Question 1

TRANSCRIPT: SE.Club – EP32: Getting Your Ideas Off The Ground (10/15/21)

Accepted Answer

All right, let's kick it off. Wow. Last week we had an incredible show. When we brought up this idea of what are the first steps you need to take to get your idea to lawn. And today, if you've had experience launching ideas and you want to share what you've done to get those launched, please raise your hand.

 In addition, you may be stuck and you may not know exactly what the next steps are. Please raise your hand. This is all about getting your idea to start up launch to ultimate success. You're on the serial entrepreneur. And I'm calling C Campbell. We've got Jeffrey sass. Um, we've got Michelle van Tilburg, racial lash, Brook, and guy Cooper.

 I'm just trying to remember the name guy. All right, that's perfect. Um, it's going to be a great hour, please raise your hand. It's going to be very interactive. Michelle's going to lead us, uh, as moderator today. Oh. And if you haven't already done so checkout startup.club, we have a number of episodes that have been recorded from startup club, including this episode, every Friday at two o'clock Eastern, the serial entrepreneur hour, and we just launched the podcast.

 So right now, everything that is on everyone who talks on stage agrees to recording, but also recognizes that they're going to bet out on Spotify. All right. Excellent. Thank you everyone for coming to the session. So we're, we really want to do this kind of rapid fire. I see, you know, several people are raising their hands already.

 So what we'll do is, um, we're going to give maybe a couple of samples stories from Jeffrey and from guy, and then we're hopping right into your questions. So what we ask you to do when you come to the stage is tell us what your ideas, but also tell us very quickly what stage you're in of that idea. And then just jumped right directly to your question.

 And we want to do this so that we have enough time for everyone to.

 All the folks here on the stage and opportunity to give suggestions. So let's dive right into it. And I'm going to start with guy guy. I, you know, I know you're an executive coach, um, but do you have a story or an example that you can tell us about an idea that you launched or that you're launching and, um, you know, what advice you would give to all of us here on how to just get it off the ground from this great idea to actually something that's a plan.

 I like to say a plan in motion, actually, you know, you're working on it. So guide, let's go with you first. Um, you know, we're going to try to do this rather, you know, fast. So guys. Thank you, Michelle and Collin. So when I was 21, I a lodged in auto repair service and I launched that service to actually teach consumers how to ask the right questions and recognize the right answers so they could have control on the outcome when it came to auto repair.

 So they didn't feel like they were ripped off or they weren't sure if the service was good in that because of a lack of communication. Well, when I launched this service and, and move forward, as I was taking care of clients, I had a guy that was next to me that had. For probably 10 years or so. Um, triple my size, triple my revenue, triple my equipment and tools.

 And he was willing to allow me to use whatever I needed at any time. Well, all the time he saw how I took care of clients. And I thought that he was unsavory a little bit and he said, Hey, we should come in align. We should partner as we move to do business. And it was a really tough conversation, but I knew I needed to have the conversation around alignment because my principles and philosophy didn't align with his, um, he was unsavory.

 He may have even sold drugs and he had unsavory clients and that was completely the opposite of what I was bringing to the industry. So immediately I had to have that alignment conversation and that I would say that's one of the places where you need to start. Once you had your idea, you had to figure out what, you know, what aligns with what you're trying to do.

 And as you take on people, as you move forward, We are the alignments there. What are your principles? What do you stand for? Right. And be able to stand on what you stand for. I had to do that there. You know, what, what are your, what's your mission? You should have a tight mission on how things get done and expedited in that process.

 There you go. Oh my gosh. That was great advice. I couldn't agree with you more. Um, you know, for us, a lot of times we say here, you know, we also run a startup incubator. It's actually called start up stock club. In addition to the startup club is, you know, the human element, people in your business, they really are key.

 They really are what makes and drives the culture and makes you successful. So I love guy that you were, you know, really what I take away from that in your alignment, you know, monster. Is that you're, you know, you're getting the right people, right. And if they don't think, you know, even the smallest things, if they've, maybe they want to keep it a mom and pop shop, that's much different than growing to be, you know, um, an international franchise, for example, it takes a whole different skillset obviously, but also takes a whole different level of, you know, work style and goals and time.

 So that, that was a really great example. Thank you guy. Thank you, Michelle. Awesome. I'll jump in right now. I, I just, um, I haven't even closed on it. We bought a, uh, the, a beach home in north Captiva and the first thing we did the family got around together and it's a vacation rental home is we brainstormed names for this vacation rental.

 And we ended up coming up with sunset escape. It's on the Gulf of Mexico. And we, um, the next thing I did is, oh, what do I need to do now? I'm going to register a domain name. So I registered, um, uh, uh, sunset escape.club, uh, happened to be biased towards the.club domain extension, but, uh, for some reason, uh, but I actually think it works really well for a vacation.

 You know, for location rental business. So we called it sunset escape.club. And then the next thing I did was I went to my graphics designer and I got them to make me a logo that we're going to put on the golf carts and we'll put a sign on the building, et cetera, et cetera. So those were some of the first steps I've taken and we haven't even closed the deal yet.

 We closed them two weeks. All right. Awesome. So, so Colin, it, you know, he led with marketing and brands. And, uh, you know, you've told us a little bit about this around the office, but I think that's, you know, something for us all to think about is really what do you want the brand to mean? And not in a fancy I'm hiring old oblivion, you know, agency kind of thing, but, you know, just really think with those that are close to your idea, what you want it to mean and how it actually looks.

 Cause that really like, you know, branding is like the beacon and marketing is what you know is comes right after that to get you there. So, great advice. All right. Um, had Tesh had Tasha is in the audience here, he's up and he's ready to speak Tasha. We'd love to hear about your idea, what stage you're in and how we could possibly help you.

 Uh, hi everybody. Uh, um, uh, good to see you, Mr. Uh, Campbell and Mr. Mr. Sass, uh, and Michelle and everybody good to be here in startup club. Thank you again for the opportunity. Uh, and my contribution is on this topic idea to launch serial entrepreneur is basically you need to be very, very persistent. Uh, the idea comes into your mind and until it materializes, there are many stages.

 Uh, how an idea incubates, just like a baby. Then it goes to different stages of infancy to other, uh, teenage to adulthood. And during this cycle, we need to make sure, uh, we are constantly investing our time and money, money within the idea until it materializes to the customer. And then, then, then to the, to the next stages of the product.

 So, so in the product life cycle, when the, when the idea actually spawned, uh, it needs to be accepted by the sponsor. The person who's paying the money in the, in, in, in the project is the deciding. So in the, in the first stage of the project, you need to make sure that money is on the table and the people whom you're selling the ideas to have a clear idea in terms of how much money is invested in, when it will be repaid.

 If the money is out of the table, out of the mind, then the idea will be free to spawn. If entrepreneurs are stuck with money, they will never be able to develop the idea. They will always be under pressure for the investor and they will not be able to take it to the next stage. Or the process will not be smooth.

 At every point, you need to know how much money is there, how much money is required and whom you need to repay. And the people who are giving you the money. Are they your parents? Have you earned them or are they investors? Uh, how hard they are, are the cutthroat. You need to have the profile ready. So once this idea, once the idea stages are created and the chapter is done and the sponsor has given a sign off, then it becomes a smooth battle.

 The 50% of the battle is won. So once the idea, uh, once the sponsor funding. Done. And the idea goes to the market or goes to the, goes to the lab. Uh, it gets generated. It gets tested in different environments.

 And once you have your niche audience, then you create those pockets of customers where you can fall back, retest your ideas, reaping them at the market, penetrate new markets, uh, go to new markets, select a market strategy, uh, and then make sure, uh, the, the profits are taking. So this, this is the different stages, which I talked to my students in India and a lot of entrepreneurs in India, I think, uh, once you're able to master the product life cycle and, and the idea life cycle, and then you will be able to do more projects easily.

 At first, it's going to be difficult. You will have challenges, people bringing you down competition, trying to kill you before you can come to the market. People won't allow you to even. Not, they will give you any support. Your family may be naysayers, so you need to be really hard at it. Like mark Zuckerberg, you might have good cases.

 You might have people praying to attack your lab. So you need to keep going persistently. So I'll stop here. Thank you for letting me contribute. Sorry for a long time. Thank you. yeah. I just want to pull, you know, something that you said out and, you know, the way I think of it is, you know, many of us, either we have our we're in the process of raising money.

 Like something that you put there is so critical is having that open communication and honest, you know, expectations that you've set with your investors. Like really that's like absolutely critical that can just like ruin everything, not just the business. You know, I I'm sure everybody here would agree is any investor you bring on you.

 You want them to be happy. You want them to feel like they made a good decision and invest in projects that you're leading in the future. So really working beforehand and you know,

 not going sideways on them. It's just not fair. There's a lot of hard conversations, obviously that you might have to have, but it's better to be open, honest and transparent than mislead them. You know, they've put a lot of trust in you and call and I see you're off mute. I know you had an experience in the last few years with a project that you invested in, the folks went sideways.

 Like I'd love to hear your thoughts on, you know, you're somebody who invests, like how do we like keep on good terms with our investors? Oh, wow. That's a, let me think about that. Um, I do believe setting expectations is very important. I know with.club, we had a model whereby we would lose money. We lost money for the first five years in a row.

 It was an occurring revenue business. And every year the, the, the, the numbers would move by about a half million to a million dollars towards profitability and into profitability eventually before we sold it to GoDaddy. But setting those expectations was very important. Um, the one thing I will say, um, that might help also with investors is something called stage gates.

 And I did this with a company called shareholder blockchain and still on the web right now. Um, and so it's a bit of an embarrassing story, but in the case of shareholder blockchain, uh, we decided to launch a platform to manage private stock. And the, uh, we set a stage gate here was the first round of funding.

 It was about $50,000. And I said, well, I want an MPP. For $50,000. And I had two individuals running it, a programmer and a lawyer, and they went and they set off two and a half months, three months later, they came back and they're like out of money and they didn't have the MVP. They had something, some other product or some other thought thoughts and some patents.

 And I said, guys, I'm shutting the company down. I was clear, I set a very clear stage gate. And if, if we're going to hit it, we had to either massively pivot or I was going to shut it down. And I think with investors, having those stage gates, those goals, and they don't need to be like massive goals. We're talking about, if we don't hit this stage gate, we're either.

 Or we're going to shut, shut this operation down or this idea down. Uh, the other thing that Hitesh I liked that you talked about was this early proof concept. Uh, we had a, um, a product, one of our companies. I won't mention it because I'm not certain not quite ethical, this particular practice was, but, uh, what they had done the individual had done is he went on Facebook and started promoting and advertising and selling this product to see what our ROIs return on investment he could get from the advertising.

 Once he discovered that he then cancel all the orders, um, and determined whether or not based on that early proof, that he should manufacture design and manufacture that product. In that particular case, he did decide to do that. It turned out to be a big hit. So if you can establish an early proof, that is something that can help address.

 Yeah, I think that was really smart of you calling and, you know, I was, you know, peripherally close to it, the situation, it was hard, it was painful. Like you hate to like, as an investor, so to speak, you know, pull the rug. But you know, if you can, and if you can't trust, you know, who you're giving your money to.

 And I don't mean this in a negative way towards those folks, but I mean, in a communication way, um, we actually had a session with Mr. Wonderful from shark tank on here on startup club a couple of weeks ago. That was one of his number one things that I really took away from the session. He was like, I understand, I understand that you're going to be losing money.

 Are your projections for. But if you're not communicating this with me, and I'm finding this out at the last minute that we've got a serious, very serious issue because your investors want the opportunity to help. They, they know it's risky. So I think, you know, honestly, what's your investors and really establishing and picking them that relationship is important.

 All right. Um, sub-product, we'd love to hear your idea where you are and what your question is.

 um, if you're there, you need to unmute, okay. Okay. Hi Michelle. Hello? Yep. Okay. So, okay. All right. So, uh,

 So I'm able to get in. So Subrata are you able to speak now?

 The problem here? I keep rolling. I got you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. So yeah. So my question here is, you know, for example, I have these, don't do an idea last week. Now, if I take another idea in the same space, which is not my idea, but for example, if I talk about solar energy, now, if I please don't do solar energy, what should be my next steps?

 You know? Uh, uh, so as to what should be the next matrix I should have, uh, to be able to pursue this idea of mine and how do I, so that's what my question is, you know, one of the use of solar energy, is that correct? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So, so one of the things I would recommend, um, I mean, I don't know if you've, you've met ed a bit, by the way, she's.

 On this, this code club has app and she's in the solar space. He's a solar printer, solo solar, not a solo, a solar entrepreneur. And she'll be great to give advice. You should definitely just, just type her name in and follow her click on her bell or whatever, but she's really good at the solar space. The idea of when you're early on with these ideas, the idea of surrounding yourself with a group of advisors, whether they're through clubhouse or whether they're through people, you know, um, you know, obviously you want to try to develop a trusted circle.

 Um, and those advisors are people that you can really bounce your idea off. It can really sharpen the sword. I know I ha I belong to an organization called EO and every month, but the eight of us meet and talk about our different business ideas and our businesses and whatnot, and we help each other. I think it's important to build a circle around you.

 Jeff, do you have anything else to add? Yeah, you know, one of the, the, the suggestions or tips I would add when you're bringing an idea to launch is, you know, Colin mentioned having trusted advisors. In addition, you want those advisors to be people who have. And understanding and an interest in the space you're going into, not just family and friends, because family and friends are inclined to give you positive feedback, which is not always truthful feedback.

 Um, so one way to do that is to establish potential partnerships early. So I was involved in a company a number of years ago called bar point.com. And when we started that company, you know, very early on, we had a very, very, very primitive sort of proof of concept that we had spent a little bit of money developing.

 Um, but we wanted to. See if this idea would take off and we were, the, the idea back then was in the barcode space. So, uh, bar point was, was, uh, uh, a platform where you could enter the barcode number for any product on your mobile phone. And this was before smartphones and get back product information, product reviews, comparative pricing, et cetera, and even purchase from certain vendors.

 So we went to symbol technologies, um, which at the time was the leading manufacturer. Barcode scanning hardware. They're now owned by Motorola. And, um, we actually found someone within the cymbal organization to sort of be an advocate for what we were doing. And we kind of pitched them the idea. They really liked it.

 They thought it would be beneficial for barcodes. And they almost became like a unofficial adviser as we were developing things. And that eventually led to a formal partnership and eventually an investment from symbol, but having access to that person inside of symbol, inside an industry that was core to our idea, proved to be extremely helpful in helping us get it from that idea to actual launch.

 So looking for those advisors, not just amongst family and friends and trusted people, but from people who have an understanding of the industry, you're trying to get into with your idea. I think can be very helpful

 if I could add to that. I want it. So Collins started by talking about trusted advisors and Jeff really talked about how to make sure those advisors. Uh, a solid enough to give you honest answers and really give you, uh, information that helped to move the ball forward. A subreddit. I would like to ask her just to make this balance that you, um, need to be very competent in this process.

 And competence is not necessarily knowing everything, but it's knowing clearly what you know, and knowing what you don't know. And if you see, if, if somebody's starting to share something where you don't really understand, or it doesn't really make sense, do what I call poke the bees nest, where you post that business and ask more questions to get understanding and hug the bear, to make sure that you have clarity, because it's what I've seen so often is people will see there's something's not accurate, or they don't have enough information, but they don't really want to make waves.

 So they don't push any further to get more information. So for you to really move in the company, And what, you know, and, and be able to speak to that. And in what you don't, you know, you don't know have them, you know, if they're an adviser, then they should have the wherewithal to be at a, break it down to where you could understand it don't stand for less, you know, find other advisors.

