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- [00:00]
Sam Parr
We call you the most interesting man in tech and I stand by it. One of the reasons you're great is because you made money in all these random ways that I wouldn't have even ever thought to. You've got a 450 million dollar fund down.
- [00:12]
Shaun
He also started Thistle, a food delivery.
- [00:14]
Sam Parr
Business that's like doing over $100 million a year.
- [00:16]
Shaun
You're an SF running around like rich people, weirdos. What's hot? What are the kids into?
- [00:21]
Shield
Everyone is on peptides and everyone's got their dealer.
- [00:26]
Sam Parr
I can't say who was doing this, but on the pitch I was like, so like, how do you plan to be legit with this whole thing? And he basically pulls up a picture of like the co founder with like Trump. And Kennedy is like, yeah, we're pretty sure we're going to be able to get some things through.
- [00:40]
Shaun
Say it with me. Crony capitalism.
- [00:43]
Shield
One of my best friends is completely jacked and he does not really work out. He does, Ems.
- [00:49]
Sam Parr
It's going to go viral because it's going to be hated and loved at the same time, which is what you need.
- [00:54]
Shaun
Dude, I'd rather take drugs.
- [00:55]
Sam Parr
This is the only podcast where you're going to get AI a triple H reference from wrestling. I mean, the range is incredible.
- [01:01]
Shield
We're going to get canceled for this episode. I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.
- [01:08]
Sam Parr
I put my all in it. Like, no days off on the road.
- [01:11]
Shield
Let's travel.
- [01:12]
Sam Parr
So one of the reasons you're great is because you made money in all these random ways that I wouldn't have even ever thought to you, like created a domain auction thing and made millions of dollars that way. I think you did like a fee fighters thing.
- [01:25]
Shield
Yeah, yeah.
- [01:25]
Sam Parr
Credit car fee fighters.
- [01:27]
Shield
Credit card processing.
- [01:27]
Sam Parr
Yeah, credit card processing. You've got a $450 million fund down. You're probably, you know, if anything is in fintech, I go to you as basically like, hey, gut check. Is this smart or is this dumb? Because it's easy to fool me. It's hard to fool you.
- [01:39]
Shaun
He also started Thistle.
- [01:40]
Shield
Yeah, yeah.
- [01:41]
Sam Parr
He started a help start a food delivery business that's like doing over $100 million a year. So all these different spaces. Guy got married in the metaverse at a Taco Bell, whatever the hell that means. We call you the most interesting man in tech and I stand by it. I have yet to meet a more interesting man in tech. Welcome SHIELD back for round three or four.
- [02:00]
Shield
So happy to be back Also, I got to tell you, since the last time I was on, so many things have happened as a result of me being on.
- [02:07]
Shaun
Like what?
- [02:08]
Shield
Okay, so I was hiring a chief of staff and a bunch of people applied. But one person applied and the person who got the job, my current chief of staff is a huge fan of mfm. And she was debating leaving her current thing, which, which was paying her a lot more money, her previous thing. And then she was like, it, I got the opportunity to work with this guy who was on mfm. I'm going to take it. And so she, my chief of staff, joined because of mfm.
- [02:35]
Shaun
That's a lot of pressure for you. I hate when people say that when they're going to, like, they're like, I'm willing to take this big pay cut to work for you.
- [02:40]
Shield
I'm like, it's a lot of pressure. Last time I was on, I talked about wanting to get better at like, photography and video with AI, and this guy Jacob reached out and he was like, I can help you. And we went out for like hours in New York shooting.
- [02:59]
Shaun
He.
- [02:59]
Shield
He showed me all this cool stuff. And then, I mean, I. Your audience must be like the nicest people out there, because also, like, recently I went back and looked at the YouTube comments. Usually a cesspool. But your guys are so nice. Everybody that listens to your podcast is super nice. Nobody was like, that guy has a big nose or whatever. Whatever people would say on YouTube comments, everyone is like, just talking me up. Talking you guys up. It's great.
- [03:27]
Sam Parr
Ari, the bots are working. Keep paying them. All right, so we got. We wanted to brainstorm with you, so we asked you to bring some ideas. Businesses that you think are interesting would be cool to start. I think we said $10 million ideas, which I don't even know really what that means, but here we are. She'll brought five ideas. Let's run through some of the ideas and then I want to talk about. Oh, actually, wait, wait. Before we go to the ideas, you had a great thing on, there's this idea of this 50 year mortgage. And you're my finance guy, you're my Fintech guy.
- [03:55]
Shield
Yeah.
- [03:56]
Sam Parr
50 year mortgage, Trump is like, you know what? More years, the better. Is this a good idea or a bad idea?
- [04:01]
Shaun
Can you guys give me context? I don't really follow the news. So, I mean, Trump, Sure.
- [04:05]
Shield
So. So right now, 30 year mortgage is generally the maximum in the United States. So you pay off a home over 30 years. Trump wants to address the affordability crisis, which is a real problem and said what we should do is extend mortgages to 50 years. So you have 50 years to pay it off instead of 30 years. I think it's a terrible idea because basically what happens is you give people more money. So the monthly, the month, the amount that they pay monthly goes down a little bit. But actually you're not earning equity in the home after like the average length of time that somebody our age stays in their home is relatively low. And by that time they'll earn no equity in the home or almost no equity.
- [04:46]
Shaun
I think the average person spends something like six or seven years right now. It's not a lot.
- [04:50]
Shield
Yeah, I think that's right. Six and a half years.
- [04:52]
Shaun
And then on a 30 year mortgage, I think the way it's set up right now, something like the first 15 years is just interest, is that right?
- [04:59]
Shield
It's not just interest, but you're earning, you're not, you're not earning that much equity. And so here you'd be earning less. But the thing is actually switching from 30 to 50, it doesn't change the payments that much. And the real problem is the 30 year mortgage kind of worked well for an America back then, which was like you bought a house in your upper 20s and then you retired by 60ish and you owned your home outright. So even today, for when people retire, the median American, when they retire, almost 80% of their net worth is the equity in their home.
- [05:37]
Shaun
Wow.
- [05:37]
Sam Parr
So your home is your retirement plan. Right?
- [05:40]
Shield
Your home is retirement plan. And, and part of that is for Americans, you can't spend it. Like if you could spend it, you would spend that money. But because it's in your home, you can't spend it. So I, I don't think the 50 year mortgage really solves anything. And actually probably what it does is drives asset prices higher. So Japan did this in the 80s. They, they had a bunch of problems like interest rates were zero and asset prices went through the roof. At one point a single property in Tokyo was worth more than all of the real estate in California. Like it was an insane bubble. And part of that was they extended mortgage times to 50 years. And actually some people got 100 year mortgage. So like your grandkids are on the hook for the home that you buy and asset prices went through the roof. And then leverage is nasty when it collapsed. When prices drop a little bit, you're, you're pretty screwed. So home prices have actually gone down so much so that there's still half of what they were in 1989.
- [06:42]
Sam Parr
In Japan.
- [06:42]
Shield
In Japan, yeah. In Tokyo.
- [06:44]
Sam Parr
Did you say one property was worth more?
- [06:46]
Shaun
Which property?
- [06:47]
Shield
So, okay, so it was the land value under the Imperial palace. And so that's, it's about a half, half square mile of space in Tokyo.
- [07:01]
Sam Parr
So, okay, so maybe, maybe, maybe a bad idea. Yeah. From what I understand, because when rates drop here, basically the sellers just raise the price because they're like, oh, you're, you're buying. Not really on the whole price. It's like, what do I owe per month and what can I qualify for? If I can, if my monthly payment is X, I can afford that.
- [07:20]
Shield
Yeah, exactly.
- [07:21]
Sam Parr
So what happens is when your monthly payment goes down, whether it's because you stretch the payments over 50 years or the rates go down, what happens is the sellers just can justify a higher price and it didn't affect anything. You just end up paying more. Because I think in a 30 year mortgage, I think you pay whatever the home price is plus something like, what is it, 50% or something is because the interest compounds over three years. And if it's 50 years, you're going to basically pay almost double the, the, the list price of the home because you pay so much more in interest.
- [07:50]
Shield
Yeah, exactly. So I think the solution, like we do have an affordability crisis, no question. But the solution is not to induce demand, because if you induce demand, what happens? You have the same fixed amount of properties, you're just making prices go up. So the solution is creating more supply, like making it easier to permit like all this kind of reform to build more housing, make it cheaper to build housing.
- [08:16]
Shaun
I was listening to this person who had a different take on affordability. He was like, are things less affordable today than they were in the 60s? He goes, look, here's the deal. In the 1960s, your version of a family vacation was a road trip to a state park once a year. Okay? You never traveled, you didn't go on a plane. You lived in an 1800 square foot home in Dayton, Ohio. Okay? Like you had a crappy car, you didn't eat out and you never took vacation. Now young people today, they want more things, which is totally fine. They want to go international once a year, they want to go on these cool trips, they want fancy phones, a new home. Even the average home nowadays is a new home with two ACs and a beautiful build with a really nice kitchen and really nice bathroom. And they're like, is it more? Is it, are things less affordable or do people just want more stuff? Yeah, it was like, it was like an Interesting take where I was like, that's okay. That actually does have a good point. Because even when I grew up, I didn't go. This isn't like a, oh, I'm so poor. But like, I didn't go on a plane until I was 18 years old. Like, we never, we didn't take like vacations like I do now. We didn't. I remember like the AC was broken one summer and we just like left the windows open like, or like shared.
- [09:24]
Shield
Rooms, like bunk beds. There'd be like two or three kids in a room. Now each kid needs their own room. Like you said, Sam, like 1400, 1500 square feet was like a nice sized house. And now that's not the case.
- [09:35]
Shaun
Have you guys ever seen the TV show the Wonder Years? Yeah. And it's like, yeah, one father, the husband could provide for the whole family, but he was angry all the time. He worked at a factory where he got like black lug and like a man. Yeah, like he was like borderline and alcoholic and he was like grumpy all the time. They didn't go anywhere. When they did, like the car broke down, like turns were different.
- [09:59]
Shield
Yeah, I think so. Taking the other side though, I think we shouldn't be telling people like, you shouldn't want these things. I think we should.
- [10:06]
Shaun
I'm not saying that, I'm just joking. But yes, yes.
- [10:08]
Shield
So I think we should make stuff cheaper and I think we can do that. Making the cost, the inputs cheaper, I think is all possible. But I hate demand side adjustments.
- [10:21]
Sam Parr
The way you said that made it so simple to me, which was if all you do is increase demand and the supply stays the same, you're not going to make things cheaper, you're going to make things more expensive. It's like, yeah, that obviously makes sense.
- [10:36]
Shaun
All right, so a lot of people watch and listen to this show because they want to hear us just tell them exactly what to do when it comes to starting or growing a business. And really a lot of people who are listening, they have a full time job and they want to start something on the side. A side hustle. Now, a lot of people message Sean and I and they say, all right, I want to start something on the side. Is this a good idea? Is that a good idea? And again, what they're really just saying is just give me the ideas. Well, my friends, you're in luck. So my old company, the Hustle, they put together a hundred different side Hustle ideas and they have appropriately called it the side Hustle Idea Database. It's a list of 100 pretty good ideas, frankly. I went through them, they're awesome. And it gives you how to start them, how to grow them. Things like that gives you a little bit of inspiration. So check it out. It's called the side Hustle Idea Database. It's in the description below. You'll see the link. Click it, check it out, let me know in the comments what you think?
- [11:28]
Sam Parr
What do you got? She'll hit us with the first.
- [11:29]
Shield
Okay, so a lot of these are based on, like, what's going on in my life today. So I am trying to redo my backyard and I redid it like 10 years ago and it's like kind of a now I want to add pavers. I want to add like a nice, maybe a waterfall, something like that. And so I've been reaching out to all these landscapers, all these backyard specialists, and the process sucks. It takes them forever to get back to me. And then they come here. All they do is measure. And like, I knew the measurements to begin with and scheduling that on my schedule. And their schedule sucks. And they're coming from like an hour away sometimes just to do this like 10 minute thing. And then once they take the measurements, they're super busy. They don't get back to me for a week. And so then I'm like, can I really trust this guy? And I was talking to a guy who built a company in this space and said like, one of the things that's really important to them is just getting back to you quickly. And if they get back to you quickly, you're way more likely to purchase from them. And this, this is a fairly large purchase, let's, let's say $50,000. And so I was thinking there's gotta be a better way. And you could solve this with AI in part. So all I could do is give them my address and they know what my backyard looks like. Like, they can get the measurements from satellite imagery and they could actually give me a design. Like they could. It could either not show up at all or, or when they show up, they could have an iPad with a bunch of sample designs of my place. How amazing would that be? And the idea for this came to me from a buddy of mine who has a company called Deep Lawn. All they do is they help lawn companies quote. And so the lawn company you put in the address it looks at satellite imagery, uses some AI to determine how much grass you have, comes up with a square footage. It knows what you charge, and it instantly gives them a quote. And they Charge like a couple dollars per quote. But there's so many lawn care companies, so many lawns out there, that it's actually a pretty good business. And it's simple. This is actually like one step beyond that. It's not just giving you a simple quote, but it's giving you a bunch of designs and stuff like that. And I think, I think it's very doable and it would solve a problem that I have if these guys used it.
- [13:49]
Sam Parr
So it's really interesting. You say that Ben had told me about a business that's very, very similar in the roofing space.
- [13:55]
Shield
Yeah.
- [13:55]
Sam Parr
So if you go to roofer.com so.com and the guy's doing the same thing. It's just the quote part. So basically, I guess the way that roofing works is if you want to get a roof or repair or whatever it is, the guy will come out. So you got to do the same thing. You said schedule. It comes out. Just going to check out the roof today, going to get to get in, give you a quote. And the roofers hate doing this step because they, they make no money in the quoting process. They need the job. They got to go all the way up the roof. They got a schedule. They can only do so many in a week. And so what this guy was doing, I don't know. I don't remember exactly the meta. The method, but I know what he was doing, which was, he's like, hey. He would go to the roofers and say, hey, anytime you need a quote done, I'll do the quote for you. You know, you just pay me like a small amount basically to. To go do this quote for you. And I think he was using either drones or imagery in some ways. I think it was drones. The drone would fly by, it would auto do the quote for you. So you would have a way faster quote, which increases your odds of getting the job. You didn't have to go do it yourself. It can scale, so it could do way more quotes per week than. Than the roofer could have done themselves. And it takes off like in a one part of the sales funnel that they really hated doing. And I think this business is doing really well. I think he's bootstrapping this. I'm not entirely sure, but I think this is this business doing really well. Last time I heard the numbers for it.
- [15:07]
Shield
Yeah, I think you could do the same thing for like pools, decks, pergolas, like playgrounds, fences, outdoor kitchens, like all. All this kind of stuff would be fairly easy to do. So you could Build. You could build this in one niche and then go into all the others.
- [15:24]
Shaun
Do you guys remember the. There was like two or three tech guys that like left their, like seemingly great tech companies, I think, and like started bathroom remodel businesses. I think the first one was this. Was this guy named Roger. So Roger was like previously, like, I think he started Zynga or something like that. He.
