In this episode of the My First Million podcast, host Sam Parr chats with former professional cyclist and investor Lance Armstrong, along with a third participant (Speaker A), about what makes investing interesting—or boring. They explore the spectrum between hands‑off capital provision and active, board‑level involvement, emphasizing that many founders need help navigating growth challenges and connections rather than just money. Armstrong describes how his deep network in health, fitness, and nutrition lets him make rapid introductions (e.g., linking AMP Human to Strava) that add tangible value. The conversation also covers the concept of a "flywheel": leveraging the massive audience of Armstrong’s podcast "The Move" (about 15 million annual downloads) to generate deal flow, reintegrate portfolio companies back into that audience, and create a self‑reinforcing ecosystem. They touch on communication practices—monthly, concise updates—and the importance of transparency, while acknowledging that some investors find the ongoing involvement tedious. Real‑world examples such as Lambda School illustrate the balance between high‑performing companies that need little help and struggling ones that may need more support. Overall, the dialogue highlights how an investor’s unique network, audience, and advisory board can become the core of their value‑add proposition.
Chapters
Do you like investing? It's kind of boring.
No, I love— what do you mean what's wrong with it?
It's boring?
What's wrong with you? What's wrong with this guy? He doesn't like making money. You know, there's probably, there's probably some charity right down the street where you could go give them all your dough from Twitch and give them all your time.
You know, investing sounds fun and the initial pitch is fun. Yeah, but once you give them the check, it gets very boring to me because You're so hands-off, and I like it.
I like being a part of creating stuff, dude. It's like being an uncle. You get all the fun stuff and not only the hard work.
I see.
That's actually a good analogy. That's a good analogy. Being an uncle is the best.
Yeah, I mean, we launched a fund and we almost, you know, probably 90% of the companies were super involved with.
In what way?
Well, either through the board or being on the board or just they just need help. I mean, you know this. I mean, young entrepreneurs, they might have a great idea and be smart people, but they're going to come across things they just need help navigating and/or connecting them. I mean, in our—
I remember once I went to pitch an investor, Founders Fund, and Founders Fund's like a top fund or whatever, and he offered us a term sheet. And I asked him, I said, you know, we have this other capital source right now, like funded by like my business partner. We could just keep self-funding or we could take this. I said, you tell me, like, you know, how much value add do you guys really bring? I'm ready to hear like the sales pitch. And he goes, honestly, um, the worst companies need the most help and I can't save them. The best companies never need my help. And so, and then there's everybody else in between.
Yeah.
And here, if I'm giving you this term sheet, I hope you're one of those that are the good companies that I really don't have any influence in. I just get to take credit in the end. And I was like, I dig that honesty. That is true to me. The best companies truly, like, like, I've only made a couple of investments, but Lambda School is probably the best one. It's done pretty well. And you know that one, I'm like a needy girlfriend, you know. They're like one of the hot Silicon Valley companies doing super well. And, you know, I'll text the founder to be like, hey, what's up? You want to jam on ideas? You want me to help you with this problem? And he's like, dude, I'm just busy with all this fucking growth and revenue we have right now.
I hate when investors ask what I need.
I don't need anything. And I'm like, oh, this is what it feels like when you're winning, when you're really, really winning and you just are too busy for any of this bullshit.
Yeah, we won't tell Neil when he gets here.
Well, what I do is I send monthly updates and they're very clear and succinct and I'm very transparent. And they're like, how can I help? I'm like, you can't unless you have ideas and you can tell me how you can help do it. But I don't, I can't think of anything.
Yeah.
Like, it's like, I don't know, how can you help?
You're on your way.
You know what I mean? It's like, what are you gonna come in here and write emails for me and do work for me? I mean, like, I don't know. They're like, do you need intros to anyone? I'm like, who do you know? I don't know.
Well, that's, I mean, I think the intro part is big in our world. And so, you know, in health and wellness, fitness, nutrition, I mean, it's, you know, I've been doing this for 30 years just as an athlete. So I've gotten to know everybody. I mean, if we make an investment, these are just examples, but if we make an investment in a company like AMP Human, and they need, uh, and it'd be very obvious that they'd be connected to Strava and vice versa. It would take 'em a month to get a call.
I think you're different though.
Yeah.
That's your—
well, thank you, Sam.
Well, that's your value is that—
well, that's our value.
Yeah.
Everyone knows that you know everyone. I mean, you're a celebrity. Like you could get in touch with everyone, but like if, you know, I, I'm an investor, you're an investor, it's like they don't know who I know.
Yeah.
And I probably don't know that many people who they can't just cold email.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, you need it to be unique.
Is that what your angle is going to be, is that you have—
There's that, and we call it— I mean, we refer to it as the flywheel, just because now the one show, the second show, The Move, is about 15 million downloads a year. And so once that started to really take off, then I was getting all this interesting deal flow. I thought to myself, we should just start a fund and invest in some of these companies. And then what happens when we reintegrate or occasionally integrate some of our companies back into that audience, right? That core sticky group of 15 million people. And so that's what— here's Neil— that's what we bring to it.
I get it.
Yeah.
So yeah, I mean, there is the connections, there is the flywheel, there's the audience, and then we got a pretty kick-ass advisory board that we pull into, whether it's, you know, researching deal flow or or sitting on boards. Um, so—