 I that's amazing advice. And it really does speak to being very direct, right? Like you're really like empowering yourself so easy, you know, to let people kind of like talk over you. But, uh, you know, it's really confidence, right? I think God is really like that confidence. Like, don't feel bad if you don't understand or get where they're going, like really drill down.

 Absolutely you don't, um, you know, you don't have to know the information. You don't have to know anything about the information that they're speaking to, but if they're speaking to it in their subject matter expert or an advisor, they hopefully they have the wherewithal to bit of break it down to where you can understand it.

 And there's no harm in being able to say, I'm really not clear. This is not a place that I'm really as aware as I like to be. Can you help me to understand it? Um, they need to, you know, not have the pride and arrogance where they thought like, you should already know this and they should have the competence to better break it down at your level.

 So please don't stand for less than that respectfully and professionally. That makes me respect a person. Really. It does so great, great advice from, um, guy. Okay. Um, so I think, and excuse me, if I'm wrong, say young, I believe that you are next on the state. Hello, Michelle? Uh, yes, I am saying, uh, I'm currently attending a university in Paris, uh, but I've always had this idea of, um, starting my own business.

 Uh, and I want to ultimately establish a global brand, like a, that's like a fashionable gym brand, uh, that caters to, um, uh, fitness or lifestyle needs. Um, and I just, I just have a question about, um, so w like I, I have this idea and I've always thought that I should go to an MBA to find, um, where people could invest in my ideas, like to find investors.

 And I just want to know if that's a good idea or, uh, or if there are better ideas, I should go.

 You know, one of the things about starting a business is, um, early on is trying to prove that you have a concept that's investible. I would encourage you to try to at least develop some prototypes. Um, you may find that for your particular business, a Kickstarter campaign could work really well. And that provides some, some, some positive, um, elements of proof that you can actually, you actually have demand for your product.

 Um, but I would, if you could hold off getting investors, you know, it's a shame when you see the show's shark shark tank and you know, some of these deals, they take 20, 30% of the businesses for $50,000 and I'm thinking, do they realize that they just saw. I signed onto a 30% tax for the rest of their life or for the life of that business.

 Um, if you can prove the more you can do without getting investors the better off you'll be for the long run and the happier you will be if you come in, if you try to bring in money too soon, that, or if you tried to bring investors too soon, that can, can cause issues. I will say that there are government, a lot of different countries have different government grants.

 I know there's the SBA loan in the United States. Um, I think they call it something else in Canada. There are organizations that the governments, uh, have set up to support startups, and I would definitely research those if you're looking for. Yeah, I think Colin, Colin also brought up a very good point about having, um, a proof of concept.

 You know, the world has changed dramatically. When, when I, I mentioned the company bar point before when I was speaking, you know, when I was starting that company, you know, the tools to develop software didn't exist that we have today. So to develop an actual working product requires. Lots of time and money.

 So back then you could raise investment based on an idea that was written on paper, because you had no choice, you needed money to actually build some type of a proof of concept of that idea. And you needed a lot of money back then today. There's so many, you know, no code solutions and platforms and cloud-based platforms and, and API APIs and things that make it so much easier to develop at least a working proof of concept for your product.

 That is Collin indicated. You're going to be in a much stronger negotiation position when it comes time to raise money. You're also going to have a better sense, whether your idea is attractive to potential customers. If you first go ahead and build that working proof of concept and it does not require, um, the level of investment.

 Um, it used to, to put it in perspective. When we built bar point, we probably. After raising money spent probably nine months and six or $7 million to create something that today with the tools available, probably two smart people and $10,000 over a weekend could recreate everything we did for millions of dollars in nine months back then.

 So you have the opportunity now to develop something, to prove your concept without a substantial investment, other than time and energy. And obviously then, you know, the idea and the passion behind it. And, and it really puts you in a much stronger position, both to vet out, whether you have a viable concept that can attract actual paying customers, and also to put you in a much better negotiating position when it comes to raising funds, because you'll have proven that you have something that can work.

 So that's a really strong, I think the Collin brought up I'm Jeffrey and I'm done just to add on, you know, It's so different today. Jeff talked about the aspect of, it's easier to get these working prototypes, but we really are in an age right now for e-commerce where it's, what many people say it's the rise of the micro brands like people really?

 Um, if you're heading the demographic correctly in terms of what they find attractive, I understand you said it's in fashion. I'm assuming it's in clothes or something like this. Like there's so many ways that you can get a jump out there. You know, look at like, um, Allbirds shoes, for example, would be an example of a micro brand.

 We run two eCommerce companies, two that are micro brands. One is Paul paw.com. The other one is me. Ellington's like, you can get out. And it doesn't cost too much, um, set up an e-commerce site via GoDaddy or Shopify and, you know, get to market without a massive investment. And guess what? It's very difficult right now.

 I think most people know this to manufacturer and pull goods out of Asia, just because of the pandemic. And it may be that way for another year. So you may want to consider, I'm not sure where you are in the world. I'm looking to see if you can locally source, right. A quality, you know, line fashion line and get up there with the Shopify.

 That's what I personally would do if I were you given what I know about you, which is, you know, a small and then you, you know, the next step is like, can you like, do you have the chops? Or can you partner with somebody who can get in there and do some digital marketing to pull in some audience? Because if you can prove that you can spend money on marketing and make more money.

 Oh my gosh, you're so much more attractive for investors because investors, you know, don't, oh, it's, it's a little different these days, right? They might fall in love with what you're doing, but if they don't believe, and they don't have that belief that they can throw money into you, right. For that production run for that marketing campaign and make more money, it's just not gonna happen.

 Like you, you could just really get ahead of the. I just like getting, uh, you know, just get going. Michelle's finished. And you also talked about a global brand and you want to launch a global brand? Well, um, I have a company I invested in, uh, , uh, little Roberts, uh, runs it. She's actually spoken on the show.

 Her tactic early on was to go local to, you know, even though it's a national product that she sells, she was able to really connect well, the local media and get established some local PR it's hard to sort of jump right away to that national stage and get the publicity. I know something to do. We see that sometime, but you know, shows like shark tank and you know, and other other areas, but, but consider local PR as well.

 That was all amazing advice. Thank you very much. Thank you for sharing. And we'll be interested to know what you decided. All right. So we are serial entrepreneur club. We're here every Friday at 2:00 PM Eastern time. Um, please just remember if you are speaking, this is being recorded and there is a podcast that we have launched.

 Additionally, we have amazing speakers, um, and amazing audiences every single day of the week. So be sure to go to our website, startup.club, that's www.startup.club and sale up for email. And we also have a very cool calendar, um, that we have loaded up to the site and you can even save it onto your own personal calendar.

 So on that note, in addition to this show being. I'm happy to be able to mouse that Mr. Wonderful of shark tank is actually going to be on start-up club, October 28th at 3:00 PM Eastern. He actually is doing a really cool thing. Um, they had selected a group of ladies, I think about five ladies in tribute to breast cancer awareness month that he is going to listen to their pitch and give them feedback.

 Um, we're super excited about it and we hope that everybody can join. Okay. Um, we have twenty-five minutes left. We ended at the top of the hour. So let's go to our next speaker here. Dhruv. I hope I said that, right. We'd love to hear your products where you are and what your question is.

 So I'm already going. Yes, please go. So I've got list of problems, sorry. Uh, I have got a list of problems and I wanted to know that how do I encounter that dilemma launch? If that's a valid question, if you want,

 um, how do, how do you go to launch? I don't think I understood your question. Oh, I'm sorry. I mean, uh, how do I encounter the problem and, uh, move forward?

 What is the problem? Do you have a specific problem Dhruv that you're facing? Yeah, I mean, I've got a list of problems, like, uh, uh, I wanted to work on cross border payments and, uh, how do I encounter that problem? I wanted to use, uh, the base called, uh, the base of the technology I wanted to use was a block.

 Okay. That's that sounds cool. Um, I actually thought of the same idea myself years ago, and I think the currency rates, uh, in, uh, between Canada, the us is just criminal, but what these banks are charging, I think what you've identified right there as the smartest thing, any business idea is to figure out what problem are you trying to solve?

 And the problem here are those high currency rates. And, uh, you're going to be challenged with problems. It will happen. You will have a hundred different challenges and problems. And if you get into a space like that, that's a little bit more regulatory. The first thing obviously, obviously, is to really learn the space, learn it inside out.

 So you know, it try to understand it. Uh, and then as entrepreneurs, we have to find ways around those systems. You know, when scoober started, I could only imagine. People were saying to them that, you know, you can't do this, this is illegal Airbnb, the same, you know, there are regulations around that and you know, it's going to be challenging, but I would say just one, learn the space really well, and to keep on finding ways to get around some of those regulations, but try to work with the government as much as possible.

 Yeah. That's um, an admirable cause and we wish you the best. Thank you for speaking. All right. So let's go to Nicole. Nicole, what is your idea? Where are you at and how can we help you?

 Um, Nicole, you're on mute if you're speaking. Okay. Let's go to bright, bright. We'd love to hear your idea where you are and how we might help you. All right. Thank you so much. I'm really, really excited and I'm in price for the opportunity given I am in Ghana, west Africa. So I have this idea that I've developed.

 The products is a school management platform that collects data about the way school operates and analyze the data. And we lunch about lunch. It's about a month, few months ago, but we have only hardly one school subscribing to it. And all the efforts we make into other schools, they seem like. Is it going to improve the child's academic performance?

 If not, they don't seem to appreciate the fact that they can digitize their operations. And sometimes it makes me stress, like, am I at a right market? Is there money here? Should I move on to another kind of product idea? And I don't know how to like, manage that kind of situation. And so any ideas will be really, really appreciated.

 Thank you. So, um, so first of all, congratulations on, on an idea that makes very good sense and has a good cause and purpose behind it. You know, I think it's hard to make judgements when you have a, a focus group of one. So when you have one school as your sort of test customer right now, it's going to be difficult to gauge whether the feedback you're getting.

 Is unique to them and their particular perspective or point of view, or if it's something universal that that other potential schools would have. So I think, you know, one recommendation I would have, would be to try as soon as possible to get at least a sec, excuse me, a second or a second and third trial school on board so that you can compare the feedback from more than one source and see if yes, if they all are consistently giving you the same feedback and, and two or three schools say that, you know, we're really not that interested in this because it's not moving the needle on the education side, then that's going to be a good indication that that may be you aren't, you know, you're solving a problem that doesn't exist from the point of view of your potential customers.

 It's going to be hard to know that for sure. When you're. Polling, basically one person. And even if you can't get other customers, maybe you need to spend more time speaking with other schools, walking them through what you provide, maybe getting a survey filled out from them and trying to gain more insights from that.

 Cause it's going to be hard to do it when you're just getting feedback from one potential customer. Jeff, I wonder if you could get PR like, do you think it's possible that he could create a white paper or a case study, um, contact a journalist talk about the 32% increase in marks or whatever it is, you know, whatever that benefit that you deliver to that one school.

 I wonder by having that one school, you can use. To maybe generate a study that gets attention. I understand what you're saying. You need a lot more before I think the, yeah, but I think if I heard correctly and maybe I didn't, I thought that the feedback from the one school was not positive. It was that they didn't really feel they were getting the benefit from this service relative to the increases.

 Obviously calling you you're correct. If you have even one customer and they're saying that your product or services has changed their business for the better, that's something you can definitely leverage as a testimonial, whether it's for PR or to gather other people. But maybe I misunderstood. But I thought what bright was saying is he has one customer and the feedback was not supportive of what the product was doing.

 Uh, correct us if we're wrong, right? Yes, definitely. So one school actually love it and then they've even paid for the subscription rates that we've given them. But then we decided to move one to another. And where that is where the onboarding process is taking long. They are saying that it is not like immediate need.

 So I wish the target was to have like 10 schools by the end of this year, but it's still slow in from one, one school to do that. I have an idea for you. Bright. I think educators are generally so passionate about what they do and helping other people here. Here's, here's an idea for you, like find some retired principals and teachers, and really do like a really like, those are subject matter experts.

 I think you could dive into those perceived issues and ideas you're having in a very cost-effective way with a group of people that are extremely knowledgeable and typically very happy to, you know, help develop things to better education. That's what comes to my mind. Cause I, I. I don't hear that. It's time for you to give up.

 I feel like you need to dig deeper. I feel like you're just starting. I like what Michelle said a lot. Um, and also I think, you know, Colin was, was right too. So if you have that one school that is giving you positive feedback, you can leverage that. The other thing you might look at is what, what are the attributes of the school that saw the benefits compared to the other schools?

 And maybe you'll find that, you know, maybe their schools of different sizes, maybe their, their infrastructure is different, you know, from a, from a technical perspective. And maybe you can learn by examining the differences between the school that liked the product and the schools that were having trouble on boarding and help you refine.

 Maybe, maybe your product is not ideal across the board for all schools, but maybe there's a certain type of school or a school with a certain profile. That's a better potential customer. And then you can target your efforts on going after those.

 Impressive. Thank you so much, everyone. I really appreciate that. And actually put into practice the ideas. Thank you so much. Thank you for sharing. Yeah, that was, that was good advice. Thank you. All right. That's safe. We're dying to hear about your product, where you are in that stage and any questions that you could share with us very much.

 Um, I have a low battery and if it dies, I'm going to be very upset, but I'm charging and hopefully I will ask, um, we're just starting out. Can you hear me? Okay. Even the look, look okay. So my background very, very quickly broadcast news, 20 years with CBS, I was very interested in getting environmental news on the air and had a really hard time.

 So I left to become an entrepreneur doing my own green radio shows, basically funding it, myself, waiting for the world and the media to catch up that time is now the climate is hot and rather than trying to get back on a mainstream news network platform where they're going to probably muzzle me. And if I'm lucky, give me.

 Our week, which won't be enough for our planetary pickle. I have gotten to know the experts in all green fields, not just climate oceans, extinction a to Z. Um, I have met up with someone who has a great URL that he's been sitting on green tv.com. He brought me on board to be chief content creator. I have so many ideas for programming starting to do with my own interviews, made the solutionaries bringing on specialty hosts that would bring in their own sponsors and guests, and we would split the revenue.

 Here's the problem. So I'm a journalist, I'm not a business person. We think we should be a B Corp because we do have a public benefit, social impact aspect. Um, but we don't know where to start to try to get, you know, a, a business person to help us. Um, and I know this is a big question and it's kind of late in your room, but any wisdom you can share, I'm really kind of at a loss.

 I know that we are feeling that the problem is that people want to know what they can do to help our environment, especially for their kids, grandkids. Nobody really knows what to do. And we talk about things that are practical, actionable, small, medium, and large. It's everything from what you vote to, what you eat to what you drive and putting the solutionaries together with the public, being a communication bridge, that's what I've been doing.

 And that's what I want to do on this platform. We need to ramp up quickly because it's late, you know, in, uh, in the environmental situation. And, uh, we, we want to wrap up quickly and we know we have something that's needed, but we don't know how to get there from here. Thank you. Okay. This is your space.

 Did you want to just jump in right away?

 All right. We left her phone. Michelle. It's oh, we got it. Yeah, we got it here.

 Yeah. Betsy, you're speaking my language. I am. Solar energy, renewable space. And that is a subject matter that I absolutely love to talk about. And I think there's so much that can be done and there's a lack of information, knowledge. So I love the fact that you guys have green tv.com. Great, great, great domain name to build upon.

