In this episode, Sam Parr and Shaan Puri discuss the story of a company that pivoted during the COVID-19 pandemic to become a major supplier of safety equipment, securing massive government contracts. They also explore the concept of “trash businesses”—unconventional, unglamorous ventures that can generate significant revenue—and share personal anecdotes about their own early career experiences and business ventures.
Topics: COVID-19 business pivots, government contracts, trash businesses, entrepreneurship, startup stories, business models, career lessons.
The COVID Pivot [00:00]
Sam Parr: Somehow, five years later, COVID hits. And you know what they decide to do? They’re like, “You know what? Let’s go all in on creating like safety, safety stuff for COVID, like masks, respirators, um, gloves, things like that.” And they become one of the like core providers. Right at the start of COVID, they shifted all their production manufacturing stuff. They’re like, “Forget the vodka bottles, forget the LED screens. We need N95 masks, and we need respirators, and we need, you know, these testing kits, and we need…” And they started producing this stuff, and they started just winning all these contracts.
The “Trash Business” Concept [00:45]
Shaan Puri: All right, we’re live. Sean, uh, we have a bunch of stuff. You you have a you have a a a full menu over here and so do I.
Sam Parr: Yeah. All right, I want you to look at my menu here, and I want you to just pick something off the menu. Go ahead, and I’ll I’ll riff off it. We only for people who they don’t they don’t know, we only write like one or two words. So you get like a teaser, you’re like, “Man, what the hell is this about?” But you don’t know what it actually is.
Shaan Puri: But I have I put all my stuff in here in an accident. I have this new researcher who’s crushing it. He just gives me all the content like five minutes ahead of time. But, uh, Rich Neighbor.
Sam Parr: How did I know you’d pick Rich Neighbor? So, there’s somebody in my neighborhood who I bumped into, and I’ve I’ve just I’m, you know, I I sort of get out there and I collect signals. Is this, you know, where where do I place this person on the uh the the the Billy scale? Like are they, you know, are they on their way up? Are they are they have they made it in life? Are they really balling out of control? Where are where is this person? And these people have been balling out of control. Like when Christmas time came up, there was just like the wife went outside and was just pointing at windows, and all of a sudden, the house was lit up like a Christmas tree. They had like so they had the most like decked out things. And they go, “Hey, hey, um, invite your kids over uh this Thursday. We have a snow machine. They’re we’re building a snow hill in our driveway.” Like uh you you want to do sledding without going to Tahoe?
Shaan Puri: What’s that? Like a big snow cone? Is that what that is?
Sam Parr: No, it’s like a giant truck that comes that creates snow, and it piles it up so that your like their house looked like it was in, you know, Michigan or something like that. It was covered in snow.
Shaan Puri: Yeah, but it’s just like like like it’s like an ice machine or something?
Sam Parr: Yeah, it’s like an yeah, something like that.
Shaan Puri: Yeah, like a big snow cone, like a big shaved ice thing.
Sam Parr: Yeah, yeah, you were right from the from the beginning. You’re right. So, they did this, and they had a fake Santa there, and I was like, “Man, this is a lot for a Thursday afternoon, but okay. Uh this is cool. I like these people’s style. They seem really nice.” And I didn’t know what they did. So I kind of I hit them with the Google the other day, and I was like, “Let’s see who these people are.” And they have a crazy story. So they created a company that back in 2014 did this thing. It basically it lets you take a vodka bottle. They had a vodka bottle that had an LED sign going around it. So you could give somebody a vodka bottle that would say, “Happy Birthday, Sam,” or like you could program any message. It could be like, you know, uh whatever. I could be like, “You’re getting old, bitch,” whatever. I could write any message on it, it would go on your your vodka bottle.
Shaan Puri: All right, seems kind of gimmicky. I don’t really, you know, not a bad idea, but but balling out of control from that? Didn’t didn’t 100% make sense. But that was the business.
Sam Parr: Sounds like a sounds like a drop shipping like joke.
Shaan Puri: Sounds like my first idea out of college. Like this is like me in college would have been like, “Bro, next next Google. I got it.” You know, like, “What if we took, you know, this Jägermeister bomb and we put an LED screen on it?” That’d be incredible. And so, so they had this thing, and they were like licensing this out or something like that. Somehow like Shaq became an advisor to their company. It was really crazy.
Shaan Puri: Makes sense.
Sam Parr: Yeah, as you would. Somehow, five years later, COVID hits. And you know what they decide to do? They’re like, “You know what? Fuck this vodka thing. Let’s go all in on creating like safety, safety stuff for COVID, like masks, respirators, um, gloves, things like that.” And they become one of the like core providers. Right at the start of COVID, they shifted all their production manufacturing stuff. They’re like, “Forget the vodka bottles, forget the LED screens. We need N95 masks, and we need respirators, and we need, you know, these testing kits, and we need…” And they started producing this stuff, and they started just winning all these contracts. And so now, like if you go look at their website, it’s one of those “I know you’re rich” websites because there’s like not a lot of information on it. But if you go to like the they have like a press release section, and it’s like, “PR Newswire: Company gets $113 million contract with the government for safety equipment.”
Shaan Puri: Oh my god.
Sam Parr: Local East Bay success story where they uh they are now the the sole testing provider for, you know, the Lakers stadium, Levi’s stadium, like all these different places. And so these guys are getting $100 million plus contracts for their stuff. Now, I think probably it’s like, you know, probably only like 10% margin when you buy when you’re selling masks.
Shaan Puri: You think it’s that small?
Sam Parr: I think for things like that, probably it’s like 10-15% is my guess. Maybe they maybe during COVID, everyone was completely price insensitive and they could just charge whatever they wanted. I’m not sure.
Shaan Puri: I would have thought that. But, um, but wow, dude. What a what a pivot. And, um, you know, that isn’t that just kind of crazy? And that was an opportunity kind of available to a lot of people, right, when COVID happened?
Shaan Puri: Dude, I know a bunch of people who did that. And like I had a friend that did it, and he’s like, “Dude, check this out,” and he sends me a picture of a Shopify store, and it’s doing like $2 million a month. I know a lot of people who did that. And I’ve only followed up with one or two of them, and uh I have a feeling that like of the eight people I know who did it, like three of them it worked out, and then the rest it was like a really quick cash grab, but then they overbought inventory and it and it’s like nothing. Do you know people who did that?
Sam Parr: Yes. We we there was a guy in um I had started this mastermind group. That’s actually where I found Ben. Uh but like one of the other guys in the mastermind group, he like every time he came to the mastermind, Does he live in Texas?
Shaan Puri: No, he’s in Canada.
Sam Parr: Every time he came to the mastermind group, I feel like he had a different business. Which is like not what you want in a mastermind group. But he was a good dude, and he would always be like, “Oh, I have this other business that’s like, oh, you know, for auto repair, blah blah blah. We do their SEO.” And I was like, “Okay, but then what about that thing you told me last time?” And then one time he came and he’s like, “Dude, we’re doing mobile COVID testing. Trucks that will drive up to places, and we can just do rapid testing for COVID.” And we were like, “All right, I mean that sounds cool, but like are you like, do you know anything about COVID testing? Like does anybody in the world know about this? Like what He’s like, “Oh, I got the scientist. That’s going to be great.” And then he came back and he was like, “Hey, um, really excited to be here. I need need you guys’ help. Um, like three months later, he was like, “I really need you guys’ help about going public.” And I was like, “What the hell?” And he’s like, “Yeah, we’re going to do like $85 million this year in revenue.” And I was like, “What?” And he’s like, “Yeah, we’re getting all these contracts with the state of uh with like the, you know, the the in Canada, like these country country-wide contracts. And, um, you know, yeah, we think maybe we should take this public next year.” And I was like, “What the fuck is going on?”
