## Sam Parr + Shaan Puri Asked Me About Bootstrapping, Open Startups and Lifestyle Inflation
### Sam Parr + Shaan Puri Asked Me About Bootstrapping, Open Startups and Lifestyle Inflation
#### Metadata
* Author: [[Sam Parr (00:05:53):]]
* Full Title: Sam Parr + Shaan Puri Asked Me About Bootstrapping, Open Startups and Lifestyle Inflation
* Category: #articles
* URL: <https://levels.io/my-first-million/?cmdid=ERR6HHEGQN4YSK>
#### Highlights
* So you start with the red pill, then you create content around that red pill. So it's you talking about that lifestyle and sharing everything from people always ask what I keep in my backpack for the day. Here's what it is. It's just every bit of content you can come up with that's poppy, that fits that red pill. So then that gives you authority on that subject, so you become authority. And so Pomp became an authority around bitcoin and Tim Ferris became an authority around life hacking and you've become an authority around nomadism. And then you take that and then you basically spin off one of many businesses that can come up with it, but every one of those businesses, either it's a big money maker or it's just another funnel, more content, more new audience that's going to get sucked into that same red pill lifestyle that you are talking about.
* Pieter Levels (00:22:35):
Yeah, so the thing is most of my revenue is profit. The margins are really high, especially Remote OK. It's like 94% margin pre-tax, so it's very high. So I'd say 10X. After 10X it gets interesting. I think the problem is with bootstrap companies you usually get 3, 4, 5X profit or revenue share, which is too low for me. I might as well wait three years or four years and sit in this chair and the sites will probably keep running because they're fully automated and I barely need to work on them. They just keep going. It's heavily automated, really heavy, heavy. It's just that I won't build new features anymore then and the site will start looking a little bit old because design trends change, but generally it will keep running
* mean, back when I started, I had a YouTube channel for this electronic music I was making and stuff. And I was making a few thousand dollars from YouTube AdSense, so I had some cash flow to live off, travel off and work on mini startups, but it was very fast. It was shrinking because of the copyright claims on YouTube in 2012 and stuff. So it was pretty much becoming below $1,000 a month. So I had that cashflow, but to go to your question, I think it's a power law
* And you don't want to live in a hotel room. Hotel room is very depressing. I go insane in hotel rooms. It's just a bed and you can barely walk around the bed. There's no space. I need to cook food, I need to buy steak from the local butcher. I need to cook it with broccoli and spinach and with my friends and stuff. And you can do it in an apartment hotel. And I think if you target, it's a high end market, I think, of remote workers who make a lot of money, like $200K or $100K, something. If you target them, you can make a lot of money because it's serviced, furnished.
* this stuff and renting it to you, it's much better. I think you're on point. That's a real business. And imagine you can go to a website, you can choose different sets of furniture, different interior and stuff, paintings on the wall or whatever. And you can just click and you arrive and it's already done for you, like you said. I think that would be really interesting. Yeah.
* Yeah, so I'm heavy in ETFs. I read a blog post by the guy from Google that does SEO. And he's like I just put everything in ETFs, so Vanguard ETFs, S&P 500, but also I'm heavily invested in Asia because I believe in Asia. I believe in the future. There's a lot of things about Asia that are good, but there's still things very futuristic. And I also invest in crypto. I hold Bitcoin and Ethereum. I'm always scared to say those things on the podcast, but it's all very secure and stuff.
* Pieter Levels (00:41:36):
I spend about $4K or $5K a month or something. That's it. I do need to pay tax, but after that most of it goes to ETFs and stuff. It's scary to invest now because it's a scary time, but generally I want to do this for 20, 30 years in ETF invested and stuff. And sometimes stocks, but I did a benchmark, my S&P 500 ETF outperformed all my stock decisions over the last two years. So I'm stupid just like most people.
* Tags: [[favorite]]
* Pieter Levels (00:48:29):
No, because I work on my websites. I make coffee, I make open my laptop, me and my friend, we code a little bit together, make a new feature. Then you go to the gym, we go to sauna, we go swim, but that's very recent, this kind of chill life. And I don't get bored as long as I ship a little bit on my websites. I don't really get bored.
Sam Parr (00:48:55):
So basically it's almost always the truth that no matter how hard you try, the more income that you make, your lifestyle gets inflated. Maybe sometimes not as much, but then other times a ton. And I was like I'm going to fight it. I can't imagine spending more than $10,000 out a car or whatever. And then you make more income, you're like whatever. Who cares? You said you spend $4,000 or $5,000 a month. You're one of the few people that has acknowledged that your lifestyle actually doesn't seem like it's been ... It's not lavish at all.
