Life & Business Advice For People In Their 20s - My First Million Q&A

I'm going to paraphrase, but this was asked a ton of times, which is how would you start again from zero? I hate this question. I don't ever answer this question. I'm like, that's an impossible thing to answer because you're just looking for like a spoon-fed thing. Um, and you're just not going to do whatever we say. It doesn't, I mean, if you're asking that question, you're probably not going to do it.

Okay. But still answer it. What, what answer it the way you want, which is maybe you're not spoon-feeding a specific answer.

But like, dude, if people—

what does a guy like Sam do in a day and age like this? Let's put it differently.

Well, and I also don't like this question because the answer is I would do exactly the same thing again. Sean Puri is doing what I did. And how's it going? Is it working wonderfully?

It's working amazing. It feels great to be Sam Parr at age 24, however old you were when you started this.

When you started, I would do the exact same thing. It totally works if you pick the right niche. You— but here's the thing is like You care about this topic. I cared about my topic, which they were related, but not the same. You don't mind writing every day. I didn't mind either. And so I would do the same thing. The only thing that you did differently was that you were already kind of famous and you had this huge Twitter following, which definitely helped. I had a 10,000-person email list from HustleCon. So I had a little bit of a base and we're both doing the exact same thing. You get, make sure you have content market fit. And so, which means you See if you can, uh, uh, create a newsletter every single day, which both of us have done. You, uh, find a way to get traffic. In my case, it was by blogging. In your case, it's Twitter. And then once you realize that that works, and then you— I would buy ads, which you are now doing, I think, and I did do, and you scale and you find out what your LTV is, and then you just figure out how much you want to spend. And then you go and get advertisers. You're already making like a lot of money every month doing this. And you're like, great. 4 months in, it took me 2 years to get to where you are.

Well, that's because I saw the blueprint, right? Like, I wouldn't have even known this could even make money. Like, when you first told me, you're like, yeah, email newsletter, um, I think you make a bunch of money. And then I was like, by doing what? Like, email's free. What the fuck? Like, what are you talking about? This was— there wasn't like— Substack didn't exist. There wasn't even— I didn't know of any paid newsletter. And I didn't even really real— I didn't even realize there's like a newsletter advertising industry. And if you had told me that, I would be like, oh cool, like might as well have said you're going to go sell buttons at a flea market. Like, right. It doesn't seem like that big of an idea. And then you were like, yeah, you can make— and I think you had told me at the time $100 CPM, which I don't think turned out to be true, but like—

No, I think I said $50 maybe, but that is true.

Yeah.

I don't remember what I said, but whatever I said, it was ridiculous. Yeah.

You never said $100. And then I was like, so wait a minute. So you're like a list of 10,000 people and I'm like, wait, what's the CPM? And I was like, oh God, got to do math. And then I like, but like, it ended up in a number. I was like, so wait, If you sent that every day, you just make that much money every day. And I remember just being like, well, okay, maybe this is actually an awesome idea instead of like, you know, a kind of shitty idea.

Um, but that's only one of the ways that it can make money. Right. Which is what you're seeing. You're seeing that that's just the tip of the iceberg and you're only on the tip. Yeah.

Yeah. Just the tip as we like to say in business.

Uh, and, and do you see how this could scale to $100 million in sales? Maybe, maybe not.

That's what this is by the way, not a Q&A. We're just giving tips. This is just the tip. The Just the Tip episode.

Because it's a short, it's a short podcast, so we can only do just the tip. Uh, do you see how this could scale to $100 million in sales?

Yeah, I think, you know, probably for more than just ads, but yeah, for, for sure. Yeah. I think so. Okay. One general idea of what you're saying is basically if you are good at content, it is possible to build a large content audience. And then you, that, that is the door that opens more doors. So either you use that to like You know, like what, what I did with my following at first was I launched a fund. I was like, great, investing is a cool way to make money. First built an audience and then launched a fund and the audience became my investors. I took zero meetings, I did zero pitch calls or whatever, and raised a multimillion dollar fund from just the audience. So that's like the superpower of an audience.

So I, I think that's one thing you could do, which is already a, uh, like potentially an 8-figure thing for you. at worst maybe 7 figures, but like, that's like already monetizing. You don't get that today, but in the future.

And the, the other thing, uh, by the way, is that, uh, then by, by the way, the next question is how, well, how, how would you build an audience if you started from scratch? Like, that's a, that's the next, that's the next question, which you probably, it's like your second most hated question.

Yeah. I hate that.

Okay. So that's like, it's like, don't ask a girl her weight or don't ask Sam Parr what he would do to build an audience from scratch if he started over.

Just don't like it because it's like, Dude, you're asking me on Twitter. You see what I do?

Yeah, that's, that's actually my meta lesson. Okay. So can I, can I do my rant for a second here? Yeah. Um, which is kind of a buzzkill for the Just the Tip episode, but let me, let me do it anyways. Most of the people who ask that question, I don't wanna answer, not because it's not a good question, but because if you're asking that question, that basically means you're not gonna do it. You're not gonna do it because the answer is so obvious. It's already out there. Everybody who's building an audience is doing it super publicly. So all you have to go do is be like, oh, okay, so this guy does it this way and this girl does it that way and this guy does it this way. And like, then you sort of just bucket it. You're like, okay, seems like you kind of need to just choose one medium, like maybe podcasting or Twitter or email. They all have different benefits. And then like on that medium you need to like maybe pick a topic and that's your theme where you become the, the guy who always talks about frameworks or the guy who always talks about crypto or the guy who always talks about business ideas or whatever it is.

