3 millionaires reveal their super niche businesses

30+ unsexy business ideas: https://clickhubspot.com/dwtb Episode 854: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) ask 3 founders to tell them the juiciest number behind their businesses and get advice live. — Show Notes: (0:00) Rishi Talati, Hot Plate (20:10) Ajay Mehta, Tolan (39:53) Jonathan Baer, Overlap — Links: • Hot Plate - https://www.hotplate.com/ • Tolan - https://www.tolans.com/ • Overlap - https://overlap.ai/ — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton (joinhampton.com): My community for founders. Average member does $25m/year. Many of the guests are members. Get after it...apply: http://joinhampton.com/mfm — 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 - Shaan uses Mercury across all of his companies. you can too: http://mercury.com/ Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N. A., Members FDIC • I run all my newsletters on Beehiiv and you should too + we're giving away $10k to our favorite newsletter, check it out: beehiiv.com/mfm-challenge 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?

  All right, we're back. We're playing Shoot Your Shot where we take founders and business owners from the audience who get to sit in this chair right here, pitch us their business. We have founders all the way from a million bucks to a hundred million dollar businesses. So let's do it. Let's bring out the next founder.

• 0:15Shaan Puri?

  He's styling.

• 0:18Sam Parr?

  First leather jacket on the pod.

• 0:20Shaan Puri?

  What's your name?

• 0:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm Rishi and one of the founders of Hot Plate and we powered over a hundred million dollars of sales for independent food entrepreneurs.

• 0:27Shaan Puri?

  Okay, so the big number is a hundred million in sales.

• 0:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 0:30Shaan Puri?

  Unpack that. What does that mean?

• 0:31Speaker 02

  Totally. So Hot Plate is a platform that lets anybody sell food online. We work with like, we're like small pop-up bakers that like sell food at other house. All the way to like this guy who's an ice cream maker in Minnesota.

• 0:42Shaan Puri?

  Have you seen this? It's Airbnb for food type of thing, right?

• 0:44Speaker 02

  Type of thing. Yeah, yeah. So we're starting right now as a tool that lets a seller who has like an Instagram following, sell food directly to their audience. A lot of times those sellers are using like, you know, spreadsheets, Venmo, DMs, like a hodgepodge of tools, or they're using a platform like Square Shopify just isn't built for like preorder.

• 1:00Sam Parr?

  But will they stay small? Is it like for the person who wants to stay as a small business?

• 1:04Speaker 02

  It's a really good question. So a lot of people think that like, oh, you guys just work with like really tiny pop-ups that eventually go to a brick and mortar. We actually have tons of six or seven figure businesses that are doing drops and selling food directly to their audience.

• 1:14Shaan Puri?

  I bought this, uh, there's this dude who's real jacked. He's like a bodybuilder who does his cookies.

• 1:21Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I know this guy. I met him like four years ago.

• 1:22Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, he does these drops of like cheat meal cookies. They're insanely huge, way over the top. But like he sells out in seconds and it's all just through his Instagram.

• 1:32Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:32Shaan Puri?

  Presence because he builds up a lot of trust. So first of all, Hot Plate.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  Hot Plate, yeah.

• 1:36Shaan Puri?

  Incredible name.

• 1:37Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:37Sam Parr?

  And this was totally like a COVID thing a little bit. I remember like, have you heard of pop-up bagels?

• 1:42Speaker 02

  So actually we powered pop-up bagels.

• 1:44Sam Parr?

  Oh, really?

• 1:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:44Sam Parr?

  Listen to this. So pop-up bagels was, they actually started in Westport, Connecticut where I used to live. And there was a bunch of companies that did this where it was like a husband and wife couple. Like I'm gonna make this and sell it to my apartment and we'll drop it out of the windows when people come and whatever. And these guys did.

• 1:57Shaan Puri?

  Oh, because COVID made it like, hey, just do a weird pickup on the curb.

• 2:00Sam Parr?

  Like, oh, we're sitting at home. Let's just make food and then we'll do. And so these guys did that with bagels and they like, you had to have an appointment and you could only get it by the dozen. And now they've since raised a lot of venture capital, only do hundreds of millions and their product is amazing. I love it.

• 2:13Shaan Puri?

  So you powered them at the beginning?

• 2:14Speaker 02

  We powered them in the beginning, um, you know, as they scaled to like the multi-tier point, almost billion dollar empire that they are now. And so we work with tons of pop-ups across the country that are kind of like the next pop-up bagels in a way too.

• 2:26Sam Parr?

  How much revenue do you do?

• 2:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. So we're, uh, we do like hundreds of thousands of revenue a month.

• 2:32Sam Parr?

  Got it.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  And yeah, are just growing very quickly. Honestly, most of the hundred million in sales has been the last two years.

• 2:37Sam Parr?

  Did you raise funding?

• 2:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. So we've raised a little over four million dollars total, but we're actually profitable. So we've been profitable the last, almost a year.

• 2:45Sam Parr?

  Wow.

• 2:45Speaker 02

  And running the business profitably, which is honestly been amazing.

• 2:48Shaan Puri?

  So wait, what does your product actually do? You make the app that the consumer uses? You make the thing that lets them have a storefront?

• 2:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:55Shaan Puri?

  For their Instagram?

• 2:56Speaker 02

  So we started and where we are today is that storefront for them on Instagram. So right now as a chef, for chefs and bakers, exactly. So right now we're the platform that a chef uses to put that link in their bio so that they can streamline their order management, right? But as you're saying, like the end state and kind of the dream for Hot Plate is that anyone can go not just to sell food independently, but also to buy it.

• 3:17Shaan Puri?

  So who would I go to? Like what's like one of your brands?

• 3:19Speaker 02

  So in SF, there is a bakery called Butter and Crumble. It's like one of those popular bakeries in SF. So if you want to order from Butter and Crumble, there's a three hour line every single day. If you want to skip the line, they do drops on their Instagram and they use Hot Plate. They have a, you know, almost 20,000 person waiting list.

• 3:35Shaan Puri?

  So she's got 83, 83,000 followers.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:38Shaan Puri?

  And okay, I go order from here.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:40Shaan Puri?

  It's like a ticketing system for her to fulfill orders.

• 3:43Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 3:43Shaan Puri?

  But you don't do anything beyond that. The pickups and all that stuff, they coordinate themselves.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  Well, so we, we do a lot of like, once you order as a customer, we send you like automatic text message reminders about the pickup and we do a lot of like the logistics coordination. But right now it's kind of crazy that you're pointing it out that we are a preorder pickup platform for like pop-up chefs and we're doing like millions a month in sales. It's like, we are truly like still on day one of what this can be and we're.

• 4:08Sam Parr?

  Are you, are you scratching the surface?

• 4:10Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 4:11Sam Parr?

  Cause.

• 4:11Shaan Puri?

  What's a founder gonna say? No? We've, we've fully tapped into this.

• 4:14Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 4:16Shaan Puri?

  This is as good as it's ever been.

• 4:17Sam Parr?

  We were talking to a guy who's got a TMJ pad. He's like, I gotta expand.

• 4:20Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 4:22Sam Parr?

  But like, like, like I'm a buyer of these products, but I'm like, how many crazy people are there that make shit in their apartment or these small mom and pops?

• 4:28Speaker 02

  No, it's a good point that like right now, I think the market that we're in is still really niche. Right? It's like still like, there's, you know, maybe tens of thousands of sellers in the US that are selling food this way. The real opportunity for us is that we think we have an opportunity to not just play in an existing market, like you were saying about B2B SaaS, right? There's so many companies that are just playing existing markets. We have a rare opportunity to actually create a market and make this market mainstream. And I think consumer is the way that's going to happen in a way that like only a handful of companies in the last 10 years have been able to do. If you look at like Call She, Polly Market, whatnot, like I can count on my hand, the number of like consumer trends and categories in our merch.

• 5:04Sam Parr?

  That's not good, is it?

• 5:04Shaan Puri?

  Hey, I want to tell you about something pretty cool. We have a database of all of the business ideas that have been discussed on this podcast. So hundreds of episodes, the team at HubSpot went through, they pulled out all the simple, relatable, interesting, profitable ideas that we have brainstormed and they're all available for download for free. Just click the link in the description below. Thank you to our friends at HubSpot for sponsoring this podcast and putting together this free resource for you guys. Back to the show.

• 5:30Sam Parr?

  Like I don't want to be like.

• 5:31Shaan Puri?

  It's all or nothing.

• 5:32Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I don't want to count on one hand how many companies have been successful.

• 5:35Speaker 02

  I think it's because consumer is hard. I mean, like, you know, I think really, I really like, think about what we're doing, kind of like Substack, right? Like Substack made it so that anyone can start a media business without having to like run one, right? And I think in the same way, Hot Plate lets anyone start a food business without having to open a brick and mortar, right? So like right now, the traditional way you start a food business is I have to take out a loan, spend hundreds of thousands of dollars just to like open a brick and mortar where the, the business is not proven out, the rent goes up, the labor could go up, the ingredient cost goes up and you're susceptible to all of that.

• 6:02Sam Parr?

  How'd you get this idea?

• 6:03Speaker 02

  So me and my co-founders actually started in UT. Um, we, and I've always been obsessed with food, worked at a, you know, food delivery company for a little bit, honestly hated it because so much of food has been really consumer first and like consumer centric. And one of my buddies and I were during COVID, we're like, what, you know, we want to open up a food business. So we actually rented an apartment in our like campus and opened like a Thai restaurant in that apartment. Um, and we ran that for a few months and then kind of realized.

