School for Startups Minutes

American small businesses are fighting racism, sexism, ageism — all of the "-isms." When I buy a product, I don't care about the personal details of the seller. I care about price, service, and quality. Entrepreneurship is one of the great equalizers. Small businesses make the American Dream accessible to all, regardless of race or any other label. The best way to create equality in America is thr...

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, small businesses contributed 55% of total net job creation in the past decade. There are currently 33 million small businesses in the United States, making up 99.9% of all U.S. businesses. These businesses employ 62 million people, representing 45% of the entire workforce. Small business is America.

It's so common these days to focus on what's wrong with America — and yes, there are things to fix. But this week, I want to celebrate why America is the greatest country on Earth, and especially why it's the best place to be an entrepreneur. The passion of small business owners makes both our country and the world a better place. So many entrepreneurs are driven not just by profit, but by a desir...

The things you need to do to start a new business and this week we are focusing on a marketing project that you need to start. Surprisingly soon. I believe email marketing is one of the most effective strategies available. These are people who have visited your website and made the decision to follow what you're doing — which means they're already interested and engaged. As a result, this group ty...

Step five is to create an email system that delivers consistent value. Aim to send a fresh email every week (or so) filled with insights, helpful information, tips, and tricks. The key here is to build trust — don't ask for a sale right away. Instead, focus on delivering value at least six or seven times before making a pitch. This approach builds credibility and increases the likelihood of conver...

Step four is to actively promote your email list, your website, and your lead magnet — the free gift you created. You want to promote it as widely as possible and give away as many lead magnets as you can. The more you give away, the more email addresses you'll capture — and that means more potential customers for your business.

Step three is capturing the email addresses. Once someone submits their information, you'll need an email marketing platform such as Mailchimp, ConvertKit, or MailerLite. These tools serve as a repository — a database where all captured emails are stored. Later on, they allow you to market directly to your audience through targeted email campaigns. And as I mentioned earlier, email marketing is li...

Step two is to build a landing page on your website where new visitors can learn about the benefits of signing up and sharing their email address. While the lead magnet is the immediate incentive, this step is crucial because it begins the relationship — setting the stage for effective marketing down the line.

One of the most common mistakes I see is failing to ask for help — and I don't mean financial aid. I mean mentorship. There are so many organizations actively seeking mentees — people to train. There are also individuals who are excellent at mentoring and are actively advertising for new clients — entrepreneurs to guide and support. But the average entrepreneur is often too arrogant, too egotistic...

When an entrepreneur is starting out and finally finds success with marketing, whatever channel brought that success often becomes their favorite. They become obsessed with it — overly in love with it. So, if their first success comes from Google Ads, they tend to forget about all the other options and focus only on Google Ads. That's a huge mistake. You must use all marketing channels: word of mo...

One common mistake that entrepreneurs make is in their pricing. You're probably thinking they charge too much — but no, the exact opposite is usually true. Most entrepreneurs charge too little in the beginning. They don't value their own goods and services enough. They try to fight for business by thinking a low price will win customers. In fact, I believe a higher price signals greater appreciati...

Here's something to be careful of — a suggestion to avoid: Trying to serve everyone. As I said, you can't do that. No matter what your product is, you have to find a niche. Even if it's ice cream — and I assume 95% of the world loves ice cream — you still need a niche. Are you offering extra-fat, low-fat, homemade, or restaurant-quality? Whatever it is, you need to choose a specific angle, because...

This year, we're diving into every aspect of entrepreneurship, aiming to cover every single topic. And this week, we're talking about five mistakes that you should — or can — avoid. I hope you do avoid them during your first year in business. I'll give you the first one right now: One of the most common mistakes is poor cash flow management. You can go bankrupt and run out of money, even if you're...

Touch is the final love language. Rub my feet, and I'll be happy for a week! Have a great weekend—bye for now!

Love language number four is acts of service—think of it as the "honey-do" list. Simply doing what your partner asks—whether it's taking the kids to school, doing the dishes, or cleaning the carpet—can make a big difference. Do it, and you're likely to have a great weekend, I promise.

Love language number three is receiving gifts. For some people, receiving a gift makes them feel deeply loved. Try it out and see the difference it makes.

The love language I want to focus on today is quality time. It's the act of truly being together—whether it's for five minutes or five hours. The amount of time doesn't matter. What matters is being fully present with each other—committed, engaged, and not distracted by your phone, the TV, or sports. Take a walk and do nothing but be together. That's quality time.

I want to talk about love languages and how understanding them can have a powerful impact on your relationships—with your family, your kids, your spouse, and even your employees or your boss. This concept comes from a book by Gary Chapman, which explains that every person gives and receives love in one or two of five ways. One of these love languages will resonate with you the most, and when someo...

All of the other tips I've given this week are free, but this one depends on using Google and its analytic tools to do A/B testing on your brand, products, and messaging. Set up two different campaigns and test the daylights out of them. Run each campaign for a week, review the data, make changes, and try again. This process will help you deeply understand your customer.

Conduct surveys. In fact, I'd love for you to give fifty dollars to every one of your customers who fills out a 10-question survey. That information is worth five thousand dollars, not fifty, because of the insights you'll gain from your customers. Ask open-ended questions and let them write whatever they want—you will learn a lot.

At my very first business, my customers were kids. They were dropped off in the morning and picked up late at night. As they were being picked up, I would ask every parent, "How's it going? What do you like? What don't you like?" I got feedback every single day—within the last 12 hours, I knew whether my customers were happy or not. That's the kind of thing you need to do. Engage in any forum or g...

To understand your target market, you should extensively study your competitors' audiences—whether through commercials, online discussions, product comments, or other channels. You should understand why their customers buy from them and try to identify if there's a missing niche or an area they've overlooked. Also, study their common complaints to see if you can solve problems they aren't addressi...

To understand your target market, you must know everything about your customer—their age, gender, location, income. Are they married? What are their interests? What are their goals? What are their pain points? What kind of computer do they use? All of these details matter. For example, I had a program for kids, and we stayed open until 9 PM because all of our parents were dual-income workers.

I believe that when you set the price for your service-based business, your pricing should reflect that you are very, very good at what you do—so you charge one of the highest rates in the industry. That's how I think you should determine your price for a service business: find out what the industry norms are, and then charge a little more than that.

The loss leader pricing strategy is used when you want to penetrate an existing marketplace and take customers away from someone else. It's what the Japanese did in the 1970s by entering with very low-priced but good-quality cars and taking market share from American automobile companies. It's a great strategy—if you're willing to lose money.