It's Never Too Late

Where Are They Now?

Steve Preda

Devin Miller

The Inventive Journey Podcast for Entrepreneurs
11/23/2021

 

That's kind of my struggle. What to do? Whether to stay with my current lifestyle which, I really like. Coaching businesses and maybe writing books and tinkering with things. Or I should switch gears and try to go for it. I am always thinking of Ray Kroc. I think he was 53-54 when he started McDonald's. So maybe it's not too late for me to do this if I really want to. Try to make a huge impact with the 1.5 million companies that start for the solution that maybe I could provide.

The Inventive Journey

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

Get In Contact With The Guest

ai generated transcription

 so that's kind of my struggle what to do whether to stay with my current lifestyle which i really like coaching businesses and maybe writing books and tinkering with things or i should switch gears and try to go for it and you know i'm always thinking about ray kroc was i think was 53 or 54 when he started mcdonald's so maybe kind of maybe it's not too late for me to really do this if i really want to and and try to turn the business and and try to make a huge impact with this 1.5 million companies that are start for for the solution that maybe i could provide [Music] hey everyone this is devin miller here with another episode of the inventive journey i'm your host devin miller the serial entrepreneur has grown several startups and seven and eight figure businesses as well as the founder and ceo of miller ip law where he helps startups and small businesses with their patents and trademarks if you ever need help with yours just go to strategymeeting.com we're always here to help now today we have another great guest back on the podcast which was uh we chatted with about six months ago had him on and it's always fun to kind of do the where are you at now episodes where we get to kind of catch up see what's been going on lately and uh what's uh what's happened since last we heard from them so we're having uh steve preda on and i always want to say prada because i always think of devil where's prada so if i mess up the name one way or the other that's my excuse um but as far as a quick catch up so steve in the last six months has launched a books and from running it on amazon learned a little bit about how people might be misinterpreting the title or the book and uh how to adjust that a bit and what that means and also been working on a couple new ideas for um management blueprint and a platform to help people self-coach and we'll get into that conversation a little bit of that so with that much as as an introduction welcome on the podcast or back onto the podcast steve and devin it's great to be back on the podcast uh i'm excited to see you here on a friday afternoon and have a good chat absolutely and excited to have you back on so before we get into what's happened over the last six months and kind of what's been going on maybe give the audience kind of a reminder a refresher course if you know first of all encourage everybody to go listen to the original episode but if they wanted that crash course for that refresher course kind of remind us where you were at about six months ago six months months ago um i was just about to publish my book titled bible uh your guide to a self-managing fast-growing and high profit business so i was so in that excitement uh you know the first first book that i really launched and published and uh i also was facing a transition um so i was working i was a licensee of an organization called eos worldwide and they turned themselves into a franchise and i decided not to kind of tie myself into a franchise agreement and uh and i joined another organization called pinnacle which is taking everything that eos does which is helping small businesses get organized and have a structured execution process to a much higher level and that's that's the other thing that happened the last six months i was getting ready for that and this happened over the last six months i transitioned my clients to this new program called pinnacle so that's uh that's that's the these are the most important more salient points all right fair enough so now that much is kind of a refreshing reminder we'll dive into kind of what's going on with the last six months so one of the things that i think we touched on with the original episode which is a bit ongoing is you launch the book and you have um have it in the background they're buyable um and you know started promoting it on amazon so tell us a little bit about how the book launch went how the promotion's been going and he also mentioned a little bit about how people may have misunderstood the title and how you adjusted that or kind of um how people have you reframed that so give us a little bit of an introduction or a reminder as to how things have been going with the book yeah so so publishing a book is is about 10 writing the book and 90 promoting it so it's an arduous process i i started this last april just as the pandemic broke and it took me only six weeks to type up the first draft and then i spent the next year and a half now with you know tweaking it and and packaging it and promoting it so the last six months was all about launching it on amazon and asking for reviews getting people reviewing the book and then advertising the book and blogging about it talking about it on podcasts such as your podcast and and that was a really interesting experience with lots of ups and downs so uh you know uh it's not easy to get reviews i had probably 300 or 300 people promising to give me a review and i'm happy to report that i have about 65 reviews which uh you know which is just a fraction of the people but it's still a good number uh to have i'm excited about that um also the book hit the number one in its category in july so that was that was also exciting but what i learned in the process is that it's not about hitting number one because most anyone can get there with enough money put behind advertising but it's it's all about keeping it up in the ranking so that people actually see it over time it becomes a visible book and and people don't find it without the advertisement they can buy it and kind of help help your ideas gain traction so that's really the the secret and that's what i i've been trying to figure out the last couple of months how to make the book advertising self-financing which is which is very tricky especially for business books because people write business books because they want to generate business so uh so our non-fiction writers business book writers don't set out to make money on the book and therefore are willing to actually subsidize the purchase of books and therefore it's really difficult to make it self-financing but uh i i can say that i got fairly close to this not quite there yet but uh maybe i i can get like the break even that would be kind of a dream scenario where i could break even and just let it market itself so this is this is where i am uh with the book and um one kind of follow-up question to that so you know you've got the reviews and yeah i we have i've done a very light self-publishing book that was more of uh some of it's actually with this podcast we're taking some of those episodes um turning them into a book form and kind of making it a fun introduction but never really got into a lot of the promotion and then doing that it's always kind of watched a bit as far as others that i've known i've got into the promotion and always seems like you have the initial launch which do a lot of push and try and do pre-sales and try and get the reviews and then it's kind of building it out from there to make it uh more sustainable here you know ongoing area in the long run now i think as we talked a bit before one of the things you'd found out as you launched the book and people got it and they got into it and then further studied it and whatnot was that there was a a bit of a mismatch to release a portion of them based on the title of the book versus the content of the book so give people a bit of an insight as to how that transpired and what you learned there yeah so the the interesting uh thing about this book is that it straddles my a career as an investment banker so about up until about 10 years ago um eight years ago i i was an investment banker and i spent about 10 to 12 years building my own business and helping small to medium-sized businesses find buyers and investors so i always wanted to write about that stuff and i did blog and probably the newsletters i learned i had a lot of material and i felt like it would be nice to put in a book and the last eight years i spent as a business coach and i looked at things i've seen things from a different angle it was i was more focused about growing businesses rather than selling them and uh and i i wanted to put these two things together and the title suggests or what i meant to the title was that uh the per the objective is not necessarily to sell your business it's it is to make it buyable it make it turn it into a valuable asset that people want to own and that gives you options and what some of the people that read the book say well yes i saw the title but but i don't want to sell my business so i didn't read the book um and you know i was i was scratching my head okay how could i have changed the title um to you know to still be able to tell the story about how to make a business sellable but also to not put too much emphasis on selling the business and so that's that's just how how it happened and on the other hand i think bible has turned out to be a memorable title so you know the on the negative side it's sometimes misconstrued on the positive side it's it's quite catchy and and people tend to remember it no i i think so i think that definitely makes sense i can get a bit of the you know potential disconnect if they just very quickly thought about it or looked at the title maybe they didn't give it much thought or they didn't uh you know read any of the the summary or what it might be about then you know they're just you know you're just looking how to exit a company and so i think that you know definitely a lesson to learn as you're launching a book and as you're trying to it's always hard to guess how everybody's going to interpret things because everybody has their own background and how they might view a a word or a you know something or a title and so it is always interesting to see how people might perceive something differently now one one maybe this quick follow-up question to that so if you were to do it again so let's go back in history just a bit you were to redo the title read the book you know or you're at the beginning of the title in the book but knowing how people might perceive it or how they might have that disconnect is there anything you would change any lessons learned you're just saying hey it's still a great title most people catch it and for the ones that don't you know so be a type of a thing would there be anything that you would change or adjust now having hindsight 20 20. i would probably put a bubble under the title and say read the subtitle as well ah no i don't think i would change it so it's not it's not like a majority of people but just a couple of people uh raised this i had one of my uh former peers a business coach who said i write i really would like to refer you a client but he doesn't want to sell his business and he doesn't want to be seen to be thinking about selling his business and and you know this is really a problem that this is the title of your book and he was very upset about but eventually he did introduce me to that to that person and they become a client and it turned out to be storming a teapot not really a big issue uh after all so i think it's more of a perception thing no and i think so i said that's always one where you know you have to balance because sometimes you get feedback from people and you have to say okay is it a big portion you know hey i missed a mark and everybody is misconstruing it and if so then you're having to say okay then i may need to adjust on the other hand you're saying there's always going to be a portion of no matter how well you try and convey it make or convey that information and otherwise um provide it to them the people are just not going to get it and not i'm going to understand and i even get that and are some of our service base industry no we do as an example we do trademarks and i'll explain exactly how the process is what a trademark is what it covers what the fees are and we you know we try and be as comprehensive as possible no matter how much we explain that there is still a portion of their clients or potential clients that you'll go through all that and then you'll talk to them next time and it's like they they just didn't quite get it or they didn't understand it and so you're having to look and say hey is there something wrong with our process are we not convenient as well is there something we change or is there just simply a portion of the population that you're going to have to say it doesn't matter how well we do it they're going to still miss it and we're just going to have to accept that and move on and go for those you know the bulk of the people that it is going to resonate with so i think that you know it's one of those that you're always happy to assess and figure out well a couple other things that you would that we mentioned that you're working on so you have the book been promoting that continuing to say let's get a break even let's have making money and let's make your can continue to grow that and then you've also got into a couple other things we have one is an idea and you're thinking about maybe for a next book and some other aspects of the business of a management blueprint and then you're also looking at maybe uh building a platform that people can self-coach a bit about so gives an idea of kind of you know tease it out in the future so to speak as you're getting ready to or thinking about maybe going down these paths and these projects what that looks like and where you might be headed yeah i don't want to speak too much about these because you know i don't want to jinx it don't change yourself so do it so that you don't jinx yourself exactly i don't want to jinx it i don't want to you know there is this theory that if you have a great idea and you speak about it too much then you are kind of neutralizing the excitement of the idea you took it out and then you you will not be able to the energy use the energy of it to actually create the thing so i don't want to make that mistake but you know it's interesting when you write a book uh it's i guess i'm not a woman but my wife tells me and i read about this that and you have several children so maybe you can attest to this that women when uh when they give birth that they say ah never again i'm not gonna go through that again but then you you forget it you're bio biologically uh uh wired to to forget the experience and uh you know and uh three months later it's like it's never happened and i guess writing a book is is perhaps similar so it's it's a very arduous process but it's also a very rewarding process so when you're done after a few months you you start thinking oh what if what if i tried it again and wrote another book so so definitely i'll be going through that process as well and and one of the things i'm really obsessed about is this idea of management blueprints and i have report as you know you were a guest on my podcast management blueprint it used to be called something different but now it's called management blueprint podcast and i am really into this idea of trying to ferret out all those frameworks that people use to to build their business and every guest that comes on i always dig out something that they use that has not been on the show before and we can talk about it's a great resource for entrepreneurs so i am very obsessed about this idea and i'm thinking about writing a book about these management blueprints uh i write a fair bit about them in this book i wrote in this book but there's so many more out there and there are different ways of looking at that so i definitely think it would be an interesting topic for uh for entrepreneurs to be able to know okay what are the shortcuts we can take and how to run the business in a more structured fashion you know one one of the things that i stumbled upon during researching the bible is that there are 1.7 million 10 to 250 employee organizations companies in the us and the average life span of these organizations is eight and a half years so essentially 85 percent over 85 of these companies never make it to their 10th anniversary and they doing delivery they disappear or they never become a real business and my uh belief is that if companies had access to this information how to organize themselves better and how to structure themselves and align their people and engage their people better then maybe you know maybe all of those are this 90 of those 1.5 million companies that go out of business they could be saved and they could go perpetuity into the future and i made the calculation it would add uh 20 to our national gdp it would be a one-off and then it would raise our gdp by four percent every year going forward so we could grow faster than china if uh if we actually fix that issue so i'm very passionate about that potential that we we have to to improve companies and i definitely want to write some books uh about that in the future and uh you know i also mentioned to you so with this book i developed a handful of tools digital tools that my readers can go online and they can play with they can figure out what they want to do what is their i or does your their ideal life look like they can figure out what their magic number is what is the value of the company what is the value they need to create with their company and they can do a viability assessment so kind of an x-ray of where they are and what they need to do to make their businesses viable and i want to develop that these tools into a platform where people can coach themselves and can improve the business by just going on the platforms and playing with these tools no i think that that you know they hit on a lot of things one of the things i thought was interesting today kind of saying you know you almost have post-traumatic syndrome of when you write a book and i would say that there's a lot of things i think it's a human nature we tend to remember the good and tend to forget the bad which is probably a good thing otherwise if all we did was remember the bad things of going through an experience we would never do something again and we would never progress and so whether it's having a child whether it's starting a business because even a lot of startups are saying man that was a lot of work to get a startup up and going and get it stable and get funding and get revenue and marketing and sales and you know once you make the exit like you would really want to do this again and then you're like well you give it a little bit of time and you're like okay i got the bug i got to go do it again got a business getting up and going and then you get right back into it so i think that that's kind of a mantra throughout a lot of life is is probably a good thing that we only generally remember the good because that way we'll continue to progress so i think that that definitely makes sense and i see you know i get the uh opportunity you know you don't want to jinx it and you're still early on and there's a lot of a lot of things to move forward with the path forward but i think that it's kind of fun to always see where where the future where you think the future is headed and then whether or not you uh whether or not it works out the way you think it is sometimes it does other times it doesn't so well and as people as we start to wrap up um i always have one question at the end of each of the where you at now episodes which is a bit different than the uh the normal question i asked the initial uh introduction episode so for the where you at now episode the question i always ask is you know as you start into a venture as you start into a business or get something going or as you're you know getting a little further along when you initially start out you're kind of naive you know you think of hey these are things that you don't know what you don't know and so because you don't know when you're naive things are you know you you don't worry about things and you don't have the fears that come along afterwards because you don't know them yet but as you get farther along in your journey you know spheres start to creep in and you know it can be hey how do i make payroll how how do i continue to have consistent sales or how do i do this or that so all entrepreneurs start to get more fears as they go along now so with that as an introduction the question i always ask is along your journey what is one of the what is what is one of the biggest fears of develop and how do you deal with that fear well that's a great that's a great question and i do have uh this fear and you know i'm 54 years old and yeah i told you about this this digital platform that i'm kind of playing with i'm reading a lot of books about it uh what to do and my original idea was to kind of organically do this in a slow fashion but what i'm finding out is that i can't just do it on the side it wouldn't work i would have to dedicate a lot more energy to it essentially i would have to turn it into a startup and my fear is if if i did that that i raised some money i would become trapped by this and uh it would uh create a lifestyle that i would not enjoy so so that's kind of my struggle what to do whether to stay with my current lifestyle which i really like uh coaching businesses and maybe writing books and tinkering with things or i should switch gears and try to go for it and you know i'm always thinking about ray kroc was i think was 53 or 54 when he started mcdonald's so maybe kind of maybe it's not too late for me to really do this if i really want to and and try to turn the business and and try to make a huge impact with this 1.5 million companies that are start for for the solution that maybe uh i could provide so that's kind of uh my fear and uh i don't know where it's gonna go uh i'm still percolating on it hey i think that uh it's definitely you know figuring out the the path to travel the road you want to do and what that you know what is it what is next and how you want to you know go out in a blaze so to speak and there's still plenty of time left to figure that out is always when i think that this definitely makes sense as a fear and one that has to be dealt with so good luck with the fear and we'll have to see how it goes for you well as we wrap up if people want to uh find out more they want to you know get your book they want to if uh be a customer client or a purchaser of your book they want to be an investor in one of your next ventures they want to be an employee in one of your next ventures they want to be your next best friend any or all of the above what's the best way to reach out to you to contact you or find out more so you know they can sign me obviously the book on bible still free the bible or stevepredo.com very simple and if you want to check your company how viable it is then you can check buyabilityassessment.com buyabilityassessm.com and then you can answer those questions and you get an x-ray along six factors of viability where your business is and and you can figure things out how you can move forward from there all right well definitely encourage people to check out the book pick it up and also uh check it out online and do the assessment so also all great ways to connect up with you as well as on linkedin so well thank you again for coming back on the podcast it's been fun to catch up it's been a pleasure um now for all of you that are listeners if you have your own journey to tell or you want to catch up if you've already been on the podcast we'd love to have you either way um feel free to go to inventiveguest.com and apply to be on the show a couple more things make sure to um like and to share and otherwise uh um subscribe to the podcast so we can make sure that everybody finds out about all these awesome episodes and last but not least if you ever need help with patents trademarks copyrights or anything else in business just go to strategymeeting.com grab some time with us to chat and we're always happy to help thank you again steve it's been a fun it's been a pleasure and wish the next lay of your journey even better than the last sounds good thank you debbie and thanks for having me on absolutely

Get A Mentor

Julius Walkenhorst

Devin Miller

The Inventive Journey Podcast for Entrepreneurs
11/22/2021

 

Get a mentor who already has a lot of experience. When I joined Polar, for example, I got a lot of support and trust from one of the co-founders. I got promoted very fast to a very big position. The thing I learned the most is and would recommend to anyone is to learn a lot and in the best way possible to just get a mentor a see how he or she works.

The Inventive Journey

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

Get In Contact With The Guest

ai generated transcription

 get a mentor um who already has like a lot of experience because when i joined pola ai for example um i got very much support and uh trust from one of the co-founders who i worked with like the closest i'd say um i as as i already told you um i got promoted quite fast to a very big position um and that that is basically the thing where i learned the most and i definitely recommend anyone and to to just learn a lot and this is a michael's um in the best way possible to just get a mentor and see how he or she works [Music] hey everyone this is devin miller with another episode of the inventive journey i'm your host devin miller the serial entrepreneur that's grown several startups in the seven and eight figure businesses as well as the founder and ceo of miller ip law where we help startups and small businesses with their patents and trademarks if you ever need help with yours just go to strategymeeting.com and are always here to help now today we have another great guest on the podcast julius walkenhorst or as close as i can get to say in his name as a quick introduction to julius so graduated from high school and started his first company in age of 18 co-founded the business with a friend not much business experience and the business failed after about a month um and then he found that he had a huge interest in the tech field um taught himself coding went into a tech startup in california uh was connected up via reddit i think um yep look to get experience not pay uh became the chief of staff and the first non-founder no non-founder employee there um at the end of uh end of the month uh or there will be now 14 employees or something of one that nature um and then has had uh they have several or thousands or a thousand active users and then also became the founder and board member of another company that's a non-for-profit in uh germany and then also did some uh things related to an ngo for the business and taking donations and making those more transparent so with that much as an introduction welcome on the podcast julius yes thanks for having me i'm pretty much excited to to talk to you today absolutely excited to hear a bit about your journey so i took a much more uh a longer journey and condensed it into 30 seconds but now let's unpack that a bit so tell us a little bit about graduating in high school and starting your first business at 18. yeah sure um i always knew that i wanted to start my own thing uh we basically came to the idea quite fast uh we funded the we founded the company like i would say within one week or so and everything scaled pretty much very fast uh we set up like the whole production within a couple of weeks a lot launched also like pretty fast i would say like one month after we started the old project actually um let me just out of here what was the uh what was the uh business or what or what was the the thing that you initially set up out of high school yeah it was a pure fashion label um i'm not quite sure why we decided to make it as a as a fashion label actually because i would say the the the actual um the actual motivation behind everything was just to to do something on our own um and to have like some sort of first step into the door of the of the whole world of entrepreneurship starting your own thing um and then we pretty much recognized also quite soon that we really wanted to focus ourselves individually on other projects as well for example i got more and more interested into a whole into this tech world silicon valley uh the u.s everything where basically everything is way bigger than here in germany um so yeah then i got into pola to polari as an unpaid intern proof myself and became the chief of staff after three months we are now actually 16 people i'd say um we will raise our first round fingers crossed in in february next year and 2022. so just backing up just because we kind of jumped to now where you're at today and we want to capture a bit of that story so just backing up a bit so you had coming out of high school had the friend that was a co-founder started the fashion business right and got into the fascist business and i think you said you know after you kind of got it set up and launched you really found out within about a month that it wasn't going to work or that it kind of failed and it didn't go the way you wanted and is that correct up to that point in the story it wasn't one month i would say it was like actually six months okay um until we realized hey all right uh on the one side um our attraction went down a bit um and on the other side we simultaneously we got more and more interested to other other things for example our studies or when it came to me uh my my interest in tech um and programming and the whole world in the in the silicon valley so yeah that was basically the reason got it so you're saying okay it sounds like it's kind of a combination that was going to be my question you know why it failed sounds like kind of two things one is you started your interest in the fashion industry kind of started to dip and at the same time you also see the kind of penetration sales and whatnot also wasn't getting the level you guys wanted so you're saying okay while it was kind of a fun initial entrance and it was kind of a great experience it wasn't necessarily the business you wanted to stay into so as you're seeing that kind of go down and otherwise not continue to be the area you want to be into what did you do did you say hey i'm going to go start another business or maybe i'll go off to university or to college or you know i'll take a break or kind of what did you do as you say okay our first business wasn't working out because it didn't really not work out i would say we did quite well for our first company um but the thing is that the growth just wasn't there as uh compared to the first couple of months and this connected to to my interest into tech um i decided to just focus myself on getting new hard skills uh for example like i i didn't really had a lot of real work experience um besides it besides this first project basically so i decided to to teach myself programming i teach myself flask programming um python 3 and html5 and then realized hey yeah this is actually quite quite a lot of fun but because i'm not an engineering student or computer science student i pretty much recognized that i really wanted to do to be on the business side of this whole tech world and yeah no and i think that makes sense so it was a good introduction for you to be able to get followed or continue to fall in love with being an entrepreneur doing a startup you got some experience you saying okay i'm really more interested in the tech field and so that's where i want to kind of focus on so with that is kind of the idea in the direction of where you're now going to be headed now as you're kind of taking what am i going to do next or where am i going to go yeah how did you figure out what was your next steps um i would say after i teach myself like those programming skills um i definitely knew that i need experience in the field so i i i dived into like linkedin for example our angel list and looked up a couple of uh yeah cool tech startups uh which i liked and just shooted them them a message with my application and basically with the text hey um i'm i'm available for you for free basically um but how i got to polari was basically a different story um i love reddit for example i think it's a it's one of the good social networks actually um and i saw in a post in i'm not quite sure which subreddit it was i think our co-founders because it was basically separated around uh where to find the co-founder how to find it etc and i uh saw a post that someone was looking for i think a design co-founder um for the whole product design site etc and um i looked up the product and i really really liked it i saw a lot of potential in it and i just messaged the the the um the post owner basically or one of the co-founders um that i'm willing to be an unpaid growth intern so pretty much on the on the business side of everything um with the only condition that i want to see professional progress in my career at this company and that i really want to see growth in the company internally as well um so yeah so let me just maybe maybe summarize that or unpack that a bit so you got into technology you taught yourself coding and then you're saying okay i want i value experience more than necessarily a paycheck not that you don't need money to live off of it but you're saying hey i can i can figure that out what i really want is that experience be able to keep or get going so now as you're going out and trying to get that experience if i understand it right you went on to reddit find other people that you thought were in that realm of technology that you you know in that startup realm that you go get experience and did you just reach out to them and say hey i'd love to work with you you don't need to pay me a lot or i'll work for free or something of that nature all i'm looking for is experience is that kind of how you made that connection yes exactly i had i of course had some some some good experience for example i was uh the chairman of of the youth parliament of my hometown which was also like not very normal i would say um but the the only thing that was missing was my was my really professional experience so i told them hey i'm a fast learner you don't have to pay me anything so so there's no real downside for you um but the only thing i want is basically experience and um yes it is some good learnings from your side now when you reached out to them and did you just reach out to one individual did you reach out to multiple individuals via reddit um on reddit that was only once the case when i saw the post of one of the co-founders on on reddit otherwise i i just messaged them on angellist uh a platform that i can really recommend to everyone who really wants to dive into like this whole startup world and it in and is interested around the whole topic around venture capital startups growth and status and scaling um and yeah i just sent my normal application um yeah so so now you reach out to them and you say okay i'm willing to work for nothing or next to nothing and i just want the experience as long as you're willing to give me that i'm willing to come and uh help out with the business you know how did they react were they saying yay free work we've got an employee that we don't have to pay anything that will help us build it or you know say oh this sounds like too good to be true or kind of how do they react and how did you make the connection and get going with them some people were very open for my offer and some not because with my knowledge now i also know that it's not quite free for them as well because as a startup the only big thing you you have against yourself is time and to to to to teach some unpaid intern um a lot of learnings costs a lot of resources um also for also also the company so i definitely understand now that not everyone wants really an unpaid intern that hasn't really a lot of professional experience because it just slows some departments down when you have too much too much unpaid interns or interns in general well one of the other things i've seen is that even if it is you know you're saying hey i'll come work for free and i'll you know and i just want experience you're also saying hey we have to train you we have to provide a space for you we have to over review your work and so it's not truly free in their sense but it's a you know a reduced cost to them because now they're just saying we have to offset that cost but we don't have to pay a salary but now you say okay you found the business that you know was interested in it they're saying yeah there's a good opportunity i think it'll be a good match so did you move to california or silicon valley to go get the experience or did you work remotely and how did you kind of get that ball kicked off and how did it go once you started with them because i studied uh study still simultaneously here in germany the only option for me was always to work fully remote um which is a good thing in the in when i look at it now because it also teach me to work or to build my own projects fully remotely as well because i'm just so used to it um to work like with people from a whole different continents especially um together that was a very good learning for me and uh not being present also has its different disadvantages for example the lack of of being able to really network that well especially when you're young and um new to a company but otherwise uh remote work has like a lot of uh advantages for me okay so no i think that makes sense so now question i didn't quite catch in there did you come to silicon valley or did you stay in uh or stay and work remotely i said here and work remotely all right so now you're working remotely you're getting the experience you're saying hey this is exciting i get to work for a tech company get to use my skills going to be kind of the first non non-founder employee or not or non-founder or worker um did you are you still with them do you still do it or did you move on to the ngo kind of help us bridge the gap because i think when we talked you're still doing stuff with them but how did you continue how did your journey progress on it once you got started with them yeah when i got promoted to the chief of staff um i really much recognized that i learned a lot in the last couple of months i'm still learning uh but that was basically the first time where i realized hey i'm quite quite far in my personal career and uh went upwards like a lot in the car last couple of weeks or a month especially um and then i got an offer from from one guy who started a small media company here in germany that was mostly related to startups and venture capital news um and he asked me hey i i saw your experience you're also quite young um do you want to join as a board member and ceo and just scale everything up and it was a quite good possibility for me to prove myself as well that i have that i gained some sort of experience and a lot of skills so we skated from four to i think 18 team members with in a couple of weeks i think it was like one and a half month actually so everything went upwards pretty fast um but because it was a project i pretty much recognize really soon that if i do something non-profitably um it should be like very well it should have like a a big social impact so as i i decided to to just be an advisor to the board um and and start third eighth which is not my ngo but uh i'm i'm still with polar eyewear i'm the chief of staff still so now you're saying you're still the chief of staff you've kind of been promoted you're still working your way up and then as you're doing that i think you've also gone into a bit of ngos and donations and making them more transparent and helping that is that a separate business that you you started up in the meantime that's the site hustle or kind of how did you balance out um i would say it's a site it's a side project um there's already a team existing with i think team hubs in five different countries uh we are currently in germany austria italy singapore and croatia actually and because i always donated monthly to um a pretty famous and big ngo but i never really knew um where my money goes into basically um i definitely want to always wanted to make like this whole process of donating more transparent also to make like donations itself more transparent um to just make this world a better place and i think we are on the on the right path there well that sounds you know that's always i think exciting because i think that that is one of the areas where people oftentimes are a bit hesitant to donate to donaire you know to ngos or to other charitable organizations because you kind of donate and then you never really see what happens after the fact it's not very transparent how much of your money actually goes to the you know to the actual charity versus how much goes to your salaries or promotions or other things and so it always kind of feels like a black box where hey i feel good that i donated but i don't really know what happened to the money afterwards so so that kind of takes it to a bit of the present so you're continuing to be you know chief of staff and you're also doing the ngo project so now you're looking now if we were to say looking a bit into the future so you still love startups you still love technology you're doing you know the site hustle as well as a full-time gig where do you see the next you know six to 12 months going for you i definitely want to pursue both of my projects so on the one hand polari as i already said we are raising in the next couple of next couple of months which will be also like a huge opportunity for myself which will be um yeah also career-wise also financially wise um on the other side i definitely want to scale up third eight to really make it as the platform for donating this is definitely my long long term goal but also um i definitely can see myself as a as a for-profit founder as well again um this is basically that what makes me most happy um and i definitely see myself after everything went successful with pola and um and third eighth that i will start my my own thing again [Music] well sounds like it will be an exciting and fun time as you continue to progress and continue to build things so with that now as we kind of brought ourselves into you know brought everybody up to the the or the president even looking a bit into the future it's a great time to transition into the two questions i always ask at the end of each podcast we'll jump to those now so the first question i always ask is along your journey what was the worst business decision you ever made what did you learn from it i wouldn't necessarily say that it was a pure decision i would say it was more of an attitude i think it would be in my case not being flexible enough when it comes to adjusting bad bad decisions let me give you an example for example when we scaled up venture news the uh media startup startup here in germany pretty fast we recognized that our onboarding process wasn't that effective as it should be to keep the pace of hiring uh on the same on the same level so [Music] there was like two or three times the situation where new team members didn't really knew directly from the beginning uh what what they should do uh which slowed everything like a bit down so that was basically a very bad decision in my in my opinion or attitude at least um yeah no and i think that you know that one is that's always a hard one because you know you always want to be flexible and you always intend to say hey i'm willing to learn from mistakes otherwise with justin piven yet when you get into it it's always one where you know to actually take that feedback make those adjustments make that pivot is something that takes i think a bit of time to be able to appreciate it and to understand how to do it so i think that that's definitely a mistake to see to make but a good one to learn from second question i always ask is if you're talking to someone that's just getting into a startup or a small business what would be the one piece of advice you give them get a mentor um who already has like a lot of experience because when i joined pola ai for example i got very much support and uh trust from one of the co-founders who i worked with like the closest i'd say um i as as i already told you um i got promoted quite fast to a very big position um and that that is basically the thing where i learned the most and i definitely recommend anyone and to to just learn a lot and this is a micros um in the best way possible to just get and mentor and see how he or she works um yeah no i think that that you know that mentor and having someone that you can learn from and gain experience from is definitely valuable you know i think that a lot of times people tend to focus on hey i need to make money as soon as possible and i want to be rich i want to be unicorn which are all great aspirations don't get me wrong but i think if you miss the point of hey what i need to do is build the foundation and the network and the experience and the skill set to be able to be successful everybody just wants to jump right to the end point rather than doing the work on the front end so i think that is uh definitely a great piece of advice oh go ahead yeah i i totally agree to that and i think it's also like a great possibility for for for your mentor as well to gain like some sort of new um or or unusual perspective on on a couple of things uh as especially due to due to the age difference no i think that's that's definitely a good point as well well as people want to reach out to you they want to be a customer they want to be client whether it's for the the you know the full time or the the normal or the business you're working at or the side hustle with the ngo um they want to be an investor and then with the the raise that you're doing they want to be your next best friend any or all of the above what's the best way to reach out to you contact you find out more that would be definitely linkedin um you will find me right away when you just google my name um in linkedin or on google um otherwise definitely check out getpolarize.io or angel.com third um those are my two projects and yeah just stay tuned and my linkedin profile i will basically announce everything uh every every major update all right i think that's a great way to connect definitely encourage people to do so and to to reach out and uh and utilize the services or make a great connection or at least a new new best friend so with that thank you again for coming on the podcast it's been a fun it's been a pleasure now for all of you that are listeners if you have your own journey to tell them you'd like to be a guest on the podcast we'd love to have you so just go to uh inventiveguest.com and apply to be on the show a couple more things make sure to always as always listen subscribe and share the podcast so both you and everybody else can know when or know when our awesome episodes come out and we can help others with their journey last but not least if you ever need help with your patents your trademarks or anything else go to strategymeeting.com we're always here to help and always happy to chat with you well best of luck on our best of luck julius and wish the next lego journey even better than the last thank you very much it was my pleasure you

How To Do Business To Business Sales

Mark Colgan

Devin Miller

The Inventive Journey Podcast for Entrepreneurs
11/18/2021

 

Think about distribution. Think about who also speaks to my audience and how could I potentially partner with them? How can I find a win-win-win solution for the potential customers, the partner, and myself? Distribution is the shortcut to business growth. For us, we really did not do too much marketing at all. We focused on distribution which got us our early customers and still several customers at the moment through these partners that we have established. It's a long game but, distribution is your shortcut.

The Inventive Journey

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

Get In Contact With The Guest

ai generated transcription

 

Start Small With Your Purchases

Seth Goldstein

Devin Miller

The Inventive Journey Podcast for Entrepreneurs
11/17/2021

 

Start small. Be methodical with your purchases. You might think you need XYZ to do your job. How can you go about doing that with what you have? Let's say it's a small business that once to start doing website design. You don't need adobe creative suite. You don't need this five hundred dollar a month piece of equipment to do stuff. How can you figure out how to do it with a text editor? How can you figure out how to do it with what you have on your computer? Or what can you use the trial for? A lot of companies give you a trial for a month. Try for a month.

The Inventive Journey

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

Get In Contact With The Guest

ai generated transcription

 start small be methodical with your purchases you might think you need x y and z to do your job how can you go about doing that with what you have let's say it's a small business that wants to start doing website design you'll need adobe creative suite you don't need this you know 500 hour you know a month piece of equipment to do stuff how can you figure out how to do it with a text editor how can you figure out how to do it with what you have on your computer or what can you use the trial for because obvious companies give you trials for a month try it for a month [Music] hey everyone this is devin miller here with another episode of the inventive journey i'm your host devin miller the serial entrepreneur that's grown several startups in the seven and eight figure businesses as well as the founder and ceo of miller ip law where we help start up some small businesses with their patents and trademarks you ever need help with yours just go to strategymeeting.com and we're always here to help now today we have another great guest on the podcast uh seth goldstein and as a quick introduction to seth so water in high school wanted to start or one or got into uh doing web design as a junior and i wanted to do some digital marketing but that didn't exist in 2000 so went into or went to college and got a major in history and journalism to learn how to write and fell in love with their journalism and then also started doing websites on the side as well did journalism for about six years got burned out with that so decided to go full time into web web design and uh for the first five years was uh figuring out how to do that had a uh son that was born decided to go back to corporate america for a bit of time decided didn't love corporate america but learned a lot about business so left corporate america and started his own thing and been doing it ever since so with that much as an introduction welcome on the podcast app hey devon wow well that's it now see you guys out later he summed it up right just like the old seinfeld you'll leave on a high note so even a high note no absolutely no that's exactly kind of how it worked so i like people yeah yeah the brief and condensed version of it but let's let's take a bit a journey back in time to high school and hear the full or full-size version of the the journey so tell us a little bit about how the journey got started in high school for you well the journey got started everyone in a college in high school knew i was gonna be a journalist before i did i started the school paper which then fizzled after i left the high school but you know it they all everyone knew when i came back after college to visit and say hi to people they're like oh we knew you're going to be a journalist and i'm like how did it well school paper you ran the school paper i'm like oh okay i just thought that was for fun i just thought i was being creative no but they actually thought that you know i was going to be a journalist and sure enough i was um but i also really i really liked web design i like being creative like creating things so the idea of me doing the newspaper in high school was that i went to a small prep school two hour two hour train trip hour train trip away from my house so i had to accept the you know southeastern regional whatever except it stands for um the regional rails you know into philadelphia and out to the western suburbs from the northern suburbs every day so four hours round trip so i had plenty of time to kill so i was like let me think about what i can do during this time god forbid i did my homework you know god forbid but i did my homework but that was quick and i got that done and then i had they give us a laptops back then these are a lot bulkier than we have now and and there's no wi-fi back then or anything like that so what can i do on this computer no internet at the time you know it was internet but not on the trains what could i do so i opened up i opened up page maker or or publisher one of the two and started just fooling around in there like let me start with school paper the little prep schools they're very all about us having these side projects these side hustles so i did that and i got some kids to write for i was the only junior and senior that was in the respective years was allowed in the staff lounge to print it out on a white copy paper so i was the only one i had that privilege like go for it seth so i did that then one of the development director's son was doing web design and he came he and his wife their team came to our our career day and started talking about web design they're like this i'm like this is cool the web was kind of sh it was aoli but used right after aol it's really when people are like oh i can actually go to the web and type www something and get somewhere down just press buttons and so i started doing that i helped build up the school's what first website which is when i was like a little extra credit fun little activity we did did that went off went off to university of delaware and i'm like i want to do advertising i want to do web design didn't really exist i mean it was all kind of wild west back then and so i was like well what can i do i don't want to take accounting i do not want to take accounting i wish i took some business classes i did not but i went and i was like well journalism kind of shows i can write and history shirts that i can write keep in mind they're two different complete different writing styles one's big long convoluted paragraphs one's like every sentence is a paragraph so i always got a's in my history classes in college but never got a pluses because i could never write like a historian ever because they were all coming i couldn't i could not form a paragraph in my head they were so used to writing for the eye but anyhow long story short i actually talked to now president biden he was a senator at the time a university of delaware grad go blue hens and he was walking by the press office apparently when i was talking them on the phone that's something delaware related and he got on the phone with me and started talking to me nice guy definitely a genuinely nice guy regardless of what you think of his politics or anything like that he's a sweet guy and he's like i know the review i'm an alumni and we talked for a half an hour and at that point i was like this is cool i got like been by the bug of journalism and so i got out of college joined a um evening paper out in south central pennsylvania called the evening sun did that for seven months even cops reporting still a lot of gnarly stuff cars wrapped around trees and poles no murders or anything because nothing happens out in south central pennsylvania there's more cows than there are humans but those humans get a little lacks with their driving skills and crash their cars and that was that's a whole nother story so left that went back to back to the east coast of pennsylvania and worked for the local paper here for the remainder of my career and it was a township township store stories you know arguing with the township supervisors like yeah please give me your tax records and need to see them open law you know sign sunshine law and all that stuff so did all that got out of that and i went to sales for a little bit while i was doing that my wife my now wife my then girlfriend and fiance was like except you're miserable you don't want to do sales necessarily sales no one question before so you were in journalism and then you jumped over to sales so is that kind of the interim you're burned out with journalism saying i don't necessarily want to do that so what made you go to sales it was a job it paid the bills it was literally something that like everyone's like hey you're social you're friendly try this kind of one of those things you go on the monster.com you go on the career builder ever there's tons of sales jobs so i worked for a small am a national not a small a national container company selling big container boxes to construction sites anyhow so that long story short i went into web design there's no website you should need to get a portfolio put together so you can get to get the job you have to have experience to get the experience that whole rigorous did that went back to university arts got a certificate in web design i did that for five years before i realized i need to get a full-time job because my son was born he had some complications at birth he's fine now and going into corporate america you know whereas you went to school for nine years as we talked on my podcast the nba did jd all that stuff i did i did the the journalism degree but then i did it in real life mba where i kind of figured out oh okay this is what business is oh here's some business experience wow i should have taken some business courses so we got after about a year there i was like i don't like corporate america i just don't i am an entrepreneur i like being creative and all that stuff left left corporate america went back into gold see me again and i've been there ever since and by i don't regret my time in corporate america because i learned a lot more the second version of gold cmu is a lot less of a cluster than the first one so no no it's interesting because i'll give you this a little bit of a parallel in the sense that you know as you're well aware and we talked before i run my own law firm and i love it and i think it's a great thing but i worked for you know big law firm for it was am1 law 100 big firm lots of attorneys for about you know uh several years of my career that's important and that that is corporate that you know for law that's corporate and i kind of had the same realization not that i didn't i didn't dislike it but i just say it i don't fit well with it and i like to do my own thing and have my own direction do things differently and i think a lot of times better and so when i was looking at it basically saying you know i wouldn't change it i would still go to get that corporate experience because it gave me a lot of great resources for how i'm going to you know good tools for how i'm going to run my own law firm in the sense of you know what are good practices what should i be considering and then i say and the things i don't like i'll just go out the window but i think that it's it's one that is just because you don't the experience isn't one where you want to do long term it can still offer a lot of expertise and a lot of good experience yeah when i learned when i went both these experiences journalism like everything you learn in college they say throw out you have the basis but learn in the real world everything in sales are like you know i'm glad i took that year of sales because it was like a sales training i don't know how does it because when you're running your own business you kind of got to sell so yeah yeah doesn't matter which business you're in you're always in the sales business in the sense always whether it's a product a service or anything else if people are going to pay you for something you have to be able to sell them or be able to explain to them so i always think sales experience is always good no matter what you're doing oh absolutely and especially as a lawyer too i mean i'm sure you're like because you have to sell and you have a big price tag so it's like you know say with web design i mean basic website for me is around 6 500 i have to sell that this is the value of this this is the reason why you want to pay this versus going on fiverr and that's the whole idea is that you gotta sell sell the value sell the you know hey you're also dealing with me do you like my personality you like working with me that kind of thing so the sale every bit of experience i've had there's been no no regrets because everything is built upon experience no and i think that that's that's definitely a good point so now they say okay did corporate america didn't like that got the sales experience want to do my own thing so what made you decide i mean i know you had that interest earlier and you kind of get it off and on but how did you decide okay i'm just going to make the leap and i'm going to go do web design for my full-time gig and see if i can make it go of it ironically the first at least goes to we have ghost media version one version two both of them were like well the first one was like you're going to get a job seth that's my other now wife said you're going to get a job the whole idea is to get the experience to get the job turns out i didn't want to get the job i'm kind of she realizes that now that i didn't want to get the job i kind of like enjoy being on my own but also once you get into an entrepreneurial mindset it's hard to get out of it and be able to work for the man work for the woman work for the person and that's the thing and i realized that i got i'm completely unhirable now i'm hireable to work with a company i'm hireable to you know i work with some big startups and you know they bring me in i have to work on their timetable i work on you know we meet weekly and all that stuff but still on my own boss like i can tell them alright this isn't working see you later and i can go leave and you know bad thing there is i don't get unemployment that's the bad thing but other than that i mean i i i've liked being an entrepreneur i my brain's meant for that i feel like people have the brain for it or they don't no i agree some people think they have the brain for it and still don't but that's the difference you gotta try it though oh i completely but i think even yeah that's a complete aside but i think even the people that don't have the brain for it the thing they do go out and try it see if you'd like it and if you don't then you know that you don't want to do that anymore and it's kind of a bite i tried it and it's not for me and i will go and be happy where i'm at because i know that it's not something i want to do but so now now following on to your journey is okay you decided okay i i don't want to do corporate america i got some good experience i want to go do my own thing i'm going to do web design so you make that leap now was it a good leap was it you know hey i started the business day one i was making raking in the dough and i had lots of clients was it a slow burn and a slow build and figuring out how you reach people or kind of how did you go about doing that well version one was a dumpster fire i'll tell you that right off the bat like i had no idea what the heck i was doing um kicked off a bunch of clients you know figured stuff out and all that stuff version two came out of corporate america no kind of having my head screwed on a little bit straighter and really figured out that i need to have a process in place i need to have the stuff written down i have to have things you know i have to say hey do i need a designer and i have a designer now that i work with do i have do i need a copywriter you you have to realize what do what you you're good at and hire for the rest i'm sure devon you have a paralegal you can't do everything i'm sure you have other lawyers in your firm too because you can't do it all yourself you know there's a part of me that wishes i could do i think there's always a part of entrepreneurs who think they can always do it themselves and then as you grow and get big you're like okay i even if i could though i could do it all myself i don't have the time to do it all myself so you have to afford you also have four kids i mean if you wanna have you know you have to even outsource to them sometimes too so it's like exactly so so now you so you did okay version one was a dumpster fire we said okay coming out of corporate america got the experience and i'm going to do it a bit different which will hopefully work better what was that difference kind of what did you learn and how did you make the second go round better than the first it was the processes i learned in corporate america i worked for a subsidiary of merck and so it was i mean i really went into corporate america not like small business america but corporate corporate america and realizing they had their standard operating procedures everything had a place now i'm telling you right now five six years out of that you know version two not everything has its place you can look at my desk and everything has its place now either even in the physical world but the idea was that with processes i'm able to be more efficient with my time realizing that i shouldn't be doing all the design work myself i should be the one that's doing the biz dev going out there and it goes back to sales you know going back and selling but i'm the thing is i think the different thing with that with sales is that i was selling context boxes construction sites i mean there's a sales person for everything but i wasn't selling something i was passionate about whereas now i'm selling something i'm really passionate about and i love and i can talk about it inside and out and upwards and downwards and all that stuff and i'm able to really be past and people see how passionate i am about it and i won't work with that guy because he seems because they don't know until they work with me that he seems to know he's talking about and he but he's fun to work with and i want to be that guy that's fun to work with you know i want to be the guy that can actually get the solution out there for the person deliver a website on a reasonable timetable and not jerk their chains in any way you know because i mean web design just like in the legal profession there are snake oil people in there and i haven't been i'm not one of them i know and i i absolutely agree on this thing and you know those are the people that give the attorneys a bad name then it's like ah like we're not all like that trust me but it it you know you have to but that's the same thing on web design because you know earlier on i designed our first website and now we have something that does a much better job i think we did it i did a decent job but it was one that i was not a designer and i've come to find out i am not the person that makes it look nice i can have the conceptual the idea the direction of what i want to accomplish but to make it look polished and just out of the park i have to rely on someone else and i think that that's something that you kind of come to figure out you know where are your strengths what are the places you can really add value that's revokes your time and the things that yes you might be able to do if you had enough time but you're not going to add that same level value that's where you need to hand those off oh absolutely and knowing that and being brave enough to do that but just also another thing is just because you hand something off this means you're hands off it means you hand it off you still have to kind of keep an eye on it because regardless of how good the person you hand it off to is every once in a while i mean they dropped the ball but if they drop the ball you're dropping the ball because the buck stops with you not them you can't say well my designer dropped the ball who cares you're the one that i'm dealing with you drop the ball you fix it so the idea is you have to stay on everybody you don't want to micromanage it micromanagers managing is the worst thing but you want to at least check in and say hey how's this going how's this going a lot of fun changes i definitely agree and i you know i think that's one thing that my my philosophy is you start you give them a little bit of rope you keep you know you start they start out you give them some training give a very small amount of rope and they have to basically earn the trust because you're right if you if something gets screwed up the people that or the client isn't going to come to the person that you you know that did that thing they're going to come to the boss and say what are you going to do to fix this this is messed up and what am i paying you for and you're going to be the one to fix it so you still have to have that accountability now i'm going to refocus or just shift back to the journey a little bit so now absolutely you made this shift you said okay 2.0 learn my lessons from corporate i'm going to do it a bit different and i definitely agree on you know processes and and having that in place so you have that all figure you start to get that figured out now how long have you been doing the the version 2.0 and how long you've been offering that service six years it's been six years since corporate and i think it's been a total of i'd say i've been doing i've been doing it you know above board where the irs knows about me since 2000 to 2008 the best time to start a job you know right now go wait wait till there's a crash in the economy and then go start a job why not exactly people can really afford websites then luckily then i was charging a lot less than i am now so they were like oh we can afford it we can afford that you know yeah you know no no but i think that so now you've do it but doing it for six years now so you have the better corporate experience but how is that six years gone maybe has it just been a rocket ship to the top and it's been non-stop growth and bringing out bombers it's definitely been bumps and especially with kovid shockingly i was about the same as it was in 2019 as it turned out to be in 2020. i didn't make more money because it was kovit for crying out loud but a lot of people i was i actually positioned myself not knowingly for a for a job that everyone needed someone's help on they needed to get online they needed an e-commerce store they needed some seo help they needed everything went online because nothing in the real world the in the physical world could be dealt with could be a freaking pandemic you know we we and we didn't and the thing about that is we didn't know what we know now about covid that you can touch things and not really get it it's airborne which is imagined much better than touching things but regardless last year and this year 2021 has been gangbusters because i've been able to capitalize on the fact that that you need to be online you need to have an online storefront for your store you need to have that presence for your legal firm your consulting company you can't because you're not going out shaking hands as much you're doing it over zooms and as good as that is it's not nearly as good as is knocking on doors so it's been very good lately but it's definitely it's entrepreneurship it's it's a roller coaster i mean there's there's months where i'm like my wife will look at me she does my books and she's like you didn't bring anything in this month i'm like oh god it feels like i did because i've been working on stop all month but it just so shocked and it land in that month no no i i think that you know it's interesting how you know going back just a little bit we said of the colbit thing you know i first of all i'm tired of hearing about copenhagen but out of all of that i think everybody is just completely fatigued with or hearing about covet and everything that's going on but i think that the interesting is you know is people that either realize it or position themselves well or already positioned were the ones attended to pivot and thrive and yet it's also interesting that you can have two businesses that are the same and saying oh cobit has been a blessing you know in the sense that the business has been up or it's been a complete downer and they'll be in the same industry and yet one will figure out how to navigate it and to adjust to it and adjust their sales process and their pitch and everything else and others are just wanting to stick with the old way of doing it which doesn't lend itself well so i think that it's great that you're able to figure that out or at least keep things moving forward and it was figured out for me which is always the best way to have it so so now you so now that kind of catches us up to a present before we dive to the last questions at the end um you know just looking a bit into the future the next six to 12 months kind of where do you see things headed what are the next steps for you really i see myself pivoting more and more into optimization and so you build the website but you build the website and does it exist if no one knows it's there it's like a tree falls in the forest it did fall because it's a physical object if you build a website and it's just up there no one knows it's there i was it's a waste of hard drive space literally and so my goal is to get all my clients and help other companies get found online so my big push is pushing my seo expertise and all that next you know six 12 months out there and so far we're also we've also niched down the company a little bit we're focusing more on funded startups legal firms you know b2b companies that are helping other businesses get fat you know with their services and stuff and the but since i live in the philadelphia area which is the biotech and life science capital of the world i'm focusing on the biotech sector for websites and optimization because it's a they're kind of like an offshoot of the startup world it's in the you know biotech world no that's my goals for the next few months a few months really hone on those no i think that that sounds like it'll be a fun and exciting direction and definitely one to keep an eye on so well now as we do or start to wrap towards the end of the podcast uh we will jump to the two questions i always ask the enemy's podcast now as a reminder to the listening audience we are going to do the bonus question where we live years and talk a little bit about intellectual property which is always a fun topic for me so if you want to hear that their question and answer make sure to stay tuned if not i understand it's not for everybody no worries but um before we jump to that the last two questions i ask on each episode first question i always ask is along your journey what was the worst business decision you ever made and what did you learn from it oh wow that is a good one worst business experience that i've learned or thing i did was i over promised under delivered and it was something else it was back before i got into wordpress it was 0809 and someone wanted a store i'm like oh i can do that because of course you fake it till you make it and not always wise and what i learned from it was that you don't fake it till you make it you actually know what you're talking about first or at least let them know that you're going to learn with them prepare them with expectations saying hey i've never done this before here's a price break on what i'm going to give you so i can learn it because i've done that recently with doing a learning management system for a client i said normally i'm gonna probably charge you know five six seven eight grand i'm gonna give it to you for a thousand because this is our time essentially but we're gonna learn how to build it out with you because we've never done one before and they were ecstatic like we'll be guinea pigs you know and because we're getting a huge price break and then we get to learn on the job and that's what i learned is that like if you're not if you have to learn don't fake that you know it just admit it say hey i'd love to learn with you and i'll do it for cheap because i have to figure it out you know and it might take eight weeks versus three or four so no i think that is uh definitely a good point it is one that's hard because you always your tendencies you always want to over promise because then you can land the cell and they'll go with you and you know you think oh well you know they'll they'll still be happier i'll figure it out and then when you over promise when you actually go to deliver they're saying well you said you do all these things it would be different and it ends up having the adverse and so is i think to your point much better to set realistic or you know react or expectations are based on reality and then when you either meet those or you exceed them it's a much better experience and getting to the end so i think that that is one it's easy to do because you're wanting to land the cell and you kind of feel like oh i'll make these promises and we'll we'll get we'll beat most of those expectations kind of like politicians usually do not get into politics but you know so i think that that is a great uh lesson to learn under promise over deliver absolutely flip that around yeah so now the second question i always ask is you're talking to somebody that's just getting into a startup or small business would be the one piece of advice you'd give them start small be methodical with your purchases you might think you need x y and z to do your job how can you go about doing that with what you have let's say it's a small business that wants to start doing website design you'll need adobe creative suite you don't need this you know 500 hour you know a month piece of equipment to do stuff how can you figure out how to do it with a text editor how can you figure out how to do it with what you have on your computer or what can you use the trial for because obviously companies give you trials for a month try it for a month see if you absolutely need the whole creative suite which i pay for and i use maybe a third of but for me it makes more sense for what i need is all over the place in there but maybe you only need one tool and it might be twenty dollars a month in that korea suite and i'm not only busting adobe i love adobe but there's also alternatives you can go to alternative to to.net type in a software that's really expensive and it gives you a bunch of alternatives to it that are sometimes free like is a free version of photoshop in my opinion not as good photoshop's been around since the 1980s camp has been around since 1990s different applications but look if you're just starting out there's free versions on the web that are free that you're not ripping them off it's completely legal but you can do it with half the budget you don't need the best of the best to start off no and i think that that is definitely a good point and especially because a knee jerk a lot of times as a as a business you're getting going especially if you don't know is oh i i work for big corporate america and this is what they use and i need this tool because this is a tool that will get it done and sometimes that's true sometimes they're just not a replacement you have to pony up but don't let that be your knee-jerk reaction of because this is a tool that they use i have to use a sole it may be that you start out using the the free version or the less expensive version and it's not quite as good but it gives you the ability to get started and then as you grow and you're saying okay now we can afford those more expensive tools and it'll be beneficial be worthwhile but a lot of times as you're getting started go for the less expensive option to get started as you're figuring out because sometimes you also figure out that better tool isn't always better and i don't need this cheap tool i don't need that expensive tool i need something completely different as you figure out your process so i i think that's that goes with pocket and that's the same thing with podcasting too you owe me a giant mixer you don't need the best of the best of the best mic you don't need to you can use zoom which is perfectly fine you don't need to use you know riverside.fm or any of those other things you can just start off small get going just do it don't definitely think i think that that's a i love it just because i think there's you know and as you grow you may think okay now we're at take the podcast now we're getting a bigger audience so maybe we'll get a bit better microphone or a bit better lighting or we'll use this platform because it you know will save my time and it'll decrease the amount of time it takes to process but as we get going a lot of times you don't even know if you're if the podcast is going to work and if it's going to be a long term thing you're going to keep going so why go in and invest a huge amount when this may or may not work for you or maybe might not use it so i think that's a great amen amen yeah well that was before we get to the bonus questions we wrap up the normal portion of the episode if people want to reach out to you they want to be a customer they want to be a client they want to be an employee they want to be an investor they want to be your next best friend any or all of the above what's the best way to reach out to you contact you or find out more best way to get in touch with me is go to goldstein media g-o-l-d-s-t-e-i-n-media.com you can find me usually as seth goldstein online there is a more famous seth goldstein imagine that who's an action and investor in silicon valley so he's usually seth on things i'm usually seth goldstein we get each other's tweets all the time so we're always forwarding each other tweets it's kind of funny but um so i'm usually seth goldstein everywhere i'm usually the more vocal loud obnoxious one so seth goldstein everywhere goldstein you somewhere you can find me on entrepreneurs enigma on multiple places i've that dot com digital marketing dives the other podcast and yeah look around i'm pretty i'm out there so all right well i definitely encourage everybody to reach out connect and whether as you're looking for a new website or just want to make a new best friend there's always a great option that a great resource to have well thank you again seth for coming on the podcast it's been a fun it's been a pleasure now for all of you that are listeners if you have your own journey to tell and you'd like to be a guest on a podcast we'd love to have you just go to inventiveguest.com and apply to be on the show make sure to also like subscribe share because we want to make sure everybody finds out about our awesome episodes and last but not least if you ever need help with patents trademarks or anything else with the business go to strategymeeting.com grab some time with us to chat well now as we wrap up the normal portion of the episode we're going right into the bonus question which is always a fun thing because we're going to shift gears a bit and talk about a something that's always near and dear to my heart which is intellectual property so with that much um turn it over to you to ask your top intellectual property question all right this one this one happens all the time being in web design people always ask is this trademarkable and i'm like i don't know i'm not a lawyer i'm a web designer and usually meant before i knew dev and i'll be like let me go ask this person over here or let me go or let me go google that you know like there's certain things i know that are trademarkable like the logo clearly it can be trademarkable it's a mark you can see it but there's other things out there and i can't think of anything off the top of my head what it is but like it's a probably you can't i can't show you mark seth goldstein obviously because there's more out there be a lot of lawsuits and they won't go anywhere so like what is trademarkable yeah and i'll kind of give an answer what is trademarkable what are some things that aren't aren't necessarily trademarkable or difficult to trademark a lot of times so generally for trademarks what is trademarkable is anything that's identifying of a source of goods and services so let me unpack what that means is basically if that's the legal or the legal definition of all unpacking put in a little bit more plain speech which is so if you're providing a service or you're selling a product if you have something with your brand that helps customers to know hey this is a person that's selling this item or for selling the service that's what a trademark is meant to or protect so that's a lot of times why you think of a name of a company name of a company it lets you know this is the company that's selling the product i know who it is i know if it's good quality or bad quality or if they've been around for a while they have a good reputation or not same thing with the name of a product hey i know what this product is i can go and look at the reviews or i can understand what the specifications are so that's kind of why generally with trademarks you'll see a name of a product you'll see a name of a company a logo sometimes a catch phrase you know for you to think of just do it or melt in your mouth not in your hand those are all cash phrases you know which companies they go with and so those are kind of source identification tells you who's selling things no okay when you get into what are some of the things that are difficult to trademark something that is what's called mirror first of all if somebody else already has the trademark for something that's the same or a similar product or service and they've already previously trademarked it you can't go get a trademark if you want to try and go get a trademark for the word nike and you're going to go sell at players athletic or sports gear and apparel you're not going to be able to get it it's already taken good luck but you know so that's the first one if it's already something now if it's something that's completely different you want to go do nike um and do you want to go sell automobiles then you you know you're two different your completely different industries different goods and services now don't go do with nike because they're really famous but if you're to do something that's a little bit less famous kind of that same ideas if you're completely different products industries then you're typically you're more uh you're fine on that front a couple other things you can't trademark or difficult something that's merely descriptive now what is merely descriptive means it means that it's really just a term that everybody uses to describe the product or the service so give me an example i want to go start a fruit stamp and i want to sell the world's best apples and i want to name my fruit stand apple everybody is going to think that i'm just describing the product that i'm selling i'm selling apples that's how everybody refers to the fruit apples is an apple so i really can't go and just simply try and trademark the word apple for my fruit stand because it describes exactly what my product is exactly what i'm selling people don't think about the brand they just think that that's a fruit that i'm selling now are you selling computers or yourself i was gonna say if i go sell smartphones and computers nothing to do with the product it's you know completely different differentiated then you're fine so that's another one that is your you you can't do as if it's merely descriptive the last one and there are several but the last one that typically comes up is the one you hit on it's difficult to trademark your a first name or a last name a surname or something of that nature and the reason is is a lot of people have the name they're that have the same name so if you're thinking miller miller miller is a very common last name so guess what i got two problems with trademarking the word of my company i've got miller and ip law miller is my last name tons of millers ip law describes exactly what my services i'm offering are and so i can't trademark miller ip law the words now i can trademark the logo the look and build the logo how it's designed you know how it has the you know the chalkboard on the angle and those type of things that i can trademark but i can't go out and i can't just say i can't stop other people that have the same last name miller from going out oh god imagine that and it'd be great if i could if i stop everybody that has a last name from miller from starting a law firm that would be awesome but it's not fair in the sense that you can use your last name as part of your name and it's not it's something that you can't box people on so those are usually the common ones that pop up that you're not able to block or the things that you can trademark and things that you're or can't you have or can't block people out from doing so that's a much i could go and offer a long time i'm sure you could basis in an idea so that's a great question definitely a fun one so with that we'll go ahead and wrap up this episode thank you again again seth for coming on the podcast oh it's so much fun it's been a pleasure and wish the next leg of your journey even better than the last thank you sir

Keep Good Relationships

Where Are They Now?

Terresa Zimmerman

Devin Miller

The Inventive Journey Podcast for Entrepreneurs
11/12/2021

 

Disappointing my customers. So If we get it wrong with our store customers, the ramifications of that are big. Getting it wrong for them can be you, know, it stems from inventory. Do we have the right inventory? Did the inventory come in correctly? We are offshoring so, we don't get to inspect the line and see how things are coming off. We receive it; We pay for it; We put it out there; Yes, there is quality control but, the size and labeling can have mistakes, and if you don't catch it till it's in a store, that ruins relationships. Disappointing my store customers is probably the biggest deal. That's what I worry about the most.

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Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

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ai generated transcription

 so disappointing my customers right because um if we if we get it wrong with our store customers the ramifications of that are are big right and that getting it wrong for them can be you know i mean it stems from inventory do we have the right inventory did the inventory come in correct i mean we're offshoring right so we didn't get we don't get to inspect the line and see how things are coming off i mean we receive it we pay for it we you know put it out there and yes there's quality control but um but there's it's like wow okay you know if the size on this or you know the labeling on that you know and you do a whole run of mistakes and you don't catch it until it's in a store i mean that ruins relationships and uh yeah so disappointing my my store customers is probably the biggest deal and that's that that is um uh that's that's what i worry about most [Music] hey everyone this is devin miller here with another episode of the inventive journey i'm your host devin miller the serial entrepreneur that's grown several startups in the seven and eight figure businesses as well as the founder and ceo of miller ip law where he helps startups and small businesses with their patents and trademarks you ever need help with yours just go to strategymeeting.com we're always here to help now today we've got a another great episode and it's one of the fun ones all of them are fun um but it's a where where are they at now episode where we kind of catch up about six months or so later from the last episode and so if you didn't hear the last episode definitely make sure to go and catch up on that one first uh but we're having a teresa zimmerman back on and this is a quick reminder so teresa was uh with the wood underwear which is always kind of a fun business and a kind of a catchy name um and so now we're gonna catch up a little bit uh where she's at today and talk a little bit everything from supply chain issues to launching a book to launching a different business and that's recently launched having one of the best years ever with the uh some of the current businesses with wood underwear and have a great conversation so with that much as a introduction welcome back on to the podcast teresa no thank you thank you no i love that you're doing this thank you for inviting me back absolutely so now before we dive into what's been over the past six months just for those that may not have heard the original episode or if it's been a little while since i heard the last episode kind of remind people where you're at about six months ago yeah well so um physically i was i think i was sitting in the little mountain town of whitefish montana my husband and i were doing a work away from uh from home uh for the month and um so it was beautiful it was i call it mud season you know it was not not winter anymore but not quite spring so it was just a gorgeous time to be up there and it was quiet um and we were getting ready to um really plan for uh the receiving of our spring line for wood underwear and go through spring and summer sales which um you know retail has you know i guess changes everything but retail was really starting to wake up right about then right about april may-ish timeframe especially men's retail which is where we primarily focus and um and so we ended up having a really great spring um you know the supply chain issues were starting back then um people haven't really started hearing about them until now probably october is when the you know mass consumers started hearing about the supply chain issues but we were feeling it then prices were already rising and all of that so it was a it was a fun um spring to manage and to try to foresee the future but i we didn't first see and i know we're going to talk about this later but we definitely didn't foresee the you know 130 ships off of the port of la long beach happening right now so no and getting into that just a little bit because i think it's one wherein you know as you're probably aware of work with a ton of startups and small businesses some of them if you're on different interests different industries certainly have been hit differently some of them have been reasonably unscathed and hasn't had much impact other ones i'm talking about saying we have had our best year ever on sales but we can't deliver i mean we've got purchase orders that are sitting out there and none of our fault we have the products we would absolutely ship them and yet they're waiting for months on end for to fulfill orders and they're having the best sales here ever and the worst fulfillment year ever so how's that kind of gone for you guys have you seen it it's been one where you've able to manage through it or you're mostly us based or foreign based or kind of give us a little bit of insight there now so we we're definitely uh we're definitely outsourced we're offshore with our manufacturing for sure um because we just don't have the manufacturing capability here to do what we need to do for the most part not on a mass scale um and so most of the underwear business and most of the apparel business really if you looked at it percentage-wise is offshore it's not in the united states a lot more of the raw product is going from here to other places and then coming back which is fabulous um and there are some had there's some headway being made for manufacturing in the united states but little guys like me are not going to be the you know the front runners on that we have we have to take advantage and draft off the big guys who make that stuff happen here and i can't wait for that to happen so we can do made in the usa products um but um so we are managing through we have to i mean you manage through you die right um and um but the the challenge the challenge um the challenge is cost right and it's inflation and i hear you know i you know i i stopped watching news maybe like 18 months ago because it just pisses me off um but i'm right there with you i i haven't given up on written or you know reading it online but listening to it i was like okay yeah so i i have to allow myself you know a few minutes a day but i have to you know there's screen time i got to turn it off but um but i just hear these guys all these politicians out there and it really doesn't matter what party they're coming from they're also inflation's no big deal there's no inflation it's spot inflation well that's just a bunch of malaria yeah yeah um try to keep it clean sorry um because you know we are we are still paying higher customs duties from a couple of years ago when they went up right and then this year we're paying um in the spring i was paying two and a half times maybe almost three times my shipping logistic rates to come into the united states for the first time and then this fall my my rates went up um from normal to four times and they actually even changed mid shipment i had a i had a container on the water and i got a call it was supposed to land on the 4th of october on the 2nd of october saturday i get the note saying hey your price just increased right so by like 18 on the water right that's like that's like you know i was talking with my guys at the warehouse and and uh kevin he's he's like that's like you're on an airplane going you know new york to l.a hey now that we have you on the airplane and you can't do a thing about it we're gonna double your air flight or double price you owe us a hundred dollars right now or you gotta get out right i mean so what do you do you pay it right you pay it and one question kind of just because i find it interesting and maybe just a a bit of an assign so you're facing speak out on this stuff i'm telling you i could go off for a long time and we'd probably find it very interesting everybody be like okay i'm tuned it out but you know so you take that um and you know you're dealing with that and do you you know i think that it puts businesses in the uncomfortable situation of do i have to do i raise all my rates on all my products which then you're worried that are your customers going to leave or stop buying because now you went from hey a product that was what they probably thought was reasonably priced the one that you know be not out of your control but now is significantly higher price or do you try and eat into your profit margins are you trying to defer that cost or kind of as a business how do you deal with mid shipment the price going up and then how do you then adjust your prices accordingly well yeah i mean it's it's it's hard and and you've got to make some hard decisions about it for sure um so i work in the world of specialty stores boutiques these are usually owner operated whether they're multiple doors or or just a single door so i love main street i think i went off on that last time but um i love working with my customers who own their businesses who know their customers they're you know part of their communities and so um so my my business is more relationship driven as opposed to some of the corporations that you know can come at a different way and maybe just a little bit more um black and white numbers for me it's for me it's relationship and what what i did um in the spring when my rates were going up and i was still paying the higher customs rate that we were expecting to go down um and it hasn't yet i made a promise to my customers um and my prospects that for for this year i would keep my my rates as they were so i'm eating that cost um and uh that was before you know this recent spot of you know rate hikes on my shipping so it's hurting me a little bit more than i expected it to but um but it's a commitment that i made to my you know my my base and um uh but you know in january it's that's gonna have to change so um and and i think the stores too are doing what they can to you know we limit our margins they're limiting their margins so that the consumer can still get what they want and they can still have a robust business even if they're eating a little bit more of the price um now again that's on the that's on the that's on the more relationship side of the business but uh but i can tell you with the shows that i was at in the trade shows i was at in uh july august people were you know having their meetings and almost to a brand every single one of them was telling their customers you know that product you pre-ordered that's supposed to arrive next month well that product is now 20 more or whatever that percentage is and the buyers were just having to say okay so it's uh it's hard yeah and i think that that one that one's always tough and i think it's in even if you're in a business where you're not directly affected and you know as an example the the intellectual property law firm i run doesn't necessarily have physical products you know very we have a few like gift boxes and other things but other than you know as far as our main core uh products we don't have any physical products so we don't have that but even we're seeing all you know service providers or people that we use and in our back end and other things those prices are going up and you got kind of hitting that same spot of hey are we going to significantly reasonably you know raise our rates and when we have two months ago for the end of the year because people typically have been conditioned that rates don't go up until the beginning of next year and so how do you adjust that midstream so i think you know it's interesting to see that impact across the board whether it hits you directly or hit you indirectly because everybody's dealing with that and i don't think it's going away it's not going away quickly no it's not but but stores don't have a choice they've got to take it if they want product in their store to sell for holiday right so you know you can hold people over a barrel um or in my case you know i have i have the the i mean it's just part of part of part of the culture of my business i'm gonna work with my customers um i'm not gonna blackmail them like the shipping line did me eight you know 18 price increase or else right what they gonna dump my product in the water or ship it back i don't i don't know what what what they would do but um but yeah it's it's a little crazy so i mean i take the approach of you know my whole you know supply chain we're all in it together the guys i service the people servicing me you know there's only so much i can do about what i'm buying but i can certainly affect you know what i'm selling and how i'm selling it no and i think that that's definitely some good point so now we'll go on to maybe a lighter side of things just because that one is one where everybody is just like oh i just want inflation to go away i want supply just go back to normal but not going away but now you've also in the midst of that you've done a couple of additional things that are you know different aspects or different businesses you've launched just recently i think the last month or so launched another business say hi and you've also done a book so maybe uh tell us a little bit about how those are going for you so this is crazy i mean if we picked a six a different six month period i probably wouldn't have anything to say to you that's different but this six months has been just crazy cool and fun and in fact say hi you mentioned say hi so say hi um uh say hi actually the conversation started six months ago when i was in that mountain town in in whitefish and my my business partner amy she um it's her brainchild and she approached me then and we started talking about as soon as i got back to raleigh from uh from montana we got together we did our handshake deal we started building this product and and launched it october 4th so um it's uh it's basically an employee engagement app um it uh it delivers a question every day to your employee base it's for enterprise so larger companies and the reason for that is because all of the answers are anonymous anonymized if that's a word i think that's a word um we'll go with it whether or not it's a word we're gonna say it is you know what i mean they're they're they're the the answer a lot of them a lot of employees don't answer um surveys internal surveys honestly or frankly because they're not sure where the answers are going and who's going to read them and who has access and whether they they're trying to give you a right answer or the answer you want to you know you want to hear and and then those surveys also don't necessarily do anything right you get the results and maybe somebody tells you what the results are but then it's done and say hi basically it's just one a day you log in you answer your question it goes away you don't think about it in the end of every month you get you basically get your your insights report with an action item and the insights report shows you the whole organization and then it drills down into you for your specific challenge question that and it's really supposed to be a question that starts conversations with your uh with your team with your manager you get a picture where everybody else is sitting on things like trust right you know maybe a question is you know do you do you trust do you if you went away on holiday for five days do you trust that your team would you know pick up whatever they needed to pick up or do what they needed to do where's your level of trust in that do you feel safe how how taken care of i mean there's all kinds of questions about employee health and wellness and brand values and those sorts of things and so you get this report that gives you that snapshot of where the organization sits in that and um and then the um and then the action question is something you're supposed to think about and go talk to your manager about or talk to your team about if you're the manager so so there's an immediate action to it with with the context of where you sit in the organization and it's all pulled all of the data is pulled outside the organization it never lives within the organization um so people can be you know more honest about it and uh and it's just a very it's a it's a very low impact um way to you know engage with people every day no and i think that smarts i think the to your point you know the one of the bigger first of all it's always hard to get feedback be or feedback from people if you sit down with them you know it can be a bit intimidating and are you really going to tell your boss what you're frustrated about because they can turn around and say well you're not happy go somewhere else type of a thing and on the other hand you also you know as an employer you're saying hey we want to keep our employees happy and engaged but how do we do that and how do we make it productive so it's not just hey every time we pull them in the office they're just saying well i'd love to get a raise if you want to give me more money and it's like well yes everybody wants more money but what can we do to otherwise improve the business so i think making that one step removed or anonymizing it so to speak allows for a more open dialogue so that one open or that one launched about a month ago if i remember when we were talking yeah mm-hmm how has it gone since the since you launched it yeah so we're uh we are we're chipping away you know we're selling sell sell sell so uh you know hopefully um hopefully i can give you an update at some point in the future and tell you that we've already made our million dollars you know so we'll uh all right well i look forward to it and uh that'll be that'll have to be another fun follow-up when that when you hit the million dollar mark you'll have to reach back out let me know all right good well yeah so i mean you know it's it's that you mentioned the money thing right and that people think of those conversations as as that what do you need what can i give you and that's very transactional and i think that people aren't trading on the transactional right now because right now you can't say well if you don't like it go get another job because people are i mean it's the great resignation right and people haven't been working together physically for 20 months or 18 months and a lot of those people have never met their colleagues because they just joined the workforce or changed jobs during that period of time and so there's no stickiness for companies and if you're a manager you haven't neces you don't necessarily know what to talk about with this employee that you may not have met or may have may not have seen for 18 months um and as an employee what are you going to talk to your manager i mean you know it's like how do you take the transaction out of it and start building that brand stickiness and that relationship stickiness to the actual business to help your employees have better health have them feel better about what they're doing have them feel cared about what they're doing has purpose and unless you have that relationship based thing um you don't you don't get that especially as a remote worker so um so this is you know the intention of this is to really help companies care for their employees in a i guess not not necessarily a structured way but we're giving them conversations to have that the whole organization can do at once and so there's a purpose to them and i know and i think that that that definitely uh makes sense and i'm excited to see where it goes i'm you know i'm shocked that a sorority not a million dollar business in the month but uh i definitely think it has that great opportunity and uh excited to hear where it goes and i miss that i miss launching that business as well you've also written a book and i can't remember if the book is out yet or it's getting close to going out so help us understand where that's as well it's out yes uh oh lords oh lords and this is a total departure from what we've just been talking about oh lords is basically life lessons told through dating stories so it's uh it's a yeah you have to sort of switch off that brain and go to a different brain to to change uh discussions here but um my co-author jess aberhart and i um in november of 2019 we were we were at a networking event and she she came in and she's talking about she just got off a plane last night and this guy was hitting on her she was she was sort of hunkering down in her seat you know headphones hoodie up and he was having none of it he was going to talk to her so it worked for him because she ended up giving her giving him her phone number and uh so she was coming in talking about that we just the whole group we started talking about dating stories and by the end of the night we kind of did a pinky promise that we were going to actually sit down and write this book and um you know silver silver linings out of uh a coveted year you know that shutdown for two or three months gave us the time to do it because working retail that was shut down i mean that's what i that's what i did so um so we we uh we actually sat down and wrote it and uh we probably the writing process probably four months and then you know we had to pick a time to we had to figure out what to do with it and then uh and then uh yeah just uh started shipping october first and that's for sale as a shameless self plug for you where do people find the book if they're interested everywhere target.com barnesandnoble.com your local bookstore one thing i learned me loving main street is that there is a website called indiebound indiebound.org that will take you to all of your independent bookstores to buy books online from a store on main street so go there that's that's my favorite i mean of course we're on amazon and everywhere else too but support your local bookstores all right definitely definitely think that's a great uh great to support the the local mom and pop shops and the small bookstores and if not they can still probably get it on the bigger ones as well so absolutely can yeah so last thing before we and we always have the last question but before we dive to that now going to the you know mainstay maybe of the business or the one that you're on the show before which is you know we touched a little bit on the supply chain issue but with wood underwear while you're doing supply chain issues i think we talked about a bit before you've also had one of your best years or sales and navigate that figuring that out so on the sales side how's that going for you yeah no it's it's going really well i mean um i think that um the i think the consumer has come back strong um the consumers and their and the retail stores have come back i think healthier um you know we lost a lot of stores um a lot of them had to shut down they didn't have a choice um but it is um some of it some of it was phasing out just an age thing and retiring and not a great time to sell a business some of it was some of it was that they had to sell they were not healthy so i think at the end of the day what we're going to end up with on on at the store level is healthier stores and you know a healthier mix of things and but yeah people are shopping um the stores had to pivot and start serving people in way different ways and none of those ways are going to go away i mean there's going to be facetime shopping there's going to be curbside delivery there's going to be door-to-door delivery same day and none of that stuff's going to stop which i think is fabulous for um for retail and that's you know we're definitely seeing that so our online sales as a percentage of course from last year have gone down because last year it was basically only online sales but um but our our uh our new store business is is crazy good we've we've opened up a couple new channels including women's lingerie stores we only sell men's men's underwear undershirts and loungewear but we're selling into women's underwear stores and lingerie stores and um and they're just some of these women are just fabulous i mean they're dynamos and they they're they're going gangbusters so having having really easy is it is women's lingerie live or is it men's underwear in women's or lingerie stores men's underwear in women's lingerie stores right it's that maybe that guilty purchase right you go in and spend a thousand dollars on bras and oh yeah let me pick up my uh my guy a little uh you know all right i better get them something so they don't fill up although half the time when you're buying lingerie you're probably doing it as much for the other individual as you are yourself so that's a that's a whole different conversation for another day no that's fun so that's i think that's that's cool though but you also are looking and saying okay you know other retail stores they you know some of them are shutting down we're going to have to pivot we'll go in and we'll you know go into the i don't know non-traditional but a different route they'll also you know look to pick that up and pivot because i think that that's what you know separates as short or some of the source some of them must be on their control but some of them you know the ones that are really thriving are the ones that are saying okay you know what this is beyond our control we can control what we can't control but for those things we are we're going to have to adjust and pivot in order to continue to thrive yeah that's absolutely right and it's the people that have relationships with their customers who are doing really really well because they the service mindset for somebody you know is slightly different than the service mindset of maybe a stranger coming in so um so there's some really amazing service things happening at retail and main street retail um and as and we we've changed too i mean we're doing a whole lot more drop drop ship for our customers we never did drop ship as a rule before 2020 um it's just it was just it was just way too hard to manage and then last year we were forced to and this year it's just a service that we've added on and it it helps the retailer because they don't have to carry a lot of stock it's in our warehouse anyway so you know we're able to drop ship and and that's a flexibility that that we're that we'll continue with as well so stores are continuing with their different ways of serving their customers and we're also trying to figure out better ways to service them so that you know we're all in this together so it's uh it's been working really well even just having the flexibility of having that even if they don't use it is is uh is an advantage well i think that's great in the end i think that uh allowing that flexibility of hate as you guys are pivoting and adjusting we're also doing our part with our side of relationship to make it a to something that's sustainable and works for their arrangement and then leveraging those relationships so we're reaching towards the end of the podcast and there i'm sure we could have go on a much longer conversation and be enjoyable to us but uh just for the sake of time so people can have a reasonable bite size episode as we get to the end of the episode i always shipped on the where on the update episodes of the where you at now episodes to ask a bit of a different question which is fun which is you know a lot of times especially as you're getting farther into your business you learn a lot of things that you didn't know on the front end probably if you knew him on the front end you would have never got going because you would have learned all the things that would have scared you off in the first place but we it's so that naivety is probably what gets everybody going but as you learn more you also can kind of tend to get a think become aware of things that you should be worried about or be scared of or be afraid of and yet you have to deal with those as you're continuing to build the business so with that question i always ask is as a as an entrepreneur as a startup as a small business what's your biggest fear and how do you deal with them yeah so if it has to be just one it is uh biggest there can be multiple but we'll go with the biggest yeah well so disappointing my customers right because um if we if we get it wrong with our store customers the ramifications of that are are big right and that getting it wrong for them can be you know i mean it stems from inventory do we have the right inventory did the inventory come in correct i mean we're offshoring right so we didn't get we don't get to inspect the line and see how things are coming off i mean we receive it we pay for it we you know put it out there and yes there's quality control but um but there's it's like wow okay you know if the size on this or you know the labeling on that you know and you do a whole run of mistakes and you don't catch it until it's in a store i mean that ruins relationships and uh yeah so disappointing my my store customers is probably the biggest deal and that's that that is um uh that's that's what i worry about most now the the things that the things that can kill my business are things like you know a tanker not getting or a a container ship not getting deport like ever or dropping anchor somewhere and i have to figure out where my stuff is or it doesn't show up missing a season and that's happened to me actually um not not that you know a container ship sank but um but that but that i had to completely um forego a season of new goods because it didn't come in right and um that's frightening it ruins your whole year i'm sure and it's one where it's you know there's enough lead time you have to it's not just like you can you know tomorrow oh we're gonna change we'll reorder we'll do it it's one and then on the other hand kind of what you the thing you've talked about is it's also the relationships that in short term you might be able to you know figure out a way to put out an inferior product convince people to pay it and they have to eat it and you're on the long hand they're going to say well we didn't really like that product we're not going to come back to them so i think that that's the push out of business it can put you out of business one way or the other either way either way you go i mean it can put you out of business yeah it's hard because sometimes if you're in the business saying we're out of money we have we have to make the sell we have to make this work then you're looking in the short term and yet sometimes you make the short term decisions and the long harms you in the long run and sometimes if you don't have the short term the long run doesn't matter so it's always that balance and trying to figure it out but i think maintaining those relationships is a great takeaway of doing that as well yeah well if people want to reach out to you they want to use a say hi app or they want to use a say hi software they want to get your book they want to buy your uh wood underwear or any of the other things that you have going on what's the best way to reach out to you contact you find out more so lords.com is for the book and anything you need to know we we just were given a gold award from literary titans and we came out as the hottest number one best seller on amazon in the first 24 hours out so we're uh happy about that anyway ohlords.com on that front um if you're an enterprise um 200 plus people in order for us to be anonymize the data 200 people um say hi dot io so it's s-a-y-h-i-i dot i-o um and or just reach out to me teresa wood underwear dot com our website woodunderwear.com also has a store finder um and all of that so uh would uh would love to hear from anybody that wants to hear any more about any of those three things all right well i definitely encourage people to reach out to you contact you support you and find out more so well thank you again for coming on the podcast it's been a fun it's been a pleasure now for all of you that are listeners if you have your own journey to tell you or have your own expertise to share or you want to catch up if you've already been on the podcast in your all day bub we'd love to have you on uh feel free just go to inventiveguest.com apply to be on the show a couple more things make sure to listen make sure to subscribe make sure to share so everybody can find out about our awesome episodes and last but not least if you ever need help with patents trademarks or anything else in the business just go to strategymeeting.com grab some time with us to chat well thank you again teresa for coming on the podcast and wish the next leg of your journey even better than the last thank you devon

