How Tracking Every Second Took Rob Dyrdek from 0 to $405M in Exits | My First Million #224
Human Optimization, Time Management, and Ridiculousness - October 5, 2021 (over 3 years ago) • 58:13
Transcript:
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Rob Dyrdek | I'm human optimization. I optimize to be... what though? To just be happy.
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Sam Parr | alright sorry we are late we we're we're we were recording another episode and and | |
Rob Dyrdek | Yeah, look, I got the context. I thought it was fascinating. I love the idea of your digital media company being acquired, and then you have to do a podcast with the guy who acquired it, who no longer works there or is no longer the CEO. It's fascinating. Well...
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Shaan Puri | He told a story that I think was good because most people don't want to hear necessarily from, "Oh, you're the CEO of some marketing company or some public company." It's not the sexiest story.
But he just got in a crazy snowmobile accident and broke like every bone in his body. He was sort of lying there on a mountain for an hour, thinking, "I might die," or, you know, maybe hopefully... His cell phone had like one bar, and he was able to call the police and get a firefighter to come save him.
So he told that story, and I was like, "Okay, this is good. This is good content." Then, never then, I'm happy with how this turned out.
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Rob Dyrdek | wow that's that is fascinating man that's scary | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, it was good. He was like, "It was like a movie." You know, like, "Brian, this is like a movie." You know, like a billionaire tech guy almost dies, quits, and starts meditating.
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Shaan Puri | And yeah, he became like a philanthropist afterward. He reevaluated his life while he was lying there, that sort of thing.
Alright, Sam, you want to do a quick intro?
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Sam Parr | no you do it you do it I I've I've enjoyed you doing it lately | |
Shaan Puri |
Okay, I'll give the... I'll give the brief context of this. Okay, so Rob, I don't know if you know this, but your show on MTV... there's a kind of a meme about it on Reddit. Do you ever go to Reddit?
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Rob Dyrdek | I do not | |
Shaan Puri | okay so do you know of reddit it's like popular kind of website or whatever | |
Sam Parr | of course | |
Shaan Puri |
Yeah, so Sam and I both watched the show "The Challenge" on MTV. "The Challenge" has been around for like 15 years. It's kind of like our... you know, I'm not even calling it a guilty pleasure. Frankly, I'm not guilty about it. I feel great about it. It's a great show.
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Rob Dyrdek | this is great this is | |
Shaan Puri | great and so me and sam both watched the challenge and we're probably the only kinda like tech investor dude | |
Sam Parr | bro it's my wife my wife watches it I yeah | |
Shaan Puri | Sam hides behind his wife. I love it! I'm not afraid to say it. I came out of the closet and said I love the challenge.
So, on Reddit, there's this big subreddit about the challenge, and the running joke is that MTV plays 23 hours of "Ridiculousness" and then 1 hour of the challenge on Wednesdays.
Because your show is always on TV—I don't know if you know this—but it's kind of like constantly on MTV. There's a running joke that that's all the channel is, basically: "Ridiculousness."
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Sam Parr | I don't | |
Shaan Puri | know if you know about that or if you have any thoughts but I wanted to to start there | |
Rob Dyrdek | well I mean yeah I mean it's 60% of the total programming | |
Sam Parr | is it really | |
Rob Dyrdek | Yeah, and it's fascinating because, as I have evolved the program and my relationship with the network, ultimately, the business that I have with the network evolved into creating more content and airing more shows.
So, they began to air more shows, and the ratings went up higher and higher. Now, people are watching it in blocks of 2 and 3 hours at a time.
Linear cable, as a whole, has kind of faded to appointment television, and you had hero content that pushed up to the floor on almost all the networks. I just happened to be lucky, you know what I mean? It's like finding that sort of resurgence.
But I was also able to control and own the production. I negotiated on the unit economics of the show and what the network needed as the cable advertising world was evolving.
So, I was able to control it at a higher level than traditional talent, which took me from getting 30 episode orders to 168 episode orders, which then eventually became 500 episode orders. Right? It's a 90-year-old...
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Shaan Puri | Were you always plugged into that? Like, I know with athletes, for example, Floyd Mayweather. He starts off as a boxer, but then the promotion and the production company basically take all the economics. He's out here as the talent, the one that's drawing in all the viewers, but he didn't own that piece.
Over time, now he owns it all because he kind of got screwed for a few years or, you know, sort of wizened up and said, "Oh, I need to own more of this stack in order for me to benefit in the way that reflects the value I'm bringing."
Did you get it from day one, or did it take some time for you to figure that part out?
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Rob Dyrdek | Look, I think you guys know the complexity of making a successful business, right? At the end of the day, there's arbitrage for talent and different aspects of business, and it relates to entertainment.
But the ability to actually monetize it, create value, and then, in my case, sell it for a significant amount of money is extraordinarily difficult unless you really understand business at a high level.
It's way beyond that. I started my first company at 18 years old. I went through basically years of making millions and losing millions through ventures where I ultimately created a system to grow into being a great entrepreneur.
Then, I capitalized on this unfair advantage that I had in the entertainment space to look at the opportunity and maximize it, both from a talent perspective and create a business that I was able to have acquired through that platform.
You know what I mean? I think it's more rare than it is common for an athlete to have that mindset. | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, and let me give some background here. What I'm about to say is with no research; it's just as a fan. So, you don't know this, but I still skate. I've been a fan of yours forever.
So here we go. I have here... look, here it is! Can you see that? There's my tre flip.
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Rob Dyrdek | Talking about a full tre flip right here. Fully caught. Yeah, that's really a tre flip. Look, that's a real tre flip.
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Sam Parr |
I could still... I still have it in me a little bit. Oh, my camera will come back in a second.
