Sam and Shaan break down Dave Ramsey’s $300M/year media empire — his origin story, his seven baby steps, his nationally syndicated radio show, and the biblical personal finance brand he’s built in Franklin, Tennessee. Along the way they riff on Laird Superfoods’ dramatic market cap collapse, a Chambers & Partners data business up for sale, trademark strategy pitfalls, and the art (and limits) of copying a competitor’s playbook.
Speakers: Sam Parr (host), Shaan Puri (host)
Cold Open: Dave Ramsey by the Numbers [00:00:00]
Shaan: Dave’s back, and Dave’s back in a big way. Here’s some things that Dave said. He says he has a $600 million real estate portfolio that is fully paid off — so $600 million of real estate equity that he owns. That’s kind of insane. His media empire, which is the combination of his radio shows and all the financial courses, training seminars, all that stuff — he says on their website it makes $300 million a year in revenue.
Laird Hamilton and Laird Superfoods: From $400M to $9M [00:00:30]
Shaan: All right, we’re live. What do you want to talk about today? I’ve got a bunch of good topics — let me bring up one juicy one. Last year, or two years ago, you asked me a question. You were like, “Who do you admire?” I think you asked me that, and I said this guy named Laird Hamilton.
Laird Hamilton is this beautiful surfer dude — he’s like in his 50s now. He’s beautiful. We gotta acknowledge that. He’s got beautiful wavy blonde hair, nice skin, pretty ripped for his age, and he always was ripped. He’s this tough guy that surfs big waves. He launched this thing called Laird Superfoods — have you heard of that? It’s like a coffee creamer made out of coconut, I think.
Sam: Where you make fun of me because I’m dreaming about this guy — I don’t even need to make a joke. You’ve done it all yourself. He’s a human Ken doll.
Shaan: This is objective. I’m just stating facts here. Anyway, they took the company public — I don’t know why they did that, but they took it public at a $300 or $400 million market cap at the time. They were doing $50 million in revenue. Look up the company now. What’s their market cap today?
Sam: Let me find it. I know what it was yesterday. I don’t know what it is today.
Shaan: Why would it be so different?
Sam: Oh wow. Nine million dollars. Nine million dollars. So this company — if you click, I have a bunch of notes here — they sell a fair amount of coffee creamer. Yesterday I think it was $8.8 million. They have $20 million in cash, no debt. Their revenue is decreasing. In Q3 it was $8.8 million; Q3 of last year was $10.9 million. So it’s like a $48 to $50 million a year business, but it’s declining. They have decent gross profit, an okay balance sheet, but the business for some reason is valued so low. I’d have to dive deep into it, but it’s kind of ridiculous.
Shaan: So you were talking about wanting to buy a company — you’ve said this before. This is your target. Sounds like this is one of those things where it’s like “auctioning off a date with Laird Hamilton.” Why don’t you just buy this? You just bought yourself a nine million dollar hug.
Sam: Why is this company so cheap? What is going on?
Shaan: They had no debt — their Q3 report had $21 million in cash, zero debt. I never understand when companies trade this far below their cash value. Because the obvious question is: why do you not buy this for $15 million, wind it down, and distribute the $20 million to yourself? Make five million dollars. Or sell the inventory — they have like $13 million in inventory.
Sam: Yeah, so I mean — I haven’t looked at this because you just mentioned it — but there’s a bunch of these right now. There was one the other day that was in the same bucket. There are a bunch of stocks that are down like 95% that seem like interesting takeover targets. We have a friend who was interested in doing this, so I made a list of like 10 that I thought could work.
Shaan: Is this an aggressive friend?
Sam: Yeah. I know which friend it is.
Shaan: How tight is that — just being able to say “it’s an aggressive friend” and you immediately know? Would this friend say to a battling entrepreneur, “Your business is one Google search away from me ruining you, baby”?
Sam: That sounds like him.
Shaan: So there’s another one — that company was marketing at a $10 billion market cap at one point, now it’s at $360 million. Has $700 million in cash with no liabilities. Mechanically, I don’t know exactly how you buy these things. I think the challenge is to actually acquire a majority, you’d push the price up because people would know what you’re doing. You’d have to make a tender offer at a specific price. But the board would just reject it — they’d say, “We have more cash than that on the balance sheet, so we don’t need to sell.” So I don’t know if this is fantasy math. You know, like, “What if Shaq was in the 100-meter race? He could just knock people over.” That doesn’t work in the real world.
