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The Russell Brunson Show
Sam Parr Reveals How He Grew The Hustle And Why You Shouldn’t Take Outside Funding | #Marketing - Ep. 58
00:58:24
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- [00:00]
Russell Brunson
Now obviously if you want to sell stuff online, you're going to need a good funnel. But if you want a great funnel, then you're going to need to use Click Funnels. ClickFunnels is the number one funnel builder in the world, helping more first time entrepreneurs to leave their 9 to 5 and to launch their dream than any other company on earth. ClickFunnels was built for the dreamer and the doer. And you can get a free 14 day trial by going to clickfunnels.com podcast right now. That's clickfunnels.com podcast click funnels because you're one funnel away from changing the world. This is the Russell Brunson show. What's up everybody? This is Russell. Welcome back to the show. Excited to have someone who I've been watching for a long time over the last couple years do a lot of really cool businesses, a lot of things, but this is actually the first time I've had a chance to meet him in person and talk to him. His name is Sam Parr. He's the founder of the Hustle, which a lot of you guys know. But he's got a great podcast called My First Million, another business called the Hampton. I'm excited to talk about all those things with him. But Sam, thanks for jumping on and finally excited to get to know you and actually meet you in person for the first time.
- [01:02]
Sam Parr
Hey, I'm excited to be doing this. I've, you can check my account. I've used Click funnels and I've, I, I've, I don't know, I think I've got my 2 comma club like record. I think I've made over a million on using Click Funnels. So have you submitted for the award yet?
- [01:16]
Russell Brunson
We need to get it to you.
- [01:18]
Sam Parr
No, I did not. I, but I definitely have achieved a few things on ClickFunnels and so I'm happy you made that and I'm happy to be here.
- [01:26]
Russell Brunson
That's awesome. Thank you. I know it's funny on our side it's like we've, I think we've, We've awarded over 3,002 comma club awards now, which is like exciting. But the number of people who never submit is probably double that, which drives me crazy because I like bragging about the numbers. So I'm going to add it to now we're at 3,001. I'm counting yours as officially there now.
- [01:43]
Sam Parr
So we've done, I've done over a million across a couple accounts, but I for sure did like I used to use clickfunnels. I still do as like my mvp and, and I've done six figures a couple of times.
- [01:54]
Russell Brunson
Oh, that's so cool. Well, thank you for being, for, for using the platform, man. I appreciate that. So I'm first got familiar with you guys, with you specifically with your, with your newsletter the Hustle. But I'm curious like before that, I don't know your history prior to that. Like how did you get into entrepreneurship and get into this whole world? Back at the very beginning, where the, where'd your path start?
- [02:14]
Sam Parr
I'm from Missouri. And in Missouri, all of my family were small business owners. They didn't call it entrepreneurs, they just. My parents actually started a fruit stuff that was their kind of their first business and parlayed that into something a little bit bigger. But I grew up in Missouri. I was a Division 1 athlete or I wanted in college or in high school I wanted to be a division one athlete and I became one. And so that's why I moved to Tennessee. I went to a small. I ran the 400 meter dash. So I used to be fairly fast. Not anymore, but I used to be. And in college I was studying accounting and music business. And I knew I was gonna start a business. I thought it was gonna be like a blue collar like lawn care company. I wasn't sure. But my first business was a hot dog stand. And so I had eventually like a bunch of hot dog stands, I think. Did you write a book on how to like.
- [03:06]
Russell Brunson
I didn't write a book. Perry Belcher wrote one. But I. We had a client who's a multiple two common club winner who teaches people how to start hot dog stands. So it was kind of interesting.
- [03:13]
Sam Parr
So I, I probably bought one of those things. But I. That's what I had. It was called Southern Sam's Wieners is the biggest baby wieners as big as a baby's army. And I would sell hot dogs like crazy. And then I learned about a company called Air Bed and breakfast in 2012 and I cold emailed the CEO and I was like, you guys can improve your site if you do this, this and this. And he was like, yeah, whatever. But that's awesome that you had the initiative to like have this list of how I could do better. Do you want to interview for like an entry level position? And I said, hell yeah, I do, but come. And he said, come to my office on Monday. And I lived in Tennessee. And he was like, I live in the Bay Area. And I was like, I don't even know what the Bay Area is. I've never been. I've never been west of Missouri. I was like, I don't. Silicon Valley. Is that like, Hollywood? I don't know what that means. And so I basically dropped out of school, and I moved out to join Airbnb as one of their early employees. And I.
- [04:08]
Russell Brunson
How early was it in the company? Were there, like, how many?
- [04:11]
Sam Parr
Not that early. Like, 200 or 150 people.
- [04:14]
Russell Brunson
Okay.
- [04:14]
Sam Parr
I think they had raised a Series A. Maybe this was in 1220. I think they were founded in 10. So they were two years in. Not that early, but early enough to be, like, an early adopter. And I. Back then. So I'm completely sober now, but back then, I had a drinking issue, and I'd been arrested for DUIs and fighting and all this stuff. And I lied on my back on my resume. Like, they said, like, do you have a criminal record? And I said, no. And they caught me. And so I had moved out to San Francisco to do my thing. And the day before I'm supposed to start, they're like, we don't hire liars. You're out. And so I was out in San Francisco at nothing, and I was like, I got to make this work. I dropped out of college. Like, I got to do something. And so I started a small Internet business that was acquired for, like, $100,000 after a little bit of time. And then I started this thing called hustlecon, which was a conference, and that conference led to me starting the Hustle, which I ended up scaling and selling for many tens of millions of dollars in a fairly short amount of time.
- [05:11]
Russell Brunson
That's so interesting. That was the thing that got you to move, and then it fell apart. So the first business that you sold for a hundred grand, what was that? What was that business?
- [05:19]
Sam Parr
It was some. So when I was interviewing at Airbnb, I stayed on at Airbnb, and I met a guy who had an idea for a roommate matching app. And I was like, hey, can I join you? And so we created a roommate matching app, and it was basically Tinder for roommates, which is obviously stupid. It should have just been Tinder for Tinder, because, like. Like, Tinder wasn't that popular yet. We were like, oh, this is, like, a really interesting way. This swiping thing. That's kind of cool. Let's do that. For roommate matching, which is the worst. Like, the worst business ever. Like, dating would have been way better. And so I started a roommate matching app, and I sold it, and I think we got like 30 grand up front and then like a salary and then like some bonuses at the end of one year.
- [06:00]
Russell Brunson
He was funny. Is one of my business partners. His daughter just found her roommate on a roommate app. I wonder if it was your Apple. If it's still around.
- [06:07]
Sam Parr
I think they, I think they shut it down.
- [06:09]
Russell Brunson
Okay.
- [06:10]
Sam Parr
Or I don't know. This was in, this was in 2014.
- [06:12]
Russell Brunson
There's one out there because like he literally this, he told me this like two weeks ago. He's like, yeah, we couldn't find some, a roommate. So there's this app and we download it. So someone's doing it as a, as a thing still, which is kind of interesting.