- [15:41]
Shield
He founded Mafia wars, which was part of Zynga.
- [15:44]
Shaun
Okay, sorry, I'm in the ballpark. You're in the ballpark. I'm not.
- [15:47]
Sam Parr
Right?
- [15:48]
Shaun
Okay. And then. But like, GSTER was like a. Like a. You know, raised by. Raised money from prominent investors. And then he left to start made.com, which was basically like a. You know how like the best barbers, you go and you sit down to the chair and they're like, what do you want? And you're like, just do like a little here. I don't know. Just like, give me like the Justin Bieber. And the. The great barbers are like, there's option one, option two, option three, option four. Here's the menu. Which one do you want? You're like, give me that one. Give me the four. He did that for bathrooms and it like killed it. And then the second guy was this guy I think named Luke, one of the co founders of Casper. He left Casper and he's start a. I think, I think bathrooms and kitchens.
- [16:27]
Sam Parr
It's called block block renovation.
- [16:29]
Shaun
Was it just. And it was. Was it both of them or just bathrooms?
- [16:32]
Sam Parr
Same thing. It was bathrooms. Maybe now they expanded to kitchens. And by the way, I don't know how these businesses have all done now, but like, super interesting where it was like, hey, here's four you can pick off the menu. You want your bathroom to look like this, this, this, or this. And it was like running Facebook ads. We talked about this years ago on the pod. Running Facebook ads for people who want to upgrade their bathroom, which is not how they were. How any other construction company was selling to customers. So you had this new channel and they were acquiring customers to do these like, expensive bathroom renovations using this, like kind of pick off the menu model, which I thought was pretty fascinating.
- [17:04]
Shield
I think it's interesting, but it's. It's so complex and things can go wrong and get bad reviews based on your partner or whatever. I feel like it's a very complicated business. I don't know why. I know. I think Roger sold made to like Home Depot. I don't know how. I don't know how good of a business it Was what I like about this one is it's really software. Like, you just have to sell these folks and you're not on the hook for anything else. And it could be a pretty lean team. I think you can easily do 10 million of revenue in this business.
- [17:32]
Sam Parr
Right. I love, I love this because, you know, I hate when people want to start a marketing agency because you're signing up to be a genius every month.
- [17:38]
Shield
Yeah.
- [17:39]
Sam Parr
It's like, oh, I'm gonna be. And every business really cares how their marketing is going, and they're going to be on the. You're going to be on your ass and you got to continually be fighting versus things like compliance. It's like nobody wants, Nobody cares how their compliance is going as long as it's not a problem. So similarly here, like roofing, it's like doing the quote is very different than the emotional purchase of a new bathroom that's going to go in our master bath.
- [18:02]
Shaun
That's actually going to happen.
- [18:03]
Sam Parr
How the grout was done or whatever. I don't even know what that word is. I just used it. Did that work? I don't know.
- [18:07]
Shield
Yeah, you're there.
- [18:08]
Sam Parr
So, so, so, you know, you want to sell things ideally that people don't have extreme, like, preference and emotional attachment to because your. The, the bar for delivery is so much higher than it is for boring things that they don't really care about. So, you know, I like that. I like the example you gave better. And also the fact that you can do it for. If you could do it for roofing, you can do it for lawns, you could do it for pools. It's a blueprint business. Anybody can go do these businesses.
- [18:32]
Shield
Yeah, exactly.
- [18:33]
Shaun
Is the stereotype true of Indian guys that they don't like being handy?
- [18:37]
Sam Parr
That's like saying, do white men not like to jump? Like, you know, it's not that we don't like being handy. We're just not handy. Okay. Like, all the blood rushes to our brains. There's just nothing left in the limb.
- [18:48]
Shield
My dad likes being handy. But, like, I've looked at. He owns some apartment buildings and I've looked at reviews and people are like, whenever I need a problem, there's like Mr. MacGyver who's like, trying to solve it with, like, he doesn't have the right tools or anything, but he, like, creates some crazy way to solve some problem.
- [19:06]
Sam Parr
The Indian handyman comes to your house when you have a problem and just convinces you that it's okay and you need to compromise and life is not about getting what you want.
- [19:13]
Shield
Yeah, it'll be fine.
- [19:16]
Shaun
And now look at you guys now. Just talking about like, you know, like bathroom remodeled startups.
- [19:21]
Sam Parr
No, but this one works. This is an Indian friendly business. It's satellite images.
- [19:25]
Shield
Exactly.
- [19:26]
Sam Parr
Price quoting. And then you hand it to a strong guy who's going to be able to go do the. Do the manly stuff.
- [19:31]
Shield
Exactly.
- [19:33]
Sam Parr
Strong idea with number one. All right, let's go to number two.
- [19:35]
Shield
So that's number one. And then number two is maybe an offshoot on that. Like you could start with number one and go into number two. But every. Let's use this back backyard, guys. So every service business runs the same workflows. Like you get a call or an online whatever thumbtack. So you have to answer calls, you schedule jobs. Then you dispatch a crew, you follow up and you respond with an. With an estimate. And then, you know, you schedule the job and then you ask for reviews. And I think all of that stuff, A lot of that stuff is super automatable. And I think the big unlock is actually AI Voice. Like, I think a lot of people are sleeping on how good AI Voice is already today and how useful it would be for something like this. Actually yesterday or the day before, Bill Ackman posted something about Elon Musk. And he was like, I'm not sure if this was AI or not. And like the three of us are like, are you fudgeing kidding me? It's obviously A.I.
- [20:35]
Shaun
What was it?
- [20:35]
Shield
It was a fake video about Elon Musk. And it was so obviously fake. It like didn't have his mannerisms or anything. And it was like talking slowly. It was kind of his voice. Kind of not. But the fact that Bill Ackman, I don't know how old he is, maybe 60, he couldn't tell. Or he was like, I'm not sure if this is AI. So that means that AI Voice is already good enough. If Bill Ackman's fooled by this video, then like a lot of people are fooled by AI Voice. So already these service providers should. Should be having AI Voice do the work for them. And I think it's already good enough and it's just going to get better in the next year. So I think instead of a contractor hiring an office manager, you give them an AI office manager for like a few hundred bucks a month. And it's actually you. You might think of it as. As a money saving thing, but it's actually not. It's more than that. It's like you have super fast response time. People responding round the clock. Like, I. Whenever. What. When I decided to do this back backyard remodel was like a Sunday afternoon. And nobody's responding to me then. But, like, the first person to respond is way more likely to get the job than the next person, the person after that. So, like, you respond super fast. There's no missed calls, you text to follow up. Like, it does all that stuff for you in a super easy app, man.
- [21:57]
Shaun
So we have Alex Hermosi comes on to the pot a bunch, and he's one of our buddies. He's got the. He, like, runs these, like, seminars or these, like, events that you can go to that look really cool. And we're. I wanted to see, like, how good his sales funnel was. And so I went to, like, sign up to, like, a call. And, like, as I clicked, like, confirm calendar, I get a phone call from a guy, and it's. His name's Xavier. And I'm like, xavier? He was like, hey, Sam, what's up? I just saw you booked a call. I just want to, like, confirm a couple of details with you, make sure we're good. And if you want, I can, like, move the appointment up, whatever. And I go, I don't believe this is you. He goes, it's a real person. And I was like, FaceTime me right now. He's like, well, we don't have face. I go, well, you. You know my number. FaceTime me. Like, I know you have an iPhone. And so he facetimes me while he's talking to me. And it was him. It was totally him. And, like, it kind of like got me bought into this idea of calling leads, like, within minutes. Within minutes. And, like, there's been so many times where I bought Yelp or been on Yelp, and I'm like, literally the first person that will respond to my car wash, like, request is coming to my house right now. I don't care how much it costs. The first person.
