Dec. 5, 2025

The (Improbable) Story of Savannah Bananas' Rise to a $1B Empire

The (Improbable) Story of Savannah Bananas' Rise to a $1B Empire

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Episode 772: Sam Parr ( ⁠https://x.com/theSamParr⁠ ) and Shaan Puri ( ⁠https://x.com/ShaanVP⁠ ) talk to Jesse Cole ( https://x.com/YellowTuxJesse ) the owner of Savannah Bananas and creator of Banana Ball. 

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Show Notes:

(0:00) 200 fans, $260 in the bank

(3:00) The team no one ever heard about

(9:01) How to become an idea machine

(13:30) Lessons from PT Barnum, Bill Veeck, Walt Disney

(15:55) Surviving embarrassment

(19:16) Rock bottom

(23:34) Inside Jesse's creative process

(27:00) Stealing from MrBeast

(28:39( Jesse opens his idea book

(32:00) Meeting Bob Iger

(33:28) Identifying the chip on Jesse's shoulder

(38:58) 11 principles

(48:14) The 12-star experience

(53:12) The sacrifice of extreme hard mode

(58:08) Attracting vs recruiting


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Links:

• Savannah Bananas - https://thesavannahbananas.com/ 


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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 - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies!

Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC

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Check Out Sam's Stuff:

• Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/

• Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/

• Copy That - https://copythat.com

• Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth

• Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/

My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano //