#40 - Paid Courses with Tom Wang, Barstool Acquisition & New Startup Hubs

*** JOIN OUR FACEBOOK GROUP for share ideas and insight with each other: www.facebook.com/groups/ourfirstmillion *** Today we first chat to Tom Wang, who has sold a 7 figure Amazon FBA biz + runs a 7 figure FBA Masterclass. Some stuff the guys talk about today is Utah as a new startup hub, Sam ignoring Andrew Yang before he became a democratic candidate, a social network built on Airpods, dry toothpaste, emergency bags, educational content and the recent Barstool acquisition. 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.

• 0:00Shaan Puri?

  I wasn't here in a trapped room. You will have the coronavirus.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Whenever.

• 0:04Shaan Puri?

  Twenty two minutes.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Whenever people ask if I'm sick, I'm like, oh, it's just allergies.

• 0:11Speaker 01

  And so the joke at the office is like, I think I'm gonna catch your allergies. What type of allergies you have? I'm like, I have the allergies that make me throw up. Or like, I think I'm like.

• 0:20Shaan Puri?

  The stomach allergies?

• 0:25Speaker 01

  Cause I was like, you gotta go home. Like, it's just allergies. You can catch these allergies, but it's allergies probably. Let's just jump right in and call this guy.

• 0:31Shaan Puri?

  So we're gonna call this guy, uh, Tom. The backstory here is I posted on our, uh, we made like a Facebook group for the podcast. If you're on Facebook, just search My First Million. And I posted in there. I was like, man, I really want to talk to somebody who's making over a million dollars a year on a course. And, um, this guy was like, hey, I, I, I do. I was like, wow, okay, fantastic. There's only like a hundred members in here. What are the odds? And, uh, so then he emailed me and he sent me the screenshots of his dashboard. And then like a walkthrough of his method. And I was like, this is fucking great. So.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  I saw the numbers, so it's legit.

• 1:03Shaan Puri?

  So he's, he's, you know, he's making a lot. So we'll see how much he wants to share.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  Thomas Wang?

• 1:08Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  Wang.

• 1:09Shaan Puri?

  Tom Wang. So, uh, and then, you know, we'll, we'll figure it out. So let me call this guy. Tom. Hey, Tom? Yes. What's up, man?

• 1:16Speaker 01

  Turn that up. I want to hear.

• 1:17Shaan Puri?

  Hey, how are you, man? Uh, we're doing fantastic. All right. So you are on the podcast right now. Uh, I'm here with Sam. Oh, great. We got our boy Henry on the camera. So it's all, it's all happening right now. Everything you dreamed of is happening. So I wanted to call you because, uh, I was telling him, I posted in the group about, hey, I want to talk to somebody who's making a million dollars a year doing a course. And you showed up with the goods. And so I wanted you to tell whatever you're comfortable telling. Tell your story. We got a couple of questions.

• 1:46Shaan Puri?

  And just, just so you know, you could share everything and then at the end we'll bleep out shit. That's too sensitive. Okay?

• 1:53Speaker 02

  Okay, sounds good.

• 1:54Shaan Puri?

  Okay.

• 1:54Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, so my story, uh, I guess for me it's always been like a side hustler. Um, ever since I was growing up, I was trying different ways to make money from selling watches to the night market, selling coverboards, all these different things. Um, never really had any guidance from anybody else, but uh, when I was selling coverboards, I was trying to, you know, just create a website and I knew nothing about ecommerce at the time. So I thought you can just create a website, get a Facebook page and you can start making money online, but obviously that's not the case. And during that time, someone actually approached me and said, "Hey, I can actually sell these coverboards for you on Amazon." And I live in Vancouver, Canada, and Amazon, back in 2015, I thought it was just a place where people buy old textbooks from. I've never bought anything on Amazon before.

• 2:39Speaker 02

  So I was pretty skeptical. I was like, "Uh, sure, okay, well, I guess, you know, if you think..." He was talking pretty big, so I was like, "All right, just let's see what you can do." And he ended up selling a bunch of hardboards on Amazon, uh, before Amazon actually pulled down all the coverboards because, you know, things were exploding and stuff like that. So that's how I discovered Amazon. And then from there, basically, just, you know, um, thought it was just gonna be another side hustle, but it actually turned out to, uh, well, turned from side hustle into a seven-figure business. Um, and right now, we're actually, um, going through an acquisition, so we're trying to sell the business right now.

• 3:13Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, a couple of questions. So first, uh, for everybody listening, he basically started an FBA business, uh, got it to work. FBA means? Uh, fulfilled by Amazon, uh, so selling a product on Amazon. And then the course teaches other people how to do the same, so that's how the course and what you're talking about connect. So right now, you're in the process of selling a seven-figure FBA business and you have a seven-figure course that teaches people how to do their own FBA business. So that's the lay of the land. Is he gonna reveal the first one? Yeah, what can you talk about, about the actual business itself?

• 3:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, so um I can reveal like obviously I mean based on the based on the conversation you had with Paul like we're going through acquisition right now, so I can't really reveal the name of the business or anything like that for sensitive reasons. But it's a skincare business, it's in the beauty niche and I started that business with my girlfriend in two hundred and seventeen. We started with one product, which was a um uh like a face serum that you put on your face. And we had no idea what we're doing, but the first month we did like seven thousand dollars in sales and we're like whoa like people are actually buying this product from us on Amazon like what is going on here? We had no idea what we're doing. And from there, the first year we finished the year off at like a hundred and twenty three thousand dollars in sales.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  I was working a nine to five job at that time, so I really, really wanted to put my nine to five so I could focus on Amazon. And then the second year we were able to scale that to one point seven million dollars. And then last year we did three million dollars. Um this year if we don't sell our business, we're at times doing about six million, so it's growing pretty rapidly. Um but yeah, we do privately, you know, some of the products that we have are actually custom formulated. I don't use any of the products myself. I'm definitely not passionate about skincare or anything like that. My girlfriend is. So I'm just helping her with like the marketing side of things, branding, uh you know, optimization on Amazon, SEO and all that.

• 5:00Sam Parr?

  What would your income be in six million in sales?

• 5:04Speaker 02

  Well, this year we're projected to do six million, but last year our EBITDA was about thirty percent.

• 5:09Sam Parr?

  Wow, that's amazing. And what could it sell for? Three or four times income?

• 5:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the market value can go anywhere between roughly two to six X, so that's obviously a huge range. Um the ones that are on the lower end are just products on Amazon that are just like not branded, for example, like like rose gold balloons or some random things like that, like very commoditized. But with our product that is branded, um you can definitely get on a little bit higher end, so we're hoping to get at least a four X of EBITDA, but um yeah, we'll see what the brokers can do.

• 5:43Shaan Puri?

  Nice. Okay, good. So, so congrats on the FBA business. And then tell us about the course. So why did you switch to that? Because I'm always skeptical. Like, when somebody's selling a course about how to make money, I'm like, if you knew that secret, you would just be doing it. And in your case, to your, in fairness, you are actually doing it. But why did you decide to do the course? And then talk about how big that's become.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, absolutely. So the reason why I launched the course is because when I first started Amazon, I was following all the other gurus that I was, it's just free information, right? Like, you go on, how to make money on Amazon, you see a guy with a Lamborghini, you're like, oh, this guy probably knows what he's doing. So you click on his ad and like video and you start watching his videos. Like, oh, this makes sense. But then the, the problem is when I started implementing the strategies this guy was teaching,

• 6:33Speaker 02

  it didn't work out for me. I'm like, I did exactly what you told me to do, and it's not working out. Like, what is the discount I did? And I later found out that a lot of these gurus with the, you know, the Lambos and the whatever, a lot of them don't sell on Amazon. They are just really good at, you know, copying other people's information and making it into their own and packaging it together and sell a course. So for me, I actually never thought I would launch a course. I basically just started documenting my journey on YouTube. I was like, I got a camera, I'm like, hey, like, this is day 56 of my Amazon journey. Like, things are not going so well, but you know, we'll see what happens. So I started documenting my journey. And then from there, people kind of liked my realness, authenticity, and people started following me.

• 7:17Speaker 02

  And then as I started, started getting, slowly started getting an audience, people were asking me the same questions over and over again. I'm like, well, what if I just launched a course? Would you guys be interested in that? And I remember the first course that I launched, it was a hundred dollars a month for three months. I got 50 people in it. And I was like, wow, like, people actually gave me a hundred dollars from Amazon. So that was kind of cool. And then from there, I did a couple more of those courses. The price went up a little bit. But um, so I do a little bit different uh structure than most other people. I actually do in-person workshops. Um, I have a friend who lives in Singapore who also sells on Amazon. I started seeing a lot of his posts on Amazon or on Facebook where he's speaking in front

• 8:01Speaker 02

  of like hundreds of people. I'm like, hey, like, what are you doing in Singapore? He's like, oh, I actually teach people how to sell on Amazon uh in person. I'm like, that's interesting. And I thought that was gone. Like, I thought the webinars is the the way, the funnels, the webinars, all that stuff. It's like, yeah, but you know, it's it's blue ocean. Like, I have no competitors. So I'm like, that's interesting. So I ended up making a deal with him where he taught me how to do exactly what he does in Singapore. So I started doing it in Vancouver. Um, and I I've never spoken on stage or anything like that before, so I was scared shitless, as you can probably imagine. And the first time, like, a hundred and fifty people showed up and listened to my, basically, my spiel. And at the end, I pitched the webinar and I was just shitting my pants the whole entire

• 8:45Speaker 02

  time. Um, so that's how I got started. I started that. I did that for a year. The price point is around three thousand dollars Canadian, and I taught about eight hundred people locally here in Vancouver. Um, and this year, it's pretty much just rinse and repeat. I'm just, yeah, doing the same thing here in Vancouver.

• 9:02Shaan Puri?

  Gotcha. Sam has got a couple of questions for you.

• 9:05Sam Parr?

  How how much how much did that uh first one cost?

• 9:07Speaker 02

  That was nineteen ninety-seven Canadian.

• 9:12Shaan Puri?

  Nineteen ninety-seven.

• 9:13Sam Parr?

  Are you saying a thousand dollars?

• 9:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:15Sam Parr?

  Wow.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  If I can get about a hundred and fifty people into the room, I can pro- on a good day, I can convert about twenty percent of the room. On a bad day, it's about fifteen percent of the room. So the the conversion rate kept on going up, going up, around twenty percent. And then I was really, really scared of like an internal fear that I had to bump up the price a little bit more. I'm like, oh, it's already so expensive. My um, my coach is like, hey, if I bump it up a little more, what happens?

• 9:40Shaan Puri?

  So pause for pause for a sec. I understand the model. So ask me some questions, because we're having a little wonky audio thing.

• 9:44Sam Parr?

  Uh, the a hundred and fifty, a hundred and fifty people paid a G to show up.

• 9:49Shaan Puri?

  So so basically what he does is he does he does Facebook ads that basically say, hey, come learn this thing.

• 9:54Sam Parr?

  And it's free?

• 9:55Shaan Puri?

  It's twenty bucks. Just come. It's like a meetup. They come and he gets, you know, sixty, hundred people in the room. There he gives them like two hours of awesome content. He shows them, look, I actually.

• 10:04Sam Parr?

  And then now, next one is a grand.

• 10:05Shaan Puri?

  If you want to do the work, weekend workshop, that one's a grand, two grand, three grand, whatever it is. And then that's where, you know, if you get, if you charge two grand and you're getting fifty people to do it, uh, you know, you're generating, you know, whatever, a hundred K a month. And um, and that that adds up to a million bucks a year, right?

• 10:21Sam Parr?

  Did you, Tom, did you feel sleazy?

• 10:24Shaan Puri?

  Did you feel sleazy when you were doing this?

• 10:26Sam Parr?

  I'm not judging you here. I'm just telling you that's what most people are gonna think.

• 10:29Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, a lot of people who who see somebody, you know, teaching a workshop or a class on how to get rich and then upselling the class and saying, hey, this was the cheap one, but if you want to go deeper, right, like, it doesn't mean it is sleazy, but some people, some some people shy away. Cause they're like, oh, I don't wanna, I don't wanna be that guy, you know? Did you have that fear?

• 10:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, no, totally, totally. So for me, I've always, I feel like my motivation has always been trying to help other people. Uh, cause growing up, um, I'm like an immigrant from China. When I came here, my parents were broke as a joke. Um, and I wanted to be rich when I grew up. So growing up, like, no one wanted to help me. No one saw any potential in me. So I wanna help other people that were kinda in the same world position as me. So when it comes to sleaziness, um, I think I'm kinda like the anti, the anti guru. Like, I go up on stage wearing hoodie and shorts. Cause I tell people, I'm like, this is the real me. I'm not like, this is the real me. This is what I wear on daily basis. I don't wear a big suit, a fancy tie, a pocket square, trying to sell you into a weekend workshop.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  If you wanna come and learn from me, great. If you don't wanna come learn from me, I have tons and tons of free information on YouTube that I'm gonna share with you anyway.

• 11:34Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 11:34Speaker 02

  So this is just a fast track for you to to to actually learn. Um, so I don't feel sleazy at all, because when I get results from my students, uh, it makes me really, really happy. But a lot of times, what I do feel like is, am I worthy enough to actually teach? And ask people for thirty five hundred dollars or thirty three thousand dollars, even though, you know, I have a successful Amazon business and so on and so forth. So sometimes I feel that way, it's like, hey, like, you know, am I worthy, like, am I, are you the right person to teach? Um, and I feel like that's just like a self-confidence thing sometimes.

• 12:09Shaan Puri?

  Tom, is there anything that we, because we like to keep these, these guest segments short where you pop in and you, you help educate the world on, hey, you know, here's, here's something I figured out. Because we're, we're like you, we're trying to share, share interesting pathways, knowledge, so that people can see a variety of options and see that there's a million ways to win. And I think your way of winning was pretty dope. Is there anything else you wanted to share? You could shout out your course, whatever you want.

• 12:33Sam Parr?

  We'll, we'll link to it.

• 12:34Shaan Puri?

  We'll link to it in the, in the show notes. Just anything else you want to share? Any, any good stories, good tidbits you wanted to share?

• 12:39Speaker 02

  I think there's a lot of people that are, I, I, I think a lot of listeners are people that maybe they're working a nine to five. Maybe they're like, you know, already have a successful business, whatever. But for the people that are listening that have a nine to five, I want to start a side hustle that maybe eventually will become a full-time hustle and so they can quit their job and, you know, do this business. I just think that selling on Amazon is just such a good opportunity. And obviously that sounds biased, but trust me, I've done so many other businesses and nothing has worked. So if I'm someone who can figure this out, it's just buying something for cheap from China and selling it for a little bit more. And Amazon gives you all the customers ready. So I just think it's a really, really good opportunity.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  And in terms of the shout outs to the course, I, I don't teach online. I only teach locally. So if you're in Vancouver, you can come to my workshop. It's called SBA Masterclass. But if you're online, if you're somewhere, you know, somewhere else, maybe one day I'll have an online course, but right now I don't.

