Flying First Class, Grant Cardone, and How Sam Enraged Goldman Sachs

Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) and Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) talk about why billionaires should really fly first class, the power of Grant Cardone, how Sam enraged Goldman Sachs, and more. Also, want $5,000? Check out the My First Million Clips contest. ----- Links: * StrollMag * Axios article * Flashes and Flames * ConvertKit * Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. * Want more insights like MFM? Check out Shaan's newsletter. ----- Show Notes: (01:00) - Flying coach (09:45) - Grant Cardone (19:00) - Sam's new business + aligning values (30:30) - N2 Publishing/Stroll Mag (39:15) - ConvertKit (45:30) - How Sam enraged Goldman Sachs (47:55) - Life Hack: Family traditions ----- Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. ----- Additional episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto * #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

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

• 0:00Sam Parr?

  I was reading an article in the New York Times and it was about these Malibu homes and how like the these crazy rich guys are coming in and buying these homes. And Grant Cardone was one of the features and they didn't feature him as Grant Cardone. They're like, another local buyer is motivational speaker and real estate entrepreneur, Grant Cardone. And you know, he was just like a guy they're interviewing, not like this internet. And he recently bought a house in Malibu. I think it was for $60 million. And he was like, I'm going to spend another, I forget, tens of millions of dollars renovating it. And that's one of those things that when you see people, what they spend on their personal real estate, you know, I mean, it's, it's hard to fake that. And I'm just thinking, who would have thought that those things that he's selling would make that much wealth?

• 0:50Sam Parr?

  I have a question. When was the last time that you have flown?

• 0:55Shaan Puri?

  I just flew last week. Oh, no, sorry. Not last week, last month, Hawaii.

• 0:58Sam Parr?

  Where Hawaii? How about before that?

• 1:01Shaan Puri?

  Uh, yeah, I don't know. When we went to Austin, Miami, something like that.

• 1:06Sam Parr?

  So like once a year at this point or once every six months?

• 1:09Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I'm not flying a ton right now.

• 1:11Sam Parr?

  Um, when you flew to Hawaii, did you fly first class or coach?

• 1:15Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, first.

• 1:17Sam Parr?

  So I, uh, I went to Idaho this weekend with Ben, Podcast Ben. And I spoke at an event, which we have to talk about ConvertKit's new thing. And I don't like to travel. You don't like to travel. Uh, and this was work related. So like they wanted me to speak at a conference and whenever they want me to speak at a conference, I say, yeah, that's cool. I'll come and speak. But you have to pay for a first class flight for me and Sarah, my wife. I'm like, that's a fair trade. You don't, don't pay me to come because I like you, but like, I do want you to pay for my, uh, flight and it has to be first class because I don't like flying coach. Well, my, uh, flights got screwed up for some reason, both ways. And I had to fly like middle seat, like back row, because like basically the flight got canceled and they like fed me on these like last ones.

• 2:00Sam Parr?

  And I was flying on this and I started thinking, do you know that stereotype, a story of this like rich billionaire? And they say like, oh yeah, you know, even though he was a billionaire, he still flew coach. And like, nothing changed. Like I think the Ikea guy is famous for that. Nothing changed. And I think that is-

• 2:21Shaan Puri?

  Uh, Amazon, all their desks were old doors.

• 2:25Sam Parr?

  Which I tried to, dude, I did that. I did that to be cute at our office. It costs more to do that.

• 2:32Shaan Puri?

  A door.

• 2:32Sam Parr?

  Isn't a door expensive? I bought the shittiest door. It was like, yeah, I bought like the shittiest door and it was like $80. And then we bought cinder blocks and it was like a pain in the ass. I'm like, dude, this thing's in Ikea for 25 bucks. This is way better.

• 2:47Shaan Puri?

  Also, doors aren't flat.

• 2:49Sam Parr?

  Yeah, like you're. That's a stupid story. It's like, maybe like they had a door while they like folded t-shirts on that door like for a day while they waited for the real supplies to come. This whole like flying coach as a rich person thing, and I'm not talking about like rich, like millions or tens of millions. I'm talking like you hear billionaires or hundreds of millions of dollars. People say this. I think that is total nonsense. And I tweeted that. I'm like, this is, that is just a lie. Any rich person that I'm talking like real rich, who says they do that, they're lying and I want to see proof if that's true. And I had a bunch of really, really rich people holler at me and tell me they do it.

• 3:26Sam Parr?

  And so do you know who Palmer Lucky is? So Palmer Lucky started, uh, he created Oculus, which he sold for, he is in the ballpark of billions of dollars. And he has a new company worth tens of billions. So if he's not a billion, he's like, he's like right there. Basically. He tweeted back.

• 3:41Shaan Puri?

  He's definitely a billionaire. That guy's definitely a billionaire.

• 3:44Sam Parr?

  Dude, he tweeted back to me and he said, I only fly coach. And then I had a other, I had, yeah, and I think that's crazy. I had other, some other people DM me, they go, and who I know, the company's public and they're like, I'm worth hundreds of millions. And I, I, I fly first class, no matter what internationally, but like, I have no problem taking Southwest if it's like a short flight. And I understand that argument. If it's like an hour, but if you're going from New York to LA or something, anything above three hours. I don't believe it. I think they're lying. I just think they're full of it. I asked Dharmesh on HubSpot. I'm like, do you do this? He goes, no, that's a ridiculous thing. Of course I don't do that. And he like had this.

• 4:20Shaan Puri?

  All you say is if you're like us at the buy first million podcast where we are cultivating that trillionaire mindset, that multi-trillionaire hashtag mindset, hashtag grindset. You have to, even before you have, you have multi-trillions, you better be flying private. You better fly private when you can't afford coach. Cause if you can't afford your future, can you afford your present? And that's how I feel.

• 4:42Sam Parr?

  I just thought it was the most ridiculous thing. When I was sitting in this seat, uh, I was just like, my back was sore and it was just terribly uncomfortable and it took forever to get off the flight.

• 4:52Shaan Puri?

  Just the vibe of the peasants that you're sitting next to is awful.

• 4:57Sam Parr?

  It sucked and I don't have a problem doing. I mean, I, I will do it, but I'm just saying if I could like, if I'm worth hundreds of millions of dollars, what's the difference between $1,500 and $500 ticket? And anyone who lies and says otherwise, I think they're an idiot and they're lying.

• 5:11Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. So some people were like, oh, Bill Gates, I read that thread because it's pretty interesting. They gave you a ton of examples. They like slammed you with examples of it, of it happening. And I think the main-

• 5:21Sam Parr?

  They just told me fake stories.

• 5:23Shaan Puri?

  Well, yeah. So, so that's the thing. I think the, you know, the main thing that they were saying was like, ex-person used to do this, which is either simply just their PR team being like, hey, Bill, we need you to do a coach like, uh, flight here and like, you know, whatever, we'll, we'll keep your, your private jet and Epstein's jet like off the radar, you know, just so we can kind of have this measure of austerity here. And so that, you know, I, I'm pretty sure it, and because it works by the way, like the fact that so many people posted articles of billionaire flies coach. It's like, dude, that's not news by the way, but the fact that it's newsworthy is like more proof that this is likely a PR stunt because I've done it too. I've been like, oh, you know, Bill, you know, um, Warren Buffett, you know, still drives an old beat up, you know, 83, you know,

• 6:08Shaan Puri?

  Camry and like, um, oh, Sam Bankman Fried, he's the newest young billionaire. And did you know that he only eats bananas and sleeps on a beanbag? And you know, like these stories work. They're like worth telling, which makes me think this is like a PR scheme. But the other interpretation was they did it so that they could like tell the company, hey, from the top down, we're all being frugal. We're not wasteful. So like, you know, Mr., you know, senior director of business development is not like, you know, flying first, you know, to every conference.

• 6:37Sam Parr?

  I understand that, but it's like, dude, you and your three kids are taking your vacation to France and you're going to fly coach on Spirit Airlines? Yeah. Now that ain't, that ain't, that ain't gonna happen. Like that is, you're, you're lying. You're lying. It's an absolute lie.

• 6:51Shaan Puri?

  Be Ryanair receipts if you're really doing this like show me your Spirit Airlines frequent flyer miles history. If you expect me to believe this like dude, I've sat in Spirit Air and I've had the pilot come out mid-flight. And rearrange the seating because someone was too fat and had to like, hey, we need to do a two for one trade. You need to get to the left side of the plane and then two of y'all need to move to the right. We need better balance like that's I've unless you've done that, you don't have that trillionaire energy.

• 7:21Sam Parr?

  Yeah, dude, I've done that on pontoon boats like where you have like, where you have people in the back. You're like, hey, you guys got to switch seats. Uh, those boats go a little sideways, but I've never done that on the plane.

• 7:31Shaan Puri?

  I didn't even think it was real. I thought the pilot was joking and it wasn't a joke. They literally were like, we need to rebalance. I was like, Jesus Christ.

• 7:39Sam Parr?

  Let me tell you about one more interesting thing, another rich guy thing. So you know who Grant Cardone is?

• 7:44Shaan Puri?

  Of course, I know Grant, met Grant.

• 7:46Sam Parr?

  So, so I'm not going to like even comment on if I like him or not, but.

• 7:50Shaan Puri?

  I will, I like him.

• 7:53Sam Parr?

  Okay, that's cool. I don't entirely dislike him. I don't dislike him. I don't really like, I don't like everything he does and I like a lot of what he does. And, but I kind of pegged him as this guy that was kind of like in the internet markety world, just selling like, talking like cheat books and cheat courses and.

• 8:08Shaan Puri?

  If you're so rich, why are you selling a course? Right?

• 8:11Sam Parr?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 8:12Shaan Puri?

  A question I've asked myself many times also.

• 8:15Sam Parr?

  Yes.

• 8:15Shaan Puri?

  Speaking of, and it's like, course available July 11th, power riding. Sign up today. Go to maven.com and sign up, baby. Markets down, daddy needs a new course.

• 8:26Sam Parr?

  I was thinking about that. I'm like, all right, if, if this is this course guy and he has this like, uh, he's wearing all these nice suits. Like, is that legit? Is that real? And I was reading an article in the New York Times and, and it was about, um, these Malibu homes and how like the, these crazy rich guys are coming in and buying these homes. And Grant Cardone was one of the features and they didn't feature him as Grant Cardone. They're like, another local buyer is motivational speaker and real estate entrepreneur, Grant Cardone. And they, you know, he was just like a guy they're interviewing, not like this internet. And he recently bought a house in Malibu. I think it was for $60 million. And he was like, I'm going to spend another, I forget, tens of millions of dollars renovating it. And that's one of those things that when you see people, what they spend on their personal

• 9:11Sam Parr?

  real estate, you know, I mean, it's, it's hard to fake that. And I'm just thinking, who would have thought that those things that he's selling would make that much wealth? That's pretty, that's pretty crazy, isn't it?

• 9:22Shaan Puri?

  You know what's even crazier? So the one time I talked to Grant Cardone for an extended period of time, like we had like, I don't know, a 40 minute conversation, 20 minutes of it was on why buying a house is so stupid and why he rents everything. And he was going off, like, people were like, oh, your penthouse is rented that you're in. He's like, yeah, bro, your house is not an asset. Why would I buy a house? And he was like, I, he's like, I buy real estate that pays me, brother. And he's like, you know, um, yeah, I rent this penthouse. I always rent, I rent everything. I want to be able to move. I want to live in the place I like. And I take my money and I put it to work. You see that over there? That's my

• 10:01Shaan Puri?

  money working. And, you know, he's like, he's like a big time showman, right? And so,

• 10:08Sam Parr?

  What is it? Like dollar bills, like digging holes? I don't like, what's he pointing at?

• 10:11Shaan Puri?

  He's, he's like, he's like, hold on, brother. I can't hear you. I got something in my ear. It's a voice telling, it's asking me one question. Who's got my money? And that's what I gotta ask. Every, every morning I wake up and I look to the heavens and I say, who's got my money? And then I go and I get that money from them. And I was like, whoa, this is incredible.

• 10:34Sam Parr?

  Wait, where'd you, where'd you hang out with him for 45 minutes?

• 10:36Shaan Puri?

  So he used to use Blab, the same product that where I met Martin Shkreli, it attracted a whole bunch of grifters. And Grant Cardone was there. And I was like, all right, who's the, I would go into all the rooms that had a big following. I was like, okay, this guy's driving a bunch of growth and engagement. You're a power user. Who are you? And sure enough, like, you know, it was, it was often, you know, people who are, are somewhat controversial. That's who people like to watch live stream. And so Grant would go on there and he would do his 10x meetups. And you would just see people come in, they're like, I gotta keep doing my, it was so, if you haven't gone into this world, by the way, You need to spend three hours and I need you to

• 11:12Sam Parr?

  I love watching his videos. He's got great videos.

• 11:16Shaan Puri?

  Watch his, uh, watch his community. Cause you'll be like, wow, this is like the Kool-Aid drinker. So they would come on, they'd be like, Grant, they put up the

• 11:25Sam Parr?

  They call him Uncle G.

• 11:26Shaan Puri?

  Uncle G, what's up, man? What's up, brother? And they'd be doing the 10x, 10x. All right. Uh, thank you so much for all the content, man. I was, I was broken homeless. I used to eat McDonald's wrappers instead of the food. And now, um, I just had, I, I got a Ruth Chris, uh, subscription membership. And I just want to say thank you and had a question for you, right? And so they would do this and then it'd be one after another of, uh, Grant, Grant, 10x, 10x brother. Just want to thank you. Before I was thinking where the sky's the limit and now the sky is the floor. Am I right? Amen, brother.

• 12:00Shaan Puri?

  And so they were doing this stuff and I was like, wow, these people are like, really like, this is, these are the converted, right? And they did. So a lot of people really found value in his thing. Cause this wasn't like a recorded testimonial. This is a live stream where random people are calling in. And it'd be very hard to like fake this and they're wearing the hat and they're holding up the books. They're like, they really liked his stuff and I had never heard of this guy. He's like, in the tech world, you don't, you don't know who this character is, right? Like in your, if you're in real estate, you know, if you're in the motivational self, self-help thing, you know? But he's not even like Ty, like Ty Lopez crossed all boundaries. People like all knew who he was. Uh, Grant Cardone's like, not like that. So that's the first thing you should watch. Second thing is he does these deal breakdowns. Very interesting to watch. So he's sitting at a, at a table and it's like, you know, what's that guy Ramsey?

• 12:45Shaan Puri?

  Dave Ramsey, who like you call in and you're like, Dave, I, I make $80,000 a year and I got student debt. Like, what should I do? And he's like, save your money. And so people do that with Grant. They're like, hey, Grant, I got $200,000. I'm looking at a property. The address is 3909, you know, West Boise Street in, in Idaho, whatever. And then people, and he'll go, and he, he basically Googles it. He's got a whiteboard behind him. And he basically is like talking to the guy. He's like, all right. So what are you putting down? All right. What terms are they giving you? And he basically like workshops the deal with them. He like, kind of like, uh, sort of like a speed version of underwriting the deal live. And I actually learned a bunch from it. Like, I'm sure somebody who's like, you know, a real estate master is probably like, oh, this is all just like, this is the Jim Cramer of like real estate here where he's saying things that make it sound smart,

• 13:29Shaan Puri?

  but he's actually not considering a X, Y, Z. But just from a like, If you're a beginner in real estate, which I am, you will learn a bunch and you'll be entertained just in the style that he does things. So I like that. The last thing.

• 13:41Sam Parr?

  He's like, uh, it's like the, he's, he's got like pro wrestling vibes.

• 13:45Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, exactly. And that's why I'm doing the prestations because I'm like, why I said, I like him. I like him because he's entertaining. Like, I like him because I've learned some stuff and I've been very entertained through the rest. Like, have you seen these videos on YouTube where he just does sales calls for an hour?

• 14:00Sam Parr?

  I have. I think I, they're so good. I think they're fake.

• 14:04Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, it might be fake because he'll be like, he's always pulling a rabbit out of a hat. And you're like, oh dude, it's like a pickup artist. It's like you watch their video. You're like, oh my God, you know, she was, uh, she was like literally just, she was running, she was getting into her cab, but he said this one thing, then she got out of the cab and started talking to him. This guy's amazing. And you're like, wait a minute, maybe he's just like edited like three really good ones out of 500 failures into this video. That's kind of what it feels like, but he's doing an hour of continuous sales calls. And so it might be scripted where the guy on the other line is like, yeah, I'll say yes, just call me. Yeah, we'll, we'll play, we'll role play here.

• 14:40Sam Parr?

  It's like the TV show Pawn Stars. You're telling me like, holy shit. In one day, you had a guy come in with like a, like a civil war gun, a guy who had Napoleon's hat and another guy that owns a Picasso, all in Las Vegas coming into a pawn shop. That's crazy.

• 14:54Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, it's like, dude, the Undertaker was dead and then he came back to life and won the match. It's like, yeah, you're falling for a scripted drama, right? Like, so it might be that, but nonetheless, these sales calls are very entertaining to listen to and like, there, it's obviously like very Wolf of Wall Street style, like macho sales, but I like to see it because I've never seen anything like that. Like, first of all, I don't do phone sales. That's not like, it's not even like in my life. Secondly, I don't know people who are as ridiculous as Grant Cardone and are willing to say things as ridiculous as Grant Cardone. And third, like, this is not a style of communication or salesmanship I've, I think you can read or study or intuit. And so it's just nice to like,

• 15:37Shaan Puri?

  see it. So anyways, I've, I've gone down these rabbit holes of Grant Cardone and I've come out the other side being like, Yeah, he is definitely self promoting and he's making most of his money. It seems like on the like the brand and not the like meat and bones of his business. But, um, you know, respect, he hustles really hard. He's a good self promoter and he is smart and like, you know, he does well. So, you know, I don't think that you're not learning from somebody who's a hack. Uh, like he's somebody who

• 16:05Sam Parr?

  I don't think he's a hack. I don't think he's a hack at all. I think maybe

• 16:08Shaan Puri?

  Isn't that?

• 16:10Sam Parr?

  Well, I think maybe I just don't always agree in his values, but I don't think he's lying.

• 16:14Shaan Puri?

  Right. I think the criticism would not be this guy is dumb or lazy or anything like that. The criticism would be, he's just selling you, you know, a bag of dreams, basically. And like, you know, he makes his money on people who want to be him and want to be like him. And they're not really going to be like him. And he's sort of like, you know, promoting that dream. I would say that that's probably true, but I think that's true of a lot of things in life. Like that's true of Nike also, like when I go buy Nike sneakers, you know, because Michael Jordan wore them. Do I really think Michael Jordan's a scumbag for? Yeah, I'm not. He's not tricking me into thinking I can, I could be like Mike. But yeah, that is actually what the commercial literally says.

• 16:53Sam Parr?

  Dude, I'm, um, I'm working on this new thing and I want to tell you two things about it. I'm working on this new business and I'm like, I'm still like MVPing it out and making sure it's legit. And I, I, I've got six figures in revenue now, six figures of cash in the bank. And it was all from phones. I from calling, calling constantly, no website, a type form. And calling them and then setting a Stripe link.

• 17:20Shaan Puri?

  So what's if, what are you doing that's effective on the call? Give me the, give me the strategy of the call. Uh, without sharing whatever you don't want to share.

• 17:27Sam Parr?

  I'm not, and I'm not really selling. So basically the thing that I'm making like a community for a particular type of niche.

• 17:34Shaan Puri?

  I'm not here to sell you anything.

• 17:37Sam Parr?

  Well, because, because here's, here's the thing.

• 17:39Shaan Puri?

  No offense, but of sales.

• 17:42Sam Parr?

  So the, the, the place where the business is at right now, which is like, I only want like, let's say 50 people to join right now. I don't want a lot of people to join because I want to make sure that it's like legit and good. And also because it's an exclusive, like private paid community. I need to make sure that like each person actually can provide value for one another. So I can't just let anyone in. I can only let in the type of person who like truly fit.

• 18:02Shaan Puri?

  Makes the next person feel, yeah, feel more value because they came in.

• 18:06Sam Parr?

  So in a way I'm like, no, like I'm, I really like, I don't know if I have space for you. I don't know if we can make this work, um, but we, we maybe, and that's why I'm here to interview to see if this will be a good fit for you. And, uh, that's basically what I'm doing.

• 18:18Shaan Puri?

  It's like, I also. You're using the bullshit line, but this time it's not actually bullshit. It's real this time.

• 18:27Sam Parr?

  I, I, yeah, I guess that's true, but like, I don't know how to explain it. It is true. Like we, we only have a certain, I can only make it truly work for a few amount of people. Otherwise it sucks. And so remember how we interviewed the chief folks? She said that they had 60,000 people apply, but they only have like 10 or 15,000 members. So I kind of believe it. Um, uh, but anyway, I'm working on it and I, and I went to this, I'm starting it with, uh, my friend Joe. And we did something interesting the other day. And when I had started companies in the past, I did, I partnered with the wrong people, not every time, but sometimes. And, and the mistake that I'm trying to not make this time is basically making sure I partner with the right folks.

• 19:05Shaan Puri?

  And we did this thing. You're saying partner like business partner, not like a external partnership. You're, you're talking about like your co-founder type of thing.

• 19:12Sam Parr?

  Business partner, like someone who you give a substantial amount of equity to, um, which is very similar to a marriage. And I, I actually did this in my marriage, but I've never done this in a business partner. But we basically like said, like, hey, like separately, write down three things. Write down what like, what does success look like to you in 10 years? What are you willing to give up in order to achieve that? And, um, like just your day to day, like what, what do you value and how do you want to get there? And so we each wrote that down and we came together and we're like, all right, here's all the things that are important to me. Let's look at what, what's important to you. Oh, wow. They actually aligned really nicely. This thing doesn't align. Is that a game breaker for you? And then we, and then there was another thing that we went through scenarios. We're like, let's say you're Lance Armstrong.

• 19:54Sam Parr?

  It's 1999. You know that everyone's cheating and you have to cheat if you want to win. What are you gonna do?

• 20:02Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 20:03Sam Parr?

  Like, how do you want to play? Like, what do you want to play? And there's no right or wrong answer, but it's just like, let's just see how our values align in different scenarios. And so, anyway, we've been doing this thing where we're like, trying to figure out, why won't this partnership work? Let's get all that out of the way at first. And it has been awesome. More people should do this. Have you ever done this?

• 20:21Shaan Puri?

  I have actually done that, which is so funny you say this. We did something so similar. We sort of stumbled upon it organically in our first business because the first business I ever created was that sushi business. And the idea was to create like a Chipotle-like restaurant chain for sushi. And so, we're going about it. We've been at this, at this point, we've been doing it for, I don't know, six to nine months, something like that. So, we're not like, it's not like, it's not like day one. We've already, already committed. We already have the equity splits. And we're all best friends. We've known each other for four years. So, like, surely, we know everything about each other, right? And a smarter business person, kind of like a mentor-type dude, was like, at this time, we were really big on mentors. And he was like, oh, um, he was like, you know, um, how aligned are you guys?

• 21:05Shaan Puri?

  He's like, if I, so it was the guy we wanted to partner with, the chef. He was like, he flew each of us out one by one to LA and hung out with us. And he told us, he was like, yeah, I feel like all of you guys say the same words, but they mean different things. And I was like, what do you mean? He goes, like, you'll all be like, you know, oh, man, this, what really matters is that we do this, like, uh, the right way. He's like, but I think you all have a different definition of the right way. Or like, we, yeah, we all want this to be a success. I think if I asked you, what do you mean by success? Like, put a number, put a timeframe around it. Like, I bet you it's all different. And so, we came on, we, he told, he gave us that feedback. And we did it. We did the same exercise. We go, I created a list of questions. And we all went, sat in our corner of the room silently, and we wrote our answers. And then we came and we compared. And Jesus, they were so different.

• 21:50Shaan Puri?

  Me and one guy were pretty aligned. And then the third guy, and we all thought we were all totally aligned. The third guy, his was like, way different. And the biggest differences were like, time scale, like, how long do you, how long do you expect to work on this? Before we see any, like, any, like, tangible success? What are your expectations on that? And then, what would be a win for you? And it was like, one guy was like, oh, man, like, if I could be making six figures and like, you know, and, you know, I'll do this forever. And then I was like, oh, dude, I want to like, I want to make $10 million in, you know, three years. And the other guy was like somewhere in the middle. And then we were like, oh, wow. Like, we all have a, like, you would be happy with one path and I would be completely unhappy if that same thing, we both are. And if we didn't talk about it, our definition of success would have been very different.

• 22:34Shaan Puri?

  And the same thing with values of like, what for one, for two of us, it was super important. Like, look, I don't know if this business is going to work or not. But I want to do it our way. Like, the thing that makes this fun for me, like, there's a lot of shitty components to doing this business. The part that makes me like, want to wake up and do it every day is that I feel like we're putting our own stamp on this. And for the other guy, he's like, yeah, that's cool. But like, I don't really care about that. And we're like, oh, shoot, it's important to know how important it is because

• 22:59Sam Parr?

  So did it work?

• 23:00Shaan Puri?

  Spend a bunch of energy doing it. Yeah, well, it was clarifying. Like, we were sort of at the point of no return.

• 23:05Sam Parr?

  The partners, yeah, well, that's what I'm saying. You got to do this early on because it's, in a way, a business partnership is actually more of a commitment than a marriage because with the marriage, you can just like, end it and be over with a business, screwing up your cap table and someone owning a portion of your business. I mean, that could be, it, it's just a, it's just kind of an irreversible decision. And the only way that you reverse it is by spending a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of money.

• 23:30Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, like, well, what we did, what was lucky for us was that we were all 21 years old. So we were all like a blank slate. It's like, dude, I don't know. This is just my first thought. I'm not like married to this, to this belief system, you know, like, so it was very few things that we were like, no, I am certain and I'm stubborn on that point. Now in my life, if I said something, if I, if I made, if I answered 10 questions, eight out of the 10 would be things I'm like, no, I stand by that. Like, that's really, that is what I've thought this through and that's what I believe. Back then, it was like, I don't know, I hadn't really thought about it. But if you had, now you're asking me to articulate it. So I'll just say these things. So what happened in our thing was we kind of, we would all hear each other's answers and then we would be like, oh, I like that. That's right. Let's all agree to align on that. And we were like, yeah, yeah, like, sure, that sounds better.

• 24:16Shaan Puri?

  I don't know what the fuck I was thinking. It was, that wasn't, I'm not married to that. And so it worked for us because it got us to like, get to a right answer versus who's right. You know what I mean?

• 24:25Sam Parr?

  Yeah, this exercise that I've been doing with Joe.

• 24:28Shaan Puri?

  We should like publish this, by the way, because you know, we, I think we talked about this one time was like some New York Times article that was like 17 questions you should ask your future spouse or something like that.

• 24:38Sam Parr?

  Like dude, it was like, it was like 27 questions to ask on the first date. And like as a single guy who just wanted to like meet girls, I was like, oh, I'm just gonna ask. Or it was like 27 questions to like make someone fall in love with you or something like that. And it was like for like relationships and I was like, oh, I'm asking every woman out this like, this is the first day question. This is the first hour first day question. And I remember doing it like three times. I'm like, those fuckers at them New York Times, they didn't know what the hell they're talking about. None of these people like me.

• 25:06Shaan Puri?

  Okay, yeah, maybe I misremembered some, but I do think it would be useful, whatever you and Joe just did. Cause I did this like, I don't know, 10, 12 years ago now. Uh, I think you did it just like last month, so you should definitely like compile these so that more people can, can do this. Cause it'll save, it'll straight up save people years of pain in their life if they like can identify some of these things upfront versus just rushing in to the co-founding.

• 25:29Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I mean, I, I, I like, it was like, all right, so here's what I want just in my personal life. And I put like a net worth. Um, I said, I want, I want to have a seat at the big boys table and I want people to think that I know what I'm talking about. When it comes to business, I want freedom. I want to be able to live in different cities with my family. I want to be present in my children's lives. I want to own a bunch of real estate. I want to have fun and adventure. Uh, and I want to work like really hard for three or four weeks or for uh, six or seven months. And then I want to chill for like three months. Uh, and then it was like, all right, and uh, ways I want to get there is I want to build this particular business. I don't want to boss. I don't want to have any meetings. I want to have few, if any employees reporting to me. And then it was um, the ways in which I'm going to approach this particular business. I want to be incredibly aggressive about it. I want to treat it like a job. So we're working 40 hours a week on it.

• 26:14Sam Parr?

  I want to have close to no standing meetings, few employees.

• 26:20Sam Parr?

  And basically that's it. Yeah. And a revenue target of a hundred million dollars in five years. I don't care if we actually hit that, but I want that to be the target. And then he like answered similarly on a lot of those. It's like, all right, there's like some alignment here.

• 26:33Shaan Puri?

  Nice, nice. Okay. I like that. And um, Yeah, okay, I think, yeah, I think you should, I think you should publish some of those things. Also, the Lance Armstrong things, I think those are, if, if nothing else, like, it doesn't, it doesn't really matter, but it's like, at least knowing how the other person is wired and being like, am I okay with this? Am I okay with the weird psychology of this person? Um, I think it's not so much that do all of our answers match, just like in a marriage, it's not, do we, do we think the same way about everything? It's like, do we think the same way about the really important things?

• 27:04Sam Parr?

  All right, so what did you say? Would you, would you, if you're in the Lance situation, what do you do?

• 27:08Shaan Puri?

  I for sure cheat. You basically have two options. You either exit the sport or you cheat, right? Like, uh, it's not even cheating at that point. When everybody is doing it, it's just the new normal, right? Like, there's not a, it'd be one thing if it's like, is, if one person's cheating and they're winning and everybody else is clean, would you, would you cheat to try to win or would you stay clean? It was like, my belief is that all these Olympic sports, plus pretty much all professional sports, are full of PDs and, uh, like, you know, it's just a, it's just a naiveness test, whether you believe that people are clean or not. It's like, in the same way, it's like, oh my, uh, what percentage of NBA players you think cheat on their wife?

• 27:47Shaan Puri?

  It's like, um, like, you know, I don't know, but yeah, the answer is yes, not a, not a number. And so, like, there might be one outlier and like, cool, you know, credit to that person for, for being the, the, you know, the outlier, the A.C. Green of this, but, but I think, same thing with cheating. So, yeah, that one's an easy one for me.

• 28:13Speaker 02

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• 28:27Sam Parr?

  Dude, you wanna, you've got to, you wanna like quickly go through some of your topics? Or do you wanna talk about a company that I had listed that, what do you wanna do?

• 28:36Shaan Puri?

  Uh, let's do one of yours and then we'll be one of mine. We'll finish up.

• 28:39Sam Parr?

  Alright, um, have you heard of this company called N2 Publishing?

• 28:43Shaan Puri?

  No, what do they do?

• 28:44Sam Parr?

  The reason I like this story is because they're succeeding wonderfully in a place that everyone thought that it was impossible to succeed. So it's called N2 Publishing. They just rebranded it like last week to Stroll. And it's basically neighborhood magazines. So magazines in like upscale neighborhoods. And I'm almost positive they have like 800 of these or 650 of them, but they're all print. So it's like in your, in like Danville or in like the nice suburb, I don't even know what the like the very specific neighborhood you're in, what it would be called.

• 29:16Shaan Puri?

  I don't live there, but Blackhawk is like.

• 29:17Sam Parr?

  Are you in Black?

• 29:18Shaan Puri?

  No, no, but Blackhawk's an example of a nice neighborhood in Danville.

• 29:22Sam Parr?

  So what they do is they send you a magazine like once a month and it's just a magazine. It's like a bulletin. It's like, it's like a newsletter. I don't know what you wanna call it, but it's literally physically a magazine. And the company has like 250 employees. Most all the employees are ad salespeople. And they hire someone and not exactly hire, they, it's a franchise. So someone who lives in Blackhawk pays like five or 10 grand to become the official publisher of that area. And that person has to gather a couple of stories every single month, but like the stories really are like, they're not that good, but it's just like people, there's this old like, uh, idea with local publishing where like dude, people don't care about the writing. They literally just wanna see people they know and their friends and places they know in a newspaper.

• 30:05Sam Parr?

  And you could just list all their names and they would like that. And that's kind of what they do. And it's just like a magazine every month and it says, here's what's going on. Like, uh, uh, you know, the local high school had their graduation and like eight people went to Stanford. Um, uh, like this new restaurant opened and the guy's a Greek immigrant and he's bringing some of his Greek like taste to the area and like the feta's amazing. And like that, it just like goes something to think. So anyway, it's a bootstrap business. It's been around for like 18 years and they announced that they're doing like 150. Million dollars a year in revenue and they've been profitable every single year. And they don't have a website. So like, or they, the HQ has a website, but each individual magazine, there's no website. It's 100% done through, through paper.

• 30:51Sam Parr?

  And everything that they're doing is something that you would say like, it, it, it can't be done. And it's kind of killing it. It's kind of, it's kind of a major business. Isn't this wild?

• 31:01Shaan Puri?

  So how did you get these numbers? Did they, is this something public that like, do they have all their numbers?

• 31:07Sam Parr?

  Uh, yeah. So if you Google Stroll Axios, they just did a big announcement on Axios last week. Where the founder and the CEO kind of get, he gave their revenue. He said, we do 130 million dollars in revenue. We have 18,000 plus advertisers. We've been profitable every single year. We expect revenue to double every four years. That was, I believe, an exact quote. And we're just expanding to all these cities. And we changed our name from N2 to Stroll.

• 31:39Sam Parr?

  It's kind of a really fascinating story. I guess if it's doubling every five years, that means it's growing, what? Like 10, 10 or 15% a year. So it's not like killing it, but it's doing pretty good.

• 31:50Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, 14% a year. Wow. This is, I mean, you've done it again. A Sam Parr special. Like, how do you find these businesses? This is amazing.

• 32:00Sam Parr?

  It's pretty wild.

• 32:02Shaan Puri?

  No, literally. That's a real question. How did you find this business?

• 32:06Sam Parr?

  Uh, I just read like, there's this blog I read called Flash and Flames. There's this blog I read called Flash and Flames. If you Google Flash and Flames, it's just some guy named Colin in England, who just writes about cool B2B media companies. And I just, I read like loads of trade publications, like trade publications that has like literally 500 website visits a day. Like this, the most niche stuff I read it. And if you Google, if you Google it, it's hard to even find their website. The only way you find it is you type the CEO's name is Dwayne Hickson. And so you have to type in like N2, because there's like 10 or 20 companies called N2. N2 and then Dwayne Hickson. And that's how I found it. And when I did a little research on him,

• 32:48Sam Parr?

  I think there, it's heavily rooted in Christian stuff because their, their mission is like to, like to bring, like to create jobs and value people and to bring glory to God. And we're just so happened to be doing it through like creating this like newspaper thing.

• 33:03Shaan Puri?

  That's our podcast mission or that's theirs?

• 33:07Sam Parr?

  Both. So anyway, like it just kind of an interesting guy outside of our world. Really fascinating.

• 33:15Shaan Puri?

  This is great. I wonder how many more of these there are. Like, I could imagine somebody doing friggin' Doctor's Office Daily, or Doctor's Office Monthly, or whatever, Doctor's Office Magazine. And you just go to every doctor's office and you're like, hey, here's, you know, this awesome magazine for whatever, for doctors who run their practices. And you just, if you eat the cost of the print, then you're like, you could basically go to advertisers and pharmaceutical companies and be like, hey, yeah, we have 15,000 doctor's offices that read and subscribe to our thing. And, you know, you should advertise.

• 33:48Sam Parr?

  But here's the thing, like, selling local ads, so they're selling, like, the advertisers are like local dentists, local realtors, selling ads to those types of people is really hard, because you're selling like $500 ads. That's a hard business. You just have to be like, smile and dial. You know, you gotta do it constantly. So like, maybe they threw that whole God stick in there because they're like, but you're doing it for the will of God, therefore you have to be like, that's the only way that you can motivate someone in order to like be on the phone all day selling a $500 ad to Kathy in Scottsdale, Arizona about coming to her open house.

• 34:24Sam Parr?

  That's a hard sell. That's a grind. That's a grind. Ben did it for two years. He probably wouldn't want to do it for three or four more years. It's a hard job.

• 34:33Shaan Puri?

  But, but what I'm saying is if you did this for other, just say, other like subgroups, right? So like doctor's office, you wouldn't then need to advertise locally because you could advertise like to all the companies that sell to medical professionals. Or like if I created, you know, e-comm, you know, Shopify mag, right? And I sell, I send this to every Shopify owner's home, and I'm just putting out like awesome case studies about e-commerce and just cool like stories of brands or whatever. And then I just go tell Klavio and PostScript and like every e-commerce company, every company that sells to e-comm stores, like every Shopify app. I'm like, yeah, you should advertise in this thing. We have like, you know, pretty like, pretty like hyper-targeted distribution. Basically, the question is, is this better than a newsletter?

• 35:18Shaan Puri?

  Like, you know, you know, both spaces. We know that Andrew's doing this local news thing, but for not neighborhoods, but it's for like local cities, and he's doing it through newsletter, right? His company, Overstory. What's better, this magazine idea or newsletters, in your opinion?

• 35:35Sam Parr?

  So I actually think that's the wrong question because what's quite interesting is that they're selling a franchise, which is very weird for a media company. That is actually the more interesting thing. Do I think that this, I think this is an awesome business. Do I think it's better than a newsletter? No, I would probably do that, the newsletter, but I would consider doing it this way where you're like, you're like, hey, like, we have 10,000 people already pre-signed up for this small neighborhood in Arizona. Do you want to, you want to buy this list from us as a publisher? It's a $10,000 buy-in and we'll monetize it for you and you get 15% of all the revenue that we sell, but you got to make sure that you put it out all the time. That is, that's kind of an intriguing, that's an intriguing business model.

• 36:19Sam Parr?

  Do I think that it's better because it's in print? I definitely think it's potentially more interesting. I think the ad rates could potentially be higher because I think that like it is actually quite cool to hold and see something. I think it's a very fascinating business model. I think you could also do this with a lot of different things.

• 36:34Shaan Puri?

  What is the, did they say anything about the cost of actually the print and the delivery? Like you have to print in mail magazines, right? Which is kind of costs you something. So that's, that's like the biggest difference from like a newsletter, you get the tracked clicks and you get, no, you have no hard costs for the, for the print and for the shipping and the, and the printing of the magazine. Do you know at all what that costs?

• 36:56Sam Parr?

  No, I don't. So they didn't reveal too much, but they basically said that their national team has editorial oversight on what's published to ensure editorial, editorial standards are nonpartisan and community focused news. They keep a cut of all ad revenue. They have local operators, so the people who run the local papers, the, the local magazine use Stroll's national printing, copy editing and operational resources. And the company distributes the magazine for free in readers' mail.

• 37:26Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 37:27Sam Parr?

  It's pretty, it's, it's pretty fascinating. It's an interesting business. You know what else is kind of interesting? Did you hear what ConvertKit? So ConvertKit is like a mail chip competitor. I went to the conference this weekend. It's a email platform. I think you use them, right?

• 37:39Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I use them.

• 37:41Sam Parr?

  Do you see the thing they low key announced something that's kind of amazing? So, and the reason, this is actually quite fascinating. They launched this thing where they now hired an ad sales team and they're going to go out and sell ads. And they're going to give you, Sean, the user, 85% of the revenue that they go and sell.

• 38:01Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, this is smart. I was always wondering why the like email platforms don't do this because once you start your newsletter, you're like, all right, cool. You get people being like, hey, can I sponsor it? You're like, yeah. And then you de facto become ad sales. And guess what? You're like, not great at it because you're not doing it full time. It sucks. And you would happily pay somebody a 15% commission for filling your ad spots and doing it well. And I was always thinking like, you know, a sort of a MailChamp, a Beehive, ConvertKit. Like, why aren't they just making this their business model? Like, in addition to their SaaS revenue of like paying for the email stuff? Like, couldn't they, you know, ConvertKit's at pretty significant scale? Like, I wonder how big this is going to be for them.

• 38:42Sam Parr?

  Dude, listen to this. The Hustle, there was a period of time where Trung was on fire and he was our only writer. He basically, we had like people that would kind of fill in when he was sick. But basically, he wrote the email by himself every day for like eight months. And we were doing over a million dollars a month in revenue.

• 39:00Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 39:00Sam Parr?

  And there was one Trung and there was like 20 ad salespeople.

• 39:06Shaan Puri?

  That's ridiculous. That is crazy. It was pretty crazy.

• 39:09Sam Parr?

  And then we had like Adams. So we had like four, uh, like growth marketers. So like, but that business could have been Trung and like four growth marketers. And it could, it would have been making over a million dollars a month. And, but it had, we had like eight or 10 or 15, I don't even remember exactly, ad salespeople. And then each like four ad salesperson needs an operations person. And then like, uh, editors to edit the ad. It was like, uh, like Morning Brew, I think has 250 people. I don't know for a fact. I would bet you that Morning Brew has.

• 39:46Sam Parr?

  Thirty editorial people and 220 ad sales or ad sales related people.

• 39:53Shaan Puri?

  Well, there's some management overhead, but like, so with your ad sales.

• 39:57Sam Parr?

  Yeah, managing the sellers.

• 39:59Shaan Puri?

  When you, when you had your ad team, you, you probably had like some commission structure or whatever, right? Like, um, hey.

• 40:04Sam Parr?

  Yeah, 4%. Yeah.

• 40:06Shaan Puri?

  So, so how did you compensate them? And basically, what, so what was your comp model? And then what is, what was like the overhead? So the fact that you employed them versus them just being, let's say, like with ConvertKit, for example, if I write a newsletter, I'm not paying for the overhead. I'm only paying for the placement. I paid this 15% placement fee once they, once they get me an ad. That's their commission.

• 40:26Sam Parr?

  Well.

• 40:26Shaan Puri?

  Did you convert more or less than that in overall ad sales for the hustle, do you think?

• 40:32Sam Parr?

  So we basically, when we kind of were getting going, we had two salaries. Like the entry level people, so the people who were like, um, two or three years of experience. And then we had the higher people, which for us was like five or six years of experience. So still not a lot of experience, but I was only 24 when I started. So it was basically like a 22 year old and like a 27 year old. Like those are like.

• 40:53Shaan Puri?

  Do you get my jokes or do you not get my jokes? That's how you decide your compensation.

• 40:57Sam Parr?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, uh, the, the earlier ones, uh, the younger guys, it was like around, it ranged from like 50 to $70,000 a year in base salary. And then the upper guys got like a hundred to like 120,000 a year in base salary. And the upper guys, they're, it was expected that they would sell, I forget exactly, but between one to 1.5 million dollars a year in ad revenue. And they would get four, either four or four and a half percent of that. The younger guys, their expectations was that they were going to sell between 500 and like 900. We had some sellers, like this woman Katie, who would sell, I believe the year we sold, she was going into the year with like 2.5 million booked.

• 41:40Sam Parr?

  2.5 million and, and so, but, um, so basically, but then they had to get 75% of their quota. So if their quota was $1 million, if they hit only 600,000, they only got their base salary. If they hit 75% of their quota, that's when the 4% started kicking in. And then if they got 101%, then the kickers would go up and they would start making a lot of money. So the highest paid person at our company oftentimes was a ad seller.

• 42:03Shaan Puri?

  And do you remember, like, did you just look at, like, uh, what is our percent of revenue that we're paying out in commissions? Like, did you have like, cause let's just say the easy apples to apples math is. Let's say ConvertKit launches this thing, it's 15%, that's your, that's your cost of ad sales, basically. If, if they placed all your ads. Do you remember what your?

• 42:24Sam Parr?

  Well, you could oversimplify it. Yeah, you could oversimplify it by saying, uh, 4.4% of total ad revenue and then just assume a hundred thousand dollars a head. Plus, so let's say that you've got 10 sellers doing 10 million. So that's, uh, a hundred thousand per salary for 10 people. That's one million dollars. And then the commissions would be 4% of 10 million. So 400,000. So 1.4 million people, 1.4 million dollars for 10 ad salespeople for 10 million in revenue. But then, of course, there was like, uh, some account executives who would help with that. And then, like, uh, operations people. But yeah, that's basically it.

• 43:03Shaan Puri?

  Bro, you just did a shitload of public math and, um, I forgive you because you're my friend. Um, you know, we don't do public math.

• 43:11Sam Parr?

  But that's easy.

• 43:12Shaan Puri?

  For you to just do that.

• 43:13Sam Parr?

  Listen.

• 43:14Shaan Puri?

  It's just not who we are. It's not what we do.

• 43:17Sam Parr?

  Did you follow?

• 43:18Shaan Puri?

  I, I, I tried to follow, but it's like you're speaking another language. You, you did it.

• 43:23Sam Parr?

  Listen, 10 million in revenue.

• 43:24Shaan Puri?

  You did it right, too.

• 43:25Sam Parr?

  10 million in revenue.

• 43:27Shaan Puri?

  Which is about the same as theirs, right? So you, for all that headache of employing all those people, you saved like 1%, let's say of like the commission rate. Now, maybe you would fill higher or maybe, maybe you'd do a better job than like the centralized service would, probably, I would guess. But, um.

• 43:42Sam Parr?

  But here's why it's also a better model. One time we had like Goldman Sachs or something as an advertiser and we had a story on Fuck Jerry and how Fuck Jerry, Fuck Jerry is like this meme Instagram account that says like funny stuff. They like launched like Fuck Jerry News or something like that. And I was like, oh, well, let's, for this email, by the way, every single sentence, let's use the word fuck in it. And then like another time, we talked about Donald Trump and we're like this entire email, let's write it in the voice of Donald Trump. So like if you read it to yourself, it sounds like Donald Trump. And Goldman Sachs got really mad at us and they're like, you said fuck like literally 84 times in this email. Like we're not sponsoring you anymore. And I was like, well, good, fuck off. Like, I don't care about you.

• 44:25Sam Parr?

  Like, you know, screw you, fuck you. But Katie sold the ad and her commission was going to get lost. So I was like, okay, I don't want to hurt you. So I'm willing to like not say certain stuff just because I don't want you to experience the pain. But I don't give a shit about that brand. If they want to like, you know, muzzle us, screw them.

• 44:41Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 44:41Sam Parr?

  So now with this new, with this new setup, it actually could be a lot more advantageous for the creator.

• 44:47Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Katie's amazing, by the way. We, we work with her too. She's, she's really good. So, so what are the, do we want to do another one or are we going to wrap it?

• 44:56Sam Parr?

  We can do one more, maybe.

• 44:58Shaan Puri?

  Let's do, okay, let me just do a, you want an idea or a life hack?

• 45:04Sam Parr?

  A life hack.

• 45:05Shaan Puri?

  All right. So, so Ben, business partner Ben, not podcast Ben.

• 45:11Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Ben, I might just refer to you as God's Ben. And the other Ben I'm going to have to say is not God's Ben. So not God's Ben was, was in town.

• 45:17Sam Parr?

  Yahweh. He's, you gotta call him Yahweh and Jesus.

• 45:22Shaan Puri?

  So, so he's visiting and I was like, um, and so, you know, it's always interesting, right? Like in one way, you know, he, he came, you know, basically stays in my house. We, we hang out for the week and we get a bunch of stuff done. So he gets to see a bunch of stuff in my world about how I live life. And I'm sure that's, you know, somewhat interesting to him where he sees some things. He's like, oh, wow. Thank God I don't do them that way. And other things you're probably like, oh, that's cool. Like maybe I should be more like that. And the, but the same thing happened for me because Ben, um, on the last day, I see Ben and he's like, I'm like, oh yeah. You know, you're just packing up. What are you doing? What are you writing down? Cause he's like hunched over his table and he's right. He's like got a pen out and he's writing something by hand, which is not like, you know, we do everything on our computers. So I was like, what are you writing out?

• 46:03Shaan Puri?

  And I noticed he's not holding a pen. He's holding a marker and he is drawing. And I was like, Ben, what are you doing? What are you drawing? And he's, he's drawing like a birthday card, basically on a giant piece of paper. And he's got six of them and he's drawn all these cards. And I'm like, what is this? It's like my daughter's birthday. What are you doing? He's like, no, it's my dad's birthday. And he's like, ah, it's a family tradition we have. He goes, every time it's someone in our family's birthday, we all get out a, get out like paper and markers and we draw them like birthday cards and it'll be like, you know, inside jokes or like, ah, dad, you're the man for this reason. You know, I, we always say that you got the best, whatever. You know, just you got the best calves. And so he draws a picture of him with like huge calves

• 46:46Shaan Puri?

  or whatever, right? You love this, you love the Suns. Here's a picture of Chris Paul, holding a birthday cake for you, singing you happy birthday, like this player on the Suns. And so it's just like, whatever. It's just goofy. And I saw it and I was like, this is amazing. And like everything he's told me about his dad, by the, by the way, his dad listens to the pod. So shout out to, shout out to Andy. Um, his dad's amazing. And like, I'll tell you one thing is amazing about his dad is he's like, so his dad's a huge Phoenix Suns fan. So was Ben. I'm like, oh, did you get it from your dad? Like your dad, you know, growing up was a huge fan. So that's why you are? He's like, no, it's the opposite. Growing up, my dad didn't really care about basketball or the Suns. And I got super into it. And he's like, my dad just does this thing where like whatever each of his kids is into, he like, he's like, all right, I'm into it too. And like, not just like in a small.

• 47:31Sam Parr?

  That's a great dad move.

• 47:32Shaan Puri?

  Great dad move, right? And I was like, holy shit. I didn't even, I'm a dad now. So I'm like, I didn't even think about that. He's like, he's not just supportive because I think that's, that's normal. The comment would be, you're supportive. Oh, you like this? Great. Good. Yeah. Go on, do your thing. I'll, I'll show up at your game and I'll kind of be, you know, doing the crossword on my, on my, you know, in my lap because I'm bored. It's not my thing. His dad's the opposite. He's like, oh, we like the, you like the Suns? Suns? No, we like the Suns and we, we love everything about the Suns now and we eat, live and breathe the Suns. And so for his other kid, his other son is, does real estate. And he's like, oh, you do real estate? No, no, no. We do real estate. And so he works for his son for free, just helping him sell real estate 40 hours a week. Cause he's like, oh yeah, we gotta sell some real estate. I'm in.

• 48:17Shaan Puri?

  And so he's like a free employee who's like hitting up LinkedIn.

• 48:19Sam Parr?

  He doesn't pay him?

• 48:20Shaan Puri?

  Like, he loves this podcast because he'll hear growth ideas and he'll be like, oh, so I'm gonna do that for my son's real estate business.

• 48:25Sam Parr?

  Wait, that's a, that's an amazing, amazing dad and a horrible son. Pay your dad, dog.

• 48:30Shaan Puri?

  No, he's, he doesn't want the money. He's that creative a dad. And then the other son, like, he does this like comedy thing. And he's like, oh, comedy. All right. I'm in the comedy scene now. And like, he does that. And I was like, wow, I'm gonna do this. So on the dad's side, I was like, hold, like Ben, Ben works with me. Andy basically works with me too. He's like, he listens to every episode of the podcast. He responds to every email like we put out. He'll like, he's not trying to get special treatment. He replies like a fan, like he's gonna be like, oh yeah. I do my five Tuesday. He's like, I love number three. Or he's like, the podcast. Oh, I love the way you and Sam did this. And I'm like, dude, how sick is that to have your dad become your wingman for your favorite hobby or your passion? Like, I'm gonna do that. So that was the first learning. The second was this birthday thing. He's like, yeah, my mom, like,

• 49:15Shaan Puri?

  she came up with this early on, like, you know, love's not about the gifts. And like, this is just a fun thing we do for each other. And we always do it.

• 49:23Sam Parr?

  We did it.

• 49:24Shaan Puri?

  You did what?

• 49:26Sam Parr?

  This birthday poster. So when you wake up.

• 49:28Shaan Puri?

  Is this like a white person thing I just don't know about?

• 49:31Sam Parr?

  I don't know. But I mean,

• 49:34Sam Parr?

  in my house, when you wake up on your birthday, you wait, my mom would put, puts like posters all over the house that, that all of the other kids like threw out.

• 49:45Shaan Puri?

  Wow. Okay.

• 49:46Sam Parr?

  I don't know, man. What did you?

• 49:48Shaan Puri?

  Ben, did you do this too?

• 49:49Sam Parr?

  We don't.

• 49:51Shaan Puri?

  Where did you get this?

• 49:52Ben?

  No, this is, this is new to me as well. No, no, no.

• 49:56Sam Parr?

  Sam, yeah, we had it as well. And honestly, it made my day. It was, I like, I would, I would be so eager to walk upstairs. It's kind of like, when you walk upstairs and you see like stuff around the Christmas tree, it was like, I felt that same joy. I walk up on the stairs and I see my signs all over the place. And I know that like, I get the breakfast that I want that day. It's pretty cool.

• 50:13Shaan Puri?

  This, so, so I, I basically like, I don't even care about my birthday anymore. Cause it's always like the same thing. And I hate the same, I hate the sameness of life. There's so many things that are just the same all the time. Like when Facebook came out with, you can write happy, it'll remind you happy birthday. And then your wall becomes. A thousand people who don't really care about you writing happy birthday.

• 50:32Sam Parr?

  I hate that because then I feel guilty like I gotta reply.

• 50:35Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I never reply and like, you know, and but it's just the same thing, right? Or what other people do is, oh, let me throw money at the problem, which becomes a different kind of burden. It's like, oh, I gotta get you a gift. Um, I gotta think of something or let's say I go buy you a nice card. It's like, dude, the the birthday poster is so much better than a Hallmark card. Because it's like, A, it's like actually thoughtful, B, it's like kind of goofy and funny. It's like more entertaining and it's a kind of personal touch, right? And so, so I love this idea. When we came home from that farming conference, my daughter had drawn a poster that says, welcome home, Dada. And it's still the first post, like in my bathroom, it's a poster on the wall. Every day I go to the bathroom, I see, welcome home, Dada. Like the the bathroom is my home, which is, you know, a little bit true.

• 51:17Shaan Puri?

  And so I'm like, this personal poster thing is a great life hack. And it got me thinking, I'm gonna start stealing everybody's favorite family tradition. And so that's my new question for people is like, yo, what are these like family traditions you got? Like, what are the things that y'all do? And like, people don't even know that they're so like baked into their operating life. Like, they don't even know them. And then you kind of keep digging and you'll find them. And if it's like, if it's a family tradition that's lasted like, you know, 20 years of your life, it's probably awesome. And like, I should steal that for my own family. What do you think?

• 51:52Sam Parr?

  I, yeah, I think that's good. I'm trying to think of what if I even have like my family, we're all atheists, but we still pray before every time we eat dinner. Like, you don't eat until you pray, even though like no one believes in God. Um, that's like an interesting tradition. We do do birthday posters.

• 52:08Sam Parr?

  I don't think we have any other traditions like that. I would, I'd wonder, I bet Ben has a ton.

• 52:12Ben?

  A bunch, but the one that we start, I think I talked about this. So we started doing our, uh, end of year reviews where we, uh, like do product reviews and and talk and preview the year to come. That's our newest tradition. I like that one a lot.

• 52:24Sam Parr?

  Yeah, but that that's some new age shit, though.

• 52:26Shaan Puri?

  Wait, product reviews, like actual product reviews, like I love this microphone? Or what do you mean?

• 52:31Ben?

  No, no, no, just like, uh, just reviewing like the year that what was Ben's 2021 or whatever? And then previewing. Yeah. Um, but no, the other like, well, we have a bunch of tradition. We do have a bunch of traditions.

• 52:48Ben?

  Like one of the simple ones is we eat waffles like every Sunday morning and I just like a thing I know I can look forward to every week. My wife makes really good waffles with like strawberries. She does like goes all out. It's just one over the top. It's one meal a week that I know I can always look forward to and I love it.

• 53:04Shaan Puri?

  You don't have any Sean? No, I do. I have some and now I'm like, and I give credit to my dad. My dad was really the one who was bringing the like, the fun factor with some of these, whereas my mom's more like practical. Whereas my dad would be like, like once a week, he would do the same, like the whatever, like the Monday night dinner. As I, oh dad's making dinner. Oh sweet. It's not because he's a better cook, but he would like, he would just add some showmanship to it. So he would like make, he would like get this tray. And so everyone had their own circular tray with like four dishes in it. And, and then he would add a quarter and we were all like, yeah, the coins there. Like I got a quarter. It's like, it's like an equivalent of a McDonald's Happy Meal, but like with a quarter and like, and there would be just like some flourish. So it was always something that was like a little extra that he would do.

• 53:46Shaan Puri?

  And, um, and like, or like these little things, he would come home and he put his wallet down, but the game was, I would always steal the wallet and I'd have, he'd run and chase me and I'd have to hide it. And like the game was like, can he get his wallet back? And it was like, how do you turn that like two minutes of coming home from like, oh hey, how's it going? Like autopilot into like something that's actually like fun and breaks everybody's kind of like mood for a second. So he used to do. That's a great question to ask someone. What family, what's a really good family tradition? Yeah, I'm going to steal them too. Good idea. I have a buddy actually that just came to mind. I don't even, I don't think I want to steal this because I don't think I convinced my family to do it, but his family did it. And I remember because he started dating this girl and I was like, ah, how's it going? You know, dating Mike or whatever. And she was, I think maybe the other way around. I was like, how's it going dating, dating this girl?

• 54:30Shaan Puri?

  She's like, they got the, she's like, they got this weirdest tradition. They kiss on the lips. Basically, it was basically that. He was like, yeah, they go to, he's like, I went, I went on the, they're like annual, like, uh, annual family, like vacation to Tahoe or whatever. They went to a cabin. And I'm expecting skiing and all this other stuff. And there was, but at night they did this thing. I'm like, oh shit, what did they do? It's like blood cult. Like what's going on? And he's like, yeah, they all read Harry Potter, but like they read it aloud and they read it like in the voices. And he's like,

• 55:01Sam Parr?

  Oh my god. That's a bit much.

• 55:04Shaan Puri?

  Sitting there in the circle. Yeah, exactly. But I was like, but to them, it was like their thing. And I was like, I, you know what? Like as, as cringe as I would feel doing that, and I love Harry Potter, by the way, but as cringe as I would feel like doing, you know, Dumbledore's voice as I read the book, that would be a lot for me. And definitely a lot for me if I'm the visiting boyfriend into that family. That was like a lot. But like, you know, respect to have a family that's like willing, willing to be a little silly, even as everybody gets old. Like, I really respect that. And like, if that's your thing, that's your thing. All right, whatever. Like, you know, let me go ahead and, and read, you know, Order of the Phoenix, like in, in the voice. Like, let's do this.

• 55:42Sam Parr?

  You know, like I say, like cornrows and tattoos, or cornrows and sleeve tattoos. I respect that others do it, but that ain't for me. Not for me.

• 55:52Shaan Puri?

  You know, my, my new line, I tweeted this out yesterday, just bother people, but I, I called, I was like, product managers are the bottled water of tech. And it's just a funny backhanded slide. Like, nobody, nobody knows what to make of it. Like, it's a compliment, but it's clearly kind of an insult. Like, I like bottled water, but I guess bottled water is wasteful and useless. And then somebody one-upped it. And I'm like, oh, that's my new shit. He goes, he goes, they're more like the throw pillows. And I was like, dude, throw pillows are such a good diss because it's like, it's like, you know, girls love them. They look good, but they're completely fucking useless. And I know, and like annoying when you actually need to go to sleep. And so calling something the throw pillow of X is just an awesome slam that I'm like saving up in my back pocket to use.

• 56:35Sam Parr?

  I met people at this conference that I went to, and there was like a lot of listeners there. And someone came up to me, he goes, so, um, like, when did you guys decide to make the switch to go from talking about business, just being like 12 year olds?

• 56:52Shaan Puri?

  Amazing plan.

• 56:54Sam Parr?

  Yeah, that's what he said. And he goes, are you happy with that switch? And I was like, huh. A, I don't remember. And B, yeah, I think so.

• 57:06Sam Parr?

  But I was like, yeah, there definitely was like a decision.

• 57:10Shaan Puri?

  I'm sorry. Thank you. And fuck.

• 57:19Sam Parr?

  He's like, do you, he's like, was there, but he, but he wasn't trying to like roast me. He was like, it was Steph's fiance, Steph Smith's fiance. And he goes, he's like, I love the pod. But like, when was that switch made? Were you, we're gonna like go for like talking about actual business to being 12.

• 57:36Shaan Puri?

  When I was 12, we had a question like this, which was, um, I was like, what was it? You probably know it. It's like, um, when did you tell your dad you were gay? And it was like, it was like the viral question that went through our middle school, like COVID. It was like, instantly someone said this and people realized like, oh my God, it's a hilarious trap question. There's no good answer to this question. And literally everybody in every school in the school district of Texas was saying this question for like three months. And then it went away. But that's what that question is like. Oh, when did you guys decide to like switch the podcast up to being like 12 year old idiots? It's like.

• 58:15Sam Parr?

  He just totally like alphaed me. And I was like, oh, I don't remember Calvin.

• 58:26Sam Parr?

  It was pretty good.

• 58:27Shaan Puri?

  And I'm not, no, we're out.

• 58:30Sam Parr?

  All right, we're out. See you.