Michael Girdley: Why Fireworks Are A Cash Cow and How to Operate a Holdco Worth $100 Million

Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) and Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) talk to tech investor and entrepreneur Michael Girdley (@girdley), about selling fireworks, how to hire great CEOs, and what it takes to operate a successful holding company. Also, want $5,000? Check out the My First Million Clips contest. ----- Links: * Michael Girdley * Near * Alley Corp * Zola * Black Rifle Coffee * Pop Sockets * Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. * Want more insights like MFM? Check out Shaan's newsletter. ----- Show Notes: (05:00) - How rich are you? (08:55) - Which business is the best cash cow? (15:40) - Waste paper mill in China (21:30) - The anti-advice of Berkshire Hathaway (27:05) - Hiring great CEOs (32:50) - What it takes to run a holdco (56:40) - Unpopular opinions ----- Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. ----- Additional episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto * #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

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

• 0:00Shaan Puri?

  You own a hold co. I think Girdly Enterprises is the name of it. Within it, you have a bunch of different things. So you own stuff as funky as like a fireworks company called Alamo Fireworks. You own like a software roll up called Dura Software. You have like a coffee chain, I think. Is that right? You have like your a drive through coffee chain that's got like three or four locations or something like that. And then you incubate a couple, a couple of projects, one of which I used actually recently.

• 0:34Sam Parr?

  Michael, what up, dog? Sean, where are you? You're in Tahoe?

• 0:38Speaker 02

  I'm in Lake Tahoe. Yeah.

• 0:40Sam Parr?

  How is it?

• 0:42Speaker 02

  It's amazing. Yeah, this place is great.

• 0:44Sam Parr?

  Is it just a getaway from crypto?

• 0:47Speaker 02

  No, it was a Father's Day trip. So, you know, came out here with my wife's family and

• 0:55Speaker 02

  yeah, it's been cool. It's been like at the lake, in the pool, all that good stuff.

• 0:58Sam Parr?

  That's awesome. Who, who, so you Sean, you want to introduce this guy?

• 1:01Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Okay, great. So we got Michael Girdly. Is that the way you say it?

• 1:06Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:07Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, Michael's here. I've been following you on Twitter for a while. And, and I think you almost want, you almost bought our NFT for the five minutes of fame, but you got outbid at the last minute. Is that right?

• 1:21Speaker 02

  Yes. Yeah, I had a whole plan about it. I was actually gonna shard it. And then try to make profit from it and sell it in 15 second increments. But some really rich crypto person came in and swooped it out from under me.

• 1:33Shaan Puri?

  So Sam loves.

• 1:34Speaker 02

  I had a huge plan. I had a huge plan.

• 1:39Shaan Puri?

  And, and but you, but it worked anyways. You got on the pod anyways without it. Because you're a pretty interesting dude. I've been following you on Twitter. Mostly because you tweet about Chili's a lot and I'm a big Chili's guy, huge Chili's fan.

• 1:53Shaan Puri?

  But you also, you kind of fit into this sort of like Andrew Wilkinson bucket, which is like you run a hold co and you run like a pretty big hold co. And so let's just give people kind of like your, your rundown. Here's what I know about you. You own a hold co. I think Girdly Enterprises is the name of it. Within it, you have a bunch of different things. So you own stuff as funky as like a fireworks company called Alamo Fireworks. You own like a software roll up called Dura Software.

• 2:24Shaan Puri?

  You have like a coffee chain, I think. Is that right? You have like your a drive-through coffee chain that's got like three or four locations or something like that. And then you incubate a couple, a couple of projects. One of, one of which I used actually recently called NEAR, which is like a way, an easy way to hire people in, in Latin America. And I found this awesome dude, you know, not a plug for NEAR necessarily, but it did work, it did work exactly as intended. I found this awesome operations guy for my e-commerce business there, Nico. So, so yeah, so that's what you do. And I don't know, Sam, where do you want to start? We can, we can go into, into the kind of high level or we could dive into any of the details. Where do you want to start?

• 3:02Sam Parr?

  He put together this really good document that explains all the different businesses. But to summarize, it looks like it's like eight or nine or 10 of them. And so, so I understand the size. It's over a hundred million in revenue, right? And over 750 employees for all eight or 10 of these?

• 3:17Shaan Puri?

  Yes. Whenever I hear people be like, okay, yeah, my, my kind of the accumulation of the businesses that I own, some percentage ownership stake in is worth over a hundred million dollars. Or like a real estate guy will be like, you know, I have a billion dollar real estate portfolio. In my head, and I'm, I'm sure there's a bunch of listeners who are like this too. They're like, so what does that mean? Are you, like, are you, are you super loaded? Is this a, like, how do I think about that number, right? Cause like, you know, if I get a salary, that's the money I keep. If I run a business and I say top line revenue, that's not the money I get to keep. So when you own a, you own a hundred percent of your hold co. And your hold co owns businesses that add up to over a hundred million in revenue. Does that mean you're just big ball of shot calling? Are you paying yourself like 10 million dollars a year or more out of, out of the profits of these businesses?

• 4:01Shaan Puri?

  Or what does that really mean?

• 4:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I mean, part of the way I've set up the structure is like, I wanted to be very flexible in terms of strategy. So there's some stuff in here that's just like compounders, like Dura, for example, like we want to be the next Constellation Software someday. So like, I don't.

• 4:17Shaan Puri?

  That's just compounding. The money I put into that and the effort and time and I put into it like I don't, I don't get cash flow from that stuff. But that's by design. Like I'm just a long-term player, not long-term person on all this stuff. You know, the things we went through, just kind of the 10 big holdings that I have, those are all things that I have 50, 60, 30, 40% of company. So it's not like I, I totally am with you. Like I, you know, I, I felt stressed being like, okay, well, I don't want to be the guy coming in and bullshitting about a bunch of numbers. But also like, I'm from Texas and like, like I have a hard time like bragging and being like, well, okay, here's some, here's what my net worth is. And here's how much money I make and all that kind of stuff. So I'm trying to balance it out to where we can actually get there without getting past my comfort zone.

• 4:56Sam Parr?

  How do we, let's, let's not balance that out. Let's just go to the other end and make you incredibly uncomfortable. Tell me how, your net worth, your checking account number, and what it felt like when you lost your virginity. You can pick one. Go now.

• 5:13Shaan Puri?

  Really drunk, four, and yeah.

• 5:19Sam Parr?

  Yeah, let's, let's, let's really get into it. And it's like, oh, you don't want to reveal, you don't want to reveal your penis size? That's fine. Just tell me about your net worth then. We'll settle for that.

• 5:29Shaan Puri?

  But it's seriously, there's like a mental model for these businesses, right? Like, some businesses, like you call it a compounder, right? It's like, if you go into a business like this, you're going to put up, it only takes X dollars to start. And then it takes Y years to kind of get to some good outcome. Like, like, I'll just give you like a venture startup, right? Like I come from the Silicon Valley venture world. Silicon Valley venture world is you put $0 of your own money up, but you're going to raise likely somewhere between three and 300 million from venture capitalists over time. You shouldn't expect to see any big money until you exit, which is on average, seven to 10 years. And so like, that's the profile of that versus my e-commerce business took, I don't know, I put in 600K to start it. Like, that was my first kind of year commitment that I had to

• 6:14Shaan Puri?

  put in. But we can take quarterly profits now, you know, a year or two, we could take quarterly profits if we wanted to. We decided to roll that into growth. But we think that by year three or four, we should be seeing pretty healthy, you know, quarterly profits that will pay for a sweet lifestyle, right? So that's like, just to paint a picture of what type of business you're getting into. Most people don't know how the holdco business works. So give me those sorts of like, what does it take to start? How long do you have to wait to get a payday? How big are those pay, you know, are you playing a software game like a VC software game? You can make a billion dollars. E-commerce unlikely to happen, but you can pretty safely make tens of millions of dollars if you do it right.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I mean, I think my theory on stuff is it's been incredibly difficult to find good opportunities over the past five years. So I've structured stuff that I want to be able to do any opportunity that comes through the door, right? And so like, so the danger is say, for example, I run across a fun idea to work on that, you know, maybe is in the roll up space. Well, like, like that's going to require outside capital, right? Dura required outside capital. My partner and I, who started the business, he's former head of support for Rackspace. He's a CEO of the business now. We put up our own money to do the first acquisition and then we started, when we ran out of money, right after a couple million dollars, we had to go out and raise money. And so that's playing that kind of VC compounding game that I talked about.