• 6:28Shaan Puri?

  That's the old big man on campus playboi. Open up a Thai restaurant. How'd that do for the social life? Was that actually like amazing?

• 6:34Speaker 02

  It was fun. It was really fun. And then COVID happened and it's like, okay, you can't have people showing up to your house to like eat Thai food because like you can't even see people, right? During COVID.

• 6:43Shaan Puri?

  So boring question, but is that legal to just open up a restaurant out of an apartment?

• 6:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, definitely not. A hundred percent not.

• 6:50Shaan Puri?

  Like baking's okay or it's also not okay?

• 6:52Speaker 02

  So there's single cottage food laws that lets you sell food directly from your home. And what's really cool is also recently like Texas just expanded their laws. They're called food freedom laws. So you actually sell almost anything out of your house now. And then for example, Arizona, the dairy laws have really opened up to now people are starting these like, there's like this huge trend of like home cafes that are starting in like Yuma, Arizona, where like we have tons of like these home businesses starting in Arizona.

• 7:15Shaan Puri?

  Coffee shop in their house?

• 7:16Speaker 02

  Coffee shop in their house. It's actually insane. And like people, Arizona's so hot.

• 7:20Shaan Puri?

  But not in the cool insane way.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know. It's, it's, it's insane. We have like businesses like A to Z Creamery, who's in Hopkins, Minnesota, who's running one of the largest like ice cream brands in Minnesota right now, doing six to seven figures a year in revenue on like 40 to 50% profit margin, which like is unheard. That's like a stat, that's a SaaS company, right? But like the reason he's able to do that is because it's a team of like three or four people. He does, he uses like Instagram and Hot Plate as a storefront and doesn't do walk-ups, right? And is able to like streamline all that in a way where he has like way more demand than supply and is able to sell out every single week and have people come and pick it up.

• 7:54Shaan Puri?

  What do you guys do? SaaS plus fee or?

• 7:56Speaker 02

  Yep. So right now, actually it's all fee. So the way our business model is kind of cool to the chefs. So our, our mission at Hot Plate is that we're a chef first company. And so we take that to the extreme. We're like, as a customer, when you check out from a Hot Plate vendor, we charge the customer a small fee at checkout and the chef only pays payment processing. So the beauty of that is that I as a chef can start, there's already so many fixed costs in food as it is, that being able to like eliminate some of those on our side has made us really attractive to vendors outside of like a traditional platform.

• 8:23Shaan Puri?

  And I would assume people are not that price sensitive when they're checking out because it's like, ah, I've been watching this on Instagram. It's a drop. I gotta get in.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 8:30Shaan Puri?

  It's a really, you know, unique product. So my, this extra buck or two or whatever it is, is less of an issue.

• 8:36Speaker 02

  I always say there are like two kinds of businesses. There are like food businesses that do marketing and there are marketing businesses that sell food. And if you're a marketing business that sells food, you have no price, like to your point of last to see, right? Like you can really just sell and people are willing to buy. Like people don't blink at anything that you buy from Butter and Crumble. They're just trying to get it as quickly as possible.

• 8:54Sam Parr?

  What are the constraints right now?

• 8:55Speaker 02

  Um, I would say the constraints are definitely like, I honestly think the biggest constraint. So, you know, we were talking about COVID. I actually think there's been a resurgence in this in the last few years, which is why we've been really growing recently and that like, you know, people are quitting their jobs in tech. Like a lot of our, actually what's crazy is a lot of our vendors in SF in the Bay are people in tech that are leaving their jobs.

• 9:15Sam Parr?

  Yeah. I mean, there's a guy who, remember the guy down the street who like made it big on Facebook and he created like dandelion chocolate or something?

• 9:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And those always start small and then expand, right? Over time. But what's so cool is like, we work with this baker named Michelle who runs Met Chip Bakery. She was a engineer that quit her job to start making, you know, baking goods. We have another guy who worked at Google named Mason who runs Piscator, literally started like the most popular brand, you know, pop up in New York. And you see, you know, his line is he quit Google to sell fish on the sidewalk.

• 9:46Shaan Puri?

  Answer my question. Yeah, his question was, what's the constraint?

• 9:48Speaker 02

  The constraints.

• 9:49Shaan Puri?

  And you're like, let me tell you what's awesome.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  My thing is the constraints are, I think people just don't know this exists. They don't know how go about like doing it operationally.

• 9:57Sam Parr?

  Really? What you're saying is it's just getting vendors to use you?

• 10:00Speaker 02

  Getting vendors to use you and helping them get demand. Because I think at the end of the day, like the biggest problem still is like, a lot of people don't know how to market. They just.

• 10:06Sam Parr?

  So how are you gonna do it?

• 10:07Speaker 02

  So I think consumer is the way we go about doing that. There's two ways actually. There's like building the app that to your point, that people go to like discover these vendors, but doing that in a way that actually like works.

• 10:17Sam Parr?

  But you basically need to like create inspiration for people who have a dream of becoming a part-time chef.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:24Sam Parr?

  Which is like pretty fun content. That's like pretty, that's very doable. You get a couple of smart people.

• 10:29Shaan Puri?

  So when I went to Twitch, we got acquired by Twitch and I sat down with Emmett the first day and I was like, hey, like, okay.

• 10:34Speaker 02

  Michael's actually one of our investors. We did YC in 2020 and he was our partner and like.

• 10:39Shaan Puri?

  Well, he said inside that I think will work for you guys, which he goes, yeah, they focused on the streamer only, like the way you're focusing on the chef. They look at the marketplace. They said, we're, we're gonna go for the creator and solve their needs. The second thing he said, he goes, we realized they need four things. So they want money.

• 10:53Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 10:53Shaan Puri?

  He goes, and it's a surprisingly small amount of money that it took to get them like, to feel like this is worth doing with their time. So he's like, for example, when I thought it was money, I thought I'd have to replace their job. Actually, if I could get somebody even like a $10 payout.

• 11:07Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:07Shaan Puri?

  They felt validated for what they were doing and it kept them going for way longer. Uh, so it goes money, fame, love and inspiration. So those are the three. So he's like, I gotta get you fame. I gotta give you like an audience.

• 11:17Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 11:17Shaan Puri?

  I gotta let you feel the love from the audience that they, they actually care about what you're doing. And inspiration was the big one, which is how do I tell you the creative things that other people are doing? So you kind of know when you wake up today, like, oh shit, I should be doing that.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 11:30Shaan Puri?

  And so that was like, he architected his entire strategy around those kind of four things. Money, fame, love and inspiration in order to sell all the products. You had to kind of map it to like, which one of those levers are you pulling? So similarly for you, it sounds like you gotta be telling the stories of.

• 11:45Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 11:46Shaan Puri?

  The guy who quits his job and sells fish.

• 11:48Sam Parr?

  Do you guys have like a huge audience?

• 11:49Speaker 02

  We have, I mean, hundreds of thousands of people buy from hot plate chefs every month.

• 11:53Sam Parr?

  But what about on social?

• 11:54Speaker 02

  Um, on social.

• 11:55Shaan Puri?

  You yourselves don't have a big audience.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. And we have like 23,000 followers on our Instagram.

• 12:00Sam Parr?

  Well, a company like, uh, okay. So Goldbelly.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:03Sam Parr?

  I love Goldbelly.

• 12:04Shaan Puri?

  Love Goldbelly.

• 12:05Sam Parr?

  Goldbelly.

• 12:05Shaan Puri?

  Explain what it is.

• 12:06Sam Parr?

  For the listener, it's basically like, if you, uh, Grace Papaya is a New York city, uh, really old hot dog shop. It's only local. They didn't have a website. Goldbelly made it really easy, particularly during COVID, where you could go and buy Grace Papaya hot dogs from any part of the country and they'll help you ship it to them. They did a good job of like teaching me that I can buy Junior's cheesecake.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:25Sam Parr?

  On Goldbelly and they did a really good job at that. What's, do you have like a Goldbelly version where it's like, you're going to create a hot plate Instagram? Where you're going to show off like all the cool, like at home moms who make the best sourdough.

• 12:36Speaker 02

  It's like a local discovery.

• 12:37Sam Parr?

  Yeah. Or you're like, gonna like get like.

• 12:39Shaan Puri?

  You gotta make them famous.

• 12:40Sam Parr?

  You gotta make them famous. Yeah. You gotta be like, check this out. There's this Amish lady who does this thing and like, it's the best. And it's like some kid in San Francisco or New York.

• 12:49Shaan Puri?

  You gotta create an award system like Michelin star. What's the Michelin star of this category?

• 12:54Speaker 02

  Right.

• 12:54Shaan Puri?

  So then you recognize the people, right? Money, fame, love. That's the love one, right? The more you promote that, that helps them with the fame. The fame is what drives the money. The inspiration is hearing about, oh, she has the best those. Well, actually my whatever popcorn I make, I'm that in my category, I'm that in my category. How do I get my name out there? Oh, let me watch what content they do. I'll do the same, you know? Get people to, to, to, to do that. You have to make them famous.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  Right. Something that we're working on right now that's really exciting is that we already have some sellers that are super, like I said, uh, supply constraint. They have so much demand, like, you know, butter and crumble or like, we have Sam makes pizza in Salt Lake City. 20,000 people, Dave Portman blew them up and now he has 20,000 people trying to buy like 50 pizzas, right?

