My First Million: #3 - Making Millions off an Email Newsletter?! Sam Parr from The Hustle Tells All

Hubspot Podcast Network Hubspot Podcast Network 7/9/19 - Episode Page - 52m - PDF Transcript

All right.

Quick break to tell you about another podcast that we're interested in right now, HubSpot

just launched a Shark Tank rewatch podcast called Another Bite.

Every week, the hosts relive the latest and greatest pitches from Shark Tank, from Squatty

Potty to the Mench on a Bench to Ring Doorbell, and they break down why these pitches were

winners or losers, and each company's go-to-market strategy, branding, pricing, valuation, everything.

Basically all the things you want to know about how to survive the tank and scale your

company on your own.

If you want to give it a listen, you can find Another Bite on whatever podcast app you listen

to, like Apple or Spotify or whatever you're using right now.

All right.

Back to the show.

A big CEO of a huge media company that you know of told me this business will never make

more than $2 million a year.

It wasn't until like six months ago where I was like, man, there's like a path to make

literally $100 million a year in revenue.

Right, we are here with Sam Parr, the founder of The Hustle, the big daddy of the publisher

of the podcast.

How does it feel to have a podcast on your network now?

Well, I'm excited, and I hope people will like it.

We have to wait and see the numbers first.

That's what I'll be excited for most.

I know.

All right.

So for those who don't know, The Hustle is a daily newsletter.

It goes out to about a million and a half readers.

Is that right?

A million and a half?

Yeah, we could say that.

And we're growing.

Every morning, so people like to start their day with it.

The way I think about it is like you get an email and it tells you the news, and I like

the way you describe it, which is it's like, you know, you're no BS friend just explaining

it to you.

So it's a simple way to understand what's going on in the world without spending a whole

lot of time doing the research yourself.

It's like we did the research for you.

Yeah, as if I'm me, Sam Parr, are going to tell you, Sean, the news each day.

And because you spend five minutes on it in the morning, you save an hour of doing that,

you know, reading and research and finding out what's important yourself and what to

make of it.

And then, you know, you're at work, you're at the water cooler and you sound smart.

Yes.

And we have more stuff coming out, but that's our big thing now.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

And something that launched today, I believe, right?

A little beta launched yesterday.

Okay.

All right.

So we're going to get to that in a second, but let's start with the question we always

start with.

Sam Parr, how did you make your first million?

By starting and selling multiple companies, which the biggest one being a news operation

that emails millions of people a month and tells them the news they need to know each

morning.

All right.

You said starting and selling multiple businesses, so different way of looking at it is, when

did you know you wanted to make a million bucks?

Not for a very long time.

My mom and dad are entrepreneurs.

I thought that that's just what you do to make a living.

I didn't really think about money a lot other than I knew that I wanted to start businesses

because that was like my hobby.

Like when you were a teenager, you mean?

Yeah.

But then when I got older, only like a year or two or three years ago, did I realize that

money was something that's nice to have a lot of, but it's like not as nice as I thought.

So for years, I was just doing this because it was fun and exciting and it just so happened.

The output, the result was income.

Okay.

Like a lot of people say that.

They say, you know, I'm not doing it for the money.

The money is sort of a byproduct and I like that.

I think that is a great way of looking at it, but I also know you.

You're my friend.

You think about money a lot.

You ask about money a lot.

We talk about it.

I love talking about it, but when I ran, I talk about it all the time, but I was a track

and field athlete in college.

I talked about that all the time too.

It was just whichever the career I have or the vocation that I have at the time, that's

what I'm obsessed about.

And so to me, money is, it's kind of like bench pressing 300 pounds.

Once you get past a point, which is lower than you think, it's not really that important

to be able to bench 350 pounds, but it's just like you're obsessed with it.

Because you, as my buddy, can bench 400 pounds.

So it's like, man, I want to beat you, I want to compete with you, and I want to compete

with myself.

Gotcha.

And when did you like first start doing business?

Was this, you know, are you a kid?

I had a lemonade stand type of thing.

I was selling stuff on eBay, track and field shoes, my old clothes.

I would sell them on eBay.

And then I would sell stuff on Craigslist.

And you were doing it because you, yeah, you came up with it yourself.

You saw somebody else selling on eBay.

I came up with it myself and I thought it was a really cool adventure.

I just, it was just like a, I have an addictive personality and this was my adrenaline rush.

I started YouTube channels that got millions and millions of views, like the first year

or two, three years that YouTube existed and that made money and I just loved scheming.

What kind of channels?

So this was in 2009.

I don't know how YouTube was around then.

Yeah.

I think YouTube started maybe 2004, 2005.

So it was like the third or fourth year of YouTube in existence.

And I noticed that when you would type in a certain phrase on YouTube, it would autofill.

And I would just look at all the words that would be autofilling.

And I'm almost embarrassed to say this, but I will.

But if you typed in like street fights, it would be like street fights and it would autofill

fill with like black guy beats up white guy or street fights, white guy fights, black

guy.

And so I would, was kind of scammy and I would create these videos with these clickbait titles

and the thumbnail would be the only image that existed.

So it was a video with just this is because YouTube didn't have that filter to like catch

that.

So the video was nothing.

Yeah, it was nothing.

So I can go and find it somehow and it probably has 10 million views.

And then I would charge bands money, $10, $50 a month to have their music as the background.

And so you didn't even have a fight because I used to search for these.

I used to watch Kimbo Slice.

Yeah.

The same, the same stuff like street fight, like big black guy knocks out little white

guy.

I have a video that's titled that that has five million views.

And don't you remember on YouTube years and years ago when you would click these certain

videos and you'd hear these horrible electronic like music?

Yes.

So those people paid me money to put my ads or put their music on the background.

And so how old are you when this is going on?

I was a senior and freshman in college.

So like it was like some time around 2008.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

So you, you started the kind of keyword keyword arbitrage because since then I actually

learned this from you.

I went to one of your workshops that you and Neville did.

And for those who don't know, Neville is a good buddy of yours.

Neville's the best man in my wedding is one of my best friends.

Yeah.

And he, he's kind of famous for this copywriting course, right?