But so, you started skating very young, and I think you were sponsored by Alien Workshop when you were like 13, 14, 15, something like that, right?
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Rob Dyrdek | Well, to give you more context, I got sponsored at 11 years old. I connected with the group when they founded the Alien Workshop, and I turned pro for it when I was 16.
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Sam Parr | and you but now I think you you own alien workshop right or you're you're part owner | |
Rob Dyrdek | No, I acquired it for **$4,000,000** and then I gave it back to the original founders, free and clear. On top of that, I bought a bunker in Ohio so they could run the company out of it and gave that to them free and clear.
No, it's the worst mistake I've ever made in my life. Why would I acquire a skateboarding business? Look, you know, they were acquired by Burton, and every adviser around me was saying, "This company does not make money. It has terrible margins. It burns cash. This is a terrible investment." I didn't care. I didn't understand business well enough. I just wanted it for the story: the hometown kid buys back the Alien Workshop that he sat in the room and helped choose the name for and create the brand when he was 16 years old.
When I acquired it, I felt like I had acquired a hornet's nest. I learned so much about the operational side of business, culture, and the dynamics of what I'd consider a toxic culture. I realized that my passion was to create, build, and generate a return on investment (ROI) and internal rate of return (IRR) for the stuff that I created. That doesn't align with skateboarding very much, right?
There’s really this mentality of "misery loves company." It's like, "Let's all be broke. Let's all barely survive. Let's all keep this starving artist syndrome." I literally was on another call and thought, "Man, I don't even want to be on it. I don't want to put another bit of my energy into this."
And I thought, "Do you want to know what the real hero story will be? I'm going to give back to the original founders who built the company and sold it. I'm going to just give the entire thing back to them." And that's what I did.
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Sam Parr | So, we have to talk about that in a second. That's crazy to me—not in a bad way, but it's crazy.
You're a skater, you know? I used to watch you in a lot of Transworld videos as a kid and a bunch of other stuff. Then you were early-ish at DC Shoes, before DC Shoes was even named DC, right? That ended up becoming a pretty monster success.
You've seen a bunch of stuff. Then you started some of the early shows, which crushed it. Now you're sitting here talking about "Ridiculousness," and the way that you're describing things, I'm like, the evolution's crazy, right? From skateboarder to talking about how you own 60% of the programming on MTV.
I wanted to give context there because it's amazing and inspirational. But at this point, you've got your hands in everything. It seems like you dabble in a bunch of stuff. If I remember correctly, years ago you had a food truck, is that right?
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Rob Dyrdek | I might have wrote an episode around a food truck but it was probably fake the fancy factor | |
Sam Parr | You had a bunch of different things going on. I think I even read that you do horse racing and own racehorses. | |
Rob Dyrdek | I did. When I got into horse racing, I jockeyed a horse for a race at Hollywood Park and won the race. I went on to own 12 or 13 racehorses, including a horse that got 3rd place in the Breeders' Cup. I sold that horse for $2,000,000, and I had paid $200 for it.
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Sam Parr | that's crazy to me | |
Shaan Puri | so is is owning a horse a good good investment in general like that's a great obviously that's a great flip | |
Sam Parr | but | |
Rob Dyrdek |
It's not, but for me, I got out unscathed, you know what I mean? For a lot of people I know that are in it, it's just really for the enjoyment of it. It's a lot of fun to go watch your horse race. You know, I had a lot of respect in the racing community because they know I jockeyed a horse. They know how insane that is, right?
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Sam Parr | did you do that as a skit or did you take it seriously | |
Rob Dyrdek | Oh no, I mean, I did it as a skit. I mean, it's like the scariest thing I've ever done. You're talking to a guy who's broken the world record for jumping a car backwards. I barrel rolled a car. I've been attacked by a shark and a tiger. It's like I've broken 25 world records on a skateboard.
But the scariest thing I'd ever done in my life is jockey a horse at Hollywood Park. Because it's just you on the back of this horse. You've got a hold of its mane, you break the gate, and you're going 50 miles an hour on the back of this giant beast. How do you... how is your...
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Sam Parr |
Currently, how are your entities set up, as well as your focus? Because if you have... Well, that's the reason I'm listing all these crazy things that you do and all these projects that you've got going on, which are very substantial. How are you balancing all this, and what's your current business structure?
I mean, do you have like a Rob Dyrdek Media which only does the MTV stuff, and you get some type of fee from them? And then you have... I would imagine...
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Rob Dyrdek | Let me tell you, if you want to talk structure, let's talk some structure.
We operate as a very hybrid entertainment family office and venture creation studio. I have a single entity, the Dyrdek Machine LLC, that owns everything, including Rob Dyrdek Inc., which is the entertainment side of Rob Dyrdek's business. All of that capital flows into this single LLC, and then I distribute that capital into real estate holdings—specifically, cash-flowing real estate holdings—or I distribute it into ventures that I co-find and create.
I co-find and create almost every single company that I build. I co-find it with common shares, and then I do the initial funding, usually in the range of $800,000 to $1.5 million in pre-money. I typically put $225,000 to $500,000 into every venture. I try to own between 25% to 70% of every single venture that I have at maturity.
Since I launched the company in 2016, I have built 17 companies, sold 6, and netted $450 million. One of those is the production company, but all of these entities sit under the umbrella of the venture side of the Dyrdek Machine business, including Rob Dyrdek's television business.
My production company that was acquired has my earn-out going into the LLC that I own 100% of. My talent money lives in that same entity. I pay myself a salary that goes through that, and then I invest all of that in basically non-correlated cash-flowing real estate investments. This includes manufactured housing, multifamily units, storage units, and I've been investing in a lot of RV parks lately.
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Sam Parr | dude this is music to my ears | |
Rob Dyrdek | Yeah, it's a very sophisticated hybrid family office that I built for myself right now. Keep in mind, every venture that I create has a time structure. We call it the unified theory.
At the very beginning, we lay out the entire capital path and growth path, including when we want to sell it and how much we want to sell it for. That's our target. Everything is built to sell from the very beginning, whether that's Pig Out chips, Outstanding Foods, Mindright bars, or Lusso Comfortwear, or any of the builds that I've done over the last five years.
All of it is connected to this idea of the capital that you've earned, the tax efficiencies on how you earn it, and then ultimately the IRR (Internal Rate of Return) on every dollar, wherever it goes inside the system.
What do you do then? You keep your expenses within the range of your dividends that come from your real estate. So, you basically play the entire game for free. Then, as you scale and have big exits and big liquidity events, you just pump more money into the overall system, and you basically live this extraordinary free life. Now, to that...
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Rob Dyrdek |
I do all of this with 30% of my time, right? Because I've mastered time, energy, and capacity. I live this extraordinarily balanced life by design where I only dedicate:
- 30% of my time to podcasting, shooting television, and building my businesses
- 30% sleeping
- 10% on my health (never compromised)
- 30% with my family
You know?
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Sam Parr | How much is 30% for you? Like, how many hours are you looking at? Is it 30% of a 40-hour work week or 30% of your...? | |
Shaan Puri | saying out of the day | |
Rob Dyrdek | my entire life all hours it's | |
Sam Parr | like 8 | |
Shaan Puri | hours basically right | |
Rob Dyrdek | No, all life of the 24 hours in a day... I sleep 30%, so 7 hours, right? Yeah, like I work 7 hours, I'm with my family 7 hours, and I spend 3 hours on my health on average.
When you look at the overall balance, I could show you this because I track it every day. It pumps all of it into this beautiful dashboard.
To give you an idea, I shot 250 episodes of television this year. That's exactly 4% of my total time. That's how highly optimized it's become, right?
You basically have a certain level of human capacity, and in order to scale it, you either hire or automate it. So, I live this deeply automated life that hires people in to add capacity.
At the end of the day, I just live super balanced and happy. That's it. | |
Shaan Puri | so give me one example of wait | |
Sam Parr | what software are you using to track all that time yeah | |
Shaan Puri | that dashboard | |
Rob Dyrdek | I created... I had a programmer write me a script that goes inside Google Calendar.
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Shaan Puri | it's an app on your phone or it's just on like a spreadsheet | |
Rob Dyrdek | It's inside Google Calendar, and then it populates a Google Spreadsheet.
The beauty of it is that qualitative data and quantitative data are what I live my life off of. Every day for the last 5 years, I asked and wrote down how I feel about my life, work, and health on a scale from 0 to 10. I could show you, through these qualitative numbers, how I'm living a higher quality and happier life.
The result of that is based on the optimization I've done on my quantitative data. My quantitative data includes: Did I get up before 5? Did I brain train? Did I get in the gym? Did I meditate? Did I have a clean diet? Did I not drink?
I could show you that I have accomplished almost all of those quantitative goals—about 87% of them—every single day of this entire year. These achievements have driven my qualitative numbers, reflecting how I feel about my life, work, and health, higher and higher.
So, by the numbers, I can tell you what a high-quality life I'm living compared to just 5 years ago, you know?
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Shaan Puri | You're saying so many amazing things. I gotta... yeah, I've been to each one. Alright, so you just said something. Did I brain train? What's that mean?
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Rob Dyrdek |
I use a luminosity app, right? Like where it's just adding flexibility and letting your mind do all of these things that are different than just getting in and reading your emails. You know, just going through your rhythm is really what I do that for.
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Shaan Puri | and when you wake up at 5 what's the morning routine like sounds like you're pretty yeah | |
Rob Dyrdek |
Look, I'll get up... I have to get up before 5, but depending on what time I go to bed, I'll get up at 4:00 or 4:30. To me, you know, I always have that coffee premade so I can get up and get cooking. Then I track all my numbers from the previous day, fill in all my time if I missed any, to make sure that all my data is there.
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Sam Parr | on your phone or or on your computer | |
Rob Dyrdek |
On the computer, right, and then I try to just organize and knock out my more executional work before the kids get up and all that. Then at 6:00, I brain train. At 6:30, I meditate. When I jump out of meditation... Well, actually, at 5:15, I bring my wife a coffee and I send her an email of every single thing that I'm doing that day, what it means to me, and with a love quote on top. Right, again, this is...
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Sam Parr | what do you mean | |
Shaan Puri | what it means to me like each thing you're doing | |
Rob Dyrdek | just like you know just like | |
Sam Parr | what you're doing yeah | |
Rob Dyrdek | In my... one of the pulls of our relationship was like I do so much stuff that she would be... I'd just be talking to someone and it'd be the first time she ever heard.
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Sam Parr | of it | |
Rob Dyrdek |
And so she would just... I would do so much stuff in a day, she just would feel disconnected. So I just started giving her an email every day of like what I'm doing, what it means, with a nice love quote. And that then settled down the energy of feeling disconnected from everything that I'm doing.
Bring her a coffee at 5:15. God bless her, she started doing 5:30 calls for her business, which means she's gonna be tired earlier. That means we can go to bed by 9:30, which is another sort of blessing.
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Sam Parr | and this is happening in la right you're this is your | |
Rob Dyrdek | Yeah, and then, you know, I pop out of meditation at 7. I wake the kids up and get them both down to breakfast at 7:30. My trainer, Doctor, comes to the house from 7:30 to 8:30 for training, and then I take the kids to school at 8:30.
