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My First MillionThis Guy Went From $0 to Billionaire By Starting A Toy Factory In China (#372)
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80 min read · 16,090 words- 0:00 – 0:37
Intro
- SPShaan Puri
So age 18, him and his brother get on a plane to go to Hong Kong, and they're like, "We're going to start our toy factory here in Hong Kong." They get there. First night, he literally sleeps in a bush because they didn't have, like, you know, a place to stay that night, so he sleeps in a bush right outside-
- SPSam Parr
A bush? Why wouldn't he just do a sidewalk?
- SPShaan Puri
Too hard, bro. He, he, you know, you don't wanna sleep on the ground, you know? [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
So you wanna sleep on, on a bush?
- SPShaan Puri
So he sleeps on a bush outside of the airport.
- SPSam Parr
Just be normal. Use the bench. [upbeat music] All right. We live.
- SPShaan Puri
I got something
- 0:37 – 15:45
Billy of the Week
- SPShaan Puri
good for you. I got a crazy story. In fact, this is a Billy of the Week. [upbeat music]
- SPShaan Puri
A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion dollars.
- SPShaan Puri
[upbeat music] Uh, you know, sometimes we get a little fast and loose with the Billy of the Week where it's not a real Billy. This guy is a real billionaire. Okay, so have you ever heard the name Nick Mowbray?
- SPSam Parr
No.
- SPShaan Puri
Okay, so Nick Mowbray. Here's the... Here's my headline for this: University dropout from New Zealand becomes a billionaire with $0 invested.
- SPSam Parr
Okay.
- SPShaan Puri
Okay, so what h- what happened? Um-
- SPSam Parr
I'll, I, I'll click.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, you clicked. All right. Here's, here's the next bit. Two brothers, um, when they were in, I think, middle school, they enter a science fair, and in the science fair, they create a hot air balloon modeling kit, and they end up winning the science fair. So here's Nick, 12 years old, wins the science fair, and he decides, "All right, people really liked my hot air balloon kit, uh, my, like, model hot air balloon kit. I'm gonna go sell these." So he goes and starts selling them door to door, and he opens up a farm, a, a little, like, factory in his, his family's farm, uh, to, to, like, build the kits, uh, as he's going. But, like, he's having trouble scaling up because he's trying to do production himself, and, uh, and he's doing the sales himself, and it's like, okay, this is tough. So age 18, him and his brother get on a plane to go to Hong Kong, and they're like, "We're going to start our toy factory here in Hong Kong." They get there. First night, he literally sleeps in a bush because they didn't have, like, you know, a place to stay that night, so he sleeps in a bush right outside-
- SPSam Parr
A bush? Why wouldn't he just do a sidewalk?
- SPShaan Puri
Too hard, bro. He, he, you know, you don't wanna sleep on the ground, you know? [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
So you wanna sleep on, on a bush?
- SPShaan Puri
So he sleeps on a bush outside of the airport.
- SPSam Parr
Just be normal. Use the bench.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] They end up getting a apartment that I think was $8 a month, um, and that was their, their apartment.
- SPSam Parr
What year?
- SPShaan Puri
They s- they start a factory. This was now maybe, uh, 15 years ago-ish, something like that. And so... And they're in a very small city in China. And so not, they're not in Hong Kong anymore. So they, they end up creating a, a factory. And so here's the factory. So they, they create a factory. Nick ends up sleeping in the factory for eight years, and, um, they had $13,000 to their name. That was what their parents loaned them, uh, to start this business. And so they're like, um, they're like, "How do we make this work?" And so they, they want to create, um, this, like, kind of toy company. And so they're like, "All right." And so they do, they start doing two things. Number one, they're like, "All right, we only have this much money, and now we're living in China. We gotta, like, make this stretch." So these guys are, like, doing all the, like, you know, the hustle porn stories you hear for entrepreneurship. They're doing it, where he's like, "We used to eat only off the dollar menu at McDonald's in China." And he's like, "Every day," he's like, "for b- Christmas, we would go get the Big Mac, and it was, like, $2 and change, and that was our celebration." Um, he's like, "I would eat half my fries, and then I would go back to the counter and be like, 'Hey, this is, like, not even full. Can I get my full-
- SPSam Parr
Oh, that's awesome
- SPShaan Puri
... full container of fries?'" He's like, "That's how we did it." And he's like, "We had the $13,000 from our, our parents, and then we had to make this work." And so they end up creating a bunch of, um... You know, fast-forward till today, they have, um, they have basically [laughs] like, uh, the, like... They do a billion dollars a year in sales on their toy company. This guy is personally a self-made billionaire. Um-
- SPSam Parr
What's it called?