So talk a little bit about that because I think this is something that's extremely underrated.

I added it to my arsenal when I saw you doing it.

Copywriting is the most important skill set anyone can have because copywriting is not

writing.

Copywriting is understanding how other people think and feel and how to use words to get

them to do what you want them to do, specifically the written word.

But it can translate to anything.

Right.

Copywriting is sales, copywriting is persuasion, copywriting is...

It's meeting a girlfriend, it's talking to a friend and trying to let them know you care

about them.

It's, it's trying to sell something.

It's, it's just the idea of understanding other people's perspective and then trying

to figure out if you could solve that or empathize with that and communicating that you have

the tool to fix their problem.

Okay.

So perfect example.

The first business that I knew that you did, I didn't know about the, the YouTube Street

fights that I didn't know about the eBay stuff, but I did know about the hot dog stand.

Yeah.

Southern Sam's.

The name of the hot dog stand.

It's not just Southern Sam's.

What's the, what's the slogan?

It's Southern Sam's Wieners as big as a baby's arm.

So a hot dog is a commodity.

Like they pretty much are all the same.

I mean, little variants, but I bought them Vienna sausages, which a lot of people buy

and it was like, how do you just stick out?

How do you stand out?

And I thought that would be a funny slogan and the idea was if a parent put their baby's

arms in one of my buns and we put mustard on it and we take a photo, they get a free

thing, a free sausage.

And that was like the shtick.

Was this like pre-social media?

This was in 2010 to 2012.

So it was around, but if Instagram was around, it was barely around.

Okay.

So we got, we got Southern Sam's Wieners as big as your baby's arm.

The best name.

I started a restaurant too, but it was nowhere near sort of the fame or appeal is that.

So I love that.

How did it do?

So I just tweeted about this today actually, because someone would ask me if I had to make

money today with $1,000.

I started it with $500.

I was only able to afford the first day's ingredients and the first day it did okay,

but it took me about a week to get $1,000 a day with like 50% margins.

First days I would make between 100 and 500 days if I would go and work all night or go

to a concert, I could make $1,000 to $5,000 a night.

It was really hard work and national in the summer, it's 110 degrees some days.

It was horrible.

It was really hard, but it was really fun, but it paid like I got paid.

And you were the one manning the stand?

For a long time and in the beginning I was there all the time, but then I hired friends,

my friend Carly, my friend Rydell, I would give them an hourly, like I'm going to have

a wage.

You know, I was thinking on my way over here, I was like, what should I say in the intro?

And I was thinking, I was like, oh, what do I really believe?

Because when I started doing this podcast, the beginning I would do like a radio host

intro, which is not me, it's me playing like a radio host, like, hey, ladies and gentlemen,

welcome to the show.

Yeah, doing what you think you should do.

And now I'm like, well, what would I actually say about you?

Like if I was to explain this to myself or what I say, and I was like, the thing about

you is if this was Lord of the Flies, I haven't even read the book, but I understand the premise.

We all get dropped on an island and sort of we're all starting from scratch, just us

in our bare hands.

If you took everybody I know in San Francisco, a lot of great entrepreneurs, investors, successful

people, but if you put us all on an island and it was like, here's a race to $10,000,

I think you'd win.

Oh, thanks.

I think you'd win the $1,000 Lord of the Flies Silicon Valley edition.

And so, and the hot dog stand is like the perfect example of this, which is just like

very straightforward, fundamental thinking.

I have this much money, I can, you know, I want to get my money back quick.

What do people want?

What do people need?

Where should I stand?

Oh, I should go to the concert.

That's where people, you know, are drinking and want a bite to eat.

And just doing the basics and not trying to be sort of the genius inventor.

Okay.

Is that a good characteristic?

That's my mental model of views.

Is that how you see it too?

100%.

So, I'm from Missouri.

I'm from St. Louis, Missouri.

A lot of people think I grew up as a hick.

I kind of did, but I grew up in a city.

My parents started a fruit stand that eventually became a produce brokerage.

My father's not educated.

I was not that good of a student.

I was just like a redneck kid, right?

And so, I just did whatever and I just, I will do whatever.

It just so happened that I learned how to use the internet.

So, I would say I'm basically like a Midwestern small business owner that just learned how

to use the internet.

Right.

The internet is your corner instead of your neighborhood corner.

Right.

Versus like this idea, like the Mark Zuckerbergs, I will never, I don't understand how they

think.

I'm much simpler.

Right.

And so, when you're doing the hot dog stand, hilarious name, good results, you know, paid

the bills for a period of time, at some point you jumped onto the internet.

Yeah.

The hot dog stand was more like the kid in Missouri and the stuff you do today is a lot

more like the kid in San Francisco.

Yeah.

And so, what I was doing in the evenings after selling stuff, so I worked for this guy named

Mike Wolf.

Have I told you this?

No.

Have you seen this TV show, American Pickers?

Yeah.

Mike Wolf was my boss.

So, when I was in college, he was, I loved that TV show, American Pickers.

I saw him walk down the street.

I thought he was cool.

I was a huge fan and I walked up to get my photo taken with him and I just became friends

with him and he asked me to run his store in Nashville or to work there and help set

the shop up.

And so, I did.

Okay.

Hold on.

Pause.

I went up to him to ask to take a photo with him and I became friends with him.

This is a Sam Parr thing that you do and I want the people listening to know how the

hell you do it because that's how we became friends.

You literally emailed me being like, hey, Sean, heard great things about you.

You had never heard anything about me.

I had.

Heard great things about you.

Probably not.

We had never met.

The point is you just reached out cold and you were like, hey, I got this big dinner

I need to host for like 80 people like next week.

Can I borrow your office for free?

It's going to have all these awesome speakers.

You're going to love it.

You can attend the dinner.

And I was like, yeah, sure.

And we became really good friends since then.

And so you have this gift of befriending people kind of out of the blue.

So tell me what actually happened when you met him on the street.

I called the gift of gab.

Okay.

That's what my parents called it growing up.

Let's see.

I had my dog Sid with me.

Mike's a big dog guy.

I walked up to him, asked for a photo.

He started talking about my dog.