- [06:21]
Sam Parr
So there's like five or 10 businesses that every entrepreneurial college kid starts. It's like, it's like, yeah, it's like laundry, like on demand laundry. And then it's like a roommate matching app and then it's like a college Craigslist. It's like there's like five or 10 things that like every like 21 year old who's entrepreneurial does. And that was, that's usually one of them.
- [06:40]
Russell Brunson
That's awesome. And then you went and started the Hustle. So the Hustle, the event and it used to call it hustlecon. How many? Is that what they told me about that event? Was that event you ran for a while or was it just a one time thing?
- [06:51]
Sam Parr
No. So my goal was to like start a big company. I wanted to start. I wanted to like. My goal was to make $20 million by the age of 30. That was my goal. And I was like, how am I gonna get there? I didn't know, I didn't have a plan. And so I created this event called Hustlecon and I made about 60 grand in six weeks. So it was basically like an entrepreneurial conference. And I was like, that's kind of cool. Let's do it again. And so I did it again and I made like $250,000 in a very short amount of time. And I was like, this is great, but conferences stink as you're like, as your business. It stinks. Like you do it now with Funnel Hacker Live and that's cool, but when it's your main source of income, it's not awesome. And, but I was like, I. But I grouped my email list from 0 to 10,000 people in like two months. And I was doing some math and I watched you and I watched Andrew Warner from Mixergy do interviews. And I saw like what you did with email. I saw what My friend Noah Kaga did, did with email. And I was like, I'm pretty sure I can build a media company with email only. And I pitched this idea to a bunch of people and some of them I cold emailed like executives at media companies and they laughed at me. They're like, this is stupid. But I'm like, I don't know, man. I think I can get 5 million people on this email and I think they'll open every day and I think they can make like $100 million in revenue. I'm like, I'm pretty sure you could build like a $500 million billion dollar company with just email. And the premise was simple and we, and we started it and I sold the company in year four or five when we were doing about 20 million in revenue. But my best friends had a company called Morning Brew and they are now in the 100 million revenue range. So my premise was right, but the early premise was social media is going away, like in terms of reach. So back then if you posted an article on Facebook, you could get tons and tons of views. And I was like, no, that's going away. Everyone knows that email is like a pirate ship. And every email I get is a little bit of wind in my sale. If I just build this email list to be huge, I, I could own my destiny and I can create an entire news company, media company off the backs of this. I just have to create content that's so good that people want to read it every single day. And that's news, which I love, and it's business news, which I also love. And I was like, let's do that.
- [09:01]
Russell Brunson
So cool. So walk me through the model of the hustle then. Because in my world, everyone understands building an email list to sell their products, but they're not doing it the way you did. Right? Building a media company, how do you monetize it and all that stuff? I'd love to understand the model better.
- [09:14]
Sam Parr
Here's the thing. So you, so the way you started is not where you are now. You're a proper product builder. You have an amazing company. But like, I was inspired by you. I was like, all right, this, this Internet marketing information product person, could I mix those tactics with like the Silicon Valley ethos, I don't know, like whatever you want to call it. I was like, because all the Silicon Valley guys, they poo pooed email and they thought that like long form copy, you know this better than anyone, they laugh at it, right? They think like, oh, this landing page is so ugly. This is nonsense. And I was like, no. Like I could. This guy is a bootstrap guy. He's bullying this big thing, which means every cent he spends has to be ROI driven. Whereas if you raise $100 million, you could blow a lot of money and not be efficient. And like the efficient way is definitely the better way. And so I was like, what if I have a 1500 word text only email and that's like someone's news. And if I can get a million people a day, if I can get a million subscribers and half of them open. So if I get 500,000 high net, higher net worth, like coastal high earning income young people to read my newsletter, man, I think I can charge like $80, $100 per 1,000 opens. And that was the model. And so when I sold, we were going to do about 20 in revenue and maybe 14 or 15 million was going to come via advertising in my newsletter. So the old analogy was basically if you'd go to buzzfeed, you'd see ads on their website. My ads were just in the newsletter and I didn't even have a website. And so I had a team of 12 people and they were each a salesperson that had like a $1.5 million quota. And they would sell ad space to WeWork. Salesforce. HubSpot eventually bought us because we used to sell ad space to them and we would sell so much of their software that they wanted to own the thing. And so that's how the business model worked. It was basically a cost per thousand cents.
- [11:17]
Russell Brunson
That's awesome. So then, so every, it was every day you're sending.
- [11:20]
Sam Parr
Which is, which is not a fun business model by the way. Like selling, selling products is better.
- [11:26]
Russell Brunson
I think there's a hybrid where both, both sides could be cool. You know, having your own media and also having your.
- [11:32]
Sam Parr
Yeah, which, which I mean, but I just did what you did. Like I just. Most things that I have done, I have just copied you.
- [11:40]
Russell Brunson
That's amazing. Okay, so when you're doing it, you're sending out just one email a day, 1500 words. Did you have team that were they were curating content or were you guys doing it through? How did, how did that publishing side of it?
- [11:55]
Sam Parr
I just wrote an email every day where it was like your smart friend tells you the business news that you need to know. And I would just write them. I just, I, I would sell an ads and I was writing an email and I wrote. I got good. Like people probably admire you in your writing and your content creation, but they don't realize that if you make it your job, you can create one or two or three blog posts a day if you like, really? Like, for sure. Like, you just got to get. You got to get what? It takes weeks or months to get in the groove. But once you get in the groove, like, I could bang it out. And so basically between like a 9am and like 2, I would build the business. So I would grow our subscriber base. I would sell ads, and then from like three to like midnight, I would write the email. And so, but really quickly, I think in the first year business, maybe we did half a million. In the second year we did, let's say two and a half million in revenue. So somewhere between 500,000 in revenue and. Or somewhere around 500,000 in revenue. I hired a team and so I didn't have to write the email every day. But we, we had like really great journalists. So a lot of the guys who wrote for me or worked for me are all like, pretty popular now. So if you know Trung, if you know Trunk Pham on Twitter, he's got like a million followers on Twitter. We found Trunk before he even had Twitter. And some of your listeners maybe know Trunk. He's like a comedy guy on Twitter. And then like I had another guy named Zach Crockett, who he now is the host of a podcast for Freakonomics, which is a popular podcast. Anyway, we hired really young, like 23, 24 year old, ambitious writers who are really funny and interesting, and we had them go and find the content and write it every day.
- [13:39]
Russell Brunson
That's so cool. Then how did you, how did you build the list? Like, what was your process? What did that look like?
- [13:44]
Sam Parr
The first 100,000. So in one year we got between 100 and 150,000 subscribers. And that was all organically. And so what I would do is I would go to subreddits that I think my audience would be hanging out in and I would write articles that would go viral there. For example, I paid my friend to live on Soylent. Do you remember Soylent? Wait, vaguely slim, fast for nerds type of. It was like a. It was like a supplement that had like all of your nutritional calories that you.