Shaan Puri: Oh my god. So how did it end?
Sam Parr: I I don’t even know because I that that guy, my head was just spinning every time uh you know, he would talk because I’m like, “This is either too good to be true or I’m too dumb and this is amazing,” and I can’t tell which one it is. It’s probably some mix of both. But you’re right. I know several people that went all in on COVID right when it happened and like low key got like an absurd amount of traction very, very fast.
Shaan Puri: Yeah, like a ton.
The “Trash Business” Examples [07:27]
Sam Parr: My dad had actually called me one day and he goes, “My friend works at this hospital. They need extra equipment. They need extra masks. I talked to somebody in India, um, and they could produce these masks. And like I think we could do like a $2 or $3 million contract.” And I was like, “Fantastic. Um, should do it.” And he’s like, “Yeah, I want to and but my dad has this problem where my dad is addicted to meetings. Like he thinks winning is like this important person met with me. And then he’ll tell me the duration of the meeting to show me the value. He’s like, “Only scheduled for one hour, but we sat there for 90 minutes.” And I’d be like, “Okay, so what? Like and he’d be like, “So, you know, he was really interested. Two hours.” Right? And he would just like he just like always is obsessed with that. So he was he just had a bunch of meetings, and I was like, “Dad, you’re going to It’s all about that action, boss. You’re going to take some action here. What what’s going to happen? Like go go for it. Do it.” And he’s like, “Well, no, I want he’s like, “I want everybody to like sign off on it and de-risk it completely, pay me upfront.” And I was just like, “Dude, this is this is like the cheap way to do business. Like you got to take a little risk here.” And he wasn’t willing to take the risk.
Shaan Puri: You’re throwing shade on your dad right now. I hope he doesn’t listen to this. And you called him boss. If my son calls me boss, he’s getting in a headlock.
Sam Parr: Yeah, my dad, my yeah, we we make fun of each other. Like we call it like it is. I do a bunch of dumb things, and I say when I do dumb things. This is his dumb thing. He is high planning, low action on these things. And he says it all the time. Like, um, we went I went I took him to Tony Robbins, and Tony Robbins is all about like taking massive action on like the things you want. And he’s like, I was like, “What’s your big takeaway?” He’s like, “Oh man, I need to take massive action.” And I was like, “That yeah, that’s you did it. You learned the right lesson from this thing.” He goes, “That’s my problem. I don’t take massive action.” I was like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He started slipping back into like basically he’s like, “I’ve identified my problem.” But not like how to change it. Just like, “So right, so true.”
Shaan Puri: Whatever, it worked out for him. Yeah, he did he did great like right for like village in India to like live in like owning multiple homes and stuff. It’s great.
Shaan Puri: Did the story the the the story of you tell of your mom of like, I think you said she like had never eaten with a fork or something, and she just comes to America when she’s 17. Is that what you said? I’m not exaggerating. I don’t want to be disrespectful. I thought you said I thought you said like she hadn’t they didn’t use like utensils or she went to a restaurant and like or she didn’t know.
Sam Parr: Oh, actually, you’re right. You’re right. That that did happen.
Shaan Puri: No, I’m not being disrespectful, uh Mrs. Parr. That’s that’s the story. It’s on record. And then also, when she used a a pay phone to call her brother to say that she was in town, she didn’t know like that you hang it up, so she like let it hang. And then she She was just crying at the airport, and some guy was like, “Hey, uh do you need help? Are you okay?” She’s like, “I need like my brother’s supposed to pick me up. I don’t know where he is.” Like she just landed in America. And he’s like, “Do you have a phone number?” She’s like, “Yeah.” So he that guy picks up the pay phone, puts in the quarters, calls the brother, tells him, “Hey, she’s at Terminal 2. She’s waiting here. I’m going to tell her not to move.” Brother didn’t even know, “Oh, your flight was today?” Like you they had no correspondence. Like, okay, I’ll hang tight. I’ll be there. And she talks to him and she’s like, he’s like, “Don’t move.” And then that guy had left, the helper had left, and so she didn’t She’s like, “Not only did I not know how to use the pay phone, I didn’t even understand how do you put this back?” And she’s like, “I kind of was like fiddling with it like kind of like like trying to get it to stick, and I didn’t know what to do. I looked around, nobody was there, and I just left it hanging.” And I walked away. She’s like, “I’ll never forget like just feeling so clueless about the world.” Um, and there’s like five stories like that on her just just her trip to America.
Shaan Puri: Now they have a house in San Francisco. So it worked out. That’s the uh that’s the American dream.
Another Topic [11:05]
Sam Parr: Um, all right, another topic.
Shaan Puri: What do you got?
Sam Parr: Uh I got a quick one here. So, I saw this TikTok of this uh professor. Uh some professor at a college. Uh I apologize to her. I don’t know her name. But um let me see if I can find it real quick. She basically, oh, Professor Cooley. Uh I don’t know what She’s a Professor Cooley at Emory University. So shout out to her. Basically, her she has she teaches marketing at um at this college, and for her marketing class, she goes, “All right, class, um if you want to do well in this class, you want to get an A, you have one job. Go viral on TikTok.”
Shaan Puri: Awesome.
Sam Parr: All right. I’ll see you I’ll see you in a few weeks. Like if you need help, you know, we have some maybe maybe some uh we can talk about what it takes to get there, but like that’s how you get a good grade. Go viral on TikTok.
Shaan Puri: Awesome. How old is she? Young looking or older?
Sam Parr: Younger looking. Um yeah, she looks like, you know, she looks like if you were 12, she would be your friend’s mom. Um Got it. All right. Something like that. Whatever age that is.
Shaan Puri: Perfect description.
Sam Parr: So, whatever. So basically, uh I thought this was amazing, and it got me thinking like, really, how many more classes at a university should be taught this way? Um so for example, like why isn’t there a class at, you know, why isn’t there a class at at school where it’s basically like, “Okay, we’re going to have four lemonade stands on campus. Break up into teams. You’re each going to run a lemonade stand, like uh and you know, the top lemonade stand is going to get an A+, the next one gets an A-, B+, B-.” Um and if you if you’re not able to break this threshold of sales, you fail. And like just let them go and do their thing and let them learn what it takes. Or it’s like, you know, maybe it’s the net profit so they learn about the cost management as well. But like give them, you know, 500 bucks and be like, “Go who can run the best lemonade stand or t-shirt company or whatever it is.” Or writing on Twitter. Um like, you know, okay, it’s an English class. Should you basically go read Shakespeare and all the stuff, or should I basically teach you how to do writing in like the modern day and basically get you to start a newsletter, cold email, or Twitter? And it’s like, “Yeah, you need to grow an audience around whatever topic you’re interested in. It could be the Bachelor, it could be world politics. It doesn’t matter. You pick your topic, but you got to write to an audience on that, and you got to publish. First thing is quantity. You got to publish every day for the next 60 days.” Um and then the next thing is going to be quality. Can you actually grow an audience? Can you get, you know, 50% open rate on a newsletter with, you know, 1,000 people on it? Go figure out how to do that. And so things like this, I feel like would be so much better than the way that people learn about how to do real-world business today in school. Another one would be flipping. Like, uh everybody, you’re going to look under your desk. Yep, you’re starting with this drill. Okay, everybody’s got a drill. Like, your job is to flip this drill into the most valuable item you can get by the end of the semester. Go. And it’s like, you got to sell this, take the profit, buy something else, sell that, and like just keep doing that until you can get to the biggest thing.
