My First Million - Blue Collar Side Hustles, Covid Businesses, and Going Viral On TikTok For An "A"
Episode Date: February 23, 2023Episode 423: Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) and Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) talk about Shaan's rich neighbor's Covid business success, an Emory professor who's giving A's for going viral, Sam's short-lived employme...nt at Airbnb, and blue collar side hustles. Want to see more MFM? Subscribe to the MFM YouTube channel here. ----- Links: * Professor Marina Cooley TikTok * Jupe * Marathon Ranch * Smash My Trash * Mobile Home Park Guy * Parcast * Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. * Want more insights like MFM? Check out Shaan's newsletter. ------ Show Notes: (00:45) - Shaan's rich neighbor and Covid businesses (11:15) - TikTok Professor and the future of education (15:12) - The story of Sam dropping out to try to work for Airbnb (26:05) - Did Shaan and Sam get girls when they were younger? (29:25) - Jupe (38:25) - Blue Collar Side Hustle: Smash My Trash (51:25) - Parcast ----- Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. ----- Additional episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto * #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • #218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Somehow five years later, COVID hits.
And you know what they decide to do?
They're like, you know what?
Let's go all in on creating like safety, safety stuff for COVID, like masks, respirators, gloves, things like that.
And they become one of the like core providers right at the start of COVID.
They shifted all their production manufacturing stuff.
They're like, forget the vodka bottles, forget the LED screens.
We need N95 masks and we need respirators.
We need, you know, these testing kits and we need, and they started producing this stuff.
And they started just winning all these contracts.
All right.
We're live.
Sean, we have a bunch of stuff.
You have a full menu over here and so do I.
Yeah.
All right.
I want you to look at my menu here.
And I want you to just pick something off the menu.
Go ahead.
And I'll riff off it.
For people who they don't know, we only write like one or two words.
So you get like a teaser.
You're like, man, what the hell is this about?
But you don't know what it actually is.
but I have I put all my stuff in here an accident
I have this new researcher who's crushing it
he just gives me all the content like five minutes ahead of time
but uh rich neighbor
how did I know you'd pick rich neighbor
so there's somebody in my neighborhood
who I bumped into and
I've I was you know I sort of get out there
and I collect signals
is this you know where do I place this person on the
the Billy scale like are they you know
are they on their way up are they are they made it in life
Are they really bawling out of control?
Where is this person?
These people have been bawling out of control.
Like when Christmas time came up,
there was just like, the wife went outside
and it was just pointing at windows.
And all of a sudden, the house was lit up like a Christmas tree.
They had like so,
they had the most like decked out things.
And they go, hey, hey, invite your kids over this Thursday.
We have a snow machine.
We're building a snow hill in our driveway.
Like you want to do sledding without going to Tahoe?
What's that like a big snow cone?
Is that what that is?
No, it's like a giant truck that comes that.
creates snow and it piles it up so that your like their house looked like it was in
you know, Michigan or something like that.
Yeah, but it's like an ice machine or something.
Yeah, it's like something like, yeah, something like that.
Yeah, like a big snow cone, like a big shaved ice thing.
Yeah, yeah, you were right from the beginning.
You're right.
So they did this and they had a fake Santa there and I was like, man, this is a lot for a
Thursday afternoon.
But okay, this is cool.
Like these people's style, they seem really nice.
And I didn't know what they did.
So I kind of, I headed with the Google the other day.
And I was like, let's see who these people are.
And they have a crazy story.
So they created a company that back in 2014 did this thing.
It basically, it lets you take a vodka bottle.
They had a vodka bottle that had an LED sign going around it.
So you could give somebody a vodka bottle that would say, happy birthday, Sam, or like,
you can program any message.
I could be like, you know, whatever.
I could be like, you're getting an old bitch.
whatever. I could write any message on it. It would go on your
your vodka bottle. All right.
Seems kind of gimmicky. I don't really, you know,
not a bad idea, but,
but balling out of control from that didn't
100% make sense.
But that was the business. It sounds like a drop shipping
like joke. Sounds like my first idea
out of college. Like this is like, me
in college would have been like, bro.
Next, next Google. I got it.
You know, like what if we took
you know, this Yeager bomb and we put
an LED screen on it? Wouldn't that be
incredible? And so, so they had this
thing and they were licensing this out or something like that.
Somehow like Shaq became an advisor to their company.
It was really crazy.
Makes sense.
Yeah, as you would.
Somehow, five years later, COVID hits.
And you know what they decided to do?
They're like, you know what?
Fuck this vodka thing.
Let's go all in on creating like safety, safety stuff for COVID, like masks, respirators,
gloves, things like that.
And they become one of the like,
core providers right at the start of COVID.
They shifted all their production manufacturing stuff.
They're like, forget the vodka bottles, forget the LED screens.
We need N95 masks and we need respirators.
And we need, you know, these testing kits and we need, and they started producing this stuff.
And they started just winning all these contracts.
And so now, like, if you go look at their website, it's one of those, I know your rich websites
because there's like not a lot of information on it.
But if you go to like the, they have like a press release section and it's like PR Newswire,
company gets $113 million contract with the government for safety equipment.
Oh my God.
Local East Bay Success Story where they're now the sole testing provider for, you know,
with the Lakers Stadium, Levi Stadium, like all these different places.
And so these guys are getting $100 million plus contracts for their stuff.
Now, I think probably it's like, you know, probably only like 10% margin when you buy,
when you think it's that selling masks.
I think for things like that, probably.
It's like 10, 15%, is my guess.
Maybe during COVID,
and everyone was completely price insensitive,
and they could just charge whatever they wanted.
I'm not sure.
I would have thought that.
But, but wow, dude, what a, what a pivot.
And, you know, isn't that just kind of crazy?
And that was an opportunity kind of available to a lot of people, right?
Dude, I know a bunch of people who did that.
And, like, I had a friend that did it.
And he's like, dude, check this out.
And he sends me a picture of a Shopify store.
And it's doing like $2 million a month.
I know a lot of people who did that.
and I've only followed up with one or two of them.
And I have a feeling that, like, of the eight people I know who did it, like three of them, it worked out.
And then the rest, it was like a really quick cash grab, but then they overbought inventory.
And it's like nothing.
Do you know people who did that?
Yes.
There was a guy in a, I had started this mastermind group.
That's actually where I found Ben.
But like one of the other guys in the mastermind group, he, like, every time we came to the mastermind.
Does he live in Texas?
No, he's in Canada.
Every time we came to the mastermind group, I feel like he had.
a different business, which is like not what you want in a mastermind group.
But he was a good dude.
And he would always be like, oh, I have this other business that's like, oh, you know,
for auto repair, blah, blah, we do their SEO.
And I was like, okay, but then what about that thing you told me last time?
And then one time he came and he's like, dude, we're doing mobile COVID testing.
Trucks that will drive up to places and we can just do rapid testing for COVID.
And we were like, all right, I mean, that sounds cool.
But like, are you like, do you know anything about COVID testing?
