How A YouTube Car Reviewer Sold His Company For $80M | Doug DeMuro (#456)

Doug DeMuro

Well how

Sam Parr

does it feel to be wealthy now after after grinding out to this for so long

Doug DeMuro

it's better than before it is it is definitely nice

Sam Parr

Doug, I want to give you an intro because I've been a fan of yours forever. In 2019 or 2020, when our podcast was much smaller, I told Sean about you. I said, "This guy Doug is very fascinating. I think he should launch some type of car website." I'm not sure, then you did. We talked about it, and I'm like, "I'm pretty sure this is gonna be huge." So, I want to take a little bit of credit. I want to take like 1%... you know, I helped you succeed. I get a little bit of credit because I picked you. You're my horse that I bet on.

Doug DeMuro

There's something real... I'm sure we'll discuss this, but there's something real about that. I tell all my friends now in this space, "You need to start businesses. This will not last forever." You need to start businesses, and I think smart people who learn the business world kind of realize that.

Sam Parr

And you are my guy. So, for the audience who don't know, Doug DeMuro started as a... you're just a YouTuber, I guess. I mean, you were originally a journalist for a bunch of different websites where you would write these funny, quirky blogs. Then you parlayed that into a YouTube channel that I think now has like 4 million subscribers. But the reason why you're huge and lovable is for a few different reasons. 1. You dress really funny. You'll wear like khaki shorts from the early 2000s with a red polo shirt. Then your white undershirt will be longer than the sleeves of your polo shirt, so it's like hanging out with those sleeves. You just dress like horribly, even though your videos each get like 2 or 3 million views. Like, you're on Jay Leno's podcast or you're on Jay Leno's YouTube a few days ago, and you're wearing Saucony running shoes. I'm like, "What are you doing, dude?"

Doug DeMuro

Well, Jay... Jay is not like Jay's dressing up, you know? So, I feel like there's not a high bar there.

Sam Parr

Anyway, you're just very likable because of the way you dress. You're very funny and quirky. One of your things is you talk about the quirks of cars. You're very relatable, and you've grown this YouTube channel to about 4,000,000 subscribers. You launched this company called Cars and Bids, which is almost like eBay but for different types of cars—car enthusiasts. So, cars from the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s. Recently, you sold the majority of the business to the Churning Group for around $40,000,000, I believe, when it was only like 2 or 3 years old. Yeah, and I've bought cars from the website. So anyway, I'm a big fan.

Doug DeMuro

well thank you I appreciate that thank you for having me on

Shaan Puri

I just listened to... so I just bought a car a couple of months ago, 3 or 4 months. I owe, and it was your YouTube video that put me over the edge. So, I bought a Cadillac. I bought an Escalade, and I was looking for a review. Your review has 1,700,000 views. I was like, "Okay, this has got to be the best one." Like Sam said, I was surprised because I'm not a car guy at all. Also, I had never seen your stuff; I'd only heard Sam talk about you on the podcast. So, I actually didn't put two and two together that, "Oh, that's the same guy that Sam's been talking about," until I watched the video. I was like, "I don't know why I trust this guy." What's the key to being the sort of likable, trustworthy guy? Is that just who you are? Did you play anything up in your YouTube videos? Is there any strategy here, or is it all just who you are?

Doug DeMuro

No, that's a good question. The answer is there is remarkably little strategy. In fact, if you go and watch the videos from before I had a lot of subscribers, they're pretty much the same. So it's not like I knew what the hell I was doing when I had 200,000 subscribers. It's not like I knew where this was gonna go. But I really think one of the reasons I did it this way is that a lot of people come to me and they're like, "I'm gonna make the best car videos with 4K drones and high-quality sound and music and all this stuff." I just wanted to show people that you actually can do this. As long as the content is good, you can just do it. You can just do it in your garage.

Sam Parr

you're just using an iphone right

Doug DeMuro

Basically, the shots where I'm in them, there's a cam. It's a Sony 4K camcorder, which isn't cheap, but it's also not like a crazy camera. And then an iPhone is... yeah, half the video is done on an iPhone.

Sam Parr

And like, you're editing. If I remember correctly, up until recently, like until the start of "Cars" and "Biz," you were editing them. They're not like good editing, but in a way that makes it awesome. Like, you know what I mean? It's very... it's really funny. It's quirky.

Doug DeMuro

I'm simple. My goal was always to overload people with information and cool stuff about the cars. They could decide if they felt that the quality was not good enough, then they could go find somebody else. But I always felt that I had the most information. Like, when you bought that Escalade, I wanted to show how all that stuff works, how it's going to fit together, and what it's like sitting inside it. So many other people focus so much on the driving experience. They do 20-minute videos, and 18 of those minutes are about how it goes through the corners. I was just like, "You know, let's show people the little ins and outs of the car they are actually going to buy." I think that has proved to be quite useful.

Sam Parr

And you also have this thing at the end. I don't know if you saw this, Sean, but I watch every single one of his videos. He has this thing at the end called the "Doug Score." And Doug, you kind of like... by the way, it seems like I'm insulting you constantly, but in reality, I'm in love with you. But I'm like, it's...

Doug DeMuro

Just... it's just I don't... I get what you're saying. Like, yeah, the quality was never the goal. The goal was always about the quality of content, you know?

Shaan Puri

well what

Doug DeMuro

I'm saying is agree with you

Sam Parr

You have this thing called the **Dug Score**, which I base my buying decisions off of. I've bought a bunch of cars—probably 3 or 4 cars—off of you. You've driven, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars of value to whoever I bought my car from. You have this thing called the **Dug Score** at the end of every video. I went and Googled it and tried to find it, but you could barely find it. It's like on a Google Sheet, and you have to click "File" and then "Make a copy" so I could sort it. I'm trying to sort it, and I'm like, you know what I mean? I want to because you have two categories: you have the weekend category...

Shaan Puri

which

Sam Parr

Is right, you know, like a dad who wants to have fun. It's like McLarens and stuff like that. Then you have a family or a daily category, which is just like what's good for daily life. Some days I'm like, you know, maybe I'm in the mood to buy a fast car. Like, let's go, let's sort by speed in that category.

Doug DeMuro

weekend yeah

Sam Parr

And, but I gotta go to Excel, and I'm going to do a row freeze. It's so complicated. Why don't you make this more robust? This database could be a business in itself.

Doug DeMuro

I know, I agree. I should do more with it. To be fair, the Doug Score came out in like mid-2017, and for the first two years, it wasn't really all that valuable because it didn't have that many cars in it. Then, like late 2019, it started to become pretty valuable, and now there's gotta be like a thousand data points in there. What happened was I launched Cars and Bids, and my priorities had to kind of take shape. Yeah, I probably should do more with that because I think it's valuable. Also, I think the really valuable thing would be to sort by type of car. For example, if you want a fast wagon, you could pull up all the fast wagons, and then you can just have that. But that's something that you could do at home. I've decided I'm going to just do the videos and spec. I'm a big fan of specialization, so I decided I'm going to do the videos, and we're going to let other people handle the data. Sometimes people email me, saying, "I just did this great data project with all the Doug Score data. Here it is!" I look at it, and it's really cool. I think, "I should be doing that," but I'm not.

Sam Parr

At what point did you... so the show, I mean your channel, has it been growing very steadily? Was it making enough income to live off of throughout its existence?

Doug DeMuro

Yeah, so I launched the channel in late 2013, but the really big turning point for the channel was in late 2016. I flipped to two videos a week, and I don't know that necessarily that is the turning point anymore for a YouTube channel, but in 2016, it had a big effect. Almost right away after doing that, it became enough money to live on. I made that switch in August of 2016, and in December of 2016, I made $20,000. I was like, "Oh my God, this is a thing!" What I didn't know was that Christmas ad revenue is way higher at Christmas time. So in January, I made like $8, and I was like, "Oh, well, I guess maybe this isn't a thing. I kind of know what's going on." But that was one of the things I learned throughout. So yeah, pretty quickly, it kind of grew to become something I could live on.

Shaan Puri

And so, when you made that switch, you were like, "Alright, I'm gonna start doing two videos." Was it because you had heard that the algorithm likes it, or did you just happen to do it and saw a bump? What was the reason? I always wonder about people who get started with content. In retrospect, it always makes sense. It's like, "Oh, of course people are gonna want to see a car before they buy it," or just sit from the comfort of their home and get to see a review of a car. That makes sense. YouTube's the biggest video platform, so whoever does it on YouTube is gonna benefit. There's gonna be lots of search volume, so they'll probably get views just by the search of the name of the car. Yeah, that video is probably gonna charge a premium or be worth a premium, or maybe make money on affiliate marketing or something. I don't know exactly what it is, but I can see how to make money. It all makes sense in hindsight. At the time, in 2013, when you started doing this, did you think, "There's a business here"? How did you get those initial views? How did you get the initial momentum? Was it because of your following as a writer, or was it separate?

