The Step By Step Guide To Starting A Business From $0

1. 0:00 – 4:50

   Intro

   1. SPShaan Puri0:00

      Describe your approach. Like, okay, you're starting a company from scratch. I would say, like, it's just a question of priorities, and I would say this person's priority is building an awesome team. They're recruiting, like, high-level people, and then, like, really setting a cultural foundation around that. So that's, like, the... That's the non, like, non-poking-fun way of looking at it, is, like, that's, that's their priority.

   2. SPSam Parr0:20

      So-

   3. SPShaan Puri0:20

      What's your priority when you, like, start an endeavor? [upbeat music] Did you see this email I sent you? So I forwarded you, uh, an in- like, an investor update I got. Uh, did you re- did you see that email I sent?

   4. SPSam Parr0:37

      No. From who?

   5. SPShaan Puri0:38

      Uh, well, I can't say be- because I was sort of, like, you know, this person's smart and they actually-

   6. SPSam Parr0:42

      Which-

   7. SPShaan Puri0:42

      ... they've sold a company before.

   8. SPSam Parr0:43

      Which address did you send it to?

   9. SPShaan Puri0:46

      Uh, I don't know. Maybe your, like, hustle one. I don't know. But just see if you s- see an email from me. Anyways, I'll, I'll just explain to you. You don't even need to read the email. Basically, this is, like... I was like, this is so different than anything I would do. And I was like, if, if this person wasn't already successful, like, they w- they did, they built a cool company before this. They are a smart person. I've met them before. But they, um, you know, their, their company updates, or their investor updates are highly, like, um, aspirational. Like, so they haven't launched yet. The team is, like... It's like, "Oh, the team is growing. We have, like, uh..." I don't know. I don't know how many people they have, like 30, 40 people now. Um, "We did our, you know, second offsite because remote work, you know, is hard to build our bonds. And on our offsite, we played these games, and we did this mission statement thing, and here's our values. And then, like, on top of the values, we're thinking about, like, how to build a culture that's really, you know, transparent and collaborative." And like, they, [laughs] again, haven't launched yet. No revenue, no nothing. Uh, but, like-

   10. SPSam Parr1:46

       Professional photographer

   11. SPShaan Puri1:48

       ... But yeah, ha- professional photographer. The update is, like, super robust. And, like, again, on one hand, I'm like, when I read this, I'm just like, "Oh, no." Like, this is, this is, like... I... It's like watching a car drive off a cliff. It's like, this is, like, all the parts of a startup except for the important parts. Um, and, like, I know they must be doing the important... They must be building the product too. It's not like they're not. Uh, but, like, I would never prioritize these things in my own companies. I know you're the same way, where we're both a little bit, like, you know, brash and, like, you know, you're like, "No, the office doesn't have cups. Like, we, we use these, like-"

   12. SPSam Parr2:21

       Use your hands. [laughs]

   13. SPShaan Puri2:22

       Yeah, like, "Can you put your hand like this?"

   14. SPSam Parr2:25

       Yeah. [laughs]

   15. SPShaan Puri2:25

       Like, what a good-

   16. SPSam Parr2:26

       What do you think hands are for, dog? [laughs]

   17. SPShaan Puri2:27

       Yeah, like, they'll, they'll call me Sam "Hose Water" Parr for nothing.

   18. SPSam Parr2:30

       Yeah. [laughs]

   19. SPShaan Puri2:30

       Like, grab the hose and suck some down. Like, if you need some, I'll bring it to your desk-

   20. SPSam Parr2:34

       [laughs]

   21. SPShaan Puri2:34

       ... so you don't even have to waste time.

   22. SPSam Parr2:35

       It's convenient. [laughs]

   23. SPShaan Puri2:37

       The hose is 18 foot. I sprung for the big one.

   24. SPSam Parr2:39

       [laughs]

   25. SPShaan Puri2:39

       And it's like... And so I know you're like me, where, like, we do this, like, very bootleg company building and, like, you know, oh, like, we look up, and it's like, "Oh, shit, we have 18 dudes? Okay, diversity, yeah, okay, like, we're, you know, we're gonna change that." Or it's like, the company culture's like, "Oh, yeah, um, come to my, come to my house tonight. I'm gonna cook for you guys. I don't know what. Like, so can you guys just stop at Safeway and just buy, like, a bunch of chips?"

   26. SPSam Parr3:04

       [laughs]

   27. SPShaan Puri3:05

       Like, every-

   28. SPSam Parr3:05

       [laughs]

   29. SPShaan Puri3:06

       You're like, "Chips," right? It's like, yeah, all right, everybody likes chips. We're gonna g- everybody go buy your favorite bag of chips. That's what we're doing tonight. Like, you know.

   30. SPSam Parr3:12

       Yeah.
2. 4:50 – 12:55

   Describe your approach to starting a business

   1. SPShaan Puri4:51

      I guess, like, what's your... Describe your approach. Like, okay, you're starting a company from scratch. I would say, like, it's just a question of priorities, and I would say this person's priority is building an awesome team. They're recruiting, like, high-level people, and then, like, really setting a cultural foundation around that. So that's, like, the... That's the non, like, non-poking-fun way of looking at it, is, like, that's, that's their priority.

   2. SPSam Parr5:13

      So-

   3. SPShaan Puri5:14

      What's your priority when you, like, start an endeavor? You're like-

   4. SPSam Parr5:16

      So yeah, I'm doing that now. So, like, I'm gonna start getting into it, and we can talk about it, but I'm gonna start getting into something. And I'm thinking, like, all right, is this something that I wanna build to sell, or is this something that I wanna run forever? Because that actually kind of matters on how you set up your entity.

   5. SPShaan Puri5:33

      Okay.

   6. SPSam Parr5:33

      Um, so I think about, like, what do I want personally? What type of life do I want, and how long do I wanna operate this for? So that's what-

   7. SPShaan Puri5:39

      So what would you do differently? Let's say build f- bui- own forever or build to sell. What, what's the dif- what's the core difference between the two of them?

   8. SPSam Parr5:45

      Well, if you wanna pay yourself from the business as you go, an LLC makes sense. Um, if you wanna sell the company and you're willing to not pay yourself a little bit, or you only wanna pay yourself as a W-2, then you wanna be a cor- um, like, a C- C corp. And if you wanna, um- I guess you could be an S corp, but if you wanna sell your company in, in five-plus years and take advantage of QSBS, which is $10 million of tax- or sorry, $3 million of tax savings, then you for sure wanna be a C corp 'cause you can't get that on the other two.

   9. SPShaan Puri6:14

      Yeah.

   10. SPSam Parr6:14

       So I, I would, I would think about, like, that. Like, what type of structure do I want this to be? Of course, I have a history of getting hits, so, like, if you don't have a history of, like, making money, then, like, I wouldn't even worry about this shit, you know what I mean?

   11. SPShaan Puri6:26

       [laughs] Right.

   12. SPSam Parr6:27

       Like, I've proven to myself that, like, if I say I'm gonna do something, I follow through. You know?

   13. SPShaan Puri6:31

       Right.

   14. SPSam Parr6:31

       I'm not... You don't wanna be the, the nerd that just buys business cards before you even have anything done.

   15. SPShaan Puri6:35

       [laughs]

   16. SPSam Parr6:36

       [laughs]

   17. SPShaan Puri6:37

       Good point. Okay, so that's-

   18. SPSam Parr6:38

       [laughs]

   19. SPShaan Puri6:38

       ... that's like literally a company structure, but, um... And by the way, I, I th- I think I told you this. I, one of the kinda like tax/ um, uh, lawyer people that's, like, kind of advising us, they gave us a pretty great structure that gives us best of both. They were like, "Just have a C corp. That owns the business assets, and that's what will be eligible for QSBS down the road. But then, uh, the Q- the C corp will pay your LLCs, uh, you know, your LLCs and for each of you, you, you know, the co-founders, uh, like, as a management thing. And so you're gonna get, you're gonna get personally paid out through your LLC, um, and then y- but you still retain the long-term benefits-

   20. SPSam Parr7:16

       Right

   21. SPShaan Puri7:16

       ... of raising money or selling a C corp.

   22. SPSam Parr7:18

       Yeah, that's... But is the, is the stock owned by the C corp?

   23. SPShaan Puri7:23

       Uh, yeah. So the company... Well, C corp is the one issuing the stock. It has the stock.

   24. SPSam Parr7:27

       Right.

   25. SPShaan Puri7:27

       That's the stock that we want to eventually sell someday.

   26. SPSam Parr7:28

       So if you do a stock purchase-

   27. SPShaan Puri7:29

       And we can either... We... And then the LLC doesn't need to own that stock. It's hiring-

   28. SPSam Parr7:33

       Yeah, then that's great

   29. SPShaan Puri7:34

       ... as, like, a management company.

   30. SPSam Parr7:35

       That's like savvy shit that I would have to, like, look into and make sure I'm doing it right because there's a-
3. 12:55 – 17:00

   Tactics to starting a business

   1. SPShaan Puri12:55

      you first figure out, do people want this? And you try to, like, you know, pre-sell it or offer it to them and see if they sign up for the wait list or they, they pre-buy or whatever. And then you figure out, where am I gonna get customers repeatedly? And, like, you test that marketing channel, and, like, those are the only two things you do. You say no to everything else. That sounds so simple. And then you, like, tell someone, "Go try to build a startup," and they'll do everything else besides those two things. [laughs]

   2. SPSam Parr13:17

      That's because that's, like, the embarrassing hard stuff.