* Pieter Levels (00:49:47):
But paying $10K for hotel is ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense. It should be the max $2K or $3K for me personally, but I've seen a lot of people do that lifestyle inflation because I know from corporate, again, from studying business, I know the management people and stuff they get paid more and they get golden handcuffs and they can't leave. A lot of my friends are like that and I don't want that to happen to me. I mean, it can't happen it to me, but you get what I mean. And I know that material goods don't really make me happy. So I buy a new shirt or something or I buy a new iPhone, within two weeks I'm used to it. And there's studies on this. There's research about this stuff. If you buy a new car, even you get married, after six months you're at the same happiness. If you buy a house, after six months same happiness. So if you know that stuff, you don't really need to spend money so much. You don't need to buy stuff, essentially. And generally it will probably make you happier
# Sam Parr + Shaan Puri Asked Me About Bootstrapping, Open Startups and Lifestyle Inflation
## Metadata
- Author: [[Sam Parr (00:05:53):]]
- Full Title: Sam Parr + Shaan Puri Asked Me About Bootstrapping, Open Startups and Lifestyle Inflation
- Category: #articles
- URL: https://levels.io/my-first-million/?cmdid=ERR6HHEGQN4YSK
## Highlights
- So you start with the red pill, then you create content around that red pill. So it's you talking about that lifestyle and sharing everything from people always ask what I keep in my backpack for the day. Here's what it is. It's just every bit of content you can come up with that's poppy, that fits that red pill. So then that gives you authority on that subject, so you become authority. And so Pomp became an authority around bitcoin and Tim Ferris became an authority around life hacking and you've become an authority around nomadism. And then you take that and then you basically spin off one of many businesses that can come up with it, but every one of those businesses, either it's a big money maker or it's just another funnel, more content, more new audience that's going to get sucked into that same red pill lifestyle that you are talking about.
- Pieter Levels (00:22:35):
Yeah, so the thing is most of my revenue is profit. The margins are really high, especially Remote OK. It's like 94% margin pre-tax, so it's very high. So I'd say 10X. After 10X it gets interesting. I think the problem is with bootstrap companies you usually get 3, 4, 5X profit or revenue share, which is too low for me. I might as well wait three years or four years and sit in this chair and the sites will probably keep running because they're fully automated and I barely need to work on them. They just keep going. It's heavily automated, really heavy, heavy. It's just that I won't build new features anymore then and the site will start looking a little bit old because design trends change, but generally it will keep running
- mean, back when I started, I had a YouTube channel for this electronic music I was making and stuff. And I was making a few thousand dollars from YouTube AdSense, so I had some cash flow to live off, travel off and work on mini startups, but it was very fast. It was shrinking because of the copyright claims on YouTube in 2012 and stuff. So it was pretty much becoming below $1,000 a month. So I had that cashflow, but to go to your question, I think it's a power law
- And you don't want to live in a hotel room. Hotel room is very depressing. I go insane in hotel rooms. It's just a bed and you can barely walk around the bed. There's no space. I need to cook food, I need to buy steak from the local butcher. I need to cook it with broccoli and spinach and with my friends and stuff. And you can do it in an apartment hotel. And I think if you target, it's a high end market, I think, of remote workers who make a lot of money, like $200K or $100K, something. If you target them, you can make a lot of money because it's serviced, furnished.
- this stuff and renting it to you, it's much better. I think you're on point. That's a real business. And imagine you can go to a website, you can choose different sets of furniture, different interior and stuff, paintings on the wall or whatever. And you can just click and you arrive and it's already done for you, like you said. I think that would be really interesting. Yeah.
- Yeah, so I'm heavy in ETFs. I read a blog post by the guy from Google that does SEO. And he's like I just put everything in ETFs, so Vanguard ETFs, S&P 500, but also I'm heavily invested in Asia because I believe in Asia. I believe in the future. There's a lot of things about Asia that are good, but there's still things very futuristic. And I also invest in crypto. I hold Bitcoin and Ethereum. I'm always scared to say those things on the podcast, but it's all very secure and stuff.
- Pieter Levels (00:41:36):
I spend about $4K or $5K a month or something. That's it. I do need to pay tax, but after that most of it goes to ETFs and stuff. It's scary to invest now because it's a scary time, but generally I want to do this for 20, 30 years in ETF invested and stuff. And sometimes stocks, but I did a benchmark, my S&P 500 ETF outperformed all my stock decisions over the last two years. So I'm stupid just like most people.
- Tags: [[favorite]]
- Pieter Levels (00:48:29):
No, because I work on my websites. I make coffee, I make open my laptop, me and my friend, we code a little bit together, make a new feature. Then you go to the gym, we go to sauna, we go swim, but that's very recent, this kind of chill life. And I don't get bored as long as I ship a little bit on my websites. I don't really get bored.
Sam Parr (00:48:55):
So basically it's almost always the truth that no matter how hard you try, the more income that you make, your lifestyle gets inflated. Maybe sometimes not as much, but then other times a ton. And I was like I'm going to fight it. I can't imagine spending more than $10,000 out a car or whatever. And then you make more income, you're like whatever. Who cares? You said you spend $4,000 or $5,000 a month. You're one of the few people that has acknowledged that your lifestyle actually doesn't seem like it's been ... It's not lavish at all.
- Pieter Levels (00:49:47):
But paying $10K for hotel is ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense. It should be the max $2K or $3K for me personally, but I've seen a lot of people do that lifestyle inflation because I know from corporate, again, from studying business, I know the management people and stuff they get paid more and they get golden handcuffs and they can't leave. A lot of my friends are like that and I don't want that to happen to me. I mean, it can't happen it to me, but you get what I mean. And I know that material goods don't really make me happy. So I buy a new shirt or something or I buy a new iPhone, within two weeks I'm used to it. And there's studies on this. There's research about this stuff. If you buy a new car, even you get married, after six months you're at the same happiness. If you buy a house, after six months same happiness. So if you know that stuff, you don't really need to spend money so much. You don't need to buy stuff, essentially. And generally it will probably make you happier