I talk to people as if it’s a career choice it’s not a career choice it’s a lifetime Choice okay and I said you have to understand that if you’ve been at it for 5 or 10 years this is a life sentence and a massive transformative purpose is what you’re telling the world it’s like this is who I am this is what I’m going to do this is the dent I’m going to make in the universe everybody Welcome to Moon shots and mindsets uh I am here with Dan Sullivan and we’re going to be talking about what it takes to be an entrepreneur uh what are the most important attributes of an entrepreneur uh what does it take to succeed how do you know if you’re an entrepreneur and what does it mean once to become an entrepreneur so stay tuned for an extraordinary conversation with uh the head of strategic coach the founder a dear friend the man who inspired me to create abundance 360 my coach Dan Sullivan everybody Peter Dand is here
[00:01:00] Welcome to our next episode of exponential wisdom I’m here with my dear friend Dan Sullivan and today we’re going to talk about something that is near and dear to both of our hearts and it’s the entrepreneurial Journey uh we haven’t had a chance to talk about this Dan but like what makes an entrepreneur what are the highs and lows the pros the cons of being an entrepreneur what does it mean to be an entrepreneur how do you succeed at it and how do you know if it’s right for you so this is a subject that both you and I exude from our pores and excited to to jump in well it’s a it’s a very recent concept because if you go back and check the dictionary uh the best definition was 1804 and that was a Frenchman by the name of John Baptist say and he said entrepreneurs are someone who take who takes resources from a lower level lower level of productivity to a higher level of productivity so entrepreneurs improve things they they take they take existing
[00:02:01] things they create new things but they take resources and he was asked uh what kind of resource and he said any kind of resource and um just a little note and then I’ll pass it on to you whether you’ve heard other definitions but the uh he was asked and there was no such thing as um entrepreneur was a really new term as we use it today and his his whole belief was that it was the Industrial Revolution that really created a whole new class of individuals who could literally come from nowhere and become major economic players uh unlike anything that had happened before and so he was the I think that the technically the Industrial Revolution starts in 1776 in March of 1776 and it’s when James W
[00:03:00] uh uh introduced an improved steam engine that got a 25% energy return which was phenomenal it probably still be phenomenal in some centers but it was that sudden where almost any V individual who was ambitious who was enterprising who was ingenious could now use a new technology to uh massively transform productivity in all existing Industries starting with basically the fabric industry was where it was first used and I mean as a real productive it was used to get water out of coal mines in Great Britain that was the main purpose but uh it created two classes it created um the entrepreneurs who were these people who could come from nowhere and create uh great Enterprises and great fortunes and it created the intellectual class there was no class
[00:04:00] called intellectual class and these are the people who hated entrepreneurs because they they they didn’t deserve their status they weren’t educated they weren’t uh you know they didn’t have aristocracy they they hadn’t come up the normal way so uh and I think it starts there and then you see the the 19th century was a phenomenal entrepreneurial decade and of course it’s gotten exponentially larger you know I Define an entrepreneur someone who finds a juicy problem and solves it that’s my my definition and I think uh today more than ever especially during this exponential age the ability for an in a single individual uh to make a dent in the universe to find a problem solve a problem uh is greater than ever before you if you think about what it takes to become an entrepreneur and I’m curious uh for those who are entrepreneurs You Know It uh you thrive on it I’m on my 26th or 27th company uh some really good
[00:05:03] ones some spectacular failures and everything in between but I think uh I would if I were to Rattle off the list of things first of all it requires uh passion or obsession with a a subject because it’s not easy it’s much easier just get a job and do what you’re told so that’s the first thing I think it requires a reasonably high risk tolerance because if you’re really doing something on your own that hasn’t been done before and you could lose it all and you’re not sure where your next paycheck is coming which is some part of the early entrepreneurial Journey um risk is there a and then I think there’s a a certain amount of self-confidence I would say uh having an understanding of the problem you want to solve and possibly not required an expertise you’re bringing to the table because a true entrepreneur
[00:06:00] um will not ask how but who right as you’ve famously said they’ll pull together a team what are the other elements that you think of an entrepreneur needs to have well I think the one that I’ve noticed because I am fascinated in people’s history so whenever I meet an entrepreneur I said you know when you think about the entrepreneurial path which is definitely a fork in the road from you know from the way that most people think about their future when did you notice showing up if you had to go back to the earliest age that you were doing things different than your peer group was doing you were doing something different than them and you were you wanted to have a a direct relationship with the marketplace okay you didn’t want a buffer of someone who guaranteed you income didn’t guarantee you security you wanted to hit the marketplace so uh do you remember I mean I I I I do I do I remember uh I was High School I started a a snow removal
