#3 - Making Millions off an Email Newsletter?! Sam Parr from The Hustle Tells All

Sam Parr (@theSamParr) is the founder of The Hustle - a simple email newsletter that has surpassed 1M daily subscribers and will be north of 8 figures this year. Sam walks us through how he built The Hustle from scratch as well as his adventures starting a hot dog stand (7min), selling booze on the internet (13min), meeting celebrities on the street and convincing them to hire him (11min) and how he would get rich if he was 21 again! (33min) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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

• 0:00Sam Parr?

  A big CEO of a huge media company that you know of told me this business will never make more than $2 million a year. And it wasn't until like six months ago where I was like, man, there's like a path to make literally $100 million a year in revenue.

• 0:37Shaan Puri?

  All right, we are here with Sam Parr, the founder of The Hustle, the big daddy of the publisher of the podcast. How does it feel to have a podcast on your, on your network now?

• 0:45Sam Parr?

  Well, I'm excited and I hope people will like it. We have to wait and see the numbers first. That's what I'll be excited for most.

• 0:50Shaan Puri?

  I know, I know. All right. So for those who don't know, The Hustle is a daily newsletter, goes out to about a million and a half readers. Is that right? Million and a half?

• 0:59Sam Parr?

  Yeah, we could say that.

• 1:00Shaan Puri?

  And we're growing. Every morning, so people like to start their day with it. It's, the way I think about it is like you get an email and it tells you the news, and I like the way you describe it, which is, it's like, you know, your no BS friend just explaining it to you. So it's, it's a simple way to understand what's going on in the world without spending a whole lot of time doing the research yourself. It's like we did the research for you.

• 1:20Sam Parr?

  Yeah, as if I'm, me, Sam Parr, are gonna tell you, Sean, the news each day.

• 1:26Shaan Puri?

  Right. And, and because you spend five minutes on it in the morning, you save an hour of doing those, that, you know, reading and research and finding out what's important yourself and what to make of it. And then, you know, you're at work, you're at the water cooler, and you sound smart.

• 1:38Sam Parr?

  Yes, and we have more stuff coming out, but that's our big thing now.

• 1:41Shaan Puri?

  Okay, okay, yeah, and something that launched today, I believe, right?

• 1:45Sam Parr?

  A little beta launched yesterday.

• 1:47Shaan Puri?

  Okay, all right. So we're, all right, we're gonna get to that in a second, but let's start with the, the question we always start with. Sam Parr, how did you make your first million?

• 1:56Sam Parr?

  By starting and selling multiple companies, which the biggest one being a news operation that emails millions of people a month and tells them the news they need to know each morning.

• 2:05Shaan Puri?

  All right. You said, "Starting and selling multiple businesses." So, different way of looking at it is, when did you know you wanted to make a million bucks?

• 2:14Sam Parr?

  Not for a very long time. My mom and dad are entrepreneurs. I thought that that's just what you do to make a living. I didn't really think about money a lot, other than I knew that I wanted to start businesses because that was like my hobby.

• 2:28Shaan Puri?

  Like, when you were a teenager, you mean?

• 2:30Sam Parr?

  Yeah. But then, when I got older, only like a year, or two, or three years ago, did I realize that money was something that's nice to have a lot of, but it's like, not as nice as I thought. So, for years, I was just doing this because it was fun and exciting. And it just so happened, the output, the result, was income.

• 2:50Shaan Puri?

  Okay. Like, a lot of people say that. They say, "You know, I'm not doing it for the money. The money is sort of a by-product." And I like that. I think that is a great way of looking at it. But, I also know you. You're my friend. You think about money a lot. You ask about money a lot. We talk about-

• 3:05Sam Parr?

  I talk about, I love talking about it. But, when I ran, I talk about it all the time. But, I was a track and field athlete in college. I talked about that all the time, too. It was just, whichever the career I have, or the vocation that I have at the time, that's what I'm obsessed about. And so, to me, money is, it's kind of like bench pressing 300 pounds. Once you get past a point, which is lower than you think, it's not really that important to be able to bench 350 pounds, but it's just like you're obsessed with it.

• 3:33Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 3:33Sam Parr?

  Because you, as my buddy, can bench 400 pounds. So, it's like, "Man, I wanna, I wanna beat you. I wanna compete with you. And I wanna compete with myself."

• 3:43Shaan Puri?

  Gotcha. And when did you, like- First start doing business was this, you know, are you a kid?

• 3:49Sam Parr?

  I first started-

• 3:49Shaan Puri?

  Lemonade stand type of thing?

• 3:51Sam Parr?

  I was selling stuff on eBay. Track and field shoes, my old clothes, I would sell them on eBay. And then I would sell stuff on Craigslist.

• 3:58Shaan Puri?

  And you were doing it because you, you know, you came up with it yourself? You saw somebody else selling on eBay?

• 4:03Sam Parr?

  I came up with it myself and I thought it was a really cool adventure. I just, it was just like a, I have an addictive personality and this was my adrenaline rush. I started YouTube channels that got millions and millions of views, like the first year, two, three years that YouTube existed. And that made money and I just loved scheming.

• 4:20Shaan Puri?

  What, what kind of channels?

• 4:21Sam Parr?

  So, this was in 2009. I don't know how old YouTube was around then.

• 4:26Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I think YouTube started maybe 2004, 2005, but-

• 4:29Sam Parr?

  So, it was like the third or fourth year of YouTube in existence. And I noticed that when you would type in a certain phrase on YouTube, it would autofill. And I would just look at all the words that would be autofilling. And I'm almost embarrassed to say this, but I will. But if you typed in like, "street fights", it would be like, "street fights", and it would autofill, fill with like, "black guy beats up white guy", or "street fights, white guy fights black guy". And so, I would, was kind of scammy and I would create these videos with these clickbait titles. And the thumbnail would be the only image that existed. So, it was a video with just, this is because YouTube didn't have that filter to like, catch that.

• 5:09Shaan Puri?

  So, the video was nothing?

• 5:10Sam Parr?

  Yeah, it was nothing, but if you, I can go and find it somehow and it probably has 10 million views. And then I would charge bands, money, $10, $50 a month to have their music as the background.

• 5:23Shaan Puri?

  And so, so you didn't even have a fight? Because I used to search for these, I used to watch Kimbo Slice.

• 5:27Sam Parr?

  Yeah, the same, the same stuff, like, "street fight", like, "big black guy knocks out little white guy", I have a video that's titled that, that has 5 million views. And, don't you remember on YouTube, years and years ago, when you would click these certain videos and you'd hear these horrible electronic, like, music?

• 5:44Shaan Puri?

  Yes.

• 5:44Sam Parr?

  So, those people paid me money to put my ads, or put their music on the background.

• 5:50Shaan Puri?

  And so, how, how old are you when this is going on?

• 5:52Sam Parr?

  I was a senior and freshman in college. So, like, it was like, sometime around 2008, yeah.

• 5:59Shaan Puri?

  Okay, alright, so you started the kind of keyword.

• 6:02Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 6:03Shaan Puri?

  Keyword arbitrage, because since then, I actually learned this from you. I went to one of your workshops that you and Neville did. And for those who don't know, Neville is a good buddy of yours.

• 6:11Sam Parr?

  Neville's the best man at my weddings, one of my best friends, yeah.

• 6:14Shaan Puri?

  And he's kind of famous for this copywriting course, right? So, talk a little bit about that, because I think this is something that's extremely underrated. I added it to my arsenal.

