The Easiest Way To Make $10,000/Month, PassionFlix, & More

Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) and Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) talk about easy ways to make 10K a month, fatFIRE, Elon Musk's sister's business, and Shaan's high quality retail clothing idea. ----- Links: * My First Million Marriage * fatFire post about Attorney * PassionFlix * Ghost * Italic * Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. * Want more insights like MFM? Check out Shaan's newsletter. ----- Show Notes: (01:35) - MFM leveling up (03:25) - Courses that improve your webcam setup (06:20) - The My First Million marriage (10:35) - 38 Year Old Lawyer worth 16 million (19:45) - Best ways to make $10k a month (24:25) - Passionflix (27:55) - The legend that is Ramon Van Meer (39:35) - Ghost (46:20) - Shaan's retail clothing idea ----- 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?

  So I got asked this question. This guy was like, hey, he DM me, he goes, Sean, big fan.

• 0:07Shaan Puri?

  What the whatever the next sentence you typed to me, I'm gonna do it or I'll die trying. And then he's like, he's like, I'm gonna get to $10,000 a month of passive, passive income profits after, you know, and, you know, I'm thinking either A, I start a newsletter, B, I do this other thing. And this is like, all like, kind of like stuff we do, either stuff we do, or like topics we talk about, e-commerce, newsletter, or this other thing. Which one do you think is going to get me there the fastest or the best? Like, which one's the best path? And I was like, I don't know, dude, those all seem pretty hard to get to 10K a month. Like, you know, if I heard, if I wanted, if your goal is really 10K a month,

• 0:46Shaan Puri?

  you know, I don't know, a job will probably get you there. But if let's take that off the table for a second. Let's assume you don't want a job, or you don't have maybe the degree to get a six-figure job. I was like, I would just do a productized service.

• 1:03Sam Parr?

  Dude, Sean, so here's the deal. We are officially more, we're, we're popular enough that you have to get your podcast set up right. So what I'm gonna do is, I talked to Ben, we're having someone come to your house and my house, and they're gonna put a two-camera setup. So they're gonna like, cut back and forth. But you've gotta make that room, and they'll, they'll help you, but you're gonna have to make that room look good. And it's got, it's gonna be ready every time.

• 1:29Shaan Puri?

  Dude, that's great. Also, related to that, I found a new house that I might move into that's way nicer. And I was like, my main motivation was to make this podcast look better. I was like, you know, I kind of look like a scrub on this podcast. Like, you know, like right now, I don't have my haircut, I'm a beer trim, don't have my, my room nice. I was like, if 100,000 plus people consume this every time, like,

• 1:55Shaan Puri?

  I would never go out in front of a stadium like this.

• 1:58Sam Parr?

  Right.

• 1:59Shaan Puri?

  I wouldn't even let three friends come to my house and look at my office like this. Why do I let a hundred thousand people see the office, see, see the recordings do like this? Simply for convenience, but uh, there's that also I found on, uh, have you ever used peer space? It's like a Airbnb for rentals that are not houses, like not necessarily houses to stay in. It's like just for a venue and there's a, a place near me for 75 bucks an hour for recording podcasts. That's like a two camera setup with a sick couch and stuff like that. It'd be great for in-person stuff, but if we're not in person, uh, you know, it's just me sitting on a giant couch.

• 2:31Sam Parr?

  I'm gonna do it. I'll come out there and we'll finally do it. Ben wanted me to come out there, but I didn't want to fly, but whatever. I'll do it. I was talking to HubSpot or someone and I was saying like, hey, yeah, give us budget to make our studio nice. Cause we're like the lowest maintenance people you have. I was like, for example, two weeks ago, Sean recorded a podcast, but literally just one AirPod because he didn't have a mic and the other AirPod ran out of batteries. So he just used his AirPod and his laptop. So like, I think we're due, we, we're owed one.

• 2:55Shaan Puri?

  That's hilarious. Um, also, uh, what I was gonna say, oh, there's this guy. I wish I could give my shout out. I don't know what his name is, but I kinda wanna steal his idea. So this guy has this course, it's an on-demand course that is only about how to make your video camera go from like a before to an after. And I was like, oh, this is the smartest course I've ever seen.

• 3:14Sam Parr?

  Ben knows his name.

• 3:15Shaan Puri?

  I don't think, Ben, you know his name?

• 3:18Ben?

  Yeah. His name is Kevin Shen.

• 3:21Shaan Puri?

  Kevin Shen. Yeah. Actually I shouldn't shout, bleep that out. I'm gonna make it my own competitor course. So bleep this guy out. I'm not gonna copy him. No, but I, I really think it's a great course.

• 3:28Sam Parr?

  Setup sucks dude. It's like, it's like a fat person giving a course on how to lose weight.

• 3:33Shaan Puri?

  I'm the before story. Just wait till you see my after.

• 3:36Sam Parr?

  You're the way before story.

• 3:40Shaan Puri?

  We all know there's the way before, there's the before, and then there's the after. I'm currently in a before. The way before was the one AirPod recording on no microphone with no light. Uh, yeah.

• 3:54Shaan Puri?

  And we're, I'm gonna do the after and then I'm just gonna turn that into a, it's a one hour thing and it just says, here's the thing to buy. And then, cause here's the problem. I've watched a bunch of these YouTube tutorials. And they're like, oh yeah, go get the Sony A5 or you can get the A6 or you can get the D340. And it's like, all right, well, we'll do which one? And then you buy it and they're like, yeah, just connect it to your computer and then, okay, see now it looks good. And I was like, yeah, but you like, there was like seven things in between there that like everything went wrong. And they're like, okay, you know, you want to, there's one guy who's like, you know, there's, there's some people show you how to put your lights up or whatever, but dude, this is the new, like your webcam is the new face, like

• 4:34Sam Parr?

  The new business suit.

• 4:34Shaan Puri?

  Basically, yeah, it's your suit. It's like what people see. Like this one time this guy told me, he goes, he goes, yeah, dude, I, he's like, I spent, he's like, I gotta go get my haircut. And I was like, how much you spend on your haircut? Cause I was like, he has nice hair. And I was like, it kind of made it sound like a big deal. Like I can't do anything today. I gotta go get my haircut. And I was like, I just kind of like, you know, it's like in the middle of another task, I'm getting my haircut. Like that's kind of how I

• 4:59Sam Parr?

  Yeah. Like if the great clip just so happens to be in the mall that you're at.

• 5:03Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, exactly. Like which supercuts do you go to? And he was like, he was like, you know, I go to this one place. She's been cutting my hair for years. I go, I have a standing appointment and I was like, damn dude, you're like, really into your hair. He goes, your hair is like half of your face. I was like, oh shit. That's so true.

• 5:22Sam Parr?

  Yeah, but you're not into the other half either. So it's all good.

• 5:28Sam Parr?

  Right? Like,

• 5:31Shaan Puri?

  I was like, damn, he's right. I'm just leaving 50% up to supercuts.

• 5:38Shaan Puri?

  That ain't right.

• 5:41Shaan Puri?

  Good hair is like an extra two inches of height as far as like, you know, that goes. So anyways,

• 5:46Sam Parr?

  Dude, speaking of being, speaking of being really good looking, did you see the tweet that happened today? So this woman, uh, this like good looking woman and her good looking husband DM.

• 5:57Shaan Puri?

  Hey, she's married, dude.

