EPISODE

The Easiest Way To Make $10,000/Month, PassionFlix, & More

Jul 28, 2022·58:00·Sam & Shaan·Listen·AppleSpotify
0:0029:0058:00
13 moments · 164 paragraphs · synced to the second
SHAAN

So I got asked this question. This guy was like, hey, he DM'd me. He goes, Sean, big fan. Um, what the, whatever the next sentence you type to me, I'm gonna do it or I'll die trying. And I was like, oh God. And then he's like, he's like, I'm gonna get to $10,000 a month of passive, uh, passive income profits after, you know, and you know, I'm thinking either A, I start a newsletter, B, I do this other thing. And this, it was like all like Kind of like stuff we do, either stuff we do or like topics we talk about, like e-commerce newsletter or this other thing. Which one do you think is gonna get me there the fastest or the best? Like which one's the best path? And I was like, I don't know, dude, those all seem pretty hard to get to $10K a month. Like, you know, if I heard, if I wanted, if your goal is really $10K a month, um, you know, I don't know, a job will probably get you there. But if let's take that off the table for a second, let's assume you don't want a job or you don't have maybe the degree to get a six-figure job. I was like, I would just do a productized service.

SAM

Dude, Sean, so here's the deal. We are officially more— we're popular enough that you have to get your podcast set up right. So what I'm going to do is I talked to Ben. We're having someone come to your house and my house and they're going to put a two-camera setup. So they're going to like cut back and forth, but you've got to make that room and they'll help you, but you're going to have to make that room look good. And it's got, it's going to be ready every time.

SHAAN

Dude, that's great. Um, also related to that, I found a new house that I might move into. That's way nicer. And I was like, uh, my main motivation was to make this podcast look better. I was like, you know, I kind of look like a scrub on this podcast. Like, you know, like right now I don't have my haircut done, my beard trimmed, don't have my room nice. I was like, if 100,000+ people consume this every time, like, I would never go out in front of a stadium like this.

SAM

Like, right?

SHAAN

I wouldn't even let 3 friends come to my house and look at my office like this. Why do I let 100,000 people see the office? See, see the recording studio like this? Simply for convenience. But, uh, there's that also. I found on, uh, have you ever used Peerspace? It's like an Airbnb for rentals that are not houses, like not necessarily houses to stay in. It's like just for a, a venue. And there's a, a place near me for $75 an hour for recording podcasts. That's like a 2-camera setup with a sick couch and stuff like that. It'd be great for in-person stuff, but if we're not in person, uh, you know, it's just me sitting on a giant couch.

SAM

I'm gonna do it. I'll come out there and we'll finally do it. Ben wanted me to come out there, but I didn't wanna fly, but whatever, I'll do it. I was talking to HubSpot or someone and I was saying like, hey, yeah, give us budget to make our studio nice cuz we're like the lowest maintenance people you have. I was like, for example, 2 weeks ago, Sean recorded a podcast with literally just 1 AirPod because he didn't have a mic and the other AirPod ran out of batteries. So he just used his AirPod and his laptop. So like, I think we're due, we, we're owed one.

SHAAN

That's hilarious. Um, also, uh, what I was gonna say, oh, there's this guy, I wish I could give my shout out. I don't know what his name is, but I kind of wanna steal his idea. So this guy has this course, it's an on-demand course. That is only about how to make your video camera go from like a before to an after. And I was like, oh, this is the smartest course I've ever seen. Ben knows his name. I don't think Ben, you know his name?

SAM

Yeah, his name is Kevin Shen.

SHAAN

Kevin Shen. Yeah. Actually, I shouldn't shout it. Bleep that out. I'm gonna make it my own competitor course. So bleep this guy out. I'm not gonna copy him.

SAM

No, but I, I, but your, your setup sucks, dude. It's like, it's like a fat person giving a course on how to lose weight.

SHAAN

I'm the before story. Just wait till you see my after.

SAM

You're the way before story.

SHAAN

We all know there's the way before, there's the before, and then there's the after. I'm currently in a before. You should— the way before was the one AirPod recording on no microphone, no light. Uh, yeah, and we're gonna— I'm gonna do the after, and then I'm just gonna turn that into a— it's a 1-hour thing and it just says, here's the thing to buy. And then, 'cause here's the problem. I've watched a bunch of these YouTube tutorials and they're like, oh yeah, go get the Sony A5 or you can get the A6 or you can get the D340. And it's like, all right, well dude, which one? And then you buy it and they're like, yeah, just connect it to your computer. And then, okay, so you know it looks good. And I was like, yeah, but you like, there was like 7 things in between there that like everything went wrong. And they're like, okay, you know, you wanna, there's one guy who's like, you know, there's, Some people show you how to put your lights up or whatever, but dude, this is the new, um, like your webcam is the new face. Like your new face is basically, yeah, it's your suit. It's like what people see. Um, like this one time this guy told me, he goes, he goes, yeah, dude, I, I, he's like, I spent, he's like, I, I gotta go get my haircut. I'm, and I was like, how much you spend on your haircut? Cause I was like, I cut, he has nice hair. And I was like, it kind of made it sound like a big deal. Like I can't do anything today. I gotta go get my haircut. And I was like, I just kind of like, you know, it's like in the middle of another task, I'm getting my haircut. Like, that's kind of how I roll.

SAM

Yeah. Like if the Great Clips just so happens to be in the mall that you're at.

SHAAN

Yeah, exactly. Like, which Supercuts do you go to? And he was like, he was like, yeah, no, I go to this one place. She's been cutting my hair for years. I go, I have a standing appointment. And I was like, damn dude, you're like really into your hair. He goes, your hair's like half of your face. And I was like, oh shit. It's so true.

SAM

Yeah, but you're not into the other half either, so it's all good, right?

SHAAN

Like, you don't moisturize or anything. I was like, damn, he's right. I'm just leaving 50% up to Supercuts. That ain't right. Like, good hair is like an extra 2 inches of height as far as like, you know, that goes. So anyways, Dude, speaking of being— I don't know what I'm talking about even.

SAM

Speaking of being really good looking, did you see the tweet that happened today? So this woman, this like good looking woman and her good looking husband DM'd—

SHAAN

Hey, she's married, dude.

SAM

Bad girl. They're both handsome. They're a beautiful couple. And they— she sent me this message basically, and I shared the screenshots on Twitter. But basically a year ago you tweeted something I sent you the tweet. I actually forget what— do you remember what it was?

SHAAN

No, I didn't see the tweet. What was the original tweet?

SAM

Should we—

SHAAN

is it interesting? Does it matter?

