Billy
Bill Smith: serial founder who sold Shipt for $600M by age 33
Sam marvels at Bill Smith, who sold a credit card company in his 20s, then self-funded Shipt (an Instacart clone out of Alabama) and sold it for ~$600 million, and is now building Hello Landing, all by about age 33.
“So he started like a, uh, like a credit card company in his 20s and he sold it right away for millions of dollars. Then his second hit was starting Shipt. So Shipt was based out of Alabama. It was basically very similar to Instacart, but he self-funded it and then he sold it for like $600 million. Now he's got another thing and the guy's only like 33. He's got another thing called Hello Landing that I think is really badass.”
Idea
Long-term sublease arbitrage: master-lease apartments, rent by the month
Sam describes Bill Smith's company Landing: lease whole apartments, then sublease them to people who want to stay a month-plus. The wedge is fees — Airbnb's ~10% fee makes a $10k/month stay cost $1k extra; undercut that and monthly nomadic living becomes normal.
“what it is is they lease out apartments in different places and they take the whole lease and then they sublease it because for people who want to stay for a month. And the thing about Airbnb is that they actually charge— what's the fee? 10% if you're staying for 2 weeks.”
Steal thisMaster-lease units and resell monthly stays, undercutting Airbnb's per-night fee structure for medium-term renters.
Idea
Landing: a membership network of furnished apartments
Sam highlights Hello Landing (from Shipt founder Bill Smith): a $200/year membership giving access to furnished apartments across 13 cities, letting nomadic renters move month-to-month, e.g. a $3,000 Austin two-bedroom.
“They've got 13 major cities. You pay $200 for a yearly membership, and then you select a variety of furnished apartments, and then you get like a slight discount on, uh, staying there for a month at a time. So for example, they have a $3,000 2-bedroom apartment that's available July 2nd in Austin, and then you could spend a little bit more money and go to, uh, D.C., things like that.”