Like, does anybody in the world know about this?
like what he's like oh i got the scientist it's going to be great and then he came back and he was
like hey um really excited to be here and he needs you guys help um like three months later he was
like really need you guys help about going public and i was like what and he's like yeah we're
going to do like 85 million this year in revenue and i was like what and he's like yeah we're
getting all these contracts with the state of uh with like the you know the in canada like these
country countrywide contracts and um you know yeah we think maybe we should take this public next
year. I was like, what the fuck is going on? How did it end? I don't even know because that
guy, my head was just spinning every time, you know, he would talk because I'm like, this is
either too good to be true or I'm too dumb and this is amazing and I can't tell which one it is.
It's probably some mix of both. But you're right. I know several people that went all in on COVID
right when it happened. And like low key got like an absurd amount of traction very, very fast.
Yeah, like a ton. My dad had actually called me one day and he goes,
my friend works at this hospital.
They need extra equipment.
They need extra masks.
I talked to somebody in India and they could produce these masks.
And I think we could do like a two or three million dollar contract.
And I was like, fantastic.
Should do it.
And he's like, yeah, I want to, but my dad is this problem where my dad is addicted to meetings.
Like he thinks winning is like this important person met with me.
And then he'll tell me the duration of the meeting to show me the value.
he's like only scheduled for one hour but we sat there for 90 minutes and i'd be like okay so what
like he'd be like so you know he was really interesting two hours right and he was just like he just
like always is obsessed with that so he was he just had a bunch of meetings and i was like dad you're gonna
it's all about that action boss you're gonna take some action here what what's gonna happen like go
go for it do it and he's like well no i want he's like i want everybody to like sign off on it and
de-risk it completely pay me up front and i was like dude
This is like the cheap way to do business.
Like you got to take a little risk here.
And are you showing you're throwing shade on your dad right now?
I hope he doesn't listen to this.
And you'd call them boss.
If my son calls me boss, he's getting in the headlock.
Yeah, my dad.
Yeah, we make fun of each other.
Like we call it like it is.
I do a bunch of dumb things.
And I say when I do dumb things, this is his dumb thing.
He is high planning, low action on these things.
And he says it all the time.
I took him to Tony Robbins
and Tony Robbins
is all about like taking massive action
on like the things you want
and he's like
I was like what's your big takeaway?
He's like,
oh man I need to take massive action
and I was like
yeah that's that you did it
you learned the right lesson
from this thing.
He goes,
that's my problem.
I don't take massive action.
I was like well he starts
slipping back into like
basically he's like
I've identified my problem
but not like
just like so right
so true.
Whatever, it worked out for him.
Yeah, he did great, like, right, for, like, village in India to, like, live in, like, owning multiple homes.
Dude, the story.
The story of you tell of your mom of, like, I think you said she, like, had never eaten with a fork or something, and she just comes to America when she's 17.
Is that what you said?
I'm not exaggerating.
Not that, but I don't want to be disrespectful.
Like that.
I thought you said, like, she had, they didn't use, like, utensils or she went to a restaurant and, like, or she didn't know.
Oh, actually, you're right.
You're right.
That did happen.
No, I'm not being disrespectful, uh, Mrs. Perry.
That's the story.
It's on record.
And then also when she used a pay phone to call her brother to say that she was in town,
she didn't know that you hang it up.
So she like let it hang.
She was just crying at the airport.
And some guy was like, hey, do you need help?
Are you okay?
She's like, I need, like, my brother's supposed to pick me up.
I don't know where he is.
Like she just landed in America.
And he said, do you have a phone number?
She's like, yeah.
So that guy picks up the pay phone, puts in the quarters, calls the brother, tells him,
hey, she's at terminal two.
She's waiting here.
I'm going to tell her not to move.
brother didn't even know, oh, your flight was today?
Like, they had no correspondence.
Like, okay, I'll hang tight.
I'll be there.
And she talks to him and she's like, he's like, don't move.
And then that guy had left, the helper had left.
And so she didn't, she's like, not only did I not know how to use the pay phone.
I didn't even understand how do you put this back.
And she's like, I kind of was like fiddling with it, like kind of like trying to get it to stick.
And I didn't know what to do.
I looked around.
Nobody was there.
And I just left it hanging.
I walked away.
She's like, I'll never forget, like, just feeling so clueless.
about the world.
And there's like five stories like that on her
just trip to America.
Now they have a house in San Francisco.
So it worked out.
That's the American dream.
All right.
Another topic.
What do you got?
I got a quick one here.
So I saw this TikTok of this professor.
Some professor at college,
I apologize to her.
I don't know her name.
But let me see if I can find her real quick.
She basically,
Professor Cooley.
I don't know what.
She's a professor Cooley at Emory University.
So shout out to.
her. Basically, she teaches marketing at,
at this college. And for her marketing class, she goes, all right,
class, if you want to do well in this class, you want to get an A, you have one job.
Go viral on TikTok. All right. I'll see you. I'll see you in a few weeks. Like,
if you need help, you know, we have some, maybe, maybe some, we can talk about what it
takes to get there. But like, that's how you get a good grade. Go viral on TikTok. Awesome. How old
is she? Young looking or older? Younger looking. Yeah, she looks like,
like, you know, she looks like if you were 12, she would be your friend's mom.
Got it.
So something like that.
Whatever age that is.
Perfect description.
So basically, I thought this was amazing.
And it got me thinking, like, really, how many more classes at a university should be taught this way?
So for example, like, why isn't there a class at, you know, why isn't there a class at school where it's basically like, okay, we're going to have four lemmon.
Stans on campus, break up into teams, you're each going to run a lemonade stand.
And the top lemonade stand is going to get a plus, the next one gets to A minus, B plus, B minus.
And if you're not able to break this threshold of sales, you fail.
And just let them go and do their thing and let them learn.
That's 100% how it should be.
Or it's like, you know, maybe it's the net profit.
So they learn about the cost management as well.
But like, give them, you know, 500 bucks and be like, oh, who can run the best lemonade stand or T-shirt company or whatever?
it is, or writing on Twitter.
Like, you know, okay, it's an English class.
Should you basically go read Shakespeare and all the stuff?
Or should I basically teach you how to do writing in like the modern day and basically
get you to start a newsletter, cold email, or Twitter.
And it's like, yeah, you need to grow an audience around whatever topic you're interested
in.
It could be the bachelor.
It could be world politics.
It doesn't matter.
You pick your topic, but you got to write to an audience on that.
And you got to publish.
First thing is quantitative.
you've got to publish every day for the next 60 days.
And then the next thing is going to be quality.
Can you actually grow an audience?
Can you get a 50% open rate on a newsletter with a thousand people on it?
Go figure out how to do that.
And so things like this, I feel like, would be so much better than the way that people
learn about how to do real world business today in school.
Another one would be flipping.
Like everybody, you're going to look under your desk.
Yep, you're starting with this drill.
Okay, everybody's got a drill.