[00:07:02] service uh in my in uh between my house and my friend’s house a few miles away we went door too and sold snow removal for 20 bucks a shot wow um that was good because that that would have been the late 70s I think yeah the problem was we had a record three- foot snowfall on one day and destroyed the business because I couldn’t take care of it uh but but you know that was my my first uh effort but my real entrepreneurial Journey was my first year at MIT when I started a um a national international student space organization called students with exploration and development of space and it was this bold crazy Vision that actually came true and I was like wow this is cool and there’s like this this element of surprise and Delight when you start a business and people and it was a nonprofit but uh and and it I got it I got hooked I got addicted Ed on the idea
[00:08:00] of an idea and creating something that people would participate how about you Dan what was yours well I grew up on a farm so uh farming is a very risky entrepreneurial business and our farm failed and um my father um recreated himself at age 60 as a landscaper and had his best he worked right till he was 82 and he had his best business year and he left uh um you know my mother um he died at 83 but he he worked full-time uh when he was um 82 and then he packed it in he packed it in he said I can’t do it anymore and my feeling is that the day my father um wasn’t doing business he didn’t know what he who he was and yeah and he just he said I’m out of here you know uh and that that joy that you talk about the excitement and a lot of it is just the Applause I think Applause really keeps people in the game
[00:09:01] teamwork um deadlines um you know having to cre create new Solutions but you’re doing it face to face with the marketplace so you know you’re you’re you’re you’re really getting the best kind of research for the development of what you’re doing and it’s check writers check writers are crucial and you want to be paid directly you don’t want to go through a third party you don’t want to have five levels of coming down to you and what I noticed just to finish this topic that it shows up very early I mean the the Instinct for it shows up um um where it’s chosen I I think there are people who are forced into it because of the failure of a a large employer and that happens but I noticed the ones who start early um uh tend to create new things more than the people who are forced into it and um yeah and uh yeah and and you had a very
[00:10:01] uh divided U not only uh postgraduate but you had you were already added an undergraduate because you have your famous getting your Med medical degree because because it received your medical school received the least amount of your passion in yes it very true I mean when you’re hooked as an entrepreneur you you love what you’re doing and you’re excited to jump out of bed in the morning and go and see what are the results of what I did yesterday and what can I do different today um you know Dan I think it’d be interesting to ask a question and and get your insights and I have a few to add of what don’t people realize about entrepreneurship like what are some of the surprises uh that uh um if you haven’t been an entrepreneur and you become an entrepreneur what are the surprises that uh that most people don’t know about no
[00:11:01] go ahead I have I have one I have one I’m going to say the surprise is you’re going to spend more time with your co-workers and your co-founders than you will your family or kids um you know it’s a uh the reality is starting a company is never easy uh most companies are you know overnight successes after 10 years of hard work uh and so pick your co-founder and your your employee team that you’re working with carefully because they’re going to be as close to you and sometimes closer than family what about you Dan what else surpr I think the biggest thing uh I often said if there’s a God in the entrepreneurial Heaven the name of that God is cash flow yeah yeah the getting the cash flow routine because you’re um you have to Market and you have to create and in other words and it takes a while for you
[00:12:00] to get these two together that you can’t just create and solve problems and then start marketing you have to do both of them at the same time and uh I think that’s the hardest thing I see more bankruptcies I see more failed businesses just because they didn’t get cash flow down I went bankrupt twice in the uh late 70s and early 80s and it was strictly receivables that killed me you know so in 84 we made a decision that we me talking to myself um uh that um I would never have another receivable that what I was doing would get paid for up front and uh and uh people said well people just won’t do that and I said well I’m just going to find the check writers who would be willing to do it but there you really have to be thinking in terms of their goals you have to really be thinking and I think that’s the next thing that that um you have to