- SPShaan Puri
They've created toys. Uh, ZURU, Z- Z-U-R-U. And so they've created a bunch of toys that you've heard of, like RoboFish. I don't know if you've ever heard of that. It's, like, a, like, a little fake... It's a toy fish that'll swim around in a, in a jar, uh, or, like, a fishbowl. Um, they've created a bunch of balloons, which I've bought this a bunch of times. It's, like, you could, you put the hose in, and it'll fill up a bunch of water balloons all at once. Um, and so they, the, you know, the Dart Blaster, they've sold 39 million of these or whatever. And so they basically built all these, um, like, hit viral toys. And so, and early on what they did, like, at the beginning what they did was they would basically just knock off other good toys, like gimmick toys, and they would just make them themselves and try to, like, out execute them. So they were, like, trying to out manufacture them or out distribute them. So there'd be, like, a light-up Frisbee that was, like, hot, so he, they would, like, clone the light-up Frisbee, and then they would go and they would, like, like... To get into retail stores, they crashed the, like, the buyer's dinner for Dick's Sporting Goods, and his sister just, like, showed up and kinda, like, schmoozed her way in and got the account. And they just did that over and over and over again. They would, you know, they... And they, they would get sued by the companies, like, "Hey, you're copying our toys." And they're like, "Oh, yeah, okay. We gotta create original toys." And so they, they kinda knocked it off. They, they brute forced their way into retail, and then they started creating their original toys, like Bunch O Balloons and RoboFish and this stuff. And so basically, um, they, uh, you know, they, they would basically sell these at Walmart, wherever, and, um, their big thing was, like, how do we manufacture this with no people? So they're like, um, "Can we do this where it's automated and 10 times cheaper than everybody else?" And so they claim, they claim that their factories that have the robots that produce these have, like, no humans on the line. Uh, I don't know if this is true 'cause, like, even, like, Tesla, which tried to do this with their factories, was not able to do this, but, like, maybe, maybe it's true or maybe it's, like, pretty much true. Like, there's very minimal human intervention-
- SPSam Parr
How did you find this guy?
- SPShaan Puri
... uh, that's involved in these. Um, someone DM'd it. Remember I talked about being known well? Somebody was like, "You're gonna love this. This is a perfect Billy of the Week." Uh, so by the way-
- SPSam Parr
It, it-
- SPShaan Puri
... whoever it is, I forgot your name. Um-
- SPSam Parr
And it looks like him and his brother co-founded it, and their sister's the COO.
- SPShaan Puri
Yes.
- SPSam Parr
So, the-
- SPShaan Puri
So-
- SPSam Parr
It's all in the family
- 15:45 – 21:41
Breaking Points and Independent Media
- SPShaan Puri
But something really interesting happened. So it was me and this other guy, Saagar, from the show called Breaking Points. I bet you're familiar with it. Have you heard of this or... Ben, you have to know about Breaking Points. You know this thing? No, you guys don't know about this. Okay, this is basically like a, um-
- SPSam Parr
Like a, like a TV show? Like a podcast show?
- SPShaan Puri
Like, you know, you know The Young Turks, that, that channel on YouTube that was like they did their own-
- SPSam Parr
I know of Breaking Points
- SPShaan Puri
... political show.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
So Breaking Points, which is like-
- SPSam Parr
I Googled it, yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... Saagar and Crystal, they do their own version of, like, a political correspondence show or whatever, like a, I don't even know what you'd call it. Political talk show, basically. And they do it, they started off just doing it on YouTube or whatever. And, um, and it's kind of blown up. And so this, he was, the guy was on the panel with me, and there was a few things he said that I was, like, really taking notes on. I was like, "Oh, that's really smart." And also, this, what this guy's doing is actually pretty awesome, and I think could get huge. Like, it looks on the surface sort of goofy. It looks like kids playing dress-up, 'cause it's like, they, they made it look like a talk show, so they're, like, at a desk. He wears a suit and tie. Um, you know, so it's like... But it's like, you know, it's like even-
- SPSam Parr
Is it, like, a lib- a liberal news- it's like a liberal, uh, a Young Turks thing, or is it, like, conservative?
