My First Million: Blue Collar Side Hustles, Covid Businesses, and Going Viral On TikTok For An "A"

Hubspot Podcast Network Hubspot Podcast Network 2/23/23 - 58m - PDF Transcript

And so basically in two years to pump out 40 shows

and get a hundred million downloads,

there's only one way to describe that.

I'm gonna savage it.

I feel like I can rule the world.

I know I could be what I want to put my all in it

like no days off on a road.

Let's travel never looking back.

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 in an accident.

I have this new researcher who's crushing it,

but rich neighbor.

How did I know you'd pick rich neighbor?

So there's somebody in my neighborhood who I bumped into

and I sort of get out there and I collect signals.

This is, you know, where do I place this person

on the Billy scale?

Like are they, you know, are they on their way up?

Are they, have they made it in life?

Are they really ballin' out of control?

Where is this person?

And these people have been ballin' 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 there.

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 just like, like,

like it's like an ice machine or something.

Yeah, it's 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 hit up 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 could 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 vodka bottle.

All right, seems kind of gimmicky.

I don't really, you know, not a bad idea,

but following out of control from that

didn't 100% make sense.

But that was the business.

Sounds like a drop shipping like joke.

Sounds like my first idea out of college.

It's like, this is like me in college

would have been like, bro, next Google.

I got it.

You know, like, what if we took, you know,

this Yeagerbomb and we put an LED screen on it?

Wouldn't that be incredible?

And so, so they had this thing

and they were like 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 decide 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 you're rich websites

because there's like not a lot of information on it.

But if you go to like the peer,

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 are now

the sole testing provider for, you know,

with the Lakers stadium, Levi's 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 it.

You think it's that small?

Selling masks.

I think for things like that,

probably it's like 10, 15% is my guess.

Maybe during COVID, 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 pivot.

And, you know, that's just kind of crazy.

And that was an opportunity kind of available

to a lot of people.

Right.

Dude, I know, 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, we, there was a guy in a,

I had started this mastermind group.

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, 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, really excited to be here.

I need you guys' help.

Like three months later, he was like,

really need you guys' help about going public.

And I was like, what the hell?

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, you know, in Canada,

like these country wide contracts.

And, you know, yeah, we think maybe we should take

this public next year.

I was like, what the fuck is going on?

So how did it end?

I don't even know, because that guy,

my head was just spinning every time he would talk.

Cause 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.

All right, let me take a quick ad break

cause I got to tell you about some podcasts

that I think you might like.

The Gold Digger podcast by Jenna Kutcher.

It is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network,

which is your audio destination

if you're a business professional.

Now Gold Digger is a podcast that helps you

discover your dream career, gives you productivity tips,

social strategies, business hacks, inspirational stories,

and so much more.

So there's a couple of different episodes

that you might like.

One is she got laid off and launched

an innovative virtual assistant company.

So Jenna talks to Bobby

about how she launched a virtual assistance-based business.

And the challenges that she had,

you know, launching it, knowing how to give up control,

why a VA can be totally game-changing for a business,

and how getting started as a VA

is as easy as applying online.

So go ahead, check out Gold Digger.

You can listen to it wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, everyone.

Today's episode is brought to you

by Marketing Against the Grain.

If you wanna know what's happening in marketing,

then this is the podcast for you.

The hosts are Kit Bodner, who's HubSpot CMO,

and Kieran Flanagan, who's HubSpot's SVP of marketing.

On the pod, they share their unfiltered marketing expertise.

One of my favorite recent episodes

was called Why Creators Are Disrupting Marketing.

Kit and Kieran talked to Steph Smith,

who's been on My First Million a Ton,

about all things creator economy.

They asked her how you could find a niche audience,

how to create great content for them,

and how to monetize that content.

And if you know Steph Smith,

you know there's no one better at that kind of stuff.

So if you love marketing,

you wanna know what's happening at the cutting edge

of the world of marketing,

go listen to Marketing Against the Grain

wherever you get your podcast.

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 a $2 or $3 million contract.

And I was like, fantastic, should do it.

