We tell people who your going to hire is most important. As a small business owner that is what I always think about. Our firms slogan is to hire slow and fire fast. We do our best to hire people based on culture and our values, but it doesn't always turn out to be a good hire. We try to be transparent and set goals and milestones for them so we can quickly assess if there a good fit for our company.
Mar 30, 2022•22 min•Season 1Ep. 341
Honestly, understand what you want to achieve and why you want to achieve it. You hear that all the time right but, you hear it all the time cause its important. Really focus on making sure you're not limiting yourself and bottlenecking your own growth. Check out that book the Big Leap by Hendricks. One thing I did not mention but is pretty important to me is making sure I write down my goals. Plan my goals ahead and keep track of them daily. One thing I always tell the team is to slow down to s...
Mar 28, 2022•21 min•Ep. 340
Go all in, I mean it's something if you're going to get into, it's like Parks and Rec, like don't hold a half asset you got to get a whole asset. So go all in. You know you can't sit there to the side and say you know I'm going to work on this small business but I'm going do it under the confines of nine to five. Like if you jump in and you're not the founder or you're someone early that's joining in you need look at it as this is your baby too. And so just because you join in and there's no hug...
Mar 25, 2022•26 min•Ep. 339
Take the time to structure things correctly. From a legal, financial, and tax standpoint, you want to get your business set up correctly. Intellectually property. I think it's very important to get the right counseling and to get the right structure in place beneath you to have a foundation to go forward.
Mar 23, 2022•35 min•Ep. 338
Get involved in content. Investing in your personal brand. Spending time on social. Whatever that looks like have a strategy for that because it's more important than you probably think.
Mar 21, 2022•22 min•Ep. 337
Have a niche. It is so important to have a niche even a micro-niche. Like many business people, I was afraid to lose customers, so it led me to be a generalist. So, the first thing we do is translate from English to many languages and many languages into English. Having a specialty now I realize is so important not just for my industry but for anything.
Mar 16, 2022•28 min•Ep. 335
Make sure you are uncomfortable. That's always the first step. Having a level of discomfort keeps you on track and keeps your focus. With that, I would say read everything you can. I don't mean just about your industry and becoming an expert in your field. There are so many outside things that contribute to your decision-making. It could be baking or learning how certain calls get called in a football game. So many things like that. Those are things that help with decision-making processes....
Mar 14, 2022•25 min•Ep. 334
Prepare to work hard and give it the runway that it deserves. What I mean by runway is it's going to take longer than what you think to be successful. I think people are looking for short-term wins, get rich quick, whatever it is. If you think in terms of decades instead of in the next two years I am going to make this much money. Put some longevity behind your plan and then go execute your plan. The correct expectations will be set and you will build a solid foundation. You will learn a ton alo...
Mar 09, 2022•27 min•Ep. 333
"I think the biggest piece of advice is to get the right people on your team and don't be afraid of doing that. Take the time in the beginning to strategies and hopefully move forward in a way that you can afford to financially invest in those people. For me, I have a wonderful business consultant and he has been really helpful to me as far as moving forward and giving me those gold nuggets and pieces of advice to build right in the very beginning and the structure that I need to have in place t...
Mar 07, 2022•25 min
Persistence is king and, I know you are going to hear that a lot or don't give up, don't have fear. But the way I describe it is there are days when I am kind of afraid of heights and, there are days where I feel like my job is to go, walk on the edge of a seventy-story building and look down. I just swallow it and get on the train and start working. You really have to push yourself past your comfort zone. Don't pay attention to the negative. Focus on where you are getting traction and momentum....
Mar 02, 2022•27 min
Definitely product-market fit. I think too many start-ups say I have a great idea let's just do it. And I always say: well no, we have to figure that out. And they go but, I read the lean start-up book and, I know if I ask people if they like this idea, then it's good. And I say: well, unfortunately, the lean start-up book didn't tell you how to ask the right questions. They told you to go, ask questions but, they did not tell you how to ask the right questions. Un-bias questions, non-leading qu...
Feb 28, 2022•33 min•Ep. 257
You really can never stop learning, there are so many good resources out there, there is so much good information. And then specifically to learn about how to have the right mindset to be successful. Because I really believe that mindset is 50% of the battle. And once you can believe in yourself and believe that you have the ability to make money and to be successful with your business your half way there.
Feb 25, 2022•23 min•Ep. 389
Anything that you don't think you can do. If you are an entrepreneur, don't waste time trying to figure it out. It's going to waste time and, it's the one resource that you can never get back. People will ask what's the most important thing in your life and you go well you know there are a lot of things love, money, what have you but believe me time. The older you get to realize this, that is the one resource you don't have enough of and, it's limited so, it's going to end. So the best thing to ...
Feb 23, 2022•27 min•Ep. 330
Speak with as many people as you can. But, always know how to listen, and what to learn from every type of conversation and from every interaction.
Feb 21, 2022•29 min•Ep. 329
In the first 4 years of the business, you're doing three things at once. You're working in the business, serving customers, answering phone calls, in my case mowing grass. And then you're working on the business. What does the marketing system look like? What does the employee recruitment system look like? What does the employee retention system look like? How do we activate cold customers? All of these things are working on the business. Then you're working on yourself.
Feb 16, 2022•32 min•Ep. 328
In addition to knowing what it is you want to do, look at how other people, either in your field or adjacent, do it. You can learn as much from the good that they do as you can from the things that you disagree with. It's really useful to be able to thread your own path that's a little bit different from what everybody is doing but getting the benefit of what they have learned.
