AI Summary
5 min read“One monkey is 20 grand.” That’s the price of a lab monkey after COVID, up from $2,000 before the pandemic. This offhand fact opens a window into a hidden world of business that the hosts of My First Million spend the episode exploring: the weird, unglamorous, and wildly profitable niches that most people never think about. The throughline is that the world is full of businesses hiding in plain sight—monkey breeding, soybean oil verification, dental billing, generator servicing—and the entrepreneurs who find them share a secret superpower: noticing.
The Wild World of Monkey Breeding and Lab Testing
The episode kicks off with a deep dive into the non-human primate (NHP) supply chain. More than 20% of all drugs are tested on monkeys, specifically the long-tailed macaque (or “cyno”), prized because it is smarter and closer to humans than other species. The U.S. imports tens of thousands of these monkeys each year. When COVID hit, demand for vaccine and medicine testing surged, and prices shot from $2,000 to $20,000–$50,000 per monkey. Then China, which supplied 60% of the world’s NHPs, stopped exporting entirely. Cambodia and Vietnam stepped in to fill the gap, but the supply chain became murky. The hosts recount a Fortune magazine story about the director of wildlife in Cambodia, who was detained by the U.S. Department of Justice on suspicion of passing off wild-caught
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **Hair Loss, Monkey Prices & Business Brain** - The episode opens with banter about hair loss protocols, a $150 "looksmaxing" app called Qoves, and childhood embarrassment before transitioning into the first "hidden" business: the monkey-testing industry.
- 2 (10:03) **The "Hidden in Plain Sight" Business Philosophy** - The hosts pivot to a broader lesson: the world is full of massive, unglamorous businesses that most smart people never notice.
- 3 (11:13) **Case Study: The Soybean Oil Scandal & American Express** - A deep dive into Warren Buffett’s famous trade on American Express, triggered by a bizarre fraud in the soybean oil verification business.
- 4 (14:36) **The Entrepreneur's Brain: Finding Gaps & Weak Competition** - The hosts argue that the key to success is finding problems that "smart people" don't know exist, creating an uncompetitive playing field.
- 5 (18:43) **The Superpower of "Noticing"** - The conversation shifts to the meta-skill of observation and how it drives creativity and business success.
- 6 (24:52) **High-Alpha Traits: Enthusiasm & The Uncompetitive Field** - A discussion on rare, underrated traits that give a huge competitive advantage because smart people avoid them.
- 7 (26:26) **How to Find Your Obsession** - The hosts tackle the question of how to discover a thing you can be truly obsessed with for decades.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
140+ real business ideas database: https://clickhubspot.com/pkce
Episode 850: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talk about massive businesses hidden in plain sight.
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Show Notes:
(0:00) The wild economics of lab testing on monkeys
(11:01) Salad oil crisis
(15:35) the art of noticing
(24:38) enthusiasm
(27:39) know thy 8-year old self
(32:32) be shameless
(37:08) Sam goes to SF for 7 days
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Links:
• Qoves - https://www.qoves.com/
• Charles River - https://www.criver.com/
• How To Do Great Work - https://www.paulgraham.com/greatwork.html
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Check Out Sam's Stuff:
• Hampton (joinhampton.com): My community for founders. Average member does $25m/year. Many of the guests are members. Get after it...apply: http://joinhampton.com/mfm
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Check Out Shaan's Stuff:
• Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com
• Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents.
• Mercury - Shaan uses Mercury across all of his companies. you can too: http://mercury.com/
Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N.A., Members FDIC
• I run all my newsletters on Beehiiv and you should too + we're giving away $10k to our favorite newsletter, check it out:
beehiiv.com/mfm-challenge
My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano /
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