Run With It

Nuggets:

• Learn how Revetize uses a business's existing clients to create new revenue opportunities with smart simple but incredibly effective strategies.
• Learn how to get out of the weeds in starting a business and focus on what’s important.
• Hear what it’s like for a seasoned entrepreneur to imagine starting a brand new business in under one week.

Action Steps:

1. Spend a nominal amount to form an LLC, and make the commitment to get this started.
2. Don't go into an intense research phase, just move quick.
3. Research to discover what the market of local window cleaners looks like.
4. Chat with window cleaners find out key info like:
   • How much they are charging per pane
   • What the standard rate is
   • Different services they offer
   • Their value proposition
   • What margins they are looking for
   • What they would do differently if they didn’t have to do marketing 
5. After establishing relationships with window cleaners, develop a compensation plan that will work for your salespeople (likely some high schoolers about to go to college). e.g.
   • 18% commission for their first 100 sales.
   • 23% commission for sales 100-300 
   • 30% commission on sales over 300
   • Include some bonuses along the way to inspire
6. Develop the sales pitch that you will teach the salespeople (Consider raising money for college as part of the pitch).
7. Leverage the referral network of the existing salespeople to recruit more like them
8. Create the behind the scenes systems to get appointments on cleaners schedules etc. 

Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at [email protected]. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.

Links:

Revetize

Richard Bitton is the CEO and co-founder of Revetize. Revetize is a one-stop-shop for customer communication, lead gen, and reputation management. It allows you to leverage your happy customers & quickly acquire referrals, reviews, and repeat business. He previously founded Alpha Solar. He grew up in Idaho and started doing door-to-door sales at 15. He is a graduate of Brigham Young University and currently resides in Lehigh, Utah, A.K.A. the “Silicon Slopes.”

🎙️ Podcast hosting provided by Transistor. Want to start your own podcast? Get 15% off your first year by going to transistor.fm/run

Nuggets:

• Why focusing on inclusivity makes good business sense, and doesn’t detract from majority markets
• How everyday people can help those who are discriminated against
• How Lizzo leveraged the Kardashian brand to pave the way for plus-size women
• The typical success rate for an influencer to gain a sponsorship with a company
• How to write a quality cold email to people working at big brands

Action Steps:

1. Draft a mission statement around why this idea is appealing to you
2. Complete market research around outdoor space
3. Create a business plan for this idea
4. Find complementary businesses and pitch them on partnering
5. Research influencers who are already working with big brands and find comparable POC ones
6. Contact POC influencers in the outdoor space and pitch the project
7. Contact executives in charge of partner relations at big brands and pitch the project

Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at [email protected]. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.

Links:

Bravely Go

The Fairer Cents

Bravely Go on Instagram

Bravely Go on Twitter

Kara Perez is the founder of Bravely, a community that gives self-identified women the financial tools to bridge the gap between their dreams and their realities. Kara discovered her love of finances courtesy of her quarter-life crisis. Broke, underemployed and saddled with student loan debt, she realized that her lack of financial education was crippling her adulthood. After becoming debt free in June 2015, Kara created Bravely to help other women take control of their financial lives. She’s co-host of the Fairer Cents Podcast: Women, Money and the Fight to Break Even.

🎙️ Podcast hosting provided by Transistor. Want to start your own podcast? Get 15% off your first year by going to transistor.fm/run

Nuggets:

• Learn why a business might pay you hundreds of dollars a month to do something they are already doing well themselves.
• Learn how to frame a sales offer so that it takes tasks off your client's plate instead of adding more.
• Learn how to land clients in a unique way that avoids SPAM and lets your personality shine.

Action Steps:

1. Pick a niche. We’ve focused on web-based food businesses in this episode but the principles discussed can be applied in any number of other industries.
2. Find a few potential clients that you could help with an introductory marketing task, like taking over their social media marketing. You might meet them at a local business networking event.
3. Offer a basic review of their social media strategy for free. Make some suggestions they could implement themselves. But also be ready to handle these tasks if they want to offload the responsibility.
4. Offer a low introductory rate of a few hundred dollars a month. Perform at a high level so that they will want to continue and recommend you to others.
5. Create a “map” of services you offer, and that you could take them through step-by-step so that they know your relationship can grow to take on other marketing responsibilities.
6. Check off the tasks you can cover month-by-month or week-by-week as the relationship grows. e.g. website, marketing photos, product photos, client education, any other branding and styling the company needs and wants, etc.
7. To approach a business like TJ’s you might review their social media, find out that they regularly post photos of food with calorie counts and macronutrients, and then offer to take over this process.

Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at [email protected]. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.

