The Relatable Remix: Take Something Vivid and Use It Somewhere Unexpected
Start from a thing people already feel strongly about, then transplant it into a context nobody has put it in.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 80%
Asked directly how he produces so many ideas, Shaan Puri names his actual procedure: find something highly relatable — either something that really sucks or something that's really awesome — and then use it in an unexpected way. Sam compresses it to 'you're just smashing two things together.' The first half is the discipline: the input must be something with pre-existing emotional charge, because that charge is what makes the resulting idea instantly legible to other people. The second half supplies novelty by relocating that charged thing into a domain it has never occupied. Shaan walks the method live on two of his own pitches. He starts from the childhood fantasy of the secret bookcase door — an 'awesome' thing — and transplants it onto a phone, producing Hideaway. He starts from OnlyFans as a business model and asks what other space could use it, landing on subscription fly-on-the-wall therapy. The method's value is that both inputs are cheap to enumerate: everyone can list things that suck and things that are delightful, so the generation step never stalls.
Origin
Sam asked Shaan whether he just invents names and works backwards; Shaan corrected him and described the actual two-step procedure he runs, then demonstrated it on the ideas he had already pitched that episode.
Core principles
- 01The input must already carry emotional charge — strong disgust or strong delight.
- 02Novelty comes from relocation, not from inventing something unprecedented.
- 03Relatability is what makes the idea explain itself in one sentence.
- 04Both source lists are cheap and infinite, so generation never stalls.
- 05Working backwards from a clever name is the wrong direction.
How to run it
- 1
Collect charged inputs
Build two running lists: things that really suck and things that are really awesome. The requirement is emotional charge, not commercial promise.
- 2
Pick one and strip it to its essence
Identify what specifically makes it delightful or painful — the secret door, not the bookcase; the fly-on-the-wall access, not the adult content.
- 3
Relocate it to an unexpected domain
Ask where this essence has never been applied. Shaan moved the secret-door fantasy onto a phone and the OnlyFans model onto therapy.
- 4
State it in one sentence
Compress to a single legible line — 'a Murphy door for your phone', 'OnlyFans for therapy'. If it needs a paragraph, the transplant didn't land.
- 5
Pressure-test relatability
Say it to someone cold. Because the input was already charged, a working remix gets instant recognition rather than a request for explanation.
In the wild
Shaan took the childhood fantasy of the rich person's hidden bookcase door and transplanted it onto the pain of someone scrolling your camera roll. The app disguises itself as a Kindle-style bookshelf or calculator, and only tapping specific books reveals a private camera and camera roll.
→ A one-line pitch — 'a Murphy door for your phone' — that Sam immediately validated against Private Photo Vault, a top-100 App Store app with 800,000+ reviews.
Shaan started from OnlyFans as a business model, asked what other space could use it, and combined it with the observation that people need therapy but avoid it as too taboo, expensive and vulnerable — while happily watching reality TV. The result: a subscription to sit in anonymously on real therapy sessions matching your own problem.
→ A pitch Sam graded the best idea of the episode, with the subsidy logic worked out — listeners fund cheaper therapy for the participant.
Common mistakes
Starting from the name
Shaan explicitly rejects the Michael Scott approach of inventing a name and reverse-engineering a business. The charged input has to come first or the idea has no underlying pull.
Choosing a neutral input
If the source thing carries no strong feeling, the remix inherits no energy and the resulting pitch needs explaining rather than landing.
Relocating into an adjacent domain
Moving something one step sideways produces a me-too product. The unexpectedness of the destination is what supplies the novelty.
Is it for you?
Best for
People who need a repeatable engine for consumer product and content ideas rather than waiting for inspiration.
Not ideal for
Deep technical or infrastructure problems, where the constraint is feasibility rather than novelty of framing.
From the transcript
“my thing was sort of like you have to find something relatable either something that really sucks or that's really awesome and then just use…”
“so how do i take that awesome thing and just use it in an unexpected way and that's where that idea came from”
“only fans is a great business model ... but i got to thinking what other space could you do this in”
From the episode
Drunk Ideas: Only Fans For Therapy, A Secret Bookcase for your Phone, and More
Drunk Ideas