Right? And then the day, depending on what the week is, you know, sometimes I go to breakfast dates with my wife. Sometimes it's... you know, on Mondays, I basically run a flat organization. I have 10 core divisions that are run by an executive, and I just spend Monday fully organizing from when I get up at 4 o'clock into my Chief of Staff for an hour, into my President and COO for an hour, and then half hours for every single person that runs that division.
This way, we can just be highly organized and plan the rest of the week, which, of course, includes Thursday night date nights and Friday night sushi night with my wife, and picking my kids up. I design balance, and then I only work within the structure of balance. Depending on how I feel and how my wife feels, I'll even adjust that to lean into making sure that my family is the priority above business, always. | |
Sam Parr | You are like, "Yeah, you're like..." you know, the people make fun of Silicon Valley people because they're like, "Here's my calendar. I've got it adjusted like this, this, and this."
But I'm sitting here looking at you. I think it looks like you're wearing a black blazer with a black sweater, and you've got these slick AirPods in. You are more Silicon Valley techie, in tune with this, than the stereotypes of it. I love it! I think this is awesome.
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Rob Dyrdek | I mean, look, I am human optimization, and optimized to... to be what though? To just be happy, you know what I mean?
At the end of the day, that's why you're playing the game. You gotta figure out yourself to understand what truly makes you happy. Your goal is to not be happy in pockets; your goal is to be happy every single hour of every single day of your life, right?
And that's really what I've accomplished. I'll tell you something: if you think about how you live, you can live in two places that will get you nowhere. It's either dwelling and being negative, or it's being hopeful and wishing. Neither of those gets you anywhere.
But where life is truly lived is in problem-solving, creating the future, or experiencing the present. The truth is, whatever you're experiencing in the present is based on the decisions you've made in the past.
It's your choice to create whatever your reality is that you're going to eventually experience. Or, God forbid, if something hits you, rather than dwelling on it or hoping it didn't happen, if you problem-solve and handle it, you can basically live a life with no negative thoughts.
If you learn to live in a state of either experiencing, creating, or problem-solving throughout your entire life, right? But it's on you to understand what that is to be able to live in that state.
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Sam Parr | I'm flabbergasted. Sean, Rob is just... here's what I'm wondering. Here's what I'm wondering.
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Shaan Puri | And we share a lot of philosophies, by the way. The things you're saying resonate with a lot of philosophies I live by, and Sam lives by as well.
But I'm wondering this in my life: because I live by a similar philosophy, I've encountered a bunch of people. What I found—maybe I'm wrong here with you—is that there are kind of two groups.
There's the group of people who were this way from day one. They were sort of like optimizers from day one. They really cared about and recognized the importance of time early on. They recognized the importance of their mood and how they're feeling early on. They say, "Cool, I'm gonna design systems to make this work for me by default." So they're not swinging from highs to lows. They're not wasting time; they're actually making magic.
Some people get it early. I don't know if that's nature or nurture, but they were this way from day one.
Then there are other people who sort of live life in the exact opposite way for a while. Then it comes to a screeching halt, and they say, "I gotta make a change. I gotta get some order and some organization. I gotta actually take control of this, not just have it be so loosey-goosey."
I'm looking at you and thinking, "Is he a skater?" How does the skater guy become human optimization embodied the way you are? Were you always this way, or was there a moment where you lived a certain way and then had a realization that led you to shift your path so that you could design your life a little bit differently?
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Rob Dyrdek | yeah I was not this way you're talking to a guy getting attacked by sharks who's starting company after company breaking world records jumping cars doing cartoons television shows doing doing all these things as as you related to in the beginning like you you were pulling into I would say you were pulling energy from like who I used to be and what you know me as right just as just as a fan yeah right so so the way that you were viewing was in fact really how I was kinda living where I was being I I always refer to myself as going in so many directions that at once I was I was like pulled tight and so what happened you swing from side to side in order for there to be some sort of give in whatever you were ultimately doing and for me I was I'm had had built my league my professional skateboarding league and took it to market to raise capital and and these groups were like oh we wanna we wanna piece of everything that you do look at all that you do they offered me a 3.60 deal I thought this is it you know I've just you know done this whole thing by the seat of my pants and like finally like these people are gonna recognize me and turn me into the billionaire I'm meant to be and when they did the diligence on how I ran my finances how I ran my life all aspects of it they were like you're not even investable you're just like you spend all the money that you have like you're not creating any value like all this stuff and it was this this deep awakening of like you're not who you think you are like you you've attached yourself this this identity that you've created for yourself is actually false and the success that you've had by being so driven and so ambitious like as you know despite all these other things you're doing that are failing you're making up for it by other things working like you aren't actually what you think you are and I went on this journey to begin the discovery of like how can I begin to put a system around myself to become first it was like how do I learn business I don't know business and I hired a consultant to teach me how to build a company beginning to end and and in that process I found this book called start at the end that was a business book about decide what you want out of a business before you ever started and then it was like this sort of like like you know insane sort of moment that where I was like man like I need to start treating my life like that what life do I want | |
Sam Parr | and how | |
Rob Dyrdek | long ago is this that would have been in 2013 | |
Sam Parr | you know | |
Rob Dyrdek | What I mean is, you gotta understand the evolution and the growth that I have gone through over the last six years is equivalent to four or five lifetimes of growth.
You know, you're talking about going from saying you're uninvestable to creating generational wealth in five years. Okay, more than that. Now, I'm transitioning beyond self-preservation to generational preservation. What is my 500-year plan? How am I going to affect Dyrdex for the next 500 years?
I couldn't even, in 2013, you know, I was single, partying, and part of that was when I looked at what my ideal life was. I wanted to have balance, love, marriage, and kids. So, I had to begin to change the way that I was living to ultimately create the energy to attract the person, the people, the knowledge—everything that I would need to grow into the person that I had designed for myself in 2014 and 2015.