• 7:35Speaker 02

  You know, other stuff like the coding boot camp that we start, like that pays me money every month. It's similar to what you're talking about. So, you know, those, the thing I like about those kind of cash flowy LLCs and stuff like that is like, you know, the upside isn't as good. Like you can't have a billion dollar exit in that stuff 20 years from now, but you could start cash flowing really quickly. So I like to have a blend of all those things because you can't, you can't live on appreciation.

• 7:59Sam Parr?

  How much, how much profit does the hundred million make? Or I think you, you said over a hundred million, but we, let's just say it's a hundred million. How much profit does it actually make? And let's say that you own 30% of one company that makes 10 million in profit. Do, do you say like, all right, we're going to take of that 10 million, we're going to take out 3 million in profit. We own 30%, we get 1 million.

• 8:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I typically the stuff in a portfolio for small businesses like this is going to end up run 15 to 20% EBITDA margins. So then you do a calculus and say, okay, well, based on that, like free cash flow, potential margins, like, okay, you got to pay off debt service and all that kind of stuff if you have it. And then is it better for you to take the money out or should you reinvest it inside the business? And by and large, most of these things are reinvesting because I don't have better places to put the money than reinvesting in assets and new acquisitions and all that kind of stuff.

• 8:52Shaan Puri?

  Which business is the best cash cow? Is it like, you know, the fireworks company where it's like, well, it's open like three months a year and it just prints profits for three months? And then we like, don't have to think about it for the nine. Like, I don't know if that's true. I'm just saying that out loud.

• 9:07Sam Parr?

  Which business is the best one and why is it fireworks?

• 9:13Speaker 02

  Fireworks, here's why I love fireworks. It was the first business that started my whole platform and I was the CEO of it. And it is the hardest business in the world to run. Like it, the cash flow sucks. Like we, we aren't even open yet for 4th of July. We open in two more days and we've been spending money to get ready for it all the way through, through, uh, since January, the second. Uh, and you have to predict what's going to happen six to 12 months ahead of time. And then you have to put up all the cash for it, buy all the fireworks, get all the locations out of, we have 200 locations across the state of Texas. And then open them all up. Uh, and then we really don't break even until about seven or eight PM on the night of the 4th of July. So it is, when I ran that business, that was where I cut my teeth as a CEO.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Like it was the hardest business to run to where I went to these other businesses and people would like, pay you before you delivered the service or like, like when we started the coding bootcamp was the second business. And I was like, you mean they pay us before we teach them the classes? Like this is amazing. I thought it was the greatest thing ever. So every other business feels like it.

• 10:11Sam Parr?

  How much revenue does a fire one do fireworks?

• 10:14Speaker 02

  Uh, it's multiple tens of millions.

• 10:16Sam Parr?

  No shit. That makes, let's say 20, 30, 40 million dollars selling fireworks for two weeks?

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Uh, we do it twice a year, uh, fourth, for the 4th of July. And then we do it again for New Year's. In Texas, it's warm enough that actually New Year's is more pleasant than anyplace else.

• 10:32Sam Parr?

  Golly, that's amazing. And that's, and that's quite profitable if you do well for the, uh, like the, the remaining like three hours. And that three hours, you make all your profit.

• 10:41Speaker 02

  Your, all your profit. Cause everybody shows up at the last minute. That's the other part I didn't tell you. Yeah, nobody buys anything until the last day because consumers have this habit of not doing things ahead of time.

• 10:52Shaan Puri?

  So that that business is actually kind of an ugly business then because it's like you have to predict things and then I don't know, the world is very unpredictable the last few years. So you have to predict demand, you have to operate really well in a very tight time crunch, like all your demand gets squeezed into this tiny pipe. You're putting up all the cash up front. So you're taking some, some, some risk there. Did you, you're a clever guy. Did you come up with any clever operating hacks to like make that business suck less that other firework people don't really do?

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Yes, we have a bunch of those. I didn't come up with any of them. The thing I realized, and this was about 14, 15 years ago, I actually really suck at optimizations. Like I want to live at like 80,000 feet with like big ideas and strategy and doing what we're doing right here at Rite. Like I want to live in an idea space. And what I realized about six years into running that business was I am precisely the wrong person to run this business because what you're talking about is this like game of inches where you have to be like optimizing stuff all the time. And like I find that incredibly boring. Like that is the most like that and accounting and HR are like the three most boring things you'd ask me to do in my life. And what we've done is a ton of those kind of optimizations. Like that business has exploded in the past five years, no pun intended, through just

• 12:04Speaker 02

  getting the right people on the field. And it means me not doing it because I absolutely in the wrong, perfect, wrong person to run that business. But we do a bunch of different stuff. Like we brought digital point of sale to that business. It used to be handwritten for a long number of years. So some pretty basic stuff that you're like, really? It took that long? But yeah, we, we've done all that kind of stuff. But the, it's the royal we, it's not me.

• 12:28Sam Parr?

  How much money did you, you said you started this thing with $2 million of you and your partner's money? And then is the rest like a fund that you raised?

• 12:35Speaker 02

  So, so Dura was something I started, we started with our own money. The fireworks business, I got that the old fashioned way. I, it's a family business. I inherited it. So that's why you're like, how this kind of with the fireworks business? I was told I have a fireworks business now. And it's great.

• 12:53Sam Parr?

  What about the other things? Did you, so it's like, is each one like its own? You raise money for each one? If you need to raise money or you just use your own money?

• 13:03Speaker 02

  Yep, just if, if I need to syndicate the deal, I syndicate the deal with other people. You know, what I've learned and I only do is I hate raising money for stuff unless I'm putting my own money in it. So I'll put a substantial amount of my net worth in new stuff. And then when I go out to raise money, I feel like not yucky. Otherwise I feel yucky, but yeah.

• 13:24Shaan Puri?

  Which of the business, okay, so we thought maybe the fireworks business is the best one. It turns out that's kind of a, a pretty, pretty gnarly business. What, which of your businesses would you say is like the most in the cash flow category? Like, it's just so beautiful because it works. It's just, it just worked right away, didn't take a ton of money. It's, you know, it's profitable. It's not like this brutal business to operate. Which, which one do you like the best?

• 13:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, the coding boot camp is the best one. It's all services, low capex. And then, I mean, the thing I liked the most about it, like, it, it actually like helps people, like it changes their lives. And that's not bullshit, by the way. Like you'll notice the theme, like on all this stuff, I really like enjoy helping people. And it, it's a life transformation thing when people go through that and get a better job.

• 14:10Sam Parr?

  Clearly you've never had a bottle rocket fight, man. Cause those are pretty amazing too.

• 14:18Sam Parr?

  How, how, how big is the?

• 14:20Speaker 02

  Please don't do that. Please don't do that.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  That is, that is a low eight figures.

• 14:26Shaan Puri?

  That's amazing.

• 14:28Sam Parr?

  And very profitable?

• 14:30Speaker 02

  Uh, that runs kind of consistent with what we were talking about. That 15 to 20% even of margins.

• 14:34Shaan Puri?