 Um, I'm not sure if you guys are offering solutions, if you're educational based or what you're going to be doing, but solutions, always solutions. Okay. So solutions, there's a lot of things, you know, that a lot of people love to hate on the oil and gas industry. But let me tell you, the oil and gas industry is actively looking for projects to get and sink their teeth into, especially when it comes to renewables.

 People don't know that the Mo you know, that the big boys like Chevron and shell, um, are all highly vested in renewables. And so anytime you can take simple programming, right? Like find a solution for the toothbrush. Right? Think about it. The toothbrush, everyone in the world uses a toothbrush and toothbrushes.

 With the petroleum products. So the idea of solving one problem and the global impact that that would have, and possibly having and creating maybe a contest where people can submit different materials that can be used instead of using the petroleum products and getting some of these companies involved chemical companies, petroleum companies to also help because they have the funding, they have the money and, and it would, it would, it would lend light and it would also, it would, you would get funding, you would get all of the things that you want and need.

 I'd be more than happy to deep dive with you and go into much deeper detail. But if you start with like creating contests to solve. Like a toothbrush. Everybody uses it. It's so simple, but yet complex. And it would be something that would be very impactful and then take that to the next level and then create education, right?

 Like how do you educate people on their daily habits on their consumption? Because it's not just about energy, but people take for granted the fact that when you get home, you flip on the lights and the lights come on yet. It's coming at a cost. If you look at what the stock market is doing, if you look at what oil and gas is doing, if you look at all of these things, there's some really big trends that are happening and then the government got behind it.

 So you should have federal funds, uh, there's $700 billion for renewables and education is part of it. So you need to tap into that. Well, and we have no shortage of ideas and creativity and content. I've been creating content on environmental topics for 25 years. What we need is how to structure our business, how to make it something that's going to be sustainable.

 I do believe we can get advertising sponsors once we get going, but we need seed money to get more of a staff, to create more content, to bring partners in. You know, there's no shortage of content ideas. That's how do you, how do you grow this business quickly when there's absolutely a need and the team has got a good, great track record.

 One thing you could look into Betsy perhaps is, you know, you've got the domain, you've got your background on the content side. It sounds like you're looking for more of a business partner to handle that side of it. And you mentioned to being a B Corp. So there you could do some research. I believe that there are some venture funds that focus more specifically on making investments in B Corp and following more socially good businesses.

 And some of those. Firms might have, what's called an entrepreneur in residence program in EIR, where they have someone who's, um, on their team, who's looking for a business to run basically. So they're an entrepreneur looking for a business that the firm would invest in and then place that EIR in as the CEO or, or, you know, to operate that business.

 So you might be able to find a fund that has both an interest in supporting B corpse and maybe, uh, an entrepreneur in residence, looking for an opportunity that might be a fit for your concept for green tv.com. So that's something you might look into. Any idea what one finds those kinds of things? I think, uh, there's this thing called Google as a starting off point and just doing research, asking around spreading the word.

 I don't know if I knew of one in particular hand, I would be happy to recommend it. I just know that I've I know that there are these EIR programs and I know that there are firms that invest in, in B Corp. So if you can find one that has both, um, that might be a good opportunity. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

 So we'll look forward to hearing how it goes. Okay. Next we have Aetna, um, Edna, did you want to talk, did you have an idea you want to mention, or some something you want to give to us as a story for us to learn from.

 Well, I mean, I guess I would, I would share the fact that ideas are great. Right? And you can write them down on napkins, but at the end of the day, if you don't take an massive action, that's, that's where it'll stay. And so launching your business requires a lot of discipline and building a good strong team.

 Um, like you guys have built, you guys have an amazing team. And so I think it's, it's very important that you look at the team, the structure of where you're going and have a clear roadmap to where you want to go. Um, so that you can launch and take your business from ideation to launching. Excellent. We appreciate it.

 And we're glad that you were able to make it Aetna. And I agree with you like execution. Like that's the hard work that's sweat and tears, right? It's never understanding. That you extra, you know, just obviously there's a million probably strategies, but can you execute it? So thanks for reminding us of that Aetna, and I've really loved that.

 I want to put you back on what you stated, you know, when you move in that execution scheduling. So for all you who are listening any aha moment that you've received from this, don't just take that as knowledge is there. That was really good. And on Monday, not have a plan in what you're doing with that.

 And just say, I'm a, put it in motion, put it on the calendar and schedule being able to accomplish whatever you're looking to do because when you schedule it, then you can have massive momentum from there. That's a great tip. Um, guy, I know that helps me immensely. You know, we all have long lists to do, and we're all really busy, right?

 Like the hardest thing to do is prioritize. The hardest thing to do is. Doesn't mean, it's a bad idea. Right? But you, you, you will get nowhere if you don't. Right. That's right. And, and when you schedule it, it may not be now, but just put it on the schedule, but that's right, Michelle. Thank you. Excellent. All right.

 Last but not least, David, please tell us what your ideas, where you at and you know, is there anything we can do to help you? We'll do our best came jail. Hey everyone. Uh, thank you for letting me talk, actually. Uh, so currently, and most I want to share this a story and what I did. I start to almost restart at the same time and that driving me crazy as a woman, not only financially, but with the time.

 So to have the storage of I'm using the income right now to support the third one and the third store to have. Seven months in development. It is a marketplace and, uh, adds a moment. Uh, I like, I started talking with investors and very interested to get into the store to have and invest. You don't have any problem with the money, but the store asking many questions like, oh, what is the plan?

 What is we're going to do here? How much we can make. The main problem I have is that my most or the biggest three competitors like Z making the fish competitor live in around a billion dollar a year, the second one, few hundreds, the third one alone, 50. And most of them you've been in the market for more than the smallest competitor, almost eight years.

 The idea is great, but I believe like the persistence and working and making something to, to solve the issues you have in the markets is what we're trying to do. Okay. I am struggling a little bit working with investors because I really, I really, uh, yeah, we need some money to grow because financially I can support it for another few months or another year max, but not every phases because I have four phases of the project and that will need a lot, but working with them, um, I'm a little, like I heard a lot, they listen a lot.

 It will not be easy to work with them and keep myself on the track to bring something like in one ear into market. Yeah. Thank you. All right, Colin, why don't you take that one and then, um, wrap up the session for us please. Uh, okay. Uh, um, and if anyone else has any suggestions as well, feel free to jump in right after me.

 Um, you know, marketplaces are very tough as you already know, because it's like the chicken or the egg, right. You know, what can. No, one's going to go to a marketplace unless there's a lot of people on it. And if there's not a lot of people on it, they're not going to go to the marketplace. And if you've got three established competitors, what these investors are, they're nervous.

 They're nervous that you're not able to establish yourself. And I wonder if, if there's a potential pivot where you can, and you may have already done this where your marketplace is not the same as the other few marketplaces, it's very distinct from the other three marketplace is similar, but has these distinct differences or advantages?

 Um, the, I don't know if that helps at all or not. I do know that investors look for proof and they want to see that you're able to achieve something so that when they invest, they're simply accelerating your growth births, gambling on your success. Yeah. I'm going to add to. Couple of the largest marketplaces in the world.

 It's an interesting economic problem, right? Because you have to have supply and demand. That's not like, you know, couldn't say you're producing, so you really kinda need to figure out, like, what is the toughest part of that equation? Is that the supply side, getting the sellers on and I'm extrapolating a bit because I don't know what the marketplace is.

 Is, is it, is that the harder part of the equation or is it bringing the demand? Do you have the listings or whatever it is, and then I think that helps you prioritize. And I, you know, these things are big problems in a good way cause they can be as, as I'm sure, you know, big opportunities and then maybe you seek out.

 And usually on what they call it two sided economic model. Like what you're describing is if, for example, you need more suppliers to sign up and do their listings. Then I, then what you need to do is how do you subsidize that side of the market, right? How do you incent them to do listings? Because perhaps you.

 I have people I'm making this up, buying after market Marine supplies until you have the goods. So I would really like take some time thinking what is the most void thing that's keeping you from moving forward to being successful. And then you should think about how can you sort of speak inset and subsidize that side of the market.

 There's been a lot of really good studies on that. And I, I would encourage you to do some research on what you call is two-sided markets. It's like your E-bay. You know, kind of marketplaces because there's some, you know, it may be a big partnership. I worked on one where, what we decided was the most important thing.

 It was actually in the rental real estate business was we didn't have enough inventory and we couldn't get users until we had that. Right. It's a catch 22. So what we did is we struck some very sweet deals with a couple of very large rates, real estate investment trusts. Like I would kind of break it down like that.

 And at least you have a plan right. To attack to execute again. It's very hard, uh, business, but you know, the rewards can oftentimes be there. Thank you. Thank you so much, Michelle. Thank you calling actually. Yeah, you, you actually touch it. Some of the challenges, uh, we have, it is not issues, but it challenges, but this is what we actually working on.

 Thanks for calling again. I appreciate it. All right, Colin, tell us what's up next. And yeah, before we close out, um, I wanted to share briefly and it's going to go pretty quick. So you might want to catch it on a recorder as well, but I've, um, worked on a number of businesses, you know, probably 15 or so businesses.

 And we do, what's called a sticky note business plan. So imagine four sticky notes. You got one has a title of story. The other is a title of people. The other is money and the other systems. And on the story, really, I know, um, earlier on a guy had talked about mission, you know, figure out what your mission is first, what is your purpose?

 Um, the next is what is the space you want to own? So when I say that, think about Google and you want to be on the front page of Google. What is the space that you want to own, that you can get on the front page of. The next I like to do is I always have four key pillars when I started business and they are the values, the core values of the business, and they tend to be phrases.

 So I that's. The other thing that I would add at the beginning, the next is what Jim Collins came up with, which is the X factor. And the X factor is something unique and different. That gives you an advantage over other people that David talked about. You know what? I've got another year I can put into this.

 So what he's trying to identify as, okay, I've got a timeline, I've got goals. I call that stage gate one. And you know that video game, uh, where you're racing a car and you get extended time. I think every entrepreneur needs to set up a stage gate, identify the revenue, the profit, the units, the MVP like I did with shareholder blockchain.

 I said, this is how much money I'm putting in. I want to see an MVP. It didn't happen. I shut the company. On your people sticky note, um, you want to identify the people that you'll need to get to your first stage gate. What does the organization look like? Do you need a CFO? Do you need a lawyer? Do you need consultants?

 Who are the people you need to achieve that first stage gate under your sticky note for money, you're going to want identify how much money you need to raise in order to achieve that goal. And then under systems, I would encourage you to set up KPIs. Now I know that was very brief and quick. Um, but uh, if you have any questions you can either text me or email me.

 This is, this was a great show. I did bring guy on to the show earlier today because he, he has volunteered to help me out with next week's show, uh, which is really scaling your business and getting yourself out of the way it's all about next. Week's going to be all about. How the entrepreneur is their biggest enemy upscaling guy.

 Is that, does that sort of describe it or do we lose guide rate at that one moment? Okay. So yeah, they're, they're a guy. Does that sort of describe it, um, giving the entrepreneur, getting out of firing yourself, getting yourself out of the way so that you can scale your company. It's all about leadership.

 Absolutely. Carl and I, I'm excited about being able to, to, um, work with you and share with you audience, uh, next week in that regard. Yes. So we're looking forward to seeing you on serial entrepreneur next to next Friday at two o'clock checkout startup.club, sign up to the mailing list and listen to some of those recordings.

 I tell you there's probably about 30 or 40 recordings right now. And if you listened to every one that would be like getting an MBA in entrepreneurship, Collin C Campbell company.

Question 2

TRANSCRIPT: The Complete Entrepreneur – EP16: Persisting through failure / 10-14-21

Accepted Answer

Overall I'd rather make a dollar on my own than make $5 working for somebody else.

 Yeah. I'm with you on that. Like I said, I've been an entrepreneur all my life and I like that whole thing where you eat what you kill, you eat what you kill. The thing that really frustrated me. I remember my, I had my father one time. He, he offered me a job and it was a great job and a great package that they need to work alongside of him and all that extra stuff.

 And, uh, although that's fantastic. That's really good. But dad, I can't take it. He said, why is that? So you need to understand you didn't pay me a shell. And I'm going to get paid the same amount, whether I work hard or I slack off, I only get paid the same amount. And I said that you don't understand how much of it or nothing.

 That is, to me, that's just like the opposite to the way I think. And I just can't do it. That there's something about me being an entrepreneur, which I just can't do that. And, uh, and no bonus scheme is going to encourage me either. There's something about having capital value for me that just motivates me forward, drives me forward and so forth.

 But you know, that's the good side, but here's another story from my own life. Um, this is many years ago. Uh, my wife would go out to buy the groceries and, uh, she would call me. From the, from the checkout at the, at the store and she say, Hey, uh, I'm here. This is how much the groceries are. Do we have the money to be able to buy them for the family's food this week?

 And I'd have to quickly tick the bank account. And I go, ah, you're going to put like some things back and, or no, all is good. That's the other side of being an entrepreneur and the cost of that is phenomenal. And the stresses that can bring on a relationship is phenomenal. And, uh, yeah, thank goodness. That was like decades and decades ago.

 So I'm very happy to say goodbye to those times, but you know what? It's not all like dreams and unicorns and fluffy white clouds that they've been an entrepreneur and it's some tough decisions have to be made. And sometimes there's tough decisions saying to a loved one. You can't buy the groceries that.

 Yeah, we're going to have to work at something else. And I'll never forget when we went along and survived on, um, uh, my whiteboard, a big chunk of mincemeat. And we had mentioned me like every single night for dinner, because that was the cheapest thing that you could buy at the time. That's when the rubber hits the road for being an entrepreneur.

 Does your dream still drive you through those sort of times? Michael? You know what? My biggest fear, you know what my biggest fear was when I first started the business. Yeah. It was embarrassment. Everybody said, don't do it. You should become a lawyer. You should do this. You should do that. I was so nervous of failure because of the embarrassment factor.

 Because let's think about when you graduate from college, you're like, yeah, if you fail, you know, you lose money. It's not the end of the world. You don't have a lot to lose. You got nothing. Anyway, I remember that line from Titanic. I got nothing to lose. I got nothing anyway. So, you know, It's true. Uh, you know, it's, but it's the embarrassment factor and that's a component for startups, or if you're thinking of doing a startup, is it really doesn't matter what people think and, you know, that's something that shouldn't be about.

 Yeah, it shouldn't be a fact that the column, but it is a factor let's face it, it is a factor for many people. Uh, I'll never forget another time when this was around the same time as that for the story I just related where, um, I had my three kids in the back of a bright yellow Mazda, one to one, and my wife was there and we would drive around this, this, this car and people like daresay friends, w quotation, max would ridicule the me saying, ah, you're driving your naughty car.

 If you don't remember naughty from long time ago, it looked like that. And people would just, um, they'd look at you externally. And they judge you. And they, they don't realize that the harm, those words can do, even, like I said, even loved ones or whatever. And the humiliation of that from going from, I went from being worth $30 million.

 One day, literally to minus half a million dollars the next day. And it was a tough, tough time for me and Collin. I understand what you're saying there, and I really love what you're saying, um, and everything, but it's really tough, sir. Ravina look welcome to the stage at the complete entrepreneur. It's great to have you here.

 So how do you, is it really worth it? Like how do you wrestle with this whole issue? Ravina I was actually hoping to find the answer here because, um, uh, I'm, I'm a first time entrepreneur and it's been, uh, I don't think I've ever known so many highs and lows. Um, so I mean, you you're, you know, you're feeling really excited about.