Links:

Healthy Chew

GenM

TJ Clark is the CEO and Co-Owner of Healthy Chew, a weekly Meal preparation service based out of Little Rock, Arkansas. Their motto: Eat Great/Lose Weight! Founded in 2015,they have spent the last few years helping countless individuals reach their health and fitness goals through the power of meal prep. With a variety of plans, they can help you lose weight, build lean muscle, bulk up, or simply eat healthier without the hassle.

🎙️ Podcast hosting provided by Transistor. Want to start your own podcast? Get 15% off your first year by going to transistor.fm/run

Nuggets:

• Why Fatimeh believes Angel Investors are better than VCs for social impact entrepreneurs
• Consumers get better products when marketplaces embrace diversity
• The ways in which the relationship between investors and founders is like a marriage

Action Steps:

1. Outline business plan for how this service will work
2. Draft standardized documentation for the relationship between founder and investor
3. Speak to investors in order to understand their psychology and motivations
4. Contact large companies that have in-house venture firms with social benefit funds
5. Research “government opportunity zones” and summarize associated benefits
6. Research conferences that exist for social impact entrepreneurs to pitch their ideas

Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at [email protected]. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.

Links:

Upside.fm - Venture capital outside of Silicon Valley
Alumni Ventures
Brotopia
Investors prefer entrepreneurial ventures pitched by attractive men
Legal Intelligence to Entrepreneurs (LITE)

Fatimeh is an attorney based in Illinois and Wisconsin. She helps entrepreneurs raise capital, capture intellectual property rights, and ground their professional relationships in strong contracts. Fatimeh delights in taking the intimidation factor out of law by educating her clients and giving them a sense of ownership over their legal tools. She spends a tremendous amount of time thinking about how to make the law more accessible, and aims to design elegant solutions to entrepreneurs’ practical problems. In 2018, Fatimeh founded LITE LLC, Legal Intelligence to Entrepreneurs LLC, a law firm devoted to providing proactive and holistic legal advice to social impact entrepreneurs.

🎙️ Podcast hosting provided by Transistor. Want to start your own podcast? Get 15% off your first year by going to transistor.fm/run

Nuggets:

• Learn what the power is in aiming higher and serving niches that demand better services.
• Learn how having an audience that emulates your business leads to rapidly scalable revenue opportunities.
• Love what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life? Chad doesn’t buy it. Understand his distinction between caring about what you do and loving it.

Action Steps:

1. Do some fact-finding. What are the logistics of providing payroll, benefits, and HR management services? How do these services make money? What are their margins?
2. Pick a niche and contact HR or management to discover their pains, their willingness to try something new and the value of your solution. Chad suggests working with Design and Development teams because that’s his niche already. You could discover a new niche that works well for you. 
3. Tip. Contact growing teams of 20 or less that are considering hiring an HR director and propose to save them 80K per year implementing your services instead.
4. Take advantage of the Q4 open enrollment period when these topics are top-of-mind to start discussions with businesses.
5. An advantage of working in the design and development niche is that you can focus on smooth attractive interface and robust API where it will be appreciated most. Scale as the most elegant solution to a broader audience from there.
6. Don’t forget, if things go right, you've got a great potential partner and customer with Chad and thoughtbot.

Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at [email protected]. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.

Links:

Thoughtbot
Giantrobots.fm
Seth Godin on Giant Robots
ADP
Paychex
Gusto
Justworks

Chad Pytel is a developer and the CEO of thoughtbot, a web and mobile design and development studio, with small teams of designers and developers in Austin, Boston, London, New York City, Raleigh, and San Francisco. thoughtbot has produced top-quality applications with hundreds of clients, from one-person startups to Fortune 500 enterprises, universities, and non-profits, for more than 15 years, and are the creators of many popular open-source projects. In addition to working with clients, Chad is responsible for overall strategy for the company. He has co-authored two books: Rails Anti Patterns and Pro Active Record, and spoken at conferences around the world. He lives with his wife and two children in Newton, MA.

🎙️ Podcast hosting provided by Transistor. Want to start your own podcast? Get 15% off your first year by going to transistor.fm/run

Nuggets:

• No evidence of added benefit for most new drugs entering German healthcare system (Journal link)
• Can be an uphill battle for innovators in entrenched industries. For example, the American Medical Association conspired "to contain and eliminate the chiropractic profession” in the 80’s (Wiki link)

Action Steps:

1. Solidify overall mission/vision of this alternative healthcare organization
2. Perform market research around existing small business and/or medical associations, including what typical membership dues are.
3. Contact small healthcare businesses and ask them about
   1. the problems they face from the entrenched healthcare system
   2. whether this idea would be helpful for them
   3. what benefits they’d like to see as members
4. Contact large companies outside of medicine who are pushing healthier living (e.g. Fitbit, Nike, Under Armour, etc…) and pitch them this idea

Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at [email protected]. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.

Links:

Lost Empire Herbs
Legendary Strength
Knew Health
1% for the Planet
Health IQ Life Insurance
American Herbal Products Association (AHPA)

Logan Christopher aims to be a renaissance man. As a performing strongman he has pulled an 8,800 lb. fire truck by his hair, juggled a kettlebell that was lit on fire, supported half a ton on top of himself in a wrestler’s bridge position, and routinely bends horseshoes and rips decks of cards in half. He teaches people to do these things, as well as more foundational fitness at Legendary Strength. He is co-founder and CEO of Lost Empire Herbs which aims to bring performance herbalism into everyday people’s lives.

🎙️ Podcast hosting provided by Transistor. Want to start your own podcast? Get 15% off your first year by going to transistor.fm/run

Nuggets:  

• Learn how Zack became a tennis champion through laser focus and clarity of purpose starting at the age of twelve. Then hear how he used the same focus and clarity to excel in an entirely new arena, entrepreneurship.
• Find out the powerful things Zack learned about business through the process of applying for government grants.
• Learn how Zack’s research of tax law could save investors hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Action Steps:  

1. Listen to the episode, investigate weaknesses and missing information, fill in on them and report back. (e.g. Research how to become an accredited school.)
2. Build partnerships and support with those already in the alternative education space. (e.g. Y Combinator, Thiel Fellowship)
3. Start a high school program. (e.g. Start with one 9th grade class and take them year by year through a new program).
4. Admit 100 students worldwide into an exclusive new online program to test this idea
5. Start with a high-priced private school type format, hire great talent (many different teachers coming in on a part-time basis). Raise investment money and/or tuition money. Present a great product that grows itself and spreads by word of mouth. Expect slow, organic growth. Envision a long-term plan to make these systems accessible to a wider audience. Set up an online course, highly accessible version of the high-priced exclusive, high-tuition, program.
6. Bootstrap by starting with a summer program. (e.g. A 6 week course on life skills to hone a new type of curriculum. This has a low barrier to entry and could start with $10 in fliers put up at the local YMCA
7. Improvise, inspired by the episode and come up with your own avenues of getting started  
8. Start by interviewing homeschooling parents about their dissatisfaction with the education system and what they might recommend for curriculum.

Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at [email protected]. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.  

Links:   

Shark Wheel.com

ycombinator.com

theilfellowship.com

Zack Fleishman began his illustrious career as a professional tennis player, earning the rank of number one in the United States in the 18 and under division. After his tennis career ended due to injury, he used the skills he developed to launch multiple businesses. His current business is Shark Wheel where he serves as Chief Operating Officer. Shark Wheel literally reinvented the wheel, creating a wheel with better maneuverability over rough terrain. They have appeared on multiple TV shows including the 2015 season finale of Shark Tank.

🎙️ Podcast hosting provided by Transistor. Want to start your own podcast? Get 15% off your first year by going to transistor.fm/run

Nuggets:

• Create a grassroots community before anything else.
• “Identify the minimum to get started and go from there.”
• How you start is not how you’re going to end up; allow space to grow.
• The best way to retain customers is by continually giving them value.
• Shape a community based on its own needs: keep track of your data, know who your customers are, make sure you know what they need, and charge accordingly.

Action Steps:

1. Perform a comprehensive market study to establish existing competition in your city and what’s missing from them in order to determine which specific services you would offer. 
2. Evaluate how many potential members there may be in your area and establish a minimum vital number of members.
3. Find the “Matt” in your city (someone who runs a maker space in your area) and meet with them to glean information about your potential market.
4. Build up a community (create a Facebook group, attend Meetup events, go to local farmers markets or festivals, in order to drum up interest. Potentially pre-sell memberships. Find those existing businesses who have the need that you can meet).
5. Consider running a Mastermind with a small core group in order to start building a grassroots community

Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at [email protected]. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.

Links:

Sam Davidson

Starter Story Interview of Sam Davidson

Batch

Sam Davidson LinkedIn

Matt Verlinich LinkedIn

On The Rocks

Innovation Works

Sam Davidson has a passion for taking ideas and turning them into reality. His journey into entrepreneurship began over 13 years ago. In 2006, he cofounded Cool People Care, which connected people online in a world before Twitter and Instagram who wanted to make a difference with non-profit organizations who badly needed members, volunteers, donors, and supporters. More recently, in 2013, Davidson cofounded Batch, a gift and retail company whose unique offering allows customers and companies to experience a taste of iconic cities. Overseeing the company’s rapid and changing growth as CEO, Davidson has helped Batch cross the $1M annual revenue mark in less than two years. Batch is headquartered in Nashville with operations in Austin and offers gifts from iconic southern cities.  

Matt Verlinich has an MS in Engineering Science and Mechanics from Pennsylvania State University. He was the founding General Manager of TechShop Pittsburgh, and after helping dozens of individuals start their own businesses at TechShop, he decided it was time to try and build his own business. Matt then prototyped, developed, crowdfunded, mass produced and distributed On The Rocks to over 55 countries. On The Rocks is an ice mold system that allows consumers to make crystal clear ice cubes, spheres and diamonds at home. Now Matt is putting his diverse experience to work for Innovation Works as their Manufacturing Program Associate where he helps local entrepreneurs build scalable businesses by consulting and connecting them with appropriate manufacturing resources.

🎙️ Podcast hosting provided by Transistor. Want to start your own podcast? Get 15% off your first year by going to transistor.fm/run

Nuggets:  

• Consider how you can take what works in business relationships and apply it to a personal setting.  

Action Steps:  

1. Start with a small test group of people interested in improving relationships. Provide basic coaching and action steps that are kept track of through a simple calendar app and checklists.  
2. Check back in over the course of weeks and months for feedback on how the process is proceeding.  
3. Work towards feedback from people that indicates they are extremely satisfied with the quality of their relationships—ideally they are functioning better than ever.  
4. Build an investor pitch deck with this data.  
5. Alternatively, build some simple forms and procedures that help guide folks through specific types of conversations, such as a conflict negotiation.  
6. Rank high or advertise on search for appropriate searches, such as: "how to resolve a conflict."  
7. Let the user who initiates the process invite other parties to work towards a common relationship goal using the methodology.  
8. Grow the network through these invitations.  
9. Read 5 books on relationships. Narrow down to the few basic principles. Help people implement simple but effective relationship building strategies and provide consistency, especially in the MVP version of this project.  
10. Build an MVP using standard PC or Mac process building apps to help reinforce users' relationship building habits. Create processes and workflows in apps like Google Calendar that people are already using.  
11. Create a workflow that allows users to request important dates from people they care about and automatically feeds them to their calendar.  
12. Don't be afraid to do manual work and leave automation for later stages!  

Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at [email protected]. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.  

Links:  

toi.io  

runsprints.com  

salesforce.com  

hootsuite.com  

buffer.com  

David Demember is a co-founder of Toi (toi.io) and a Design Sprint Facilitator. David has trained and facilitated workshops for Sennheiser, Glide, WeWork, Red Bull, Kraft, Waste Management, NBC/Universal (to name a few). Besides teaching Design Sprints, he loves coaching youth sports as well!

🎙️ Podcast hosting provided by Transistor. Want to start your own podcast? Get 15% off your first year by going to transistor.fm/run

Nuggets:

• The “game” Aaron plays around customer service that’s won Easy Song Licensing many customers for life and made them a ton of money.
• The culture of small towns and how to launch a marketing campaign in one.

Action Steps:

1. Perform market research around how big the problem is and how much people would pay.
2. Contact existing home maintenance providers (plumbers, lawn care, HVAC, etc…) and pitch them on joining Cabin Sit.
3. Brainstorm list of services a vacation property manager could provide.
4. Recruit the “Navy Seals” of property management in your area (people who’ve grown up around cabins and can handle most issues).
5. Create Craigslist offer posts to test market demand and find potential employees.
6. Canvas cabin owners and ask them how much they’ve spent on maintaining their cabin the last 12 months, and what services they would want from a vacation property manager.
7. Sign up for a dog sitting app and begin offering additional services to homeowners.

Follow through on these action steps and email us your results at [email protected]. You'll get exclusive access to a private Facebook group of action takers and one listener will earn a free mentorship call with our guest, and potentially, a business partnership.

Links:

Starter Story Interview of Aaron Green
TrustedHousesitters
Rover ($20 Off Referral Link)
easysonglicensing.com
[email protected]

Aaron Green is a Vice President and Co-Founder of easysonglicensing.com. They’re a 3rd-party music licensing agent specializing in music clearance for any type of permission and any type of use. They’re a bootstrapped company that started in 2005 around Aaron’s dining room table in Robbinsdale, MN. Easy Song Licensing now has a user base of 60,000 clients and growing. In 2018, they grossed $2.5 million and have increased by 30% so far in 2019.

🎙️ Podcast hosting provided by Transistor. Want to start your own podcast? Get 15% off your first year by going to transistor.fm/run