• 6:23Sam Parr?

  Copywriting is the most important skillset anyone can have, because copywriting is not writing. Copywriting is understanding how other people think and feel, and how to use words to get them to do what you want them to do. Specifically, the written word, but it can translate to anything.

• 6:39Shaan Puri?

  Right. Copywriting is sales, copywriting is persuasion, copywriting is...

• 6:43Sam Parr?

  It's meeting a girlfriend, it's talking to a friend and trying to let them know you care about them, it's trying to sell something. It's just the idea of understanding other people's perspective, and then trying to figure out if you could solve that or empathize with that, and communicating that you have the tool to fix their problem.

• 6:59Shaan Puri?

  Okay, so perfect example, the first business that I knew that you did. I didn't know about the YouTube street fights, I didn't know about the eBay stuff, but I did know about the hot dog stand.

• 7:09Sam Parr?

  Yeah, Southern Sam's.

• 7:10Shaan Puri?

  The name of the hot dog stand, it's not just Southern Sam's. What's the slogan?

• 7:14Sam Parr?

  It's Southern Sam's Wieners as Big as a Baby's Arm. So, a hot dog is a commodity, like, they pretty much are all the same. I mean, little variants, but I bought them Vienna sausages, which a lot of people buy. And it was like, how do you just stick out? How do you stand out? And I thought that would be a funny slogan, and the idea was if a parent put their baby's arms, one of my buns, and we put mustard on it, and we take a photo, they get a free thing, a free sausage, and that was like the shtick.

• 7:43Shaan Puri?

  Was this like pre-social media?

• 7:45Sam Parr?

  This was in 2010 to 2012, so it was around, but if Instagram was around, it was barely around.

• 7:51Shaan Puri?

  Okay, so we got Southern Sam's Wieners as Big as Your Baby's Arm.

• 7:56Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 7:57Shaan Puri?

  The best name. I started a restaurant too, but it was nowhere near the fame or appeal as that. So I love that. How did it do?

• 8:05Sam Parr?

  So I just tweeted about this today, actually, because someone would ask me if I had to make money today with a thousand dollars. I started it with $500. I was only able to afford the first day's ingredients. And the first day, it did okay, but it took me about a week to get a thousand dollar day with like 50% margins. Most days I would make between 100 and 500 days. If I would go and work all night or go to a concert, I could make 1,000 to 5,000 dollars a night. It was really hard work. In Nashville in the summer, it's 110 degrees some days. It was horrible. It was really hard, but it was really fun. But it paid, like, I got paid.

• 8:41Shaan Puri?

  And you were the one manning the stand?

• 8:43Sam Parr?

  For a long time. And in the beginning, I was there all the time, but then I hired friends, my friend Carly, my friend Rydell. I would give them an hourly, like a minimum wage.

• 8:54Shaan Puri?

  You know, I was thinking on my way over here, I was like, what should I say in the intro? And I was thinking, I was like, oh, what do I really believe? Because when I started doing this podcast, the beginning, I would do like a radio host intro, which is not me. It's me playing like a radio host, like, hey, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show.

• 9:09Sam Parr?

  Yeah, doing what you think you should do.

• 9:11Shaan Puri?

  Fantastic. And now I'm like, well, what do I, what would I actually say about you? Like, if I was just explaining this to myself, what would I say? And I was like, the thing about you is if this was Lord of the Flies, I haven't even read the book, but I understand the premise. We all get dropped on an island and sort of, we're all starting from scratch, just us and our bare hands. If you took everybody I know in San Francisco, a lot of great entrepreneurs, investors, successful people, but if you put us all on an island and it was like, here's a race to 10,000 dollars, I think you'd win.

• 9:39Sam Parr?

  Oh, thanks.

• 9:40Shaan Puri?

  I think you'd win the thousand dollar Lord of the Flies Silicon Valley edition. And so, and the Hot Dog Stand is like the perfect example of this, which is just like very straightforward, fundamental thinking. I have this much money.

• 9:58Shaan Puri?

  I can, you know, I want to get my money back quick. What do people want? What do people need? Where should I stand? Oh, I should go to the concert. That's where people, you know, are drinking and want a bite to eat. And just doing the basics and not trying to be sort of the genius inventor. Is that a good characterization? Because that's my mental model of you. Is that, is that how you see it too?

• 10:15Sam Parr?

  100%. So I'm from Missouri. I'm from St. Louis, Missouri. A lot of people think I grew up as a hick. I kind of did, but I grew up in a city. My parents started a fruit stand that eventually became a produce brokerage. My father's not educated. I was not that good of a student. I was just like a redneck like kid, right? And so I just did whatever and I just, I will do whatever. It just so happened that I learned how to use the internet. So I would say I'm, I'm basically like a midwestern small business owner that just learned how to use the internet.

• 10:46Shaan Puri?

  Right. The internet is your corner instead of your neighborhood corner.

• 10:49Sam Parr?

  Right. Versus like this idea, like the Mark Zuckerbergs. I will never, I don't understand how they think. I'm much simpler.

• 10:57Shaan Puri?

  Right. And so when you're, you're doing the hot dog stand, hilarious name, good results, you know, paid, paid the bills for, for a period of time. At some point you jumped onto the internet.

• 11:07Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 11:07Shaan Puri?

  Because the hot dog stand was, was more like the kid in Missouri. And the stuff you do today is a lot more like the kid in San Francisco.

• 11:14Sam Parr?

  Yeah. And so what I was doing in the evenings after selling stuff, so I worked for this guy named Mike Wolf. Have I told you this?

• 11:20Shaan Puri?

  No.

• 11:20Sam Parr?

  Have you seen this TV show, American Pickers?

• 11:22Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 11:23Sam Parr?

  Mike Wolf was my boss. So when I was in college, he was, I loved that TV show, American Pickers. I saw him walking down the street. I thought he was cool. I was a huge fan and I walked up to get my photo taken with him. And I just became friends with him and he asked me to run his store in Nashville or to work there and help set his shop up. And so I did.

• 11:38Shaan Puri?

  Okay, hold on, pause. I went up to him to ask to take a photo with him and I became friends with him. This is a Sam Parr thing that you do. And I want the people listening to know how the hell you do it. Because that's how we became friends. You literally emailed me being like, hey, Sean, heard great things about you. You'd never heard anything about me.

• 11:53Sam Parr?

  I had.

• 11:53Shaan Puri?

  Things about you. Probably not. We had never met. The point is you just reached out cold and you were like, hey, I got this big dinner. I need to host for like 80 people like next week. Can I borrow your office for, for free? It's going to have all these awesome speakers. You're going to love it. You can attend the dinner. And I was like, yeah, sure. And we became really good friends since then. And so you have this, this gift of befriending people kind of out of the blue. So tell me, what actually happened when you met him on the street?

• 12:19Sam Parr?

  I call it the gift of gab.

• 12:20Shaan Puri?

  Okay.

• 12:20Sam Parr?

  That's what my parents called it growing up. Let's see, he, I had my dog Sid with me. Mike's a big dog guy. I walked up to him, asked for a photo. He started talking about my dog. I go, oh yeah, thank you. Like yada yada dog stuff. And I'm like, by the way, what are you doing here? Oh, I'm opening up this shop. Amazing. Who's gonna run it? I'm still looking. Mike, I'm your guy. I know we just met, but I'm your guy. Like, let me do this. I probably said it in that exact tone. And he was like, yeah, like, I don't know, maybe. And I just started heckling him and just like joking with him a little bit. And he's like, yeah, okay. Well, here's my wife's number. Call her.

