Startup Ideas Recap of My First Million 💵 Podcast Episode #93
Here's a quick summary of all the ideas Shaan Puri and Sam Par discussed on the podcast episode on July 17, 2020 with time stamps
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15:00 Alternatives to meditation. Formatted in totally different mediums than Headspace and other meditation systems. Ex: ASMR videos, alt exercise, etc.
One is called BonsaiMirai.com or live.bonsaimirari.com. “Active meditation”?
Basically videos of someone trimming Bonasi trees which is therapeutic to many people. Cost is $17 to $30 per month
He also sells the Bonsai trees
Traffic: April traffic peaked 20K-50K hits.
230 videos on his website
Shaan said he is a big believer of this: Everyone wants the benefits of meditation but many people struggle. But he said meditating is not just legs crossed, mind blank. It’s also things like Bonsai Mirari and Happy Body that feels like meditation even though it is a workout.
Whole class of ideas could be modeled after this
Sam’s examples: How It Works (TV show), ASMR Barbers (660K subscribers)
Primitive Technology Youtube channel
A guy builds amazing primitive homes by hands only using surrounding resources
First video: 2M subscribers
Currently 10M subscribers
He does not talk, just builds huts
Now he has a book for sale
All videos have at least 4M views; some as high as 45M views
25:20 Purchasing failing brick and mortar companies and make them successful to sell online with e-commerce
Pier One (home goods) went bankrupt. Retail E-commerce Ventures acquired (?) the IP of Peir One
Plan is to Turn Pier One into a viable online store
Tai Lopez (and Alex) spent $30M to buy Pier One and others
They both built Mentor Box (60,000 subscribers. Shaans estimates it does $1M+/month
When you buy Pier One you get: 30M customer database, 8M are active, database can be re-targeted on Facebook. Good marketers can take advantage of this.
Sharper Image did something similar by selling only their website
24 Hour Fitness IP might work for this model
Iconix brand did this according to Sam
VF Corporation: Owns Dickey’s Vancs, Timberland, North Face
[You could get a Small Business Loan if the company is small enough you want to buy (low interest rate, sometimes no downpayment)]
Don’t miss next week’s recap!
36:40 Many vulnerabilities in tech. Good opportunity to keep people / companies secure.
Recent Twitter hack. Hacker took over popular Twitter accounts and asked people to deposit one bitcoin and the Twitter celebrity would “give back” to society by doubling their donations for 30 minutes only. Other popular Twitter accounts retweeted each other.
If you were a criminal, how would you maximize the opportunity to take over popular Twitter accounts? [Why are they talking about this? 😅 LOL]
Post something negative about TSLA on Elon Musks’s account and short the stock
Blackmail the Twitter account holders
45:30 Why do we use signatures?
All my digital signatures look different
When you sign with your pinky on a POS credit card machine, they never match. What’s the point?
When you go sign a waiver at like a rock climbing business, Shaan just writes “Jane Doe” and they accept it anyway. He could deny it was him who signed.
Sam talks about getting his wife to forge his signature when he wasn’t there to sign a document
Maybe you can do a one-time “power of attorney”.
48:30 Get people to buy more by taking the money from an “escrow” account. The purchaser isn’t holding on to the money anyway (it’s in escrow) so it feels like “free” money. How could you use this in other areas of business to make money?
Experience from when Shaan just sold his house
His realtor wanted him to stage the house so it sells well, paint everything, do fix ups, all to increase value
But Shaan already moved on mentally and physically and didn’t want to even though he knows there’s higher ROI.
Compass Bank told him all you have to do is check a box or sign hereon the contract and they will just use some of the money out of his escrow account to do the fix ups and painting.
This changed his mentality on spending the money and just did it. It changed his decision making. Because in his mind, the escrow money is “free money” anyway.
Then they started upselling him on other improvements that needed to be done, and Shaan is just like “oh yea let’s do that too” because it’s so easy and his mentality changed.
No interest loan
They are incentivized to do this because they know it will help sell the home faster and at a higher price
TurboTax also does this
How many other things are like this?
Affirm and Afterpay
Are there other opportunities where people don't want to pay now? Property taxes? Income share agreements where you pay for your degree only after you get a job and they take a cut?
Don’t miss next week’s recap!