Doug DeMuro

Yeah, that's exactly what happened. I actually got really lucky. You know, I never ever tell people to work for promotional value. A lot of times, businesses will be like, "Oh, instead of paying you in money, I'll pay you in exposure," and I think that's BS. But it actually worked for me. I wrote for Jalopnik, which at the time was a Gawker blog and was incredibly popular. It was the most popular car blog on the internet by far. I started inserting my videos into those articles, and that drove the articles, which then drove people to the videos. This started to put me in the algorithm, which then started to get me subscribers. Jalopnik was paying me, I swear to God, $25 an article, which was not real money. But the value was in the number of people coming over to my YouTube. I didn't know that at the time, but in the later years, as 2013 became 2015, it became clear to me: I think I'm actually a YouTuber and not a writer. I think this is a reality now. So when I decided to move to two videos a week, what happened was I left Jalopnik to start a blog with AutoTrader and Cox Automotive. In order to promote that blog, I decided I would be shooting more videos. Within eight weeks, the video content was suddenly earning way more views and way more revenue than the writing content.

Shaan Puri

And thankfully, the video channel was your own. Right? The video channel was your own, even though these were guest blogs on other people's platforms.

Doug DeMuro

Yeah, the agreement with Autotrader was that I would promote on my YouTube channel this blog that we had started.

Sam Parr

And so, I didn't realize that you've been doing this since 2013. I thought that I was like an OG by watching since 2017. So, I mean, you've been grinding at this for a while, yeah?

Doug DeMuro

But you pretty much are. Initially, I made videos with my own cars, and those just never got as much traction. The big switch in 2017 was when I switched to doing reviews of cars. Suddenly, it was a lot less work because I didn't have to buy cars and take on that personal financial risk. I would just show up at a dude's house, film his car, and then peace out. That was a video, and it didn't cost me anything except for the gas to get there. So, that was a big change. It also allowed me to do more videos because you can just create more content that way. With your own cars, you have to think up a new topic every week, which isn't always easy. In 2017, I think that's when things really started to take off. When I started to do car reviews, especially new car reviews, that's when I realized, "Okay, that's where the money is, and that's where the audience is."

Sam Parr

But you make jokes sometimes where you're like... for example, I watched your video on the Defender. I'm thinking about buying a new one, and I noticed you made little jokes like, "One day when I'm able to afford [blank], I'll get it." Watching your videos, I'm like, "Man, I think you could." I bet you're making at least low seven figures per year without Cars and Bids. I have to imagine this is significantly more lucrative than the vibe you joke about in the videos.

Doug DeMuro

But the thing that's important for people to understand is that there are two components. Number one is, you never know when it's going to end. I was making a lot of money, but you never know when suddenly a competitor shows up. It can happen in a couple of months, and suddenly you're now third, fourth, or fifth in search. Things are slowing down, and you never really know what that day is going to be. Unlike maybe an attorney or a doctor, where you have a job and make a lot of money—less than I was, but you have a lot more job security over the long term— for me, it was like, yes, I had a lot of money, but I saved so much of it because I was always just terrified. I never knew exactly what was going to happen.

Shaan Puri

What amount of money did you feel like you kind of made it? When did you look at the number and think, "I can't believe this is mine"? Where was the milestone for you that it was kind of like your "holy shit" moment?

Doug DeMuro

Not until we closed the deal with Churnin, believe it or not, I just never earned on an annual, monthly, or weekly basis. To me, that's just... there's always some fear in that. You know, like you're always just a little worried that the tap is going to turn off. So, there was never a moment where I felt comfortable spending or splurging on something. Which, Sam, goes back to your point. Yeah, there were times when I said, "If I could afford this, I would buy it." But like, I probably could have afforded it. But could I have afforded it, and then my business, and then YouTube slows down? Then I have to deal with the depreciation of it. Like, a new Lambo would be cool, right? But if that loses $200,000 in the first two years, I couldn't mentally justify that. Same with the new AMG wagon. I've always wanted one, but they were $150,000 when they were new. Well, was I comfortable losing $50,000 in a year? Mentally, no, because I was always afraid the tap might turn off, you know, at the YouTube channel.

Sam Parr

Did you... when you originally launched Cars and Bids, I was a big fan of Bring a Trailer. Bring a Trailer is similar to you, but it has a different audience. I think I heard rumors that when they sold, it was for around $300 million. When you go to BringATrailer.com, it looks just like a blog. It's very simple; it doesn't look like a sophisticated business, but in reality, it is. When you launched, I was like, "Yeah, this is awesome!" But of course, there were a lot of critics who said, "Well, this thing already exists." So, what insight did you have to go down this path? Also, who did you partner with early on? Because I don't think that you're a tech person, right? No, no, not at all. As you can...

Doug DeMuro

See, from my video editing and heavy usage of iMovie... No, yeah, Bring a Trailer. It does exist, and they were huge then, and they're even huger now. That was the hurdle. What insight did we have? None. What were we thinking? In retrospect, I honestly wonder, like, what was going through our minds thinking we could compete with them? The only insight we had was that we had heard, "I love Bring a Trailer," and I think they run a great business and they have some great cars. I have sold cars on there, whatever. But we had heard from that there was some dissatisfaction. I think at the end of the day, Bring a Trailer had gotten so massive that stuff was taking a long time to get listed. There were, like you said, issues with the quality of it. It's a WordPress blog, ultimately, and it had caused some issues for sellers and buyers in terms of functionality. We kind of thought to ourselves, "Hey, we can do this in our minds better, and we can make it modern." One of the big things that was our focus was doing cars just from the 1980s and up, like more modern era cars. We thought, "Hey, if we come with a modern website and focus on a modern audience, maybe we can exist in a sort of different space than Bring a Trailer," where it's more millennial, younger people focused on these types of cars. I think that has largely teased out, although now we're starting to kind of eat some of the Bring a Trailer cars. We just posted a Lamborghini Countach on the site today. We're going down that road a little bit more.

Sam Parr

And who did you partner with early on? I mean, when I was doing research for the original pod, I remember I went to the person's LinkedIn. I was like, "I gotta figure out who he's working with."

Doug DeMuro

like

Sam Parr

so yeah what was that relationship and you know how did it come about

Doug DeMuro

you know it's an interesting thing I get I my email address is in all my videos

Sam Parr

it's like a yahoo it's just doug demorro at yahoo right

Doug DeMuro

And to be clear, my personal email address is not on Yahoo, but that's the email address for all the people who are going to send me emails. Because, as you can imagine, when you post your email address publicly, you get some weird stuff going on, you know?

Sam Parr

Yeah, people think they know you. What's it called? People, you know, we get that—Sean and I get that all the time. What's it called? A parasocial relationship.

Doug DeMuro

Right, that's exactly it. People will email me and be like, "Hey man, I'm making $84,000 a year. I have two kids, one of them is in private school, and I'm thinking about leaving my wife. What car do you think I should get?" And I'm like, "What? That's great, but..." So, I get random emails. A viewer named Blake emailed me and said, "Hey, I know we live close by in San Diego. I have this car. If you ever want to get dinner..." This was before I had a kid, and I would meet up with random people. I did this many, many times—probably a hundred times. I met up with just random people on the internet. It was how I made friends when we moved to new cities. So, I met up with him and learned that he did something in tech, which is how non-tech people view all tech people, you know? It hit me that I kind of wanted to do this only a couple of months after our meeting. I called him and said, "Hey, I know you do something in tech. Can we do this? What do you think of this idea?" He had actually just sold a car on Bring a Trailer and recognized some of the deficiencies. He said, "Yeah, this is a great idea." We used some seed money from his company to get off the ground and get started. Then we launched, and right away, we were quickly earning revenue and became profitable.

Shaan Puri

Was any of the... What was the split? So I always wondered this about creator kind of businesses where it's like: - Are you just promotion? - Do you have to do anything with operations? - Do you have to put in money? What's the equity split? How did you guys decide kind of roles and then the ownership split?

Doug DeMuro

It was tough to decide, and there was a lot of back and forth. It kind of almost killed the thing, but I ended up with a substantial majority. Even though they had put down the money, I was coming with the audience. One of the interesting things I think about these businesses, you'd mentioned Bring a Trailer, is how could you compete with it? You would be shocked at how many other auction sites have shown up and failed since we launched. Most of them never even make it on anybody's radar. Of course, we watch them like a hawk because it's our business. But you'd be stunned at how many of these have shown up. We learned that you can make a great product, and that's important, and we did that. However, having an audience—showing up with an audience—is crucial for the success of this. That's what caused all the other ones to fail. As a result of that, I think they understood that a large portion of the value, at least initially, was me. So even though there was sort of a tangling in it, I ended up with the majority. Yes, I ended up doing an enormous amount of operations work. In the first few weeks, I was personally approving or denying all the cars that got submitted. We didn't know it would blow up so much right away, but that's what happened.

Sam Parr

get a I think you got a 1,000 in one day right

Doug DeMuro

it was like the craziest day of my life we got a 1,000

Sam Parr

and you gave like a you gave like a 3 sentence description of each car

Doug DeMuro

Yeah, that was another thing. What the hell was I thinking marrying myself to that idea? But what happened was, when we first launched, we had this idea that in order to attract sellers, we would offer $1,000 for the first 50 cars on the site and $500 for the next 50 cars on the site. It was a brilliant idea. It was spending whatever that works out to be, $75,000 or whatever, but it was the greatest $75,000 we ever spent because we got so many submissions right away. However, then we had to deal with them, and boy, was that a help's day. It was all me doing it basically. It's a nightmare.