• 13:38Sam Parr?

  But that's not your constraint.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  Right. So what we're doing is building like a recommendation system. So now let's say that guy sells out, here are other vendors you can buy from, and those are more up and coming vendors, right? So doing that along with discovery means that we're anchoring like the, the up, up and coming sellers. If they clear certain bars, now we're showing them to an audience of people that want to buy like this kind of food.

• 13:58Shaan Puri?

  Are they mostly shipping or pickup?

• 14:00Speaker 02

  It's all pickup. All pickups.

• 14:01Shaan Puri?

  It's gotta be local.

• 14:02Speaker 02

  It's all local.

• 14:03Sam Parr?

  On your team, do you have a content creator or someone who?

• 14:05Speaker 02

  We do. Yeah. Yeah. Orion. She's amazing.

• 14:08Sam Parr?

  It's going good.

• 14:08Speaker 02

  It's going well. Yeah. I mean, we have been able to like, there's a guy in SF, Bo Kieri, who makes, you guys gotta check him out. Sicilian style pizza, truly like the, some of the best.

• 14:18Sam Parr?

  I feel like you should be the content creator.

• 14:20Speaker 02

  I, I'm a, I'm working on that. It's a, I, I do do videos. Uh, I've actually been told that before, but I appreciate it. But yeah, we've been able to like, help people like him who are like, have the sauce, right? Really blow up. And, uh, now he's like, you know, went from like not selling out his pies. Now he just sold out in like five minutes, like the other day.

• 14:39Shaan Puri?

  If you had one question, mainly like, let's say we were hired gun helpers for you.

• 14:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:45Shaan Puri?

  24 hours, all we're going to think about is hot plate.

• 14:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:48Shaan Puri?

  What's the one question you'd want us focused on?

• 14:50Speaker 02

  Really the thing that I'd like your take on is like the cultural, like, I think in order for a new consumer trend to work, you need to like tap into culture, right? And I feel like on our end, we have a good sense from like the product standpoint of how you'd go about building this. The biggest issue again, sorry, two seconds, is a lot of people have tried to build like a home cooked food marketplace. The problem is you don't know who these chefs are. You don't know why you should care. And so you kind of just leave. DoorDash is going to always win in convenience, right? We have people who have like, who make the best in their category. And but the, and but the question I have is like, how do you, from a go to market perspective, infiltrate culture in a way that makes this like culturally relevant?

• 15:26Sam Parr?

  I don't think it's necessarily cultural relevance, but basically like, have you, have you heard of Huckberry? So Huckberry is a clothing company where the way they started was they created an email list. This is how I knew them because we were both in the email game. And there was just an email list where they would just show off cool brands.

• 15:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 15:41Sam Parr?

  And sell the cool brand stuff and take a small cut. And they got really good at telling the stories of like, this bag was made by a guy who was in Vietnam and he noticed that the parachutes were really strong and he actually made this bag. So it's a via, it's a parachute bag or like, you know, I'm like, oh, that's pretty cool. And like, they told stories about it. So I fell in love with like the story behind it. If I'm you, I would hire, I would probably hire more content creators. And it's like, my whole job here is to use Instagram to tell stories about the vendors and what they're doing and make them look like superstars.

• 16:14Speaker 02

  Right.

• 16:15Shaan Puri?

  I would take your top 50 chefs.

• 16:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:18Shaan Puri?

  And I'd be like, I have a mission. I need to make them aspirational.

• 16:21Speaker 02

  Right.

• 16:22Shaan Puri?

  For the next 5,000, 50,000, 5 million wannabe thems. So it's not about making everybody get discovered. It's about taking the 50 and really making them so aspirational that everybody will work their ass off. To, to be like you featuring them on lists, you making content about them, them talking about their business side, how much money they're making doing this, how they quit their job doing this, the human interest story of the whole thing. You know, all that stuff. That's what you do. You know, that, that's a way to do it.

• 16:46Sam Parr?

  And the cool thing about food is actually Huckberry has a food channel on YouTube, but there's so, you know, there's like the Anthony Bourdain. There's, uh, like Top Chef. There's so many of formats. I would just find which format do that I think I could pull off, copy that format, do that a ton, a ton, a ton.

• 17:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:01Sam Parr?

  Try this other, and you just have a variety. Like if I'm you, I'd be like, and this is like a cliche thing to say, but I believe it's really true with you is like, we're a media company now.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:09Sam Parr?

  And so I'd become a food media company and I would just look at all the formats of food content that works.

• 17:14Speaker 02

  That work.

• 17:15Sam Parr?

  And just copy it.

• 17:15Shaan Puri?

  Either first party or you could basically farm it out. So like, you know, we, we were talking about, uh, Jack's Dining.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:21Shaan Puri?

  Or whatever. Basically there's already content creators who are really good at these formats all around the world. And are they blowing up your chefs?

• 17:30Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:31Shaan Puri?

  How do you make it easy for them to know that they need to go to Salt Lake City to, they gotta try these pies.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:37Shaan Puri?

  From this person. And did you know the, the crazy backstory of these pies and why the pies are so special? Get that influencer to do it because they're already better than all of us at creating food content. So if you can arm them, every content creator is always like, basically needs more interesting content.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:51Shaan Puri?

  And so how do you make it easy for them to have interesting content?

• 17:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. We're seeing that in SF, like play out locally. Like some of our top vendors are now getting featured by these like food, like food Instagram reviewers or like, that have like hundreds of thousands of followers. And are kind of becoming more mainstream here. And so you're to your point, I think is a good question that, or a good point that we need to like, kind of replicate that with our top sellers in every city or like in every like, kind of the major cities that matter.

• 18:15Shaan Puri?

  You also need language, like, uh, you know, Twitch streamers, you know, Vine, Viners, like what are the?

• 18:21Speaker 02

  The hot plate. Like the hot plate.

• 18:23Shaan Puri?

  Or is it just a category? Like, like, so Twitch, it wasn't just, it was like, there's something called a live streamer, right? A streamer. And they, this is what they do. And so for example, like, is a home chef the category? Is it, what, what are you going to call this? That makes it seem cool, new and interesting. They're trying to be on a team.

• 18:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:37Shaan Puri?

  They want to be a part of a tribe. They want to be a part of a movement that's cool, that represents something. To your question about culture, I think you gotta give them, start with like language and then give them a bunch of cool examples. And then give them some like, what this is all about versus the old way.

• 18:51Speaker 02

  No, that's a good point. I mean, right now we, we say like chefs and bakers and then we get some people being like, oh, but like, you're not a chef. Like you didn't work at like, you know, this restaurant.

• 18:59Sam Parr?

  I think that's a less than good term.

• 19:01Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Cause it's already means something to everybody.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 19:04Shaan Puri?

  Right? Like, I already know what a chef is. I think it's somebody at a restaurant. And you're, now you have to do all this work to give, you should start by the slightly surprising term. That makes me kind of, oh yeah, I guess that is a thing. Oh, it's a thing? Yeah. Oh dude, it's a big thing. These people are making a million, this woman makes a million dollars a year at home, baking her own cookies.

• 19:21Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:21Shaan Puri?

  Well, I have a good recipe for that, you know, that's what you want.

• 19:24Sam Parr?

  Rishi, thank you for doing this, man.

• 19:25Speaker 02

  Thank you, man.

• 19:26Sam Parr?

  With the riz.

• 19:26Speaker 02

  I appreciate it. No, I'm super grateful for the opportunity, guys. You guys are the best.

• 19:30Sam Parr?

  Thank you.

• 19:34Shaan Puri?

  Hey, let's take a quick break. You know that feeling when strategy is done, the brief is written, everyone's aligned, and you realize someone still has to sit down and actually create all the content? That someone is usually you, and it's due tomorrow. Well, the Breeze Assistant from HubSpot can help. It works right inside HubSpot. You can draft a campaign copy, blog posts, emails, all in your brand voice, all using your actual customer data. So you don't create just content, you create content that converts. Check out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. All right, who we got next?

• 20:07Speaker 03

  Hey, dude, how are you?

• 20:08Shaan Puri?

  Dude, I met this guy like 15 years ago in San Francisco, right when I moved to San Francisco. He kind of showed me around. You were like, he was in Y C, he was doing a bunch of cool stuff at the time.

• 20:18Speaker 03

  That's true. You're dating me now, you know, I'm definitely, yeah, a lot of gray hairs.

• 20:21Sam Parr?

  How did you guys meet?

• 20:22Speaker 03

  Can't even remember originally, but you tell me.

• 20:24Shaan Puri?

  I think I was just trying to meet cool people. You had a cool company at the time. You were really young.

• 20:28Speaker 03

  We were both doing social networking stuff, so like.

• 20:30Sam Parr?

  What was your company?

• 20:30Speaker 03

  My company's called Family Leaf. It was a private social network for families, like an early social app, but like before mobile apps were like a big thing, to be honest.

• 20:38Sam Parr?

  You've been starting startups for 15 years?

• 20:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, left college to do that, and basically 15 years ago. Yeah, something like that, right?

• 20:45Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 20:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, 12, 13 years.

• 20:46Shaan Puri?

  So the shtick we're doing here.

• 20:48Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 20:48Shaan Puri?

  Start with a number.

• 20:49Speaker 03

  Okay, absolutely. Yeah. So with the app that I'm working on now, with an awesome few of folks tolling, we have over 100,000 paying subscribers to our iOS app.