Feb 14, 2022•25 min•Ep. 327
Get really good at hiring. Your team is going to determine whether or not you are going to be successful. All your business problems are people problems in disguise. You can tail everything back to your people. There are some of us who are entrepreneurs who people are drawn to, and they want to work with us for whatever reason. That's great, but if you don't have those skills or that muscle that's something you really need to build upon. You need to do it from the standpoint of who you are as yo...
Feb 09, 2022•29 min•Ep. 326
As soon as you think you've done enough research, you are only halfway there. You need to do more. You need to act as if you are currently running a business and find out where those holes are. If you could be where I was a year into my business when you first start, which I think entrepreneurs can be if they just know more. It's a great system. I would also ask to speak with other start-ups in similar industries. Not someone who would be a direct competitor because that would be strained. But i...
Feb 07, 2022•29 min•Ep. 325
Be open to advice from others. Listen to people. Learn from people. Find people that have done something similar and try to learn from their experience. I can't emphasize enough how much it has helped me. Not just having a mentor but having people around me. Being able to learn from people, for example: with fundraising. The first time I went out and did that I got a tremendous amount of input from a good friend of mine that has done it before or multiple friends that have done it before. With s...
Feb 02, 2022•24 min•Ep. 324
So, I've learned that you prepare for growth and have the compacity. Then once you have the compacity, you start the marketing piece and the sales piece. You start looking for new business. When the new business comes in, you can handle it. Then your customers won't be dissatisfied and your new customers won't be dissatisfied, because you are able to meet their quota. That's the most important thing that I have learned. I really encourage any start-up that; don't rush to get more business. Build...
Jan 31, 2022•37 min•Ep. 323
Bootstrap. It's incredible what you can think of and come up with limited resources. Giving away equity and bringing in a partner soon. I find that these create more problems than they solve. Getting outside funding. Borrowing heavily to launch a business, I think, is a mistake. Scaling it down to the point that you control it, you don't owe anyone anything makes you very resourceful and creative. I think ultimately you will grow the business faster and bigger that way. So, running lean. Keep al...
Jan 26, 2022•35 min•Ep. 322
If someone is starting, I would say, get a mentor right from the bat. Get someone who has helped build a business from the ground up. Don't just try it yourself cause it will take you four years where it could have taken you a couple of months to figure out exactly what you are doing? Who you are doing it for? What's a mission and vision is and how do they differ? And how having that strategy set up from the start will help you exponentially in a year.
Jan 24, 2022•22 min•Ep. 321
Tell them to be cautiously fearless. I would tell them that there is nothing stopping them. They have as much right and as much ability to do this as anyone else. I've met some people that maybe their IQ isn't the highest or maybe their family does not have the most money. But they would just come and, they did it. People will help you if you ask for help. Don't be afraid to get advice. Don't be afraid to listen to good advice. Sometimes you have to go in your own corner and plan. Other times yo...
Jan 19, 2022•29 min•Ep. 320
You need to know enough about finance to be able to speak the language. I relate it to communication. If I am going to go to a foreign country if I know how to speak the language, I am going to have a much better trip than if I have no idea how to speak the language. That does not mean that I have to be a professional speaker or that I have to be a literary genius in that language. But, I have to have a basic level of literacy.
Jan 10, 2022•31 min•Ep. 319
Someone has already taken that journey before you. So finding some that's started something similar or in the same industry that you can become a mentee of that, you can learn from and not have to recreate some of these experiences that someone has already walked that path so, there is no reason to make the same mistakes.
Jan 05, 2022•25 min•Ep. 318
Number one, you are either built for this or, you aren't. You either have the fire in your belly or, you don't. Nobody will push you harder. Nobody will make you deal with and overcome adversity harder than you. Don't look to anybody else. Don't look to clients, partners, employees, or vendors. It's either you are committing to this, and you have the fire in your belly, or you don't.
Jan 03, 2022•34 min•Ep. 317
Don't allow yourself to be blinded by the purity of your own vision. I have seen too many people who are so convinced that their vision is pure and presents the best and the only solution to the problem that they fail to see that some of their assumptions are flawed. If being an entrepreneur requires great intellectual curiosity but, also intellectual honesty, you really need to be nimble, humble, self-aware, and honest so you can adapt and recalibrate. Drive and focus are really important, but ...
Dec 29, 2021•23 min•Ep. 316
The short version is "quit or become rich". This is actually by Po Ram, so it is his quote. A longer version is my own version, which is to have faith in yourself, have faith in life, and be very focused on what you are doing.
Dec 27, 2021•22 min•Ep. 315
Be a little bit more prepared in the beginning. Understand the true costs of what it will take. I had the fortune of having a little bit of a savings plus retirement income. Plan out your I can do this. I have six months to start making some revenue. What is my minimum revenue point?
Dec 22, 2021•19 min•Ep. 314
For all the early people you bring on or cofounders, invest into your equity and into your position because you are getting married to somebody. In some cases, you might not know the person very well. Maybe you have different opinions or something several months into it or a different direction you want to go. A pivot you want to make. So if you don't invest in your equity, it makes getting a divorce very difficult. If you and I were in a business and I said Devin, hey, we are just going to spli...
Dec 20, 2021•28 min•Ep. 313