SAM

Uh, she said it was like really cringe that she even replied to it in the first place, but here, I'll pull it up. So basically, uh, you said, um, I have zero interest in buying a fancy car. You know what I want? A personal in-house chef. I can't think of a better way to spend money than a chef. How do I start one? How do I start getting one next week? And she replied like, hey, hire me. I'm a chef, but I've got about 32 other skills. Whatever. And this guy DM'd her and she said that they were just talking about like, I guess, the chef business or something like that. Yeah, I mean, it was clear what was going on in the get-go, but he like— she said she's— she sent me the first message and it just— they were just like talking, shooting the shit.

SHAAN

They're like— he's like, hey, whatever the thing you're talking about, I'm super interested. Tell me more about whatever that was.

SAM

Well, he's from India. He's from Indiana and she's from Ireland. And so she's in Europe, he's in America, and they start talking back and forth in DMs. Then they get on a call and she said they hit it off. And after 2 weeks of just constant calls, he booked a flight to Europe. And for 2 weeks they, they like had this great time. And then now a year later, so they're, uh, she moved to America. It's been a year about since that tweet. They're getting married in a couple months. And it was all because she said that she listened to MFM and read The Hustle. She started listening to this. She started commenting on your stuff and my stuff. He noticed that and then they like, I think his in was like talking about like the pod and like, oh, you like them too. And it totally worked. She sent me a picture of them. They're, they're both, I mean, they're both tens. It's a good looking couple. So our new tagline is MFM, getting you paid and laid.

SHAAN

Yeah, there you go.

SAM

Yeah.

SHAAN

And I am sure all of our listeners are as good looking as them.

SAM

Yeah, I don't think so. But they, they did a good job. But I was, I was showing this to my mom and I'm like, see, not, it's not just neckbeards that listen. Listen to this. Like, it's actually like, you know, like real people who like shower and stuff, but it looks good. I'm happy for these people, so shout out to them.

SHAAN

Maybe we should do a date night every, um, 9 months, and we should just bring together listeners and it's just be dating, and let's just see what happens.

SAM

It's gonna be like, like, right, like, like, you know, Greg and Steve. Everyone's gonna be named like Chris and Tucker. Like, it's gonna be all guys. Like, so, so only come if you're looking for a man.

SHAAN

Yeah, you exactly. Yeah, exactly. See, we got the tagline too, so it's perfect. Um, that is a pretty cool moment though. I'm glad that that happened. That's kind of crazy that that happened. And, uh, but Ben, uh, producer Ben, young producer Ben, we need your story. Did you do anything bold when you met your wife? Did you do like this guy? It was pretty bold move, right? Slide into the DMs.

SAM

Yeah.

SHAAN

Figure out some excuse to call each other every day, then book a flight, go over there and fall in love, get married. That's kind of amazing. Did either of you guys do any bold moves?

SAM

Uh, we were set up on a blind date and it was my boss at the time, CEO, actually my boss's boss's boss, CEO of the company I was working for. Um, I ran into him one night and he was like, oh, do you know Katie Jowers? You have to take her out. And so he sent a text to both of us that was like, it sounded like a work email. He was like, Katie, I have CC'd Ben here. He's a great employee and will take you on a nice date. And I was like, all right, well, I guess I'm locked in.

SHAAN

Why did he know that you should take her on a date?

SAM

Oh, you guys, was she Mormon too? Yeah. Yeah. This was Utah. So we're all Mormon. Everyone in the story is Mormon. And how tall is she? She's 5'11". Well, there, that's why. He's like, you guys are both big, tall, white Mormons. You should procreate. Again, you're describing everyone in the state of Utah though. Like the whole population is tall, white Mormons.

SHAAN

You said it like it was a movie twist. You're like, but here's the thing. I'm Mormon. She was Mormon. Everybody in the story was Mormon. It's like the end of The Sixth Sense. It's like, he was a ghost and I'm a ghost with this whole thing. This whole movie's about ghosts.

SAM

That's awesome. Um, so no, no, no, no great DM, sorry, dude. All right. I have some, I have something interesting that I saw, Sean. I posted a link to the subreddit to this Reddit post that I saw right before I logged into this., to the podcast and I linked it to you. So basically there's this subreddit called FatFire that I like. I've sent it to you and every once in a while you get these amazing stories about people because they reveal like their income and things like that. And I've been following this lawyer. He's a 38-year-old.

SHAAN

Explain what FatFire is.

SAM

Yeah. So FatFire stands for Financially Independent Retired Early. Traditionally it's like a movement of people who want to save like $500,000 to $1 million and live off of like $30,000 or $40,000 a year. That's not exactly what it means, but that's like traditionally, like with the stereotype, fat FIRE means you want to retire early and be financially independent, but you want to be doing it fat. So you want to like, you know, save like $20 million or something like that. So you want to start a company, sell it, and retire. And so it's people who want to retire while they're young and, uh, do it by still living, living lavishly. And it sounds douchey, but it's actually quite interesting. It's all like entrepreneurs, bankers, tech people who like work at a It's just like rich people shit, and which is always fun to like be voyeuristic. And so there's this guy, he's a 38-year-old personal injury lawyer. And for the past 4 years, he's given an update every couple of years and he explains everything that's going on in his business. And so his background is basically that he was a normal, he went to a good school and then worked at one of the big law firms, which is like something that you like grind for 80 hours a week and hopefully climb your way up. And eventually you make $1 million a year after 10 or 15 years, but it's kind of boring and you're like kind of like the— your boss's bitch for a long time and it just kind of sucks. And so he goes, you know what, screw this. A friend of his got hurt and he goes, hey, I'll represent you, uh, just pay me whatever's fair. And then he did and he won. And then a few other people started coming to him, just word of mouth. And so he was doing this in the evenings, uh, while he was still working his main job. And after a year he quit to do his own thing. That's when his, uh, income from his moonlighting became bigger than his normal thing. So fast forward now, Um, I believe it's been about 8 years since he's been doing this. So 2014 to 2022, and he's listed out his income as well as his net worth, breaking it down by assets for every single year. So in year 1, it was $300,000, 2, $600,000, $800,000, $1.2 million, $3 million, $5.6 million, $6 million, $6 million. And this year so far, $3.3 million, and it's gonna be $8 million this year. And that's personal income, basically. He has these posts where he breaks down exactly how his businesses work, what his current plan is, what his growth challenges are, what his marketing is. And basically, he's got like 5 attorneys that work for him and he's slowly built up to that. He gets a little bit of cut of all that they have. They have 300 cases that they do a year. He talks about growth challenges, which is that they're struggling with the CRM. They don't have a CRM. Everything's done manually and it's a lot of work. And one of his goals is to automate a lot of stuff. But it's incredibly fascinating for two reasons. One, this is a sick business, right? Like, it's like just a 37-year-old smart person, but he doesn't seem like that particularly extraordinary, but he's like killing it now. He says that his net worth is currently $5.8 million, um, and his kids have a trust fund of $1.7 million. And then secondly, why this is cool for a couple reasons. One, Alex Hormozi had this business— Alex Hormozi was a guest here— he had this business called Gym Launch where he basically worked with gyms where he— that you paid him $20,000 or $30,000 and he set up your whole CRM and he set up all the automated emails for onboarding and just kind of set up the automation flow. Someone should do that for these personal injury attorneys. This is awesome. They have way more money than gyms and there's probably just as many of them. I have no idea, but probably. Um, I don't know. What do you think about this post? It's pretty cool, right?