 At, when you wake up in the morning and then something happens by lunch and then you're feeling all the way down, then it's something takes you right back up. And it's just like, it's an insane, like within a day, it's not even a years journey. So, um, especially through the pandemic, when you, when you've kind of seen everybody, you know, focusing on mental health and being like, you should take a break and it's like, but I can't.

 Cause I got to keep going. Um, and I don't get to clock out. Like I think Michael mentioned. Um, so I was actually, uh, wondering at what point you felt like this was, you know, w what, what, what sort of sign are you looking for that, oh, what keeps you going actually is what I was hoping to find in this room.

 Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah. I actually had this conversation with a, with a person this week. Uh, they, they asked me that exact question, what motivates me and what keeps me going through those tough. And I said to them, it's the future. I have a very, very clear vision, a very clear picture of the future and at what gets me going through those tough times.

 Yeah. And, and progressive me forward. But the thing is though, for an entrepreneur, the reality of the present can sometimes get us out of alignment with where we're going on their future. It'd be like with a telescope, you can just a telescope looking at the stars or something like that. You can just knock it out of a line a little bit.

 And suddenly you're seeing something completely different and you've got to be constantly. I find for myself, I've got to be constantly looking at my vision at where am I headed? Cause that's the picture, that's the dream. And it quite often, it's not a vision of a, um, of how much money or anything like that.

 It's a vision of what do I want to create? It's a creative process. Yeah. I love the way. Ravina you talk about this rollercoaster? My God wake up in the morning, like noon. It's like, oh my gosh, we're doing so well. And then by three o'clock, oh, we lost a big customer and it happens day in, day out, week after week.

 And, uh, you know, it can, it, especially if you're your family watching the rollercoaster. I mean, I've tried to, I've done my best to try to shield them from the rollercoaster, but it is a roller coaster. Right. And I think when people look at you from the outside, it's a bit like, are you sure this is what you want to do?

 And then it's not just the ups and downs, but it's also every day having to defend what your, your vision is to a different person every day, because people are watching you. And, um, I don't know. If you are, if I know that having a co-founder now would probably be very helpful and I'm a solo founder, so I don't even have that sounding board, um, where you, cause you have to keep it together all the time.

 So it's it's up top and which is why I thought maybe this room would be helpful with that. Yeah. Well that's exactly, Ravina what we're here for is to explore this and to pull it apart, because let me tell you, it actually is really tough at times, like 90% of startups fail 90%. So for those of you in the audience here, and you're thinking, I'm like, oh, I really want to go into a startup.

 Just think about the cost here, but then think about what is your. What is your vision? Because let me tell you, that's where it gets really, really interesting is that it's that, that, um, creative tension between those two things is your vision where you are presently and where you want to go. And like Steve jobs said, it's the vision that motivates him.

 It's not a pay packet. It's not a great sum of money. It's not, it's not anything else. It's the vision that motivates him. And that's the thing that, and that does it for me. Michelle are going to say something that, yeah, I mean, for me, Ravina like I'm involved three companies, one of them, I completely run on my own.

 And that's the one that gets like the less amount of tension. And I feel your pain, like. Yeah, I, yeah, I'm like constantly worried. So for me, it's just like, I feel like, you know, I actually took on investor money and I feel a strong sense of obligation to do the best I can to get it to a certain level.

 But on the same hand, I'm constantly, um, I'm fortunate and I really suggest that you find some people just doesn't need to be many, one or two people that you really trust that you can talk to about business. Obviously, you know, we have, you know, boyfriends, girlfriends, whatever, but I mean, somebody you can really talk to that has good business sense to, you know, give you ideas as well as be really honest with you for me, you know, I'd constantly.

 Okay. All right. Is this idea that I have? Is it valid? Right. Like, don't just keep going on if it's, if it really is not something that's validated in the marketplace. So there really isn't an option to become profitable. Um, so, you know, from, like I said, for me, I'm constantly challenging myself. Okay. Why are you doing this?

 Is this still a good idea? Like your time is valuable. Your investors have like trust in you. You have an obligation to them. I have an obligation to my family. They're involved in it too. They also don't want me to fell, but for me, I have a lot of pride around. I don't want to like fail. Right. I don't want to disappoint everybody.

 Like that is the worst thing ever for me. I don't even care. Like if I like invested my money in that, I lost it for me. It's more about like, I won't let everybody else down. Who's believing in me, but I it's. It's a balanced. And I strongly encourage you to get one to two people, maybe three, if you're really lucky that really understand business, that will just give you pure unselfish, you know, advice and help you validate the idea, whether it's worth you continuing.

 So for me, I'm coming back to your question, Michael, is it worth it? You know, I'm later in my career, I'm a little bit older. Um, for me I would feel completely unfulfilled as a person. If I wasn't trying to do my own thing, I'm a very independent person which actually, you know, has its pros and its cons. It kept me in the corporate world probably longer than I should have been.

 Um, but I would say to you and encourage you to just value yourself so much that you really seek out somebody and value yourself so much, that you're always testing that idea. And that's my advice. Yeah, Michelle. Great advice. Fabulous advice. We're just going to come to admin a second, but just before we do, and I'm Michelle, I've got a good challenge here on some things here.

 Or did you ask, did some, some, um, uh, maybe deeper questions. You've talked about some great advice and that's fabulous and some of the things you do, but what is it that drives you to be an entrepreneur? You know, that everything is against you. You know, you can go along, be incredibly successful, say in the corporate field and everything like that, again, in your payback.

 Well, but why didn't you choose to be an entrepreneur and run three businesses. One that gets, uh, uh, you're a hundred percent in, but gets the least amount of your time. Like, what is it that keeps you motivated through those highs and lows versus the merry-go-round of, um, of corporate life is such, what is it that the.

 Yeah, I think when you said highs, like I'm addicted to the highs and I want to be successful, not only for myself, but you know, Colin can tell you, right? Cause I work with him on his companies is I'm really invested in people that work really hard with me being successful as well as myself. So it's about, I'm very much about not just myself, but I want to work with people that I love working with.

 And I want us all to be like wildly successful and more than anything happy and having fun and making money, obviously. Yeah. I I'm really interested in to hear you say the order of that you want to work with people, great people. You want to be able to have some fun and everything, but it was almost like an after Saul was making the.

 That was like a sustainability issue. You've gotta be sustainable. Uh, and to be able to enjoy working with great people, everything like that, you have to make money as well. Is that the, yeah, I mean, when I was younger, obviously it was a little bit different, but yeah. I mean, I do want to feel like I'm rewarded for my time and that is a monetary thing, as well as some folks that I work with and I really do feel like that I can contribute to their lifestyle.

 And the fact of the matter is, you know, a big portion of that is about money. So yeah, it's, I don't know how to say it, but yeah, I obviously, when I say do a test, this is still worth it to me. The test is like, is it a commercially viable business? Because I personally believe if you know, I ha which I do and I'm fair.

 Have a group of very, very loyal people around me. It's, they're looking to me to have a viable financial business because they need to meet certain milestones themselves. So that's what I mean by that. Thank you for clarifying. Yeah, no, not a problem. Yeah. It's, it's an interesting thing because many entrepreneurs, right.

 Is that the way they handle the ups and downs is they actually look at the financial performance as more of a scorecard and that's, in some ways it motivates them. It's not just getting more each quarter or something like that. And setting quarterly goals and annual goals and all that sort of thing.

 It's the scorecard of, of motivating them and they use it like that. Um, and it's a really interesting thing. And so you, you, you speak to a lot of entrepreneurs and you ask them, so what were your numbers, um, this past week? And they'll be able to taste. Wide cause it's so front and center to the core of the motivation and it's not the dollars, it's the score, which is important for them, which I find really fascinating.

 But anyway, let's just move on right now. Adam, look, thanks for much for being here. And by the way, just before we, uh, have Adam share, if you're still in the audience, you think my God, this is an interesting conversation. I got some questions. Like, I mean, I'm getting one of the down spots of the rollercoaster and I need to work at like, how do I get through it?

 And things like that. Stick your hand up. We'd love to hear from you. It'd be great to hear from you, but in the meantime, Adam, um, love to hear from you on the stage. Welcome to the complete entrepreneur. Yeah. Thank you for having me on stage. What a wonderful journey this is. I want to say that I was, um, caught up in my Workday and hopped on here just at the right time, after a nice little promoter with, um, day.

 And I say tumultuous by becoming an entrepreneur from my standpoint, and being okay with the fact that those downsides are going to come and the upsides are going to come. So your highs and your lows, like you're talking about today was a manageable, extremely manageable, low. And there was something said to the effect of how do you manage and what is it?

 What is it? What, what is what's in it for you to be an entrepreneur? So for me today, when I realized that it just everything isn't, it seemed like overwhelming. It seemed bad. It seemed, this was the first time today to hear a group of mindset come together and explain. Everything. So concisely. And I just literally had the best laugh of my life when you can laugh in the face of your own adversary.

 And because it's a self, uh, self perpetrated adversary, like you're the low that you've reached in that certain circumstance, whether it was a financial or what, whatever it was, your own PR, you put yourself in that situation. So for me to overcome any doubt, any limiting beliefs, the set, and other as an entrepreneur, and just realize that no matter how low it gets, if you can find it in you to laugh in the face of what you've put in your own words, And overcome it and it just, maybe you're overcoming it by pennies or maybe you've overcome it because everything's relative.

 I had, I had one, one, uh, one of the best guys I've ever worked for. Um, and I I've worked for women that are equally as powerful as well. That's not what I'm saying. He said to me that it's all relative, Adam, it doesn't matter if you, if you're working with $10, 10,000 or 10 million, he's like, I've got bills, just like you've got, and I've got to make it flow just like you have to.

 So it's that for me, when you're in the face of the challenge, how do you handle the challenge is, and that's what it is. And then if you can rise above it and just laugh and be like, yes, I nailed it. I got it that time, baby. Let's go get. That's what it is for me. And I would just suggest anyone who has that, that missing feeling inside of them.

 And they walk in, they're looking for more. That's what it is for me. That's that feeling of that, that sense of accomplishment, accomplishment, where it's not managing it, it's controlling your life and putting yourself in a situation, a situation that was, I wouldn't say the demise, it I'm losing it a little bit, but do you see what I'm saying?

 And that's, that's what it is for me is that, that conquering feeling. And then if you can find people that want to do that with you, that's the best feeling in the world. Thank you for the mic. My name is Adam happy. Zachary Weiss. I relinquished the Mike, um, Adam, Adam, Adam. Wow. That was like a breath of fresh air.

 It was great. It was great in the face of adversity to go along and just lie. When you have a downtime, just a lot. It's like what a, what a great, great answer to, um, like I'm thinking of some of, some of the times in my entrepreneurial life where I literally be delirious with laughter I think, oh my gosh, can it possibly get any worse?

 And there's no other option, but just sit back and laugh at it. So if you were sitting in the audience right now and you're going through a tough time, I want you to do something for me and we've never done this before. If you're going through a tough time, I'd like you to go along and, uh, and click on the little hand button just for now, uh, to raise your hand, you're not going to be invited to the stage.

 And I, depending if you're going through a tough time, just click on that hand button and the next thing I want us to do,

 I'm sorry. The next thing I want us to do is to lie. It's just a laugh that they diversity. I just let it out of your system and just go do what Adam said. I just click on that little hand button there. Uh, like I said, we'd never done it. Okay. Once you've clicked on up then, uh, we'll. We'll just let it go from there.

 Um, and you can unclick that spine that's okay. But so Colin, have you been locked in the face of adversity? Yeah. Look, I like what Adam said there about, you know, you're, you're dealing with a failure and, you know, laughing at it or just celebrating the fact that you survive that or you survive that challenge.

 You know, we don't do that enough as entrepreneurs, you know, and I know I don't do that enough. I've been, I've been told that, you know, I'm always stressed, always worried, always, you know, thinking I gotta make it better and better. Yeah. I might've gotten. We don't celebrate our successes. We don't celebrate.

 I've never heard of this one before we don't celebrate. We survived a challenge. Isn't that amazing? I agree with you. I agree with, sorry. I interrupted there, but yeah, we need to celebrate our survivals. We survived these past week. We need to go along and celebrate that. So, so continue on, sorry. That's the first time I've ever heard that ever.

 And I just came up with it, like, just like that. And I just think that's pretty cool. Yeah. Thank you for that. It's a, I came up with it on the spot. Cause when you got, when everyone, ladies and gentlemen, we're talking here and I just kindly came to the rest and I've just laughed. I just literally had the best laugh of I've had in weeks because you all know the stress.

 You all know you're putting your all into this, that, that this bubble, blah, blah, blah. All of it. Just give yourself some credit.

 Just laugh at it, man. And it really just happened for me. So thank you. I appreciate everyone here. My name is Adam happy. Zachary Wise, that I'm so happy. Oh, Adam, it's great. That you're so happy because you know that the whole concept of I survived is phenomenal. It really is phenomenal as entrepreneurs, because let me tell you, I know, but you guys are like, but I sometimes feel like you get whiplash.

 Like you're dealing with one problem and you whip around, you got to deal with another problem. And people have said to me, Michael, what's your job? What do you actually do? I said, I'm the chief problem solver. And I need to go to the chiropractor all the time because I suffer from. Yeah, but anyway, thanks very much for that.

 That was a real jam, but Dana Jayna, it's great to have you on the complete entrepreneur. Love to hear about your thoughts on this topic. Hi. Yeah. Um, you know, this is such a great conversation and I think it's something that's not spoken enough about in the entrepreneurial world, because, you know, current online marketing is like, oh, become this rockstar entrepreneur or coach or e-commerce, you know, make a lot of money online and do it all so easily.

 But I think for any business owner, I've always worked for small businesses I do now. Um, and I've seen this in almost every business that I worked in and I've seen my bosses go through this. Um, and you know, I'm kind of experiencing it for myself right now, but for me, I do ask the question a lot. Like I'm always inspired to have my own business.

 I'm launching my. Second online business. And I think it's my fourth or fifth business overall. Um, and haven't found one that really works yet, but it's kind of just like, is it worth it? And is it good enough to want to be a part-time entrepreneur to always want to have a job because being an is easier and to have a business that makes good money on the side.

 Is it doable? Is that somehow cheating myself or not enough of the commitment? Because I don't know if I have the wherewithal to weather, the storms, uh, that entrepreneurs go through. Um, and so these are just kind of thoughts. Like, is this something I really want to do? Why am I always so inspired to have a business?

 Why am I so passionate about business? Um, and, and, and. I don't want to deal with the ups and downs that every business owner has. And it's, it's just something that I struggle with within myself. And I really appreciate this conversation being like the topic. Yeah. That's a topic I must've met with. One of the things we look at and the complete entrepreneur is not just the business side of being an entrepreneur, but the life side of being an entrepreneur, there's a lot of stresses and stuff like that.

 As you're talking about Dan. So Dan, to ask you the question, what is it that keeps you fascinated about business? What is it mostly it's wildly fun for me, and I love helping and teaching people about business. Um, and so that's what it is. I love that it's a form of creativity, I think is what it is for me.

 It allows me to express myself. In the world in a different way, and to also make money at the same time, I'm super optimistic about that and that it can business can change the world for the better. Um, and that's, you know, my background's in accounting, so in a very concrete, economic based way, um, you know, it, it can do a lot of good in the world and it can also inspire and shape shift the world in the ways that we want to see in a very concrete manner.

