This Gas Station Pizza Business Makes $540M/Yr?!

Shaan Puri

If you have ever listened to this podcast, or if you like this podcast, or if it's your first time listening, I swear to God, I swear on my life, this podcast is amazing. Today, this episode specifically—I can't guarantee all the rest of them, but today's episode is amazing. Everything that you've ever liked in any piece of content that's around business, life, motivation, inspiration, and people doing cool stuff is in this episode. I swear on my life, you will love this episode. I've never said that before; this is the first time, and it's probably the last time I'll ever do that because I don't want to die. The last 20 minutes are by far the best. Make sure you get those last 20 minutes.

Sam Parr

Alright, we're live. Sean, how are you doing?

Shaan Puri

How am I doing? Did you know it's funny? Some days I wake up and I'm Andrew Huberman's godson. I wake up, I stretch, I get my psoas loose, I get outside, I get some sunlight, I cold plunge, I sauna, I do everything. I meditate, I focus, I pray. I don't even believe in God; I'm just praying to the universe. I do everything, and then some days are like today, where I wake up and I just wage war from my boxers in my bedroom. I don't get out of bed. I open up my laptop and I'm like, "Oh, what's coming in? What's coming into the inbox?" I'm ready. I put on my armor and I just start. I'm launching ad campaigns, I'm fighting off a cease and desist, I'm texting somebody. I'm diligent like a deal, and three hours fly by. I haven't brushed my teeth, I haven't changed my clothes. I'm like, "Well, I'm just sitting in bed." I do a Zoom call and they're like, "Are you in bed?" I'm like, "Brother, I haven't gotten out of bed yet. I just started." I woke up and I was playing the game. If I'm honest with you, if I'm totally honest with you, I've never felt more alive than when I'm in that second mode. I'm sorry, Huberman, forgive me, but I just feel more alive when I do it the wrong way.

Sam Parr

It usually starts with something bad that you see, like a fire. Like, "Why the hell are we spending this much money on this?" Or, yeah.

Shaan Puri

What's exactly going to happen? Do you see? Wage war. It's because something triggers me. I'm like, "Exactly, why are the numbers lower than they should be?" F this! I'm going to single-handedly change this dashboard right now. Or, you know, somebody texts me saying, "Did you see this?" or we get an email that says, "Hey, you're screwed." I'm like, "Not only am I not screwed, I'm thriving! Hold on, just give me 90 minutes on this and I will turn this around." I don't know, it just gets something in me. Something comes out of me that's just more valuable than all of the good, healthy stuff.

Sam Parr

Years ago, we talked about a company on here called Jambies. I felt it was the stupidest idea that I've ever heard. I think it was underwear that you could wear as shorts.

Shaan Puri

Bro, I'm not gonna flash the audience, but just so you know, I'm *potting* in *jammies* right now.

Sam Parr

And that's what I was going to ask. Were you wearing Jambies? I thought it was the dumbest idea, and you're like, "Oh, I own a bunch of Jambies. I bought..."

Shaan Puri

I have like 30 pairs of Jambies. I even cut a deal with him for the Milk Road to advertise, but I was like, "Pay me in Jambies credits." He gave us $2,000 of Jambies credits to run an ad, and I was like, "Dude, I'm eating off this $2,000 store credit right now." I've never been more thrilled.

Sam Parr

Speaking of eating, I see on the top of our document that you have something called "The Insane Pizza Business." Yes, what's that?

Shaan Puri

Alright, you're going to know about this. I didn't know about this. So, our buddy Val tweeted this out. He goes, "The biggest pizza chain in the country is one I've never heard of: Hunt Brothers Pizza."

Sam Parr

Yeah.

Shaan Puri

And here's the hook: these guys went in and basically found a new way to do the pizza business. They've spread to 9,000 stores, and I'm pretty sure (this is my guesswork) but I'm pretty sure they're doing over $500,000,000 a year in revenue. And they're growing very, very fast. So, what Hunt Brothers is... if you're like me and you're a dainty little flower that only lives in, you know, metropolitan areas...

Sam Parr

Lives places.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. We cut our nails over here, okay? You know, so I've never run into a Hunt Brothers, but apparently...

Sam Parr

If you've never worn jorts before, there's a direct correlation between how often you've worn jorts and how often you've eaten Hunt's pizza.

Shaan Puri

That Venn diagram is a circle. Yes, alright. So basically, what these guys do is they created a pizza restaurant that is only about 50 or 100 square feet. The way it works is they put them into, a lot of times, convenience stores, gas stations, places like that. The owner of the gas station now has a little pizza shop inside, so he can pop in a pizza. It takes 5 minutes, and it comes out kind of like, you know, broiling hot. They can sell them by the slice, or as they call them, by the hunk. They sell a hunk of pizza, which is a quarter, you know, one fourth of a pizza. They sell it for about $2.89, or you can get 2 hunks for $5.49. Or you can get 2 hunks for free if you go to our YouTube channel and subscribe. Nice segue! Thank you very much.

Sam Parr

Good job.

Shaan Puri

I really just do this to amuse myself.

Sam Parr

Too hard for the price of a... I dig it.

Shaan Puri

Alright, so what these guys are doing is basically this: you buy the equipment for $10. So, you give them $10, and they give you the equipment. But then, after that, there's no contract, no licensing fee, and no royalty fee. So, it's very different from a traditional franchise. All you have to do is buy the ingredients from them. The way it works is you purchase the ingredients from them. They have, like, I don't know, distribution centers across the country. They have around 16 regional distribution centers and about 100 trucks that are delivering pizzas daily from each center. This model is really thriving in the South, especially in rural areas. It's similar to how dollar stores, like Dollar General or Dollar Tree, have thrived over the last decade. One of the reasons for this is that there are a lot of places that are kind of stranded—people don't build enough retail there. So, Dollar General becomes the spot; it becomes the store you can use.

Sam Parr

It's like where you go and get a gallon of milk.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. What these guys are doing is like, there are Hunt Brothers inside the gas station. There might not be another restaurant for like 10 miles, or there might be just very few options. So, the Hunt Brothers becomes like, you know, the de facto restaurant choice.

Sam Parr

Have you ever been to a town that's been like that?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, my buddy, my best friend in college, Trevor, he was from a place called Lander, Wyoming. I was like, "I've never heard of Lander." And he's like, "We got 5 traffic lights total." Yeah, there's one street that has stoplights, and there are 5 of them, and that's it. We went there, and it's the only time in my life I've ever been like, "Yeah, let's just drunk drive. It's fine. There's no cars here." We literally got drunk and we drove, and there wasn't a single car on the road because there's nobody in this town. There's like nobody; there's no human alive. He would leave his car key in the car, in the ignition. He would just go to a store and then come back out, and the key is already in the ignition.

Sam Parr

Dude, a lot of times they'll leave their car on. Like, when I go and visit my cousins in these areas, they'll leave the car on.

