Seven $1M+ Business Ideas To Start in 2023 (#404)

1. 0:00 – 0:37

   Intro

   1. SPSam Parr0:00

      Okay, next one. Um, uh, hosted buyer meetings on a plane. B2B decision-makers get a free vacation if they agree to have-

   2. SPShaan Puri0:07

      That'd be-

   3. SPSam Parr0:07

      ... X number of conversations on a flight. It's like the timeshare idea. It's like [laughs] so you get a free flight, uh, but it's [laughs] you're gonna get on a plane, uh, full of vendors. [laughs] It's like that movie Snakes on a Plane.

   4. SPShaan Puri0:20

      Dude, it's just-

   5. SPSam Parr0:20

      But instead of snakes, it's just B2B software vendors just waiting to just barrage you for [laughs] for the next seven hours on your way to Maui. [upbeat music]

   6. SPShaan Puri0:35

      So here's... I'm gonna tell you about something that's interesting.

2. 0:37 – 7:47

   Anand Sandwall, CB Insights, and Yardstiq

   1. SPShaan Puri0:37

      There's a guy who I love, and his name's Anand. Do you k- uh, he started CB Insights. Do you know him?

   2. SPSam Parr0:43

      Yeah. Listens to the pod.

   3. SPShaan Puri0:44

      So-

   4. SPSam Parr0:44

      Love the guy.

   5. SPShaan Puri0:45

      Yeah, he's a great guy. He's one of my good friends. And I was thinking about this, so there's a lot of things that second-time or third-time entrepreneurs think about that a mostly first-time entrepreneurs don't think about, one of 'em being distribution. So they'll think, like, "Oh, I'm just gonna make a cool product, and it'll somehow get into people's hands." That's false. You gotta have marketing baked in, or, like, it's gotta be part of, like, the ideation phase, marketing. The second thing is pricing. Uh, they think, "Oh, I'll just charge $5 a month, and I'll get, like, millions of people to buy this." And then you actually start doing it, and, and you're like, "Wow, this is incredibly challenging to get thousands or tens of thousands, let alone millions of people to buy something. That's really hard." And so I've been thinking about that pricing thing. So things that fit my wants and my needs and my skillsets, so for example, content. There's Industry Dive, which probably only has 5 or 10 million people a month reading their website, but they make shit for, like, people who own grocery stores, like content for people who own grocery stores, versus Buzzfeed, which makes stuff for stay-at-home moms who like cat videos. Buzzfeed, worth $100 million. Industry Dive does the exact same thing, way smaller audience, makes or, uh, sold recently for $500 or $600 million. So, like, I've been thinking about, like, th- those, that price dis- like, that, that, d- d- different ways of packaging. And so Anand from CB Insights, he's got this company that's brand-new. It's only 90 days old. It's been way low-key and under the, under wraps. And I recently discovered it, and I asked him. So it's called Yardstiq. So go to yardstiq.com-

   6. SPSam Parr2:04

      Hmm

   7. SPShaan Puri2:04

      ... and tell me what you see. It's called Yardstiq, so it's the word yard, like a backyard, and then stiq is S-T-I-Q. He's getting a little cute on us.

   8. SPSam Parr2:14

      Oh. Uh, let's see. Okay, so Yardstiq, powered by CB Insights. "Learn what software buyers really think about their vendors."

   9. SPShaan Puri2:21

      Great title.

   10. SPSam Parr2:21

       All right.

   11. SPShaan Puri2:21

       Great headline.

   12. SPSam Parr2:22

       Yeah, great.

   13. SPShaan Puri2:23

       Um, and then it says, "Access thousands of analyst-led conversations with software buyers to quickly understand pricing, competition, evaluation criteria, and subscription... and satisfaction." So basically, they interview software buyers, and they get the scoop on, "How do you really feel about X tool?" And then they summarize it so that you can, you can see how other people think about this tool before you buy it.

   14. SPSam Parr2:45

       Exactly. That's it. And they charge, like, something like 30 or 40-

   15. SPShaan Puri2:49

       Really smart, by the way

   16. SPSam Parr2:49

       They charge... Yeah, it's really smart, and I'll explain how this works, but they charge, like, 30 or $40,000 a year for this. And I think this could be $100 million a year business, and they're just... Nah, I'm, I'm downplaying, but right now the MVP is just interviewing people and showing transcripts. Eventually, I'm sure they're gonna have-

   17. SPShaan Puri3:05

       No, dude, this is really smart. I remember you talked about this back in the day 'cause there's that website, what is it, G2 Crowd?

