Shaan opens with an apology — he’s been telling the story of MrBeast never paying his $10,000 basketball bet, only to discover MrBeast paid months ago in Bitcoin to a wallet Shaan never checked. The episode covers Stephen Bartlett’s “300 million dollar company” controversy, a $10M test prep business built on Kajabi by a nurse practitioner, the playbook for building niche newsletters, and Shaan announcing he’s helping his personal trainer build a newsletter called The Daily Pump.
Speakers: Sam Parr (host), Shaan Puri (host)
The MrBeast Apology [00:00:00]
Shaan: I have to formally and humbly apologize to Mr. Beast. Here’s the situation.
Shaan: We went out to Camp MFM — which we “invited” ourselves to his house in North Carolina. We toured Duke’s campus. We ended up on the basketball court at Cameron Indoor Stadium. And I made him a bet: I could make a half-court shot before he could, for ten thousand dollars.
Shaan: Very stupid bet. He had nothing to lose, everything to gain.
Sam: I didn’t know you had to pay him if he made it first.
Shaan: Yeah — whoever made it first wins ten grand. He’s actually a bit of a degenerate gambler. His company has a separate account — like, “Beast, you can gamble this, don’t touch the main money.” That’s all winnings from previous bets. Petty cash. The petty cash was maybe seven figures if I’m remembering right.
Shaan: Anyway. I made the shot. Glorious moment. He said he’d pay me. Weeks went by — he hadn’t. Everyone on the trip kept asking: “Did he pay you?” And I’d go, “No, but he’s good for it.” It became a running joke. I brought it up on the podcast — the high moment was making the shot, the low moment was having to follow up three weeks later like “hey… you got that money?”
Shaan: People started referencing it on Twitter. Mr. Beast apparently saw a tweet about it recently and DM’d me: “What are you talking about? I paid you months ago.”
Sam: What?
Shaan: He paid me in Bitcoin. Back in November. I had given him a fresh Bitcoin wallet address, and I never checked it. For months I’ve been telling this story about how he never paid — “I know you probably meant to do it, no rush, just when you get a chance” — and he paid in November.
Sam: So you’ve been slandering this guy.
Shaan: Completely. Saying things like “at least I pay my debts.” Whoops. The joke is on me.
Shaan: I was trying to do what Hassan Minhaj told us about comedy — that low-status is funnier and more endearing than cocky. I was doing the low-status thing: “I made this great bet and then had to embarrassingly follow up.” Turns out the joke was entirely on me. Happy ending though. He’s paid.
On Talking Trash — What’s Okay to Say [00:12:00]
Sam: You know what that taught me? I’m very careful about what I say on the pod. The rule I try to live by: if I’m going to say something negative about someone, I better be willing to say it to their face.
Shaan: Yeah. The Alexander Hamilton version of this — Hamilton talked trash about someone, they challenged him to a duel, he was like “oh no I don’t want a duel,” and had to go apologize. After that he never talked trash again. If you’re going to say it, be willing to back it up in person.
The Stephen Bartlett Controversy [00:18:00]
Sam: There’s this story about Stephen Bartlett that’s been going around. You know him?
Shaan: He worked for me as an intern when he was 21. Great guy.
Sam: Background: he had a company called Social Chain — social media marketing agency, sold it, got wrapped up in a larger group that went public at a peak valuation of hundreds of millions. An article came out saying the entity sold for eight million dollars. I shared it — like, whoa, I thought this was a much bigger business. And people went after him, circulating a clip where he’s on Dragon’s Den and someone challenged him and he said, “Know anything about business? I built a 300 million dollar company by 28.”
Shaan: Here’s the explanation. His agency was called Social Chain. When they got acquired, the larger acquiring company renamed itself Social Chain Group — that was a bigger business with multiple divisions: e-commerce, a mattress company, and his agency. Most of the revenue came from the e-commerce side. His agency was a smaller slice. When it was acquired it was roughly nine million in annual revenue, maybe 20 employees, all under 25, doing this disruptive social media marketing thing.
Shaan: So: he was co-CEO of a group that did hundreds of millions in total revenue. He was a division head. Where he went wrong — “I built a 300 million dollar company by 28” is not accurate. That 300 million dollar company acquired his nine-million-a-year agency.
Sam: But I get it. You’re on TV, someone challenges you, the insecure part of you puffs out your chest and says the biggest thing you can.
Shaan: I’ve done a version of this. When we were acquired by Twitch, TechCrunch reported a deal price that was higher than the actual number. I could have corrected it. I said “I can’t disclose terms.” That number just sat out there, making the deal sound bigger than it was. Every time someone referenced it I felt guilty. Weak move to let a flattering misrepresentation just exist.
Shaan: I understand the impulse. But he did over-represent. The haters have a point. He’s also just very hateable — young, good-looking, successful, confident — which makes people want to find something wrong. But on the actual merits, yeah, claiming you built a 300M company when you built a nine-million-a-year agency that was acquired by a bigger company is a stretch.
NP Reviews: A $10M Test Prep Business Anyone Can Copy [00:35:00]
Sam: I said on a previous episode that I had a DTC business idea, best run by a woman, and I’d share it if someone interesting reached out. Forty people replied. One had an incredible background.
