Breaking Down Two +$1B Companies Hidden In Plain Sight

21 Sep 2023 · 1 h 6 min

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In short

My First Million - Episode 497: Breaking Down Two +$1B Companies Hidden In Plain Sight

Podcast Overview In this episode of *My First Million*, hosts Sam Parr and Shaan Puri delve into several innovative businesses that are thriving and offer unique insights and business ideas. They explore companies ranging from airport security solutions to craft machine manufacturers, and even discuss the potential for a new dating app tailored for gamers.

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Episode Highlights

Introductions and Announcements

  • Merch Release: The hosts announce the launch of merchandise, emphasizing ideas of collectibles over consumables.
  • YouTube Clips Channel: Introduction of a new YouTube channel dedicated to short clips from the podcast for easier consumption.

Business Breakdown Segments

  1. Clear ($3B)
  2. Overview: Clear offers biometric identity solutions at airports, allowing users to bypass TSA lines.
  3. Business Model: They share a percentage of revenue with the airports and have strategic partnerships with airlines.
  4. Key Stats: $600M in annual revenue, 17 million users, and a market cap of $3 billion.
  5. Expansion Plans: Exploring uses beyond airports, such as verifying identity for LinkedIn and purchasing alcohol at stadiums.
  1. Cricut ($1B)
  2. Overview: A DIY crafting machine that cuts various materials for home projects.
  3. Revenue Model: Generates $1 billion annually, appealing to crafters and small business owners.
  4. Market Presence: Significant presence within handmade goods marketplaces like Etsy.
  1. Native Deodorant
  2. Story: The founding narrative revolves around a search for natural deodorant options, leading to a successful exit for the founder.
  3. Market Validation: The initial idea was validated through the popularity of similar products on Etsy.
  1. Aunt Flow
  2. Business Focus: Distributes feminine hygiene products through vending machines in restrooms, simplifying access.
  3. Growth Drivers: Recent legislation mandates availability of these products, providing a solid demand base.
  1. iCracked
  2. Business Model: A service for fixing cracked smartphones on demand, initially targeting college campuses.
  3. Current Status: Acquired by Allstate after significant growth but struggling to scale beyond a certain point.
  1. Cloud Poker Night
  2. Overview: An online poker service designed for business networking.
  3. User Experience: Combines video conferencing with live poker, allowing for social interaction among users.

Gamer Dating App Idea

  • Concept: A dating app specifically for gamers that facilitates connections through shared gaming interests.
  • Rationale: Leverages the significant population of gamers and the challenge of finding compatible partners in this niche.

Discussion on Viral Products

  • Product Growth: The hosts discuss how products can grow virally, distinguishing between traditional word-of-mouth marketing and inherent virality in product design.
  • Examples: They reflect on historic cases like Hotmail’s email signature promoting its service.

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Key Takeaways

  • Observing Hidden Opportunities: Many successful businesses are "hidden in plain sight," often stemming from simple, everyday problems.
  • Branding is Crucial: Effective branding and positioning can drastically alter a business's trajectory, as seen with Clear and Aunt Flow.
  • Community Engagement: Businesses that foster community interaction and engagement (like Cloud Poker Night) can create additional virality and user retention.

Closing Thoughts The episode emphasizes the importance of understanding market trends and consumer needs. Both Sam and Shaan encourage listeners to be observant of their surroundings, as there are countless business opportunities waiting to be identified and acted upon.

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Links & Resources

  • MFM Merch: [MFM Store](https://store.mfmpod.com/)
  • MFM Clips Channel: [YouTube Clips](https://www.youtube.com/@ClipMFM)
  • Clear: [Clearme](https://www.clearme.com/)
  • Cricut: [Cricut](https://cricut.com/en-us/)
  • Native Deodorant: [Native](https://www.nativecos.com/)
  • Aunt Flow: [Aunt Flow](https://goauntflow.com/)
  • iCracked: [iCracked YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/c/icracked)
  • Cloud Poker Night: [Cloud Poker Night](https://cloudpokernight.com/)
  • Gamer Dating App Idea: No specific link, conceptual idea discussed in the episode.

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This episode serves as a reminder that with creativity and awareness, there are endless possibilities for new business ventures.

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Transcript

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0:00There's like stories where she's raising funding. and a guy leans over the table and was like, so why should I trust you to be the CEO of this company? And she leans back over. She goes, because I'm a complete and total animal. And the guy leans back and he's like, all right, I'm in.

0:28Okay, what's up? We're here and I got two little special announcements for you. First one, we got merch. The boys got merch. We're a little late to the game. We're a little slow. Most people start selling merch as soon as they get a following. Took us four years, but Sam, we figured it out. You got to sell t-shirts on the internet. And hoodies, but I think that's all we have. We'll add more stuff, but we have a few stuff. It's pretty stupid that neither of us are wearing it today. mine's in the in the dryer at the moment again slow and stupid yeah but yeah it's pretty cool we have stuff that has some of our uh favorite sayings and uh dude this no small boy stuff shockingly caught on caught on in a big way i'll tell you something i don't know if you listen but i did an episode with samir from colin and samir and they basically are like they're youtubers that study other youtubers so they're like always studying creators and he handed me two things when he came to the interview.

1:26He handed me a newspaper. Did I tell you about this? No. He handed me a newspaper that was, they made their own newspaper edition, like one edition, special edition for their, like they hit some milestone. So they printed a newspaper and it was like all of the like kind of content or interviews from their show were like, it's like, here's the monthly magazine or whatever. Here's the thing for our stuff. Dude, let's do that. That's a great idea. It's a great idea. It looked like a normal thing, but they made it using their content. And I was like, I love this. He gave me one. He's like, this is the last one we have.

2:00I don't know if that's true or not, but man, you know how to make a boy feel special when you say that. And the second thing he handed me this hat that was a dope hat that says press publish. It's like this blue hat. They have super high quality. And I was like, oh, this is like much higher quality than normal merch. And he goes, oh, yeah, yeah. Here's how I think about merch. He goes, if you're Logan Paul or you're Mr. Beast, you make consumables. think prime energy drink it's a consumable i'm selling this to you you're going to drink it use it whatever and he goes uh mr beast chocolate he's gonna or even mr beast merch his t-shirts these are all just consumables and he goes we don't make consumables we make collectibles he goes if you're a creator you should pick one of the two paths and i love this collectibles idea he's like because what you want is you want a way you're look you don't need to make a you're not going to make a fortune you don't need to make a fortune through your merch and which is why we've never done merch because it's like i don't know do we we don't really care about making a couple thousand bucks on t-shirt sales never been the never been a motivator for us um because we're rich if you missed that part all right so the but the reason is oh my god what should we put uh like is that the our new collectible like douchebags rs yeah yeah we're coming to a store near you um but the collectibles thing made total sense to me where he's like you want the people who are like kind of your your thousand most but most like kind of devoted people people who actually give a shit about what you do they're all about what you're all about they think the way you think they act the way you act they're very similar to you they're like for them this is like collectible badge of honor so make a limited edition number of units um and when it's gone it's gone it never comes back and on top of that you um it's a signal so that anytime anybody else sees them with that they know oh they know you're part of the tribe they know you're part of the tribe like if i meet somebody uh ben said this to me the other day he goes he goes oh you know what i like because he what he'll do often is he'll talk to people who come through my dms or email us or whatever he loves to go meet them and talk to them and i'm like um that's great you get a lot of energy from that i'm more introverted don't like doing that as much um but he goes no it's he goes the reason i like it he's like normally i don't like just talking to strangers but he's like if you like mfm there's like a 95 chance we're going to be friends is it because it filters in people who think the way we think and act the way we act and like you got a sense of humor that's like you're not going to like this content if you don't if you're not a business total business junkie and nerd you don't like to nerd if you if you like don't like to learn nerd about business you're not gonna like this podcast and if you like everything buttoned up and serious you're also not gonna like this podcast and so it's a great filter it's sort of like when i see another a grown man drinking a glass of whole milk for dinner you know what i mean like at dinner like oh hey we probably have similar values good good catholic what's up uh so yeah i feel that if you got a favorite flavor of skittle sam sam knows you're his guy what's the second thing you have so um okay that's the first surprise second surprise is eclipse channel so this one actually we should have done a long time ago.

