In this My First Million episode, host Sam Parr asks a guest what kinds of businesses he would start today and how he would optimize them. The guest emphasizes focusing on non‑tech home and office service sectors—such as HVAC, swimming‑pool construction, lawn and garden care—because these markets have a natural selection bias that deters many entrepreneurs, resulting in less competition. He proposes partnering with small, existing operators that already have solid infrastructure and proprietary software, then applying the latest technology to improve efficiency and build a replicable billing and sales model that can be scaled beyond a single geography, creating a moat. The guest stresses his identity as an operator‑entrepreneur rather than a pure investor, viewing finance as a tool to enable real‑world businesses. Sam interjects with an example from Brian Scudamore’s 1‑800‑GOT‑JUNK, suggesting a similar model could be applied to lawn‑care or irrigation services. Throughout, the conversation highlights criteria for choosing ventures, the importance of hands‑on involvement, and the strategic use of technology to turn local service businesses into scalable enterprises.
Knowing what you know about what makes valuable companies and what builds wealth, what are some businesses that you'd want to start right now, and what would you optimize for, and what metrics would you try to optimize for, and how?
Yeah, I mean, I think it depends on what you're, what you're trying to optimize for. If you're just trying to—
I'm asking you. Well, I'm asking you.
For me personally, um, I mean, I, I, I really find value in balancing home life and work, right? So family is super important to me. So, um, my answer would probably be a little bit different for me. And I want to live not in a big city. And so that's okay.
I want to hear what you would do. Yeah.
So if I was starting over today, um, I would probably, uh, start something in the construction space or home services space, maybe office services. I want to get in something that's that's, you know, I like competing in areas where there's not a natural selection of people into that, right? So you don't wanna be in the winery business 'cause everyone in Silicon Valley that exits a business goes and buys a winery, right? And pumps a bunch of money into it. Like, I don't wanna be in the film business 'cause everybody who, you know, every son of a billionaire, you know, makes movies. You know, owning restaurants is really difficult. I mean, separate from all the stuff we're going through now, because everyone, you know, that makes any money thinks it'd be easy and wants to own their own restaurant. So I like the things that sort of have a natural selection bias against them. Like nobody drives by somebody building a swimming pool in Arizona in the summer and says, you know what, I really want to quit my job in the air conditioning and go dig a hole in the ground, right? So we want to, you know, get involved in things like that. I would try to take something probably that is small and partner with them, that they already have the infrastructure in place, the the sort of the technical side and the systems there. And then I would really try to spend some time, you know, how can we use, you know, latest technology to make us more efficient, try to build something that's scalable sort of beyond a geography and get a model down, a billing model, a sales model down that we thought was replicatable and that really had some sort of moat around it. And then I would try to scale it over time. And I specifically—
yeah, anything specifically?
I think it would depend largely on what I could find in the geography. I mean, here in Colombia, I mean, there's a fantastic HVAC service company that's still fairly small, but they've got great systems. They actually develop their own software. It'd be something like that that I'd want to partner with and say, okay, look, I want to get my hands dirty. I want to get involved in it. I mean, I'm not an investor by heart. I mean, I'm an entrepreneur. That's what I love to do, and that's how we think about our business is being operators and entrepreneurs. And so, I wouldn't necessarily get involved in finance. I mean, finance to me is a mechanism that allows and enables entrepreneurship and, you know, running real companies. It's not trading paper back and forth. So I would probably get far more involved in sort of non-tech entrepreneurship, which I know you guys are in Silicon Valley and this can fall on deaf ears.
No, I like what you're saying. But you said HVAC, you said—
Yeah, I'd say HVAC.
Pools.
Yeah, pools, lawn service. I think Uh, you know, I like lawn service. Yeah, like lawn, like lawn and garden care type stuff. I mean, have you ever tried to get somebody to call you back?
It's— yeah, you want to hear something cool? We had, um, so Brian, you know who Brian Scudamore is? Uh, Scudamore, uh, 1-800-GOT-JUNK.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, so the guy owns— the guy who owns it, his name's Brian. He's Canadian. He's friends with me and Sean. Um, I shoot the shit with him every once in a while. It's like a— what's What is that, Sean? Like a $500 million a year company. He owns all of it. And he, we either me or some one of us asked him where opportunity is. And he goes, man, if I had to do the same thing, I would do 1-800-GOT-JUNK, but I would do it for lawn care or for irrigation.
Yep. Yep. That's the type of stuff I'm talking about. Yeah. I mean, there's all these like strange, I mean, niches that you can get into. What I would do is probably take my time and go and talk to a lot of people who are already in business and say, What is your biggest problem? Like, who's the supplier that you're most annoyed with? Um, you know, what's the customer that you have that's just killing it? That type of thing. Um, and I'd probably go try to snake my way into one of those, uh, one of those businesses. And then just— it's really just about getting a foothold, right? I mean, that's what you need is you need a foothold and then you can start building on it from there. Um, but I mean, the problem is if you've got a— if you've got a boat that you're trying to row that's rickety and, and it may look pretty on the outside, but it's just not going to go anywhere. It doesn't matter how hard you row it. And I think that's, you know, early in my career when I was involved in, you know, more of the agency business, that's how I felt. It felt like, I mean, I could just row that thing as hard as I could and I'd maybe get an inch further. And that's where I just want to get out of businesses that are like that.
