My First Million: Drunk Business Ideas That Could Make You Millions

Hubspot Podcast Network Hubspot Podcast Network 3/8/22 - 42m - 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.

There's this genre of idea of Sean business idea that essentially is, I went and watched

an episode of Black Mirror and said, actually, that's a good idea.

And this is one of those.

But that's a great idea, though.

All Black Mirror ideas are good ideas.

Yeah.

Where do you think they're getting their ideas?

They go to the great idea pile, and then they take a great idea and they say, okay, let's

put this to a logical extreme where it actually turns bad.

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.

I got my drunk ideas.

Should we do some drunk ideas?

Yeah, let's do it.

All right.

So again, to frame this, these are ideas that I had that I don't think are good, but I still

want to say them.

So I call it drunk ideas, even though I didn't have them while I was drunk.

I was stone cold sober, but that's my cover story.

All right.

So drunk idea number one is called, and you got to tell me.

I think I did this before, and by the way, one gem came out of it, which was my Lucky

Water brand that I do intend to create.

So you know, some gems do come out of this.

So Ben, you're a participant in this one.

I need you both to give me your reaction.

What should the scale be on the reaction?

Is it like, you know, on a scale of sober to piss drunk or like on a scale of like horrible

to good idea?

How do you want to write these?

Let's do one to 10.

One to 10.

All right.

First idea is called very long distance girlfriend.

Okay.

So I had this idea because I realized like I'm sitting there and me and my wife, we like

to watch all these dating shows, right?

So we watch all this blind, we watch the bachelor and you watch these shows and this sort of

like it's like the honeymoon period.

And I like, I would say most people's homes are like ours.

It's like the scene is this on screen.

You see like two usually beautiful people living some kind of fairy tale date.

And then like one person's kind of like, you know, there's some drama, one person's being

dramatic or one person's unsure and the other person's really good or whatever.

And then you, and then if you, if you zoomed out off the TV, you'd see a couch with usually

a couple sitting like six feet apart from each other cause they're so sick of each other.

You know, there's like, you know, in their sweats, not dressed up with their, you know,

whole chin eating their popcorn and Cheetos and being like pointing at the screen and

be like, ah, she's not even that hot.

Or like, you know, he's, you know, he's such a jerk and it's like judging these relationships,

right?

But like there's something to this of why we like it, right?

We like seeing these other relationships.

But I also think it's like when we do that, we do that with UFC, it'd be like, oh, we

shouldn't have tapped out.

Yeah.

Dude, he's such a pussy.

He's so weak.

He looks scared.

Yeah.

Dude, he's so scared.

That's why I like him.

Cause he's scared.

He's not confident.

Oh my God.

There's a spider in my room.

So, so yeah, there's definitely like a judgey, there's a fun in judging it.

But I would also say there's a fun in the sort of fairy tale.

Like I think everybody, when you're watching these shows, you sort of put yourself in the

shoes of either the person pursuing or the person being pursued, you know, you're the

damsel or you're the prince, whatever it is.

So the idea behind very long distance girlfriend is as follows.

It's a service or app.

I think it's just a service.

I think it's just a text message.

This is a phone number you put in your address book.

And we give you the perfect boyfriend or girlfriend.

You're never going to meet with this person.

It's not even the intention.

It's just somebody who's going to treat you perfectly because they're paid to do it.

And so, so it's like prostitution.

It's like a prostitute, a prostitute is somebody who's paid to love, to love you, right?

To make love to you.

But that's a lot.

I don't want to cross that line.

That's a lot of work.

So this is like, you know how Tinder made dating easier because you don't have to like

go date everybody.

You just sort of swipe left and right easily on your phone.

It kind of gave you this like flirting hit, but you didn't have to go out, put in a lot

of effort.

So here's what you would get if you sign up for very long, very long distance girlfriend.

There's going to be a person that pretends to be your girlfriend.

They're going to text you.

They're going to ask how you're doing.

They're going to be emotionally there for you.

They're going to text you baby photos of themselves.

They're going to say that they want you.

You're going to be like, Oh my God, I'm this person wants me.

They're never going to nag you.

They're never going to get mad at you.

They're never going to get jealous.

They're never going to do any of the things that real human beings do and that are the

downsides of relationships, only the upside, none of the downside.

So for girls, you're going to get Prince charming on the other side.

He's going to be complimentary.

He's going to be thoughtful.

He's going to be there for you.

And for guys, you're going to get sort of what you want as the perfect girlfriend.

And we're just going to hire call centers of just dudes and they're going to behave as

your very long distance boyfriend or girlfriend.

All right, give me your, give me your ratings.

I'm going to start with Sam.

I give that a 10.

I think that, uh, I think that's great to be honest.

I think that surely that like if we went to adultfriendfinder.com or something like that,

is that what they do?

What is adult friend finder?

What is that?

Like, like webcam or you're asking the wrong guy.

I don't follow these questions.