   18. SPSam Parr3:10

       Yes, exactly.

   19. SPShaan Puri3:11

       And, um, there's... Basically, like, software is a massive category, and people are like, "Oh, which CRM should I use?" And it's like, oh, you know, it's HubSpot fighting with 10 other people to try to be the answer to that question. And so reviews is always this thing that people are trying to, like... I think people in general want the idea of a review, but it's hard to trust reviews nowadays. You don't know if the reviews are faked. Uh, you don't know if they're from people like you who have the same problems as you. Uh, and the website, like, you know, G2 Crowd and these other ones, they're pretty bad, and I've seen a, I've seen several people try to create a new software review site to compete with them. And they have to do two things. One, they have to actually be better at the reviews, and two, they have to rank higher in SEO for when somebody searches for, you know, whatever, X tool alternative or what's the best-

   20. SPSam Parr3:59

       Which is hard

   21. SPShaan Puri4:00

       ... you know, sales tool for me to use. And it's really hard to beat their SEO, and so they're fighting a very uphill battle. This, I think, is smart for two reasons. One, they already have a bunch of customers that they could just sell this, sell into with this. Two, the idea of instead of saying, "Okay, well, whoever reviews it, hopefully they're good reviews," they're like, "No, we're just gonna hire people to do these conversations, and, like, the math works out." If we get these brands to say what they think about these tools, you know, we might only need to invest, I don't know, $200,000 into the, to, to the collection of that data, and that gives us, like, s- like a better review sy- a better, um, content system.

   22. SPSam Parr4:40

       And it, uh, well, you've nailed everything, and there's a third thing, though, which is basically G2 or, um, softwarereviews.com or a lot of these websites, the way they typically work is they give an affiliate fee or some type of, like, advertisement fee. They, they collect that from the brand who wants to advertise on the website, which means they have to go and get traffic, and they've gotta convince these brands to give money, whereas this business, Yardstiq, it does exactly what I said before. It changes the way they package it. And so they just go, "No, you're the customer. You're gonna read this, and you're gonna get value from this. You're giving us 30 grand a year, and so we're just gonna make shit for you."

   23. SPShaan Puri5:12

       Right.

   24. SPSam Parr5:12

       "And it's just, that's our, that's our, that's our exchange. And so that's what we're gonna do." And so basically the background behind this business is, uh, this is something that I didn't know about until recently, and probably you didn't either because we both had small companies. And so a small company in this definition is anything that's below a billion dollars in, in market cap or value, meaning typically the people who buy this shit have 500 employees. And the reason that's important is when you buy a software provider or you buy a CRM or you buy, like, some type of, um, what's it called where you, uh, like, uh, your customer, like you do, give customer feedback, like, or you, uh, like interact with your customers and your customer service agents use it.

   25. SPShaan Puri5:49

       Uh, doing business. I don't know. Customer happiness?

   26. SPSam Parr5:51

       I don't know You know, whatever, like, the software is. Like a Zendesk or something like that

   27. SPShaan Puri5:54

       Yeah. [laughs]

   28. SPSam Parr5:55

       So but, like, picking the wrong software if you are a 500-person company, it will cost you, like, so much money. And so you have to do actually a fair b- amount of research, including, like, who invested in this company so I know they're not even gonna go out of business. And I never even in a million years thought about that. I'm like, "Dude, I'm just gonna Google, like, what's better, Gusto or Zenefits, and, like, we'll just pick one, and then we'll j- switch if it sucks." And so what Yardstiq is doing is they actually have just tr- They... It's Anand and seven other employees are the, the early people starting this company, and they basically just ask, like, seven questions to people who have bought software, uh, in the last two years. And they say, like, "Who else did you consider? Who'd you pick? What price did you pay? Would you renew? What's your customer satisfaction?" And then, um, the people who purchase this Yardstiq product are either investment bankers, so people who are, like, making investment decisions for the public markets or, or private markets, and they wanna know what the customer satisfaction is, or people who are going out and buying software, and they could see these other reviews. And it's just, like, a really interesting business because there's, there's a companies like GLG. You know GLG?

   29. SPShaan Puri6:56

       Yeah, of course.

