Five +$10M Ideas (from a guy who's done it 3 times)
Big opportunities, unconventional ideas, and the power of yes. - January 10, 2025 (about 1 year ago) • 01:11:54
Transcript
| Start Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
Sheel Mohnot | Alright | |
Shaan Puri | We have **Sheila** here today, who is, by my count, the **most interesting man in tech**. That is a big claim, and I'm aware of the power of my words—but I did not stutter.
Sheila, I think I've told you this before, but I think, of all people, you live in this beautiful blend: you do things that make you successful, and then you do a lot of things that just seem like a lot of fun. They're random, and you're letting life kind of bounce you in whatever direction it's going to take you. It's kind of inspiring.
And Sam, I know it's inspiring for you because Sam is a *perfect square*—he just likes to be a perfect square, and he doesn't know what to do with this crazy blob shape like you. Sam, is that right? | |
Sam Parr | "Yeah, I mean, he's inspiring to me — he just does the silliest stuff. But let's say, Shiel, here's — I'll brag on your behalf.
Basically, you have a $320,000,000 VC fund. You've built a business called **Thistle** to $100,000,000 in revenue. You've built another business that sold domains; I think you've sold half a billion dollars in domains (**$500,000,000**). You've done all this amazing stuff.
But then you do the silliest things: you did an online version of **The Bachelor**, you were in a **Justin Bieber** music video... you do ridiculous stuff." | |
Shaan Puri | **Sponsored by Taco Bell in the metaverse.** You had a wedding in the metaverse with **Taco Bell** somehow. I don't know — I don't even know what that is. | |
Sam Parr | I didn't know about that that's awesome what was that | |
Sheel Mohnot | Oh, it's a long story. But yeah — **Taco Bell** sponsored my wedding.
We had a series. I figured if you're going to have a wedding, it's a great excuse to bring your friends together. It's an excuse for all your friends to come together; as many times as you do it, they're all going to come. So we had six weddings and nine wedding-related events over the course of a year, one of which was sponsored by **Taco Bell** because we entered a contest and my amazing wife let me do this. | |
Sam Parr | yeah makes sense | |
Sheel Mohnot | I I | |
Shaan Puri | don't even know what to make of all this | |
Sam Parr | makes sense | |
Shaan Puri | **What up, YouTube — Sean here.**
You guys know that I started a newsletter company and sold it. Sam has done it too. Sam built *The Hustle*, grew it to 1,000,000 subscribers, and sold it to HubSpot. I built a company called *The Milk Road* as a crypto newsletter and sold it for $1,000,000 one year later. We both had success with this newsletter business model.
The team at HubSpot got together and did a research project called **"The Future of Newsletters."** They're trying to put together research around where they see opportunities for the newsletter industry: some checklists, things you should pay attention to when it comes to newsletters, and a bunch of other data and research they've packaged together. If you want to check out what the HubSpot team has put together, go to the link below this video and download it. It's free, and you can learn something about newsletters.
I went back and listened because you were on the podcast way back when I first started it. You were a friend of mine in San Francisco, and I wanted to have interesting people on the podcast. Back in 2019, you were probably in the first 20 episodes. I actually went back and listened this morning because I forgot all of it. I don't remember any of it, so I'm going to repeat a couple of the stories.
I actually want to start — you brought some ideas and opportunities you see, things like that. I want to get to those, but I want to start with maybe the relatable side hustle. Can you talk about one of the early ways you made money, which was this story about the iPad mini? I don't even know if you remember the full story here, but can you tell this iPad mini hustle story? | |
Sheel Mohnot | Yeah, I was a new college graduate. I was working a job and they gave me an **iPad Mini**. The iPad had come out; the Mini was smaller and it was available in four colors: **blue**, **yellow**, **pink**, and **green**.
Right after I got it, my headphones got caught in the bike I was riding and broke. Apple wasn't selling those iconic headphones that I wanted, so I had the idea: "let me make these headphones," and I'll make them in colors matching the **iPad Mini**.
So I went to **China** for the first time in my life. | |
Sam Parr | just to like figure this out and I I like you went for this reason | |
Sheel Mohnot | I went for this reason. Yeah — I was working a full-time job. I took a two-week vacation and I was like, "Let me spend those two weeks in China."
</FormattedResponse> | |
Shaan Puri | I like where in china china's a big place you were just like I'm just gonna go I'll find a guy what what was the plan | |
Sheel Mohnot | Okay, so I went to Hong Kong. Originally, I looked up trade shows and there was this big consumer electronics trade show, so I thought, *I'm just going to go to this trade show and then I'll figure it out.* I hadn't booked anything else, so I went to the trade show.
There were thousands of booths. I just went around having no idea about anything. I visited booths that made headphones. Their English was very poor and my Chinese is negligible, so a lot of it was them pulling out a calculator and me trying to explain what I wanted.
I had some sketch drawings of what I was looking for. They would enter a number into a calculator and say, "That's, you know, $5," and I would say, "No, no, no." | |
Shaan Puri | that's like | |
Sheel Mohnot | $0.83. Then I actually went and visited their factories in southern China — Guangzhou and Shenzhen. It was awesome. It was a really cool way for me to get into business. | |
Sam Parr | How much time passed between your headphones breaking and you thinking, "Oh, I should sell headphones," while you were in China? | |
Sheel Mohnot | I think it was like a couple months | |
Shaan Puri | So, you have a job. You decide to go—you're like, "I'm just gonna kinda fund this off my savings." Or did you place a big initial order? How did you do it?
</FormattedResponse> | |
Sheel Mohnot | The initial—or it was cheap. It was, you know, **10,000 headphones**, and I think, yeah, I mean, for me at the time it was a lot of money. It was my first job. But I think it was a total outlay of **$20,000**. | |
Shaan Puri | "Gotcha. And so do you — you make these headphones, which, by the way, seems like an **insane oversight** by Apple to not sell the headphones." | |
Sheel Mohnot | it made it difficult | |
Shaan Puri | They were *iconic* at the time, and you have to market these. How are you going to sell, like, 1,000 or 10,000 pairs of headphones? | |
Sheel Mohnot | So there wasn't a playbook to follow back then. I started out by going after blogs. There were a lot of blogs where I said, "I'll give you a giveaway for your readers." That was one technique.
Another technique that was pretty awesome: Facebook had just come out. [Facebook was limited to college campuses at that time.] The way they monetized Facebook then was you could set up a "flyer." For example, I went to Carnegie Mellon and could pay $10 a day to have the sidebar at Carnegie Mellon. It was basically for advertising events—if I was throwing a party, I could advertise on Facebook.
What I did was go back to my high school friends who went to the biggest colleges—University of Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State—colleges with about 30–40,000 students. I asked for their Facebook ID; they gave me their Facebook login. I paid them something and was able to market to those audiences for still $10 a day. We wanted the biggest audience we could for that $10 a day, so in Michigan we used the colors of Michigan—blue and yellow. It was a cool little business. | |
Shaan Puri | "Dude, that's— that's amazing. That Facebook used to let you do that, just to market to your whole campus for **$10 a day**. *Insane.*" | |
Sam Parr | how much did it end up making | |
Sheel Mohnot | Yeah. So, how much money did it make? I want to say the net was probably around **$80,000**.
</FormattedResponse> | |
Sam Parr | "Do you plan anything? One part of this episode is that you're pretty **spontaneous**. But — you have, you know, a **$300,000,000** fund and a **$100,000,000-a-year** company. Who knows what that's worth, but it's at least probably **$100,000,000** — pretty epic success. Yet you also do really random, **spur-of-the-moment** decision-making." | |
Sheel Mohnot | Yeah, I just... I think I've always chosen the more adventurous path, I would say. I think I get something from my grandfather—my mom's dad. He was always bored and always coming up with new ideas.
At the time it was different: he would read about something in the newspaper and think, "I should start something." For example, in India, when TVs were coming out, there was only one TV station growing up and then it expanded. He thought TVs were going to be big, so he started a TV manufacturing company knowing nothing about it. He just said, "I'll learn how to make TVs," and set up a manufacturing company.
It was hard to get a phone in India, so he created a pay-phone company that allowed people to use pay phones. He would read something in the newspaper and—when I was a kid—actually mail me clippings and ask, "Should we start this company together?" I was like 15 years old and he was giving me ideas. He had some good ones.
He passed away many years ago, but one idea I remember is that he looked up *Ancestry.com*—great business—and said, "In India, people love their ancestry; why don't we start one for India?" That was an idea he had for me. Good idea. | |
Shaan Puri | wow did anybody do that by the way is there now an ancestry | |
Sheel Mohnot | I actually don't know | |
Shaan Puri | it's a good question still up for grabs | |
Sheel Mohnot | still probably a good idea for my my grandfather who now passed away many years ago | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, that's wild. Sam, on the first episode he did, talked about the domain business. It's kind of a longer story, so we probably won't do it again. But the short version is: you weren't selling—well, you were not selling; you were the auctioneer for people who wanted to buy new *top-level domains*, like .photo, .app, .blog, whatever.
Amazon, Google, and rich guys would come and try to bid, and you guys were the auctioneer for that. You'd take **4%** of the auction. You sold, like, I don't know, $500 million worth of top-level domains.
One of the things he talks about is this story: "My cofounder was this expert in auction theory, and I met him on a train in India." He just had these little lines he would throw out, like, "I happened to be on a train in India, met this guy, ended up starting a company with him." | |
Sam Parr | was he an american in india or an indian | |
Sheel Mohnot | he's german in india | |
Sam Parr | that's ridiculous what year was that | |
Sheel Mohnot | I met him in 2006 | |
Shaan Puri | When **Darmesh** came on the podcast—Darmesh, the founder of **HubSpot**—we talked about the Steve Jobs speech he gave at Stanford. That's pretty famous; a lot of people know it. | |
Sheel Mohnot | it now | |
Shaan Puri | He talks about the idea that "you can't connect the dots ... looking forward; you can only connect the dots looking backwards." The famous example he uses is how he loved studying calligraphy and fonts. He got really into that, took courses on it, and only later—when he started Apple—did he make sure the first Apple computers had beautiful fonts. No other computer company cared about that, but he did. He connected those two dots: his passion for X and his passion for Y, and they came together.
Dharmesh pointed out that a lot of people look at that and just shrug, saying, "Well, I guess I just can't connect the dots," so they don't even try. He's like, no—what that means is your job is to be a *dot collector*. Yeah, the dots will connect later, but you have to be a dot collector.
So when I say that, I guess—what are some examples for you of dot-collecting in your life where, at the time, you didn't really fully realize it, but you chose a more adventurous path or followed your curiosity, and then good things later ended up happening? | |
Sheel Mohnot | I think there's a lot of that, and I love the idea of *being a debt collector*. I also think there's a lot of just saying yes to stuff.
So, I'll say yes to a lot of crazy ideas that people throw at me. When it comes to **investing**, of course you have to be discerning—especially when I'm investing other people's capital. For the fund, I think we're very discerning. But for ideas for myself, I tend to be more open.
People invite me to speak at conferences in random countries. I've been to Latvia, Saudi Arabia, and all these countries that people don't usually go to—just because somebody invited me. I think I've learned a lot by doing those things.
One of the crazier things I did is I lived in India on $1 a day. | |
Shaan Puri | it's like a mr beast video yeah | |
Sheel Mohnot | It's funny. I did it for a year. I moved to *India* when I was 24 years old, and I lived for one year on around *$1 a day*... and what does... | |
Sam Parr | Do they do that in India? Is that like a surprise? Is that like a McDonald's value meal? I don't know... or... | |
Sheel Mohnot | Or yeah, maybe a McDonald's value meal per day. I think what I learned from that — it was supremely influential in my life. I learned one thing: I don't need a lot of money to be happy. I was so happy in that time.
I went from being a management consultant in the United States, making a six-figure salary, to moving to India on $1 a day. I had a convertible here in India; I had a bicycle, and even the bicycle was a big deal for me to buy. I just had so much fun.
There's this concept in India called *jugaad* [a Hindi word]. There's no perfect translation, but it kind of means *creative problem solving*. I really learned a lot of creative problem solving during that year — just reusing things. I learned the importance of community and resourcefulness. | |
Sam Parr | But you spent **$365** in one year — that was it? Yeah. Does that include rent? And what type of program is this? | |
Sheel Mohnot | It would... the program no longer exists. It was called *Indicore*, and it was like a volunteer program. Part of it was... I wanted— I was working for **Kiva**, a nonprofit microfinance institution, and I wanted to live like my borrowers. The people we were lending money to were living on a dollar a day, so I was like, "I'm gonna do it too." | |
Shaan Puri | So, did you just have a *midlife crisis* when you're 25? Like, why did you do this in the first place? What was the "why"? | |
Sheel Mohnot | Yeah — the why is kind of silly in hindsight. Actually, I watched a Hindi movie called *Rang De Basanti*, where they say, "India isn't just going to change; you have to change it."
I was thinking: I grew up in America, but I have a lot of affinities with India. I wanted to change India, so I had this lofty ambition. In the end, I don't think I did anything for India. I did a lot for myself, but I don't think I accomplished anything for India. | |
Shaan Puri | that's amazing | |
Sheel Mohnot | I I | |
Sam Parr | I was trying to convince Sean, like, three weeks ago, I think. We were live. I said, "Don't spend any money for a week," or something — way less significant than what you did. I got a **hard no**. A **hard no**. | |
Shaan Puri | I didn't watch that movie dude I I wasn't inspired | |
Sheel Mohnot | In hindsight, it was stupid. I got super sick — I got *typhoid*. Well, besides that, overall it was an amazing experience.
Actually, I have so many of my close friends today from that time. | |
Shaan Puri | There's another good **Dot Collector** story, I think, for you. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you were one of the first investors in **Flexport** — is that right?</FormattedResponse> | |
Sam Parr | yeah | |
Shaan Puri | And no — it wasn't just a *traditional VC move* where somebody cold-pitches you and then you write this check because you're like, "Yeah, I totally see the future of freight forwarding."
No, it wasn't that. There was something else: you did something — you just said yes to something before that. I don't know the full story, but I know that it wasn't just a cold pitch that walked into your office. | |
Sam Parr | And, by the way—just so we have context—what's **Flexport** valued at *ish* now? And what was it when you invested? Like, how big of a deal is this?
</FormattedResponse> | |
Sheel Mohnot | Yeah, so I actually don't know the most recent, but it's in the *several billion dollars*. When I invested, it was a **$10 million** valuation. Oh, wow. | |
Shaan Puri | something like 10,000,000 to 3,000,000,000 let's call it | |
Sheel Mohnot | Yeah, I sold some of my shares. The ones I sold were more than a **100x return**. | |
Sam Parr | wow okay alright go ahead sorry | |
Sheel Mohnot | **Okay, so Flexport** is a digital freight‑forwarding company — one way to think about it. If you have a bunch of stuff in China and need to get it here, there are a bunch of steps required in between, and they'll help you do those steps. | |
Shaan Puri | You wanted your **iPhone**, your **iPad mini**, and headphones to get here. They have to get onto a container, onto a boat, from the boat to the port, from the port to the truck, and from the truck to your warehouse. How does all that happen? | |
Sheel Mohnot | Customs, all those other stuff—exactly. It just made sense to me that this needed to be digital. It's a real pain in the ass if you don't use **Flexport** or something like it.
I met Ryan at a party, and we bonded over some really funny things. He—I think he's a really *hacky* guy—he just figures stuff out. He started the company by himself, non-technical, with an outsourced team originally, and then eventually he built up a lot of stuff internally. But we were buying **Uber** credits in our name, so | |
Sam Parr | I did that | |
Sheel Mohnot | you did that too | |
Sam Parr | was it what your guy did to you | |
Sheel Mohnot | No, no, no. We were, like... I was advertising Google AdWords for my referral code, and at times... | |
Sam Parr | at that time buy free rides from this guy in india oh | |
Sheel Mohnot | who was probably doing what we're doing | |
Sam Parr | Yeah... I would buy $1,000 of Uber credit for $100, or something like that. | |
Sheel Mohnot | Okay, so we were effectively doing the same thing — just advertising our names. We kind of *bonded* over that and became friends.
