Apr 3, 2020 · 54m · my-first-million
How to Navigate the Upcoming Depression | My First Million Podcast | 03-24-2020
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Sam Parr and Shaan Puri navigate the early realities of COVID-19 lockdowns, analyze the burgeoning creator economy, and evaluate promising startups from the latest Y Combinator Demo Day batch across productivity, fintech, and logistics.
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 99.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 6.1 Guest teaching 3.7 Guest disagreement 2.3 The hosts pushing back 2.4
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 33:45 Sam dismissing Art in Res concept
Sam outright reverses his initial stance, flatly declaring the startup 'stupid' and questioning why installment payments would ever warrant a standalone art marketplace.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 27:12 Calling out Pitch.com's nine co-foundersSam aggressively rejects Shaan's optimism about Pitch.com upon discovering their team page lists nine co-founders, calling it an obvious red flag for execution.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 41:50 Sam citing low egg freezing volume dataSam cites CNBC research revealing only 11,000 women freeze eggs per year, surprising Shaan with how small the current addressable market truly is.
The host holds their own ▶ 14:25 Evaluating Airbnb balance sheet resilienceSam counters fears around Airbnb's short-term pandemic revenue collapse by citing their $3B cash reserve and historical profitability.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sam's San Francisco Break-in and COVID Symptoms | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Sam and Shaan casually exchange personal updates regarding a car break-in, suspecting COVID-19 symptoms, and cold-emailing MMA fighter Ben Askren. The dynamic is conversational, supportive, and lighthearted. | |
| Analyzing Teachable's $250 Million Exit | 6 | 4 | 2 | 2 | Both hosts analyze the mechanics and economics behind Teachable's reported acquisition. Shaan distinguishes Teachable's self-hosted course model from Udemy's marketplace, while Sam shares direct founder insights. | |
| Solo Podcasts and Quarantine Fitness Trends | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Shaan discusses his hesitant launch of solo podcast episodes and a 9-minute morning routine, leading into a discussion on the surge in home fitness equipment orders during lockdown. | |
| The Impact of the Pandemic on Airbnb and Real Estate | 7 | 5 | 2 | 3 | The hosts break down Airbnb's exposure to travel freezes, host leverage, and regulatory pressures. Sam cites cash balance data and profitability numbers to gauge secondary investment safety while Shaan highlights unit economics risks. | |
| Y Combinator Demo Day and International Expansion Trends | 6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Shaan explains Y Combinator's international expansion and roadshows across India, Africa, and Latin America. Sam observes regional cloning of US models like Flexport and SmileDirectClub. | |
| Evaluating Cron and the 'Superhuman for X' Paradigm | 7 | 4 | 3 | 3 | Shaan pitches Cron as 'Superhuman for Calendar' while Sam challenges the need for venture capital, arguing that calendar software like Calendly is better built as an ultra-profitable bootstrapped business. | |
| Unbundling Microsoft and Google: Pitch and Causal | 7 | 4 | 3 | 3 | Shaan highlights Pitch and Causal unbundling Microsoft and Google tools, but Sam pushes back sharply on Pitch after seeing nine co-founders listed on their team page, labeling it a red flag. | |
| Art in Res and Fine Art Installment Marketplaces | 7 | 5 | 4 | 4 | Sam initially likes Art in Res based on Masterworks data, but flips his assessment once Shaan details the installment model, arguing Etsy or Affirm could easily swallow them. Shaan defends fine art marketplace dynamics. | |
| Karat: Tailored Banking and Credit for Content Creators | 7 | 4 | 2 | 2 | Sam shares personal friction qualifying for mortgages as an entrepreneur to highlight Karat's value proposition for influencer banking, while Shaan points out the fast payback and high annualized returns. | |
| Lilia: Egg Freezing Concierge and Telehealth Lead Generation | 6 | 4 | 3 | 3 | Sam brings data showing only 11k women freeze eggs annually despite heavy procedure costs. Shaan questions Lilia's lack of unique product innovation and clarifies its role as a lead-gen concierge service. | |
| The $100K Investment Challenge: Art in Res vs. Cron | 6 | 3 | 3 | 3 | The hosts run an imaginary $100K allocation challenge: Shaan picks Art in Res for its high upside potential, while Sam chooses Cron for its default-alive unit economics and fast path to profitability. | |
| Rapid Fire YC Ideas: Duffel, Buildplane, and True North Fleet | 7 | 4 | 3 | 3 | In a rapid-fire review, Shaan backs Duffel's micro-delivery model citing GoPuff's metrics, while Sam pitches unglamorous logistics plays like Buildplane and True North Fleet using his father's trucking background. |
Statements from this episode (23)
Puri: Teachable had ~$20M revenue and sold for $200M–$250M
“They were at like, twenty million or so in revenue, and I think they sold for closer to 202 hundred fifty million, something like that.”
