We found the weirdest ways to make $1M, $1B, and $5B

Episode 716: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talk about the 6 weird ways to make millions. — Show Notes: (0:00) $1M Twerking Class (5:55) Fecal transplants (12:00) A brief history of butts (15:05) $1B BBLs (20:26) $5B hookup app (31:16) $200M bonus: DUDE Wipes (37:19) How many millionaires from the pod? (47:17) Having it all (50:18) Shaan's reading list (53:28) Wisdom extraction — Links: • Want Sam's Top 7 Books as a Founder (& his Reading Strategy)? Get the guide here: https://clickhubspot.com/apw • OpenBiome - https://openbiome.org/ • Grindr - https://www.grindr.com/ • DUDE Wipes - https://dudewipes.com/ • Tushy - https://hellotushy.com/ • Modern Wisdom - https://www.youtube.com/@ChrisWillx • Save The Cat - https://tinyurl.com/4nwpec6z — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents. • Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies! Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N. A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/ My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano

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

• 0:00Shaan Puri?

  So today, we're talking about a very specific topic that I never thought we would go there. Sam, did you ever think we'd go here?

• 0:07Sam Parr?

  Uh, maybe by episode 2000, but I wasn't sure if it's gonna happen this soon.

• 0:10Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, it's a little early. Today's episode is about the business of butts and guts. Cue the intro music.

• 0:29Shaan Puri?

  So, Sam, have you ever seen this story about how, uh, honestly, actually, it's not, it's not an act of desperation to talk about this. It's actually, this is us flexing on everybody. It's like, dude, we can take anything and we can make it entertaining and about business. I don't know if you've ever seen Larry Bird, one year, he was playing against the, the Atlanta Hawks and he decided in the second half, he was just too good. And he's decided to only shoot with his left hand.

• 0:51Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I saw that.

• 0:52Shaan Puri?

  For the whole second half. That's this, this is our shoot only with our left hand to, to, to try to do a full, great business episode on, with the constraint of everything's gotta be related to butts and guts.

• 1:02Sam Parr?

  Dude, we actually, we, you know, we've done an episode on Rose Namajunas when the UFC fighter, when she was doing like her walkout, cause we thought that was inspiring. We actually should have done a whole thing on Larry Bird trash talking. Doesn't relate to business, but just his ego, I love.

• 1:14Shaan Puri?

  Also, one, one of the greatest nicknames ever. Uh, and in fact, if I was white, I would try to steal this, you should try to steal this. The hick from French lake is, is one of the greatest nicknames I've ever heard.

• 1:24Sam Parr?

  It's the best. I love like stories where he walks into like the, uh, the all-star room and he's like, I'm just looking around to see who's gonna get second in the three-point contest.

• 1:34Sam Parr?

  Alright, so we're gonna do butts and guts. That's a, that's a framework. That's, that's something.

• 1:40Shaan Puri?

  Our YouTube team was like, hey, you guys, we've analyzed the data and you guys need to do themed episodes. You know, pick a topic, guys. Don't just show up and just shoot shit randomly. You gotta pick a topic that gets more views. And so we were like, got it. And I think they meant like three ways to make a million dollars before the age of 25, you know, like YouTube-y type of things. And we're like, guys, no worries, we got it. We're gonna do a butts and guts episode, it's gonna pop off, it's gonna be great.

• 2:04Sam Parr?

  Do you have the first butts and guts story?

• 2:08Shaan Puri?

  I have some butts and guts stories. Let me give you.

• 2:11Sam Parr?

  Do you go one and then I'll give you a good one?

• 2:13Shaan Puri?

  Okay, I'm gonna give you a quick one. This actually. My wife taught me about this. So, a few years ago, eh, maybe seven, eight years ago, it was before kids. My wife is like, I'm like, hey, what are we doing this Saturday? What do you want to do? You want to go for a hike? You want a farmer's market? What should we do? And she's like, I gotta go into the city. I'm taking a class. And I was like, a class in the city? What do you mean? And she was like, kind of being evasive about it. She's like, I don't know, I'll be back later. Don't worry about it. And her sister comes and picks her up and I'm like, what's the class? And she's like, it's called the twerk out. And I go home and I Google and I see that there's this amazing business. I don't know if you remember when twerking kind of really came on the scene. It's like 10 years ago.

• 2:55Shaan Puri?

  There was a woman who basically made it her business. Her name was, I think, called Lex Twerkout. And her name is Lexi. And this woman was touring the country. And she was making millions of dollars touring the country, teaching women in every city how to twerk. And so the class would be full. It was like sold out months in advance. And you would go and there'd be hundreds of women. And she's like, all right, ladies, put that dump out. And then she's like, and twerk, let me see her. And she's like, get a baseline. The point was, I couldn't believe this. And I started Googling it. And actually, there were several stories of women who jumped on the trend. It's like those businesses that started selling PPE during COVID. When the torque trend started, there's another story of this woman who was a kindergarten teacher.

• 3:39Shaan Puri?

  Who decided to take up, you know, torque training as a side hustle and ended up making millions of dollars. And it became a big issue because the parents were like, that's whatever. That's Miss Henderson. I get it. What is she doing? And I just thought it was amazing that you could make millions of dollars, literally just teaching women how to twerk.

• 3:57Sam Parr?

  Where are they now?

• 3:58Shaan Puri?

  So she initially, she was like, this is the next Zumba. And like she did all these interviews being like, this is the next Zumba. Like Zumba was this kind of like Latin dancing thing that they translated into a fitness class. I'm doing that with twerking. And she started getting all these celebrities to come to her stuff. So like Christina Milian was like a huge fan of it. And then there was like, you know, other famous people that I don't really fully know who they are. And she was approached by investors as like, let's blow this up. Let's take this concept nationwide. No, no, international. And then I think it kind of fizzled out. She's now like an aspiring musician. Uh, so she's like a female rapper now. So she's, she made her money during, during that phase when the getting was good. I don't think it, it didn't turn into like a nationwide franchise concept like they had hoped.

• 4:41Shaan Puri?

  But I don't know if she just got bored and moved on, or it fizzled out and the, the numbers started dropping. But at the time, it was like you had to, you, these tickets were hard to come by. It was like the hottest ticket in town.

• 4:56Sam Parr?

  So did your wife learn how to twerk?

• 4:58Shaan Puri?

  The funny thing is, already knew how to twerk. She was just going for a refresher course, you know what I mean? This is just a lifelong learner, a student of the game.

• 5:10Sam Parr?

  My friend Josh, uh, he had like the most like, uh, precious Instagram story the other day. He was like, my, you know, five year old wanted to learn how to play piano. We took him to these classes and he was getting a little nervous. So, uh, because at the end of like the six or 12 month class, you had to do a recital. And I said, screw it, I'm going to do it too. So he went and learned how to play piano alongside his kid. And I see a video of his kid playing Twinkle, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Stars at the recital. And then Josh goes up and sits down and plays like the same thing. And, uh, I think that, that could be a good mother, daughter bond that your kids have, right?

• 5:46Sam Parr?

  They could have a planned recital.

• 5:49Shaan Puri?

  This is generational twerking. All right, so that's my, that's my first one. Just, that was just appetizer, by the way. This is just like, this is like warm-up stretching for me here. All right, so that's just, I just kind of got my shoulder loose and gave you that one. Go ahead.

• 6:01Sam Parr?

  Okay, fecal microbiota transplants. You ever heard of that word? Have you heard that term?

• 6:07Shaan Puri?

  Those are four words I never heard together.

• 6:09Sam Parr?

  Yeah, well, it's three. It's three words, but yeah, you haven't heard those three either. I came across this in two ways. The first way was I was listening to a podcast with Shane Smith. Shane Smith was the guy who founded Vice. And for a little while, about 10 years ago, he was like the big man on campus, big shot. And he told this story about how he had colitis or something like that, or Crohn's, some type of gut issue. And he got surgery where they took another person's poop, like a healthy person's poop, and they put it into his gut. Have you ever heard of that?

• 6:40Shaan Puri?

  No.

• 6:41Sam Parr?

  So it's called, that's what it's called. It's called fecal microbiota transplants. And there's a 90% effective rate.

• 6:48Shaan Puri?

  It's poop? Or it's not even like the bacteria? It's actual poop goes in?

• 6:53Sam Parr?

  Well, I don't know where you draw the line. Like, I don't know, like, is it like a minuscule amount or a tablespoon? I'm not sure, like, you know, like, how much do you have to like zoom in on the microscope before, between poop becomes bacteria? But ultimately, it's still like poop. You're putting fecal, fecal matter, you're putting into someone's gut. And I was talking to this woman recently, and she was telling me that she was working on a startup, and it sounded actually ridiculous that this was a thing. But it was kind of brilliant, and it opened up my eyes. And she was working on this startup where they found a handful of people that have amazing microbiomes. And they were taking their poop, and you could actually replicate it in like a Petri dish and sell it to people. And so you can get a surgery or get, I don't even know technically if it's a surgery.