SHAAN

I can't find this client info. Have you heard of HubSpot?

SAM

HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across Every application, every team can stay aligned. No out-of-sync spreadsheets or dueling databases. HubSpot, grow better.

SHAAN

This is great. I don't go on Fat Fire as much as you do. Um, I do it from time to time, but I don't like, I don't know, I need to like add it to my feed or whatever. Uh, but yeah, this is great. 38 years old, $15 million, $15 million net worth, not 5. Uh, so $15.8. Uh, and then the $6 million annual income is actually the more stunning part. Like, I'm not surprised that a lawyer at 40 can have $15 million in, in net worth. It's the $6 million in annual income that's sort of like stunning, which makes me want to understand this personal injury lawyer business better. Like he says, like, you know, I do no marketing. I basically just hand out business cards plus I get referrals from my existing clients. Um, but that is a ton. That is a ton of like take home from your, like your legal practice. I don't think that's common. So I wonder what he's doing that's uncommon. Like he talks about, look, these cases basically, like, you know, it's not about more cases. Like, 300 cases could end up being worth more than 3,000 cases because you, you know, you get paid based on the outcome, you know, the, the profits of the, of the cases. But man, is that kind of weird?

SAM

Like, no, I don't think so. This guy's in Southern California, so maybe he's in San Diego, so it's a pretty big city. But I think if you look at the top 20 cities in America, if you look at the billboards, it's always personal injury lawyers. And there's this one guy in, um, in Austin— and Austin's like a top 15 city maybe— and he says that his earnings are— I forget exactly what it says his earnings are, but I looked him up on Instagram and he's got a collection of like 15 Ferraris. He was in the newspaper because he had a birthday party for his daughter or for himself, and he had like Rod Stewart or someone crazy, and he spent like $3 million on that. And they talked about his home, and he was donating checks for $2 or $3 million, and that was in Austin., his name was Thomas, I think something Thomas. And I think I know a personal injury attorney in St. Louis and he's got a mansion in Miami. He's got a place in St. Louis where we're from. I mean, I think some of these guys could, could really roll in it and be netting 10 or 20 a year.

SHAAN

Yeah, this is, it's wild. And I like that idea of the, the, the gym launch for X. Um, I think you're right with lawyers. Like I see this right now. My, my father-in-law has senior living facilities. And he's always like, you know, I'm like, how's biz? And he's like, oh, it's good. Or it's bad. But his thing is always just like, you know, we have a 64-bed facility and every bed in the facility. So like, let's say, so this is like a senior living care center. So basically what he does, his model is like, he'll buy one. So say it has 32 beds, but it's permitted for up to, up to 80. And just the current owner, like doesn't really have the motivation or the construction experience. And so he'll, he just looks for that first. He's like, all right, You have a good business and I can expand. I can just double the number of beds, which will double the net income of this roughly, which will double the value of this property. So if I'm buying it for 4, this will be worth 8 to 10 by the time I'm done with it. And I gotta put in $2 million in construction, just round numbers, just for, for argument's sake. Then he has a management company that will actually like run the thing. Cause I was like, dude, do you know how to run a senior living facility? Like, isn't that hard and weird? And he is like, well, like, I don't go there. Like, I, I hired this. I found one really good property management company and they run all my properties. And I was like, wow, okay. He's like, yeah, she's been doing this for 30 years. That's what she does. And like, she, you know, she gets a cut. Um, and then the other thing he was saying, he was like, you know, it's all about occupancy, right? Just like any hospitality type of business, you know, every bed they pay us on average, let's say $6,000 to $8,000 per month. Um, so, you know, if we just get like 4 more bookings, that adds an extra whatever, $30,000 a month or whatever to our revenue, which is great. And so what he'll do is I'm like, so every time I ask him, how's business going? He's just like, oh, it's good. We lost 2 clients. We're going to place another one today. And I'm like, how do you get clients? And he's basically like, oh, she networks with the hospitals. They know her, so they send her some people. I'm like, do you advertise at all? He's like, no, how do I do that? And I was like, oh shit. I was like, like if somebody Google searches, like, you know, senior living near me and like, yeah, your city name, like, do you come up? And he's like, no. And there's like these aggregators, like these search engines that they like, they SEO rank to the top.

SAM

Um, but I was like, I feel like if you just did like, dude, I knew a guy who owned one of those search engines and he was making a couple million bucks a year and basically he would kind come up on top on Google and then sell the lead for $200 to your, your guy. And he would buy that lead and then hopefully close them to make $8,000 a month.

SHAAN

Exactly. And so I was like, you should either be buying these leads, you should set up some referral system, you should take, you know, local newspaper ads, local magazines, like, you know, I don't know, you gotta do something on the marketing side. And he's just like, I don't know that, like, basically he looks at marketing the way I would look at what he says, which is Well, like, just do a renovation and like take it from 32 beds to 64 beds and then get the permits for the memory care from the city and then do this. Right. It's like, what? Like, I got to read this manual and figure out like what color the elevator buttons need to be. Like, I'm out. I just can't do this. I fail. And like, that's what dude set up a Google AdWords account like feels like to him. And so I think there's that arbitrage, which is basically how many people are there that are injury lawyers, senior living centers, pool construction companies, that just simply don't know digital marketing and like, can you build a lead or a lead gen business or go like consult and help them and like take a share of the increase in revenue like Gym Launch? It just seems like that is one of like, that is one of the easiest ways to do it. So I got asked this question. This guy was like, hey, he DM'd me. He goes, Sean, big fan. What the— whatever the next sentence you type to me, I'm going to do it or I'll die trying. And I was like, okay. And then he's like, I'm going to get to $10,000 a month of passive income profits after— And I'm thinking either A, I start a newsletter, B, I do this other thing. And it was all kind of like stuff we do, either stuff we do or topics we talk about, e-commerce, newsletter, or this other thing. Which one do you think is going to get me there the fastest or the best? Which one's the best path? And I was like, I don't know, dude, those all seem pretty hard to get to $10K a month. Like, you know, if I heard, if I wanted, if your goal is really $10K a month, um, you know, I don't know, a job will probably get you there. But if let's take that off the table for a second, let's assume you don't want a job or you don't have maybe the degree to get a six-figure job. I was like, I would just do a productized service. He's like, what does that mean? I was like, okay, even just skip productized, just a service.

SAM

I was like, you know, totally.

