Sam Parr

Parr says he was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, growing up on The Hill, the city’s Italian neighborhood, and attended SLUH before going on to Belmont University in Tennessee, where he competed in the 200m and 400m in NCAA Division I on a track and field scholarship.⁠[1][1]

He started hot dog stands in Nashville, and at 21 was part of the TV show American Pickers, helping set up its Nashville store; in college he also started an online store, which made him realize the potential of the internet, and he decided to go to San Francisco.⁠[1][1][1][1][1]

In 2012, at 22, Parr moved to San Francisco and co-founded a roommate-matching business with a partner; he said it was not a great business, but it paid the bills and was acquired. He also wrote a blog called The Anti-MBA, which he says is how he came to start The Hustle.⁠[1][1][1]

In 2014, Parr started Hustle Con, a conference for startup founders that later grew to more than 2,500 attendees; The Hustle was founded as a company in San Francisco the same year.⁠[1][2]

In 2016, Parr built on Hustle Con to launch The Hustle’s daily email newsletter, which distills complex business stories into entertaining news items. He says the company was bootstrapped and reached over seven figures a month in revenue.⁠[1][3][3][1]

On February 3, 2021, the marketing software company HubSpot announced an agreement to acquire The Hustle. At the time, The Hustle’s daily newsletter had more than 1.5 million readers, and the company also had the subscription research product Trends and the podcast My First Million. Kieran Flanagan, HubSpot’s SVP of marketing, said customers were increasingly seeking out content through new forms of media such as podcasts, newsletters, and research, and that acquiring The Hustle would let HubSpot better meet the needs of these scaling companies.⁠[2][3][3][3][3][3]

The price was not disclosed, and HubSpot declined to comment; one report estimated that the deal valued the company at around $27 million. Parr, then CEO of The Hustle, said the price would not be disclosed, adding that many media companies had tried to buy The Hustle, but he believed most ad-first media companies were dying and had always thought a B2B SaaS company should buy it. He later said it sold for tens of millions of dollars and that he sold because he wanted financial freedom by 30.⁠[4][4][4][4][4][4][1][1]

In March 2023, Hampton, an executive membership community built by Parr and media veteran Joe Speiser, left stealth. Hampton had been in the works for about nine months and launched with more than 300 members; within a day of going public it received over 3,000 applications, with an acceptance rate of about 8%. To join, members must have built a company with $1 million in revenue, raised $3 million in funding, or previously sold a business for at least $5 million, and they are placed into eight-person groups that meet once a month with a facilitator. Parr said the name comes from a street he lived near in Missouri.⁠[5][5][5][5][5][5][5]

As of October 2026, Hampton serves founders with $3 million to $50 million in revenue, organized in groups of about 10 that meet in person monthly in their own city, in cities including New York, San Francisco, and London; Parr is listed as a co-founder.⁠[6][6][6][6]

Parr co-hosts the business podcast My First Million with Shaan Puri, brainstorming business ideas every week, interviewing business builders, and breaking down companies. As of October 2026, the show was still releasing episodes, with the most recent released on October 7, 2026.⁠[7][8][7]

Hampton: Official website: https://www.joinhampton.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[6]

My First Million: Official website: https://www.mfmpod.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[7]

The Hustle: Official website: https://thehustle.co/ (opens in a new window).⁠[3]

Personal website: https://www.samparr.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[1]

X: Public account: https://x.com/thesamparr (opens in a new window)⁠[1][4]