Shaan Puri

He bought his car used and one day, at a gas station, this giant Native American guy came up to him and said, "Brother, is this your car?" He replied, "Yeah, it is." The Native American man said, "Hold on," and went back to his car. He returned with a key and said, "I used to have that car."

Sam Parr

Here's the

Shaan Puri

Here's an extra key that I've had for that car for a while. It's a crazy place. So, anyway, those places like that where Hunt Brothers does really, really well—I thought this was a pretty genius model. What they did was change the footprint. In the same way that 5-Hour Energy said, "Let's not sell an energy drink in the fridge where we're competing against Red Bull and Monster," they created a small shot size, you know, a non-refrigerated SKU that we could put right up at the front by the register. They changed the footprint, and because of that, they were able to compete in a category. They became a category of one: "We're the only energy drink that's a shot size at the register." What Hunt Brothers is doing is saying, "We're going to create a new category. Forget Domino's, forget Pizza Hut. We're going to be the pizza that's in the gas stations." It's ironic. When I was researching this, I thought, "Oh, this must be gross." But dude, people love this pizza! They're like, "Honestly, it tastes better than the pizza I get at Domino's." The amount of love that this brand has is almost like one of those things—it's so bad, it's good.

Sam Parr

Yeah, it's like White Castle. It's just distinct. So if you want it, that's the thing that's going to solve that problem. But, right, it doesn't feel good.

Shaan Puri

And just here's the math on this. A normal Hunt Brothers location might drive $10,000 a month in revenue. Okay, now remember they have no royalties, no licensing fees, and they don't charge you a marketing surcharge. All they do is charge you for the ingredients. It's about a 50% gross margin. So that means on $10,000 per location, they're doing $5,000 a month per location in ingredients. $5,000 a month times 9,000 locations that they have is $45,000,000 a month. Holy shit! Over $500,000,000 a year. And they're like, "Dude, this is great! It's working." They're like, "Now we're going into military bases and basically anywhere where you couldn't justify a full restaurant build-out. We can survive. We're like the cockroach of the industry. We can survive in places other people can't." So, you know, a Domino's might make $700,000 a year in revenue, and Hunt Brothers won't do that. They'll do $120,000, $150,000, or $200,000. They do less revenue, but they're only 100 square feet or 56 square feet. It's tiny, and so they can just fit into places other people can't fit. I just think this is an amazing business. I was blown away by the scale, and I think that there are actually many other businesses out there, like the 5-Hour Energy example and Hunt Brothers, that if you just change the form factor and figure out how to do the mutually beneficial relationship... I forgot what it is, but there's like a type of parasite that's mutually beneficial. It's like those fish that live on top of whales. They eat the things off you, but then they get all this other free stuff. That's basically Hunt Brothers. Because if you're a gas station and you put one of these in, people will come in. Well, guess what? They don't just buy the slice; they'll also buy a drink and whatever else. For a long time, gas stations basically subsisted on oil, beer, and cigarettes. Now there's like a new one—a fourth horseman: pizza. Pizza is now here. So this fresh food inside gas stations has become a big win-win for them.

Sam Parr

And they've been around forever. It looks like on Wikipedia they started selling pizza in 1962, changed their business in 1991 to the current iteration. So they've been around for a *long* time.

Shaan Puri

Hey, real quick. As you know, we're big on ideas here. We love bringing new ideas—business ideas, brainstorming ideas—for the podcast. Well, a lot of people ask, "What do you do with all those ideas? Can we go find them? Is there a list somewhere?" The great people at HubSpot have put together a business ideas database. It's totally free! If you just click the link in the description below, you can go download a collection of over 50 business ideas that are from the archive, listed out for you and curated. So, what are you waiting for? Go download it! It's free. Check it out; it's in the description below. Alright, back to the show. They did a thing called Pepe's. I think it was like Pepe's, yeah—wholesale food or some... something like that. They were doing kind of the same thing but without the front-facing brand. So, they were doing wholesale food—basically, selling food in wholesale to other places. They had that kind of like the supply chain side of it, but they didn't have the brand. So, the brothers came together and they were like, "What if we made the consumer brand for this?" It's kind of like a B2B2C model, right? We'll give the brand to these gas station owners, to these convenience stores, and then we'll supply the wholesale food. We already knew how.

Sam Parr

To do what's even crazier is how weird things become culty. So, for example, have you had Cane's chicken?

Shaan Puri

Raisin Cane's

Sam Parr

Raisin Cane's... sorry, Raisin Cane's. Like, it's okay, it's fine, but it just has like a crazy cult following. It's really weird how things kind of catch on, and I'm really fascinated by that. Because Raisin Cane's is fine, I guess. It's really weird how they serve their stuff in styrofoam still, and they just give you like a piece of bread. That's just kind of odd. It's weird that it's now a cult thing amongst young people. And it's also strange that this is one of those things that takes like 30 years. It's almost like you have to grow up knowing that it's a thing, and then when you're grown up, it's got to be like the nostalgic thing that you post online about. Do you know what I'm saying? It's not a...

Shaan Puri

**Game plan you can execute** because it's not predictable, and it kind of takes 20 to 30 years to do it. But when you do it, it's like... it's like those people who, you know, get hot in their thirties or something. It's like, "What? That's found money! How'd you do that?" And it's like these brands that were kind of just low-stakes brands that survived. But then, 25 years later, they become trendy. They're like, "What the heck? We're trendy now!" These mom jeans are cool now. Alright, sweet! I just had these because I liked them. And that's basically what happens to these brands. After 25 years, they get this gust of wind that picks them up and makes them cool all of a sudden.

Sam Parr

Do you remember the XFL, like the alternative NFL? They had crazy names on their jerseys, like "He Hate Me." Your XFL name is Sean "Found Money" Puri.

Shaan Puri

That's found money.

Sam Parr

That's your new nickname now: "The Guy Who Got Hot in His Thirties." You're officially found money. That's cool... I didn't think that this would interest you, and I like you more because it does.

Shaan Puri

I'm trying. It's actually part of my PR team. They were like, "Hey, you need something relatable, bro." Yeah, you didn't know who color... "Hey, can we find a blue-collar business for this guy to talk about here?" Yeah.

Sam Parr

Sean, you know we're hitting the numbers because he didn't know who Dolly Parton was. We gotta revitalize; we gotta make people more relatable. Scores are dropping.

Shaan Puri

I got my fictional PR team over here, like, "Guys, we need something."

Sam Parr

Let me tell you another thing that is probably even more random. So, listen to this. In 2013, a 29-year-old Swedish software engineer posted on Reddit in a web development subreddit. He said, "I'm fiddling around with Google Maps and their new API, and I made a small application. I'd appreciate your feedback and suggestions." When you click on the link, it's this thing called **GeoGuessr**. Have you ever heard of GeoGuessr? No? Alright, this is going to blow your mind. His original application was a small thing where you basically see a random street view from Google Maps.

Shaan Puri

I've seen this.

Sam Parr

And you have to guess where you are. So they'll drop you off. It depends on how hard it is, but say it...