Sam: Is that a drunken conversation you’ve had? “What if Shaq ran the 100-meter dash?”
Shaan: You know, one thing about this podcast is the number of on-the-fly analogies you have to create. That’s a different skill, a different muscle. Still working on it.
Sam: So anyway, Laird Superfoods — interesting company. I was very hot on Laird Hamilton. Maybe a little less hot now, because this company is worth only eight million. He’s still famous, and famous trumps wealth in most people’s eyes. But he lost the third leg of the stool.
Shaan: All right, let me tell you about somebody who is rich and famous, but he’s not hot. Are you familiar with Dave Ramsey?
Who Is Dave Ramsey? [00:07:00]
Sam: Yeah, yeah — very. Tell me what you know about Dave Ramsey and I’ll fill in some gaps.
Shaan: Dave is like a personal finance guru. He’s based out of Franklin, Tennessee. He’s in his 70s, probably. He started as a radio host — just the Dave Ramsey show — and then he parlayed that into the Dave Ramsey Network. He’s got like 400 or 500 employees based in Franklin, Tennessee. They do $400 or $500 million a year in revenue selling personal finance stuff. He’s pretty controversial because a lot of his rules are based in biblical principles. He’s also big on zero debt. He’s pretty conservative, so people who aren’t conservative aren’t into him.
Sam: You do a lot more than I would have guessed. I guess the segment’s over. How do you know this stuff?
Shaan: He also bought all his buildings without any debt. He owns a campus in Franklin, Tennessee.
Sam: Wait — did I spit my food? I’m still hungry, so let’s go.
Shaan: Dave is 62 years old. He was a realtor turned radio host, from Tennessee. By his mid-20s — this is back in the ’80s — he’s got a $4 million real estate portfolio kicking off maybe 5% cash-on-cash returns, so he’s making $250K a year. Then in 1988 — the year I’m born — his bank basically revokes his line of credit, demands he pay it back, he can’t sell fast enough, gets foreclosed on, and declares bankruptcy. This is the trauma of why he’s like, “No debt! Debt bad!” Because he burned his hand on the debt stove. So he’s got no money, his marriage is on the rocks, he’s considering some dark stuff. But he gets back on his feet.
Fast forward to today — $300 million a year in revenue. Which is absurd.
Sam: I believe it. You know, in the South it’s a thing. When I had Texas employees, if you’re just a normal couple where each person makes like $60 or $70 grand a year, you’ll pay to go to a Dave Ramsey thing. He trains financial advisors and they host seminars — you’ll go to this five-day weeknight thing, it’s like instead of Bible study they teach you how to save and invest.
Shaan: It’s like Jesus on the front and APL on the back.
Sam: New remix Bible. I love it.
Dave’s Seven Baby Steps [00:12:00]
Shaan: His company, Ramsey Solutions, is an absolute juggernaut. So he launched this in 1992, and he’s done content for 30 years about the same seven steps. This guy’s been talking about the same thing for 30 years.
I don’t know how he fills four hours a day of radio just saying the same thing every time — “Oh, you got debt? Pay that off.” But here are his seven steps.
Number one: establish an emergency fund of $1,000. That’s your first baby step to financial freedom.
Number two: pay off all your non-housing debts ASAP, starting with the smallest one. He calls this a debt snowball. Don’t pay off the highest interest rate first — pay off the smallest thing to get momentum.
Then you increase your emergency fund to three to six months of income. Then you put 15% into a 401k or IRA. Then you start your 529 plans, the college funds. You pay off your mortgage. And then — now that you’re fully paid off, you’ve got your safety net — you start to build wealth.
Those are his seven steps.
Sam: His company, Ramsey Solutions, is a “biblically based common sense financial education media company.”
Shaan: That’s how I feel when I hear the intro to a Timbaland beat — like, “Oh, that’s nice.”
Sam: That’s amazing.
Shaan: He’s got a thousand employees. He owns all the real estate — I think he owns two office towers, a 50,000-square-foot event center, 60 acres of property he bought for $10 million. He runs his biblical financial empire out of Tennessee.
He does his show three hours a day, five days a week. People call in — it’s like, “Long-time listener, first-time caller, Dave.” He’ll go, “How old are you?” The caller says, “I’m 32.” He says, “Fantastic.” Then they tell him about their mortgage and their debt, and he gives them financial advice, which is kind of the same advice every single time. But people get really into it.
