In this short YouTube excerpt, Speaker A boasts that Pepco is South Africa’s largest airtime retailer and claims it sells more t-shirts per hour than BMW sells cars per year, using these hyperbolic statements to illustrate the importance of solving big problems, having a distribution channel, and collecting revenue—what he calls the three simple rules of scale. Speaker B interjects, noting the obvious price disparity between t‑shirts and cars, providing a modest, skeptical counterpoint.
I don't know if you guys know, do you guys know that Pepco is the largest retailer of airtime in South Africa? Larger even than Blue Telecoms, Blue Label. Pepco sells, true story, Pepco sells more t-shirts per hour than BMW sells cars per year.
In fairness, a t-shirt costs a lot less than a car.
Where the money is is not always where the ego is, man. You know, that's, that's why we build apps, because it's, I have an app, but what problem are you solving? Like, the rules of scale are very simple. They weren't written by me, everybody knows them. The first rule of scale is solve a problem that's a big problem. The second rule of scale is make sure you know how to distribute the solution to the problem before The third rule of scale is make sure you know how to collect your money. That's it.
So it's such a good example of talking a lot but saying virtually nothing. I mean, first, of course you can sell more t-shirts than cars. T-shirts cost a lot less than a car. But I ran the numbers because I was curious about this, and I'm not even sure he's right. Just so you know, BMW Group delivered over 2.4 million vehicles in 2025, 281 cars per hour. So more t-shirts per hour than what BMW you would sell in a year means that this company sold about 2.4 million t-shirts every— that's like 684 t-shirts a second. And annualized, that's around 21.6 billion t-shirts a year. I'm not sure that there's 21.6 billion t-shirts on earth. Now, if he's only talking about BMW sales in South Africa, okay, this is a little more reasonable. I did the math. I did the research. BMW Group apparently sold around 12,000 vehicles in South Africa last year, that equates to around 1 to 2 t-shirts per hour, which is far more doable but also considerably less impressive. So I guess I'm just not really sure what he's even saying, what the point is that he's making. Second, we gotta review those rules of scale, shall we? So first rule, solve a big problem. Okay, second rule, distribute solution. Third rule, collect the money. It reminds me of that— do you remember that South Park episode with the Underpants Gnome where their master plan was step 1, collect underpants, step 2, I don't know, and step profit. It's just so stupid. This guy could be smart, he could be genius, could be very, very successful. This advice is