- SPShaan Puri
It, uh, I don't know how they would call it. I'm not very political, so I don't really even wanna say. I don't wanna misclassify it. But it's m- their, their shtick is, like, they, um, they cover the things, or they say the things that the mainstream media is not covering, or is, uh, is either under-covering these stories, or they're just, like, spinning it for their own agenda. And they're like, "We'll just try to say the truth, like what we think the truth is."
- SPSam Parr
Got it. Okay.
- SPShaan Puri
"And, like, we'll just call it like we see it." Um, which, again, everybody says, but the question is, like, how close are you to actually doing that? It's like company values. Every company says, "Integrity is our core value," as they, like, you know, destroy the earth. And so, um, a- and so that's what these guys do. And so they, they have this set, and it, like, looks like you've, you went to a... You know when you go to, like, KFC in, like, China, and it's like-
- SPSam Parr
I d- I don't know when I do that
- SPShaan Puri
... it's all KFC.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
You, you, you've been somewhere, right? Like, you know, y- he, I don't know, Canada? [laughs] Where, where, where have you gone, Sam?
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Yeah. You know, like, uh, on Friday nights when you're like, "I heard of Domino's in Tokyo"? You're like, you know that feeling? [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Sorry I had to big dog you there-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... with my international experience. But, uh, but yeah. Basically, they had this... Like, I lived in China, and they had this phrase NQR. Like, I'd be like, "Yeah, I go to McDonald's here, but I don't, I don't really like it. I don't know why." They're like, "Oh, it's NQR." Well, well thank you are. Not quite right. And it's the perfect-
- SPSam Parr
Uh
- SPShaan Puri
... description, which is it's almost exactly right, but it's not quite right. And I think that's-
- SPSam Parr
All my, all my, uh-
- SPShaan Puri
... all fast food overseas
- SPSam Parr
... all my Asian friends say it's same, same, but different.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- SPSam Parr
It's same, same, but different.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Like, this, this knockoff Nike shoe. It's same, same-
- 21:41 – 32:09
How to build an audience — do cool stuff & talk about it
- SPSam Parr
Well, well, what was your advice, though, to these people on growing an audience?
- SPShaan Puri
Um, my advice was pretty simple. I go, "I don't think you should grow an audience for the sake of growing an audience. Like, um, the audience is basically a byproduct of you doing something else you really wanna do." Like, if you just got that itch you wanna scratch, like, "I, I wanna create content. Like, I, I s- I've seen YouTubers. I think I could do it." That's actually a better reason to go do it than, "If I can get to a million subscribers, then I'll upsell my merch to this percentage of them, and I can make this much money." It's like, don't do the calculating way to do it. Just be like, I'm doing this 'cause either, like in my case, it was I'm super curious about these topics, and, like, how am I gonna justify spending nine hours reading about this bullshit topic that, like, I ha- I have no agenda for? Well, if I had a podcast or a YouTube channel, then I could just, like, make the content out of that. Then it has, like, a, kind of like a purpose to my curiosity. I have, like, an endpoint to it. I have a justification for my curiosity. I get to be professionally curious. Or like with the-
- SPSam Parr
Lately-
- SPShaan Puri
When I, when I originally started the pod, I literally wrote this in a doc. I've shared this before. I wrote, "Most likely, nobody's gonna listen to this, but there's a hack. Really smart and interesting successful people are willing to go on a podcast, even if it has... They don't know how many listeners it has." And so at the very, like, my main goal is to just have an excuse to meet with 50 awesome people that live in San Francisco. Like, I'm in the tech hub of the uni- of the world, San Francisco, and I don't drink coffee, so I don't wanna just invite these guys to coffee. I'll invite them on my podcast instead. That was my whole, like, number one success criteria and, like, number one agenda with, like, starting this podcast was, oh, it's a great excuse to hang out with these people that are like, they're nearby, they're in my orbit, and don't do it. And, like, I don't, I don't know. It's better than saying, "Let me just get lunch with you, please, please, please." And so that was why I started the pod.
