Sam opens with a trend he spotted firsthand: flea markets are quietly becoming the new cool-kid scene, driven by Gen Z’s obsession with vintage fashion. He pitches the business case — PE rollup, influencer monetization, and an Indonesia-style wristband experience model. Shaan counters with an “I told you so” on True Crime podcasts, walking through Ashley Flowers’ Crime Junkie empire ($45M/year profit, 500M+ downloads) and brainstorming white-space opportunities: YouTube-first format, Black True Crime, comedy True Crime, True Romance, and branded board games. They close with an update on Fyre Festival 2 and a riff on Sam’s dad’s delusional negotiating tactics.
Speakers: Sam Parr (host), Shaan Puri (host)
Flea Markets: The Next Big Trend [00:00:00]
Sam: Screw Nick Huber talking about RV parks and storage units — we’re going to be talking about flea markets. That’s what I think is going to happen.
Sam: I want to talk to you about a topic. This is my passion, but I’m also bringing it up because I think it’s a trend — and that’s what we’re about. And it’s sort of a prediction. I think I have a prediction here, and it’s going to be interesting in the next five and ten years.
Shaan: Okay. Sweaters? Denim? Tobacco?
Sam: Yeah, you’re in the ballpark.
Shaan: Media?
Sam: We’re in the zip code. We’re definitely in the zip code.
Sam: So, years ago — this doesn’t matter to you because you’re not from the South — but if you’re above the age of 30, a lot of people probably remember this TV show: American Pickers. Did you ever even watch that show?
Shaan: Never watched it.
Sam: Okay. Two guys who go and buy junk, tell the story of the junk, and then resell it. That’s a different show from Storage Wars, but same ballpark. Basically they would drive around the South, knock on old people’s homes, and say, “Can I come look in your barn?” They’d find old cool stuff, tell the story of it, clean it up just a little bit, bring it back to the store where I worked, and we would resell it. That’s all it is.
We would have lines out the door because at the time this show was on — it was like David Letterman was number one — and American Pickers was number two in terms of the most-watched shows on TV. There’d be days where we would sell — I’m not exaggerating — $100,000 in American Pickers t-shirts. Because all these guys would come in wanting to buy anything American Pickers related.
Shaan: How much revenue do you think that store did overall?
Sam: I would imagine, one location — $10 million.
Shaan: One location? Big store or just a normal shop?
Sam: It was so small that we had a script to prepare people. People would come in and be so disappointed at how small it was, because the cameras made it look huge. Sounds familiar to my life. I had a script.
It was a tidy store, but we killed it. The thing was, it was all like — and I mean this in the most affectionate way — it was all redneck hillbillies from like Alabama. For some reason the picking culture is all like rural Alabama.
Shaan: “For some reason.” I think yeah — they like old stuff, they like the reuse culture, it’s part of it.
Al Fargo’s Marketplace: The New Flea Market [00:03:30]
Sam: This weekend I experienced something that has totally changed my worldview on this topic. There’s this thing called Al Fargo’s Marketplace, and I went to it the other day.
The story is basically four guys — they look like they’re 24 years old — and they started organizing this flea market in New York City. They host it at this place called New House, which is like the hipper version of WeWork. So it’s this weird combination of urban New York stuff but flea markets, which are historically like old people and Southern heritage culture. It’s not like a New York cool-kid thing.
Shaan: It is now, though. All right — can I just describe what I’m seeing?
Sam: Describe what you see and who you see.
Shaan: Every photo looks like it’s taken with a Polaroid even though we have 4K cameras. There’s a DJ. Is this a party in a Goodwill shop? Is that what’s happening?
Sam: Dude, it’s a high-end vintage flea market. And it was packed. I’m 35 — I was the oldest person there. There’s a lot of weird stuff going on. They’re all wearing it — it’s all like 24-year-old guys wearing suits and ties.
I went there with my daughter. It was just me and her. I felt like the oldest person there. No one had children.
Shaan: You took your daughter to this?
Sam: We were just hanging out for the day. I was like, “Let’s go to the flea market.” It was very Adam Sandler in Big Daddy. We wore matching sweaters. We were the hit — we made the Instagram of these guys.
But they built this flea market and it was packed. I was regretting bringing her because it was way too packed and I couldn’t even get around. So we didn’t even stay that long. But it got me thinking about flea markets.
Have you noticed that Millennial hipsters have just disappeared? They’re just gone. They’re no longer a thing. Where did they go?
Shaan: Do you have a theory?
Sam: These are the new hipsters. Young people who wear nice clothing like this and are into vintage. This is the new version.
Look at these posters. This is just so well done. It just shows you can make anything — you can make a sandwich gourmet, you can make a sandwich terrible, you can make a flea market cool and you can make a cool thing feel like a flea market. This is so well executed as far as branding goes. The Instagram looks like a magazine.
Shaan: It’s unbelievable.
The Business Case for Flea Markets [00:07:00]
Sam: Here’s the thing — this is why I’m bringing this up. It isn’t just these guys. Go to the Instagram — it’s called Al Fargo’s Marketplace — and look at the photos. Whoever you see that’s a stylish young man, click their profile. Tons of them have 100, 200, 300,000 followers. These like 23-year-old guys showing off their outfits, and the engagement on these Instagram handles is insane.
Go look at Denny — the handle is Denny 623. What a big day for Denny. He had no idea this was going to happen for him. 112,000 followers. He’s a digital creator, a men’s wear blogger, content creator since ‘08. He’s been in the game. He’s a creative director.
I bought this sweater from Denny. He was a vendor at Al Fargo’s. I bought it from him because I want to be part of this trend.
My point is: amongst young people, this is a huge hit. And if you click around on these guys’ Instagram, you know there’s this joke — whatever the Silicon Valley nerds are doing in 5 or 10 years is going to be mainstream. This is the New York cool-kid thing. This is like walking around SoHo and seeing what people are wearing. This is it. And it’s happening right now.
I have two ways I think this is going to be a big business.
Shaan: Wait — is your take that flea markets… if I understand you correctly, you went to this cool flea market, you can’t even call it a flea market — you went to a party in New York that happened to have some goods?
Sam: It was a flea market with a DJ. I took my daughter. It’s hilarious. You’re saying flea markets are a bigger deal than most people realize, especially people like us who live on a computer. And you’re saying there’s an opportunity here? Is somebody going to build the Crumbl Cookie of flea markets?
Sam: I think two things are going to happen. One, I think there’s a massive PE opportunity here. Flea markets could potentially be the new RV park — you could purchase them at a real estate valuation. And two, there’s a huge amount of male — and female — fashion influencers, and it’s a hot trend. I’ve spoken to 10 or 20 of them and they’re all broke. They’re all like, “I wish I could just pay my rent with this.”
This business is a beautiful business. The Al Fargo Marketplace guys are a really good example of how it’s done well. I think they’re probably more artists than business savvy, and there’s something really interesting there.
Shaan: So, Rose Bowl Flea Market: 20,000 visitors, 200 vendors per month. Based on that — 20,000 visitors paying $12 to enter, vendors paying $150 to be there — they’re making $600,000 per flea market. Once a month.
Sam: But you’re forgetting so many other things — table rentals, chair rentals. About $7 to $8 million in revenue from this one flea market. Basically.
Shaan: I think it’s even more.
Brimfield Antique Show: The PE Opportunity [00:10:30]
Sam: The other point I’m going to make is that it’s an old industry. There’s one called the Brimfield Antique Show. Go to their website.
Brimfield is a flea market that gets a million people a year coming to this festival. That’s Coachella size. Scroll to the very bottom. If you want to contact someone, you go to the very bottom and tell me what it says.
Shaan: Jodi at JMJ Y2 AOL.com. Just send her a note.
Sam: This is an event with 1 million customers. If you want to learn more about it, email Jodi at AOL.com. That’s what it says at the very bottom.
Go to Jodi’s LinkedIn. Her name is Jodi Young. She is the owner of this business with 1 million customers. Jodi looks lovely. Jodi looks like a nice woman. Jodi doesn’t exactly look like what I think is going to be a younger generation of people who are interested in this topic.
Shaan: So you’re saying the owners of these businesses are going to look different in 10 years. Choose your words wisely.
Sam: They are probably not the most uptight operators. That’s what I would say. They’re probably very passionate about this, and sometimes when passion leads, maybe you’re leaving dollars on the table.
I believe that in the next couple years — screw Nick Huber talking about RV parks and storage units — we’re going to be talking about flea markets. That’s what I think is going to happen.
Shaan: Bold prediction. I really like it. This is a Sam Parr Special — round of applause. Cool find on the trend, cool find on the underrated business. Flea markets. How big they are is kind of stunning in terms of the visitors they get.
I like how you wrote at the bottom: “And AI ain’t gonna mess with this.”
Sam: Yeah, that’s part of the thesis.
Shaan: This is a good private equity rollup thesis. Good job by you.
Sam: Thank you. Thank you for that condescending patronizing “good job by you.”
Shaan: That’s a real compliment. Amongst young people, they buy a huge amount of vintage clothing. Something like 80% of Gen Zers regularly shop for secondhand clothing.
Gen Z and Vintage: The Secondhand Economy [00:14:00]
Sam: You have companies like Depop — have you heard of Depop?
Shaan: Yeah, secondhand Marketplace.
Sam: Secondhand app. They have 80 million users. And then there’s Poshmark, and Grailed, and like 10 other ones. These young people are buying vintage and secondhand clothing at surprisingly high rates.
Have you ever seen Thrift Hauls on TikTok?
Shaan: I’ve seen a lot of things on TikTok. That’s definitely one of them.
Sam: It’s a huge thing. My whole point: young people are buying this secondhand clothing like crazy.
I’m just looking up Goodwill’s numbers. Last ten years: $4.8 billion, $5.7, $5.9, $6.1, $6.3, $7, $7 billion — pandemic brings it back down to $5.5 — then $7.5 billion, $8.2 billion, and $9 billion projected for last year.
If you go to Goodwill Finds dot com, they have their own online marketplace where they auction off nicer things that Goodwill collects. People love it. I’ve bought a couple things from there. I think Ari said she buys stuff from there.
Shaan: What are you saying is the opportunity? What should someone do?
Sam: Flea markets are a recession-proof business in a highly fragmented industry. They last for many decades and they’re hard to disrupt once they work well. Young people are buying vintage clothing and are into flea markets more than other generations. I think there’s a rollup opportunity. Or — what I would do is work with some of these broke but passionate fashion influencers and create a really awesome flea market business.
The Indonesia Food Court Model Applied to Flea Markets [00:17:30]
Shaan: Can I give you one other random idea? So I used to live in Indonesia. They do this thing that I’ve never really seen here, but I really liked it.
In America, you go to a mall — there’s a food court. The experience is: you walk in, there’s nobody there to serve you. You just go and pick what you want — a slice from Sbarro, a sandwich, fried chicken — you buy your one thing, you go sit down.
In Indonesia the malls are generally a lot better, but the one thing they do differently with their food courts is when you walk in, they give you a wristband. Almost like it’s Coachella. This wristband is basically your way to buy anything you want. The flow is designed almost like Ikea — you walk around and every booth has cool stuff, it’s a little more upscale, and you pick. You start with a tray and you just keep adding different little plates from the different vendors. At each one you just tap your wristband so the system knows what you’ve picked up. But it doesn’t feel like you’re spending money — it feels like you’re opening a door. You’re just having here’s my key, give me my thing.
Sam: This is amazing.
Shaan: You sit down, you eat, and at the end when you leave you put your tray down, scan your badge, and they tell you the damage. You pay for it on the way out. You spend way more, and it’s just a more fun experience. Paying at the end — once you’ve already had the little amusement park of food — is pretty cool.
Sam: I wonder if somebody could do a similar thing with thrift or flea markets.
Shaan: The thing I’m imagining here: remember Spartan Race or Tough Mudder? How they turned this thing that seemed like work and kind of hard into something that was fun — a bit of an Instagram opportunity — and they turned what was an individual activity into a group fun activity. A social fun event. Basically a party.
I think you could do the same thing with the flea market. Whether it’s one long path, or the wristband model — as soon as you join you get 10 tickets, 20 tickets, 30 tickets, whatever. And now you just have to spend. Instead of the Goodwill problem, which is you go and you’re like “should I get this, should I not” — up front you just make a commitment: I’m going to find 10 things here. And then it’s about just finding the most fun 10 things you could find at the event.
You go and you collect it, you fill up your card, you could always get more tickets as you go. And then by the end you walk out and you’ve got this new outfit. You’d literally have a photo at the start and a photo at the end because you put it on — you basically do a makeover on a Saturday afternoon with your friends and you all end up with this fun photo.
Sam: That’s fantastic. And for some reason, scanning things with my wrist is more fun than pulling out my credit card.
Shaan: Do you remember — didn’t you almost invest in a company that was creating software so brands like Patagonia could sell secondhand coats?
Sam: I didn’t end up getting to invest in it, but I really wanted to. North Face uses it — they call it “reworked” — where you mail in your old coat and get some type of credit, and then they repair it, but it kind of looks funky and cool. Guys like me could buy it.
The term for this movement is recommerce. You have e-commerce, then you have recommerce — when you resell that secondhand thing again. The website — the company — was called Treet, T-R-E-T. I think they’re doing well. They’ve got a bunch of big brands.
What they were doing was: they’d go to a brand and say, “Hey, a lot of people are already reselling your items on other platforms and in Facebook groups. Why don’t you just make a central place on your website for people to buy already-loved items?” Customers could upload a thing, get store credit for it. When somebody buys it, they give store credit — which gets the customer to come back — and the other person gets the item they were going to buy off-platform anyway.
Sam: Makes a lot of sense. I almost bought something recently from someone using their software, but they didn’t have my size.
So that’s my big pitch on flea markets. And by the way, there are one or two PE guys in the space already doing this — I think there’s a United Flea Markets dot com or something like that. But I think you’re going to see more. This is my prediction and my opportunity spiel.
True Crime: I Told You So [00:24:30]
Shaan: I like that you made a prediction. Because the next thing I’m going to tell you about is a giant “I told you so.” But nobody likes hearing “I told you so.”
There’s a great tweet that went viral last week. This guy Matt Lacy tweeted: “My wife just taught me the professional way to say ‘I told you so.’”
Sam: I saw that. So funny.
Shaan: “This was identified early on as a likely outcome.” I’m going to be using this a lot. So let me just say that me and Sam identified this early as a likely outcome. And what I’m talking about is True Crime podcasts.
Do you know what the most popular podcast in America is?
Sam: Joe Rogan.
Shaan: Correct. Do you know what the second most popular is?
Sam: I would have guessed Call Her Daddy. Or some famous personality podcast — like the opposite of Joe. Joe’s good for women?
Shaan: Exactly. It’s actually Crime Junkie — a podcast started by a 36-year-old podcaster. And here’s the headline: this 36-year-old is making $45 million a year of profit. $45 million a year.
Sam: It’s insane. Where is she based?
Shaan: Indiana. So let me tell you the story. This woman, Ashley Flowers — she’s working a normal day job and she grew up loving Agatha Christie stories, mystery and crime stories. So much so that she volunteered at this place called Crimestoppers, a local crime-stopping organization in her town — helping people report crimes to one central place.
To promote the organization, she volunteers and says, “What if I create a weekly radio show called Murder Monday?” She does it and realizes people kind of like this. She’s just doing it for fun, volunteering on the side of her day job.
Then she hears Serial come out. Serial becomes this phenomenon. She listens to it and says, “That’s cool — what if I did Murder Monday, my local radio show, but as a podcast?” She jumps in. This is back in 2017. She records it, comes home from her day job, uploads her first episode, and Off to the Races.
Now here we are: she’s got 65 employees, her business just raised $40 million from Chernin — who valued the company at $250 million — and has a reported $45 million of EBITDA per year.
Sam: That sounds a little high. Is the valuation off or — it’s only 5x EBITDA. Why would you raise money if you’re making $45 million a year in profit and the valuation is that?
Shaan: The valuation is likely more accurate than the rumored profit number. Let’s say $20 million would be a very real number at the low end. Still insane.
She hosts two podcasts herself. She’s the producer, she sells the ads, she closes the deals, she’s touring all around the world. She was working 15 hours a day, now down to 10. She’s got a little three-year-old daughter. She has racked up 500 million plus downloads in the last five years. Ridiculous volume.
The “I Told You So” History [00:29:00]
Shaan: Do you listen to True Crime?
Sam: I listen to a bit of crime, so —
Shaan: Here’s the “I told you so” part. If you go to the MFM Vault — which is a place where you can find old episodes and search them — I just searched “True Crime” because I know we’ve been talking about this. Guess when the first time we talked about it was.
Sam: A year and a half ago? 2023?
Shaan: 2020. Five years ago. It was an episode where Lance Armstrong popped by the office and hopped into the podcast while we were recording. And Lance Armstrong is talking about his favorite type of podcast. You both love True Crime and you guys are geeking out about it.
Sam: Sam and Lance Armstrong — the greatest cyclist of all time. Like Michael Jordan. Michael Phelps. Tiger owns a bike. And Lance Armstrong, the greatest biker of all time, talking about how we look the same. Yeah, that’s the conversation.
Shaan: Exactly. And we started talking about True Crime then. We talked about it again in 2023 — you had brought up that this guy had created a True Crime podcast network with 16 shows and sold it to Spotify for like $100 million — $50 million cash, $50 million in the earnout.
Then we talked about Law and Crime, which was this media company dedicated to True Crime stories as well as reporting on actual court cases going on. Also acquired for more than $100 million.
And all along the way we’ve been talking about how there’s this underrated appetite for True Crime — more than you would think. We had Mr. Ballen come on and he talked about how his content is all about telling strange, dark, mysterious stories. People just love this stuff.
And every year that we’ve been talking about it, it sounds like it’s too late. And every year we talk about it, another nine-figure company has essentially started or grown during that period of time.
Sam: I am a huge fan. My new one is the Law and Crime Network on YouTube. Whenever something like Luigi Mangione comes about, I’ve been obsessed — learning about freak-off parties, deny-or-deny, all of it. I listen to this stuff on my runs.
Shaan: You listen to it on your runs? Like you’re just running away from the problem. What are you doing?
Sam: My hypothesis: it’s basically me and 100 million women. Like 80% women, I think, who are into this. And I think women listen from the perspective of “how would I get out of this situation?” And men listen from the perspective of “how would I get away with this?” That’s like the perspective each gender takes.
Shaan: Yeah, exactly. American King Pin.
Sam: My hero.
True Crime White Space: Where’s the Opportunity? [00:34:00]
Shaan: By the way — already an opportunity. You know when you run, most running apps try to have a certain beats per minute to keep your pace? They try to be up-tempo. True Crime: 150 beats per minute already. Innovation white space for zone-two workouts — you know what I’m saying?
Sam: For zone-two workouts I only listen to Solved Murders by Parcast. I got to go do a 60-minute run, turn on Solved Murders — that’s 60 minutes of two 30-minute episodes and I’m going to learn about some crazy murder.
Shaan: They’re kind of slow, right? So what if somebody created a higher-energy version? Okay, here’s my brainstorm. Can I give you some pitches? This was my five-minute brainstorm before the podcast.
It’s one thing to say there’s an opportunity. But Sam, do we settle for great?
Sam: I mean, great’s pretty good, to be honest. I’d be greatly flattered. I’d rest on those laurels.
Shaan: All right. Here’s the brainstorm on white space in the True Crime space right now.
First — the obvious one — YouTube. Most of these True Crime shows started as audio-only podcasts. Serial inspired them, and most people thought podcasts were all audio. YouTube just announced that a billion people a month watch podcast content on YouTube. So if you’re a podcaster and you’re not doing YouTube — where you at?
The first thing is to go all-in as a YouTube-first podcast. Crime Junkie started off heavily in audio, then started doing video just as an add-on. She’s not doing it super seriously yet. But then when she raised this money she’s investing in a full video studio. The format is actually pretty great — have you ever listened to her podcast?
Sam: I have not.
Shaan: It’s basically her sitting on a couch with her friend. But unlike most podcasts where it’s two equal hosts going back and forth, it’s her explaining to one friend what’s going on with the crime. And her friend is active listening — sitting there, asking questions, mostly just nodding her head and asking the clarifying question when the listener would have one.
So smart. That little thing is so smart. Because most content gets better the more you narrow it to an audience of one. If you’re writing, write to one person. If you’re doing a podcast — this podcast works well because we kind of do that too. Instead of saying “alright listeners, we’d like to tell you about some great businesses,” it’s like: “Dude Sam, have you seen this?” “No.” “Check this out.” That vibe actually works well in the podcast.
Sam: That’s a little bit of the secret sauce.
Shaan: All right. I gave you three of the Colonel’s nine spices.
Sam: Three of the Colonel’s — is there another? That’s from last week’s episode. What happened to it? I think leveraged…
Shaan: I just gave you a quarter Colonel there.
Sam: I was going to say something and you moved my brain. All right, my bad. Go on.
Shaan: Okay. So we were actually going to bring up the same thing on the same podcast and didn’t know it. I didn’t know you were going to bring up flea markets and you didn’t know I was going to bring up True Crime. That’s how it works — we surprise each other intentionally. We could share notes, do research, be prepared — that makes for a work podcast. We surprise each other because the show needs a reaction. I want to tell you something, I want you to react, I want you to riff for real. And then I want you to surprise me. That makes it fun for us to do.
She does the same thing. She basically tells the story to her friend. Now she has a team of 10 journalists that do original reporting. She also has another show called The Deck, where she works with local cops who give her access to evidence and they try to actually solve cold cases.
Sam: That’s insane.
Shaan: She is basically the Mr. Beast of True Crime. When you see how she just took a very simple idea and took it very seriously and scaled it up — yeah, why not? Why not have your own journalists? Why not scour the country for stories? Why not partner with cops? Why not build a studio? Why not have 100 employees? Why not turn this into a full production company? She just kept going with a very simple idea.
Mr. Beast is like: what if I gave away $1,000? What if $5,000? What if $10,000? What if $1 million? What if you stood in a tiny circle? What if it was a big circle? What if you didn’t have to stand — what if you could just lay down? He just keeps going with these ideas and takes a very simple idea more seriously than anybody else.
She’s done that. She’s coming to Radio City in New York in May. Should I go?
Sam: I would totally go to one of her live events.
Shaan: Let me give you something. Peter Chernin, when he met her — here’s the quote. He invested $40 million. He met her at a TV show pitch and was just like “wow, this woman is really impressive.” Told his guy, “Go find a way to invest.” He flew to Indiana and hounded her for the investment.
Here’s what Peter Chernin said: “I find her uniquely impressive.”
Sam: That’s a good one.
Shaan: He’s been around everyone. “I find her uniquely impressive.” Subtle but powerful compliment from a guy who’s met so many interesting people. And I think her and Pat McAfee are both in Indianapolis. Two dots make a line — the Indianapolis podcasting mafia.
More True Crime White Space [00:40:30]
Shaan: Okay, here’s another white space — ready? Black True Crime. Not a lot of Black podcasters doing True Crime. There’s a couple.
Are you a follower of Black YouTube or Black Twitter?
Sam: I am a card-carrying member of Black Culture.
Shaan: Is DJ Vlad the greatest YouTuber of all time?
Sam: One of the greatest journalists of our era. Getting the Wayne brothers to like dish on what it’s like — or Club Shay with Cat Williams. Dude, how about Club Shay getting — I think Club Shay and Cat Williams is the number one most-downloaded YouTube interview of the year.
Shaan: Yeah, yeah — and it’s insane. By the way, that Theo Von clip where he’s talking about how he has a Cat Williams statue — just play that. It’s so good.
Sam: I got a statue of him at home. Really. It’s a Christmas Cat Williams that I have in my home.
Shaan: I don’t even think that was Cat Williams — that was just a Black Christmas decoration.
Sam: That’s what you call it. That’s a Black Nutcracker.
Shaan: Tell me that ain’t Cat Williams, bro.
Sam: How many people got a Black Cat Williams in the house for Christmas?
Shaan: So — are there not more True Crime shows geared towards that audience? There’s only a couple. And the first one was called something like “Affirmative Crime” — which, that’s a bad name. Not right.
This has happened in comedy podcasts. Comedy podcasts started with a lot of white comedians in LA, but now there’s so many really funny “two guys hanging out” type podcasts — two Black comedians, sports podcasts, etc. Podcasting started off pretty homogeneously white.
And True Crime — even just the way it comes across — is a little bit Midwestern NPR. Serial kind of was in that lineage. She used to work for NPR, I think, or something like that. It just feels very produced and almost New York elitist.
Sam: Exactly. It needs to be more like — somebody who listened to a lot of Nelly growing up.
Shaan: And all of those shows have that Ira Glass cadence.
Sam: “Today’s episode…” That This American Life thing.
Shaan: Yeah. That cadence is so good. And “this is the only time that was ever going to land for you.” All right.
Next one — comedy True Crime. I think a lot of the True Crime podcasts are very serious. They’re heavy, they’re trying to be mysterious and creepy — makes total sense, you get why you’d do it that way. I think there’s an opening for somebody to do True Crime with a comedy angle.
Not to toot our own horn, but we did this a little bit in the business space. A lot of business podcasts and interviews were just an IQ contest — everybody wanted to be the bigger know-it-all. Very dry, informational. Me and you, this is how we talk when we hang out, and we just didn’t filter ourselves. We’re not funny compared to actual comedians, but compared to most VCs we’re pretty funny. The bar is also low in True Crime — if you’re even moderately funny, you’re the funniest True Crime podcast.
Sam: Are they actually number two? Well, you’re not off — and I’m going to give you one piece of evidence. We are called MFM. I have gotten hate mail from women who are like, “You’re not MFM — the real MFM is My Favorite Murder.”
Shaan: We’ll never be the most famous MFM podcast.
Sam: Have you heard of My Favorite Murder? Have people said you’re not the real one?
Shaan: I’ve seen it. I’ve never listened to it, though. Is it humorous?
Sam: So go to the website. The headline is “a true crime comedy podcast.” And it’s hugely popular. But I actually have a bone to pick — they’re talking about like Ted Bundy killing people and they’re like “isn’t he hot?” They’re talking about wanting to get with Ted Bundy.
True Romance and Other Spinoffs [00:44:30]
Shaan: A few other possibilities. True Romance — I think there’s an opportunity to do a True Crime style genre but spin off into romance. Combine two very popular genres. We’ve talked a lot about how the most-read books and the most voracious readers are reading Danielle Steel and 50 Shades of Gray style romance novels. And I think somebody could do True Romance as a podcast genre.
One of my favorite True Crime podcasts has a series called “Killer Couples” — it’s all about love birds who go out to commit murder.
Sam: Maybe you should have done this brainstorm beforehand, because I don’t really listen to True Crime. I listened to two seasons of Serial and fell asleep to a few True Crime podcasts.
Shaan: Serial is like the JV team now compared to what’s going on.
Sam: All right, I’m on board with Killer Couples. What else?
Shaan: I feel a little bit discouraged but I’ll finish out because quitting is the only thing more embarrassing than what’s happening.
Sam: Hold on — speaking of True Crime, I do think there’s this weird thing. We did this one bit with The Hustle about romance novels and there was like these crazy weird genres. Romance novels are a massive hit and there are women who want a romance novel about a military guy — but then there’s like women who want to have sex with werewolves. Like that Robert Pattinson movie —
Shaan: Twilight.
Sam: Twilight — there were some weird undertones of like beastiality with all that stuff, right? But I think there’s always a niche.
Shaan: You know, the bone I have to pick — nobody likes Harry dudes. As a Harry dude out here, where’s the appeal? Wolves but not guys?
Sam: You need to get rebranded. I was excited when I heard that werewolves were a thing for women, and it just did not translate whatsoever.
Shaan: Gray hair guys have rebranded to “silver foxes.” We’ve got to do something for the hairy backs. I heard somebody say this the other day — they were like, “Oh yeah, I had this salt-and-pepper thing going on.” “It’s a lot of salt, though. That’s the problem.”
Just salt.
Board Games and the Crime Junkie Opportunity [00:47:00]
Shaan: Okay, last thing — games. Do they make games? There’s that one board game, what’s it called? A mystery game subscription series…
Sam: Hunt a Killer.
Shaan: Hunt a Killer — when we talked about it I think it was doing $30 million a year in revenue. Tens of millions a year.
I think this woman, instead of just touring, should be creating board games. A game that’s in Target, in Walmart, on the shelf — a true crime card game or board game where people can basically solve these cases together cooperatively. Or it’s some kind of Mafia-style game where one person’s the game master and the other people are trying to figure it out. Take a game mechanic like that, apply True Crime, and use the Crime Junkie brand. I think somebody should be partnering with True Crime broadcasters to build those out.
Sam: My whole perspective on games got completely changed when we hung out with the guy from Exploding Kittens. He’s coming on the podcast by the way.
I don’t know what he’s going to reveal, but the numbers are shockingly large. He was like, “Of the top five most popular games in the world, we make number one, two, four, and five.” I was like, damn.
Shaan: And I was like, I should start a game company.
Sam: He felt like he had the excitement of a 12-year-old. He was so into making games and making people smile via these games that I was like, 100% — I wish I was doing this. This is so cool. I could do this.
Shaan: And then I saw how truly joyful he was about making the games — not being successful at it, but the doing part. And I was like, oh, that’s different than me. I don’t have that. I just want the result.
Sam: Yeah, you want the result. He was showing us this game — it was half done — and he had a pen he was writing in different points on the cards. He was making the game as he went along. He was like, “Wouldn’t this be cool? Let’s change the game to this.” He was doing it in real time while we were playing it. Like you’re playing poker and he’s like, “Actually, we should make an ace mean this.”
Rapid prototyping on us.
Shaan: Did you see what he pulled out of his pocket while we were playing the game? Total side note — it was so funny. He’s trying to read a card and he can’t see it, he needs his glasses. He whips out a pair of glasses but the glasses have no sticks — it was like a monocle for two glasses. He just rested it on the bridge of his nose and started reading. I completely couldn’t pay attention to the rest of the game because I was just constantly trying to figure out: is it going to fall off his nose? What are the physics of this?
Sam: I think they’re called readers. Is that a known thing? Like a modern monocle?
Shaan: At Walgreens you see them next to the checkout. No sticks — sometimes they don’t have arms.
Sam: I’ve been sleeping on this. I’m amazed this woman is potentially doing $45 million a year. I don’t know if I believe it because it’s so shocking. But if anyone listening can get us in touch with her, I would love to talk to her for the pod. That would be fun.
Shaan: Ashley Flowers. Very, very impressive. How old is she?
Sam: 36.
Shaan: She’s young. Wow. That’s crazy. She’s my age.
Sam: Dude, that’s crazy. I could be her. She could be me. We could trade. Isn’t that crazy? Like, you know — now it’s like “yeah, that’s obvious.” But seven years ago to be like, “I’m going to start a crime podcast and that’s going to make me a billionaire” — that’s pretty wild. Because she potentially might be a billionaire if after another five or ten years. That’s absolutely wild.
And we called it. So we’re right and we deserve all the credit.
Shaan: No, we didn’t call it. It was identified early on by us as a likely outcome.
Fyre Festival 2 [00:54:00]
Sam: All right. Do you have more? I have a bunch more but I think it’s time to wrap. Maybe we call it.
Shaan: Before we go — did you see Fyre Festival 2? He didn’t listen to our advice.
So Billy came on our podcast right after he got out of prison. And you gave him some advice. He was basically explaining all of these ideas for his business — he owes money, like $27 or $30 million — and he was like, “I’m going to start this festival, we’re going to do this other festival.” And we were just like, “Maybe you shouldn’t. Maybe there are a lot of things you can do because you’re famous, but Fyre Fest 2 — maybe you should maybe… I think you shouldn’t do that.”
Sam: And he’s doing exactly that.
Shaan: So: Fyre Festival 2. Article came out today. It says Fyre Festival 2 is off to a rough start again. Days after the tickets went on sale — allegedly taking place on Isla Mujeres, an island off the coast of Mexico — the local tourism board claims they have no knowledge of this event. The director of the tourism board says, “We have never had any contact with any person or company about this. For us, this is an event that does not exist.”
And if you go to the location they list for where it’s going to take place — let me open this up — 21 degrees, 12 degrees, 32…
Sam: Here’s where the event is taking place. Take a look at this.
Shaan: In the ocean. The location is in the middle of the ocean where there’s no land.
Also, the most expensive tickets are $25,000. He basically exported the code from that old website and just put a “2” on it.
What did that woman say? The “I told you so” — the professional version?
Sam: “This was identified early on as a likely outcome.”
Shaan: Here are some great quotes from this article. Billy took to Instagram to address the concerns. Here’s what he said: “Fyre 2 is real. We have incredible partners leading the festivals. They’re in charge of all logistics, production, operations. There’s no way they would ever take on a fake festival.”
Then the tourism board responds: “The organizers did not even bother to approach the authorities. It’s very strange, because anyone who organizes events knows if you’re going to hold an event — let alone a massive event — you need municipal authorization.”
I think they thought they could just announce it, see if it got traction, and then ask for permits halfway down the path. It’s a bit naive.
McFarland responds: “We have accommodations.”
Sam: Is that really what he said?
Shaan: And you can buy tickets on his website for up to $20,000. But there’s no talent announced — no bands listed. McFarland says: “We have talent. Artists, athletes, and other performers are on board.”
Delulu Is the Solulu [00:58:00]
Sam: Did I ever tell you about the time I went on a trip with my dad and learned the power of being absolutely delusional in a negotiation?
It wasn’t even a negotiation. We were at the airport. My dad is cheap, so he doesn’t want to pay to check luggage. He bought a bag that’s too big to carry on and stuffed it full. Then they were like, “You want to check bags?” He’s like, “Yep, just that one” — the free one. And then this poor little lady from Singapore Airlines behind the desk was like, “Sir, you’ll need to check that one too.”
And my dad responds: “No. Actually, it’s too small.”
Not even “no, it’s okay, it’ll fit.” He says, “It’s too small” — which makes absolutely no sense in any situation. There’s no such thing as it being too small. And she just kept saying, “I think it’s over the limit.” And he goes, “No, it’s too small. I checked. It’s too small.”
And it worked. She let him on the plane.
Then at the plane they’re like, “Sir, it’s not going to fit.” He’s like, “You need to check it up front here because it’s free to check when you’re up there.” And he got it for free.
And he just kept doing this on the trip. We were trying to get into this Four Seasons — they had this New Year’s Festival, this big celebration. There are all these signs: “You must be a resident to attend.” I’m like, “Dad, we have to be staying here. We’re definitely not staying at the Four Seasons. We should turn around.”
He goes, “No, no, no — it’s going to be fine.”
There’s a guy at the gate checking everybody, asking for room numbers, IDs, the whole thing. And my dad just drives up and goes, “So what do you need — see some ID or something?”
And the guy just goes, “No, it’s good. You’re fine. Go ahead.”
And we got in.
Shaan: Some guy tweeted this out: “Delulu is the solulu.” And I’ve been saying that for the last two days. My kids know. If you got a problem — delulu is the solulu.
Sam: Who said that? Who tweeted this? Like a long thoughtful thing, and this guy just responded with that?
Shaan: “Delulu is the solulu.” And I was like, this is amazing. That should be the new “small boy” stuff.
Sam: I don’t have any tattoos, but that’s a contender. My kids’ names and that.
Shaan: That does seem like a cute thing a Gen Z woman would say on a True Crime pod.
Sam: Just like we stole “MFM” — we’re going to steal that one too. Thank you. That is now ours. Sorry, I wish I could remember who said it.
Shaan: This is a good podcast because I’m exhausted from laughing. That’s how I know I had a really good time. I’d love to do it again sometime.
Sam: All right. Great show. See you all out there. Have a good night.
Shaan: That’s the pod.