Neville Medhora

The unfair advantage of an audience: sell out a workshop with one email

Shaan explains that having an audience makes running a paid workshop nearly zero-work. Neville's list (est. 50K-100K) or even Sam's personal 5K list could sell out a session with a single send; the real cost is the exhaustion of doing the event.

“for anyone listening, there's an unfair advantage of having an audience. Yes. So like, it would be practically no work for us. Yeah. So that's great. Neville, I don't know how many people are on his email list. I don't know this for a fact. I would guess 50,000 to 100,000. Yep. My personal Sam Parr on my email list, well, not The Hustle, probably 5,000, so I could just send out a thing and it would sell out.”

How a $40-per-email dropshipper discovered copywriting and 10x'd his sales

Neville ran House of Rave, a glow-stick dropshipping site, sending product emails that lost money. After a friend pointed him to Gary Halbert's Boron Letters, he applied copywriting and had his highest revenue day ever, turning the store into an email-marketing machine.

“But I started applying that to House of Rave emails. And the first email I did, I had the highest revenue day I ever had in House of Rave history. And I was like, huh, that could either be a fluke. So let me try it again. And I did it again and again. And almost overnight, House of Rave turned into more of an email marketing company.”

Write like you talk: dictate into your phone instead of wordsmithing

Neville's fix for the most common writing mistake (writing too formally) is to write like you speak. He says transcribing a quick voice note into your iPhone often beats carefully wordsmithing something at a keyboard.

“In fact, just writing like you talk. If you just write, uh, a note into your iPhone, uh, what would that— if you transcribe that, that'll often do better than sitting down and trying to wordsmith something really carefully.”

Steal thisDictate your first draft as a voice note and transcribe it instead of wordsmithing at the keyboard.

Plan your life backwards from a fixed death date

Neville picked a death date of November 17th, 2067 (age 85) in high school and plans his life backward from it, including a milestone to exit competitive work at 50 and shift into a 'slower' industry like rental real estate.

“Um, I plan to die at 85 and if I'm not dead naturally, I'll, uh, well, you know, make it happen, to put it lightly. And so I always, I planned this back when I was in, uh, when high school, like that's where I came up with that date. So November 17th, 2067, I'm done. And so I have to plan my life backwards till then.”

Steal thisPick a death date and reverse-engineer your milestones back from it.

Sugarman's rule: write long copy, not long-winded copy

Neville quotes Joseph Sugarman: the goal is long copy, not long-winded copy. Length is fine when there's substance; you add copy because there are features to explain, not for length's sake.

“Well, Joseph Sugarman, uh, RIP, uh, had, had a great thing. He said, write long copy, not long-winded copy.”

Steal thisMake copy as long as the product demands, but cut anything long-winded.

Land the whales first and everyone else follows

Neville recalls Sam's HustleCon cold-email strategy: lock in the big-name speakers first because once you have the whales, everyone else agrees to come. He personalized outreach with GIFs and Photoshopped names.

“You made really good cold emails to speakers cuz you, cuz you knew that like if you get the whales, everyone else will follow. So if you get the big speakers and you made these awesome, uh, emails with GIFs, which like, you know, 10 years ago was like kind of cool.”

Steal thisRecruit your biggest-name target first; use them as social proof to land everyone else.

A niche font email became AppSumo's biggest deal — copy was the only difference

Noah Kagan expected a typography-fonts deal to flop because it was so niche, so he handed it to Neville. Neville opened with 'if these font names mean nothing to you, close this message,' had fun with it, and it became the biggest deal so far — the copy was the only thing different.

“And I was like, you know what, let's just have fun with it. And that ended up being like the biggest deal so far. And we're like, holy shit. Like the only thing that was different was the copyright. Like this was like we took some time to write the copy and it took about an hour.”

Share your screen / let people watch you write to beat procrastination

Neville's 'secret weapon' for productivity: have someone sit on the same side of the table or share your screen while you write. Being watched stops him from drifting to Reddit or Instagram and produces his best work.

“And what I make them do is I tell them, I'm like, at least one person has to sit on the same side of the table as me because otherwise I'll just be on Reddit or Instagram just goofing off. But if they're looking at my screen, for some reason I keep pushing forward and write good stuff.”

Steal thisWrite while sharing your screen or with someone watching to force yourself to keep going.

Honest-anchor negotiation: name your floor and your dream number out loud

Neville's tactic for a pricing stalemate where both sides want a fair deal: tell them the lowest number you'd be happy with and the number that would make you ultra-thrilled, then ask if that's in the realm of possibility. They usually settle in between.

“My lowest that I would be happy with is I'm just going to make up money, $1,000. Okay. But I would be like ultra, ultra thrilled to work for you if I was getting $40,000 a month. I mean, that would be like my dream. I would dedicate all my time. I'd tell everyone else, I'd be so thrilled. Is that something that's like in the realm of possibility?”

Steal thisState your floor and your dream number honestly, then ask if the dream is possible.

Live near friends, but around the corner — not in a compound

Neville argues the happiest setup is living a short walk from friends with some separation, like sharing an alley. The 'buy a plot of land and be neighbors' plan fails because actual neighbors are too close.

“They're like, let's buy a plot of land and I'll be neighbors. So that actually doesn't work. And the reason is because you're neighbors, that's too close. You got to have like some separation. So me and Sam live around the corner from each other. We actually share an alley, but there's some semblance of privacy, but also I can walk 100 feet to his house.”

Coordinate having kids the same year so they grow up as a pack

Neville told his friends five years in advance to all have kids around 2023, because he grew up with a pack of friends within a year or two of his age and it was great for both kids and parents.

“I wanted to have kids around 2023. That's when I'm 40. That's when I wanna have kids. So I started telling all my friends like 5 years ago, I'm like, 2023, let's all have kids. Because I grew up with like a pack of kids, like a pack of friends, almost my exact age within 1 or 2 years.”