If You Are Not Working 7 Days A Week, You Will Lose

0:00Eric Siu:All right, guys, we're live again. It's Thursday, June 4th. You know, Neil, it's one day before I'm no longer in my 30s. So, yeah. Happy early birthday. No, no, no. It's okay. I'm not there yet.

0:14Neil Patel:So you were there last year. Well, happy early birthday because for me, I was going to say I have it in my calendar. I have it in my calendar, but my calendar is not giving me the notification that it's your birthday yet. but my calendar is in PST, even though I'm in Indonesia. So that's, I'm not getting the notification. Yeah.

0:35Eric Siu:So Neil's recording. It's 4am his time right now in Jakarta. And then I'm still in LA right now. So we're going to go ahead and get started. We're coming to you live right now. And Neil, I think maybe, maybe this one's fun to start with. So I saw this, I don't know if you saw this, but Harry Stebbings did a, did an interview with this, this one guy. I think he runs a company called Corgi Insurance, and I haven't heard of it before, but apparently they're doing really well. And I think this guy's in his early 20s. And so one thing he said, Neil, was if you're not working seven days a week, you will lose.

1:06Eric Siu:Okay? And I think we have our thoughts around this. Obviously, we're in our 20s before, but I just want to call this out. So he says, look, this guy from Corgi Insurance, if you're not working seven days a week, you are going to lose. Corgi Insurance is the most intense workplace culture in startups. The company works seven days a week. The founder lives and sleeps in the office. He built a cafe in the office because there was no local cafe that was open 24-7. Two-thirds of the first 30 team members have the Corgi logo as a tattoo. Wow. And then today, he went behind the scenes. I don't know how he got that happen, but he went behind the scenes.

1:39Eric Siu:So they scaled to a$2.6 billion valuation in just two years. And so we'll call out some more things here, and then we'll react to this. Work trials repel the mediocre. So Corgis forced candidates into mock work trials over the weekend to test them out to see if they're intense. Lead from the front lines. If you can't demand seven days while working on a yacht, so he sleeps there three to four. He only sleeps three to four hours a night. And then culture only means one thing, winning. And then he talks about building something world historic requires radical sacrifice. When asked if you'd rather build a trillion dollar company and die at 50 or fail and live to 80, the answer was easy.

2:15Eric Siu:I would rather measure my lifespan in victories. I think you like that, Neil. Um, so anyway, all that to say is I think we certainly had a way of thinking like this in our early twenties or so. Um, but we've learned with age, at least I'm speaking for myself right now. Um, that, you know, I, I, it's, uh, you, it's also a marathon, not a sprint. So you go first and then I can react.

2:36Neil Patel:Well, first off, I love the people probably going to hate me for this, but I love how we chose the winning and dying at 50. I personally wouldn't want to live to 80 and have my life be tons of failures right the successes and I have failed I know most entrepreneurs have failed one time or another even if your company was success there's times during that company that you probably had many failures but the successes the reaching some of your goals and then creating new ones that keeps me going and it makes life really enjoyable for me. So I would choose dying earlier and hitting some sort of milestone.

3:17Neil Patel:I'm not saying I have to need to create a trillion dollar company, but I wouldn't want to live till 80 and just always failing in life.

3:23Eric Siu:Let me ask you a question. So if you went back to your 18 year self right now, and then he looked at you right now, would he consider you a massive success

3:31Neil Patel:or failure because you said 18 it would be a success okay 25 year old okay 30 year old failure

3:43Eric Siu:well like by all by normal measures and we're not measuring normally right now but i think if you look at like the reason why i asked the 18 year old question is like um i would say that it just depends on the beauty is in the eye of the beholder right and so for you because you're always stretching stretching stretching the goals always get bigger and bigger over time so i just look at it this way i enjoy playing the game of business and i just want to play it to see how how far i can go and if it becomes really big then great um but i also know that neil like you like a nice life i don't think you you you would be okay living in the office and sleeping three to four hours a day, would you?

4:25Neil Patel:No, I really do enjoy a nice life. I could not work like this Corgi guy does. When I was 18, I could. I'm assuming he's older than 18, but I could not do that. Like even Elon, they say like, I think people were fundraising to put a bed in his office because he was sleeping on a couch. I can't do that.

4:46Eric Siu:Yeah, so I'm the same, right? So if we go down the list over here, so I don't necessarily believe that, well, actually, no, I don't know, Neil, if you're not working seven days a week, you're going to lose. I think if you're the entrepreneur and if you're not working seven days a week in the early days, yes, I do think you're going to lose. That I agree with. But I don't think that applies to necessarily like all your employees. That's what I would say.

5:07Neil Patel:Yeah. And even right now, I think both you and I work seven days a week still. Do we work as hard on weekends? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I think it really varies on what we're doing, but sometimes we're working on some projects and we just want to crank it out. But I would say typically we work the hardest Monday through Thursday. I would say my Fridays aren't as hard as Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday. And I would say my Saturdays and Sundays are definitely more chill than even Fridays. And yeah, it also is what do you want from life? Like I started in marketing because I accidentally landed on it.