• 12:54Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 12:55Sam Parr?

  And so I called her and then I found out that the place that I met him at, it was a jeans store and I like jeans a lot. And he was, we were going, we used to go to the same store. The next day I was, I went into the jeans store and I, there was a guy who worked there named Matt. And I go, Matt, Mike Wolf was here the other day. When's he coming back? And he goes, well, he's got some clothes that he's got to pick up tomorrow. So I go, okay, here's $50. Text me when you think he's gonna come in tomorrow. I'm gonna show up. And so he did that. And I just waited on the couch for him. And I go, Mike, what's up, man? Look, here's the deal. Let me run this thing. Or let me, let me help you set it up. He goes, all right, fine. You're it. And that's how it happened.

• 13:28Shaan Puri?

  Right. At that point, he's like, okay, it's gonna take more effort to get rid of this kid than to just give him what he wants.

• 13:32Sam Parr?

  Yeah. So that's kind of how that happened. But anyway, while working there, I like met all these amazing people because Mike's a celebrity and he would get all these cool people coming in. And Kid Rocks manager or something like that came in and I started just, just messing around and talking to him. He said that there's this new law that allows small time distillers in Tennessee to create whiskey in the same way that in the 90s, craft beer was allowed to be created. And I was like, oh, that's kind of interesting. And because I worked at Mike Wolf's store, I knew that like Americana and vintage stuff was really popular and moonshine is Americana vintage, all this kind of like.

• 14:07Shaan Puri?

  It was a trend? Shout out to.

• 14:08Sam Parr?

  Yes. So we had this new product coming out called Trends. But it was like, moonshine was like popular and there's all these like moonshiner shows. And it was basically, moonshine means illegal whiskey. This was. That the Kid Rocks guy told me about, it's called Popcorn Sutton's. It was, it's illegal. They could sell it in stores, but they, they only would make it in small batches. And so what I did was I created an online store called Moonshine Online. And I would try to get customers from all over, like places that weren't the South, that weren't used to this, this novelty whiskey. And I started selling it online.

• 14:38Shaan Puri?

  Wow. And how was it doing?

• 14:40Sam Parr?

  I mean, I, I. It was awesome.

• 14:41Shaan Puri?

  Do I even need to ask? You sold, you sold alcohol online. Probably did pretty well.

• 14:44Sam Parr?

  Yeah. I mean, I would be in like finance class in my, this was PayPal on, I don't even know if I had an iPhone, but it go ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching. And I said, my finance teacher, I'm like, I just made a thousand dollars while I was sitting here in class. Like, what do I do?

• 14:58Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 14:59Sam Parr?

  And so it was good. It was making.

• 15:00Shaan Puri?

  What did they say?

• 15:01Sam Parr?

  They're like, well, he was like, you need to talk to a lawyer because I don't know what you're doing is legal. So I talked to a lawyer and they're like, yeah, you're kind of breaking some laws here. So, so the Moonshine Online didn't last long.

• 15:10Shaan Puri?

  Okay. So the, so the BlackBerry with PayPal installed had to, had to go quiet for a bit.

• 15:15Sam Parr?

  Yeah. And so he was like, uh, yeah, like you gotta like jump through all these hoops. And I was like, okay, well, I don't know if I want to do that. But I Googled like where in the country do internet companies live? And online it said San Francisco. So I emailed the founders of Airbnb. I asked for a job. They said, can you come to our office next week? I was like, yeah, I'm here already. And so I bought a ticket and flew out here. I interviewed there. And, but while I was here, I met a really cool guy named John Havel. And he had started a business because I, I stayed on his Airbnb. That's how I met him.

• 15:48Shaan Puri?

  Gotcha.

• 15:49Sam Parr?

  And I was like, I was like, this is so cool. There's people my age doing cool stuff. I'm coming out here. And so I moved, I went back home a few days later. Sold the limited possessions that I had, left school and I moved out here. And we started Bunk, a roommate matching app that was sold after 10 months for a tiny amount of money. And then I started my current company.

• 16:10Shaan Puri?

  And how important was it to get out here? Like what happens if you don't move?

• 16:15Sam Parr?

  It

• 16:16Shaan Puri?

  Is this a lot of people right now?

• 16:17Sam Parr?

  Nothing would have happened.

• 16:18Shaan Puri?

  Nothing, nothing would have happened differently, or nothing would have happened at all?

• 16:21Sam Parr?

  I would not be where I am.

• 16:22Shaan Puri?

  Hmm, what would you be doing?

• 16:24Sam Parr?

  Um, working at hot dog stands, or started a lawn company, or...

• 16:30Shaan Puri?

  Was it obvious to you and others at the time, like, when you were saying, "Hey, I'm gonna go out to San Francisco", it seems like that's where the internet was?

• 16:36Sam Parr?

  It was not. I told my mom about Airbnb, and at the time, 300 people or 200 people worked there, so it wasn't like small, but it wasn't well-known, and she was like, "Is this a scam? What is this Airbnb thing? You stay at other people's homes?" I was like, "Yeah, there's other company called Uber Cab", and it's kinda like that, but like with cars, and she's like, "What are you talking about? Do they offer health insurance? That's all I care about." And I was like, "I'm doing this, guys, I'm doing this", and they, they gave me, I sold my car, that gave me $5,000, and then they gave me $1,000 to, as like my, I hadn't graduated college yet, but as like my graduation gift, and they go, "All right, come, we'll help you do it", and they gave me a grand, and I moved out here, and so they supported me, but they, they didn't know what I was getting into.

• 17:20Shaan Puri?

  You don't even know this, our stories are so, they're very different, but they're like parallel, parallel tracks. Everything you're saying, I literally had a moment like that in my life, which, it's for another day, cuz I wanna, uh, this is your story, but...

• 17:33Sam Parr?

  Having supportive parents is like a really unfair advantage.

• 17:36Shaan Puri?

  Absolutely. Also, having a level of like, you gotta have a little fuck-it in your system, and you had enough fuck-it to say, "All right, I'm just gonna go out there. I don't know, I don't have the whole thing figured out, I'm gonna go, and I'm gonna figure it out. I know enough that that's where I need to be." Tony Robbins has this really good phrase I like, which he says, "Proximity is power", which is just like, if you know nothing else, just get close

• 17:57Sam Parr?

  That's cool.

• 17:58Shaan Puri?

  to the stuff you like. Get close to the people you like, just hang with them more. The proximity has its own power. Go to the place you want, just be near it. Proximity is power. And I've seen that play out many times for myself. Your story reminds me of that.

• 18:09Sam Parr?

  Well, the thing is, is that you and I both have a lot of buddies that are really wealthy. Their children probably aren't gonna be willing to take a lot of risks, because when you grow up wealthy, you kinda know what there's to lose and all this stuff, but the way I grew up, like, I was a little bit of a wild man, and like, sometimes I would get kicked out of my house, and I would literally... Sleep outside.

• 18:25Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 18:26Sam Parr?

  So it's like the worst case scenario is like I just sleep outside. It's like this, this, this is no big deal. Or the worst case scenario is I go and like sell bottled water on the corner. Like I can make it work. Like the downside is, is really, really low.

• 18:38Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 18:38Sam Parr?

  Or the worst case is I call my mom and be like, hey, I don't ever want you to support me, but like, can you give me like $300 so I can get, I just come stay in my room?

