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30 min read · 6,326 words- 0:00 – 2:32
Intro - A radically transparent look inside Hampton launch.
- SPSam Parr
I'm like, "I should create this." And then I looked in the mirror and I was like-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
"Yeah, this ain't gonna work."
- SPShaan Puri
There's a reason your nickname is the Vanilla Gorilla, okay? Like [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. [laughs] It wasn't gonna work. [upbeat music]
- SPShaan Puri
So Sam, I got a question for you. You have launched this business this year called Hampton, and I love the name. I love the brand. I go to the website, I love the website. More than anything, I love the idea. Uh, m- I'm jealous of this idea. Andrew Wilkinson was- said, "I'm so jealous that I didn't start this idea." We are... I feel like you got so much right, and I know that the, that in doing any idea, whatever you c- you know, there's something called the idea maze. W- you go through, you wander around, you try to figure out the right path, and you c- you, if you're lucky, you pop out the other side with what you did with Hampton, where everything turned out right. What I wanna know is what were the other paths you considered but ended up saying no to along the way? 'Cause nobody sees that stuff. That's on the cutting room floor. I wanna know, you know, I love the name Hampton. Were there other names that you thought about? And like-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... how did you pick that one? And like, w- what was that decision process? I wanna know target market. Like, you, I feel like you nailed the target market and you've nailed the value prop. Were there three other runner-ups that you consider that you didn't have? I kinda wanna see what goes on underneath the surface before this beautiful execution comes out.
- SPSam Parr
Well, first, thanks. You're, you, you, you hopefully only see the good stuff. Obviously, there's all types of bad shit that happens on the, on the back end where we're like, "This sucks." But in general, it's been quite pleasant. So dude, with this company, it's so funny. I purposely had on, we had guests that ran these types of companies, and I wanted to prove to everyone, I'm go, I'm gonna do my research in front of people.
- SPShaan Puri
You left a paper trail, right? Like, you left-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... public breadcrumbs, uh, uh, as to exactly how you did this step-by-step. And by the way, I love that you're honest about this, because you definitely had guests come on and basically explain to you h- what the blueprint is, and then you were like, "Cool, thanks. Gonna go execute on that blueprint." And, um, [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
And I didn't hide it from them. I, I told them, I, I told them before and after, "I'm gonna launch, I wanna launch, I'm thinking of launching something like this, and let's talk about it."
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSam Parr
So there was nothing unethical or evil about this. But yeah, I wanted to do it publicly so people could see. So the ori- so let me tell you first. So I sold The Hustle, I think in '22. Yeah. And, uh, or something like that, and I had about six months, or eight months, or 10 months, I forget, where I was just kinda fooling around and I was looking at different
- 2:32 – 3:32
Idea #1: Short-term rental crew (failed)
- SPSam Parr
ideas. The two ideas that lost, I'm so thankful they lost. One, remember how I got super into Airbnbs? I was like, "This is the thing. I could do this." So I bought one, and I did it, and it did okay, but I was like, "This sucks. I d- I do not enjoy this. This does- this isn't in my zone of genius. It's, it's a pain in the ass."
- SPShaan Puri
And it seems on paper like a good idea. You had a f- you created this Facebook group of, I forgot what you called it, like Sam's Short-Term Rental Bros or whatever the hell you called it. What was it?
- SPSam Parr
The STR Crew.
- SPShaan Puri
The STR Crew. Short-term rental crew. And people piled in, and they started explaining their blueprint. They're like, "Yo, I own 40 Airbnbs. They make this much cash flow. Here's the pain points. Here's the plus sides." This other guy's like, "Oh, I do the same thing with this angle." And I was like, "Dude, this is fascinating." Sam's doing his research, again, in public.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And you were wandering around the idea maze. You're like, "Maybe it's over here. Maybe the, maybe the exit path is over here in this short-term rentals thing." And it kinda seemed like a good idea, uh, on paper, but you ended up saying no to that.
