Investigating The Profitable Business Of Public Speaking

Sam Parr 0:00 How much do you think Obama charges?

Shaan Puri 0:01 I would have guessed 250 to 350K. That's my guess for, like, a, a speaking en- engagement. But honestly, it could be more. It could be, like, double that.

Sam Parr 0:10 Dude, so I think it's... I heard rumors it's in, like, the one to... 1.2 million range, and that makes way sense.

Shaan Puri 0:17 Wow.

Sam Parr 0:17 Obama is not gonna get out of bed for less than a million. [upbeat music] All right, what's going on? I have been bursting at the seams to tell you a story.

Shaan Puri 0:31 [laughs] You sent me the teaser. You go, "I got the best story." I was like, "Oh, all right. Let's hear it." And you're like, "On the podcast, not here." I was like, "Okay. Well, give me, like, a clue." "Can't say anything. On the podcast." [laughs] So I'm here now, two days of a tease later. Let's hear it.

Sam Parr 0:47 All right. So there was this guy who you had on the podcast, the comedian, Hasan. What's his last name, Minhaj?

Shaan Puri 0:53 Minhaj, yeah.

Sam Parr 0:54 How did... His... Is it with an H?

Shaan Puri 0:57 Yeah.

Sam Parr 0:58 So I was out to eat with my friend Jason, Jason Yanowitz from, uh, BlockWorks, on Saturday night, and we were sitting outside in New York City just having dinner, and I see Hasan walk by. I forget his last name, but it was Hasan and his... I was like, "Ah, shit, I can't remember his last name, so I don't wanna scream out his last name, but, you know, I know it's Hasan." And he walked-

Shaan Puri 1:16 By the way, I think you pronounce his, it Hasan. Do you have a... But, but let's keep going.

Sam Parr 1:19 Hasan. Sorry.

Shaan Puri 1:20 Yeah.

Sam Parr 1:21 And I see him walk by, and, uh, I go, "Oh, Jason, there's, uh, that guy that... He, he was on our pod. I wasn't there, but he was there. Should I, should I go say what's up to him?" And Jason was like, "Yeah, just go do it." It's like, all right, fine. He's already made it down the block, but that's okay. I'm gonna run. So I get up from dinner-

Shaan Puri 1:36 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:36 ... and I kinda, like, chase him down. I was like, "Oh, man. I'm gonna look like a weirdo, but whatever. He'll know." And I go, "Hey. Hey." And, like, people are like look at it, like see me be like-

Shaan Puri 1:44 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:45 They think something's up. I'm like, "No, I'm just gonna, just gonna grab him." And, uh, I cross the street, and I finally grab him. I go, "Hasan, what's going on, man?" And he, he turns around, and I go, "What's up, dude? Uh, sorry, uh, I didn't mean to bother you." He was with h- he was with his girlfriend or someone, a girl. And, uh, I was like, "Hey, man, uh, it's me, Sam Parr. I think we chatted once or twice on Twitter, but you're close with Shaan, and you were on the podcast. I wasn't there, but I just wanted to say, hey, I love your work." And he goes, uh, "What?" I go, "Yeah, I'm just, like, you know, I'm Sam from My First Million." And he goes, uh, "Dude, I've never been on a podcast before." And I was like, "What do you mean? You were just on it." He goes-

Shaan Puri 2:17 [laughs]

Sam Parr 2:17 ... "Who do you think I am?" I go, "You're Hasan the-

Shaan Puri 2:19 [laughs]

Sam Parr 2:19 ... the comedian, the comedian, right?" And he goes, "No, that's not me." And then, uh, I was like-

Shaan Puri 2:25 [laughs]

Sam Parr 2:25 ... "Oh, my God. I am so embarrassed, dude. I am s..." I was like, "Surely you get that a lot, right?" He goes, "Yeah, like, sometimes, but, like, Hasan's tall. I'm short." And I was like, "Well, I... It was for a podcast-"

Shaan Puri 2:36 [laughs]

Sam Parr 2:36 "... and I only saw his, like, upper torso," and, like, why am I even explaining this? Like, this doesn't even make sense. So I s-

Shaan Puri 2:41 [laughs]

Sam Parr 2:41 I turn around and I walk away, and he, and he, and he goes, "Hey, man," um, and he, and then he chases me down, and he goes, "What, uh, what podcast did you say?" I was like, uh... I told him originally MFM. I go, "It's My First Million" And he goes, "Are you Sam Parr?" I go, "Yeah. What's going on?" And he goes, "Check this out," and he holds up his phone, and he had My First Million up on his Spotify, and he was, like-

Shaan Puri 3:02 [laughs]

Sam Parr 3:02 ... you know, previously listening, and he totally knew what was up. And his girlfriend started laughing, and it went from being, like, the most embarrassing thing I'd done all year to it kinda worked out af- uh, after a while. It was horrendous. Like, I'm getting chills just discuss- uh, I, I, I can't-

Shaan Puri 3:17 [laughs]

Sam Parr 3:18 I was so embarrassed. Like, I'm so thankful he didn't say, like, "What, do you think all Indian guys look alike?" Uh, but, uh-

Shaan Puri 3:24 Yeah. [laughs]

Sam Parr 3:25 ... it, it, it, it was quite bad.

Shaan Puri 3:28 That's hilarious. He, um... So the whole time when you were first talking to him, he didn't, like, be, like, "Oh, by the way," like, he waited to realize, [laughs] like, this podcast he was listening to, that you were him? [laughs]

Sam Parr 3:39 Yeah. He was like, "Wait, are you..." And then he, i- i- it was just like a f- it w- the whole interaction was incredibly-

Shaan Puri 3:44 Incredibly uncomfortable

Sam Parr 3:45 ... uncomfortable. Yeah. It was, it was a very weird interaction. But, uh, like, it went from being, like... It... I was, I was like, like I made this face, like I made a, a cringe face to him. I'm like, "Oh, my God. I can't believe this. This is gonna go on the internet. Like, this is gonna be known as, like, this guy thinks we all look alike" And it, it, and it worked out okay.