  And, and so, um, so you've got a bunch of these. So, um, I like your Twitter because, um, you talk about a bunch of things that I think most people aren't talking about. My feed is very like. I don't know. My Twitter feed is just like the same crypto people, the same Silicon Valley people. And then there's like five people that are like, just, you know, different. And I think you're friends with all of them. Like that guy Molson, I think is like a total nut. I find him, his feed to be hilarious. You're kind of a nut. You're hilarious. There's this guy Jay Vasavala. I don't know how to say his last name exactly. Long Indian last name. He's super smart and like, you know, people just don't follow you guys in the same, like to the same level as I think you should. Like, I'll make a list of these people. I'll tweet it out because I think you

• 15:16Shaan Puri?

  guys are all way more entertaining on Twitter than than most. But I want to read you a couple of tweets and I want you to just kind of riff on, like, kind of explain it, but riff on what you what you mean there. Like, what was the kind of the golden thing there? So you had one about going to touristy places but doing non-touristy things. You were tweeting out, like, you were in China. You're tweeting out, like, what a paper recycling mill. Like, what is waste paper from the US? Where does it go? Once we like, where does the waste paper go? And you like, found where it goes in China? It was this gnarly factory. And so like, I don't know if you could talk about that, or just this idea of going, going on vacation or going to a

• 15:58Shaan Puri?

  touristy place, but then hitting the non-touristy parts of that country. Talk a little about that.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, that was, I mean, that was a business trip. Like, I was there, training the team and helping them go learn how to buy fireworks. And like, we were just driving down the road. And like, literally, so the process of going to buy fireworks is, there is like a Silicon Valley of fireworks, and it's in China. And it's about a two-hour flight from Hong Kong in the southeast of China. And you go to this place, and like, it's the same thing every day. You go, the Chinese take you to a fancy dinner, and there's always the same restaurant, the same food. And then they take you to a factory, and then they shoot you some fireworks, and hopefully you buy them. And that happens like, for six days in a row. And then-

• 16:37Shaan Puri?

  And you have to drink a bunch of nasty biju, right?

• 16:39Speaker 02

  They they have like Budweiser, Chinese Budweiser, they serve you. And it's pretty fun. Yeah, it's pretty fun. But yeah, after like, the fourth year of doing that, like, I was there with with the team, and I was, we were like, driving along. And I was just so sick of going to yet another fire- Factory because they all look the same. There's just like the same little ladies like doing the same thing. And all the fireworks workers, by the way, are like 70 years old. They can't hire young people to work in fireworks factories. It's just crazy. And I was like, what is that over there? And, uh, and they're like, oh, that's the box factory. And I was like, a box factory? Let's go over there. And so they pull over to the side of the road, the driver goes in. And, uh, the Chinese seller to us like takes us in for a tour of this box factory.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  And for me, it was just like an opportunity to kind of push a little bit and like, really get underneath and understand like how a culture like lives and really functions. And like he told us, like, look, they're, they're having a problem making boxes now because they can't put the wastewater directly in the river anymore. I was like, oh, this is why things are so cheap in China. But yeah, that's it. Like just, you just kind of start wandering and then magic happens. So that was one of those.

• 17:44Sam Parr?

  What type of trip was that where you bring a bunch of Texas firework workers to China? And like, I just imagine like, just like, what the fuck is this soy sauce shit? You know what I mean? Just like imagine that conversation and that was, you must've had a blast hanging out with a bunch of, uh, Texas firework guys and a bunch of Chinese fireworks guys, you guys, that, we really got brought together there on that one.

• 18:09Sam Parr?

  Our love of blown shit up.

• 18:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm somewhat worldly. The guy, the guy that we took on the trip, actually the COO for the business is a former, a former senior military officer who's Romanian and lives here in San Antonio now, used to work for Aldi. And they didn't know what to make of him. Like they were just totally confused why we had a Romanian with us, like going through rural China. So it's pretty good times.

• 18:31Shaan Puri?

  Have you had any of these other like, have you intentionally gone and sort of gone off the beaten path to like, because I feel like what you're, when I look at your, your Twitter feed, you've sort of accumulated a bunch of random disparate business knowledge. And a lot of this comes from like, oh, you see a guy selling something on the street. You're like, hey, so what is this? Where does this come from? How do you do this? Right? That sort of thing. Can you tell any other stories of, you know, sort of like intentionally stumbling into interesting things? Cause I think more people should do that. Um, and I want to kind of like, you know, hear some of those stories.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  Hmm. It's a really good question. I need to think of a good, I need to think of a good answer. I'm glad we're, I'm glad this is being edited.

• 19:12Speaker 02

  When have I done that the most?

• 19:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, we went down. One time we went down, and this is super interesting. You know, our business, Dura, has some employees in Medellin in Colombia, you know, where Pablo Escobar is from. So we went down there to just kind of like start wandering around and like meet our employees and like understand should we outsource more here? And we just started like going around with a guide and just like asking people questions like, what do you think of Americans? What is it like here? And like, you just start to see random stuff. I mean, the reason I started the coffee business, by the way, is like I was riding my bike around Arkansas and I'm like just riding outside the Walmart headquarters. Cause like I'm a business nerd and staring at the Walmart headquarters. And like, there's this like drive-through coffee shop there and it was COVID and I was bored and I, so I just sat there for an hour.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  And these guys were just printing money and I came home and I called my buddy who I'd wanted to work with for years. And I was just like, hey, we should start a coffee business. And he said, why? And I sent him the pictures. I was like, look at all these people. They're just like printing money. So it's just kind of this idea of just like, for me, like, like the way I build ventures and the way I find them is just kind of by like stumbling around like an idiot. And then like you end up in front of the Walmart headquarters and watch some guy selling millions of dollars worth of coffee. So yeah, that's another story.

• 20:29Shaan Puri?

  And does, you went to the Berkshire Hathaway like summit, which I think is kind of like a pilgrimage for like business people slash entrepreneurs. It's like, oh, you gotta go visit the Mecca and like you see the old kind of religious, you know, leader, you know, the 90 year old guru sitting there. And is it worth it? Should I go?

• 20:49Speaker 02

  You definitely gotta go at least once. I mean, it was like, so I'm 47, so like I always regretted I didn't see Jared Garcia before he died. And like, that was the way I felt about seeing Charlie and Warren. And, and you know, it's like one of those things where I was kind of happy to be there because it felt like a once in a lifetime thing. And the people watching is amazing. Like it's like, it's like the combination of like cash, like investing and like a NASCAR race. Like it's perfect. So I just had so much fun doing it. But it's also kind of, you know, I feel like going at this point, like Charlie and Warren are getting up there, like they're 92 and 98. Like the morning, you know, Warren spent a lot of time just kind of trying to find his words. And then he got into a rhythm and it was like he was his old self again. It was pretty awesome.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  But I mean, I think if you're a capitalist, you gotta go once. You just gotta go once because you're just like. It's just such, it's just such an insane experience seeing these people so devoted to the company, dropping $250 on a pair of Roper boots or Justin boots and then walking over and drooling over like how they can buy like a sunbeam boat. Like it's just like, just the coolest thing. So you gotta go at least once.

• 21:55Shaan Puri?

  Sam, have you been?

• 21:56Sam Parr?

  No, I was invited to go. I think you and I were invited with Sia and Suli and I didn't go. Is, I guess, I guess I would go just to see it. Dude, those guys are old, aren't they? Like, isn't Charlie Munger like 93?

• 22:09Speaker 02

  98.

• 22:11Sam Parr?

  Oh, my God. I guess next year it would have to be the, yeah, I guess next year would have to be like the last one, maybe.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  You gotta go just to watch him and see how much peanut brittle he eats in a four hour setting. Like, it was unreal. The guy ate like four pounds of peanut brittle. And when I like live tweeted the thing, like, it was like, I can't believe he's still eating this much peanut brittle. I'm 47. There's no way I could do that. He was just sitting there pounding it the whole time.

• 22:37Sam Parr?

  Dude, that peanut brittle from Sees is fire. I feel that. It is pretty amazing.

• 22:41Shaan Puri?