- [14:15]
Russell Brunson
Yes, I bought it one time. It was okay, yes, I 100% remember that now.
- [14:18]
Sam Parr
Yeah, it's like not that very good. It's not great, but it was like popular. And I'm like, well, I'm going to pay someone to live off that for 30 days. And I wrote an article like 30 days living on Soylent. And so I would just write timely, great articles. And I would. But I would write them in such a way that I thought with a good chance that they were going to go viral in a particular subreddit where my customer was. And then I would get like half a million people to come to my website in like 30 days. And I had a really good pop up that said, like, oh, no, not another pop up. Okay, look, while you're here, here's what this is. The Hustle is actually a daily newsletter with news and business stuff. But I wrote this blog post to get your attention. Now that you're here reading it, you might as well give me your email. Like, I wrote these really good posts and like, we did another one where I had a friend that was plagiarizing people and turning books into Kindle books that he would sell, and he was making like 60 grand a month. And I was like, that's horrible. I don't like that. But I'm going to write an article explaining how this is done because Kindle should catch this. And that article got like 2 million views and I got like 20,000 subscribers. And that's how I grew the first 100,000.
- [15:27]
Russell Brunson
So you write an article on the blog and then promoting it on Reddit and other places like that, or you're posting the articles on Reddit, like the first one. Okay.
- [15:35]
Sam Parr
And then once I understood what my LTV was or my. So I was earning roughly $10 per. Per subscriber or something like that per year. And once I learned that, then we started advertising. And back then, I don't know what it is now, I could acquire an email newsletter subscriber for A$50 on Facebook.
- [15:53]
Russell Brunson
Oh, wow.
- [15:54]
Sam Parr
And so I wish I, I didn't know. I didn't understand math back then. Like, I didn't understand, like, there's like a rare window when, like, you can acquire customers for cheaply. I was 25. Like, I was silly, but I should have emptied the bank account into that. But I spent money on Facebook ads in order to grow from 100,000 to when we sold about 2 million.
- [16:16]
Russell Brunson
Okay, dang, it's 2 million people. And then HubSpot bought it. At that point, were you out of the business or were you tied into it after the purchase?
- [16:25]
Sam Parr
I had a really good executive team that was doing all the work. And when I sold, I basically told them, I'm like, I'm out. And they where they were cool with it. And I think they preferred it because, like, back then I mean, I'm kind of wild and I was really wild then. And so basically the Hustle. We owned a bunch of stuff, including our daily newsletter, but we also owned a bunch of podcasts. One of those podcasts being my first million. And they were like, just do the podcast. And I said, yes sir, that sounds good to me. And that unexpectedly blew up.
- [16:58]
Russell Brunson
Yeah, interesting. If you've been following me for any amount of time, you know I always talk about as you're growing and scaling your company, the most important thing is finding the who, not the how. Who is the person that can help you drive more traffic. Who is the person that could be your CEO. Who is the person that could build your funnels. Understanding the who will dramatically speed up the growing and the scaling of your company. Now, the best place to find the who's who can help you with your vision is Indeed. When it comes to hiring, the right who's Indeed is all you need. Indeed gives you the ability to stop struggling to get your job post seen on other sites because Indeed's got a sponsored job listing where you can stand out in front of your dream hires. With these sponsored jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates. That means your funnel builder is going to see it. That means the person driving traffic to your funnels is going to see it. It means your new CEO or CMO or whatever you're looking for is going to see the exact ad for your business as soon as they open up. Indeed. And that makes a huge difference. In fact, according to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on indeed have 45% more applications than non sponsored jobs. One of the things I love about Indeed is it makes hiring so fast. You can post the job and within minutes you're getting applications who are coming in looking to become the who inside of your business. Prior to that, I was often posting my help wanted ads on Facebook and Instagram and getting tons and tons of responses from unqualified people who had no idea what they were doing. Whereas Indeed, again, they're only being seen by the exact person I'm looking to hire now. With Indeed sponsored jobs, there's no monthly subscriptions, there's no long term contracts. You only pay for results. They may be wondering how fast is Indeed. Well, in the minute I've been talking to you. So far, 23 hires were made on Indeed across the Indeed network. So there's no longer need to wait any longer. You can speed up your hiring right now by going to Indeed and listeners of the show. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your job more visible by going to indeed.com clicks just go to indeed.com clicks right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com clicks, terms and conditions apply. Are you hiring? Indeed is all you need.
- [18:51]
Sam Parr
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- [19:22]
Russell Brunson
So with, with HubSpot taking over, they just keep running the same way, but now they're just advertising their own stuff or they still sell advertising for other people or how does it, how do they ship.
- [19:30]
Sam Parr
When they take it over? So the year we sold, we went into the year we were going to do, let's say I think 18 million in revenue. And so we went into the year with like $4 million in revenue already booked for advertising. And I sold the company on February 4th. I gave back all of that money because HubSpot was like, look, we're at the time a billion dollar company. Like, I don't want your chump change. Yeah. They're like, I don't even want to report on our P and L what advertising is, because I don't want an analyst at Morgan Stanley to think, oh, you got, you guys are in the advertising business. What's this? And so they gave it all back. And the way that they make money is just through leads in the same way that Click Funnel probably clicks clickFunnels makes money from your personal newsletter.
- [20:16]
Russell Brunson
Yeah.
- [20:17]
Sam Parr
And so that's what they do.
- [20:19]
Russell Brunson
Interesting.
- [20:20]
Sam Parr
And then they also, it turned into this thing called HubSpot Media, which is my the Hustle. But now they have like 30 or 15 podcasts of which my first million is one of them. And it's one of, one of the largest business or it's for sure one of the largest business podcast networks. But it might be one of the larger potential podcast networks in the country.
- [20:39]
Russell Brunson
Yeah. Interesting. So then you. So, so that podcast was already part of your business and they acquired that as well. It wasn't something you spun out later?
- [20:48]
Sam Parr
No, no, no, no, no. I owned it and. Or the Hustle owned it. And at the time, I forget how big we were like 600,000 downloads and views on YouTube a month, or maybe even. Maybe even 350,000. And over the last 12 months, including some of our clips, like, we've gotten like 90 or 100 million. So, like, it grew a lot.
- [21:14]
Russell Brunson
Interesting. So they own that now. Like, are you an employee of that? Are you a partner on that? Or how does that work?
- [21:21]
Sam Parr
They own the ip. I sold the ip, and then they pay MFM Media, which my partner Sean and I own. And so they pay us a perform, like, so based off of how many downloads and views it gets. That's how much I get paid.
- [21:36]
Russell Brunson
Okay, gotcha.
- [21:37]
Sam Parr
So I guess I'm a vendor or.
- [21:38]
Russell Brunson
Like, you're a hired. Hired gun. Hired host.