He had done some previous businesses in the import‑export space. So I was like, "Dude, whatever you start, I'm going to be investing in it." And it obviously turned out great. | |
Sam Parr | That's amazing. Isn't it crazy, by the way, how—so, you know, I don't know what Ryan's worth—but if you have a **multibillion-dollar** company, you're in the vicinity of **hundreds of millions** or even **billions of dollars** of net worth. So it's like you're a big shot, and just eight years prior you were selling Uber credit. And that's a pretty common story, I think. | |
Sheel Mohnot | For sure, for sure. **Silicon Valley** — it's like so many people that you meet. I guess I've lived in **San Francisco** for 12 years now, and this is a common story: there's a bunch of people I met early on who were just hustling and then eventually started something that became big. | |
Sam Parr | that's so funny sean what | |
Sheel Mohnot | Were you looking, actually? Like, you talked about the *surface area* or, like, all the *dot collecting*. I think part of it is being in **San Francisco**. I moved here in 2012, and there are just a lot of interesting things happening. If you were out meeting people, you met people doing interesting things. | |
Sam Parr | The way you're saying you live is different from what you probably advise the companies you invest in. It's just like **saying yes** to a variety of things.
Which, if I wanted to paint this in a bad way, I'd say: "Well, you're **ADD** and you can't focus, and you're missing out on years 8, 9, 10 and year 20, where a lot of the compounding growth comes from."
How do you balance those two things — being **focused** (which is what every VC [venture capitalist] will tell a founder) versus **saying yes** to speaking in Latvia or going to China to start a new company? Totally. | |
Sheel Mohnot | It's such a good question. I think the way I think about it is I'm probably more of your **0 to 1** guy than I am your **1 to 100** guy.
I've started a lot of things and then mostly found other people to actually run them over time. Some of the things I started exited and were successful.
But if you want to have huge success—multi‑billion‑dollar companies, which is what we're hopefully investing in—you need to be really focused. So I would not invest in most of the companies that I would start. If I were running a **VC** fund, these companies aren't VC‑type opportunities. | |
Shaan Puri | What's the story of **Thistle**? I remember we went out to dinner once, many years ago, and you were like, you started—*you helped start*—some local food delivery business. I don't know what your role was, but you helped start it.
At the time, there were just a bunch of them going out of business—**Sprig** was going out of business—and it looked like a bloodbath. You were like, "No, we're kind of approaching it not the venture-funded way."
I started ordering from it. I started eating it all the time. | |
Sam Parr | I love thistle | |
Shaan Puri | And Sam just said, "it's now a $100,000,000-a-year business." Can you tell what the origin of this business is? | |
Sheel Mohnot | Yeah. So the origin is myself and my roommate in San Francisco. At the time, we felt like we were making unhealthy choices—eating the fastest thing possible to get back to work. The idea was, "What if there was healthy food in your fridge already?" That would be the healthiest and most convenient thing you could eat.
At the time, as you said, there were companies like **Sprig**, **Munchery**, and **SpoonRocket** that were the most popular ones in the Bay Area. You could order and, for like $10 or $15, food would show up at your door in 20 minutes or even 10 minutes. We were like, *should we invest in these companies? Should we start one of these companies?*
I ended up driving for Sprig—I was like, "Let me sign up to be a driver." | |
Shaan Puri | there he goes again | |
Sam Parr | That is so funny. It—yeah.
For those two people who don't know, *Sprig* was started by our friend Gagan, and it was one of the innovators before DoorDash... or, I think, before DoorDash. | |
Shaan Puri | as like due diligence | |
Sheel Mohnot | Yeah, I signed up to be a driver and to do diligence. I was like, okay — there are a bunch of problems with this model. I don't know if this is going to be a massive business. The problems are:
1. They're wasting a ton of food. You cannot predict how much food you need on any given day. They said they had this **AI** model — "we're going to predict if there's a Giants game" or other events — but it's actually kind of impossible to predict. So they're wasting about a third of their food.
2. Drivers are all driving at the same time — it's lunchtime or dinnertime; that's when it's all happening.
3. Routes aren't optimized. You're driving to one place, then you go somewhere else across the city.
We asked, "Can we solve this?" So we set out to solve it. The idea was a **subscription service**: you have to order by Friday your meals for the week. Some people said, "It doesn't work for me — I might not know what I'm doing tonight for dinner; someone might invite me." But a lot of people are more structured in life, and for those people we can give them a meal plan. It's kind of like what a private chef might provide, but at an affordable price. | |
Sheel Mohnot | And it's been great. The business is awesome — **thistle.co**. If you're on the East Coast or West Coast, you can check it out. | |
Sam Parr | is it bootstrapped or do you guys raise fund raise funding | |
Sheel Mohnot | "We did ultimately raise funding, and we've raised a few rounds of funding, but *not that much money* over time." | |
Sam Parr | but it's gonna be it's a good outcome for you personally | |
Sheel Mohnot | Yeah, it should be... You know, look: **food businesses are tough—low-multiple businesses.** So I don't know what it's going to be. I haven't assigned any value to that equity, but *hopefully* it's going to turn. | |
Shaan Puri | Is this thing off? Still just in San Francisco? I remember at one [point] you had said it was doing **$20,000,000** a year in just San Francisco. Did it branch out to, like, 200 other cities now, or what? | |
Sheel Mohnot | So, yeah, it's all along the West Coast and the Northeast as well. | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, I see it out where I live. I live right outside of **New York**, and I... do I see billboards? | |
Sheel Mohnot | You might see billboards. You see a lot of bags. One kind of fun thing is that a lot of celebrities use them, and you'll see videos of celebrities on the internet carrying the *Thistle bag*, which is kinda cool — like this mega-famous person is carrying something that I helped create. | |
Sam Parr | "You know, you sent us a list of, like, four, five, six ideas. Interestingly, Sean, a few of them are in your *wheelhouse*—involving schools. A few of them are in a thing or two that I know about.
I think it'd be interesting, since you see so many ideas with the fund and you've been well connected in *Silicon Valley* for, I don't know, twenty years now, if you could list out some of the interesting opportunities that you're kind of seeing." | |
Sheel Mohnot | I have some that are like maybe *venture-scale* ideas, and then a lot—most of my ideas—are not venture-scale. But I could talk about a few of them.
One is: I just got back from Florida. My parents moved to Florida; they moved to an Indian retirement community called *Shanti Niketan*. It's not that well executed, but the idea is: Indians—they like it. This guy created a huge plot where he put up about 100 homes. There's a community center where they have Indian food, movie nights, stuff like that. It's really fun for Indian people, for Indian retirees.
Do you have to? | |
Sam Parr | be indian to go or is it just like | |
Sheel Mohnot | everyone who lives there is indian yeah | |
Sam Parr | but like can I go enjoy or you | |
Sheel Mohnot | You can go check it out anytime, eat the food. So, the idea is good, but it's not that well executed. I've just been thinking: there are a lot of retirement communities out there and most of them are aligned to a single *affinity*, which is golf. Most retirement communities are built around golf, which is great for people who love golf—but there are so many other affinities that should have their own retirement communities.
People are living longer than they used to. They're still retiring at 65, but not only are they living longer, they're living longer, healthier lives. My parents are still relatively healthy; I expect them to live another 20 to 30 years. You can build communities where people pursue whatever their affinity is.
So I think there's an opportunity here: build a roadmap for one affinity and then replicate, or "stamp," it for other affinities over time. | |
Sam Parr | sean don't you know someone in the in the in this in | |
Sheel Mohnot | the yeah yeah | |
Shaan Puri | So I've looked at this because I found it fascinating, for the same reasons that Sheila was saying.
Well, first: they're good businesses, right? Because you're basically taking *raw land* and then you just do the math. You're like, "Okay, cool—we're going to sell, let's call it, 50 plots or 75 plots or 100 plots," and the numbers get pretty big pretty fast when you're buying these at a raw state and you're able to sell them.
But also, one of the things that some of them are doing is they blend together the different health spans [levels of care]. For example, you can start there when you're just retired, then you need some assistance and there's an assisted area, and then you need a lot of assistance and you're at the full-service model. You don't have to move very far; your community is still there. You're still in the same community—you don't have to do some big cross-country move. As your body goes down that gradient, you just move to a different level of service in the community.
That's super profitable when you do that, and the LTV [lifetime value] of the customers—imagine: you're 20–30 years in one of these communities. It's really high.
I know it because my parents kind of had the same reaction that Sheila's parents had, which is: "Yeah, I mean, that'd be great. I don't play golf, but if there was a place that had the food we like, with people that we get along with that speak the language, you know, that we have the same cultural values..." I was like, "Well, that's going to exist for every race, but also not just race—what are other things that people bond over or that are the central pillar of their life, and how do you build communities around that?"
