Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - Sam Parr Reveals How He Grew The Hustle And Why You Shouldn’t Take Outside Funding | #Marketing - Ep. 58

Episode Date: August 4, 2025

In this episode of The Russell Brunson Show, I sit down with Sam Parr, founder of The Hustle, My First Million, and Hampton, to break down how he built and sold one of the biggest email-based media companies in the country. Sam shares how he grew The Hustle by writing viral blog posts on Reddit and converting that traffic into email subscribers, why he focused on building reach through a newsletter when everyone else was chasing social media, and the simple revenue model that made the company so profitable before selling to HubSpot. We also dig into how he’s now building Hampton, a thriving community for entrepreneurs at scale. Key Highlights: How Sam used viral blog posts on Reddit to drive traffic and convert readers into email newsletter subscribers The monetization model that turned The Hustle into a multi-million-dollar company through sponsorships and ads Why he bet on building reach through an email newsletter instead of chasing short-lived social media attention How Hampton creates curated peer groups and why operational excellence is critical to running communities at scale The pitfalls of chasing outside funding too early and how Sam thinks about businesses that compound over decades Sam’s story shows that you don’t need complicated models or venture capital to build something big… You need a great product, a smart distribution channel, and the discipline to keep it simple. If you’re interested in building an audience, a newsletter, or a community-driven business, this episode is exactly what you’ve been searching for! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sellingonline.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://clickfunnels.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Special thanks to our sponsors: NordVPN: EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://nordvpn.com/secrets⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Northwest Registered Agent: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠northwestregisteredagent.com/russell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to start your business with Northwest Registered Agent. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions: Get a $100 credit on your next campaign at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn.com/CLICKS⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Rocket Money: Cancel unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠RocketMoney.com/RUSSELL⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Indeed: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job’s visibility at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Indeed.com/clicks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome back to the show. Excited to have someone who I've been watching for a long time over the last couple years do a lot of really cool businesses, a lot of things. But this is actually the first time I've had a chance to meet him in person and talk to him. His name is Sam Parr, he's the founder of The Hustle, which a lot of you guys know about.

He's got a great podcast called My First Million, another business called Hampton. I'm excited to talk about all those things with him. But Sam, thanks for jumping on and finally excited to get to know you and actually meet you in person for the first time. Hey, I'm excited to be doing this. I've, you can check my account.

I've used ClickFunnels and I've, I don't know. I think I've got my two comma club record. I think I've made over a million on using ClickFunnels. So. Have you submitted for the award yet? We need to get it to you. No, I did not. I, but I definitely have achieved a few things

on ClickFunnels. And so I'm happy you made that and I'm happy to be here. That's awesome. Thank you. I know it's funny on our side. It's like we've, I think we've, we've awarded over 3,000 to Comic Club awards now, which is like exciting, but the number of people who've never submit

is probably double that, which drives me crazy. Cause I like bragging about the number. So I'm gonna add it to now at 3,001. I'm counting years as officially in there now. So we've done, I've done over a million across a couple of accounts, but I for sure did sit, like I used to use ClickFunnels, I still do, as like my MVP,

and I've done six figures a couple of times. Oh, that's so cool. Well, thank you for being a, for using the platform, man. I appreciate that. So I first got familiar with you guys, with you specifically with your newsletter, The Hustle, but I'm curious, like before that, I don't know your history prior to that.

Like how did you get into entrepreneurship and get into this whole world back at the very beginning? Where did your path start? I'm from Missouri and in Missouri, all of my family were small business owners. They didn't call it entrepreneurs. They just, my parents actually started a fruit stand. That was their kind of their first business and parlayed that into something a little

bit bigger. But I grew up in Missouri. I was a Division I athlete or I wanted in college or in high school, I wanted to be a Division I athlete and I became one. And so that's why I moved to Tennessee. I went to a small, I ran the 400 meter dash. So I used to be fairly fast, not anymore, but I used to be. And in college, I was studying accounting and music business.

And I knew I was gonna start a business. I thought it was gonna be like a blue collar, like lawn care company. I wasn't sure, but my first business was a hot dog stand. And so I had eventually like a bunch of hot dog stands. I think, did you write a book on how to like? I didn't write a book, Perry Belcher wrote one, but we had a client who's a multiple two column club winner

who teaches people how to start hot dog stands. So it was kind of interesting. So I probably bought one of those things, but that's what I had. It was called Southern Sam's Weiner's is the biggest baby, Weiner's is big as a baby's arm. And I would sell hot dogs like crazy. And then I learned about a company called Air

Bed and Breakfast in 2012 and I cold emailed the CEO and I was like, you guys can improve your site if you do this, this and this and he was like, yeah, whatever, but that's awesome that you had the initiative to like have this list of how I could do better. Do you want to interview for like an entry level position? And I said, hell yeah, I do. Come on. And he said, come to my office on Monday. And I lived in Tennessee and he was like, I live in the Bay Area. And I was like, I don't even know what the Bay Area is. I've never been. I've never been west of Missouri. I was like, I don't Silicon Valley. Is that like Hollywood? I don't know what that means. And so I basically

dropped out of school and I moved out to join Airbnb as one of the early employees. And I, how early was it in the company? Were they, I count, not that, not that early, like 200 or 150 people. Okay. I think they had raised a series a maybe this was in 12, 2012. I think they were founded in 10. So they were two years in, not that early, but early enough to be like an early adopter. And I back then, so I'm completely sober now. But back then I had a drinking issue and I'd been arrested

for DUIs and fighting and all this stuff. And I lied on my back on my resume. Like they said like, do you have a criminal record? And I said no. And they caught me. And so I had moved out to San Francisco to do my thing. And the day before I'm supposed to start, they're like, we don't hire liars, you're out. And so I was out in San Francisco with nothing and I was like, I gotta make this work. I dropped out of college, like I gotta do something. And so I started a small internet business

that was acquired for like $100,000 after a little bit of time. And then I started this thing called HustleCon, which was a conference. And that conference led to me starting The Hustle, which I ended up scaling and selling for many tens of millions of dollars in a fairly short amount of time.

