death interesting. No, I'm not that, that scary. But, um, there are four or maybe five companies that basically own everything in the literal last mile of your life. Coffins, um, uh, the, the funeral service homes, everything that's being sold in the funeral service homes, even like how the memories and, and kind of like that last part looks. Um, there are some businesses that have tried, but because of like the five people kind of owning everything and multi-billion dollar companies-
- SPSam Parr
What's the biggest ones?
- PCPatrick Campbell
... um, have essentially have been... I don't have the names in front of me. I know someone tried five years ago. Um, a guy named Dave Balter in Boston basically tried to start a like memory, um, company where basically you would load up memories essentially, and then all of a sudden you would get that information back, um, via Alexa. So you could be like, "Oh, Alexa would tell me about my grandpa," or something like that, and what happened like six years ago or something with him, um, in an adventure. But, um, he was the one telling me that like basically he would go visit, you know, these companies like, "Hey, maybe I could sell to these companies," and they were all like buttoned up suits, you know, all that kind of fun stuff. And so that's a space that I think, given the aging population, there's probably something there that, that makes sense as well.
- SPShaan Puri
Gotcha.
- SPSam Parr
Okay.
- SPShaan Puri
Let's, let's switch gears real quick. You had said something else, which was, um, uh, let's do some quick hits, okay? So let's try to do these. Uh, give me the kind of the quick, quick
- 27:35 – 42:40
Using spy secrets to get competitive intel
- SPShaan Puri
jab on these. You said, "I used NSA learnings to do competitive intelligence." What the hell are you talking about?
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I, my first job out of school, I worked at NSA. Uh, so I was an intel analyst. Best way to put it is I was like Jack Ryan's desk job, so none of the cool stuff.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- PCPatrick Campbell
I did have weapons and defensive driving training, which is kinda cool. The defensive driving training is like so much more useful than the weapons training in my real life. Um, but what's really interesting about it is like it basically was the best career start in like first principles thinking and like thinking about like a target. Um, and so I had a competitive intel program basically at ProfitWell, it was just me running it, where, um, I had, every quarter I had stats. And it's kinda like what you guys have talked about before, but like a little bit deeper. So what I did is I had shadow lists of like our, each competitor, even our partners, like customers, and I would send like shadow NPS surveys, um, you know-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- PCPatrick Campbell
... product research surveys, these types of things. And the thing that people miss on competitive intel is like it has to be done over time. Um, and this is something that like they teach you when you're going after a target on the inside, which is like I need to understand not just a point, I need to understand like multiple points in order to kinda create a profile, basically. And as an analyst then-
- SPSam Parr
How did you get, how did you get that NPS stuff?
- SPShaan Puri
No, he's saying he sent a fake NPS, right?
- PCPatrick Campbell
Um, I straight up sent surveys.
- SPShaan Puri
To their customers.
- PCPatrick Campbell
I just straight up sent surveys to their customers.
- SPSam Parr
So walk me through that.
- SPShaan Puri
How do you get their-
- SPSam Parr
Walk me through all, all your research methodologies. The, this is crazy fascinating.
- PCPatrick Campbell
Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, there's two, there's two main sources of information. There's moles and then mass data. Moles are like qualitative, like almost like customer development product conversations. These are former employees. These are, um, you know, customers I know that are friendly to me. They're not gonna switch because of whatever, but I can like talk to them. Um-
- SPShaan Puri
Okay, well, let, let's pause at former employees. You go, you s- find, okay, this person used to work here.
- PCPatrick Campbell
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
What, what happens?
- PCPatrick Campbell
So-
- SPShaan Puri
What is the, what is the guides that you-
- SPSam Parr
I do this all the time
- SPShaan Puri
... present this? But yeah, me and Sam-
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah, yeah, yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... have talked about this on the pod once, but-
- PCPatrick Campbell
Totally. So I-
- SPShaan Puri
What's the frame?