Sam Parr

And what's the business model? The business model is, you probably... if I don't remember exactly, but is it that buyers of cars have to give you like 3, 4, or 5% of the total purchase price?

Doug DeMuro

That's right. Sellers pay nothing; buyers pay 4.5%. Now, we've got a few other drivers of revenue as well. There's a shipping component, and we just launched inspections, which is really cool. Sellers can get their cars inspected, and we have already seen that this increases the number of bids and the sale price. I think that's going to be a big benefit going forward. But mainly, it's that we get this buyer's fee. Of course, we've now rolled up the businesses into one business: the YouTube channel and the auction site. Obviously, my content revenue is a part of the business too.

Sam Parr

And you did, I believe in 2021, you did something like $75,000,000 in gross sales.

Doug DeMuro

yeah that feels right I should've looked at the numbers for print but yeah it looks like the

Shaan Puri

First month, so you get this immediate surge of listings, but you know, getting a marketplace off the ground could be hard. But I suspect with your audience that it kind of just took off probably fairly quickly. What do you remember about that first month? What were the numbers?

Doug DeMuro

oh yeah I'll never forget

Sam Parr

car was your car right the the the first

Doug DeMuro

Car was my car. That's right, the first car was my car, and I've since sold four or five, although I haven't bought yet. I gotta do that. The first month was chaos. I mean, it's like you hear from any successful startup founder, right? It was absolute chaos. We had the good problem of not having planned for the success that came, but the bad problem of then having to do it on the fly. We were hiring people while talking to them on a... we didn't even have an office. It was COVID. We launched in June of 2020; there were no offices. We launched the whole business from my back patio. So, we were talking to people in the pool. I mean, the whole situation was a complete disaster. That month was definitely the most chaotic and ridiculous of my entire life. The first two months, really. We started to build more of an infrastructure and more of a team, and that kind of started to make things easier. But I was still on the ground, in the trenches, doing everything until the churn and investment came. We got a little more cash, and we could finally start putting people in their roles. I could go back to my biggest asset to the business, which is, of course, you know, doing the talk.

Shaan Puri

A little bit about the sale... How'd that come about? That's a high-stakes negotiation, probably the biggest hand of poker you've ever played. Tell us some fun stories about the process and then the... say, the ultimate say of what went down.

Doug DeMuro

You know, I was really lucky that I had Blake, who has been in the business world, the startup world before, and sort of held my hand through the process. Because I was just clueless. I mean, at the end of the day, I make YouTube videos for a living. I shouldn't be involved in any sort of high eight-figure private equity deal. That's not where I live, you know? I need people. So they came to us and...

Sam Parr

And by the way, we hear your fidget spinner or whatever you have there on the mic. There you go, you're the G.W.

Doug DeMuro

This is a Toyota Mega Cruiser. They came to us, and as you can imagine, we had a lot of people reach out to us because we had kind of grown. It became clear quickly that the car market started to blow up. All these private equity firms were saying, "We gotta get in on this! We gotta get in on this today!" Here's this business that's actually succeeding, doing it. Bring a Trailer had just sold to Hurst, and so all these other companies were like, "Are we missing something? We gotta go!" They were asking, "What's out there? Could we start it ourselves, or does this already exist?" We were getting a lot of reach-outs, but we viewed it as kind of BS. We thought we were too small to make this make sense to anybody, so we kind of ignored them all. But the Churnin Group was really persistent. Finally, they got introduced to us through a friend. I thought to myself, "Well, I can't say no to this call if it came through a friend. I'll just take it; it'll be 10 minutes, and I'll hang up." I took the call in the car, and they told me the most interesting thing. I wasn't familiar with the Churnin Group, but they mentioned that they specifically work with creator-led businesses. That was a huge light bulb moment for me because my big fear of working with any private equity or venture capital companies was that they would come in and say, "We gotta change this, this, and this on your YouTube channel. It's gonna look like this now, and this is how it's gonna work." Even if it was a big payday for me, I felt like I didn't want to have to explain to someone how YouTube works. I just wanted to do it myself. But these guys already knew how it worked. They were going to say, "Your audience is already working; we don't want to screw with anything." That was a big moment for me, hearing that they specialized in this. Going forward, that just sort of began the conversation. One thing led to another; they went through how we might do it. We gave them some basics, and they provided us with a term sheet, and it came to fruition.

Sam Parr

were you able to take money off the table or did it go to the go to the business

Doug DeMuro

Yeah, no, I took money off. I bought that Turo GT, and it was a nice situation for me to be able to do that, especially after a lot, a lot of hard work. Actually, in the end, I feel like this is the best time because I have enough money that I can kind of chill a little bit. I swear there's something nice about that in terms of running and operating a business like this.

Sam Parr

You make way more money when you have that... like when you can chill a little bit. You know, the less you want it, the more you get it.

Doug DeMuro

I feel like that's true. I feel like I'm more relaxed. I'm focusing on myself a little bit more, and then I'm in a better mental state to make better decisions and do more things. In the end, it's actually been beneficial, even though you would think it would be the opposite. If you're chasing money, you'd work harder. Maybe I did work harder, but I think I'm working better now.

Sam Parr

Have you heard the phrase, "Treat them mean, keep them keen"? I remember when I was about 16, I was telling a friend, a girlfriend who was this really pretty girl, "Man, I want to meet more girls." She said, "You gotta treat them mean to keep them keen. You know, the less you want it, the more you're gonna get it." I was like, "Oh, thank you!" So, I tried way less hard, and I got way more girls. The same is true with money. I treat it mean, and I keep it keen. You know, the money comes to me the more you don't want it.

Shaan Puri

That sounds like something an aunt would say. No 14-year-old is hitting me with that quote when you say, "I wanna meet more girls."

Doug DeMuro

yeah she was

Sam Parr

Like a neighbor, you know? She was in college at the time. I was like, "Man, I'm trying to meet these girls." I read the book *The Game*, I'm doing all this stuff, I'm trying hard. She was like, "You gotta treat me to keep the team." She's like, "You just gotta care less. You don't do nothing."

Doug DeMuro

we're still using that phrase all these years later it's still relevant and so how how

Shaan Puri

Does this work though? Like, if I'm... this may be a question for Mike and those guys at Turnit, but... you buy a creator-led business, creator wants to go chill on the beach now. You give them a million and a million dollars, but you need their face still. It's tied to their face. Is there like a long transition plan where you... it's like Blippi where they just changed out the guy? A different guy came in and started wearing the stuff on YouTube, and everyone in the comments is like, "Hey, that's not Blippi!" What's the plan here?

Doug DeMuro

You know, I've been on... I've done a few podcasts and interviews and all sorts of things after this deal is closed. I think about your question constantly, and you're the first person on one of these who's actually asked it to me. Because, yeah, I think they're nuts. I truly think they're crazy. Like, if you really think about it.

Shaan Puri

best answer if you really think about it

Doug DeMuro

Like, if the whole thing works, it's a great idea. For them, it's worked wonderfully, and I suspect that relates to the diligence they do on the creator. They know that I'm not going to do that, right? Because they got to know me through this process. It took like 6 to 8 months, and we really got to know each other. They realized I wasn't about to just bail and ghost it on the beach or do something insane, like start saying crazy stuff on Twitter and get canceled. Whatever, they knew that. But I could still, if I were them, be terrified. They're making massive investments into businesses that have dudes like me who could just go off the rails one day. I think that is a crazy business model. But they would retort by saying, "We do the diligence, but also, this is how businesses are going to be." Creators have these audiences. This is where people want to get their stuff, whatever it is—kitchen products, cars, it doesn't matter. They want to get it from people they love and care about, like Mr. Beast Burger, you know, all that stuff. So if you're going to do it, you've got to take that risk. The benefit is you don't have to spend a lot on paid marketing because the audience is there, and they want to be there. There's a huge benefit to that, but also a very scary potential problem.

Shaan Puri

We've had Mr. Beast on the pod. We recently did an episode with Danny Austin, who created a hair care brand, basically a scalp brand, and it's also doing really, really well. What creator brands are awesome to you? Which ones do you think have done a good job? Is there any that stand out or that you took inspiration from?

Doug DeMuro

That's a good question. You know, when we launched this, when we came up with the idea and launched it in the summer of 2019, it wasn't as common. Having a creator pivot into a brand was less of a thing. A lot of guys were doing merch; that was a big thing. Some of them even had lines of products, whatever. But the pivoting of doing this has become more of a thing since then. I wouldn't say any of them were necessarily an inspiration. It was more that I was just terrified that I had this giant audience, and if I didn't do something with them, they were going to start to go away eventually. I had to do something, and so it was more based out of fear and anxiety than being inspired by someone.