• 18:46Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, there's a get out of jail free card. Did you ever, you know, I remember when I was doing my very first startup, I was living in Colorado. Kind of a similar situation. I won't do the whole backstory, but I got into a spot where we had won 30 grand of just prize money because I would just go pitch in these business plan competitions.

• 19:02Sam Parr?

  That's amazing.

• 19:02Shaan Puri?

  Pitching. And so I would just win the business plan competition. So we rolled up 30 grand in like a month of prize money. And then my dad was also like, okay, if you're gonna do this, not gonna go to med school. I took the MCATs. If you're not gonna go, let's take, you know, some of that tuition. And he gave me like, I don't remember, was it 20 grand or something like that? He's like, that's gonna last you the year. So I got 30 grand from this, 20 for this, and there's me and two, two co-founders.

• 19:24Sam Parr?

  That's like such a good dad.

• 19:25Shaan Puri?

  Oh, yeah. It was huge. And he was, he was not even trying to be helpful. He was like, you've been so lazy your whole life that like I finally see you switched on. I think this is a terrible idea. You're doing a sushi restaurant. Like that's a terrible idea.

• 19:37Sam Parr?

  But it's your tuition.

• 19:37Shaan Puri?

  But yeah, but you're, you're actually waking up and doing something every day without anyone telling you to do it. And, and he, you know, he, he gave me this line that's, uh, in life, it's a lot more about motion than it is direction. So, uh, you know, imagine you're on a beach and you want to get to this island. The island is where all the fantasies come true. And if you could see the island, you would say that's the direction I need to go. Problem is from where you're standing, you can't see where the island is. You just think this island exists.

• 20:02Sam Parr?

  You just gotta move.

• 20:02Shaan Puri?

  So you gotta go, you gotta get in the boat and start paddling. And then as you go, you'll realize, hey, actually I see it. It's over there. And you, it's, he's like, it's much easier to move a boat when you actually have some momentum. You can just put your paddle in the water and you'll actually turn and you'll start going in the new direction. And that's literally what happened in my life. So, so I give him credit for that. But I remember we were living pretty frugally.

• 20:23Sam Parr?

  Frugal. You're frugal.

• 20:24Shaan Puri?

  And, and you're Mr. Frugal.

• 20:26Sam Parr?

  I am.

• 20:26Shaan Puri?

  So I want to get into that. I remember one time, the way we were living, it was like kind of embarrassing. It was three of us in a one bedroom apartment, uh, in Colorado and every, everything we would need, we would buy and return. So it's like, hey, we need a camera for this photo shoot to take our menu pictures.

• 20:42Sam Parr?

  Costco's the best for that.

• 20:43Shaan Puri?

  Still tell you, yeah, it's like best buy 14 day policy, but you don't need this. And, you know, so we would go buy this DSLR camera and return it 14 days later, 10 times. And, uh, I remember we would sleep on air mattresses. And we knew that Target had a 90 day return policy on air mattresses. So I remember going and returning my air mattress. So embarrassing of like, damn, I I'm this poor that I'm just like.

• 21:04Sam Parr?

  But your were your parents poor or they're frugal?

• 21:06Shaan Puri?

  We were like middle class.

• 21:07Sam Parr?

  Just normal.

• 21:07Shaan Puri?

  It was just that I couldn't go to them for with an ask. Cause when you go with an ask, you gotta have a little. It's like going to a bank. It's like, you gotta have a down payment of some kind of success or momentum.

• 21:17Sam Parr?

  I feel you.

• 21:17Shaan Puri?

  At this point, I didn't feel like I had my down payment of, I know what I'm doing. Look, it's working. Just give me a little money. This was like, hey, I'm taking a leap of faith. You already gave me a little money. I need to stretch that dollar. Cause I don't know if there is another dollar after this. Did you have any sort of, when you were living frugal, did you have any moments like that? That were the sort of?

• 21:35Sam Parr?

  No, I grew up kind of poor that my parents started a thing that like made a pretty good living for them. And they paid my high school tuition and they, I got a car that was $5,000, an F-150 truck. But it's not like I was like pulled up from my bootstraps, like from nothing.

• 21:53Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 21:53Sam Parr?

  But I've never, the the thousand dollar gift that I got from graduating college was the most money that they've ever, that I've ever. Like, yeah, and that to me was like, a thousand dollars? Yeah, no, it was so, and then they gave me like a, like a credit card that had like a $500 limit on it. Like, they're like, here's this for emergencies. And I remember I cut it up right when I got here. I was like, I'm doing this. I was like, I'm going on the, I was like, I'm gonna, I'm literally gonna be homeless before I ever asked for help.

• 22:21Shaan Puri?

  And so you lived pretty like a Spartan lifestyle for a while, uh, when you were starting up the hustle.

• 22:27Sam Parr?

  I loved it.

• 22:27Shaan Puri?

  Tell us about that, cause I think people gotta know what, sometimes what it takes.

• 22:31Sam Parr?

  Uh, yeah.

• 22:32Shaan Puri?

  Sometimes you don't have to sacrifice, but there are sometimes situations where before it builds up and gets big, you know, you gotta, you gotta live that Spartan lifestyle. Tell us about that.

• 22:40Sam Parr?

  Yeah, so I do well now, but people are like, yo, you know, it's only been, our company just turned three years old the other day. It's only been three years and you're doing good. And I was like, well, I've been grinding since like taking risks since like 16, 17, 18. And up until a few years ago, like I, I didn't have any money. And so for the longest time in San Francisco, I had a $600 rent maybe, and I. I did that because I was able to scrape together some money after selling something. And I rented a four bedroom house. I furnished the whole place with used or free furniture on Craigslist and then I rented it out to people. Like the other three bedrooms and that ultimately paid for my rent. Which means that on just living expenses, I was able to only spend about a grand a month.

• 23:25Sam Parr?

  And so because of that, the first couple of years, my W2 income was only about $15,000.

• 23:29Shaan Puri?

  And so that was the first couple of years of the hustle.

• 23:31Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 23:32Shaan Puri?

  And then let's give people a sense of the numbers today. You don't have to say the specifics, but you know, what should we be thinking about when we think, you know, how is the hustle doing?

• 23:40Sam Parr?

  Yeah, so our business is very profitable. It makes eight figures in revenue, really fat margins. My goal is to get it to 100 million in revenue by 2025 and I think we'll get there. So it potentially may not be Uber, but it'll be a nice sized business. It'll be a hundred million dollar business. Companies like ours could probably sell for any in the huge number, the huge range of 20 to 60 million dollars. And we haven't taken any venture capital.

• 24:06Shaan Puri?

  Right. So you raised money, but you raised it sort of from, from the Rolodex in a way.

• 24:12Sam Parr?

  Yeah, but they weren't in the Rolodex at the time. Tim Ferriss was like, lived on the block from me and I became friends with him that way. So he ended up investing the founders of Bleach Report, the founders of NerdWallet and loads of other people just like that. Like 36 people, Scott Belsky, one of the early Uber guys, loads of people like that, all collectively put in some sum between 20 and a hundred thousand dollars for Meet Sethi. And collectively we raised about a million dollars.

• 24:37Shaan Puri?

  And then you also raised from the community.

• 24:39Sam Parr?

  Yeah, so what we did, we, the hustle started as a conference, a conference with a newsletter. And I realized the newsletter could be a way bigger business, but then I realized the newsletter could actually lead to an even bigger business. But in the meantime, let's use this newsletter to make profits. And once we hit 200,000 users, we said, we always got emails of people wanting to invest and we go, let's just let anyone invest. And so I thought that we would get $150,000 in 90 days. We ended up getting close to $350,000 in 48 hours.

