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EVERY SPOKEN WORD
95 min read · 19,216 words- 0:00 – 1:32
Intro
- SPSam Parr
[upbeat music] Are you intimidated? Why are you... Well, he said he took a run before this 'cause he was nervous. Now he said looking at Shaan-
- SPSpeaker
No, because I've been on a lot of podcasts, but, like, they're usually kinda small, you know? It's like I see you guys as, like, Joe Rogan for business, so it's like there's one step-
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, wow
- SPSpeaker
... above is, like, Joe Rogan, and then there's you guys, and then below is, like, yeah, I don't wanna diss all the podcasts I've been on. They're amazing, but, you know, like, this is, like, a level, so, uh... But it's good, you know? I'm big fans.
- SPShaan Puri
It's the Pieter levels. So... And you also don't know what Sam might ask you, 'cause Sam might just come out of left field and be like-
- SPSpeaker
No, but that's the thing
- SPShaan Puri
... you know?
- SPSpeaker
I was thinking, like, Sam is, like, is not a regular, uh, interviewer. You know, he, he asks-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
... some crazy shit, so-
- SPShaan Puri
Wait, me?
- SPSpeaker
[laughs] Yeah, you.
- SPSam Parr
First of all, I, I, I don't know if that's true. I don't know if we... First of all, it's not just me. It's you, too, Shaan, that asks weird stuff. But also, I don't think we ask that weird of questions. I think we ask the questions that everyone's thinking.
- SPSpeaker
No, that's true. But I, I mean, you're not yes-man. Like, you know those yes-man podcasts where, like, they just... It's kinda like a fan thing.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Obviously, that's not you guys. You have real shit, real questions, and that's... I think it's more interesting as, as well.
- SPShaan Puri
Can we-
- SPSpeaker
That's cool
- SPShaan Puri
... Sam, can we share the thing you were just telling us in Slack? Can I share that on here, on the pod?
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
The Sam-
- SPSam Parr
Wait, which one?
- SPShaan Puri
The, the-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... the Sam Parr strategy for networking. This is, um, you know, you can go to Harvard, you can go to Stanford.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
You're not gonna learn this one. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Sam has this habit-
- SPSam Parr
I wanna hear this
- 1:32 – 4:50
How Sam gets in touch with people
- SPShaan Puri
is awesome. So if you're... If Sam wants to hang out with you, he'll text you, just like a normal person would, but... And he doesn't need to even know you. He's just, like, interested in you. Maybe, maybe it's a cold DM. Maybe it's a text message. Maybe he got your number from somebody else. Be like, "Hey, it's Sam. Uh, you know, I'm in San Francisco." But instead of saying, "Wanna hang?" Sam will just go, "I'm in San Francisco. Let's [beep] ." [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Dude, he s- he, [laughs] he sent me some shit that I won't, uh, say out loud-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
... but yeah. But I think it works. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah. So Sam, what, what is this, and why does it work so well? [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
It's, like, a phrase. Like, you know, like, people will be like, uh, "You know, I fuck with that guy." Like, I f- I fuck with Drake. I like Drake.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
It, it, it extends from that, and I just say it, and people, uh, they reply. I don't know. I just-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah
- SPSam Parr
... so I... This particular one, I, it was a CEO of a, a multi-billion dollar company who I'm friendly with. I just said, "What's up? I'm in your hood. Let's [beep] ." And he goes, "Down. When?"
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Funny.
- SPSam Parr
So, like, it worked out.
- SPShaan Puri
It's amazing.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And now, so normally, we try to play it cool, but we've actually been chasing you, Pieter. We've been, we've been talking about your projects. We've been being like, "Hey, we gotta get this guy on the pod." Sam is a fan of you, for sure. I would say I am less of a fan than Sam, but I am a, I... That doesn't mean I like you. It's just I'm more in the closet about it, whereas Sam is very open.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Sam's like, "This guy's amazing. This guy's, like, an artist."
- SPSpeaker
Thanks, man.
- SPShaan Puri
"This guy's got great hair." And you do have great hair, so it's all true.
- SPSpeaker
Thank you.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Thank you.
- SPShaan Puri
And now we finally got you here. And w- it was hard, I think, right? 'Cause you, like, don't do... You don't schedule or something like that? Like...
- SPSpeaker
No, I mean, it, it, like, you... It looks like being an ass, right, on the internet if you do that, but I-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Like, like, you guys, I would get so many DMs, and they're all, like... I mean, generally, they're very low-quality DMs, right? Like, "I wanna collaborate, but I don't wanna invest. Uh, I don't wanna..." Like, people want something from you. It... I think it's like being a hot girl in the club. Like, people want something from you, but they don't wanna invest the time to actually get to know you or... You know, you feel like a object, and I don't like to feel like that, and I wanna, um, spend more time with, you know, like, with my friends in real life, with, uh, my girlfriend or something. I wanna spend time on, in the gym, you know, on my health and cooking food and, and that kinda stuff. Go for walks. And, uh, I think because I, 'cause I've been doing this for 10 years, like, startups, like, eight years, and now I get... The money's going well, so I don't really need to do any calls anymore, any DMs. So I'm just trying to create a more chill life. And I'm not a asshole. It, it just means, like, I don't have time to me- to reply to everybody, so I close my DMs. And, and then people got really angry on tweets. They're like, "Why don't you... Why do you close your DMs? Are you arrogant?" and stuff. So I wrote a blog post, like, kinda explaining my day and my routine and what I do in a day, and that I don't really have time if I do all the things I do now to also DM everybody and reply everybody and do calls and stuff. Um, and that's pretty much the arguing, argument for it.
- SPShaan Puri
And, and let's give the context. So let's explain who you, who the heck you are.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- 4:50 – 12:20
How much Pieter makes
- SPShaan Puri
like, your road to 3 million a year.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
And it says 2.7 million, so your, your meter's almost all the way full, filled up. Um, you build a bunch of random small projects, usually around some things you like or believe or your lifestyle, which is kind of a nomadic lifestyle. So I believe, uh, I, I think you, you, you hop around or you, you don't have, like, a home base. So you live... You know, you could be, like, in Bali, and then you could be in the Netherlands. You could be a, a different place all the time. And you make these small websites or apps, and it says in your bio that you have 13 million monthly active users. Um, and I've, I remember seeing you because you did a community, a, like a r- like a nomad community, a Slack community really early on. Like, Slack had just come out.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
And I was like-
- SPSpeaker
Did your good, yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... "Oh, this guy's, like, charging 10 bucks a..." I think it was 10 bucks a month or something to get into this thing. I was like, "He's got, like, 1,000 people in here. Wow, this is actually... This guy's making good money doing this," [laughs] um, like, just by making a Slack group. You just do a bunch of ex- small experiments like that. Um, that's what I know. Sam, what did I miss that's interesting?
