🎙 Inventive Journey | Real Stories From the Startup Survival Club

I want to always over-deliver and fear that I won't be able to do that. How I am handling it is I am actively looking for the right people to help me do that. I know I can't do it all myself and, my team can't do it all ourselves. So we are on the hunt for the right people.

Put Your Goals in front of you and your fears behind you. There is so much that has to happen in a business. And it takes a long time. It's years or a marathon. You have to find a source of motivation and inspiration. Two of those sources are goals and fears. If you can be motivated by those simultaneously, I believe it's a powerful combination to keep doing whatever you need to be doing. I think it's the stereotype and clique that businesses fail because you give up or you quit. There's truth in that, but I think to make it easier on yourself as a founder especially, really get clear on why you are in it.

I believe there are two reasons to do a start-up. One is you are passionate about something. You want to do a company and, you are willing to ram your idea down the throats of potential clients. That was UTD. The second reason is you see a niche and, you fill it. And that is, coach me strong. So I have had the opportunity to do both of these. You're passionate about something. Create a new product and try to market it. Be open to a niche. Create it, fill it, and then try to market it. The commonality of those two things, it does not matter which one you do if you are willing to go the long road for either one. The commonality is business start-ups are marketing projects.

This Ranger Instructor looked down at me and goes are you committed? I looked at him, and I mean, my face is muddy. I have stuff in my eye that I am trying to get out. I am hacking up stuff and, I say what do you mean Sergeant? and he goes look a chicken is dedicated because he gives an egg. A pig is committed because he gives bacon. He goes do you understand the difference? And I said, yes I do. I have never forgotten that and, those are words I still to this day live by.

I would say to some who have not yet started well, start, do it. The world needs you. They need your idea and vision. Whatever you have in your beautiful vision do it. If not now, when? We all could die tomorrow.

Make sure you carve out time for yourself and your family. When you are running a start-up you can get so focused and so in the weeds of running that business and it can be mentally all-consuming. You can't lose track of what is truly important. Carving out that time to go for a run. Carving out that time for a date night. Carving out that time that is super intentional for your kids. That is going to be beneficial to your family but, also for your business. It will give you that time away to relax your brain so that you can come up with better ideas for the growth of your company.

Raise capital but, raise capital in a way that you can build on it slowly. I started my entire company using square loans. I got my first one for eight hundred dollars. I worked and paid it off based on my credit card sales and, stuff like that afforded me another one for sixteen hundred dollars. Reallocated the money to what I needed at the moment and just kept building on it. I stayed away from raising big capital and raised what I needed at the moment or where I thought it was at and where my short-term goal was.

Don't be afraid to aim high. My goal was when I started my rental business the whole point behind it was I  didn't want to put my financial security in the hands of a company. That was the whole reason behind this journey was that I did not trust a company to pay my mortgage every month. So I wanted to build up a rental portfolio that I could live off of if things ever went sideways and I lost my job. That was how it started and I told myself when it started ok well maybe twenty-five years is enough time for me to do this. I hope that I can do this in twenty-five years. Then it was like five years later that I was financially independent. It does not take that long, set your goals high.

That is what I will go over with people in the flirt coaching. If you know how to really read your partners, whether it's your business partner or life partner or potential life partner, you know how to read what lights them up and what doesn't. Then you can go with that and choose better partners.

So I say go with something you are passionate about. Go with your strengths. Go with Something, that as I joked about earlier about looking around. Look at the things in front of you. Look at your actions and habits. What are those things that you are doing that you don't mind doing and that you could translate into a business? If you like talking to people all day, maybe being a counselor or opening up a counseling center is not a bad idea. Know your industry and who you are up against. Know your competition. If there are people or companies who are doing what you are doing and have a large market share, you are going to fight and contest a lot of that market share. So try to offer something that separates or divides you either at a lower cost or more in a blue ocean wave. So something different but still offers the same value proposition.