   30. SPSam Parr6:56

       It's like, uh, you get paid two grand an hour-
3. 7:47 – 18:47

   Anand Sandwall business idea list

   1. SPShaan Puri7:47

      By the way, this guy Anand, he has a giant list of startup ideas. Have you seen this?

   2. SPSam Parr7:53

      No. Where?

   3. SPShaan Puri7:55

      I'm trying to find the list. I remember seeing it on, um, Twitter one day. But, uh-

   4. SPSam Parr8:01

      Here, w- well, why... L- look for a second. But, uh, the, the background behind Anand is he started CB Insights. They're close to 100 million in revenue. He's kind of a shithead in a really good way.

   5. SPShaan Puri8:10

      [laughs]

   6. SPSam Parr8:10

      For example, he signs, he, he writes their daily newsletter, and he signs the newsletter with I love you. Or in his Twitter file, it, tr- uh, profile, it says, "Please sign up for CB Insights. I owe people money." And, like, he is, like, like, kind of like a cheeky-

   7. SPShaan Puri8:23

      Yeah

   8. SPSam Parr8:23

      ... mis- like, mischievous guy, and very, very likable. And that's... And his content's amazing, and so that's... Anand's really interesting.

   9. SPShaan Puri8:32

      If you, if you wanna know what speaks to our heart, you gotta be somebody who's trying to do something. So you gotta be ambitious or successful in some way. And the second thing is a little bit of a shithead. So, you know, like, have that s- I don't like to eat my wings without sauce. You gotta have a little dipping sauce-

   10. SPSam Parr8:50

       [laughs]

   11. SPShaan Puri8:50

       ... to your personality if you're gonna, if you're gonna get me on board.

   12. SPSam Parr8:53

       Yeah. [laughs]

   13. SPShaan Puri8:54

       And he's got the sauce. All right. So let me tell you some of these ideas. So I don't have the full list. I remember seeing this, like, a year ago or something like that. Um, we should get him on the pod. But let me just read a couple of the ideas that were tweeted out from this list. Okay. So first one, Tough Mudder for kids. So [laughs] here's what he says. "Really any sort of manufactured adversity for semi-affluent or affluent kids. P- parents talk about wanting their kids to have perspective, resilience, and reduce their entitlement, and get them off screens. Um, Tough Mudder for kids. Super high margin. Unsure if, uh-

   14. SPSam Parr9:26

       [laughs]

   15. SPShaan Puri9:27

       You know, unsure exactly how it'd work, but money to be made for sure. Okay? That's one.

   16. SPSam Parr9:31

       Dude, Spartan, Spartan Race is now... Spartan Race is, I'm, I'm signing up for one. They actually have a kids version right now.

   17. SPShaan Puri9:36

       Tiny Spartans. I don't know if that's what it's called, but, you know, we can pretend. Um-

   18. SPSam Parr9:39

       That's a good name

   19. SPShaan Puri9:40

       ... startup idea. Duolingo for teaching finance or accounting. Teach the principles of accounting or finance via gamified Duolingo style app. What do you give that one?

   20. SPSam Parr9:49

       Uh, yeah. That's cool.

   21. SPShaan Puri9:50

       Okay. Next one. Um, uh, hosted buyer meetings on a plane. B2B decision-makers get a free vacation if they agree to have-

   22. SPSam Parr9:58

       I would do this

   23. SPShaan Puri9:58

       ... X number of conversations on a flight. It's like the timeshare idea. [laughs] It's like... So you get a free flight, uh, but it's [laughs] you're gonna get on a plane, uh, full of vendors. [laughs] It's like that movie Snakes on a Plane.

   24. SPSam Parr10:11

       Dude, it's just-

   25. SPShaan Puri10:11

       But instead of snakes, it's just B2B software [laughs] vendors just waiting to just barrage you for, for the next seven hours [laughs] on your way to Maui.

   26. SPSam Parr10:19

       And just tons of coke and, and just everything that, like, a 45-year-old guy named Todd-

   27. SPShaan Puri10:23

       [laughs]

   28. SPSam Parr10:23

       ... who wears tight blue jeans and brown shoes, whatever they need, like-

   29. SPShaan Puri10:27

       This is... Yeah. This is Jennifer. She wants you to call her Jenny, and she happens to like you. [laughs]

   30. SPSam Parr10:32

       [laughs] Yeah. I think it's actually, uh, I think you actually could build a business that way, if I'm being honest.
4. 18:47 – 34:21

   IDEA ALERT: The Guy Mafia & Car Dealership Guy

   1. SPSam Parr18:47

      Um, all right.