SHAAN

Basically find one niche of a business and figure out how, what you can do that helps them make more money. So I was like, maybe it's just email marketing services for e-commerce companies. Maybe it's lead gen for pool construction companies. Maybe it's, um, you know, this, it's like, you know, the, the Jim Launch Playbook where it's like, yeah, I'll just do sales calls for you and like, I'll help you close X, you know, new customers every month. Or, you know, I'll make your website convert 1% better. You know, through a series of experiments and you pay me a flat fee of 4 grand a month and like that 1% for you is gonna be worth at least 10x more than that. You know, these are the simplest things. I was like, and then what do you do? How do you get clients? Like, let's assume you don't have any money. You create content that just talks about, like, for example, if you're doing conversion rate optimization for an e-commerce store, you just post, check out what these guys do in their add to cart, you know, in their cart, shopping cart that improve, improves conversion by 8%. Check out what these guys do with their email pop-up, check out what these guys do with their checkout buttons, and we did this change and this changed this percent. Or like, here's a collection of the best, you know, whatever, uh, designs for landing pages. And people will see that and they'll be like, oh yeah, that's smart. And they'll— one time you do it, they'll be like, huh, that's smart. The second time they'll be like, those are smart. Third time you do it, they'll be like, he's smart, let me just hire this guy. Uh, like, I just want this problem solved. And like, you could do that and you can get to 10 $20K, $30K a month of profit. And that is a way better path than like, I think what most people think about doing instead.

SAM

Yeah. And also I hate that question because I get that all the time too. I'm like, I don't fucking know, man. What are you good at? Like, I, you know, I don't know, like go play in the NBA. Like I have to know like what your attributes are. I hate that question. I'm just like, you know what I mean? It's the stupidest question ever. I cannot stand that because they just want me to like tell them what to do. You like that one? They just want me to tell, tell them what to do. But when you have zero context, it's just useless bullcrap advice.

SHAAN

Yeah, I, I, I can see that. But also, I don't know, I kind of empathize.

SAM

Like, I empathize, but I think it's stupid. I can, I can, I can understand why you ask that and think it's stupid.

SHAAN

I understand why you're doing the stupid thing. I totally get it.

SAM

Yeah, I, I would have— I asked that question too, and now I know it's It's not the right question.

SHAAN

Yeah, but then you got to follow up with what is the right question.

SAM

Well, you just need more context, you know.

SHAAN

Um, oh, who's stupid now? Who's stupid now, stupid?

SAM

Well, I never said I wasn't either, dude. Did you know that Elon— do you know Elon Musk has a sister?

SHAAN

What kind of amazing subject change is that? Uh, No, I didn't know that. I only knew about Kimbal Musk.

SAM

Okay, well, brother Elon's got a sister and she owns this thing called Passionflix.com. It's basically like audio erotica, I believe. Like, like, like, you know, like it's the tagline. I'm familiar. Yeah, the more of a video guy myself, but all right.

SHAAN

Yeah, I guess you could always close the tab. Just listen.

SAM

The subject or the tagline is Passionflix. Get your passion on. Romance on demand for $6 a month. And, uh, it's basically romance novels, which we had talked about, uh, in your ears, I guess. Yeah, like audiobooks.

SHAAN

Um, but I mean, do we, do we get credit for this? Like, does Elon Musk sister listen to the podcast? We've been talking about this for a long time, and I think you should tell the story again because the pod's much bigger than the first time. Tell your story about the romance novel thing. Tell first the story about how you did it for The Hustle as a marketing stunt, and then what you did with, uh, with our buddy.

SAM

All right, so for The Hustle, when we— the very first article we ever launched, we had to come out with a bang. And I knew this guy who basically would plagiarize others'— other people's books on how to sleep with women, and he would get a Filipino to rewrite it so it passed the Kindle plagiarism, like, filter. And then he would game it by buying reviews, and he was making $50,000 to $60,000 a month. And like, I would joke with him, but I was like, dude, hey, this is super unethical. And B, you don't even sleep with women. Like, you don't know anything about this topic. I can't believe you're like living this lie. But whatever, he was making money. And so we wrote an article about that when it first came out. And to prove that it was legit, because a lot of people didn't believe us, we go, fine, watch, we're gonna copy this and do— and do it. And instead of doing in like the how to sleep with women category, uh, we did it for romance— the romance category. Because if you look at the, the, the liquidity of the marketplace on Amazon, romance novels has the most amount of buyers and also like the most amount of transactions. Like these women are always buying this stuff. And so we like looked at like what the popular categories were and there was like women who want to have sex with like a werewolf. There was like women who want to have sex with like military people. And so we made like a—

SHAAN

like fantasies, right?

SAM

Yeah.

SHAAN

And so we made like a military guy, a rich billionaire guy, right? That's Fifty Shades of Grey. A vampire. That's Twilight, right?

SAM

That's—

SHAAN

that's how these fantasies—

SAM

vampire. That's what— so we made it like a military vampire werewolf guy. We like combined all of them and then we found like, like the title.

SHAAN

Is that really what you did?

SAM

Yeah. Well, we found— well, we did that for the title. So we found a book that was good and we just like plagiarized it and then like made the title like in the description about like a vampire werewolf military guy billionaire. I forget, like it was like a joke. We did all of them and then we gamed the system. So in a couple of weeks or in a week, we were the number one best-selling in a particular category and we like changed our LinkedIn to like best-selling author. And, uh, because we were like, how do we get like speaking gigs now? And which I didn't know at the time, but we actually plagiarized the largest romance publisher in the world, Harlequin Books. And they called us. I thought they were gonna like sue us because they sent this angry email. And, and, and then in the email or on the call, they're like, look, we get it. You're, you're, you're making— you're not really making fun of romance novels. You're making fun of this like Kindle thing, which we agree is silly, but you use us as an example. No big deal. We get it, but you got to take it down. So we took it down. So whatever. And so I've always been curious about this industry. And so about 2 years ago, 3, maybe 3 years ago, my friend Ramon and I, we created this website called Captivating. I don't know, what was it called? The first book was called Captivating Claire. Uh, what was this? That was the book of the book that we launched, Captivating Claire. What was the book? Was it a Short But Romantic? We launched a website called shortbutromantic.wordpress.com. And we basically, we got someone on Fiverr. We got someone on Fiverr. Shortbutromantic.wordpress.com is the website.

SHAAN

Least short and least romantic domain you could possibly have chosen.

