Sam Parr's secret millionaire club is on track for $1B

I'm going to write an article about how a scam artist makes sixty thousand dollars a month on Kindle and then to take it a step further I'm gonna do the same thing [Music] what is up everybody this is Michael zacon I'm joined by my co-host simran Sandu and today we have a very special guest who's very close to my heart it is Sam par none other he's gotten quite famous on the internet lately he is the founder of the hustle which sold the HubSpot for tens of millions of dollars he is the host of the my first million podcast which has been a big inspiration for us here at our future and with this show and he's recently started a private membership Community called Hampton which has also been immensely successful so we're not as interested in Rich guys telling us about their past we're more interested in Rich guys taking us in the time machine and giving us kind of detailed growth hacks for like how they grew their business when they had no credibility like no money like this is you moving to San Francisco like you know you're in you know selling hot dogs before that you drove on a motorcycle right and you started this newsletter called called The Hustle so yeah well basically I lived in Nashville I worked for that TV show American Pickers and I saw like that guy Mike Wolf he's the skinny guy the tall guy he's a true entrepreneur and I was like oh that's sick my parents are entrepreneurs but I never like looked up to them as I should have because they're your parents who don't really like think what they're doing is special but I met this guy and I was like that's awesome so I started a hot dog stand I would kill it some days make a thousand dollars in cash some days other days it was like 100 bucks uh we call it being Hood Rich because you just have like a wad of like five dollar bills um and then I move I uh moved to San Francisco to join Airbnb it didn't work out because I lied I had a criminal record and I didn't admit it and they fired me the day before I started and then I started a roommate matching app which was like Tinder for roommates which is stupid obviously it should have been Tinder for Tinder right you know like but we did that for roommates and then sold that and then I was like all right I gotta start something new I don't know what it's going to be so I started an event called hustlecon and I made that popular by blogging which people today like I've had a bunch of I've done some of these podcasts where like I go viral because I'm like oh I would just just start a blog and then all the young people are like who the hell reads no one Vlogs anymore it's nonsense I think you can still make a [ __ ] ton of money yes I think it's crazy I think that it's crazy how wrong that like a big when I say blog I mean like a newsletter and then I'll write something on like a web page um but the you get you make so much more money and so I had a Blog and I still would blog and I still do blog um but anyway I that's what I I started that to make it popular it got popular and then I did it the um the event a bunch of times and I was like the event part stinks let's just do this content thing yeah so anyway did the blog stuff turn it into the hustle and that's how it happened but like I didn't have social media when I started that stuff I just would post it on Reddit and Hacker News and things like that and uh I think our first month at the hustle I think we had like 800 000 visitors to the website mostly because of Reddit and Hacker News and that [ __ ] still works well I think you've talked a lot about this on MFM right like just I've heard a lot about the story but what I want to know is the big inflection point early on where it was maybe one conversation you had or someone who kind of changed your entire trajectory where it was like hey you're doing this Airbnb Tinder thing but you know maybe you should look at conferences how about like how did the idea for hustle Khan even come about like who pointed you in that direction I met a guy who originally hosted the first hustle con and he did it as like a hobby and it made like five thousand dollars and he was like I'm not doing anything with this domain name or this email list of like 500 people yeah do you want it and I was like yeah I'll do it I've never been to a conference but yeah I'll do that so that's how the idea so I didn't originally have the idea someone else did but I kind of made it my uh idea by changing it up but what conversations did I have early on um just like moving to San Francisco so I started a book club it was called the anti-mba and I hosted a book club every week for two years and the way it would work is I would pick a book once a month we would read a quarter of the book every week and I would get in these like experts on the board to come in and like lead a conversation and eventually like two or three thousand people would follow the discussions online like via an email list and then I would have like 10 or 20 or 30 people that's why I met you know you know sieva because I subscribed to his newsletter yeah so he runs like a PE firm worth like I think they have 100 million dollars in assets or in Revenue yeah he I posted my book my book I to create my book club I posted ads on Craigslist and he showed up to the first club meeting and that was awesome we became friends that when I became friends with like there's a bunch of people who are really wealthy and crypto who originally came to my book club like that's how I met most of my friends early on and so I would do this book club and I just met all these people that were doing cool [ __ ] and it was like basically the way I describe it is like you think of like this building or like this sure microphone and you're like that just has always been there and just always existed but then I would meet these people who actually were making this stuff and I was like oh that's so cool I can make anything and so like I really had a lot of faith meeting a lot of these people that I can do anything I want a big inflection was at hustlecon I used to tell people to come like if their talk was at three o'clock I'd be like you gotta be here at noon for mic check there's no mic check that's not a thing at a conference like it just works this is the same part one-on-one they're getting yeah captive audience yeah well I wouldn't talk to them I would listen because it would be me like all right one time it was Casey neistat it was the founder of class pass it was the founder of wework um oh man the founder of a way it's like a way travel uh yeah Jen Rubio and then like three of them performer people I'm probably mixing up a couple of years but it was like also like the founder of the athletic and then like this guy who started Poshmark you remember Poshmark and like all these successful people and we like they were just it was in a room just like this and they were like complaining to each other about like they'd be like hey are you guys raising funding oh it's rough out there did you race from this person man it's so hard or I've got to fire this person I'm really afraid to or like they were just so you're just like a fly on the wall flying the wall like I would like throw a question I'd be like hey what are you guys doing about blank or like how are you solving this problem and they would just start having these conversations and I would just listen and I'm like oh man this is like so powerful like I remember like the founder of OkCupid his name's Sam yeagen he was the CEO of I think match.com which is like a multi-billion dollar thing he was so nervous to go on stage and I like got him a bottle of water and he like Snapped at me and I was like hey man it's cool to be nervous like you want to talk through this like uh and he was like really nervous and I remember like being able to be around all these like billionaire-ish people and I was like they are not 10 times smarter than me some of them were but most are not but they're like 10 or 20 times more successful than I am and I just remember being around these people constantly and it gave me a lot of like faith and I'm like damn like it's not the the gap of success is is huge but the gap of ability is not significant it's funny because you still have that mindset like I think your kink in business is surrounding yourself with people who are more successful than you like you really get off on that like you're doing that with Hampton you did that with hustle con yeah you bridge The Divide it's kind of but um it's like the same thing with like um like sports like why is it that like a lot of really cool athletes or great athletes come from like one location uh there's definitely like some aspect of like they're just maybe more talented or like uh whatever it is I don't know but there's something about being around like greatness that rubs off on you and I find that to be very fascinating so I like being around people who like do interesting stuff I think what's cool about it is like the real value you provide is being a connector you bring all these important powerful people in a room together and just let them do their thing um very organic you guys are that right you guys emailed me in 2020 yeah maybe 20 20. did you guys ever tell a story about on this so basically like he had Michael at University of michigan.edu or whatever yeah like and like I remember doing a call with you and you were in a dorm room I think wait can I tell you the actual story what so I so I was doing a podcast before I started the short form Tick Tock chat and I wanted to have you on because I saw I knew the hustle and like I saw you're on Twitter I was like this guy's [ __ ] sick it's like he's riding motorcycles like he seems like kind of a badass I also think that's the reason why your personal brand is as big as it is um is because like you're not your typical Silicon Valley dude like people look back at that photo