Like, your job is to flip this drill into the most valuable item you can get by the end of the semester.
Go.
And it's like, you got to sell this, take the profit, buy something else, sell that.
And like, just keep doing that until you can get to the biggest thing.
Dude, Ramon, our friend Ramon, his son goes to the school here in Texas.
And his kid had a class where he had to go haggle.
And it was like, you have to get this much of a discount from a retail store or something like that.
And I was like, oh, that's awesome.
That was awesome.
It's like great for a 12-year-old.
So I love that stuff.
Dude, I didn't have class.
When I was, all right, my sophomore year of college, I was a division one athlete, a runner, nonetheless, a runner.
Peak physical condition, they made me take a aerobic walking class, which was like, if you add up the tuition, it was like nine grand or something like that.
So I'm all, it was aerobic walking.
You show up and you go for a walk.
So I'm all in favor of this stuff.
I think it's awesome.
Like, are you walking at least at like a fast pace?
Why is it called aerobic walking versus just walking?
Is that just branding?
Because the gym teacher had to justify their pension or their salary.
I don't know.
It was the stupidest thing ever.
Like, it was, it was crazy.
It was crazy to me.
I had to take aerobic.
I remember this.
It was ridiculous.
You just, like, showed up.
And what do you mean you had to?
Seems like they don't force you something like.
You have to get like these certain amount of credits.
And it was like this aerobic walking class is available.
Was your major like PE?
Why was this in your environment?
Dude, because they make, I don't know.
I don't remember exactly why I had to do this.
No, I don't even remember what I made.
I think just like accounting or business or something.
Accounting?
It was a, so I left school early.
So it was accounting and then I left school and then I finished online later.
And I was like, okay, you know, give me just, give me any diploma that I can get, please.
Why did you leave school?
Because I moved out.
So I, the summer, I had to take like some summer classes and one extra semester.
And I heard about Airbnb.
And I was like, that's where it's at.
So I moved out there.
Yeah.
Yeah, so, you know, I think I told you this.
I had heard about...
I remember you applied.
I didn't know you were in college and dropped out for it.
I didn't drop out.
I, well, I don't know if it's technically drop out.
I just, like, quit going and I finish online.
What's the term?
You converted to an online student.
Yeah, like, I took, like, some time off, and then I eventually, like, finish.
And I would have to go, like, to a Kaplan, you know, like, those Kaplan, like, testing centers.
And I would have to take these nonsense, nonsense tests.
But basically, there was this famous runner.
I was runner at the time.
And there was a famous runner named Chris Lou Kaysick, and he quit running, which wasn't exactly lucrative, but he was like the seventh most fastest miler ever.
And he was like, I'm quitting running at my peak to join this thing called Air Bed and Breakfast.
And I was like, what the hell is that?
That sounds awesome.
And so I emailed Joe Gebia, the founder of Airbnb.
And I was like, hey, I like Airbnb.
I came up with this interesting hack that I think can help you grow.
Here it is.
And he forwarded it to like it.
It was at the time there was this thing called Reportive that had just.
come out. And I built an Excel sheet where you could type in someone's first name, last name,
and like their Gmail or their company name. And then it like permutates and you put into this
thing and it tells you which email's there. So not like that sophisticated of a hack at all.
But it was like new technology. And I emailed them. And in his head, he's probably like,
this is dumb. But like the fact that you came up with this, like whatever, we'll interview.
So they interview. And so he puts me to a minion. And the minion was like, hey, do you want to come
to the Bay Area? I don't know who the guy was. But the guy is probably worth $20 million.
Underused word. I'm going to start using that. That's an amazing slander. I love it.
Well, that minion is probably worth $20 million. I mean, you know, because at the time,
there were only like 200 people. And the guy who he referred me to was like the 17th employee.
And so his name was Justin. I'm so friends with him. Sorry, Justin, call you a minion, but maybe you were.
I didn't realize that's your friend, dude. I'm friendly with them. I'm friendly with him.
But he, uh, they, uh, they go, all right, great, do you live in the Bay Area? And I was in Tennessee at the time.
I didn't know what the hell the Bay Area was. When he said, Bay.
I had never been west of Missouri.
I'd only basically been to like Missouri
and then like whatever the states are
when you drive to like Destin, Florida for like spring break.
Those are like the only places that I'd been.
And he goes, are you in the Bay Area?
And I was like, of course.
Yeah.
It goes, great.
Come into my office on Monday.
So I was like, shit, I got to get out there.
I got to figure out what the hell the Bay Area is.
I thought it was L.A.
So I pack up like, yeah, like Silicon Valley.
I heard someone make a joke about Silicon Valley,
but that was like where like porn is, I think, in L.A.
They were all the same to me. I didn't know. And so I Googled what the hell the Bay Area is. And I bought a ticket and I flew out there and I interviewed with him on a Monday and a Tuesday. And then I interviewed with Joe, the founder. He probably didn't even remember me because it was like a 10 minute interview. And then I go home, they go, dude, I got this job. This is awesome. And they go, what the hell is this? You stay at someone's home. I go, yeah, I think it's going to be legit. She goes, it sounds like a multi-level marketing scheme. And I'm like, well, they have like health insurance. And she goes, whatever.
And so my mom drove down and packed up my apartment with me and then shipped me off and like,
she like gave me a thousand dollars. And that was my seed money. And so I moved out there. And this was
all in like a three week span. The Sunday night before I'm supposed to start, they call me and they go,
we busted you, man. You lied about your resume because you have a criminal record. At the time,
I'd gotten arrested for DUI. And I was like, well, technically like I'm still like the trial is still
happening. So like I didn't get convicted yet. And they're like, yeah, but that was.
It's not proven guilty.
Yeah, they're like, but that was sneaky.
Like, we asked you if you've been charged or whatever.
And I was like, you're right.
I'm sorry.
So I didn't actually get the job.
I was hired for like a second, but I never had my first day.
And then fast forward two years later, my wife ends up going to work there.
And I remember walking around, I'm like, ah, my alma mater, my old stoppy grounds.
So I never ended up working there.
But I had a job there for like, you know, a few minutes.
And, you know, it could have been something great.
I think I would have been like employee 200.
I don't know.
Maybe I would have made some money or not, but that's the story of Airbnb.
That's an amazing story.
I love that story.
And while out there, I also had to like take these classes.
And I remember I didn't have any money.
I had the $1,000.
That was my money.
And I used to have to take this bike.
And I lived in the dog patch in a warehouse that was $900 a month.
And I asked to, I used to have to write.
For people that live in San Francisco, they're like, he lived in a dog patch warehouse.
It's called dog patch.
It's like the industrial part of San Francisco by the,
water and I used to have to ride my bike because I didn't have any money. And I had to ride a bike
that I took from my roommate all the way up to Twin Peaks to go to the Kaplan place, which is like
six miles away, literally up the steepest hills in San Francisco. And so I used to have to do those
classes and take tests for like months. It was horrible, but it worked out. And now you're
here. Incredible. And now, dude, I used to like, like, I learned how to like get rid of like,
you could jump on the bus and like when they, they would catch you all the time. And they'd be like,
where do you live? And I'd be like, I don't know. What's your name? And I just like give a name.
And they're like, do you have any ID on you? I'm like, no, I don't have ID. And so I remember like,
there was zero consequences. There are zero consequences. I mean, that's how little I had.
Like, I didn't have cash for a bus fare, which is 250. But, uh, yeah, it turned out okay.
What did you do to, uh, to grow that thousand? How did you not just wipe out? Like,
because $1,000 doesn't get you very far in San Francisco. So how did you not wipe out in three months?
on my so when I went to the interview for Airbnb I stayed at the cheapest Airbnb there was which was a bedroom in this guy's house and he had told me he was starting a business and so when I moved back out there I go hey dude I don't have a job anymore can I join you I only have like two or three weeks of like payment and then and my mother and father had given me a pickup truck for college and I asked them to sell that and they sold it so they gave me $4,000 so I was like all right I got like three weeks of rent or three weeks of living expenses.
now I just got this influx of four or five grand.
I've got like six months of cash.
Let's do this.
And so I co-founded a company with this guy,
a roommate matching company where we would post ads on Craigslist saying we were hosting
these roommate parties where we would match people up into three and four bedroom apartments
because normally it's like you're a single person who just moved there and don't know anyone.
So you've got to move into an existing bedroom.
And there was lots of competition.
So we would post fake existing bedrooms and get 300 people to apply on Craigslist.
and be like, hey, this doesn't exist,
but we'll team you up with 200 other people
who want the same shit as you,
and we would host these parties,
and we would charge people money to attend those parties
and after they got an apartment.
And so we basically spun that up on Weebly
and made money right away, and that's how I lived.
Amazing.
Wow, great stories.
I love this.
I feel like there's a bunch of things.
I've heard bits of these, but not all of them.
This is great.
And I would ride my bike to, like, collect these money.
I would knock on their door
after they got the apartment.
I'm like, hey, you got my money?
It was ridiculous.
That's so good.
After this, I have to go get a hearing aid and I'm going to get fitted for one.
And I have to tell you why.
I forgot to tell you this.
We are at the Vancouver thing.
And there was these two women speaking to me afterwards.
And it was loud.
So, like, the problem with my hearing is I can't hear the difference between background
noise and the person speaking for me.
It's hard to tell the difference.
And these women were talking to me.
And you probably noticed this.
I lean in hard, so I'm only deaf in one ear, but I lean in, I turn and I, and I'll get really close to you.
And also, it was a super loud after party, by the way. It was like, it was like a club.
It was like a club. It was loud. And I also stare at people's lips. So I'll either stare at your mouth or I'll lean in.
Mr. Rolley signals over here.
The horrible worst signals. And this woman comes up to me and I'm leading in and like I'm starting to get really close. And I can tell she's really uncomfortable.
And I go, oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you.
I'm deaf.
I can't freaking hear you.
That's why I'm leaning in so hard.
And it was at that point, I told Sarah, I was like, I got to go, I got to get a hearing aid.
I can't, I'm making people uncomfortable.
This is why you bring your wife with you to all events, just to like, you know, totally, totally make
it clear what's happening here.
Dude, and I have a rule.
I don't, I don't travel alone.
I love having her around when I travel.
But that is, that's definitely the icing on the cake is having around for that reason.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You did the opposite of the billionaire hug.
You went in with the broke boy lean.
You had the broke boy lean.
I just stared at her lips and she says literally tried to watch as the words come out of her mouth and just staring, going down at her lips and looking and then leaning in.
And, oh, man, I can tell she was uncomfortable.
I was like, oh, I forgot to tell you.
I can't hear.
So I'm going to go get one of those things.
Did you ever learn that like trick from, this might have been in like those pickup artist things?
I'm not 100% sure.
But you ever learned at the triangle?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like the third eye or something like that.
No, no, it's if you ever wanted, if you want somebody to want to kiss you, you're close, let's say you're close, you're in range and you want to kind of almost like hack their little like biology and get them to want to kiss you.
You do this like triangle.
So you basically look at one eye, the second eye, down to the lips, back to the first eye.
So it traces like a little triangle.
And if you do that, you'll just see immediately the person just pucker up, baby.
It's happening.
Yeah, right.
It just happens.
Yeah, right.
I don't know if it's because you're signaling that you want to kiss them or that it just makes them want to kiss you.
But this shit works.
This was like in college, I was like, you know, you would have thought I'm in the Illuminati,
how many triangles I was throwing up everywhere because I was like, this is like a magic trick.
This thing is amazing.
Did you get any girls in college?
Probably.
You're really charismatic.
First base king, baby.
You're the first.
He had a good batting average, but not a lot of home runs.
Got that lead off and never got the second.
Yeah.
Well, that's good.
The hard part two is my roommate was like just unbelievably good with girls.
And so he's really good looking.
He's a good looking guy.
And he was a,
Trevor, he's an athlete.
And he was just like a professional flirt.
And so somehow this guy was just pulling crazy people from like,
you know, you have like an R.A.
Who's like the person who's like four years older that lives in the
Rushman dorm. He just started dating the RA's girlfriend. And then like, you know, he started
dating, like, this girl on the basketball team and started dating like all these seniors, started dating
this like one really rich girl who's giving him gifts all the time. I was like, I don't know what's
happening here. But like, you know, this guy's definitely sucking up all the, the alpha male energy
in this room. And, you know, I'm just sort of here along for the ride. But it's okay. It turned
out all right. Well, you know, you worked out all right. By the way, my dating life was a lot like my
startup life. It was basically like fail, fail, fail, fail, home run. It's like, you know,
like most people in their career, they sort of get this like 10% raise a year or whatever where it's
like this linear, like steady climb up the ladder. But if you're in the startup world,
you're often like making nothing or in debt or broke and then all of a sudden, for like seven,
eight years and then all of a sudden you're rich. And that's what my dating life was like. I was
broke for like 10 years and then all of a sudden I was rich. One hundred percent same. It like,
It didn't start picking up until my 20s.
It was 100% insane.
What's what you're trying to do in your teens, bro?
I tried.
I tried a lot.
Trust me, I tried.
I just, I looked like Napoleon Dynamite with braces.
It just didn't work out.
Dude, I didn't talk to a girl.
I was sitting there reciting lines from the rock in WWE when I was in my teens.
Bro, I was jumping off the top rope in my bedroom trying to, you know, just, I loved wrestling and basketball and stuff.
I didn't have time for girls when I was like 15.
It was a numbers game for me.
I knew like, you know, 3% conversion, therefore, you know, you got to try 100 times.
Yeah.
You never want war of attrition to describe it.
Whatever.
It worked out.
We both, it worked out for both of us.
Before we get into this, we got to remind people there is a gentleman's agreement,
except this time it's different.
So we have this thing at this podcast.