• 25:05Shaan Puri?

  Wow. All right, ladies and gents, if you want to make that first million, you have got to be organized. Our sponsor, Monday.com, is back to get you there with a weekly dose of the Monday.com motivation. You know, keeping a clean desk, making to-do lists and using a calendar, those aren't just things that adults do. They're things that wildly successful teams do to hit their goals. In other words, being organized makes achieving your dream of swimming in that money vault that much closer. Visit Monday.com backslash pod backslash million. That's right, two backslashes. Monday.com backslash pod backslash million to get 10% off of Monday.com. And you can use their customizable templates that will help you get organized. It'll increase your workflow, it'll manage your workload and get you one step closer to hit your goals.

• 25:52Sam Parr?

  And so, we raised a little bit of money from our users as well. Looking back, logistically speaking, I didn't need any of that money.

• 25:59Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 26:00Sam Parr?

  We've always been profitable, it's huge cash flows, but Tim Ferriss gave me money. Now, he's my friend and I could text him and ask for advice and that's kind of like a cool trade-off.

• 26:09Shaan Puri?

  Right. And with the community money, was that worth it? Because most people don't do that because there's some-

• 26:14Sam Parr?

  Looking back, no.

• 26:15Shaan Puri?

  Issues.

• 26:16Sam Parr?

  It was not worth it.

• 26:17Shaan Puri?

  Why do you say that?

• 26:18Sam Parr?

  I have grown to be much more private than I was in the past and I hate having people that know my business.

• 26:24Shaan Puri?

  Gotcha. And just a second on the origin of the Hustle and the HustleCon, the conference really, because it started as a conference before it was a newsletter.

• 26:34Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 26:35Shaan Puri?

  And it started before you. Somebody had to start the HustleCon.

• 26:39Sam Parr?

  I randomly met Eric Bond and Elizabeth Yen and these folks are successful entrepreneurs. Eric had a business called Beat the GMAT that he sold for, I don't know how much, but if I had to guess, eight figures. Elizabeth Yen had another business called Launchbit that had a nice exit. And so, I met a guy who introduced me to them and we just became friends. And I had like a really small exit in 2012 or 13 and I emailed Eric, I go, "What do I do now?" And he said, "I got this thing I put on, I put on this thing called HustleCon. It was kind of like a conference, but in reality, it was like a meetup and like 100 people came. It made like $4,000 or I forget, some-" Like that. It's just basically a website and email list of two or 300 people.

• 27:21Sam Parr?

  Do you want it? Just do something with it and give me like 10% of the profit. I said, and so I launched, I relaunched HustleCon on June 1st of 2014. Hosted that conference six weeks later and it made like 60 Gs. And the whole idea behind it was I'm not trying to make money. I'm just trying to meet interesting people. And so I would cold email all of these speakers and I would say like, hey, do you want to speak? These other 15 speakers are coming. And of course, they hadn't, they weren't coming. And they would say, yes, and then I'd go to the other 15 and be like, hey, uh, you know, I would do the same shtick with them and they all started coming. And then I became friends with them and they would teach me stuff and I would learn stuff just hanging out with them. I'd be like, hey, I need to come by your office so we could talk about the talk, but I talked about the talk for 10 minutes and the next 50 minutes,

• 28:06Sam Parr?

  I just would ask them questions. And so I hosted this event and the way in which I made it popular was by doing email marketing and I knew that email marketing was effective because of just like studying it and teaching myself how to be a copywriter. And so that first event in six weeks made about 60 Gs and I only spent eight grand or some low number like that on the event. So I was like, oh, that's cool. So took that money and actually for six months, I drove my motorcycle around the country and camped and hung out. And then during that trip, I was like, let's do this again. The next time, this time was 80 days. That's when I met, I think, yeah, that's when I met you. That event did about quarter of a million in revenue on 30,000 or 20,000 in expenses. And then it was like, okay, this is cool, but I don't want to run the conference

• 28:50Sam Parr?

  forever. I had just read the biography of Ted Turner, the guy who started CNN. I was like, that guy is southern. I'm kind of southern. He like is kind of wild like I am. I could do that. I'm already doing that kinda like I could start a media company. And so that's when we said, let's do a media company. And then the first six months of the hustle, which started in 2015. It was just a blog.

• 29:10Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 29:10Sam Parr?

  But then-

• 29:10Shaan Puri?

  I remember that. It was a, you, you were just telling really great stories, but it was like long form.

• 29:15Sam Parr?

  Long form blog stuff, and I would just blog about like funny stuff, or interesting stuff, like taking LSD, or living on solent for 30 days, just stuff like that. And it got loads of traffic, but it wa- it was clear that would not be a huge, that wouldn't be a huge business. So we relaunched on April 19th of 2016, so that's why I say we're about three years old. And that's when we decided, let's go all in on email. Let's build this whole thing on email. And then it became very clear that if you study the history of Groupon, of Daily Candy, of Thrillist, people may not even know what the last two are. But anyway, I was like, man, some of these like billion dollar companies all started with an email list. Like, let's do that. Let's build up this huge email list, and then start creating more products and use that as a distribution channel. And I think we could build a billion dollar company that way, and that was the idea.

• 29:56Shaan Puri?

  And I remember pretty early on, there was a temptation from, uh, not even really, you didn't seem tempted, but other people were tempted to say, jump on Facebook, jump on video, jump on-

• 30:06Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 30:06Shaan Puri?

  This trend, Snapchat.

• 30:07Sam Parr?

  I knew from day one that would be a horrible idea. It's like, my, I've always wanted to be independent, and I felt that building an audience on the back of Facebook was like, building a business in a rented apartment where the landlord raises the price every quarter. Like, that's a horrible idea. And so I called my email list my pirate ship, and every subscriber was a little bit of wind in our sails.

• 30:24Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 30:25Sam Parr?

  Because, like I said, I'm a, I'm kind of a simpleton. I'm a simple guy. And if you look at like the economics of like building something on Facebook or someone else's platform, you're like, so where's the profit come from? Well, if you do this, like, I don't understand that. That, that, that's, that doesn't really make sense-

• 30:40Shaan Puri?

  Too fancy for me.

• 30:40Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I was like, that does not make sense to me, and I don't want to do that. And so, we didn't.

• 30:47Shaan Puri?

  And I think that's paid off, uh, because now you have, I mean, this has got to be one of the biggest daily emails in the world.

• 30:53Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I think so. I think we gotta be up there. I only know of maybe two or three people that can compete.

• 30:58Shaan Puri?

  And who, who's that? Who can compete?

• 30:59Sam Parr?

  There's the skim. I mean, they claim to have six or seven or eight million. They're pretty big. And then there's maybe a handful of one-off things that aren't confirmed that I would guess.

• 31:10Shaan Puri?

  And when you were doing this and it started to make money, that was also pretty counterintuitive. I mean, unless you really knew the email game.

• 31:17Sam Parr?

  Which I didn't. By the way, I knew nothing. Like, up until, like, I didn't know anything. I didn't know what, like, basic words were, like an RFP, or, I mean, I knew nothing.

• 31:27Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 31:27Sam Parr?

  I knew, I didn't know what CPM meant. I didn't know, I didn't know how, like, I was doing our accounting. I didn't know the difference between cash flow and revenue. Like, I didn't know anything.