Then he’s got these other hilarious segments. He’s got “Everyday Millionaires” — somebody calls in and he interviews a person who’s worth a million dollars. And then he has the debt-free scream. Have you seen this?
Sam: I used to think it was like ringing a bell — like people would call and say “I paid off my debt” and you’d celebrate.
Shaan: Exactly. They celebrate with the debt-free scream.
I think there are things we could learn from this guy. We should steal some of his shtick. He’s really got something going here.
Dave Ramsey’s Vibe and Tweets [00:17:00]
Sam: Wait — you’ve never heard of him?
Shaan: No, I’ve heard of him. I just didn’t realize how rich he was. I thought he was like someone’s dad that gives basic financial advice, because he’s got the dad vibe. He’s got the vibe of someone who calls “diabetes” “diabeetus.” The thing above your head is definitely a “ruff” to him, not a “roof.” He’s got that type of energy.
Sam: 100% on the diabeetus thing.
Shaan: He’s a little judgmental too. “This is the only way.” He’s Dr. Phil for money.
Sam: Exactly. He’s got his thing — “This is how you do things.” He’s like a guy with a big belly who wears suspenders, you know what I’m talking about? He’s not wrong, it’s just that sometimes the energy is a little bit judgmental.
Shaan: I was gonna make a bunch of jokes about his look but I decided to turn the other cheek, or whatever he would want me to do.
His show is nationally syndicated on radio — 20 million people a week apparently listen to him. He’s carried on about 600 radio affiliates. He’s got 23 best-selling books.
Sam: What does “23 best-selling books” even mean?
Shaan: That’s their personality. His daughter does some of it now, and he’s got these other people — Ken, Dr. John, all these other personalities. They’re called the Ramsey Personalities.
So he’s got live speaking, courses, an app, all kinds of stuff.
Let me give you some of his tweets and quotes. I want you to react: hallelujah, or “no brother, not for me.”
First one: “If you’re working and paying off debt, the only time you should see the inside of a restaurant is if you’re working there.”
Sam: A half-hearted hallelujah. I’ll give you that.
Shaan: “If you come to work late and they’re paying you, you’re stealing. Don’t steal and expect to be promoted.”
Sam: Hallelujah. I’m a capitalist pig.
Shaan: “There’s nothing socialist about me. I’d put my receptionist on straight commission if I could figure out a way.”
Sam: 100% hallelujah. I love that one.
Shaan: He quotes Proverbs 22:7 — “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.”
Sam: No — I think that’s wrong. You can use debt effectively to help you.
Shaan: Also, he carries a gun. A .45 with hollow point bullets, according to himself.
Sam: Yeah, that’s a pretty big round. That’s the biggest round I know of.
Shaan: So anyway, fascinating guy in his 60s. I could not believe his empire generates $300 million a year. It’s a pretty absurd number. He’s been doing it for decades. It just shows you how big the Tony Robbins empire must be — Tony Robbins says his business brings in over $500 million a year.
Sam: Although that always bugs me, because when people say numbers like that it can mean a lot of things. Like when an ad agency guy says, “I’ve generated over $100 million in revenue” — dude, you took the client’s budget and pushed spend at the normal rate for 10 years and added up their total revenue number. That’s not you. Or when people say they own $100 million of real estate, and it’s like, “Cool, what’s your equity?” And they’re like, “Well, it’s an 80% bank loan, I syndicated out the 20% down, I got a 3% broker commission and I own 2% of the property.” Okay.
So to me, it was pretty stunning to hear he has a $600 million fully paid-off real estate portfolio and a $300 million a year business.
Shaan: I could see this being totally made up. But no — I don’t have any way to verify it, but I know his reach, and that is very attainable.
Sam: Have you been south of the Mason-Dixon Line? Have you hung out in Tennessee, Missouri, Kansas, Alabama?
Shaan: I drove through, but I came to California. I had to step through the mud of the Midwest.
Sam: Dude, you gotta go. Oklahoma. Even just go to a Walmart in Tennessee, drive an hour and a half north, and just watch what people purchase. You gotta get out of your San Francisco bubble. There are 350 million people in America.