of you with like that little pot belly in the tank top in Nashville with that shitty ass sign it's like yeah dude this guy's [ __ ] weird and crazy it resonates too though right yeah I mean you've got a guy next door Vibe yeah but I want you on my pod so I said some crazy [ __ ] you know and you respond to that like it's your own language it was some hustlery I'm a young kid I'm trying to meet people it's like oh you know that's your language you did the same with hustlecon and you're like sounds cool that's all you said sounds cool period and then you left your your your number was in your email signature anyways Flash Flash Forward start texting me I did I flashed forward so this is right when the hustle deal was closing it hadn't yet closed I was on my way to the Mojave Desert uh for to uh sorry Joshua tree and I was just obsessed at that time with how do I build a media company like I was doing a podcast like one-on-one and I was like this is so hard to grow like how do I build a media company that's more than just a person like I want to have a brand and I would just pretty much listen to every podcast that you'd been on and same with Austin and Alex uh because I was so inspired to like make business fun right right like like the hustle had and I ended up just texting you and asking you questions and I was like Hey I want to do this like I want to build this big Media company and we ended up chatting a little bit and you wouldn't come on the Pod because you were like oh like this deal is closing I just like can't talk about it yeah I was stressed at that point yeah and then you know fast forward to a stroke of luck when I just decided to listen to MFM one day I was an OG listener So I listened to out of him probably before like all these other mofos like literally everyone is everyone is hopping on the train now but like I was there in the beginning you know it's like funny you know like you're the guy that were first and you're like oh okay you know um and uh they had the viral Cuts competition and that you know is that how we me and semi built the agency right which was that first deal of like 5K whoever makes a spiral I was like let me turn that Into 5K a month Revenue right yeah basically we had a contest where we said just like anyone listening make clips and post them on your handle you can own it and just use this hashtag so we could track it yeah and we would we'll just randomly pick cool videos that we like and we'll give you five thousand dollars and you guys did it I think your videos got like 10 million views I remember the Levar ball uh no that was later that was the clip it was the subreddit the fat fall it was a good one it was Mr Beast um with the uh squid game yeah so those popped like I just knew because I just I was in a position right like I was already working on short form video like I was surrounding myself with talented editors and it just like the light bulb went off as a young entrepreneur to be like okay like I know these guys I already have his phone number so I know I can win the contest by just being like hey I'm winning so no one will forget about me and I know do a video editor who could do it so it was like I just had the right pieces in place and it all goes back to just like getting started somehow and like you'll be ready for an opportunity when it comes right but it's cool like uh I'm not old but I'm older than you guys um but so I'm old enough now that I I enjoy finding like the 20 21 22 year old people and I think it was the same thing when I started in Silicon Valley it was like the people were like oh you're young and you're getting after it that's cool well uh we'll give you a shot but um yeah it's cool to like I call it collecting people I think I'm not like a religious person but there's this cool line in the Bible where Jesus is trying to recruit Peter and Paul and their fishermen and he goes I'm Gonna Make You fisher of men and I remember like hearing that line I was like oh that's sick I'm gonna be like because I don't have that many skills but I can collect people yeah you're really good at that so I'm like I'm just gonna collect people and be a fisher of men and find interesting people yeah um and that's usually how it's worked for a lot of the career but when you're around those people it like demystifies achievement whether it's yeah sports or art or making money I mean the inseam you're in the same boat like he was doing interviews on his pod like before he even met knew each other like he was talking to the CEO of Verizon and [ __ ] I was talking to like you know the CEO of Chipotle and stuff and it's just like wow this is just normal people like chat the key was like you're giving them a platform right like do they want to have a conversation with a 38 for 30 minutes with the kid like they've got tons of other things to do but if it's like hey it's a podcast and this is gonna be distributed and you can make it sound cooler and bigger than what it is well it's like okay well I can see the the ROI on doing something like this yeah the way that I describe like that period of living in San Francisco for almost 10 years was like I had bad eyesight when I went there and then I had put eyeglasses on and it's like oh my God the world is so clear like you understand like how different things is that a metaphor or are you actually a bad eyesight it's a metaphor it's a metaphor and I do wear glasses you're you're my opio is alcoholism right uh I like that was my my that was your that was my drug of choice yes but I um like being around these people you're like oh this is how the world works this is cool and you can I'm like I can do anything actually if if they can do it and so it was very inspiring yeah um I want to ask you you guys probably get crazy inbound like anytime we talk about how we were doing clips for you guys people would just like look at a Starry Eyed because they're like you guys work with Sam and Sean like so I imagine we ignore everything yeah well that's now I think the door's closed now it's not closed I mean every once while someone gets through but even then like because the hustle when we sold it had close to two billion subscribers and every once in a while my email would be in it like for example a lot early on the welcome email came from my personal email and so you just your inbox just is has two or three hundred unread emails at any given point and I also used to put my phone number out there it's like a or like a young business person does like oh like a little tweet or like oh I'm sorry you're having a bad experience here's my phone number call me or whatever you know like that's like a cute thing to do and so my phone number was out there and so I just get they were calling yeah so I just I just got by default and and usually people just want something that helps them and not you and so I just by default ignore everything but yeah we we ignore everything so how do people cut through the noise I mean this is one story on on how we did it but like you're getting a [ __ ] ton of inbound what are some like interesting things you've seen or just crazy emails that you've gotten where it's like okay this kid has some hotspot like I'm gonna take a chance on them well typically when they email you ideas on what they're going to do that goes straight to junk um it's far more interesting where it's like I've already done X Y and Z here's the website and here's the results uh so like just really interesting and good results stick out um when they ask like I'm willing to work for you for free I'm like man now I gotta think about something for you to do that's just too much work I don't want to do that yeah I'd rather you just tell me what problem I need to solve and then actually give me an example of how it's solved and I'll pay for it too but like uh if you just like show me some type of a website that show like is what you're thinking and then maybe I'll be interested um the the hard part is uh figuring out who to trust so I I have a joke but it's not really a joke as I just say No New Friends like I just by default I don't trust you and I don't want to be your friend and figuring out how to like break through that is a challenge I respect that about you though like once you actually like lock onto someone like you're super loyal for yeah I'll be really loyal to you but like by default I'm like I I think you're lying to me you're trying to sell me something and I don't believe you yeah and so you have to figure out how to like prove that you're a trustworthy person so we've never worked together directly what are your thoughts on second chances like do you give people a pretty long leash in terms of like Second Chances yeah no no so it's like they [ __ ] up they're done yeah I have a pretty pessimistic View which isn't entirely true but I default to it which is people don't change and so and I also believe that the way you do one thing is the way you do everything so like if you're late to meetings I think you're sloppy if you're uh so like or if you've if you lie to me one time you're gonna lie again so but people do change sometimes I changed uh but most people don't so I kind of default to it so you're skeptic by Nature then yeah and if you like if I catch you lying I think you're gonna lie all the time that's why you don't [ __ ] with crypto and these NFL I don't like yeah I don't like a lot of them but I think that if you but like a lot of really successful people probably myself included we have done like some shady things when we first start out on the internet so like you can change but uh like I think if you're dishonest once you will likely be dishonest in the future so like something that you know we all share is like we run you know with our futures running a viral media brand you were doing the same with hustle and you were very yeah like we were crazy viral like you guys I know but we had the mecca we had the short form