• 20:59Shaan Puri?

  Wow, that's not easy to do.

• 21:00Speaker 03

  That's amazing. What's it do? What's companies?

• 21:03Shaan Puri?

  What are they paying for?

• 21:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, so Tolan is a, it's an app where you basically get to meet and customize your own friendly guide that is powered by magical AI to help you with whatever it is that you're going through in life.

• 21:15Shaan Puri?

  I feel like you chose the word guide there specifically, but I don't know what that means. Is that like a therapist, but you don't want to say therapist? Is it a friend? What are we talking about?

• 21:21Speaker 03

  This is a great question. I mean, honestly, it's partially our attempt to define that a bit because, like you just said, people use it for all sorts of things, right? I mean, friendship means a lot of different things, right? So sometimes a friend is like someone that you call because you're going through something. Sometimes a friend is someone that like kicks you into shape and tells you what you need to hear. People talk to life coaches, people talk to therapists, people talk to all sorts of.

• 21:39Shaan Puri?

  Can you show us one? It's like this little kind of friendly looking character?

• 21:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, totally. So here's a Tolan. So there are these little aliens. Yeah, so this is mine. This is custom to me. My Tolan's name is Swami. We, everyone has their own Tolan. You get your own, so the way the app works is you download it, you talk to this character that we have called the Oracle. They're sort of like this magical godlike character that basically asks you questions about yourself. That's just like, hey, like, what are your, what are your hopes and dreams? Like, what are you, what are you into? What do you care about? What are you stressed about? You know, things like that.

• 22:09Shaan Puri?

  Who's using this? Is this teenagers, adults? Obviously, it's a mix, but like, what's the main sweet spot?

• 22:14Speaker 03

  So like, it is truly like every type of person, you know, like, like with any, I think, like larger consumer product or like AI product, like it attracts people from every walk of life, truly. But the main core demo, which is something that shocked us, honestly, is roughly like 35 to 45 year olds and roughly like moms, like, yeah, like mostly women. You think so?

• 22:32Shaan Puri?

  That's not shocking?

• 22:33Speaker 03

  I would have thought it was.

• 22:34Shaan Puri?

  It looks like a Sesame Street character.

• 22:34Sam Parr?

  I thought it was like all women in the Midwest.

• 22:37Speaker 03

  I mean, that is literally our audience. You nailed it. Yeah, you nailed it.

• 22:40Sam Parr?

  As a knower of many Midwest women, like this seems like, I mean, I'm from the Midwest. This seems like a very Midwestern women thing.

• 22:46Speaker 03

  You're so right on. It's crazy, which I, we did not predict that, by the way, and that is totally what it has ended up becoming.

• 22:51Sam Parr?

  No, it's like people who are like, oh, he's acting exactly like a Gemini. It's like people who like say things like that.

• 22:58Shaan Puri?

  The horoscope market?

• 22:58Sam Parr?

  Yeah, that's such a Gemini thing of you saying.

• 23:00Speaker 03

  There's overlap for sure. We have personality tests in the app that people love to use to kind of understand more about themselves.

• 23:05Shaan Puri?

  Okay, so I understand things best if I look at the ad first. So what's the ad I see that makes me want to click and download this thing?

• 23:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, honestly, what's worked best for us there are like what we think of it, what I think of as like authentic product demos of just like people using Tolan in their daily lives. So like some of the most, I mean, we've had content that's gone super viral. That's like, you know, a woman like cooking and trying to figure out the best way to cut open like a kibosh of squash, which is like hard to do. And, you know, the Tolan says, well, warm it up, you know, like, let me see that. Okay, like, let's see you slice into it. Okay, that worked. And then it kind of shows them like providing value in some way. That's what, that's what works the best. I think people are kind of thrown off a little bit by seeing this like somewhat cute alien that they can talk to, and it speaks back, and it speaks back really intelligently, too.

• 23:45Sam Parr?

  But it's a thing like, but do you want to actually make a squash? Why are you even cooking for this man who doesn't truly love you?

• 23:52Shaan Puri?

  Is it functional or is it emotional guidance more so that they want?

• 23:56Speaker 03

  I think the most valuable thing that we do is honestly the combination of those two things, which is kind of a cop out answer, but I think it's true because basically people will talk to their Tolan's about what's going on with them, right? Like their, their emotional state, what they're busy with or whatever. But that always connects to like, well, you know, I'm feeling really stressed because I haven't figured out the kid's summer camp this, this summer. Like, you know, and your Tolan will remember that.

• 24:13Sam Parr?

  Yeah, they're like, why are you eating? Why are you making so many cookies? Well, it turns out, it's like this thing, how many, how much money are people spending? How much does it cost?

• 24:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we have multiple price tiers. Our main, most popular one, most of those subscribers are on $25 a month for Tolan plus.

• 24:27Sam Parr?

  I can't, 100,000 times $25?

• 24:29Shaan Puri?

  Two and a half million a month?

• 24:30Speaker 03

  We also have a lower, we have a lower price subscription tier, so it's a mix of things. So it's not quite there.

• 24:34Sam Parr?

  So you're doing seven figures a month?

• 24:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:37Sam Parr?

  That's amazing.

• 24:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:38Sam Parr?

  Is retention good?

• 24:40Speaker 03

  Yes. Yeah, the retention's great so far. I mean, we, you know, it's changed a lot, honestly.

• 24:45Sam Parr?

  Well, how old's the company?

• 24:46Speaker 03

  Two years.

• 24:47Shaan Puri?

  So two years, you're doing more than 10 million in revenue. You didn't say that, but math, it works. So you're doing more than 10 million in sort of either revenue or run rate. And you've got people just, basically, it sounds like what you did was, and I don't mean this to trivialize it, just to simplify it, you take what ChatGPT can do in terms of like the intelligence, but you added the warm feel of a character who's yours with a name, with a different rapper, where it's going to be, it feels different to talk to than just a completely functional utilitarian thing called ChatGPT, like literally an acronym, you know?

• 25:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, total. I mean, I think that's, that's part of it for sure. And, and bring to bear like this super intelligence of ChatGPT, of cloud of systems like that to honestly a broader audience. Like, our audience is not, are not necessarily heavy AI users, but they're definitely not heavy AI users. And honestly, most people are not for their personal lives, right? So if you think about the use cases of ChatGPT, the use cases of cloud, most people are using it for productivity, draft me an email, maybe they asked a question to it as a smarter Google, but they never subscribe, so they didn't get the full experience. So it's like, this is, this is very much applied to your personal life. And because of that.

• 25:50Sam Parr?

  Dude, you have to make a Tolan doll. Like, I can buy the, their, I can, I can buy like the animal, like, you know.

• 25:55Speaker 03

  People have asked, people on our Reddit.

• 25:57Sam Parr?

  It comes with like a chip that I can talk to.

• 25:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:59Sam Parr?

  There was a guy in Furcon's accelerator who did that, and it looked awesome.

• 26:03Speaker 03

  Cool.

• 26:03Shaan Puri?

  Stuffed animals.

• 26:04Speaker 03

  Seen some of those. I'm very curious about that. But just to build on this point, because I think it's important of why I think a lot of people see it and they're kind of like, oh, this is a rapper of a cute character around ChatGPT. So much of what we've built is around the kind of memory system and the personalization system behind the Tolan's. So, you know, we have, like, my co-founder Evan has, has kind of been very early to this of like, all of the kind of character based or companion types of experiences, like, have not actually been built with like thoughtful memory, where it truly feels realistic. Like, the Tolan will remember things you tell them, they'll bring them back up to you at the right time. They'll come to you with a podcast, I mean, I'm sure that actually tons of our users have gotten my first million podcast recommendations from their Tolan. To be totally honest, because they probably mentioned like, hey, I, I mean.

• 26:42Sam Parr?

  Can you dial that up for us, please?

• 26:44Speaker 03

  We actually asked a question, we asked a question on the onboarding, maybe this is like a little bit techy on, on thinking about it, but we do ask the question of like, name a goal or dream you have. It could be something small or something big, like starting your own business. And I'm sure a lot of people talk about like, well, I want to start my, I want to start a cafe, I want to start this or that. And then I'm sure that your, your podcast comes up because the Tolan's will go search through the internet, they'll find the right recommendation for you at that given time. Obviously, we don't hit the mark 100% of the time, but, but really try and people find it magical, and then it'll come to them. And ChatGPT does not do that.

• 27:11Shaan Puri?

  This idea sounds weird when you first hear it. No offense.

• 27:15Sam Parr?

  The name sounded weird too, but I'm actually so into it.

• 27:17Shaan Puri?

  So the name sounds a little weird. The idea is a little, I mean, it's a kind of new phenomenon, newish phenomenon. I've learned, moving to Silicon Valley, that when you hear weird, but people are doing it, lean in. That means there's something really interesting going on. And a lot of the big winners were like that. Oh, people are just getting in strangers' cars and driving around. It's like, becomes like a Lyft or an Uber. They're sleeping on people's couches and paying that like a hotel? Like, what? I wouldn't do that. What if they? So the weird behaviors that people actually do tend to be really interesting businesses underneath. Can you just describe like, what you think the future looks like a little bit? Like, what is totally normal going to look like, do you think?