Unlike everything on YouTube and on Spotify and all that stuff, our content actually isn't free.
You're only getting this episode for free if it's your first.
one. And if it's your second or third one, you have to go do something for us. What is it?
They got to fire up YouTube. YouTube.com, YouTube the app, whatever it is, and type in My First
Million. They're going to see our pretty little faces right there. You don't even have to watch
video. Just click My First Million, click Subscribe, turn the notifications on. And we need, we need this.
This is what we need, right? Everybody's got needs, food, shelter, YouTube subscribers.
These are your core primal needs and we have ours.
And that's why it's called the gentleman's agreement.
We're not on the other side.
So you just have to do it.
And everyone's doing it lately.
So you should do it.
And that's what we expect out of view.
And also do me a huge favor.
And actually click follow on the podcast app and Spotify.
Because those help us actually go up the rankings.
And then when we go up the rankings, we get more dopamine and we do dumber shit.
And that's why we're here.
So do that.
I have a story for you.
So go to jupe.com.
So it's J-U-P.
Jeup.
So it's jupe.com.
They have a slick looking website.
So tell me what you see.
I see some sort of like mega tent contraption.
I don't know what this is.
This is like some sort of structure.
It's like, is this like a basically like an outdoor unit that's not like something more than a tent but less than a house?
So I met these kind of.
I met these guys recently and they're really fascinating.
And so basically the one of the founders, he's like this artist type.
He's his name's Jeff Wilson.
And before this, he, like, wrote a book because he lived in a dumpster for a year.
Like, he, like, slept in a dumpster.
It was, like, some, like, art project as well as, like, to show, like...
For what?
I don't know.
I mean, he's a wacky, interesting guy.
But he lived in a dumpster.
And then he, uh, then he started this, like, prefab house.
I guess it was, like, marketing for, like, a pre-fabricated homes or something like that.
And, um, they eventually launched this startup.
It's called Jupe.
And I originally saw it because Gary Tan, famous investor, billionaire investor, Gary Tan, made this YouTube video where he stayed in one of their things.
And so basically what it is is it's, I don't know, they would be mad if I called it a tent, but it kind of looks like a tent.
But basically, they ship it to you in like a huge container and you pop it up.
And on the inside, it's like a fancy or like a nice mattress.
And then there's like a heating and cooling unit.
And it's got lighting.
that's all solar powered.
And so it's like a standalone, like, house.
And the way that their business model works is you can do one of two things.
You could just buy it for 30 grand outright.
Or you can do a thing where they give it to you for free and they take something like 40%,
30 to 50% of the revenue and you rent it out.
And these things are renting out.
And I was like, I don't know, man.
Who wants to stay in this thing?
And he was like, dude, we rent them out for $250 to $500 a night.
And they're always booked.
and they're trying to pitch it to me to put it on my land.
And I'm not sure if I'm going to do it or not.
But it's a pretty interesting thing.
This year they're supposed to do like 12 million in revenue and it's break even.
And they've deployed 400 of these things.
And their future, what they're doing is they've got these guys that are just buying plots of land
and then putting 15 or 20 of these on there.
And then Jupe, the company, if you do the profit sharing with them, they kind of run it for you.
So they have like their own little platform and they like will help manage the thing for you.
But it's pretty fascinating.
And I've been thinking about putting one of these on my property.
I'm not sure if I'm going to do it or not because I don't know if I want more work.
But really fascinating, interesting idea that I came across.
I've been loving these ideas where you just make more money off the shit that you already have.
So I have land.
And I was like, should I just like put these all over my place?
But they look kind of fascinating.
And I thought you get a kick out of it.
Yeah.
I mean, these look super cool.
And I got to credit because I see a lot of these like this kind of like, I figure out what I'm going to do.
ADUs or whatever. It's like this additional dwelling unit or something. And they're often just
like vaporware. It's just a render of something that looks sick. And what I really like is if you click
their vision tab, it opens up a notion and explains what they're doing. And four times in this thing,
it just says, here's our thing. Parentheses, not a render. Here's what it looks like. After it gets
delivered, here's what it looks like the next day. Again, not a render. Hey, we actually build the thing. It
exist. This is real. This is not like some futuristic dream. And so I think that's pretty,
pretty amazing. This looks super cool. I don't know why you wouldn't do this just for even like
the story. So I can, I have an update. So my, I have this property, marathon ranch.com and you can see it.
It's doing like anywhere from 13 to 17,000 a month in gross revenue. And so it's doing well.
I'm like making money on my Airbnb finally.
I got like 40 or something like five-star reviews on Airbnb and I finally started going up the rankings.
And it's been really fun to do.
And so I'm not sure, but I have 20 acres, 20 acres of land.
I'm not sure if I want to like screw anything up because, dude, at my Airbnb, we have like 20 cows.
So my neighbor is a cow.
Well, that's true.
But like people, my neighbor owns these cows and they use our property.
And in exchange, we pay less property tax.
and people like wake up to like a mooing cow because they sleep and wake they sleep at all my
property for some reason they decided that's the bed and I don't know if I want to like screw that
up it's like so peaceful going out there so I don't know if I want to screw that up by having
more units on the property but uh dude Marathon ranch dot com your photo here you chose the wrong
photo you chose like a not awesome looking photo for your hero photo then if you click gallery
you all of a sudden see all these awesome photos it's a work in progress my friend
It's a work in progress.
It's still in beta.
Yeah.
It's because one of the pictures, you couldn't see the writing.
Anyway, it's a whole thing.
I got to fix.
But anyway, it's going well.
I always, basically to the listeners, I send Sean updates on my Airbnb.
And he's like, oh, that's neat.
You're making 5%.
You're making 5% return.
That's, that's really, that's lovely.
What did I tell you?
You were like, dude, this is 5% or 7% or 7% a year.
This is great.
I go, and I told you, I go, I've,
lost more money in crypto than you'll ever make on your Airbnb.
Somehow that felt like a good statement to me.
It's been awesome, man.
The Airbnb game, it's been fun.
It sucked for a minute.
And then once I started rolling, it is pretty dope.
So maybe one day you'll be convinced.
But right now it's killing it.
I don't know if he'll kill it in like June when it's like 100 degrees, but we'll see.
To me, the only reason I would do this is the tax benefits if I bought property.
the actual like rental income and or slow real estate appreciation to me is not worth it,
especially given the headache of doing stuff.
So you said, let's say,
from a financial investment, it's only been okay.
But from a like reward, like it's been quite exciting.
What is the margin?
So you say 13K a month, gross.
Okay.
So now we take out what, Airbnb, we take out property management.
We take out utilities.
We take out what?
What's the gross on that?
So like a record month recently was like 17,000.
But let's round down to 15,000 because that's what it's been lately.
So that's gross.
So I give away.
So I own the property outright, but I assume that I have a mortgage.
So if you assume that I had a mortgage plus utilities and taxes, that's in the 7,000 range.
Okay.
I don't have that, but let's just assume that I do because I will get one eventually.
