Sam and Shaan dig into Craig Fuller’s Flying Magazine playbook — buying a niche aviation publication and using its ultra-wealthy readership to pre-sell $25M+ in plots at a private airstrip community in Atlanta. They also discuss Substack’s misleading subscriber growth metrics, the Parcast true crime podcast network that sold to Spotify for $100M+, and Crumble Cookies’ explosive growth to $1B+ in revenue as a franchise.
Speakers: Sam Parr (host), Shaan Puri (host)
Opening Tease: Content to Commerce Done Right [00:00:00]
Sam: And again, remember — a percentage of their readers are ultra-wealthy people who are like, “Yeah, I want a home on the East Coast where I can park my private plane, and that’ll be one of my hubs.” I’m pretty sure — I don’t know the exact numbers, but I can triangulate — I think they’ve done at least $25 million in pre-sales on this thing. That is crazy. It could easily be double that. But that is a really awesome and impressive way to take a niche hobby, find a media publication that works, and go content to commerce.
Flying Magazine and Craig Fuller [00:01:00]
Shaan: I have something for today that I know about — that I’ve mentioned before without saying the name. Craig Fuller. Now we can mention it.
Sam: Did you get permission?
Shaan: Yeah, I think so. Some of this is public. So there’s this business called Flying Magazine, or Flying Mag. When you look at it you’re like, okay, what is this? A guy bought this magazine called Flying Mag. It produces a beautiful publication — amazing photos. If you’re a flying or aviation enthusiast, you will love this magazine.
He bought it for — I think somewhere between five and ten million dollars. My guess is closer to one.
Sam: I’ve got a source saying “high seven figures.”
Shaan: Okay, so high seven figures for a magazine — which seems like a pretty indulgent purchase, unless you’ve got money to burn. Before this, he started a company called FreightWaves, which is basically a data company for the freight shipping industry — price reporting, data for shippers and freight companies. They also have a SaaS tool called Sonar. They released a public report showing $13 million in revenue for one quarter — so roughly $50 million a year annualized — with about $28 million cash on the balance sheet.
So Craig starts FreightWaves, then separately buys Flying Mag.
The Readers: Uber-Nerds Who Are Also Rich [00:06:00]
Shaan: One of the interesting things about Flying Mag is who reads a niche magazine like this. You have two categories: uber-nerds, and uber-nerds who are also rich. Because it costs money to be deeply into aviation as a hobby.
We hired an engineer once who had an app on his phone where he’d listen to air traffic control at lunch. Just tuning into the ATC frequency. I had to tell you, never had a worse lunch with anybody. Me, him, and his phone on ATC was our lunch.
Sam: I do the police scanner thing. At least with police there’s a show called Cops. There’s no show called Safe Landings. No show called “Which Way is the Wind Blowing?”
Shaan: Fair enough. But back to Flying Mag — a big percentage of readers are people with private planes. My buddy Furqan sold his company and immediately signed up for flying lessons. He loves that hobby. It’s an expensive hobby.
And one thing Craig did recently that I think is really smart: he’s building a community in Atlanta. He flew himself up from New York to look at a property and asked me to come along. I almost went. And so I’ve known about this for about a year and a half.
Sam: A community for aviation?
Shaan: Yes. It’s like a country club — you know how they build homes around a golf course? Instead of a golf course, it’s a landing strip. So you purchase a plot, they build you a home, and you’re part of an aviation community. The “driveway” of the community is a runway. You can park your plane and just take off.
They pre-sold the plots in this community. And remember — a percentage of their readers are ultra-wealthy people who want a home on the East Coast with a private hangar. I think they’ve done at least $25 million in pre-sales. Probably more.
This is content to commerce. HodinkeeI did it for watches — watch blog for super high-end watches, and when they flipped the switch to actually selling the watches, Kevin Rose came on this podcast and said it went from $1-2 million a year to $100 million in revenue. Flying Mag is doing the same thing: you’ve got a built-in audience of wealthy enthusiasts, and you’re selling them something they actually want.
Sam: Craig told me about this about a year and a half ago and I was skeptical. I thought, this is really bold — I don’t know if you’re going to be able to pull this off. Well, he totally pulled it off.
Our Own Content-to-Commerce Idea [00:14:00]
Sam: We talked about this way back before HubSpot bought the podcast — what would be a better business for My First Million to do besides ads? At the time people were like, “You should create a co-working space or a white-label version of WeWork.” Which sounded crazy. But I actually think there was a version that would work.
If we just bought like an 8-unit or 16-unit apartment building somewhere, and you could only rent there if you were part of our community — people would rather live around like-minded people than around complete strangers. These units could go for a million and a half, two million in San Francisco. And then you’re in the real estate game. Every brand could do this.
But I wasn’t bold enough at the time. I thought it was ridiculous. Now with a little more experience, I actually think it could work.
Shaan: My brain is like a metal detector looking for things that will scare me to do. Where can I get the maximum thrill — the maximum reward plus the risk — and where saying it out loud would make other people pay attention? I’m attracted to those ideas. That’s not always a good thing. I think you’re the opposite. You want to figure it out more before you run in.
Sam: Once the puzzle’s figured out, I lock in and just go. But I get bored after the puzzle’s solved.
Shaan: Exactly. I need to figure out more before I believe the puzzle pieces will fit together. And then once they do, you’re locked in. Your puzzle. I love this puzzle.
Substack Vanity Metrics [00:20:00]
Sam: Can I bring up something that bugs me? Substack has this feature — when you subscribe to one newsletter, they pop up a screen recommending five more. There’s one big “Next” button and a tiny X in the corner. Two out of every ten people going fast just hit the button and they’ve subscribed to five newsletters they didn’t really want.
Substack creators see this and go, “Wow, my growth is crazy! I’m hitting 100,000, 200,000, 300,000!” And I’m sure in their investor presentations they’re showing: “We now drive the majority of subscriber growth for newsletters.” But it’s not a network effect — it’s a giant screen where people click Next.
I used to do this with mobile apps: pop up your entire contact list, everyone pre-checked, one big “Next” button, tiny X in the top left. Everybody wants to skip it, but two out of ten people are going fast and they just hit it and spam all their contacts. My app goes “viral” — but is it viral because people like the product? No. I tricked them into spamming.
Same thing happens with podcasts. There’s a very popular business podcast — I like the guy, but the numbers are suspicious. He tweets things like “2 million people listened to last week’s episode.” There’s just no way. I know where we are in the rankings, where he is. Unless you’re Joe Rogan or the All-In Podcast, which genuinely has a cult following and you can verify it through YouTube views — 2 million listeners for a business and tech podcast of that size isn’t matching up.
I even asked him once. He said something like, “We have a big audience in Asia.” I’ve been in the internet game long enough to know: you can get any number by doing anything on the internet. Podcast downloads especially — if someone clicks subscribe once, it auto-downloads your feed every time you release. Nathan Matka’s podcast: a few thousand subscribers but he releases eight episodes a day, all five minutes long. His total monthly download count is massive because podcast downloads are just subscribers times episodes. Vanity metrics all the way.
Parcast: True Crime Empire Sold to Spotify [00:30:00]
Sam: Have you heard of Parcast? A guy named Max Cutler — our age, early 30s — created this podcast network. All scripted, true crime. He bootstrapped the whole thing, which is basically unheard of for a podcast network. His dad was in radio, and they were producing something like 30-40 episodes a day — all highly produced scripted stuff.
He sold to Spotify for what I originally heard was $200 million — though some sources say $56 million plus a $75 million earnout. Either way, a nine-figure outcome. His dad and he owned the whole company.
Shaan: I like true crime. There’s just so much of it, and a bad one is such a waste of time. What do you listen to?
Sam: Every night I listen to two shows. First: Serial Killers. Just podcasts about serial killers — I’ve got my fantasy league, Ted Bundy as the quarterback. Second, fittingly for going to sleep: Deathbed Confessions. People confessing to crimes they committed while dying. It’s the best. Nicest way to fall asleep.
Parcast makes shows like these — scripted, voice-acted, all true crime. And true crime kills it across the board. If you look at the podcast app top charts, it’s always 30-40 true crime shows. Mostly women listen. Dateline from NBC has been around 20-30 years and is still a top podcast every single week.
Crumble Cookies: The Fastest Growing Franchise in America [00:40:00]
Shaan: So I remember when you brought up Crumble Cookies a while back. In my head I pictured like a mom-and-pop thing — “oh, that’s cute, your aunt makes cookies.”
Sam: No. They’re sharks.
Shaan: Yeah. Some sources say they’re close to $800 million a year in revenue, possibly over a billion. They have 2.3 million app ratings with a 4.9 average. They’re opening a new store every five days — something like 730 stores at the moment. One of the fastest-growing chains in America.
Their numbers: 800,000 followers on Twitter, 3.4 million on Instagram, 6.5 million on TikTok, 1.2 million on YouTube. They create full commercials every single week for a new cookie drop. Every Sunday at 6 PM they do a new drop in the app, and the app just spikes up the charts alongside Uber Eats.
The franchise economics: highest-revenue store in 2021 did $3.6 million. Average was $1.6 million. Highest net profit: $600K. Average profit around $350K. Startup cost: about $150K to open a franchise. The founders send you traffic via their Instagram and app.
The founder — one of the cousins — previously worked in tech. He had a Facebook app that got to 120 million followers. He was Director of Product at Ancestry, which is one of those quietly massive internet companies that nobody admits they use. His first business was BYU.com — a social network for Brigham Young University students, grew to half the campus before Facebook swallowed it in 2005.
Sam: You called Crumble pretty early.
Shaan: I did. The drop model, the viral weekly menu, the massive social following. I just didn’t think it would get this big.
Sam: What about the sustainability of it? Drop-based things can have natural fatigue. Froyo had this same hockey-stick growth. At some point the scarcity goes away and the drop loses its value.
Shaan: Maybe. But we have a friend who buys broadband companies — small internet service providers in rural areas. Everybody says to him, “What about Starlink?” He goes, “Yeah, eventually. But until then I’m making $5 million a year in profit.” With Crumble — maybe they plateau. But a billion a year is a very nice plateau to be sitting at. I don’t mind that plateau for a while.
Sam: That goes back to: if anybody asks why I sold for $200 million, you get a slap. Don’t ask stupid questions.