Shaan Puri

which is great

Hubspot

But obviously, since then, a lot of others have come. I give this advice to everybody I know in this space, all of my creator friends. I tell them, "Start a business! Start a business! Start a business!" You never know when your audience is going to go away. Please, take your audience right now and start a business. Do something! They look at me like I'm nuts some of the time because they're like, "What do you mean? I'm already traveling 5 days a week, filming, and doing all this stuff, and editing late at night, writing scripts. How can I start a business on top of that?" My answer is, "I don't know, but you gotta figure it out because that's the next way to take what you're doing." I can't find this client info. Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application. Every team can stay aligned—no out-of-sync spreadsheets or dueling databases. HubSpot: grow better.

Sam Parr

Have you seen that? I want to ask you about two ideas. Have you guys seen what's it called, *Exotic Car Hacks*? I think it's called that. No, dude, it's just the guy... I think he's like playing a douche on TV. I think he's trying to be an asshole. His whole thing... he's definitely a total jerk, but he's got this course. I think it's a course; I don't know if it's a community or a course, but you pay a little bit of money and he teaches you how to hack exotic cars. I have not taken it, but I think what it means is you buy a car that's like 4 or 5 years old, usually around the $20,000 or 20,000-mile range. Then you drive it for one year, and you could sell it, hopefully breaking even. I think he also has a thing where you can become a licensed dealer, which I don't understand how that works. But I heard a rumor that he sold the course to PE. Is that true or totally made up?

Doug DeMuro

I don't know I I haven't heard that

Sam Parr

have you seen that sean are you looking at the guy now

Shaan Puri

His YouTube banner is like Tim as a Grand Theft Auto character, so that's solid to start. Then, I think you're right, it's basically like how it says "Learn how to buy, sell, and trade exotic cars for fun and profit," which is honestly a good niche. In fact, my only criticism of this guy is he doesn't look douchey enough. Like, once you go into the video, he's just like a guy wearing a V-neck. He doesn't look like... yeah, he's just kinda like...

Sam Parr

no dude he's like I

Shaan Puri

I watched the video of his... He was like, wearing 10 times more jewelry than he's wearing [now]. Like, this guy... he needs to piss me off but also make me want him, right? That's the trick.

Sam Parr

Well, he was driving a Land Rover Defender and he goes, "See, the problem with the Land Rover Defender is my watch is worth five times this Defender."

Shaan Puri

somebody gains the audio he's a verbal teacher

Sam Parr

He goes, "Even though it looks cool, I can't decide if I'm poor because five of these still wouldn't equal the price of my watch."

Shaan Puri

Well, I think more people should do this. So, Doug, one of the companies I built got bought by Twitch. When I was at Twitch, you know, you spend a bunch of time on Twitch and you see what people are doing. It was like everybody's kind of doing a very similar thing. It's like, you know, there are two classes of people. There are really good players, and people watch them because they're so awesome at the game. Then there are guys who have no personality; people just like them because their aim is good. Then you have people that are super cute, right? Hot girls do well too. And then you have the third group, which is like the group you're in, I would say. They’re not the most technically good at the game, but they're likable and fun. They play a variety of games, which keeps it interesting with good fan interaction. Then there was one guy that just took it in a whole different direction: this guy, Doctor Disrespect. Have you seen him?

Doug DeMuro

yeah I've heard of him

Shaan Puri

So, he created a whole character. He comes on, and he himself was like a college basketball player, so he's like 6'8". He's this huge guy, but he wears this mullet wig and a red bulletproof vest. He looks like a character from the eighties. He created this persona called "Doctor Disrespect," and he has his catchphrases. He was basically a wrestling character, similar to The Rock, where he had this persona and these catchphrases. Then, everybody in his life became a character. His wife became a character too. If she would come on the screen, you would never see her face—only her hand. She would feed him while he was playing, like feeding him grapes, basically. He would do everything ridiculous. To add to that, he would go sit courtside at an NBA game, fully dressed as Doctor Disrespect. That investment of like $5,000 for a courtside seat was actually really valuable for building this persona and brand. He always called himself the "1994-1995 two-time Blockbuster NBA Jam whatever champion." He's got these phrases that...

Sam Parr

he would always go to just purposely trying to be hateable

Shaan Puri

yeah just trying to be like exactly he created a whole character and he just stayed he stayed with character

Sam Parr

floyd may when floyd mayweather became money mayweather

Doug DeMuro

exactly

Sam Parr

he's like I'm I'm going full heel

Shaan Puri

Exactly. But even more, it was more like wrestling because he's got a costume on top of the whole thing. I actually think that for content creators, it's surprising you don't see more.

Doug DeMuro

of this like yeah that's such a good?

Shaan Puri

There are these archetypes. Like in wrestling, you have the faces, the good guys, and you got the heels, the guys that are intentionally bad. They’re going to get a big following because you'll love to hate them. Floyd Mayweather did this in boxing. He was not making any money, and then he became "Floyd Money Mayweather," this obnoxious, arrogant, you-know, money-in-your-face guy. Then he started getting really, really popular because people wanted to see him lose. There's a guy in the UFC that did the same thing. He was basically about to get cut. The UFC told him, "You're too boring; we're going to cut you." So that night, he went on and just started saying all this offensive stuff on the microphone against Brazilians and this one fighter, and whatever. They were like, "Well, now we gotta keep him to fight that guy," because he just created a feud. This guy just took it to the level 10 of being this heel. I'm surprised there's not more of this on YouTube.

Doug DeMuro

You know, the best car guy who's doing that right now is this guy, Whistling Diesel. Have you ever seen his content?

Sam Parr

love whistling diesel I heard that he's a sweetheart by the way

Doug DeMuro

There is no car content creator who I like more than Whistling Diesel. I've never met him.

Sam Parr

tell tell sean tell sean what he does

Doug DeMuro

Dude, it's like Mr. Beast but for cars. He just does things that make people hate him. For example, he buys a Ferrari to destroy it. You know those garage bubbles that boomers have? They put their old Corvette inside them. It's like an inflatable bubble that makes sure nobody ever touches the car. He bought one of those for his Ferrari and just started throwing stuff at it—ladders, shovels, and sledgehammers—to see if it would off-road the Ferrari. He even put giant 20-foot tall wagon wheels on his Tesla. I mean, all sorts of just dumb stuff. I'm obsessed with it! I'm like, this is the kind of content I wish I was making.

Sam Parr

how does he how does this guy afford it

Doug DeMuro

I assume he's doing the same thing that Mr. Beast is doing, where he's taking basically all of the money that he's pulling in from revenue and from ad placements and just putting it right back into doing more crazy stuff. Like, he dropped the G-Wagon into a house when he was in the G... I mean, everything is just incredible. It's incredible content.

Shaan Puri

so cool

Sam Parr

what are some of the titles

Shaan Puri

Using $35,000 Nike Air Mags as work boots. So, he bought extremely rare, extremely expensive shoes. It's just a great day.

Sam Parr

in the mud

Shaan Puri

With them doing work, there's extreme school bus off-roading. He takes a bus and he's just flying around. But it's also number one, so I guess that's a series. I guess there are going to be a lot more of those to come. Driving a Tesla upside down (10-foot tall wheels). Okay, I don't even know what that is. That's amazing! But each of these has like 5 to 10 million views, so...

Doug DeMuro

Very incredible! It's incredible content, and he's just this kid from like Indiana or rural Pennsylvania. If he wasn't doing this, he'd be driving a truck, you know? But instead, he decided to become famous on YouTube, and he's killing it. I love it! It's great to see people hate it. There is nothing more fun than these people. That guy is so irresponsible, and it's like...

Sam Parr

yeah no let's

Doug DeMuro

get fun

Shaan Puri

it's youtube yeah you're supposed to be irresponsible supposed to be a little ridiculous

Sam Parr

Like a $250,000 G-Wagon, which everyone says is an off-road vehicle, but no one actually drives a G-Wagon off-road. And he... you know, destroys it to a point where it's smoking. He just annihilates his G-Wagon. How much revenue do you think this guy's channel makes? I want to know if he is putting all of it back into the videos. I want to know how much that budget is.

Doug DeMuro

He's getting 20,000,000 views a month, so I suspect he's probably pulling in, you know, around $1 to $2 million a month. Then he does ad placements, and they must get tons of money because his videos get so many views.

Sam Parr

wait at 20,000,000 views a month you think he's making more let me refresh 3,000,000

Doug DeMuro

It's in... I don't know, in his world. I don't know because his audience is, I suspect, very different from mine. My audience, doing car reviews, is really high-dollar content because you're in-market car shoppers. That is a very desirable demographic for advertisers. Whistling Diesel's probably got a lot of kids in his audience. There's probably a more foreign audience than mine, so he probably doesn't make as much. But he's probably doing alright. Plus, he lives in the middle of nowhere in rural Pennsylvania, so his cost of living is... he's good. But he's such a nice car enthusiast, he's damaging.

Sam Parr

what would a good cpm be from adsense for your youtube video

Doug DeMuro

That's a good question. I don't remember anymore. I actually calculated CPM in a completely different way because I never understood why it was views like dollars per 1,000 views. It never really made sense to me. So, I started calculating the number of views I had to get to earn a dollar. So, good for me was a video that broke the 100 mark. That means less than 100 views to earn a dollar. There were a lot of videos, especially in December when ad rates were strong, that were pulling in that.