- [22:59]
Shield
Exactly.
- [23:00]
Sam Parr
Shield, what do you think is going to be the challenge of. Because I've seen a. I. This idea makes so much sense to me, and there's, you know, there's a couple of them out there. What do you think is going to be the key? If you're the founder, you're running a business like this, what do you think you need to do to win? What would you do in your. Maybe go to market or, like, how would you. How would you take this idea that I think a lot of people are going to have? But how would you end up being the winner what do you think? What do you think would make the difference between winning and fourth place?
- [23:25]
Shield
Yeah. So it's too bad that AI robocalling is illegal, because what I would probably do, I would just have my voice agent call each of these people. Right?
- [23:38]
Sam Parr
Right.
- [23:39]
Shield
So maybe you can do it where, like, I don't know what the legality of this is, but, like, maybe you do it where you call. Your AI voice agent calls in and you're on the call and maybe it's fine then. And the AI voice agent is so good that, that you convince them. So you just call each of these people and convince them that their agent is so good. Like, don't you want to try this? Try it for free? I'll just send you leads right now, and you do it that way and it can be a great business.
- [24:12]
Sam Parr
Today's episode is brought to you by HubSpot because using only 20% of your business data is like dating somebody who only texts you in emojis. First of all, that's annoying, and second, you're missing a lot of the content. But that's how most businesses are operating today. They're only using 20% of their data. Unless you use HubSpot. That's when all your emails, your call logs, your chat messages, they turn into insights to help you grow your business, because all that data makes all the difference.
- [24:33]
Shaun
Learn more@HubSpot.com I want to ask you. So you have, like, two or three more ideas on here that are actually really good. One that is like, like, has the least amount of information on it. I actually have a question about it.
- [24:44]
Shield
Let's do it.
- [24:44]
Shaun
Um, so you put on here something about peptides because everyone, because everyone in SF is doing it. And this is me just, like, wanting to get information. So your peptides, basically, it's a category of drugs, whatever, we can talk about it, but, like, oftentimes people use peptides and TRT and HGH like, interchangeably or in the same ballpark. Are you saying that all the nerds in SF are now on testosterone or peptides?
- [25:14]
Shield
Everyone is on peptides and everyone's got their dealer. So. So the way this works is like, peptides are like these amino acids that tell your brain to. To repair or regulate something.
- [25:32]
Shaun
They're like precursors to protein or something like that. Where, yeah, you can, like.
- [25:36]
Shield
So it's really good for a bunch of things that your body can do and regulate. So, like, healing body composition, like, give you more energy, control your Appetite. Those are GLP1s. The problem is the Problem with this business idea is they're not legal or they're, they're legal for research purposes.
- [25:55]
Shaun
They're not approved for the applications that people are using them for.
- [25:58]
Shield
That's right. So I don't know where the opportunity is here, but it's like really complicated to use them. And like in San Francisco everyone's doing it. So you have friends who are doing and they're like, oh, I got this peptide and it's been so great for me or whatever. And of course like there are challenges in it not being FDA approved, but I think for the most part these are things that people have been using for years and have some sense of efficacy on. But you know, people are getting semi glutide like Ozempic and other Ozempic like things via Peptides. And so a lot of people right now longevity is a huge opportunity. You've seen like function, health and superpower and others do really well there. So there's a ton of, ton of interest. But the experience I've had with Peptides is confusing and sketchy. So I actually haven't, I haven't tried them yet, but I have tons of friends are talking about it. So I feel like there's some educational opportunity, there's some like dosing guidance, safety, some high trust supply chain and coaching opportunity in this space, but I don't know what it is. And the FDA approval thing obviously is a big problem.
- [27:11]
Sam Parr
Interesting. So you're saying maybe right now because the legality and the approval part of selling the things directly is sketch.
- [27:19]
Shaun
Yeah.
- [27:19]
Sam Parr
You would build the biggest, most trusted information source so that when the time comes that this becomes more clear, you either become the highest value affiliate or you yourself could start to deal some. Deal Peptides.
- [27:33]
Shield
Exactly. Exactly right. Have you guys heard of Peptides or you have friends on them?
- [27:38]
Sam Parr
I heard of it because Sam, like five years ago before Peptides was really a thing, told me his Achilles hurt. And then he was on some Reddit forum and got a vial of something and injected it into his body. And I was like, bro, what are you doing? You know, just taking drugs off the Internet. And he's like, it's amazing. I feel like Wolverine.
- [27:58]
Shaun
Yeah. BP157.
- [27:59]
Shield
Baby people love BP157, told me about it.
- [28:04]
Shaun
My daughter who was just born, that's her middle name, BP157. Like I love that stuff. So yeah, look like I've always been like into this type of stuff and if you listen to the podcast, you know, I'm going to kind of Brag a little bit here, but, like, semi glue tight at Oz. Epic, dude.
- [28:20]
Sam Parr
When it.
- [28:20]
Shaun
When it got popular, we were. That was old news to us. On this podcast. We had been talking about it, all right? I had already overdosed on it. I could have told you all about it. And then when I. And so I was into this stuff in San Francisco, and then I moved to Austin, and that's when I really got my fix, man. Like, every Jack guy ever was, like, showing me all the cool stuff that they're doing. And not a lot of the stuff was like. Like, it's. That wasn't like a. I don't know, actually the definition of a steroids, but it wasn't like an anabolic, like, make your muscles huge. But there was like, BP 157 for when I hurt my Achilles. Someone was like, you should try this, or you should try it your shoulder. And there's all these, like, weird peptides and weird things that were. Were around longevity. Not like, how do I look? Like triple H. Like, you know, in wrestling. Like, not like, how do I look huge, but how to, like, live a long time. And so, yeah, I've been fascinated by all this stuff, and I think that. I think there's a lot of really interesting stuff. And I. And I still test a lot of this stuff. And I got a guy, I text him. I got a guy, I text them, and I venmo him. It's incredibly shady. However, Sean and I invested in a company called Hone.
- [29:21]
Shield
Hone first.
- [29:22]
Shaun
Well, I forget what they're originally called.
- [29:24]
Sam Parr
Peak. Peak Health or something like that.
- [29:26]
Shaun
Yeah, yeah. I don't even remember, but they were originally just trt. Now they do everything, and we get the monthly updates. And this is like, the chart is like, you want the chart to look this way. And I think that they're doing a really good job of not looking, like, you know, for a long time. Actually, we talked about TRT clinics, Sean, and you and I did, and it was like, dude, the biggest TRT clinic is like, this guy based out of Vegas, and he's got these, like, stores, and you go to the store to get your TRT and they have, like, lazy Boy leather sofas and like, Monday Night Football on. And it's like, it was like the lamest, like, most untrusty word thing. And so Hone is actually a good example of they do. They also do female stuff, too. I don't know what type of drugs women take, but they sell women drugs as well, and they've done a much better Job.
- [30:06]
Sam Parr
It's not like Spanish where there's like the male and female pronunciation of the verb.
- [30:11]
Shaun
Yeah.
- [30:14]
Sam Parr
Like, you know, what are you talking about women?
- [30:16]
Shaun
Yeah, yeah. I don't know, whatever you guys take whatever you're into, I guess there's a little bit of everything for everyone.
- [30:21]
Sam Parr
This is the only podcast where you get to get AI TRT a triple H reference from wrestling. I mean, the range is incredible. Dude. I looked at this peptide business recently because, same thing, I'm like, okay, clearly there's demand, right? But the, you know, how do you do this legally and what's the good way to do this? And I can't say who was doing this, but on the pitch I was like, so, like, how do you plan to be like legit with this whole thing? Because it's unclear what the, what the legality is going to be of this. And he basically pulls up a picture of like the co founder with like Trump. And Kennedy is like, he's like, yeah, we're pretty sure we're going to be able to get some things through that will make. And I was like, oh, wow, okay. That's like probably one of the best slides I've ever seen in a deck.
- [31:09]
Shaun
He pulls out a card from his wall. He goes, I have an answer right here. You're like, sir, that's a get out of jail free card from the game of Monopoly. That doesn't work.
- [31:18]
Sam Parr
And so I was like, I think actually, yeah, being we're really close with Bobby Kennedy would be like a perfectly reasonable part of your business plan right now. So.
- [31:26]
Shaun
So is that really what he said?
- [31:27]
Sam Parr
Literally? Yeah. They were like, hey, we, they're pro this, it's gonna pass. And we're like, you know, we're gonna do everything the right. But one thing they pointed out, rightfully so, is that everybody who's in this space right now is like the kind of like, you know, like the early kind of crypto community, totally like kind of mid stage crypto community where everyone's just trying to get a quick buck and they're gonna go like, foul. And like, you could just be Coinbase, right? And you could just be like, hey, we're just gonna do things the right way and we trust that over time this will become more and more, you know, mainstream, but we're just gonna do things the right way from the beginning. And like what Coinbase did, where like, you know, all the other crypto, you know, exchanges sort of fell off, is, I think, a valid strategy in this case.
- [32:06]
Shaun
They're like, say, it with me. Crony capitalism.
- [32:10]
Shield
Oh, dude, this is. This is a good topic because there's so much of it. And actually, like, I have never, in the past, I'd never seen anybody pitch, like, a core part of their pitch as being. I'm close to the administration. I've heard so many pitches about that now, which, which is kind of sad, honestly.
- [32:30]
Sam Parr
But like, slide 13. We know a guy.
- [32:33]
Shaun
Yeah.
- [32:33]
Sam Parr
And then it's just like, what? Why is this in your deck?
- [32:37]
Shaun
Totally.
- [32:38]
Shield
Actually, like, I've been searching and chatgpt will not answer me a bunch of questions I have because it says peptides are not medically cleared. Like, we can't answer this question. So, like, one of my main sources of information is gone.
- [32:52]
Sam Parr
Right. By the way, again, a little. Can we do a little politics tangent real quick? Earmuffs if this bothers you. But Sam, I just thought you'd find this entertaining. Did you see the Trump thing about do you know who CZ is? Do you know who CZ is?
- [33:06]
Shaun
From Binance, by the Binance guy. Didn't he, like, pardon him? But Trump definitely doesn't know who that.
- [33:11]
Sam Parr
Guy is, so he pardoned him and then he gets interviewed. So the guy was in jail, I think, for four months or something like that. And this is guy owned like the biggest Asian crypto exchange and was like in whatever it was in hot water for money laundering and wire for like a bunch of stuff where it's like, you know, bad people are sort of using your exchange to. To. To do money laundering or something. And they, they asked him, they're like, but you pardoned this guy, and then he bought like $2 billion of your son's cryptocurrency. Like, don't you see how that seems like, why did you pardon him? He's like, here's the thing. You want to know what you want to know? I don't know who he is. And I was like, wow, the audacity. It was just the audacity of saying, I don't even know who he is, don't know anything about the guy. And he pardoned him. I just thought that was one of the most crazy things I've ever seen. It's like, this man has no fear. He's not afraid of anything. He does not fear anything. If he's going to say that.
- [34:10]
Shaun
Pardoned. What was the guy from Nikola, Trevor, Milton. He pardoned that guy, too. What the hell, man? And then they looked into it, they're like, oh, that guy donated.
- [34:21]
Sam Parr
Yeah. He said, get out of jail. Not for free card.
- [34:23]
Shaun
Yeah.
- [34:24]
Sam Parr
Get out of jail at this fixed price. Yeah.
- [34:27]
Shaun
That was insane.
- [34:28]
Shield
Very low. It was like a couple million dollars.
- [34:33]
Shaun
And did he really say that word for word? He was like, I don't know.
- [34:36]
Sam Parr
You know that thing where it's like, you're not ugly, you're just poor. It's like you're not, it's like you're not, you're not a criminal, you're just poor. You know what I mean? It's like you can get out for. If you got access to a couple million.
- [34:47]
Shaun
Well, there's that, there's that joke. I forget who, where it originally came from. They're like, look, if you own the bank, like 50 grand, that's a big deal. That's a, it's really bad for you. But if you own the bank, if you owe the bank $500 million, that's really bad for the bank.
- [35:02]
Sam Parr
The bank's problem.
- [35:03]
Shaun
Yeah.
- [35:04]
Shield
The other one that was crazy was that George Santos. I just thought it was so funny. Like, this is like a congressperson who like lied about everything. Like, he would have a different college that he went from. Each time you talked to him, he.
- [35:17]
Shaun
Claimed the guy said he was Jewish.
- [35:19]
Shield
He said he was Jewish and then he was like, Jewish, kind of Jewish.
- [35:25]
Shaun
Out here, where I live, there was like a New York congressman or something like that. Like kind of. Or the local side. I don't remember what it was. Not that important. But he was like, he was, he was a gay Brazilian guy. I think he's Brazilian. And yeah, he had the audacity to tell people that he was Jewish and they're like, george Santos, I don't think you're Jewish. He goes, oh, I didn't say I was Jewish. I said I was Jewish. Like, I like hanging out with like Jewish people.
- [35:51]
Sam Parr
Honestly, it's an old timer.
- [35:52]
Shield
It's an Alzheimer. And then like he had so much audacity. Like, he claimed that his mom died in 9 11, but like there are very good records of who died in 9 11. And, and he, he, he like lived in Brazil at the time. There was no chance that that was possible.
- [36:07]
Shaun
He just.
- [36:09]
Shield
Anyway, it pretty, pretty incredible.
- [36:11]
Sam Parr
All right. Earmuffs can come off politics. All right, so what else you got?
- [36:16]
Shaun
Oh, the circus, the surrogacy thing, or the EMS thing. Those are all.
- [36:19]
Sam Parr
Okay, let's do the surrogacy one.
- [36:20]
Shield
Okay, let's do the surrogacy one. So, okay, so, personal note. My wife and I were like old. I'm, I'm, I'm 43. My wife's 40. And my wife has a genetic condition that we need to screen against. And being pregnant can trigger this condition that she has. So our doctors have said, if you can avoid pregnancy, you should do so. And we were like, okay, we can afford it, let's do it. So we started going down the surrogacy path. And for those of you who don't know, surrogacy is when another mother, another person carries your child and so you, you transfer your embryo to that person and then they carry your child and it's growing very substantially. So, like, this wasn't really a thing not that long ago. And then actually New York only legalized it five years ago, so it's still growing very rapidly. It's obviously extremely common in the gay community because that's the only way they can have kids, you know, their own, their own children. And it's, it's actually a very complicated thing how it works. There are a bunch of surrogacy agencies out there. And the surrogacy agencies, they have a number of women that they work with carriers and then they try to match you, but the way it works is they can only introduce you to people that are in their platform. So imagine if it was like, and it's a matching thing. Like, there are a bunch of things that we care about, there's a bunch of things that she cares about. We ultimately found a great match and she's wonderful, we love her.
- [37:53]
Shaun
And how much is it and how much does the woman get?
- [37:56]
Shield
Yeah, so it costs roughly 150 to $200,000.
- [38:02]
Shaun
Okay.
- [38:03]
Sam Parr
And that goes to her, plus the agency takes a cut. Is that how it works?
