How to Identify & Seize Business Opportunities

Serial Entrepreneur: Secrets Revealed EP101

[00:00:00] Catching the wave. It’s interesting topic. Probably one of my favorite topics because we’re talking today about catching the wave and how to actually do that. It can be quite tricky, but if you can figure it out, it can actually be a great wealth driver. And he, today you’re listening to Serial Entrepreneurs Secrets Revealed.

This is Startup Club. We are almost 1 million members, and if you’re listening to this in the podcast, we appreciate that. But you may not know this. You can actually come to Clubhouse, download the app, and join us on stage Live. We do this every Friday at two o’clock Eastern. We have a live studio audience, and you’re welcome to come on stage to ask questions or comment about any particular topic.

And we’ve had some incredible [00:01:00] authors, experts, even, uh, billionaires and serial entrepreneurs who’ve come on this show and who’ve contributed to the 101 episodes that we’ve launched so far. Uh, if you are here today and you’re on Clubhouse, you might not know this, but this is actually a podcast and uh, you can go to your favorite podcast channel and search for Serial Entrepreneur Secrets Revealed.

Now, if you’re in the audience or you are on stage, feel free to share the room and I’ll tell you how you can do that. We’re at the very bottom. There’s a chat button and to the right of that, there’s an up arrow key. We press that up, arrow and share on Clubhouse. Cuz I think today’s topic is gonna be something that a lot of people.

Are gonna want to hear about. And the community, of course, it’s all about the community and coming together and sharing the ideas and topics. Oh, we have a [00:02:00] new moderator in training right here, right now. Mr. Kyle. I know Kyle. Oh, I can’t see you, Michele. That is so weird. Oh, here you go. I’m here. I’m here.

Make me a mod, my friend. All right. You’re back on stage. You’re back on stage there. Look, I wanted everybody to know here that this is Siri, entrepreneur Secrets revealed. Today we’re talking about catching the wave. We’re not gonna focus too much on what types of waves you can catch. I mean, there’s a lot of really cool things out there from gene editing to ai to even, uh, vacation rentals.

I mean, there are so many waves that are occurring. There are so many changes in society. It’s absolutely fascinating because the more change that exists, the greater opportunity for startups and for entrepreneurs. See, here’s a secret. A lot of big companies don’t like change. They don’t like to take risk.

How do I know that? I worked for a, uh, a [00:03:00] Fortune 500 company for three years, and let me tell you this, they don’t like, they don’t like taking risks, but change comes in many different forms. Change can be a technological shift, like we all got an iPhone, a computer in every hand, or it could be a regulatory shift where in the case of, um, for instance, new domain extensions, they opened those up in 2012 and Michele and I and others launched a company called.club.

So you can see regulatory change, you can see technological change. These are opportunities. And I would say that the 2020s are a bit like the 1990s in that we are gonna see an absolute transformation of business. And our society with ai, AI is, it is, it is huge. We are talking about a monster wave. So how do we catch that wave, Michele?[00:04:00] 

That is the golden ticket, right? Colin? I mean, I, I agree with you. Like, I think this is the biggest error, at least in my lifetime, where there’s such big shifts in terms of, you know, the next big wave, technical or regulatory that we have opportunities as entrepreneurs to jump in and, you know, do our thing.

Whether it be for as good, do-gooders or, you know, for money. So, you know, I, I think we just kick it off, but I’m gonna throw it out to our members here. You guys, ladies, everyone know a lot more than we do. Let’s use the collective wisdom of our members here, Collin, today. If you have noted or you’re curious or you’re thinking about like changes in technology and how you can make money or how you can improve your business or [00:05:00] regulatory, cuz there are a lot of really cool regulatory changes on too that could really impact our businesses.

You know, raise your hand, come on stage. I mean, this show is only good if we can really come together literally and, you know, help each other out. Help each other. Think about how we can leverage this. So raise your hands and let’s get you on stage. But on that note, um, Colin, let, let’s kick it off. Let’s just dive right into it.

This is a very rich topic. No, it’s funny you said come together. Literally I said that up Marcus’s. That’s the name of the company that owns Startup Club. And if we think about it, only two years ago, there was an app called Clubhouse, and that app came out and it brought a, about a new social media platform around social audio.

And from it we saw a number of people launch businesses. We saw a number of [00:06:00] masterclass and experts launch. Uh, we’re actually hoping to see more change over the next couple of weeks. We’ve been told that our club is gonna be upgraded to, um, houses the new platform. And when we do get upgraded, we’re gonna be able to have a lot more interaction and engagement with members.

Remember, we’re almost a million members strong, so that’s pretty, that’s, that’s getting up there. And if, if you’re not, I should have mentioned this as well, if you’re not a member, you could just click that greenhouse at the top there and you can join very easily. Uh, today’s topic, like Michele says, it’s all about.

How do we catch the wave? So if you have ever caught the wave and launched a startup, or you’ve thought about a particular opportunity, a particular wave that’s occurring, and you’re thinking about launch that startup, we would love to have you on stage. Cause we wanna help, we [00:07:00] want to help you out here.

That’s what Startup Club is all about, is both the community coming together and figuring it out. And today, I think this topic is probably one of my most exciting topics I love to talk about because quite frankly, Michele and, and, uh, and Kyle, Jason, Johan, Mimi, Don in the audience there, uh, it’s been the number one wealth generator for me in the last 25 years.

I started out in the early nineties, uh, with something called the internet, an I S P Dialup Internet. And then in two thousands when we launched, sorry, we, throughout the nineties, we launched the largest internet service provider in Canada. And then we, we later launched a company called Two Cows, which was actually software download and domain names.

And then in two thousands we did a hosting, an email platform called Hostopia. All three of those companies I just mentioned went public. And then in 2010s we did a company called Doc Club. [00:08:00] Michele and I, uh, recently sold that company to GoDaddy. And, uh, in 2021 we jumped in with Ed Nussbaum to launch Startup Club on Clubhouse and again, almost a million members.

So what’s interesting about the Startup startup club and, and Ed Nussbaum was on here last week, he was talking about how he came in with days after the app had launched. In some ways there’s a c i i, I never talked about this last week, but there’s a concept called a Big Bang Theory. If you can get in at the very, very beginning, it can have a huge impact as it expands, as the universe begins to expand, you can see that, and today that that case is proven by Startup Club with almost 1 million members.

We are the largest club on club hours, and it’s very cool, but it couldn’t have happened unless Ed Nusbaum just jumped in right at the very beginning and said, I [00:09:00] think people might want to talk about startups. Michele, what are your thoughts? And then we’ll start, we’ll start doing the round robins. Yeah.

Yeah. I, I love this topic as well. This is one, you know, it seems like it’s very, you know, a sexy topic. Oh my gosh. I’m gonna use chat, G P T and everybody’s in love with, you know, AI right now. But I, I would say, Colin, it, and I think you can attest to this, Like, I think for most of us, how we really catch that wave is not trying to do something that’s like diametrically new and opposed to everything like groundbreaking, like, you know, we’re a unicorn overnight.

I think, you know, a lot of the value of the new technology is leveraging it, an incremental kind of, you know, improvements that people would, you know, actually adopt and, you know, maybe pay a little extra money for. So I really, [00:10:00] you know, challenge us to think of, you know, we’re not necessarily trying to be like the next meta, even though obviously they’re struggling with that.

But how do you use it to even get the one. On competition, how do you use it to incrementally improve? How do you use it to actually jump into the market or into a particular space? That’s, that’s, you know, and don’t forget, you know, regulatory is huge as well. So I, gosh, we got some amazing people, members up here on the stage.

Colin, why, why don’t we go to you for a comment. Let’s just get right off. Well, I just, I wanted to say, I asked my, um, expert, uh, God called cha, e p t how to actually catch a wave in surfing. Okay. We’re actually, we’re talking about a real wave here. Okay. So, catching a wave in surfing requires a combination of skill, experience, and [00:11:00] timing interest.

Jason, what do you think? Skill, experience, and timing. That’s how you actually catch a wave if you’re surfing, but if you’re doing it for a business or you’re trying to position yourself correctly, I think it applies as well. Jason, what are your thoughts? Yes, um, and I’m in the airport, so this time it’s quiet.

Um, I’m in the airport flying from Antigua to Miami and then through to New York and Toronto. And I’ll say that you can do that, but I think that you do have to, uh, understand business principles because essentially if you do use that analogy of the wave, If you don’t understand how to run a business, like to register the business to make sure you’re not violating anybody’s intellectual property.

For instance, clubhouse actually ended up, um, there was someone out their company named Clubhouse, and um, they settled out of court. Now, this is public, it’s not inside information, [00:12:00] right? They settled outta court. So when you’re catching a wave, if you don’t understand how to make sure you’re not violating somebody’s intellectual property that you know, you don’t know how to, for instance, check.com, see if somebody’s already got that.

Make sure, um, that uh, you know, the name you choose isn’t already taken. If you don’t know how to legally operate business, you end up trying to catch a wave and you get tripped up, you fall over and you get washed away. I understand business principles. I graduated with distinction from University of Toronto.

I worked at Microsoft Canada when I was working on the B shorts, legal campaign, running one of their web domains in 98. The lawyers worked on different things, and then I registered my first corporation with an intellectual property attorney. I know how to check to see if somebody already’s got the.com.

I know how to figure out that I’m not violating somebody’s intellectual property, so I won’t get washed away. So you can catch away or you’ll get washed away if you don’t understand business principles. I [00:13:00] mean, I love University of Toronto, Jason, I love us. University of Toronto, that was where I, I went to college as well.

So we said, I, I moved down the states about 15 years ago. We called it university there, but I know college is, is more commonly used here. That’s awesome. That’s really cool. I like the way you brought that into it. And today we’re talking about not only, you know, what kind of waves, we’re not talking about chat, G P T or AI or gene editing, or any of those types of things we’re talking about how do you actually position yourself.

Going back to the analogy about catching an actual wave, um, here’s how you do it. Position yourself once you’re in the lineup. Position yourself so that you’re in the right spot to catch a wave. Look for a wave that is starting to form and move towards it. Uh, I’ve never actually successfully surfed before.

I’m not quite good on the skateboard or boards. Not like my son. He’s, he’s like a amazing at that. He’s like a [00:14:00] parkour like Exactly. Mason fitness guy. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah, so I wanted to hear from Johan Johan next year. Up next, we’re going round Robin here. What’s up? Common? What’s up everyone? Jenny, y’all doing everything?

You guys were well. Well, that’s great. Great to have you on stage. And we just wanted to hear if you ever thought about trying to catch a wave and launch a startup, or have you actually done that before in the past, and just want to hear from you and, and everybody else in the audience as well. If you wanna raise.

Yeah. Colleen, just a refresher. Yeah, I, I, I actually am a tech founder. I have a app called Renter Park that’s pre-revenue, pre-launch, um, coming out soon. Um, maybe you guys can remember, but yeah, to be fair, I’m, I’m going through this now cause the, the, the climate, the climate of where we’re at, like venture is slowing down and, and you know, you kind of have to be.

Skilled like chat. G p t said, um, to be able to catch a wave. Not [00:15:00] only things like I actually talked about chat, g p t one of the early, not on clubhouse, but on a different app across the street, um, and taught a wide range of people to tap in because it’s a tool. These are things that can help propel any company.

