How To Make $25 Million With A Niche Hobbyist Magazine (#419)

1. 0:00 – 0:50

   Intro

   1. SPShaan Puri0:00

      And again, remember, a percentage of their readers are ultra wealthy people who are like, "Yeah, great, I wanna have a home on, on the East Coast that I can park my private plane in and that'll be one of my hubs." And I'm pretty sure... Okay, I don't know the exact numbers on this, but I can triangulate a little bit. I think they've done at least 25 million in pre-sales on this thing.

   2. SPSam Parr0:19

      That is crazy.

   3. SPShaan Puri0:19

      And it could be... It could easily be double that. But, um, but that is a, a really awesome and impressive, like, way to take this niche hobby, ta- find a, find a kind of media publication that, that, that works, and go content to commerce. [upbeat music]

   4. SPSam Parr0:43

      I have a bu- I have some stuff for today. You have something that I know about that I've kinda mentioned, but I mentioned it without saying

2. 0:50 – 12:49

   Craig Fuller & FlyingMag

   1. SPSam Parr0:50

      their name. Craig Fuller.

   2. SPShaan Puri0:52

      Yeah.

   3. SPSam Parr0:52

      Now we can mention it.

   4. SPShaan Puri0:53

      Let's talk about it.

   5. SPSam Parr0:54

      Did, did you, did you get permission from, uh, uh, about this?

   6. SPShaan Puri0:57

      Uh, yeah. Um, I think so. So we got, uh, uh, some of this is public, but let's, let's talk a little bit about this. Okay, so there's this, there's this business called, uh, Flying Magazine, or Flying Mag.

   7. SPSam Parr1:08

      Yeah.

   8. SPShaan Puri1:08

      And, um, so when you look at it, you're like, "Okay, well, what is this?" And so basically the story is there's a guy who bought this magazine called Flying Mag, and Flying Mag produces this beautiful magazine, a- amazing photos, and if you're a, a flying or aviation enthusiast, you will love this magazine. He bought it for, like, I think, like, not quite 10 million, but a little under that, so maybe somewhere between let's call it 5 to $10 million. Um-

   9. SPSam Parr1:35

      My guess is a fraction of that. I think it was closer to 1. Do you have any, any evidence of-

   10. SPShaan Puri1:40

       Yeah, I've got a little source here saying high seven figures.

   11. SPSam Parr1:43

       Okay, okay.

   12. SPShaan Puri1:43

       So let, let's, let's assume the source is correct. Okay. So, um, but then I was like, well, where did this person get high seven figures to go drop on a magazine? That seems like a, a pretty indulgent purchase for somebody un- unless they have a lot of money. So he started a company before that called FreightWaves, which, uh, basically is like a data company for the freight shipping industry. So they're like a, uh, a price reporting company. So they, they provide data that shippers and freight companies use to, um, you know, inform themselves on what's going on in the market. They also have a SaaS tool. So they kinda have like a media side, which is the, you know, content that they're producing that's pricing information, and then they have a SaaS business called Sonar that's in it. And they've released a public press release, so you can kind of see some of their numbers.

   13. SPSam Parr2:27

       Yeah.

   14. SPShaan Puri2:27

       So they-

   15. SPSam Parr2:27

       I saw they did that. That's very weird that they did that.

   16. SPShaan Puri2:29

       Yeah, they're not a public company, but they sorta, like, did a public report, and I'm not sure what the agenda was. Like, I think I'm just sorta naive here. I don't know. I- normally, this is we want somebody to buy us or we wanna raise money, um, or we're prepping to go public, but it's... I don't think it's either- any of those three, uh, because of what they said. So they basically reported, uh, 13 million in revenue for a quarter, so let's call it, like, let's just extrapolate that out in a straight line, so roughly 50 million a year in revenue. Um, it wasn't a lot in profit, so it was, like, you know, um, 1 or 2 million in EBITDA in the quarter or something like that. So let's say that this business is making, I don't know, 4 to 8 million of profit a year. Um-

   17. SPSam Parr3:07

       But it's growing 70% a year. It's growing quickly.

   18. SPShaan Puri3:10

       And it's-

   19. SPSam Parr3:10

       Almost double

   20. SPShaan Puri3:10

       ... and it's been around, I think, for a little while. Um, so, so, you know, it's done well. They had 28 million in cash, just, like, i- i- on the books, on, on the balance sheet.