And he's like, yeah, but my dad has this problem

where my dad is addicted to meetings.

He thinks winning is 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?

And he'd be like, so, you know,

he was really interested, two hours, right?

And he was just like, he's always obsessed with that.

So 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's gonna happen?

Like 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,

this is like the cheap way to do business.

Like you got to take a little risk here

and everybody will want to take a risk.

You're throwing shade on your dad right now.

I hope he doesn't listen to this.

And you can call them boss.

If my son calls me boss, he's getting in the headlock.

Yeah, my dad, 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.

Like we went, I went, 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, 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, whoa, whoa, whoa.

He started slipping back into like,

basically he's like, I've identified my problem.

I'm not like gonna change it.

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.

I don't want to be disrespectful.

I thought you said, 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.

You're right, you're right. That did happen.

No, I'm not being disrespectful, 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 like that you hang it up.

So she like, let it hang.

Yeah, she was just crying at the airport

and some guy was like, hey, do you need help?

Are you okay?

And 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's like, do you have a phone number?

She's like, yeah.

So he, 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, hang tight, I'll be there.

And she talks to him and she'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, 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 and I walked away.

And 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 to America.

Now they have a house in San Francisco.

So it worked out.

That's the, that's the American dream.

All right, another topic.

I got a quick one here.

So I saw this TikTok of this Professor Cooley.

I don't know what, she's a professor Cooley

at Emory University.

So shout out to her.

Basically, she has, she teaches marketing 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, 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, 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,

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 lemonade stands on campus.

Break up into teams.

You're each going to run a lemonade stand.

Like, and you know, the top lemonade stands

going to get an A plus.

The next one gets an A minus, B plus, B minus.

And if you, if you're not able to break

this threshold of sales, you fail.

And like, 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 profits

that 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 quantity.

You 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, you know, 50% open rate on a newsletter

with, you know, 1,000 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.

I, 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, a peak physical condition.

They'd 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 on, 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?

Is that-

The gym teacher had to justify their pension

or their salary.

I don't know.

It was the stupidest thing ever.

Like 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 to do that.

You have to get like the certain amount of credits.

And it was like this aerobic walking class is available.

Was your major like PE?

Why was this in your requirements?

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 majored in.

I think just like accounting or business or something.

Accounting?

It was like, 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'd you leave school?

Cause I moved out.

So I had to take like some summer classes

in 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.

Well, I don't know if it's technically drop out.

I just like quit going and I finished online and like-

What's the term?

Oh, okay.

You just converted to an online student.

Yeah, like I took like some time off

and then I eventually like finished.

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 tests.

But basically there was this famous runner.

I was runner at the time and there was a famous runner

named Chris Lukeasic and he quit running,

which wasn't exactly lucrative,

but he was like the seventh most fast fastest miler ever.

And he was like, I quit,

I'm quitting running up 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 Gebbia, 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-

What was 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 emails they are.

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 you.

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?

Or I don't know who the guy was,

but the guy is probably worth $20 million.

Really underused word.

I'm gonna start using that.

That's an amazing slander.

I love it.

That minion is probably worth $20 million.

I mean, you know, cause at the time

they 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 still friends with him.

Sorry, Justin, call you a minion, but if you were.

I didn't realize that's your friend, dude.

I'm friendly with them.

I'm friendly with the minion.

I'm friendly with them.

But 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, I had never been west of Missouri.

I'd only basically been to like Missouri

and then like whatever the States are

when he drives 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 gotta get out there.

I gotta figure out what the hell the Bay Area is.

I thought it was LA.

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 LA.

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 there was like a 10 minute interview.

And then I go home on a Wednesday.

They offer me the job on a Thursday.

And then a week later, I call my mom.

I 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 gonna 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 $1,000.

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's still happening.

So like, I didn't get convicted yet.

And they're like, yeah, but that was sneaky, dude.

Innocent, don't prove in 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 and like,

my alma mater, my old stoppy grounds.

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 would 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 thousand dollars.

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-

For people that don't 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.