- SPSam Parr
And it, and it was a good idea. It wasn't a good idea for me. It, it, it is a profitable thing, whatever. It was cool. The
- 3:32 – 4:23
Idea #2: Community of truckers (failed)
- SPSam Parr
second thing that I thought about doing was [laughs] I thought about creating... I've always wanted to create a trucking business. I'm, I'm passionate about truckers. I'm passionate about blue-collar workers. My family, I grew up in a trucking family, sort of. My, they work in that industry. And so [laughs] I was like, "I'm gonna become a YouTuber, and I'm gonna create an audience of truckers, and then I'm gonna build a product for them." And then I started, like, doing it, and I was like, "Nah, hate this."
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
"Not gonna do it."
- SPShaan Puri
You're like, "I love the idea of blue-collar workers." [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. I, I like the idea of it-
- SPShaan Puri
More so than being amongst them. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. Yeah, it's like getting a neck tattoo. It's like the idea of it's kind of neat, but I don't know if I actually want it. Um, and so then I was like, look, we had this thing called Trends at The Hustle, and I got a lot wrong, and I love the business model still. I think I can do this. And my partner, my now business partner and I, uh, we had, like, basically a therapy group where we would, like, bitch and complain about everything going on, and we're like, I settled on that product.
- SPShaan Puri
You built a product,
- 4:23 – 5:48
Idea #3: Community for entrepreneurs
- SPShaan Puri
launched it, did not use your audience initially publicly. You didn't use the podcast to promote it initially. Maybe your brand, your brand name helped part- pri- in private, but you didn't do it publicly. And you dro- you, you drove it to millions of dollars in revenue, um, very early on. So a very successful thing that everybody listening to this podcast kind of wants that outcome. So, so, you know, you're a s- you're a walking case study. Go ahead.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. So Hampton is a peer group. So some people call it a community. I call it a peer group. Basically, there's three parts of the peer group. So you have an eight-person group that have, uh, like, similar size or types of companies, and you basically, it's like a therapy group. You just kinda complain. So it takes about six months to, like, really, like, for it to, like, catch and be awesome. But I have a six-person or a eight-person group. It's freaking awesome. And you, we'll do everything. Like, you, uh, someone will make a presentation for every meeting, and they'll say, like, "Here's my portfolio. Here's my net worth. Can you guys tell me am I doing something wrong? Am I doing something right? Here's how my company works. What am I doing wrong? What am I doing right?" And so they do a presentation. So that's part one. Part two is we have a digital community where you can, like, post in there and see what other people are saying, and you could like, "Hey, I'm trying to hire a nanny. Um, what are your guys' best, uh, advice for agencies to use in the Northeast?" Things like that. You can do personal stuff, non-personal stuff. The third thing is events. I think we host 200 events a year at this point, uh, including retreats, all these types of things. So, um, it's highly, uh, inspired by Chief, YPO, Vistage. These are large companies that are in the space. So that's the business. Originally, I was trying to go
- 5:48 – 8:00
Fail #3: V1, V2, V3 of Hampton
- SPSam Parr
after marketing executives and then just executives in general. Dude, I called, I did 50 to 70 meetings with people trying to convince them to join, and none of them wanted it.
- SPShaan Puri
Hello, dear marketing executive. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. Anyway. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
How goes your marketing today? [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Dude, no one fucking wanted it. I couldn't get... And then eventually I was like- I, I need to charge, like, around 10 grand a year in order to make this, like, a viable business. No one fucking wanted it. They were willing to pay $500, and I created a group that was actually $500. And I was like, "Dude, this sucks. I can't do this." And then my... And then we were like, "Should we do doctors? Doctors would be cool." Um, but, like, what the fuck? I don't know anything about doctors. I tried to get in a, a... I tried to get in touch with a ton, and, like, no one wanted it. And then I was like, "Fortune 500 CEOs." Same problem. Like, how do I get in touch with a Fortune 500 CEO? Like, I don't, I don't know one. Like, it is really hard. And then [laughs] and then we threw it around the i-
- SPShaan Puri
Ideas that sound good on paper, but as soon as they came into contact with reality, they got punched in the face, and they ran home with a nosebleed.