5:45Neil Patel:I wasn't intentionally trying to be in marketing.

5:48Eric Siu:And when I started, I was just trying to make money.

5:51Neil Patel:And, you know, I had my own website. I did marketing for it. The website got a lot of traffic. I didn't make any money. I was taking a speech class while I was in high school, but it was a nighttime college class. And I give a speech on how Google's algorithm works and how to get traffic. It was a random topic that no one in the class really cared for except one person. And that one person worked at a company that was looking to hire someone like me. they were paying me over a thousand dollars an hour for consulting it was a flat fee but the amount of hours that it took it was over a thousand bucks an hour i was ecstatic and then from there they gave me a five thousand dollar a month contract and i was 16 so i was like huh i can end up having a nice life but the problem with the nice life is once you start buying things like nice homes or nice cars it's never ending and you continually want nicer cars nicer homes After a while, I don't know how much nicer of a home you can end up getting, at least for me.

6:49Neil Patel:The cars, yes, I can definitely get nicer cars, but I don't care for it. The home, the only reason I spend it, and I know people say it's a really bad investment. And if people knew what I spent on construction of my home, building it, et cetera, they'd probably say -

7:03Eric Siu:You said it in public before.

7:04Neil Patel:Yeah. So call it, I'm in it 30, 31, 32. It's somewhere around there because of construction costs. I don't know the exact number, but I definitely know I spent more than 30. I definitely know I spent less than 32. And that's without finishing the backyard. So let's call it, it'll end up being 33 or 34 million bucks. From a money standpoint, it is extreme waste. And my house isn't big or depends what you consider big. But, you know, people consider mansions, I think they're defined at 10 ,000 square feet or more. I'm living on 7 ,000 square feet. The biggest cost for my house was actually the land.

7:41Neil Patel:Outside of the land is the structure and whatever faucet you pick or furniture or whatever it may be. But I look at it as the house makes life super convenient, especially if you have a family. It just makes your life so much easier and more relaxing and enjoyable. um so i like that because for me it makes me work in a happier place because i work from home and it makes me more productive but other than the house i don't think i would spend money on anything other thing that would be that crazy and expense like clothes i think they're a waste i've spent my money on that cars i really think they're a waste i have a tesla model y as you know the seats suck but the click type in your address and click and it just drives you amazing feature you know

8:34Eric Siu:what's funny neil keeps talking about how the tesla model y the seats suck but i'm just like well you have the money to upgrade to seats so why don't you just upgrade to seats it becomes a

8:43Neil Patel:safety hazard so when you have a car it's tested when you start changing parts or rate you know when people like lower a car or raise a car it messes up the sensors for when someone hits a bumper you know what i'll say you know my back hurts too right so i just put one of these things

8:58Eric Siu:in the back too so it feels really good right so why can't you just have some of these modifications for your back and just make it better but anyway i we digress right now so i want to call out some other things here and then we can move on from this this this topic but yes i i do think um you have to it's up to you it's not what neil's saying what this this corgi guy's saying or what i'm saying as well um you have to decide what's important to you in your life and i i applaud this guy i think neil applauds this guy too this guy's name is nico like if that's what you want in your life right now you're going for a trillion dollar outcome more power to you we support you for it right so uh let's go through like here's here's some things that i do like about what he's saying so you know check this out um i do like the fact that he built a cafe in the office because there's no local cafe that was open 24 7 because here's the thing neil if you have a 24 7 office guess what it's in san francisco who's going to be doing deals at the office you can bet the best VCs, the best people, the best investors, the best founders, they're going to be in that office.

9:54Eric Siu:And also you're going to have some of the most cracked out talent. I think this is a nice way to actually get talent. So I think that's really smart. The second piece over here, and I don't know how much you guys do this, but we used to do this quite a bit where work trials repel the mediocre. So Corgi forces candidates into mock work trials over the weekend. If seeing a full office on a Saturday scares them, they don't belong. True intensity acts as a filter, a natural filter to attract killers and repel clock watchers. So here's what I'll say about that. I like paid work trials. I'm not saying I want people to come into an office over the weekend, but I think even though it's expensive to do a work trial, it's more expensive to hire a bad employee.

10:34Eric Siu:And so this just reminds me that I need to get back to it. Are you guys still doing paid work trials? You guys are, right?

10:40Neil Patel:Yeah, we've always been doing them. We think it's one of the best ways to figure out if someone's good or not. Paid work trials don't work for all positions. though. So if you're hired, let's say in marketing, you're hiring someone to do SEO, a paid work trial isn't too hard to figure out if someone's good or not. If you're looking for a managerial role, let's say managing director of a certain region or division, you can kind of get a sense if you like the person over a paid work trial over the weekend, but it's still not going to give you enough insights if the person is going to work or not.