   21. SPSam Parr3:19

       Yeah.

   22. SPShaan Puri3:19

       So, you know, the, the business was in a, in a, in a healthy spot. So I think Craig starts FreightWaves. He then separately buys Flying Mag. One of the interesting things about Flying Mag is that if you think about who are the readers of a niche magazine like this, you have two categories. Uber nerds and uber nerds who are rich. Because y- you know, you gotta be kinda nerdy about this hobby if you're gonna be, like, reading about this. Like, we had a guy once who we hired as an engineer that used to... had an app on his phone where he would listen to the, uh, uh, what's it called? Air traffic control. He would just tune into the frequency of air traffic control and listen to it at lunch. And, like, I gotta tell you, never had a worse lunch with anybody in my life [laughs] . Like, you know, j-

   23. SPSam Parr4:00

       Dude

   24. SPShaan Puri4:00

       ... me, him, and his phone on with air traffic control was our lunch, and I was like, "You, you know, hey, man, I'm gonna go back for seconds and then I'm gonna go kill myself, so, you know, see you later. This has been horrible. Thanks." [laughs]

   25. SPSam Parr4:11

       I do, I do that with the, uh, I do that with the police scanner. You ever do that with the police scanner?

   26. SPShaan Puri4:14

       At least police sc- look, there's a show called Cops. There's no show called S- Safe Landings, 'cause that's all [laughs] air traffic control is.

   27. SPSam Parr4:21

       [laughs] Well, uh-

   28. SPShaan Puri4:22

       Like, there's no k- there's no show called Which Way is the Wind Blowing? [laughs]

   29. SPSam Parr4:25

       But there is a video game called that. There is a video game where all you are is an air traffic controller.

   30. SPShaan Puri4:29

       [laughs] Yeah, fair enough. Okay. So anyways, the, back to, back to my Flying Mag story. So a big percentage of the readers are, like, rich people with private planes, or, like... You see this a lot in tech for some reason. Like, um, my buddy Furqan did this. So- sold his company, immediately starts, s- signs up for flying lessons, wants to get his pilot license to, like, go fly this, like, you know, five-seater or six-seater or two-seater plane. Um, they love that hobby. And it's a really expensive hobby. Um, so one thing that they did recently that I think is really smart is... Have you heard about this, this community-
3. 12:49 – 22:37

   Finding the real metric that matters

   1. SPShaan Puri12:49

      Yeah, that's interesting. Actually, that's a good metric, 'cause, um, I've been trying to think about on the content side. I'm like, "You know, I wanna set a goal because I think, uh, I work better when I have a goal or a target-"

   2. SPSam Parr13:01

      The, the, the, and-

   3. SPShaan Puri13:01

      "... to, to work off of"

   4. SPSam Parr13:01

      ... you have to give context. The context is Shaan is now g- he's considering or planning or doing to go harder on creating content.

   5. SPShaan Puri13:09

      Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Uh, sounds lame so I don't even say those words. Content creator sounds, like, lame. I'ma, I'ma come up with my own words, but, like, yeah, the idea is, hey, I like doing this thing where I get to just, like, learn about stuff, talk about it, and people seem to like it. Podcast is one version of that. The newsletter's another version, et cetera. And, um, anyways, the p- point is I was like, "What's a, what's a good goal for this?" And I was like, "Oh, million, uh, 10 million subscribers, fans. No. What, what do I want here?" And I was like, and then, and I was like intuitively there's something more like, um, that Kevin Kelly thing, the true fans, 1,000 True Fans, where it's like, uh, he wrote this blog post that's amazing that's called 1,000 True Fans. Basically says if you can ha- if you can have 1,000 true fans, a true fan being somebody who would pay $100 ac- across the course of a year to... They'll buy your shirt. They'll show up, you know, for your event. They'll buy your tickets. They'll do whatever, 'cause they really like your stuff. And, like, you know, for an artist, if you're somebody who's just creating, 1,000 people who are willing to pay 100 bucks sounds kind of achievable. It doesn't... That's not like I'm gonna be the next, you know, Justin Bieber or whatever. Um, and it's 100 grand, and, like, you could make a living doing what you love if you get to that point. That was, like, one of the original things that I think inspired a lot of content creators online. And, um, I was like, "Oh, maybe something like true fans," but how do you measure a true fan? I guess it's this $100 spend thing. But I think this thing you're saying is actually true, which is, uh, it's like a, a test. It's like if I just tweeted, "Hey, I'm hanging out at this coffee shop right now in San Francisco," how many people would show up? And, like, I think three years ago that answer was zero to, zero to f- two, you know, like, maybe just my actual friends who I ha- who I hadn't caught up with in a while. Um, you know, now I don't know what that number would be, but probably... What do you think if I did that?