• 7:38Sam Parr?

  I don't know what, if that would be defined as a surgery, but you basically are taking someone's shit and you put it up in their colon. And it changes their microbiome and it has like a 90% effective rate. And what she was telling me was that their premise is that they're thinking about working in a way where people work with fitness influencers. And so instead of like someone selling a workout plan or an ab plan, you can sell someone else's microbiome. And let me give you an example. So a few amazing ways that using someone else's poop and getting one of these like fecal transplants is for depression, for Crohn's, for colitis, even anxiety. And some people even think like it can help with autism because people who have autism,

• 8:22Sam Parr?

  something is funky going on with their microbiome. And you can actually like use this to improve those conditions. However, they were doing a study, Harvard did a study in 2019, and they have found that elite athletes, specifically endurance athletes, they have something special in their microbiome, so in their gut, that allows them to have slightly better endurance, specifically meaning a like different lactate threshold. So like, without getting too nitty gritty, like your lactate threshold is like how well you deal with lactate, which means how well when your muscles get like really tense and really, and you go through strenuous activity, how well your body can recycle that acid in order to keep going. Well, anyway, they have found that when they have, when they took certain endurance

• 9:06Sam Parr?

  athletes' microbiome, basically their shit, and put it up into another human being, their endurance is better, something like 15 or 20% longer. They can like, let's say, run for a marathon. And this woman's premise was that she can take hypothetically a Lance Armstrong and sell his microbiome. And I thought that was insane and incredibly fascinating. And I went and looked up a lot of the research. I think openbiome.org, it's a nonprofit that's like leading a lot of this stuff. This all seems incredibly legitimate, not today, but in the next five or 10 years. And I thought it was so weird and so awesome.

• 9:44Shaan Puri?

  Would you ever do this?

• 9:45Sam Parr?

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. Dude, I like

• 9:48Shaan Puri?

  For sure?

• 9:49Sam Parr?

  For sure. Like, when someone talks about PEDs, performance enhancing drugs, they talk about it like it's a bad thing. And I'm like, I, I want my performance enhanced. I would love that. Yeah, inject me with everything. I've tried so many things.

• 9:59Shaan Puri?

  PEPs, baby, performance enhancing poop. This is pretty wild. So do you know like roughly what stage is this at? Like, people are doing this?

• 10:07Sam Parr?

  People do. I think it's a wealthy person thing. I think it's like, like, plastic surgery, where it's like a, you have to have money to do it. You have to be like in a certain category to justify this. But no, like, people for sure are getting this right now for Crohn's and colitis.

• 10:20Shaan Puri?

  Okay, so, so, so, hold on. So you said I would for sure do this, and this is available. So does that mean your appointment's booked? Or what does that mean?

• 10:27Sam Parr?

  Well, soon. What it means is they are doing, so there's like, for example, colitis, that's a colon illness, I guess.

• 10:36Shaan Puri?

  You have to have a condition to do it, you're saying?

• 10:37Sam Parr?

  Yeah, like, that's like, one of the reasons. Now, to do it for like, anxiety, or to make me like, run a faster 5K, I think that's a little bit more elective and like, you know, the money is not in that area at the moment. But, like, studies are showing that it's incredibly promising. So people are doing it, but it's not like a common thing.

• 10:54Shaan Puri?

  That's interesting. Okay, let's move to, move to number three. Before we do, you wanted to take a quick little walk through history here, the, the history of butts. And it's pretty interesting. So, back in the olden days, it was a highly attractive trait, not for the aesthetic part of it, but because it was like rooted in, oh, if somebody has a strong glute or strong pelvis area, they're gonna be able to run, they're gonna be able to hunt, they're gonna have a very long and healthy life. And so, people have studied this. They have a waist to hip ratio, you know, you know, this waist to hip ratio, 0.7 is the ideal.

• 11:28Sam Parr?

  Wait, I think Sir Mix-a-Lot rapped about that, didn't he? Was it that? I think 0.7 was one of the lyrics.

• 11:35Shaan Puri?

  The ancient philosopher Sir Mix-a-Lot also pontificated on this. And actually, it was a thing more for men than for women. So the, the, the appeal of having a nice butt was more important for men because they were the ones who needed to go hunt and gather and all that. But then there's also this statue, I don't know if you've heard, I don't know how you say it, but it's the Venus statue. It's literally translates to Venus of the beautiful buttocks. Have you, have you seen this statue before?

• 12:01Sam Parr?

  No, let's see.

• 12:01Shaan Puri?

  It's a Roman statue that was, where this woman was just worshipped for having a great butt.

• 12:07Sam Parr?

  Okay, so I'm zooming in on this statue's butt. I mean, it's fine.

• 12:12Shaan Puri?

  Imagine back in the Roman days, this was, this was as good as it gets back then, right? Like, they didn't have like that Kardashian genetics yet and the surgical enhancements. So this was like, this was it. By the way, the comments on this are so funny on Reddit. Like literally the top comment just said, what am I on? Stone hub?

• 12:36Shaan Puri?

  It's so good. So.

• 12:37Sam Parr?

  Dude, this is, this is very like, this is mediocre, not even in the same category of someone worthy of having a statue that lasts 2,000 years to obsess over.

• 12:47Shaan Puri?

  Which is think about the honor at the time to be immortalized in this way.

• 12:52Sam Parr?

  The average person that was, was, had a pancake ass and if this was considered like art worthy.

• 12:58Shaan Puri?

  Right. And then, and then there was this, this era. So this is now the Victorian era. So you might think, oh, that was just a phase. No, no, it's all, it's just translated from one era to the next. So this little thing back here, this is called the bustle. And the bustle is basically this artificial enhancement to make, to make it look like you have a big butt. And so this was kind of like this, uh, this sort of like Victorian age or whatever. So this, it sort of lasted then as well. And so this has been the thing for a very long time. And then there was a brief period in the nineties where actually flat butts and more slim women became the thing, the Kate Moss body.

• 13:32Sam Parr?

  Yeah, like the Kate, the Kate Moss era. I'm not a fan of that era. Not my favorite era.

• 13:36Shaan Puri?

  Well, luckily the world came to its senses and then with J Lo first, that Beyonce, I, I was, I asked AI, I was like, hey, can you explain how this all shifted? And it was like, honestly, J Lo. J Lo was a huge influence here. And, you know, it led to now what's kind of like gone overboard, I would say. And there's a new business and that business is related here. So Sam, do you know the number one fastest growing plastic surgery that there is?

• 14:04Sam Parr?

  I'm guessing it's the the poopy diaper Kim Kardashian. What's it called a Brazilian butt lift?

• 14:12Shaan Puri?

  That's right, the Brazilian butt lift, the BBL. And so this is a cosmetic surgery. You basically transfer fat. It's actually a double win. So you take fat from the belly and you inject it into the butt. And it is the fastest growing cosmetic procedure. It's growing, it's grown 800% in the last decade. So it is growing very fast. Do you want to see the guy's face who invented this, by the way?

• 14:36Sam Parr?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:37Shaan Puri?

  Can I interest you in looking at this dude's mug? All right, here we go. So this is the guy.

• 14:44Sam Parr?

  The happy man.

• 14:45Shaan Puri?

  This guy Evo. So Evo invented this and he's actually kind of a legend in the medical profession. In fact, when the Olympics were in Brazil in, I think, 2016, he was one of the guys like who's holding the torch for like a period of it, right? Like, you know, they only select like eight people to touch the torch. He was one of them. And so he, he was the inventor of the procedure. It didn't get as popular though, until later when they sort of improved it because it was kind of dangerous and it was kind of painful and they've improved it since then. And now nearly a billion dollars a year is spent on BBLs just in America. It is the fastest growing cosmetic surgery. And there's a whole business around it, actually. That's pretty interesting that people have popped up of recovery from your BBL surgery.

• 15:30Sam Parr?

  How, how much is a, I don't even know how much these things cost. How much does that cost?

• 15:34Shaan Puri?

  About $12,000 on average. But if you're in Miami and you want the best doc, you're, you know, you're more like $30,000, $40,000 to get a BBL.

• 15:42Sam Parr?

  That doesn't seem crazy at all, right? To get like a huge ass that you have for life, like I like.

• 15:48Shaan Puri?

  You just called it a diaper butt, dude.

• 15:50Sam Parr?

  Well, but I'm just saying if you want like your body to be altered forever. First of all, what are you going to look like when you're an elderly woman?

• 15:57Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I don't know. I don't think they've done a long-term study on this.

• 16:00Sam Parr?

  Uh, but no, I, I think that like I've, I've gotten tattoos that have cost like, you know, a quarter of that. So that seems like a steal.

• 16:09Shaan Puri?