   2. SPShaan Puri18:47

      Okay, I wanna talk about a different little trend that I've seen on Twitter, and I call this the Guy Mafia.

   3. SPSam Parr18:53

      [laughs]

   4. SPShaan Puri18:54

      And you- [laughs]

   5. SPSam Parr18:54

      I saw that line. I thought that was really funny. I mean, I would've called the Guy Mafia just the Mafia, but [laughs]

   6. SPShaan Puri18:59

      [laughs]

   7. SPSam Parr19:00

      The Guy Mafia. [laughs]

   8. SPShaan Puri19:01

      Well, so what, what do I, what am I calling the Guy Mafia? You've probably seen this trend.

   9. SPSam Parr19:06

      The Guy Mafia. [laughs]

   10. SPShaan Puri19:07

       I feel like it's kinda new, but it's basically a whole bunch of Twitter accounts that are branded, like Car Dealership Guy, Mobile Home Park Guy, Strip Mall Guy, Self-Storage Guy, right? There's like... And they're basically just saying it's an anonymous account, so you don't know who's behind it. The promise is basically, "Hey, I'm in, I've been in this s- this, this space for a while. I got, you know, I'm, been doing this for 10, 20 years. I will share insights, but also kinda like industry secrets about the way our industry works, the, you know, the, the, the dirty laundry." And, um, these accounts are blowing up. They get really big-

   11. SPSam Parr19:48

       They're blowing up

   12. SPShaan Puri19:49

       ... really fast. I just bought a car from Car Dealership Guy.

   13. SPSam Parr19:52

       Did you really?

   14. SPShaan Puri19:53

       I don't know who this guy is. I just, I [laughs] I just dropped him a line.

   15. SPSam Parr19:56

       Dude, I almost bought a car from him too. I almost bought a car from him too.

   16. SPShaan Puri19:59

       [laughs]

   17. SPSam Parr19:59

       Tell people who he is.

   18. SPShaan Puri20:01

       Well, no, I don't wanna say his, his identity. He did, uh, he did eventually-

   19. SPSam Parr20:04

       Well, yeah

   20. SPShaan Puri20:04

       ... tell me his identity, but like-

   21. SPSam Parr20:05

       I know who he is too

   22. SPShaan Puri20:05

       ... so he's Car Dealership Guy on Twitter. He basically, he's always just twe- tweeting out about like, you know, insights into the m- car market, right? Which I like following, right? 'Cause I wanna know about the car market without doing any work. So he'll be like, "Oh, used-"

   23. SPSam Parr20:17

       Here's one that he just tweeted. He, he, he said, "The market is literally flooded with Buicks. They're rotting on car lots like [laughs] trash. You could score a deal on these if you're willing to suffer the embarrassment of s- being seen in one."

   24. SPShaan Puri20:26

       [laughs]

   25. SPSam Parr20:27

       "Buicks are at 100 tw- [laughs] Buicks are at 121 day supply. For context, Toy- Toyota is less than 30 days supply. Ridiculous. The simple people terms, day supply means the number of days it would take to deplete the current new car inventory at the current rate of sales." And so immediately I went, "Let's go look at a Buick."

   26. SPShaan Puri20:45

       [laughs] Yeah, these guys are very influential. I'm telling you, I, I spent a lot of money on a car, uh, through th- through this guy that I never saw. So what he's doing with his like concierge-

   27. SPSam Parr20:55

       What did you buy?

   28. SPShaan Puri20:55

       ... service, which... So, okay, let me give you the, the full idea, then, then I'll break it down. But here's, and we'll use him as an example. So he creates The Car Dealership Guy, and I don't think he's been at it for very long, so, uh-

   29. SPSam Parr21:07

       No

   30. SPShaan Puri21:07

       ... let me pull up kind of the, the data.
5. 34:21 – 36:58

   Agency affiliates

   1. SPSam Parr34:21

      Have you noticed, um, people doing affiliates for agencies? So basically, um, who... Well, a question that you and I probably get asked a lot is like who's a good accountant, accounting firm?

   2. SPShaan Puri34:36

      Right.

