Contrarian Thinking
Codie Sanchez started writing a newsletter without realizing it was a business. She was doing it because she liked watching people grow based on ideas she shared with them. By the time she appeared on MFM, Contrarian Thinking had a couple hundred thousand subscribers, and the overall media operation was doing 100 million views a month with 5 million subscribers.
What It Is
Contrarian Thinking is Codie Sanchez’s media company — newsletter, YouTube, TikTok, social — built around a single thesis: boring businesses are the most reliable path to financial independence. The brand name is both a description of the content and a positioning statement. The conventional wisdom is to chase venture-backed startups or climb the corporate ladder. Contrarian Thinking says: buy a laundromat, a plumbing company, a lawn care business — something that already has customers and cash flow.
As Codie described her editorial philosophy: “I write about all the things I wish I knew when I was first figuring out anything to do with money.”
The Founder’s Background
The credibility behind Contrarian Thinking comes from an unusual career path. Codie started as a journalist covering human trafficking along the U.S.-Mexico border. She then moved to Vanguard’s accelerated development program (where she was present at the beginning of the ETF industry), then to Goldman Sachs, then to State Street running the international investment business, then to building out a Latin American institutional investment operation that grew to a couple billion dollars. Then she went into cannabis private equity — a $200 million fund called Entourage Effect Capital — before starting the media company.
When she joined Shaan on MFM (guest-hosting while Sam was on paternity leave), she described her micro PE operation: a separate ~$20 million fund buying boring businesses. “Things your father did when you were growing up and you didn’t really tell people about.” Laundromats, plumbing companies, lawn care, podcast production. Her first acquisition came from watching her uncle Ebb wind down a five-million-dollar plumbing business with $2-3 million in annual profit rather than sell it — because he didn’t know there was a buyer.
The Flywheel
Contrarian Thinking is built around a deliberate flywheel. Content attracts an audience interested in buying small businesses. That audience becomes a deal source — business owners who follow Codie reach out wanting to sell. The brand trust compresses the sales process. And then the audience itself becomes the distribution channel for growing the acquired business.
She explained the theory to Shaan: “I talk about buying businesses. What’s going to happen? A bunch of people are going to want to sell me their business. I’m going to buy them at better prices and faster than anybody else because they feel like they already know me and trust me. When I go to exit, I’m going to have a community of buyers who want to buy it. Then do it again.”
She added a concrete example: one YouTube video with a lead magnet generated 2,500 newsletter subscribers in a day. Through paid acquisition at $1-2 per subscriber, that would have cost $5,000. Through content, it was free.
Building the Content Machine
Codie’s approach to scaling the content operation was systematic. She hired three people first: a head of ops, a head of content, a head of finance. Then she hired platform-specific specialists for TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram. Her role was to ghost-write most of the content while the specialists managed distribution and optimization.
She described her original model: “I’d say: I’m stressed about these three platforms. I’m going to transfer that stress from me to you.”
The result was a media company that operates more like a publishing house than a personal brand — structured, staffed, and built to outlast any single platform’s algorithm changes.
The Criticism, Addressed
Shaan gave Codie space to address the most common critique: that Contrarian Thinking’s real business is selling education about buying businesses, not actually buying them. Her response was direct: “We make more money categorically from the businesses we own than from the community. Numerically, categorically, that’s just the fact.”
She acknowledged the education and community business is real and sizable: “I think we’ve quickly become the name if you want to learn how to buy a business.” But she was clear that the investment portfolio generates more revenue than the media operation. Whether that remains true as the media company scales is an open question.
Shaan’s diagnosis of why she gets more criticism than podcasters like him: “Podcasts are long form, which naturally filters people out. You come across as you are. Versus someone who stares down the barrel of a camera and says, ‘You should do this’ — all of a sudden the walls go up.”
See also: codie-sanchez, boring-businesses, acquisition-entrepreneurship, newsletter-business, holding-companies