My First Millio‪n‬ The Hustle & Shaan Puri

Sam Parr (@TheSamParr), Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) and David Segal (@_davidsegal) discuss:


David’s background


- At 26, David teams up with his 70-something-year-old cousin, Herschel Segal, to start DAVIDsTEA.
- Herschel had made his fortune in Canada’s fashion industry. Previously Davis was helping his Herschel make small investments. Together they saw an opportunity to grow a tea brand, where David led and Herschel invested
- He made his first million when a Boston PE firm (Highland Capital) made an investment in DAVIDsTEA.
- When the company went public it was doing $30m in EBITDA. He didn't want to sell shares at the time, but needed to in order to make the IPO big enough. He eventually left the business and sold his shares because of management issues. He sold at an average of $14 a share.
- Today he runs a few businesses. One of which is a restaurant where he is trying to mix the best of ghost kitchens with a sitdown restaurant
- David is currently trying to get back in the tea game. He sees an opportunity to make tea good, and cool again. Tea penetration is tiny in NA, so there is a lot of room to grow.
- With his new brand he wants to do DTC business by keeping tea simple, but widening its appeal.
- Previous to DAVIDsTEA, he ran a software business. It was essentially an abandoned cart business but for real life.


Brainstorm


- Idea: good video for online meetings is like what a nice Italian suit was in the 80s. It shows professionalism and class. Sam mentions he is willing to pay thousands to have someone create a turnkey video conference setup for him. He thinks this could be a great business opportunity.
- Made Renovation (https://www.maderenovation.com/ founded by Roger Dickey) offers turnkey bathrooms. The idea is clients can select from a limited amount of pre-selected styles. Shaan suggests applying this same idea to video conferencing setups.
- Idea: Uber for contractors. David suggests it’s hard finding reliable contractors, and there may be space for a company that can help organize the market better.
- Modsy: For $500 per room, Modsy provides an on-demand interior designer. They will create a layout and make suggestions for furniture to use.
- The guys discuss several “experts on-demand” companies. Companies like Intro.co, GLGinsights.com, Clarity.fm & Officehours.com all do similar things in different ways: connect users with experts on a variety of topics.
- Idea: Decommoditizing everyday stuff. By taking an everyday item and adding a unique element to it, you can charge more and differentiate an otherwise commodity. David brings up Duraflame. Duraflame is a fast lighting fire log. The company does 9 figures in revenue but hasn’t been innovated upon in years. Homesick Candles successfully innovated on candles by adding regional scents and creating a differentiated product. Eric Ryan built his career doing this with Method, Olly, and Welly.
- Idea: Firelogs with scents. Decommoditizing a boring product like fire logs with a viral and catchy twist.
- Idea: “...For dummies 2.0”. The “...For Dummies” were a popular series of books educating anyone on any topic. Both David and Shaan are bullish on doing the same for complex modern topics like blockchain or NFT. But doing so through viral videos.
- Idea: Using stores as showrooms. David nearly started a company just like this. It’s a massive opportunity for whoever can figure out how to make use of retail space in a way that makes sense in the ecom age. A company doing this is b8ta.
- Smart Center: David mentions Smart Center and other REITS have been big winners during the pandemic, by converting abandoned retail space into apartments, senior living etc. 
- WGSN (https://www.wgsn.com/en/): A subscription service that helps businesses understand the biggest trends in just about every sector.
 
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Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) and Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) discuss:


Negotiation as a Service (NaaS)
- The guys talk about (and maybe invent) a new category of business: negotiations as a service. The idea here is that there are certain big ticket items where a professional can negotiate a better price for the end consumer. 
- Incentives matter, however. For a Realtor, getting a client a better deal isn’t always in their best interest. A better model: the negotiator gets a designated percentage if they are able to negotiate below a set price.
- Idea: Applying a better incentive model to real estate or home financing. Paying a skilled negotiator a fee for reducing your interest rate can result in thousands being saved annually.
- Idea: Salary negotiations for both employee and employer. 