• 31:36Shaan Puri?

  And do you know things now, or you just hired people who know things?

• 31:39Sam Parr?

  I know a lot of things, yeah. Yeah, I do. I know how to read a balance sheet and do a P and L statement. I know how to make money. I don't know how the, I don't know how to code. I cannot code at all. And we have a tech team, a nice-sized tech team, and we built all our own custom technology. I just, I'm really good at being like, what's the simplest solution? Like, what should exist? And I'm like, hey, guys, can you, like, it would be cool if this existed. Can you, do you know how to make that happen? And they would just say, yeah. I'm like, all right, great. Show me in a week and let's see.

• 32:08Shaan Puri?

  Right. And what was the first milestone where you were like, holy shit? This thing's actually, not just it's working, but this thing's actually gonna be really big.

• 32:17Sam Parr?

  Well, the first week of our existence, we got a million people coming to the website. And I was like, that's awesome. That is great. And we got on the front page of Reddit. And we had like two or 3,000 concurrent users on real-time analytics, Google Analytics. And I was like, sick. That's awesome.

• 32:32Shaan Puri?

  How good is it to watch the real time?

• 32:33Sam Parr?

  It's addicting. It's addicting. It's hugely addicting. And then I was like, this is not gonna, this cannot be big. I thought that, and someone once told me, a big CEO of a huge media company that you know of, told me, this business will never make more than $2 million a year. We could do that in a month now.

• 32:49Shaan Puri?

  And what was that person wrong about? What didn't they get?

• 32:51Sam Parr?

  They were a New York media person who was kind of fancy and they didn't, they're like, email is such a small thing, like an email newsletter, a newsletter, like you don't even have a website, like there's no way advertisers are gonna want that. And I'm like, well, but if you think about it, if you just look at how much they're gonna pay per click on all these other platforms, who cares if it's on your email or on a website or like, does it matter as long as they get like traffic to their stuff, like who cares? And it's like, well, it doesn't work like that. I was like, okay, well, and so I kind of believed them. I didn't think that it would work. And then, once we started growing, I was like, oh, this is crazy. And then it wasn't until like six months ago where I was like, man, there's like a path to make like literally a hundred million dollars a year in revenue

• 33:34Sam Parr?

  on this. I kind of knew a little bit that it could be big. Daily Candy, the company that I modeled this after early on, they claimed to have 25 million in revenue and 10 million in net income a year. So I was like, well, if we just do that, that might happen.

• 33:47Shaan Puri?

  And they're still around, they're doing well?

• 33:48Sam Parr?

  They sold for 125 million to Comcast and then Comcast screwed it up and shut them down.

• 33:52Shaan Puri?

  Gotcha, okay. And so, let's play a little game called remake my first million. If you had to remake a million bucks, so you, I take away your business as it is today, you can't do that again. This exact business, you can't do it again. You're 21 years old though, so I give you back that youthful energy and time. What would you work on? What would you try to do? Let's say you don't have capital, you don't have network, you don't have a lot of those pieces. You're you, but you're 21. What would you do again? Or what would you do differently this time?

• 34:21Sam Parr?

  If I was 21, 22, I would try to get a quick win and try to get like a couple hundred thousand or maybe a million dollars in my bank by like starting a business that made a hundred grand a month and would try to sell it and own all of it. And I think that that is significantly more possible than most people think.

• 34:36Shaan Puri?

  So I'm, I'm 21, I'm listening to this. I say, all right, that sounds pretty good. Be more specific. What do you mean? What sorts of ideas could do that?

• 34:43Sam Parr?

  Well, if they're 21 today, start blogging. And when I say start blogging, I would say, learn one new interesting thing each week and then just blog about what you learned. Do that every single day, every week for a year. Try to get 2000 to 3000 people a day coming to your site through search. The way you find out what to write about is you go to harefs.com and you buy a subscription and that will teach you what to write because it'll tell you what people are searching for. Try to rank for those words, build up an email list of 5000 people and then create a course and sell it to them.

• 35:13Shaan Puri?

  I like it. And I like the looking up the keywords. It's like having the answers to the test. It's like, here's what people want to know.

• 35:19Sam Parr?

  Yeah, just answer it.

• 35:20Shaan Puri?

  Just answer it.

• 35:21Sam Parr?

  And answer it by learning on your own and then just teaching people what you learned.

• 35:25Shaan Puri?

  There's two ways to teach or to create content. One is to be the expert. And the other way is to be the curious novice.

• 35:31Sam Parr?

  The second one 100% works.

• 35:33Shaan Puri?

  Right. A lot of people count themselves out because they just assume I'm not the expert. But in reality,

• 35:37Sam Parr?

  You only need to be one step above. Yeah, you just gotta be one step in front of your audience. And that one step could be you just read a book over the weekend.

• 35:45Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 35:46Sam Parr?

  So if I was a 21-year-old kid, what I would do is go on Yelp, find, pick a very specific niche, like irrigation services, scaffolding rental, lawn cutting service. Pick some niche in a town like Nashville, Denver, something like that. And try to start a business that beats all the other people on Yelp. I'm quite obsessed with the idea of consolidating local businesses, so.

• 36:09Shaan Puri?

  And so you

• 36:09Sam Parr?

  Boring stuff, right?

• 36:10Shaan Puri?

  Well, it's not boring. It's like, people don't like to hear the obvious. And it's almost the obvious, or it's the basics.

• 36:17Sam Parr?

  Dude, because people are super fancy, man. Like, me and Ramon, him and I have started or funded like five or six companies that collectively make $10 million or something like that. And it's like the most simple shit on earth. And if I told you that this company makes this much money, you'd be like, what? That is so stupid. Ramon owns this one that I participate on a little bit as well that sells dog ramps.

• 36:40Shaan Puri?

  What's a dog ramp?

• 36:40Sam Parr?

  A dog ramp is when you have a dash hound or, what kind of dog do you have? Like a chihuahua?

• 36:45Shaan Puri?

  I have a multi-poo. He said it was for wiener dogs.

• 36:47Sam Parr?

  Yeah, that's a dash hound.

• 36:48Shaan Puri?

  Okay. That's the fancy word.

• 36:50Sam Parr?

  Sausage dog, yeah, wiener dog. When you have these small dogs and they want to get on your bed, they can't get up. So it's just like, oh, this is a piece of wood and it flips up. So like a ramp, like a miniature handicap ramp and your dog can get up there. And that makes sometimes tens of thousands of dollars a day.

• 37:05Shaan Puri?

  And why are people scared of these businesses? Or do they just assume it can't be, you know, can't be that big?

• 37:11Sam Parr?

  Here's why. I think about this all the time because I struggle with my team. They don't understand leverage. So they think that in order to make, let's say, a million dollars, you have to work an equivalent amount of hours that in their head they think is a million dollars. Or you have to have an idea that is the equivalent of a million dollar idea.

• 37:28Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 37:29Sam Parr?

  When in reality, you could just have really good execution, which is not tied to the amount of time in which you spend on something. You could have pretty good execution, like 100% effort for a short amount of time. And that, if you leverage it correctly, it creates significant amounts of value. And so they overthink stuff. Also, I think they feel guilty. It's like-

• 37:51Shaan Puri?

  Guilty how?

• 37:52Sam Parr?