I have no idea.

Um, yeah.

I mean, this is brilliant.

How many friends do you have who you've only met via texting and you've like, I've got

like a bunch of friends who have only ever texted.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And most of my life is people I only text with.

Maybe I knew them before.

There's a bunch of people that like, I don't know, just through Twitter or through, you

know, the podcast or through friends or friends, we get in a group chat together.

I know their personality.

They're cool.

Like that's my actual friend, even though I never met them.

So why not?

Or even heard their voice or talked to them like through voice.

And in fact, I have no desire to really meet them.

Like I don't want to go out of my way to go like, hang out with them.

I'm getting all the benefits that I want out of just the texts.

Yeah.

So anyway, I have a lot of friends like that and I consider them to be really close friends.

I can't tell you how tall they are or what their voice sounds like, but I love them.

And so because of that, I'm in.

What do you think, Ben?

I give it a one.

It sounds diabolical.

It sounds evil.

A one zero or just a one.

A one zero.

It sounds a big, a big slow roll for a 10.

There's this genre of idea of Sean business idea that essentially is I went and watched

an episode of Black Mirror and said, actually, that's a good idea.

And this is one of those.

All that's a great idea, though.

Our good ideas.

Yeah.

That's where do you think they're getting their ideas?

They go to the great idea pile and then they take a great idea and they say, OK, let's

put this to a logical extreme where it actually turns bad.

Yeah.

Like have you remember that?

Remember that TV show in Disney called Smart Home where the the it's like a smart home.

It's like Alexa.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the smart home ended up being the mom and the wife.

So it kind of is like what we're describing now.

So I think that like.

Yeah.

I haven't watched her.

I think her is something like this.

It's like a voice assistant that he kind of falls in love with.

I haven't seen that.

But again, it's not even a fall in love.

It's just dude.

It's fun to get certain types of text messages, right?

It's fun to get a funny text from a friend.

It's fun to get something interesting texted to you.

That's kind of what the hustle does.

The hustle just sends me some interesting stuff every morning.

The milk road tries to do that.

Here's some interesting crypto stuff, right?

Where your friend, but I'm not really your friend.

I'm just sending you some cool stuff.

You like getting that message, but that's for the work part of our life.

What about the personal side?

Ben, are you telling me you would, I mean, I know what you're going to say.

You're going to say no.

But let me just put it out there anyways.

You're telling me you would not want to be getting texts from a woman who's so into

you and it's not cheating.

You're never going to do anything.

It's not even a real person.

You're never going to see him.

Nothing like that.

Especially if you're single, right?

Like I'm not talking about like we're all.

I think we're all married.

Ben, right?

So, so it's not for us.

This is for 25 year old me, not 30, I don't know how old I am, 34 year old me.

Yeah.

I, uh, obviously we're not the target demographic, all of us because we're all married.

Um, but having said that, like, even if it was just like, uh, as a, as a, uh, a friend

type of thing, I like, I already have actual friends that I don't text back.

The last thing I need is another thing that's literally just a person to not text back.

I don't need another one of those in my life, but, okay, fair enough, fair enough, baby.

It's a bad idea.

But no, no, no, as a, as a business idea, of course it's a good idea.

Of course it's like this has money making potential as a thing that is good for humans.

You know, that's, that's why I gave it a one.

Oh, I'm not, I'm not in the good for you.

I just felt like I had to be conscious here.

I had that one person had to be like, Sean, you know, this is, okay, okay.

It's good.

You know, I'm the devil.

You're the angel on the shoulders.

We have to be there.

You know, that's how it works.

That's good.

Yeah.

You know, if you want good things, you should, you know, go eat your vegetables, work out,

you know, wake up and pray, do all the things, right?

Like that's cool.

Don't invest in Russian companies.

Yeah.

Don't invest in Russian companies.

Don't have the very long distance girlfriend service for $19.99 a month.

Don't, you know, don't use TikTok.

Don't do any of the things that you do probably.

All right.

Next idea.

It sounds related, but it's not.

It's the huge beds company.

You kind of alluded to this earlier.

I've been thinking about the luxuries of life that I care about.

We all, we all know what I do, private chef, personal trainer at my house.

I live like a king.

The one thing I don't live like a king with is my bed is only king sized, but a true king

would not have a king sized bed.

True kings have what's called a emperor sized bed.

Have you ever heard of these?

No.

So athletes have these.

I saw these because there's a woman who has this business.

It's already a great business.

There's a woman who makes beds for NBA athletes.

And so Shaq has a 24 foot bed, I believe, of like 24 foot, like in diameter.

And you know, a whole bunch of NBA players do this.

They have 12 foot diameter beds, 18 foot things like that.

The room, it's like, it looks ridiculous, but the whole family can sleep on there and

still have their space.

Like, you know, just to get to your spot on the bed, you kind of have to crawl there

like a small child just to your pillow, like because there was such a long runway.