5:12If you go to clipmfm.com so this is our new clips channel which is basically we do these podcasts about an hour each. What clipmfm does is it's a YouTube channel for only clips of the best bits from the pod clipped out for you so that you can watch them in sort of like three, four minute bursts and for every episode we're only pulling out the one to three moments that actually mattered so where somebody told a great story, had an amazing idea or shared something about the way their business works or broke something down in a level of satisfying detail. And at first I wanted to outsource this and then I was like, no, fuck that.

5:52I'm going to hand curate these clips myself because I'm like, I want the channel that I would want to watch because this is how I consume a lot of podcasts. Like if you're like, oh, do you like Lex Friedman? Yeah, like it. Love the pod. Great pod. I never actually watch the full ones. What do you search to find it? If you just go to clip MFM dot com, that'll take you there or the you can search my first million clips. And I tweeted it out. It's got like 700 subscribers now, but I need this to get into the tens of thousands of subscribers, because if you listen to this podcast, you're going to want to like, why would you not want to just get the best stuff faster or like in a more simple way?

6:27So, yeah, anyways, that's my that's my sales pitch for both the merch and the the merch is collectibles, limited number of units. and it's just a way for our tribe to kind of signal to each other, hey, I'm in the club. And on the other side, we have the Cliffs channel. How did I do with my sales pitch? That was a great pitch. And the Skittle joke was very funny and it made me feel very guilty because my wife, listen, listen, my wife has her birthdays this Sunday and I was going to surprise her with a pinata. Hopefully she doesn't listen to this episode. And I have a closet here in the studio room that is where I've hidden the pinata And I've also hidden tons of bags of candy that I went and bought from Party City.

7:06Lots of Skittles. Unfortunately, I've got to go back to Party City today because I've eaten all of the bags of Skittles. So you nailed that one. They're all empty. There's a whole bunch of empty Skittle bags over here. It looks like a raccoon went through that bag. That's not even like a small hole. Why did you need a face-sized hole in that bag? Because when I do nighttime eating, I go into bear mode. And I'm like, I'm like a bear getting like a like a like a beehive. You know, I'm just like, I'm just like, imagine just like using your fists instead of your fingers. That's like what I am at night.

7:40My sister says this thing to her girls like she wanted them to like just go to their room and put themselves to bed. So she invented something called nighttime sister playtime so that they would feel excited about it. Oh, do you guys want to do nighttime sister playtime? And they're like, oh, my God. Yeah, nighttime sister playtime. So they go to their room by themselves. They play and they fall asleep. and so I created Nighttime Daddy Playtime which is just when my kids are gone and I get to just eat and be on the internet and that's Nighttime Daddy Playtime and I celebrate it every single night.

8:08Dude I like I'm like putting my fist in a in a jar of peanut butter at night like I wake up and there's like bear claws all over the place. So listen I want to bring up a topic you put it on your list and it's so funny you put it on your list don't say what it is yet but you put it on your list. And I did a ton of research on this topic. And it's incredibly fascinating. So I'm going to tell you about this. All right, we got to give credit. There's a reason we both have it on our list. Someone tweeted at us. They did. They go, you should do it. They just said you should break down this particular company.

8:36And I was like, that's one of the very few times where I go, that's a great idea, sir. That's a good one. We're going to do that. So let me tell you how I got started. It's super fascinating. So there's this guy named Stephen Brill. You have no idea who he is, but I bet you know Court TV. He started Court TV, one of my all time favorites, predecessor of Cops, my favorite show of all time. And it turns into a huge success. And then he also starts American Lawyer Media, which is like a$600 or$800 million lawyer media company that he sells. So his next company, it's called Verify Identity Pass. It started in 2003 after 9-11.

9:11And he wants to come up with an interesting way to make getting onto a plane easier and safer. He comes up with this thing where it's like a credit card, and you could swipe it in order to prove that you're, I guess, not a terrorist, something like that. And it gets a little bit of traction. He raises$100 million to start this business. He gets 200 ,000 people to sign up. It flops. Doesn't work out. So there's this woman. Her name's Karen. I forget Karen's last name, actually. But she's got this hedge fund, very successful hedge fund. What are you laughing at? Anyone named Karen, I just always think.

9:47Damn. what a what a sideswipe they got in life by uh by this this trend that just started in whatever 2022 and all of a sudden their name was never the same again she spells it c-a-r-y-n which somehow makes it better to be i would too yeah it does it does make it better on if i was uh if i just have to make a slight like you know pronunciation change yeah like how i call like La Quinta Hotels, La Quinta. It's just a slight rebrand. So anyway, she has this hedge fund. It's successful and all. But she hears about this company going out of business. And she's like, you know, this is actually interesting.

10:26And I think they made a mistake. They didn't brand it correctly. I think this should be more of a luxury good company. And so she buys the business out of bankruptcy for$6 million. Then she goes on and raises$50 million. And she renames the company and she calls it Clear. Clear is that thing that a lot of you folks see at the airport. They are at around 53 airports, I think. It's confusing at first when you see it because you're like, Oh, there's two lines. There's a TSA line, there's a Clear line. What the hell is going on? Turns out this company is crazy successful. And it actually has a lot more implications than I ever imagined.

10:59So Clear does something like$600 million a year in revenue, market cap of$3 billion. And what they do is they built this technology at that stand where it looks at your eye and it uses biometric. So it looks at your eye to figure out who you are. It looks at your fingerprint and they fast track you in that line. But have you ever wondered how they get these contracts at these airports? It's like a monopoly. Yeah, I don't know how they do it. So they give away 10 to 13 % of their revenue to the airports. And what that comes out to be is something like of their revenue. In 2019, they were doing like 350 million in revenue.

11:33They gave out$35 million to airports. Their most popular airport was LAX. That made them around$25 million in subscriptions of which they gave 3 million back to LAX. And so they're kind of like in bed with the government a little bit. And they have all these people on their board who are, they took funding from Delta and they have Delta employees on their board. So like the head of Delta, they have like the former head of TSA security on their board. And it's crazy fascinating because what they're doing now. Wait, but I was doing bad listening because I was looking it up while you were talking.

12:02How did they get into, like, what was the thing that got them in? Because it's like, seems like once you're into the airport and you're the one, of course, this is an amazing business, but what did they do to get in? What did she, what was the miracle that they pulled off there? They promised airports that they would give them a percentage of the revenue. So they would open up a new revenue stream. And also what they did was they took funding from a couple airlines and they, on their board, they added like former head of TSA and things like that. And so like, they like some old fashioned gentleman's agreement.

12:36yeah yeah so it's pretty fascinating what they did but what's even crazier a karen's actually pretty amazing there's like stories where she's raising funding and uh a guy leans over the table and was like so why should i trust you to be the ceo of this company and she leans back over she goes because i'm a complete and total animal and the guy leans back and he's like all right i'm in

13:03and so they're but they're killing it now they have 17 million users but here's where it gets really interesting what they're doing and i went and read a bunch of their like annual reports it's super fascinating and also scary what they're doing is you can now sign in to linkedin using clear so you can create an account verifying your identity you can also go to certain stadiums and buy beer using just your your eyes and so her whole theory is like look we're gonna start with the airport. But eventually, you're not going to use a wallet anymore. You might use Apple Pay for some stuff. But for something that involves your identity, you don't need to pull out your license anymore.

