Apr 2, 2021 · 46m · my-first-million
MFM #166: Why a Sudoku Company Sold for $640m, "Opendoor for X" & Franchising Tech Companies
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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 episode of My First Million, Sam Parr and Shaan Puri dissect lucrative digital business models, exploring how generic domains like Sudoku.com drive massive gaming exits, how the 'Opendoor for X' instant-liquidity playbook transforms illiquid markets, and how international franchising scales e-commerce brands.
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 98.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 6.1 Guest teaching 3.3 Guest disagreement 1.6 The hosts pushing back 2.1
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 40:46 Challenging assertions about European tech adoption
Shaan directly pushes back on Sam's broad assertion that European digital markets lag a decade behind the US.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 33:55 Questioning the novelty of international distributionSam interrupts Shaan to ask what makes international drop-shipping or warehousing a novel business concept.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 7:15 Revealing EasyBrain's acquisition metricsSam educates Shaan on the exact $640M+ buyout valuation, revenue, and daily active user stats for EasyBrain.
The host holds their own ▶ 22:06 Highlighting internet marketer origins of roll-upsSam asserts domain expertise by showing that tech startup models like OpenStore mirror long-standing affiliate and brokerage plays from Empire Flippers and David DeAngelo.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Community Win: Launching a Full-Time Pickleball Venture | 6 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Sam and Shaan collaborate closely on analyzing niche games like chess and Sudoku. Sam pulls live data on EasyBrain's acquisition numbers to quiz Shaan on valuation, revenue, and daily active users. | |
| Unleveraged Generic Domains: Poker and Crosswords | 6 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Shaan explores untapped premium generic domains like poker.com and crosswordpuzzle.com, sharing his outreach to domain owners while Sam references New York Times crossword revenues. | |
| Mastering the Angel Memo and Digitizing Doctor Waiting Rooms | 7 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Sam breaks down his angel investing memo strategy and his investment in Lobbie, while Shaan praises Sam's copywriting ability to make unglamorous B2B software sound compelling. | |
| The 'Opendoor for X' Model: OpenStore, Backflip, and Raise | 7 | 3 | 2 | 3 | Shaan breaks down Keith Rabois's OpenStore venture and the broader 'Opendoor for X' concept. Sam pushes back slightly by pointing out that internet marketers and brokers like Flippa have operated these models for years. | |
| Brainstorming Instant Liquidity: Secondaries, Cards, and Lotteries | 6 | 4 | 2 | 2 | The hosts brainstorm asset classes ripe for instant liquidity, debating secondary shares, sports cards, used furniture, and lottery winnings while citing Carvana's massive valuation. | |
| International E-Commerce Franchising and Media Expansion | 6 | 4 | 3 | 4 | Shaan proposes a low-risk e-commerce master franchising service for international markets. Sam initially questions novelty before connecting it to international media licensing and copyright infringement experiences. | |
| The Secret Behind Outline.com and Paywall Circumvention | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Sam brings up outline.com as a real-world proxy bypass tool, while Shaan shares background context about the well-known tech figure who originally created it. |
Statements from this episode (13)
Sam Parr: Chess.com gets 200M monthly uniques and 60M registered users
“Chess.com gets around two hundred million monthly uniques. They have sixty million registered users.”
Sam Parr estimates Chess.com generates at least $100M in ARR
“If I had to guess, they'd do at least a hundred million in recurring revenue, subscription revenue potentially is worth a billion dollars.”
Puri says guessing numbers before hearing them hones quantitative business instincts
“Always guess before you hear any number. That's how you get good at knowing numbers, because you guess, and then when you're wrong, your brain remembers that shit, and you start to hone that gut instinct.”
Sam Parr: EasyBrain was acquired for $640M in stock plus earnouts
“Easy Brain was acquired last, this most recent February. They were acquired for six hundred and forty million dollars in stock and up to a 120, twenty five million dollars of additional consideration if they hit it.”
Sam Parr: EasyBrain generated $210M revenue and $70M profit in 2020
“In 2020 revenues were two hundred and ten million dollars. So you were off there by half. You guessed four hundred million. But their profit was seventy million. You guessed 90. Pretty good. They've had 750 installs over the course of their, the lifetime of al…”
Parr: NYT earns $90M in subscription revenue from Crossword puzzles
“The number was ninety million dollars in subscription revenue from Crossword Puzzles for the New York Times.”
Puri: No one can sue Bitcoin.com's owner due to lack of trademark
“Nobody can sue him because it's, there's no company behind Bitcoin and nobody owns the trademark.”
Puri predicts gift card resale platform Raise becomes a billion-dollar win
“Raise is going to be like a billion dollar plus win.”
Puri: Opendoor's core model is instant liquidity for a 5% spread
“What Open Door did was different. It wasn't, like, Open Door wasn't just another housing marketplace. It was, I will buy the thing off you right now because I know what I can sell it for. And I'll, I'm comfortable with this five percent spread that I will keep…”
Parr: Carvana generated $5.6B in sales in 2020
“Carvana does cars, and I think that that is so sick. They're a multi-billion dollar publicly traded company... They made 5.6 billion dollars last year in sales.”
Sam Parr: Major media brands expand internationally via local licensing partnerships
“This is actually quite common in media. So there's Business Insider India, there's Business Insider Australia, there's Business Insider Germany, I believe.”
Parr believes Europe lags 5 to 10 years behind US tech
“I do think that Europe, sorry Europeans if you're listening, I do think that you guys are five or 10 years behind when it comes to some technology stuff”
Puri: Outline.com creator is a prominent tech employee who stepped back
“The person behind this is somebody we know that's like a well-known kind of tech person that works at one of the big companies and was like, they had to like distance themselves. It was getting like millions of bits that like people were using this thing and t…”