- [38:07]
Shield
Agency takes a cut, she gets a certain amount. So I think in our case, she gets $75,000, roughly. Something in that ballpark. There are a bunch of, there are a bunch of things that, you know, there's a base fee and then a monthly fee and travel and time off work and all sorts of childcare, all sorts of stuff that's embedded in that. And then there are a bunch of. There's like legal fees, and then of course there are medical fees for like actually doing the transfer and her health care and her insurance that we pay for.
- [38:35]
Shaun
And do you get to hang out with her or is it like, do you see her on a monthly, like do check ins or.
- [38:41]
Shield
Yeah, so we hung out with her, like, so we're in San Francisco, she's in Las Vegas area. We've hung out with her. She's. She's Come to our house. We like her, we text with her. You know, when the transfer happened, we sent her stuff. Like, we, you know, we've, we know what her family life is like, all sorts of stuff. The thing I didn't realize going into this is there are a bunch of things that you might care about or that somebody might care about that are important in making this match. So, like, I thought, like, I didn't really know what I would care about, but we've talked to people who care about, like, what do they eat? Are they eating only organic? I met a Hindu person who said their surrogate can't eat beef during the time of pregnancy people obviously care about. Would they abort if medically important? Are they okay carrying twins? Would they have a C section? And then there are all sorts of other stuff, like, do you want to have a relationship with this person? Like, we really like our surrogate. Like, we, we, we check in with her all the time and she text us back. But anyway, there are all these things that you want to match on. But the way it works is like, each agency only has a few folks that you can talk to and make that match. And it would make a lot more sense if you had a, like a dating app, like eharmony. Here are the things I care about. Hear the things they care about. So it makes sense for it to be a larger thing. Imagine if you were buying a home and your real estate agent could only show you homes that they had listed. That's kind of what it is today. I think there's an opportunity in making this much more common. I think people don't realize how many medical challenges people have and that being the reason they're not able to carry and not. Not able to have kids. I think if people knew that some of the stigma about this would go away and you'd have more people who want to be surrogates, want to be carriers. So I think there's an opportunity to create a company that does this for people and, and is a much broader agency than what's out there today. And sort of does this matching process brings people on, sort of recruits carriers. That's really the, the challenge right now is there are not enough carriers. So I think you have to create more carriers and to do that, you sort of market, you offer them a higher portion of the payment. So like, I think by automating some of this stuff, instead of it being a manual process where, like our agency, you know, the ladies going like word of mouth to find new carriers, I think you can automate a lot of that process and, and create an awesome business. But I don't think this is going to be billion dollar company. Like, I think there are maybe 5 to 10,000 births in the United States every year from surrogacy, and I think that'll probably expand. But I don't think you can build a billion dollar company here. I think you can build, I think you can do something great for the world and, you know, run a company as well.
- [41:38]
Shaun
How do they recruit these women? Now that's such a strange way to recruit someone.
- [41:43]
Shield
Like, it's a great question. I don't know. But I think what they do is there are all these communities, Reddit, Facebook, et cetera, where people are posting. And you go there and people, and a lot of the agencies are there, just recruiting.
- [41:57]
Sam Parr
Can I go full, full crazy here? Yeah, Surrogacy, mlm. Yeah, I think an MLM has solved the marketing challenge of how do you recruit other women to go, like, kind of do this thing for money? And this is just the, like premium. Why sell makeup and candles when you could have a downline generating, you know, $100,000 a pop, right? Like, that's a, it's a, it's a premium mlm.
- [42:20]
Shaun
Man, I, I, it's so crazy. I've got so many friends doing this. When I was a little kid, like, or in my earlier 20s, like, the only thing I knew about surrogacy was that Amy Poehler movie where she, you know, she's like the surrogate, she's the surrogate for Tina Fey and she like eats Big Macs and it's like, can we change her to be healthy? And like, that was like, that was the, the, just the movie. But I didn't know anything about this. And now I think I probably know five or six or seven friends that have done it this way. It's a pretty wild experience. It's also like, science is amazing. It's one of these things where I learned about this and I'm like, this is just absolutely insane. I can't think of this exists.
- [42:55]
Sam Parr
So shield, if you said there's 10,000 surrogate births a year, roughly, you think that's ballpark, right?
- [43:00]
Shield
Yeah, it's growing fast. I think it's growing like 10% a year, but let's just say 10,000.
- [43:05]
Sam Parr
So if it was 100,000 average spend per surrogate surrogacy, that's a billion dollars a year of sort of revenue generated across all the different agencies today.
- [43:16]
Shield
But yeah, but note that most of that goes to the surrogate. So.
- [43:21]
Shaun
Right.
- [43:21]
Sam Parr
You know, if you, you're a venture investor. Right. Like, how do you describe to somebody who's not a VC the appeal of the sort of niche, weird marketplace, that behavior that seems a little fringe today, but. Oh, my God. Wait, people spend how much money watching people break open Pokemon card decks and whatnot as a $12 billion company now watching people open Pokemon card packs live on the Internet? What do you mean? Right? There's like, there's an appeal to this. How do you describe that. That kind of phenomenon and where the. And the upside of the. Of the sort of. The fringe.
- [43:56]
Shield
Yeah. So I think whatnot's a great, great one because it started out as a collectible marketplace for Funko Pop toys. And if you told me that a collectible marketplace for Funko pop toys would five years later be worth, I think it's like $12 billion or something, I would say you're crazy. But you start somewhere and like, you dominate that niche. I think in this case, I don't think it's a venture opportunity. And I also think venture capital incentivizes growth and that might incentivize the wrong thing in this space. So I probably wouldn't want it to be venture opportunity, but I think it is a good opportunity for somebody to build a business.
- [44:35]
Sam Parr
So me and Tyler, the CEO of Beehive, came up with a little challenge for you. It's the newsletter challenge. Now, if you know me, you know that I'm a big fan of newsletters. I got my own newsletter. I also had a business that was a newsletter business that was amazing. I wrote this newsletter about crypto. We grew it to quarter million subscribers and we ended up selling it after a year for millions of dollars. And I want you to be able to do the same thing in your business. So we're doing a challenge. Ten grand is on the line. Plus me and Tyler will actually be in your corner as growth advisors. You just need to go to beehive.com mfm and you either start a new newsletter or you move your current newsletter over there. And five finalists will get picked to pitch me and Tyler, sort of like Shark Tank. And the winner gets ten grand. So go to beehive.com mfm that's beehive.com mfm to enter the challenge today.
- [45:18]
Shaun
Can I ask you about one more thing you have here? Because this is on the long list of things I thought were so stupid when I first heard about this. And people seem to love it and it's you Know. What do I know, Sean? Have you ever heard of ems?
- [45:29]
Sam Parr
Is that like ambulance? Is that. Is that what EMS is?
- [45:33]
Shield
That's another ems. Electronic muscle stimulation.
- [45:38]
Sam Parr
Okay, tell me about it. Is this like the thing where you get six pack abs by putting the electrode on your thing and you watch tv?
- [45:43]
Shield
Yes. So, okay, here. Here's the thing. So you got to try it first of all. But my. One of my best friends in the.
- [45:54]
Shaun
World, dude, I'd rather take drugs.
- [45:56]
Shield
Yeah, okay, fair. So. So one of my best friends in the world, completely and utterly jacked. And he was not five years ago. And he does not really work out. He does ems. So what it is, is he has this little machine that he bought for $35 on Amazon. Look for tens, T, E, N, S and EMS.
- [46:19]
Sam Parr
Oh, we have one of those. That's for like during contractions. My wife used the tens.
