This is Sam Parr and you can call him a hustler. He built a newsletter from a side project into an eight-figure media company and sold it. And now he co-hosts one of the largest business podcasts ever. And in this conversation, Sam walks through the five levels of wealth from making your first $10,000 to what he's doing to build a $100 million business. And at each level, he breaks down exactly what it takes to get there.
Getting to like three, four, five million is a pretty straightforward path. Getting past five, six, seven million, that requires... When you're starting something, you have the same fear whether you're incredibly successful or you're still brand new. It's like getting into a cold plunge or something like that. It hurts no matter what. The only difference is that when I've done it a bunch of times, I know that it's normal to be nervous, but I still move forward anyway.
This is the Grant Owen podcast and this is Sam Parr's five levels of making money. How can I make $10,000?
Does it have to be online?
No. The first $10,000. This doesn't sound like a lot if I'm saying it to someone who doesn't have a lot of money, but the first $10,000 is quite easy. It's probably the easiest way to do it is a service. So you do something for someone. And it would probably be finding two or three companies that need a service, doing it for them for free, asking for a testimonial, and getting proof, and then going and charging for that service. That's probably the easiest way to do it if you are willing to do labor. I've never been into that. I prefer making products. And I made my first $10,000 as an entrepreneur online selling an info product. I made my first $10,000 on my own as a hot dog vendor. I had a hot dog stand and that's how I made my first $10,000.
Tell me about the hot dog stand.
It was called Southern Sam's. Weiner as big as a baby's arm. And I had...
Did you have to trademark that?
No. I didn't even know what that meant. This was when I was 21 years old, 20 years old. And I wanted a job that I could be outside and drink beer while I was doing it. I didn't have a lot of money to start. I only had $500. I knew a guy who had a hot dog stand that he let me use. He had it like in storage. And then I got to pay him his monthly rent at the end of the month. So I had like $500 for supplies and that's all I needed. I got a day's worth of supplies, sold out. Next day I could actually go to the store and buy stuff. That's how I made my first $10,000.
Did it feel rich at the time? Did you feel wealthy?
No, not with 10 grand. Not when I was doing a service for it. Now when I created a product and I made money, that's when I felt rich. When I was doing a service and working for it, I did not feel rich.
What's like a common mistake that you see people making when it comes to... like there's a lot of trepidation people feel before they start.
So I've made maybe 100 million plus in revenue on the internet or on companies. I would have to do the math, but tens, many, many tens of millions for sure. The first dollar is always so exciting. It doesn't matter how much money you have. The first is always incredibly exciting. That rush never goes away. And I think that when you're starting something, you have the same fear whether you're incredibly successful or you're still brand new. It's like getting into a cold plunge or something like that. It hurts no matter what. The only difference is that when I've done it a bunch of times, I know that it's normal to be nervous and it's normal that I feel that scared, but I still move forward anyway. What's the thing I have to overcome in that?
Asking. So a lot of times when people present their service or their product to someone, they're nervous to ask. Like just so a lot of times what they'll do is they'll say the pitch and they'll say, 'Okay, cool. How much does that cost?' And they'll say, 'It costs $10,000.' And then the buyer will kind of sit quietly and think and then they'll be, 'Well, or you know, I could...' You just have to sit in that. And it sounds like a crazy ask to ask someone for $10,000, but for a lot of businesses that's nothing. And so you just have to ask and you probably have to charge more than you think. And I would say it's probably almost easier a lot of times to make more than $10,000 than it is to make less than $10,000. Meaning if your goal is like, 'I'm going to build a business that does a million in revenue in the next six months,' that's probably almost just as easy. It probably is just as easy as making $10,000.
It's just as easy to make 100 million as to make $10,000.
I don't know about 100 million, but in my experience, getting to like three, four, five million is a pretty straightforward path. Getting past five, six, seven million, that requires teams and systems and leadership and that is challenging. But getting to like three or four or five million in revenue, I've done that like seven or eight times. It's pretty straightforward.
So answer me this. I think something that we kind of breezed over is who to sell to. So you just talked about and said the easiest way to go about this and make this is to sell to companies. The average person doesn't know companies. How would I go about the process of finding out what service I should sell to what people? How do I think about the person I'm trying to sell to?
Well, I think of Ikigai. Have you heard of Ikigai? It's this concept of like what the world wants, what they want to pay for, what you're good at, and what you care about. If your goal is to make millions and millions of dollars and build a company, you have to be passionate. You have to actually care about what you do. You could say, 'Yeah, you'll be passionate once you start succeeding in it.' I believe that to be true. But if I'm trying to figure out like what to sell, I have to first ask myself, what am I skilled at? And so it depends what you're skilled at, but like I can find customers anyway. For me, I got on the internet, I got my first customers on forums, like message boards and Reddit because I knew how to write. If I was like a service provider, I would use Yelp and I could just call people on Yelp and I could be smooth enough to convince them to give me a shot. If I called 100 people, I'm going to get two people that are interested.
So it all depends on what your skill set is.
What's the most valuable skill set to have?
Oh, copywriting in my opinion without a doubt.
For this amount of money?
For any amount of money? Yes. Why? Because copywriting is the act of figuring out how to get what's in my brain into your brain and figuring out how to get you to do what I want you to do. And so with copywriting, I can write my sales script and I could just call you and say it, but copywriting is just sales. That's all it is. And I think copywriting is 100% the most important. We're all selling something. Whether I'm trying to sell someone to go on a date with me, I'm trying to convince someone to come work for me, I'm trying to raise money... We sell stuff all the time. If I'm MLK and I'm giving a speech, I'm trying to convince you to feel a certain way. It's all writing. It's all storytelling and so copywriting is just a systematic structure and it's a way to get someone to do what you want them to do. So I think it's without a doubt the most important thing.