• 5:59Sam Parr?

  They're both handsome. They're a beautiful couple. And they, she sent me this message, basically, and I shared the screenshots on Twitter. But basically, a year ago, you tweeted something. I sent you the tweet. I actually forget. Do you remember what it was?

• 6:16Shaan Puri?

  No, I didn't see the tweet. What was the original tweet? Should be, is it interesting? Does it matter?

• 6:20Sam Parr?

  She said it was like really cringe that she even replied to it in the first place. But here, I'll pull it up. So basically, you said, "I have zero interest in buying a fancy car. You know what I want? A personal in-house chef. I can't think of a better way to spend money than a chef. How do I start one? How do I start getting one next week?" And she replied like, "Hey, hire me. I'm a chef, but I've got about 32 other skills." Whatever. And this guy DM'd her. And she said that they were just talking about, like, I guess, the chef business or something like that. Yeah, I mean, it was clear what was going on in the get-go. But he, like, she said, she sent me the first message and it just, they were just like talking, shooting the shit.

• 6:57Shaan Puri?

  He's like, "Hey, whatever the thing you're talking about, I'm super interested. Tell me more about whatever that was."

• 7:03Sam Parr?

  Well, and he's from Indiana, and she's from Ireland. And so she's in Europe, he's in America, and they start talking back before the DMs. Then they get on a call, and she said they hit it off. And after two weeks of just constant calls, he booked a flight to Europe. And for two weeks, they like had this great time. And then now, a year later, so they're, she moved to America. It's been a year about since that tweet. They're getting married in a couple of months. And it was all because she said that she listened to MFM and read The Hustle. She started listening to this. She started commenting on your stuff and my stuff. He noticed that. And then they like, I think his in was like talking about like the pod and like, "Oh, you like them too?" And it totally worked. She sent me a picture of them. They're, they're both, I mean, they're both tens. It's a good-looking couple.

• 7:45Sam Parr?

  So our new tagline is "MFM, getting you paid and laid."

• 7:51Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, there you go. Yeah, and I am sure all of our listeners are as good looking as them.

• 7:56Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I don't think so, but they uh they did a good job, but I was I was showing this to my mom and I'm like, see not it's not just neck beards that listen to this like it's actually like, you know, like a real people who like shower and stuff, but it looks good. I'm happy for these people. So shout out to them.

• 8:11Shaan Puri?

  Maybe we should do a date night every nine months and we should just bring together listeners and it's just be dating and let's just see what happens.

• 8:19Sam Parr?

  It's gonna be like, like, right, like, like, you know, Greg and Steve, everyone's gonna be named like Chris and Tucker. Like, it's gonna be all guys like, so, so only coming for looking for a man.

• 8:30Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, you exactly.

• 8:34Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 8:37Shaan Puri?

  See, we got the tagline too. So that's perfect. That is a pretty cool moment, though. I'm glad that that happened. That's kind of crazy that that happened. And, uh, but Ben, producer Ben, young producer Ben, we need your story. Did you do anything bold when you met your wife? Did you do like this guy? A pretty bold move, right? Slide into the DMs, figure out some excuse to call each other every day, then book a flight, go over there and fall in love, get married. That's kind of amazing. Did you either of you guys do any bold moves?

• 9:06Ben?

  Uh, we were set up on a blind date and it was my boss at the time, CEO, actually, my boss's boss's boss, CEO of the company I was working for. Um, I ran into him one night and he was like, oh, do you know Katie Jowers? You have to take her out. And so he sent a text to both of us. It was like, it sounded like a work email. He was like, Katie, I have CC Ben here. He's a great employee and will take you on a nice date. And I was like, all right, well, I guess I'm locked in.

• 9:31Shaan Puri?

  Why did he know that you should take her on a date?

• 9:33Sam Parr?

  Oh, you guys, was she Mormon too?

• 9:37Ben?

  Yeah, yeah, this was Utah. So we're all Mormon. Everyone in the story is Mormon.

• 9:40Sam Parr?

  And how tall is she?

• 9:43Ben?

  She's 5'11".

• 9:43Sam Parr?

  Well, there, that's why. He's like, you guys are both big, tall, white Mormons. You should, uh, procreate.

• 9:49Ben?

  Again, you're describing everyone in the state of Utah, though. Like, the whole population is tall, white Mormons.

• 9:55Shaan Puri?

  You said it like it was a movie twist. You're like, but here's the thing, I'm Mormon. She was Mormon.

• 10:02Shaan Puri?

  The end of The Sixth Sense. It's like, he was a ghost and I'm a ghost. It's all movies about ghosts.

• 10:10Sam Parr?

  That's awesome. So, no, no, no, no great DM, sorry. Dude, alright, I have some, I have something interesting that I saw, Sean. I posted a link to the subreddit, to this Reddit post that I saw right before I logged into this, to the podcast, and I linked it to you. So, basically, there's this subreddit called Fat Fire that I like. I've sent it to you, and every once in a while, you get these amazing stories about people, because they reveal like their income and things like that. And I've been following this lawyer. He's a 38-year-old- Explain what Fat Fire is. Yeah, so Fat Fire- People don't know what Fat Fire is. So, Fire stands for Financially Independent Retired Early. Traditionally, it's like a movement of people who want to save like 500,000 to a million dollars and live off of like 30,000 or 40,000 dollars a year.

• 10:55Sam Parr?

  That's not exactly what it means, but that's like traditionally like with the stereotype. Fat Fire means you want to retire in early and be financially independent, but you want to be doing it fat. So, you want to like, you know, save like 20 million dollars or something like that. So, you want to start a company, sell it, and retire. And so, it's people who want to retire while they're young and do it by still living lavishly. And it sounds douchey, but it's actually quite interesting. It's all like entrepreneurs, bankers, tech people who like work at a, it's just like rich people's shit, and which is always fun to like be voyeuristic. And so, there's this guy, he's a 38-year-old personal injury lawyer, and for the past four years, he's given an update every couple of years, and he explains everything that's going on in his business. And so, his background is basically that he was a normal, he went to a good school

• 11:39Sam Parr?

  and then worked at one of the big law firms, which is like something that you like grind for 80 hours a week and hopefully climb your way up. And eventually, you make a million dollars a year after 10 or 15 years. But it's kind of boring, and you're like, kind of like your boss's bitch for a long time, and it just kind of sucks. And so, he goes, you know what, screw this. A friend of his got hurt, and he goes, hey, I'll represent you. Just pay me whatever's fair. And then, he did, and he won. And then, a few other people started coming to him, just word of mouth. And so, he was doing this in the evenings while he was still working his main job. And after a year, he quit to do his own thing. That's when his income from his moonlighting became bigger than his normal thing. So, fast forward now, I believe it's been about eight years since he's been doing this. So, 2014 to 2022. And he's listed out his income as well as net worth, breaking it down by assets for

• 12:23Sam Parr?

  every single year. So in year one, it was $300,000, two, 600,000, 800,000, 1.2 million, 3 million, 5.6 million, 6 million, 6 million. And this year so far, 3.3 and it's going to be 8 million this year. And that's personal income. Basically, he has these posts where he breaks down exactly how his businesses work, what his current plan is, what his growth challenges are, what his marketing is. And basically, he's got like five attorneys that work for him and he's slowly built up to that. He gets a little bit of cut of all that they have. They have 300 cases that they do a year. He talks about growth challenges, which is that they're struggling with the CRM. They don't have a CRM. Everything's done manually and it's a lot of work. And one of his goals is to automate a lot of stuff,

• 13:06Sam Parr?

  but it's incredibly fascinating for two reasons. One, this is a sick business, right? Like, it's like just a 37-year-old smart person, but he doesn't seem like that particularly extraordinary, but he's like killing it now. He says that his net worth is currently $5.8 million and his kids have a trust fund of 1.7 million. And then secondly, why this is cool, for a couple of reasons. One, Alex Hermosy had this business, Alex Hermosy was a guest here, he had this business called GymLaunch, where he basically worked with gyms, where you paid him 20 or 30,000 and he set up your whole CRM and he set up all the automated emails for onboarding and just kind of set up the automation flow. Someone should do that for these personal injury attorneys. This is awesome. They have way more money than gyms and probably just as many of them. I have no idea, but probably.

