Sahil Bloom

"Natural" debates are a cop-out for small daily effort gaps

Sahil argues that physiques people assume are drug-assisted usually come from someone out-working them by a tiny margin every day for a decade. The extra rep or extra set, compounded, produces what looks like a different human.

“And I just know for a fact that that person has just outworked me in the gym on a daily basis for the last like 10 fucking years. Excuse my language. And not by like a ton, but by a little bit every single day for 10 years. And that adds up to something insane and it looks like a totally different human being.”

Wake up early and work out to rewrite your self-identity as a winner

Sahil's rule: if you're unhappy with your life, change your self-identity by creating daily evidence that you're a winner. The easiest evidence is waking up early and working out, because it's hard and it shifts how you see yourself.

“I'm saying if you're not happy with your position in life, one of the biggest reasons is that you need to change your self-identity, right? Like you need to start identifying as a winner. Exactly what Nick said. Like, you need to create evidence that proves to yourself that you're a winner. And waking up early and working out is the easiest way to do that.”

Steal thisPick one hard daily action and do it for a week to build evidence you're the kind of person who follows through.

Planet Fitness's model: 10,000 members, only 5-10% show up

Sahil, who owned Planet Fitnesses in his PE days, describes the model: a gym signs up ~10,000 members but only 5-10% regularly use it, so equipment rarely needs refreshing while the dormant members keep paying.

“and you get, you get like 10,000 members for a gym and maybe like, you know, 5, 10% of them actually like regularly use it. So the equipment doesn't have to get refreshed that often. It's like, I mean, it's an incredible business model.”

Pay for your training program so you take it seriously

Sahil says he needs someone else to write his programs and needs to pay for them, because paying makes him take it far more seriously. Sam confirms he pays $400/month to a coach for the same reason — he won't skip or lower intensity when money is on the line.

“I need someone else to write the programs for me, otherwise I don't take 'em seriously and I need to pay for them. I've found, because when I pay for something, I take it way more Seriously.”

Ninja Creami high-protein McFlurry recipe

Sahil's recipe: 2 cups Fairlife whole milk, a scoop of BPN vanilla, ~2 stevia packets, and sugar-free vanilla pudding mix, frozen overnight then run through a Ninja Creami. With Oreo thins it tastes like a McDonald's McFlurry but packs ~40g protein.

“2 cups of whole milk, like Fairlife whole milk, a scoop of BPN vanilla, maybe like 2 tiny little packets of stevia and some sugar-free vanilla pudding mix. Freeze it overnight, put it into the Ninja Creami, and it is literally identical to like a vanilla McDonald's McFlurry.”

Set A, B, and C goals so a bad day doesn't blow up the whole effort

A marathoner taught Sahil to set three goals for any race or pursuit: an A goal (the target), a B goal (slightly worse), and a C goal (just finish). When the A goal slips you fall back to B or C instead of mentally quitting — applicable to any life or fitness goal.

“He was like, you have your A goal, which is the main thing you're trying to hit, and then you have a B goal, which is like just slightly worse. And then you have a C goal, which is just like finish the damn race. And you can always like, you lock in on your A goal from the start, but if you start falling off that and realize you're not going to hit it, you need something to fall back on that keeps you motivated when you're in it.”

Steal thisDefine A/B/C tiers for any goal so a setback redirects you to a smaller win instead of zero.

Survey customers to measure founder 'key man risk' before a sale

Drawing on a PE look at Onnit (tied to Joe Rogan and Aubrey Marcus), Sahil notes founder-dependence is acquirers' biggest fear. His fix: run a survey to learn what proportion of customers actually come through the founder's media versus the self-propagating SEO/flywheel.

“And then ultimately they ended up getting to an amazing exit with somebody and, you know, they put guardrails around it. They get like key man insurance or whatever it is. But I would, I mean, I'd be interested to find out actually, like run a survey of your customers, like what proportion actually end up coming through you and your media versus now just like the flywheel is spinning, SEO is there.”

Steal thisSurvey customers on whether they found you via the founder or organic channels to quantify key-man risk before selling.

Run media at breakeven, bet on the product as the long-term upside

Sahil describes the creator-business model: reinvest all cash from YouTube ads and a paid app into ever-better content, running the media arm at breakeven, while treating the supplement brand (BPN) as the long-term upside bet that the flywheel feeds.

“Like you can just reinvest all the cash that you're generating from YouTube ads, from the app, from any of those things into creating better and better content and create this massive flywheel and just count on BPN as the like long-term upside bet.”

Steal thisRun your content arm at breakeven and treat the attached product as the upside bet the audience feeds.

Seinfeld's 'are they funny?' — the right way is the hard way

Sahil recounts Seinfeld telling HBR he and Larry David hand-wrote every episode; asked if McKinsey could have designed a better model, Seinfeld replied 'are they funny?' The point: for creative work the efficient way is the wrong way, and a founder's soul in the content is what makes it win.