- SPSam Parr
Uh, P- Pieter, let me give, like, the outsider's perspective that's a little more holistic. So basically, there's two things that are interesting to you. The first one is your businesses, which actually are the least, the lesser of the two interesting things. So you have roughly five or s- yeah, you have seven different businesses, uh, ranging from Nomad List, which makes, uh, $2.1 million in the last 12 months. That's a, that's a, a job board. You have another job board called Remote OK that's making $115,000 a month. You have Read Ma- Read Make, which looks like it's like an e-book, something like that. That makes-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, it's like an e-book. Yeah
- SPSam Parr
... yeah, 60K a month. Then you have got, like, a bunch of really sm-
- SPShaan Puri
And Sam, you're seeing these numbers because he publishes them. Where do you publish these?
- SPSam Parr
He publishes all of them on, like, the, the URL. Uh, go to his Twitter profile, and we'll let you talk, sorry, Pieter, in a second. But go to his Twitter profile.
- SPSpeaker
No, it's good. It's good.
- SPSam Parr
Go to his Twitter profile, and then, like, click off, and it's like, uh, open revenue at the very bottom. But I'm reading off of, of our notes. So and then you have, like, a QR menu creator. Then you have, like, an inflation chart, which doesn't seem like it makes money, but tracks, uh, inflation. And then you have Rebase, which is a platform to help people become a citizen of, uh, Portugal, help them re- relocate to Portugal. So what's... The, the first part is those businesses, like I said. You have those that are interesting. I would narrow it down to say you have a series of job boards for nomadic or remote work that are m- pretty profitable. But the second thing that's even more interesting is the way that you do these things. So you do a few things that are interesting. The first thing is I think you're the only full-time employee, right? And you use a team of contractors. And second of all, you have this weird personality that's very-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... embedded in everything you do. So that's kinda like my, my big intro of, of what you do. Uh, does that accurate?
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, I could see a website, and I could know you built it without you having an About page, which is kind of the ultimate compliment.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, 'cause it looks kind of clunky, right? It looks a little-
- SPShaan Puri
Well, no, it's like, it's kind of an attitude
- SPSpeaker
... no, but it's in a nice way, I guess. Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
It's, it's kind of an attitude.
- SPSpeaker
'Cause I'm not a designer. Yeah. Um, no, I think it's accurate description. Um, it's like, like, I'm not very nomadic anymore. Like, I'm slowly settling down, right? But I started very nomadically. I was, like, moving around every month. Um, I started, like, in 2014. I started nomading, and I, uh, went to all these places. And I started building these apps, these little websites, little products to validate. And I remember, I mean, I've told this story so many times, but I was following Patrick McKenzie, patio11, on Hacker News, famous Hacker News, uh, guy. And, uh, now he works for Stripe. And he would do, he would share his revenue on his blog about all his little products he made. And it was, like, appointment reminder for barber shops, so you got a SMS just before your appointment so you don't forget it, uh, that kind of stuff. And I was really inspired. Like, okay, this is not, like, some big VC-funded guy. This is just, like, an indie guy who's just on his laptop, kinda, uh, building stuff. Um, and I kinda mixed that with the nomad thing, where, like, building from your laptop, from your backpack, moving around. Um, I think also getting inspired from different places 'cause if you move around, you... I mean, I know Sam moves around a little bit as well. Uh, you, your life becomes very unique because you meet different kinds of people. You, you're in different kinds of places. You see different kinds of products, like, in shops. Like, if you're in Asia, you see some futuristic shit you don't see in Europe and America. Um, and all that stuff kinda, it helps for inspiration for creating products, in some indirect ways as well. Um, so that's pretty much what I've been doing. And I think it's, I've been trying to be, like, radically honest. Like, I know this, this American guy who pushes the radical honesty movement. Um, so I'm trying to do that in my personal life. I'm trying to do that on the internet. I'm not perfect, but I'm trying to be as honest and open as possible, uh, because I don't like this fake corporate, uh, stuff. And it's because I studied business administration, and I have a master's degree in it, so I know all the management consultancy bullshit. You know, I've been there. I've done that. I know m- that's where my friends work. I know investment bankers, and I hate that, that, a lot of that world, where it's, like, fake and not real. And I, uh, wanna be very open and honest. And I think it's also a little bit of a European thing. Not to slack off Americans, I love America, but, like, um, in Europe, people are very, uh, a little bit more direct and a little bit more, uh, straightforward. And, uh, I think that comes across in my, in the stuff I do a little bit.
- SPSam Parr
So what's the total size of all your, of all your projects in terms of top line and bottom line revenue?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
And isn't it true that you're the only full-time person? And how many contractors are you using?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, so I have one customer support contractor part-time, uh, Isabelle, and she works for all my projects. Um, and I have, uh, a moderator for the Slack group 'cause, dude, Slack groups, they, there's some drama in there. Like, I've had some [laughs] crazy drama in these Slack groups and communities. So you need to have a moderator, and you need to have rules, and you need to have a... You cannot just automate this moderation away. Like, I tried that, but you need a real person there to, you know, check on messages and stuff. Um, and then I have a s- DevOps, uh, guy. He's my best friend, Daniel, and he, uh, works kind of like a SL- S- SLA, like a service level agreement, where if the server goes down, he gets a message. You know, if I'm sleeping or something, he brings it back up. But the problem is it never goes down anymore. Like, it doesn't... We haven't even had that for years. So, um, he does security updates and stuff, you know. Like, 'cause I have a VPS. I don't use Amazon. I use a VPS on DigitalOcean and Linode. Um, and he kinda keeps that stuff safe, you know? So that's good.
- SPSam Parr
And how big's the business, top line and bottom line?
- SPSpeaker
Sorry, how big's the business? Um, so Remote OK is the job board. It's the biggest, uh, business, makes the most money. Nomad List is starting to grow, though. It's like, it's past, I think, 100K this month, 100K a month, um, so almost, like, a million-dollar business. Um, Remote OK is 1.6 million a year, I think. Um, and Rebase is a new business. It's an immigration agency. So I wanna help remote workers immigrate to, uh, countries that wanna attract remote workers with, like, you know, beneficial tax, uh, stuff. Uh, Portugal is one of the first ones to do that. Um, so those are the three businesses that really make money, and the rest doesn't really make money a lot. Like, the book makes, like, uh, I think, like, 4K a month. So.