  These guys have like, they have the most success and they do the opposite of what every like, you know, success coach and like motivational entrepreneur does, you know, tells you to do. It's like, you know, they're like, you know, it's like if you go on Instagram, it's like, oh, I need to, you know, wake up at 5 a.m. I need to, you know, meditate. I need to do my ice plunge. Then I need to do my CrossFit workout. Then I need to like, you know, do my daily gratitude journal. Then I need to do my like hyper focus chamber where I go and I figure out my priorities for the day. Then I need to like speed read and listen to my podcast on 2X speed. And these guys are basically like, you know, they somehow made it to, they became the richest people in the world, lived until they, you know, until they're about 100 years old. And they wake up every day, they eat McDonald's breakfast, eat a bunch of M&M's and Diet Cokes, and then they read and play Bridge

• 23:25Shaan Puri?

  all day and like go for walks. And, you know, that's where they get their, their, their ideas from. And so, you know, I think there's something to what they're doing. I think it's a, you know, I think they're still alive because they're low stress despite what they eat. And I think they're, they're smart thinkers because they don't overload their brain with information like I'm guilty of. And I think a bunch of people are when you, when you're hooked into social media, you're just constantly consuming info.

• 23:50Speaker 03

  This data is wrong every freaking time.

• 23:53Speaker 04

  Have you heard of HubSpot?

• 23:56Speaker 04

  HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated.

• 23:59Speaker 03

  Whoa, I can see the client's whole history. Calls, support tickets, emails, and here's a task from three days ago I totally missed.

• 24:08Speaker 04

  HubSpot, grow better.

• 24:11Sam Parr?

  What of the things in your portfolio, which company besides the bootcamp are you like, "This is just the greatest thing ever. I'm so happy we own this." More people should know how easy, or not easy, but how straightforward this business is. It feels like I'm winning in easy mode.

• 24:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I think the Near business, so it's HireWithNear.com. So it actually, this is the apex of what I want for Girdly existence to be, which is I want, I've gone from starting businesses myself and working in them, then starting businesses and having other people work in them. And this is one that has started basically with me doing no work, but I have substantial amount on the cap table. Like, it's the apex of Girdly automation. Like, I'm always scaling stuff. So the Near business, like, we looked up and like, I'm in a CEO peer group and like, none of my peers could like hire people. Like, it was the past couple of years, it was just such a mess. And then I'd ask them, "Have you considered hiring overseas?" And they're like, "I don't know how to do that. How would I do that?"

• 25:16Speaker 02

  So we, basically I took one of my associates and I said, "Hey, we should go build in this direction. There's this huge wave and here's this problem. Let's go try some stuff and see what happens." And that business I like so much just because everything seems like it's on easy mode, because everybody's offshoring. Like, everybody wants to do this. It was that way when the economy was going well, and now it's even more so when the economy's going poorly. And I've hired personally of my associates, I have three of the six that work overseas. I've never met them in person. It's like the best.

• 25:46Sam Parr?

  And you partnered with someone to make this, according to the About page, right?

• 25:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, so Hayden is started as an associate of mine. So I hire these people, I call them associates, and it's basically an entrepreneur in training program. So I like mentor them through, I pay them a salary, and then I help them like get out of the like 12 bad ideas that every entrepreneur has to get when they're 27 years old. I help them like think through all those and then we work on a good idea together. And then at the end of it, they can either start a company with me, or they can go take a job or whatever. And so Hayden and Franco were two of the guys in that program. And like I'm on the cap table with them, like I put up the money and have been guiding them through it. But they've done all the work.

• 26:26Sam Parr?

  When you're hiring CEOs, how much equity do you give them? And how much, how much do you pay them? And how do you incentivize them to want to stay with you for a long time?

• 26:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, so totally depends upon the situation. You know, obviously, if a business is much more established, or demands somebody who's like much more like, like mature, that that makes a situation where oftentimes you have to come up with more. My best situations are when I can partner with somebody. So all this stuff I'm in, while I have significant stakes in it, I have other people on the cap tables. Like, that's one of my, like, I feel like, superpowers, like, I can just like, maintain partnerships. Like, I have 100% success rate on partnerships with people. So the absolute best way is if I can get somebody like Paul at Dura is to be like a co-founder. And the absolute best way of that is if they're a co-founder and they put money in it like me, and then they make that their job. Like, that's the absolute best skin in the game

• 27:18Speaker 02

  kind of outcome. But you know, you can have anywhere from a 27-year-old who will make 60 to 80K a year, plus benefits, to some of these people who are much more senior, like our coffee, our coffee person, you know, he worked at 25 years at Circle K, and he's running this, he's running that business. He obviously needs to make much more money than that. And then the equity really depends, totally depends on the opportunity, it depends on how much skin in the game they want to have, what level of commitment they have, and how early they're coming in the venture. But it could be anywhere from 40% to 20% to 5%.

• 27:53Shaan Puri?

  And why does, let's say for Dura, why does your partner want to give you, what, let's call it, let's pretend you have 30%, I don't know what you have, maybe it's 50, maybe it's a little less. Let's just say 30%. Why does he want to have, give you 30%? And he's a day-to-day in it, but you're not, right? So how do you think about that, like, value exchange, when you're not going to be the operating person, and then they are?

• 28:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I mean, so you're asking that question from the same lens I have, which is like, being an operator isn't our dream. Most people, their dream is to be an operator. They're excited when we're able to work together and create an opportunity for them to be their best self. Right. And that's what I see kind of as that benefit. And so, and so I think a situation like that, where like, you know, oftentimes I'm part of the very early figuring out what the idea is going to be. I'm putting up a substantial amount of money. I put up more money than, than say the other partner's dead. We did some debt to do the first deal. Like, I personally guaranteed it. And then the last thing is like, like, great teams, they have these complimentary things like-

• 28:57Sam Parr?

  How much money would you use to fund a new business?

• 28:59Speaker 02

  So that one was like a couple million, and then some of these are like 50 to 100.

• 29:03Sam Parr?

  Wow. Okay.

• 29:04Speaker 02

  So that's-

• 29:04Sam Parr?

  You do put up a lot of money?

• 29:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, yeah, it's getting in the game matters. Then that also helps me not to try to do too many things. Like, I could just be like, okay, like, I'm putting real money in this. I better really believe in it.

• 29:17Speaker 02

  But like, like, the last thing with these operators is a lot of the things I feel like I bring to the business, where it's like strategy, insights, like, best practices and connections. Like, those are things that they're happy to have somebody along on the journey with them, who has the same level of commitment and wants to be a board member. Like, I don't want their job. And I'm not, I wouldn't be good at it. So, you know, I think that's, that's the partnership I end up having with these folks.

• 29:40Sam Parr?

  Sean, have you heard of this guy named Kevin Ryan? Only through you. He's like a media, right? Is that, is that the same guy? Yeah. So, Michael, have you heard of this guy? Kevin Ryan? I'm Googling him. All right. So I think there might, there's probably a billion Kevin Ryan. So like, maybe a baseball, that's a baseball player. Oh, he's the alley court guy. Might come up. So, yeah, so listen to this guy. So, early in his career, he worked like in the newspaper business, nothing particularly exciting. And then he worked at this company called DoubleClick, and he was like the 30th employee there, and then took over as CEO, and then DoubleClick was sold for like a billion or many billion, and it eventually became ad sets for Google. So like, pretty big thing. He told me that he had made like,

• 30:23Sam Parr?

  very low digit eight, eight figures. He was like, it was enough money that like I'm set, but like, I still wanted to like create stuff. And so him and this guy named Dwight, who I think he worked with at DoubleClick- They started Ally Corp. And their whole thing was, we're going to fund companies with $200,000 to $300,000. And all of the ideas are going to come from us. All the ideas are only going to be back of the envelope math. And we're going to hire someone to get it off the ground. And we're going to give it $300,000 in six months to prove if this is a good idea or a bad idea. And we're going to do it a bunch of times. A few of their successes that they've done this with are MongoDB,

• 31:02Sam Parr?

  which I don't know what it's at now, but in the range of like a $20 to $50 billion market cap publicly traded software business. The second one is Business Insider, which sold for $600 million, I think, but is like a big company now. The third one is Gilt, Gilt Group, which was a clothing company that was huge. It didn't actually work out, but it was huge for a little while. And I think the fourth one, there's another, oh, the fourth one is Zola. You guys know Zola? It's like where you go for wedding registries. I believe that's a unicorn. And there might actually be two or three more of these companies that Ally Corp has founded. And basically, he was like, yeah, so me and Dwight just sit around and we come up with like a cool idea. Like, I go to a wedding and I just ask people where they bought all the gifts. And like, he's like, I just had this idea.