And then you can expand once you already have a base.

Exactly. And then like you should try to get the, you should try to make viral content cuz it's gonna get shared a bunch. You can kind of like get sponsors and turn that money into like buying out. Like, it's so obvious what all of us are doing that if you, if you, if you don't know how to do it at this point, like you failed the IQ test. And I don't mean that to be mean. I just mean it like, to me, you're not serious about the question. Yeah, because the answer is already like visible to you. And if— and I think there's some like more nuanced questions like which platform would you pick today? Would you pick email or Twitter or whatever? Like, I think there's different questions that might be slightly better questions. Um, but the generic one is pretty bad. And this is how I rant. So last night I'm watching TikTok. I open TikTok as I do for my— TikTok is basically like my bedtime story. And, um, and I see this guy on there and he's like some like Sean Connery looking guy, and he's like this like kind of like complete gray beard guy, and he's cooking an egg. So he's like, the perfect— cook the perfect egg, let's do it. And he's like, you know, he's like, we got eggs, we got black salt, We have this, like, you know, I don't know, he's got like what looks like just like a branch with leaves on it. I don't know, it's probably some like seasoning. He's like, you know, we have these things. Okay, cool. Turn the pan to high heat, crack the eggs, put the eggs in. Now we're going to like keep it on high. You know, you have your oil, you have the— you have it on high, and you're trying to get this crust. He's like, how do you know when there's a crust? Watch this, jiggle it. And like, so he's, he's like literally teaching you in like a 30-second format how to cook the perfect eggs. And by the end He like takes that outta the pan. You're like, dude, I just wanna try that egg more than anything in my life right now.

And it, and it had 10 million views.

Had 10 million views. And like all the comments are like, you know, be my dad. And like, you know, I'll marry you if you cook me these eggs every morning. And he like cuts into it, the egg yolk starts running and it's like, it's crispy on the bottom and soft on top. It's like, just looks amazing, right? And it got me thinking. I was like, he made it look so simple. I saw the egg crack, right? So, You know, I saw what he did. It wasn't like that complicated. He explained every step of what he was doing. And there's like 10 million likes on this video, which means like a lot of people have seen this video. I thought, how many people are going to cook an egg like this? So how many people are even going to try to cook an egg like this? How many people could actually cook the egg like this after watching it? And it just got me thinking. I was like, you know, when I watched this video of this guy telling me how to do it, it seems all simple enough. But I know if I walk to my stove right now and I took the 2 eggs and the salt and the pan with the oil, my egg is not going to turn out like that, right? Like, I would need a lot of reps to be able to ever cook an egg the way the guy did it. And he showed me the exact formula. He told me the formula, and it got me thinking about business advice. I go, this is the problem with Twitter and even podcasts like this, which is that Imagine now that I watch that video of that egg and then tomorrow I come on and there's another video of like this guy cooking eggs and then there's like the next day there's another one and like maybe the next day the guy's—

when are you going to go make your own damn eggs?

Exactly. And like after 6 months, I would kind of in my heart, I would feel like, dude, I know how to cook eggs. But again, if I walked to a stove and I tried to do it, I would make a runny mess and it would be horrible. And like the problem with Twitter and the problem with the people, the way that people use Twitter and use podcasts is They get on every day and they just watch other people cook eggs. They watch guys like you and me cook eggs. Like, we, we don't listen to that many podcasts, but we record our own, right? Like, right, we are happy to take your attention.

Well, it's like they, uh, they're just masturbating instead of having sex.

Exactly, exactly. And like, but you convince yourself, like, I could just imagine if I had done this for 6 months, I'd be like, dude, I know everything there is to know about cooking eggs. And that's that same person who's on Twitter who reads advice from every investor and founder who's tweeting out there, you know, 3 ways to, you know, 3 of my biggest mistakes I made before 30, a thread, you know, my 6 hiring mistakes about managers, a thread, you know, like all these things, right? Like it's like when I ask my daughter, when we play this game, I say, who's your best friend? She goes, the floor. That's how I feel about the thread. You know, like basically it's like, here, just I'm going to say this arbitrary shit. And like, I can imagine that if you listen to that and read that every day, you would think you are learning how to cook eggs, but you have no idea how to cook eggs even after reading all of that. In fact, you almost are worse off than somebody who just tried to cook eggs for 2 weeks straight. And then maybe on the 14th day of cooking their eggs, they go on Twitter and they see something that's like, oh, that's how I should change the way I'm cracking the egg, because like, you know how the heat is too high. Oh, that's it. Okay, let me go back and quick make an adjustment. And so My rant is basically don't be the dude who just watches the video of cooking eggs. Like, go crack some eggs, make a bunch of mistakes, and then come back to Twitter and podcasts like this for your just-in-time learning to like just give you a tweak on the thing you're actually doing.

Right, right, right, right. I, I, I'm, I am on board. I completely agree with everything you said.

You want to do, uh, let's go back to answering some questions. Yeah, from people who want to watch us crack some eggs.

All right, you pick one. You pick one and then I'll pick one and so forth.

Okay, sounds good. Uh, let's do this first one. So, uh, what are the key traits you look for in a co-founder and red flags so that your business is successful and you guys stay happy? And I think you've had like multiple co-founders, I think, right?

Ish. I was always like the guy and then like I had first people that were more Batman and Robin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and but then with Joe Spicer for my fund, it's 50/50. Uh, the, and what I've learned, number one, uh, they have to be emotionally healthy and very emotionally stable. I would consider myself to be mostly stable on the big things, but my mood goes up and down. And for me to be a good partner with someone, they need to be emotionally stable. And even if I was like really stable, it's really important because I've seen a lot of like, it's just like the same way you ever have like a friend that's got like a husband or a wife and they're just fucking crazy. And it's like, I don't know how to advise you here. Like this person is acting irrational. Like it's really challenging.

It's like, you want to separate them? Be like, you stop acting crazy and you stop acting crazy. That's my only That's definitely advice to both of you guys. Yeah.

It's like, dude, this is, this is just, it's not going to work out. And so I married a woman that was like very stable and even keel and I realized, oh, that's perfect. So what I look for in partners is people who are emotionally stable. Uh, and, and I also want a partner that's incredibly honest and undersells themselves. Uh, I also, and if I find out that they lie at all, like even on small shit, it's game over for me. So really high integrity is important. And then finally, having really high energy. So like, who can just like, who wants to push the pace? And basically with my best partners, I feel intimidated and inspired by them.

That's a great way of putting it. And I think it shows like I'm pretty chill. Sarah is very chill. I don't know Joe that well, but he seems also very chill.

Very chill.

You know, very cool. Your partners basically and your ventures are like, you know, resting heart rate under 40. Like it's hard to get a heart rate up. And like, I think that's good. That's a good pair for you. For you.

Yeah, because I don't mind being the high energy. Like, I'm typically the one that can be the catalyst and be the igniter. Right. And then a person that wants to be the guider, I enjoy.

Right.

Yeah.

That's a, that's a great one. There's this book that I read called Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person.

Have you read this book by, uh, Tim Urban? No, no. Or he has a, it's the school, he has a blog post called that.

Oh yeah.

You're right. You're right. School of Life.

So the, in it, like the very first principle is like, we marry the wrong person because Um, you know, one of the things that says like, we don't even know how we are crazy. Everybody's nuts. You just— if you— but if you don't recognize how you're nuts, um, you're not going to know how to pick a partner who can deal with your level, your version of crazy. And you're gonna have to deal with their version of crazy. And the idea that you're gonna change them to not be so crazy is like not a thing. Like, everybody's weird, or you just don't know them well enough. So like, you got to have your— you got to know your weirdnesses and then be like, cool, is this person compatible, fundamentally compatible with my, my type of weird? Uh, that's kind of a version of what you just said.

So what, what, what are yours?

So I kind of steal from like, you know, Warren Buffett said this thing and then Naval, I think paraphrase it as well, which is like two things you just said, energy, integrity, and intelligence. So those, those three. So break 'em down. Um, energy is the one I think most people overlook. I think everybody wants intelligence. They're like, oh yeah, I want somebody who's like really smart or really good. Right? And it's like, yeah, that's, that's true. You don't want to, you don't want somebody who's incompetent. It'll drive you nuts in the long run. I've had that problem before. You don't want somebody who's low integrity, right? Because a smart person who's low integrity is a crook. It's just a matter of time until they screw you. And then the last one is, um, energy. And the energy thing, I think, is the one that everybody overlooks. I put it as my number one, which is like— some people call it vibe, some people call it energy, I call it mood, you know, whatever. It's basically, does this person bring enthusiasm by default, or are they always looking for some ex— like, do they need an excuse to be high energy? Do they need an excuse to be motivated? Do they need an excuse to be optimistic and enthusiastic about what you're working on? Because if they, if they do, you're going to— I feel like I'm constantly like a doctor with the shock paddles, like, all right, clear, give me, you know, give me, give me 20 amps or whatever. And like, just trying to like get them to be like, yo, wake up. And I've had this with like business meetings because Ben, who's my business partner on all my different businesses, Ben's a very low-key guy. He's very low, low. He comes across, he's not actually low energy, but his speaking style is low energy. And so sometimes we'll be in meetings and I'll just be like, guys, I just don't want to ever be in a meeting that feels like this right now. Like nobody's fighting, but like also nobody's saying anything like, hello, wake up. Like, you know, do you care? Are you there? Do you have ideas or are you just creatively bankrupt? And like, I just don't want to be in a room that's like low energy. So can we just shake that up right now? And they're like, oh yeah, sorry. Let's fucking go. All right, give me some token thing. I'm like, well, even a token thing is fine. It shows that you understand what matters to me.

I was going to say the two people I think do actually have good— who show that is both of our Ben. So Ben, our Ben here, Ben Wilson, he has good energy and vibe because whenever I'm around him, I feel happier and I leave happier. Right. And he does a good job of matching. And then Ben Levy is— whenever— same thing. Whenever I'm around him, I feel happier. And he also gets a lot of energy talking to people, which exactly is, which I fucking hate doing. So Ben Levy's a great partner.

Yeah, he's amazing. Uh, he's really amazing. Um, okay. So that's kind of what I guess answers that question. Um, which one do you want to do next?

Okay. Let's do this one. Um, what did you tell your friend on Twitter? So, okay. The question is, what did, what did you tell your friend on Twitter that resulted in his audience growth? To $100K in just a few hours.

Um, super strong hockey player.

So he tweeted— I helped him write another one today. Did you see it?

No, no, no. Is it popping off?

Oh yeah, right away. It got like 5 or 10— it got 5 or 10,000 likes in the first 30 minutes and it's already reached 5 million people.

Okay, so explain the thought process. How did you— what advice did you give him that would help him do that?

