2 Trends Hidden in Plain Sight (+ $1M ideas)

Episode 686: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talk about the two trends that could make you rich in the next 12 months. — Show Notes: (0:00) Trend: Fleamarkets (20:03) Trend: True Crime (26:05) Business ideas brainstorm (43:52) Fyre Festival update (48:27) Shaan's dad's travel hacks — Links: • Brimfield Antique Flea Market - https://www.brimfieldantiquefleamarket.com/ • First Monday Trade Days - https://www.firstmondaycanton.com/ • Rosebowl Flea Market - https://www.instagram.com/rosebowl_fleamarket/?hl=en • Goodwill Finds - https://www.goodwillfinds.com/ • MFM Vault - https://mfmvault.com/ • My Favorite Murder - https://www.myfavoritemurder.com/ • Hunt A Killer - https://www.huntakiller.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 The HubSpot Podcast Network // 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.

• 0:00Sam Parr?

  Screw Nick Huber talking about RV parks and storage units. We're gonna be talking about flea markets. That's what I think is gonna happen.

• 0:18Sam Parr?

  I want to talk to you about a topic, and I think this is a topic, it's my passion, this topic. But it's also, I'm gonna bring it up because I think it's A, a trend, and that's what we're about. And B, it's sort of a prediction. I think I have a prediction here, and it's gonna be like, be interesting in the next five or 10 years, okay?

• 0:35Shaan Puri?

  Sweaters, denim, tobacco.

• 0:37Sam Parr?

  Yeah, you're in the ballpark.

• 0:39Shaan Puri?

  Media.

• 0:39Sam Parr?

  Yeah, we're in the zip code.

• 0:41Shaan Puri?

  We're definitely. newspaper industry.

• 0:44Sam Parr?

  We're in the zip code. So years ago, this doesn't matter to you because you're not from the South. But if you're above the age of 30, a lot of people here probably remember this TV show, American Pickers. Did you ever even watch that show?

• 0:58Shaan Puri?

  Never watched it.

• 0:59Sam Parr?

  Okay, two guys who go and buy junk and they tell the story of the junk and then we.

• 1:04Shaan Puri?

  Buy it from storage containers? So that's a different show?

• 1:07Sam Parr?

  That's a different show, but again, same ballpark. But basically, they would drive around the South. They would knock on old people's homes and say, can I come and look in your barn? And they would find old, cool stuff, tell the story of it, clean it up just a little bit, bring it back to the store where I worked, and we would resell it. That's basically it. That's all it is. But we would have lines out the door. Because at the time, this show, we were, it was like David Letterman was number one, and then like American Pickers was number two, in terms of the most watched shows on TV. There'd be days where we would sell, I'm not exaggerating, $100,000 in American Pickers t-shirts. Because all these guys would come in and want to buy anything that was American Pickers related.

• 1:42Shaan Puri?

  How much revenue do you think that store did overall?

• 1:45Sam Parr?

  I would imagine $10 million, one location.

• 1:49Shaan Puri?

  One location. Big store or just like a normal shop?

• 1:53Sam Parr?

  It was so small that we had a script to let people, people would come in and be so disappointed at how small it was. Because they would think it was like this big, like, because the cameras made it look huge.

• 2:04Shaan Puri?

  I was familiar to my life.

• 2:08Shaan Puri?

  I do have a script.

• 2:13Sam Parr?

  So it was like a tidy store, but we killed it. But I experienced something that, but the thing was is that it was all like hillbillies. It was like redneck hillbillies from like Alabama. For some reason, the picking culture, it's all like hillbillies in like rural Alabama.

• 2:26Shaan Puri?

  Like how you said, for some reason.

• 2:27Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I don't know, like, cause they like old shit or they like the reuse stuff. I don't know, it's just part of the culture. But this, this weekend I experienced something that has totally changed my worldview on this topic. So there's this thing called Alfargo's Marketplace and I went to it the other day. Click this photo that I'm highlighting right here. So it's based, the story is basically it's these four guys and they're, they look like they're 24 years old. And they started organizing this flea market in New York City. And they host it at this place called New House, which is like

• 3:00Sam Parr?

  the hipper version of WeWork. So it's this like weird combination of like urban New York stuff, but like flea markets, which are historically like old people and southern like heritage, like it's, it's not like a New York cool kid thing. It is now though.

• 3:15Shaan Puri?

  All right, can I just describe what I'm seeing?

• 3:17Sam Parr?

  Describe what, what you see and who you see.

• 3:20Shaan Puri?

  Every photo looks like it's taken with a Polaroid, even though we have like 4K cameras. Everybody has a beard and a bald head, so a lot of hair on the face, no hair on top.

• 3:31Shaan Puri?

  I mean, the style is eclectic, there's a DJ. It looks like, is this a party in a Goodwill shop? Is that what's happening?

• 3:38Sam Parr?

  Dude, it's a high-end vintage flea market and it was packed. And I'm 35, I was the oldest person there.

• 3:47Shaan Puri?

  All the guys are dressed as girls and all the girls are dressed as guys.

• 3:51Sam Parr?

  There's a lot of weird stuff going on. And when you, and they're all wearing, it's all like 24-year-old, single guys wearing suits and ties. I went there with my daughter and it was just me and her. I was, I felt like I was the oldest person there, no one had children.

• 4:02Shaan Puri?

  You took your daughter to this?

• 4:04Sam Parr?

  We were just like hanging out for the day and I like, I was like, let's go to the fucking flea market. And it was.

• 4:10Shaan Puri?

  Like Adam Sandler, Big Daddy.

• 4:13Sam Parr?

  We more, we wore matching sweaters, we were, we were, we were the hit. We made the, the Instagram of these guys, but they built this flea market. And it was packed. It was like, like, it was like, I was like regretting bringing her because I was like, dude, this is way too packed and I can't even get around. So we didn't even stay for that long. But it kind of got me thinking about flea markets because I think that like, have you noticed that? By the way, that like millennial hipsters have just disappeared. They're just gone.

• 4:43Sam Parr?

  They're no longer a thing anymore. Hipsters have just like, where'd they go?

• 4:49Shaan Puri?

  Do you have a theory?

• 4:50Sam Parr?

  These are the new hipsters. Young people who wear like nice clothing like this and are into vintage. This is the new version.

• 4:58Shaan Puri?

  Doing this, there's like a branding genius. Look at these posters. Just like, this is just so well done. Like, how do you turn, this just shows, you can make anything, anything can be done anyway. You can make a sandwich gourmet. You can make a sandwich terrible. You could make a flea market cool. And you could make a cool thing feel like a flea market. Like this is all, this is so well executed as far as the branding goes. It's unbelievable. Like this thing, the Instagram looks like a magazine. It's unbelievable.

• 5:30Sam Parr?

  But here's the thing, this is why I'm bringing this up. It isn't just these guys. So go to the Instagram. It's, if you're listening, it's called Al Fargo's Marketplace. And look at the photos of, of the, whoever you see that's a stylish young man, click their pro and their tag, click their profile. Tons of them, tons and tons of them have 100, 200, 300,000 followers. And it's these like young 23 year old guys showing off their outfits. And the engagement on these Instagram handles is insane. So I'll give you an example of one, or do you see one right there?

• 6:02Shaan Puri?

  I'm trying to find it, but yeah, give me an example.

• 6:04Sam Parr?

  So go to, the handle is Denny623. So I'll post it in here.

• 6:11Shaan Puri?

  Dude, what a big day for Denny. He had no idea this was gonna happen for him.

• 6:15Sam Parr?

  So look at Denny.

• 6:16Shaan Puri?

  All right, Denny, wow. Cowboy hat, flare, just, he's wearing Chris Saka shirt. But the rest is, is fantastic. 112,000 followers. He's a digital creator, a menswear blogger, content creator since 08. Oh my God, he's been in the game. He's a creative director. Is this, what flag is this? Philippines? What is that?

• 6:34Sam Parr?

  I think it's Puerto Rican, but I bought this sweater from Denny. Denny was a vendor at Al Fargo's.

• 6:41Sam Parr?

  I bought it from him because I want to be part of this trend. And so my point here is amongst young people, this is a huge hit. And if you click around in these guys' Instagram. You know, there's this joke about whatever the Silicon Valley nerds are doing in five or 10 years is going to be mainstream. This is the New York cool kid thing. This is like walking around Soho and seeing what what people are wearing. This is it and is happening right now. And I have two ways. I think this is going to be a big business.

• 7:09Shaan Puri?

  Okay. So wait, is your take that flea market? Cause if I understand you correctly, you went to this cool flea market. You you what? I can't even call it a flea market. You went to a party in New York.

• 7:19Sam Parr?

  No, it was a flea market.

• 7:21Shaan Puri?

  Okay, it was mostly a party, happened to have some goods.

• 7:23Sam Parr?

  It was a flea market with a DJ.

• 7:25Shaan Puri?

  You took your daughter. It's hilarious. You're saying flea markets are a bigger deal than most people realize, especially people like us who live on our computer. And then you're, are you saying there's an opportunity here? Are you saying somebody's going to build the crumble cookie of flea markets? What's gonna happen?

• 7:38Sam Parr?

  I think, I think two things are gonna happen. I think that there's a massive like PE opportunity here. I think flea markets could potentially be the new RV park and you could purchase them at a real estate valuation. I also think that there's a huge amount of male, well, females as well, but male like fashion influencers, and that's like a hot trend. And I've spoke to like 10 or 20 of them and they're all fucking broke. All of them are like, I wish I could just pay my rent with this.

• 8:05Shaan Puri?

  Right, right.

• 8:05Sam Parr?

  I think this business is a beautiful business and these Al Fargo marketplace guys are a really good example of how it's done well. And I think that they're probably not savvy when it comes to business. They're more like artists and that there's something really interesting here. And so

• 8:19Shaan Puri?

  So you're saying this Rose Bowl flea market, 20,000 visitors, 2,500 vendors per month. All right. So basically, based on that, 20,000 visitors paying 12 bucks to enter, the vendors paying 150 bucks to be there, they're making 600 grand per flea market, which happens what? Once a month?

• 8:37Sam Parr?

  Once a month, but you're forgetting like so many other things like table rentals, chair rentals, things like that.

• 8:43Shaan Puri?

  So about seven to eight million dollars in revenue you see on this, from this one flea market, basically?

• 8:49Sam Parr?

  I think it's even more. And I also think the other point that I'm going to make is that it's pretty like, it's obviously very old. So there's this one called Brimfield Antique Show. So do me a favor and go to their website. So Brimfield is a flea market that gets a million people a year coming to this festival, which is huge, right? That's, we're talking like Coachella, Coachella sized stuff. Scroll to the very bottom. So if you want to contact someone, you go to the, go to the very bottom and look at where it's, tell me what it says about Jody.

• 9:21Shaan Puri?

  Oh, Jody, J M J Y two at AOL.com. Just send her a note.

• 9:27Sam Parr?

  If you want to learn, this is an event with 1 million customers.

• 9:33Sam Parr?

  If you want to learn more about it, email Jody at AOL.com. That's what it says at the very bottom. Go to Jody's LinkedIn. I looked at, I looked her up on LinkedIn. Can you click Jody's LinkedIn?

• 9:43Shaan Puri?

  Where is?

• 9:44Sam Parr?

  It says, look at Jody. Jody's great.

• 9:48Sam Parr?

  Jody's, her name's Jody Young. She is the owner of this, of this business with 1 million customers. Jody looks lovely. Jody looks like a nice woman. Jody doesn't exactly look like what I think is going to be a younger generation of people who are interested in this topic.

• 10:05Shaan Puri?

  You're saying the owner, the owner of this business, these types of businesses is going to look different in 10 years?

• 10:10Sam Parr?

  And I would say that they're probably not the most.

• 10:14Shaan Puri?

  Choose your words wisely. Ants are listening.

• 10:16Sam Parr?

  They, they are probably not the most uptight operators. That's what I would say. They're probably very passionate about this. And sometimes when you're, when, when passion leads, maybe you're leaving, you know, dollars on the table. That's what I'm saying. And I believe that in the next couple of years, screw the RV, screw Nick Huber talking about RV parks and storage units. We're going to be talking about flea markets. That's what I think is going to happen.

• 10:44Shaan Puri?

  All right. Bold prediction. I really like this, by the way. This is a, this is a Sam Parr special. Applause for the Sam Parr special.

• 10:51Shaan Puri?

  Cool find on the trend. Cool find on the underrated business flea markets. How big they are. Wow, they're kind of stunning in terms of like the visitors that they get. I like how you wrote at the bottom. And AI ain't gonna fuck with this. This is part of the thesis. This is a good like private equity roll up thesis by you. Good job by you.

• 11:14Sam Parr?

  Yeah, and it's, thank you. Thank you for that condescending patronizing. Good job for you. You like that for me.

• 11:20Shaan Puri?

  Good job by you.

• 11:23Sam Parr?

  Amongst young people, dude, they buy a huge amount of vintage clothing. Something like I saw some crazy stat where it was something like 80% of Gen Zers regularly shop for secondhand clothing. And so you have companies like Depop. Have you heard of Depop, Sean?

• 11:43Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, it's like a secondhand marketplace, secondhand app.

• 11:45Sam Parr?

  Dude, they have 80 million users. And then there's Poshmark, and then there's Grail, and then there's like 10 other ones. These young people are buying vintage and secondhand clothing at like alarming rates. Not alarming, but you know what I mean, like surprisingly high rates. And have you ever seen like thrift halls on TikTok? Have you seen that?

• 12:04Shaan Puri?

  I've seen a lot of things on TikTok. I've seen a lot of things. That's one of them. I've definitely seen that.

• 12:10Sam Parr?

  It's a

• 12:13Sam Parr?

  it's a huge thing. If you like type in thrift halls on TikTok, I follow so many of these people on Instagram. It's like a really common thing. And so my whole point here being young people are buying this shit up, man. They're buying this, these secondhand clothing, this secondhand clothing like crazy.

• 12:28Shaan Puri?

  I'm just looking up Goodwill's numbers. So Goodwill's revenues last 10 years starts at 4.8 billion, 5.7, 5.9, 6.1, 6.3, 7 billion. Pandemic goes back down to 5.5. Then it goes 7.5 billion, 8.2 billion and 9 billion projected for this year or for the last year.

• 12:49Sam Parr?

  And if you go to, uh, what's it called? Is it called Goodwill Finds? So Goodwill Finds.com, they have their own, uh, like online marketplace where they auction off like a handful of the like nicer things, uh, that Goodwill collects and people love it. I've bought a couple of things from there. I think Ari said she buys stuff from there. Um, it's getting really popular.

• 13:10Shaan Puri?

  I want to make sure I get this down for the record. What are you saying is the like, someone could do or someone should do?

• 13:16Sam Parr?

  So there's, uh, so what I'm saying is that flea markets are a recession-proof business in a highly fragmented industry and they last for many, many decades and they're hard to disrupt once they work well. And also that young people are buying, uh, vintage clothing and are into flea markets more than other generations. And then what I'm saying is I think that there's a roll-up opportunity, or what I would do is I would work with some of these broke, like passionate fashion influencers and I think, uh, I could create, if I, if that was my thing, a really awesome flea market business.

• 13:56Shaan Puri?

  Can I give you one other random idea? So I used to live in Indonesia and Indonesia, they do this thing that I've never really seen here, but I really liked it. So you don't want a mall when you go into a food court. So in America, you go to a mall, there's a food court and the experience, what's the experience? You basically like the business model is you walk in, there's nobody there to like serve you. Um, you just go and you pick, do I want a slice from Sabaro? Do I want a sandwich? Do I want some fried chicken? What do I want? You go, you buy your one thing and you go sit down, right? Did I capture it accurately?

• 14:29Sam Parr?

  Yeah. And it's like, and there's a guy handing samples. I'm gonna try out the samples and we're gonna sit in kind of a nasty chair and just like eat this crap.

• 14:36Shaan Puri?

  So in Indonesia, the malls in general are a lot better, but the one thing that they do for their food court is a little bit different. When you walk in, they give you like a wristband, almost like it's a Coachella or something like that. And this wristband is basically your way to buy anything you want. And the way they designed the flow, it's almost like an Ikea. You walk around and every booth has like cool stuff and they're, and they're like, it's not super low quality food. It's still obviously faster, um, right? But it is, everything's like branded kind of well, the food, like the people who are working there. Like you can tell it's like more, a little more upscale. And you pick and shoot, you basically start, you start with this tray and you just keep adding different little plates from the different vendors onto your one tray.

• 15:18Shaan Puri?

  Right? So you have an empty tray and you're going to grab a small bowl or plate from all the different booths that you want to try something from. And at each one, you just tap your wristband so that the system knows what all you're, you've picked up. But it doesn't feel like you're spending money. It feels like you're like opening a door. You're just having, here's my key. Give me my thing. This is amazing. You sit down, you eat and at the end, when you leave, you put your tray down and you scan your badge and they tell you the damage and you pay for it on the way out.

• 15:44Sam Parr?

  That's awesome.

• 15:45Shaan Puri?

  I've always thought that American food court should steal this model. You spend way more and it's just a more fun experience. Like paying at the end, once you've already like, you know, had the little like, you know, amusement park of food type of thing is pretty cool. I wonder if somebody could do a similar thing with thrift or flea markets. And so the thing I'm imagining here is like, remember like Spartan Race or Tough Mudder? How they turned this like thing that seemed like work and kind of hard into something that was fun, a bit of an Instagram opportunity and almost like-

• 16:16Sam Parr?

  They turned like an individual rate, like when you race, you're by yourself, you're into like a group fun activity.

• 16:23Shaan Puri?

  Exactly. So a social fun event that you're planning, it's basically a party. I think you could do the same thing with the flea market. So I think what you could do is you could basically arrange it, uh, whether it's a race or it's a, it's a one long path. And if you do the wristband thing, or you basically, as soon as you join, you get 10 tickets, you get 20 tickets, 30 tickets, whatever it is, and you get to, and now you just have tickets you have to spend, right? So instead of the goodwill problem, which is you go and you're like, should I get this? Should I not? Blah, blah, blah. Like upfront, you just make a commit, I'm going to find 10 things here. And then it's about just finding the most fun 10 things you could find at the event. And you go and you collect, you, you fill up your card, you can always get more tickets as you go. And then by the end, you walk out and you've got this new outfit. So like you literally would have a photo at the start.

• 17:07Shaan Puri?

  And a photo at the end because you put it on and you basically do like a makeover on a, you know, Saturday afternoon with your friends and you all end up with this like fun photo at the end of you guys dressed up.

• 17:18Sam Parr?

  That's fantastic.

• 17:19Shaan Puri?

  Is that not a great experience?

• 17:20Sam Parr?

  It's a fantastic experience and also just for some reason scanning things with my wrist is for some reason like more fun than pulling out my credit card. Do you remember that, um, didn't you invest in a company that was creating software? So like Patagonia could sell secondhand coats or something?

• 17:36Shaan Puri?

  I didn't, I didn't end up getting to invest in it. I really wanted to. It's called.

• 17:41Sam Parr?

  I think North Face used it because I almost.

• 17:43Shaan Puri?

  It's doing well.

• 17:44Sam Parr?

  I almost bought a North Face coat and they call it like reworked where you like mail in your old coat and you get some type of credit and then they like repair it. But it kind of looks funky and cool and like guys like me could buy it.

• 17:55Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I think the way they call it, the term for this like movement is recommerce. So you have e-commerce, but then you have recommerce, which is when you sell that secondhand thing again. I can't find the name of this thing. Uh, that's sad. I really wanted to use it. I think they're doing well, by the way. They've got a bunch of like big brands. So what, what they were doing was they're saying, hey, uh, they would go to a brand like us. They'd say, hey, a lot of people are already reselling your items. And on these other platforms and Facebook groups and wherever, and they, they actually sell sometimes out of markup or sometimes, you know, they just, they, you know, it's a, it's a slight discount, but they're, they're used goods. Why don't you just make a central place on your website for people to buy, you know, already loved items?

• 18:35Shaan Puri?

  And so what you would do is they, customers could just upload a thing and you'd basically create your own little marketplace on your website. They power it with the software. And when somebody, uh, and then they don't have to wait for a buyer. So they could just put it on the thing and get basically store credit for it. When somebody buys it and so you could, you're giving store credit, which was going to get them to come back. And the other person's getting the item, which they were going to get by anyways off platform. Makes a lot of sense.

• 19:01Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I almost bought something the other day from you with someone using their software, but they didn't have my size. Um, so that's my, that's my big.

• 19:08Shaan Puri?

  The, the website was called Treat. The, the company was called Treat. T R E E T. Um, that was the, the name of the, the company that was doing this. I still wish I had invested in this thing. This thing's great.

• 19:19Sam Parr?

  It's awesome. This is great. So that's my big pitch on flea markets. I think, I think, oh, and by the way, there are one or two PE guys in the space doing this. I think there's like unitedfleamarkets.com or something like that, but I think you're gonna see more. So this is my prediction and also my opportunity spiel.

• 19:38Shaan Puri?

  Okay, I like that you made a prediction because the next thing I'm gonna tell you about is a giant, I told you so. But nobody likes hearing I told you so. In fact, there's a great tweet that went viral over the last week. This guy, Matt Lasky tweeted this out. He goes, "My wife just taught me the professional way to say I told you so."

• 19:54Sam Parr?

  I saw that. So funny.

• 19:55Shaan Puri?

  You say, "This was identified early on as a likely outcome."

• 20:00Shaan Puri?

  I'm gonna be using this a lot. So let me just say that me and Sam identified this early as a likely outcome. And what I'm talking about is true crime podcasts. Okay, so this doesn't sound like the sexiest thing, but do you know what the most popular podcast in the world, in America is?

• 20:18Sam Parr?

  Joe Rogan?

• 20:19Shaan Puri?

  Correct. Do you know what the second most popular is?

• 20:22Sam Parr?

  I would have guessed like Call Her Daddy.

• 20:25Shaan Puri?

  Okay, great. Also would have thought it's some famous personality podcast.

• 20:29Sam Parr?

  Like the opposite of Joe, like Joe Rogan for women.

• 20:32Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, exactly. It's actually Crime Junkie, a podcast that was started by a 36-year-old podcaster. And here's the headline, "This 36-year-old podcaster is making $45 million a year of profit." $45 million a year.

• 20:48Sam Parr?

  It's insane. And where is she based? That's the crazy part, too.

• 20:51Shaan Puri?

  So let me tell you the story here. So this woman, Ashley Flowers, she's working at a normal day job and she grew up loving like Agatha Christie stories, you know, like sort of these mystery crime stories growing up. In fact, so much so that she joined, maybe volunteered at this place called Crime Stoppers, like local crime stopping, you know, organization for, in her town. And it was supposed to, you know, just help people report crimes to one central place. Now, to promote the organization, she volunteers and says, "Hey, what if I create a weekly radio show called Murder Monday?" And she does it and she realizes like, hey, people kind of like this, like they like Murder Monday. This is working. And she's just doing this again for fun, volunteering on the side of her day job.

• 21:37Shaan Puri?

  And then she hears Serial Podcast. It comes out and then Serial becomes this phenomenon. And she listens to it and she says, oh, that's cool. What if I do Murder Monday? Type of like my radio show that I'm just doing for my local org, but what if I did it as a podcast? And she jumps in. This is back in 2017. She records, she, you know, comes home from her day job, records her first episode, uploads it and off to the races. Now, here we are later. She's got 65 employees. Her business just raised $40 million from churn in, uh, has valued the company at $250 million. And it has a reported or a rumored $45 million of EBITDA, uh, per year, which honestly sounds a little high.

• 22:17Sam Parr?

  Something's off. The valuation's off or?

• 22:21Shaan Puri?

  Exactly. It's only 5X EBITDA. I don't think that's.

• 22:23Sam Parr?

  And why would you raise money if you're making $45 million a year in profit?

• 22:26Shaan Puri?

  And the valuation's likely more true than the, the rumored profit number, but whatever. Let's say, I think, I think, I think 20 million would be a very, um, real number at the, at the low end here.

• 22:36Sam Parr?

  Insane.

• 22:37Shaan Puri?

  She herself does two, she hosts two podcasts herself. She's the producer of the shows. She sells the ads. She closes the deal. She's touring all around the country, all around the world. Uh, she was working 15 hours a day, now down to 10 hours a day. She's got a little three-year-old daughter. She has racked up 500 million plus downloads in the last five years. Just insane volume.

• 22:57Sam Parr?

  That's ridiculous. Do you listen to true crime?

• 23:01Shaan Puri?

  I listen to a bit of true crime. So, okay, here's the I told you so part of this. If you go to the MFM Vault, MFM Vault.com, which is a place where you can go find old episodes and you could search. So I just went on to MFM Vault and I just searched true crime because I know we've been talking about this. Guess when the first time we talked about this is? Just like guess the year.

• 23:18Sam Parr?

  I don't know, uh, a year and a half ago.

• 23:22Shaan Puri?

  So that would be like 2023?

• 23:23Sam Parr?

  23?

• 23:24Shaan Puri?

  Nope, 2020, five years ago. And it was an episode where Lance Armstrong popped by the office.

• 23:31Sam Parr?

  Like literally?

• 23:32Shaan Puri?

  Hopped into the podcast while we were recording. And you and Lance Armstrong are talking about your favorite type of podcast. And you both love true crime and you guys are geeking out about true crime. Sam and Lance Armstrong, the greatest cyclist of all time.

• 23:49Sam Parr?

  Like Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps, Tiger.

• 23:52Shaan Puri?

  Owns a bike and Lance Armstrong, the greatest biker of all time.

• 23:57Sam Parr?

  Talking about how we.

• 23:58Shaan Puri?

  Same, same.

• 23:59Sam Parr?

  Yeah. Like, what do you like to get scared by? Like, that's the conversation.

• 24:03Shaan Puri?

  Exactly. And we started talking about true crime. Then we talked about it again in 2023. We talked about, um, Parcast. You had brought up that this guy had created this, uh, true crime podcast network, 16 shows. And he sold it to Spotify for like a hundred million dollars, 50 million in cash, 50 million in the earn out.

• 24:20Sam Parr?

  What was his name, Mac something?

• 24:22Shaan Puri?

  Something. And, um, then we talked about, then again, we talked about it a few years ago. We talked about Law and Crime, which was this media company that was dedicated to true crime stories as well as like just reporting on actual court cases that were going on. And it was also acquired for more than a hundred million dollars. And all along the way, we've been talking about how like true crime is this thing where there's this underrated appetite, more than you would think for this. We had Mr. Ballin come on, Mr. Ballin comes on and he talks about how his content is all about telling strange, dark, mysterious stories. People just love this shit. And we've been talking about it and every year that we've been talking about it, it sounds like it's too late. And every year we talk about it, another nine figure company has essentially started or grown during that period of time.

• 25:08Shaan Puri?

  And so even now, now that this is still like, you know, a super established, I still think there's a ton of opportunity here. And I wanted to brainstorm this a little bit with you.

• 25:17Sam Parr?

  I uh, I'm totally on board with this. I am a huge fan. My, my new one is the Law and Crime Network on YouTube. And whenever like the diddler comes about, or there's like a new crime, like P Diddy's like a lube stuff. I was watching that like, like what's his, what's the Luigi, Luigi Manjani? Like, this is like a gift from God for the, for the, for the true crime people. Like, I've been obsessed with all of this stuff. Like, learning about freak off parties, learning about, you know, like, deny, what does Luigi say?

• 25:50Shaan Puri?

  When LeBron James enters the draft. This is like, oh, we got a new hot prospect. We got Luigi.

• 25:57Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 25:57Shaan Puri?

  Like, oh, Diddy is here. Oh, my God. We're gonna have content for years.

• 26:01Sam Parr?

  Dude, I listen to this stuff on my runs and I, and I, I'm all about it. So what do you want to brainstorm?

• 26:06Shaan Puri?

  You listen to it on your runs? Like, you're just running away from the problem? Like, what are you doing?

• 26:10Sam Parr?

  I think my, my hypothesis, so basically with the true crime stuff, it's basically me and 100 million women. It's like 80, it's like 80% women, I think, who are into this. And I think that women listen to this from the perspective of how would I, how would I get away? Like, how would I get out of this situation? And men listen to it from the perspective of like, how would I get away with this?

• 26:34Sam Parr?

  That's like their perspective, I think, that each of the genders listens to these things.

• 26:38Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, exactly. It's like American Kingpin. Yeah, my hero. My hero did this.

• 26:45Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. So, um, by the way, already opportunity. So you know, when you run, I think most running apps or running like, um, music playlists, they try to have a certain beats per minute to keep up, keep like pace you during a run, right? They try to be up tempo.

• 27:03Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 27:04Shaan Puri?

  True crime, 150 beats per minute.

• 27:06Sam Parr?

  Dude.

• 27:06Shaan Puri?

  Already innovation, white space. You know what I'm saying?

• 27:09Sam Parr?

  For zone two workouts, I only listen to solved murders by Parcast. Oh, I gotta go do a, a 60 minute run, turn on solved murders. That's 60 minutes of like, we're gonna get through two 30 minute episodes and I'm gonna learn about some crazy murders.

• 27:23Shaan Puri?

  Kind of slow, right? So like, what if somebody created a higher energy? Alright, so here's my brainstormer. Can I give you some pitches on my, my brainstorm? This was my five minute brainstorm before the podcast of what would I do? Cause it's one thing to say, there's an opportunity there.

• 27:36Sam Parr?

  Great podcast already. How, how I would do it?

• 27:39Shaan Puri?

  Let's have, do we settle for great? How about you? Great doesn't get me out of bed in the morning.

• 27:46Sam Parr?

  I mean, great's pretty good to be.

• 27:48Shaan Puri?

  Honestly, be a huge compliment. I'd be greatly flattered.

• 27:53Sam Parr?

  I'd rest on those laurels.

• 27:55Shaan Puri?

  But all right, here's the brainstorm. So white space in the true crime space right now. First, okay, the obvious one. This is not that fun of a one, but YouTube. So most of these that started, they were just audio only podcasts like Serial. They were inspired by Serial. They were podcasts. And most people thought podcasts were all audio. YouTube came out recently and announced that a billion people a month watch podcast content on YouTube. So if you're a podcaster and you're not doing YouTube, where are you at? And if you're listening to this podcast and you're not subscribed to us on YouTube, where are you at? That's what I have to say. Go find my social media on YouTube. All right. But so the first thing is go all in as a YouTube first podcast. Even Crime Junkie, she started off heavily in audio,

• 28:39Shaan Puri?

  then started doing video just as kind of an add-on. And if you go watch their video, it's like, you know, started off really scrappy and now it looks a little bit better. There she's not. And then when she raised this money, she's investing in like a full video studio to do this like for real. But the format is actually pretty great. Have you ever listened to her podcast? It's basically she sits on a couch with her friend. But unlike most podcasts where it's two equal hosts or something, they're going back and forth. It's her explaining to one friend what's going on with the crime. And her friend is like active listening. She's like sitting there.

• 29:09Sam Parr?

  And asking questions.

• 29:10Shaan Puri?

  Nodding her, mostly just nodding her head and being like, ooh. And then like ask the clarifying question when the listener would have one. So smart, by the way. That little thing is so smart because most content gets better the more you narrow it to an audience of one. If you're writing, write to one person. If you're doing a podcast, like this podcast works well because we kind of do that too, where instead of saying, all right, listeners, we'd like to tell you about some great businesses. It's like, dude, Sam, have you seen this? You're like, no, what? I'm like, check this out. And it's that vibe that actually like works well, the podcast. That's a little bit of the secret sauce. All right. I gave you three of Colonel Sanders nine spices there.

• 29:47Sam Parr?

  That's

• 29:51Sam Parr?

  last week, last what episode it was leveraged.

• 29:54Shaan Puri?

  I just broke your brain. What happened?

• 29:55Sam Parr?

  It was leveraged to the tits. Now it's, I just gave you three of the Colonel's nine spices. That's fantastic.

• 30:02Shaan Puri?

  Gave you a quarter Colonel there.

• 30:05Sam Parr?

  I was gonna say something and you, that was great.

• 30:09Shaan Puri?

  Nuked your brain. Alright, my bad.

• 30:11Sam Parr?

  Oh, I was gonna say with this podcast, like, I did not know that you were going to bring this up and you didn't know I was gonna bring the other thing up. So that's like a little bit, that's how it works.

• 30:20Shaan Puri?

  We surprise each other and intentionally, right? We could say, let's share notes, let's do research, let's be prepared. That makes for a work podcast. We surprise each other because the show is...

• 30:28Sam Parr?

  You need a reaction.

• 30:29Shaan Puri?

  I want to tell you something, I want you to react, I want you to riff for real, and then I want you to surprise me and that makes it fun for us to do. So she does the same thing. She basically tells the story to her friend. Her friend says they're active listening. She started off just taking existing shows and now has like a team of 10 journalists that do original reporting. She now has another show called The Deck where she works with local cops and they give her like access to evidence and they try to actually solve cold cases. Isn't that insane?

• 30:57Sam Parr?

  That's the greatest.

• 30:58Shaan Puri?

  She is basically the Mr. Beast of true crime. Like when you see how she just took a very simple idea and took it very seriously and she scaled it up. It's like, yeah, why not? Why not have our own journalists? Why not scour the country for stories? Why not partner with the cops? Why not build a studio? Why not have 100 employees? Why not turn this into a full-on production company? She just kept going with the very simple idea, right? Mr. Beast's like, what if I gave away a thousand dollars? What if I gave away five, 10, 100, 1 million, 10 million dollars? What if you stood in a tiny circle? What if you stood a big circle? What if you didn't have to stand in the circle? What if you had to lay down? Like, he just keeps going with these like ideas and takes a very simple idea but takes it more seriously than anybody else. So I feel like she's done that.

• 31:38Sam Parr?

  She's coming to Radio City in New York in May. Should I go? I would totally go to one of her live events.

• 31:45Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, you should go. Why not?

• 31:48Sam Parr?

  She has like a huge tour. She has a huge tour.

• 31:50Shaan Puri?

  You're gonna become a very big fan of her. Let me, I found something that when I found it, I go, oh, Sam's gonna love this. And I'm like the mama bird and you're the baby bird and I'm about to puke in your mouth with something you're gonna love.

• 32:03Shaan Puri?

  Peter Chernin, when he met her, here's what, here's the quote he said about her. Cause he invested 40, he, he met her at a part of a TV show pitch. And then was like, just like, wow, this woman is really impressive. And told his guy, go find a way to invest. And he like flies to Indiana and like, like hounded her for this investment. So here's what Peter Chernin said. He said, I find her uniquely impressive.

• 32:27Sam Parr?

  That's a good one. And he's

• 32:28Shaan Puri?

  Good, right?

• 32:29Sam Parr?

  He's been around everyone.

• 32:30Shaan Puri?

  I find her uniquely impressive. What a, what a subtle, but like powerful compliment from a guy who's met so many interesting people.

• 32:38Sam Parr?

  And I think her and Pat McAfee are both in Indianapolis. That's like, they're, they're like in a form like the Indianapolis podcasting like mafia.

• 32:46Shaan Puri?

  Two dots make a line. So, um, check this out. Okay. So here's the other white space here. Ready? Black true crime. Not a lot of black podcasters doing true crime. There's a couple.

• 32:58Sam Parr?

  Are you a follower of black YouTube or black Twitter?

• 33:01Shaan Puri?

  I am a, I'm a card carrying member of black culture. So yeah, I'm a part of.

• 33:07Sam Parr?

  Like is DJ Vlad the greatest YouTuber of all time?

• 33:10Shaan Puri?

  One of the greatest journalists of our time, of our era.

• 33:13Sam Parr?

  Yeah. Getting the Wade brothers to like dish on like what it's like, or like Club Shea Shea with Cat Williams. Dude, how about Club Shea Shea getting like a hundred mil? I think that was, I think before Trump on Rogan, or maybe even including, I think Club Shea Shea and Cat Williams is the number one most downloaded YouTube video or YouTube interview of the year.

• 33:35Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. It's insane.

• 33:37Sam Parr?

  Are there not more of these, like these like, uh, true crime shows geared towards that audience?

• 33:43Shaan Puri?

  There's only a couple. And the very first one was called like affirmative crime or someone's like, no, that's a bad name. This is not right. Right? Like, yeah, this has happened in comedy podcasts. Like comedy podcasts started with a lot of like white comedians in LA, but now there's like so many really funny. You know, just two guys hanging out, two black comedians hanging out type of podcasts, sports podcasts, et cetera. Like, I think podcasting started off. Pretty homogeneously white and true crime, even just the way it comes across is a little bit like,

• 34:10Sam Parr?

  Midwestern.

• 34:11Shaan Puri?

  NPR woman, right? Like Serial kind of was in that lineage. I think she used to work for NPR, right? Something like that. And so it just feels very produced and almost.

• 34:21Sam Parr?

  Like New York elitist.

• 34:23Shaan Puri?

  Exactly, exactly. And it needs to be more, you know, country grammar. It needs like somebody who listened to a lot of Nelly growing up.

• 34:36Sam Parr?

  They all, like a lot of those guys have like that Ira Glass, like today's episode. Yeah. On This American Life.

• 34:42Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 34:43Sam Parr?

  Yeah, you know what I mean?

• 34:45Shaan Puri?

  That cadence is so good.

• 34:47Sam Parr?

  It's like, that's a cool one.

• 34:49Shaan Puri?

  Well, by the way, world's worst impression to be good at, Ira Glass. This was the only time that was ever gonna land for you. All right, next one is comedy times true crime. So I think a lot of the true crime podcasts are very serious, they're heavy, they're trying to be mysterious. Creepy, makes total sense. You get why I would do it that way. I think there's an opening for somebody to do true crime, but just with a comedy angle. And, you know, not to, not to toot our own horn here, but like, we did this a little bit in the business space. We, you know, a lot of the business podcasts, a lot of the interviews, a lot of the podcasts were, it was just an IQ contest. Everybody just wanted to be the bigger know it all than the other.

• 35:29Shaan Puri?

  It was very dry, informational. And, you know, me and you, this is kind of how we talk when we hang out. And we just didn't filter ourselves that way. And it's not that we're like, compared to comedians, we're not funny. But compared to most VCs, we're pretty funny.

• 35:43Sam Parr?

  Yeah, the bar is low.

• 35:45Shaan Puri?

  And so the bar is low also in true crime. There's nobody funny in true crime. So if you're even moderately funny, you're the funniest true crime podcast.

• 35:51Sam Parr?

  Let me as a, so.

• 35:53Shaan Puri?

  Am I talking out my ass? Are they actually funny ones?

• 35:55Sam Parr?

  No, well, you're not, you're not off, but you're actually right. And I'm gonna give you one piece of evidence that you're right. So we are called MFM. I have gotten like hate mail from women who are like, you're not MFM. The real MFM is my favorite murder. So go to myfavoritemurder.com and read the headline.

• 36:15Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, we're not even the most famous, we'll never be the most famous MFM podcast.

• 36:19Sam Parr?

  Yeah, it's my, have you heard of my favorite murder? Have people like said like, you're not really MFM?

• 36:23Shaan Puri?

  I've never listened to it though. Is it humorous? It looks like it.

• 36:27Sam Parr?

  The, so go to the website. The headline is a true crime comedy podcast.

• 36:32Shaan Puri?

  Okay.

• 36:33Sam Parr?

  And listen, it's hugely popular.

• 36:37Sam Parr?

  It's hugely popular, but I actually have a bone to pick. Dude, they're talking about like Ted Bundy killing people and they're like, isn't he hot? Like they're talking about, you know what I mean? It's kind of weird. Like they're talking about wanting to like get with Ted Bundy.

• 36:50Shaan Puri?

  So I'm basically like, you know what we should do? So we should have a coffee shop with wifi. And you're like, yeah, go to Starbucks.

• 36:59Sam Parr?

  But you're, you're right. Look, it's like, uh, you know, had you developed the theory, you had you developed the theory of relativity and never even heard of Albert Einstein? I would still say you're a genius.

• 37:09Shaan Puri?

  A few other possibilities here. True romance. So I think there's an opportunity to do a true crime style genre, but spin off into rom- combine two very popular genres, true crime and romance. You've, we've talked a lot of the past about like how the most read books and the most voracious readers are reading Danielle Steele, Fifty Shades of Grey style romance novels. And I think somebody could do true romance as a podcast genre.

• 37:38Sam Parr?

  One of my favorite, uh, true crime podcasts, they have a series called Killer Couples. And it's all about lovebirds who go out to commit murder.

• 37:46Shaan Puri?

  Maybe you should have done this, because I don't really listen to true crime. I listened to two seasons of Serial and like fell asleep to a few true crime podcasts.

• 37:55Sam Parr?

  Serial is like the JV team now compared to, uh, you know, what's going on now. All right. I'm on board with Killer Couples. What else?

• 38:03Shaan Puri?

  I mean, I feel a little bit discouraged, but I'll just finish out because quitting is the only thing more embarrassing than what's happening.

• 38:09Sam Parr?

  Wait, hold on. Speaking of true crime, I do think that there is this weird, like when I, we did this one like bit with the hustle about romance novels. And there was like these crazy weird genres of like, first of all, romance novels are like a massive hit. And then, but there's like women who wanna like a romance novel about a military guy, but there's like, take it a step further. There was like women who want to have sex with werewolves. Like, you know, the, what was the, what was that Rob, that movie that shit called? What was that thing? The Robert Patterson, the, the Twilight. Twilight. Like there were some weird like undertones of like bestiality with all that stuff.

• 38:43Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 38:44Sam Parr?

  Uh, but so I think that there's always a niche for, uh,

• 38:48Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. But you know what my, the bone I have to pick with this?

• 38:51Sam Parr?

  What?

• 38:52Shaan Puri?

  Nobody likes hairy dudes. As a hairy dude out here, where's that? Where's the appeal?

• 38:58Sam Parr?

  You just said.

• 38:58Shaan Puri?

  We like werewolves, but not just hairy guys?

• 39:00Sam Parr?

  Yeah, you need to get rebranded.

• 39:04Shaan Puri?

  I got so excited when I heard that werewolves were a thing for women and then just did not translate whatsoever.

• 39:10Sam Parr?

  Look, gray hair guys have rebranded to the silver foxes. You know, we gotta do something for the hairy backs.

• 39:17Shaan Puri?

  I heard somebody say this the other day. They were like, oh yeah, I had this like salt and pepper thing going on like, yeah, it's a lot of salt, though.

• 39:26Shaan Puri?

  That's the problem.

• 39:29Shaan Puri?

  Just salt.

• 39:32Shaan Puri?

  Okay, so last thing, games. Do they make games? So there's that one board game. Do you remember what it's called? It's kind of a mystery like board game subscription series, catch a murder, catch a killer, hunt a killer?

• 39:44Sam Parr?

  Hunt a killer, I think.

• 39:44Shaan Puri?

  Hunt a killer.

• 39:45Sam Parr?

  When we talked about it, I think it was doing 30 million a year in revenue.

• 39:48Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, tens of millions a year in revenue. I think that this woman, instead of touring, she should be creating

• 39:55Shaan Puri?

  board games. She should be creating a game that's in Target, in Walmart, on the shelf, and it's a true crime card game or board game that people can basically solve these cases together cooperatively. Or it's some kind of like, you know, like mafia where like one person's the game master and the other people are trying to figure it out. I think a game, take a game mechanic like that, but apply these true crime things and use your brand as crime junkies. I think somebody should be partnering with True Crime Broadcast to build those out.

• 40:23Sam Parr?

  Hunt a Killer, I think it's called. My whole perspective on games got completely changed. We hung out with the guy, Elon, at.

• 40:32Shaan Puri?

  He's coming on the podcast, by the way. We're doing.

• 40:34Sam Parr?

  What was it called? Killing Kittens or something?

• 40:36Shaan Puri?

  Exploding Kittens.

• 40:37Sam Parr?

  Exploding Kittens, a board or it's a card game, but board game, I guess. And I don't know what, we'll wait to see if he's going to reveal anything, but shockingly large.

• 40:47Shaan Puri?

  Like numbers are bananas. He's also like, yeah, of the top five most popular games in the world, we make number one, two, four and five. Damn.

• 40:56Sam Parr?

  It was amazing how successful it is. And I was like, I should start a game company. He felt like a, he felt like a 12, like he had the excitement of like a 12 year old, like he was so into like games and making people smile via these games that I was like.

• 41:13Shaan Puri?

  Hundred percent.

• 41:13Sam Parr?

  This guy's the greatest.

• 41:14Shaan Puri?

  In fact, that was my takeaway. I was like, oh, my God, I wish I was doing this. This is so cool. I could do this. Yes. And then I saw how truly joyful he was about making the games, not, not being successful at it, but the doing part. And I was like, oh, that's different than me. I don't have that. I just want the, I want to have done it.

• 41:31Sam Parr?

  He, yeah, you want the result. He like was showing us this game and it was like half done and he had a pen that he had written in like different points on the cards, like he was making the game as he was going and he was like, wouldn't this be cool? Let's like, let's change the game to this. Like he was doing it in real time and we were playing the game. It'd be like, you know, playing poker and he's like, actually, we should come up with like an ace. An ace means this.

• 41:53Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, he was like rapid prototyping on us. Did you see what he pulled out of his pocket while we were playing that game? By the way, just total side note, unrelated, but it was so funny.

• 42:00Sam Parr?

  What was it?

• 42:01Shaan Puri?

  He's trying to read a card and he can't read it. He needs his glasses. And so he whipped out a pair of glasses, but the glasses had no sticks. It was like a monocle for two glasses and he just rested it on the bridge of his nose and started reading it. And I completely couldn't pay attention to the rest of the game because I was just constantly trying to figure out, is it going to fall off his nose? And what are the physics of this? How does this work?

• 42:24Sam Parr?

  I think they're called readers. He had readers on it or something like that.

• 42:27Shaan Puri?

  Is that a thing? Is that a known thing? Like modern monocles?

• 42:30Sam Parr?

  It's like, it's like at Walgreens, you see him like next to the aisle, next to the checkout. You know what I mean? It's like the spinning thing.

• 42:37Shaan Puri?

  But they don't have sticks?

• 42:39Sam Parr?

  Sometimes, yeah. Arms? Is that what they're called?

• 42:43Shaan Puri?

  I've been sleeping on this train.

• 42:46Sam Parr?

  I am do I'm amazed that this woman is potentially doing forty five million dollars a year. I don't know if I believe it because that is so shocking, but we should see if if anyone's listening can get us in touch with her. I would like to talk to that, talk to her for the pod. That'd be fun.

• 43:03Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, Ashley Flowers, very, very impressive.

• 43:06Sam Parr?

  How old is she?

• 43:07Shaan Puri?

  Thirty six.

• 43:08Sam Parr?

  She's young. Wow, that's crazy.

• 43:10Shaan Puri?

  She's my age, dude. That's crazy. I could be her. She could be me. We could trade.

• 43:16Sam Parr?

  Isn't that crazy that like, you know, it's it's now we're like, yeah, that's obvious. But seven years ago, to be like, I'm gonna start a crime podcast and that's gonna make me a billionaire. That's pretty wild to think because she potentially might be a billionaire if after another, you know, five or 10 years because of this. That's absolutely wild.

• 43:38Sam Parr?

  And we called it, so we're right and we deserve all the credit.

• 43:40Shaan Puri?

  No, we didn't call it. It was identified early on by us as a likely outcome.

• 43:46Shaan Puri?

  All right. Do I have a bunch more, but I think we're it's time to wrap. So maybe we call it.

• 43:52Sam Parr?

  I think we should call it.

• 43:53Shaan Puri?

  Wait, wait, wait. Before we go, did you see Fyre Festival two?

• 43:58Sam Parr?

  He didn't listen to our advice.

• 44:01Shaan Puri?

  So Billy came on our podcast right after he got out of jail.

• 44:06Sam Parr?

  Prison.

• 44:08Shaan Puri?

  Prison.

• 44:09Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 44:11Shaan Puri?

  He, I love that where that's like, you know, other people get like authors when they have their book tours. We get like the post prison. We got Shkreli, we got Billy. We get them first right out of prison. And you told him, you what did you tell him? You gave him some advice. He didn't listen.

• 44:31Sam Parr?

  He basically was like explaining all of these ideas for his the business that he like he owes money. So he has to like earn, he has to earn money.

• 44:38Shaan Puri?