• 13:38Shaan Puri?

  Cool. Tom, you're the man. Thanks for calling in, dude.

• 13:41Sam Parr?

  Thank you.

• 13:41Shaan Puri?

  I think this, what you built is pretty awesome.

• 13:43Speaker 02

  Thank you so much, guys. Appreciate it.

• 13:45Shaan Puri?

  Talk to you later.

• 13:45Sam Parr?

  You know, I've, I've done those.

• 13:47Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I attended one of yours.

• 13:49Sam Parr?

  You, yeah.

• 13:49Shaan Puri?

  Tell that story a little bit.

• 13:50Sam Parr?

  Yeah. So I'm a self-taught copywriter, which means I studied it, but I'm only average. Neville.

• 13:57Shaan Puri?

  You're above average.

• 13:58Sam Parr?

  I'm, I'm pretty good, but I'm not formally educated. Neville is my best friend, our good friend. And he is same boat, but better, self-taught and very good. And we just said, we're going to go to Sean's office, show up. I think we said it's a thousand dollars.

• 14:17Shaan Puri?

  Yep.

• 14:18Sam Parr?

  I think. Maybe 25 people came.

• 14:20Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, it was basically it was an all day. It was one day, right?

• 14:23Sam Parr?

  All day.

• 14:23Shaan Puri?

  It was one day morning till sort of evening and it was great. You and Neville were up there.

• 14:28Sam Parr?

  We each made about 10 Gs on a Saturday.

• 14:30Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, like 30 people or so, I would say, were in the crowd. They had all paid to be there. Everyone was excited to be there.

• 14:34Sam Parr?

  Some, and I think it was only 14 days' notice. People flew in.

• 14:38Shaan Puri?

  Right. Yeah, you guys did it kind of on a whim and I saw that. I was like, this is awesome. This guy, you know, just made five grand or 10 grand on a Saturday.

• 14:43Sam Parr?

  I think we each made 10 grand.

• 14:44Shaan Puri?

  That's, that's amazing. And you guys were just talking about what you know. It was very intimate group. Everybody got to like workshop their shit. So it was like, hey, I'm trying to get better. I'm, you know, I have this landing page. How would you improve this? And he would put it up on the big screen and we would just workshop it together.

• 14:58Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 14:58Shaan Puri?

  And I attended because

• 15:01Sam Parr?

  You and Jason did.

• 15:01Shaan Puri?

  I wanted to learn and, and I have dude, I have like two pages of notes from that day and I, you know, I got to go for free because I let you host it. But I was like, this is actually really valuable. Why didn't you do more of that?

• 15:11Sam Parr?

  Don't know. We should.

• 15:12Shaan Puri?

  We should.

• 15:13Sam Parr?

  There's no reason. I should. We could do it here.

• 15:15Shaan Puri?

  I love Tom's model where, like you said, blue ocean. So like the conventional wisdom is online course. But online, yes, you can reach the whole market, but you're competing against the whole market.

• 15:25Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 15:25Shaan Puri?

  If you're trying to be, hey, here's how you make money selling on, on Amazon, a lot of other people doing that. But what he realized was, look, in Vancouver, there's nobody. And, you know, he turned out to be right with that insight, which was that every month he could get, you know, another hundred people to show up. And that in-person experience was like more than worth what they paid.

• 15:43Sam Parr?

  You know, we should do that. Actually, you and me and the hustle should do that. The reason I didn't do it. Well, first of all, it's for anyone listening, there's an unfair advantage of having an audience.

• 15:54Shaan Puri?

  Yes.

• 15:54Sam Parr?

  So like it would be practically no work.

• 15:57Shaan Puri?

  For us, yeah.

• 15:57Sam Parr?

  Uh, so that's great. Neville, I don't know how many people are on his email list. I don't know this for a fact. I would guess 50 to 100,000.

• 16:05Shaan Puri?

  Yep.

• 16:06Sam Parr?

  My personal Sam Parr on my email list, well, not the hustle, uh, probably 5,000. So I could just send out a thing and it would sell out. So. The reason why I didn't do it, it's pretty exhausting if you're not.

• 16:19Shaan Puri?

  I get energy from that. I just love hearing my own voice. That's why I like the podcast.

• 16:22Sam Parr?

  Yeah, well, you're naturally a teacher, so I would like to, I would partner with you. Neville's like that, too. I went home, like, when I went home, I needed like two days to recover. So it ruins your weekend, which is no big deal.

• 16:33Shaan Puri?

  Interesting, right? So copyrighting is, I think, an interesting niche. The other one, you know, just a more generic one is, we're here in San Francisco. There's a lot of people who want to be in a startup, but they haven't figured out how to sort of transition from that nine to five into starting their own company, or how to raise money. On any of these topics where I've done it, and I've done it multiple times, I know how to do this, just pick a niche and let's do it.

• 16:52Sam Parr?

  We should have that discussion. I think that, like, overnight, it would make tens of thousands of dollars in incremental revenue.

• 16:59Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 17:00Sam Parr?

  A month.

• 17:01Shaan Puri?

  And most importantly, I love doing it. Okay, so this.

• 17:03Sam Parr?

  Wait, let me tell you a story real quick.

• 17:05Shaan Puri?

  Please.

• 17:06Sam Parr?

  I tweeted out about this, and it got a little traction. So it's a good way to kick off the podcast. So in 2015, I got this email from this guy, very typical Asian name, so I wasn't like, remember, it wasn't memorable. I mean, there's 10 million people with the same name. And I got an email, Eric, Eric Bond introduced me, I think. And he said, hey, my name is this, I do this. And it was a mildly interesting pitch, but he said, I would love to speak at HustleCon and tell the story of X.

• 17:37Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 17:38Sam Parr?

  And I, I, I don't know if I ignored it, but I.

• 17:41Shaan Puri?

  No response.

• 17:41Sam Parr?

  I could have replied, I don't remember, but I did not take him up on the offer. He emailed me again in 2017 or 18, and he goes, "I'm running for president." And this is Andrew Yang. It's Andrew Yang who it is. "I'm running for president. Do you want to, like, interview me and read, would you please review my book and talk about it on The Hustle?" I didn't reply.

• 18:04Sam Parr?

  I forgot all about it.

• 18:05Shaan Puri?

  You tweeted this out.

• 18:06Sam Parr?

  I tweeted it out. I forgot all about it. I've been watching the presidential debates, and Sarah, my wife, ends up donating money to Andrew Yang. And I'm like, this Andrew Yang guy, he sounds kind of interesting. I feel like that's, I remember that name somehow, when I looked up my email. He was the guy who was emailing me.

• 18:21Shaan Puri?

  That's crazy that you just remembered it. So if you want to see the tweet, it's at the sampar. So I'm going to go to it right now. The funny thing is, you tweeted back, and I'm like, sorry, if you still want to talk, let me know, bro.

• 18:32Sam Parr?

  I totally missed that one.

• 18:34Shaan Puri?

  Okay, so his exact thing was, this is in 2018, not that long ago.

• 18:38Sam Parr?

  Not that long, he emailed me 15 and an 18.

• 18:40Shaan Puri?

  And so he goes, do you think the Hustle might do a book feature? You know, I can get the book to the editor, see what he thinks. If you send an intro, I could take it from there. I feel like this would move some units. And, you know, Andrew Yang, founder of Venture for America.

• 18:53Sam Parr?

