Dan Martell - February 22, 2016


5 Strategies To Help You Start Your Business ｜ Dan Martell

Hosted by
Dan Martell
Mentioned
Steve Wozniak Steve Ballmer Steve Jobs Bill Gates
How To Achieve Work-Life Balance ｜ Dan Martell How to Become a Belief Collector ｜ Dan Martell

Episode Stats


Length

6 minutes

Words per minute

213.4

Word count

1,305

Sentence count

73

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

4

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

When you start off, there's a fear of looking stupid, having the wrong idea, or not having the right idea. There's even the fear of failure. In this episode, I share a quick story of a guy named F.R.I.D. who started a company called Plenty of Fish and built it to a $10 million a year revenue business in 5 years. Within a 5 year period, he built this thing to a 10 million dollar revenue business and 90% profit margins. And a year ago, his company, after about 11 years, 12 years of operating, got acquired by Match Group for 500 million dollars.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.360 Five strategies to help you start your first business.
00:00:02.920 That's what I'm sharing with you guys today.
00:00:04.680 Now I know, I get it.
00:00:05.680 When you start off, there's a fear. 1.00
00:00:07.040 There's a fear of looking stupid. 1.00
00:00:08.680 That sucks. 1.00
00:00:09.560 There's a fear of failure because nobody wants to start 0.98
00:00:12.000 something and not succeed.
00:00:13.360 There's even the fear of having the wrong idea of like,
00:00:16.600 do I go down this path, or is that the right idea, et cetera.
00:00:19.520 I want to share with you guys five strategies for starting
00:00:22.320 or helping you start your first business,
00:00:24.560 and these are not what you're thinking of.
00:00:26.400 And I don't know if you guys know my story,
00:00:28.000 but I've built five companies, the last three were acquired,
00:00:30.840 the last two were venture backed,
00:00:32.000 I've been absolutely blessed and fortunate
00:00:34.180 to have invested in 30 plus companies as an angel investor,
00:00:37.060 but what I wanna share with you guys is a quick story
00:00:38.680 of a guy named Marcus Friend, or F-R-I-N-D,
00:00:42.120 he's a Canadian, so I already like him,
00:00:44.380 who started a company called Plenty of Fish.
00:00:46.060 About 11 to 12 years ago, this guy was job to job,
00:00:49.740 didn't go to MIT or Stanford or any other four year
00:00:52.660 university degree of worth, just decided to start this site,
00:00:56.720 Plenty of Fish, or P-O-F, those in the know.
00:00:59.880 And within a five year period, he built this thing
00:01:02.160 to a 10 million a year revenue business,
00:01:04.220 90 some percent profit margins,
00:01:06.020 and was living like a king in Vancouver, BC.
00:01:09.440 And a year ago, his company, after about 11 years,
00:01:12.900 12 years of operating, got acquired by Match Group
00:01:16.000 for 500 plus million dollars, all right?
00:01:18.980 Now, I share that story to inspire you that a guy
00:01:22.040 that is known by his friends, that is awkward
00:01:24.340 and socially weird and not charismatic
00:01:27.980 and all these things just sat down part-time
00:01:30.660 and built this idea and it grew and it grew
00:01:33.140 and he just kept operating it
00:01:34.460 and now he's a multi-hundred millionaire dude.
00:01:37.020 So, number one thing, I'm gonna share with you guys
00:01:39.400 five strategies to start your first business
00:01:41.400 to help you get there.
00:01:42.240 The number one thing is to organize an event.
00:01:44.080 Now, most people don't realize that an event,
00:01:47.000 in my mind, is probably the most realistic simulation
00:01:51.160 of you starting a business, right?
00:01:52.660 Think about this, all the moving parts.
00:01:54.220 recruiting speakers, choosing a topic to do it on,
00:01:57.620 getting a venue, coordinating an agenda,
00:02:01.000 selling tickets to the event.
00:02:03.460 So I just think that for a lot of entrepreneurs
00:02:05.740 that are not yet settled on an idea,
00:02:07.660 the number one thing you do is organize an event
00:02:09.860 because it will simulate what it's actually like
00:02:12.880 running and building a business.
00:02:14.540 I believe you can't learn to surf reading a book
00:02:17.880 and you're not gonna learn how to build a business
00:02:19.720 reading books, you actually need to go out to do that.
00:02:21.680 Organize an event is a really great place to start.
00:02:24.220 Number two is start by consulting.
00:02:25.920 Get in the market, understand the pain of your customers
00:02:28.460 or your potential market, and just consult and help them.
00:02:31.220 And maybe you take on like six different companies
00:02:33.620 and you work with them and you see this like,
00:02:35.700 oh, you know what, they're all struggling with this one thing
00:02:38.340 and if I built a solution or a service around that,
00:02:40.680 I think it could be applicable to a lot of other companies.
00:02:43.360 So starting by consulting is number two,
00:02:45.220 is just really get in the market
00:02:46.980 and understand the pains and the needs.
00:02:48.660 The third, I believe, is find three entrepreneurs.
00:02:51.960 If you're starting off, you've never started a business,
00:02:53.420 Go find three entrepreneurs two years ahead of you.
00:02:56.220 Two years ahead, meaning two years ago
00:02:58.340 they were exactly where you are,
00:02:59.740 but now they have a business,
00:03:00.720 maybe they have a couple employees, and they're going.
00:03:02.960 Go find three of these folks. 0.85
00:03:04.420 Maybe you already know them, maybe they're your friends,
00:03:06.300 but spend time with them.
00:03:08.300 Allow them to inspire you.
00:03:09.920 Ask them questions about how they started.
00:03:11.840 Really understand their mindset
00:03:13.580 for getting the business going,
00:03:15.280 because I believe proximity is power,
00:03:17.760 and being around people that are gonna inspire you
00:03:20.240 is the way to get that initial momentum
00:03:22.860 to start your business, so that's number three.
00:03:24.600 Number four is get a potential co-founder.
00:03:27.100 Nothing, nothing is more exciting than staying up late
00:03:30.520 on a Friday night brainstorming with a buddy
00:03:33.540 that you might start a business with about ideas
00:03:37.180 and opportunity and potential customers
00:03:40.540 and how much could you charge and how would it work
00:03:42.580 and how could we, you blow the socks off of the customer
00:03:45.440 from an experience point of view
00:03:46.300 and all these different aspects.
00:03:47.460 Just getting somebody that co-conspires with you
00:03:50.400 to create that is your friend.
00:03:53.160 If you think of all these incredible companies
00:03:55.080 from Apple, et cetera, they all had co-founders.
00:03:57.840 Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer.
00:04:02.340 Everybody had teams, co-founders, people that started off
00:04:05.480 and I would suggest that you go find that.
00:04:07.220 It doesn't mean that the person you're brainstorming with
00:04:09.020 is gonna be your co-founder, but just have that filter on
00:04:12.520 in the world to go find them.
00:04:13.900 Number five, this is the big one, and I learned this
00:04:16.960 while I was talking to my brother when he started
00:04:18.220 his home building company.
00:04:19.360 You're not supposed to know how to start a business
00:04:22.760 when you start a business.
00:04:23.800 You're not supposed to know.
00:04:25.300 If you think you need to get all your ducks in an order
00:04:27.860 to start the business, you've already failed.
00:04:29.460 You're not supposed to know.
00:04:30.740 I remember he was like, well I'm trying to build houses
00:04:33.220 and I've never built houses and hire trades
00:04:35.060 and all these things and I go bro, dude,
00:04:37.020 you're not supposed to know.
00:04:38.080 That is the exciting part.
00:04:39.600 Take the pressure off of yourself and just realize
00:04:42.900 that it's part of the process.
00:04:44.540 Entrepreneurship is challenge, learning, overcoming.
00:04:47.800 Challenge, learning, overcoming.
00:04:48.840 That is the process.
00:04:50.240 That's what entrepreneurship is about.
00:04:51.680 It's about creating.
00:04:52.840 If you know how to do something,
00:04:54.580 then it means you've already done it before.
00:04:56.300 Not the case.
00:04:57.140 Those are the five really quick recaps.
00:04:58.780 So number one, I wanna suggest that you start an event.
00:05:01.840 Just think of some passion topic you have.
00:05:05.280 Go recruit, I mean, you can keep it simple
00:05:07.140 or you can make it awesome.
00:05:08.100 I've seen different variations,
00:05:09.480 but at least start an event, sell tickets.
00:05:11.940 That'll get you going.
00:05:12.980 Number two, start by consulting.
00:05:14.400 Get in the market, understand the customer's pain,
00:05:16.940 and really try to find the opportunity
00:05:19.260 to build a business from there.
00:05:20.180 Three, get three other entrepreneurs
00:05:22.760 that are two years ahead of you
00:05:23.920 and spend as much time as you can with them.
00:05:25.700 Four, get a potential co-founder,
00:05:27.760 somebody to co-create with you,
00:05:29.440 to brainstorm with, to stay up late.
00:05:31.340 Friday, Saturday night, just brainstorming,
00:05:33.420 making stuff come to life.
00:05:35.060 And number five, know that you're not supposed to know.
00:05:38.300 Those are the five strategies
00:05:39.740 that help you start your first business.
00:05:41.840 And I want you to share this video.
00:05:43.080 If there's somebody that you know
00:05:44.300 that's been struggling finding it,
00:05:46.200 trying to find their pattern,
00:05:47.240 just share this video with them, support them.
00:05:49.980 I'd invite you to subscribe to this video
00:05:51.480 and leave me a comment below.
00:05:52.560 Which one of those five strategies
00:05:54.080 are you gonna implement in your life?
00:05:56.320 Is it the event?
00:05:57.160 Are you gonna start by consulting?
00:05:58.320 And again, you can do that part time.
00:05:59.740 Leave me a comment below, let me know.
00:06:01.980 As per usual, I wanna challenge you guys
00:06:03.340 to live a bigger life and a bigger business
00:06:05.480 and I'll see you next Monday.