Shaan Puri: Dude, uh Ramon, our friend Ramon, his son goes to a school here in Texas, and he his kid had a class where he had to go haggle, and it was like, “You have to get this much of a discount from a retail store,” or something like that. And I was like, “Oh, that’s awesome. That was awesome.” It’s like great for a 12-year-old. So I love that stuff. I dude, I didn’t have class When I was All right, my sophomore year of college, I was a Division I athlete, a runner, nonetheless, a runner. Peak physical condition. They made me take a aerobic walking class, which was like, if you add up the tuition, it was like 9 grand or something like that. So, I’m all on it was aerobic walking. You show up and you go for a walk. So, I’m all in favor of this stuff. I think it’s awesome.
Sam Parr: Like, are you walking at least at like a fast pace? Why is it called aerobic walking versus just walking? Is that just branding?
Shaan Puri: It’s because the gym teacher had to justify their their their pension or their uh salary. I don’t know. It was the stupidest thing ever. Like it was it was crazy. It was crazy to me. I had to take aerobic I remember this. It was ridiculous. Uh you just like showed up and we were Dude, what do you mean you had to? Seems like they don’t force you to take it. You have to get like these certain amount of credits and it was like this aerobic walking class is available. Was your major like PE? Why why was this in your requirements?
Shaan Puri: Dude, because they make I don’t know. I don’t remember exactly why I had to do this. No, I don’t even remember what I majored in. I think just like accounting or business or something. Accounting? It was a So I left school early, so it was accounting, and then I and then I left school and then I finished online later and I was like, “Okay, you know, give me just give me any diploma that I can get, please.” Why’d you leave school?
Shaan Puri: Cuz, um, I moved out so I the summer I I had to take like some summer classes and one extra semester and uh I heard about Airbnb and I was like, “That’s where it’s at.” So I moved out there. Yeah. Yeah. So you you know, I think I told you this. I had heard about I remember you applied. I didn’t know you were in college and dropped out for it.
Shaan Puri: I didn’t drop out. I well, I I don’t know if it’s technically drop out. I just like quit going and then I finished online and like Okay. You converted it to an online student. Yeah, like I took like some time off and then I eventually like finished and I would have to go like to a Kaplan, you know like those Kaplan like testing centers and I would have to take these nonsense nonsense tests. But basically, there was this famous runner, I was a runner at the time, and there was a famous runner named Chris Lukesic, and he quit running, which wasn’t exactly lucrative, but he was like the seventh most fast fastest miler ever, and he was like, “I quit I’m quitting running at my peak to join this thing called AirBed and Breakfast.” And I was like, “What the hell is that? That sounds awesome.” And so I uh emailed Joe Gebbia, the founder of Airbnb, and I was like, “Hey, uh I I like Airbnb. I came up with this interesting hack that I think can help you grow. Uh here it is,” and he forwarded it to What was it? It was at the time there was this thing called Reportive that had just come out, and I built an Excel sheet where you could type in someone’s first name, last name, and like their Gmail or their company name, and then it like permutates and you put into this thing and it tells you which email’s there. So not like that sophisticated of a hack at all, but it was like new technology, and I emailed them and he in his head he’s probably like, “This is dumb, but like the fact that you came up with this, like whatever, we’ll interview you.” So they interviewed and and so he puts me to a minion. The minion was like, “Hey, do you want to come to the Bay Area on or I don’t know who the guy was, but the the guy is probably worth $100 million. Really underused word. I’m going to start using that. That’s an that’s an amazing slander. I love it. Well, that minion is probably worth $20 million. I mean, you know, cuz it was at the time there were only like 200 people and the guy who he referred me to was like the 17th employee. And so his name was Justin. I’m still friends with him. Sorry, Justin, call you minion, but maybe you were. I didn’t realize that’s your friend, dude. I’m friendly with them. Random minion. I’m I’m friendly with them. But he uh they uh they go, “All right, great. Do you live in the Bay Area?” And I was in Tennessee at the time. I didn’t know what the hell the Bay Area was. When he said Bay I had never been west of Missouri. I’d only basically been to like Missouri and then like whatever the states are when you drive to like Destin, Florida for like spring break. Those are like the only places that I’d been. And he goes, “Are you in the Bay Area?” And I was like, “Of course. Yeah.” And he goes, “Great. Come into my office on Monday.” So I was like, “Shit, I got to get out there. I got to figure out what the hell the Bay Area is.” I thought it was LA. So I pack up like yeah, like Silicon Valley. I heard someone make a joke about Silicone Valley, but that was like where like porn is, I think, in LA. I I they’re all the same to me. I didn’t know. And so I Google what the hell the Bay Area is, and I bought a ticket and I flew out there, and I interviewed with him on a Monday and a Tuesday, and then I interviewed with Joe, the founder. He probably didn’t even remember me because it was like a 10-minute interview. And then I go home on a Wednesday, they offered me the job on a Thursday, and then a week later, I I call my mom, I go, “Dude, I got this job. This is awesome.” And they go, “What the hell is this? You stay at someone’s home?” I go, “Yeah, I think it’s going to be legit.” She goes, “It sounds like a multi-level marketing scheme.” And I’m like, “Well, they they have like health insurance.” And she goes, “Whatever.” And so my mom drove down and packed up my apartment with me and then shipped me off and like she like gave me $1,000 and that was my seed money. And so I moved out there, and this was all in like a three-week span. The Sunday night before I’m supposed to start, they call me and they go, “We busted you, man. You lied about your resume because you have a criminal record.” I at the time I’d gotten arrested uh for DUI, and I was like, “Well, technically like I’m still like the trial is still happening, so like I didn’t get convicted yet.” And they’re like, “Yeah, but that was sneaky, dude.” It is until proven guilty. Yeah, they’re like, “But that was sneaky. Like we asked you if you’d been charged or whatever.” And I was like, “You’re right. I’m sorry.” So I didn’t actually get the job. I was hired for like a second, but I never had my first day. And then fast forward two years later, my wife ends up going to work there, and I remember walking around and I’m like, “Ah, my alma mater, my old stomping grounds.” And so I never ended up working there, but I had a job there for like, you know, a few minutes. And uh you know, it could have been something great. I think I would have been like employee 200. I don’t know. Maybe I would have made some money or not, but that’s the story of Airbnb. That’s an amazing story. I love that story. And while out there, I also had to like take these classes, and I I remember I didn’t have any money. I had the $1,000. That was my my money. And I used to have to take this bike, and I lived in the Dogpatch in a warehouse that was $900 a month, and I asked the I used to have to ride For people that don’t live in San Francisco, they’re like, “He lived in a Dogpatch warehouse.” It’s It’s called Dogpatch. It’s like uh the industrial part of San Francisco by the water, and I used to have to ride my bike because I didn’t have any money, and I had to ride a bike that I took from my roommate all the way up to Twin Peaks to go to the Kaplan like place, which is like six miles away, literally up the steepest hills in San Francisco. And so I used to have to do those classes and take tests for like months. It was horrible, but it worked out. And now you’re here. Incredible. And now, dude, I used to uh like I like I I learned how to like get get rid of like you could jump on the bus and like when they they would catch you all the time and they’d be like, “Where do you live?” And I’d be like, “I don’t know.” Uh “What’s your name?” And I’d just like give a name and they’re like, “Do you have any ID on you?” I’m like, “No, I don’t have ID.” And so I remember like there was zero consequences. There were zero consequences. There were zero consequences. I mean, that’s how little I had. Like I didn’t have cash for a bus fare, which was 250. But uh uh yeah, it turned out okay. What did you do to uh to grow that thousand? How did you not just wipe out like cuz $1,000 doesn’t get you very far in San Francisco. So, how did you not wipe out in three months? On my so when I went to the interview for Airbnb, I stayed at the cheapest Airbnb there was, which was a bedroom in this guy’s house, and he had told me he was starting a business. And so when I moved back out there, I go, “Hey, dude, uh I don’t have a job anymore. Can I join you?” I only have like two or three weeks of like payment. And then and uh my mother and father had given me a pickup truck for college, and I asked them to sell that, and they sold it, so they gave me 4,000. So I was like, “All right, I got like three weeks of rent or three weeks of like living expenses. Now I just got this influx of four or five grand. Um I’ve got like six months of cash. Let’s do this.” And and so I started I co-founded a a a a company with this guy, a roommate matching company, where we would uh post ads on Craigslist saying we were hosting these roommate parties where we would match people up into three and four bedroom apartments because normally it’s like uh you’re a single person who just moved there and don’t know anyone. So you got to move into a existing bedroom, and there’s lots of competition. So we would post fake existing bedrooms and get 300 people to apply on Craigslist and be like, “Hey, this doesn’t exist, but we’ll team you up with 200 other people who want the same shit as you.” And we would host these parties and we would charge people money to attend those parties and after they got an apartment. And so we basically spun that up on Weebly and made money right away, and that’s how I lived. Amazing. Uh wow, great stories. I love this. Uh I feel like I feel like there’s a bunch of I’ve heard bits of these but not all of them. Uh this is great. Uh And I would ride my bike to like collect these money. I would knock on their door after they got the apartment. I’m like, “Hey, got my money?” It was ridiculous. Uh that’s so good. Uh after this, I I have to go get a hearing aid and uh I have to get fitted for one and I have to tell you why. I forgot to tell you this. We are at the uh Vancouver thing and there was these two women speaking to me afterwards. And it was loud. So like the problem with my hearing is I can’t hear the difference between background noise and the person speaking for me. It’s hard to tell the difference. And these women were talking to me and you probably noticed this. I lean in hard. So I’m only deaf in one ear, but I lean in. I lean. I turn and I and I I’ll get really close to you. And also It was a super loud afterparty, by the way. It was like it was like a club. It was like a club. It was loud. And I also stare at people’s lips. So I I’ll either stare at your mouth or I’ll lean in really Mr. Wrong signals over here. The horrible, worst signals. And this woman comes up to me and I’m leaning in and like I’m starting to get really close and I can tell she’s really uncomfortable and I I go, “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot to tell you. I I’m deaf. I can’t freaking hear you.” That’s why I’m leaning in so hard. And uh it was at that point I was I told Sarah, I was like, “I got to go I got to get a hearing aid. I can’t I’m making people uncomfortable.” This is why you bring your wife with you to all events just to like, you know, totally totally make it clear what’s happening here. Dude, and I have a rule. I I don’t I don’t travel alone. I love having her around when I travel, but that is that is definitely the icing on the cake is having her around for that reason. Yeah. Yeah, you you did the opposite of the billionaire hug. You like you went in with the with the broke boy lean. Yeah, the broke boy lean. I’m just staring at her lips and she’s just literally trying to watch as the words come out of her mouth and just staring going down her lips and looking and then leaning in and Oh man, I can tell she was uncomfortable. I was like, “Oh, I forgot to tell you. I can’t hear. So I’m going to go get one of those things.” Did you ever Did you ever learn that like trick from I don’t know, this might be might have been in like those pick-up artist things. I’m not 100% sure, but did you ever learn the triangle? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the third eye or something like that? No, no, it’s if you ever wanted if you want somebody to want to kiss you, you’re close if you let’s say you’re close, you’re in range and you want to like kind of almost like hack their little like biology and get them to want to kiss you, you you do this like triangle. So you basically look at one eye, the second eye, down to their lips, back to the first eye. So you make it it traces like a little triangle. And if you do that, you’ll just see immediately the person just pucker up, baby. It’s happening. Yeah, right. It just happens. I don’t know if it’s because you’re signaling that you want to kiss them or that it just makes them want to kiss you, but this shit works. This was like in college, I was like you know, you would have thought I’m in the Illuminati, how many triangles I was throwing up everywhere because I was like, “This is like a magic trick. This thing is amazing.” Did you get any girls in college? I probably. You’re really charismatic. Did you do well? First base king, baby. You’re the first Yeah. You had a good batting average, but not a lot of home runs. Got that lead off and never got to second. Yeah. Oh well, that’s good. I like that. The hard part too is my roommate was like, um just unbelievably good with girls and so He was really good looking. He’s good looking guy and he was he’s Yeah, Trevor, he’s an athlete and he was just like a professional flirt. And so somehow this guy was just pulling crazy people from like, you know, you have like an RA who’s like the the the person who’s like four years older that lives in the freshman dorm. He just started dating the RA’s girlfriend and then like, you know, he started dating like this girl on the basketball team and started dating like all these seniors, started dating this like one really rich girl who was giving him gifts all the time. I was like, “I don’t know what’s happening here, but like, um, you know, this guy is definitely sucking up all the the alpha male energy in this room and uh, you know, I’m just sort of here along for the ride, but it’s okay. It it turned out all right. Uh, well, you know, you worked out all right. By the way, my dating life was a lot like my startup life. It was basically like fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, home run. It’s like, you know, like most people in their career, they sort of get this like 10% raise a year or whatever where it’s like this linear like steady climb up the ladder. But if you’re in the startup world, you’re often like making nothing or in debt or broke And all of a sudden. for like seven, eight years and then all of a sudden you’re rich. And uh that’s what my dating life was like. I was broke for like 10 years and then all of a sudden I was rich. 100% same. It like it didn’t it didn’t start picking up until my 20s. It was that 100% same. That’s your 20s. What were you trying to do in your teens, bro? I tried. I tried a lot. Trust me, I tried. I just I looked like Napoleon Dynamite. I I with braces. It just didn’t work out. Dude, I didn’t talk to a girl. I was sitting there reciting lines from The Rock in WWE when I was in my teens, bro. I was I was jumping off the top rope in my bedroom trying to, you know, just I loved wrestling and basketball and stuff. I didn’t have time for girls when I was like 15. It was a numbers game for me. I I knew like, you know, 3% conversion, therefore, you know, you got to try 100 times. Right. Yeah. You never want war of attrition to describe your love life. Whatever, I it worked out. We we both it worked out for both of us. Before we get into this, we got to remind people there is a gentlemen’s agreement. Except this time it’s it’s different. So we have this thing at this podcast. Unlike everything on YouTube and on Spotify and all that stuff, our content actually isn’t free. You’re only getting this episode for free if it’s your first one, and if it’s your second or third one, you have to go do something for us. What is it? They they got to fire up YouTube, youtube.com, YouTube the app, whatever it is, and type in My First Million. They’re going to see our pretty little faces right there. You don’t even have to watch a video. Just click My First Million, click click subscribe, turn the notifications on, and we need we need this. This is what we need, right? Everybody’s got needs. Food, shelter, YouTube subscribers. These are your core core primal needs and we have ours. And uh that’s why it’s called the gentleman’s agreement. We’re not on the other side, so you just have to do it. And everyone’s doing it lately, so you should do it. And that’s what we expect out of you. And also, do me a huge favor and actually click follow on the podcast app and Spotify, cuz those help us actually go up the rankings, and then when we go up the rankings, we get more dopamine and we do dumber shit, and that’s why we’re here. So, do that. Um, I have a story for you. So go to jupe.com. So it’s J U P E, Jupe. So it’s jupe.com. It’s they have a slick look of website. So tell me what you see. Okay. I see some sort of like mega tent contraption. I don’t know what this is. This is like uh some sort of structure. It’s like Is this like a like basically like a outdoor unit that’s uh not like something more than a tent but less than a house? So, I met these kind of I met these guys recently and they’re really fascinating. And so basically, the one of the founders, he’s like this artist type. He’s his name’s Jeff Wilson, and before this, he like wrote a book because he lived in a dumpster for a year. Like he like slept in a dumpster. It was like some like art project as well as like to show like For what? I don’t I don’t know. I mean, he’s he’s a wacky, interesting guy, but he lived in a dumpster and then he uh then he started this like prefab house. I guess it was like marketing for like a pre prefabricated homes or something like that. And um they eventually launched this startup. It’s called Jupe. And I originally saw it because Gary Tan, famous investor, billionaire investor Gary Tan, made this YouTube video where he stayed in one of their things. And so basically, what it is is it’s I don’t know, they would be mad if I called it a tent, but it kind of looks like a tent. But basically, they ship it to you on in like a a huge container and you pop it up and on the inside, it’s like a fancy or like a nice mattress and then there’s uh like a heating and cooling unit and it’s got lighting that’s all solar powered. And so it’s like a standalone like house. And the way that their business model works is you can do one of two things. You can just buy it for 30 grand outright or you can do a thing where you they give it to you for free and they take something like 40%, 30 to 50% of the revenue and you rent it out. And these things are renting out and I was like, “I don’t know, man. Who wants to stay in this thing?” And he was like, “Dude, we rent them out for $250 to $500 a night and they’re always booked.” And they’re trying to pitch it to me to put it on my land, and I’m not sure if I’m going to do it or not. But they’re it’s a pretty interesting thing. This year, they’re supposed to do like $12 million in revenue and it’s break even and they’ve deployed 400 of these things and their future, what they’re doing is they’ve got these guys that are just buying plots of land and then putting 15 or 20 of these on there. And then Jupe, the company, if you do the profit sharing with them, they they kind of run it for you. So they have like their own little platform and they like will help manage the thing for you. But it’s pretty fascinating and I’ve been thinking about putting one of these uh on my on my property. I’m not sure if I’m going to do it or not because I don’t know if I want more work, but really fascinating, interesting idea that I came across. I’ve been loving these ideas where you just make more money off the shit that you already have. So like I have land and I was like, “Should I just like put these all over my place?” But they look kind of fascinating and I thought you’d get a kick out of it. Yeah, I mean these look super cool and I got to give them credit because I see a lot of these like um like this kind of like I forget what they call ADUs or whatever. It’s like this additional dwelling unit or something. Um and they’re often just like vaporware. It’s just a render of something that looks sick. And what I really like is if you click their vision tab, it opens up a notion and explains what they’re doing. And four times in this thing, it just says, “Here’s our thing.” Parentheses, “Not a render.” Here’s what it looks like, you know, after it gets delivered, here’s what it looks like the next day. Again, not a render. Like, “Hey, we actually build the thing. It exists. This is real. This is not like some futuristic dream.” Um and so I think that’s pretty pretty pretty amazing. This looks super cool. I don’t know why you wouldn’t do this just for even like the story. So, uh I can I have an update. So my I have this property, uh marathonranch.com and you can see it. It’s doing like uh anywhere from 13 to 17,000 a month in gross revenue. And um so it’s doing well. I’m like making money on my Airbnb finally. I got like 40 or something like five-star reviews on Airbnb and I finally started going up the rankings and it’s been really fun to do. And so I’m not sure, but I have 20 acres, 20 acres of land. I’m not sure if I want to like screw anything up because dude, at my Airbnb, I we have like 20 cows. So my neighbor is a cow. Well, that’s true. But like people, my neighbor owns these cows and they use our property and in exchange, we pay less property tax. And people like wake up to like a mooing cow because they sleep and wake they sleep at all my property. For some reason, they decided that’s the bed. And I don’t know if I want to like screw that up. It’s like so peaceful going out there. So I don’t know if I want to screw that up by having more units on the property. But uh Dude, marathonranch.com, your photo here, you chose the wrong photo. You chose like a not awesome looking photo for your hero photo. And then if you click gallery, you all of a sudden see all these awesome photos. It’s a work in progress, my friend. It’s a work in progress. It’s a work in progress. It’s still in beta. Yeah. I it’s because one of the pictures, it you couldn’t see the writing. Anyway, it’s a whole thing I got to fix. But uh anyway, it’s going well. I I always I basically to the listeners, I send Sean updates of my Airbnb and he’s like, “Oh, that’s neat. You’re making 5%, you’re making 5% return. That’s that’s really that’s lovely.” What did I tell you? You were like, “Dude, this is if this is 5% or 7% or 7% a year, this is great.” I go, and I told you I go, “I’ve lost more money in crypto than you’ll ever make on your Airbnb.” Yeah. Somehow that felt like a good statement to me. It’s been awesome, man. The Airbnb game, it’s been fun. It sucked for a minute and then once I started rolling, it is pretty dope. So, maybe one day you’ll you’ll be convinced. But right now, it’s killing it. I don’t know if it’ll kill it in like June when it’s like 100 degrees, but we’ll see. To me, the only reason I would do this is the tax benefits if I bought property. Um the actual like rental income and or and or slow real estate appreciation to me is not worth it, especially given the headache of of doing stuff. So you said, let’s say From a financial investment, it’s only been okay, but from a like reward, like it’s been quite exciting. It’s it’s pretty exciting. What is the margin? So you say 13k a month, um gross. Okay, so now we take out what? Airbnb, we take out property management, we take out utilities, we take out what? What what how much what’s the gross on that? So the gross Like a like a record month recently was like 17,000, but let’s round down to 15,000 because that’s what it’s been lately. So that’s gross. So I give away So I own the property outright, but I assume that I have a mortgage. So if you assume that I had a mortgage plus utilities and taxes, that’s in the 7,000 range. Okay. Um I don’t have that, but let’s just assume that I do because I will get one eventually. Um and then property management is 20% of uh of uh like the 14,000. So if I do if I do 16,000 revenue, $300 per stay goes to my cleaner. So whatever that that let’s just say that’s 2,000, so that brings us down to whatever that is, what did I say? 15 minus 2,000, that’s 13,000. And then management gets 20% of that. And then the rest, I assume it goes to a uh a property um property taxes and a fake mortgage. So all said and done on 15,000 in revenue, I’ll walk away with only 3,000 maybe. Yeah, that’s nuts. So that means let’s see. Uh we we did 15,000, so 20% margins. Yeah, it’s it’s not like it’s not kick ass, right? And then you have to pay tax on the 15. Well, but I have depreciation, so I’m able to like save a a fair bit there. But um, yeah, like it’s a cash on cash return. It’s going to end up being like five or somewhere between 5 and 8%, but if you assume appreciation, which is a big assumption, but I looked at the trailing 30 years, it’ll probably be a 15 to 20% uh annual return if I own it for like 10 years. Right. So, but that’s a big if. So that cash on cash, it’s only okay. It’s only okay. But I’m completely hands off and I also like it and I I I learned how to do something. So I didn’t I didn’t do everything I didn’t do everything right here at all. I I I think I paid a premium. I definitely paid a premium for the property. Dude, I know you paid a premium because if I look at this uh like if I go to the gallery, it’s got the kitchen with like the white everything’s like white and like this one look of wood that I’m just like a sucker for. If it looks like this, I’m like, it’s a nice place. And people who know about construction, they’re like, “This is like cheap and easy.” Like you know, I would walk into a house and be like, “Well, this is a good house. I’m going to pay a premium for this house.” And they’re like, “Why?” Cuz the countertops are nice. And I’m like, “Yeah, but look at this. It looks fantastic. It looks modern.” And they’re like, “Dude, that’s that costs nothing. Like you need to pay for location, you need to pay for square footage, you need to pay for all these other things.” But I’m a sucker for like just like the the countertops. But I have 20 acres and so my my plan my plan originally before the markets tanked, I was like, “I’ll put more I’ll build more crap there.” And then when the markets tanked, I got cold feet and I was just like, “Well, let’s just sit on it and just see what happens.” And so now I’m just sitting on it and it’s going awesome. Like it’s it’s it’s booked constantly. And so I’m happy with it. I don’t regret it. I would I would do it again. Um and I but like I learned. It was a lot of money to like, you know, it was seven figures to like get in the game and so I was fucking nervous as hell. But it’s worked out and I’ve learned how to do it. So now I I know more about it, so I’m happy. I can’t find this client info. Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application. Every team can stay aligned. No out of sync spreadsheets or dueling databases. HubSpot, grow better. All right, let me go. Um I got two blue-collar hustles for you. So these are in the trash in the trash biz. So, um I’ve heard of two trash businesses recently that I thought were pretty interesting. I wanted to share them with you. I want you to tell me which one you like better. Okay, so the first one, our buddy Ciava told me about this. It’s called Smash My Trash. Have you ever heard of this? Has he told you about this? No, but you want to know something funny? I’ve been very close with Ciava for like 12 years now, and I don’t I still don’t know how to say his last name. Kozinski, right? Yeah. Is that not it? Yeah, I I had to like, yeah, I I just he’s in my phone book as the very first time I ever met him, I just he said he was Russian, so he’s just saved as Ciava Russia. And so I just assumed he was a Ciava Russia. That is like I mean, this guy was like in my wedding close. Yeah. Ciava, tall, handsome, smart. Yeah, I just call him Adonis. Yeah, first name and then attributes. Like visual attributes that I remember you by. Six pack, 6’3, got it. Yeah. I have a system and it it serves me well. Um all right, so Ciava was telling me about this franchise called Smash My Trash. So what they do is they basically imagine a giant like a crane. And so they drive to any business, and like if you’ve ever been to like we had a warehouse, so our warehouse just produces like an un like an ungodly amount of trash, just cardboard. You don’t just burn it? Yeah. Just be normal. So so we have Charlie. Charlie burns the trash, but like I’ve been not at that. Um you would have basically a dumpster, and you get charged per like, I don’t know, like per filling of the dumpster, like how many times you fill the dumpster, and then you call them up and they come and they they empty your dumpster. What Smash My Trash does is they’ll you sign up for them, they drive around, they’ll come to your dumpster, and they just take this giant crane arm and just smash the trash in, just compacting it. Um they let you get way more volume or less it takes less fill, so it lowers your trash bill. And um you know, that could save you hundreds of dollars every month if you do this. And so basically, the cost of Smash My Trash should just be less than the savings that they give you from having to do less uh less dumpster fills. And so this is like a franchise that kind of crushes it. It’s basically you can run this with like two guys, and the numbers on this are you invest like, I don’t know, 400k. Typically, they’ll make like a million dollars a year in revenue and like 300k of like net income, like EBITDA at the end of the day. And so you’re getting like a kind of amazing cash on cash. Not not that not that trash return you were getting on your Airbnb. This is some real real returns. And um and I think they have I think they have like a shit ton of locations. I think they have like 160 locations or something like that. Um and so that’s like they’ve made probably 40, 50 million dollars in just the franchise fees just uh franchising this concept out. So I think this is kind of an like low-key amazing business. It’s amazing, but there’s a big downside. When was the last time you had a blue-collar job? Do you remember? Have you ever had one? Restaurant, yeah. When I was Restaurant. Like 21, yeah. What happens at a restaurant when it closes? Do you remember? Just carnage. Carnage. Everyone goes and gets super screwed up. They get drunk. You take pills. You get hot. You just do all types of shit. And then hopefully they show up the next day. And there’s lots of like I remember I you know, I I’ve been a janitor before. I’ve worked in restaurants. I’ve done all this stuff. And there was like particularly in restaurants, there was constant like issues with this type of person who works there. And it sounds classist, but it is kind of the facts of my experience. I don’t know. What do you think the trash I guess if a trash person has a job, maybe they get up early, so and I when I think of a trash guy, I think more of a family guy. Yeah, trash guy is for some reason. I I trust a trash guy. Like, you know, I feel like a trash guy is reliable, dependable, salt of the earth, you know? Like I feel like it’s not the the degenerates that you’ll get. Like I I would rather hire any trash guy than a barista at Starbucks, right? Like I feel like the barista is a flake and we never know what’s going to happen. But Well, the worst is is is is like a bartender at a or a waiter at a fancy like nighttime restaurant, like a like a like a or like a like a TGI Fridays. Like you know what I’m saying? Like The worst of the worst. This there’s someone out there right now listening to this that is a waiter at TGI Fridays and just slammed their phone in disgust. Dude, I’ve worked at all these places. I’ve worked at all these places and like this is probably why I had a little bit of a habit. It’s I don’t know, man. That this is the downside of of this business. If you have unlimited access to loaded nachos, then something just happens to you. Yeah. Yeah, like the blooming onion, it’s like uh it’s like it’s like the full moon, you know what I’m saying? Like I turn into a werewolf. And if I get if I get that every night, you know, like it’s it’s bad. I turn into like a like a Guns N’ Roses after party. Like I’m going wild. I’m throwing furniture out the window. So, uh yeah, is this cool? Yes. I think there’s a a lot of headache. And I would be