  Yeah, and I, first I thought Venture for America, I was like, that's some nonprofit. What that, that's a small thing.

• 18:58Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 18:59Sam Parr?

  And second, I get a lot of people asking for that. And I just didn't take it up on them, I didn't take him up on it and missed that one.

• 19:06Shaan Puri?

  Dude, that's so funny. You know, the, the, the other thing that he did, like I looked into his past because he's got a business background. Yeah. I was like, what's the business?

• 19:15Sam Parr?

  It was a GMAT.

• 19:17Shaan Puri?

  It was like a GMAT.

• 19:17Sam Parr?

  That's how Eric Bond, my buddy and partner.

• 19:21Shaan Puri?

  He's an investor in Hustle, right?

• 19:23Sam Parr?

  He's an investor of the Hustle, yeah, helped us get started. And he owned, beat the GMAT, which he sold. So he knew all the GMAT guys. And he was like, this Eric guy is gonna run for president. And I was, or Andrew, Andrew guy is gonna run for president. And I was like, Eric, I don't want to talk to this guy. I'm gonna look like an idiot. This guy has no chance of.

• 19:39Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 19:40Sam Parr?

  Like, I'm gonna look like a stupid fool for like, saying, oh yeah, this tech guy is gonna run for president. I was wrong.

• 19:46Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 19:47Sam Parr?

  Totally were wrong.

• 19:49Shaan Puri?

  All right, so brainstorm, what else we got? What are some other topics? I got a bunch written down. I don't know which one I want to start with, but do you have any that you've been wanting to talk about?

• 19:58Sam Parr?

  Two things, so not ideas, but things that are good. The first one is, last week, we had Brendan from the agency. I immediately got a text afterwards, once he published it, from a guy, says, I have an agency that does 50 million in sales. We sell to a lot of the same people, but we're located in a cheaper region. I'm trying not to give too much information. We're located in a cheaper region and our margins are 50%.

• 20:22Shaan Puri?

  Yep.

• 20:23Sam Parr?

  And apparently during the podcast, I asked, why aren't you located in Missouri, where I'm from?

• 20:27Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 20:28Sam Parr?

  And the guy was like, he should, because we make.

• 20:31Shaan Puri?

  We do that.

• 20:31Sam Parr?

  We do that, and on 50 million in sales, we do 25 million in profit.

• 20:35Shaan Puri?

  Right, so I've been looking at this, there's been some, some stuff written about Utah lately.

• 20:39Sam Parr?

  The best, I read the same article probably you're referring.

• 20:41Shaan Puri?

  So there's this thing which is like sort of the Mormon Valley, you know, the new Silicon Valley. There's a bunch of companies that are really big that are based in Utah.

• 20:49Sam Parr?

  And there's way more shady internet marketing companies that you probably don't even know.

• 20:53Shaan Puri?

  All the MLMs are based in Utah.

• 20:55Sam Parr?

  And all the, a lot of the call centers.

• 20:57Shaan Puri?

  And then, then there's some like totally, you know, like no, no asterisks next to their name, like Domo. And there's some others that are like enterprise companies.

• 21:05Sam Parr?

  Skull Candy, Stance Socks. I think Adobe is started by a Utah Mormon guy.

• 21:10Shaan Puri?

  Right, but some are based there and some are started by Mormons and the interesting question is why, right? And so a lot of people will sort of speculate that because Mormons go on their mission and they have to go door to door selling, you know, religion essentially, and they're, you know, that makes you fucking tough because you're getting rejected all the time.

• 21:27Sam Parr?

  Well, when your conversion rate is like 0.1% and you're like, oh, this other thing has a 3% conversion. That's easy.

• 21:32Shaan Puri?

  And, and then on top of that, you know, there's a sort of network effect of other people you can tap into that have similar sort of sales persuasion skills. And, and they're creating hubs and it's way cheaper.

• 21:44Sam Parr?

  They don't drink. They're hardworking. They're hardworking. They tie, so they give 10% of their income to the church. So they're probably like, I need to make a lot of money.

• 21:53Shaan Puri?

  Right. So I'm interested in Utah for many reasons. I just want to go out there. So I want to go, I want to look at real estate. Let's go meet some of these companies. Let's go, what's up with these MLMs? Let's go meet them. Let's go find out what's, you know, what's what? Because they obviously have a stigma, but I think it's very interesting. Yeah.

• 22:07Sam Parr?

  Qualtrics, the largest software company to sell, I think Qualtrics is from there. ClickFunnels, which some people think is scammy, they're from there, but he's a great salesman.

• 22:16Shaan Puri?

  And it's a good product. I think it's a good product.

• 22:18Sam Parr?

  I do too.

• 22:19Shaan Puri?

  So if you're listening to this, you're from Utah. Host us. Take us around. Give us a tour. We're itching to go to Utah.

• 22:24Sam Parr?

  And then the second thing I want to do, I'm going to do this in our Trends Facebook group. What I'm going to do is, I think a great way to come up, I love investing in software companies and I like, I would love to start one, one day. I, and what I've been doing is looking at our expenses. So we spend a certain amount of money each month.

• 22:44Shaan Puri?

  Yep.

• 22:45Sam Parr?

  I'm, I like to look at our QuickBooks and be like, where are we spending our money? I'm just going to get rid of some stuff that I don't want to reveal. I'm going to post our expenses in our Facebook group.

• 22:54Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 22:54Sam Parr?

  And I think that's an interesting way to see.

• 22:56Shaan Puri?

  And I'd love to see others too, because that's where you're going to see some patterns and opportunities.

• 22:59Sam Parr?

  So I'm going to do that. I'm going to publish that. You also need to publish your thing.

• 23:07Shaan Puri?

  The my import export list.

• 23:08Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 23:09Shaan Puri?

  I have one idea. The problem is sometimes I have these ideas that I still think I'm gonna do. And I don't share them, but in reality, I'm not actually gonna go do them.

• 23:16Sam Parr?

  Well, just delete some of them.

• 23:18Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I should. Yeah, I should do it. But then I feel weird. I'm like, I'm here's my idea list. I took away the good ones that I would actually do, right?

• 23:23Sam Parr?

  No, I don't think you should feel weird. I do that, too. So like, I invested in a company that was based off a trends report and someone asked me which one it is. And I was like, I'm not gonna tell you.

• 23:33Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 23:34Sam Parr?

  I don't want to reveal it. Yeah.

• 23:35Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, sometimes, you know, but I think that's part of being real, right? It's like, look, when there's actually an edge or, you know, there's an actual arbitrage that I'm I'm currently exploiting. I'm no fool. I'm not gonna tell you about something that I'm currently exploiting that I know is so easy that you're gonna exploit it, too. And if you're listening, I apologize, but I'm also smart. That's what the smart person does. And sometimes if it's like, hey, I noticed this, I'm not gonna exploit it, then cool, let me give it away for free. You go explain it.

• 24:00Sam Parr?

  Which is most.

• 24:01Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, cuz I don't have the time to do most things.

• 24:03Sam Parr?

  Yes.

• 24:03Shaan Puri?

  There's just a couple of things that I'm gonna do. So anyways, I want to talk about that.

• 24:08Shaan Puri?

  A couple of random companies I want to talk about. So tell me if you have an opinion. Rapid fire. Byte, which is the new Vine, the founder of Vine, Re:Law Vine.

• 24:15Sam Parr?

  I signed up and got the handles that I wanted.

• 24:19Shaan Puri?

  Squat on it and then move on.

• 24:20Sam Parr?

