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This Gas Station Pizza Business Makes $540M/Yr?!

Episode 583: Sam Parr and Shaan Puri talk about the genius business model of Hunt Brothers Pizza and three inspirational stories of people doing cool shit.

Shaan PurihostSam Parrhost

May 10, 202458mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

70 min read · 13,565 words

0:00 – 3:16
Shaan gets triggered
1. SPShaan Puri
  If you have ever listened to this podcast, or you like this podcast, or it's the first time listening to the podcast, I swear to God, I swear on my life, this podcast is amazing. Today. This episode specifically.
2. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
3. SPShaan Puri
  I can't guarantee all, about all the rest of them, but today's episode is amazing. Everything that you've ever liked in any piece of content that's around business, life motivation, inspiration, uh, people doing cool shit, it is in this episode. I swear on my life, you will love this episode. And I've never said that before, this is the first time, and it's probably the last time I'll ever do that 'cause I don't wanna die. The last 20 minutes are by far the best. Uh, make sure you get those last 20 minutes. [upbeat music]
4. SPSam Parr
  All right. We're live. Shaan, how you doing?
5. SPShaan Puri
  How am I doing? Dude, you know, it's funny. Some days I wake up and I'm Andrew Huberman's godson. I wake up, I stretch, I get my psoas loose, I get outside, I get some sunlight, I cold plunge, I sauna. I do everything. I meditate, I focus, I pray. I don't even believe in God, I'm just praying to the universe. I do everything. And then some days are like today, where I wake up and I just wage war from my boxers in my bedroom. I don't get out of bed. I open up my laptop. I'm like, "Oh, what's coming in? What's coming into the inbox? I'm ready." I put on my armor and I just start... I'm launching ad campaigns, I'm fighting off a cease and desist, I'm texting somebody, I'm cl- I'm diligencing a deal, and three hours fl- fly by. I haven't brushed my teeth, I haven't changed my clothes. I'm like... I'm just still s- sitting in bed. I do a Zoom call, they're like, "Are you in bed?" And I'm like, "Brother, I haven't gotten out of bed yet. I just started... I woke up and I was playing the game."
6. SPSam Parr
  Well-
7. SPShaan Puri
  And I, if I'm honest with you, if I'm totally honest with you, I never feel more alive than when I'm in that second mode. [laughs] I'm sorry, Huberman, forgive me, I just feel more alive when I do it the wrong way.
8. SPSam Parr
  It usually starts with, like, something bad that you see. Like a fire. Like, "Why the hell are we spending this much money on this?" Or-
9. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah
10. SPSam Parr
  ... what did-
11. SPShaan Puri
  Exactly
12. SPSam Parr
  ... what did you see?
13. SPShaan Puri
  That's why I said wage war. It's 'cause I'm like, something triggers me and I'm like, exactly, "Why are the numbers lower than they should be? F this. I'm gonna single-handedly change this dashboard right now." Or, um, you know, somebody texts me saying, um, whatever, "Did you see this?" Or, hey, um, you know, we get an email in that's like, "Hey, you're screwed." I'm like, "Not only am I not screwed, I'm thriving. Hold on, just give me 90 minutes on this and I will turn this around." [laughs] And I just like, I don't know, it's just... it gets something in me. It's, something comes out of me that's just more valuable than all of the good healthy stuff.
14. SPSam Parr
  Years ago we talked about a company on here called Jambys and I felt it was the stupidest idea that I've ever heard.
15. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
16. SPSam Parr
  I think it was underwear that you could wear as shorts.
17. SPShaan Puri
  Bro, I'm not gonna flash the audience, but just so you know, I'm podding in Jambys right now. [laughs]
18. SPSam Parr
  And that's what I was gonna ask. Were you wearing Jambys? I, like, I thought it was the dumbest idea, and you're like, "Oh, I own a bunch of Jambys." Um-
19. SPShaan Puri
  I bought, like, 30 pairs of Jambys. Um, I even cut a deal with him for The Milk Road to advertise, but I was like, "Pay me in Jambys credits." He gave us $2,000 of Jambys credits to run an ad and I was like, "I, dude, I'm eating off this $2,000, uh, you know, store credit right now." [laughs] I've never been more thrilled.
3:16 – 14:02
$540M ARR Pizza Business
1. SPSam Parr
  Speaking of eating, I see on the top of our document that you have something called the insane pizza business.
2. SPShaan Puri
  Yes.
3. SPSam Parr
  What's, what's that?
4. SPShaan Puri
  All right. You're gonna know about this. I didn't know about this. So our buddy Val tweeted this out. He goes, "The biggest pizza chain in the country is one I've never heard of, Hunt Brothers Pizza."
5. SPSam Parr
  Yeah.
6. SPShaan Puri
  And here's the hook. These guys went in and basically found a new way to do the pizza business. They've spread to 9,000 stores, and I'm pretty sure, this is my guesswork, but I'm pretty sure they're doing over 500 million a year in revenue, and they're growing very, very fast. So what Hunt Brothers is, if you're like me and you're a dainty little flower that only lives in, you know, metropolitan areas, you may not have ever-
7. SPSam Parr
  Civilized places. [laughs]
8. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah, exactly. We, [laughs] we, we cut our nails over here, okay?
9. SPSam Parr
  Yeah. [laughs]
10. SPShaan Puri
  You know, so this is... [laughs] So I've never run into a Hunt Brothers, but apparently-
11. SPSam Parr
  I've... If, if you've never worn jorts before, there's a direct correlation of how often you've worn jorts and how often you've eaten Hunt's Pizza.
12. SPShaan Puri
  That Venn diagram is a circle.
13. SPSam Parr
  Yeah. [laughs]
14. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs] So, all right. So basically what these guys do is they created a pizza restaurant that is only, like, 50 or 100 square feet. The way it works is they put them into, a lot of times, convenience stores, gas stations, places like that, and the owner of the gas station now has a little pizza shop inside. So he can pop in a pizza, it takes five minutes. It comes out kinda like, you know, broiling hot, and they can sell them by the slice, or as they call them, by the hunk.
