🎙 Inventive Journey | Real Stories From the Startup Survival Club

There are so many places, so many pain point and struggles that no one is touching. I think what you want to look for is a pain point that seems obvious to you that should be solved that no one else really is interested in. If you find that then there's a lot of opportunity there for you. Too many people are trying to create either a copy cat product or something similar, Its not particularly unique. Its one of the reasons I wanted to get out of my original business. I just did not feel like I could differentiate enough from competition. Really finding a niche problem that you are super passionate about will give you a lot of business opportunities and will also bring a lot of people out of the rafters who are interested in that same thing and will support you on that journey.

Care for your relationships. This is the most important thing. You can not achieve profit without the help of others. We can not achieve profit without the help of employees. They care for our company and pursue our mission.

Do a little everyday. This is based on a concept I have for my show called the wheel of momentum. If you have ever seen a large engine they have what's called a fly wheel on them. It's to help keep the momentum of the engine going. You see them on big old machines, sometimes they have monstrous fly wheels, 20 feet in diameter. My advice to folks would be give a little push at minimum everyday. I don't take days off anymore. Sunday, Saturday, during the week, whatever it might be, I don't take a full day off anymore because if I do I lose that traction, I lose the momentum. By giving a little push, or a big push, or a huge push every single day on my business, on my product, on my show, on whatever it might be I maintain that and gets easier over time.

I think that you have to realize if you're going to start a company it takes time and effort. It's the comment you made before that big hit that was all the ten years in the making. I mean you have to stick to it. You have to adapt to it and change to the things that come to you cause it's not going to be easy. Stick to it and realize it takes time.

I'm big on next steps. Take a step. There is something out there that they need to go to the next level. I was thinking about it this morning while I was driving in my truck, it's dark out still. Some people are laying in bed, some people are being lazy, some people are not giving it one hundred percent. For me it's always everybody I see that wants to do what I do or wants to do what you do, they have to take their very first step and it has to continue every day. Taking a step every day towards what you want, it has to be what you want. Your why has to be so big that you get up at five am and you work until eleven o'clock at night because your hungry, you want it, you know why your doing it. You just have to take that step every day.

The most important thing to figure out is a plan. Develop a plan and a strategy so you can really understand your product or service and where it fits in the market. You do some business modeling and some financial modeling, Figure out where your break even point is and then do some development in marketing strategy. Then in general really stick with it and be consistent.

Establish boundaries around your time, And make sure you schedule your self-care time first. We can fill our calendars up with work. Not a problem, it's easily done. But when we try to squeeze in self-care its harder to find time. You put that on your calendar first and don't move it. Don't worry, the work is going to find the open slots, it won't be a problem. Schedule your self-care first and color code it too. This is what I do with my calendar, I use my favorite color to demonstrate self-care and things that are beneficial to me.

For Entrepreneurs is you better build your team. You can not name a successful person, a world changer without identifying his or her team.

Be very open-minded. Go in with a vision and have a direction. You have to know what you want. But the way to get there, there is a million plus one ways. So the more open-minded you are the better you adapt because the journey to were we are now has been through four or five of pivots and like very hard pivots from one industry to another. Through image analysis to text analysis, so just keep that in mind. As long as you have a vison as to where you want to go but, you keep an open mind then you will get there faster.

The bar to what is a good first step to take a start up is too high. So people have to high of expectations. So they start thinking about ideas and talk themselves out of doing things. The bar to get started is really low you just have to take a step. So just go. In our case we want to refinance our loans, what does that mean? We need to talk to people who have an auto loan, so talk to them. The second you start hesitating saying yah I talked to them, I don't know what to offer because I don't have any lenders then you're stuck in this chicken leg problems that you have all the time in a start up. Then you talk yourself out of doing things. So you have to ignore that inner voice. Just do what feels like a mini step toward the right direction. And then another one and another one. Force yourself. The best way to get started is to get started.