That's so interesting. That was the thing that got you to move and then it fell apart. So the first business that you sold for a hundred grand, what was that business? It was, so when I was interviewing at Airbnb, I stayed on at Airbnb, I stayed on an Airbnb and I met a guy who had an idea for a roommate matching app

and I was like, hey, can I join you? And so we created a roommate matching app and it was basically Tinder for roommates, which is obviously stupid. It should have just been Tinder for Tinder because Tinder wasn't that popular yet. We were like, oh, this is a really interesting way, this swiping thing, that's kind of cool.

Let's do that for roommate matching, which is the worst, like the worst business ever. Like dating would have been way better. And so I started a roommate matching app and I sold it. And I think we got like 30 grand upfront and then like a salary and then like some bonuses at the end of one year. He was funny as one of my business partners,

his daughter just found her roommate on a roommate app. I wonder if it was your app, if it's still around. I think they shut it down. Or I don't know, this was in 2014. There's one out there, cause like he literally this, he told me this like two weeks ago. He's like, yeah, we couldn't find someone, a roommate. So there's this app and we download it.

So someone's doing it as a thing still, which is kind of interesting. There's like five or 10 businesses that every entrepreneurial college kids start. It's like, it's like, yeah, it's like laundry, like on demand laundry. And then it's like a roommate matching app. And then it's like a college Craigslist. It's like,

there's like five or 10 things that like every like 21 year old who's entrepreneurial does. And that was, that's usually one of them. That's awesome. And then you went and started the hustle. So, um, the hustle, the, the event and it used to call HustleCon. How many is that what they told me about that event? Was that event you ran for a while or was it just a one time thing? No. So my goal was to like start a big company. I wanted to start. I wanted to like my goal was to make $20 million by the age of 30. That was my goal. And I was like, how am I going to get there? I didn't know. I didn't have a plan. And so I created this event called HustleCon,

and I made about $60,000 in six weeks. So it was basically like an entrepreneurial conference. And I was like, that's kind of cool. Let's do it again. And so I did it again, and I made like $250,000 in a very short amount of time. And I was like, this is great, but conferences stink. As your business, it stinks.

You do it now with Funnel Hacker Live, and that's cool. But when it's your main source of income, it's not awesome. But I grew my email list from 0 to 10,000 people in like two months. And I was doing some math, and I watched you, and I watched Andrew Warner from Mixergy do interviews. And I saw what you did with email. I saw what my friend Noah Kagan did with email.

And I was like, I'm pretty sure I can build a media company with email only. And I pitched this idea to a bunch of people, and some of them I cold emailed executives at media companies, and they laughed at me. They're like, this is stupid. But I'm like, I don't know, man. I think I can get five million people on this email,

and I think they'll open every day. And I think they can make $100 million in revenue. I'm I can get five million people on this email, and I think they'll open every day, and I think they can make like a hundred million dollars in revenue. I'm pretty sure you could build like a five hundred million dollar, billion dollar company with just email. And the premise was simple, and we started it, and I sold the company in year four or five when we were doing about 20 million in revenue, but my best friends had a company called Morning Brew, and they are now in the hundred million revenue range. So my premise was right, but the early premise was social media is going away, like in terms of reach.

So back then, if you posted an article on Facebook, you could get tons and tons of views. And I was like, no, that's going away. Everyone knows that. Email is like a pirate ship, and every email I get is a little bit of wind in my sail. If I just build this email list to be huge, I could own my destiny and I can create

an entire news company, media company off the backs of this. I just have to create content that's so good that people wanna read it every single day. And that's news, which I love, and it's business news, which I also love. And I was like, let's do that. So cool. So walk me through the model of the hustle then,

because in my world, everyone understands building email lists to sell the products, but they're not doing it the way you did, right? Building a media company, how you monetize it and all that stuff. I'd love to understand the model better. Here's the thing. So you, so the way you started is not where you are now. You're a proper product builder. You have an amazing company, but like I was inspired by you, I was like, all right, this internet marketing information product person, could I mix those tactics with like the Silicon Valley ethos, I don't know, like whatever you want to call it. I was like, because all the Silicon Valley guys, they poo-pooed email and they thought that

like long form copy, you know this better than anyone, they laugh at it, right? They think like, oh, this landing page is than anyone, they laugh at it, right? They think like, oh, this landing page is so ugly. This is nonsense. And I was like, no, this guy is a bootstrap guy. He's building this big thing, which means every cent he spends has to be ROI driven. Whereas if you raise $100 million, you can blow a lot of money and not be efficient. And the efficient way is definitely the better way.

And so I was like, what if I have a 1500 word text only email and that's like someone's news? And if I can get a million people a day, if I can get a million subscribers and half of them open, so if I get 500,000 higher net worth, like coastal high earning income young people to read my newsletter. Man, I think I can charge like $80, $100 per 1000 opens and that was the model and so when

I sold we were gonna do about 20 in revenue and maybe 14 or 15 million was gonna come via advertising in my newsletter. So the old analogy was basically if you'd go to Buzzfeed, you'd see ads on their website. My ads were just in the newsletter and I didn't even have a website. And so I had a team of 12 people and they were each a salesperson that had like a $1.5 million quota and they would sell ad space to WeWork, Salesforce, HubSpot eventually bought us because we used to sell ad space to them and we would sell so much of their software that they wanted to own the thing and so that's how the business model worked. It was basically a cost per thousand cents. That's awesome. So then, so every it was every day you're setting

which is which is not a fun business model by the way like selling products is better. I think it's a hybrid where both both sides could be cool, you know having your own media. Yeah, and also having your own products Yeah, which which I mean, but I just did what you did Like I just most things that I have done. I have just copied you That's amazing Okay, so when you're doing it you were sending out just one email a day, 1,500 words. Did you have team that were curating content or were you guys doing it through,

how did that publishing side look like? And at first I wrote it. I just wrote an email every day where it was like your smart friend tells you the business news that you need to know. And I would just write them. I would sell an ad and I was writing an email and I wrote, I was selling ads and I was writing an email and I wrote I got good

Like people probably admire you and you're writing and your content creation And but they don't realize that if you make it your job You can create one or two or three blog posts a day if you like really like down For sure, like you just gotta get you gotta get what it takes weeks or months to get in the groove but once you get in the groove, like I can bang it out. And so basically between like, in 9 a.m. and like 2, I would build the business. So I would grow our subscriber base, I would sell ads, and then from like 3 to like midnight, I would write the email.

