Episode of My First Million with Sam Parr and Shaan Puri.
Transcript
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Kind: captions Language: en this was just like to me such a cool clever idea I couldn’t find like their revenue I didn’t have a chance to check but you can go on the site and it’s like to call again I’ve been trying to find what are these deductions how do they work do I do I qualify now interesting market that I saw so my my father-in-law was like yeah you know with solar I was like I don’t want a building he’s like yeah if you own real estate you know you can depreciate the real estate you can do solar I was like I don’t own a building so what do you want me to do here he’s like well you know technically you could buy the solar for another building and lease it to them and then you write off your hole in your capex or whatever and so what I found was there’s this business so if you ever notice there’s a long way of saying never notice when you drive by schools that schools all have solar panels on top now and so if you see in California especially you go everyw middle school high school is just got solar panels all along the roof and the way this works I found out was companies like Chevron and Exxon or whoever they want so they want tax credits and so what they do is they go to the school say hey we will buy solar for your school and they buy solar panels for the school it becomes a tax write-off to them the school leases it from Chevron and so Chevron gets a monthly payment from the school and the school gets lower utilities without ever taking a dollar out of its pocket so I thought this is very interesting and it sort of I don’t know much about this yet and so I may I’m gonna dig into this but it seems like there’s a there’s a business to be had for basically pairing up schools churches other types of entities that want solar they want a lower utility bill they don’t have the money to invest to do this whole infrastructure thing and businesses which are looking for tax write-offs and just make it where you push a button the project happens and you receive your paperwork that says here’s your deduction and here’s your income stream coming from the lease so I think there’s a business to be built basically pairing up the two sides of the marketplace a physical building like a school or whatever that needs that wants solar it doesn’t to pay any money he doesn’t to do any work and a company that’s looking for tax write-offs that that’s willing to go give that school solar in exchange for the tax write-off love it I’m gonna tell you something even some very similar as well and this is in the same vein of half very half-baked 10% baked 1% begged most highway medians and government property or public property has grass and the reason it the reason it has grass as grass is the cheapest way to cover land okay but grass is actually incredibly expensive to upkeep like if you’re in a median you have to mow it like the way that the math works out it’s something like I forget the exact there’s there’s math behind us but and then plus having to mow it and water it and do all this stuff it’s incredibly expensive and in LA I have to remember the numbers but in LA I think that like 20 or 30 percent of all water went to watering lawns right and so what they did was they tested this out and they gave turf to their residents they just gave it away they go here right bull here will do it for you yeah and it reduced water usage a significant amount and I started thinking about it I’m like that’s kind of interesting what if you just went to the government and you’re like I’m we’re just gonna let’s let’s just turf all the all the medians in America right and I cuz I heard that NPR they did this whole this whole this whole thing they’re like about how bad grass is and I was like that’s pretty amazing I gotta look into this and I have not looked into it so this I sound like there’s a [ ] idiot this whole episode but let me give you one more okay so here’s okay here’s the general theme of these really random ass topics we’re talking about is when you look around the world and is what I’m now training my brain to do when you look around the world and you see some item or object or patch of grass just think to yourself how did this get here and what you realize is there is a business underneath every single thing like this is what going back to when we said you know in offices you got that poster about like the kind of HR hazards or whatever like the super stupid labor law poster you have to in your office I think it’s a huge business that’s a heel is this I was blind to this right I just saw this poster I didn’t ask how it got there I didn’t ask why it had to be there why every office has this but whoever asked that question realized there’s an opportunity here and they started laminating these [ ] posters making fifty million dollars a year giving you this annual poster that you have to update in your office so that’s the the test for the for the listener is start to look at the world and say how did this get here who wanted this here what is the economics of this again oftentimes the that that’s a good great point Shawn a lot of times when people they don’t think about that stuff and it what if you dug deep a lot of times you could realize that there was some bureaucratic decision that was a [ ] horrible decision right yeah and there could be opportunity could be a totally so a lot of times there’s like a scrappy entrepreneur who comes up with something cool like that side business other times it’s like well why did you guys decide to like make the screws five inches instead of six inches it’s like because like the six on the keyboard was worn out right right alright so here’s another example of these like hidden in plain sight businesses all right you go to a you go to a airport you take a flight you go to baggage claim okay