Dan Martell - How To Start a Business from Scratch

00:00:00.000 Hey there.

00:00:00.500 Dan Martell here, serial entrepreneur, investor,

00:00:02.120 and creator of SaaS Academy.

00:00:03.320 In this video, I'm going to teach you how to start a business.

00:00:06.320 Now, I know.

00:00:06.840 This is a pretty broad topic.

00:00:10.040 Normally, I talk about software companies and scaling, et cetera.

00:00:13.280 But here's the deal.

00:00:14.520 If you've ever been business curious,

00:00:18.240 and you wanted to start a company,

00:00:19.560 but you were scared to make the first step,

00:00:21.480 or you've tried in the past, and it's hurt a little bit,

00:00:24.280 but you really feel like, in your soul,

00:00:26.040 you should be an entrepreneur, then this video is for you.

00:00:28.320 I'm going to teach you how to get rid of all the mystery,

00:00:32.680 the fears around starting a company,

00:00:35.000 and break it down into the minimal thing.

00:00:37.700 And be sure to stay to the end because maybe you

00:00:39.760 have questions around what books you should read.

00:00:41.960 I've actually distilled out of the 1,000 plus business

00:00:45.080 books I've read a PDF that's free that you can download

00:00:48.000 that's going to go you through all the top books

00:00:49.960 that you need to read to become a better or start

00:00:53.400 being an entrepreneur.

00:00:54.700 Let's get started.

00:00:58.320 So the reason I created this video

00:01:09.520 is because I recently was on a podcast called The Icons.

00:01:12.840 I'm going to link it up below.

00:01:13.820 But on that podcast, I offered to do a call

00:01:17.420 with anybody still listening, and I gave out my email.

00:01:20.720 Now, I'm just going to let you know I'm not doing that anymore.

00:01:23.300 What I had to do, because I got hundreds of emails,

00:01:25.380 is organize a Zoom session live.

00:01:27.700 Everybody connected.

00:01:29.120 And I got asked this question, hey, how do I start a business?

00:01:32.380 And I was like, so I gave my answer.

00:01:34.580 And they were like, wow, that's really insightful.

00:01:36.160 And it's what I'm going to teach you today.

00:01:37.660 But it also came up a couple of days ago.

00:01:39.640 I was meeting with a young entrepreneur

00:01:42.500 or a young aspiring entrepreneur.

00:01:45.980 And the same question came up.

00:01:47.200 And I gave them the same answer.

00:01:48.480 So I wanted to shoot the video so you had these strategies

00:01:51.300 that I would have used when I was first starting off at 17

00:01:55.220 to start the business.

00:01:56.500 what to think about, how to think about it,

00:01:58.900 how to design it, and how to get going.

00:02:01.120 In this video, you will start a business

00:02:03.160 by the end of the video, I guarantee it.

00:02:05.820 Number one strategy, create it for you.

00:02:08.840 So regardless of what kind of business you wanna start,

00:02:11.580 what you wanna sell, you gotta start it for yourself.

00:02:13.720 So the where I would look is your passions.

00:02:17.160 So maybe you're an athlete,

00:02:18.540 maybe you're part of different groups,

00:02:20.680 or you like to watch car videos on YouTube.

00:02:23.260 Whatever it is, you need to start

00:02:25.140 with something you know, what's called domain expertise.

00:02:27.840 So start around something you're passionate about

00:02:30.260 or solve a problem you have.

00:02:32.460 So sometimes I recommend to people

00:02:34.460 to start developing that muscle, creating a frustrations list,

00:02:38.320 go through the world.

00:02:39.400 Or my buddy James Altucher recommends

00:02:41.920 that you create a list of the top 10 ideas that come to you.

00:02:46.240 And every day, just try to write down 10 business ideas.

00:02:48.900 But the frustration list is just going through your day

00:02:51.360 and looking at things that frustrate you

00:02:53.380 that you feel could be an opportunity.

00:02:55.480 But that's number one, is you've got to solve a problem

00:02:58.200 that you have for yourself.

00:03:00.080 Number two, learn to tell.

00:03:02.180 At the end of the day, if nobody knows about your business,

00:03:05.800 nobody knows about your product, then you're

00:03:07.880 not going to sell anything.