Shaan Puri 4:06 Dude, I have, like, um... I don't have real nightmares, like scary stuff happening to me. My nightmares are situations like this. Like, uh, I'll have, like, a nightmare where it's like I'm at a dinner and I'm just... I'm, like, trying to, like, butter up, like, this pers- I'm trying to, like, you know, be friends with this person, and, and talk to them, and make jokes with them, and the whole time I'm calling the guy Ross. And, like, at the end, somebody's like, "Why are you calling him Ross? His name's Rick." And I'm like, "Fuck, I've been calling him Ross for one hour." [laughs] Like-

Sam Parr 4:37 Or like, uh-

Shaan Puri 4:38 ... it was just these, like, m- micro cringe moments

Sam Parr 4:40 ... or like when someone nice, uh, or someone who you wanna impress. Like, I remember I had this guy, uh, I was trying to work at their company, and I was interviewing, and he's like, "What's going on?" And you reply with, "Good." It's the worst. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 4:56 [laughs] "Have a good flight."

Sam Parr 4:58 You're like-

Shaan Puri 4:58 "You too."

Sam Parr 4:59 [laughs] Yes.

Shaan Puri 5:00 "Oh, right. No, you work here. Never mind."

Sam Parr 5:03 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 5:04 [laughs] "I'm sorry that I said that." [laughs]

Sam Parr 5:06 Yes. [laughs] It's one of those things. Uh, I... All right. Let me, let me ask you a question.

Shaan Puri 5:10 Dude, I've had actual horrible cri- Uh, can I tell you the actual horrible... This is not even funny. Uh, this is more like a confessional for me. You're like, you know, "Forgive me, Father, I have sinned" type of thing. I was at a holiday party once, and some, some woman came up to the, to, like, our table. She, like, knew the person I was talking to. I didn't really know her, but I think I had met her once before. It was so vague in my head, and I was like, "Oh," like, "When's the little one due," or, "When's the little one coming?" And she had just had the baby.

Sam Parr 5:41 Oh.

Shaan Puri 5:41 And I was like-

Sam Parr 5:42 Oh

Shaan Puri 5:43 ... "Oh, my..." And I'm tw- I was a 24-year-old dude, and in that moment, I was like... Like, it took me a second to even understand what I had done-

Sam Parr 5:51 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 5:52 ... and how bad it was, and I was just sitting there with this stupid look on my face.

Sam Parr 5:57 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 5:58 And I didn't know what to say. I... Like, too much time passed, even f- like, uh, like two beats had passed.

Sam Parr 6:03 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 6:03 Now I couldn't even apologize 'cause she had tried to, like, move on to, like, s- spare me the cringe. And I knew she's feeling bad, and I'm feeling equally bad, and I... Literally, this is 10 years ago, and like I still feel it the same way I did in that moment because there's- I've never recovered. Like, it's been the same feeling [laughs] for 10 years straight.

Sam Parr 6:23 Yeah, it's embarrassing. It makes me feel horrible. Yeah, I get it. I-

Shaan Puri 6:26 Just don't say anything, dude. Don't talk to anyone. That's like the only motto is do a podcast with your friend and speak to nobody else. That's the only way to win.

Sam Parr 6:34 Well, I, uh, I mean, that mistake you made, like that's... I think that's a mistake that many people make one time and one time only. Then you just never ask-

Shaan Puri 6:42 Yeah, yeah

Sam Parr 6:42 ... about pregnancy. You just never... The most awkward thing is sometimes if they ask you if you wanna touch their belly. I don't ever do that. I don't like-

Shaan Puri 6:49 Dude, who asks you? Nobody asks that.

Sam Parr 6:51 Dude, I remember like-

Shaan Puri 6:52 You wanna touch my belly? [laughs]

Sam Parr 6:53 Well, like you like... Well, like you know there's like kids, like when you're younger it's like, "Hey, do you wanna feel the baby kick?" When you're like four. I remember like-

Shaan Puri 6:59 Right, right. [laughs]

Sam Parr 6:59 ... someone asked me that right when I crossed that threshold of when it's like, "No, I don't wanna touch a grown woman's stomach."

Shaan Puri 7:04 [laughs]

Sam Parr 7:05 And, and like i, I distinctly remember that around like 14 years old or 12 years old. I was like, "I think I'm, I think I'm past that point." This... Uh, we, we went to the point where like I don't want my parents to see me naked anymore. Like, whenever that-

Shaan Puri 7:15 Right

Sam Parr 7:15 ... whenever that age is, that-

Shaan Puri 7:18 [laughs]

Sam Parr 7:19 [laughs] You know what I mean?

Shaan Puri 7:21 When I was 15, I stopped showering with my mom.

Sam Parr 7:23 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 7:23 Yeah, that's what- [laughs]

Sam Parr 7:26 It's just like there's like a distinct... It's like-

Shaan Puri 7:27 So strange

Sam Parr 7:27 ... it's hard to say what it is, but you know it's before and after.

Shaan Puri 7:32 Yeah, life is actually... Like people say what's the meaning of life, and life, the meaning of life is to just avoid those exact moments that we're talking about. That's really the only purpose of life-

Sam Parr 7:41 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 7:41 ... is to try to just avoid these horrendous seconds that can, that will come up. Dude,

Shaan Puri 7:48 can we brag about being the number one podcast? Can that be like a thing?

Sam Parr 7:52 Our, uh... Yeah, so this weekend we were number one in the business category. We were number one in entrepreneurship. We were number 40, I think, in all of America. Uh, what are we right now? Did it stay the same?