- [21:43]
Sam Parr
Yeah. The way that I explain it to my family, they're like, wait, do you work there? I'm like, not really. Like, so I. I'm Howard Stern, and they're serious radio. Like, I have, like, a contract. I have, like, a talent contract.
- [21:53]
Russell Brunson
Yeah, that's really cool. Interesting. You keep doing that for a long time or what? What does that part of your life look like?
- [22:00]
Sam Parr
You know, I've done it. How long have I been doing was. We've. I started doing it in 19. I never. I didn't want to. I don't. I didn't want to be a podcaster. The podcast was Sean's idea, and I started doing it because one day, one of his guests didn't show up, and I was like, I'll just, like, step in and riff with you. And we did good. But I'm sort of his. I'm like the straight man, and he's like the. He does most of talking. And I never wanted to be a podcaster, but I don't know if I'm going to keep doing it for. You know, I always say, like, I'll reevaluate at the end of the year, but I don't particularly like. Like, it's really. It's a lot of work. How many episodes do you do?
- [22:45]
Russell Brunson
We do it two a week.
- [22:47]
Sam Parr
It's. How long have you been doing that?
- [22:49]
Russell Brunson
A long time. But 90% of mine are just me talking, so I don't. I don't do many interviews, so it's. It's easier because I can just set up a mic and just go, you know.
- [22:57]
Sam Parr
But do you. Do you write in advance what you're going to talk about? No, I hate doing that. Aren't you nervous?
- [23:04]
Russell Brunson
You guys pre write all this stuff in advance?
- [23:06]
Sam Parr
No, no, no, no, no, no. So half the time we have a guest, half the time we don't. But if we don't have a guest, I'll spend an hour in advance just like taking. I just. Right here. I just take notes. I'm like, here's like a bullet. And then like half the time I don't even bring any of this up. I just, we. I follow. You know, we follow the energy, but I find it very stressful. The bigger the audit. So, like, some of our episodes will get 2 million downloads. And I find it incredibly stressful. Like, I just don't want to say the wrong thing.
- [23:35]
Russell Brunson
Yeah.
- [23:35]
Sam Parr
Do not get nervous about it.
- [23:36]
Russell Brunson
Interesting. No, I don't. But what's. Okay, this is interesting. So I don't know if you follow Personal Development World. Do you know Earl Nightingale is.
- [23:42]
Sam Parr
Of course.
- [23:43]
Russell Brunson
Okay, so I just bought his entire state from his widow. And so I had a chance to fly down.
- [23:48]
Sam Parr
You did it with Napoleon Hill or you talked about this on Instagram. I saw this right. When you did it with Napoleon Hill and this right.
- [23:54]
Russell Brunson
Yeah, like, we bought him Pulling Hills estate. Now we're buying this. Anyway, see, I'm collecting anyway. Yes. I'm collecting all these old books and people. But Earl's was fascinating because he was the radio personality voice for a generation. Right. Like, my dad listened to Earl angel when he was growing up every night on the radio teaching personal development. But what's crazy is the radio back in, the laws were like, you had to get things approved before you could say them because there was no, you know, if someone's got a mic and they're hot and half of America's listening to it, you can't just say stuff. So what? I acquired these boxes and boxes of every one of his shows. So he would sit down and he'd pre write the entire show, type out the entire show. Then he'd sit there and he'd read it over the air. So think about that. Like, I. Like, we're so lazy nowadays. Like, I'm saying, I have an outline or I have a couple thoughts, and I just go. But for them. He had word for word so that the radio. So that the radio commission could approve it. And if he deviated from it, he could get in trouble for, like, saying things that weren't. Anyway, I was like, it was so much harder back then.
- [24:49]
Sam Parr
I think, like, I always. I always get like, a little sense of being a fraud where it's like, I need to, like, I want to be as someone who's making cool companies and occasionally talks about, like, this stuff I'm doing, not the Other way around. Like I talk and whatever. Do you, do you ever feel that way? Because I mean ClickFunnels is bigger than any company that I've built so far. So you kind of have some great street cred. But do you feel like I want to talk less and build more?
- [25:20]
Russell Brunson
Yeah, I, I mean I, I, yes, I'd rather be building all the time. I'm very introverted too. So like I don't, my natural default's not that. But like the podcast is nice because it inspires people, gives them tools and motivate and like, you know, I use it as a tool like train people for free on how to use, just understand marketing, understand business and understand, you know, like just Smith alone. People are understanding, like, oh my gosh, I can start an email newsletter. I didn't even think about that. You know, so it's, it's just, it's a good tool to keep getting our members just different ways to use it because you know, you could use the platform to do a million different things and everyone's got different models on how they use it. So it's just inspiring people to like, okay, I could, I could use it for this or for this.
- [25:55]
Sam Parr
And anyway that's cool. How big, how big is this pod?
- [26:00]
Russell Brunson
I actually have no idea. I should probably find that out. We've been doing it for a long time. So I first started, it was called Marketing youg Car. And I would drive my work like my office back every day. It was like a five minute podcast. I did like 350 episodes that way. Then we transitioned it and we transitioned. We finally hooked up, hooked up analytics. But I'm not 100 positive.
- [26:19]
Sam Parr
What's crazy? So our podcast. Okay, so I think we have someone will have in the audience want to look this up, but I think we have 800000 subscribers on YouTube and including audio. Every podcast that we do for sure gets 150,000 people watching it and then upwards of like let's say 2 million if it goes viral. And when we started it was so janky that Sean would take one earbud and I would take one earbud if someone like we would want to like talk to someone who called in and we would record sitting around a table on an iPhone. And now I'm recording just in my office. I think I have $2,000 worth of equipment. Nothing like crazy, maybe less, honestly maybe $1,000 worth. And it's just insane. It looks like you have a fancier one, but it's just insane that a Podcast can start so janky and continue to be janky, to be honest. And it still reaches like so many people. And that kind of boggles my mind because I used to think that email is the strongest marketing channel. I've changed. I think podcast is because when you listen to someone in your ears for 40 minutes, you are very intimate with them. And there's been times where I've said stuff that I don't remember and someone off the street will like tell me all about it. And I'm like, I said that. And so it's just crazy how much people listen.
- [27:38]
Russell Brunson
I completely agree. It's like my philosophy is same thing. It's like if I move people from short form to long form. Like long form is when you get their, their, their mind share, you know, versus the other things, you're getting a glimpse of attention. But yeah, when someone spends 45 minutes with you twice a week, it's, it changed. And I think about the podcast I go deep with like, I feel like I have such close relationships with those people who I've never met, you know, and that's the power. In fact, it was interesting when we, we have our high end masterminds, like we have a 50 and a $250,000 mastermind groups. And what's interesting is like the majority of those people were podcast listeners for a long time. First. It's not people who got me off email or saw an ad. It's like they went through some process, got on the podcast, listened to me for a year and then they invested and came in, you know, like that's the, the highest end clients I found. Come off of, of the back of that.
- [28:24]
Sam Parr
Yeah, it's like, I think I've always been surprised at how much influence a podcast can have. To this day, it still shocks me.
- [28:32]
Russell Brunson
Yeah. Okay. I want to, I want to ask you a little about your, your. I don't know how much this newer business or whatever, but it's interesting. So you have a company called Hampton and I run Masterminds inner circle. And this is like a different variation I think. And so I don't understand it completely, but I love you explain what it is and, and I probably a lot of follow ups afterwards.
- [28:50]
Sam Parr
Yeah. So I was trying to think of like what business to launch after I sold the Hustle and I settled on this one because it kind of fits my preferences and my skill set. But basically Hampton is if you're an entrepreneur of a company that does somewhere between 20 and 50 million a year in revenue, a lot of Times you're lonely where you live and you want to be less lonely and you want to have a peer group of people who you can talk to about the company, the company and, and if it's, you got to lay people off or if you're succeeding and you don't know what to do with your money, if your wife and you are having issues, like these are issues that if you live in, let's say Boise or Nashville, maybe you're a little bit of a freak like amongst your friend group. Like, you know, some of your friends might work a little bit more normal jobs than you. And so you're like, I don't really have anyone to talk to. And we wanted to help solve that. And so what Hampton is, is we're live in 12 different cities and the first thing that you get is a group of eight people who you meet with every single month with a facilitator who guides the conversation. And then you have your local chapter which is one above that. So let's say in New York, I think we have 170 members and we'll host 400 of events throughout the year. So you can meet other people in New York or Atlanta or LA or sf, wherever we're in. And then we have the network which is our online community. So you could post like who's got a good lawyer that they love and trust. And so that's sort of like the pyramid of value of what the products are. But the main thing is your core group that meets once a month. And my goal, I think I can get, you know, like one of my competitors is this company called Vistage. They have roughly 50,000 members. And it's, I think that a company, a company like Hampton, my goal was to find a company that can last for 100 years. Vistage was launched in 1963. YPO, which is a competitor, was launched in 1958. My goal is to like, how can I create something that can last that long and, and also be a multibillion dollar company? And so it's not going to scale quickly like a click funnels, but I think we can grow it like 30% a year for like, you know, 30 years.
- [30:58]
Russell Brunson
And she. I was in EO for a little while, so that's my only version I've been in. This kind of sounds similar. Similar. Yeah. What's the, what's the pricing strategy? How do you guys charge for it?
- [31:07]
Sam Parr
So at first I did what a lot of silly entrepreneurs do. I just made it up on what people are willing to spend but now it's roughly $12,000 a year.
- [31:18]
Russell Brunson
Okay. And then the growth, like because if they're, if it's similar to eo, like when I joined eo, there's like a bunch of Boise, I think on forums or groups or whatever they were. Right.
- [31:28]
Sam Parr
Forums is, is your monthly group.
- [31:31]
Russell Brunson
Yeah. So for you, do you have to go city by? Because you can't just launch it nationally. Now you get one dude, Nashville, one guy in Boise and doesn't work. Right. Like so you go city by city or how you roll out the. The chapters.
- [31:40]
Sam Parr
It's been a huge pain in the butt because when I launched the company we, we were still kind of in the COVID world and my customers were like, I would love to meet virtually, like online for my monthly meetings. And we said that's awesome. That makes it so much easier for me. And I launched it that way and we had like 15,000 people apply to join the wait list really quickly. And so we created core groups. That's what we call it. Instead of forum, we say core virtually. And then obviously the macro environment has changed. And over the last two years of us being in business, people have wanted in real life way more. And so we basically have been like crushing it virtually. But now we're changing the whole business. We're basically going to destroy our company and build it all in real life. And so we made a big pivot about four months ago to in real life. And so we're. We found the 12 cities that we have that have the most density and we've created co core groups and chapters in those 12 cities.
- [32:41]
Russell Brunson
Are there people that fly into the cities to do that or.
- [32:44]
Sam Parr
No, no, no, no, no. They live there. They live there. So. And that makes it really hard. It's a huge moat if I can pull it off. But like it's really hard knowing what I know now. I would have launched city by city, like no doubt. And I think had I done that, I think I would be at like 30 million in revenue in two years. But I, you know, I made a big mistake. And so we're fixing that mistake now and giving our customers what they want.
- [33:08]
Russell Brunson
Interesting. How do you facilitate the monthly meetings with each group or who. Like, is there a facilitator or you facilitate or what does it look like?
- [33:14]
Sam Parr
No, so we train moderators to like, so we have like for example, in the first meeting, everyone does a life walk where they tell you the top 10% and the top, the top 10% and the bottom 10% of their life. So you can get to know them. And then in meeting two, you're going to do this other thing and then a meeting. Three, you're going to do this other thing and then a meeting. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, whatever. It gets into a flow where we go through MITs. It's called the most important things. Here's the most important thing I have on my plate right now. The group can criticize me and I can ask questions and I can get feedback. That's what the typical meeting looks like and it's all moderated by someone. But in the future we're actually going to test having member led groups. So there will be no moderator. So it's a group of eight people with similar sizes and types of businesses who lead their own meeting.
- [34:03]
Russell Brunson
Yeah. How long? How long the meetings go?
- [34:06]
Sam Parr
About three hours.
- [34:07]
Russell Brunson
Okay, interesting.
- [34:11]
Sam Parr
What do you think? What can you. What am I missing? Because you're, you've been doing this forever.
- [34:17]
Russell Brunson
Well, my model is different but yours is really interesting because ours are. We do you know the groups will come like three times out to Boise and we. And I'm facilitating groups which I really enjoy because I get a lot of value from the members. But we don't have like the monthly in between stuff, which I think is really powerful.
- [34:38]
Sam Parr
Yeah. The difference is, is that, you know, I'm going to judge. I don't know if this is the truth. I have a feeling they're coming to learn from you. Is that right?
- [34:48]
Russell Brunson
I would say initially yes, after they are in the group. No, the group self facilitate. Like the way that I facilitate means like we're in this room actually and, and each person has a chance to get on stage and share the number one thing that's working for them and then get their feedback on questions. And most of it's actually facilitated by everybody else. I just kind of hang out and take notes for myself.
- [35:07]
Sam Parr
Well then it sounds like actually our models are a bit similar and I would love to like share notes on like the best way to lead a meeting because it's an art and it's really hard. And so our thing was I just like in the back of my head I was kind of like, wouldn't it be funny if in the next 10 years I can get 15,000 members to join? And if 15,000, like our average company does around 25 million in revenue. So let's say each company has a hundred employees and I'm able to get 15,000 people, that's 1.5 million employees of the companies who are members. And I'M like, that's kind of interesting. Like, could I help these CEOs get just a little bit better and impact those 1.5 million people? And that was kind of the math. And I was like, it's kind of funny. I would be like, it's like the Illuminati a little bit. Like, you're like, helping. You're like, helping these people make. Yeah. And I was like, I wouldn't be manipulating them, but, like, I have insights into how they're all making decisions. And I'm like, that's kind of powerful, and that's really fascinating. It seems really fun. And so that was the idea.