  Yeah, right when I signed up, a lot of the handles were already gone and I'm like,

• 24:27Sam Parr?

  it's weird, I'm not an old person yet, but I looked at it like an old person. I saw a bunch of young, cool people on it, so I automatically thought it was gonna be a hit.

• 24:33Shaan Puri?

  It's like TikTok. Yeah. What I think is interesting there is there the product actually is worse than TikTok. TikTok's a much better product than Vine ever was and then Byte started as. But the cool thing is that TikTok has a because it's from that Chinese company and there's like, there's some fear around like, how much do we want to trust this Chinese company that controls this algorithm that's

• 24:54Sam Parr?

  They're trying to move their headquarters.

• 24:56Shaan Puri?

  So I think one interesting thing is it might be the first time foreign policy or sort of the like, fear of the enemy in the East might get somebody to switch social networks. I don't know. That's what Daniel Gross was also speculating.

• 25:07Sam Parr?

  I agree.

• 25:08Shaan Puri?

  Was that that's a potential thing. Free idea.

• 25:10Sam Parr?

  I deleted TikTok the other day because of the whole Chinese thing.

• 25:13Shaan Puri?

  Oh, really?

• 25:13Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 25:13Shaan Puri?

  Nice.

• 25:14Sam Parr?

  And I love TikTok.

• 25:15Shaan Puri?

  Free idea. I don't know if it's a good idea, but I like it. So there's this curve that shows AirPods sales. And we talked about this before when we talked about

• 25:23Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 25:24Shaan Puri?

  Selling AirPod accessories.

• 25:25Sam Parr?

  On trends, we did AirPod accessories.

• 25:27Shaan Puri?

  And so the AirPods sales curve looks like insane. It's just a hockey stick, over 100 million units sold. And I saw this tweet that got my attention, which was that kids in school are basically swapping one AirPod.

• 25:39Sam Parr?

  Yeah, Scott Belsky shared it.

• 25:41Shaan Puri?

  Exactly. So Scott Belsky shared this. Shout out to Scott. And it's interesting because then you could play something and your friend, your friend can hear it. It's just like silent communication network. That's like secretive from the teachers, which is actually the backstory of how Snapchat grew too, was Snapchat's first growth was they put it on iPads in classrooms. So you could send self-destructing messages to other kids in other classrooms. And the teacher could never catch it because the message goes away once you see it. And so similar sort of thing where kids are swapping AirPods, which lets them silently secretly communicate with each other, sort of Harry Potter style. And I think it's interesting, once everybody gets AirPods, or as so many people get AirPods, can you create a social network on top? I know a couple of people are trying to do that. I've seen a couple startups trying to do this. But imagine being able to, I just

• 26:25Shaan Puri?

  say a message quietly where only my sort of AirPod can pick it up. And I say your name, and it sends it to you, and you hear it in your ear. Nobody else even knew that message got transmitted. Or I text you something, but it plays in your ears.

• 26:37Sam Parr?

  So it's just going to revolutionize cheating.

• 26:40Shaan Puri?

  Oh, for sure.

• 26:41Sam Parr?

  I'm into it.

• 26:41Shaan Puri?

  If you're allowed to have headphones in when you're, when you're doing stuff.

• 26:44Sam Parr?

  Can I, let me give you another one.

• 26:45Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, go for it.

• 26:46Sam Parr?

  Okay, so I met up with Chris Redlitz, he's one of my investors. He is a history of doing a lot of amazing stuff. He has a charity or a nonprofit called The Last Mile. Have you heard of this?

• 26:57Shaan Puri?

  I've heard, it's like the prison.

• 26:58Sam Parr?

  Yeah, so what they do is they created software classes for prisoners so they can get them a job when they get out.

• 27:03Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 27:04Sam Parr?

  I went to San Quentin and volunteered, and we just walked around the yard in San Quentin. It was amazing. Anyway, what he's doing is, it's a nonprofit, but he's going to potentially launch a private business on top of it. And what he is, what he's lobbying the government to do is allow prisoners to have iPhones. And it will be in a closed network. And the iPhones will allow you, because at San Quentin, they don't even have name badges. They, they literally have to count the inmates.

• 27:32Sam Parr?

  Manually.

• 27:33Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 27:33Sam Parr?

  Four, eight times a day, something like that. And he's trying to do that. And he's trying to get the phones for free because he's going to be like, hey, AT&T, look, there's a million prisoners a year when they, if they, someone does something good for them, or a million people a year get out of prison. If they do something, if you do something good for them while they're in prison, they know your network.

• 27:48Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 27:48Sam Parr?

  You could sell them.

• 27:49Shaan Puri?

  So what are they going to be able to do with the phone? You said close network. So what can they do? What can't they do?

• 27:54Sam Parr?

  Well, call home.

• 27:55Shaan Puri?

  Okay.

• 27:57Sam Parr?

  Check in to, uh, uh, it'll help the, the guards track.

• 28:02Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 28:02Sam Parr?

  And so they can help like, make sure everyone's where they need to be. And, uh, they're, what he's considering doing is building a network for them. Which is kind of interesting.

• 28:11Shaan Puri?

  Communication network.

• 28:12Sam Parr?

  Yeah. There's, I don't know the, the logistics of it because there's a, there has to be a ton.

• 28:16Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 28:16Sam Parr?

  You're dealing with criminals. But it's kind of similar to what you're describing.

• 28:21Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, these like sort of niche communication or new communication networks.

• 28:24Sam Parr?

  Really cool business.

• 28:25Shaan Puri?

  If you can build a communication product, you win. Like that's the, the basis of all, you know, human interaction.

• 28:31Sam Parr?

  But his niche is prisoners.

• 28:33Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 28:33Sam Parr?

  And when he was explaining the idea, it sounds wild, like this is wrong. And then you start getting into it. You're like, huh, okay, that kind of makes sense.

• 28:42Shaan Puri?

  Right. Uh, I started using this product called change paste. You ever heard of this? Um, so I read this, I was looking at, you know, I'm scrolling on Instagram and this D to C company got me. They were like, look, look how many toothpaste bottles get thrown away every year, right? It's like insane, right? We all go through so many of these and, um, and it's, you know, it's killing the environment. And also like, it's kind of a pain in the ass to use a normal toothpaste bottle. Because you're sort of, by the end of it, you're sort of squeezing out the last bit. It gets all crusty on top, you lose the lid, blah, blah, blah. So what these guys do is a simple tablet and it's a version of dry toothpaste, which is this niche thing today that I think could get bigger. So it's a tablet, you put it in your mouth, you start to bite on it, you chew it. And then you just put a wet toothbrush in your mouth and it becomes toothpaste.

• 29:26Shaan Puri?

  So it's essentially zero waste because it comes in this like compostable little pouch. The dry toothpaste is like, uh, the dry tablet doesn't use all the chemicals that like Crest and others do. So this reminded me of like a native deodorant style business. I don't know how well they're doing. I've been trying to reach out to. The founders, because I really like this product.

• 29:44Sam Parr?

  Do you know how much traffic has on similar webs?

• 29:46Shaan Puri?

  I haven't checked. I haven't looked into the, the sales or the traffic yet, but it really caught my attention.

• 29:50Sam Parr?

  That's very interesting.

• 29:51Shaan Puri?

  It's a win-win. It's doing good for the world.

• 29:52Sam Parr?

  Great for traveling.

• 29:53Shaan Puri?

  I think it's, yeah, I think it's more convenient. It's actually a better experience and it's just different. And I think that a lot of people like to do something different. I'm one of them. I'll try anything. And, um, and this one caught my eye where I'm like, this is good. And it has all those characteristics where you're going to consume it in a month. So they sell you 65 tablets, which is to brush teeth twice a day for 30 days.