- SPSam Parr
They got punched in the face. Well, this one really punched me in the face. The next one, we thought about minorities. We're like, uh, you know, my, my wife is a minority, and I, like, hear a little bit of the things that she goes through. I'm like, "I should create this." And then I looked in the mirror, and I was like-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... "Yeah, this ain't gonna work." [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
I'm the opposite of a minority. Uh [laughs] th-
- SPShaan Puri
Business that look great on paper, but then [laughs] -
- SPSam Parr
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... the old reflection doesn't cut it
- SPSam Parr
But then look in the mirror. [laughs] Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
I remember when you told me that idea, and I was like, "Dude, honestly, it's a great idea." I think it's a underserved community. I think they want that career development. I think that, I think that makes sense. But I was like, "Dude, what are you gonna do when you're like, 'Hey...'" I was like, y- you know [laughs] are you gonna have Sarah be the CEO? Like, what are you gonna do? You're gonna be like, "I am this-
- SPSam Parr
Uh, yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... this white man who's running this [laughs] company for my..." I don't know. You... Possible, but, like, I don't know.
- SPSam Parr
If you Google the word white bread, you're gonna see a picture of Sam Parr. Like, it-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... feels like it, it would not have worked.
- SPShaan Puri
There's a reason your nickname is the Vanilla Gorilla, okay?
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
Like, we [laughs] ...
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] It wasn't gonna work. And then, uh, my partner was like, "Dude, let's just go after CEOs," and he'd been saying this whole time. I'm like, "They will never pay for this." But all along, some people had heard rumors I was launching this, so they asked me, like, "Can you do this for us?" And I kept saying no,
- 8:00 – 10:08
Step 1: Research
- SPSam Parr
and then finally we were like, "Fuck it. Let's do it." And then that, obviously, was the right decision. But by the way, I did a ton of research. So I interviewed a ton of members of all these different groups. And they're like, "I'm a tech guy, but there's... It's all, like, guys who own, like, 18 apartment buildings in South Florida in my group. It kinda sucks. Like, I love them, but we don't, like, align on business."
- SPShaan Puri
Well, it just sounds like it's better founder fit, right? Like, you know, it's a, it's-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... it's who you were-
- SPSam Parr
No-brainer
- SPShaan Puri
... it's who our audience is on this podcast. It's where you had a reputation. It's where you knew the relatable pain points. It's you knew how to... You knew where to reach them 'cause you knew where you hang out. You... It's, like, way better founder fit.