And so, but really quickly, I think in the first year of business, maybe we did half a million. In the second year, we did, let's say, two and a half million in revenue. So somewhere between 500,000 in revenue and or somewhere around 500,000 revenue, I hired a team. And so I didn't have to write the email every day. But we had like really great journalists. So a lot of the guys who wrote for me or worked for me are all like pretty popular now. So if you know Trunk, if you know Trunk Fam on Twitter, he's got like a million followers on Twitter. We found Trunk before he even had Twitter.

And some of your listeners may know Trunk. He's like a comedy guy on Twitter. And then like I had another guy named Zach Crockett who he now is the host of a podcast for Freakonomics, which is a popular Podcast anyway, we hired really young like 23 24 year old ambitious writers who are really funny and interesting and we had them Go and find the content and write it every day That's so cool. Then how did how did you build the list? Like what was your process? What did that look like? the first Then how did you build the list? Like what was your process? What did that look like? The first 100,000, so in one year we got between 100

and 150,000 subscribers and that was all organically. And so what I would do is I would go to subreddits that I think my audience would be hanging out in and I would write articles that would go viral there. For example, I paid my friend to live on Soylent. Do you remember Soylent? Wait, vaguely. Like the Slim Fats for nerds type of,

it was like a supplement that had like all of your nutritional calories that you eat. Yeah, yes, I bought it one time. It was, okay, yes, I 100% remember that now. Yeah, it's not that very good, it's not great. But it was like popular and I'm like, well, I'm gonna pay someone to live off that for 30 days. And I wrote an article like 30 days living on Soylent.

And so I would just write timely, great articles. And I would, but I would write them in such a way that I thought with a good chance that they were going to go viral in a particular subreddit where my customer was. And then I would get like half a million people to come to my website in like 30 days. And I had a really good pop up that said like, oh no, not another pop up. OK, look, while you're here, here's what this is. The hustle is actually a daily newsletter with news and business stuff. But I wrote this blog post to get your attention. Now that you're here reading it, you might as well give me your email.

Like I wrote these like really good posts. And like we did another one where I had a friend that was plagiarizing people and turning it books into Kindle books that he would sell and he was making like 60 grand a month. And I was like, that's horrible. I don't like that. But I'm going to write an article explaining how this is done because Kindle should catch this and that article got like 2 million views and I got like 20,000 subscribers and that's how I grew the first 100,000.

So you're writing the article on the blog and promoting it on Reddit and other places like that, or you're posting the articles on Reddit, right? The first one. Okay. And then once I understood what my LTV was or my, so I was earning roughly $10 per subscriber, something like that per year. And once I learned that, then we started advertising. And back then, I don't know what it is now, I could acquire an email newsletter subscriber

for a dollar 50 on Facebook. Oh wow. And so I wish I didn't know, I didn't understand math back then. Like I didn't understand like, there's like a rare window when like you can acquire customers for cheaply. I was 25, like I was silly, but I should have you can acquire customers for cheaply. I was 25, I was silly,

but I should have emptied the bank account into that. But I spent money on Facebook ads in order to grow from 100,000 to when we sold about two million. Okay, dang, it's two million people. And then HubSpot bought it. At that point, were you out of the business or were you tied into it after the purchase?

I had a really good executive team that was doing all the work. And when I sold, I basically told them I'm out. And they were cool with it. And I think they preferred it because, like back then, I'm kind of wild. And I was really wild then. And so basically, the hustle,

we owned a bunch of stuff, including our daily newsletter, but we also owned a bunch of podcasts. One of those podcasts being My First Million. And they were like, just do the podcast. And I said, yes, sir. That sounds good to me. And that unexpectedly blew up. Yeah.

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So with HubSpot taking over, they just keep running the same way, but now they're just advertising their own stuff or they still sell advertising for other people? How does it, how do they ship when they take it over? So the year we sold, we went into the year we were were gonna do let's say I think 18 million in revenue, and so we went into the year with like four million dollars in revenue already booked for advertising, and I sold the company on February 4th. I gave back all of that money because HubSpot was like, look, we're at the time a billion dollar company, like I don't want your... New chump change.

Yeah, they're like, I don't even want to report on our P&L what advertising is, because I don't want an analyst at Morgan Stanley to think, oh, you guys are in the advertising business, what's this? And so they gave it all back, and the way that they make money is just through leads, in the same way that ClickFunnels probably, ClickFunnels makes money from your personal newsletter.

Yeah. And so that's what they do. Interesting. And then they also, it turned into this thing called HubSpot Media, which is the hustle, but now they have like 30 or 15 podcasts of which My First Million's one of them. And it's one of the largest business,

or it's for sure one of the largest business podcast networks but it might be one of the larger podcast networks in the country. Yeah, interesting. So then you so that podcast was already part of your business and they acquired that as well. It wasn't something you spun out later. No, no, no, no, no, I owned it and or the hustle owned it. And at the time, I forget how big we were, like 600,000 downloads and views on YouTube a month,

or maybe even 350,000. And over the last 12 months, including some of our clips, like we've gotten like 90 or 100 million. So like it grew a lot. Interesting. So they own that now. Like you an employee of that or your partner on that? Or how does that work?

They, so they own the IP, I sold the IP and then they pay MFM media, which my partner, Sean and I own. And so they pay us a per fort. Like, so based off of how many downloads and views it gets, that's how much I get paid. Oh, okay, gotcha. So I guess I'm a vendor or like a. You're a hired gun, hired host.

Yeah, the way that I explain it to my family, they're like, wait, do you work there? I'm like, not really. Like, so I'm Howard Stern and they're a serious radio. Like I have like a contract. I have like a talent contract. Yeah, that's really cool. Interesting. You think you can do that for a long time or what does that part of your life look like? No, you know I've done it... how long have I been doing it? It was... I started doing it in 19.

I didn't want to be a podcaster. The podcast was Sean's idea and I started doing it because one day one of his guests didn't show up and I was like, I'll just like step in and riff with you and we did good. But I'm sort of his, I'm like the straight man and he's like the, he does most of talking and I never wanted to be a podcaster but I don don't know if I'm gonna keep doing it for, I always say like, I'll reevaluate at the end of the year, but I don't particularly like, it's really, it's a lot of work. How many episodes do you do?

We do two a week. It's, how long have you been doing that? A long time, but 90% of mine are just me talking. So I don't do many interviews. So it's easier because I can just set up a mic and just go you know. But do you do you write in advance what you're gonna talk about? No. I hate doing that. Are you nervous? You guys pre-write all this stuff in advance? No no no no no no so half the time we have a guest half the time we don't but if we don't have a guest I'll

spend an hour in advance just like taking notes. I just right here I just take take notes. I'm like, here's like a bullet and then like half the time I don't even bring any of this up. I just we I thought you know, we follow the energy But I find it very stressful the bigger the audit so like some of our episodes will get 2 million downloads And I find it incredibly stressful Like I just don't want to say the wrong thing. Yeah. Do not get nervous about it. Interesting. No, I don't. But what's, okay, this is interesting.

So I don't know if you follow personal development world. Do you know what Earl Nightingale is? Of course. Okay. So I just bought his entire state from his widow. And so I had a chance to fly down. You did it with Napoleon Hill. You talked about this on Instagram. I saw this, right?

You did it with Napoleon Hill and this, right? Yeah. Like we bought Napoleon Hill's estate, now we're buying this. Anyway, so yeah, I'm collecting, anyway. Yes, I'm collecting all these old books and people, but Earls was fascinating because he was the radio personality voice for a generation, right?

Like my dad listened to Earl Nygale when he was growing up every night on the radio, teaching personal development. But what's crazy is the radio back then, the laws were like you had to get things approved before you could say them, because there was no You know if someone's got a mic and they're hot and half of America's listening to you can't just say stuff

So what I acquired these boxes and boxes of every one of his shows So he would sit down and he'd pre-write the entire show type out the entire show Then he sit there and he'd read it over the air So think about that like I like we're so lazy nowadays like I'm saying I have an outline or have a couple thoughts I need to go but for them he had word-for-word so that the radio so that the radio commission could approve it and if he Deviated from it he could get in trouble for like saying things that weren't a pretty way I was like it was so much harder back. I

think like I always I always get like a little sense of being a fraud where it's like I need to like I want to be as someone who's making cool companies and occasionally talks about like this stuff I'm doing not the other way around like I talk and whatever. Do you do you ever feel that way because I mean ClickFunnels is bigger than any company that I've built so far. So you kind of have some great street cred, but do you feel like I want to talk less and build more? Yeah, I mean, yes, I'd rather be building all the time. I'm very introverted too. So I don't, my natural default's not that,

but like the podcast is nice because it inspires people, gives them tools and motivate. And like, yeah, I use it as a tool to like train people for free on how to use, just understand marketing, understand business and understand, just from this alone, people are gonna understand like, oh my gosh, I can start an email newsletter, I didn't even think about that.

So it's a good tool to keep getting our members just different ways to use it. Because you could use the platform to do a million different things and everyone's got different models on how they use it. So it's just inspiring people to like, okay, I could use it for this or for this. And anyway.

That's cool. How big is this pod? I actually have no idea. I should probably find that out. We've been doing it for a long time. So I first started, it was called marketing your car and I would drive my work, my office back every day. It was like a five minute podcast.

I did like 350 episodes that way. Then we transitioned it. And we transitioned, we finally hooked up analytics, but I'm not 100% positive. What's crazy, so our podcast, okay, so I think we have, someone will have in the audience, we'll have to link this up, but I think we have 800,000 subscribers on YouTube and including audio, every podcast that we do for sure gets 150,000 people watching it and then upwards of like, let's say 2 million if it goes viral. And when we started, it was so janky that Sean would take one earbud and I would take

one earbud if someone like we would want to like talk to someone who called in and we would record sitting around a table on an iPhone. And now I'm recording just in my office. I think I have $2,000 worth of equipment. Nothing like crazy. Maybe less, honestly, maybe a thousand dollars worth. And it's just insane. It looks like you have a fancier one, but it's just insane that a podcast can start

so janky and continue to be janky to be honest. And it still reaches reaches so many people. And that kind of boggles my mind, because I used to think that email is the strongest marketing channel. I've changed, I think podcast is, because when you listen to someone in your ears for 40 minutes, you are very intimate with them.

And there's been times where I've said stuff that I don't even remember, and someone off the street will tell me all about it, and I'm like, I said that? And so it's just crazy how much people listen. I completely agree. It's like my philosophy is the same thing. It's like, if I move people from short form to long form,

like long form is when you get their mind share, you know, versus other things you're getting a glimpse of attention. But yeah, when someone spends 45 minutes with you twice a week, it changed. And I think about the podcasts I go deep with, I feel like I have such close relationships with those people who I've never met, and that's the power.

In fact, it was interesting when we, we have our high-end masterminds, like we have a 50 and a $250,000 mastermind groups. And what's interesting is the majority of those people were podcast listeners for a long time first. It's not people who got me off email or saw an ad, it's like they went through some process, got on the podcast, listened to me for a year

and then they invested and came in. That's the highest end clients I found come off of the back of that. Yeah, it's like, I think I've always been surprised at how much influence a podcast can have. To this day, it still shocks me. Yeah. Okay, I wanna ask you a little about your,

I don't know how much much this newer business or whatever, but it's interesting. So you have a company called Hampton and I run masterminds in your circle and this is like a different variations, I think. And so I don't understand it completely, but I love you explain what it is and I probably a lot of follow-ups afterwards.

Yeah, so I was trying to think of like what business to launch after I sold the Hustle and I settled on this one because it kind of fits my preferences and my skill set. But basically, Hampton is, if you're an entrepreneur of a company that does somewhere between 20 and 50 million a year in revenue, a lot of times you're lonely where you live and you want to be less lonely and you want to have a peer group of people who you can talk to about the company and if it's you got to lay people off or if you're succeeding and you don't know what to do with your money, if your wife and you are having issues. Like these are issues that if you live in let's say Boise or Nashville, maybe you're

a little bit of a freak like amongst your friend group. Like you know some of your friends might work a little bit more normal jobs than you. And so you're like I don't a freak, like amongst your friend group. Like, you know, some of your friends might work a little bit more normal jobs than you. And so you're like, I don't really have anyone to talk to. And we wanted to help solve that. And so what Hampton is, is we're live in 12 different cities.

And the first thing that you get is a group of eight people who you meet with every single month with a facilitator who guides the conversation. And then you have your local chapter, which is one above that. So let's say in New York, I think we have 170 members and we'll host 400 events throughout the year. So you can meet other people in New York or Atlanta

or LA or SF, wherever we're in. And then we have the network, which is our online community. So you can post like, who's got a good lawyer that they love and trust. And so that's sort of like the pyramid of value of what the products are. But the main thing is your core group that meets once a month. And my goal, I think I can get, you know,

like one of my competitors is this company called Vistage. They have roughly 50,000 members. And I think that a company like Hampton, my goal was to find a company that can last for 100 years. Vistage was launched in 1963. YPO, which is a competitor, was launched in 1958. My goal is to like, how can I create something that can last that long

and also be a multi-billion dollar company? And so it's not gonna scale quickly like a ClickFunnels, but I think we can grow it like 30% a year for like 30 years. Interesting, I was in EO for a little while, so that's my only version. I've been in this kind of sound similar. Similar.

Yeah. What's the pricing strategy? How do you get charged for it? So at first, I did what a lot of silly entrepreneurs do. I just made it up on what people are willing to spend, but now it's roughly $12,000 a year. Okay. And then the growth, like, if they're,

if it's similar to EO, like when I joined EO, there's like a bunch of Boise, I think they call them forums or groups, whatever they were, right? Forums is your monthly group. Yeah, so for you, do you have to go city by, cause you can't just launch it nationally now. You get one dude in Nashville, one guy in Bo in Boise doesn't work, right? Like, so

you go city by city or how you roll out the chapters? It's been a huge pain in the butt. Because when I launched the company, we, we were still kind of in the COVID world. And my customers were like, I would love to meet virtually like, online for my monthly meetings. And we said, that's awesome. That makes it so much easier for me. And I launched it that way. And we had like 15,000 people apply to join the waitlist

really quickly. And so we created core groups. That's what we call it. Instead of four, we say core, virtually. And then obviously, the macro environment has changed. And over the last two years of us being in business, people have wanted in real life way more. And so we basically have been like crushing it virtually,

but now we're changing the whole business. So we're basically gonna destroy our company and build it all in real life. And so we had a, we've made a big pivot about four months ago to in real life. And so we found the 12 cities that we have that have the most density and we've created core groups And chapters in those 12 cities. I had to fly into the cities to do that or no No, no, no, no, no, they live there. They live there. So that is and that makes it really hard

It's a huge mo if I can pull it off But like it's really hard knowing what I know, I would have launched city by city, like no doubt. And I think had I done that, I think I would be at like 30 million in revenue in two years. But I, you know, I made a big mistake. And so we're fixing that mistake now and giving our customers what they want. Interesting.

How do you facilitate the monthly meetings with each group? Or who, like, is there a facilitator or do you facilitate, or what does it look like? No, so we train moderators to like so we have like for example in the first meeting everyone does a life walk where they tell you the top 10% and the top the top 10% and the bottom 10% of their life so you can get to know them and then in meeting two you're gonna do this other thing and then a meeting three gonna do this other thing and then a meeting four five six seven eight nine

ten whatever it gets into a flow where we go through MITs. It's called the most important thing. So you come, here's the most important thing I have on my plate right now. The group can criticize me and I can ask questions and I can get feedback. That's what the typical meeting looks like. And it's all moderated by someone.

But in the future, we're actually gonna test having member- led groups. So there will be no moderator. So it's a group of eight people with similar sizes and types of businesses who lead their own meeting. Yeah. How long how long the meetings go? About three hours. OK. Interesting.

What do you think? What can you what am I missing? Because you've been doing this forever. Well, my model is different, but yours is really interesting because ours are, we do, you know, the groups will come like three times out to Boise, and I'm facilitating groups, which I really enjoy, because I get a lot of value from the members.

But we don't have like the monthly in between stuff, which I think is really powerful. Yeah, the difference is that, you know, I'm gonna judge. I don't know if this is the truth. I have a feeling they're coming to learn from you. Is that right? I would say initially yes, after they are in the group, no. The group self-facilitate,

like the way that I facilitate means like, we're in this room actually, and each person has a chance to get on stage and share the number one thing that's working for them and then get their feedback and questions. And most of it's actually facilitated by everybody else. I just kinda hang out and take notes for myself. Well, then it sounds like actually our models

are a bit similar. Yeah. And I would love to like share notes on like the best way to lead a meeting because it's an art and it's really hard And so our thing was my I just like in the back of my head I was kind of like wouldn't it be funny if in the next 10 years I can get 15,000 members to join and If 15,000 like our average company does around 25 million in revenue. So let's say each company has our average company does around 25 million in revenue. So let's say each company has

a 100 employees and I'm able to get 15,000 people. That's 1.5 million employees of the companies who are members. I'm like, that's interesting. Could I help these CEOs get just a little bit better and impact those 1.5 million people? That was the math. It's funny. I would be like, it's like the Illuminati a little bit better and impact those 1.5 million people. And that was kind of the math. And I was like, it's kind of funny. I would be like, it's like the Illuminati a little bit.

Like you're like helping, you're like helping people. Yeah, and I was like, I wouldn't be manipulating them, but like I have insights into how they're all making decisions and I'm like, that's kind of powerful. And that's really fascinating. It seems really fun. And so that was the idea. Yeah.

How did you launch them? Is it mostly from the podcasts, the media companies you launched these? Or do you have a different strategy on how you're selling access to it all? So originally I worked on it for about 10 months without telling anyone. I would just DM my friends and see if they wanted to join. And then I launched it on the podcast.

And on the first day we got like 100,000 people coming to the website. It was a lot. And it was all through the podcast. And just like last month was the first time we started spending on marketing. So we but we still spend I think was I think our budget is 15,000 a month. Like we're not spending anything. And so it was all organic. I've seen, there's a group called Speak Easy that's, they just launched a chapter here in Boise. This may be helpful for you,

but they actually borrowed our office for it. And so they did a free event that brought everyone in Boise in. They facility, I don't know, they do the whole event. And at the end of it, they're like, hey, if you want to be part of this, then there's a monthly thing. And they signed up like half the room signed up

from that one kickoff event here in our office. And they're doing that city by city kind of doing, feels like you could do a similar model. I don't know how big the business is, but they have a Boise chapter now, which is, which there's not anything that happens in our neck of the world. So it's kind of fun to see something like that happening.

But I think they're in, I don't know, 10, 15, 20 cities right now, but that's how they're filling them initially, just doing like one big free event. Everyone's inviting all their entrepreneur friends to come in the thing and they have a bunch of stuff happening and then they make a pitch at the end and sign them all up at one.

I feel like you could do something really similar to that, just hit these local events in each city. Growing isn't the hard part. The hard part is keeping the integrity of the community and of the core group. Because what we're asking for is pretty big. So the way that I wanna grow is through retention. And so a good retention rate is like 90%.

And I'm getting, it's predominantly men, and I'm getting grown men in a room and they're like crying in the first Like meeting like that's like a it's like a life-changing thing and it's like a pretty serious thing Like this is like it could be heavy like I'm in a core group and like there's people have like gotten divorces and like we know about it before their spouse knows about it and we're like talking through the pros and cons like it's like a big deal and What we need to do is make sure that people come with a sense of seriousness. You are explicitly saying that you are going to support your group and be there, and be there emotionally, be there to make introductions. It's like a big commitment. So that's hard. And selling that idea to someone is easy. Getting you to buy into this for a decade, it's like hard. You actually, you have a great book, one of your dot com secrets on like cult building or something like that.

It was like, it speaks to this. But another premise that we have, and this is important for anyone listening, which is my opinion, if you're a tech guy, obviously go do AI. But I'm not that. And so I was like, what do I think is going to grow along with AI? I'm pretty sure it's going to be loneliness and people craving in real life experiences. I think they're going to kind of go in tandem.

And so I think that a company like Hampton, which is it's just like the newsletter, my newsletter people, I said people laughed at it in real life communities or whatever I'm building, people laugh at this too. They're like, this sounds like a cute project. I'm like, no, man, I think this can be a multi-billion dollar thing if you do it right.

And that's kind of what I'm hoping and what I'm working towards. That's really cool. I remember when I did EO, I did it man, I did it right after the 2018 market crash, the group I got into, everyone is like on the brink of bankruptcy. And so I ended up not staying

because like it's just a bunch of people who are like they get together and drink and talk about how their wives left them and their businesses failed. And I was like on the upward as I've had a bad group, but I do remember the process was fascinating because they brought me in and it was like, we did similar like a timeline exercise.

There's like three or four meetings I had to go to be trained before they let me actually into the group, which was really fascinating thing that, that's the time you show up, like you know the rules and the standards. And I don't know if you do similar stuff like that, but I thought that was kind of an interesting way to get you prepped. It's you know I think that like there's like businesses

tend to have like one or there's like three categories of problems I think that a business has like on one hand it's like a technological tech problem which is like can you actually physically like build this technology so it could be like a cancer curing drug. If you can physically build that, then that's going to be the greatest thing ever. Or the second problem is a demand problem,

which is you've invented this interesting widget, but does anyone even want it? You've got to go and prove that out. I don't know. And the third one is operational, which is, for example, yeah, if you can get this cab or this guy to my doorstep in five minutes after I click, like I'm ready to go. Yeah, I would love that, but it's really hard to pull off.

My business is in an operational. My, we have an operational, we have operational issues, which is I can convince someone to sign up for this. I just got to make sure that I make this a seamless, smooth experience for all types of people and like having in real life meetings, like you're describing, like pre-training, having it across the country, that's really hard. And so I'm still, we're building, we're building that.

And once we build it, I think it's gonna be awesome. Are a bunch of your people still running the virtual versions then, if they're not in one of the main cities or? Yeah, but my goal is to like slowly pull them apart. Like I'm like, they're like, if they love their group, I'm like, all right, have fun. But when you're ready, like, let's get you into it

in an in real life group. Interesting. And people bring the same for the virtual as they were as they are for the in real life. No, in real life retains way better. But they're spent, the cost is the same though, right? Yeah, yeah. No, in real life, retained is way better. But their cost is the same though, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. We'll see. Have you heard of Vistage? Yeah. Yep, for sure. So they do like 200 million a year in EBITDA. Really? Yeah. And then have you heard of World 50?

No. World 50 is this. World 50 is actually similar to your mastermind, but it's for fortune 500 executives. They do about 180 million a year in EBITDA. Like communities like this, like the ones you have, like the ones I have, I think people, I don't know if you felt this way with some of your stuff where people were like dismissive

or they didn't understand the math behind it. I don't think if you felt this way with some of your stuff where people were like dismissive or they didn't understand the math behind it. I don't think people understand that these things can be bigger than they appear. Yeah, it's interesting. I've never looked at it from like a way to, cause for the most part my higher end ones are tough cause I'm facilitating the majority of it. Makes me think about-

Yeah, but you kind of have the best of both worlds, right? Like you own ClickFunnels, which is highly scalable. Yeah. And you have your masterminds, which. Are scalable, but very cash rich. Yeah, and like frankly, if I had to guess, your masterminds make way more cash than a scaled startup. So it doesn't really matter.

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. But yeah, they could be, these things could be big. It's just, it's a grind. Yeah. Is it, so with you promoting on the podcast, like do you, does HubSpot get a percentage of that since they're on the podcast?

Or is it just that you do whatever you want? Or like, is there any, you're getting no you can scroll out all the businesses you want without having to worry about yeah yeah yeah yeah because like it's not like an ad like I'm the podcast I'm talking about my life like I'm saying I launched this thing here's what it is and yeah I have a big audience but I can't launch all the businesses I want because I'm always nervous and maybe I'm wrong, but I'm A nervous very much so of like wearing out my audience, like they'd get confused. Like, wait, does Sam do this thing

or does he do this other thing and he doesn't? Like, you know what I mean? But also I just think that in order to build like a kind of a legacy creating product or a company, you need to focus for like decades. You know, I think I sold my last, I'm very happy I sold the hustle because I was poor and suddenly I wasn't poor.

Like that was great. But like I truly, I messed up the compounding part. Like having like a business that truly compounds is like the greatest thing ever. And like one decade in two decades in like you really can start seeing some of the benefits. And so I hope that will be the case with this. Do is is is ClickFunnels something that you'll own forever? I think I mean ClickFunnels. So we had an offer four years ago that we turned down and at the time it was tough because there was ClickFunnels and there was Russell and everything

was like all together. Over the last four years we split it separately so Russell and the coaching business is separate from the software. So in theory I could sell one without the other. So there may be a potential that we could do that when we get bored but right now we still really have fun. But I do, you know, I think I'm going to be in the Russell business forever, but the ClickFunnels business, you know, who knows what could happen there. And you guys kind of did it the right way, which is like, if I had to guess, ClickFunnels

has allowed you to profit along the way. Whereas a lot of people, myself included, I was a little bit of a martyr. Like I didn't pay myself a lot of money because I was like, oh, the CEO should eat last. And like, which is kind of true, but like I paid myself like nothing, right? And so I was like, I have to sell in order to get paid. And obviously that was foolish. That, yeah.

Yeah, we built ours where we had to have X amount of money in the bank based on our hard cost, you know what I mean? That was the number. Then everything above that we distribute out. So yeah, it's been nice. Yeah. And that I think allows you to do something for a much longer period of time than... And it was nice because we never took on outside funding. So we didn't, we could do dumb decisions or smart, you know, whatever it was, but we didn't have anyone we ever had to report back to, which has been really nice. A lot of friends I know have taken on equity or whatever throughout the process,

then it shifts everything. They can't distribute all the profits. They can't, you know, like, then it's like, as soon as you take that first round, then you have to work towards some liquidation event or else you kind of get stuck. Yeah, you have a duty. And I think that that makes it way more hard,

like way more challenging. And I always tell people, I'm like, most things in business are reversible, most mistakes. Taking capital might be the one where it's like, you kind of can't undo that. Maybe you could, but it's so hard that you'd probably just start from scratch. Yeah.

It's funny, like when we got started, I didn't know, it was my first time being a startup founder. And we were like a year in, and everyone was telling us, I take't know, it was my first time being a startup founder and we were like a year in and everyone was telling us, I take money and all the, we get hit up by everybody. And then, do you know Ran Fishkin, SEO Moz? Yeah. So he came to Boise and spoken at an event about them raising cash and capital and told the whole-

Yeah, I mean, he got screwed. Yeah, but it was funny because he was, I guess his best friend lives here in Boise and they were doing this little event. So he was telling everyone the story about it, like as if it was this great thing because he was still actively running at Moz at the time. And then afterwards I had a chance to, you know, wait in line, ask him a question. I was like, kind of told him what we were doing and he pulled me aside and was like,

dude, do not take on and they gave me this warning. I was like, oh, and then fast forward five years later, he was out of the business. He wrote the book Lost and Founder and like I read the whole story and I was like, but it was because he told me not to, it was literally why we never did. And I told him later, I was like, you have no idea, like this one conversation shifted, I think the degree of happiness in my life. So anyway, it's kind of interesting. Yeah, I think I'm not like dogmatic against venture capital. I think that some companies need it. I think the best analogy I heard was, VC is rocket fuel, and if you own a car, it doesn't matter how fast it is or how cool that car is or how much you love that car,

cars should not run on rocket fuel. And cars are, or rocket fuel is for rockets. And just know that if you're taking this fuel, you better make a rocket, not a fast car. And what I realized was I think I like fast cars a lot more than a rocket. And there's a world where you could have a ClickFunnels company and maybe have both. But I think that I also sold my company for a lot less money than what you see big tech companies say in the headlines. And I made way more than most of my friends

who raised the money and sold for a lot more than me. And so like... Because you didn't have anything before the sale, right? The acquisition was the first cash event? So the last year, so the first two years, I basically paid myself $2,000 a month, like nothing. And my business had millions in the bank. And so I was foolish not to do that. But the last year, I started paying myself a lot. And then my wife, very coincidentally,

I told you the Airbnb story, she worked at Airbnb as well. And it went public, like the year before, a few months before I sold and she killed it. And so we did well there and then the sale put us in like a new stratosphere. And so it was like overnight. Well, like her thing happened in like December and then I got the money in February. So it was like a three month thing where like life changed. And frankly, it took about four years to get used to it. And so I think there's like a big difference between people like you who make it along the way,

or have you ever had a big liquidity event or it's always been? No, yeah, too long. So people like you who make it along the way versus people like me who it's, it was like a lumpy, it was like nothing and then boom. I think that like the people like me who it's, it was like a lumpy, it was like nothing and then boom. I think that like the people like me are like broken more than like the people like you, because you're like used to it. Because you're waiting for the, that's interesting.