00:03:10.060 It's that simple.

00:03:10.880 A lot of you guys are fearful because you're like, well,

00:03:13.900 I'm scared.

00:03:14.660 What if I tell someone about my idea and they reject it?

00:03:16.680 Or I reach out to a business to support me

00:03:19.480 and they don't want to support me.

00:03:20.880 Or I try to sell something to somebody and they say no. 0.53

00:03:23.240 and it sucks, but here's the deal,

00:03:25.340 is just learn how to get your idea out in the world.

00:03:29.000 So some ideas that I wanna share with you.

00:03:31.100 Number one, social media.

00:03:32.740 There is so many different outlets,

00:03:34.300 from creating events, to publishing on your own newsfeed,

00:03:38.580 to letting people know through social media,

00:03:40.900 Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok,

00:03:43.500 whatever you wanna use,

00:03:44.700 you want to promote it through social media.

00:03:47.120 Number two, your friends.

00:03:48.660 I'm assuming you have a handful of friends,

00:03:51.040 people you know, maybe you go to school,

00:03:52.960 Maybe you go to work and you have people around you.

00:03:55.280 I want you to get comfortable approaching people

00:03:57.840 and saying, and you just ask them, hey,

00:04:00.020 have you ever considered this?

00:04:01.300 Hey, do you have this problem?

00:04:02.560 Those are the two questions.

00:04:03.680 If you can get good at starting a conversation by just saying,

00:04:06.940 hey, have you ever had this problem?

00:04:08.620 And they say no, say, great.

00:04:09.920 I don't need to talk to you.

00:04:10.920 But if they say yes, say, perfect.

00:04:12.200 I actually built this thing.

00:04:13.200 Or have you ever had this interest?

00:04:15.280 Yes, perfect.

00:04:16.120 I'm doing this thing.

00:04:17.160 Whatever it is for you, you just

00:04:18.940 need to be OK approaching other people

00:04:21.700 to tell them about your idea.

00:04:24.920 Number three, ask for money.

00:04:27.120 So business never, like no business

00:04:29.900 has ever been started until there was a dollar exchange,

00:04:33.180 OK?

00:04:33.760 And here's why it's so important.

00:04:35.520 The moment I ask somebody, my kids

00:04:37.360 go door to door selling painted rocks,

00:04:39.440 and they sell them for like $5.

00:04:40.840 Sometimes I think they say $10, and my neighbors are literally

00:04:43.740 just kind enough to buy these painted rocks.

00:04:46.540 They make no sense.

00:04:47.340 They're not worth $10.

00:04:48.300 but it doesn't matter.

00:04:49.800 You ask for money.

00:04:50.800 Why is that important?

00:04:51.940 Because the moment that you ask somebody for a dollar,

00:04:54.920 the whole conversation changes about what is it,

00:04:58.120 how does it work.

00:04:59.060 So many people, I don't know if you've ever experienced this,

00:05:01.560 but you tell them about your business idea,

00:05:03.340 like that's amazing, you know, they support you.

00:05:05.540 Maybe you don't have that experience

00:05:06.580 because you have bad friends, but if you do,

00:05:08.980 they're always like, yeah, that's amazing.

00:05:10.880 But that's not true validation around your idea.

00:05:14.300 What you want to do to validate your idea is ask for money.

00:05:17.700 Get paid.

00:05:19.120 Take the dollar.

00:05:20.820 Sell something.

00:05:22.100 Because if you don't do that, then you don't have a business.

00:05:24.800 I think a lot of people run around

00:05:26.100 thinking they have businesses that they don't have

00:05:27.600 because they give away stuff.

00:05:30.200 They discount stuff.

00:05:31.420 I'm saying understand your value and ask for it, OK?

00:05:35.060 So you need to ask for money.

00:05:37.080 Number four, call it a project.

00:05:39.740 Too often, I'm sitting down with this young entrepreneur,

00:05:43.060 and he's like, I want to start a business.

00:05:44.860 And I can tell in his mind that he's

00:05:47.900 trying to come up with the perfect business idea,

00:05:51.100 the perfect business model, the perfect pricing.