And so I've always saw these and I thought these look super comfortable and I've decided

I want a very huge bed.

And I realized I wouldn't know where to go buy it.

So my idea is a DDC brand called Huge Beds.

Name TBD.

We need a better name.

No, no, no.

Keep it.

It's like, it's like the company Big Ass Fans.

Yeah.

It should be Big Ass Beds.

Okay.

That's the name.

Big Ass Beds.

They're badass people.

Marketing slogan included with my drunk ideas.

All right.

So, so Big Ass Beds.

And basically it's just a DDC brand that sells you this, right?

Like these are very expensive.

So these, these run for like 20, $20,000 on average, I think is like the cost of these

like humongous oversized beds.

And that's why athletes buy them because they're a NBA players are already very tall, plus

they got a lot of money.

So it's like the sweet spot for them.

And this woman who they buy it from, this is one woman and she just sells it all through

her Instagram.

Basically, it's like some player posts a picture of his bed, tags the woman.

People go look at her.

She has like an Instagram full of huge beds.

People go buy from her.

So I think that's just like a niche that somebody could go own Big Ass Beds.

And I think, you know, okay, athletes is one, but we need to find a new niche.

We may need to go into a new sport or maybe it's business nerds who are trying to optimize

their sleep.

And it's like, you know, you make a jumbo about this.

Having a big bed is not going to make you sleep better unless you're like eight feet

tall.

Have you tried it?

Well, maybe it's like a free range chicken.

Maybe when you're not confined by this, you know, like maybe you have anxiety all night

because you might fall off the bed, right?

Maybe just being able to stretch out is nice, right?

Maybe maybe not being so cramped is nice.

I don't know.

Seems like there's some benefits.

There definitely maybe is, but definitely probably isn't.

I mean, haven't you been in a California king size bed before?

I have a California king size bed.

Yeah.

You have a California king and a California king is like the same size as a king.

It's just longer instead of wider.

It's the same overall size.

It's just longer.

So it's not the same overall size, but yeah, it's the same size, but it's like less wide

more long or the other ones more wide, less long.

You have a California time with baby.

That's a huge bed, if you ask me.

I think that's big.

Is it just you and your wife in the bed or do your kids stay there sometimes?

Kids stay there and my dog.

So it's like, you know, we got a full house in the bed most nights.

I think that likely there's another thing that should be addressed than making the bed

bigger.

Yeah.

Like, don't like it.

I would call it.

I would create it.

How about we call it?

How about we create a little kid bed company or a dog bed?

Yeah.

We could call it a Crip or we could make like a dog bed business.

Also a good idea.

I think maybe those are the solutions to your problem instead of making a 20 by 20, a 400

square foot bed.

Ben, what do you got here?

It seems like you might be on my side.

Sam is so wrong on this, but I, I have a king size bed.

It is a good size.

I don't want to be good enough for you.

No, I don't want to be anywhere near my wife when I sleep.

I want to have to shout for her to hear me.

Like there's always like just some little toe poking me in the middle of the night.

And if you could just offer me, I never have to worry about that A. B. You're right, Sam.

Is it going to actually give me better sleep?

Probably not.

Is it going to be an amazing experience to just like crawl onto this massive piece of

luxury that is 20 feet long?

Yes.

It sounds like an amazing experience.

And I want it.

I want to feel that.

I'm so.

You're spending a third of your day on this bed, right?

I've been in eight hours on this bed.

Why not?

Just the second.

Why not max it out?

The second that you said like a 20 foot wide bed, I just knew I wanted it.

My heart knows that.

I want that.

Wait till you see the pictures, dude.

When you see the picture, you're like, God, this looks like lavish as fuck.

All right.

So do you guys, one question, do you guys sleep with a pillow in between your legs?

Of course I sleep with a maternity pillow.

Same.

So I have a body, I have a body pillow.

And so I like basically spoon the pillow because I need my, my knees to be, I can't

have my knees to touch it.

Well, that's just straight ergonomics.

That's just like, that's proven.

That's not even like us being weird.

That's us being scientists.

So the reason I use my wife's pregnancy pillow is science.

Do you really, you use her?

What does she use?

I bought two.

So I, so I bought hers.

I bought her one because my buddy, my buddy told me this.

My buddy goes, congrats, you guys are pregnant, fantastic.

So happy for you.

Hey, get your phone out and go to this website.

You're going to buy this Swedish pillow.

It's $200, but trust me, best pillow ever.

And I was like, oh my God, like never been so intrigued by a sales pitch, took out my

phone, ordered it right there.

I'll never forget where I was.

I was in an Uber in Las Vegas when this happened.

And I thought, all right, and it's like, it says like five weeks to ship.

I was like, oh my God, this must be fantastic if it's like such a shitty experience.

And so it arrives, it's amazing.

My wife uses it.

She's like, it's good.

And I was like, only good.

He really built it up.

Let me try it out.

I try it for a nap.