It’s a, it’s a tool, right? My business idea is a tool with the fact that VCs aren’t really, they’re, they’re a little bit bullish. They’re, they’re not. They’re holding back on giving funding. They’re very strategic. Every startup is coming out right now in this climate, is gonna have to figure out how to pivot, you know, because survival is key.

So in terms of that, it’s definitely skillful for me. Um, it’s about embedding yourself in, in, um, the news and finding. Reading articles. I mean, that’s how I found out about chat. If I’m not reading daily, um, about the subjects and the field that I’m in, it’s, you just won’t be able to catch that wave one you have to in surfing, what did I say?

You gotta catch the early wave. You gotta wait and buy your time. [00:16:00] Right? So it’s the same concept. Yeah, and I think that it’s interesting because I’m gonna throw this thesis out there. I don’t think any, I dunno if anyone’s ever done this, but being on Clubhouse, being, connecting, going to these rooms, it’s like you really do catch it early.

I remember NFTs were big on Clubhouse before they became big around the world. I remember, um, chat, g p t blowing up in late November, early December on a clubhouse. I couldn’t read about it anywhere else. It was just the biggest thing on Clubhouse. And by the way, had you just thought about it, thought it through, this was really big and it’s blowing up.

Maybe I should buy, um, Nvidia. Maybe I should buy Microsoft, like some of the cons companies that would benefit from an AI explosion. And, uh, yeah, you don’t even necessarily have to launch a startup if you can position yourself correctly, be in the right information [00:17:00] source. You said like read a lot, like really be aware of what’s going to happen.

And ironically, clubhouse is probably one of the best places, uh, to really be connected on the latest trends. Johann, any thoughts on that? No, absolutely, absolutely. Places audio room. I believe audio room is the next wave. Um, I know, cause yeah, we have the clubhouse, but it’s still in its, you know, infant stages and there’s a lot of other things coming from audio chat.

There’s many platforms doing that and I believe it’s the next big wave. There’s that. And so, yeah, absolutely, because like I said, y you, you found out about Chad November because of an audio room on Clubhouse. I found out about it cause I was embedded in, in, in, in learning about tech and all of the new things and somehow stumbled, um, played around and then told everybody else on another audio room, um, app and, and it’s been going viral since.

Obviously now you can’t hear [00:18:00] nothing else, so. Absolutely Colin. Yeah, I, I love what you said Johann about audio chat, cuz you know, let’s, let’s be quite direct here. Like a lot of people are like, oh gosh, clubhouse is dead. But I, I totally agree with you like that, you know, it’s just the beginning of audio chat and audio type, um, forward kind of applications and use cases.

So I’m, I’m so glad that you brought that up, Johann. That’s, that’s a really good example. You could amp up an existing business or create a new business, whether it be niche or broad. Really good example. Also, um, I would like to add, it’s very important to study your craft, you know, and whatever that thing is that piques your interests, you know, put yourself in those environments so you can, you know, be ahead of the curve.

Because to, um, Colin’s point, [00:19:00] you know, it, it comes from unlikely sources oftentimes, and positioning yourself in the right environment can be very conducive to, you know, financial gains. I think that, I think that Jason, go ahead Jason. Thank you. Yeah, I’ll just add, add this cuz I’m about to get in the line.

Um, at the airport. I think that, yes, it’s so good. And when you think of the analogy to wave, it’s the skill. So these skills are transferrable in terms of being observant, paying attention to first principle, that is seven principles that won me seven scholarships that I teach on is pay attention. There’s no such thing as smart or stupid.

There’s just paying attention and not paying attention. Paying attention is free, but it’s more valuable than any of course you can pay for it. There’s some people that get caught up in their work and they’re working on something so hard. Even Bill Gates said he missed, like when, you know, he kind of missed the internet in a sense because he was caught up on what was Microsoft, what Microsoft was doing, and then, [00:20:00] you know, so you can’t be so caught up on what you’re doing.

That you don’t catch the fact that a big wave is, is coming. So the way I do it is, you know, I lost my house. I had to sell my house to pay off the, my debts and when I was 33, um, for Toronto Poets, cuz I had so much debt from, from Toronto poet. So I said, okay, I’m gonna read a lot. So I started reading every book that I could find on wealth and everything.

Robert Kasak, which I think we’re rich. I read over a hundred now, but I’m still always paying attention. So if you’re not paying attention, the wave will drown you. My name is Jason when I’m done speaking. Well Jason, you know, thank you for reminding us of that. We don’t have to be the smartest or the richest or the most connected.

Just like get out of your own head and look around. I think that’s always good advice. Thank you. That was amazing, Jason. And I’m looking forward to hearing what Leslie has to say. Leslie, yes. Thank you. I [00:21:00] think we’re all visionaries and we’re all living in such an, an incredible, amazing time to just, uh, reinforce the positivity, uh, as a practitioner in functional medicine.

Um, we’re seeing this integrated as I get together with my fellow practitioners globally around the world, implementing AI apps that are in beta right now, helping people and individuals really look at them, uh, cells on, on a level that we’ve never done before with biomarkers. Um, blood work and labs and reports that are something that you would see out of Star Trek if anybody watched it as a kid, as I did.

So I’m just here to listen, absorb. It’s something I will be integrating into my company as I integrate Eastern and Western modalities, getting back to Mother Earth, but also having to be on track with the future. So, thanks for having me up. And you know, Leslie, actually, I have a [00:22:00] sister named Leslie in functional medicine.

I mean, those are an amazing examples of regulatory waves that are going into, you know, going on in healthcare and privacy and medicine. You know, we tend to be just, you know, myself included, no criticisms, you know, like talking about chat G p T and what, but there are massive. Massive, you know, waves that are going right now in pharmaceutical science and healthcare regulations that are just like off the charts.