11:10Eric Siu:Yeah, I think managerial is kind of more nebulous and bubbly. We're versus like, do you know how to actually do the work or not? What whether it's paid media, SEO, AEO, whatever it is exactly. And so lifespan versus victory, I think that's interesting. I do think we should lead from the front lines. Like, look, even though Neil's been working for a very long time, I think 24 years in business, I think I've been in business for about 13 years or so, we do try to lead by example. And even though Neil likes to say, oh, I don't have much going on or whatever. No, but Neil still works really hard right now.

11:44Eric Siu:And he does try to lead by example. Same thing for me. Any other thing here that sticks out? Oh, reject the comfort of quiet quitting. If you're operating in a hyper growth environment and your days off happen to be Saturday and Sunday every week, you're quiet quitting. To win, you must deliberately bypass the offer of personal comfort, low volatility. Okay, I don't agree with that part, but to each his own.

12:04Neil Patel:Good? There's a lot of companies that were built where most employees did not work Saturday and Sunday. I'm not saying working Saturday and Sunday is terrible. I've seen it work extremely well. you and I do it. But I do believe some people, not all, some people need a recharge.

12:22Eric Siu:Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, I would say the vast majority of people cannot sleep four hours. That's actually, I don't know if you know this, Neil, because I'm a sleep nerd, but there is a group of people that can only sleep four hours. And it's like a specialized gene where it basically they can just keep going. Quick break. If you want to run personalized LinkedIn ads and have personalized landing pages to convert your customers at a much higher rate on LinkedIn, check out Carrot. That's K-A-R-R-O-T.ai. Carrot allows you to do things that LinkedIn ads does not allow you to do right now. Check it out.

12:53Eric Siu:There are publicly traded companies such as SEMrush and Sitecore that are using this right now. And you can use this to get ahead because if you don't use this, it will take you weeks, if not even a little longer than that, to make these ads. Because again, you cannot do this on LinkedIn.

13:07Neil Patel:So again, go to www.K-A-R-R-O-T.ai and we'll see you on the other side.

13:12Eric Siu:So I want to show you something over here because we're talking about employees right now so check this out Neil don't worry Neil I'll carry this is it 4 a.m. over there so so AI is creating a new class of super IC so an IC is a individual contributor so the error of 10x engineers PMs product is product managers designers AEs is over we are now in the age of the 50x employee okay so it's essentially a reset anyone can unlock a massive can unlock massive career benefits by leaning into AI so check this out this is from cursor so when you look at the output gap is widening. We see P90 developers.

13:48Eric Siu:I think that's percentile. So 90th percentile developers pulling farther away from medium developers in absolute lines of code added per week. So P50 means you're in a percentile of 50. P90 means you're top 90 percentile. So if you look at this over here, you can see over time, like the P90s are getting higher and higher over time versus the P50. So it's never been more expensive to be average. And then sure, we're look at developers right now, but I think you can apply this to really anything across the board. And I know lines of code is just one metric, but I mean, come on.

14:20Neil Patel:Well, when I put it in a marketing perspective, because I've seen this a lot where everyone talks about the 10x employee, the 50x employee, the 100x employee. I have not seen A players become 100x, 50x, or even anywhere near 10x better from leveraging AI, at least in the marketing realm yet. I'm not saying it doesn't make them better i just have not seen the magnitudes of a player becoming 50x or anywhere near their better forget even 50x like 5x i haven't seen a player even go 5x better from just

14:52Eric Siu:leveraging ai so i i'll give you a response to that in a second after after this chart over here so uh p99 devs so these are basically top top one percent produce 46 more x more lines than median dev i predict this comes to every function in my opinion many top performers will be constrained by the old system, couldn't design code, lacked organization. AI gives them these powers. That's exactly what I wanted to cover. So Neil, I would just say that, for example, we have someone on the sales team right now that just came from paid media, similar to your guy, came from paid media, not on the sales team, right?

15:26Eric Siu:He would have had to wait weeks to get a landing page up because he wants to run chat GPT ads, right? So he basically got his mock-ups, the ad mock-ups ready. He got the landing page up and he deployed the landing page as well. That would have taken weeks before, right? So I think what AI gives you and me, Neil, is powers that we didn't have before, where we wouldn't have to wait a long time to deploy certain things. And I think in that respect, it makes me stronger because every job is just a list of responsibilities. So it enables me to do more with less, right? And so I do think it's going to come to fruition at some point.

16:00Eric Siu:I think you will see it, Neil. I just think it's happening case by case right now. It's one area. Coding is very apparent right now.

16:07Neil Patel:Yeah, coding is really apparent. But outside of coding, like specifically marketing, I just haven't seen, I've seen efficiencies. I haven't seen efficiencies in multiples. I agree with you. You can get landing pages up faster or do keyword research faster or figure out errors on a site faster. But when you look at what someone's spending eight hours a day on for most roles in marketing, AI is not making them five times more efficient or whatnot, right? There's certain tasks that it is making them more efficient in, but there's still a lot of stuff where AI isn't helping yet. And time will tell what happens there.