I go, oh, yeah.

Thank you.

Like yadda yadda dog stuff.

And I'm like, by the way, what are you doing here?

Oh, I'm opening up this shop.

Amazing.

Who's going to run it?

I'm still looking.

Mike, I'm your guy.

I know we just met, but I'm your guy.

Like, let me do this.

I probably said it in that exact tone.

And he was like, yeah, like, I don't know, baby.

And I just started heckling him and just like, joke him with him a little bit.

And he's like, yeah, okay.

Well, here's my wife's number.

Call her.

And so I called her and then I found out that the place that I met him at, it was a

jeans store.

And I like jeans a lot.

And we were going, we used to go to the same store.

And the next day I was, I went into the jeans store and there was a guy who worked there

named Matt.

And I go, Matt, Mike Wolfe was here the other day.

When's he coming back?

And he goes, well, he's got some clothes that he's got to pick up tomorrow.

So I go, okay, here's $50.

Text me when you think he's going to come in tomorrow.

I'm going to show up.

And so he did that.

And I just waited on the couch for him and I go, Mike, what's up, man?

Look, here's the deal.

Let me run this thing.

Or let me, let me help you set it up.

He goes, all right, fine.

You're it.

And that's how it happened.

Right.

It's a great effort to get rid of this kid, just give him what he wants.

Yeah.

So that's kind of how that happened.

But anyway, while working there, I met all these amazing people because Mike's a celebrity

and he would get all these cool people coming in and kid rocks manager or something like

that came in.

And I started just, just messing around and talking to him.

He said that there's this new law that allows small time distillers in Tennessee to create

whiskey in the same way that in the nineties, craft beer was allowed to be created.

And I was like, oh, that's kind of interesting.

Because I worked at Mike Wolfe's store, I knew that Americana and vintage stuff was really

popular.

And Moonshine is Americana vintage, all this kind of like this.

It was a trend shout out to you.

Yes.

So we had this new product coming out called Trends.

But it was like Moonshine was like popular and there's all these Moonshiner shows.

And it was basically Moonshine means illegal whiskey.

This whiskey that the kid rocks guy told me about, it was called Popcorn Sutton's.

It was, it's illegal.

They could sell it in stores, but they only would make it in small batches.

And so what I did was I created an online store called Moonshine online.

And I would try to get customers from all over like places that weren't the South that

weren't used to this, this novelty whiskey.

And I started selling it online.

Wow.

And how was it doing?

I mean, it was awesome.

Do I even need to ask you?

We sold alcohol online.

Probably did pretty well.

Yeah.

I mean, I would be in like finance class in my, this was PayPal on, I don't even know

if I had an iPhone, but it'd go ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching.

And I said, my finance teacher, I'm like, I just made $1,000.

Well, I was sitting here in class like, what do I do?

And so it was good.

It was making a...

What did they say?

They're like, well, he was like, you need to talk to a lawyer because I don't know what

you're doing is legal.

So I talked to a lawyer and they're like, yeah, you're kind of breaking some laws here.

So the Moonshine online didn't last long.

Okay.

So this is the Blackberry with PayPal installed had to go quiet for a bit.

Yeah.

And so he was like, yeah, like you got to like jump through all these hoops and I was like,

okay, well, I don't know if I want to do that.

I Googled like where in the country do internet companies live and online, it said San Francisco.

So I emailed the founders of Airbnb.

I asked for a job.

They said, can you come to our office next week?

I was like, yeah, I'm here already.

And so I bought a ticket and flew out here.

I interviewed there and but while I was here, I met a really cool guy named John Havel and

he had started a business because I stayed on his Airbnb.

That's how I met him.

Gotcha.

And I was like, I was like, this is so cool.

There's people my age doing cool stuff.

I'm coming out here.

And so I moved, I went back home a few days later, sold the limited possessions that I

had left school and I moved out here and we started bunk a roommate matching app that

was sold after 10 months for a tiny amount of money.

And then I started my current company.

How important was it to get out here?

Like what happens if you don't move?

It is a lot of people right now.

Nothing would have happened.

Nothing would have happened differently or nothing would have happened at all.

I would not be where I am.

What would you be doing?

Working at hotdog stands or started a lawn company or was it obvious to you and others

at the time?

Like when you were saying, I'm going to go out to San Francisco.

It seems like that's where the internet is.

It was not.

I told my mom about Airbnb and at the time 300 people or 200 people worked there.

So it wasn't like small, but it wasn't well known.

And she was like, is this a scam?

What is this Airbnb thing?

Do you stay at other people's homes?

I was like, yeah, there's another company called UberCab and it's kind of like that.

But like with cars and she's like, talking about, do they offer health insurance?

That's all I care about.

And I was like, I'm doing this guys, I'm doing this and they gave me, I sold my car.

That gave me $5,000 and then they gave me $1,000 to as like my, I hadn't graduated college

yet, but as like my graduation gift and they go, all right, come, we'll help you do it.

And I gave me a grand and I moved out here.

And so they supported me, but they, they didn't know what I was getting into.

You don't even know this.

Our stories are, are so, they're very different, but they're like parallel, parallel tracks.

Everything you're saying, I literally had a moment like that in my life, which it's,

it's for another day.

Cause I want to, uh, this is your story, but.

Having supportive parents is like a really unfair advantage.

Absolutely.

And also having a level of like, you got to have a little fuck it in your system.

And you had enough fuck it to say, all right, I'm just going to go out there.

I don't know.

I don't have the whole thing figured out.

I'm going to go and I'm going to figure it out.

I know enough that that's where I need to be.

Tony Robbins has this really good phrase I like, which he says proximity is power, which

is just like, if you know nothing else, just get close to the stuff you like, get close

to the people you like, just hang with them more.

The proximity has its own power.

Go to the place you want, just be near it.

Proximity is power.

And I've seen that play out many times for myself.

Your story reminds me of that.

Well, the thing is, is that you and I both have a lot of buddies that are really wealthy.

Their children probably aren't going to be willing to take a lot of risk because when

you grow up wealthy, you kind of know what there's to lose and all this stuff.