How To Fundraise And Invest

Hall Martin

Devin Miller

The Inventive Journey Podcast for Entrepreneurs
11/11/2021

 

Building a little bit of a relationship is always a great thing there as well because you are going to be in the deal with investors for a period of time. They know that too so, they are looking to check you out and, you are looking to check them out. The key is you have to demonstrate the growth story. Step one, you must have a growth story. Step two, you must be able to tell it or articulate it.

The Inventive Journey

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

Get In Contact With The Guest

ai generated transcription

 and building a little bit of relationship is always a great thing there as well because you're going to be in the deal with along with the investors for a period of time and and they know that too so they're looking to check you out you're looking to check them out so the key is you have to demonstrate the growth story so step one you must have a growth story step two you must be able to tell it or articulate it [Music] hey everyone this is devin miller here with another episode of the inventive journey i'm your host devin miller the serial entrepreneur that's grown several startups into seven and eight figure businesses as well as the founder and ceo of miller iplock where he helps startups and small businesses with their patents and trademarks if you ever need help with yours just go to strategymeeting.com grab some time with us to chat now today we have another great expert episode and i always love the expert episodes because not only do we get to go through people's journeys like we on the normal one but on the expert episode we get to hear a whole bunch of expertise and i get to learn a lot and hopefully you guys can learn a lot too so with that we have hal martin on and he's going to talk about one of the things that most startups and small businesses even growing businesses have the question on which is money now not just money as far as how you can spend it but how do you do fundraising how do you do investing you know where to begin and how to get started and how to find investors and how much should you raise and when you shouldn't raise too much and figuring out how much you need to raise and what evaluation you should put on your business and how do you finding you know yourself as a faster growing in a business and in the what markets and type of things and long-term planning and i don't know if we're going to get to all that this can be a great conversation so with that hull welcome on the podcast thanks for having me devin looking forward to it so before now before we dive into discussing money and investing and fundraising all those fun things or at least that i find fun why don't you tell us a little bit about uh yourself why you're an expert on this episode and why people listen to you great well i was working for a large company here in austin for about 20 years and they actually went ipo back in 1995 and i started doing angel investing and started to just start putting money into deals and started losing money and started realizing well this is harder than it looks and uh decided to start joining other angel groups to find out how best to raise raise funding and how to invest in them and ended up launching three angel groups in texas back in 2006 seven and eight and had good returns from those groups as well and then just kept going i actually started my company what's now called ten capital back then it was called texas entrepreneurs network in 2009 i started it and we were helping startups and investors connect for funding we did funding forums around the state of texas all the way out to el paso and back to dallas austin and houston and so it was a lot of fun and so have you spent the last 20 years working in the space uh working with startups and investors to connect making the helping the startups get their pitch ready get their documents ready and then helping investors do their diligence and make their decision and figure out their investment thesis and have just carried that that work on for over 20 years now and have just seen oh you know you know many many deals as well into the over 10 000 by now and pitches that went with them as well and then have talked to many different kinds of angel investors and how they invest and why they invest and so forth and have seen the you know the good the bad the ugly of of startup funding and investing itself and have have some experience to share with others for those who are interested well that's a great uh great a level of experience and a lot of it sounds like a fun time as well and uh definitely appreciate the introduction so now within it without any further ado let's get into the get into it with the topic of hand a bit so the first question i would you know i think a lot of startups and small businesses would probably have um is just kind of where to begin now if you've been a you know an event or if you've done a startup before you've been an investor or something that you probably have a pretty idea okay here's you know kind of where to begin here's how to get started but let's say you take the person that you know maybe you've everything from you have a great idea you have a prototype and you're looking to go get your investor dollars all the way up to you you know you have a business that has reoccurring revenue and you're looking to get investor dollars you know to kind of take the next level kind of within those that i get that's a very big category in a very big range but kind of where do you get started with uh within this if this gets your kind of first entrance in to doing fundraising and looking at or getting investors on board great well the first thing you want to do is make sure you have your business together you're ready to go you've got something that you know the market is excited about if you've got revenue that that is a big big step forward of validation and at the early stage what investors are going to be looking for is just that validation people are supporting you that is you are supporting you you're putting in money your family and friends are supporting you they're putting in money customers are supporting you they're putting in money and as you draw that circle wider everyone is signing up to be a part of this in some way shape and form and hard dollars on the table speaks louder than anything and so you're starting to gather those proof points as you go down the path the one thing you don't want to do is skip putting money in skip your family and friends money go out across and then start saying well nobody back home would give me money how about you because that that's going to kill it right there because you didn't prove validation you didn't get support for it along the way some do crowdfunding along the way if you can make a good successful campaign on kickstarter or now the equity crowdfunding portals by all means consider that as well because that's even more proof points there as well that's how you kick it off is you start putting together your business start generating interest from customers my rule is you always when you talk to an investor bring up the customers that you're dealing with what they're saying what they're asking you what they're telling you and so forth because it shows you're in the market you're connected to the market so many people want to talk about the product that's fine but if it's just about the product and i never hear anything about customers i start to wonder did you do this all by yourself or did you do this in conjunction with the market and you want to be doing this with the market have market reality coming into it uh even before you build a product you should have market reality coming into it i hear many people say well i'm not going to generate revenue i'll do that later right now just work on the the product and i know with a 100 certainty you're going to build the wrong product if you don't have the market there with you you'll be down the wrong path so make sure you're there with the market or bringing them along the way as you go forward no and i think that's great there some great advice getting some of that validation and probably validation earlier on now a couple questions just kind of that i'm sure people have is to what kind of validation should they be going for and i'll give you you know you hit on a couple you could do everything from hey i'm in this i put in some of my own money i i have faith in it and you know i'm invested it could be friends and family that either they put in money or i've gotten my friends and family tell me this is a great idea and so i should go forward it could be you go ask you know actually start to pre-sell it or get you know and that can be whether it's crowdfunding or whether it's you know you simply just go out and go to your potential customers and see if they're willing to commit or at least give you an you know letter of intent or something of that nature and or you can go out and to people on the street new market surveys you know kind of within the different levels of validation and kind of what is the things that they should be doing here if they can only focus on a few of them where should they get started sure so we start with product validation and market validation product validation is the product works someone's using it and they're getting value and you can tell in the engagement you know they're engaging it on a regular basis and they're getting value if they can tell you what level of value you get that's huge as well you always want to come with numbers you don't want to just say my product's better you want to say my product is 2.5 times better than the competition and it shows you've really measured it and you know what you're talking about the other validation is market validation people will pay for it if it puts money on the table even if it's a discounted price or a a different rate price it shows that they're they're valuing it enough to put some money a third validation that you want to look for is competition many people don't want to talk about competition because they they're afraid the investor is going to think well you can't compete or you won't have the marketplace but if you're working in a very large marketplace usually there's plenty of room for plenty of players and one thing you'll find is competition especially among the venture capitalists they actually look for that because that validates your market if you're in a market where there's zero competition that they're going to walk away saying well there's probably not a market there if you're in a market where there is some competition well then now you know that other people have found this to be a good market so you're validating that market and competition is a sign of approval i also find the competition really helps explain what you're doing and many people they tell me my market is a 5 billion market and we're in the health care space well that's a very big space it could be a lot of things when they tell me who the competition is i start to get a better picture of exactly what they're doing which really helps because if people don't have context in what you're doing it's very hard for them to move forward and build on the rest of the story that you're telling so those are the levels of validation you want to look for no i think that that is great advice you know one of the things that i i think that makes sense is you know when you're looking for validation going out i think that what you hit on as far as a competitor in other words ever i think everybody has a competitor and if you don't you're not you're you're going too narrow and you're not broad enough in other words buy to take henry ford and let's say he's not the first one to create a car but let's say he was there was competition before you had trains you had horse and buggy you had walking and everything else and say well nobody else makes a car doesn't mean you don't have competitors it just means you need to broaden your scope and so i always think looking at the competitors and saying now they people often i think times will say we have those competitors are doing it so terribly or poorly or they're not doing it as well well that's great you can now highlight why you're doing it better what makes you the difference for you but to simply say i don't have any competitors i think 99 of the time you can push back and say there's competitors in some some form or fashion now with that so let's say i get out go out and i get a whole bunch of validation so i bootstrap it i put this on my own money i put in some of my family's money i do a kickstarter campaign and i blow it out i go and i get or talk with the customers i got some pre-orders i do all the validation and now i don't know that every company ever exists but let's say it did and they got a whole bunch of grade of validation and they said okay i'm pretty well validated or as validated as much as i can think i can now how do i go out and find investors you know because that's another question that people often ask is okay i think i've got an investable product or i think it's going well or i'd love to get investors and some of them are just way too early stage and all they want to do is have an idea and you know go get an investor and they think that once the investor hears their idea that's all they need to do but let's say you're a little bit more you've got that validation and now you're trying to go out and find those investors figure out where to look for them which investors are right and kind of which ones are wrong and should i shotgun it just go after everybody or should i be more narrow and tailored so open it up as to how do you kind of go out and go about finding investors so there's four kinds of investors you might want to look for that go to early stage companies one is the angel investor these are people that are putting their own money into the deals and you'll find them oftentimes in angel groups and so they're pretty easy to find if you go online you can find the angel groups in your area but also think that after the pandemic most angel groups are now online and they're in many ways open to uh deal flow from across the country so you can start to find those that are specific to your area like healthcare what have you the next one is you look at venture capital and usually usually venture capital is the first place people want to go to but realize venture capital has a very specific business model and you have to ask do i fit their business model can i give them a 10x return in the next five to seven years is it super high growth then you have to be very candid if this deal is in that category then it's worth going to the venture capitalists if it's not and there are many good businesses that are not well then you want to look at the other ones that we're discussing the other one that's coming up strong is the crowdfunding world it used to be crowdfunding was this thing where we did consumer products and so forth but more and more i'm finding many tech deals and healthcare and others are actually using crowdfunding because it is yet another crowd and it is something that you can put on the website that in a third of a second can somebody look at it get what you're doing and either get excited about it or not and you're reaching out primarily through social media there's many groups out there that will help you run those social media campaigns to drive traffic to it and so i'm not saying it's right or wrong i'm just saying it's you may need to reposition your deal so you fit into this world of crowdfunding what you'll find with angel investors is that they want three to five times their money in three to five years so it has to be just a good decent return venture capital if it's not 10x or more we we don't care so you have to be in that category and the fourth one is called family offices and these are like angel investors but on steroids they just have a lot more money they can put in i find they're a little bit risk-averse they want to come in a little bit later in the game but they're not tied to a 10-year fund window like venture capital where i have to deploy my money in the first three years my follow-ons in the next two years and then write it out they've got some fairly tight parameters family offices can be much more patient money they can be in there for much longer and they can do a lot for you as well so think about what is the right type of investor for your deal and you may have to talk to two or three of them to start to get a sense of where your deal is going to resonate now one question is paul because i think that's great and i think that there's definitely i think realizing that there isn't just hey i always go for venture capital well maybe you need to go for an angel maybe you need to go for crowdfunding maybe you need to do a combination of your crowdfunding first credit or social market traction or market fit and but are people wanting it validate like we talked before and then go for those others but one question kind of the tag along with that is for those different kind of categories i know it's a pretty broad question is when you're about your when you're figuring out how much to raise is there sometimes you're just saying hey if i only need twenty thousand dollars and i'm making up the number but a low number relatively um you know should you just not consider one of the platforms or another in other words you know because sometimes you've got a business and you only need you got a food truck business and i don't know food truck is the greater best ball business but you know you're saying all i need is thirty thousand dollars to get one food truck to prove out the concept so are some of the deals too small should you be evaluating it too high or how do you go about evaluating how much you should raise or should be raising sure so if you only need a twenty or 30 000 that's really family and friends just go get three 10k checks from family and friends and be done with it and go out and prove the next step what you'll find with the other ones venture capital angel and even crowdfunding is it's a fair amount of work to put those together you have to put together investment documents a data room which is all the key documents that one would need in a diligent setting and then you have to come up with a term sheet in most cases convertible node or safe node and if you're going out to raise money and you're doing all that work for thirty thousand dollars investors will probably look at that and say well that's probably not enough money to really give you runway so i found that the minimum for angels that you should ask for is 250 000 anything below that they're going to say well you're doing a lot of work for probably not a lot of benefit you have to be above 250 or better 500 and now you'll have some real runway to work with on this same thing with crowdfunding you'll find you have to fill out forms go through some compliance work fill out different registrations and if you're doing all that for 20k it's probably not going to pay back the time you spent into it so you want to go for at least 100k on a crowdfunding uh platform as well venture capital you know the micro vcs those who have a sub 100 million dollar fund of which there are plenty out there they write 150k checks on the first round and then uh more 250 500 on the next round and the bigger funds write bigger checks as well but but they're going to go through a very rigorous diligence process and you're going through a very rigorous time of actually getting to meet with them and pitch them and take them through the process as well so again uh 500 250 500 is really a minimum amount you want to raise when you go talk to those different groups no i think that makes sense and that kind of gives you a milestone if you're saying hey if i'm in below 5 you know 50 000 or below 100 000 really below 250 000 i should strongly either find the small or the funds that are willing to invest make those smaller funds which some of them are out there but most of them are and do a much more due diligence but to your point most of those funds are going to look and say hey we it's going to take us a considerable amount of work if we only do this small amount it's probably not going to have the returns that we're looking for doesn't mean it's not a good business this means it's not necessarily investable so now the one of the additional questions is you know and i think we chatted a bit before the podcast is there's also the ability so one let's say you go out and figure out this is how much we need or this is how much we can justify it two you can show the validation and maybe have some recurring revenue now how do you figure out how much you should ask so let's say you could go you could justify you could show validation you could go ask for five hundred thousand you get to go ask for five million dollars and you know you could probably justify it either way but you're gonna give up a lot more equity along the way is there is there a time when you shouldn't ask for as much or you should ask for a lower amount or should you just ask for as much as you can as quick as you can to blow it up and to show that you're a unicorn sure yeah so i'm a big advocate of you raise for each milestone break your fundraise down into smaller steps that way you don't spend the rest of your life just raising money you actually get to go build a business too and one thing you'll find is that at the very early stage of the business your valuation is very low so any money you take in will be costing you quite a bit in dilution so you take in the minimum amount that's why you're really trying to see how much can i do with 500k and see how far that will get me down the path of you know raising revenue and actually running the business and so forth and then you know you can then do series a and or other raises afterwards to continue to grow the business but you actually don't have to your your valuation will be taking a stair step function up every time you go and generate revenue and build team and build product and so bigger raises later will not be so expensive for you as well yeah and you know they'll show you that usually the first money in is the most expensive money and so i think that definitely agree with you that if you're saying hey yeah we could if the fund is offering us five hundred thousand or five million dollars but we really need 500 000 to this milestone is better to make conserve that equity because you can once you validate it once you take that 500 000 you build out the next phase you hit the next milestone your business valuation should increase and the next money is going to be less expensive or at least it doesn't dilute you as much so now with that kind of right-handed glove to that because one of the things that the i'm sure that the funds are going to ask is you know how do you how do you or substantiate your valuation in other words hey you're saying you're worth 15 million dollars and you've only you only earned a hundred thousand dollars for this given year probably is a bit of a disconnect generally unless you have something that you can show otherwise but how do you kind of go through that justifying or valuing your business and justifying your valuation such that when you go to pitch it to someone that it stands up to that that test and make sense and is otherwise in line with what where should be sure so one of the evaluation techniques to use is what are called comps or comparables you look for similar businesses that either exited or sold and use the same metrics there if it's a sas business and they are selling for 10x revenue you can consider putting 10x revenue on your sas business assuming you have revenue and so you're looking for similar businesses that are not too far away so that's one technique the other technique is what i call the rule of four and it says for every um you give yourself a million dollars for each of four things and so that sells this team that's product and that's intellectual property so if your sales are fully in place give yourself a million dollars if they're you know a little bit in place but not all the way there we'll give yourself 500k if your ip is fully in place everything is patented and awarded and so forth give yourself a million dollars if you have three provisional patents well let's give ourselves maybe 250k because we don't have it all the way there you apply that to the team and also to the uh the sales product market and the team you actually apply to each of those areas so you can actually put value on the business itself because the key here is to articulate the value in the business if you have three rock star team members they're all signed up give yourself a million dollars and so that's what you're trying to do if the product is fully featured and shipping you're ready to go then a million dollars but if it's a beta let's give ourselves maybe 350. then you go add up what was your score on each of those three things and that's your valuation because no matter what number you put out there on the valuation the investor will push back and say how did you arrive at that and the right answer is well these are the values in the business and this is market rate uh the wrong answer is well i did the math to figure out how much i want to own at the end of this process and so it must be worth 20 million dollars so you have to show that the value is in the business today no fair trying to look at tomorrow's valuation but for today's fundraise which we see a lot of out there well one day it'll be worth a minute you know a billion dollars therefore i must be worth 50 million now not necessarily you have to show me that you have that in the business right now and if you can show that well then you have an argument that will go forward no i think that you know that's always a temptation well once you invest in the dollar in the business it's going to be worth billions and so just invest now well yeah but now you're asking me to pay as if it's already a billion dollar business when it's not even close to that yet and they're going to say i'm not going to invest until it's actually worth that and then you can ask for that valuation one of the other things you know you hit on is i think you know when you're evaluating the business i'll or i guess i'll circle back to the question within within each of the different funds and whether it's you know crowds or crowdfunding whether it's angels whether it's venture or any of the other ones is there a minimum requirement for the different types of funds that you actually have to have a product out and out in the marketplace or selling or otherwise have revenue or if let's say you're in a situation where you have a great team together you have some great intellectual property you're bootstrapping it you're building it but it's going to be a much more expensive business in other words it takes you know three to five years of r d but the upside is really great is that too early on and you just simply have to continue to bootstrap it or can you kind of like said the other categories and say well we don't have sales yet but we have a great team we have some great intellectual property we have other things in place and value it off of that or how do you go about doing that if you don't if it's going to be a reasonable amount of time before you're able to get to the sales part sure well if you're in a place uh like biotech where there's fda validation you probably won't have revenue in fact you definitely won't have revenue if you because you have to go build the technology before you can actually build a product before you get the validation and so it's really a different game there it's not so much on revenue it's really upon uh two things one the intellectual property that you have what have you actually licensed or what have you actually appended and or two and what i find very interesting is uh you know clinical trials is a key thing if you have a clearly defined path to clinical trials and you know how you're going to pass them that helps and then three is uh what i see more and more is what i call partnership agreements you know the pharma is very very much looking at uh buying companies that are successful and so they're out writing partnership agreements with those who look like they have successful technology so one of the questions i ask those without revenue that are in the biotech space spaces what does your partnership agreement list look like who have you signed up because that's great validation because if a big farmer looks at it says yeah we'll sign an agreement that means there's some there's something there from the quote unquote market side of it there are pre-revenue uh vcs those who see a great team or see a great technology or you're in a hot space they will come in and invest a little bit of money up front as well you can go out and raise a little money from angel investors i find a lot we'll just throw 510k at a deal if you get uh enough of them you can raise to 500 and so at the pre revenue level you can get those kind of checks but if you want real checks you have to be in the market with revenue and now you want 100 200k checks well now you're going to have to have some revenue going with real nice traction and good metrics that are on it as well so it just depends upon what sector you're in and also uh what what level of investment that we're looking for or to get going no i think that's a lot of great advice and definitely makes sense and now kind of almost following a bit along that shipping gear slightly is one of the things we also talked about before was you know defining your depending on how what market you define your business in or kind of how you define your business it can have difference in multiples of valuation and so looking to get into the categories that are most favorable you for you is often favorable as you're going out and raising so maybe help us understand a little bit about the difference between a slow growing market or a fast-growing market and how you might define yourself to get that more more favorable view of it sure so when you go out to the market you'll you'll find at any given time there are certain technologies and markets that are hot and at some level you want to be associated with those markets because you'll get some lift on valuation and interest from the investors if you're part of it in today's market cyber security is very hot blockchain is very hot uh climate change is very hot so if you can tie into those worlds and position your deal as being a part of that space then you will get a lot more interest and it'll be a lot easier if on the other hand you know you're not necessarily a lot of people say well i've got a deal that's you know does x so therefore it's just that well if you just work on it a little bit you might be able to put yourself into a different category i had a company come to me once that was in the edtech space and so i went out to my edtech investors to offer the deal and that that worked well for those guys and then i realized they have a recurring revenue model so i had another group of investors that were interested in sas based businesses they didn't really care what you did as long as you had that business model so we just repositioned the deal emphasized the sas metrics and went out to them and then we noticed that they also had an impact offering going on in the same business and so we highlighted the impact metric and went out to our impact investors so we do a lot of repositioning to make it relevant to the investor that is of interest there and find the deck is the same but what you emphasize on the front of it is what you're really doing for the repositioning so think hard about there are many different kinds of investors and how do i be relevant to more than just one no i think that is a great a great piece of advice and that kind of is you know to a degree you're tailoring your business or your pitch and your and your how you're presenting it to the different investors which requires that you know what the investors are looking for which requires you to do homework now one question that i get a lot and we didn't talk before but i'll throw it to you anyway is you know the question is is people always want to say well i don't know how to do this is just you know usually it's kind of like is there a guy that i could just go higher is there someone that you know that does assault for me and i don't have to worry about and is it better to say hey you know the best people are to go figure out how to go raise and to do that are the people that are the founders that know the technology know the business and go do that or is there a guy that you can go higher that can go do that and it is specialized and can do it just great for you kind of how do you address that if they're saying hey i don't know anything about this is it better to hire someone else is there someone else even out there or should i be doing this myself sure so we actually do that at tin capital we help with the fundraise at heart we're investor relations and introductions i got into it because i found when i ran angel networks that the hardest part that the startup had was getting the introduction and the the next hardest part was actually keeping the dialogue going with the investor because when you run it run a fundraise at heart you're building a relationship with those investors and many entrepreneurs were just very busy with building product and hiring team and uh closing customers that the investors tended to fall off the list of things to do and so that's what we do is we we handle that aspect of helping build that relationship and and you have to do it by repeatedly going out and giving updates on how the business is going and they look for updates in the area of what you're doing which primarily is focused around sales team product and fundraise those are the core four that investors are interested in and so we're helping carry that campaign forward after you have the initial introduction to show that you are having a growth story you are making progress for it and so attend capital that's what we do is run those campaigns to help you become successful it's a high touch you know these are people that we know we're making introductions by email they're expressing interest and then we're carrying it forward and then we also coach through valuations and negotiations for those who need that as well no i think that's definitely a great resource to have because i think you know just like when you get into whether it's intellectual property whether it's manufacturing whether it's you know sometimes the management finances and all those are areas that you may do awesome at and have experience do great on their other areas that you're just less familiar sometimes you have to come up to speed because you don't have a choice but a lot of times finding those experts and those people that can help you out can make it a leverage the time and resources of money you have in order to make it more profitable now i'll follow up one more question then i do have my last question always hit on the podcast but before we get there you know i've seen now i've taken my personal bias a bit you know there are some great where i see you know there are businesses out there you know and i won't name any that or pitch themselves as hey we'll we'll get the you know you come with come to us with an idea and we'll do it all for you we'll make it and we'll find the investors and we'll sell for you and you just come with us an idea now within the investor community you see some of those that are you know kind of the stakeholder salesman in the charlatans and the sen said hey the wolf give me some money hire me on and i'll go find a whole bunch of investors for you and then i see that you know it doesn't work out so and there are some awesome ones that are worth more than what you're paying for and more than what they're taking their cut because they do a great job of having the connections finding the businesses but if you don't know how to select other than going with you which i definitely recommend but if they're just looking for generals kind of some guidelines as to how to find those people that will help them or throughout this portion of the journey what are some kind of tips or red flags or things you should look for things that you should avoid well you look for those who have a track record and the kind of deal that you have there's many different kinds of startups and you're looking for those that are successful in the area in which you are you have a network and they have an experience in that space that you can look at and say yeah they know this space very well and they've done this for other people also so that's the first thing to look for and the second thing to look for is you know just just how much are they actually charging in this case uh i find that the those broker dealers for example they work very well in the middle market but when they come down into the startup market it gets to be harder for them because they may or may not have the network there or it may not be as easy to sell because there's still a little bit of a future things going on with the startup itself so i wonder about brokers that come into the seed stage are they really ready for that because they're they're better positioned for the later stage for sure no it sounds like very kind of summarize that do your deal just like you should on every other party business do a bit of due diligence on their company that you're looking to make a connection with their or do an arrangement if they have the experience they've done deals in the past and these same the same or similar things and for the kind of evaluation or the type of raise you're trying to do then it can be a good match and you should or connect with them and vice versa if they don't have experience then it may be or continue to move on or look forward so we can chat and this is a fun area at least for me i love to talk about it just because i you know it's a certainly a big part of the startup in the business world but as we are wrapping towards the end of the podcast i always ask one question at the end for the expert episode so we'll jump to that now which is you know we talked about a lot of things everything from how to get fund or how to get started how to find investors how much you should raise you know when you should cap it you know finding out about uh you know or how do you define what markets hearing and we talked about a whole lot now if we were to boil that down because that's a whole lot and it's typically going to be overwhelming but if you're to talk to someone that's you know in the startup small business phase and kind of looking to either get started starting to get into the fundraising or get growing and wanted to add some fuel to fire they could have just one takeaway one thing that they really should get started on or get going today what would that one thing be oh if you're raising money the key is you you have to demonstrate a growth story not just predicted because when i ran angel networks what i saw is entrepreneurs coming in and pitching to my room full of investors 90 would pitch once go away we would never hear from them again i don't know what happened to them they just disappeared on us 10 percent though came back gave us updates reminders and on the fourth update out came the checkbooks and what investors were doing was trying to see that are we really growing are we really hitting the milestones uh sales team product are they moving forward and they don't have to hit you don't have to hit your forecast you just have but you have to show that you have some traction and some momentum behind it and you can't really can't do that in one pitch you really have to do that over a period of time uh one two three months in most cases to show that yeah we are moving forward so the key is and building a little bit of a relationship is always a great thing there as well because you're going to be in the deal with along with the investors for a period of time and and they know that too so they're looking to check you out you're looking to check them out so the key is you have to demonstrate the growth story so step one you must have a growth story step two you must be able to tell it or articulate it and 90 of those people that walked out that door i think a fair almost half of them probably had a growth story but they just never came back and told us so they just never picked up the money for that reason no i think that's some great takeaways find it figure out what your girl's story make sure you have a girl story figure out what it is make sure you well convey and then even the third one you hit on is stay in touch in other words just because you pitch them once a day it may not be the right time or the right to deal for them today but as you continue to cultivate those relationships and maybe down the road and maybe as you continue to grow and show that growth story that they may be or opening up the checkbooks later on so i think that is definitely some great takeaways well as people want to whether they want to be in an uh they want to pitch you they want to see if you can either invest in them or find someone to invest in them they want to be an employee they want to be your next best friend any or all of the above what's the best way to reach out to you contact you find out more our website is tin capital.group.group there's no dot com on that the dot coms were taken up years ago but 10capital.group is where you reach us and you can always leave a message for us to ask if you need to help find raising funding or you need to invest or you want help on your business we have uh sessions we have 15 events a month love to have you come out to some of those to connect with us as well but yeah that's the best way is the tin capital.group and that's 10 with the t or just for those listeners 10 is spelled out ten right it's not the number but the the spelling out so 10 with ten capital dot group definitely encourage people to go out there connect up and uh and use it as a great resource well thank you again hall for coming on the podcast it's been a fun it's been a pleasure now for all of you that are listeners that are out there um if you have your own journey to tell and you'd like to be a guest on the podcast or you have an expertise that you'd like to share we'd love to have you on just go to inventiveguest.com and apply to be on the show we'd love to have you a couple more things make sure to listen make sure to subscribe make sure to share because we want to make sure that everybody finds out about these awesome episodes and last but not least if you ever need help with patents trademarks or anything else in the business just go to strategymeeting.com grab some time with us to chat we're always here to help thank you again hall and wish the next leg of your journey even better than the last thanks for having me

Have A Personal Board Of Advisers

Joe Kinsella

Devin Miller

The Inventive Journey Podcast for Entrepreneurs
11/1/2021

 

I surrounded myself with around six people who I call personal board of advisers. They were basically people who expected nothing from me. They were getting no financial gain for spending time with me. They just wanted me to be successful. Each of them brought to the table a different set of experiences and often compensated for skill sets I did not have or I was developing. I spent time rotating through them and talking to them. Grabbing coffee with them regularly and shared openly where I was at. I would recommend this is one of the most powerful tools that entrepreneurs and people who are joining startups can leverage to really help steer the success of their business and the success of their careers. It's one that I learned so much later in my career than I wish I did. I would just recommend leveraging this powerful tool of boards of advisers.