15. SPSam Parr
  By the hunk.
16. SPShaan Puri
  And they sell a hunk of pizza. A hunk of pizza is a quarter, you know, one fourth of a pizza, and they sell it for like, you know, a hunk is 2.89, or you can get two hunks for 5.49. Or you can get two hunks for free if you go to our YouTube channel and subscribe. Nice segue. Thank you very much.
17. SPSam Parr
  Good job. [laughs]
18. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs] I really just do this to amuse myself at this point. All right.
19. SPSam Parr
  Two hunks for the price of a like.
20. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
21. SPSam Parr
  I dig it.
22. SPShaan Puri
  All right. So, so what these guys are doing, they, they basically, you buy the, the fran- You buy the equipment for 10 grand. So you give them 10 grand, they give you the thing. But then after that, there's no contract, there's no licensing fee, there's no royalty fee. So it's very different than a traditional franchise. All you do is you have to buy the ingredients from them. And so the way it works is you buy the ingredients from them. They, they have like, I don't know, distribution centers across the, across the country. They have like, I don't know, what is it? Like, uh, 100 something, you know, 16 regional distribution centers, 100 trucks that are delivering pizzas daily to, uh, out of each center to, um, to do this. And it's crushing in the South and rural areas. Really a lot of areas. It's like the dollar store, how the Dollar General or Dollar Tree-
23. SPSam Parr
  Yeah
24. SPShaan Puri
  ... really have thrived over the last decade, and one of the reasons is, like, there's a whole bunch of places that are kinda stranded, stranded land. People don't build enough retail there, and so they- You know, the Dollar General becomes the spot. It becomes, like, the store you can use
25. SPSam Parr
  It's like where you go and get a gallon of milk
26. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah, exactly. And so what these guys are doing is, like, there's a Hunt Brothers inside the gas station. There might not be another restaurant for, like, 10 miles
27. SPSam Parr
  Yeah
28. SPShaan Puri
  Or there might be just very few options. And so the Hunt Brothers becomes, like, you know, the, the de facto restaurant choice.
29. SPSam Parr
  Have you ever been to a town that's been like that?
30. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah, my buddy, uh, my best friend in college, s- uh, my buddy Trevor, he was from a place called Lander, Wyoming. And, and, and I was like, "I've never heard of Lander." And he's like, "We got five traffic lights total." [laughs]
14:02 – 22:11
This silly game is making $22M a year
1. SPSam Parr
  Let me tell you an- a- another thing that is, uh, probably even more random. So listen to this. So in 2013, this 29-year-old Swedish software engineer, he posted on Reddit in a, a web development subreddit, and he said, "I'm fiddling around with Google Maps and their a- new API, and I made a small application. I'd appreciate your feedback and suggestions." And you click on the link, and this, it's this thing called Geoguessr. Have you ever heard of Geoguessr?
2. SPShaan Puri
  No.
3. SPSam Parr
  All right. This is gonna blow your mind. And so his original application was a small thing where you basically see a random street view of Google Maps.
4. SPShaan Puri
  Oh, I've seen this.
5. SPSam Parr
  And you have to guess where you are. And so they'll drop you off, uh, like you could do like a, it depends how hard it is, but say it could be-
6. SPShaan Puri
  Like, you could see a barn, and you see, like, some grass, and you see, like, a half of a road, and then on TikTok, there's these guys who are like, "This is rural Kansas." And they'll, they'll like drop the pin and they're within-
7. SPSam Parr
  Yeah
8. SPShaan Puri
  ... like 20 feet of it. It's, like, insane.
9. SPSam Parr
  Yeah. And so, like, it could be easy. So it could be, like, Times Square or the, you know, Athens or something like that. But then it gets more complicated, where you'll get dropped in some place in Ghana and you have to look at the license plate, and you're like, "The license plates are yellow. I know that's a thing in Ghana. And I also know that, like, these cars are this model of car. They quit selling that in Ghana. This might actually be this other location." And so it's like a contest, basically. It's a game. And it does okay. And so up until 2019, it's only doing okay. It's, um, I believe it's a Swedish company, and all the revenue is public. And so in 2019, the company did $467,000 in revenue and $61,000 in profit. So he's five years into this business, six years into the business, uh, or sorry, three years into the business, and it's doing okay, and, like, barely a full-time living. Well, the pandemic hits. This thing explodes. And so check, listen to their revenue growth. 2020, two million, '21, 10 million, '22, 18, '23, they did 21 million in revenue and 11 million in EBITDA, and the owner took out $9 million in dividends.
10. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
11. SPSam Parr
  And so at this point, this thing, it's called Geoguessr. So in 2019, 2020, the pandemic hits. People are sitting at home. Originally, it's just monetizing with some advertising. Not doing that well. He decides to put up a paywall, so you have to pay for certain games, and his revenue blows up, and so does his traffic. And so at this point, this guy, Geoguessr's, this website, it has 50 employees and does, and it has 50 million registered users. And if you go to their traffic on Similarweb, it's, like, 12 or 15 million a month.
12. SPShaan Puri
  Totally.
13. SPSam Parr
  And there are all these YouTubers and TikTokers who are famous now because of it. And so there's a YouTuber that I was looking at, and I would watch his videos. He has something like 1.3 million subscribers. And in fact, Geoguessr has created a World Cup, so it's $100,000 in prizes, and they do this, like, in-person event. And these guys get dropped off in the most random locations, and they, and at sometimes within seconds they can guess where they are to within, like, a mile. It's insane that this guy has built this company, and it's just amazing that something so small and so silly has become such a serious business.