• 13:51Sam Parr?

  I don't know. What do you think about this post? It's pretty cool, right?

• 13:57Sam Parr?

  I can't find this client info.

• 13:59Speaker 03

  Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application. Every team can stay aligned. No out-of-sink spreadsheets or dueling databases. HubSpot, grow better.

• 14:13Shaan Puri?

  This is great. I don't go on Fat Fire as much as you do. I do it from time to time, but I don't like, I don't know, I need to like add it to my feed or whatever. But yeah, this is great. 38 years old, $15 million, $15 million net worth, not five, 15.8. And then the $6 million in annual income is actually the more stunning part. Like, I'm not surprised that a lawyer at 40 can have $15 million in net worth. It's the $6 million in annual income that's sort of like stunning, which makes me want to understand this personal injury lawyer business better. Like he says, like, you know, I do no marketing. I basically just hand out business cards, plus I get referrals from my existing clients. But that is a ton, that is a ton of like take home from your, like your legal practice. I don't think that's common. So I wonder what he's doing that's uncommon.

• 14:58Shaan Puri?

  Like, he talks about, look, these cases basically like, you know, it's not about more cases, like 300 cases could end up being worth more than 3,000 cases because you, you know, you get paid based on the outcome, you know, the, the profits of the, of the cases. But man, isn't that kind of weird?

• 15:13Sam Parr?

  Like, isn't it surprising? No, I don't think that's, so this guy's in Southern California, so maybe he's in San Diego. So it's a pretty big city. But I think if you look at the top 20 cities in America, if you look at the billboards, it's always personal injury lawyers. And there's this one guy in, in Austin, and Austin's like a top 15 city maybe. And he says that his earnings are, I forget exactly what it says his earnings are, but I looked him up on Instagram and he's got a collection of like 15 Ferraris. He was in the newspaper because he had a birthday party for his daughter or for himself. And he had like Rod Stewart or someone crazy and he spent like $3 million on that. And they talked about his home and he was donating checks for $2 or $3 million. And that was in Austin. His name was Thomas, I think, something Thomas. And I think, I know a personal injury attorney in St. Louis,

• 15:58Sam Parr?

  and he's got a mansion in Miami. He's got a place in St. Louis where we're from. I mean, I think some of these guys could, could really roll in it and be netting 10 or 20 a year.

• 16:09Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, this is it's wild. And I like that idea of the the gym launch for X.

• 16:15Shaan Puri?

  I think you're right with lawyers. Like, I see this right now. My my father in law has senior living facilities. And he's always like, you know, I'm like, how's biz? And he's like, oh, it's good or it's bad. But his thing is always just like, you know, we have a 64 bed facility and every bed in the facility. So like, let's say, so this is like a senior living care center. So basically, what he does, his model is like, he'll buy one. So say it has 32 beds, but it's permitted for up to up to 80. And just the current owner like, doesn't really have the motivation or the construction experience. And so he'll, he just looks for that first. He's like, all right, you have a good business and I can expand, I can just double the number of beds, which will double the net income of this roughly, which will double the value of this property. So if I'm buying it for

• 16:57Shaan Puri?

  four, this will be worth eight to 10 by the time I'm done with it. And I got to put in 2 million in construction, just round numbers, just for for argument's sake. Then he has a management company that will actually like, run the thing. Because I was like, dude, do you know how to run a senior living facility? Like, isn't that hard and weird? And he's like, well, like, I don't go there. Like, I I heard this, I found one really good property management company, and they run all my properties. And I was like, wow, okay. He's like, yeah, she's been doing this for 30 years. That's what she does. And like, she, you know, she gets a cut.

• 17:27Shaan Puri?

  And then the other thing he was saying, he was like, you know, it's all about occupancy, right? Just like any hospitality type of business, you know, every bed, they pay us on average, let's say, $6,000 to $8,000 per month.

• 17:38Shaan Puri?

  So you know, if we just get like, four more bookings, you know, these are that adds an extra, whatever, you know, $30,000 a month or whatever, to our to our revenue, which is which is great. And so what he'll do is I'm like, so every time I ask him, how's business going? He's just like, oh, it's good. We lost two clients. You know, we're gonna, we're gonna place another one today. And I'm like, I'm like, how do you get clients? And he's basically like, oh, you know, we kind of like she networks with the hospitals. They know her. So they send her some people like, do you advertise at all? He's like, no, how do I do that? And I was like, oh shit. I was like, like if somebody Google searches like, you know, senior living near me and like your, your city name.

• 18:19Shaan Puri?

  Like, do you come up? And he's like, no. And there's like these aggregators, like these search engines that they like, they SEO rank to the top. But I was like, I feel like if you just did like,

• 18:31Sam Parr?

  Dude, I knew a guy who owned one of those search engines and he was making a couple of million bucks a year. And basically he would come up on top on Google and then sell the lead for $200 to your, your guy. And he would buy that lead and then hopefully close them to make 8,000 a month.

• 18:45Shaan Puri?

  Exactly. And so I was like, you should either be buying these leads. You should set up some referral system. You should take, you know, local newspaper ads, local magazines, like, you know, I don't know, gotta do something on the marketing side. And he's just like, I don't know that, like, basically he looks at marketing the way I would look at what he says, which is, well, like, just do a renovation and like, take it from 32 beds to 64 beds. And then get the permits for the memory care from the city and then do this and that. It's like, what? Like, I gotta read this manual and figure out like what color the elevator buttons need to be like, I'm out. I just can't do this. I'm, I fail. And like, that's what dude set up a Google AdWords account like feels like to him. And so I think there's that arbitrage, which is basically how many people are there that are

• 19:26Shaan Puri?

  injury lawyers, senior living centers, pool construction companies that just simply don't know digital marketing and like, can you build a leader, a lead gen business or go like consult and help them and like, take a share of the increase in revenue like Jim Launch? It just seems like that is one of like, that is one of the easiest ways to do it. So I got asked this question. This guy was like, hey, he DM me, he goes, Sean, big fan. What the whatever the next sentence you typed to me, I'm gonna do it or I'll die trying. And I was like, and then he's like, he's like, I'm gonna get to $10,000 a month of passive, passive income profits after, you know, and, you know, I'm thinking either A, I start a newsletter,

• 20:09Shaan Puri?

