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You’re listening to Start, Scale, Exit, Repeat, Serial Entrepreneur Secrets Revealed, which is also the title of the book, the book that is now on Amazon, eight categories. We are number one bestseller since it’s launched, uh, since October. Uh, very excited about the progress that we’ve been making with that book.

And this show is all about cracking the code. What is it that serial entremers do, what is it they do over and over and over again to start, scale, exit, repeat? And you may be listening to this show in podcast, or you may be listening to it as part of a replay on Clubhouse, but You may not know this, but we actually do this show live every Friday at two o’clock Eastern.

We run this show, Start, Scale, Exit, Repeat, Serial Entrepreneur Secrets Revealed. My co host is Michele Van Tilborg, and I am Colin C. Campbell. Welcome, Michele. Today we’re talking about open, it’s an open mic session, and we’re talking about 2024 startup. Resolutions. Startup resolutions. What are you thinking?

There’s shadow. There’s shadow. Awesome. Yeah. I don’t know. Do we need to make resolutions? Why? I think it’s important because if, you know, this is a process we go through every year, personally and thinking about what can we do to make ourselves better and make some resolutions. And I think Every startup needs to reinvent itself.

We need to challenge ourselves. We need to think about ways we can put our startup on a diet. We need to think about ways we can use technology. Ways we can accelerate our startup in 2024. What are the habits that we might change in 2024? So that’s what today’s topic’s all about. This is where we’re going today.

And, uh, we’ll see what the algorithm does on clubhouse, but, uh, but that’s what, that’s what it’s all about. It’s all about figuring out, um, what to do in 2024, like Michele, what are some of your ideas in 2024? And I know you work at the incubator here. You work at the incubator and you have. Um, been working with a number of companies.

I know you’re working very heavily with a company called paw. com, P A W dot com. Yeah. So think about it from your perspective, what would be some of the things that you would. I, I got it. All right. So listen, and this doesn’t have to be all business, right? You guys, it’s, it’s business and personal. I don’t know about you, but, uh, Colin, for me, they all meld into one pod anyways.

But somebody shared this with me and I thought it was interesting. I like the way they phrased it instead of saying, I will lose 20 pounds and you know, very exact things like that. Um, this was what they were saying. You need three daily wins a day. So for me, I thought, okay, this is awesome. Like for me, I’m thinking I want a physical win every day.

So it is like, you know, that I did something physically active because I tend to set up my, you know, in my office, you know, 10, 12 hours a day just working. So for me, I’m actually putting that at the top of my list, Colin, because actually I know that that will help the startup as well. So for me, that’s one.

And then, um, You know, back to you. But for me, I think that’s probably actually the most important one that I’m going to hit this year is at least one physical win a day, meaning I got up and moved, not just walked over to the printer. What do you think? No, I like that. Um, and, and let me also add that we are doing a blog.

So hopefully we can come up with 20 ideas that you can do for your startup in 2024. Uh, and this episode will be syndicated in podcasts. And it will also, um, come out earlier than normal. Normally we hold them back two or three weeks for the podcast, but we’re going to try to get this one out next Wednesday as well.

So if you’re in the audience, today’s open mic, and we want to hear from you. We want to hear what are some things you might do in 2024. What are some things you might change? What are some, and it could be like Michele says, it’s not necessarily a business strategy. It’s not necessarily a pivot. It could also be something that you do personally, a habit that you change.

And so that’s what you’re talking about right there, Michele, really is about changing a habit. Yeah, and I think specifically that one, it permeates into all aspects of your life. But I, I see that, uh, Shadow’s up here. Shadow, what is your New Year’s resolution? I don’t usually do resolutions. I can say that I’m probably going to be continuing the evolution that’s been going on in 2023, which has been being more consistent in, uh, the work, the creative work that I’ve been doing and building on it.

So I do have a plan for 2024, which is more than I had coming into 2023. That’s called growth, right? ? Yep. Um, yeah. No, I look, I, I, I got one. This is something that bugs me and I know we’ve done so many shows on ai, but every time I use ai, I was using it again today to do a, a legal draft drafting a legal man me, uh, memo and I realize there’s so much potential.

So my goal, and at least in the first I like, I like, I don’t want these goals to be for me. If they’re too big and you just end up failing, you just forget. So for me, I like to be very specific, smart, specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound. Okay, so for me, I would like to spend two hours a week studying AI.

Learning, whether it’s reading a book for two hours, whether it’s listening to shows or even going back and listening to some of the shows that we have here. Or reading articles about AI, which by the way, we just published on Forbes, maybe you can pin that, do you have Mimi in the room today? Oh, she’s off.

Maybe Michele, you could pin the article, 13 Ways to Accelerate Your Startup by Using AI, we just printed that, which by the way, came from a show. That we did here shadow you were probably on that show came from a show that we did three weeks ago Four weeks ago. So we try to repurpose the content on clubhouse and it’s a forbes article It came out it’s getting a lot of attention people really really like the article but for me my resolution my startup resolution is Spend two hours a week studying AI to figure out how it can accelerate my startup.

Michele, I mean, you’re moderating here, Michele, so I’ll let you. Yeah, let’s go. Well, we have Rosa up here on the stage. Rosa, what is your new year’s resolution? How do you even think about? You know, New Year’s resolutions. How do you determine what you’re going to do and focus on in 2024? Rosa, right?

You’re on mute. Rosa on the right. Yeah. Hi. I’m still thinking about that. Maybe I can answer this question later during this event. That’s perfectly fine. All right. I see some other people here. Let’s go back to you. Colin. What is your resolution? Another one. We’re going to have to do it here. Yeah. Another startup resolution for me.

And this is maybe uniquely different and I actually don’t know what’s as relevant, but for me personally is to do a review of my entire portfolio of companies. And then begin to classify them, uh, so that I understand, and I’m talking about all my investments and be, and come up with a classification system.