  Not just a little bit of money. He owes a lot. He owes like twenty seven or thirty million dollars.

• 44:42Sam Parr?

  A lot. And he was like, I'm gonna start this festival. We're gonna do like this other festival. And we were just like, you know, maybe you maybe don't. Maybe you should maybe you should maybe I think you shouldn't do that. I think that like maybe you can there's a lot of things you can do because you're famous, but you know, a Fire Fest two, maybe you shouldn't do that. And He's doing exactly that.

• 45:06Shaan Puri?

  So he's doing Fyre Festival 2.

• 45:08Sam Parr?

  Is that what we said to him on the pod? Did we say anything else?

• 45:11Shaan Puri?

  We told him, you're crazy. And he was like, he just saw the potential. He was like, what if we did it right this time? So article came out today, says, Fyre Festival 2 is off to a rough start again. Days after the tickets go on sale, which is allegedly taking place on Isla Mujeres, an island off the coast of Mexico. The local tourism board claims they have no knowledge of this event. The director of the tourism board says, we have never had any contact with any person or company about this. For us, this is an event that does not exist.

• 45:47Shaan Puri?

  If you go to the location that they list for where it's going to take place. So I don't know if you have Google Maps handy, but if you open up 21 degrees, 12 degrees, 30, 32, you do all that. Just here's where, where the event is taking place. Take a look at this.

• 46:04Sam Parr?

  In the ocean.

• 46:05Shaan Puri?

  2, the location in the middle of the ocean where there's no land.

• 46:11Sam Parr?

  Also, the most expensive tickets are $25,000. Like he, you know how we've joked about entrepreneurs who have just taken what has worked? And they just like, say like, all right, you sold all this candy bars, just do the same thing now, but for a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup style product.

• 46:28Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 46:29Sam Parr?

  He did that. So he must have exported the, the code for that old website. And he just put a number two on it. And now he's doing Fire Fest 2. It's the same thing. What did that woman's, what did that guy's wife say? Instead of I told you so, it was, this had a bunch of predictable outcomes. What did she, what's, what's the line?

• 46:47Shaan Puri?

  This was identified early on as a likely outcome. Yeah, you called it.

• 46:51Sam Parr?

  This was, this is insane. I, I don't even know how he's allowed to leave the country.

• 46:58Shaan Puri?

  Uh, yeah, it's not good, but hey, listen, I'm an optimist. There's a chance. There's always a chance. Uh, here's some other great quotes from this article, by the way.

• 47:08Sam Parr?

  We tried.

• 47:09Shaan Puri?

  Billy, uh, took to Instagram to address the concerns. Here's what he said. Um, Fire Fest, Fire 2 is real. We have incredible partners leading the festivals. They're in charge of all logistics, production, operations. Uh, there's no way they would ever take on a fake festival, right? No, he didn't say the right part.

• 47:29Shaan Puri?

  And then the next thing he says is, uh, the, the tourism board responded. The organizers did not even bother to approach the authorities. Uh, it's very strange because anyone who organizes events knows if you're going to hold an event, let alone a massive event, you need municipal authorization. Um, I think they thought they could just announce it, see if it got traction, and then ask for permits halfway down the path. It's a bit naive. McFarland responds, "We have accommodations."

• 47:54Sam Parr?

  Is that really what he said? That's what he said before.

• 47:59Sam Parr?

  Also, there's, you could, you could buy tickets on his website, uh, for up to $20,000. But like, there, there's a great way to accept his, accept your money as a, as a user, but the, like, they don't list any bands. It's a show, right?

• 48:14Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. So, so that's the other part here. "At this point, no talent has been announced for the festival. However, McFarland responds, "We have talent."

• 48:24Shaan Puri?

  Artists, athletes, and other performers are on board. Uh, so, did I ever tell you about the time my dad, uh, I went on a trip with my dad and I learned the power of just being absolutely delusional?

• 48:36Sam Parr?

  The negotiation?

• 48:38Shaan Puri?

  It wasn't even, not even a full negotiation. It was, I mean, it wasn't even a negotiating situation. We were at the airport and my dad is cheap and so he doesn't want to pay to check luggage in. So he just like bought the, he got his bag that's too big to check in and stuffed it. And then they were like, "You want to check bags?" He's like, "Yeah, just that one, like the free one." And then the lady, this like poor little lady from Singapore Airlines behind the desk was like, "I'm sorry, like, uh, you'll need to check that one too." And he goes, "No, no, I'm carrying that on." And she goes, "Uh, sir, it's too big." And my dad responds, "No, actually, it's too small."

• 49:15Shaan Puri?

  Not even, not even though it's, it's not, it's not too big. It's okay. He says it's too small, which makes absolutely no sense to anyone in any situation. There's no such thing as it being too small. And by the way, she just kept saying, I think it's over the limit. And he goes, no, it's too small. I checked. It's too small. And it worked. She led him on the plane and we got it on the plane. At the plane, they're like, sir, it's not going to fit. He's like, you need to check it up front here because it's free to check when you're up there. And he got it for free. And then he just kept doing this on the trip. We were trying to get into this, like, he's like, oh, let's go to the Four Seasons. They have this, like, the, the New Year's Festival, like, they're doing this big celebration there. And we're like, we're driving up. It's like, all these signs, like, you must be a member, you must be a resident to attend. I'm like, dad

• 49:59Shaan Puri?

  says, uh, we have to be staying here. We're, we're definitely not staying at the Four Seasons. So like, we can't do this. We should turn around. He's like, no, no, no, it's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine. And we're like, what do you get? There's a guy at the front, like, the gate, he's checking everybody, like, what room? Give me your ID, all this stuff. And, um, so like, my dad just goes up and he just pulls up and he goes, so what? Do you need to see some ID or something? And the guy just goes, no, it's good. You're fine. Go ahead. And we got it. And I was like, wow. Somebody I tweeted this out. He goes, Delulu is the Salulu. And I've been saying that for the last two days. My kids, they know. I'm just, Delulu is the Salulu. If you've got a problem, I got a Salulu for you. Delulu is the Salulu.

• 50:42Sam Parr?

  Who said that?

• 50:44Shaan Puri?

  Who tweeted that? This like, long, thoughtful thing. And this guy just responded with that. Delulu is the Salulu. And I was like, this is amazing.

• 50:51Sam Parr?

  That should be the new small boy stuff.

• 50:52Shaan Puri?

  I don't have any tattoos, but I did. It's up there. It's a contender. My kids' names and that.

• 50:58Sam Parr?

  Dude, that seems like a cute thing, like, uh, Gen Z woman would say on a true crime pod, that just like we stole MFM, uh, you know, we're gonna steal that one too. Thank you. That is now ours.

• 51:09Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, sorry. I wish I could remember who said it. I don't, I don't know your name.

• 51:12Sam Parr?

  Um, this is a good podcast because I'm exhausted from laughing. That's how I know.

• 51:18Shaan Puri?

  I had a really good time. I'd love to do it again sometime.

• 51:21Sam Parr?

  All right. Uh, great show. See y'all out there. Have a good night. That's it. That's the pod.