  B, I do this other thing. And this is like, all like, kind of like stuff we do, either stuff we do, or like topics we talk about e-commerce newsletter, or this other thing. Which one do you think is going to get me there the fastest or the best, like, which one's the best path? And I was like, I don't know, dude, this all seemed pretty hard to get to 10K a month. Like, you know, if I heard, if I wanted, if your goal is really 10K a month,

• 20:31Shaan Puri?

  you know, I don't know, a job will probably get you there. But if let's take that off the table for a second. Let's see if you don't want a job, or you don't have maybe the degree to get a six-figure job. I was like, I would just do a productized service. He's like, what does that mean? I was like, okay, even just skip productized, just a service. I was like, you know, basically find one niche of a business and figure out how, what you can do that helps them make more money. So I was like, maybe it's just email marketing services for e-commerce companies. Maybe it's lead gen for pool construction companies. Maybe it's, you know, this, it's like, you know, the gym launch playbook where it's like, yeah, I'll just do sales calls for you and like, I'll help you close X, you know, new customers every month.

• 21:12Shaan Puri?

  Or, you know, I'll make your website convert 1% better, you know, through a series of experiments and you pay me a flat fee of four, four grand a month. And like, that 1% for you is going to be worth at least 10x more than that. You know, these are the simplest things. I was like, and then what do you do? How do you get clients? Like, let's assume you don't have any money. You create content that just talks about like, for example, if you're doing conversion rate optimization for an e-commerce store, you just post, check out what these guys do in their add to cart, you know, in their cart, shopping cart that improve, improves conversion by 8%. Check out what these guys do with their email pop up. Check out what these guys do with their checkout buttons. And we did this change and this changed this percent. Or like, here's a collection of the best, you know, whatever, designs for landing pages.

• 21:56Shaan Puri?

  And people will see that and they'll be like, oh yeah, that's smart. And they'll, one time you do it, they'll be like, huh, that's smart. The second time they'll be like, those are smart. Third time you do it, they'll be like, he's smart. Let me just hire this guy. I just want this problem solved. And like, you could do that and you can get to 10, 20, 30K a month of profit. And that is a way better path than like, I think what most people. Think about doing instead.

• 22:19Sam Parr?

  Yeah, and also I hate that question because I get that all the time too. I'm like, I don't fucking know, man. What are you good at? Like, I, you know, I don't know. Like, go play in the NBA. Like, I, I, I have to know, like, what your attributes are. I hate that question. I'm just like, you know what I mean? It's the stupidest question ever. I cannot stand that because they just want me to, like, tell them what to do. You like that one. They just want me to tell, tell them what to do. But when you have zero context, it's just useless bull crap advice.

• 22:48Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I, I can see that, but also, I don't know, I kind of empathize, like.

• 22:53Sam Parr?

  I empathize, but I think it's stupid. I can, I can, I can understand why you ask that and think it's stupid.

• 23:00Shaan Puri?

  I understand why you're doing the stupid thing. I totally get it.

• 23:03Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I, I would have, I asked that question too, and now I know it's, it's not the right question.

• 23:09Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, but then you got to follow up with, what is the right question?

• 23:13Sam Parr?

  Well, you just need more context, you know?

• 23:16Shaan Puri?

  Ah, who's stupid now? Who's stupid now, stupid?

• 23:21Sam Parr?

  I never said I wasn't either. Dude, did you know that Elon, do you know Elon Musk has a sister?

• 23:30Shaan Puri?

  What kind of amazing subject is that? No, I didn't know that. I only knew about Kimball Musk.

• 23:35Sam Parr?

  Okay, well, she's, Elon's got a sister and she owns this thing called passionflicks.com. It's basically like audio erotica, I believe, like, like, like, you know, like, uh, it's, the tagline is.

• 23:51Shaan Puri?

  I'm familiar.

• 23:51Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 23:58Shaan Puri?

  More of a video guy myself, but all right. I guess you could always close the tab, just listen.

• 24:05Sam Parr?

  The subject, or the tagline is passion flicks. Get your passion on. Romance on demand for $6 a month. And it's basically romance novels, which we had talked about, uh, in your ears, I guess.

• 24:19Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 24:19Sam Parr?

  Like audiobooks, but you know.

• 24:22Shaan Puri?

  Do we, do we get credit for this? Like, does Elon Musk's sister listen to the podcast? We've been talking about this for a long. Long time and I think you should tell the story because the pod's much bigger than the first time. Tell your story about the romance novel thing. Tell first the story about how you did it for the hustle as a marketing stunt. And then what you did with with our buddy.

• 24:40Sam Parr?

  All right. So for the hustle, when we, the very first article we ever launched, we had to come out with a bang. And I knew this guy who basically would plagiarize others, other people's books on how to sleep with women. And he would get a Filipino to rewrite it so it passed the Kindle plagiarism like filter. And then he would game it by buying reviews and he was making fifty to sixty thousand dollars a month. And like, I would joke with him, but I was like, dude, A, this is super unethical and B, you don't even sleep with women. Like, you don't know anything about this topic. I can't believe you're like living this lie, but whatever. He was making money. And so we wrote an article about that when it first came out. And to prove that it was legit, because a lot of people didn't believe us, we go, fine, watch, we're gonna copy this and do and do it. And instead of doing in like the how to sleep with women category, we did it for romance category, the romance category.

• 25:24Sam Parr?

  Because if you look at the liquidity of the marketplace on Amazon, romance novels has the most amount of buyers. And also like the most amount of transactions, like these women are always buying this stuff. And so we like looked at like what the popular categories were. And there was like women who want to have sex with like a werewolf. There was like women who want to have sex with like military people. And so we made like a like a

• 25:47Shaan Puri?

  It's like fantasies, right?

• 25:48Sam Parr?

  Yeah. And so we made like a

• 25:49Shaan Puri?

  Military guy, a rich billionaire guy, right? That's Fifty Shades of Grey. A vampire, that's Twilight, right? That's how these fantasies

• 25:57Sam Parr?

  Vampire, that's what. So we made it like a military vampire werewolf guy, like combined all of them. And then we found like, like the title

• 26:04Shaan Puri?

  Is that really what you did?

• 26:06Sam Parr?

  Yeah, well, we found, well, we did that for the title. So we found a book that was good and we just like plagiarized it. And then like made the title like in the description about like a vampire werewolf, military guy, billionaire. I forget, like, it was like a joke. We did all of them. And then we gamed the system. So in a couple of weeks or in a week, we were the number one best selling in a particular category. And we like changed our LinkedIn, so like best selling author. And because we were like, how do we get like speaking gigs now? And which I didn't know at the time, but we actually plagiarized the largest romance publisher in The world, Harlequin books, and they called us. I thought they were gonna like sue us because they sent this angry email and then in the email or on the call, they're like, look,

• 26:45Sam Parr?

  we get it. You're making, you're not really making fun of romance novels. You're making fun of this like Kindle thing, which we agree is silly, but you're, and you use us an example. No big deal. We get it, but you gotta take it down. So we took it down. So whatever. And so I've always been curious about this industry. And so about two years ago, three, maybe three years ago, my friend Ramon and I, we created this website called Captivating, I don't know, what was it called? The first book was called Captivating Claire. What was this? That was the book of the book that we launched, Captivating Claire. What was the book? Was it Short Boat Romantic? We launched our website called shortboatromantic.wordpress.com. And we basically, we got someone on Fiverr. We got someone on Fiv-

• 27:26Shaan Puri?

  By the way, shortboatromantic.wordpress.com is the least short and least romantic domain you could possibly have chosen.

