How a $200 Doorbell Became a $4B Business

Get the cheat sheet: Jamie's 5 steps to build a $1B product from a $200 idea: https://clickhubspot.com/ajn Episode 768: Sam Parr ( ⁠https://x.com/theSamParr⁠ ) and Shaan Puri ( ⁠https://x.com/ShaanVP⁠ ) talk to Ring founder Jamie Siminoff ( https://x.com/JamieSiminoff ) about the wild story of building and selling Ring–plus business ideas he thinks someone should go after. — Show Notes: (0:00) Intro (2:47) Selling Ring for $1.15B (6:48) Getting sued by ADT (17:18) Working with Jeff Bezos (19:29) $400M to $4B (24:02) Getting the wire (26:44) Money v freedom (28:29) Rule 1: Start with the problem (30:02) Rule 2: Little solution, massive market (33:31) Idea: Modern bug control ($5-10B idea) (40:35) Rule 3: The snowball approach (43:54) Ding Dong and other must reads (46:32) The Tom Brady philosophy on hiring (51:33) The too hard pile (54:25) Stickwithitness (56:14) Last mile marketing (58:08) Rebuilding a town — Links: • Ding Dong - https://tinyurl.com/3zrsjete • Ring - https://ring.com/ — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents. • Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies! Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N. A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/ My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano //

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Shaan Puri?

  Jamie created Ring Doorbell.

• 0:01Sam Parr?

  You sold it for like a billion dollars, right?

• 0:03Speaker 02

  1.15.

• 0:04Shaan Puri?

  The part after his decimal point is worth more than our entire career so far. I want to brainstorm business ideas with you. I want to see how you think.

• 0:12Speaker 02

  Is there a five or 10 billion dollar company hiding in the bug space? Probably they're it.

• 0:17Sam Parr?

  You said, I just don't know how to stop. And sometimes it's not smart and it costs me.

• 0:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. You're gonna make me cry, Sam? You're gonna, you're gonna do this?

• 0:25Speaker 03

  I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.

• 0:34Sam Parr?

  So Sean, listen, if you're like me, you woke up this morning, you roll out of bed, you check businessinsider.com and you read this amazing article about Jamie and it just says, I'm Jamie and I'm the CEO of Ring and I have the world's worst morning routine. And it's a whole article about how he rolls out of bed, he scrolls his phone for about four hours.

• 0:54Speaker 02

  Everything he says he shouldn't do, like immediately, like all the wrong shit, like everything.

• 1:00Sam Parr?

  That was the whole article about how JB has the world's worst routine.

• 1:04Shaan Puri?

  Good PR strategy, right? Like they sit down with you and they're like, hey, we need to get some cool like tech billionaire weirdo stuff. What do you got? And you're like, nope, don't have anything. So they're like, okay, we're gonna use that.

• 1:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm like the average guy from Missouri.

• 1:17Sam Parr?

  Are you from Missouri?

• 1:19Speaker 02

  I'm from New Jersey, but I tell people I'm from Missouri now because I have this farm in Missouri and I've decided that there's no reason why you can't just be from Missouri.

• 1:29Sam Parr?

  Guess where I'm from, Jamie? Do you just look at me and guess?

• 1:31Speaker 02

  Missouri.

• 1:32Sam Parr?

  I'm from Missouri.

• 1:33Speaker 02

  Where?

• 1:34Sam Parr?

  St. Louis.

• 1:35Speaker 02

  So I, my farm is in LaBelle, Missouri. So I'm in, I'm from Missouri. You're from Missouri. You're more like a city folk, but we are two and a half hours north of St. Louis.

• 1:46Shaan Puri?

  Dude, I love how he just out-Missouri'd you, even though you were actually born and raised there. And he just actually was like, you're a city slicker, not a real, true Missourian.

• 1:55Speaker 02

  We don't like you folk.

• 1:56Sam Parr?

  This is like, you're going to like Tony Soprano and being like, actually, Tony, it's brishtah.

• 2:03Shaan Puri?

  So let me tee this up. All right. So I did a call with Jamie and it was super fun. Jamie created, if you've ever seen a doorbell that has a camera on it. This is the inventor. This is the man who did it. He created Ring Doorbell, grew it, sold it to Amazon for tons of money. And I was like, hey, I want to kind of have you on the podcast and brainstorm business ideas with you. I want to see how you think, how do you approach businesses? And he's like, I believe, I don't know the exact quote, but it was something like, you know, ideas are like my drug of choice. And he's like, I have this list on my phone of like thousands of ideas. Which one do you want? Yeah, exactly.

• 2:41Shaan Puri?

  And so, um, so I want to do that. Sam, you saw the doc that he sent over, which is, gives us kind of bullet point ideas. We don't know what he's going to say, but bullet point ideas. Where do you want to start?

• 2:49Sam Parr?

  Wait, can I ask a question before we get in? How much, you sold it for like a billion dollars, right?

• 2:53Speaker 02

  Uh, 1.15, but I mean, if you want to, you can round down if you want to. I mean.

• 2:58Sam Parr?

  Okay. Okay. So we're talking to a guy who, you know, you have a billion dollar company.

• 3:02Shaan Puri?

  The part after his decimal point is worth more than our entire career so far.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  I think you do have to point out, I did sell it for a billion when a billion was a lot of money. Just, just.

• 3:11Shaan Puri?

  Back when billion was cool.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  Back when a billion was actually like you could buy more than a cup of coffee with it.

• 3:14Shaan Puri?

  Well, can we actually go to that story? Do you remember kind of where you, I guess, I've always curious about two things. One, was there a good negotiation story or like a throw out a number story of like, how do you arrive at that 1.15 billion? And then like, how did that come about?

• 3:29Speaker 02

  I mean, what was cool with Amazon is, you know, from the, we had been working with them on stuff for years. So I, I actually went to Amazon and showed this guy, Nick Camoros, the ring before we launched Ring, because we had been talking to them. They were with Alexa and stuff. They were looking at, sort of, they were trying to reach out to all the small IOT people at the time. There was a lot of little hardware things bubbling up. So I even like literally like brought them the first one and showed it to them. So we had been working together for a long time. We were very like aligned on like mission, what we're trying to do. They started to look at video, realizing like with Alexa, they had, you know, the kind of, they call it the ears in the home. And they started to see the eyes and saw what we were doing. We had this, you know, kind of like

• 4:12Speaker 02

  dating awkward, because we, we would talk all the time. We'd meet and, you know, Nick said, let me come down and, um, let's have lunch, which was kind of not that abnormal. And we're sitting there and it's like, you know, we should kind of go to the next level here. And it was this like very funny, like dating conversation of like. You know, it's like where you don't want to just like jump out and be like, okay, let's do it. You know, it's like, and it's like, do what? You know, so, so it's like, we keep going back and forth like, so you mean? And he's like, yeah. And I'm like, two. And like, we kept going back. And then he finally said, yeah, like, it's time we should combine. And, you know, not, not a merger of equals, by the way, but that Amazon should buy you. What was your revenue then? Do you know? Uh, we were, so that was 2017. So we, that year, we did 480 million.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  Okay, so you guys were just huge. Was it a profitable business or were you burning money and you had to figure out? Here's what's so interesting is like, it was the, like, the, of each, like, the individual customer economics were insanely good. So the, the, like, the fundamentals of the business, like, the actual, like, business was good. It was growing so fast that, like, money was just being lit on fire everywhere. And it's not that we, like, we, we had crappy offices. Like, it's just, you have to hire so fast to get ahead. Just think about like customer service. When you're growing at like 500% a year, and if customer service takes three to six months, like a person you hire to get up to speed,

• 5:38Speaker 02

  that means you're hiring like two to three X what you need at that exact time. Yeah. Just so that you can like not blow up as people are buying and the growth. So you're just, you're just like putting out all this cash to do this stuff. So, I mean, you start to think about it, it's like, it sounds cool, but then, like, when you're doing 170 million and you're ordering for 480 million, it means like if anything slows down, I mean, you are just like, you're dead. Right. It's like, on one side, yeah, I'm sitting there with Nick and I have this, I have a $480 million a business that's growing, you know, triple digits still, like literally triple digits at that, at that scale, which is insane. And the other side is like, and I'm going out of business every day. Like, every day I'm facing basically like the wall, like, we're gonna hit the wall.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  And the only way to stop that is you raise a little money, you get a little financing, something else comes in. Like, so it was getting to a point where I just couldn't handle it. Like, I was, you know, I was sort of, the stress was getting to me. I mean, it was, you know, it was years of just like that. And then we, we kind of got into, you know, started to get in the negotiation. During the negotiation, and so I wrote this book, and part of why I wrote the book is like, this story, I mean, it's a, it's like a bit of a longer story, which is why a book is good, but. During the negotiation, I get sued by ADT, probably for something that was a little bit self-induced, to be fair. They win an injunction and literally, I mean, and this

• 7:04Speaker 02

  is like, you can't make this up. Nick calls me and he's, you know, I'm gonna send you a term sheet over, you know, tomorrow morning, just FYI. Great. An hour later, the injunction hits us. I have to call Nick back and be like, hey, just FYI, like, not a big deal at all. Doesn't, you know, shouldn't matter, like, shouldn't matter at all. But like, just like, as a FYI, we did get an injunction from ADT on this lawsuit. And he's like, dude, we're out.

• 7:31Shaan Puri?

  Wow.