That seems, it seems very lucrative to me. | |
Sheel Mohnot | Totally. For the one my parents did, there was a waiting list. So my parents prepaid — they put **100%** of the money down and didn't get the home for five years. | |
Sam Parr | And on these things that you—when I think of an "old home," I think of, like, a hospital-looking center. But these are like a plot of land where you buy a house. | |
Sheel Mohnot | yeah they bought a townhouse got it | |
Sam Parr | and you pay like a monthly fee | |
Sheel Mohnot | Yeah, you pay a **monthly fee**. You get **food**, which, you know, for *Indian* people especially, I think is a really big deal.
They also have a bunch of **community events**. They play cards; there's a community center. They show Indian movies and have concerts.
I talked about our weddings—my parents. One of the events they had was a showcase of all of our wedding videos, and we called in and did a Q&A. | |
Shaan Puri | That's hilarious. Yeah, because I feel like—this is like the *country club model*, but it's just for... what else is there besides a bougie country club? What are the other ways that people could get together in a clubhouse and have, you know, something that would add a lot to their lives? Because it's pretty lonely.
Exactly. If you're older, you're living somewhere and you don't know other people. The effort it would take to make new friends or drive to places just for certain events—versus having it almost resort-style for you—just makes a lot of sense. | |
Sam Parr | And we have a friend who came on the pod, Craig Fuller, who did this with aviation enthusiasts. Basically, he bought a plot of land, developed homes on it, and presold a bunch of them.
The center of the property is—rather than a golf course—an *airplane hangar*. So if you own, say, a **Cessna**, you could keep it there and live there. It's like, "I want to go fly this morning; I'm just going to walk." | |
Sheel Mohnot | out of | |
Shaan Puri | the runway in the middle of the neighborhood basically | |
Sheel Mohnot | That's so cool. Yeah, I think you can do this for a bunch of different affinities. I've talked to my Chinese friends, and their parents play a lot of *mahjong*. There's stuff like that you could just build this around — every affinity over time. So, I think there's something there. | |
Shaan Puri | And I like these businesses that are *high-dollar-value*, meaning you're not going to be able to become a billionaire, but you can make **tens of millions of dollars** doing this.
</FormattedResponse> | |
Sheel Mohnot | definitely | |
Shaan Puri | And there's a **very high likelihood of success**. You don't need—like, someone told you the idea; you don't need a stroke of genius now.
Fifty people could go do this and they would all... you know, it's just a matter of execution at this point. If you just do the *basic things*. | |
Sam Parr | "Like with all these retirees—what do they call it, the *'silver tsunami'*—is there a shortage of space?" | |
Sheel Mohnot | I think so. I think the reason my parents *pre-bought* it was that, in the other Indian communities, they couldn't get in. Prices had increased so much, or there just weren't any available. So they pre-bought into a new one, I think. | |
Shaan Puri | "It has to be a **doctor**. It's actually a **status symbol**. You can't—you can't get into the community, or you're just barred if your kid's not a doctor." | |
Sam Parr | Dude, how much does a nursing home cost, by the way? Should I be budgeting for that? I was—I'm starting to worry about it. I'm more worried now. No, I'm worried about it for my parents. I was, dude, listen to this... so are... [trails off] | |
Shaan Puri | you gonna put your parents in a nursing home | |
Sam Parr | I don't know, but *shame on you*. Like—I, Indians could never do... Sometimes I think they like that, don't they? Like they want it. I don't know. I thought it was enjoyable. I don't fucking know.
So I was with, like, a financial advisor about three years ago, and we were looking twenty years into the future. I asked, "What's that $250,000-a-year spend?" He said, "Oh, you're gonna have kids, right?" I said, "Yeah, but I'm not gonna have triplets." He said, "Well, you're gonna have one kid and I assume they're going to go to a school that's in, like, the 85th percentile of cost. So in 20 years—if you have kids in two years—it's gonna be $250,000 a year."
I said, "Dude, don't make up this bullshit." He said, "I didn't make it up. I just took the trailing 20 years of growth for, like, Harvard or whatever [unclear: '9 90 percentile' cost school is] and I just applied that for the next 20 years, and that's how I came up with it."
I was baffled. I think it was maybe $150,000 a year—six figures. And now that I'm realizing costs for old people’s homes or nursing homes, I'm pretty sure that some of them are $10,021,000 a month today. [amount unclear] | |
Sheel Mohnot | that's right that's how much it costs | |
Sam Parr | Which is insane, I guess. So, like, what am I going to have to pay if my parents eventually want to do this? You know, are we talking, like, $500,000 a year? | |
Shaan Puri | It's not that high, but there's a range. You can do a $3,000-a-month bed, you could do an $8,000-a-month bed, or you could do $15,000 or $20,000 depending on if you want to go basically the *Ritz-Carlton*. | |
Sam Parr | is 20,000 the fanciest | |
Shaan Puri | I don't know... there's no upper end to anything in life, right? You can spend an infinite amount of money if you decide to. But I would say nice places can be around $10–$15,000 a month.
Some of these costs are covered by insurance; some are not. Some are out of pocket. There are a whole bunch of different factors.
I know that in different cultures—like I said, *"shame on you"* (just kinda joking)—in Indian culture it kind of is like that. There's an expectation culturally that either the parents move in with you, or they're going to have their own house and you're going to have in-home care for them. So there are all these different ways that you can care for elders.
It could be that they're in a nursing home or a senior facility. Or it could be that you're paying for somebody to come to their house every day and help them manage day-to-day life at their home, which is obviously going to be a different cost.
My grandparents, for example, have their own house and they basically have round-the-clock care: somebody—like a kind of nurse—lives in their house and helps them with everyday things so they can function in their own home, because that's what was comfortable for them. | |
Sam Parr | that's cool when I | |
Sheel Mohnot | Think—for all those different types of needs, being in the same place with the community makes sense. Your grandparents may not need one person full-time, or they might; other people might want a *fractional* provider. It's much easier if that person lives in the community, or comes to the community, and can serve many people at once. | |
Shaan Puri | And a bunch of people tried this for young 20-somethings after college. It's like an "after-college" community. But this is way better, because people are going to be in these for **thirty-plus years**. | |
Sheel Mohnot | exactly | |
Shaan Puri | And they have money, actually, versus that twenty-something. Yeah, they might spend one or two years after college doing this in a big city, but then they're going to kind of graduate out of it. So you're going to have this crazy churn all the time.
**I like your model better.** Alright — well, what's another opportunity? What's another idea you got? | |
Sam Parr | go to this yelp one | |
Sheel Mohnot | Okay, so the idea is *Yelp for professional services*. I originally had this idea, I think, before Sam put out "Sam's List."
The idea is: why is it so hard to know which insurance brokers are good, which lawyers, which financial planners, which accountants? How do I know who's good and who is going to serve my needs? There should be a site for that, and it's easily monetizable. | |
Sam Parr | So, Sean — 10 or 8 months ago I created this thing called **Sam's List** (samslist.co). It was like "Yelp for accountants." I did it because I needed an accountant, and I found an accountant on the website, so it worked.
It hasn't taken off. This year it did $99,000 in revenue and a little bit of profit. We have someone working on it.
What we're changing is adding a financial advisor category.
I completely agree that having review sites for professional services is necessary. Everyone is begging us for Sam's List. If anyone wants to go do this — go for it.
People have been asking for an agency category, but I don't know anything about agencies or that space. I think that request comes from the fact that a lot of agency owners follow me on Twitter.
</FormattedResponse> | |
Sheel Mohnot | No, but I think if you look on **Twitter**, people are constantly posting: "Hey, I need help with this—can anyone recommend an agency?"
I feel like we have a website designer that I really like, and about every couple of weeks I'm recommending him to somebody.
There should be a place where you could just search and find something like: "I'm looking for an agency; I'm willing to spend X to Y." It should be a site that does everything. Maybe **Sam's List** is that. | |
Sam Parr | it's fucking hard to pull these off by the way it's hard | |
Sheel Mohnot | it's hard none of these things are easy | |
Sam Parr | Here's why they're hard. What we found was we had a lot of *mom-and-pop* accountants on the website. Imagine this: what **Sean** did with **Milk Road** and what I did with **The Hustle**—we'd have advertisers. But the ideal situation is advertisers who are spending tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, or—once The Hustle got to a certain size—sometimes they're spending $1,000,000 a year.