   6. SPSam Parr14:49

      Thousands.

   7. SPShaan Puri14:50

      I have no idea.

   8. SPSam Parr14:50

      Well, if you, if you-

   9. SPShaan Puri14:52

      No, no, thousands would be crazy. But if I was like-

   10. SPSam Parr14:53

       Well, no, I-

   11. SPShaan Puri14:53

       ... "I'm hanging out here all day," so it's not like-

   12. SPSam Parr14:56

       If you gave it a-

   13. SPShaan Puri14:56

       ... a one-minute window

   14. SPSam Parr14:56

       ... if, if you gave it a two-week window or a, a two-week notice, two to four week notice, I think you would get hun-

   15. SPShaan Puri15:03

       No, no, forget that. I'm saying same day, I'm just, "I'm gonna be here all day. Swing by if you're around."

   16. SPSam Parr15:08

       50 to 100 I bet.

   17. SPShaan Puri15:10

       50 to 100, yeah, exactly. And I think that there's a, th- th- that's probably, that's great. That's a, that's amazing. There's some point where it's like, uh, the coffee shop's like, "What the fuck is happening? Uh, there, there's like, there's too many people here, guys. What, what is this?" There's some point where you break the coffee shop, and I'm like, okay, there's some way of testing that because I think what most people go is for reach. And they get really tricked by these platforms that are like, "Yeah, your video got 95,000 views." And it's like, cool. Um, how many of them actually watched this versus just swiped by it? Or if they wa- like, do, how many of those 95,000 people know your name? How many of them know anything about you? How many of them care about you, right? Like, and so I think what most people do is they g- they just take what they're fed, and they're fed basically the most large, vanity, useless number. And I think for any business you wanna find not the vanity metric but the true metric that actually shows, um, like the level of engagement you have, the level of love that your product has. And so, um, and, and different business, different companies have, like, different ways of looking at this. Like Facebook back in the day, one of their metrics that mattered was they were like, "Yeah, of all of our signups, 50% of them use this every day." And that became this thing that was like, okay, the, it's not that they have the most signups, like MySpace has way more, but man, this Facebook thing, like, half the use- half of the total signups are using it every single day? That's gotta mean something. And the people that were able to identify that inside the company and as investors got mega, mega rich, whereas other people were just chasing, like, a total user count number, but they didn't really, like, have a, the good way to measure it. So I think there's something to, like, finding the real metric that matters. At The Hustle, what did you guys use? 'Cause you could have just said, said subscribers, right? But that wasn't, like, quite the, that wasn't just the thing. Like, do you have any examples of finding the real metric that matters?

   18. SPSam Parr17:02

       Dude, I, we, we would just do replies, and so every once in a while I would purposely either write about something that was a bit controversial, or I would purposely have typos and I would just see how many people reply and say that they saw a typo.

   19. SPShaan Puri17:15

       Right.

   20. SPSam Parr17:15

       Or at, at the very bottom of the email, and I told you to do this, and I think you did do it, I would say-

   21. SPShaan Puri17:20

       Yep

   22. SPSam Parr17:20

       ... um, "Where, where, where, what city are you in right now? Send me a..." Or I would say, um, "I'm working from this brand-new desk. It's called this. I love it. Take, take a picture of your workspace. Let me see it."

   23. SPShaan Puri17:31

       Yep.

   24. SPSam Parr17:31

       And it would be just how many people are gonna take a picture and s- and reply back to the email. And there was a time where we, at the very bottom of the email, we said, "We're gonna send out stickers to everyone that replies," and we got like 10,000 replies, so we had to, like, mail out 10,000 stickers. And so we would do little things like that where... And this, we got like 10,000 replies on, like, 100,000 subscribers. And so I remember-

   25. SPShaan Puri17:54

       Right

   26. SPSam Parr17:54

       ... like anytime we get a reply from an email, that's a, that's a really good sign.

   27. SPShaan Puri17:59

       Right. And, like, I see this all the time with, uh, newsletters now because Substack has this feature where if you subscribe to one newsletter, like I read something, I'm like, "Yeah, I like this. I subscribe."

   28. SPSam Parr18:08

       Yeah.

   29. SPShaan Puri18:08

       It pops up this fullscreen thing which is just like Shaan recommends these five newsletters. And like-

   30. SPSam Parr18:13

       They're really good
4. 22:37 – 26:18

   Parcast

   1. SPSam Parr22:37

      uh, Parcast? It's like my name, but cast, so Parcast. Have you ever heard of that?

   2. SPShaan Puri22:41

      Are you, are, are you spinning off your own solo... Did the brand break up, band break up and you're doing your own ep- your own podcast now?

   3. SPSam Parr22:48

      No. Listen. I, I, I wish I invented this. So it's a guy named Max Cutler. I think he's our age. I think he's, uh, like, 31, 32, 33. So this guy named Max Cutler created this thing called Parcast, and the whole idea of it is it's a podcast network, but they, um, they only have, like-

   4. SPShaan Puri23:04

      True crime

   5. SPSam Parr23:05

      ... true crime. And I'm a weirdo. You wanna know what I listen to every night? There's two podcasts I listen to everywi- night. The first one is just called Serial Killers.

   6. SPShaan Puri23:15

      [laughs]

   7. SPSam Parr23:15

      So it, it's a s- it's, it's, it's just a, a bunch of podcasts about serial killers. I can, I, I can tell you all. I got a, I got, I got my fantasy, uh, league b- of serial killers, you know?

   8. SPShaan Puri23:25

      [laughs]

   9. SPSam Parr23:25

      With Ted Bundy as the quarterback. And then there's another one called [laughs] you know, it's, it's, this one's fitting for going to sleep. It's called Death Bed Confessions, so it's people who confess about a crime they did when they're dying. So it's just-

   10. SPShaan Puri23:39

       Oh, that's nice

   11. SPSam Parr23:39

       ... it's, it's the best. So this guy started this, and it's all scripted, so it has, like, voice actors, and it's all scripted stuff. He bootstrapped this podcast company, which is unheard of, and he sold it to Spotify for $200 million-

   12. SPShaan Puri23:53

       Wow

   13. SPSam Parr23:53

       ... after only maybe five years. And, uh, him and his dad owned the whole company. His dad was in radio, and so his dad was, like, a radio announcer, something like that. And, uh, they're producing something like 30 or 40 podcasts a day, like, episodes, and they're all highly produced stuff, and it's amazing. Have you, have you not heard of this h- uh, heard of this business?

   14. SPShaan Puri24:12

       I've heard of this brand once before. Uh, I didn't realize that they I didn't re- I didn't know the business side of it. I didn't know that they had bootstrapped it and sold it to Spotify. But I really l- I like true crime. I don't know where to start. There's, like, so many true crimes, and a bad one is, like, such a waste of time. But, um, yeah, I've seen some of their shows because I go sometimes to look in the browse section for, for, like, you know, a good true crime.

   15. SPSam Parr24:34

       Dude, so true crime, if you go and look at... So if you-

   16. SPShaan Puri24:37

       What's a good one of theirs?

   17. SPSam Parr24:38

       If you look at, uh... I like serial killers. Serial killers.

   18. SPShaan Puri24:40

       Oh, yeah.

   19. SPSam Parr24:40

       Dude, Deathbed Confessions is awesome. I'll send you a good Deathbed Confession one. They're so awesome. And true crime, it's, uh, if you go to the podcast, uh, app and you look at, like, what are the top ep- uh-

   20. SPShaan Puri24:51

       Yeah

   21. SPSam Parr24:51

       ... episodes-

   22. SPShaan Puri24:51

       Crushing it

   23. SPSam Parr24:52

       ... or shows, it's always, like, 30 or 40% true crime, and which is it's mostly women who listen to it, and it's alwa- and so, like, uh, Dateline, I told you about this, Dateline from NBC, which is a show that's been around for 20 or 30 years at this point, it's still usually a top podcast every single week. And so these true crime folks, they kill it. And this guy bootstrapped this company, um, to a, I think it was 100 million cash, and then, uh, a hundred, another 100 million earn-out all off of these true crime podcasts. He killed it. It's a really interesting story. I'm gonna have to, I'll dive deep and do some better research on it, but I was reading about it, uh, this weekend. It's, it's a pretty amazing outcome this guy had.