But the way I grew up, I was a little bit of a wild man and sometimes I would get kicked

out of my house and I would literally sleep outside.

So it's like, the worst case scenario is I just sleep outside.

This is no big deal.

Or the worst case scenario is I go and sell bottled water in the corner.

I can make it work.

The downside is really, really low.

Or the worst case is I call my mom and be like, hey, I don't ever want you to support

me.

Give me like $300, I can just come stay in my room.

Yeah, there's a get out of jail free card.

Did you ever, you know, I remember when I was doing my very first startup, I was living

in Colorado, kind of a similar situation.

I won't do the whole backstory, but I got into a spot where we had 130 grand of just

prize money because I would just go pitch in these business plan competitions.

That's amazing.

I was good at pitching.

And so I would just win the business plan competition.

So we rolled up 30 grand in like a month of prize money.

And then my dad was also like, okay, if you're going to do this, not going to go to med school.

I took the MCAT.

He's like, if you're not going to go, let's take, you know, some of that tuition.

And he gave me like 20 grand or something like that.

He's like, that's going to last you the year.

So I got 30 grand from this, 20 grand from this, and there's me and two co-founders.

That's like such a good dad.

Oh yeah, it was huge.

And he was, he was not even trying to be helpful.

He was like, you've been so lazy your whole life that like I finally see you switched

on.

I think this is a terrible idea.

You're doing a sushi restaurant.

Like that's a terrible idea.

But it's your tuition.

But yeah, but you're, you're actually waking up and doing something every day without anyone

telling you to do it.

And, and he, you know, he gave me this line that's in life.

It's a lot more about motion than it is direction.

So, you know, imagine you're on a beach and you want to get to this island, the island

is where all the fantasies come true.

And if you could see the island, you would say that's the direction I need to go.

Problem is from where you're standing, you can't see where the island is.

You just think this island.

So you just got to move.

So you got to go, you got to get in the boat and start paddling.

And then as you go, you'll realize, Hey, actually, I see it.

It's over there.

And he's like, it's much easier to move a boat when you actually have some momentum.

You can just put your paddle in the water and you'll actually turn and you'll start

going in the new direction.

And that's literally what happened in my life.

So, so I give him credit for that.

But I remember we were living pretty frugally.

Frugal.

You're frugal.

And, and you're Mr. Frugal.

I am.

So I want to get into that.

I remember one time, the way we were living, it was like kind of embarrassing, we was three

of us in a one bedroom apartment in Colorado and every, everything we would need, we would

buy and return.

So it's like, Hey, we need a camera for this photo shoot and take our menu pictures.

Costco is the best for that.

I can still tell you, yeah, it's like best buy 14 day policy, but you don't need this.

And, you know, so we would go buy this DSLR camera and return it 14 days later, 10 times.

And I remember we would sleep on air mattresses and we knew that Target had a 90 day return

policy on air mattresses.

So I remember going and returning my air mattress.

So embarrassing of like, damn, I, I'm this poor that I'm just like, were your parents

poor or they're frugal?

We were like middle class, just normal.

It was just that I couldn't go to them for at, with an ask, because when you go with

an ask, you got to have a little, it's like going to a bank.

It's like, you got to have a down payment of some kind of successor momentum.

No, I feel you.

At this point, I didn't feel like I had my down payment of, I know what I'm doing.

Look, it's working.

Just give me a little money.

This was like, Hey, I'm taking a leap of faith.

You already gave me a little money.

I need to stretch that dollar because I don't know if there is another dollar after this.

Did you have any sort of, when you were living frugal, did you have any moments like that

that were the sort of, no, I grew up kind of poorer than my parents.

My parents started a thing that like made a pretty good living for them and they paid

my high school tuition and they, I got a car that was $5,000, an F-150 truck, but it's

not like I was like pulled up from my bootstraps, like from nothing, but I've never, the $1,000

gift that I got from graduating college was the most money that they've ever, that I've

ever, like, I've, yeah, and that to me was like $1,000.

Yeah.

No.

So, and then they gave me like a, like a credit card that had like a $500 limit on it.

Like they're like, here's this for emergencies and I remember I cut it up right when I got

here.

I was like, I'm doing this.

I was like, I'm going on the show.

I was like, I'm going to, I'm literally going to be homeless before I ever ask for help.

And so you lived pretty like a Spartan lifestyle for a while when you were starting up the

hustle.

I loved it.

Tell us about that.

Because I think people got to know what, sometimes what it takes, sometimes, you don't

have to sacrifice, but there are sometimes situations where before it builds up and gets

big, you know, you got to, you got to live that Spartan lifestyle.

Tell us about that.

Yeah.

So I do well now, but people are like, you know, it's only been, our company just turned

three years old the other day.

It's only been three years and you're doing good.

And I was like, well, I've been grinding since like taking risks since like 16, 17, 18.

And up until a few years ago, like I didn't have any money.

And so for the longest time in San Francisco, I had a $600 rent maybe.

And I did that because I was, I was scraped together some money after selling something

and I rented a four bedroom house.

I furnished the whole place with used or free furniture and Craigslist and then I rented

it off to people like the other three bedrooms and that ultimately paid for my rent, which

means that on just living expenses, I was able to only spend about a grand a month.

And so because of that, the first couple of years, my W2 income was only about $15,000.

And so that was the first couple of years of the hustle.

Yeah.

And then let's give people a sense of the numbers today, you don't have to say the specifics,

but you know, what should we be thinking about when we think, you know, how's the hustle

doing?

How are you doing?

Yeah, so our business is very profitable.

It makes eight figures in revenue, really fat margins.

My goal is to get it to a hundred million in revenue by 2025 and I think we'll get there.

So it potentially may not be Uber, but it'll be a nice sized business.

It'll be a hundred million dollar business, companies like ours could probably sell for

any in the huge number, the huge range of $20 to $60 million and we haven't taken any

venture capital.

Right.

So you raised money, but you raised it sort of from the Rolodex in a way.

Yeah, but they weren't in the Rolodex at the time.

Tim Ferriss was like, lived on the block from me and I became friends with him that way.