When you're working with a mom-and-pop accountant, though, I'm basically selling packages for like $500, and you're feeling like the mob is knocking on the door, taking my money. The client hasn't paid yet, so I don't have the money yet, but I promise I'll get it to you next week. It becomes a little bit of a *game*.
So if you're going to do it, the ideal situation is that you're doing it for an industry where they're already spending a lot of money—bigger companies who can write bigger checks. Otherwise, you're just going to end up like **Yelp**.
> "Have you guys ever known the joke in San Francisco when we lived there? Yelp is where you go to learn how to do sales because it's such a hard sales job. They would hire anyone with a pulse and be like, 'Alright, here's $40 a year,' and then you get commission. But if you hit your own target earnings, you're gonna make $200 a year — you're gonna be so rich."
> They find out that they're having to go to, like, an ice cream shop [a small business] to get like $900. | |
Shaan Puri | And wasn't it more like threats than sales? It was like:
> "Oh, this review's really hurting you. Don't you just wish that would go away?"
"Yeah, man. I might be able to make that go away." | |
Sheel Mohnot | I never found any evidence of that actually happening, though. People have been like, "Provide me evidence," and I don't think— I don't think there's actual evidence of that happening.
There is with the Better Business Bureau, by the way, but *not with Yelp* from what I can tell. | |
Shaan Puri | what where did that come from I I came from business owners complaining about it | |
Sam Parr | who who | |
Shaan Puri | else would put that story out there | |
Sheel Mohnot | Well, so people have said, like, "Okay, if there's any proof of **Yelp** saying, 'pay me money and you'll get a better review' or 'that review will get knocked out,' send it to me." Then nobody has ever sent it. Fair enough. Fair enough. | |
Shaan Puri | alright what are the what are the other what's this pearly whites one you got my attention | |
Sheel Mohnot | Okay, so this is my wife's idea. There's something called the *"dry bar"* where you can just go get a blow-dry of your hair. It's kind of an *in-and-out* thing — 20 minutes and you get your blow-dry.
My wife feels like she would like to get her teeth cleaned more than the twice a year allowed with a dentist on insurance. So the idea is you go to a place and all they do is clean your teeth. They don't do X-rays or anything else. You're in and out in 20 minutes for around $100–$120, and she would do that every couple of months.
That's the idea. | |
Shaan Puri | so she likes getting her teeth cleaned | |
Sheel Mohnot | She likes getting her teeth cleaned, which I think is weird. I don't, but she does.
I could see people doing it, like: "I'm going to an event—I'm going to get my hair done, I'm going to get my teeth cleaned." | |
Shaan Puri | Well, I like the *unbundling* of the dental checkup. Right? It's asking: *what is the one part that people would want the most, or need most often?* If you separate that out from the normal dental cycle, there might be a market for people who just want that service.
I kind of buy that, but I thought it would be **teeth whitening**, not cleaning. | |
Sheel Mohnot | That's part of it, also. And actually, you probably make more money on the **whitening** side.
But what you could do is standardize and have a really nice-looking space, and dentists would franchise this. They'd be like, "Oh, I'm a dentist; I can open one of these."
You need to have dental hygienists, and in some states you need to have a dentist there, but it doesn't have to be that they're doing the work — they just have to be there. | |
Shaan Puri | Right, dude, I went to my dentist and he had this sign. It stood out because everything in the dentist's office looked like a typical mom-and-pop place, and then there was one sign that was really nice.
That one sign was basically advertising kind of what you're describing. It said *"20-minute teeth whitening for $85"* (or whatever the amount was). I asked, "What is this? Is this yours?" He said, "Oh, actually, yeah — there's this company that made this service that we can sell to our customers. They provide the marketing and the name, and they're trying to popularize it. We just get incremental revenue because we're able to upsell this."
I was like, "Oh, that's smart." It's basically like the Hunt Brothers Pizza model — what they did for gas stations: "Hey, here's a pizza shop inside your gas station." Somebody's doing this for dental offices, putting in this teeth-whitening upsell program. I was like, it kind of works; I get it. It works because otherwise, you know, the dentist offers, like, 1,500 services. If you really wanted to, you could go and ask them about it. | |
Sam Parr | what's it called | |
Shaan Puri | I don't remember the name of this one, but I don't think it was... I don't know how popular this is. I remember just thinking, *"Oh, this makes sense."* I could see why it's a win for the dentist, it's a win for this company, and I could see why consumers would be.
When you're just sitting there trapped in the chair—literally strapped in—the first thing you see in front of you. You stare at that thing for 15 minutes. You're looking at this before-and-after photo and you're like, "Yeah, cool. Add that on—I’ll take that." | |
Sheel Mohnot | I'll take | |
Shaan Puri | the whites | |
Sheel Mohnot | Speaking of Hunt Brothers, another idea — one of my best friends is doing this and I invested. It's called *Pizza Rita Luna*.
The idea is: when people go to hotels, they most often order pizza. In mid-range hotels, people order pizza constantly; Domino's is coming in. So the idea was, what if we gave hotels the ability to sell a high-quality pizza?
Originally it was, "we'll give you the oven and the pizza that's hand-tossed, made in Italy, actually shipped over from Italy — tastes amazing." A lot of hotels use *Pizzeria Luna*, and then we have the table tents and all that other stuff. | |
Shaan Puri | "Dude, this is a *great* idea. It's just *Hunt Brothers* but for hotels and Italian. Is it working?" | |
Sheel Mohnot | It's working. It's been *pretty successful*. It's still fairly early, but it's doing really well. | |
Shaan Puri | And what's the hard part about this? With the **Hunt Brothers** example, I think they started out doing wholesale ingredients, so they already had a lot of infrastructure in place. They were selling dough and other supplies to pizza shops all around the area.
That's why they were able to take the *next logical step*: create their own brand and then provide those same ingredients to gas station owners. Is this really hard to spin up, or was this actually pretty doable? | |
Sheel Mohnot | I mean, it's *complicated*. My friend is on a plane to Italy all the time. He wanted to make sure it was **super high quality**—something the hotels felt really proud to offer. | |
Sam Parr | "Wait, but why? I don't think I could tell if this pizza's from **Italy**. That's it. Would my taste buds know the difference between **Kentucky** and **Italy**?" | |
Shaan Puri | you're like yeah this is not cheap pizza | |
Sheel Mohnot | it's not cheap pizza | |
Sam Parr | Like Italy... Is that— you know how Florida has Hollywood, Florida? It's a small town. Can we call it that? Is there an Italy, Kentucky? Italy, Wisconsin?
</FormattedResponse> | |
Sheel Mohnot | No — it turns out the ingredients just taste better. They know how to do it there.
So, what you're probably thinking is, "Isn't it expensive to bring it over here?" It's actually not. It's kind of worth it. They have the experience and know-how. It's actually made near *Naples*, which is where pizza comes from. | |
Shaan Puri | Dude, my dad — I remember when we were kids he saw this pizza place and the sign just said **"Hand Tossed Pizza."** There was a guy in the window tossing, and my dad wouldn't shut up about the hand-tossed pizza for a year. These things just work. I don't know why — there's something to it. | |
Sam Parr | if it says world's greatest cup of coffee I buy it every single time | |
Sheel Mohnot | oh totally that shit always works on me | |
Shaan Puri | do you guys know the the grey goose story | |
Sheel Mohnot | no with the taller bottles | |
Shaan Puri | The taller bottles, but also... the guy who started **Grey Goose** started it, by the way, when he was in his seventies. He was about 70 years old and decided to start a startup. | |
Sam Parr | was he successful | |
Shaan Puri | so he before that he had created jagermeister not created but he had brought jagermeister to the us and made it popular so like the jagermeister story was he's out 1 night alright he was like part of the family alcohol business his wife's his wife's parents' business and then they get in a fight they kick him out and he's like alright fuck this I gotta do something and he's out one night he sees people he sees a german like group of friends sipping this like weird cough syrup looking thing and it was jagermeister it was like a after dinner type of thing and he's like what is that he inquires about it he figures it out and he decides I'm gonna become the us importer of this thing called jagermeister but to make it popular what he did was he created the jager bomb and got like jaegarettes the girls who would go around bars pouring the stuff down college kids' throats and he made it the party drink so jager becomes this like big drink he's successful now he's in his seventies and he's like alright I'm gonna start a new one I wanna start a vodka company and he basically says I'm gonna do 2 things differently first he goes we need to source the vodka and I go great we're on our next flight out to moscow and he goes no no no we're not doing russian vodka they go what do you mean we're all like that's where vodka comes from he goes go to france and find me vodka they go there's no vodka in france he goes go to france to find me vodka because if I told you this is french vodka it just makes that dirty russian vodka look like crap and so they're like but what if it's not better he goes I said it's french vodka that means it's better and so he sends one group there and he tells the other group he goes go go to the bar right now and buy the most expensive vodka that there is bring all the bottles here and they bring all the bottles and he's basically like he lines them all up and he goes cool whatever the what's the most expensive vodka it was like absolute at the time he's like cool we're gonna be 30% more expensive than whatever the most expensive one is and what that's their bottle okay it's this fat bottle we're gonna be a tall bottle and then he got he commissioned somebody to make it and they did the frosted glass and he's like that's it that looks expensive as hell and he created grey goose off of this very simple concept it was like either italian or french vodka put in this expensive tall frosted glass bottle it's so tall it wouldn't even fit on the shelves so you had to put it on the top shelf because if you put it on the middle shelf it wouldn't fit it was too tall so it had to become top shelf like vodka by by d by default because it was so tall isn't that amazing hilarious | |
Sam Parr | that that's so funny | |
Sheel Mohnot | It's interesting because it's basically like a commodity — it's all pretty much the same. It's hard for people to distinguish.