- SPShaan Puri
But everything you do is part of one flywheel. So I've looked at your kind of, like, system, and I've looked at a bunch of people because I got into a little pickle where I was like, "God, I'm doing so many things, and I wanna do all these things. I'm interested in all these things." But shit, you know, am I gonna be able to juggle five different things? I got a podcast, I have a VC fund, I have my e-commerce business, I have a newsletter business, I have, um, you know, I don't even know what else. A course business. I got other, I got other shit, right? And so it's like, w- am I gonna be able to do this? And what I saw that you did, I, like I have this kinda like mental
- 12:20 – 17:55
How to become a hit solopreneur
- SPShaan Puri
model of a solopreneur. And a solopreneur, nobody's actually solo. Everybody's got like a little support team around them-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... that's like helpful, some, some in a big way, some in a small way. But basically it's like somebody who builds a personal brand and then builds a b- b- builds a, a successful business and lifestyle around that. And what I noticed was that you had this formula, which is, I don't know if it's intentional or unintentional, but I'll say it out loud because here's my, my read of your business. It's basically, you ha- you start with the red pill. So the, a red pill is like, you know, that scene in The Matrix where M- Morpheus is holding out a blue pill, a red pill. He's like, "You know, do you want, do you want the truth or do you want to... You take the blue pill, you can just go back to your normal life just as everything was. You can forget this ever happened." And Neo's like, "No, I need to know the truth." What's the truth? He takes the red pill. And basically it's like every great solopreneur I think starts with one truth. So like, uh, Tim Ferriss's truth was basically that like the 9:00 to 5:00 work in a cubicle for 40 years model is like effing broken and you don't need to do it that way. Like, you could work four hours a week and live like a millionaire. And so that was like Tim Ferriss's red pill. And yours was basically like this is idea of being a nomad, a digital nomad, um, which is like, hey yeah, you don't have to s- you know, prescribe to the, uh, subscribe to the, the normal way of living. You pick a, a place, that's where you are from, that's where you live, and you pay, you know, you just kinda stay where you grew up and like, and you go to an office every day and like you have to wear shoes and whatever. You're like, "No, I wear flip-flops, I walk around on beaches. I just kinda go wherever I feel like, whenever I feel like, and I carry a little like backpack, and that's my life." Um-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... so you start with the red pill. Then you bec- then you create content around that red pill. So that's you talking about that lifestyle and sharing everything from like, "Hey, people always ask what I p- keep in my backpack for the day. Here's what it is." It's like-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... just every bit of content you can come up with that's like poppy, that like fits that red pill. So then you bec- that b- gives you authority on that subject.
- SPSpeaker
100%, yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
So you become like a, a, a author- authority. And so, you know, Pomp became an authority around Bitcoin, and Tim Ferriss became a authority around life hacking, and you've become an authority around nomadism. And then you take that and then you basically spin off one of many businesses that can come up with it. But every one of those business, either it's a big money maker or it's just another funnel and more content, more new audience that's gonna like get sucked into that same red pill lifestyle that you are like talking about. And so it, even though you're doing six things, they're all actually part of one flywheel, and every one that you do is either gonna feed it, either 'cause it's gonna give you a bunch of cash that lets you fund this lifestyle in a bet- bigger and better way, or it's gonna give you new content, new stories, new things to be known about, um, that fit that lifestyle as well. That's how I see it. Uh, I'm curious, is that a good... Is that true-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... or is that not?
- SPSpeaker
That was really accurate. And, and, uh, my thing started when I was, I was blogging. Just like you said, I was blogging about like nomading. Um, but I was blogging for my mom, 'cause back then you had like travel bloggers, like 2013, and I was going to travel kinda and nomad and I wanted to, you know, every place I went I wrote a little how is this city to live in and stuff, and what happened, all the crazy shit that happened to me. And my mom was reading that. Um, but I wrote it in English 'cause my mom is obviously Dutch. But I was like, okay, she can read English, so it's maybe easier to get more traffic and stuff, more audience. But it wasn't like super like a big idea, it just kinda happened. And then those blogs started showing up on Hacker News, and I started writing more about like bootstrapping startups as a nomad in, in Thailand or something, or in Asia. And those started going on Hacker News really high. And I think that was the time, it was like 2013, 2014, there was a time when I noticed that, um, the developers in San Francisco working for all the startups, they also were realizing, okay, maybe I can start doing this remotely. 'Cause remote work was not cool back then, and nomading was not cool back then. 'Cause you had the Tim Ferriss wave in 2008, it was like the first nomad wave, but there was s- I love Tim Ferriss, but there was something about the, the followers there and the, the, the business that were created, they were kinda like, like shady. There was a lot of shady shit I met, I came across in Asia, in Thailand, like Americans and Europeans. There was like-
- SPShaan Puri
A lot of brain supplements and shit like that [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Dude, yes, yes. Dude, yeah. Drug dealers. Online drug dealers and like spam dexing and like v- there's still shady shit, but less. And I was like, "I really hate this shady shit. I don't feel like part of this scene. Uh, I think it would be cool to make it more like, uh, you know, mainstream, like reputable businesses, reputable jobs that do it." Um, so I kept blogging about it, and it kept taking off on Hacker News. And, uh, and you're right, I think... And then I went on Twitter, and I think I kinda organically people started following me. And then, uh, a lot of people went nomad. A lot of my friends went nomad 'cause I was blogging, and they became my friends now. Um, and yeah, and then I started all those businesses. And but I think it's, it's not like some, it sounds very like a constructed-
- SPShaan Puri
It's not a master plan.