- [36:12]
Russell Brunson
Yeah. How did you launch. Is it mostly from the podcast and media companies? You launch these or you do you have a different strategy, how you're selling access to it all?
- [36:21]
Sam Parr
So originally, I worked on it for about 10 months without telling anyone. I would just DM my friends and see if they wanted to join. And then I launched it on the podcast. And on the first day, we got like, 100,000 people coming to the website. It was a lot, and it was all through the podcast. And just like last month was the first time we started spending on marketing. So we. But we still spend. I think we. I think our budget's 15,000amonth. Like, we're not spending anything. And so it was all organic.
- [36:56]
Russell Brunson
I've seen there's a group called Speakeasy that's. That's. They just launched a chapter here in Boise. This may be helpful for you. But they. They actually borrowed our office for it. And so they did a free event that brought everyone in Boise in. They facilitate. I don't know, they do the whole event, and at the end of it, they're like, hey, if you want to be part of this, then there's a monthly thing. And they signed up, like, half the room signed up from that one. One kickoff event here in our office. And they're doing that city by city kind of doing. Feels like you could do a similar model. I don't know how big the business is, but they have a Boise chapter now, which is which. There's not anything that happens in our. In our neck of the world, so it's kind of fun to see something happening. But I think they're in, I don't know. I don't know, 10, 15, 20 cities right now, but that's how they're. They're film initially, just doing, like, one big free event. Everyone's inviting all their entrepreneur friends to come in the thing, and they have A bunch of stuff happening and then they make a pitch at the end and sign them all. But one thing you could do something really similar to that just hit, you know, these local events in each city.
- [37:54]
Sam Parr
Growing isn't the hard part. You know, the hard part is keeping the integrity of the community and of the core group. And so because what we're asking for is like pretty big. So the way that I want to grow is through retention. And so like a good retention rate is like 90%. And you know, I'm getting, it's, it's predominantly men and I'm getting like grown men in a room and they're like crying in the first like meeting like that's like a, it's like a life changing thing and it's like a pretty serious thing. Like this is like, it could be heavy. Like I'm in a core group and like there's people have like gotten divorces and like we know about it before their spouse knows about it. And we're like talking through the pros and cons. Like it's like a big deal. And what we need to do is make sure that people come with a sense of seriousness. Like you are explicitly saying that you are going to support your group and be there and be there emotionally. Be there to make introductions. Like it's like a big commitment. And so that's hard. And selling that idea to someone is easy. Getting you to buy into this for a decade, that it's like hard. You actually you're, you have a great book, one of your dot com secrets on like cult building or something like that is like, it was like, it speaks to this but one and another premise that we have. And this is important for anyone listening, which is like my opinion, if you're a tech guy, obviously go get, go do AI, But I'm not that. And so I was like, what do I think is going to like grow along with AI? I'm pretty sure it's going to be loneliness and people craving in real life experiences. I think they're going to like kind of go in tandem. And so I think that a company like Hampton, which is, it's just like the newsletter, my newsletter people. I said people laughed at it in real life communities or whatever I'm building. People laugh at this too. They're like, this sounds like a cute project. I'm like, no man, I think this can be a multibillion dollar thing if you do it right. And that's kind of what I'm hoping and what I'm working towards.
- [39:58]
Russell Brunson
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Sam Parr
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Russell Brunson
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- [40:28]
Sam Parr
Terms apply.
- [40:30]
Russell Brunson
I remember when I did EO. I did it, man. I did it right after the 2018 market crash. The group I got into, everyone is like on the brink of bankruptcy. And so I ended up staying because, like, it's just a bunch of people who are like, they get together and drink and talk about how their wives left them and their businesses failed. And I was like on the upward as I've had bad, bad group. But I do remember the process was fasting because they brought me in and it was like we did similar, like a timeline exercise. There's like three or four meetings I had to go to be trained before they let me actually into the group, which was really fascinating thing that, that. So the time you show up, like, you know the rules and the standards and I don't know if, if you do similar stuff like that, but I.
- [41:04]
Sam Parr
Thought that was kind of an interesting.
- [41:06]
Russell Brunson
Way to get you prepped.
- [41:07]
Sam Parr
It's, you know, I think that like, there's like, businesses tend to have like one or, or there's like three categories of problems. I think that a business has. Like on one hand, it's like a technological tech problem which is like, can you actually physically like build this technology? So it could be like a cancer curing drug. Like if you can physically build that, then that's going to be the greatest thing ever. Or the second problem is like a demand problem, which is like you've invented this interesting widget, but like, does anyone even want it? You got to go and prove that out. I don't know. And the third one is like operational, which is like, for example, yeah, if you can get this cab or this guy to my doorstep in five minutes after I click, like, I'm ready to go. Yeah, I would love that, but it's really hard to pull off. My business is in an operational. We have an operational, we have operational issues, which is, I can convince someone to sign up for this. I just gotta make sure that I make this a seamless, smooth experience for all types of people. And like having in real life meetings like you're describing, like pre training, having it across the country, that's really hard. And so I'm still. We're building, we're building that and once we build it, I think it's going to be awesome.
- [42:18]
Russell Brunson
Are a bunch of your people still running the virtual versions then? If they're not in one of the main cities or.
- [42:24]
Sam Parr
Yeah, but my goal is to like slowly pull them apart. Like, I'm like, they're like, if they love their group, I'm like, all right, have fun. But when you're ready, like, let's get you into an in real life group.
- [42:35]
Russell Brunson
Interesting. And people paying the same for the virtual as they were as they are for the in real life.
- [42:40]
Sam Parr
No, in real life retains way better, but they're spent.
- [42:43]
Russell Brunson
Their, their cost is the same though, right?
- [42:45]
Sam Parr
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, we'll see. Like, do you know, have you heard of Vistage?
- [42:53]
Russell Brunson
Yeah, yep, for sure.
- [42:55]
Sam Parr
So they do like 200 million a year in EBITDA.
- [42:57]
Russell Brunson
Really?
- [42:58]
Sam Parr
Yeah. And then have you heard of World 50?
- [43:02]
Russell Brunson
No.
- [43:03]
Sam Parr
World 50 is this. World 50 is actually similar to your mastermind, but it's for Fortune 500 executives. They do about 180 million a year in EBITDA. Like communities like this, like the ones you have. Like the ones I have. I think people, I don't know if you felt this way with some of your stuff where people were like dismissive, where they didn't understand the math behind it. I don't think people understand that these things can be bigger than they appear.
- [43:33]
Russell Brunson
Yeah. Essentially, I've never looked at it from like a way to. Because for the most part my higher end ones are tough because I'm, I'm facilitating the majority of it. Makes me think about.
- [43:43]
Sam Parr
Yeah, but you, you kind of have the best of both worlds. Right? Like you own clickfunnels, which is highly scalable.
- [43:48]
Russell Brunson
Yeah.
- [43:49]
Sam Parr
And you have your masterminds, which are.
- [43:53]
Russell Brunson
Scalable but very cash rich.
- [43:56]
Sam Parr
Yeah. And like frankly, if I had to guess, your masterminds make way more cash than a scaled startup, so it doesn't really matter.
- [44:05]
Russell Brunson
Yeah. Interesting.
- [44:08]
Sam Parr
But yeah, they could be. These things could be big. It's just, it's a grind.
- [44:13]
Russell Brunson
Yeah. Is it? So with you promoting on the podcast, like do you. Does HubSpot get a percentage of that since they on the podcast? Or is it just let you do whatever you want? Or like, is there any you're getting? No, you can roll out all the businesses you want without having to worry about.
- [44:28]
Sam Parr
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because like, it's not like an ad, the podcast. I'm talking about my life. Like, I'm saying, I launched this thing, here's what it is. And yeah, I have a big audience, but I can't launch all the businesses I want because I'm always nervous. And maybe I'm wrong, but I'm a nervous, very much so of like, wearing out my audience. Like, they'd get confused. Like, wait, does Sam do this thing or does he do this other thing and he does it like, you know what I mean? But also, I just think that in order to build like a kind of a legacy creating product or a company, you need to focus for, like, decades, you know, I think I sold my last. I'm very happy I sold the Hustle because I was poor and suddenly I wasn't poor. Like, that was great. But, like, I truly. I messed up the compounding part. Like, having like, a business that truly compounds is like the greatest thing ever. And like, one decade in two decades in, like, you really can start seeing some of the benefits. And so I hope that will be the case with this. Is ClickFunnels something that you'll own forever? I think.
- [45:42]
Russell Brunson
I mean, clickfunnels. So we had an offer four years ago that we turned down. And at the time, it was tough because there was clickfunnels and there was Russell and everything was like, all together over the last four years. We split it separately. So Russell and the coaching business is separate from the software. So in theory, I could sell one without the other. So there may be a potential that we could do that when we get bored. But right now we still really have fun. But I do, you know, I think I'm going to be in the Russell business forever. But the ClickFunnels business, you know, who knows? Who knows what? You know, what could happen there? So.
- [46:14]
Sam Parr
And you guys kind of did it the right way, which is, like, if I had to guess, ClickFunnels has allowed you to profit along the way. Whereas a lot of people, myself included, I was a little bit of a martyr. Like, I didn't pay myself a lot of money because I was like, oh, the CEO should eat last. And like, which is. Which is. Which is kind of true. But, like, I paid myself, like, nothing, right? And so I. I was like, I have to sell in order to get paid. And obviously that, that was foolish. That, yeah, we built.
- [46:41]
Russell Brunson
We built ours where we had to have X amount of money in the bank based on our hard cost. You know, I mean, like, that was the number then Everything above that, we distribute out. So, yeah, it's been, it's been nice.
- [46:51]
Sam Parr
Yeah. That, and it's that, that I think allows you to do something for a much longer period of time than.
- [46:56]
Russell Brunson
And it was nice because we never took on outside funding. So we didn't. We could do dumb decisions or smart, you know, whatever it was, but we didn't have anyone who ever had to report back to, which has been, which has been really nice. A lot of friends I know have taken on equity or whatever throughout the process, and it shifts everything. They can't distribute all the profits. They can't. You know, like, then it's like, as soon as you take that first round, then you have to work towards some liquidation event or else you kind of get stuck.
- [47:19]
Sam Parr
Yeah, you're, you have a duty. And I think that that makes it way more hard, like, way more challenging. And I always tell people I'm like, most things in business are reversible. Most mistakes. Taking capital might be the one where it's like you kind of can't undo that. Maybe you could, but it's so hard that you probably just start from scratch.
- [47:40]
Russell Brunson
Yeah. It's funny, like, when we got started, I didn't know what, you know, it was my first time being a startup founder and we're like a year in and everyone was telling us, I take money and all the, you know, we get hit up by everybody. And then geo rand fishkin, SEOmoz.
- [47:53]
Sam Parr
Yeah.
- [47:54]
Russell Brunson
So he came to Boise and spoke in an event about them raising cash and capital and told them, yeah, he got screwed. Yeah. But it was funny because he was, I guess his best friend lives here in Boise, and they were doing this little event. So he was telling everyone the story about it, like, as if it was this great thing because he was still actively running at Mazda at the time. And then afterwards I had a chance to, you know, wait in line, ask him a question. I was like, kind of told him what we were doing, and he pulled me aside and was like, dude, do not take on. And, like, gave me this warning. I was like, oh. And then fast forward five years later, he was out of the business. He wrote the book Lost and Founder. And, like, I read the whole story and I was like, but it was because he told me not to, was literally why we never did. And I told him later. I was like, you have no idea. Like, this one conversation shifted, I think the degree of happiness in my life. So anyway, it's kind of interesting.
- [48:36]
Sam Parr
Yeah, I, I, I'm, I think I'm not like dogmatic against venture capital. I think that some companies need it. I think the best analogy I heard was VC is rocket fuel. And if you own a car, it doesn't matter how fast it is or how cool that car is or how much you love that car. Cars should not run on rocket fuel. And cars are rocket fuels for rockets. And just know that if you're taking this fuel, you better make a rocket, not a fast car. And what I realized was I think I like fast cars a lot more than a rocket. And there's a world where you could have a click funnels company and maybe have both. But I think that I also sold my company for a lot less money than what you see big tech companies say in the headlines. And I made way more than most of my friends who raised the money and sold for a lot more than me. And so, like, because you didn't have any.
- [49:36]
Russell Brunson
Anything before the sell, right? The acquisition was the, the first cash event.
- [49:42]
Sam Parr
So the last year. So the first two years, I basically paid myself $2,000 a month, like nothing. And my business had millions in the bank, and so I was foolish not to do that. But the last year I started paying myself a lot. And then my wife, very coincidentally, I told you the Airbnb story. She worked at Airbnb as well. And it went public like the year before, a few months before I sold and she killed it. And so we did well there. And then the sale put us in like a new. A new stratosphere. And so it was like overnight. Well, like, her thing happened in like December, and then I got the money in February. So it was like a three month thing where like life changed. And frankly, it took about four years to get used to it. And so I think there's like a big difference between people like you who make it along the way or have you ever had a big liquidity event or. It's always been no.
- [50:37]
Russell Brunson
Yeah.
- [50:38]
Sam Parr
So people. People like you who make it along the way versus people like me who it's. It was like a lumpy. It was like a. It was like nothing and then boom. I think that, like, the people like me are like, broken more than like the people like you because you're like, used to it.