• 31:46Sam Parr?

  So I knew someone who worked at Gilt Group, who mentioned she liked this type of business. I hollered at her, I go, hey, here's 300K if you can get this going. And you get a small portion, but we get most of it. You want to try it? And that's how it worked. It's a, he's pretty amazing.

• 32:01Shaan Puri?

  Speechless.

• 32:04Speaker 02

  That's impressive.

• 32:06Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I was like, yeah, those guys are really good. There's, this like hold co-model is like in vogue, right? Because it's sort of like, to me, I worked at a startup studio for a while. And I think that was like the thing for a period of time, probably still is a thing where you build one company, you run it for a while, you sell it, great. Now you got cash, you still want to do more entrepreneurial things. And so you self-fund a studio where like, we're going to work on a bunch of ideas. And then you try to find like new winners out of those bunches of ideas. And so like, you know, I worked out of one. That's how I got into tech. You know, Mark Pincus, the guy who created Zynga, then he created one, the guy who created Uber, he created one, Kevin Rose created one, like it's just

• 32:49Shaan Puri?

  a bunch of serial entrepreneurs who create these, and they've actually had a pretty poor track record of success. And then we see the like, the holdco mafia is sort of the same where you get, you know, guys like Andrew Wilkinson, who's got Tiny, and then you have, you know, a bunch of other people who are doing their own holdco versions of that, whether they buy boring businesses, they buy sweaty businesses, they buy software businesses, they buy whatever. And you're kind of in that boat, you're in that boat too. What do you think is the, I guess, like, how do you think about that, you know, in terms of like, who do you think should be the type of person who should do this? And what are some of the misconceptions or like, traps that people fall into when they go down this path? Because I'm sure you've seen a bunch.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I mean, I think there's two, there's two bad things going on with holdcos right now. I think there's a whole group of people that are doing them and they actually think it's not that much work. I talked to them, I'm like, so why are you doing this? They're like, oh, it seems really easy. I'm like, this is really hard. And the reason number two, that it's like, super hard, is because this is exactly the opposite of operations. Like, everything that you do and all the habits and skills that you learn when you are a CEO, running a business, which is where most of these people are coming from, or you're a senior exec in a company, like, everything you do in a holdco is exactly the opposite. Like, like, when there's a problem, you don't rush in and fix it for your company. You actually say, man, that really sucks. What are you going to do about

• 34:13Speaker 02

  that? Two entirely different things in terms of the way you approach it. So, I mean, it'll be interesting to see what happens with all these people who think holdcos are really hot. As I talk to most of them, I don't think as many of them are wired to be holdco people as they really think they are. Like, the Mees, the Xavier Helgsons, like, like, we're odd. Like, we're different people. And there's a reason for that, that we're not operators. And so it'll be, it'll be interesting to see what happens with some of these people.

• 34:40Shaan Puri?

  What's so hard about it?

• 34:41Speaker 02

  You know, I think it goes against people's nature, right? So like, Like, take me for example, like, I love to live in this idea space, right? And I'm, I have like a relatively crappy memory, which is like, why I have to write stuff down like crazy.

• 34:56Speaker 02

  But that's different for other people. Like, a lot of the people that I partner with as operators, they look at like what I do as insanity, because they just couldn't imagine letting go of the vine of these particular things going on. And so, you know, it goes against this human nature where a lot of times, like, for example, those people, like, there's this problem going on in the business, they want to sprint to that problem, right? And they can't imagine even stepping away from it. So it just goes against, in my opinion, who you are as a person, and makes it almost incredibly difficult or impossible for some of these people.

• 35:24Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, you say that, but at the same time, I'm like, oh, everybody I know is like, oh, I like to operate at a high level, you know, the 10,000-foot view, and I'm an ideas guy. I don't know anyone that doesn't think they're an ideas guy. Maybe I just run in the wrong circles, but, you know, I don't know a lot of people who are like, you know what, I like to grind the operating, likes to go grind the day-to-day optimizations versus I like to be the idea guy who helps just get it started, and somebody else goes and does all the hard work, you know? That seems like, seems like there's a ratio of 100 idea guys to every one guy who's just truly loves executing.

• 35:56Speaker 02

  You ever heard of Excel, dog? That's my jam. Oh, no, you, I lived in the Silicon Valley bubble too, like, I was, I fit right in. I was great there. And then I came back here to the hinterlands of San Antonio, and like, I started to see these people, and like, I've got buddies who, for example, are senior executives at the largest private grocery chain in America, HEB. Have you guys heard of this company? Yeah, I love HEB. It's like my favorite grocery store. It's insane. You should see how optimized those guys are when they're running at 3% or 4% EBITDA margins. And like, they think it's great. Tell me everything. About HEB? Yeah. What, what do you want to know?

• 36:36Speaker 02

  Like, what, what, why, what makes it so great? It all comes down to, it all comes down to the philosophy of the family that owns it. So you have Charles Butt, who is the majority owner, and then his, his relatives are the other rest of the owners, and then they have a percentage that's owned by the employees, but it's like 85, 90% owned by, by these guys. And so they'll just do crazy stuff like when they heard when they heard that Trader Joe's was coming to San Antonio. So HEB is located here. There's an anecdote that they just packed up all the senior executives who were in charge of product selection, location, selection, interior, store experience, all this stuff. They put them on a private jet and they flew out to California and said,

• 37:18Speaker 02

  don't come back until you have the best of every single one of their products because we need to up our game. There's another anecdote when Walmart came to San Antonio that HEB went and lowered their profit targets. Because they're just like, we're not losing to Walmart. That's just the way it's going to work. And that all emanated from the ownership, right? You didn't have this like public stock people coming in and saying like, oh, like think quarter by quarter. Now you had these folks that were thinking like, we've been here for 70 years. How are we going to be here for another 70 years? And just go crush it. And that goes all the way down the culture. My buddy works there and he said it took 10 years before people stopped referring to him as the new guy.

• 37:57Speaker 02

  People just stay. Yeah, imagine that in Silicon Valley.

• 38:01Sam Parr?

  Of all the, it sounds like to you that like HEB is almost like a dream business or not a dream business, but it's one that like you look at and you're like, damn, that is cool. That is well run. I admire a few things about that. What else do, what other companies do you admire that most people don't maybe know about or think about when it's like, oh, that's actually really neat for these following reasons.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  Really good question.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  What other businesses are super sexy? I feel like I've talked.

• 38:25Sam Parr?

  Not sexy, but. But it's just like things where it's like, uh, man, this is, these guys got it made. They're, it's hard work, but it seems like it's like a pretty fun. And I think that what they're doing has a lot of soul and they're doing it right.

• 38:40Speaker 02

  Sam, do you have one while he's thinking?

• 38:43Sam Parr?

  Yeah. Uh, I mean, it does seem like it's a lot of Family Guy stuff. I would say, um, do you guys, do you guys know Black Rifle Coffee?

• 38:51Speaker 02

  I've heard of them, but I don't know much about them.

• 38:53Sam Parr?

