Isaac French, a 24-year-old former bookkeeper from a faith-based intentional community near Waco, Texas, built Live Oak Lake — a seven-cabin micro-resort — from $119,000 in savings, sold it two and a half years later for $7 million. Sam and Shaan dig into the full story: finding the land, financing with family equity, getting suspended from Airbnb on day one and discovering Instagram influencer marketing as a result, and the hospitality details (handwritten notes, fresh-baked cookies, automated messaging) that drove 95% occupancy and 80% direct bookings. They also cover Isaac’s blueprint for others to replicate the model, the viral Twitter thread about his father’s $2,000 train car, and a window into the intentional community where Isaac lives.
Speakers: Sam Parr (host), Shaan Puri (host), Isaac French (guest, founder of Live Oak Lake)
Introduction: Sam Explains Why Isaac Is Here [00:00:00]
Sam: All right, so Shaan, I wanted to have Isaac on because we talk a lot about making money on this podcast — but I’ve been with Isaac at his home a bunch, and I’ve gotten to know him, and he’s inspired me to believe that money isn’t the only reason for business. It’s about craftsmanship. It’s about creating your little corner of the universe according to your vision.
I wanted to have him on the pod because I think he’s different than a lot of the guests we’ve had on here. Let me explain how I met Isaac. I saw that he had this amazing website for his Airbnb. It said Isaac French owns this place — he’s a former accountant turned real estate mogul, but he’s really most passionate about painting and being an artist. And I was like, this kid is the most interesting person I’ve ever read about. What the hell? So I just called him. We became friends on the phone and eventually met up in real life, and he’s kind of blown my mind as I’ve gotten to know him.
Sam: So when I met Isaac — I met him in a business context — he had this vibe where he was like, “The right way to do this business is doing this, this, and this.” When you say you met him in a business context, what context did you meet him in?
How Isaac Met Sam [00:01:30]
Isaac: Sam, can I tell a tiny story here about that?
Sam: Yeah, yeah.
Isaac: So shout out Zach — he’s cool, he introduced us. He introduced me to Sam, at least. I had no idea who Sam was. Basically I started texting this guy named Sam, and I couldn’t really give a rip. I had just built Live Oak Lake, which I’ll get to in a second — and here’s this guy Sam who Zach told me was some business mogul. So I started texting him, and he was like, “Oh, this is super cool,” whatever. I told him all my numbers, and then the next morning he was like, “Hey, I’m about to make a post on Twitter. You should join so I can shout you out.” I was like, “I don’t have Twitter — that’s a total waste of time. Good luck.” He was like, “No, you should really make an account.” I was like, “No, whatever.” So he made this post that kind of blew up — it got like millions of views. Halfway through that process I was like, “Maybe I should go ahead and join.” The rest is history, because I absolutely love the ability to connect with other people online and share what I’m all about.
But that was my introduction to Sam. It was not as a fanboy — just this random dude on the internet who started texting me about business.
Sam: His numbers, Shaan — they’ll blow you away.
Shaan: I’m ready to be blown away. What are the numbers?
The Live Oak Lake Story: Vision to Build [00:03:00]
Isaac: Let me just tell you a quick story about Live Oak Lake, if that’s all right, because it’s pretty cool. I was a bookkeeper, and I had this dream. I was 24 years old, just gotten married. I had this dream to create an immersive, cohesively designed village of tiny homes in Texas. I didn’t really have the terminology for it. It’s hard to articulate because I just had this vision for what it would feel like — and I put an emphasis on feel because it was like a vibe I wanted to create.
People started laughing at me, like, “You’re crazy.” I started looking for land for about three months. One morning I wake up, open up Zillow, and there’s this five-acre jungle down the road from me that I’d driven past probably a hundred times but never thought anything of. It had this little cow pond in the middle. I was like, “I should check that out.” I drove over, and when I walked on the property I literally got goosebumps. I was like, this is the place to realize this dream.
Met the realtor, got it under contract. I had $119,000 of savings to my name — again, 24 years old, not bankable by any standards. I had experience in construction because my dad was a plumber and general contractor, and I’ve always been an artist, so I’ve always designed.
Sam: How did you get it under contract if you didn’t have any money? What did you pay to put it under contract?
Isaac: I paid like $2,000 of earnest money. But to close with cash in 30 days — it was a super competitive market, this was 2021 in Texas, people were flocking there — and I knew this property. I mean, I was there within hours of when it was listed. I knew it would have been gone by the end of that day. So I was like, I’m going to get it under contract with a due diligence period and then I’ll figure it out.
Sam: How much would you need at the end of that period?
Isaac: $133,000 was the price of the property — which was a really good deal for five acres.
