India's market valuation and Marketing lessons from Africa's leader
In this episode of the Marketing School podcast, hosts Neil Patel and Eric Siu discuss a range of topics that blend finance, marketing, and personal anecdotes. They begin by examining the unusually high price‑to‑earnings multiples of Indian public companies—some as high as 70x for manufacturing and 160x for data‑center firms—highlighting how private‑equity firms exploit this arbitrage by buying assets at low U.S. multiples and selling or listing them in India for far higher valuations. They note the practical challenges of repatriating capital and question whether the upside outweighs the complexities. The conversation then shifts to their own community initiatives: the Agency Owners Association (marketingschool.io/agency), a members‑only group for agency owners to scale, and the Leveling Up Founders mastermind (levelingup.com/founders) for high‑earning founders. The hosts use a case study of ultra‑endurance runner Russ Cook, who ran the perimeter of Africa (≈19,000 mi) and generated massive social‑media impressions. They explain how Huel, a meal‑replacement brand, leveraged Cook’s feat as a sponsorship, turning the extreme athletic endeavor into a powerful, organic marketing channel. This leads to a broader discussion on the importance of creating remarkable, polarizing content—citing figures like David Goggins—to capture attention. Neil also shares personal reflections on his identity being tied to his agency, NP Digital, comparing his business to a child he is reluctant to give up, and debates the advice of selling a business for life‑changing cash versus keeping it for personal fulfillment. Throughout, the episode interweaves fitness anecdotes, humor, and promotional calls‑to‑action, concluding with reminders to join their community platforms and subscribe to the podcast.
Chapters
Have you seen what's happening in India?
No.
Did I talk to you about the marketing valuations in India?
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
We have a mutual friend that I met at one of your events. I'm not going to mention her name. She's Indian, so you can guess who it is. You know who I'm talking about? Lives in San Francisco.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
She's an amazing person.
Yeah.
So she introduced me to some companies that help take you public in India. Her family, you know, they took one of their companies public in India. manufacturing business. Dude, the thing's worth 70 times PE multiple, like price to earnings. 70 times is a ridiculous multiple for manufacturing. I'm not saying she did a bad job. I'm saying she's done an amazing job. Good growth. I hope her stock triples or quadruples. She's an amazing person. So is her family. But India just has crazy valuations.
How do you have mosquitoes in here?
I don't know, dude. India has crazy valuations. Devin was talking to me about data center companies. He's able to buy them here in the United States for 3 times profit. And he's like, dude, some of these data center companies are public in India at 160 times multiple of earnings.
But there's a big caveat to all this.
What's the big caveat?
How are you going to take the money out?
You can take the money out. There's ways to take it out legally. You just have to pay your taxes right when you sell the shares, and then you can repatriate the money. But the bigger issue isn't that. It was funny because I talked to some of the guys who take companies public in India. And I was like, wait, you're telling me I can get like a 3, 4x valuation more than what I would get in the United States? I don't ever care to be a publicly traded company, though. That's a real issue. And, you know, had conversations with them and all that kind of good stuff. And the biggest problem, though, is Whether I don't want to do it or not, and I was already hesitant from day one, but I was like, oh, let me just take the call. I could always learn more. Funny enough, the private equity shops have been onto it for years and they've been already running this arbitrage. They were talking to me about like, yeah, General Atlantic is doing this deal and Warburg Pincus is doing this deal. I'm like, oh, these are all American private equity funds. They're like, yeah, yeah. They're here trying to buy things at cheaper multiples and just take them public or sell them at much higher multiples.
PE will always find the arbitrage. and milk the crap out of it. I mean, that's their job, right? Like, our job is to be good at marketing. That's, that's what we do.
So, and that goes back to what we talked about last week. Remember, people are like, oh yeah, private equity sucks at marketing. Yeah, well, if you can buy something here for 10 times profit and you can go public there for 40 times profit and you can get liquidity there, you don't have to be good at marketing.
It's a sales— it's a relationship-based sales type of situation.
I was like, I'd rather do that business than actually trying to grind it out doing marketing.
Would you really though? I mean, at this point it's like, you know, you've done marketing for how many years? 24, 25 years?
No, no. I'm saying if I had a company, I was buying a company and someone said, hey, you can try all this marketing stuff. You can create 20, 30, 40% more efficiencies and grow the company by 30, 40 more percent. Or you can just sell the company here and in 12 months you'll make 4x your money. I'm a financial guy. I would take the 4x.
Yeah.
Now, for me, the reason I don't do a lot of this kind of stuff is NP Digital isn't— I never built the agency to make money. It's a love project. And for some reason, I just want to build a big company and win. It has nothing to do with valuation, has everything to do with can I just be the holding company?
Well, also because it's fun.
It also— it's also some sort of identity. Like every time people like, hey, you should sell to us or whatever, I have this like, um, not butterflies in my stomach, but this weird feeling where I'm just like, well, if I don't have this, what do I do? Now I can go buy more things and grow more companies. I've been a serial entrepreneur, but this company has my name tied into it. So I feel like I'm tied to it like a child.
Yeah.
Of mine. And I just can't, Give up my child. It's like someone telling me, would you take $1 billion for your kid? I would love $1 billion, but I would never give up my kid for $1 billion. I love him too much.
So what do you say to the people where it's like, your business is not your identity?
When your business is not your identity, I would tell them, go take the cash, especially if it's life-changing, and go do something else. And I'm not saying I'm well off, but I've done decent enough where as long as I don't buy Ferraris or waste my money on crazy things, I'm kind of—
okay, well, what I was saying was the people that say your business, your identity should not be tied to your business. What do you say to those people?
I agree with them.
But you're tying it to your identity.
Yeah, but the business isn't generating much revenue at all because of my name. It's more so I feel the identity of myself is in the business. Not that the business needs me. I'm saying I need the business. It's like a child of mine and my kids saying, I'm ready to leave college. No, I don't want you to leave college. I want you to stay with Dude, I have a video clip on my phone of my daughter, me asking her, Emma, so where are you going to live when you grow up? And she's like, Daddy, I'll always live with you. I was like, oh, thank you, honey.
And now you're going to repeat that video to her.
Yeah. And I do. I repeat it to her like a few times a week. And then the other day she had me record another video. She's like, Daddy, I want to talk to you about leaving you. And her new one was, you know, Daddy, I decided That I may not live with you forever, but I'll live right next door to you in Beverly Hills. And I was like, okay, honey. I'm like, that works too.
That's a good daughter. What? And William says nothing to you?
No, he just says, give me milk.
All right, real quick. I need to tell you about the group that Neil and I created called the Agency Owners Association. And this is a group that's similar to entrepreneurial organizations such as YPO or EO. By the way, Neil and I are both a YPO, but We thought it'd be really cool if we're able to create a group that's dedicated to agency owners to helping them scale. So you can be at 6 figures, 7 figures, 8 figures. We have different groups for different levels. All you have to do is go to marketingschool.io/agency. Again, that's marketingschool.io/agency, and you can go there to apply. And I will tell you right now, what we're doing is there's an online community. We do calls every now and then. There's stuff that we share in there that we don't share publicly. And you can, at least with the online community, you can cancel at any time. So you can You can go there to learn more about it. And that being said, back to the video. Have you seen this guy that ran the entire continent of Africa?
No. Okay, wait, ran the whole continent of Africa?
First human to ever do it. So this guy's name is Russ Cook.
Dude, I've seen on Instagram you're talking about running. I thought you meant like ran, like ran the whole continent. I'm like, they— each country has their own leader. I thought you meant like—
No, no, sorry, sorry. Like Physically ran.
Yeah, the guy with like a beard and everything, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Russ Cook, his handle is hardestgeezer. Mission complete. So, this video, so when he completed it, 16 million views and this guy's just been running. I think he's got 350K followers but I'm looking at all the impressions here. 3 million impressions, 500K impressions, 16 million impressions, 1.1 million impressions. And you know what's funny? It's not even funny. The company that was really smart about this was Huel. You know Huel?
No?
Huel is like the meal replacement drink. It's like got banana flavor, chocolate, and all that. Stephen Bartlett shares it on his Diary of a CEO podcast. And so Huel was smart enough to sponsor him. I think there's another company that sponsored him throughout the whole way. It's like Huel was like there all the time. The brand kept appearing with this guy, and this guy was the experience. This guy was a story. This is as if like Nike sponsored him.
That's smart. Have you ever tried Huel?
Once.
Is it good?
It's not bad, but it's, uh, it's not like— it doesn't have organic ingredients. Not that this boba has organic ingredients, but you get what I mean. It's pretty— it's decent.
The kick I'm on, and I saw it on Instagram, was Salad Power. Have you seen those videos on Instagram?
No, what's that?
Salad Power is one drink that you take a day. It has spinach, kale, broccoli, carrots, a little bit of apple, a little bit of lemon. I can't remember the rest of the ingredients. Is it good? Tastes like V8, tastes really nasty.
V8's not bad.
I think it has organic. I think it's organic, don't quote me on that. I hate the taste, but I try to drink one pouch a day because I was like, you get double the dose of your daily required vegetables.
Oh, interesting. Well, I'll have to try it out. But look, I'm just looking through this guy's tweets over here. So when he's got 10 hours remaining to run, 6.3 million impressions, and then 1 million over here. It's just a lot. And if you're Hyul, who knows how many impressions you got from this. Probably was worth it.
I would be crying after I finished it.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know how— what do you call that? It's not even the edges of it. It's not the diameter. Well, a whole entire like continent, if you're running the whole way.
Oh, he ran on the outskirts. He didn't just run through the middle to get—
No, no, no. The whole thing.
How long did it take him? It was many months, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Dude, that's ridiculous.
Yeah. Anyway, we don't know, like, we don't know our geometry. So it is what it is.
Yeah, it was a perimeter. He ran the perimeter.
Did I say the perimeter or diameter?
Diameter. The perimeter.
You're right. All right. So I wanted to take a second to tell you about Leveling Up Founders. This is an event/mastermind for people doing 7, 8, 9 figures. These are founders that are doing that amount. And we've been doing this event for a couple years now. We've had amazing speakers, but more than anything, it's about the people. What I mean by that is like-minded people want to hang out with like-minded people, and this is the best spot to connect with people of a certain caliber. And we vet every single person that comes through. So if people are— even though they make a lot of money, but their character, we don't really align with that, we're not necessarily going to let them in. We do this event in Beverly Hills, and it's happening in the beginning of August. All you have to do to learn more about it is just go to levelingup.com/founders. Again, it's levelingup.com/founders if you want to hang out with amazing people. Neil, my podcast co-host, is going to be there. I'm going to be there. People like Syed Balkhi, he will be there as well. And again, it's going to be a great time. levelingup.com/founders to learn more, and we'll see you inside.
The only other person who I know who can do this, who's great with marketing, is, um, David Goggins. Yeah, he's not a marketer. But the reason his content does well and he does well from a marketing standpoint is really polarizing. Like, who would go and run the perimeter of Africa? Very few people to no one. It's so crazy and out there that you're just going to naturally attract a lot of eyeballs. It's like the same thing, the guy is— there's another guy who was running across the United States. I don't know if you saw that on Instagram.
Forrest Gump?
No, not Forrest Gump. I don't know the dude's name. But the same goes with, David Goggins. Like, he'll be traveling on crutches and not care. And he's like, oh, it's all excuses. Oh, it's a— dude, I used to live with him in the same community in Las Vegas. No joke, it would be like 110 degrees outside Fahrenheit, and the dude is running.
Mm-hmm.
Not running like a mile or 2, he'll run like 20 miles. Who wants to run in 110-degree weather? It's like my wife, she took me to a hot Pilates class In Vegas years and years ago when I used to live there. And I was like, honey, you're telling me we're paying to go inside a class that's just as hot as it is outside to do yoga? And I just sat in the back of the room.
Hot yoga or hot Pilates?
Pilates, yoga. Hot Pilates?
I don't think you can do hot Pilates.
Hot yoga or hot Pilates. I don't know the difference. It was one or the other. But I just know I sat in the back of the room on a mat and I just laid there like a snowflake. And I'm just like, Screw this. This is too hot to do any type of exercise.
Well, the point of all this is this type of marketing, to stand out, you have to be remarkable. Like, no regular human being is going to run 20 miles in 110 degrees. No regular human being is going to run the perimeter of Africa. Plus, let's not forget how dangerous that is. So, if you want to stand out, go do something that's remarkable.
How many miles is the perimeter of Africa? I can just ask Google. Uh, Africa's total landmass, the continent measures from north to south about 4,600 miles. It's not actually telling me about the perimeter. Thanks, Google. You didn't answer my question.
See, you didn't ask ChatGPT.
Okay, ask ChatGPT. Let's see if you actually get the answer.
Okay, here, I'll ask right now. See, I have the app. Do you have the app? No.
Vertical length, 4,500 miles. Yeah, none of them are Giving it to me. I'm looking at like the top 10 results on Google.
What is the perimeter of Africa?
I asked how many miles is the perimeter of Africa.
19,000 miles.
That's right. Did you get it right?
Yep, 19,000 miles. About 18,950, so 19,000 miles.
19,000 miles.
How many marathons is that? 19,000 divided by 26. He ran 730 marathons.
Yeah, but how many days did it take him?
Who cares? He ran 730 marathons.
I can run a marathon or 2. No, you can't, dude. No, I can run 1 or 2. That's what I said.
You can run it all straight?
Yeah. I was a great runner in high school.
Really?
I still am a great runner.
Did you run track?
No, dude. I weighed like—
Why'd you say you're a great runner then?
I didn't want to. I had the opportunity to. I weighed like 125 pounds. I'm like light on my feet. I can keep going.
All right, next year we're running the LA Marathon.
Okay, I'm down.
Well, damn it. Executive VCs, damn it.
Yeah, but like on the treadmill here, some days I'll just run like 10, 15 miles. I don't sweat. When I run 10 miles, I can just keep going.
Oh, okay. All right. Next year.
And like when I used to work out with my buddy Terry at some places just for shits and giggles, we would crank up the treadmill to like 12 speed or 13. I can actually continue running. I can do a really quick mile.
Wow.
I can do a mile under 5 minutes, no problem.
All right, I guess we're doing it.
But on the flip side—
You know where it ends? It ends at where I live.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
On the flip side, when I was doing CrossFit and they had me run around the building with a tire strapped onto me with weight, like a rope and tires.
Yeah.
Dude, after I ran the perimeter of the building, nothing like Africa.
Yeah.
I was the last one in the building. I was one of the first ones to leave. That's how slow I was. I was just dead and I couldn't work out the rest of the time.
See, that's different. So like Gary Vee made a good point here. Like if you ask him to run, he can't run, right? But if you ask him to play basketball for 4 hours, he can do it. So it just depends on the form factor that you're using.
Yeah, and that was the example I was giving. Like just because I can run doesn't mean I'm the strongest or the fittest. Like if you give me a lot of weights and I have to go up like crazy hills and stuff, I don't do well. But if you just tell me to like run small hills or whatever, but if you're telling me like to hike a mountain, dude, I'm screwed. Just running straight, no problem.
So the key takeaway for everyone here is how can you run 730 marathons for what it is that you're trying to do? And other than that, I think that's a good place for us to end. So we're going to end it. Go to marketingschool.io/agency if you want to grow your agency faster. That's the community that Neil and I have. We're like, community is everything. We think it's the next funnel, the next way of growing your audience through community. Check it out. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe. It helps us grow. Let us know what you continue to think. about these long-form episodes, and we'll see you— we'll see you in the next episode.
Bye.