So good.

I ordered myself one.

And now she never just uses, she never uses any of them.

I use both of them actually.

And it's fantastic.

What's it called?

I'll have to look it up.

It's like some Swedish name that I don't really know.

Yeah.

I'm a big fan of those.

I'll buy one.

I just had like a really long pillow that I just kind of spoon, but maybe I should

buy one of these.

It is called, oh, here it is, bbhugme.com.

So the two letters, bb, then hugme.com, bbhugme.

And it's designed in Scandinavia, so that's not Swedish, Scandinavian.

And just look at it.

It just looks like it's going to be good and then it is good.

It's really, it's really great.

Really great pillow.

All right.

I'm going to buy one of these.

Wow.

This looks huge.

Yeah.

It's not that big, but it's like kind of like, it's like got like beads inside or whatever.

So it's sort of like forms to your body.

It's great.

All right.

I'm on board with this.

I bet these guys crush it, by the way.

Yeah, I can imagine.

The thing's really, I think it's pretty expensive.

It's like $200 for one pillow, which is great site.

A lot.

All right.

So here's my next drunk idea.

I got two more for you.

All right.

A quick message from our sponsor.

You know, I was thinking about the shortest day of the year earlier.

And while we technically have the same amount of time as every other day of the year, the

lack of daylight makes it feel so much shorter, which is exactly the same kind of feeling as

working with disconnected tools.

Our work days, the same length as always, but before you know it, we spent three hours

just fixing something that was supposed to be automated.

Thankfully, HubSpot's all-in-one CRM platform can serve as a single source of truth for

managing your customer relationships across marketing, sales, service operations with

multiple hubs and over a thousand integrations and an easy-to-use interface.

HubSpot lets you spend less time managing your software and more time connecting with

your customers.

Learn how HubSpot can help you grow your business at HubSpot.com.

HOA Court.

Okay.

So, do you guys have an HOA where you live?

No.

No.

One time, if I remember correctly, Sean, you had an HOA just for a duplex, didn't you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Me and our other person, we had an HOA with an HOA fee.

But we both, as soon as we bought the place, we were like, you know, we're not going to

put $400 into this every day, right?

Like, and we both just agree, we're not putting $400 a month into this.

You have an HOA, Ben?

Yeah.

And I kind of hate it.

So my HOA has been harassing me lately.

I've been getting letters, so I rent, I rent my current place and we live in this neighborhood

and there's some Karen in this neighborhood that just hates me and she's like, oh, I don't

like that you, you know, leave the trash bins out a little, you know, an extra day.

I don't like that you work out on the, like, street and the driveway, like you, no exercise,

no exercise equipment is allowed.

I'm like, what?

Are you exaggerating?

Really?

No, no, there's three complaints.

There's that and then there's another one, which is we get like water delivered, like,

you know, like the, kind of like a water dispenser, so you get these jugs, five gallon jugs.

And so they're like, kind of like, they're like, the guy delivers it to our door, but

he tucks it behind this pillar.

So if you're looking at our house, you can't even see it.

You'd have to like walk up to our, like walk halfway up our thing to go see the thing.

And so somebody just keeps complaining to, and our landlord's like, dude, what's going

on?

Is it look, and he lives in another state.

So he's like, what is this?

Like, can you just, are you like fucking up things?

I'm like, no, I don't do anything wrong.

Okay.

The trash I do leave out a little bit.

But you know, besides that, it's not a big deal.

Like when you're working out the street, is it like just you and your trainer and what

do you do?

Just throw in a medicine ball or something?

No, we're doing lunges.

It's like, dude, I can lunge in the street.

There's nothing.

Or like we have a battle rope that we'll put on a, you know, art, but that's my driveway,

dude.

I can do what I want in my driveway.

And so in my neighborhoods, like mostly really old people that like don't really do it.

Do much.

So, you know, I get it, but I'm not disruptive.

But anyway, so, so this HOA thing, and so I first was like, I was like, okay, I have

two choices.

I can either just quietly resolve the issues, just listen, just move the trash cans in,

put the battle rope inside the garage, only move it out when I want.

And water jugs.

Like, I guess I could pull them inside the door.

It kind of takes up space, but you know, no harm done.

No, you cannot do those.

No, no, no, no, no, number one is not happening.

Right.

Right.

This is war.

And so I went to war.

I was like, you know what, I'm going to waste my time and energy fighting this HOA.

Who is this HOA?

After all, I demanded names.

I demanded to speak to somebody.

I said, they can call me direct next time they have a problem.

I said, here's my number.

I put it out there.

I started to, I said, I started to go take photos of other houses.

I said, I'd like to file some complaints myself.

Oh, what is this children's swing in the front yard?

This person has violation.

Why is this person's garbage cans outside violation?

Why is this person riding their bicycle exercise equipment on the street violation?

And so I started fighting back and I started saying, is it because I'm the only brown guy

in the neighborhood?