- [46:24]
Shield
Yeah, so he puts those all over his body and he like jacks it up. I hate the feeling of it. So I don't do it. But I have seen it work for him so. Well, that this is something. And so recently I was in New York a couple weeks ago and I went to a workout facility where they have it set up like on a thing that you wear. And part of the problem is it needs direct skin contact, so it's annoying to put on and off. If it was easier to put on and off, I would be doing this thing. But I went to a facility where they had this thing and they, like, you put a shirt on that has these electrodes on it and they spray water on it. So it makes. It touches your skin, basically. And it's an amazing workout. Like, it was one of my favorite workouts ever. And it was 15 minutes. I know it sounds like. Totally.
- [47:17]
Sam Parr
Wait, so you do. With this one, you do work out while it's happening.
- [47:20]
Shield
You do a little bit of a workout, but it's. It's working you out a lot more because of the stimulation in your body.
- [47:27]
Sam Parr
Wait, wait. So let's go to the case study of your friend. Your friend five years ago, not Jack.
- [47:32]
Shaun
Tell me his name. I'm going to go to his name.
- [47:33]
Shield
Amrit, dear. He's gonna love this.
- [47:36]
Sam Parr
Okay, so Sam, pull up a picture. Ari, get a picture. Let's get a screen share.
- [47:41]
Shaun
Do we got a shirtless picture?
- [47:42]
Sam Parr
Yeah, we need a shirtless picture.
- [47:43]
Shield
I can send you guys a pic.
- [47:46]
Sam Parr
He's jacked now. And you're saying that the in between there wasn't like a CrossFit phase and then this? It was really just this over a period of time. Plus diet, I assume.
- [47:57]
Shield
Not much changes diet. He's diabetic, so he's kind of limited in what he can eat. He hasn't changed his diet, but he attributes it all to this. So. Okay, so where's the opportunity? I think so this gym thing that I did in New York, it was amazing. And I looked for one here in San Francisco. I couldn't find one in a cursory search, but I think you basically build a berries of ems where like, you have a workout routine and it's really fun and there's a class and people put on this thing and they're used to it and they get jacked and people see them getting jacked. And I think the way you do it is like, you start with somebody like me who's like, not in great shape, a little flubby. And then I go through this and like, you show the evolution and. And then people are into it and people like, I got to try this. Yeah.
- [48:46]
Sam Parr
This has the. The viral factor of being weird. Right? Like, of people hating on it.
- [48:50]
Shaun
Right?
- [48:51]
Sam Parr
Like, yeah, If I posted this and I was like, this is all you need. You're going to get all the comments about, like, dude, just do it, blah, blah, you know, like. And so it's going to go viral because it's going to be hated and loved at the same time, which is what you need.
- [49:04]
Shield
Yeah. So the problem with the $35 product, so he bought it for me and I. The problem is you have to, like, do these sticky things you have to put on your body, and it just like, takes time. What he does is his primary workout is he flies a lot for work, and when he's on the plane, he's doing it the whole time. And that's his primary workout.
- [49:27]
Sam Parr
Does he put this through the X ray machine and they're like, what the. Hello, you.
- [49:31]
Shield
It's a little thing. It's like the size of a phone. It's nothing.
- [49:34]
Sam Parr
Oh, but so this thing you linked this catalyst thing, this is the full body suit. You go there and you exercise or what is this?
- [49:42]
Shield
Yeah, that's. That's the full body suit. That's basically this, but already in a suit form.
- [49:47]
Sam Parr
All right, I think I may have to try this. Sam, what do you think as a. As an actual fit person, what do you think of this? This. You might not be the market. Actually.
- [49:55]
Shaun
I love shortcuts, though. Like, you know, we, like, if I think we had someone in the pod be like, I don't get why People hate on get rich quick schemes. Getting rich quick is the best way to get rich. So like if I can get like more fit without doing anything, I'm, I'm on board. Is there actually data that backs us up? I think it's pretty lame, but if I can.
- [50:15]
Sam Parr
Did you not hear the story about his friend?
- [50:18]
Shield
Yeah, no, it's good. So I think there is data on catalysts. People use it. I think the question is whether these $35 machines work. And I only have my one friend as a data point. And the funny thing is like we've all seen it work for him and yet none of us others in the friend group have done it. And the reason for that is it's annoying like to put these things on and it's painful and he's willing to like every plane ride, he's willing to just do it the whole plane ride. And I'm not. But when I did this workout, he took me to the workout class in New York two weeks ago. And when I went to that workout class I was like, this is actually really fun and I know I'm getting a great workout. Like you feel the next couple days it was like the good kind of hurt after a great workout. So I was like, I know this is working but how come I haven't heard more about this? So I think there's an opportunity in building a product and this like berry style workout where like you teach people how to do it.
- [51:19]
Shaun
Dude, this looks pretty sick. The vest like look like, like, like armor, like body armor. Yeah.
- [51:24]
Sam Parr
You look like a Navy seal.
- [51:25]
Shaun
Yeah.
- [51:25]
Sam Parr
Except for I don't know what this tank is here. That, that's a little bit suspicious. I don't really fully understand what all the pieces are but dude, if people are buying $6,000, $6,000 cold plunges at their home and you know, five to $10,000 saunas at their home and red light therapy. My brother in law's got a, got a red light therapy bed in his house and his kids are doing it because it's like good for their sports. Whatever, recovery, whatever this is like there's really no end to the kind of wellness, you know, rabbit hole. Right. And there's always people who are going to look for the next edge. It's not too dissimilar to a reformers machine in a pilates class, right?
- [52:02]
Shield
Like absolutely.
- [52:03]
Sam Parr
It's a tool that gets you more leverage on, you know, your, your hour of exercise. Although this makes me want to make fun of it, it also makes me want to secretly do it.
- [52:12]
Shaun
These guys, I actually was looking it up. These guys, I think they emailed me this Catalyst guys asking if I wanted to test this out. And I don't know if I replied, but if they're listening to you.
- [52:20]
Sam Parr
Wanted you to be an influencer. Was this during the Sam Fitness Influencer era?
- [52:24]
Shaun
It could have been. That was a great era. I think I influenced literally dozens of people.
- [52:29]
Sam Parr
Does six weeks count as an era, though?
- [52:31]
Shaun
Well, you know, it's a season that.
- [52:35]
Sam Parr
Was transitioned to the dad dad influencer pretty quickly, and the content shifted once.
- [52:41]
Shaun
I became a kid. Once I had a kid, I wanted to quit posting shirtless photos online. But just so you know, it's still there. It doesn't go away. It's still there. And so Catalysts. I'll totally try this thing. Yeah, this looks cool. I like to make fun of these things, but suit me up, baby.
- [52:54]
Sam Parr
There's an announcement on their site of like, hey, I know a lot of you have had a very, very bad experience, but there's a new owner and we're gonna, you know, do it right this time. So, you know, maybe it's been a little bumpy road.
- [53:03]
Shield
Yeah, I'm. I'm in a bunch of, like, these longevity groups in San Francisco and WhatsApp, and people are. People were, like, trying to buy the company.
- [53:12]
Shaun
Can you wait? That's actually okay. You just gave me a beautiful opening. You're in sf. You're kind of running around like a bunch of, like, rich people, weirdos, successful people, like, this really cool combination of people. What are the kids into? Like. Like this longevity stuff. What else is interesting to them? What, like, you know, I don't live in San Francisco anymore. Sean lives a little bit outside of SF now. Before, when we were there, it was the best place to see what's going to happen in a handful of years because there's all these weirdos doing cool stuff, like sharing their couch on a. On a website, and now Airbnb is a thing. Or sharing their car. What. What are some other interesting stuff that the. The oddballs are into?