• 7:32Speaker 02

  And what does that mean? So ADT was suing you for, for what? So we had been building an alarm. They had a, like, a company that they had some part of that they were sort of invested in that was building it. They stopped funding it. The company went out of, basically shut down. I hired all the people from there. They told me I couldn't hire all the people from there. I told them in a very respectful way. You know, I said, like, you know, please and thank yous. No, I was like a total asshole. And I was like, so dumb. And I just like, I, again, I-

• 8:05Shaan Puri?

  You poked the bear.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  I poked the bear. And it's like, looking back, it's funny, because it's the same, like, insanity and passion that, like, gets a company to go from 170 to 480 is also the person that blows it up. It's like, you know, it is like the demolition man of like, you know, it's the, the same person that can use the demolition to like, clear the way for the road is also who can like, blow everything up for everyone.

• 8:27Shaan Puri?

  It's my favorite Elon thing of all time. When he goes on Saturday Night Live and he goes, you know, I took all my money and I spent it on trying to get rockets that will take us to Mars and electric cars. And he's like, what did you think? I'd just be a normal, chill dude. And it's like, oh, actually, that explains so much. Of course, we can't have one, we can't have mad genius. And then also, you know, stable, respectful, peaceful, reasonable man over here. It can't be unreasonable in one area and totally reasonable in the other.

• 8:55Speaker 02

  And I think that's the problem. It's like, it's just true. Like, if you want to do something, I mean, Ring is a- One in a whatever generation company and like I say that as someone who like looks at it and I can't believe I'm even part of it like it's incredible. I mean it's it's avert like people just call it a ring like it's it's I mean to build something like that is incredible. And so yes, like you probably have some traits that are very strong, but those can cut both ways. And so, you know, when the person from ADT calls you and you're like, you know, like you're like in this sort of vortex of doing stuff, you know, maybe you don't sort of take the time to say like, why don't I just come to you? Why don't we sit down like we're two humans and work this out? And by the way,

• 9:36Speaker 02

  I'm it'd be funny to like now go back like I'm sure if I had just flown there, sat down for dinner with them, I really actually feel like they probably just like, like, fine, whatever. We're good. Like, we just wanted to like, talk, you know, so kind of like, we just wanted to talk to you. Instead, I was like, you know, like lunatic, you know, doing stuff. And they sort of said, well, why don't we teach you some business? And so they, they did. And to be fair, like, whatever. And so that that was very, you know, turned out to be fairly painful.

• 10:06Sam Parr?

  All right. So you guys are about to get to the best part of the podcast. This is the part where we asked Jamie how he comes up with new ideas for businesses, how he came up with the idea of Ring, but also a lot of the other projects that he's looking into starting. And he's got this amazing name. It's called the Snowball Method, meaning he likes to find very small ideas that can eventually become big. But the problem is that these ideas are so small that people don't notice them or they forget about them. And so here's what we did. We went and looked at what he's going to talk about on this podcast, which you're gonna hear because you're gonna get to it. But then he's talked about the Snowball Method on a bunch of other podcasts. And we went and broke it down into a really easy to understand methodology. And so if you're interested in solving these four questions, this guide, it's for you. So it's how do you spot billion dollar ideas? How do you get inside boring problems? Number two, what early stage moves actually validated Ring before it took off? Number three, how do you keep momentum when your business feels

• 10:51Sam Parr?

  stuck or you're on the brink? And number four, what critical decisions make or break a founder's path from $200 to a billion dollars? And so if this type of thing interests you, which I think it does because you're listening to My First Million, you can get the link in the description below.

• 11:07Shaan Puri?

  So you call the guy, you're like, hey, feel silly even bringing this up, but there's a little lawsuit you should probably know about. And then they, he's like, we're out.

• 11:16Speaker 02

  Out.

• 11:16Shaan Puri?

  And you're thinking, well, look, you drafted the term sheet. Anyways, just go ahead and send it over. And he's like, no, no, no, we're out. So how did it go back on?

• 11:23Speaker 02

  I said, why don't we just keep the negotiation going? And like, you know, if I settle this thing out, then like, we're good. He's like, dude, we're not like, Amazon's like, not done. Like, it's like, basically like pencils down until whatever. On the flip side, which was great, is I had a safety net. So like, don't worry, I'm totally fine. Like, I'm going into this Amazon deal with a safety net, which is if we don't do the Amazon deal, I'm going to raise $200 million. So I also had to call them and say, just FYI, like, I know this deal, like, we're about to close it for this money. And just FYI, like, we had this little injunction on that little thing that I kind of said that was not going to be a big deal. And they're like, yeah, we're out too. It's like, the two doors I was looking at is like, selling to Amazon or raising $200

• 12:08Speaker 02

  million. It was the first time I was going to take secondary money off. So I was going to actually take some money off the table and meaningful money. Like, it would have been like, real for me. And so those are like, the two things I was like, sort of looking at going into the holidays, basically. And all of a sudden, both those doors evaporated. And now we're negative, like, 70 million in the bank, because we didn't plan the cash flow, because it was like, one of these doors is going to happen. You're not going to raise more money. Like, I mean, you're not going to raise like, a third set of money. Like, you know, so, so all of a sudden, we like, go to like, basically, we are like, technically like, a bankrupt company almost immediately.

• 12:48Shaan Puri?

  Okay, go on. I'm hooked. So what happens? And for more importantly, what's the conversation you have with yourself in that moment? Because I think, you know, there's what you did, but there's also what you said to yourself before you figured out what to do.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. So what's, like, so again, to traits that are good, like, the one thing I do have, which is probably, you know, has kept us from completely blowing the place up. When things really hap- like when things are really, really bad, I go into like a pilot checklist. Like I am just like deadpan calm. We gotta do this. We gotta do this. So I'm like, we have to, we're going in the holidays. We have to sell everything. We have to like break every record. We have to like, it's like the only way to survive is just like, we gotta like do this.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  And we also have to stop paying our bills to anyone that can't like, you know, actually like tow us away. And so we did that too, which was pretty, that was, and that's, that's not fun because like you're calling people that have worked, you know, vendors and you're like, hey, listen, like I, I know. But if you, if you like stop shipping this, we're dead. If we're dead, everything you've already sent is dead. Like, you know, it's just, it's a bit of like, it, it, it's not a conversation you want to have. It's everyone's problem at that point. Yeah. It's horrible. Like it's just, it's just like a bad, it's a bad situation. And then did the lawsuit go away? So we, like, we're going through whatever we go, it's crazy as we go through, um, you know, black, back Black Friday, Cyber Monday, like that whole sort of week.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  We literally blow out like every, like everything's like, Ring is just the, it's the product of the holidays. Like it's the number one seller at Best Buy. Like it's just literally like on fire. So.

• 14:22Shaan Puri?

  By the way, on that, if this wasn't happening, how much less do you think in sales you would have had, you know, like percent wise? How much do you think you got extra just with the forcing function of necessity?

• 14:33Speaker 02

  At least, there's definitely like, probably like low double, like 10%, 15% at least, at least.

• 14:39Shaan Puri?

  And was it just your intensity? Cause it's like, we have to, or did you come up with a new idea? What'd you do?

• 14:44Speaker 02

  We did everything, like every social post, every this, like, I mean, we just had people, like we did, like, yeah, you just like, you put it all in the field. Like you just like send in your best everybody. So we just went crazy. But it for sure, I think for sure that was a part of it. Uh, but we need, like, we needed to, like, we needed to, like, literally break every number, blow everything out.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  And still with that, like, it wasn't clear that we would live. It just felt like it was gonna be more likely you'd live if you were blowing it out than not.

• 15:16Speaker 02

  And so we doing that, and then all of a sudden ADT calls and says, hey, would you like to talk, you know, settlement? It's like, it's like, imagine, like, imagine if you had like. You know, someone's like, literally like, you have no oxygen, you know, and they're like, hey, would you like a little oxygen? You're like, I'd love some oxygen. And so we went and they were actually like, pretty like fair. And once we settled like that, like, everything else was amazing. It was this weird thing where like, everything underneath was like, the best ever. And we had this just one cloud that, that, that moved everyone away. And as soon as that dissipated and went away, like, it was, you know, I mean, so we basically, it was like December 9th or something, you know, that we settle, um, which

• 16:01Sam Parr?

  That's pretty fast. That's, that's really fast, right?

• 16:04Speaker 02

  It was, you go to this, like, it's this thing, you go to like this, um, um, this office where there's like two conference rooms and this, this judge, like a retired judge, where he walks back and forth between these like two conference rooms, like you're in one, there in the other. And you stay, just keep going back and forth all day. And then it's the craziest thing. Like, finally, they're like, okay. And you're like, okay. And then you sign it. And you're like, are this is done? And they're like, it's done. I'm like, done, done. I kept like, it was like, like, you know, like a Laurel and Hardy, like, done, done, done, done. And then, you know, I called, I literally, I called Amazon and just said, just FYI, I settled. And they said, okay. Like, it was like, you know, like, that's all, like, we love the business. We just didn't, you know, we didn't want to get involved

• 16:46Speaker 02

  in that. And so once it was settled, they, oh, that was like December 9th or whatever. December 31st, we signed for 1.15 billion to sell it.

• 16:54Sam Parr?

  Wait, so the deal closed 30 days later?

• 16:57Speaker 02

  Uh, so we signed the LOI, like, the binding LOI, like, literally, like, less than 30 days.

• 17:02Sam Parr?

  So did you shop it around as well?

• 17:05Speaker 02

  I, I, I didn't. Um, for a number of reasons. The, the biggest one was, I did not know of another buyer that would back our mission. So we were very missionary around making neighborhoods safer.