And you know what, some of the folks that were developing, some of the things that were groundbreaking during Covid were not the major pharmaceutical companies. They were, you know, smaller labs and independent labs. So I think there’s amazing opportunity there, and I love hearing about how you’re, you know, trying to amplify that for the normal, for the rest of us, [00:23:00] right?

Because other people don’t know this. So kudos to you for stepping into that space. All right, Colin, thank you. You bet. Colin, like, well, you know, you and I have done very well on regulatory waves, and I know we talk a lot about tech. It’s a sexy thing. Like, you know, I know you have a lot of experience there.

What are your thoughts? Well, we sort of didn’t make any money from weed. You think we could have made some money from that space? I mean, there are so many rich people coming outta that whole deregulation of, of that space and the medical marijuana and all of that kind of stuff. But that’s, I think that’s a good example of the, there are just, there are probably hundreds of these paradigm shifts, these regulatory shifts, these technological shifts that are, are occurring, you know, around us.

Uh, and we just need to think about, I think somebody said, focus on, you know, what you enjoy and [00:24:00] love. And then if you’re, if you can, if you can focus on that and then catch the wave, your, your odds of success will increase. Increase. Let me, let me add this to, um, the analogy. I’m, I’m gonna keep playing this up here.

Um, going back to our catching the actual wave. We talked about positioning yourself first, then start paddling. When you see a wave come towards you start paddling towards it as hard as you can, as hard as you can. You need to gain enough speed to catch the wave before it breaks. Okay. There’s a limited amount of time I talked about earlier about the big bank theory, but there really is a limited amount of time to really catch a wave before a thousand other people have already got it.

And you just don’t, there’s not enough room for you to get in there and catch it. So that’s something that’s just very interesting how it sort of lines up pretty well, this whole analogy of [00:25:00] actually catching the wave versus, um, you know, versus doing it through, uh, you know, startups or whatnot. But the last piece of that is just two more pieces, one’s popping up and, and one’s riding the actual wave.

And we’ll talk about that a a little bit later, but I wanted to talk just a little bit. I, I had the opportunity to work for a Fortune 500 company for three years. And at that company I learned something. One, they have a lot of cash. They were generating 200 million of free cash flow per year, and they were very risk averse.

Now, when I say risk averse, I mean extremely so the company did the same thing for a hundred years, and they continue to produce money by doing this one thing over and over again. And when a new idea would come up or pop up, they would often say, we can, well, let’s look at a study. Let’s see if we can analyze this and whatnot.

The fact of the matter is innovation does generally does not thrive in larger [00:26:00] corporations. It really doesn’t enter the entrepreneur. This is our opportunity as a startup, as a founder, to figure out what these waves are and to catch them because we’re willing to take the risk. We’re willing to go out to the ocean, get on a surfboard and try to stand up and, and make something happen.

I’m very interested. Emmanuel, you’ve been very patient. I wanted to hear from you as well. Um, and Jay, thank you. We’ll come to you next. We’re just sort of doing a round robin, but uh, Emmanuel, how do you catch the wave? Hi everyone. Thank you so much Colin. Um, it’s quite interesting that you mentioned this and I like the wave analogy.

Um, so I currently work with, um, companies when it comes to design and innovation, so help with design and innovation strategy. And Colin, what you said is, uh, really right. Um, It is harder for larger companies to actually incorporate some form of [00:27:00] innovation. So it’s easier for, um, smaller companies to do more innovative work majorly because they’re nimble, they’re able to do things, um, quickly.

And I remember one of the things that Steve Jobs used to say then was at that point in time, apple was being organized as a startup, right? So they were the largest startup, so to speak, at that point in time. So everyone was doing everything, so they were able to, to identify what needs to be done and go quickly on it.

But in terms of looking at the wave, what actually comes to mind for me is two things. Um, first is understanding the context, and then second is understanding the capacity. Um, and when I say context is kind of looking at it, Um, externally and internally, there are things that are in your control and things that are not in your control.

So for example, if you think about the wave, the wave is not in your [00:28:00] control. So you always have to understand that context, the environment in which the whole wave is happening, right? You need to be able to study that environment and find your moment, find that opening where the opportunity fits just right for you.

And why I say just right for you is because of the second part of understanding your capacity. Now, I believe that we need to be able to know what we are good at, because there will always be an opportunity, but it’s not every opportunity that is really for you. It’s not every opportunity that is, is well suited for your capacity, so to speak, or for your capabilities.

So you need to be able to. Understand what you are good at, what, what really fits with your own skillset. And then constantly monitor that environment and see when that actually fits so you can ride that wave. Because I mean, if you think about it, um, so I’m not a surfer, but when I look at [00:29:00] people who go surfing, they go to, to surf with different boards, you know, some people are in different, um, skill ranges.

The person that is going to be riding the massive wave might not, would not probably be that person who is new to, to riding a wave, so to speak, right? So you always have to understand what are you good at? Where, where do your own skills and capacity, uh, um, what, what’s the limitation on that, on your own capacity?

And if you feel like there are limits to your capacity with respect to the opportunity that you’re seeing. It then comes back to what Michele said earlier of leveraging. You need to then find the best way to leverage another person’s capabilities, another person’s, um, systems, another person’s operations to be able to, um, ride that wave.

So I feel like it’s a combination of understanding the environment in which the wave is coming and then knowing how your [00:30:00] own skillset fits to be able to help you to ride that wave. Can I comment? Yeah, that’s great. Emmanuel. Like when you were speaking, I just thought, yeah, that really kind of is quite oftentimes where entrepreneurs excel.

It’s that it’s the art of the pivot almost, right? Like, not to be cliche, but really being able to be responsive. And I think as Jason said, just listening and having your ear to the ground, like knowing what’s going on so that you can jump on that opportunity. Maybe you have to pivot a little bit and not abandon what you’re doing.