- SPSam Parr
It was so much easier.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
It was way easier. All right, everyone. A quick break to tell you about HubSpot, and this one's really easy for me to talk about because I'm gonna show you a real-life example. So I've got this company called Hampton, joinhampton.com. It's a community for founders doing between 2 million all the way up to, like, $250 million a year in revenue. And one of the ways that we've grown is we've created these cool surveys. And so we have a lot of founders who have high net worths, and we'll ask them all types of questions that people typically are embarrassed to ask but provide a lot of value. So things like how much the founders pay themselves each month, how much money they're spending each month, what their payroll looks like, if they're optimistic about the next year in their business. All these questions that people are afraid to ask, but, well, we ask them anyway, and they tell us in this anonymous survey. And so what we do is we've created a landing page using HubSpot's landing page tool, and it basically has a landing page that says, "Here's all the questions we asked. Give us your email if you wanna access it." And then I shared this page on Twitter, and we were able to get thousands of people who gave us their email and told us they want this survey. And I could see, did they come from social media? I can see, did they come from Twitter, from LinkedIn? Basically everywhere else that they could possibly come from. I'm able to track all of that. And then I'm able to see, over the next handful of weeks, how many of those people actually signed up and became a member of Hampton. In other words, I can see how much revenue came from this survey, how much revenue came from each traffic source, things like that. But the best part is I can see how much revenue came from it. And a lot of times it, it takes a ton of work to make that happen. HubSpot made that super, super easy. If you're interested in doing this, you can check it out, hubspot.com. The link's in the description. And I'll also put the link to the survey that I did so you can actually see the landing page and how it works and everything like that. I'm just gonna do that call to action then. And it's free. Check it out in the description. All right. Now back to MFM. Now
- 10:08 – 12:05
Step 2: Picking the right name
- SPSam Parr
let's talk about the names. Here's a good story about the names. So the company's called Hampton. A lot of people think that means The Hamptons. Um, up until I was, like, 27, I didn't know what The Hamptons were. I thought... I had read about it in, like, The Great Gatsby. I thought, like, it was, like, that. I didn't even know what it was until I married a woman from that area, and I learned about it. So what I do is all of my LLCs are named after streets in my neighborhood of St. Louis. And there's a lot of really good names for some reason. And so I just usually look at the map of where I'm from, and I just look at the names. So let me tell you some names that I thought about naming it. None of these really fit, but they could fit for other things. Number one is Macklin. I love that name.
- SPShaan Puri
Macklin. Okay.
- SPSam Parr
So at one point I thought about having the Macklin Running Club. Um, the second one is Sublette. I've always liked Sublette.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Uh, the third one was Simpson. That was a, a street I grew up near. And the last one, check this out, Kingshighway.
- SPShaan Puri
Ooh.
- SPSam Parr
Is Kingshighway awesome?
- SPShaan Puri
Ooh. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
I love Kingshighway. I love Kingshighway. And then eventually we settled on Hampton because I grew up near Hampton Avenue, and everyone thinks that it means The Hamptons. It doesn't. It means Hampton. And so sometimes pe- people will say, like, "Oh, I love The Hamptons," referring to my company. And I'm like, "No, it's Hampton." So we settled on Hampton because that had a good-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... uh, that had a good sound to it.
- SPShaan Puri
By the way, can you tell me, in deciding a name, uh, is that, like, a one-day process, a one-hour process, a one-month process for you? And are you bouncing it off people, or are you just going into a dark room and saying, "What feels right in my soul?" Like, what's your... What is the actual way a name gets picked for you?
- SPSam Parr
I only ask, like, three people. Usually it's my wife, my business partner, and that's about it.
- SPShaan Puri
Three people, but actually there's only two. [laughs] Even better.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. [laughs] Did I just name two? And myself.
- SPShaan Puri
And yourself. Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
The royal we. Yeah. Um, uh, no, I don't really ask too many people because I just don't care that much. Like, I just wanna, like, hear someone's gut opinion. But, um, and also hampton.com I don't think I'm ever gonna get. You know who owns that is Marriott.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Yeah, the Hampton Inn. Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
Uh, so I don't know if I'm ever gonna get that, but check this out with
- 12:05 – 14:12
Step 3: Hire a Branding Agency ($15K)
- SPSam Parr
branding. If you asked me about this five or 10 years ago, I'd never in a million years thought this was important, but I actually do. I hired a branding agency. So I paid $15,000 right out the gate, and what I did was, and I sent this to you, I created this document and, and it all says, it, it just says one line. It says, "Elite, but cheeky." And the reason I was inspired by that was, have you ever read Felix Dennis's book?
- SPShaan Puri
Yes.
- SPSam Parr
How to Get Rich?
- SPShaan Puri
Yes.