Was it when the deal with HubSpot happened, was it pretty quick or was it like a longer term thing and a go all that kind of stuff? You know what I mean? Like a traditional. So it was pretty great. I'm very proud of myself for how I handled this. And I would encourage everyone to do this. But basically they emailed me in like October. I think it was October and they were like,

hey, what's going on? Like we would love to talk about a partnership. And I replied back, are you emailing me because you want to buy me? Just say yes and we'll cut to the chase. They replied, yes. I replied that night, I said, great, thank you so much for your honesty. Let's get to it.

Here's a list of all the reasons why you should not buy us. I made a Google Doc and I made a list of all the things that I think could have came out in due diligence. Nothing major, but in this month, we made a mistake and churn was high, or I don't know, or like whatever. And I said, here's a list. Is any of this a red flag?

And he said, nope, all looks good to me. And I said, all right, let's do this. And we signed an LOI like three weeks later. And then I closed, so they initially contacted me in October, I signed a 90 day, what's that window called? Like a due diligence window. And then we closed on the 90th day. That's awesome.

It was very fast because selling to HubSpot, like they care, they're a huge company. A, like they have resources to like, they have a team of people just for buying companies. B, they're worth so much money just for buying companies, be they're worth so much money, they care way more about their reputation, they're not going to like nickel and dime me over stuff. And so it was like, they were like, look, your company is small for us, like, we, you could tweet about us and hurt our reputation a lot more than

this company's even worth. So we're not going gonna mess with you. And they did mess with me. They were wonderful to work with. And so the whole thing was like maybe four months from cold email to deal closing. Oh, that's awesome. And it was miserable by the way. It was so hard. Were you trying to sell at that point

or do you have any like that you're working towards or you were just kind of just doing the business? Yeah, I was building a company to sell. I was building it to sell like and I I did not go to market but they people were always messaging me because we were one of the like hot companies because no one thought email was interesting and then all of a sudden they did think it was interesting and it was basically me and Morning Brew were the only two companies that were at scale. So there was only two options if you wanted to buy a newsletter company and they sold Business Insider in December and I

sold in February. Interesting. Have you seen a lot of people since they've been hearing your story popping up newsletter companies? Is it everyone, everyone, everyone, everyone. And it's so much harder now, man. So we started you. I don't know if you like pay attention, but I don't tell you could tell me what click funnels is open rates are like we started in Fort. I started the hustle kind of 14 and I started the hustle in 2016 and open rates were way higher and the cost to acquire a

customer on Facebook was way lower and then word got out like you've been talking about this for 10 years I'd been talking about for five years people finally started listening and the competition was way harder now it's way harder I don't know what it cost to acquire a customer anymore but I know it's a lot more expensive than I thought that. And I bet open rates are way, way down. Yeah. Well, I've been, it's funny, cause I've been doing this

for 20, almost 25 years now. And back in the day, email was insane. Cause you get like 95% open rate and like 80% click through. Anyway, so I got spoiled for the first four or five years of my, of my existence. And back then no one was running email newsletters, you know, and you know, so for me now, every time I see the numbers, I'm always like depressed based on my vision

of what we did 25 years ago, but it still works. It still works and I think email ebbs and flows. Like when I started it, it was not popular, but five years before I started it, it was very popular. Now it's, right when I sold, it was not popular. But five years before I started it, it was very popular. Now it's right when I sold it was very popular. It's since gone down a little bit, but there's like all these platforms, y'all, Beehive, ConvertKit, whatever. So they've made it way easier, but most newsletters are really bad or they don't innovate. Like it's a lot of

people, like there's a lot of people that just copy what we did or maybe they don't innovate like it's kind of like it's a lot of people like there's a lot of people that just copy what we Did or maybe they copy what you did. I think when we came out we are kind of I mean it's email It's not like we're flying to Mars. It's not like the most like innovative thing But like within our world it was very innovative and I think that there's still people still need to come up with some more interesting Angles than what a lot of people are doing right now. Yeah for sure Interesting well, dude, this has been really fun. I than what a lot of people are doing right now. Yeah, for sure. Interesting. Well, dude, this has been really fun. I feel like I wanna hang out with you more often.

So, and hopefully. I would love to hang out with you. I'm like, by the way, this is like an honor for you to ask me questions. I'm telling you, I've read.com secrets. I've like, I've been following you since I was probably 19. I'm 36 now. How old was I?

Like, I remember you winning a Ferrari. Yeah. That's crazy. probably 19, I'm 36 now. How old was I? Like I remember you winning a Ferrari. Yeah, that's crazy. So like, and then I followed you way before, way before you launched ClickFunnels. And then I signed up for ClickFunnels right when you launched it and it looked like you made it with Play-Doh.

It was like all these bright colors and it was crazy. And so I've been a fan and customer of yours for so long. Oh, that's so cool. Well, dude I'm glad we finally got to meet up and hopefully we'll do more stuff in the future and Open a Hampton group here in Boise. I'll join it. It'll be fun Yeah, man. Thank you for everything you do and total honor and I think I said this when we were offline I you were doing this because you like hurt your leg or arm or something. So I hope you're feeling better Oh, yeah, I you're feeling better. Oh yeah, I was at a wrestling tournament.

I tore both my biceps off of the bones, so I had to get, probably can't say it, but I had double arm surgery, got them reattached. It's been four months post surgery now and I'm doing all the rehab and stuff, but yeah, I'm feeling a lot better now. Well, God bless you. I'm actually next week gonna start drilling,

start wrestling again, so it's fun. Good, and I actually got into wrestling a little bit because of you. I follow, you know, I I became acquaintances with Ben Askren seen him do his thing and Big we got in the UFC, but I remember like seeing like wait Russell Brunson Russell's what's this about and I Started following like Bo nickel and all those guys. So you've been a very inspirational to me. Oh, that's crazy. Well, very cool, man. Well, if I can ever do anything for you, let me know.

And yeah, hopefully if you come back out to Boise for one of Nathan's events, let me know too. I'll be there. So thank you. Awesome, thanks.