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What would you do if you had to start from absolute zero? No money, no network, no special skills – just you and the dream of making your first million. Here's exactly how Shaan Puri would do it.

TLDR: The Million Dollar Blueprint in 60 Seconds

The Problem: You're broke, feel behind, and don't know where to start.

The Solution: Stop playing defense. Use being broke as an advantage, not an excuse.

The Vehicle: Service agency targeting "blind man" industries (profitable businesses terrible at marketing).

The Math: 10 customers × $10K/month = $1.2M/year → Sell for $3-4M in 3-4 years.

The Secret Sauce: Your "loser's edge" - being small, having time, nothing to lose, willing to take risks.

The Timeline: 3-4 years from zero to first million if you actually execute (most won't).

Executive Summary: The Framework That Actually Works

Here's the brutal truth: 99% of people asking "how would you start over?" won't do shit with the answer. They want the magic pill, not the proven system.

But if you're in the 1% who'll actually execute, here's your roadmap:

The Foundation (What Everyone Gets Wrong)

• Stop the age bullshit. Broke at 21 = broke at 41. Today is day one.

• Embrace your "loser's edge" instead of hiding it. People LOVE helping beginners.

• Move to where winners congregate. Proximity = power.

The Vehicle (Your Million Dollar Machine)

Service Agency Formula:

1. Find industries that make money but suck at marketing (senior living, real estate, local businesses)

2. Become their marketing solution (you don't need to be an expert - just better than them)

3. Target: $100K/month revenue (10 clients × $10K or 25 clients × $4K)

4. Exit: Sell for 4x profit = $3-4M

The Execution (What Separates Winners from Wannabes)

• Always work on A+ problems (what actually moves the needle)

• Create content to manufacture luck (not for fame, for the right people to find you)

• Invest in yourself first - buy back time, buy proximity to winners, leave money on table for better opportunities

Bottom Line: This isn't theory. It's the exact playbook from someone who's done it multiple times. The question isn't whether it works - it's whether you'll work it.

Stop Playing Defense, Start Playing Offence

Look, let's get one thing straight right off the bat. Everyone asks "What would you do if you were 21 again?" or "How would you make it if you were 25 again?"

But here's the kicker – it doesn't matter what age you are.

If you're broke, you're broke. If you're not successful, you're not successful. Whether you're 21, 31, or 41 – today is your day one. You can't go back in time, so stop wasting mental energy on the "what if I was younger" bullshit.

The real question isn't about age – it's about mindset. You need that 21-year-old belief that your whole world is in front of you, that your best days are ahead, and that you can reinvent yourself right now. Today. On the spot.

The Framework Foundation: Learn, Earn, Legacy

Your entire career breaks down into three phases:

1. Learn Phase (First 10 years) - You're building yourself as a product

2. Earn Phase - You're extracting value from what you've built

3. Legacy Phase - You're giving back and being remembered

Most people fuck up the Learn phase because they optimize for the wrong thing. They take the job that pays $15K more instead of the one that would teach them 10x more. Don't be most people.

Phase 1: Master the Learn Phase (Years 1-10)

Your Secret Weapons: The "Loser's Edge"

Everyone who's not successful yet has four massive advantages they're too embarrassed to use:

1. You're Small and Helpless This is pure gold. People love helping beginners. I can't tell you how many meetings I got with amazing people just by saying "Hey, I think what you do is incredible and I don't know the first thing about it. Can you show me how this works?"

Stop hiding that you're starting from scratch. Embrace it. It's your ticket to access people who would never give you the time of day if you pretended to know what you were doing.

2. You Have Time Your calendar is empty. That's not a weakness – it's a superweapon. While successful people have $5,000/hour time budgets, you can afford to do psychology studies for $7/hour, attend every networking event, and say yes to opportunities others would pass on.

3. Nothing to Lose You're already at rock bottom, but that's actually a solid foundation. Take more risks than someone who has something to lose. Go to conferences, take meetings, try weird opportunities. The worst case? You're still broke. The upside? Everything.

4. Clear Head for Risk When I was young, I'd do anything. Take pills for studies, read cards for research – whatever. Now I have reputation constraints, caliber expectations. You don't. Use that freedom.

Find Your Personal Edge: The Bear on the Unicycle

My friend Chris Williamson told me: "You're like a bear riding a unicycle. A bear is cool but not that special. A unicycle is cool but not that special. A bear riding a unicycle? That's fucking amazing."

Your job is finding your unique combination. Maybe you're:

• A programmer who loves biology → Go into biotech

• Great with people + willing to work 2x harder + love sports → Find that overlap

• Entertaining + business-minded + curious → Content about business

For me, I'm not the most successful business guy (there are people worth hundreds of millions more than me), and I'm not the best talker (plenty of people are funnier and more articulate), but the overlap of "successful + entertaining + curious" created My First Million – a podcast nobody else could host quite the same way.

If you don't have a personal edge yet, ask your friends: "What am I better at than normal people?" Or decide to develop one through deliberate practice.

The Dabbling Strategy

For your first 10 years, expect to reinvent yourself every 18 months. We're told to "stick with it" and "be determined" – that's wrong advice. It's the same bad advice that makes 18-year-olds declare a major based on zero experience.

You're dating around before you get married. Use change to find what you're uniquely capable of, not changing for the sake of changing.

The Project Selection Framework

Company vs. Job: The Real Decision Criteria

Everyone asks: "Should I start a company or join one?" Both work. Here's how to choose:

Your Goal: Get around the smartest, most ambitious people who want to do what you want to do.

This might mean:

• Moving to Silicon Valley for startups

• Joining whatever this generation's Google is (think OpenAI or similar talent magnets)

• Moving to LA if you want to be a content creator

• Finding your tribe and physically relocating to be near them

The power of proximity is underrated. When success becomes normal around you, when you're learning from everyone's mistakes (not just your own), when smart people become your default social circle – that's when magic happens.

The A+ Problem Rule

Whether you start a company or join one, you MUST work on the A+ problem. Every company has one at any given time:

• "We're getting sued and need to handle this"

• "Growth stopped and we don't know why"

• "We're growing so fast we can't keep up"

Personal Example: When I got acquired by Twitch, they wanted me to work on esports. My co-founder said something that stuck: "They're making billions in revenue. Don't you think we should work on something that moves the needle at least 5%? Wouldn't you feel like shit if we worked here for a year and didn't make a 5% impact?"

We went on strike from day one. Didn't do assigned work until we found the real A+ problem. Two weeks of walking around asking questions, found a massive project, pitched it to the CEO, and got put in charge of it.

Another Example: When Ninja (Twitch's biggest streamer) got poached by Microsoft for $20M, I immediately knew that was the new A+ problem. Dropped everything, wrote a strategy memo, sent it to the CEO. Got added to three group chats working on the solution that same day.

The lesson: Always work on what matters most, even if nobody tells you to.

The Service Agency Blueprint: Your $1M Vehicle

If I was starting over, here's exactly what I'd do:

The Math

• 10 customers × $10,000/month = $100,000/month

• $100K/month = $1.2M/year revenue

• 85% profit margin (after hiring help) = ~$1M/year profit

The math is flexible:

• 20 customers × $5,000/month = $100K/month

• 25 customers × $4,000/month = $100K/month

• 50 customers × $2,000/month = $100K/month

The Strategy

Step 1: Find a service businesses will pay $10K/month for on retainer

• Look at existing agencies on Upwork/Fiverr

• Find what's already working

• Don't limit yourself to your current skills

Step 2: Target the "blind man" industries In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Find industries that are:

• Profitable but terrible at marketing

• Run by older people not fluent in digital

• Desperate for customers

Real Examples:

Real Estate Agents Email every agent in your city: "I was on your website – it doesn't look great. Look at this example of an awesome agent website. I make sites like this. Interested?"

Senior Living Facilities
These places make $6,000/month per occupied bed. Go to the owner: "If I could bring you one new resident per month, what would you pay me?" They'll say their first month's rent – $6K. Get them two residents monthly = $12K/month.

How do you deliver? Partner with hospitals. When they discharge elderly patients who need care, where do they go? Create that pipeline.

The Beauty: You don't need to be an expert. You just need to be better than them at marketing. Eight hours on YouTube learning Google Ads makes you the smartest digital marketer in their life.

The Exit Strategy

Once you hit $100K/month ($800-900K annual profit), sell the agency for 4x profit = $3.6M. That's your first million+ and the foundation for everything else.

The Investment Philosophy: Stop Being Stupid with Small Money

Here's where most people fuck up. They get $20K saved and start thinking about "investment strategy." S&P 500, bonds, angel investing – complete waste of time.

Math Check: 12% annual return on $42,000 = $5,040/year. If your goal is millions, this doesn't matter. You're trying to earn 12% on money when you should be earning 1,200%.