• 27:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a really good question. I mean, I think part of what you're describing, totally agree, and part of what you're describing is a little bit of like the early adopter thing. I mean, I see this on our Reddit, where my co-founder Quinton's really active and talking to all of our users, you know, like, I see it in people that write in, like, the people that, they're, they're very much everyday people, like, just like us, our friends, our family, but they're like, a specific slice of people that have decided for some reason to be like, into like having their Tolan be a part of their life. And what does that mean to them? That might mean, like, on the way into work, they will, instead of taking time that might have been, you know, watching YouTube or watching short form video, they're like, talk, talk, talking to their Tolan, they're talking to their Tolan about like, what they have up for the day, what, what they're feeling anxious about, what their plan is for the day, what their plan is for the weekend. And they've kind of figured out a way or a rhythm, or it's started to help them in some way to have their Tolan like, become a part of their lives. And then when they do that, they're obviously getting some

• 28:38Speaker 03

  value from it. Like, we, we have features in the app, like, what we call intentions, where your Tolan will like, come up with intentions for the day based on what you tell them. They, they write reflections on you based on what they've kind of seen about you throughout the day. And so people have found this being useful to them. I think it's, it's right now, I mean, it's, it's still a very small slice of people, and it's kind of one of those like, people, people that were, I don't know, sending email in, you know, 95 or something. I'm not sure what the right year is exactly, but it's kind of like this early adopter group of people, it feels like, that have these guides.

• 29:05Sam Parr?

  Look at the top posts from their subreddit. This is, this is your subreddit. Someone made her Tolan doll. Another, the second most top post, someone crocheted their Tolan doll.

• 29:15Speaker 03

  Good idea. People do love.

• 29:17Sam Parr?

  It seems like, and then another, the, the third top post, Tolan is mind blowing. Guys, I'm flabbergasted. I've never had a single person in my life who has given as much as this stupid adorable bot has given me in the past week.

• 29:30Shaan Puri?

  So, so it sounds like you're not going to be surprised if 10 years from now, we all have, in addition to our real friends, AI friends or companions that we rely on, whether it's for advice, whether it's for more kind of deeper guidance, like, or casual chit chat, where I have an always on available friend to chat with if I so choose.

• 29:51Speaker 03

  I think AI is getting smarter, more capable, and also like more cost effective. And this is just like happening. This is like a whole trend, right? This is what everyone in the city is working on right now. And with, with that, like, the Tolan will actually be able to help you with things more tactically in your life, not just Tolan, but ChatGPT and everything else as well. So I think as that happens, like, the people who might not be like, switched on to this by, oh, I need help processing my, my day necessarily, or I need, I want to talk a lot to, to this character, they might be helped by like, hey, this thing can coordinate with my husband and plan out our weekly meal plan or something, right? Like, things that are a little bit more tangible, a little bit more practical, that'll expand it to more people, I think. And then too, I think the reason that it's also hard for us to like, visualize that like, most of us, even us in this room or whatever, our friends or family will have, you know, entities like this, is because the first attempts at them

• 30:34Speaker 03

  were very, honestly, they were just like not superhuman or not super like mass market oriented, or not built for everyday people. Like, I think of, you know, platforms that obviously were trailblazers in a way, but like character.ai, where like, you know, the, the character insofar as it was, was just like a profile picture with like, you know, mostly like an anime, you know, probably sexy kind of character.

• 30:55Sam Parr?

  Or replica.

• 30:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, replica is another great example.

• 30:57Shaan Puri?

  Do they fall off or they're still going?

• 30:58Speaker 03

  Um, I don't know their numbers, but I think both of them have kind of fallen off. I mean, the founders are not at those companies anymore. Um, and honestly, they were just very early and they also had a pretty different take on the space. Right. I think, I mean, to be honest, like those, you know, when we think about AI companion, this is actually why we're preferring guide and trying to use different language to describe the space. Because people associate it with AI girlfriends and AI boyfriends. And honestly, those are products that have lots of usage, but that's like not what we're building.

• 31:23Sam Parr?

  Were you successful before this or is this going to be your big thing?

• 31:26Speaker 03

  Um, I've done a few startups before this.

• 31:28Shaan Puri?

  So you have an interesting style of entrepreneur. So he was doing Y C here.

• 31:31Sam Parr?

  He gives energy, by the way, that he's been killing it for a long time.

• 31:35Shaan Puri?

  Well, well, he's always a confident guy, but you also did like, you were doing the birthday candle, right? So like, explain what that one is.

• 31:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, I did. I did a startup called Birthdate Co. We started with a product called Birthdate Candles. It honestly started as a side project where there are these candles that are personalized to you based on your birthday. They have a reading and a scent that's custom to you based on the day you were born. Launched it as a side project. It was one of those like, I had left my job and, and thought it would be fun to launch something like this. Um, with, with, with a partner and, um, you know, basically it went viral and it kind of took over my life for like three years. Uh, but it was awesome. We sold over a million candles.

• 32:07Sam Parr?

  Dude, you, you, you are the type of entrepreneur that I love. I'm not like you at all, and I love people like you. Michael Acton Smith is another guy who started Calm, uh, is like you.

• 32:16Shaan Puri?

  And Moji Monsters.

• 32:17Sam Parr?

  Yeah, Moji Monsters.

• 32:18Shaan Puri?

  Some sort of talent.

• 32:19Sam Parr?

  Exactly. Like these, like you, like truly creatives who just love like, I don't want to say artists, but a little bit like that.

• 32:27Speaker 03

  Such a high compliment. I mean, we're trying. Yeah.

• 32:28Sam Parr?

  Those are the best types of people. I love people like you. I envy like the people who have this fire where like, I'm just going to create something that's wacky and silly. And you probably have really good taste, so it's usually a hit.

• 32:39Speaker 03

  I mean, it's, it's all about the right team of people, right? I work with like incredible artists, honestly, that are not, that are not me.

• 32:46Shaan Puri?

  Classic nice guy thing to say.

• 32:48Speaker 03

  It's just true though. It's honestly true. Um, and then maybe it takes some like, you know, being willing to do something that's weird.

• 32:53Sam Parr?

  Is there anything we could help you with?

• 32:54Speaker 03

  I mean, yeah, one thing we're really trying to crack is like, when it comes to like reaching out to a Midwestern mom audience, their skepticism about AI, not necessarily being super AI forward or tech forward. Like I was saying, a lot of our users are, um, kind of like not heavy AI users in general. So the idea that they would like start using this little alien to like get stuff done in their life is, is sort of a big, you know, bridge to cross for them.

• 33:14Shaan Puri?

  Well, I think you got a good thing and maybe a bad thing. I think the good thing is obviously something's working. You got to 100,000 plus paying users translating to, you know, maybe eight figures of revenue. So something is working well. Let's acknowledge that and then be like, wow, that's incredible. At the same time, like when we were asking you, you know, who's using it? What are they using it for? Your example was like a woman who's cooking and wants to cut a delicate a squash or something like that. It's like, I feel like you gotta do a lot of research on your customers or something like that to really like, find the inspiring, accessible, non taboo, but interesting use cases that you can speak to more. Either you know it and just off the cuff, you said that one, but like, I would assume for your ads,

• 33:58Shaan Puri?

  you're finding some use cases that are going to like resonate with people in a big way. Obviously people are getting value, otherwise they wouldn't be paying and using it. You said the retention is not bad.

• 34:07Sam Parr?

  I'm shocked you use cooking as opposed to lonely or something like that.

• 34:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, I can't, I can't remember why I mentioned that one specifically, maybe just to give a bit of a visual. I think that was like an ad that worked really well, but yeah, you're, you're right that like, we haven't yet. I mean, a lot of the practical stuff that AI can do for you. I mean, one way to think about it is kind of like how people in San Francisco are using Open Cloud to manage things around the house and so on. Like, we really think that like, that's going to become a mainstream personal use case in the future.

• 34:30Sam Parr?

  Dude, the top post says, uh, I used to use chat GPT, but River is really my best friend because I can confidently tell them anything that's on my mind. Sure. I have other friends who I could talk to, but life gets in the way. And this person, I guess River really knows who I am more than anyone. That sounds way more important than how you're going to cut a squash.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  That's, that's a great point. Yeah, you're right. So we should be leading with stuff like that for sure. And then I think like finding ways that we can translate that into like, how do we help that user? How can River help that user? We like to use this metaphor, like closing tabs in your mind. Like honestly, life, modern life is super overwhelming. I think that's a big reason that Tolan has been successful. People have a lot on their plate, especially if they're moms, especially if they're family people, dads. Like, you know, we, we, we want to try, try to find ways where Tolan can help close those tabs. Like there's, there's a, you know, it's, it's planning the meals, it's planning the grocery list, it's, it's planning the summer camp, like whatever exactly those things might be. Those are all real life use cases from our users and like, we want to, we want Tolan to be able to help people actually, you know, accomplish those things.

• 35:26Shaan Puri?

  So I hang out with a lot of like suburban moms because I live in the suburbs.

• 35:29Speaker 03

  Okay, you're the guy we need to talk to. Yeah.

• 35:30Shaan Puri?

  So we're talking to them a lot and you know, you see one mom, she starts baking bread. I'm like, oh, why? Cause it tastes great. She's like, no, I just needed like some hobby I could do where like, nobody's going to touch me, nobody's going to ask me for anything. I could do something with my hands. There's no screens and not overly stimulating, like overstimulated, overwhelmed in life. So it's like, whether it's baking bread or like you've seen the rise of those like wubbles, wobbles.