So, and maybe that is relevant to everyone, right? But I’ve just got, it’s just turned into much of a spaghetti structure and there’s just too much out there. So I think for me, that’s another New Year’s resolution is figuring out all my investments and then classifying them and then liquidating the ones, maybe the bottom 10 percent of them.

That I feel like just are not going to perform and just sort of get out of those investments and recover whatever I can. Um, so I think that’s something I can do as well. I know in the past that we’ve talked about, uh, um, putting your startup on a diet and what are the, you know, can we come up with 10 ideas at paw.

com, Michele? In January at our strategic planning session, 10 ideas to cut costs without affecting customer quality of product or service. Okay. So it might be a canceling a subscription. I know you came up with an idea that we don’t need as much real estate anymore or office space. For the company, right?

So how can we come up with 10 ideas to reduce costs without affecting customer service or product quality of product? What do you think, Michele? Yeah, absolutely. I love that one. I mean, I, I like every year, you know, I kind of call it like. A burn expense, you know, analysis, right? You’re at the end of the year.

You have all your expenses for the year and just like really going through it and seeing if there’s, you know, too high a level subscription, something that’s really not being utilized. And, and I tell you, every time we do that column, we find things and it’s a very satisfying feeling because again, you’re not getting rid of things that you need, but you’re making sure that you didn’t forget something and that you’re not wasting money.

So that’s, that’s absolutely high on my list. Yeah. Well, we have Layla up here. Oh, go ahead. Shadow. Did you want to, yeah, I wanted to ask Colin that if he’s wanting to do an analysis of his investments and sort of. You know, where the deadwood is, are you going to use AI to do it? That’d be a learning experiment.

Well, it sort of combines a couple of concepts here, doesn’t it? Um, well, I think first of all, I have to put them all on a spreadsheet and identify that way. And so what do I do? I take them on a spreadsheet. I put in the, the investments, the income, shove it in AI and say, which one should I sell or which one should I hold on to?

Um, I think you need to give AI some parameters on what your expectations are. No, I think, I think you’re right there. I think I could use AI to help me out with some of, of, of, you know, with, with that process. I have to put my head around that one. To me, it’s more of a, you know, I know I’m emotional too, when it comes to investments, you know, we have a real estate business and we have properties.

Some of them may be not be performing as well as the others, but that’s a great example. So what if I just took my real estate portfolio and I put that real estate portfolio and I said, okay, here are the parameters. Here’s what I paid for the investment. Here’s the monthly income and I put that into a, well then that’s obvious cause it’ll just say, well, these are the lowest producers.

Um, but I don’t know, like, yeah, let me, let me try to wrap my mind around that one. Um, there is something there. Uh, but let’s try that. Let’s, let’s move on. We want to try to come up with 20 ideas that you can use in 2024. That’s going to help your startup 2024 startup resolutions, and we’ve already got three, four good ideas.

I think already on the table. Um, let’s jump down to you to Layla. Any thoughts on this one? Do you have an idea for a startup resolution? Oh, wow. Okay. Got put on the spot right at the beginning. Yeah. Hi. No worries. Um, well, hello everyone. Um, well, let me say this. So I, Okay. I’m a, I’m a, I’m a, I don’t know, I’m a classic entrepreneur.

I’ve worked for myself since probably 2004 officially. Um, before that I was corporate, like just corporations, PepsiCo, GE, 20th century Fox, like corporate corporate. Um, and then went completely. So it’s, I can’t really say I’m at startup, but you’re almost always at startup mode. So one thing that I am doing, I just made a decision in one of my businesses.

I have a tax firm in Los Angeles. Um, it’s been around since the eighties. I bought it, uh, about two years ago. So to me it’s a startup because the last guy that owned it was 82 years old. He literally passed away on his way to work. So I feel like I came into a business that had not been growing. It was just status quo.

Um, but of course he’d be ever lost a client. He didn’t really bother to get a new one cause you know, he was 80. So I came into that. So. hired some fantastic people, uh, rebalanced everything, gave everybody raises right off the bat. These are probably not good startup type things, but you know, I just said, look, I got to lock in the good talent here, make the clients feel comfortable that everything is going to be great and continuous, right?

So I had to prove, um, to my clientele. That we will continue to serve them just like we have for 40 years. So it costs me money. So now in the second year, I’m like, well, now what do I do to try to reduce some of that, you know, or get some of that back? So one decision I made very recently, it kind of came to me by accident.

I have a big office footprint for what we do. We do hybrid work. So we’re not even always in the office. I don’t want to leave that office. Cause we’ve had the same address continuously for since 1998. Okay. And so what I did instead was we have an extra office that I sort of use sometimes. And I kind of subleased it out.

I shouldn’t even say I subleased it. I gave that office to our insurance broker who sells life insurance, health insurance. He sells, um, like as, as people age, you know, that, um, healthcare support type insurance programs and things. And it was such a synergy for our clients. Plus he would also do business insurance.

So he’s got businesses walking in the door. So I, I mean it sounds like a very small thing. I gave him an office space, he’s paying me a little rent, but in the end our customers are going to help each other, right? Because the ones that walk in to do their taxes, they might be older and they need some kind of insurance or they’re coming in because they just set up a business, they need insurance and vice versa.

He’s selling them insurance policies. And we’re the tax firm, you know, right there. And so it’s kind of a synergy. So I don’t know if anybody has that type of thought and what they’re doing, but don’t be afraid of that. Um, I first thought if I did that, do I look, I don’t want to say it cheap that I’m sub leasing an office out inside my office, but I’m not doing it for that money.

I’m doing it for the future longevity and the partnership. And now I look more full service and it’s all right there. You know, save a little money, but at the same time I’m trying to find ways to grow in different ways, right? So we can help each other. So I don’t know if that’s an idea, but well, you know, it’s inspired me I hope it inspired you Michele and Mimi Kyle’s not here today But Kyle runs our incubator and you know We have like a robot that no one’s touched in two years sitting there We have things in this incubator and our storage that we can liquidate on eBay or whatever get 50 bucks 500 bucks Whatever it is, so That’s gonna be, I think that’s another one.

