Buying A $50M Egg Carton Biz For $0 Down + How Much Obama And Oprah Make From A Speaking Gig

How much do you think Obama charges? I would have guessed two hundred fifty to three hundred fifty K. That's my guess for like a a speaking engagement. But honestly, it could be more. It could be like double that. Dude. So I think it's I heard rumors it's in like the one two one point two million range. And that makes way sense. Obama is not gonna get out of bed for less than a million.

All right, what's going on? I have been bursting at the seam to tell you a story. You send me the teaser, you go, I got the best story. I was like all right, let's hear it. You're like On the podcast. Not here. I was like, Okay, well give me like a clue.

Can't say anything. On the podcast. So I'm here now two days of a tease later. Let's hear it. All right, so There was this guy who you had on the podcast, the comedian, Hassan, what's his last name? Minaj? Yeah.

How d is is it with an H? Yeah. So I was out to eat with my friend Jason, Jason Yanowitz from uh Blockworks. On Saturday night and we were sitting outside in New York City just having dinner.

And I see Hassan. Walked by. I forget his last name, but it was his son and his I was like Ah shit, I can't remember his last name, so I don't want to scream out his last name, but uh you know, I know it's his son. By the way, he pronounces it Hun. But let's keep going. Hussen. Sorry. Yeah. And I see him walk by.

And uh I go, Oh, Jason, there's uh that guy that he he was on our pot. I wasn't there, but he was there Should I Should I go say what's up to him? And Jason was like, Yeah, go do it. It's like all right, fine, he already made it down the block, but that's okay, I'm gonna run. So I'd get up from dinner and I'd kinda like chase him down and I was like, Oh man, I'm gonna look like a weirdo, but whatever, hell no.

And I go, Hey Hey and like people like look at it like see me like they think something's up. I'm like, No, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna grab'em and uh I cross the street and I finally grab him I go, Hasan, what's going on, man? And he he turns around and I go, What's up, dude? Uh sorry, uh I didn't mean to bother you. He was with the he was with his girlfriend or someone a girl. And uh I was like, Hey man, uh it's me, Sam Parr. I think we chatted once or twice on Twitter, but you're close with Sean and You were on the podcast. I wasn't there, but I just wanted to say hey, I love your work.

And he goes, uh what? I go, Yeah, I'm just like You know, I'm Sam from My First Million, and he goes, uh Dude, I've never been on a pack us before. And I was like, What do you mean? You were just on it. He goes, Who do you think I am? I go, You're Hassan, the the comedian The comedian, right? And he goes.

No. That's not me. And then uh I was like, Oh my God, I am so embarrassed, dude. I am s I was like, surely you get that a lot, right? He goes Yeah, like sometimes, but like the sound's tall, I'm sure, and I was like Well I it was for a podcast and I only saw his like upper torso and like Why am I even explaining this? Like this doesn't even make sense. So I I turn around and I walk away and he and he and he goes, Hey, man, um

And he and then he chases me down and he goes, What uh what podcast did you say? I was like I I told him originally MFM I go it's my first million and he goes. Are you Sam Parr? I go, Yeah, what's going on and he goes, Check this out and he holds up his phone and he had my first million up on his Spotify and he was like you know, previously listening and he totally knew what was up. And his girlfriend started laughing and it went from being like the most embarrassing thing I'd done all year to it kinda worked out af uh after a while. It was horrendous. Like I'm getting chills, just disgusting. I I can't I was so embarrassed. I'm so thankful he didn't say like

What do you think all Indian guys look alike? Uh but uh It was quite bad. He um so the whole time when you were first talking to him, he didn't like be like oh, by the way, like he waited to realize like this podcast he was listening to that you were him.

Yeah, he was like, Wait, are you and then he he it was just like a f it was the whole interaction was incredibly uncomfortable. Yeah, it was it was a very weird interaction. But uh like it went from being like it I was I was like Like I made this face, like I made it m a cringe face to him. I'm like, Oh my God, I can't believe this. This is gonna go on the internet. Like this is gonna be known as like This guy we all look alike and it it and it worked out okay. Dude.

I have like um I don't have real nightmares, like scary stuff happening to me. My nightmares are situations like this. Like uh I'll have like a nightmare where it's like I'm at a dinner. And I'm just I'm like trying to like butter up like this person. I'm trying to like, you know, be friends with this person and and talk to them and make jokes with them and The whole time I'm calling the guy Ross.