• 27:35Sam Parr?

  It was horrible. And it's a, we, we created Short Boat Romantic and we, and we got someone on Fiverr to write like a part one of like a, like a sexy story thing. Like I, frankly, I didn't even read it. And then we got another Fiverr guy to narrate it. And then we put it on the website and we said, part one of like Captivating Claire, or whatever it was. And it was like, read the story. And then at the end, it said, do you want part two? Sign up here for $25 a month and we'll send one of you, one of these every single day. And we put ads on Facebook for it. And I made like, I found like this girl that I went to college with and I, it was like, hey, can I use your face on this, this website and act like you're the author and like you're the one behind it because it wouldn't look good if it was me. And so we did.

• 28:13Sam Parr?

  And we got like $500 in revenue in like 12 hours because the ad rate was crazy. If you went to the website, people were commenting on this, saying like, this story's amazing. I love this. I want more of this. You saw it, right?

• 28:27Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I remember the, I remember seeing the prototype and I was, it was like, Dude, Sam is a genius, man. Like, I love how you spin these things up. I love the names that you pick. I love the, like, the speed to product, speed to launch. Um, I love the way that you did the test, which was, most people would go and spend months trying to find an author and write a book and you were like, you know, you just were like, okay, werewolf, military, uh, you know, blonde girl named Claire. Claire wants to feel, uh, captured. No, Claire wants to feel, you know, contemplated. No, uh, captivated. Yes, sorry. Captivating Claire. Claire wears a red dress and she bumps into this billionaire and his hand grazes her thigh and

• 29:12Shaan Puri?

  that's it. We got it. All right. We're working now. I can just see, I saw the website and I just saw your fingerprints all over it. So I was like, I remember being so impressed. And I tried, we invested in our buddy for this. Cause I was like, dude, this is a great market to be in. And if you're kind of growth hacky, you're gonna do this. And nobody else is doing this, right? Like, it was like, there's so little competition, because most, most serious people could never bring themselves to do this. So it's just, you're gonna compete with the other not so serious people that are out there on earth. And like, I would put our skills up there with any of them.

• 29:47Sam Parr?

  Yeah, absolutely. And it was a good idea, actually. But the thing that was, the, the thing that was the thing was like, I don't give a shit about this. Neither did he. You know, like, this was exactly what, we weren't exactly fueled by this, uh, passion to create these, like, sex novels. And so we kind of like shut it down. But a listener, a podcast listener, did something like this. And he spun it up, I think, to 10,000 in revenue a month, like, really fast, right?

• 30:11Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, that's what, I think so. And then also, uh, there was a difference. I think there's a difference between like literal audio porn and then like romance novels. And this, I think, passion flicks, that you love, what Elon Musk's sister is doing, is the, uh, the romance novels, uh, on demand, $5.99 a month. So I actually think this is a great idea. You know, I, I may say, I think this is a great idea. If you're good at internet marketing and you're like, you know, got a good sort of sense of humor about yourself, I think that this is a, uh, a business that will work if you apply enough pressure. It's hard, though, to, like, stay excited about it for a long time unless you just love selling widgets. In fact, our buddy Ramon, the first time I met him, you introduced me to him. We go out to lunch. He's telling me his life story and his life story is full of like substance. It's like,

• 30:57Shaan Puri?

  you know, I was raised in the Netherlands and then like, you know, I had this, I was kind of like out on my own at a young age and then like I have, I'm a single father to my son and blah, blah, blah, like whatever. He had a bunch of things that were like, you know, these journeys throughout his life's lifetime that were like, you know, these, these, I mean, I train MMA, like, he seemed like a dude who like, you know, he really kind of like, you know, was self-made in many ways. And then I was like, so do you, like, I kind of expected him to be like, you know, so that's why I'm working on this thing that has like this deep meaning also. And I was like, so what was your last business? He's like, oh, um, created a soap opera blog and I sold it for $10 million. And I was like, what? I was like, because you love soap operas? He's like,

• 31:38Shaan Puri?

  no, never seen one in my life. What the hell? And I was like, how did this work? He's like, and there's a, he's the second episode of this podcast. So if you scroll all the way back to the second episode, I think it's Ramon, it's one of the best episodes ever that's been on the podcast feed. But basically, he's like, yeah, I just went on Facebook and there was an arbitrage opportunity where like you could buy Facebook page likes. Facebook wanted to promote pages, so you could get, you could advertise a page for like, you could get a like for like a cent. And I just figured out, oh, cool. Once I get them to like my page, I could post a link, then I'll get it on my website and like, okay, that costs like seven cents to get them to my website. And then Google Adsense can give me nine cents or 12 cents or whatever. Like there's some like money arbitrage there. So he's like, so then I just had to figure out

• 32:21Shaan Puri?

  what is the, um, you know, what's the best category? He's like, so I spun up like 22 Facebook pages about every niche I could think of.

• 32:30Sam Parr?

  And yeah, his niches, it was like, it was like WWF wrestling and like soccer and like politics and just a bunch of crazy stuff.

• 32:38Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Every interest you could think of. And he's like, okay, which one's the best? And he said the top three, I think, were wrestling. Number one was like right wing conservative politics, which, you know, turned out to be like what Facebook, you know, really, really overran Facebook also.

• 32:54Sam Parr?

  And he was like, I just don't want to do this. It doesn't make anyone happy.

• 32:58Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. So that one, he's like, I'm gonna scratch that out. He goes, the next two are wrestling and soap operas. And he's like, all right, let's do soap.

• 33:08Shaan Puri?

  He never really told me that part, but whatever. So details. So he, he's like, all right, well, what do people care about? They care about like spoilers, like what's gonna happen on tomorrow's days of our lives? And it turns out you could just like buy or like you could just sign up to get the like, the sneak peek of like the synopsis of what happens tomorrow. And he would just like publish that as a long form thing. And he had, he hired some people to write for it. And so some women were writing for this stuff, whatever. So he was doing that and he ends up selling the thing for 10 million in cash, basically.

• 33:35Sam Parr?

  It was making like three, four hundred thousand a month in profit. It was very profitable.

• 33:40Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. And so you, you, you met him, he, he reached out to you from the hustle. He goes, uh, here's my story and I want to tell it. And you were like, no way, this sounds fake. And he's like, well, here's my analytics and here's my bank account. Like, go ahead, look. And you were like, what? And you guys met, you know, you guys like best friends. So you introduced me, you're like, hey. And the email you go, Sean, meet Ramon. I, you're like, Sean's a good buddy, smart guy, nice, like, you know, normal intro stuff. You're like, Sean, this is Ramon. I trust Ramon with my life.

• 34:14Sam Parr?

  How do you remember that?

• 34:17Shaan Puri?

  Because it's, it stuck out to me, right? I was like, so I don't know. This is one of those writing things. I'm like, wow, that was amazing. And then I met Ramon and I also now trust Ramon with my life. He's just that kind of guy. And so he told me at that meeting, he goes, I was like, so you just, you just, you'll just work on whatever or like for your next thing, you know, are you gonna do something like soap operas or whatever? He goes, you see this cup? And it was like a little like, you know, at a restaurant, the, the water cups are the shitty plastic ones. He goes,

• 34:43Shaan Puri?

  if I could just move this cup from here to here, and it's like, I make 10, I make a dollar doing that, then I'm the, I'm a cup salesman. Like, I'll sell anything, like. And so what ended up happening was he was gonna do this romance thing and you guys spun up this test and it started to work. And, um, but one of his other businesses that he had bought was like, started to work even better. And so he just kinda, he tried to do both for a little while, but he's like.

• 35:09Sam Parr?

  When that other one was equally as weird, it was a dog ramp business for wiener dogs so they can get on the couch.

• 35:15Shaan Puri?

  Actually, it's even worse than the plastic cup. He's like, do you have a wiener dog?

• 35:22Sam Parr?

  No.

• 35:23Shaan Puri?

  Well, if you did, you know that if they tried to jump on or off the bed, they could get hurt?

• 35:29Sam Parr?

  I guess so. Yeah, we make him, we make him sell ramps for wiener dogs to get on and off the bed.

• 35:34Shaan Puri?

  I was like, what? And he was like, yeah, we'll do like, you know, seven million this year. I was like, what the hell? And so, you know, then that business grew like crazy or whatever.

• 35:46Shaan Puri?

  And so I was like, wow, this guy is like, you know, this guy, he was just so different than everybody else in Silicon Valley. I loved it. I loved how different he was. He lived here, but it was like an alien living in Silicon Valley. Like he just did not have anything to do with software or venture capital or like high tech stuff. He was literally like a, like a cup salesman wandering around Silicon Valley, making millions of dollars, selling like the most arbitrary, like, you know, gadgets, like, you know, fidget spinners to, to, you know, like elderly.

• 36:16Sam Parr?

  When I first met him, he was wearing like sweatpants and like a shirt with holes in it and like old Jordans. And I was, and he's like a huge, like big white dude. And I'm like, and he has an accent, you know? And I was talking, I'm like, what? Who is this guy? And we start walking back to his car, um, cause I was going back to my office and I was walking him to his car. And I see he had a brand new Tesla at the time, the nicest, fanciest Tesla. It was like a hundred fifty thousand dollars. I was like, oh, sick car. He goes, he was like, thanks, bro. Had to pay all cash for it because I don't have a credit score. And I was like, what? I guess you're legit.

• 36:54Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. And we, we make him sound braggy, but he is the opposite of braggy. Like he'll just be like, like he'll just show up with something or like, like, I don't know, like he'll do something that you're like, that makes no sense whatsoever. And then when you dig in, it's because he like always takes the hard, weird path to do stuff in this hilarious way. And it's what makes him incredible. I love it.

• 37:16Sam Parr?

  Yeah, he's crazy.

• 37:18Shaan Puri?

  Like he got diagnosed with like a herniated disc and then like. On the way home from the doctor, like, signed up for an Ironman. And it's like, what are you doing? Why are you choosing?

• 37:26Sam Parr?

  I, I did the Ironman with him.

• 37:28Shaan Puri?

  Why must you choose violence?

• 37:30Sam Parr?

  I did the Ironman with him. It was me, him, and Suli. And Ramon literally got last. He got last that they, he was so slow, that he didn't train at all. He just showed up. And when he got, and when he showed up, he had this bike, and he was like, hey, could you show me? How I use these shoes that clip into the pedals? Like, you didn't know how to like,

• 37:53Sam Parr?

  he was like riding his bike for like, the first time, like, taking the tag off of it. And it's an Ironman. It's really hard. And he got dead last, but he finished. Like, there was, they were like, the golf cart was rolling behind him, and it was getting dark at night, and they were gonna try, they were about to pull him off the course. But he like, pushed him off, he goes, I'm finishing.

• 38:14Shaan Puri?

  That's incredible. All right, let's do, let's do some other ones. I got some, okay, I got, I got an idea, and then a really, I got a bad idea that I have, and then a really good idea for a company that I just heard about. Which one do you want?

• 38:28Sam Parr?

  The good one.

• 38:33Sam Parr?

  I would like the bad, I've got a bad one and a better one. Do you want the better or the bad?

• 38:39Shaan Puri?

  All right, so the great one. There's a company called Ghost, that I just heard about. So, this story to me is kind of incredible. So, if you go to the website, I think it's- No, it's a new one. So, G S T, G, sorry, G H S T. So, it's Ghost without the O. I think it's ghost.io is the name of it.

• 38:59Sam Parr?

  Oh, this is already too, too new age for me. I'm out.

• 39:02Shaan Puri?

  No, no, no, you're gonna, you're gonna appreciate this. You're gonna, you're out, but I'm gonna bring you back in. So, I heard about this because this guy who's like a VC somewhere, he goes, "Back in 2020, our team started to notice a big shift that was going on with like, stores, like Walmart, Target, like, any big store, was that, basically, you remember when COVID happened, and like, the supply chain shut down, and like, the fucking ship got stuck in the canal, and like, everything was just bad, like, shipping container prices went through the roof? And so, everybody had like, a shortage, right when demand went like, through the roof, because everybody was at home, everybody was ordering tons of products, and we're all getting stimulus checks and stuff like that, right? So, that's like, demand went way up-

• 39:44Shaan Puri?

  To shop because people couldn't go do experiences and supply went way down and it was like this crazy situation. And so what happened was retailers, basically they ordered more to try to catch up because nobody knew how long the pandemic and stuff would go. And also like the stuff that got delayed, like finally showed up, but what that created was like this huge glut of excess inventory. Over a trillion dollars of excess inventory was kind of like the, uh, the guess. And so these guys, these, these venture capitalists sort of noticed this trend and they posted this 26 page PDF called the inventory apocalypse is coming. And they were just like, look, we are looking at this like a combination of people returning things, the supply chain glut. And then brands over ordering to try to keep up with like this, the explosion in e-commerce, right?

• 40:28Shaan Puri?

  Like, um, there's just too much inventory on hand and this is all playing out now, like that was in 2020, 2021, something like that. Now in 2022, if you go look, there's these amazing charts of like, if you notice all the, every brand is like discounting like crazy right now. They're like, oh, 40% off summer sales, semi annual sale, like liquidation, whatever. And it's because everybody has way too much inventory to hold. And so, um, and like Target and Walmart, I think have come out and said some crazy public numbers. Ben, see if you could find it, like how much excess inventory is on the shelf, some absurd number. So anyways, these guys put this out and at the same time, this startup gets started by this guy Josh and D. And, um, and, and D is kind of well known in like the kind of like e-commerce world.

• 41:14Shaan Puri?

  And so they, they go and they start this company. Basically what they do is they, they're creating like a marketplace or a clearinghouse. So any, it's called ghost because it's like any retailer, rather than doing a huge discount, which kind of like, it kind of cheapens your brand. It sort of just pulls forward revenue that like your customers probably would have spent full price. But like in order to move inventory, you kind of like. You gave it away cheaper and you, you know, you sort of eroded your premium prices, whatever.

• 41:43Shaan Puri?

  It basically connects them to the liquidators of the world. So there's like TJ Maxx, Ross, Marshalls, like those types of companies, but there's also just like international versions of those companies. There's like boutiques and wholesalers that could carry your stuff. There's basically like a way to like get rid of inventory that's on your shelf that you're directly selling. And you could sell it wholesale for somebody else to kind of move. You'll take a discount with them and that's better than giving a discount to your customers who like, then they'll get trained to expect and wait for 30, 40% discounts rather than paying the premium price.

• 42:16Sam Parr?

  I'm back in. This is awesome.

• 42:18Shaan Puri?

  Dude, I knew you'd come back in.

• 42:20Sam Parr?

  Their site has five words on it and it's beautiful. I look at their site and it's literally five words. We make your inventory disappear and the, but the way that it looks, I love it.

• 42:29Shaan Puri?

  And there's like a smoky cloud, like a go, like something evaporated right behind you.

• 42:34Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 42:35Shaan Puri?

  And then basically what it seems like what they're doing is they're creating a private marketplace. So this is key, right? Like it's gotta be private, can't be public. And it's a marketplace between your retailer who has excess inventory and these wholesalers and liquidators who will take this sort of like excess inventory, they'll pay, you know, they'll get it at a huge discount and then they'll flip it on their own. That's their business. So it's kind of connecting these two through, through this B2B marketplace. And I think the thing is growing like crazy. So I think they said, um, let's see, in the first year, I believe they got to, um, multimillion dollar net revenue. So not GMV, uh, profitably. And they're like, not even launched yet. Like you gotta like sign up to do a demo and shit like that with them.

• 43:17Shaan Puri?

  But just knowing what I know about like what's going on in e-commerce, I could tell you this thing is gonna be big. Like I need to chase these guys down to go invest in this because this is a real problem. And marketplaces are the best type of internet business. But like you, it sort of feels like all the, it's like all the good ones are tail, the good guys are taken. It's like, oh, all the good marketplaces are taken. Like someone did it for, you know, Amazon did it for this, eBay did it for that, you know, Etsy does it for crafts. It sort of feels like there's no marketplaces left. I think this could be that one of those multi-billion dollar marketplaces that comes out.

• 43:48Sam Parr?

  Well, it's not a marketplace, it's just software, isn't it?

• 43:51Shaan Puri?

  No, it's a marketplace. They're connecting buyers and sellers. They're connecting the wholesale to all the retailers.

• 43:55Sam Parr?

  But so the, the fee, they don't charge a fee to the people for using their software. It's, it's just they'll set it up for free, which is probably, it's a huge integration process. They set it up for free and then they make the transaction, they make a, a transaction fee.

• 44:07Shaan Puri?

  That's my guess. So I think it's probably similar. I think one of the closest analogies, a company called Fair, which also does something similar. So Fair is like, I have an e-commerce brand. I want other retailers like, you know, Suzy's, uh, you know, gift shop to carry my product. Well, it'd be time consuming, time consuming to go find all the Suzy's corner shops, contact them, sell them my services, create purchase orders and like manage that whole thing. So Fair created a marketplace to do that. And it's a like $10 billion company or something like that. It's like one of the, one of the faster growing startups that exists. This is doing that, but more on the like larger liquidator types, like more like the TJ Maxx Ross like, uh, types

• 44:47Shaan Puri?

  versus, um, you know, just like kind of so and so's boutique shop that wants to carry your stuff.

• 44:54Sam Parr?

  Dude, this is sick. Yeah, you're right. I'm in. This is actually amazing. I'm eager to see how this plays out. There's nothing on, on the internet about them though. So like when I research it, I can't find a thing.

• 45:05Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I think they literally just came out of stealth yesterday, basically. So, um, that's, that's how we saw it. Let me tell you, uh, okay, now can I tell you my bad idea? It's also in the e-commerce space. So

• 45:19Shaan Puri?

  how do we want to put this? Let me sell you, let me sell you on this. Let me turn on the charm a little bit. Sam, you're a good looking dude. In fact, I would say whatever you wear tends to look good. I feel like if I almost wore that same shirt, it wouldn't look as good, right? Because you've got the body. You don't need, you don't need to go pay, you know, crazy amounts of money at, you know, whatever Scotch and Soda, our favorite brand here at My First Million. You don't gotta go pay for the fancy stuff because honestly, if you dress in basic blacks and whites, neutral colors, you'll look good. And in fact, there are a lot of people that are out there that may not be as fit as you, but they do subscribe to the same philosophy, which is they're kind of just want to opt out of the fashion game.

• 46:01Shaan Puri?

  Like I went to Lululemon to go, I just wanted something that's high quality, that fits well. And I went and I found a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and the shorts were $85 and the T-shirt was like, you know, whatever, $77 for one, right? And so if I just wanted to have really awesome basics, like high quality basics that are premium, premium like material and fit, but I don't care about the brand name. I'm not looking for the status. Where would I go today to get that? Do you have a place in mind where I might go for something like that?

• 46:37Sam Parr?

  For plain T-shirts, clean, fresh tees. Those are my fave $10 T-shirts that fit pretty good. And that's mostly it for, for, for basic shit.

• 46:47Shaan Puri?

  And so there's, there's that. There's like, let's say italic. I think italic does this with, I think, I don't know if you're also an investor in italic. I am, but like, they do it with cool stuff like handbags and scarves and like a lot of designer-y type of stuff. It's like a wider selection.

• 47:01Shaan Puri?

  But I think that somebody can go create the Costco for clothes. And what do I mean by this? I think you can create a business model that flips it on its head. Instead of paying the 4X, 5X, 6X, 7X markup that you pay today, when you go buy a shirt and you buy a shirt for $25, that shirt probably costs $5 to make.

• 47:20Sam Parr?

  Is that true?

• 47:22Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. So you're gonna, you're, I think on average, you're gonna be paying some between, something between three and four X is like a normal markup. And then if you, once you get into like Lululemon and luxury, you're gonna be paying more like probably six or seven X is my guess here. They're public, so you could go find their, their actual like margins, but like, let's assume that's.

• 47:39Sam Parr?

  What about like a Louis Vuitton thing? What about like a $500 Gucci shirt?

• 47:42Shaan Puri?

  Those are different. You're buying those literally for the status. So let's, let's put them as a separate category. I'm focusing on more of like, you go buy something from Nike or from Lululemon or Aloe Yoga or like whatever, these brands that are like, you're just trying to have a high quality version of a, of a fairly basic thing. But there is like some status component. What I'm saying is let's strip away the status. So I'm saying.

• 48:04Sam Parr?

  Basic girl stuff.

• 48:06Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. You create a company called Neutral. And Neutral basically just, it opts out of the fashion game and says, first of all, I don't need your status. I don't need your brand name. Second of all, I don't need your fancy designs. Third, I don't need to pay five X markups because what a waste. Like what if I just want to pay for the actual cost of the goods? And so what it is, is a membership like Costco, where Costco's model is you pay whatever a hundred something-ish bucks a year for the membership. And then they give you all the groceries at cost plus 10%. And the 10% is just their like, the labor and the stocking and the, the stuff it takes to actually like, move the goods around.

• 48:47Shaan Puri?

  And so because of that, you get incredible value at a Costco. Moms love shopping at Costco for that reason. And they're not sacrificing on quality. They just are sacrificing on the fluff, the, the packaging, the branding, the shelves, the store experience. And they say, screw that. I don't need to have a fancy display in the store. I don't need to have fancy packaging. Like just give me the stuff raw. I'll pay the, the actual goods cost plus 10% and I'll pay you the membership fee because hey, for me, I make back the membership fee within, you know, my first month or two of shopping with you. I think somebody could do that with all basics for clothing. And just say, we're gonna go get the same quality as like whatever the highest quality, you know, fit and, and materials are for like, you know, these fancy Lululemon type brands.

• 49:30Shaan Puri?

  And just provide it at the actual cost. So you would be buying like that same shirt for, for eight or $9. And it's a step up from like Hanes and H and M or whatever. But you're getting it at, and you, and the marketing is that, hey, you're paying nothing for the brand name. In fact, there's no brand on this. It's like brandless, right?

• 49:49Shaan Puri?

  All you gotta do is pay the membership fee and make this happen. Now, the counter argument is there was a company that tried to do this called Brandless. They tried to do it like homeware and shit like that.

• 49:57Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I think that's harder though. I think that was harder. I think, I think, I think it's amazing. I think the problem, there's basically like, I asked myself like two or three questions when I'm like looking at which projects to start. The, it's basically like, do people want this? And can I pull it off? This one falls into the second category. Do people want this? Yeah, obviously it's not going to be hard to get people to buy this shit. Can I possibly pull that off? That sounds so challenging. Like your experience-

• 50:25Shaan Puri?

  Which part seems challenging?

• 50:26Sam Parr?

  Uh, pulling it off.

• 50:28Shaan Puri?

  Like what? Like getting the products, like just the logistics of the-

• 50:33Sam Parr?

  Having tons and tons of SKUs, um, like that seems really hard. Trying to get members to sign up profitably seems a bit of a challenge. Is uh, Italic able to get, uh, do they have any profit or no?

• 50:48Shaan Puri?

  Uh, I mean, I can't really say if they have profit or not, but like, you know, they're doing well and they're growing. So they are getting members to sign up. Uh, people are buying into the value proposition. They're retaining. The question is like, you know, there's some payback period and is that, you know, if that payback period is like, you know, one month, wow, this is one of the best businesses ever. If it's 12 months, okay, you know, it's going to be, it's going to be more cash intensive-

• 51:10Sam Parr?

  Well, you're the-

• 51:11Shaan Puri?

  Business.

• 51:12Sam Parr?

  You have an e-comm company. Do you think, would you ever work on this?

• 51:16Shaan Puri?

  I wouldn't work on it just because knowing what I know now about e-commerce. I'm like, oh, there's easier ways to win. But if I was going to work in e-commerce, I think an idea like this is a better idea than 99% of e-commerce ideas. Because I think you'll end up with subscription revenue. I think you're differentiated and I think you appeal to the lowest common denominator. So you're like, you're not, uh, like everybody needs shirts. So like, there's some brands like Cuts and Fresh Clean Tees. These brands have scaled to like 100 million plus in revenue. In, I don't know, three or four years? And you look at it, you're like, dude, really? It's just a T-shirt brand? And they're doing just the T-shirts like, you know, well, like this? They're not offering it at the factory cost and they're not offering it on subscription. Right? So that's the key difference here.

• 52:00Shaan Puri?

  But the fact that they've been able to scale that much without it, to me is like extremely impressive. And it just sort of speaks to the fact that like, everybody needs shirts. And it's like an everybody problem, whereas like, like my ecommerce or like we talked about Ramon's dog ramp thing, like that only works if you have not only a dog, but a small dog, not even really a small dog. Like a small dog that might get hurt and can't get up and downstairs or a bed very easily.

• 52:21Speaker 04

  And you want that dog in your bed.

• 52:22Shaan Puri?

  That applies to me, that applies to me. Like I have three of Alpha Paws ramps in my house because like my dog is like this tiny little baby dog. You have like this massive self-sufficient dog that like, you know, has like a college degree. So like, your dog doesn't need like a hand me down to like, they are like a ramp to like, you know, get it, help them up, uh, you know, onto a couch.

• 52:42Shaan Puri?

  Dude, my dog, the dog doesn't even drink water from a bowl. I have to like carry her to the sink and I.

• 52:50Shaan Puri?

  My hand is a small bowl and she drinks only fresh water from my hand.

• 52:56Speaker 04

  Just keep it outside for a week, it'll toughen up. Like, that's crazy that you do this.

• 53:06Speaker 04

  How are you so soft, dude?

• 53:12Speaker 04

  You, uh, you just interviewed this guy, Rich Roll, who like does all these interviews and shit. And you're like, you're like the least like, you don't even leave your house.

• 53:23Shaan Puri?

  He was like, yeah, I did this competition. It was, uh, you know, fantastic challenge, 300 mile run across three nights. And like, I was like, what?

• 53:36Speaker 04

  Target last week.

• 53:39Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, like, no, I didn't. I Instacarted from Target last week, but like, I had to step foot outside to bring the groceries into my home. And it was like, my toe got a little cold.

• 53:52Speaker 04

  How are your dogs that bad?

• 53:57Shaan Puri?

  Uh, you know, whatever. You know, like dogs start to look like their owner. Like, you know, my dog is like a spoiled little brat and I'm a spoiled little brat about life too. I don't know. It's good. We suit each other well.

• 54:08Speaker 04

  When my dog was young, uh, like every once in a while, like I would just be like, I'm just not going to feed you until you behave. And it worked.

• 54:17Shaan Puri?

  My dog doesn't eat dog food, nor does she eat like chicken or like anything that normal. My dog only eats clover 4% cottage cheese that's freshly scooped into her bowl, mixed with a little bit of dog food, with an appetizer bone before it. She won't eat it if you don't do that. She's like, cool. I'll die. Like, I'll just die. If you find blood's on your hands, if you just want me to die. Like she'll go five days without eating unless she gets her cottage cheese.

• 54:43Speaker 04

  Oh my, that's your fault. That, this is crazy. I can't believe you.

• 54:47Shaan Puri?

  For sure.

• 54:49Speaker 04

  How old is a dog? When's it gonna, when will it die?

• 54:52Shaan Puri?

  Oh, whoa, bro.

• 54:54Speaker 04

  I mean, like, how long, like, how long will you?

• 54:56Shaan Puri?

  When will it die?

• 54:58Speaker 04

  How long will you own this animal for?

• 55:01Shaan Puri?

  Forever. A hundred years. That's how long I've owned my dog for.

• 55:05Speaker 04

  My, my dog is getting close to dying and I'm going to be hilarious, but I'm getting his, I'm getting his face tattooed on me. And I'm just, I'm going to have a tattoo of a massive pit bull face on my body. And I think it's going to be like the greatest thing ever. They're going to like, people are going to, I'm, I'm, it's going to be like this, this like walked, walking, like what the fuck are you? Like this, like yuppie, bougie tech guy with pit bull tattoos on him. I'm going to be like driving, the people are going to be like, they're not going to know what to think. It's going to be wonderful.

• 55:34Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, that's going to be not even in your bottom three worst tattoos.

• 55:44Speaker 04

  We're at like 12 year olds. We should leave.

• 55:47Shaan Puri?

  We should leave. Ben, you gotta just stop the recording when we cross whatever that line is. You gotta just be like, like, we won't even realize that it stopped recording.

• 55:59Shaan Puri?

  I cut you guys off like.

• 56:01Speaker 04

  The elementary school teacher, like, Sam, we took a gold, gold star off your chart after that comment.

• 56:08Sam Parr?

  By the way, you weren't here the other day, Ben, and we were like talking about something and we were like, shit, this sucks without Ben, like our moral compass. We don't know if this is right or wrong.

• 56:16Ben?

  Keeping you guys on the straight and narrow.

• 56:19Sam Parr?

  All right, well, what do we think? I think that was pretty good.