Mimi, we should add to the lists of this. We’re 20. We’re trying to get to, we’re trying to get to 20 Mimi, uh, and Mimi’s gonna write the blog. We’re trying to get to 20 startup idea resolutions for 2024. I I, I like that one. ’cause also that’s what I would call upcycling, right? We’re not using it. Let’s sell it.

And it’s a win-win, right? Win for the person buying it. Uh, win for us. We get to clean up, which I like. And, um, make a little money. Yeah. Well, you got a lot in that office of yours there, Michele. You got a lot of boxes. I see, I go in there, I’m like Let’s not talk about that. You got to stick with the resolution here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, why not? Hey, there’s number six. Clean up your office. I already was going to say that. You I’m going to organize, yeah, my office. I already started, actually. Kyle’s helping me. So, it’s underway. But absolutely. I’m kind of sick of it myself. Yeah. And I might put somebody in here with me.

You never know. Right? Yep. All right. Well, let’s go to Shafat. Well, thank you, Michele and Colin. Um, great room. I don’t know if I’d be able to, um, add some value in terms of being a founder, but as a, as an, as an investor and as a venture capitalist, our resolutions this time around for 2024 is, uh, number one, uh, turning up a current portfolio and turning our, uh, Focus to become more like a startup aggregator.

So currently having about, sitting as a board member on 28 startups and under 42 portfolio companies, we are now doing sector specific startup aggregation, where one startup is solving one problem in healthcare, for example, and another two are solving another problem in healthcare. So we’re trying to bring them together and create a rather Morphine unicorn that is literally our focus and our resolution to at least create three to four of such large, big mergers.

Um, uh, which kind of are complimenting to each other. And the second is that already we have been able to, you know, sort of scale, um, over the last seven years, number of startups, uh, where we’ve invested at precedency stage, but for 2024, we’re literally looking for. A billion dollar idea. And, uh, after attending so many, you know, uh, being a judge at so many places, um, different, you know, start up competitions, uh, regionally and then globally, uh, I haven’t really come across something which is truly, truly, truly a billion dollar idea and is really disruptive, where we could really plug in anything over 150, 250 million and really play the game for the next couple of years or three years.

I think. There’s a shortage of great, really big, great ideas which truly add up. Um, and we haven’t seen anything like that over the last couple of years. Um, I think during COVID it was great and that’s what the numbers suggest as well. Well, I think 2023 and 24 investments have been made by our peers, but we really haven’t come across something super great.

So I think for us, uh, it is more about expanding our horizons and deeply mining, uh, excellent founders and brilliant brains and deeper pockets of countries, uh, which are ignored. And, uh, or especially developing countries, uh, to, to really build a team from, from those areas, uh, by adding skills to, to their current, you know, uh, skill set and, and then moreover, uh, you know, benefit from a more, a bigger and more global footprint.

So, uh, uh, that’s our resolution and we are very, very clear in our mission for 2024. And we hope to really, uh, go forward and upward in terms of our own valuation as an investment firm, uh, with whatever a UM that we operate with. Uh, and in Shaah by 2025, we should be touching a billion, just a little short of that in a UM and that’s our resolution.

So I’m glad to share this space. Thank you. No, that’s, it was very lofty. Um, I, I don’t know if you heard earlier, uh, SHA sha. Is that how you pronounce your name? Um, I don’t know if you heard earlier, um, when shadow said we, so I talked about one of my resolutions is I’ve, I’m invested in about 20 companies and that’s probably not even the truth.

It’s more than that, but we’ll just leave it at that for now. And, um, I’ve got to sort of clean up in 2024, my investments, and it sounds like you’re invested in 28 companies. And what are your thoughts about like, what is the method you use? And I think this is relevant to every startup because we’re all invested in different areas, even within our startup.

So how do we say no in 2024? How do we, how do we turn off that investment? How do we say, okay, these three investments I’m going to liquidate, I’m going to move, I’m going to get rid of. I’m going to clean. I’m just basically cleaning the garage. What are your thoughts on that? I think we have, we have done some of that cleaning, um, during 2023.

Especially during, um, Q1 and Q2. And I think it’s very typical when, you know, when you do your board meeting and you close your fiscal year during December. Um, obviously my board kicks my ass, you know, and we really target and see all the performances of the different companies. Because apart from these 28, we have another 42.

Portfolio companies within the holdings group. So, um, I think, uh, I think really it comes down to timings as well, because some of the companies Um, and most of these companies needed a little bit of fine tuning, you know, uh, for them to grow. Uh, it could be the leadership. It could be the CEO or the founder, or it could be the team, or maybe they’re just doing something wrong and you just fix that one thing and it kind of scales and kind of blows up.

Um, and then also it’s also to, because during the journey of startups, I’ve been, Observe that we need regular cash flow that we need to invest as as companies grow and Once you provide that cash flow as an investor apart from whatever you’ve invested already That is a very good time to actually Get it done on your own terms, you know And at least those terms would also helps you recover your previous investments as well So yes, divesting and liquidating is one process and one of the best ways that we use is that I really You know, create smaller chunks, uh, biteable, uh, investment size.

Um, and you know, just, just market that to get ourselves an exit. Uh, so for example, if I need to exit, uh, for a million dollars, I would rather do something, 10 chunks of a hundred thousand each, and then just market that out, uh, with a hundred with a million and create one single entity or SPV and let that SPV go in and sit on the top table and take an exit.

So, uh, but it is doable because frankly speaking for small medium investors, people who have savings. For 50k, 250k, half a million in their bank accounts, even people who have benefited from ERC, their investments are lying idle. Um, you know, um, a lot of people who have their pension funds and IRS funds sitting idle, um, you know, um, uh, those are the kinds of money that That is very easily accessible.

And, uh, you could actually get an exit if you target those clients, those people, uh, mid market. And these guys can benefit as well because they could also become a working partner. So, um, and they’re also looking for something where they can also get employed along with just putting in their investments as well.