Shaan Puri

It could be a barn, and you see some grass and half of a road. Then on TikTok, there's these guys who are like, "This is rural Kansas," and they'll drop the pin and they're within like 20 feet of it. It's insane!

Sam Parr

Yeah, and so like, it could be easy. It could be like Times Square or, you know, Athens or something like that. But then it gets more complicated where you'll get dropped in some place in Ghana. You have to look at the license plate, and you're like, "The license plates are yellow. I know that's a thing in Ghana." I also know that these cars are this model of car. They quit selling that in Ghana, so this might actually be this other location. It's like a contest, basically. It's a game, and it does okay. Up until 2019, it's only doing okay. I believe it's a Swedish company, and all the revenue is public. In 2019, the company did $467,000 in revenue and $61,000 in profit. So, he's five years into this business, or sorry, three years into the business, and it's doing okay—barely a full-time living. Then the pandemic hits, and this thing explodes. So, check this out: listen to their revenue growth. In 2020, it was $2,000,000; in 2021, $10,000,000; in 2022, $18,000,000; and in 2023, they did $21,000,000 in revenue and $11,000,000 in EBITDA. The owner took out $9,000,000 in dividends.

Sam Parr

This thing is called **GeoGuessr**. So, in 2019 and 2020, the pandemic hits. People are sitting at home. Originally, it was just monetizing with some advertising, not doing that well. He decides to put up a paywall, so you have to pay for certain games, and his revenue blows up, and so does his traffic. At this point, this guy, GeoGuessr, has 50 employees and 50,000,000 registered users. If you go to their traffic on SimilarWeb, it's like 12 to 15 million a month. Totally. There are all these YouTubers and TikTokers who are famous now because of it. I was looking at a YouTuber whose videos I would watch. He has something like 1,300,000 subscribers. In fact, GeoGuessr has created a World Cup with $100,000 in prizes. They do this in-person event where these guys get dropped off in the most random locations, and sometimes within seconds, they can guess where they are to within like a mile. It's insane that this guy has built this company, and it's just amazing that something so small and so silly has become such a serious business.

Shaan Puri

This is an amazing find! Kudos to you; I love that you found this. I had no idea this was a business. I had seen the games of the guys guessing this, right? There's one guy—I mean, I can't even describe what he looks like—but he's ingrained in my mind. I see him all the time on TikTok. He's just like a god at this, and it blows me away. What I didn't realize is that there's actually a business for this. I just assumed they were using Google Maps. I didn't even know that there was a website that does this. I went to it and tried to sign up to play. I want to play while we're doing this, but you cannot play.

Sam Parr

Cannot play. You have to pay.

Shaan Puri

Until you pay, and the pricing is hilarious. It's like $2.49 a month to play like 5 minutes... you get to play once a day. But if you pay $2.89 a month, like for an extra 40¢, you can play unlimited. My brain's screaming, "**The value!**" Just for 40 more cents, I get unlimited play. So yeah, I want to do this. We should play a game of this online. Do you have an account? We should play one.

Sam Parr

No, I didn't sign up, but I should. The guy you're thinking about on YouTube and TikTok, I think his name is Rainbolt, and I believe he has over 1,000,000 subscribers on YouTube. His views are huge, and he's not the only one. There are tons of these guys doing this, and it's really actually wildly exciting to watch. It's very...

Shaan Puri

Strange, dude. We should sponsor this! There's not many things I think we should sponsor. There's not many places where I wanna be a big fish in the smallest of ponds, but if there's one, it's this nerd Olympics of GeoGuessr. To be able to go and sponsor this thing for like, you know, $19.99... get them a "My First Million" banner somewhere.

Sam Parr

It's awesome, right?

Shaan Puri

We are the official podcast of Geoguessr, is what I would like to be.

Sam Parr

It's really cool what these guys have done. The cool part is that, just like in the UK, there’s a website called Companies House. If you're a company that does, I think, $10,000,000 in revenue, you have to display your reports or your financials. I guess in Switzerland—or wait, is he Swedish? I think he's Swedish. Sorry, in Sweden, you have to do the same. It was actually a little bit challenging to find these numbers because I've got to do all these translations. But you can actually see all of their numbers for their revenue and things like that. You can go back and track their growth. It's really fascinating.

Shaan Puri

I'm surprised... I mean, I'm surprised at many things. I'm surprised this thing's doing $20,000,000 a year in revenue. I'm also surprised that it's only 50% margin. What do you think? What are these guys' costs? What is happening here?

Sam Parr

I don't know. How much does hosting cost? You would know; you had one of these sites.

Shaan Puri

Not $10,000,000. It's like, so to get this brother an AWS plan, like what's going on? Yeah, I don't know.

Sam Parr

50 employees cost $5,000,000, maybe... or yeah.

Shaan Puri

Why does he have 50 employees? What are they doing? I don't understand.

Sam Parr

You know, man, you gotta look them up on LinkedIn. But I know that he... if you go to the Geoguessr career page, they list all their people. I don't know, I think they have a bunch of advertising stuff. So, I think they have an ad sales team. Because if you go to their employee list, it's like developers, of course, but then also account managers and things like that.

Shaan Puri

So, Google increased their Maps API cost **14 times**. It went from **$1** to **$14** per **1,000 API calls**. So that's gotta be why.

Sam Parr

And that's why he put the paywall in. Because he's like, "Google's forcing me."

Shaan Puri

And by the way, five years ago, he put the paywall up. Here's a post on the subreddit for r/geoguessr titled "Why the Paywall is the Worst Idea Ever." It says: "So first of all, I understand that Google increased its API fees, and I understand that Geoguessr needs to make money. However, I don't understand why all of a sudden there's a paywall. I can't play at all—every single map, every single thing is behind this paywall. Why not do more ads? Do you seriously think users are going to pay a subscription fee? I think 90% are going to leave and never come back. This move was in no way intelligent, especially because Geoguessr is not the type of game you're going to completely talk about. You're going to keep playing and keep talking about it. The paywall is a great way to make sure nobody ever plays your game again. So congratulations on ruining what you had spent years building. Your best achievement is now your worst flop ever—five years ago.

Sam Parr

Well, I would say that the owners knew... the broker of the owners knew. A penthouse overlooking Stockholm really disagrees that that was a flop.

Shaan Puri

"Sorry, I can't hear you from the 19th floor penthouse." Yeah, yeah, dude. This is amazing, and this is like the internet dork version of a revenge plot. When you get this type of hater comment, and then you're proven absolutely correct... this is revenge.

Sam Parr

Yeah, he gets the "found money" award. I don't know if I used that correctly, but we'll just assume I did. We're...

Shaan Puri

Still workshopping it.

Sam Parr

Yeah, so anyway, pretty, pretty sick, right? Geogusser.