 Um, and I just get so excited about it. I love talking about it. Um, I exhaust my friends and family about it, um, and I've just always kind of, I was always that kid that had that entrepreneurial spirit, whether it was going door to door, selling tickets for whatever, or lemonade stands or clubs. Selling things.

 Um, I don't know. It's just, it's kind of within me, both my parents are entrepreneurs. Um, and yet I've always been told it's easier to be an employee and that's been my experience. You know, the money's better, the stress is less. Um, but it doesn't allow you that creativity of like personal expression. Well, what a great answer.

 Great answer. I was talking to a guide this week and he said to me, before it didn't exist and now it does exist. And he said, that's my answer. The fact that I get paid as an entrepreneur to be able to do something like that is just magical. Uh, but I, he was in it for the creativity is what you're talking about there.

 Well, fabulous. What a great time we're having today on the complete entrepreneur. So Allie, Allie, I'd love to hear from you, your thoughts on this on, is it really worth it? All this struggle really worth it, Allie. So great to hear from you. Welcome to this. Thank you so much for having me. Um, I've been in a lot of an entrepreneur entrepreneurial rooms, but I'm not sure if I've been in this one yet.

 So thank you for having me on the stage. Um, the last few speakers, especially Dana really resonated with me, um, especially the way Dana was ex uh, explaining how, since she was a child, she was always trying to, you know, have some sort of business and whatnot. Um, I've now I have the privilege of having a dad who had worked for other companies and then decided to go out on his own and start his own business, or, well, he actually bought a business from somebody else, but he bought, he had his own business and the most important thing that he ever taught me is that don't think that just because you're the boss, because you own the company that you don't have a boss.

 Because your boss is then the client and that's the toughest boss of all, because they have to be kept. They have to be kept happy so that everybody keeps getting paid. And so you can succeed. So I think that's actually what a lot of people miss when they go out into the concept of entrepreneurship is that you get to be your own boss.

 Well, that's not really so true when you think about it, you know, from the way my dad put it to me and it's always helped me in thinking that way, um, and having my own businesses. Um, so is it worth it? I mean, I find that the two businesses I have are totally worth it because I found a way to do something better for P for other people that follow with my passions and allow me to make money.

 My challenge comes in. Is in the way that, um, I'm full-time disability. I have many, um, co-occurring chronic pain conditions and such that prevent me from being able to keep a full-time or part-time job on a specific schedule. So, um, the two jobs that I have, or the two businesses I own have allowed me to, um, basically carve out my own schedule and work when.

 When my body allows me to, um, you know, one is a poker events business. It's the first one to ever specialize, you know, out of the casino event companies in just poker services. And the other is an eBay business where I sell rare items at the best prices that have been discontinued. So I feel like, you know, these are things that I like that are my passions, and I've brought them to other people in a way that hadn't been done before.

 Um, so I think it is worth it. It's just extraordinarily challenging if the management of time and trying to prioritize it. Yeah. The extraordinary, extraordinary, challenging that is, as you're saying, but calling you've got something to share about w what Allie does that talked about? I'm sorry. Was I off mute?

 Okay. Um, I. I think we all go through a lot of these types of situations and we need to give ourselves a little bit of room as entrepreneurs, as startups. Okay. And I do a lot of speaking at universities and, um, this month I'm doing another one at NSU. And the topic that I'm talking about to these startups is they have the idea they're launching the startup.

 Now it's an incubator program at, at NSU is you need to give yourself a little bit of room and I'm not just talking about room financial room. I'm talking about emotional room. And I'm talking about that reputational issue we talked about earlier, Michael. And I actually think that, so what I've talked about is this concept called stage gates.

 And you know what I'm talking about. If you've ever played a racing. Uh, car racing game, you know, those car racing games that, um, where you're driving for two minutes and then you hit the stage gate and it gives you an extended time to get an extra 60 seconds. So I encourage a lot of startups to think about setting up stage gates for each level of their company and try to envision their company at each stage gate.

 So that, so for instance, there was one company I'm doing right now where I set a stage gate of 50%. Um, it's a new company. Okay. But we're going to lose that. The revenue has to, um, be 50% of the total costs to operate the company for that year. And I set that date as December 31st, 2022. Okay. That's a stage gate.

 I'd set. So now I'm giving myself the flexibility, emotional, financial, et cetera, to say, okay, this is what I'm going to lose. Is. Now, if I don't hit that stage gate, that I either need to pivot dramatically, or I need to close and move on to the next concept. And I think when you start to set those sort of goals in your mind, and you, you you've clearly said, okay, I'm willing to put everything into this, into this venture, but at the same time, here's the limits by which I can operate.

 And if you do that, you now have the emotional flexibility to fail and succeed between now and your stage gate. Yeah, I think it's a great concept having their stage gates Colin. But can I ask a question maybe? And, uh, is that as you get towards escape gate, cause I remember playing those racing games and um, and as you got towards the stage gate, you've got the foot flat, the floor, you're trying to race the car as fast as you possibly can because you almost are gonna get there almost going to get there.

 And, but sometimes you don't and the game is over, but you've only missed it by a second. So what do you do then? Colin? Do you shut the door, shut the thing down or you reset or like, what is it you didn't do because you've missed your stage gate. Look, I mean, obviously everything in life is mental goals and you set these goals and you miss it by a dollar.

 Of course, you know, that's, I'm not suggesting you shut down your company or pivot, but I am suggesting that something went wrong with your business. And I am suggesting that a pivot I'm going to, I'm going to be devil's advocate here. Like you missed it by a dollar. Okay. That's fine. Okay. We can, we can forget a dollar, but where's the point?

 Where's the cutoff point? Is it, is it $10,000? Is it a half, a million dollars? Like, where's that point where you missed your stage gate, which you say, yeah, no more. What is that point? It's are these stage gates just fixed all entities we've created it constructed or are they for real, as entrepreneurs depressed?

 How help us manage stress or we, or are we increasing our stress levels and things like that to really get to that stage gate? Absolutely the real. And I've used them for compensation, for CEOs, for companies as well. You know, once you hit this certain stage gate, then you get X. Once we break, even you get X.

 Once we make a million dollars, you get X. Once you paid off all the loans for the company, you get. Um, they can actually, you can use stage gates for multiple purposes, but what I'm talking about here today is giving yourself that emotional room to be able to operate and then reevaluate. If you fail to hit your stage gate, that's what I'm talking about.

 Yeah. But do do entrepreneurs, do they deserve to have emotional room when they're trying to work out? If they can put food on the table, they still deserve to have that Micheal. We're all human. Come on stress. I know. You're just trying to, you're trying to push it like that. I like that, but that's all the stress that we go through and we don't give ourselves emotional room.

 We don't do that. What we do is we stress the fuck out every single night at three in the morning about what's going on that day. And that's damaging that. We need to give her call it. I completely agree with you. I I'm working. I work right now about 12 to 13 hours a day. I'm typically up at five 30 in the morning.

 Uh, I like getting up early in the morning because by getting up in the morning, I can work in the us time zone and I clicked the U S time zone. And then I, uh, I'll have a bit of a longer break at lunch, but, uh, I'm working in the European time zone as well. So I've worked 12 to 13 hours a day and it's not fun at times at time, he just going to say, you know what?

 I got a successful business. Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? Why, why am I, is it really worth it? Or do I go along and sell or I go on and take the foot off the accelerator. But what happens if I tip before after the accelerator and I miss my stage gate cause you're right, Collin, I've got stage gates.

 That I apply. And though they help motivate me to everything, but what happens if I take that foot off the accelerator, I missed them. And then there's the internal humiliation for me of, I miss my Stage-Gate, what do I do then? That's an interesting challenge, but maybe we can flip across the guy guy. Do you have stage gates there?

 Like, what is it about this that isn't really all worth it for entrepreneurs. Um, and, uh, is it worth it for them? So I'd love to hear from you guys, Michael, you know what I want to kind of piggyback on Collin and share what Michael Gerber said in that email and the E-Myth revisited. You know, most entrepreneurs go on business as, as technicians of some sort, whatever.

 However, they are a technician and they go in and then. They have no idea of the tomatoes waters that they have to, to navigate. And that if I could speak to my younger self and, and anybody here that starting in entrepreneurship or wanting to do that, we are, whether we're an entrepreneur or employee, we wonder if we're enough at some level in something.

 And as an entrepreneur is much like having short-run it's I mean, you have no, there's no rule book. There's no plan. That's really written to parent or to be an entrepreneur. And it's, there's, there's a lot of alligators in the water. What am I saying? What I'm saying is, as we struggle, if you're enough, I'd recommend.

 If I told my younger self, I would tell my younger self guide journal journal, um, first off, right? The business. No as much as you can. And then journal the journey every day, journal something. I accomplished this, I did this because for me, like, I'm sure if you stated, and many others have stated, um, you'll have a thousand things that you need to get done.

 You'll come, which is probably more than, you know, most people and you beat yourself down because you didn't get the other things done. So to journal, to collect data, look at track. Wow. I have succeeded there. Cause there's so many things that you have to do as an entrepreneur, you know, to be an employee.

 If I could put it simply, if I could just really put it simply you're doing what you're told, right? It's how you to drive a car. You did it and you drive the car, but to be an entrepreneur, there's no. You have to pave the road, didn't drive the car a little bit, paved some more road and get in and drive the car.

 You have all the arrows in your back. There's tons of things that you have to wear any level of it falls. You're done. So, you know, as we struggle with, are we enough? And that's some of what I heard Colin talking about. Are we enough Drontal and collect data so you can see, wow, I did get that done. Even though I didn't get the other things done.

 There's so many things I wanted to share, but that's just start with that one. Well, that was great guy. Like, I love your analogy of the road. Uh, I'm getting that car and driving down the road, you know, it only got to go on, pay the road. You've got to put the gas stations in as well. And by the way, if you didn't put the gas station at the right point of time, you're going to run a gas and you're stuffed.

 Yeah. The policies and procedures, you know, all the guard rails and everything, all the rules of engagement, the whole nine, you have to do it. Yeah. And not only that you've got to then service the car every now and then it gets you to where you're going to have someone else comes up to you and saying, oh, it's okay.

 I've looked at all the car to the car for, you know, it's your job. And, you know, there's something that is really, really spoken about. Um, we know entrepreneurship is that your alone in the car, most of the time you're alone, you can't go along and say, well, the boss can deal with this. Or someone else can deal with this.

 The other department can deal with this or whatever your alone driving in the car. And you've got to work at the problems of how to actually get the car from point a to point B. And this is an interesting thing, guy. I want him to understand what's it like being alone in the. Great. So, you know, if we had to talk about what it takes to be an entrepreneur, let's put it in five tiers, you have to do whatever level of production you have to do to maintain your organization, your enterprise, right?

 You have to move in human resources and all the things that are relates with each of those were production and human resources, hiring and firing and pain. You have to move in accounting and finance. You have to move in marketing. You have to move in sales to be an entrepreneur, especially in a startup.

 Well, all of those functions have many sub functions under one. And I would say all of those are glass balls. Meaning if you drop any level of that, Right. Like, did you drop, you know, the main components in human resources and don't pay your people, it's over. If you don't produce enough, it's over, what am I saying with an employee?

 Many times they may have glass balls, but most of the time they have rubber balls. Meaning if they draw up, somebody else could actually pick up the slack or do what's needed. We have so many glass balls. And who do we talk to about that? You know, if you're, unless you're an entrepreneur, if we say that you don't even have a clue on what we're saying, right?

 So it's, it's a lonely road in many ways, but that's the one that came top of it. Top of mind, you know, as soon as you ask that question. Yeah. One of the things I love about this room, I must admit, is hearing from people like yourself, guy, where you're talking about, like, it's, it's, it's the journey side of entrepreneurship where you talk about, yeah, we got glass bowls and you know, you can't, you can't learn full.

 If you don't pay your employees, guess what? They're not going to be there to know. And you've got to get that cash through the door. And even though you've done the work, you know what you got to invoice the work and you got to pray like anything to the person actually is going to pay you for the, for the work, because you got to take that money and you've got to go along, pay other people or pay suppliers.

 All those things are just compounding on you. Absolutely. Yep. And that's it, Michael, what I mean, you could have, you could have a county tight marketing type sales type production type, most of your human resources type. But like you say it, if you don't pay the people that you need to pay, let's say you pay them, right.

 Let's say you have wonderful employees, but you have one employee where their attitude is. Uh Fower and it's, it's, you know, I call it refrigerator management. When you have a rotten attitude or, or dysfunction friction in your organization, that's making everything else go sour. Right? So, you know, there again, glass balls, you can have many glass balls in the air, juggling them beautifully, but if one drops that's a concern.

 So, and that's a lonely lonely road. And who do you talk to about that outside of an entrepreneurial coach? Somebody that can completely relate in that, I would say that's rare. Yeah. And I think it's one of the things we try to make a difference in this room. The complete entrepreneur is talking about these issues because they're real, you're not even just driving a car quite often.

 You're driving like a semi-trailer or something like that. And you're on a long-haul drive. You're going across the country around the world and it's, um, it, it's just tough. It's tough doing that. And so Michelle, you're listening to the guy here, you're running three businesses, you're doing all these things.

 You've got human resources and all extra staff. I'm going to ask you a specific question, Michelle, how do you manage being lonely when you're the one driving some of these things and you know, it's a long whole journey and you're getting tired of the wheel and you're saying, oh man, am I going to be able to make it to the next gas stop?

 So what do you do. Well, I don't feel lonely. I just feel like maybe fatigued. So for me, I just, like I said, I just really like lean on my trusted advisors, my partners, whatever it is, like I'm very communicated in that helps me. Um, I feel like we, yeah, we create a culture. That's very open where people can discuss.

 That's how I enter. That would be the death of me is that if I couldn't talk and couldn't like work through ideas and emotions with, um, my fellow workers and investors, whatever it is. Yeah, I think it's so important to be able to talk and things like that. So I'm going to ask you another question. I know you're a moderator human shell.

 Um, but do you find that even in some of the rooms and in clubhouse where we're trying to deal with issues, I'll pick on the complete entrepreneur and hearing like guy and Dana and Allie and Adam and people like that in, even in this session, does that really help you reflect on your own journey? Yeah, it does.

 I mean, I love hearing from other people and their experiences what's working for them. It actually, it inspires me and I run on inspiration. So, you know, it's not that I'm looking for like an exact answer. Like I'm feeling really like desperate. I, you know, for me, I want to hear what works for other people so that I can put that in my mind and it gives me a constellation.

 It really does. Yeah. Uh, I must admit like another way of viewing an entre. Entrepreneurship, I find is like, you're in a desert. And, uh, what you need is that droplet of water on your tongue. Cause you're dying of thirst at times. And I actually find this room here is a bit like that. It's like the droplet of water and it really does energize me and really gets me going to games.

 I'm hearing other people's experiences. And I hunger for that as an entrepreneur, quite often, we get told so many times why you can't do something and, and you don't know how to express yourself, your friends who've got jobs and what it means to be an entrepreneur. And then I come to a room like this and it's like, man, I'm with I'm with I'm with.

 I'm with people. You're actually understand what's going on. I'm with people here, understand that we're on a rollercoaster and it actually, although the host of the show, let me tell you, it makes such a difference to me. And I want to think each and every person here that you shared, um, today, because it really has made a big difference to me, how you call it?

 Like, how do you find that? Like, is it rude like this hearing other people as it make a difference to you? Well, I know Michael, you say this is your favorite room, you know, room per week. And I host the serial entrepreneur hour every Friday at two o'clock, but I have to say, I enjoy this room the most. And if you've listened to the prior shows, we do have them recorded on up.club.

