This video features a live Q&A session with Sam Parr and Shaan Puri, where they discuss the future of podcasting, the challenges of building a community, and their personal experiences with business and entrepreneurship. They also share insights on the importance of being authentic and building a loyal audience rather than just chasing numbers.
Topics: Podcasting, Entrepreneurship, Community Building, Business Strategy, Personal Growth, Investing
Introduction and Q&A Setup [00:00]
Sam Parr: Think, at this point, Nick, right?
Shaan Puri: Yes, we’re ready for questions.
Sam Parr: All right. So, what we’re going to do is we’re going to do a little Q&A and we’ll riff on some of that stuff.
Shaan Puri: Fantastic. Let’s see. Uh, please can I have house lights? And I would like to see hands up for questions for the panelists. I see one here in the center. I see one over here. Thank you, guys. I’m going to ask you to raise your hands again, and we’re going to try to go through these fast. Please say who your question is for.
The Future of Podcasting [00:34]
Audience Member: Uh, my question is for Sam. Uh, where do you think podcasting will be in 10 years, positive or negative?
Sam Parr: [Laughs] Question stress you out. What’s man’s role in the universe? I don’t know. Like, when I have a light discussion, uh, where will podcasting be? So, when it was Sean’s idea to start our podcast, he came to me and he’s like, “I’ve got this finished episode. Will The Hustle publish it, be our publisher?” And the original version of MFM was not what it is now. It was him interviewing people, and it was still good. And then one day, someone didn’t show up to studio time that we had already paid for. And he’s like, “Oh, just come in and do the thing that we do.” And that’s kind of how it came to be.
Shaan Puri: By the way, you know that story is not true, right? [Laughter]
Sam Parr: No. That’s not actually how it came about. [Laughter] I did not know that.
Shaan Puri: Because I’ve heard you tell this, I’m like, “Is he telling this because he thinks…”
Sam Parr: I thought a guest bailed.
Shaan Puri: No, I told you that. What happened was… It’s a good time to come clean, right? [Laughter] In front of us and our 500 closest friends. What happened was the Hustle wasn’t promoting the podcast enough. And I was like, “How do I get them to promote it? Maybe I could tell them what’s in it for them. Maybe I could bake better content.” Or maybe I could just invite Sam on the podcast, and he will, for sure, make them promote it. And so, you guys are launching trends, and I was like, “Hey, come on, and let’s just bullshit about upcoming trends and startups.” I was like, “They have to promote that episode because it’s like, that’s their thing.” And then I was like, “Let me do that every Friday.” And then that became the pod. [Laughter]
Sam Parr: They call this the prestige. [Laughter] Yeah. Yeah, you honey-potted me. It worked. Uh, my point being, when we got into this, I thought it was a… I thought podcasts were stupid. I was like, “Ah, it’s played out. There’s too much.” And what I’ve learned, I’m not going to entirely answer your question because the answer is I don’t know. But I’m going to try and get around to it. What I’ve learned is I think it’s the most powerful medium that we’ve ever come across. So like, because when you’re… this is, it sounds weird, but when you’re in someone’s ear, and it’s like, literally the headphones matter. When you’re in someone’s ear for like 40 or 50 minutes per session, like three times a week, it’s insane how what people learn about you. It’s way better than like an eight-minute uh YouTube video. So where do I think… I don’t know. Andrew, where do you think it’s going to go? So Andrew owns a a podcasting company.
The Economics of Podcasting [02:50]
Shaan Puri: Yeah, I own a company called Supercast. Um, and we help um like Huberman and other people monetize their podcast. I was talking to the guy who runs it actually yesterday, weirdly, and he said that podcasting, there’s 62% penetration in the United States. So like 62% of people are aware, but there’s only $2 billion in the market. So all all podcasting advertising dollars and stuff. And you think about like FM radio and how big that market is, I would just look at FM radio and be like, “Okay, how big is that?” And if every podcast was monetized like FM radio, it’s probably that big. So it can probably like 20x, 50x, 100x, I don’t know.
Sam Parr: Would you agree that podcasting is the hardest medium to grow?
Shaan Puri: Yeah, for sure. I think that it has the benefit of what you said, that people become really loyal very quickly, but it’s the hardest to grow. So you can go on TikTok and you’ll get a bunch of followers, but if you said, “Hey, we’re doing a live show in Austin,” you’re not going to get anybody to show up. In fact, there’s funny TikToks of these TikTokers doing meet and greets that no one shows up to, because they thought, “If I have 100,000 followers, for sure people are going to show up.” And so, you know, the the trust is what matters, not how many fans.
Sam Parr: Well, also, I’d say it’s I’d argue it’s the best medium to have subscribers on because someone will see it in their app and there’s no algorithm that’s going to get in your way. Whereas on YouTube or something, um yeah, you’ve got the same monetization opportunities of doing events and, you know, promotions and ads and all the other stuff, but it’s so easy for the algo algo just to go away from you and you forget about the person.
Sam Parr: The problem with it is, unlike blog articles and things like that, you can’t fake it. I can fake a blog article and get you to click on it. Um, it’s podcasting is very hard for that reason. And I always like joke, but I’m like, “The best way to circumvent someone’s bullshit detector is to not bullshit.” And it’s like the best way to like get successful in podcasting is to be talented or like be really good. And that’s super hard because you don’t actually have to be good at a bunch of like blogging and even newsletter writing. You should have to be pretty good, but you can kind of be pretty bad and still succeed. Podcasting, it’s a lot more challenging.
Community Building and “Cults” [04:50]
Audience Member: Hey, this question is for Sean and Sam. Uh, I’m building uh website called askthepod.com. It’s meant to be AI companion for podcast. So you can listen to the episode and go back, ask questions. What were the books mentioned? What were the links mentioned? So is it okay to add my first million on the platform? [Laughter]
Shaan Puri: The pitches are later, dude. [Laughter] This is our moment. Yes, next question.
Sam Parr: All right, who’s got a question? I want to see one from over here. Hand up. Pass the mic down, please.
Audience Member: Hey guys, thanks so much. Love the podcast. My question is for Sam. I’m a I’m a copywriter and I’m just wondering what your number one tip is for getting better at writing persuasively and specifically copy.
Sam Parr: These are some boring questions, guys. [Laughter] Uh, so copying word-for-word other people’s work. So what I like to do is I print out like whether it’s a movie script or a great like blog article or a really good piece of copy that I like, and I copy it word-for-word. And it’s almost like learning music. You like play other people’s music and you like see the texture of what makes greatness, and then you like steal from a bunch of different places and make your own. And that’s what I like to do. Spend six months doing that, one hour every day, you’ll get pretty good.
Shaan Puri: Awesome, thanks. Should we get people to line up, maybe? Just so that there’s no delay?
Sam Parr: Sure. Yep, I’m open to that. If you have a question, which we would love to hear questions, come and meet me on this side of the stage over here.
Shaan Puri: This guy, I can tell, this guy’s got a good question. Where have you been all my life, man?
Audience Member: Marilyn. [Laughter]
Shaan Puri: You’re one joke away from getting this next seat on the on the stage here.
Audience Member: So, I mean, uh, he said I love the podcast, guys. I hate the podcast, my fault. But um… [Laughter]
Shaan Puri: You hate podcasts? Huh? You hate the podcast?
Audience Member: No, sarcasm. Oh. [Laughter] Can we fuck? [Laughter]
Shaan Puri: Okay, excellent question. Come on up. Next one is Austin.
The Bottom 20% vs. Top 20% of Investments [06:48]
Audience Member: All right, this question’s for Andrew. Uh, what have you learned uh the commonalities of the bottom 20% of investments that you’ve had uh versus the top 20%? What differentiates the bottom 20% and top 20%?
Shaan Puri: The ones that I do. [Laughter]
Andrew: The big the biggest mistake I would say over and over and over again is when I bet on the business, not the jockey, right? So I get really excited about the business and the business model and I go, “Oh my god, this is a great idea. If I ran this or someone like me ran this, this would be amazing.” Even if I don’t believe in the entrepreneur. And I’ve realized that betting on the entrepreneur is 100% of the game, right? Because they’ll figure it out.
Sam Parr: But don’t you want to have a business that any idiot can run?
Andrew: Oh, yeah, for sure. But I’m saying like the ones where I’ve lost, I actually haven’t lost that much money in businesses where I’m buying the whole thing. Almost all of those work. It’s the ones where I’m doing venture or I’m betting on something or I’m trying to start a business. That’s where I lose all my money.
Audience Member: Excellent. Next question.
Audience Member: I’m Massy. Um, so I want to ask, how do you feel about community building? Obviously, it’s become really big for creators. How do you see it in the podcast genre, sort of that async communication with your fandom and and building those super fans?
Andrew: Yeah, I think for a podcast, you don’t really want to build a community as such. You want to build a cult. So, so basically you’re like, “What is it that we believe that not everybody believes?” And let’s put that on blast. And then a bunch of other people who believe that too are going to be like, “Finally, someone said it.” Or like, “Finally, they they do things the way I do things.” Like, for most of you here, I I would bet, like hands up if you consider yourself like, “I’m a real fan. Like, I truly love the pod. I feel like when you guys are doing the pod, I could be sitting there right with you guys, kind of bullshitting.” I bet, like leave your hands up for a second. Um, put your uh leave your hand up if the following statement is true. It’s not that you learn that much from us, but it’s kind of like you feel like you’re hanging out with us, that we are like you, and that if we just happened to have met, we would have been friends. So like most people leave their hand up, right? I kind of confused them. [Laughter] But it’s that’s kind of what you go for. I think most people when they do content, they’re trying to be heavily informational. And they think they’re talking down to people. They think they’re educating them and whatnot. What we do is we just talk about stuff we’re interested in that we think, and then it just happens to attract a bunch of other people who think the way we do. And that’s kind of like more like a cult than it is a community of people where we all gather around and serve each other.
Sam Parr: Huberman is a great example of that where like we were just talking about this backstage actually. He does these two-hour crazy podcasts on like weird nerdy science stuff, but he makes these subtle little comments about his dog and he seems like a real sweetie and all these things and people connect with him and he’s handsome and all these things.
