#159 - Update on Michael Jordan's House, a Nine Figure Sex Toy Company & the Man with a Million Acres

Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) and Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP): 3:57 Investing in old Apple computers 7:04 Update on buying MJ's house 17:46 Opportunities in male sex toys 32:08 Brad Kelley, the Billy of the Week 43:40 The end of Indie VC MFM #159 MJ house update - Recap: Last episode the guys spoke about buying MJ’s house. The plan was to potentially turn it into a museum or Airbnb. - Problem: zoning and parking -- but those might be overcome  - Shaan: Spoke to Rally Rd and Nifty Gateway founders  - Now what: What's going to happen now? - Sam thinks nothing’s going to happen -- the guys are too busy. Shaan: you’re afraid to fail Collecting old Apple computers - Opportunity: Old Apple computers like the Macintosh II and Apple II sell for a premium on eBay. There is still demand for these because of their cool aesthetics, and retro look. - At Monkey Inferno, visitors would often ask about their old Macs over the expensive paintings that hung on the walls. - Sam bets these will continue to appreciate. Can make for a good investment opportunity as retro style becomes more and more in demand.  - Idea: Creating products from old Macs, such as https://inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2012/03/Macquarium-jake-harms.jpg  Sex talk - Steve Shubin - founded Interactive Life Forms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleshlight - Origin: Steve started creating sex dolls, but eventually realized most guys wouldn’t order sex dolls. He pivoted and created the Fleshlight. He scaled the company with his kids. - Does an estimated $50-$100m in revenue - Sidenote: One of Fleshlight’s factories in Spain uses its excess capacity to manufacture prosthetics elephant legs for Southeast Asia - Opportunity: Creating the new fleshlight - There is a growing demand for male sex toys, especially in countries like India and China. Even in areas where it’s taboo, new discreet packaging has made it easier.  - Idea: Fleshlight marketing through channels like Onlyfans. Molds can even be made from the Onlyfans creators themselves. Billy of the week - Brad Kelley - Started out renting space for factories and warehouses. When he noticed lots of customers using his warehousing space to store tobacco, he pivoted.  - He founded Commonwealth Brands in 1991 and sold it in 2001 for $1B - "I've never defended [smoking]. Hopefully, it will be phased out of society." - He’s bought a ton of land since then and is now the 4th largest landowner in the US. - In January 2020, Kelley put up for sale many of his West Texas ranches, offering roughly 500,000 acres with a listing price of $404 million. - He also bought Lonely Planet installing a 24-year-old CEO at the helm - The purchase was a failure when he sold the company in 2020 for $50m having had bought it for $70m - Sam’s a fan - Keeps to himself and has done “boring” businesses. In contrast to Silicon Valley’s flashy hype-machine Indie VC - Indie VC was a venture firm backing mostly bootstrapped founders. The idea was to give founders a little bit of money to help them grow instead of the traditional model of flooding a company with cash and taking a massive stake. - The company closed its doors, and Shaan and Sam are critical of how founder Bryce Roberts announced the closing (didn’t take the blame hard enough). https://medium.com/@bryce/the-end-of-indie-6e1b92d90b09 --------- --------- Have you joined our private Facebook group yet? Go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/ourfirstmillion and join thousands of other entrepreneurs and founders scheming up ideas. Editing thanks to Jonathan Gallegos (@jjonthan)  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.