  Like, the way I compare it is like when your mom makes a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, it always tastes better than when you do it because you see how simple it is. And you're like, oh, this like, isn't that... Like, yeah, this is like, it's gotta be way better. Like, the other people must do it way different because this isn't that. Like, this can't be that easy, can it? And that's kind of like the idea. And people like, overthink stuff. I also think that we hang out with a lot of high IQ people. And I think the smarter you are, the more disadvantaged you are-

• 38:18Shaan Puri?

  At making money.

• 38:19Sam Parr?

  At some of these like, simple things. And it's also fear.

• 38:22Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 38:22Sam Parr?

  People are afraid.

• 38:23Shaan Puri?

  PB and J businesses are, can be great businesses if you apply leverage. And that's the, that's sort of the difference where your same hot dog stand idea could have been a big business if you just applied more leverage. More stands, more locations.

• 38:37Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 38:37Shaan Puri?

  Brand chises it out.

• 38:38Sam Parr?

  And the way you create leverage is like, you just have to like, set things up in a very particular way. So like, you just hire key people. Or you use the internet and you realize, well, I can do the same thing, but I just put two zeros on the back of my ad spend. It's like, wow, I just, I'm not doing any extra effort, but I'm getting like, 10 times the amount of money. And that-

• 38:58Shaan Puri?

  I think you had a business that you bought, a SaaS company or-

• 39:01Sam Parr?

  Yeah, so Ramon and I also own a SaaS company. It's like a $30,000 a month SaaS business.

• 39:05Shaan Puri?

  And all you did was raise the prices, is that correct?

• 39:07Sam Parr?

  Yeah. All we did so far was just went in and changed the three to like, a six. And that was it. That's all we did.

• 39:14Shaan Puri?

  You're like, I can't code, but even I know how to do this.

• 39:17Sam Parr?

  Yeah. Most people don't price their stuff effectively. We bought a company. Literally, all that was done was double the price. And revenue doubled. Same amount of people sign up every day is super simple.

• 39:28Shaan Puri?

  I love it. This is why I call you the lord of the flies, man. You would find the way to make the money.

• 39:34Sam Parr?

  And if I, what I would like to do is buy more software companies and 10x the price. I think that that's possible as well.

• 39:39Shaan Puri?

  So you have all these experiments in your head, but one experiment you guys just launched is trends. And I want to hear about it because I like trends, but I don't fully get trends.

• 39:49Sam Parr?

  Yeah, a lot of people, a lot of people who haven't experienced it, I don't think are going to get it yet. And that's because we aren't.

• 39:55Shaan Puri?

  What is it?

• 39:56Sam Parr?

  Yeah. So basically the idea is it's a premium publication, a paid publication, a paid weekly email. And we have hired a team of analysts as well as myself and we crawl the web and look at millions of bits data. And we also talk to people like you and other experts and we just explore various industries and we do deconstructing of various businesses. And we just show like where are our cool opportunities and where's the white space and loads of different industries.

• 40:22Shaan Puri?

  So it's, if I'm somebody who is looking for my next opportunity or my next idea.

• 40:27Sam Parr?

  The way that we explain it is like, look, if you start a company, you can make it win or at least do be mildly successful with enough effort. Like you could, if you like are willing to spend 20 years on something, you could probably get a little bit of success out of it. But if you start something on a small ripple that can eventually become a wave or tsunami, like it's just gonna, the products will get pulled out of you. Like it's just gonna push you down this hill and it's like life will be a lot better. So it's just like, let's explore some of these waves while they're still kind of small and what they're doing.

• 40:55Shaan Puri?

  Gotcha. So you guys are trend spotting early, these business opportunities.

• 40:59Sam Parr?

  As well as looking at interesting companies and saying like, well, here's how they work. What if you applied that to this thing? So like we interviewed the guy who started 1-800-GOT-JUNK, Brian. And he said, yeah, 1-800-GOT-JUNK, here's how it works. Here's the economics. I'm like, oh, that's amazing. We're like, where else can this work? And he goes, local irrigation services. And we go, awesome.

• 41:16Shaan Puri?

  Thank you.

• 41:16Sam Parr?

  We went and interviewed a bunch of people and we got the data and we chose, all right, here's, this is like a cool idea.

• 41:22Shaan Puri?

  Nice. And so if Trends works, The Hustle becomes this thing that has got the daily newsletter. We tell you what's going on. You got Trends, which tells you about the big opportunities that are coming.

• 41:33Sam Parr?

  I'm trying to steal SoftBank's playbook. So in the late 80s, early 90s, Masahsan, he started what was called basically the PC magazine of Japan. He started a publication, started a conference.

• 41:45Shaan Puri?

  And that's a good example, right? PCs was the wave. And he started the magazine, just to ride the wave.

• 41:50Sam Parr?

  Then he started the conference, which is now called CES.

• 41:54Shaan Puri?

  He created CES?

• 41:55Sam Parr?

  He bought it. He bought it with the profits from the publication. And then he was also selling software. And then he started investing in the companies that he saw that were advertising with him. So I just want to do that same thing because I think like working at SoftBank would be a really cool job.

• 42:09Shaan Puri?

  Nice. Going after SoftBank.

• 42:11Sam Parr?

  Wow.

• 42:12Shaan Puri?

  You picked the big blue whale.

• 42:14Sam Parr?

  It seems like you like see his life. You're like, oh, man, he gets to hang out with cool people. He gets to invest his money. Like, let's just do that.

• 42:22Shaan Puri?

  That's pretty good. Okay. So when you think about like when somebody's listening to this podcast, let's talk about the podcast for a second because this is a new product essentially that is being published on The Hustle, by The Hustle.

• 42:34Sam Parr?

  Yeah. Hopefully there's 100,000 people listening to this right now that came from my email list.

• 42:38Shaan Puri?

  If you're listening to this and you're one of the 100,000, just tweet at Sam so that he knows you're listening. All right. So why do a podcast? I guess, why didn't you do a podcast earlier is a better question.

• 42:48Sam Parr?

  Because I didn't know anyone that could do it well. And you and I shoot the shit all the time. You're very successful. You're amazing at asking certain questions. You're also amazing at like saying these weird phrases, like when you're just talking about your father and talking about like emotion versus direction. And so when you said you were going to do a podcast, I was like, oh, let's see if we could partner with him. And we got to do that. I also think that podcasts in general are a horrible business if that's your only stream of revenue. But since we have all this other stuff, it's like, yeah, let's do that.

• 43:19Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. It's just sort of, it's found money on top of the existing audience that you have today.

• 43:25Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 43:25Shaan Puri?

  And I think that the good thing about what you guys do is that I think you guys capture just a fraction of the value you create. So giving people the news every morning in a super simple, digestible way. And then you capture, you know, it's free for them and you capture just a tiny amount of that value on advertising.

• 43:40Sam Parr?

  Yeah, so with trends, we're going to be capturing a little bit more. And this is now another component that we can actually give for free and capture a little bit of the value. And hopefully, people will sign up for, maybe 3% of people listening will sign up for our paid services.

• 43:52Shaan Puri?

  Gotcha. Okay, cool. And so I want to close it out. I want to do bonus segment about money.

• 43:58Sam Parr?

  Money.

• 43:58Shaan Puri?

  Okay, this is the money round. I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions related to money and you're going to tell us about them. How much money were you making at age 21, 25? And I usually say 30, but you're 29, so we'll do 29. So 21, 25, 29?

• 44:14Sam Parr?

  21. I had just, I joined a company after we had a little exit. My salary was $50,000 to $60,000 a year with a bonus that was nice sized. I was able to save $25,000 with that salary in San Francisco.