Dude, I used to, I learned how to like get rid of,

like you could jump on the bus

and like when 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's zero consequences.

There was zero consequences.

I mean, that's how little I had.

Like I didn't have cash for a bus fare, which was 250.

But yeah, it turned out okay.

What did you do to grow that thousand?

How did you not just wipe out?

Like $1,000 doesn't get you very far in San Francisco.

So how did you not wipe out in three months?

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 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 like 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 started, 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 got to move into a existing bedroom.

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 wanna 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,

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.

I have a story for you.

After this, I have to go get a hearing aid

and I have to tell you why.

I forgot to tell you this.

We are at the Vancouver thing

and there is 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 lean, I turn and I get really close to you.

And also-

It was a super loud after party, by the way.

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.

Really-

Mr. Wrong signals over here.

The horrible worst signals.

And this woman comes up to me and I'm leaning 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.

It was at that point I told Sarah.

I was like, I gotta go.

I gotta 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 make it clear

what's happening here.

Dude, and I have a rule.

I don't travel alone.

I love having her around when I travel.

But that is 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 man, I can tell she was uncomfortable.

I was like, oh, I forgot to tell you, I can't hear.

So I'm gonna go get one of those things.

Did you ever learn that like trick from,

it might have been in like those pick apartist things.

I'm not a hundred percent sure,

but you were looking at their triangle.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like the third eye or something like that.

No, no, it's, 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 like 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 makes, it traces like a little triangle.

And if you do that, you'll just see immediately

the person just fuck her up, maybe.

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.

Did you do well?

First base king, baby.

Oh, you're the...

You had a good batting average, but not a lot of home runs.

Got that lead off, but never got a second.

Yeah.

Oh, well, that's good.

The hard part too is my roommate was like,

just unbelievably good with girls.

And so...

He's really good looking.

He's a good looking guy.

Trevor, right?

Yeah, 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 RA,

who's like the person who's like four years older

that lives in the freshman 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 them gifts all the time.

I was like, I don't know what's happening here,

but you know, this guy is definitely sucking up

all the alpha male energy in this room.

And, you know, I'm just sort of here along for the ride,

but it was 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, 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.

You're 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.

100% same.

It like, it didn't, it didn't start picking up until my 20s.

It was like 100% the same.

That's like your 20s.

What were you 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, I was jumping off the top rope in my bedroom

trying to 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 a hundred times.

Right.

Yeah.

You never want more of attrition to describe it.

You love it.

Whatever.

I, 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.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.

This is what it needs, food, shelter, YouTube subscribers.

These are your core, 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 you.

And also do me a huge favor and actually click follow

on the podcast app and Spotify.

Cause those help us actually go up the rankings.

And then when we go up the rankings,

we get more dope meat and we do dumber shit.

And that's why we're here.

So do that.

So go to jupe.com.

So it's J-U-P-E jupe.com.

It's, 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, like basically like a outdoor unit.

That's not like something more than a tent,

but less than a house.

Kinda.

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 is 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, I don't know.

I mean, he's a wacky, interesting guy,

but he lived in a dumpster.

And then he, then he started this like prefab house.

I guess it was like marketing

for like a pre prefabricated homes or something like that.

And they eventually launched this startup.

It's called jupe.

And I originally saw it because Gary Tan,

a 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 could do one of two things.

You could just buy it for 30 grand outright,

or you can do a thing where you,

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 gonna 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 gonna 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 like 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'd get a kick out of it.

Yeah, I mean, these look super cool.

And I gotta give them credit

because I see a lot of these like this kind of like,

I figure with 80 years 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, it 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 exists.

This is real.

It's not like some futuristic dream.

And so I think that's pretty, 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 in 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 the, 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 moving cow

because they sleep and wake, they sleep at all my property.

For some reason they decided that's the bet.

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 marathon ranch.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 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, I 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 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.

Yeah.

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 it'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.

It's pretty 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?

How much, 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 rate.

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 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 did I say, 15 minus 2,000, 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 15,000, so 20% margins.

Yeah, it's not like, it's not kick-ass, right?