14. SPShaan Puri
  This is an amazing find. [clapping] Kudos to you. Love that you found this. I had no idea this was a business. I had seen the games of the guys guessing this, right? Like, there's, there's one guy, I mean, I can't even describe what he looks like, but he's, like, ingrained in my mind. I see him all the time on TikTok who's just, like, he's like a god at this. And it blows me away. Uh, what I didn't realize was that there's actually a business for this. I just assumed they're using Google, Google Maps. I didn't even know that there was a, there's a website that does this and that I went to it, I tried to sign up to play. I wanna play while we're doing this, and it's a, you cannot play.
15. SPSam Parr
  You can't play.
16. SPShaan Puri
  You cannot do a single guess-
17. SPSam Parr
  You have to pay
18. SPShaan Puri
  ... until you pay. And the pricing is hilarious. It's, like, 2.49 a month to play, like, five minutes. Like, you get to play once a day. But if you pay 2.89 a month, [laughs] like, for an extra, like, 40 cents, you can play unlimited. And my brain's, like, screaming the value. Just for 40 more cents, I get unlimited play? [laughs] And so, uh, yeah, I wanna do this. Like, [laughs] we, we, we should play a game of this online. Do you have an account? We should, we should play one. Um-
19. SPSam Parr
  No, I, I didn't, I didn't sign up, but I should. The guy, the guy's YouTube who you're thinking about on TikTok, I think his name is Rainbolt. And I think he, he has over a million subscribers on YouTube, and his views are huge. And so... And he's not the only one. There's tons of these guys doing this, and it's really actually wildly exciting to watch. It's very strange.
20. SPShaan Puri
  Well, dude We should sponsor this. There's not many things I think we should sponsor. There's not many places where I wanna be a big fish in the smallest of ponds, but if there's one, it's this nerd Olympics of Geoguessr, to be able to go and sponsor this thing for, like, you know, 19.99. [laughs] Get a, get the My First Million banner somewhere.
21. SPSam Parr
  It's awesome, right?
22. SPShaan Puri
  We are th- we are the official podcast of Geoguessr [laughs] is what I would like to be.
23. SPSam Parr
  It's really cool, uh, what these guys have done, and the cool part is, is that just like, uh, in the UK, so in the UK there's a website called Companies House where you, uh, if you're a company that does, I think, 10 million in revenue you have to display your reports or your financials. Uh, I guess in Switzerland... Or wait, is he Swedish? I think he's Swedish, sorry. In Sweden you have to do the same. And so it was actually a little bit challenging to find these numbers, 'cause I've gotta do all those translations, but, uh, you can actually see all of their numbers, uh, for their revenue and things like that. And so you can go back and track their growth. It's really fascinating.
24. SPShaan Puri
  I, I'm surprised, I mean, uh, I'm surprised at many things. I'm surprised this thing's doing 20 million a year at revenue. I'm also surprised that it's only 50% margin. What do you think [laughs] what are this guy's costs? What, what is happening here?
25. SPSam Parr
  I don't know. How much does hosting cost? You would know. You, you had one of these sites.
26. SPShaan Puri
  Not $10 million. [laughs] Like, somebody get this brother an AWS plan. Like, what, what's going on? [laughs]
27. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, I don't know. Uh-
28. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
29. SPSam Parr
  ... 50 employees costs $5 million maybe, or yeah, I don't-
30. SPShaan Puri
  Why does he have 50 employees? What are they doing?
22:11 – 26:48
Shaan's white collar side hustle of the week
1. SPShaan Puri
  quick one for you. So this is my side hustle of the week. It's not quite a blue collar side hustle. It's actually a white collar side hustle. So this is a, um, a, you know, th- this is a, a, um, Ivy League side hustle. So, saw this story the other day that Alex Easler, I don't know how you say the last name, uh, who is a sophomore at Brown University. So shout out to Alex, coolest sophomore at Brown. Uh, this person is basically flipping, you know, high-end restaurant reservations.
2. SPSam Parr
  I saw that.
3. SPShaan Puri
  So the story was basically, like, the guy's basically created a ton of accounts on Resy, on OpenTable, calls in, calls in using fake voices, fake names, and he's getting, uh, uh, uh, reservations at Carbone and all these cool New York restaurants, like the hottest of the hot places. He gets them months in advance, and he's flips it for $750. Or, uh, got a restaurant, uh, a, a, a, got a reservation at Carbone and he flips it for $1,500. And he says that in the last year he's made $70,000 flipping restaurant reservations. 70 grand as a side hustle doing this. And his, [laughs] his screen name on Appointment, uh, Appointment Trader is GloriousSeed75.
4. SPSam Parr
  Oh, my God.
5. SPShaan Puri
  Which I know you were thinking about for baby names, and it was your second choice.
6. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
7. SPShaan Puri
  But, but Glorious Seed is just a [laughs] phenomenal name as well.
8. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, that, that's so-
9. SPShaan Puri
  I'm a big fan of this kid. [laughs]
10. SPSam Parr
  [laughs] Th- that definitely was the nickname when she was in her ba- uh, in her mother's stomach. [laughs] My glorious seed. [laughs]
11. SPShaan Puri
  Um, the, the quote I love it was this. Alex said, "It's like some people play Candy Crush on their phone. I play dinner reservations." [laughs]
12. SPSam Parr
  W- was this in, like, was this in, like, The New Yorker? Where was this?
13. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah, it was in The New Yorker, but it was, like, buried halfway through the story. So the story to me was, wow, some sophomore is making 70 grand flipping high-end reser- restaurant reser- reservations. That's awesome. But the New York article was, like, s- like, w- 15 pages long, and it was all about, like, how restaurants are really busy now. It's like, who is the editor of this? Like, you buried the viral story of this, uh, you know, in nine pages in. This is ridiculous.
14. SPSam Parr
  That's insane. What do you think about that? I mean, so I think someone doing that, I think they're gonna be incredibly successful. I think this will get shut down as s- he shouldn't have talked to The New Yorker.
15. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah, e- exactly. What are you doing? Oh, you wa- uh, the only, the only explanation that would make me respect them more is if this doesn't actually work anymore, and then they're like, "All right. Well, let me just go get some free PR as my, like, backend bonus out of this." [laughs] Because, like, the arbitrage is going away or it's not working as well anymore. Yeah, I had, like, two crazy months during the pandemic or, or after the pandemic, you know, sh- stopped and everyone wanted to go to these restaurants. And th- my run rate was 70 grand, but let me just g- feed this to The New Yorker and get some free press. That would be a cool story. If this was actually working really well and you went to The New Yorker to go talk about this, silly move. Don't need to do that. Uh, and yeah, I'm like you. This is actually a waste of tal- a waste of time and talent, but it does show me that you've got talent. And, uh, congratulations. You will be successful, but you're kinda wasting yourself right now.
16. SPSam Parr
  It's not a waste for, uh, a 20-year-old. Uh, it's, it's a, it's a worthy, [laughs] it's a worthy cause if you're a sophomore in college. But yeah, like, uh, this, like, it'll be done... It's probably already dead. He probably already got... Glorious Seed probably is already banned from the, uh, from that website.
17. SPShaan Puri
  Dude, when I was a sophomore in college, my friends and I had a genius idea to try to win the McDonald's Monopoly game. And unlike the movies where the guy who actually did it, he, like, figured out how to win, we just tried to brute force it.
18. SPSam Parr
  You know how he figured out how to win, right? He just-
19. SPShaan Puri
  He cheated
20. SPSam Parr
  ... worked at the... He worked at the-
21. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah, he worked at the factory [laughs]
22. SPSam Parr
  ... he worked at the place that made the pieces [laughs] .
23. SPShaan Puri
  So, uh, I would've respected myself more if I had contacted-
24. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
25. SPShaan Puri
  ... the, the place that made the pieces and been like, "Hey, man, I'll give you 1,000 bucks if you tell me where, where Boardwalk is." Instead, we were just like, "Hey, we're just gonna dig through dumpsters and go g- go get the, go get the pieces that people throw out and see if we can win." And I, I ended up making, like, three grand that, that year.
26. SPSam Parr
  Wait, did you really?
27. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah. We, like, found some... Uh, we, like, won something, and it was, like, worth, like, probably, like, a couple thousand dollars. But I wasted, like, a semester of brain pow- of, like, extracurricular brain power doing this. And I thought I was winning. And, um, you know, what's... It's like winning a carnival game [laughs] . It's like, "I won the bear." It's like, dude, you spent $90 winning that bear. Do you... You know you could've just bought the bear for six, 60 bucks, right? That's basically how I treated my college career. A bunch of, you know, just really dumb, really dumb side, side hustle ideas that kinda panned out. But if I had just done, like, something useful with my time, I would've made, you know, 10 times more in the long run.
26:48 – 33:08
"The house always has an edge"
1. SPSam Parr
  Did you real- I mean, winning $1,000 on that thing is kind of like a rush. Have you ever won the lottery or, like, any type of scratch-off?
2. SPShaan Puri
  I've won, like, raffles. I've won, like, poker tournaments. I think on scratchers, I've never had a big win. Uh, I've played a lot of scratchers. I probably, I'm probably down a couple of thousand bucks lifetime on scratchers [laughs] , is my guess.
3. SPSam Parr
  Wait, do you real- Do you still buy them?
4. SPShaan Puri
  Not anymore, 'cause my wife looks down on me w- uh, for doing it. But there was, like, a three-year period of my life where, like, if I saw a scratcher, uh, you know, I'm buying [laughs] .
5. SPSam Parr
  I have not bought a scratch-off thing or a lottery ticket in my entire life.
6. SPShaan Puri
  That lines up.
7. SPSam Parr
  [laughs] That's-
8. SPShaan Puri
  You're the same guy who sold his company and then put it all on his, like, a CD and never touched it.
9. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
10. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs] Congratulations.
11. SPSam Parr
  I am, I've been missing out.
12. SPShaan Puri
  So I'm a pretty degenerate gambler, and I've spent... I, I have, I have a lot of... You know, like anyone who's a degenerate about anything, you have stories that are, it sounds like you're rock bottom, and you're like, "Bro, that's just scratching the surface of what I've done." Uh, like, you know, I've gone on riverboats and I've, you know, overdrawn my account and I've... You know, I've done really dumb stuff, uh, when I was in my early 20s, gambling. So I st- I love gambling. And if you take me to a casino, I'm a, I'm a happy, I'm happy as a clam. But I went with my mentor, my investor, who's a billionaire. I went with, with my, my, my, my mentor Michael Burch. And we go to Vegas for, like, a conference or for, uh, for a meeting. We were gonna go meet Rupert Murdoch, actually. And so we're there for this big mee- big meeting, and we're staying at the Wynn, I think. And we go, uh, w- you know, we go down to the f- to the floor. And any degenerate knows, like, there is a certain feeling that comes over your body when you walk the floor of a casino, when you enter the casino. It's like something about the air, the sounds. It, like, physiologically does something in my body, whatever.
13. SPSam Parr
  For sure.
14. SPShaan Puri
  And so I'm like, "Michael, you wanna play?" I'm like, "Let's, uh, let's find a table. We got, you know, a couple hours before this thing. Let's, uh, let's gamble." And I'm just... Like, I wanna gamble, but I'm also, you know, I'm trying to hang out with him and I'm trying to be cool and whatever.
15. SPSam Parr
  And you're only, like, 26 or 27?
16. SPShaan Puri
  I'm 25 years old maybe.
17. SPSam Parr
  25.
18. SPShaan Puri
  He's 40 or something like that. 40, uh, 45. I don't know how old he is. Um, and he's, like, you know, 1,000 ti- whatever, 10,000 times wealthier than me and smarter than me. He's, he's everything better than me. And so that became very apparent because he's like... I was like, "Do you gamble?" And he's like, "Not really." And I was like, "Oh, why?" Like, you know, "You don't like it?" or whatever. He's like, "Why would I gamble? Um, like, you know the house has an edge, right?"
19. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
20. SPShaan Puri
  And I'm so... And I have these chips in my hand and I just put them back in my pocket. And I really haven't gambled since [laughs] 'cause I was like, "Oh, so the rich, successful guy I admire just pointed out..." He's like, "Yeah, like, uh, this is a losing game. Why would I play a losing game?" And just him saying that. You know, my mom has told me to stop gambling. I've had friends been like, "Yo, you should... You know, why don't you just not do it?" And nothing has ever sunk in except for this guy just being like, "Why would I play? The house has an edge." [laughs]
21. SPSam Parr
  I thought you were gonna, like, uh [laughs] like, right when you walk into the casino, you turn your hat backwards and you, like, untuck your shirt and you're like [laughs] , "Poker Shaan's here." [laughs]
22. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah. And I have a different dialect. I'm like Prison Mike-
23. SPSam Parr
  Yeah
24. SPShaan Puri
  ... from The Office [laughs] .
25. SPSam Parr
  Or Date Mike. Yeah, it's like [laughs] Date Mike, nice to meet me. Yeah, I thought you were gonna just, like, change. Like, "Thanks for holding my money" and just start saying that to people. Um, speaking of money-
26. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah
27. SPSam Parr
  ... we have to get a shout-out to one of our sponsors, Beehiiv.
28. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah. What's not a gamble? Starting a newsletter on Beehiiv [laughs] . You know what's not a gamble? Putting your content out there for the world to love. And you know who's making money instead of s- you know, pissing it away? Tyler Dink, the CEO of Beehiiv, who just raised a crazy amount of money, $33 million, uh, announced yesterday. And then he opened up with some community round. He's like, "Oh, by the way, like, if you wanna invest in Beehiiv and you missed out on the fun" And he just posted. In two hours, they crossed a million dollars of community money raised.
29. SPSam Parr
  What? No way.
30. SPShaan Puri
  This guy's created amazing, like, PR halo. You know, he's creating a cult of believers. It's pretty impressive to see what he's done.
33:08 – 37:22
Nick Gray's unconventional dating experiment
1. SPShaan Puri
  else? What else you got?
2. SPSam Parr
  Let's talk about Nick Gray. So Nick Gray's the hottest thing going on the internet right now. So Nick Gray is a good friend of mine, good friend of yours. I've known Nick for a little bit now. He's the weirdest person I've ever met. So one time, Sarah and I are in New York. He DMs me on Twitter. I've never met him. He goes, "Hey, I wanna take you to Washingtons- Washington Square Park and give you a tour." We go there, and we just start hanging out, and he pulls out a blanket that... He goes, "Yeah, I keep a, a picnic blanket in my bag at all times."
3. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
4. SPSam Parr
  And he, like, lays it out. I'm like, "All right, cool." And then he goes, "Hey, do you wanna throw the frisbee? I always keep a frisbee on me." And he has a frisbee. And then I was like, "I guess." And he goes, and we get done with that, and he goes, "Hey, do you wanna fly a kite? I always have a kite on me."
5. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
6. SPSam Parr
  And so he pulls out a kite.
7. SPShaan Puri
  Hey, you want a kiss? I got lips.
8. SPSam Parr
  [laughs] Yeah.
9. SPShaan Puri
  That's the next one. [laughs]
10. SPSam Parr
  And I'm like, "This is the weirdest guy I have ever met." And then I get to know him over the years, and I realize it's totally genuine. You're just a weird guy, and this is, it's an act. So fast-forward a, a few years later, Nick has written a book called The 2-Hour Cocktail Party. He's-
11. SPShaan Puri
  By the way, all, none of this is an ad. We just ad- we admire this guy's weirdness. He lets his freak flag fly. We dig that, and he just did something interesting, which is what we're about to get to.
12. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, and so he, uh, starts getting a little popular on the internet, and he tweets something out last week. Here's the tweet. I'll read it verbatim. He goes, "I wanna go on a blind date, and I wanna go to Tokyo next weekend. [laughs] Here's the qualifications. If you're a woman with a passport who likes sushi and Japanese food, and you could ride a bike in a big city, let's go, and I'll pay for everything. But in return, you have to film stupid videos of me for my socials." Uh, and then he puts out an application where you could sign up on, like, a Google Doc. So I, I called him. Do you know how many applications he got to this?
13. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs] I have no idea.
14. SPSam Parr
  Four, 400 women applied-
15. SPShaan Puri
  Oh my God
16. SPSam Parr
  ... to go with him. And he sorts through all the, the listings, and he sends me, like, his top five and his top 10, and he does calls with them to figure out if it's what he says a culture fit. He's like, "I wanna, I wanna see if..." It's basically like a job interview. He's like, "I wanna see if this is a culture fit."
17. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
18. SPSam Parr
  And so this post that he writes about or writes on Twitter, it gets something like 2 million views, the original, the original tweet, [lips smack] and people are so bought in. Now fast-forward a, a few days ago, he's on the date. He picks the girl. Up until recently, he'd never showed the woman, but he is tweeting out and documenting the whole thing, saying, "I just picked up flowers for her. I'm about to go pick her up at the airport. I've scheduled a ramen dinner for us, and then we're gonna do this, this, and this. I'm nervous." And he's, like, explaining his inner dialogue publicly. Each tweet is getting hundreds of thousands or millions of views, and he's saying exactly what's going on. Eventually, he shares her face, and they look like they're having a blast. And I talk to him, and people are reaching out to him from all over Japan, and, like, he shares, he goes, "We just got this amazing dinner reservation because this man owns this restaurant who's hosting us," or, "We're gonna host a meetup with all the people who are following along." And the date goes so well, they've extended the date. So right now, it's Wednesday. I believe they're still there. It was only supposed to be a couple days. They're five or six days in. He has Netflix and Amazon reaching out to him about a show for this. It's just, like, one of the most viral things that I've seen about such a weird-
19. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah
20. SPSam Parr
  ... topic, and people are so bought in. I've got so many people messaging me saying, "Are you following what Nick just did? Nick just shared that the date's going well. I'm so invested into this."
