How to Stop Your Tech Addiction | My First Million #205

Shaan Puri

There's some kid who's the next Ari Gold sitting on Kentucky's campus or Alabama's campus. They're going to end up being worth $50 million to $100 million. They're going to get their start by selling name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals for the local players.

Sam Parr

Alright, this was a jam-packed episode. We talked about a lot. We discussed buying lottery tickets online and how that might become a big business. We also talked about Athlon and a company called Athliance, which is creating QuickBooks for NCAA athletes. Additionally, we covered the business of mugshots.

Shaan Puri

Mugshots. Yes, mugshots—the business. How these websites make money, why they are posting mugshots online, and how we feel about that. Is that scummy, or is that legit? We also talk about a couple of ideas for Chrome extensions. There are Chrome extensions that keep you focused. We discussed porn addiction and fighting that as well.

Sam Parr

A big market or not, so get to the episode. Can you guys do us a favor? Leave a review and then click like and subscribe, or click subscribe if you're on iTunes. Follow if you're on Spotify, and leave a review. Let us know what you think about this episode. Talk soon.

Shaan Puri

And if you are not watching on YouTube, check out the YouTube channel. You can see our faces! Most people have our voices mixed up; they think I am Sam and Sam is me. The only way to know is to go to YouTube. That's the number one comment we get. We actually reply to all the comments. While we can't reply to podcast reviews, we do personally reply to the YouTube comments on every episode. So, go subscribe there because honestly, the YouTube channel is better than the podcast feed. If you're only on the podcast feed, you're missing out. Go to YouTube. The channel is called... what is it called?

Sam Parr

just go to youtube and type in my first million you'll see it right now it's called the hustle but they'll see it

Shaan Puri

and then hit the subscribe button

Sam Parr

alright I have a ton of stuff to cover thanks for wearing your shirt by the way

Shaan Puri

Dude, you get all hot and bothered when I just don't have sleeves. Man, this is a shirt. Well, I guess we don't all dress like, you know, bouncers at a Miami strip club.

Sam Parr

I do look like that. I look like... yeah, I look a little special ed today. Do you want to know what I got going on? I have a lot of interesting stuff.

Shaan Puri

alright let's start let's do it

Sam Parr

alright did you see everything that I put on here

Shaan Puri

Well, it changed. You had a whole bunch of stuff about greeting cards, and now it's something else: buying lottery tickets. Alright, go for it.

Sam Parr

Okay, I got a lot of stuff. I have lottery tickets, mugshots, and oh, the athletic stuff. Actually, let's do lottery tickets first, and then I want to discuss the athletic stuff because you talked about that. So, I just talked to this guy. I don't think I'm going to do anything with it; I don't know yet. But I just talked to this guy, and I thought it was really amazing. Now, this company that I'm going to tell you about has to do with the Powerball and lotteries, which I actually think that my stance on it is I'm personally not in favor of it. I'm not on board, but I thought it was fascinating. There are these companies—there are two of them in the space. Basically, the way it works is there are two major lotteries: the Powerball and Mega Millions. Then, each state has a state-run lottery. Okay, yep. The way it works is you go to the 7-Eleven or wherever and you buy a ticket. So, there's this company that I just started talking to. They're called **Slips**. What they do is... Sorry, **Slips**, not **Spinz**. Have you heard of this or did I write it down?

Shaan Puri

I talked to them a bunch of months ago and I talked about them on the pottery

Sam Parr

but you did

Shaan Puri

first with mobile but but I did talk about it but we could do it again that's okay

Sam Parr

I don't need to you telling me about them

Shaan Puri

that's okay most people probably don't

Sam Parr

But how did you hear about Slips? I thought they just launched like a month... like this month.

Shaan Puri

It's been on test flight for a long time. I used it on test flight. I thought it was doing it cleverly.

Sam Parr

dude I feel the wind was blown out of my sails just now

Shaan Puri

I'm I'm sorry okay I'll give you a minute to recover no worries I want you I want

Sam Parr

you to explain now because you're good at it

Shaan Puri

I'll try to remember. So basically, a lot of people play the lottery. Typically, you go to a 7-Eleven or a gas station or something to buy it. What these guys did was let you play the lottery from your phone legally. How do they do that? Well, basically, wherever you are, you'll say, "I'd like to buy a lottery ticket," and then they will physically send somebody to a gas station to buy the lottery ticket for you. It's sort of like there's a TaskRabbit that will go buy the lottery ticket in person for you because you can't actually buy them online. They'll buy it, take a photo of it, and sort of custody it online to give it to you. So that's how they kind of bypass the rules around buying lottery tickets. You can't run an online lottery, but you can pay somebody to go buy the ticket, and then they can give you the ticket. That's their two-step process. Did I...?

Sam Parr

Get it right. That's brilliant! You got it right, and I think that's brilliant. I think it's brilliant because I never would have thought about that. It's the easiest possible solution. And by the...

Shaan Puri

They simplified it even further where they just paid the guy at the gas station to be the task rabbit. So now they don't even dispatch somebody. They're just like, "Hey, when this thing rings, that's somebody paying you to buy a lottery ticket." You pay a little premium on top of what the lottery ticket costs, and that's the kind of service surcharge, which might be like $0.25 or a dollar or something. It's not like percentage-wise it's pretty significant, but it's not a huge amount of money, so people don't care. It's more convenient because I can get a push notification that says, "The lottery is $200,000,000 today. Would you like a ticket?" You just say, "Yes," and that's low friction.

Sam Parr

I would say they have a subscription. They have a bunch of stuff. But when I was talking to this guy, I was thinking about the pros and cons. So, the pros of this business? It's going to get big fast.

Shaan Puri

yeah I can see it getting big fast

Sam Parr

that's the only pro

Shaan Puri

that's a big pro in the world of business that's that's the main pro

Sam Parr

that's the main pro there are so many things about why it won't work

Shaan Puri

Are you saying, basically, that ethically I have a problem with this, or are you saying it won't work?