- SPSam Parr
Dude, I have, uh, like, people ask me all the time as well how to build an audience, and I used to have, like, an somewhat academic answer where I'm like, "Well, you just gotta, like, find content that, like, ranks well other places, and you repurpose, do all this, this, this." And lately I've just, like, quit saying that, and I just go, "Well, just, like, be an interesting person, live an interesting life, and just be at least kind of okay at talking about it publicly." Uh-
- SPShaan Puri
Right, yeah, yeah
- SPSam Parr
... because-
- SPShaan Puri
It, the thing you just said, like, if you're interesting, if you lead an interesting life, then all you have to do is share 10% of it.
- SPSam Parr
And you only have to be okay at talking about it.
- SPShaan Puri
Gi- give people a s- a peek into 10% of your life.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, and you don't even need to be that great. And so people, like, over-optimize for, like, this, like the, like... Y- you know, it's kinda like when people talk about search. They're like, "Well, you need all this keywords and do this, do this," and I'm like, or I just do dope shit and write about it, and people are just gonna go straight to the website and look it up. And that's harder
- SPShaan Puri
Right
- SPSam Parr
... and, uh, I still think you need that other stuff, but, like, I s- I still think that it's mostly a game of just be interesting, learn interesting stuff, and be kinda good at talking about it so everyone else can consume. And-
- SPShaan Puri
And, like, there are people that do it other ways, like Trung, who used to work for you at The Hustle. You kinda discovered him. You set up, I think, his Twitter account. Now he's got, like, whatever, I don't know, a million Twitter followers, something crazy, and I don't think Trung took that advice. Like, I don't think Trung lives a interesting life or has this interesting business experience and that's what he's sharing.
- SPSam Parr
Well, he's, he, he learns about interesting-
- SPShaan Puri
He's mining for gold
- SPSam Parr
... he, but yes, that is true, and so he didn't exa- I, you could make the argument-
- SPShaan Puri
He's a remixer. Right? He's a remixer
- SPSam Parr
... you could make the argument, yeah. But you could also make the argument that he's leaving, le- leading an interesting life in that he's learning and discovering cool stuff.
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSam Parr
Uh, so that's like you, you could make the argument both ways. But I remember, I'm not, I, I hate saying this because I'm definitely not, like, a ladies' man, but I've come a long way from being, like, a Napoleon Dynamite lookalike.
- SPShaan Puri
More of a males' man. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, more of a males' man. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. [laughs] I'm a guys' guy, but not in the way that you think it, [laughs] not in the way that it's usually meant. [laughs] Like, I'm many guys' guy, and, uh, [laughs] But I've come a long way from looking like Napoleon Dynamite, and I remember, like, I had some, like, 18-year-old ask me about, like, meeting girls, and I was, like, shocked. I was like, "Your, your, your bar for advice is quite low here, but let me give you some advice if I could give anything." [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Which was basically, I'm like, "You'll meet more women if you just focus on yourself and have cool, badass hobbies and just invite people to come and do those hobbies with you."
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSam Parr
And I was like, "That's the, that's the coolest hack ever for a young man. You just do dope shit, and then you just bring along people." That's kinda like that with content.