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 gonna end up being like five or somewhere

between five and 8%, 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.

So, 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 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 and be like,

well, this is a good house.

I'm gonna pay a premium for this house.

They're like, why?

Cause the countertops are nice.

And I'm like, yeah, I mean, look at this.

It looks fantastic.

It looks modern.

And they're like, dude, that's, 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 just 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, it's booked constantly.

And so I'm happy with it.

I don't regret it.

I would, 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.

All right.

I got two blue collar hustles for you.

So these are in the trash, in 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,

Cava 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 Cava for like 12 years now.

And I don't, I still don't know how to say his last name.

Kosinski, right?

Yeah. I had to like, yeah, I just, he's in my phone book

because when the very first time I ever met him,

I just, he said he was Russian.

So he's just saved as Cava Russia.

And so I just assumed he was Cava Russia.

That's his like, I mean,

this guy was like in my wedding close.

Cava, tall, handsome, smart.

Yeah. I just called him Adonis.

Yeah. First name and then attributes,

like visual attributes that I remember you by.

Six pack, six three, got it.

I have a system and it serves me well.

Right. So see who was telling 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 think 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

a 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 even 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 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 dollars

in just a 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 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 like,

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 classic,

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, I feel like it's not the degenerates

that you'll get.

I would rather hire any trash guy

than a barista at Starbucks, right?

Like, I feel like the barista is a flake

and we never know what's gonna happen, but.

Well, the worst is like a bartender or a waiter

at a fancy like nighttime restaurant,

like a, like a, or like a, like a,

TGI Fridays, like, you know what I'm saying?

The worst of the worst,

there's someone out there right now listening to this,

that is a waiter at TGI Fridays

to just slam 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, 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,

like a guns and roses after party.

Like I'm going wild.

I'm throwing furniture out the window.

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 the Scoot-A-More, or Scoot-A-More.

He owns them.

Sounds like a good friend.

Oh, another guy.

Another last name guy.

Another trash in your phone.

Yeah.

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 this,

but the company's 100% bootstrapped.

Revenue, this is public revenue.

I think is in the $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

if like his trash guys like,

or his franchisees are like degenerates or not.

And like, what's the headache with those type of people?

We should definitely ask him.

I feel like, I feel like he's gonna give his sign off on this.

So this is one trash idea.

The other one comes from Twitter.

I gotta 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, they power wash your trash cans

because everybody's trash cans are filthy.

And he's like, he's like,

here's how I would take this business

and turn it into six figures a year of profit.

He goes, why do I love this business?

So everybody's got trash bins.

So 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.

It's not like a bunch of competitors yet.

You just need one truck and some hustle.

In a post COVID world, there's lots of germaphobes

and you can play on that.

And this has like word of mouth virality.

So this has like public virality.

You can see the actual service being done.

And so he goes, so he goes, you've gotta buy a truck.

The trucks are about 40K,

but it's a hard asset.

You're gonna be able to get a loan against this.

So you might only have to put down $5,000 or $10,000

and get a bank to finance the rest

because the truck will do this.

He goes, now here's how I juice this business

to make it more valuable.

He goes, we're gonna make this like the ice cream truck.

We're gonna 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 outcasts

so fresh, so clean, just because it's a pun.

And he's like, we're gonna play this every single time.

This song is our branding.

We're gonna 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 see us power-washing

someone in their neighborhood's bins.

You can even-

It sounds like a horrible idea.

Hold on, hold on, hold on.

He goes, he goes, we're gonna like basically

leave little flyer brochures on top of everyone's bins.

So when they take out the trash,

they're gonna 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'd put a spoon in it,

be like, it's 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 10 K a month of income

that they may not be able to get out of their job,

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, a hundred 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 be your customers

at the start.

Did he call us out and say, what do we think?

No, but you know, he listens to the pod.

So by the way, there's two people in the comments here

sparkling bins business, they make the trucks.

So there's a woman in the comments goes,

it's a fantastic business.

We've been, we manufactured 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.

Someone's dream.