curious. We have a good friend, uh or I’m I think you’re friends with them. His name is Brian. Brian uh Scudamore or Scudamore. He owns um Sounds like a good friend. Another guy. Another last name guy. Trash in your in your phone. Yeah. And uh no, not trash. Junk. 1-800-GOT-JUNK. And Brian has been on the pod and uh he uh I don’t know if maybe I could say this, but the company’s 100% bootstrapped. Revenue, this is public. Revenue, I think is in the 300 to 50, $350 million a year range. He owns 100% of it. He parlayed that now they own like a painting business and they do all these like services. I would be curious what he would have to say if like his trash guys like or his franchisees are like degenerates or not and like what’s the headache with those types of people. We should definitely ask him. I feel like uh I feel like he’s going to give us his his sign off on this. So so this is one trash idea. The other one comes from Twitter. I got to give credit to Mobile Home Park guy. Um I I know the guy behind this. He he’s actually pretty awesome, but I don’t know if he’s trying to be public with his identity here, but he’s part of our our guy mafia, right? We got the uh the restaurant guy, we got the car dealership guy. Now we have Mobile Home Park guy. And he goes, “I just found this trash business that is called Bin Scrub.” And what they do is they clean off your trash cans. So they wash, they power wash your trash cans because everybody’s trash cans are are filthy. And he’s like, he’s like, “Here’s how I would take this business and turn it into, you know, six figures a year of profit.” He goes, “Why do I love this business?” So everybody’s got trash bins, so, you know, your market is every home. Um it’s a very young industry, low market penetration, so you’ll probably be the only person offering this service. There’s not like a bunch of competitors yet. Um you just need one truck and some hustle. Uh in a post-COVID world, there’s lots of germaphobes and you can play on that. And this has like word-of-mouth virality. So, you know, this has like public virality. You can see the actual service being done. And so he goes, “So, he goes, you’ve got to buy a truck. The trucks are about 40k, but it’s a hard asset. You’re going to be able to get a loan against this. So you might only have to put down five or $10,000 and get a bank to finance the rest because the truck will will do this.” Um he goes, “Now, here’s how I how is here’s how I juice this business to make it more more valuable.” He goes, “We’re going to make it make this like the ice cream truck. We’re going to put a a speaker system on top and every time we’re coming around your neighborhood, we’re playing the same song.” He’s like, “You know, I’m going with Outkast, So Fresh, So Clean, just like just because it’s a pun.” And he’s like, “We’re going to play this every single time. This song is our branding. We’re going to drive around from 3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. when people are home from school, home from work, and they can look out the window and be like, ‘What is that?’ And then they will they will see us power washing someone in their neighborhood’s bins.” You can even That’s like a horrible idea. So hold on, hold on, hold on. He goes, um he goes, “We’re going to we’re going to like basically leave little flyer brochures on top of everyone’s bin. So when they take out the trash, they’re going to see that, you know, this trash can is dirty. We clean them out. We we leave your trash can so clean you could eat cereal from it.” And he’s like, “That would be my he’s like, “My I put a spoon in it. Be like, you’re so clean you could eat cereal out of this.” Um so he’s like, “That’s what I would do for my marketing.” He goes, “I think one truck can do about 100 to 200 homes a day. It’s a few thousand dollars a day per truck in revenue. Um you’ll use that to finance the second truck. Your costs are gas, water, maintenance, and some chemicals, assuming you’re the one doing the truck.” And he’s basically like, “This is a blue-collar side hustle. If somebody wants to themselves get out there and get to that 10k a month uh of of of income uh that they may not be able to get out of their job, this is this is his idea.” So he goes, “What do you think, fellas?” So, Sam, you said it’s a horrible idea. Tell me why. Uh okay. So, completely uneducated here. So, I have two doubts. Uh I don’t think that that many people would want this. And number two, 100 to 200 a day? That’s so many. That is so many. I would How much it would take 20 minutes to drive somewhere. I don’t that math is wild to me. Yeah, you you’d basically have to get to a like dense area and then and then do a route, but that would kind of assume that they’re all your customers, which they’re not going to all be your customers at the at the start. Did he call us out and say, “What do we think?” No, but you know, he listens to the pod, so Okay. Uh And by the way, there’s two people there’s two people in the comments here. One, um Sparkling Bins business. They make the trucks. So there’s a woman in the comments goes, “It’s a fantastic business. We’ve been we manufacture the trucks. It’s been going great since 2020.” And then another guy goes, um “Yeah, I do this. Mine’s called Bin Busters. I’m two years in. It’s going great.” Okay, well, I mean, what the hell do I know? And by the way, that guy, his bio says, “Living the American dream.” Yeah, someone’s dream. Not sure. A dream. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A dream. Yeah. Living an American’s dream. Yeah. Yeah. One person’s. Uh good. Good for him. He’s this is their dream and they’re they’re pulling it off. Uh uh I don’t know, man. I’m out. I’m out on this one. I don’t want to do this. It was like start a newsletter. Yeah, start a newsletter. Dude, I uh I I’ve I’ve people make fun of me because I bring this up so much. I had hot dog stands, whatever. I but I used to work with my hands outside. It’s so hard, man. It is so hard. By the way, you said you were a janitor. When were you a janitor? Uh when I was in eighth grade, I worked at a bakery and it was my job to like mop the floors, take out the trash, clean the dishes, and so that was like my first job, $6 an hour. And then uh yeah, that’s what I did. Dude, I am so mad at my parents for never giving me my my my grind story. Like, can I brother get a little hardship? Yeah, like just Yeah. You ain’t gangster at all, dude. Turn me in an uncle’s store for a month and just just give me that story, $5 an hour and I had to empty the trash. Like nobody knows how long I did it. Like I got nothing, dude. I grew up Dude, a lot of Asian parents don’t want you to do that. They say, “Do your homework.” Hands got no calluses. Yeah. And my kids, I’m going to give them one hustle story. You know, they’re going to have some very token small hardship that will sound good later when they make it because you need that story and I I just don’t have it. A lot of my Indian friends, which I have a ton, they their parents were like, “You don’t even clean your room. Just do your homework.” Just study. Yeah. Is that what they said to you? Like like don’t cook, don’t clean, just study. Well, they didn’t say it like that, but uh I wasn’t asking to cook or clean, so you know, it just never came up. And they were like, “Yeah, your your job is to study and do good in school so you can get like a good job. Don’t go be a janitor.” And I was like, Dude, I I did it all, man. I did the janitor stuff. I was a waiter, I was a bus boy, I was a valet driver. I did it all, man. I and uh I’m happy I did it, but uh I don’t want to do it anymore. Oh, and by the way, I need to redeem myself. I made fun of like the someone the other day said the retail class. So this is like the the blue-collar class. But uh I read this there was this funny article on Business Insider. It had the worst but hilarious title and it was, “I’m a millennial manager who works with Gen Z,” and then said like, “Colin, with Gen Z workers, they have a lot of feelings.” And so look, you’re either going to like somebody either you’re going to have drug issues working with one group of people or you’re just going to have to talk forever about like bringing your whole self to work and all that nonsense. So like we all have our faults. We’re all screwed. You know what I’m saying? I hate when people say bring your whole self to work. I’m okay with you just bringing your work self to work. That’s cool, too. You don’t have to do that. Prefer that. Yeah, I prefer that. If you want to bring a little bit more of yourself, we can talk about that too, but like you don’t it’s not mandatory. You don’t have to bring your whole self. Right. I’m okay with just your work self. So we all every every every class and every generation has issues. So I don’t mean to throw shade just at one. Um We throw shade at all here. We’re an equal opportunity shade thrower. Yeah, we’re all screwed. I hit my dad, Sam hit the trash man. Who else did we get who else caught a stray today? I’ll make fun of myself. Someone made fun of me the other day because I’ve got these surgeries on my ear. I was talking about my ear and my glasses sit funny. I don’t know if you noticed. My glasses sit crooked cuz like it’s my ear. And someone said, uh, “It looks like Sam got brain Sam got head surgery and didn’t pay for him to put the rest of it back in because his glasses are sitting.” And I was like, “Yeah, that’s kind of true.” Kind of accurate, too. Yeah. Yeah. You’re kind of there. Um dude, I told you the other day, I want to tell you about a media company that most people have no idea about, but they kind of killed it and I love it. So, I told you the other day about about Parcast. Did I tell you about Parcast? Yeah, yeah. This was the uh podcast network that was doing true crime stuff. Yeah, so I learned about the story. I think the guy who started it just tweeted saying that he was done at Spotify, so I guess his earnout is up. But listen to this. So, it was a three-year-old uh startup that sold for $50 million to uh Spotify. And the way it started was the guy, his name was Max Cutler at the time, he’s 27-year-old graduate, and he bootstrapped this thing. His dad worked in radio. I don’t think his dad was like a rich guy. I think his dad, uh Ron Cutler, I I think he was like a uh he was a radio broadcaster. So he had industry, but I don’t think he was like in the business type of thing. And he uh they bootstrapped this thing and by 2018, so only two years in, they had 16 shows with 100 million downloads. By 2019, they had 40 weekly shows. Now they have a staff of something like 150, of which 75 of them are voice actors. And I listen to these, it’s so weird. I listen to these every night when I go to bed. So like I’ve got like my favorite I listen to one called Serial Killers, there’s another one called Deathbed Confessions, then there’s another one called like Murder Couples, which is about Bonnie and Clyde, there’s another one like it’s like all these things. And there’s and it’s not like our podcast at all. There’s zero riffing and it’s like voice actors. We should just make up fake true crime shows, like stabbed but not dead yet. Yeah. The black eye. Yeah, and just And just like stories of people just got kind of hurt. Stop my toe. Wasn’t really an accident. Yeah. Spit on by a homeless guy, stories of NYC. Exactly. Not injured, but it was gross. Yeah. Barely assault. Uh You hurt my feelings, true crime thrills. Dude, and but like this is the reason why I like this is it’s not like a it’s like there’s just like, you know how we were talking about like people who do things beautifully done. Like you know uh this American life and it’s like thoughtful. It’s like thoughtful like today on this American life, we’re going to talk about like the opioid crisis and they like go out and interview people. This is not that. It’s just someone who read a book, summarized it and then is reading it. And they pump out like literally one a day and they have like uh you know, 40 shows an hour 40 shows now and it’s just a volume play. And this guy was like, “Dude, this true crime shit to their audience is 75% women and then me. Uh and they’re they’re like their audience like it’s crack. It’s crack to me. I cannot stop listening to this shit and it’s the same thing every single day. You know, it’s kind of like Family Guy. You know Family Guy, they’ve been doing it for like 25 years now. It’s the same shit all the time. It works every time. I’m going to watch it every single time. It’s just like that. It’s the same stick over and over and over again. And they were acquired. It was they were acquired for something like $53 million or $54 million in cash and then like another 50 million in earnout. But pretty fascinating that this guy bootstrapped this and they’re not popular on social. 20,000 followers on Twitter, 36 on Facebook, 50,000 on Instagram. They just dominated like people searching for their their one podcast is called Serial Killers. That’s all it’s called. And they just like dominate when people search you. So it’s like long tail. It’s like what’s the what’s what’s SEO for podcast? PEO, I don’t know. Uh and they just crushed it. Really fascinating business and I and I brought that up so I I needed I hadn’t done the proper research so I needed to kind of close that loop. You know, there’s a we had talked about the beautifully done, like, you know, just expert beautifully done. There’s another version of that that we haven’t talked about. And uh I don’t know I don’t know about you, but like when I was growing up, like if I had like a plate of food and it’s like, let’s say it’s I had a bunch of veggies, I had a broccoli, a Brussels sprout, something like that. I didn’t really want it. I was kind of like tired of eating it, but it’s still there and I know I should eat it. Um me and my sister used to have this thing where if one of us was like in that that spot where we wanted to we we know we should do this, but oh god, just the idea of sitting here for another 20 minutes just spoon after spoon of this, that’s I just can’t bring myself to do it. One of us would look at the other and just say, “Savage it.” Just savage it. And savage it mean you start to eat just like an absolute animal and you in like 30 seconds you just basically it’s like chugging for food. And so, um we used to say that and everybody be like, “All right, we got to savage it.” And we would just quickly down the whole thing. Now, there’s a version of that for businesses. That’s kind of what you described here, was this guy was like, “Oh, okay, people like this true crime audio thing. I’m popping this out.” I’m going to savage it. And so basically in two years to pump out 40 shows and get 100 million downloads, there’s only one way to describe that. He savaged it. And it he wasn’t trying to be beautifully done. I bet you it’s imperfect in all these different ways. You know, he might have been hiring, you know, random voice actors in, you know, Paraguay and like doing whatever it took to get these out there and pump them out. But that’s exactly what he did. And I think actually way more often than the beautifully done, do you see people just savage it and just just scale up like an absolute savage because they find something that works and then they don’t they’re not perfectionists and they don’t like um they they don’t get limited by what’s the normal pace. They’re like, “Okay, what’s the theoretical limit of this?” And that works more. I remember when I lived in San Francisco, when I started the hustle, I was like, originally I was like, “Let’s just pump out blog posts.” And people are like, “Well, what about quality over quantity?” And I was like, “Dude, Did you bring your whole self to work again? Yeah, I was like Yeah. Dude, I I well, I was I would always turn and I go, “No, our quality is quantity. Like we are not we are not an article business. We are a how many how how how can these operations be where we pump out lots of articles. That’s the product we’re building. You’re not a journalist, you’re a blogger. Go go blog. Yeah. It was like and then another I that was always one where I like people are always like quality versus quantity. And I’m like, “Uh, you need both.” Or if I wanted to play with their heads, I’d be like, “No, the quality is the quantity.” Another thing where people would say is like, “Uh, well, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.” And that was like a a a reason for them to slack. And I’m like, “Yeah, but have you ever ran a marathon at world record pace? It’s going to feel like a sprint.” So, like, you know, it feels pretty fast when you’re running real like top marathoners, we’re running fast. So it’s going to feel like a sprint. Uh but yeah, this guy is a quantity over quality guy and I love it. I love it. Yeah. Exactly. Okay, I think we should uh we should wrap it here. That’s the pod.