Shaan Puri

that's so funny that's how you calculated that makes actually it makes a lot of sense because some

Doug DeMuro

of that sense to me

Shaan Puri

Yeah, like I feel like everything you've told me so far is just a guy sort of using his intuition. Like, you're just like, "Well..." I had a friend that would do this. He'd be like, "You know, it..." He would keep his money instead of going to a bank and opening a bank account. Then, when someone would say, "Oh, you should invest it," he'd be like, "No, I have three shoeboxes." Shoebox 1 is for spending money, and shoebox 2 is for saving money. He created his own bank account in my dorm room. He was just like, "Yeah, but if you're going to move one to this box, you gotta put two in the other box." I'm just like, "Dude, I think you're actually just using the normal personal finance rules, but you just are..."

Doug DeMuro

you but you backed into them

Shaan Puri

Backed into them like a guy, you know, like a caveman, just sort of discovering fire. That's probably true.

Doug DeMuro

For me, I will say that, in my view, that's kind of how YouTube was from ages 13 to 19. Before a lot of big businesses started showing up and really maximizing the hell out of everything, I think it was a lot of people just kind of randomly using intuition to make decisions. It was like, "Okay, that video did well, so I'm going to try this video," instead of really thinking through, "Okay, the thumbnail should say this at this pixel," and all that, which is how a lot of creators do it now. It was a lot of just like, "Yeah, let's give this a shot." For some people, it worked out, and those are the people that you end up talking to. For some people, it didn't, and those are the ones who fizzled out.

Sam Parr

Did you and do you now have a video team? I read somewhere that you're editing up until Cars and Bids, and then now you just have an editor. Is that true, or do you have a booker? Because I know you're on the road, or at least you've said in one annual wrap-up, "I traveled like, you know, most weeks."

Doug DeMuro

Yeah, well, when I lived in Philly, I was traveling a ton because of the weather. But now I'm in California, and it's gotten a lot easier. So, it was just me. I launched the channel in 13 weeks and went to 2 videos a week in 16. It was just me up until we launched.

Sam Parr

the royal we the royal we you're saying we

Doug DeMuro

Yeah, well, I think of my wife as part of this because, boy, has that been a journey for her. So, I launched the channel in 2013, and there have always been kind of people around—friends who helped shoot things, that kind of thing. So, there's a "we" component to that too, but mostly it was just me. Then, in March of 2020, when we all launched Cars and Bids, I realized that week that I was never going to be able to edit another video again. I called a guy who had emailed me like a year before, saying, "Hey, you need an editor," and I had just kind of ignored those emails. I asked him, "Are you still available, and can you start today?" His answer was yes, and he's still my editor. It's been now over three years. He just had a baby. But now we have more people because we're going to start doing more content. We hired a video content manager who's going to oversee, I think, multiple channels—mine, the Cars and Bids channel, and then new creators coming in and stuff. I just don't have the bandwidth, especially because I want to continue doing what I'm doing. I don't really have the ability to manage a whole thing in addition.

Sam Parr

Have you guys heard of "More Plates More Dates"? Do you know who that is, Doug? No? Alright, so his name's Derek. He's probably as famous as you, but in the fitness genre. He's been on Joe Rogan and stuff. Whatever. Yeah, and he has a great video, but his video... A) you don't know his last name, you just know it's Derek at More Plates More Dates, and B) his videos are just him on a camera, kind of like you are right now, but it's just a plain white background. It looks like he's in a college dorm or just in his house, just goofing around. But his videos get millions and millions of views. I heard a rumor that now his businesses are making many, many tens of millions a year in revenue. But the room where he originally started this YouTube channel was just like a... a shabby old apartment when he didn't have a lot of money. They took the wall out of the apartment, and he has since moved to a significantly larger, very nice home. But they try to transpose it so it looks exactly like the old one. That's kind of like what you have to do. They don't want people to think, "Oh, Derek is like... kill me now, he's unrelatable." That's sort of like... I imagine you've kind of lucked into this situation where it's like, "Oh, my whole shtick is that I'm quirky, and the videos aren't well edited." Therefore, I could keep getting bigger and bigger without doing anything that sophisticated.

Doug DeMuro

There is a component of that also that it's worked. So, in a sense, I don't really want to change it that much. As much as that is kind of like the shtick, it's also been successful. But yeah, one drawback of this... I think about Jerry Seinfeld a lot when I think about this. Seinfeld's humor is all based on a normal guy doing stuff. He's no longer, and hasn't been for decades, a normal guy. I bet it's gotten harder for him to make jokes like, "Hey, you ever get to the FBI on a private plane, and it's late, and you're like, 'Damn!'?" So, for me, it hasn't gotten harder, but I do feel sad that I'm no longer like your neighbor who's saying, "Here's how you should think of this car," because here's how I think of this car. Now, I'm a guy who's got, you know, a Ford GT or something like that. It's like, okay, well, maybe he's not quite as relatable. When he talks about supercars being slow, it's like, "Well, screw this guy," you know? But I still like to think that I'm... you know, Chris in Chris Rock's most recent comedy special says, "I'm rich, but I identify as poor." I kind of feel that way to an extent because I didn't start this way. I still wear these stupid clothes because that's what I wear. It's not like I've gone and started wearing high-end stuff, and then when the camera turns off, I'm someone else. That's just who I am. So, I think to an extent, it's still pretty genuine.

Sam Parr

By the way, Sean, [the] Carrera GT is like a... one-something million dollar car. It's like a... the car enthusiasts love it. It's like a lot of people's dream car. Doug, but you're the type of guy who I imagine shows up in a $1.5 million car wearing cargo shorts.

Doug DeMuro

yeah oh yeah

Sam Parr

a white t shirt that's dirty and old new balance

Shaan Puri

He's got like the only guy in the country with over 3.5 pockets per leg.

Doug DeMuro

That's exactly right. I drive it everywhere I go. I wear my stupid shorts and t-shirt, and you can think what you want. I'm driving a Carrera GT, so yeah.

Sam Parr

And yeah, I don't know if you've seen this, Sean, but on his videos, the true fans will put stuff at the top of the video like, "Doug's the type of guy who licks his finger before he turns the page on his iPad." Like, he's got the...

Doug DeMuro

Same. This geeky, cautious person, which is probably accurate to be honest. I just love, at the end of the day, how people are like, "The quirks and features thing, what a great idea!" This wasn't an idea; I really just love seeing how buttons work in cars. Like, that is genuinely... and you know what's funny? I shoot all these videos now for the site. You know, we're selling cars on the site, and there are new cars that are going to have big audiences. I show up to film, and I still have this feeling in me every single time. I'm shooting an Acura NSX right after this, and I still have this feeling like I'm really excited to see the quirks of this car. It's still in my mind after all these years, and so I feel like I'm probably doing the right job.

Sam Parr

How does it feel to be wealthy now, after grinding out for so long?

Doug DeMuro

It's better than before. It is definitely nice. Aside from that, I didn't splurge on anything. I kind of live a certain life, and that's sort of how it's going to be. But it is nice to have a little extra. I think I am a little bit more anxious about money than a lot of people, and it's nice to not have any of that anxiety anymore. I'll tell you, it came at the perfect time because I just had a boy. It's amazing to be able to detach and just be with him without having to worry about grinding for the next video or every little dollar. You know, that I placed this thing perfectly in this video. It's like an amazing sequence of events.

Sam Parr

Do you think, how big is this business going to get? I mean, I think... By the way, Sean, have you seen Bigger Trailer? It's basically like...

Doug DeMuro

yeah

Sam Parr

a blog I think it is actually in fact wordpress

Doug DeMuro

it's a blog by

Sam Parr

the way the

Shaan Puri

The whole time we've been doing this interview, I've also just been shopping on Cars and Bids. So I'm currently like... my finger is hovering over this 1994 Toyota HiAce Super Custom Wagon. I can just buy this van for $5,000, and I'm very, very tempted to do this. This is a pretty sweet-looking van. I don't know why I want this, but I really, really want it.

Sam Parr

It's awesome! The site's awesome. I'm looking at this like three-wheeler from Vanderhall because I was looking at a Morgan three-wheeler.

Doug DeMuro

do you have my office

Shaan Puri

car or do I need to close this tab it's it's buy or close the tab those are my two options

Doug DeMuro

right right exactly that's kind of the fun of it

Sam Parr

Well, you break a trailer, which was before you guys. It was basically just a blog. I don't know if you know the show, but the guy who started it, his name is Randy. The other partner was Gentry Underwood, who started Mailbox. Yeah, that's that company that sold for, I think, $100 million pre-launch to Dropbox. I emailed him because he used to have Throttle Yard, which was that for motorcycles. It had all this stuff, and I was like, "Tell me about this business, Bring a Trailer." He says it's the hardest slog. Like, it was the hardest thing ever to get going. It took years, years, years. Then I heard a rumor that it sold for many hundreds of millions of dollars. Do you know what it sold for, Doug?