McDonald’s, Illegal Whiskey, and Flooding [00:25:00]
Shaan: All right, I gotta tell you a funny story. Yesterday I went out for a meeting — I’m deciding whether to save it for a bigger thing or have the person come on as a guest. My wife and kids came with me. It was kind of a long drive. I was like, “Why don’t we all drive down together?” So we go to this McDonald’s kind of out there, and I’m waiting in what I think is the line, but McDonald’s is ambiguous. There’s self-checkouts to the left and right, there’s a cashier in front, and there are people just waiting for their order. I don’t know what’s going on.
There’s a guy in front of me, the cashier’s just waiting, and I was like, “You can go, she’s ready.” And then the cashier just goes, “He doesn’t have money.”
I thought it was such a funny thing for her to say. “He doesn’t have money.” Like, so direct. Not “No, you can go ahead, he’s not ready.” Just: he doesn’t have money.
Sam: I was in the bathroom at the airport recently and there was a line for the urinal but also a line for the stalls. The guy walks up to me and goes, “You waiting to poop?” And you have to answer. And then you’re stuck in that conversation.
Shaan: Yeah. And he just had a dead face. I don’t know why I thought that was so bad.
Sam: I’m in a great mood — can I tell you why? I did something that I forgot is an amazing tactic. Have you heard of something called flooding?
Shaan: Is that when you text someone a lot? No? I have no idea.
Sam: Don’t Urban Dictionary it, it’s probably something weird. So Tony Robbins talked about this. Someone asked him for marriage advice, and he had two stories. I’ll skip the first one — I teach it in my course. The second one: he says about once a month he and his wife sit down on the couch — you know, like you’re about to watch Netflix — and instead of mindlessly vegging out, they watch videos or photos from some era of their past. A vacation, their wedding, whatever. And you get this flood of memories and emotion that are anchored to those moments. Most people don’t revisit these in an intentional way.
I do it two ways. One is life photos or videos. The second is what I did before this: I pull up a bunch of videos that were really funny to me back in college, back when YouTube was new and things would go viral. It’s like e-baum’s World era. Charlie Bit My Finger, whatever.
Shaan: Which videos did you look at?
Sam: Okay, this is gonna sound dumb. Have you seen the video of the cop pulling over this guy, patting him down, and he goes, “All right, let me just check your pockets” — and the guy goes, “That’s my penis” — and the cop goes, “That’s your penis?” And just continues? That video cracks me up. Just the way he goes, “That’s your penis?”
Then there’s a whole bunch — the news anchors interviewing the “I like turtles” kid, the grape stomp video. I watched six of them and they just cracked me up. That simpler time. I didn’t have a wife and a mortgage. Those videos just teleported me.
So highly recommend this idea of flooding. You’ve probably done some version of this on accident, but make it a practice. It puts you in an amazing mood.
Illegal Whiskey and a WordPress Store [00:33:00]
Shaan: So I’m going to tell a story that you and I were texting about. I can’t reveal exactly what I was selling because it was kind of against the law — and I didn’t know it at the time. Statute of limitations is way past, so I’ll just say it was alcohol. Legal alcohol that I was selling. That’s all I’m gonna say.
Sam: Anytime you have to specify it was legal, probably not a good thing.
Shaan: So I tweeted something that bothers me: when people collect domain names as a pet peeve, because they’re doing the wrong stuff. People say, “I’m gonna buy a domain name” or worse, “I’ve got this amazing domain name — I should build something for it.” Don’t build something just because you have a domain. Just make money first and use like a storename.squarespace.com for the initial hundred bucks in sales.
Someone pushed back: “You can’t do that.” And I said, “I’ve done it a bunch of times.” In fact, I found this old website I had — it was “alcoholname.wordpress.com” — and I went and looked at the old stats. It’s still getting 5,000 views a month on a free WordPress.com site. It’s a store — it’s a blog post and a click to PayPal.
What I did was: there was this really unique drink sold in Nashville, and for some reason only one or two stores were carrying it, but it was popular across the country. So I set up an online store to sell it. I made friends with the liquor store and said, “I’m gonna sell this for 3x markup but I’ll buy a bunch from you.” And I did it.
I was an idiot — I didn’t realize the business was growing. I was making a lot of money. I went to the legal team at my college and said, “Hey, I think my business is working really well, do I need an LLC?” And they were like, “Oh, you’re breaking the law. You can’t sell this without a liquor license.”