13:36We're just going to look at your eyes. And it's super fascinating what these guys have pulled off. And I didn't realize... I thought it was a douchey company because I'm like, this is$50 for TSA for 5 years. This other thing is like$150 for one year. Why do I need this thing? But people still buy it. I think I was with you one time and you bought it. You didn't even know what it was, right? Well, we were late. Me and you were about to miss a flight to Miami. And so I was like, all right, MacGyver this line. How do we do this? Okay, let me just sign up for Clear real quick and see if we can jump the line.

14:08And it worked. You had TSA. I didn't have it. And so I cleared my way in and we got on the plane. It totally worked. And so it saves you just a little bit of time. But what's crazy is that their vision is huge. And it actually is like a super interesting vision that they have on how this business can be can be much bigger than it is now. And it's just like goes way more in depth than I ever thought. Yeah, I'm not sure I'm a believer in the rest of that vision because like I don't care like the amount of effort it would take for the you're at a ballgame and you want to buy a beer. and now each beer vendor is going to buy hardware to scan my retinas and I have to stand still for seven seconds while it scans my eyes just to verify my age.

14:51It feels like that's not the right payoff. The airport one makes sense because it's like, hey, look, airport security, it's a big deal. Okay, you can skip this line and if you're a business traveler, you're going to miss a flight. Those are high stakes. That's important. And so it seems like the right payoff to kind of like work ratio. I wonder where else that really exists where you actually need to on the spot verify your identity. So last summer, a new law was enacted. And so right now, if you live in, I believe it's Virginia and you go to Pornhub dot com or a bunch of other porn sites. Yeah, go for it.

15:25I see you typing. You have to. Interesting, interesting website you referred me to. I'll bookmark this one. so there's a new law enacted that for people in virginia you have to verify your identity in order to go to certain porn websites to prove that you're over 18 and so it like brings up like a camera where it wants to take your picture from your computer lens to like check your identity shame you it just starts shame just starts coming through your headphones like game of thrones Shame. Shame. Shame. Yeah, like the avatar is like a nun holding a rosary. And she's like, are you sure? But there's a few instances where this actually is interesting.

16:08By the way, those porn companies, some of the thing that they're doing is they're putting it on. They're making it so even if you're outside of Virginia, some porn websites are still making you register in order to make you pissed off at the Virginia congressman who approved this. They should put his name there. Hey, Mark Ingram in Virginia is forcing you to open your eyes and get scanned before you watch porn. If you feel any kind of way about that, push this button. Well, they even have like a Gmail login for some of these porn. It's weird. It's weird is what it is. But like, it's crazy. But there are a few instances.

16:46But the most crazy thing about Clear is like, this is a total monopoly that they have in airports. And I'm shocked that they've had this. I don't know anything about public valuations. It seems potentially like an undervalued company. What is it valued at? And what was the revenue again? It's in the five or$600 million range. They claim they have 90 % retention. So it's not like as good retention as software, but it looks like their market cap as of today is$3 billion. I mean, that's kind of an amazing, like a$3 billion company that does such a simple thing. And you said they're only in like 63 airports or something like that.

17:20That's crazy that it's so big with such a small footprint and such a simple product. Very impressive. Yeah, they're in 53 airports. They're trailing 12 months. They've done$530 million in revenue. Wow, that's impressive. Here's a random related startup. Did you ever see this company called Evolve? They make metal detectors. No. So their big thing was they're like, it's one of these businesses, like one of the meta takeaways of this podcast is all the businesses are hidden in plain sight they're right in front of you and if you just start once you start paying attention you're like oh this didn't just get here who put this metal detector here there's a company that does this how do they work um is this the same company at all of these places how did they get that contract and so metal detectors are at every big venue right um you know stadiums concert for whether it's for concerts or sports airports that sort of thing and so there's a company that had raised money from lux uh lux capital like a vc firm that does like whatever slightly hard tech or or hard tech um and what these guys did was they were made a metal detector good pitch for them they do i don't know whatever well i was gonna say like cutting edge hard tech and then i was talking about this metal detector it was like uh i mean those guys those guys at the beach who are nuts also hold meta detectors i can't really call this cutting edge um yeah we do slightly hard stuff yeah harder than e-commerce so they um but their actual demo is pretty cool so what they're doing is it's a metal detector that can let you just walk straight through much faster so like you don't need to i think it's like you don't need to like um take you don't need to take out everything for your pockets and you don't need to um like you know like i guess like it could just detect it faster so the flow of traffic is faster than a traditional metal detector um and that's kind of just crazy to me that that's like such a simple idea that i'm like oh yeah i guess like i guess that's true like if somebody just made a better metal detector going forward they're gonna win a bunch of contracts i have this thing called cricket i want to tell you about They spelled this funny.

19:36Do you know what this is? By the way, have you ever heard of a cricket machine? No. So it's C-R-I-C-U-T. No. What is that? Yeah. Ari, new producer Ari is here, by the way. First episode. So if you like how this episode's going, if you like how it's edited, credit to Ari. If you hate this episode, blame on Ari. All right. So Ari, have you ever heard of this machine, the cricket machine? I have not. Okay, this is, it's a DIY, like, home crafting machine. It's 20 years old. This company makes a billion dollars a year in revenue, $100 million of free cash flow a year, Sam. How does that sound? I like the sound of that.

20:19And what it is, is it's basically a cutter. So you put in some material. It could be plastic, could be a sticker, like paper, and then it'll cut the shape for you. So you could do, like, die cuts, like, stickered or whatever. By the way, I barely understand how this works. So I'm going to butcher this. I'm looking at it now. It looks like a printer, but I guess it's like a printer, but it's more for cutting than for printing. Yeah. So it's basically a way to cut different shapes of things. So you want to put something on a water bottle. You want to make a label. You can cut it using your Cricut home credit.

20:50Is this an invention that they made or is this a style? Is this like a Kleenex tissue type of thing? no it's more like um when steve jobs like i want you know every uh bill gates or whoever was like you know every home was gonna have a personal computer he's like you know a computer on every desk and that's basically what these guys did so there was like these machines were there before for you know for people for industrial application and then they what the company that started it was called like provo craft or something like that they were making these machines for craft shops. So you would take your design to a craft shop and you'd say, hey, I'd like you guys to cut this for me this way.

21:27And they would have the machine on the countertop to cut it for you because you're not going to have your own machine. These are expensive. What these guys did was they made it smaller and made it more affordable so that people could just have these at home. And so if you go look at Etsy, you go look at things like this, a lot of those people know all about the Cricut machine because they have them at home and they use it to make their goods. So how do they cut your name out in this cool looking font? They don't do it by hand. They have a Cricut machine that will cut it for you. And so just an incredible business.

21:54And, um, I saw, I heard about this because we were looking at an investment. So we're looking at investment from some of the original guys who were early there and they've spun off and they're doing like a new, a new, like better version of, of the cricket machine. And I'm like, yeah, I just don't know how big this space can be. He's like, well, I think it's gonna be bigger than cricket, which does a billion dollars a year. And this is spitting off a hundred million of free cashflow. And, you know, it's a public company. and I was like oh okay yeah yeah so uh my bad and he's he was telling me some pretty incredible things about the crafting community so he's like you know stores like Michael's um they he goes Michael's if you go read their kind of like uh talk to their leadership or read their earnings or whatever he's like Michael's believes that every single person who walks through their door is an Etsy seller their default assumption is that if you come to a Michael's you are going to sell on Etsy because it's like more of the majority than the minority, which is kind of amazing.