platform to exist you were getting viral on the internet um how do you think about like twisting stories and headlines and stuff like you're really good at that and that's something that I really enjoy doing I believe these days you have to trick people into being educated so how do you think about that and the ethics around that click bait I think that you want to tell the truth but the best possible version of it um I like that I think that so I think like a cool thing about storytelling is like you can change the like for example let's say that I want to tell you a story about like entertaining about someone told me something really funny and we're in a car ride or something and like there's three people in the back and it's me in the front and then someone else in the driver's seat and they tell a story I'm not I don't need to like tell you like who was sitting in that car or I could even tell the story as if it was just me and this other person like having a private conversation that's not a meaningful like that although that's not like the whole truth that's not a meaningful difference in the story so I I think it's okay to do some things like that um but uh I think that people particularly your guys's age have a pretty high [ __ ] detector and the best way to circumvent that is to not [ __ ] and so I try my hardest not to [ __ ] too much but I think you can since since uh Sensations and centralize the traditionalize the the truth yeah uh but I try my hardest not to like [ __ ] too much yeah uh because I think that you you'll lose trust but I think that you can do crazy [ __ ] to grab people's attention the thing that with what what is what is so click bait means it's bait what is bait bait is when you are tricking someone and and giving them something that is not true or that is a fake thing so like I'm tricking someone by you I'm getting an animal to come over by like putting a fake duck out there in order to attract other Ducks yeah just make sure that duck ain't fake you know what I'm saying like just whatever it is it could be it could be if I use that analogy it's like Duck Hunters yeah like it could be click on Dynasty it can be clicky don't make it bait you know what I'm saying like their attention but I gotta give them the goods too okay well it's funny too like the whole fake it till you make it mentality like if you can pull it off everyone commends you but as soon as you don't you're like a fraud all right yeah and I'm in between that's why like a lot of like um entrepreneurs saw that Billy McFarlane thing and he took it the fire Festival guy he took it too far uh but a lot of people are like damn I've been there where like I was lying yeah and I didn't think it was going to end up as a lie because I thought I could pull it off but uh he took too far but a lot of people have been in that situation I think so I want to go back to the founding days of the hustle um so you scaled it a lot through like some of these posts on Reddit news Hacker News yeah tell me some more growth growth hacks for like growing audience onto the newsletter so basically our first either 100 or 150 000 subscribers came in year one and the way it worked is I would write these blog posts that I thought would like go quote viral or rank high in a particular subreddit so for example there was a subreddit called Soylent and I think it had 50 or 100 000 people and I thought with a high likelihood that if I lived or if I had someone live on Soylent for 30 days I'm like I think that will rank high in that subreddit yeah and also I think people who drink Soylent would consume our information and so I was like all right great therefore we're gonna have someone live on someone for 30 days I'm gonna post it there in five other spots as well and it's gonna rank high the very and then they would you know we would get 500 000 or a million people coming to their website and I had a really good pop-up that would grab people's attention in let's say three percent of them or thirty thousand people would subscribe to the hustle that's awesome and I could do that once a month um another thing that we did well here's another article the very first article we ever wrote have you read the article that we wrote for years ago about Kindle so basically I knew this guy named Patrick who had a thing where he would it started this way and then he became more legit but basically he would sort of plagiarize books on how to like sleep with women he like wasn't a like a player like you read them no but he's called like the gentleman's well I don't remember even what they were called but if you Google the hustle Kindle you'll find it but he would basically find books on how to like hook up with girls that ranked high and Kindle and he would have someone in the Philippines sort of rewrite it so it it wasn't total plagiarism and then he would get a click bait uh looking title and image for the cover of the book and then he would hire these people to quote buy it and review it and I was like this is horribly scammy and unethical but it's wildly interesting I'm gonna write an article about how a scam artist makes sixty thousand dollars a month on Kindle and then to take it a step further I'm going to do the same thing so we were like we did some uh research and we're like which categories of Kindle have the highest liquidity meaning uh I can rank like there's tons of buyers and it happened to be romance novels um and so I was like great let's write this article about uh Patrick and explain what he does and people are going to doubt us and then the next week like we're gonna put in the article next week we're gonna prove this is true by doing it subscribe here and then the next week we plagiarized in one week we did this we plagiarized this book we called it captivating Claire and we found that like there's this weird niche of like people who like want to have sex with military people there's also this weird like niche of romance novels of women who want to have sex with like werewolves I guess that's the thing with that movie oh isn't it called like what's that movie with that Patrick guy oh isn't it uh the one with uh Michael J fox I don't remember but there's some movie where a vampire or a wolf oh you're talking about Twilight bro yeah yeah that thing so it's like it's it's weird when you say it but like there are movies like that but anyway we we plagiarize this book we got these people in the Philippines to buy it and rank it and then we released it and we became like number one in a particular Niche for romance novels and we wrote about doing it and it turns out the book that we and then we posted that and like reddit.com slash like self-publishing authors and people got so mad at us particularly like these stay-at-home moms who love this category of novels they thought that we were mocking them we weren't mocking them we were just happen to choose that genre and we were kind of making a point that like you shouldn't trust everything on Kindle and how it's kind of [ __ ] in a lot of cases to be a quote a bestseller and charge speaking fees yeah and that became a hit turns out the book that we copied was owned by Harlequin do you know what Harlequin is publisher yeah have you heard of it I've heard I know that compete with it I haven't even heard of it they compete with penguin dude it's like the it's like a 2000 person like Publishing Company it's like the third or fifth largest publisher in America yeah and they emailed us and they're like we're going to take you to court and sue you for making a mockery and and I like and for plagiarizing us and I emailed them back and I was like I'm sorry we were just making a point that had nothing to do with you and they're like look we get it we're just trying to scare you just write a post saying you're sorry for doing this and take the book off Amazon and it's all good and so anyway that first that was our very first post the first week or two weeks we launched the hustle really yes because I think the moment I knew that me and Simi like we had made it in media was when we got a defamation suit from a billionaire wow it doesn't feel like you're making it at the time but but again that at least means for in the case of a media company you're getting eyeballs yeah exactly and so we would do crazy stuff like that the first year like for example another thing was this was in 2016 when we launched uh psychedelics weren't as popular and I had a friend that would uh um take them a lot to like calm his nerves and we wrote about how he bought them and how he took them micro dosing that went viral and we did crazy stuff like that that's so Vice that's such a vice Playbook yeah and it worked and that's how we got like our first 100 to 150 000 subscribers and we would just do crazy [ __ ] like that every week or so I know Vice nearly bought you uh we actually nearly were in some conversations with them as well uh oh you gotta you gotta bleep out that name Vice I don't know if I'm in uh well maybe we could say I don't know if I think you've said it publicly before have I yeah uh they were interested in buying us and uh I'm very very happy we didn't do it because it was all going to be stock and that stock is worth you know nothing worth zero it went to zero the way that they would all be unemployed the way they organized their company was uh very sloppy we we didn't actually get that far down with them because it's like this is just a horrible culture fit this is a bad fit and I'm very happy people worked out with HubSpot but most media companies are [ __ ] shows I think sure I think a lot of media companies are actually like it's it's kind of easy to get an acquisition in media because if you're the new new thing on the new platform these older Legacy companies have an immediate interest because like we were nobodies just making these videos and getting a lot of views but when we brought that storyline to like we