[00:13:01] understand that all of your money is in the aspirational future of your best clients this episode is brought to you by levels one of the most important things that I do to try and maintain my Peak vitality and Longevity is to monitor my blood glucose more importantly the foods that I eat and how they Peak the glucose levels in my blood now glucose is the fuel that powers your brain it’s really important High prolonged levels of glucose what’s called hyperglycemia leads to everything from heart disease to alzheimer’s to sexual dysfunction to diabetes and it’s not good the challenge is all of us are different uh all of us respond to different foods in different ways like for me if I eat bananas it spikes my blood glucose if I eat grapes it doesn’t if I eat bread by itself I get this prolonged spike in my blood glucose levels but if I dip that bread in olive oil it blunts it and these are things that I’ve learned from where ing a continuous glucose monitor and using
[00:14:01] the levels app so levels is a company that helps you in analyzing what’s going on in your body it’s continuous monitoring 24/7 I wear it all the time really helps me to stay on top of the food I eat remain conscious of the food that I eat and to understand which foods affect me based upon my physiology and my genetics you know on this podcast I only recommend products and services that I use that I use not only for myself but my friends and my family that I think are high quality and safe and really impact a person’s life so check it out levels. l/ Peter give you two additional months of membership and it’s something that I think everyone should be doing eventually this stuff is going to be in your body on your body part of our future of medicine today it’s a product that I think uh I’m going to be using for the years ahead and hope you’ll consider as well you said something really important about cash flow being critical you know as an
[00:15:01] entrepreneur you’re going to make a decision early on on if you’re going to use your own money and your own Blood Sweat and tear to get the company going are you planning at the end of this to Own 100% of your own company or are you going to go out there and raise money from you know friends families Angel Investors venture capitalist and slowly you know dilute yourself from 100% ownership down to many times it may be down to 20% or 10% and I’ve done both and some of the crazy moonshot ideas um require massive amounts of outside Capital but the companies that I’ve started and owned myself and I started the company based upon making the first sales and building it on cash flow have been the most fulfilling um do you want
[00:16:02] to speak to that Dan well um I can remember when um you know we started collaborating and a360 got created and it was at the first really big one we did a sample version in uh in at Su in Silicon Valley right yeah yeah and um and uh that’s when I became fully human in your eyes because you brought writers I brought I F I put butts in seats you know and I said I don’t think you I I I think I was more of an abstraction or a theory before before that and uh I remember um the day before we did that uh first event which was incredibly successful and has been ever since um all the money was already in you hadn’t put any you hadn’t put the presentation on and and uh I said uh he said boy all
[00:17:02] the money I haven’t I haven’t actually presented anything yet everybody bought the tickets in the B everybody bought the tickets and uh and so um I’ve taken I’ve just stuck with that one model for our whole life and we’re up you know um uh the real program strategic coach program I had 15 years of oneon-one and then I we went to a workshop U for him and the reason was that Babs and I are Americans who live in Canada and uh when we moved to Canada they said uh that the tax system is voluntary and I thought it meant [Laughter] optional and then I had this uh True Canadian call me up with a distinctly Indian voice and said oh Mr civan you’ve been a very very naughty boy you do not want to own the government money because we’ll tax you
[00:18:01] on the money you pay us for and uh so the one-on-one career was over and I said we’re going to have to do a workshop to pay our taxes and I and I say that because uh there’s the story that entrepreneurs tell about how their business you know they were very systematic they were very strategic and then there’s the actual story that actually got you started and uh we were scared silly because we didn’t think we could coach a room full of people and we had six people in the first group and we weren’t charging saying as if I was CH charging for a whole year for a single individual but it was 80% time six so it was five times bigger yes and I died and went to heaven on that day I tell you uh and I agre when you get entrepreneurs and they’re talking to each other they love the failure stories that’s the thing about entrepr rurs entrepreneurs are the only
[00:19:00] people who thrive on on um failure stories a corporate exec you can never get people to talk about that you know government bureaucrats nobody H talks about their failures because they’re swimming among sharks and it’s blood in the water uh for sure for sure so other truisms about being an entrepreneur if you step into that lifestyle uh uh the first you know the result is the buck stops with you uh and everybody looks to you um something that we talked about in in uh in conversation before before this podcast was the notion that uh and it’s a distinction people need to realize is entrepreneurs don’t need to be the CEO of the company entrepreneurs hire CEOs many times and they’re different phases of a company right in the beginning it is n of one it’s you and you’re responsible for everything and you’ll bring in a team um and then ultimately uh you know the thing I love