And then property management is 20% of.
of like the 14,000.
So if I do $16,000 revenue, $300 per stay goes to my cleaner.
So whatever that, let's just say that's $2,000.
So that brings us down to whatever that is, what I say, 15 minus 2000.
That's $13,000.
And then management gets 20% of that.
And then the rest, I assume it goes to a property taxes and a fake mortgage.
So all said and done on $15,000 in revenue, I'll walk away with only $3,000 maybe.
Yeah, that's nuts.
So that means, let's see, we do we have 15,000.
So 20% margins.
Yeah, it's not like it's not.
And then you have to pay tax on the 15.
Well, but I have depreciation.
So I'm able to like save a fair bit there.
But yeah, like it's a cash on cash return.
It's going to end up being like five or somewhere between five and eight percent.
But if you assume appreciation, which is a big assumption.
But I looked at the trailing 30 years.
it'll probably be a 15 to 20% annual return if I own it for like 10 years.
But that's a big if.
So cash on cash, it's only okay.
It's only okay.
But I'm completely hands off and I also like it.
And I learned how to do something.
So I didn't do everything.
I didn't do everything right here at all.
I think I paid a premium.
I definitely paid a premium for the property.
Dude, I know you paid a premium because if I look at this, like if I go to the gallery,
it's got the kitchen with like the white,
everything's like white and like this one look of wood
that I'm just like a sucker for.
If it looks like this,
I'm like,
it's a nice place.
People who know about construction,
they're like,
this is like cheap and easy.
Like, you know,
I would walk into a house,
I'm like,
well,
this is a good house.
I'm going to pay a premium for this house.
They're like,
why?
Because the countertops are nice.
And I'm like,
yeah,
but look at this.
It looks fantastic.
It looks modern.
And they're like,
dude,
that costs nothing.
Like you need to pay for a location.
You need to pay for square footage.
You need to pay.
for all these other things, but I'm a sucker for like, just like the countertops.
But I have 20 acres. And so my plan, my plan originally before the markets tanked,
I was like, I'll put more, I'll build more crap there. And then when the markets tanked,
I got cold feet. And I was like, well, let's just sit on it and just see what happens. And so
now I'm just sitting on it. And it's going awesome. Like, it's, it's booked constantly.
And so I'm happy with it. I don't regret it. I would do it again. And I, but like, I learned.
It was a lot of money to like, you know, it was seven figures to,
like get in the game. And so I was fucking nervous as hell. But it's worked out. And I've learned how
to do it. So now I know more about it. So I'm happy.
I can find this client info. Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform. So it shares
its data across every application. Every team can stay aligned. No out-of-sync spreadsheets or dueling databases.
HubSpot, grow better. All right. Let me go. I got two blue collar hustles for you. So these are in the
trash and the trash biz.
So I've heard of two
trash businesses recently that I thought were pretty
interesting. I wanted to share them with you. I want you to tell me
which one you like better. Okay, so the first
one, our buddy Siva told me about this. It's called
Smash My Trash. Have you ever heard of this? Has he told you about this?
No, but you want to know something funny? I've been very
close with Siva for like 12 years now
and I still don't know how to say
his last name.
Kozinski, right?
Yeah. I had to like, yeah,
I just, he's in my phone book as when the very first
time I ever met him. He said he was Russian, so he's just saved as Siva, Russia. And so I just assumed
he was Siva Russia. I mean, this guy was like, in my wedding, close. Yeah. See, a tall, handsome,
smart. Yeah, I just called him Madonna's. Yeah, first name and then attributes, like visual attributes
that I remember you by. Six-pack, six-three. Got it. Yeah. I have a system, and it serves me well.
All right. So you see you would tell me about this franchise called Smash My Trash.
And so what they do is they basically imagine a giant like crane.
And so they drive to any business.
And like if you ever been to like we had a warehouse, so our warehouse just produces like an ungodly amount of trash, just cardboard.
You don't just burn it.
Just be normal.
So we have Charlie.
Charlie burns the trash.
But like I'd be not at that.
You would have basically a dumpster.
And you get charged per, like, I don't know, like per filling of the dumpster,
like how many times you fill the dumpster and then you call them up and they come and they
empty your dumpster.
What smash my trash does is they'll, you sign up for them, they drive around, they'll come
to your dumpster and they just take this giant crane arm and just smash the trash in,
just compacting it.
They'll let you get way more volume or less, it takes less fill.
So it lowers your trash bill.
And, you know, that could save you hundreds of dollars every month if you do this.
And so basically the cost of smash my trash should just be less than the savings that they give you from having to do less dumpster fills.
And so this is like a franchise that kind of crushes it.
Basically you can run this with like two guys.
And the numbers on this are you invest like, I don't know, 400K.
Typically they'll make like a million dollars a year in revenue and like 300K of like net income.
Like you've been at the end of the day.
And so you're getting like a kind of amazing cash on cash.
Not that trash return you were getting on your Airbnb.
This is some real, real returns.
And I think they have, I think they have like a shit ton of locations.
I think they have like 160 locations or something like that.
And so that's like they've made probably $40, $50 million in just the franchise fees,
just franchising this concept out.
So I think this is kind of like low key amazing business.
It's amazing, but there's a big downside.
When was the last time you had a blue-collar job?
Do you remember?
Have you ever had one?
Restaurant.
Yeah.
When I was...
Restaurant.
Not 21, yeah.
What happens at a restaurant when it closes?
Do you remember?
Just carnage.
Carnage.
Everyone goes and gets super screwed up.
They get drunk.
You take pills.
You get hot.
You just do all types of shit.
And then hopefully they show up the next day.
And there's lots of...
I remember, I've been a janitor before.
I've worked in restaurants.
I've done all this stuff.
And there was, like, particularly in restaurants.
There was constant, like, issues with this type of person who works there.
And it sounds classist, but it is kind of the facts of my experience.
I don't know.
What do you think the trash?
I guess if a trash person has a job, maybe they get up early.
So when I think of a trash guy, I think more of a family guy.
Yeah, trash guys are, I trust a trash guy.
Like, you know, I feel like a trash guy is reliable, dependable, salt of the earth.
You know, like, I feel like it's not the.
degenerates that you'll get like i would rather hire any trash guy than a barista at starbucks right like i feel
like the barista has a flake and we never know what's going to happen but well the worst is is is is like a bartender
or a waiter at a fancy like nighttime restaurant like a like a like a or like a like a like a pg i fridays
like you know what i'm saying like the worst of the worst there's someone out there right now listening to this that
is a waiter at tg fridays it just slammed their phone and disgust
Dude, I've worked at all these places.
I've worked at all these places.
And like, this is probably why I had a little bit of a habit.
It's, I don't know, man.
This is the downside of this business.
If you have unlimited access to loaded nachos, then something just happens to you.
Yeah.
Yeah, like the blooming onion, it's like, it's like the full moon.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, I turn into a werewolf.
And if I get that every night, you know, like it's bad.
I turn into like a guns and roses after party.
Like, I'm going wild.
I'm throwing furniture out the window.
So, yeah, is this cool?
Yes.
I think there's a lot of headache.
And I would be curious, we have a good friend, or I think you're friends with them.
His name's Brian.
Brian Scudamore or Scudamore.
He owns, um...
Sounds like a good friend.
Another guy.
Another last name guy.
And no, not trash.
Junk.
Junk.
1-800 got junk.
And Brian has been on the pod and he, I don't know if, maybe I could say.
say this, but the company's 100% bootstrapped. Revenue, this is public. Revenue, I think,
is in the $300 to $350 million a year range. He owns 100% of it. He parlayed that. Now they own,
like, a painting business, and they do all these, like, services. I would be curious what he would
have to say is, like, his trash guys, like, or his franchisees are, like, degenerates or not,
and, like, what's the headache with those types of people? We should definitely ask him. I feel
like, I feel like he's going to give his sign off on this. So this is one trash idea. The other one,
comes from Twitter.
I got to give credit to
Mobile Home Park guy.
I know the guy behind this.
He's actually pretty awesome,
but I don't know if he's trying to
be public with his identity here,
but he's part of our Guy Mafia, right?
We got the restaurant guy,
we got the car dealership guy.
Now we have Mobile Home Park guy.
And he goes,
I just found this trash business
that is called bin scrub.
And what they do is they clean off your trash cans.
So they wash, the power wash your trash cans
because everybody's trash cans
are filthy. He's like, he's like, here's how I would take this business and turn it into,
you know, six figures a year of profit. He goes, why do I love this business? So everybody's got
trash bins. So, you know, your market is every home. It's a very young industry, low market
penetration. So you'll probably be the only person offering this service is not like a bunch of
competitors yet. You just need one truck and some hustle. In a post-COVID world, there's lots
of germophobes and you can play on that. And this has like word of mouth virality. So, you know,
this has like public virality. You can see the actual service being done. And so he goes, so he goes,
you've got to buy a truck. The trucks are about 40k, but it's a hard asset. You're going to be able to get a loan
against this. So you might only have to put down five or $10,000 and get a bank to finance the rest because
the truck will, we'll do this. He goes, now, here's how I, here's how I juice this business to make
it more, more valuable. He goes, we're going to make this like the ice cream truck. We're going to put
a speaker system on top. And every time we're coming around your neighborhood, we're playing the same
song. He's like, you know, I'm going with outcast so fresh, so clean, just like,
because it's a pun. And he's like, we're going to play this every single time.
This song is our branding. We're going to drive around from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. when people are
home from school, home from work, and they can look out the window and be like, what is that?
And then they will, they will see us power washing someone in their neighborhood's bins.
You can even- That's like a horrible idea.
Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. He goes, we're going to, we're going to like basically leave little
flyer brochures on top of everyone's bin. So when they
take out the trash, they're going to see that, you know, this trash can is dirty. We clean them out.
We leave your trash can so clean you could eat cereal from it. And he's like, that would be my,
he's like, I put a spoon in it, be like, so clean, you could eat cereal out of this. So he's like,
that's what I would do for my marketing. He goes, I think one truck can do about 100 to 200 homes a day.
It's a few thousand dollars a day per truck in revenue. You'll use that to finance the second
truck. Your costs are gas, water, maintenance, some chemicals, assuming you're the one doing the
truck. And he's basically like, this is a blue collar side hustle. If somebody wants to
themselves get out there and get to that 10K a month of income that they may not be able to get
out of their job, this is, this is his idea. So he goes, what do you think, fella? So, Sam,
you said it's a horrible idea. Tell me why.
Okay. So completely uneducated here. So two doubts. I don't think that you can do,
I don't think that that many people would want this. And number two,
100 to 200 a day, that's so many.
That is so many.
I would, how much, it would take 20 minutes to drive somewhere.
I don't, that math is wild to me.
Yeah, you basically have to get to a, like, dense area and then do a route.
But that would kind of assume that they're all your customers, which they're not going to all,
your customers at the start.
Did he call us out and say, what do we think?
No, but, you know, he lists us to the pod, so.
By the way, there's two people in the comments here.
One, Sparkling Bin's business, they make the trucks.
So there's a woman in the comments who goes, it's a fantastic business.
We've been, we manufacture the trucks.
It's been going great since 2020.
And then another guy goes, yeah, I do this.
Mine's called Bin Busters.
I'm two years in.
It's going great.
Okay.
Well, I mean, what the hell do I know?
And by the way, that guy, his bio says, live in the American dream.
Yeah.
Not sure.
I dream.
Yeah.
A dream.
Living an American's dream.
Yeah.
One person's.
Good.
Good for him.
This is their dream.
And they're pulling it off.
I don't know, man.
I'm out.
I'm out in this one.
I don't want to do this.
It was like, start a newsletter.
Yeah, start a newsletter.
Dude, I, I've, people make fun of me because I bring this up so much.
I had hot dog stands, whatever.
But I used to.
some work with my hands outside. It's so hard, man.
It is so hard. You said you were a janitor? When were you a janitor?
When I was in eighth grade, I worked at a bakery and it was my job to like mop the floors,
take out the trash, clean the dishes. And so that was like my first job, six dollars an hour.
And then, yeah, that's what I did. Dude, I am so mad at my parents for never given me my,
my grind story. Like, can I brother get a little hardship? Yeah, like, you ain't gangster at
I'll bring me in Uncle's store for a month and just give me that story.
$5 an hour and I had to empty the trash.
Like nobody knows how long I did it.
Like I got nothing, dude.
A lot of Asian parents don't want you to do that.
They say do your homework.
His hands got no callusiness.
Yeah.
And my kids, I'm going to give them one hustle story.
You know, they're going to have some very token small hardship that will sound good
later when they make it because you need that story.
And I just don't have it.
A lot of my Indian friends, which I have a ton, they, their parents were like,
you don't even clean your room.
Just do your homework.
Yeah, just study.
Is that what they said to you?
Like, don't cook, don't clean.
Just study.
Well, they didn't say it like that, but I wasn't asking a cook or clean.
So, you know, it just never came up.
And they were like, yeah, your job is to study and do good in school so you can get like a good job.
Don't go be a janitor.
And I was like, I did it all, man.
I did the janitor stuff.
I was a waiter.
I was a bus boy.
I was a ballet driver.
I did it all, man.
And I'm happy I did it.
but I don't want to do it anymore.
Oh, and by the way, I need to redeem myself.
I made fun of, like, someone the other day said the retail class.
So this is like the blue collar class.
But I read this, there was this funny article on Business Insider.
It had the worst but hilarious title.
And it was, I'm a millennial manager who works with Gen Z.
And then it said, like, colon, with Gen Z workers, they have a lot of feelings.