So he ended up investing the founders of Bleach Report, the founders of NerdWallet and loads

of other people just like that, like 36 people, Scott Belsky, one of the early Uber guys,

loads of people like that all collectively put in some sum between $20 and $100,000 for

meet Sethi and collectively we raised about a million dollars.

And then you also raised from the community.

Yeah.

So what we did, we, the hustle started as a conference, a conference with a newsletter

and I realized the newsletter could be a way bigger business, but then I realized the newsletter

could actually lead to an even bigger business, but in the meantime, let's use this newsletter

to make profits.

And once we hit 200,000 users, we said, we always got emails of people wanting to invest

and we go, let's just let anyone invest.

And so I thought that we would get $150,000 in 90 days.

We ended up getting close to $350,000 in $48.

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And so we raised a little bit of money from our users as well.

Looking back, logistically speaking, I didn't need any of that money.

We've always been profitable.

It's huge cash flows, but Tim Ferriss gave me money.

Now he's my friend, and I could text him and ask for advice, and that's kind of like a

cool trade-off.

And with the community money, was that worth it?

Because most people don't do that.

Looking back, no.

Issues.

That was not worth it.

Why do you say that?

I have grown to be much more private than I was in the past, and I hate having people

that know my business.

Gotcha.

And just a second on the origin of the hustle and the hustle con, the conference really,

because it started as a conference before it was a newsletter.

And it started before you.

Somebody else started the hustle con.

I randomly met Eric Bond and Elizabeth Yen, and these folks are successful entrepreneurs.

Eric had a business called Beat the GMAT that he sold for, I don't know how much, but if

I had to guess, eight figures.

Elizabeth Yen had another business called Launchbit that had a nice exit.

And so I met a guy who introduced me to them, and we just became friends.

And I had like a really small exit in 2012 or 13, and I emailed Eric, I go, what do I

do now?

And he said, I got this thing I put on.

I put on this thing called hustle con.

It was kind of like a conference, but in reality it was like a meetup, and like 100 people came.

They made like $4,000, I forget some number like that.

It's just basically a website and an email list of 200 or 300 people.

Do you want it?

Just do something with it and give me like 10% of the profit.

I said, in.

So I relaunched hustle con on June 1st of 2014, hosted that conference six weeks later, and

it made like 60 Gs.

And the whole idea behind it was, I'm not trying to make money, I'm just trying to meet

interesting people.

And so I would cold email all of these speakers, and I would say like, hey, do you want to

speak?

These other 15 speakers are coming.

And of course, so they hadn't, they weren't coming.

And they would say yes, and I would go to the other 15 and be like, hey, you know, I

would do the same shtick with them.

And they all started coming.

And then I became friends with them, and they would teach me stuff, and I would learn stuff,

just hanging out with them.

I'd be like, hey, I need to come by your office so we could talk about the talk.

But I talked about the talk for 10 minutes, and the next 50 minutes, I just would ask

them questions.

And so I hosted this event, and the way in which I made it popular was by doing email

marketing, and I knew that email marketing was effective because of just like studying

it and teaching myself how to be a copywriter.

And so that first event in six weeks made about 60 G's, and I only spent eight grand

or some low number like that on the event.

So I was like, oh, that's cool.

So took that money.

And actually for six months, I drove my motorcycle around the country and camped and hung out.

And then during that trip, I was like, let's do this again.

The next time, this time was 80 days.

That's when I met, I think, yeah, that's when I met you.

That event did about a quarter of a million in revenue on 30,000 or 20,000 in expenses.

And then it was like, OK, this is cool, but I don't want to run the conference forever.

I had just read the biography of Ted Turner, the guy I started seeing it, and I was like,

that guy is Southern.

I'm kind of Southern.

He is kind of wild like I am.

I could do that.

I'm already doing that kind of, like I could start a media company.

And so that's when we said, let's do a media company.

And then the first six months of the hustle, which started in 2015, it was just a blog.

I remember that.

It was, you were just telling really great stories, but it was like long form.

Long form blog stuff.

And I would just blog about funny stuff or interesting stuff like taking LSD or living

on soil for 30 days, stuff like that.

And it got loads of traffic, but it was clear that wouldn't be a huge business.

So we relaunched on April 19th of 2016.

So that's why I say we're about three years old.

And that's when we decided, let's go all in on email, let's build this whole thing

on email.

And it became very clear that if you study the history of Groupon, of Daily Candy, of

Thrillist, people may not even know what the last two are.

But anyway, I was like, man, some of these like billion dollar companies all started

with an email list.

Like, let's do that.

Let's build up this huge email list and then start creating more products and use that

as a distribution channel.

And I think we could build a billion dollar company that way.

And that was the idea.

And I remember pretty early on, there was a temptation from, not even really, you didn't

seem tempted, but other people were tempted to say, jump on Facebook, jump on video, jump

on this trend.

Snapchat.

I knew from day one that would be a horrible idea.

It's like, I've always wanted to be independent and I felt that building an audience on the

back of Facebook was like building a business in a rented apartment where the landlord raises

the price every quarter.

It's like, that's a horrible idea.

And so I called my email list, my pirate ship, and every subscriber was a little bit of wind

in our sails.

Because like I said, I'm kind of a simpleton, I'm a simple guy.

And if you look at like the economics of like building something on Facebook or someone

else's platform, you're like, so where's the profit come from?

Well, if you do this, like, I don't understand that.

That doesn't really make sense.

Too fancy for me.

Yeah.

It's like, that does not make sense to me and I don't want to do that.

So we didn't.

And I think that's paid off because now you have, I mean, this got to be one of the biggest

daily emails in the world.

Yeah.

I think so.

I think we got to be up there.

I only know of maybe two or three people that can compete.

And who's that?

Who can compete?

There's the skim.

And they claim to have six or seven or eight million.

They're pretty big.

And then there's maybe a handful of one-off things that aren't confirmed, but I would

guess.

And when you were doing this and it started to make money, that was also pretty counterintuitive.

I mean, unless you really knew the email game.

Which I didn't.

By the way, I do nothing.

Like up until like, I didn't know anything.

I didn't know what like basic words or like an RFP or I mean, I knew nothing.

Right.

I didn't know what CPM meant.