Shaan Puri 8:03 Uh, yeah, I don't know. I didn't check, but just that screenshot was incredible. I mean, like you see Tim Ferriss' podcast. It's like, dude, I remember like I've been listening to that. I've been a fan of him for a long time, and even though I know these charts are... They're not like... That doesn't mean we're bigger than their podcast. It just means like the velocity, like the-

Sam Parr 8:20 Just that week

Shaan Puri 8:20 ... we're growing. We grew fast, and so it moved us up higher that week or whatever. Um, there's some like secret formula. But even still, that secret formula, the, the fact that whatever the secret formula is, if we can be in that conversation on any secret formula, that's kind of a, that's kind of a cool moment. And, uh, I don't know if it's because we had some pretty dope episodes with Dharmesh and then Peter Levels and maybe some of the growth stuff that Jonathan's doing. I, I don't know exactly what it is, but-

Sam Parr 8:46 I think it's all of the above

Shaan Puri 8:47 ... kind of amazing.

Sam Parr 8:48 I know they're... I think it's all of the above. I know that they're like spending money to grow, and they're doing some promotions. I don't exactly know what. And then Dharmesh, uh, was popular, and whenever Dharmesh comes on afterwards, I always see him doing stuff like emailing it out to his email list and doing things like that.

Shaan Puri 9:03 Yeah.

Sam Parr 9:03 So he's always promoting it. And then Peter promoted his episode a ton, so I think that's why it happened. But yeah, we were like, you know, we... Like, we're beating like legitimately famous people. Like, uh, like if you scroll through the top 50 podcasts in America, you're like, "Oh, that person, like if I saw them I would ask for a picture." And we're like ahead of a lot of these people.

Shaan Puri 9:20 Right. [laughs]

Sam Parr 9:22 [laughs] I... That's the type of person who I'd be very embarrassed if I said good when they asked what, "What's up?"

Shaan Puri 9:26 [laughs] My, uh, my favorite... There's this tweet from this guy bengali_87. [laughs] The, this is the tweet. He goes, "Best business/entrepreneurship podcast out there. Big money, that is. No small boy stuff."

Sam Parr 9:43 I'm gonna say he's in that one.

Shaan Puri 9:43 @theSamParr, @ShaanVP.

Sam Parr 9:44 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 9:45 I, I was like-

Sam Parr 9:46 No small boy stuff [laughs]

Shaan Puri 9:46 ... dude, if that's not the new motto of the podcast, no small boy stuff. Big money. Big money stuff. No... Big money, that is. No small boy stuff. [laughs]

Sam Parr 9:55 I had, um-

Shaan Puri 9:56 It's just incredible

Sam Parr 9:57 ... when I was walking around New York this weekend, I had a couple people throughout the day come up to me and say they're, they're listeners, and a few of them said, uh, "I'm your dog," you know, 'cause that guy, uh-

Shaan Puri 10:06 [laughs]

Sam Parr 10:06 We had an episode where they... What, what, what did he, what did he say? He's like, "Hey, I wanna work for you. I'm gonna be your dog."

Shaan Puri 10:12 Dillon, Dillon the dog.

Sam Parr 10:12 Dil- I'm Dillon the dog.

Shaan Puri 10:13 Yeah.

Sam Parr 10:13 I'm your dog.

Shaan Puri 10:13 I'm just the dog. [laughs]

Sam Parr 10:15 [laughs] Um, all right. Let me ask you something.

Shaan Puri 10:17 That's good shit. Yeah.

Sam Parr 10:19 Uh, you get paid to speak sometimes, right?

Shaan Puri 10:24 Uh, sometimes. I say no most of the time 'cause, yeah.

Sam Parr 10:27 So-

Shaan Puri 10:27 I say no most of the time, but I've done it a couple times, and it's kinda crazy to like... It's kinda crazy when you say the number. You're like, "All right, yeah. Okay, I'll come talk, but it's gonna be 10 grand." And they're like, "Okay, great." And you're just like, "Wow, 10 grand just to talk?" Like, you know-

Sam Parr 10:41 So I think that's undercharging

Shaan Puri 10:42 ... this is free. Like, you know, I, I like... Not that I would do this for free, but it just seems like something you shouldn't have... Like, it seems like something that's so weird to pay for, and I know. I get it. I get the logic. It's like y- you have an event. You kinda need like someone to give an appearance. If that person matters to your community, that's cool. If you think they're gonna add some value, great. But it is just wild. D- d- like isn't there a part of you that just like still remembers being like totally broke, and you're just like, "What the hell is happening?" You could just-

Sam Parr 11:09 Yeah

Shaan Puri 11:09 ... I could do this one Zoom call for 12 grand? That's insane.

Sam Parr 11:12 Well, I've never done a Zoom call like that, but... So HubSpot, they have their conference coming up. Are you gonna speak at the conference? We're supposed to speak. Are you gonna fly out or no? TBD?

Shaan Puri 11:20 Only if they pay me 50 grand.

Sam Parr 11:21 [laughs] Yeah, you'll have to take that up with them. But it- Obama is gonna talk.

Shaan Puri 11:26 [laughs]

Sam Parr 11:26 Obama's talking, and then like a couple years ago they had-

Shaan Puri 11:29 Oh, wow

Sam Parr 11:29 ... Oprah, Oprah talking. And I did some research. How much do you think... If you're Obama and Oprah, I would put them in similar categories, maybe Obama a little bit above-

Shaan Puri 11:38 Yeah

Sam Parr 11:38 ... in terms of influence, but not like

Sam Parr 11:40 terribly above. How much do you think... And, and I didn't ask them. I just researched it, and I like try to find contracts. How much do you think Obama charges?

Shaan Puri 11:48 I would guess something between... I would've guessed 250 to 350K. That's my guess for like a, a speaking en- engagement, but honestly it could be more. It could be like double that.

Sam Parr 12:00 Dude, so I think it's... I heard rumors it's in like the 1, 2, 1.2 million range, and that makes way sense.

Shaan Puri 12:06 Wow.

Sam Parr 12:07 Obama is not gonna get out of bed for less than a million. And I hear Oprah is around the $1M range

Shaan Puri 12:12 No small boy stuff for Obama too.

Sam Parr 12:14 No, definitely not.

Shaan Puri 12:15 [laughs]

Sam Parr 12:15 And so here's why. Uh, so I s- I've heard, like, rumors, and I talked to people that have had him before, and that's kinda how I came up with that number, but let me give you some insider numbers. So I only had one paid speaker ever at HustleCon. So at HustleCon, collectively, we probably had 200 or 300 speakers over a couple years, a handful of years. Casey Neistat was the only speaker that we had who we paid, and I was supposed to... You're not supposed to talk about how much you pay him, but, like, this was, like, years ago, so I, I can do it. This was, I think, at the height of his popularity. I only paid him $25,000 plus a private flight from LA to San Fran- San Francisco for $6,000, or it was from San Francisco to LA, I forget. But one way, it was only six grand plus $25,000. That's nothing, right?

Shaan Puri 12:59 [laughs]

Sam Parr 13:02 25 grand?

Shaan Puri 13:02 Yeah, that's kind of cheap compared to what... 'Cause he was at the peak of his powers at that time too, right? It's not like a-

Sam Parr 13:07 Yeah, yeah, for sure. He was, like, vlogging

Shaan Puri 13:08 ... not like a, not like some C-list, you know, person who used to be famous. It's like, no, Casey- Casey Neistat was a big deal then. He's a big deal now too.

Sam Parr 13:15 So I tried to get Gary Vaynerchuk to come speak at an event once, and he offered a... His asking price was $100,000, or I think he said that you would have to buy $100,000 worth of books, and that somehow, like, pushes him up the charts-

Shaan Puri 13:29 [laughs]

Sam Parr 13:30 ... or something like that. And, uh, so Va- Gary Vaynerchuk was 100 grand. Um, and w- I got to speak... I, I, I spoke somewhat recently, and I asked... I got paid 25 to 20- 20 to $25,000 at... Or maybe it was 20 grand plus flights.

Shaan Puri 13:45 Right.

Sam Parr 13:45 And then I think that we had, uh, Ashton Kutcher spoke at an event that I was at, and the, uh, the organizers, like, kind of, like, implied, like, they paid him around 150 grand.

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Shaan Puri 14:16 Uh, this has always been the playbook. Like, I, I met a guy once who was writing a book, and I was like, "Nice," like, you know, "What's your goals for the book?" And, like, he was kind of answering me, but I got the sense like, I feel like, y- you know, y- you ever hear a story and you're like, I feel like you're leaving out the one important detail that makes all of this make sense. Like, you're not saying the wrong thing, but I feel like you're just not saying whatever the right thing is. And sure enough, like, 20 minutes in, he's like, "Yeah, basically, you write books so that you can get paid speaking gigs. Like, it doesn't matter who reads your book or h- It's you just need to be a guy who writes a book, and then you, like, do a thing. You, like, pay a certain amount to get, like, up in the charts so you can say New York Times bestseller or, like, you know, Amazon bestseller. And, um, and then that just increases your paid speaking rate by, like, 15K. And then that's, like, you know, how you make your money back for this whole, like, book process." And I was like, "Oh, okay. That makes way more sense. Like, now I understand." And he- I was like, "So this paid speaking gig, like, how does this work?" And he kind of broke it down for me kind of step by step. And I remember being intrigued, but also, you know, the cost of, like... The, you know, basically, like, the idea of, like, oh yeah, what you do is you fly arou- like, you basically have to go... You're never home. Like, you're flying around all the time. So he was, at that point, trying to figure out, all right, the next step after this, you know? And, and I sort of started thinking about, okay, what is the move straight to the end version of this? And I was like, oh, okay, I think I know what I would do is, like, I would do a... This is how, like, I was thinking about the podcast at this time, or, like, I was thinking about creating one. I was like, I think I would do a podcast that I could just record right here whenever I want, maybe in batches. And as long as the conversation's fun, I, I don't think I would care about making any money off that. And I feel like if I could do that and I could get, like... You know, what if, like, a million people were fans of the podcast?

Sam Parr 16:03 Right.

Shaan Puri 16:03 I feel like that would just jump me where all these try- guys are trying to go, where they're like... Ultimately, I think what a lot of these people want is, like, they have a topic that they're really curious about, that they like to research, that they like to do experiments in, and they're just trying to figure out a way to get paid to be professionally curious about that thing. I think, like, that's, like, the generous version of, of, like, how to think about this. There's, like, the skeptical version of it, which is just like-

Sam Parr 16:25 Right

Shaan Puri 16:25 ... oh, dude, you're just, like, some motivational speaker, like, sort of scammy guru guy who wants to go around and blah, blah, blah. But the, I think the re- the earnest people, I think they just wanna be professionally curious. It's like, how do I get to spend 90% of my time just, like, digging in on this topic I'm a nerd about, and then, like, somehow translate the other 10% of my time into enough money to fund me to do that in a, in a cool way? Um, and so I think that that... You know, that's how I think about this stuff.

Sam Parr 16:49 What I've been doing for speaking is I actually haven't asked to be paid lately, but I do tell them I need two first class flights, um, and I want you to pay entirely for the hotel for a week, and I will only say yes if it's... So my wife and I basically, it's so we can go to a cool place. So I only say yes. But let me tell you something interesting.

Shaan Puri 17:07 Right.

Sam Parr 17:07 So Robert De Niro, he, uh... So the Wall Street Journal did this thing. Ramit sh- our friend Ramit s- shared it. So listen to Robert. So here's what Robert De Niro got paid. So he did a movie called Savage Salvation in September 2020. He got paid $11 million. So he was gonna be there for eight days. He asked for a round trip private air transportation on a Gulfstream V. Is that a f- or a VI? I don't know how Roman numerals work, but a Gulfstream jet. He, uh, got to keep all of the costumes, wigs, and prosthetics, all the stuff that he wore on the s- on the plane, or all, all the stuff he wore in the movie. He got to keep all of it. He wanted, uh, an additional fee for his, uh, personal trainer. He had to come and be flown there, and he had to be put up at the Ritz Carlton. In addition to the, the 10 days that he had, or the 8 days he had to be there for production, he wanted a seven-day va- all expenses paid vacation to the Ritz Carlton, followed by a vacation in Puerto Rico, where you also had to pay for his jet, and, uh, he had to take his whole family, uh, to and from. Uh, and then finally, he wanted one round trip jet fri- pl- uh, one round trip private flight jet between New York and LA day, and LA for a five-day stay anytime within 12 months Those are all of his asks in his contract for all for eight days of work. That's not bad.