Sam: Just to make this clear: you have $119,000, you put $2,000 down to lock it up. You now have — how many days did you say? 30 days? — where you’re like, “I have faith that I will come up with another $130,000 that I’ve never had in my life.”
Isaac: Of course! Why would I not? You’ve got to have conviction. You’ve got to believe in yourself if you expect anybody else to believe in you. I did have a list of people I thought would be like, “Yeah, these are people I’m going to find to make this dream work.”
Financing: Family Equity Deal and Bank Loan [00:05:30]
Isaac: So I started calling people. My brothers and my dad have this small general contracting company — that’s where I grew up working. They didn’t have the cash either, but they had access to a line of credit. My hope was that I could get a hard money loan from them to buy the land — to cover the 20% that the bank wouldn’t loan me — and then pay it back once I could refinance the property.
So I called them up, and they were like, “No, we don’t want to give you a hard money loan. We want equity — we like the idea, and we’ll loan you the money through our line of credit.” So great. I gave them a handshake deal that day: 40% equity, and they were going to help with the difference of whatever the bank wouldn’t cover.
Then of course I was going to have to find a loan and go through all the rigor of that. So we get under contract, and literally I hit the ground running. The first three days I spent on the phone with banks, hitting up every local bank I possibly could, and also walking the property all by myself with no phone — just letting the land speak to me about how to build this little micro-resort. Figuring out how each cabin would be positioned, being a little maniacal about the details because I’m a bit of a perfectionist.
Finally I got a bank that said yes. You can imagine — 24-year-old kid rolling in — but I found a local bank who said, “We’ll give you a loan. You have your dad and brothers on board, we want them to co-guarantee it.” They said 80% of the appraised value is what they’d loan.
So they sent an appraiser out. I had drafted up this really primitive pro forma — I didn’t even know what a pro forma was, just this Apple Numbers spreadsheet with my guesstimate on what the property would cost and what it would bring in, sensitivity analysis for occupancy. They probably laughed their heads off. But I gave them that along with napkin sketches of what the cabins were going to look like, my drone photos of the site plan, and the appraiser came back saying this is going to cost 1.8 million. The bank said we’ll loan you 80% of that — so a million and a half, if your dad and brothers co-guarantee.
My estimate was that the project would cost around two million, so we had about a $500,000 shortfall — which wasn’t great. Long story short, it actually cost us 2.3 million.
Spec Home Side Hustle and Getting to Completion [00:08:30]
Isaac: So here’s the deal — the spec home market was booming in Texas at that time. I was like, all right, we’re going all in, I’ve got to make this work. I bought another five acres down the road, built a $750,000 spec home in four months, sold it, and profited $200,000 from that home. I was able to roll all of those profits directly into this project. Of course I maxed out every credit card, put in my $119,000, my dad and brothers brought their line of credit, and we got the project done — nine and a half months, start to finish. Absolutely wild. Post-COVID supply chain issues were insane. I was designing it as we went. It was the wildest year of my life.
On top of that, I broke my pelvis about seven months into the project.
The Airbnb Suspension and Direct Bookings Discovery [00:10:00]
Isaac: We opened in January of 2022. Two weeks later, I woke up one morning, opened the Airbnb app, everything’s grayed out — suspended. Probably a top-ten worst feeling I’ve ever had in my life. I called their customer support, couldn’t get a hold of anybody. No warning, no explanation. I felt completely kicked in the gut.
So I was like, all right, we’ve got to figure out direct bookings. Long story short, I found this travel influencer who lived about an hour away. I didn’t even know what that was, but by digging I stumbled upon them. They said, “Pay us $950, we’ll make a giveaway post about your property.” I sent them photos, two days later they made the post — seven days later we had $40,000 of direct bookings through our website. I had whipped up a website overnight. $40,000 of direct bookings and 5,000 Instagram followers from scratch.
As you can imagine, that was my Eureka moment on direct bookings and Instagram. Six days later we got restored on Airbnb — so the timing was perfect, it was a glitch in their system — but the direct bookings game was on fire.
That first year was a whirlwind: 95% occupancy overall with seven cabins, starting from zero. 80% of all bookings were direct.
Here’s the deal about direct bookings — OTAs, the online travel agencies like Airbnb, their fees are roughly 15%. If you can capture the customer direct, you make that 15% margin back, you get the customer’s email so you can retarget them, you can never be deplatformed, and you’re reaching a more aspirational guest. They’re booking from Instagram, not Airbnb, so they’re not price shopping. They see these immersive videos and think, “We’ve got to come stay here.” We had guests come back three or four times in one year because we could retarget them and because the experience was just — wow.