Shaan Puri

What do you got? I got a quick one for you. So, this is my side hustle of the week. It's not quite a blue-collar side hustle; it's actually a white-collar side hustle. This is an Ivy League side hustle. I saw this story the other day about Alex Easleyler [I’m not sure how to pronounce the last name], who is a sophomore at Brown University. So, shout out to Alex, the coolest sophomore at Brown! This person is basically flipping high-end restaurant reservations. The story was basically like this: the guy has created a ton of accounts on Resi and OpenTable, calling in using fake voices and fake names. He’s getting reservations at Carbone and all these cool New York restaurants—like the hottest of the hot places. He gets them months in advance and flips them for $750. For example, he says, "I got a reservation at Carbone," and he flips it for $1,500. He claims that in the last year, he’s made $70,000 flipping restaurant reservations as a side hustle. His screen name on Appointment Trader is "Glorious Seed 75." Oh my god! I know you were thinking about that for baby names, and it was your second choice, but "Glorious Seed" is just a phenomenal name as well. I'm a big fan of this kid.

Sam Parr

That's definitely what the nickname was when she was in her bay, in her mother's stomach: "my glorious seed."

Shaan Puri

The quote I love is this: Alex said, "It's like some people play Candy Crush on their phone; I play dinner reservations."

Sam Parr

Was this in, like, the New Yorker? Where was this?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, it was in *The New Yorker*, but it was like buried halfway through the story. The story to me was, "Wow, some sophomore is making $70,000 flipping high-end restaurant reservations. That's awesome!" But the *New Yorker* article was like 15 pages long, and it was all about how restaurants are really busy now. It's like, who is the editor of this? You buried the viral story of this, you know, 9 pages in. This is ridiculous!

Sam Parr

That's insane! What do you think about that? I mean, I think someone doing that is going to be incredibly successful. However, I think this will get shut down, as he shouldn't have talked to the New Yorker.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. What are you doing? The only explanation that would make me respect them more is if this doesn't actually work anymore. Then they're like, "Alright, well let me just go get some free PR as my back-end bonus out of this," because the arbitrage is going away or it's not working as well anymore. I had like two crazy months during the pandemic, or after the pandemic, you know? It stopped, and everyone wanted to go to these restaurants. My run rate was $70,000. But let me just feed this to The New Yorker and get some free press. That would be a cool story if this was actually working really well and you went to The New Yorker to talk about this silly move. I don't need to do that. I'm like you; this is actually a waste of time and talent. But it does show me that you've got talent, and congratulations, you will be successful. But you're kind of wasting yourself right now.

Sam Parr

It's not a waste for a 20-year-old. It's a worthy cause if you're a sophomore in college. But yeah, like this, it'll be done. It's probably already dead. He probably already got Gloria's seed and is probably already banned from that website.

Shaan Puri

Dude, when I was a sophomore in college, my friends and I had a genius idea to try to win the McDonald's Monopoly game. Unlike the movies where the guy who actually did it... he like figured out how to win, we just tried to brute force it.

Sam Parr

You know how he figured out how to win, right? He just worked at the factory. He worked at the place that made the pieces.

Shaan Puri

So, I would have respected myself more if I had contacted the place that made the pieces and been like, "Hey man, I'll give you $1,000 if you tell me where Boardwalk is." Instead, we were just like, "Hey, we're just gonna dig through dumpsters and go get the pieces that people throw out and see if we can win." I ended up making like $3 that year.

Sam Parr

Wait, did you really?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, we found something. We won something, and it was worth probably a couple of thousand dollars. But I wasted a semester of brainpower—like extracurricular brainpower—doing this. I thought I was winning. You know what it's like? It's like winning a carnival game. It's like, "I won the bear!" But it's like, dude, you spent $90 winning that bear. Do you know you could've just bought the bear for $6.66? That's basically how I treated my college career: a bunch of really dumb side hustle ideas that kind of panned out. If I had just done something useful with my time, I would have made ten times more in the long run.

Sam Parr

Did you really? I mean, winning $1,000 on that thing is kind of like a rush. Have you ever won the lottery or any type of scratch-off?

Shaan Puri

I've won like raffles. I've won poker tournaments. I think on scratchers, I've never had a big win. I've played a lot of scratchers. I probably got down a couple of $1,000 lifetime on scratchers, it's my guess. Wait...

Sam Parr

Do you really still buy them?

Shaan Puri

Not anymore, because my wife looks down on me for doing it. But there was like a three-year period of my life where, if I saw a scratcher, you know, I was buying it.

Sam Parr

I have not bought a scratch-off ticket or a lottery ticket in my entire life.

Shaan Puri

That lines up. You're the same guy who sold his company and then put it all in a CD and never touched it. Congratulations! I have.

Sam Parr

I have been missing out, so I'm...

Shaan Puri

A pretty degenerate gambler, I've said I have a lot of stories. You know, like anyone who's a degenerate about anything, you have stories that sound like you're at rock bottom. You're like, "Bro, that's just scratching the surface of what I've done." I've gone on riverboats, overdrawn my account, and done really dumb stuff when I was in my early twenties gambling. I love gambling, and if you take me to a casino, I'm as happy as a clam. I went with my mentor, my investor who's a billionaire, Michael Birch. We went to Vegas for a conference or a meeting. We were actually going to meet Rupert Murdoch. So, we're there for this big meeting, and we're staying at the Wynn, I think. We go down to the casino floor, and any degenerate knows there's a certain feeling that comes over your body when you walk the floor of a casino. When you enter the casino, it's like something about the air and the sounds... it physiologically does something to my body.

Sam Parr

For sure.

Shaan Puri

And so I'm like, "Michael, you wanna play?" I'm like, "Let's find a table. We got, you know, a couple hours before this thing. Let's gamble." And I'm just like... I wanna gamble, but I'm also, you know, I'm trying to hang out with him and I'm trying to be cool.

Sam Parr

And whatever, and you're only like 26 or 27.

Shaan Puri

I'm 25 years old. Maybe he's 40 or something like that—40, 45. I don't know how old he is, but he's like, you know, a thousand, whatever, 10,000 times wealthier than me and smarter than me. He's everything better than me. That became very apparent because I asked him, "Do you gamble?" and he said, "Not really." I was like, "Oh, why? You don't like it or whatever?" He replied, "Why would I gamble? You know the house has an edge, right?" So, I have these chips in my hand, and I just put them back in my pocket. I really haven't gambled since because I thought, "Oh, so the rich, successful guy I admire just pointed out, 'Yeah, this is a losing game. Why would I play a losing game?'" Just him saying that... you know, my mom has told me to stop gambling. I've had friends say, "Yo, you should just not do it." But nothing has ever sunk in except for this guy just being like, "Why would I play? The house has an edge."

Sam Parr

I thought you were gonna, like, right when you walk into the casino, you turn your hat backwards and you're like, "I tuck your shirt," and you're like, "Poke a shot, it's here."

Shaan Puri

I have a different dialect. I'm like "Prison Mike."