- SPSpeaker
No, it's not a master plan. It's very organic. Like, uh, I kinda try, I'm like user zero. I try to build stuff for myself. And I always have like, I have like new ideas. Like there's, just like you said, red pill, there's like something, there's a d- discongruence in society and what I'm thinking. And most people then think like, "Okay, there must be wrong something w- there must be something wrong with me." But I think, like arrogant, [laughs] I think there must be something wrong with s- with society. Maybe this is like a new thing. So I'll try and make a little website about it. Like inflation, like three years ago or two years ago I was tweeting about inflation, like this shit's gonna go crazy with all the Fed printing money. And everyone's like, "Nah, inflation is fine. Stop, stop whining about it." I'm like, "No, I'll just prove you that the real inflation numbers are higher." So I made this inflationchart.com website that shows inflation numbers are really high. Turned out to be true kinda now. So-
- 17:55 – 21:23
What Pieter uses to build
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, that's great. Uh-
- SPSam Parr
All, what, what, uh, technology are you using to build those sites? 'Cause they all do look alike-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... and you seem like you can sp- yeah, spin them up like really quickly
- SPSpeaker
Well, that's really funny 'cause I get a lot of criticism for, for the technology I use. I use PHP because that's the language I knew, 'cause I was making a blog, like, right, like WordPress, so I knew PHP a little bit. So I was like, "Okay, I just need to write with the language I know 'cause I don't know other, other languages," and I did that. And then I used, uh, JavaScript, and I used jQuery, so everybody starts laughing now 'cause jQuery is, like, way passe. But I still use it 'cause it's so easy to, you know, make a button, bind an event to it, AJAX query to the server, to the PHP script, does something with the database, sends it back, and it works for me really well. And I think it doesn't matter what you use, but as long as you use something that's really fast, um, feedback loop, an iterative loop where you can really quickly develop. Like, I can make a new button in, like, you know, 20 seconds and deploy it to the server, and it's really fast. And I know other developer friends of mine use a very big stack, all those, you know, Kubernetes and all this stuff, all these keywords I don't really know. And for them, it takes sometimes, like, you know, an hour or maybe even days to deploy a new feature. And I think what we learned from startup and lean startup is that the customer feedback, um, loop has to be very... the feedback loop has to be very fast, iterative, so you can really quickly change stuff, and it also makes your customers really happy because they see something, they have a problem or a feature idea, you can really quickly build it, and then they see it, and they... That's, I mean, if you want happy customers, that's how you get it. You make something for them. They're like, "Oh my God, I influenced this product." And, uh, yeah, so that works for me. So very, very simple stack. And what do you think-
- SPShaan Puri
Well, we, we won't laugh at you because, not because we're nice. We, we just, we don't know anything about... I don't know what jQuery is. [laughs] Neither-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... neither does Sam, so.
- SPSam Parr
I mean, nobody these days knows jQuery anymore, except me.
- SPShaan Puri
We're not gonna make fun of you. You're safe here. [laughs] We're too dumb to, to call you out on any of your technical choices.
- SPSpeaker
Nice, nice. This is a good podcast. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
What do you, what do you think, what do you think this whole, your whole thing's worth? Does... If you go-
- SPSpeaker
Okay, so it depends. If you 5X-
- SPSam Parr
If you-
- SPSpeaker
Sorry.
- SPSam Parr
Shaan, go to his, like, sites, and you could see, like... I, it's, like, something slash open. It's usually, like, the website-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah
- SPSam Parr
... slash open.
- SPSpeaker
It's-
- SPSam Parr
And then, like, it has-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- SPSam Parr
... like, so many stats, most of which, honestly-
- SPSpeaker
Like-
- SPSam Parr
... are kind of useless, but it's just, like, it's cool. Uh, it's like, you know, like how many-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah
- SPSam Parr
... like-
- SPShaan Puri
70% of them are, like, you know, the equivalent of, like, a step counter.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
It's like, uh-
- SPSpeaker
Oh, this is good
- 21:23 – 24:09
Building to earn vs. building to sell
- SPSpeaker
Uh, but I've-
- SPShaan Puri
Do you want to sell any of these?
- SPSpeaker
... I've been in, I've been in selling processes with previous guests on your podcast, you know?
- SPShaan Puri
Ah.
- SPSpeaker
So, uh-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... but it kind of bounced off.
- SPSam Parr
I'm just-
- SPSpeaker
A lot of... I think, yeah-
- SPSam Parr
I'm just gonna guess it was Andrew Wilkinson, 'cause he loves-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, Andrew Schmokinson. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, 'cause he loves job boards. That, that's just a guess.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. I can't say anything, but 80%... I signed an NDA. 80% of the acquisitions, they bounce off, right? So right now, I'm like, I don't really care. Uh, I like that I have cash flow, and my life is nice, and... But I, uh, until recently, I was really, like... Until, like, a few years ago, I was, like, obsessed by this selling because you build a startup, like in the movie, like Social... Well, not the movie Social Network, but in the big movies about startups, they're like, "Oh my God. Grow big-
- SPShaan Puri
An exit
- SPSpeaker
... and then sell, and you're a millionaire. But then if you become millionaire yourself with your cash flow, you're like, "Okay, why does it matter, actually?" Uh-
- SPSam Parr
Well, let- let's actually talk about that because the... what's interesting about you is you have a few that you could sell, so, like, Remote OK and Nomad List are both pretty cool. Have you calculated, like, how much money you want and how long it's gonna take you to get there via cash flow, and if it's better to, like, well, why don't I just sell one and I can get, like, an $8 or $10 million lump sum? But then I still own this other one that's making, like-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- SPSam Parr
... $3 million a y- I mean, have you thought... Have you done that math, and, and, and what have you-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, so the, the, the thing is, most of my revenue is profit. Like, the margins are really high, especially Remote OK. It's like, it's like 94% margin, uh, pre-tax, so it's very high. Um, so I'd say 10X. After 10X gets interesting. I think the problem with bootstrap companies, you usually get three, four, 5X, uh, profit or revenue next year, which is too low for me. It's like, I can... I might as well wait three years or four years and just sit in this chair, and the sites will probably keep running 'cause they're fully automated, and I barely need to work on them. They kind of just keep going. It's, like, heavily automated, like really heavy, heavy. Uh, it's just that I won't build new features anymore then, and the site will start looking a little bit old 'cause, you know, design trends change. But generally, it will keep running, so it doesn't make sense for me to sell for, you know, 5X or 4X if I might as well wait. And also, like, Nomad List is like my baby, so if I sell it, uh, they're gonna fuck it up. I already know.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Because they always do. Um, like, let's say a big, a big remote startup buys it. Okay, I know VC-funded remote startups are cool, but they're also gonna be bought by big, boring companies later, like corporate companies, right? Um, and they're gonna shut this shit down. They're like... And this is my contribution. This is my life's work. It's like legacy. So, uh, Remote OK, I care less 'cause it's a job board. Job board is not very interesting. But Nomad List is, like, this whole movement and culture and, and there's, like, tens of thousands of people on there, and my friends are on there, and it's like this work of love, you know? And, um, s- so yeah, it, it's hard, it would be hard to sell that 'cause people are gonna fuck it up
- SPSpeaker
Are you the largest-
- SPShaan Puri
And-
- SPSpeaker
Go ahead, Shaan.
