Sep 5, 2023 · 1h 15m · my-first-million
Business Brainstorm: Failed Churches, Ozempic Hotline & Klout 2.0 (#492)
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this brainstorming episode of My First Million, hosts Shaan Puri and Sam Parr pitch a diverse set of business ideas, spanning vertical professional networks, AI educational tools, GLP-1 telehealth strategies, and commercial real estate conversions for private schools and failed churches.
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 99.4% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 7.0 Guest teaching 1.9 Guest disagreement 1.6 The hosts pushing back 1.6
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 8:57 Sam challenges Shaan's SMB perspective
Sam forcefully pushes back against Shaan's criticism of Klout, arguing Shaan is framing the problem around fifty million dollar businesses rather than billion dollar enterprise brands like McDonald's.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 7:25 Shaan rejects Klout's commercial viabilityShaan directly challenges Sam's enthusiasm for reviving Klout, stating brands already have simple engagement proxies and will not pay tens of thousands for obvious data.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 9:32 Emmett Shear defines mid-level managementShaan recounts how Emmett Shear completely derailed his compliment by clarifying that his communication framework was suited for mid-level managers rather than senior executives.
The host holds their own ▶ 15:08 Sam cites Dribbble financial disclosuresSam demonstrates domain expertise by pulling up exact revenue and earnings data for Dribbble to substantiate Shaan's pitch for specialized creative networks.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Business Idea: Bringing Back Klout for Influencer Marketing | 7 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Sam shares background details and his direct communication with Klout founder Joe Fernandez regarding whether the company could succeed today. Shaan challenges the business utility for enterprise brands, prompting Sam to counter that Shaan is thinking like an SMB owner. | |
| The Emmett Shear Burn and Serious People | 5 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Shaan recounts getting humbled by Twitch founder Emmett Shear during an interview when Shear characterized a management framework as useful specifically for mid-level managers. The hosts banter over the awkwardness of the encounter. | |
| Business Idea: Dribbble and Behance for Video Editors | 8 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Shaan pitches creating a Behance or Dribbble equivalent for video editors and thumbnail artists. Sam pulls up real-time financial metrics for Dribbble, noting its 62 million dollar top-line revenue and 8 million dollar profit. | |
| Business Idea: Vertical Professional Networks for Under-Indexed Niches | 8 | 2 | 2 | 2 | Sam breaks down Doximity's financial profile and the broader opportunity in digitally under-indexed professional niches like doctors and lawyers. Shaan agrees on value but highlights the extreme execution difficulty of launching two-sided social network effects. | |
| Business Idea: Launching a Hardcore STEM Private Elementary School | 8 | 1 | 2 | 2 | Shaan presents financial teardowns of elite private elementary schools in SF like Hamlin, demonstrating how 450 students generate 31 million dollars in revenue and 11 million dollars in profit. They brainstorm creating a dedicated STEM private school in depressed commercial real estate. | |
| High School Telemarketing and Massive University Endowments | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Sam recounts his teenage experience running alumni donation telemarketing boiler rooms for high schools. Shaan and Sam contrast university endowments ranging into the tens of billions with aggressive alumni outreach tactics. | |
| Sponsor Break: HubSpot CRM | 7 | 1 | 2 | 1 | Following an ad read, Shaan details Alumni Ventures' syndicate model that spins up university-focused venture funds across top colleges on 2 and 20 fee models. Sam shares personal grievances about his alma mater. | |
| Business Idea: Yelp for Startup Investors | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Shaan applies his import/export business framework to Paul Graham's reveal of Y Combinator's internal investor directory, proposing a public Yelp for startup investors. | |
| Business Idea: Teacher's Pet AI for Classroom Lesson Plans | 7 | 2 | 2 | 2 | Shaan pitches an AI wrapper that ingests Teachers Pay Teachers materials to generate bespoke lesson plans. The conversation turns to Ozempic where Sam cites clinical trial data regarding weight regain upon cessation. | |
| Business Idea: Monetizing the Mindsport Olympiad as Elite Talent Scouting | 7 | 1 | 2 | 2 | Shaan outlines a recruiting model centered around the Mindsport Olympiad to scout elite strategic talent. Sam contrasts strategy competitions with the World Memory Championships, examining the career trajectories of memory champions. | |
| Business Idea: Unbundling Failed Churches and Spiritual Real Estate | 8 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Shaan explores commercial opportunities from collapsing church attendance, using Peter Thiel's university unbundling framework to break down the church value bundle into community, counseling, meditation, and real estate conversion. |
Statements from this episode (20)
Sam Parr: Klout raised $40M and sold for $200M in 2014
“That company was acquired. They raised like forty million dollars. They were acquired in 2014 for two hundred million bucks.”
Sam Parr: A Klout-like influencer scoring business should 100% exist today
“And I think a business like this 100% should still exist because when I'm worth sponsoring influencers and stuff for different companies, it's really hard to know what's legit and what isn't.”
Shaan Puri: Klout was more compelling to users than to paying brands
“I think that's the problem with this, that it was more compelling to the cloud user who wanted their score to know their score and for it to go up. Than it was for the brands who needed to find influencers.”
Shaan Puri outlines Emmett Shear's four-part one-on-one meeting framework
“You can come in and you can say one of three things. You can be like, Hey, I'm doing this. FYI. You know, here's my decision. FYI. Here's my, the second one is here's my, here's what I think we should do. Do I have your approval? Right? Maybe it's very risky. …”
Parr: Dribbble reached $62M revenue and $8M earnings in 2022
“So in. 22, it did. Sixty two million in revenue with eight million in earnings.”
Parr: Scott Belsky sold Behance for $175M, owning 60-70%
“No, I think it was a 175 of which he owned 60 or 70% of it.”
Parr: Doximity generates $400M in revenue and $150M in income
“So they're growing quickly. They're doing like, four hundred million in revenue, one hundred and fifty million in income. So they've been profitable for years.”
Puri: A 'Dribbble for video editors' is a multi-hundred-million-dollar idea
“And that's why I think that this sort of dribble for video editors is a multi hundred million dollar idea. Somebody would pull it off.”
Shaan Puri: Hamlin School generates $31M revenue and $11M profit in SF
“In San Francisco, I discovered a business that does thirty one million dollars in revenue locally here in San Francisco? No, no, no revenue outside of San Francisco. On the thirty one million in revenue, it does about eleven million in profit... And it has a h…”
Shaan Puri: Hamlin School charges $40,000 annual tuition for 450 students
“It's just for girls. It's a girls only school K through eight, I think. And only 450 kids. So 450 girls go to the school. You pay basically a college level tuition. So parents pay 40,000 dollars a year to send their kid to kindergarten or first grade.”
Shaan: Alumni Ventures mimics school branding without official affiliation
“Well, they don't use the name. They say we're Tower View Ventures, and we're investing in Duke Alumni. So they're not saying we're Duke's venture fund, but they very much make it feel like that.”
Shaan Puri outlines the 'import/export' framework for B2B startup ideation
“My import framework and export framework is if you're at a company and you wish something, you're like, dude, we would totally pay for this. That's a business idea you would want to import. You're better off going and starting that business. Cause it's probabl…”
Puri: A 'Yelp for VCs' could solve chicken-and-egg data problems via brute-force outreach
“I think the Startup community is so insulated that you could actually overcome the chicken and egg problem through brute force. Cause there's not that many investors and you could find, you can quickly see who's worked with them just by looking at their portfo…”
Puri: Teachers Pay Teachers generates $80M in net revenue with 300 teacher millionaires
“So it was doing like eighty million dollars a year in revenue. That's like their take, not the GMV. That's their take. And it gets like twenty million visits a month during school years. 300 teachers on this network have made a million dollars or more by selli…”
Shaan Puri: Highly effective weight-loss drugs inevitably carry withdrawal costs
“Nothing that's this effective has no cost when you stop. I don't believe that.”
Puri: Christian church attendance has dropped 65% over 20 years
“In traditional churches, so the Christian churches, attendance is down 65% in the last 20 years.”
Puri: 45% of Gen Z identify as religiously unaffiliated
“For Gen Z, I guess, 45% would count as none of the above, essentially, for religion”
Puri: One-third of US Christian congregations will likely close by 2033
“Of the three, 350,000 Christian congregations in the United States, one-third are, like, vulnerable on the brink of collapse, basically. Like, one-third are, like, in the red zone, and over the next 10 years will likely close.”
Parr: Ten billion-dollar companies have come from the Thiel Fellowship
“I think there's been ten billion dollar companies so far have come from it.”
Shaan Puri: Entrepreneurs should build modern franchises in vacant church sanctuaries
“The big version of this idea is figure out how you're going to replace the value that churches gave people, but you can do it in a new way. And so like, for example, could you create a new brand in these same venues that's around, I don't know, like manifestat…”