Sam: And you sold this — what, four years in? — for how much?
Isaac: Two and a half years in. We sold for seven million. Last October. Two and a half years after starting construction.
The Sale: Numbers and the Brand Premium [00:13:00]
Sam: All right, guys, back to the show. Let’s just recap here. You go buy land — $130,000 for the land. You had never built things like this. You’d done some construction, some plumbing projects, but had you ever built a cabin before?
Isaac: No.
Sam: And you built these yourself or subcontracted?
Isaac: I subcontracted, but I was in there on ladders doing stuff myself — that’s how I broke my pelvis.
Sam: So you build seven cabins, the whole project buildout was going to be two million, ended up being 2.3. You also sold a separate spec property just to help fund it. You didn’t pre-sell anything on this property?
Isaac: Correct.
Sam: Nine and a half months to get all seven cabins live — that’s amazing post-COVID. And then you start renting them out. What was the average nightly rate?
Isaac: About $600 a night.
Sam: He was doing 1.1 million a year in revenue. A million a year in revenue, $500,000 of profit. And you sold this thing for $7 million.
Shaan: A million dollars a key. Two and a half years after starting construction on the whole thing. And you sold it to who?
Isaac: A small private equity group. We actually listed it. My philosophy is that every material thing should have a price tag. That was controversial — a lot of people who saw the success were like, “You should never sell this, this is lightning in a bottle.” But I was like, no, I’ve learned so much from this process that I could theoretically redo everything way better. And if I ever want to raise money I want to be able to show the full life cycle of a deal.
So we listed it with a broker and got approached by multiple private equity groups. They see the writing on the wall for commoditized short-term rentals and want these one-of-a-kind properties. Most of them need to operate at much bigger scale, but this group was small enough that they were willing to take a one-off property.
Here’s the crazy thing — in the hotel industry you typically have three parties: the real estate, the managing company, and the brand. Well, with this property we had built 150,000 Instagram followers plus 30 or 40,000 people on the email list. We were essentially selling the brand and the real estate together, which is part of the reason we got such a crazy high price for seven cabins in the woods in Texas.
They came along and offered seven million. We negotiated some terms because they wanted to seller-finance some of it, the deal fell through like three times — as you’d expect — they ended up having to get a bunch more debt than they thought, but they came through eventually and we closed last October.
Shaan and Sam React: What Made This Work [00:17:00]
Sam: So the look that you have, Shaan — that’s how I had when I first met him. So when I first met him I was on the phone and I go, “Hey, I’m going to this conference in Idaho — I think you said your parents or you have connections there — do you want to meet me up there? I want to become friends.” Because when I met this kid I was like, you’re amazing. I said, “When I share you on Twitter you’re going to get popular, and just promise me you’re always going to let me invest in anything you ever do from now on.” Because his passion and the way he’s principled — the way he outlines what he’s going to do — I found it intoxicating. Do you get that vibe, Shaan?
Shaan: Yeah. I think the hustle you showed there is great. That’s what successful entrepreneurship looks like. You start with a vision, and then you don’t count yourself out. That was the next most important step. You could have said: I don’t have the money, I don’t have the experience, I don’t have the time, nobody believes in me, I don’t have the network. You didn’t say any of those things. You said: how do I get the money? How do I get the network? What do I need to do to get this right?
And you had a unique insight — that people would want to stay in a more unique experience. And once you turned your disadvantage into an advantage — you turned the Airbnb disaster into, “Oh, wait, I need to find another way to promote this,” and you found a better way. Let’s say Airbnb had never knocked you off the platform and you had never realized you should be using Instagram and influencers. What do you think this property would have been worth had that not happened?
Isaac: Maybe three or four million is my guess.
Shaan: Right. And maybe not even a private-equity-sellable asset. Maybe just another rental property to another real estate owner.
Isaac: Totally. That Airbnb moment — which felt like a complete defeat — ended up being the biggest blessing in disguise I could have ever engineered. I got extremely lucky and was obviously extremely blessed with the project. But it’s become my conviction: if you have an inspiring vision, if you have the ability to communicate it, and you have the conviction to bring that vision to life, you become a magnet for everything you need. That applies to capital, to guests, and on and on. The universe conspires for those with a mission.
Shaan: There are a bunch of stories of people winning massively by having “build it and they will come” mentality. But there are a whole lot more stories of people with that attitude who lose big. That idea — build it and they will come — separates a visionary from someone who’s just building a great business. I like people who point and say, “This is where we’re going.” A lot of times those people fail. More often than not they fail. But I think it’s dope when they succeed.
Sam: Yeah.
Shaan: And I find that different from how I look at life, and I find it inspirational.
The Blueprint: How Anyone Can Do This [00:22:00]
Isaac: You know, people now come to me asking all the time: how do we recreate that success? What I really believe — and I just said this — is that you have to have a vision, and then you have to storytell. Storytelling is the most valuable skill not just in marketing but in building anything.
Shaan: I think this idea of creating these unique spaces, having people fall in love with them online, and that turning into a business that makes you millions of dollars — I think that is an awesome, romantic vision. I know several people in my life who would hear about these and think, “Could I do that?” What are the opportunities you see? Talk to the person listening who’s inspired by this. What’s the two-minute blueprint?
Isaac: Yeah, love it. Huge opportunity. Airbnbs have been commoditized — they’re unrecognizable from each other, no differentiation. So whether this is an old summer camp that could be transformed into a micro-resort, or a roadside motel, or seven cabins around a lake — I’ve got a friend named Brian who had this idea to rethink what houseboats meant. He built one for $200,000 — you can look it up, it’s called Flow Home, F-L-O-H-O-M. It’s like a mini yacht almost. He started renting it out, it went absolutely berserk. Now he’s raised money and is buying marinas. The cool thing about houseboats is you don’t typically fall into the same short-term rental regulations because you’re on the water, so you can be in prime locations — Baltimore Harbor, Annapolis, Washington — with 360-degree views, sometimes in no zoning at all, and zero competition.
Here’s the blueprint I’ve developed. Number one: choose red states over blue, generally speaking, because speed to market is everything. Rural Texas, for example — there’s essentially no zoning, no long permitting process. Go off the beaten path — it’s okay, but you want to be within two hours of a major metro area of a million-plus people. That’s your drive-to destination distance. You’re going to get a lot of two- and three-night stays. You need to be within 15 to 20 minutes of a town that has a coffee shop, maybe a good restaurant — though you can work around that with meal kits, partnering with a local chef or local farmers and making that part of the experience.
Find land that’s super cheap but has natural potential. Trees are kind of a must — you can’t grow a tree overnight, and that’s what Live Oak Lake had. Maybe it has some topography. People love water. Perhaps you can create a water feature.
I’ve got this crazy story — some friends named Kemell and Christine in rural Ohio, the guy is a pastor, had no money. He bought this piece of property and noticed it had an old dilapidated lodge, and down below there was this little cliff with a seasonal stream that only flows a few weeks out of the year. They dug out and dammed up a little pool and put in a pump to recirculate the water so it flows year-round — essentially a waterfall swimming pool. Look it up: it’s called The Cliffs at Hocking Hills. This place has gone mega-viral. They’ve got 600,000 followers on Instagram, booking out every single night two years in advance. That water feature probably cost them $20,000 to $30,000 and has literally created millions of dollars of value both in the brand and in the property.
So: find a property that’s mediocre but has the potential with your vision to create something totally one-of-a-kind. Then architecturally make it beautiful. Infuse unreasonable hospitality into it. You don’t need an on-site concierge — you need touch points that people care about.
The Hospitality Details: Cookies, Handwritten Notes, Automation [00:27:00]
Isaac: When I opened Live Oak Lake, I had this idea: people love to see their name handwritten. So I perfected this process where we would handwrite a card to each guest. Then I partnered with a local bakery five minutes down the road to fresh-bake our own recipe of chocolate chip cookies every single morning.
On the back end, with my software — I pretty much automated the whole property, it was running with about two part-time employees — I gave those bakers access to the property management software. They could see every morning how many reservations were checking in. They’d make the cookies, the cleaners who also had access to the software would pick them up, deliver them, and write the card. So I didn’t have to do any work.
For less than $10 — some fresh-baked cookies, a handwritten card, and a couple of Topo Chicos in the fridge — we made a massive emotional connection with the guest. Not only was it a beautiful architectural and natural experience, but they felt like me as the owner, Isaac, had just left that for them that morning.
In the messaging we did all these automated messages, but we wrote them in a way that was extremely careful and intentional so they felt very fresh and spontaneous. And we turned what would have been a boring house manual into this fun-to-read coffee table book that told our story.
Sam has this phrase about “forgotten areas of copy.” Whether that’s the 404 page on a website or the terms and conditions — you find these overlooked places, spice them up, and make them feel cared for. That’s what we did with Live Oak Lake and the guests absolutely loved it.
Here’s the play: anyone can do this. Anyone can go find the people, put together $100,000, buy a piece of land — yeah, you’re going to have to get a bank loan. I’ve got a community of about 50 people building these properties right now around the country, and the value creation in such a short amount of time, if you execute well, is just off the charts.
Sam: Dude, you’re like one of those toys we just wound up and let go. I love it.
Isaac: No, don’t apologize. Whenever I get done hanging out with you I feel more energy. There’s two types of people — people where you feel worn out when you get done hanging out with them, and people where you feel inspired.
What Can Go Wrong: Traps Smart People Fall Into [00:32:00]
Shaan: What are some ways that a smart person could get this wrong? If I say “I’ve had all this success in e-commerce,” I can also tell you where people go wrong. What are the common traps?
Sam: I’ll take this one. I bought a property, wanted to turn it into something like this, and I basically broke even. I probably made a little bit of money, but it wasn’t a screaming success.
Here’s a list. First: there is no such thing as set-it-and-forget-it passive income when it comes to real estate. If you own it, it’s still a business you have to run. Would you agree with that, Isaac?
Isaac: 99% of the time. Unless you’re an extreme exception. The illusion of total automation is absolutely just that — an illusion.
Sam: Another thing: you actually have to give a damn and care about it. In order to make outsized returns you really have to make it different and special. In my case I was like, “There’s not a lot of this in this part of the country, the picture looks good, I’ll stand out.” That’s why my returns were only okay.
Isaac: I think design is the number one lever you can pull. My friend Hans Libert — absolutely blown up on Instagram recently, 550,000 followers, breaking down interior design in short-form videos — design is the biggest lever in controlling how people feel. Going back to that vibe and feeling you’re creating: hospitality is all about emotional connections with people, with your guests. And you’re in a business that’s notoriously difficult to operate. You live or die based on every single guest interaction.
Going back to raising all the money — this is where a lot of startups fail. They try to scale too fast. They see the Live Oak Lake case study, they invest all that money in hiring designers and spending a ton on ads. The priorities are wrong. You need a story first. You need to be — or be partnered neck-and-neck with — someone who is extremely passionate and wants to tell that story.
Hospitality is all about how you serve these people. Even though I automated most of the property — we had Zapier, six softwares, smart home technology, the place was running like a machine — I was still reading every single review. I was still seeing every single message from every guest. That’s a 24/7 thing. That’s intense any way you cut it. When you don’t have somebody who cares about that, or you don’t have the right employees who can operate it with an owner’s mentality, you’re going to suffer.
There’s this great Tim Ferriss quote: “There’s a glut of mediocrity in the world. Please don’t contribute to it.” That applies to the design, the operations, the hospitality — all of it. If you come with the right mindset, chances are you’re absolutely going to succeed.
Online Business vs. Physical Business: A Debate [00:37:30]
Sam: You know, Shaan, you and I make money on the internet. When you make money on the internet, the barrier to entry is really low — it’s really easy to have an idea and turn it into something quickly. Because of that, I think I’ve gotten into a habit of creating things that were — to use a funny pun — subpar. Very little passion involved, very little excellence. Have you ever felt like that? Like you’re making something that’s just not high quality even though it’s making money?
Shaan: Honestly, I disagree. The barrier to entry is low, yes — it’s easy to play, but it’s not easy to win. Anytime I’ve tried to do something online I threw my all into it. I wasn’t necessarily very good, so even if I got a mediocre result it wasn’t due to lack of effort — it was due to lack of skill, or I made something really good that nobody wanted. It was just the wrong problem to solve.
Yes, it’s easy to try something online. I don’t think it’s easy to win at something online. I don’t think you can get away with sucking online.
Sam: How do you define winning?
Shaan: Whatever hitting my goals for it means — something that actually grows, that is sticky, that’s profitable. Because the barrier to entry is so low there’s so many people playing, and to actually do something that captures people’s finite attention is still hard.
Sam: We have so many friends who are popular on the internet and they make crappy stuff — crappy by our standard, not by the customer’s standard.
Shaan: Right. I was thinking about this the other day. Jimmy — Mr. Beast, who is friendly with us and obviously super successful on YouTube — he just got his production document leaked. Did you guys see this?
Isaac: I read the whole thing.
Shaan: I actually want to do a whole bigger thing on it so I don’t want to go too deep, but one amazing thing is you get to see inside his mind and why he’s so successful. But if you read the document, you would think he’s making the greatest videos the world has ever seen. When in actuality, it’s sort of like asking: who makes the best burgers? Is it McDonald’s, who has the most popular burgers? Is it Five Guys, whose taste is a bit better? Or is it the chef in New York who makes one unbelievable $36 burger that would make you laugh at a McDonald’s burger next to it?
Mr. Beast has decided to be McDonald’s on the internet. He’s creating videos that are mass market, that are going to get the most views — even if they’re not the most life-changing or beautifully told stories. So I think there’s just — it’s hard to say what “the best” is. The friends of ours who we think make mediocre content that still works — they’re doing the McDonald’s thing. They’re giving people fast food content. And who’s to say what’s better? It depends on your goals.
The Viral Twitter Thread: Train Car and Cat Wars [00:43:00]
Isaac: Can I tell you a crazy story about Twitter and going viral?
Sam: What do you got?
Isaac: Actually, Shaan, I need to publicly thank you — your episode on how you write with David, about storytelling, was golden. I don’t know how many people I referred to that episode. About four or five months ago, Alex Lieberman made a post — he was like, “I just watched this interview with Aaron Sorkin about stories and I’m entranced. I want to go down that rabbit hole.” When I saw that, it resonated with something I was already feeling. I wouldn’t consider myself naturally a great storyteller, but I was like, I feel like I can learn this skill.
So I went down the rabbit hole. I listened to podcasts, read books, took courses on copywriting and writing. Then I was like, okay, I’m going to figure this out and try it. First of all, I’d taken an eight-month break from Twitter — I’d stopped posting entirely last fall and just recharged. You can’t constantly go — you’re like a battery, you’ve got to recharge.
But I came back kind of guns blazing in June with all this knowledge I’d been accumulating. Right out the gate I had like a six million view thread. People were like, “Threads are dead, the algorithm’s trash” — and literally one after another, the last ten threads I’ve written without exception have averaged like a million views apiece.
Then one of them went totally crazy. I wrote a thread about this train car my dad — it’s pinned to the top of my profile if you want to look at it.
Shaan: I saw that one.
Isaac: I stayed up all night. I spent eight hours writing it — I’d just finished Sam’s “Copy That” course for the second time, so it was fresh on my mind. And I wrote this thread. I knew I was probably being a little controversial. The hook: “My dad bought this 120-year-old train car for $2,000. It was a rotting cat-infested wreck.” I had no idea how controversial that would be.
I said: “But after investing $147K and five months of work, we redeemed it. Today it’s one of the most profitable and exclusive stays in the country. Here’s what happened.”
Sam: And the cat people lost their minds.
Isaac: About 30% of the population — I’ve come to believe — are these cat-loving Karens. And I love cats too — I was not meaning disrespect to the cats when I said that. But these people read the whole thread and then absolutely murdered me in the comments. “What happened to the cats?” “The cats were the landlords, they should have kicked you out.” Machine gun fire. It was crazy.
So on top of what was already a pretty good hook and a good story, we had jet fuel poured on the fire by the cat lovers. And then — did Brian Chesky comment on that?
Sam: Brian Chesky reposted it twice in one day. Joe Gebbia reposted it. Paul Graham quote-tweeted it. Like 20 million views total in the first day.
Isaac: And here’s another crazy thing — there are journalists who lurk on X that you don’t know about because they have like 300 followers. Within about two days I got invites for coverage. In the two or three weeks since I wrote that post, the story has been featured in the New York Post, Vice, Business Insider, Fast Company, The Daily Mail. Cody Sanchez is coming to do a YouTube video. Tens and tens of millions of views total.
You’re just really creating surface area for luck when you post on Twitter. It’s basically proof of concept — journalists see something resonating and think, “We should post about this too.”
Shaan: I love that story. I checked out the thread, it’s great. But I think the real lesson is: yeah, there were some nice copywriting techniques, and it’s cool that you decided this is all a skill I can learn. But the real reason it went viral is because of what you guys actually did. You took this rotting, beaten-up train car and turned it into something cool. Without that underlying story, you could obsess over all the sentences you want — that story goes nowhere.
The best content creation: go do amazing things in your life, then learn some best practices about how to talk about them. That’s a much better approach than learning the amazing skill of writing hooks while never doing anything amazing in your life.
Isaac: Totally. And I want to start doing short-form video, but I love writing and Twitter helps me think better. I genuinely enjoy the process of having to write concisely. It’s a skill I just wanted to attack. The process of clarifying your thoughts by writing tweets, where every single word counts, building a slippery slope that people fall down — I absolutely love that process, not just for the production value but for what it does to my own thinking.
But yeah, the iteration will probably be: I prove these story concepts in Twitter threads, and then I basically have all my heavy lifting done and I just throw together a green screen video talking about it on Instagram and TikTok. Eventually I want to do YouTube — there’s insane loyalty and monetization through that.
Sam: But dude, why are you on Twitter? You need to be on TikTok. You’re on the wrong platform.
Isaac: I know, I know.
Isaac’s Intentional Community Near Waco [00:52:00]
Sam: Originally when I told Shaan about you, he was like, “Sounds like an Amish guy who likes money.” And I was like, “Yeah, I guess that’s an interesting description.”
Shaan: And the next two words were: “I’m in.”
Sam: And let’s just say — to someone who’s not entrenched in this — Isaac, your community is similar-ish to Amish. What do they think about you being this popular internet guy? Do they even know? Are you sinning by being on this podcast right now?
Isaac: All right, we’re going way back, but I’ll try to be brief. My wife’s grandparents actually founded this community 51 years ago. It started as an inner city mission in the slums of Manhattan. They had actually been atheists but had these radical life-changing experiences with God, became Christians, and felt called to start this mission there.
It was unlikely beginnings, but basically a motley crew of folks from all backgrounds — a lot of people who were disaffected with life — came together and a core group started coalescing, and a church was founded. But then a few years into it, they were all young parents and they realized: we need a culture where we can raise our kids that will sustain the values we care about — family, our faith. So they started looking for land outside the city.
Long story short, they all moved — about 200 people — to western Colorado, which was like the middle of nowhere for people who’d spent their whole lives in New York City. That’s where my parents were. They recently graduated high school in western Colorado, encountered this group of people being called a cult by all the locals, but had these transformational experiences, came to God, and joined the group. In Colorado they learned all these skills — how to live off the land, how to grow your own food, how to work with your hands, traditional skills like woodworking, pottery, blacksmithing. Then they picked up and moved to Texas in the early ’90s.
We have a piece of property — about 450 acres just outside of Waco. There’s about 1,200 people in this Texas branch. About a third of those actually live on that property; the rest live on their own places nearby. We’re not common purse — we put a huge emphasis on individual responsibility — but we strive for simplicity.
Sam: Just explain it like this. If I live in a cookie-cutter suburb of California and I went to visit where you guys live, what would seem most different to me?
Isaac: We don’t have TVs in our homes. We don’t really have internet in our homes. About 95% of the community is either self-employed or works for each other, so we live this agrarian lifestyle. We grow gardens. We do use technology — this is one of the ways we’re different from the Amish — our whole philosophy is we want to control it versus being controlled by it. I grew up on a farm taking care of animals. I was homeschooled. I have nine siblings.
Sam: By the way, Shaan and I stayed in the community. I would joke with Isaac: “Isaac, I’m an atheist, don’t try to convert me to any of this stuff, but I would love to explore and learn about your community.” When I went there, they believe — I’m going to kind of summarize it, Isaac — they believe that in order to show they’re close to God and everything, they’re craftsmen in everything they do. So they have this restaurant where they make all their own food. They built a beautiful church. I went to their Easter thing — there were these women singing. I swear to God, it sounded like a Black choir in Harlem — the most stylish, best singers I’ve ever heard in my life. Because they studied it and perfected it.
And Isaac had this vibe where it was like, “Oh, the right way to do this business is doing this, this, and this.” So in order to learn Instagram, I have to study it, and then I’m going to execute perfectly.
Isaac: Like I said, we use technology and we use media — I’m kind of one of the first who’s pioneering that in the community. But we want to tell our story. We just don’t want to substitute for the substance of the community that we’ve intentionally created over decades by using social media — which innately is just a virtual world. We’re trying to find ways to do both.
Shaan: Because I feel like Sam got you hooked on sugar and you hadn’t had sugar. You love vegetables, all these earthy flavors — and then Sam was like, here, have some sugar. And now you’ve had the viral sugar. The feeling of going viral, making millions of dollars, everybody loving your story and some people hating your story. You now tasted that. How has that messed with your brain?
Isaac: Man, it’s tough. That’s one of the reasons I took the eight-month break — I felt like it was becoming a distraction from what really is a lived life. I have a family, we have a little boy, we have another on the way. I have this amazing community life.
Work-life balance is a very real thing. But I feel like if there’s an overarching guiding principle where work and life and family and play can all fit in together, they don’t need to constantly feel like they’re in conflict. In order to make that happen I need people in my life who hold me accountable and are real with me. I’ve had plenty of that. Some friends who know me well have been very honest with me — at times critical — and I totally love and respect them for that.
Sam: What’d they say?
Isaac: Things like, “The way you came across here was bragging,” or “The way you said that was maybe not completely right.” It was more like asking questions. Nobody tells you what to do here — we’re very voluntarily open to that. They’d be like, “Is that consistent with the way you would talk to so-and-so?” Basically, we want to be careful that the version of me you see on the internet is exactly what you’re going to get in person. There’s just that inevitable conflict. But I feel like I’ve learned a ton through it. I probably need to delete the app from my phone and just use it on desktop — I have a lot of friends who do that.
The Two Urges of Every Family Man [00:01:04:00]
Sam: Shaan, I think every man, once he has children and becomes a family man, has two urges. The first is to be in some type of situation where he can exert force — use a little bit of violence to be a hero. Like a man robs a bank and you stop it — you’re the hero, patrolling Main Street just in case something goes down and you might be needed. The tough guy who protects everyone.
The second thing is to live on a farm with your family and your community and everyone lives this little socialist hippie life together.
I went to Isaac’s area. Isaac was like, “Hey, check this out — I just planted a hundred apple trees and a bunch of fruit trees. In about three years these are going to bloom.” I’m like, “Nice, you’re going to have a lot of fruit. Are you going to eat all that fruit?” He’s like, “No, it’s for everyone.” I’m like, “Well, you’re going to have to take care of this.” He’s like, “No, I just told everyone in the community I planted these trees and we’re going to make a schedule, chip in and tend the trees, and then just spread the fruit out evenly.”
Just being there for 24 or 48 hours, I was like, I’m fulfilling that need of seeing this hippie lifestyle.
Did you guys see the David Beckham post, Sam?
Sam: Oh, where he’s growing fruit now or gardening?
Shaan: He went viral because he posted this video on Instagram — he’s in a flannel shirt and an old-timey hat, caption is “Michel is doing well” — and it’s him on his farm beekeeping and gardening. People just went nuts over this trend.
Isaac, I feel like you’ve influenced him, or maybe you should influence him. He might slide into your DMs soon.
Sam: Don’t you feel this urge, Shaan? To just live on a farm with your family and friends and do this together?
Shaan: No, dude. Way too much work. I don’t have that. You’ve got to come visit at least. For me it’s like — I like writing. I don’t know how to paint, I’m not skilled enough to paint. I don’t know how to build. But I want to write a movie, or I want to spend my day playing soccer with my kids. I don’t have the same Roman Empire urges that most guys have. I don’t care about living off the grid, pumping my own water, irrigating something. I don’t want to irrigate nothing.
Sam: That sucks. I guess I’ll go play house in the woods without you.
Shaan: I still want to have Wi-Fi though. This is like the man version of playing house and dress-up.
Rapid Fire: Age, Hospitality, and Closing Quotes [00:01:08:00]
Sam: Isaac, can we do rapid fire to end this? How old are you?
Isaac: 27.
Sam: What’s one thing I can learn from you about hospitality — even though I’m not going to have my own mini hotels — if I just have a guest coming over, an old friend from college?
Isaac: It’s the single most valuable skill to have in life. And you have to be selfish — you have to want to serve other people. I don’t think it’s something you can fake. But I think everybody has that urge inside them. We’re born to serve other people.
Read “Unreasonable Hospitality” if you haven’t already. But basically, look for those little ways I described — like the handwritten note — that are surprising. They’re small but they delight people. Sometimes the smallest acts of kindness and generosity show the biggest hearts. It doesn’t need to be some grandiose thing. You just have to want to serve them and people are going to feel it.
Shaan: Isaac, what you did with Live Oak Lake — and what you’re showing other people doing with floating homes and shipping containers and all of that — it’s amazing. It’s an amazing trend. People should go follow you on Twitter to see more of these.
It is so hard, and for the few people who are capable of putting in the creativity, the passion, the care, the hospitality that it takes to make these successful — that’s amazing. And it’s a reminder: if you want an unreasonable result you sort of have to do an unreasonable thing in certain areas. This is definitely one of those areas.
For me, I would never be able to pull one of these off. Part of me hears your story and thinks, “Oh, I would love to do that.” The bigger part of me who knows myself better says: this is not for you. You have to be exceptional on the real estate development side. You have to be exceptional on the content marketing to go viral so that you can get booked two years out. You have to be exceptional on the hospitality because you have to re-earn the business with every guest’s stay. You are exceptional. You’ve done that. And it’s a good thing to know about yourself — whether this is for you or not. I think it’s a very small subset of the population for whom it is.
Isaac: I appreciate that. Can I close with two quotes that mean a lot to me?
One: “The way you do one thing is the way you do everything.” Sweat the details. Care. Put your heart into whatever you’re going to do. Do it with hospitality. Do it with excellence.
And number two — there’s a quote by this English pastor named John Wesley, from a few hundred years ago. He said: “Light yourself on fire with passion and people will come from miles to watch you burn.” That’s kind of my hope in life. I want people to say, “Well, that’s a life well lived.” I want to be able to say that at the end of my own life.
Sam: That is an amazing quote. I love that quote, dude. Thank you so much. You’re the man. We appreciate you. And we’ll wrap up there — that’s the pod.