- 24:09 – 28:20
How movements grow
- SPShaan Puri
Well, one thing I was gonna say, you tweeted out something that said, "A 10-year overnight success," which I think is a common, uh-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... uh, uh, idea that most people don't, don't realize, which is by the time you hear about something, you don't know the 10 years of kind of toiling and tweaking and iterating that it took before the big kind of-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, for sure
- SPShaan Puri
... breakthroughs happen. I ha- my, my life was the same way. You know, I started my first startup when I was 20, 21.
- SPSpeaker
Wow.
- SPShaan Puri
And I made my first million by the time I was 30 or 31, right? Like, it wasn't-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... it took 10 years.
- SPSpeaker
That's early, man. Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
And, um, and you know, and then, and then every year since then a bunch of great stuff has happened, but, like, it took a long time to get that breakthrough. And I was looking at your chart. Sam, I don't know if you saw this tweet that he has, but the chart basically shows, I think you start in-
- SPSpeaker
It's like the sum of all my revenue together in one chart, yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, it's all your revenue from all your projects all together in one chart, and it's looking like it's, like, I don't know, 2012 or 2013 start.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
And basically if I go all the way up until, let's call it 2019, you're at maybe 600, 700K in-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... per year in revenue. And only in the last, like, p- like kind of the pandemic boom-
- SPSpeaker
Through COVID, yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... like, you know, let's say 2020, from 2020 you went from under a million dollars to 2.5 million a year, right? So you two and a half-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... X'd and you... Like, it's, 'cause it sounds amazing. Wow, this dude's making almost 3 million a year. It's like, yeah, but he's also been building that momentum and stacking these assets, and it just really took off and it, which I'm guessing is, like, pandemic fueled a lot of people wanting-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... to be nomads, and, like, you were there to catch that wave. You were the guy ready to catch the wave at that time.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, but I had no idea this was coming. Like-
- SPShaan Puri
Right
- SPSpeaker
... this was... Like, I did this presentation in 2015 where I predicted there would be one billion remote workers in 2030, and everybody laughed at me and I was like, even in the comments, like, YouTube comments were like, "This is ridiculous. Where's your sources? This is bullshit." And then COVID happened and it suddenly seems very reasonable. And but nobody could have seen this coming, and I had no idea. I was actually kinda, like, thinking like-
- SPShaan Puri
Did you cause COVID or what?
- SPSpeaker
[laughs] Yeah, exactly.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
With Fauci. Um, no, but it, it kinda like, it, if you look at the chart, it's kinda like, you know, doesn't really go anywhere. And I was, like, thinking, "Okay, this is bullshit." Like, I, I, I try, I, I tried everything to make it grow. And sometimes it grew and sometimes it didn't, but generally it wasn't very, it wasn't like a VC startup where like... [imitates engine roaring] And-
- 28:20 – 31:55
Thinking big as a solopreneur/Indie Hacker
- SPSpeaker
I- One of the things that bothers me about the, this indie hacker movement is, well, I, I gen-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] I love Sam
- SPSpeaker
... I, I really, I, I really like it. I like it, but in general, what I don't like about it is, like, people think pretty small, so they're like, uh, you know, like, it, there's, it's kinda related to, like, the fire movement, which is like, "Oh, I just wanna save-"
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah
- SPSpeaker
... "a little bit of money so I can make $40,000 a year in passive income." And I'm, and, and I'm like, oh, that's cool. Like, getting your first step is cool, but, like, that can't be it with life. Like, you have to, like, you know, you're gonna want more. You wanna do more things and contribute to society. And with a lot of these indie hackers, they kinda come up with silly stuff where it's, like, a small widget that they sell for $4 a month, and they hope that they can get-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... to $1,000 a month. And I'm like, man, that's, like, neat if you're just starting out, but I think that this could be bigger. And you're actually one of the few people that I've seen go harder, you know? You're going harder on this. W- um, are there any others like you that are-
- SPShaan Puri
How do you think I'm going harder on it? Like, in which way?
- SPSpeaker
Well, your numbers are bigger. Like, it, like, like, it's, it's substantial. Like, your numbers are-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... nice already, and it's very clear that it-
- SPShaan Puri
But it could be survivorship, uh, bias, right?
- SPSpeaker
Well, yeah, definitely.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
But I still think that there's a mindset of, like, um, like I still think that there's-
- SPShaan Puri
For example, your Twitter bio thing says your meter is going to 3 million. I would say-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... most people who are indie hackers and makers and kinda like the, the, the sorta tinkerer community, they don't even have their meter to there. Their meter, you know, initially i- is gonna start much lower, 60,000 or 70,000 a year.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
And maybe yours-
- SPSpeaker
True
- SPShaan Puri
... did too, but then you, like, "Oh, cool, I, I filled up that meter. I leveled it up." So what was your, like, initial goal? Was it, like, make enough to not need a job? Or what, how, where did you start?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, it's-
- SPShaan Puri
When did you get more ambitious?
- SPSpeaker
So I, I, I mean, back when I started I had a YouTube channel for ele- this electronic music I was making and stuff, and I was making, like, a few thousand dollars from YouTube AdSense, so I had some runway
- SPSpeaker
Uh, some cashflow to live off, of travel off, and work on mini startups. But it was very fast, it was shrinking because of the competitive, like, the copyright claims on YouTube in 2012 and stuff, so it was pretty much becoming, like, below $1,000 a month. Um, but, uh, so I had that cashflow. But to, to go to your question, I think it's a power law. Like, you always have a few people in a scene who will make more money or get more successful and stuff. Uh, also, there's a delay effect. I started in 2013 or 2014. All these indie, this indie scene didn't really ... It wasn't cool until maybe, I think, 2018 or something, or 2017. Um, so these people that are going into it now, they're just starting kind of. And I think the widget thing is interesting, because you said it's only a widget. Uh, if you make one feature really well that solves, like, one problem, you can get some s- customers and you get some cashflow, and then you can build a second feature, and you can slowly scale up, uh, to a bigger, to a real business, to a real product toolkit, right? And then I think another thing is you don't see a lot of people with multimillion revenue because they will quickly raise VC. Like, once you pass a million dollars a year, they will switch to, "Okay, let's go big. Let's go become a billion-dollar company." And I think I'm the exception. I'm like, "I don't wanna be a billion-dollar company. I'm fine like, like this, kind of chill." Um, and that's why you don't see those people a lot, 'cause I do know them, and they quickly disappear. Like, this app we're using now, uh, Riverside, I think has raised VC now. Started bootstrapped, and then I think Oprah Winfrey used it, and ... 'Cause it's my friend, Nadav. He makes it. He's like, "Dude, Oprah Winfrey used it." I'm like, "Oh my God, w- this is crazy." He's like, "Yeah, I think I'm gonna raise VC." I'm like, "Okay, yeah, you should do that." Uh, because they think this is, like, this could be bigger than just a few million, right?