   24. SPShaan Puri25:31

       So I just read an article. This might be maybe wrong, or maybe you're wrong. I don't know. Spotify confirms it paid 56 million for podcast, or Parcast, sorry.

   25. SPSam Parr25:39

       Uh, then maybe I got my numbers wrong. It w- I think it was 56 and then another, like, 75 outcome. It was a nine-figure out- uh, uh, no, a, a-

   26. SPShaan Puri25:45

       Yeah, maybe they have a retention

   27. SPSam Parr25:46

       ... another... There was a retention.

   28. SPShaan Puri25:48

       Yeah.

   29. SPSam Parr25:48

       According to the, the Parcast Wikipedia, which reads as if Matt Cu- Max Cutler, the founder, wrote it-

   30. SPShaan Puri25:52

       [laughs]
5. 26:18 – 35:05

   Crumbl Cookies

   1. SPSam Parr26:18

      So do you remember that company Crumbl that you brought up?

   2. SPShaan Puri26:21

      Yeah. Well, first of all, I love a good "I told you so," so I'm already, I'm already glowing. Um, yeah, I remember-

   3. SPSam Parr26:26

      Dude, you've got this

   4. SPShaan Puri26:26

      ... Crumbl C- Crumbl, Crumbl Cookies.

   5. SPSam Parr26:28

      Crumbl Cookies. So when you originally told me about it, the story was something like these two brothers or two cousins launched this thing, and for some reason in my head I'm thinking, like, a family, like, cookin', makin' cookies in their, like, kitchen, and they start this, like, pandemic thing and it gets popular. And basically once a week they tweet out a new menu, and they have a drop. You know, things that, like, typically Supreme does or, like, these... But they're-

   6. SPShaan Puri26:52

      Right

   7. SPSam Parr26:52

      ... doing it with, like, outrageous flavored cookies. Well, that's not ex- entirely true. They, what is true is they do do these drops, but it's a massive business, and some sources are saying it's close to, like, 800 million a year in revenue. And the reason I saw it was someone shared this on Twitter, but basically over the last, like, couple months it's been growing and growing and growing. And so the other day it was, like, the number fourth most downloaded app in the week. And so they have an app. And so their app now has 2.3 million ratings or reviews-

   8. SPShaan Puri27:23

      Wow [laughs]

   9. SPSam Parr27:23

      ... with, like, with a 4.9 average. And what, and right now they're, they're opening brick-and-mortar, and they're opening a new store every five days. They have something like 730 stores at the moment, and it's one of the fastest growing chains in America. And so these guys, check, listen to these numbers. They have 800,000 followers on Twitter, 3.4 on, on Instagram, 6.5 on TikTok, 1.2 on YouTube, and they create these commercials every single week for a new cookie drop, and it is crushing it. These guys are killing it. It's so fascinating. I never in a million years thought this was gonna work, uh, as big as it has. But basically every Sunday at 6:00 PM they do, like, a new drop, and their app just spikes and goes way up the charts.

   10. SPShaan Puri28:04

       Right.

   11. SPSam Parr28:04

       And they are, they're up there with, like, Uber Eats and all this stuff like that. They're killing it. And so I remember you brought this up, and in my head I was like, "Oh, this is, like, a little, like, s- mom and pop small biz."

   12. SPShaan Puri28:14

       Yeah, it sounds cute. Like, "Oh, that's cute." Bake, baking.

   13. SPSam Parr28:16

       Yeah, like, "Oh, your aunt made cookies. That's nice."

   14. SPShaan Puri28:18

       [laughs]

   15. SPSam Parr28:19

       Yeah. No. They're sharks. They're killing it. Uh, and so you called that pretty early on. And, uh, now it's a franchise.

   16. SPShaan Puri28:25

       [laughs]

   17. SPSam Parr28:25

       So here's, like, here's some stats. In 2021, uh, the highest revenue store did something like 3.6 million. Other stores did, uh, the average was, like, 1.6 million. The store with the highest net profit was 600,000 with the lowest being 33,000, with the average profit being around 350,000. And, um, according to, uh, the founder's Twitter, they did over a billion dollars in revenue. And you have to come up with $150,000 and then you can open up a franchise, and they send you all of this traffic via their, you know, their Instagram and their app. Super fascinating business.