  I don't drink. So I don't really drink too much of it. I drink the black stuff because the other stuff has a lot of sugar. They're typically drank by like conservatives like they've like do that they've done like they advertise on Fox. They've done like a good job of like like this is made in America. It's all about freedom like that whole thing, which is, well, you know, whatever. That's cool. And but they're like, yeah, let's sponsor rally dirt rally race cars. And I asked them, I was like, why? And they're like, because it's freaking awesome. And like, what's the point of like, having this company if we can't do dope shit? Like, you know, go to a go to a rally car and give out our coffee. And or they'll do it with like, mountain biking races, or they'll do it with the like, they make all this all this cool content where they're just like, doing like, the redneck version of Red Bull

• 39:36Sam Parr?

  stunts, you know, like, and I think that's awesome. I love that stuff. I think that to me, I imagine in their heads, they're like, yeah, they're like, we kind of care about coffee, but we really just care about living a really cool, amazing life and letting people have fun. And it just so happens, we're, we're selling a bunch of coffee allows us to to do that. So that's a good example of a business that I like. And they took it public. And it's worth like, six or $700 million. So it's like, really successful.

• 40:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're located here in San Antonio. Have you seen it's, it's super cool that that business, you would think it's like a coffee chain. And it's actually just a lifestyle brand. It's all like, you go into the stores, and there's like, a little coffee thing on the side. And then it's like, all t shirts and swag. And it's good looking stuff like I'm not like, their demographic, obviously, but like, it's super fun to like, go in there and be like, man, these guys like, I'd wear that.

• 40:25Sam Parr?

  Yeah, no, I like them a lot. Sean, do you have one?

• 40:28Shaan Puri?

  You know, I do have, I do have a couple. I like to, I kind of admire, like, oh, shit, that's simple. I like when it's really simple. And the person has has like, good life perspective. So the guy came on the podcast, Mike Brown, I met him through you, I met him, but I went to the hustle office, and he was, he was just sitting there hanging out with you. And and you were like, this guy's great, you know, you know what's great about this guy? And I think, Sam, you probably know the story a little better than I do. But like, what they did was, they would go around to families in Texas, that that were like, basically living on a gold mine, right? It's like, they were living on some valuable deposit of, you know, minerals, or oil, or whatever. And they would go knock on doors, and they would say, Hey, you know, you.

• 41:14Shaan Puri?

  You're living on this land, I'll like, we'll pay you for the land rights in some way and they would go of those assets. And then they would never go do the oil mining or oil drilling themselves. They would then flip that to the oil company and say, hey, look, we got the title rights, you know, clear and easy that are in the earth and they were making a killing. So they were making, you know, I don't know, almost, almost a hundred million dollars doing this. Is that right, Sam?

• 41:38Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I believe it was multiple eight figures in profit a year. With like a team of like eight people and they're like, yeah, so.

• 41:46Shaan Puri?

  It was super profitable, super small, super simple. It was like, well, basically we go knock on doors. We call people and we explain what we're doing and then we make them an offer that they can't refuse. Like, you know, they're not going to do anything sitting on that land. And so, you know, it to me, I'm like, this is so simple. You compete with pretty much nobody. Um, and then you, and then he was like, I was like, so you, it looks like your brother's working the business. Like, how's that working with family? You know, some people say different things about that. And he was like, no, it's awesome. He's like, I love my brothers. He's like, you know, uh, he's like, my, my philosophy is you, you know, you find the people that you love and you do life with them. And he said that it kind of changed the way I operated. I was like, oh yeah, who are the people I want to do life with?

• 42:27Shaan Puri?

  And like, you know, just kind of pick the five people who are the most awesome and then find excuses to do life with them. That sounded really simple. It's like, oh, I love Sam. I'm going to do a podcast with Sam. And it's like, oh, our buddy Ramon's awesome. Cool. I'm going to go on vacation with Ramon or, you know, like you want. And like, you know, hey, this person's awesome. Why don't you come work on one of my businesses, right? Rather than just go work in your own job. So I really liked, I kind of admired that philosophy. And I admired just the like sheer profits of what they were doing and how simple it was and how it didn't require, you know, genius or like, honestly, I'm sure he felt like he was working hard, but it's not that hard. Like it's not.

• 43:04Sam Parr?

  Well, he used to say, he was like, everyone we hire, we make them get into cycling because we all, we like going bike riding for two hours in the middle of the day. He's like, we all, we all want to go for, we all want to go work out. Yeah.

• 43:14Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. So I kind of admire people who are the anti hard work crowd. Cause I'm more of that, like, you know, can you work smarter, not harder? And then can you even like, not feel like you're working? Can you turn it into play by, you know, having people who are awesome, you know, doing it with you? So I like that example. The other one is, uh, Bill Simmons, who started The Ringer. Like I really don't think media companies are a very good business. And, you know, ironically just started a media company, but like. Bill Sem is just fucking awesome and he kinda changed the game for what he does. Like every sports journalist did things one way. He just did it differently and built his, he built his following, uh, sort of unapologetically. And What did he do differently? So he just, like, he wrote from the perspective of a fan. And that sounds actually, that's actually giving it too much intellectual credit.

• 43:58Shaan Puri?

  Actually, what he did was he was like, alright, what are the rules if you're a journalist? It's like, you need to be objective. He's like, how can I be objective? Dude, I follow sports because I love the Boston Red Sox. I love the Celtics. I'm from Boston. I grew up, my dad used to take me to the games. He's like, I'm gonna write as like, this diehard fan. And when my team wins, I'm gonna be so happy. When my team loses, I'm, the sky is falling. He's like, that of course was super relatable to a reader because that's who your reader is. It's like a diehard sports fan. So he like, didn't pretend to be objective. That was like the first part. Then he would be like, cool, I'm also not just like this flat thing that like, I can only, like, talk about sports. So he's like, oh, you know, I love the Die Hard trilogy. So he'll write a column that's like, you know, if NBA players were characters in Die Hard, here's who would be Bruce Willis in Die Hard 2.

• 44:43Shaan Puri?

  And like, you know, he would do these crossovers that didn't, nobody else really took those risks. It sounded crazy, like, Sam, you know, you and me both watched MTV's The Challenge. He's like a huge Challenge fan and he'll talk about it. He'll do a separate podcast about it, even though the audience is kinda niche. But it's so niche that when it hits, it hits in a very big way. Like it's, it has a high, like, emotional score when he does talk about something you get, you, that you're in on the joke. Like the trade So he's one of your heroes. Or the mailbag. One of your business heroes. And anyways, then he spun off, he was doing podcasting before it was popular, before it was like an obvious thing. And so when he, he recently sold the whole company to Spotify for like 200 something million. But, you know, that, I, I kind of admired that because it was like, he deserves that. He was podcasting before podcasting was a thing.

• 45:27Shaan Puri?

  And so, yeah, he now has the number one sports podcast and he can cash out. And all along the way, there was never really any Plan you could draw up how that podcast was gonna make the guy $200 million someday. It was like, that was an unfathomable thing, but he did it because he, again, it's kind of like your Black Rifle example. It's like, yeah, I'm just gonna do it because I think it's fun and it's cool shit. And like, I, I kind of believe in this magic, this philosophy that if you take a bunch of cool shit, you put it in the, in the hat, you kind of mix up the hat, like, something really good comes of that. And you don't have to be able to draw it out, you know, ahead of time. So I kind of, I tend to love examples like that because I want to live my life more like that, where I just do things without so much of a, of a, of a mind map of exactly how it's all gonna pay off.

• 46:13Sam Parr?

  Dude, I love that. I think, I saw this amazing quote, I'm trying to find it, but it was from Kanye. And he was like saying, I despise people who do things. I can't find the exact quote, but he's like, I despise people who do stuff and they don't want it to be dope. He's like, I want to, if I'm gonna do a clothes, if I were to do a clothing company, I'm making it dope. Even if that means I lose money, I'm making it dope. I'm making it awesome. They kept using the word dope. And he's like, I'm just gonna do stuff because it's amazing. And yeah, it'll probably make money. But for all the people out there who just do stuff just to get the money, but they don't want to make it awesome in the process, I think that's really weak and not cool and not dope.