   3. SPSam Parr34:36

      Or who's a good growth marketer for newsletters? Or, uh, you know, there's like eight questions that you and I get asked all the time. Um, and I did this with MyBodyTutor. So MyBodyTutor, they were like, "Hey, do you just wanna like earn money every person you send to us?"

   4. SPShaan Puri34:50

      Right.

   5. SPSam Parr34:50

      "'Cause you're already sending tons of people." I go, "Hell yeah, give me a link."

   6. SPShaan Puri34:52

      Yeah, I feel like you're tweeting-

   7. SPSam Parr34:53

      I mean, I'm already talking-

   8. SPShaan Puri34:53

      ... a bunch of like, uh, a bunch of shout-outs. I was like, are you getting, uh, kickbacks here, or what's going on? I feel like you've tweeted a couple of these.

   9. SPSam Parr34:59

      No, I, I haven't. Uh, I just started doing it for MyBodyTutor because they were like, "Dude, you send us so much. Like, we'll just give you some money if you want." But no, I've n- I've not. Uh, l- who have I tweeted out lately? I just, I just call out cool shit.

   10. SPShaan Puri35:10

       It was them, and it was one other one that I saw that I was like, uh-

   11. SPSam Parr35:14

       Jason Yanowitz?

   12. SPShaan Puri35:15

       Oh, you're, it w- it was your, um-

   13. SPSam Parr35:16

       Oh, Diego, my video guy?

   14. SPShaan Puri35:17

       Your YouTube cut guys. Yeah, yeah.

   15. SPSam Parr35:18

       No. No, I, no, I just like, I'm just like, "Fuck it, dude. You've done..." I, well, what I told him was, I go, "Hey, if you're good, do it for free."

   16. SPShaan Puri35:23

       'Cause he does it for free for you, right?

   17. SPSam Parr35:25

       I go, "Do it for free for me, and if you're good I'll tell people about you." And so I made him do it for free f- for me for six months.

   18. SPShaan Puri35:30

       Yeah.

   19. SPSam Parr35:30

       And so, and so I was just like, "I'll just share you with you." But then you and I have friends, and I've seen people do this, and I think they're making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by referring people to certain agencies. And the right way to do this is to find a product or a service that you're already a fan of and ask for an affiliate or go and start the thing with someone and just be an affiliate. And, uh, I think that there's like this world... We had Neil Patel on the pod, and he basically founded an agency, and the reason why he was considered the founder was he did start it, but he wasn't running it, but a lot of the early leads, and probably a lot of the leads to this day, came from neilpatel.com 'cause people-

   20. SPShaan Puri36:07

       Right

   21. SPSam Parr36:07

       ... were using his website to search like SEO stuff. And we haven't seen people do that on Twitter, but it actually is really good because Twitter, unlike the other social media platforms, is ideal for link clicks, and that makes it really easy to attribute growth. And I think that there's a lot of people making a significant amount of money referring people to these high-ticket products, and I think we can continue to see that, and it might be a lot, pretty, quite, quite big. I've thought about doing this.

   22. SPShaan Puri36:32

       So one thing I've been thinking about doing is post Milk Road. Okay, we sold the Milk Road.

   23. SPSam Parr36:36

       [laughs]

   24. SPShaan Puri36:36

       Got some time. What do I wanna do next? I kinda wanna focus on the pod, make the pod bigger, uh, better, all that, all that good stuff. One of the ways I think... But the pod, you know, the pod itself, you know, is free. If you're listening to this right now, you've paid me, you know, 0.0 dollars. So how, how does this ever, you know, become something that, that you could justify saying, "I'm not gonna go build another business, I'm gonna do this instead"?

6. 36:58 – 40:07

   MFM Back Office

   1. SPShaan Puri36:58

      And one way is that can the pod basically provide some kinda win-win value for people? And so this is one thing I was thinking about, was like I kinda wanna buy a bunch of businesses that like... of people that I've worked with, like either, you know, like go to my accountant, or go to my lawyer, or go to my estate planner, and basically buy the... a majority stake in their firm. And in exchange be like, "Cool, there are a lot of other founders like me who also want estate planning, who also want legal help, who also want trademark help, who also want accounting," and basically just build a MFM style like back office, um, set of businesses. And instead of an affiliate, like actually own them, make sure that they're, they're great, like trust in them, and, um, and then drive a bunch of value to the, to those businesses, and then in return there's a bunch of people, founders like me, who are constantly asking for recommendations about like, "Yo, I'm trying to find a good blank." And I've burned through seven accountants before I found one I like. Same thing on the estate planning side. Same thing on... And so it's like though, not everybody should have to redo that work. And so that's one thought I've had as to like a cool business to build that just kinda helps kind of founder, entrepreneur, you know, types. Um, and yeah, just like own those b- own a, own a collection of those businesses that, and then, uh, you know, have audience, you know, people in this audience who want that, want those same services be able to just go find who we use.