"I have a friend who started a vodka brand, and the bottle cost more than the vodka." Yeah, exactly. It was like an *premium* brand. | |
Sam Parr | Dude, it seems like... a **horrible business to be in**. It seems *really* challenging. | |
Sheel Mohnot | **Alcohol**, in particular, is tough because of the *regulatory environment*. It's different state by state what you can sell, and you have to get licensed and all this stuff. It is challenging. | |
Sam Parr | nice do you wanna do another one | |
Shaan Puri | yeah what else yeah what else are you excited about shield that you think somebody could go do | |
Sheel Mohnot | I think something I want in my life is **a school for AI tools**. Maybe you could franchise it.
For me, right now I would pay a few hundred dollars to go to a class—half a day—just to become a better iPhone photographer: show me how to edit photos and how to make fun, funny things on the internet—memes or whatever. The same thing for video.
I think the same is true for many other products that you can use AI or software for. So it's like a *software school, in person*. | |
Shaan Puri | "Could more of that, just for you? Like, just—other two, other tools that are useful in your life?"
"Exactly. Yeah. It's for adults, or..." | |
Sam Parr | for kids | |
Sheel Mohnot | it could be for adults I think start for start with adults and then also kids | |
Sam Parr | Sean — he was telling me before this — he was like, "You know, I'm trying to hire this person to teach me how to do video editing and use AI."
I was like, two things. One: Sean actually hired an AI tutor, which is pretty amazing. And two: you went on this big rant a month ago. It's probably the greatest in terms of *ikigai* — what the world wants, what Sean's good at, what he's passionate about, and what the world's willing to pay for — like him creating another Full Sail University. It's quite aligned. | |
Shaan Puri | Oh yeah, I had this idea. Well, first I did—**an AI tutor**—mostly because I've realized that **coaches are just an absolute life hack**. Once you get some money, it's like a luxury that doesn't actually cost that much but adds a lot of value to your life.
So now, anytime I want to do something, my first stop is: who's a coach I can hire that will speed up my learning curve and be a *forcing function*? They're going to show up and force me to actually stick to the hobby and get better faster. | |
Sheel Mohnot | how do you find them | |
Shaan Puri | I just tweeted it out and I was like, "Hey, who could— I'm willing to pay **$500 an hour** for somebody who's going to teach me all the new stuff that's going on in **AI**. Then I want to sit with you for **90 minutes every Wednesday**, and I want you to tell me what's going on, but also teach me—like *hands-on keyboard*, struggling, trying to do the thing—because that way I'll actually learn how to do it."
And it's been kind of amazing, to be honest. | |
Sam Parr | still doing it | |
Shaan Puri | We're still doing it. It kind of shifted a little bit—other friends wanted to join, so I invited a couple more. It's a group thing now, and yeah, it's pretty amazing.
So that's been great on the *AI* side. But just in general, I'm a big—it's almost comical now—how my first answer to everything is to get a **coach**. I'm going to keep doing it until it doesn't work, and it's worked at everything. We hired a... [sentence unfinished] | |
Sam Parr | We hired an organizational coach to come and teach us how to organize a closet. I'm *so* on board. | |
Sheel Mohnot | With that—oh my God—we pay our organizer so much. We don't have a coach; we just have an organizer who comes in, and she is doing so well.
Last time she was here, which was like two weeks ago (and she's here all the time organizing something), she said, "My client from San Francisco is flying me out — I'm gonna go organize their new place in Switzerland." She's really got this thing going.
We're like, "It's an incredible business." I mean, it's not a huge business, but she's got people working under her now. | |
Shaan Puri | is it just like magic like is your house just like incredible now | |
Sheel Mohnot | I think it's fine my wife loves it | |
Sam Parr | so we | |
Sheel Mohnot | do it | |
Sam Parr | I have a friend who just bought a home. They moved in—it's a huge house, like **8,000 square feet**.
They paid a service **$25,000** to be there beforehand to map out where everything would go. It was like starting from scratch: the service was there to map it all out, buy the storage supplies, put the labels on things, and come up with the strategy. It was $25... | |
Sheel Mohnot | that's a lot | |
Sam Parr | it's it's a lot | |
Sheel Mohnot | I think we paid—I don't remember. I don't know how much we paid in total because I don't look at it; if I saw it, it would *drive me crazy*.
But I do remember the kitchen was a couple thousand dollars. | |
Shaan Puri | "Do you have the, like, *Indian frugality gene*? Or are you, like... time—okay, you're not a good spender?" | |
Sheel Mohnot | I'm not a good spender. My lifestyle hasn't changed even though my net worth has increased quite dramatically over the past decade.
I'm always looking for a deal. Anything I buy, I check *Slickdeals* first. I've got the credit-card-points thing down. All this stuff that I probably shouldn't be doing is... *stupid optimization*, but for me it's kind of a game—and I love it. | |
Shaan Puri | Give us a quick credit card tip. What's your **credit card stack**? I don't want to do the research, but I might just piggyback off you. | |
Sheel Mohnot | I use the **US Bank Smartly** card. It's 4% on everything. If you just want a single card, that's the one to go with: *US Bank Smartly*. | |
Shaan Puri | that's what it is | |
Sheel Mohnot | Yeah, yeah. It's **4% on everything**, by the way. I use it on my taxes, so...</FormattedResponse> | |
Sam Parr | wait what | |
Sheel Mohnot | I pay **1.82%** to the government to use my credit card, and then I get **4%** back from **US Bank**. It's just like I'm getting **2%** back on my taxes. | |
Shaan Puri | I could use that for like facebook ad spend I could use it for anything | |
Sheel Mohnot | use a facebook ad spend yeah exactly | |
Shaan Puri | is it like a limit or is it unlimited | |
Sheel Mohnot | Just your credit limit. Wow.
And now, too—it's called *US Bank Smartly*, and you have to have $100,000 with US Bank. But what I did is I just have a brokerage account with a single stock, and that's my $100,000 at US Bank. It's a great deal; they're losing money on me for sure. | |
Sam Parr | Dude, on one hand I'm like, *"This is sick — I gotta do this."* On the other hand, I'm like, *"I just... I don't know, setting it up."*
</FormattedResponse> | |
Shaan Puri | dude 4% is pretty legit I went through a lot of hoops to get 2.6 from bank of america | |
Sheel Mohnot | america yeah | |
Shaan Puri | and so now you're just shitting on that | |
Sheel Mohnot | by the | |
Shaan Puri | way this is this is way better | |
Sheel Mohnot | way better this is way better | |
Sam Parr | also you also tweet all types of stuff like the other day you're like does robinhood give like 4% | |
Sheel Mohnot | Interest — Robinhood. Robinhood has a card that gives **3% cashback on everything**. Right now they have a promo where it's **4% or 5%**; it was 5% if you put $25,000 into a Robinhood brokerage. | |
Sam Parr | "Dude, it's *kinda* interesting, actually. If you're a really big company—or you're spending a lot—couldn't the difference between 0% and 4% have a meaningful impact on your margin?" | |
Sheel Mohnot | "Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, if you're buying Facebook ads, it could be really massive for you. But for me, even just by taxes, getting **2% back** on my taxes is, you know, many thousands of dollars. Pretty sweet. That's crazy—it's like **free money**." | |
Sam Parr | I know a guy — well, I could say it; actually, his name's **David Hauser**. He did a podcast, so it's public. He sold his company, **Grasshopper**, for $125 million.