- SPSam Parr
So Felix Dennis is this famous entrepreneur. He's, he's dead now, but he was a wild guy. He was basically a combination of Richard Branson and Mick Jagger. So he had, like, swagger, but he was, like, a legit business guy. Um, but he, like, was, he was, like, elite in that he was great at what he does, but he was, like, a silly person and he, uh, wrote in a very conversational way, and I love that. And so when I wrote out this branding document, I listed what the business is, who uses it, whatever. And then what I did was I listed a ton of ads that I liked. So there's a, a bunch of advertisements from the '70s. That's one of my favorite eras for ads. And I found a bunch of GQ ads, Porsche ads, and Rolex ads. Like, Rolex had this famous series of ads called The Men Who Built the World wear Rolex, and they would do, like, a really cool exposé on, like, an astronaut, and you could see the astronaut, he's wearing a Rolex. Or Dwight Eisenhower, the President of the United States, he's got a Rolex and it's the men who build America are wearing a Rolex. And then there's one with a-- Wall Street Journals where it says, "Money talks, we translate." And it's just this beautiful imagery. And so I took that imagery, and then I took the color British Racing Green. You know what British Racing Green is? I mean, it's the Hampton colors, but it's, like, a famous color from, like, Land Rover and Jaguar. It's, like, these British racing colors that I love. And I thought that, 'cause, like, when I think of a Land Rover or a Range Rover or a Jaguar... What do you got there? There you go.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
That, that's almost... So I, I freaking love that color. That's my favorite color. I've got motorcycles in that color. I've had a car in that color. It's my favorite color. And I took that color and I'm like, we have to make the brand feel like these ads, but be that color. And I wrote a bunch of sentences that w- I would want on the website. And that's how we selected the branding. And dude, hiring a branding agency is, like, a total
- 14:12 – 17:12
Things Sam said no to
- SPSam Parr
hack.
- SPShaan Puri
What are some things along the way of making Hampton that you could have done, but you said no to? And in retrospect, maybe it was a good idea, a bad idea, you don't know. You don't know how it would've turned out. But, like, what were the no's o- 'Cause we can only see what you said yes to. We can see the, the name you chose. We-- You told us what names you said no to. We can see the color you chose. What were the things you said no to along the way? Was there anything else that was, like, a c- path you considered?
- SPSam Parr
Here's two really, uh, big ones. So Hampton gets, let's just say, these aren't the exact numbers, but, uh, uh, we'll, we'll use them. Roughly 100 people a day who apply. We accept a fraction of that. And my partner, Joe, and I, we watch... So in order to get into Hampton, you have to interview. We watch 100% of the interviews, and we are the only people who click approve or deny. That is it. It was us two. That is our job is to watch 100% of the interviews.
- SPShaan Puri
So you said no to delegating that out?
- SPSam Parr
We said no to delegating that out. And we also-- Here's what sucks. Dude, we turn down so many people and it's like we're turning down so much revenue, and it fucking kills me.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
I'm, like, adding up the numbers. When I-- Now when you ask me-- So Chief, uh, chief.com, they're, it's, it's like this business, I guess we're like them, but they're for women executives. You know why they grew so fast? They grew to $100 million in revenue in four or five years. They let in 100% of the people who apply and interview.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
We don't, and it fucking kills me. I see all this missed revenue-
- SPShaan Puri
Right
- SPSam Parr
... and I'm like, "Oh, my God." And so I'm thinking in my head, I'm like, so a lot of people, uh, we've talked about this, but Kingsford Charcoal was invented because Ford had all this extra wood that they used to light their furnaces, and they eventually turned it to charcoal. That's how Kingsford Charcoal c- came about. And so always in my head, I'm like, "What's the charcoal I could make from these people who we've rejected or who don't fit our criteria at the moment?" And but we've said no to doing any of those ideas. And so we're o- Well, we said, basically, we're only focusing on CEOs of this demographic, uh, of this type of business, and we're only going to do that until we say otherwise, and there's no time in the near future that we intend to say otherwise.