Of course.

I was, I was waiting for the race that you had to do that.

You had, I can only wonder what's so different because again, I see violations all around

me now.

And so I'm, I am based, but there's no, my, my complaints are falling on deaf ears and

I'm wasting a bunch of time.

I need HOA court.

It's a judge Judy like show streamed on the Netflix and or YouTube where I can go present

my case and it's a place for petty people to do their thing.

And that's, that's my pitch.

This is actually a show.

It's a TV show.

HOA court.

Or petty court.

Yeah.

Maybe petty court.

Maybe petty is the right way to do it.

I think that's beautiful.

But isn't this do HOA people not have a, what's that called where, um, before you go to court,

you can hire, um, um, arbitration, arbitration, arbitration, arbitration, arbitration, arbitration,

arbitration, mediation.

Yeah.

Uh, is there, what do you do with HOA?

How do you know who wins?

You can't win.

That's the problem.

HOA is this like, you know, ambiguous force that just controls you, even though you, you

know, you pay your hard earned American money to, uh, to, to live in this place, to buy

this land, to live free, but the freedom's not there.

And that's why we need petty court to bring back our freedoms and to put, put these petty

people back in their place.

Do, do you, um, like, do, do you just like reply all to an email?

Well, no, it's like, they, they, they use these agents like cowards.

There's like a, there's like a random HOA email address with like one person behind

it.

It's like, no, who's complaining?

Is the majority of the neighborhood complaining?

Maybe it's a democracy.

Maybe we need 51% complaints for me to change the way I do things.

Why does one person get to change my way of living?

Right?

That's, that sounds a little crazy to me.

I just feel like there's no justice and then when there's no justice, I can't sleep.

And that's my idea.

I want to dig deeper on this because I actually think that it's totally not worth your time

to fight this.

This is, this is a fight.

This fight.

Oh, it's certainly not worth my time.

No, it is.

Definitely.

These fights are worth, are worth, this is what living is for.

I love doing this stuff.

I love fighting with neighbors and like trying to win and like rub their face in it, like

a dog who pees inside.

I love this.

And so is there a way, I don't believe that's considered the best practice anymore.

By the way, for dogs, for dog training, I can deal with HOA.

I don't want PETA coming after us.

Is there, is there a way that you can set a trap and figure out who it is?

Hmm.

I don't know how I would do that.

Oh, I know.

I put a unique letter under the doorstep of everybody in the neighborhood.

I say, listen, I heard about the complaint and I understand.

In fact, I'm sorry that I did what I did.

You know, I would just love to make it up to you.

What's your favorite flavor?

Chocolate or vanilla?

I'll send you a treat because you were right and I was wrong and I just need you to know

that you were so right with your HOA complaint.

So just shoot me your, hey, just text me your favorite flavor.

Honeypot.

Gotcha.

That was actually pretty brilliant.

And you could do one of two things.

You could either say this person's a flavor.

This person, it's a what size t-shirt you are, or you could just get a bunch of different

Google numbers and see which one.

Oh, no, no, even better.

Google, I say, hey, have you guys seen this asshole who lives over here?

Guy keeps putting his, he keeps doing lunges in the street.

Am I right?

Like violence in our neighborhood.

I think we should escalate this.

He's not listening.

I believe it was you who made the complaint, but maybe I have that wrong.

If it was you, I'd like to discuss steps of how we might escalate this issue to make

sure that jerk goes down.

Bring them in, bring them close before I put them, put them away.

I would love for you to do this.

How many people live in the neighborhood, do you think?

How many people are part of an HOA?

No, it's the neighborhood.

It's everybody's default to the end.

It's probably, I don't know, like a hundred, maybe 60 houses, a hundred houses or something

like that.

It's a lot of time and energy.

You don't have to shut down one of my businesses just to do this.

You don't think you know who's doing this?

I have no idea.

Really?

It hurts me because I know there's somebody who walks by smiling at me while I'm working

out in my garage.

I just work out in my garage with the door open, just to have some air, right?

There's no big deal.

I'm allowed to do that in my home gym.

You can't change your behavior.

You have to continue doing it.

Well, I've already bent, but I've brought the water bottles inside and I moved the trash

cans.

You should buy lawn chairs and put them in your front lawn and just hang out there without

a shirt consistently.

I think that's what the move has to be.

That's a gift to the neighborhood.

All right.

Last idea.

Last idea.

All right.

The NBA All-Star game just happened and every sport has this and baseball has the home run

derby, football has the Pro Bowl, NBA has the dunk contest and the All-Star game.

Why does this exist for business?

Is that a thought that's ever crossed your mind?

Why don't we have the tech All-Star game?

Why don't we have the business All-Stars?

I feel like there's an opportunity here to bring together the who's who, I'm just going

to use tech for now.

So bring together the who's who of tech, just the All-Stars, honor them, get them to compete

for our entertainment and just make a weekend out of it.