cool night nine times out of ten your bags there now the other ten times out of the out of a hundred or whatever you know your bag is lost and they recover it but there still ends up being this point three percent of luggage that’s never claimed and point three so it goes to ninety-nine point seven percent of luggage I believe is gets claimed and so point three percent of luggage is just unclaimed baggage so I saw this business called unclaimed baggage what they have done is they went and they partnered with every airline and they said to we will take the unclaimed baggage because they have some protocol like I don’t know what it’s like after 21 days if no one claims it now we’re just stuck with this [ ] and somebody was like hey that is not [ ] that’s a suitcase and that’s some stuff inside yeah so they were like David seen the 16 minutes episode on this it was like I’m not serious Alabama Birmingham Alabama I believe your play there based somewhere random it’s the yeah they have a physical store in where’s yeah Alabama Scottsboro Alabama yeah I know this company well I love it so you can go to their website unclaimed baggage calm it’s there’s things as the nation’s only retailer of lost luggage that caught my eye anytime you say only that means I locked up an exclusive on this [ ] I’m so happy that I can be the only player which means I’m gonna extract a lot of value here so what they do is they donate a bunch of stuff that they get into bags to charities cool there’s a feel-good component to this they take orphaned bags and they recycle them they sell them or they donate them and those three combined or a business and so this was just like to me such a cool clever idea I couldn’t find like their revenue I didn’t have a chance to check but you can go on the site and it’s like to call again unclaimed on cane bag it’s like you’ll buy this there’s a Rolling Stones collector’s limited edition leather motorcycle jacket for five hundred dollars up on up for auction on this thing what’s it called uncle unclaimed baggage unclaimed baggage calm well we could find this out I I remember sixty minutes but it did a big like expose on the a while ago and it was like oh uh they they have like tens of thousands of square French right yeah they’re huge huge facility there the other one that’s like this which i think is more popular people know about this more is the group that takes the okay you go to a hotel you use you know two squirts of shampoo out of the mini bottle and now there’s still three squirts left and then you check out and they can’t they don’t want to give that empty half-empty bottle to the next guest so they ditch it and so some guy was like wool that’s a lot of waste of plastic and shampoo and so someone started going into hotels and partner and said I will take all your used shampoo bottles conditioner bottles body wash whatever and so they built a huge business just recycling this I love that they take it they reuse the goods they donate certain things to charity and it’s such a good business it’s like doing good while doing well and I think those are great I love that here’s why I just googled so Doyle Owens is the founder of Unclaimed Baggage he’s he’s dead now he died recently and if you google I’m he’s just like an old Southern right white looking to I mean just a normal ass looking dude and a guy who watches Billy Madison three times a day well the reason why I like him is because or I like this is because I think that people tend to overcomplicate things and like I’m very passionate about the mission of reducing waste just like just like the idea of don’t consume what you don’t have to consume and just don’t be wasteful I was raised Catholic I’m like this idea of like gluttony and like waste it just says it’s in my blood I hate it this [ ] guy this is like the definition of just like turn and [ ] into gold of just like right she’s just like it’s a super simple it’s not fancy it’s an Alabama which you know I’m from the south so but no disrespect to the south but like people look down on that [ ] because I think they’re in Silicon Valley but they’re special and he’s just that this guy reduced waste significantly and got very wealthy in the process right loved it and created he probably created maybe thousands of jobs for like low-income people this guy’s the best I love this if you have if you know about a business like this I’ll call the hidden in plain sight you know super simple ideas just things that when you look around the world most people just take them for granted and then somebody out there’s like no wait how did this get here who picks this up when it’s done what’s the business of that tweet those at me I want to know what other businesses are like this out there did you joint did you make a life to get them do you make that term up no I think they use that term for like serial killers that are just in society so like that’s where I’ve heard it it’s like for criminals in some way but I don’t know yeah it’s a phrase do Doyle Owens is this guy’s name who started Unclaimed Baggage I love this guy Doyle I hope you listen to this he’s dead sorry I said you know dad I’m looking at a [ ] where he’s dead damn this guy is [ ] awesome don’t no one go into this market I want this family to be I love this family three seconds of silence for Doyle [ ] there’s a big newer time this is I got to cover this on the hustle this is a super interesting story an example of this that you guys covered on the hustle is the mannequin lady in Oakland yeah takes you know I guess either used or damaged mannequins out of stores because again what are you gonna do with this hunk of plastic like who needs this mannequin and she’s just got a warehouse of mannequins and then ships them out and makes it killing so so there that’s another example of these Oh like these are parts of the world that you didn’t realize are businesses you [Music]