22:49And Etsy is this, obviously this marketplace to go sell your goods. But if you look, okay, if that's how you sell your goods, well, then how do you make them underneath that? And so I am very tempted to invest in this space because it is such a big space. What's the product do? I don't want to give it up just because it's like kind of proprietary, but it's like something like cricket, something like cricket, but better. It does more things. So the cricket just cuts. This does other things in addition to cut. Got it. So now this came by the way through our buddy, Al Doan. So if you go back and listen to the episode with big Al Doan, Al and his mom start a company in the quilting space.

23:25And the little breadcrumb trail is we have Patrick Campbell on the podcast. Patrick Campbell runs a payments company called profit. Well, and we were like, Hey, you see the payments of like lots of companies, like any cool trends in the payment space that we wouldn't have thought of. he's like quilting and we're like what he's like quilting is enormous it's like quilting like the grandma hobby he's like yes enormous there are companies that do blah blah blah so he told us about that afterwards i get a dm from aldone he's like hey i'm one of those companies that we make 100 you know 100 million plus a year and my mom you know jenny jenny don't or whatever started this business and i joined her and like yeah we still like kind of crafts for quilters like the squares right it's like the patches the squares the fabrics and they do like a daily flash deal it's like oh here's the quilting thing of the day and like that's how they do it so they built this huge thing to the point where he now bought a small town and he turned it into like the mecca of quilting it's like disneyland for quilting disneyland for quilters it's like if you're a quilter and you want to take a trip to like indulge in your hobby this is where you go and i'm like wow this guy's thinking big i love this guy he's a funny guy and so he was talking about quilting And then he introduced us to this deal.

24:37He's like, yeah, I'm investing in this thing because I'm in this craft space. And, you know, this is like one of the best kind of concepts we could do here. So I'm just getting I'm just scratching the surface on like this space I know nothing about. But I'm very fascinated by this. I wanted to share that with you. Dude, the Etsy platform is wild. Have you looked into like how big some of these sellers are? My mother-in-law started an Etsy store and she's making hundreds of thousands of dollars selling pillows on Etsy. Right. And one of the cool things about Etsy is you can go to the store and it'll show you how many lifetime sales, how many transactions have happened to that store.

25:11It's visible on every profile. Yeah. And you'll like look up something very obscure and you'll see that they've sold 50 ,000 versions of whatever they're whatever they have. It's wild how powerful Etsy is. By the way, I believe this is how Moy started native deodorant. So I think the like public story is like my sister got pregnant. I was concerned for her health and I wanted her to have aluminum and paraben free deodorant. I interviewed him about this. The real story is what? So I was in his office. We shared an office. And so basically, he was just looking. I think he was like, maybe I'll do mattresses.

25:44A lot of people are buying mattresses. This was right when Casper was getting going. And he called that. So he's like, yeah, mattresses. But then he's like, shit, these are heavy. This is hard to ship. I don't know if there's a lot of repeat buying on this. And then he randomly came across a lady selling chemical-free deodorant on Etsy. He ordered that. And then he ordered like 5 or 10 other ones. and he asked everyone in the office, like, put this under your arms. How's this feel? And like some of it was good. And he's like, some of it was was bad. But he found one that was great. And he goes, hey, lady, can I slap a native label on this?

26:16And we just resell your stuff. And that's how it starts. And then eventually he gets big and gets traction. He's like, all right, now we're going to make our own. Thank you very much. And I think I think she helped him like formulate it. And she couldn't keep up with the demand. She was like, dude, I don't want I'm not trying to scale this to this level. like I'm, you know, my fingers hurt, sir. Like, you know, can I take a break here? And she was like, how about this? How about I buy the formula? He's like, how about I buy the formula off you and you help me figure this out? And then we'll bring this to a manufacturer because we've outgrown your scale now.

26:47Like, yeah. And then after two years, he sells the business for$100 million in cash. And he, that was like, you know, I think the business probably does like 200 million a year in sales. So you could argue it was early, but I think he turned out all right. But he like sold the business like right before, maybe two years, three years before, like the whole DTC thing was like, all right, this is more challenging than we thought. But one of the insights was, I think natural deodorant was one of the top selling products on Etsy, and that's why he had market validation that there's something here. Aluminum-free deodorant, I think.

27:18And this is not like, him and many other people do this, where the business has this touching origin story. This is this wonderful backstory, but these are often reverse-engineered later. you know the that's not how a lot of these businesses work one of my fun things is like let's just be honest on this podcast and like say what it is you know like I started it like started the milk road because I was interested in crypto I saw what you do with the hustle and I was like oh I get it I could do that and I just did that with with milk road hustle for crypto and just like went down that road and did it and my goal was to make a business I made a bunch of money right like that's the that's the thing and I thought oh cool doing this I'll learn about a bunch about crypto.

27:58That's my, that's the transparent story. There wasn't like some, some origin story where, you know, my cousin needed help. And then it hit me. And then it hit me. I should just write this email for my cousin, you know, and, and I didn't stop there. I decided, you know, let's just open it up for friends. You're all my cousins. Yeah, exactly. And so like, I think you could do that again on Etsy. I think you could always go back to Etsy and look for top selling products and use that as inspiration for, uh, for the thing. And then, you know, for Moyes, I'm sure, I don't know this, but like, I'll, I'll put a guess out there, which is that like an arranged marriage, he had a checklist.

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28:30He's like, what is under one pound for shipping? What is a recurring purchase that's consumable? What is something that has a, you know, a differentiation against a big market, but has a unique differentiator, like natural deodorant that's chemical free versus what old spice and these other guys were doing. And like, yeah, the checklist. And he's like, Oh good. Deodorant, lightweight, you know, repeat purchase with a clear differentiator. Got it. By the way, these Cricut machines are awesome. I think I might get one of these. These are sick. They're expensive. They're like a grand. Use promo code SeanCraft at checkout for 10 cents off.

29:08These are awesome. Those are a good find. I mean, it's not like it was like some like a rare thing, but it's rare to us, I guess. But it is a good find. Yeah, this is out of our bubble for sure. I invested in this company that does this for bathrooms. And so they make women's hygiene products. So like tampons, pads that go into. Like the vending machine. It's installed on the wall. And so it's just like a better version of what used to be there. There's always something there. And it was just like kind of looked like something a janitor designed. And then they just made like a really beautiful version of one that was easier to use, more friendly, just look cleaner, like looked more hygienic.

29:54And then what happened is that every state started enacting laws saying that, Hey, yeah, every woman's restroom needs to carry these products. Just like you, you know, you have toilet paper, whatever you need to carry these products. And so state by state, this is rolling out. And what they're doing is they're going state by state into, um, uh, into these, uh, uh, stadiums or schools, universities, and they're getting these multi, you know, multimillion dollar contracts. for installing their thing. And once they're installed, they're not going to take them out. It's sort of like clear. It's like these little monopolies that you can get if you're the right product in the right place at the right time with the right sales pitch.

30:31Because once it's installed, I don't think they're ever going to go uninstall these things and change vendors because somebody has a slightly nicer design. Is that company working? Yeah. I can't share their numbers right away. It's like those disgusting baby changing stations. What are those called? Kangaroo Jack or something? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Those are filthy. Yeah, her name's Claire Coder. She's a very strong leader, kind of personality type person. And so she does a great job. She's on LinkedIn. She's super active with it. The company, by the way, is called AntFlow. And so it has a more friendly name versus what was there before.

31:12And when she described what the process was before versus after, you're like, oh, I get it. And I get why other people haven't attacked this space, because if, you know, most of the VC funding is going towards men, a lot of founders who are trying to start these venture scale companies are men. They're not even aware of this issue. Never even been in the bathroom. You wouldn't even know that this problem exists. But she's done an amazing job of like identifying the problem and then building a like super like just a likable brand and a likable story where it's like if you could choose between the default alternative or this.

31:47like you'd obviously pick this that's cool i got pitched on a bunch of those i passed on all of them because i don't know but like that that sounds good that it's working hopefully it makes some money i mean getting those i when i saw i was like i don't know man selling like two dollar things in the bathroom it can that be a big thing but you said they're getting million dollar contracts who pays for it the facility the facility has to has to do that wow like the facility needs to stock uh this product and it's a recurring thing right they install the dispenser for let's just call it like$500.

32:17So it's$500 to install the dispenser. And then you're every, you know, every month or every quarter, you're going to like have to do refills. And again, that thing's going to sit on the wall forever. It's not going to go anywhere. And so to me, this is like owning a piece of real estate in all these. That's going to pay your rent. And I think that that's just like, I don't know if this becomes like a$10 billion company, you know, that that's like different next level stuff. But it's clear that this is a defensible business. It's clear that it's going to have recurring revenue. It's clear that, well, there's a lot of facilities out there and they're all going to have women's restrooms, multiple of them per building.

32:49And each one of those is going to need to have this in it. So you starts to add up pretty quick. Okay. So let me tell this story. You know, actually these guys much better than I do. I only know it's secondhand, but I'm a, I'm a fan of this. So back in the day when you were doing the hustle, one of the very first things before I knew you, one of the very first things you created was this infographic about a business that I found fascinating and it was a business called i cracked and i think what you were doing was you were trying to sell uh tickets to your conference he was a speaker and yeah in your genius you were like okay instead of saying come to my conference buy tickets you said look at this incredible story of i cracked these guys were in their you know whatever college dorm room uh aj and tony and they realized that smartphones are taken off and so they decide hey everyone else is building apps let's just try to fix people's cracked phones because there's the more cell phones there are there's more cracked phones is going to be and they made this like on-demand service so if you crack your phone same day they know that's a big problem for most people same day they'll come to you grab your phone and fix your phone and it had this crazy nps score and it starts scaling they get to like i think in the first um you know they only raised 500k and they get to seven and a half million in revenue and you write this you make this great infographic and i'm like this was in The infographic heyday.

34:11Infographics were like the thing back then. Were they? You were the only one I saw doing them, but they were great. You and what's the name? John. I think he was their design. He was the design guy. You guys did an amazing job. It was just you two doing the hustle. And so and then what you did was you're like, love the story. Want to hear more stories like this? In fact, want to hear AJ tell the story himself? He's speaking in a hustle con in three weeks. Buy your ticket. And then I didn't one. I'm not just going to buy a ticket, but you would release one every what? Like week or so? Yeah, one a week.

34:38One a week. And by the third week, I was like, damn, I love these stories. All right, I'll go to this conference. Sounds like these are great stories. And so I went to HustleCon. And I met you, and this story has a happy ending. So these guys, okay, so let me finish their story now because what they're doing is pretty interesting. So what they realize is, okay, people are going to have cracked phones. We need to scale, and they scaled through colleges. so they're like they looked at this business like uh i tech i guess which is like you know sort of like a geek squad type thing and they were like all right um basically we just need to copy paste what we're doing to like uh actually i don't know if i tech was the company they're copying or that's what they called their people but like they looked at like how to scale this they figured it out on one college campus like okay we need these runners we're going to be able to cover this radius and repair these phones this way and they just copy pasted it across college campuses.

35:32And they basically they they taught college kids how to repair phones and iCrack would send them the leads and they're like, all right, you got to go show up at this guy's house. You're going to charge them three hundred dollars. It's all on the phone. You get one hundred. We get two hundred, whatever it was. It's a sort of scale. They blitzed. And in 30 days, they're on 28 college campuses, which is amazing. They had booted up 28 campuses in 30 days, which I love. They get into YC. They're one of the only non-technical teams to even get into YC. and it's because this hustle was like obviously very appealing and um and so at one point they even buy like uh 200 smart cars that they like wrap in their eye cracked logo and they give to their eye text and they're so they're all running around san francisco fixing iphones and shit it was pretty cool and then it's like okay so how did you scale from there they go well we started using seo and press and they're like we realized that the press loves to talk about the following headline 24 year old making millions doing relatable thing and it's like he's like started out of his college college dorm room and they're just doing something now all of us need repairing your cracked phone and these 24 year olds say they're making millions and so they just took that story and they did it at the local level so these cincinnati uh you know this cincinnati uh this guy grew up in cincinnati he's making millions other guy grew up in wherever he's making millions whatever college they went to they did it locally there um and oh they just booted up at this college campus so they did it locally then they did it nationally and they started stacking so that when you searched fixed cracked iphone they could show up organically at the top through seo from these high authority publications that were writing puff pieces about them loved it so these guys are great now here Here comes the problem there.

37:19They've only raised 500 K. They're at seven and a half million. It's profitable. Business is growing fast. They never announced this, but they go and they raise$50 million to scale the business. And that 50 million gets them to go international. And at peak, they get to 36 million and run rate, but it's just getting harder and harder to keep the group to keep up with the growth monster. And the growth monster is demanding that they get to a hundred million in revenue. Cause you raise 50 million. That means you've got to go huge. You've, you've cut off your options. and so they just couldn't do it and they just could not scale the business beyond that and they end up selling it to all state yeah insurance company and so they one of the guys he stays there for three years he earns out his deal and he decides all right after year three i'm gonna quit start my next company and that takes us to cloud poker night i used it oh you did it for hampton what'd you do yeah well we tested it i was a beta user and it didn't quite workout when we start when you would be a beta user i am beta they called the right guy we need a beta yeah it was a little rough when we first started because there's only a few weeks in but i think now he like nailed it and it was actually really fun so i want to do two things i want to show the home page because i love what they wrote as the landing page the copy on this home page have you been to it it's so good read it read it off so it says poker is the new sport for business minds golf is yesterday's news request access and then there's a photo it's a cute dealer dealing to um that's anthony's wife that's the founder's wife doing okay great by the way dealer um so and then there's like whatever people playing and you get a demo of the product so super strong landing uh landing page then you scroll down it says business minds who love poker so just think about the positioning so almost everybody would be like online poker night right cloud-based poker for poker software.

39:11This is like the generic shitty way to market this, but instead they not only say the benefit of it, they go even bigger. They just say, big picture, golf is the old way, poker is the new sport for business people. That's the we don't sell saddles here mantra. When Stuart Butterfield created Slack, he wrote this great memo. If you've never read it, go read it. It's called, we don't sell saddles here. And he's like, look guys we made slack we know it's awesome now our job is to teach the world that this is awesome here's the problem most people you talk to that run a company are not in the business for chat software they're not looking for a team chat tool it's just not a thing they even do they're not even looking for it so even if we say we're the best team chat software doesn't matter they don't care they're not into it he's like lululemon made you want to do yoga to live the yoga lifestyle and he's like we need to do the same thing we need to we need to sell instead of selling saddles and saying we make the best saddles we need to sell the joy of horseback riding and then when they once they fall in love with the idea of horseback riding they're going to say where do i get a saddle and we're going to say we provide yeah we sell the best saddles and so same thing here i love what he's doing by saying poker is the new sport for business people um that's the that's the selling the dream and then okay how are we going to go play poker use our software and he They have all these quotes about successful people who have played poker.

40:38And I recognize a few of these people. There's Warren Buffett. There's Sam Altman. There's Paul Graham. Peter Thiel. And look at that. The chairman of the Milk Road is on their website. Oh, wow. Have you noticed that? You're on there. That's insane. I had no idea. You are on there. I did not set this up for that. I did not know that. I'm on the page two of the carousel if you swipe. So I never got that far. But what they did was they go, business minds love poker. And then it's a quote and it says, which leader said this? Warren Buffett, Chamath or Paul Graham? And you're like, oh, that sounds like Chamath.