- PCPatrick Campbell
... like you meet him at a conference. Uh, oh, it, it looked like on Twitter that didn't end well. They weren't like, "After four long, wonderful years at so and so, I've now moved on," blah. It was like, "I'm now over here," right? They took out the competitor name. That's someone I wanna like, like a better phrase, target and have a conversation with and be like, "Hey man, how is everything going?" Right? Like that type of a thing. Um, and again, you're not gonna get a, a vast amount of information, but again, it's about collecting different points, right? And then I've talked to an investor, and then I've talked to an investor who's thinking of investing in the company, and then I've talked to like some customers who are officially churning from the product, and all of a sudden I can start putting this together. But- The, the more fascinating stuff, and, and that's color, right? Like, that's color that kind of guides your analysis. 'Cause you as an analyst, what you're trying to do is you're trying to predict what's gonna happen, or based on some sort of stimulus, what they're going to do, right? So if all of a sudden something comes in or there's a feature that's launched or some sort of messaging or marketing thing that happens, what are they going to do? And that's gonna help you respond to whatever they're going to do, right? And prepare for it, right? So that was really interesting because you almost get like feel from those types of people. Like, oh, it turns out, like, there's an exodus. A lot of people are leaving. That's great. Let's step on the gas here. But the real kind of secret sauce is what, you know, Sam started asking about, which was there are many lists of customers that you can find. Um, if they have some sort of a snippet, obviously built with Clearbit, all those types of things, right? That's one. Everyone likes to talk about their customers, right? So they have case studies. That's two. Everyone likes to put the logos on their website. That's three, right? And so you're looking at social, you're looking at built with, you're looking at all these logos, and then I'm like, "Well, who's the main customer?" Right? I can go find all those email addresses, right? And you're not looking for like, "Oh my God, I have 10,000 people," 'cause most of these people don't have 10,000 customers, right? What we're looking for is enough that then I'm gonna start sending on, in every three-month basis a survey, or every other month I'm gonna send an NPS survey, and then I'm gonna send like some sort of beat survey.
- SPShaan Puri
So what, what domain do you send the survey from? Like-
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah, like if you're-
- SPShaan Puri
... their company name plus feedback, like feedback.com or something or what?
- 42:40 – 47:35
Buying debt to forgive it
- SPShaan Puri
one. You said you're buying a shit-ton of debt for pennies on the dollar and gonna forgive it. So what's, what's actually-
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah, man
- SPShaan Puri
... going on there?
- PCPatrick Campbell
Everyone wants to be Mr. Beast. On a long enough timeline, everyone wants to be Mr. Beast.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- PCPatrick Campbell
That's what it feels.
- SPShaan Puri
Life theory.
- PCPatrick Campbell
So, uh-
- SPShaan Puri
I like it.
- PCPatrick Campbell
No, so, like, here's the thing. I, I'm probably going to reinvest everything that I got into this into like another business.
- SPSam Parr
Did, did, did you say-
- PCPatrick Campbell
Go ahead
- SPSam Parr
... how much, how much did you make from the sale?
- PCPatrick Campbell
Trying ... I, I gotta work with a lot of people, uh, so I'm trying not to, to, to be super public with that.
- SPSam Parr
Over or under nine figures?
- PCPatrick Campbell
Uh, I'm not gonna say what I got. Let's just put it that way.
- SPSam Parr
But-
- PCPatrick Campbell
Um, I'm happy to DM you
- SPSam Parr
... I asked you if it...
- PCPatrick Campbell
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
I, I was, I asked you if it was over or under $100 million, and it took you a minute to think about it. So what I'm going to assume is that-
- PCPatrick Campbell
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... it, it's that number, give or take 30%.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- PCPatrick Campbell
Uh, give or take 30%? Yeah, let's just, let's... But, like, again, part of it's stock. It's not all cash. Like, uh, there's a lot of different factors here that we, I, I don't want to get into. But I am, I'm going to, I'm fine right now. Like, I'm gonna do fine, that, th- if that makes sense. So, um, but I wanna reinvest it all 'cause, like, again, I'm, I'm not a car guy, I'm not... Like, and again, I've had it for, like, two months. I went from, like, this is a fun fact. I did the whole Dave Ramsey, don't have any debt, pay off the house as soon as possible thing. So in January, I had $20,000 in my bank account and a paid-off house. Like, that was it. And then this happened. So, um, I haven't adjusted to it is what I'm trying to say, so, like, this might change in like six months. But I, I wanna, like... You know, I wanna go all out, and, and go all out not in a way of like, you know, like fancy cars and stuff like that, but like in stuff that's really interesting and gets me on the quickest path to learning. And one of the reasons for the debt thing, um, and also the, I don't know if you're gonna bring up the other one, but, like, the debt thing was this mar- the debt market's just crazy. Like, it's insane, right? It's, it's, it's insane how much debt there is, how that debt is purchased. I don't understand it. Um, and this is one of the ways that I can, like, really understand it and also do some good in the world, where it's like I can buy a bunch of debt for pennies on the dollar. I can understand how that system works, how debt collectors work, how the debt collectors sell to another debt collector. Um, and then also, like, obviously forgive some of that-
- SPShaan Puri
So, so make it simple. What, what, what debt have you bought? What, what, how are you buying debt? What de- debt are you buying?
- PCPatrick Campbell
I am-
- SPShaan Puri
How are you buying it? What are you doing with it?
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah, yeah. I'm, I have not actually purchased the debt yet, right? I am basically exploring right now. I just put some feelers out, 'cause that's the other thing.