I didn't know, I didn't know how, like I was doing our accounting.

I didn't know the difference between cash flow and revenue.

Like I didn't know anything.

And do you know things now or you just hired people who know things?

I know a lot of things.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I do.

I know how to read a balance sheet and do a P&L statement.

I know how to make money.

I don't know how the, I don't know how to code.

I cannot code at all.

And we have a tech team, a nice sized tech team and we built all our own custom technology.

I just, I'm really good at being like, what's the simplest solution?

Like what needs should exist?

And I'm like, hey guys, can you like, it would be cool if this existed.

Can you, do you know how to make that happen?

And they would just say, yeah.

I'm like, all right, great.

Show me in a week and let's see.

Right.

And what was the first milestone where you were like, holy shit, this thing's actually,

not just it's working, but this thing's actually going to be really big.

Well, the first week of our existence, we got a million people coming to the website.

And I was like, that's awesome.

That is great.

And we got on the front page of Reddit and we had like two or 3000 concurrent users

on real time analytics, Google analytics.

And I was like, sick.

That's awesome.

How good is it to watch the real time?

It's addicting.

It's addicting.

It's hugely addicting.

And then I was like, this is not going to, this cannot be big.

I thought that, and someone once told me, a big CEO of a huge media company that you

know of told me this business will never make more than $2 million a year.

We could do that in a month now.

And what was that person wrong about?

What didn't they get?

They were a New York media person who was kind of fancy and they didn't, they're like

email is such a small thing, like an email newsletter, a newsletter, like you don't even

have a website, like there's no way advertisers are going to want that.

And I'm like, well, but if you think about it, if you just look at how much they're going

to pay per click on all these other platforms, who cares if it's on your email or on a website

or like, does it matter as long as they get like traffic to their stuff, like who cares?

And it's like, well, it doesn't work like that as like, okay, well, and so I kind of

believed them.

I didn't think that it would work.

And then once we started growing, I was like, oh, this is crazy.

And then it wasn't until like six months ago where I was like, man, there's like a path

to make like literally $100 million a year in revenue on this.

I kind of knew a little bit that it could be big, Daily Candy, the company that I modeled

us after early on, they claimed to have $25 million in revenue and $10 million in net

income a year.

So I was like, well, if we just do that, that might happen.

And they're still around.

They're doing well.

They sold for $125 million to Comcast and then Comcast screwed it up and shut them

down.

Okay.

And so let's play a little game called remake my first million.

If you had to remake a million bucks, so I take away your business as it is today.

You can't do that again.

This exact business, you can't do it again.

You're 21 years old though, so I give you back that youthful energy and time.

What would you work on?

What would you try to do?

Let's say you don't have capital, you don't have network, you don't have a lot of those

pieces.

You're you, but you're 21.

What would you do again?

Or what would you do differently this time?

If I was 21, 22, I would try to get a quick win and try to get like a couple hundred thousand

or maybe a million dollars in my bank by like starting a business that made a hundred grand

a month and try to, would try to sell it and own all of it.

And I think that that is significantly more possible than most people think.

So I'm, I'm 21.

I'm listening to this.

All right.

That sounds pretty good.

Be more specific.

What do you mean?

What, what sorts of ideas to do?

Well, if they're 21 today, start blogging.

And when I say start blogging, I would say learn one new interesting thing each week

and then just blog about what you learned.

Do that every single day, every week for a year.

Try to get two to three thousand people a day coming to your site through search.

The way you find out what to write about is you go to HArefs.com and you buy a subscription

and that will teach you what to write because it will tell you what people are searching

for.

Try to rank for those words, build up an email list of five thousand people and then create

a course and sell it to them.

I like it.

And I like the, looking up the keywords, it's like having the answers to the test.

It's like, here's what people want to know.

Yeah.

Just answer it.

Just answer it.

And answer it by learning on your own and then just teaching people what you learn.

There's two ways to teach or to create content.

One is to be the expert and the other way is to be the curious novice.

And so the second one, 100% works.

Right.

A lot of people count themselves out because they just assume I'm not the expert.

But in reality, you only need to be one step above, yeah, you just got to be one step in

front of your audience and that one step could be you just read a, you just read a book over

the weekend.

Right.

And so if I was a 21 year old kid, what I would do is go and Yelp, find, pick a very

specific niche like irrigation services, scaffolding rental, lawn cutting service, pick some niche

in a town like Nashville, Denver, something like that and try to start a business that

beats all the other people on Yelp.

I'm quite obsessed with the idea of consolidating local businesses.

So, boring stuff, right?

Well, it's not boring.

It's like, people don't like to hear the obvious and it's, it's almost the obvious

business or it's the basics.

Dude, because people are super fancy, man.

Like me and Ramon, him and I have started or funded like five or six companies that

collectively make $10 million or something like that.

And it's like the most simple shit on earth.

And if I told you that this company makes us much money, you'd be like, what?

That is so stupid.

Ramon owns this one that I participate on a little bit as well that sells dog ramps.

What's a dog ramp?

A dog ramp is when you have a dash hound or what kind of dog do you have?

Like a Chihuahua.

He said it was for wiener dogs.

Yeah.

That's a dash hound.

Okay.

That's the fancy word for it.

Sausage dog.

You know, wiener dog.

When you have these small dogs and they want to get on your bed, they can't get up.

So it's just like, oh, this is a piece of wood and it flips up.

So like a ramp, like a mini inch or a handicap ramp and your dog can get up there.

And that makes sometimes tens of thousands of dollars a day.

Why are people scared of these businesses?

Or do they just assume it can't be, you know, can't be that big?

Here's why.

I think about this all the time because I struggle with my team.

They don't understand leverage.

So they think that in order to make, let's say a million dollars, you have to work an

equivalent amount of hours that in their head they think is a million dollars.

Or you have to have an idea that is the equivalent of a million dollar idea.

When in reality, you could just have really good execution, which is not tied to the amount

of time in which you spend on something.

You could have pretty good execution, like 100% effort for a short amount of time.

And that if you leverage it correctly, it creates significant amounts of value.

And so they overthink stuff.

Also, I think they feel guilty.