Sam Parr

one of the many things

Shaan Puri

so like

Sam Parr

I wouldn't say ethically I have a problem, but I would have to ask myself how I feel about that. I would have to think about it. So, in one regard, it's like I don't buy the lottery, and I don't want to encourage people to buy it if they don't have a lot of money. That said, who am I to tell you what to buy? Also, if you want to spend, I go to the casino and I like to spend $50, and that's fun. So, who am I to judge? The second thing I would imagine is that an app like this would have very similar economics—or not similar economics, but similar growth tactics as a mobile game. This means you have to be super aggressive about customer acquisition. If Facebook, Google, or pretty much anyone else bans you, you're in trouble.

Shaan Puri

yes that's that's a legit problem for this

Sam Parr

And that might be the two biggest... what's the big?

Shaan Puri

Also, I think it had some social features that were like, if you and your friends could kind of share it, you could split tickets or something like that. They brought all the offline things where, you know, an office pulls together and buys 100 tickets, and then they agree to split the money. I think they brought that into it. So, it's a nice app. I liked the idea a lot, but I just... you know, there are a whole bunch of reasons why I decided not to invest. I just thought it was a clever idea, and I've been looking at this for years. To your question of how I find this, it's because for years I've been thinking about how you would bring the lottery online. I've talked to many people who claimed they could do it legally, but it wasn't actually legal, or it was only legal in one state to do it that way. They were hoping all the other states would catch on. So, I've just been keeping an eye out for rule changes. That's kind of a theme. Like we talked about the name, image, and likeness (NIL) rule change, which equals opportunity. I have another rule change I'm going to discuss today that's another opportunity. But this is an example of one of those types of businesses.

Sam Parr

you wanna talk about that n I n I nil stuff

Shaan Puri

yeah what do you got for it

Sam Parr

And the reason... so you brought this up, and I had known about it, but I just saw this other article. Did you see this article that went viral about this Alabama kid? He hasn't even thrown... he...

Shaan Puri

hasn't played a game yet

Sam Parr

and he had a $1,000,000 in revenue booked for the year or something crazy like that

Shaan Puri

Well, the funny thing is, the coach, Nick Saban, came out and he's the one who kind of said it. He's like, "Oh yeah, you know, it creates a weird situation. Our freshman quarterback, he's made 7 figures. You know, he's making all this money, but his teammates aren't making that money. It creates an awkward dynamic." So, some people have really three reactions to this. One is, "Okay, maybe there's some truth to that." The second is, "Oh, is this like... for years there have been all kinds of people who make millions of dollars, like Nick Saban does. Nick Saban makes tens of millions of dollars as the coach, and all the players played for free." It's like, "Dude, you're trying to keep the players down. Now that they're making a buck, you got a problem with it?" Then there's the third one, which is the super mega evil version of this. He added this line at the end where he goes, "He's making all this money, and that's because of our brand. That's because he's a quarterback at Alabama."

Sam Parr

and so

Shaan Puri

It became a recruiting pitch at the same time. So, he was fake being outraged but really was, you know, what they call "dog whistling" to all the other high school athletes. "Right now, you come to Alabama, that check is pretty big. This guy hasn't even played yet and he's getting this type of money. Imagine what you'll get when you come here." So, all the other college coaches, the players are mad at him, the coaches are mad at him, and the media was mad at him. I loved it. It was a master stroke.

Sam Parr

What I actually did was contact some folks in the compliance industry at schools. They made a comment that said they're explicitly banned from finding or facilitating any type of deals for athletes.

Shaan Puri

the school is yes

Sam Parr

Yeah, so like Nick Saban can't... you know, they can't be the middleman at all. But what they're able to do is act. The reason I'm bringing this up is you had this idea where, I mean, I guess it's a fairly obvious thing, but you said it well: you have to have this software or some type of compliance software in order to manage these relationships and manage these deals. I have an example as to why that's kind of important. So the school can't be the middleman, but they have to be in the loop about what you're doing.

Shaan Puri

The school will definitely pay, which is why I was saying you should build a tool like this with transparency, visibility, reporting, and payments infrastructure. Because the schools will have to pay, and once they pay, they're locked in. You're going to be the system of record of how the athletes are making money.

Sam Parr

And I want to give an example. Let me give you a very, very specific example of why this is going to get really complicated. Do you know American Top Team? I bet you do. It's a mixed martial arts gym in Florida. They offered $500 a month to Miami's entire 90 scholarship football players to advertise their gyms on social media. So that's $540,000, but every player has to do it. Now, there are these crazy rules. Here's an example of the gym deal for the many players we mentioned. The contract states that they must advertise for the gym over social media. However, if they lose track and not all 90 athletes post, technically that's a pay-for-play and not an NIL deal, and it's a major NCAA violation. So it doesn't matter if you understand that. What matters is that it's incredibly complicated, and this is going to get really complicated.

Shaan Puri

I wonder if somebody can also just build the other side. Just build the IRS. So it's like building a little independent police group or task force that's going to be monitoring all this stuff, finding potential violations, and then selling this service back to the schools. It's like, "Hey, we found some athletes that are out of code here." But this is actually against the regulations. We will sell you this type of visibility so that you guys don't fall out of compliance. That's another way to do it. You diagnose the problem and then you sell them the prescription.

Sam Parr

That line is going to lead me into my next topic. That's a totally different subject, but when we talked about this NCAA thing, did a lot of companies reach out to you?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, there was a no. They didn't reach out. They go, "Bro, we're already doing this. We've been doing this."

Sam Parr

that's what I mean that's what I mean yeah

Shaan Puri

Good, good, good for you! Great! I agree, it's a good opportunity. Well, I don't know why you gotta get all defensive about it.