• 46:47Shaan Puri?

  Have you heard that Dave Chappelle story he tells on like some late night show about Kanye?

• 46:50Sam Parr?

  Yeah, tell it.

• 46:51Shaan Puri?

  My life is dope. Yeah, yeah. I don't remember the exact phrase, but he's like, I was hanging out with Kanye, then Kanye got a call. Who, who was it? Somebody called him. Who was it?

• 46:59Sam Parr?

  So it was, uh, it was, uh, Kanye was backstage with Dave Chappelle and Jay-Z and Kanye was just coming up. And he was playing a, uh, a Jay-Z song and Kanye's verse comes up and Kanye's like the noob in the room and he goes, wait, stop that track, rewind and that and listen to that guy. And he like, made him rewind. And then, um, he's like, they're like, dude, what are you doing, man? You're not like the, you're not the big shot here. And then, uh, he gets a phone call and he goes, oh, hello? Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. But, uh, can I call you back? Uh, yeah, well, I'm backstage watching never seen before clips with Dave Chappelle. Yeah, because my life's dope and I do dope shit and then hangs up. And then that's.

• 47:41Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, exactly. I love that story. That is the best. And also, um, like that philosophy is actually kind of amazing. First of all, to believe in your own life being dope. Like, how many people think that their life is dope? That they are dope and they do dope shit and therefore they have a dope life? Like, most people don't give themselves that credit. And, you know, they're kind of waiting for dope stuff to happen for them to be able to say that. Kanye's the opposite, right? He's crazy in a bunch of ways, but one of the good ways he's crazy is that he just declares my life is dope and I do dope shit. And guess what? You'll kind of live up to that reputation if you believe that about yourself, right? Like, if you say, you know, um, you know, I take chances, you know, I'm bold, I take, I take bold risks. Well, guess what?

• 48:24Shaan Puri?

  You're gonna actually take the next bold risk when the opportunity presents itself. Cause you've kind of hardwired yourself to have that identity. When we were, Sam, you'll like this, at Debo, when, um, we hired this guy, Jason Hitchcock. And Jason was, Jason's the best person you can hire because he will believe in you and the cause 150%. Like, he'll believe in you and the mission. If you're like his boss and your manager or whatever, like more than you believe in yourself. And he'll believe that the company's gonna work even more than the CEO's gonna believe. He's like, I call him a Kool-Aid drinker. Like, he drinks the Kool-Aid and he's not ashamed to do it. And so he, because of that, he's like the amazing person to have at a startup when there's a, actually, a lot of people have a bunch of doubt and uncertainty in their mind.

• 49:06Shaan Puri?

  And so one day I was talking to Jason and we were like, um, the HustleCon was coming around, around the corner. And I was like, I think I had messaged you, I was like, I want to talk at HustleCon. And I think you were kind of like, yeah, like, I'll, I don't know, we got a bunch of speakers already. You kind of blew it off. You're like, you know, we, no. And, uh, and I was like, all right, fair enough. But I asked and I was like, I was like, Jason, next year, we're gonna talk at HustleCon. I was like, in fact, not just next year, we're gonna talk at HustleCon. In fact, everything we do this year, I want you to think about how it's gonna play at your HustleCon talk you're gonna give. When you're gonna give this talk about how we grew from one, zero to a million users, how we took over the game in our industry, like. I want you to not just wake up and be like, okay, today I'm going to send out a bunch of emails.

• 49:46Shaan Puri?

  It's like, I want you to think about how this could be part of your talk, like how I landed the big fish through cold emails, or how I, you know, growth hacked my way to do X. And we used to talk about that literally on a weekly basis, like this is part of the HustleCon talk. And it was just to hype ourselves up to like, do the more dope version of the task we were already gonna do. Cause like, imagine you're gonna talk about this on stage, that means it must have turned out pretty dope, or you must have done a pretty dope attempt in order to have that mindset. And I'll, I still carry that to this day of like, that's a pretty cool way to work.

• 50:19Sam Parr?

  Here's the, uh, here's, here's the quote, by the way. So this is from Kanye, he said, "For me, dopeness is what I like most. People who wanna make things as dope as possible, and by default, make money from it. The thing that I like least are people who wanna make money from things, whether they're dope or not, especially make money from making things the least dope as possible." And I, I read that quote and I was like, yeah.

• 50:43Shaan Puri?

  We need to make that the intro of the podcast. Ben, find a clip of Kanye saying that out loud and let's make that the, the opening clip of the podcast. The other thing we did, by the way, that's in this bucket that I highly recommend people do, is it's tempting to say, we should do cool shit, yeah, blah, blah, blah. And then like, fast forward a month, everyone's feeling tight about the budget, or the deadlines, or the, the, the goal numbers are not being hit, or whatever. It's very, what's the first thing you cut is the stuff that doesn't easily map to this quarter's result? And, and so we separate, we created a separate do cool shit budget. It was 15% of our total budget we put into a do cool shit bucket, which the outcome of it had to be.

• 51:23Sam Parr?

  Where?

• 51:24Shaan Puri?

  At, uh. Lose that Bebo, and then I tried to do this also at Twitch.

• 51:27Sam Parr?

  Where?

• 51:27Shaan Puri?

  Um, which was like, hey, whatever the number is that we have to spend, 15% is gonna be on cool shit that we cannot like, we, it doesn't have a measurable immediate payoff. So that's like the criteria, you can't, it can't be used in this budget.

• 51:41Sam Parr?

  Like, like making a flamethrower.

• 51:42Shaan Puri?

  Like making a flamethrower, or like, you know, I don't know if you saw this, we did the Milk Road rebrand or whatever, and I paid this guy to make this little video, that's like this mock Apple commercial. And like, it doesn't do anything, it's, it's not gonna drive subscribers, it's not gonna like make revenue. Uh, it's, I mean, in many ways, it is arguably a waste of time and money to just like pay the guy to do that, and to even think about the concept and all that. But I've always had this with my companies, which is like, I need 15%. I was like, at the very least, this is just to keep myself amused and engaged and like a fan of my own business. And I, cause I know if I'm like the more, if I'm just more engaged in my own business, I'm gonna do, that part will pay off. And on the other side, it's like, I think your consumers, the customers of your business also pay attention to that.

• 52:28Shaan Puri?

  If they see you doing dope shit just for the sake of doing dope shit, they kind of see you as the cool kid in school in a way, right? Like, if you're always just begging for, for customers or users or doing a discounted sale or like saying, please, please, please follow me. Please, please, please subscribe. Like, you're kind of our low status in a way. And I think at The Hustle, you guys did a good job of this too. Did you do, do you have any examples of this?

• 52:49Sam Parr?

  Yeah, like, we did stuff early on that we kind of, like, people got mad at. And I was like, they're like, you're gonna lose money, lose customers. I'm like, yeah, but it's hilarious. Like, one time, uh, we wrote an entire, we wrote an entire email in Trump's voice. And so we're like, imagine like if you read it and you were saying it out loud, like that, it would sound like you were Donald Trump.

• 53:08Shaan Puri?

  Everybody loved it. Everybody's saying it's the best. People are saying that. They're saying it's the best.

• 53:12Sam Parr?

  Yeah, like, that's how, that's how, that's like how it was written. Uh, and then another time, um, this was like pretty vulgar, but it was pretty funny. We wrote, the, the subject was, here's the only tip that you need to know for how to be productive today at work. And you open it up and it was just that picture of Johnny Cash where he flicks off the camera and it just says, close this browser and get back to work. And now, and like, that was, that was, that was it. That was the email. And we sent that to 120,000 people. We didn't even like, we didn't even, we didn't even send an email. And then maybe one final thing, this woman, Lindsay, worked for me and she sent the Tuesdays email on Wednesday, which is like a mistake. And she's like, shit, she's freaking out. And I was like, here, do this.