00:05:55.260 Here's what I've discovered.

00:05:56.980 Having built a ton of companies myself

00:05:59.260 and have coached and helped so many entrepreneurs

00:06:01.000 and listened to so many podcast interviews

00:06:03.940 from the origin stories of some of the world's

00:06:06.340 coolest companies out there is what they started

00:06:09.040 is not what they ended up doing.

00:06:10.860 And many times, it's not even that the way they're doing

00:06:13.780 the business is different.

00:06:14.660 They pivoted 100%, sometimes restarted.

00:06:17.240 They started here, and they learned some lessons,

00:06:18.900 and they moved into another business.

00:06:20.700 So the way to solve that is just call it a project.

00:06:23.540 Don't call it a business.

00:06:24.760 Just start a project, start a new side hustle,

00:06:27.860 start something where you can communicate value to somebody,

00:06:31.720 ask for the money, and just don't make it a big thing.

00:06:35.020 If you make it a big thing, there's

00:06:36.240 going to be all this pressure on yourself

00:06:37.580 to want to try to make it succeed.

00:06:39.100 And the truth is that it probably won't work.

00:06:42.600 Just so you know, I'm not saying you'll fail at life.

00:06:45.720 I'm saying that your first idea may not

00:06:48.180 go on to huge commercial success.

00:06:49.820 What does that mean?

00:06:50.560 Well, my first company made about $30,000,

00:06:52.580 and then I had to shut it down.

00:06:54.480 So does that mean it was a failure?

00:06:56.220 Not really, because I took all those lessons learned

00:06:58.500 and put it into the second company.

00:06:59.960 I learned how to make a dollar.

00:07:01.140 I learned how to tell the market.

00:07:03.440 I learned how to build something.

00:07:05.840 And I took all those lessons and moved into the next thing,

00:07:08.180 because it didn't stop me.

00:07:11.260 There was no failure.

00:07:12.100 So just call it a project and start there.

00:07:14.200 Number five, organize event.

00:07:16.240 This is the MVP, the minimum viable product

00:07:20.680 of entrepreneurship.

00:07:21.820 So if you're watching this video, I told you at the beginning

00:07:24.580 you're going to start a company.

00:07:26.140 Here's the instructions.

00:07:27.400 Are you ready for this?

00:07:28.340 This is how it works.

00:07:29.700 You want to find somebody or some topic

00:07:32.820 that people would want to learn from or be

00:07:35.060 interested in that topic.

00:07:37.620 Then you pick a date into the future,

00:07:39.340 ideally in the next 90 days.

00:07:41.200 So 90 days from now, you pick a day.

00:07:43.240 Do it on a weeknight, maybe 6 to 8 PM.

00:07:47.140 And I want you to find somebody that you

00:07:49.420 would want to learn from.

00:07:50.320 See, this is where it gets back to your passion.

00:07:52.080 Find somebody that you'd want to learn from

00:07:54.280 and have them speak at an event.

00:07:56.800 They could do a talk.

00:07:57.680 They could do a workshop.

00:07:58.560 You can call it whatever you want.

00:07:59.660 But I want you to organize a hour or two hour event

00:08:04.780 after hours that you coordinate with the speaker

00:08:08.540 or the person or whatever it is.

00:08:10.840 There's an event, and then you go and you learn to tell the market about your event using Facebook, using your friends, using your coworkers, using other businesses that communicate.

00:08:21.820 Like, this is the crazy part.

00:08:22.820 When I have friends that run local events, all the local businesses support each other, and they'll let you put up flyers.

00:08:28.800 They'll post it on their Facebook page.

00:08:30.900 They'll tell other people.

00:08:32.380 You can go to schools and promote if it's more of a kids' event, but I want you to promote the event.

00:08:37.140 But the key is, is you can't do it for free.

00:08:39.440 If you do an event and it's free,

00:08:42.220 you do not, no business, no entrepreneurship.

00:08:44.600 Just letting you know.

00:08:45.520 If you don't get money,

00:08:47.220 if you don't learn how to market,

00:08:49.400 communicate the value and exchange that for money

00:08:52.720 so that the person, even if it's a dollar, okay?