Doug DeMuro

I have an idea but I don't I'm not gonna speculate on randy's business

Shaan Puri

what did was it to private equity or who who bought it

Sam Parr

hearst

Doug DeMuro

hearst media bought like half of it is our understanding

Sam Parr

am I off in saying that I that like it's I

Doug DeMuro

Would probably valuation was in the $100 million range, but I don't know exactly how much anybody ended up with or whatever. But they did well. Randy killed it; they're killing it now. The sale, by car business standards, was relatively early in the sense that they sold kind of right before things went crazy in 2021. They've ramped, and us, I mean, as a function of this market that's been so crazy, have ramped like crazy since then. So I think that the business is worth quite a lot more now. I suspect... what do you think?

Sam Parr

Do you think this is a multibillion-dollar opportunity? What do you think is going to happen with you guys?

Doug DeMuro

I don't know I honestly I never thought I would get here

Sam Parr

Don't you have to make it that now? If you... I think you sold... I don't know what you sold. You sold it, just said majority for $40,000,000, which puts the valuation in the $60,000,000 to $80,000,000 range, I imagine. I mean, you need like a... I imagine they're looking for like a $500,000,000+ outcome then, I think we'd...

Doug DeMuro

I think we'd all be happy at **$500,000,000**. I don't... but I think there's a pathway to get there. Frankly, I think Bring a Trailer has shown that. The reality of this space is that this is how it's going. The internet made it easier to buy and sell cars. Obviously, it used to be in the newspaper, and that was kind of a disaster with low information on both sides. Now, the internet shows up. Craigslist shows up; that's one thing. People are starting to realize that there is significant value in these auction sites because sellers can amplify their reach. They can get to a much larger audience than they could on their own website or on AutoTrader. Buyers can also access a larger selection, frankly, than having to visit every single dealer's website or go to physical auctions like Meekum. What are you going to show up there? That's not realistic for a lot of people. This is kind of becoming the new wave. So, I honestly don't know. I think if you had asked Randy eight years ago, he never would have thought his business would have gotten this big. But the market is growing along with these businesses.

Sam Parr

Another interesting person in your space who I think you have a feud with, but I don't know why. When Sean bought his car, I think he watched your video and then he DM'd this guy named "Car Dealer Guy." Is that right?

Doug DeMuro

it's called

Shaan Puri

car dealership guy

Sam Parr

<FormattedTranscription> So, basically, the story behind this is that Sean and I have been obsessed with the idea of a billionaire YouTuber. Mr. Beast is at least getting there; he might be around that level. We've seen $1,000,000,000 companies start on Facebook and Instagram, but no one has said it on Twitter yet. However, we believe it will happen. In particular, we're interested in these guys called "the guys." There’s the strip mall guy who talks about investing in strip malls, and then there’s the watch guy who talks about old watches. We're curious about what’s going to happen with these guys. Then there's the anonymous car dealer guy. I think Sean DM'd him asking, "Which car should I buy?" He told him to get the Cadillac. After watching the review, Sean just wired some guy money and got the Cadillac. What do you think? First of all, I don't know why he... </FormattedTranscription>

Doug DeMuro

needs I don't

Shaan Puri

I know what happened to you. This car... I'm looking for this car. Can you find it for me, buy it for me, and get it to my house? I don't want to do any work. And he did. He did exactly that.

Doug DeMuro

Okay, here's the genesis of the feud, and then I'll tell you what I think about that. Here's the thing about success on Twitter for one of those guys, and I love all those Twitter guys. I think they're all really interesting, including the car dealership guy. But the problem is, in order to be successful on Twitter—and I have a suspicion that this is even more true in the new age of Twitter—you've got to be really controversial. You’ve got to be pretty... I wouldn't say blasphemous, but you've got to be out there with your takes and your opinions because that amplifies more. I think Facebook found out years ago that they can do that, but that doesn't necessarily lead to a great community. A lot of times, there was all this election misinformation or fear-mongering, and so they dialed back some of that. It sounds to me like Twitter right now is actually magnifying it. It seems every crazy take is at the top with all these engagements, and that's what they're trying to maximize for. The problem that I have with the car dealership guy is that if you read his posts, some of them are just the most insane, thermometering stuff you'll ever read. The reason we got into the feud was that he posted something like, "Ford has done this crazy thing; they're going to go out of business. It's going to be the worst thing in the world." I'm like, "Dude, this is so insane." I went into the data of what he was talking about, and Ford had to do some big write-down on some investment this year, so their profits were low. He didn't mention that; he only mentioned that the profits were off 80% compared to last year, and it was like... maybe a little bit.

Sam Parr

More time, say like... he'll say like lease... I forget what it's called when you can't pay your lease, but "lease delinquency" is like at this time, which is the highest it's ever been. This means in four months, something like this.

Doug DeMuro

Everything is gonna blow up. I think the problem I have with all of those guy accounts is precisely that. I called him out on this Ford thing, and we got into a little tiff. Unfortunately for him, everyone who was replying agreed with me once they saw the data. So, he blocked me. But then I realized I'm not the only person he has blocked. A lot of my card journalist friends, who I suspect have also tried to add context at various times, he has blocked them as well. What I suspect happens is he's tried to create a little bit of an echo chamber around himself because that's what makes you popular on Twitter. Now, if you go into somebody's tweets and see that they have a lot of "Whoa, that's amazing!" types of replies, they're gonna continue to get magnified and blown out. I think that people who have a lot of dissent start to become a little bit cloudier. If you see somebody as a real icon where everybody's agreeing with him, it continues to make him seem more and more elevated. So, I suspect he's blocking all the people who disagree. I like the idea of that Twitter account, but I think in order to be popular on Twitter, you kind of have to keep going controversial with these crazy takes. That's really the only way to make it work. I think that's less true on the other platforms.

Sam Parr

Yeah, I think that's true. We have a friend named Nick who owns, or part owns, an agency that outsources a lot of executive assistant work to the Philippines. He'll do these tweets where he brags about paying his workers $5 an hour and how that empowers them and everything like that. Which, like, is or is not true. I imagine it is true, but he says it in such a way where he knows people are going to get angry and share it. At the bottom of the tweet, he'll be like, "By the way, if this actually interests you, you could sign up here." So he'll tweet something that goes viral every time. It'll get like, you know, 50,000 likes and, like, 3 or 4 or 500 quotes of people saying, "This guy is such a douche. Can you believe how tone-deaf he is?" And then he'll text us, saying, "Made $50 today." And like, exactly.

Doug DeMuro

That's the problem I have with Twitter, at least right now. I think it's definitely going more towards a "controversy sells" kind of thing. You can't just be like a nice dude and do well on Twitter right now. You have to have takes that are controversial and kind of ridiculous in order to get anywhere. I'm just... I don't know, it's a shame.

Sam Parr

I want to ask you one last inside baseball question. Sean, you probably don't find this entirely interesting, but maybe Doug would. Have you noticed that a lot of car museums are nonprofits? For example, there's the Barber Museum in, I think, Alabama.

Doug DeMuro

yeah

Sam Parr

Where... so it's a nonprofit. You can go on and see their financials and everything. I have a feeling, and this is like an interesting tax hack, but I don't know if it's true. I have a feeling what they do is sell a business, sort of like we've all done and what you've recently done, Doug. They put their money, I think, in some type of donor-advised fund, which is like you can give away a certain amount of money to certified nonprofits and then reduce your tax burden. I have a feeling what they're doing is setting up their car museum as a nonprofit. Like the barber guy, I believe he set up the barber museum after he sold, I think, like a dairy company for about $1 billion. He had a milk and dairy business. I have a feeling what they do is make a big sale, a big equity sale on their business, and they put a certain amount of proceeds into a donor-advised fund, of which they then put into a nonprofit that they own. That's where they go and buy all their cars and let people come and see their cars and whatever. I have a feeling that's what's happening. I don't know; I've just been looking around this. I think that's what's happening. There's another guy who I think you had on his YouTube channel. He's like, "Here's my $20 million car collection." He's a young guy that has a tire store, and he keeps saying in his YouTube videos, "Oh, I buy these cars so everyone can enjoy it." I have a feeling he's doing the same thing as well.

Doug DeMuro

you're talking about hoovie I think hoovie's garage

Sam Parr

I I can't remember he's in san diego and he has a tire store

Doug DeMuro

It's an interesting idea. I think I need a larger exit before I can make that happen. But that is a great way to justify a vehicle collection.

Shaan Puri

Well, I think it's not that you donate the money. I think you have to donate the asset or your shares to the DAF first.

Doug DeMuro

but if you but if you control it and you work in the museum as yours what do you care about

Shaan Puri

I just asked Bard, the new Google AI, to explain how rich people use nonprofit museums to avoid paying taxes. Here's what it says: It explains that one way rich people use nonprofit museums to avoid paying taxes is by creating a Donor Advised Fund (DAF). A DAF is a charitable giving account that allows donors to make a one-time or recurring distribution of cash or appreciated assets and receive an immediate tax deduction. So basically, the donor donates art to a museum. For example, a donor donates art to a museum and receives an immediate tax deduction for the full appraised value of the art. However, the museum does not have to sell the art; they can instead display it as their own collection. This way, they can avoid paying capital gains on the appreciation of the art. I think I've seen this where people basically have a "quote unquote" public museum in their backyard. It's like...

