Sam and Shaan riff on how to get the most out of conferences (one great idea + one great person), then dig into three news stories: Elon’s $6B world hunger challenge and what charity water got right about accountability, a deep dive into low-sugar CPG brands (Zesty Paws, High Key, Primal Kitchen), and Zillow’s $500M ibuyer collapse. Plus the origin of “Southern Sam’s Sticky Icky” — a low-sugar ketchup brand they brainstorm in real time.
Speakers: Sam Parr (host), Shaan Puri (host)
How to Get the Most Out of Events [00:01:00]
Sam: I just went to a conference today — Cody Sanchez had us come to speak, and dude, everyone listens. It was pretty fun.
Shaan: How was it?
Sam: She has that Contrarian Capital brand. It was great. There were probably 300 people, I asked who listened to the podcast — almost everyone raised their hands. People were talking about us. They always confuse our voices, but we get that all the time.
I was supposed to go to that one. I didn’t go. You went. There are a bunch of different motivations people have for going to these things — what was yours? Some people say conferences are a waste of time. Others say they love it, they network, they learn things.
Sam: I like meeting people I know from the internet. That makes me feel good. And I’ve paid five, ten thousand dollars to go to some events because you can meet one person and become a lifelong friend. That pays for itself and makes me happy. I don’t mind going.
Shaan: I kind of have in my head: I’m here to learn one thing. A truly great idea — maybe it’s a tactic, a marketing idea, a realization of something I need to change, or a new business idea. One great idea is my bar. And one great person.
That’s such a low bar, but the good part is — then you go hunting. You’re saying “I’m here to make one great friend and get one great idea.” If you’re talking to somebody who’s not that great, you’re like: alright, peace out, I’m gonna go bump around and see who else is here. Same thing with ideas — you can listen to a talk and you might otherwise zone out, but if you’re on the hunt for that golden nugget, the one great idea… in eight hours there’s going to be at least one great idea.
Elon’s World Hunger Challenge [00:06:00]
Sam: Do you know what happened with the Elon tweet about six billion dollars and world hunger?
Shaan: Someone — maybe CNN — said that if billionaires would donate six billion dollars, we could end world hunger. Elon replied and his language was great. He goes: show me how that will happen, and I will sell Tesla stock right now to pay for six billion dollars. Some official UN body head said, “Elon, just come and we’ll show you our processes.” Elon said: no, tell me in tweet form how this is going to help and where the money will go, and I will send you the money right now. The guy goes, “You know, this is just too complicated to explain on Twitter.” And I think that totally made Elon look great.
Sam: These types of things should be doable in a simple way. You don’t have to say exactly, but you could say: 30% of the budget is going to hire around 10,000 people who can do X. That’s a good enough answer. And the guy didn’t do it. Total miss.
You know what? Two things on that. First, you need people around you who will call you on your complexity — the people who will tell you there’s food in your teeth. There are people who see it and don’t say anything, and then four hours later you get home and realize you had spinach in your teeth the whole time. And then there’s the person who cuts you off: hey, you got a little something there. That’s a true friend.
The second thing: you need to hang around with people who are good at explaining things simply. I have a buddy Suli who’s great at this. You’re really great at this. The more you hang out with people who do it well, you’ll naturally pick it up.
Charity Water: Closing the Loop on Giving [00:13:00]
Shaan: Before we move on, there is a great example of a charity that does the accountability thing really well: charity water.
The founder, Scott Harrison, grew up in a very religious family and his mom had gotten this terrible illness from a gas leak in their house. Her immune system was so compromised she couldn’t touch anything that hadn’t been sanitized — they’d put books in the oven to kill bacteria before handing them to her with gloves. He grew up essentially as caretaker of the household.
He turns 18, completely rejects all of that, moves to New York, becomes a nightclub promoter. His job was to convince rich guys to pay him $5,000 to $6,000 to buy $100 bottles of alcohol. He was making a killing. But after a few years he starts to feel empty — the high was no longer doing it.
He was on some billionaire’s yacht one day, hungover, and finds a Bible in the room. He was raised religious, then basically became a sinner. He picks it up, reads it, gets emotional. Has this literal come-to-Jesus moment: what am I doing with my life?
He decides to take six months off and do the most servant-like thing he can. He applies to nonprofits, and they all reject him. He finally gets one to accept him — mercy ships — but only if he pays. So he makes a large contribution to go work there.
He goes to Africa as a photographer and witnesses kids with tumors the size of volleyballs, people who just needed basic surgeries. The line was a mile long and they couldn’t help everyone before the week was up. He’s devastated.
He does first-principles thinking: why do people have these diseases in the first place? He finds it comes back to dirty water and sanitation. Women were walking four to five hours a day just to get water — which meant they couldn’t work, couldn’t get educated.
He asks himself: why haven’t I been giving to charity? Because I always felt like you never know where the money goes. They never close the loop. So he decides to do it differently: 100% of donations go to the cause — separate bank account for operations, funded by different donors. And he uses GPS and photos to show donors exactly what their money did.
He goes back to New York, throws a birthday party. “Instead of giving me a gift, give $30 to the cause — I’m turning 30.” Three months later he sent everyone photos of the project they funded. “Here’s what you did. Here’s the map showing a four-hour walk turned into ten minutes. Here are the women thanking you. Here’s the clean water versus what they used to drink.”
People were blown away. He raised hundreds of millions of dollars for charity water. That’s the connection to the Elon thing — he said: people don’t give because they don’t know where the money goes. So close the loop.
AJ Patel and Low-Sugar CPG Brands [00:24:00]
Sam: Let me tell you about someone interesting. Have you heard of AJ Patel?
Shaan: Never heard of him.
Sam: You’re going to be surprised you haven’t heard of him — he’s super low-key. This guy is 32. He started Smooth Viking, a men’s grooming business that he sold. Then Insta Naturals, a natural skincare business — $55 million in revenue in 2018. Then Zen Wise, plant-powered vitamins. And people kept asking him for pet vitamins, so he started Zesty Paws.
Zesty Paws recently sold for $610 million. On Amazon alone they’re doing around $8 million a month. It costs around $8 to wholesale and sells for $26. They could have been doing around $40 million in profit when they sold.
His new thing is High Key Cookie — low-sugar cookies — and he’s doing the exact same playbook over and over. He dominates Amazon first, then goes to retail. He has the strategy of making the brand look really great upfront, not going the minimum viable product route. He’s already got 60,000 reviews and it’s a pretty new product.
Shaan: He’s playing the same video game level on speedrun every time. Once you know a level well enough, you can do it with a level of mastery that a newcomer can’t.
Sam: And here’s why I got into this — I’ve been really interested in low-sugar products. You walk into a corner store with kids around and they’re buying Hawaiian Punch or Gatorade — sugar factories. So I’ve been researching this space.
Have you tried Quest chips? They’ve basically made a keto version of Doritos, and honestly they’re the only keto snack that actually replaces the craving. Tom Bilyeu bootstrapped Quest and sold it for a billion dollars in five years. The founder’s family had weight problems and he wanted to create food that actually tasted good but was low-glycemic.
Shaan: You’ve been talking about low-sugar sauces. Low-sugar ketchup sounds great.
Sam: It’s massive. Heinz has a $45 billion market cap making something like $7 billion a year in sauces. Most of it is ketchup. And ketchup is crazy high sugar — that bright red color means tons of sugar. There’s a company called Primal Kitchen that sold for $300 million in 2018. Started by Mark Sisson, this guy who’s 68 years old and absolutely shredded. He had a health blog for years and created all these dressings and ketchup with no bad stuff.
Shaan: So Sam, why aren’t you starting this company? You’d crush it. It’s in your area of expertise, it’s a huge market, it’s a consumable — people run out and keep buying. You could extend into other sauces, start with ketchup or ranch or barbecue sauce. Two or three SKUs. With your marketing ability you could build a $500 million company in four years.
Sam: You know, I literally just bought Heinz ketchup at the store because it was Halloween-themed and I thought it was the “blood tomato” no-sugar kind. It was just regular Heinz. I’ve been eating it all week because I don’t want to throw it away and it’s horrible. The sugar in Heinz makes it taste incredible.
Shaan: Southern Sam’s Sticky Icky.
Sam: Dude. Southern Sam’s Secret Sauce. That’s the brand. You handle all the operations, I’ll be the face.
Shaan: This is full circle — you needed the condiments back when you had the hot dog stand. You just needed the right sauce.
Sir Kensington and D2C Ketchup Strategy [00:36:00]
Sam: Have you heard of Sir Kensington ketchup?
Shaan: Yes! A buddy of ours invested in it. Sold for $140 million.
Sam: And I think it undersold. That’s actually a great idea about the D2C strategy — you almost want to leave some dry powder for the acquirer. Go to them and say: “Yeah, we’re amazing and we don’t even know how to do retail yet. But you do. You’ve got relationships with Target and Whole Foods.” That’s the growth story you’re handing them. Acquirers don’t want a lemon that’s been squeezed all the way dry.
Zillow’s $500M ibuyer Collapse [00:40:00]
Shaan: Zillow came out and said they’re shutting down their ibuyer business. They lost $500 million this quarter, they’re laying off 25% of staff, and they have 7,000 homes they need to unload.
Here’s the background: OpenDoor was a startup built to do exactly this — instant offers on houses, no broker, no staging, no three months of showings. Zillow saw OpenDoor growing, copied the feature, and called it Zillow Offers. But it didn’t work.
The problem was Zillow’s core business is selling leads to agents. If Zillow is also the buyer, they don’t need the agents — they’re competing with their own customers. And Zillow is supposed to be the trusted source for pricing information. If they’re also buying homes, you could argue they’re manipulating prices. So they had multiple reasons to not do this, but they tried anyway.
I actually give them credit for getting out. Most companies wouldn’t — they’d just stay in and get disrupted. But the stock price took a beating.
And by the way, OpenDoor’s stock also tanked just on the news that Zillow failed at this. People are like: maybe OpenDoor’s also going to fail?
Sam: Then OpenDoor did the worst possible thing — they tweeted about it. Let me read this word for word. Ready?
“We’re in the midst of a generational shift towards a fully digital experience, with large unmet need for seamless experience in real estate. Our track record of executional excellence and many years of investment in consumer experience, technology, pricing, and operations — we are well-positioned to meet consumer demand with a best-in-class product and service. OpenDoor is open for business.”
Shaan: What the — I understood zero percent of that. And these are professional communicators. Their actual job is communications.
Sam: They forgot the number one rule of copywriting: no one cares about you. They only care about themselves. When you go to a website and it says “we’ve been in business since 1994, our passion is to serve you, we have high integrity” — nobody cares. You violated all the rules. Write like you speak. Use an eighth-grade reading level.
What they should have done is what Biden did against Trump — shut up and hide. When your competitor is imploding on the exact same business you’re doing, you lock yourself in the basement and say nothing. Or you come out cocky and post a chart of how much ass you’re kicking.
Shaan: Our friend Moiz did the cocky version better. He tweeted: “Dear Zillow and Rich Barton, I’m sure today is a tough day. I’d like to purchase all the homes you have on your balance sheet in one transaction. Is that something you’d consider? I will pay cash and close in 30 days, no contingencies or financing delays. Best, M.”
Just signing off with the initial. Power move.
Sam: And he might actually have some strategy behind it — maybe he’s got money he could tap into. But either way, hilarious tweet. He’s a cocky troll and I love it.
Shaan: The underlying question — how did they lose money doing this in a bull market for single-family homes? They said the pricing was too unpredictable, and there was a labor shortage so they couldn’t get people to flip the homes after buying. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation. But it’s crazy that you couldn’t make money buying and selling single-family homes when everybody wanted them.
Sam: All right. Anything else?
Shaan: That’s the pod.