And so, look, you're either going to like somebody that you're going to have.
drug issues working with one group of people or you're just going to have to talk forever about
like bringing your whole self to work and all that nonsense so like we all have our faults we're all
screwed you know what i'm saying i hate when people say bring your whole self to work i'm okay with
you just bringing your work self to work that's cool too you don't have to do that yeah i prefer that
if you want to bring a little bit more of yourself we could talk about that too but like you know it's not
mandatory you don't have to bring your whole self right i'm okay with just your work self so we all every every
class and every generation has issues so i don't mean to throw shade just that
one. We throw shade at all here. We're an equal opportunity shade thrower. Yeah, we're all scared up.
Sam hit the trash man. Who else did we get? Who else cut stray today? I'll make fun of myself.
Someone made fun of me the other day because I've got these surgeries on my ear. I was talking
on my ear and my glasses sit funny. I don't know if you notice. My glasses sit crooked because
like it's my ear. And someone said, it looks like Sam got brain, Sam got head surgery.
Didn't pay for him to put the breasts of it back in because those glasses are sitting.
And I was like, yeah, that's kind of true.
Kind of accurate.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're kind of there.
Dude, I told you the other day, I want to tell you about a media company that most people have no idea about, but they kind of killed it.
And I love it.
So I told you the other day about parcast.
I tell you about parcast?
Yeah, yeah.
This was the podcast network that was doing true crime stuff.
Yeah.
So I learned about the story.
I think the guy who started just tweeted saying that he was done at Spotify.
So I guess his earn out is up.
But listen to this.
So it was a three-year-old startup that sold for $50 million to Spotify.
And the way it started was the guy, his name was Max Cutler at the time.
He's 27-year-old graduate.
And he bootstrapped this thing.
His dad worked in radio.
I don't think his dad was like a rich guy.
I think his dad, Ron Cutler.
I think he was like a radio broadcaster.
So he had industry, but I don't think he was like in the business type of thing.
And they bootstrapped this thing.
And by 2018, so only two.
years in, they had 16 shows with 100 million downloads. By 2019, they had 40 weekly shows. Now they have
a staff of something like 150, of which 75 of them are voice actors. And I listen to these,
it's so weird. I listen to these every night when I go to bed. So like I've got like my favorite,
I listen to one called serial killers. There's another one called deathbed confessions.
Then there's another one called like murder couples, which is about Bonnie and Clyde. There's another
one like, it's like all these things. And there's, and it's not like our. It's not like our
podcast at all. There's zero riffing, and it's like voice actors.
We should just make up fake true crime shows, like stabbed but not dead yet.
Yeah. The black guy. Yeah. I just like stories that people just got kind of hurt. Was it really an accident?
Yeah. Spit on by a homeless guy. Stories of NYC.
Exactly. Not injured, but it was gross. Yeah. Barely assault.
You hurt my feelings.
True crime thrills.
Dude.
But like this is, the reason why I like this is it's not like it's like they're just like, you know how we are talking about like people who do things beautifully done?
Like you know this American life and it's like thoughtful.
It's like thoughtful.
Like today on this American life we're going to talk about like the opioid crisis and they like go out and interview people.
This is not that.
It's just someone who read a book.
summarized it and then is reading it.
And they pump out like literally one a day and they have like, you know,
40 shows now, 40 shows now.
And it's just a volume play.
And this guy was like, dude, this true crime shit to their audience is 75% women and
then me.
And their, like, their audience like, it's crack.
It's crack to me.
I cannot stop listening to this shit.
And it's the same thing every single day.
You know, it's kind of like family guy.
You know, family guy, they've been doing it for like 25 years now.
it's the same shit all the time it works every time i'm gonna watch it every single time it's just like
that it's the same schick over and over and over again and they were acquired it was they were acquired
for something like 53 million or 54 million dollars in cash and then like another 50 million
in earn out but pretty fascinating this guy bootstrap this and they're not popular on social 20 000
followers twitter 36 on facebook 50 000 on instagram they just dominated like people searching for their
their one podcast is called serial killers that's all it's called and they're
just like dominate when people searchies.
So it's like long tail.
It's like what's the, what's, what's SEO for podcast?
I don't know.
And they just crushed it.
Really fascinating business.
And I brought that up.
So I needed, I hadn't done the proper research.
I needed to kind of close that loop.
You know, there's a, we had talked about the beautifully done.
Like, you know, just X, but beautifully done.
There's another version of that that we haven't talked about.
And I don't know about you, but like, when I was growing up, like, if I had like a plate
of food and it's like, let's say it's a.
I had a bunch of veggies that had a broccoli, Brussels sprouts, something like that.
I didn't really want it.
I was kind of like tired of eating it, but it's still there.
And I know I should eat it.
Me and my sister used to have this thing where if one of us was like in that spot where we wanted
it, we know we should do this, but oh God, just the idea of sitting here for another 20 minutes
just spoon after spoon of this, I just can't bring myself to do it.
One of us would look at the other and just say, savage it.
Just savage it.
And you start to eat just like an absolute animal.
and you, in like 30 seconds, you basically, it's like chugging for food.
And so we used to say that and they'd be like, all right, we got to savage it.
And we were just quickly down the whole thing.
Now, there's a version of that for businesses.
That's kind of what you described here was this guy was like, oh, okay, people like this
true crime audio thing.
I'm pumping this out.
I'm going to savage it.
And so basically in two years to pump out 40 shows and get 100 million downloads, there's only one way
to describe that.
He savaged it.
And he wasn't trying to be beautiful.
done. I bet you it's imperfect in all these different ways.
He might have been hiring, you know, random voice actors and, you know,
Paraguay and like doing whatever it took to get these out there and pump them out.
But that's exactly what he did.
And I think actually way more often than the beautifully done, do you see people just savage
it and just just scale up like an absolute savage because they find something that works
and then they don't, they're not perfectionist and they don't like, they don't get limited by
what's the normal pace.
And that works more.
What's the theoretical limit of this?
And that works more.
I remember when I lived in San Francisco, when I started the hustle, I was like,
originally I was like, let's just pump out blog posts.
And people are like, well, what about quality over quantity?
And I was like, dude.
Did you bring yourself to work again?
Yeah.
Steve?
Well, I would always turn out.
I go, no, our quality is quantity.
Right.
Like, we are not, we are not an article business.
We are a, how many, how, how, how can these operations be?
where we pump out lots of articles.
That's the product we're building.
You're not a journalist, you're a blogger.
Go blog.
It was like, and then another,
that was always one where people are always like,
quality versus quantity.
And I'm like, you need both.
Or if I wanted to play with their heads,
I'd be like, no, the quality is the quantity.
Another thing where people would say is like,
well, it's a marathon, not a sprint.
And that was like a reason for them to slack.
And I'm like, yeah,
but have you ever ran a marathon at world record pace?
It's going to feel like a sprint.
So, like, it feels pretty,
fast when you're running real like top marathoners we're running fast so it's got to feel like a
sprint uh but yeah this guy is a quantity over quality guy and i love it yeah exactly okay
i think we should uh we should wrap it here that's the pot