The Inventive Journey

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

Get In Contact With The Guest

ai generated transcription

 as i surrounded myself with i think it was around six people who i call them personal board of advisors and they were basically people who expected nothing from me they were getting no financial gain for spending time with me they just wanted me to be successful and each of them brought to the table a different set of experience and often compensated for skill sets that i didn't have or i was developing and i spent time just rotating through them and talking with them and grabbing coffee with them on a regular basis and sharing openly where i was at and i would recommend that is one of the most powerful tools that entrepreneurs and people who are are joining startups can leverage to really help steer their success in their success of their business and the success of their careers and it's one that i learned so much later in my career that i wish i did so i would just recommend you know leverage this powerful tool of boards of advisor [Music] hey everyone this is devin miller here with another episode of the inventive journey i'm your host devin miller the serial entrepreneur it's going several startups into seven and eight figure businesses well as well as the founder and ceo of miller ip law where we help startups and small businesses with their patents and trademarks you ever need help with yours just go to strategymeeting.com and we're always here to help now today we've got another great guest on the podcast joe kinsella and as a quick introduction to joe so he grew up in central new york um didn't pay much attention as to where he wanted to go to college hit the point where he's deciding uh what he what he wanted to major in and decide decided to go into computer science and get a degree there all the jobs were in silicon valley in boston so went to boston and got a job at i think it was easel corporation um and then was part of the first ever scrum for those of you in the software industry as well as the first uh stand-up meeting so for those of you not the software industry probably don't know what that is if you're in the software industry you likely do um left easel did a startup called pro cd and then did another startup called firefly had a longer run with another company called silverback and then in 2010 he was wanting to get into uh cloud help was told that was a bad idea so it went to another company for about 18 months um decided that that was enough for that he was going to do cloud health anywhere anyway um went and did build some products for another company helped him build it did vmware and then uh jumped over from there and is doing what he's doing or is doing what he's started what he's doing today so with that much as an introduction and hopefully mostly accurate welcome on the podcast joe thank you devon and it sounds so much easier hearing my career from your words instead of how i lived it well i i take i take a much longer journey and a much longer career and i can dance into 30 or 40 seconds and so it makes my job easy but it doesn't do the story justice so with that let's unpack your journey just a bit more so tell us a little bit about how your journey got started in central new york yeah so it sounds great yeah so i um i growing up i i really had one passion which was baseball and i found a second passion when i was 11 years old my dad came home with a personal computer it was a apple ii and dropped it on a desk and i started playing with it and suddenly realized that it just you know it was like a creative spark went off and i realized just the potential of what i could do in my mind with a computer and uh and that really started i think my lifelong passion of both writing software but maybe more importantly building products and uh and so from there i actually um you know continue to write code and spend a you know substantial amount of time around computers and the funny story of my early career was i didn't really think much about what i was going to college uh for and and so like my default answer if someone asked me was i was going to be an aerospace engineer and uh when my dad asked me when it came time in my junior year i just you know spouted out aerospace engineer and he's like well what about computer science and i honestly had never heard of computer science as a major and so in the end i ended up going off to um to school for computer science but it was something that you know shortly before that i had no idea that was the trajectory my life was going to take now one question just a bit out of curiosity so you say aerospace engineer was that just kind of picked out of a hat random this one sounds like a cool major so that's what i'll tell everybody or what made you decide to go to aerospace or originally say aerospace engineer so so as a young kid i was a bit of a space geek so i was um you know i used to um gather everything i could on all the different explorations that of you know of planets that um that uh that were happening in nassau and i used to you know in fact i actually used to talk with somebody who worked at one of the jet propulsion laboratories um she lived in my hometown and and she would share data that came out of some of the jpl satellite missions and and so i i just always assumed that would be the direction my career would take so now so you get in there and say okay this is where originally i'm going to take and then you say okay maybe i don't know if i actually want to be an aerospace and engineer jumped over to computer science and then went down that route now as you're doing computer science you're coming out of school and i think when we talked a little bit before you're saying hey i can either go to silicon valley or go to boston at least at that time you know that's kind of where the the the jobs were where the opportunities were so then how did you decide where you're going from there yeah so when i landed in boston it was uh it was during a recession believe it or not there was a time in the past when it was hard to get a job as a software engineer uh it's and it may be hard for most people to believe but but uh i had trouble finding my first job which is um you know it was a definitely an employer market at the time and so i'd moved to boston and i was looking for a job and uh you know and i almost gave up and headed back to central new york i think i'd spent two weeks looking for a job unsuccessfully and i finally got offered a job uh from this company called easel corporation which as you mentioned in the intro one of the odd historical facts of my career is that i was a member of the very first scrum team so people in the technology industry know what agile methodologies are and probably are familiar with scrums and stand-ups and and i didn't know at the time uh that that was the path i was going on i just happened to be right time right place with a really interesting group of engineers that that decided to do things differently in the industry and and so that was my first job it got me started in the tech industry it made me realize that i could actually make a living by writing software which at the time i remember as a 22 year old was just a you know unbelievable concept to me that someone would actually pay me for doing what i was doing for free when i was 11 years old so i was uh so i was i was really happy and i think at that point in time i think i had ruminating like this this drive in the in the back of my head that i wanted to start companies but i was just satisfied at that initial job just to have the opportunity to build great software products no i think that hey if you can find something that one will suit your passions or something that you enjoy and two they'll pay for it that's a pretty good combination so that's awesome that you were able to find that and be part of some of the initial you know things that are probably much more uh you know ubiquitous in the software industry now which are scrums and stand-up meetings and everything else and so sounds like it was a great opportunity so now you went and worked with eazl for a period of time now what made you decide to leave easel and go to the kind of more of the first startup which was the pro cd that you wouldn't work for yeah that's right yeah so when i joined easel it was right on the cusp of an ipo so so it had been a startup but but was no longer a startup and uh and so i think what happened is over the years the company ended up in really strong competition with with competitors in its market and then with microsoft as well and so i think uh over time the company really struggled and reached a point where revenue started to decline and the company started to go through layoffs and and i reached this point i i was with the company over four years and i remember just waking up one day and just um realizing that i'd be become kind of disillusioned with the company over the last couple years i was with it and i woke up one day and just realized that the company still had a great core it still had these this tremendously group of talented people but i had changed and it was really time for me to go do my next thing and part of what i saw as issues with the company was me really hanging on to staying at this first company i was at too long and so i decided to go off and do um the first of several startups i did a company called pro cd which ended up acquired by axiom which is big data provider based out of i think arkansas and uh and that was a uh you know interesting company it was all consumer-based software was a very you know big big change from what i was actually doing at easel which was really development tools and uh and that kind of set me on this path of startups and it was one of the things i think i realized later in my career that i found myself more comfortable in startups than anywhere else that i could be i just i like the clean whiteboard i like the hard problems that are unknown and you know and i really like the engagement with customers and trying to figure out how to deliver repeatable value to them that they really cared about no i think that makes sense and you know it's interesting as businesses of all sometimes you know even the founders are getting to the point of saying hey this is a great company i don't know that i you know it's not but it's not what i want to do anymore it's you know not you know it's going in a different direction and i think that happens from all the way from people that come on later to people that are the founders and you're saying okay i now i you know this is a great company but i want to go do something else so you went to ocd went and worked for a startup and kind of no i don't remember you know how long were you there and then what made you go on to the next startup because you jumped to he did pro cd for a period of time and then he did firefly and then he did silverback which i think were all startup they're kind of startup companies so mike made you kind of progress through those various startups that's right so uh so when i was at pro cd we reached a point where we were actually acquired by axiom and uh and at that point in time it just seemed like a good time to uh to look at my next thing and so so i i it also coincided with the emergence of the internet boom so that was uh the very earlier internet boom this would have been around maybe 95 96 somewhere in that time frame and uh and so i decided that's the direction i needed to head that was the next big thing and uh and i and i had some experience which is i built out some interesting um you know internet-based solutions at pro cd and i figured i could transfer that over to what i would do next and so i found this uh spin out of the mit media labs called firefly which is a company that no one remembers today but but would would probably s maybe uh a second or third to easel corporation was one of the highest density of talents you know that i've ever worked with at a company in fact firefly has one little footnote in history which is if you read any biography of amazon you'll you'll often see firefly mentioned as one of the early recommendation engines that uh amazon used in its very early days in the 90s and uh you know and i had a relatively short run there i i built out some really big back end distributed systems uh you know thoroughly enjoyed it and just reached a point where i just realized what i wanted to do was work for myself and i'd at that by that point in time i had really acquired a deep expertise and how to build big big distributed systems that could support high traffic at a time when everybody in the world seemed to be looking for somebody who could actually help them build high traffic websites so so at that point time i rolled out and i started my own consulting company which actually led to silverback which is i ended up at the end of the dot-com boom uh i ended up uh closing down my consulting company to go join one of my clients which was uh silverback technologies okay no it makes sense so you know you got a good opportunity with one of the clients and it kind of goes in the direction you want and so you say okay move over to them and you do silverback now you stayed with silverback for a reasonable amount of time and i can't remember is why you're a silverback or after you their left silver bag you got into the cloud computer you started to get interested in cloud or cloud health and so with that you know kind of how did silverback go when you're going you know kind of following one of the clients and doing that or that journey and what made you kind of decide to say hey maybe i'm going to at least start thinking about doing my own business yeah that's right you know i think i would say uh i joined silverback it was really my first true foray into the infrastructure market which is you know some people call it infrastructure management or it management and i uh including the time post acquisition it was probably a decade of my career uh spent in that space which made me a deep expert in the area of infrastructure management but i joined silverback and i would say silverback was a um it was a you know middling success which is you know we we ended up building a business that was delivering remote management and monitoring to um to to manage service providers and bars and and resellers and and built a uh you know a fairly severely decent-sized business with good growth and overall healthy business and ended up in 2007 acquired by dell and it was part of an initiative by dell to start to deliver managed services and uh and so i spent three years at dell uh i i like to say i spent two years you know two of the three years i can explain in the third i don't really know why i stayed uh it was just one of those uh situations where dell had a lot of great people uh you know tremendously you know valuable company a lot of respect for everything that's been done at dell but at the time dell wasn't a software company dell was very much a hardware integrator and it was a very hard thing to be a software person in a hardware integrator and uh and you know i think dell today in 2021 is a completely different company than the one that i saw in 2007. so i spent um three years there and i think i was two years in when i realized that the next big thing maybe a year or two in i realized the next big thing was cloud computing and it was very much like the internet it was going to be this tsunami that was going to sweep across every single industry and it was going to transform everything that we did and i realized that probably somewhere at the intersection of my two areas that i was deeply interested in infrastructure management and cloud computing was probably an opportunity to start my next business so no and i think that definitely makes sense so you say okay you know but one i think that you know working in a as a software person a hardware company is always a bit harder to you know even if you're great at your job it's just you know it's a different culture and trying to prove your value especially the mindset as hey we're selling hardware that's what we do to say hey there's a value in software it can always be a bit of a pull in there you know pull and tug but then in addition to that you're saying hey i think this is the next upcoming area so you say okay cloud computing in general and then cloud health is going to be an up and coming and i think you said you're going to get started you're getting excited about it and starting to explore it and then you have people start to tell you it's a bad idea so you kind of put it back on the back burner for a period of time before later revisiting it is that right that's right so in 2010 i started to go out and talk to venture investors and i talked to you know people i knew in the industry and in the idea was to build a monitoring and management company that was just purpose built for the public cloud and that was uh considered a really bad idea by almost everyone i spoke with in fact in you know most investors told me that they really thought the market opportunity was in the private cloud not the public cloud and so that i was i you know i really if i redirected my idea towards the private cloud maybe i had an opportunity and i think i i took that at the time it was one of those things where you realize entrepreneurship requires a certain amount of emotional fortitude that you have to push through a lot of the no's to get to the yeses and uh and i made the mistake of just believing that maybe they were right maybe i was wrong and so my plan b was i was recruited by a former board member to um take a vp of engineering role in this you know fast-growing startup that was doing archiving in the cloud and uh as that became my plan b as i decided to join that company and you know i think my entire time at that company was 18 months but i was six months in and i realized once i was scaling in the public cloud that everything i wanted to build was exactly what the market needed that i effectively was customer zero of what i wanted to go build and and it was just you know great affirmation i think it was affirmation that i needed to have that final bit of courage to just you know make the move and go start my next company no and i think that so he's you know and i think there is always that bit of courage that you know it takes to go out on your own and you know sometimes if you have a lot of encouragement makes it easier if there's a lot of naysayers that are saying no it's you you shouldn't do it or it can't be done or you're going to fail then it makes that already high level of anxiety that comes along with starting your own business even more more difficult so nonetheless so you said okay i'll go and work for this other job for a period of time do it for 18 months and say okay you know got to go do my own thing got to go try it out even if it failed it doesn't work and say yeah go and you start to do your own you know start to say okay i'm going to start a business or i'm going to do a startup and do my own thing so how did that go how did that start and was it rocky was it difficult i think you just it was just this last may if i remember right or it was fairly recently decided to go that route is that right yeah so so when i when i made this decision it was uh 2012. i actually quit my job i had uh two boys in elementary school i can't think of a worse time to actually be quitting my job but i quit my job and i just decided that somehow i was going to make this happen that i was absolutely certain that i was right with the idea i had in 2010 and i was going to make it happen in 2012. and uh so i started writing code i started running experiments um you know lean experiments trying to prove out different hypotheses i had in the market and you know i think i took a very different approach i think one of the great strengths of the approach that i took is a lot of people talk about pivoting uh you know and you have to pivot your idea you know when it when it's not working or you've hit some some dead end what i did is i called telescoping which is i started with this big market the big market was the intersection of cloud computing and i t management and then i just ran experiments telescope down to the specific business that i wanted to go star and that process probably took you know maybe maybe it was five six um uh seven months somewhere in that that range where i was kind of in the wilderness trying to figure this idea out working with some early prospective customers you know until i was able to close my first deal and you know it was one of those uh unusual moments where i really hadn't even incorporated the business i had no business entity i know as a you know as a lawyer you're probably thinking what were you thinking and uh and when i closed my first deal i realized it was by accident i didn't plan to close my first deal and i had to scramble and do all the logistics of putting in place a proper legal entity to go build the business but it was uh you know probably took you know several months of writing code building product working with customers before i really understood and had confidence that i knew there was a business idea here that you know a fairly substantial business could be built around no i think that that definitely makes sense and so he started out doing that and you know did it go well was it a rocket ship to the top and just loved every minute of it was it bumpy and uh you know kind of the up and downs or how did it go yeah i think everybody's elevator pitch when you have a uh successful company is that it was it was up and to the right and just tremendous success and everything went well the reality is is when you peel that back it's it's always a struggle and cloud health was no exception which is just to put it in context you know it grew to be one of the um largest sas companies in our in our segment of the market and uh grew from just me to over 500 people over the course of six years so it was this it was a tremendous rocket ship but before that rocket ship happened it took about 14 months of really hard work after i closed the first two customers to really get to true product market fit and it was just you know every day every week pushing through issues to get to product market fit and the ability to repeatedly you know sell market deliver that value proposition to customers and then after that the up and to the right happened and you could see the hockey stick in our revenues after that and then of course you confront the next set of issues which is in the growth phase it's very hard to constantly double your head count it's very hard to constantly double your number of customers and you know when you do that the the problem of doubling results in some things continuing to work that you were doing and some things that you were doing just completely you know the wheels fall off the the vehicle as you you know if you continue to do things the way you used to do them and and so we had all the challenges of growth and this went on through uh 2018 uh and we were acquired by vmware um a palo alto based public company vmware in 2018 and uh you know and then after that continued to grow um you know inside vmware until i uh left in may so now you did that and i think you were vmware for a couple of years is that right yeah two and a half years so now you say you know you grow that business gets acquired by vmware and you know that's always you know in quotes the the dream right you get you get acquired by a big business you make a ton of money and you go by your island and the caymans and then you're retired for you know for forever more and you don't have to worry about life because you made your exit which is again not probably the the reality for most businesses not that you can't make an accident it can't go well but you know there's definitely a you know a story after that of what or what you do once you make an exit so you make your you get acquired by vmware you work for them for a couple years and then you know what made you decide okay i'm gonna leave vmware kind of go back out on my own do this again go through the crazy of a craziness of starting a new business and how did you decide what you were going to do and i know that was a whole bunch of questions but kind of fill us in right what happened as you're leaving vmware what made you decide to do it and how it's how it's done yeah no i mean i have to say i i actually um i i actually enjoyed my time at vmware more than i expected because i'm i'm more of a small company person and being in a big company environment i didn't know i would enjoy it but i think i woke up one day and just realized that what my mission in life is is to build products that matter to customers with people i like to do it with like that's in many ways that's what i was doing without knowing it when i was um you know 11 12 years old and and i had the you know luxury of being able to do what i was passionate about as a young kid my entire professional career but i was no longer doing that which is instead i was running a large organization and um you know and it it was really straining really far from what motivated me and so i realized it was time to move on so i gave six months notice and recruited my replacement and tried to make a nice clean transition because i have like to this day i still look at cloud health as my baby it's you know it's my passion i created that that business and i want nothing more than it to succeed for decades into the future but for myself i need to go on and start something new so i took the summer off um just you know the process of building companies has a mental and physical toll that it can take on you and so i really enjoy the time off and just being able to wake up and spend my my day the way i wanted to spend my day for a period of a few months and i'm in the early phases now of um going back and starting my next business and super early it's it's just idea at this point and i'm starting right where i did it cloud health which is i'm i'm starting to run experiments and start to you know hone the idea and again following this telescoping process to figure out can i find the next big opportunity that i want to go dedicate the next decade of my life too no sounds like it's an exciting time it's always you know sometimes that's both the scariest time but also the most fun time is you're kind of in that hey what am i going to build what am i going to do next and what is that going to look like and then you know getting that up and going and trying it out and testing it are all kind of exciting and scary all at the same time so definitely wish you um good luck on that any any teasers without giving away too much as to where you think you're headed or what you're going to do yeah i would say that i left several um areas of the infrastructure management market unsolved over my years so over in the last couple decades i feel like there's some problems that that 20 years ago were a problem in infrastructure management that are still not solved today and i think i'd like to go find out if the market's ready for a radical transformative solution to some of these problems and so so that's where i'm spending my time the answer may be no by the way devin which is you know i think one of the key things about good experiments is it's almost like a scientist which is you can't bias it with an assumption that you're right you really have to go into it and let the data and the facts actually speak to you as opposed to you know your your gut feel um scare you all right we'll be an exciting journey and we'll have to catch up in uh in a few months and see how things continue to progress for you so with that now as we've kind of got towards you know where you're where you started and hearing your journey and bringing these up into the present it's always a great time to transition and ask the two questions i always ask the end of each podcast we'll jump to those now so the first question is is along your journey what was the worst business decision you ever made and what did you learn from it i would say i would say that maybe the worst business decision i made was coming out of school um i i was an introvert i was risk adverse i was um i was uncomfortable putting myself out there and so i decided to spend the you know good part of my career associated with startups in in the trenches building startups but not building my own startups and so i think maybe one of my worst business decisions is i don't think i'm fundamentally more capable now than i was 20 years ago and i think i could have been just as successful as starting businesses back then i just didn't i lack the confidence so i think to anyone else out there uh sometimes you just have to put yourself out there and failure is really not as bad as it seems and you know and at the time i think that was one of the things where i just assumed you know starting a company and failing was going to uh be a you know a black mark on my uh my professional career and my professional success in many ways it's a bad badge of honor it's an opportunity to you know really have distilled concentrated learning that makes you better at what you do next no i think that you know there's it's always scary to fail you never like or people generally like to avoid the topic just because it always is kind of you know feels like an open wound in some ways it can be but on the other hand you know there is a badge of honor of hey i did a startup it failed i learned these things from it and when i got or got back up and did my next one i was that much better for it so i definitely think that that is something you know a mistake to be made but a great one to learn from so second question is if you're talking to somebody that's just getting into a startup or a small business what be the one piece of advice you give them i would say build your own personal board of advisors and everybody's familiar with you know boards of directors for companies but i think the smartest thing i did with cloud health is i surrounded myself with i think it was around six people who i call them personal board of advisors and they were basically people who expected nothing from me they were getting no financial gain for spending time with me they just wanted me to be successful and each of them brought to the table a different set of experience and often compensated for skill sets that i didn't have or i was developing and i spent time just rotating through them and talking with them and grabbing coffee with them on a regular basis and sharing openly where i was at and i would recommend that is one of the most powerful tools that entrepreneurs and people who are are joining startups can leverage to really help steer their success in their success of their business and the success of their careers and it's one that i learned um so much later in my career that i wish i did so um i would just recommend you know leverage this powerful tool of boards of advisor no and i think that's great and i like you know it doesn't always have to be a paid board of advisors or you know any and sometimes it is sometimes it's you have a board on their company but even just having those people that you know whether it's bouncing ideas off of whether it's you know thinking or having someone that can help you think something through or reel you back or give you a different perspective all can definitely be helpful and it's definitely worthwhile to find those people in your life that you're able to have or have that feedback and have those people to go to can make a big difference in the business so definitely is a great piece of advice well as we wrap up if people want to reach out to you they want to be a for the new business as you get it up and going customer or client they want to be an investor maybe they want to be your first employee they want to be your next best friend any or all of the above what's the best way to reach out to you contact you find out more great so you will find everything i'm thinking if you go to joe consella dot me which is i i tend to uh post whatever is interesting me both on the personal side and professional side there and it also has my full contact information including my email as well as my mobile number all right well i definitely encourage people to reach out to contact you find out more and maybe make a new best friend so with that thank you again for coming on the podcast it's been a fun it's been a pleasure now for all of you that are listeners if you have your own journey to tell and you'd like to be a guest on the podcast we'd love to have you so feel free to go to inventiveguest.com fly to be on the show a couple more things make sure to like make sure to subscribe make sure to share because we want to make sure everybody knows about this awesome episode they're awesome episodes that we are able to share great journeys with and last but not least if you ever need help with patents trademarks or anything else with your business feel free to go to strategymeeting.com grab some time with us to chat well thank you again joe for coming on the podcast and wish the next leg of your journey even better than the last thank you devin appreciate

Invest In Experts

Lori Highby

Devin Miller

The Inventive Journey Podcast for Entrepreneurs
10/25/2021

 

It's worth making the investment in people that are really good at their job. You focus on what you are really good at and your expertise. Hire those attorneys, HR professionals, the marketers, whatever holes that you have. Make the investment on the front end because it's going to actually save you time and money down the road vs. you trying to figure it out on your own.

The Inventive Journey

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

Get In Contact With The Guest

ai generated transcription

 um it's worth making the investment in people that are really good at their job you focus on what you're really good at and your expertise and hire those the attorneys the hr professionals the marketers whatever holes that you have uh make the investment on the front end because it's gonna actually save you time and money down the road versus you trying to figure it out on your own [Music] hey everyone this is devin miller here with another episode of the inventive journey i'm your host devin miller the serial entrepreneur that's grown several startups and seven and eight figure businesses as well as the founder and ceo of miller ip law for help startups and small businesses with their patents and trademarks you ever need help with yours just go to strategymeeting.com grab some time with us to chat we're always here to help now today we have another great guest on the podcast lori heibi and there's a quick introduction to lori so i went to high school loved art classes and went to university and started to or started out in our classes before moving over to marketing and has been in marketing ever since so um worked full time and did school and nights and weekends i believe i worked for a web development company while in school graduated worked for a couple different marketing agencies um and then while working at the last agency uh her boss and mentor got into a motorcycle accident i believe and uh she took over some of her of his accounts and then she took over his book of business and then the last or later the owner asked her ask the owners or later uh ask the owner she become a partner decided that would leave do her own thing in about 2008 and so thought she could do a better which i think is the uh or how most entrepreneurs in business starts and it's then evolved over the last 13 years from there so with that much as an introduction welcome on the podcast lori well thank you you you did a good job capturing all the notes didn't you that's right i try and give a i try and condense a much longer journey into a 30 second uh preview so i did my part now is turning it over you just a bit so now let's unpack that a little bit more so tell us a little bit about where your journey got started in high school with art class yeah i mean i as any high school student is you know what is it that really what kind of classes do you want to take where do you want to go and i i just found that i was really passionate about art and so i i exhausted all the programs that my high school offered and i actually ended up taking some classes um so art college courses um while i was in high school um and then that's where i learned a little bit about kind of the path uh related to going to college and in the um art career so i started going out for uh commercial art which is now referred to as graphic design today so that might give you a little um tip as to my age they don't even call that anymore um but when i was in class uh attending a sociology course i found and was completely fascinated by the concept of how other how your surroundings really influence your decision making and that's really where my interest in marketing came so i changed my major from commercial art to marketing um very non-traditional student as you mentioned so i was going to school nights and weekends while working you know a couple different jobs um equating to about 40 or 50 hours a week let me ask one question just before you jump too far so you started out kind of taking art classes in college um what made you switch to kind of go the you know or now graphic design but you know our yeah and what made you switch to marketing was that hey job prospects are horrible in art and i never were going to be employed or was it more hey i love marketing and want to do that or hey some you know had a good class or good experience or kind of what made you decide to shift yeah it was so that sociology class that i took and you know there was a chapter that about like how messaging influences decisions you know and and your surroundings and and so um when i was you know going to school for the commercial art and understanding like colors and images and visuals and how how they can influence um things the messaging side of things is really impactful too so marketing uh and just how understanding and creating messages that connect and resonate with your audience really is what attracted me and i realized that you know from a creative perspective it doesn't just have to be you know drawing or painting something it's so much bigger than that and that's what was like wow i didn't really this was like a whole world that exists from a from a you know career perspective and yeah a lot more opportunities than you pursue marketing versus uh commercial art which is this really small window of of creativity no and that definitely makes sense and so didn't mean to interrupt your story so now you say okay gonna switch gonna it's a different field never realized it was even out there and it sounds fun and exciting now you worked uh as a for a firm as you're going through uh college right yeah so i was actually working at a web development company while i was pursuing my commercial art uh degree and learning a ton of really cool things when it comes to just the creative and visual side of things but um when i switched to marketing it expanded it even further and it's like okay so you can make a website look pretty but let's talk about making sure like that user experience is is really powerful and the messaging is strong and then how are we going to get people to that website so it's just like opening up this whole world uh as i mentioned so um i went from i'm gonna pursue an associate's degree to now i'm gonna get a bachelor's degree in marketing to wow this whole business thing is fascinating i'm gonna go get my master's in business um so that is fascinating journey went to school way longer than i anticipated no but you know it's interesting so i never i got an mba or when i did the law degree in the and i did an mba at the same time but it was interesting more so after i got the mba and i got into the real world is interesting the psychology behind marketing and converting people and calls to action and funnels and follow-ups and you know it's one where i never really for a while in my career never really thought about it oh you get a client you get do the work you take care of them and they'll come back but there's a lot more involved to that and it makes it a lot more interesting and fun because it has a lot of opportunity to you know have skill to try things out and do different things and adapt it to different markets so i can definitely get the appeal there so now you so you're coming out of school you've been working you know night or working full-time doing school nice weekends you get that all finished up you graduate and then you went to uh a marketing agency is that right yeah well i was working at a web development company while i was going working on my associates and um and then i switched to a more traditional advertising agency and so there you know i learned a lot about doing outdoor radio print you know putting ads in newspapers buying billboards so i mean that was really cool to learn all those things but i learned um at the end of the day that the digital was really kind of where i was excited about like the technology the new up and coming i mean you could do so much more from you know testing things like if you're putting an ad in newspaper once it's printed it's printed you can't you know go back and you delete it and erase it like you can right yeah so there's just a lot more i guess cushion for um creativity because you can quickly tweak things in the in the digital space and just i was fascinated by the evolution of what's happening in the space i mean this was um you know 15 plus years ago that i i really found that i'd rather be in the digital space as opposed to the the traditional marketing space no i think that definitely makes sense and this certainly was probably the right choice given where um marketing and sales and the our online and everything it continues to move in that direction so now you worked with the i think you mentioned you worked with a couple different marketing agencies over a period of time and it was the last agency you worked with that i think your boss and mentor got in a motorcycle accident that kind of sets you on in a roundabout way saying on the path where you're at now so maybe give us a little bit of insight there sure yeah i mean i don't think that you know there's some people that are very serial entrepreneurs like yourself like this is what you're going in and this is what you're gonna do and i didn't necessarily have that mindset going in um i found my mentor and i was super excited because i i was kind of looking for one um and unfortunately i only got to spend about 10 months with him because as as you mentioned you got in a motorcycle accident and that was kind of what i refer to as like my pivot point in my professional career is i was either it was my time to like go all in and just kind of support the business as much as i possibly could or say you know i'm not in i'm not interested in and and leave them hanging and you know go find a job somewhere else and i decided to go all in and i learned a ton you know here i was um early super early twenties managing over a million dollars worth of business for this agency um and and was given you know some responsibility to not only maintain it but to grow it um and i did that which was super awesome um and they wanted me to kind of pursue some additional new business opportunities and that's where i said hey i'm doing all these great things make me a partner um and i don't know if it was you know they're looking at me like this young foolish little girl we're not gonna make you a partner um they're they were close uh getting ready for retirement so you know if anything it was an opportunity for them to to build their exit plan um but they didn't look at it that way so i decided you know what i can do this on my own and that's what i did my my young ignorant self not really knowing what i was getting into but i think that anybody that sets off on the entrepreneur do your own thing start your own business path has to have a relatively high level of naivety in in the sense that if you knew all the things you're getting yourself into the sleepless nights figuring things out the being the janitor being the boss being the hr department marketing sales client development everything all and all mixed together you probably would never start so i think that definitely it's it's one of those once you get in you probably love it but you would nev nobody had ever started they knew what they were getting in for on the front end so so now you get going on you know do your own business say okay they're not going to make me partner i'm going to go to go my own way i'm going to do my own thing it sounded like you had a few clients that were willing to follow along with you or to come along with business now did it go once you started out did you go swimmingly you just hey we got clients and we built a big business and it went successful and no issues and no drawbacks or is it the opposite of hey it was a big slog and it was hard to find clients and you had to pivot you almost went bankrupt or kind of how did it go for you um i just like to describe being a business owner entrepreneur as a roller coaster ride i can just answer that question for you right away um you know i've seen some visuals shared on social media like oh yeah i'm a business owner and it's a straight line to awesome dollars but no the reality is it's you have there's highs and lows and you've got random loops that you're thrown into and as much as you plan and i'm a huge advocate for planning and i'm sure we'll cover that later but um it's never going to go the way you planned so um you know i blasted my entire network everyone i knew email address mailing address and said hey this is what i'm doing let me know if you're interested i got my first three clients that way i did have some clients follow me which was awesome um you know i respected the business and didn't didn't actively act uh reach out and and try to win their business they um they reached out to me so that was fair in that sense um and then um yeah i had a business partner for a short period of time that was extremely short-lived and uh basically i've been on my own um since uh about six months into starting the business i would say um and yeah i learned some serious lessons especially on on the legal side of things uh related to to that so it cost me a lot of money to get rid of my business partner um about fifty thousand dollars so i know you have a question around your your worst business decision so i might be jumping ahead to that one don't answer that question but i think that one point kind of follow one question because i think that you hit on it you know first of all i agree with you i always look at it and i always used to say it was the same thing as a roller coaster and then i always had i had someone else as another guest on the podcast said you know it's more of like the whole theme park you get to the parking lot and you're excited you get your tickets you go in then you go on sunrise and get banged around and you have to take a break and then you go and you get the corndogs and you eat way too many and it makes you sick and you have to take a sit down then you go get on the bumper card and you can dink all around and then you at the very end you go you go back and you say that was fun but i i need a break so i mean it's kind of that whole thing i think i always look at i'm like well that's pretty good like it probably yeah i could see that yeah yeah but so you get kind of that that right and you know go along and do that and one of the things that i think a lot of people get into is hey should i get a business partner should i not get a business partner is it a good experience is a bad experience and i've seen it go both ways some people again it can be bulky people that hey i'm not a good person who wants to be a business partner i like to do my own thing i like to be able to make decisions i like to be fast paced and i don't want someone else that i have to always run and buy on the other hand some people are saying you know hey i need someone that is a good mentor that offsets my skill sets that i can bounce ideas off of so kind of what uh what took you a bit into partnership and then what you led what led you back out to doing your own thing um yeah i guess yeah i think the business partnership was was maybe um a confidence or a crotch for me to actually move forward you know it's like i'm not doing this all by myself i have someone coming in with me um and uh you know i guess in transparency it was a family member um semi it was a cousin so not not immediate family i would never ever ever recommend doing that [Laughter] um but you know i don't think even you know with family it's always a tendency to want a new family you know the person you typically have a relationship with them you can trust them and so it's one that you often gravitate towards and it can be good i've known some but it's also one where you know now when you go to thanksgiving or you have family activities or anything else it is one where if it doesn't work out well or there's tension or you know it's not like you can get away from it as easy you know a lot of times when it's a business partner that you don't see after work then you know you go home you relax you don't have to deal with them and you know you can go back in or or it's easier to part ways and so i definitely get to say hey even if it's was a good relationship it's still a hard one and then if it's one where it has some tension it it it it snowballs a bit so now you're saying okay thought i would uh hire a family member didn't work out decided to you know buy them out and we can talk a little about the worst business decision go on your own now where is that kind of bring us up to speed a bit today where is it been where is it going kind of where do you see the future because i know when we talked a little bit before you mentioned it kind of pivoted and adjusted it took you a bit of time to kind of figure out where you want where you're going sure so when i started we were only doing websites website design website development and you know eventually people were asking me hey what's this facebook thing and and should i do something with it is this good for my business and i would tell them what to do and then how do i i how do i get found on google and you know i know all the answers these questions so i just tell them what to do and then i'd get the question back well can you do this for me so aha of course i can if you're going to pay me some money to do it so really instead of just saying we do websites we totally shifted our model to being full strategic digital marketing so instead of just yeah we're gonna manage your facebook for you let's be let's really do some homework do some research and and understand your ideal customer and figure out is facebook actually the right channel and then what's that message and you know as like some of those things i talked about earlier that really got me sucked into wanting to do marketing is understanding the message and the positioning and where you actually have to place that information to get in front of that ideal customer and help them solve the problem that they have at the end of the day so uh we went from we only do websites which is project-based work so you always have to keep looking for your next project to now we support the big picture uh digital marketing strategy and the full implementation and the beauty of that from a business model is that's more of a recurring revenue model so you know it's ongoing engagements that we're constantly managing creating content and that's way less stress from a business perspective to have that recurring model because you're not you're not chasing for that next new project and you're being more thoughtful and intentional about the type of work that you take on no and i think that there's a lot it'll jump back in there but i think one is you know a lot of times it's hard depending on the business and the industry if you're continually having to chase it because once you build a website generally it's typically done i mean you may do a little bit of seo updating but to a large extent you finish the project and go on to the next one so you're always having to bring in new clients and you're always having to find them whereas if you can find something that's a bit more ongoing service and it still has to add value it's not just ongoing services oh for sure but now you can say okay i'm transitioning towards it makes it a bit easier to sustain the model because you're having repeat client here once you build that clientele it kind of builds on itself to where you're having clients that are giving it that basis to continue to grow the business so definitely makes sense plus it's one where i think it's an area that people are still trying to figure it out it's still it's still evolving and it's still different freeze industry but still there's certainly one that's had a major impact on on marketing so it sounds like it's a great journey so with that now we've teased it out a few times and we haven't or we haven't actually got to yet so we're going to jump to the the two questions i always ask at the end of the podcast now before we jump to those as a reminder to everybody we are also are doing the bonus question we'll talk a little bit about intellectual property so if you want to hear that question make sure to stay tuned after the how the podcast wraps up to hear that question but without any further ado um first question i always ask at the end of each podcast is what was the worst business decision you ever made what'd you learn from it oh well i did tease that so it cost me fifty thousand dollars um but uh when i was departing from my business partner i was trusting the internet for you know that writing the business contract and the the agreement of terms and and did not um did not invest the time in speaking with the experts instead i was trying to do it on my own and i realized yeah and finding the first legal form online is that the takeaway yeah i would say that's pretty much what i'm trying to get um it probably would have cost me a significantly lower amount of money to work with an attorney upfront to get some you know contracts drafted properly versus um trusting uh what what random piece of advice i found online no i definitely get that you know it there's a lot to unpack there one is that you know bringing on a partner you always want to be careful because whenever you have to separate it's a lot like you know a divorce or you're getting because you're you're a lot of times you're working you're with that business partner half the time more than you are a spouse because you're there every day in day in day out people are putting in time and effort and everybody values their contribution differently and when you guys step or when you separate um usually it's not unless you're buying them out or they're retiring going for another position but if it's not an amicable separation much like a divorce they can get messy and it can cost you a lot more and so i think that that's definitely one take when the other one is they hit on was googling a search you know google has made it so everybody thinks they're an expert on everything takes five minutes they'll find a form and it's gonna be perfect and i don't need to go pay the attorney and sometimes that's true i think that there are situations where it works out but more often than not you end up finding out well those forms that i thought that i knew what they were and that i could probably figure out didn't work out quite as well and so i think that you know finding the expert as your business grows to make sure it's done how you need it can save you time and money in the long run so i think those are lessons that definitely a lot of people learn but also great takeaways totally second question i always ask is if you're talking to somebody that's just getting into a startup or small business would be the one piece of advice you give them i think it kind of aligns with my biggest challenge it's worth making the investment in people that are really good at their job you focus on what you're really good at and your expertise and hire those the attorneys the hr professionals the marketers whatever holes that you have uh make the investment on the front end because it's going to actually save you time and money down the road versus you trying to figure it out on your own no and i think that you know that's a great take it's one that's sometimes a hard lesson to learn for a lot of entrepreneurs because the reason why you got into business is you thought you could do it better you thought you were smarter than the other people and you could do it and so and a lot of times it's true and you do do it better but even if that's the case you're very seldom 99.9 of time not going to be an expert in everything and even if you wanted to become an expert in everything then you're going to not it's not the best thing for the business because you're not going to be if you're trying to do everything and be the expert everything you're not focusing on where you can add the most value so i think realizing that there are areas where other people can provide that expertise and that value can or definitely be beneficial to your business well if people want to reach out to you they want to be a customer they want to be a client they want to be an investor they want to be an employee they want to be your next best friend any or all of the above what's the best way to reach out to you contact you find out more oh great question so i'm super active on linkedin just search for laurie highbee i post almost every single day there otherwise you can visit keystoneclick.com and you'll get a contact form phone number all the great details on how to connect with us but i'm always open to chatting connecting and answering anyone's digital marketing questions all right well i definitely encourage people to reach out for any or all the reasons that were stated because they're definitely a great resource for your business so thank you again for coming on the podcast reminder we're all still they're still doing the bonus question but thank you for coming on the podcast as we wrap up um it's been a fun it's been a pleasure now for all of you that are listeners if you have your own journey to tell and you'd like to be a guest on a podcast we'd love to have you just go to inventiveguest.com apply to be on the show also as listeners make sure to click subscribe share because we want everybody to find out about our awesome episodes last but not least if you ever need help with patents trademarks or anything else in business just go to strategymeeting.com grab some time with us to chat so now as we wrap up on the normal part of your journey and what a journey it was it was great and thank you for sharing now it's always fun to shift gears just a bit and talk a little bit about the subject that i live in or live day and day day in and day out which is intellectual property so what and uh with that much is a shift i'll turn it over you to ask your number one intellectual property question i have a really interesting question around podcasts so i've had my podcast for four years now it's called social capital um and i've got about 300 something episodes i never trademarked the name and i just came across someone else that's using that same name for that podcast so uh i guess what's your opinions should i do something about that should i have trademarked it all right so here's my very short answer that i'll attack go trademark it right now okay now that sounds like a self-interested answer of an attorney asking a pet trademark sure yeah yeah but the the way the trademarks work to unpack that a bit is and it's the same whether it's podcasts or any other industry is typically the first person to file the trademark is a presumptive owner and has the most rights to it so when if somebody else comes along after you the trademarks at first they they are in a much better situation to own it to manage it and to otherwise limit your ability to grow now you do have some rights is the first user now they're limited and i wouldn't recommend relying on them so give you an example of how those rights work so let's say you open and i'll make it easy the world's best pizza shop and you started in chicago and you everybody loves your pizza you just had one location in chicago and we're going to call it abc pizza because that's an easy one to remember and abc pizza was great and so you came along you were doing that for 10 years people loved you and you eventually said okay you know i should probably franchise or i'm going to expand into other locations or do something of that nature and say well when i'm going to do that i'm going to go trademark and i should probably see if i own the right well let's say during those 10 years that you were just in chicago somebody else had gone and trademarked it what it does it gives you the situation where you can continue because you were the first user the geographic area where you were starting to use it in this case chicago you can continue to use the trademark however the person that just went and got the trademark gets to use it everywhere else except for chicago so in other words you can't go out of chicago they can't come into chicago and so it gives you a presumption of yes i was the first user i can continue to use it but if you want to expand if you want to do more things if you want to go into other markets or hit different demographics or geographic locations it makes it much more difficult to be able to expand in those areas if somebody else already owns a trademark so that was the longer answers to why i would go get it now just because the first person that files on it is in a much stronger position as far as ownership and be able to manage and direct the trademark than somebody that's maybe started using it first but now has to say i have to define where i where i started where i'm currently using it and i can't expand out of that area sure interesting okay cool so thank you i should trademark it great market now that's right but thank you so much any of the listeners have any other questions we can help you out as i mentioned before you can go to strategymeeting.com love to dive in love to chat love to make sure everybody's taken care of in the meantime appreciate you coming on the podcast it's been a fun it's been a pleasure and wish the next leg of your journey even better than the last awesome thanks a lot this is a lot of fun thank you for inviting me absolutely [Music]

Refine The Product Or Service

Benjamin Wood

Devin Miller

The Inventive Journey Podcast for Entrepreneurs
10/18/2021

 

Refine the product. Always work on refining the product, making the product or service the best version of its self. Ultimately that is what's going to bring people through the door and get people interested. Have people wanting to invest or having people buy out your company.

The Inventive Journey

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

Get In Contact With The Guest

ai generated transcription

 refine the product um always work on refining the product making the product the best version of itself because ultimately that's what's gonna bring people or service sorry um product or service you know that's what's gonna bring people through the door get people interested and um you know have people wanting to invest or uh you know wanting people to or having people buy out your company [Music] hey everyone this is devin miller here with another episode of the inventive journey i'm your host evan miller the serial entrepreneur that's grown several startups in the seven and eight figure businesses as well as the founder and ceo of miller ip law where he helps startups and small businesses with their patents and trademarks you ever need help with yours just go to strategymeeting.com we're always here to help now today we have another great guest on the podcast ben wood um so ben uh growing or growing up in high school decided he wanted to be a dentist didn't really know why i think it was just because it sounded like it was a good career that he would be able to have a good lifestyle went on a um an lds mission or a mission for the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints did chinese speaking came back from his uh religious mission and studied a bit in school started an e-commerce brand importing chinese goods sold that business started a new brand in toys and games category and e-commerce sold that business as well then started his current business where he and the owners um do a lot of things with brands on amazon and then that's been completely self-funded and maybe looking into doing a bit of vcs but or maybe may have had some vc offers but wanting to stay independent at least for now so with that much as an introduction welcome on the podcast ben thank you very much dev and i'm glad to be here i am it's an honor for me so thank you absolutely so i just took a much longer journey and condensed it into 30 seconds so why don't we unpack that a bit so tell us a little bit about how your journey got started in high school wanting to be a dentist yeah so you know i actually um i've said this many times before you know i i wanted to be a dentist because i i had a few family friends that were dentists and it seemed like they were doing well you know i didn't really know what it what really it required to become a dentist i just thought you know what they're making a lot of money this could be interesting but i didn't even think of the uh the time that's invested i knew i was aware of it but i didn't really you know think that in depth um into this industry or into that uh career path and so ultimately you know um i don't even uh i don't even know if i'm worthy of saying that i really wanted to become a dentist i just wanted to do something that that you know put me in a good spot financially and so you know in high school that was kind of on my mind i was also playing sports um and so that's kind of all i was thinking about as well and hanging out with friends so i didn't really have a lot of direction um but i did end up you know i i ended up getting a an lds mission call and i was called to brisbane aust australia to speak mandarin chinese and so that was kind of a a big pivot moment for me where you know i then had a valuable asset that i could offer to people which was the chinese and there are so many different things um from translating or to importing products you know all over the spectrum as far as uh that language use goes and so um you know from high school not really knowing what i wanted to do i went on this church mission and then from there you know i had a really good time started learning chinese uh and that was you know as soon as i got back from my lds mission i was exposed to sourcing products from china and i had made some connections in australia that kind of gave me um a good head start to you know figuring out how to source these products from china and they introduced me these connections in australia introduced me to a couple factories in china where um i started working on my first project and it was a it was a clothing company um in 2000 15 2016 beginning of 2016. it was a clothing company that um you know i i was trying to target the chinese market as my consumer but it was so hard logistically to manage all of it from the us and so it really didn't last long so that led into this men's accessory brand um that i started in 2016 as well and that my uh main computer in the united states and that started to pick up um i was able to source uh several different great designs and products that we conceptualized and designed ourselves and manufacture those at cost and then bring them here to the us and distribute to several retail stores um and then got into you know we had our own website where we were selling so we were very involved in e-commerce and in the paid ad space and then we let me just dive into one question as you're going along now help eric just kind of set the stage for me was this hey i was doing this as a side hustle while i was in college or dropped out of colleges this was massively successful well i decided after the mission i didn't want to go to college and i wanted to do this first or kind of what was that path that year how did that mean yeah yeah so yeah there's definitely a ton to dive into there so i um i went on my mission came back and a good family friend hired me as a plumbing assistant and so i was you know assigned to do all the dirty work of you know crawling through crawl spaces and and cleaning up all sorts of messes and i um you know i was making 15 bucks an hour right off of my mission and it wasn't uh what i wanted to do you know i was saving up for school and ultimately i ended up going to school at um byu idaho for a semester and then i transferred to weber state and then i ended up transferring to byu but prior to getting to byu while i was at weber state i had started that second company which was that men's accessory brand and um there was definitely a lot of hiccups on that journey but you know i realized um quickly you know we can sell x amount of products uh per day then i don't have to work as a plumbing assistant and so that was kind of my first goal and um so i was able to quit that job and i really only you know the first investment that i made into um that first brand it was like 500 bucks worth of worth of inventory and um from there it started to snowball and get a little bit more you know we were making uh substantial purchase orders as we started to grow but um yeah so i went to weber state and my goal was to get into byu i didn't have the grades from high school to get into byu initially right off the mission so um i you know i worked hard in college at the same time of creating this first company and i finally was able to get into byu which was great but after the first week of attending brigham young i um you know i i'm i didn't have time to go to school and run this company that i had started a year prior and so you know it was funny because i worked so hard to get into byu but ultimately after the first week i ended up dropping out of of college and pursuing that men's accessory company full-time um and so that was kind of you know that was the uh that was also a very pivotal moment for me when i could focus solely on this e-commerce brand or e-commerce retail brand that i was building for the last year no i think that makes sense you know and i think everybody sometimes college is absolutely the right path and people are saying hey this is i want to have a degree so i can go in this field another time you're saying hey i have a different opportunity that lines up with my interests i'd rather do that and it makes more sense and so you take the other path and sometimes it works out awesome another time you say okay i'll go back to college and not you know but i think that having that mentality if i don't have to be locked into one or one path that is a typical path but here you know i can take it or take time to actually you know pursue what i want to do and have that career definitely makes sense now one thing i'll just hit on because you started a couple before you do the the business that you're doing now and we'll talk to that in just a minute you stole both of the e-commerce uh brands at one point right so you originally had the importing of chinese goods that you sold and then you also had the one before the current company which was kind of in the um toys and games and some of the other ones that you did with each of those sell you know selling of those brands was that hey i built it to a point i think i can sell it and then you know i'd rather pursue this or hey it's on the downturn let's make some money and get out before it goes to you know goes to the bottom or kind of what was the motivation for selling those along the way yeah so just to clarify the first one was a men's accessory brand and these these are so i had one prior to that which is a clothing brand uh that was the like chinese facing you know uh our goal was to have these chinese consumers buy our product but it didn't that was a complete failure but the one after that the men's accessory brand that was here in the united states that was you know we did pretty well um and the what led to selling that company was i felt like i brought it to its highest point because while i was running that that company i was also at another startup that um that helps companies with uh like ppc management and amazon advertising management so stuff like that so my buddy started that company i joined him just for a little bit while i was at this other while i was running my own e-commerce company and so you know it got to the point where i launched 60 or in total probably like 75 products or so under our under our man's accessory brand and we put it in several retail stores we had our own website we had a ton of organic traffic and we were also on amazon and amazon was kind of the giant as far as sales go uh amongst all of our sales channels you know we were making the most money from amazon and so um it made sense to sell the company because i brought it to its highest point or highest potential highest ceiling that i could bring it to so from there um sold that company and ended up uh using those funds you know some of those funds to have some startup capital or an infusion of cash into this new brand which um was a toys and games company and so i launched that toys games company and um [Music] scaled that up fast and it was a similar thing um the first brand the men's access accessory one had for about two years and eight months the second one it was actually it was a little bit of the same thing but we are selling exclusively on amazon so what happened was our cells were growing so much on amazon we had one of the you know e-commerce giants of amazon um offer to buy our company and because you know it was at a point where like i i felt like i brought that company to [Music] its ceiling but it also had a ton of potential where if it was in the right hands it could get into retail you know target and walmart and all these other avenues and so for me it made sense to sell that company at the time and again that kind of you know that was um a big blessing for me because i was able to use that as startup capital for ultimately this business now which is angora and um you know and as you know we haven't had to take on any funding we've had several offers but we've been able to be self-funded up to this point so no and i think that's a good walk through because it's interesting you know when what what motivates people to selling is different sometimes you're saying i'm worn out i don't want to do this anymore sometimes saying hey i've taken it to the point that i can take it and if somebody you know to take it to the next level is beyond what i able to do or even what i want to do sometimes you're saying you know there are people and i'm probably you know a lot like that is if the fun is the building the brand the fun isn't figuring it out the funders are getting it going and then when it becomes a grown-up business so to speak that some of that funds lost you're saying i'd rather continue to do that as an avenue or they're just another or something else i'd like to pursue or the timings are and there's just so many different things that factor into so it's always kind of fun to hear that so now you've jumped over to where you're at today which is you know the current business and maybe this help explain kind of you know so you you started your own e-commerce brands for you know a few different lines sold those off so i think this one's still related to amazon but in brandy and that but it's also helping other people on amazon is that right yeah totally so this is what's interesting about our business is we sell exclusively on amazon as a company so we are an e-commerce portfolio that sells only on amazon but what we've done is we've opened up our portfolio to the public so really anyone can invest in our portfolio um right now we have about we have just over 50 brands on amazon that we have ownership in but our clients also have ownership in these brands um it started was you know we initially we wanted to uh essentially flip uh amazon listing so if you've ever gone on amazon do you shop on amazon i do i do fairly frequently i would say most people have at least shopped on amazon at one point or another but i'm certainly not the exception i'm on amazon as well yeah yeah so if you go onto amazon and you look up a red spatula you're going to see the gingen result page of red spatulas and each of those spatulas uh constitutes a listing so that's a product listing if you will and so the way we started was we were building these product listings and we would scale them for about three months and then when we would sell them so we we would invest you know our own money into these listings so i would invest you know 10 grand into the inventory design the conceptualization of the product um and developing the listing and then we'd run it for about three months where we got it to the point of you know over 10k a month consistently just as one listing and then we would sell it and oftentimes the multiples were so high uh just for one little asset like that was you know it was because uh e-commerce is just such a trending marketplace right now in industry for a lot of investors so you know we would sell it for 60 to 70k and um and we started doing this more and more and so we started building kind of this business model where we were flipping these listings but we we uh quickly realized that there wasn't a ton of long-term incentive for us you know we build it up and then we sell it and then you know it's done uh so what we thought and the turnaround time for building and selling those those listings was also it took several months and so we decided that instead of selling these listings to our clients why don't we partner with our clients and we build these listings we build all of these brands and just scale them and in exchange we get you know a split of the profit on a monthly basis and we also hold equity and all these different brands so for us you know that had there was a lot more long-term value with that business model instead of just creating these high value assets and then selling them off we are you know we're partnering with these people they come to us we build everything because we're really good at it and we we source everything we design everything and then we launch it on the amazon marketplace and we do it pretty fast and we hold equity in that business um lifetime of the business and our clients have the option to continue to expand their product lines or to sell it off to a buyer similar to the way i did with the previous brands that i owned oh no i think that's that's a fun and i always like when you're seeing a bit of an experimentation or different model in the marketplace that uh it's a lot of times we'll align you know interest and and pulling together in the same direction and also it gives everybody a bit of skin in the game so i think that's awesome so well that kind of brings us up into a bit of where you're at today and it's always a good time to transition to the two questions i always ask at the end of each podcast and so now as we kind of talk through your journey the first question i always ask is along your journey what was the worst business decision you ever made and what did you learn from it yeah so you know that's that's a really good question i've made so many horrible decisions while trying to run these businesses but i would say the one of the most um influential ones that kind of had the most control um on my first business was choosing or being so eager to choose a business partner you know i was uh i was super young i was 20 years old when i started that first company and i was sorry that second company and i was um i was so eager to choose a business partner because there was so much unknown for me there was so much uncharted territory that i was not exposed to prior to that and so for me i just wanted to choose a business partner that didn't offer really any funding or any expertise i just did it because i was i was eager to to just have someone that would share the burden with me so i would say you know always be cautious with who you're choosing as your business partner i think it's important to develop a really good product first and then you know you can add people to the team and and decide who a partner should be from there um and even with my second or third company from that point um i i was again you know kind of i wanted something to share the burden with and so i was uh i was eager to add a business partner onto the team but i ultimately um waited until it made sense until you know we either needed more expertise or more funding because those are really the two um assets that someone can bring as far as you know people that deserve equity in a company and so i i definitely suggest you know be very cautious about um who you make a business partner no no and i think that's great piece of advice in the sense that you know a lot of times first of all i think at least and i'm absolutely guilty is a lot of times you go in thinking hey everybody is going to work as hard as i am they're going to be diligent they're going to be as dedicated they're going to you know want to build this and sometimes that's absolutely true and other times you bring out partners and they haven't been in the trenches with you or they're doing this as a side hustle or they don't you know they're not as dedicated or a myriad of other things and it just can create that you know partnerships oftentimes you dive into it much more quickly than you should because you make a lot of those assumptions and if you get ones where the assumptions are wrong it can make that running their business and having that partnership a lot more difficult so i think that that you know choosing the business partner that is aligned if you're going to bring on sometimes you're just saying hey i'm not cut out don't want to do a business partner just want to do it on my own but if you're looking to bring out a business partner maybe to offset your talents or come on as an investor or whatever the reason i think looking at them and making sure taking the time to actually make sure it's a good partnership you know gonna be a good relationship definitely pays off so i think that's great piece of advice second question i always ask is if you're talking to someone that's just getting into a startup or a small business what would be the one piece of advice you'd give them yeah so um that's also a great question because there's so many things but at the end of the day you know i think the best thing that you can focus on as a young startup founder or even if you just joined a startup is to refine the product um always work on refining the product making the product the best version of itself because ultimately that's what's going to bring people or service sorry product or service you know that's what's going to bring people through the door get people interested and you know have people wanting to invest or uh you know wanting people to or having people buy out your company there's uh i think there are so many um mistakes that happen in the startup world especially here in utah where people want to seek funding prior to even even having a product and so they give away part of their company prior to even having a tangible product that that has um real life use cases so uh i yeah i would suggest you know always always work on the product first even if you don't have a ton of funding um just work on what you can with your current resources and like i said that's what you know with us at angora that's what we did we started as a business that would flip these listings and we got so good at creating these e-commerce assets that scale super fast and they get to sustainable revenue fairly quickly um and then you know we started selling them that gave us more funding and that also proved our product you know we were able to refine our expertise our skills our launch sequences on amazon and ultimately what i created was um this super valuable product which now we uh like i said we've we've got this massive well it's it's a pretty big portfolio but it's growing really fast and it's continuing to grow very fast um every single week and so because of because of us focusing on the on the product first and everything else second excuse me we were able to uh grow super fast and so we worked on the product and now you know we've been able to sell it to so many people and now we have thousands of products in our queue that are that are ready to be launched and um now we have people approaching us saying hey we want to buy 20 of your company hey we want to buy 50 of your company or you know vc's wanting to invest and so it's it's been a very cool experience for us um and it's all happened because we refined the product first and then added on everything else that comes with a startup second so like i said sorry that was a long answer but you know ultimately um focus on the product first you know product is number one no and i think that's or service depending on which industry but i think focusing on that first figuring it out and actually getting a product or service that you're gonna sell is you know it's a proper order rather than looking at so much of hey i got an idea now i'm gonna go get money in there i got to do an ipo or got to get investors or anything else putting that initial focus on hey what am i going to sell whether it's a product or service and how am i going to sell it is the place that you need to start because that's really what the business is going to live or die on in the hit in the end and ultimately so a great piece of advice so now if people want to reach out to you if they want to be a customer they want to be a client they want to be an employee they want to be an investor they want to be your next best friend any or all of the above what's the best way to reach out to you contact you find out more yeah so uh first you can go to the or website it's anguard.solutions if you want to get in touch with us um there's there's several uh contact forms on there and then if you want to contact me personally my linkedin is just benjamin wood and you'll see two chinese characters next to my name that's how you can find me and then uh instagram ben32 would if you're on that i'm there as well and so yeah any if anyone wants to reach out please feel free always happy to answer questions and help when i can all right well i definitely encourage people to reach out make connections and uh and get to know ben even better if nothing else make a new best friend well with that thank you again for coming on the podcast it's been a fun it's been a pleasure now for all of you that are listeners if you have your own journey to tell and you'd like to be a guest on the podcast we'd love to have you just feel free to go to inventiveguest.com apply to be on the show a couple more things as a listener make sure to subscribe share and uh and otherwise uh make sure that you support the podcast because we love sharing everybody's journeys last but not least you ever need help with your patents trademarks or anything else in the business so feel free to go to strategymeeting.com grab some time with us to chat and we're always here to help thank you again ben for coming on the podcast and wish the next level journey even better than the last awesome thanks devin have a good one [Music]

Make Sure You Love What You Do

Slater Victoroff

Devin Miller

The Inventive Journey Podcast for Entrepreneurs
10/15/2021

 

Make sure you love it even when you hate it. I think the thing I often say about starting a company is it's pretty much the hardest thing a person can do. You don't even know if one in a million people has an easy time of it. I think you are completely right. Every single division is so difficult. I think the people I see that aren't successful are people that just think that it is going to be an easy pass to be a millionaire. It is not that. There are much easier paths to be a millionaire if you have some patience. If you want something that is going to let you make a mark on the world. And something that is going to respond and give you back what you put into it. That's what a start-up is. It is brutal. Make no mistake; however hard you think it is, it's going to be harder.