He's, you know, famously frugal — a friend of mine. He convinced American Express to let him pay his tax bill on the sale. On a $100 million sale, he estimated that tax would be about $36–$40 million.
He said, "I now have basically unlimited flying for the next 30 years. I ball out on flying and I don't have to pay for a thing." He paid his, you know, roughly $40 million tax bill on AmEx. | |
Sheel Mohnot | "The one thing—speaking of miles—is that I don't want to accumulate a lot of miles. I already have more miles than I need. People are like, 'Oh, well you're getting 4%,' but I'm actually getting 5% because I get miles, and miles are worth **2.3¢ ($0.023)** to me.
Then I look into it and they're like, 'How is it worth that much to you?' And you're like, 'You're flying at some random time of day on a business-class flight,' but it's not the flight I want to take. **Just give me cash back and I'll buy my own shit.**" | |
Shaan Puri | Right. Also — don't miles inflate at some *insane* inflation rate? Yeah, you don't actually use all your miles, so even... | |
Sheel Mohnot | yeah exactly | |
Shaan Puri | In theory, every [point] is worth X. You're never going to use **100%** of your points, so you have to discount that. | |
Sheel Mohnot | exactly so for me cash back is king | |
Sam Parr | Dude, I know a guy in Hampton, by the way, who is a two-person company. He spends $10,000,000 a year on Facebook ads or something. He's like, "I get all these miles."
So I was like, "Hey, book a flight for me and I'll just send you the money." I bought four first-class tickets to Europe and got, probably, a 30% discount because of it. It was *significant savings* for me. | |
Shaan Puri | Do you have any other good financial wins or hacks? You got the **4% cashback card** — is there anything else that is a *needle mover*?
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Sheel Mohnot | Actually, I've started using **Robinhood** for a lot of stuff. Robinhood had this thing where... and they continue to have it where... | |
Sam Parr | you dangerous | |
Sheel Mohnot | I don't think it's dangerous. **Robinhood** is a big company; they're making lots of money. I'm a Robinhood bull.
They had a promotion where you could move your assets over and they would match **1%**. It's pretty amazing: if you have, let's say, $10 million of assets in stocks somewhere, you move it over and you get $100,000 — free money.
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Sam Parr | how long does it have to stay there | |
Sheel Mohnot | I think it's two years, but I've been very happy with the service.
I just did the ACATS transfer from Schwab. [ACATS: Automated Customer Account Transfer Service] Schwab called me—like *"red alert"*—and they said, "We'll give you **$15,000** right now in your account. You don't have to do anything; we're just going to give you **$15,000**—just don't move your money."
I was like, "Yeah, but I'm getting a lot of work from Schwab, from Robinhood," so I moved it, and I've been very happy.
I now use a lot of their other products, and they have a great margin rate—it's about **5%**. It's great. | |
Shaan Puri | Are you, like, a stock picker? What do you do with your personal portfolio? Are you just, like, *boring* index funds? Do you do anything interesting? | |
Sheel Mohnot | I want to not be a stock picker. I want to invest in **boring index funds**, but inevitably I get excited about an idea and I invest in it. It's been very good for me — I've been fortunate to outperform the market pretty significantly. | |
Sam Parr | what was your big best pick | |
Sheel Mohnot | I bought like my biggest position was nvidia in 2017 | |
Shaan Puri | no shit and what was that based on what what was the idea there | |
Sheel Mohnot | It was... I did a lot of research, got excited, and I thought there were two theses. Actually, it was more based on *crypto* than it was *AI*, and I was wrong.
We moved away from GPUs and moved into ASICs for crypto, but it ended up being right anyway. So that's been awesome. | |
Sam Parr | yeah so that was in 2017 the stock was rated it's | |
Sheel Mohnot | about 30:30 something x from that | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, yeah, yeah. It looks like it's a **30x** — it's **$150** today. Back then it was **$5**. **30x** is wild. Did you just keep it in the whole time? | |
Sheel Mohnot | And it was... Yeah, I’ve kept it the whole time. I haven’t actually bought any more or sold any. So yeah, I have, and it was— it was like my *biggest position in 2017*.
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Shaan Puri | "You're basically a *fintech* expert, right? Your fund is fintech, and you've invested in a bunch of fintech things. What's your position on *crypto* — are you, like...?" | |
Sheel Mohnot | yeah so are | |
Sam Parr | you a | |
Shaan Puri | "You're a big Bitcoin bull. Do you believe in all the **altcoins**? What's your position—where do you stand? I haven't heard you talk about it much." | |
Sheel Mohnot | Yeah, I don't talk about that much. Actually, looking at my assets, it's probably **Bitcoin** number one, **Nvidia** number two, and then the house that I live in number three. It's probably really... | |
Shaan Puri | "Yeah, so—tell, say more. Well, what got you into **Bitcoin** or **crypto** at the beginning? And is it just **Bitcoin**, or do you also believe in **ETH**, **Solana**, and other things?" | |
Sheel Mohnot | I only have Bitcoin and ETH. I have some of the others, but not a meaningful amount.
I actually have a tweet where I was — like — anti-Bitcoin. Bitcoin was around $0.60 or something, and I said, "This is never gonna work; here's why governments would never allow it..." Then I finally bought in around $300.
The idea I liked was what people believed. People told me, "It's gonna be a *fast and efficient* way to move money," and that isn't what happened at all. | |
Shaan Puri | right | |
Sheel Mohnot | And so, in some ways **I was right**. It doesn't... it doesn't matter that I was right — I lost a lot of money by not doing it earlier. I think, as a store of value, the more successful it gets, the more successful it's going to get. | |
Shaan Puri | right | |
Sheel Mohnot | And so that's it. More and more people are putting money in, so I've put money in now.
**For me personally** — and for my fund — that makes sense. I want to invest in things that actual people are going to be able to use and that have real impact on the world. I haven't found that many use cases.
We have made a couple of investments in stablecoins. I think there's something there — yeah. | |
Shaan Puri | I was going to ask you a nerdy question. A lot of people are paying attention to **stablecoins** right now, I believe. | |
Sam Parr | what farcoin is | |
Shaan Puri | that that's an unstable coin for sure | |
Sheel Mohnot | farcoin so butthole | |
Shaan Puri | For people who don't know, a **stablecoin** is basically a digital token. It has the benefits of being easily transferred online and being programmable, but it's pegged to the dollar. You put $1 in a bank account and then one digital dollar is created — that's the idea.
In order for the digital dollar to be created, an actual US dollar has to be put in a bank account somewhere. There are companies like **Circle** and others, **Tether**, who are supposedly doing this. I guess it's kind of like — a lot of people believe stablecoins are taking off now. There are some charts; I think the *All-In Podcast* has been talking about this recently.
Didn't the stablecoin business get bought, or a tech business that was bought? | |
Sheel Mohnot | got bought for over a 1,000,000,000 by stripe | |
Shaan Puri | A **$1,000,000,000** by *Stripe* — so is there anything actually going on here, or is this just all a lot of hot air? | |
Sheel Mohnot | I think there's something real here. Transferring money internationally is challenging, and there's something called **SWIFT**, which is how banks do it — it's basically a messaging protocol.
I think **stablecoins** can make things easier. Still, at the end of the day, I think people are overhyping stablecoins because, ultimately, they're an on‑ramp and an off‑ramp to get money, and they aren't that... I had this issue: I had a wedding in India and I needed to pay a lot of vendors in cash. There was a lot of cash, and I was like, "Hey" — I tweeted, "Can somebody help me get a lot of cash in Mexico?"
The reality is there's a reason why it was so difficult, and the reason is money laundering. Actually, even what I was doing was *illegal*, or what my vendors were doing. They wanted cash because they didn't want to pay taxes. So the reason it's hard is because the government doesn't want you to skirt taxes.