   2. SPSam Parr38:26

      Yeah. And the, the cons are like can you possibly vet, uh, the right people and have like actually quality? But the pros are like this is pretty much what Ran- Richard Branson did with Virgin, and so it's definitely possible. I often wonder why like more celebrities, like the Kardashians and stuff, like why don't they own an equity stake in more things than they do? It doesn't seem like they do for a lot. They have done for one or two things that ended up being quite big. And so I wonder like what's the strategy? Like where, where's, where does... 'Cause every celebrity has thought about this too.

   3. SPShaan Puri38:57

      Right.

   4. SPSam Parr38:57

      And so I think like, well, where's the downf- where's the, where's the mistakes at?

   5. SPShaan Puri39:01

      I think it's just focus. Like, uh, you know, how much, how many... If you're gonna take equity stakes, you know, how much, how many things can you promote, and how many things can you... You know, you're better off basically, in th- in those cases, like you're better off finding the one or two product categories that you can own a large, uh, ch- uh, chunk of and go big, right? This is like Skims for, for Kim Kardashian. This is Kylie's lip stuff. This is Conor McGregor's whiskey, Irish whiskey. It's like, you know, he took the Irish whiskey thing and was like, "Oh, I'm just gonna put this on blast. I'm gonna own a chunk of this. I'm gonna put this on blast." I think they sold it for 500, 600 million, um, within three years, something like that. So, you know, that was like worth a lot more than like affiliate linking out to 20 services or trying to own tiny chunks of 20 businesses and then have to use your clout to promote 20 different businesses. That's kind of exhausting. So I think that's why.

   6. SPSam Parr39:51

      Well, I, I-

   7. SPShaan Puri39:52

      You wanna do a different topic?

   8. SPSam Parr39:53

      Yeah. I, um, well, l- let me brainstorm. Or do you wanna go to, is there pain for tainment [laughs] really good?

   9. SPShaan Puri39:59

      D- both of my things here I think are pretty good, but I can save them 'cause-

   10. SPSam Parr40:02

       All right, go

   11. SPShaan Puri40:02

       ... we're getting to the end.

   12. SPSam Parr40:03

       Go, go, go. Go.

   13. SPShaan Puri40:04

       Uh, which one do you want? Painful tainment-

   14. SPSam Parr40:06

       Yes

   15. SPShaan Puri40:06

       ... or the

7. 40:07 – 50:39

   The Katana Story

   1. SPShaan Puri40:07

      Katana Store?

   2. SPSam Parr40:08

      The Katana Store is a horrible name.

   3. SPShaan Puri40:09

      [laughs]

   4. SPSam Parr40:09

      So what is that, actually?

   5. SPShaan Puri40:10

      [laughs] You wanna know that one?

   6. SPSam Parr40:11

      Oh, I've seen this. Is this the guy who keeps tweeting about his YouTube page?

   7. SPShaan Puri40:15

      Yes. [laughs]

   8. SPSam Parr40:16

      Yes. I thought that was beautiful. It, I kept, I'm like, "Wait, Katana, is this a joke? Like you literally just sell swords?"

   9. SPShaan Puri40:24

      Yeah, exactly. Okay, so I see this guy. I've been, I've been seeing this guy for a while now. And so he sells-

   10. SPSam Parr40:29

       Same

   11. SPShaan Puri40:29

       ... I think his website's called minikatana.com. So it's mini katanas. It's samurai swords.

   12. SPSam Parr40:34

       But what is that? Like a Tech Deck? Like a, like a, like a Tech Deck, but a sword?

   13. SPShaan Puri40:38

       Uh, what's a Tech Deck? I don't know what that is.

   14. SPSam Parr40:40

       You remember the mini finger skateboards?

   15. SPShaan Puri40:41

       Oh, [laughs] no, it's not that small.