Parr: Multiple Teachable creators earn seven figures annually
“No, there are seven figure annual earners.”
Puri: SF Rental Regulations Cut Airbnb Listings by 30-40%
“They changed some rules here in San Francisco where it's like, you can only do 90 days out of the year and you have to live in the place. You have to prove that blah, blah, blah. And that, that, you know, it eliminated like 30 or 40% of the listings overnight …”
Parr: Sonder Laid Off 20% of Its Company
“They just laid off 20% of their company, it looks like. Oh, wow. Yeah. Today.”
Parr: Airbnb Was Profitable in 2019
“And I think they're also profitable in 2019. This is all public information.”
Puri: Non-pure software startups scale slowly, opening room for regional clones
“Because a lot of these companies that, that work when they're not purely software based, they're going to scale slowly. They're not going to expand everywhere overnight.”
Sam Parr: Calendly is a bootstrapped $30M/year company
“Calendly is a plugin for Gmail. It's a thirty million a year company that's bootstrapped out of Atlanta, started by a guy who moved here from, I think, Nigeria.”
Puri: Passed on Linear's early funding over enterprise security concerns
“I didn't end up, it was like a, it was a bit of a competitive round, and then I could have got in at the end, but I sort of, ah, cooled on it, because when I tried to bring it into our company, there was a lot of security concerns.”
Shaan Puri: I have placed a freeze on new startup investments
“No. Now I'm on startup investments. I have cooled off for the time being. There's a freeze.”
Puri: Unbundling Excel's calculation engine is a massive startup opportunity
“What Airtable did was Airtable took the part of Excel that's just rows of information, and they made that sexy. But what they didn't do is calculation. People use Excel for calculation and charting, and Airtable doesn't do that. So if you did the calculation a…”
Parr predicts presentation startup Pitch.com will fail
“Pitch.com. I changed my opinion. They're going to fail. I went to their about page and they have nine employees and they're all founders.”
Puri: Fine art lacks startups because founders discover it post-wealth
“The art market is one of those markets that's bigger than you think, because you don't even learn about it until you're already rich, and once you're already rich, you don't start a company in it.”
Sam Parr: Art in Res will fail if it raises venture funding
“My prediction is if they raise money, it's gonna fail.”
Sam Parr holds a $1M line of credit for his media business
“I have a million dollar line of credit with a company that provides line of credit for media companies.”
Shaan Puri: Companies shouldn't raise venture capital to pay for Facebook ads
“You shouldn't go raise venture capital to pay for Facebook ads.”
Puri: Karat loaned $1M in six months with 40% annualized return
“They've loaned out a million dollars in the last six months. The average payback period is 45 days, so extremely fast payback. That, the APR is very high because of that, so even on a low APR, because of the fast payback, it annualizes at 40%, and now they're …”
Puri: Traditional banks will always misunderstand and overlook the creator market
“This will always be a niche market that is overlooked and misunderstood by the traditional banking system.”
Sam Parr: Only ~11,000 women freeze eggs yearly, market growing 25%
“According to CNBC, only like, 11,000 people freeze their eggs a year?
It's not a lot.
Not, not a lot, but it's growing at 25% a year”
Sam Parr: Cron can reach $10M-$30M ARR within three or four years
“I think that they can get to 10 or thirty million dollars in recurring revenue inside three or four years with very little capital.”
Puri: Campus delivery app Duffel averages $16 carts and $5 profit
“So average card is 16 dollars. They make five dollars per delivery, and they're delivering in a very lightweight way on the same, in a very tight geographic boundary, so they don't have a bunch of logistical issues.”
Puri: GoPuff Generates $163 Million a Year in Revenue
“So they're at one hundred sixty three million a year is the thing.”
Parr: Bullish on True North Fleet as Trucking Market Is Underestimated
“This company is, is building bits of, like, software for small, small trucking businesses, and I don't, I think people vastly underestimate how trucking is, like, the backbone of America, and how big logistics is in our country, so I, I'm very bullish on that …”