Shaan Puri 18:25 This is cool. I mean, it's like a, a hostage negotiation. It's like I need a briefcase with the cash, and I need a, a jet that's fueled with the engine on, and I'm gonna get on it. Dude, check out this website I just sent you, wsb.com. So I had once heard that, like, um, uh, you know, like Coach K, who, who's the co- the basketball coach at Duke, um, I remember back in the day, he kinda had like a salary of like, uh, I wanna call it like... Not back in the day, but like i- he's the number one college basketball coach, most winningest coach of all time.

Sam Parr 18:57 What's his last name?

Shaan Puri 18:58 I remember being curious, how much does he make? Krzyzewski is, uh, his last name. It's like spelled with a K and then a bunch of vowels.

Sam Parr 19:04 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Shaan Puri 19:05 So, um, so he's now like 75. He's like at the top of his game. He just retired, so he was making $12.5 million a year to coach college basketball at the time. Um, and I think that like... But I remember when I was in school, 'cause I went to Duke, I remember reading at that time his salary was like maybe half that. It was closer to like 4 or 5 million, and he had gotten offered a contract with the Lakers that was gonna pay him over 10 million, and he turned it down. And I remember just thinking, "Wow, the guy like... 10 million a year." I was like, "The guy turned down like basically an extra $50 million to go do this deal. Like, that's pretty impressive. Like, why, um, you know, why did he do that?" And I started looking into like how he makes his money, and basically he makes more money, I believe, uh, or at the time, he was making more money through his endorsements, speaking fees, books, tours, things like that, than he was his like actual day job. And so if you go to the site, wsb.com, he's listed on there, and it says, um, you could see a bunch of speakers, and you could see how much they charge. So Bob Iger, the chairman to Disney, it's like, says like, you know, you got a contact for fees. For Coach K, his says like 70,000+ is his speaking fee. And so you wanna go get this guy, it's 70,000+. And so there's these businesses that are basically these booking agencies for well-known speakers, and I feel like this is like a really interesting little niche business to be these like middleman agencies that just aggregate demand for this like r- you know, roster of, of speakers that they can book out.

Sam Parr 20:35 So you know how basically like maybe eight years ago, we kinda laughed at YouTubers, and it's like, "There's, they're not real celebrities. They're just internet celebrities," or, "They're not- they can't- they're not gonna be real business people"? But now, you know, like, there's a, a world where some of them are gonna be billionaires. And, uh, then, like-

Shaan Puri 20:50 Yeah, it ha- had a vibe that was like, "Oh, you make videos? That's cute."

Sam Parr 20:54 Yeah, it says, yes, like a, a condescending type of vibe. And now that there's a... We had the guy, I forget his name, but he was on the pod, and he, uh, he's the, uh, founder of the management company that manages MrBeast. What was his name? You know who I'm talking about?

Shaan Puri 21:08 Reid?

Sam Parr 21:09 Reid. Yes, Reid. And, Night Media.

Shaan Puri 21:12 Yeah.

Sam Parr 21:12 And like there, it's like this like, it potentially gonna be a pretty large business.

Sam Parr 21:17 Do you think that these type of speaker bureaus and these, some of these agencies... When are the Twitter boys gonna get them love, huh? You think like, is like, uh, is there gonna be like a, like [laughs] you know, We Dem Boyz. Is there gonna be a, is there gonna be a Twitter agency for Sahil Bloom and, and Shaan Puri anytime soon?

Shaan Puri 21:36 Well, there should be, right? You said you're getting paid to speak. Sahil gets paid to speak. I get paid to speak. Uh, so obviously there's is demand. We already are doing the behavior. We just haven't gotten rolled up. Like, these gu- you know, we're, we don't have enough, you know, sort of gray hair on our chest to go get onto one of these like Rolodexes of like, you know, whatever, Washington Speaker Bureau. Um, but why not, right? Like, I, I, I do think so, and I think Cameo kind of shows the demand for this sorta thing. Because people are willing to pay, you know, 100 bucks a pop for these like 15 to 30-second videos from like a, you know, tier two, tier three, tier four celebrity, uh, you know, just saying happy birthday or whatever. Uh, and I think Cameo's trying to go upstream where they're like, "Yeah, you could do meet and greets. You could do corporate appearances. You're try-" Like, I think Cameo's trying to move into that space. But yeah, I think definitely somebody could create a little bit of a, um, you know, one of these like speaker, speaker businesses that like basically books out podcasters, YouTubers, Twitter boys, like, you know, TikTok stars to go and talk at, you know, corporate events and, and marketing events and stuff like that.

Sam Parr 22:45 Guess how much revenue this company, Washington Speaker Bureaus does.

Shaan Puri 22:51 Oh, God. Uh, okay, my guess, 30 million a year.

Sam Parr 22:56 So a, they were acquired in the year 2000. The year they were acquired, they were doing 15 million. They were bought by, uh, this company that I forget. It's one of the ad agencies that sounds like the COVID name. Is it Omnicom? I forget what it was. Like, one of the, like, there's one of, there's like-

Shaan Puri 23:10 [laughs] Yeah

Sam Parr 23:11 ... there's basically like five ad agencies that owns like everything. I forget which one it is. And, uh-

Shaan Puri 23:16 Yeah

Sam Parr 23:16 ... when they were acquired, they were doing 15 million, but that was in 1999. In 2017, they did 150 million in revenue. Fucking crazy, right?

Shaan Puri 23:28 Yeah, that's amazing.

Sam Parr 23:28 Just speaking, uh, sp-

Shaan Puri 23:29 By the way-

Sam Parr 23:29 That's wild, right?