SAM

Yeah, it was horrible. And so we, uh, we created Short But Romantic and we, and we got someone on Fiverr to write like a part 1 of like a, like a sexy story thing. Like, I frankly, I didn't even read it. And then we got another Fiverr guy to narrate it and then we put it on the website and we said part 1 of like Captivating Claire or whatever it was. And it was like, read the story. And then at the end it said, do you want part 2? Sign up here for $25 a month and we'll send one of you one of these every single day. And we put ads on Facebook for it. And I made like, I found like this girl that I went to college with and I was like, hey, can I use your face on this, this website and act like you're the author and like you're the one behind it? Because it wouldn't look good if it was me. And so we did and we got like $500 in revenue in like 12 hours because the ad rate was crazy. And if you went to the website, people were commenting on this. Saying like, this story's amazing. I love this. I want more of this. You saw it, right?

SHAAN

Yeah. I remember the, I remember seeing the prototype and I, it was like, dude, Sam is a genius, man. Like, I love how you spin these things up. I love the names that you pick. I love the, like the speed to product, speed to launch. Um, I love the way that you did the test, which was most people would go and spend months trying to find an author and write a book. And you were like, You know, you just were like, okay, werewolf, military, uh, you know, blonde girl named Claire. Claire wants to feel, uh, captured. No, Claire wants to feel, you know, contemplated. No, uh, captivated. Yes, sorry, captivating Claire. Um, Claire wears a red dress and she bumps into this billionaire and his hand grazes her thigh, and that's it, we got it.

SAM

All right, we're working now.

SHAAN

And like, I can just see— I saw the website and I just saw your fingerprints all over it, so I was like I remember being so impressed, and I tried— we invested in our buddy for this because I was like, dude, this is a great market to be in. And if you're kind of growth hacking, you're gonna do this. And if nobody else is doing this, right, it was like, there's so little competition because most, most serious people could never bring themselves to do this. So it's just, you're gonna compete with the other not so serious people that are out there on Earth. And like, I would put our skills up there with any of them.

SAM

Yeah, absolutely. And it was a good idea actually. But the thing that was the thing that was the thing was like, I don't give a shit about this. Neither did he. You know, like this was exactly what we weren't exactly fueled by this passion to create these like sex novels. And so we kind of like shut it down. But a listener, a podcast listener did something like this and he spun it up, I think, to $10,000 in revenue a month, like really fast. Right.

SHAAN

Yeah, that's what I think. So, and then also, um, there was a difference. I think there's a difference between like literal audio porn and then like romance novels. And this, I think Passionflix, the Elon, what Elon Musk's sister is doing is the, uh, the romance novels, uh, on demand, $5.99 a month. So I actually think this is a great idea. Um, you know, I, I may say, I think this is a great idea if you're good at internet marketing and you're like, you know, got a good sort of sense of humor about yourself. I think that this is a, uh, a business that will work if you apply enough pressure. It's hard though to like stay excited about it for a long time unless you just love selling widgets. In fact, our buddy Ramon, the first time I met him, you introduced me to him. We go out to a lunch and he's telling me his life story and his life story is full of like substance. It's like, you know, I was raised in the Netherlands and then like, you know, I had this, I was kind of like out on my own at a young age and then like I have, I'm a single father to my son and blah, blah, blah. Like whatever. He, you know, had a bunch of things that were like, these journeys throughout his lifetime that were these meaningful— I train MMA. He seemed like a dude who, he really kind of was self-made in many ways. And then I was like, so do you— I kind of expected him to be like, so that's why I'm working on this thing that has this deep meaning also. And I was like, so what was your last business? He was like, oh, created a soap opera blog and I sold it for $10 million. And I was like, what? I was like, because you love soap operas? He's like, no, never seen one in my life. I was like, what the hell? I was like, how did this work? He's like— and there's a— he's the second episode of this podcast. So if you scroll all the way back to the second episode, I think it's Ramon. It's one of the best episodes ever that's been on the podcast feed. But basically he's like, yeah, I just went on Facebook and there was an arbitrage opportunity where like you could buy Facebook page likes. Facebook wanted to promote pages so you could get— you could advertise a page for like, you could get a like for like a cent. And then I just figured out, oh cool, once I get them to like my page, I could post a link and then I'll get 'em to my website. And like, okay, that costs like 7 cents to get them to my website. And then Google AdSense can give me 9 cents or 12 cents or whatever. Like there's some like money arbitrage there. So he's like, so then I just had to figure out what is the, um, you know, what's the best category? He's like, so I spun up like 22 Facebook pages about every niche I could think of.

SAM

And yeah, his niches, it was like, it was like WWF wrestling and like soccer and like politics and just a bunch of crazy stuff.

SHAAN

Yeah. Oh, every interest you could think of. And he's like, okay, which one's the best? And he said the top 3, I think, were wrestling. Uh, number 1 was like right-wing conservative politics, which, you know, turned out to be like what Facebook, you know, really, really like overran Facebook also.

SAM

And he was like, I just don't want to do this. It doesn't make anyone happy.

SHAAN

Yeah. Yeah. So that one, he's like, all right, I'm gonna scratch that out. He goes, then the next two are wrestling and soap operas. And he's like, all right, let's do soap opera. I don't know why he thinks so much of wrestling. He never really told me that part, but whatever. So, uh, details. So he, he's like, all right, well, what do people care about? They care about like spoilers. Like what's gonna happen on tomorrow's Days of Our Lives? And it turns out you could just like buy, or like you could just sign up to get the, like the sneak peek of like the synopsis of what happens tomorrow. And he would just like publish that as a long-form thing. And he'd have, he hired some people to write for it. And so some women were writing for this stuff, whatever. So he was doing that and he ends up selling the thing for $10 million in cash.

SAM

Basically it was making like $300,000, $400,000 a month in profit. It was very profitable.

SHAAN

Yeah. And so you, you, you met him, he, he reached out to you from The Hustle. He goes, uh, here's my story, you know, I wanna tell it. And you were like, no way, this sounds fake. And he's like, well, here's my analytics and here's my bank account. Like, go ahead and look. And you were like, what? And then you guys met and you guys are like best friends. So you introduced me, you're like, hey, you in the email, you go, Sean, meet Ramon. You're like, Sean's a good buddy, smart guy, nice, normal intro stuff. You're like, Sean, this is Ramon. I trust Ramon with my life.

SAM

I was like, wow, that was an incredible, incredible intro. How do you remember that?

SHAAN

Because it stuck out to me, right? I was like, so I don't know, this is one of those writing things. I'm like, wow, that was amazing. And then I met Ramon and I also now trust Ramon with my life. He's just that kind of guy. And so he told me at that meeting, he goes, I was like, so you just, you just, you'll just work on whatever or like for your next thing, you know, are you gonna do something like soap operas or whatever? He goes, you see this cup? And it was like a little, like, you know, at a restaurant, the, the water cups are the shitty plastic ones. He goes, um, if I could just move this cup from here to here and it's like I make 10, uh, make a dollar doing that. Then I'm the, I'm a cup salesman. Like he's basically, I'll sell anything. Like, and so what ended up happening was he was gonna do this romance thing and you guys spun up this test and it started to work. And, um, but one of his other businesses that he had bought was like, started to work even better. And so he just kind of ha— he tried to do both for a little while, but he's like, what?

SAM

And that other one was equally as weird. It was a dog ramp business for wiener dogs so they can get on the couch.

SHAAN

Yeah, actually it's even worse than the plastic cup. He's like, do you have a wiener dog?

SAM

No.

SHAAN

Well, if you did, do you know that if they try to jump on or off the bed, they could get hurt? I guess so. Yeah, we make and sell ramps for wiener dogs to get on and off the bed. I was like, what? And he was like, yeah, we'll do like, you know, $7 million this year. I was like, what the hell? And so, you know, then that business grew like crazy or whatever. Um, and so I was like, wow, this guy is like, you know, this guy, he was just so different than everybody else in Silicon Valley. I loved it. I loved how different he was. He lived here, but it was like an alien living in Silicon Valley. Like he just did not have anything to do with software or venture capital or like high-tech stuff. He was literally like a, like a cup salesman wandering around Silicon Valley, making millions of dollars selling like the most arbitrary, like gadgets, like, you know, fidget spinners to, you know, like elderly.

SAM

When I first met him, he was wearing like sweatpants and like a shirt with holes in it and like old Jordans. And he's like a huge, like big white dude. And I'm like, and he has an accent, you know, and I was talking to him like, what, who is this guy? And we start walking back to his car. Because I was going back to my office and I was walking him to his car and I see he had a brand new Tesla at the time, the nicest, fanciest Tesla. It was like $150,000. I was like, oh, sick. Sick car. He goes, he was like, thanks, bro. Had to pay all cash for it because I don't have a credit score. And I was like, what? I guess you're legit.

SHAAN

Yeah. And we make him sound braggy, but he is the opposite of braggy. Like, he'll just be like, like he'll just show up with something or like, like, I don't know, like he'll do something that you're like, that makes no sense whatsoever. And then when you dig in, it's because he like always takes the hard, weird path to do stuff in this hilarious way. And it's what makes him incredible.

SAM

I love it. Yeah, he's crazy.

SHAAN

Like, he got diagnosed with like a herniated disc and then like on the way home from the doctor, like signed up for an Ironman. And it's like, what are you doing? Why are you choosing this?

SAM

I did the Ironman with him.

SHAAN

Why must you choose violence?

SAM

I did the Ironman with him. It was me, him, and Suli. And, um, Mermón literally got last. He got last. That they— he was so slow that he didn't train at all. He just showed up. And when he got— and when he showed up, he had this bike and he was like, hey, could someone show me how I use these shoes that clip into the pedals? Like, he didn't know how to— like, he was like riding his bike for like the first time, like taking the tag off of it. And, uh, it's an Ironman. It's really hard. And he got dead last, but he finished.

SHAAN

Like, it—

SAM

like, there was— there— like, the golf cart was rolling behind him and it was getting dark at night and they were gonna try— they were about to pull him off the course, but he like pushed him off because I'm finishing.

SHAAN

Oh, that's incredible. Um, all right, let's do— let's do some other ones. I got some, uh, okay, I got— I got an idea and then a really— I got a, a bad idea that I have and then a really good idea for a company that I just heard about. Which one do you want?

SAM

The good one. I would like the bad. I've got a bad one and a better one. Do you want the better or the bad?

SHAAN

All right. So the great one, there's a company called Ghost, um, that I just heard about. So this story to me is kind of incredible. So if you go to the website— no, it's a new one. So G-S-T-G, I'm sorry, G-H-O-S-T. G-O-S-T, so it's Ghost without the O. Um, I think it's ghost.io is the name of it.

SAM

Oh, this is already too, too new age for me. I'm out.

SHAAN

No, no, no. You're gonna, you're gonna appreciate this. You're gonna, you, you're out, but I'm gonna bring you back in. Here's, here's the deal. So I heard about this because, uh, this guy who's like a VC somewhere, he goes, back in 2020, um, our team started to notice a big shift that was going on with like stores like Walmart, Target, like any big store. Was that basically, remember when COVID happened and like the supply chain shut down and like the fucking ship got stuck in the canal and like everything was just bad? Like shipping container prices went through the roof. And so everybody had like a shortage right when demand went like through the roof because everybody was at home, everybody was ordering tons of products, and, um, we were all getting stimulus checks and stuff like that, right? So that's like demand went way up to shop because people couldn't go do experiences. And supply went way down, and it was like this crazy situation. And so what happened was retailers basically, they ordered more to try to catch up because nobody knew how long the pandemic and stuff would go. And also, like, the stuff that got delayed, like, finally showed up. But what that created was like this huge glut of excess inventory. Over a trillion dollars of excess inventory was kind of like the, uh, the guess. And so these guys, these, these venture capitalists, sort of noticed this trend, and they posted this 26-page PDF called The Inventory Apocalypse Is Coming. And they were just like, look, we are looking at this, like, a combination of people returning things, the supply chain glut, and then brands over-ordering to try to keep up with, like, this— the explosion in e-commerce, right? Like, um, there's just too much inventory on hand. And this is all playing out now. Like, that was in 2020, 2021, something like that. Now in 2022, if you go look, there's these amazing charts of, like, all— if you notice, all the Every brand is like discounting like crazy right now. They're like, oh, 40% off, summer sale, semi-annual sale, like liquidation, whatever. And it's because everybody has way too much inventory to hold. And so, um, and like Target and Walmart, I think, have come out and said some crazy public numbers. Ben, see if you could find it, like how much excess inventory is on the shelf, some absurd number. So anyways, these guys put this out and at the same time, this Startup Gets Started by this guy Josh and Dee. And, um, and, and Dee is kind of well known in like the kind of like e-commerce world. Um, and so they, they go and they start this company. Basically what they do is they, they're creating like a marketplace or a clearinghouse. So any, it's called Ghost cuz it's like any retailer rather than doing a huge discount, which kind of like, it kind of cheapens your brand. It sort of just pulls forward revenue that like your customers probably would've spent full price, but like in order to move inventory, you kind of like, you, you gave it away cheaper and you, you know, you sort of eroded your premium, uh, prices or whatever. Um, it basically connects them to the liquidators of the world. So there's like, uh, TJ Maxx, Ross, Marshalls, like those types of companies. But there's also just like international versions of those companies. There's like boutiques and, and wholesalers that could carry your stuff. Uh, there's basically like a way to like get rid of inventory that's on your shelf that you're directly selling and you could sell it wholesale for somebody else to kind of move. You'll take a discount with them and that's better than giving a discount to your customers who like, then they'll get trained to expect and wait for 30, 40% discounts rather than paying the premium price. I'm back in.

SAM

And so this is awesome, dude.

SHAAN

Their site, I knew you'd come back in.

SAM

Their site has 5 words on it and it's beautiful. I look at their site and it's literally 5 words. We make your inventory disappear. And the— but the way that it looks, I love it.

SHAAN

And there's like a smoky cloud, like a goat, like a— like something evaporated right behind.

SAM

Yeah.

SHAAN

And then basically what it seems like what they're doing is they're creating a private marketplace. So this is key, right? Like it's got to be private, can't be public. And it's a marketplace between your retailer who has excess inventory and these wholesalers and liquidators who will take this sort of like excess inventory they'll pay, you know, they'll get it at a huge discount and then they'll flip it on their own. That's their business. So it's kind of connecting these two through, um, through this B2B marketplace. And I think the thing is growing like crazy. So I think they said, um, let's see, in the first year I believe they got to, um, multimillion dollar net revenue. So not GMV, uh, profitably. And they're like not even launched yet. Like you gotta like sign up to do a demo and shit like that with them., but just knowing what I know about like what's going on in e-commerce, I could tell you this thing is gonna be big. Like, I, I need to chase these guys down to go invest in this because this is a real problem. And the marketplaces are the best type of internet business. But like, you, it sort of feels like all the, it's like all the good ones are, all the good guys are taken. It's like, oh, all the good marketplaces are taken. Like someone did it for, you know, Amazon did it for this, eBay did it for that, you know, Etsy does it for crafts. It sort of feels like there's no marketplaces left. I think this could be one of those multi-billion dollar marketplaces that comes out.

SAM

Well, it's not a marketplace, it's just software, isn't it?

SHAAN

No, it's a marketplace. They're connecting buyers and sellers. They're connecting the wholesalers to all the retailers.

SAM

But so the, the fee, they don't charge a fee to the people for using their software. It's, it's just, they'll set it up for free, which is probably, it's a huge integration process. They set it up for free and then they make the transaction. They make a, a transaction fee.

SHAAN

That's my guess. So I think it's probably similar. I think one of the closest analogies is a company called Fair. Which also does something similar. So Faire is like, I have an e-commerce brand, I want other retailers, like, you know, Susie's, uh, you know, gift shop to carry my product. Well, it'd be consume— time consuming to go find all the Susie's Corner shops, contact them, sell them my services, create purchase orders, and like manage that whole thing. So Faire created a marketplace to do that, and it's a like $10 billion company or something like that. It's like one of the, one of the faster growing startups that exists. Um, this is doing that, but more on the like larger liquidator types, like more like the TJ Maxx, Ross, like, uh, types versus, um, you know, just like kind of so-and-so's boutique shop that wants to carry your stuff.

SAM

Dude, this is sick. Yeah, you're right. I mean, this is actually amazing. Um, I'm eager to see how this plays out. There's nothing on, on the internet about 'em though. So like when I research it, I can't find a thing.

SHAAN

Yeah, I think they literally just came out of stealth yesterday, basically. So, um, that's, that's how we saw it. Um, let me tell you, uh, uh, okay, now can I tell you my bad idea? It's also in the e-commerce space. So how do we wanna put this? Let me sell you, let me sell you on this. Let me turn on the charm a little bit. Sam, you're a good looking dude. Um, in fact, I would say whatever you wear tends to look good. I feel like if I almost wore that same shirt, it wouldn't look as good, right? Because you got the body, You don't need, you don't need to go pay, you know, crazy amounts of money at, you know, whatever Scotch and Soda, our favorite brand here at My First Million. You don't gotta go pay for the fancy stuff because honestly, if you dress in basic blacks and whites, neutral colors, um, you'll look good. And in fact, thank you. There are a lot of people that are out there that may not be as fit as you, but they do subscribe to the same philosophy, which is they kind of just wanna opt out of the fashion game. Like, I went to Lululemon to go— I just wanted something that's high quality that fits well. And I went and I found a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and, um, the shorts were $85 and the t-shirt was like, you know, whatever, $77 for one, right? And so if I just wanted to have really awesome basics, like high-quality basics that are, um, premium, premium like material and fit,, but, uh, I don't care about the brand name. I'm not looking for the status. Uh, where would I go today to get that? Do you have a, a place in mind where I might go for something like that?

SAM

For plain t-shirts, Clean Fresh Tees. Those are my fave $10 t-shirts that fit pretty good. And that's mostly it for, for, for basic shit.

SHAAN

And so there's, there's that, there's like, let's say Italic. I think Italic does this with, uh, I think, I don't know if you're also an investor in Italic. I am, but like, no, but I like it. They do with cool stuff like handbags and scarves and like a lot of designery type of stuff. It's like a wider selection. But I think that somebody can go create the Costco for clothes. And what do I mean by this? I think you could create a business model that flips it on its head. Instead of paying the 4x, 5x, 6x, 7x markup that you pay today, when you go buy a shirt and you buy a shirt for $25, that shirt probably costs $5 to make.

SAM

Is that true?

SHAAN

So, yeah. So you're going to— you're— I think on average you're going to be paying some between something between 3 and 4x is like a normal markup. And then if you— once you get into like Lululemon and luxury, you're going to be paying more like probably 6 or 7x is my guess here. They're public, so you could go find their actual like margins. But like, let's assume that's what—

SAM

what about like a Louis Vuitton thing? What about like a $500 Gucci shirt?

SHAAN

Those are different. You're buying those literally for the status. Um, so let's, let's put them as a separate category. I'm focusing on more of like you go buy something from Nike or from Lululemon or Alo Yoga or like whatever these brands that are like, you're just trying to have a high quality version of a, of a fairly basic, uh, thing, but there's like some status component. What I'm saying is let's strip away the status.

SAM

So I'm saying basic girl stuff.

SHAAN

Yeah. You create a company called Neutral and Neutral basically just it opts out of the fashion game. It says, first of all, I don't need your status. I don't need your brand name. Second of all, I don't need your fancy designs. Third, I don't need to pay 5x markups because what a waste. Like what if I just wanna pay for the actual cost of the goods? And so what it is, it's a membership like Costco where Costco's model is you pay whatever, $100-something-ish bucks a year for the membership, and then they give you all the groceries at cost plus 10%. And the 10% is just their, like, the labor and the stocking and the, the stuff it takes to actually, like, move the goods around. Um, and so because of that, you get incredible value at a Costco. Moms love shopping at Costco for that reason. Uh, they're not sacrificing on quality, they just are sacrificing on the fluff, the, the packaging, the branding, the shelves, the store experience. And they say, screw that, I don't need to have a fancy display in the store, I don't need to have fancy packaging. Like, just give me the stuff raw. Um, I'll pay the, at the actual goods cost plus 10%, and I'll pay you the membership fee because, hey, for me, I make back the membership fee within, you know, my first month or two of shopping with you. I think somebody could do that with all basics for clothing and just say, we're gonna go get the same quality as like whatever the highest quality, you know, fit and, and materials are for like, you know, these fancy Lululemon type brands and just provide it at the actual cost. So you would be buying like that same shirt for, for $8 or $9. And it's a step up from like Hanes and H&M or whatever, but you're getting it at, and you, and the marketing is that, hey, you're paying nothing for the brand name. In fact, there's no brand on this. It's like brandless, right? Um, all you gotta do is pay the membership fee and make this happen. Now the counterargument is there was a company that tried to do this called Brandless. They tried to do it with like homeware and shit like that.

SAM

They went out, I think that's something outta business. I think that was harder. I think, I think it, I think it's amazing. I think the problem, there's basically like, I ask myself like 2 or 3 questions when I'm like looking at which projects to start. The, the, it's basically like, do people want this? And can I pull it off? This one falls into the second category. Do people want this? Yeah, obviously it's not gonna be hard to get people to buy this shit. Can I possibly pull that off? That sounds so challenging.

SHAAN

Like your experience with it seems challenging.

SAM

Pulling it off.

SHAAN

Like what? Like getting the products? Like just the logistics of the having tons and tons of SKUs?

SAM

Um, like that seems really hard. Uh, trying to get members to sign up profitably seems a bit of a challenge. Is, uh, Italic able to get, uh, do they have any profit or no?

SHAAN

Uh, I mean, I can't really say if they're profit or not, but like, you know, they're doing well as in they're growing, so they are getting members to sign up. Uh, people are buying into the value proposition, they're retaining. The question is like, you know, there's some payback period and is that, you know, if that payback period is like, you know, 1 month, wow, this is one of the best businesses ever. If it's 12 months, okay, you know, it's gonna be, it's gonna be more cash intensive.

SAM

Well, you're the e-commerce business, you have an e-com company. Do you think, would you ever work on this?

SHAAN

I wouldn't work on it just cuz knowing what I know now about e-commerce, I'm like, oh, there's easier ways to win. But if I was going to work in e-commerce, I think an idea like this is a better idea than 99% of e-commerce ideas. Why? I think you'll end up with subscription revenue. I think you're differentiated and I think you appeal to the lowest common denominator. So you're like, you're not, uh, like everybody needs shirts. So like there's some brands like Cuts and Fresh Clean Tees. These brands have scaled to like $100 million plus in revenue. In, I don't know, 3 or 4 years. And you look at it, you're like, dude, really? It's just a t-shirt brand. And they're doing just the t-shirts, like, you know, well, like this, they're not offering it at the factory cost and they're not offering it on subscription, right? So that's a key difference here. But the fact that they've been able to scale that much without it to me is like extremely impressive. And it just sort of speaks to the fact that like everybody needs shirts and it's like an everybody problem. Whereas like, like my e-commerce or like we talked about Ramon's dog ramp thing, like that only works if you have, not only a dog, but a small dog, not even really a small dog, like a small dog that might get hurt and can't get up and down stairs or a bed very easily.

SAM

And you want that dog in your bed.

SHAAN

That applies to me. That applies to me. Like I have 3 of AlphaPaws ramps in my house because like my dog is like this tiny little baby dog. You have like this massive self-sufficient dog that like, you know, has like a college degree. So like, you know, your dog doesn't need like a hand-me-down to like, they are like a ramp to like, you know, get, help 'em up, uh, you know, onto a couch. Sorry, dude, my dog doesn't even drink water from a bowl. I have to like carry her to the sink and I—

SAM

my hand is a small bowl.

SHAAN

My hand is a small bowl and she drinks only fresh water from my hand.

SAM

Dude, just keep it outside for a week, it'll toughen up. Like, that's crazy that you do this.

SHAAN

Oh, she doesn't even go outside.

SAM

How are you So soft, dude. You, uh, you just interviewed this guy, Rich Roll, who like does all these interviews and shit, and you're like, you're like the least— like, you don't even leave your house.

SHAAN

Yeah, he was like, he was like, yeah, I did this competition, it was, uh, you know, fantastic challenge, 300-mile run across 3 nights. And like, I was like, what?

SAM

Like, I was like, I went to Target last week.

SHAAN

Yeah, like, no, I didn't. I Instacarted from Target last week, but like, I had to step foot outside to bring the groceries into my home, and it was like my toe got a little cold.

SAM

Um, that's fucking hilarious. How are your dogs that bad?

SHAAN

Uh, you know, whatever, you know, like dogs start to look like their owner. Like, you know, my dog is like a spoiled little brat, and I'm a spoiled little brat about life too. I don't know, it's good. We, we, we suit each other well.

SAM

When my dog was young, like, every once in a while, like, I would just be like, I'm just not gonna feed you until you behave. And it worked.

SHAAN

My dog doesn't eat dog food, nor does she like chicken or like anything that normal— my dog only eats Clover 4% cottage cheese that's freshly scooped into her bowl mixed with a little bit of dog food with an appetizer bone before it. She won't eat if you don't do that. She's like, cool, I'll die. I'll just die. If you're fine, blood's on your hands. If you just want me to die, like, she'll go 5 days without eating unless she gets her cottage cheese.

SAM

Oh my God, that's your fault. That— this is crazy. I can't believe you.

SHAAN

For sure it's my fault.

SAM

How old is the dog? When's it gonna— when will it die?

SHAAN

Oh, whoa, bro, come on.

SAM

I mean, like, how long— like, how long will you—

SHAAN

when will it die?

SAM

How long will you own this animal for?

SHAAN

Forever. 100 years. That's how long I'm gonna own my dog for.

SAM

Dude, my dog is getting close to dying and I'm gonna be hilarious, but I'm getting his face tattooed on me, and I'm just gonna have a tattoo of a massive Pitbull face on my body, and I think it's gonna be like the greatest thing ever. They're gonna like—

SHAAN

people are gonna—

SAM

I'm just gonna be like this, this like walking, walking like, what the fuck are you? Like this like yuppie bougie tech guy with Pitbull tattoos on them. I'm gonna be like driving, people are gonna be like, they're not gonna know what to think. It's gonna be wonderful.

SHAAN

Yeah, that's gonna be not even in your bottom 3 worst tattoos.

SAM

Or I did like 12-year-olds. We should leave.

SHAAN

We should leave. Yeah, Ben, you gotta just stop the recording when we cross whatever that line is. You gotta just be like, like, we won't even realize that it stopped recording. Just like, don't worry, for your own good, I cut you guys off.

SAM

Like, I gotta be like the elementary school teacher, like, Sam, we took a gold star off your chart after that comment. Yeah, by the way, you weren't here the other day, Ben, and we were like talking about something and we were like, shit, this sucks without Ben, like our moral compass. We don't know if this is right or wrong. Keeping you guys on the straight and narrow. All right, well, what do we think? I think that was pretty good.