   18. SPShaan Puri28:59

       Yeah. This, uh, I think in the franchise world this is, like, the hottest franchise right now is Crumbl Cookie because, uh, they're just exploding and they're just superpop- super popular right now. I do feel like this is not, like, uh, the most sustainable franchise. [laughs] Like, uh, the... At one point in time it wasn't like... I think, I feel like Froyo franchises were, like, growing like crazy like this. I don't know if it was Pinkberry or whoever else. Like, uh, you know, there's these waves where this becomes the, the treat, but, like, I don't know how many people are gonna... Like, anything that's drop based, there's a natural fatigue that sets in for the buyer. And, um, and the, and there's, like, a vicious cycle. Like, drops when everybody's into the drop get even more fun 'cause it's like the hunt and you either got it or you didn't get it, and you feel special. But as soon as that starts to, as soon as the drop fatigue starts to kick in, and now, "Oh, notification's there, but if I don't get it today, I can go get it tomorrow." Like, as soon as the scarcity's gone, the drop, like, plummets in value. And so I think that that's a, uh, a challenge for, for something like this. But, um-

   19. SPSam Parr29:59

       I agree. But look, here's the deal. I have a f- you and I have a friend who buys broadband companies. So broadband companies are basically internet service providers. And a lot of people who are listening in the city will have no idea what I'm talking about. But where I have my country house, I have, like, uh, this ranch way out in the country, and if you live out in the country, it's not like you're getting, like, Spectrum or Google or Warner or whatever the big service providers are in New York City. You're getting, like, a small internet provider that you pay 100 bucks a month for, and they prob- that company probably does 10 million in revenue and, like, 5 million in profit. And you and I have a friend who goes out and buys these companies, and everyone says to him, "Well, what about Starlink?" Yada, yada, yada. And he was like-

   20. SPShaan Puri30:36

       Right

   21. SPSam Parr30:37

       ... "Yeah, they'll, they'll come eventually, but, like, until then, I'm making $5 million a year in profit." So-

   22. SPShaan Puri30:42

       Right

   23. SPSam Parr30:42

       ... with, uh, with this cookie thing, yeah, maybe they'll plateau, but a billion a year is a nice plateau.

   24. SPShaan Puri30:47

       [laughs]

   25. SPSam Parr30:48

       I don't mind sitting on that plateau for a while.

   26. SPShaan Puri30:49

       [laughs] Yeah.

   27. SPSam Parr30:50

       And that's kinda, and that's kind, that's, like, how I feel whenever I hear some of these stories. Like, "It's not gonna grow." I'm like, "Yeah? That's cool."

   28. SPShaan Puri30:56

       [laughs] Sorry, I couldn't hear you. The money counter was-

   29. SPSam Parr31:00

       [laughs]

   30. SPShaan Puri31:00

       ... burring a little too loud in my ears. [laughs] Right? That-
6. 35:05 – 48:10

   Super Bowl and AI

   1. SPShaan Puri35:05

      little idea. So I was watching the Super Bowl, and, um, uh, did you watch, by the way?

   2. SPSam Parr35:10

      Uh, uh, I watched the halftime show.

   3. SPShaan Puri35:13

      [laughs]

   4. SPSam Parr35:15

      Yeah, I watched it.

   5. SPShaan Puri35:16

      [laughs] Classy.

   6. SPSam Parr35:16

      I watched, no, I, uh, I, I watched to, like, quarter three. Who, how long did it take you-

   7. SPShaan Puri35:21

      The, the, the Chief-

   8. SPSam Parr35:21

      ... to figure out Rihanna was pregnant during the halftime show?

   9. SPShaan Puri35:24

      Um-

   10. SPSam Parr35:24

       Were you quick, quick on the uptake or no? It, it, you know, it was one of those things where my wife loves her, and, like, you know, you don't wanna be rude when you see a lady with a lump, and you wanna, like-

   11. SPShaan Puri35:32

       [laughs]

   12. SPSam Parr35:33

       You know? And I was like-

   13. SPShaan Puri35:33

       I'm not going first. That's-

   14. SPSam Parr35:35

       Yeah, I, I-

   15. SPShaan Puri35:35

       I'm not, I'm not talking. [laughs]

   16. SPSam Parr35:37

       Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I, I had her go first. Then I asked.