Like that might be crazy, right? But just like really getting out there. You know, one thing that cons, um, Colin and I are constantly telling, you know, people that we work with here and our incubator is to be flexible, right? And test more importantly, just like really test your [00:31:00] idea, whether it’s like talking to other people that, um, you have confidence in that they have good judgment, and then going out and really just testing the concept and the idea.

So, Emmanuel, I think you got the art of the pivot down, my friend.

Thank, thank you. Thank you so much for that. All right, we are about halfway through our, uh, show today. Um, we just wanna quickly remind everyone. You can see a link up here. It’s startup.club. That’s our website. We have over a hundred podcasts, articles well over that, that Mimi writes and edits every single week.

It’s all free. We encourage you to go up there and look, and if you like this show and you’re interested in what’s being said in general, like join our email list. Um, we have a lot of cool, you know, [00:32:00] news alerts of really cool authors like Jeffrey Moore, who is Epic. Like, he definitely, you know, I think most people would say are in the top five, you know, thinkers for businesses.

He wrote, um, chase, you know, talks about the technology chasm. He, he, honestly, I think Colin said this, we should nominate him for a Pulitzer Prize award. We’ve had Joe Foster from Reebok, he was the founder. So oftentimes you might not know about that unless you’re on the list. And we also have our new book coming out from Forbes, and we’re gonna do some really cool promos with that.

So if you’re interested, just join the email list and we’ll keep you in the loop. All right. Enough for the commercial. All right, now let’s go to Jay. Jay, thank you so much for joining. Jay, tell us what you’re thinking here. Yo, I love the conversation. Um, one thing I will say to kind of add to this is don’t forget to inno innovate along the way.

[00:33:00] Um, you know, as we pivot, as we kind of, um, readjust ourselves to whatever the climate is, you can’t be afraid to pivot along the way. And that’s taken me a long way. And, um, you know, within my own process, just being able to innovate and create, um, ways where it is like, yo, you almost. Challenge the status quo, but you’re doing it in a way where it is unique to the market, whatever industry that you’re in.

So, um, you know, that’s really like my takeaway away. Everyone else has had, you know, valid points. But that would be the one thing that I would add to, um, to the conversation is being innovative along the way and not being afraid to, um, stand up, you know? So that’s my 2 cents on that. Yeah, I like that. Um, the, I talked earlier about, we’re trying to follow the actual analogy of catching a wave from chat, G p T.

So we talked about [00:34:00] positioning your, we’re talking about paddling out, positioning yourself, um, start paddling and now popping up once you feel the wave pick you up. So now you got this idea you’re. Quickly launch the idea quickly, pop up your feet and start riding the wave. Keep your weight centered over the board and use your arms and legs to control your balance and direction.

So I I, I think that at a certain point you do need to take action. You do need to stand up on that surfboard and, and catch that wave. Jay, appreciate that. And, and, uh, I know, um, Jason, you’re catching a plane. We’re gonna, we’re we’re doing a popcorn style after we, uh, we, we, uh, I’m trying to pronounce your name there, ue, ue.

After we get to Freds Hassan, uh, we’d love to hear from you first, and Jason, we’ll go right back to, to you. Yeah. Go, go ahead. Produce[00:35:00] 

Purdue. We’d, we’d be happy to hear from you on, on this topic catching the next big wave and how you actually do that. Or else we’ll just jump over to you, Jason, maybe he’s not Yeah, go ahead Jason. He’s not really a, a go ahead person. Um, so I would just say that those are very good points in terms of the analogy.

I think that what you can work on all the time while you’re paying attention to see where to wave is and, and getting on it is your skillset. Because the thing is that’s what you have control over. I think you have to know what, what, like, um, I think Emmanuel was saying, you have to know what you’re the best at.

So I started looking at who’s the best at everything in 2010. So I was reading all of the books that I could find. Okay, so Robert Kosaki, Anthony RAVs, just figuring out who’s the best at everything. So you have to figure out what you are the best at because you don’t want to jump on a wave and. And then not be skilled enough to ride it or to add some value, because a lot of people do that.

A lot of people, [00:36:00] oh, NFTs, and they get on fan NFTs, but they’re not really skilled at doing anything, so they don’t make any money. Or then they see, oh, everybody’s getting it like@the.com, everybody’s in. But then they, they’re not really, they don’t really know what they’re doing, so they don’t make any money doing that.

And then they’re like, oh, oh, chat, t b T. And then, um, they don’t, but they’re not really skilled. So it’s like you try to jump on a wave and you end up always falling off. Always falling off, always falling off and like drowning. So the thing that you have control over is your ability to surf in this case, right?

You have control over your ability to swim in case you fall. You have control over that. So if you’re not skilled at that, skilled at communicating, for instance. So I decided to, well, it’d be good if I learned another language.

So I, I manage a hundred certified partners in Quebec, right? Because I decided to pick up that skillset. So that’s something you have control over. You can control how well you communicate. You can control, you know what you do. You can’t control the wave. So if you [00:37:00] focus on being the best at what you do, when you jump on the wave, you’ll be able to ride it.

But if you’re just always looking at a wave trying to jump on it, you’re just always gonna keep falling off. So I think you have to figure out who’s the best at everything and let them see that Terry, to what they’re the best at, but know what you are the best at. And then you can ride the wave because you have your skillset and you know what you’re the best at.

And by the way, if you watch who’s the best at everything for over 10 years, then you’ll be the best at what you’re the best at. And that’s what I am now. I sold my property for a million dollars and I’ve retired. I’m not speaking. Oh, that’s awesome. I like the way you ended that one. That was pretty cool.