It was a very rare whiskey in a particular bottle that was a collector’s item, and I thought it was just a collector’s thing — I didn’t even know if people were going to drink it. It was making like $1,000 a day sometimes.
I looked at the old blog post and it was hilarious. It reminded me of a simpler time when I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor, building motorcycles in my living room. Life was good.
Sam: The American dream. You were sleeping on a mattress on the floor, building motorcycles in your living room, and selling collector’s whiskey illegally on the internet.
Shaan: I was one of those kids who had an American flag on the wall.
Sam: Oh, I had the American flag. Pretty trashy.
Shaan: So I was looking at my old blog — I couldn’t even remember the password — and I flooded myself a little today.
Sam: The good thing is — and if you’re not watching on YouTube you’re missing half of it — Sam is wearing a Harvard sweatshirt while we tell these stories about illegal whiskey and waiting to poop. Perfect.
Chambers & Partners: The $500M Data Business [00:40:00]
Sam: All right, I have something for you. There’s this company for sale that I came across. Go to chambers.com — Chambers and Partners. Check it out.
Shaan: Like the Harry Potter stuff? Okay, yeah.
Sam: So this website — they’re mostly in Europe but they’re in America too — they put out rankings once a month or once a quarter. They have 200 employees who go out and interview lawyers, talk to past clients, see which cases firms are winning. It’s all done manually — not a lot of tech behind it. They create rankings for best legal firms in different niches, and then they put out these rankings.
If you’re a lawyer, you can pay money and get a plaque — they’ll send you a plaque — and you can use their name in your email signature: “Voted a top lawyer by Chambers.” They also offer a profile on their site — it’s almost like a Wikipedia page where a journalist writes two paragraphs about your firm.
This company does 44 million pounds — call it $60 million in revenue — and 18 million in profit. They’re selling for close to $500 million.
I follow this site called Flashes and Flames, which covers B2B media stuff. It’s a small trade publication. I’m a paying subscriber, which is ridiculous. And I found like eight or nine other businesses — they call them data businesses or intelligence businesses, not really much tech — and right now a lot of them are selling for eight to ten times revenue. I found 10 examples of companies that sold in that range.
Shaan: This sounds like a scheme. Because what they do is they rank you, and then they go, “Hey, if you want a special profile on our website, that’s $4,500 a year.” They send a journalist to write two paragraphs that you put in your email signature. It’s a caper. And I love stuff like this.
JD Power — you know how their logo is like a medallion that looks like a special emblem? It’s a “C” with petals going around it, like a wreath. They’re really playing into the whole thing with their branding.
Sam: I’m gonna create something like this. “Partners Mayonnaise and Partners.” We just rank best condiments. I love these rating businesses.
Shaan: Have you ever done a trademark search yourself? Like, when you start a business and you want to look up if a name is available?
Sam: I’ll do that later once I get going.
Shaan: It’s very hard to sell a company without a trademark.
Sam: Did I sell The Hustle without a trademark?
Shaan: You didn’t have a trademark?
Sam: No. Typically it’s very hard to get acquired without owning your name — it’s a giant liability. If somebody else owns the trademark, you’re six years in and you have to change your name because the more valuable you get, the bigger your exposure.
Shaan: There’s a great story — I think it was an early episode where Moiz came on and told the Native story. They have a deal to sell Native, and as they’re doing due diligence, they’re like, “We don’t have the trademark for Native deodorant.” They try to get it, and someone else already owns it. It was a patent troll in Palo Alto who owned a bunch of names like this. They try to buy it for $20K — no. $200K — no. The guy wanted millions because he knows the business is valuable. They went back and forth — I think they ended up buying it for two million, or something. But they got it in the end.
I’ve had this problem with businesses of mine. I’m like you — “Oh, I don’t need a fancy domain, I don’t need a fancy name, let me just start the business.” And then it gets popular and I’m like, “Okay, I should probably incorporate, do payroll, do all these things I should have been doing.” One of the things that’s hard to correct going backwards is if you chose a name that wasn’t right.
I went on the USPTO search website — imagine the DMV, but online — and I searched for my brand name and nothing came up. But it turns out there’s a fancier way to search that accounts for slight variations: name with an “S” at the end, associated words that would make it too close. I didn’t know that. I was so frustrated with the interface.