   17. SPShaan Puri35:40

       [laughs]

   18. SPSam Parr35:40

       But she was doing some pretty, uh, raunchy stuff as a pregnant lady, right?

   19. SPShaan Puri35:44

       [laughs]

   20. SPSam Parr35:44

       I mean, that was like-

   21. SPShaan Puri35:45

       No, I thought that was tame for Rihanna. That's, like, that was PG to Rihanna.

   22. SPSam Parr35:49

       Dude, I'm a, I'm a Rihanna fan. She's in my, like, top five, like, most beautiful women on Earth. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm on Team Rihanna. But I, when I saw that she was pregnant, I, uh, it, it was, that was surprising.

   23. SPShaan Puri36:00

       Yeah, wow.

   24. SPSam Parr36:00

       I think she just had a kid, too.

   25. SPShaan Puri36:03

       Yeah. That's, yeah, she just had a kid, like, nine months ago. I don't, I don't ... The math doesn't even make sense to me in my head. I don't, I don't know how it works.

   26. SPSam Parr36:09

       Whatever.

   27. SPShaan Puri36:09

       Whatever. S- I'm watching the football game, and, um, one thing you notice if you're watching the game is that when the Chiefs were scoring, they were scoring with these, like, incredible plays where the guy was just going untouched into the end zone, like, three or four times.

   28. SPSam Parr36:21

       Dude, what was that thing where they, like, well, they get in a huddle-

   29. SPShaan Puri36:23

       Yeah, they put the merry-go-round

   30. SPSam Parr36:23

       ... they do, like, Ring Around the Rosie-
7. 48:10 – 59:52

   Underutilized Assets Businesses

   1. SPShaan Puri48:10

      version of it. So, uh, so this guy Amjad, who's the founder of Replit, um, which is an awesome company, uh, is, he tweeted this out. He goes, "You know, um, some of the biggest companies that were built, Airbnb, Uber, et cetera, um, were built because they took an underutilized asset and were able to get more utilization." So for example, Uber or Airbnb said, "Well, there's extra, there's an extra bedroom in your house or extra rooms. Uh, you have extra space. Today it's not doing anything, but you could rent that out and we could actually have more rooms to stay in, um, and more options for a customer," and that became Airbnb, this multi-billion dollar company. And Uber is the same way. He goes, "What are some other underutilized assets?" I think this is a great, you know, framework for trying to figure out-

   2. SPSam Parr48:53

      I agree

   3. SPShaan Puri48:53

      ... you know, where, where a marketplace could be or where a, uh, um... And, and I think people were doing this maybe five years ago, seven years ago a lot more. There was like a p- People realized this and started jumping on it, and that's why you got Wag, the dog walker app, you know, which becomes worth a billion dollars, and Airbnb and then, and a bunch of others. Um, and I have some examples here, but, but what do you think about this framework and, uh, w- what examples stand out to you?

   4. SPSam Parr49:17

      I think it's brilliant. I see on here you have stay-at-home moms. One of the best com- or one of my favorite companies that I've been eyeing is called Squared Away, and their whole niche is, uh, virtual assistants, and the virtual assistant is a military wife.

   5. SPShaan Puri49:31

      Right.

   6. SPSam Parr49:31

      And that's like, for some reason in my head I think they're gonna act a certain way, which who knows if it's true, but I think that's one of the best ways of like, a quote, "An under, uh, underutilized asset." I love that. Um, but the problem is, is a lot of people, like, I knew a guy who started a thing where you could do... It was like self-storage, but in other people's garages.

   7. SPShaan Puri49:48

      Right.

   8. SPSam Parr49:49

      And I'm like, "Dude, this is the stupidest shit I've ever heard of," and it was, in fact, really stupid and it completely didn't work. Um, and so I think that a lot of people approach this, uh, poorly.