brought it to Forbes and we brought it to News Corp and we brought it to Vice and we brought it to Vox like there's a news because Studios hit us back we met with News Corp did they give you guys a meeting well do you know that they nearly uh I don't know what I'm allowed to say but uh I would imagine so that that is true yeah I mean that's that's Rupert Murdoch 101 yeah um selling to a media company is a bit of a challenge it's just you're on a grind it's on a grind of like more eyeballs and I I always thought when we sold this was before I knew about HubSpot in my head and this is before we knew that wework wasn't what it we thought it was but I was like a wework should buy us I was like a company that is selling something that would be way better yeah and it's a significantly better place to work I think uh not always but often and then HubSpot called us and I was like oh this makes perfect sense and so I would rather sell to a non I think coinbase had a blog post saying that they want their if you Google like coinbase medium Prime Brian Armstrong the hustle you'll see this article they're like this is a really cool strategy we like this and I think I prefer that but uh both both can work I think we would agree like we talk about this a lot like for us I feel like it's harder to build a standalone media giant like you're better off being a supplemental piece to a different kind of company whether it's d2c SAS yeah media arm like if you go to like you're are you a car guy too not as much as him so I'm a car person I'm a car Enthusiast if you you watch car content on YouTube do the best YouTube car content comes from not uh all entirely but some of the best comes from non like uh like there's a car while you know what car wow is yeah uh they're like a Marketplace from Cars their YouTube channel I think is the best and then there's uh like Haggerty they sell insurance yeah they're an event by Hagerty in in Monterey car week in two weeks oh really they I think they've got the best car stuff and the car Hagerty own no no Hurst owns bring a trailer yes yeah yeah and hers is awesome but I think some of the best car content comes from yep people who aren't in the media business because they have way more money to spend and when you don't give a [ __ ] you make better stuff yeah and then I think it's easier to have a product that people love and then to build media around it than it is to have media and then build a product around it I think the first one's significantly easier and if you have that Revenue uh driver that is non-media stuff to throw media on top of it is way easier so it's interesting you say that because I remember a tweet you just recently posted where it was bless you um where it was around media companies trying to build a data or tech product um I think a a data product could work with media but Tech you're not as bullish no I'm not because so basically there's a lot of media companies out there that want to create products and it's not impossible but I think that a doing more than one thing is very challenging even when you're big but B I think it's significantly more challenging to have a media team and then go out and build a tech product it rarely has it happened sometimes it's been a com uh attempted many times but I think it's incredibly challenging uh because the skill sets are just really different and the culture is really different so you think it's a mismatch within the team itself like they're just not capable of building said tech product like do you think use cases do you think that you could bring in an experienced Tech person and have them go develop this it's a bit of a problem because you have competing interests so at the hustle like for example we have this lady who worked for us named Katie I love Katie Katie loves her name she was awesome she was our best seller there is a time where one of her clients she probably booked like 2 million in Revenue in one year there was a time when one of her clients was this big name big shot and they advertised with us and I said something dumb in the email and they wanted to bail I don't give a [ __ ] about that Advertiser but I cared about her yeah I didn't want her she was going to lose money because that person was bailing and I had to think like okay what do I care more about like the this ego in this concept of like I'm gonna say whatever the hell I want which should be true but I'm hurting her and so that you're like out of conflicting interest there and so it's the same way where if you have a limited amount of eyeballs or ad space are you gonna promote your own product and that was the thing we had at Trends we had Trends we had a subscription product so there was competing interest there whereas I think if you're let's say that you are a tech or a product company and then you wanna I don't know why you would but let's say you want to sell advertising space it's a little bit easier to like hey we have this extra stuff this extra space that you could sell versus we only have this amount of space it's all sold out because our ad sellers need to get their commission now we're going to promote our own thing now that hurts the ad sales and it hurts our sales people that is a little bit of a that's a hard thing to pull off I think yeah well I just think we're going to see a lot less like media companies get acquired like I just think the media company is like a thing of the past and like I'm really proud that we were able to like do that because I grew up admiring you Alex Austin and and you you guys and I want to do the same thing and I did it on a much smaller scale but I just think brands in media are just a thing of the past like no longer are there going to be these like outlets and Publishers it's much more obviously like creators and stuff I don't believe I think that's too much of an absolute like I I don't like when people say like like a generalization a generalization would say this is the future it's like no both can exist I do think that some of these Brands like a Hearst or a fox they're always going to exist and they're always going to be I don't know how big they'll be but they'll always have a be a fairly big business um I think that like Meredith you guys have you guys heard you know what Meredith is yeah Meredith look up Meredith it's uh it's funny you don't know this because they make two billion dollars a year I believe they're based out of I think Minnesota oh this is the magazines yeah they're magazines they own Martha Stewart's [ __ ] they I think they probably also OWN Oprah or O magazine or worked with her uh if you look I'm sure they've done something with like Jessica Simpson like it's basically Middle America women read their stuff and like you're always going to find someone who can appeal to like what you just said is a very Tech Coastal viewpoint but there's 400 350 million people in America there's a lot of room for everyone to well you talked about that other guy right who does a airplane magazine and then uses it to sell hanger space oh Craig Fuller uh so this guy named Craig Fuller so he's one of the examples of people who have done what I said uh most people can't do he started um what's this thing called uh Craig Fuller's his name Freight waves so Freight waves I thought it was the freight waves guy but that was a media company shipping I know but listen it's the same guy who did both okay so he did Freight waves which was basically the Bloomberg uh Playbook so they created software I think the software helps shipping companies figure out where their products are going I don't remember exactly but it's an Enterprise software and then to make that popular he created I think originally a Blog that did well and then he's turned into a full-blown media company and if you Google Freight waves Revenue they reveal all their revenue and it's something like 30 million in Enterprise uh software Revenue 30 million in like advertising and [ __ ] like that his side project was that he bought I think airplane.com or pilot.com like some Legacy magazine like a a Blog but also a a hard magazine and then he went and bought a bunch of real estate in Tennessee I believe and he turned it into like a country club but in the middle of the country club instead of a golf course it's a it's an airstrip and then they have an airplane Hangar so if you're like an airplane Enthusiast you could spend like something like four hundred thousand dollars and buy this nice home and then you have your monthly dues instead of a golf course you get access to this airstrip and you could store your plane there and he's using the magazine to drive sales to that thing now I purposely said it I or at least I hope I did in most cases I think starting with media and going to a product is impossible there's a lot of examples of proving me wrong I just like in most cases that's true and but then you meet a guy like Craig and he can pull it off another one is block works yeah uh block works is my sort of my good buddy Jason he's pulling it off but there is definitely a difference between an information product of which blockworks is selling and like a proper tech product yeah like I think an information product that has a tech component there are carryovers yeah like a data like a data company there are carryovers uh I think and the the same team in the same culture probably could do both I'm just saying in general I'm making a generalization um it's very challenging well the freight wave story is funny so we're in the process of working on a deal together because they have a massive podcast Network so do they yeah um tons of podcasts and it's it's such a funny thing because when I was asking them about it they were like yeah we just kind of look at this as a two-part business it's like we have this Tech infrastructure aspect and then the other half is Media are they boot trapped they're not bootstrapped they raised a [ __ ] ton of money they