It's like...

Guilty how?

Like the way I compare it is like when your mom makes a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,

it always tastes better than when you do it because you see also how simple it is and

you're like, oh, this like isn't that, like, yeah, this is like, it's got to be way better.

Like the other people must do it way different because this isn't that like, this can't be

that easy, can it?

And that's kind of like the idea.

And people like overthink stuff.

I also think that we hang out with a lot of high IQ people, and I think the smarter you

are, the more disadvantaged you are at some of these, at some of these like simple things.

And it's also fear.

People are afraid.

The PB&J businesses can be great businesses if you apply leverage.

And that's sort of the difference where your same hot dog stand idea could have been a

big business if you're just applied more leverage, more stands, more locations, prioritized it

out.

And leverage is like, you just have to like set things up in a very particular way.

So like, you just hire key people or you use the internet and you realize, well, I can

do the same thing, but I just put two zeros on the back of my ad spend.

It's like, wow, I just, I'm not doing any extra effort, but I'm getting like 10 times

the amount of money.

And that, I think you had a business that you bought a SaaS company or for them.

Yeah.

So Ramon and I also own a SaaS company.

It's like a $30,000 a month SaaS business.

And all you did was raise the prices.

Is that correct?

Yeah.

All we did so far was just went in and changed a three to like a six and that was it.

That's all we did.

You're like, I can't code, but even I know how to do this.

Yeah.

Most people don't price their stuff effectively.

We bought a company.

Literally all that was done was double the price and revenue doubled.

Same amount of people sign up every day is super simple.

I love it.

This is why I call you the Lord of the Flies, man.

You would find the way to make the money.

And what I would like to do is buy more software companies and 10X the price.

I think that that's possible as well.

So you have all these experiments in your head, but one experiment you guys just launched

is trends.

And I want to hear about it because I like trends, but I don't fully get trends.

Yeah.

A lot of people who haven't experienced it, I don't think they're going to get it yet.

And that's because we aren't...

What is it?

Yeah.

So basically the idea is it's a premium publication, a paid publication, a paid weekly email.

And we have hired a team of analysts as well as myself.

And we crawl the web and look at millions of bits data.

And we also talk to people like you and other experts.

And we just explore various industries.

And we do deconstructing of various businesses.

And we just show where are cool opportunities and where is the white space and loads of

different industries.

So if I'm somebody who is looking for my next opportunity or my next idea.

The way that we explain it is like, look, if you start a company, you can make it win

or at least do not be mildly successful with enough effort.

You could probably...

If you are willing to spend 20 years on something, you could probably get a little bit of success

out of it.

But if you start something on a small ripple that can eventually become a wave or a tsunami,

it's just going to...

The products will get pulled out of you.

Right.

It's just going to push you down this hill.

And life will be a lot better.

So it's just like, let's explore some of these waves while they're still kind of small and

what they're doing.

Gotcha.

So you guys are trendspotting early, these business opportunities.

As well as looking at interesting companies and saying like, well, here's how they work.

What if you applied that to this thing?

So we interviewed the guy who started 1-800-GOD-JUNK, Brian, and he said, yeah, 1-800-GOD-JUNK,

here's how it works, here's the economics.

And we're like, oh, that's amazing.

We're like, where else can this work?

And he goes, local irrigation services.

And we go, awesome.

We went and interviewed a bunch of people and we got the data and we chose, all right,

this is like a cool idea.

Nice.

And so if trends works, the hustle becomes this thing that has got the daily newsletter.

We tell you what's going on.

You got trends, which tells you about the big opportunities that are coming.

I'm trying to steal SoftBank's playbook.

So in the late 80s, early 90s, Masa-san, he started what was called basically the PC

magazine of Japan.

He started a publication, started a conference.

And that's a good example, right?

PCs was the wave.

Yeah.

He started the magazine.

Started the magazine.

Then he started the conference, which is now called CES.

And then with the...

He created CES.

SoftBank did it.

Okay.

So he started from the publication and then he was also selling software.

And then he started investing in the companies that he saw that were advertising with them.

So I just want to do that same thing because I think working at SoftBank would be a really

cool job.

Nice.

Going after SoftBank.

Wow.

You picked a big blue whale.

It seems like you see his life, you're like, oh man, he gets to hang out with cool people.

He gets to invest his money.

Let's just do that.

Yeah.

That's pretty good.

Okay.

So when you think about...

Let's talk about the podcast for a second because this is a new product, essentially,

that is being published on the hustle, by the hustle.

Yeah.

Hopefully there's 100,000 people listening to this right now that came from our email

list.

If you're listening to this and you're one of the 100,000, just tweet at Sam so that

he knows you're listening.

All right.

So why do a podcast...

I guess...

Why didn't you do a podcast earlier?

It's a better question.

Because I didn't know anyone that could do it well.

And you and I shoot the shit all the time.

You're very successful.

You're amazing at asking certain questions.

You're also amazing at saying these weird phrases, like when you were just talking about

your father and talking about motion versus direction.

And so when you said you were going to do a podcast, I was like, oh, let's see if we

could partner with him.

And we got to do that.

I also think that podcasts in general are a horrible business if that's your only stream

of revenue.

But since we have all this other stuff, it's like, yeah, let's do that.

Yeah.

It's just sort of...

It's found money on top of the existing audience that we have today.

And I think that the good thing about what you guys do is that...

I think you guys capture just a fraction of the value you create.

So giving people the news every morning in a super simple digestible way, and then you

capture...

It's free for them and you capture just a tiny amount of that value on average.

Yeah.

So with trends, we're going to be capturing a little bit more.

And this is now another component that we can actually give for free and capture a little

bit of the value.

And hopefully people will sign up for...

Maybe 3% of people listening will sign up for our paid services.

Gotcha.

Okay, cool.

So to close it out, I want to do a bonus segment about money.

Money.

Okay.

This is the money round.

I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions related to money, and you're going to tell

us about them.

How much money were you making at age 21, 25?

And I usually say 30, but you're 29.

So we'll do 29.

So 21, 25, 29.

21.

I had just...

I joined a company after we had a little exit.