 Uh, I'm the anti complete entrepreneur. And if there's anyone who needs to be in this room, it's me. Cause I need to, I need to learn how to balance my life and I have. Years ago, like five years ago, I had intervention with my EO group. They're a group of entrepreneurs who we meet once a month. And, uh, they said con you know, you're, you're, you're just going too far in one direction.

 I want to say a guy is, uh, I met him like a week or two ago and another session. And he gave me an idea for the Siri launch per hour, um, an idea for a topic. So tomorrow two o'clock Eastern, we're doing from idea to startup. We had a very successful session last week, where people came on and talked about how they get ideas, moved to startups.

 And then if you are stuck somewhere, what we could do the panel could do to help, but, um, Gaia, hopefully you're still available, but next Friday, we're talking about getting the entrepreneur out of the way so that, um, they can scale their company. You, do you remember when we had that conversation guide? I know we've been texting back.

 Yes, I do. And I will be there with bells on I'll be there tomorrow and Friday and next Friday as well. I look forward to it. That's awesome. Like the power of this community, that in the giving and everything, and with all the people on stage, uh, we are recording these sessions. These sessions are going to be moving into podcasts.

 We are even@startup.club. We're even talking about doing a 24 hour radio station now. Um, so there's a lot of really cool things happening, Michael. I know, I sort of like ending it before I should have ended it the session, but, um, uh, we're entrepreneurs. Great. That's great. Yeah. It's um, I think that when we look at, say, start up like club as an entrepreneurial activity, it's going through the stages.

 It's going through the highs and lows. Um, let me, let me tell you, it really is. And, um, even being one of the hosts on one of the shows, you know, each week, it there's. Um, and there's a journey and it's exciting and it's exhilarating. It can be like pretty tough at times. Like, uh, my cell, I was, I was getting, I got up really early anyway, but like jumping on and sort of, uh, trying to be, uh, all upbeat and everything like that at 7:00 AM in the morning, my time here in Melbourne Australia, which was pretty toxic too in the winter time.

 Yeah. And, um, but you know what, that's what it means to be an entrepreneur. So is it worth it? I like, I've been doing this, like I say, close on 40 years and I can categorically say it's been worth it. Um, there's great. Um, seeing the movie parenthood, if you haven't seen the movie parenthood, it's an older movie, but there's a great scene where this is trying to give advice to, I think it's one of the grandkids.

 Isn't one of the, as you said, some people like the merry-go-round of life. I like the roller coaster. And I think that summarizes many people in this room, the fact that we liked the rollercoaster or being an entrepreneur is worth it. Yes. Next week, we're going to be taking a look at how to say no, but how to say no to your loved ones, how to say no to your loved ones as an entrepreneur those times, when you feel like there's an obligation on you, like, how do you actually say, no, I can't do that.

 Or I've got to go ahead and, um, deal with this, this, this issue at w uh, in the business, like, how do you actually deal with those sort of issues? And I think it's going to be a really big topic that many people in this room right now. And we say, yeah, I need to hear that. And, um, so that's what we're going to be exploring on the complete entrepreneur next week at 5:00 PM Eastern time on Thursday.

 And it's going to be fabulous. I can just say. Very very much for all of you in the audience who have participated, um, uh, by listening and listening to the discussion, particularly, I want to say thank you for those people, put up their hand and came to the stage, um, and really shared their thoughts of what it means to be an entrepreneur and my fellow moderators.

 It's always great having you guys here and just want to say thank you very much. I'm not sure where the Colin or Michelle do you want to go along and say any last words or we can just close the room at, and I'm really want to see everyone here next week on the complete entrepreneur. Michael, can I say one thing that, um, before just very short, um, something that was really powerful when she said that, you know, this rum inspires her, I love what y'all do and, and how you really make a difference.

 Um, and either entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs. Uh, but, and one of the things, I mean, it's so much power here I would add recommend, and that I think everybody's should write this down as well. Don't just be inspired by this because if you take in this information, this knowledge, and you're just inspired, you're going to get fat off the knowledge, put it in action.

 Find a way tomorrow, Monday to put it in action. Don't just put it in action by saying, I'm going to do it and write it down, put it on your calendar earlier. I said, you know, to collect data points, a part of those data points is scheduling to get it done. So any pro that you took from this, put it on your calendar to schedule it so you can have that level of success going forward.

 So we don't get fat. We become lean action oriented. Um, What great advice. And I must admit, I've seen some people they've even said to me, I'm putting the complete entrepreneur on my calendar every week. And that's going to be a snapshot of being with like family who really understands what it means, and they've added it to the calendar and those people are actually moving their businesses forward.

 I'm not saying, uh, because the complete is fabulous or anything like that, which I think it is, but it's because they're doing, if they're changing their mindset, like what you said, that guy they're saying, I'm going to have some action times and on a tape that, and I'm going to apply it to my situation.

 Great thought. And I think it's been fabulous this session. And I look forward to seeing everyone here next week at 5:00 PM Eastern time on Thursday on the complete entrepreneur, have a safe week take care, but.

Question 3

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EP02 Million Dollar Domains

 Welcome to million dollar domains. Uh, this is million dollar domains today in startup.club. And startup.club is if not the largest, one of the largest clubs on clubhouse. And I've been doing a joint show, um, besides my work in domain club with startup club for the past three months. And so we thought we would move and, uh, there's going to be a way to do it in both clubs, but today we're in startup clubs.

So. Rachel is hosting us today. Thank you, Rachel. And um, what we do on million dollar domains is we talk about a special part of the domain name, business that is, has less to do with the 150 million dot Toms or the new TLDs or buying names for registration fee and flipping or. Managing the one domain name that your company owns.

And these are all the things we talked about on Monday domaining and outbounding club. But what we've done for the past three months, a million dollar domains, it's really talk about the market of million and multi-million dollar domain.  Where were most cases we're dealing with scarce assets that are bought and sold on the retail market or the resale market, much like homes are bought and sold on the resale markets.

If you want to go to the middle of New Mexico, maybe, or somewhere in the world, you could probably buy some land for free and just pay the property taxes. But in jail, Most of the time when you're buying real estate, it's, it's a market that's matured, different people have bought certain properties. And then to, to get those properties that you'd like, now you pay someone else for the value of those names.

And we've seen over the course of the last 30 years, domain names, approach million and multi-million dollar numbers in 19 98, 99, 2000. And then maybe again, we saw. Uh, strengths in 2007, 2008, and then really now. And so the purpose of million-dollar domains is to talk about these million dollar. And so what we've talked about over the past three months are what makes a domain name, you know, worth a  million dollars.

And I think that just like any appraisal that you might do, you might look at three different ways. What is the cost method of saying a domain is worth a million dollars? What might be the comparable sales method? And then what may be the income method that you might use to appraise the value of an asset?

So at different times I've gone through. The prices that are being paid for a million dollar domains seem to have a floor seemed to be consistent. Um, if you want a one word english.com. If you want a two letter or three letter.com, if you want to a two, three or four number.com. They're all going to be in a much narrower price range.

Uh, then you might find for a name that you may use for a business. So I think you've got the cost aspect that you're not going to get stocks.com or realestate.com or wowed.com or purple.com probably for  less than hundreds of thousand dollars or millions of dollars. And then I talked about the income approach, which is if your company is spinning.

One to five, to 10, to a hundred million dollars on advertising and an easy to remember prestige building domain name can make that advertising one to five to 10% more successful. Or the idea is you would get the same benefit for potentially spending $900,000 on advertising that someone else would have to spend a million dollars on because the domain name, the destination address that they give their customers or the Mindshare that it takes to remember that domain name is going to be is going to be, um, less valuable.

If you, if you don't have a one word or easy to remember, So I've been able to quantify that if you look at your annual spend or the market cap of your company and take your percentage that on  that basis, many of the names that are available for sale and you can buy for just money can give you benefits much more than.

And one of the people that we have with us today, Mani tongue has been working in this market for the past 25 years. I've sold a million dollar domain name with Monte. Um, he introduced me to many of the aspects of the domain name business, and I had them on the domain show. So welcome Monte. Thanks for joining us to talk a little bit about million-dollar domains.

Thank you page and, uh, happy to be here. And, uh, there's a, there's a lot of the examples of. Seven-figure domain names that are worth a hell of a lot more now today than they were back when they were sold. And that's for sure. Yeah. And I think as you and I have talked to about where that, where this budding industry in the big one word domain name market, that's been on the cusp of growth and worldwide acceptance for twenty-five years.

Um, but still in general, I think that.  Everyone is come to grips with the fact that great domain names can be worth one to five, to 10, to a hundred million dollars. And I think that the advantage is still on the buyer side, that if they know what a good domain name can do for their company, they're still buying in an environment that comes from either past sales, which have happened in some weak economic times, um, or simply the seller's imagination, you know?

Pick a number one or two or three or $4 million based upon the past, but Bhante, you've had some million dollar domains in your auctions this year. Can you tell us a little bit about the last auction you had and I think it's still going on and you've got some, some big one word properties in it. What are some of the dates right now for the right of the.

Um, so the, the closing of the extended auction from the name's gone option is going to happen on October 14th. Uh, lots will start closing at  one 30, I believe. Um, uh, PM Eastern state. Um, and yes, we have some seven figure names in this option. Um, some of which are considered, um, bargains, even at seven figures, we have names like nutrition.com, sweepstakes.com, waged.com.

Uh, political.com U m.com. Auto loans.com automobile.com. Uh, just to name a few, but, um, uh, outside of that, um, I have gi.com u.com, um, even club.com, uh, that were, uh, marketing for sale. That's amazing. Now, when you think of a name, since you kind of teased us with it, like club.com, um, or the, the two letter names.

I mean really when someone's trying to think, everyone just wants to know how much are they, you know what I mean? And really they're so unique. So  duplicatable, um, in a negotiated method, not in your options, but in negotiated method. How do you kind of start with the buyer if someone's listening to million dollar domains this week and they're thinking, well, maybe I want to spend a million dollars.

So my company wants to spend five or 10 million. Do you just kind of show him the price right off the bat. Like, Hey, I'm interested in club.com. How much is it? Do you carry an asking price for something like that or the two letters or is it really a conversation? Well, it's obviously a conversation. Um, I, I was trained in the consultative sales approach, uh, when I was in my medical business and my medical career for 15 years.

And, um, w what you've really tried to do as a, as a, um, you know, as a consultant. And that's, uh, basically what I, what I've been doing with domain names ever since the beginning, it's kind of changed the way that domain names were, um, even offered, um, to end users instead of vending or lifting, um, Um, needs,  um, or you find out what somebody needs and once, and then you create a case around that.

Um, so you put together a great case around why a certain name might be better than what they're using or better for a project that they're about to launch. Uh, I gained a lot of, um, mind share and market share doing that for some of the largest companies in the world. Uh, and some of the biggest industries.

Um, you know, back in the early days, you know, corporations just didn't get it as much as they do now. And even there, they're still late to the party on stuff like that. So, uh, uh, I used to manage the acquisitions for Lionsgate films, for example, and if everybody remembers there was a movie called crash.com many, many years ago that won the academy award.

Um, before they got to LA to accept the award, they didn't own the domain name. And so I got them the domain name and, um, it was, it was a good reason on why they needed that name after they won the academy award for best picture, uh, because there was going to be tons of traffic and  attention and mind share and eyeballs on that, on that movie and on that, on the domain name and trying to.

You know where that, where that website went and where, where it was pointed to and all that stuff. And so that's just one of the examples. Um, um, you know, there's, there's many, many others, but, uh, I use a consultative sales approach, uh, to try to generate a case. Um, if somebody needs to get a range, uh, of a price that's in a, you know, above seven figures, I try to give them a range.

Also let them know that there's probably other interested parties in the same name that, um, it's possible, Michael go higher than that. Um, you know, there's, there's a lot of seven-figure names that have sold, but, um, you know, there's, there's not as many as six figure names and five figure names and forfeit your names.

Of course. Um, so, um, they're, they're big feats to accomplish both at auction as you know, uh, page when we sold your seniors.com for $1.8 million and, um, and others for even more. Yeah. And I would say to people that are thinking about getting into this market, whether you're listening today  or on the podcast, that many times I would encourage you as a buyer.

You know, you may have someone in your organization or you may have in the back of your mind, Hey, maybe we could get this for cheap, you know, and I would just encourage you that by trying to get something cheap at the beginning, you may just start a really long process that lets the seller. Continually look at the name more and more and sometimes become more enamored with it.

See its value on the upside. And you may end up paying more later because you came in low. You wanted to talk about all the deficiencies, the domain name had how it was terrible, how there's no way you should pay a certain amount and Monte. Have you seen it? Where most of the time when someone buys a name and the hundreds of thousands or a million dollars.

There's a lot of times where it should seem like they're overpaying a little bit. They shouldn't be a little, it  should seem a little risky, but that's the only way you can buy something. We're looking back. You're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe we were even thinking about, you know, whether to pay this or this or this, because of all the value we've had.

So sometimes can, can the buyer be so greedy, maybe that the process goes even longer and they pay. Oh for sure. Um, the more interest there is on an aim, usually the higher, the value goes up, the higher the, the, the, the price goes up. So. You know, a lot of people increase price as interest goes up, even, even though the name hasn't sold yet.

So there could be a thousand offers on a domain name, um, which shows there's tons of interest in it. And every time there's an offer, it could ratchet up, you know, similar to any kind of a valuable piece of real estate. I mean, look at the home market as an example, uh, today there's so much demand that houses were selling above asking.

Um, so that's kind of a similar example to domain names. Um, on the contrary though, it's  also can be, it could work to a company or an end user's advantage by paying more or paying a hefty dollar for a name because they can publicize the fact that they've paid up for a valuable piece of real estate or digital asset that promotes their business and enhances their longterm game.

Um, Yeah, people might say that voice.com at $30 million was way overpriced. Um, some people might say voice.com at a million dollars was overpriced, but boy did both sides of that transaction make play and make sure everybody knew that they paid $30 million for the domaining. Um, so, and, and it also set a bar, you know, for other domains.

Um, probably to be, um, enhanced and value and overpaid, you know, like, uh, you know, home.com and others. Um, so it's really important that, um, if you're going to pick, you know, some people want to stay quiet and keep the transaction confidential, uh, for good reason, because they don't want to be solicited with a thousand other names that are like it,  or the, the, the, the, the contrary side of that is once you pay up for it, especially if you're a public company it's going to come out every year.

You might as well, you might as well beat the drum about it, eh, because you know, press any kind of press is good press. Um, as the saying goes and paying up for a digital asset or an acquisition, or, you know, a merger and acquisition of a company, it's very similar to a domain name and the price. Puts that on the map and sets a mark and, and makes it newsworthy.

And wouldn't you agree? Also many domain names are so unique that once they're purchased, it's not like another board or another venture capital group or another startup can say, yeah, we, we we'd buy voice too. We'd go. We'd do that too. We'd like to do that too. Um, you know, now that we've seen someone else actually do it, uh, actually, you know, consummate buying that we would do that too, but really.

Once, once it's gone, they don't have the ability to buy that exact name anymore. So you're, you're almost announcing  to your industry that you've purchased something at the exact time that no one else in that industry can duplicate what you've done. And in a world of paid media and shared media and earned media.