• 30:11Sam Parr?

  How much does it cost?

• 30:13Shaan Puri?

  I can't remember how much I paid. I think it was like nine, nine bucks or something. It's like more than toothpaste, but it wasn't a huge outlet.

• 30:17Sam Parr?

  Nine dollars?

• 30:18Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. I, I don't know the exact price.

• 30:19Sam Parr?

  Maybe they could charge more.

• 30:20Shaan Puri?

  I don't remember what it was, but I'm going to repeat purchase, right? Cause once I adopt this, this is going to be my thing. And so I'm pretty bullish on this and I, I'm curious if, if this is going to be a thing.

• 30:30Sam Parr?

  That's cool. I'll tell you another one. Um, someone, Nick Sharma, who is an associate of ours. Yeah. He helped, do you see with the thing that they've launched?

• 30:41Shaan Puri?

  The, the, yeah, the emergency pack.

• 30:44Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 30:44Shaan Puri?

  Lucy's it called or?

• 30:45Sam Parr?

  No, Lucy's a, something like that.

• 30:48Shaan Puri?

  Judy.

• 30:48Sam Parr?

  Judy.

• 30:51Sam Parr?

  I hate a lot of these new D to C things. I don't hate that one.

• 30:54Shaan Puri?

  So explain what it is. So Judy is what?

• 30:56Sam Parr?

  I'll buy it. Uh, so it's a container that has supplies for an emergency. I live in California. Maybe there'll be an earthquake. It's supposed to have the supplies for that. I think flashlight or some type of radio that's, uh, crank.

• 31:14Shaan Puri?

  So the cool thing they do is based on where you live, they kind of know what disaster you're likely to have. And so they create the go, the to-go bag, the, you know, your emergency go bag based off of, okay, California, it's earthquakes. This is what you would need and how much you would need.

• 31:27Sam Parr?

  And I have a feeling the way that you can discover this product or one like it is, is Costco public?

• 31:34Shaan Puri?

  A public company?

• 31:35Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 31:35Shaan Puri?

  No, I don't think so. I'd be wrong. I might be wrong.

• 31:38Sam Parr?

  So Costco has one.

• 31:39Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 31:39Sam Parr?

  It's probably pretty good. Anything Costco sells is.

• 31:42Shaan Puri?

  They have an emergency bag?

• 31:43Sam Parr?

  Yeah. What I imagine the way that I would have came up with this is I would have, you can, if you, if they're public, I think they're public. If, if they're public, you can read Costco's annual report and you could see, and they'll probably mention like products that are doing shockingly well.

• 31:58Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 31:59Sam Parr?

  And I bet you, uh, emergency kits were one of them.

• 32:03Shaan Puri?

  That's cool. I like that. I like that idea. It caught my eye, too. You didn't even tell me about that one. I separately saw it and I was like, ooh, this is interesting.

• 32:09Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I think that Nick launches a lot of interesting things. He launched.

• 32:14Shaan Puri?

  He's not the founder, but I think he's the kind of help launch.

• 32:16Sam Parr?

  Yeah, he helped do this.

• 32:17Shaan Puri?

  Costco is public. You're right.

• 32:19Sam Parr?

  They are. So you could read Costco's annual report and I guarantee they'll say like interesting things. And so like, everyone talks about Kirkland jeans. It's like, well, why do they talk about Kirkland jeans? You just go there and you figure out why and you make that.

• 32:30Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 32:31Sam Parr?

  Nick launched this thing called Ha- House. It's like a, basically what they did, and I think this is stupid. I want them to win because I like when people win. I think this is a horrible idea, but I think I'll be proven wrong unlikely. But you can't ship liquor. You can ship wine, or you can ship, but it's there's rules.

• 32:53Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 32:54Sam Parr?

  You can ship wine. It's a lot easier to ship wine. It's so hard. So what they did was they made like a liquor that has low percentage of alcohol and they branded it as, don't get too fucked up. Just get a little fucked up.

• 33:06Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 33:08Shaan Puri?

  Tipsy.

• 33:08Sam Parr?

  Yeah. And it's kind of interesting. We'll see.

• 33:12Shaan Puri?

  Make up for it in volume.

• 33:14Sam Parr?

  Yeah, well, that's what I think will happen.

• 33:16Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 33:17Sam Parr?

  But it's, it's kind of funny. I don't, I don't get it. I'm a non-drinker, though. I thought it was non-alcoholic whiskey and I was like, that's really dumb.

• 33:25Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 33:25Sam Parr?

  But I drink non-alcoholic beer a lot.

• 33:27Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 33:27Sam Parr?

  That could be interesting.

• 33:28Shaan Puri?

  Uh, I got a different one for you. Have you heard of Mystery Science? The company, not the old show.

• 33:34Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 33:35Shaan Puri?

  Also, I'll explain it. Maybe you'll catch up. So this is one of those companies where I saw it and I got jealous I didn't create it, which is like, because it's in my niche of like, I love education, uh, but they did a novel way of doing it. So what they did was these guys were ex-Google, I think. I don't know exactly. One guy's a teacher. One guy was ex-Google or Facebook. And they created this company called Mystery Science. And what they do is they're like, look,

• 33:58Shaan Puri?

  Kids always start out curious, right? If you meet a kid, like when they're young, they're like, why does this happen? What is this? Why is lava red? You know, how does a volcano work? And there's always asking questions. And then like over time, our curiosity sort of wanes to the point where when by the time you're an adult, for most people, you're like, I don't want more. You resist learning. And so what they were like is, look, kids are naturally curious. How do we keep that curiosity? But how do we build it around STEM education? And they noticed that like elementary school teachers can teach math, reading, social studies, pretty well. But science is hard. It takes time to like set up experiments. Also, you have to actually know the million questions why this happens. And often you're out of your depth. And so they were like, look, we're going to be science education as a service to elementary schools.

• 34:42Shaan Puri?

  Raised a little bit of money, like maybe 3 million, 6 million, something like that. Profitable company, they're doing millions, I believe over 10 million dollars a year in business. 50% of elementary schools, they say, use them. So they have like massive penetration just with elementary school science education. So they give the teacher a video that plays and it's like, the video pauses five minutes in. So it'll present a, it starts with a question like, what happens if you kept, like if you drilled into the earth, what would happen if you kept going? This is like an interesting question. And then they start to explore it and they take you to what you know.

• 35:17Sam Parr?

  What's the answer?

• 35:18Shaan Puri?

  I don't know, but like that's, you know, that's what they, that's what they teach.

• 35:21Sam Parr?

  Great question.

• 35:22Shaan Puri?

  I haven't taken the courses. But it'll be like, why is Mars red? All the other planets aren't red, why is Mars red? And so they just evoke this curiosity and then they teach you through this video lesson. And teachers don't have to do the work of preparing curriculum, which is always hard, takes time. So they get this best in class curriculum, they make the video once and it just gets distributed to all schools. Awesome business, awesome for students, awesome for teachers, awesome moneymaker. Love this business.

• 35:47Sam Parr?

  Amazing. What I would love to learn, I don't know anything about this, is how hard is it to sell into a school? So if you ever saw in a public school, I bet it's like the hardest thing around.

• 35:57Shaan Puri?

  So I want to get the founder on this because I want to talk to him about it, but I read some interviews and they were like, yeah, so here's the thing about schools. They go, all of our investors told us this and it was true.

• 36:06Sam Parr?

  It's probably just bullshit.

• 36:07Shaan Puri?

  It's an enterprise sales cycle without the enterprise price tag. So you gotta go through the slow bureaucracy, but you don't get to charge a hundred grand or a million dollars a year.

• 36:16Sam Parr?

  But once you're in, you're in.

• 36:17Shaan Puri?

  Once you're in, you're embedded. And but they what they did say is the world is changing a little bit. And teachers are more empowered to get stuff adopted just themselves. And if you like, design it that way, it's kind of like how Slack got adopted just by a department rather than the CIO making a decision for the company.

• 36:33Sam Parr?

  That's cool.

• 36:34Shaan Puri?

  So that's what they say more than ever, teachers just individually pick it up.

• 36:36Sam Parr?

  I don't believe that. If that's, I believe maybe that is changing.

• 36:41Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 36:41Sam Parr?

  But if I know anything about schools, public this public school system, which is not a lot, by the way. Uh, but the little I do know, it seems just bureaucratic.

• 36:50Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 36:51Sam Parr?

  Very, very, very hard to sell into.

• 36:53Shaan Puri?

  I believe that to be true.

• 36:54Sam Parr?

  Like Blackboard and you remember Blackboard?

• 36:58Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 36:58Sam Parr?

  Like, I imagine those things are quite huge.

• 37:02Sam Parr?

  But horrible to sell to.

• 37:05Shaan Puri?

  There's another company that's like this that I saw called Kahoot. Have you ever heard of these guys?

• 37:10Sam Parr?

  No.

• 37:10Shaan Puri?

  So they're, if you just type Kahoot annual report, it's all online. So you can see this. I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head, but what they do is they get, it's like a learning based game. So it's kind of like, um, you put a, it's like, it's like a trivia thing that teachers can do in in class. So it's like question, and then the students all buzz in their answer, like multiple choice, and then from a phone or a device. And then it like, it like tells you if you got it right or wrong. And then like, somebody wins in the end. It's like these little short mini games. Companies are using this for like their all hands and stuff like that.

• 37:39Sam Parr?

  It sounds like Quizlet.

• 37:40Shaan Puri?

  And they're doing, uh, I want to say 200 million plus in revenue. It's insane how big this business is Kahoot. Uh, and check out their annual report. It's like shocking.

• 37:49Sam Parr?

  Quizlet?

• 37:50Shaan Puri?

  I've heard of Quizlet through.

• 37:51Sam Parr?

  Bootstrapped. I think their office was down the street from my office a long time ago. Bootstrapped.

• 37:56Shaan Puri?

  Are they flashcards?

• 37:57Sam Parr?

  Flashcards, digital flashcards, bootstrapped. I don't remember. I looked it up a while ago. If they were in the 50 to 100 million revenue range, I wouldn't be surprised.

• 38:06Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 38:06Sam Parr?

  Pretty amazing.

• 38:07Shaan Puri?

  Crazy shit.

• 38:07Sam Parr?

  Um, another school kind of related thing. Have you seen the documentary Cheer?

• 38:11Shaan Puri?

  I haven't quite

• 38:12Sam Parr?

  You've probably heard about it.

• 38:13Shaan Puri?

  I saw it on Netflix.

• 38:14Sam Parr?

  It's a cheerleading documentary on Netflix and they only mentioned this for about two minutes about this thing called Varsity Cheer.

• 38:21Shaan Puri?

  Okay.

• 38:22Sam Parr?

  And they barely mention it and it's who hosts the national championship and you have to pay money. They didn't, they mentioned it because Varsity Cheer didn't allow Netflix's cameras to be inside the championship.

• 38:36Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 38:36Sam Parr?

  So I just got curious and looked it up. It's a company that recently sold to Bank Capital, I think for $4 billion.

• 38:44Shaan Puri?

  Varsity Cheer?

• 38:45Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 38:45Shaan Puri?

  Wow.

• 38:46Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 38:47Shaan Puri?

  The varsity, high school varsity cheerleading league essentially, a league

• 38:51Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 38:51Shaan Puri?

  For the same amount the UFC sold.

• 38:53Sam Parr?

  Yeah, it could been, have been $2 billion, but I'm almost positive it was $4 and if it wasn't $4, I bet you it would be with earnouts.

• 38:59Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 39:00Sam Parr?

  Bain though, Bain bought it, along with KKR, I think. So I looked it up, I did research, they're based in the outskirts of Dallas, Texas. They just monopolized cheerleading and so they do a lot of, it sounds like people don't like them.

• 39:17Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 39:17Sam Parr?

  Because they own the largest cheer competition.

• 39:22Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 39:23Sam Parr?

  Okay, so they make money off that. You have to use their uniforms in order to participate and no cameras are allowed and you have to pay money to view it direct. It's crazy. They just monopolize this whole fucking thing.

• 39:34Shaan Puri?

  I have to look into this.

• 39:35Sam Parr?

  Varsity Cheer is, and they own a, the company is called Varsity Brands. They monopolize cheerleading and now they're trying to do other niche sports like volleyball, I think, or something like that.

• 39:48Shaan Puri?

  This is good news for Play Versus, who's doing high school esports and they're trying to do basically a similar model. I'm curious if

• 39:55Sam Parr?

  It's crazy. It worked well and it kind of actually, this actually isn't related, but have you heard about the scrubs business?

• 40:03Shaan Puri?

  Scrubs, like medical scrubs?

• 40:05Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 40:05Shaan Puri?

  Tell me about it. I've looked into this because I was thinking about

• 40:07Sam Parr?

  Yeah, man, this, these guys, these, it's the same fucking playbook of cute millennial shit.

• 40:14Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 40:14Sam Parr?

  And they just

• 40:15Shaan Puri?

  The angst in your voice.

• 40:17Sam Parr?

  Well, I just, it just, it works. It works so good, but I, for some reason I've hated towards it.

• 40:25Sam Parr?

  They did it for medical scrubs. They hit a hundred million in sales this year.

• 40:29Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 40:29Sam Parr?

  And so it has a cute name. I forget the name. But people are buying, I didn't know this, nurses buy their own scrubs a lot of times.

• 40:36Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 40:37Sam Parr?

  And people are gifting scrubs to nurses and they're like cool looking.

• 40:41Shaan Puri?

  Right. They're like a little more fitted and the patterns are different, but it's like the same.

• 40:45Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 40:46Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's the same thing for the shoes because people who work in restaurants and doctors and nurses are on their feet so much that they have these like special clogs. And I bet you if, I bet you that clogs brand, it's a high quality product, but like.

• 40:58Sam Parr?

  Well, you know, Crocs still does a billion dollars a year in sales.

• 41:01Shaan Puri?

  Right. So I bet you, you know, within that niche, because there's so, it's just such a large profession, right? Like we had, um, what's her name? Iman on from Incredible Health and they're talking about nursing. And there's just so many, there's so many goddamn nurses and there's actually a shortage. We need more. And so if you can sell essentially the uniform, either shoes or scrubs, um, you have a basic captive market.

• 41:22Sam Parr?

  I agree.

• 41:23Shaan Puri?

  Cool.

• 41:24Sam Parr?

  Barstool got acquired.

• 41:26Shaan Puri?

  Weren't they already part of Churnin or something?

• 41:28Sam Parr?

  Yeah. So basically the history, and I know this because I'm in the, the same game. They, um, the story is Dave had the thing, Dave Portnoy, uh, had this business for a long time. And he just milked the profit out of it, which decreased the valuation, which is a lot of people don't realize that's how it works, but that's how it did work. He's, I believe he sold 50% of it at only a $15 million valuation.

• 41:50Shaan Puri?

  Years ago.

• 41:51Sam Parr?

  Four years ago.

• 41:52Shaan Puri?

  Four years ago.

• 41:52Sam Parr?

  Um, then they hired Erica, uh, CEO. She operated, operationalized it and professionalized it. And Dave still was able to be kind of crazy and wacky. When she joined, she said that they're doing 1.2 million a quarter in sales and they only had 2 million in cash. Not a lot. Um. This past year, they got, they scared a hundred million in sales, sold for.

• 42:16Shaan Puri?

  450 million, right?

• 42:17Sam Parr?

  Uh, they sold a portion of the business for 450 million dollars with an option to the company to buy the rest. But Penn National, I looked it up today, their market cap last week was 2.8 billion, today 3.6 billion. So it doesn't exactly work like this, but ultimately they bought a 450 million dollar company and made 150 million in sales or made 150 million in market cap. Additional market cap. Crazy, right?

• 42:39Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. That's, uh, hey, that's amazing. I think Barstool is kind of an amazing model. And, um, somebody tweeted at us today, hey, let's get the President Day on, on this podcast. Uh, do you know the guy? Have you met the guy?

• 42:51Sam Parr?

  No.

• 42:51Shaan Puri?

  He seems legit.

• 42:52Sam Parr?

  Maybe Erica, I think would be better, but.

• 42:54Shaan Puri?

  I don't know. That guy's pretty fucking entertaining.

• 42:56Sam Parr?

  Let's see what we can do. Erica is a, I think, a genius.

• 43:02Shaan Puri?

  Nice.

• 43:02Sam Parr?

  And a true operator. Um, Dave is, I think, brilliant, but at different things.

• 43:09Shaan Puri?

  And how copyable is that model?

• 43:11Sam Parr?

  Not, it's not.

• 43:13Shaan Puri?

  Because what? Talk, talk through.

• 43:14Sam Parr?

  Loads of companies have. We've had a cup. We had, okay, so the hustle, we have two investors. One is the founder of The Chive and the other is Bleacher Report.

• 43:25Sam Parr?

  They haven't been able to do it.

• 43:26Shaan Puri?

  Right. What do you think makes it hard? What was their, what was special about their situation?

• 43:29Sam Parr?

  It's like, how hard is it to copy Saturday Night Live? Really hard.

• 43:33Shaan Puri?

  So it's on the whole, the, the content, the culture, the fan base?

• 43:36Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 43:37Shaan Puri?

  It, it, the magic of that was different.

• 43:39Sam Parr?

  Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, 100%.

• 43:41Shaan Puri?

  And so when you look at that, what do you think?

• 43:43Sam Parr?

  I think that.

• 43:43Shaan Puri?

  We can do that? Do you think like, no, that's, we should go a different path? What do you, like, when you read that?

• 43:47Sam Parr?

  Well, first of all, I think that in order to build a business like that, there's loads of paths. And I actually think that they actually probably could have sold for way more, but they are inappropriate. A lot of people think they are at least.

• 43:57Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 43:57Sam Parr?

  And a lot of big companies are like, no, we're not touching that. ESPN wouldn't buy them, even though it makes sense. Because the politics.

• 44:04Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 44:04Sam Parr?

  They're just soft, I think.

• 44:06Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, ESPN's a Disney company.

• 44:07Sam Parr?

  Right. They're just afraid.

• 44:08Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 44:08Sam Parr?

  Most media companies out there, I think, are built horribly there. They have shit audiences, shit content.

• 44:17Sam Parr?

  And they're shit operators. They're losing money, like.

• 44:19Shaan Puri?

  You want to name names or?

• 44:21Sam Parr?

  Well, just like the big, like, like, all the big, the, the big companies that have raised lots of money and are unprofitable now.

• 44:29Shaan Puri?

  And what makes their audience, you're saying shit audience? What is it about their audience?

• 44:32Sam Parr?

  They're, they don't, so.

• 44:33Shaan Puri?

  You're not talking demographics. You're talking about like the loyalty.

• 44:36Sam Parr?

  Yeah. So what Barstool did that was great was they have a equal amount of people who hate them, but love them.

• 44:42Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 44:42Sam Parr?

  That's what you need.

• 44:43Shaan Puri?

  They're not in the middle zone of.

• 44:44Sam Parr?

  Yeah, it's like.

• 44:45Shaan Puri?

  Like or apathy.

• 44:46Sam Parr?

  Exactly why Donald Trump won versus Hillary. A lot of people were like. Yeah, I'll vote for her, I guess.

• 44:52Shaan Puri?

  What's the big right wing thing? Breitbart?

• 44:53Sam Parr?

  Yeah, Breitbart. So what I do every morning is I like to go to far left and far right news sites. And I look at the comment section Breitbart, which is far right, has the most comments of any news site I've ever been to.

• 45:05Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 45:06Sam Parr?

  And that is the, one of the highest signals of.

• 45:09Shaan Puri?

  So regardless of your politics, from a business perspective, that's what you want.

• 45:12Sam Parr?

  Yes.

• 45:13Shaan Puri?

  Extremely highly engaged.

• 45:14Sam Parr?

  Yeah. And that's what Barstool has done. And so it's really hard to replicate. And a lot of people, particularly committees, like corporate, large businesses that try to like, look at this shit in a PG disc and be like, well, how do we replicate this? Well, it's really fucking hard because you gotta be a maverick a little bit. And so that's why I think a lot of these media companies cannot replicate it.

• 45:37Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 45:37Sam Parr?

  So our podcast stuff.

• 45:40Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 45:40Sam Parr?

  Uh, I think let's do, starting next week, I think we should, let's just try for 30 days, two or three times a week.

• 45:47Shaan Puri?

  Okay.

• 45:47Sam Parr?

  And we're, we'll work out the details after this, but two or three times a week.

• 45:51Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. More of this.

• 45:53Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 45:53Shaan Puri?

  We, we asked last time, we kind of fished for some compliments. We were like, hey, if you want to see us do more, let us know.

• 45:58Sam Parr?

  So.

• 45:58Shaan Puri?

  And I got a bunch. And so.

• 46:00Sam Parr?

  And here's what I think. My honest opinion is it might be there. It might not be there.

• 46:05Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. But the experiment is worth doing.

• 46:07Sam Parr?

  It is. The answer for me for sure is it is not not there.

• 46:15Sam Parr?

  Like.

• 46:15Shaan Puri?

  Explain what you're talking about.

• 46:17Sam Parr?

  My, my Twitter, the, my, the amount of Twitter replies I get on Twitter proves that it might be there.

• 46:25Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 46:26Sam Parr?

  So not for sure, but not not. And I think, I don't know what our, I know, we don't have to say how many listens it's gotten.

• 46:34Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 46:34Sam Parr?

  But it's probably gotten close to a million downloads so far.

• 46:37Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, getting close, which is cool. Cause like six months of, of effort getting to a million is a great milestone.

• 46:43Sam Parr?

  Yeah. I, I know for sure what the listens are, but I don't know. I forget what downloads.

• 46:46Shaan Puri?

  Downloads are a little harder to track than, than the listens, but if you use like, what I would call like a conservative rule of thumb, we're either at a million or we're plus or minus 10%.

• 46:56Sam Parr?

  Yeah. So it's about there. Right. So that's cool.

• 46:58Shaan Puri?

  All right. High five.

• 46:59Sam Parr?

  Yeah. Uh, so we'll, we'll talk about that after this, but we'll start doing that.

• 47:03Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Sweet. All right. We're done.