Invest in Yourself: The Three Categories

Category 1: Buy Back Your Time

• Hire a housekeeper at 24 (people will think you're spoiled – good)

• Get a $800/month overseas assistant for scheduling

• Don't return the broken blender – your time is worth more

• Hire designers so you don't do design work

Category 2: Buy Knowledge and Proximity

• Unlimited book budget

• Join conferences, masterminds, membership clubs where successful people hang out

• Move to better locations if needed

• Proximity is power – become like the people you spend time with

Category 3: Leave Money on the Table This sounds backwards but it's genius:

• Say no to clients who waste your time

• Take lower-paying jobs with badass people

• Choose equity over salary when working with the right people

• Take pay cuts to be in better opportunities

I took a multi-million dollar pay cut in our acquisition because one path put me working directly with the CEO, the other put me three layers below. Easy choice.

Creating Luck: Your Four-Level System

Luck isn't random – it's manufactured. There are four levels:

Level 1: Blind Luck Struck by lightning. Nothing you can do except appreciate it when it happens.

Level 2: Action-Based Luck
Fortune favors the bold. Show up to events, make introductions, publish analysis online. Do more stuff, good things happen.

Level 3: Content-Based Luck
This is key for young people. Create content not to become popular, but to put your thoughts out there. It forces you to have good thoughts and creates surface area for interesting people to find you.

My 18-year-old intern became a millionaire partly because he published stock analysis online. Someone interesting followed him, they had lunch, that person became his investor. Chain reaction from putting thoughts online.

Don't want to be well-known – want to be known well.

Level 4: Unique Preparation Luck When you've built such unique skills and positioned yourself so specifically that when the right opportunity comes along, you're the only person who can capitalize on it.

The Mission Question: Money First or Purpose First?

"First get your nut, then do something noble."

This is the airplane oxygen mask principle – put yours on first before helping others.

You need two things before chasing noble missions:

1. Core skill set: Know how to build, sell, and market regardless of the product

2. Financial runway: Enough money to chase ambitious goals without worrying about rent

Don't fall into the trap of perpetually waiting ("maybe next year I'll have enough"), but also don't handicap yourself by going noble too early without resources or skills.

The Complete Step-by-Step Framework

Phase 1: Foundation (Months 1-6)

1. Adopt the 21-year-old mindset – everything is possible

2. Embrace your "loser's edge" – be proud of starting over

3. Move to where ambitious people in your field congregate

4. Start creating content regularly (thoughts, analysis, insights)

5. Begin dabbling – try new things every 18 months

Phase 2: Discovery (Months 6-18)

1. Identify your personal edge through experimentation

2. Ask friends what you're naturally better at than most people

3. Find the intersection of your skills, interests, and market demand

4. Always work on A+ problems, never busy work

5. Buy back your time as soon as you have any money

Phase 3: The Vehicle (Year 2-3)

1. Launch your service agency targeting "blind man" industries

2. Use the math: get to $100K/month through whatever customer combination works

3. Focus on industries desperate for customers but bad at marketing

4. Hire overseas talent to scale without massive overhead

5. Document everything to make the business sellable

Phase 4: The Exit (Year 3-4)

1. Scale to consistent $100K/month ($1.2M/year revenue)

2. Optimize for 85%+ profit margins

3. Sell for 4x profit (target $3-4M exit)

4. Use proceeds as foundation for bigger opportunities

Phase 5: Scale (Year 4+)

1. Now you have skills, money, and network

2. Either start a bigger company or join one at a senior level

3. Move into "earn phase" of your career

4. Begin thinking about legacy and giving back

The Mindset Shifts That Change Everything

From "I'm Behind" to "I'm Playing Offense" Stop feeling like you're catching up. You're not behind – you're strategically positioned with advantages others don't have.

From "I Need Experience" to "I Need Results"
Don't collect experiences, collect results. Work on things that matter, not things that look good on a resume.

From "I Should Play It Safe" to "I Have Nothing to Lose" Use your rock-bottom position as a launching pad, not a hiding place.

From "I Need to Find My Passion" to "I Need to Find My Edge" Passion follows competence. Find what you're uniquely good at, then develop passion for winning at it.

The Reality Check

This isn't a get-rich-quick scheme. It's a get-rich-methodically plan. It takes 3-4 years of focused effort, constant learning, and strategic risk-taking.

But here's what's different about this approach: every step builds on the last one. You're not hoping for lightning to strike – you're building the conditions where success becomes inevitable.

The people who make it aren't the smartest or most talented. They're the ones who understand the game and play it strategically while everyone else is wandering around hoping for breaks.

Your breaks come from putting yourself in positions where breaks can happen, then having the skills to capitalize when they do.

The truth? Most people won't do this. They'll read it, get excited, then go back to their old patterns. The ones who actually execute this framework? They're the ones who make their first million while everyone else is still planning.

Full episode our notes are from: