How I Went From Broke to $7 Million With An Airbnb Business

Sam Parr

Alright, so Sean, I wanted to have Isaac on because we talk a lot about making money on this podcast. But I've been with Isaac at his home a bunch, and I've gotten to know him. He's inspired me to believe that money isn't the only reason for business. It's about craftsmanship; it's about creating your little corner of the universe and bringing your vision to life. I wanted to have him on the pod because I think he's different from a lot of the guests we've had here. Let me explain how I met Isaac. I saw that he had this amazing website for his Airbnb, and it said, "Isaac French owns this place. He's a former accountant turned real estate mogul, but he's really most passionate about painting and being an artist." I thought, "This kid's the most interesting person I've ever read about. What the hell?" So, I just called him, and we became friends on the phone. Eventually, we met up in real life, and he's kind of blown my mind as I've gotten to know him. When I met Isaac, it was in a business context. He had this vibe where he was like, "Oh, the right way to do this business is doing this, this, and this."

Isaac French

when you

Shaan Puri

say you met him in a business context what context did you meet him in

Isaac French

So, Sam, can I tell a tiny story here about that? Yeah, yeah. So, shout out to Zach; he's cool. He introduced us. He introduced me to Sam, at least. I had no idea who Sam was, but basically, I started texting this guy named Sam. I couldn't really give a rip. I had just built Live Oak Lake, which I'll get to in just a second. Here's this guy, Sam, who's some business mogul, is what Zach told me. So, I started texting him, and he's like, "Oh, this is super cool," you know, whatever. I told him all my numbers, and then the next morning, he was like, "Hey, I'm about to make a post on Twitter. You should join so I'll shout you out." I was like, "I don't have Twitter. That's a total waste of time. Good luck," basically. And he's like, "No, you should really make a post. You should make an account." I was like, "No, whatever." So, he made this post that kind of blew up. It got like millions of views. So, halfway through that process, I was like, "Oh, maybe I should go ahead and join this." And the rest is history because I actually—and I'd love to talk about that—I absolutely love the ability to connect with other people online and share what I'm all about. But that was my introduction to Sam. It was not as a fanboy; it was just like this random dude on the internet who started texting me about business.

Sam Parr

and his number sean they'll blow you away I'm ready to

Shaan Puri

be blown away go ahead

Sam Parr

what is it can you can you what were can you say the numbers

Isaac French

Yeah, yeah. So let me just tell you a quick story about Live Oak Lake, if that's alright, because it's pretty cool. I was a bookkeeper and I had this dream. I was 24 years old, just gotten married, and I had this dream to create this immersive, cohesively designed village of tiny homes in Texas. I didn't really have the terminology for it; I just had this vision for what it would feel like. I put an emphasis on "feel" because that was the vibe I wanted to create. People started laughing at me, saying, "You're crazy." I started looking for land for about three months. One morning, I woke up, opened up Zillow, and there was this 5-acre jungle down the road from me. I had driven past it probably a hundred times but never thought anything of it. It had this little cow pond in the middle, so I thought, "I should check that out." I drove over, and when I walked on the property, I literally got goosebumps. I was like, "This is the place to create, to realize this dream." I met the realtor and got it under contract. I had $19,000 in savings to my name. Again, at 24, I was not bankable by any standards. I had experience in construction because my dad was a plumber and general contractor. I grew up with that experience. I've always been an artist and I've always loved design. So, how'd you...?

Shaan Puri

get it under contract would you if you didn't have any money what what'd you pay to put it under contract

Isaac French

I paid like **$2,000** of earnest money to close with cash in **30 days** because it was a super competitive market. This was **2021** in Texas; people were flocking here. I knew this property—I mean, I was there within hours of when it was listed. I knew it would have been gone by the end of that day. So I was like, "I'm gonna get under contract with a due diligence," and then I'll figure this out.

Shaan Puri

how much would you need at the end of that. To to have come up with

Isaac French

$133,000 was the price of the property which was a really good deal too for 5 acres

Shaan Puri

So, just to make this clear: you have $19,000. You put $2,000 down to lock this up. You now have, I forgot how many days you said—30, 60, 90 days, something like that? 30 days where you're like, "I have faith that I will come up with another $130,000 that I've never seen before in the next 30 days." Of course, why would I not?

Isaac French

well you gotta have conviction you gotta believe in yourself if you expect anybody else to believe in you and I did have a list of people that were like yeah these people are I'm gonna find somebody to make this dream work so I started calling people well my brothers and my dad who have this small g general contracting company which is what I'd grown up working they didn't have the cash either but they had access to a line of credit so my hope was that I could get a hard money loan from them to buy the land to get the 20% of whatever the bank wouldn't loan me and then pay it back once I could refinance the property so I was already you know really banking a little overconfident really banking on my abilities to deliver this just crazy property that would appraise at really high values so okay I called them up and they're like no we don't wanna give you a hard money loan we want equity in that because we like the idea and we'll loan you the money through our line of credit so great I gave them just handshake deal that day 40% equity and they were gonna help me with the difference of whatever but then of course I was gonna have to find a loan and you know go through all the rigor and all of that so we get under contract and literally I hit the ground running so the next day well the first 3 days I spent on the on the phone with banks like hitting up every local bank I possibly could and then also walking the property all by myself with no phones or anything just sort of like letting the land speak to me about how to build this this little micro resort and figuring out like how each cabin would be positioned and like being a little maniacal about the details of that because I'm a little little bit ocd as a perfectionist so finally I got a bank that's like they were like no no I mean literally you could imagine 24 year old kid rolling their eyes but I found a local bank who said we'll give you a loan because you know you have your dad and brothers on board we want them to coguarantee it but they were like 80% of the appraised value is what we'll loan you so great you know box is checked then they send an appraiser out and the appraiser and I gotta give it to them I didn't know what I was doing I drafted up this really primitive pro form a I didn't know what a pro form a was just like this apple numbers spreadsheet thing that was like my guesstimate on how much the property was gonna cost how much it was gonna bring in sensitivity analysis for like occupancy and they probably laughed their heads off but anyway they gave that along with like some napkin sketches of what these cabins were gonna look like my drone photos like marked up of the site plan and the appraiser came back at like okay this is gonna cost 1,800,000 so the bank was like we'll loan you 80% of that so bank was like we'll give you a million and a half loan if your dad and brothers will co guarantee this and my estimate was that the project was gonna cost like 2,000,000 so we had like a $500,000 shortfall which wasn't great long story short it actually cost us 2,300,000 so here's the deal I the spec home market was booming in texas at that time and so I was like okay we're going all in I gotta make this work I bought another 5 acres down the road built a $750,000 spec home in 4 months and sold it and profited $200 from that home was able to roll all of those profits directly into this project of course maxed out every credit card put in my 19,000 my dad and brothers brought their line of credit we got the project done nine and a half months start to finish which was absolutely wild as you can imagine too I mean this is post covid supply chain issues are crazy I was designing it as we went it was the wildest year of my life on top of that I broke my pelvis like 7 months into the project so we opened in january of 2022 2 weeks later my whole business as I knew it ended I woke up one morning opened the airbnb app everything's grayed out we're suspended on airbnb worst feeling probably I've top ten worst feelings I've ever had in my life and I called their customer support couldn't get a hold of anybody there was no warning there was no explanation so I felt like I was totally kicked in the gut and was like like alright we gotta figure out direct bookings and so long story short found this travel influencer who lived like an hour away and I didn't even know what this was but just by digging I stumbled upon them they said pay us $950 we'll make a post a giveaway post about your property so I sent them photos 2 days later they made the post 7 days later we had $40,000 of direct bookings through our website so I whipped up a website overnight and 40,000 of direct bookings and 5,000 followers on instagram from scratch so as you can imagine that was my sort of eureka moment on direct bookings and instagram 6 days later we got restored on airbnb so the timing was like perfect it was a glitch in their system but the direct bookings game was on fire so then that 1st year was a whirlwind 95% occupancy overall with these 7 cabins which is just crazy starting from 0 80% of all the bookings were direct so here's the deal about direct bookings the ota which is like online travel agency so airbnb their fees are like roughly 15% so if you can capture the customer direct you make 15% of margin you get the customer's email so you can retarget them you can't ever be be deplatformed and you're reaching a more aspirational guest because they're booking from instagram not airbnb so they're not price shopping they see these immersive videos and like oh we gotta come stay here we had guests come back 3 or 4 times in 1 year because we were able to retarget them and because the experience was just and wow you you sold this what 4 years in for how much 2 2 and a half years in we sold for 7,000,000 so last october 2 and a half years in

Sam Parr

Yep, alright guys, so listen up. We're doing something a little bit different here. We had this guy named Mister Ballen. Mister Ballen is one of my favorite people on earth. If you have been on YouTube or TikTok, you probably know who Mister Ballen is. He has tens of millions of followers and he's built this massive business on it. He's probably the best storyteller I've ever heard in my life, to be honest. He did this amazing podcast with us that we're going to release soon. We're not releasing the episode right away, but we are going to give it to our true fans. If you are one of those true fans and you do want this interview, we have a link below. So check it out! Click the link in the description below and you can listen to it right away. Now, back to the show.

Shaan Puri

So, let's just recap here. You go buy land. Land is, you said, what? $130,000? Or was that just the down payment?

Isaac French

that was the land

Shaan Puri

That was the whole land, okay? The land. You never did construction like this. You had done some plumbing projects, but I assume you had never built a cabin before. No? And you built these yourself, or did you subcontract out to a company?

Isaac French

I subcontracted, but like I said, I was in there on ladders doing stuff myself. That's how I broke my pelvis.

Shaan Puri

Okay, so you built 7 cabins on top, and the whole project build-out you thought was going to cost you $2,000,000 ended up costing you $2.3 million. But did you say you were selling? The spec market was booming. You just sold a separate property to help fund it. You didn't presale anything on this property, correct? Okay, so you did this. It took you 9 months to get live with all 7 cabins.

Isaac French

is that right or one at a time all at the same time nine and a half months

Shaan Puri

Nine and a half months. Okay, that's amazing! This is like, you know, post-COVID. You started renting these out. How much does the cabin rent for? What was the average kind of nightly rate? Like $600 a night?

Sam Parr

yeah he said he was doing 1,100,000 a year in revenue

Shaan Puri

So, you do $1,000,000 a year in revenue, $500,000 of profit, and you sold this thing for $7,000,000.

Isaac French

Yep, so a **$1,000,000** key, two and a half years after starting construction on the whole thing.

Shaan Puri

and you sold it to who

Isaac French

a small private equity group

Shaan Puri

and how did that come about they approach you you approach them what happens

Isaac French

So, we actually listed it. My philosophy is that every material thing should have a price tag. This was super controversial. A lot of people that saw the success were like, "You should never sell this. This is lightning in a bottle." But I was like, "No, I've learned so much from this process that I could theoretically redo everything way better." Plus, if I ever want to raise money, I want to be able to show the full life cycle of a deal. So, we went ahead and listed it with a broker, and we got approached by multiple private equity groups. They see the writing on the wall for commoditized short-term rentals, and they want these one-of-a-kind properties. Most of them need to operate at a much bigger scale, but this group was small enough that they were willing to take a one-off property. Here's the crazy thing: in the hotel industry, you typically have three parties. You've got the real estate, the managing company, and the brand. Sometimes the operator and the brand are the same. Well, with this property, we built 150,000 followers on Instagram and like 30,000 or 40,000 people on the email list. So, we essentially were selling the brand and the real estate together, which is part of the reason we got such a crazy high price, you know, for seven cabins in the woods in Texas. Basically, they came along and offered $7,000,000. We negotiated some of the terms because they wanted to seller finance some of it, and the deal fell through like three times, as could be expected. They ended up having to get a bunch more debt than they thought, but they came through eventually, and we closed last October. So, yeah, that's the look at that.