“And Seinfeld responded, are they funny? And basically his point was, you don't like, I don't need them if they're not funny because the efficient way of doing the creative thing is actually the wrong way. And what he said is the right way is the hard way. The show was successful because they did it the hard way.”

A long-time PE general partner is likely worth $50M+

Sahil Bloom breaks down the math: a GP running a $1B+ fund takes 1.5-2% management fees (~$20M/year) plus 15-25% carry on profits above the hurdle rate, with few employees, leaving the principal owners a fortune.

“it's pretty safe to assume that you've got a net worth north of $50 million because I mean, you just like simple math on it, right? Most of those funds are taking like 1.5 to 2% management fees on, you know, if you're running a big fund, $500 million plus, a billion plus, if it's like a real substantial fund. So there's, you know, $20 million plus coming in a year on a billion-dollar fund.”

A 125K-sub newsletter earns $3,500-$6,000 per send

Sahil Bloom's newsletter has ~125,000 subscribers and makes $3,500-$6,000 per send from sponsors, sent 8-10 times a month, illustrating the time leverage of writing the same two newsletters a week.

“with newsletter sponsors now, it's 125-ish thousand subs and, you know, it makes anywhere from like $3,500 to $6,000 per send right now. And I send it, you know, 8 to 10 times a month. So, you know, pretty nice, just like business that scales to your point on like time leverage.”

The reframe that pushed Sahil to leave private equity

At a crossroads between a safe new investing job and an unknown content path, Shaan pointed out Sahil was about to choose the option that sounded like it sucked over the one he got energy from. That single reframe changed his decision.

“I remember you saying to me, like, it sounds like you're just going to go do the thing that kind of sounds like it sucks instead of doing the thing that you actually get a lot of energy from, which is all this new stuff and that feels scalable and that you're, you know, you're fired up about. So why are you making that decision? And until someone just reframed it for me like that, I had never thought about it. I was just going to like continue down the path that felt safe.”

Steal thisWhen facing a fork, ask which path you actually get energy from rather than which feels safe.

Sahil's failed Stitch Fix pitch saved him from a doomed job

Sahil's final interview at a crossover hedge fund required pitching Stitch Fix; he called it a buy at $46, got rejected for a weak pitch, and the stock later fell to $3.56 — meaning he'd have been fired within six months had he taken the job.

“It was trading at the time at like $46 and it had come off, you know, it had gone up to like $100 in the whole like Archegos, you know, Bill Hwang was like pumping up stocks by doing like buying the swaps, pumped all the way up and then it came down to $46. And I pitched it as a buy, got rejected because my pitch was shitty, and now that stock is trading at $3.56. So I would have taken path A and I would have gotten fired within 6 months for sure.”

The pratfall effect: sharing your L's makes people like you more

Sahil advises founders to share losses and vulnerability publicly because of the pratfall effect — when people we perceive as perfect show flaws, we find them more endearing and like them more.

“maybe it's like sharing L's along the way and like vulnerability because people find that endearing. It's like it's called the pratfall effect. Have you ever heard of that? It's like when, when people who you perceive to be perfect show like chinks in their armor, we find it as humans very endearing and it actually makes us like them more.”

Steal thisShare your losses and flaws publicly to make your audience like you more.

The agency playbook is price arbitrage between client and freelancer

The fundamental of any agency business is creating price arbitrage: charge a client $5,000-$10,000 for work that costs you $1,000-$2,500 in freelance talent, profiting from being the connector between the two.

“the kind of fundamental of any agency business for anyone that's starting one is effectively that you're like creating price arbitrage where you're like charging a client $10,000 for some or $5,000 for something that maybe costs you $2,000. And like, you know, the reality for most of these people is you can pay $1,000 to $2,500 a month, maybe depending on the output. And you can easily charge, you know, a startup or a brand $5,000 for that.”

Steal thisCharge clients the value of the connection, pay freelancers a fraction, pocket the spread.

LinkedIn growth agency: turn proven tweets into carousels for founders

Sahil pitches a LinkedIn growth agency: take someone's proven tweets, convert them into LinkedIn carousels using TweetPik, and post 2-3 times a week so the client never has to log in. He estimates ~4 hours a month per client for $5,000.

“I would go like go to someone who has a Twitter presence and you can go create like TweetPick. P-I-K is the like web service that I use for it. And you can basically just turn tweets that are like proven with social proof into these like carousels on LinkedIn that are the big growth hack on LinkedIn. And if you go do that for them and just say like, look, I'll take over your entire LinkedIn presence. You never have to open LinkedIn because people hate opening LinkedIn”

Steal thisOffer founders a done-for-you LinkedIn presence built from their proven tweets, charge $2,500-$5,000/month.

Justin Welsh does $100K+/month selling courses off LinkedIn

Sahil cites Justin Welsh, the 'godfather LinkedIn influencer,' as doing over $100K a month in sales from non-cohort-based auto-courses promoted through LinkedIn, with effectively no ongoing time investment.