Sam: Her name is Sarah Michelle. She built NP Reviews — Nurse Practitioner exam prep — sold it for over ten million dollars in two years. Built on Kajabi, which is a hundred dollars a month. No designer. Simple website.
Shaan: What’s the model?
Sam: Same funnel as every other course business. Ads about the nursing board exam → landing page → free Facebook group of 25,000 people who passed the exam → courses at various price points ($100-300/month). She has a 99% pass rate among students. The whole site is maybe ten pages. The copy is exceptional — she leads with the outcome, not herself. “Pass your nurse practitioner exam the first time. Stop stressing. Start studying smarter.” Then: “I’ve been in your shoes.”
Sam: She sold to Blueprint, which is rolling up test prep businesses. Amazing exit.
Shaan: And the idea generalizes to anything with a professional certification — dental hygienists, personal trainers, speech therapists, architects, cosmetologists. Kaplan does this at scale for the MCATs and bar exam. You just carve out a niche and become the more trusted, human face.
Sam: This is the answer to people who ask “if you could start over with nothing, what would you do?” Same thing. Milk Road did it in crypto. This woman did it in nurse practitioner prep. My friend Ben just did it in AI newsletters. Same playbook. The question is stupid — you’re looking for permission to not do something. There’s no secret. Just pick a niche and start.
Shaan: If you need words of encouragement to start a business, don’t start a business.
Building in Public: The Daily Pump [00:52:00]
Shaan: I’m doing this again. I have a personal trainer — my buddy JA. He’s been training me for a while, took me from working out zero times a month to five days a week. I owe him. He’s always wanted to build his own business.
Shaan: I had an idea: build a Milk Road for personal trainers. A daily newsletter that goes out to other trainers. Train the trainers. He’s constantly sending me links to interesting stuff — “Huberman said this about supplements,” “here’s this mindset thing” — and I realized: that’s a great daily email if you’re a personal trainer. He’s a master at his craft, he just needs someone to show him the business side.
Shaan: So I’m building this with him, in public. The newsletter is called The Daily Pump. The domain is mydailypump.com — no sign-up yet, but it’s coming.
Sam: What does “building in public” mean for you here?
Shaan: I’m going to report on how it grows step by step. It forces me to stay engaged — I have to keep updating the story. And it justifies the time I’m putting in, because I get content out of it.
Shaan: The first challenge: he’s not from the startup world. A lot of times at the beginning he’d be like “yeah yeah dope” and then not do it. I used to think that was laziness. It’s not. He works ten times harder than me at his actual job. It’s fear and confusion. He’s never started a business, doesn’t know where to begin, is afraid to look dumb.
Shaan: My solution: give him one thing a day. The same way he gives me a workout of the day, I text him one business task. Probably takes an hour. Just follow the blueprint. He doesn’t have to figure anything out — I’ve already figured it out. Just do this one thing today.
Shaan: And it’s working. More effective than open-ended “here’s what you should do.”
Sam: I want to watch you regret this. But I think he’ll pull it off.
Nick Gray’s Google Review Growth Hack [01:05:00]
Sam: Speaking of marketing — have you heard what Nick Gray is doing?
Shaan: The party guy? Two-Hour Cocktail Party?
Sam: Yeah. Whenever he goes to a bar, restaurant, museum, anything — he takes a picture of the food or the front of the building and posts a Google review. But in every single photo, he’s holding his book.
Sam: He has analytics on it. His Google review photos have gotten 1.9 million views in the last couple months.
Shaan: That’s insane. And hilarious.
Sam: I saw him do it. We were out to eat and he pulled the book out of his bag and started taking pictures. I was like, “What are you doing?” He showed me the numbers. It’s working. He reviews Panda Express, Lululemon, Great American Cookies, Vans — anywhere he goes. The book is in every photo.
Shaan: The story is better than the hack. That’s what makes it worth doing. Pinterest famously had people go into Apple Stores and change the default browser homepage to Pinterest.com on every demo Mac. Did it drive meaningful traffic? Probably not. But the hustle story is what makes people remember it.
Sam: Right — it’s almost more about the newsletter content than the actual conversions.
Coming Up: Death Row Records [01:15:00]
Sam: I’m interviewing one of the co-founders of Death Row Records. His name is Michael Harris. He made up to a million dollars a day selling crack and cocaine, helped discover Denzel Washington, sponsored Broadway plays, parlayed all of that into music and founded Death Row Records with Suge Knight. Then went to prison for 30 years. Now he’s out and wants to start a podcast.
Shaan: Are you intimidated?
Sam: Incredibly. It’s not like our Twitter enemies. This person is… more capable. And I don’t want to say something stupid. I’ve read about the Eazy-E / Dre / Death Row beef. I don’t know where all that stands or what I can reference.
Shaan: Don’t make the mistake of calling someone by their first name like you know them if you don’t.
Sam: Exactly. My plan is to just let him tell his stories and stay curious. The business lens is actually real — the way he talks about the drug operation, he talks about delegation, empowering co-workers, distribution. It’s business. I just want to get the stories out. Should be a wild episode.