- SPShaan Puri
Th- yeah, that's exactly right. I think there are a bunch of different ways to win. You could be a, like Ben for How to Take Over the World, I would say he's curious about these, you know, great men in history or, like, these, you know, hi- these sort of, like, biographies or whatever, and then what he does, he does a service. He says, "I'll save you time." So I call him a time-saver, 'cause he packages it down into something concise. The Hustle's newsletter and Milk Road's newsletter is exactly that. It's a time-saver. Uh, so what do you do? You curate, you package, you deliver. Then you have, like, you know, sort of like a remixer. A remixer basically takes maybe one or two unrelated things, spins them together, puts them together, and h- and, and puts that out there. You have an original content creator. That's like a Naval or a Balaji. They're coming up with, like, independent theses about the world and opinions and analyses that b- really just originate from them, and they put that out in the world. Um, and then you have what I'll call, like, a lifestyle influencer. That's what you're talking about, which was lead an interesting life, share 10% of it. So there's all these different play styles that you can use. It's like in a video game. It's like you wanna play tank, you wanna play DPS, you wanna play healer? You could play all these different roles, and they'll all, they're all winning. You just have to know which play style you're trying to play. Uh, so I see that with, with content. Um, but the one you s- you recommended, which is live an interesting life and then share 10% of it, I think that that is the most fun play style to play because-
- 32:09 – 45:48
STRONGLAND Publishing and how to make millions on Gumroad
- SPSam Parr
talking about. So I have been researching, and I think someone's DM'd me on this on Twitter, but I found this thing called STRONGLAND, like the, the word strong and then the word land, STRONGLAND Publishing. His main thing is called, uh, Life Math Money.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
All right, check this out. So this guy, he owns maybe half a dozen to a dozen, I've, I've found like four or five so far, uh, different Twitter handles. One is, is called the 48 Laws of Power Bot or Quote Bot, I believe.
- SPShaan Puri
Yep, I follow that.
- SPSam Parr
Another one is called the Book of Pook, P-O-O-K. And the 48 Laws of Power Bot quote or Quote Bot is just, like, he's got a ton of quotes loaded into this, and it has maybe 200,000 or 300,000 followers. Another one is called the Book of Pook. I think that's how you pronounce Pook, P-O-O-K. And he's just, like, quoting, like, this pickup artist from the early 2000 that no longer writes. And then he owns a handful or more of these, like, just Twitter handles that are just, like, generic. And they're all basically focused for men, and it's about getting laid, meeting girls, making money, getting fit. And he owns, like, 6 or 12 of these handles, which is obviously, like, not the hardest thing to grow because it's, like, these cool taboo topics. So, like, it's one of those things where you don't talk about with your friends, but everyone wants to be better at all those things, so you follow these, these guys. And he, like, has, like, a circular thing where he, like, retweets each one. And each handle links off to a Gumroad page that sells a document related to that. So, like, the 48 Laws of Power one, it's like, here's how you get more powerful and, power, here's how you get more power and influence at your job, which, like, who doesn't wanna learn that? And he sells it for $89. And then it's, another one's like, "Here's a bunch of lines to pick up girls." "Here's, like, a workout plan to get abs in eight weeks," or, "Here's, like, the perfect way to eat healthy and feel good." And if I had to guess, I would say that he's doing between 500 and a million dollars a year in sales just off of these Gumroad things because you can see-
- SPShaan Puri
So you can see the sales. So basically, um-
- SPSam Parr
Not the sales, the reviews, I think.
- SPShaan Puri
No, no, it's his sales. So, like, for example, his-
- SPSam Parr
Oh, wow
- SPShaan Puri
... Live Intentionally 90-Day Self-Improvement Program, it's, I think it costs $89, and it says 9,506 sales.
- SPSam Parr
How much is that? Is that 900,000?
- SPShaan Puri
That's, that's half, that's half a million. That's half a million bucks. Uh, and I don't know how long, right? So maybe this has been out for years. I'm not sure.
- SPSam Parr
I think he's only been doing it for two years.
- SPShaan Puri
And then there's, like, you know, his crypto one. There's his, like, uh, Tw- uh, you know, build your Twitter audience and, you know-
- SPSam Parr
How much is that? How many, how many did that sell?
- SPShaan Puri
So that has 5,400, uh, sales, so-
- SPSam Parr
On how much dollars?
- SPShaan Puri
Uh, let's see. I want this.
- SPSam Parr
Like 100 bucks?
- SPShaan Puri
How much is it? $179, so.
- SPSam Parr
Golly.
- SPShaan Puri
So his Twitter one-
- SPSam Parr
So-
- SPShaan Puri
... has generated a million dollars. His next one has generated $500,000. So I think pretty safe to say he's doing at least half a million a year, probably closer to a million.
- SPSam Parr
Isn't that funny? Isn't this, isn't this hilarious? This little guy, and his name is Harsh Strongman, I believe his name is. So it's, like, an anonymous name.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
And his blog is called lifemathmoney.com. And if you go to, and look up who is Harsh Strongman, and he says, "I'm a finan- certified financial planner in India."
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
And I guess he, [laughs] he just has this blog, and he talks about this stuff, and I, and I think it's cool. I think this, this anonymous blogger who only uses a f- some type of, like, free-ish looking website builder and, uh, Gumroad, is just killing it, and I think it's awesome.
- SPShaan Puri
That's amazing. That is, this is hilarious. I mean-
- 45:48 – 1:10:00
Dream Studio Course
- SPSam Parr
thing. Uh-
- SPShaan Puri
Go for it
- SPSam Parr
... so I think we've talked about this, and we've just, you and I have hired this guy, but go to dreamstudiocourse.com. His name's Kevin Shen, and I went and looked at his landing page. This guy's landing page for a course, A, is awesome, and B, he's selling a course that I never in a million years would have thought would work, but then I look at it, and I think 100% you've nailed it, and I understand how you could potentially make a million dollars a year. So it's called Dream Studio Course, and it's a $1,500 course. I don't know why he didn't just go 2,000, but it's a $1,500 course all on setting up your, your Zoom setup, basically, 'cause I don't even think it's for a podcaster. But crazy cool looking landing page, and whenever I s- when I saw his landing page, I thought, wow, I really want this. Uh-
- SPShaan Puri
Right
- SPSam Parr
... but how sick is that landing page?
- SPShaan Puri
It's a great landing pa- uh, it's a great landing page for a bunch of different reasons. Like, first, just start with headline. So headline is not a course about, uh, setting up your Zoom. It says, "Make your home video setup look like Hollywood." Right? Dream outcome. So sells the dream outcome right away. Then there's a picture of him that's, you know, that shows a really awesome video setup. So, you know, show, don't tell. And then he basically says, "Build your studio with expert help. It's a six-week course that'll do whatever. Um, okay, enroll here," so good call to action, and then he's got a bunch of before and afters, right? Here's Tiago Forte. Look, he looked like shit before. Now he looks great, right? Um, you know, look, here's this person. Now they look great, and he just keeps showing, you know, basically success stories of transformations because fundamentally, when people buy a course, they're buying transformation of some kind. They wanna walk in one way and walk out another. And, uh, most courses, I, I've struggled with this myself, most courses struggle to even understand that you're selling change. You're selling a transformation, not content, not information. And secondly, they don't know how to show that I can actually provide this for you. And with something v- like visual like this, you're gonna get a before and after, which is like, before and after is my favorite sales pitch of all time. Um, I think a before and after is the most compelling sales pitch.
- SPSam Parr
Do you have, like, a file or something that has all... You're, you're, you're saying this as if you have like a, like categories of headlines.
- SPShaan Puri
Of headlines or of, uh, show-
- SPSam Parr
Well, you're like, uh, you're like, oh, he's doing the before and after style headline. I love that style.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah. I have the, the... And so in my course, I teach these. I'm like, here's a bunch of frames you can use to, like, sell your product. If you can do-
- SPSam Parr
Did you send that to me?
- SPShaan Puri
If it's a visual like this... Yeah, yeah. Well, if it's a visual like this-
- SPSam Parr
Send it to me right this second
- SPShaan Puri
... uh, you use before and after. If it's not visual, there's another one I call stop the struggle. So stop the struggle, you sent me this landing page, actually. Uh, Abstract Ops used to have this landing page. Uh, I think you invest in those guys. They... It was like a stick figure running away from a tornado. And it just said, "Stop putting off your back office ta- your back, back office tasks," or like, "Stop running away from your, your, your, your to-do list," or whatever. And that's what I call a stop the struggle pitch, which is basically saying instead of saying what we do for you, we'll say, "We can put you out of your pain. Is that pain hurting you? I can stop the pain for you. I can stop the struggle that you're having." Right? He could do the same thing. So he does dream outcome before and after, right? Like, make your home video setup look like Hollywood. He could also have a stop the struggle, which is like, um, you know, uh, you know, basically a, a stop showing up to work looking like this, and it's like the up the nose camera shot, blah, blah, blah, and it's like instead you could look like this after. And so, you know, so basically I have these different frames that I'm like this is a way that you can present your product, your information. And so, uh, 'cause I have a ... One of my sessions in my course is a landing page one, and so that's where I'm like you, this is where you need to use this is on your landing page 'cause your landing page is your 24/7 salesman that will always deliver the pitch exactly as they were trained to do 24/7 anywhere in the world, never g- have a sick day, and take no commission on sales. And so, like, a landing page is the greatest salesman ever, and so I think you should train your salesman to, like, be able to sell your product effectively essentially.
- SPSam Parr
I, uh, I'm writing a, a new landing page now, um, for my thing, and it is daunting. Like, it ... No matter how many landing pages I've written, it is always hard. It, it is-
- SPShaan Puri
Well, 'cause your bar keeps going up. 'Cause you're like, "Oh, I know what great looks like. I know I want it to be great." And so what would've otherwise been sufficient five years ago, now you look at that and you're like, "No, I'm sure it can be better. I know it can be better." Right? 'Cause you're already really, you're really good at ... If I was gonna get somebody to write my landing page, I would hire you. And so you're already very good at it, um, so the fact that you're feeling daunted is like, I don't know, like a musician going back into the studio to record their new album, and it's like they know that they're good, but it's like I gotta do it again.
- SPSam Parr
It's hard.
- SPShaan Puri
I gotta, I gotta make magic again. I gotta make a hit again.
- SPSam Parr
That's exactly how I feel. I'm staring at this landing page, and I'm like, no, this is lame. This isn't up to my standard. This sucks. This sucks. And I'm just, like, looking for a ... You know what I, what I usually do is I- what I like to do is find ... The way that I've been getting inspiration now is I find, uh, competitors that exist now or that used to offer a similar service, and I go to, uh, newspapers.com and I find old articles written about them, and I see how reporters used to explain this. And if I see a catchy sentence, I go, boom, got it. Um, I'm still in that angle.
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSam Parr
And so that's what I, that's how I've been using, uh, that's how I've been getting inspiration is I just use newspapers.com to find old just articles in The New York Times written about a certain company that's in the same space.
- SPShaan Puri
There was this guy we hired once, and I actually don't think it was a smart hire. I made a bunch of mistakes now that I think about it, about looking back at my business career. I'm like, man, we hired a firm to do that? Like, yeah, we hired this person to do this. We paid this ... Like, I remember, I don't know, the Indy 500s, like, was doing their race or whatever, and it was like, "Hey, you, there's free billboard space. We can give it to you for your app." And then I was like, "Oh, wow, that's cool. Indy 500, I've heard of that. They're giving us free space." And I, we spent the next 48 hours, like, filming this fucking video that was gonna go on this billboard, or this, like, video billboard. And I was like, looking back, I'm like, oh, my God, I ... How cheap was my attention that I let this random cold email divert me and my marketing team's, like, focus for 48 hours to do what? Like, did we really think this billboard was going to, like-
- SPSam Parr
That Indy 500, what was the product?
- SPShaan Puri
That Indy 500 was gonna drive downloads? It was a beer app. So yeah, this, it was on point, but like-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... they're just not trying to download apps in that moment. And, like, we, there was no way to track it. It was, it was awful. And so, like, and that's happened to me 1,000 times. I've made 1,000 dumb decisions like that where I'm like, wow, we really, like, spent time and energy doing that? That's, like, kind of embarrassing now that I know what I know now. Um, so similarly, we had hired a naming agency. Like, I hired an agency to help us name something.
- SPSam Parr
I don't think that's a horrible idea. I don't think that's the worst idea.
- SPShaan Puri
I think it was 15 or 25 grand. It was a lot of money. And, um, it took, like, six weeks [laughs] which is also more expensive. It's like if we just had the name, we would've just moved faster. Um-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] What was the name that they came up with?
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] I don't even remember. It was, like, the first dating app that we were building. I, uh, uh, uh, it was that, like, but, but-
Episode duration: 1:10:00
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Transcript of episode iJWvPUoAkpo