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Sam Parr | And was the... you said your production company was acquired. Was that the biggest win for you financially? Oh, you know...
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Rob Dyrdek | I mean there's no doubt you know what I mean but you gotta understand like even you know it's it's such a significant amount of capital and I own 70% of it right so it's just a it's a much it's a it's a big acquisition you know you know the final numbers aren't we're still in the middle of the earn out but it's it's oh it'll it could be close to you know you know 125 130,000,000 for just me now right and so that that onto itself is a really significant single transaction that is that very few people ever experience you know what I mean so again it's a in it to me it's the first company that I built that was in the built to sell structure right of when I just taught myself business completely built a system for how I would create businesses it was the very first one that I built to sell and built it and sold it in 3 years right and went first to the investment banker said I'm gonna build a production and sell it the people that only sell production companies they're like okay here's how you production companies they're like okay here's how you gotta do it if you wanna build it sell it then I went and hired a person who just went through a build and acquisition who was the number 2 at the company to help me build it then I went out and began to build it now what happened a whole lot of magical shit happened you know what I mean like because like like all of these different things like occurred that allowed me to go from 0 revenue to 50,000,000 in the 1st year that allowed like the trajectory of the growth and the the ebitda in the company to scale based off of ridiculousness having a second resurgence and me being able to negotiate the value of the company based off of now understanding the production the unit economics of what the network would need these unpredictable things that that in the beginning but I said it where I would build it and sell it in 3 years and then took it to market went back to those bankers 3 years later here's the numbers let's take it out and see if see who would be interested now as fate would have it the group that acquired it was the same group that offered me the 3 60 deal that said I had no value in 2013 and when they acquired it part of the acquisition I made them also acquire my professional skateboarding league as part of the roll up that they create right so it was a very poetic justice and beautiful sort of 360 moment as it relates to they as the single sort of private equity group that drove me to like reevaluate and and really push myself to like design my life and then they come around and also provide the opportunity that sets me up for the future instead of owning half of me for the rest of my life they acquired the only 2 assets I kept from that era | |
Shaan Puri | And you don't know this, Rob, but Sam is kind of a nut like you. He showed me the spreadsheet he made when he was, I think, 23 or 24. Basically, what he did was say, "Okay, I want to be a self-made millionaire." I forgot what the exact figure was, but that was his goal.
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Sam Parr | I said I wanted to make I wanted to make $20,000,000 by the age of 30 | |
Shaan Puri | By the age of 30, I want to have $20,000,000 in liquid cash that I actually own—liquid net worth. So, he then created a list of all the rich people he could find in tech because we're in the tech world, right?
He looked at people from Jack Dorsey, who created Twitter and Square, to whoever else, and he mapped out how many years it took them to make their first million dollars. Then, he analyzed how long it took before they got their big win.
He said, "Okay, the median time is 7 years." The average person is getting this, so I need to be on this trajectory. He was mapping it all out.
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Sam Parr | Well, I was like, "I'd like my business to be at this revenue with this EBITDA in four years." Because that means the growth rate is this, and then if I own this percentage, that means I'm going to make this after tax, so long as I'm in this state.
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Shaan Puri | yeah everything and then it you know when sam did | |
Rob Dyrdek | you do it | |
Shaan Puri | yeah he did he did it he pulled it off he just sold | |
Sam Parr | I was 31 I sold I sold the company when I was 31 | |
Shaan Puri | a year late | |
Rob Dyrdek | Yeah, good for you, man! And you want to know why you did it? Because you started at the end.
You know, it wasn't about how the path actually went. You could have never predicted it. You're like, "Whoa, I would have never expected it to be in this one... whatever it may be." But your mentality was there on what it is.
And you're very young because you gotta think, the way I'm talking, I didn't do this until I was 40. Ten years from now for you guys, you know what I'm saying?
But go ahead, sir. I didn't mean to cut you off. I just wanted to get another payout.
No, you're good. Did you have a point for me on that or no? I just jammed you.
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Sam Parr | yeah | |
Shaan Puri | No, no, you're good. The other thing I was going to say is that we, you know, one of the first messages Sam ever sent me. I met the guy, you know, kind of in passing, and then, you know, two days later on Facebook, he's like, "So, how much do you pay yourself out of your company?"
He started talking money in a way that most people don't. Most people are very afraid to talk about money. At first, I was taken aback. I was like, "Who the hell is this guy?"
Then I thought, actually, it's pretty powerful. If I could have some friends like this where we could openly share what we're making, how we’re selling, and what we’re investing in.
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Sam Parr | Share what are we spending? Is spending that much money each month actually making you happy?
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Shaan Puri | yeah that sort of thing and so we | |
Rob Dyrdek | alright this is amazing k go ahead go ahead | |
Shaan Puri | And so, we got to know each other that way and created a friend group. Do you have a set of peers like that in your world, where you kind of learned the game together and came up together?
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Rob Dyrdek | No, but let me tell you about who I do have as a peer group that I think you'll find fascinating. Have you ever heard of Tiger 21?
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Sam Parr | Yes, we've broken down that business a ton. I actually think that you can build a new Tiger 21 because it's pretty old school. It's like all old rich guys, right? So, like, it's how you... | |
Rob Dyrdek | My Tiger 21 experience is quite unique. To me, it's not about the business model of Tiger 21; it is about the peer group.
In my group, they've really expanded since they took on private equity, and they're trying to grow it. It's probably a little bit different from what you might have seen before. In my group, there are 15 people of varying ages. There are really young guys who have made hundreds of millions, even a couple of billion dollars in net worth. It's a really interesting group of individuals.
So, what do we do in Tiger 21? Each month, one person has to show all of their assets in what is called "portfolio defense." Each member lays out every single thing they are doing. As a group, we not only understand each other's philosophies and life strategies, but we also see how they manage their wealth—not just making money, but managing wealth.
We share the latest insights through our own advisors and all of that. At the core of it, you have to be very real to open up and show everyone what you actually have. When I first heard about it, I thought, "Oh my God, this is the group for me!" I knew that only the most genuine people would be willing to share their investment strategies and assets. For me, this was exactly what I needed.
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Sam Parr | I actually have been | |
Rob Dyrdek | In it now for two years, it has been life-changing for me. Right? Because part of that very first portfolio defense was, "What was your 100-year plan?" In an instant, I shifted from self-preservation to generational preservation.
Of course, I had created enough wealth to be in that mindset. Over these last couple of years, I have gained a depth of knowledge about wealth building that is so personal. I've just never experienced anything like it before. I could never experience this through just friends who weren't open to this being part of the structure of a club, if you will.
So, you know, I would even say for you guys to consider it. Just because it is extraordinarily eye-opening. You just learn and learn and learn. At the end of the day, you grow like this, right? Your entire life, as you grow and evolve, you expand. What you want to do is expand in one direction because that's where exponential growth, greatness, and mastery lie.
I think that having a peer group like this has been massive for me. I didn't have that before because I come from a different world. I just didn't have any relationships with people who were thinking like that. | |
Sam Parr | Were you doing... I know that you've been famous for forever, it seems, and you've always been doing cool stuff. But you mentioned earlier that when you were going through due diligence, the buyers were like, "Dude, you're running your... like you're spending too much money," or "Maybe you're buying things incorrectly," and "You're mixing personal and work."
I don't know, but were you making a significant income leading up to your big exit? And also, I mean, judging just off purely off TV—so who knows if it's real—were you... it seemed like you spent a lot and you like to ball out and do fun stuff. Were you spending a significant amount? So, like, were you actually financially successful prior to the deal?
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Rob Dyrdek | and you're saying when they offered me the 3 60 deal when they went in your | |
Sam Parr |
You sold your production company recently, although that's still kind of mid... it's not entirely done, right? But prior to that, when you said you read the book in 2013 or whenever it was, were you actually doing well? Or was it like you were still getting by, but you're making debt and not crushing it?
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Rob Dyrdek | I was making a significant amount of income, right? The problem was I was spending so much and not managing it properly. I wasn't looking at what I was doing.
I would, like, you know, put $2,000,000 or $4,000,000 cash to buy the distribution company. I put $2,000,000 into building the first-ever "Street Dream" skateboard movie. I put $2,000,000 into building my league. I was just making millions and investing and building any which way but loose.
On top of that, I had a $5,000,000 a year overhead and bodies running the Fantasy Factory, along with all the people that were underneath me as part of the management team.
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Sam Parr | so fantasy factory costs 5,000,000 a year to maintain and and run | |
Rob Dyrdek |
But like... having the building itself was like, you know, $750 [thousand], right? And now you put all the bodies in there, you know what I'm saying? I had, you know, president, COO... like, full-time... like general counsel, like CEOs. I had like, you know, a 30-person team. I was like running an agency almost, the way that it was built in that era, you know what I mean?
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Sam Parr | but but let | |
Rob Dyrdek | me give you were | |
Sam Parr | you making any profit at all or or was it break even and you're just spending it as | |
Rob Dyrdek | You're going... I was breaking even because, yeah, I was making profit and paying taxes, but after taxes, I wasn't saving any money. I kept reinvesting in new projects and bigger ideas because I thought that's how you do it. You know what I mean? You just keep taking shots.
Back then, I used to say, "Our money's fearless; scared money doesn't make money." And it's like, you wanna know? Dumb money doesn't make money. You know what I mean? That's the reality of how I was running things.
And again, it was because I revolutionized skateboarding and built Street League Skateboard. I've launched and built a cartoon on Nickelodeon. I had multiple shows on MTV. I owned my integration, right? So I was doing Chevy deals and Microsoft deals, making millions of dollars. I was having extraordinary success, but the way I was reinvesting it... I was still essentially making rather than creating value. I was really almost like a creative services agent. | |
Sam Parr | you just kinda sloppy just you weren't | |
Rob Dyrdek | Tight was not only not tight, but it also wasn't creating value with intention. I wasn't looking at markets, market sizes, and trends. I didn't know how to create a business that could be acquired one day.
I'd never even heard of a venture. I didn't know what an investment banker was in 2013. I thought it was someone that dealt with high-net-worth individuals. When they told me my league was worth $30,000,000 and we did $7,000,000 in revenue, I said, "How?" They explained, "Oh, it trades at like 4 to 5 times revenue." I was like, "How does business even work?" That's how little I knew about business in 2013.
When the 360 deal was offered to me, I knew nothing of the capital markets, capital staging, private equity, or venture. I didn't know anything. It was the first time I'd ever even heard about it.
Compared to who I am today and how I look at creating value, managing capital staging, and treating myself like a family office, not that many years later, it's an exponential amount of unprecedented growth. You know what I mean? It almost doesn't even seem real. It's like transferring through universes, you know what I mean?
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Shaan Puri | You’ve been, you know, pretty phenomenally successful. I'm very impressed by that. But I almost feel like you were too early.
I feel like if you were 12 years old now, because you didn't have, you know, TikTok and YouTube, you would have been the Nelk Boys. You would have been bigger than the Paul brothers, right?
Like, because you didn't have social media when you were doing all these stunts, you did it on TV. You know, you did it before TV and then on TV.
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Sam Parr | But it kind of helped them in a way, right? But like, I bet you would have gone.
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Shaan Puri | viral like nobody's business I think you would have been | |
Sam Parr | tv for the amount of views that they get I bet mtv pays more than a than you of course | |
Shaan Puri |
Of course, it's monetized as well, but I think fame-wise, if you were a teen today with the tools they have and you had the same kind of gunslinger mentality of doing stunts to attract attention, attract viewers, and challenge yourself... and have fun and have a blast in public, that model works today. People who I feel like have done a fraction of the level of stunts that you've done... Do you think you're early? You're early, I don't know.
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Rob Dyrdek | no look I'll tell you what it makes me tired just even see having you say that it's just like god think about being on youtube you know what I'm saying and and like look if if I even when I look at the world right forget about sort of being early or whatever it is like an extraordinary exist I've lived an extraordinary life a handful of lifetimes but I've never been happier than I am today talking to you because at the end of the day there was so much like like angst and ambition and like I wanna do something so big and I just kept trying and trying it and my will to execute and my ambition and drive kept just breaking me down highs and lows highs and lows highs and lows where now I am just in this like perpetual strict state of like high growth in a clear direction right and and inside that is complete happiness right and not saying that I didn't enjoy what I I went through but it was too much highs and lows and chaos and for for for what it's worth right like it's and it's all experience and I really love my life way more at 47 than I did at 27 or 37 right and that's really what your human mission is right at the end of the day you want to live this peaceful happy effortless like fulfilling life that's really what you're chasing right you want a a a life of infinite abundance and love right and and the only way you can actually get to that is through learning mastery of self and that is mastery of your energy and all the things that give and take from it your time and ultimately your capacity right and and the only way you can master all those is to really learn yourself at a high level and what you really love to do and the difference is back then I was I had to do so many things that I didn't enjoy to feed that beast right and and continue to find the next thing and constantly struggling with like I gotta do another show and it's gotta be bigger you know it's like like that sort of thing where now everything's so much more controlled and done with purpose inside balance that you just enjoy every moment of the process right but yeah could could I have done that on youtube no because I also had you know an $800,000 budget that allowed me to like you know go and do a deal that could you know rent out you know 6 flags so that I could flip a car ramp to ramp over the world's biggest skateboard that I designed | |
Sam Parr | for a world record company that's how much that stunt cost it was 800 | |
Rob Dyrdek | Oh no, oh shoot! I don't... that stunt probably cost, altogether, a few million dollars. You know what I mean? That's crazy! That's like stunt teams and groups and test cars.
Then the day comes, and what do you gotta do? You gotta flip a car. And you wanna know what happens on the day that you gotta flip a car? You're like, "This is the dumbest idea ever! Why am I even here? I have so much going on in my life. Why would I even put myself in this position to flip this car?"
Then you flip the car, and it actually works! Now it's a Super Bowl commercial, and it's part of the season premiere of Season 5 of *Fantasy Factory* in this giant Chevy partnership. You made a million dollars, and now you're a legend. It was genius and the best idea! But on the day of when you gotta do it, it's like, "Cool, this is so dumb."
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Sam Parr | you know | |
Rob Dyrdek | What I mean is, basically all of those stunts that I did in that era would always be like, "This is the worst idea. It's not even funny." Then, when it was over, I'd be like, "I'm a legend. I'm a legend."
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Sam Parr |
Earlier, you said that you track trends now and you start at the end and work backwards. What trends interest you at the moment? What business opportunities are intriguing to you if you had a little bit more... even if you aren't going to do it, but you wish you had more time and it's just kind of on the side and you're like, "This interests me. I think someone should pounce on this opportunity. Maybe I will, maybe I won't, but I'm interested."
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Rob Dyrdek | to to for clarity purposes here now now I have a business that builds businesses right so I I build you know 5 to 6 businesses a year right and although I've I've you know I've kind of like really pushed into all the builds I'm doing at the end of the year here are all in the beauty beauty industry adaptogenic topicals water filter system saw real opportunity and and sort of in the beauty space of like how important like water is and how how many chemicals there are and and when you shower but then you go and spend all this money on your hair and makeup and skincare but you wash yourself in chlorine so found a real opportunity to develop a a real innovative sort of shower purification system and and and water filter system for beauty and you know really looking at superfoods and plant based the sustainable beauty products is a big opportunity in in in that sort of space you know we launched a nootropic footwear or nootropic and and adaptogen plant based bar and drink mix and coffee mix line this year that's been really successful we looked at you know the the $3,000,000,000 in market share between uggs crocs and birkenstocks and created what we consider the more the the sleeker ugly ugly shoe the pretty ugly shoe and lusso cloud that we launched this year that's or last year that that really has ridden this wave of sort of comfort this comfort wave and casual wave in the comfort footwear world that we think is going to be on track to do really be really big too for because to me at the end of the day like what's happening in a market is important and it's going to be where you live and die right you too early or you know in the case of ultracast you know I launched this company that was a a a live 360 live 360 in vr video platform that put 360 videos all over the world and where you could jump on your phone and travel all over the world and be in in different bars and and clubs and all these different things like right on the conversions of live instagram and and live content and live streaming and sort of vr coming in together and then what happened to vr like just died | |
Sam Parr | nothing at all | |
Rob Dyrdek | And it's like, I was like, "What did it end up being?" Like the new 3D TV, right? So, 360 video became like the new 3D TV. Even though I built it, I got it right on the wave. It was super innovative with an amazing CEO who took the company public in like 9 months. But that fails, right?
So, you're trying to time markets and look at trends and all of that. But at the end of the day, you gotta get a little bit lucky. You want to be in the right place, with white space and an opportunity that's investable. There are so many nuances to a white space and where opportunity is.
I can tell you, from someone that's built 17 companies in the last 5 years, that the greatest lesson I had in year 23 was founder-market fit. You know what I mean? The biggest red flag you will ever hear is when somebody comes from one industry and wants to be in another because this one's so much easier.
