Hidden in plain sight

'How did this get here?' — find the business under every object

Shaan's repeatable idea-generation drill: look at any ordinary object (a patch of grass, a laminated HR labor-law poster) and ask how it got there. There is a business under every single thing; the labor-law poster, for example, is a huge business.

“when you look around the world and you see some item or object or patch of grass, just think to yourself, how did this get here? And what you realize is there is a business underneath every single thing.”

Steal thisTrain your brain to ask 'how did this get here, who wanted it here, what are the economics?' for every mundane object you see.

Unclaimed Baggage: turning the 0.3% of lost luggage into a retail business

Shaan describes Unclaimed Baggage, which partnered with airlines to take the roughly 0.3% of luggage that's never claimed, then resells, recycles, or donates the contents from a physical store in Scottsboro, Alabama.

“What they have done is they went and they partnered with every airline and they said, hey, we will take the unclaimed baggage”

Steal thisLock up an exclusive on a waste stream nobody wants, then resell, recycle, and donate it as a feel-good retail brand.

Doyle Owens: the Alabama everyman who turned lost luggage into gold

Sam celebrates Doyle Owens, the late founder of Unclaimed Baggage — a normal-looking old Southern guy who, in Alabama, built a wildly simple waste-reduction business while the Silicon Valley set looked down on it.

“This fucking guy, this is like the definition of just like turning shit into gold of just like, he's just like, it's a super simple, it's not fancy. It's in Alabama”