Sam Parr

You have Sean. That's how I felt when I first met him. So, when I first met him, I was just on the phone with him and I said, "Hey, I've got to go to this conference in Idaho. I think you said your parents or something have connections there. Do you want to meet me up there? Do you want to become friends?" Because when I met this kid, I was like, "You're amazing!" I told him, "When I share you on Twitter, you're going to get popular. Just promise me that you're going to let me always invest in anything you ever do from now on because I think you're going to be a very popular person." His passion and the way that he's principled, and how he outlines what he's going to do, I found to be intoxicating. Do you get that vibe, Sean? Do you know what I mean?

Shaan Puri

Well, I think the hustle that you showed there is great. I mean, that's what successful entrepreneurship looks like, right? You start with a vision, then you don't count yourself out. I think that was the next most important step: you didn't count yourself out. You could have said, "I don't have the money, I don't have the experience, I don't have the time, I don't have anybody who believes in me, I don't have the network," whatever. You didn't say any of those things. You said, "How do I get the time? How do I get the money? How do I get the network? How do I get the cash? What do I need to do to get this right?" And you did it. I think you had a unique insight, which is that people would want to stay in a more unique experience. And once you realized, once you turned your disadvantage into an advantage, you turned your Airbnb disaster into, "Oh wait, I gotta find another way to promote this." And you found a better way to promote it, right? Because let's say you had never done... let's say Airbnb had never knocked you off the platform and you had never realized that you should be using Instagram content through influencers or through your own to do direct bookings. What do you think this property would have been worth had that not happened?

Isaac French

maybe 3 or 4,000,000 is my guess

Shaan Puri

Right, maybe... and that's... and maybe it’s not even a sellable asset. It may or may not be a private equity sellable asset, but it could be appealing to another real estate owner who's looking for rental properties.

Isaac French

Yeah, totally. I think the brand moment with Instagram felt like a complete defeat, like with Airbnb originally. You can't imagine—I mean, I was 24, recently married, and had just spent over $2,000,000 of other people's money. I had been a little bit laughed at by even some of my friends, like, "Why are you spending that?" Because that was a lot of money when we built it. A lot of my friends in Waco in the short-term rental market said, "You're crazy! We already have this glut of short-term rentals here." But my whole thing was, "We're building a new lane of traffic. We're creating a destination. Build it, and they'll come." However, when that Airbnb debacle hit, it ended up being the biggest blessing in disguise I could have ever engineered. I got extremely lucky and was obviously extremely blessed with the project. But it's become my conviction that if you have an inspiring vision, the ability to communicate it, and the conviction to bring that vision to life, you become a magnet for everything you need. That applies to capital, to guests, and on and on. The universe conspires for those with a mission. There's a bunch...

Sam Parr

Of stories of people winning massively by having the idea of "build it and they will come," there are a whole lot more stories of people with that attitude who lose big. It doesn't matter what business you're in; this idea of "build it and they'll come" kind of separates, I think, a visionary from someone who's tapping in and building a great business. I like people who say, "This is where we're going to go." A lot of times, those people fail—more often than not, they fail. But I think it's dope when they succeed. Do you know what I mean? I find that to be different from how I look at life, and I find it to be inspirational.

Shaan Puri

yeah okay that makes sense isaac what were you you're gonna say something on that

Isaac French

well I was just gonna say you know people now come to me asking all the time like how do we recreate that same success and what I really do believe I just said this but is that you have to have a vision and then you have to storytell I think storytelling is the most valuable skill not just in marketing but in building something including building something like construction and here's why I've got a friend devin so devin is also 24 years old or now now I'm 27 but I was 24 when when I built live oak lake and he was he was an engineer so he's a smart kid and he had this dream to create this shipping container home that was just super wild it was like 5 containers stacked on top of each other and he has an incredible amount of resilience and passion he went out and built the whole thing with his 2 hands like 95% of it he built with his 2 hands and he documented the whole process with an iphone and a $20 tripod on instagram and tiktok and he grew 1,500,000 followers from scratch look it up it's called the pacific ben that's b I n it took him a year to build this thing and when he launched he had so many emails that when he opened up the calendar he he presold the 1st year in like 2 weeks and now again he's become this magnet where people are like hey come build you know get they're trying to give him money and I understand a little bit about what that feels because people have done the same thing to me but again like he understood storytelling he did it very authentically and he had a vision and you just have to believe in it now it's a little bit more art than science in terms of like is the vision a good one I think some people have that and some people don't I credit my childhood some of the stuff I already described and the character that my parents put in me as like fully responsible for the success that I've had and let me just tell you like if you're a super confident person like I tend to be you're gonna have some hard knocks I have fallen flat on my face more times than you wanna hear including during and even after the sale of live oak lake so you have to learn humility and you gotta learn it the hard way but that doesn't that's not mutually exclusive from having that kind of just intuition and sense that like I think it's a sense of taste too it's like this is gonna work and here's why and even if I can't convince you I still believe in it and it's a conviction and then people rally around that and then of course your track record is a lot and when you're starting from 0 you don't have that but as you go you gotta be very careful with the projects you take on because obviously

Shaan Puri

You don't want to compromise that record. So, I think this idea of creating these unique spaces and places, and having people fall in love with them online, then turning that into a business that makes you $1,000,000, is an awesome romantic vision. I know several people in my life who would have the urge, when they hear about these, to be like, "Could I do that? Could we do that where we live, in this area?" What are the opportunities you see? So, what do you think somebody out there could go do? Break that down like a blueprint. Okay, you're now talking not to me and Sam, but to this person who's listening, who is inspired by this and says, "Could I do that? How would I do that?" What would you tell them? What's the two-minute blueprint you would give them?

Isaac French

yeah love it huge opportunity again airbnb's have been commoditized they're just you know unrecognizable from each other there's no differentiation so whether this is a an old summer camp that could be totally transformed into like this micro resort or say it's a roadside motel a lot of people are doing these or it's 7 cabins around the lake I got a friend named brian who had this idea to rethink what houseboats meant and so he built for $200,000 built this houseboat you can look it up it's flowhome that's f l o h o m I mean it's like totally different than what you think of it's like a mini yacht almost and then he started renting it out absolutely went berserk now he's raised a bunch of money he's buying marinas so the cool thing about houseboats is you don't fall typically into the same regulations as str as short term rentals because you're on the water so he gets to be in like these prime locations in like you know baltimore harbor or annapolis or washington wherever and you get 360 degree harbor views you're you're sometimes in hotels sometimes not even in any zoning at all and there's zero competition so again that's completely unique there's such a spectrum of what these could be I've got another friend who's doing tree houses so he bought a piece of property and here's here's the blueprint that I go after number 1 choose red states over blue generally speaking because get speed to market is everything and you wanna be in a in a place that's super easy to build so rural texas which is where I am there's essentially like no zoning and I didn't have to go through some long permitting process like I would if I was on the big sur coast or that's a radical example so find go off the beaten path it's okay to get away from places but you wanna be within 2 hours from a major metro area of like let's say a 1000000 + people because that's your drive to distance it it's like a staycation distance so you're gonna get a lot of 2 3 night staycations you need to be within 2 hours from a major metro area you need to be within 15 to 20 minutes of like a town that has a a coffee shop maybe a good restaurant maybe there's ways around that like you could do a meal kit where you could partner with a local chef or local farmers and like make that part of the experience that you're offering the guests but it's okay to get off the beaten path you wanna find that 2 hour goldilocks zone then find land that's super cheap that has some natural potential let's say trees are kind of a must because you can't grow a tree overnight and that's what live oak lake had maybe it has some topography people love water perhaps you can create a water feature so I've got this other crazy story and I'm about to make a twitter thread on this but some friends named kimble and christine had a dream they're in rural ohio they buy this piece of property with 0 money that that the guy was a pass through he had no money he bought this piece of property and then he noticed it had like this old dilapidated lodge on it but he noticed like down below the lodge there's this little cliff and there's a seasonal stream that only flows like a few weeks out of the year and they had this idea so they actually dug out and dammed up this little pool and then they put in a pump recirculated the water so that it's flowing year round and there's essentially a waterfall swimming pool look it up it's called the cliffs at hocking hills it's absolutely wild this place has gone mega viral they've got 600,000 followers on instagram they're booking out every single night 2 years in advance and that water feature probably cost them 20 to $30,000 and has literally created 1,000,000 of dollars of value both in the brand and in the property that they have so like find a property that's mediocre but that has the potential with your vision to create something totally one of a kind and then architecturally make a beautiful infuse unreasonable hospitality into it so you don't need an on-site concierge you don't need people holding your hand you know at every like 5 star luxury would be what you need is touch points that people care about so when I opened live oak lake I I quickly just had this idea people love to see their name handwritten so I perfected this process where we would hand write a card to each guest and then I partnered with a local bakery that was like 5 minutes down the road to fresh bake our own recipe of chocolate chip cookies every single morning and then on the back end with my software because I pretty much automated the whole property so it was running with like 2 part time employees the whole thing on its own I gave access to those bakers and they could see every morning like how many reservations were that day they would make the cookies the cleaners who also had access to the property management software would pick them up would deliver them they would write the card so I didn't have to do any work for less than $10 some fresh baked cookies a handwritten card and a couple topa chico's in the fridge made a massive impact and an emotional connection with the guests not only was it a beautiful architectural and natural experience but they felt like me as the owner as isaac like my story which we could go we could go down so many rabbit holes but like I wrote out our story in this booklet that we gave them like we turned what would have been a boring house manual into like this fun to read coffee table book but then on top of that there's this handwritten note and they all felt like oh isaac just now left this for me this morning and so and then like in the messaging we did all these automated messages but we wrote them in such a way that was extremely careful and extremely intentional so it felt very fresh and spontaneous so little ways like this I love this sam has this phrase and I've taken his copywriting course copy that two times now it's absolutely gold in my opinion but he has this little thing about these forgotten areas of copy so whether that's like the 404 landing page on a on a website or like the terms and conditions whatever you find these little places that are overlooked and then you just spice them up and you make them feel cared for and that's what we did with live oak lake and the guests absolutely loved it so there's a bunch there I could go on and on about this but basically here's the play anyone can do this anyone can go out and and spend a $100,000 if you find the people buy this piece of land yeah you're gonna have to get a bank loan I know tons of people doing this I've got a community of about 50 people building these properties right now around the country and the value creation in such a short amount of time if you execute this well is just off the charts

Sam Parr

Did you like one of these toys that we just wound up? We just kind of let go and just like, "Holy shit!" Sorry, I love it. No, don't apologize. I love it! Whenever I get done hanging out with you, I feel more energy. You know, I think there are two types of people: there are people who make you feel worn out when you get done hanging out with them, and then there are people who inspire you.

Shaan Puri

What are some ways that a smart person could get this wrong? Not every blueprint works. If I say, "Hey, I've had all the success in e-commerce," well, I know a bunch of people who have failed in e-commerce. I can tell you where they go wrong. You know, some of the common traps that a smart person could fall into.

Sam Parr

I mean I I I failed at it or at least I didn't

Shaan Puri

sounds like I'll take this one

Sam Parr

Yeah, I mean, I bought a property that I wanted to turn into this, and I actually didn't. I broke even. I mean, I probably made a little bit of money, but it wasn't like a screaming success. So here's a list: the first thing is there is such a thing as "set it and forget it" passive income when it comes to real estate. If you own the property, that ain't true. It's still like a business that you have to run. There is no "set it and forget it." Would you agree with that, Isaac?

Isaac French

99% of the time, unless you are just an extreme exception, the illusion of total automation is absolutely just that—an illusion. I think another thing is you really actually have...

Sam Parr

To give a shit and care about it, like in order to make outsized returns, it really needs to be something really, really different and special. As opposed to just like, in my case, I was like, "Oh, there's not a lot in this part of the country. This picture looks good; I'll stand out." Done. That's why my returns were only okay. That was not an exceptional plan.

Isaac French

yeah I think that design is the number one lever that you can pull as my friend hans who's awesome by the way hans lore absolutely blown up on instagram recently he's got like 550,000 followers and he's like breaking down interior design in these little short form videos but design is the biggest lever you can pull in controlling how people feel and going back to that vibe and that feeling that you're creating hospitality is all about emotional connections with people with your guests and you're in a business that's notoriously difficult to operate so you live or die based off of every single guest interaction and going back to raising all the money this is what I feel like a lot of startups inevitably fail at they try to scale too fast they invest all that money they see the opportunity they see the live oakleigh case study they invest all that money in like hiring these designers and hiring you know spending a ton on ads and doing all these things that are like their priorities are wrong you need a story so like if you wanna do this you probably chances are like you shouldn't just dump a bunch of money into somebody else's well you can do that if it's the right person but ideally you need to be or you need to be partnered neck and neck with someone who is extremely passionate and wants to tell that story but hospitality is all about like how do you serve these people and so this is where even though I I did automate most of the property like I'm telling you it was awesome we had zapier we had like 6 softwares we had smart home technology the place was just running like a machine but I was still reading every single review I was still at least seeing every single message from every single guest and that's a 247 thing I mean that is that's intense any way you cut it and when you don't have somebody who cares about that or you don't have the right employees that have even once you've built it who can operate it with that owner's mentality you're just you're gonna suffer and there's this great quote by tim ferris you've probably heard it but he says there's a glut of mediocrity in the world please don't contribute to it and I would say that applies to the design aspect that applies to the operations and like hospitality aspect that applies across the board so if you come with the right mindset of I'm here to serve I'm here to like again build out this incredible vision tell that story authentically chances are you're absolutely going to succeed because people gravitate towards that naturally

Sam Parr

You know, Sean, you and I make money on the internet. When you make money online, that means the barrier to entry is really low. So, it's really easy to have an idea and turn it into something very quickly. Because of that, I think I've gotten into a habit of creating things that, to use a funny pun, are subpar. There was very little passion involved in them, or there's very little excellence. Have you ever felt like that when you're making stuff online, Sean? Like, looking back and thinking, "This is just not a very high-quality thing," even though it's making money?

Shaan Puri

Honestly, I disagree. I think the barrier to entry is low. Yes, it's easy to play, but it's not easy to win. Anytime I've tried to do something that works online, I don't know... I threw my all into it. I wasn't necessarily very good. So even if I got a mediocre result, it wasn't due to lack of effort; it was due to lack of skill. Or, I made something really good that nobody cared about. Nobody wanted it; it was just the wrong problem to solve. So, I think that yes, it's easy to try something online, but I don't think it's easy to win at something online. I don't think you can get away with something.

Sam Parr

how do you define winning

Shaan Puri

You know, whatever hitting my goals for it, right? So having something that actually grows, that is sticky, and that is very profitable. The things I look for when I do a project online are to have it be successful. I don't think any of these are easy. They're definitely easier than going out into a plot of land and saying, "I'm going to build a luxury stay here. I'm going to serve customers essentially by hand." It's definitely easier than that, but I wouldn't say it's like... I don't think you can get away with sucking online and being successful. Because the barrier of entry is so low, there are so many people playing. To actually do something that works and captures people's finite attention is still hard.

Sam Parr

we we have so many friends that are popular on the internet and they make crappy stuff like it's oh that's

Shaan Puri

Crappy by our standards, this is not crappy by the customer's standards. I was thinking about this the other day. So, Jimmy (Mr. Beast), who you know is friendly with us and is obviously super successful on YouTube, just released a... I guess I got leaked his production document. Did you guys see this?

Sam Parr

I read the whole thing

Shaan Puri

So, I actually want to do a whole bigger thing on it, so I don't want to go too much into it. But one amazing thing is, you know, you get to see inside of his mind. His mind works in a really unique way, and I think you can see from that document why he's so successful. If you read that document or hear the stories about him, you would think that he is making the greatest videos the world has ever seen. You might think he is among the famous directors and artists of our time. However, in actuality, it's sort of like saying, "Who bakes the best burgers?" Is it McDonald's, who has the most popular burgers and sells the most volume? Is it someone in the middle, like Five Guys, because they're pretty popular but maybe their taste is a bit better? Or is it the chef in New York who makes this one unbelievable burger that costs $36? If you ever put a McDonald's burger next to that, you would laugh at the McDonald's burger. So, which one is the best burger? Mr. Beast has made his success because he has decided to be McDonald's on the internet. He is creating videos that are mass market, designed to get the most number of views, even if they're not the most life-changing, introspective, emotional, or beautifully told stories. There are other people who do those. It's hard to say what is the best. The friends of ours who we think make pretty crap content that works are doing the McDonald's thing. They're giving people fast food content. Then there are other people who are providing artisanal content. Who's to say what's better? It really depends on your goals.