   16. SPSam Parr40:42

       [laughs]

   17. SPShaan Puri40:42

       It's like, you know, like two feet in length instead of like a full [laughs] samurai sword that's like, you know, five feet or whatever. Uh, this is, this is, uh, you know, like half the size of a, of a normal thing, maybe, you know, two feet instead of four feet.

   18. SPSam Parr40:54

       I didn't know the, I didn't know the standard size of a katana, if I'm being honest. So I-

   19. SPShaan Puri40:57

       Yeah, I realize I said that.

   20. SPSam Parr40:58

       [laughs]

   21. SPShaan Puri40:58

       And like, you know, the katana guy is gonna come after me here.

   22. SPSam Parr41:01

       [laughs]

   23. SPShaan Puri41:01

       And that's not who you want on your bad side. All right. So if you go to this website, you'll see that it does about one to two million monthly visits, which is a lot. That is a lot of traffic for an e-com store. Uh, I h- I, he tweets about their revenue sometimes.

   24. SPSam Parr41:17

       Wow. The, the website is actually awesome. It's like the Supreme of like swords.

   25. SPShaan Puri41:21

       [laughs] Yeah. Actually, that's a good, that's a good thing. So I think this business does, it does, he said eight figures. So it does at least 10 million a year in revenue. I think it's probably closer to 20.

   26. SPSam Parr41:31

       I would guess, uh, way more. Yeah.

   27. SPShaan Puri41:32

       Um, so I think it's probably closer to 20 based on the traffic. And one of the main ways that they do it is through YouTube. Okay, so really there's two kind of like hardcore takeaways that I have out of this. So this I'm calling my, um, I'm calling this my new the- my updated theory on what it takes to have a great e-com brand. And I call it-

   28. SPSam Parr41:51

       By the way, these are dope. I'm, I'm finna buy me a fucking sword. These are sick.

   29. SPShaan Puri41:54

       Yeah, you went from making fun of this to add to cart in like six seconds. Okay, so-

   30. SPSam Parr41:58

       Yeah, I'm gonna buy me a gold sword. Who doesn't want that?
8. 50:39 – 56:22

   The application for Sam's researcher

   1. SPSam Parr50:39

      Um, I posted a, a researcher job. So basically I don't really have a researcher. You do, and I'm envious of that. I want that. I need a little help, 'cause you're, you're, you always come with fire. I need a little help coming up with good content for the pod. And by the way, if you wanna see the job, just go to my Twitter and, like, scroll down. You'll see, like, a Google Form. But so I, I tweeted this out. I got like 300 applicants. And in order to apply, I was very specific. I was like, "If you screw up one thing on these directions, like, I'm not even gonna consider hiring you."

   2. SPShaan Puri51:08

      [laughs]

   3. SPSam Parr51:08

      I was like, "You have to, like, put your LinkedIn here."

   4. SPShaan Puri51:11

      The most Sam Parr job application.

   5. SPSam Parr51:13

      Well, yeah, because I was like, dude, if you're not gonna sweat the details on this, then you're not gonna ... That's what I said. If, if you, if you don't do a good job on this, I, I, I don't believe you'll do a good job on anything else. And I made people ... I was like, I was like, "Really simple. Come up with three ideas, and make it into a Google Doc and put the Google Doc link i- in this form. Make it so it's readable so I can just click it. If it's not readable, I'm not even gonna ask to, like, uh, I won't even look at it." And, um, I got hundreds of applicants. About half of them followed directions, and about a good chunk, 25%, were actually pretty legitimate. What do I do with, like, these hundred, like, decent people, you know? It's kind of like an interesting, this is like an interesting business problem or a, a bus- an interesting problem. If you have people ... So we did this with apartments. So our, my first business that was an online company was basically, look, in San Francisco, an open bedroom for a $1,200 a month apartment, uh, an open bedroom in a three-bedroom house, that gets like 500 applicants. And all 500 are interested in living in the same neighborhood. They're all interested in this ad, so they clearly have similar interests. We should just group them into their own thing and move them into their own par- apartment. And that was the premise of my first company. With this, I'm like, man, I got like 300 people. 100 are, are somewhat qualified. What do you do with this group of people if I can-

   6. SPShaan Puri52:29

      Yeah.

   7. SPSam Parr52:29

      It kind of seems like such a waste that I'm just using one of them. Do you know what I mean?