Um, and that could be a great exit strategy. Yeah, no, I was thinking more along the lines. What are, what are the systems like? Cause Yeah, everybody gets emotionally attached to certain investments, and you know, I think my resolution is to sort of take an empirical and shadow suggesting I use a I here as well, too, but take sort of an empirical approach to, you know, rating at least rating.

That’s my resolution to at least rate each investment and be sort of maybe honest about it and recognize it. And maybe I can identify some non performers and I can sell those ones off. But that’s what we’ll, we’ll move on right now. I do know that, uh, Michele, you’re bringing in new goal setting into paw.

com next year. And that’s going to be a little bit of a game changer. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I mean, I call it kind of like getting everybody on the, you know, on, on the same line on the same, you know, what is the starting line? What is the finish line? And what do we need to get there?

So, you know, we really like, um. Patrick Theon’s system. He has software, what’s called rhythm system. So it’s a whole goal setting system. Uh, unlike any else that I’ve seen where you really start at the company level goals and then you cascaded down to the various levels and then every level, let’s just say under it.

Okay. Let’s just pretend like, um, Colin is the CEO and let’s just say, I am, um, VP of marketing. All of my goals that Colin owns for the company are going to obviously support the company goals and you just keep cascading it down and it tends to get more granular into, you know, uh, let’s just say a copywriter, they’re going to have more tasks and maybe more stage gates, but that’s, that’s going to be a big change that we’re going to implement, um, on that company.

And on each goal that you have, sometimes you call it priorities, right? Cause it’s like, let’s just call it priorities under the company goals is we’ll set up, you know, very predefined red, green, yellow, and super green metrics. So there’s really no question at all. Um, what we like to do is. You know, we, we like to tell the team, we introduce them to what the goals are.

We work with them to set their priorities and their tasks that support it. Then when we have meetings, everybody’s really focused. There’s no ambiguity about what we’re doing. And by the way, this is a very flexible way to do it. It’s not like, oh my gosh, you, we have to do this, this quarter and we’re never changing.

Actually, the whole purpose of it is, is so that you see what is working. You see what is not working so you can change it as you need throughout the quarter. Because where people often fall down is they’re not clear. And, um, and then there’s no opportunity, right? To correct it, to change it, to maybe add something new that was discovered that’s working better than expected.

So that is a really big change cause it’s going to take a lot of time, right? And focus. Um, from us and the team to make sure that everybody, you know, is, is moving towards the same finish line. Um, it also has these other sub benefits where it really is. Um, it really is, let’s just say, enforcing a culture where there is transparency and where people are not afraid to speak up, right?

Because think about it this way. You, if something’s going really off track, you know, about it fast, You’re, you’re commended, right? You’re commended for bringing it up and letting the team or your, your manager work through a solution rather than what we see a lot in big company or corporate culture where people, um, You know, are kind of punished and they have their whatever annual review and you didn’t make this goal, right?

That’s too late. Okay. That doesn’t work for us. Doesn’t work for most businesses. So we’re trying to give people an opportunity to speak up and really participate in the planning and the direction and embrace the mission. So I know that was probably kind of a long explanation, but that is what we are doing on specifically that company.

a big initiative for 2024, Colin. Yeah, and I think that one thing we’ve learned about goal setting is that it can have a huge impact. We talk a lot about goal setting in the book, start, scale, exit, repeat. Which happens to be the same name as this podcast and this live show that we do every Friday at two o’clock eastern.

Um, but we, we, we dig deep into that. It’s, it’s made a huge impact. And by, I think by bringing goal setting into your company, it could substantially increase your chances of your ability to scale it. We talk about in the book that it’s one of the key components to scaling your business. That the vast majority of companies in America Canada and all over the world fail to scale because they don’t really have the right systems in place.

You know, as entrepreneurs, we tend to be very ad hoc in our approach. And that’s why, you know, bringing in systems may not sound like a resolution, but it’s not easy for a lot of us. It’s not easy for me. It wasn’t easy in 2006 when I was running a publicly traded company and almost got fired as CEO and founder because we were messing things up.

You know, it wasn’t until then that we actually brought in a CEO coach. And, and that’s the, that’s another idea as well, is this whole concept of bringing in a coach. We had a great show, Mimi and Michele and I, a few weeks back, and we interviewed, um, uh, the CEO of Score, Bridget Weston. We interviewed her, and she, she has over 10, 000 volunteers.

Now, this is absolutely free. So, this is something any startup can do. You can go to their website and you can apply for a free mentor. Now, let me say this, and these mentors are very experienced, successful entrepreneurs. They may have retired, etc. They make the claim that it can increase your chances by three times if you have a mentor.

You know, the other thing that we do, uh, is, or the other thing that you can do for 2024 is join an incubator. You know, you’re not alone. It takes a village to raise a startup. We run an incubator program at the Allen Levin Center at NSU, Nova Southeastern University. And I open with the very first session.

Uh, and there are ten separate speakers. And you go everything, my session we talk about the four sticky note business plan, which is in the book. Uh, but we talk about, we actually work on and build a four sticky note business plan. And, um, but then the next session they talk about, You know, legal contracts and the next one is structure.

The next one is about perfecting the pitch. And it eventually culminates to pitching in front of investors. It’s a great place to meet others, to learn from others, and also to get access to capital for your startup. And it’s free. So if you’re in, if you’re in that sort of early stage business, early stage startup, joining an incubator can be something that can be very effective.

All right, Rosa or anyone else on stage want to flash your mic and tell us? Your idea for 2024. Mimi. Yeah. Okay. Rosa, you’re up. Yeah. So, uh, thank you very much for this opportunity. Um, we have a startup in the space of digital pathology, where we offer AI decision support systems. First, we started with, um, pathology labs, but now we, we quickly realized that farm companies are Um, also, uh, an interesting segment.

Now, what we are trying to do for 2024 is we realize that they are also facing problems with data annotation. So, um, fingers crossed, we are in negotiations with some of, like, uh, large pharma com pharma companies where we will help them. Uh, date with data annotation and so we will add an annotation solution to

that’s pretty much it. Um, I’m it’s interesting to listen to what other people’s people are saying. Yeah, it’s also sounds like you have a little startup there as well on the background, a future future. She’s listening. Yeah, she that’s why I had to. Yeah, passed on my speech. She’s she’s definite. It’s it’s very late here where I am.

So well, we appreciate you joining us. I guess she wants to sleep. Yeah. All right. Well, we have air on stage now air. I don’t know if you’ve been listening to us. We’re talking today about. 2024 startup resolutions, you know, what is it that you can do in your startup in 2024 that you’re not doing in 2023 that can make a difference.

And they don’t need to be huge transform transformative. They can be simple startup hack ideas. Uh, we’d be happy to hear from you, Air. You look like you’re new to Clubhouse. Oh, I’ve probably had over a hundred accounts. Okay, so you know more than us. So this, like, this Clubhouse is a bit of a mess. I really don’t.

I really don’t. And that’s, you know, you know, I had an app called Air Yoda when I got to Clubhouse, and I scrapped it because my concept was I wanted people around the world to be able to learn things from each other. So it was kind of like a Craigslist y type site. And I, and my original idea, I had to go back to it, which was, I just want people to kind of date and use, you know, use the internet to meet and like learn from each other and clubhouse was great for that.

And then I just started to realize how crazy social it was. Cause I didn’t even know about social audio, which is why we’re all here. We love it. And so I kind of went back to that idea. And so it’s Areota, it’s an app, it’s up right now. Um, and it’s just kind of like, I haven’t marketed yet and I kind of stopped marketing and so the thing I’m going to change in 2024 is I’m going to market.

And, um, I’m going to market, I’m in the Atlanta area. I’m really want to just kind of. I have fun marketing and I don’t really have that great of a budget, but I have enough budget to market locally and, um, kind of tend to rest at the colleges and stuff. And I was just daydreaming thing and I want to do stuff where I got show up on campus and maybe say, I’m not leaving for 24 hours and just stay right in that spot and everybody passes by to get my app.

I know it sounds crazy. I want to bring music. Um, I want to have fun, throw parties for the kids and I’ve kind of. Because my app like if you hit the avatar you see where people are at I think one of the weaknesses of clubhouse and social in general is they’re not linking people locally Whereas we’re linking globally, but we’re still not even using to link low locally So I basically want to focus on linking people locally So when you get on the app somebody you’re talking to might be around the corner if that makes sense And also I’m gonna stop trying to care about safety.

It’s weird, but Social audio is just not safe These spaces aren’t really safe the things people use it for So hopefully the purpose of dating just hopefully i’m thinking purpose is the only thing that can perhaps make it safe If i’m meeting someone because i’m interested or attracted to them But other than that, you know i’ve been held back because the things and the other thing this room is civil But there’s a lot of things i’ve seen in social audio.

They just absolutely scare me. I think they scared this app That’s why it changes so much. So i’ve been really hands off because I don’t want to put a product out there That’s like really But I think, you know, like the major change I’m making now is my developers are taking, I put time limits on my rooms.

I felt people were sleeping in and all this crazy stuff. So I made my rooms an hour long. I’m taking that away. If y’all want to sleep on apps and want to be in rooms all day, I’m at a point, I don’t know if it sounds wacky, but actually that’s what y’all want to do. So a lot of people, so, um, I’m making a few changes and basically I’m just going to go, um, go gorilla and also try to get some money.

I’m, I’m at the point I want, so I want somebody to invest in me. So hopefully I get a few thousand people in signed up and. Try to ask people for some money and make a difference in social audio because I love this stuff I’m out of Indian restaurant eating and I’m listening And I’m just so addicted to it.

I’m like, wow. Maybe you know, if people, I don’t want people densely addicted to my product, but in 2024, I want somebody to say they met on Air Yoda. I want, I want somebody to actually have a relationship and meet in real life. But it’s start, it’s called Air. What? Air? Air. Air. Yoda. It’s, it’s so short Air Unit UA Air Yoda.

Yo Yoda from Star Wars, but we’re not, it is not. Yo Yoda means basically Sanskrit or teacher. Can you spell? I’m sorry. A I R Y O D A So Oh air yoda. Yeah, yoda is from there’s a yoda in star wars But we’re not using that because aerial is actually trademarked but so yoda just means teacher in sanskrit So it’s like basically you’re the person you’re dating is your teacher.

That’s my concept. I think there’s a lot Yoda, Yoda, air Yoda. Okay. Yeah, . We love it. We love the idea. Think maybe Mimi. Yeah. So maybe we could get the, I’m gonna be fit into the blog too. The Air Yoda. Yeah. I’m gonna be bold. You’re gonna hear about me this year. I’m gonna do something that’s gonna be so outlandish.

You’re gonna say The sky’s crazy, trust me. But you know what, that could be the, that could be number nine is be bold. In 2024. I love it. And then you could talk a little bit about the story, maybe about Eric, his, his concept. No, that’s really cool. You’re flaming up there. Yeah, I like it. All right. So be bold, but not stupid.

Right, Colin? Exactly. Exactly. We’ve seen both. All right. So we have 4GI on the stage now, and we want to hear your New Year’s resolution. What are you thinking, 4GI? Go bold. Nice. Tell us a little more. I’m going to take a community that I’m slowly, but very carefully nurturing. Um, and it’s for, it’s for GI. Um, it’s, um, forget influence, let’s eat.

Everything is influencer. Everyone’s an expert. And it’s kind of, I’m kind of backtracking back to how I got into ghostwriting. Um, how I, I self emancipated from corporate America back in 2013. I was meeting all these experts and just doing the 80 20, listening 80%, talking 20%, proactively listening. I’m meeting all these experts and no one was published.

So I’m like, okay, where do I sit in on your business mastermind? Well, I don’t have a mastermind. Okay. Well, where can I find your book? Where can I buy your book? I’m not published. Okay. Well, you said. You’re an expert. So that’s my my ghostwriting back story and It was pretty prolific from 2016 to 2019 Chad GPT has put quite a dent in it.

I will admit so I’m just kind of Working on a slight resurrection if you will by taking it this time to making it a community and getting people out of the mode of stop being concerned about being seen as an expert. Of course be seen as an expert, but get off the expert soapbox for a minute and let’s be a community of like minds, like expert minds.

Preferably. And we can build from there. We can see what makes sense and build from there. And that’s where Forget Influence Let’s Eat comes from. Because we are all that we’ve got. Things are going to get worse before they get better. So we need expert minds to, uh, esteem others more than we esteem ourselves, which is also a biblical concept that I follow.

So that’s my long drawn out story. I’m going to be bold about this initiative.

Okay. So what I think I hear you saying is you’re going to. I love, first of all, what you were saying about the community and I do like there is the power of the community and being careful who we give power to, if I’m understanding you correctly, who we believe that there are many people out there, influencers or masterminds that are calling themselves experts that may or may not be, I think that’s what I hear you’re saying and going to the roots of the community.

Okay, cool. All right. I, I, I like that actually, because there is a lot of knowledge, you know, and fact checking within the greater groups of things, rather than just listening to someone necessarily as an unproven authority. So that’s, that’s cool. We’re, we’re all about community and clubs here, um, obviously at Startup Club.

So you made me think of something, and I know we haven’t gone there yet. We’ve been pretty focused on business. Um, One of the things I’m thinking of, because I said, I’m trying to frame mine more like do something physical every day rather than walk five miles, because I find like, then I don’t do it and then I’m upset and then I just drop it.

So I think another thing we need to do, or that I’m thinking of doing is something that’s spiritually, you know, spiritually good for your soul every day. Like, what is that? Is it helping somebody? Is it? You know, um, maybe even giving them like a donation, like thinking more about others and doing something that’s just good spiritually for your soul or for someone else’s soul, like every day doing something to improve somebody else’s life.

So that’s one thing I’m thinking of that part. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that for G? Absolutely. Again, that that’s a biblical. That’s one of many biblical tenants that I follow is to see is to esteem others more than myself than ourselves. So, um, absolutely, because that’s how we, that’s how we learn each other.

You know, um, we have all these defenses up because we’re out to sell, sell, sell. We have defenses up because of course we want to protect ourselves. We want to protect our loved ones, but we have to let guards down a little bit because once we let guards down, respectively. And, and, and, and in a smart way, of course, it’s going to be beneficial because again, that’s how we learn each other.

That’s how we, you know, we all have stories. I’m a writer at heart, so we all have stories. Well, if you have this, if you’re walking around with this preconceived notion about me without talking to me, and vice versa, nothing is gained. The world is not going to be a better place for it. We’re going to be walking around with preconceived notions, with these ASS, capital A S S assumptions.

Transcribed And that’s what I don’t want. That’s what’s wrong, um, you know, right now with the world. So, you know, not to sound like Miss America or anything, but just, you know, we don’t have to link arms and sing kumbaya and go for world peace. But we’ve all that we’ve got, we were all made with a purpose.

We were all made for a purpose. And If we can just tap into one another, honestly, and respectfully, just tap into one another, things can turn for the better. And it starts with one, you know, I’m stepping up, I’m looking for other people to step up with me. You know, I’m not in front of anyone, I want to stand beside people.

So, you know, 4GI, I actually, before you even started your comments there, I went over to StartupClubAI. This is first generation, by the way. StartupClubAI. com and we had put the um, content of the book into AI. So I asked it to come up with three ideas. Three founder ideas. What are some startup resolutions that a founder can make in 2024 based on the book?

Give me three ideas. And number two was connect. The founder should resolve to build relationships and network with other entrepreneurs, investors, and industry experts by connecting with the right people the founder can gain valuable insights and advice that can help them succeed. You’re not alone. You can connect to Clubhouse.

Let me make certain I’m following you, by the way. Let me add you back there. By the way, I, uh, I’m going to try to follow you. I keep running into the maximum. I keep going back and deleting. Every time someone comes on stage, we want to make certain we follow. That, by the way, that’s going to be one of my resolutions.

You come on stage in 2024, we’re going to follow you, because we really, really I believe that this is not a one way show. We’re not a podcast, a typical podcast. I know we syndicate in podcast, but we’re not a podcast. We all we are is a lie is a community of individuals who come together and share ideas and help each other.

And I feel like that’s where 4GI was going with that. And it’s funny how that was on Startup Club AI. The other two on Startup Club AI, one was utilize technology. The founders should resolve to take advantage of the latest technology and tools available to them. By leveraging the power of technology, the founder can streamline processes, increase efficiency and reduce costs.

And what’s interesting, I think we already talked a little bit about that. We said, use utilize AI, that one of my resolutions would be to spend two hours a week studying AI. And figuring out how that can help accelerate my startups. Number three, it came up with the founders should resolve to stay focused on their goals and objectives.

Stay focused by avoiding distractions and staying focused on the task at hand. The founder can ensure their startup is successful. We do have a lot of noise in our life. It is a roller coaster and we have a lot of noise and a lot of complexity. And I do wonder if there’s something we can do. Michele in 2024.

I think you talked a bit about that at the beginning, but something we can do to sort of eliminate that noise and get focused. So you know, is a resolution. I think you said you’re going to spend a certain amount of time in the morning. Like, could we spend three hours in the morning not doing email and just focusing on our top objectives?

Like for me, it’s, you know, writing articles and doing podcasts and speeches, um, about the book, start, scale, exit, repeat. But I’m just curious what, what, you know, how do we stay focused? Yeah, I think it’s hard actually to stay focused and there are so many interruptions, but you know, maybe we have one day or a half a day where we don’t have meetings.

Right. Maybe we don’t attack our emails, uh, you know, at the beginning of the day or the end of the day, because then you’re just kind of like your emails are actually managing your day. And that’s kind of messed up. Right. So focus is important. And I think, you know, getting back to what we were talking about, the goal setting that we’re going to be doing at paul.

com is that is part of it. Right. People get clarity and they know what to do. And you can say, okay, if you’re working on something that’s not in the priorities, you know, please do talk to your manager right away, not trying to control anybody, but you know, the company needs to be focused. They need to be focused and we want to set them up for success.

So I think that’s critically important.

Yeah, I, I liked that idea. I have one more and I know we have. Uh, suck, suck black nation down there as well. And, uh, and then I want to go back into my friends and delete some friends so I can add the people on stage here. Um, but that’ll take me a minute or two to figure out how to do that again. But, um, I have one more recognize greatness.

This is a big one that we have in the book. This is all about just setting about 10 minutes a week to recognize somebody who’s done something great in your organization. You know, I, I, I sort of nicknamed myself a little bit of a Scrooge in the book that I, I, I really don’t like, uh, birthday parties in the office, tenure, exit interviews, you know, those kind of things that just sort of, they’re there.

What I like is recognizing greatness. Recognizing people like Mimi, who, who now, by the way, she spent over two years working on the site, Startup Club, Startup. Club. She’s done a phenomenal job. She helps us out with the articles, the one that came out with Forbes last week. She helped, helped get that out.

We have another one coming out on built in, and she’s absolutely incredible. But I probably am the worst at this, Mimi, because I don’t recognize your greatness. And I don’t, um, spend the time to do that correctly. And so that’s gotta be a New Year’s resolution, is, is recognize greatness. And, um, and I’ll, and we’ll do that.

Second Black, are you ready to go? Yes, I am. Can you hear me okay? Yep. Yeah, it’s Sack Black Nation, actually sack Black Nation on YouTube, and we’re talking about for the new year. Um, all this year, my whole goal was to get to 1000 subscribers on YouTube. We’re about 13 shy, so we’ll be going into the new year.

Um, I know that we’ll be over 1000, uh, going into the new year. So, uh, once that threshold kicks off. I’ll just be broadening my territory, broadening my horizons and, you know, doing more long form content out there on YouTube. And it’s all about multiple streams of income, making money from spending no money.

There’s a lot of things that you can actually use out there to make money without spending that one dime. So I’m just going to broaden my horizon and be everywhere. All the time. So they have all these apps out here where you can be everywhere all the time. You have TikTok, you have Instagram, you have Facebook, Pinterest, uh, you have these audio apps, uh, clapper, uh, hear, clubhouse, fan base, all these other apps where while you’re sleeping, you’re still existing with all of your content that’s, it’s going to be there until the app closes down.

So if I wanna tell anybody anything. Just be everywhere, all the time, repurpose your content across multiple platforms, so even when you’re asleep, you’re speaking to everyone. So that’s what I’ll be doing next year. So remember, um, what I always say, if God says you can walk on water, don’t ask the devil for permission.

Go out there and live your purpose. Sac Black Nation on YouTube. I appreciate you. All right, Sac. Like it, love it, and I like the way you’re hitting your numbers, you’re getting close to your numbers. And by the way, I am definitely following you now. So, because I went and I deleted about 7 or 8 followers so that I could follow the 4GI as well.

And, um, it’s interesting. So just on that note, if you are on Clubhouse and you don’t have a profile picture and you don’t do a description, you don’t put any effort into it, you’re going to be unfollowed like, um, originally I would follow everybody in the audience who came in and now the app is restricting us at 2, 500 followers or friends and it’s really frustrating, but I really want to connect with people like yourself and those on stage today.

Today Today’s been a true testament of what the community of Clubhouse can do. When we come together, we ideate and figure out, you know, what is it that we’re going to do in 2024? What are the things that we can do differently that we don’t do today? And sometimes they don’t need to be a huge change.

They can be what we call a minor major. Which is a minor amount of effort could have a major impact. Um, there’s a story in the book, and I’ll leave it on this one. Uh, where my son, he’s went to his third year in college and he went for architecture and this is a year ago, a year and a half ago, and he, he, um, he actually went into his classroom for the first time in three years for the first two years in Canada, they’d shut down the colleges due to the pandemic, uh, their, their response to the pandemic may have been a little extreme, but that being said, that’s what they did.

So he had never actually experienced a college classroom or a college, um, going into a room. The first day I called him and I said, Quinn, where did you sit in the class? He goes, Dad, not only did I sit in the front row, I sat closest to the professor. See, we are who we surround ourselves with. Yes, he’s more attentive because the professor’s up front, but his study group is going to be those in the front row.

How much money did it cost him to sit in the front row? But yet that can change somebody’s trajectory in life. And that’s the example that we use in the book, Start, Scale, Exit, Repeat. We use that example as being something you could do, just a minor effort, a minor decision could have a major impact in your life.

And so maybe that can be added minor majors. What are minor majors that you can do in 2024? Mimi could be added to the blog. But I’ve really enjoyed today’s session. And if we’re going to popcorn style, any last thoughts, we got two, three minutes left. Before before Michele closes it out.

Oh, I wanted to say something for GI when she said, you know taking a lesson from the Bible and always putting others first a Simple thing that I do and I don’t do it It just comes is I compliment others like if I see someone that looks really beautiful that day or if I saw it very simple very light touch And, um, it’s become, I don’t, it’s just a habit now and I see people, they just light up and, um, you know, it’s so easy to do and it’s free.

So that’s something you can do very easily to anyone, people you work with, your customers, your family, people on the street, a friend. Um, your husband, it doesn’t matter, but light touch compliments, um, call something out that looks really nice about them or, or that they did something really nice and show you saw that.

And I think it’s an easy thing to do. And it lights up people that I would offer that. And the other thing, and I know he’s gone was Arriota when he said he’s going to go out to college campuses. I started, I wrote it, I did an app a couple of years ago. It was targeting college students first. So the, one of the things I did, and I love doing it, it was just going to a college campus and I’m well beyond college years and just going right in there, direct marketing, right?