   3. SPShaan Puri13:20

      Yeah, 'cause it's the hard stuff, and if they d- if it doesn't work, the car doesn't move anywhere. Whereas, you can do a whole bunch of other stuff, and it feels like you're moving, but the reality is you're not moving forward, you're moving sideways. And so, but at least moving feels like you're moving, and so people will gravitate towards those things. So let me give you some examples. Um, yesterday there was a tweet about Furqan, who was my, my old co-founder of my, my last startup. And Furqan is, like, you know, a, a man of, of action. F- you know, few words, a lot of action. And, um, you know, like, if you ever ask him, like, "When do you think you could do this?" It is rare for him to not be like, "I should be able to ship it tonight." Now, he only hits the tonight thing, like, I would say 30% of the time. Like, 30% of the time nothing happens. 70% of the time he gets, like, a crappy version that's, like, not ready, but, like, he'll... At 2:00 AM there will be a message from him, be like, "Here's where I left it." And, you know, like, 10 or 20% of the time he actually finishes the thing. But he almost never says anything besides, like, "Yeah, we should be able to do that tonight." Um, and so I learned that from him, and every engineer we hired learned that from him. We're like, "You can't give him a timeline that's not tonight." He's, if you say something besides tonight, he's just gonna be like, "What the fuck are you talking about?" So he now has this new, like, incubator thing, uh, called F.Inc. It's all of a sudden-

   4. SPSam Parr14:29

      Dude, it, what was that picture of that-

   5. SPShaan Puri14:31

      Dude, it looks sexy as hell, right?

   6. SPSam Parr14:32

      What was that room?

   7. SPShaan Puri14:32

      Like, he bought this 10,000 square foot, or leased this fo- 10,000 square foot space in Fort Mason. He, it was beautiful. When everybody was leaving San Francisco and, uh, and then remote work shut down all the offices and schools and in-person events, he was, like, the only buyer. He was like, "Yeah, I want a big space." Uh, I'm, in the middle of San Francisco, in the best part of San Francisco. So he's like, you could see the water, the bridge. He got 10,000 square feet. He's like, "Oh, I'm gonna put a robotics lab, a hardware lab, desks. I'm just gonna have a bunch of engineers come make stuff here. You don't have to pay me rent, like, just come build stuff."

   8. SPSam Parr15:02

      And it's, like, beautiful. Like, it looks, it looks like a-

   9. SPShaan Puri15:03

      And now he, and he's been renovating it, so it's like-

   10. SPSam Parr15:05

       Yeah

   11. SPShaan Puri15:05

       ... it's, he started with an empty blank shell, and now it's, like, looks awesome. So there's a story-

   12. SPSam Parr15:10

       Does he make, does he make money from that, or is he just spending money hoping that one of the companies takes off?

   13. SPShaan Puri15:14

       No, he's just spending money. He, he, he's like, he had made a bunch of money, and he's also just, like, I... He invests in the incubator company and the companies that are there.

   14. SPSam Parr15:20

       Right.

   15. SPShaan Puri15:20

       He invests in a bunch of them, and, like, those are already doing well. So somebody tweeted out, somebody who wor- who's working out of there, they go, "Uh, one thing that Furqan does around the office is if a developer spends, like, more than a day," I think it's like, if you spend more than a day on local host, which is basically just means, like, you're building your website project, but you didn't ship it to the world. Like, nobody else besides your laptop can access the site. Um, if you spend more than a day, he'll just start calling you local host until you ship it.

   16. SPSam Parr15:48

       [laughs]

   17. SPShaan Puri15:48

       He'll stop using your name, and he'll just call you local host, because you, oh, you're just local host now. Like, right? Like, you don't want people to use your product, so you just, "All right, local host, you wanna get lunch?" And, like, I wanted to tweet this out. I knew people would take it the wrong way, but, like, that is a style we kind of incubated at our last startup. It's sort of like bully management, and it's not that you're bullying people, it's that you're bullying your values. It's like, how do I, like, live my values instead of just say, "We care about, you know, like, building things fast"? It's like, no, if you don't build things and get it to customers, you will get ridiculed here, because it, that is not cool in our books. You want cool? You want respect? Then you gotta do the thing we respect. And, like, if you don't, we're gonna tease you until you do it.

   18. SPSam Parr16:32

       I was giving a-

   19. SPShaan Puri16:33

       And-

   20. SPSam Parr16:33

       ... a guy a hard time in the trends group because he posted, "Hey, so I've got six podcast episodes already recorded. Can someone give me an answer on which hosting platform is better?"

   21. SPShaan Puri16:43

       [laughs]

   22. SPSam Parr16:43

       And, and my, I reply to go, "Well, that's not really the important question. The important question is, why did you record six but, like, just release one?"

   23. SPShaan Puri16:50

       [laughs]

   24. SPSam Parr16:51

       And, and-

   25. SPShaan Puri16:52

       Right

   26. SPSam Parr16:52

       ... and just post it. It, that was like, well-

   27. SPShaan Puri16:53

       L- by, by the way

   28. SPSam Parr16:54

       So, so what was... Yeah, go ahead

   29. SPShaan Puri16:55

       ... when I started this podcast, when I started this podcast, what did I do? I messaged you on Facebook. I go, "Hey,

4. 17:00 – 32:35

   How My First Million podcast came to be

   1. SPShaan Puri17:00

      I'm starting a podcast, and I think, you know, w- uh, it's gonna be awesome. Uh, you know, here's the concept." At that, I was literally making it up as I was... I made up the name, made up the concept right there on the spot. I knew I wanted to do a podcast generally, and I go, I go, um, "You know, you have this awesome audience but no audio content. I'll make great audio content if you'll put it in front of your audience." And then I was like, "I'ma send you the first, I'll send you the first episode later today." There was no first episode. I then go book a studio, record the episode, and sent it to you within 24 hours in order for you to, like, see that I'm, like, being legit about it, you know, whatever.