People hate this advice, but look, here it is. The guy made $100 million in the NHL. And he spent 20 years being a hockey player and I'm just helping him craft some of the stories that he's already lived. So step one is there's this massive unfair advantage, which is he's, he's lived in, he's, he's lived an interesting life. And I was talking to my friend Logan who has this book called How to Not Die Alone. And she's like a dating coach and helps men and women find partners. And I was talking to her about how I think men should find dates and I'm like, You know, the, the best thing about being able to attract a woman is as long as you focus on yourself and live an interesting life and constantly improve yourself, that's what women really care about. And that's really, it's, it goes beyond women. So with Chris, it was like, well, you just live an interesting life. Are you, are you looking at his tweet?

How much?

I'm looking at it right now.

So it says, first tweet is, when you hear about X player making $30 million over 5 years, $6 million a year, you think, wow, he made it. However, that's not always the reality. In this thread, I'm gonna break down how much they take home and where the rest of it goes. Uh, tell me more. Yeah.

What's the results so far?

Uh, so it has 10,000 likes and it was posted 5 hours ago. Wow.

So, um, so with Chris, what I do is I basically, uh, talk to him on the phone and he's like, hey, I've got this idea where I want to talk about like finances. And he'll, we'll like, he'll have a conversation with me for 20 minutes. And I'll say, he'll say, yeah, you know, it's crazy about escrow. And I'm like, wait, Hold on. What the hell is escrow? He goes, yeah. So like basically when you get paid, 30% goes into escrow. And I was like, oh, so when you get that money back, he goes, you actually never get that money back. That money is used to afford the lead, the league. And I'm like, oh, that's interesting. He goes, yeah, it's no big deal. So anyway, and then like, he'll keep talking. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's the thing. That's the thing. And so when, what you have to do is you have to find the big idea and you have to do this thing called the, it's called like the knowledge complex, but basically If you wanted to get good at Twitter, you've got to A, live an interesting life and B, understand that the interesting and unique experiences in your life, it's really not well known to a bunch of people. And you have to realize that like what seems boring to you, isn't boring to most other people. And so you've got to figure out how to tweet that. And if you don't live an interesting life, go and live an interesting one or go and learn about a topic and just tweet everything you're learning.

Exactly. Exactly. I think you said it perfectly. I'll only add. One part to that, which is, uh, in, in my Power Writing course, I teach this, uh, exercise. And, um, basically I use this— I explain it the exact same way you said. I said you have two choices, like, fundamentally. You can either be a generous expert, meaning you know something so well you could just be sharing it with the audience, or a curious novice, curious beginner. So it's like you just say, yo, I don't know anything about this, but I'm curious. I'm gonna dig in and find out. If you want to learn what I learned, you know, going from zero to understanding, you know, DeFi, uh, just follow this thread. A bunch of people like, great, I'm also a dummy. If you're gonna do a bunch of work for this, I would love to hear what you— what your takeaways are at the end. And so people vastly underestimate the curious beginner path, which almost is a better path really, um, because they think you have to be a generous expert. You think— they think you have to have played in the NHL, made $100 million in order to share this type of info. Um, there's other formats like, you know, Meme King, um, yeah, Spicy Analyst. Like, I have all these like names for these like different different like lanes you can go down for content to win. But like, those are, those are two of them. Let's say the other thing I say is there's exercise because most people are like, well, you know, I haven't made $100 million, so what do I talk about? And so there's this exercise from the book Storyworthy that I stole called First, Last, Best, Worst. Have you, have you ever done this?

Yeah. You, well, and you did it with me. It was great.

Oh, okay, cool. So we've done it before, but like basically let's just play it again for people who don't, don't know it. But like, and we can pick maybe even a different topic. So You take any category of your life, so it could be relationships, it could be cars, it could be side hustles. Yeah, it could be jobs. So let's take jobs. So what would be Sam Parr's first job?

First time you ever been a janitor at a bakery?

Okay, great, didn't know that. Um, what was your, um, worst job?

Um, I, uh, uh, staining decks in the summer in St. Louis.

You're totally miserable doing— okay, great. Then, uh, what What was your, um, what was your best job?

Being a podcast host.

And then what was your, um, like, like say we, we usually say last job, but it means like most recent job.

So like in that case, I was CEO of a media company that was making tens of millions of dollars.

Great. And, and oh, also weirdest. What's the weirdest job you've ever had? What's the weird— and it doesn't have to be a job. What's the weirdest way you've ever made money?

I was a skateboard instructor at the YMCA.

That's a good one. Or the hot dog stand, I think is a great one also for that.

All right. A hot dog stand. Yeah.

Um, so, so you take that and you say, all right, and everybody has some version of this. Everybody has an answer to these questions. Then, then you say, all right, within that, what's the story people don't know about staining decks? Or what's the people think people don't realize about, about those hot dog stands you see? And then they're like, well, yeah, they don't. And you're so, it's kind of like you said, the knowledge complex or whatever. It's like you're so in the weeds You don't remember what it's like to not know. So you kind of gotta talk to somebody about it and just say it out loud. And you see when they raise their eyebrows or when they get curious, it's like, that's your hook. You need to know like, you know, how much do those hot dogs really cost? Or like, where the heck do they go when the game is over? Right? Like, you know, okay, now I wanna know, like, you know, yeah, I have always wanted that. So, oh wow, you put it in this area, whatever. And so, so I think that's what you wanna do to come up with great content ideas. You don't have to be Chris Pronger, an NHL star who made $100 million. I bet you could have done maybe not as successful, maybe not like, you know, 100,000 followers and like one tweet or whatever you did for that guy. But like, I bet if you worked for 3 months with somebody who's a completely normal person, like, you know, project manager at Deloitte, I bet you could get them to 30 or 40,000 followers on Twitter within a month.

And if you look at— well, look at— so you didn't have a following on Twitter Uh, like 3 years ago you started, right?

2 years ago. Yeah.

2 years ago. Now you've got over 200,000. Trung Pham, the guy who worked for me for a long time, when we, when he started working at my company, I think we helped, or he signed up for Twitter. Now he's got what, 3 or 4 or 500,000 or something.

Yeah.

500,000. And then there's like loads of employees at my company that have done it. Like it's very easy to do.

Yeah, exactly. All right. Let's do a different one. Um, You're up. What would you say to a lawyer with a very— I'm a lawyer with a very good salary. What would you say? I've got a great answer to motivate me to leave my cushy but soul-sucking job and jump into entrepreneurship. If my boss asks, I'm asking for a friend.

I would say don't jump into entrepreneurship and get happy with your job. If you're someone that needs another person to give you motivation to bail, you're— you shouldn't bail. You're only doing it because you think that People think that it's cool because people they admire do it. I would say don't do it. I don't think that you're the personality type that this will, that will be happy doing this if you need someone to motivate you.

Yeah, exactly. Uh, and by the way, there's a trick there, which is if that pisses you off and makes you want to do it, cool. You are an entrepreneur. Go ahead. You know, you may pass GIL, you may collect your $200. If that, like, if that answer feels so wrong for you, it doesn't sit well with you and it annoys you that Sam even said it. And you get this like random chip on your shoulder for no reason. Like, ah, you kind of are, that's, that actually did get you in the going on the right path.

And also if you're a, if you're a lawyer, I do think that the hours lawyer works, lawyers work are ridiculous, but you could make a lot of money. And I bet there's a world where you could do like a 9 to 5 legal business or be a lawyer and have a really good life. So like why bail if you, if you're not compelled to do it enough that you're just going to do it, maybe don't just don't bail and be happy.

Yeah, for sure. Um, all right, pick another one.

Um, would you, uh, would you consider buying an existing business and growing it, or would you only want to start things from scratch?

Frankly, I don't know why I haven't done that. Like, it's pretty clear to me now that that is a better path for entrepreneurship. Um, unless you really just have the killer idea Um, but for some reason I haven't done it yet. I just keep starting new things from scratch. I think there's some fun in that. And, uh, it's not really the logical decision, it's more of the emotional decision. But I for sure would, and in fact think I should, um, be doing that because I know how to run a good business and I know how to grow businesses. And taking something that's already doing $5, $10, $15 million a year and getting it to 50 would be a lot easier for me than getting something from 0 to 50. And, um, so why not? Yeah, it makes sense.

I just don't get it. I don't, maybe I'll do it one day. I, I know people talk about this all the time. I agree that it is actually easier and I agree that the likelihood is better and your life would in most cases be better. I can't fuck, I just don't give a shit about something that someone else made. I just, I enjoy starting it. I think that to me, building a business is like my art and I I, I like doing it from the ground level.

And what about— okay, I got a question for you from, uh, from Twitter here. So John Williams asks, how hard should I— should you be willing to work to create a successful business? Is it an 80-hour-a-week job? Is expecting to only work 40 hours a week unrealistic? And by the way, his tagline is, John Williams, fuck work, let's play. Um, I think we know what he's trying to do here.

Um, so let me just say this, When I started my company, the first 2 or 3 years I was working constantly all the time and people would be like, what does he mean?

Like you're in the office, you're thinking about it. Obviously you wouldn't get to the office all the time.

I would get to the office at 8 or 9 AM and I would go home at 7 or 8 PM. Um, and I, I would dick around at the office and hang out with my employees, but I, it was really important to me that I was the first to arrive and last to leave. And I didn't expect, uh, I would work Sunday evening, but not Saturday.

So that's like, just take that, you know, as, as, uh, literally what you said. So let's say 12 hours a day, 5 days a week. That's 60 hours a week plus maybe a couple hours at the weekend. So maybe 64 hours or something like that in a week.

Yeah. But I couldn't sustain that. So I only did that for like the first 2 years and to get to like profitability and hiring people. And then I was able to, to where it was like some weeks it was 80, other weeks it was pretty chill, it was 40. Um, and, uh, so I was able to relax a little bit more. Um, one time I took a month off, so I was able to like, but that was, we were making like $8 million that year. So, um, I was able to chill a little bit. Um, if I had to start something again, I would expect that I would work 40 or 50 hours a week getting it going. But here's the thing, whenever, even now, even though I'm not like actively involved in building a business, I think about this type of stuff 24 hours a day. People ask us, Sean, if we prepare all the time. And I'm like, yeah, kinda, but also not kinda, but like, we're like everything we read, it's like we are relating it back to this trade of, I don't know what you call this thing, improving ourselves and sometimes making money by doing it.

Yeah. It's like, what's that? Um, I want to keep referencing this like douchey, uh, the story that makes me sound like a juice. It's like Picasso's at a restaurant and somebody comes up and they're like, Picasso, will you make a piece of art for me? And he grabs a napkin and he scribbles on it and he's like, you know, that'll be $30,000 or whatever. She's like, but you just, you just made that in 2 seconds. And he's like, no, this, this, ma'am, like, you know, this took me 20 years or whatever to make this scribble. Um, and that's how I feel about the podcast. Like there are days where I will show up and it's like, wait, are you, you know, what are you guys talking about? Like right before the pod, I'll be like, hey, I'm gonna go record. And my wife would be like, what are you guys gonna talk about today? I was like, I have no idea. And it's not that I have no idea, it's I have a long list of things that throughout the week I'm writing down here because I'm doing calls with all these interesting people that I'm researching this thing. And if I'm watching a documentary, I'm taking notes. It's like I'm doing things that the average person doesn't do in order to generate a bunch of ideas so that when I show up, it can just be natural. I can just speak naturally about interesting topics because I've already put in the whole week of trying to learn interesting things. And have interesting conversations and all that stuff. So, and I would say like if, you know, a lot of this, these questions are like career advice. Listen, if you can find a way to do that in your career, you've won, which is basically—

there's no separation.

There's no separation between the things you're most interested in and liking to do and spending your nights kind of like learning about or experimenting with. Like find a way for money to be the byproduct, like the exhaust coming out the chimney of that factory of interestingness. And like, that's a good— I had heard that before. Yeah, that's pretty good, right?

That was, that was, that was, that was great. That's really good. Yeah. And so I'm a little in awe of that. Good job.

Oh, hell yeah. All right, great. Put it on a t-shirt. Um, I had heard things like that before, but again, it was just cracking egg, watching other people crack eggs advice. Finally, when I did it, it's like, this is the way. This is for sure the way, which is just go for the most interesting things and then learn core business skills so that you can turn you just doing what's most interesting to you on a daily basis into a profitable money-making event, like venture. And then you basically are funding yourself to live exactly the life you want.

And how long were you working when you, uh, at Bebo?

6, 7 years, something like that.

But, uh, sorry, I meant early on, how many hours?

Oh, I was— I would work a lot, but it was more like, I don't necessarily know if that was productive. Like, I was at the office every day from— let's call— I would get there like 9, 9:30 usually, and then I would leave either like 8 PM or I would sleep there because there was like an apartment built into the office and I was a single guy. It didn't matter, like, who cares if I go home to my apartment or I sleep in this apartment? Like, sleeping here saves me time and I could just keep you know, working on stuff. And basically what I would do, the way I thought about my day was like, I had decided when I took the job, I go, I'm gonna work here instead of starting my own company. I'm gonna work here. I'm gonna pack like 20 years of experience into the next 4 years. That was my goal.

Right.

Um, and then I said, okay, well how am I gonna do that? I said, all right, well my day job needs to get me reps working on startups and like trying to build them and grow them. Cause that's the thing I like to do. And then basically as soon as like everybody would leave the office around 5, I would walk out, I would go get like, like, you know, Westfield Mall was like right there. I'd walk to Westfield Mall, I'd walk to the food court. This is why I gained a bunch of weight. I'd walk to the food court, I'd be like tired, super hungry. I'd go eat some shitty food in the food court. I'd come back to the office and then I would like, like I'd have my night job. And my night job was basically like, what are the most interesting companies and who are the most interesting people? How do I like learn about what they're doing? How do I meet them? How do I invite them over for a beer right now at the office or dinner right right now at my office and like pick their brain on what they're doing. And basically I would build my network and I'd build my knowledge at night, or I would like build my skills. So I'd like teach myself SQL overnight. I'd be like, okay, I'm tired of asking the developers to run queries for me. I'm gonna learn how to write my own queries. And like, you know, so I would like spend 2 weeks just trying to learn SQL, right? And then I would spend 2 weeks really like studying up on like, you know, how MLMs grow. And like, just like I just picked these like intensives and I would just go down them. So now I kind of have a whole bunch of obscure knowledge, but because I like dedicated a period of my life to really only learning about those things, I didn't, didn't do other stuff, but it's okay. I was like, you know, happy as a clam just to do those things.

That's badass. I think that's a really good answer. Um, all right, let me pick one. What are your biggest regrets and what pastime do you— sorry. All right. What are your biggest regrets in business and life? What past time in your life do you miss most? What future time do you most look forward to? So I'll answer really quick. My biggest regret, I wish I would have taken my work, my school, my sports more seriously as a young person. So like in grade school, high school, and college, I kind of dismissed it. I wish I would have like taken it. Why? Yeah, because I think that like I— well, when you're in high school and college, like there's a time where all you have to do is acquire skills and like get good at stuff. And I like would just— I didn't like eat well. I didn't like sleep as much as I should have for when it relates to sports. I didn't train as hard as I could have trained. And that's just like a period of time when you're young from like the ages of 12 to like 20 or 22 if you're a college athlete, which I was for a little while, where it's like you can just get good at a sport. Also with school, I kind of dicked off in high school and I actually regret that. I wish I would have like took the time to learn, you know, I'm getting paid to read books now or I'm sorry, I have all my free time to read books. Now I read in my free time. So I wish I would have taken my, my schooling and my, um, athletics a lot more seriously because that's like the only time you have to do that. And, uh, I, uh, I'm most looking forward to having children.

Nice. All right. Uh, it's great. It was a great answer.

What's your regret?

Isn't this question really hard to answer? Like this regret question. Like I feel stuck when I try to answer this question.

Well, what do you think about all the time? And you're like, man, I wish I would have I wish I would have behaved differently during that period of my life.

So I kind of— let me break it up into two different groups. There's like, knowing what I know now, oh wow, like I could have done so much better, maybe made more of the opportunity, whether that's like, you know, paid— my parents basically paid a bunch of money for me to go to Duke. It's like an expensive-ass school and it's got like tons of like, you know, opportunities. I think there was like this thing that came out which was like in the— in what, in like 2007 on Duke's campus, there was founders of like I think 7 or 8, like, billion-dollar companies. Um, so like, I was there. Um, I didn't know any of these people. I didn't even think about entrepreneurship. I didn't think about like meeting— I didn't even think about like, wow, I'm on this campus with a bunch of really awesome people. Like, I should go not just try to make friends and party, but like, who are the people who are actually working, like, trying to do something interesting? You know, who are those people? Who— okay, I'm just like focused on my classes and passing them, but like Why don't I actually focus on figuring out what classes are interesting to me, right? There's a whole bunch of ways I would do college differently if I had, like, had the wisdom I have today. It's not really like a regret though. Like, when I hear the word regret, I think about, like, that word you said, behavior. Where did I— where do I feel like I kind of let myself down in my behavior? And the only things that come to mind are, like, any time that I've been, like, lower integrity. So, like, either lying to somebody, exaggerating to somebody, um, kind of making a selfish move where like I got some benefit and other people didn't really get a benefit. There's not like a big one that comes to mind, but there's like really small ones that come to mind. I think those are my only regrets, like, uh, the ones that you don't sleep well and you're not proud of. Like a simple test I do is like, if everybody knew about this move I was making, would I— would that be a thing I'm excited about? Like if I could magically get distribution and everybody knew this about me, would this be something I'd be proud of or embarrassed of, um, or neutral? And it's like basically Anything that's in neutral, I'm like, well, why don't I just do it more interestingly? You know, like, let me just take the common and make it more uncommon. Like, that would be— and so that's helped me a lot. And the things that I'm embarrassed of, it's like, that's just a sign I shouldn't be doing this, and I need to like bite the bullet and like reverse course on this. And like, I think before I used to definitely be like an exaggerator, white liar, like kind of like— not like nothing that harmed people, but like definitely things that like benefited me. And like over time I've like tried to stamp those out. Um, so I would say like just little stupid things like that would be the only things that I actually regret. Whereas everything else, it's like, I don't know, like, yeah, I was dumb. I didn't know things at that time and whatever, you know, who cares? I learned them by doing the thing the wrong way. I learned the right way.

There was one time when I was 18 and like, uh, a limo or I was like in a shuttle from the hotel to like on a college visit or something like that. And the man driving the bus was, uh, the little, you know, it's like a van when you're at the Marriott and they take you around. And he was like, all right, you're at your stop. And I, you're supposed to tip him sometimes. And I tipped him $5. He goes, oh no, it's okay. And I said, oh no, you need this. And I meant to say like, you earned it or something. And I said, you need this. And that's one of those things that I look back and I'm like, I cannot believe that was so condescending of me. I cannot believe it. That's something I think about all the time. And I'm like, I can't believe I said that. I cannot believe that's, that's one of my big regrets.

Dude, I have like 10 of those. Have I told the Orlando Bloom story on here?

No.

People make fun of me because I tell the story so often. If I haven't told anyone, I'm gonna tell you now. Okay, here's one of my biggest regrets. So, uh, I'm in London, I'm 21 years old maybe, and my buddy comes to visit, uh, for college. And so I was living in London at the time because my parents lived there. And like, so I'm like, okay, let's go out. Now I hadn't really gone out in London, so I didn't kind of know where to go. I didn't know the protocols, the etiquettes. I'd just been kind of hanging out with my parents at their house. I wasn't drinking. I didn't have a big tolerance at this time. You know, like I basically hadn't drunk.

Still don't.

Yeah, still don't.

Didn't have big tolerance back then.

Still don't have it. My buddy comes to visit and I'm like, all right, I want to be cool with this buddy. Shout out to my buddy Goops. If he's listening, he, he, he'll know this is him. So we go out in London. I'm trying to act cool because I'm like, he thinks I live in the center of London. He thinks I still kind of like go out like I did in college. He doesn't know I've just been in my mom's apartment, you know, like doing nothing for like 3 months, you know, just like, I don't know, watching reruns of Lost. And so, so I'm like, oh, let's go over here. Let's go over here. And I'm like, oh, this place is popping. 'Cause I see a place just with a line outside. I'm like, this is the place. We're going here. He's like, you sure? We can just go to this bar. I'm like, no, no, no, we're going over here. So we go to this place. Line outside and he's like, I don't think this is like a bar or club. And it turns out it's a theater. And I'm like, oh shit. But I'm like kind of committed to my like plan of like, no, no, no, this place is the best. I've now picked a theater, like a, it's a plays, but the play had just ended and people were waiting outside. I'm like, and there's this group of girls, they were all visiting for the University of Georgia. And Duke University has like kind of notoriously like not the hottest college girls. And so these girls to me were like a 14 outta 10. And so, and so I'm like, If—

and they probably didn't have the hottest guys either.

Yeah, right. Like, I, I was a strong 7 at Duke.

I'm a 3 at public school.

I'm a private school 7, public school 3. And so, you know, I'm a state school 3. So, so basically, um, I'm like, okay, I'm trying to— still trying to recover from Goops being like, why are you telling me to go to this theater? And I'm like, cuz I want to talk to these girls. And so now I'm like trying to act cool in front of these girls, which was I was already failing and acting cool in front of my dude brown friend. Now I'm trying to fool this girl. So I'm like, you're like the Tinder Swindler man of your friend group. So I'm like, what are we doing here? What are we waiting for? And they're like, oh yeah, the, you know, the play just ended and Orlando Bloom did a drop-in at the show. And so he's coming out and like, we're all just waiting for his autograph basically to take a picture of him. And I'm like, in my head I'm like, like, you, okay, do you know who Orlando Bloom is? If I say that, do you know the who that is? Could you have a picture in your head?

I know exactly who he is.

Okay, I didn't. So I'm like, I've heard the name, but I'm like, I have no idea who this guy is or why he's famous. But like, clearly he's famous, there's a crowd here waiting for him. And so we're waiting 20 minutes and I'm just chopping it up with these girls.

And so what year was this?

This would have been, uh, I don't know, 13, 14 years ago.

So like, dude, so Orlando was like peak Orlando Bloom.

Like, exactly, he'd just done Pirates of the Caribbean. I didn't, I didn't know how to connect it and I couldn't ask because I'd already again told Koops we gotta go here, told these girls I'm waiting for Orlando Bloom. They don't know that, I don't know who he is. But anyways, we're just kind of shooting the shit because I have this captive audience. These girls can't leave, they're waiting for Orlando Bloom, so they gotta talk to me basically at this point. So we're having fun, we're flirting with these girls, things are going well now. So my night has turned around, but problem is people are coming out from the play and I don't know who Orlando Bloom is, so I'm just sort of waiting to see where the reaction comes from. I'm expecting like, I don't know, Brad Pitt in his prime. I'm expecting like, you know, Bruce Willis. I'm expecting just like some, like just some hunk to come out because like clearly all these women are waiting for him.

Lando's pretty, pretty hunky, man. He's pretty good looking.

He's a lot more like, um, petite. Petite, exactly the word I'm looking for. So this guy walks out and he's just this kind of small guy and he's got this wispy body and this wispy mustache and I'm like, this is the fucking guy? And so like I'm just sort of like, I'm a little bit drunk. I'm pretty drunk at this point. I'm just like, oh my God. So he's facing the— he's like signing autographs for the other people. He's like about to get into this car, this limo. And like, there wasn't a lot of space, you know, like the distance between me and my kind of like, like, you know, this window in front of me is 2 feet away. That's how far he was away. And he's just not turning around to like sign our autographs or whatever. I don't want his autograph, but he doesn't know.

Tap him on the shoulder.

Orlando! Orlando! And like, I'm screaming his name. And so I said it like kind of like medium, and then he doesn't turn. And so then I'm just drunk. So I'm like, I'm just going to say it as loud as I can. So I'm yelling. And Americans are already like 40% louder than Europeans. And now I'm trying to be loud.

And so I'm like, he's, he's not American, right?

No, but I'm in London.

And so most people are like, I know, but so he probably doesn't like that either.

Nobody liked it. Nobody liked it. Trust me. Like these girls who I was talking to, they're like, oh my God, this is so off-putting. Why is this man so loud right now? And so, um, it sounds like I'm just screaming, and I am screaming. He turns around and I just go, Orlando! And he turns. I go— and I'd see his face for the first time. I'd only seen this petite body from behind, which was just basically a woman's body. So he turns around and I see his mustache. I go, what's with the stache? And then he's like— he doesn't know what to make of it. Like, what do you mean? How do you answer that? What's with the stache? I thought it was from the play. I thought he had left it on because it looks so ridiculous to me. And so he's like, he just sort of rolls his eyes and the girls are like, you're the most uncool dude on the planet now. You've annoyed Orlando Bloom. And he just like, he starts walking into, he just, he just sort of aborts. And the girls are pissed because he didn't like acknowledge them now either. The whole section got blacklisted. So he gets in the car. So that, trust me, that's not the worst of it. He gets in the car. This is where the story ends in the, in the, the final crescendo. And I'm like— and something comes over me. I'm like, you know, I'm like an entrepreneur, I'm action-oriented, I'm a go-getter. So I decided to be a go-getter with Orlando Bloom. And I go to the car and there's no security because again, nobody expects a buffoon to just like open up the car door. So I reach through the window, he's waving bye to the fans through the back seat. I reached through the passenger front seat into the back seat while he's waving, and my hand just wraps around his thumb. Like, I was going for like a high five, but he's waving, so it's a moving target. I only catch his thumb. And if you ever had another man's thumb inside your full hand— yes, one of the most uncomfortable feelings. Yeah, I immediately sober up. He looks at me like, yo, bro, like, why are you like— why are you grabbing my thumb? And I'm just like—

I sober up.

I'm just like— I was like, dude, I'm so sorry.

And I just— I let it go.

And I let go the whole night. And I basically— it's the most embarrassing thing that I've done, um, you know, since then. It's never done— never topped that moment. So that's my biggest regret.

Oh my God, that's awesome! Grabbing Orlando Bloom's thumb as he drove away after making fun of his mustache.

Orlando, if you— if you're listening to this, if— if your cousin is listening to this, send this to Orlando. Let him know that guy, you know, he was just— he was just trying to impress his friend, you know. He was just trying to be— I don't know what he was trying to do, but it was an accident. I didn't know—

we know you're trying to do— you're doing it for the tail. Whatever. Everyone's been there. He would empathize with that. Um, dude, I don't think we should do any more. I think we have to end on that. That was awesome. That was the best story I've heard in a long time.

All right. Fantastic. Good. Uh, good Q&A. Just the tips, uh, from your boys. That's what we're going to call it.

Just the tips.

All right. We're out of here.