- SPSam Parr
Who-
- 47:35 – 52:55
How it feels to get very rich very young
- PCPatrick Campbell
in a couple months.
- SPSam Parr
So you're 33, 34. You just made a huge sum of money. Have you done the math to when you become a billionaire? Uh, I'm sure you have. And, uh, how's it feel to have such a huge sum at such a young age? I mean, th- that's pretty wild, right?
- PCPatrick Campbell
Here's the thing I learned, and some of your guests... So actually, friend of the show, Hermosi, I talked to him a couple weeks ago, and what I told him, and he kind of was like, "Yeah, exactly," back, was it amplifies the worst in you and the best in you. You're just the same person, right? So, like, I thought when I was gonna get money, I was gonna like, "Oh, I'm gonna be healthier 'cause I can, like, afford, you know, someone to yell at me about eating." It's like, no. Like, now I can afford to go to terrible places all the time, right?
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- PCPatrick Campbell
And I, you know, I could afford that before, but, like, I think it's one of those things where I'm a big believer, something I talk a lot about, and I don't know if this is interesting, but, like- Teddy Roosevelt, of all people, wrote this speech called The Strenuous Life, and is basically his concept, and I think it's a better speech. Everyone references Man in the Arena. I think Man in the Arena is shit versus Strenuous Life. He basically said in a modern parlance, like, if you've been given something, like whether it's, you know, middle class life, upper class life, whatever it is, if, if you've had an exit, even though you worked for it, right, whatever, like, your duty is to re- like, go be strenuous again, right? Your duty is to go crazy and like, you know, go deeper, do- make big swings, right? And that's why I'm talking about, like, I don't wanna go into quilting 'cause it's like, yeah, there's a money grab there. I think it's great. But like, I wanna like, fix democracy. I wanna like, have defense. I wanna fix debt. Like, I wanna try and fix those types of things, um, because I think, like, for every person doing that, like, you obviously have tons of people that are digging ditches who have no ability to like... You know, they're leading a strenuous life 'cause they have to. So yeah, I'm... And, and I know that sounds like, I don't know, people will judge that answer, like, in multiple different ways. But like, yeah, I'm having fun, but I'm also like all in, right? Like, I'm trying to go. And it's part of the reason we went to Paddle is like I didn't wanna like hand over the keys 'cause I wasn't done yet. I wanna see what a company going through a public offering like looks like. Like, I wanna see that so that I, I can decide do I like that. Do I wanna go big next or do I wanna do more like small shit? So that's kinda what, what, what I'm thinking about if that makes sense.
- SPShaan Puri
When you were younger, were you kind of like highly competitive at anything? Or like, you know, you between ages, I don't know, 12 to 18, did... If you look back now, if you were like a, a researcher just getting to observe you behind the glass panel, would you have seen anything in the way you behaved that would lead you to think, "Oh, this guy's gonna have like a really interesting career and life," or would you have looked like an, you know, an average teenager at that time?
- PCPatrick Campbell
Um, yeah. So I had a not... I don't know how Sam would look at this. I, I had like a, a Midwest childhood, let's say, a bad Midwest childhood, which is like the things that happened to me like would clearly be abuse today, but maybe back then, like they were like okay. And so, um, so there was that, and I think that like that makes me an incredibly insecure human being. Like I'm, I'm incredibly insecure about like most things. But what I kinda learned, and, and I don't know if this was trial and error, but I had some good like mentors in life, is like instead of like taking that and go become, you know, a deadbeat, like channel it, right? Like use that anxiety like and channel it. The one thing in answer to your question, um, fun fact, I am a national champion debater. Um, so I, uh, I did speech and forensics, um, in, in high school and college.
- SPSam Parr
Great. Should I make the joke, Shaan?
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
Shaan? Or-
- PCPatrick Campbell
Go for it
- SPSam Parr
... or do you want to?
- SPShaan Puri
There you go.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Would you consider yourself a master?
- PCPatrick Campbell
12-year-olds.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- PCPatrick Campbell
12-year-olds. I love it. Yeah, so I, I did, um-
- SPShaan Puri
By the way
- PCPatrick Campbell
So this is the thing
- SPShaan Puri
... we did this segment. I don't know if you heard this. We did this segment on here. I said-
- PCPatrick Campbell
I heard
- SPShaan Puri
... I've observed these three patterns. People who are amazing-
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah, yeah, yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... at debate go on to do amazing in business. People who are amazing gamers can go on to do amazing. Um, and I think-
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... po- poker was maybe my other one. But those three are like n- you wouldn't associate that with success in the business world, but they have like this... I just keep seeing it over and over and over again.