Sam Parr

any any any anything interesting

Shaan Puri

you know I didn't really look into them because I didn't have time but I think like open doors was one of the ones that a bunch of people mentioned I don't know if that's like the number one I I kinda think that it's not really gonna be some player that's been around for a while I think it's gonna be somebody I I view it as in these markets it's whoever builds this first simple useful thing will get a ton of adoption and then it's then it's a race between the people who tried to build the big valuable thing and the group that got a bunch of adoption to go from small and simple to more thorough and whoever's where where do those lines cross which which group gets there first and I like to bet on the horse where the founders identify it hey this is a simple thing that we can get in the hands of every athlete right now or every school right now and we can even give it away for free as long as we get them hooked into our our our system we have a relationship with them I think those are gonna be the interesting ones so I'm kinda looking for who's new but I'm open minded about it I haven't I haven't seen anybody make a make a very compelling case that they've got something good going but I do have an idea around this if you're ready for it so are you familiar with how sports agents make their money like if I'm a agent for an nba basketball player do you know roughly like how that money shakes out no so so basically if I'm an agent for an nba player I'm gonna take let's call it 2 to 3% on average and I'm not an expert at this there may be more nuance to it but this is what I have a couple friends who do this and this is what they told me so they make about 2 to 3% of the contract value so let's say in the nba like a max guy might make 40,000,000 a year so let's say you have 2 guys you got a a max player and you have his his buddy on the team who's kind of a a bit of a mid level player and you have 50,000,000 they 50,000,000 a year from the team you're gonna make 2% so you're gonna make $1,000,000 a year as an agent so you can stack some pretty good money now it is a absolutely cutthroat and ruthless business where they're all trying to backstab each other and steal each other's clients and it is like a a slightly dirty industry where there's a lot of sort of like bribery wine you know some on the good end wining and dining and on the bad end sort of like bribery and and shit talking that goes on in order for agents to get clients but I have a few ben was telling me about a a few friends of his that have an agency it has 3 people and their athletes under contract will will bring in about 3,000,000 total a year and so basically they're the main guy the main agent's probably banking 2,600,000 2,500,000 himself and then the other 500 k goes into like operations of paying the other 2 people their kinda like salary

Sam Parr

so how much is the total

Shaan Puri

So, the contract value will be... I think he takes 3%. The contract value was something like $75,000,000, just rough numbers.

Sam Parr

for the for the year

Shaan Puri

It was like four players, right? And it's really hard to get your foot in the door. But when you have this guy, typically the players will stick with you unless they have a problem with you. You mess up, and so you get their 10 to 15-year career sometimes. As long as that player has a name, you can use them and their introductions to get a couple of other guys on the team that they're buddies with and trust when they're looking for agents. Then they keep going down market. They keep trying to get guys right before the draft or, you know, in college. They're showing up on campus and just talking to the guy, trying to not create an NCAA violation but build those relationships. So, what I was thinking was, that's the general business. I don't think it's a great business to be in, but you know, whatever. There are a few people that win big, and then most people get nothing. The opportunity I saw was, with this name, image, and likeness, I think this is going to breed a whole new set of college hustlers that become sports agents. Why is that? Because I'm a player at a school. If I'm just some kid in the same dorm... I remember when I was on Duke's campus, I bumped into Gerald Henderson on the first day of orientation. It's kind of a funny story. We were hitting it off, which is great because normally these guys, you know, everyone's mobbing them. They don't care about you; they're looking for the hottest girl around. They don't really care about this brown Indian dude. Why am I talking to him? But we hit it off, we were joking around, and he goes, "Oh man, like what are you doing tonight?" I was like, "Oh, I think we're going to West Campus." I didn't even know what that was at the time; it was my first day on campus. But I just said something I thought sounded cool. He's like, "Oh sweet! Hit me up when you go. Here, take my number." I had finished high school in China, and I actually didn't even have a cell phone on the first day of college. I was getting my plan set up, and I was like, "Oh, you know, I don't have a phone." He just looked at me like, "Oh bro, you don't have a phone?" and he just walked away. That was the last I talked to him. But the opportunity is...

Sam Parr

let's see you can go home friends with an nba player

Shaan Puri

I know, I know... I blew it. I blew it many, many times after that too with other players. But basically, let's say I'm friends with that guy. I could just go hustle. I could go to the local car dealership and I could be like, "Hey, how much would you pay Gerald to be on this billboard?" He's a big name in this college town, so they'll give him $1,500. I could go to Gerald and say, "Hey dude, I got you a $1,500 deal. All you gotta do is say yes and take this photo." Then he would be like, "Oh, sick man!" If I did that three more times, I'm pretty sure I could be this guy's business manager within like two months of being in college. If you just plant those seeds at that stage, because you're on campus, you're one of them, you could work the scene locally. I'm pretty sure that that's one way to hitch your wagon to someone who's a future NBA player and actually become an agent. So I think you're going to find some super agents that come out of this one rule change. There's some kid who's the next Ari Gold that's sitting on Kentucky's campus or Alabama's campus that's going to end up being worth $50 million to $100 million. They're going to get their start by selling name, image, and likeness deals for the local players.

Sam Parr

Yeah, I mean, that's what a lot of people have done with music. You know, Scooter Braun started that way. What?

Shaan Puri

what was his origin story so I know scooter braun I know who we had okay so break

Sam Parr

If you don't know who Scooter Braun is, he owned a company called Ithaca Holdings, which I think just sold to a Korean music label for $3 or $4 billion. Scooter Braun is most famous for... yeah, Ithaca Holdings just sold.

Shaan Puri

is he like a billionaire

Sam Parr

yeah probably

Shaan Puri

wow

Sam Parr

does it tell you a bill you didn't even know about how do you feel bro that I just wanna do

Shaan Puri

there you go I feel great I love it

Sam Parr

sell for

Shaan Puri

Alright, so he sold it to Hybe, which is the Korean entertainment conglomerate that owns, I think, they have the rights to BTS, which is like the biggest fan group.

Sam Parr

in the

Shaan Puri

Let's see, what's the sale price? I'll look it up. You keep talking.

Sam Parr

Anyway, so he sold this company. He was most famous for being Justin Bieber's manager, but he also managed Ariana Grande and a few other people. He's only 35, 36, or 37—very young. You'll see him in some of the music videos. He was also famous because he bought Big Machine Records, based out of Nashville, which owned Taylor Swift's rights. He bought that for only about $80,000,000, even though it made $40,000,000 a year—something crazy like that. He got his start out of Emory University, I believe. When he was a sophomore, somehow he started throwing parties and, in doing so, met Jermaine Dupri's mom, who owned a record label in Atlanta, where Emory is located.