[00:20:02] is taking a role as founder and chairman or founder and executive chairman and hiring a great CEO to run all the day-to-day operations uh the stuff that I don’t love doing I love the creative I love the teaching I love the strategy I love all of that you want to speak about the idea of uh of entrepreneurs hiring CEOs yeah well uh in my case I married my CEO and or she married me I’m not quite sure how it went uh but uh Babs who’s my lifetime um partner in personal life and business life um she was really great at creating teams and to this day as a real gift for putting teams together okay and she just looked at me and she says you’re just doing so much one that you’re no good at and and the other thing is some of the things that you’re no good at you just don’t do like filing with the government
[00:21:01] and you know paying attention to to that and and so uh from probably uh the year before we actually started the program she was just freeing me up and there’s one rule that she has in the company uh and this goes back 34 34 years and it’s free up Dan you free up Dan to what he’s doing and you don’t have Dan like we we have business meetings to run the company and if if there’s more than three per year I ask for an investigation why am I sitting why why am I in more meetings but I’m the way we look at it it’s like a live theater if you think about the business of a live theater there’s the whole business of the theater you know which is um you know uh all the backstage that has to go in to fill up an audience and I’m responsible for what goes on stage I’m I’m the front stage
[00:22:02] guy and it’s all my creativity that constitutes the front stage but everything backstage I have no part of so is a concept and Coach no and what I say there there’s no rule for this there’s no rule for this it’s how you want to have it I mean you Cate you created your entrepreneurial business for Freedom you want to be freed up to just do what you’re passionate about what you started did the podcast with it’s about passion but I think it’s passion for Freedom yes I mean I I think a true entrepreneur loves to do what they love to do uh I would say if it’s just about making money uh you picked the wrong topic um you know money comes as a result of doing what you love to do and what people need but I was going to get to the idea that um that you speak about in coach which I love which is unique ability and as an entrepreneur it’s understanding what your unique abilities is it could be that you’re a coder it could be that you’re a coach it
[00:23:02] could be that you’re a writer could be anything you can build businesses around any unique abilities and it’s also knowing what you don’t love doing and finding people the who to partner with to do those things you don’t love doing yeah I mean unique ability is really the concept the Cornerstone concept for what we’ve done and uh my whole point is there that everybody’s born and I think this is factory factory installed people are born with a um particular passionate interest in some sort of activity and I think we’ve talked before about the school system the school system I think tries to educate you out of a passion and want you to be a generalist you know that you have to take everything and uh it’s very very interesting and we’ve had about 22,000 entrepreneurs who have on average spent three years uh three years in the
[00:24:01] coaching program and um I can remember on one hand the number of uh of entrepreneurs in 34 years well actually uh 48 years because I started working with entrepreneurs in 1974 and um I can’t remember any of them saying that their formal education had really any to do with their entrepreneurism it’s not that that they’re opposed to it or their thing they just don’t don’t see it as a crucial factor to who they are as an entrepreneur yeah no it’s if it does have something to do with you it you became an entrepreneur during school and then School became a distraction for you along the way so I have like uh one of the uh speakers at abundance 360 this year Alexander Wang who’s the CEO of scale AI which is a multi billion dollar company became the youngest self-made
[00:25:00] billionaire and uh he tells the story that he was at MIT and uh over the summer he went to go work on AI and he told his parents it was going to be just a summer thing and uh he never went back that was the end of school that was the end of school yeah I mean I think it’s so it’s so happens so frequently um certainly during the microchip uh Revolution it happened so frequently that almost become a cliche you know I think it was you know she’s in prison now but uh you know Elizabeth Holmes her big thing was that she followed you know she went to Stanford and you know got everything she needed and I think not even a year and then she went out but that had become sort of a a model that Steve it was a badge it was a badge of honor to drop out of school oh yeah yeah Ian you obviously didn’t have what it took to I mean she had so some other interesting issues with her whole
[00:26:01] presentation but the thing was that she was following something that had been um very very dominant especially in the 70s I think was um but um you know I mean um it’s it’s an interesting thing but it’s almost like folklore you know well if you go to a university then you have to drop out at a certain point or start your business and everything else and um you know but but the vast majority of people do get an education but it just it they got an education because it was what you had to do but it it didn’t figure prominently in The crucial Center of why they’re a successful entrepreneur yeah it wasn’t like going to medical school to be a doctor or going to law school to become a lawyer um and you know I don’t actually know whether getting an MBA is that you know I there’s one reason to go to get your business degree is to meet a
[00:27:00] lot of other people it’s like the network that you get I would say network is a crold yeah but I I’ve written some blogs about the idea instead of going and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and getting your MBA find uh a great Network and plug into it or become an apprentice for someone you want to Apprentice for let me mention another that work for you I mean if you go back to your Harvard and your MIT days I mean didn’t but it seems to me that you were making your network outside of both of them yeah it was all outside my you know I built my space network uh through that first group I met I I started and founded students exploration development space you Jeff Bezos was the president of the Princeton chapter and I met a lot of amazing people but outside of school and same thing for medical school I was I was I was checking the boxes and surviving in medical school to get that that diploma and send it to my parents at the end but my network was outside
[00:28:01] here’s another attribute I think is important for entrepreneurs um and I’m curious your thoughts I think to be a successful entrepreneur you need to be a great communicator you need to be a effectively a Salesman saleswoman you need to have be able to compel your idea and get people uh to uh to get it believe it because you’re in the beginning you’re selling yourself and you’re selling your idea a brief note from our sponsors let’s talk about sleep sleep has become one of my number one longevity priorities in life you know getting eight deep uninterrupted hours of sleep is one of the most important things you can do to increase your vitality and energy and increase the health span that you have here on Earth you know when I was in medical school years ago I used to pride myself on how little sleep I could get you know we should be 5 5 and 1/2 hours today I pride myself on how much sleep I can get and I shoot for hours every single night now usually I’m great at going to sleep
[00:29:01] if I’m exhausted you know I’ve worked a hard day I’m right out but if I’m having difficulty and it occurs I’m having insomnia or my mind’s overactive and I need help to get that 8 hours I turn to a supplement product by life force called Peak rest now Peak rest has been formulated with an extraordinary scientific depth and background includes everything from long lasting melatonin to magnesium to L glycine to Rosemary extract just to name a few this product is about creating a sense of rest and really giving you the depth and length of sleep that you need for Recovery it’s a product I hope you’ll try it works for me and I’m sure it will work for you if you’re interested go to myli horse.com back/ Peter uh to get a discount from Life forse on this product but you’ll also see a whole set of other longevity and vitality related supplements that I use we’ll talk about them some other time but in terms of sleep Peak rest is
[00:30:00] my go-to supplement hope you’ll enjoy it go to myli horse.com back SL Peter for your discount can can I ask you a question about that uh what gets communicated uh you say you’re great salesperson but from your experience because you you you’ve really been heavily into the uh Venture Capital Community for a lot of your different uh Ventures uh and um uh what are they betting on are they betting on the idea or are they betting on the person so I think about funding and phases right in the beginning there’s the friends and family round when you have an idea and you’re going out and pitching to get some capital and the friends and family round of any capitalization if if you’re raising Capital they’re only in in betting on you and uh uh because you don’t really have a track record yet you really don’t have a a fundamental idea and what you want is people putting small amounts of money on you and then
[00:31:02] following how you succeed and if you are able to succeed and you keep that community of investors informed then as they see you succeed or fail and learn learn something and and then succeed they’re going to be willing to put additional money in and then you know there’s the jockey or the horse obviously is the is the is the conversation but at the end of the day a great entrepreneur with a mediocre business will reinvent it into a great business you know a great business with a mediocre entrepreneur will fail and so it it needs to have that uh that level of a a great a great person but people in the early days are investing in you and the promise of the idea they’re definitely the only thing real yeah it’s the only thing real yeah yeah yeah uh another uh another question about that is really the um um uh the the failure
[00:32:04] because failure has a totally different meaning in the entrepreneurial world than it does in all other worlds I I mean I can’t think of another world maybe even where where like in the entertainment industry it’s still uh it’s still the same model Babson I I think you may know him or have met him Jeff maof um yes I know him yeah and Jeff um um at age 73 decided to write a Broadway play a Broadway musical play and it started 5 years ago and it opens in Chicago it’s gone through the first uh route uh to open outside of New York City they had workshops in New York and then started in Philadelphia and they had a three three-w week run and it was spectacular I mean they got rave reviews and U sellout audiences and now they’ve gone but at each level who was doing the