And like at the end. Somebody's like Why are you calling him Roths? His name's Rick. And I'm like Uh I've been calling him Ross for one hour. Like these like m

Micro cringe moments. Or like when someone nice Uh or someone who you want to impress. Like I remember I had this guy, uh I was trying to work at their company. I was interviewing and he's like, What's going on?

And you reply with Good. It's the worst. Have a good play.

You too. Yes. Wait, no, you work here. Never mind. I'm sorry that I said that. It's one of those things. Uh I alright, let me let me ask you a question. Actual horrible cran I can I tell you the actual horrible this is not even funny

Uh, this is more like a confessional for me. You're like, you know, forgive me, father, I've sinned type of thing. I was at a holiday party once. And Some some woman came up to like our table. She like knew the person I was talking to. I didn't really know her, but I think I had met her once before. It was so vague in my head. And I was like, Oh, like when's the little one due? Or when's the little one coming? And

She had just had the baby. Uh. And I was like, Oh my And I'm tw I was a twenty four year old dude and in that moment I was like Like it took me a second to even understand what I had done. And how bad it was. And I was just sitting there with a stupid look on my face.

And I didn't know what to say. I like too much time passed even like like two weeks had passed. Now I couldn't even apologize because she had tried to like move on to like spare me the cringe. And I knew she's feeling bad and I'm feeling Equally bad. And I literally this is ten years ago. And like I still feel it the same way I did in that moment. Because there's I've never recovered. Like it's been the same feeling for ten years straight. Yeah, that's embarrassing. It makes me feel horrible.

Yeah, I get it. Just don't say anything, dude. Don't talk to anyone. That's like the only motto. Is do a podcast with your friend. And speak to nobody else. That's the only way to I mean, that mistake you made, like that's I think that's a mistake that many people make one time and one time only. Then you just never ask about pregnancy. You just never the most awkward thing is sometimes if they ask you if you want to touch their belly I don't ever do that.

Who asked you? Nobody asked that. Dude, I remember touch my belly. Well like you like well, like you know, there's like kids like when you're younger, it's like, Hey, do you wanna feel the baby kick? When you're like four, I remember like someone asked me that right when I had crossed that threshold of when it's like No, I don't want to touch a grown woman's stomach. And like I I distinctly remember that around like fourteen years old or twelve years old. I was like I think I'm I think I'm past that point. This uh we we went to the point where like I don't want my parents to see me naked anymore. Like whenever that whenever that age is

You know what I mean? When I was fifteen I stopped showering with my mom. Yeah, that's what It's just like there's like a distinct it's like it's hard to say what it is, but you know it's before and after. Yeah, life is actually like people say, What's the meaning of life? And life the meaning of life is to just avoid those exact moments that we're talking about. That's really the only purpose of life. Is to try to just avoid these Horrendous seconds that can that will come up. Dude, can we brag about being the number one podcast? Can that be like a thing? All right, uh yeah, so this weekend we were number one in the business category, we were number one in entrepreneurship, we were number forty, I think, in all of America.

Uh, what are we right now? Did it stay the same? Uh yeah, I don't know. I didn't check, but just that screenshot was incredible. I mean Like You see Tim Ferris' podcast like, dude, I remember like I've been listening to that and been a fan of him for a long time. And even though I know these charts are they're not like

That doesn't mean we're bigger than their podcast. It just means like the velocity, like the Does that grow we grew fast and so it moved us up higher that week or whatever. Um There's some like secret formula.

But even still, that secret formula the fact that whatever the secret formula is, if we can be In that conversation on any secret formula, that's kind of a That's kind of a cool moment and uh I don't know if it's because we had some pretty dope episodes with Darmesh and then Peter Levels and Maybe some of the growth stuff that Jonathan's doing. I I don't know exactly what it's kind of amazing.

I think it's all the above. I know that they're like spending money to grow and they're doing some promotions. I don't exactly know what and then Darmesh uh was popular and whenever Darmash comes on afterwards, I always see him doing stuff, like emailing it out to his email list and doing things like that. So he's always promoting it. And then Peter promoted his episode a ton, so I think that's why it happened. But yeah, we were like You know, we like we're beating like legitimately famous people like uh Like if you scroll through the top fifty in America, you're like, Oh, that person, like if I saw them, I would ask for a picture.

And we're like ahead of a lot of these people. That's the type of person who I'd be embarrassed if I said good and when they ask what what's up. My uh the my favorite this is tweet from this guy Bengali. Underscore eighty seven. This is the tweet he goes.