If I'm scared of people, will it be infinitely harder for me to make money?
No, that's why the internet's awesome. You could do everything behind a keyboard if you wanted to.
I don't have to put my face out there. It's more so if I just get skilled at the process of writing and understanding people.
It's way easier if you put your face out there. But no, I mean there's... In my company Hampton, we have over a thousand members. I've met so many people that are making hundreds of millions of dollars a year and you have no idea they exist.
What's a book that you would recommend if someone is wanting to get skilled in copywriting?
Ogilvy on Advertising is probably my favorite one or Joe Sugarman has this book called The Adweek Guide to Copywriting. It's like amazing. So basically like in the 1930s, 40s, 50s and 60s before the internet was around. Do you know what direct response marketing is? So they would mail... If you want to sell vacuums, they would be like, 'All right, give me a million housewives in America that have income between, you know, they're middle class and I'm going to send them these letters.' And it was really expensive to do that. So you had to get really good at writing like a typewriter's worth of notes to mail to someone. So good that they didn't meet you, they don't know who you are, but they're willing to pull out a check, write the check, put the stamp on it, take it to the mailbox, and send it back to you. And so these guys were masters at convincing people via irresistible copy to get you to do certain stuff. And so I love studying those guys. Pre-internet guys, like old stuff. It's the best.
What do you think about the book Influence?
It's amazing. Robert Cialdini changed my life.
Dude, it's like the greatest tactics ever. Like really simple, like the rule of reciprocity. So I've used that before. I bought a car before and when I go and buy the car... I bought a motorcycle once. The guy on Craigslist asked for $2,000. I showed up 10 minutes early. I go, 'Hey, I brought you an extra Coca-Cola.' I was at the store and I just thought, 'Hey, maybe this guy might want a Coke.' And so he gave me $500 off. He asked for two grand. I said, 'Look, man. I'll give you 1,500.' He goes, 'Well, you're a nice guy. You brought me this Coke.' That's the rule of reciprocity. That's rule number one. And in Robert's book of Influence, there's very specific tactics on what you can get people to do.
I think what was it that in his process, he bought the person a Coke and he did it within a classroom, right? And he tested buying someone a Coke and how many days you'd have to buy them a Coke before you can ask them to do something big and crazy.
Yeah. Well, no, I don't remember exactly that story, but the rule of reciprocity states if I do something for you, you feel in debt to me and you'll do whatever it takes to get even. And it doesn't matter if it's something that's crazy, crazy uneven. So, for example, if I go to your home and I say, 'Can I borrow a cup of sugar?' And you give me the cup of sugar. The next day you say, 'Hey, can I borrow your car?' I'll give you my car. Even though a cup of sugar and loaning a car are not the same, we will do it just to be even. That's just how humans are. And there's a ton of principles just like that. And with copywriting, you can implement all of that.
What's a way that someone can implement that kind of tactic in the process of making their first dollar?
So let me give you a story. One of the first times, I don't remember if it was the first, that I made $10,000 online. I moved to San Francisco and I started a company, it was like a roommate matching app. And the way that we would get customers is the idea of it was I would find a three and four bedroom apartment which let's just say hypothetically cost four grand. I would call the landlord. I would say, 'Hey, could I help you lease out this apartment? I'm going to host a party, but I'm going to put on Craigslist that each bedroom is only $1,000. And we're going to get like 50 people who are interested in this place. We're going to host a party and we're going to fill this apartment and then any other apartment you want by matching up single people who are in the city by themselves into their own two, three, and four bedroom, instead of getting like a one bedroom, which they probably couldn't afford.' And so I would get all of these emails on Craigslist about these people who wanted this apartment and they were horrible. Everyone had the exact same email. One apartment would get like 50 applicants and the emails were awful. And so I created a guide that says, 'Here's how you stick out in the inbox of a Craigslist apartment.' The most niche topic ever. I made this guide. It was called the Miracle Craigslist Template. It was making something like $2,000 or $3,000 a month when I was 21 years old or 22 years old maybe because a local blog... I convinced them. If you Googled 'how to find an apartment in San Francisco,' they showed up number one and then the one who came up number two and the one who came up number three. I said, 'Hey, I'll give you half of the sales from this Craigslist Miracle Guide that I made.' And they took it. And so I was killing it. I just made this over a weekend and this consistently has made two or three grand for like three years. And that's how I made my first... I made it once, I sold many times, $10,000.
What $10,000 experience did you have that was the most fulfilling?
When I sold my first advertisement in The Hustle. So I used to have this daily newsletter and Wealthfront, you know Wealthfront, they bought like $8,000 or $9,000 in advertisements to put in my newsletter and I thought that was crazy. I was like, I was blogging and I built this newsletter and now someone's paying me money to put their ad in this, that's insane. And I think at the time I maybe had 50,000 subscribers and I was doing the math, or I don't remember exactly, 50 or 100,000, and I was doing the math and I was like, I think this newsletter can get to like one or two or three million people. And I was doing the math and I was like, if I did that with 50,000, this is going to make me $100 million a year. I remember doing that math. That was how I was extrapolating it and that was the most exciting. I cold emailed someone at Wealthfront, his name was Chris Martinez or something, I still remember his name. And I convinced him to pay me like a...
Oh yeah. Yeah. Cold email. I built my life on cold email.
Yeah. Five out of the six best men in my wedding, I met them via cold email.
Five out of six of your best friends at that time.