Um, yes, catching the wave is, can be very, very tricky. I, I know one of the things I like to do is live in the future. Uh, so if those who know me know that I have had one of the first electric cars, the first volt, believe or not, in, in Fort Lauderdale, one of the first Model Xs in Fort Lauderdale actually numbered 984, [00:38:00] 980 fourth Model X in the world.

Um, I, I’ve always believed in having ultra high speed internet, even when it was very expensive. And, uh, the latest HDTV televisions and what I, by living in the future, you can actually think about potential trends, uh, and how these trends will affect people and how you can position for them. Uh, self-driving is another one.

You know, it, all of these technologies. By experiencing them, by touching them, by playing with them, you can actually figure out what kind of opportunities that others would want to benefit from. I know at at Startup Club here, we talked a lot about, um, the different plans we have for Startup Club. One of them we’re working on right now is business plan Business plan ai.com.

And with that is, it’s gonna be part of Startup Club. [00:39:00] It’s gonna be a free business plan generator. We’re using Prompt Engineering and Ping into chat G P T, so you can build and design a business plan for your small business. And this is just one of those services we want to add on startup.club. Like it’s all about how do we help startups improve and become better and better.

And we’re thinking, how can we use ai? So sometimes it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re gonna launch a whole company around a paradigm shift or a technological shift. But you may use that technology in an existing startup or business to help accelerate your growth, to help improve engagement, to help with adoption rates, whatever it is.

And so we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re playing around with that concept and hopefully we’ll have business plan AI out by, um, by June of this year. Any other thoughts? We’re gonna go popcorn style now, so if you just wanna pop on [00:40:00] stage like Jason does. Yep. Feel free to do so. Go ahead, Jason. Oh, I think it was really amazing living in the future.

I do that too. I planned my whole career in one document. I called it a target resume in 1999 after finished working at Microsoft Canada. So by looking, I call it, uh, how you want your resume to look when you’re a hundred and. And then you’re always gonna be ahead of people because you know how you want your resume to look when you’re 120, right?

And if you live longer than that, look, you could sue me. I got three corporations. My client abilities limited. But by, by living in a future as you say, or like I say, plan your whole career at Target resume knowing who you wanted your resume to look like, then you can kind of look back and say, well, that’s not gonna be that important because global warming is gonna be a bigger problem.

So for instance, right, you could say, okay, well yeah, SUVs are big now, but they’re gonna have to figure out how to move towards electric cars. And then I’m even ahead of that. I sold my car. Okay. So the thing is you, if you realize that and you begin with the end in mind, if one seven happens highly affected people by Dr.

Steven [00:41:00] Cuffy, then you know you’re not gonna be behind because you already planned your whole career in one document or you’re like looking in the future. This Jason. Yeah. And um, actually on a show we did yesterday, uh, one of the. Moderator, Jeffrey Wolf, I thought he was doing an amazing thing. He’s in the midst of a, like, career change, and what he is actually doing for himself is just like a, he’s trying to ride his personal life actually like a company.

He actually has a strategic plan, he has goals, and he knows every day I need to do these three things in order for me to be moving my personal goal forward. And I thought that was a really cool discipline way to do it. I think the key is to be, you know, very thoughtful. It’s easy to make a list of 20 things, right?

And, and we’ve learned that from like Peter Drucker, like there is power in the [00:42:00] art of no meaning, really hone down on what works and really just, you know, persisting, persevering on that. It’s not overnight just, and you do those three things every day. Of course you’re gonna adjust and learn, but you know, I thought that was some really good advice to manage your life, almost like you’re managing a business strategically.

Yeah. I, I wanted to, um, also mention that sometimes when we, we don’t realize the impact we have in our children. When I was seven years old, we had a 4K Sinclair computer in our home in 1977. When I was 12 years old, I was running a bbbs. I never would’ve had those opportunities if my father had not brought this technology into our family, into our home early on.

So I think it is really important to try to adopt those technologies. I do wanna touch upon, since Michele, you [00:43:00] brought up Jeffrey Moore who wrote Crossing the Chasm and inside the tornado, I do wanna touch upon a little bit of his theories here. And, and again, he was on, he was on this, uh, show Serial Entrepreneur Secrets Revealed.

You can go back, you can go back and listen to the episode. He had a lot of comments about clubhouse and social audio chat, but one of the things that I learned from Jeffrey Moore in the nineties was this ability to catch a wave and how to win in a tornado. And one of the keys he said was, whoever delivers the fastest wins, I don’t know if you remember the old AOL and how many dis gets they distributed.

I mean, they distributed massive amounts of number of diskettes. We used to use ’em as coffee, you know, for the coffee, uh, on our boardroom table. But the fact of the matter is whoever can actually build a distribution faster than anyone else in a particular [00:44:00] trend. Or wave can win. And one of the techniques, especially around technology, is making it easy.

I had the opportunity to buy an nft, my first nft, my only NFT for $50 from uh, a grade 10 year old, somebody who’s a grade 10 who put it together, and I decided to do it through open sea. It was the most complicated thing I’ve done in my life. The fact of the matter is those companies that make it easy to do that make it very simple, they will succeed, they will benefit from the wave, they will be the victor, and they will be the ones who can ride it the longest.

So consider that when you’re, if you’re gonna try to surf a wave, you want to be able to deliver the fastest. That means get the most distribution faster than anyone. Get your product to market or your service to market faster than anyone else. And you wanna make it easy. So when we do business plan ai, Michele, we better follow our own advice here and [00:45:00] make business plan AI very easy to get to, very easy to use and ensure that we have the right strategy to get the, to inform people that it does exist.

Popcorn style. Daniel, I know, I see you on stage there. You came up. That’s awesome. Did you want to, uh, share your wave and what, how you think we can catch a wave here? Hello? Well, hello. Well, um, um, I’m actually multitasking you at the moment, but, but anyway, I’m always glad to be here and this, and then it’s, it’s, for me, it’s about keeping the innovation simple.