You're right. Monty, just dimensions from it. Um, you know, I got to believe if you have a million dollar price tag in your press release, you're probably going to get picked up on most of the, the newsfeeds surrounding any keyword relating to your industry. And what a great way to either enter an industry or, you know, announce a rejuvenation or a web three O concept or something like that, uh, with this announcement, because sometimes those of you out there, when you're doing press releases, it's really hard to talk about yourself, unless you've, you've come to a stage in your company, like a new release for something you can't just say, Hey, uh, domain, club's really doing well right now that really isn't a press release.

But if I said that, Uh, domain club just bought domain.club that 10 at least  gives me something to say to get that, that shared media in that earned media. Totally agree. And, uh, again, that's been demonstrated in many, many examples just as, um, you know, companies that buy out other companies make sure it's newsworthy and it's right on CNBC that they, they, they publicize the price paid for that.

And then there's all the discussion. Well, was it overpaid? Was it underpaying? You know, and, and, um, just that conversation generation from that particular transaction even generates more, um, eyeballs and more conversation around it, which makes it more of a. Just from that incident, just from the discussion happening on whether it was worth it or not.

Um, so in the case of domain name, you know, you have, you have things that are, you know, you have rarity obviously, because domain names are unique. Um, you know, there's the short names, like the two letter domain names, for example, like U m.com that we have, you know, that could stand for a thousand different things with the, that start with the letter, U and M, including a bunch of universities.

And so,  you know, there's a lot of play on that. There's a lot of, you know, you're going to have something that's generic as you M or something that's specific as automobile.com or you know, or nutrition.com. And so, um, um, rarity comes in two different, you know, a couple of different formats. It's, it's, uh, it's rare because it's short and could stand for lots of things.

And once it's gone, it's gone or rare could be like a name like nutrition.com that stands for an entire. You know, segment of health and food and, and what you eat every day and, um, you know, healthy environment and all that kind of stuff. And that's a top tier name or what we, you know, what we call as a top tier name at the very top of the food chain of domain names that then all kinds of stuff fit under it, like diet and exercise and all kinds of.

Well, that's fantastic. I think you're right. The two letters, um, have so many uses now. So we talked a little bit about some of the names you representing and the buyer gets the benefit of a broker, many cases. And I think where I found that's helped over  the years is a buyer can express. Maybe exactly what they're thinking in no uncertain terms to the broker in a way that just like in a real estate transaction, you may not feel comfortable doing with the seller.

You know, I go into someone's house and I'm like, that's terrible. That looks terrible. I want to change that this, that. But I think that whether the, you know, the brokers level of interest, what they're looking to do, what they're looking to pay, it seems like it helps both sides to have this buffer to kind of help the communication.

Do you find that sometimes you're, you're having to translate what the seller tells you, maybe to the buyer in a way that they can hear it the best way and then vice versa. Oh, for sure. I mean, again, that's where the consulting side comes, comes across. I've probably done more stealth acquisition transactions than anyone.

Um, so I would be on the buyer and seeking out the proper name for, uh, for a particular, for, for their company or for their, you know, for their end user use.  Um, and then, um, working with the seller side, you know, I have to be the consultant on their side as well to make it a fair transaction. Um, Um, what you, what the perfect transaction is, is, uh, something that's a win-win for everybody.

What were the buyers happy? The sellers happy. And of course the broker, um, or the agents happy, uh, with the transaction. And, um, as a, if you're working on the buyer side, you obviously want to help them get the name at the best and most affordable price. And if you're working on behalf of the seller, you want to get the most money for the domain name.

So it's, it's, it's a tricky spot being in the middle of that, but, um, if you've done it over and over again, you know what that sweet spot is and where it's fair to everybody and. Then you get repeat business, uh, as a broker, um, you know, on the broker side, but then you have a happy transaction between buyer and seller in the, in the long run.

And that's. Yeah. And I think we're at a unique time right now, because I think, um, whether it's because of the renewed emphasis on e-commerce because of the pandemic, the frustration with having the dominant internet companies like Amazon and  Google and Facebook, you know, control your message that buyers are, are becoming infected.

And sellers, the reason I think it's, it's, it's a two way market right now is I think most sellers that have owned premium names for 20 years, if they ever thought they were going to get an amount in 2000 or 2007, we've kind of got back to that level where they said, well, I'm never going to sell until I get a million I'm never going to sell.

I get 2 million. And I think for them the last seven or eight years, they would have had to take a law. Versus their emotional expectations of what they thought the name would be worth Monday. So now that we've reached a strong market, I think many of the best inventory. Is available, you know, names like home.com coming up this year and some of the other one word names, you know, I think that we have a lot of inventory that most people didn't even want to have discussions about.

Right. Monte and 14, 15, 16,  17, 18. Cause the, you know, the, the prices were maybe a little weaker. So you've got a time when we have great inventory. The sellers expectations are based upon the past and the buyers seem to be slowly coming around or. Uh, startup just raised so much money, like a hundred million dollars, then all of a sudden spending 1% of what they raise to get there.com.

That seems to be a trend. Do you see that trend? Yeah, for sure. And there's still some companies that, that, uh, that just don't get it, you know, I'm I'm and I'm going to lay out the perfect example. So we have bird.com for sales still, um, and a bird, the scooter company, you know, bird, a bird, um, scooters, and, and, uh, they they're about to go on.

They still don't own their.com name, which I have, uh, it's at a reasonable price for them to get. Um, they're, they're, they're going to come out over, uh, I believe it's between a four and $5 billion market cap, uh, value, and they can obtain the domain  name at the right price, uh, for, you know, a fraction of that.

Obviously you have, you know, a percentage of, of what their, um, you know, what their value. And, you know, they're about to launch on a, on a.co, you know, and, and I, yeah, I like, I love dot CO's, but it's not as good as a.com. It's a great alternative to.com, but you know, there's not too many successful IPOs that launched on a.co versus a.com.

Um, and then you brought up the Facebook example. So what just happened to Facebook in the last week? Well, they had a huge outage. Not only Facebook as a social media company, but the millions of businesses that decided to go with a Facebook page instead of having their own domain name. And so they were out as a result of Facebook being out when they say had their own domain name, they would have been in business and still operating for the almost 24 hours that Facebook was down.

That's a huge, huge, um, SailPoint right there on why companies should own their own domain names and, um, the best domain  name they could ship out. Uh, to avoid somebody else's outage, uh, and thinking that Facebook could never go down or be vulnerable to, uh, to, uh, an attack or to a screw up on their DNS or whatever.

And therefore everybody's businesses were affected by that besides Facebook. And, uh, that, that multiplier effect is a great fail case on why everybody should have the right domain name and, uh, and their website up and operating well, fantastic. No doubt. And I think. Um, you know, the things that go along with the Facebook thing, kind of bringing to mind different things.

I know Michael Costello tweeted yesterday. Hey, if, if you heard in a sales process, someone saying we can get by with Facebook, uh, you know, now's the time to contact them again. But I think it brings up more than that. It brings up the idea that in today's market, you might be paying Google. To retain customers that you've already earned.

You've already made the  investment to get a customer. And most companies know what that investment is. You know, what does it cost to acquire a customer? And you've already made that investment yet, somehow, whether it's because of the competition for the keyword of your company's name on Google, you're having to also continuously pay.

If you've trained them to only find you. By typing your company name into the Google search bar. And I think w w I think what's happening more and more is companies are realizing, wait, because we have a short name because we have an easy to remember name. People can either just type in our name on their smartphone, because really it's almost easier now on a smartphone for me to type in bird.com.

Then to go to Google type in bird, have to look at their results, scroll down past the page, the results, paid results. Look at each thing. See if it's the company I want and then get myself to my  destination. And then it may not be the destination@bird.com today. It may be where the bird.com marketing people want me to go.

So I think when you think about a name, like bird.com, you know, I think money, I think, and we do a lot of staging it, million dollar domains, you know, I think your buyer's going to come from outside that in user, because it's just something. It's four letters. It's short. If you think about a bird making music, a bird making speech, a bird chirping, a bird flying, a beautiful bird, a bird in the sky.

It's just such a wonderful thing to be associated with. Um, and I think what a company can do is they can say, are there any attributes of our company that are bird. We're all birds or just the word bird would be associated with and what these companies have been forced to do. I think over the past 10 years is make up other words like birdie or bird something, or spell birds with three whys.

 When the cost of getting the exact one isn't as much as they think. So. Good luck with that one. Yeah. Well guess who, the biggest buyer should be a bird that's who the number one buyers should be based off of what you. No, what company uses bird as their logo makes a bird noise. Whenever you send a message.

Twitter. Exactly. Twitter. Or the next Twitter, but bur you know, birds tweet, that's what birds do. And BR and, and, and Twitter should be the next buyer of bird. And, uh, of course I am trying to get it across their, uh, their, their eyeballs, because it's a no brainer. They just launched a, uh, uh, a division called bird watch.

Um, so they're using the term already, but that's just a perfect example, uh, and exactly down the pathway of, as you just described on, uh, you know, other potential buyers, there's no brainer buyers. There's no brainer buyers that have the word, and they're the only word they go by my brand and they don't own their own brand name and the.com. 

And then there's others that use bird-like features, logos, uh, uh, noises, um, um, things in their commercials that makes the most sense. And I would say, you know, the neat thing about the crypto craze or the NFT craze has been that a lot of it's had. Completely outside the three biggest companies on the internet, Google, Facebook, um, and Amazon.

And, you know, you think about telegram and then discord. And the idea that people have come up with better mousetraps, I think of a company raises $40 million to do a new messaging service or something. And then they do their second round of $200 billion or something to be bird. It's just a fraction of their market tap, you know, literally it's, it's it's like saying, would you rather have a company worth, you know, a hundred million dollars called X or, you know, it would only cost you  101 million to be well, 104 million to be worth this now, Monte, I know we've had just for a little bit.

The advantage that I think buyers have in an auction platform is in some ways you've already done some of the work for the buyer and that you've prenegotiated a reserve for the seller. And not only that is, I've told people over the years, you've prenegotiated kind of the opportunity to take some time to think about this name.

By it and know that they're going to get it. It's not going to be pulled out from under them or something like that because you've got a reserve price on these names that if people bid that reserve numbers, they don't have to wonder if the transaction's going to go through. Right. The sellers already agreed to that.

Uh, that is correct. 99.99% of the time. So, yes, so I do a lot of work with the seller to come up with a reasonable reserve. The goal, obviously in an auction, this is no different than Kristy Sotherby's Meekum car auction, Jackson.  Um, is to have reasonable reserve prices and even no reserve prices that drive market value based off of market competition and letting the market determine what the value is.

So, um, domain names are still a unique, um, asset in that way that. There's not a lot of comparables, uh, as there is with real estate. So, you know, if I'm in a neighborhood and I'm selling my house and the house across the street was built by the same builder and has the same structure, you know, like a plan neighborhood, my house is likely, uh, valued at the same price that that house just sold.

Uh, based off of the number of bedrooms and the neighborhood we're in and whether I'm on the water or not, that kind of stuff. So that's it, that's kind of an equal comparable, uh, and that's what makes a real estate, um, you know, a comparable market with domain names. It's kind of similar. You can say that bird.com is similar to.

Um, birdie or birds, plural, or, you know, a type of bird or what birds make a tweet or whatever, but it is very unique.  Um, and it is, um, it is based off of type in traffic and well, how you can SEO it and whether it is a dictionary term and, you know, uh, marketability and, um, all that kind of extra stuff. So.

We do have a huge comparable database, obviously of similar terms and the same keywords and all that stuff. So that's how we kind of come up with, um, a market value and I've done 500,000 plus domain appraisals. Um, so we use that data as well and all the millions of transactions that have occurred, um, but take negotiate with the seller to come up with a reasonable.

And that will drive market competition is one side of it. And it's, it's, you know, it's not an easy task to do because you want to make sure that seller satisfied with the sale. And then of course, the buyer has a set reserve, you know, and they don't know what that reserve is, but they at least have a price at which when they strike that number, um, that, that, uh, they're going to become the winning bidder of that name when they beat the second highest bidder.

So in that way it is correct. And  that's what makes. A viable market for digital real estate and digital asset and things that are fungible and non fungible, like art, uh, collectibles, um, you know, rare coins, um, NFTs, as you can see, what's going on, the biggest transactions are happening on auction because of this.

Um, not in. Um, and, and, uh, you know, we believe, and I've always believed since I created the auction market for the domain industry, that it's a way to keep fluid market transactions and liquidity in our market. Um, on the side. True private and negotiated and listing transactions. So all at the same time, um, because it sets a bar, it makes it, it sets a, uh, a great foundation of what names are worth.

And it keeps things going and fluid throughout the year. No matter what time or what day it is or whatever, um, when the markets may be up or down, um, auctions, or at least our auction seem to, to keep the market fluid and generating a revenue.  That's great mind you. I would encourage those of you looking at the right of the dot list.

You know, whether you're looking for a, a million dollar name, like new christian.com, multimillion dollar name that because, and all respect to Monte that the whole world doesn't know about domain options yet. And you might take the approach that, well, if no one bid more than 300,000 or something for nutrition.com, why did I have to pay the.

As it's more, but I might say to you as a buyer right now, you're benefiting from the fact that as much as Bonnie, you know, prize, not every qualified buyer is at that table to buy that name. And you might be able, you may have to pay the difference between the current bid and the reserve to get it, but you're going to own it.

And the other people that might've paid that amount, aren't going to find out you bought it until you have it. So I think in many cases, because we don't always read and Monte and notice  with that, we don't always reach every qualified buyer to be in the room of these options. That if that, if you, it would be great, if you only had to pay what the second highest bidder one to pay, but if you're there and the other qualified buyers aren't, and you know what the reserve is, or you bid high enough to get the reserve, it's really a buy it now.

And you're not going to have all of the. Am I too far off base, too Pollyanna, or I think that's an advantage for the buyer that, that there's a chance. Not every qualified competitor is bidding in the auction. Oh, that's definitely true. I mean, uh, uh, I try to get as many qualified buyers, so our options as we can, uh, we do all kinds of marketing and end user marketing and LinkedIn marketing and Facebook marketing.

And, um, Scott works his ass off in marketing. And so we, we try to get as many qualified bidders as we can so we can, so we can truly have a, um, a true market value at, at the strike price or whatever the price is. Um, and we do run, I do run all kinds of different options. So  we do do sealed bid options with, um, you know, bitter D high bidder pays the second highest bid price that we did that in our contention resolution four.

I can, you know, when, when all the new TLDs came out, um, because that was the fairest way to do those types of auctions, we felt, um, where everyone would put their best bid in. And, and even if you. The highest bidder would pay the second highest bid price, uh, which would be called the market price at that time.

Um, in, in terms of public auctions and open options or English auctions as we run, um, it's the highest price wins obviously. Um, and you outbid each other until that price goes to the highest point. And then when there's no more interest in. Bought or, you know, at the strike price or it's, uh, moved and sold or, I mean, moved into, um, you know, a brokered situation where we might have to bring the reserve price down and negotiate with the buyer that was interested, our second highest bidder and the highest bidder and see if we can get a deal done there.

And we do lots of  those transactions as well. Fantastic money put the, the what's you're fading. You're fading out a little bit page. It sounds like now.

Uh, can you hear me barely? Something's happened with your mic. All right. All right. Um, so we have till the 14th, uh, the names that didn't meet reserve in the live auction are available. Plus some names that may not have been in live auction, cause you had to whittle down the list and those end on the 14th.

Well, they end all in at the same time, that day will different bids extend the auction or how's that going to work just from the details point of view. Now it's going to be a staggered. Um, so closing starts@onethirtypmeasternstandardtimeatrotddothighbid.com. That's HIB id.com. Um, or if you go to rotc.com, you can be directed right to the  auction.