Something like that. Yeah. My best friend Neville, who is the best man, I loved his blog. I cold emailed him and I convinced him to become my friend and we became best friends. That was, you know, 15 years ago. Another guy cold emailed me, actually, we became best buddies. Another guy, I had a book club and I wanted him to attend and I just emailed him. Yeah.
This is a little bit tangential, but what's something to do to stick out in a cold email to you?
You follow this thing called AIDA. Have you heard of AIDA? It stands for attention, interest, desire, action. So, A, I get your attention and I say something that cuts past you a little bit. It could be subtle, it could be crazy, or it could be really subtle like, 'Yes, this is a cold email and it's totally out of the blue, but hear me out.' That's how you get someone's attention. I, you get them interested. 'I'm emailing because...' you say something that is very specific to them. 'I'm emailing because 15 years ago you wrote this blog post that I know no one ever reads, but I read it.' Because I'm trying to get your attention. I want to prove to you how much research I did. 'And you talked about how you love hot wings and how it's your favorite food. There's this amazing restaurant in New York City called this that no one ever goes to. I just researched it and I went to test it. It's called this. Anyway, listen. Here's the deal.' And then you say desire. So you get them to desire whatever you have to offer. And then A, you give them action, very specific actions on what to do next. So it could be like, 'Email me back if you're interested. And if you're not, it's all good. Just say f off and I'll never talk to you again. But I promise you I can make this worth your time. All you have to do is say yes and I'll do this, this, and that.'
Yep. What's interesting is what you just detailed is not only like the skill set required for this amount of money, but also a few things very tactically about how to acquire it. And to be honest, I think the biggest thing that someone has to solve is understanding from an Ikigai perspective what they actually are good at. For example, some people might think that they're very analytical and they might say, 'I really want to run this type of business or start this type of hustle doing X.' When in reality, you can say to them, 'Hey, you're actually incredible at sales and the way you're communicating is actually like higher level.' What's a way to identify that type of skill set?
Where you're learning about it in your free time and you're seeking out opportunities to improve consistently over a long period of time. That's probably the easiest way I would think.
And then identifying, okay, if it's not copywriting, whatever the skill set is, how can I attach that to a service?
It's not that hard to find problems, I think, to make $10,000. If you're selling to a business, it's just how do I make or save you money? How does my skill set do that? I just find that to be very straightforward. I just think that people don't understand, this sounds callous, how little $10,000 is and how if someone just works really hard, they 100% can save me that money. Like they could hustle for $10,000. It's very straightforward.
How do I get myself within those circles to sell to those types of people?
Cold emailing. I'm telling you, that's like... I've cold emailed hundreds of people at my conferences. I've had hundreds of speakers, billionaires, famous people, everyone. And by the way, when it comes to cold emailing, it's not just one email. It's 27. So I had this guy named Tim Westergren. He was the founder of Pandora. He came and spoke at one of my events. And I am not exaggerating, I emailed him 52 times. And on the 52nd one, he was like, 'Yeah, sure.' And I was like, 'Why didn't you email me back on the other times?' And he was like, 'I just didn't see them.' My phrase that I tell people, I go, 'Follow up or die.'
Did you perceive the 51 emails as rejection?
No. I just thought he hadn't seen it yet or I hadn't convinced... No. No. What do you... No. No. No.
Because I think the way that you operate, it sounds like the way that you operate is like you're very okay with rejection.
Yeah. I looked like Napoleon Dynamite when I was 18 and I wanted to meet girls. It was like impossible. Okay. I got used to it.
And so yeah, if you're okay with rejection and you're willing to hustle, then the cold outbound approach attached to a service might be the easiest way to make this money.
Do you own a website?
Do you sell something online?
I do service based, but no.
What percentage of your website visitors do whatever you want them to do, like buy your service?
Like if your website kicks ass, it's like 2%.
I've always known that. So then just, you know, if you need six sales, then I'm going to talk to 300 people. Like it's just a numbers game. Like, are you Mormon?
Do you know any friends that are Mormon?
I do have friends that are Mormon.
Okay. You know what their job is for two years on a mission? They knock on doors and convince someone to change their entire life and convert to their religion. I got a bunch of Mormon friends and I've had a bunch of Mormon buddies work for me and they're like, 'Oh, I just have to sell this software and it's got a two or three percent conversion rate. I knocked on 10,000 doors and I got one guy to come to one of our religious events. This is easy.' It's just a numbers game.
Yeah, that's so funny. Yeah, because at the end of the day everything is just sales.
Okay, this episode is brought to you by me. I have no sponsors for this podcast. This is entirely self-funded and all I ask is that you please support the channel by hitting that subscribe button. I put over a hundred hours and thousands of dollars into every single episode because I'm committed to making the best thing possible so that it's worth your time. My hope is that this is worth every second of energy that you give to it. And all I ask of you is that you hit the like and you hit the subscribe. Thank you. Now, let's get back to the episode. I want to make $100,000. I've accomplished the task of making $10,000. I've sold a service. And so the issue here is now I'm struggling with scaling and the idea of how do I make this my actual life? What would you recommend if my goal is to make $100,000 a year consistently?
$100,000 isn't scaling. And the reason I purposely say that, not to disrespect $100,000, but because you could still just blunt force your way to $100,000. You can be a sledgehammer. You don't need to be like a precision knife. You can chop down a tree with a sledgehammer if you swing enough times and hard enough. You can do that for $100,000. Even the wrong tree. I mean, I guess what I mean is like don't start thinking too hard. The difference between $10,000 and $100,000 is you just do the same thing a handful of more times. So I wouldn't say that getting to 100 grand, don't think. I think that typically when you're building a business until you get to like honestly two or three million, you put your head down and you don't look up. You don't think, 'What do I do now?' You just do the exact same thing over and over and over again.