- PCPatrick Campbell
Well, so you know what it is? So I, I did, um, so I like I was doing football and like wrestling and all that stuff. I, I had to have foot surgeries for whatever, some reason, and basically I was like, "Oh, I can't, I can't do wrestling that season." So I went and started doing what's called forensics when you're in high school. And then I was like, "Oh, you can get scholarships." So I went to the school I went to on scholarship to, to do this, and it was one of the best schools in the country for it. It's Bradley University. Like lovely school, but like as the Northwestern kids would make fun of us in Illinois, like you get a public school education at a private school price basically un- unless you're on scholarship, that type of a thing. And if you think about it, so what I was doing is, at least in college, for 40 hours a week, four years I was synthesizing information and structuring arguments and getting to root cause, right? Which are these things that we always talk about. I never wanted to go into business. I, my dad still thinks I should be a doctor. I was gonna go into law, law, but you know, more people were graduating, you know, in law school than actual legal jobs when I graduated. So long story short, it was one of those things where I was like, you know, I can synthesize information really quickly, right? And, and that's like I, I talk a little faster and all this other stuff. And so I think that's, that's helped me a lot because literally our marketing strategy in the early days was I just write blog posts, and I can write them pretty quickly and they're relatively deep. They're not all gems, but you know, it's one of those things that, that definitely helped me, and I use it, I probably use it every day.
- SPSam Parr
You wanna go to the last one, Shaan?
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, let's do the-
- 52:55 – 1:11:03
Hostile takeover of a person
- SPSam Parr
one.
- SPShaan Puri
You're doing, you're also doing a hostile takeover of a-
- PCPatrick Campbell
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... publicly traded person. So I saw this. It's this guy, I, I don't know how you say it. I've only heard it once.
- PCPatrick Campbell
Mike Merrill.
- SPSam Parr
Give us the background.
- SPShaan Puri
KMikeyM is his like handle. And-
- PCPatrick Campbell
So there's this guy.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, tell the story. What, what, who's this guy, what did he do, and then what the heck are you doing?
- PCPatrick Campbell
Okay. So again, quickest path to learning. That's, I think that's really important for like entrepreneurs, executives in general. Mike Merrill i- like 13 years ago, 2008, something like that, he became the first publicly traded person. So he sold shares in himself. He's, there's an interface. The, the, the website is a little buggy sometimes, but there's an interface. He sold shares. He gets the money, but then what he does is he gets to choose to put votes up, and then the people who bought shares vote their shares. And he doesn't do little stuff. Like, he does little stuff like what color glasses should I get? So a lot of the things we probably don't wanna make decisions on ourselves, which is a really interesting hack. But he also, what he'll do is he goes and he'll put, "Should I move in with my girlfriend?" He puts that up for a vote. The debate is fascinating because some of them are his friends and his family, and then there's just randos in Connecticut-
- SPShaan Puri
Shareholders [laughs]
- PCPatrick Campbell
... being like, "I've known Mike for like a long time through the project. I don't think this makes sense. He said this like three years ago," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's fascinating. So I knew about this, uh, girlfriend or fiance.
- SPSam Parr
What's the, what's the URL again? Say the, spell it out.
- PCPatrick Campbell
KMikeyM, KMIKEYM.com. And um, so I, I got a little money and I was like, "I've, I don't know what it's like to like do a takeover of a company," right? And this is when Elon Musk was like doing his stuff with Twitter. And so long story short, I was like, "Oh, this could be fascinating." One, because there's- like, I don't know how people react when this stuff happens. And so he put an auction up for, um, additional shares, and this is what he does every so often when he needs some cash. He'll actually put an auction up and people can buy, um, presumably, if it's a Dutch auction, under the share price, right? And I did, like, a very-
- SPShaan Puri
But by the way, do you, like-
- PCPatrick Campbell
... a very-
- SPShaan Puri
Do you get anything as a shareholder? You, there's no dividends, there's no, like, a-
- PCPatrick Campbell
Nothing like that
- SPShaan Puri
... rev share
- PCPatrick Campbell
Well, you can sell your shares.
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- PCPatrick Campbell
People buy s- like, shares. So, like, I put my shares up and get money, like actually get cash, right? Um-
- SPSam Parr
Dude, look at... Shaan, go to the website. I'm... He- so he, he just says a thing. He- so look, it... uh, let me give you an example. It's called the Fingerholders Contract Gig. I guess Fingerholder is the name of the company.
- PCPatrick Campbell
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
But the short, the TLDR is-
- PCPatrick Campbell
It's a very rich project
- SPSam Parr
... should I take a short-term gig contract coordinating the development of the community around the launch of an NFT project called Fingerhold- Fingerholders? And then it go-
- PCPatrick Campbell
Should he take a job? Yeah.
Episode duration: 1:11:03
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Transcript of episode jblB9otywQQ