Sam Parr

Yeah, in "The Office," there's Date Mike. It's like, "Date Mike, nice to meet me." I thought you were gonna just change like, "Thanks for holding my money," and then just start saying that to people. Speaking of money, we have to give a shout-out to one of our sponsors: Beehive.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, what's not a gamble? Starting a newsletter on Beehive. You know what's not a gamble? Putting your content out there for the world to love. And you know who's making money instead of, you know, pissing it away? Tyler Denk, the CEO of Beehive, who just raised a crazy amount of money: **$33,000,000** announced yesterday. Then he opened up with some community round. He's like, "Oh, by the way, if you want to invest in Beehive and you missed out on the fund..." He just posted that in 2 hours they crossed **$1,000,000** of community money raised. No way! He created an amazing PR halo. You know, he's creating a cult of believers. It's pretty impressive to see.

Sam Parr

What's going on? I think I'm one of the believers. I had the opportunity to invest in this when they first started, and I passed. I don't remember what the valuation was.

Shaan Puri

I... what was it? 10? It was under 10, I think. We both passed under 10. I realized my sins and I came and I said, "Father, forgive me. Let me invest." After I started using the product, I was like, "Okay, I'll use the product." I still really wasn't fully convinced because I thought, "I don't know how big this market is. How big are newsletters? Is this too niche?" Then, they kept shipping updates so fast and building features so well. I was like, "Okay, I've learned enough times in my career: just don't bet on a workhorse founder and a team that ships this fast for a product you love and use." If those boxes are checked, just invest. It's okay; you might be surprised on the upside with the market, which seems to be the case here because they've really taken off. But I normally do not sell. I have a policy, actually. I think this should be an official MFM policy: we do not celebrate fundraising news. Fundraising is not to be celebrated. I mean, think about what you're saying when you celebrate fundraising. It's either a combination of, "Congratulations, now the game is starting." You don't get cheered for starting the game; you get cheered when you win. The second thing is, "Congratulations, you gave up a piece of your company." You shouldn't really celebrate fundraising too much.

Sam Parr

I thought this was an ad for them where we're supposed to make them look cool.

Shaan Puri

But here's why I like it. He said something—he had a great quote. If I'm a sucker for one thing, it's a great quote. He said, in his Slack to his team, "Alright guys, money's in the bank, but the rent's still due." That's so good! I don't even know fully what that means, but that sounds like some mafia shit, and I dig it. It's some version of, "Cool, we got all the funding, but this doesn't mean anything. We still gotta pay the rent. We gotta put in the work and actually deliver." So I like that line. That is the only reason I'm willing to talk about the fundraising because he said, "The rent's still due." I think "the rent's still due" is just a great, great slogan.

Sam Parr

He also had in the TechCrunch article, he goes, "Look, we're only 2 years into this and we have 1,000,000,000 emails going out." That line in itself isn't a lot, but the fact that this guy is... I don't like using the word "cocky" because that's negative, but he's so confident. I love what he has. I don't know what the valuation was for this; maybe it was probably north of $100,000,000. So he's right, I'm wrong. I lost on that one, so kudos to Beehive. And if you want to start a newsletter, Beehive (with 2 i's) is the way to go. They still need to change their name though: beehive.com.

Shaan Puri

Alright, okay. So, what else? What else you got?

Sam Parr

Let's talk about Nick Gray. Nick Gray is the hottest thing going on the internet right now. He is a good friend of mine and a good friend of yours. I've known Nick for a little bit now, and he is the weirdest person I've ever met. So, one time, Sarah and I are in New York. He DMs me on Twitter. I've never met him, and he goes, "Hey, I want to take you to Washington Square Park and give you a tour." We go there, and we just start hanging out. He pulls out a blanket and says, "I keep a picnic blanket in my bag at all times." He lays it out, and I'm like, "Alright, cool." Then he goes, "Hey, do you want to throw the frisbee? I always keep a frisbee on me." He has a frisbee, and I was like, "I guess." After we finish that, he says, "Hey, do you want to fly a kite? I always have a kite on me." So, he pulls out a kite.

Shaan Puri

Hey, you wanna kiss? I got lips.

Sam Parr

Yeah, that's the...

Shaan Puri

Next one.

Sam Parr

And I'm like, "This is the weirdest guy I've ever met." Then I get to know him over the years and I realized it's totally genuine. You're just a weird guy and this isn't an act. So fast forward a few years later, Nick has written a book called "The 2-Hour Cocktail Party." He's...

Shaan Puri

By the way, none of this is an ad. We just admire this guy's weirdness; he lets his freak flag fly. We dig that. He just did something interesting, which is what we're about to get to.

Sam Parr

Yeah, and so he starts getting a little popular on the internet. He tweets something out last week. Here's the tweet; I'll read it verbatim: "I wanna go on a blind date, and I wanna go to Tokyo next weekend. Here are the qualifications: if you're a woman with a passport who likes sushi and Japanese food, and you can ride a bike in a big city, let's go! I'll pay for everything, but in return, you have to film stupid videos of me for my socials." Then he puts out an application where you can sign up on a Google Doc. So, I called them. Do you know how many applications he got for this?

Shaan Puri

I have to buy.

Sam Parr

**4,400 women applied!** Oh my god! He sorts through all the listings and sends me his top five and top ten. He does calls with them to figure out if it's what he calls a "culture fit." He's like, "I want to see if this is basically like a job interview." This post that he writes about on Twitter gets something like **2,000,000 views**—the original tweet. People are so bought in. Fast forward a few days ago, he’s on the date. He picks the girl up. Until recently, he never showed the woman, but he is tweeting out and documenting the whole thing. He says, "I just picked up flowers for her. I'm about to go pick her up at the airport. I've scheduled a ramen dinner for us, and then we're going to do this, this, and this." He’s nervous and explains his inner dialogue publicly. Each tweet is getting hundreds of thousands or millions of views, and he’s saying exactly what’s going on. Eventually, he shares her face, and they look like they’re having a blast. I talked to him, and people are reaching out to him from all over Japan. He shares, "We just got this amazing dinner reservation because this man owns this restaurant who’s hosting us." They’re going to host a meetup with all the people who are following along. The date goes so well that they’ve extended it. So right now, it’s Wednesday, and I believe they’re still there. It was only supposed to be a couple of days, but they’re 5 or 6 days in. He has Netflix and Amazon reaching out to him about a show for this. It’s just one of the most viral things that I’ve seen about such a weird topic, and people are so bought in. I’ve got so many people messaging me saying, "Are you following what Nick just did? Nick just shared that the date's going well. I'm so invested in this!"

Shaan Puri

I... that's exactly it! I am so invested in this. I love this on so many levels. The main thing is just, I love that Nick's just being himself. There are many ways to be rich. We've talked about this before. You could be rich with money, you could be rich with time, or you could be rich with friends. Nick's life is rich with fun and adventure, and I think that is something that resonates. There's a deep part of a lot of us that asks, "Am I making the most of my time on this little blueberry?" Right? Like, am I making the most out of my time in life? What Nick has done with this Tokyo date, to me, it's not about dating. It's not about anything. This guy is living! He's having an adventure, he's having fun, and we want to go along for the ride. So, I think we should actually go tweet by tweet with this thing.

Sam Parr

Go.

Shaan Puri

Dive deep for anybody who's not following this. So, tweet 1 is: "I wanna do a blind date in Tokyo next weekend." You read that out. He puts a Google Doc. Let's read the Google Doc. You open up the Google Doc and it says, "Nick Gray's Tokyo Blind Date." Do you like sushi? Do you like exploring new cities? Do you like blond guys with glasses? If so, come to Tokyo for a blind date next weekend. It'll be fun! **Possible itinerary:** You arrive April 25th and leave April 28th. It's now May 1st, and they're still going. It's like, you know, we play spin the bottle and they got, you know, 7 minutes of heaven. It's been 11 minutes. What is going on in this closet over there? I must know! He says, "If you've ever been to Tokyo, we're gonna do some touristy stuff, blah blah blah. We're gonna go to Shinjuku at night, go to some hot springs, Team Lab, tea tastings, this park, Eastbay. We'll try 2 or 3 restaurants, maybe 4. We'll walk a lot, shop, eat, and explore." **Why I'm doing this:** I went to Tokyo last summer and it was excellent, but after a few days, I wished that I had a fun, cute friend traveling with me. Just to say that out loud, I mean, I'm not even saying that, and even a part of me, you know, clenched up when I had to read those words. Okay, I just wish I had a fun, cute friend traveling with me. Alright, so I wanted to talk and share stories with and also film me for my dumb Instagram reels. **Logistics:** I'll get you a flight. I'll get you a hotel room. Is this crazy? I guess, but it also sounds fun. Yes, exactly! That's the sweet spot of life. Feel free to reference check me here. Here, I'll apply, blah blah blah. So, you had to email him to apply. He had how many? 400 women apply. 400! Which, let's just take a moment to admire that. Yeah, so you can go on a dating app as a guy, and normally you send 400 messages to get one back. He sent one message out and got 400 women coming inbound. **Work smarter, not harder, my friend.**

Sam Parr

Yeah, alright.

Shaan Puri

So, that's sweet.

Sam Parr

He also tweeted out the conversion rate between the Japanese yen and the US dollar. He was like, "All of you people thought I was gonna be spending a lot. Turns out it just turned in my favor." And he's... tweeting out like the...

Shaan Puri

He's conspiring to help Nick Gray with this date, so he's giving updates, kind of play-by-play. He's like: > "I'm flying out. Here's what I'm gonna do. Here's the agenda. She's... I'm on my way to the airport. She's on her way to the airport. I'm gonna pick her up. I'm gonna get flowers." He does a poll on Twitter: "Should I bring flowers? Yes, bring the flowers. No, chill vibes." Guess which one won the poll? 55% voted "bring flowers," 45% thought it was too try-hard.

Sam Parr

Dude, 45% of Twitter users are losers. That's an easy observation.

Shaan Puri

He's promoting his blog. He's like, "By the way, I'm traveling. Here's my travel pack of must-haves." He's got Refresh Tears, an eye mask, and some tape. I don't know why he's bringing tape; things are getting a little crazy here. He's also got a toothbrush. Okay, so he's going step by step as to how he's going to do this. Okay, so now he picks her up.

Sam Parr

And he never shows her face. He only shows her hands accepting the flowers or the back of her head as she's taking a picture in awe of the Tokyo skyline.

Shaan Puri

So, let's just read. He's at the airport and he goes, "My blind date updates." He says, "Waiting for someone at the airport is humbling. You're scanning hundreds of people's faces trying to find the one person who you've never met before. Each passing person says, 'No, not her. Not her. No, not her,' until I see her come out. I pump my fist in the air and call her name. She runs over and we sort of half-hug. We look at each other, square up, and full smile. I think we're both thinking the same thing: 'Wow, you are real.' She might have admitted something else, but I think that's hilarious. At least I have a feeling deep in my stomach that says, 'Yes, she is real.' That's a relief. I knew she'd be real, but you never know. "What are people on the internet saying about us?" she asked me. I say, "It's 90% hype and 10% worry that you're going to cut out my kidneys." "I like those odds," she says. "Damn, full romcom! We're going full romcom. This is great." I send her on a side quest while I handle the train tickets to get us back to downtown Tokyo. We board the train and start talking. Conversation comes easily. Our ramen tour starts in 2 hours. The comments blow up. People are fully in, fully in. Subscriptions on, notifications on. I gotta do this. Then he talks about how he booked a ramen tour for two reasons: if it was awkward for us to talk, then somebody else would be leading the conversations—the tour guide—and it would keep her awake till 9 PM through the jet lag. So we meet, we do this, we do that. We tell our tour guide that we're on a blind date. He misunderstood us, or we must have misdated this. He said, "But you said you just flew in. How did you meet?" I explained what's going on with the date. The guide is confused, but he likes it, and he likes us. She and I share a glance and smile. The ramen is good, and I like her. **End of chapter.**

Sam Parr

Dude, he's doing great right in this.

Shaan Puri

**Fifty Shades of Nick Gray** is actually the name of this date. Dude, this is incredible! So, he's going, and I love that there was one part where he was talking about how he was just like, "Honestly, I'm exhausted. I kind of over-planned. My nervous energy around this made me schedule too many things. I'm feeling exhausted." He just said good night and, you know, honestly, "I'm just totally, totally pooped out. Tomorrow, I'm gonna act a little bit differently. I'm just gonna settle in a little bit." Every day, step by step, has just been thrilling. He did a meetup, so he's like, "I'm hosting a Tokyo meetup for us, anybody who's following the blind date." Then he posts a picture in the park, and there are like 20 people there. He's holding his book, and it's his date with 20 random people in Tokyo who are like fully invested in this date that came for a meetup.

Sam Parr

Dude, so listen to this. About two hours ago, he posted: "It's late. I'm always late. We are running through the side streets of Tokyo's most upscale neighborhood to make our dinner reservations. She's wearing eyeliner, and I have on my least wrinkled shirt. It'll be our last big meal together, and I want to make it special. In two hours, we'll cry over a plate of Kobe beef." I get a message: "I’d like to treat you and your date to a fancy dinner in Tokyo. I love the stories you share, and I'll pay for everything. Please enjoy." But what's the catch? The foreign man, I don't know, has a travel company that does reservations. Nice! Nice reservations are hard to find in Tokyo. The catch is that we'll like it, and we'll share. I grab her hand and risk jaywalking to sprint us towards the skyscraper. "You have the royal option," it's the only thing the waiter says before a train of lobster, shrimp, and beef is sent our way. We eat and joke about how ridiculous the amount of food is. We have a sense of excitement and dread about how this meal will play out. It's a picture of this massive amount of food overlooking Tokyo, and he's just writing these almost poetic posts the entire time. "This is just great. This is great." I texted him, and I'm not gonna blow his story, but I think they like each other. He said that he would come on the pod. He goes, "I don't know if I want to," and I said, "Okay, no pressure." Then he replies back, "Actually, you guys promoted me for a long time. I'll come on, and we'll talk about it." So he's gonna come on, but it seems they like each other.