- SPShaan Puri
Well, let me tell you two things I think you could be doing. So again, let me give you two ideas I think you maybe should have said yes to. Number one, I think, uh, if I go to your website right now, I don't see that you say no to that many people or that y- it's a, that there's a cura- that how heavy the curation is. All the things you just said to me would make me wanna join because it's like, oh, they're really actually curating the community. These are actually high-quality people. The founders watch every single interview. They l- they accept in less than 1% of people. They have a counter on their website of how many people they've said no to or how many, uh, how much revenue they've said no to in order to make the community solid because that comes first. And we put our money where our mouth is. We turn down this much revenue. I don't-- Maybe, maybe it's too, too vulgar, but, like, I think you could use that. The second thing-
- SPSam Parr
You got the elite part right. Now, now, now we have to make it cheeky.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Yeah, yeah, exactly. I just went elite douchey, so I, I don't know. We gotta work on the other part.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Um, the other
- 17:12 – 20:18
Leverage the founder story
- SPShaan Puri
thing I don't think you did, did a great job of is your story. So, like, would you, do you value a founding story in, uh-- or, like, the founder story and the founding story of the company? Do you think that's important or useful?
- SPSam Parr
I think that's incredibly important, and I think I made a mistake because I wanted to make this not the Sam Parr business, and I think I've screwed up. I think I should have leaned into that. I think the way it works, I did this with The Hustle. You can ha- the founder can be the company or be the face for a period of time, and you can phase it out. And with this time, I was like, "I'm not gonna be it," and I screwed that up.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, yeah. I think you should lean into that because, you know, the, those situations where you don't want the founder to be the, the, the face and the reason to join is when the founder has to deliver the service. It's like the, the law firm or the, the specialty, you know, marketing exec. It's like, "Oh, this guy's great," but, "Oh, now I'm handed off to some junior person. They're doing my marketing. I want that guy on my account." Whereas with this, you don't have to be the account. You know, you're not delivering the actual service. Um, so I think you could use it because the true founding story is That's how we met. We made a peer group in San Francisco when we didn't know shit, when we were running our companies and there was-
- SPSam Parr
And it was awesome
- SPShaan Puri
... our companies could fail or succeed. And in that group came a billion-dollar company, a $100 million company, a $30 million company, a fi- you know, two failures, but one best man at your wedding, and a friend who you ended up investing in their thing, and that came out of that. And then this podcast came out of that, which then has become one of the top business podcasts, blah, blah, blah. Like, that's actually almost like your founding story as an entrepreneur, and helped you when you actually sold The Hustle successfully. So from... I remember in our peer groups, it was like, "I'm gonna do The Hustle." It was an events business. Then, "No, no, no. Next month. No, it's not an events business. It's a blog business."
- SPSam Parr
You said something that stuck with me, and it was-
- SPShaan Puri
It pissed, it pissed you off.
- SPSam Parr
No, no, no. Because you weren't wrong. You were right in that I couldn't build a huge company that way, but you were wrong in that I don't have to build a huge company in order to achieve my goals, which was you go, "Dude, you're showing up to this fight, you're showing up to this knife fight with just a knife. I don't even want you to have a gun. You need to have a magic fucking wand."
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
And I was like, "Well, you're not wrong. That would be nice to have that. But I, but I don't." [laughs] And so until then, uh, we're using our fists.
- SPShaan Puri
In Silicon Valley, if you go pitch for investors, you're basically making a promise it's gonna be a billion-dollar company. So I was like, "I don't think it's gonna be a billion-dollar company." What I didn't know is you were like, "I'm not trying to build a billion-dollar company. I'm gonna try to build a company that makes me X millions of dollars in, like... And I can do it. It can actually do that, and that would change my life-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... and be fucking awesome." Which is a different, uh, pitch.
- SPSam Parr
So y- y- you were right, but where, where I was wrong was I shouldn't have aimed for that in the get, from the get-go.
- SPShaan Puri
Right. Right.