The Inventive Journey

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

Get In Contact With The Guest

ai generated transcription

 make sure you love it even when you hate it um you know and i think the the thing that i often say about company i think it's pretty much the hardest thing that any person can do right uh i mean you said you know you don't even know if one in a million people has an easy time of it you know i think you're completely right right every single decision is so difficult right and yeah and it's going to be incredibly difficult and i think that the people that i see that aren't successful are people that just think that you know it's going to be an easy path to be a millionaire right it is not that there are much easier paths to be a millionaire right if you've got some patience right um it's you know if you want something that is going to let you make a mark on the world right and something that is going to respond and give you back what you put into it right that's that's what a startup is right but it is it is brutal and and you know make no mistake you know however hard you is however hard you think it is it's going to be [Music] hey everyone this is devin miller here with another episode of the inventive journey i'm your host devin miller the serial entrepreneur that's grown several startups into seven and eight figure businesses as well as the founder and ceo of miller ip law where he helped start up some small businesses with their patents and trademarks if you ever need help with yours just go to strategymeeting.com and grab some time with us to chat now today we have another great guest on the podcast slater victor off and is a quick introduction to slater so he grew up in in la at a and i went to school at a program at a smaller program and for high school i think he was only 42 kids in his graduating class uh was on the academic team and i would in his words you know was the only person that i'm ever aware of that had issues with failing classes while on teas would be able to make the standard to be on the teams so that's a fun fun path and then had the view that you can be learning or you can be going to class we can't do both until he um ran into someone else that gave him a bit of a different direction or different perspective uh found that he loved school and found a school that he loved that kind of lined up with allowing him to do both learning and being in class and doing those about both times um he went through all of his or all of his applications from any other colleges got rejected by that school got wait listed took a gap year came back and went to school there started uh doing a software business while in school um raising seed round for the business dropped out and been pursuing the startup ever since so with that much his introduction and hopefully mostly accurate welcome on the podcast slater no thank you so much for having me that was uh yeah that was that was absolutely perfect that was uh a lot from memory all right well with that much i condensed a much longer journey into the 30-second version but let's unpack it a bit so tell us a little bit about growing up in la going to high school and where your journey started from there yeah absolutely so you know like you said i think one of the things that was strange is that even though i was going to public school the whole time i was in this very small sort of magnet program you know my high school class did have 42 students in it one of the other things that's kind of funny is uh my school was all the way across the city you know and this is something that i think uh certainly folks on the east coast don't quite understand is just the the scale of sprawl in la right so i was probably 25 miles from where i lived to where my school was uh and i had to figure out how to basically get from point a to point b because the school buses didn't come anywhere near my house uh and so actually sort of all through high school i was waking up at 4 30 in the morning uh getting on i was uh you know three buses and you know like a bike ride uh to get you know all the way to school um so you know it was it was like very interesting i think high school was a it was a great time you know i think i made some really really excellent friends you know there was always that that you know one one teacher that made uh made everything uh fun and worthwhile you know now one question that i'll have to hit on just because i you know he doesn't come up very much as you're you're on a whole but your hobby or you know whatever you want to call it and the things you did after school or uh for free time was academic team yeah you're having the issue of qualifying to be on the academic teams due to your academic standing so how did that work out yeah you know so i think it was really interesting it was sort of like what you said right where i felt like i could either learn or go to school so the teams i was on uh just you know in case in case folks are familiar with them i was on science bowl which is you know a jeopardy style competition i was on ocean's bowl which is an ocean sciences centric competition science olympiad which is you know test taking and sort of building physical projects i did a whole bunch of you know other math and science competitions you know as a finalist and you know by olympiad you know the list goes on and on and on um and the thing that was you know very strange for me you know i think my if my college counselor just thought i was very stubborn and i think that's that's probably a lot of it frankly it's just that i really knew what i cared about and what i wanted to be learning um and one thing that was really tough for me is that in in my school system even though it was great you know i think i got to be in touch with you know really really excellent teachers but i was only allowed uh in my whole four years of high school i was only given two electives right uh and that's actually you know very standard for l.a and i think that's that's kind of a tragedy right and that's a lot of what led to this really tough situation and you know frankly you know i had a couple of teachers that just by bad luck uh happened to be bullies right and that that kind of you know set set the relationship up to be difficult in the early days no that makes sense and i think that i don't know that i quite take it to the extreme that you might have but there is sometimes a difference between learning in in reality versus what you're doing in classrooms and you know that's why i would you know so i went i probably went to the opposite end so i got four degrees and i went to way too much schooling but you know even when i did like for example the nba i would always joke with my wife about half of it was fluffy and half of it was worthwhile and that's probably about right for most of my schooling is about half of that i found like okay i can see where this is applicable where this was grounded reality and the other half went to saying well this is classic feels like it's filler i think that's exactly right and i think my my real problem is just that you know my my level of tolerance for busy work was pretty much zero and that's exactly right you know if maybe half of it was busy work and half was really interesting i would do half and that's an f right and a half is still an f right yeah exactly so it was you know it was really interesting because you know all my test scores you know were very very high but it would usually be like you know i was missing all of the homework which was you know 30 percent of the grade just you know with all the stuff i was doing i didn't really have time to do it frankly uh i actually did i did a whole course uh i did ap bio without the textbook uh because it was too heavy and i didn't want to keep bringing it back and forth fair enough so yeah that will keep on with your story so i assume that regardless of the like you finally did graduate you were looking to go to colleges and you're trying to figure out basically the same issue of you can learn you can go to class we can't be bold now tell us a little bit about how you found the college that you decided that met that in the middle somewhere or how you kind of how your journey went there yeah no it was kind of it was i'd say it was like a by accident you know as all great stories uh are you know i i cause this is not what i assumed was going to happen in school you know everyone knows the trope of the kid that you know never goes to class and then does well on the tests so actually what i was looking for in school was a school where that was okay and appropriate right so it's like hey i like that's fine you know but i've already decided you know i'm gonna like you know take as many classes as i can never show up take all the tests right and i'll get a degree that way or something like that um and a lot of schools actually are totally fine with that right you know a lot of universities you know outside of you know sort of your first year where you do have to show up to class or are fine with you operating like that uh and you know when i kind of asked that question you know at you know columbia or you know mit or a lot of those schools they're like oh yeah you know we you know tons of kids do that um when i showed up at olin though it was totally different right i asked like oh you know do they really care if i show up to class or do homework and the kids would look at me with this with this weird face like why wouldn't you want to go to class i was like what do you mean why wouldn't i want to go to class and it was so one of the things that was really cool about ola is they did a two-phase uh application so actually i applied not because i thought it was interesting uh at all um i applied because i had a free ride a full ride scholarship um you know they were one of those like weird only engineering like tiny schools just started up it was experimental so i'm like this is cool this is kind of interesting but i didn't take it that seriously when i applied um but then i should but then if you pass on the academic merits then they bring you to candidates weekend where something like three times the number of students they'll eventually uh like accept come to the school for a weekend to meet students and hang out with people and get a sense of what the place is like and one of the coolest things they do is they give you this design challenge that is basically just um it's it's a completely impossible design challenge so for us what what they had you do was uh there were two teams you were separated on two different floors you couldn't talk to each other and you had to make two different like articulating devices that would like accept water and pass water to the other one and you know like this crazy kind of device and you had to make the whole thing out of you know like a brick of styrofoam and you know 10 inches of duct tape something like that it was completely impossible no one even kind of succeeded but it was so much fun to be working with someone else on sort of this impossibly difficult problem and i think it really turned me on to that reality of you can learn so much by trying to do something even if you don't ultimately succeed in executing it and uh it really really changed changed my mind about education no and i think that there there's a lot of merit to it i mean now i'm going to go back and infuse so i'm in agreement with a lot of it now i still think your college education if nothing else i don't think it should just be nothing else having that degree can oftentimes open up there are ways that you can go about getting a job that a lot of times based on how society is set up you need the degree in order to land the job oftentimes not always and i think there's always exceptions the rule but i think that a lot of times education should be different it should be geared more towards getting experience actually getting real world application i think there should be times where you can go out and actually do or work in the area or the field that you want to work in as part of the education you should have people that are out in the field so i think there's a lot of things that could be different um but you know we're while we'd like it to be different i don't know that we're we mean you are going to be able to make enough of that change to have that impact at least not yet that's true but you know i think one one thing that i think is interesting is you know people look at me you know dropping out from school and they're like oh you see you know college education is not useful i say no no you totally don't understand why i dropped out i actually think it's much more the reverse it's just that i happened to get so much value out of this school in three years right that it was enough for me to go and take the next step right and that that's amazing like to me that's you know the best possible commendation i can give to the schools like they gave me everything i needed in three years um most schools can't even give you everything you needed for right uh so i think you know it's it's a it's a big merit of that style of education is it just like worked really well for me no and i think that's great now one thing i have to just jump back with a little bit in time is so you found this school it was a different experience you know it sounded like it would match up much more with what you were looking for and kind of or meet your learning style so to speak and you get and so you pull all your college applications and say okay i don't want to go to any school this is a school for me and then you get rejected and then wait listed and then you had to wait for a year so is that a bit of a nervous seat that okay i finally found the school that works for me and they don't want me oh it was it was awful honestly it was really really tough and you know i i understand in hindsight you know exactly what happened you know and i kind of uh it's funny actually in the interview i was in i i didn't come across well because i really you know i was it was relatively early in the weekend and i was still in that mentality of you know i'm not going to show up to class right i'm just going to show up at the test and that's how i'm going to do this school i didn't get it yet um it was actually funny one of the interviewers that initially rejected me i ended up tutoring his daughter some years later um so you know things things really do do change over time um but one thing that was i mean frankly at the time it just felt awful right you know i i wasn't going to anywhere all of my friends were you know going off to school and i thought that was it you know i was looking at schools with late decisions i was applying to places overseas i'm like oh you know like that's that's over you know i'm gonna kind of give up and then my uh actually it was my stepmother she you know really pushed me she's like you know you really like this place this place for you just just give it another whack you know just just kind of like talk to admissions just ask them you know like beg them see if there's anything that they can do um and i did you know eventually i'm like you know what whatever like uh nothing could possibly go wrong right and things could only go well and eventually said okay yeah we'll we'll let you on the wait list still didn't feel good because i think it's something certainly in the u.s right taking a gap year is not like a positive thing it's like oh you had to take a gap year and i i certainly felt awful at the time i would say in hindsight it was probably one of the best things that i ever did right it was really really important for a lot of for a lot of reasons right and i think that where i am now a lot of people sort of look at me they're like wow you know i wish that i could have a year just to you know like have off and actually have that time because you really don't have opportunities to do that throughout life uh and you know i i lived in nepal for three months you know i did research at ucla and i did you know tutoring in the area and i you know went back i studied martial arts in china for a couple months so you know i did i made use of the time now and i'll give my biased opinion which is probably the reason i think that people have a i think gap years can be good and i think they can be terrible in the sense that if you use a time wisely that it's basically i think what a lot of people figure is is hey this is a year that you go play you don't make any money you live off your parents and it's just a way that you can continue to play rather than grow up which is if it's in that camp then i tend to say okay gap years probably aren't the most beneficial thing if on the other hand you say no you know i'll figure out a way to work or go get some work experience or figure out hey i'm not ready to you know do something but i'm gonna still be productive i'll still you know i'm not going to live off my parents or you know kind of live in you know the typical basement type of thing then i think it's worthwhile and it can be very beneficial and give a lot of good experiences so i think that's where people usually think of the former if you're doing the latter then i think it's a lot more dependable so now i'll go ahead yeah no no i was just gonna say i think it's super super fair and that's why i use the word opportunity right is because like the idea for me that i think you're right i think people do do this but like sitting in a basement for a year like i would go nuts right like that that sounds like the worst thing that i could possibly possibly do with that time right that would feel like such an incredible waste of you know again what what in hindsight was an amazing opportunity absolutely no i'm right there so so now so you take the gap year you go to school as you already mentioned now which we're fast sorting back to where we're at three years was enough and you were going just now when you hit those three years was it intending to finish the degree and you had a great idea and an opportunity that kind of started as a side hustle or kind of where did that transition make where you're going to school and you started the business yeah so um the way i would say is you know it was absolutely never our plan to drop out of school right i would say we waited for as long as possible and i you know it felt silly in hindsight because people were telling us all the time you know as indico was doing well and we were going to school because there was you know real overlap they're like oh you guys know you're not going to finish school right i'm like nope we're definitely going to finish school i have to finish school it's going to happen um and so what happened was that in our sophomore year me and alec radford who ended up being my co-founder we started doing these competitions um have you ever heard of kaggle i have not but i i'm excited to hear about it yeah it's this awesome sort of crowdsourced data science competitions you know basically companies would come they'd upload data sets for you know predict if someone's going to be admitted to the hospital in the next two weeks right uh predict the weather right like all sorts of stuff all over the place and basically whoever gets the best accuracy whoever builds the best algorithm wins the cash prize um but what was really cool about it is that it wasn't just randos because these cash prizes were significant right i mean these were hundreds of thousands you know millions of dollars in some cases right uh so you had taught phd students from around the country and what it really gave us was a place to test our medal in kind of an objective way right uh so me and alec we started doing these tactical competitions together um and you know a lot of things happened on sort of the more techie side but shortly we started doing quite well right we started realizing hey you know after you know kind of a year of uh working on this maybe we're not just uh random kids right maybe we're actually pretty good at this um and then and then there was a bet you know some folks reached out they're like hey you've been doing some great work we'd love to do some work with you and i just said hey if we can make a thousand dollars in the next two weeks uh then we have to make a company and that was the bet and alex like all right you know sure that that seems fair to me it's like you you figure it out you get the contracts like i'll do the work and we and and we did you know we more than doubled that target and then we we had to start a company and then for all of junior year we went to school and did the company um to varying degrees of success you know towards the end of that the schoolwork definitely started to suffer a bit um which you know it happens but it was for for an all right reason and then out in our junior summer we got admitted to tech stars boston and then we raised uh and then and then we're like all right you know we'll we'll take a year off uh and then we raise the three million dollar seed round and then we're like all right well i guess we're not going back to school now no i i think that you know that seems like that's a lot of times the course that you titan to do is okay hey this starts out as a side hustle then the side hustle starts to actually make some money then it makes enough money they're saying okay you kind of hit the crossbar roads to where if you're taking someone's money you actually promise you'll deliver then you have to put in a full-time effort and it gets to be too onerous to try and both do school full-time and do a full-time job and you're faced with that decision and you know sometimes it's the right decision and other times you're saying okay that was fun now i'll go finish my degree and so it sounds like it worked out well for you on that end uh it was a good decision decided it was you know got the education i need got the springboard for where i was going to you're going to start your business and so it worked out and it was a good path so now i'll kind of do the follow-up question which is so you make the decision okay we you know started out we made some money the bet went through we got the seed round and decided cake dropping out of school gonna pursue this full-time gonna take that seed money and build a business has it gone well has it been a good decision and it's taken off like a rocket ship has it been bumpy or how's that gone do you wish you'd stayed in school or kind of what's the end of that story or the i mean that story no it's a great question and i will say it's sort of like yes to everything right but no i'm saying where i stand today it was a great decision i'm extremely happy that i did it right and and you know obviously indico has been very very successful as a result you know we've raised 35 million dollars we've got 70 employees right we've got fortune 500 customers and we're you know we're really making an impact which which is awesome it's insane honestly to see it like having gone from from a literal dorm room start up to this point so that's incredible i wouldn't trade it for the world um it has been incredibly bumpy right i mean you know especially as a first-time entrepreneur right i mean this stuff is incredibly hard there's just so much i think maybe there's the one in a million that has a smooth time of it but that might be even generous but if that person exists if that has ever happened right but no i mean it was it was brutally difficult right and i don't think people really prepare you for that um and it's this interesting thing where i think um in some ways right a 70 person company is very very different from a two-person startup but in some ways it's very much the same right it's still the hustle is so key right you know i'm still like i still cold-call people right i don't do it with you know all of my time anymore it's not like the best use but like the hustle is always so so important right um and you know it's like as your company gets bigger your problems also get bigger right so even it's uh yeah i don't know it's been interesting it's been a wild ride for sure oh and if you know i think that the difference it's always interesting if you start your own company versus you know you come in later and you're the ceo or you take over there's a big difference and i think that the level of hustle is always bigger better with the founder in the sense that you were the dorm room you were starting it out and there's still the flashback it's still that fear that no matter how well you're doing now that it's still all going to fall apart and it's still it's not going to be successful and it's hard to replace that and infuse that to somebody that's come along later that seen the success seeing the money coming in seeing the revenue and they're saying oh well of course this is a stable company so i definitely think there's a lot a lot there i'm really glad to say that our ceo you know he's been a founder before right like actually all of our senior leaders right like they've been in that kind of founder role before i mean now that's maybe starting to change now that we're getting a bit bigger but it's just so important right like you you need the guy who knows what it's like to run to the airport because he scheduled his meetings back to back right like you just need that in the early days right i think there's definitely a lot of truth to that so yeah well now as we've kind of caught up to a little bit of you know what your journey is where you're at today and a little bit of where you're going great time to jump to the two questions i always ask at the end of each episode so we'll jump to those now first question i'll ask is along your journey what was the worst business decision you ever made and what did you learn from it so the worst business decision i made and i don't want to like give specific names out here but basically there was an advisor in the very early days that was you know extremely senior had a really really high pedigree and we basically just you know brought them into the company and you know gave them a whole bunch of uh you know money and equity and stuff and just did everything that they said um and it was an awful decision and i think that was i and i think that was sort of the singular worst and kind of biggest issue with uh sort of our first couple of years as a company frankly right and i think that you know and then the moral is not like don't take advice from people right advice is really important right and you need to understand you know from people who have gone there before but i think what we didn't understand is that if there were a repeatable way to make a business there'd be no point in entrepreneurship right like no one knows how to make your business right if they knew how to make your business they would be making your business right and that that's something that we really lost sight of right is that you know they are just sources of advice we still know best at the end of the day and i think that that was the biggest mistake frankly i lost sight of that stop trusting my gun no and i think there's a lot of truth i mean a lot of times and i without getting into your specific research or situations you'll you'll start out as a business you'll be you and you know maybe a co-founder or an employer too but really small in the dorm room so to speak or in the garage or wherever it might be and you start to grow it and you don't know any better so you just you know kind of whatever sticks you start to build it you start to grow it but you know you get to get traction and then you get to a point where you start to bring out investors or other things and you feel like well we need an established ceo and we need someone that does that and i think to your point people often kind of feel like okay we need someone else that knows what they're doing and most of the time nobody knows what now there are good practices but it's not like no but you know there are good practices that you should be implementing you know looking at profit margins doing financial statements looking at you know having a attractor you know a path forward and what's the next generation of products and those types that's always good but on the other hand just because somebody else you know you're told that somebody else can do better a lot of times you can do it just as good so i think that there's a lot of times that feeling like you need to have someone else come in to do it when really you're going to do the best job a lot of the time so i think that that's definitely a great takeaway and definitely make sense second question which is you're talking to somebody that's just getting into a startup or small business would be the one piece of advice you give them make sure you love it even when you hate it um you know and i think the the thing that i often say about strange company i think it's pretty much the hardest thing that any person can do right uh i mean you said you know you don't even know if one in a million people has an easy time of it you know i think you're completely right right every single decision is so difficult right and yeah and it's going to be incredibly difficult and i think that the people that i see that aren't successful are people that just think that you know it's going to be an easy path to be a millionaire right it is not that there are much easier paths to be a millionaire right if you've got some patience right um it's you know if you want something that is going to let you make a mark on the world right and something that is going to respond and give you back what you put into it right that's that's what a startup is right but it is it is brutal and and you know make make no mistake you know however hard you is however hard you think it is it's going to be harder i think so and i think that that's one where you know it gets a bit glamorized you watch the movie watch the tv show you read the book or anything else and you always kind of hear just the end point of his successful and you never really hear the whole journey of hey there were times where we didn't know how we're going to make payroll or guess what i was the one emptying the garbages and doing hiring firing the next day and then i had to do marketing and sales and then i had to do product development and i didn't know this was going to work and you kind of miss a lot of that and i think people just kind of hear that hey they're an overnight success when it's really an overnight success 10 years in the making and even at that you don't hear half the time that majority of the businesses never make it and a lot of them you just you don't hear about all the failures you only hear about the successes so definitely agree on all friends uipath is a great example just because now they're you know the the hot ipo and they've been doing so well right but they they just kind of puttered along for for six years or something before they figured it out and then you know they were they were off to the races but it's exactly that it's this is this overnight success that took a decade right absolutely so we also wrap up but people want to find out more they want to be a customer they want to be a client they want to be an employee they want to be an investor they want to be your next best friend and your all of the above what's the best way to reach out to you contact you find out more absolutely indicodata.ai for all things indico you can see me at slater.website uh you know ask me a question on quora follow me on twitter all right well i definitely encourage everybody to reach out in any or any or all the ways that were mentioned or mentioned and definitely a great resource to have so well thank you again slater for coming on the podcast it's been a fun it's been a pleasure now for all of you that are listeners if you have your own journey to tell and you'd like to be a guest on the podcast we'd love to share your journey just go to inventiveguest.com also as a listener make sure to click subscribe click like click share because we want to make sure to share the journeys as much as possible last but not least if you ever need help with the patents or trademarks or anything else with your business just go to strategymeeting.com grab some time with us to chat we're always happy to help thank you again slater and wish the next leg of your journey even better than the last thank you so much [Music] you

Have The Right Connections

Victor Hogrefe

Devin Miller

The Inventive Journey Podcast for Entrepreneurs
10/9/2021

 

Three things you need essentially. You can get along with one of them barely. If you have two things, it's good. If you have all three, that is great. One thing is you can be an expert. If you are an expert in the field, that's already a great start. You could have the money. If you have a bunch of money, that's already a great start as well. You can buy the expertise. Or you can have the right connections. What is another hugely important piece.

The Inventive Journey

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

Get In Contact With The Guest

ai generated transcription

 three things that you need essentially uh you can you can get along with one of them barely if you have two things it's good if you have all three that's great um namely the one thing is you can be an expert if you're an expert in the field that's already a great start right um you could have the money if you have a bunch of money that's already a great start as well you can you can buy the expertise or you can have the right connections which is another hugely important piece [Music] hey everyone this is devin miller here with another episode of the inventive journey i'm your host devin miller the serial entrepreneur has grown several startups in the seven and eight figure businesses as well as the founder and ceo of miller ip law we help startups and small businesses with their patents and trademarks you ever need help with yours just go to strategymeeting.com grab some time with us to chat now today we have another great guest on the podcast victor hagrifa and i am sure i slaughtered his last name but that is my best uh best attempt so victor um as you can tell may not have grown up in the u.s actually grew up in germany or germany uh came to the u.s for college studied philosophy but the decided the bill was too politically charged and so switched over to computer science he graduated friend asked if he had ever heard of bitcoin his friend told him so about bitcoin he got him hooked on that around 2017. study it came up to speed um his friend wanted or him and his friend want to do something area went to vancouver created an app um our business owners let them know that the app wouldn't work for paying bitcoin as well um so did a few other things with bitcoin got in the field of analytics and then made some connections in china project finished up phase one but didn't move to phase two friend call them about a trading algebra algorithm and got together with them put some money in bought brought on some experts and launched i think what they're doing today so with that much is a quick introduction welcome on the podcast victor wow you really summed it up there there's not uh not much for me to say hopefully there's a little bit more to say otherwise it'll be our shortest episode yet but no i summarize what is a much longer journey um so maybe unpack it a bit tell us a little bit about you know growing up a journey coming into the us for college and how your journey got started there yeah so uh growing up growing up in germany um has its pluses and minuses uh quality of life is pretty good there but uh for a certain type of personality doesn't really work that well like the anti-authoritarian people um and i always had a problem with authority and and this troubled me greatly when uh troubled my parents as well um trying to get a career going because i pretty much knew i could never work in a corporate environment just be hired by somebody and work there um not that i'm difficult to work with it's just that i don't like it um and so yeah i'm right there with you i you know i think there's a lot of uh business owners startup small businesses that part of the reason that they're doing that is because their personality is such a hey i like to do my own thing figure out my own urge chart my own course or do my own thing and it doesn't always fit into the box of working for someone else and so definitely understand and resonate right there with you exactly exactly so yeah um i came over to canada to study um philosophy because that was all i cared about really i had some fantastic professors in my first year which completely convinced me that this is where i wanted to go and i wanted to be a professor for philosophy the issue was that as you mentioned um in the summary as time went by i kind of came into the field thinking oh this is philosophy it's all about reasoned argumentation um i like to look at arguments i like to read papers i like to discuss things with people turns out that that was more or less a misconception about the kind of political environment that academic philosophy is in right now um and more and more i was i was kind of turned off from the field by just my fellow students and some professors as well because it was very political and the kind of argumentation that was going on was not in my opinion very good um it served various political purposes and i'm a profoundly non-political person so i don't want to uh be involved with that um so then i thought uh well i'm in my can i swear by the way try and keep it pg we'll let that one right and the rest of it um i was in my third year at the point and i was uh i was getting nervous because uh if philosophy wasn't going to work out for me then what the hell was i going to do so i took more science classes computer science statistics and greatly enjoyed those but by the time i graduated i had a philosophy degree and nothing else and i could say that i could do you know computer science but on paper i just didn't look very good i think um and that's another reason why i eventually decided to go independent because really i had no other choice so so if you don't have a backup plan i think that's a good position to be in especially if you're just fresh out of university um yeah so after i finished my studies i then went to other universities university of washington and i briefly spent a summer a semester at harvard which was a great experience after that i went back to germany um and was kind of lost i didn't really know what to do on paper i looked terrible and i uh i just talked to my friend who was still in university at the time and he was studying mathematics he introduced me to bitcoin i had kind of heard of bitcoin before but didn't really know anything about it i thought it was you know the latest gimmick maybe um now it's probably more legitimate than it used to be but i still think people in you know day to day are still trying to figure out what it means other than they see in the news that it keeps going up in value well so in the early days a lot of people had the experience especially in the computer science field they had the experience of being introduced to bitcoin and immediately thinking that it's a scam or that it's that it's just nonsense um and they they read about it and they they study it more and more and they try to figure out ways in which it's a scam and over time they figure out this is actually really robust and they become believers so to speak in the technology because no matter how you try to attack it or how you try to look at it it just seems to work really really well from a technical point of view that's not to say that the price volatility and all this kind of stuff that's all the speculation side of things but the technology side of things is what gets people hooked at least no and i think that definitely makes sense and you know so now so you go back to germany and you have a friend says hey have you you know have you looked into bitcoin it looks interesting you take a look at it and say yeah it does look interesting picks your interest and you get into it and i think at that point now remind me of that wrong was that the point you did your startup where you started to look and explore whether businesses could use it as a form of accepting payment yeah so i uh at the time i had no idea how startups worked how businesses worked nothing like that i just knew i wanted to do something with bitcoin and my friend was the same so we just uh i came back to vancouver and uh we just got together and we brainstormed a lot and we knew we wanted to do something and i had just completed a course in computer science in java which is what most android applications are based on and so i thought okay i'll just start coding something and um so i started creating this prototype um and my friend uh was going around local businesses and and asking some of his contacts and saying well you know are you interested in bitcoin are you interested in using this as a payment method perhaps it's this alternative currency magic internet money nobody really knew what it was but a lot of people were you know a lot of business owners i guess if somebody comes along and offers you something for free that might help your business in some way you're just gonna say okay i'll try it sure sounds good it works out great i make more money it doesn't work out you're the one that's out not me type of a thing exactly exactly so i mean the app um never got into it it went into the um minimum viable product stage so it worked but it looked ugly and it was you know not very good um and uh at that right about that time and the bitcoin mania started the hype cycle started i know if you remember 2017 but it started to get really crazy the prices went up and up and up and people were just getting into it and um around that time we we kind of noticed that nobody wanted to pay for anything with bitcoin because if you think that if you have 100 bitcoin now and you think tomorrow it's going to be 200 then why would you spend it on anything right um so that's kind of the issue with deflationary currencies is they decentrify disincentivize spending so so the whole payment app idea really was was uh not a good idea and we noticed more and more trouble with the fundamental uh concept of it which was that even if these business owners now had bitcoin what would they do with it like they had to switch it over into fiat currency because presumably they had expenses they had to pay they had to buy products they had to pay their employees so you have to switch it anyway um and at the time that that bridge between crypto and fiat was incredibly undeveloped so um it cost anywhere between five and ten percent to actually switch bitcoin into into canadian dollars or american dollars depending on where you were the atms were the worst they were you know 12 or so there were some companies come some broker companies doing it but they had high percentages as well um and the the way to do it back then was just to uh to reach out on craigslist or find someone you knew who had bitcoin and you would meet them in a cafe and give them cash and they give you bitcoin so that that was really early days um so yeah we we kind of scrapped the idea of the payment app didn't really didn't really work out um but we still knew we wanted to do something in space so what we did was precisely that we just we saw that the market was going crazy everyone wanted to get their hands on on bitcoin we knew how to get bitcoin so why don't we just offer our services to people to get bitcoin um so now one question just on that because you know you have a what do you think is a good idea and i think you know maybe not but my under limited understanding of bitcoin is it was tended to originally set up to be more of a non-governmental stable currency that could almost be used as an exchanger for buying things and that and then it almost kind of morphed into where people are speculating it or holding on to it because it keep going up and up and up and so it kind of switched from its original or intended purpose but as you're going through that trying to originally use it as a startup and do it as you know people can use it in order to purchase things and i even remember when it first came out or there was one of the first shows it was on netflix or amazon or something where people tried to live their their live a month only using bitcoin for any transactions they did and how difficult it was and how it really didn't work very well but with all of that said as you're trying to get that up and going was there kind of a point where you're just saying hey this is not going to work with you know not enough businesses are using it or if they are using it nobody's adopting it or how did you kind of come to the term or determination that while it may have been a in theory a good idea when you tried to put into business practice it wasn't working out uh i wouldn't say it was a particular point in time it was kind of a gradual recognition that this wasn't really where it was at um and then also at the same time this other opportunity came along where we said we can make way more money and we can make money right away by just buying and selling bitcoin to people who wanted to buy it and our clients were mostly like lawyers in fact the jewish community in vancouver was one of our first uh clients and they all recommend each other so that was very good for us um but um the i mean to an extent the debate still rages on um as you mentioned the original intent of bitcoin was a peer-to-peer digital cash um but uh the the bitcoin maximalist is very much argued for a long time and probably still do that once bitcoin is big enough once it's universally accepted once all that happens then the price stability will happen but if we look at other asset classes and other commodities and everything we don't really see that even gigantic commodities like gold or copper or anything like that you don't really have price stability um so so that's kind of i think unlikely to happen and but but people still hold on to it i mean el salvador just just declared it a national currency right uh under the assumption that it is actually a currency and um you know i fall on the decide of things where i say that it's not really a currency it's it's a some sort of asset um but uh yeah anyways but so now you see come to that realization it's kind of creeping you know kind of comes at an oversold period of time just saying hey who tried this you know had some people initially adopted it didn't work and eventually came to point that okay the business ideas isn't going to work out or is it going to be accepted so at that point then where did where did things take you from there where'd the journey go from there yeah so like i said we we um we just hustled a lot uh running around town selling bitcoin and buying bitcoin and making money off of the difference um and uh eventually it became so heated that we got turned off of that whole thing because we saw a lot of scammers entering the space people put their life savings into it it was very it got uncomfortable uh to the point where old ladies were asking us to put in you know all their savings because their nephew had told them that the 0x token was going to be the next big thing right at that point where we refused to sell anymore and it got too too wild so we got out basically around the peak and um then we got into consulting because around that time ethereum really came into the limelight icos went crazy people wanted to do token offerings for everything and i remember one specific meeting i went to at actually the university's bitcoin club they had a guest speaker who was one of the founders of axiom zen which had which created the cryptokitties um if you remember that so that was really mind-blowing because it showed to me it it uh it really enlightened how how much ethereum was capable of and what you could do with it and that this was really an interesting future pathway to go um and of course cryptokitties essentially all of the nft mania that's going on right now it's all based on cryptokitties more or less so anyway um we became consultants we we gave talks at law firms we um helped some companies do their tokenics we came up with all kinds of ideas we got very interested in stable coins we contributed some articles kind of to the to the general canon i suppose um theorizing about stable coins talking about stable coins and uh then um we we got into analytics so if you know bitcoin you know that it's kind of an open ledger it's transparent which means that every single transaction since the beginning of bitcoin can be traced and of course there's no names attached to those transactions it's just the bitcoin addresses that are that are openly available however based on a bunch of heuristic and statistical methods you could group numbers of addresses together and you can kind of figure out what belongs where and the movements of the coins through the network um and once you know that one bitcoin address belongs to for instance an exchange or a person or a dark market once you know that you can kind of um you can trace it through the network and kind of make these connections and say okay these group of addresses probably belong to binance or these group of addresses belong to this dark market and we saw that there's a there was a need for that um because as crypto was becoming more mainstream crypto businesses um especially in exchanges they were becoming more and more worried about regulation and kyc laws and anti-money laundering laws and so they wanted to make sure somehow that um the crypto that they had on their platform and from their clients was clean and wasn't used for terrorist financing for instance or illicit financial purposes so they started to require these services where there was a bunch of companies chain alice's for instance was one of them there was one in vancouver called um blockchain intelligence group they they sold their services to not only companies financial companies exchanges but also law enforcement cia fbi these kinds of places um we became interested in that and uh through a connection of a connection in china uh we found out that china was very interested in this of course so uh we were one of those i suppose startups that that got poached by the chinese and and we we raised a bunch of money uh in china or our chinese partners did um and then we flew over to china we opened up an office in shenzhen and hired a bunch of developers and and developed a software tool to uh to help the clients the eventual clients of the company which would include the government um uh trace trace cryptocurrency transactions and make sure that or at least increase the likelihood that these transactions weren't illicit somehow it was a fascinating experience in china i was there for a little over a month and then our office existed there for about six months until covet hit and then everything shut down and then our chinese partners couldn't come up with funding for the next round of investment so that whole project kind of just went away unfortunately but it was still a fascinating experience the way business is done in china is very different than here everything is based on connections with the party and the local local party and our chinese partners had those connections and many times we had kind of a full day of work and then in the evenings we went out to fancy dinner places with these party officials and uh they got blind drunk they they drank a lot um the way they drink is is they they force you to drink they all toast each other and then you have to drink and they get so drunk that they go away and throw up and they come back and drink more and they almost never discuss business during these meetings but it's kind of building about building that connection and then they just hand wave it away and say yes we'll do it it's no problem we're like yeah you're in the circle now of doing this business so now one question just to kind of fast forward so now covet hits and you say oh you know sounded like it was a pretty interesting business it was gaining traction and then unfortunately coped hit and things went away so now you kind of hear you know the second time saying okay we've tried our second startup again didn't work out now this time for different reasons it wasn't there wasn't initially demand but because you know people or because of circumstances outside your control kind of went away so then kind of where did you guys go from there where did where did your journey take you from there right yeah so um luckily i think a lot of people aren't in this position but luckily we were in the position where we just made enough money off of our startups to keep going so it wasn't they weren't big successes they kind of failed and or it didn't work out or um something else happened but um they they just made enough money for us to hang in there right um and i think that was really important because otherwise we could have just we would have just had to stop at some point right um so we we got back from china government happened nothing worked out um and then a friend called me who i had met in the crypto community here and he approached me with the project that he had been working on which was a trading algorithm and i was i was at this point very skeptical of trading algorithms in fact i've written articles about trading algorithms and i've tested some of them that were like available um gecko i think one of them was called and uh basically my my stance at that time was that trading algorithms rely solely on market that's in the rely on solely on data that's in the market and my argument was that that wasn't sufficient data to reliably predict the prices so my argument was that pure technical analysis was not possible in the long run because there's just not enough data in the market to make those predictions consider consistently and i was soundly proven wrong by my friend's ingenious algorithm which uses a combination of ai and sophisticated mathematical kind of models and execution strategies and uh yeah it worked out really well we put our own money in um tested it out for a long time saw kind of all kinds of scenarios happen and and addressed those problems um founded a company um around it to make everything official and have the have it all be uh secured uh ip wise and then we we started inviting our friends and our business network into this algorithm which made a lot of money um relatively consistently and then at some point it became so big that we decided we needed to this was getting a lot becoming a liability just from a from a regulations point of view we can't just hold all this money from people and we're not licensed or regulated brokers or financial entities or anything like that right um so we decided we needed a more sophisticated structure so we got together with another vancouver company hoovest who had all the licenses they were they were fund administrators wealth managers um and they created an offshoot fund that they own and we license the software up to them um and we're doing the same thing in the british virgin isles right now and possibly in the middle east so the company our company by the way is eon labs uh and and it's uh high frequency trading for cryptocurrency futures uh it's a bit of a mouthful but uh hey i i don't know if i could i would be able to get the mouthful off every time but i think the technology sounds cool it sounds like a fun journey so no that that definitely makes sense and it's interesting how you kind of it sounds like with each portion of your journey you learned a little bit more you tried some businesses they incrementally got more success and then this latest business is even gaining uh further traction so that's that's definitely exciting so well as we kind of walk through your journey got a bit up to where we're uh we're at in the present great time to transition to the two questions i always ask dana beach podcast so the first question i always ask is along that journey what was the worst business decision you ever made and what'd you learn from it the worst one i think was working with the wrong people um but it's often impossible to tell who the wrong people are uh hindsight 2020 of course but uh the red flags were always there but i chose to ignore them because there was always a financial opportunity or it was too tasty to say no or you know when you're kind of young and hungry you uh you definitely tend to take more risks and you are willing to ignore the red flags but one of the things i would say is that if there are red flags definitely be skeptical because um it can turn into a real headache later on and uh an older businessman um who kind of is a kind of mentor to me he said that businesses fail for two reasons essentially they either run of money or ego um and i've had an experience where it was well i've actually had both experiences but uh but the ego part is definitely i think even more dangerous than running out of money um no and i i think there's a lot of truth and i mean i think that you know it is it is hard because you get into startups and and people are you know the by definition people are getting the stardust because because they think they're smarter can do it better do it you know improve and the thing is improve upon what other people think and so you kind of have to have that personality but there is that point of you have to get people that while they are smart and intelligent can do things that are motivated and willing to take risks you also have to have that balance of personalities to where it isn't just you know ego driven and it isn't just you know people trying to show that they're better or smarter but actually convert it over into a product so i think that that definitely makes sense so second question i always ask is talking to someone is just getting into a startup or a small business what do the one piece of advice you give them uh i always say you need uh there's three things that you need essentially you can you can get along with one of them barely if you have two things that's good if you have all three that's great namely the one thing is you can be an expert if you're an expert in the field that's already a great start right um you could have the money if you have a bunch of money that's already a great start as well you can you can buy the expertise or you can have the right connections which is another hugely important piece and if you have all three of those then you're basically set if you're none of those then you might want to work on being an expert or getting the money or getting the connections well i think i think that's great advice and i like how say you might be able to get a little get buy with one two you'll do do well and three you'll be successful so i think that that's definitely a great a great piece of advice for all the listeners so well as we wrap up now if people want to reach out to you they want to learn more they want to be a customer they want to be a client they want to be an employee they want to be an investor they want to be your next best friend any or all of the above what's the best way to reach out to you contact you find out more well uh people can visit our website um eonlabs.com um or uh reach out to me i don't really have twitter and social media so uh um yeah eonlabs.com is probably the best way to reach us there's a contact form and all right well i definitely encourage everybody to check out the website reach out to them linkedin works as well actually sorry all right linkedin works as well every either way reach out to make connections and uh definitely is a great resource especially if you're looking to get into cryptocurrency so now with that um appreciate coming on the podcast it's been a fun it's been a pleasure now for all of you that are listeners if you have your own journey to tell you'd like to be a guest on the podcast we'd love to have you just go to inventiveguest.com apply to be on the show also make sure to like and subscribe and share the podcast so everyone can find out about our awesome episodes and learn more last but not least if you ever need help with patents trademarks or anything else feel free to reach out to us by going to strategymeeting.com and are always here to help well thank you again it's been a fun it's been a pleasure and wish the next leg of your journey even better than the last thank you so much for having me alrighty you

Have A Business Plan

Alison Hulshof

Devin Miller

The Inventive Journey Podcast for Entrepreneurs
10/8/2021

 

Clearly having a business plan. And it does not have to be twenty-seven pages long but knowing where you are going to start and some goals or metrics you are going to hit. Even things like what you are going to pay yourself. Try to predict the next twelve months and check some of those things off as you go. If you miss step three or you are missing a third goal, make sure that it is not part of that critical foundation that will actually prevent you or set you up for failure in the near future. So really lay out your plan. I will ask people all the time do they have a business plan? They will say no, it's too cumbersome. I will say no, tell me where you are starting. what are you paying yourself? What is success for you? Is it revenue? Is it profit? What's that number? And How are you getting there? What are the goals you're going to hit? So keeping it simple and then trying to stay focused and hit on that track so you don't get super distracted and head in the wrong direction.

The Inventive Journey

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

Get In Contact With The Guest

ai generated transcription

 a clearly having a business plan and it doesn't have to be 27 pages long but knowing where you're going to start and some goals or metrics that you were going to hit even things like what you're going to pay yourself and try to predict the next 12 months and check some of those things off as you go and if you miss step three right if you're missing a third goal make sure that it's not part of that critical foundation that will actually prevent you or or set you up for failure in the near future so really laying out your plan and i'll ask people all the time do you have a business plan and they'll say no you know it's too cumbersome and i'm saying no no like tell me where you're starting what are you paying yourself uh what what's what's success for you is it revenue is it profit but what's that number and then how how are you getting there what are the goals that we're gonna hit so keeping it simple and then trying to stay focused and staying on that track so you don't get super distracted and head the wrong direction [Music] hey this is devin miller here with another episode of the inventive journey i'm your host evan miller the serial entrepreneur that's grown several startups into seven and eight figure businesses as well as the founder and ceo miller ip law where he helps startups and small businesses with their patents and trademarks you ever need help with yours just go to strategymeeting.com and we're always here to help now today we have another great guest on the podcast allison holschoff and allison grew up in a small town in south dakota and when you say small i think it was like population 200 which beats a town a small town that i grew up in went to college on a scholarship in her word she was an average c student but got scholarship to for community service um originally wanted to go into teaching so started undergraduate as teaching but then as uh got farther into it and went to or was looking to go to grad school decided she wanted to shift from teaching to behavior analysis so she had a i think a teacher mentor that went to and talked about it and got into behavior analysis graduated uh in the field and started an in-home model i think started it out as for free um and then got told that she shouldn't do it for free so decided to adjust that or ship that a bit and started offering it um or as uh as a model for to make money or as a business i'm in the early days it was difficult to figure out how to do payroll and navigate all the business things and then had i think one of her parents or the parents of one of her clients helped her to kind of figure that out get going started a clinic in her house decided that she wasn't zoned for that and better have an attorney help her out and then uh shifted that to a or a legal legal model and then uh it's been doing that for about 12 years sold off the business and now is in the business of helping other businesses to set up to be successful so with that much as an introduction welcome on the podcast allison thank you that was quite the mouthful there so you got it out well i did my best so with that um you know i took a much longer journey and condensed it into 30 seconds or however long it was um but why don't you take us a bit back in time a bit to growing up in a small town going to college and how your journey got started there yeah so i grew up in a small reservation town in south dakota um and really there wasn't a lot of big thriving businesses in the community i grew up in there was a lot of small businesses small town businesses and they all did really well and i think from a very early age i knew i wanted to be in business of some sort or teaching or helping and if i could merge the two worlds together it would be perfect um really i i there wasn't uh an opportunity until i got into high school i took a an entrepreneur class and i remember being in it at that time and thinking i really liked this like i liked putting a business plan together i liked having that vision and thinking about how all the pieces would work together but didn't really know how as an actual adult i would actually make that happen or what business i would be in but i definitely knew that was the journey i wanted to take so now you so you with that kind of that's the journey you want to take with that mind you go off to school start out going into teaching and how did things like how did things kind of evolve from there yeah so i got into special ed teaching in my undergrad and i had two families that i was working for that had flown in a behavior analysis uh or an analyst from california and i was exposed to this new model of therapy called aba and what i loved about it is it was highly effective it was data-driven and it was really exciting and i was working in people's homes and then working with their newly diagnosed child with autism so the business didn't really make sense to me but the passion the the strategy i loved that but you made like ten dollars an hour doing it um and i actually didn't even know there was a business model that could go along with it so i thought the closest thing next to that would be being a teacher and so that's the path i had headed down um and really in our state there wasn't any insurance mandates there wasn't any insurance funding for this and so you're either doing it for 10 bucks an hour or you were doing it for free or you were a teacher like that was the really only way that i could see in our state getting into that so now you so you decide okay i'm going to get into being a teacher that's the the best or best path forward and then i think you and you'll have to recreate more wrong you got either to the end of undergraduate or shortly there and decided you didn't want to be a teacher that wasn't the exact path you wanted to go into and so got into behavior behavioral analysis is that right yeah so i finished up my undergrad and then very quickly went right on into grad school like i graduated on a saturday and monday i started grad school and i knew at that moment i really wanted to stay in the world of working with kids with autism i didn't really care how i was going to do it but i knew that's my path um and so my first year grad school i finished grad school in 18 months but i taught high school and i was a lousy high school teacher like i didn't like the paperwork i didn't love um the public school system in the sense of like i had always sat on the other side of teaching where i are as a professional i had been working with families to really advocate for high intensity high level services for their kids and i felt like as a public educator i just i was having to do what was kind of the standard model and so my my feelings for it just weren't the same i was like but these kids can get so much more and and so it was very driven by this passion and so at the time um i was going to grad school on a stipend of 750 a month and i always tell people i was in grad school i was making 750 a month to be a teacher living in a tiny little bedroom one bedroom apartment with this old like 20 year old cat that i had adapted or adopted that needed shots that probably cost more than i even made it was ridiculous and so i was like i need a part-time job and so i went back to aba which is behavior analyst work and i thought you know what i'm going to find families who need that service so to supplement my teaching in the evenings i was providing in-home aba service for families who had you know newly diagnosed kids with autism they already had some sort of program but you know i was i was skilled enough in the clinic clinical part of it that i could just go in and do it but again i was literally going to work for like anywhere between 10 and 12 an hour um just to supplement i always told people just to supplement my cat's livelihood like i just had to keep that cat alive um finished up grad school and went to the state of south dakota and knew that i just i was not cut out to be a teacher um i interviewed for like three jobs got a couple great offers and just was like i'm a lousy teacher so i went to the state of south dakota had a program and they were really just expanding into the world of autism and i was like i don't care i'll do anything but i love early intervention i want to help spread the word and they were like we just wrote a grant we're going to hire you on and so i remember taking that job and i was so excited i made like 34 000 a year just finished up my master's had my first retirement fund and i grew up in a literally a three-bedroom trailer house that you could have attached to something and moved away um in a really small town so my dad didn't have a retirement um so i was feeling like i was doing pretty good with this state job i had health insurance uh so at that point i was like this totally makes sense and that's the trajectory i took that really got me into that world of know knowing what what services needed to be provided in our state and then took me to the next journey which was opening my own business so now so so you get into and you say okay undergraduate didn't quite have things fired out get to graduate school say okay this is a path i want to take you come out you say okay there's some grants or some things that i can do got to keep the cat alive when you come out and you you know you get that first job and you know was it kind of as opposed to teaching was it everything you wanted was it what you wanted to do or kind of how did that lead you down the path of starting your own business out of your house and maybe not doing it you know legally initially or at least not zoned for it or correctly but how did you kind of make that transition well there's two parts one i attribute some of my success to just being not smart enough to know the risk um so no it wasn't all i had dreamed of so the state job came with lots of paperwork and lots of red tape and lots of requirements uh and what i was very aware of within that first year is i am not a good employee um i just am not like i wanted to move fast and i wanted to make things happen i wanted to serve our clients um but i didn't really love all the rules that came with being a state employee and it was the silly things that i didn't like i hate to admit this out loud but it was things like having to follow a certain protocol to check out a car or save my receipts which by the way i do a much better job now that i own my own company um but it just felt like i was coming in and punching a clock so i loved autism i loved the work that we were doing but i only loved it about 25 of the time because the other part of the time i felt like i was meeting these um kind of meaningless red tape rules that just didn't make sense to what i had gotten into the field to do so i met a family and what was happening is we had we had created this amazing clinic to diagnose these kids and then we would send them out and we'd say i'll see you in three to six months which meant i was gonna hand you a pamphlet you were newly diagnosed dealing with your child had no idea what the next step was in life and i was handing you a brochure and saying see in six months well i had grown up in a space where watching these families fight and bring services to their children so i knew how desperate these families were and how bad they needed help and and so i just felt i met this little boy and mom and dad were so amazing um and they were so passionate they were like we're not selling our house we're not moving across state lines to get services we we want them here um and i thought to myself like wow like they're right he's two and i knew if we got in there and did services right away we could make a major life impact for this kiddo and so i was like well let me help you for free i'll bring in some ot and pt students you can just pay them privately i can help manage your program or at least get it set up for you um and so it's still at that point not thinking about this being a business i just wanted to help them get access to care and so we did it it went you know the family was amazing and it was funny because i always believed that dad already knew it was going to be a business whether whether we knew we would end up doing this journey you know along the same path together or not but he knew that there was something there and so we established a team and that in the child immediately started to see results with therapy and they were on a nine month wait list to get a clinician to come in from minnesota to take over and so i'd only been with him a couple weeks and and my director said hey you can't go into somebody's home and just do this for free for fun and i was like well if i don't serve him then nobody's gonna get services and he'll just wait and that's nine months where the gap will continue to widen and she was like yeah well get your priorities straight and i remember walking out of her office and being like get my priorities straight i grew up poor so i was like can't really get much worse than this right so i had 500 in my checking account and went home wrote my resignation letter um called my director on a sunday and she came over after church and i said i think i want to quit my job and start an aba business and she said lots of people have thought that and lots of people have failed so there is nobody in our state doing this but if anybody's going to do it well you'll do it and so i was like well that's somewhat reassuring kind of and kind of scary because she's like oh yeah i knew lots of people who've tried that everybody's failed i'm like okay um but i didn't really have a choice right i mean we lived in a tiny house my husband had just taken a job as a fireman a matter of fact he just quit his job and was waiting to be hired as a fireman we had a baby uh and so i remember telling my husband hey i'm gonna quit my job the only stable source of income that we have uh that pays our mortgage and i'm gonna start a business that i know nothing about uh and he was like okay well we're we're one flat tire away from not being able to get to work so i wasn't highly encouraging but he was just like i mean i guess if you're not happy you don't do you and i was like okay and so that was the next step so now you make that next step and you actually go out and you start to try and you know where others have felt do it differently do it better do it you know to where it's a successful or sustainable business now did it did it go great and you proved them all wrong and it was a big business and made lots of money and it was you could fix that flat tire if it came along or was it bumpy or kind of how did it go for you yeah yeah right 12 years later it was beautiful the first 12 years looked a little different um no there i mean there were times that i was i'll i'll tell you my first big hire i brought in somebody um out of state had hired them and i was maybe only in business eight nine months at the time and she wanted an incredible big pay raise and if i couldn't afford to give her a pay raise she wanted half of my company and i remember thinking oh my gosh if i don't give her what she wants she's gonna walk and my company will fail it will fall apart completely and so i actually went back to john the gentleman who helped me really know that there was a vision there to create the company i was sitting in his basement and i was crying and i said i feel held hostage and i am terrified to do this on my own she was a little bit of my safety net because she had worked in a large successful clinic and so i i was like i just am terrified and so at that moment he said listen if you ever feel like an employee has backed you into a corner you know that it is a time to cut ties and i was like well what if i fail and he was like well what if you don't um and it was the hardest i always joke and say i don't like firing people but that was the worst fire i have ever done in my two decades of being a business owner um because i felt like her and i had started to build something together um and he felt like we were breaking up and so that was really tricky i think learning how to navigate staff not being your friends and being your employees because i wasn't very old right i was 26 when i started on this journey a lot of my staff were within five years um of the same age as i was some were older i think learning how to navigate how to be a really good leader and and what you do and don't share with your employees was a huge learning curve for me i'm thankful i built a really great team in the end but i made a lot of mistakes those first five years um i think a third area where i struggled is i had a lot of issue with knowing who was qualified to be on my team and who was related to me um no kidding like i was hiring my next-door neighbor mine hired my nanny to do my billing i hired my cousin uh so if i trusted you and i thought you would show up i would then you were appropriate for the job and it took me a lot of years to realize that just because i enjoyed your company didn't mean you were the right fit for my business so i think that you know that's a thing that i think comes along with a lot of a lot of people they oh you know everybody will do a good job and everybody will just show up and they'll work hard and they'll be competent and sometimes it's true and a lot of times you learn the hard way that different employees are not all employees are the same and not a lot of the skill sets and the work ethic and everything else so i think that's definitely one that people hit on so now as you're doing it and just fast forward a little bit on your journey but you've so you've done that first five years hard doing a business is always hard so i don't know that it ever just is like oh this is easy no worries i i never worry about payroll i never worry about the next client but but i think it does get to different levels of hey survival mode versus hey we're actually making some money versus we're growing the business versus we've reached a bit of more of a steady state but as you're doing that you know so you take that first five years when you got towards the end you know and you're looking at your business has been around for 12 13 years what made you decide to take that and or sell it off or go in a different direction so by the twelfth year things were going really well it really was running pretty smoothly the issues we had were much bigger though right i had hundreds of thousands of dollars i had millions of dollars in payroll by that time i was paying you know 80 people's mortgages not just mine and so there was a lot of weight that came with that i think and stress i also we were starting to expand we had expanded into four new states um and there was a lot of the unforeseen in the health care industry and so i have always done really well by finding people that i could learn from and i had really kind of maxed out my capacity of learning within my own network and the market the market to sell an aba company was insane people were paying crazy multiples on ebitda um and so there was a little bit of taking advantage of that and at that point i think i had my fifth kid and we were getting ready to adopt our sixth baby um and i thought in my mind it might be time to slow down um because i was like man six kids i feel like i should stay home and uh i really was seeking a partnership i wanted somebody to work alongside of me and i just wasn't sure how else to get it if i didn't sell so when i was looking at acquisition opportunities i i looked for somebody who was going to come in and then allow me to continue to grow my role the other part of it is i was kind of bored right like i could open up a clinic and grow and we'd have you know decent profitability but i wasn't like waking up energized to go to work anymore um i felt like the excitement had kind of died and it became work and i hadn't experienced that uh so i think at that point the the reason to sell was it was a huge financial upside and the people who were looking to acquire me were really smart i mean there was 26 different investment type of opportunities and man i i was excited every time i talked to any of them about growth and opportunity and new markets and um mergers and acquisitions things that i didn't get to have conversation with any of my employees and so i realized very quickly i was like oh this excites me um it was challenging i felt like i had it i i had to work hard to understand it better so it it felt like the right thing to do at the time so now and so he you said okay timing's right money's right you know while i could keep doing this the excitement level probably is waning a bit and it's just becoming a bit more of a day-to-day turn so you do that you sell off the business now how did you figure out what you're going to do next or what you want to do now stay at home do the or be the be mom take it some time off go to the next business or kind of how did you decide here's the the next next step i'm going to take so during my acquisition phase i i had a broker ran process i had a few months where i i actually stepped back from the company and just focused on selling it which means i was home a lot and i love my husband and my children however i was like this it's not for me i wasn't happy i wasn't excited um i mean i enjoyed them but i just was like okay well this is real work so i said to my husband there's no way i'm retiring i'm not seeing i like if i want it was funny the processes we went through were like okay maybe we should open a horse business maybe we should open a gym maybe we should open up i mean like pick a business we were gonna open it and operate it because i was like i can't sit still um when i chose the satellite sold to a company that allowed me to come on and do mergers and acquisitions for them so then i was going out and evaluating companies and and so at that point i was like i'm going to just find somebody who wants to buy me and employ me i'm going to try being an employee again uh that was a terrible idea i made it about 18 months and i was like i'm i liked being able to make this make the decisions and move quickly and so i made it 18 months and i went to them and said i'm a terrible employee like i helped close seven acquisitions but the only place i was happy is when i was actually making the decisions really um and part of it was i had built a team and now all of a sudden i was by myself again right i was working with a very small team but really my job was to go out convince you to sell to me and then bring you in and then i hijacked it to the next target and i missed that connection i missed helping people but what i realized is there was a ton of businesses who needed just general business help and so i was able to get out of my non-compete um not easily and not without great amounts of fear right like i i bet i sat for four months and and tried to decide is it right to stay and just wait this out till my non-compete's done what if they're really upset with me and they lock me out of the market i mean i'm gonna have to be running a hot dog stand um and so i i finally got up enough courage to ask them to let me out they agreed with some negotiations which cost me financially a pretty good chunk of money um and then i decided to open a consulting firm that specifically focused on businesses that were in the healthcare space that wanted to do what i did they wanted to start from the very beginning they wanted to grow and scale or they wanted to sell i lived through all three of those phases so i thought this this is actually something i know pretty well and i had made a i could have probably wrote two books on the mistakes i made um so that is how i started this company and i i think it doesn't matter how successful you were your first go around your second business will still have growing pains um there's still fear right there's even today we're gonna be in november will be our second year in business um but it's not like it came without some of those original growing paints that i had the first though around no and i think that you know that's it's always there's a lot of tumult that usually a lot of times you know starting your own business whether it's you're leaving another job which should there's a timing right you know to your point if you have a non-compete it can even more complicate it what is that next business can be is it going to be successful as a first business i did and i think there's always that level of uncertainty that you're just having to deal with and work your way through it and find what fits best for you and it sounds like that was a fun journey for you so well that kind of brings us up into uh where you're at today and always a fun time to transition to the two questions always hit at the end of the each podcast so if we will go ahead and jump to those now so having just gone through all of your journey kind of brought us up to where you're at today along your journey what was the worst business decision you ever made what'd you learn from it um i would think my worst business decision i ever made was outsourcing all of my financial controls so like my bookkeeping um my taxes and all of that and not understanding or knowing it well and so that actually lived with me through two phases my first business and i even started out my second business even though i knew it was a bad idea i was letting somebody else manage my quickbooks manage my bookkeeping and i was just taking the reports in and i remembered it was funny i remembered wanting to pull some information and thinking i know better like this was a huge mistake my first go around and i i did it when i started this what am i thinking um and so bringing that in-house and really knowing and understanding your financial information and i think and not not that you have two biggest business mistakes but i think the other one would be over leveraging myself for growth and i i did that in my first business where i was constantly working towards that next clinic and and over leveraging and causing undue stress so it's one of the things i've carried with into my second business where i remind myself and my clients all the time how much how much is it really worth to over leverage yourself right if you're feeling unsafe and uncertain about making payroll you know having those growth and gains you need to be very cautious because your your mental well-being is worth something so there is two of those big lessons for me all right no and i like both of them i like the first one because i think that that is a lot of times one mistake that saw business owners often make is with finances it's not that they don't want to make money and they don't want to understand profitability but most business owners i talk with they unless you're a finance person love the numbers and love the gym that's not why you get into business it's not to sit down and look at you know monthly expenses and run payroll and profit and loss statements and do taxes and it's like those are all the things you kind of like well if i have to do it i will because it's part of the business but it's not the fun thing and yet a lot of times when you turn the control and the rains over to someone else it distances you and you don't know exactly what's going on and it can sometimes be a hindrance because expenses are too high or you know things aren't being managed as well and it's because you don't know the information you don't know your data so i think it's one of those where you have to find that right balance as to how you can be involved with the finances be understand your business and yet not be spending your time on all the things that you dislike so i think that's definitely a good lesson to learn from second question i always ask is talking to somebody that's just getting into a startup or a small business what would be the one piece of advice you give them i would say clearly having a business plan and it doesn't have to be 27 pages long but knowing where you're going to start and some goals or metrics that you were going to hit even things like what you're gonna pay yourself and try to predict the next 12 months and check some of those things off as you go and if you miss step three right if you're missing a third goal make sure that it's not part of that critical foundation that will actually prevent you or or set you up for failure in the near future so really laying out your plan and i'll ask people all the time do the business plan and they'll say no you know it's too cumbersome and i'm saying no no like tell me where you're starting what are you paying yourself uh what what's what's success for you is it revenue is it profit but what's that number and then how how are you getting there what are the goals that we're gonna hit so keeping it simple and then trying to stay focused and staying on that track so you don't get super distracted and head the wrong direction no and i think that that's good now the caveat i always give and i think that's great piece of advice is that i think where sometimes people get frustrated is that they have their business plan and they're saying okay now things change and i don't i would say almost every startup in small business i know you end up pivoting you end up adjusting and the where you're at in 10 years is probably not where you and where you put in your business plan and so you have to in the one hand i think you have to have that plan you have to have that strategy and how you're going to attack it and convince yourself this is a worthwhile business and what are your what are the weight steps you're going to get there and what are your goals i think you're absolutely necessary and you know on the same side you have to stand back and say now with that in mind if the plan doesn't work go accordingly i have to have enough flexibility to adjust it so that i can still accomplish what i need to critically without maybe going the exact path that i'd originally laid out so i think that that's a great takeaway for people as you're trying to plan for your business and get things up and going and be successful i like that you said you know the business plan with 10 years i i don't think i've thought 10 years ahead of me once yet i live in about 12 month increments and i'm like okay now what's next so no i definitely agree and i think that having those manage well you can have stretch goals or things that hey here's the general direction we want to hit into the future but i think you also need to say plans are ones or i it's hard enough time to know what i'm going to be doing next year let alone in five years alone in 10 years so i'm making it a reasonable scope that you can actually implement on it and then have that flexibility that if something else is better comes along or forces you to pivot they're also willing to to do that as well so i think that's a great great piece of advice well as we wrap up if people want to reach out to they want to be a customer they want to be a client they want to be an employee they want to be an investor they want to be your next best friend any or all of the above what's the best way to reach out to you contact you find out more yep if you go to oboke oboke60.com you can jump right on my calendar and we check out our website which is www.oboakconsulting.com and either one of those will get you directions right to me all right well i definitely encourage people to reach out connect up and find out more so well thank you again for coming on the podcast it's been a fun it's been a pleasure now for all of you that are listeners if you have your own journey to tell and you'd like to be a guest on the podcast we'd love to have you feel free to just go to inventiveguest.com and apply to be on the show also as a listener make sure to click like subscribe and share so that both you and everybody else can continue to get all these awesome episodes and last but not least do you ever need help with patents trademarks or anything else with your business reach out to us at miller ip law just go to strategymeeting.com grab some time with us to chat well thank you again allison for coming on the podcast and wish the next leg of your journey even better than the last thanks so much have a good one you

Do Your Homework

Where Are They Now?

Trish Lewellyn

Devin Miller

The Inventive Journey Podcast for Entrepreneurs
10/6/2021

 

Do your homework. Do your home and be realistic. It's not for everybody. Do your homework. Contact these places and talk to people and make sure you understand what's going on. Make sure you understand everything that's out there because there is a lot going on. You can not go into it blindly. You have to do your due diligence.

The Inventive Journey

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

Get In Contact With The Guest

ai generated transcription

 do your homework do your homework um and be realistic um it's not for everybody but do your homework um contact these places talk to people um and just make sure you you understand what's going on and you understand everything that's out there because there's a lot going on out there and you just can't go into it blindly you just have to do your due diligence [Music] hey everyone this is devin miller here with another episode of the inventive journey i'm your host evan miller the serial entrepreneur that's grown several startups into seven and eight figure businesses as well as the founder and ceo of miller ip law where we help startups and small businesses with their patents and trademarks you ever need help with yours just go to strategymeeting.com they're always here to help now today we've got a where are you at or where are you at now episode for one of the expert episodes and so we get a we get a double whammy of where you at now and we get some more expertise which is uh excited to chat about um so the guest is uh trish so that way it's easier there you go um but just as a quick catch up so trisha we had her on about six months ago and we talked a lot about executive assistants and how you know having an executive assistant what it might mean for doing it virtually how you might think about pursuing it hiring them you know finding them you know what is the ways that you determine whether you need one and what error to find a good one and in all of that and we had a pretty good conversation so if you haven't had a chance to listen that episode definitely go back to and catch up on the original episode but today is kind of a follow-on and it's always kind of fun because with as with a lot of industries but in particular this one we have covet that's continued to come along you've had working from home this can be coming or a bigger thing people not wanting to go back in the office increasing a lot of times with competition and so we're going to chat a lot about that and how things have continued to evolve and for the kind of the virtual insistent executive assistant and those kind of roles and uh so with that much as an introduction welcome on the podcast trish thank you thank you very much good to be back again i just can't believe that six months has gone by already yeah i agree it seems to be that uh time or time flies are by quicker than we ever think it will so very true very true so now kind of just diving into the the area of expertise or kind of the update on the area of expertise but to talk you know and we chatted a bit before but it seems like wit with covet you know there was a originally when copen came out and we're now reaching back over here uh which time flies again there there was kind of that hey we're going to shut down temporarily people work from home because we need to and there was a bit of a question mark as to what that will look like when things start to open back up when people can go back in the office will employers have employees come back in will people love working from home so much that they'll stay at home and you know or will they'll be some sort of a hybrid so within the kind of the you know broad spectrum of virtual assistants and executive assistants and those type of things how are you seeing that evolution play out well um one of the the things about working at home is always being interrupted by cats this is fiona she never misses a zoom meeting by the way with some of my clients know her by name but anyway um you see more and more people um wanting to stay at home um and there's um if you look at um the job postings there's more and more people looking for remote not only virtual assistants but just people who will work remotely period and also one of the things that has come up a lot um or has started is there are a lot of agency now that um just will um specialize in those who work remotely so there's a lot of them out there i've checked out a lot of them um i actually have joined one so um there's there's a lot of expertise out there for people who want to work remotely now one question kind of followed because i i definitely hear that so you've had on the one hand people started working from home you do have interruptions but most people it seems like there's at least a portion now portion of the population not getting into what their employers wanted or not but at least for the people that are working from home saying hey i like this if you're in places where it's a long commute you're having to deal with uh going back and forth to work and then traffic and you know all that you're saying hey i'd love to recapture this time and love the freedom to you know not have someone looking over my shoulder always popping in my office so to speak and so i definitely get um the desired or at least for a portion of people and some people like the office and collaboration and seeing other people but there are people who want to do that but now is that you know how has that affected the almost a competition for you know before covet you've been doing working from home and doing it virtually for a while um you know how has that affected the competition as far as more people wanting those positions maybe there are more positions more people wanting them and it balances out or have you seen an adjustment in the competition well actually it's a little bit of both um there's more postings for virtual people but there's also more people going after those they've realized now that they can work from home um they can do it successfully they can be productive at it so you also have more competition out there the only thing a lot of them don't have you know like i have it'll be going on 13 years working virtually um in january so a lot of these are just coming on and and there are a lot of agencies out there who will hire people like that and then help them kind of build a portfolio so um there is a lot more competition out there so it goes back to sometimes i'm sorry sometimes it's um you get what you pay for so somebody who has who's just starting nationally won't have a degree of experience that someone like me or you know and there's others who've been working out there for many many years so you just have to accept away your options and be a little bit careful no i think that that makes sense now with the increase in competition how do you distinguish yourself in other words it sounds like you know yes there are more positions but overall there's probably more competition for those positions in other words there's more people wanting to work from or you know more people wanting to work from home than necessarily the positions or provide because you know not all employees here win full remote not all you know offer that and so as you've had the increase in competition how happy or you know you or you know people that are already in the industry how do you compete or how do you respond to that or how do you adjust to it and you hit on a little bit but maybe give us a bit more insight well when they look at my my resume they'll see for one thing they'll see the difference because they'll see my background and also if they check on um um like facebook or linkedin they'll also see the experience there that others might not have so um that's one way and a lot of times you know if they talk to me they'll they will they will kind of get that experience just in in talking to me that they wouldn't get with someone else so now now i'm going to ask the flip side of the question which is now let's say you're wanting to get it so i get on the one hand if you've been doing it for a while you can point to say hey i was doing working remote working and virtual assisting before it was cool so to speak and you know i had the experience and i've done it for a while and you can see my track record let's take the flip side of the conversation which is now you are on the side where hey i do like working from home i think it's a better arrangement it fits my lifestyle better whatever the motivation might be but you don't have that experience what are the best ways you can think of for people that are wanting to get into that and let's say their employer doesn't offer that and they're looking to maybe make a change how do you kind of start what are the best of their paths to start to get into it if you're coming off of cobed and wanting to do that i would say go with one of the agencies because a lot of times they will help you build a portfolio they will help you because a lot of these agencies also have they have like teamwork where if you have a question you don't know the answer to all you have to do is ask the rest of the rest of um their team and they will help you find that answer so i would say go with one of those agencies and there's a lot of them out there now that are very reputable um they're great people like i said i checked a lot of them out and um they're they would be very helpful for someone just starting out no i think that's a great advice so you know if you're starting trying to get or get going on it establish yourself and uh you know go with an agency that it's one that they have more experience they probably can get you better set up and uh and and help you to or gain experience in that realm so now one of the other things that we you know we chatted about kind of before the episode that was and i think an outgrowth of that is you know people are looking they're focusing on work right work life relationships which on the one hand working from home and being you know doing virtual assistant and doing those type of things it provides more freedom to not be in the office and to not have to commute and it does that on the other hand it can also remember sometimes detach you from human interaction in other words you're not seeing people in the office all the time you're not be able to you know pop some of your head into someone's office or have them there or bounce an idea because you still can but it just seems like when you're not there and you know in the same space or the same physical location it tends to create more of a distant feeling so how do you deal with that thoughts on that you know is that a an accurate assessment is it not accurate but if it is kind of how do you how do you balance that or keep those relationships well i think it's about not everybody could work at home successfully not everybody has the type of personality or temperament to work at home because it takes a certain amount of discipline because you're at home and you can see 50 million distractions other things that you would rather be doing so you have to be very disciplined to work at home and on the other hand um there are some people who who crave human interaction and there are some people who are perfectly okay being on their own not being around people um i'm one of the latter i i don't need to be around people um it's some people feed off that i don't um i don't know what that says about me but i don't need to constantly be around people but there are some people who do and i for working from home would be very difficult for them at least working on home on a full-time basis um sometimes with some jobs there are kind of like a hybrid where you can go into the office for a day or two and then work at home the rest of the week um they would probably be most happy in those kind of situations and i think that makes sense and that's seems like you know there's an ongoing evolution and i said i'm i love linkedin and it seems like it's an ongoing battle with linkedin it is whether working from home was it a hybrid is it all from home was it all at work and what about you knows and then it creates a tension between employers that may not line up with what the employees want or vice versa so i think that but you know to that question of work like balance i think that they're you know that while maintaining relationship you do have to want to be self-honest and you know i i'm probably in the more of the uh the camp that you are that i work from home for several years of my career and i tended to like it just fine now my wife was home and if i wanted to go and complain about something i'd just go complain to my wife but i think that you do have to be realistic that while you think hey this will be all positive you do have to also say will i miss a human interaction am i a people person do i like to bounce ideas off of others because it is a bit of a different arrangement so right or am i one of those who are easily distracted um which would cause a lot of problems if you work from home yeah no i think so so now shifting gears yet again but one of the kind of follow on to that is the other difficulty i think kind of the the flip side of the coin is that there becomes a less of a boundary with work work life relationships are guarding your time in other words because you're working from home and it doesn't it's not like you're interrupt it doesn't feel like you're at least for some people you're interrupting your home time because you're always at home and so it's in the middle of dinner or it's later in the night or it's earlier in the morning it seems to be those boundaries that were once a bit more established of hey when i'm home from the office i'm home from the office now i'm at their home is the office that i'm not here you know that you have that bleeding in of there isn't those clear boundaries so how do you deal with that if you are working from home how do you set up so that you can guard against your free time or that you're not always having that intrusion well when i take on a client that's one of the first things i do i do set boundaries i do not work past five o'clock i don't work um on the weekends um i will not answer my phone after five um i might look at it but i won't answer it if it's an emergency that's one thing but if it's just day-to-day work i will not answer it and i make sure that the clients know that if you text me or email me on a friday i won't get back to you until monday and weekends are absolutely off limits so you you have to be strong enough to set those boundaries up front and i think you also have to be strong enough to actually enforce the boundaries in other words you can tell clients that and then the first time they they need or want to reach out to you at that point they'll do it anyway and so sometimes it feels like you have to cement that in by actually sticking to your guns well actually i did that with one client um very nice lady um i worked with her for a while and she texted me something after five o'clock on a friday and i said and i i wrote her back i see this but i'm not going to do anything about it um as we talked i do not work um after five o'clock during the day and i will not work on the weekends so and she said okay i realized that and going forward there was no problems but i did have to kind of reinforce it and you do um and of course there's an exception to every rule there have been times um when i've i didn't have to but i did it um for the good of the job um there was a problem with an upcoming event that we had planned um a caterer had pulled out one week before the event so i spent the weekend trying to find someone that would be available in a week um i didn't spend my whole weekend doing that but you know you know five minutes here five minutes there but we did get someone it worked out terrific the food was awesome everybody loved this caterer so there are you know exceptions but it has to be a clear emergency for me to do and i'm right there with you i mean there's always exceptions to the rule but you can't make you don't want to make the exception the rule in the sense that you're always making so many exceptions that they're it obliterates that that boundary you know one of the things that i found and not naming any names by any clients because i don't wanna they're still quiet they're great clients but you know we had some that they will they would it was on the weekend and i'm i was similar i know i don't i work from an office uh but you know i work remotely in the sense a lot of my clients barney are in different states or in different locations and so while we have i have a physical office space it still has a lot of that same remote feel to them because they're not coming into my office specifically and we i'd have some clients that will they would call me on the weekend and i usually saturdays that is 90 of the days with kids sports and sundays are for religious worship so i just don't do i don't do anything unless it's an exception and something is urgent and can't be waiting i'll usually ignore it and they would just they would call and then if i didn't pick up with a call they would text and then when i didn't write texts back they would email and so i'd get hit three times and i'd ignore all of them and then they would you know then then they would wait a couple hours to start it over it so one of the things that i actually started doing that seems to have helped as well in this kind of as a thought is i actually set up just with outlook that i will on the weekends it automatically responds and says hey i received your message i don't work on the weekends you know family time on saturdays religious worship on sundays definitely will jump on this as soon as i get in the office on monday and that way kind of helps to give them a response reinforce that so that they know hey okay they they have received it they they're not going to respond but they are aware of it and that one kind of and i i also went as far as i have it on my phone automated texting as well that will kind of give them the same thing of hate it's a weekend i don't respond on the weekends i definitely value and you're an important client but i also have to have that boundary and i think however you know whether it's the way i did it or the way you do it or anything else i think setting those clear boundaries as to this is not all the time is work time and i do have other things and this is how you know here's the boundaries that we have which is the reason why i left the office in the first place was because i was working 60 70 hours a week and still bringing work home with me and i wanted to get away from that and that's why i started doing this almost 13 years ago so i mean you have to set the boundaries and then you have to be strong about it yep no and i think that if you have you're the one that has to be strong because others won't be unless you unless you're now they get i think one the one positive is after you've reinforced a few times they tend to be much more respectful and i found you know this is my tangent but if i explain why i don't work on sundays hey that's my religious worship that's when i take a day aside they're usually pretty respectful same thing with families hey i have a family i have kids they have sports while work is important to me my kids and my family are more important to me and so don't make me choose because you're going to lose but you say it in a nice way but i think people get it because they also have life and they also have boundaries themselves and so just helping to reinforce them tends to go a long way and i think you make a good point too because what i do you know i explain well you know i took a horseback riding a couple of years ago so i take horseback riding lessons but this place is a christian farm as well so i also teach bible study on saturday so you know i'm at the farm like four or five hours on on saturday that's my time and i love the time with my girls there um with the bible study and then of course sunday is is church and god and and i prefer not to do anything on sunday so i mean when they understand that um this is what i do on that time they tend to be much more um careful about bothering you you know they start to think that if all it feels is hey i'm blowing it off because i don't want to work then they're like well this is an emergency this is important to me you're gonna you need to do the work i think if you establish hey here's why i'm doing it and here's the reason why my i don't work on these days or why i guard against those then they're a lot more understanding and that's just my my soap boxer what has worked for me yeah yeah while you as a client are important to me this is also very important to me in a different part of my life you know and there's this balance and i appreciate you understanding that and for the most part they do yeah i think 95 and they always have the exception of the rule they don't care they want it done now and yeah then you have to decide if they're worthwhile as a client or if you're just going to have to say it's i'll deal with it as if they don't like it then they'll have to find a different way to deal with it and sometimes you just have to you have to allow that to happen as well so shifting gears just a little bit so one of the other things we and there's a whole bunch of things i think this is a big pandora's box of a lot of things especially when we get into working from home but one of the things i think you would mention if i'm wrong because there's also been a growth of platforms for replacing virtual assistants in other words as the field is expanded as more people are looking to do it there are more platforms if you were if you were starting today and i know you've been doing this much longer but how would you go about figuring out which platforms are good platforms or if you know of any specifically or even more generally what should you be looking for if you're in the position of looking for a platform looking to get started and how you should decide hey these are great platforms that will work well with me and i'll be happy and these ones are ones that are just looking to take advantage of me any ideas uh check out the websites uh give them a quick call talk to somebody there talked about um talk about how they do things um what they're looking for and you see them all the time on job posting sites um indeed and zip recruiter and all those other ones you'll see those different companies on there and um just you know or do a search do a search on on a search engine and um just call them up check check out their website see how they do things see see what kind of things they're looking for and um because not every company is looking for the same kind of of type as a virtual assistant some might be more technical some might be general so um check them out you know give them a call give them a quick call and just ask them questions and and see what they're looking for is it something that's compatible with what you're looking for will they help you will they offer um some kind of guidance there's some in particular that will help you build a portfolio of clients there's some where you know that you they start out very small you know just like maybe five seven hours a week and then as you get more experience you can go after more clients in their their database so i mean there's all kinds of things out there now so if i almost kind of encapsulate that it's almost do your homework and and look into a bit rather than just going with the first one that comes along or the first one is check them out look into them a bit see what they what they offer as far as support ask them questions and make sure it's a good platform rather than the first one that you find right right and it would have been so much easier had those kind of companies been around when i was starting out but you know virtual work was still so new back then that um they weren't you did everything on your own or by word of mouth and talking to all your friends hey do you know some somebody who could use a few hours work a week and i like to um somebody want some people want somebody a client that they can get a lot of hours from i'm one of those that i like diversity and i don't like putting all my eggs in one basket so i like clients where i might work 10 hours here 5 hours there so that if something happens to them i still have other clients to fall back on that might just be from 2008 um when everything kind of went under and you really had to scramble for work or it just might be the mindset that i have i don't know but um some people prefer you know like 20 hours a week 30 hours a week from one client where i prefer a lot of littler clients that that i can put together it and and these companies will help you do that too well i think that that's definitely some some good takeaways and you know it is definitely an evolving build and figuring out how or how it works and where you if you if you've been into it where you fit into it definitely is is a a lot to figure out so one of the last things uh before you wrap up the podcast that we had talked about i thought it'd be worthwhile too is it seems like and i think that you mentioned that is that now working from home where sometimes it was a bit broader as far as what people are looking for is tending to get more specialized and maybe gets a bit of an insight as to where it's trending and kind of how that specialization works and where you see things going well i think um really to be honest i think all this covid has kind of shown the way of the future um i don't really like to talk about kova because that's that's a pandora's box in and of itself but i think it's shown people that um bosses in particular that their their employees can work from home and be productive whereas there there was this mindset before that if you work from home you were just playing around you really weren't going to get any work done but i think that's shown that that's not the case so i think everything going forward little by little um is going to be going more remote so it's not just virtual assistants it's technical people it's ip people it's um i've even seen ads for lawyers and and that um on a remote basis so i think going forward just about every industry is going to be start going remote more and more um where sooner or later they're going to be very few people in an office um there might be just like a skeleton crew in an office setting or none at all um but i know more and more people are are working from home and looking for that work so um there it's all across the board industry-wise interesting well definitely and insightful it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out and i i still don't know if everybody knows exactly it seems to be trending in that direction but do you would have asked somebody a couple years ago they wouldn't have thought it would have trended that direction so all you have to do is take a look at the job sites and you'll see remote remote remote remote so you just it's there well i think that that there's definitely a lot of truth to that and that's always interesting i even look at the the job sizes to trying to keep an eye on how the legal industry is evolving and even beyond remote or not remote i think just seeing where the salaries are at where people are at whether you know what is it demand up high and there's a ton of posts or is it very low and not a lot of you know a lot not a lot of people looking and kind of gives you a better idea of the work industry in general so do the same thing just to keep abreast of things so well as we wrap up if you know we've we've chatted about a whole bunch of uh i think at least for me very interesting and fun uh fun areas of uh of the industry but if you were to take you know one la the the one last question um which is you know with all those things and there's some it will take the person that is looking to get started with their as their to shift their their career their job to something that's more remote and wanting to live that lifestyle be given one kind of takeaway or one their key to get started on today or to start to prepare for that or to get into that industry what would be that one piece of advice do your homework do your homework um and be realistic um it's not for everybody but do your homework um contact these places talk to people um and just make sure you understand what's going on and you understand everything that's out there because there's a lot going on out there and and you just can't go into it blindly you just have to to do your due diligence that's a great piece of advice and i definitely think do do doing due diligence before you're making a shift and also making sure it's what you want because you know leaving it or it is a transition and it can be a great thing or it can be something that you don't enjoy but making sure that you do your due diligence to to avoid the the downside if there is one or if you don't it doesn't it isn't for you or it is for you that you can make sure to know so i think that's a great takeaway well as we wrap up um if people want to reach out to you they want to contact you they want to bend your ear they want to get more advice they want to hire you as a as a an assistant virtual assistant they want to be your next best friend any or all of the above what's the best way to reach out to you contact you find out more um they can reach me in my email which is my name trish llewellyn which is l-e-w-e-l-l-y-n 7-7 at gmail.com all right well i definitely encourage people to reach out and make connections so well thank you again trish it's been fun it's been a pleasure and to have you on the podcast now now for all of you the listeners if you have your own expertise you like to share or you have a journey that you'd like to share on the podcast feel free to go to inventiveguest.com and apply to be on the show we'd love to have you um also make sure to like subscribe or share the the podcast so that both you and others can continue to get these great episodes and we're able to continue to share a lot of expertise a lot of journeys last but not least if you ever need help with patents trademarks or anything else with your business feel free to go to strategymeeting.com grab some time with us chat we're always happy to help thank you again trish and welcome wish you the next lego journey even better than the last thank you you too you [Music]

Start An Online Business

Sarah St John

Devin Miller

The Inventive Journey Podcast for Entrepreneurs
10/5/2021

 

I guess it depends on what type of small business or start-up they want to start. If they are not sure what they want to do, I personally recommend starting an online business. It is so much cheaper than a brick-and-mortar or retail type of store. Even if they are selling products where they think they might need a store, I still recommend starting online. The overhead is hardly anything. I run all my businesses for under a hundred. I think it is actually sixty a month now.