Shaan Puri

I'm so in! I'm so in my first marriage. Let's go! I've been waiting for an opportunity to turn our whole podcast into a dating show, and I think the time has finally come. Nick, you're the man! This is a reminder to everybody: step up your adventure. Do something fun. Do something a little bit out of the box, and good things will happen in your life. I really do believe that he created a situation to get lucky, that cool things would happen. Whether this date works out or not is sort of irrelevant. He's going to have a great adventure, a great story to tell. He opened up the door to where maybe, just maybe, Laveela can walk in.

Sam Parr

What if he marries this woman?

Shaan Puri

I don't know... I don't know if my little heart can take it if he married. I only got two ventricles, brother. That would fill it up too much.

Sam Parr

I had a person come to my house one time, and they were bringing their new girlfriend. I found out that they stayed at my house for 5 nights. I discovered on the 3rd night that this was a blind date and the first time that they had met. They got married a few weeks ago.

Shaan Puri

That's great! Alright, do we have anything else? I got a little bit of... I have one sort of life advice type thing I like.

Sam Parr

Let me hear.

Shaan Puri

So, this is not new, actually. We did a podcast with Scott Galloway, which maybe has come out by the time this comes out. I don't know exactly. Scott said a bunch of things. He talked about his business, he talked about his money, but there was one thing in the middle that has stuck with me days later. Honestly, I can't really remember a bunch of the stuff he said about money, but this one little phrase stuck with me, and I kind of want to give it some extra shine. You know, we talked about not burying the lead. To me, this was actually the lead. We had talked to him about when he was younger, and he was pretty open about going through tough times. He talks about when he went through a divorce, when he hadn't made it yet, and his insecurities. He said something like, "You gotta keep your sales up." I was like, "Keep your sales up? What do you mean by that?" He explained, "Even when things were going poorly, I didn't let it affect me. Even if I felt down, I didn't take actions that were down." He continued, "So, even when things weren't going my way, I got down, but I didn't stay down. I kept my sales up." He elaborated, "I started eating right, I cleaned up my room, and I made sure every day I would go out and talk to people. I just did little things. I would try to be kind and try to be generous to somebody that day, even though I was feeling kind of low and felt like things weren't going the right way. I started taking actions. I kept my sails up so that when the next gust of wind came, I would be ready." That's what happened. The wind came, and I was ready because I had my sails up. I just thought that was a beautiful life metaphor and a great philosophy to have, which is: you gotta keep your sails up. The good things that happen in your life are not fully your doing; they're not your creation. There are tons of market conditions, luck, and contributions from other people that help you out. That’s the wind. You can't control the wind, but what you can control is having your sails up so that when the wind comes, you actually benefit from it. If you're in such a lull or you're feeling low...

Shaan Puri

Or you're in such a funk that even when the wind comes, you weren't ready for it. It passed you by. Now, that's on you. I just love that metaphor, that philosophy of life, and I wanted to kind of bring some attention to it. What do you think about that?

Sam Parr

It was good to hear from him about it because he had a lot of insights. First of all, he was a late bloomer in terms of traditional success. He told the story about how he had a bunch of companies that were actually doing well, but he lost them. He got fired from those jobs. He shared how he didn't have a relationship with his father and was raised by a single mother. It was a hard upbringing. He got divorced and had his first kid when he was around 40, a little later in life. He realized, "I have to make money to provide for this kid. I can't just be messing around like I have been." It was good to hear that advice from him because I admire him. He experienced hardship and is living a life of keeping his sales up. That's why it was particularly special to hear this from him rather than from some 28-year-old, you know?

Shaan Puri

Mean, yeah, if you see like a 24-year-old on TikTok talking about this, you have the right idea; you just don't have the scars to prove it. I thought Scott has the scars to prove it. I just love the phrasing. You know, even when I was down, I didn't stay down. That's so powerful, dude. You know, you're allowed to go down, but you're not allowed to stay down. Also, a lot of these little things... I never had the words to explain it, but it resonated with me. Because, like, you know, I'll do things where if I'm feeling a certain way, I'll be like, "Alright, I'm making my bed this morning," or "Fuck it, I'm going for a run." I don't even like running; I suck at running, but I'm going for a run. I'm gonna run till I cramp. So, why do those things? On the surface, making your bed seems like a nothing action. It's like, dude, making your bed is not gonna help you go get that girl, or recover from this breakup, or go get the job, or turn your business around. But like, anybody who's actually done it knows that those things are linked. You don't know how they're linked, and this phrase to me is a great way to link them. It's like, you know, I'm not just making my bed; I'm getting my sales up today. All of these little actions I'm taking, I'm getting my sales up. Now, I kind of like, at the end, can connect the dots of what were all those actions and little habits that instinctively, in my gut, I knew were the right thing to do, but I couldn't really have logically told you why that matters. Now I know why it matters. It's because that's getting your sales up, so that now, when the win comes, you're ready.

Sam Parr

There's this awesome video that's not very popular, but it's so good. It's the guy from SNL. I think his name is Tom Bennett. He made this.

Shaan Puri

No, dude, it's an essay. It was a blog first, and then they turned it into a movie. Wait, wait, really? A blog post became a movie? Oh, dude, it's one of the best blog posts ever.

Sam Parr

It's one of the... the video is so good. Okay.

Shaan Puri

So, this guy, Aaron, is the one who wrote it. It's called *How to Lose Weight in 4 Easy Steps*.

Sam Parr

Yeah.

Shaan Puri

And he goes, "I spent the last year losing £80 and getting in shape. A lot of people have asked me how I did it, specifics on my diet, how many times I worked out. So I thought I'd just answer all my questions here. It's just four easy steps. Ready? Here we go. **Number 1:** No beer. That's probably one you've heard of before, but every time you drink a beer, it's like eating seven slices of bread. That's a lot of bread. **Number 2:** Portion control. This is especially true when you go to restaurants. When your meal comes, cut it in half and ask the waiter right away for a takeout container so you can save the second half for later. **Number 3:** Have your heart broken. And not just broken, shattered into bitsy, tiny little pieces by a girl who never loved you and never will. The rest of the post is basically about the heartbreak, and I was like, "Wow." I remember reading that intro and I cleared my calendar. I was like, "I am going to sink into this blog post." Whoever wrote this is genius-level writing, and I loved it.

Sam Parr

And the whole step 3 is like "get your heart broken," and then it's like "start going for walks to feel better." So you start going to the gym, and you previously thought that gym rats were a bunch of bros. Now you realize that they're your family. You start making puddles [of sweat], and you start eating chicken and more chicken. You make more puddles and you repeat every day, and then suddenly...

Shaan Puri

Let's read some of this. This is beautiful. So, by a girl who never loved you and never will: Join the gym at your work. Start going to the gym regularly, even though you don't know much about exercise and you're way too weak to do anything except lift 5-pound weights and use the elliptical machines with the older people. Do it until your sweat makes a puddle on the floor. Then go home, go to bed early, and do it again the next day, and again, and again. Listen to stories of your ex-girlfriend messing around with gross and terrible people. These are stories from your friends who think they're doing you a favor. Go to the gym and make more puddles of sweat. Buy books, learn about muscle groups and how they work together. Start eating healthy. Start planning meals. Try to forget her. Make puddle after puddle. Eat a single chicken breast. Work and sleep. The weather gets warm, then cold. All you know is Taylor Swift songs by heart. The only thing that exists in the entire universe is you and the gym. There's a different sort of happiness that comes at night when you're the last person in the gym. It's just you and the girl who does weird leg exercises. You end up walking out at the same time. Her name is Melissa. She works at the building next to you. She's worked there for two years. She asks you for dinner on Friday and promises you it'll be healthy. The leg exercises she's doing, by the way, are called pivoting curtsy lunges. And then it goes into the end of the love story.

Sam Parr

And then it's beautiful. It ends with step 4: no sugar.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, no fruit juice.

Sam Parr

One of the best posts I've watched that I remember... When I first... I get teary-eyed. It's because it's a... I guess it's a blog post first. I didn't know that, and then it was a YouTube video, and then I guess the whole movie. The YouTube video gets me teary-eyed and it gets me so motivated whenever I watch this. So that's a little bit similar to Scott Galloway's "Keep Your Sales Up." This was just like the most positive episode we've ever done.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, positivity, baby! That's it, that's the pod. Alright, we have a big announcement—possibly the biggest announcement of the year from us. So pay attention, turn the headphones up! We are doing a challenge called "My First Muscle" instead of "My First Million." This is "My First Muscle." It is a fitness challenge that we're doing, and we want everybody to get involved with it. Sam, tell them how it works and why we're doing it.

Sam Parr

Alright, so here's what it is. Summer's coming up, and we have this thing called the "Pod Bod." We've been sitting here, and I think we're on about 650 episodes or so. We want to get fit, so it's a challenge—it's a race, actually. It's 100 push-ups, 100 squats, 100 burpees, 100 times. That's your first million, and it's hopefully going to be your first millionth muscle. Here's what you're going to do: you can do them in any order. You could start with burpees, or you could start with squats; it doesn't matter. But when you do a burpee, you have to go nips to the floor. Your chest has to touch the floor, and then you hop up. When you jump up to the top of the burpee, your feet need to leave the ground. You should film yourself doing it, and when you film yourself, you have to time yourself too. Then, you have to share the video with us at @myfirstmillpod on Twitter.

Shaan Puri

Exactly! Or you could tag me and Sam directly. Either way, just to summarize: turn a timer on. Best case scenario, you film it too, but at least turn the timer on and do it. You have as much time as you need to complete **100 push-ups**, **100 air squats** (no weight), and then **100 burpees**. You can mix it up and do them in whatever sets of 5 or 10, or however you want to mix it up. You just gotta get it done. That's the challenge. You've heard of **75 Hard**, you've heard of **The Murph**—well, this is our version of that. My friend Sam and I are going to be doing it. We're going to film it and post our videos of us doing it. Sam, what do you think your prediction for your time is going to be? You're a super fit guy!

Sam Parr

I'm gonna break 20 minutes. That's my goal, and I think I'll be in the 90th percentile. 20 minutes, I think, is the 90th percentile. I think the winner will be 15 minutes.

Shaan Puri

I predict that I will be far above 20 minutes. I think I'm gonna be closer to 35 to 40 minutes. I did a little test run... I went 80-70% and it took me like 42 minutes. So I gotta... that was just version 1.

Sam Parr

That's okay.

Shaan Puri

Just... I was a nibble. It was a Costco sample of it. I just need to now iterate and get better.

Sam Parr

There are two things here. The first is just doing it. I have a feeling you're going to see thousands of people doing it. I think it's going to be cool to see that you're going to do it.

Shaan Puri

Well, let's talk about the doing it first. You came up with this idea from Jesse Itzler about the **misogi**—a hard physical challenge that you do, something that makes you a little bit scared and pushes you past your limits. It's good to do these challenges. Instead of having everybody come up with a misogi, we want to give the community one that we can all kind of share and do together. I don't care if you're out of shape; don't let that be the reason you don't do this. You know, if you can do push-ups on your knees, do push-ups on your knees. Alright? You might not win the prize, but get it done. You'll be proud of yourself when you accomplish it. I think there's an immense, amazing feeling on the other side of doing this, and that's who you want to be. Now, let's talk about the prizes. If you want to be eligible for the prizes, you have to do it legit. You need to have a video camera when you're doing it; otherwise, we won't know if you're... you know, this is not the gentleman's agreement. You have to actually show some proof if you complete this challenge. We've seen some amazing videos come in. We could pull these up on YouTube. A couple of people heard about the announcement early and started doing them. Did you see these girls who did them in their peanut butter and jelly costumes?

Sam Parr

It was awesome.

Shaan Puri

There's a guy who's doing it out in a field in just a set of overalls. That's hilarious.

Sam Parr

Alright, and so here's the prizes: We got Plunge (plunge.com) to give us 2 cold plunges. I think these are like $6,000 or $7,000 apiece. So they're going to give them away: - We're going to give 1 to the fastest male - 1 to the fastest female And then we got Nike Strength to give away a bunch of bumper plates and a whole bunch of workout equipment. That's going to go to 3 other people. [Speaker asks] Who are the 3 other people?

Shaan Puri

Well, we're... it's our discretion. We're the judges, and we're looking for three things. First, we want creativity. The girls who did it in costume using the Peterborough and Jelly costume are the early front runners. Second, best dressed is one area I'm looking at. Third, creativity in the video. Lastly, we have inspiration. This is the Rudy Award for whoever we really watch the video and we are rooting for you. You will win a prize as well. But we're all winners if you do the thing because, I don't know, you had the option not to. You could have easily chickened out, could have easily said it's too hard, or could have easily said you're too busy. But you didn't take any of those excuses. You're the real winner.

Sam Parr

And to make sure there's no excuses, we have a timeline on this. It's going to end on May 12th, which is this Sunday. So you don't actually have a lot of time to get this done. If you're listening to this, you might want to go do it like in the next 30 minutes and just get it out of the way.

Shaan Puri

Exactly! Alright, I'm excited. My first muscle... let's go! We gotta get rid of Podbot. Podbot is a plague. It's affecting so many people. Don't be caught up in Podbot!

Sam Parr

And we have to say one last thing: in order to get any of the prizes, you have to subscribe to our YouTube channel and to our podcast on Spotify and on iTunes. You have to subscribe; that part is the gentleman's agreement. We're giving away all these prizes and we're trying to make everyone get a little bit healthier. All we ask for in exchange is just to subscribe. It costs you nothing and it means a lot to us. So that's all you have to do. Check out **My First Muscle Challenge**!

Shaan Puri

Do it! Post it and tag me in Sam on Twitter. I'm at @SeanVP, he's @AtlasAmpar. Send us your videos; we can't wait to see them!