41:08Nope, it was Paul Graham. Okay, cool. And then it shows you another one. So again, using sort of the people you already trust to say that poker, they're not saying cloud poker night is great, but they're saying poker is the sport for business people. And then it's why poker is so great, blah, blah, blah. And then it says why you should use our software, which I love. So I think this landing page is amazing. But you have to explain how it works. So basically, I mean, I've used it. So what it is, is you, we are going to use it for Hampton and we're still going to, but we did it for a team night.

41:39And the way it works is it's almost like Zoom meets poker. So they have like a professional setup. And in my case, when I use it, it was Anthony, the founder. He's got this like home setup that's a card table. And then there's a camera on him and you see him dealing the cards and you see him talking to you and interacting with you. And you could see all your other teammates also playing. but he puts the cards over another camera of which only you your you know the user you see your own card so it's really like live poker uh and there's even a dealer who's like shooting shit with you and like asking if you want to hit it it's it's really fun it's very interactive it's awesome i think it's a great business idea uh for a bootstrap business i love this idea um yeah i love poker i played poker my whole i i really i think this is a cool idea i would love to do an mfm version of this so like that's a great idea i mean hold on i think they did make one for us.

42:27I asked the guy this morning, I go, hey, this would be amazing. I don't like, the live shows we did were cool because we got to meet people who listen to the pod. That's awesome. But I don't like traveling. I don't like leaving my house. And so this is great because we get to play poker. We get to be on camera, meet other people who are listeners to the show and we can just host our own tournament. And so I think he's going to do cloudpokernight.com slash MFM. So there will be a something there, he says, to RSVP for this. So if anyone wants to play in a poker night, we should do that with people who listen to the pod.

43:00I think that'd be kind of amazing. Well, guys, when it comes to banking, the only time I feel truly happy is when I'm using Mercury. And that's today's sponsor for the show. That is the banking product I use for not one, not two, but actually eight of my businesses. I have eight Mercury accounts. I just went and counted. I use it for every one of my companies. It's an absolute no-brainer. Over 200 ,000 other fast-growing, ambitious companies use Mercury. it's one place you can go where not only you can, of course, have your money there, but you can send invoices, you can pay bills, you can create reimbursements for your team, pretty much all of your financial needs can be housed under Mercury.

43:35And the product is beautiful to use. And the reason why is because it's a product that was not made by finance people. It was made by a founder, Ahmad. He's been on this podcast before. And he used tons of products as a startup founder. And this is the one that he wished he had. And I actually reached out to them to become a sponsor for this show because I'm such a big fan of it. So if you need a banking product for your startup, use Mercury. You will not regret it. It's amazing. For more information, check out mercury.com. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Check show notes for details.

44:05By the way, the other founder, so you talked about Anthony, Anthony Martin. He's one of the co-founders of iCracked. The other co-founder, AJ, is one of my great friends. He's a crazy person. He's one of the wildest people I've hung out with. His other company or his new company that he started. They call it... One headline called it the Tesla for chicken coops. So if you go to coop.farm, it's a smart chicken coop. And he keys into beekeeping. And he's always had chickens and animals and shit like that. So he made a smart chicken coop that opens the doors automatically and feeds the chickens automatically.

44:39It's pretty funny. I almost invested in it. But I'll explain one of the reasons that made me nervous is the day or a few weeks or something like that before the round closed, when the Ukraine thing happened, AJ went to Poland for like a month and was a volunteer helping Ukrainian refugees. And the guy's crazy. Is he Ukrainian? No, he just is into that shit. He just does wild shit all the time. Like I'll be hanging out with him. Didn't he used to boat to work? Yeah, he lived right near Oracle. And the office, his iCracked office, was in Redwood City, but it was across this little bay. And he would take this little boat to work.

45:20But every once in a while, they had offices at Soma and he would ride his this is like a small boat literally fit two people. He would ride this little boat 20 miles up the bay to Soma and dock his boat there. The guy is crazy. You would do crazy. And when I say boat, I remember you told me that like a decade ago. And I still remember you were like, yeah, my friend, he's kayaking to work by the way boat's not the best word uh it's better describe it as a jet ski that you stand up on so like he would jet ski to work basically that's how small this thing was so was he paddling or it was a motor no it had a motor it had a motor and he would like motor it was like a jet ski he was like he was like kenny powers he would like jet jet ski to work uh he's the aj is crazy he's a he's a crazy person didn't this raise a bunch of money from peter teal yes yeah they raised money from Peter Thiel.

46:08He's like, Peter, I see you're crazy and I raise you.

46:14It's like, say it with me, Peter, chicken coop.

46:21It's a weird business, but I think it could work. Yeah, that's amazing. So I think this is a really cool business. I want to see how this goes. I actually want to invest in this. I wish I could own a piece of this and just host Poker Night. Because one of the great things about businesses like this is um the virality so i'm very interested in products that can grow virally and most people get this wrong products that grow virally are not products that succeed through word of mouth like if you talk to a normal person oh yeah it's spread virally people used to go tell their friends because they loved it so much no no that's called word of mouth viral is literally like the word sounds it's like a virus you're not even trying to get it on other people but it gets on them they catch it from you so like the classic example of this was hotmail.

47:07At the end of every email, it was signed, like, you know, sent through hotmail, you know, sent with love through hotmail or something like that. So you weren't trying to tell somebody, hey, you should start a hotmail account. But it was added to every email as almost like, you know, a little virus that was attached to the email that basically said, sent through hotmail, get your free account today. And so people started signing up and had this crazy viral coefficient. And products like Cloud Poker Night have a different kind of virality, which I think, I don't know what it's called, but group virality or something.

47:36Similar to how Eventbrite grows or meetup.com grows, which is an attendee becomes a host. So a host creates an event. Naturally, they need to invite a bunch of other people because that's how an event works. And then you might be in the hundred people that attend some event. And if you liked that experience, the next time you're thinking about hosting an event, you'll go use that same product because you got sort of, it was incepted into your brain through somebody else. So I think the same thing will happen here. What I would want to do is I'd want to host a bunch of these for fun using the MFM community.

48:05But then guess what? The MFM community, when they have a good experience as a player, would then host it for their team bonding night or their corporate events or sales events or whatever for their businesses. And I think that's how these businesses can grow. Yeah, I think it's cool. What do you want to do? Cricket cut or gamer dating idea? I'll do the gamer dating. Okay, so. Sam, here's why you should date a gamer. I know you're married. But if you could go back, here's why you should have dated a gamer. And me too. I bet my wife, she doesn't play any games. I just bought a PS5 hoping that maybe that would sway her.

48:40She instead just got upset. So here's why you should date a gamer. You're not a gamer, are you? I'm like the least gamer gamer. I'm in the club, but just barely. I'm by the door. I'm by the exit door. I played Call of Duty last night for like the first time in a year. It's impossible. These kids are too good. It's so difficult. I'm unbelievably. it sucks also all the popular games now they're like pub g it's like yeah you jump out of an airplane i'm like oh wow that sounds exciting and then it's like you land and now you just sort of walk around you live for 20 minutes and then you're not going to see anybody during that whole time you're just gonna be collecting supplies i'm like okay cool but for what it's like because then when you do see someone i'm like but i never see anyone like yeah that's the problem you're just It's going to get shot in the head and it's going to start again.

49:28And it's like these games where nothing happens. It's crazy. Anyways, here's why you should date. By the way, I played I played Call of Duty last night and I played this thing where it's three guys. We're on a team and we have to do shit together. And it was two guys that must have been friends. And they were talking to each other in Spanish. And I was I was so bad that I couldn't see or hear or understand their writing. I couldn't understand any of the words that they were saying other than bot. This is a bot. He's so bad. It's a bot. and they quit on me because I was so bad. Just bot, like that's all, that's all bad.