Shaan Puri

missus dupree it's is that you well

Sam Parr

Missus Dupree is like the head honcho of a meaningful production and music company. He starts working for him and the Duprees. He's doing this music thing, bringing all the kids to college parties as a club promoter and making a cut from Jermaine Dupree's party. Eventually, when he's 22, he has a little bit of money saved, but not a lot—less than $100. He finds this kid on YouTube who is about 7, 8, 9, or 10 years old. The kid is playing guitar and singing. Scooter goes, "This kid's gonna be a home run. He's gonna be a winner." So, he flies the kid and his mom down to Atlanta and says, "I want to manage you." The kid's like, "What do you mean, manage me? I don't have a career." Scooter replies, "You're gonna be a superstar one day." That was Justin Bieber. He discovered the Biebs and made tens of millions of dollars off him. Recently, he made over $1 billion from selling his company. What did he sell it for?

Shaan Puri

11,000,000,000. So it was 1,050,000,000. Just two quick numbers: they sold for **$1,050,000,000** and he had acquired that big machine-like label thing with Taylor Swift's rights for **$300,000,000** back then.

Sam Parr

oh okay so my numbers are off rich whatever

Shaan Puri

And so, let's just go through some more numbers. Braun now holds a 1% stake in Hybe, which is worth $123,000,000. The BTS members each have $18,000,000 in Hybe, and there are 7 of them. Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande have $14,300,000 worth of a stake in Hybe. Hybe went public at $1,500,000,000 and has doubled in the last few months. I would have bought this if I knew that the company behind BTS had gone public, but I was not awake at the wheel here.

Sam Parr

So, kind of interesting. I don't even know how we got on this topic, but he got started in college promoting Bieber. And you know who his second act was? Asher Roth, the guy who... oh nice! At the time, he was like, "This Asher Roth guy is gonna be the biggest. He's gonna be the biggest there is." Bieber, yeah, yeah. But Asher Roth came to him after doing "I Love College" and he said, "You know, I kind of don't really want to be famous. I don't want to be in the limelight. I just want to be quiet." So, he bailed on him.

Shaan Puri

Respect. So, okay, we should do more on Scooter. I'm also going to do a deep dive on this guy, a billionaire behind BTS. His name is Bang Si-hyuk. So, we'll go on to this guy.

Sam Parr

let me tell you another story

Shaan Puri

Are you gonna... First, one thing, by the way, just one regret I have is that I did not hustle in college. I had like very small, tiny schemes. I was a schemer; I've always been a schemer. But I was such a goldfish, guppy schemer back then. I was trying to find a way to win the Monopoly game at McDonald's, and I was trying to get into the easiest classes. I was thinking small. My buddies and I started a sushi restaurant thing, but now that I think about it, college is this four-year playground with a whole bunch of potential co-founders all around you, with a whole bunch of potential customers all around you, with nothing but free time and energy. No mortgage, no nothing; it's all paid for. It's a giant summer camp! Damn, that was the time to take some shots, take some experiments. So if you're listening to this, or you know someone in college, send them this clip.

Sam Parr

it's also the time to get drunk hook up with girls hook up with dudes

Shaan Puri

for sure for sure

Sam Parr

try on different hats and explore yourself you don't have to have the pressure to like make money

Shaan Puri

I'm not saying become successful. I'm saying take some shots, hustle a little bit. That doesn't mean don't party. The way I prioritized things was just dumb. I don't know, sleep was number one, class was number two, friends were number three. You know, it's like I thought college was about the classes, and college is...

Sam Parr

obviously not

Shaan Puri

almost almost not about the classes in any any shape or form but it but the illusion is that it's about classes

Sam Parr

In a little bit, I want to talk about the **fat fire** thing that I mentioned the other day. You kind of said something to me about it. But right now, do you want to talk about that, or do you want to discuss some mugshot stuff?

Shaan Puri

I got one other quick college hustle idea. There's another rule change to be aware of. This rule change came from AngelList. AngelList made it very easy for anyone who is a professional investor—anybody like me or you who invests $1,000,000 a year into startups. We can now create a scout program. What this means is that anyone can become a scout for our program. All that means is you bring a great deal to me, and if I invest, you get a piece of the upside. So, you get to freeroll into investments, network with real investors, and basically hunt startups for fun. I was doing this back when I was... I think I've talked about this before. The first angel investment I ever did, I did as a scout. I found a deal, I diligenced it, and I thought it was a great deal. I pitched that deal to somebody who had money, and they were like, "Great! I'll give you a piece of the upside." There was no need to figure out our own paperwork for that. Well, you know, it wasn't like an easy one-click button like AngelList has now made it.

Sam Parr

well they've had this I've I've used this for my thing on the back end

Shaan Puri

But splitting deal by deal carry wasn't easy for funds or rolling funds. Before, I think for SPVs it might have been, but now it's easy for everybody. So, if you're interested in investing, the game has changed. Here's what I would do: my quick 30 seconds of what I would do if I were somebody who didn't have the money to invest in startups but loved the idea of startup investing. I would contact my four favorite investors. Maybe it's, you know, me and the three other people. Great! Just don't know it's me. I'm all prepared.

Sam Parr

Me, me, and me. Yeah, so your four favorite investors: the top four investors are Sean, Sean, and Sean.

Shaan Puri

I got four email addresses. So here's what you do: you send an email and you don't say, "Hey, can I work for you?" Instead, you say, "Hey, every week, I love startups. I am a junkie. I'm always looking for interesting startups that are on the come up." You know, I'm a developer, so I know about that, or I'm into music, so I'm watching the music scene, or whatever. Right? You figure out what your angle is, and then you just say, "I'm going to send you three interesting startups a week." You don't have to reply, but if anything catches your eye or you think it's either really stupid or really awesome, I'd love a one-line reply. You just start sending that for three weeks straight. If I don't reply after three weeks, you ditch me and figure out somebody else. But if you do this, you'll do two things: 1. It'll be fun because it's fun to just check out startups and play that game as a fantasy investor. 2. You'll actually walk away within a year with a portfolio of startups that you have equity in, that you sourced, that you did due diligence on, and that you pitched. That's like a great way to break into this industry. I think AngelList just made it way easier to break in. I just wanted to put that out as a PSA for people.