Isaac French

can I tell you a crazy story about twitter and going viral

Sam Parr

yeah what do you got

Isaac French

So actually, Sean, I need to publicly thank you because your episode on "How I Write" with David about storytelling was, I mean, golden. You don't know how many people I referred to that episode. About 4 or 5 months ago, Alex Lieberman made a post saying, "I just watched this interview with Aaron Sorkin about stories, and I'm entranced by it. I want to go down that rabbit hole." When I saw that, it resonated with something I was already feeling. I wouldn't consider myself naturally a great storyteller, but I thought, "I feel like I can learn this skill, and I'm going to figure it out." So, I went down the rabbit hole. I listened to podcasts, read books, and took courses in copywriting and writing in general. I was determined to figure this out and try it. First of all, I had taken an 8-month break from Twitter. Last fall, I stopped posting altogether. I took that break for various reasons, but one was that I was just recharging. As a creator, you can't just constantly go; you're like a battery—you've got to recharge. But I came back kind of guns blazing in June with all of this knowledge I had been accumulating from different sources. Right out of the gate, I had a 6 million view thread. People were saying, "Threads are dead," and "Twitter's dead," and "The algorithm is trash," but literally, one after another, I was knocking on wood. At the end of the day, I've never had so much sustained success. The last 10 threads I've written in a row, without exception, have gone an average of about 1 million views each. One of them went totally crazy. I wrote this thread about this train car that my dad... It's pinned to the top of my profile if you want to look at it.

Shaan Puri

but yeah I've seen that one

Isaac French

So, I wrote this thread. I stayed up all night; I spent 8 hours writing it. I just finished copying it for the second time, and it was fresh on my mind. I wrote this thread, and I didn't know... you know, I put 60% of my effort—going off of your advice and a lot of people's advice—into writing that hook. Both writing it and curating those images took a lot of time. It's got this great visual hook where you see a side-by-side of the train car before and after. Then, I spent hours writing 4 or 5 sentences. I know that sounds crazy, but I was writing and rewriting, just trying to make it a science. I had this sentence in there; let me read it. I said, "My dad bought this 120-year-old train car for $2,000. It was a rotting, cat-infested wreck." I knew that I was probably being a little controversial when I said that. I had no idea just how controversial it would be. I said, "But after investing $147,000 and 5 months of work, we redeemed it. Today, it's one of the most profitable and exclusive stays in the country. Here's what happened." So, here's what happened: there is like 30% of the population—I’ve come to believe—are these cat-loving, I mean, "Karens." And guess what? Spoiler alert: I love cats too! I was not meaning disrespect to the cats when I said this. But these people read that whole thread and then just absolutely murdered me in the comments. "What happened to the cats? The cats were the landlords! They should've kicked you out!" Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah... like machine gun fire. I mean, it was crazy. So, on top of what was a pretty good hook and a good story, we had just jet fuel poured on the fire by these cat lovers and my haters. That was kind of crazy, and I've learned...

Sam Parr

other like brian chesky comment on that or

Isaac French

Brian Chesky reposted it twice in one day. Joe Gebbia reposted it. Paul Graham tweeted it. Then, like, you know, 20 million views total in the first day. But here's another crazy thing: there are all these journalists that lurk on X. You don't know about them because they probably have like 300 followers. So, within two days, I got invitations for coverage. In the two or three weeks since I wrote that post, the story has been featured in *The New York Post*, *Vice*, *Business Insider*, *Fast Company*, and *The Daily Mail*. Cody Sanchez is coming to do a YouTube video. It's like tens and tens of millions of views. So, you're just really creating this surface area for luck when you post on Twitter because it's basically proof of concept. They're like, "Oh, this story is resonating. We should go ahead and post it too." So, it's crazy.

Shaan Puri

I love that story! Yeah, I checked out this thread; it's great. But I think the real lesson here, the right takeaway, is that there are a few key points. One is that there were some nice copywriting techniques in here. Yes, it's cool that you decided, "Hey, this is all a skill I can learn. I can learn storytelling, I can learn writing, and I can learn how to be better at content creation." You just decided to obsess and devour that stuff. But the real thing is that the story went viral because of what you guys did. You did something amazing! You took this basically beaten-up, rotten train car and turned it into something cool. Without that, you could obsess over all the sentences you want, but that car, that story, is going nowhere. So, the best content creation is to go do amazing things in your life and then learn some best practices about how to talk about them. That's a much better approach than learning the amazing skill of writing hooks and never doing something amazing in your life. I hope that more people choose to do amazing things in life instead of the opposite. But dude, why are you on Twitter? You need to be doing this on TikTok! You're on the wrong platform, my friend.

Isaac French

Man, I want to start doing short-form video, but I love writing. Twitter helps me think better. Number one, I get to connect with much smarter people than on those other platforms. It's not just about some vanity metric of having a big audience. For me, I genuinely enjoy the process of having to write concisely. It's a skill I wanted to attack in copywriting and writing in general. The process of clarifying your thoughts by writing tweets, where every single word counts, is something I absolutely love. It's about building a simple slippery slope that Sam talks about, which people will fall down. Not just for the production value of the story, but for what it does in my own thinking. The iteration will probably involve improving these story concepts and writing a script in my Twitter thread. I've had about ten of these that have gone pretty viral. That way, I have all my heavy lifting done for me. I can just throw together a nice green screen video of me talking about it and telling that story really snappy on Instagram and TikTok. Eventually, I want to do YouTube because, as you guys know, there's insane loyalty there, and of course, you can monetize through that as well. But I'm also a perfectionist. The short-form content that really works right now is raw and authentic, and that's cool. However, I care so much about the production value that it's hard for me to fit into that slot.

Sam Parr

Originally, when I told Sean about you, he was like, "Oh, it sounds like an Amish guy who likes money." I was like, "Yeah, I guess that's an interesting description." But if that is... yeah.

Shaan Puri

I was like I'm the the next two words were I'm in yeah

Sam Parr

And if that, let's just say to someone who's not like entrenched in this, Isaac, your community is similar-ish to the Amish. What do they think about you being this popular internet guy? Or do they even know? Do they even know who you are and what you're doing?

Shaan Puri

are you sinning by being on this podcast right now like what's going on what's what's the reaction back at the farm

Isaac French

alright we're gonna go way back but I'll try to be brief here so my wife's grandparents actually founded this community 51 years ago and it started as an inner city mission in the slums of manhattan and they had actually been atheists but had these radical life changing experiences with god became christians and then felt called to start this mission there and it was super unlikely beginnings but basically a motley crew of folks from all backgrounds a lot of people that were sort of like disaffected with life sort of came together and a core group started coalescing and basically a church was founded but then a few years into it they they were like you know they were all young parents and they realized we need to have a culture where we can raise our kids that is going to sustain the values that we care about like family and our faith and whatnot so they started looking for land outside the city long story short they all moved about 200 people to colorado western colorado which was like the middle of nowhere for people that had spent their whole lives virtually in new york city and that's where my parents recently graduated high school western slope of colorado encountered this group of like weird people being called a cult by all the locals but again had these transformational experiences came to god and joined this group and then in colorado they sort of learned all these skills like how to live off the land how to grow your own food how to work with your hands and you know relearn all these traditional skills like woodworking and pottery and blacksmithing and then fast forward they picked up and moved to texas in the early nineties and so we have a piece property around 450 acres just outside of waco where first the group was in austin some was in waco it consolidated here and basically what makes us different is we take our faith very seriously and we want to make that faith come alive in every aspect of life so instead of just like church being a program that you attend a few times a week we we truly try to live out community so we are working playing doing doing life together and there's about 1200 people apart of this texas branch about a third of those actually live on that piece of property that 400 acre piece of property the rest live on their own places nearby we're not common purse we put a huge emphasis on like individual responsibility but basically we strive for simplicity

Sam Parr

so well

Shaan Puri

Just explain it like this: If I live in a cookie-cutter suburb of America, just like generally in California, if I went and visited where you guys live, what would seem most different to me? What is it that you guys do that would be most different?

Isaac French

Yeah, we don't have TVs in our homes. We don't really have internet in our homes either. Again, like 95% of the community is either self-employed or works for each other. So, we live this agrarian lifestyle. We grow gardens and we do use technology. This is one of the ways we're different from the Amish. Our whole philosophy is that we want to control it versus being controlled by it. Basically, I grew up on a farm taking care of animals. I was homeschooled, so we homeschool our kids. I have nine siblings. There are a lot of big families, though not everybody has a big family.

Sam Parr

I went by the way Sean and I stayed in the community. I would joke with Isaac, saying, "Isaac, I'm an atheist. Don't try to convert me to any of this stuff, but I would love to explore and learn about your community." When I went there, they believe... I'm going to kind of summarize Isaac. They believe that in order to show they're close to God and everything, they are craftsmen in everything they do. So, they have this restaurant where they make all of their own food. They also have a church that they built, and it's beautiful. It's a beautiful church. Dude, they had this Easter event that I went to, and there were these women singing. I swear to God, it sounded like a black choir in Harlem. This is the most stylish, best singers I have ever heard in my life because they studied it and perfected these things. So, he had this vibe where he was like, "Oh, the right way to do this business is doing this, this, and this." So, in order to learn Instagram...

Isaac French

I have to study it, and I'm going to execute perfectly. No, like I said, we use technology. We use media too. We haven't really used social media, and I'm kind of one of the first that's pioneering that. But we want to tell our story. We just don't want to substitute for the substance of the community that we've created so intentionally over decades by using social media, which innately is just a virtual world. So we're trying to find ways to tell our story.

Shaan Puri

Because I feel like we just... like Sam got you hooked on sugar. You hadn't had sugar before, and you were like, "Yeah, no, I love vegetables, and I just love all these earthy flavors." Then Sam was like, "Here, have some sugar." Now you've had sugar. You've had the viral sugar—the feeling of going viral and making $1,000,000, with everybody loving your story and some people hating your story. Now you want to respond to them. You've tasted that. How has that messed with your brain?

Sam Parr

It's like, "Hey Isaac, just a little crack. You just want a little crack. Just... just a little."

Shaan Puri

You've had that social media crack. What's your honest feeling of where you are right now with that?

Isaac French

Man, it's tough. That's one of the reasons I took the 8-month break. Personally, I felt like it was becoming... I love attention, I'll just be honest about it. I felt like it was becoming a distraction from what really is a lived life. For one, I have a family. We have a little boy and another one on the way. I have this amazing community life, which I'm starting to be more public about. I made a thread about the community a couple of months ago, and people are really intrigued by that. But again, work-life balance—using the term everybody's familiar with—is a very, very real thing. I just feel like if there's an overarching guiding principle that work, life, family, and play can fit into, they don't need to constantly feel like they're in conflict with each other. In order to make that happen, I need people in my life who hold me accountable and are going to be real with me. I've had plenty of that. Just to be honest, some of my friends who know me very well have been very honest with me and, at times, critical. I totally love them and respect them for that.

Shaan Puri

what'd they say

Isaac French

Oh, like, you know, the way you came across here was bragging. Or the way you said that was maybe not completely what... or not telling me. It was more like asking questions because, again, like nobody tells you what to do here. We're very, very much like... we open ourselves up voluntarily. But they're like, you know, is that consistent with, you know, the way that you would talk? So, and so, basically, we want to be very careful that... and I want to be very careful that I don't put that the version of me that you see on the internet is exactly what you're going to get in person. And, as you guys know, there's just like that inevitable conflict. But I feel like I've learned a ton through it, and it's a constant struggle for me where I probably need to delete the app from my phone and just use it on desktop. I have a lot of friends that do that. But Twitter is that thing for me. I mean, it's highly addicting. It's just such a great format to connect with interesting people.

Sam Parr

Sean, I think that every man, once he has children and becomes a family man, has two urges. The first one is to be in some type of situation where they can exert force and use a little bit of violence to be a hero. You know what I mean? Like, a man robs a bank, and you suddenly stop it, and you're the hero. That's one of them.

Shaan Puri

patrolling main street just in case something goes down and I might be needed

Sam Parr

Yeah, I just like to be the tough guy that protects everyone. Then the second thing is to live on a farm with your family and your community, where everyone lives like a little socialist hippie life. I went to his area, and Isaac was like, "Hey, check this out! I just planted 100 apple trees and a bunch of other fruit trees. In about three years, these are going to be ready to bloom." I'm like, "Oh nice, that's kind of a lot of fruit. Are you going to eat all that fruit?" He's like, "No, it's for everyone." I'm like, "Well, you're going to have to take care of this." He's like, "No, I just told everyone in the community that I planted these trees, and we're probably going to make a schedule. We'll all chip in and tend to the trees to make sure they're going to bear the most fruit, and then we'll just spread it out evenly." Just being there for that 24 or 48 hours that one particular time, I was like, "I'm fulfilling that need of seeing this hippie lifestyle."

Shaan Puri

you saw that david beckham post sam

Sam Parr

oh where he's growing he's like growing fruit now or growing vegetables

Shaan Puri

Friends of them, yeah. He went viral because he posted this video on his Instagram. It's him in a flannel shirt and the old-timey...

Sam Parr

irish hat

Shaan Puri

And the caption is, "My kale is doing well." It basically shows him on his farm. He now lives a farm life; he's gardening and beekeeping. This is what he's doing, and people just went nuts about this trend. Isaac, I feel like you've influenced him, or maybe you should influence him. I think he might slide into your DMs soon to learn a little bit.

Sam Parr

Do you not feel this urge, Sean, every once in a while? Where you're like, "I wish I could just farm with my family and friends, and we all did this together."

Shaan Puri

no dude it's way too much work no I I don't have that urge

Isaac French

sean you gotta come visit at least

Shaan Puri

I have my versions of these, but they're like... you know, for example, I like writing. I'm like, "Cool, I just don't want to work." I just want to, like, you know... I don't know how to paint. I'm not skilled enough to paint. I don't know how to build. I'm not skilled enough to build. I don't really want to develop those skills, but I want to write a movie or spend my day playing soccer with my kids or whatever it is. Things like that. But I'm not as... I don't have the same "Roman Empire" urges that most guys have. Meaning, I don't care about history as much as most of my friends do. I don't care about living off the grid and, like, providing... you know, like pumping my own water and irrigating something. I don't want to irrigate anything, okay? So, like, I don't have that urge. For me personally, I guess I have my own versions of them, but they're a lot more mild.

Sam Parr

Well, that sucks, I guess. Okay, dork, let me go play house in the woods without you. I... I...

Shaan Puri

still wanna have wi fi like shoot me

Sam Parr

this is like the man version of playing house and dress up like you know what I mean

Shaan Puri

isaac can we do rapid fire to end this so how old are you

Isaac French

27

Shaan Puri

What's one thing I can learn from you about hospitality? Even though I'm not going to have my own, you know, mini hotels and all that, if I just have a guest coming over to my house—I've got an old friend from college coming over—what's one hospitality thing I can learn from you?

Isaac French

It's the single most valuable skill to have in life. You have to be selfless; you have to want to serve other people. I don't think it's something that you can fake, but I believe everybody has that urge inside of them. I think we're born to serve others. Read *Unreasonable Hospitality* if you haven't already. Basically, look for those little ways, like I described with the handwritten note, that are surprising. They're small, but they delight people. Sometimes, the smallest acts of kindness and generosity show the biggest impact. So, I don't think it needs to be some grandiose thing. You just have to want to serve them, and people are going to feel it.

Shaan Puri

Isaac, I think what you did with the Live Oak Lake and what you're showing other people doing with floating homes and shipping containers is amazing. It's an incredible trend, and people should go follow you on Twitter to see more of this. I think it is amazing because it is so hard. For the few people who are capable of putting in the creativity, passion, care, and hospitality that it takes to make these successful, that's truly remarkable. Send me your link so that I can go stay at your places. For me, it's a reminder that if you want an unreasonable result, you sort of have to do an unreasonable thing in certain areas, and this is definitely one of those areas. I would never be able to pull one of these off, so props to you. I hear your story, and part of me is like, "Oh, I would love to do that," but the bigger part of me, who knows me better, is like, "This is not for you." You have to be exceptional to make this work. You have to be exceptional on the real estate development side. You have to be exceptional in content marketing to go viral so that you can get booked for two years out. You also have to be exceptional in hospitality because you have to re-earn the business with every guest stay. I think you are exceptional; you've done that. It's also good to know about yourself whether this is for you or if it's not. I believe it's a very small subset of the population for whom this is suitable.

Isaac French

Well, I appreciate that. Can I close with two quotes that mean a lot to me? 1. "The way you do one thing is the way you do everything." So, sweat the details. Care. Put your heart into whatever you're going to do. Do it with hospitality. Do it with excellence. 2. There's this quote by an English pastor named John Wesley, who lived a few hundred years ago. He said, "Light yourself on fire with passion, and people will come from miles to watch you burn." That's kind of my hope in life. I want people to say, "Well, that's a life well lived." And I want to say that at the end of...

Sam Parr

my own life

Shaan Puri

that is an amazing quote

Sam Parr

I love that quote, dude. Thank you so much for the band. We appreciate you, and we'll wrap up there. That's the pod.