🎙 Inventive Journey | Real Stories From the Startup Survival Club

Do your homework. Do your home and be realistic. It's not for everybody. Do your homework. Contact these places and talk to people and make sure you understand what's going on. Make sure you understand everything that's out there because there is a lot going on. You can not go into it blindly. You have to do your due diligence.

I guess it depends on what type of small business or start-up they want to start. If they are not sure what they want to do, I personally recommend starting an online business. It is so much cheaper than a brick-and-mortar or retail type of store. Even if they are selling products where they think they might need a store, I still recommend starting online. The overhead is hardly anything. I run al...

You have to be confident enough to not be the smartest person in the room. I think there's this societal pressure to be the smartest person in the room. Some of that imposter syndrome like hey, if I've got a lot of smart people around me, I am not going to be able to lead them. Or it will get out that I am not actually as qualified as I think I am. At the end of the day, I really don't think I am...

Definitely document. Whether it's keeping a schedule for your project and documenting the tasks that you are completing. Or keeping a tracker of the life cycle of your contracts. Whatever it is, spend that little bit of extra time to document the work you are doing. The completion of these tasks. Because in the end, that is going to save you so much effort, time, and money. It's all going to be hu...

Take the first step. If you don't take this step, you will just keep thinking shoulda, woulda, all those kinds of things. I think you have to take the first step but, at the same time after that, you have to be very flexible. You also have to be very persistent. Don't give up. And just keep meandering through because it's a rollercoaster ride. One day you'll feel high. The next day was low cause y...

It's called aloha leadership. Aloha, as most folks know, is a way of saying hello. What I learned is that it's a lot more loving. It's a loving way of saying hi. It is a welcoming feeling and vibe. They have always taught us that it's that kind of leadership that actually makes things happen. As an entrepreneur and leader in whatever industry and field. Any artist, creator, entrepreneur, you need...

There are two of them. Make sure you've got money, number one. Everybody knows that. But secondly, I think that an example that I can share from what I just shared with dropping the ball and all those opportunities is to remain humble.

The biggest advice is to make sure you are improving yourself first. There is a really cool statistic out there that some of the most successful companies are started by forty-year-olds. People in that age range. Why is that? Probably because they have all this professional experience that they had where they know the opportunities. They know how to execute things. They have made mistakes and lear...

The clearer and more specific plan you give when you start to notice the expectations slip, the more likely you are to actually act on it. Now you have a clear plan lighted steps forward to be sure that to say ok, I need to engage and, I feel scared and default to comfort and avoidance if I don't have something. If I light this staircase up and I have the exit ramp lined up for me now I am more li...

Outsource to experts whenever possible. Whatever you don't need to be involved in, outsource to experts because if you don't have time and money to do it once you for sure don't have time and money to do it twice.

Don't believe your own lies. I think from a young age we start telling ourselves a lot of lies in our self-talk. Why do I think I can do that? Why am I the one that could be able to do these things? We have a lot of that negative self-talk and I think we just need to change that to why not?

You have to decide to start and actually start because I have heard people that have had this plan. I've known people that have been on these albums. They have been working on the album and never finished them. So you have to decide to start. Then right along with that is to put some sort of date on finishing and actually launching.

Just avoid judging the podcast harshly. Tell yourself I am not going to judge this podcast until my hundredth episode. Until I get there, I am going to just put out content. In that process, you are going to get better in all kinds of different ways you did not even think of. The thing that kills most podcasts is people just get too self-conscious with it. The delta of where they are and where the...

It would just be not to wait until you have a ready product to start building your community and start marketing your product. If you have an idea and you know you are going to go after it, create a landing page, create a newsletter, create any social media page Twitter, Instagram, etc. Just start talking to people about it. Get them to start talking to you because their feedback is everything. Yo...

The piece of advice that I would give is, start. You have no idea what beauty lies beyond that first step. A lot of us are afraid to try. We are afraid of failing. We are afraid of a lot of things that could go wrong, but what if it goes right?

Definitely get everything in order right away. It kind of falls back on the worst business decision I made. Getting everything set up to where you have contracts that are in place. And you have a legal framework you can work off of to give you accountability. Then also give your clients accountability. The thing I wished I had done a little bit differently was I viewed my business in the very begi...

My greatest fear is running out of innovation. To me, innovation is what keeps us afloat. It keeps me going every day. Sometimes that worried me. As I grow older, will I get more out of touch with what's happening in social media new apps coming up? How much do I want to keep up with? Technology continues to advance. So as you grow, you wonder how much of this technology do you need or handle? So...

I want to always over-deliver and fear that I won't be able to do that. How I am handling it is I am actively looking for the right people to help me do that. I know I can't do it all myself and, my team can't do it all ourselves. So we are on the hunt for the right people.

Put Your Goals in front of you and your fears behind you. There is so much that has to happen in a business. And it takes a long time. It's years or a marathon. You have to find a source of motivation and inspiration. Two of those sources are goals and fears. If you can be motivated by those simultaneously, I believe it's a powerful combination to keep doing whatever you need to be doing. I think...

I believe there are two reasons to do a start-up. One is you are passionate about something. You want to do a company and, you are willing to ram your idea down the throats of potential clients. That was UTD. The second reason is you see a niche and, you fill it. And that is, coach me strong. So I have had the opportunity to do both of these. You're passionate about something. Create a new product...

This Ranger Instructor looked down at me and goes are you committed? I looked at him, and I mean, my face is muddy. I have stuff in my eye that I am trying to get out. I am hacking up stuff and, I say what do you mean Sergeant? and he goes look a chicken is dedicated because he gives an egg. A pig is committed because he gives bacon. He goes do you understand the difference? And I said, yes I do....

I would say to some who have not yet started well, start, do it. The world needs you. They need your idea and vision. Whatever you have in your beautiful vision do it. If not now, when? We all could die tomorrow.

Make sure you carve out time for yourself and your family. When you are running a start-up you can get so focused and so in the weeds of running that business and it can be mentally all-consuming. You can't lose track of what is truly important. Carving out that time to go for a run. Carving out that time for a date night. Carving out that time that is super intentional for your kids. That is goin...

Raise capital but, raise capital in a way that you can build on it slowly. I started my entire company using square loans. I got my first one for eight hundred dollars. I worked and paid it off based on my credit card sales and, stuff like that afforded me another one for sixteen hundred dollars. Reallocated the money to what I needed at the moment and just kept building on it. I stayed away from...

Don't be afraid to aim high. My goal was when I started my rental business the whole point behind it was I  didn't want to put my financial security in the hands of a company. That was the whole reason behind this journey was that I did not trust a company to pay my mortgage every month. So I wanted to build up a rental portfolio that I could live off of if things ever went sideways and I los...