You know, I think it, we use too many jargons and too many long-winded words. So when we go into the ne A Next Wave or use things like financial technology or online banking, the common person does not know really what we are talking about and we can help them get there. For example, [00:46:00] I’m working within a, a FinTech ecosystem, but I don’t wanna tell ’em that’s where the word is.

It’s about making something simple so people understand where to go because you can have the best looking car on the outside, but inside it, there’s no engine. The person won’t know where to guide or where to be. So that’s where I’m complete. I’m gonna go back to my shopping, so thank you.

Well, awesome. That’s the advantage of social audio chat. You can be working out, you can be shopping, you can be at the airport like Jason, you can, uh, you can contribute and we appreciate that. Yeah, I think there’s just, there’s just, there are a lot of waves. That are coming out and ai, and I know we, we tried not to spend this hour talking about ai, but it truly will be one of the biggest waves in our lifetime.

I, I [00:47:00] actually like to use the analogy that AI is like internet adoption in the nineties. It’s like app adoption or like smartphone with apps in the 2010s. Uh, it is going to be a huge decade, and we are all at the very beginning. This is the good news, you know, it’s like we think that, oh, things have already moved ahead.

No, no, no, no, no. There are so much opportunity and if you can identify a problem in the marketplace, a challenge, a bottleneck, something that’s out there that you can apply AI to. To solve that problem. The opportunity’s absolutely huge. I mean, I’m hearing now about apps for, for, um, lawyers that they’re gonna, it’s basically gonna generate contracts.

Yesterday in the Wall Street Journal they did an article that [00:48:00] accounting will be probably the number one area where AI will take over. And wouldn’t that be great for startups, wouldn’t it like that? I’m sorry if you’re an accountant in the audience here. I know my brother is, and there’s a lot of great accountants out there, but you know, as a startup, it’s very frustrating to have to hire lawyers and accountants.

So if we, we somehow we’re able to utilize U AI to help us with those kind of things, that would be pretty. Popcorn style. Any anyone else want to jump in on, on this conversation? Um, I think it’s lasting. Yes, go ahead. I think this is my la maybe my last, before I get on the plane, um, I was paying attention, so I had to redo my, uh, my, my, my passport number and everything, but I do have time.

It’s until three, uh, 45. Um, so one thing when somebody said, one thing you can control is you can try to control what you’re saying is your, your expenses, because one of the things that, because they mentioned Steve Jobs, what Bill Gates said, if he had to start over, he’d do two things [00:49:00] that I, I did. He said, number one, he wouldn’t start.

Right. He would finish. Um, he wouldn’t just go to the, you know, go drop outta Harvard and then start, uh, Microsoft. When he was a young whoop snapper, he would finish school, right? Work for other companies. And then you learn from every company you work for Port, you learn from every co for every manager, from every employee, from every colleague, from every friend.

You learn. Every person is a professor, and every event is a class, right? So if you’re paying attention, you learn from everybody. And then he said he, he wouldn’t have full-time employees, right? So Microsoft has 181,000 full-time employees. So imagine how hard it is for them to be nimble, right? But I have zero, I’m not even on a salary.

So I can be nimble, much more nimble than Microsoft, right? For instance, I hired, I, I bought, we are hiring the best.com, right? And Microsoft got me when I graduated. Because I already had been a co-op and they hired me, right? And then I went back to work there [00:50:00] again. In 2002, they have, they have a lot of recruiters.

So they found my, me and Lisa, I had co-op experience. So they were hiring the best but they didn’t have to buy. We are hiring the best.com cuz I don’t work for Microsoft anymore. Okay. But the point is, right, without the self-promotion, right, you can be the best and you can be more nimble than Microsoft if you have less full-time employees.

So you can always re try to keep your expenses under wrap so that you can be nimble and change faster. Because the big organizations are trying to be nimble, but how can they be as nimble with 181,000 employees as me when Vignesh and my mom, this is Jason and I’m done Sharon. Yeah, it’s interesting how you talk about domain names and uh, I think we registered about a hundred domain names.

Last month we got Claude Monet ai, we got Van Gogh ai. We got so many great domain names. All for hand registration prices. We didn’t pay pre, we did pay a premium [00:51:00] for business plan ai. I admit that. We paid about $3,000 for that one. And then we did pay a premium for, uh, gift AI and poem ai. That was my daughter’s project she’s been working on, on that project.

Um, putting poems on canvas. Very fascinating actually. But, uh, Roland, uh, I, I pinged you down in the audience there. I saw you were there and you’re always such a good guest when you come on. Did you wanna, you know, sort of share with us your thoughts on how to catch a wave?

Hey Colin. Sorry I took some time getting up. Uh, busy cooking. Some are catching flights. Others of us are cooking anyway. I have to disagree with you. I don’t think the wave is ai. AI is the buzzword. The wave is machine learning models. And the winner is going to be who [00:52:00] has a different ingredient for that machine learning model.

Because at the moment, Bard Bang open ai, they’re all using the same ingredients back to you. No, I think, I think, I think you have a good point there. We, we often see, um, and I don’t know if you’re making this point, but we often see companies use these like terminology. You know, we saw it with this web three and you know, what is even web three, we did like three shows on web three.

And I, I still am confused by the whole what it really is. But the fact of the matter is, if you’re positioning around Rev three a year ago, it was amazing. If you’re doing it today, it doesn’t look so good. Um, I know that the meta, the Metaverse has been in Jeffrey Moore’s chasm for over 20 years, and by the way, it might be there for another 20 years.

