Skip to content

By playing, you agree to uListen's Terms and Privacy Policy and YouTube's Terms of Service.

My First MillionMy First Million

If I Had To Make $1 Billion... Here’s The Business I Would Start

Episode 528: Shaan Puri and Sam Parr answer the question they get most often: “If you had to pick one idea that to make a million dollars this year, what would it be?”

Shaan PurihostSam Parrhost
Dec 8, 202359mWatch on YouTube

Summaries, chapters, transcripts, and FAQs on this page are made by uListen, not YouTube.

Great conversations run long. Their best ideas don't have to.

uListen is free on iPhone, iPad, Android, Chrome, and Claude.

See how

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Million-Dollar and Billion-Dollar Business Ideas From Two Hosts, Brainstormed Live

  1. Sam Parr's path to $1 million is to copy proven businesses found on brokerage sites like Quiet Light, or to build a niche paid membership community that solves one concrete, ROI-driven problem.
  2. Shaan Puri's million-dollar pick is a QSBS advisory firm that sells attestation letters and ongoing advice to tech companies, and he says it needs only about 30 customers a year to reach the target.
  3. For the billion-dollar idea, both hosts favor hardware and robotics, especially purpose-built robots like pizza, roofing and powder-coating machines, because the risk is technical rather than demand-driven.
  4. Shaan's alternative billion-dollar plan is to buy an accredited university and turn it into an ultra-selective luxury brand using heavy marketing, big speaker fees and NFT-style seat licenses.
  5. Sam uses his sponsor segment to describe how treating payroll as capital allocation, a lesson from NerdWallet's Tim Chen, reduced his stress while running Hampton.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Copying proven businesses beats inventing from scratch

Shaan says studying 30 to 50 businesses on brokerage sites is like a real-world MBA, and he cites a friend who looked at a listed business, built his own version and sold it for many millions more.

Buying an existing business can be easier than starting one

Shaan notes that SBA-eligible listings may need only 10 to 15% down, and that growing a business from $1.8M to $3.1M in revenue is easier than going from zero to $1.8M. Both hosts acknowledge the added personal risk of the loan.

Niche communities need a specific, ROI-clear problem

Sam argues a $3,000-a-year membership pays off if it yields one sale, and that a memberships business can sell for about five times profit. He stresses the problem must be concrete, not soft like accountability.

Create far more value than you capture

Shaan says QSBS advisory works because a $10,000 fee protects a potential $10 million tax exclusion, which makes the sale easy and needs only around 30 customers a year.

Prefer tech risk over demand risk for a billion-dollar company

Shaan relays a friend's strategy of investing where the only risk is whether it can be built, and Sam adds that robotics works within the laws of physics, which he finds easier than building a brand people love.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Create more value than you're trying to take, and that's what I'd be trying to do here.

— Shaan Puri

adding an extra million of revenue to a business that's already working is actually much easier than going from zero to one.

— Shaan Puri

If I were gonna go try to build a billion-dollar company, I would go try to build one with only tech risk and not demand risk.

— Shaan Puri

there's no better brand than a brand of, of something you can't get into.

— Shaan Puri

you pretty much have to raise VC, and you have to do it in an industry that's like a tidal wave, where you're just trying to catch that wave.

— Sam Parr

Read the available transcript
Me Also strategyBusiness brokerage sitesNiche membership communitiesQSBS advisory firmPurpose-built roboticsTech risk vs demand riskBuying a university

Ask ChatGPT about this episode

Get its key ideas, plus a summary of each chapter linked to that point in the video, right in your chat.

  1. Add uListen AI to ChatGPT.

    Install uListen AI in ChatGPT (opens in a new tab)Needs a ChatGPT account.

  2. Paste this prompt into a new chat.

    Use uListen AI to give me this episode's key ideas and a chapter-by-chapter summary, with timestamps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1AApHx-OAE

SPEAKERS

  • Shaan Puri

    host

    Co-host of the My First Million podcast and entrepreneur/investor.

  • Sam Parr

    host

    Co-host of the My First Million podcast and founder of Hampton.

High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.

Get more out of YouTube videos.

Read along on your phone, search it beside the video, or ask your favorite AI app what was said.

iOSAndroidClaudeChatGPTChrome