Hey, it's Sam Parr.

This is week #4 of a newsletter test I'm doing. You're in my testing pool.

This is the last week of the test. If you have any feedback, reply and let me know.

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Natural Moneymakers

Some entrepreneurs are so violently good at making money it looks like cheating.

I call these people natural moneymakers and I want to explain their attributes.

These people tend to be in roles that involve deal making, brokering, and inserting themselves into a situation. They rarely build in public. They’ve made $100m to $1b in different fields.

I’ve interviewed ~10 natural moneymakers. And I’ve met a few more in Hampton.

You can be successful and rich and still not be a natural money maker. Ted Turner founded CNN and was a multi-billionaire. But he wasn’t a natural moneymaker. He had vision, took risks, and was charismatic. Most great founders are like.

But natural moneymakers are different.

They are unemotional about business.

Natural money makers have anxiety like everyone else. But they use emotions to make money. Being emotional and passionate helps most founders succeed. Natural moneymakers are more cold about money. Far more logical than the average guy.

Carl Icahn, a famous PE guy, once told a story on how bought a company immediately fired 12 floors of people because he couldn’t figure out what all the employees did all day.

I have a friend who owns a few +$100m/year ecommerce brands and is likely a billionaire. He’s a natural moneymaker. At one hang sesh a buddy suggested our billionaire friend delegate, work less, and focus on culture. “You just focus on the big picture,” my buddy told him. He coldly looked back at us: “cash-flow is the only picture to focus on.”.

They are maximizers.

Natural money makers think “diminishing returns are still returns.” More is more. The perfect amount of money is more. The natural moneymakers constantly scour for deals 24/7. There’s no off button. Most people settle for pretty good.

John Rockefeller called Jay Gould the greatest business mind in America. He was worth $150b today (adjusted for inflation).

In 1885 Gould was dying from tuberculosis at 54 years old. His wife died the year before. He had kids to care for. The Union Pacific, a railroad business, was in turmoil. Gould had to buy it. The deal was too good. His niece, Alice Northrop, begged him to let it go. Doesn't he have all the money he needs? A few days later a butler hands Gould a telegram. He reads it and turns to his niece: "About the Union Pacific, I have decided to go ahead." Then said: "I have merely returned to my first love." He died soon after.

They’re comfortable with complexity.

Most people think simple is better. Natural moneymakers are ok with complexity. They typically have high IQs and learn quickly. They find hidden value. Points of a percent. And it adds up to huge gains.

John D. Rockefeller bought out rival refiners by opening his books, showing them his profits, and saying: "I have ways of making money that you know nothing of."

My aforementioned billionaire friend was like. Once we were hanging out, and he was on his phone, I asked him what he was doing. He explained that he was buying defaulted credit card debt because he could hire an agency to get the money, and he could earn 15% returns. I also saw him negotiate some of the craziest real estate contracts you could imagine.

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A great founder needs vision, recruit skills, and understands product. Great moneymakers know that stuff too, but they have a “make money happen” gear that many great founders don’t.

I know you’re reading this list thinking, “well they must be unhappy, this sounds negative.” I don’t think there’s a correlation between being a shark and being a good, happy person.

My friend Val is a natural moneymaker and he’s happy, kind, ethical, and a family man. Syed Balki, someone we had one MFM, is another happy natural moneymaker.

Warren Buffet said to be a better founder you should learn to be a better investor.

Similarly, I think a lot of entrepreneurs (myself included, particularly the part about being less emotional) can learn a thing or two from the natural money makers.

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Cool stuff I’m consuming:

• Who Is Really Rich in America? (Hint: Main Street Millionaires) (article): Cool data analysis on people who are worth, on average, $25m and how they got there.
• I spoke with the WhatNot founder (Youtube): Whatnot did $2.3M in sales with 18 employees in year one, $163M with 100 employees in year two, $1B in year three. Holy hell. "Almost everyone who says they're moving fast is moving slow."
• Employee #1: Yahoo (article): "I didn’t know it would be a big thing." You can learn more about a company's founding by talking to the employees, not the founder. Cool insights from someone who saw $0 to billions.
• How to cure panic attacks (book): I hate flying. There've been times I've driven cross country rather than fly. I'm reading Dare, a book on panic attacks. The first 30 pages have changed my life and panic attacks (in a good way).
• What It’s Like to Work at a Startup Clone Factory (article): Years ago, I wrote an article about my friend who worked at a startup clone factory. They created multiple multibillion-dollar companies in less than 100 days.
• This stretch has saved my lower back (reel): You can use a wall instead of a band ​
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Inspiration and some tears

Three months ago, when she was six months pregnant, my 30-year-old sister-in-law found out she had breast cancer.

She's giving birth in a couple weeks. She still has breast cancer.

​She's been documenting her experience on Instagram, and it's pretty awesome.

Now, my wife is getting a double mastectomy because she has the BRCA gene. I realize this is maybe TMI for a newsletter, but both my wife and her sister-in-law have decided to be public about the whole thing. Here's a blog post my wife wrote.​

I think it's pretty great that they're doing this because I hope it'll help a lot of people, but selfishly, they've had tons of inbound from people willing to help them: connections, doctors, whatever.

Same with my friend Ben, who also has cancer. He did a post on Twitter, and there's potential that this post will save his life because of the people he's met because of it (he also raised $400k).

So the very simple takeaway here is: if you're in sick, be loud. The squeaky wheel gets the most grease (Is that the phrase?).

I love you,

Sam