• 17:19Shaan Puri?

  What were your interactions like with Jeff Bezos?

• 17:23Speaker 02

  Jeff loves entrepreneurs so much that they've learned not to have him

• 17:29Speaker 02

  you know, involved in the purchasing because I think Jeff would just be like, I love you, man. Like, he's like, Jeff's so great. And so, so I didn't actually, I mean, I had met him like once before, but I didn't really kind of know him. And so really, it was post deal that I got to really start to spend some time with him. And he is just one of the greatest people ever for lots of reasons. I'd say the number one is he's just like a good human.

• 17:52Shaan Puri?

  Do you have any good Bezos stories of like, you know, it's because rare that you, you know, get to actually interact with or in your case, work with, because there's always levels to the game, right? I meet people who I think I'm doing great, then I meet somebody, I'm like, wow, that person's got a different level of intensity, or they're a different level of sharpness, or they ask a different style of question. And so you, but you don't know until you meet them, right? You don't even know what level 12 looks like until you see level 12.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:16Shaan Puri?

  And so I'm just curious, like, did you have any moments like that with Bezos?

• 18:20Speaker 02

  Definitely many, many moments. I'd say the biggest thing I took away from Jeff is he's the most positive person I've ever met in like the weirdest way because he gets shit done. So it's not like he's like, just like, hey, good job, guys. You know, it's like, but he's able to just like be so patient on things. And just like, he like sees the future and he's just very patient and very positive. And so I've, I've tried to, it's definitely different than my personality, you know, I'm sort of more like, you know, punch a wall, kind of like run around, yell a little bit more like, it's just a kind of like more like that, like, maybe like inventor passion, but he has taught me to sort of try to, like, just be a little bit calmer and let

• 19:03Speaker 02

  things sort of work themselves out versus like forcing everything. I think maybe that's the biggest learning.

• 19:09Sam Parr?

  And why have you stayed this? I mean, how the, the deal was what 10 years ago, five years?

• 19:13Speaker 02

  It's 2018, so seven, seven years ago.

• 19:16Sam Parr?

  Why, why are you still there? I mean, obviously, I mean, money is probably a big part of it, but is there?

• 19:21Shaan Puri?

  Oh dude, mission. He's gonna say mission. I could bet anything. He's gonna say the mission.

• 19:27Sam Parr?

  Money.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  No, I actually, so in 2023, I ended up stepping down. I was just, you know, I'd taken the company almost 10x it from when we got to Amazon, brought it profitable. Like, I felt like I had delivered like the package. I'm like, here it is.

• 19:45Sam Parr?

  It's pretty amazing. So you grew it to 4 billion revenue?

• 19:48Speaker 02

  Around there, yeah.

• 19:50Sam Parr?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:51Sam Parr?

  That's wild.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  So it, you know, the thing just kept growing. It just kept like, it's just insane. And so I, I finally was just like, I am, I'm feeling like super burnt out on just the like a whole thing. I stepped back and I, and I did realize I missed just, I just missed like rank. Like I missed the, the mission. I missed what we're building. I love like, yeah, I'm an inventor at heart and being able to be at Amazon, you can invent at scale. So, you know, an inventor, the best thing for an inventor is like, see your invention out there.

• 20:22Sam Parr?

  Yeah, but it's pretty amazing that like most inventor, I mean, I mean, there's many inventors that are successful. Dyson, there's, you know, Edison was a good businessman, but, uh, you know, uh, maybe, maybe Musk would be an inventor. I'm not sure who else, but, but typically the stereotype of an inventor is someone who's got like two different matching socks. And like, they don't like know how to do anything, um, other than like invent and they're a little bit messy and whatever. But it sounds like you actually knew how to operate.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  I, I would say I've used invention around operation, but I don't operate, I certainly don't operate in a normal way. So, um, like I've never had a staff meeting, like everyone's always like, you know, what day do you do your, your staff meeting on? I'm like, I've none, um, cause I've never had one. We never had an all hands meeting at the company and like, so we, you do things when you need to. So there's a lot of things like, I don't have those like processes of how to like run a business.

• 21:11Sam Parr?

  Dude, you are exactly like, you know who he's like, Sean? 100%.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  Who?

• 21:15Sam Parr?

  Elon, um, the card game.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, Elon Lee, yeah, Elon Lee.

• 21:19Sam Parr?

  Elon Lee, oh man, he had the exact same mentality where he was like, yeah, we don't do this at the company. We're, whereas Sean and I were like, wait, but I thought everyone had to do all hands. He's like, well, I thought about the reason why, and we just invented a different way to do it.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. And I think if you can turn, like, again, like it's still inventing, like it's like, just like, just cause it's not a, like a physical product or just cause it's internal, doesn't mean it's not an invention. So I do love that, like, you can use invention across the board. And especially like how you build a business. I, I would say like, I mean, this is where Dyson, I think, and I don't, I don't know him, but he's like, he's like my mentor. I just, it's like the mentor I don't know. But like, look at what Dyson's been able to do by having built a great business. Like, if he hadn't built a great business, he'd just be a guy in a barn somewhere in like Oxfordshire or some shit. And instead, you know, he's like able to like build all this crazy good stuff and have this company. So I think I did feel like the business was something you needed in order to be able to like

• 22:17Speaker 02

  get your inventions out there bigger. And that's, that's kind of what Ring has been. And then being at Amazon, like, that's just like, you know, a thousand X that.

• 22:26Shaan Puri?

  Was there a moment in those early days for Ring where it went from not working? Like, it's not a thing to it's a thing, like an inflection point where, you know, or did it take off right away as soon as you had the product? People started buying it?

• 22:38Speaker 02

  It certainly, you know, looking back, it probably took off more than I thought. Cause like being inside of it, you're sort of dealing with the problem. So you don't really see it as easily. Like, again, when I wrote the book, I kind of like was able to like go back and like, think about all of what was happening and look at it in a different light. And so it was 2016. My wife was out trick or treating. I was away on something. And that was like the year she called and she's like, this is, you're, it's like every house has a ring. She's like, this is insane. And I think you really felt it because like they're literally trick or treating and like, they're like hitting like the ring like every house.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  So I think there was like some moments like that. Dude, that's gotta be like one of the most proud moments ever where you're like, my wife is seeing it. I mean, like, we would literally drive around, I mean, early like and yell like when we saw a ring on a house, like it was like, that was like a, and then we kind of had to stop the ring game because it like, it was like, you just became yelling ring the whole time. But, but early on, yeah, I mean, it's like, and as an inventor, like that's, that was, you know, if I, I never felt like it was successful until we got the wire, just because I felt like it could blow up. But I did feel like I had created something meaningful and had that like satisfaction of that just by seeing like seeing these on everyone's front door and the stories that then they created,

• 23:59Speaker 02

  like the, you know, stopping a crime, doing whatever, like those, those were the things that were like, that was amazing.

• 24:04Shaan Puri?

  I'm curious, the wire hits, we've asked a bunch of people about this on the podcast because it's a, you know, it's a moment you look forward to as a founder like, like crazy, but you know, it's hard to actually get there. And we've had some guys say, yeah, with the wire hit, you know, he's like, I went to the ATM the next five days just to print balance. You know, never pushed that button before, but I was just so excited. Or, um, you know, some people feel lost, you know, right afterwards. I guess like, wire hits, what, uh, where were you and what was going through your mind?

• 24:31Speaker 02

  So I had booked, um, I don't know if you know this company, Task Us, but, um, the, the, it's a great public company now. The founders are friends that were, you know, kind of kids from Santa Monica that I had known, uh, that started it. And they asked me to speak at their customer conference like six months earlier. And it was in New York, just like on whatever, some random day in April of 2018. Because of how everything happens, like you sell, like you finally announce it, then the government has to inspect it. Then even after that, there's like, they have to like file stuff and whatever. So you like the actual wire date is not like any of those dates. It's kind of a random time when it just comes. And so it ended up being like, I'm at this event and I'm speaking in New York.

• 25:14Speaker 02

  And I'm sitting there and I'm like, I'm sorry, everyone, like I'm, I'm like, my phone's out. I'm like, I'm like, I can barely even like, I'm like, just like, I'm, I'm like, I'm just gonna, keep refreshing this because the wire is supposed to come in and everyone known, like they knew I had sold. So, I'm like, the wire hasn't come in yet, but it's supposed to come in right now. And I just like, I'm sorry, I keep, you know, Wells Fargo, you know, it's like, yeah. And, um,

• 25:34Shaan Puri?

  You're like on stage, you're like, look, I know I was talking about customer service, but today I'm going to give a talk on how to get rich.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. And like, you know, money doesn't matter to me. It's all about mission, but like, but like, you know, hold on.

• 25:44Shaan Puri?

  For the next hour.

• 25:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's like, it's like, it's all, and, and literally like it, you know, it comes in and there's like just commas and commas and commas. And it's like, like, how many commas could this be? Like, it's like, it's like, like,

• 25:57Shaan Puri?

  It's a run on sentence.

• 25:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, yeah, exactly. Commas and commas and. I just, I, uh, yeah, it was the best, I mean, especially, I had just gone through the most traumatic thing ever. And from a money side, like I, if, if Ring had exploded at that point, which it, I mean, it got right on the edge of, it would have been like really impactful to my family, like, and I

• 26:21Sam Parr?

  Yeah, were you like, uh, just not broke, but like, were you just like, you know, seven, like 150, 250,000 dollar a year salaried person?

• 26:30Speaker 02

  Like that, yeah, I was like 150, I think at that point. And I prided myself, this was, by looking back, a real mistake. I prided myself on being like the least paid executive.