Best business slash entrepreneurship podcast out there. Big money that is. No small boy stuff. I was like, dude, if that's not the new motto of the podcast, no small boy stuff. Big money.

Big money stuff. No big money that is. No small boy stuff. I had um just incredible. When I was walking around New York this weekend I had a couple people throughout the day come up to me and say they're their listeners, and a few of them said uh I'm your dog. You know,'cause that guy, uh we had an episode where the what did he what did he say? He's like, Hey, I wanna work for me, I'm gonna be a dog. Dyl I'm Dylan the dog. I'm your dog.

Um Alright, let me ask you something. That's good shit. Yeah. Paid to speak sometimes, right? Uh sometimes. I say no most of the time'cause

Yeah, most of the time but I've done it a couple of times. It's kinda crazy to like It's kinda crazy when you say the number, you're like, All right, yeah, okay, I'll come talk, but it's gotta be ten grand. And they're like, Okay, great. And you're just like wow, ten grand just to talk, like, you know. So I think that's unfortunate. Not that I would do this for free, but it just seems like something you shouldn't have

Like It seems like something that's so weird to pay for. And I know I get it. I get the logic. It's like You have an event, you kinda need like someone to give an appearance. If that a person matters to your community, that's cool. If you think they're gonna add some value. Great. But it is just wild. Like isn't there a part of you that's just like still remembers being like totally broke and you're just like

What the hell is happening? You could just I can do this one Zoom call for twelve grand. That's insane. Well, I've never done a zoom call like that, but So HubSpot, they have their conference coming. Are you gonna speak at the conference? We're supposed to speak. Are you gonna fly out or no? Only if they pay me fifty grand. Oh.

Yeah, you'll have to take that up at them. But And Obama is gonna talk. Obama's talking and then like a couple of years ago they had Bobra. Oprah talking. And I did some research. How much do you think

If you're Obama and Oprah, I would put them in similar categories. Maybe Obama a little bit above in terms of influence. But not like terribly above. How much do you think and and I didn't ask them, I just researched it and I like try to find contracts. How much do you think Obama charges? I would guess something between

I would have guessed two hundred fifty to three hundred fifty K, that's my guess for like a a speaking en engagement. But honestly, it could be more. It could be like double that. Dude, so I think it's I heard rumors it's in like the one two one point two million range. And that makes way sense. Wow. Obama is not gonna get out of bed for less than a million.

And I hear Oprah is around the one million dollar. Small boy stuff for Obama, too. No, definitely not. And so here's why uh so I I've heard like rumors and I talked to people that have had'em before, and that's kinda how I came with that number, but let me give you some insider numbers. So I only had one paid speaker ever at HustleCon. So at HustleCon, collectively, we probably had Two hundred or three hundred speakers over a couple of years, handful of years. Casey Nystat was the only speaker that we had who we paid and I was supposed to You're not supposed to talk about how much you pay'em, but like this was like years ago, so I I can do it.

This was I think at the height of his popularity. I only paid him twenty five thousand dollars plus A private flight. From LA to San Francisco. San Francisco.

For six thousand dollars. Or from San Francisco to LA, I forget, but one way it was only six grand. Plus twenty five thousand dollars. That's nothing, right? Twenty five. That's kind of cheap compared to what'cause he he was at the peak of his powers at that time too, right? It's not like Yeah, yeah, for sure. He was not like talking. Not like some C list you know person who used to be famous. It's like no, guys was a big deal then, he's a big deal now, too. So I tried to get Gary Vaynerchuck to come speak at an event once and he offered uh his

Asking price was a hundred thousand dollars. Or I think he said that you would have to buy a hundred thousand dollars worth of books. And that somehow like pushes them up the charts or Something like that. And uh

So Var Gary Vanerchuk was a hundred grand. Um And w I got speak I I I spoke somewhat recently and I asked I got paid twenty five to twenty twenty to twenty five thousand dollars or maybe it was twenty grand plus flights. And then I think that we had uh Aston Kutcher spoke at an event that I was at.

And the uh The organizers. Like Kind of like implied like they pay them around a hundred and fifty grand.

Our software's the worst. Have you heard of HubSpot? See, most CRMs are a cobbled together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous. I think I love our new CRM. Our software is the best. HubSpot. Grow better. This has always been the playbook. Like I I met a guy once who was writing a book and I was like, nice, like, you know, what's your goals for the book? And like He was kind of answering me, but I got the sense like I feel like you know you ever hear a story and you're like, I feel like you're leaving out the one important detail that makes all of this make sense.

Like you're not Saying the wrong thing, but I feel like you're just not saying whatever the right thing is. And sure enough. Like twenty minutes in he's like Yeah, basically you write books so that you can get paid speaking gigs. Like it doesn't matter who reads your book or how it's you just need to be a guy who writes a book.

And then you like do a thing, you like pay a certain amount to get like up in the charts so you could say New York Times bestseller. Or like You know, Amazon bestseller And um And then that just increases your paid speaking rate.

By like fifteen K. And then that's like, you know, how you make your money back for this whole like book process. And I was like, Oh, okay, that makes way more sense. Like now I understand. And I I was like, So this pain speaking gig, like how does this work? And he kind of broke it down for me kind of step by step. And I remember being intrigued, but also

You know, the cost of like You know, they' basically like the idea of like, Oh yeah, what you do is you fly around like you basically have to go you're never home. You're flying around all the time. So he was at that point trying to figure out all right. the next step after this. You know, and and I sort of started thinking about okay, What is the move straight to the end version of this?

And I was like, Oh, okay, I think I know what I would do. It's like I would do a this is how I like I was thinking about the podcast at this time, like I was thinking about creating one. I was like I think I would do a podcast that I could just record right here. Whenever I want, maybe in batches. And

As long as the conversation's fun, I I don't think I would care about making any money off that. And I feel like if I could do that and I could get like Yeah, what if like a million people We're fans of the podcast. I feel like that would just jump me where all these try guys are trying to go, where they're like

Ultimately I think what a lot of people want is like They have a topic that they're really curious about, that they like to research, they like to do experiments in. And they're just trying to figure out a way to get paid to be professionally curious about that thing. I think like that's like the generous version of of like how to think about this. There's like the skeptical version of which is just like

Oh, dude, you're just like some motivational speaker, like sort of scammy guru guy who wants to go around and Blah blah blah. But the I think the re The earnest people, I think they just want to be professionally curious. It's like How do I get to spend 90% of my time just like digging in on this topic I'm a nerd about? And then like somehow translate the other ten percent of my time into enough money to fund me to do that in a in a cool way.

Um, and so I think that that you know, that's how I think about this stuff. What I've been doing for speaking is I actually Haven't asked to be paid lately, but I do tell them I need two first class flights. Um, and I want you to pay entirely for the hotel for a week. And I will only say yes if it's

So my wife and I basically it's so we can go to A cool place. So I only say yes, but let me tell you something interesting. So Robert De Niro He uh So the Washington Journal did this thing, Ramits our friend Ramits shared it.

So listen to Robert So here's what Robert De Nio got paid. So he did a movie called Savage Salvation in September two thousand twenty. He got paid eleven million dollars. So he was gonna be there for eight days. He asked for a round trip. private air transportation on a Gulf Stream five. Is that a f or a six? I don't know how Roman numerals work, but a Gulf Stream Jet.

He uh got to keep all of the costumes, wigs and prosthetics, all the stuff that he wore on the s on the plane, or all all the stuff he wore in the movie, he got to keep all of it. He wanted uh an additional fee for his uh personal trainer, he had to come and be flown there and he had to be put up at the Ritz Carlton. In addition to the the ten days that he had or the eight days he had to V there for production, he wanted a seven day V all expenses paid. Vacation.

To the Ritz Carlton. Followed by a vacation in Puerto Rico. Where you also had to pay for his jet. And uh had to take his whole family uh to and from. Uh and then finally he wanted one round trip jet fry uh one

Round trip. private flight jet between New York and Lady. In LA for a five day stay anytime within twelve months. Those are all of his ass in his contract. For all for eight days of work. That's not bad.

This is cool. I mean it's like a hostage negotiation. It's like I need a briefcase with the cash and I need a uh jet that's fueled with the engine on and I'm gonna get on it. Dude, check out this website I just sent you, WSB.com. So I had once heard that like um Uh. You know, like Coach K, who's who's the co the basketball coach at Duke. Um

I remember back in the day he kinda had like a salary of like uh wanna call it like Not back in the day, but like He's the number one college basketball coach, most winningest coach of all time. I'm really curious, how much does he make? Sheshevsky is uh his last name. It's like Spelled with a K and then a bunch of um

So he's now like seventy five. He's like at the top of his game. He just retired. So he was making twelve and a half million a year to coach College basketball at the time. Um, and I think that like But I remember when I was in school,'cause I went to Duke, I remember Reading at that time his salary was like maybe half that. It was closer to like four or five million.

And he had gotten offered a contract with the Lakers that was gonna pay him over ten million and he turned it down. And I remember just thinking, wow, his guy like ten million a year. I was like the guy turned down like basically an extra fifty million dollars to go do this deal. Like that's pretty impressive. Like why um Yeah, why did he do that?

And I started looking into like how he makes his money and basically he makes more money, I believe Uh at the time he was making more money through his endorsements Speaking fees, books, tours, things like that. than he was his like actual day job.

And so if you go to the site WSB.com, he's listed on there. And it says um you could see a bunch of speakers and you could see how much they charge. So Bob Iger The chairman to Disney, it's like says like you know, you gotta contact for fees. For Coach K, his says like seventy thousand plus. Is his speaking fee.

And so you wanna go get this guy, it's seventy thousand plus. And so there's these businesses that are basically these booking agencies. For Well known speakers. And I feel like this is like a really interesting little niche business to be these like middleman agencies. That just aggregate demand for

This like you know, roster of of speakers that they can book out. So you know how basically like maybe eight years ago we kinda laughed at YouTubers and it's like there's they're not real celebrities, they're just internet celebrities, or they're not they can't they're not gonna be real business people, but now you know, like there's a a world where some of them are gonna be billionaires. And uh then Yeah. It had a vibe that was like Oh, you make videos that's cute.

Yes, yes, yes. Like a uh a condescending type of vibe. And now that there's uh we had the guy, I forget his name, but he was on the pod and he uh he's the uh founder of the management company that manages Mr. Beast. What was his name? Yeah, I'm talking about? Read, yes, read. And night media. Yeah.

And like there it's like there's like it's potentially gonna be a Pretty large business. Do you think that These type of speaker bureaus and these some of these agencies, what are the Twitter boys gonna get them love? Huh? You think like

Is like uh is there gonna be like a like you know, we them boys, is there gonna be uh is there gonna be a Twitter agency for Sahel Bloom and and Sean Purry anytime soon? Well, there should be, right? You said you're getting paid to speak. Silo gets paid to speak. I get paid to speak. Uh, so obviously there's demand. We already are doing the behavior, we just haven't gotten rolled up like These gu you know, we're we don't have enough

you know, sort of gray hair on her chest to go get on to one of these like Rolodexes of like, you know, whatever Washington Speaker Bureau. Um but why not, right? Like I I do think so. And I think Cameo kind of shows the demand for this sort of thing. Because people are willing to pay You know, a hundred bucks a pot for these like

fifteen to thirty second videos from like a You know, tier two, tier three, tier four celebrity. Uh you know, just saying happy birthday or whatever. Uh, and I think Cameo's trying to go upstream where they're like, Yeah, you could do meet and greets, you could do corporate appearances, you're trying I think Cameo's trying to move into that space. But yeah, I think definitely somebody could create a little bit of a

Um You know, one of these like speaker speaker businesses that like Basically books out Podcasters YouTubers, Twitter boys, like you know, TikTok stars.

To go and talk at, you know, corporate events and and marketing events, stuff like that. Guess how much revenue this company, Washington Speaker Bureau, does. Oh god. Uh Okay, my guess thirty million a year. So

They were acquired in the year two thousand. The year they're acquired they're doing fifteen million. They're bought by uh This company that I forget. It's one of the ad agencies that sounds like the Covid name. Is it Omnicrom? I forget what it was. Like one of the like there's one of there's like there's basically like five ad agencies that owns like everything. I forget which one it is. And uh When they were required they were doing fifteen million, but that was in nineteen ninety nine. In two thousand and

Seventeen they did a hundred and fifty million. In revenue. Fucking crazy, right? Yeah, wild, right? You wanna know a homie move?

Helmy move. Whenever somebody asks you to guess something. Always guess low. No bigger shit on you feeling than you guess they're trying to impress you with some fun fact about how cool this thing is and you guess too high and they're like, Well No, I mean it's it's not it's not that good. Uh and then it sort of just takes all the wind out of it. So No

The home move is always Whatever you think it is, cut it in half. So that they can have the win of being like no It's even more. And you're like, What? That's crazy, right? Like that's how you do it. That's good. What do you want to do now?

Oh, there are more coming. I'm just scrolling this thing. Dude. Terry Terry Bradshaw, forty K. We can get Terry Bradshaw for this guy's got four Super Bowl rings. Good old Terry, you can get him for forty K too. I don't care about that. That much.

But Uh I I yeah, I wish we get some more people. I heard a rumor, another rumor, that we could have gotten Arnold Schwarzenegger on our podcast for a hundred K. Um, I don't know if that was like a one off thing. But There was like some consideration I'd heard.

About it. And I I I mean Arnold's pretty cool. Wha I don't think I would spend a hundred thousand I don't think he could give us a hundred I don't think he would give the podcast a hundred

A hundred thousand dollars worth of promotion. Right. People have asked me this before. What do you think is the what would be your dream guest? If we just had one. If there's just a hundred thousand dollar budget that was gonna go to somebody guaranteed that they come on the pod, who would be your your person that you would put on there?

I mean, it's gotta be like someone really famous. So definitely like an Elon Or Uh like an Obama or a Trump, like a president. Uh like who would be the most famous person that you could ask them questions. Is that because you're thinking what drives the most like clicks or is it more like that's the person I would want to have a podcast? Yeah.

No, I don't think I don't know if I would enjoy a conversation with Elon. Like I think he that would be an uncomfortable situation, I think. I don't think that would be particularly enjoyable, do you? I I Hundred percent agree with you. I think it would be honestly sort of uncomfortable in a giant like It's almost an uh

Automatic letdown. It's like you're going to have such high hopes and expectations and want it to go so well. It's gonna be kind of a difficult conversation. It's gonna like Fly by really quickly. There's gonna be fifteen minutes where you're like shit, we've been talking about this for fifteen minutes. Like, oh no, I need to like switch course here. Um, he's not gonna know the vibe. He's not gonna like he's not gonna come like

Ready to do what we do well, which is like you know, shoot the shit and kind of brainstorm and tell stories. So I'm not sure that that would be I would I would go for somebody. If I was gonna pull one one like that, I would just be like Who is the best person that would actually love the type of conversation that we have and be great at it?

I think that's a little bit hard. I think that Yeah. I think you'd have to take this archetype of like Who is the kind of like an idea machine? But also

has like name and reputation has done stuff. And um I think Peter Tiel's a show didn't give a shit. I think Peter Thiel might be interesting, but he's not that famous. So I don't know how much traffic you would drive.

Oh, I think he I think he drives a good amount, especially like in our niche. I think I think people can because he doesn't do a lot of content, right? Like you can go get like on the site, you can go get Damon John from Shark Tank. And it's like, but for forty K. But he's everywhere, dude. Like first of all Come on. Fuby was cool, but like it means is what we want. And and secondly, like, you know, um

I I don't think he and he does appearances everywhere. So you need somebody who people are sort of starve for content from. Maybe it's like a Naval or Peter Thiel. Somebody somebody who Intentionally limits their number of experiences so that You know, you're high search demand and not a lot of like hits coming up.

Yeah, I don't know. I I wouldn't want it to be him. I would want I don't I don't care about that guy. I can't think of any other examples though. Uh I don't fucking know. I would be uncomfortable with anyone Anyone who's like intimidatingly good, I'd be uncomfortable being around. Like I if I made a joke to Elon, he wouldn't laugh. I don't think he would laugh.

I think Obama would definitely laugh at everything, even if he m even it's one of those th type of guys Where you would say something and he would giggle and it's like, Wait, what did I say? He's like, I don't know. I just it I the the the tone of your voice, I was I thought I was supposed to laugh, so I did. Um No, I'm so trained on socializing that I don't actually need to be here for this. I could just autopilot mimic all of the things I need to do socially for this to be a f a positive experience for you. Right.

Uh I don't know who I'd want for a hundred grand. About Sarah Moore. I do the s Yeah, can I do the Cera More update? Okay, this is kind of incredible. In fact, this should probably move to the beginning of the episode. It's

Probably the most interesting bit. So a while back, maybe a month ago I came on here and I was like um Dude, there's this business. Have you heard of this business called eggcartons.com? And you're like, no, what what is that? Well, it's exactly what it sounds like. You go to eggcartons.com and it's a place where you can buy

The packaging, the carton. For eggs. Um like But also packaging for a bunch of different varieties of eggs, like huge Shipment, small ones.