The Inventive Journey

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

Get In Contact With The Guest

ai generated transcription

 i guess it depends on what type of small business or startup they're wanting to start if they're not sure what they want to do i personally recommend starting an online business just because it's so much cheaper than you know a brick and mortar or retail type of store um i mean even if they're selling products where they think they might need a store i still would recommend starting online because the overhead is just hardly anything i mean i run all my businesses for under 100 i think it's actually under 60 now a month [Music] hey everyone this is devin miller here with another episode of the inventive journey i'm your host evan miller the serial entrepreneur that's grown several startups in the seven and eight figure businesses as well as the founder and ceo of miller ip law we help startups and small businesses with their patents and trademarks you ever need help with yours just go to strategymeeting.com we're always here to help now today we have another great guest on the podcast sarah john and sarah is a quick introduction went to school and majored in journalism teachers told her she was a good writer she decided to be a journalist got married at a young age she just got i think an associate's degree and she can correct me from wrong and i needed to start working and paying rent and whatnot and had a variety of jobs including retail and banking and credit repair and others i think by 2008 over a matter of just a couple years two or three years she'd had six different jobs and then decided to do a photography business but it was a bit too expensive to maintain and keep going then decided to go online and tried a few different things drop shipping affiliate marketing and others before writing a book called the frugalpreneur and launched a podcast with the helper with the book as well and has been doing that for a while and also started a podcast production company so with that much as an introduction welcome on the podcast sarah oh well thanks so much for having me i appreciate it absolutely so i just uh took a much longer journey if you tried to condense it down into just uh 30 seconds so why don't you unpack that a bit and tell us as college got started how your journey got started from there sure yeah so i i went to a community college um at first and so i got a two-year degree in journalism the plan was to go on um to get a four-year degree but i ended up getting married instead and you know moving out of my parents house and having to pay bills so anyway uh so i started working right away like you said like in retail and banking and just these different um jobs but there was one year in particular 2008 where i had six different jobs within that year um throughout the course of the year things just weren't working out and i realized that i wanted to work for myself at least at some point because i've always kind of had an entrepreneurial drive i guess but it you know i kind of did what everyone says to do the whole go to college thing and so um so yeah so i started the photography business because i like taking photos but i realized that now one one quick question just out of curiosity so six jobs over a year that's quite a few jobs and so just out of a little bit off or off off the main topic but what was the favorite job of those six jobs if there is a favorite or which one was the best one um probably well i would say probably being a receptionist at a vet hospital the reason i got let go from there well most some of these jobs i quit some i was like go from this particular one was because anytime someone came in with a dog that was going to get euthanized i would start crying oh i was only there for six weeks so i i can't understand a little bit if but if that's the case it might make it a bit awkward for the people that are getting their dog euthanized to have you as a receptionist if you're crying each time so that makes sense yeah um this was curious so that was that that answers enough for the question now with that isn't my second question so you went to school for journalism and uh i think it was an associate degree got married decided hey you need to help to get some income to afford expenses which definitely is understandable but what made you decide to go into photography as opposed to using or doing something in journalism because unless i'm wrong which is certainly possible journalism is writing photo or photography's pictures so how did you what made you decide to go that direction yeah so i mean what i learned about the whole journalism thing is that in order to get in you know to a radio station or a tv station or a newspaper or something like that you you have to either know someone or have maybe a masters or something like it's a very difficult um position to get into basically and so i i learned that while i was getting my associates my teachers i took journalism classes and they were like yeah just so you know this is not going to be easy but um so i didn't even [Music] um but i liked taking photos so i was like well that's easy enough just throw up a website and some pictures and start advertising for free on craigslist back then and was able to get quite a few like weddings is mainly what i was doing but it is expensive to maintain the equipment and everything so plus i liked i realized i like taking photos of animals landscapes and architecture more so than people so but at least you didn't cry when you took pictures that's true sometimes i probably wanted to though at some of those weddings for a different reason but yeah so now so you do photography for a period of time and you say okay you know one is i i found that maybe i don't like to take pictures in these kind of you know environments type of thing not that they're bad environments but just not the type of pictures you want and so then you decided to go into doing a few things online so kind of what made you go in that direction and how did it work out tried a bunch of different things like drop shipping affiliate marketing blogging i did have a online travel agency for a while which actually was fairly successful probably along with the photography business both of those i had for five to seven years but um and because i love to travel and everything like that and i love planning trips but with the when covet hit all my bookings got canceled and because people couldn't travel and the thing about being a travel agent is you don't get paid until after the person completes their travel so it's a bunch of work on the front end and then if something happens or they cancel or whatever and so i had already been kind of thinking about um because i was kind of towards the tail end of me doing the travel agency is when the podcast was picking up and all that stuff and i started becoming more interested in that um so i was kind of thinking about ending the travel agency at some point because it was a lot to kind of balance but um but then yeah with covet i pretty much had to we wasn't left with a a lot of choice but you know and definitely i think that the travel industry in general is you know been hit pretty hard with cobit and it's still probably a bit in flux with it seems like it you know every week is something different but but you know you before you hit covenant as you're because i think you started the podcast and did the book and that kind of prior to fully shutting everything down if unless and correct me if i'm wrong but with that you know what kind of prompted to kind of go to the frugalpreneur writing the book doing the you know the podcasts and doing other things and kind of going in that direction was a passion project creative outlet did you think hey i'm gonna get rich off a podcast or kind of what made you decide to go in that direction yeah so it's interesting um because because i had tried a bunch of different online business models i decided that i should write a book about it because well it was kind of funny because there was one day i was just like man i've learned so much i could just write a book about it and i was like actually i think i will take my journalism to your degree and you do something with it anyway um so the book is about like the different types of online business models and how to do it on a budget or affordably and the the word for gopreneur came to me i was in a dave ramsey financial peace class and he's talking about all these ways to pay off debt and save money and i'm thinking okay all of these are great but what about ways to make more money well and and that's kind of also how i got the idea for the book to help and then i was like free opener that like the word just came to me and so i wrote the book and while i was writing it i decided i should launch a podcast also called frugalpreneur to coincide with the book as an extra way to kind of market the book and whatnot well and it was only going to be you know 10 episodes or something like that and i was getting more leverage and traction with the podcast than the book and i loved the connections i was making the networking and all of that and so i decided to keep the podcast going i actually just hit over 100 episodes in a couple years and um actually i interviewed you that episode should be coming out well maybe by the time people hear this one maybe it is already out at um but yeah either to come soon to come or just launched what are they right yeah exactly so but and it was in the process of you know podcasting that i just fell in love with it and because i was already listening to podcasts for about a year or so prior to starting my own and fell in love with it almost obsessed or addicted to it i've got i subscribed to over 30 podcasts and um and i was doing all the editing and production and all that stuff of my own show and i decided well why not get paid to do it for other people if i enjoy it so much so then i launched the podcast production agency and i think that's going to be my it took me over a decade of trying to spend the other thing to finally find that thing you know [Music] because you know one of the things i in doing this podcast and being on other people's podcasts and just loving i i said i'd probably i don't know how many but probably a similar note subscribe to him and there you know i don't know if i listen to all of the podcasts that i'm subscribed to as frequently as every episode some of them i love and listen to more frequently when i walk or drive into work and you know go home from work now there's just more on out on a run and occasionally but the thing that i think is difficult with a lot of podcasts is you know be and same thing to with you know a cell phone book or those type of things is how you monetize them in other words you know i found it interesting frugalpreneur and i think that they are great avenues if you have a plan for a lot of times people struggle is you know able to you put out a podcast it's hard to gain an audience unless you do advertising if you do advertising on you know facebook ads or something of that nature then you can maybe get enough audience that you get you know someone that sponsors a podcast but it's still difficult and you know you have to be able to promote it and i think people just think oh if i put it out there people will listen to it so is that you know how do you did you build or did you figure out a way to monetize it did you figure out how to do it or is you know how are you still figuring that out or kind of where is that at the process yeah so i recently uh i have a few sponsorships now i just reached out to different companies that i actually used their products um and asked if they'd be interested it was like i mean of course there were obviously a lot of no responses and no's and things but i still got over a handful of yeses and wanting to sponsor anywhere from one to four episodes each so um so i'm kind of starting that process getting started with that that's one way um uh how i started monetizing was through affiliate marketing which i still do is like say i have a guest on who has a book coming out all in the show notes i'll link to the amazon link um the affiliate link or say someone comes on they have a software program or they have a course or whatever it might be if they have any kind of affiliate or referral program i'll sign up for that or maybe i already am signed up for it and then link to that in the show notes or sometimes i'm able to work it out to where the person will provide a discount code just for my listeners and so and then that gives people extra incentive to actually go through my link basically um so that's also a way to monetize some people create you know t-shirts and stuff like that i have done that but i've got no sales at all from that so i don't know how profitable it is to to do merch but uh and i mean maybe if you had a really big popular website then yeah maybe um let's see what else so affiliate marketing sponsorships merch also you're having your own products and services um so i'm hoping that you know through the podcast i occasionally reference the fact that i have a podcast production agency or whatever so you hope that maybe people will eventually go that route or offer you know a free lead magnet to at least get them into your email and you can keep them up to date with things like that so i would say those are the at least the main ways i'm monetizing um all right well we won't make you give away two are too many more of your secrets but no i just find that interesting because on the one hand i love podcasts and on the other hand you know a lot of times you'll see people get really excited and they release really good content but then you kind of notice that it slowly tapers off and then it completely goes away and my guess and it's always been my guest because i've never asked them was it you know it's hard to mod if if the only thing you're doing is a podcast now i think that to your point there's other ways to monetize it i think if you're doing it as to support your business and you're you know it's a constant contact with your clientele or potential clientele and it's generating it for your other business which is you know sounds like a little bit of on the even the podcast production it helps to offset some of that then it seems to make sense but just seems like it was just an interesting question a little bit of a side note what i just found interesting because i love podcasting myself but i'm always interested as you know as others are doing it kind of how that works out now one one other question your topic you just kind of hit on is so now you've you know you've done the you did the podcast you've done the book and you're saying okay learned a lot of the tricks of the trade so to speak i learned of what to do what not to do and how to do it well and you start your podcast you know production agency you know is how is that going is it you know taking off too early to tell still figuring things out or kind of you know where is that out in the process so the thing with that is besides mentioning it a couple times on the podcast just recently and occasionally in a podcast interview like this i haven't done any marketing or ads or anything like that which i do plan to do at some point um i'm like really slowly gradually kind of getting there uh but i have had some people contact me out of the blue by finding me through like a google search so i'm like oh i must have some i must be doing well with my seo then um so i do have actually some people i'm talking with right now that i've submitted proposals for and we're talking and whatnot so um yeah i guess i'm kind of going at it slowly or easing in because i not that i would get some big rush of like 10 clients or something and then not know what to do with myself but i guess i i like to take it you know maybe one at a time or kind of slowly um get into that but yeah so i guess i could say it's too early to tell but i think um i mean the fact that i haven't even started advertising and marketing really besides just the occasional mention but people are still finding me and and you know interested i i think that's a good sign i always hey if you're having people coming to you with a minimal to know marketing and uh knowing you know without uh absorbing an outreach and they're wanting to use your services that's always a good sign you're doing something right and it's a wanted service and so kind of piggy or piggybacking off of that so now you're kind of that brings a bit of to where you're at today on your journey but looking into the future you know is the is the goal of the aspiration to build a big podcast production company and help other businesses and that's kind of the focus is there another direction you're going there other services you're offering you're kind of you know forecasting out kind of the next six to 12 months for the business where do you see things headed and what's the plan yeah so definitely be to grow the podcast production agency um now i haven't decided if i want to keep it so small that it's just me and maybe one or two other people like virtual assistants basically or if i want it to be a bigger one that i haven't i mean i guess we'll just see how it goes um but yeah i definitely 4c or in the next six to 12 months that being obviously the primary income generator for sure awesome well it sounds like it'll be a fun six months as you continue to the business continues to all figure out where or where or how big you want it where you want to focus about who's going to be the clientele how to reach them and that's always you know in the one sense it's the scariest part of the business because it's the most unknown but for me it's always kind of the fun part of figuring out the business because it also kind of is one where it's a new territory that you have you get a work to figure out and it is a bit of the unknown it can be both frightening and exciting at the same time so now with that you know so as we've kind of gone towards you know gone through your journey a bit looked into a little bit of the future always have two questions i asked at the end of each podcast so i'm going to jump to those now so the first question i always ask is along your journey what was the worst business decision you ever made and what'd you learn from it well i would say in general i feel like i wasted a lot of time [Music] trying a bunch of different things like i i had um what would you call it shiny object syndrome where you hear about a new type of way to make money online you're like oh i gotta try that or i gotta try that so i would say just i mean i can't think of a specific business i've had that was necessarily oh probably several actually because i've had probably over like 30 businesses over the course of time but you know some of them went only went so far as like making a website for it and then i was like i don't think this is gonna work and moved on to the next thing now i'm finally over all of that but i i feel like i probably wasted a lot of time but you know i've told people that before and they're like well but it was because of those experiences that you wrote the book which then launched the podcast which then launched the podcast production agency so it's kind of like well maybe it was for a reason or um supposed to happen that way but still part of me is like oh man i wish i had served my podcast a decade ago um but i didn't even know what a podcast was a decade ago so i think they were probably around but they definitely have gotten increased popularity i think uh over the last few years as there's been more content there's been a there are more accessibility bigger platforms and otherwise so i think that that definitely makes sense i think on the the shiny you know shiny object object is a bit of i think a lot of entrepreneurs in the sense that you have a lot of ideas a lot of things that you think would be good and could work and would be worthwhile and successful and you know for most of the time 95 of those are all bad ideas it will never work that won't be successful but a lot of times it takes a bit of weeding through several of those ideas that you know might have been the shiny object or might have been the ones that weren't going to be successful before you land on those and so i think that as one that's a little bit kind of part of the journey that entrepreneurs often have as opposed to the movies in the television show where it just seems like they wake up one day and they build a multi-million dollar company and in a matter of a week in reality there's a lot more journey to that so i definitely think that that's a good lesson to learn so second question i always ask is you're talking to somebody that's just getting into a startup or a small business what'd be the one piece of advice you'd give them well i mean i guess it depends on what type of small business or startup they're wanting to start if they're not sure what they want to do i personally recommend starting an online business just because it's so much cheaper than you know a brick and mortar or retail type of store um i mean even if they're selling products where they think they might need a store i still would recommend starting online because the overhead is just hardly anything i mean i run all my businesses for under 100 i think it's actually under 60 now a month and so but if they're set on opening up let's say a brick and mortar or retail oh well i don't have any experience with that so i guess i don't have advice on that no i like but i but i think that if i were to expand out just a little bit what you said i think the applicable takeaway is that looking for the ways that you can test out the idea before you go and invest a lot of money in a brick and mortar and you know that can sometimes be hey i want to do a restaurant why don't you go try a pop-up tent at the local farmer's market or a a food truck or you do hey i want to start a brick and mortar well yeah but why don't you try selling it online and why can't sell online how old people know about it well people aren't just going to come to your store just because you have a brick and mortar you still have to be able to figure out how to market and sell and reach your audience and so i think a lot of times we want to jump to the shiny objects or the cool ones and oh it'll be great to have a big you know big presence or big store and yet it oftentimes will kill the business because you don't have the other experience and things set up and thought through that if you give it more time keep your expenses low at least in that initial point then it allows you to figure out the business and have it grow so i think that there's there's a lot of a lot of wisdom to that and i think it is applicable for those that are even looking to someday start the the bigger the bigger store or something of that nature with that now we've kind of gone through your journey you've answered the questions i turned the mic a bit over to you if people want to reach out to you if they want to be in a customer they want to be a client of the podcast production they want to be an investor they want to be your next best friend any or all of the above what's the best way to reach out to you contact you find out more let's see so if people want to check out my podcast it's frugalpreneur it's in all the podcast directories as far as my podcast production agency that's podseem.com p-o-d-s-e-a-m and as far as just reaching out to me in general my website is the sarahstjohn.com that's t-h-e-s-r-a-h-s-t-j-o-h-n and i actually give away i have three books actually now but i give away the free um pdf version at the sarahstjohn.com forward slash free and then if people are they know they want to start a business but they're not sure like what tools and how to do it for practically free or very close to it if you go to my website there's a tab that says 27 tools if you click that it has basically the 27 things i use and recommend that and probably i would say at least half of them are free so well i like it and i think that that's uh definitely a lot of good ways to connect up go get more information check out your services and definitely encourage everybody to do so so well as we wrap up thank you again for coming on the podcast sir it's been fun it's been a pleasure now for all of you that are listeners if you have your own journey to tell and you'd like to be a guest on the show just go to inventiveguest.com and apply to be on the show two more things make sure to click make sure to click or subscribe and make sure to share so that's three things to get an extra one for free and last but not least if you ever need help with your uh patents trademarks or anything else with the business feel free to go to inventive errors to go to strategymeeting.com i was going to say inventive guest but strategymeeting.com got some time with us chat and we're always happy to make sure to help you out make sure you're taken care of well thank you again sarah and wish the next lady of your journey even better than the last [Music]

Be Confident In Yourself

Joseph Prososki

Devin Miller

The Inventive Journey Podcast for Entrepreneurs
10/4/2021

 

You have to be confident enough to not be the smartest person in the room. I think there's this societal pressure to be the smartest person in the room. Some of that imposter syndrome like hey, if I've got a lot of smart people around me, I am not going to be able to lead them. Or it will get out that I am not actually as qualified as I think I am. At the end of the day, I really don't think I am the smartest person in the room most of the time. Definitely not the most qualified. But I am able to get in there and build relationships and especially learn from the expertise around me.

The Inventive Journey

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

Get In Contact With The Guest

ai generated transcription

 uh you have to be confident enough to not be the smartest person in the room i think oftentimes um there's a societal pressure to be the smartest person in the room right some of that uh that imposter syndrome of you know hey if i if i've got a lot of smart people around me i'm not going to be able to lead them or you know it'll get out that you know i'm not as actually as qualified as i think i am but at the end of the day right i i don't really think that i'm the smartest person in the room most of the time we're definitely not the most qualified um but i'm able to to get in there um you know to to build relationships and to you know essentially glean um from the expertise of those those people around me [Music] hey everyone this is devin miller here with another episode of the inventive journey i'm your host devin miller the serial entrepreneur that's grown several startups into seven and eight figure businesses as well as the founder and ceo of miller iplock where he helps startups and small businesses with their patents and trademarks if you ever need help with yours just go to strategymeeting.com and are always here to help now today we have another great guest on the podcast joseph pro or sowski as close as i can get it and uh jose pete grew up in uh lehigh utah and uh i kind of grew up watching uh at least what people in utah know silicon slopes kind of utah's version of silicon valley and has a lot of business and whatnot going there and then he went after graduating high school served in lds mission and uh and star and then started watching the import export business with china for a while while i was in school and realized uh had more learning to do so he decided as he was doing all that he went intern with adobe i think a venture capital firm learned a lot about funding um also intern with the banking firm learned about a lot about the stages of money um and somewhere along the line did a uh worked for a hedge fund i think after graduation being correct if i'm wrong and then jumped over to private equity firms for a period of time i think finding buying funeral homes and crematories if i remember right um and then started working on his own portfolio company and that uh then also started working on a company that's called brag house and then he uh led uh led him to join the team as i think the ceo cfo of bragg house and i've been doing that ever since so with that much his introduction welcome on the podcast joseph yeah thanks for having me devon appreciate it absolutely so i just took a much longer journey and condensed it into 30 seconds so now unpacking that just a bit um tell us a little bit about how your journey got started uh growing up in lehigh and uh how how things went from there yeah great well like you said yeah i grew up watching silicon slopes kind of blossom and grow um you know was very impressed right watched people like josh james grow domo into the business and company that it is today you know omniture exact where you know all of those businesses that you you pass on your way to provo these days um you know watch those grow um you know and as i started school like you said definitely you know became very passionate about the entrepreneurship space to the point where you know i started my own business my freshman year in college uh you know really enjoyed the journey loved it but quickly realized that i wasn't as much of a marketer or a social media manager as i was much more of kind of a strategist and a financier um so that that was what kind of took me down the road to to venture capital right kind of realized um from running my own business and then from working as a junior analyst up at epic ventures in salt lake city that you know money has a very large part to play um in the early stages of business and and really is applicable at any stage in the life cycle right if you don't have funding you can't make payroll you can't develop your product and you ultimately can't succeed so definitely learned a lot there and then you know kind of took my love for finance just a little bit farther uh you know worked in investment banking at crew capital you know i was able to see five or six transactions go on there and just definitely realized that you know again uh the the transaction and financial aspect of um of a founder's journey and a founder's life cycle is uh is super critical and you know even more than that learned that having the right advisors around you um at kind of that end stage um is super important right so yeah after graduation kind of fell into a role in it in a hedge fund and you know did the public equities thing for a while but um but really felt that you know i lost touch with the founders i mean you know something that i loved you know working in venture and investment banking was getting to interact with founders with leadership and and really feel that energy and kind of that that founder passion right um and so yeah like you said got back into kind of a little bit of a smaller space around you know private equity we were you know we were uh running a roll-up strategy right we rolled up 20 or 30 businesses across um let me just dive real quick into that so yeah because you know you were working in venture capital enjoying it and i think it kind of shifted a bit into banking but you know what was that tipping point or what was that motivation or saying hey i'd like to transition a bit away from my current company and try the new role was you know you touched on it briefly but was it hey i'm worn out with that or i'm looking for a new adventure or this isn't really what it's cracked up to be or kind of give us a bit more insight as to what prompted that that shift or that that change for you yeah that's a good question um you know i i think that when you talk about finance right the the dream is kind of to work on wall street to be in new york you know the hustle and bustle the city that never sleeps right and you know i had some of that experience and it was really fun um you know but with that comes late nights a lot of pressure um you know when when i was working at the hedge fund we were managing over a billion dollars um in march of 2020 right so when you had that uh you know that pandemic crash in the stock market right you know you listen to the you know other analysts talk about it and and that was kind of a once in a lifetime crash right that that was classified as you know in in the realm of being a black swan event right one in like 500 000 or something like that um you know and that that was a rough time to be uh to be managing public equities right so you know that that kind of all combined with the fact that you know yeah i was talking to other fund managers and to you know business leaders and things like that but it at the end of the day right it was kind of uh i'd rather be talking to you know i'd rather be talking to people who are really passionate about what they're doing instead of talking to you know wealthy limited partners and investors who just want to know you know why they're not doing better in the stock market so yeah at the end of the day i'd rather um you know i'd rather help someone achieve their dreams and achieve their journey uh than just you know make someone whose life is already fairly cushy even more cushy no it definitely makes sense now so as you're kind of having that realization saying i want to make that shift in transition was it how did you kind of go get to where you're buying crematories and mortuariums and you know her you know um and doing that kind of business was it more of the type of business where you got to kind of work more with the business owners we're saying i'd love to do crematories and that's where my passions are kind of how did you get into that yeah so i guess with you know the reason for leaving um you know high finance um i i was again looking back towards that kind of entrepreneurial mindset right so clearstone was a was a firm that was actually founded in the beginning of 2020 right around the january 2020 time um the founder was a guy who came out of a you know pretty large growth equity firm um in san diego california and so you know to me um i looked at him and said you know if if this guy's willing to kind of you know jump in and take a plunge um you know he had invested during his time um at lead edge capital he had invested in you know many different tech companies across um utah and kind of the western seaboard right and so i said you know this guy's an entrepreneur right he's out there hustling and you know that's kind of what i want to get back into and so why wouldn't i go work for one so you know we got together and you know we we hustled again had some really late nights and stuff but at the end of the day right we were buying these businesses from people who uh who had really interesting stories right you know it was hey you know my grandfather you know my great-great-grandfather um started this funeral home in crematorium hey you know uh you know my uncle bought this crematory and kind of turned it around and kept it going and you know death can be viewed as kind of a taboo industry or not not a very happy industry to be in but at the end of the day you know these business owners are people who are passionate about making sure that people's end of life um is memorable um and beautiful and so you know to be buying those businesses and you know carrying on that legacy was something that uh you know was much more heartfelt to me than uh you know trading blue chip stocks every day um no i think that definitely makes sense and you know i'm i certainly am a i get you know love a lover of entrepreneurs and startups and small businesses so definitely right there with you so now you make that transition over you say okay you know this is kind of more in line with what i'm passionate about what i enjoy get a role the businesses kind of get a you know help them out a lot of times and so you're doing all that now you know you're you're working with that and i think at some point that's where brag house came in or you got connected up with them through that job or something of that nature but fill us in with a little bit of how you kind of got connected up them and how you made that transition yeah you bet so you know like you mentioned in my intro um i i did spend some time as a product manager um you know i spent about six months interning as a product project management associate um at work front which is now an adobe company um and you know i really did develop a passion for technology right so you know you kind of look at you know what's popular these days right people people are all about tmt and healthcare right technology media telecom and healthcare um and so i kind of went the technology path um right so you know did some time and product management epic ventures is primarily a you know a technology firm um you know was able to work on a bunch of different technology transactions you know of course as an equity analyst right here you're working with a lot of technology companies just because they're there's so much growth around them right now so you know definitely have a background and a passion as well for technology and so you know in addition to kind of the technology or sorry the crematory and um uh funeral home space i you know was able to work on two or three deals in the technology space right worked on a you know a healthcare sas company worked on a um an edtech company right had some fascinating deals and then kind of brought bragg house in um bragg house is actually one of my first deals that i brought into the firm um you know and started working with the firm there right joined the board of uh directors um and you know it was kind of a very opportune time for me because the company kind of just took off right as i joined the board of directors and so you know they were looking to raise kind of a you know a seed round of funding right with my background and connections was able to you know very quickly put them in contact with people you know walk them through the the process itself right we you know we went through y combinator interviews together you know we spoke with many many different venture firms um you know and was eventually able to help secure both a seed and series a round of funding for this company and so you know of course with um with that you know they they definitely needed some type of financial management um and so you know was able to join the company as the the cfo last october now one question kind of getting into that is what made you or decide to you know join full time in the sense you had another job you've been doing it for a while you sound like it was a bit more in line with what you were wanting and you got to work the you know different businesses and roll them up and you know be introduced what made you decide hey while that's all available and i enjoy doing it i'm going to jump over and you know pursue brag house full-time yeah i i think there's there's really two routes you can look at um when when you're in private equity right you can either kind of stay on and double down right you know a lot of people in private equity really value the carried interest that comes right so you get paid your salary and then you're almost able to take on you know a few shares of each company that you work on um and that can be really valuable for a lot of people right you know if you had some carried in carried um some carry in zoom or you know some of those larger tech investments that can be very lucrative um but in a lot of cases you know that's a six to seven year payout time right so when you double down on that structure you're doubling down on your time as well because you have to finish those seven years to reap all that carry um so that was the first thing was that you know i i was kind of at a fork in the road around you know do i pursue kind of the you know the managers see you know vp route or do i go find something else and then the other thing i would say is that you know i think i wanted to prove to myself that i could actually go out and do it right like at the end of the day you know i would say that you know having you know hindsight is 20 20 and i would say that the best investors are the ones who have that founder empathy nowadays right you know when you you're essentially marketing money right you know you're selling money to people and so to me it's like that seems like a great thing to sell most people want or want money yeah money can be a great thing to sell and i think most people can want it but you know when it comes to venture capital there's a reason people coin the term vulture capital right because a lot of times yeah they'll give you um their money but you know they'll take it with a pound of flesh um on the flip side of that and so to me it was like you know the the best investors that i followed in the industry were always ones who had that founder empathy right they are the ones who can say you know hey i've been there in the trenches i've been where you're at and you know the value um that i provide is not only in the money i provide you but the you know the experience and the the ability to be used as a sounding board right because people who just shove capital into businesses don't often have the understanding to know what it's like to be you know hours away from not making payroll or you know to be making the biggest decision of your life and you know selling your business for you know 6 million or 10 million dollars you know it's that do i become a millionaire today and have cash in hand and maybe be able to do another business or do i wait and hold out for a bigger valuation so that founder empathy has kind of been the biggest driving factor to me that you know i can either go on and pursue a career you know in operations or you know i could jump back into investing and be doubly as good because i have that founder empathy no and i think that that definitely makes sense and resonates well so now one question it kind of jumps back in time but i'd ask anyway is so you know you you started out with brag house with the the company that you're working with before you're before going full time now how did they view that as to you going from a business that you got in they introduced and were interested in to you working full-time for that business and kind of leaving them was it that hey we think you do a great addition it will help increase our you know our investment or hey we don't want you to go or you know you shouldn't go because you have a non-competitor kind of how did they deal with you know you going from working with them to working with one of the businesses that they were they were associated with right no i think in most cases right um it's pretty typical for people who work in private equity to jump out and uh you know pursue that executive level role um at one of the portfolio companies right it's very very typical thing to do um and from the from the private equity firm's perspective right you know if they trust you enough to to do the due diligence to make the investment in these companies right and to sit on the board um it only it only increases their uh their trust or you know their trust in the business when one of their own is kind of at home right so you know they look on it very favorably and you know we still have a great working relationship with them oh that's awesome that's great to hear so so that kind of brings us to where where you're at today in a little bit of kind of the journey that got you there if you're now kind of looking uh you know six to 12 months in the future and it's always a bit of a crystal ball but where do you kind of see the next phase going or where do you see things headed for you yeah from the the business perspective or the personal perspective we'll stay on the business but uh maybe the personal efforts at least right now for the business yeah yeah definitely i mean the uh for me this is probably the most exciting part is that you know we we were able to wrap up our series a round of funding here a couple weeks ago um you know we're able to partner with some phenomenal groups in theseus capital um and black sheep capital out of london right um you know they've opened the doors to you know advisors to strategic partners and things that we could never have dreamt of having right um and after you know wrapping up a very very successful quarter with um tournaments with mcdonald's with coke um you know we brought on some phenomenal clients and some big partnerships and so you know the the next step is is an ipo for us um you know we've we've engaged um the needed firms necessary to take the company public on the nasdaq next year um you know so for me as you know finance person kind of being able to take the business to that next financial level um you know and take it public on the on the nasdaq is super exciting so we're we're all very optimistic about the trajectory and you know excited for that next large step in the business life cycle well sounds like it'll be an exciting time it's always you know bittersweet hopefully mostly sweet uh to take something public you know you get to have that as they see how it does in the public and how what people will accept and what you know what they think of it and kind of get that outside valuation as long as the the ipo goes well it's definitely a fun if it doesn't go as well then you get a you get a figure out how to readjust or to pivot so hopefully it's the former it goes extremely well and is definitely um an exciting next uh future period of time so yeah well with that now as we've kind of walked through a bit of your journey and also looking a bit into the future kind of is a great time to transition to the two questions i always ask at the end of each podcast so the first question i always ask is along your journey what was the worst business decision you ever made and what'd you learn from it oh that's a good question the worst business decision i ever made so i think the worst business decision i've ever made um is stretching myself too thin um you know there are there have been times um you know in various roles where i've taken on too much um and i and i will say that that is the worst business decision i've made personally and for whatever company i've been working for because the quality of work just went down right the decisions weren't as good the due diligence wasn't as detailed um and so you know i i think that oftentimes like it's good to take on more and more opportunity um but eventually it can become detrimental um because you become you become to some extent incoherent in the decisions you're making because you're not really paying attention so yeah i would say that there are there are definite few times i can remember stretching myself too thin and making poor decisions as a result of that well and i think it's one word i definitely get agree that's a mistake but it's an easy one to make in the sense no i just want to get a little bit more done i want to impress things i need to get these projects done i want to you know outshine the other people or whatever the motivation is you it's kind of a little bit of that death by a thousand cuts in the sense that you kind of incrementally stretch yourself a bit thinner and thinner to the point that now you're not able to give the highest quality or the best service or otherwise operate at the level you need to because you're having too many things you're stressed too thin and so i think it's a lesson to learn that you know there's definitely a time to hustle and get things done but you also have to make sure you do it in a way that it you are able to continue on sustainably operate at the level you need to so i think that's great great lesson to learn from now as we jump to the second question which is talking to somebody that's just getting into a startup or small business would be the one piece of advice you'd give them yeah the the the one piece of advice i would probably give to somebody just starting out is that you have to be confident enough to not be the smartest person in the room i think oftentimes uh there's a societal pressure to be the smartest person in the room right some of that uh that imposter syndrome of you know hey if i if i've got a lot of smart people around me i'm not going to be able to lead them or you know it'll get out that you know i'm not as actually as qualified as i think i am but at the end of the day right i i don't really think that i'm the smartest person in the room most of the time or definitely not the most qualified um but i'm able to to get in there um you know to to build relationships and to you know essentially glean um from the expertise of those those people around me that i can remember specifically right a couple weeks ago we were we were on the phone with uh the executive vice chair of a very very large investment bank in new york and you know i look at myself and i'm like okay like i'm decently experienced at finance but you know this guy has spent 35 plus years kind of as a captain of industry right you know he brings in all these managing directors from the different groups and things and they're sitting there giving us advice and i'm just like wow like this is uh this is intense but at the end of the day right like we were able to get so much value from that conversation um because of the people we were able to to bring together there so yeah i would just say that you know building a strong team and a strong network will take you much much farther right there's the there's an adage right you can go faster alone but further together um and i would definitely echo that right that it's it's much much easier to go much much further um if you build that that great team around you so that that would be my advice to anyone getting started out in the entrepreneurial space no one i like that i mean i'm i'm always the opinion if you're the smartest one in the room you need to get smarter people around you in the sense that now you know what the caveat you can be the the smartest in your given area of expertise or where you're at and knowing what how the business operates or maybe you are smartest anyone niche but you can you know see the whole picture and how it fits all together but you should be surrounding yourself with within the areas that those people are working and they should be smarter than you know you need to understand it be able to you know be able to meld it all together and make sure it's executed properly but i think to your point i think having those smart people around that are going to be able to provide insights and information that you don't otherwise have is going to exponentially make your business better because otherwise if you're always the one that's having all the ideas driving everything and coming up with everything that limits the business to just what you can add as opposed to what all those other smart people have so i think that's a great takeaway and a great piece of advice well as we wrap up if people want to they want to be a customer or client they want to be an employee they want to be an investor they want to be your next best friend any or all of the above what's the best way to reach out to you contact you find out more yeah i mean you guys can find us online our websites braghouse.com right i'm on linkedin and twitter so you know definitely reach out um you know send a friend request on linkedin definitely happy to connect um and discuss um yeah that's the that's the best way to get in touch all right well i definitely encourage people to reach out contact you find out more and if nothing else make a new best friend so with that i appreciate you coming on the podcast it's been a fun it's been a pleasure now for all of you that are listeners if you have your own journey to tell them you'd like to come on and be a guest we'd love to have you so just go to inventiveguest.com and apply to be on the podcast also make sure to like subscribe and share um the podcast with other with others so that we can continue to promote the the journeys of those that are the different journeys that people are taking and help out in the community and last but not least if you ever need help with patents trademarks or anything else with your business feel free to reach out to us at miller ip law just go to strategymeeting.com well thank you again joshua this has been fun it's been a pleasure and wish the next leg of a journey even better than the last appreciate it devin thanks [Music] you