I had this convoluted thing — actually, you guys might appreciate this: I convinced my bank, Schwab, to let me withdraw more than the normal daily limit. Normally you can withdraw a certain amount per day. I convinced Schwab to let me do $4,000 per account per day, and I opened six bank accounts at Schwab. I was able to go to an ATM and withdraw $4,000 of cash per account per day, and I was there the week prior. That basically paid for a lot of my wedding. | |
Sam Parr | "Dude, do you know what the *takeaway* from this all is, by the way? It's like—that's the second time you've said something where you went to, like, a major institution and..." | |
Shaan Puri | and negotiated | |
Sam Parr | Yeah. When I hear someone say, "You went to Schwab," I'm like— is Schwab a person that you can go to? I don't understand, you know what I mean.
It's like getting Google AdWords help. If I had a Gmail issue, it's like, "Hey Google, I need you to fix this." I didn't even realize that you could call Schwab or call Bank of America and say, "Yeah, I know you guys don't offer this, but..." You've got to... | |
Sheel Mohnot | Yeah. I think if you explain your situation to them, some agents will help and some won't. One thing I do is I know pretty quickly if I've got a good agent or a bad agent. If I have a bad agent, I **"hang up and call again."** I just tell them my story, explain what I need, and then sometimes somebody will walk me through the process and I get it done.
So I think you can do that all the time. Speaking of negotiation or talking things through, a lot of people should realize **you can negotiate at Macy's**. I did this with my wife: she bought a post-wedding dress at Macy's for one of our weddings. We were there and I wanted to teach her to negotiate — to get a better deal on the dress. It was about a $400 dress, so I asked, "Can you get a better deal?" She did. She got about 20% off just by asking at Macy's and saved roughly $100. | |
Shaan Puri | dude that's can you do that | |
Sam Parr | Yeah. I mean, I'll do things like: "Hey, I don't know if you had a sale recently, but *I think you had a sale recently… can you…*" | |
Sheel Mohnot | see like | |
Sam Parr | I went and got something at *Brooks Brothers* the other day. I know they have a **40% off** sale once a year, and I went about three months after that sale, so I asked if they could match it.
I always prefer to talk to women employees; I have way more success because they're easier to get along with. I do a little fake flirt, and that works much better for me with retailers. I'll just talk to a woman and say, "Hey, how are you doing today? I know this is a little obnoxious, but can I get that sale discount or what?" | |
Sheel Mohnot | yeah my buddy dan and they always they have | |
Sam Parr | like they have a | |
Sheel Mohnot | A bunch of QR codes or barcodes. They just scan the QR code or barcode, and it's, "Oh, here's **20% off**," and all you do is ask. | |
Shaan Puri | My buddy Dan—his mom was the *master at this*. When we were in college, we'd go try to buy stuff for our dorm rooms or our apartment. While we were checking out, she would say, "Give the boys a discount. Give these college boys a discount." Then they'd be like, "What? For what?" | |
Sam Parr | and then she's like give them a discount | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, she would just be like, "Come on, give the boys a discount — they need it." Then she would tell them, "Give the boys a discount."
Sure enough, 20%, 30%, 40% off would just happen like that. I would never even think to do it, but she would just say it like it's a done deal — like, "Oh, it's happening." Not, "Do you think it'd be possible? Is there any way? We would really appreciate it." She was just like, "Oh," and then throw that in, put the discount on top of it — whatever you've got. Like, give, give the boys a discount. | |
Sam Parr | alphas like every clerk | |
Shaan Puri | yeah exactly | |
Sheel Mohnot | I think it's a good—I think it's something like I want my kids to learn. If I have kids in the future (hopefully I will), I want them to learn these sorts of things.
Also, someone posted, "What job do you wish you had?" I wish I had a **sales job** growing up—like the people selling Dead Sea cosmetics or cell phone accessories who just come up to you and say, "Hey, what phone do you have?" and then try to sell you something. I feel like those are really useful things that I wish I had learned. | |
Shaan Puri | "Dead Sea guy at the mall. Oh my God—**an unbelievable skill set**. Just **an incredible skill set**." | |
Sam Parr | is that a scent or a lotion | |
Sheel Mohnot | I think it's like a body scrub. Yeah, got it. And it's gotta be, like, a **98% profit margin**—sort of best. | |
Shaan Puri | yeah did didn't your dad sell like door to door or something | |
Sam Parr | yeah | |
Sheel Mohnot | My dad sold encyclopedias door to door when he first moved here from India. It's actually a great story.
He was very poor in India. To come to the United States, he had studied at IIT [Indian Institute of Technology], a great university, and needed to raise money. He raised funds from the community to pay for his flight over. You had to have $300 to stay in America; on his passport they stamped that he had $300. He came with exactly $300 in his pocket.
He raised a bunch of money and had to pay people back. He had a stipend as a master's student and then as a PhD student, and he decided to work as an encyclopedia salesman. At that time he was traveling door to door in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, selling encyclopedias. He became the best encyclopedia salesman in the country.
"Did he really?" I'm like, "Yeah, he really did," and he... | |
Shaan Puri | him about it like what was the secret what was the pitch | |
Sheel Mohnot | I think it was just working day and night. I think that was the pitch.
Crazy enough, he made enough money to buy an apartment — a one-bedroom condo in India. That's still the condo my uncle lived in, and we still go and stay in the condo my dad bought with his earnings from working as an *encyclopedia salesman*. | |
Sam Parr | dude you actually have a bunch of good tweets about your dad like I feel like I kinda know about him like apparently | |
Shaan Puri | did that video did you see the video recently first of | |
Sam Parr | All he quoted Robert Mugabe, who is a dictator in Africa. At Shiel's wedding, he gave a speech. He was Eddie Cronin and Robert Mugabe — who I think was the dictator of Zimbabwe... he must. | |
Shaan Puri | have been like quote | |
Sheel Mohnot | it was about treating everyone well it was a good | |
Sam Parr | "It was a good quote," but he was clearly on *BrainyQuote*, and he had typed in "quote on love." It sounded like it was by a killer dictator. | |
Sheel Mohnot | "My dad's like, 'Robert Mugabe — *very, very* famous for his quips.'
I'm like, 'I think Robert Mugabe was famous for something else, but okay.'" | |
Sam Parr | And then he's got this other video of his dad on a cruise. He's like, "We lost my dad, but we found him dancing," or something like that — he's dancing with this other couple. | |
Sheel Mohnot | We went on a family cruise a couple weeks ago. It was awesome. I was very skeptical of going on a cruise, but we went with eight family members and it was super fun.
Anyway, we went to a *tasting-menu* restaurant and my dad showed up with a pizza. I filmed him, and the people there were pretty mad at him.
</FormattedResponse> | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, I saw that — *I loved it.* He covered it with a napkin and said, "Oh yeah, no, no problem, no problem." And they're like, "No, sir, we can see it. It's still there." | |
Sam Parr | you treat it like a like a baby you like put something in front of their eyes and it doesn't it just doesn't appear anymore | |
Sheel Mohnot | exactly exactly that's hilarious | |
Sam Parr | dude thank you for doing this | |
Shaan Puri | Well, this was fun—hanging with you as it always is. I recommend, if you want to hear Scheele's story, go back and listen to the episode. I think it's **Episode 18**. I think it's called, like, "the, you know, the guy who made millions on selling wacky domains," because you told your story kind of in order there. It's a **great episode**.
For me to go back and re-listen to my voice—like, anybody knows, listening to your own voice on a recording is painful. So the fact that I went through the hour-long episode this morning means the episode's pretty good. | |
Sam Parr | and they gave you a follow on | |
Sheel Mohnot | made it so big | |
Shaan Puri | yeah you were there you were the cause | |
Sam Parr | And you gotta give Sheel a follow on Twitter. You are a great follow. You just do the... it's the *small things* in life.
You just tweeted out, "Apparently, do you have a couch that's like a square?" | |
Sheel Mohnot | yeah I it's a 9 foot by 9 foot couch | |
Sam Parr | I love this thing | |
Sheel Mohnot | my wife hates it by the way but I love it | |
Sam Parr | You just tweeted out a photo of your couch, and I was just like, "Who on earth would buy this?" And then I'm *somehow* convinced that it's the right decision. | |
Shaan Puri | Dude, I've always been curious. They go to the furniture stores and they have the *pit*. It looks like a pizza because it's like a nine-square thing.
That's right—you have to hop on it like a small child and just crawl around the couch, because your feet aren't going to touch the ground. Did you buy it? | |
Sheel Mohnot | I love it it's it's | |
Sam Parr | so fun | |
Sheel Mohnot | when you have people over here but it's also modular so you can turn it into other things | |
Sam Parr | thanks for doing this man you're the best we appreciate you alright that's the pod |