- 31:55 – 40:45
Businesses that could earn you $20k a month
- SPShaan Puri
S- so you tweeted something out the other day that's related to this. You go, "Not sure if people realize it, but if your app does 20,000 a month on revenue, you're probably already a millionaire."
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
$20,000 per month times 12 months. Assume you could sell for, let's call it four-
- SPSpeaker
5X, yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... or 5X multiple.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
That's a million-dollar selling price, right? You, you're sitting on a million-dollar asset. And when you put it that way, I think that sounds, and it is, way more achievable than-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... this idea of like, "Oh, I gotta build a, a million-dollar business." Like, I don't, I don't know how. I don't ... Do I have the big idea? Whatever. But getting something to 20 to 30,000 a month in revenue seems tangible.
- SPSpeaker
It's approachable, right?
- SPShaan Puri
It's approachable, and that's kind of awesome. I think that's an amazing, like, just a ... Y- like you didn't ... All you did is you said something that was true out loud, and I think if more people heard that, that's why I'm kind of bringing it up here, I think if more people heard that, that, that is a pathway to a millionaire status that does not require, like, winning the startup lottery of, like-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... inventing the next big thing.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
Or working and saving and, you know, paying your crazy W-2 taxes for, like, you know, 15, 20 years to get the same, same outcome.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. Uh, m- exactly. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. And, and I think it's, it's reachable, especially if you think about high automation, very high margins. So software business, you, you're not gonna hire a big team of 10 people immediately. Um, you work with part-time contracts like I do, and you keep your margins very, very high. Because then you can sell for 5X, right? Then your revenue's almost your profit, so it's the same. Um, yeah. That, it ... I think-
- SPShaan Puri
So-
- SPSpeaker
20K is approachable. Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... let's, let's brainstorm a business together that could get to 20K.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
So what's an idea-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... that you, you, you're not currently building but you thought of? Because I'm sure you're an idea guy, and you, you-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... think, "Oh, you could make a website that does X," or you could make Nomad List for this other niche, or you could make-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... r- r- you know, um, the, the, the immigration one for this other thing.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
So what's a business ... Let's brainstorm a business together. What's a business that you think could get somebody to this millionaire status?
- SPSpeaker
Dude, I think what's ... Man, it's like, again, this is so personal. So I've been living ... Like, I used to live in hostels, right? In, like, dorms in 2015 'cause didn't have money. M- shared with six people, like crazy. Then I started, like, private rooms in hotels. Then the rooms got a little bit more luxurious 'cause I had more money, and then I started discovering, like, apartment hotels. And it sounds re- like bullshit, but it works so well with remote work. So I'm in a apartment hotel right now in Europe on the beach, and there's a kitchen-
- 40:45 – 46:40
How Pieter spends and invests his money
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, so I'm heavy in ETFs. [laughs] Um, I read a blog post by, what's his name, the guy from Google that does SEO. And he's like, "I just put everything in ETA, in ETFs." So Vanguard ETFs, S&P 500. Um, but also I'm heavily invested in Asia 'cause I believe in Asia. I believe in the future. I know the West... There's a lot of things about Asia that are not good, but it's very, I still think it's very futuristic. And, um, I also invest in crypto. Like, I hold Bitcoin and Ethereum. Um, it's always scary to say those things on the podcast, right? But it's all, like, very secure and stuff. So, um-
- SPSam Parr
That's not exactly the most shocking thing to, to assume-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs] No, true
- SPSam Parr
... that you own some crypto
- SPSpeaker
Every, every tech guy, every tech bro is crypto.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, exactly. But I, I mostly, um-
- SPShaan Puri
You're actually not allowed to have that haircut if you don't own, like, three E.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. [laughs] What are you gonna-
- SPShaan Puri
You can't have a high fade and, like, long top hair-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... if you, if you don't own three E.
- SPSpeaker
Um, I spend about, like, four or 5K a month or something. That's it. So most of it is just, uh, I do need to pay tax. Um, but after that, most of it goes to, you know, ETFs and stuff. It's scary to invest now 'cause it's a scary time, but generally I'm like, I wanna do this for 20, 30 years in, in ETF, invested and stuff. And sometimes stocks, but my, I did a benchmark. My S&P 500 ETF outperformed all my stock decisions over the last two years. So I'm stupid, just like most people.
- SPSam Parr
Shaan, you wanna tell him what you did recently?
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] What? Oh, selling?
- SPSam Parr
With your stocks?
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah. I saw, I sold not everything, but pretty much everything. I sold maybe 70-
- SPSpeaker
That's nice
- SPShaan Puri
... 80% of the stocks that I hold. Um, yeah.
- SPSpeaker
I get that. I mean, uh, yeah. But, yeah, I'm, I'm scared. They always say, like, "Don't try and time the market." So I'm like, okay, I'll just sit and just crash with the, you know, the whole thing and go back up.
- SPSam Parr
Shaan, why did you do that? Why don't you just, like, chill?
- SPShaan Puri
Uh, two reasons. One, I didn't wanna risk a margin call 'cause I'd borrowed a little bit against my stock portfolio, but, and you know, to what I felt was extremely safe, and it's still safe, but I was like, ah. Look, if this drops another, you know, 20%, then all of a sudden I'm having a headache that I don't wanna deal with. I don't wanna have to deal with freeing up a bunch of cash just to buffer this. So I was like, I noticed that every morning I was waking up and I was checking it, and I was like, "Okay, logically I know I'm in pretty good shape here, but the stress of think- having to think about this is taking away from my, like, you know, my day-to-day quality of life." And it's like that's the opposite of what, what I want money to do. I don't want money to give me stress.
- SPSam Parr
Mm.
- SPShaan Puri
My money's supposed to take away my stress.
- SPSam Parr
So what did you do with the money?
- SPShaan Puri
So once I noticed it was doing the opposite.
