In this conversational interview, Sam Parr and his guest explore three fundamental strategies for founding a company: building to sell (optimizing for an exit), building to win (creating a repeatable, scalable business that can succeed without a unique founder advantage), and building for fun or mission (pursuing a purpose-driven venture regardless of financial upside). They discuss the trade‑offs between growth speed and personal workload, noting that faster‑growing businesses often demand 100‑hour weeks versus slower ventures that can be run in a 40‑hour week. The dialogue references David Friedberg’s claim that founders often underestimate themselves and that aiming for larger, grander ideas attracts higher‑caliber talent. The Unreasonable Institute is mentioned as an example of a community that encourages “unreasonable” people to tackle big problems. Real‑world anecdotes about entrepreneurs like Suleymane (who scales quickly by working the same hours but more efficiently) and Neville (who juggles multiple projects) illustrate how work intensity and personal goals shape outcomes. Ultimately, the guest emphasizes that the choice of strategy should align with one’s life vision—whether the priority is financial gain, impact, or lifestyle balance—rather than a competition for “bigness.”
Chapters
I think I could build it to sell it, which what I want to know from your perspective, is that even a good plan, building to sell? So part of me is like, yes, it's clear path to make money. Another part is like, it's kind of lame though.
Yeah, well, I think where you're at now, let's take 3, 3 options: build to sell, That, which is basically optimizing for like, oh, is there a sort of like a flip? Is there a, is there a buyer on the other side of a business like this? Another one is build to win, which is basically like, um, for example, when I talk to these bankers, what I'm trying to figure out is what, which of these businesses is like not a special snowflake where it's like, oh, that's actually like a rinse and repeatable model. Like I didn't like, that founder didn't like catch lightning in a bottle at the perfect time and it's their perfect background and they got really lucky about this one thing. It's like, oh, those I don't want to emulate. I want to emulate the one where it's like, I think somebody could start that same business today and do equally well or do just as well in this one adjacent space. And like, you don't need to be a genius, uh, with that. And so that's the second part of it, which is like build to win. It's like optimizing for something that's going to work. And then there's the last one, which is sort of like you know, build for fun or build for mission, which is like go for something that like you, something you would never want to sell that you're willing to do even if it's low likelihood of success. I think we all know the answer is to do that bucket, right? Like I think the question is like how many, how much security do you need before you go do the thing you know you should do?
Well, or it could be a combination of all three. Like it could be like you enjoy winning or you enjoy this space and you want to make it successful. But there's a great clip from you and, uh, what's, uh, free— what's, what's, uh, all in— David Friedberg. There's a great clip that I shared that you and him had where he basically said that founders always sell themselves short and they go for these small ideas because they, because they think it's more reasonable. But when doing that, they kind of screwed themselves because it's actually easier sometimes to do much grander, bigger ideas because That attracts the crazy types of people who you want to work with.
Um, you attract competitive because nobody else, no, not every Joe is going to try to, you know, do it. Like, you know, going and trying to, you know, start a railroad business or whatever versus an FBA business. It's like, well, they're both going to take all your time. So that's equal money. Well, you're going to go have to go raise money from investors. One will let you just raise, you're still going to get the money you need from investors. Just one you maybe raise more at a higher valuation and the other one you'll raise less at a lower valuation, right?
Like, but did you agree? Do you agree with him?
I, I do agree with him. And I've thought this for a very long time. I remember, uh, back in the day, did you ever hear about this thing called the Unreasonable Institute? I don't even think this is around anymore.
That's a great name.
It's sort of like the same guys who did Summit. It's not, it's not actually the same guys, but it's the same. It was like the same idea. It was like, right, the Unreasonable Institute was basically this like It was based on this one word, unreasonable, in the way that The Hustle's built on this one word, hustle, and, uh, Trans is built on one word, trans. And so the Unreasonable was, it was exactly that. It was like, it's gonna take unreasonable people to do unreasonable things for the world to move forward. And it was like very inspiring. And they, they met with all a bunch of peop— you know, a bunch of people who did that, the sort of Elon Musk types who went and did unreasonable things. And then you start to look at it and you're like, you know, all things equal, Um, you know, I guess like your inputs are sort of the same. It's just your time and energy.
And then like the outputs can be very, very different because the, the inputs aren't the same because it is possible to build something pretty cool and not work that hard, but it's kind of impossible to build something huge and not work very hard. All right.
Who do we know? And let's do real examples. I'm not saying it's not true, but who do we know that's building successful, awesome businesses without working too hard?
Well, how about Suleymane? I actually don't know. What's his schedule? Does he grind constantly?
He works hard. Yes, he works hard.
So then no one— you don't— we don't know anyone but you and me.
Like, maybe I'll give you one nuance on it. He got there faster than the normal person, so it looked like it came easier. But that's just because he was better. It wasn't because he worked like he wasn't putting in a tenth of the hours. He was putting in the same number of hours and getting there 10 times faster, which is—
I just think that like there's a world where you have Business A and it doesn't grow nearly as fast and you're working 40 hours a week and then you have Business B that's growing significantly faster and you have to work 100 hours a week. Like that, that is a reality.
Yes, that's true.
That's what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about like very little. I'm talking about normal versus not normal.
There's also things like this podcast or like people who have like newsletters or blogs or something like that where it's like, or they teach a course and it's like, you know, like, like let's take your buddy Neville, right? So Neville, I don't think you and me. Well, but because I'm doing multiple things, right? So it's like on each one I'm not putting in as much time, but like overall I'm working harder. And if I didn't do those other things, that one thing would just expand in time. I would just do more. I would spend—
wait, how often are you working now a day? Normal work hours?
Uh, not normal hours, but I work like a, the equivalent of 8 hours a day.
Got it.
Just not all together, not all continuously.
All right. But back to what was the original point?
So my point was like, uh, is it, is this really true that you can kind of like chill and win?
And like, no, I didn't mean, I didn't mean to say chill, but I mean chill less. Or sorry, chill more, work less. Yeah.
Okay.
Wait, so then bro, if you agree with Friedberg, which I think I do, why are you not going after like one big grand thing? Like I started a newsletter. That's not exactly like, you know, that's not like world-changing entirely. It's neat, but I would, I would put it on a 6 outta 10 in terms of like maybe a 5 in terms of like big ideas.
Right. Yeah, I agree with you. The reason why is because to me it's not a bigness contest. It's a do I have a clear picture of what I want to like my life to be? And then can I like, do I have a crystal clear picture? And then can I make that happen? And it's like knowing what I want and then getting what I want. And so what I wanted was not to work the 100 hours, right? Even though I, even though I agree, like That's cool. It's fun. And if I did do it, um, I do think there's all these extra benefits. You would get amazing talent to come join you. You'd make a bunch of money. You'd, uh, have a bunch of fun. Like, there's, there's great benefits if I did the big one, the, the big, big, big one. But I decided that, like, what I wanted—
you wanted—
yeah, yeah, what I wanted more was more like the 40 hours a week, but hours spent on doing these types of things. Like, I love teaching. Teaching is not the most It's not the most like world-changing Unreasonable Institute style, you know, like let's go land a rocket on Mars type of idea, but I have the most fun doing it. So I'm just optimizing for like a different thing rather than bigness. I'm optimizing for like, you know, my own enjoyment. And so that's why I'm not going after that. So I need things that are sufficiently interesting so that I'm interested and big enough so I don't feel like I'm wasting my time. But like, it's not maximally big.