Trademarkia: The Better USPTO [00:48:00]
Shaan: And then I found a business that does this — Trademarkia.com. It’s like “trademark” with “ia.” If you compare the USPTO side-by-side with this, it’s night and day. The USPTO you’re just trying to find where you even search for trademarks. Trademarkia just says, “Search 11 million trademarks for free” — search bar, type your brand name, done.
So I typed in “The Hustle” and it tells me what trademarks exist, who owns them, what categories. HubSpot owns it now — it says “The Hustle” is pending, filed December 3rd, 2022.
Sam: When did I sell?
Shaan: December of 2021. So yeah, they filed it after. It also looks like you abandoned one in 2020 — somebody on your team tried and didn’t get it.
So I reached out to the guy who owns Trademarkia. He lives in the Bay Area. He goes, “Yeah, it’s a really cool website. We have $5 million in ARR — it was declining from the peak, but I just came back to the company, removed the subscription, and I’ve got big plans. I want to go for the billion-dollar outcome.”
I was like, “Dude, I think you have a five million dollar cash cow that you could probably get to eight or nine with some simple tweaks. Chill.”
Sam: This is the beauty of these businesses — hidden in plain sight. This one took a public data set and put a much more user-friendly wrapper on top. Versus what you were talking about with Chambers, where they created their own proprietary data set.
Shaan: Exactly. Someone from CBM Sites said it: “We just take public data that’s messy and make it a little easier to read.”
Also — “My First Million” is owned by Advanced Magazine Publishers, which is a big company in New York. It’s registered as an “entertainment services” trademark — specifically “an online non-downloadable video series featuring star athletes explaining their life as millionaires.” That’s the GQ thing that shows up when I search on YouTube.
Sam: Badass. I love this. I’m gonna go trademark this before the episode comes out.
The Native Deodorant Branding Story [00:54:00]
Shaan: Funny story about Native deodorant — I’ve never brought this up to you. Your Hustle office and Twitch’s office were about 50 yards from each other on the same block. There was a little cafe that I really liked. Walking by it one day, I noticed it was called Native, and their logo looked exactly like Native deodorant. And I put two and two together that Moiz worked nearby.
If you Google “Native Co SF,” you’ll see their Yelp page. They’ve changed their logo to green now, but it used to be blue — the exact same blue as Native deodorant. White background, same blue. I have a feeling that Moiz was thinking about branding, looked out the window, and said, “That’s my name. That’s my logo.”
Sam: Isn’t that exactly what it was? The domain was also native.co for him.
Shaan: It was. Same logo, same name, same color. He must have just walked down the street and said, “Yep, that’s mine now.” There’s that meme of a stick figure handing something to another stick figure saying “hey, I made this” and the second one going “I made this.” That’s basically what happened.
Sam: I wouldn’t say “stealing” exactly, but…
Shaan: That one looks like he actually took a screwdriver, took their sign off their office, and moved it across the street. It’s the exact logo.
Sam: I saw that for years and was like, “Huh,” and never put two and two together. Now they’re shut down. The cafe closed during COVID. He sold his business for $100 million, and poor Cafe Native shuts down.
Copycats, Originality, and What Actually Works [00:57:00]
Shaan: Have you seen people ripping us off?
Sam: In the next two weeks you’re gonna see Twitter threads, LinkedIns, short videos on TikTok, other podcasts talking about the exact same stories we tell here. There’s a group of like 10 people that just take our content and tell the exact same story. They’re gonna be like, “Dude, Dave Ramsey — how Dave Ramsey built a $600 million empire” with animations. They literally steal our shtick. It’s kind of annoying.
Shaan: There’s nothing wrong with taking ideas and remixing them, but most people just take the same idea and tell the same story the same way we already told it. If you’re gonna do that, give credit at least.
Sam: Yeah — I think that’s a slightly better way to do it. But whatever.
This is why I have a new project I’m announcing in about a month. I’ve been working on this for almost a year and I didn’t want to announce it because of copycats. Building in public is not cool when you’re popular. Building in public is really cool when you want to get popular.
Shaan: When I started Milk Road we had tons of copycats. Some people would just Google Translate the newsletter into Spanish and publish it. Someone tried to buy the Milk Road and failed, then tried to copy it. They rarely work.
Sam: Where I kind of expected them to work — like, if people take our content and write a Twitter thread about it, it does pretty well for them. But the full copy — the whole newsletter copy thing — for some reason that doesn’t work.