Eco friendly, not eco friendly, but also just like in general, like other packaging materials as well. So I was like, Yeah, fascinating business, right? Like you go there, it's an old school looking website, you know, it's like dial 1800 eggs. You know, whatever, like to to call us to place an order. And I was like, this is fascinating. So I dug in, I was like, who's behind this? And I basically found that it used to be owned by this guy. He ran it for 24 years. I was like, okay, this sounds about right. You know, his LinkedIn picture was. Him like with a

You know, like a Phone with a cord in it, and he's like got it up to his neck, and he's like sitting at a messy desk, and I was like, uh, this looks like the guy who started Edcard.com twenty-five years ago. But now I notice, oh, it says like he ended his ownership one year ago. So who who's behind this? And I saw that there was this woman named Sarah Moore who was like Not what you would expect to be like.

It's like, oh, this person should be like the CEO of Lulu Lemon or something like that. Why is she getting into egg cartons of all businesses? Like beautiful Harvard graduate. Yeah. Like you look like a celebrity a little bit. And so I tried to reach out to her. I couldn't get a hold of her.

And so but I couldn't resist. So I came on the pot and I told the story. It's like, yeah, so basically it looks like she purchased this business. Uh she did like one tiny interview about it. And uh blah blah blah. But I had done one thing that I didn't tell you about, I don't think, that day. Which is I've been experimenting with a format that I wish people use more on me. Like when people reach out to me, they're like, Oh, I'd love to talk to you sometime like

If you have a question, just send me the question. In fact, if you have a bunch of questions, like just send me a Google Doc. I'm gonna look at it and if I wanna answer, I'll answer. If I don't, I don't. And so that's what I did to her. I go I sent her an email. I said, Ed Carton's like with five exclamation points, I go That's hilarious. Like what a hilarious niche.

I got we got this podcast. I'd love to feature you on it. Um I have five questions for you on this Google Doc. If you answer them with bullet points, I'll tell your story on the podcast. We get twenty million dollars a year. It'll be great for your business. I go, this is me on Twitter, by the way. Whatever. I sent it. No reply for

Twenty days. Um Then she goes she email me out of the blue, she goes I couldn't have paid someone to make me sound as cool as you and Sam did on the podcast last week. Thank you so much.

I filled out your Google Doc. I think this will answer your questions. I would have responded earlier if I didn't think this was spam. Um blah blah blah. Send me send me your address. I'll send you some world class egg cards. Right? So I wanna read you what she what what I read to her and what she replied. But did you want any Are you gonna accept those partons?

Very nice. Very nice. Very nice of you, Sarah, but thank you. But no, thank you. No, dude, everything in the house could turn into like a toy storage container. I have toys forever, all shapes and sizes. All right, so I basically said here's my question. I go, You go you bought eggcartons.com. Did you buy it alone or as part of a PE firm? She goes alone ish. I started a PE firm alone to buy a business, but It wasn't your typical PE firm. My office

My quote unquote office was just a library at school. There was no fund. Uh like no money. I had a lot of help. I had over fifty unpaid interns come from Craigslist. And I had them sift through over four hundred thousand private companies for a year and a half before I found eggcartins.com. What?

Yeah, I know. Then I go I so that's that was my first question. Second question, I go, how the heck did you buy it? Uh no, why the heck did you buy it? What about the business made you want to buy it? Was it the name, the customer retention? What what drove you to it?

She goes. My goal was to buy a business with all debt so I could have a hundred percent ownership. I had no collateral though, except for my 2012 Rav 4. So Uh I was trying to find something that was already stable enough that I could pitch a bank

That the business itself was the collateral instead of my RAT4. Um That so I needed historical cash flows. This business fit because it had been profitable since it started in two thousand one. At a high barrier to entry given the domain name. And a hundred plus other similar domain names that they own. Like And cartons like misspelled.

At karton.com. Uh blah blah blah. Then she says the founder has strategically purchased all these domains over the years to protect their like their demote. It was simple enough. It was also a simple enough business that somebody with zero operational experience Me.

Uh an average intelligence, me. Could operate if they tried hard enough. I was like, wow, this is incredible. Then I s I said

I live in Silicon Valley. People here are obsessed with crypto, AI, blah, blah, blah. They would underestimate Edcards.com. Can you give us a sense of the scale of the business? That's a really good way to find out. That's a that's a beautiful way to frame that question. 'Cause you naged her a little bit, like you said something a little rude, you're like Yeah, you know, it's probably not that big, but maybe it is, you know, like impress me. Right. I would think this is small.

But you know, I I'd love to be surprised. You know, would you say that this is more than this and less than this? And so she anyway, she came back with I'm in the middle of uh something that Prevents me from sharing the numbers publicly. Uh all I can say is that our revenue is less than fifty million. Yeah.

Oh. Okay. But the you Not less than twenty. If it was less than twenty, I feel like you would have said less than twenty. I feel like that that would be the case. Um, I said, How'd you negotiate the deals? She's like, Ah, there's a bunch of context here. She goes in summary. I harassed the owner until he replied. Then we hit it off.

We came up with evaluation together. Then I contacted h over a hundred banks, most of which told me to F off. One of them threw me a bone and agreed to an underc uncollateralized loan. The final deal was seventy five percent bank debt and twenty five percent the sellers note. So she bought this with no money down. Like the bank finance it and the seller finance it. She said before buying the business I had uh

I overpay an accountant to check my work and do an audit of the business because frankly I had no idea what I was doing. His fees got rolled into the deal itself. So uh sh she used an account to cover her ass, but also paid him out of the deal itself. This one's amazing. Any other fun tidbits or anecdotes I I could share. She here's what she says. This is where it gets great. She goes, Uh.

While searching for the business, I participated in several research studies just to make money, uh like to f while I was doing my search. I went from I went legally blind from a deodorant study for a bit. So I had to take a break from working from working until I could read again. Um, she goes, My response rate was awful. I started doing borderline insane things to get a reply. At one point I took a photo of myself wearing a sweatshirt that said, I wanna buy your business with a massive grin and I faxed it out to thousands of businesses a day. Um, to this day I run into owners who recognize me from those faxes. One of those owners is actually my neighbor.

The library we worked out of required a school ID to enter. Most of my interns didn't go to the school, so we had to get fake IDs for all the interns to get into the library. Every time we hired someone, there was a lag because we would need to get more IDs. During co uh before Covid, I used to fly to China China and to examine the egg cartons. On my first trip to India, I got held by Indian customs and interrogation for hours.

'Cause they didn't believe that I was coming to India alone f they did not believe that I was coming to investigate And cartons. Uh related to India, I almost got killed there. I rejected a shipment from an Indian vendor. The his whole family lived there. He was furious, started chasing after me. The hotel put me into incognito mode for my safety. My driver luckily was at the door that I ran out of, otherwise I'd probably still be there buried underground.

Um She goes, When I bought the business, I considered it an egg company, but now I think of it as specialty packaging. Forty percent of our business comes from things un entire entirely unrelated to eggs. You'd be very surprised by our customer base, you know, think big brands like Boeing, SpaceX, Disney, Madison Square Garden, Crayola. Excera. Anything that requires protection and separation is fair game.

Um anyways there's one one more I should say, but dude What's the other one? Is Sarah Moore not my hero? Is she my hero or is she not my hero? This woman's wonderful. Why is she why didn't she talk about this publicly more often? This is like it I feel like there was tons and tons of stories there.

Dude, you know? People who there's some people who are so in the game That they're like They're like, Oh yeah, what am I gonna stop and chat about the game? Like I'm in the fucking game, right? Like that's the feeling I get from her. I've met some people that are like this, that they're sort of like it's a combination of They kinda don't realize how story worthy their story is until like

Quite a bit later. And the second thing, they're sort of like, you know, either they just prefer privacy or they're like Yeah, I don't really know why I need to do that, so why would I do that? It's gonna be kind of bragggy and kinda weird and what's the benefit? And maybe I'd just rather be be personal. Um, so I think that like I know a handful of people that I'm like, dude, I wish I could tell their story on the podcast because

They're epic. But they just don't see value in this and they're also not consumers of it. That's another thing I've noticed. Most of those people don't listen to a bunch of podcasts or take inspiration from it. So it's kind of a foreign idea to them. They're like They're like, people will care? It's like yeah, of course people will care about this. This is awesome.

Um so anyways, I was totally inspired by this story and she is uh kind of amazing. She is one of us. She No small boy stuff for Sarah Moore. So I think she's only twenty google her, y you basically can't find anything. I mean there's next to nothing on her. There's like one or two pictures, there's Very little. I found one article where it says that she's twenty eight.

And she uh it says she answered the question, What inspired you to start buying companies? She says, Freedom. What is your mantra? Don't take counsel from your fears. Like that's pretty much all she ans like she answered nothing. This woman's amazing. Why can't we find anything about her? There there's a lot there's a lot going on with her. We need to uh Wait.

There's a 30% chance she's a fat guy named Craig. So like, you know, we we could be getting catfished here. I wouldn't put it past her. Uh but I'm gonna go with the what with what I see. I think I think this is basic.

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