Right?

Why aren't we treating this like the sport that it is?

So here's how this might work.

Tech All-Star game is basically a hackathon and I get Zuck and I get Larry Page and Sergey

and I go get founders of different mega companies and they're going to perform.

It's going to be live streamed onto YouTube and they're going to have to build something.

They get 24 hours to build something.

So you have an All-Star designer, you got Johnny Ive working with Mark Zuckerberg.

All of a sudden you got Brian Chesky working with, you know, whoever, you know, Sundar or

whatever, you get, you pair these guys up into random combinations and they're going

to have to do a hackathon.

They're going to have to build something and demo it and somebody wins the trophy for

building something cool because you've seen that like Darmesh loves to hack and build

little projects.

I remember when COVID happened, Kevin Systrom, the guy from Instagram, he built this dashboard

that was measuring the viral coefficient and the spread because he's like, hey, these politicians

are just like making statements and we have no source of truth, no dashboard that tells

us how this thing's spreading and how it's not per city.

And that's what we need to look at.

And so he built this dashboard there and I just thought, huh, I wonder what would happen

if you unleashed these types of brains, the all stars in a little competition of their

own, a little hackathon of their own.

What do you think of this idea?

I think if you can, if it's, if the, if the idea is like an award thing, then I think

that's the worst idea you've ever had.

I think that's a horrible idea.

If you think, if it's like a hackathon, no one will ever do that.

But I think it's an interesting exercise and that, and here's my question to you.

If you took, let's say Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, um, uh, the Google guys and the CEO

and you had them do a hackathon, do you think any of them are actually still capable of

making anything?

Like making it, but it would be them on the road.

So you'd pair them with like every team is the all star and all star engineer.

So all start technology person and all star designer and then an all star CEO product

visionary.

No, that's bullshit.

If you want one on one, if it's just that, like, for example, I can't probably build

anything.

He might, you know, he's going to go build like a blog, well, like if it was, if it

was like you and me, it's like, you guys like, you got to go make like a business in the

next like week.

I'm very confident that just me on my own, I could build something that makes money.

Right.

Do you think that, uh, what are the Google guys Sergey and Larry Page?

Do you think that they're capable of actually making anything?

Maybe like, I know Zuck Ken.

So Zuck, when, when Snapchat came out, I remember that, uh, he recognized the threat

that was Snapchat so early on and created Facebook poke.

He literally wrote code into the Facebook poke.

Like they're their competitor that they, they, I think they released it in nine days

or like 19 days or something ridiculous.

And he was one of the lead engineers actually writing code in the project.

Now he doesn't normally do that, but I was like the story at least.

Do you think I think he could, I think very few others could.

I remember so Mike, Michael Berger, who, who built Bebo, he was a programmer, right?

He's a programmer's programmer.

He built four or five startups that were all interesting and successful and we did a hack

week and I invited Michael, I was like, Michael, come hang out.

Don't just be Mr. Investor, you know, far away.

Like come hang with us, live in our, like we're staying in your cabin.

So like just come hang with us.

And he came and I was like, you want to, you want to build something?

We're all building these little like, you know, apps.

And he's like, well, um, don't exactly know JavaScript.

Like the languages I know aren't really used anymore and I don't really remember a lot

of it.

And I haven't coded in years.

My machine is not even set up to do it.

So, uh, you know, I don't even know what I could build at this point.

And so he cooked us dinner instead.

And then later he got back into programming, he's like, oh yeah, like, okay, now I got

my machine set up.

I'm, you know, I'm using Python learning the new languages instead of the old stuff.

But he like ramped up over time and now he loves to code.

He codes all the time.

But I think when I put him on the spot, when he hasn't been doing it, no, he was, it was

tough for him to just like go build something.

Even though he's an engineer.

Let me tell you something really quick.

This isn't that shocking because I didn't exactly own a tech company, but I made a,

I owned a company that made tens of millions of dollars on the internet.

When you use words like Python and JavaScript or whatever you said, I have literally no

idea what those are.

Like for real, I don't know how programming works.

Try to guess.

What is Python?

Well, it's like a language, but I don't know, like, I don't know what you use it for.

I don't know what it does.

When people talk about like Ruby on Rails, I'm like, so there's like a Java on Rails.

Like how, like, is there like, I literally don't know what the words.

What are these rails you speak of?

Yeah.

Or they'll be like, well, this is CSS and this is HTML.

And this is, I'm like, I don't know, like, is one of those like the outdoor siting of

the home.

And like, like, I do like an analogy.

I still to this day, I have no idea what they mean.

This is like when I told you, you know, I go into home improvement, they're like, okay,

so is it a drywall or, and I'm like, it's not wet, like, wait, what do you mean?

Can you give me four or five types of walls with some photos and I can tell you which

one it looks most like?

Can we do like a prison lineup here and I'll point to the wall that looks most like my

wall?