• 44:27Shaan Puri?

  You saved $25,000 on a $50,000 salary? $50,000, $60,000 salary? Plus bonus?

• 44:32Sam Parr?

  Yeah, plus bonuses. I think my bonuses maybe came out to be like 80 grand, like total compensation.

• 44:37Shaan Puri?

  Okay, gotcha. That's good. And 25?

• 44:40Sam Parr?

  Lower, because I started the company when I was 25. The conference made 60 grand, about 50 grand in profit. The second conference made some number of around $200,000 in profit. That all stayed in the business, other than a draw I did of $2,000 a month.

• 44:56Shaan Puri?

  And then 29, your company's doing really well now. What do you pay yourself?

• 45:00Sam Parr?

  I pay myself six figures. I pay myself some number between six and seven figures, below seven figures, above six figures. I didn't pay myself six figures from the company until last year. For a long time, it was, it ramped up from like 40 to 60 to 100. And then I started giving myself meaningful bonuses based off performance. I make more income from my investments. So selling other businesses, rental income, things like that, I make more money that way.

• 45:32Shaan Puri?

  And so, last question. A lot of people have a number in mind. This is the number that they want. The number where they feel like they've hit it, they've made it. As of right, and the number can move. I think when people hit their number, they make a new number. But right now, what's your number?

• 45:48Sam Parr?

  I think that an old guy who I love, Stuart Allsop, I don't know if you know him, he's a good friend. But he's a big time investor. He invested in Twitch, Twitch's seed investor.

• 45:59Shaan Puri?

  Does he like being called an old guy who you love?

• 46:01Sam Parr?

  Uh, no, but he's like 70 years old. I just like calling him that. I don't know. He's, he's a good guy. He told me that the first unit you make makes life different. And I go, what's a unit? And he goes, 10 million. He goes, you get one unit, that's when life changes. So one, one unit will, where you're liquid is a big deal. It goes probably 10 and then 100 is like, you're set forever. 10 is like, be cool and you're fine.

• 46:30Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 46:32Shaan Puri?

  Don't go Mike Tyson.

• 46:34Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 46:34Shaan Puri?

  And you're fine.

• 46:35Sam Parr?

  Yeah, like 100 is you're set. 10 is like, like, life is never gonna be the same, but you could still ruin it if you like, really do something bad.

• 46:43Shaan Puri?

  So that's your number right now, one unit?

• 46:45Sam Parr?

  A unit, getting liquid. That said, I don't think I'll be happier with it. I know I won't be happier with that. Right? You're not gonna be happier with 10 million dollars, I don't think.

• 46:55Shaan Puri?

  I think I would be. I think, I think, uh, it's not so much happier. I think happier is kind of the wrong word.

• 47:00Sam Parr?

  The money won't make you happy. It's the fact that you did it.

• 47:03Shaan Puri?

  The fact that I did it, uh, as well as the lifestyle. So I think money, I have this thing that money is just stored time. So, so when I give you money, I'd like to unlock some of your time to go do something for me. Uh, and when you give me money, it's because, uh, you're, you want some of my time and that's sort of how money works. Money is just time frozen into a piece of paper. And when you give it to somebody else, it thaws out, you get their time. And so the thing, you know, if I had a unit, that would make sure that I'm the one unlocking other people's time. Nobody's really unlocking my time unless I'm choosing to do so.

• 47:37Sam Parr?

  Yeah, you could just do that with a lot less money than you think. I choose to work. I could not work. I do it because I like it.

• 47:44Shaan Puri?

  As long as it's a choice. What I'm saying is that most people, and I put myself in this bucket right now, I don't dictate how I spend every hour of my day. It's not all my choice. Uh, there are several things that are. Things that I don't want to be doing with my time. So the day that I can do sort of what I want, when I want, where I want, the way I want, that will be sort of the ultimate freedom.

• 48:04Sam Parr?

  I agree with you.

• 48:05Shaan Puri?

  I don't know if money unlocks that.

• 48:06Sam Parr?

  It could be lower. It's a lower number than you think.

• 48:08Shaan Puri?

  What's the number?

• 48:09Sam Parr?

  It depends on how much you spend, but like, I don't spend a lot of money. I could say fuck you to everyone and bounce and be fine.

• 48:14Shaan Puri?

  I'm a spender. That's the problem.

• 48:15Sam Parr?

  Man, maybe when I hit a hundred grand, I'm like, a hundred grand liquid, I was like, that's fuck you money.

• 48:22Sam Parr?

  But I was willing to say fuck you to.

• 48:24Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. You live a fuck me lifestyle and you could have fuck you money at a hundred K.

• 48:27Sam Parr?

  Yeah. That's exactly right. If you're willing to say fuck you even at 10,000 or 1,000, a hundred grand liquid made a difference.

• 48:34Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 48:35Sam Parr?

  That's my, that's the number I'll give you. A hundred grand liquid made a difference and I, and I was willing to say fuck off.

• 48:41Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. You know, I, I like this, this segment, the money round because money is this weird taboo thing. I remember when you messaged me on Facebook once and you were like,

• 48:50Sam Parr?

  I, oh, well, we always do that.

• 48:51Shaan Puri?

  You were just like, how much you make? Uh, and I was like, you know, we knew each other, but like, we hadn't talked about it before.

• 48:57Sam Parr?

  No, amongst my close friends, I'm very open. I'll be like, here's how much cash I have.

• 49:00Shaan Puri?

  Right. And you asked me all these questions and I was like, this is kind of cool. Cause I was like, it's, at first I just admired the balls of, hey, you know, you know, just to ask. But the second thing was I was like, this is how we can kind of help each other get ahead is information. Can we unlock some information so that you understand how people are playing this game? Because the pie is very, very big. And so the weird thing.

• 49:20Sam Parr?

  It's not a zero sum game. A lot of people think that like, if I make money, that means I took it from someone. It's like, no, that's not exactly how it works. Like if I create a piece of art, I didn't take this from anyone. I just created this valuable thing that someone's going to give me something for.

• 49:33Shaan Puri?

  Right. And even if you are taking money from somebody else, there's so many players in the game.

• 49:38Sam Parr?

  Yeah. As long as you, yeah, yeah. Like we, we can all win. And so it's, it's, whenever I ask people, it's never out of jealousy of like, I wish I was lower than, or I wish I was bigger than, I do wish I'm, have more than, than what I have sometimes, but it's not of like, I want you to be lower than me. It's like, oh man, what could you teach me?

• 49:55Shaan Puri?

  Right. Yeah. And, and I've learned from you and you've learned from me in that, in that regard. So, all right, Sam, where can people find you aside from subscribing to the hustle?

• 50:03Sam Parr?

  Subscribe to the hustle.

• 50:04Shaan Puri?

  Thehustle.co.

• 50:05Sam Parr?

  Yeah. Go to trends.co, trends.co, sign up.

• 50:09Shaan Puri?

  What about you personally? Where do they find you?

• 50:10Sam Parr?

  Me personally, don't email me. Because I won't reply more likely than not, but tweet at me and I will reply. The Sam Parr.

• 50:17Shaan Puri?

  Awesome. Thanks, Sam, so much. Great episode. We're gonna do a Spartan race tomorrow.

• 50:22Sam Parr?

  Yeah, we're running eight and a half. I don't know if we're gonna run, but we're walking eight and a half miles.

• 50:26Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, we're gonna long stroll tomorrow. All right. Good, good stuff, man. Great talking to you.