- [53:48]
Shield
Yeah, I think there's. So. I think we talked about a lot of them. Peptides. Nobody's drinking. You know, I think this Brian Johnson has done wonders for a lot of folks in just changing how they think about life. Not necessarily all good. Like, I don't think drinking is absolutely terrible, but I think probably people should drink less than they do. One interesting one that I did not like a new business, like, as. As crazy as Airbnb and Uber Were I think prediction marketplaces are a good one. It's obviously not just the San Francisco thing, but it's the kind of business that like, I probably would not have funded when these companies got funded. I would say, like, this is never going to work. It's going to be highly illegal. But the fact that you can the.
- [54:31]
Shaun
Difference between a prediction market and so prediction market, does that just mean like guessing who's going to win president or who's going to win the mayor?
- [54:38]
Shield
Yeah, so. So one of my pushbacks was initially was it's only going to be used for elections because, you know, that's obviously something that everybody is thinking about and wants to, wants to bet on. But actually they use it for so many other things too, like their, their political outcomes. All the times people are using it. It's basically like a proxy for sports betting. You can do all sorts of secondary derivative products on top of equity investing. There are markets for everything. I think there are a lot of questions in my mind about why it's legal and like, can you influence the outcome of something that you're betting on? Like, you know, is if there's a marketplace on whether how many companies BTV would invest in the next year, I'd be, you know, I'd be betting on that while, while participating as well. But I think there's no question that there's a huge opportunity in this space.
- [55:31]
Sam Parr
Did you see the Coinbase earnings call thing?
- [55:33]
Shield
Yeah, that was fucking hilarious.
- [55:35]
Shaun
What happened?
- [55:36]
Sam Parr
Did you see this? So there's a, there was a prediction market on polymarket for the Coinbase earnings calls. Like, oh, the Q3 earnings call. Will, will Brian Armstrong say any of these words or how many times he'll say these words?
- [55:49]
Shaun
Oh my God.
- [55:50]
Sam Parr
And then at the very end of the call, volume, I think it was probably, you know, it was low.
- [55:56]
Shield
It was single digit thousands.
- [55:58]
Sam Parr
It was like a very small thing. But his team passed him a note and he goes, oh, before we hang up here, I just would like to say Web three crypto, blockchain, Bitcoin, Ethereum, thank you very much. And he just basically he's like, you know, just for all the prediction markets out there, you know, here we go. And he just hit all the words. He just said seven words and then laughed and then basically like they hung up the call. And I thought that was so funny. But of course it's not that funny when like it's real. There's all these like sports things going on right now where.
- [56:25]
Shaun
Dude, in the ufc, like in the ufc, if you're like a nobody UFC guy. You get, like, 25 grand for fighting. And they've, like, flagged a bunch of, they flagged a bunch of fights where they're like, this is very suspicious because there was, like, you know, 80 grand on the line for a fight that the guy would only earn $25,000. And they're being investigated. So, yeah, there's going to be a lot of downsides, but so, like, the average tech nerd, like, when I was in San Francisco, it was like a joke. Like, it was like, the Giants play here. Why would the Giants, like, no one knew about, like, you know, like, like, wasn't, like, particularly popular. I know Sean was into basketball, but, like, basketball or any sport wasn't particularly, like, you know, that popular. Are the young tech guys caring about gambling for sports, or is it all other stuff?
- [57:06]
Shield
It's a lot of other stuff. I think sports is interesting and I think will be one of the key markets in the prediction space, but I think there are all sorts of other things, like, like gambling on, or, you know, predicting equity outcomes are interesting, too. I, I, I look through those things all the time. I'm just curious. And it's, it's also uncanny how right they are and how ahead of the curve they are in some of these things.
- [57:32]
Shaun
Can I ask you about one more thing?
- [57:33]
Shield
Yeah.
- [57:34]
Shaun
You made a very interesting statement. We said, what are three strong opinions that you have for life? And your number one opinion is, I, I think books are a waste of time for me.
- [57:46]
Shield
I think books are waste of time. So I haven't, this is, I haven't read a book in, like, 15 years, and I think it's very, very contrarian opinion. But I think, like, I have so many friends that are authors that I talk to that are just, like, trying to get the words out. But if you, like, listen to a podcast, it's like, one podcast by that author is at least 80% of the value of the book. And so is it worth spending another five hours reading to get the additional 20% in my mind? No. So that's my, that's my provocative statement.
- [58:24]
Sam Parr
It is the first thing I do when there's a book I'm interested in. I go to YouTube and I just look for a talk by the author. And if they're not interesting in the first 15 minutes of that YouTube video, the book is definitely not going to be interesting. The book will probably have more. You know, it's not going to be fully sufficient. But if you can't do, if you can't give a good talk. You probably don't have a good book.
- [58:42]
Shaun
Let me give a different opinion. That's related. So I read a lot, like, in terms of quantity, and I was rereading a book that I read when I was younger. I think it was like Robert Cialdini's Influence. You know, it's all about persuasion. And I was like, I've read all these other books on business and whatever. I should have just reread this same book every six or three months and not read any other book on this topic. And I would have been significantly further ahead. And so my opinion that I'm telling young people when it comes to reading, I'm like, pick like the two or three classics or the greats of it and master it. Know it word for word and master it. And don't read a lot. Just read the same thing over and over and over again. If you want to read for fun, read for fun, but just do the same thing over and over again for your educational books.
- [59:27]
Sam Parr
What were the other three? You said he had three.
- [59:30]
Shield
I think I. I think I had two. The other one was just reach out to the owner. So this is. Lately a few things have happened. Like, I'm booking. It's my wife's 40th birthday, and we're. We booked a trip for like 40 of her friends. And I was having some trouble with the, the cruise. It's. It's a, A virgin voyages. And I was having some trouble. So I just reached out to the CEO. I just. From the CEO's email, and I reached out to him and I was like, hey, you know, if I were you, I'd want to know troubles. Like, you're a smart guy. You want to build a great brand. I've had experience with you, with your brand. That was not great. Let me tell you about it. And he responded so favorably. He was like, thank you so much for telling me. Here's what I'm doing about it. And it just made me realize that I should be doing that more often. So actually we did that recently with our fertility clinic. Same thing. Like, had a bad experience. I reached out to the, like the guy who founded the clinic. And, you know, obviously you shouldn't do it for everything, but in some cases, these people want you to have a great experience with their brand. And they, they don't often know until things get like, until you write a bad review, they don't know. So it's just important to let them know earlier on. It doesn't have to be the owner, but in my case, it was what?
- [60:48]
Shaun
And did you get a discount?
- [60:51]
Shield
I didn't get a discount, but I got, like, really, like, white glove service where they're, like, everything I want. They respond immediately. And I'm not trying to be a dick about it and, like, get something that I don't deserve, but it. It worked out quite well.
- [61:05]
Sam Parr
Right. But I wouldn't say no to you making it right either.
- [61:07]
Shield
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. If you want to give me a discount, I'll. I'll take it.
- [61:13]
Sam Parr
Seal, you're great, man. Thanks for coming on, as always. So it was super fun having you on.
- [61:19]
Shield
Super fun to chat with you guys. This is great. I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.
- [61:26]
Sam Parr
I put my all in it. Like, no days off on a road.
- [61:29]
Shield
Let's travel. Never looking back.
- [61:31]
Sam Parr
Hey, let's take a quick break. I want to tell you about a podcast that you could check out. It is called the Science of Scaling by Mark Roberge. He was the founding CRO of HubSpot, and he's a guest lecturer at Harvard Business School. The guy's smart, and he sits down every week with different sales leaders from cool companies like Klaviyo and Vanta and OpenAI, and he's asking about their strategies, their tactics, and how they're growing their companies. As head of sales or chief revenue officer, if you're looking to scale a company up, if you're a CRO or head of sales that's looking to level up in your career, I think a podcast like this could be great for you. Listen to the Science of Scaling wherever you get your podcasts.