What would be a mistake that someone makes in this range? So let's say that they don't have the perception that two to three million is achievable in their eyes.
You're wrong. I would just say you're wrong. I would say there's 350 million people in America. You're wrong. Virtually 100... I would probably say literally every business can get to $10 million in revenue and almost every business can get to $100 million in revenue. The problem is that it may take a long time and you're not willing to wait that long or you might have to change the model and you're a little bit unwilling to. But pretty much every... in fact I will say every single business or service or product can get to $10 million in revenue.
What would be the difference if my goal is, let's say, I'd like to achieve $100,000 in a month?
Yeah, that's when it starts getting interesting. You probably have to learn how to buy ads.
Really?
Do you agree with the approach that you should do everything from a cold audience perspective first no matter what?
No, you have to have distribution. So to get to $100,000 a month, you need some type of distribution. And we're not talking about like content influencer stuff. Although that falls within that category, but you have to have some way of getting customers. That's what I call distribution. So you need some type of audience. You need to know how to buy ads. You need to know how to cold call really well. You need to know how to cold email really well. You need to know how to knock on doors, go to conferences, and meet people and network. But to get to $100,000 a month, you definitely have to start worrying about distribution.
Is it easier to make $100,000 working with a slew of clients or focusing on high ticket?
Well, it depends. Like for example, Palantir, their average contract might be $20 million a year or $50 million. I have a friend who works there. He sold a $50 million a year deal. Now, the thing is in order to get to a product that you could sell for $20 million a year, it took them 10 years or probably a billion or two billion dollars of R&D to actually make it happen. I think that a lot of times selling things for the higher end of what your range is in your target industry is equally as challenging as selling things on the lower end. So it's a very... I mean, I still struggle with this as well, but selling things for more expensive than you feel comfortable with is typically the way to go.
What did it feel like to you when you made your first high ticket sale, let's say like the experience you had when you sold out that event?
Yeah. So I had a conference. The first tickets were $250 because when I started my conference, I think I had $30,000 or $50,000 to my name. I don't remember exactly. And I started this conference and the first tickets were $250 or $300 and then just to mess around I put like a VIP ticket for two grand and I forgot what you get but like you didn't even get anything that special but someone bought it and I was like, how does someone have $2,000 to spend for a conference? Now we send our team to conferences all the time and it's like two, three, four, $5,000 and it's nothing. But I just didn't put myself in the buyer's shoes and understand how much money a company has and how $2,000 is potentially nothing to them. But I remember thinking like who on earth would be insane enough to spend $2,000. I specifically remember I told someone when I was 25, I'm never going to spend more than $10,000 on a car. How foolish. So that was small thinking and I lived in a bubble of people who didn't have a lot of money.
When someone paid that amount of money, how much did you make for that total event?
That summer, I think I made something like 50 grand in profit in six weeks. I had an idea for an event. I hosted the event, sold tickets and sponsorships, and I made something like $50,000. And then I went and rode my motorcycle for six weeks around the country.
Because you're like, I did all the work.
I thought I was a $50,000 millionaire. I might as well have been a millionaire.
That's so cool. Yeah. So what's the difference between something like that and that type of accomplishment? Did that wake you up to say like, 'Oh, I'm addicted to the feeling of making this.' Or...
I was never addicted to making money. I've never truly cared about money. I don't like spending money. I'm pretty frugal, I think. I live below my means. No, I've not been driven by money. I'm driven by... This sounds cheesy, but I would joke like I like using the word 'manifest cowboys.' That was like a phrase I made up where I was like I just love being a guy who has an idea for something and I can turn it into reality really quickly. But I'm not motivated by money at all.
Because of that, you still got to a point though where like, okay, you made $50,000 in a six week period. You felt like you were a millionaire in that season. What unlocked for you to say like, okay, I'm just going to do this from now on. I'm just going to run these events.
The thing that changed early on right after that $50,000 was, I'm going to use this money to hire people. I've always defaulted to the second I could potentially afford something, I'm going to hire people and I'm willing to make significantly less profit. And what I've noticed with hiring is when you hire someone who specifically focuses on one thing and you focus on another thing and then you keep on doing that and eventually you get people who are more talented than you or a specialist at a thing, it tends to just be the highest form of leverage for an entrepreneur is hiring. The profit doesn't come right away but in the long run it's so much better. There's a lot of people on the internet right now, a lot of my friends and I've done this as well, of like one person businesses. It's so much better to hire. I think John Rockefeller, who's one of my heroes, he said something like, 'I would rather have 1% of 100 people than 100% of my own effort.' I completely agree with that.
What's the first person you should hire?
Well, the thing you suck at. In most cases, startup founders are the sales and marketing people, and they probably should keep doing that. Once your company gets to like five or $10 million in revenue, I think like a CEO's job is probably make sure you don't run out of money, recruit amazing people, and pay attention to sales and marketing. And so I've always hired like nerds, like operating types of people, people who are organized, people who just keep the trains running on time. Those are incredibly important. And I'm not good at it. So I've always hired like straightedge kind of nerds who just pay attention to the details.
At this level, does it make sense to hire like the concept of a virtual assistant?
I think there's something magical about being in real life with a coworker. So yeah, you can get a pretty amazing... We have virtual overseas people at my companies and they're equally talented as any American and I have just as good of a relationship with them but there is something special about being belly to belly with someone. And like coming up with an idea.
So the first hire, it'd probably be like whatever you're doing at $100,000 a month that is driving sales, hire people to do everything else.
So like fulfill the order or something like that.