21. SPShaan Puri
  I, uh, that's exactly it. I am so invested into this. [laughs] I love this on so many levels. The main thing is just I love that Nick's just being himself, and I love that he... Like, there's, there's many ways to be rich. We've talked about this before. You could be rich with money. You could be rich with time. You could be rich with friends. Nick's life is rich with fun and adventure, and I think that that is something that, that's why this is resonating, because I think there's a deep part of a, a lot of us that is like Am I making the most of my time on this little blueberry, right? Like, you know, am I, am I, am I making the most out of my time in life? And I think what Nick has done with this Tokyo date, to me it's not about dating, it's not about anything. It's, this guy is, like, living... He's having, he's having an adventure. He's having fun, and we wanna go along for the ride. And so I think we should actually go tweet by tweet with this thing.
22. SPSam Parr
  Go.
23. SPShaan Puri
  Dive deep for anybody who's not following this. So tweet, tweet
37:22 – 45:23
Real life Rom Com plays out on Twitter
1. SPShaan Puri
  one. [laughs] So all right, so tweet one is, he goes, "I wanna do a blind date in Tokyo next weekend." You read that out. He puts a Google Doc. Let's read the Google Doc. You open up the Google Doc, and it says, "Nick Gray's Tokyo Blind Date. Do you like sushi? Do you like exploring new cities? Do you like blonde guys with glasses?"
2. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
3. SPShaan Puri
  "Come to- If so, come to Tokyo for a blind date next weekend. It'll be fun. Possible itinerary. You arrive April 25th, you leave April 28th." It's now May 1st, they're still going. It's like the, you know, when you play spin the bottle and they got, you know, seven minutes of heaven. Th- It's been 11 minutes. What is going on in the closet over there? I must know. So he says, "If you've never been to Tokyo, we're gonna do some touristy stuff," blah, blah, blah. "We're gonna go to Shinjuku at night, go to some hot springs, TeamLab, tea tastings, this park. Each day we'll try two or three restaurants, maybe four, but we'll walk a lot, shop, eat, and explore. Why I'm doing this. I went to Tokyo last summer and it was excellent, but after a few days, I wished that I had a f- a fun, cute friend traveling with me." [laughs]
4. SPSam Parr
  Ooh.
5. SPShaan Puri
  Just to say that out loud, I mean, I'm not even saying that and even a part of me c- you know, clenched up-
6. SPSam Parr
  Yes
7. SPShaan Puri
  ... when I had to s- read that, those words. Okay. "I just wish I had a fun, cute friend traveling with me." All right. "So I wanted to talk and share stories with, and also film me for my dumb Instagram reels. Uh, logistics. I'll get you a flight, I'll get you a hotel room. Is this crazy? I guess, but it also sounds fun." Yes, exactly. That's the sweet spot of life. Um, "Feel free to reference check me here, here to apply," blah, blah, blah. And so you had to email him to apply. So you said he had how much? 400 women apply?
8. SPSam Parr
  400.
9. SPShaan Puri
  Which, let's just take a mement- a moment to admire that.
10. SPSam Parr
  Yeah.
11. SPShaan Puri
  So, um, you can go on a dating app as a guy, and normally it's you send 400 messages to get one back.
12. SPSam Parr
  Yeah.
13. SPShaan Puri
  He sent one message out and got 400 women coming inbound.
14. SPSam Parr
  Yeah.
15. SPShaan Puri
  Work smarter, not harder, my friends.
16. SPSam Parr
  Yeah. [laughs]
17. SPShaan Puri
  All right, so, [laughs] so that's tweet one.
18. SPSam Parr
  He also tweeted out the conversion rate between the Japanese yen and the US dollar, and he was like, "All of you people thought I was gonna be spending a lot. Turns out, it just turned in my favor." And he, like, is, like-
19. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
20. SPSam Parr
  ... tweeting out, like, the, that he's like-
21. SPShaan Puri
  The universe is conspiring to help Nick Gray with this date. So he, he's giving updates kinda play by play. So he's like, "I'm flying out. Here's what I'm gonna do." He's like, "Here's the agenda." He's like, "She's, uh, you know, I'm, I'm in- on my way to the airport. She's on her way to the airport. I'm gonna pick her up. I'm gonna get flowers." He does a poll on Twitter, "Should I bring flowers? Yes, bring the flowers. No, chill vibes." Guess which one won the poll?
22. SPSam Parr
  Which one?
23. SPShaan Puri
  55% bring flowers, 45%-
24. SPSam Parr
  Of course
25. SPShaan Puri
  ... to, to try hardy.
26. SPSam Parr
  Dude, 45% on Twitter is, are, are losers. That's an easy, that's a-
27. SPShaan Puri
  He's promoting his blog. He's like, "By the way, I'm traveling. Here's my travel pack of must-haves." He's got refresh tears. He's got his eye mask. He's got, like, [laughs] some, I don't know, some tape. I don't know why he's bringing tape. Uh, his, things are getting a little crazy here. He's got a toothbrush. A- okay, so he's going step by step as to how he's gonna do this. Okay, so now he picks her up.
28. SPSam Parr
  And he never shows her face. He only shows-
29. SPShaan Puri
  Never shows her face, which is brilliant
30. SPSam Parr
  ... like h- like, like her hands accepting the flowers or the back of her head as she's taking a picture in awe of the Tokyo skyline.