- SPSam Parr
But you were correct.
- SPShaan Puri
But, so I think, you know, maybe using a founding story would be helpful for you because it's genuine. That's actually, you know, the origin of, I think, you know, a lot of this is, like, firsthand experience, how the peer group helped you and how blah, blah, blah. And then how it also leads to all these other thing- that group beca- you know, one guy's like, you know, a, a groomsman at your wedding. Another guy becomes a investment you make down the road, blah, blah, blah. Like, that's, that's kinda how these tend to work. So anyways, that's my, my two cents.
- SPSam Parr
Well, thank you. Did you,
- 20:18 – 21:51
Shaan's branding agency experience
- SPSam Parr
have you ever used a branding agency?
- SPShaan Puri
Um, have I used... I used a guy for The Milk Road. Not a... I mean, he's an agency, but it's like a guy, one guy, uh, this guy Jeremy.
- SPSam Parr
Which I think you actually nailed. I think you nailed that, to be honest.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah. And it-
- SPSam Parr
I loved it
- SPShaan Puri
... it was a cool experience. It definitely felt so indulgent. It's like-
- SPSam Parr
It does
- SPShaan Puri
... "Oh, and now I'm gonna take a break from my zero revenue business to go through this mood boarding process with this designer and talk about how the brand needs to feel." It's like, it needs to feel like there's a user and a customer. And there's a definitely a part of my voice that was like, "Shut up. Shut up, you idiot. Go, go build your business." But what we did, the, the, the trade-off we did was we actually, with Milk Road, we wanted to do a brand right away, and we said, "Let's reward ourselves with a brand when we get to," I think we said 100,000 subscribers on the, on the list. And I said, "Today, we're gonna make the brand. And, but when we get to 100,000, then we'll know, like, this is... We can always rebrand or we can, we can polish it up." That's what we did to reward ourselves. I think in the future, I would probably use an agency if I'm confident about the idea. If I, uh... It's also just like, I don't know, it's a luxury item. It's not a necessity, but it's a luxury. I think for some things i- it is a necessity. Like, if you're a e-commerce brand or something, you gotta get your brand right.
- SPSam Parr
And you know another thing that I thought was the dumbest thing ever, but I think could be cool? A naming agency.
- SPShaan Puri
I used a naming agency once.
- SPSam Parr
I, I find a lot of value in that now. I think that it's like most agencies, where a lot will suck, but I actually think that it could be quite valuable. What, [laughs] what naming... How much did the naming agency-
- SPShaan Puri
So I hired a c- this is
- 21:51 – 25:57
Shaan’s $25K Mistake: Hiring a "naming" agency
- SPShaan Puri
one of my many rookie mistakes. I hired a naming agency once. I paid them $25,000. A lot of money.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And I, they came in. Now, let me tell you a couple things about them that's interesting. One, the people who work at a naming agency are actually awesome. Somebody who is drawn to that is a super interesting person. And actually, the move is to go vet branding agencies or, uh, naming agencies, and then just pluck the most interesting person you have and be like, "You're gonna run our whole brand. Come over. Just come in-house. You're gonna run our whole brand." That's what I should've done.
- SPSam Parr
And just, just the audacity that they think that they can just name something and think it's-
- SPShaan Puri
That that's, they think that could be the job
- SPSam Parr
... all done. [laughs] Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Yeah, that's just, who do you think you are? It's like, that's crazy. So the g- they come in and there's three of them, and I'm like, "It takes three to do this? Oh my God."