Typically until you get to like five million in sales, you are the seller and you are the marketer. And I think that's fine.
How many people should aspire to just do the one person scale? It sounds like you're saying it's very, very possible.
To make $100,000 just by yourself and not have anybody else.
Dude, I own a product called Copy That. Copythat.com. It's like a copywriting course. It makes six figures a year. I have not logged into it in eight months. It does that. And by the way, that's awesome. I don't find that fulfilling. You know, I find relationships and people significantly more fulfilling, but it's also a lot easier to be fulfilled on those things when I know that my necessities are taken care of. So I think you should get after it and do what you need to do to make sure you're taken care of. I just don't find it fulfilling in the long run.
What time horizon would you look at and say like, 'Hey, here's a good window of time to try to accomplish these levels of goals.' So like for example, it doesn't come across as callous. It comes across as someone that has accomplished this and so they're looking at this step and they're saying, 'Yep, I've been there. I've accomplished that a bunch of times.'
Just for the record, this step I am still fearful of. I am still excited about. I still feel doubt and uncertainty. I feel the exact same thing that anyone who has never done it before feels. The difference is that I know it's normal to feel that and I keep on pushing. Like a professional runner. It doesn't matter if you're running 2:05 in the marathon or 5 hours and 5 minutes, or you're running 2:05 and you're on track to win the gold medal. It hurts probably equally the same. Just the professional is used to that pain and knows how to handle it. You know what I mean? I feel the exact same way. So I still have all these nerves.
I look at... it's going to be random, but I love the Hot Ones guy because...
Because at the end of the day Sean is like...
No matter what he has to eat those wings every single time. Sucks.
And it probably sucks every time. It's not like he likes wings. It's like you're not going to go to the bar and enjoy wings, but every single time he's like, 'I want to do this interview. They're going to be miserable. I have to be miserable with them in that same process.'
Have you ever done a cold plunge?
I used to cold plunge like every day. I loved it.
It was the same time I said, 'This sucks. Why am I doing this? I hate this.' Have you like ran a race? Like...
It's the same thing. What am I doing? Why am I doing this? Yeah. This is horrible. I hate this. You know, you feel the same thing all the time. You just know that's normal. I need to get past it.
What's like something you'd recommend to get over that fear and trepidation other than just the confidence that other people have done it before you?
Without a doubt, surround yourself with other people who are either doing the same or have already done it. There's no question. The best way to do it... Do you have a brother?
No. I have three sisters.
Okay. So the best... Have you ever known siblings like a brother who they egg each other on?
That's like the best. Yeah. That's the best. You have to have that. You know, like I was reading about this study that was done in the 1970s and they studied like 20,000 people over the course of a decade and they found out basically if you were raised around obese people, you became obese. If you were raised around unhappy people, you were more likely to be unhappy. If you were raised around people who were ambitious and more successful, surprise, you were going to be like that. And MrBeast also, he told this story when he was like 14 years old. He was like, 'Me and these three other guys, we wanted to get good at YouTube so bad. So we would talk for hours every single day and share all these tests that we were doing on how to get big on YouTube. It took eight years, but we all got big on YouTube.' They said that Malcolm Gladwell, he has this like 10,000 hour rule. Well, it was me and my other two buddies. We must have had the $30,000 rule because we were sharing all of our stuff and learned from each other. And the best way without a doubt is to copy that and to find other people who are in there. And at Hampton, we have the three C's: confidentiality, commitment, and candor. So you just have a pact where it's like we are going to push each other forward no matter what. And having a group of buddies like that without a doubt is the best thing to do.
What's more valuable, having peers at that level or having mentors?
You don't need a mentor. You could read a book.
You need a peer. You need people at the same level as you that are as intense as you. Yeah. I mean a mentor is cool. Like I've had a couple of them but like mentor, that's kind of silly to me. It's like I don't go to a guy and be like, 'Will you mentor me? Like I'll be at your house from 9:00 and then we'll talk until 10:00 and then I'll take notes and then I'll make sure like your bath is ready.' Like you know what I mean? That's like weird to me. Like just read a book, learn from dead people.
Yeah. I love that. And so how do I know if the path I've taken to do this is actually not scalable? I was talking to someone and they...
Well, I talked to someone and Grant Cardone and Alex Hormozi actually said like some cars are only meant to go a million miles.
That's true. But if you tinker enough everything can be scalable. Like what isn't scalable? An agency? Because I know agencies that have tens of thousands of employees and they make billions of dollars a year in revenue. That seems scalable to me. Like I don't know what isn't scalable. Now I think that like an individual's time...
That's true. But that's why you hire people.
I think that like some... For example, I lived in San Francisco for 10 years and I've never raised venture capital but all my friends did and they were building rocket ships. And the thing about VC is it's fuel. It's rocket fuel for a rocket ship. I was building a cool ass car, a car that was fast, that was cool, that I loved. That was my media company. And it grew 75% a year and it did its job. It made me wealthy and I had a lot of fun doing it. A lot of my friends who created rocket ships, of the 30 that did, about two of them, if it worked, it was amazing. The rest they crashed and that did its job. And so there's some businesses that they are meant to be rockets. Now they can still crash and burn and they are likely to. And there are some that are just going to be a little bit slower, but if you give it enough time and focus for long enough, it will 100% be successful. But I think everything to a degree is scalable. I just think that's a bull crap excuse.
Do you think that people think too little if they perceive $100,000 as a lot of money?