“And I think that dude now is making like $100K+ on not even cohort-based courses, just like auto courses that he generally just promotes through LinkedIn. He like, he has a newsletter now that he's built through LinkedIn, like built on the back of LinkedIn. And now he's bigger on Twitter because he's managed to like cross across all of those. But he's doing over $100K a month in, in sales revenue on his, on his courses”

Instagram drove 1,000 newsletter subs in a month from link in bio

By reposting his viral tweets to Instagram, Sahil's account (~35K followers that month) generated about 1,000 newsletter subscribers through the link in his bio — and at $3-$4 per sub of sponsor value, that compounds as the account scales.

“Instagram this past month, I think generated 1,000 newsletter subs for me just through the link in my bio. Um, and that's like, you know, on average I probably had 35,000 followers, um, during the month and it generated that many. So conceivably as it continues to scale, it'll drive, you know, well north of that as it, as it moves. And if you think a newsletter subscriber for me is worth, you know, just off of my sponsor revenue, probably like $3 to $4 per sub.”

Steal thisRepost your best tweets to Instagram and funnel followers to your newsletter via the bio link.

Being the 'A+' version for even a short window can vault your career

Sahil argues the real game isn't being a thread guy forever — it's parlaying a short window of being best-in-class into bigger things. His Twitter run vaulted him from a no-name PE VP to a book deal and a raised fund.

“If you're able to find the thing that you think you're A+ at, even if it's for a short period of time, like, how are you using that to vault yourself into that next level where you're like, I'm not even in the same class as these other guys that are doing the thing I was doing previously because I moved into whatever that next, you know, that like upper echelon is.”

Full-suite newsletter growth agency nobody is doing yet

Sahil says the business side of newsletters is easy to outsource but the growth side is completely untouched — no one offers a full-suite service handling landing pages, referral swaps, paid ads, and SEO. He'd happily pay $10,000/month for it.

“But the, like, growth side of newsletters is completely untouched. There's no one out there that I've been able to find that is like a full suite growth service for your newsletter. And when I say growth suite, I literally mean like, I want someone thinking about my landing pages and optimizing that. I want someone thinking about referral networks, newsletter swaps. I want someone thinking about paid ads, you know, SEO for my website to drive subs.”

Steal thisBuild a done-for-you newsletter growth agency owning landing pages, swaps, paid ads, and SEO.

Tourist vs. local vs. stubborn local for riding out downturns

Shaan's mental model: tourists panic and bounce when the seasons change, locals know seasons swing and stick it out, but the stubborn local denies reality (insists global warming isn't real) until he drowns. The trap is becoming the stubborn local.

“you know, tourists like freak out when the seasons change and just bounce. Yeah. And locals are aware that there are seasons and that, you know, it comes in swings and they're aware of the environment so they can stick it out and be fine through it. I've always just thought there's a third one, which is the like stubborn local, like the dude that lives in the coastal village and is like, oh, global warming is not real. And then he's fucking underwater and like drowning”

Steal thisBe a local who rides out the seasons, but check you haven't become the stubborn local denying reality.

Mobile podcast and video studio in a van

Sahil pitches kitting out vans with DSLR cameras, mics, lighting, and cool backgrounds, parking one in LA and one in NYC, and renting them out for ~$500/2 hours for podcasts or a couple hundred bucks for Instagram/TikTok shoots — avoiding the rent of fixed studios.

“Buy like a few vans, kit them out with like a pretty fire setup just in the back of like a normal-sized van. Doesn't even have to be an RV for like 2 to 3 people could fit. Deck it out with like a few good DSLR cameras that can do the recording, like dual camera setup so that you have like a few mics hanging off the sides and basically go and post it up in a couple of major cities, like one van in each major city.”

Steal thisBuild a mobile studio in a van, park it in LA and NYC, rent it for $500 per 2-hour session.

If you're not going to be good looking, be interesting looking

Sahil credits this as his favorite Shaan line and says he repeats it to everyone he advises: on visual platforms a distinctive, interesting look (a signature beard, a uniform, Hormozi's cutoffs) does the work of stopping the scroll.

“my favorite line that Sean ever had is, you know, if you're not going to be good looking, be interesting looking. And I tell that to like everyone that I give advice to.”

If everyone agrees it's a great investment, the price is already baked in

Riffing on a Shane Parrish / Sahil Bloom line, Shaan argues outsized returns require betting on something the crowd doesn't yet agree with. Consensus 'great' investments are at best solid; the upside is already priced in.

“you have to remember that if you're going to invest, if everybody agrees it's a great investment, then the price is baked in, right? So ultimately, if you want to have any kind of outsized return, you have to be betting on something that not everybody is agreeing with you is a, is a good investment..”

Steal thisOnly expect outsized returns from bets the crowd doesn't yet agree with; consensus picks are already priced in.