NFTs 
- NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique crypto tokens. Unlike say, Bitcoin, they aren’t mutually interchangeable -- each token is unique. In other words, NFTs are collectible.
- NFTs have exploded in recent months. One site, https://cryptoslam.io/ (also https://defipulse.com/), tracks the daily transactions of different NFT. The top NFT, NBA Top Shots, does $46m worth of digital art transactions daily.
- Shaan 10xd his money on the following piece in a matter of days. https://niftygateway.com/itemdetail/secondary/0x8ae06a29a816580cbd069e460dd57c6c964bb3da/7500010105.
- This piece alone https://cryptoslam.io/cryptopunks/mint/6487 sold for over $1m.
- Artists like Eminem and shows like Rick and Morty are created pieces of content that’ll be sold as NFTs.
- Logan Paul made $3.5m in one day selling nfts https://beincrypto.com/logan-paul-raises-3-5-million-in-one-day-from-nft-sales/.
- Opportunity: When a goldrush is happening, sell shovels. Shaan and Sam think the shovels here are displays. People are buying NFTs, they are going to want to display them. The options at the moment are frames like https://infiniteobjects.com/ and https://www.netgear.com/home/digital-art-canvas/. On the pod Shaan estimates you can sell 300-400 frames and easily generate $5m in a month.
- https://opensea.io/: Another marketplace for NFTs. This is the eBay of NFTs


CoinMarketCap
- CoinMarketCap is a displayed of crypto prices. It's a simple idea that has been working.
- When they delisted South Korean cryptos without warning on Jan. 7th, the move wiped out $100 billion of total crypto asset market value.
- They were acquired for a rumored $400 million. The company only had 36 employees.


Check out today's sponsor: Ourcrowd. They make it easy to invest in early startups. Go to ourcrowd.com/thehustle to get started.


Have you joined our private Facebook group yet? Go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/ourfirstmillion and join thousands of other entrepreneurs and founders scheming up ideas.


Editing thanks to Jonathan Gallegos (@jjonthan)
 
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In today's episode Sam Parr (@theSamParr) interviews Ryan Hoover (@rrhoover). Ryan has seen thousands of companies launch since founding Product Hunt in 2014. He shares dozens of places that he sees opportunities, including several of his own investments.


Listen to the rest of the episode at http://trends.co/.
 
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Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) and Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) discuss:


- Investing like a $16B dollar fund
- The guys who built multi-million dollar businesses anonymously
- A genius company manipulating web results
- The big opportunities in privacy
- The hack Sam used to grow The Hustle when they were small
- The company archiving family stories
- Who is Lex Friedman?
- Shaan reads a mean tweet
- What is Gayburgers?


Check out today's sponsor: Ourcrowd. They make it easy to invest in early startups. Go to ourcrowd.com/thehustle to get started.


Have you joined our private Facebook group yet? Go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/ourfirstmillion and join thousands of other entrepreneurs and founders scheming up ideas.


Editing thanks to Jonathan Gallegos (@jjonthan)
 
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sam Parr (@TheSamParr), Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) and Kieran Flanagan (@searchbrat) discuss:


- Crafting the perfect cold email to catch Sam's attention.
- The grueling process of selling a company and how to do it right
- The best advice on how to negotiate correctly (silence is your friend).
- How the D.E.N.N.I.S system can help you sell a company.
- Why every deal needs a "deal dual".
- What it feels like to be rich?


Today's episode is brought to you by FOCUSAID. It’s the #1 and first nootropic drink in America that’s sold over 100m cans. For 30% off your first order, go to DrinkFocusAid.com. Check it out!


Have you joined our private FB group yet? It's a page where people share each others million dollar ideas or what they're already working on: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ourfirstmillion.


Editing thanks to Jonathan Gallegos (@jjonthan)
 
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Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) and Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) discuss:


- How the HubSpot/The Hustle deal came about?
- Why did Sam decide to sell?
- What will be Sam's biggest purchase now that he's sold?
- What will change with The Hustle and MFM going forward?
- Trung brings some massive opportunities: financial engineering for good, improving the lives of prisoners and the big potential of paid Twitter


Articles mentioned:


- https://thehustle.co/he-was-facing-life-in-prison-now-hes-the-ceo-of-the-instagram-for-the-incarcerated/
- https://thehustle.co/how-one-man-went-from-a-life-prison-sentence-to-a-100k-engineering-job/


Thank you to Lemon.io for sponsoring today's episode! They are offering a 15% discount for the first 6 weeks of work for all MFM fans. Go to Lemon.io/mfm to claim the offer!


Have you joined our private FB group yet? It's a page where people share each others million dollar ideas or what they're already working on: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ourfirstmillion.


Editing thanks to Jonathan Gallegos (@jjonthan)
 
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.