Shaan Puri 23:31 You wanna know a homie move? Homie move. Whenever somebody asks you to guess something, always guess low. No bigger shit on you feeling than if you guess... They're trying to impress you with some fun fact about how cool this thing is, and you guess too high, and they're like, "Well, no, I mean, it's, it's not, it's not that good."

Sam Parr 23:46 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 23:46 Uh, and, and then it sorta just takes all the wind out of it. So the h- the homie move is always whatever you think it is, cut it in half so that they can have the win of being like, "No, it's even more." And you're like, "What? That's crazy," right? Like, that's how you do it.

Sam Parr 24:03 That's good. What do you wanna do now? Oh, Sarah Moore. Tell me about her.

Shaan Puri 24:06 Uh, but I'm just scrolling this thing. Dude, Terr- Terry Bradshaw, 40K. We can go get Terry Bradshaw. This guy's got four Super Bowl rings. Good old Terry. We can get him for 40K to come speak on this podcast.

Sam Parr 24:16 I don't care about him that much, but- Uh, I, I, yeah, wish it gets more people. I heard a rumor, another rumor, that we could have gotten Arnold Schwarzenegger on our podcast for 100K. Um, I don't know if that was like a one-off thing, but there was like some consideration I'd heard about it, and I-

Shaan Puri 24:34 [laughs]

Sam Parr 24:35 I, I mean, Arnold's pretty cool. I don't think I would spend 100,000. I don't think he could give us a hun- I don't think he would give the podcast 100, $100,000 worth of promotion, right?

Shaan Puri 24:45 People have asked me this before. What do you think is the... What would be your dream guest? If we just had one, if there's just $100,000 budget that was gonna go to somebody, guarantee that they come on the pod, who would be your, your person that you would put on there?

Sam Parr 25:00 I mean, it's gotta be, like, someone really famous, so definitely, like, an Elon or, uh, like an Obama or a Trump, like a president. Uh, like, who would be the most famous person that you could ask them questions?

Shaan Puri 25:11 And it... Is that because you're thinking what drives the most, like, clicks, or is it more like-

Sam Parr 25:17 Volume

Shaan Puri 25:17 ... that's the person I would want to have a pod- Yeah.

Sam Parr 25:20 No, I don't think-

Shaan Puri 25:21 To get the most clicks.

Sam Parr 25:21 I don't know if I would enjoy a conversation with Elon. Like, I think he, that would be an uncomfortable situation, I think. I don't think that would be particularly enjoyable. Do you?

Shaan Puri 25:30 N- I, I 100% agree with you. I think it would be, honestly, sort of uncomfortable in a giant, like... It, it's almost an automatic letdown. It's like you're going to have such high hopes and expectations and want it to go so well. It's gonna be kind of a difficult conversation. It's gonna, like, fly by really quickly. There's gonna be 15 minutes where you're like, "Shit, we've been talking about this for 15 minutes?" Like, "Oh, no, I need to, like, switch course here." Um, he's not gonna know the vibe. He's not gonna n- like, he's not gonna come, like, ready to do what we do well, which is, like, you know, shoot the shit and kinda brainstorm and tell stories. So I'm not sure that that would be... I would b- I would go for somebody... If I was gonna pull one, one like that, I would just be like, "Who is the best person that would actually love the type of conversation that we have?"

Sam Parr 26:13 Well, who, who?

Shaan Puri 26:13 "And be great at it?" I think that's a little bit hard. I think that, you know, I think you'd have to take this archetype of, like, who is a, kind of like an idea machine but also has, like, name and reputation, has done stuff, and, um-

Sam Parr 26:29 I think Peter Thiel's interesting

Shaan Puri 26:30 ... like, he'll show up and give a shit.

Sam Parr 26:31 I think Peter Thiel might be interesting, but he's not that famous. So I don't know how much traffic he would drive.

Shaan Puri 26:37 Oh, I think he, I think he drives a good amount, especially, like, in our niche. I think, I think people c- because he doesn't do a lot of content, right? Like, you can go get, like, on the site, you can go get Daymond John from Shark Tank, and it's like, but for 40K-

Sam Parr 26:48 No, I don't want that dude

Shaan Puri 26:48 ... but he's everywhere, dude. Like, first of all, come on. I mean, Fubu was cool, but, like, i- i-

Sam Parr 26:54 Yeah, I mean that-

Shaan Puri 26:54 ... is what we want. A- a- and secondly, like, you know, um, I, I don't think... He, and he does appearances everywhere. So you need somebody who people are sort of starved for content from. Maybe it's like a Naval or a Peter Thiel, somebody, somebody who intentionally limits their number of experiences so that, y- you know, you're s- high search demand and not a lot of, like, hits coming up.

Sam Parr 27:13 Yeah, I don't know. I, I wouldn't want it to be him. I would want... I don't, I don't care about that guy. I can't think of any other examples, though. Uh, I don't fucking know. I would be uncomfortable with anyone, anyone who's, like, intimidatingly good, I would be uncomfortable being around. Like, I, if I made a joke to Elon-

Shaan Puri 27:29 [laughs]

Sam Parr 27:29 ... he wouldn't laugh. I don't think he would laugh. I think Obama would definitely laugh at everything, even if he m- he would... It's one of those, like, type of guys where you would say something and he would giggle, and it's like, "Wait, what did I say?" He's like, "I don't know. I just, i- i- the, the, the-"

Shaan Puri 27:42 [laughs]

Sam Parr 27:42 "... tone of your voice, I w- I thought I was supposed to laugh, so I did." Um-

Shaan Puri 27:46 Right

Sam Parr 27:46 ... no, I don't know-

Shaan Puri 27:47 I'm so trained on socializing that I don't actually need to be here for this. I could just autopilot mimic all of the things I need to do socially for this to be a f- a positive experience for you. [laughs]

Sam Parr 27:57 Right. Uh, I don't know who I'd want for 100 grand. Okay, all right, so we have someone here, but before we get to that person, tell me, uh, about Sarah Moore.