00:08:55.640 Even if you charge a dollar or $5.

00:08:58.320 I had friends of mine do this challenge

00:09:00.680 and they charged like $5 for the ticket,

00:09:04.960 but then got so many sponsors that wanted to be involved

00:09:08.080 that like you had like $20 worth of value

00:09:11.760 in the sponsor bag of discounts and credits

00:09:15.080 towards different services in the local businesses.

00:09:17.160 Like you could do that.

00:09:18.640 So you can make it so it's like ROI positive

00:09:20.520 for somebody buying a $5 ticket

00:09:21.880 or you can put your prices up.

00:09:23.500 But regardless, this is my challenge to you.

00:09:25.940 I want you to pick a date 90 days into the future,

00:09:29.100 call it a project so you don't have to commit.

00:09:31.060 It's not like this long term.

00:09:31.960 You're not starting an events business,

00:09:33.820 but and you can do it even on the internet.

00:09:35.840 This is even what's crazier.

00:09:37.100 It's called a virtual summit.

00:09:38.080 You can find a speaker, organize an online event,

00:09:42.320 charge people to attend it, have the speaker do it.

00:09:44.980 And if you want, you can give the money to the speaker.

00:09:46.920 It doesn't matter.

00:09:48.220 And market the event, get people to pay to show up,

00:09:51.260 have the speaker do all the heavy lifting.

00:09:52.960 You're the creator, it's your project,

00:09:55.200 and ta-da, voila, you are now an entrepreneur, okay?

00:10:00.260 As I told you, at the beginning of the call,

00:10:01.900 no resources needed, no capital needed,

00:10:04.200 no infrastructure needed, anybody can do this.

00:10:07.340 So if you have it in your soul, if you're

00:10:09.640 excited to be an entrepreneur, if you want to start a business,

00:10:13.400 this is the lowest possible risk exposure, the least amount

00:10:19.180 of energy and work, I think.

00:10:20.600 Because trust me, if you build a physical product

00:10:22.940 you're trying to market, it's a lot harder

00:10:24.060 than doing an event with somebody else that has credibility

00:10:26.620 that's already sold.

00:10:27.500 This is what you do.

00:10:28.880 Start an event, call it a project,

00:10:30.620 and go back to those first three strategies to get paid,

00:10:34.180 tell the market, and solve a problem for yourself.

00:10:37.220 So quick recap, how to start a business.

00:10:38.940 Number one, create it for you.

00:10:41.060 Number two, learn to tell.

00:10:43.220 Number three, ask for money.

00:10:45.620 Number four, call it a project.

00:10:47.780 And number five, organize an event.

00:10:50.460 Those are the steps.

00:10:51.320 That's my challenge to you.

00:10:52.440 I would love to hear from you below in the comments.

00:10:54.180 If you've done this in the past to encourage other people,

00:10:56.400 if you're committed to doing it, leave a comment.

00:10:59.340 As I mentioned at the beginning of this episode,

00:11:01.200 I want to share with you my top books

00:11:03.380 for entrepreneurial success.

00:11:04.760 You can click the link below to get your copy.

00:11:06.840 but I have read or listened to 1,000 business books,

00:11:09.900 biographies, marketing books, et cetera.

00:11:12.460 It's what I do, 10 pages every morning.

00:11:14.940 And I've distilled it into about 45 of the top books

00:11:17.840 on different categories that you might need,

00:11:20.040 from personal development to sales, marketing, growth,

00:11:22.680 operations, et cetera.

00:11:23.780 You can click the link, download that for yourself.

00:11:26.160 It is 100% free.

00:11:27.540 And if you like this video, be sure

00:11:29.100 to subscribe to my channel.

00:11:30.520 Smash the notification button so that you get notified

00:11:33.640 as I upload new videos every week.

00:11:36.580 And as for usual, I want to challenge you

00:11:38.500 to live a bigger life and a bigger business.

00:11:40.660 And I'll see you next Monday.

00:11:42.080 It doesn't take anything.

00:11:42.960 You find somebody people want to learn from.

00:11:45.360 You book them.

00:11:46.400 You get a free venue.

Dan Martell - February 03, 2020

How To Start a Business from Scratch

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