[00:33:00] funding moved up a level that you started off with people you knew when you began and now it’s big big money coming in and uh they have a 12-week run in Chicago right in the center of the it’s called personality uh and it’s the musical history of Lloyd Price who was the real first crossover rock and roll um 1951 1952 and uh so Babs I Babs and I just invested because my first thought in life is I wanted to go into theater you know and um I’ve got good skills I’ve got good theater skills but I don’t have the passion you know I wouldn’t stick with I wouldn’t stick with it and uh I said Jeff um we’ll pay for the coffee we’ll pay for the coffee all and uh and I we put in we’re on our third round we put in you know um you know not in significant but certainly not the top um investor but now you’re you’re talking
[00:34:01] about Millions have to come in and uh you know it’s coming in from foundations it’s coming in from people who are strangers there’s also a different world today as an entrepreneur uh where Capital you know Capital goes through cycles of being uh uh restrictive and hard to get and capital becomes open and available you know in the late.com revolution you know there was like I remember a friend of mind describing Silicon Valley as rivers of gold flowing all you do is put your Ladle and pick it up and then all of a sudden it shut off instantly um and so it’s I I when I think about you know guidance to an entrepreneur it’s okay to have a big passionate moonshot where you want to impact you know millions or billions of people but I think it’s really important to have a business plan that delivers dollar one to a customer in the beginning like you say check riter right um because you learn a lot when you
[00:35:00] actually have to generate Revenue at the start versus versus you know Theory how do how do you think about that what’s your advice to entrepreneurs who are getting started now well I think the faster you can one I mean dollar one for the C for the investor but dollar one for yourself so Babs and I put in a policy right uh from the beginning that 15% of gross was ours right off the top year and we’ve done and we’ve done that since um um well since we since we started okay and uh We’ve you know I mean we started off with two employees and now we have 130 you know we were just in Toronto and now we’re in three countries and uh I have 16 other coaches and we’ve just had that constant model the other thing and this is a trick of borders is that we’re American Amic an and Canadians for the most part don’t
[00:36:00] know there’s another country south of Canada you know there’s this big space on the map and being an American in Toronto is like being a shark at a beach party you know and yeah I mean there’s an aggressiveness to the American Marketplace that’s I mean you can freeze to death up here and I think it has something to do up there and um but we we’ve arranged it so that 80% of our revenue is always in American dollars but repatriated to Toronto I mean there’s a certain amount of money that we have to keep in our um uh American company in Chicago uh you know but it just satisfies the requirements to have a company and same thing in the UK but it comes back but we pay almost all of our expenses with Canadian dollars and for 34 years it’s been a126 difference uh so we’re getting 26 Cents on every do so
[00:37:00] one of the things I’m always saying that is that um every entrepreneur works out unique formulas you know that that’s a unique formula and um people say well why do you live in Canada it’s so expensive up there and I said there’s some Hedges you know there’s there there’s some offsets it’s also easier to put a team together in Canada than the United States because uh Canadians are not nearly as mobile as people in the states there’s about 20 there’s about 20 big centers that you could find opportunity and Toronto it’s Toronto you know Canada it’s basically Toronto or maybe Calgary you means people stick around for the job for a little bit longer than yeah so we have 70 have been more than 10 years we have 25 that are more than uh 20 years and the payoff for that if they’re good people and you’re operating according to Unique ability and unique ability teamwork uh there’s an enormous Institution U wisdom that grows up in the company hey everybody this is Peter
[00:38:00] a quick break from the episode you know I’m a firm believer that science and technology and how entrepreneurs can change the world is the only real news out there worth consuming I don’t watch the crisis News Network I call CNN or Fox and hear every devastating piece of news on the planet I spend my time training my neural net the way I see the World by looking at the incredible breakthroughs in science and technology how entrepreneurs are solving the world’s Grand challenges what the breakthroughs are in longevity how exponential Technologies are Transforming Our World so twice a week I put out a Blog one blog is looking at the future of longevity age reversal biotech increasing your health span the other blog looks at exponential Technologies AI 3D printing synthetic biology AR VR blockchain these Technologies are transforming what you as an entrepreneur can do if this is the kind of use you want to learn about and shape your neural Nets with go to