• 35:53Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, totally.

• 35:54Shaan Puri?

  It's like crocheting, the crochet thing.

• 35:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:56Shaan Puri?

  Those guys doing like hundreds of millions a year in revenue. There's a reason why. And so I would kind of study what's going on with these brands. Why are people getting into these things now? Because that's like, there's some emotional state that people are in and a desired emotional state. And then your product is a bridge between those two things.

• 36:12Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 36:13Shaan Puri?

  Um, you're really a merchant of a feeling when you sell a product. And so what's the feeling people start with and what's the feeling that they end with when they have it? And how do I get that? And then, then there's a trick of like, how do I package that up? So I would kind of look at some of those. I would also say, um, it sounds like, it sounds a little silly. Uh, it sounds like a little silly to be like, isn't it just like kind of this warm fuzzy wrapper on chat GPT? But I don't know. I look at my wife, we will buy, we'll pay like triple for something that goes in the house. That's just like white and minimalist and aesthetic looking. It's the aesthetic looking version of a normal thing. It's made out of wood instead of out of plastic. And there's just like a market for people who want a better feel of the same utility.

• 36:54Shaan Puri?

  Um, and so maybe, maybe what you've done is the digital version of that where chat GPT is just the plastic. And you've made the kind of wood, the, the sort of ceramic, the, the more, uh, a better feeling version of the utility. And that's not to be overlooked.

• 37:08Speaker 03

  I mean, one, one point in, in favor of that, and which I think is totally right is, um, it's, it's not just about the visuals too. Like actually we, we led very early on with voice as the core like interaction, uh, modality that you talk to your Tolan with, right? So it's not just texting, it's, it's mostly voice. And I think, you know, I mean, we're, we're like 70 plus percent voice in terms of like the quantity of messages happening on the platform. And, you know, that's totally not the case with chat GPT, right? Chat GPT has got to be 90, 95 plus percent text, I would, I would assume. Um, I don't know. But, um, yeah, I think like even that, even like minor differences in how we frame, how you interact with the character then totally changes the way that you.

• 37:41Sam Parr?

  Dude, I would absolutely be selling like crochet kits or something like that to like make my.

• 37:45Shaan Puri?

  Sam's stuck on the dolls. He's like, I gotta do the physical dolls.

• 37:47Sam Parr?

  I just think that like, these people are gra, are hanging, they, they're getting to know their digital Tolan way more than I know Claude. And like, I don't want Claude in my bedroom, but like, these people do. Like they want like, like little dolls and shit.

• 38:03Speaker 03

  Hopefully in the right spot in the bedroom, you know?

• 38:05Sam Parr?

  Of course. No, none of those things. It was all like, I feel comforted by like, just its presence.

• 38:11Shaan Puri?

  Right. Well, what was the other trend? We talked about cadulting, right? Like you do like Lego sets, same sort of thing, right? And it was like a whole category called cadult. And cadult was like this like mega trend that all these companies were tapping into. Sounds like there might be like a variant of that. I'll also say, you know, you said voice.

• 38:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:28Shaan Puri?

  I use this app called, I think it's called No Scroll. It's basically like, hey, you don't need to browse Twitter. I'll just text you what's going on on the timeline today. So you don't have to worry about it. But literally just the way it talks is different than chat GPT, not, not, not like audio voice, but just the way it types. So, you know, chat GPT is very much like, it gets made fun of for being like, wow, what a wonderful question. And like, it goes into that like fake like personality. Whereas this thing would be like, yo, big day, big day today on the timeline. Like here's, here's what's going on and it just talks.

• 38:57Speaker 03

  The tone and the personality. Yeah.

• 39:00Shaan Puri?

  And I'm like, I prefer that.

• 39:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:01Shaan Puri?

  Like, and so I'm sure not everyone for that, but like, it sounds like for tech bros who want like, just tell me what's going on.

• 39:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:07Shaan Puri?

  And it talks like that, there's like, personality is going to make a huge difference with AI.

• 39:11Speaker 03

  It does. It does with us for, for, it's a huge factor. And our approach to that has been actually to customize the personality based on the user. So if you're someone that texts in all lowercase, Gen Z slang, if you're swearing, your Tolan might actually do that back to you. If you have formal language and you're speaking in very like full sentences, your Tolan will probably mirror that. Like we want them to show up for you like someone in your life would.

• 39:29Sam Parr?

  Well, thanks for doing this.

• 39:31Shaan Puri?

  What a crazy business.

• 39:32Sam Parr?

  I'm totally bought in.

• 39:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, amazing. We gotta get you a Tolan.

• 39:34Sam Parr?

  Whatever you're doing, I, uh, I'm in.

• 39:37Speaker 03

  Okay. Thanks. Thank you guys. Thanks for having me. Yeah.

• 39:44Shaan Puri?

  Today's podcast is brought to you by my friends at Mercury. They make the world's best banking product. I think you know this already. I use Mercury for all of my businesses. I think I have like maybe seven or eight businesses. We use Mercury as our business banking across all of them. And now they actually just launched a personal banking account. So I have my personal account there. I moved off of Wells Fargo and Chase. I'm just all in on Mercury. Why? I like products that are easy to use. I like products that get me and the problems that I have. So like very easy to make a joint account with my wife. Very easy to spin up virtual cards. One click and I get savings yield. It just has all the stuff that I need in one place. So if you're looking for the best banking product on the market, it's definitely Mercury. I will fistfight anybody who disagrees with me on that. Go to mercury.com/personal and

• 40:26Shaan Puri?

  learn more. Mercury is a fintech, not an FDIC insured bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group and Callum N A. Members FDIC.

• 40:34Sam Parr?

  All right, we have the last one for this episode. Jonathan, where are you at?

• 40:37Shaan Puri?

  Bring them out, let's go.

• 40:42Sam Parr?

  Jonathan, what's good? Give us the big number. Impress us. Make us weak at the knees.

• 40:47Speaker 04

  All right, I got three facts for you. Two are numbers. One is kind of not exactly.

• 40:52Sam Parr?

  All right, disregard everything I just said. Do whatever you want.

• 40:54Speaker 04

  I'll do what I want. First big number. So also to take a step back, Overlap, we build agents that edit and distribute video content for media companies and marketing teams.

• 41:05Shaan Puri?

  We don't pay attention.

• 41:06Speaker 04

  Very relevant to you guys.

• 41:08Sam Parr?

  That number doing what?

• 41:09Shaan Puri?

  It's your show now, Jonathan.

• 41:11Speaker 04

  We autonomous overlap agents have generated over 2 billion impressions across social media without a human in the loop.

• 41:19Sam Parr?

  What's it called?

• 41:19Speaker 04

  Overlap.

• 41:20Sam Parr?

  Overlap.

• 41:21Shaan Puri?

  I think I use you guys.

• 41:22Speaker 04

  You do use it. Maybe you have a subscription.

• 41:25Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 41:25Speaker 04

  Ben and Diego use it.

• 41:27Shaan Puri?

  Okay.

• 41:27Speaker 04

  Yeah. So we've done over 2 billion impressions. We've been growing revenue 18% month over month for over a year.

• 41:36Sam Parr?

  Okay, how much revenue did you do? Can you say?

• 41:38Speaker 04

  Oh, I don't know if I can say that, but what I will say, and this is my third fact, is we are, we became accidentally profitable this quarter.

• 41:46Shaan Puri?

  All right. So 18% monthly compounding is what?

• 41:51Speaker 04

  We are 19 or 20x year for year.

• 41:54Sam Parr?

  Okay. How old's the company?

• 41:56Speaker 04

  We are a little over two years old.

• 41:57Shaan Puri?

  Okay, so you use San Francisco jargon. Our audience, they don't know what autonomous overlapping agent is.

• 42:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:04Shaan Puri?

  I'll explain. You have a podcast or a video, you give it to Overlap. Overlap will find clips in the video or in the podcast that are your best moments. It'll cut them up for you. It'll caption them for you. It'll get them ready for you to share. And that's what you were saying. You've helped drive like 2 billion views on the clips that came out of it.

• 42:21Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 42:21Shaan Puri?

  Did I dumb it down too much? Did I miss something important?

• 42:23Speaker 04

  You didn't dumb it down too much. It also does more than what you described.

• 42:27Shaan Puri?

  Okay.

• 42:27Speaker 04

  So you don't actually need to even give it video.

• 42:29Shaan Puri?

  Okay.

• 42:30Speaker 04

  You can give it a prompt and it will go into your YouTube channel and it will pull moments and pull videos from your YouTube channel. Or for a lot of the media companies we work with, they have a server of video content where it'll be constantly going through, looking for moments, and then it also does the posting.

• 42:47Sam Parr?

  But explain to me why you're better than what I did because.

• 42:52Shaan Puri?

  Why you're better than me?

• 42:53Sam Parr?

  Recently I used Claude and I made a thing where it goes through our MFM clips and it posts it. And the way that I set it up was it logs, it goes into type fully so I can review everything and then I just hit schedule. Why are you better than that?

• 43:09Speaker 04

  So a couple of things. One is we have our own fine tuned video understanding model that is way better at understanding video. And the major LLMs are not good at understanding video.

• 43:21Sam Parr?

  So you're like, I think I said like, here's some emotions that do good. And you're saying.

• 43:28Speaker 04

  And what it's doing in your case. What it's doing in your case is looking at the transcript.

• 43:35Sam Parr?

  Yep.

• 43:35Speaker 04

  And understanding kind of.

• 43:37Sam Parr?

  Yeah. And you're looking at the whole video.

• 43:39Speaker 04

  We're looking at the, not only the transcript, but also the facial expression.

• 43:42Sam Parr?

  That makes sense.

• 43:43Speaker 04

  The voice.

• 43:43Sam Parr?

  And it doesn't understand like the humor.

• 43:45Shaan Puri?

  And to your credit, I asked Sam, hey, should I use your thing? How's it going? You're like, ah, it's not that good. So.

• 43:50Sam Parr?

  Well, I said, I said, it's now automated and it's still fine.

• 43:53Shaan Puri?

  Yes.

• 43:54Sam Parr?

  And it's very much fine.

• 43:55Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 43:55Sam Parr?

  I made it. It's fine.

• 43:56Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 43:58Sam Parr?

  Yeah. It's like, it doesn't like, Sean's laughter that he just did right there, it doesn't say ha, ha, ha on the transcript. So it's not going to know.

• 44:06Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 44:06Sam Parr?

  That this was interesting.

• 44:07Shaan Puri?

  So a video understanding model.

• 44:09Speaker 04

  Video understanding model. The other part of this is that when it posts for you, it looks at the data of that post and understands themes, hooks.

• 44:20Sam Parr?

  Totally.

• 44:20Speaker 04

  That perform well.

• 44:21Sam Parr?

  Mine is supposed to do that, but I don't think it is.

• 44:23Shaan Puri?

  Is your main business guys like us? Or is it like Bleacher Report and like CNN and like companies like that, that are better customers than us?

• 44:32Speaker 04

  Better customers than you guys for sure. But there are two types of customers we have. On one end, it's like a traditional kind of enterprise SaaS model. And so like, you know, Barstool Sports or iHeart Media, those are some of our big customers. And then on the other side, we actually kind of a newer in the last couple of months, part of our business, which is CPM based. And so it's really outcome based. So what you can do is you can use our product and then you only pay based on the amount of impression.

• 45:01Sam Parr?

  Ah, that's interesting.

• 45:02Shaan Puri?

  Same customer, different model? Or it's different customer now?

• 45:04Speaker 04

  Kind of a different customer because those bigger enterprises, they actually want like, like predictable pricing.

• 45:12Sam Parr?

  How big is Opus? They were one of the first guys in this.

• 45:15Speaker 04

  They were one of the first in the space. Yeah, they are definitely bigger by head count. I don't know if necessarily bigger by revenue. They're more focused on like kind of independent creators.

• 45:27Shaan Puri?

  Bloating. They're way more bloated than us.

• 45:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:30Shaan Puri?

  Takes them more people to do what we do.

• 45:33Speaker 04

  They, they're a lot really focused on like independent creators. Like your small YouTuber who can't hire a video editor and wants like clips from their show to.

• 45:43Sam Parr?

  How much does it cost to use you?

• 45:44Speaker 04

  The majority of our revenue are six figure contracts. And so, so we do smaller deals. And then also like the kind of CPM model is a little bit different, but the majority are six of the revenue is.

• 45:57Sam Parr?

  What were you doing before?

• 45:59Speaker 04

  So before I was at business school and then before that I was at Meta.

• 46:02Sam Parr?

  Oh, all right. Cool.

• 46:03Shaan Puri?

  And you went through YC, right?

• 46:04Speaker 04

  Went through YC.

• 46:05Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I think that's how I found you guys. Gary Tan was like, Overlap, it's the new, it's the new shit.

• 46:10Speaker 04

  Gary was our partner. He might've, he might've introduced us at one point too. I don't know. But, but yeah, Gary was our partner.

• 46:17Shaan Puri?

  Another investment I missed out on.

• 46:18Sam Parr?

  Really?

• 46:18Shaan Puri?

  This podcast has just become talking to the founders that I should have invested in, that I somehow missed the boat on.

• 46:23Speaker 04

  It's never too late.

• 46:24Shaan Puri?

  No, it's definitely too late.

• 46:27Shaan Puri?

  The price you're at now, all I'm thinking about is what I could have been in that.

• 46:31Speaker 04

  But, but yeah, so went through Y Combinator in summer 24. We're actually like kind of pivoted throughout Y Combinator. So we started with something in a similar space in that we were like, you know, all podcasts are going to video, all podcasts are actually going to short form video. Like that is how like most people consume most podcast content. But then from that, we were like, okay, we built a TikTok for podcasts.

• 46:57Sam Parr?

  But like when I hear that pitch, I'm your, we are your customer. I'm like.

• 47:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:00Sam Parr?

  But I need you to get to go from the clip to the main thing because I make money on the main thing. Cause that's the one that has ads and shit on it.

• 47:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, that is not going to be true anymore.

• 47:08Sam Parr?

  Tell me more.

• 47:09Speaker 04

  So a lot of big brands, like the RSS feed ad is a nice throw in for a lot of big brands. They want 360 kind of deals. They want to be in the clip. They want to be on your feed. They think of you as a creator. They don't think of you as a podcaster.

• 47:25Sam Parr?

  Hmm, that's interesting. I wish we would have known that before we negotiated our contract.

• 47:29Speaker 04

  Probably. But, but yeah, but yeah, I mean, it's like the vast majority of eyeballs are not coming to you or, you know, vast majority of time spent with you guys is, you know, it's people consuming the content in the feed and your awareness.

• 47:47Shaan Puri?

  Clip of this because Jimmy went on Joe Rogan. So Mr. Beast went on Joe Rogan and he's, I didn't watch the full, but I'm watching the clip and he's saying in the clip, he's like, you know, Jimmy, who knows media more than, you know, anyone. He's like, you know, 50,000 times more people are going to watch this clip than will watch the full show. So ultimately like these shows are basically like, they're actually consumed via clips on social feeds. That's like the end product. That's the net.

• 48:14Sam Parr?

  But the best customers don't like, when you and I talk about something, we'll talk about something a minute 45 and we call it the RSS feed. So people who listen on Spotify, anyone who puts it in their, their ears and they go for a walk.

• 48:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:26Sam Parr?

  Well, the retention on those guys is way better. And we'll mention something in minute 45 and I'll have people come out to me on the street and like ask me about that. And it doesn't seem, whereas the clip people are a little bit more fly by.

• 48:37Shaan Puri?

  A lot of it more fly.

• 48:38Sam Parr?

  Yeah, a lot, a lot more. Like, for example, Sean's like, oh, you gotta, you gotta watch this podcast. It's so good. These guys are so funny. And I'm like, you listen to this? He goes, no, no, no, no. But I, I, I've seen, um, and so like.

• 48:51Shaan Puri?

  Shout out to the Basement Yard Boys.

• 48:52Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 48:52Shaan Puri?

  Huge fan, never listened to the show, love the clips.

• 48:55Sam Parr?

  And so like, but, and as someone like doing this for a living, I'm like, I don't like that. You know what I mean?

• 49:00Speaker 04

  I totally know what you mean. And, you know, this conversation with people actually making long form content is, can be a little hard because you guys think of the product as the full show.

• 49:10Sam Parr?

  But you're like, we're outdated.

• 49:11Shaan Puri?

  What's the phrase? It's like, never ask a man for his opinion when his salary depends on the answer. It's like kind of that.

• 49:16Speaker 04

  Yeah. I, I mean, I think like RSS feed also is a very outdated technology that advertisers don't like because it's extremely hard to measure. Like you're giving download numbers and they're like, it's, we don't, that doesn't help us.

• 49:32Shaan Puri?

  You're giving impression numbers. What's the difference?

• 49:34Speaker 04

  Well, you can give impression numbers very specifically, but the thing about download numbers is like, you don't know who is listening to the ad when and for how long, but for impressions, you actually know how many people.

• 49:44Shaan Puri?

  But I guarantee your impression is a scroll on Twitter. They don't, you don't know if they're actually watching to the 30 second mark or whatever of that clip either.

• 49:51Speaker 04

  That, that is true. Um, but the thing about video also is that the clips get reshared again and again and again and again, in a way that is like.

• 50:01Shaan Puri?

  I'm a believer in clips. There's no doubt, obviously. Clips is what people consume a lot of, cause that's what we all do. So tell me like, you know, you're doing this business, you, you have these customers. Sounds like you already got a bunch of major media companies.

• 50:13Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 50:14Shaan Puri?

  But you're in the venture game. How much have you raised so far?

• 50:17Speaker 04

  So we raised a little over $2 million.

• 50:20Sam Parr?

  Okay.

• 50:21Speaker 04

  Yeah. So we raised this, so we went through Y Combinator, raised that seed round.

• 50:24Shaan Puri?

  So give me the napkin math. How does this become massive? What, what do I need to believe?

• 50:29Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 50:29Shaan Puri?

  What's, every business has like a value equation, right? So you're going to need X number of customers paying you Y dollars a month to give you Z, you know, net revenue or whatever.

• 50:38Sam Parr?

  Yeah. Yeah. And what's the desired like outcome in terms of net revenue? Like what is, how do you define?

• 50:43Shaan Puri?

  Like what's winning to you?