My salary was $50,000 to $60,000 a year with a bonus that was nice sized.

I was able to save $25,000 with that salary in San Francisco.

You saved $25,000 on a $50,000 salary?

$50,000, $60,000 salary?

Plus bonus.

Yeah, plus bonuses.

I think my bonuses maybe came out to be like $80,000 total compensation.

Okay.

Gotcha.

That's good.

$25,000.

Lower because I started the company when I was 25.

The conference made $60,000, about $50,000 in profit.

The second conference made some number of around $200,000 in profit that all stay in

the business other than a draw I did of $2,000 a month.

And then 29.

Your company's doing really well now.

What do you pay yourself?

I pay myself six figures.

I pay myself...

There's something between six and seven figures, below seven figures, above six figures.

I didn't pay myself six figures from the company until last year.

For a long time, it was...

It ramped up from like 40 to 60 to 100.

And then I started giving myself meaningful bonuses based off performance.

I make more income from my investments.

So selling other businesses, rental income, things like that, I make more money that way.

And so last question, a lot of people have a number in mind.

This is the number that they want, the number of where they feel like they've hit it, they've

made it.

And the number can move.

I think when people hit their number, they make a new number.

But right now, what's your number?

I think that an old guy who I love, Stuart Alsop, I don't know if you know him, he's

a good friend, but he's a big time investor.

He invested in Twitch's seed investor.

Does he like being called an old guy who you love?

No, but he's like 70 years old.

I just like calling him that.

I don't know.

He's a good guy.

He told me that the first unit you make makes life different.

And I go, what's the unit?

And he goes, 10 million.

He goes, you get one unit, that's when life changes.

So one unit where your liquid is a big deal.

It goes probably 10 and then 100 is like, you're set forever, 10 is like, be cool and

you're fine.

Right.

Don't go Mike Tyson and you're fine.

Yeah.

100 is your set, 10 is like, life is never going to be the same, but you could still ruin

it if you really do something bad.

So that's your number right now, one unit.

A unit getting liquid.

That said, I don't think I'll be happier with it.

I know I won't be happier with that.

Right?

You're not going to be happier with $10 million.

I don't think.

I think I would be.

I think it's not so much happier.

I think happier is kind of the wrong word.

The money won't make you happy.

It's the fact that you did it.

The fact that I did it as well as the lifestyle.

So I think money, I have this thing that money is just stored time.

So when I give you money, I'd like to unlock some of your time to go do something for me.

And when you give me money, it's because you want some of my time.

And that's sort of how money works.

Money is just time frozen into a piece of paper.

And when you give it to somebody else, thaws out, you get their time.

And so the thing, you know, if I had a unit that would make sure that I'm the one unlocking

other people's time, nobody's really unlocking my time unless I'm choosing to do so.

Yeah.

You could just do that with a lot less money than you think.

I choose to work.

I could not work.

I do it because I like it.

As long as it's a choice.

What I'm saying is that most people, and I put myself in this bucket right now, I don't

dictate how I spend every hour of my day.

It's not all my choice.

There are several things that are things that I don't want to be doing on my time.

So the day that I can do sort of what I want, when I want, where I want, the way I want,

that will be sort of the ultimate freedom.

I agree with you.

I don't know if money unlocks that.

It could be lower.

It's a lower number than you think.

What's the number?

It depends on how much you spend.

But I don't spend a lot of money.

I could say fuck you to everyone and balance and be fine.

I'm a spender.

That's the problem.

Man, maybe when I hit 100 grand, I'm like, 100 grand in liquid, I was like, that's fuck

you money.

But I always wanted to say fuck you to-

Yeah, you live a fuck me lifestyle and you could have fucking money at 100k.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

If you're willing to say fuck you, even at 10,000 or 1,000, 100 grand in liquid made

a difference.

Yeah.

That's the number I'll give you.

In liquid made a difference and I was willing to say fuck off.

Yeah.

I like this segment, the money round, because money is this weird taboo thing.

I remember when you messaged me on Facebook once and you were like, you were just like,

how much you make?

And I was like, we knew each other, but we hadn't talked about it before.

No, I'm close friends.

I'm very open.

I'll be like, here's how much cash I have.

And you asked me all these questions and I was like, this is kind of cool because I

was like, at first I just admired the balls of, hey.

You know, just to ask.

But the second thing was I was like, this is how we can kind of help each other get ahead

is information.

Can we unlock some information so that you understand how people are playing this game?

Because the pie is very, very big.

And so the weird thing-

It's not a zero sum game.

A lot of people think that like, if I make money, that means I took it from someone.

It's like, no, that's not exactly how it works.

Like if I create a piece of art, I didn't take this from anyone.

I just created this valuable thing that someone's going to give me something for.

Right.

Even if you are taking money from somebody else, there's so many players in the game.

Yeah.

As long as we can all win.

And so it's whenever I ask people, it's never out of jealousy of like, I wish I was bigger

than, I do wish I have more than what I have sometimes, but it's not of like, I want you

to be lower than me.

It's like, oh man, what could you teach me?

Right.

Yeah.

And I've learned from you and you've learned from me in that regard.

So all right Sam, where can people find you aside from subscribing to the hustle?

Subscribe to the hustle.

The hustle.co.

Yeah.

Go to trends.co.

Trends.co.

Sign up.

What about you personally?

Where do they find you?

Me personally, don't email me because I won't reply more likely than not, but tweet at me

and I will reply.

TheSampar.

Awesome.

Thanks Sam so much.

Great episode.

We're going to do a Spartan race tomorrow.

Yeah.

We're running eight and a half miles.

I don't know if we're going to run, but we're walking eight and a half miles.

Yeah.

We'll get a long stroll tomorrow.

All right.

Good stuff, man.

Thank you.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.

Sam Parr (@theSamParr) is the founder of The Hustle - a simple email newsletter that has surpassed 1M daily subscribers and will be north of 8 figures this year. Sam walks us through how he built The Hustle from scratch as well as his adventures starting a hot dog stand (7min), selling booze on the internet (13min), meeting celebrities on the street and convincing them to hire him (11min) and how he would get rich if he was 21 again! (33min) 
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