No. I understand how that feels. I was 21 and broke. I mean, no. I think you should... Let's put it this way. Everything that I say, I joke, it comes back to like meeting women because that was so important to my life when I was like 16 to like 20. I was like the nerdiest guy ever and I was desperate to meet a girlfriend. You don't put them on a pedestal. You respect them and you show love and respect to other human beings but you are not greater than me. You know, that's how I feel about like $100,000 of money. It's like you'll be mine and also I respect you. That makes sense. We are equals.
I love that.
Yeah. I think that... Well, because I think the something I perceive in a lot of people is you say something like that and to be honest, I think the people that get it get it, but I think the majority of people online are looking for some silver bullet or some answer because they perceive that first step.
Dude, I had this kid who worked for me, this intern, and he was asking me all these questions about starting a business. And then a few years later, he started a business and it crushed it and...
He's making like $3 million a year right now and he's probably paying himself a million dollars. I go, 'Ryan, what? How'd you change?' He goes, 'You told me what to do.' I was like, 'What?' He goes, 'Yeah, I was telling you about my business. I know it was hard and you gave me the best advice.' And I was like, 'What advice?' 'Well, you don't remember. You told me to quit being such a [__].' And I was like, 'What?' He goes, 'Yeah, I was complaining. You told me to stop being such a [__] and like get after it.' And like, 'Stop complaining and just do it.' And I was like, 'That's hilarious. I don't remember that, but I'm so thankful.'
Accurate. Yeah. And this one guy, he calls me every—he's a peer, but he's a couple steps ahead of me. And he's in the Jeremy Haynes circle. And he calls me once every month, once every like 30, 40 days. And basically, he just calls me and just says like, 'Hey, Grant, I just want to remind you you're a little [__].' Like every single month, just like, 'The reason you're not doing that is because you're a little [__]. The reason you're not doing this...' And I was like, 'Hey, well, you're accurate.'
And just for the record, I suffer from all this as well. Like, it's easy to give advice. It's always like, you know, it's hard to give yourself advice. So I say that to him because that's how he was acting. And also, I act like that all the time. And I'm thankful I have people who call me out as well. But I think the biggest thing to identify within this that is extremely accurate is if you're surrounded by people that think $10,000 is a lot or think that $100,000 is a lot, then you will think that. Versus if you surround yourself with people that are saying, 'My goal is to make a million plus,' then these types of accomplishments don't seem as insurmountable.
I think you have to regular or normalize success.
I used to run track and field and there was this kid from Kenya that was on my team in college and he was this amazing runner. And I remember asking him about like, how are you so fast? He was a sub-four miler and he was like, 'We are all fast.' And I was like, 'Well, cuz, are you like genetically better? Like what's the deal?' He's like, 'No, like all the countries around us are probably just as good as well, but we were just raised where they just said like, you are going to run and you're going to be the best. You were born to run.' And I just have that attitude. And I was like, 'Well, but surely you're like physically superior. Like I mean, like the greatest athletes have something above everyone else. Like how are you so special?' He was like, 'Dude, I'm telling you, all of my friends, like growing up, like we were told that we were going to be great at this and we were told that this was like our life's purpose was to be amazing runners so we can get into college.' And like it was just like I was just told that like this is what was expected of me. And I loved that attitude, like this idea of like I'm just going to be great. And I remember like surrounding myself with a bunch of other young guys in San Francisco when we were 21, 22, 23. And it was like it sounds like weird when you're trying to do this stuff. When you're trying to do something scary, you do have like guys around you like egging each other like, 'You can do this, you got this, you're the best.' And this like self-talk and all this stuff like it really matters. I do think that like telling someone in your community, your tribe like, 'You got this, you're the best. You're born to do this.' Like it does help and you do like manifest this stuff.
I have a question on that. I've noticed that a lot of people have a lot of friends, but the difference between like a friend and a great friend is I think a friend wants to see you win and a great friend wants to see you win more than them. And I'm curious like how do you go about finding the great friends that actually want to be your partners in that peer process?
The best time that I've had like the best peers I've had for this is when we're explicit and you say we are opting into this relationship. So a lot of friendships are accidental. Like you just start hanging out and then like I have friendships where I say I'm like, 'Hey, I just want you to know like I have a circle of like four or five best friends. You're in that circle. I want to live life together and do life together and my expectations of you are this and that and what you can expect of me is this and that.' Like I know it sounds weird. I have these like explicit conversations with my buddies and I do that with like my peer group as well. I literally say like my goal in five and 10 years is to do this. Help me get there. Tell me your goals. Okay, cool. I am like going to get you there and like we're going to help each other. Like I actually think you have to have those conversations.
Like weddings always have that—that's kind of like I've always thought about weddings. Like that's like an interesting thing to me. And I remember at my wedding, I got married here in New York and all these people flew in. I'm like, all these people have like opted in to coming to my wedding and I have just pronounced in front of all of them that I'm going to be with my wife until we die. Like they have invested in me. Like they are here for this. I remember like I was like, this is like magic. Like this is like a huge thing and like I distinctly remember I was like, I'm going to do that with my other friends. I'm going to let them know I'm investing in you and be explicit about it because I actually think that going through that like...
I've always been like envious of like religions and cultures that have this like this thing where the boy becomes a man or a girl becomes a woman. I love a rite of passage. I love those. I love those things where it's no longer like, oh, you just happen to do it. It's like, no, you are officially a woman. You are officially a man. I love that. And so you have to be explicit in my opinion with a lot of these relationships.
This is a bigger thought and has nothing to do with business. Is that going to shape how you approach parenting?
I mean I tell my kid all the time. I go, 'Raise your hand if you're tough.' And she's raising her hand. I go, 'Raise your hand if you're smart.' Yeah. Like I love like positive affirmation.
Positive affirmation in terms of like just you're declaring what is about her.