50:00I remember I, you got called a bot and I thought it was a good thing. Cause I was like, Oh, aim bot. I must be on like on lock that they're calling me a bot. And then I was like, no, this is there. They're saying this is like an NPC. All right. So let me do my bit here. Here's why you should date a gamer. They're smart. They, um, you'll never have to worry about where they are on a Friday night. You know, they're just gonna be in the room playing, you know, and they're not at the club. They're not, not doing anything scandalous. they'll fight for you she's a data gamer they'll stand up for you they're used to going to war on these things they're easy to trick into doing things because you just give them a badge or a level or some sort of you know medallion and they'll just grind for that for that prize they're tech savvy they can set up your internet and fix stuff whenever anything's broken and they'll always give you space if you're the type of person that needs space they'll give you space but here's the problem you may want to date a gamer after that great sales pitch but the problem is there's no gamer dating app and that's my idea i think there should be an app for gamers to meet other gamers here's why this matters wouldn't it be a sausage fest i mean how many gamers are women all dating apps are sausage fest that's the trick they the guys only see the girls the girls only see the guys unless you switch the settings right so it's like um yes like all dating apps the ratio will be 30 to one.

51:18That's that's expected. But that's that's normal for a dating app. Here's why I think it's cool. I think gamers have a lot in common. I think gamers are a pretty big market. There's hundreds and hundreds of millions of gamers out there like gaming. The gaming industry makes more money than Hollywood, right? So it's like if you think people like movies, people like games more. But there's no easy way to meet a gamer. And if you meet a game, you actually have a lot in common and you might have things to do in common. And so I think one of the hard parts about dating apps is that they're all profiles and flirts and not really dates.

51:49And then a bunch of companies came in and were like, we're going to get you on a date. But then the reality was like getting people out into the real world to go on a date is kind of like really, really high friction. And matching them was a pain in the ass. I did a bunch of those. I think that gamer dating would work because you could be like, cool, you matched. You guys are both interested in each other. And you might you have some games in common because that's part of your profile. What games you guys both like to already play? Go squad up, play a game, go play Call of Duty together. And in doing so, you're going to be talking, you're going to be doing something together.

52:17It's like going bowling, going putt-putt golf, but just more fun. And so I think somebody could, this is a legit idea. First, I was going to save this for a drunk ideas episode. And then it kind of grew on me. I was like, no, no, no, this could actually work. Like, if you think this can't work, let me remind you that there is a dating app called Farmers Only, right? There's dating apps called Black People Meet. And those work. If you think those could work and gamer dating can't work, you're nuts. Gamer dating could definitely work and it could definitely be big. Definitely go sell it a match for like$75 million in three years.

52:49Is Farmers Only still a thing? I haven't checked in on it in a little while, but they used to run like TV commercials. You haven't been keeping tabs? Their website looks very old. Still paying the hosting fee. All right, they're doing 700K in monthly visits. So not bad. That's so funny. um what's your name for it uh i don't have one just yet you know working title tbd um open to suggestions yeah i think it's a pretty bad idea well i sold it pretty hard so

53:25i mean maybe dude dating dating apps suck that's the worst business there is man because only like three or four of them it's like a winner take all market you know what i mean there's tons of dating apps it i mean who's the winner that took all tinder no what bumble no uh batch e-harmony no okay cupid no it's like social media where it's like there could be you know there's a hundreds of social media platforms but there's like four that matter um you know what i mean i remember when i was at monkey inferno a guy came to the office getting kj and he's like i'm gonna make an indian like you know there's jewish dating apps there's farmer dating apps there's black people dating apps i'm gonna make an indian dating app i was like all right that's you got a good idea i guess and i was like do you have any background on this he's like i'm indian and i'm trying to date and he's like you know that's my background i was like okay i guess super qualified and then he's like um he's like here's what we're gonna do differently uh he's like i was like so what are the features like what do you have to do to differentiate he's like well i told you it's an indian dating app so the app's gonna say this is for indians trying to meet other indians i was like oh he's right that is actually the main feature is that you're gonna curate the people and sort of filter for people who want to meet other Indians, for farmers who want to meet other farmers, whatever, for Jewish people who want to meet other Jewish people.

54:40And so I was like, okay, I guess that is already better than Tinder if you're an Indian person who wants to meet an Indian because you're going to get 100 % hit rate here versus maybe a 5 % hit rate on a generic dating app. And I was like, okay, so how will you make money? He's like, do you know how much people pay for dating apps? I'll use the same business model. I was like, all right, I'm trying to poke holes, but he's just got it covered. And I was like, but how are you going to like, I was like, what do Indians care about more than others? He goes, oh, that's where I'm going to do something different.

55:05I'll go, okay, here it is. What's the big feature? What's the big tech breakthrough? He's like, like your mom is your like co-user. You log in with LinkedIn. And I go, what? And he goes, yeah. He's like, because I don't know if people know this. Like Indian culture. It's like a big deal of like, there's like a chat. Indian people date on like a checklist. It kind of stems from like the arranged marriage background where literally you marry on a checklist. You know what the pickup line is for like, I have most of my friends are Indian because you and Neville, my best friend's Indian. the pickup line when you're around other Indians is so what do you do?

55:36That's basically like that's like what they do. Yeah, so basically he's like you're going to log in with LinkedIn so we know that you have like a legit job. And I was like okay, and then he's like yeah, that's like the main thing that you know helps separate people. You know, I was like whoa. So he builds this app. It's called Dill Mill and he which means like hearts meet. How do you spell it? D-I-L-M-I-L. He builds this app and I'm keeping track of this guy and he and sure enough he just starts going into like all the niche communities, newsletters, blogs, YouTubers just promoting it, running ads, basically saying hey if you're an Indian person you're tired of striking out on dating apps because Indian people have like terrible success rates on Indian apps, on normal dating apps.

56:24I think OkCupid said that like the worst, like in the free market of dating, I think the absolute worst was an indian male second a close second was like chinese male um they were like the two least desirable according to the okcupid match data that they released and you know what the highest was i think the highest the most liked person i think was an asian woman yeah exactly i think it was a asian woman was was number one um because they were getting all the attention from the asian guys and the white guys i think i was like the the data what it showed is like they get like it's like top preference amongst two big user groups or something and there's this like weird stereotype that like uh asia women are supposed to be more submissive and dumb shit like that and i think that there's like some weird like kinks out there of spoken like a true white guy um like no it's like men who have had like oppressive like mothers of the average white male so hey it's on the it's on christian rudder wrote that blog post the founder of okay cupid i think that's like the whole thing their blog posts were great that was a great strategy they had um anyway so he whatever five years later he he sells the thing i think he sold it for 75 or 100 million dollars to uh to the match no way and they were like yeah we match group is a collection of dating apps we have our our generic catch-all mass market apps tinder um uh and uh what's the other one um mash.com and then they have like all the niche apps and so they own like 20 dating apps or something like that and so if you just fill one of those verticals that they don't have a winner in um they'll buy you at like a preset multiple and i was like wow that's pretty impressive they paid 50 million dollars for it i don't know man this guy kj he's pretty good looking and now he's rich i think he i think he he's probably doing all right i met up with him the other day and he was like you didn't believe and i was like i was like well you're right i didn't believe and uh actually sort of you know when i didn't believe i really wanted to be right i'm sorry about that i was kind of rooting against you in a way but then you proved me wrong and you were absolutely right.

58:24Congratulations. You did a great job. Have you seen the Indian Netflix show where it's like your parents are setting you up with like this matchmaker? Dude. So at first, I thought that shit's the worst where, you know, like your parents are telling you what to do. But when you think about it, it's kind of like it's kind of like the paradox of choice, right? Where they're just like, this is it. This is the one you are doing this. You kind of are forced to find happiness in that. And it doesn't seem actually maybe the worst arranged marriages. Are they? I have no idea. Are they bad? Or is it kind of they can be and they can't be?

59:00I think the stats show it's about the same divorce rate as in America. But what that doesn't show is that any people don't get divorced. They like, you know, they're like, we will suffer in this unhappy marriage rather than get divorced and be happy. But have society know that we failed at our marriage or whatever. So I don't think there's a way to really know how successful or unsuccessful it is. uh me and uh me and by the way a quick indian story me and neville were out to dinner with dharmesh at hubspot and neville was saying how he doesn't he's like man india like that's where i'm from and i go back there and it makes you grateful to be in america because like these guys got nothing and like it's not very nice over there this and that and dharma and he was like not insulting uh like poor indians but like saying like it's like a pain in the butt to be in that situation and dharmesh was like yeah that was me i was that guy i had nothing and i came here uh we were i was like one of those guys like we you know we had nothing and uh they were all just talking about india india sounds like a wild place man it just seems wild people describe things like that because how do you uh you know you can only agree with that you can't really disagree with x is a wild place it's the same thing as our business pitch of like it's this just beautifully done.

1:00:14We're just going to do it beautifully. It's the same thing. It's like, dude, that's a wild place. It's like, what? The food? The cult? The crime? What are we talking about here? Here's the story you told. The story you told is that when your mom came to America, I don't know if you were joking or not. You said two things that blew my mind. You said the first thing you said, she had never used utensils. You said that. Do you remember saying that? This is all on record. You're like, she didn't use utensils. That's what you told us. That's what you said on this pod. Mom, if you're listening, I know you never said that.

1:00:46I didn't say that. I'm being bullied by Sam. You know, I am not. I'm not putting any judgment here. I am repeating what you said. The second thing you said, you go, when she went to hang up the phone, she didn't know how to hang up the phone. So she just let it like hang on the phone. And it was a while to hear that story. That was it was like it made me love your mom is what it did. She told me the story. It was unbelievable. She's like, I got on the plane. I'd never been on a plane before my parents just dropped me off at the airport I'm 17 years old I'd never been on a plane before don't even know what a plane is really I just get shuffled along I show somebody my ticket they send me here send me there okay I get on a plane and she's like I think it's like a train that's all I've ever seen is a train and so I'm just thinking this is going to be like a train ride and she's flying like 14 hours tell her that it goes in the air her parents didn't know either they never been on a train a plane either they were just like this is how you get to america she's like okay didn't ask don't ask too many questions and so she she's like i you know plane seatbelts are kind of funky she's like i did it i just like put it pushed it and i went in on the first try somehow miraculously and the person next to me looked at me was like oh you've flown before and she's like i was like oh my god i don't even know what i'm getting myself into no i have no idea what i just did i have no idea how i'll get this off and um whatever i guess i have a few hours to figure out how to unbuckle this by the time i need to get off to at my stop so then for 14 hours she's flying and she's stays awake because she's like i don't want to miss my stop and she's like this thing's not stopping what's going on she's like doesn't know how planes work it was crazy the whole thing was insane doesn't that make you feel soft your mom your mother is so much more brave than we are it makes me feel uh incredibly lucky that uh you know she did all the hard stuff so that i don't have to do it yeah shout out it's like you know mom bird moms like chew food and then just spit it in their baby's mouth so they don't have to chew that's what I feel like she did with life she just like chewed life for me and then spit it in my mouth and I just have like the easy life and on that visual um um um all right well thank you that's the pod uh what is it mfmpod.com we got the merch and then uh what's the clip website uh clip mfm.com or just go to youtube and search my first million clips and please subscribe that way we'll have like when there's 500 subscribers we don't have a lot of incentive to do the work of cutting, picking the perfect parts, trimming them down, cutting them and titling them and making them like available to you.

1:03:11If you don't have time to watch the full episode or you want to share just the best bit with somebody, because, you know, sharing an hour long podcast with somebody is like assigning some, you know, asking somebody to help you move on Saturday. Like it's just a tough ask, but sharing a clip is like doing somebody a favor. And so go subscribe to that thing so that we, yeah, we're like motivated to get to do that. I want to see that thing grow. All right, check it out. That's the pod.

1:03:51All right. This episode is brought to you by Mercury. They are the finance platform of choice for over 200 ,000 companies. Shouldn't be surprised because I use it myself for not one, not two, but I have eight different Mercury accounts. I have seven for different companies that I'm a part of. And then I have my own personal account because now they have personal banking, which is a really cool feature. I highly, highly recommend it. Like I said, I use it myself. And the reason why is because the way that Mercury works is beautiful. It's very intuitive. And you could tell that it's actually made by a startup founder.

1:04:19It's an entrepreneur. You could tell it's made by somebody who used other banking products in the past and didn't like all the different rough edges and annoyances and decided to actually fix it himself. And really, any type of entrepreneur you are, let's say you're an agency. Well, one of the things every agency has to do is be able to send invoices, easily create them, send them to customers, and stay current on your balances with all your customers. Well, you can do that inside Mercury. And so I think that Mercury is great. Highly recommend you check it out. And thank you for sponsoring the show.

1:04:44For more information, check out Mercury.com. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Check show notes for details.

From the publisher

Episode 497: Shaan Puri (https://twitter.com/ShaanVP) and Sam Parr (https://twitter.com/theSamParr) share 4 businesses that are crushing it — from airport security to Etsy store-owner’s favorite machine to well-branded women’s products. Plus, Shaan shares a dating app idea that‘s thoroughly OP.

• Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel.
—
3 Special Announcements:
1) MFM Merch - https://store.mfmpod.com/
2) MFM Clips Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@ClipMFM
3) MFM Poker Tournament - www.cloudpokernight.com/mfm

Check Out Shaan's Stuff:
• Try Shepherd Out - https://www.supportshepherd.com
• Shaan's Personal Assistant System - http://shaanpuri.com/remoteassistant
• Power Writing Course - https://maven.com/generalist/writing
• Small Boy Newsletter - https://smallboy.co
• Daily Newsletter - https://www.shaanpuri.com

Check Out Sam's Stuff:
• Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com
• Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co
• Copy That - https://copythat.com
—
Show Notes:
(0:00) Intro
(0:30) Surprise 1: Merch!
(5:05) Surprise 2: New YouTube Clips Channel!
(8:15) Business breakdown 1: Clear ($3b)
(19:33) Business breakdown 2: Cricut
(25:20) The real story behind Native Deodorant
(29:20) Business breakdown 3: Aunt Flow
(32:52) iCracked
(38:00) Business breakdown 5: Cloud Poker Night
(45:30) Products that grow virally (not word-of-mouth)
(47:20) Gamer Dating App
—
Links:
• MFM Merch - https://store.mfmpod.com/
• MFM Clips Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@ClipMFM
• Clear - https://www.clearme.com/
• Cricut - https://cricut.com/en-us/
• Etsy - https://www.etsy.com/
• Native Deodorant - https://www.nativecos.com/
• Aunt Flow - https://goauntflow.com/
• iCracked - https://www.youtube.com/c/icracked
• Cloud Poker Night - https://cloudpokernight.com/
• Dil Mill - https://dilmil.co/
• Evolv - https://www.evolvtechnology.com/
• Farmers Only - https://www.farmersonly.com/
—
Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more.
—
Other episodes you might enjoy:
• #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits
• #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future
• #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto
• #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett
• ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates
• Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More
• How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

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