did yeah um yeah they're they're I think they are What's the phrase uh an exception to the rule yeah um some crazy extraordinary people can pull it off well I want to ask you so the biggest Pro of building a media company is also the biggest con and what I mean by that is there are virtually no barriers to entry in today like anyone can rip each other off people have tried to do it with us people have tried to do it with you guys and done it successfully yeah sure um so what I want to know is like other Industries where you think a young person can go succeed in especially if it's their first business let's take into account they're not some tech genius they're not big software guys they haven't been coding their whole life so what are some low lift things that they should be focusing on or emerging Trends they can look at well obviously content is there but outside of media outside of content um I think one of the biggest regrets that I have and it's not necessarily A regret because I don't I I don't think I'm built that way but I think like learning a skill set like development or maybe even better design design yeah if you can learn design I think you can crush it um and so like I wish I had the ability to so most everything that I make on the internet I don't actually make it I'm able to hire people to do it I wish I had that ability to do it and I could create yeah a landing page that looks sick to design a website as good as Hamptons or as good as viral Cuts yeah yeah like I don't have that ability if I had that ability to do that I could definitely uh make like a mock-up of what a software company could look like and I could cold call people and get them interested and I think I could get pre-sales or at least enough interest that I I could use that to promise people I'll pay you eventually interesting that's a great yeah that's a good idea I I wish I had the ability to do design I don't I I can write which is maybe equally as important but if you could do design and or uh like even just some of these no code tools I can't even work webflow I don't have I don't even know how to do it it's interesting because you're like tapping into the creative part of your brain like I'm taking your course right now the copy that love actually love that [ __ ] but uh copy that.com yeah you gotta give it that's just like a little plugging out on the side it's fun right yeah it's totally fun it was like make your writing sing I was like well duh like it makes a ton of sense but you just don't think about it I mean I've had people coming to me they're like I literally wrote out all your videos and like your stories by hand yeah because that's what Sam Parr said to try and learn it works the way it's very effective you tell stories I do it all the time yeah it works I still do it all the time I'll write things out by hand so basically for The Listener it's called copywork like in the 1700s 1800s and up until like 1920 or so it was a very common way of learning how to write you just copy other people's stuff it's the same way when you like do music right you don't typically write your own song right away you learn Jingle Bells and then you learn like some rock [ __ ] that you like and then maybe pop stuff and then eventually you're like oh I like this part this part this part then I can combine it and you see the patterns of what works and you make your own eventually the same way with writing so if you want to be a good comedy writer you can take like your favorite genre of Comedy whether it's uh stand up or movie scripts you can write it by hand you can do it with uh Catcher in the Rye whatever if you want to learn how to be a novelist uh it's and you see the texture in it and it's a really easy way to learn I think it's the most effective way to learn I know we've talked a lot about the the cons of building a media company as we just did but just to go back to that the biggest Pro like personal brand I am blown away by the the personal brands that you Alex and Austin have from doing morning brew and hustle is it just because like those were Outlets that everybody in the tech industry like read well like your personal brand mismatches the the thing that you guys built you mean like like you have you're more famous than a lot of billionaires yeah a lot of 100 million dollar guys which by the way I would trade that Fame for that why do you give me the money why do you think there's such a mismatch between the personal brand and the business you worked on a few things one I don't like I don't want to like make this sound bigger than it is because ultimately newsletters is like a very tiny niche in a in a small Niche uh but we were like Pioneers in that we didn't invent it but we helped Pioneer it uh so it was like us the skin morning Brew it was like a very popular thing and we were like five years ahead of of where a lot of people were like um when I pitched the hustle to someone it was a CEO of a really popular media company I'll tell you afterwards you definitely know who they are they're multi-billion dollars he was like this is a tiny idea and it will never make more than a million dollars a year and that's obviously nonsense we sold early but morning Burger is now close to 100 million a year in sales uh we definitely could have done that too so he was wrong but a lot of people dismissed it so the fact that we were Pioneers in this little tiny Niche that is interesting number two by default media to be successful you need eyeballs so that is one of the reasons why we're popular and number three it's just [ __ ] cool like people on the outside even when I'm on the inside I'm like this is pretty dope like this is awesome even though there's a lot of pain in the ass stuff it's sick just to make contact media is awesome and there's a reason why rich people when they get really rich Jeff bezel wants to buy The Washington Post uh because it's it's like it's sexy and it's cool and so a lot of and not a lot of people have that skill set but here's the thing is because everyone literally can write or make a video they think that they are good at it and then they realize [ __ ] this is actually hard and so they they're like I a this is like a sexy thing that you're doing even if the returns are smaller than some other Industries yeah it's sexy I don't know how to do it I wish I could but and I went in because uh I think Dan Bilzerian you know that uh crazy dude he's got the book and he's like I'm rich and I'm famous and I can tell you that being famous gets me laid way more than uh the same thing with like media it's like even if it's like not as lucrative as some other things it's definitely sexier and so even the rich people admire it and that's why me as a 20 year old kid wanted to get into the industry yeah it's a lot of vanity it's like the rock star version of like our nerd world it is the right yeah that's a great way to play uh it's like it's cool even though like the music the guy who owns the the label makes way more money it's just because all these Tech guys don't understand distribution and another like Messiah you know yeah and also most people their second time starting a company they realize that marketing and distribution is equally or more important as the product itself and they're like oh my God I wish I learned that skill set I'm also curious about how you think about New Opportunities and what I mean by that is you get your first win and what I've seen is that people who have successfully started and exited a company or done very well with it it almost feels like they're way more intentional about the second company they start and one of the reasons is is that like they just don't want it to fail or they don't want to you know to have egg on their face right and so I think the way they look at new opportunities is way different so what were some of the factors you thought about obviously Hampton is well primed to being this yeah success but so when I started the hustle my goal was to make 20 million dollars after taxes by the age of 30. the reason I set that number was because I met someone who was really wealthy and they just told me that number is like you're good uh and so I just made it up and so the second company that I started I think that basically most people don't focus enough on doing one or two things really well and said they spread themselves quite thin my second company or my second big company Hampton it was more so like I may or may not ever sell this probably won't but what can I start that can last like many decades that can grow um every year more likely than not but even if it doesn't grow I would love it um and it's in you guys know what you know what icky guy is have you heard an ikey guy it's this like Japanese concept where there's like imagine almost like a Venn diagram that looks like Olympic rings where it's like what you're good at what you love doing what the world really wants and what they're willing to pay for and the goal is to find something right there in the in the middle and that's like your mission because if you have like something you love to do but it doesn't make any money that's just an expensive hobby right if you have like something that makes a lot of money but you don't really enjoy doing then that's just a shitty job and so the goal is to find something right in the middle and I remember after I sold the hustle I took roughly two years um sometime between like six and eighteen months I forget at the exact time um but like I started Hampton about two years after I left the hustle um or sold it and I was like just researching like crazy I called it like I was scheming I was like I'm gonna research like crazy I'm gonna find something that's hopefully right in the middle of that Venn diagram um and I wanted to like nail that because I know that if you find something that you really enjoy doing and is lucrative and all that it can last a long time and what