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And so it's, they, three of them come in and they sit down and they say, "So tell me about, tell me about the company." And when I tell you I've never felt this much pressure in a pitch, 'cause I'm like, "This isn't pitching for an investor or a customer." I'm like, "I need to give these creatives..." 'Cause creative people like that, they're very skeptical. You know, they see a bunch of corporate BS. It's like, I need to be cool and so clear, and I need to capture the essence inside this business. I can't just say the surface level, 'cause that's what they want. They were, they're like, "Yeah, but, but what is it?" And you're like, "I just told you what it is. What do you mean, what is it?" [laughs] And so they w- Well, so then he's, he's just venting and he's like... And then he's scratching stuff out 'cause he's like, "No, that's not really true." But it was almost like slam poetry. It's like he was trying to, like, almost get into the feeling of the problem and then the solution. And he was, but he was doing it not in a business planny way, but a, a other way. I really actually like that process, and I kinda hijacked that. So I paid a very expensive 25K to learn that one process, which is actually very useful as a copywriter to, to, like, get to the essence of, like, what you're trying to do. The name ended up sucking, and, like, they did all these exercises where they would be like, they put out these flashcards that were, like, Branson, Elon Musk, Einstein. They're like, "Pick, pick, pick two that you think fit." And then they'd be like, "Corvette, Rolex, Louis Vuitton, blah, blah, blah. Pick two." And then I'm like, "Dude, what is this personality quiz?" And I was just like, I hated the whole process, and then whatever. The name was whatever it was. I don't even, I don't even remember now.
- SPSam Parr
What was the name?
- SPShaan Puri
It's 10 years ago.
- SPSam Parr
You don't even remember the name?
- SPShaan Puri
I'm sorry. It's a very unsatisfying end- ending to it, but, um-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] How do you not remember the name that they picked?
- SPShaan Puri
That's c'est la vie. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] That's what you should've called the fucking app.
- SPShaan Puri
The app, like, failed by the time they gave us the name. We were like, "Oh, this is a stupid idea. We don't know how to do this app. Let's move on."
- SPSam Parr
I still think it's worth it, by the way. Uh, I still think it's worth it. I think that's a lot of money, though. 25 grand is a lot. I think I paid my branding agency 15,000.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah. It's hard, though. When you, once you start to fall into that hole, you're like, "Well, do I want the best brand or just a mediocre brand?" [laughs] Like, if I... Am I... How much is my brand gonna be worth? Is it not worth an extra 5K? [laughs] It's very hard to say no.
- SPSam Parr
Dude.
- SPShaan Puri
At least for me.
- SPSam Parr
That's ridiculous. Um, is that the pod?
- 25:57 – 27:32
Takeaways
- SPShaan Puri
Well, let's, let's just recap real quick. It took you... You did your research in public. It took you five false starts on figuring out who is the customer, and the way you did it was you had an idea that sounded good in theory, and then you went and tried to contact them and be like, "Do you want this?" And then you got, like, punched in the face five times. And then one of them looked great, but then, like, no founder fit. And you settled on what was probably the obvious idea. So that's, like, the first takeaway. Second takeaway, um, your name is awesome. The name is awesome, but you used streets around you. Okay, I don't know if anyone else wants to copy that. Mine would be, uh, Grand Floral Boulevard if [laughs] which I don't think is gonna make for a great startup name.
- SPSam Parr
No, Sa- San, San Francisco has a bunch of good names, too.
- SPShaan Puri
Well, that's where I used to live when I was a kid. I think sh- we, I think we should show the deck that you made for the branding agency. The, the... 'Cause you... This is not what they gave you. This is what you gave them-
- SPSam Parr
Mm
- SPShaan Puri
... to get a good output. G- you know, 'cause you... Garbage in, garbage out. If you give the bad instructions or bad prompt, you're gonna get a bad result on the brand. So I think that's cool to show. And I think, you know, maybe one, one other thing that I think people could take away is using a founder story. I think a founder story is very powerful.
- SPSam Parr
And I think I need to fix that. So I just got, like, $25,000 worth of advice for free, so that's good. I appreciate that.
- SPShaan Puri
You, you got my Venmo.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Um, all right. Is that it? Is that the pod?
- SPShaan Puri
That's it. That's the pod. [upbeat music]
Episode duration: 27:32
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