• 26:40Sam Parr?

  Yeah, man, that makes you desperate. I did the same thing on a much smaller scale, but it made me desperate.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  And that's exactly right. So here's the other problem. When you're making that kind of money and you're at a company, it's like 48 million, people are like, hey, come to this charity event. Oh, it's only $10,000 a table. Do this. And you kind of have to, like, you're, it's like, you have to sort of take part in some of this stuff, but you don't actually have the money. So you're, you're, you're spending even more than you would making that salary regardless. So yeah, I was like, I mean, I was basically zero dollars. And I mean, you know, I wasn't like, I wasn't like in debt debt, but I wasn't, I didn't have like a nest egg. And so if Ring all of a sudden went away, like that was all my, like, future money was in Ring.

• 27:21Shaan Puri?

  I love how honest you are. Most people, the more successful they get and the more sort of, you know, these moments, like they try to either downplay or they're just less, less honest. And I think, and by the way, I think this is why when I called you, I was like, that dude's happy. I was like, it's not like you're like, you know, some yogi or, you know, a monk who's just like, you know, at peace. That's not that. But I was like, I, you, you seem free. And I think that that's something that we all hope success gives us, but it's actually not the success that gives you that. It's you have to decide how you're going to be.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  I think also, like, yeah, when you're facing, like, when you see what the other side is that clearly, I, I do remember, like, it's like, I remember how lucky I am sort of every day, like, I wouldn't call it like this. I mean, it is successful. It's like money, but like money, I think I have so many friends that have a lot of money that are not free, which is a shame because like that's really what this gives you is the freedom to do what you want. Like I get to wake up and work on things that I want to work on and impact things that I want to impact and be with my son and take him on college tours this past weekend. And like I get to do things because of that. And that, yes, like I am like overall, it's like that is very happy.

• 28:32Shaan Puri?

  I want to take the mindset that you used to build Ring, your approach as a founder, and kind of break that down and then see what other ideas might fit that. So one of them that you told me, you said, rule number one, you know, I like to start with the problem, not the solution or the technology. And so, you know, what did that mean for Ring? And then what's another example of an idea where you could, where you could take that kind of problem first approach?

• 28:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, so Ring was I was in my garage. I couldn't hear the doorbell. So like, like what do you, what do you need to do is you need to hear the doorbell. Now, when you find that problem, it turns out a lot of times new technology can help impact it. Like, oh, there's smartphones coming out. Okay. Well, those have screens. Like there's Wi-Fi now in homes. There's like this. So it is that technology can assist the problem. I think the problem, the issue is most, a lot of founders will say, I found this new chip that's out there. What can we do with this? And so they don't find a real problem. They just like, you know, it is a technology looking for a problem. I like to start with like actually something that is a true problem. And then it doesn't matter what the tech is. I mean, that's part of what built Ring into the, where it is today

• 29:40Speaker 02

  is, and again, you're going to laugh with mission, but by being a mission to make neighborhoods safer, we don't follow any technology. We're not a camera company. We're not a alarm company. We're not a social network company. Like we are just a making neighborhoods safer company, which means like regardless what comes out or what we can think of, it doesn't matter what it is. If it's a steam engine in the middle of the neighborhood and that's going to make things, sure, I don't care.

• 30:05Shaan Puri?

  And so you take that now, if I'm you and I'm like, oh, I was in the garage, I couldn't hear the doorbell. I think there's a part of me, the inner critic, that would have been like, this is too small. Like, you know, that doesn't sound like a big fancy idea. I'm trying to do big fancy. I'm trying to be a big success, not a small success. And, you know, is it that you did napkin math on like, how many doorbells I could sell? Is it that you just don't care about market size? Like, how do you think about that?

• 30:27Speaker 02

  There's a guy who's like somewhat successful and said to me, it's the most insulting thing, like almost anyone could ever say. And right when I'm doing this, he said to me, I kind of put his arm on my shoulder. And he was much more successful than me at the time. I am now much more successful than he has ever been. And he put his arm on my shoulder and said like, I love you, man. Because you just like to work on these like little things. And it's like so cute and fun to see. And I was like, oh my, like, that was the most like, it was like, when you're finding these things, it's if they were obvious that they were huge problems, someone will be doing it. So it's like, you have to find these problems that are sort of not obviously huge, but sort of have that have, again, I look at it as like, what is the, what could

• 31:09Speaker 02

  it be? And so like with the doorbell, it was a small thing because even people were like, ah, $200 doorbell, like there's doorbells are $10. And it's like, so that was the problem. But if you really looked at it and zoomed out, it's like, everyone has a doorbell in their house across the world, like globally, like literally a doorbell is on every home. So

• 31:26Sam Parr?

  Was Nest popular at this point?

• 31:28Speaker 02

  So Nest was popular as a thermostat. And they

• 31:32Sam Parr?

  But had it sold?

• 31:33Speaker 02

  They were just selling or sold to Google. And Dropcam was actually the wifi camera that was out there that was doing well. And that Nest ended up, you know, that Tony ended up buying at Google to bring into Nest.

• 31:49Sam Parr?

  So maybe there was some inspiration where it's like, okay, not the same thing, but like a household item.

• 31:54Speaker 02

  For sure. Oh, for sure. Like, I was actually like, super, in fact, I actually have an email to Matt Rogers, who is the co-founder of Nest. Like, when the Nest came out, I was like, one of the first customers. And just said, like, it super inspires us this, like, what you're doing here. So yeah, no, there was, there was stuff happening. But yeah, I think it's, it is hard, though, to see like, at the time, how big a market is. Because again, if it was obvious, like, everyone would just be like, oh, the doorbell, oh, we should just do a doorbell. Like, look, this guy's doing a doorbell. Like, let's just, it's gonna be huge. And no one thought it was gonna be huge.

• 32:20Sam Parr?

  Did you have like a dream where you were laying in bed, talking to your wife, you're like, you know, I think, I think we can make $100 million one year, one day?

• 32:27Speaker 02

  I didn't. I kind of like built it. My wife was the one who said, like, so this is, and this is where She's like, it makes me feel safer at home. And that was like, oh, this is like, again, like, this is more than just like scratching my itch in the garage. This could, and that was what I realized that the security market, like, the overall security market had not yet started looking at how you could build and invent products around presence and sort of like true crime prevention. Like, it was, the alarm was built in the 1800s and kind of was pretty much like very the same thing, which is like, trigger off of a trip and call, you know, a central station. Like, it was like, that was kind of like best in class still. And we were

• 33:11Speaker 02

  like, we can look at this problem differently, which, which is, again, that's, that was the superpower was the, not just the doorbell, but then we did the floodlight camera, then we did, like, we did all these things that were sort of unique, because we were, even the neighbors app, which is, you know, it's a huge social network for crime and safety in neighborhoods. Like, all that stuff came out of looking at the problem and trying to solve it.

• 33:33Shaan Puri?

  So what's an example of an idea today? You see a problem out there that you're like, somebody could go try to solve that?

• 33:39Speaker 02

  Bugs. Like, I just hate bugs. Like, I've never found anyone that likes bugs. And it's amazing that there's like, no one has actually created, with all the technology, like, we can launch rockets up in the air and land them on like, a little barge. We can, like, do all this stuff, but we can't get rid of frickin' flies at my house in Missouri. And so I just, I just feel like there's gotta be simple ways to do this between like, solar and, you know, there's just gotta be like, ways to look at this problem differently than just either hitting it with some toxin that's gonna kill us all as well, or these other products that just don't work.

• 34:15Sam Parr?

  Is that your current obsession?

• 34:17Speaker 02

  So I have realized over time, you have to work on like, one thing. Like, you can't work on 10 different products. When I meet a founder that's like, or, you know, an entrepreneur that's, oh, I'm doing this and this, and they're all different, I'm, I'd say, you know, 99 out of 100 times, like, they're gonna fail because they're just splitting their energy.

• 34:34Sam Parr?

  All right. Well, for the sake of entertainment, but also teaching our listeners, and it's fun, can we walk through this? Let's say that you're not at Ring, and let's say that this is like, actually the idea. This idea, potentially, I don't know how it's, I mean, now it's obvious that ring is awesome, but maybe in 2014, when you're offended, someone they're like, what, what? That sounds so stupid. And so maybe like a lot of people are gonna think bugs, flies, that's it? That's all you got? Like, let's walk us through like this idea of like, why this is a big problem? And like, how you would attack or how you would go about solving this?

• 35:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I would just like, literally, I would stick myself on the farm. I would get the soldering iron out and I would just start like figuring out. I'd just be like, and also I'd immerse myself in the problem. Like, why are bugs going on the horses? Like, why are they like, what are they, like, what are they actually attracted to on this? Like, what are they doing? And I, I would get on ChatGPT and I would be like, trying to figure that out. And I'd be like, looking at everything and, and I'd just figure out like, what? Like, and again, simplify, like, like, how do I go from a first principles approach? Like, what is the way to just get rid of these damn things at scale? What would that be? How could you do it inexpensively? My feeling is it has something to do with solar and either like some like kind of screw mechanism or suction, just sort of like, because you got, it's like a big problem, right?

• 35:46Speaker 02

  Like, it's like, it's like a mass volume problem. And so it's like these, like, I keep thinking of these like little stations that you just put all over your property. And they're just continually sort of like collecting and, and how to do that. So that's, but I would just, and I just literally, I'd just be like, building this stuff. Like, I would start, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do research. I wouldn't ask friends if it's gonna be a big business. I wouldn't spend time on any of that stuff. I would be out there like with solar panels and Dyson vacuum cleaners hooked up to lights and, you know, tubes and like, I'd just be like, doing this stuff.

• 36:18Shaan Puri?

  Sam, have you seen Ju, our friend Julian's obsession with bugs?

• 36:22Sam Parr?

  No, so we have this friend named Julian who's like out of this world and like, he's, he's only eaten steak for like two years. And now he's moved to Hawaii and he has a ranch and he's doing crazy stuff.

• 36:31Shaan Puri?

  So he, he moves to Hawaii, he buys a ranch and he starts building like, you know, a home. And he's, he's got this bug problem, just like you. And because, you know, the big project he was doing was the ranch. The big problem with the big project was the mosquitoes. And so he's like, he specifically focused on mosquitoes. And so he told me, he emailed me for like over a couple of month period that like just different things he was trying to do to, but what you were saying, like, understand what the hell's going on with the mosquito. Where's the root problems, kind of first principles? And he's like, oh, the problem is we try to kill the mosquito. No, you need to kill the eggs. Cause if you don't kill the eggs, for every one mosquito you're killing, there's like, whatever, a hundred mosquitoes that are coming out. And then he tried, bought all the fancy contraptions and then he realized like, oh, they lay their eggs in the water.

• 37:12Shaan Puri?

  And so what you need to do, and so I guess, I don't know all the science behind this, but he basically has this thing I got on the screen here. It's like this, just a bucket with water and then you spray this, um, or you put this thing in the, in the water. That's gonna like kill the eggs when they try to lay them there. And so it like stops the cycle.

• 37:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:29Shaan Puri?

  And he's like, I did it. I solved the problem with the mosquito, um, the mosquito problem, which is that they wanna lay their eggs on stale water. So you put the dirt in there as you make old stale water as a trap for them. And then you put this thing in it that's gonna, uh, it's a harmless to human bacteria, but it's gonna kill the eggs. And he's, and he was like so pumped and like, look at this thing. This thing has 11,000 bookmarks on a single tweet, which is like, you know, that's pretty, that's pretty unusual, but it kind of shows a lot of people are like, you know, have this same itch, the same problem and don't really have a good solution.

• 38:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so it's, and it's like, you know, is, is there a five or 10 billion dollar company hiding in the bug space? Probably they're it, like probably, like, I mean, it's, it's global, like every, like they're everywhere. It's, it's also like, I mean, it's, it's an issue on health. You know, mosquitoes cause health issues, flies cause health issues. So it's like, actually like, there's like real impact. So if you could figure something out, like it actually, it, it, you know, it is probably, you know, a five or 10 billion dollar thing.

• 38:26Shaan Puri?

  It also seems like there might be like a branding thing that you did well with Ring that like could be applicable in the bug space. Like, I don't know what all the big bug companies are, but I know Raid. It's like, they all literally like, they look and sound like killing with like toxin, basically. And like the, you know, uh, it's all branded and it look a Monster Energy looking can. And, you know, the way that these new like Celsius and Alani new and Prime, like a lot of the new drinks came out. And they're literally like just energy drinks, but with a, like a different vibe.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  I think that's, that's a good point is like, there's like, it is the same thing where there's like, uh, there is a probably a new brand in this that stands for, and it's like, it's not environmentally safe because like, I'm like some eco warrior. It's because like, you don't wanna. Spray shit all over your house like you live in that like it's like that's not good like we do these like bug bombs and stuff like there's no way those are good for you like it can't be.

• 39:20Sam Parr?

  I thought the Monster Energy drink of mosquito spray was a pretty good uh that was pretty good.

• 39:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:25Shaan Puri?

  Right? Isn't that what the can kinda looks like?

• 39:29Speaker 02

  I wish someone would go do it. I wish in like it'd be amazing. Imagine in five years, someone comes back to like, I was listening to this thing. I had the same thing. I needed like a little push. I got inspired. And I built a $5 billion business out of it. Like that would be the like that would be the coolest thing ever.

• 39:43Sam Parr?

  Ray, like we're at war. We're gonna go to battle. I'd like, the thing about these, this weapon is if you don't aim it in the right direction, there might be, you know, there might be a self inflicted wound here.

• 39:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, you but you know it's bad when you're using something when you're, when you're, when you say the name, I can taste that. Like it's not like I can smell it. Like I can taste what that is like because it's like that toxin goes through your, it like blasts through your skin.

• 40:08Shaan Puri?

  My wife hates that stuff because we have a dog, we have a baby. It's like, she's just like, look, we can't just spray this stuff all over. Like, yeah, I don't know. It's too risky, right?

• 40:17Sam Parr?

  I mean, were you like using it as hairspray? Like, why are you spraying it all over the place?

• 40:21Shaan Puri?

  You know how it is when like there's a bug that it's like that one episode of Breaking Bad where there's a fly in the, in the, in his like meth lab? I was meeting with a bug the other day in, in like my house and I was like, okay, fine, mission. I'm like suited up in a hazard. Just going to war, but you know, you get carried away. One of the things you had said I really liked was you called yourself a snowball.

• 40:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. So the, the snowball would be like if you about the fly thing, it would be, I hate these flies. Okay. Like that's the snowball starts going down the hill. And then I'm just like taking stuff and soldering it together, doing it like it's now it's gathering sort of it's. And then it like hits something and like you lose a little bit off the snowball, but it keeps going. And you just kinda roll down the hill. And by the way, some snowballs when they're rolling down the hill, they hits like they hit the tree and they just explode. So like that could be the fly thing is you get to this point where you just can't figure it out. That totally happens. If you can see the finish line when you start, it's usually not a big good thing. Like it's, it's like that's usually you're, you're not. Like you're not inventing or you're not changing the world typically if it's like that clear how to get from start to finish. And so, yeah, it's like, I just kind of feel like I just kind of roll down the hill and gather

• 41:25Speaker 02

  and you hope you don't hit a tree. And as you get to the bottom of the hill, you hope you're like a bigger snowball that's, you know, I guess, hopefully good for the world. I guess if snowballs are good for the world, that you are helpful.

• 41:36Shaan Puri?

  When we got bought, we got bought by Twitch and Emmett, the founder. He's this great entrepreneur and I was like, you know, my value of being there, I was there to earn out my deal and, you know, be helpful, but I really wanted to learn from Emmett. I was like, this is the one guy I want to learn from while I'm here. So I asked him, I said, hey, in the early days of Twitch, did you ever like send investor updates or anything? I'm a little bit nosey. I was like, can I, would you share any of that with me? Like, I would love to see that dude, just as an entrepreneur, like, what was it like 10 years ago? And he's like, sure. So he sent me this update and one of the things he wrote in there, he goes, it is one of his updates, because it was hard at the time, you know, they were doing a pretty unproven thing, video game streaming, you know, it wasn't clearly going to be a big market.

• 42:17Shaan Puri?

  But he felt a sense of momentum and he's, one of the investor updates, the title was, we were a steamroller going through a field full of flowers. And he was like just saying, and they had gotten like 150 new streamers that week. And he was like, yes. And so he was just taking a lot of pride in the small stage, because if you just keep looking at the small stage and poo-pooing it, you never build up the momentum.

• 42:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:38Shaan Puri?

  And the second thing he said was like, same thing. He goes, you know, I really want to try to get into this like kind of adjacent space. And I was like, why do you want to do that? Seems like there's so much more room to run still with game streaming. And he goes, yeah, but he goes, you never want to see the finish line. He's like, if, he's like, because I know, he's like, I don't want to be able to see the like, the horizon.

• 42:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:55Shaan Puri?

  At the end, he's like, even if that's still five years away, I need to do something that's going to push the horizon out further so that we have more room to run. And I'd really never thought of it like that, but I guess, you know, as you play at scale, that's obviously like an important thing.

• 43:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's actually, I think, I always think of goal, a lot of goals are actually ceilings. Like you think of a goal and you want it to be something like you, you kind of hitting a goal perfectly is probably means the goal wasn't set right. Like you want to have these directional goals, like things that you could try to achieve that are sort of tangible, but sort of in some ways unachievable. So that you're always like, to your point, like you're just trying harder to get like, it's the carrot on the stick in front of you where like you can kind of never get the carrot, but you keep going for it.

• 43:40Sam Parr?

  You have a life philosophy and a life outlook that's very different from mine, but frankly, I'm envious of how you think about things, both like where you're like, I start with a problem and I'm an inventor, which sounds basic, but the way that you do it is quite nice. You have a really good attitude. And then you just made this line about like goals and ceilings. What people or what books do you think have influenced you? And if Sean and I or one of our listeners wanted to like, kind of develop this Jamie mindset, besides your book.

• 44:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, by the way, shout out your book. Yeah, thank you. I mean, I would of course read Ding Dong by Jamie Siminoff. I mean, I think that's the how to guide of business. No. Great title, by the way. Thank you. Thank you. In all seriousness, no, I would, I think the book that stands out the most for me is the Walt Disney biography. If you want to read this, like, get ready. Like, you better clear your calendar because this thing is like, I think the audiobook's like 24 hours. I mean, it's whoever did that audiobook died afterwards. Like, it was like, that was like.

• 44:34Sam Parr?

  Like of all the people that I've talked to and all the biographies that I've listened to, the Walt Disney biography might be the most cited version I've ever heard. And like, Walt, I've never read it, but there's all these stories where like, on the small things, like apparently someone was building like a train in Walt's backyard for his kids or grandkids. I don't know, something like that. And he, wasn't there like a contractor that says like, well, we can't make the train curve. And he's like, well, it has to curve because when someone's on the train, I don't want them to know what's coming up next.

• 45:04Speaker 02

  That is the embodiment of it. And it's also, he was so maniacal about every detail of every experience. And I was, what I was gonna say is, when you read this book, you realize that he was tortured. He could never achieve what he wanted to, which was like absolute perfection of this. And so when a movie would come out, like my, the thing that I took out the most from his book was every movie that would come out, because you know, he was pushing animation ahead, like, like the, the technology and animation. So like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs come out. He's sitting in the theater in the back. Everyone's watching it like literally mind blowing, like seeing what's up there. But because he's already working on the next movie and the next iteration of animation, he knows that this is shit.

• 45:47Speaker 02

  Like, he knows that like, that movie is not as good as the next one's gonna be. And he's like, literally like crying in the back of this theater, that he's showing such a bad product to people because it could be so much better. And all he wants to show him is the next one. And I thought that's like the struggle of a true inventor and entrepreneur and like product person is like, you just, like, everything I put out, I'm mad because I know I can be better. And it's like that, just that constant thing. And that's, like, that's how you drive to be the best. And there's definitely, you know, like, I think you look at some of the greatest inventors and entrepreneurs out there, you see that constant, just like that, that, that drive, like that engine that just they can't stop.

• 46:27Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, you seem a lot happier than him, which is a good attribute to also have.

• 46:32Speaker 02

  It's not, it's not terrible.

• 46:35Shaan Puri?

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• 46:59Shaan Puri?

  Another one of your philosophies as an entrepreneur that I really liked is you talked about this idea of Tom Brady. I've used this, you know, we did this call before this pod, like a week ago or so. I've already used it twice in my thinking in between. So that's when you know an idea sticks. So could you explain the Tom Brady hiring thing?

• 47:17Speaker 02

  Yes, I mean, every team, like when you get to the whatever, and I'm not that into sports, but you know, they trade like the first trade pick for this and like, they're always trying to get like the first pick of the, the, of like, what is it called?

• 47:30Shaan Puri?

  The draft.

• 47:30Speaker 02

  The draft. Because how much I'm into sports. So but like every team, they they had the chance to get Tom Brady multiple times. Like, it's actually insane. It's like they didn't just have like one shot at him. He was the 199th draft pick. Like, everybody had the chance to get Tom Brady. And so while everyone's focused on like, whatever the the number one draft pick of that year, I don't know, the number top 10, I probably are unknown to us today. But Tom Brady is one of the greatest athletes of all time. And so to me, as a as a business, you have to find the Tom Brady's. They're actually out there for you. Like, everybody has access to Tom Brady or the Tom Brady of your business of that area. It's like, how do you find them? How do you incentivize them? How do you let them become the Tom Brady?

• 48:14Speaker 02

  That is just the amazing thing. Whereas I meet with founders who are like, oh, I'm trying to get the person from the company of the this. And it's like, that's the number one draft pick. And you're gonna just probably pay too much. And honestly, they're probably not going to be known in 10 years. Great. Sounds good. How? My so there's lots of people have lots of different methods for finding great people. My thing is hire fast, fire faster. The mission really helps. So you sort of bring someone in, like, the interview is basically like, I mean, obviously, like, do you have the skills to do the like, the basic job? So like, it's like, there's like a sort of a light bar. But oh, above that is just, are you passionate?

• 48:56Speaker 02

  Do you want to work on this problem with us? Like, and do you really want to work on this problem with us? Like, do you want to wake up in the morning excited about this problem? If you're passionate, you want to work on the problem, and you have the minimum skill set to do it, we'll let you we'll let you try. Like, it's just like, let like, I don't know, go out there and throw the ball, like, see how you do. And you give them massive autonomy in their area. Like, give them the ability to succeed or fail. I think another thing that a lot of companies do is they so like, wrap you in soft, like, in, they don't want you to fail. So they stop you from succeeding. It's like such a weird thing. It's like they like, they they're so worried that maybe you're gonna, you know, if you're not able to do that level of the job. So we gotta be careful.

• 49:40Speaker 02

  Like, we don't want you to be get be over your head versus like, Let Tom Brady be Tom Brady. Let him throw the ball. And when you let those people do it, it's like, it's incredible. And yes, in the process of that, you're going to have people that are just going to like, not be able to, you know, succeed at those jobs. And you, you know, you move on with them and you do it. And by the way, you can be compassionate in that. It's not, you don't have to be.

• 50:02Sam Parr?

  How fast do you fire? Like, when people say hire fast, fire fast, that's, that's a little bit vague. So like, let's say you meet someone, how fast would you offer them a job?

• 50:11Speaker 02

  At that time, like, I mean, you know, we're probably not in that sort of like with Amazon now and stuff. It's like, obviously, and it is as you get bigger, like, things are a bit different. Back in the start days, I'd say like, three to six months. Because you certainly don't want to like, it's not like the first day someone comes in, you say, like, okay, you're bad, like, or you're good. I mean, it takes someone a little bit of time to get their, like, their feet wet, to sort of get their footing. But you want to be pretty quick. It's, it's, I would say it's very rare, if you talk to almost anyone that, you know, an entrepreneur or leader, that they say like, I wish, pretty much anyway that you say, like, when they fired someone, it's like, I wish I'd done it sooner.

• 50:48Sam Parr?

  So three to six months. What about hiring?

• 50:51Speaker 02

  Hiring is like, on the spot. I'm, I'm, I'm on the, like, I mean, again, Amazon is a little bit different now. So I would just be like, honest of like, yes, like, we have a bigger company. We have like, some more like, and you have to do that. It's like, that's part of the, that's par for the course. But, but yeah, we were like, like, Mimi, who is my chief revenue officer today, she cold emailed me and said, I worked at Dyson, I now work at Sonos, you know, I see what you guys are doing. I'm in the neighborhood. I'd love to stop by. So they're great. Stop by. So she sits down with Don and I, Don runs our sales. She starts talking. I look at Don, Don looks at me. I said, we should just hire her, right? He goes, yeah. I said, okay, you're hired. And she's like, she's kind of like, like, are you two jokers serious? Like, this is like, I was just coming to talk to you. And I'm like, that's done. I'm like, I was like, do you not want to work

• 51:34Speaker 02

  here? And she's like, no, no, I want to work here. I'm like, well, then, then just come into work here. She's like, what am I doing? I'm like, I don't know. You just said you seem to like know all these problems we have. So like, go fix them. Like, you just told me that we're doing all this stuff wrong. Like, why don't you just take whatever that is? Like, make that job title and go do it. And she's our chief revenue officer today, so.

• 51:52Shaan Puri?

  Have you ever heard Warren Buffett describe his, his thing with this with people and the too hard pile?

• 51:57Speaker 02

  No, I actually haven't.

• 51:59Shaan Puri?

  So this guy came on the podcast, Monish Prabari, and he, in the episode, he described, he, he bought a charity lunch from Buffett for $650,000. He had learned so much from Buffett. He had been so super successful doing Buffett's method, basically. And he's like, this is, my, my tuition is overdue. So he's like, I'll, I'll do, I'll buy the charity lunch and, and we'll go. And I have no expectations. So I said, what did you ask him? And he asked Warren Buffett, he goes, Warren, you seem to be a really good judge of people. Like, he hired some pretty great people inside of Berkshire. And you've avoided a lot of the kind of like doing the wrong acquisitions. So you seem to be a good judge of people. What's, what's the secret? And Warren Buffett goes, no, I don't think I'm that good at people. He goes, I think what I do is I'm a very harsh grader.

• 52:44Shaan Puri?

  So he said, um, he goes, basically, the cost of me saying no to a good person, to somebody who actually turned out to be good. It's not that consequential of say, if they turned out to be good and I happen to say no because I couldn't tell. But if I say yes to too many people who happen to be really bad, that becomes a very costly and very hard for me to unwind. So he goes, if I was at a dinner party and there was 100 guests and you let me spend five minutes with each person. He goes, I could, without a doubt, I could tell you, these five, no doubt are fantastic. These five definitely stay away. They're sort of toxic or there's something, you know, uh, that I don't trust about them. And then there's 90 people who, I don't know, I can't tell in five minutes. And they all go in what I call the too hard pile. It's just too hard to tell.

• 53:27Shaan Puri?

  And he goes, a lot of life just works by putting everything else in the too hard pile and just focusing on the five things that you were pretty clear and pretty sure about in a very small amount, small amount of time. And everybody wastes their time trying to get clarity on that 90%. That's very hard to figure out. It takes a lot of time and energy and you're going to get it wrong a lot.

• 53:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, and so kind of my method has been on the hiring is the too hard pile is I'm aware that I'm not that good at figuring out who's in that pile always. And so if I'm wrong, I'm just going to be very quick to sort of pull the trigger. And by the way, you can also be wrong pulling the trigger. Like if you're pulling the trigger after three to six months, like you can be wrong. I'll also say like, there's lots of people who didn't fit our culture, who went on to do incredible things and are incredibly successful. So it's not that like failing at ring was failing in life. It was you just didn't fit what we were doing. And we are a unique lock and you want a unique key to work in that lock. And that's where I always say the empathy side, like I didn't fire them being like,

• 54:26Speaker 02

  you're terror, get out of here. Like, it was like, it just doesn't like, we're not working out together. And I would feel bad for every single one of them that they have to go back to their family, whatever. Like that, that did weigh on me. But I also wanted the business to have this clarity and to move fast and to, you know, and from the bottom of the, like, I will say, the wrong people are really, could be like, that's bad.

• 54:51Sam Parr?

  Can I ask you about one thing here? You said, I just don't know how to stop. And sometimes it's not smart and it costs me.

• 54:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like, this is like the, this is like the Jerry Maguire, like, you're gonna make me cry, Sam? You're gonna do this? Yeah, I think if I, if I look at like, part of, you know, it's even like, we talked about that ADT thing, it's like, I just keep going. Like, I just don't stop. And, you know, overall, that's probably like, you know, I think, so I keep telling you, young people keep asking me, like, what should I do? You know, AI is coming out, like, I don't know where I should go to college, or what should I do? And it's like, just put yourself in a position where you can just grind, like, just go grind. Because you just got to get out, like, it's, it's, no one knows where the world's gonna go. No one knows what's happening. You can't control the world. Everyone like, acts as if they can. Luck has to be your co-pilot. And so just go out there and just, just keep

• 55:43Speaker 02

  grinding. And a lot of those times when you're grinding, it's hard because When you can't actually see where it's getting you to, you talk to entrepreneurs that have already made it. So it's like people say, the average business takes seven years to be successful. So they'll say to me, so you're like, it's kind of like you knew when you started that you had seven years. It's like, no, you don't ever know that it's going to be successful. Like it's the average, it's just, so I do think the grinding thing is it's underestimated how hard that is to keep grinding, because it's, you don't see where it's going. And you need sometimes to have these weird other factors happen that are out of, outside of your control to make your success happen. Just like Instagram coming out while we're building a camera at your front door.

• 56:26Speaker 02

  You know, that's superpowered our message. I didn't build Instagram. I didn't like push it out there. I didn't help it. I didn't know it was coming, but I kept grinding on my side and got lucky on some of these other things.

• 56:40Sam Parr?

  This is for the folks out there who have a business that does at least $3 million a year in revenue. Because around this point, that's when you're able to look up after being heads down for years, building your company, and you realize two things. One, you've done something great, but you're still a long way from your final destination. And two, you look around and you realize, I am all alone. I've outrun my peers, which means you're now making $10 million decisions alone, by yourself. And that is when mediocrity can creep in. My company Hampton, we solved this problem by giving a room of vetted peers of other entrepreneurs who are going to hold you accountable, call you out on your nonsense and help show you the way. Because the fact is, is that there's only a tiny number of people in your town who know what you're going through and who have been there.

• 57:25Sam Parr?

  And they're hard to find. The biggest risk is not failing. You have a company and it's working. You're going to be fine. But the biggest risk is waking up 10 years from now and saying, shit, I barely grew in business and in life. And for people like you who are ambitious, wasted potential and regret is what we want to help you to avoid. We have made so many of these groups and we have a thousand plus members. And I know this stuff actually works. It can change your life. It changed mine and I know it will change yours. So check it out, joinhampton.com.

• 57:56Shaan Puri?

  One of the things I liked that you told me was you look for products where 90% of the marketing is already done. And I called it last mile marketing. And you were describing how this worked in your favor at Ring and how sometimes an entrepreneur can go wrong if you if you really need to like educate the market about something completely from scratch.

• 58:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's and I so I would call it pre-awareness. So if you can, if you can try to like, give a little bit of invention, a little bit of differentiation to something that has pre-awareness, it's incredible. Because if you look at the, there's a cost, just look at like the cost, like a new to world product, you have the cost to tell someone about it is incredibly expensive. Like if I have to tell you about some products and everything I have to tell you about it is is new to world, it's very hard for you to understand it. And they like go to the film business, like when it's a completely new film, it costs more to market it than Top Gun 2. Because Top Gun 2, like you know everything, like you know, Top Gun, you know, you know, Tom Cruise, like there's so much

• 58:56Speaker 02

  pre-awareness in that. The doorbell, putting a camera on a doorbell, and again, I sort of got lucky to learn this thing is, everyone knew where the doorbell was mounted, they knew what the doorbell did, they knew like the functionality of it. I just added like a piece to that. I did the same thing with the floodlight camera. You knew what a floodlight looked like, you know where it goes, like you know what it does for you. And now you add a camera to it. And so wherever you can use this pre-awareness, I mean, like Liquid Death, like, it's water. Like, you didn't have to tell someone like what this drink was, or like, it's like, but they changed like a piece of it. And so I just think like, changing a piece of it, getting your edge on it, in something where there's pre-awareness, great, great way to start, because you get billions or hundreds of billions of dollars,

• 59:38Speaker 02

  like in my case, like the doorbell. Think about how much like advertising sort of dollars or whatever, like you want to call it, you know, come from the doorbell just being known for the last 100 years.

• 59:51Sam Parr?

  All right. So I told everyone that, um, you know, we give a list. We were like, let's start with ideas. Let's start with strong opinions and cool stories. You have one on here that actually was probably one of the most eye catching things I've ever read. You bought a town in Missouri. Is that right?

• 1:00:05Speaker 02

  I, I, well, I, I, I went to a town in Missouri that had, um, and a lot of these small towns now, if you go out into the Midwest and some of these areas between like the opioid issues, industrial farming, like these towns have just been just pummeled. And this town, La Belle, Missouri, when I went there was really like, I'd say it was in, it was in pretty tough shape.

• 1:00:26Sam Parr?

  You're actually, uh, you're actually the second guest that we've had that has bought a town in Missouri. The first is Al Doan. He bought a small town. He, him and his mom own a knitting company that is a multi.

• 1:00:39Speaker 02

  Totally know that town. Yeah. That's amazing.

• 1:00:41Sam Parr?

  Yeah. So, so basically Al and his mom, uh, his mom started it and then I, uh, I guess it's like running it where it's like a knitting company. And he has bought a town in Missouri and he calls it like Disneyland, but for knitters.

• 1:00:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think, I think it is, but it's become this, this place has become like the Mecca, like people go there. It's amazing.

• 1:00:59Sam Parr?

  Gosh, by the way, Al, I'm so sorry. It's called Missouri Quilting Company. It's, I totally missed it.

• 1:01:04Speaker 02

  I actually, I, I do want to talk, I gotta talk to him at some point. Cause I, he's done some amazing stuff. What I tried to do though, is just a little different. So they, they've made it like, it is, it is an incredible destination. And they've done an incredible, like from what I've seen, like an incredible job. My thing was, I really just wanted to help bring this town. Again, I, I'm an inventor. I look at things that I see that are sort of not where I believe they should be or a problem. Like, yeah, we go to our problem, right? Like what's the problem? The problem is that this cute little town no longer has any business. The sidewalks are broken. People, and also people's perspective had changed, like.

• 1:01:39Sam Parr?

  How did you show up there though?

• 1:01:40Speaker 02

  So I invested in a business off of Shark Tank. I went up back on Shark Tank as a shark, invested in a business called Moink. This woman, uh, Lucinda Cramsey from La Belle, Missouri. And, uh, and she has this direct to consumer meat company where we buy from small farmers and send it out. Very missionary, really cool little business. And I go there and visit with my family and, um, I just like fall in love with the place. My son's running around on hay bales. He doesn't even know what his phone is at that point. Like, it's just like, you know, we're coming from Los Angeles and like, it's just amazing. And I ended up buying a little farm there and fixing up the house and getting involved with the community. The town was really in sort of a tough place. And so we started fixing up

• 1:02:25Speaker 02

  the sidewalks and like, kind of the broken windows theory of like, if you kind of start fixing some stuff up, you know, when other people join in, there was a lot of like, kind of trash on some lots and like, kind of that kind of stuff. And so people started cleaning up their stuff. We cleaned up the streets and the sidewalks. We then took the building that was broken on the side of the thing and fixed it up and made it into a beautiful coffee shop. There was no place, it's like crazy, there was no place within an hour to sit with someone during the day and talk to them about anything, except the bar. And I like going to a bar, but a bar is not a great place to have like a civil discussion about things. And so like, the coffee shop is an important fabric of the community. So we brought the coffee shop there and it's like,

• 1:03:05Speaker 02

  that became cool and actually became successful. And then we helped fix up the tavern in town and made it this awesome, it's like the coolest bar ever. But it's like farm to table with organic, grass-fed beef from my ranch. No one even cares because out there, they're just like, they're like, well, whatever. But it's like, literally the best food you'll ever have, like anywhere. It's incredible. It's like, literally probably the best like beef in the world. And then a doctor put an office there and a health clinic now, and that's been helping and the town's gotten healthier. And as that happens, people, so it's like this, again, this is the snowball factor, like the, the, the incredible flywheel of you get things going and then people sort of take it from there. They also are like, I don't want this, you know, Jamie, this city slicker from LA,

• 1:03:48Speaker 02

  why is he making all the money? Like, I want to, you know, it's great, like have the greed be there. Someone started building apartments, like little apartments there. It's a town of 700. It's amazing. That's badass.

• 1:03:58Shaan Puri?

  So what, what do you think makes, like, there's all those like levers that you talked about, like, you know, the coffee shop, so that people have this third place, there's fixing the sidewalks and the broken windows. I imagine, like, I don't know, sports or church, there's like other things that kind of like revitalized the community. Was there anything that surprised you that like, how, how much of a difference it made? Like, it seems small, but actually it's pretty big?

• 1:04:18Speaker 02

  What surprised me, or I should say should, didn't surprise me. So when I went to it, I'm like, I'll just buy, like you said, like I bought a town, like, and I did not, like, I took part with others in the town to change the perspective. And so I was a catalyst, but like, it turned out you needed everyone. So. Would you be comfortable revealing how much like you had to invest or how much money? It's, it's quite a bit, but I'd say the, What really needed though was everyone to join in. Like it wasn't like you could see this is actually what's interesting is it wasn't the money. Like when I went there, it's like I would like I saw the town. I'm like, I'll write a check. You know, it's like sadly, like I was like, I'll write a check and I'll like just fix this whole place up and it'll be nice. Like I'll just do that. Like, and then no one would even sell me any properties. Everyone was like, ah, like it.

• 1:05:03Speaker 02

  And then I just started to get involved in the town. I drive my backhoe into town, you know, like with a Bud Light and the cup holder and like, you know, talking to everyone and like, they realize that I'm just one of like, I'm one of them and like, we're just all friends.

• 1:05:15Sam Parr?

  This is like a movie, man. And this is the scene where like,

• 1:05:19Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 1:05:19Sam Parr?

  This guy, he might be all right.

• 1:05:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I did, because I, by the way, I am, I love sitting out with them at the side of a pickup truck, watching the sunset on the farm and having a beer. Like I, that's my happiest place to be. So, and then I started, we started fixing up the sidewalks and I went out there and like, I was part of it. That was the other thing is truly being part of it. It wasn't the money. It was like showing that support. And then another guy in town's like, I'm going to help fix this up. And I'm like, great. And we just, it was, you know, it's like also what created Ring. It's like a thousand things that we did. It's not one thing. And so it's like, there was nothing that surprised me that was like one thing we did. I am surprised at the coffee shop I thought would lose money. I just didn't want it to lose too much money. It actually makes money. So that was surprising.

• 1:06:05Speaker 02

  But I'd say what the, the unsurprising thing is, it's like, it's just, it's, it's also a long thing. Like it's been seven years that I've been working on this now with, with the people there. I'd say we're like now turning the corner, but it's probably another seven years to get it really where you'd hope it to be. Because it's just, it's like every year you do another project, every year you do another thing. Like you can't just do it all at once.

• 1:06:28Sam Parr?

  Every four months in this podcast, here's what happens. You see Sean and I sit on our hands like this. If we just stare at you because we're in.

• 1:06:40Speaker 02

  If you guys are in, let's do a podcast from LaBelle, Missouri. Sam, I mean, you can, you know, you can go visit home and then, and then come up. So.

• 1:06:48Sam Parr?

  Well, I've been for that. That's I'm, I'm, what I was saying was I'm in on Jamie.

• 1:06:52Shaan Puri?

  I think it's so cool. I mean, even the way we said it was wrong. It's not that you bought a town. You invested time and energy and money into a town. You invested kind of a piece of soul into it. And the idea is kind of like some places just need a little bit of that, like CPR, just to bring them back to life. And get that, you know, it takes a little bit of pumping.

• 1:07:11Speaker 02

  A catalyst, like, like, like, I was a catalyst, but I was not the.

• 1:07:16Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 1:07:17Speaker 02

  Again, it's like, it is a business, right? Like it takes a team. It takes everyone being on board, everyone really like it's all these things are the same thing like it's, it's not just like getting venture capital money and you just make it like, you don't just like, you know, do that. It's like, it's very, it's hard to build something great.

• 1:07:35Sam Parr?

  The, uh, the TripAdvisor page is pretty cool. You guys name stuff, uh, really well. It's called the top places, the milkweed inn, the Tik Tok motel, Tippy's Bar and Grill, Stanley's Diner. I'm in, I want to say, I want to stay and eat at all those places.

• 1:07:52Shaan Puri?

  All right. This is awesome. I think, you know, in the sort of like, I don't like the idea of legacy. I think legacy is just sort of like a, um, ego thing. But I do think, uh, we do get remembered for certain things by others. And it's not always what we expected. It's not always in our control. And I think what you're doing here is, is really cool. This would be, if you're on a TED Talk, I, you know, I'd actually want to hear this story more than the, the ring story. I think it's, it's such a cool life resume, you know, win. And I'm sure it's been very like satisfying and fulfilling in a way that just doing another company or hitting another like quarterly sales goal would never do for you at this stage. And so I think it's pretty awesome to hear that because I think, you know, we all want to, we're in the game of entrepreneurship

• 1:08:36Shaan Puri?

  initially for the success and then satisfy some insecurity, get some financial independence. But then why do you stay in the game? Well, it's because it's fun to play and too, like these projects are just vehicles. There's just like workout equipment. It's, you're, you're there to have to like, to go for a ride. You're there to grow a little bit. And so I think this is a really cool project that, that you did.

• 1:08:56Speaker 02

  Entrepreneurs should be making the world better. And so like, whether it's on a big scale, small scale, whatever, like we should just be like working to do that.

• 1:09:03Sam Parr?

  Is this gonna be like a second act for you? I mean, this is like, first of all, this is like, you know, I don't, we have to figure out how the story ends and like, hopefully there's a good, like fairy tale ending of it, like the town thrives or whatever, but like, is there like a book here? Is there a movie here? Because this seems like a pretty like, uh, pretty funny and like interesting tale.

• 1:09:20Speaker 02

  I, I mean, maybe, I, I don't know. I, I, I kind of just would hope that, I, I just wish more people would go do this. Like, I just think like, we need to, like, it's, like, I, if we could use, if all the people that have learned so much, could use their brains and a little bit of their capital to do this, like, we would solve so many problems, because it is going to the root of the problem. Like, like, we, we keep, we always treat the output of the problems. Like, we have hospitals to treat people that have had sugar all their lives, but we don't stop people from eating sugar. And then we try to tell them not to eat sugar, but we actually don't like, do things to make sure that like, they understand why. And so it's like, I think like, part of this is like, if you look at this, this area now, it's like healthier.

• 1:10:03Speaker 02

  Like, it's like all these things. And so how do you like, how do you figure out like the root of problems and fixing it? So I, I'd say like, LaBelle is just like one of, I don't even know, 5,000 towns in the US that have the same thing. And if you grew up like that, you know, there's gonna be like societal issues that come from, if we leave areas behind. And, and so

• 1:10:23Sam Parr?

  I just think that like, I'm in New York City right now. I'm from Missouri. I'm in New York City right now. And there's the Langone Hospital nearby. And it's just, you know, the guy who started Home Depot, probably donated a billion dollars to start this hospital, but then like, four blocks away, there's this other hospital, this other hospital, this other hospital, all rich guys. And that's wonderful, you know, great. But what is not talked about is like, middle America, or like, you know, instead of like donating to different countries, like, it's, it's not particularly accessible in terms of it's top of mind, or it's even thought of as a thing of like, investing into a small town. But it seems like a really awesome way to give directly to the recipients.

• 1:11:02Sam Parr?

  But also, the teaching them how to fish kind of idea of like, look, I'm, I'm helping, it's our town, it's your town, and I'm just here as a part of it. And it makes it just a little bit better, which snowballs into something bigger. And that, and that's really fascinating, because every rich person

• 1:11:20Sam Parr?

  Or a lot of Versace brewers, they want to do dope shit. They do want legacy and like, it seems like a really great option.

• 1:11:26Speaker 02

  I think it is. And it's where you can also use like your superpower of what you've learned. Like you can actually like impart your knowledge. It's not, it's not just money. It's like money obviously does help, but you need a little bit of that like spark to help, but it's not cash. It's like actually more about using your brain and helping. And by the way, what you learn from it, like what I've learned from being there is incredible. Like that's the other side. Like we, we just need to share more.

• 1:11:50Sam Parr?

  A lot of the tech guys, it's like, you know, cool to be in politics right now. And um, I've, that is not my personal inspiration. And I hear a story like this and I'm like, man, that sounds so much more helpful. Uh, and very fascinating.

• 1:12:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. Very cool, Jamie. Well, I appreciate you coming on, telling the story. Uh, shout out the book. It just came out two days ago. So, uh, shout out the book. People should read it to hear, to get the full story. Uh, what's it called? Where do, where do people get it? So it's Ding Dong, um, how a Shark Tank reject went to everyone's front door. It's available on amazon.com.

• 1:12:22Sam Parr?

  Man, you're the best. We, um, you know, Sean and I have a bunch of favorite people. I think Jesse Itzler, Rob Dyrdek, we've had on about four or five other guys. Uh, you have just made our Mount Rushmore. Thank you for doing this.

• 1:12:34Speaker 02

  Thank you. I'll see you in Missouri. We'll be doing a, a follow-up podcast from there.

• 1:12:38Shaan Puri?

  There we go.

• 1:12:38Sam Parr?

  I'm in. I don't know about Sean. I'm in.

• 1:12:41Speaker 02

  I'm in, I'm in.

• 1:12:41Sam Parr?

  He's in.

• 1:12:42Speaker 02

  How, how can you say no after, after such a great story?

• 1:12:45Sam Parr?

  Well, thanks for doing it. That's the pod.

• 1:12:57Shaan Puri?

  Hey, let's take a quick break. I want to tell you about a podcast that you could check out. It is called The Science of Scaling by Mark Robert. He was the founding CRO of HubSpot and he's a guest lecturer at Harvard Business School. The guy's smart. And he sits down every week with different sales leaders from cool companies like Klavio and Vanta and OpenAI. And he's asking about their strategies, their tactics, and how they're growing their companies as, you know, head of sales or chief revenue officer. If you're looking to scale a company up, if you're a CRO or a head of sales that's looking to level up in your career, I think a podcast like this could be great for you. Listen to The Science of Scaling wherever you get your podcasts.