[00:39:01] demand.com back/ blog and learn more now back to the episode Dan what when you’re hearing the pitch from a young entrepreneur whether they’re joining coach or they’re at abundance 360 or you just meet them someplace are there are there elements that you say wow this this guy or gal is going to be in a great entrepreneur or this person’s you know dreaming is it is there way that elements that make you uh put them in one of the other bucket that there there the the pitches totally how uh the check writers benefit from this new idea that there’s problems that the customer has that are not being solved or there’s better ways to solve the dangers they have the opportunities they have the strengths they have and you’ve got a unique take on how they’re immediately going to experience benefits so and if they don’t have a handle on who the customer is then then they’re
[00:40:02] you know they’re making up U you know they’re they’re making up fancy Futures yeah that’s a real important point I would I would say it a slightly different way if you’ve got someone who’s got a neat technology that’s searching for a problem uh that’s a failure mode over and over again versus and you’ve seen I mean I think probably the you know the microchip I I I think this all starts when Jordon Moore you know put together a prediction line you know in 1965 wasn’t even called microchips I think 73 is when the term hit on and um it was very very clear that this was a historic Game Changer that there was going to be something and um I think there was a lot of um uh people throwing Solutions at nine problems because people were throwing money at uh new Solutions but I suspect if you go back to any other um you know since the
[00:41:01] Industrial Revolution that was the case you know people there A lot of people have money that they don’t need and they just want to throw it at somebody you know or or at some at some problem to learn about if if you go back you know into the late 1800s in the early 1900s um when electricity first became uh viable the entrepreneur dour or the invention dour was taking a mechanical thing and adding electricity to it oh yeah right you know the electric well 1910 there were 3,000 car companies in the United States crazy and uh 40% of them were electric cars yeah that’s even crazier and and now of course we’re in the midst of the Genera of AI Revolution where everybody’s throwing generative AI at their favorite their favorite problem it’s a I mean it’s it’s new but it’s class there’s a classical a classic pattern on what
[00:42:00] happens during the early days people are betting on the bet they’re not actually betting on the you know they’re in some ways they’re not even betting on the thing they just want to see you know I mean there was the recent example not naming names here of um you know the in the crypto crypto world and the guy got 220 million and he was in shorts and somebody said I love the founder I love the founder you know you know 220 I I just want to give him $220 million I I I could not imagine who that could possibly be all right so I want to I want to maybe wrap with a rapid fire uh session on this podcast of like advice to someone who wants to be an entrepreneur or thinks they might want to be an entrepreneur it’s like what you need to think about uh I’m going to throw out the first one um uh uh choose your co-founders wisely uh you’re going to you’re going to live with them spend
[00:43:01] time with them make sure they bring a different unique ability uh then you do and that you talk about you’re talking all the time and sharing your ideas and your challenges you have respect for their person what’s another piece of advice yeah I would say the other thing is uh uh make your first hire an artist really that’s unusual what tell me about that yeah because they can take your ideas and put them into graphic form and can it be Dolly 2 or or stable diffusion well I I mean uh I my rule is I always keep a smart human between me and the technology okay and uh so uh but uh my first hire was an artist he was 16 years old and he had he was into computers you know so this was 1987 1988 and I promised him a Mac 2 if he came aboard uh the Mac 2 uh no it was
[00:44:01] the Little Mac to start with you know the little box like mac the when the Mac 2 came in they he’d get you know I mean he he was a dream and but I have artistic skills I was a layout artist in the advertising world so I knew the basics and he said how come we always he says how come we always use helvetica and I says because everybody uses I know but we should be different I said there’s a reason why everybody uses helvetica you know and uh and you know and so I hired an artist and because we had fantastic slides in those days and you could tell your whole story D Dan you’re dating yourself way back where late 198 I mean I was old in 1980s I mean I’m I’m time I’m Tim of now yes you are you are you’re only halfway done with life at at at uh at least halfway at 78 uh uh I next that was my first and I
[00:45:00] people said well why not a secretary and I said first of all you can hire them by the hour but you want to get your uh image of what you’re doing in picture for as fast as you can we now have J of AI to help us on that I’m going to throw out another one uh pick a subject you’re obsessed by not interested in that is like that you pick a a topic for your business your company that you’re is you’re passionate about you’re obsessed by and it’s not a passing fancy it’s a passion for or a passion against no pass well it could be a passion for or a passion against right it could be it could be a a problem that you refuse to let go on any further I’m going to solve this no matter what it takes or I’m ex I’m going to create this because um uh what’s another piece of advice well mine is um uh talented successful ambitious entrepreneur rurs uh who uh don’t have any lifestyle goals that they’re heading