• 53:54Sam Parr?

  Um, I wrote in Slack, I was like, hey, uh, you know, I heard you sent the wrong email. And she replied in Slack, yeah, my bad, it was really messed up. I go, but we gotta talk. But until then, just like, fix it. And she replied with like, well, what should I do? I was like, I don't know, man. Just put the new email in and send it again. Just take a screenshot of this and like, put them. Uh, no, understand, I'm sure. And he goes, and she replied with something like funny. And that was just the screenshot that just went at the top of the email. There was no explainer.

• 54:20Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 54:21Sam Parr?

  And so we would do like little things like that all the time. What about you, Michael? Are there any companies that you look at that kind of fall in this category?

• 54:30Speaker 02

  It's super fun. Well, I did. I did find one to talk about the, have you guys done pop sockets before? You talked to that?

• 54:38Shaan Puri?

  We haven't talked about it, no.

• 54:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a crazy story. So it's the, it's the little, like you take the, the back of the case of your phone and you put the little ring on it. Well, that's patented and they're called pop sockets and they're very litigious. So the business started in 2014 and they sold 30,000 of these things. So they're, you know, 10 or 12 bucks, whatever. But then they got really popular and people, the Chinese started trying to knock them off and sell them on Amazon and all this stuff. And so it was a UC Boulder professor and by 2017, they sold 35 million of them. In 2018, they sold 60 million of these things. So all because they have a patent on this little way that, you know, teenage young girls in Orange County want to grip their phone like they're just printing money.

• 55:21Speaker 02

  So supposedly in 2018, they had 200 million in revenue and 90 million in profit, all because of a patent. It's one of the great, one of the, one of the greatest.

• 55:33Speaker 02

  Yes. I know this is true because I got it off of Wikipedia when I researched this a few months ago. Yeah, that's, that's amazing. Got to be several hundred million at least. I mean, they got to keep growing. Every lady I know has one of those things. You put your nails in there, it's great.

• 55:49Shaan Puri?

  Sam, you want to know a little realization I had today? When Michael was coming on, I was like, all right, what do I know about Michael? I was like, he does that like Chili's little shtick where he's always like, you know, you know, the only thing, I don't even, I don't know how I would explain it, but basically he was just like, find an excuse to name drop Chili's and say how great Chili's is and like, why it's the best place for a meeting. And like, you're just like, you know, oh my God, you know, so happy for, you know, Mother's Day, I love my mother, but not as much as I love Chili's, right? Like you just like come up with some way to like integrate Chili's in. And Sam, I don't know if you've seen this, but I, I actually, me and Ben talked about this once. We go, when we were like trying to build up my brand, it was like, all right, I got this podcast, it's brand new. I got a Twitter. It was like, you know, a few thousand followers at the time. And it was like, what should we do to like, build a brand? So I, we did this one, like, you know, two hour exercise. We just looked at people who had good brands and we're like,

• 56:33Shaan Puri?

  What are, what are people, what's some common things that they do? And one of the things we found was that a lot of people had, early on in the tech industry, like, uh, or like, sorry, like, early on, not early on in the tech industry, that's like in the seventies or some shit, but like, early on, when I got into tech, I was following some people on Twitter and, um, and I saw this guy, Ryan Hoover, and he seemed interesting. He was blogging, he started this thing called Product Hunt, but Ryan would always, it was always Phil's Coffee and La Croix. Like, he would always talk about Phil's Coffee and La Croix. And in fact, like, La Croix kind of became like a startup meme. I really give Ryan a lot of credit for it because he was always effing talking about La Croix. And then when Product Hunt got popular, it just like accelerated the, like, the La Croix meme in the community as like, you know what's like low-key great? La Croix.

• 57:18Shaan Puri?

  And like, um, and so he had La Croix and then, I don't know, so Pomp, Pomp does this thing with Domino's all the time where he's like, he'll do like a Domino's pizza. He always says that like Domino's is the best, I think. And, um, and he's just like, and it's kind of this thing where you get this serious business persona in one way, but then you show this like human side and it's like, oh, I'm just like, I love this thing. Uh, you know, I don't know if yours would be like Topo Chico or something like that. Like you, you used to like kind of pip those out. Michael's got Chili's.

• 57:45Sam Parr?

  We gotta make ours Cheesecake Factory.

• 57:47Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, like, I was like Chick-fil-A, Cheesecake Factory. We need something that's like our shtick. Uh, that's like, it can't just be false. Like you gotta genuinely have that love for it. The only part that's the shtick is that you talk about it and you don't really talk about, it's like you're serious, serious, serious Topo Chico. Cause it's like, you know, this makes the cut, it's that important to me. It's that good. It is, I'm that big of a fan.

• 58:12Sam Parr?

  You're like, Michael, uh, we had a great time, you know? But let me know when you're, when you're in Austin, we'll go out sometime for some Cheesecake Factory and, uh, maybe get the chicken piccata. We'll have a great time.

• 58:20Shaan Puri?

  Yes.

• 58:21Speaker 02

  That sounds good. Is that on menu, like page 14 of the menu or 57?

• 58:25Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, it's on the Skinnylicious menu.

• 58:28Speaker 02

  So I think, I think when you pick this thing, the thing I would recommend, it's gotta be something that's, well, okay, so here's a story for you. So I'm 25 years old and I'm finally figuring out how to talk to women in my life. Like, it's just like, I had not figured it out at this point. And so my buddy and I decided to start going to parties and we would dress up in suits. And this is like when everybody's like dressed in like grunge, like in San Francisco. Like, so it didn't work. So we'd show up dressed in these fancy suits. And it was just odd enough that the women would be like, "Why are you guys doing this?" Like, it's just, it's just slightly odd, right? And so I think you need to figure-

• 59:03Shaan Puri?

  Peacocking.

• 59:05Speaker 02

  What's it called? Peacocking? Yeah, okay.

• 59:10Speaker 02

  I could have been one of those like, with the pickup artist guys. Who needs to do this Holdco stuff? I could be a pickup artist. I have, I could not do that. Anyway, I don't, I don't like hair gel enough. But anyway, the, I think you gotta figure out something that's just a little bit odd. You're like, "Why does this like technology entrepreneur in San Antonio like Chili's so much?" So if the Cheesecake Factory is that, I think you're good. But whatever it is, it's gotta be just a little like, that they're like, "Why are they, why, why are they wearing suits to this party?" Like, what's going on?

• 59:40Shaan Puri?

  It can't be cool.

• 59:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:42Shaan Puri?

  That's the first thing. It can't be cool. Cause if you're just trying to say some fad that like everybody thinks is cool, then now you're just hopping on a bandwagon. You have to say something that's actually not so cool. Like, for me, like, the genuine one would be Cinnabon. Like, I fucking love Cinnabon. Nobody even thinks about Cinnabon. So that's, the corner for Cinnabon is open. I could take that corner. You know, that's a, that's a piece on, it's a piece of land on the, on the board that, that nobody's touching right now. I could just pick that up for cheap. And, but the people who, but people do know it. It's kinda nostalgic. And it gives people something to like, something that they can gift you, someplace they can offer to take you, someplace that every time they go there or see one, they will think of you. Like, every time I drive by Chili's, goddamn it, I think of Michael Girdly, right? And it's like, same thing with La Croix and Ryan Hoover.

• 1:00:24Shaan Puri?

  It's like, they own that mental real estate in my mind. And so, Sam, we could do that with Cheesecake Factory. We could just, every time someone sees it, they see us.

• 1:00:35Speaker 02

  You definitely should do that. That's a great idea.

• 1:00:37Shaan Puri?

  All right. Thanks for coming on, man.

• 1:00:39Sam Parr?

  Wait, wait, he's got problems with his own stuff. What's his handle?

• 1:00:41Speaker 02

  @Girdly on Twitter.

• 1:00:44Sam Parr?

  Sick. Well, thank you. Thank you for coming on. That was awesome.