  That's funny. Yeah, I don't know. I think it's, yeah, it makes sense. I think it seems like painful and dangerous. So there's like a pretty long recovery. And actually, there's like a whole business of recovery centers, recovery pillows, like, check this out. So like, there's this whole brand. So like, this is like their pillow that you, because you need a special pillow to sleep on. So people have looked at it and said, all right, if there's a billion dollars a year spent on the BBLs, every one of those people is going to need recovery. And they started selling recovery products to them. And I've actually seen this trend happen now with like, pretty much every big macro health trend, right? So like, we talked about this with Ozempic, how when Ozempic, as Ozempic's trend rise, uh, started to rise, people created auxiliary products. So there's Shotzi, which is an app that helps you track your usage.

• 16:54Sam Parr?

  That story is wild, right?

• 16:55Shaan Puri?

  That's like a multimillion dollar subscription SaaS business. That's a, an app to help you manage your semaglutide injections. And there's, there's more too. So there's people who are selling drinks that are like Ozempic plus plus. So it's like, oh, you're on Ozempic, take this to manage the, like, manage your gut health while you're on, on this, or to, uh, to actually accelerate the benefits of it. And so they're piggybacking on the trend and creating, you know, sort of like these like trend surfing products.

• 17:24Sam Parr?

  Have you tried it yet, by the way, Ozempic?

• 17:26Shaan Puri?

  No.

• 17:28Sam Parr?

  That's shocker, man. I, I still, I microdose it every once in a while, just a little bump.

• 17:32Shaan Puri?

  Biggest slam of, slam of the week, right there. New segment, slam of the week.

• 17:37Sam Parr?

  No, I just, I meant because it's like, pretty amazing. Like, it's an amazing trip.

• 17:41Shaan Puri?

  If you tell someone, it's shocking you haven't tried Ozempic, you know what that means? You know what that means to a fat person?

• 17:47Sam Parr?

  I, I'm not, I'm not alluding to that at all. I'm just saying that everyone.

• 17:51Shaan Puri?

  Dude, I had the funniest, funniest thing. Uh, so I did this blood test and I got back this result and it was like, oh dude, like your TSH levels really high, your thyroid levels, high, really high. You gotta like, work on that.

• 18:01Sam Parr?

  Mine was high too.

• 18:03Shaan Puri?

  And I was like, oh, sweet, I got a thyroid issue. That explains it. I was like, it's not me. It's not my own lack of discipline and self-control that's the problem. It's the, I got a thyroid thing. And I was with Ramona at the time and Ramona was like, dude, every, everybody wants to have a thyroid issue. I was like, it's so true.

• 18:23Sam Parr?

  Do you think you'll ever try Ozempic?

• 18:26Shaan Puri?

  I don't think so. I don't think I would, mostly because I've heard such mixed things about it. Some people swear that it's like one of the greatest inventions of mankind. It has all these other benefits and it's like, you know, kind of a no brainer. Uh, other people like it's gonna kill you and like sort of mess you up for life. I have no idea where the truth is in the middle. And if you have a way to solve the problem without it, it seems like you should just do that, right? Like, you know, if you don't, if you don't need to intervene, you shouldn't. And, uh, I'd like to prove to myself I could do it without it. It's kind of where I landed.

• 18:58Sam Parr?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm okay taking the shortcut. So, uh, yeah, sign me up.

• 19:05Shaan Puri?

  Okay, I think this is a good transition for you to tell me about this research you did on, uh, on our next butts and guts business.

• 19:12Sam Parr?

  All right.

• 19:13Shaan Puri?

  The big one. The big one you've been researching. The one, the one you've been, uh, been a big fan of for a while.

• 19:18Sam Parr?

  I have been a big fan of this one for a while. Okay, Sean, zoom in, zoom in on those guys for me.

• 19:25Sam Parr?

  These guys are, are, are the man. That's who they are.

• 19:28Shaan Puri?

  They look like your banker's banker. You know what I mean?

• 19:31Sam Parr?

  They do. Well, you know, these guys, uh, they got it going on. So the guy on the left is James Foo Bin Lu, uh, also known as just James Lu. James, I think he started Chegg, uh, the textbook company where he got wealthy. And then he worked at Amazon and a couple of other companies, but he's like, uh, one internet web 1.0 OG. So he made a lot of money, uh, being early, uh, on the internet and he, and he just crushed it. And now he runs this thing called Longview Capital. The guy on the right is Raymond Zage. So he, Raymond Ray runs a hedge fund and he's also a big shot. He lives in Singapore, so he must be incredibly wealthy because I'm sure he's there for some type of like tax reasons, but he's definitely a billionaire.

• 20:13Sam Parr?

  So those two guys are responsible for one of the best turnarounds.

• 20:19Sam Parr?

  In a long time. So those two guys are the largest shareholders in an app called Grindr. An app that is beloved by many and an app that I had to download for research purposes only, which I need to put that disclosure there because every single financial analyst who I saw talk about this app, they put the exact same thing and I found it hilarious that they put like a disclosure and they're saying, I only downloaded this for research purposes. But anyway, do you know your buddy James? What's James's last name?

• 20:47Shaan Puri?

  James Courier.

• 20:48Sam Parr?

  So James Courier had a partner named Rick Marini.

• 20:51Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 20:52Sam Parr?

  And these two guys created a bunch of apps. They created Tickle, which like got huge. It was like one of the first viral apps of all time. And then they helped create Monster. Was that another one? Or no, Branched Out. You remember Branched Out?

• 21:04Shaan Puri?

  Branched Out, yep. It was like a LinkedIn built on top of Facebook.

• 21:08Sam Parr?

  Yeah, they created these like viral apps, right? They were kind of like the OG guys of going viral, actually. And that's actually where your old partner from the guy who founded Bebo, I believe he worked there. So it's like this whole like Silicon Valley mafia.

• 21:22Shaan Puri?

  Original viral mafia, yeah.

• 21:24Sam Parr?

  So Rick Marini in 2019, so I hung out with Rick because he spoke at HustleCon. Rick Marini is just like a very corporate looking guy. And Rick Marini made this announcement that him and this other guy named Jeff, with the backing of Ray and James, bought this company called Grindr. And I had heard of Grindr, but it was one of those things when I'd heard about it, I was like, oh, I forgot that it was even a thing. And they bought this app for $600 million, I believe.

• 21:52Shaan Puri?

  Was it public or was it private?

• 21:53Sam Parr?

  It was private. And interestingly, it was owned by a Chinese company. So it was started by just like a guy, like a gay guy in LA, who was like trying to solve his own need. He like wanted to meet dudes and created this app. And it just grew organically, but it wasn't like that well-run. Very interestingly, a Chinese company bought it, a Chinese company who helped make Clash of Clans. And they were accused, the Chinese company was accused by the US government of blackmailing users. So for example, on Grindr, you can say they have like weird features where you can like be a closeted gay guy. So you can like not give away your full identity to other users or you You can even like say I do or do not have HIV. And they were accused of blackmailing their users.

• 22:34Sam Parr?

  So basically, the US government accused this Chinese company of using the user's information nefariously. And they said, you've got to sell this thing. And that's where Rick, this guy named Jeff, and then James Lu and Ray stepped in. And they bought this company for $600 million. And right away, they basically fired everyone. So in one of their like proxy statements, they said they replaced something like 90% of the staff. And they rebuilt this company. And I think when they bought Grindr at the time, it had like two and a half stars on the App Store. And these guys stepped in with Rick Marini and Jeff being the guys at the helm. And they turned this thing around. And they turned it around so much that if you Google Grindr stock, it has outperformed every other dating app.

• 23:17Sam Parr?

  And so basically, if you look at Bumble, Bumble has a billion dollars in revenue. They're not worth nearly as much, I believe, as Grindr.

• 23:23Shaan Puri?

  Grindr, so it's worth 4.6 billion right now. And the stock is up 30% this year, 155% year to date, and over the last five years, 120%.

• 23:35Sam Parr?

  It's been a very steady increase, this app, like since their SPAC. They're actually one of the handful of SPAC kind of like good stories. You know, SPACs got popular when and what, 2021? And like, they all sucked. These guys have absolutely crushed it. And I was reading about their turnaround and what they did. And it's pretty freaking amazing how they've turned this business around to be as successful as it is now. And I thought it was interesting that like, when it went public, this dude named James, who's a, I think he studied like literally rocket science from like University of Michigan. And then Ray Zage, who runs a hedge fund out of Singapore, is the first billionaire of the crew, the first guy who's involved to become a billionaire.

• 24:18Shaan Puri?

  Does Rick still run it or no?

• 24:20Sam Parr?

  No, no, no, no, I think they're out. I think they like did a proper turnaround and they bounced. And like, it's pretty obvious like why it works. Like, you know, it's sort of like grind, like have you ever played Call of Duty or James Bond? And like, have you ever seen like on the top left, there's like a map with like red dots? And you just run to that like dot for immediate action? That's like pretty much what Grindr is.

• 24:41Shaan Puri?

  It's so true. So way back in the day, I think 2012, 2013, we were at, when I was at Monkey Inferno, one of the apps we were trying to build was a dating app. And we had this idea, we were like, I think it was called like, I don't know, it was this horrible name. It was like, get out there or something like that. It was basically like a dating app where instead of messaging people, you actually go on dates. That was the premise. Okay. This is before Tinder had come out and the iPhone, there weren't, there weren't any mobile dating apps really popular. Cause again, like I said, even Tinder hadn't come out. There was a couple that were doing okay, but I'm downloading a bunch of them for research. And the most popular mobile dating app at the time was Grindr. So I downloaded Grindr, said, okay, let's see the, you know, I'm here for the, I'm here for research again. I'm here for, to find out what is the user experience. And dude, I don't know if anybody's

• 25:25Shaan Puri?

  ever seen this. It is a very stunning user experience. Not like any other mobile app you ever downloaded. As soon as you load the feed, the feed is basically pictures of people's, you know, private parts. And there's no like, there's not like a profile picture of their face. It's just that. And you're looking at that and then you, you, like you said, you click the map mode and it's like, oh, there's a dude over at Nordstrom's in the dressing room right now. He's like, you know, his thing says like green, he's, he's open, he's ready. And I was like, what? It's like point three away, right? Everything was based on a distance away from you, where there's a dude who's DTF right now. And I was like, this is the most aggressive thing I have ever seen in my life. I couldn't believe it. Like no other app works this way.

• 26:10Sam Parr?

  You know this, you know the stereotype of like-

• 26:11Shaan Puri?

  The gold knight thing is a perfect analogy. It's the only other thing that ever worked that way.

• 26:16Sam Parr?

  It's like, imagine the stereotype of like 20 construction workers, like catcalling a girl as she walks by and like the woman being into it and catcalling back. Like it's like-

• 26:25Shaan Puri?

  Immediately.

• 26:26Sam Parr?

  Yeah, like, so they were talking about, and they're like, in one of their reports, they were basically saying they're analyzing the onboarding time of Hinge and Tinder. And they said it was like 15 minutes and 22 minutes. And they're like, with our thing, with Grindr, once you sign up, within 120 seconds, you can go meet someone. And so like, they're optimizing for speed. So like, it's, it's really all, I mean, it's, it's just a hookup app, basically, like- I was reading like a funny article. Have you ever seen those articles where it was like, it costs, you know, $1,800 a month to be a woman. You know, we gotta get our hair done. We gotta get nails. A guy, a guy did that. He was like, it costs $1,200 to be a gay dude in Manhattan. You gotta like do this thing and then this thing. And then you need your $40 a month subscription to Grindr. Like, it's like, become like a,

• 27:10Sam Parr?

  it costs to do in business to be a gay guy. And like, to have this app. Like, it's, it's table stakes. And they've dominated the niche.

• 27:18Shaan Puri?

  I'm on Rick's LinkedIn right now. So he's a four-time founder, 25 years of operating experience. The guy's a Harvard Business School graduate, blah, blah, blah. He built Tickle.com. They sold it for $100 million. And then it says he's the managing partner of Catapult Capital. It's a private equity firm that focuses on consumer tech. And then it says, in May 2020, they partnered with those guys that you talked about, and they bought Grindr for 600 million. He became the COO. They rebuilt the team and every single system and process grew revenue and EBITDA by 80%. Improved the app rating to 4.6 stars, blah, blah, blah. And after two and a half years of hard work, it went public with a market cap of more than $2 billion. So in two and a half years, they turned 600 million into 2.5 billion.

• 27:57Sam Parr?

  It's wild, right? And this is something that interests you, I know, and a lot of our guests, which is like buying companies. Like, we talked, we've talked about that a bunch, and I know it intrigues you. It definitely intrigues me too. And, but for some reason, you don't hear about this in Silicon Valley a lot.

• 28:09Shaan Puri?

  Dude, we gotta have Rick on. Rick is a, Rick is kind of a legend. We need to have him on the podcast.

• 28:13Sam Parr?

  Rick is a legend. He's real low-key. I've, I've hung out with him only a handful of times.

• 28:18Shaan Puri?

  He's got, he's got a lot of like, style. You know what I mean?

• 28:21Sam Parr?

  Dude, he looks like Patrick Dempsey. He looks like Patrick Dempsey from Grey Anatomy. He's a-

• 28:25Shaan Puri?

  I was about to say, he looks like McDrewby. Is that the guy's name? Is that what his real name is?

• 28:28Sam Parr?

  Yes, he looks just like him. And like, I'm friends with him on, I'm friends with Rick on Facebook. And he just like recently posted a photo of him and Patrick meeting. And he said, finally, we meet. Cause everyone says that to him.

• 28:39Shaan Puri?

  He looks very much like him. That's amazing.

• 28:41Sam Parr?

  He's cool. This guy's cool. And this, someone was joking, and they're like, one of the reasons why this stock confuses a lot of people is because financial bankers and stock analysts, it's all straight dudes. Like, they are, like, this isn't like, well-

• 28:57Sam Parr?

  It's not, it's not something that they're like potentially using in their life on a daily basis. And so it's kind of like been a little bit under the radar.

• 29:04Shaan Puri?

  Oh yeah, dude. Bumble's only 500 million.

• 29:07Sam Parr?

  So, yeah, so.

• 29:08Shaan Puri?

  It's 10 times bigger.

• 29:09Sam Parr?

  It's 10 times bigger because there's a bunch of reasons. One being like gay guys earn like twice as much as, uh, uh, straight men, uh, straight men.

• 29:19Shaan Puri?

  Dude, all of Match Group is 7.8 billion. Grindr alone was 4.5.

• 29:25Sam Parr?

  And they have way less, and they're working with a population that's like 10% of America. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's like, they're, everything about this, it's sort of like bumblebees aren't supposed to fly.

• 29:35Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, sort of an underdog story. I'm kind of inspired right now.

• 29:39Sam Parr?

  Yeah, man. They've killed it.

• 29:41Shaan Puri?

  One of my greatest inspirations, Grindr stock.

• 29:44Sam Parr?

  It's wild, right? That's what I'm saying. You don't hear about these turnarounds at all with like a lot of Silicon Valley and internet companies. And they've, they've nailed it.

• 29:52Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, that's wild. Okay, I have one more. It's not really a good one to end on, but I'll do it anyways. Well, first of all, I'll do two quick ones. Dude wipes?

• 30:01Sam Parr?

  Oh my God. Great idea. Who, it's insane, right? You're gonna say, you're gonna say this.

• 30:10Shaan Puri?

  I think I touched a nerve or something.

• 30:10Sam Parr?

  You need to say this. This is, so, uh, here's an example of, uh, so one time we had this guy messaging Sean and I, and he had a company called Hostage, Hostage Tape.

• 30:20Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 30:20Sam Parr?

  And it was where you put tape on your mouth and you go to bed at night and it's supposed to make you like breathe better, sleep better, whatever. And I think Sean and I, I think you and I had said, you know, he messaged me a ton of times. We both said, you're an idiot, you're an idiot. And then he texted us like updates and it was like, eventually scaled to like 20 million in revenue in like two years. And it was like, the initial, the initial gut reaction we had was like, wow, uh, this guy is so stupid. And then he texts us, he's like, hit a million in revenue. And it was like, oh my God, people are so stupid. And then it hits the 20 million in revenue and you and I go, we are so stupid. That is exactly how I felt when I saw the dude wipes number, uh, their revenue number. Can you say what it is?

• 30:59Shaan Puri?

  So 2024, they did $220 million in revenue.

• 31:03Sam Parr?

  Insane, insane. Who would have thought?

• 31:06Shaan Puri?

  And look at this. Actually, I gotta show you this. This is hilarious. As you're saying this, so there's, I'm on an article. And this is, this must have been made by the team itself, but it's literally a chart of their growth. So let's check this out. It says, Dude Wipes, now over 200 million. And there's a slide, it says 2020, 40 million. It says, there's a call out. When the experts said our growth was done.

• 31:30Sam Parr?

  That's so good.

• 31:32Shaan Puri?

  When Sam Parr said, this is stupid.

• 31:34Sam Parr?

  No, I even, yeah, I mean, I would have said it was stupid the whole time.

• 31:37Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Pretty amazing, right? Back when we started the podcast, I don't know if they sent you, they sent me a giant

• 31:43Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 31:43Shaan Puri?

  package of Dude Wipes that has, it's now 2025. We started this podcast like in 2020 or 2019 or something like that. It's been like five or six years. I'm still living off those like a prepper, you know, rationing out Dude Wipes, dude. These things have, they've sent so many, it's lasted for so long.

• 31:59Sam Parr?

  And so, so everyone knows, it's just a, it's what you wipe with and it's wet. It's like, like a, like a baby wipe, right?

• 32:06Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, it's like a wet wipe. I don't actually know. I don't know. Maybe that's why they've lasted so long. I don't really use them. I actually use them only on my baby. But it's flushable, right? I think that's the key difference is that a normal, a normal wet wipe is not flushable. You're not, you're not supposed to, it'll mess up your toilet. I think Dude Wipes, you can. It's basically like an alternative to the bidet, right? You don't need a bidet if you use this, I think is the idea.

• 32:28Sam Parr?

  Ah, man, this is a great story idea. We definitely should have focused on this one. I cannot believe how they grew so fast. Where did they, did they grow through retail or online?

• 32:37Shaan Puri?

  I mean, I think these things become an everything story. I don't know their exact story. I just know they did a lot of like guerrilla marketing. They're sort of like manscaped in that they, they use the disadvantage of their brand being kind of seen as a joke as an advantage to be able to do sort of like shocking or, you know, like interesting marketing in order to like, you know, basically like bro marketing, right? It's like, how do you do bro marketing to grow? Like Liquid Death did this, Manscaped did this. And I think these guys are another one. Dollar Shave Club was another one that, that did this. So pretty impressive. So they're, they're impressive. Tushy, which is the actual bidet company, is like also a nine-figure, you know, over a hundred million dollar a year business. It's basically like an attachment. You can, you can turn any toilet into sort of like the Japanese, kind of like fancy toilets by attaching this thing.

• 33:21Shaan Puri?

  So Tushy is one, but there's also another interesting one. This is less, less fun to talk about, but I guess like, I found it pretty interesting. Can you go to gastromaryland.com?

• 33:31Shaan Puri?

  My buddy Diego, his wife used to work at this place. And he was like, dude, these like, it's like a clinic that's just for doing like colonoscopies and gut cleanses, colon cleanses, this sort of thing. And it's a kind of like a standalone practice that's just focused on colon health. And he's like, dude, they're booked up, like, you know, they booked out like, you know, months in advance. And he's like, I think, and we were talking about, we're like, this is actually like a really good like franchise concept, because everywhere you see locations of these, there's one in San Francisco, not, not the same brand, but I, I looked up one in San Francisco, also like very popular. And I just thought, oh, wow, this is interesting.

• 34:11Shaan Puri?

  In the same way that these like med spas have become a big deal and meds, med spas have become a big business, which is like these kind of like places you go for all these different aesthetic procedures. I think you're gonna have the same thing. I think you're gonna have basically gut spas. And I think more and more people are gonna go here and they're gonna look for help with their, all their, you know, GI issues and their digestion issues and their health.

• 34:34Sam Parr?

  That's wild. And are you, you're a year older than me. Have you gotten your first colonoscopy? Have you done any of that yet?

• 34:40Shaan Puri?

  No, am I supposed to? What age do you get that?

• 34:43Sam Parr?

  I don't know. I haven't done it yet either. I think we're 40, so we're a few years away. We have a few years.

• 34:49Sam Parr?

  Not looking forward to it.

• 34:50Shaan Puri?

  You wanna do it together? Should we?

• 34:51Sam Parr?

  Yeah, hold hands.

• 34:52Shaan Puri?

  Do you guys allow doubles? There's like a couples, couples colonoscopy that we could do?

• 34:56Sam Parr?

  Like a put us out, like kissing?

• 35:00Sam Parr?

  This is really fascinating.

• 35:02Shaan Puri?

  There's another one that's in this. So, so I was like, oh, this is like interesting as a franchise or as a private equity play. Oh, of course, too late. Their, their private equity guys are always on top of these trends. So if you look up this company, Exact Sciences, they do something called the Cologuard tests and they could just crush it. And so they do colon cancer screening. They have like a, a non-invasive way to do the test. 2.76 billion in revenue last year.

• 35:24Sam Parr?

  What?

• 35:24Shaan Puri?

  From this, uh, this private equity backed play.

• 35:28Sam Parr?

  Have you seen the, the guy on Instagram that just asked like, he's, he's like the most challenging person to talk to you at a party? And he's like, oh, that's nice. Are you guys PE backed? I worked at a PE firm.

• 35:39Shaan Puri?

  No, but that's hilarious.

• 35:41Sam Parr?

  It just, everything is, are you PE backed? Oh, yeah, just because I'm a partner at a PE firm. Who owns you?

• 35:50Sam Parr?

  This is insane. So this is billions of dollars in sales?

• 35:53Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 35:54Sam Parr?

  Oh, my God. This is wild.

• 35:57Shaan Puri?

  I mean, just in this episode, we've basically talked about like $10 billion worth of guts and butts businesses. Which just really shows like you can, if you, if you can't figure out a way to make it, it's on you. The opportunity is literally everywhere. There's products like dude wipes and stuff that seems like jokes. There's things like BBL cushions for after BBL surgeries, right? Like where you just had to spot a growing trend and say, okay, what, what's the next product that they would need? Right? The Warren Buffett question. Then what? What happens after the BBL? You know, that, that was a question that you could have asked. You know, the grinder turnaround, these guys who, who made this huge play.

• 36:34Shaan Puri?

  Isn't it like, doesn't it kind of blow your mind when you, when you realize like, oh, man, there is like an infinite set of possibilities that I could go into if I wanted to, you know, build a successful business? There's really like no excuse.

• 36:46Sam Parr?

  My in-laws live in this really nice building in New York City and they're really successful. You know, they, my mother-in-law is a Haitian immigrant. My father-in-law is a high school dropout who started a moving company that boomed and it killed it and allowed him to acquire this really fancy apartment. And I'm sitting in their lobby and I'm like, how many units are in this apartment? And he's like, 200. And then I'm like, well, there's like 10,000 buildings like around here. Like, you know, so many, so many buildings. And I, it's just amazing. I'll be in the lobby and I'll just start having conversations with random people. And every person you're talking to, you're like, well, you must have had many millions of dollars to buy this apartment, meaning you're, you're, you're very successful. And you hear about what they're doing for work and there's just a million ways to make a living. And there's so many of them.

• 37:31Sam Parr?

  I remember thinking like, well, my in-laws, they're, they're one in the million, right? They're, they're the, they're the American dream, the success story. But everyone around me is one in the million. And it's just absolutely astounding to hear like all these stories of these people who just kill it in the most random ways that you never would have guessed it.

• 37:46Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, yeah, it's like those, you know, those like TikTok channels where it's like, "Hey, man, I just wanted to ask you, what do you do for a living?" As they get into like a nice car. And it's like really, really shallow, but the, the general idea of actually what that person is doing is correct. Which is, you could basically go reverse engineer what people do. You can ask them, people are generally pretty open about what they do, you know, how they made it. Generally, they had help along the way and they're willing to help somebody else who wants to be helped. And, uh, you know, success leaves clues. You can actually go and start to see patterns or see opportunities and say, oh, okay. Uh, you know, just like the way I saw that after the Ozempic trend, people built these like, you know, auxiliary side businesses. Now I see the same thing on the BBL side, right? Like, then when the next procedure, the next health trend or, uh, you know, uh, health and wellness trend happens,

• 38:30Shaan Puri?

  you could do the same thing, right? You, cause you've seen it two or three times before. So you're ready to act when that moment arises. And that's kind of what I hope that like, you know, if people listen to this podcast, just listen for the laughs, I'm flattered. But if they listen and sort of start to see the trends and start to see like, you know, dots that they can connect, actually go and do the things like, you know, be, be that listener. There's probably only one out of a thousand that actually, I mean, like, what, what do you think actually? How many, if a thousand people listen to this podcast, how many do you think go from not having their first million to making their first million during their like tenure, listen to this podcast?

• 39:01Sam Parr?

  Well, we've had dozens or maybe even hundreds of people messaging us, say us, we inspire them to do X, Y, and Z. Sometimes I think a large percentage of them were already doing something amazing and they're just using that as an excuse to like,

• 39:11Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 39:12Sam Parr?

  Uh, but, uh, I would say that, I would say there's at least 50 people of the, I don't know how many people have listened, tens of millions, millions. Who, I think there's gotta be at least a hundred people that have made a million dollars from what they've learned from this podcast. What do you think? 50 to a hundred at least?

• 39:26Shaan Puri?

  I mean, that number is shockingly low, right? Let's just say on just the full episodes, I think we did somewhere between 25 million, roughly, roughly 25 million views and downloads last year, maybe 30 billion. Uh, I don't know how many, that, obviously there's a bunch of repeats. So let's just even take the low end. Let's just pretend for just math, that it was just a million people. It was a million individual humans who listened. Take out the people who were already successful. Maybe that's the top 10% that were already very successful. So now you have 900,000 people left. Of those 900,000, how many do you think actually like end up making it? Achieving what they wanted to achieve?

• 40:06Sam Parr?

  Okay, out of 900,000 achieving like for example being worth $50,000

• 40:12Shaan Puri?

  Getting to life-changing money. Yeah, get to a couple million bucks, life-changing money.

• 40:16Sam Parr?

  So from nothing to $2 million in the course of four years? I think the threshold, probably 200 or 300 maybe? What do you think? Is that too low?

• 40:26Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I think it's a little low. I would say maybe 1,000, but maybe a couple thousand, but you're right. A lot of them would have got there anyways. We're just a little bit of wind in their sails. We're not like, we're not the tide, you know? That's actually like pulling them there. So I think it's higher, but I think it's because the type of person who would listen to this probably was already going to be, they're probably seeking knowledge and inspiration and trying to make shit happen. And so they were going to make it happen either way. So it's gotta be high. I think it's actually probably a much higher number.

• 40:53Sam Parr?

  There's sometimes there's people who message me and they will, I don't know if they're saying this just to like win favor, but they'll be like, you guys inspired me to do this and that. And they have made more money than I have off this podcast. And I'm like, shit, I should have just done that. But there's been like two or three or four examples. Have you ever had one of those?

• 41:16Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, well dude, the other day, there's a guy who listens to podcasts. He's probably worth, I don't know, 50 to 100 million bucks. And I find out his new startup is an idea I said on the podcast not long ago. And I was like, dude, let me invest. And he's like, I don't know. I was like, I gave you the idea. That idea is my idea, actually. I should be letting you run this company.

• 41:40Sam Parr?

  I know that there, so for example MixerG, Andrew Warner, a buddy of mine. I attribute a lot of my success to, he used to interview people and I learned about newsletters via MixerG and Andrew Warner. And there was like eight interviews that he did on that topic that I literally used to like plan the business model. And so I have done that with other people for sure.

• 42:01Shaan Puri?

  Of course.

• 42:02Sam Parr?

  I did it with MixerG and you know what I do it with now is Founders, David Senna's podcast, Founders. I use that like crazy amount for inspiration and also education. Who do you listen to now, actually?

• 42:15Shaan Puri?

  I don't listen to founders regularly, like, once in a while, I'll put it on. I like what he does, but I don't play that game. James Curry had this great phrase. He goes, "Some people, you know, you gotta decide what game you're playing." And I forgot the couple of options he said, but one of them was like, you know, the great life. It's like, you're trying to build a great life for yourself. And the other is the global greatness game. And it's like, you're actually trying to compete at like a sort of global level to do things that impact the world. And he called it global greatness. And that's like what Elon and that's what the people on founders played. Whereas I'm actually playing the great life game. It's like, how do I create a great life for myself and my family? Like, that's the number one objective, not proving myself

• 42:57Shaan Puri?

  or, you know, like, becoming this like extreme outlier of success, just objectively, only in the career space.

• 43:04Sam Parr?

  So who do you listen to to help fuel that? Because even like, I've always wondered, like, you know, there's a lot of people who look up to us. And then I grew up and I still look up to like way more people who are way above us. And I've always wondered, I wonder what they listen to, or where they get this motivation from. Because even like, the biggest of big shots have some type of, like, rah rah, listen.

• 43:26Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, so I think everybody does. It's a lot harder to find somebody in the great life bucket, because usually part of the great life bucket is you're not going around and you're not, you're not as famous and you're not, because it's not that famous to be like, yeah, and he's a great dad. He actually like, you know, every day at four, takes some time, goes to places, you know, tennis.

• 43:43Sam Parr?

  I put Jesse Itzler in there, though. Jesse is. Itzler does content.

• 43:47Shaan Puri?

  That's exactly what I was gonna say. So, but it's not from his content, because his content really is more about like, kind of how to make it in life.

• 43:54Sam Parr?

  But I can't hang out with him all the time. So, you know, I gotta like-

• 43:56Shaan Puri?

  But you don't have to hang out all the time. Like, so for example, me and Ben, we made a list. We said, "Who are the five people that we think, we kind of really respect, we admire, we love to hang with them, and we want to, we want our world to look a little bit like, to be inspired by their world that they've created for themselves." Jesse was one of those guys. And I said, "Let's make an excuse to go hang out with him." So, "Hey, let's just wake up and do whatever you were gonna do. Let's hang out. Let's talk. I wanna meet your kids." Like, you know, that sort of thing. And he did. And Jesse was like, "Cool, yeah, anytime." And Ben did. And then he kind of like, shared his impression of, and he was like, and we pick up a lot from that. You pick up a lot from going to someone's house.

• 44:31Sam Parr?

  So what did you pick up?

• 44:33Shaan Puri?

  Ton of energy. So like a huge part of it is how much energy the guy has and like it's like, what do you want out of life? So it's not just the things you achieve. It's like the type of person you are and what it's like to be around you. Jesse's that person, super high energy, laughs a ton, like very funny guy and always like, you know, doesn't take himself or life too seriously. He's got his hands in a lot of pots, but in an interesting way. So for example, he has this one business, uh, cause I have this tension all the time. I have more business ideas than I have time. So like, how does somebody like Jesse do this? And I really liked that his career was really varied. So he, you know, he had his jingle company. He was like a rapper for a while, then he did Zico coconut water, then he did his private jets startup. That was like his big intense one.

• 45:15Sam Parr?

  Was it linear, like this, then that, then this, or is it blended?

• 45:20Shaan Puri?

  Love your pronunciation of that. Uh, it was.

• 45:22Sam Parr?

  It's like saying like finance?

• 45:24Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, like Bob Lanier. Okay. It was, it was linear. So yeah, he did them one at a time, not, not all in parallel. And then over time now, like, you know, he's got more things in parallel. So he's got his calendar business, his speaking business. He's got his 20, what is it? 2029 or something?

• 45:37Sam Parr?

  29029?

• 45:39Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. So that's like his, kind of like his fun races where it's like people get to run or they get to do the equivalent of hiking Everest. Uh, but you don't have to go to Mount Everest to do it. You could do it in all these different cities all around the country. And so we looked at that. We were like, okay, so what is he actually doing there? You sort of reverse engineering. He's like, dude, I, he's like, I take the things that I already want to do for free, right? Like my passions, like his, one of his passions is like out being outdoors, running, doing these races. He does that anyways for free. Use his business savvy to wrap a really interesting brand around it. So instead of just being like, it's just another race, naming it the height of Everest and letting anybody have that sort of bucket list, the semi bucket list item of hiking Everest. Like that little branding thing, that positioning was genius. And with

• 46:22Shaan Puri?

  that he had, the way he started that business, I guess it was like his buddy who was like, oh, I really want to do a business with you. And he goes, all right, we'll do a business, but here's the rules. I'll help you with it, but the operations of this business, I want to work one day a year and I need to make a million dollars. So that's the constraint. We're going to work backwards about a business that has to, has to satisfy that constraint. And I don't know if literally it's one day a year and it's a million dollars. I don't know if that's the literal definition for, for Jesse's involvement or his like level of, how much he has to work on the business. But even just hearing how he approaches that changed the way I'm approaching some of my businesses. Cause I have, I have also people who want to do things with me and I have a bunch of ideas that I, I used to think it's all or nothing.

• 47:02Shaan Puri?

  It's like, no, there's some other ways to do this, you know, like Zico, the coconut water brand, he was not the operator. There were other operators. He was just a certain type of energy and hustle that opened certain doors that changed the trajectory of that business. And so I have a business right now that's like that. I have operators that run it. And I just did a certain set of activities, these door opening activities that changed the trajectory of that business. So I'm trying to learn from him how you have it all. How do you have the, he's got, you know, he's got four kids, I think. And he's, he's very involved as a dad. He has his own fitness thing. He's got the good marriage. He's got the fun life. He does these adventures with his friends and he has the businesses and he does interesting investments. It's like, okay, I want to go hang out with him, download his blueprint and I can't get that out of a YouTube video or a podcast right now. The way, what I can with him.

• 47:46Sam Parr?

  That was such a long answer and it was so good. I want to keep asking.

• 47:50Shaan Puri?

  I'm sorry and you're welcome.

• 47:51Sam Parr?

  I asked you what podcasts you listen to.

• 47:57Sam Parr?

  You could have said like, uh, you know, like how stuff works or like cereal.

• 48:02Shaan Puri?

  But there is no podcast for that. In fact, I would hope that this is the podcast that's closest to that, right? Cause it's the thing I'm trying to achieve. So if I'm just talking about stuff that's relevant to me along the way, that the great life, you know, by your, by your own definition, then this should be it. But like, I don't know, where would I go? Who, who has a podcast like that?

• 48:18Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 48:19Shaan Puri?

  You know, like I like, I don't, I don't watch a lot of modern wisdom, but I watch clips from modern wisdom, Chris Williamson's podcast. Chris Williamson's podcast. Cause I think he pulls wisdom out of people. And I think wisdom is what's lacking, not knowledge for, for me. And so like, I'm trying to avoid knowledge based things and look for wisdom on how to live like a life well-lived. And so actually the real answer to your question is it's not podcasts. I read a lot of books now and I really, I really wasn't reading books at all, like two. Years ago.

• 48:47Sam Parr?

  Dude, two years ago, I distinctly remember us doing a podcast and I asked you, you were telling me about this book that you read and I asked you a question about it. You're like, well, I don't know. I'm actually only, only 10 pages into it. You did a whole spiel on this podcast or on this book and how amazing it was.

• 49:03Shaan Puri?

  And I was 10 pages in.

• 49:07Shaan Puri?

  It's a great book.

• 49:09Sam Parr?

  And so now you read books?

• 49:11Shaan Puri?

  Now I read books.

• 49:13Sam Parr?

  That's great.

• 49:14Shaan Puri?

  So put some respect on my name.

• 49:15Sam Parr?

  And I've noticed what you tweet is what you're interested in. And I noticed that you have been saying you want to spend time with dead people and dogs or something like that. And then you also tweeted, you said, why do you, why do people like history? Like you couldn't, it was like something where you're like, you read something historical and you're like, wait, I kind of like this, but do I like this? Why do I like this? Like, what are we doing? And then someone like had a great answer that you put in your newsletter. You said, it's knowledge wrapped around a story or something like that. And it just, I was like, oh, finally Sean is clearly like starting to read historical stuff. Right? Is that right?

• 49:52Shaan Puri?

  Whatever you're doing, I tend to do about seven years later. So I would probably be getting a fecal transplant or whatever in seven years. I should just book that in now.

• 50:01Sam Parr?

  Wait, are you reading history now?

• 50:03Shaan Puri?

  I'm reading anything that's interesting. We still like right now, one of the books I'm reading is the Warren Buffett biography, but that's for a specific reason.

• 50:09Sam Parr?

  Which one? Snowball or the other one?

• 50:12Shaan Puri?

  I'm reading Snowball right now. Snowball's good.

• 50:14Sam Parr?

  It's really long. It's a thousand pages. In order to read a thousand pages, you gotta like really love the person.

• 50:19Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:20Sam Parr?

  Cause that's like three months. That's cool. I'm happy you're reading now. I'm happy you like books.

• 50:27Shaan Puri?

  Can I tell you some other books I'm reading?

• 50:29Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I would love that.

• 50:30Shaan Puri?

  I'll give you one more. That's good. Let's see. Have you ever read Seneca's Letters? I think it's called like 50 Letters of a Roman Stoic. That, that's pretty good. I like that.

• 50:38Sam Parr?

  So you're reading Stoicism. That's pretty cool. So Meditations and Marcus Aurelius and all that stuff?

• 50:43Shaan Puri?

  Just, just the book I mentioned. That's just the one. That's right now. I read this book called Kill the Cat. And it's about how to write a screenplay. And I found that pretty fascinating of like how people write movies. Have you ever read Five Dysfunctions of a Team?

• 50:58Sam Parr?

  Yeah, by Patrick Leon, Patrick L. Yeah.

• 51:01Shaan Puri?

  I think that's kind of an underrated book.

• 51:03Sam Parr?

  It's pretty good.

• 51:04Shaan Puri?

  And I was like, did this book really describes? An experience that I've had in like, you know, in corporate life and in sort of management life.

• 51:11Sam Parr?

  And like, I think Charlie Munger, he stole this idea. Charlie Munger gave a famous speech that he stole from someone else, which is like, I don't know how to live a happy life necessarily, but I'm gonna tell you how to live an unhappy life.

• 51:22Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 51:22Sam Parr?

  Step one, have envy. And like, he like, explains like, all these like, attributes you should have to be unhappy and just avoid that. And that's what, uh, that book is cool. He tells a story about the five teams that you know, every, uh, or five things that losing teams have. It's pretty good.

• 51:36Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, exactly. Anyways, yeah, I'm reading books now.

• 51:40Sam Parr?

  That inspires me to reread that book. So I don't remember the five dysfunctions.

• 51:44Shaan Puri?

  Especially if you're operating a company now, I think it's like, very useful when you're operating a company. Cause you'll be like, oh, yep, we're doing that. Oh, yeah, I did that.

• 51:51Sam Parr?

  So what I do right now is whenever I read a book, I go and I download it and I convert it from Kindle to text, so a text file. And then I upload it to ChatGPT and I can reference it. And so I'll like, for example, with this five dysfunctions of a team, I'll type out like, an interaction I had with my company, or I will screenshot an email interaction that I've had and be like, what would Patrick say about this?

• 52:15Shaan Puri?

  Can I show you something amazing?

• 52:17Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 52:17Shaan Puri?

  So I told you that, I was like, dude, I convinced Diego, who, my buddy Diego, who

• 52:22Sam Parr?

  To live there.

• 52:22Shaan Puri?

  We hired on my team. I convinced him to move out here. And I didn't know what would come of it, but I just knew working in person could obviously be more fun. And I don't wanna have like, I'm not trying to have like, an office. Like, I still work from home, but he like, comes over and we don't have a big team. It's, our team is very small. Me, Diego, Ben, and my assistant. And so, how do we actually like, work? This is something amazing he started doing. So he just drops off, like, once a week, these binders. So it just says, "Scratch the itch." And in this, he just pulls a bunch of like, super interesting, either blogs or articles, that he knows that I'm gonna like. That maybe, uh, we even have a channel where we put stuff like, oh, I'm gonna read this later. But he prints it out for me. He marks it up. And so I'm going through, it's basically like our own book club, but for blog posts.

• 53:06Shaan Puri?

  And so it'll be like, oh, it's, uh, you know, an annual letter from 1999 Bezos, when the market crashed, or 2000, when the market crashed. And then it'll be like, uh, here's like, it actually like, a really interesting, uh, very interestingly explained, uh, it's technical explainer, but not too technical about how like ChatGPT actually works. And so I have these, which are not books, but it's just amazing brain food to have.

• 53:32Sam Parr?

  Dude, I, uh, two years ago, I almost launched a business that would sell that. What I thought about doing was, instead of doing a newsletter, like in your email, I thought about doing a physical newsletter and it was literally going to be a binder and things that I read and my notes on them and why they interested me. And I think that that tactile experience of doing what you're doing right now is wonderful.

• 53:50Shaan Puri?

  It's a total game changer. Plus, it's curated. I mean, this is lucky, right? Like, he curates it, he marks them up for me, he organizes it, he delivers them to me. Like, you know, like, this is, this is like my version of luxury. Like, what's a Gucci bag to me? This is a Gucci bag. Like, this is like, you know, right up my alley. Thank you so much. I can't even believe-

• 54:08Sam Parr?

  He does that once a week?

• 54:09Shaan Puri?

  Uh, he does it just like at random. There's not even like a schedule. It's like once, roughly once a week or every two weeks, he'll drop one of these off.

• 54:15Sam Parr?

  That's amazing. That's actually pretty cool. Hold it up. I actually like how he, like, makes it look, scratch the itch.

• 54:22Shaan Puri?

  And what does he say at the bottom? Uh, then it says, it's a Charlie Munger quote, and he says, "Go to bed smarter than when you woke up," at the bottom. And then, uh-

• 54:29Sam Parr?

  That's amazing.

• 54:30Shaan Puri?

  It's amazing, right?

• 54:31Sam Parr?

  And the bright colors, he makes it look like an eighth grade, like, an eighth grade, like, binder. That's awesome.

• 54:35Shaan Puri?

  You wanna see something else he's doing? Hold on one second. I'll show you this too. So, you might see, just like, this box of little truffles, little chocolate truffles here. So, we call, like, uh, we were trying to just, we were trying to describe what we like to do. It's like, what do we, what do you really do? What are, what are you really good at? It's like, what's the common thread across all the shit you do? And one thing, we were like, uh, somebody had this analogy of a truffle pig. They're like, "You're like a truffle pig."

• 54:58Sam Parr?

  And he sniffs stuff out.

• 54:59Shaan Puri?

  You go and you just sniff out these little, like, truff, these little, like, truffles, these, like, high-value, like, things. And so, he delivered this. I thought it was chocolate, but actually, it's this little thing. You unwrap it, and inside, he's printed out, like, uh, just like a, a, a golden nugget, just like something-

• 55:16Sam Parr?

  Is Diego your coworker, or does he run the daycare?

• 55:19Shaan Puri?

  Dude, he's my arts and crafts. We're big into, like, as the world goes AI, we're just super, like, tactile everything. It's like, no, no, no, we're gonna do everything, like, very analog. We're either gonna be extremely AI and digital, or extremely analog. And ideally, we take the things from the digital, but we pull them out and make them analog. Like, if you could see on my wall right now, we have, like, things that are printed out that are, like, of this month's, kind of like, different things that we're learning and diving into what are the biggest, you know, what are the biggest things we want to not just read it nod and say, oh yeah, like, okay, that's gee, that's cool and move on. In fact, could I just tell you this real quick? That's the number one takeaway I have so far from the Buffett biography is that when he was eight or nine years old, he read the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People.

• 56:03Shaan Puri?

  And he knew he was like socially pretty awkward, right? The guy's like buying stocks at age seven. He bought a farm when he was 14 years old, like he wasn't a normal kid. And so he wanted to be better socially. He didn't know how he reads this book. And there's this line in the book, which basically says, unlike most people who would read this book, nod along and say, gee, that makes sense. And then put the book away and then forget about it, like never do anything. Warren made it like his like religion to study this book. So he would read the book. He would go immediately try to apply the principles. He would regularly come back and reread the same sections again, because it was like really important to him to actually like get the wisdom out of the book and not just the information. He even taught a class on it.

• 56:43Shaan Puri?

  Exactly. And I thought if there's one predictor of success, it would be that. And I think if there was one superpower to have over the batch of other smart people who are also listening to podcasts, also reading books, also on Twitter, et cetera. It's. I think most people do exactly what he said. Most people just read something, they nod, they say, yeah, that makes sense. And then they just move on with their life. They don't actually like internalize it or do anything with the thing that made sense. And or if something's like kind of obviously true, they're like, yeah, I get that. I know that. Versus like, yeah, you know that, but do you do that? No, you don't. So you don't actually know it. And I, I, I find that that one trait about Buffett is so important. And that's like, one thing I'm trying to do is, is I'm, whether I'm reading or learning anything is like,

• 57:26Shaan Puri?

  can I develop the skill of noticing the big idea and then not just moving past it? Like taking that big idea and being like, I'm going to work on this idea until it's like playing a piano piece. It's like, until I could play this. You know, fluidly from memory, then I, then I actually know the song.

• 57:43Sam Parr?

  And there's not a, they didn't act on everything, but they did a good job of final, they had like a, like a bank of stuff. They had like their spank bank for, for investing. And so basically like, there's a story about how Munger had a Baron's subscription. And this guy who worked for Munger was like, yeah, he read this freaking newspaper every week for 15 years. And he told me that he got an idea from it. He goes, this is the one idea I've ever gotten from Barons. He goes, I've been reading this constantly, looking for this one idea, and I just found it and it took me 15 years.

• 58:17Sam Parr?

  They did a really good job. Am I not supposed to call, can we not say idea spank bank?

• 58:21Shaan Puri?

  No, that's beautiful. I loved it.

• 58:23Sam Parr?

  I saw Ari roll her eyes. That's what it is. If I just said a bank of ideas, everyone's gonna be thinking that.

• 58:29Shaan Puri?

  Dude, did you watch the, actually the second Monish episode that I did?

• 58:33Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 58:33Shaan Puri?

  In it, he pulls out the Moody's manual. He's like, when people say Buffett read this, this is the thing he was reading. He showed me. It's like size four font. And he reads page by page. It's like not even a, it's not a book. It's not something you're supposed to read page by page. And he did. And he was showing, then he's like, oh, then he read the Japan company handbook. It's like the version of Moody's for Japan. Cause he wanted to look for companies in Japan. And then the bet that he made was insane. So he reads that Japanese book and he notices, he's like, huh, so there's these exchanges in Japan, like the stock market exchanges. They basically have a monopoly. Like, nobody really builds new stock markets and you can't really get a new stock market off the ground. And he's like, there are these incredible businesses that are kind of undervalued.

• 59:14Shaan Puri?

  And then he went and he borrowed like $5 billion in Japanese yen and bought all of the exchanges. I bought like a chunk of all the exchanges at like a 0% interest rate. It's just like this unbelievable asymmetric upside trade that has just paid off in spades. And I feel like people don't even talk about that. Like, if you talk about Buffett's bets, it's all just like, Geico, Coca-Cola, seize candy. Like, that Japanese trade is unbelievable.

• 59:41Sam Parr?

  Maybe I should read Snowball as well. I've read the shorter one.

• 59:45Shaan Puri?

  I don't even think that's in Snowball because that was more recent.

• 59:47Sam Parr?

  But I should read Snowball and we could have like a book club, talk about it.

• 59:51Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 59:51Sam Parr?

  He interests me. He doesn't even interest me always. Like, I don't want to trade stocks, but I just love his. I think that, I think he, I think that just how you described Jesse, that's not quite how I would describe Warren because he was, his personal life was a little wacky, but there are so many like philosophical things that you can learn from him.

• 1:00:09Shaan Puri?

  Totally, totally.

• 1:00:10Sam Parr?

  By the way, last night, I, or I was watching UFC on Saturday night at like, on the east coast, it's like freaking midnight. And I opened up my living room door to let like some air come in because it was kind of hot or whatever. I just wanted like fresh air to watch UFC, you know, as one does. And I, I was sitting there and I saw, I thought I saw a moth like flying around. I'm like, damn, get that moth out of here. And I kind of like swatted it. And then I saw it again and I didn't really pay attention. And then it took me about 45 minutes and I was like, oh my God, there's a bat flying over my head in my living room right now. And I jumped up and I flipped out because that's, that's a weird phobia. Like bats just are one of the scariest things to me.

• 1:00:53Sam Parr?

  And I run out of the room and I wake up my wife. I go, Sarah, there's a freaking bat in the room. I have no idea what to do. And I, I put like a hoodie on and like all these gloves and I run in there and I open up the door again to see if I can like, get this bat to go outside. And the next day I had to go get a rabies shot. So last night I was in the ER getting a freaking rabies shot. Me, my wife and my little girl had to get it. And it's insane.

• 1:01:17Shaan Puri?

  But it didn't even touch you, right? Why did you have to get the rabies shot?

• 1:01:20Sam Parr?

  Rabies has a 100% fatal rate. So if you get rabies, you die. Okay? And do you know how many rabies deaths there are in America a year?

• 1:01:29Shaan Puri?

  No idea.

• 1:01:30Sam Parr?

  Three. Three.

• 1:01:33Shaan Puri?

  I was gonna try to lowball it with a hundred.

• 1:01:35Sam Parr?

  Three. There's about as many shark attacks that end up with a killing, that end up with you dying. There's like none. And every doctor I called, they're like, you have to go get this rabies shot. You have to go get this rabies shot. And I was doing the math and I was like, well, let's say that there's like, first of all, like, the odds are that it bit you and you don't know about it is like, super low, right? Like, so it had to have bit you and I had to not realize it. And I'm like, okay.

• 1:01:57Shaan Puri?

  But then again, you thought a moth was a bat and they're very different sizes. So, you know.

• 1:02:01Sam Parr?

  Yeah, but imagine sitting in your living room and seeing something and you're peripheral. You're like, oh, I think a moth just flew in. And then I was like, oh my God, it's a rat with arms. It was just, it's freaky. And so I had to go get the stupid shot. And I was thinking of the odds and I was asking ChatGPT and they're like, there's probably like a 0.001% that you have rabies right now. But I had to go get the shot and it's incredibly painful. And you have to go four times. So I've got to go back in the next three days for the next four, like four increments of it.

• 1:02:31Shaan Puri?

  Your baby had to get it two, four times?

• 1:02:32Sam Parr?

  Dude, it's ridiculous that my kid, no, she's got to get it twice. It's a very painful. And like, my kid wasn't even in the room. It's just ridiculous. And I just realized I gave in to so much fear mongering. Because like the, like 60,000 people a year or something like that die from driving cars, right? And I'm like, I'm not afraid to do that. But I, and there's three people die a year from rabies. And I went and got this freaking rabies shot and my arm is killing me. It was such a painful shot. And it costs $25,000 if you don't have insurance. These shots are 25 grand. So it was, what's that, $75,000 worth of shots that I had to get last night for freaking rabies? Is that ridiculous?

• 1:03:09Shaan Puri?

  You know, I don't know if you've ever seen those like memes where it's like, they have like a silhouette, like a ghost of a person's face that like make it transparent. Like, we just need RFK's face just shaking his head at you for what you just did.

• 1:03:22Sam Parr?

  But like, it's such a, like, there's so many cognitive, like, there's so many biases or whatever, like flaws that I've made, like thinking flaws, like regarding whether I should go and get this or not. But there's the idea of like me foaming at the mouth because they say that when you, the thing about rabies is when you show symptoms, that means you're going to die.

• 1:03:40Shaan Puri?

  It's too late.

• 1:03:40Sam Parr?

  It's too late.

• 1:03:41Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, so maybe, maybe it was not a bad decision. Maybe, you know, you avoided potential ruin for a pain in the arm. That's okay.

• 1:03:49Sam Parr?

  Have you ever gotten that?

• 1:03:51Shaan Puri?

  No, no, no, that's never happened to me. He said this super absurd scenario, you're like, "Is that happened to you?" No.

• 1:03:57Sam Parr?

  Dude, people get rabies shot all the time.

• 1:03:59Shaan Puri?

  First of all, I'm not from like the 1910s, I don't like open up the doors to create like a breeze. I just turn the air conditioning on if I need, if I need a little breeze.

• 1:04:08Sam Parr?

  Here's the truth, I didn't want to tell my wife, I wanted to pee in the yard.

• 1:04:15Shaan Puri?

  Dude, they need rabies to get away from you.

• 1:04:19Shaan Puri?

  You live with this feral man.

• 1:04:22Sam Parr?

  Frankly, I deserve this.

• 1:04:26Sam Parr?

  Um, butts and guts, that's it, that's the pod.