I dream.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Living an American's dream.

Yeah, 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 on this one.

I don't want to do this.

It was like, start a newsletter.

Yeah, start a newsletter.

Dude, I, people make fun of me

because I bring this up so much.

I had hot dog scenes, whatever.

But I used to work with my hands outside.

It's so hard, man.

It is so hard.

By the way, 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, $6 an hour.

And then, yeah, that's what I did.

Dude, I am so mad at my parents

for never giving me my grind story.

Like, can I probably get a little hardship?

Yeah, like just, yeah.

You ain't gangster at all, dude.

I'm in an uncle's store for a month

and just give me that story, $5 an hour.

And I had to enter into the trash.

Like, nobody knows how long I did it.

Like, I got nothing, dude.

I grew up.

A lot of Asian parents don't want you to do that.

They say, do your homework.

His hands got no calluses.

And my kids, I'm going to give them one hustle story.

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,

their parents were like, you don't even clean your room.

Just do your homework.

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 to cook or clean.

So it just never came up.

And they were like, yeah, your job is to study

and do good at school so you can get a good job.

Don't go be a janitor.

And I was like, well.

I did it all, man.

I did the janitor stuff.

I was a waiter.

I was a bus boy.

I was a valet 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 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 gonna like,

somebody that you're gonna have drug issues

working with one group of people,

or you're just gonna 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.

I'm okay with just your work self.

So we all, every, every, every class

in every generation has issues.

So I don't mean to throw shade just at one.

We throw shade at all here.

We're an equal opportunity shade thrower.

Yeah, we're all screwed up.

I hit my dad, Sam hit the trash man.

Who else did we get, who else cut a 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 about my ear and my glasses sit funny.

I don't know if you noticed my glasses sit crooked

cause 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 rest of the bit 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, about Parkas.

Did I tell you about Parkas?

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 or not 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 a 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, he was a radio broadcaster.

So he had industry, but I don't think he was like

in the business type of thing.

And he, they bootstrapped this thing.

And by 2018, so only two years in,

they had 16 shows with a hundred 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 listened to these.

It's so weird.

I listen to these every night when I go to bed.

So like I've got like my favorites.

I listened 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 podcast at all.

There's zero riffing and it's like voice actors.

Dude, we should just make up fake true crime shows

like stabbed, but not dead yet.

Yeah, the black guy.

Yeah, 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.

You hurt my feelings.

True crime thrills.

Dude, and 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 were 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 and out,

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 they're like their audience.

Like it's crack.

It's cracked 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 going to watch it every single time.

It's just like that.

It's the same stick 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 that this guy bootstrapped 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 just like dominate when people search these.

So it's like long tail.

It's like, what's the, what's, what's SEO for podcasts?

PEO, I don't know.

And they just crushed it.

It really fascinating business.

And I, and I brought that up.

So I, I needed, I hadn't done the proper research.

So I, 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, I had a bunch of veggies.

I had a broccoli, a Brussels sprout, 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, that spot where we wanted to eat,

we, 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, that's, 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.

You start to eat just like an absolute animal.

And you, in like 30 seconds you do, it's like chugging for food.

And so we used to say that and they would be like, all right,

we got to savage it.

And we would 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

a hundred million downloads, there's only one way to describe

that, he savaged it.

And he wasn't trying to be beautifully done.

I bet you it's imperfect in all these different ways.

You know, 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 scale up like an

absolute savage because they find something that works and then

they don't, they're not perfectionists.

And they don't like, they, they don't get limited by what's the

normal pace.

They're like, okay, 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, I was like, well, I was, I would always turn around and

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, go blog.

Yeah, it was like, and then another, that was always one where

like 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, you know, it feels pretty fast when you're running

real, like the top marathoners, we're running fast.

So it's going to feel like a sprint.

But yeah, this guy is a quantity over guy.

And I love it.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay, I think we should, we should wrap it here.

That's the pod.

I feel like I can rule the world.

I know I could be what I want to put my all in it like no

days off on a road.

Let's travel never looking back.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.

Episode 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 employment 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