The attributes that... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not accomplishments but like effort, things like that.
Yeah. Because you're trying to affirm like to be a Parr means you are this person.
You will work hard. You will have high integrity. You will be respectful. Today she learned the word respect. Last week we taught the word education. I go, 'Oh, you're going to read. You're getting educated.' Yeah. I love those things.
I think if you can teach your 2-year-old that, I think the average person can learn some of these principles.
That's awesome. All right, let's move to level three. This is a million dollars. And I think a lot of people struggle with the concept of thinking that they're worth a million dollars. I want to ask you, how many people have you interviewed that have made $1 million?
Probably every guest. You know, we probably have had 300 guests or 200, probably all. Hampton, the average revenue is like something like 20 million in revenue. So, I would presume that most are. How many have I met? I mean, I don't know, tens of thousands.
What would you say if there was one trait that was a combining trait between all those 10,000 people? What's one trait of someone that has made this amount of money in revenue?
And revenue. Mhm. Overcoming fear. Yeah. Because like I was going to say like it could be boldness, but like I know a lot of not bold people who have great big companies. It could be patience. No, I know a lot of people who are incredibly impatient and have done really well. But probably just the ability to overcome fear and take that first step.
What's the biggest weakness you see from people that get stuck here?
Inability to hire and inability to make systems.
Do you have like an example of a story of someone that had something of great potential but wasn't able to scale because of that?
Yeah, dude. So many. Like I mean I've got a friend that's one of the most talented friends I know at probably creating businesses and he is so impatient and so things will get to a million or two million in revenue and they very 100% could get to 10 or 100 million in revenue. 100%. I've seen him do it like four different times where he like built a business to like 800, 900, a million or two or three million and then he gets bored after three years and then bails and starts over from scratch. That's like a very consistent habit of losers in my opinion. People who start something and then quit even if it's working and they don't have the patience to keep on going. So I would say that.
Do you think that what you sell really matters if $1 million is the goal?
Nope. I don't. Let me give you an example. My mother-in-law, about five or six years ago. My mother-in-law, she's amazing. She's a Haitian immigrant. She raised my wife and her sister and was a stay-at-home mom. And at the age of like 54 or 55, one day she took me—my wife and I had been together for five or six years. She goes, 'Hey, Sam, I want to drive you to the airport for your flight instead of you taking a cab,' cuz I was visiting her. I go, 'Okay, Smithy, that sounds strange. It's a two-hour drive, but okay.' And she was like, 'Uh, look, I'm thinking about starting a business.' And I was like, 'You? Okay, cool.' And in my head, I was like, 'This is just like every other conversation I've ever had if someone wanted to talk about this, but you know, I love her, so I'm going to take her seriously.' And she's like, 'I want to start selling pillows.' I was like, 'Like Casper pillows?' And she was like, 'No, like throw pillows.' I was like, 'I don't know what that is. Tell me what that is.' She's like, 'A decorative pillow.' I said, 'Okay.' She was like, 'I know how to sew. I love sewing. I think I can do this.' And I was like, 'Okay, that sounds good. Maybe it can work. I have no idea, but here's like this thing called Shopify. There's this thing called Etsy.' And I'm not an e-commerce guy, but like I can tell you what these things are and I can tell you a little bit about copywriting, but honestly, just Google it. Two weeks later, she sends me her website. And I was like, 'This person just like copied your idea.' She's like, 'No, no, no. That's my website. I flew to North Carolina. I bought all the fabrics. I took all the photos of my sample pillows and I made this. You told me to do this. What now?' I was like, 'Are you kidding me?' And that first year of business, she did, I think, something like two or 300,000 in revenue. This year, about four years later, she broke a million in revenue.
And here's her business. She sells pillows, throw pillows, virtually 100% of them on Etsy. And so if you Google like pink throw pillow, you're going to see Smithy Home Couture and it has five out of five stars. And she's sold like 20,000 pillows. All the stats are online. It shows you. And first of all, never in a million years would I have thought throw pillows was going to work.
Is she good at marketing?
No. I mean yeah, I don't know, like go just whoever's watching, Google Smithy Home Couture. I don't know. I mean she's fine. She doesn't have an Instagram following. It's not like she's famous. She just stays on top of her stuff and customers email and she is respectful and she provides a great service and she's done it for five years. Now she's got four or five employees in New Jersey sewing pillows all day and she only works two or three days a week. I go, 'Smithy, how much are you spending on ads?' And she says, 'Oh, like $100 a month.' I was like, 'Are you insane? Spend more. You're making this point.' And she's like, 'Well, but I want to be home with my grandkids on Wednesdays and Fridays.' And I said, 'All right, that sounds good to me.' But my point is that like you could do it any way you want. Like there's so many different ways to do it. This is why business is awesome.
You just got to take the first steps. And in most cases, you have to be pretty patient. What would you say to someone that's extremely impatient? They say they want to start something this year and make a million dollars this year.
That's possible. Get after it. It's definitely possible. My—like I mean I don't know if—well, yeah. With Hampton, I don't remember the revenue in year one. It was seven figures in year—I mean we did seven figures in six months. I had a little bit of an audience. So I have a huge unfair advantage and I had a reputation. But my first real company, The Hustle, I think we did 350,000 in revenue in year one. Year two we did 2.2. Year three we did five. Year four, seven. Year five we did 12. And then the year we sold we were going to do 18 or 20. That was the progression. Knowing what I know now, I could get to 5 million in revenue in year one probably with that same business.
Is knowledge the main gap? Overcoming fear the main gap? Like what do you think is the main gap of that?
Just to get to a million? Yeah, it's fear. Yeah, you can just Google how to do all this stuff. It's pretty straightforward. No courses.