Sam Parr

yeah and go ahead drop your email

Shaan Puri

yeah shawn@shodpuri.com

Sam Parr

Alright, so a minute ago you said something that was actually really brilliant. It was about the NCAA stuff. What you would do is find the violations and go to the NCAA or go to, like, the University of Alabama and say, "Hey, your quarterback is actually breaking the rules here. The fines are X, Y, and Z. Buy our software for Y."

Shaan Puri

Way easier to sell than to buy our software. It's, "Hey, you have a problem? Here it is. If you don't want to have this problem in the future, we obviously do it. Look, I did it for you already."

Sam Parr

So, there's this... You remember earlier, a month ago, I mentioned the business of mugshots, correct?

Shaan Puri

that's right you told me about mugshots.com I think it was

Sam Parr

Yeah, and so I went and did a bunch of research on these businesses. There's a whole ecosystem of this. So I'm going to name a bunch of them. Let's see, where are they? Okay, so **Mugshots.com** gets at least **600,000** visitors a month. **BustedMugshots.com** gets **666,000** visitors a month. **5FineMugshots.com** gets **72,000** visitors a month.

Shaan Puri

busted mugshots that's just ugly people ugly mugshots is that what that is

Sam Parr

I don't know or is that the

Shaan Puri

same thing

Sam Parr

I think it's the same as being "busted," like in jail. Not like your butt, your face is busted. **Arrest.org**: 4,350,000 visits **Truthfinder.com**: 9,100,000 visits **Been Verified**: 23,000,000 visits These sites are all centered around mugshots and criminal records. Now, do you want to hear how these guys make money? Here's a story. There’s this guy, Matt Creed, in Kansas City. He started a company called **Blabbermouth** in 2013. What he would do is post names, addresses, and mugshots of local people who had already been arrested. Then, he would mail them all letters saying, "We have already been blabbing to the world about your release from jail, and we want to make you aware of our services as we kind of have a big mouth. For $200, we will remove all the information from our website." They would send that to people, and that is exactly what **Mugshots.com** does, that's what **Arrest.com** does, and that's what **Busted.org** does. So, it's...

Shaan Puri

It's free to search, but you have to pay to be removed from the database and scrubbed from their search.

Sam Parr

Not only that, there's a whole bunch of removal services. For example, there's RemoveSlander.com, RemoveArrest.org, and EraseMugshot.com, which charge between $1,000 to $5,000 to actually do this for all the companies. I imagine what they do is charge you $5 and then pay all the websites each like $50. They probably have some affiliate deal and just take a little bit of profit.

Shaan Puri

There's probably some rule, some DMCA-type rule. If I request to be taken out, you have to take me down. That's probably what it is; that's my guess. I don't know if that's right, but I feel like they may not have to pay anything. It's just going and filing the claim.

Sam Parr

So, in the vast majority of states, posting photos online of these mugshots is totally legal. You really can't get a... it's not a big deal to post them; it's public record. Where the gray area is, is that the websites that populate them put the mugshots on there and then turn around and charge individuals money to remove them. Now, a lot of these guys who run these websites, like Mugshots.com, the authorities are trying to look for anything little that they do wrong, no matter how small. They want to find something wrong, like for example, embezzling a little bit of money. I think that figuring out if someone embezzles is something you could probably catch, like if they don't file their taxes correctly, you know what I mean? The founders have actually been locked up for like 3, 4, or 5 months at a time. A lot of these websites, if you go and try to find... I went and researched them. If you try to find out who owns them, it's different domains in Panama, Belize, things like that. It's like this huge web. But it's incredibly fascinating. There's this entire ecosystem around mugshots and then mugshot removal. It's very fascinating, very interesting. I think it's horrible, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Shaan Puri

Tell me you're shady without telling me you're shady. And then you post your Cayman Islands incorporation documents or your Belize headquarters address. Dan, come on, come on. Microphone real quick. You're a good human being. I would say Dan is an extremely straight-edged human being from what I could tell. Dan, tell me this: when I hear Sam explain these businesses, my literal first reaction is, "Awesome! That was wow, so smart how they thought of that." I think you probably are like many people who have a different reaction, which is sort of like, "Jeez, these guys... whoever does this is kind of a scumbag." Tell me, Dan, what is your reaction to this?

Sam Parr

yeah I I just chatted to you I I said the owners of all these companies are human garbage

Shaan Puri

And so, is that your reaction when Sam describes these as, "Ugh, gross," or is it like... my reaction was, "Awesome"?

Sam Parr

I mean there's lots of ways to make money in this world that just sounds like a horrible one

Shaan Puri

that's a good? Okay fair enough

Sam Parr

So, I do not like this. I would never do this. I think these guys are pieces of shit. And also, I think it's amazing. Like, doing what this guy Matt did—sending the letter—that's like table stakes. Any schemer who has ever wanted to do that, or any schemer out there who's been 19, that's such basic bitch shit. I think this is like the most basic scam I could imagine. But no, I would never in a million years do it, and I wouldn't want to be friends with anyone who does it. And yeah, I still think it's fascinating and interesting, right?

Shaan Puri

So there's a question: would I do it? No. Do I think other people should be allowed to do it? Maybe. If somebody does it, do I consider them a piece of shit, or do I consider it fair game? It's just not for me. I think those are the kinds of moral questions I get into with stuff like this. But I don't know. I think these ideas are very clever and smart. To me, I'm always like, "Wow, okay, yeah, I wouldn't do it, but that's interesting." If you just piece it together, there are a bunch of layers. One layer is, "Oh man, you can create businesses just by taking public data that's not really formalized for consumers to use." You could aggregate it and create a search engine on top of it. You can create a product there.