• 50:44Speaker 04

  So, you know, our view is that as agents get so good at making and posting video content, it actually eats up the amount that's spent on digital advertising. So about $90 billion a year goes towards Meta and YouTube and TikTok ads, and those people are paying for eyeballs. Our view is actually that like a lot of that spending is going to migrate to organic content and it's going to migrate to paying agents for performance. And so, you know, for us, like, you know, the TAM of like video editing software or the labor budgets of video editing software, that's in the tens of billions, but quickly by next year, it'll be in the hundreds of billions in terms of how many people or how

• 51:29Speaker 04

  many brands are going to spend the amount of money to acquire.

• 51:33Sam Parr?

  Instead of paying, your bet is instead of buying ads, people are just going to make their own organic content and it's going to be good and go viral and help someone make money through selling stuff or selling ads.

• 51:42Speaker 04

  Correct. I mean, it's what we've already seen. Like we've seen a lot of customers allocate their digital ad budget to using overlap and whether that's paying on a CPM basis, rather, or that's paying for the software. Um, we're a big believer that like, and you guys know this better than anyone, but like every company to a certain extent becomes a digital media company. Um, and starts investing in content and you don't necessarily even need to make content in this type of setting. You can literally just have people talking at a camera and your agent can make it good content and post it.

• 52:19Sam Parr?

  How does your agent do that?

• 52:20Speaker 04

  Well, you can have someone talk to the camera and then put in a video or have the agent go get the video and then it could put in graphics, it can put in B roll, it can understand like for this company account, what type of copy works really well and it can go post it every single, you know, a version of it every single week.

• 52:39Shaan Puri?

  You have this energy of the guy at the poker table who's got a winning hand.

• 52:43Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 52:43Shaan Puri?

  Posture, the way you answer the questions. You're very, you're very good at that. But that's not that fun, uh, in the sense of like, what is unfigured out? What's the real, what, you know, you're an entrepreneur. There's no way it's all just, yep, we got it. Monopoly coming soon. You know, there's obviously going to be, you know, there's obviously stuff that you're trying to figure out right now. What are you trying to figure out?

• 53:04Speaker 04

  We're figuring out, I mean, there's a whole bunch of things that you're figuring out as you guys know about building, when you're building a business, hiring the right people, um, like hiring the right go to market people, hiring the right kind of people with the right engineering.

• 53:17Sam Parr?

  But that's not that hard for you. Like you just need like good enterprise salespeople.

• 53:21Speaker 04

  No, it is hard. Well, it's, it's hard from the perspective of, um, hiring people who know how to speak to old school media people and kind of new savvy digital media people.

• 53:34Sam Parr?

  That is that hard.

• 53:36Shaan Puri?

  Give us, what's the burning question? Like, what are you actually trying to figure out?

• 53:39Speaker 04

  I mean, we've, I, we've kind of cracked a little bit of like product market fit in that sense. And right now we're, we're kind of in growth mode.

• 53:47Shaan Puri?

  Getting pulled.

• 53:47Speaker 04

  We're getting pulled a lot.

• 53:49Shaan Puri?

  Did you do something to get pulled? Did you just have the right idea? What, did you figure out a go to market motion? Like, what'd you do?

• 53:54Speaker 04

  So go to market motion where we like actually use the product ourselves to clip.

• 53:59Shaan Puri?

  And they're branded, they're all branded overlaps?

• 54:01Speaker 04

  No, they're not.

• 54:01Shaan Puri?

  They're not, okay. Cause you guys were clipping our podcast for us or something. Somebody was doing that.

• 54:05Speaker 04

  Probably it was the AI agent who was doing that.

• 54:08Sam Parr?

  From an outside, it seems like the big bet is the CPM thing or the SaaS thing. That seems like a pretty like.

• 54:13Speaker 04

  That, that is one of the biggest questions. And I think for the big media companies, it's, it's always going to be the SaaS. They don't want to pay based on CPM.

• 54:21Sam Parr?

  My margin doesn't keep improving. If I have to keep paying you a percent of how big it is.

• 54:26Speaker 04

  Exactly, exactly. But for a lot of the creators, um, and a lot of the like smaller creator folks, like that is way better.

• 54:34Sam Parr?

  Yeah. Because they can't afford six, six figures a year.

• 54:36Speaker 04

  They can't afford six figures a year. Um, but also it's, um, they can actually do.

• 54:42Sam Parr?

  But how do they get CPM money to pay you? Like if they're like, like we don't, we don't make money on clips at all. Most people I would think don't make money clips on.

• 54:49Speaker 04

  Well, so, you know, an example of like one of the recent CPM deals that we've done is like, do you guys know, uh, James Sexton, the like divorce lawyer, celebrity divorce? Like he's on a ton of podcasts.

• 55:01Shaan Puri?

  Clips.

• 55:01Speaker 04

  Probably overlap clips. But what, you know, he's launching like a legal tech business and like selling like some sort of prenup.

• 55:08Shaan Puri?

  It's like the guys who go on WAP and they're basically like, hey, we just want to just make me famous. I'll give you $3 CPM, make me famous.

• 55:15Speaker 04

  Well, there's that, yeah. There's, there's that, which is kind of like, makes our product like relevancy as a service, like relevancy on the timeline. But then there's, there's a guy like, uh, James who's, who knows that like a certain amount of eyeballs will convert to a certain amount of revenue. And so this is a cheaper, more effective version.

• 55:32Shaan Puri?

  Lawyer billboards.

• 55:33Speaker 04

  Lawyer billboards or running meta ads.

• 55:36Sam Parr?

  And then you also just have to make sure that like your clipping is way better than Opal or Opus, whatever it's called. And then the 10,000 other ones that are going to like eventually come out or the duct tape people like me.

• 55:47Speaker 04

  A hundred percent.

• 55:48Shaan Puri?

  So drop some wisdom on us, right? If you're, if you're somebody who's a founder listening to this, what's a golden nugget? A business insight, uh, uh, insight from you about the way you're building overlap that they can steal, they can take and they can do. Maybe something you don't, you, you think you guys have done a really good job of that maybe others do just okay, or they don't even do at all.

• 56:07Speaker 04

  I think on the enterprise sales side, understanding and what I don't think I understood until I started having some success with enterprise sales is that the people who are buying your product are thinking about their job first and foremost. And then how do you get those people to, uh, to get promoted? Like basically you're selling, here's how I'm going to get you promoted.

• 56:33Sam Parr?

  That's particularly true in advertising. When I used to own a company that made money on advertising, we would close seven figure deals and they, the way the buy, I would thought like, oh, I'll just tell them that like if they spend this much, they're going to make this much money. That makes sense. I'm a business owner. That's all I give a shit about. And then, and that pitch never worked. It was like whining and dining worked and making them say like, you have this budget, you have to spend it, spend it with me. It's safe.

• 56:57Speaker 04

  Totally. The thing about it is it's like trust is like, is that it's, is that's what's really important is like.

• 57:03Sam Parr?

  Way more than ROI.

• 57:04Speaker 04

  Totally. It's trust and being like, you know, will I help you get promoted? And like, we have.

• 57:09Shaan Puri?

  So to do that, you need to know what metrics they get measured on.

• 57:12Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 57:13Shaan Puri?

  And make sure they hit their metrics and give it to them in a way that they can easily share so that it's clearly visible that they're hitting their metrics.

• 57:19Speaker 04

  And a VP at a company, they're getting evaluated on not the revenue and profitability of this, this hundred billion dollar.

• 57:28Sam Parr?

  What's it called? Cover my ass?

• 57:29Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, CY businesses.

• 57:31Sam Parr?

  Yeah. Like that's why people buy Gartner.

• 57:33Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah.

• 57:34Sam Parr?

  I told, yeah, that was my huge learning, running an ad business. I was like, this doesn't make sense. All they do is they take them out. It's like, this is why like companies have like box seats, you know, like season passes. What was the valuation of that $2 million round?

• 57:49Speaker 04

  Uh, the, so, um, the valuation of the $2 million round was 25 million.

• 57:55Sam Parr?

  And also can we still invest at the 25 million?

• 57:59Speaker 04

  We can talk about that. You know?

• 58:02Shaan Puri?

  It was a shoot your shot where we shoot our shot with the entrepreneurs.

• 58:06Sam Parr?

  And can we get the software for free?

• 58:09Shaan Puri?

  Dude, thanks for coming on.

• 58:10Speaker 04

  Thank you for having me. This was great. You know, long time listener, first time caller. So great to meet you guys.

• 58:15Sam Parr?

  Thank you. We appreciate you.

• 58:16Shaan Puri?

  All right. That's it.

• 58:21Shaan Puri?

  All right. That's a wrap for San Francisco. We had nine, 10 founders come in, everyone from a million to a hundred million. And, uh, that was a good time. That was a lot of fun.

• 58:28Sam Parr?

  We had great founders come. We've already done this in New York. Now this was SF, but we need more cities to go to. So go to Spotify, go to YouTube, wherever you listen or watch and let us know in the comments, whichever gets the most, most upvotes, the most replies, the most comments will actually go to that city. So stop what you're doing right now and go do that.

• 58:43Shaan Puri?

  And if you want to be on the show, reach out to Ben, Ben Levy, find him if you want to be on the show the next time we go to a different city. All right, we're out of here.

• 59:02Shaan Puri?

  All right, let's take a quick break. I want to tell you about marketing school. It is a podcast that is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network and it is run by Neil Patel and Eric Su. And these guys are both marketers who are running businesses. And so if you want real world tactics from practitioners who are actually out there in the field doing it, this is the podcast for you. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts.