The AI App Doing $6M With 1 Employee

Primary Topic

This episode explores the revolutionary impact of AI in personal grooming and self-improvement through the lens of a highly profitable AI app, which has soared to a $6 million ARR with just one employee.

Episode Summary

The hosts of the podcast, Shaan Puri and Sam Parr, delve into an innovative AI application called UMax, which has remarkably achieved a $6 million annual recurring revenue (ARR) with a sole employee. The app leverages AI to provide personalized grooming and beauty advice to users, capitalizing on the growing trend of look-maxing—enhancing one’s appearance using technological solutions. They discuss the app's features, which include facial analysis and tailored beauty recommendations, and how it cleverly integrates user engagement through a subscription model. The episode also touches on broader societal changes regarding male grooming and self-perception, illustrating a shift towards greater acceptance of men investing in their appearance.

Main Takeaways

  1. UMax's success demonstrates the potential of niche markets and personalized AI solutions in generating substantial revenue with minimal overhead.
  2. The concept of "look-maxing" is gaining traction, reflecting a cultural shift towards increased acceptance of men using technology for personal grooming.
  3. The episode highlights the importance of understanding market needs and user behavior to create a compelling and addictive user experience.
  4. Subscription models, when coupled with engaging content and features, can lead to significant user retention and steady revenue streams.
  5. The discussion on societal norms and beauty standards reveals the changing dynamics in gender norms and personal care industries.

Episode Chapters

1: Introduction to UMax

The hosts introduce UMax, detailing its functionality and market impact. This AI-powered app evaluates users' appearance and offers enhancement advice. Shaan Puri: "This AI app is making millions by tapping into the beauty tech trend."

2: Societal Impact

Discussion on how UMax and similar technologies are reshaping perceptions of male beauty and grooming. Sam Parr: "It's fascinating to see how technology is rewriting the rules of male grooming."

3: Business Model and Growth

Exploration of UMax’s business strategy, particularly its revenue model and growth trajectory. Shaan Puri: "Just one employee and look at the impact; it's all about smart scaling and AI leverage."

Actionable Advice

  1. Leverage AI for Personalization: Businesses can implement AI to offer customized solutions to users, enhancing customer satisfaction and retention.
  2. Identify Niche Markets: Look for underserved or emerging markets where technology can offer innovative solutions.
  3. Adopt Subscription Models: Consider subscription-based revenue models for steady income, especially when offering regular updates or personalized content.
  4. Monitor Cultural Trends: Stay responsive to changes in societal norms and expectations to keep your offerings relevant.
  5. Focus on User Engagement: Create engaging and addictive experiences to maintain a loyal user base and reduce churn.

About This Episode

Episode 579: Sam Parr ( https://twitter.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://twitter.com/ShaanVP ) talk about 3 niche trends they’ve found that are guaranteed to make $1M+.

Want to see Sam and Shaan’s smiling faces? Head to the MFM YouTube Channel and subscribe - http://tinyurl.com/5n7ftsy5

People

Shaan Puri, Sam Parr

Companies

UMax

Books

None

Guest Name(s):

None

Content Warnings:

None

Transcript

Shaan Puri
And I'm like, yeah, I could see how this would work if this is working on secure, married, you know, two kids with a third on the way. 36 year old me, dude. 17 year old me would be like, this app is now my life. And I think that's what's happening. So the general trend here is basically that I feel like I can rule the world.

I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it, like, no days off on a road. Let's shoot my. Notice anything different about me today? You're wearing a collared shirt.

Do you know what that's called nowadays, Sam? No. It's called look maxing. Have you ever heard this term? I've seen a genius CEO use the phrase look maxing?

Sam Parr
Yes. Okay, so I want to talk to you about look maxing because I saw this app called UMax. And so I download it. It says, are you male or female? I say, okay, male.

Shaan Puri
It says, 1 million people have done this on UMax. Are you ready? And I'm like, yeah, I'm ready. And so then it says, take a picture of your face right now, and I'm going to score you on how ugly you are. So your boy takes a bed selfie.

Then it's like, hey, you want your score? Pay $3.99. And I'm like, gladly, sir. Take my money, Apple. Pay $3.99.

And I'm a 69 overall. Sam, I just found that out this morning that I'm. It's something I've been wondering my whole life, really, is, where am I? And I am a 69 overall. I am better looking than 49% of the people, which means the majority of people are better looking than me.

And then what's interesting about this? So, wait, that math doesn't work out. You're not better. 49%. Was there 110% of people?

No, I'm better than 49. 51 are better than me. Well, why are you a 69 then? Shouldn't you be a 51%? No, I don't know.

Yeah, that doesn't make sense. 69 overall. Okay, so I got a 69, but my potential is an 83. I'm intrigued. Tell me more.

Sam Parr
App. And so the app basically then rates me on my jawline, masculinity, my grooming, my skin quality, my hair. Does that one selfie of you in bed, it's AI. You take a side profile, and then you take a front profile. What did they say about your jawline?

You got a good jawline. Oh, Jawline 69, skin quality. 68. Masculinity, 82. Nice.

Shaan Puri
Your boy's a man. Yeah. You know you're a man when you have to use an app to tell you you Are a man.

So what's amazing about this app? This app, I saw it on twItter. SOmeBODY tweeted out an interview with the founder, and he's hanging out on the subreddits. And I don't know if you've seen, but, like, on Reddit, these, like, here's if you go to the beauty and grooming category. So, like, There can be a bunch of reddits in Here.

Number three and number five are BOth. This, number three is look, maxing advice, and number five is male grooming with 744,000 members. And so these are three of the top five subreddits. So he's hanging out in these. And basically what people do is they.

Sam Parr
Would go post, what's male grooming? JuSt pictures of pubes? No, it's your haIr, your beard, your face. It's.

All that. Got it. And so you would post a photo of yourself and you would say, hey, give me some advice. How can I look better? Strangers have read it.

Shaan Puri
My family, they all just tell me, oh, you're beautiful, honey. Don't worry. At school, I'm too embarrassed to ask. I don't want to look like a loser. But on Reddit, we're all losers.

Here, it's all good. They post a photo and they say, what can I do better? People give advice. So what this guy did was he turned that into an app. He's like, let me sprinkle a little AI on this.

Turn this into app. The app does three and a half million downloads. He's making 6 million in ARR on this app right now. 6 million ARR run rate. The app costs $3.99 a week when you unlock your thing.

So I think it's like one of these, like you pay to unlock because, oh, my God, I really want to know. And then you forget to unsubscribe is, you know, probably the reality, but you're supposed to do a daily update as you take the steps they recommend. So, for example, now, this part, the first part was me doing it for science. The second part was me being like, well, you know, its got a point here. So I click in and its like, hey, youre first he says your glow up routine, and it says, first priority is skincare.

How are you going to make your skincare better? So I click it, and it says, easiest way to improve your skin is limit your processed foods, opt for meats and natural produce. Work out five times a week and wash your face with warm water in the morning and evening. That's the easy mode. This is the best mode is you should clean your face in the shower, moisturize after the shower, exfoliate two or three times a week, and it says products for you.

And then there's like, some, wow, some skincare product. And I went, and I immediately was like, I'm buy this shit. So I bought this $20 thing, and it's not like their product. It's like just a link to Amazon of cerave, like, moisturizer after shower or something like that. And I'm like, yeah, I could see how this would work.

If this is working on secure, married, you know, two kids with a third on the way, 36 year old me, dude. 17 year old me would be like, this app is now my life. And I think that's what's happening. So the general trend here is basically that guys who are, you know, guys, it's, like, acceptable to be like, how do I, how do I look better? And normally the answer was just, we go to the gym.

That was like, the societal norm was you could become a gymbro, and you're not seen as doing anything weird or lame or whatever. It's, like, acceptable. And now guys are like, cool, but what about from the neck up? What am I going to do about that? And honestly, Sam, this is my greatest fear come true.

And the greatest fear is for years, decades, centuries, and millennia, men have had a truce. And the truce is this. Beauty is all relative. And if you don't try, I won't try. And while women had to put on makeup and wear heels and do lip fillers, and then they started, it became a beauty contest, and they all had to continue to keep up with whatever the norms were.

Guys were like, look, I'm not doing shit to my face, so, yeah, me neither, bro. I'm not doing nothing. It is what it is. Take it or leave it as is condition. And now, as soon as people really start doing this, it's going to become an arms race.

Everybody's going to have to do it. All right, so here's the deal. Things are changing fast in the tech world and the Internet marketing world. And that's a big deal because you have to know which trends to stay on top of in order to market better, in order to acquire customers for cheap, and so you can run your business as efficiently as possible. Staying on top of all those trends is a pain in the butt, though.

Sam Parr
And so the folks at HubSpot have made this amazing report, it has a very official sounding name because it is a very official document. It's the 2024 State of Marketing report. They've looked at millions, tens of millions of bits of data to find the top marketing trends that have the most immediate impact on your business. And so what HubSpot did was they surveyed over 1400 marketing pros from across the world, and they looked at what are people using effectively, what's not working, more importantly, and they've been able to compile it in a really easy to read document. So if you want to learn ways, how to optimize for social or how to boost engagement, or how to strike the right balance between privacy but still being personal with your customers, go to HubSpot.com stateofmarketing to get the free copy.

Or just Google HubSpot state of marketing and it'll come up. Check it out. Do you do anything for your face? Nothing, dude, I've no lotion, no moisturizer, no skincare routine. I've never applied a cream in my life.

Shaan Puri
I'm not even really sure what you would do if you put it on. Like, what are you supposed to do? I have no idea. Yeah, I've never done it either. But since I married a black woman, I now have tons of, like, lotions and all this crap, like, in my house.

Sam Parr
And I'm slowly starting to, like, learn a little bit about it. Dude, you're a muggle. That stuff, that's for wizards. It doesn't work. It doesn't work.

No, I've been, my eyes have been open to the korean skincare routine. I'm, like, slowly understanding what all this stuff means, that I want to use it, but I've never, I've never really gotten into it until recently where I started seeing some wrinkles. And I'm like, all right, I think I can learn now. And the problem is is that, like, when you see issues, like, you know, you should have done something like five years ago, right? But this is amazing that this guy's doing.

It's one guy. I don't know how many other people, but yeah, one guy basically saw the trend on Reddit and decided to productize what he saw people were doing on Reddit, which I think is just a great, like, you know, one, one common way to do a business is that is you. You observe an organic trend and you say, cool, could I use tech to make this more efficient and to actually, like, ramp this up? When did he launch it? This thing is pretty new, dude.

Shaan Puri
This is like, yeah, it's not that. Not that old. I don't know exactly when he launched it, but it looks pretty, pretty fresh. It's also such a simple app. Like, when you download this, you know that this was built by, like, a growth person, not a skincare person, not an engineer's engineer.

This is built by somebody who was, like, trying to solve a problem and was like, cool, big blue buttons. One button per screen. Can't get lost. Um, all right, I'm going to take, take a picture. I'll give you a number, all right?

And then I'm gonna tell you how to make the number go high. I mean, and I'm also gonna give you your potential number, which is higher. And I'm gonna sell you a product. To fill that gap. And, like, um, they also have, like, a chat GPT, so it's like your coach.

So it's like, um, you know, you can go on here and be like, how do I, um, lose more body fat? And then it just, it, you don't even type the question. You just select from one of the preset questions, and then it types out some advice for you from there. Then you can ask it more questions, and it's basically like a custom, you know, chat GPT type of interface for you from there. And the idea is that this is, like an overall trend, so there's more, more thoughts on it, but I will stop there.

Sam Parr
Jeff, people shared this in my work, slack, and they were, like, trying to get us to use it. And I was like, this is like asking me to step on the scale a few days after Thanksgiving. Like, I'm just not going to happen. Ignorance is bliss. I don't want to know.

I don't want to know the reality, but this is awesome. I guess I'll use it. Are you paying $3.99? Oh, yeah. Playing 399.

Shaan Puri
Honestly, I would have been happy to go to 799. I'm just saying that out loud. So I asked a friend, and I said, I said under the, under anonymity, I said, I know. I was like, I know he knows about this kind of the trend, the space. He's younger, he's more into TikTok and stuff like that.

I was like, can you give me your honest reaction? What are your thoughts on this? And he said, well, to most older guys, this movement just seems completely bewildering. Like, what are young guys doing nowadays? But it makes sense.

He goes, it's a response to men generally being rejected and cast aside. We can now take ownership and pride in how we look. Can you max out your natural genetics and ultimately become a more desirable person. Societally, men caring about their looks has been viewed negatively, narcissistically seen as lame or even gay. But now the narrative is shifting where they're just frustrated and they want to be able to.

To be their most attractive self. I could see this trend continue to grow. It's already big in Korea with the korean beauty trend. Basically, like, in Korea, I think men's beauty products are, like, you know, on par or close to. On par with.

With women's beauty products. And he also pointed out, like, an interesting thing, which is that I don't know if you're not a big sports guy, but two of the most famous college athletes, not named Caitlin Clark, the two most famous male college athletes are. There was this guy named Caleb Williams. He was the quarterback at USC. So, like, imagine, like, the most alpha male position in the country.

You are the quarterback of USC. You know, in LA, you are the. You know, you're the guy. And he's this big, athletic guy, but he would paint his nails, and he would get. He got criticized for it, and people were like, oh, man, I don't want to draft, like.

Cause he's in the draft right now, but I don't want my team drafting a quarterback. Who cares about that stuff? Like, I want a tough guy. And people and other people are like, what are you talking about? Why are you overreacting?

The guy pays his nails. So what? And then there's a guard at Duke. So Duke's probably the number one basketball program in the country, and this guy, Jared McCain, built a huge following on TikTok by doing goofy TikTok dances where he's laughing and happy. Like, even if they would lose a game, you know, a day later, he would still do this.

And he paints his nails, and, like, the opposing teams would harass him in the crowd every. Every game, calling him all sorts of names, but he was like, dude, I'm just doing me. I'm having fun. He's like, oh, yeah, it's a superstitious thing. I did it once.

I had a good game, so I decided to keep doing it. And he's like, I don't know. I like it. It's fun. What's the big deal?

And at first, he got, like, a lot of negative backlash. But then over time, over the course of the year on TikTok, this guy amassed, like, one or 2 million TikTok followers. I think he was one of the highest paid because, you know, college athletes can get paid now. So he's one of the highest paid nil athletes because he was getting sponsorships from beauty companies. Like the nail polish companies are sponsoring him.

You know, paying this guy, you know, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars just to post a simple ten second TikTok. And so in the end, he had the last laugh and he, you know, for someone like me, I became a huge fan of this guy just because he was so unafraid to be himself. And that was, you know, obviously a very. That's a very attractive trait in general. Dude, this is amazing, by the way.

Sam Parr
I. When I was in my, like, boxing phase, my boxing instructor, who was, like, a tough guy and would kick my ass all the time, he wore nail polish all the time. And I was like, why are you doing that? And he was 25, and he was like, it's a thing. It's cool.

It's what people do. And I was amazed by that. You know, I remember as a kid, you would paint, like, a fingernail black as a punk rocker, but now it's like, it's mainstream. I think. I think it's cool.

By the way, I just downloaded Umax and I just took my pictures. I just clicked the button that says, give me the results I love. I know. I didn't even want to do this. It's not real.

Shaan Puri
This isn't real. This isn't real. It's not real. Your jawline's fantastic. I could tell you that right now at 89.

Oh, my God. You are maxed, sir. Wait, what? My masculinity is 93. My skin quality.

Sam Parr
No, it's just good lighting. It gave me a 94. My skin quality is not that good. And I'm. Frankly, I should be in the same.

Shaan Puri
You're doing that thing that women do where you're like, no, no. This little thing I bought. Oh, no, this was on sale at Target. You're immediately going into that mode. That's hilarious.

It said classic hot guy thing to do. Dude, if I'm hot, I mean, that's just not the reality. Overall, 89. Potential is 95. Masculinity, 93, jawline, 90, cheekbones, 87.

Sam Parr
I got some work to do. What are you going to do, shave them? Yeah. What do you do? I don't know.

With your eyebrows, I guess. Get them plucked? I don't know. This is a good app. I'm going to have to take pictures without good lighting and actually get a realistic rating.

I just paid my $3.99. I'm into it. Kudos to this guy. I have a few spin off business ideas for this?

Shaan Puri
I don't know if you've seen, but you know what med spas are? These things are booming. No. What's a med spot? Med spas are absolutely booming.

If you don't know about them, we should do a separate segment altogether about them. But basically, it's like microblading. You get your botox, you get your lip filler. I don't know what doesn't happen there, but stuff like that, basically the optional aesthetic glow up type of stuff that you could do that's beyond manicure, pedicure and, like, you know, hair blow dryer or whatever. Has your wife, by the way, Shawn, has your wife ever said that she wants to get Botox?

Sam Parr
And if she has, what has your reaction been? She has said it. She's like. She's like, oh, yeah, I wanna do it someday. And I'm like, are you just floating?

Shaan Puri
She's like, floats it out. There's a little trial balloon just to see how it feels. I feel. And I'm like, what? No, you don't need that.

And I just go into that mode. But genuinely, I have always told her I prefer her completely without makeup. I think she looks way better that way. And so I've been telling her that for, like, you know, a decade. But she's.

She's like, I'm not doing it for you, you idiot. I know you like me. Like, she's like, this has nothing to do with you. Every man, every man has had that same response. My wife will say it, too.

Sam Parr
And I go, no, just age. Normally you look great. Just be normal. And so I think every man has said the exact same thing about women in Botox. It's very funny.

They get this botox, and I think most every man that I've spoke to, they're like, I don't give a shit. Just. Just age. Also, it goes like, it's not even just like, oh, you're fine without it. It's like, actually, don't get Simon Cowell face.

Shaan Puri
Like, have you seen Simon Cowell? Yes. They all look like cats. Like Cheshire cats. It's weird, man.

Sam Parr
They all look the same. It's like they go to the Madame Tussaud wax factory, and at some point it's like, you look fine. You look good. Oh, you look better. Oh, my God.

Shaan Puri
You look non human. And then they never recover from then. So there's some stuff there that's, like, a little scary to me. They all look like the ladies on the desperate housewives or whatever it's called. Like, the housewife reality shows.

Sam Parr
I can't. I don't like that look. And I think most men do not like that look. So that's a PSA for the women listening. And what was the.

Okay. Med spas. That's cool. Okay. I think influencer content on this niche is going to become really big.

Shaan Puri
So I think that anytime you have a new generation, anytime there's a learning curve and there's like a trust gap and there's, you know, it's a, it's a new norm that's being established. You need your shepherds that are going to guide you. You need your sherpas that'll take you up the mountain. And so I think that anybody who goes all in on this in terms of their social content, there's going to be some 21 year old dude who all the 15 to 19 year old dudes look up to, or even actually 15 to 24 year old dudes look up to because he's going to show his before and after. And I think that there's going to be room for.

And I'm sure this already exists. I'm just, I don't even open up Instagram, so I'm probably out of the loop on this. But I think there's going to be some really big influencers that go into this space because they're going to hold the keys. Whatever products they recommend, whatever procedures they recommend, whatever brands they recommend, that's where the masses are going to go. Because you're in a low trust environment, you don't know anything.

And so you're going to need that. So I think that's an opportunity here. More AI driven apps. I think another person could create UMax right now and get the same exact result. I agree.

I think this app can be cloned in seven days and I think you could just blitz the marketing on it and you will also have a 6 million arrow app. That's the unfortunate side of it. I think that male nail polish and male makeup brands, it's obviously coming. But even as a gateway, I think that somebody could recreate old Spice. So what's the deodorant for guys who care about their guys who are in gym culture and maybe now even in hair and grooming culture, who is speaking to them?

Like, I don't think Procter and gamble knows how to speak to them. I don't think they have the right influencer strategy. I don't think they have the right brand and content strategy. And I think somebody could do what native deodorant did for like the natural movement. And native basically built a product that would ride on the wave of natural, chemical free, aluminum free products, and that was where native got built.

I think somebody can create the axe or old spice of today, right now and get bought by Procter and gamble or Unilever, whoever, for, you know, $200 million, $300 million. If you. You just build a great brand. This is insane. And in Hampton, we have.

Sam Parr
This company is called for them, and their name is Kylo. And they have a company that makes clothing that are, like, unisex, and they're killing it. And if you would have told me that this company was going to take off five years ago, I would have been like, you're insane. They are killing it, and they are kind of pouncing on this exact same niche of men who are androgynous, you know what I'm saying? Like, this Timothy Charlemagne.

My wife said she likes Timothee Charlemagne. And I'm like, what? Really? Timothy Charlemagne? That guy?

Like, it's. These feminine men are kind of having their moment at the. At the moment, which I guess they always have. Right? Like, Mick Jagger is basically that prince.

Prince is that, you know, feminine men have always kind of killed it in the game. But this brand is one of those brands that I didn't think would be a thing, and it is. And so I'm on board with what you're saying. So I'm look maxing now. All right?

Shaan Puri
I mean, I'm in. I'm in on the train. I'm going to ride this. I'm going to relate to my fellow, you know, 17 year olds, and I'm going to see what happens. This is great, dude.

Good. Fine. I can't believe this UMax thing is as big as it is. I had co workers share it with me today. You brought it up.

Sam Parr
It must be, like, going everywhere, then. Well, someone did an interview with the founder and did a good, like, Twitter summary of it. So I think it was just, like, a tweet that, like, a lot of people saw today. God bless them. God bless America.

God bless capitalism. Right? I would have thought that this was, like, some chinese app, because wasn't there a chinese app recently that was like, here's what you would look like if you were better looking? Well, yeah, I thought it. When I first downloaded, I thought it was gonna be, like, face tune.

Shaan Puri
I thought it was gonna be, you take a picture, it makes your picture look better. This is like, no, no, no, the real face. We're gonna try to make your real face look better by the way we should shout out the person who did it at PI, I think, is that adpy. I don't know how you say the name of the person who did the podcast interview, but shout out to them those good find. Good interview.

Sam Parr
By the way, the tagline for this app is become hot. It just says, umax. Become hot. This is. These guys are just digging right at every insecurity we have.

I love it. All right, let me tell you about a trend that's happening as well. So this will be like the trends episode. Episode Umax is happening right now. I want to tell you about a trend that's happening as we speak.

Before we get to the trend, and this is recent, some news just happened. But before we get to that trend, I need to tell you the background. So have you heard of this company called Dupont? It's a large chemical company. So in the 1940s, they were tasked by the government of coming up with a sealant for atomic bombs.

So, basically, atomic bombs needed some type of, like, sealant for gaskets. Gaskets are the parts that put two pipes together so nothing leaks. Talk about a job you don't want to fuck up. Yeah, a job you do not want to fuck up. And a job that requires a chemical that is very, very, very strong.

Uh, the chemical they eventually created, it was one. It's one of the strongest bonds in chemistry. It's a very strong chemical, and this chemical, it's resistant to heat, and it's super strong. And so the world, the war ended, and they were like, we have this great chemical. What do we do with it?

And they start testing new things with it, and they go, we got a great idea. Let's make a pan out of this. If we make a pan out of this, nothing will stick to the pan, even if it's burnt food. And so they run all these commercials. They go, we got this new thing called Teflon.

They trademark it, and they go, this chemical, you can burn food on this pan, and you can still just wipe it off. It's the easiest to clean thing, and it takes off this chemical, we're going to call it Teflon, but it's a long chemical name, but it takes off, and they trademark it, and they make it a huge thing, and it's a massive hit. Starting in the forties all the way up until today, it's this big hit. Well, what they noticed was that there's this subset of chemicals that when you make Teflon, called PFAS. And PFAS is basically a broad term that describes like 9000 different chemicals that are kind of created when you create Teflon.

But what they noticed is that some of their workers working on the line were getting sick. And so they go, we should probably like, look into this and test this a little bit. So they started giving it to rats, and the rats started getting enlarged kidneys, which is a bad sign. Then they go, well, fuck, let's give this to monkeys and see what happens with these monkeys. It killed the monkeys.

And then eventually, after 20 years of making this chemical, we're getting to the seventies now, and some of the ladies that are working on this, on this, in this factory, they're having kids that are being born with weird defects. Like some kids were born with one nostril or like they had eye issues. Like, it was a massive problem. And they tested these kids and they found that they had pfas in their spines. And so it was like being passed down from mother to son or mother to child.

And they're like, all right, this is really weird now. This is actually becoming a big deal. For some reason, the FDA doesn't call them out on it. They're still able to produce this. Now, we know Teflon is incredibly popular.

Nonstick pans are incredibly popular. But here's the problem with this chemical. Because it is made for atomic bombs, essentially, it lasts forever. This chemical doesn't get broken down. And now we're calling them forever chemicals instead of peat.

Fast, a lot of times in the media, they'll just call it a forever chemical. And what they're noticing now is that basically 100% of american, of Americans have pfas in their body because it gets in our water. And so it's in all the water in America. Not only is it in all of our water, it's in everything else. So, for example, all your cookware, your non stick pans, that's an easy one.

However, it's in all of your. It's in a lot of your clothes. Clothing. So any clothing that kind of feels like plastic, like a. Like a rain jacket or like sports pants or like workout shirts that has pfas in them.

And it gets even worse. It's actually in all of your food packaging. And so, um, in order to, uh, for your pizza box, in order for the grease not to seek through and go through the cardboard, it has pfas in it. This can of soda, I believe, has pfas in it because it helps make it a little bit more resistant to liquids. Well, this has been a big deal.

And so recently, I think last year, Dupont lost a billion dollar class action lawsuit where it says that they basically can't be doing what they're doing. They have to, they can't put this in people's water anymore because they were just dumping it in water or dumping it in the environment. And it was getting in our water because the forever chemicals don't go away. Well, last week or two weeks ago, I believe the EPA, which is the Environmental Protection Agency, basically just said that this is a big deal and that they're banning a lot of these companies. So DuPont, Gore and a few other companies, three m from putting this into water and that they're going to demand that local water companies, your city water, is going to have to start testing for this and getting this out of the water somehow.

And so that was like a landmark case. And so in my opinion, this is a trend that's happening right now. And I think that amongst my hippie friends. Do you have any hippie friends who refuse to use nonstick pans? Yes.

Shaan Puri
And I never understood it until now. I never understood it either. They just said it's bad. And if you look at your nonstick pans, what you're going to notice is that there's chips in it. There's like little chips from where you, like, put your fork or a knife on it and it like chipped that little piece of Teflon and it, like, went into your food.

Sam Parr
You're basically consuming this stuff, but it's in plastic water bottles. It's in everything. And you actually hung out with Joe Gebbia recently, the founder of Airbnb, and he said that he only drinks a certain type of water. And I looked up that water company, what was it called? Aquapana.

Aquapona was one of the few water companies that did not, they did not detect pfas in the water. And the implications of this are quite big. So have you heard about men having, like, really low sperm counts right now and that's impacting fertility? Well, one of the hypotheses is that if your mother consumed this stuff, the studies have shown that the men are likely to have lower sperm counts later in life. And so there's all these implications where people are getting cancer right now at super high rates, and there's rumblings that maybe this is called from PFAS.

And so the reason I'm bringing this up, obviously, this is a big deal. And it freaked me out as a consumer because, by the way, the takeaway of this is basically you can't avoid it. And you're screwed. That's basically, oh God, that's kind of, I mean, it's in everything. It's in floss, it's in everything.

And once it's there, it's there. And so our generation might just be screwed. But the reason why this interests me is there's a common theme of hippie or like fringe people being interested in something and it becoming mainstream and popular in the next 1015 years. Hippies are just innovators. They're just, they really are innovators.

Yeah. Like birkenstocks are cool now. I mean, like they start stuff early. My opinion is right now is a wonderful time to get into this business. And I was googling which products are PFAS free.

I couldn't find a decent website. There's one website called mamavation.com dot. This lady's been blogging about this since 2009 and she does like crazy tests on like different products. So it'll be like, which Ziploc bags are pfas free? And she basically does all this analysis where she sends these plastic bags to the lab and then her conclusion is none.

None are pfas free. I don't have any good recommendations for this mom of patient. Shout out to her. How long has she been doing this? 2009.

Shaan Puri
This is amazing. And she has a rabid fan base. Forever chemicals in contact lenses. Damn it. It's in everything.

Sam Parr
It's in everything. And she'll, and then she'll do like bottled water and she'll like measure, she sends this off to a lab and she like measures all the bottled water and she'll say these are, this is the order of least likely to have PFAS. Or she'll do a variety of products like jackets or clothing, things like that. And in my opinion, the same way that cold plunge is popular right now, the same way that, I dont know, whatever trends are popular, I think pfas free or forever chemical free products are going to absolutely take off and theyre going to be a thing in a few years. Were going to see, do you remember Thrive market?

Thrive market was an online marketplace for organic food. We're going to see thrive market for forever chemical free products. I think this is going to be a very popular thing because all of the brands that you and I probably use are really, really heavy in this. So for example, like, you know, 10,000 shorts, have you heard of that brand? 10,000?

Shaan Puri
No. It's just like an Instagram brand of workout shorts. That's basically what this product, what their product is it's like this, like, plastic liner that are in your shorts. They're in everything. They're in everything.

Sam Parr
Not to call it 10,000, but they're in everything. It's in your food packaging, everything. And so the EPA actually just announced that food packaging starting, I think, next year, can no longer have this. So everything that you order from Doordash, your chinese food cartons, everything, this has that shit in it. But starting in 25, it's supposed to not have any of that crap in it.

Of course, there's a huge issue here, which is the FDA has kind of, like, sat on this for, like, 50 years, and the damage kind of has been done. And there's new chemicals that you can kind of get around this stuff that are probably just as bad for you. But I still think that this is actually a turning point to make this trend mainstream. We've talked about inflections on this podcast. Now is what I call a regulatory inflection.

Just like when COVID happened, you could do online therapy and you saw betterhelp and a bunch of other businesses like that take off. This is a thing that's going to actually get quite popular in the next five and ten years. Wow, this is, uh. This is wild, dude. It's frightening.

Shaan Puri
Not only was this a good segment, you might have saved my life and many people's lives by bringing this. What a story. I did not. I had heard of pfas because I tried to buy a, like a kid's bed, and I was like, how come a checkout's not working? And I got so frustrated.

I was like, why is it not like purchasing? It's like, oh, I contacted helps. Like, oh, you're in. You're in California. We can't ship pfas, like, anything that contains pfas to California.

And I was like, oh, God, how annoying. What is that? What do you mean we can't take it? You can't ship it to California? I didn't realize what I was.

What I was angry at, I should have been happy about. And why are these in, you know, I guess, why are these in beds? Why do beds need these? Why do I. Should I sleep in these forever?

Chemicals. Most of the paint you have in your home have it as well. And so it's like, it's a sealant, is what it is. We need to clip this because I think in two, three years, it's going to be. We're going to see that look, I'm looking at these categories.

So, for example, she's testing contact lenses, makeup, dental floss, toilet paper, tampons, wrappers, oils, pans, activewear, all these different categories. That's just a minefield of opportunity to go through and build PFAS features, you know, alternatives and popularize this story. The story that you told at the beginning is the story that needs to be told more, right? I think it's one thing to say, has PFAS. It's another thing to say, do you know what that is?

Do you know how bad this is? Do you want your kid to be born with this, with one nostril? How many nostrils you want your kid to have? Right? Like, that's all somebody needs to say.

And if you tell that story, well, that's going to be incredibly powerful. Well, this is why when I read this, I was like, obviously this is bad. But the business side of my brain was like, this is advertising gold. Like, I'm like an h vac guy during a heatwave. I'm like, this is, this is, this is gold.

Is that our version of kid in a candy store? Yeah. I'm like an h vac operator. Yeah.

Sam Parr
Like it was gold when I read this stuff. And the reason being is forever chemicals. Awesome branding. They're already branding it for us. That's a great kind of.

Shaan Puri
I feel like that's almost sounds like, I don't know, it's like a slight positive twin. Is that good? It'll last forever. That means our forever. Oh, great.

I kind of want it to be a little more dangerous, a little more off putting. Well, I just think that. So there's a lot of research, but I think a lot of people actually, when I was reading the research, there's some debate over it, and I don't know why there's too much debate over. I wasn't able to read all the research, but there's some debate as to how dangerous they are and in which setting, but I still think you can. This sounds manipulative, but you can use fear to be like, just don't have any of it.

Sam Parr
And so, for example, I remember I was pretty nervous about this ship, and so I was looking just for cotton, only clothing. So clothing that is just plain cotton. But you look at which what your clothing is like Lululemon. I mean, it all has pfas in it. And so it's been quite challenging.

And if you google PFAS free products, you're basically just going to come across a bunch of subreddits. And so it's still quite niche and grassrootsy. There's not like a good website that refers you to different products. There's this mom of a shin website, but, like, it's still kind of a messy website and kind of confusing and hard to read. They're not just telling me what to buy and how to live my life.

They're kind of telling the science behind it a little bit. But I think that there's going to be a lot of interesting brands that pop up on this trend. I know Patagonia is doing it right now. They've said that 95% of their clothing is people PSA free or PFAS free. I know that Ikea has been on this since 2009, and they try to say that their.

Their furniture doesn't have it, and a lot of people are committed to not having it by 2025. But very interesting movement, I think. All right, I got another trend for you. So this is a cool story. And I would say this is an example of niches and riches, which is a phrase we've said many times.

Shaan Puri
And if there's anything more niche than this, I'd love to hear it. So here's the story. There's a guy named Josh, and Josh Dunning. His wife is a high school teacher, and when he's talking to her and he goes, maybe picks her up from school, he notices kids are doing something outrageous in schools, which is that they're coming into schools and they're just blasting each other with water guns. And he's like, what is going on?

She's like, oh, my God. I know. These kids are obsessed with this game. I said, what's the game? The game.

I don't know if you ever played this when you were in school, but it's the game assassins. And the game assassins, the way it works, really simply is you can play this one on one or, like, free for all or teams or whatever, but basically, one person is the target, and other people have to find them, and you have to basically get the target first. So you want to shoot the target with a water gun first, and then after you've got them, you get points because you were the assassin who, not who got them, and then the target moves. And so, first of all, that sounds awesome. I wish I could have played that game.

Sam Parr
That sounds great. I can't even believe this is allowed. Right? Water guns. You imagine the mess.

Shaan Puri
This is ridiculous. But somehow, rather than being annoyed, he sees opportunity, and so he goes, how are they playing this game? How do you know who's it? And they're like, oh, we have this sheet, this paper, and then we have to keep track of this. Keep track of the points.

He's like, huh? So he goes home and he builds an app. And he builds an app called Splashin'and. The splashin app is just a way to, like, run your assassin's game. And so he messages.

I don't know how Ben found this guy, but he's messaging Ben, and he starts explaining. He's like, yeah, I built this app. And I built. I just turned the game into something that would just like, keep track of this. Like, replace pen and paper for this.

He's like, it's good because he keeps track of the points, and it tells you who's it and all this stuff. But it's like a very simple app and super, super niche. You would not think this is how somebody gets wealthy. So he starts texting Ben his revenue numbers, and he's like, week one, pretty small. Week two, and he's like, week three is like, 40k.

Sam Parr
What? I was like, wow, you made $40,000 on this thing? Next week, we're like, how's it going? Did you stay at 40k or did it kind of fizzle out? He goes, yeah, 93k.

Shaan Puri
We're like, what, 167,000 the next week. This week, 250,000. He is just like, week over week, it's. This thing has gone viral. And so he's getting 5000 signups per day right now.

And so in about four. In a four week span, they basically went from no revenue to $250,000 a month in revenue on this. It's called splashin. Splashin. Let me show you that.

But you can go to their TikTok. Every tick tock they post, they'll post three or four times a day. Each one gets 10,000 views or so. And then people are posting this, and it's also inherently viral. So not only do they do well with TikTok organic, but, like, this has something that Michael Birch, one of my mentors, taught me, which was playground playground virality, which is when.

When Biba went viral, I asked Michael, like, how did it grow? He goes, it had. Playground virality means, like, literally on a school playground, one kid would be talking about it, and all the other kids who were out of the loop had to go home and figure out what the heck this thing was. And similarly, like, if one group of people are playing splashing in your school, you're going to have to go get the app to play or you're left out. And so this thing goes super viral on high school and college campuses right now, and their content is really good because they'll start with someone running after somebody.

The video starts 1st 3 seconds. Somebody's running after somebody else, spraying them with water, and the other person's like, ah, no. And then they're like laughing and it's like, what app is this? What game? It says, what game are they playing?

Is the, is the hook and says, if you've seen random people running around, water guns, splashing each other at this compilation of someone splashing someone in a car, someone diving under the bleachers, somebody like run, jumping through a window, the trick is they have these videos that, like, from a marketing perspective, you watch these, and in the first 3 seconds it shows somebody chasing somebody else and splashing them with water. And it says, what game are they playing? And then it says, if you've seen people all over your feed who are, you know, spraying each other with water, and it's just a compilation of crazy people diving through windows, being sprayed with water. It says they're playing a game called Splashin'and. The way it works is you're assigned a target, you see them on a map, somebody's targeting you, and then blah, blah, blah.

And so that's, that's the game. And pretty amazing to see this thing going viral. And like, this also falls into a category of apps that is not sustainable necessarily. But who cares? But who the hell cares?

Yeah, it's a summer fling, and it's a great summer fling. Dude, you. We're kind of glossed over the fact that this guy just messaged Ben, and he just, Ben's just like, what are your sales? Tell me your revenue. And he tells them every week, did that.

That happens to Ben like ten times a day. It's like in parks and rec, where they find out that one of the, one of the main characters is a nurse, and they start sending her dick pics to, like, diagnose so they could get diagnosed with an STD. And she's just like, dude, my inbox box is just full of, like, men's penises asking if they have herpes. I guess that's just Ben's inbox. It's just all these guys said he's useful, dude.

Like, people tell him what's going on, and then he's like, oh, you should talk to this person. They will solve that one problem you're having. And then they're like, wow, I love this guy. And then he does it again and like, you know, because I'll be like a, like two people that don't know each other that we know are talking. I'm like, oh, wow, how'd they meet?

He's like, oh, yeah, I introduced him. I'm like, how did you even think to introduce him? He's like, well, every week he tells me how it's going. And then he said he was having this problem. And so I told him about this other guy who solves that specific niche problem, and now it's working out great.

And I was like, oh, you're like a router. He's like a switchboard operator who's able to just like, once he knows what you need and he knows what somebody else has to offer, he makes connections and he asks for nothing in return, and that just works out. Have you seen Boardwalk Empire, the show? No. So the main character, amongst other things, he's basically a mafia guy.

Sam Parr
He's in the mob, and he connects Al Capone with this one distiller who can make Al Capone's whiskey or whatever. And whenever he does that, he goes, all right, where's my cut? And he, that's how he makes a living and gets rich off that by just making connections. Or he'll introduce Al Capone to a politician who's going to help hide his whatever. That's what Ben needs to do.

Ben needs, we need to start, we need to change, because in Silicon Valley, people make these introductions and they don't ask for anything. Ben should ask for something. He should get. He goes, where's my points? He just needs to start asking for points.

Shaan Puri
No, no, that ruins it. That's why guys like you and me don't, don't have what he has. He just, he's just happy to be useful. And then value just comes back. Dude, there's a bit, there is a business karma.

Value does come back. You know, a few of these people will be like, hey, let me cut you a check. Or, hey, if there's more like that, I'm happy to, like, incentivize you to give me more like that. And he's like, okay, sure, didn't ask for it. But people come to him with that because they're like, give me more of where that came from.

And so hes created a lot of value. And I think that in general, you want to be ultra free or ultra premium. So its basically like, dont make money on every transaction. Dont be a gatekeeper who stands in the way of the traffic flowing and its like, let 99% of the cars go through completely free. But then on the one where theres a bigger opportunity or something like, that we get to invest or we get to be a part of it in some way.

And it pays off for the 99 free things that he did. And I think hes got the right method. How old is this guy, Josh? Stunning. I just looked him up.

Sam Parr
He looks like a real young guy. I mean, that's pretty impressive. These basically kids coming up with these things that are making very, very meaningful traction as one or two people operations. Well, it's also the magic of software. Software is so different than a services agency or an e commerce play.

Shaan Puri
We have a physical product. These software things, they build it once. It runs forever. Um, you know, they can have 3 million. This UMax guy, three and a half million customers can use his thing.

This guy's signing up 5000 people a day because software scales. Software is magic. That's not the magical part. The magical part, I think, is the psychology behind it. And I think, you know, we have a friend, Nikita, who, frankly, I don't know what's the reality versus the story, but, like, there's all these people who he claims are coming to him for advice on how to make my app viral.

Sam Parr
And he, like, says, like, he, he doesn't say it, but the, the story that I kind of glean from it is like, beep, bop, boop. You just do this, this, this. You change this thing to this thing that's going to change this metric to this thing. It. Boop.

Done. Like, where's my money? Uh, and I don't know if that's the reality, but he's like, he's like, hey, look, three of the apps that I advise are now in the top 100 of most downloaded apps in the, in Apple store. And it just, like, is amazing how there's a little bit of a pattern, and I don't entirely understand the pattern because I'm not. You're just describing expertise, right?

Shaan Puri
Yeah. But it just seems like more than ever before, it's becoming like a playbook. And it just, it is ridiculous how, like, I do think that you could take some of these knowledge and apply it to five or ten other things, and it works almost as well. All right. Hey, I want to take a quick break to congratulate our friend Tim Ferriss.

Tim's podcast has crossed 1 billion downloads. Billion. That is insane, especially for a guy who said when he started the pod, hey, I'm going to do six episodes. Just give this a try, see if I like it. And if I don't, it'll just be six.

But, but if I do, maybe I'll keep going. And he sure enough kept going. Tim is amazing at the pod. He's a big inspiration for me. In fact, when I started this podcast, I still remember the day I had sold my company.

I was walking around San Francisco. I did a four hour walk with my buddy. We walked ourselves into a frenzy. And he goes, well, what do you want? What do you really want to do next?

And I said, I think I want to be Tim Ferriss. I said, I don't want to be Tim Ferriss. I want to have the impact Tim Ferriss had. I said, I have listened to so many of his episodes, like the Jamie Foxx one I remember was epic. The ones with naval are all killer.

His ones with Arnold Schwarzenegger were really good. He's done so many episodes that really stood out to me and shifted my perspective, changed my lens, gave me some inspiration. He was there when I was doing just boring commutes. And I want to thank him for doing the show. The world would be a worse place if he did not do the Tim Ferriss podcast.

And he's done. This is his ten year anniversary. So happy birthday to Tim for the ten year anniversary of your pod. A billion downloads. That is incredible.

He is still, to this day, I think, one of the best question askers on the planet, which you probably didn't even think was a skill. But it is, of course. And his quote about questions has always inspired me. He says that questions are like the pickaxe of the brain. You can use a question to just unlock information.

That's what he does. He breaks down world class performance by asking them amazing questions. So, Tim, congrats on the ten years. Uh, if anybody's out there, you're listening to this podcast, just hit pause and go listen to Tim instead. You know what?

I don't mind. It is a, it is a great move by you. You can find the Tim Ferriss show wherever you get your podcasts. Uh, he's also got a newsletter called five bullet Friday with 2 million weekly subscribers. You can find that at Tim blog, and you can find the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.

So I'm going to tell a story. I don't know if I can use the guy's name just because I didn't ask him if I was going to tell the story, but I can tell. Tell a version of the story. So, met a guy recently, really awesome guy. Became friends with him.

And he is like a growth expert. Not like the Twitter youtuber. I'm a growth expert. Hire me for dollar 500 an hour. And I'll be your growth guy.

This guy, actually, the big name Silicon Valley products, he was running the growth team there in the same way that chamath or Javier grew. They were the lead guy on the Facebook group growth team, and they, like, they fought those wars. Or Josh Ellman did this at different companies. There's another guy who did this at other companies. And so he would describe to me, he's like, yeah.

He's like, I went for a walk with him in Silicon Valley, like the real Silicon Valley, meaning he was walking. He's like, that's Steve Jobs house. That's Larry Page's house. That's Mark Zuckerberg's house. And they're like, I don't know if you've ever been here, by the way, in Palo Alto.

These are, like, completely unassuming houses, by the way. They're not like mega McMansions. They're just like small cottage houses in a cool little neighborhood that's open in Palo Alto. And he's like, yeah. He was like.

I was like, how did you get connected with. Because he was telling me about somebody he knew. I go, how did you get connected with these people? And he goes, well, I had built an expertise around SEO. He's like, I just understood SEO.

I had done it at two of my companies. I just really, I feel like I knew SEO better than most people. And somebody introduced me to, to the guy from Quora, Adam D'Angelo, who was, like, co founder of Facebook now, was doing Quora. And Quora had a SEO problem. They were heavily dependent on SEO traffic.

And then some Google update happened, and their SEO traffic was dying or was having trouble for whatever reason. And I did a call with him, and he's like, on that one call, I told him, I was like, oh, it's this. You are getting penalized by Google for this. You need to change that, and it'll fix it. He's like, and it fixed it, and the growth went up.

And then I told them one other thing after that. They did one more call. I did one other thing. And basically the Quora growth curve was really impressive afterwards. And Adam called him and was like, hey, dude, will you come work here?

Can I hire you as a consultant? I'll pay you any number to hire you as a consultant. And he's like, also, how did you do that? Because that was like, my team's been working on this for months. And, like, you just pointed at the thing.

You're like, this is it. And he's like, well, it looks like, there was just one thing. He's like, but actually the skill is that there's a thousand, you know, needles. There's a thousand straws in a haystack. And the trick is just to find the one straw that matters.

And it looks like, oh, man, you only had to move one straw. But it's like, because I knew the 99 other things, 99% of things to ignore. I knew which. Which ones were not the answer, which told me it's got to be one of these two things. And then I pulled that out, and he's like, that's what expertise looks like when it's done well.

It's not that you come up with more ideas than anyone else. You can quickly eliminate the 99 wastes of time and try to find the one or two that matter. So I love that principle. Then he said another thing. He goes, so when he offered me that, I was like, so did you go work there?

Did you take the consulting gig? That'd be awesome. I bet they could have paid you a ton or whatever. He goes, I had a better deal. I told him, I'm going to do this for free for you, but when the time comes, I know you're super connected to silicon Valley, and I just moved here.

I would love for some introductions. If I do come up with something, I'd love for you to make an introduction. And at the time, adam's like, done easy. That's the price. Amazing.

I got a steal here. He's like, but actually, I got way more value out of that trade. He's like, because then when I cashed in that chip, he's like, people would say, he's like, I could get an intro to anybody. And the intro would come with extreme vouch of this guy's the magic man, and he's like that. And adam doesn't make many intros.

So as soon as they would interview me, the person would say, not only did adam vouch for you, adam never makes any intros. This is the first intro he's ever made because he knows, like, to intro meet is kind of a high bar, so you must be really something. And that was kind of that business karma. So badass coming back. He's like, I didn't do it in a manipulative way.

I just thought that that was a better ask. And I was like, wow, that's a great, great story. That's awesome. That is a really good story. I want to get him on.

I think he's got some. He's got some good growth stories and growth advice. So I'm going to try to get him on. I'll ask for his permission. I.

Sam Parr
I think today was a ten out of ten. I feel hyped. I want to, like, go and learn about some of this stuff. I want to look up splashin'I. Want to play splashin'first.

I need, like, friends that are immature enough to play a water gun game with me. Adults, we need adult splashin'throughout. Austin. I guess I gotta go buy a water gun. But in Texas, you guys just play with real guns.

Yeah, we're going to call it bleeding instead of splashing. That's great. Is that the pod? Well, we have one more thing, one more thing about expertise, and this is also the thrill of the shill. I was watching one of the podcasts that I recorded when I went to Austin, and the guy said something.

Shaan Puri
He goes, this guy who's Joe Loncil, and his claim to fame. I think the title of podcast is going to be the guy who's created more billion dollar companies than anyone else. Great title. Just an incredible claim to fame and an incredible title. And so he goes, he was saying something.

He goes, he almost paused me while I was saying something. He goes, oh, by the way, that's always a good idea. I was like, what is he talking about? And what he's saying was, he goes, anytime a company that was successful doing one thing had to build internally their own tool. That's not their product.

But they hired engineers. That engineer's working on something, and they were like, that's the tool. Like some internal homebrew tool that they used. It was like part of their secret sauce for their success, but it wasn't their main product. He goes, that's always a good idea, which is basically to.

I call this the export framework. You export something that was built internally, and you make it a product that's available to all. And so he was talking about this, for example, with Palantir. He started Palantir, now a $50 billion company. Palantir.

The genesis of it was, he was an intern at PayPal, fighting fraud. And so at the time, PayPal, because PayPal was getting popular, basically what he said would happen. He goes, somebody would. Somebody. Some cashier at a gas station is having a bad day, would kind of steal your credit card number, and they could go sell 50 of these on the black market to the Russians.

Russians would pay dollar 100 a pop for these credit cards, stolen credit cards. And then they would go charge up this thing, and then the customer would be like, I didn't buy any of this stuff. And so they would charge it back is, again, PayPal was left holding the bag of that charge back. And that, to the tune of, like, millions of dollars, it would have put us out of business. It put out, most of our competitors went out of business for this one reason.

And so fighting fraud was like, a really important thing. And we had to build a set of tools to be able to do, like data, data detection, fraud detection, and, like, fight the bad guys. He's like, and then when I started palantir, I was like, what if we took all that fight the bad guys stuff and we made it available to the government to be able to fight the bad guys for counterterrorism stuff because this was after 911. And so he was given that example of, like, anytime you see the homebrew tool that spins out becomes a product, that's a successful business. Well, today's sponsor is exactly that.

And that is beehive. So beehive was basically a great plug. Great plug. I guarantee you that nobody does ad reads like I do ad reads. Right?

I'm gonna teach you something, tell you a story, and then I'm gonna give you the value to. That's a great thrill. They'll give you the shilling. Now, the show part is these guys were inside of Morning Brew, which is probably, would you say it's probably the most successful newsletter business outside of Agora, right? Like, the most successful mainstream newsletter business.

Sam Parr
Nearly $100 million a year business. A hundred million dollar business grew really fast, you know, and both of us have tried building newsletter businesses, and these guys built, like, grew it faster than both of us. We were successful. They were even more successful. They grew their newsletter about 5 million subscribers.

Shaan Puri
And the secret sauce of how they grew their newsletter, their growth engine was this internal tool that they built which let them write a newsletter easily, like, format it, get it all ready to go, baked in the growth stuff. So, like, referrals and recommendation things at the bottom of an email when it's like, hey, send this to a friend and you can get a free sticker, a free mug, or free t shirt or whatever that all of those little tools that they built internally, this guy Tyler basically spun out and created beehive to do that independently. So now anybody like me, when I built the milk road, I didn't have to build any of that shit. Milk Morning Brew has, like, you know, I don't know how many hundreds of employees, we didn't need any of that shit. Literally.

It was me, Ben, and one other guy like the three of us built a newsletter that we sold for millions of dollars because we could just use beehive off the shelf. And so if you're looking to build a newsletter, either personally or you want to start a newsletter business like me and Sam did, Beehive is the way to go. They basically took all the secret sauce that was inside Morning Brew, turned it into a product that you can use. Off the shelf on day 110 out of ten. I was.

Sam Parr
I was thrilled. I just imagined Joe Lonsdale just holding up his finger to your lips and say, just shut up. Just shut up. Shut the fuck up, Beehive. It's hilarious, too, because, uh, I'm trying to connect with Joe.

Shaan Puri
He's like this billionaire who's created, like, you know, spy technology for the government. $50 billion company, you know, tools that all the asset wealth managers use at par, a $3 billion company, Opengov, which sold to governments and basically sold for 1.8 billion. He's got a weapons company that builds EMP pulses that will knock drones out of the sky. War tools. And I'm like, yeah, me too, man.

I'm an entrepreneur, too, just like you. Me and you, same, same. Yeah, I built the newsletter company. Yeah, I did it kind of part time for a year and then sold it. Not for a billion dollars, just, like, a few million.

It was great, though. Yeah. What else do we got? Podcast. Talk to my buddy Sam a couple times a week.

Sam Parr
That's pretty dope. I'm working hard out here, man, all. While you're wearing camouflage sweatpants. You and I are the same. While we were at a cold plunge together, and I was just, like, also hyperventilating and being like, how long do guys like this stay in the cold plunge?

Shaan Puri
I think it's longer than I'm used to, but I cannot. I cannot get out of this plunge until he does. I die an icicle or I live, you know, with all the glory of this. And you're like, oh, you did a multi, multiple billion dollar companies. I got a 69 on.

Sam Parr
Uh, so what you get. So are you at the look, maxing? No, I didn't think so. I just was curious if that was a priority for you. That's a.

That's a typical 49% or answer, bro. Uh, so check it out. Uh, beehive. That's what two eyes, by the way. Be kind of hard to spell.

H I I v. They're hiv. Yeah, that's weird, by the way. They. They give.

Shaan Puri
They post their revenue. I don't know. What? Let me do Tyler, the CEO for the next time we give this shout out, we'll focus on Tyler. Tyler's a great CEO.

Sam Parr
I thought he was a loose cannon, and I think he sort of is. No, he's just good looking. That's what you thought. You were like, nobody this good looking and cool is going to be a good operator. He actually, he's just, he, I thought.

He was just too loose for kid. And then I realized that his aggressiveness is actually awesome and I did not invest in them. And it's one of the things that I'm like, oh, I should have done that. I almost didn't invest. So I did end up investing.

Shaan Puri
I actually, I think I passed the first time. And so what I did was I passed the first time because I was like, I don't know how big this can get. And then we started using it for the milk road and I use it for my personal newsletter. So I became a customer first, and then I would just see, like, anytime we'd have a problem, they were so fast to fix it and they kept releasing stuff. I was like, oh, okay.

I called him back. I was like, I want to invest. He's like, well, you changed your mind. You think the market's bigger? I was like, no, actually, I think the market's the same size.

But you guys are like relentlessly shipping, and I'd rather just bet on somebody like that than not bet on them. And, like, I'm often wrong about market size. Markets can trick you. Markets can look small and be bigger, but founders or teams that operate like this, that's always a good signal. And so I'm like, let me just bet on the known versus not bet because of this hypothetical unknown thing.

But I almost didn't because when I did the call, he had a surfboard behind him. And I was like, ain't no way I'm going to invest in a CEO who surfs regularly enough with the surfboards behind him in his room. But I was wrong. Next time we talk about him, we have four or five more stories about Tyler. Tyler's an interesting guy and I respect the hell out of him.

Sam Parr
Hes a good entrepreneur. I want to see what their revenue. Is at right now. I think its 12 million. Dude, look at this graph.

Shaan Puri
Weve got to put this up here. 7 million in ARR was February 1, so two months ago. And this graph is literally shaped like this. Its pretty crazy. And he goes, this doesnt include some revenue from the ad network.

March 19, quickly approaching 10 million ARR so theyre probably just under 10 million. 10 million. ARR, now. Yeah. It's an amazing company.

Sam Parr
They've taken off. Is it just be hive.com or it's like a beehive.com? No, it's just beehive.com. Go there if you want to start a newsletter. All right.

Is that the pod? That's the pod. All right. That's the pod. I feel like I can rule the world.

Shaan Puri
I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it, like no days off on a road less travel, never looking back.