How I Went From Broke to $7 Million With An Airbnb Business

**Sam Parr** (0:00)
All right, so, Shaan, I wanted to have Isaac on because we talk a lot about making money on this podcast, but I've been with Isaac at his home a bunch, and I've got to know him. And he's inspired me to believe that money isn't the only reason for business. It's about craftsmanship. It's about creating your little corner of the universe into your vision. And I wanted to have him on the pod because I think he's different than a lot of the guests that we've had on here. But let me explain how I met Isaac. I saw that he had this amazing website for his Airbnb, and it said, Isaac French owns this place. He's a former accountant turned real estate mogul, but he's really most passionate about painting and being an artist. And I was like, this kid's the most interesting person I've ever read about. What the hell? And so I just called him, and we became friends on the phone, and then eventually met up in real life. And he's kind of blown my mind as I've gotten to know him. So when I met Isaac, I met him in a business context. He had this vibe where he was like, oh, no, the right way to do this business is doing this, this, and this.

**Shaan Puri** (1:07)
When you say you met him in a business context, what context did you meet him in?

**Isaac French** (1:10)
So Sam, can I tell a tiny story here about that?

**Sam Parr** (1:13)
Yeah, yeah.

**Isaac French** (1:14)
So shout out Zach, he's cool. He introduced us. He introduced me to Sam, at least. I had no idea who Sam was, but basically I started texting this guy named Sam, and I was like, I couldn't really give a rip. I had just built Live Oak Lake, which I'll get to in just a second. And here's this guy, Sam, who's some business mogul, is what Zach told me.
So I started texting him, and he's like, oh, this is super cool, whatever. I told him all my numbers. And then the next morning he was like, hey, I'm about to make a post on Twitter. You should join, so I'll shout you out. I was like, I don't have Twitter. That's a total waste of time. Good luck, basically. And he was like, no, you should really make a post. You should make an account. And I was like, no, whatever. So he made this post that kind of blew up. It got millions of views. So halfway through that process, I was like, oh, maybe I should go ahead and join this.
And the rest is history because like I actually, and I'd love to talk about that, but I absolutely love the ability to connect with other people online and share what I'm all about. But that was my introduction to Sam. It was not as a fan boy. It was just like this random dude on the internet who started texting me about business and his numbers, Sean, they'll blow you away.

**Shaan Puri** (2:16)
I'm ready to be blown away. Go ahead.

**Sam Parr** (2:18)
What is it? Well, can you say the numbers? Yeah.

**Shaan Puri** (2:20)
Yeah.

**Isaac French** (2:20)
So let me just tell you a quick story of Live Oak Lake, if that's all right, because it's, it's pretty cool. So I was a bookkeeper and I had this dream. I was 24 years old, just gotten married. I had this dream to create this like immersive, cohesively designed village of tiny homes in Texas. I didn't really have terminology for it. I just had, it's really hard to articulate because I just had this vision for what it would feel like. And I put an emphasis on feel because that's, it was like a vibe I wanted to create. And people started laughing at me like you're crazy. And I started looking for land for like three months. One morning I wake up, open up Zillow and there's this five-acre like jungle down the road for me that I had driven past probably a hundred times but never thought anything of. But it had this little cow pond in the middle. So I was like, hmm, I should check that out. Drove over. And when I walked on the property, I literally got goosebumps. I was like, this is the place to create, to realize this dream. Met the realtor, got it under contract. I had $19,000 of savings to my name. Again, 24 was not bankable by any standards.
I had experience in construction. So my dad was a plumber, general contractor. I grew up with that experience. I've always been an artist. I've always loved design.