Sam Parr

and I wonder how who what who dictates what the craziest

Doug DeMuro

Price is monitoring the price, but also like... how many hours does the museum have to be open to justify this? It's probably... it's 45 minutes. Checking on that... yeah, 45 minutes a year.

Sam Parr

Could you say that, because this is Doug's Porsche, it is now worth an additional 20%? You know what I mean? I wonder what the appraised value is, but I had a feeling that's what's happening. This seems like a wonderful hack for car owners because you can now totally... would that mean that your purchase price is effectively like 37% or however much your taxes are, 50%? What they discount.

Doug DeMuro

I've been to that barber museum, and it is quite an operation. If that's true, there's probably such a massive spend at the beginning to get it going.

Sam Parr

I think it was the big $50,000,000. I believe I went and looked up all his numbers. I think he seed funded it with $40 million and it makes around $50,000,000 a year. And man...

Doug DeMuro

that's crazy

Sam Parr

Nonprofits, you can go and look up all the information. I think there's the Peterson Museum in LA, and there are a few other ones. You can actually look at all their financials and figure out what you need to know. Because that was my dream. I was like, "If I get a $500,000,000 exit, it would be awesome." This is...

Doug DeMuro

what I'm doing yeah

Sam Parr

This playground... but yeah, I've already done all the math and looked into all this. That's what we gotta do. That's an interesting thing.

Doug DeMuro

never considered it but will in the future

Sam Parr

Well, Doug, we appreciate you coming on. I hope you realize I'm legitimately a huge fan.

Doug DeMuro

yeah I appreciate that

Sam Parr

to actually talk to you and maybe sean's not exactly

Shaan Puri

I appreciate that. I legitimately have only watched one of your videos, but it did lead me to buy a car. So, you know, good job! Enjoy that Escalade.

Doug DeMuro

it's gonna be great

Shaan Puri

I will. It's only got a 66 on the dug score. Now I'm thinking, "No, that's good. Maybe I should've..."

Doug DeMuro

pretty good the the best car ever got like a 73

Shaan Puri

The 6th car is higher than it, and so I'm like, "Am I the kind of guy who just buys the 7th best car?" No, but for the size...

Doug DeMuro

Luxury SUVs... I bet it's at the very top. It is probably my favorite. If you're going to go down that route, that's a bit of a risky car to drive around the Bay Area where everybody else is in electric cars. You're getting like 12 miles per gallon, you know?

Shaan Puri

oh yeah I love it it's it's it's

Sam Parr

I asked him, "Doug, do you have the self-driving stuff?" and he's like, "I don't know, do I?" I was like, "That's like the whole point of that."

Doug DeMuro

that's the whole.

Sam Parr

That's the whole. Of that escalade is that

Doug DeMuro

it has like drive for you isn't that in the bay that's what you want

Shaan Puri

The key point is that it fits multiple car seats and has a huge amount of trunk space. That's the reality in my world.

Sam Parr

you didn't even know I'm pretty

Shaan Puri

I'm not trying to self driving car mike

Doug DeMuro

No, it works well. Cadillacs, the system you have in that car is the best system of all.

Sam Parr

it's better

Shaan Puri

than tesla self driving how is that possible

Doug DeMuro

Absolutely unquestionable. The Tesla system, compared to the Cadillac system, lets you be totally hands-off. I would say Tesla's system is not even in the top four anymore, but the Cadillac system is especially good. It allows you to be fully hands-off as long as you are looking ahead. You can be hands-off, and you have to be on a mapped road, but that's like every highway. If you're on a mapped road, like the 5, and you're looking ahead, you can just sit there. Yeah, but I won't give you ideas about stuff you can do. You don't have to be driving the whole time.

Shaan Puri

You're the car guy, so let me just say that I am the tech guy. I just don't understand how Cadillac could possibly have better self-driving car software.

Sam Parr

they bought cruze they brought your buddy's company cruze you don't remember remember them of course

Doug DeMuro

of course

Sam Parr

In San, they bought Cruze. GM bought Cruze. GM owns Cadillac.

Shaan Puri

but cruze is not like cruze was not the top of the top right like that that wasn't

Sam Parr

They are some of... I mean, you'll see cruises in San Francisco now. You can rent a cruise boat.

Shaan Puri

You've seen those cruisers at the intersection. They don't know what the hell to do at any intersection. Have you driven around San Francisco?

Doug DeMuro

I wouldn't trust it. That's the thing about it. The Cadillac SuperCruise system works best on, and mostly only on, freeways. I don't even use it because I have a pretty good system. I have a new Mercedes that has a great system too, and I don't use it once I get off the freeway. I'm driving myself. That's true of the Teslas also. They say "full self-driving," but we've seen those videos where there are car accidents. I wouldn't trust it off the freeway. We're still in a kind of a wild west situation.

Sam Parr

look at the defender sean you weren't you weren't you weren't a defender guy

Shaan Puri

Is that a Marvel movie? What do you gotta know? What are you talking about? The Defenders? What are we talking about here?

Doug DeMuro

yeah that's the level we're at here with sean

Shaan Puri

I DM'd a guy and told him to buy me a car. That's the level of research I did. I picked.

Sam Parr

a car that I converted from

Shaan Puri

rap videos dude like

Doug DeMuro

that was my research what about a minivan

Shaan Puri

did you

Doug DeMuro

consider a minivan at all or did you

Shaan Puri

I wanted a minivan; my preference was a minivan. My wife vetoed it because she said, "Cars stress me out." I just wanted something I wouldn't be stressed about that was super functional. I thought, "What if we just go the other way? What if we zag here when everybody's zigging?" We could get the most functional, most spacious, ugliest minivan that I wouldn't worry about. I could park it anywhere, and I just wouldn't care what happens to this car. It would be like a transport closet for me and my kids' mess. But my wife was like, "Cool, we're not doing that."

Doug DeMuro

I recommend minivans to everybody now, especially those with multiple kids. I have a buddy who has three kids, and I told him, "You need a van." He asked, "What SUV can I get?" I replied, "You need a van." He said, "Oh no, I can get three car seats in my car." There's...

Shaan Puri

what's a good minivan for me

Doug DeMuro

the the sienna is the one you want that's the one everybody gets right now that's at the toyota sienna that's the one you want

Sam Parr

dude it's so lame

Doug DeMuro

Slow and it is lame, but it is... if you have, especially, three or more children, getting car seats into an SUV is just...

Shaan Puri

I just want like the crocs version of a car

Doug DeMuro

that that is exactly that

Sam Parr

but crocs are cool now

Shaan Puri

I'm betting that the that the minivan will make the make a crocs like come back

Sam Parr

No, you made the right choice with the Escalade. Although that's like a $130,000 SUV, which kind of defeats the purpose of not worrying about it.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, again, I got overruled. I got vetoed by my wife and had to buy a good car that I do have to worry about a little bit.

Sam Parr

and what what do you own right now doug I didn't know you owned another mercedes you have the defender you have

Doug DeMuro

My main normal car is an E-Class station wagon. It's not an AMG, just an E 450. Dude, we had this giant exit, we got all this money, and I went out and bought a used non-AMG E-Class station wagon. That is who I am at heart. You know, the real reason I did that is because I love the AMG wagon. But ultimately, I now have a Ford GT, a Carrera GT, and then two crazy convertible SUVs. My view was, I don't need to be getting 7 miles per gallon and doing 0 to 60 in 3 seconds in my daily driver. It's just not necessary. I'm good; I've got cars that can do all that. So, I just bought a regular one. Also, the regular ones are just as fast now as the AMG ones were only a few years ago. So, it's fine. It's comfortable. It's just so nice.

Sam Parr

Do you still drive? I mean, I watched one of your things and you're like, "I drove this car cross country six times in the last two years." Why are you driving cross country versus flying?

Doug DeMuro

Oh, in the summer, we live in Massachusetts. I drive all the way across the country every summer and then all the way back at the beginning of the fall. I've done this now three times; this will be my fourth. I'm leaving in 30 days from today. It's a whole summer, so you need a car, you need your dog, and we have a lot of stuff. It's just the easiest way to get everything there, unless I can afford to fly private, which I cannot. This is that.

Sam Parr

When, so by the way, I do the same thing. I spend my summers in New York, and my wife flies while me and my dog drive.

Doug DeMuro

there you go I've finally I found another I found another person who does this

Sam Parr

what when will you be wealthy enough to fly private you think when are you gonna feel comfortable

Doug DeMuro

know what it costs let me tell you a story this is probably

Sam Parr

$30 from la to sf or la to

Doug DeMuro

So, this is the thing. We go to Nantucket, so that's like the poles of the country. San Diego is the extreme southwest, and Nantucket is basically the extreme northeast. I generally fly first class now; that is one of the splurges that I do. A first class ticket across the country is about $1,000. I'm like, "$1,000? This is great!" I thought to myself, "Flying first class for $1,000? I bet I can fly private for like, you know, $3,000 or $4,000. I bet that's what it costs." This was me, naive Doug, thinking, "Hey, it's probably only a few grand more. How much more could it be?" The answer is, I looked it up: $55,000 direct from San Diego to Nantucket. So, the answer to your question, when will I be able to fly private? Never. My dog and I will always pile into the car and end up refueling at these sketchy gas stations in New Mexico and Oklahoma. That will be our lives for years.