   8. SPShaan Puri52:32

      Yeah. Unfortunately, not a lot of people need a researcher like this.

   9. SPSam Parr52:35

      Oh.

   10. SPShaan Puri52:35

       So I think you just need to translate it to, like, something, like, most people don't have a podcast that requires researching random business stuff. So what could these people do that's ... What's a job that's more common that these people would be really good for? Is it, like, chief of staff type roles? Is it, like, something like that, you think?

   11. SPSam Parr52:53

       I don't know. I, I have to, I, I just started thinking about this ahead of time, uh, like right before we started recording. But I did think this is like the, uh, the appl- the application process is ... And this is just a little, small thing. Imagine if you're, uh, Burger King or something or some huge company and you get, like, you know, a million applicants a year. Uh, it's, like, kind of interesting where if you ... You can only hire a couple of them, and so you, like, are wasting 98%, you know, in the same way that Ford decided to make charcoal out of their burnt wood that they were using to heat their furnaces when they were making iron. Can I, what can my charcoal be of these-

   12. SPShaan Puri53:29

       Right

   13. SPSam Parr53:29

       ... 299 applicants that I don't actually hire?

   14. SPShaan Puri53:32

       Yeah, that's a great question. Um-

   15. SPSam Parr53:35

       I don't have an answer. I don't have an answer.

   16. SPShaan Puri53:36

       Don't have an answer.

   17. SPSam Parr53:36

       Sorry.

   18. SPShaan Puri53:37

       Uh, yeah.

   19. SPSam Parr53:37

       Yeah, sorry, people. Like, this is the, uh, letdown, but-

   20. SPShaan Puri53:40

       Yeah, I think the-

   21. SPSam Parr53:40

       ... it's an interesting question

   22. SPShaan Puri53:41

       ... the thing to do would be, like, what, what common job do these skills translate to? And then you have now a cohort or a pool of people that are, you know, somewhat vetted that you could create, like, a job board or some sort of, like, matching m- marketplace or service where people could just hire, you know, s- people like this for, for that common job. But, uh, I'm not sure what that is.

   23. SPSam Parr54:01

       Well, I wonder, like, like, the people who have enough probably don't care. But, but, like, the people who, like, the, the engineering companies or some- someone who's getting, like, a, a startup that's getting an engineering company or, uh, getting engineers to apply, what they should do is just, like, be like, "Hey, I'm sorry you didn't get the job, but here's like five other gigs that are kind of cool," and just take, like, the $30,000 referral fee. Do you know what I mean? Uh-

   24. SPShaan Puri54:23

       So our buddy Ryan Hoover kinda did this. He, he was hiring in a, a researcher or, like, a analyst for his fund. And he's like, "Dude, I got like hundreds of applicants. I've interviewed them." And he's like, "These," I forgot how many. Let's call it 30 just for an example. He's like, "These 30 were really good. I just, I can't hire 30. I only needed one." And so he emailed me and a bunch of other people who had funds. He's like, "Do you need an analyst? Like, here's our kind of vetted analysts that we thought were good. Um, if you need one, like, I'd love to help these people get a job." Like, he wasn't asking for any money, 'cause Ryan's a nice guy, and, you know, this is not how he's looking to make money. But, like, it was kinda great. At the same time, I was sorta like, "I'm not looking for the sloppy seconds. Like, uh, these, these people weren't good enough for you. Why, why are they good enough for me?" There's a part of me that's like that too, so I think you have that challenge. If I'm a tech company and I'm looking for engineers-

   25. SPSam Parr55:08

       That's fair

   26. SPShaan Puri55:09

       ... and I hire these people, and you didn't hire me, but, huh, you know, Facebook didn't hire you, but Google should. [laughs] And I think Google's got a little problem with that. So you have to find some way around that-

   27. SPSam Parr55:17

       That's fair

   28. SPShaan Puri55:17

       ... signal problem. Uh, same thing with investments. If I send an investment to you, I'm like, "Hey, great deal. Not doing it though. You should. You, you should invest in this." [laughs] It's like th- those are the worst in- those are the worst emails, 'cause it just ... Sometimes it's true. It's like, oh, this is just your niche-

   29. SPSam Parr55:32

       [coughs]

   30. SPShaan Puri55:32

       ... or it's your stage or whatever, but a lot of times it just adds, like, a negative flag to it for no reason.

Episode duration: 56:22