45:23 – 50:11
Scott Galloway: "I can get down but I won't stay down"
1. SPShaan Puri
  actually. We were... We did a podcast with Scott Galloway, which maybe it's come out by the time this comes out. I do- I don't know exactly. And Scott said a bunch of things. He talked about his business, he talked about his money, but he said one thing in the middle that has stuck with me days later. Like, I ca- I honestly can't really remember a bunch of the stuff he said about money, but this one little phrase-
2. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
3. SPShaan Puri
  ... stuck with me and I kinda wanna give it some extra shine, you know? In the set we talked about don't bury the lead. To me, this was actually the lead. And we had talked to him about when he was younger and he was going... He, he's pretty open about going through tough times. He talks about when he went through a divorce. He talks about when he, you know, hadn't made it yet. He talks about his insecurities. And he said something which was like... He goes, "You gotta keep your sails up." And I was like, "Keep your sails up? What did you mean by that, keep your sails up?" He's like, "You know, like, even when things were going poorly, I, um, I didn't let it... I didn't let things go poorly. Um, even if I felt down, I didn't take actions that were down." He's like, "So even when things weren't going my way, I, I got down, but I didn't stay down." He goes, "I kept my sails up so that..." He's like, "You know, I started eating right. I cleaned up my room. I would make sure every day I would go out and I would talk to people." And, um, you know, he's like, "I just did little things. I would try to be kind. I'd try to be generous to somebody that day. Even though I was feeling kinda low and I felt like things weren't going the right way, I started taking actions. You know, I kept my sails up so that the, when the next gust of wind came, I would be ready. And that's what happened. The wind came and I was ready 'cause I had my sails up." And I just thought that was a beautiful-
4. SPSam Parr
  That's good
5. SPShaan Puri
  ... life metaphor and just a, a, a great philosophy to have, which is like you gotta keep your sails up because the things that happen that are good in your life are not fully, y- you know, your, your doing. They're not your creation. There was tons of market conditions and luck and, um, you know, contributions from other people that help you out that come your way. That's the wind, and you can't control the wind. But the thing you can control is having your sails up so that when the wind comes, you actually get a benefit from it. Like, if you're in such a lull or you're in such a low point or in s- you're in such a funk that even when the wind comes, you weren't ready for it, it passed you by, now that's, that's on you. And so I just love that metaphor, that philosophy of life, and I wanted to kinda bring some attention to that. What do you think about that?
6. SPSam Parr
  It was good to hear from him about it because he had a lot of... First of all, he was a late bloomer in terms of traditional success. So he told the story about how he had a, a bunch of companies that actually were doing good, but he lost them. He got fired from them. He told a story about how he didn't have a relationship with his father and his single mother. There was... It was a hard upbringing. He got divorced, uh, and he had his first kid, I think, when he was 40 or something like that, a little bit later in life. And he was like, "I have to make money to provide for this kid. I can't just be jerking off like I've been messing around a little bit too much." And it was good to hear that advice from him because I admire him, and he was sort of a late bloomer. And so I know that he experienced hardship, and he actually is living this life of, of, of keeping your sails up. And so that's why it was particularly special. It was better to hear that from him, this, versus some, like, 28-year-old. You know what I mean?
7. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah.
8. SPSam Parr
  Uh-
9. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah. [laughs] If you see, like, a 24-year-old on TikTok talking about this, like, you have the right idea. You just don't have the scars to prove it, and I thought Scott has the scars to prove it. And I just love the phrasing, you know? "Even when I was down, I didn't stay down."
10. SPSam Parr
  Yeah.
11. SPShaan Puri
  That's so powerful, dude. Y- you know, you're allowed to go down, but you c- you're not allowed to stay down. And also, like, a lot of these little things, I, I never had the words to explain it, but it resonated with me 'cause, like, you know, I'll do things where, you know, if I'm feeling a certain way, I'm gonna be like, "All right. I'm making my bed this morning," or, "Fuck it, I'm going for a run. I don't even like running. I suck at running, but I'm going for a run. I'm gonna run till I cramp." And it's like, all right, I'm gonna run till I cramp. It's like why do those things? On the surface, making your bed seems like a nothing action. And it's like, dude, making your bed's not gonna help you, you know, go get that girl, or not gonna help you, you know, recover from this breakup, or go get the job, or go get whatever, help turn your business around. But, like, anybody who's actually done it knows that actually those things are linked. You don't know how they're linked, and this phrase to me is a great way to link them. It's like, yo, I'm not just making my bed, I'm getting my sales up today. And all of these little actions I'm taking, I'm getting my sales up. And I, now I kind of, like, at the end I can connect the dots of like what were all those actions and little habits that, like, instinctively in my gut I knew were the right thing to do, but I didn't really... I couldn't have logiced and told you why that matters. Now I know why it matters. It's 'cause that's getting your sales up so that now that when the win comes, you're ready.
12. SPSam Parr
  There's this awesome video that's not very popular, but it, it like, it's so good. It's, uh, the guy from SNL, I think his name's Tom Bennett, he made this.
13. SPShaan Puri
  No, dude, it's a, it's a essay. It was a essay fir- it was a blog first, and then they turned it into... Actually, they turned it into a movie. This-
14. SPSam Parr
  Wait, wait, really?
15. SPShaan Puri
  ... a blog post became a full-on movie.
16. SPSam Parr
  Oh, you know about this.
17. SPShaan Puri
  Oh, dude, it's one of the best blog posts ever.
18. SPSam Parr
  It's one of the... The video is
50:11 – 58:30
How To Lose Weight In 4 Easy Steps
1. SPSam Parr
  so good.
2. SPShaan Puri
  Okay, so this, this guy, Aaron, is the guy who wrote it. He goes... It's called How to Lose Weight in Four Easy Steps.
3. SPSam Parr
  Yeah.
4. SPShaan Puri
  And it goes, "I spent the last, past year losing 80 pounds and getting in, in shape. A lot of people have asked me how I did it, specifics on my diet, how many times I worked out, so I thought I'd just answer all my questions here. It's just four easy steps. Ready? Here we go. Number one, no beer. This is probably one you've heard of before, but every time you drink a beer, it's like eating seven slices of bread. That's a lot of bread. Number two, portion control. This is especially true when you go to restaurants and your meal comes. Cut it in half and ask the, ask the waiter right away for a takeout container so you can save the second half for later. Number three, have your heart broken, and not just broken, shattered into bit, itsy bitsy tiny little pieces by a girl who never loved you and never will." [laughs] And then the rest of the post is basically about the heartbreak, and I was like, wow. I remember reading that intro, and I fucking cleared my calendar. I was like, "I am gonna sink into this blog post." This, whoever wrote this, this is genius level writing, and I loved it.