Shaan Puri: What does he look like shirtless?
Sam Parr: Ridiculous. Ridiculous. Okay, so my Huberman invited me over to his house and he goes, “Let’s do a sauna and a cold plunge.” I’ve never met him before. And I was traveling with my girlfriend and I was like, “Oh, like Zoe, do you want to come with me and we’ll go to Huberman’s?” She didn’t know who he is and she’s like, “No, I’m good.” And we get there, he takes his shirt off and he’s just shredded. Like you could like shred cheese on his chest, eight-pack, bulging arms, tattoos, and I’m there and I’m just like folding myself into a little ball. And I was like, “Thank god I didn’t bring her.”
Going Public and Personal Finance [14:46]
Shaan Puri: Great. So for those that are in the line, I’m going to walk down. You’re very quickly going to say your question. I’ll try to do five or 10 real quick. They will not be answering them, but they may give an answer later. First up.
Audience Member: What was the reasoning behind going public, uh taking Tiny public, and what was the biggest lesson learned?
Audience Member: Excellent. Next question.
Audience Member: Question for Andrew. I was curious about your follow-up to your kind of personal episodes about your dip emotionally and what that’s been in the last like 12 months, for instance.
Shaan Puri: Awesome. A few more.
Audience Member: Andrew, how did you start and grow your agency business?
Audience Member: Excellent. Next.
Audience Member: Yeah, for the panel, uh built a few businesses that did millions. Now I find myself complacent, lacking purpose. Yeah, just like to know your answer to that.
Shaan Puri: Okay. All right, next one.
Shaan Puri: Without turning it into Billy of the Week, Andrew’s impressions on meeting my boss’s boss’s boss’s boss, Michael Dell this week. The stuff that you didn’t put on Twitter already.
Shaan Puri: Let’s pause there. Let’s answer that question. [Laughter]
Shaan Puri: Yep, we’re going to pause. For those of you that are standing waiting for questions, take a seat and we’ll do another round of Q&A soon. Thank you, guys.
Andrew: So I think I think the first one was going public and why. And I would say that going public is, if you’re an investor, it represents the greatest opportunity, right? You can raise capital at a great valuation, you can buy it back when it’s cheap, you can use your equity to buy businesses. So those are just kind of boring business reasons. To be honest, the reason kind of relates to my dip. So over the last like two or three years, I went through a bit of a funk and it came from this feeling of like, I don’t know why I’m making more money. I don’t have a thing, right? So when I started, uh it was because I was like, “Okay, I want to wake up whenever I want and I don’t want to have a job.” And then I was like, “Okay, I want to have a sweet house and a car.” And then I was like, “Okay, I got a sweet house and a car. Um, now I want to pay off my parents’ mortgage.” And then after that, and then it was like, “Okay, I want enough money that I can be fine and stop working.” But after that point, which I reached seven or eight years ago, um, I just didn’t know what to do with it. And I tried all these different things. You know, I would go and like, you know, buy wine and fancy cars and go on fancy vacations and all these things, and nothing really made me happy. And so over the last couple years, I’ve been trying to figure that out. And I tweeted about this earlier and I I mentioned this, but I’ve been really admiring people that do two things. One is they use money um to live life in a very interesting and creative way. So Nick is a great example of that. Nick’s a multimillionaire, he exited his business, he’s done very, very well, and he just has an investment portfolio on autopilot, um invested in Tesla really early on, and now he just focuses on meeting interesting people. So that’s one piece, and I’ve done a lot of that, just meeting interesting people. And then two is figuring out how to give it away and actually impact my community. So like I did that local journalism thing, I think you guys know about. And going public in Canada, it allows me to actually give my shares to my foundation. So I can actually do that. So it enables that.
Shaan Puri: Andrew did the biggest flex on us when we saw him for dinner the other night. We’re like, “Oh, what have you been doing?” And he goes, “Philanthropy.” And we were like, “Oh, okay. Okay, big guy.” And then he didn’t pay for dinner. [Laughter] He didn’t dedicate to donate to the Sam and Shaan Foundation. Yeah. The $500 dinner. Um, and the other question was about Michael Dell. You met Michael Dell this weekend.
Andrew: Yeah, Michael Dell, um, he was so Okay, so like Michael Dell is like what you hope capitalism is, right? Like I met him and he was the nicest, most down-to-earth, engaged, pleasant guy. And I’ve met a lot of rich people. I’ve met billionaires, multibillionaires. He’s worth 50. So he’s worth like 10x any of the other people. And he was just really genuine and nice. And I asked him like, “Okay, what are your vices? Like, how are you not like you you have like a super pack, like some weird libertarian island where you like hunt and kill people? Are you building like penis rockets to Mars? Like, what are you doing?” And he just goes, “No, I got a couple nice houses. I’ve got a jet. I just like to work and build my business and I give it all away to my foundation.” And I was like, “Okay, that’s pretty cool.”
Shaan Puri: He’s like the human version of a Dell computer, basically. It’s like the most basic computer. [Laughter] Totally. But like a nice a nice computer that works well for you.