Shaan: I know why. People who have been raised on the internet have a very high detector. And the best way to circumvent someone’s detector? You don’t. People can sniff this out. If they read something and it feels like an uncool older guy trying to act like a cool younger person, they know. It’s KFC’s “Not Quite Right” locations in China — same menu, but it just doesn’t taste right. The taste buds reject it.
Sam: I believe that when it comes to copying a product I’ve tried — I’m just going to use the original. But in markets where you’re reaching a new audience who hasn’t heard of the original, I’m surprised it doesn’t work. My theory is: it’s the Iceberg Theory. What you see at the top is five percent of the total mass. When people try to copy a business, they only see the five percent. They don’t know what goes on underneath — the people, the personalities, the engine coming up with creative ideas, the next marketing thing when this one starts to decline. That’s typically the uncopyable thing.
But I’m honestly surprised more of them don’t work, because if you’re sufficiently talented, I think it sadly does work more often than it doesn’t.
Rocket Internet and the Art of Copying [01:02:00]
Shaan: We should do an episode about things people have copied that became better than the original. The Samwer brothers — three brothers in Germany with a company called Rocket Internet. It was basically a clone factory. They cloned Amazon, Zappos, Uber, things like that, but before they started that company they cloned other businesses and sold them back to the originals. They cloned eBay in Germany and sold it back to eBay for $90 million in like three months. Then they were going to do the same thing with Groupon, but they got bigger than Groupon and realized, “Oh wow, once you get huge this business sucks — we gotta offload it.” They tried to do it with Zappos too, but they got bigger than the original, so they couldn’t sell. Their strategy didn’t pan out other than Hellofresh — they copied Blue Apron and Hellofresh worked.
Sam: There’s an art to copying. We could do a whole podcast on: “If you’re gonna copy, here’s how to do it in a way that feels good to your soul, works for customers, and actually succeeds.” I think Geographic differentiation is one of the key factors — same business, different country. The Samwer brothers are a great example of when that works. But there are traps with that too.
Shaan: All right — where do you want to finish up?
The Gentleman’s Agreement [01:06:00]
Sam: There’s one thing we should do. Basically, at this podcast — My First Million — unlike every other content on YouTube, it’s actually not free. Not a free podcast. Because what you have to do, if you’ve seen more than one episode, is do something called the Gentleman’s Agreement. It’s an honor code. You have to go and click Subscribe on YouTube — because we’ll get more subscribers, that helps the algorithm, we get more views, and we’ll do more dumb stuff for you.
It’s called the Gentleman’s Agreement because we’re not behind you to stare at your screen. Honor system.
Shaan: I have an addendum that came from a listener. She pointed it out and said, “Not only have I signed the Gentleman’s Agreement, I’ve signed the Ladies’ Understanding.”
Sam: The Ladies’ Understanding — that stopped me in my tracks. What’s that?
Shaan: The Ladies’ Understanding is when you also click subscribe on the podcast app and Spotify. You go that extra mile.
Since we started doing this — we were at 145,000 subscribers on YouTube about 45 days ago. Now we’re at 180,000. And I’m looking at a tweet right now where someone goes, “Watching on YouTube is better than Spotify” — and yes, it is way better.
What I think we should do to really juice the agreement: create content that only makes sense when you watch it. My proposal: we go through a pitch deck and take one from average to awesome — show how we’d tweak the copy, make it look better. Use a real one. Put that only on the YouTube channel.
Sam: No — on YouTube, we should log into chase.com and show my checking account. We’ll react. We won’t say the number. That’s it.
Shaan: That’s genius. This is why you complete me. I gave you a mediocre idea, you gave me the “yes, and.”
Sam: The “yes, and” is the corniest thing the startup world tried to take from improv people. Improv people are one step below a cappella people in terms of nerds. Have you ever been around an improv person? It’s like being around someone who does CrossFit — just stop talking about it. Improv people are exhausting. They’re like a blind Jack Russell terrier that’s just yapping and going everywhere and you can’t stop them.
Shaan: You did improv, so you can confirm.
Sam: I can confirm I was that person. And a cappella is the worst of the worst. I remember hanging out with people from New England and they were bragging about a cappella, and I was like, “Dude, shut up.” If I’m ever trapped on a subway and they do a flash mob and start singing around me, I’m gonna start vomiting. Just outrageous them.
Shaan: That’s the pod.