Tech Startup Ideas for the Farmer Economy

**Shaan Puri** (0:00)
All right, there's this amazing book called Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You've Got. I read it a few years ago and it changed my life. And the reason I loved it was because it basically talks about how to get and make more money using things that you already have. Coincidentally, today's podcast is brought to you by Business Made Simple. It's a podcast by Donald Miller, who I'm gonna tell you about in a second, but he has this amazing episode that's all related to this book and the things that I learned in this book. It's called How To Make Money With What You Already Have. It's an incredible episode. It talks about all the stuff that I learned in this book. The host is Donald Miller. I didn't know who Donald Miller was up until recently, but over the last 12 months, this is totally by coincidence. It was all separate people. They said, you have to check out Donald Miller. He's amazing. So I'm happy that he's part of HubSpot's podcast network. You can check it out, Business Made Simple Podcast. It's where he coaches you on how to build your business like an airplane, where the cockpit is your leadership, the body is your overhead, the right engine is your marketing, the left engine is your sales. You have to check it out. This guy's amazing. It's called Business Made Simple with Donald Miller.
So, the background is this guy named Kevin VanTrump. He is probably in his mid to late 50s.
And he basically, I think he worked in Chicago on the commodities trading floor. So, he traded commodities, but he's got a relatively thick southern accent.
So, he goes to Chicago. He probably makes eight figures trading commodities.
So, he sounds like this country bumpkin farmer, but he's trading corn futures and shit like that. It makes a lot of money. Then, maybe 10 years ago, he starts this daily newsletter where he writes the whole thing by himself every single day at this point.

**Sam Parr** (1:43)
For like 17 years, he's done that.

**Shaan Puri** (1:45)
Is it 17 years?

**Sam Parr** (1:46)
Something like that. It's almost 20 years he's been doing this every day.

**Shaan Puri** (1:50)
And it makes something in the world of $20 million a year in subscription revenue just to read more?

**Sam Parr** (1:58)
More now. I think it's like 30, 40 million a year now.

**Shaan Puri** (2:01)
So I've done calls with him and I'm just, and this guy, he's like, oh, hey, check this song, bitch out. Yeah.
Okay, so I haven't talked to you in like two weeks. You had Covid.

**Sam Parr** (2:24)
Dude, I had, I can't even explain what I had. I would apologize, because I've missed so many recordings, but in a way, you gave me Covid, because I got Covid because I went to this conference, which is a decision I made. I didn't really, honestly, I wasn't really thinking about it. Covid has just been so present that I wasn't really like, I didn't do the math of like, you know, if I go on a plane, and I go to a conference with 2,000 people, what's going to happen?
And so sure enough, I go to this conference that Sam hooks me up with. He's like, Sam's like, hey, this conference is amazing. It's called FarmCon. These guys who run it, there's super cool story.
You know, it's awesome. And I was like, oh, I'm in.

**Shaan Puri** (3:05)
And I was going to go.

**Sam Parr** (3:07)
And I land and I'm like, yo, I'm here, baby. Let's do this. And Sam's like, oh, I didn't go, dude. I don't want to get Covid.

**Shaan Puri** (3:13)
Well, I canceled like last minute. I, dude, like I thought that you knew that I canceled, but how would I know that?
Because we had talked about you going and we hadn't said, I don't know, we had not really mentioned that. I'll see you there.
And I thought you knew I canceled. So I felt horrible. But like a week or two prior to, that's like when Omnicrom and all this stuff happened. And it's a farmer's conference in Kansas City. My, you know, I'm from Missouri. And I was like, ooh, I think that like that Covid will be there.

**Sam Parr** (3:47)
And I don't know if I want. Covid was for sure there. It was, you know, the main attendee, the main keynote speaker. Dude, we walked in. So I walk in, Ben went with me. And so we go in and me and Ben are literally the only two people in the room with a mask.