Um, but we are, we have a staggered close, so, uh, we'll start closing lots of names at the same time. Um, you know, lots being, you know, Um, a group of names at once. And then if there is a bid that happens within 30 seconds or a minute of closing, then there'll be an extension. And, um, it'll extend until the bidding's over in each one of those lots.

And it'll continue throughout the day until all the lots are either sold or closed and past. Well, fantastic. Well, I'm going to cover some news of the day. Is there anything else you want to share with us Monte or Scott? Scott? You have anything? No, I just was, uh, my jumped on the beginning. We were talking about Andy eaters and what Paige was going to do with that.

But I think you've covered everything. Monte, as you mentioned, page, there was, there was a lot of names that weren't in the live auction. And then there were some late addition names that, um, you know, didn't even have a chance to get in the live auction that are in the  extended auction name, like wage.com for example, which is.

Again, a great, awesome, you know, one word, short name that stands for, you know, anything we're related to money and making money and earning a wage and income and a job and, um, all that stuff. So, uh, that's, that's one of the best names we have in the auction as well. What's the reserve rains on, on Wade's.

If I've got some nickels to rub together, I got to find some money in. Oh, that'd be, that'd be in your million dollar category. That's it? But I think that's a great example though, because you know, you think about wage and I think that. You know, people could say, oh, this is what's wrong with this. What's wrong with this.

What's wrong with it. And then you think what really is the most valuable people? The most valuable thing that people have even more than their house, it's the earning power over their lifetime. And I think that when you started talking about the total earning power of every person in the world is your, is your market size.

Um,  and the ability to relate that, you know, with. Uh, one syllable, one word Wade's dot com. The only thing that I think works against people's thinking is the past, or maybe it hasn't been done. And I guess Monte, that's the one thing from, you know, again, in many ways the, the, the, the person who's started everything in our business.

Do we need to have some new companies make that case. You know, for a long time, we used to have the business.com sale and the toys.com IPO. And we've had companies buy generics to brand themselves, you know, like purple mattress company, but the idea of taking a generic and, and applying it to that business.

You know, I think some people might say, well, no one else is doing it. Why should I, um, do we need some new use cases in that area where people started a business with, uh, with a great one word showed how you could make 10, 20, 30, $40 million a  year. It seems like some of our use cases are dated.

Well, I wouldn't say they're, I wouldn't say they're dated. Uh, I would just say that, um, you know, you use purple as an example, which is a mattress company. Um, Uh, you know, in that particular case, it has nothing to do with bedding other than the material underneath the mattress is purple. Um, but it had nothing to do with, you know, the mattress itself, other than the color of the mattress, uh, you know, fabric, you know, the mattress, a makeup, um, and, and you have several examples like that word names, you know, short names, we'll repurpose for another use.

Um, and then just. Um, on that case study, um, you know, they became valuable domain names in itself because the, uh, color turned into a product or, um, you know, another word turned into, uh, another use case that was unrelated to the actual definition of the word. Um, that's actually a  cool way to use names these days.

And of course you have the urban dictionary and other dictionaries now that are in use. You did mention like using bird with a Y instead of a IRD and a Y RD and which people are doing, and, and the slang of the word sometimes makes it cooler and more hip than the actual spelling of the word. Um, and I think there's plenty of use cases out there that do it.

And, and as we keep going down a path of digital. Uh, the digitalization and AI revolution of, um, of the internet. You're going to see all kinds of new use cases and words and things that are used. I mean, just look at the last 12 months. You know, digital real estate, digital assets, NFTs, non fungible tokens, crypto Bitcoin, um, all the various terminology for that Metta medic.

Metaverse met a universe, all these new words that were in existence before, but weren't used in crypto before, because there wasn't crypto. Now there's new uses and new cases and new definitions. And now they're going to be redefined in the,  in the, in the dictionaries, across the world because of this. Um, so I think that happens every day and maybe we just don't pick up on at all.

Yeah. Well, I would say to, to those out there in the business, I think that once something shown to be. Working the price of entry is going to be a lot more. And I think if someone takes mattress.com and starts moving 60, $70 million a year of mattresses off of it, there's going to be a rush to buy the keywords, not for their brandable value, but for their keyword value.

And. You may have to pay up now, but I think compared to what's going to happen to sellers expectations when there is a great use case like that. Um, you know, I think that's the risk and people say, yeah, but I, I don't invest in risky things. I don't take chances. Well, there's billions of dollars being spent on risky assets right now.

And. And I think that shouldn't be a thing. So speaking of billions of dollars, thanks again, Mani and Scott,  I'm going to announce the Guinness book of world records, highest asking price ever for a domain name. Um, this is the official unofficial. Book of world records, which for those of you who aren't over 40, uh, used to be a book that we all had that had the world records for everything, the oldest person, the youngest person, the tallest person.

So I'm going to use the Guinness book of world records. I'm going to announce and put forth for verification, the largest asking price ever for a domain. And, uh, Monte, I could play a game with you and ask you, what do you think it is? But anyway, I was looking on doe.com, which is a way to look at all domains for sale.

And I clicked some of the keywords like Monte was talking about, you know, NFT and metaverse and I have metaverse.aig. And metaverse.aig and Dofu has a  way to search the different marketplaces for what's for sale. And we've all seen the names that are for sale for $999 million. And I say, that's peanuts because metaverse that AIG has been listed for sale, not for seven figures, not for eight figures, not for nine figures.

Not for 10, not for 11, not for 12. Not for 13, not for 14, not for 1517 figures. It's for sale metaverse.aig for 14 quadrillion 165 cents million 439,241 billion, $642 or $302. So Monty, have you ever seen anything listed for sale for more than 14 quarters? Only in pesos.

I think, I think that must  be in pesos or, or, or shackles or something. It's got a dollar sign in front of it. So the internet doesn't lie. Um, So anyway, so that's a, you heard it here first, the height, or maybe, or maybe it represents the entire universe and beyond in a potential users of people we haven't discovered yet that living beings.

There you go. It's not just the metaverse. It does not say a financing was available, but you might be able to get it for a trillion. Uh, for a 14,000, uh, it'll be 1000 years that a trillion a month would be $14 trillion, 14 quadrillion dollars. Anyway, uh, we in second place, uh, oh my gosh, you got me on that.

That'll be next week. Tune in to see with second place, uh, here on three I'll sort by price decreasing with the word metaverse.  Uh, FB Metta first is, oh, we just have a new record. We now have FB metaverse listed for sale for 73 quadrillion. That must be somebody listening right now that just put that up for sale because I think it would become number one in the Guinness world book.

That's right. They're tied with metaverse start and start metaverse. So those people need to add $1 to their listing so that it's 73 quadrillion 316 quadrillion 861,022 billion, 119 million, $730. All right. That was. Well, listen, rarely do we get the real world to interject with domain names and we just kind of about 10 minutes more today of a million dollar domains.

And if you have a question about a million dollar domains, a question for Monte or Scott, if they can stay with us, or if you're offering a million dollar name for sale, or you want to know if your name  is a million dollar domain name and. Have it be close. Okay. Um, or if you've got a show on, uh, on clubhouse this week, go ahead and pop up and we'll make you a speaker.

If you give us your permission to record. But, um, in the news this week, Elliott silver reported on his domain investing.com, which you should be subscribed to. I know many of you can probably get the feed from domaining.com, but if you're subscribed to his feed, you'll get his post. Right. And he talked about Kevin O'Leary from shark tank.

Mr. Wonderful. I think is what he goes by. Um, and one of his investments is in a company called immutable holdings, Inc. And immutable holdings Inc is a holding company with various blockchain investments. This is from, uh, Elliot story. And one of the investments was nfte.com and just like Bhante shared before Monte, uh, immutable holdings had a press release where they said, announcing that  immutable holdings is listed on the stock exchange, the Nao stock you saints.

I'm not sure where that is. Um, But, uh, Kevin said quota divested immutable holdings to get a diverse portfolio of blockchain opportunities, including nfte.com. One of the most important and valuable domain names and Cristo assets settled. Larry nfte.com is where the puck is going. The opportunity to build profiles in the NFTE space was such a powerful and important domain name.

Is what immutable holdings is doing. So if you think about that, By having Kevin as a shareholder, knowing that his name and his press releases are getting picked up. Not only are they announcing that they own in Ft com, but they're given a free chance in one or two sentences to say exactly what their business model is without having to pay for that advertise.

So not only when you announced that you've purchased a one word domain name to get a chance to tell people what  the name of your company is, you get you've earned the right because of their interests to say what your company's trying to do. And if you think of how much money companies spend trying to communicate what their company's trying to do, it's an amazing chance.

Uh, the thought is that they bought this around. Let's see, I don't know if they've ever published it. They want NFC at that time to be the go-to platform for entering the NFTE ecosystem. Uh, Andrew Roesner, uh, had announced that he sold in Ft, uh, to this holding company. Uh, Elliot found out that the name was sold for seven figures.

Although the exact amount is not being disclosed. So Mr. Wonderful, Kevin O'Leary might be the type of person that you can expect. If you had a start-up and you went to the shark tank and you may say, well, what is your company worth? Or what are your assets? And you said, well, we have a domain name. You may think he'd be a naysayer.

 But I think in this case he gets it. And I think more people than you think. In the real world, they don't want it publicized. They want to be able to buy things for cheaper. But, um, Monte, I don't know if you've worked with this company before or, or this, but don't you feel like this is a real world, uh, announcement of something that we've known for a long time, but it's going to take more of these, uh, before we can ever say that domains are at their top or overvalued or this, that, and the other, we still have a long way to.

Yeah, for sure. And, and, you know, and Andrew's a good friend of mine and a good cop and a good colleague or, or we're in businesses together. Uh, and we also compete together and as brokers and, uh, but I know for a fact that he sold. Cheap, um, on purpose so that it would be a real use case. So there's another example of somebody in the industry, um, um, selling a name less than probably what it's valued at one could argue that it's worth as much as  a voice.com you know, NFTs and.

Um, you know, it's, it's shorter than boys. It's, it's the huge rage right now. It's, uh, it's also a three word domain name that could, you know, three letter domain name. It could stand for other things as well. Uh, it happens to Stanford, non fungible, token, um, and. It keeps again, it keeps fluid fluidity and liquidity in the marketplace by doing a transaction like that.

And look what happened, you know, Kevin and Larry of sharp shark tank made a point to say how valuable that domain name was. And one of the reasons why he invested in that company and, and there's, there's lots of examples like that. And I think as more and more transactions come into the future, um, you know, some people put stipulations saying, Hey, we, we want to do a joint press release about this.

And that helps the industry. It raises everybody's Tidewater up, no matter what domain name you have, what extension you believe in. Uh, it helps raise the value of the entire industry when things like that happen and, and a particular famous investor and a television  personality. And, you know, CNBC commentator makes a point by saying how valuable that particular domain name was and using the word domain name and using the, uh, the, the actual domain name that was sold.

And we know it was sold for $2 million. And so that's great. Um, and we need. Well, fantastic. Um, last thing I'll cover today on the news was, uh, James Isles, who does a great job. He writes for Dean Dwayne named wire. He talked about a company, marshmallow.com, which. The big marshmallows song for 12,500, about four years ago.

And the Andrew was like, great sale. Wow, great one word name. But at that time, it wasn't clear that these single word names were going to have the brand of open. And people said, well, you want to get the one with the E because that's what it sounds like. And different things like that, but he writes a story and he talks about how for buying that name for 12,500.

Now there they've just raised 85 million at a  $1.2 billion valuation. Um, they spent the 1200. In the early days, instead of waiting till now, where they may have spent, had to spend $2 million to get the name, they paid 12 five. It was for sale on seydoux.com at the time. And I think that if you're out there buying, you're going to have to show foresight.

And I would say to you that are listening about million dollar domains. It's only the equity owner, the private equity firm, the venture capital firm, the CEO, it's only a stakeholder. I think that can make a domain name, decision like this because. I think everyone else in the company is looking for guidance on what to do from the top down.

And they may not want to see any money go toward, um, an asset purchase. They may want to think that that people can always replace that asset. But as I've said for 20 years, you know, a domain name works for you, 24 7, 365. It takes no vacations. It needs no friends benefits.  You don't have to house it. You don't have to create an officer.

You don't have to supervise it and pay a supervisor or a manager. And, and once you buy that asset in.com for the initial price, it's going to cost you about $9 and 50 cents to $13 a year to keep that name for each and every year, you have the guaranteed right to renew that domain name on the internet.

And I think that. Other departments may not want to see money, go out for this purpose, you know, to, to buy an asset. But if you're the stakeholder and you're allocating capital inside of a company, I would encourage you that you need to make the decision to spend the money, a domain name, to make all the rest of the money that you spend, uh, happen.

So those are my three news items. Uh, this week in Ft com selling and Kevin O'Leary's comments. I think that should go into your list of links that you can show to people. When you're talking about million dollar domain names, what other people have said  about million dollar domain names. I think you can paint a picture with the domain name wire story on unicorn.com uh, to show people that.

Even at the time, it may look like you're overpaying a little bit, but looking back on it, if you know what you're going to do with it, even at your founder or your startup stage, um, if you can get it for the right price, that makes sense. And then I want to thank Monty and Scott from right of the.to share with us about direction, their auction coming up and, uh, and domain names.

So thanks everybody. I'm going to check for questions. Let's see, uh, anybody have any questions for what we talked about today? Have a million dollar domain name they just bought or that they're selling or brokering, or lastly, if you've got any clubhouse talks this week that you want to share, um, I'll be on Monday in domain club for Monday domains and then Tuesday in domain club for outbounding club, where we talked about selling domains and outfit. 

And I know next Tuesday, I think Braden, Pollock's going to be on with Krista for a clubhouse talk. So, uh, we usually end right about the top of the hour, Rachel. Thanks for letting us be in start-up club today. We may do this in the future again, so thanks.

And Monte and Scot, and anything else you want to, you want to end with a Monty? Thanks for announcing some of the new ads like Wade's dot com to the auction. And we hope to have you back to talk about the results of the auction, um, uh, as you get those in. So thanks a lot. My pleasure, our pleasure. We look forward to everybody participating in the online auction.

That's ending on October. Thanks Monte. Hey Debra. How you doing? Do you have some content and a content room coming up? I do. Thanks Paige, for having me up on stage and, um, this afternoon at 3:00 PM Eastern standard time. Uh, we'll be  Domenico was, and it's a club about brandable domain and, um, people.

Feedback from their peers and many times that will increase the value, like in your own mind of your own domain. Um, just to see, to get, if you, when you get feedback other people's. Fresh eyes, see things you might not have seen in your domain. So it's a lot of fun. And, um, and we also talk about other things about in the brandable space, like the brandable markets or, um, whatever we want to talk about.

Brandable tone means. So again, that's, uh, 3:00 PM Eastern standard time domains and domain is, is domain with I a Z. Great. And if you want more information, you can also hit Debra's profile and follow her club or follow her. And Deborah, we did record today. So I wanted to make sure to get  your permission that we can record you to the.

Yes, certainly page. Thank you. Fantastic. Well, thanks everybody for coming to million dollar domain so you can get some information on prior shows a million dollar domains.club. We'll have the recording of this show up on start-up dot club and a link from domain club. Uh, want to thank our speakers and guests for coming to million dollar domains today and have a great week out there.

I can't wait to see what happens in million dollar domain name. Just in the next seven days till we meet again. So I'm going to close the room and thanks to.

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