- SPSam Parr
What'd you do with it? Where is it?
- SPShaan Puri
It's just, it's in cash right now. Um, like I might do some, like, whatever, some short-term, you know, fixed incomes type stuff. But, like, for now it's like, again, I, I don't care. Like, I don't need the 2%. I needed the peace of mind. And so that was the first thing. The second thing was I thought, "What will I regret more? What do I believe more? Do I believe that this is the bottom, or do I believe that this is kind of like actually th- oh, thinking that this is the bottom, you know, six months in and that it's all gonna get better soon." Um, basically, like, there's three paths. Either it gets better now, it stays, this is about the bottom but we stay here for an extended period of time, one, two, three, four years, or it has further down to go. And I basically thought that it getting, things going up soon seemed like the least likely thing. Like, I would, I would actually be betting against that heavily. And so I thought, "Okay, I don't, I have nothing to lose here in terms of upside because I just fundamentally don't think that stocks and everything's just gonna go rip back up again, and, and we're all gonna pretend like, you know, that was it, we just had a few months of pain and then it all went right back up and, and remember, things go, things are all green again." Um, and so I thought either it's gonna be h- flats, boring and sideways for a period of time, or it's gonna go down more. And I thought, well, in either case then I won't regret being in cash because, A, I don't have to sweat it every day, I don't have to think about it every day, and B, I'm n- there's no, I'm not losing anything during, you know, by doing this. And so that was my thought process. And I figured, okay, there's gonna be these little bear market rallies, so just sell at the top of the next bear mark- so that's what I did. Everything rallied 5% and I just sold, and I kept like, I don't know, 20% still in the market and I just t- put, left the other 80% in, uh, in, you know, not thinking about it cash.
- 46:40 – 50:34
Why Pieter believes in Asia
- SPSpeaker
But dude, that's the thing with Asia and China, like, all the stuff is accurate. There's some crazy shit. Um, but the other thing is also accurate that there's, there's a lot of stuff happening in, in Asia, and I think in the West, in Europe and America, we have a blind spot because we get so much information that's negative about Asia, especially about China. And I'm, I'm not a China spy or something. My friends call me China spy because of that. But I think it's a blind spot a little bit in the West, uh, that we're, we're gonna miss out on, you know, I mean, China's gonna be the biggest economy in 2030 I think by GDP. It's already the biggest economy p- by purchasing power parity or something. Um, ignoring that, just, you know, because there's a lot of arguments why we should ignore China, but it, it sounds like a blind spot in the West a little bit to me.
- SPSam Parr
Do you, uh, uh, what... Well, I'll, I'll do it, we'll do an easy one. Do you a- you, like, tweeted out your calendar and it was, like, free for a week or something like that. And I know Shaan-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, forever, yeah
- SPSam Parr
... does that too. And I, I, I kinda like that. Sometimes I don't like that 'cause I'll do that for three days and I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm so bored." It... Are you, is it real that you just don't plan anything?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. So [laughs] this is the only planned thing, and it gives me stress 'cause I'm like, "Oh shit, the summer's coming up." Um, but I mostly, like, I spend my days, like, I live with my friends, so my friends are my neighbors now. So I brought all these nomad friends to, uh, Portugal in Europe and we kinda live together. A lot of our, a lot of them are in the city near here or whatever. Everybody's kinda near. So we just have, like, dinners outside, and we cook food, and the sunset's on the beach, and just this nice chill life that I never had, 'cause I was always alone in hotel rooms. I had friends, but they were always around the world. And now they're all kinda here. So I mostly do that, so I don't wanna do calls about like... 'Cause what am I gonna call about? Like, I like having calls with you guys. What am I gonna call with other people about? Like, new business opportunities-
- SPShaan Puri
I don't know. Don't you get bored?
- SPSpeaker
But-
- SPShaan Puri
Like-
- SPSpeaker
No, 'cause I can, I, I, 'cause I work on my websites, right? I, I open my, I make coffee, I make, open my laptop, me and my friend, and we code a little bit together, make a new feature. Um, you know, then you go to the gym, we go to sauna, uh, we go swim. Uh, that kind of like... But that's very reason, right? This kinda chill life and- I don't get bored as long as I ship a little bit on my websites, uh, I don't really get bored. And-
- SPSam Parr
You're, like, the only rich per- So basically, it's almost always the truth that no matter how hard you try, the more income that you make, your life li-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
Your lifestyle gets inflated.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
Uh, maybe sometimes not as much, but then other times, a ton. And, like, I was like-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- SPSam Parr
... "Oh, I'm, I'm gonna fight it." Like, I can't imagine spending more than $10,000 on a car or whatever. And then you make more income, you're like, "Oh, whatever, who cares?" Um, y- you said you spend four or $5,000 a month. You're one of the few people-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- SPSam Parr
... that has acknowledged that your lifestyle actually doesn't seem like it's been... It's, it's not lavish at all.
- SPSpeaker
No, it's on purpose. It's 100% on purpose. Like, it's very, um... And it's not always true-
- SPShaan Puri
What's the thinking there?
- SPSpeaker
... 'cause inc- incidentally, sometimes you spend more, right? Like, last month was, hotels were really booked, so we had to pay a lot of money, but now it's chill again. Um, I think it's on purpose-
- SPSam Parr
But how much?
- SPSpeaker
... because I, I try to follow, uh... Like, last month was, like, 10K or something, uh, for a hotel-
- SPSam Parr
That's still nothing, though
- SPSpeaker
... because we're in, we're in Lisbon and it's-
- SPSam Parr
You're making $3 million a year.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, but paying 10K for a hotel is ridiculous. Doesn't make any sense. Like, it should be the max, like, two or three K, for me personally. But I've seen a lot of people, um, do that lifestyle inflation. 'Cause I know from corporate, from, again, from studying business, I know the management, management people and stuff, they get paid more and they get golden handcuffs, right? And they can't leave. A lot of my friends are like that, and I don't want that to happen to me. I mean, can't happen to me, but you get what I mean. Um, and I, I know that material goods don't really make me happy. So I buy a new shirt or something, or I buy a new iPhone, within two weeks I'm used to it. And there's studies on this. There's, like, research about this stuff. Like, if you buy a new car, even if you get married, after six months you have the same happiness. If you buy a house, s- after six months, the same happiness. So if you know that stuff, you know that, okay, you don't really need to spend money so much. You don't need to buy stuff essentially. And, um, generally it will
- 50:34 – 59:30
What Pieter spends money on
- SPSpeaker
probably make you happier.