[00:46:01] towards and don’t have any uh status goals they just have growth goals okay uh I I I buy that um uh understand your unique ability um and uh and do that which you’re great at and you love doing and then bring in Partners or employees who do the other stuff for you and support you yeah oh another one you men we mentioned earlier uh generate dollars on day one if you can get to check riters get a fast turnaround on your first um so I have a 90-day turnaround on anything new that I create it’s all it’s in the profit after 90 days you know and mind you I’m dealing with ideas it’s not with stuff you know so I can do that but I remember when we uh when a360 got created and uh you know I saidou know you’re going to have an enormous amount
[00:47:00] of money before the first day of this and uh we did we did and you were able to grow your team from that and uh and you know for for sure I mean the equivalent here is build a a minimally viable product in MVP you can prototype it you can start selling it you can start taking out Google AdWords and testing it you can throw a Shopify page and see if anybody wants it you can go to uh you know a variety of platforms and and get hey yeah today get customer feedback get customer feedback yeah and there’s only um the only person who uh can tell you it’s a good idea is somebody who would write a check for it there there no nobody else’s your friends your family especially not your staff you’re paying them they they don’t think any new idea is that good I you know it’s well it’s interesting right on the flip side sometimes your staff will
[00:48:00] tell you it is a good idea when it isn’t I remember I was uh interviewing Elon Musk on a on a Goldman Sachs uh uh stage and and he said something I’d never forget he said your friends tell you how great everything is your best friends tell you what suck so make sure you’ve got people yeah but check writers will just tell you that uh they wouldn’t they wouldn’t pay for it the way it is but if you made some adjustments and that’s great market research you know and I think you mentioned Elon and I think Elon is the uh from my perspective um you know which is not close like yours is he is of all the big tech people I think he’s the truest entrepreneur of them all yeah for sure sees a problem jumps on it well not only that but he continually takes big risks okay yes and the other thing he’s got a very interesting which I totally agree with is fail as fast as you can and as often as you can and pretty soon you’re going to get to something that nobody else
[00:49:01] could possibly have created yeah it’s amazing I mean he uh he’s got a different kind of nervous system I think he does he’s also one of the most extraordinarily intelligent individuals I’ve ever met in my life uh who has a first principle thinking mindset yeah he read and almost memorized whole encyclopedias when he was a kid and no no I mean uh he his understanding of geopolitics and uh everything I mean when Elon makes a big decisions like A10 million Factory in Mexico 10 billion right yeah 10 10 billion 10 10 10 million yeah you can’t round off with 10 million but 10 billion do Factory he’s sensing something in the wind and the thing is that uh you know um that there’s a shift on and where the you know uh North America United States
[00:50:00] Canada and Mexico have just tested out you know uh Supply chains from all over the world that aren’t dependable and he said one of the things everybody’s decided it can be in Mexico but it has to be on the continent you can do it by truck you can do it by train you can do you know and everything but the other thing the pay scales in Mexico are about one six the pay scales in the United States at almost every level the US is six times the pay scale and you have to have that with high technology you got to have this spectrum of pay scales uh you know for it I I just uh think uh um you know uh TW I mean he he bought Twitter and everybody says you know he’s just fooling around it’s like buying buying somebody buying a baseball team and I said no no no I said I mean it’s really dangerous the second second guess Elon Musk yeah no my my guess is that when he takes it public again it’ll
[00:51:01] be at least 5x what he bought it for um with a number of revenue streams all right uh my last thought uh uh on on entrepreneurship here to close out our podcast here buddy um is it is one of the highest forms of artistic creativity you’re creating something that can change the world if you’ve got a bent for it if you’re interested in it I could not commend it more than you know a way of life it is extraordinary I I love being an entrepreneur and I love hanging out with entrepreneurs and I think they’re the most important forces of of making the world a better place yeah and the I talk to people as if it’s a career choice it’s not a career choice it’s a lifetime Choice okay and I said you have to understand that if you’ve been at it for 5 or 10 years this is is a life sentence there’s no going back you can’t
[00:52:00] won’t have you back and what are you going to show them for the 10 years you know well who did you work for I mean you know uh who withheld your tax at uh you know at source and everything like that you know you be you become unemployable after after a year or two entrepreneur I would say that that that’s the actual decision that takes the greatest commitment this is for life you know your whole life your whole life and certainly my I mean U uh the day I quit will be the day after I die yes H for sure all right buddy as always a pleasure spend time you was a good ref that was that was that was fun all right see you see you soon see you next time okay thank you [Music] Peter