   9. SPShaan Puri49:57

      Yeah, I think the, the... There's a lot of things you could think of. Like, I know, uh, another one that people have tried a bunch was, like, chefs. So it's like, oh, why do you only order from restaurants? Like, what if there's a lady who lives three doors down that makes an amazing, you know, Thai red curry? You could just order from her and she would get re- she, you know, she'd get revenue for her cooking skill, and then she could deliver it to you and it's closer, and, you know, it wouldn't just be limited to restaurants. But it's like, A, operationally these businesses are usually absolutely brutal. B, there's like a whole bunch of, like, safety and quality concerns and, like, um, uniformity of the quality concerns that, that come up. So I think that's an, that's another problem. Uh, and then the economics. Like, uh, people do... You know, is there enough dollar value for there to be, you know, for the customer to pay, the provider to get paid, and the middleman to get paid, and the delivery person to get paid? Like, you need enough value in the chain, which is why Airbnb works. It's like a high-ticket thing, uh-

   10. SPSam Parr50:52

       There's one for, uh-

   11. SPShaan Puri50:52

       ... versus others.

   12. SPSam Parr50:54

       And there's one for pools that I hear is killing it.

   13. SPShaan Puri50:57

       Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Share, like, rent, rent a swimming pool by the hour, right? 'Cause I have a pool, we're not using it 95% of the time, so if somebody could rent it from us and we make a few hundred bucks, yeah, yeah, that, that's great. Um, I wanna give you some of the best answers that came from the thread. So the first, the number one is cars. So cars, I think, are parked, like, 93 or 95% of their ti- of the time, and so once we have self-driving cars, um, that car shouldn't just stay parked. It should go, go be a taxi for somebody and earn you money. So I think that's, like, one of the big unlocks that people... You know, people who know about this, they're like, "Oh yeah, that's obvious and that's gonna be a big deal," but I would say the majority of the population doesn't realize that your car is gonna turn into a worker for you. Um, and people are going to just... You're gonna be earning revenue when your car is idle instead of it just sitting in your driveway or your garage.

   14. SPSam Parr51:48

       Dude, Getaround, which I used to use all the time in San Francisco, I think they raised almost a billion dollars in funding, and they went public recently-ish. Their market cap as of right now, $59 million. So-

   15. SPShaan Puri52:00

       Wow

   16. SPSam Parr52:00

       ... no one quite has figured it out yet, it looks like.

   17. SPShaan Puri52:03

       Well, that's-

   18. SPSam Parr52:04

       At least they haven't

   19. SPShaan Puri52:04

       ... that's a little different. That's still rental cars. This is gonna be just like taxi-

   20. SPSam Parr52:08

       No, Getaround's other peop- well yeah, you're right. You're right. Right.

   21. SPShaan Puri52:11

       Yeah, like this, this-

   22. SPSam Parr52:11

       You're right. All right.

   23. SPShaan Puri52:12

       So, so, uh, this is what Tesla is basically betting on. This is what Elon's betting on. He basically is like, your car is gonna go from a depreciat- depreciating asset to a revenue generating asset for you, which will make the car worth five times more than it is today, um, once it, once it's able to just run all day for you and just go do rides.

   24. SPSam Parr52:29

       Okay. That's, that's bold, but that'd be cool if it works out.

   25. SPShaan Puri52:32

       Uh, clean structured data. So basically there's a bunch of data that, in a bunch of different companies just sitting around, and if you could kinda organize it and clean it up, um, that data is actually an asset that can be used. And like we talked about earlier, the Freightwaves company that's doing pricing data, um, you know, how many companies have pricing data about, like, what they bought recently, how much it costs, how much, what volume and from what provider? If that was available in a structured way and you could sell that to a middle, like a network, like a, a data aggregator, um, you know, that, that becomes a valuable asset that today is worth zero to the company that has the data but is not doing anything with it, and it's not their main business to be able to do something. So I thought that was kind of an interesting one. Um-

   26. SPSam Parr53:13

       Dude, someone wrote the sun.

   27. SPShaan Puri53:14

       [laughs] Yeah, the sun.

   28. SPSam Parr53:16

       [laughs]

   29. SPShaan Puri53:16

       So they were like, the sun is basically providing all this energy, but until we have solar and batteries to capture it, uh, it's massively underutilized. Like, we're getting free energy from this giant, you know, uh, nuclear fusion reactor that's in the, in the sky or whatever, uh, but you have to be able to capture it and store it and, uh, it's underutilized for that reason. Um, another one I thought was kind of interesting, uh, f- so a fun one, nightclubs. Nightclubs are really, like, only useful, like, [laughs] you know, for, like, 5% of the time.

   30. SPSam Parr53:45

       At night. Yeah.

Episode duration: 59:52