- SPShaan Puri
But, but what, what do you th- what do you think you would wanna spend more on? Let's say that, like, you know-
- SPSpeaker
Food. Like, good food.
- SPShaan Puri
Okay.
- SPSpeaker
Like, organic, uh, you know, free-roaming... I mean, it's cliche, like Joe Rogan, right? But f- free-roaming, grass-fed cow beef, you know, that are happy animals. Organic vegetables, uh, you know, that kinda stuff. Like, not goods, you know? Experiences.
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSpeaker
It's on purpose I do this.
- SPShaan Puri
What, what are some-
- SPSpeaker
I buy-
- SPShaan Puri
... experiences that you think are worth the money?
- SPSpeaker
What, what? Sorry.
- SPShaan Puri
What are some experiences that are, like, worth the money that, you know, when most people go buy a Gucci bag-
- SPSpeaker
Most experiences that are good don't even cost money, right? Like, uh-
- SPSam Parr
Well, do you fly coach?
- SPSpeaker
... you can go for a s- Life coach? What?
- SPSam Parr
No, do you, do you fly-
- SPSpeaker
Oh, fly coach, sorry. No, so that's... Yeah, you're right. So, man, you got me. Like, you're trying to find, like, stuff, right?
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Yes, I fly business class 'cause... No, exactly. Uh, I'm done with, uh... I, I can't sit... Well, I, I only do it long haul, and I only fly, like... I flew only once in the last 16 months, and I flew, uh, business, uh, Qatar. Really nice, and you can lie down and sleep and stuff. Um, but that's about it, I think. And, you know, there's one thing I noticed. Like, I was in Bangkok in this luxury kinda apartment hotel stuff, but it was a little bit too luxury for me, you know? And I was there for a month, and you start noticing that you don't meet as much interesting people. Like, I met one interesting person who had this giant weed farm, the biggest weed farm in Thailand, 'cause they just legalized it. It was kinda cool. But generally, it's a very different... It's more like a socialite, kind of Paris Hilton audience, you know? But in the hostels you would meet crazy people. You would meet backpackers, but also, like, researchers and entrepreneurs and fledgling entrepreneurs, you know? You met generally more interesting people because you were more, uh, in those areas. And I think the dumb-
- SPShaan Puri
Shaan, did, did-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
Sorry, uh, did I tell you about-
- SPSpeaker
No, sorry, go ahead.
- SPSam Parr
Did I tell you guys... Uh, listen to this. Shaan, did I tell you about Sam Corcos from Levels?
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- SPSam Parr
Level- other Levels. Uh, what's the new one I-
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, yeah. I know, yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Levels Health.
- SPSam Parr
So the-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah
- 59:30 – 1:20:07
Who Peter admires
- SPSam Parr
Who do you wanna impress, and who do you wanna be like, you think? Like, who, who do you look up to?
- SPShaan Puri
Um, I, I like Derek Sivers. I don't know if you know Derek Sivers.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
He's a, he's a, he's-
- SPSam Parr
S- tell me about him. Who is he?
- SPShaan Puri
He's, he's, um, he started a company called CD Baby in the '90s, I think, or in early 2000s, and it, which was like one of the first, uh, indie kinda music distributors where you could send your music as an indie, uh, musician, and they would press the CDs for you, and they would send it to your customers and stuff. And, and they also now own Spotify and stuff, and he sold it for $30 million. I interviewed him for my bachelor's thesis, actually. He's a really nice guy. Like, the most nice guy in startups, I think. And he's very, he writes a lot. He writes a lot of books now, and he's very philosophical. Also kinda nomadic. He's been in like, living in Singapore. He lived in New Zealand, lived in US and stuff. And he's very, um... If you go to his website, like dereksivers. or siv- sivers.org, I think, uh, he writes very much kinda same concepts that I talk about, like, um, about s- simple life and, and, uh, yeah. It's, it's hard to describe him, but I think that's a very inspirational guy to me. And I don't really need to imp- I think I wanna impress my parents, just, but they're already happy with me, so it doesn't really matter. I wanna, um, I wanna try and stay, have like a stable, you know, happiness, 'cause I've, I've been depressed a lot. I've, I've been anxious. I had like, uh, especially when traveling, you go crazy in these, you know, in hotel rooms alone. Like, um-
- SPSpeaker
... traveling can, can, it brings you very deep into your own self and stuff. And I think the most important for me is to impress myself by just, you know, being stable and, and having a stable, happy life with, with people around me. And, uh, yeah, like m- kind of wholesome life, you know? And that's my goal.
- SPShaan Puri
What, what part of your life are you not impressed by? For your- either yourself or Derek Sivers or if any, if, if it, any of those people, right? You just mentioned like people you-
- SPSam Parr
Like, like the lifestyle, you mean?
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah. What, what part-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... of your life is not at that point where there, uh, uh, you, you feel like it's not impressive in that way that, that, that you'd like to-
- SPSpeaker
Well, and like, uh, I wanna have a family too, like you guys. Uh, and that's what I'm working on. Um, and yeah, that's, like, uh, that's more of a, of a focus now, you know? Like, uh-
- SPShaan Puri
Pretty easy, by the way. You just gotta do one thing.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
I'll tell you about it later.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, you have to find the right girlfriend, you know-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
... and then you need to, like, see if they're not crazy, and you need to, like, connect and all this stuff. And I think, uh, yeah, that's, that's it, Don. Um-
- SPSam Parr
Dude, Shaan, you have a-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- SPSam Parr
... go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. I wanna hear what this answer is.
- SPSpeaker
No, I mean, like, a little like you, you say, like, w- like I think about Elon Musk. Every time Elon Musk presents something, you're like, "Oh, fuck." Like, "That's so cool." Like, "Why am I building shitty internet websites? This is my only life I have. I'm gonna die. I should do something bigger." But then I have to, like, bring myself back to like, "No, it's cool. You're doing okay." Like, doesn't really need to be bigger, but I mean, everybody wants to make, like, space rockets, I guess, but it's just so hard to do that, you know?
- SPSam Parr
Shaan, you, um, you have a d- you have a dog, right? A little dog.
- SPShaan Puri
Yep.
- SPSam Parr
I've got a big dog. How do-
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, dude, I love dog.
- SPSam Parr
I love-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, so you like animals. I love owning animals, like big, aggressive looking dogs. That's what I'm, that's my thing.
Episode duration: 1:20:07
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Transcript of episode V0ej29G7ZGg