Go up to people and say, Hey, if you download this app, I’ll give you this. Why don’t you try it with your friends, whatever. And it was such a great approach. I called it the walkabout and I’ve put that into. All of the businesses I do now, like trying to find where’s the walkabout? Like, you know, I know that’s an Australian kind of term, but go out in the neighborhood and walk the streets.

Like I got my accountants at the tax firm. They, they do walkabouts now they walk down streets and go introduce themselves as tax accountants and meet people in the neighborhood. I do it in my consulting business. Like you just, you know, get up in your office and do a walkabout. So those would be my two kind of.

Tips, and I thought about that when Ariota was saying he’s gonna go to college campuses and be more present because that was probably the Most fun I had when I went out to market my the app I developed a few years ago. Thanks guys. That’s it No, I like it. It’s like compliment more This sack. Oh, sorry.

Wait. No, I just wanted to summarize that because we you know We’ve tried to put these things into blogs as well So really this idea of just complimenting more people and it reminded me of a show we did And a book with an author called Nice Bike, and it can be, that’s the minor major, a little bit of effort to recognize others around you, something authentically positive about them can actually have a major impact.

And that was, you know, I think that’s definitely got to be on our list. Yeah. Take it away. Yes. Yes. Black Nation. Hey, this is what I would do. And just to piggyback on what she said is by telling somebody, you know, how beautiful they are on Facebook. They will tell you whose birthday it is. So you will know if you have five dots

and do a free Fabricated birthday video. That’s very generic on your YouTube channel and then send that link to all those people that have birthdays every single day all year long and Hey, they will reciprocate they will say hello. And if you have some type of Offer you can actually say your offer but at the end just make sure that hey, happy birthday.

You having a great day a Prefabricated video that you have on your YouTube channel And it’s a win win because you get the views and they get a shout out for their birthday and you never know they might even buy your product. I’ll go ahead and close my mind. No, and I wonder if you could add AI to that video where you could download the names of the individuals, take that video, download the names, put the video in, and then create 5, 000 videos.

Maybe it’s too complicated right now, but there’s probably something there as well.

That’s a little more work, but uh, yeah, there’s something there too. I’m sure Facebook will be doing that soon, but we have one more person calling on the stage. That’s join us. Um, C. J. G. T. K. let’s, uh, wrap up with you C. J. and then, um, we’re going to close out the session, but I actually need to go for a meeting.

So I’m going to let you do that calling and, um. Thank you everyone so much for participating and let’s wrap it up with C. J. Oh, thank you, Michele. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a resolution. Um, but I would say for me, uh, 2024, I’m looking at a better at a better balance between. Patience and expedience.

And what I mean by that is we saw a lot of seeds right as we’re working and we expect them to flourish and grow at a particular pace. And sometimes we expect them to grow before they should. So for me, it’s about patience, but still having expedience and action. So focusing a lot of energy on the speed of actually doing things, sowing seeds of introducing people to your brand, uh, doing what you need to do in the company, but then also having not.

Patience so that things have the correct expected timeline, right? Sometimes you do things and you’re like, why isn’t this giving results immediately? Or why isn’t it giving massive results? And That understanding for me in 2024, it’s something I’m focusing on a lot is having that patience that sometimes the input doesn’t result in output immediately, and that’s okay.

Just keep sewing and sewing until you reap the rewards. No, I like it. That’s a great way to end because That’s a real stress. We did a great show last yesterday and we do it every Thursday at five o’clock called the complete entrepreneur and we talked about the human side the human element of entrepreneurship the challenges the emotional challenges the stresses and In the book we have a concept called stage gates And I often suggest every startup come up with a stage gate a point in time and you can do this in 2024 See I’m gonna deliver X amount and we want it to be smart Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound.

But I’m going to set the specific time, the specific goal, and if I hit it, then I got extended time. It’s my stage game. It’s like that racing car game. I go through it, I got more time. But before that, I’m going to push the naysayers away, and I’m going to let the thoughts that go through my mind to say, okay, I’ve got six months to get an MVP done.

Or I got six months to get my first ten clients. Yeah, I only got two. I’m halfway there, but I still I still gave myself six months. Now, if we don’t hit it, we can pivot or kill it. But let’s give ourselves that room, that opportunity, that time and take the stress off of herself from day to day. And that’s, that’s a concept in the book.

You’ve been listening to start, scale, exit, repeat serial entrepreneur secrets revealed, which is a, which is a podcast, but also a live show. It’s different than any other type of podcast. And this is all about community. and community coming together and sharing our thoughts. Today was open mic. It was an open mic session.

We had, I think we put together about 15. Mimi’s going to put up a blog on startup club. If you haven’t already done so sign up to the mailing list on startup. club because we have a lot of speakers. Uh, we’ve had a lot of huge, like billionaire billionaires coming on. We’ve had, sometimes they tell us a week or two before they’re going to come on startup club.

I remember talking to Mr. Wonderful one day on Startup Club, but if you’re not on the email list, you’re not going to be getting access to the latest stuff that comes out. We do a monthly newsletter as well, which shows some highlights from Startup Club. Thank you very much. You’ve been listening to Start Scale Exit Repeats, Serial Entrepreneur Secrets Revealed, which happens to be the same name as the book that published on October 3rd.

A book that took, uh, uh, 10 years to write two years with six staff members at startup club and over 200 interviews. And that book was a testament to the community of startup club and clubhouse because we could not have put it together. Uh, as many stories as we did there, we, we, we got about 50 interviews actually made the book.

And we draw conclusions from those interviews and, uh, it’s been number one bestseller in eight categories on Amazon. So we’re very excited about that at the outcome of that book. If you haven’t already done so please check it out and we’ll see you next week on this show, start, scale, exit, repeat serial entrepreneur secrets revealed, and if you haven’t already done so check out the podcast.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Shadow. You’re amazing. Layla Rosa, 4GI. I’m following you sack black nation. I got to follow that. Um, and, uh. CJ, I like the way you killed it at the end. And Mimi and Michele, thank you as well.