   2. SPSam Parr17:33

      And it was live, like, uh, two weeks later, right?

   3. SPShaan Puri17:36

      Yeah, I was like, "Okay, this is ready to go. [laughs] Like, here, it's [laughs] nobody's listening to it, but it's in the store. You can go listen to the podcast-

   4. SPSam Parr17:42

      Yeah

   5. SPShaan Puri17:42

      ... if you want to."

   6. SPSam Parr17:43

      The guy was like, "We got, we got six done." And I'm like, "But that's not the question that you d- like, the question is, why do you have six done and none, none live? Like, that's just crazy."

   7. SPShaan Puri17:51

      Right.

   8. SPSam Parr17:51

      'Cause people default to, they, i- i- it's embarrassing, and it's, to post that shit.

   9. SPShaan Puri17:57

      So let me give you some other examples of, of this, of being brutal about it. Uh, at Monkey Inferno, when, when we were working there, we would sometimes let, like, kind of interesting engineering guys, like, just hang out in our office. And they would, we'd just be like, "Ah, just work from here. No, you don't need to pay us. It's not a WeWork." It's like, "It's a sick office. We got extra space. Just come here and work. Just bring some good energy." And so these guys came, and they, uh, they were working there They had this idea that was really cool, and then they were like, uh, they would always ask us questions that were like, that like, "Oh, this investor's interested. Well, you know, we're thinking about raising money, you know, how should we think about this? Can you look at our debt? Can you do this and that?" I'm like, I was like, "Hey, is your guys, is your guys' product... Do you have your product built? Like, do you have users?" I was like, "This is m- Like, those are more important than this fundraising stuff." But, like, I get it, it's, it's flattering when an investor wants to give you money. But, like, now that investor just took over your day. Like, uh, now your day is all about that instead of, like, the main thing, right? Like, "Hey, guys-

   10. SPSam Parr18:50

       And whatever happened to them

   11. SPShaan Puri18:51

       ... keep the main thing the main thing." So then, no, so then they get, they get into Y Combinator. They're like, "Oh, we got into Y Combinator," and we're like, "Awesome. Those guys will keep you on track." And then over the next six weeks, it was like, [clicks tongue] "Yo, um, you're in YC. Like, what's going on? What's it like to be in YC? I've never done it. Like, heard it's awesome." And they're like, "Oh, yeah, the office hours are great. They're bringing up this and that." And we're like, "Hey, so how many users you guys got?" And they'd be like, "Um..." And they would like, they didn't know the number.

   12. SPSam Parr19:15

       Oh, my God.

   13. SPShaan Puri19:16

       And me and Furqan just looked at each other. We were like, "All right, new rule. If we ask you how many users you have, how many da- daily active users you have, and you don't know the number, like, 10 pushups." And they're like, [laughs] "Ha ha." We're like, "No, we're serious about that." And then they, they still didn't know it for two more days, and they had to look up the dashboard. And we're like, "All right, [laughs] 10 pushup's not working." So we took a marker and we started writing a giant zero on the, um, like, the, the wall behind them. [clicks tongue] And we were like, "This is the number of users you have according to us, 'cause you don't know. So we're just gonna keep putting zero here-

   14. SPSam Parr19:45

       [laughs]

   15. SPShaan Puri19:45

       ... and, like, it's your job to, like, change this to be, like, the number of users you have. Every day when you come to the office, you're gonna see this giant zero above your head until you ha- change that." And, like, again, this worked. It like, all of a sudden they started thinking about how many users they had. They want, they didn't want that giant zero hanging over their head. And I've just seen many versions of this. I've heard a story about Peter Thiel doing this, too. Peter Thiel's values were all about, like, focus, and so his thing was everybody at PayPal when he was the CEO of PayPal-

   16. SPSam Parr20:11

       Yeah

   17. SPShaan Puri20:11

       ... would have one thing that they were responsible for, and the list could only be one. They had one big thing to care about. And if you tried to talk to Peter like, "Hey, Peter, um, you know, yeah, the, the market, you know, the, the marketing stuff's going well. But I had this idea around this feature," he would literally just leave the room. If you ever tried to speak to him about the non-one thing you were assigned, he would just ignore you. He's like, "Oh, that's not im- Remember, we decided what's important? So by definition, this is not important. So by definition, I'm just not gonna talk to you about non-important things. I'm gonna leave." Right? Like, I don't know how hard, I don't know how real that anecdote is, 'cause I wasn't there, but, like, let's just say, like, directionally it's true. Um, I think that that is, like, a really important way to, like, operate a young company.

   18. SPSam Parr20:53

       What happened to the guys from your office?

   19. SPShaan Puri20:55

       [clicks tongue] They ended up getting into YC. They ended up, uh, getting better. They, like, they kinda grew, but then they lost, like... Like, once the growth wasn't, like, instant... The, here's my read of it. They pivoted. They pi- they pivoted and disbanded. They're all doing different things now. One guy, one guy's, like, you know, working on a different company. Another guy's working on a different company, and the third guy I've never heard, I don't know where he went. And, um-

   20. SPSam Parr21:17

       Probably found some cocaine somewhere.

   21. SPShaan Puri21:19

       And he had told me something once which was just, like, he was like, you know [laughs] ...

   22. SPSam Parr21:22

       [laughs]

   23. SPShaan Puri21:23

       He, he, he had told me [laughs] only once, he was like, like, they were building a marketplace of supply and demand, and, like, they, the reason they, we were all excited about them was because they got this huge amount of supply really quickly. They had just posted on Reddit, and, like, people really wanted the thing, and so they started posting. But the demand side was slow, and he was like, he's like, "When I..." He's like, "With the la- with the supply side, it felt like I stepped on a landmine. I just, like, did o- I took one step and it just blew up." He goes, "I want the demand to feel like that, too."

   24. SPSam Parr21:50

       Dude, so-

   25. SPShaan Puri21:50

       On one, on one hand I respected that. On the other hand, I was like, "Dude, sometimes you gotta, like, figure out how to get that to work."

   26. SPSam Parr21:55

       No, I don't respect that, and the reason why is, you know, we're taught, like, you know, people can change. We can evolve. And I have actually, uh, I think last year I actually made the decision, I'm actually going to assume people don't change. The way you are is the way you are, and you're never changing.

   27. SPShaan Puri22:10

       [laughs]

   28. SPSam Parr22:11

       And that, that, that way of thinking-

   29. SPShaan Puri22:13

       How hopeful of you

   30. SPSam Parr22:14

       ... I- it's actually been amazing because, like, I'll meet someone and I'm just like, "Oh, you are a loser, and you're always going to be a loser. You say you're gonna do something. You don't do it. You don't have big dreams. You don't work hard."
5. 32:35 – 42:50

   Cyberleads.com

   1. SPSam Parr32:35

      in here in the doc. I'm highlighting it right now. It's called, um, GetCyberLeads.com. Have you ever seen this?

   2. SPShaan Puri32:41

      [laughs] No. Who, so who's the guy?

   3. SPSam Parr32:43

      Uh, well, I don't, I don't know. I don't even know his name. I just DM'd him on, uh, Alex. Alex West Co.

   4. SPShaan Puri32:50

      Okay. Uh, yeah, I don't think I know this person.

   5. SPSam Parr32:52

      He said, "Tell Shaan I said hey." Alex West is his name. I, I didn't know if he was saying it as like a way that he knows you. He must just be a fan. All right.

   6. SPShaan Puri32:59

      So what's Get Cyber Leads?

   7. SPSam Parr33:00

      The reason it's cool is it's just him, and basically what it is is you pay, let's see, how much is it? Is it, so like you pay between 100 and $1,000 a month for a different, a, a bunch of different versions. But basically you, every w- month, just one time every month, he sends you 1,000 plus handpicked companies that just raised a lot of money and are highly likely to go and look and, uh, look to outsource a, whether it's technology or, uh, uh, design. They're looking to outsource stuff. And if you're an agency owner, you sign up to this, and every month you just get a bunch of new leads. And the lead list, it includes the CEO's name, the CEO's contact information, what this person is likely to outsource, where they're located, how big they are, and how much, or how much money they just raised. And the reason why this is cool is because it's so freaking simple, very clear value. It's just one person. It's making $300,000 a year. So, or sorry, yeah, $300,000 a year. So it's making, um, in March he said he did 20, he did $20,000 a month with a net profit of $17,000. It's now gone up to like 30,000 a month. But I just thought this was unique, and I love these types of businesses because the value proposition is so clear. If you just, one of these things closes a deal, it's worth it. And I actually think that you could do this for a donch- bunch of different verticals. You've never seen this before?

   8. SPShaan Puri34:20

      No, I've never d- I've never seen this. How does he do the, like, what they're likely to outsource? Is he just guessing based on industry-

   9. SPSam Parr34:26

      So I asked him

   10. SPShaan Puri34:27

       ... or is this something?

   11. SPSam Parr34:28

       I go, "Are you doing this handpicked?" He goes, "Yeah, every report takes me an hou- uh, 100 hours."

   12. SPShaan Puri34:34

       To do the whole leads list?

   13. SPSam Parr34:36

       And he sends one email per month. And if you go to the website and you click live demo, uh, you can basically see what he sends you. It's, it's just like an air table, an air table table, uh, and you can kinda see all the information.

   14. SPShaan Puri34:51

       Wow. That's kinda cool. All right.

   15. SPSam Parr34:53

       This is-

   16. SPShaan Puri34:53

       I like this

   17. SPSam Parr34:53

       ... this is pretty cool, right?

   18. SPShaan Puri34:54

       [laughs] Yeah. Good, good for him. Um, yeah

   19. SPSam Parr34:57

       ... and I, it's just him, and he's like... I was like, "Can this scale?" He goes, "I think I can get a million dollars a year pretty soon, and I'm not sure what I could do after that. But I think just me, this could get a million dollars." And honestly, I totally agree. I think this is a beautiful business. I think this is really, really cool.

   20. SPShaan Puri35:13

       [laughs] So he said, okay, so let's just look at his March numbers. All right, so he said March revenue 20,000, cost 3,000 a month, net profit 17K, profit margin 85%. Last March, for example, he was basically five times less. So revenue was 4,000 and now it's 20,000. And so this is pretty good. I mean, this is what, basically, basically one guy to, and a VA can run this. Um, yeah, one guy and a, one guy and a VA can run this thing, and it's providing, like you said, it's providing clear value in the sense that like if I pay for this, I'm likely to get more customers and make more money. So it, it's like it pays for itself. And, like, it pays for itself is actually like a pretty valuable thing, which is like there's a bunch of things in my businesses that I'm like, oh yeah, I wanna do that, but, you know, I kinda have these other priorities. And it was like, well, I really do just need to look at all these things as like can I hire somebody and it be immediately value, like, you know, accretive in the next six to 12 months, because that job that I'm hiring them for is not to just make my life easier, it's to literally generate revenue and profits. And so, like, there is no way that if I hire this person, if they are competent, this has to be an ROI positive thing to do. And m- you know, the only thing I need to consider is, like, do I have the, do I ha- have the The bandwidth to hire this person. And so, um, and so to me, you know, like that's... And then there's products like that too. This is a product like that where it's like, yeah, I pay $99, whatever, $199 a month, whatever this thing costs, and like if I can't make more than $199 off this, like that's just my own incompetence at that point.

   21. SPSam Parr36:49

       It's sick, man. It's really sick. And so it says, it says there's 1,000 leads. If you go to pricing for... The prices range from $200 to $2,000, and it says, let's see, it says you get, uh, 1,000 leads. Maybe that includes like all the past months. Uh, it- it's pretty... This is pretty cool.

   22. SPShaan Puri37:09

       By the way-

   23. SPSam Parr37:09

       Yeah

   24. SPShaan Puri37:09

       ... check out this tweet I put in the chat. Uh, this is a good example of like content that's not like, um... It's like this is the easy, easy mode of creating content that people resonate with. So this is just like a beautiful tweet. All right, so this guy tweeted out December 21st. He goes, "One year ago, one year ago today I was fired from my job making $2,000 a month. Today, I'm making $6,000 a month with my own business." And then he posts, more importantly, he posts a screenshot of his like calendars planner, and it says, "Fired!" Exclamation point. "Last day at work," that's like on the 21st. The, on the 22nd, "Day one, a self-employed man," exclamation point. And it's just like you kind of root for the person. Um, and you know, what's in this content? It's nothing, but it's like by showing the raw like planner, uh, and like what I wrote to myself that day, like these are like these- these have like an emotional impact on people, and I think that's one thing that most people get wrong in content is that content is about emotion, not information. And something like that, it generates like a feeling of like rooting for the person that is like... M- most people I know are really smart, and so they try to like outsmart everybody on content, and it's like you don't need to outsmart everybody. You need to trigger an emotional response, whether it's outrage, it's like compassion, it's like, um, you know, awe inspiring, whatever it is. And, uh, this is a great simple example of how you can make somebody root for you is, you know, a little tweet like this.

   25. SPSam Parr38:28

       This guy's a good find. I think he kind of... So there's this guy that, for context for the listener, there's a guy named Peter Levels who I've been begging to get on the pod, and he keeps like saying yes, and then ghost, and yeah, so. But anyway, this guy, Peter Levels, he's not exactly a one-man operation. I think now he's got contractors, but he's got like four or five different businesses. They're basically all the same thing, like job boards, collectively doing like 4 million or, or, or so in revenue, and he posts like cute, cool, insightful content on Twitter and blogs. This guy, Alex West, is kind of like in the same ballpark as that, as that guy, Peter Levels.

   26. SPShaan Puri39:05

       Right. [laughs]

   27. SPSam Parr39:05

       Like he's, it's like cool, well-designed. It looks like he's like a, like a nomad as well. Uh, but, uh, I thought-

   28. SPShaan Puri39:12

       By the way, somebody needs to make the list. I feel like Steph Smith needs to do this. She needs to make the de- definitive list of these like solopreneur, freelancer, digital nomad. Basically it's like the Peter Levels, this guy, where it's like, yeah, this person's on some journey. They're trying to get to 100K a month in like personal revenue, but they have these principles. Like they're not trying to h- raise money. They're not trying to build a big team. They live nomadically. They're like just a good enough engineer, and just a good enough designer, and just a good enough copywriter to make it happen, and they're like doing it all in public. And like there's like 20 of these people that I found on Twitter. All of them are entertaining to me, and I feel like most people just don't know who those people are. And like, uh, actually like a good service would be to just aggregate them and put it in a newsletter and be like, "Hey, I'm following all these people doing this thing. Check this out. This guy posted an update about this thing." And like you can just make a newsletter following their work and [laughs] probably like, you know, build an audience of 50 to 100,000 people following you following them, which is sort of, you know, meta.

   29. SPSam Parr40:08

       Do you ever read Indie Hackers?

   30. SPShaan Puri40:11

       Uh, I don't personally go there much, but I have for sure in the past.
6. 42:50 – 50:30

   Question: What would you do if you found a brick of cocaine?

   1. SPSam Parr42:50

      what, what would you do if you came across, like, I have no idea how cocaine is measured, but, like, that, that movie scene where you come across, like-

   2. SPShaan Puri42:56

      A brick

   3. SPSam Parr42:57

      ... a hat. Yeah. Or many bricks, I guess.

   4. SPShaan Puri42:59

      Yeah.

   5. SPSam Parr42:59

      What do you, what do you do with it?

   6. SPShaan Puri43:02

      Take a picture, put it on Instagram, be like, "Oh my God," get the social clout and get the hell out of there. I am not picking up the cocaine. I'm not becoming a drug dealer. I'm not gonna figure out how to flip this. You could also replace that with, like, oh, I find a, um, you know, a large supply of copper wires, which have a, like, decent market value. I don't know. I've, I've actually been down this path before once. I think I talked about this on the pod, where we met a guy who had this giant c- uh, comic book card collection.

   7. SPSam Parr43:31

      Yes.

   8. SPShaan Puri43:32

      And, like, we had this opportunity to buy it for, like, probably, like, 10 cents on the dollar of what it was, like, what the individual, like, s- sum of all the parts would've been. But we had to, like, figure out, like, what the hell to do. It's like here's a warehouse. You now have the cost of this warehouse, and then you have all this stuff, and none of it's graded, and none of it's, like, categorized. None of it's inventoried. It's like, you know, you gotta go do that, like, you know, American Pickers style, like, junkyard flip type thing for this stuff. And when I kind of like, I got excited at first 'cause it was like it would've been a, like, multimillion-dollar flip if we had done it.

   9. SPSam Parr44:05

      How did that end?

   10. SPShaan Puri44:06

       It ended with me realizing this is not worth the time and energy to go do this. Like, this is so much energy.

   11. SPSam Parr44:12

       But what... So the story was basically you came across a guy who owned a warehouse, and you said it had like-

   12. SPShaan Puri44:16

       Really, really old guy. Really old guy who was, like, finally ready to, like, sell his thing he'd been collecting for 30 years.

   13. SPSam Parr44:21

       Like, tens of millions of, like, baseball cards or something?

   14. SPShaan Puri44:24

       Yeah, like, he had millions of cards, most of which are useless, but for sure some of it is valuable. [laughs] And, like, the question is, like, and you had to buy the whole lot. You had to buy the whole, like, thing, and then you had to like-

   15. SPSam Parr44:35

       What did he do with it?

   16. SPShaan Puri44:35

       ... deal with it. I think he did... Uh, no, nobody bought it because, again, nobody wants this headache. And, like, even the discount, like, I was like, okay, let's say this is discounted, you know, based on our estimates, this thing's discounted, like, 90%. Even at a 90% discount, the, like, mental overhead, the literal overhead, and, like, some people out there are like, "Dude, I would've done it," and, like, you should go do it. If you have no better options, g- you should go do this. But for me, I was like, "Wow, this is a lot of work." So I would not... I wouldn't do it in the legal case, let alone the illegal case of figuring out how to flip these bricks of cocaine is kinda my answer. What's your answer to that?

   17. SPSam Parr45:10

       It depends what stage of life I'm in. Um, like-

   18. SPShaan Puri45:14

       All right. So let's, let's take it by decade. You're 20.

   19. SPSam Parr45:17

       I'm 20, and l- like, what are these bricks? If, could they be worth, like, $2 million?

   20. SPShaan Puri45:22

       Let's, let's say the whole thing is worth, uh, you know, $6 million if you, if you, you know, sold it all at, at, like, street value.

   21. SPSam Parr45:29

       So let's start at the end of you having all this cash. Let's say you have six-

   22. SPShaan Puri45:32

       We alw- as you know, we do, we do move straight to the end, so.

   23. SPSam Parr45:35

       We, I, I'm moving straight to the end.

   24. SPShaan Puri45:36

       [laughs]

   25. SPSam Parr45:37

       Assuming that I had $6 million in cash, I wouldn't even know what to do with that. If you buy a, if you buy a h- i- if you buy property with $6 million in cash, how... Can you even do that? Are you even allowed to do that? I mean, where would you keep that money?

   26. SPShaan Puri45:50

       Yeah, I don't know what you would do. You'd have to, like, figure out how to, like, launder it basically to, like, legitimately own it, or you'd have to figure out a way to, like, do some, you know, off, uh, off, o- over the counter transaction of, like, gold bars or something else.

   27. SPSam Parr46:03

       Or do you just live a ca- like, a cash life forever?

   28. SPShaan Puri46:07

       Yeah, you go under the mattress. [laughs]

   29. SPSam Parr46:09

       [laughs] You just pay for everything with, with, with tens and twenties. Um, what-

   30. SPShaan Puri46:12

       Oh, this is Breaking Bad, right? This is the plot of Breaking Bad basically. [laughs]
7. 50:30 – 51:50

   DeadEyes podcast

   1. SPSam Parr50:30

      there's this podcast called Dead Eyes. Do you know what Dead Eyes is?

   2. SPShaan Puri50:33

      No, never heard of it.

   3. SPSam Parr50:34

      All right. So years ago, Tom Hanks was the producer of Band of Brothers. You know, it was like that TV show on HBO about W- W- World War II. And there was this one comedian who was, like, an extra of one of the guys who was shooting or something, and Tom Hanks, like, looked at him and then whispered in the producer... or whispered in his assistant's ear and said like, "Hey. Hey, man, you gotta go." Uh, Tom Hanks apparently said that he had, quote, "dead eyes" and he wanted him off the set. Like, he just didn't like him as an extra. Something that probably happens all the time.