- [50:53]
Russell Brunson
Because you're waiting for the. That's. That's interesting. Was it when the, when the deal with HubSpot happened, was it pretty quick or was it like a longer term thing and negotiate, like all that kind of stuff, you know what I mean? Like a traditional.
- [51:03]
Sam Parr
So it was pretty great. I'm very proud of myself for how I handled this and I would encourage everyone to do this, but basically they emailed me in like, October, I think it was October. And they were like, hey, what's going on? Like, we would love to talk about a partnership. And I replied back, are you emailing me because you want to buy me? Just say yes and we'll cut to the chase. And they replied, yes. And I replied that night. I said, great. Thank you so much for your honesty. Let's. Let's get to it. Here's a list of all the reasons why you should not buy us. And I made a Google Doc and I made a list of all the things that I think could have came out in due diligence. Nothing major, but like, in this month we made a mistake and churn was higher. I don't know. Or like, whatever. And I said, here's a list. Is any of this a red flag? And he said, nope, all looks good to me. And I said, all right, let's do this. And we signed an LOI like, three weeks later. And then I closed. So they initially contacted me in October. I signed a 90 day. What's that window called? Like a due diligence.
- [52:09]
Russell Brunson
Yeah.
- [52:10]
Sam Parr
And then we closed on the 90th day.
- [52:13]
Russell Brunson
That's awesome.
- [52:14]
Sam Parr
It was very fast because selling to HubSpot, like, they care. They're a huge company. A, like, they have resources to, like, they have a team of people just for buying companies. B, they're worth so much money. They care way more, way more about their reputation. They're not going to like, nickel and dime me over stuff. And so it was like, they were like, look, your company is small for us. Like, we. You could tweet about us and hurt our reputation a lot more than this company's even worth. So we're not going to mess with you. And they did mess with me. They were wonderful to work with. And so the whole thing was like, maybe four months from cold email to deal closing.
- [52:54]
Russell Brunson
Oh, that's awesome.
- [52:55]
Sam Parr
And it was miserable, by the way. It was so hard.
- [52:58]
Russell Brunson
Were you trying to sell at that point or do you have any, like, that you're working towards or you were just kind of just doing the business?
- [53:04]
Sam Parr
Yeah, I was building a company to sell. I was building it to sell, like, and I, I did not go to market. But they. People were always messaging me because we were one of the, like, hot companies because no one thought email was interesting. And then all of a sudden they did think it was interesting and it was basically me and Morning Brew were the only two companies that were at scale, so there was only two options if you wanted to buy a newsletter company. And they sold to Business Insider in December and I sold in February.
- [53:38]
Russell Brunson
Interesting. Have you seen a lot of people since they've been hearing your story popping up? Newsletter companies, is it everyone?
- [53:44]
Sam Parr
Everyone, Everyone, everyone. And it's so much harder now, man. So we started.
- [53:50]
Russell Brunson
You.
- [53:50]
Sam Parr
I don't know if. If you like, pay attention, but I don't tell. You can tell me what clickfunnels is. Open rates are like, we started in Fort. I started Hustlecon in 14, and I started the Hustle in 2016. And open rates were way higher, and the cost to acquire a customer on Facebook was way lower. And then word got out. Like, you've been talking about this for 10 years. I'd been talking about for five years. People finally started listening, and the competition was. Is way harder now. It's way harder. I don't know what it costs to acquire a customer anymore, but I know it's a lot more expensive. And I bet. And I bet open rates are way, way down.
- [54:28]
Russell Brunson
Yeah, well, I've been. It's funny because I've been doing this for 20, almost 25 years now. Back in the day, email is insane because you get like, 95% open rate and like 80% click through. I get. Anyway, so I got spoiled for the first four or five years of my. Of my existence. And back then, no one was running email Newslet, you know, and, you know, so for me, now, every time I see the numbers, I'm always, like, depressed based on my vision of what we did 25 years ago. But it still works.
- [54:54]
Sam Parr
It still works. And I think email ebbs and flows. Like, when I started it, it was not popular. But five years before I started it, it was very popular. Now it's right when I sold, it was very popular. It's since gone down a little bit, but there's like, all these platforms, y', all, Beehive, Convertkit, whatever. So they've made it way easier. But most newsletters are really bad. Or, like, they don't innovate. Like, it's like, it's a lot of. Like, there's a lot of people that just copy what we did, or maybe they copy what you did. And I think when we came out, we are kind of. I mean, it's email. It's not like we're flying to Mars. It's not like the most, like, innovative thing, but, like, within our world, it was very innovative. And I think that there's still. People still need to come up with some more interesting angles than what a lot of people are doing right now.
- [55:42]
Russell Brunson
Yeah, for sure. Interesting. Well, dude, this has been really fun. I feel like I want to hang out with you more often, so.
- [55:49]
Sam Parr
And hopefully I would love to hang out with you. Like, by the way, this is, like, an honor for you to ask me questions. I'm telling you, I've read Dotcom Secrets. I've, like, I was. I've been following you since I was probably 19. I'm 36 now. How old was I? Like, I remember you winning a Ferrari.
- [56:05]
Russell Brunson
Yeah. That's crazy.
- [56:08]
Sam Parr
So, like, I. And then I followed you way before I. Way before you launched Clickfunnels. And then I signed up for Clickfunnels right when you launched it, and it looked like you made it with Play doh. It was, like, all these bright colors, and it was crazy. And so I've been a fan and customer of yours for so long.
- [56:26]
Russell Brunson
Oh, that's so cool. Well, dude, I'm glad we finally got to meet up and hopefully we'll do more stuff in the future and open a Hampton group here in Boise. I'll join it. It'll be fun.
- [56:36]
Sam Parr
Yeah, man. Thank you for everything you do, and total honor. And I think I said this when we were offline. You were doing this because you, like, hurt your leg or arm or something, so I hope you're feeling better.
- [56:46]
Russell Brunson
Oh, yeah, I was a wrestling tournament. I tore both my biceps off of the bones, so I had to get. Probably can't see him. I had double arm surgery, got him reattached. It's been four months post surgery now, and I'm doing all the rehab and stuff, but, yeah, I'm feeling, feeling a lot better now.
- [57:00]
Sam Parr
Well, God bless.
- [57:01]
Russell Brunson
I'm actually next week going to start drilling, start wrestling again, so.
- [57:04]
Sam Parr
Good. I'm. And I actually got into wrestling a little bit because of you. I follow. You know, I, I, I became acquaintances with Ben Askren, seen him do his thing, and got in the ufc. But I remember, like, seeing, like, wait, Russell Brunson. Russells. What's this about? And I started following, like, Bo Nickel and all those guys. So you've been a very inspirational to me.
- [57:26]
Russell Brunson
Oh, that's crazy. Well, very cool, man. Well, if I can ever do anything for you, let me know. And yeah, hopefully if you come back out to Boise for one of Nathan's events, let me know, too.
- [57:36]
Sam Parr
I'll be there. Thank you.
- [57:37]
Russell Brunson
Awesome. Thanks.