you see I sold the hustle in year four so I barely saw it but in like the more you go if you do a good job of doing it things compound and like it real value will happen like every decade or so and so I was like what can like compound over many years of time and it's gonna do that because a it's a good business model it's a product people want I'm willing to do it for decades and so I was really careful about that and I just think that most people they don't really focus they're not when you're just starting out I think just get your [ __ ] win as as so you get the win you support what we did and that well I don't know if you define that as your winner I don't know how you defined if what what it depends how you defined it um but I think that like get some type of Financial Security get that nut and then I think it's I think that's an appropriate thing to do is just like dude whatever you can do to get your first win and have like some breathing room yeah it's totally worth it but then when you can after that if you're able to think about what's can last many many decades because a lot of times you can create a significant amount of value over 20 years way more than five years yeah but you're different than what I've seen other Founders and your exited Founders in Industry do like they're trying to spread themselves thin they're trying to do a million things I think that's you're trying to be ultra leverage they're trying to do a VC fund they're trying to find the next thing big thing you went all in on one idea that you thought was great and I think that's different from what your peers of similar net worth and personal brand have done I think they're wrong I I maybe I mean who am I to say as long as they're happy they're right but if I had to make a bet that in 10 years will they wish that they could have focused on one thing I would think they would uh so but I don't know I mean some people have like one of my great friends his name sahil Bloom his lifestyle he [ __ ] loves his lifestyle so he probably doesn't want to focus on one thing because he's happy so in that regard he's winning he's made the right decision right but for other people like I think Austin and I Austin reef and I are very aligned where we're like we want to start a real company that we actually work inside of where we build a culture where we actually hire people I think that has a significant higher likelihood of lasting for a very long time and money's not my main driver but I think it will create a significant amount more more value than all these other projects combined it goes back to an interesting quote by like Stephen Schwartzman that I just read in his biography which was small goals and big goals are equally hard to achieve so you might as well shoot for something that your effort will be commensurate to the reward yeah I I I and I I agree with that I think that what you have I think that for some like really big like I didn't want to raise VC because I didn't want that pressure so like one could say like well I my goal isn't big enough because I haven't raised venture capital or something like that but we were lucky we had money to self-funded it but I I I think that I would add to his point but he's more successful than me so he's probably smarter but uh there's like this point of like what lifestyle do you want and can you make all that align has your philosophy changed where it was you wanted your nut right so it was built to exit right get yeah um you know some substantial Capital at your disposal to now building to hold for forever for a very very long time 100 it has changed okay and what like what caused that mental shift for you um having money having money yeah because it's I know that at a baseline I'm good uh anything else it's just upside but I definitely don't necessarily need more to live a life that I want I still want more just to prove myself that I'm capable you know just like when you're lifting weights it's like you don't need to lift you don't need to be able to bench 300 pounds why do you do it it's just fun to like grow and improve so I still have that aspect but that it changed in that I saw success and so I had the ability to be calmer and not freak out and not want it so much you know like when you're meeting a girl treat them mean keep them Keen I mean I knew I knew some like hot girl she was one of my good friends her name is Carly and I was like Carly I want to meet more girls what do I do and she goes you know I just treat them mean and I keep them Keen like the left I want them the more they want me it's like a little bit of Truth with with money it's like the less I care the more easily it comes yeah it's like life principle damn near yeah um and so I'm able to be offensive a lot more yeah um and I also like realized that I'm friends with all these guys now who have like you know Austin's one of my close friends now and like I see like the difference of when we sold I think the year we sold we could have done about 20 in Revenue um and you know he only sold part of the business and now they're still running it and I don't know I don't know what they saw have they said publicly what the revenue is no I don't think so I think last year they did and it was 75 or something and I'm like oh damn we could have done that too if I just held on I don't regret selling but you like see like damn if you like things really ceiling yeah you're like things really compound if you do it right and so I've understood like a long-term perspective a much longer term uh like timeline whereas early on you're like I agree you should have a shorter timeline just get it get it as as good as you can what about your mindset on competition and the reason why I ask is you and Austin and Alex like hated each other right and now no I I didn't know you guys are like Best Buy I didn't hate them personally I think I told stories of myself to hate them I always had a ton it's like uh it's like UFC fighters like you may look you may like you may dislike them you may not but you want to [ __ ] kill them yeah it was like that it was like that type of vibe I had a lot of respect but I would I would if I could I would crush them in any way I could uh hurt them any way I could now I have a lot of love and respect for him because you both we're not competitors and like I got to know them and I realized we all have similar values like I mean no wonder Brad Pitt and Leo are friends right they were probably duking it out for roles and now they're just like you're at the Oscars I'm the Oscar that's the ambitious analogy but I'll take it yeah I definitely blow it up probably a little healthier too like you know what I mean you know what I think is interesting about competition is like whenever you think you have a novel idea and like you're executing on it somebody else came to that conclusion independently in another part of the world we didn't know each I didn't know that they I think they launched before us I had no idea who they were for years like well Oppenheimer was they were thinking about the nuclear bomb the Russian the Germans and the Russians they're all working concurrently it's like Innovation happens at the same time in different locations yeah it's like the four minute mile Roger Bannister like a lot of people hadn't done it and then Roger Bannister did it and in that same year four other guys it's a crazy phenomenon it's like the alternate like Universe yeah and then like once we knew that they existed and they knew we existed I don't remember when that happened we definitely like I always tease Austin this isn't probably the truth but I was like every everything they've done that has worked they stole from me uh of course we stole a an equal amount um but uh yeah I'll get inspiration we'll use that yeah like we definitely stole like the good parts and we learned uh but we we took different paths they ended up launching tons of newsletters we weren't going to we were going to go we're gonna be more verticalized and launch more stuff to a particular audience um I think both would have worked fine um but yeah they they killed it and now they're one of my close friends I love those guys so I have a question for you about Hampton you're talking about the longevity of this business like decades I think a lot of people joined Hampton to get an association with you because they're like in love with you and you're the hero like yourself I think what happens when that Fades I think you're overestimating that so I bet uh most of the people heard about it through me because I've got a megaphone um I interact with like so we have many many hundreds soon thousands of members I interact with like very few of them so and I'm not even the CEO of the company I don't even make a lot of the major decisions so I think you're overestimating my importance of that business I am basically the TV channel where the ads are the product is totally different yeah it is away from me the reason I wanted to do Hampton was have you guys heard of YPO yeah um so that was created in the 50s 1950s there's another company called vistage that recently sold for multiple billions of dollars that is a similar style of business but they're like old school like they've been around forever so they launched in the 60s yeah and they've sold like eight times or four times or something crazy I I uh I was really fascinated with brands that could last many many many many decades and I think that um this style of company can with like HubSpot and other software companies they have to like innovate at a higher rate as in like AI came out okay they have to like do that they have to create that and integrate that in their product with a a peer or membership business or a community it's a little bit less like where the platform is kind of insignificant compared to the value that you provide and branding is really important and that's why I wanted to create it it's funny that the DNA behind household is by the way have you seen our logo and like our colors and stuff yeah the way that I came up with that me and Joe did Rolex right we looked at old Rolex and old um uh Porsche ads and so Hampton it's British racing green because I love British races great color it's a classic car color it's like all the old Jaguars were that Aston Martins yeah NASA Martins it's British race it's an old thing the word Hampton we came up with that because I used to live next to a street called Hampton Avenue but I was like that word sounds like it could last for uh you know yeah I think of Michael rubin's White Party when I hear Hampton yeah and like it's like an old thing so we wanted to name it and have the look and feel of something that can last and be timeless so like endless have you ever looked at like you know what's funny is like uh what I love doing is looking at like men's fashion or trailing hundred years yeah like The Tuxedo has never changed like it's been mostly the same men's fashion in general has like been like pretty much similar for like 100 plus years and so I love like finding things where it's like been the same [ __ ] for like 100 years because a I'm just fascinated by that and B it's just easier if you just like kind of nailed some of that stuff like it's just simpler well Trends in history also just repeat too right like you go from but I wanted something that was like always it's Timeless always Timeless yeah at least I tried like a Rolex if you look at like some of the some of the Rolexes they've almost always been cool or like uh an E-Type Jaguar like that has always been cool and it will always be cool you know what I'm saying yeah so I try to find things like that that will last a really long time because it's just easier I know you think like that but again whenever there's a sexy exciting launch right you look at threads you look at clubhouse right how do you sustain how do you sustain the difference between I get to say I'm in Hampton because it's hot right now versus this is something I want to participate in for the next 10 years of my life well first of all uh we might screw it up so I don't know the answer yet because I haven't done it uh but this I think that you have to look at like I think Amazon did this where they're like what will customers always want they're always going to want cheap prices fast shipping and a large select selection of stuff so like let's just build our business on top of that for Hampton it's like well what will people always want they're always going to want to connect with like-minded people yeah who are of High Caliber and they're always going to want to it to be easy they're always going to want accountability they're always going to want to feel less alone so what can I how what can we make today that will uh solve those problems and then how can we innovate within that framework on a consistent basis to like always make people feel that way where they always have a sense of community they're always a little less lonely everyone's always of High Caliber so what we do now is when you I think at Hampton we've had five or six thousand people apply um we interview all the people that fit the criteria on paper so that's like a certain Revenue threshold if they have don't have Revenue they have to have a certain amount of funding or if they're a new company they have to at least have sold a company before they can't be an [ __ ] they um it needs to be digital first and then we also prioritize some cities because it's a little bit easier when you have densities so like we have those thresholds and then we interview them to see if there are threshold uh a culture fit and Joe my partner watches every single interview and he's in charge of approving or not improving uh approving them and so we're keeping that like approval process super tight to make sure they're High Caliber and then tactically I'm working on like all right how do you build community so they always they can have 10 or 20 000 members but feel intimate that's pretty challenging we have the answer for that or at least the hypothesis for it and so I'm working on that now but uh yeah it's [ __ ] hard it keeps me up at night is how do you like make a membership or a community last forever but there's a lot of people who have done it what's what do you know what the best example is is [ __ ] Catholic church right that's 2 000 years old uh like it's it's it's it's done pretty good right you have a lot of fun little yardsticks to measure this against you know the E-Type and the Catholic Church yeah I mean it's just my God where you guys seem like it I wasn't part of it but you're I'm sure you're a part of frat Michigan right yeah yeah we were both in France how old was that frat how old is the University of Michigan how old's University of Michigan I mean yeah the heist I went through St Louis University High School it was created in 1818. yeah so uh you really you really went in on this concept of this should be something that lasts for decades yes it's way easier well it's easier in Hampton too you guys segment out by groups right so it's like the way it works is yeah so what Hampton is a lot of people call it a community it's not exactly a community that is a part of it but that's not exactly what it is so um the way it works is I I kind of call it like business group therapy so you're uh the founder of a company you're looking at your watch is boring no I'm just being cognizant all right the way it works is uh uh you apply you tell us about your company uh we match you and put you in a group of eight people who have similar sized companies and styles of companies that eight person Core Group you meet with them once a month and we have an executive facilitator who leads that conversation and that's where you talk about what's going on in your life and solve problems and you get intimate with each other then we have a digital Community where you can talk to all the members and then we have um industry-specific communities so there's like software media whatever and you can like post a question in there and like and that's the opportunity for me being in media I could get up to someone who's worth like 100 million 200 million immediately or more Craig Fuller's a Community member uh he's in the Media Group pop is in the media group so that's why I can ask someone who's someone anyone can access like the top dogs in the community yeah yeah yeah well here's what I'm interested in how does the cow of the conversation change and the insights that are discussed when you go from say someone who's still like on the come up like they're doing well versus like truly they are like top of class like they're killing it in their Industries well typically so like Anon from CB insights um I don't know what they've said publicly about Revenue but they're probably close to nine figures a year in Revenue sure for Enterprise uh sales so what's that worth 500 to a billion dollars Andrew Wilkinson's a member um so that he has like a 600 million dollar company so what the the guys who've got the our average member has 25 million a year in Revenue so what what does the 25 million year went from the 100 million dollar a year person they want to see like what do my next steps look like how should I think about this as I'm changing my organization whatever but the older guys are the more successful guys what they want from the younger folks is like what's the latest and greatest yeah that's why you like hanging out with young people yeah so like it's a mutual it's a good trade or they're like uh like this Luke guy who's got like this chrome plug-in who's only doing a million years in sales he's growing like crazy through this particular ad Channel or something like that and so that's like the the bigger companies are like well we have found what works and we're and we're going to exhaust that but we need to know like what else is happening how much have you noticed the Restriction is usually like there's some mental block for someone getting to the next level versus like they just need more time usually it's the second one they just need more time well the mental block is like they have to have the answer right away it's like no man like maybe like an ego thing they're just like setting their ways well a lot of times not every time but a lot of times what got you to 20 million could probably with some minor changes will get you to 100 million you just gotta add like five or ten years to it uh like whatever's working it's just like yeah just keep doing that and then once that breaks make a sometimes a big change most of the time like a small to medium change and and you already know the answer um and so that's one of the reasons Hampton exists is for like Yeah The 100 million a year person who could like kind of fill that into the 25 million dollar a year person you know what I'm saying yeah totally you really are playing your infinite game with this company you've professionalized those interactions you had at the 12 12 o'clock mic check into a business and I think if you can find what lights you up and then professionalize that into a business that's the infinite game right that's the ikigai thing as you can yeah I talk about that [ __ ] all the time people think I just talk about it and they're like nah dude [ __ ] live that I find is interesting is the ikigai was in the hustle and it is in Hampton and there's a lot of times between those things screw that up at the hustle a little bit but there's a lot of times between those businesses and the skill sets you needed on the hustle are now compounding with Hampton yeah you're doing this great blog and you're bringing these stories to life of these people and you're doing the personal brand type element of that stuff so it's almost like there's it's almost like a very similar concept yeah I'm just packaging it differently you're packaging it differently we have this thing called Trends which was cool but it was 300 a year and I was like ah I [ __ ] it up because when I launched it I was I didn't have a lot of money and I'm like who pays for a 30 000 a year subscriptions and then I realized oh big companies do the work that we're doing now is like kind of similar to that if I just packaged it differently it would have killed it yeah um but yeah it's all like similar it's just packaged differently and and for a different customer so you've been through uh obviously on a much bigger extent as to like me and Simi like we sold our business all do you guys know 24 23 23 24. uh you know where we want to launch a new business after our time is done um you know in our Aqua hire uh how would you encourage us to to go about and like I'm almost like envious of people who just stumble into their business idea without knowing they can launch a business but once you know you can build and scale a business it's like I need to find an idea and my biggest fear is that I I pick an idea we pick an idea that we're not truly passionate about and we're just doing it because it's hot or we can yeah I think that my advice or what I did and what I would do if I if I was you is create like a notion dock of different categories of styles of companies and go and research them like crazy and go and interview the founders be like hey you want to come in this podcast I mean that's what we did I had you took you got Chief and the tiger guy yeah uh yeah Builder your competitor yeah well two weeks later find out but I think what I would do is like make first of all like list out like the life that you want like what's that life look like what does success defined as and you want to put like it's this much money it's this much in Revenue I work like this I work with these types of people like I think you should actually put that on pen and paper and like outline what you think is a desirable like what the life that you want and then you like list out like I I you you start at top and then you just get a little bit lower you're like I think I like this industry I think I like this business model here's 10 examples of the things that I think are interesting and I would go and research those like crazy I would spend a year doing it I would call their uh I would call them like if you could the founders call the employees yeah learn all about it yeah and try to like get behind the scenes information to figure out does that align with what I think I want cool um and then all while doing this you have a vague idea of where the opportunity is but as you talk to those companies as you talk you can talk to their customers as well you should and you like that will start honing in on the opportunity and then I think you should call a few more customers and feel like uh if you could actually sell them to come to you and but don't actually do it and it's like all right cool I think I know the go to market strategy and what the offering is now let me keep researching this other industry this other industry this other industry and it's like all right I've done a pretty good job of analyzing everything out there I think this is the one that we should go in on let's go all in on that for like three to six months and see what happens yeah that's what I would do now that is the Playbook I think if you already have a uh if you're like I I can't do anything for the next six 12 18 months I have a little bit of time and money I want to do something that can last many many decades if you're just starting out I'm like whatever [ __ ] works just exactly run but if I'm you that's what I would do which is like I kind of have I have some experience I I know what my skill is I kind of know how to do this I would be very methodical about the I call it plotting you want to plot and scheme I'm like I'm plotting like in order to like like don't disturb me I'm plotting I'm plotting like this is this is I'm plotting what the plan I'm making the plan right now and that is what I think most people should do and it's just like you don't get married right away I mean sometimes that works but you typically you you want to go on some dates you want to see what's out there totally like I think you need to plot a lot of dating analogies in this podcast no you know I was a 21 year old who like couldn't meet any girls so I I learned how that [ __ ] worked uh but I think that like uh you need to like plot a very methodical way great insight and you like need to write all that [ __ ] out and I think you literally should call them and meet them and figure that out and you plot and the plotting part is your job yeah be like I'm not freaking out I don't need the answer I got I call it worry time like from June to January that's my plot plotting and worry time but I don't need the answer right now though yeah I was gonna say so there's two things that stick out to me it sounds like first like figure out the end outcome you want right you have to do that and then work backwards and then the second thing and it's funny because I was talking to Eamon um who's the former CEO of appsuma and he said something similar which is like you want to date an industry he's like be very pragmatic you look at 15 to 20 opportunities that you think could be interesting and he's like even just having a conversation with someone in the space exactly he's like you don't have to get all that deep but he's just like filtered down like that's what you want to do and that sounds very good and then when you find the thing you punch that intensity that's when the intensity wraps uh like starts to dial down and that's when it's like you're you're a sniper and you and you want to get after it and you say no to everything else yep yeah um what about timing though like if you have 18 months like us like if you see something like do you believe that opportunities are more or less Evergreen um uh do I believe opportunity no no some some are some not all but some but that's probably what you shop nine out of ten times I don't think it matters if you're first yeah like whatever exists today well the opportunity will very likely also exist in 24 months like if you're talking like let's say you're I have no idea if this is true let's say it's AI you don't got to freak out you know what I'm saying like just if you can't if it's not going to exist in 24 months it's probably not an interesting concept yeah that's a good good uh mental framing are you moving to the to the Midwest or New York where you had when we got married my wife was like or when we first started dating she was like I'm from New York City uh I have to live near my family eventually and so I agreed so have you guys ever heard of Westport Connecticut I went there the other day it's pretty awesome yeah it's like a lot of that's where like the hedge funds are right I'm gonna miss uh I'm Gonna Miss Austin man I'm gonna miss uh having you around and Austin's cool yeah it's just so ugly here I know I miss Beauty I need some type of like physical inspiration it's true it's quite ugly it's so ugly the city feels repetitive to me too like you do the same [ __ ] all the time I agree but it is fun and it's easy to live here here I go to the UT Tower because that's where that famous shooting was Charles Whitman you know only you would be like obsessed with that like feeling the wall well yeah it's just like a historical thing you guys don't know Charles Whitman was that a weird that I knew who that was he looks just like me you know who that is uh-uh it's like it was one of the uh America's first mass shootings it was like this guy who he had a tumor but he looked exactly like me if you guys are watching this look at Charles uh he like went up to his power and he like shot like 20 people and it's just like famous because it was like it was like one of the periods where America sort of lost its innocence it's weird like when you see a picture of him that he like looks like me uh and now I live like next door to it here look check this out Mike what do you think side by side pictures I'll do it is this [ __ ] up or what yeah he looks a lot like you it's a little wild oh but you also look like a basic ass white dude so there's a lot of guys look at that guy there's a lot of guys my cousin man a lot of guys you know who you kind of look like uh from Remember The Titans uh the linebacker I forget what his name was I don't know a lot of times you kind of look like the guy in uh Friday Night Lights Landry I don't know who that is you also kind of look like Bart Simpson I look a little bit like Blake Griffin and a lot like Will Ferrell that's that's what I say like reference references aren't bad no that's a good one the Will Ferrell is more famous than them now all right everybody uh thank you for listening to our future podcast Sam you're the man thanks for everything you've done for us honestly I appreciate you whether it was being the Arbiter between us and morning Brew or connecting us with the HubSpot folk uh been invaluable to the journey so you guys got to chop this up and give me lots of views yeah and we did always have always will we're headed to New York City in a few weeks if you want to be one of our other first in person interviews give us a shout we'd love to have you absolutely cheers everybody stay frosty say Frosty please

Channel: Our Future Podcast

Views: 26,530

Keywords: my first million podcast episodes, my first million, sam parr the hustle, sam parr, shaan puri, how to grow an email newsletter, how to build an email list, email list building, email list, email list building strategies, how to grow your email list, email marketing, paid communities, mighty networks, online community, online communities, how to start a community business, hampton sam parr, secret millionaire club, secret millionaires club

Id: qLdQJBKKSYs

Length: 71min 14sec (4274 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 02 2023