Shaan Puri 28:06 Can I do the s- yeah, can I do the Sarah Moore update? Okay, this is kind of incredible. In fact, this should probably move to the beginning of the episode. It's probably the most interesting bit. So a while back, maybe a month ago, I came on here and I was like, um, "Dude, there's this business. Have you heard of this business called EggCartons.com?" And you were like, "No, what, what is that?" Well, it's exactly what it sounds like. You go to EggCartons.com, and it's a place where you could buy the packaging, the carton for eggs. Um, and, like, but also packaging for a bunch of different varieties of eggs, like huge shipments, small ones, eco-friendly, not eco-friendly, but also just, like, in general, like, other packaging materials as well. So I was like, "Yeah," fascinating business, right? Like, you go there. It's an old-school-looking website. You know, it's like dial 1-800-EGGS dot com, you know, whatever, like, to, to call us to place an order. And I was like, "This is fascinating." So I dug in. I was like, "Who's behind this?" And I basically found that it used to be owned by this guy. He ran it for 24 years. I was like, "Okay, this sounds about right." You know, his LinkedIn picture was him, like, with a, you know, like a phone with a cord in it, and he's, like, got it up to his neck, and he's, like, sitting at a messy desk. And I was like, "Oh, this looks like the guy who started EggCartons.com 25 years ago." But now, as I noticed, oh, it says, like, he ended his ownership one year ago. So who, who's behind this? And I saw that there was this woman named Sarah Moore who was, like, not what you would expect to be like... It's like, oh, this person should be, like, the CEO of Lululemon or something like that. Why is she getting into-

Sam Parr 29:26 Yeah

Shaan Puri 29:27 ... egg cartons of all businesses?

Sam Parr 29:29 She's like this, like, beautiful Harvard grad-

Shaan Puri 29:30 She was young. She was a fresh graduate.

Sam Parr 29:31 Yeah, like, you-

Shaan Puri 29:32 Yeah

Sam Parr 29:32 ... looks like a celebrity a little bit.

Shaan Puri 29:33 So she, um... And so I tried to reach out to her. I couldn't get ahold of her, and so, but I couldn't resist. So I came on the pod and I told the story. I was like, "Yeah, so basically it looks like she purchased this business. Uh, she did, like, one tiny interview about it, and, uh, blah, blah, blah." But I had done one thing that I didn't tell you about, I don't think, that day, which is I've been experimenting with a format that I wish people used more on me. Like, when people reach out to me, they're like, "Oh, I'd love to talk to you sometime," like, if you have a question, just send me the question. In fact, if you have a bunch of questions, like, just send me a Google Doc. I'm gonna look at it, and if I wanna answer, I'll answer. If I don't, I don't. And so that's what I did to her. I go, I sent her an email. I said, "Egg cartons!!," like with five exclamation points. I go, "That's hilar- like, what a hilarious niche." I go, "We got this podcast. I'd love to feature you on it. Um, I have five questions for you on this Google Doc. If you answer them with bullet points, I'll tell your story on the podcast. We get $20 million a year. It'll be great for your business." I go, "This is me on Twitter, by the way," whatever. I sent it No reply for 20 days. Um, then she goes, she emails me out of the blue. She goes, "I couldn't have paid someone to make me sound as cool as you and Sam did on the podcast last week. Thank you so much. I filled out your Google Doc. I think this will answer your questions. I would've responded earlier if I didn't think this was spam. Um, blah, blah, blah. Send me, send me your address. I'll send you some world-class egg cartons." Right? So I wanna read you what she, what, what I-

Sam Parr 30:52 What, what are you-

Shaan Puri 30:52 ... wrote to her-

Sam Parr 30:53 Wh-

Shaan Puri 30:53 ... and what she replied.

Sam Parr 30:54 But did you want any... W- are you gonna, are you gonna accept those cartons? [laughs] Very nice of you. Like-

Shaan Puri 31:00 Well, yeah, just for the story

Sam Parr 31:01 ... very nice, very nice of you, Sarah, but thank you. But no thank you.

Shaan Puri 31:04 [laughs] No, dude, everything in the house could turn into, like, a toy storage container. You, you, you... I have toys for every, all shapes and sizes. All right, so-

Sam Parr 31:12 All right, what did she say?

Shaan Puri 31:12 So I basically said, "Here's my question." I go, "You go- you bought EggCartons.com. Did you buy it alone or as part of a PE firm?" She goes, "Alone-ish. I started a PE firm alone to buy a business, but it wasn't your typical PE firm. My office, my quote-unquote office was just the library at school. There was no fund," uh, like no money. "I had a lot of help. I had over 50 unpaid interns come from Craigslist, and I had them sift through over 400,000 private companies for a year and a half before I found EggCartons.com."

Sam Parr 31:41 What?

Shaan Puri 31:43 Th- yeah, I know. Then I go, I, so that was my first question. Second question, I go, "How the heck did you buy it?" Uh, or no, "Why the heck did you buy it? What about the business made you wanna buy it? Was it the name, the customer retention? What, what drove you to it?" She goes, "My goal was to buy a business with all debt so I could have 100% ownership. I had no collateral though, except for my 2012 RAV4. So, uh, I was trying to find something that was already stable enough that I could pitch a bank that the business itself was the collateral instead of my [laughs] RAV4. Um, that, so I needed historical cash flows. This business fit because it had been profitable since it started in 2001, had a high barrier to entry given the domain name, and 100-plus other similar domain names that they own, like EggCartins," like misspelled, "EggCarton.com, uh, blah, blah, blah." Then she says, "The founder has strategically purchased all these domains over the years to protect their, like, their demo. It was simple enough... It was also a simple enough business that somebody with zero operational experience," me, "uh, and average intelligence," me, "could operate if they tried hard enough." I was like, "Wow, this is incredible." Then I sa- I said, "I live in Silicon Valley. People here are obsessed with crypto, AI, blah, blah, blah. They would underestimate EggCartons.com. Can you give us a sense of the scale of the business?"

Sam Parr 32:56 That's a really good way to frame that.

Shaan Puri 32:57 For example, is it north of a 10 million revenue.

Sam Parr 32:58 That's a, that's a beautiful way to frame that question 'cause you nagged her a little bit.

Shaan Puri 33:02 And so she goes, "I'm in the-

Sam Parr 33:02 Like, you said something a little rude. You're like, "Yeah, you know, it's probably not that big, but maybe it is, you know? Like, impress me."

Shaan Puri 33:08 Right. I would think this is small.

Sam Parr 33:10 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 33:10 But, you know, I, I'd love to be surprised. You know, would you say that this is more than this and less than this? And so she... Anyway, she came back with, "I'm in the middle of, uh, something that prevents me from sharing the numbers publicly. Uh, all I can say is that our revenue is less than 50 million."

Sam Parr 33:24 Oh.

Shaan Puri 33:24 And I was like, "Oh."

Sam Parr 33:25 Okay.

Shaan Puri 33:26 Okay. But the... y- not less than 20. If it was less than 20, I feel like you would've said less than 20. I feel like that, that would be the case. Um, I said, "How'd you negotiate the deal?" She's like, "Ah, there's a bunch of context here." She goes, "In summary, I harassed the owner until he replied. Then we hit it off. We came up with a valuation together. Then I contacted o- over 100 banks, most of which told me to F off. One of them threw me a bone and agreed to an under, uncollateralized loan. The final deal was 75% bank debt and 25% the seller's note." So she bought this with no money down, like the bank financed it and the seller financed it. She said, "Before buying the business, I had, uh, I overpaid an accountant to check my work and do an audit of the business because frankly, I had no idea what I was doing. His fees got rolled into the deal itself." So, uh, sh- she used an accountant to cover her ass, but also paid him out of the deal itself.

Sam Parr 34:12 This woman's amazing.

Shaan Puri 34:13 I said, "Any other fun tidbits or anecdotes I, I could share?" She- here's what she says. This is where it gets great. She goes, uh, [laughs] "While searching for the business, I participated in several research studies just to make money, uh, [laughs] like to, while I was doing my search. I went from, I went legally blind from a deodorant study for a bit, so I had to take a break from working, [laughs] from working until I could read again." Um, she goes, "My response rate was awful. I started doing borderline insane things to get a reply. At one point, I took a photo of myself wearing a sweatshirt that said, 'I wanna buy your business,' with a massive grin, and I faxed it out to thousands of businesses a day. Um, to this day, I run into owners who recognize me from those faxes. One of those owners is actually my neighbor." [laughs] Then she says, "The library we worked out of required a school ID to enter. Most of my interns didn't go to the school, so we had to get fake IDs for all the interns to get into the library. Every time we hired someone, there was a lag because we would need to get more IDs. [laughs] During CO- uh, before COVID, I used to fly to Ch- China in order to examine the egg cartons. On my first trip to India, I got held by Indian customs in interrogation for hours 'cause they didn't believe that I was coming to India alone. They did not believe that I was coming to investigate egg cartons. [laughs] Uh, related to India, I almost got killed there. I rejected a shipment from an Indian vendor that his whole family lived there. He was furious, started chasing after me. The hotel put me into incognito mode for my safety. My driver luckily was at the door that I ran out of, otherwise I'd probably still be there buried underground." Um, she goes, "When I bought the business, I considered it an egg company, but now I think of it as specialty packaging. 40% of our business comes from things unenti- entirely unrelated to eggs. You'd be very surprised by our customer base. You know, think big brands like Boeing, SpaceX, Disney, Madison Square Garden, Crayola, et cetera. Anything that requires protection and separation is fair game." Um, there is, there's one, one more she said, but dude.

Sam Parr 35:58 What's the other one?

Shaan Puri 35:59 Is Sarah Moore not my hero? Is she my hero or is she not my hero?

Sam Parr 36:03 This woman's wonderful. Why is she... Why didn't she talk about this publicly more often? This is, like, it... I feel like there was tons and tons of stories there.

Shaan Puri 36:12 Dude, you know, people, there's some people who are so in the game that they're like, they're like, "Oh, yeah, what am I gonna stop and chat about the game? Like, I'm in the fucking game," right? Like, that's the feeling I get from her. I've met some people that are like this, that they're sort of like, it's a combination of they kinda don't realize how story-worthy their story is until, like, quite a bit later, and the second thing, they're sort of like, you know, either they just prefer privacy, or they're like, "Yeah, I don't really know why I need to do that, so why would I do that? It's gonna be kinda braggy and kinda weird, and what's the benefit? And maybe I'd just rather be, it be personal." Um, so I think that, like, I know a handful of people that I'm like, "Dude, I wish I could tell their story on the podcast," because they're epic, but they just don't see value in this, and they're also not consumers of it. That's the other thing I've noticed. Most of those people don't listen to a bunch of podcasts or take inspiration from it, so it's kind of a foreign idea to them. They're like, they're like, "People will care?" It's like, "Yeah, of course people will care about this. This is awesome." Um, so anyways, I was totally inspired by this story, and she is, uh, kind of amazing. She is one of us. She... No small boy stuff for Sarah Moore.

Sam Parr 37:16 So I think she's only tw- when you, if you Google her, you, you basically can't find anything. I mean, there's next to nothing on her. There's, like, one or two pictures. There's very little. I found one article where it says that she's 28, and she, uh... it says, she answered a question, "What inspired you to start buying companies?" She says, "Freedom." "What is your mantra?" "Don't take counsel f- from your fears." Like, that's pretty much all she an- like, she answered nothing. This woman's amazing. Why can't we find anything about her? There, there's a lot, there's a lot going on with her. We need to, like, w- convince her to come on.

Shaan Puri 37:46 There's a 30% chance she's a fat guy named Craig, so, like, you know, w- we could be getting catfished here. I wouldn't put it past her. Uh, but I'm gonna go with the, with, with what I see. I think s- I think she's amazing. [upbeat music]