Sam Parr

How often are people recognizing you on these road trips? At gas stations, all the time, I imagine.

Doug DeMuro

No, it's rare on the trips. I'm obsessive about getting there quickly; I just go. I don't ever stop to look at people or chat. But in life, yeah, all the time, obviously. It's always nice; it's always good interactions with people.

Sam Parr

well dude this is awesome we appreciate it

Shaan Puri

man you wanna shout anything out where people should find you or where to reach you or whatever

Doug DeMuro

cars and bids no we've talked about it every people can people will figure it out

Sam Parr

Well, dude, thanks for doing this, man. Yeah, we'll pimp out your Twitter, YouTube channel, Cars and Bids. You're the best, man! I've been a fan for years. It's awesome to finally...

Doug DeMuro

oh I appreciate it thank you for having me

Sam Parr

and congrats on the all the success even though you've been at it for doug I've never

Shaan Puri

I've never seen Sam like this. He is just fawning. He can't stop. He's just like, "Listen man, if you wanna carpool cross country sometime, I'd love it. Our dogs can sit in the back, we can sit in the front. It'll be amazing!"

Sam Parr

yeah you need a friend I got a friend I'll be your friend if

Doug DeMuro

you need one

Shaan Puri

glad to have you on the pod glad that we're friends now right would that be fair to say would that be a reach

Doug DeMuro

or would that be okay no

Shaan Puri

see I I'm

Doug DeMuro

Legitimately, I'm thrilled to find someone else who does this drive. We should be in contact about that, at the very least. I have become like a student of a pod.

Sam Parr

Yeah, we could start there. I'm happy to start there. We could do that.

Shaan Puri

The funniest thing, by the way Doug, we just did a live show in Austin and... like Sam is the opposite of this. When someone's a big fan of Sam, they know everything about him, they've been a fan for years, been following him, they kind of fawn over him - huge turnoff to Sam. But when it's somebody that he... he does the exact same thing to other people. This is hilarious to me.

Doug DeMuro

You know, I had this happen to me too. I met Jerry Seinfeld about a year ago, and Jerry tells me that he watches all my videos. Over the past year, I've had people coming up to me on the street. Some of the interactions go great, while others don't. I know exactly what to say and what I'm expecting someone to say to have it go well. So, I meet Jerry, and he's like, "I watch all your videos." And I'm like, "Do you like Porsche?" I have no idea! I'm just thinking, "I can't believe I screwed this up after having intense... what? Why?"

Sam Parr

Well, by the way, I know we keep trying to wrap this up and then we keep going. So, I just want to acknowledge that because I actually do kind of want to hear about this Jay Leno. I don't know if you know about this, Sean, but Jay Leno's like...

Shaan Puri

car guy yeah

Sam Parr

Yeah, the car guy part... doesn't he have like 4 or 5 airplane hangars? What was that like?

Doug DeMuro

Oh, it's in... I've been there now 3 or 4 times. It is incredible! Yeah, he's got like 4 buildings. One of them might be an airplane hangar, but it's mostly just like buildings. It's in an office park next to an airport, but they're not... but anyway, they're giant buildings. Yeah, I would say maybe 6 of them. One is just like a machine shop. It's incredible! I mean, this collection is truly unbelievable.

Sam Parr

one of the coolest things

Doug DeMuro

you'll ever see oh yeah 100 of millions

Sam Parr

you think so

Doug DeMuro

Well, he's got a McLaren F1. That in itself is probably worth $40 million, maybe $50 million at this point.

Shaan Puri

What a mclaren f one is worth 40 or 50,000,000 now wow

Sam Parr

yeah that's pretty crazy yeah

Doug DeMuro

And it's like his car is a one-owner car. He said he’s had it for 25 years. He told me he paid $800 for it, or maybe $600 or $700.

Sam Parr

that's insane to me

Doug DeMuro

yeah that is yeah that isn't it

Shaan Puri

like the car elon had that he crashed

Sam Parr

Have you seen Sean? Do you know what WeatherTech is? It's like, you buy a car and you get the mats. It's one of those businesses, like Yeti, where you're like, "There's no way a cooler company is going to be big." It turns out this thing is just massive. The reason you know it's massive is that I think it's privately owned, but they sponsor all this stuff, which you have to have a big budget for. The owner bought a Ferrari 250... was it a GTO? Yep, for $80,000,000, which is, I think, the most expensive car sale ever. Yep, and that's how you know this company is killing it. The owner of the privately held company has enough cash to spend on an $80,000,000 car that's just going to sit. You know, it's ridiculous. I mean, it's a crazy thing. And so, Jay has one that's worth $40 or $50 million. That's gotta be in the top 10 of like most valuable cars.

Doug DeMuro

The world, yeah, for sure. And by far, the most valuable modern car. He told me the most unbelievable story about this car. He bought it and paid $600. He told me he's driving through LA. There are only 64 of them, and he sees a...

Sam Parr

year was he driving in

Doug DeMuro

This was when he had bought it. He's driving through LA and he sees another one. This is around 1997 or 1998. He sees another one just parked in front of a house and he's like, "What?" So, he goes up, rings the doorbell, and meets the guy. He says hi to the guy, they exchange information, and they both realize they have clear enough ones in LA. Then, the guy calls him a year later and says, "Jay, you'll never believe it! I sold mine and I made $800,000. I made $200." And Jay's like, "I think I'm gonna hang on to mine a little longer." Now it's worth $40 million. That's a lesson in regret.

Sam Parr

Who... who... who's gonna buy a $40,000,000 car? I mean, how many people in the world do you think would do that? Are there only like...?

Doug DeMuro

I reviewed Jay's thoughts on the owners of this car, and I had to cut this out of the video because it was quite an interesting segment. I asked him, "What do you think of the other owners of this car?" He thought for a long time and gave a very measured response. Reading between the lines, what he was trying to say is that they're a bunch of jerks who have money. They're not car enthusiasts. That car has become the type of thing you buy if you just want a trophy, rather than if you actually care about cars. Whereas when it was $600,000 to $800,000, there were enough car people who could afford it that maybe they'd get into the mechanics and do the work themselves, which Jay values very, very heavily. But now, it's just a bunch of rich guys who want to brag.

Sam Parr

And that's why he doesn't own a Ferrari. Because in order to buy the fancy Ferrari, you have to buy an entry-level Ferrari first. You get on a waitlist, and they release them like a Rolex, almost. He's like, "No, fuck that! Even though I'm a rich guy, I'm a man of the people. I'm not getting on the waitlist to buy a $1,000,000 car."

Doug DeMuro

there's gotta be 75 cars in that maybe a 100 cars in that collection and not one ferrari

Sam Parr

That's insane! How many people can afford a $40,000,000 F1 or a McLaren?

Doug DeMuro

Nobody... and the ones who can service it is a nightmare. It's done on some like MS-DOS based system. I mean, the whole thing is like a total mess. But it's the coolest thing in the world, you know? If you're a rich guy and you have all the rich guy cars, like the Carrera GT and the F40, you're not a really rich guy unless you have a McLaren F1. Then you don't even need the other cars. You're just like, "Yeah, I win." Where do you keep it?

Sam Parr

your how much is your monthly insurance for a $1,000,000 porsche

Doug DeMuro

Not as much as you think. I think it's only $1,000 a month to insure that car. But do...

Sam Parr

you drive it do you drive it on a day like on a friday night or once a month

Doug DeMuro

I take it to Cars and Coffee once a week, basically. But other than that, my wife still hasn't even ridden in it. It's just not something I'm... I've driven it 1,000 miles since I bought it 4 months ago, which is actually pretty good. But like, it's a terrifying thing to drive a car that's worth $1,000,000. Anyone could hit you, and then it's like, "Okay, well, this is not going to be good for anybody." That person's bankrupt now because their insurance limit is way below this, and my insurance is going to sue them. The whole thing is just scary. I love driving it. I truly believe it's the greatest car.

Shaan Puri

you own that car sounds like might be not so fun to own that car

Doug DeMuro

No, no. When I take it out, which is very rare, but when I take it out on early mornings before people are up, when it's still cool, and I can take it into the mountains and really enjoy it—which I've done now 3 or 4 times—it is so rewarding and so incredible. I truly, truly believe that it is. I've driven all the greatest driving cars that have ever been made, and to that extent, it's worth it for sure.

Shaan Puri

okay

Sam Parr

and that's insane

Shaan Puri

The end of the podcast now. Alright, that's it. Sam, he's not going to be your bestie. He's not going to be your best friend.

Sam Parr

Yeah, yeah, give it time, bro. Give it time. It takes time. We'll build a relationship. I've already got this planned out.

Doug DeMuro

if it

Shaan Puri

Sounds like you're going to be in your town next week. Oh hey, you're just in town? I was hoping we could hang out. We flew out here for this.

Sam Parr

oh you're not in la

Doug DeMuro

you're in

Sam Parr

san diego

Doug DeMuro

we're there tomorrow tomorrow too

Sam Parr

thanks doug we appreciate it

Doug DeMuro

yeah thanks guys