   4. SPShaan Puri51:05

      [laughs]

   5. SPSam Parr51:05

      He just thought... And so-

   6. SPShaan Puri51:06

      Just a flex.

   7. SPSam Parr51:07

      Yeah. He just... It wasn't working out. And so this, [laughs] this guy created a podcast called Dead Eyes, and the whole podcast was questioning why he got kicked off, like, Band of Brothers.

   8. SPShaan Puri51:17

      Oh, that same guy. Okay. [laughs]

   9. SPSam Parr51:18

      Yes. And he... [laughs] And so the, the whole podcast, the whole premise is, like, he's interviewing people on Band of Brothers, like, asking like, "Why do you think I got kicked off?" Like, "What?" Like, "Let's talk through this."

   10. SPShaan Puri51:28

       Dude, how did you find this? Sounds like the most obscure of the obscure [laughs] podcasts to listen to.

   11. SPSam Parr51:33

       Well, eventually Tom Hanks goes on it.

   12. SPShaan Puri51:36

       Oh my God, that's amazing.

   13. SPSam Parr51:38

       And he lands Tom Hanks, and he comes on at a g- as a guest and he explains, like, what, what was happening from his perspective. And what we need to do with you [laughs]

   14. SPShaan Puri51:47

       [laughs] Well,

8. 51:50 – 58:18

   Winners exist, here's how to attract them

   1. SPShaan Puri51:50

      but wait, hold on. What was the explanation? What did he say? Or he was just like, "I don't remember." [laughs]

   2. SPSam Parr51:54

      He, yeah. He was like, "I, I don't... It... Like, I'm sorry, it wasn't... Let me see." He's like-

   3. SPShaan Puri51:59

      It's funny, this has haunted you for 24 years. [laughs]

   4. SPSam Parr52:01

      Yeah. He was like, "This... It, I guess it just, it just wasn't even like a th-" He didn't really think about it, I believe.

   5. SPShaan Puri52:05

      [laughs]

   6. SPSam Parr52:06

      Um, and apparently he said that, like, it maybe even it was, like, a mistake. Like, maybe he said the wrong thing, uh, to the wrong person. But like, it, it was just... It just dismissed him. Um, like, it wasn't even, like, an issue in his life. And this guy has this whole podcast called Dead Eyes. Have... You've not heard of this? It's hilarious.

   7. SPShaan Puri52:26

      No, that's, that's hilarious. What were you gonna tie that in? You said I should do something?

   8. SPSam Parr52:29

      Well, so with you wanting to be on, on Survivor, we need to, like, have you go through the whole process. And you're likely gonna get turned down at the audition, but we gotta, like, do, like, a whole series of episodes of you going through this process of getting on Survivor and documenting it and getting all-

   9. SPShaan Puri52:46

      Oh, that's a great idea.

   10. SPSam Parr52:47

       And-

   11. SPShaan Puri52:48

       That's a great idea

   12. SPSam Parr52:48

       ... and we, we like... What you need to do is comment, get the person who does casting for Survivor and act like you want them to come on as a guest. And we could do it just to, like, humor them, but, like, on air be like, "So like, can Shaan audition?"

   13. SPShaan Puri53:02

       [laughs] Can I, can I get on?

   14. SPSam Parr53:04

       Yeah. Yeah, like-

   15. SPShaan Puri53:05

       By the way, I have auditioned before already, so I've been rejected once. Uh, so I already got that under my belt now.

   16. SPSam Parr53:10

       Well, no, we gotta have him on air, and we'll do it, like, funny. Like, you know, I think I said this earlier, like, "Wouldn't, wouldn't it be funny if we just started kissing right now? Like, wouldn't that be hilarious?"

   17. SPShaan Puri53:17

       [laughs]

   18. SPSam Parr53:18

       Like, that's gotta be, it's gonna-

   19. SPShaan Puri53:19

       Like, what if I was on?

   20. SPSam Parr53:20

       Yeah, like, wouldn't that be hilarious?

   21. SPShaan Puri53:21

       Like, just imagine that. [laughs]

   22. SPSam Parr53:22

       [laughs] Like, could you ima- could you imagine if I came on the Survivor and if I actually-

   23. SPShaan Puri53:26

       Like, what would happen?

   24. SPSam Parr53:27

       Yeah.

   25. SPShaan Puri53:27

       Like, is that allowed?

   26. SPSam Parr53:28

       Yeah. Wouldn't it be funny?

   27. SPShaan Puri53:29

       [laughs] Dude, the... [laughs] What, what, what's the, what's the exact line, though? Wouldn't it be funny if we... Like, what would happen if we just kissed right now? Wouldn't it be funny if we kissed? That's so funny to me, dude.

   28. SPSam Parr53:42

       [laughs]

   29. SPShaan Puri53:43

       That tickles my funny bone at the, like, deepest, deepest level.

   30. SPSam Parr53:47

       [laughs]

Episode duration: 58:18