Right? This one's... it's the margins over here, it's the shelf stability over here. There's not size; they all have a position based on how hard their particular industry's structure is. And they're all hard. They're all hard.
You don't want to invest and build companies with people that have to learn the industry as they go. I think that's... I would get caught in seeing great opportunities and ideas and build with really relentless, well-experienced founders who get crushed in the learning curve of trying to learn and understand a new industry.
Something that I've really found is that it's very hard for me to build a company with somebody that's getting into an industry for the very first time.
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Sam Parr | Rob, we've had billionaires on. We typically don't do guests; it's usually just Sean and I. But we've had billionaires, we've had Gary Vaynerchuk on recently—he was really fascinating. We've had some famous people; we've had all types of people on here.
You might be the most interesting that we've ever had. You're definitely the most surprising. I hope this isn't taken the wrong way, but I judged you based off of just being a skateboarding fan and what I knew about you on TV. Obviously, I knew you were a slick business fan and you always had some cool stuff going on, but you are way more dialed in than I ever would have imagined.
You might be one of the most interesting people I've ever spoken to, and I think you're my new hero. This has been amazing.
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Rob Dyrdek | Look, I could tell by the questions you asked me that it was coming from that sort of lens. I thought to myself, "Man, let me feed this guy kind of the angle and the evolution of where I'm operating at," right?
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Sam Parr | you be also a motherfucker is what you | |
Rob Dyrdek | Know, and think about it too. It's extraordinarily concise and clear, right? Because I'm constantly seeking clarity. So, I'm always operating from a place of intention.
Then, I consider myself to have an evolutionary mindset. It's like, "How can I purposely keep evolving and evolving with purpose in a singular direction?" One of those is literally human optimization and being as happy as I can be, you know what I mean? At the end of the day.
But no, I thank you and I appreciate it because you guys also had me do work. You said, "Hey, can you write an agenda of what you want to talk about on today's show?" I'm like, these guys are having me write an agenda to be a guest on their show. I wrote out an agenda, and we never even covered any of the subjects.
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Sam Parr | can you come back we didn't cover it because | |
Shaan Puri |
You blew our mind early on, and it was kind of... yeah, I could have taken the first three things you said and said, "Okay, I have 2 hours here where all I need to do is just let you expand on that."
Because if I'm listening to this and somebody says something interesting, there's nothing more annoying in the world than the guest going back to their preset agenda and not asking about the really interesting thing the guy just said. And so we had to do it, you know? It's... it's... it's...
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Sam Parr | Look, it goes back to what you said about building towards the end. Yes, we had our exit planned, just like I planned mine. But, like you said, you don't really know what's going to happen in between.
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Rob Dyrdek | Yeah, and look, even with all this planning and structure, I don't let it control me. I'm not controlled by that calendar, you know what I'm saying?
The beauty of the system is that I could just shut down for three days, and everything continues to move. Then it picks right back up when I get there.
Even as I operate my life, I work with the same group that helped me develop my system for the Dyrdek Machine and my business creation system. I had them develop my life system as well.
I have this 50-page document called "The Rhythm of Existence" that's managed by my two assistants and my chief of staff. It's basically the operating system for my entire life.
This allows all aspects of my life—whether it's from my food to my haircuts, to how I deal with birthdays and all these different things—to be put into the system. It's managed, automated, and gives me back more capacity to be able to do more.
I can be more present with my wife and kids, more present when I'm working, and more focused. I can get more done because I keep adding more and more automation and optimization to my life. This allows me to just live and do the things I love to do, which then gives me more energy to be more successful, more clear, have more intention, and push things further and farther along, you know?
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Sam Parr | Would you be willing to come on again and talk more about pretty much everything you've discussed? Also, the things that we've planned because this is going to be a home run.
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Rob Dyrdek | Yeah, look, you know what I'd like to do? I'd probably like to send you all of my stuff so you could read it and see it.
Here's a life conversation of how Rob lives and runs his life optimization. Then, I can send you all of my business materials, including my machine method and how I run my businesses through the discovery, diligence, build, scale, launch, and scale phases.
I also have my seven core capabilities of business and brand: product, media, marketing, and sales.
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Sam Parr | like you have a new product coming out | |
Shaan Puri | yeah this is this is the the pure deck mba program | |
Rob Dyrdek | No, it's not. It's just so I can build businesses efficiently and consistently.
You know, this morning I told my head of media, "Look, I think I'm going to come up with a Drake equation for business." Are you guys familiar with the Drake equation? The Drake equation is essentially the probability of intelligent life in the universe.
To me, I believe that there's an equation I can create that factors in market conditions, founder experience, founder age, and all these different elements that add up to a probability number regarding the company I'm about to create with this person's potential for success.
It's because I've pointed my mastery towards mastering the curation of individuals and ideas, building them into sustainable, profitable, acquirable businesses. I just get better and better at every single one that I build because that mastery is focused in a single direction.
My depth of knowledge in building companies is getting so wide, which in turn makes me more intuitive. I can have a five-minute conversation with a potential founder and identify all their gaps. I can tell if they're more operations-minded, like a product person who doesn't understand marketing or media, or if they're a financial mind that understands product.
Oh, it's a brand-minded product person who doesn't understand operations, marketing, or finances for sure. You become extraordinarily intuitive if you want to save energy. That's where your mastery shows itself.
So, I digress. We could do a live show and a business show, you know?
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Shaan Puri | I'm intrigued I do | |
Sam Parr |
They're very similar, dude. This is so good! I'm so thankful that you came on. Thank you so much. We're gonna do this again, I hope. Hopefully you'll do it, but we're gonna do it.
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Shaan Puri | yeah yeah this has been our pleasure thank you so much for coming on | |
Rob Dyrdek | okay all the best now | |
Sam Parr | cool |