That’s the, that’s the nature of those. You have to pick and choose your waves. Now in your particular example, you’re, you’re saying like there’s an actual, I I understand what you’re [00:53:00] getting at. I understand you’re saying it’s different. Um, those who can put a different ingredient, the recipe. And you, you mentioned that in the chat, that it’s all about like a different recipe to do something different with it, not just doing what everybody else is doing with it.

Uh, how you actually take that and apply it. That’s what it’s all about. I mean, I, I I, I, I can imagine they’re coming out with advanced IVR systems, voicemail systems. Uh, I can imagine they’re coming out with advanced medical diagnostic. You know, we talked about legal documents. Uh, I can even imagine architectural elements or, or, or, um, drawings being generated from, from basic ideas that become full plants.

There are so many opportunities, but you gotta go in deep and, and you can’t just ride the wave and use the terminology. You actually gotta get your hands dirty. I don’t know. Is that, is that what I’m [00:54:00] talking, is that what you’re talking about, Roland? Or am we just going around in circles here? What are you cooking, by the way?

We wanna know what you’re cooking because I can hear it sizzling. It sounds really good. Uh, I’m, I’m making some wraps tonight. Oh, nice. But, but anyway, uh, getting back to the conversation, yes, I partly agree you, you are partly on point, but at the end of the day, what really enables the company, any company for that matter, uh, whether technology or not to stand out, is its ability to provide value for its customers.

What we are seeing is, if you want to call it the buzzword of ai, just. Catching fire because people are seeing something they hadn’t seen before. But I’ve had conversations. I mean, I’ll tell you, this was funny. I had conversations with someone on Clubhouse who asked me a question and I gave [00:55:00] them an answer to the question.

And I said, do me a favor. Plug that same question in whatever area you’re using, uh, and let’s see what answer it gives you. And the person basically came back to me and said, well, your, I thought your answer was better because of X, Y, Z. And I said, well, the reason you think my answer is better is because I have experience in that space and I’ve done work in that space, and I don’t think the AI has done.

The point I’m getting at with that, Colin, is that when you go deep and really understand what problem you’re solving for your customer and where you really are creating value, Removing cost of friction, then you are onto something. But not, don’t forget the customer experience also matters back to you.

Yeah. I’m just gonna add a little bit, like that’s like a whole conversation roll and it really [00:56:00] appreciate you bringing that up. Um, I’ve worked at companies where we have very sophisticated models, predictive models, specifically for real estate. That was before AI by the way. And you’re right, just using, you know, the straight up technology, whatever it is, chat g p t does not give you a competitive advantage.

You know, it’s the data and even what we’re seeing now, like the buzz, you know, kind of in the groups right now is about, you know, prompt engineering. Like even the in depth science and art of like how you ask the questions. Like there’s a lot to be learned there. There’s a lot to be leveraged there, but the, it is a basic technology just like anything else, like machine learning was, et cetera.

So I think their end, Roland is, is the, you know, nity Michele, right? Michele, [00:57:00] you’ve made a very, very excellent point. If anything, human beings can learn from this first phase of AI that we are seeing with charge G P T being barred, philanthropic, and whoever else is following them is the quality of the question that you are asking.

I hope that human beings make an effort to learn to improve the quality of their questions, just like leaders and organizations. Need to learn to improve the quality of questions they ask their teams and about their business. Back to you, over and out.

Likewise. It’s been a great session, Colin. Like I, you know, I’m always so impressed with the quality of our discussions and our members and, you know, I think it’s, you know, where it’s [00:58:00] almost time to close out. What are your parting words for us, Colin? Yeah, and it’s, it’s all about the community. Um, and you can be going to an airport, you can be cooking your favorite meal, and you can still join in and you can still contribute and we can all learn from that.

I know everybody who came on stage today, I followed. If you thought they were interesting people, I’d encourage you to follow them as well. Uh, earlier I talked about this analogy, but the wave, uh, it started out with choose the right spot, paddle out. Position yourself. Start paddling, pop up once you feel the wave, pick you up.

And then now we’re gonna talk about riding the wave. Once you’re up and riding, stay relaxed and focused. Look ahead to see where the wave is breaking and adjust your position as needed. Try to stay on the wave as long as possible and enjoy the rides. Um, adjust your position as needed. Pivot as needed, change as needed.

It’s, [00:59:00] uh, it’s a real skill to try to, to try to do it, but I will say as, uh, someone who’s done this, at least a dozen times, a dozen companies that I’ve exited in over the last 25 years, that the opportunity is huge and big companies do go slow. And you do have an opportunity as a founder, as a startup to think about what problems are out there, what bottlenecks are out there.

And what solutions you can apply using technology. And that is, you know, this is actually a major chapter in the book that’s being released on October 3rd called Start Scale Exit Repeat. And it’s being published by Forbes, uh, and, uh, writing the, you know, writing the Wave is chapter three. It’s one of the key ingredients of what makes a startup successful, and it’s something that I’ve, I’ve talked about and, and really enjoy and quite frankly, have financially benefited from.

[01:00:00] I’ll be quite direct about that. It, it is, um, if I can share the way that Jeffrey Moore shared about, you know, how waves and changes can be such opportunity for startups and founders and entrepreneurs, I’m happy to do so. Thank you everyone on stage. Really appreciate the community. Uh, we will see you next Friday, two o’clock Eastern.

Remember, this is also a podcast. This is our hundred and one. Hundred and 101 episode episodes. I don’t even know how to say that. We’ve had 101 episodes and it’s been very, very cool. Check it out. Go to, just go into your favorite podcast channel and search for serial entrepreneur Secrets revealed. None of the topics go out of, out of, out of date.

They’re all relevant. They’ll be relevant 20 years from now. Michele, any last party thoughts before we close? Nope. We’ll just look forward [01:01:00] to seeing everyone next week. We’re always here on Fridays at 2:00 PM Eastern. Um, go to the website for more details and really appreciate everyone’s input. Be well.