Yeah, courses are great. Course, dude, I don't know why people [__] on courses. I've taken so many courses that have changed my life.
Yes, courses are awesome. I always get value from courses.
What's a course that you'd highly recommend?
Copywriting course. My friend Neville Medhora, he became my best friend. He was the best man at my wedding. It's because I took his course and I loved it so much. I cold emailed him and we became buddies. It changed my life. It was a course on copywriting. But there's been so many courses. My friend Noah Kagan had a course called Make Your First $1,000. I took his course and I created a product called Itch Juice. It was a poison ivy treatment and it made $2,000 a month for like three or four months before I shut it down. I love courses. Courses have changed my life.
Do you think that with the accessibility via YouTube, the biggest objection is just that people are lazy?
What do you mean by unfocused?
You just got to commit to something, man. Like there's too many decisions that you can possibly make of all these different routes. It doesn't really matter when you're just getting started. They're all going to lead to the same path and they're all going to suck more likely than not. You just got to get started and you're going to figure it out as you go. I say ABC. You know, you think about the vision of Z on where you want to go in 10 or 20 years and that keeps you motivated, but you worry about going to A and then going to B. You don't worry about C, D. You don't worry about any of that crap in the middle. It's totally not important. Just get A and then B and then you can dream about Z.
From the people that have talked about their first million that they've made, what's the biggest complaint, the most common complaint that you've heard?
Oh, that it's not going to solve like your emotional issues. They'll say like they've been dreaming of it and then they get there and they're like, 'Oh, okay. That was not as exciting as I thought it was going to be.'
So, like in the sense that like they might—if they're a broken person, they're still a broken person with a million dollars.
Yeah. Yeah, I definitely think you'll be happier though, like after a certain point it's diminishing returns. Diminishing returns are still returns. So like I definitely think it could still help, but I mean there's still a lot of sad rich people out there.
What's probably the biggest misconception about a million dollars? I think that a lot of people don't understand what a million dollars net means versus a million dollars revenue.
Well, you can make a million dollars in revenue and make no—I mean I've got so many friends that have businesses that like—I've got one buddy that was doing 18 million a year in revenue and I loaned him money because he only had $25,000 to his name. Like your revenue can be huge. Like particularly if you have an e-commerce business, you know, the faster you're growing, the more inventory you have to buy for the next season. So your cash flow is horrible when your revenue is great. So yeah, you could have a million in revenue and you're screwed.
What are the businesses that you would say like if you were starting from scratch right now, you'd be like, 'Yeah, I would want that million dollar in revenue business.'
Something that you're willing to do for like 20 years. I mean, that just seems like the general thesis of the people who I admire most is they have a company that they love so much they don't want to sell or they don't want to retire from. The cool thing about business, I think, is that there's not many opportunities where you can decide where you live, who you work with, how you treat people, the culture that you create, the way you spend your time. And capitalism, like it or not, is probably the most practical way to help shape reality. It doesn't matter if you're creating a $100,000 a year company or a hundred million a year company. The dent that you can kick in the world, it doesn't matter if it's tiny or huge. You could do that with building a company or building a business. And I find that very just awesome. And it doesn't matter if it's huge or small. And I'm just very obsessed with people who are intentional about living life the way they want to. They could be like Elon Musk, who I don't want Elon's life and I don't love how he lives his life, but I love that he picked the path and he relentlessly pursues it.
I've got this friend named Isaac French. My friend—I met him because he—do you know who Isaac French is? Isaac French is one of my favorite people on earth. Isaac French is interesting. So he might be insulted by this, but he's sort of like a Mennonite. So he's part of this religion that I'm an outsider, so I don't know how to effectively describe it, but if you don't know what you're talking about, they would look like they're Mennonites. I met Isaac because one time I found this Airbnb or this bed and breakfast for this website in Waco, Texas, cuz I used to live in Austin, Texas. And it was this beautiful property with a lake with six cabins on it. And I went to click the about us page and I saw this young kid who was only 23 with his wife. And he said, 'I am an artist, an accountant, and an entrepreneur' in that order. And I was like, that's the craziest thing I've ever read. Like that's just a ridiculous thing to say. Who is this guy? And I called him right there. I go, 'Hey, dude. What's your story?' And we became really close. I've gone to—I'm not a religious person. I've gone to mass at his Easter thing on his property. They live in like almost like a little bit of a commune.
No, it's called Homestead Heritage. And they believe that you get closer to God by doing crafts and by doing skills. So like anything that—
Yeah. So for example, they have like a 500-acre thing where they got 60 families living there and they have a restaurant and they make their own ketchup with these tomatoes that they've grown right there. But like I'm about that.
And they have artisan cheese. And then when he looks at—like he was like, 'Okay, I want to build this bed and breakfast and I want it to be perfect. Well, how do I make it perfect? Well, I have to create an Instagram handle and the videos.' I'm like this—like imagine like someone who looks like almost like a Mennonite guy like mastering Instagram. And the point being is that he's incredibly intentional. When my daughter was born, he sent me a sketch that he sketched—this beautiful sketch of her like from a photo that we had sent her and that was his gift to me. Like so my point being is that business is cool because you can see some of these obsessive or incredibly intentional personalities come out and that's what I love. It doesn't matter if it's a million dollar business or if it's a hundred million or a billion dollar business. You know what I mean?
The key is to be someone that's obsessive or find what you're obsessive about.
Yeah. I love that so much because I mean let's frame that from the perspective of like if we think from the—like you said, like you previously said, think through point A, B, C before you think to Z.
Yeah. I don't think about the middle.
