Oct 26, 2023 · 1h 44m · my-first-million
4 Profitable Business Ideas That Men Are Sleeping On | ft. Codie Sanchez (#512)
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Guest host Codie Sanchez joins Shaan Puri to reveal four lucrative business opportunities in female-dominated markets and demystify the realistic economics of buying 'boring' Main Street businesses.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. The hosts hold 41.9% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 5.4 Guest teaching 6.2 Guest disagreement 1.7 The hosts pushing back 1.7
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 1:42:42 Codie mocks and rejects Balaji's pre-recorded talk idea
Codie bluntly ridicules Balaji Srinivasan's concept of walking on stage to press play on pre-recorded five-minute presentations, stating she told him it was a categorically terrible idea.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 1:27:25 Shaan directly addresses guru criticisms and course grifter allegationsShaan refuses to let Codie off easy, directly asking her to address accusations that her actual profits come from selling courses on buying businesses rather than operating businesses.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 54:17 Codie demystifies laundromats as gateway drug businessesCodie thoroughly disabuses high-earning operators of the romanticized idea of passive laundromat wealth, explaining that they are narrow-margin operational grinds best suited for entry-level owners.
The host holds their own ▶ 15:35 Shaan reveals real estate data behind strip mall craft retail resilienceShaan demonstrates deep domain knowledge by detailing how a commercial landlord friend with a billion dollars in real estate leverages Hobby Lobby and HomeGoods as unassailable anchor tenants.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The hosts as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The hosts pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Welcoming Codie Sanchez as Guest Host | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Shaan welcomes Codie as guest host while Sam is on parental leave and sets up the episode structure. Codie explains her background running Contrarian Thinking and holding companies, maintaining a lighthearted and friendly tone. | |
| Trend Analysis: The Rise of the Trad Wife Phenomenon | 5 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Codie introduces the Trad Wife phenomenon and how virality on TikTok drove her own craft purchases. Shaan notes that the best business ideas come from behavioral pendulum swings. | |
| Sponsor Message: HubSpot CRM | 6 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Shaan asks Codie if the Trad Wife trend threatens the 'girl boss' archetype, prompting Codie to express disgust with 'girl boss' labeling. Shaan elaborates with examples from Trump, Grindr, and Snapchat on how counter-cultural cravings emerge. | |
| Business Idea 1: Upgrading Hobby Lobby and Home Goods Retail | 7 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Codie analyzes the massive revenues of Hobby Lobby and TJX HomeGoods, proposing an upgraded retail experience. Shaan builds extensively on her thesis by citing data from his friend who owns a billion dollars in strip mall commercial real estate. | |
| Business Idea 2: Pop-Up Seasonal Stores and the Spirit Halloween Model | 5 | 7 | 1 | 3 | Codie explains why she tried to acquire a pop-up Halloween store and outlines the low build-out costs and fast turnaround times of Spirit Halloween. Shaan pushes back on the financial model to clarify gross revenue versus net margin and working capital requirements. | |
| Business Idea 3: The Fantasy Werewolf Romance Novel Boom | 6 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Codie breaks down the billion-dollar romance and werewolf fantasy novel industry on Amazon Kindle. Shaan validates her point by revealing how Sam Parr ghostwrote an Amazon romance bestseller and how 50 Shades of Grey originated as Twilight fan fiction. | |
| Business Idea 4: Solving the Fertility and Adoption Navigational Maze | 6 | 6 | 1 | 2 | Codie highlights high-friction fertility hardware like Mira and fertility apps. Shaan cites revenue figures for Flo Health and proposes high-ticket concierge consulting services for complex workflows like gay adoption and H-1B visas. | |
| Relationship Life Hack: The High ROI of Flower Subscriptions | 4 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Codie shares a relationship hack about recurring flower subscriptions having massive emotional ROI. Shaan questions why men don't appreciate flowers the same way, and Codie humorously explains their signaling value. | |
| Deconstructing Codie Sanchez’s Multi-Entity Holding Company | 4 | 8 | 1 | 1 | Shaan inquires into the structure of Codie's business empire. Codie breaks down her three distinct entities: media/content, Main Street Holding Company for boring small businesses, and a venture capital vehicle. | |
| The Real Economics Behind Laundromats and Main Street Businesses | 5 | 9 | 3 | 2 | Shaan asks whether buying laundromats is actually smart or a social media meme. Codie schools him on the realities, clarifying that laundromats are low-margin 'gateway drug' businesses with real-world operational headaches rather than get-rich-quick assets. | |
| Cash Flow Targets, Wealth Summit Goals, and Unconventional Hobbies | 6 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Shaan and Codie discuss setting North Star wealth targets between annual cash flow and portfolio valuation. Codie discusses why painting pumpkins gave her zero joy and Shaan explains how he elevates basic hobbies into community experiences. | |
| Think Tanks, Civil Debate, and Radical Self-Governance | 6 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Codie describes attending closed-door debates at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Shaan shares his philosophy on ignoring national politics to focus strictly on radical personal self-governance and relationship ownership. | |
| Engineering an Omnipresent Content and Deal-Flow Flywheel | 4 | 8 | 2 | 1 | Codie rejects the 'aw shucks' accidental success myth of creators, detailing how she hired executive leadership to mechanize content across platforms to create a proprietary acquisition and deal-flow flywheel. | |
| Confronting the 'Guru' Label and Course Revenue Criticisms | 7 | 7 | 3 | 5 | Shaan directly confronts Codie with criticisms that she is a course 'guru' or 'grifter' rather than an operator. Codie defends her business model, emphasizing that business holding earnings surpass course revenues and rejecting comparisons to Tai Lopez. | |
| Monetizing Boring Niches: Shop Genie, Trade Conferences, and Niche Media | 6 | 5 | 2 | 1 | Shaan and Codie discuss monetizing boring niches, highlighting Shop Genie and specialized trade conferences like FarmCon, before Codie shares a humorous anecdote rejecting Balaji Srinivasan's pre-recorded speech format. |
Statements from this episode (23)
Sanchez: Contrarian Thinking averages 100M monthly views and 5M subscribers
“It's got a couple 100,000 subscribers now, hoping to get to a million by the end of the year. And that media company overall gets about a hundred million views a month, like five million subscribers, which is kind of cool.”
Sanchez: 'Trad Wife' content accumulated 187 million TikTok views
“So I looked up the TikTok views for this search of Trad Wife, a hundred and eighty-seven million, which was wild”
Sanchez: Hobby Lobby generates $7B in annual sales
“And apparently they do seven billion dollars a year in sale, which is wild.”
Sanchez: HomeGoods rotates almost all inventory twice weekly
“HomeGoods rotates its inventory almost entirely. I think it's twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
Sanchez: Attempted to buy three Halloween Express locations for $600k
“Basically we tried to buy it because we saw it was 600,000 dollars for a pop-up location, and I should make sure I get this right, but it was like three or four retail locations plus whatever last year's inventory was, so there was like a lot of there, they al…”
Sanchez: Spirit Halloween pop-ups cost $10k–$50k to set up in weeks
“The average commercial, let's call it retail store, costs millions to throw up and takes months and Spirit or Halloween Express costs maybe 10 to 50,000 dollars to throw up and is up in days or weeks.”
Sanchez: Only 10% to 15% of Halloween store inventory is new annually
“They said that they have about 10 to 15% of the inventory is like the new concept. So like the euphoria outfit, for instance, as opposed to the witches, the lions, the wardrobes, whatever people do each year.”
Sanchez: Romance Novels Generate $1.3B in Annual Sales
“There's like, 1.3 billion dollars are sold of romance books a year.”
Puri: Flo Health has surpassed 300M downloads and $100M in revenue
“Over three, three hundred million people have downloaded the app revenues over a hundred million for this app. It's a billion dollar app that started off as a period tracking tracker app.”
Puri: High-stakes life workflows support $10k–$20k concierge fees
“For these really complex workflows that are high ticket and high desire, like adopting a child, like getting your visa, like people are willing to pay, you know, whatever, 10 grand, 20 grand in order to do it.”
Codie Sanchez will transition Contrarian Thinking to advertise only owned products
“I think we're gonna change the model to only talk about the products of the businesses we own and our own products, so I'm kind of messing around with that, looking at, like, how the Daily Wire does it, for instance.”
Sanchez: Average laundromat makes $100K–$500K revenue at 10%–15% margins
“The average laundromat makes somewhere around a hundred to 500,000 dollars a year. Like that's what a laundromat makes at 15 to 10 to 15% margins.”
Sanchez: Owned 25 to 30 laundromats throughout her career
“In total, I probably owned like, 25 or 30 laundromats over my career of laundromatting. But that first little portfolio was probably seven or eight.”
Sanchez: Best deal made several million dollars on an RV park acquisition
“The best deal that I've ever did was probably mostly from the land acquisition. So we basically bought a big plot of land that had an RV park on it. Also like a series of vending machines, also like a little area for people to camp and, you know go into nature…”
Codie Sanchez bans company purchases from large corporate chains
“We have, like, a company policy. You're not allowed to buy from big corporate chains.”
Codie Sanchez estimates her current business portfolio value at $75M–$100M
“Well, we have a portfolio that you could, I mean, it depends how you value it, but let's say it's worth about 75 to a hundred million dollars in, in portfolio value. A lot of car washes. Right now, a lot of car washes.”
Sanchez: AEI Private Events Require $25k-$50k Minimum Donation Plus Screening
“I think it's 25 or fifty-k. But you go through a screening process.”
Sanchez: Contrarian's operating businesses generate more revenue than its course community
“We'd make more money categorically from the businesses we own than from the community that we own, for instance. So, like, numerically, categorically, that's just the fact.”
Sanchez: In talks with UT and UATX for educational program
“I'm in talks right now with University of Texas and University of Austin, which is Joe Lonsdale's, ah, company, to do a program with them where we can push back on what I think is awful education that's taught at most institutions.”
Codie Sanchez has never raised operating business capital from her audience
“I've never, ever raised money for any of the businesses that I invest in from my audience. Ever. Not once. Not once have I asked for a dollar for that.”
Sanchez: Grant Cardone's fundraising terms are one-sided against retail investors
“I looked at some of the fundraising docs on Grant Cardone's stuff, and I don't think it's that great for retail investors. I think it's pretty one-sided.”
Sanchez: Tweet announcing Shop Genie investment brought in 30 franchise users
“Like we did a little tweet for them and a little announcement of investing in them, and they got like, 30 franchise users who have multiple franchises underneath them.”
Puri: Auto repair creator Aaron Stokes generates $20M+ in revenue
“I don't even know this guy's full business model, but I know that his revenue is up there, sort of like twenty million plus and he can get a thousand, you know, auto repair shop owners to show up to a, to any event that he, you know, a conference that he throw…”