Sam Parr

yeah like do that people do

Shaan Puri

That with Zillow, people do that with many things. It's just one generic business model type. So then you say, "Oh cool, if I ever find other public things that are public record but I don't know that there's a main consumer website for it, I could build that." Then there's some psychology: why are so many people, why are millions of people going to these websites? What is there? Is it just like a gossip thing? Are they trying to solve some problem, like they had some theft and they wrote down some guy's license plate and they're trying to figure out who it is? Oh, maybe there's a consumer problem to be solved here. And then there's the business model innovation or the business model tactic, which is the same thing I was saying earlier about NTA violations. You don't sell the search; you sell the removal. You sell the solution once they search. Okay, that's interesting too. So I look at it as a bunch of different layers. When I put the whole thing together, I'm like, "Yeah, that's kind of crappy," but as individual layers, it's pretty fascinating to me.

Sam Parr

it's fascinating do you wanna talk about porn

Shaan Puri

yeah let's do it you saw this thing I wrote down

Sam Parr

yeah

Shaan Puri

Alright, so I saw this company that's in Y Combinator right now, and I don't know how you say that... wait.

Sam Parr

first of all how do you see all this interesting stuff

Shaan Puri

That's like saying, "How do you pull off that shirt, man?" I don't know, you just do it. You don't even think about it. In this case, this was on Hacker News. It was posted as a Show HN. So, I check out Hacker News, and when I go there, I typically will go to the Show tab because I find that to be more interesting than the news. Then, I think in this case, Ben sent this to me yesterday when we were talking about something else related. We were just bullshitting about something else, and then he's like, "Oh yeah, there's another company like this that's kind of interesting." He was laughing at it, and I was like, "No, I actually think that's a legit idea." He's like, "What do you mean?" And I was like, "Well, I think these taboo ideas..." So, in this case, this is a company that helps people who are addicted to porn fight their addiction. It's a treatment, so it's like Alcoholics Anonymous for people who are compulsive with porn.

Sam Parr

just get get you addicted to this app

Shaan Puri

So, he sent it to me as a joke, like, "Dude, look at this." I was sort of like, I bet that's actually a big problem. I bet there's a lot of people who have this problem, and I bet there's kind of nothing—there's no real legit company that's occupying that space. Why not? Why wouldn't there be something that occupies a space that helps a lot of people? So, I started looking into it. They have about 100,000 members in their community, they say. Now, I don't know if that means there are registered people or...

Sam Parr

well explain the product I'm I'm explain the product

Shaan Puri

So, it's an overall company that's supposed to help you overcome a digital addiction. It wasn't just for porn, but they started out with a few different products. The first one they had was called **Detox**. All it was, basically, was an app that would get you off your phone for a period of time. It would kind of lock you out of your phone and just tell you, "Don't use your phone for the next 4 hours. You're detoxing." Okay, cool. By the way, I've wanted to do this myself. I kind of made a rule for myself: **1 hour a day, I'm just going to lose my phone.** I don't need my phone every hour of the day. The next one they created was **Social X**.

Sam Parr

that's your that's your personal rule

Shaan Puri

That's my personal experience. I didn't know about the SAP, but I just put my phone in a different room and leave it for an hour. Then there's social media... yeah, that's a lot for me. I was constantly on my phone, dude.

Sam Parr

Me too. So, what I do is I only use it from 9 AM to 6 PM, during work hours, and then I just leave it.

Shaan Puri

oh my god what do you do for fun

Sam Parr

well so I'm trying I mean I I I

Shaan Puri

serial killer in your night times what do you do how do

Sam Parr

You occupy it, I guess. Tech... I mean, I do have it on me sometimes. I just use airplane mode all the time, so you just can't contact me. I just won't see any messages. What do?

Shaan Puri

you you just use it as a clock

Sam Parr

or like if I were for working out I'll use headphones or music

Shaan Puri

Right, okay, but that's it. Wow! So, after 6 PM, if I text you, you're just not going to get it? Or, like, if you get an Instagram comment or something, you just don't look at it?

Sam Parr

no I don't look at instagram comment no no of course not no if you called

Shaan Puri

me the same

Sam Parr

If you called me, I would probably see your number and pick up. But if it's anyone else, I'm not. Like, if you're outside the circle, yeah, I'm not gonna talk to you.

Shaan Puri

Well, good for you, man! That's really good. I think you're saying it like it's a normal thing, and when you say it out loud, it sounds perfectly reasonable. I think less than 1% of people on Earth are doing that.

Sam Parr

this quick story I heard about an an earl nightingale you know what earl nightingale is

Shaan Puri

no what's that

Sam Parr

So, he was around in the sixties, probably the forties or fifties actually. He was a radio host and would tell interesting stories, but he was also kind of business-minded. He was like the Tony Robbins of the day. He told the story about how he went to a farmer's house one time, and this was right when phones were just created. He was at this farmer's house; I forget what he was talking to him about, but the farmer's phone was ringing and going off. Earl was just kind of looking at the farmer, and the farmer kept looking at him and having a normal conversation. Then the phone went away, and it started ringing again. It kept going, and Earl finally said, "Hey, you know, mister, your phone's been going off. Aren't you going to answer that?" The farmer replied, "Why would I answer that?" Earl said, "Well, someone's calling you." The farmer responded, "Sir, I installed this phone in here for my convenience, not their convenience, and I don't feel like answering it." That's now how I view my phone; it's here for me, not for anyone else.

Shaan Puri

I similarly picked up a phrase like that that I'll share. I've been kind of playing with it. I don't know if I'm fully adopting this because I feel like a jerk when I use it. My brother-in-law was talking to me the other day. He's a successful guy in business, and I was asking him about my tax accountant. I said, "Yeah, my tax accountant is saying this, and I'm saying that." He was telling me how he runs his relationship with his tax accountant. I was like, "Oh wow, that's kind of strange. Why do you do it that way? Don't they ask, or don't they want you to do X, Y, Z?" He said, "Are they paying me, or am I paying them?" I was like, "You're paying them." He goes, "Okay, so then if I'm paying you, then we're going to do this a certain way. If you're paying me, we're going to do it a certain way." He said, "So many times you see people who pay someone for a service and then cater to the other person as if they're being paid by them." I started to see this, and at first, I just kind of laughed it off.

Sam Parr

I used to just show you my cleaning lady I I clean my house before the cleaning lady comes in

Shaan Puri

yeah for her yeah I changed my plans for her

Sam Parr

I'm like sarah we are not like well I'm not fixing this I'm paying this woman to do it

Shaan Puri

right I think I even said this to dan the other day I was like dan was talking something about like the schedule this of this of like our recordings or whatever he's like oh it's getting real late you know because you guys are always like kinda last minute on your deadlines and I I just had to kinda say it and I was like I feel like a dick saying this but I honestly like it's this is again this is the situation dan are you paying me to record this or am I paying you to edit this thing right like which way does it go because right now you're telling me how I need to do it but I pay you to put this podcast out right so like and and again it feels like a total asshole thing to say again of mentality but man it's like been very effective I've used this like 10 or 15 times the last 2 months of just reminding myself what is the arrangement here oh person from the bank is calling me hold on wait a minute do you do you do I work for you or you work for me hold on which way does this go okay yeah yeah alright now I remember let's do it this way instead and like fights my kind of like just nice guy get pushed over instincts alright anyways back to this app real quick so they have the main app the one I think that's blowing up for them is called blocker x and basically you just you go on your phone and you basically set it to disable your ability to go to adult sites maybe on some timer or maybe just like permanently I don't know that's like a self blocking thing and blocking these sites is actually not that easy and so you wanna be able to block this without blocking other sites accidentally and without letting you get through and so you and so they basically have this combination of things between like a community of people like peers like alcoholics anonymous like here's a bunch of other people also trying to improve themselves this way here's a tool a blocker here's like gamification a streak or like points you're getting for continuing on and I just thought this was kind of interesting like is there a modern day aa like if people are right that social media is the new smoking right that that that all this like kind of like overload of technology overload of digital news and information in social media is making us unhappy and lonely then isn't somebody gonna build the like aa for that like that kinda makes sense to me even though on the surface it sounds like a weird idea what do

Sam Parr

You think I'm... I'm trying to, yeah. I think this is great, but let me put some stuff in perspective. So, I actually use a site like this. I don't use it for porn, but I use it for...

Shaan Puri

sure

Sam Parr

Fake Facebook and Twitter and things like that. I wish I could share my screen right now, but if I go to Twitter, it says, "Shouldn't you be busy working?" I use this thing called **StayFocusd**. StayFocusd is a Google Chrome extension. I love it! I just sent it to you. According to StayFocusd, the cool thing about doing research on Chrome extensions is they tell you roughly how many users they have. So, they have roughly **600,000** users. But the biggest player in this space, who I haven't done a significant amount of research on, is called **BlockSite**. The thing I sent you, can you read out how many users that has?

Shaan Puri

Blocksite says there are over 1,000,000 users of Crunchvision. That's pretty good; it shows there's a lot of demand. Chrome extensions are not mainstream or that easy to find. So, if a Chromecast has 1,000,000 users, that is a strong validation of demand.

Sam Parr

It's huge. When I look at what these guys are doing, it's kind of interesting. So, what's it called again? I gotta pull it up. How do you pronounce it? Altman?

Shaan Puri

I suppose it

Sam Parr

their name is not the best atmana

Shaan Puri

not a good name

Sam Parr

So, I'm looking at what they're doing. It basically starts with a Chrome-esque extension business and then offers more features to get you.

Shaan Puri

Well, I think theirs is a mobile app. I think it's the same as what you're talking about, but with the mobile app as far as their go-to-market strategy.

Sam Parr

And you can see what's going on with their Android. I actually think that's a brilliant way to spin something that's already been around and to present it a little bit differently. I'm on board with this; I think this is great.

Shaan Puri

So, the way we were talking about Chrome extensions, if you go to the Chrome extension store, you can see how many downloads it has. Google Play does the same thing. If you click their Google Play button and scroll down to the bottom of any app on Android, you'll see "installs." This will say, you know, either "less than 10,000," "100,000," or in this case, "500,000." Then it'll say "1,000,000." This one's at "1,000,000+," so you know it's between 1 and, I think, 10,000,000 is the next cutoff. So, it's somewhere between 1 and 10,000,000 installs on Android, which again, that's no joke. I should invest in this. This is a good idea.

Sam Parr

And I actually just researched them. They used to be called this thing called **Fun Switch Technologies**. When I heard that name, **Fun Switch**, I was like, "I have a feeling that they started exactly how I thought." I went to the Fun Switch's LinkedIn, and it said they are a mobile-first solution aimed at helping millennials overcome digital addictions and assisting with mental health. Sorry, I'm just reading this as we go. They are aimed at using the latest techniques in mental health to assist people suffering from those digital addictions. Basically, it was a Chrome-esque plug-in, and they just spun it to be this porn thing because they saw that's the big market to be in. So, I think it's really cool. I have a feeling that's what happened. I'm just doing all this research as we're talking, but it's kind of interesting.

Shaan Puri

Okay, let's do Chrome. Alright, so I had this idea while I was laying in bed this morning. My trainer has me do this exercise. It goes...

Sam Parr

kegel exercise

Shaan Puri

it's a kegel for my brain basically it's a quick like 2 minute thing you do you do in the morning which is called the events of the day go my way you just sort of imagine your day going the way you want and and and it's very simple and and and and we do the same thing at night as a revision which is you reimagine something some part of your day that didn't go the way you want and you just re you don't even try to correct it and self help and ask why what's wrong with you why am I such an idiot you just reimagine it going good and then you go to sleep and this is like such a lightweight mental hack but anyways the I was doing it this morning and I was imagining this podcast going great I'm imagining you saying that is a great idea and this is what came to my mind so then the idea came which is how crazy is that I imagine you saying this is a great idea and then a great idea came to my brain within like 20 seconds so here's the idea a chrome extension that pays you for the sites you go to okay let's start there why would a chrome extension pay you to go to a website well websites want traffic right that's what most ads are so a website I I say I have an ecommerce store I know that a visitor on average the right visitor is worth you know somewhere between $3.5 let's say just based on the conversion rate and the the average order value and so I would be willing to pay a dollar for you to come visit my site so here's what I'm imagining you install a chrome extension the chrome extension tells you hey sean espn will pay you 30¢ right now to go to their website you know reddit will pay you 20¢ that you know that pet store that you buy from they'll pay you a dollar to come to the site just click the button go there and you just have to be there for for 30 60 seconds or whatever and then you'll unlock the bounty and it'll just go into your little piggy bank right here in the browser it's a little piggy bank icon okay so so I believe that on one side you could get brands to basically buy traffic through a chrome extension and the the money goes to the user either split with the with the chrome extension or just all to the user in this case and the user goes there the user says easy I just have to go to the site I don't have to buy anything no problem but you go to the site you basically bought their attention you bought their impression and you know they may see something new they may convert they may check out some new product that you have because that's where you drove them to now how does this how does this end up paying off well 22 things 2 interesting things happen here the first let's say my wife is a big shopper okay her traffic is gonna be worth a lot more than my traffic because I'm a shitty I barely shop I just go look at information I steal it and I run away so I might get low low bids she might get high bids how does it know how what to bid well it's a chrome extension it sits in my browser it sees how much I spend it sees what sites I go to it creates a value score for me and so it knows what I'm worth the second thing is when I go to let's say now let's so so that's the first part it's like page rank but for users users are worth some different amount based on the sites they go to and how much they spend it's it's like unbundling the facebook ad system so now the second thing is let's say now I'm a news website and news websites always wanted this like micropayment thing like they want me to subscribe 10.99 a month or whatever but I don't wanna do that but I would pay like 4¢ for an article right I would pay 2¢ and this idea of like ultra micropayments has been around for a while people wanna do this with crypto people wanna do this with different things but if you first did the piggy bank thing by letting users get paid then you could go to publishers and say hey paywall this for like 2¢ using that same plug in we have 6,000,000 members who who get paid daily using our thing their piggy bank has money in it all they don't have to put in a credit card ever they could just do like tiny micropayments on their favorite sites when they go there so I think you could build a pretty I think it would change the way the internet works if you if you did this alright tell me about my idea

Sam Parr

Okay, so this is not, I don't think, new, right? Like the idea of making a little bit of income from ad arbitrage and incentivizing you to go to a... I mean, this is maybe.

Shaan Puri

I would like to know, what would I use today if I wanted to get paid? If I wanted to open up my browser and see some offers to make money, to go to some websites that want me to visit them?

Sam Parr

do you know the penny hoarder

Shaan Puri

the the kinda like blog website

Sam Parr

Yeah, they made $80,000,000 a year doing something like that. So, kind of like that, they would show all the latest deals and all the latest free stuff that you can get. They would make a little bit of money by sending people there and making that affiliate. But you...

Shaan Puri

have to go to the penny hoarder right

Sam Parr

Yeah, so different but same, similar but different, correct? So there's this guy named Dan that one of our friends invested in and told me all about it. He said, "This is a scam." Now, that's my friend's words—sorry Dan, don't hold me to this. But I sent you a link to it. It's called CurrentMobile.us, and it has a similar promise to what this guy made. It was basically, "You're going to get paid for browsing the internet passively." I imagine that it was something like, "We'll pay you," that ad arbitrage. I'm almost positive that it was like the number one app in the iTunes store for a very short amount of time, but number one nonetheless. I don't know what happened to this, but I remember he last...

Shaan Puri

It looks like the rate raised $40,000,000, but it seems you're thinking that this isn't doing gangbusters anymore.

Sam Parr

He raised, I think, $40,000,000 through what's it called? An ICO.

Shaan Puri

initial offering okay gotcha

Sam Parr

yeah so

Shaan Puri

he's got current token

Sam Parr

yeah so there's like a bunch of like

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

stuff around here that it doesn't make sense to me

Shaan Puri

So, Brave Browser also has a similar idea. The Brave Browser has BAT, which is the Basic Attention Token. You earn it by going to sites or whatever, and then you pay... you know, advertisers can buy the token to get your attention. You can basically pay the token to see websites or whatever. You gotta be using Brave Browser, which...

Sam Parr

is a big browser doing well

Shaan Puri

yeah brave browser has like 10,000,000 users or something like

Sam Parr

active users this is a great idea you're just suggesting doing

Shaan Puri

it do it on chrome

Sam Parr

yeah I think that's a wonderful idea yes right

Shaan Puri

Alright, my imagination has... my imaginal act has turned into fact, as they say. I think that's a great idea.

Sam Parr

right if you've

Shaan Puri

I met again, and I think it's a great idea. Why? I said it because I was excited about it. I think that somebody could do this. It's like Honey, right? Honey is the Chrome extension that basically says, "Cool, you just go around shopping on the internet, and we'll tell you when we can save you money because there's a discount or a coupon." Then they started shoving in some ad slots. I was like, "Hey, this person’s not even necessarily looking at this product, but you could make him an offer here." So I think that's it. I think that it's Honey, but it's for your foot traffic. Basically, what is your foot traffic worth? It's worth something.

Sam Parr

that's a great way to and that's a great way to phrase it

Shaan Puri

Facebook catches all the value. Google catches all the value of your foot traffic, and you get none of that value. So, what I think is that if you could opt in and say, "I'll get paid for my foot traffic," I'd like to see what my foot traffic is worth. You put the Chrome extension in, you start getting offers, and you start earning a piggy bank. Then, that can be used to either take the money out or pay for things on the websites you go to. I know that websites will pay for the right foot traffic if it performs, and I see no reason why this wouldn't perform. Alright, let's wrap it up, Dan. Tell us how we did. How was this episode?

Sam Parr

episode was good I liked all the ideas give you a a 9 out of 10

Shaan Puri

alright