5. SPSam Parr
  And the whole step three is, like, get your heart broken, and then it's like start going for walks to feel better. And so you start going to the gym, and you previously thought that gym rats were a bunch of bros, and now you realize that they're your family. And you start making puddles, and you start eating chicken-
6. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah
7. SPSam Parr
  ... and more chicken.
8. SPShaan Puri
  More puddles. [laughs]
9. SPSam Parr
  And you make more puddles, and you repeat every day. And then suddenly-
10. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah. Let, let's read some of the... This is beautiful. Let's just read some of it. "So by a girl who never loved you and never will. Do- join the gym at your work. Start going to the gym regularly, even though you don't know much about exercise and you're way too weak to do anything except for lift, lift five pound weights and do the elliptical machines with the old people. Do it until your sweat makes a puddle on the floor. Then go home, go to bed early, and do it again the next day, and again and again. Listen to stories of your ex-girlfriend fucking around with gross and terrible people, stories from your friends who think they're, they're doing you a favor. Go to the gym and make more puddles of sweat. Uh, buy b- buy books. Learn about muscle groups and how they work together. Start eating healthy. Start eat, start planning meals. Try to forget her. More puddles." [laughs] And then it just keeps going and keeps going. "Make puddle after puddle, and eat single chicken breast, and work and sleep, and the weather gets warm, and the weather gets cold, and all you know is Taylor Swift songs by heart. And the only thing that exists in the entire universe is you and the gym. And there's a different sort of happiness. It comes at night when you're the last person in the gym, and it's you and the girl who does weird leg exercises. You end up walking, uh, walking out at the same time. Her name's Melissa. She works at the building next to you. She's worked there for two years. She asks you for dinner on Friday, promising it'll be healthy. The leg exercises she's doing, by the way, are called pivoting curtsy lunges." Uh, and then it goes into the, the, you know, the love story. It's beautifully done.
11. SPSam Parr
  And then it, it, it ends with step four, no sugar. [laughs]
12. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah. No fruit juice.
13. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, no fruit juice.
14. SPShaan Puri
  Too much sugar. [laughs]
15. SPSam Parr
  One of the best posts. I've watched that. I remember when I first wa- I, you get teary-eyed. It's, uh... 'Cause it's, uh, it was, I guess it was a blog post first. I didn't know that. And then it was a YouTube video, and then I guess a whole movie. The-
16. SPShaan Puri
  It's art
17. SPSam Parr
  ... YouTube v- the YouTube video, it gets me teary-eyed, and it gets me so motivated whenever I watch this. So that's a little, a little bit similar to Scott Galloway's Keep Your Sales Up. This was just, like, the most positive episode we've ever done.
18. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah. Positivity, baby. That's it. That's the pod. [laughs] All right, we have a big announcement, possibly the biggest announcement of the year from us, so pay attention. Turn the headphones up. We are doing a challenge called My First Muscle. [laughs]
19. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
20. SPShaan Puri
  Instead of My First Million, this is My First Muscle. It is a fitness challenge that we're doing. We want everybody to get involved with it. Sam, tell them how it works and why we're doing it.
21. SPSam Parr
  All right, so here's what it is. Summer's coming up. We got this thing called the Pod Bod. We've been sitting here, I think we're on 650 episodes or so. We wanna get fit, so it's a challenge. It's a race, actually. It's 100 pushups, 100 squats, 100 burpees. 100 times 100 times 100, that's your first million, and it's hopefully gonna be your first million muscle. So here's what y- what you're gonna do. You can do any order. You can start with burpees. You can start with squats. It doesn't matter. But when you do a burpee, you gotta go nips to the floor.
22. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
23. SPSam Parr
  Your chest has to touch the floor, and then you hop up. And when you jump up to do the top of the burpee, your feet need to leave the ground. And you should film yourself doing it, and when you film yourself doing it, you have to time yourself, too. And then you have to share the video with us @myfirstmillpod on Twitter.
24. SPShaan Puri
  Exactly, or you can tag me and Sam directly, either way. So just to summarize, turn a timer on. Uh, best case scenario, you film it, too, but at least turn the timer on and do it. You have to... You have as much time as you need to complete 100 pushups, 100 air squats, so no weight, and then 100 burpees. And you can mix it up, and you could do them in whatever sets of five or 10, or however you wanna mix it up. You just gotta get it done. That's the challenge. You've heard of 75 Hard. You've, uh, you've heard of The Murph. Well, this is our version of that, My First Muscle. Me and Sam are gonna be doing it. We're gonna film it. We're gonna post our videos of us doing it. Sam, what do you think your, your prediction, your time is gonna be? You're a super fit guy.
25. SPSam Parr
  I'm gonna break 20 minutes. That's my goal. And I think I'll be in the 90th percentile. 20 minutes, I think, is the 90th percentile. I think the winner will be 15 minutes.
26. SPShaan Puri
  I predict that I will be far above 20 minutes. I think I'm gonna be closer to 35 to 40 minutes if I'm... I did a little test run. I did a little test run. I, I went 80%, 70%, and it took me, like, 42 minutes, and so I gotta, I gotta... That was just V1.
27. SPSam Parr
  That's okay.
28. SPShaan Puri
  Just, that was a nibble. It was a Costco sample of it. I just need to now iterate and get better.
29. SPSam Parr
  There's two things here. The first is just doing it. So I think doing it, I have a feeling you're gonna see thousands of people doing it. I think it's gonna be cool to see that you're gonna do it.
30. SPShaan Puri
  Well, let's talk about the doing it first. You came up with this... You, you brought this idea from, uh, Jesse Itzler about the Misogi. A-