Like, when people talk about this stuff, so the way that we worked at my company was

I would sit with the engineer and I would just draw, I'm like the website, it probably

should look something like this and I'll write the words that I should say.

And once you click this button, let me draw the second thing that you should see.

And I would give that I would give it to them and it would work somehow.

And I, and I to this day, I have no idea how any of those things work.

Yeah.

And who needs to I used to, I used to be like, oh, I wish I knew how to code.

I'd be so much better if I knew how to code and I would love to learn how to code.

I'm still actually, I'm still like kind of at night, I'm taking this like, you know,

you to me course on Python or something like that.

And then our buddy Sully was like, he's like, yeah, people say that and he's like, I used

to know how to code.

He's like dumbest thing ever, who cares how to code?

He's like, you could pay somebody here, here's a guy in India, he can code whatever you

want.

You just tell him, he'll do it.

He's like, why are you so obsessed with knowing, knowing why?

I actually totally disagree with him.

I think that the, the key is at least you knew how to do it.

So then, um, and if you don't want to do it anymore, that's fine.

But I actually think that when there's been times where I've talked to my developer and

in my head, I'm like, well, you just got to click this button and you see this.

And they're like, well, you don't even have to click the button, you know, like this technology,

the way it works is you can do, I'm like, that, that works.

That's a possibility.

Like I don't even know, I wish I knew how to code so I knew what frameworks I could

like work within because when that, as someone who doesn't know how to code, I'm like, how

do you, how did you, I didn't even know that's possible.

Like, you know what I mean?

It's like asking someone in 1800 to like explain to them how text messages work.

It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what the hell is a phone, let alone, you know what I mean?

And that's how I feel sometimes when we're talking about coding.

So I think that's true.

I actually agree and disagree with what he said.

So I agree in the sense that I used to think, I used to have this story in my head that

if I, if I knew that, then I'd be able to be, do so much more and I don't believe that

that's true.

I think that anything I wanted to do, I could do by just, you know, hiring one of many,

many programmers out there or using a no code tool.

It is actually not holding me back and I can get the same result whether I do it or not.

The part I disagree with is I think it's really awesome to be able to have an idea in your

head and be able to make it happen yourself because there's a huge lossy-ness in trying

to explain to something else, explain something that's in your head that's kind of fuzzy to

somebody else.

Having them download your fuzzy picture, then they output it in an even fuzzier way.

It's like a game of telephone and it comes out very different.

A lot of times like when I write something or like, like if somebody says, all right,

can you help me with this email?

I'm like, yeah, but you got to give me the keyboard.

And they're like, well, no, like I'll type it and I'm like, no, you don't understand.

Like I don't just think of the email.

I write the email and while I'm writing it, I think of what to say.

Like I can't create content in my head, I create it while I'm doing it.

And I think most great things that get created are like that.

You're building it and while you're building it, you're sort of like figuring out what

you want to build and like playing with the idea live.

And that's what gets separated when you're not the builder yourself.

And so I am jealous that I don't get to do that when it comes to building apps.

And let me ask you one more question.

So let's just say that we took some of the big folks.

I actually, I won't use Elon because he's proven it, but like you take the guy who

started Snapchat, Evan, I think, Zuck, the Google folks, Bezos, maybe not Bezos because

he's also proven it, but you take them and you strip away like what they've done and

they're the same age, but you know, they've just been like an insurance agent their whole

life.

Do you think in one scenario, do you think that they could still accomplish something

great?

And then on the other side, let's just say that they decided at the same time when they

were young, nineteen and starting Facebook, let's just say that like, you know, instead

of Facebook, I'm going to focus on like music or this like music app, like still tech, but

just like a slightly different version.

Do you think that they would be even remotely as big and successful as they as they are?

So the second question I think is much easier to answer, which is I think all of those people

would be very successful by any like kind of objective measure, but would they be people

that we know their name, we talk about them and their, you know, hundred billionaire,

you know, status?

No, you know, I do not think that's true.

I think luck plays a part in the magnitude of the success, but not the probability of

success.

So I think all of them, the probability of success for them is all 90 plus percent.

They would all be good at what they do, positive impact, you know, make millions of dollars

over their career and be like considered top of their field and whatever field they go

to.

So the magnitude of success, the fact that they end up, you know, basis ends up being

worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

That I think is much more luck of the bounce on which opportunity you took versus others.

So yeah, so that's kind of my answer to the second one.

What would you say?

I agree.

I think that, so for example, there's this guy named David Karp, you know who David Karp

is?

He's the Tumblr guy, right?

He invented Tumblr and Tumblr basically sold to Yahoo.

I think for a billion, was it, was it a billion?

It sold for a lot of money, but he's tor, then they shut it down.

Tumblr's totally not existent anymore and he, uh, he doesn't, I don't even know what

he does.

He just, he's not relevant.

And I think that a guy like him who I've seen talk and I've heard and I've read his writing,

he's pretty brilliant.

And I'm like, man, if Tumblr had not sold, or if you were working on something else,

I think you could have been way better.

Another one is the guy who created Meetup.

Um, Scott, I think his name is, uh, he is amazing too.

But Meetup is not that big of a, that wasn't that big, it wasn't that interesting.

I think if that guy would have worked on something else, it actually would have, he

would have been significantly more successful and, and some of these guys, it's kind of

like their Lance Armstrong and they're riding the Tour de France in a mountain bike or with

a flat tire.

It's like, man, you, that was needlessly hard.

If you could have been way better if, if you, if you just pick a different thing.

The level 10 hustle, level 10 skill, level six opportunity, right?

Meetup to me is like a level six opportunity.

It was just like a really hard space to go into.

He did the best of anybody who went into that space.

We all know the name because of that reason, but Meetup just wasn't as big as not meeting

your friends in real life and only talking to them online through Facebook, right?

Like Facebook was just a far larger opportunity.

And I don't think it was that Zuck knew that.

So I don't think it's that they're so kind of like, um, big brain that they just, they

filter out bad, like best idea.

I think, you know, like there's a lot of text messages that get leaked from Zuck early

on and he was, he thought Wirehog was going to be the, the real thing.

He was like, you know, still debating.

I don't know if I should do Facebook.

When Facebook was like already a thing and working and he's like, he's like, I think,

you know, this is this stuff that we're doing right now is going to really help us when

we do Wirehog, which is like a file transfer protocol that he just thought might be bigger.

And um, you know, obviously at some point he recognized, no, this is the opportunity.

Let me do this.

But like it's not like upfront, he just said, I analyzed a hundred opportunities and I've

identified the one that's going to be this app that has like billions of users.

I don't believe that that's true at all.

I think you sort of look into the size of the opportunity and the era that you were born.

You know, these guys, if they were born before the tech wave, they might have just been the

best blacksmith in town and not had like any of the tools that lets you become a hundred

billionaire because there's was no leverage available to you, you know, a hundred years

ago or whatever.

Yeah, I, uh, by the way, Michael Chandler and Justin Gayche, they, uh, they fought like

three months ago.

These are two UFC guys and they're both known for us for kind of being like big meat heads

who just stand in the middle and bang and hit each other really hard.

And they don't, they're just, they're just kind of crazy.

And Justin Gayche at the end said something amazing.

He goes, I love the, he had just suffered this like three round war where they're banging

each other in the head as hard as I can.

And you feel sad because you're like, this guy has going to brain damage.

And at the end he goes, what just happened, I love it.

He goes, I feel like I was born in the wrong era.

I should have been a Roman gladiator because I would have loved to fight to the death in

front of all you people.

And I, and I heard that, it gave me chills.

I was like, I believe you, you're, you and I are not the same.

You're crazy.

Like you are built to be a warrior.

And sometimes I think about that.

I'm like, who today, like, er, I think like who was like, like Alexander the great.

If we put him in like today's era, like would he just be like too brutish and we'd be like,

dude, you're an idiot bounce, like get out of here.

You dumb idiot.

Or like if Napoleon came into play nowadays, like a dating app.

Yeah.

Like what would, like, what would like the gladiators of then be working on now?

Like would they just like, well, let's ask our historian, Ben, you study these guys.

What do you think if you transplanted Alexander the great or Napoleon into this era or Edison,

would he be like, what are you a dating app?

Really?

That's so stupid.

Or would he think that that's the coolest thing ever?

I wish I could have done this.

I doubt Edison would be into dating apps.

But I like, I was on my Alexander the great episode.

One of the points I made is I was just reading this book about Alexander the great and it

talked about a contract that he negotiated with one of his contractors, one of his suppliers

to move their baggage train from one area to another.

And I was just like, oh, this is like not that different.

Like he had contracts that he had to negotiate and he had suppliers who provided his weapons

and like logistics.

And he just contracted them out and he had people in charge of the contracts and like

had basically kind of the same organization that CEOs have.

So I think like, yeah.

So Alexander the great.

I think he'd be a, his personality, he'd probably be like a CEO.

Edison would be like a entrepreneur kind of technical, but moves out of it like a Zuck.

Like yeah, yeah, that's interesting.

I think about that all the time about like what like the, the, you know, people who dominated

from hundreds of years ago, what would they be like today and vice versa.

I'm like, dude, if, if Zuck didn't learn how to use a computer, like would that guy

had just been a dork like in the 1800s, like what could he even have survived the plague?

Like you know what I mean?

And so I think about that all the time.

Cool.

Guys, I gotta run.

All right.

End of episode.

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.

We're looking back.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.

Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) and Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) share some "drunk business ideas." Ideas that sound ridiculous... but might actually work.
-----
* 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:
(02:25) - Very long distance girlfriend
(10:00) - Extremely large beds
(17:10) - HOA Court
(25:30) - Business Olympics
-----
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