235. The Real Pain Of Growing A 7-Figure Per Month Scale Up Business

Welcome back to another episode of the Ben and Bergs podcast. I'm Ben, your favorite high school dropout and founder of Collective Shift. Long time is Bergs, your favorite MBA and CEO of Collective Shift. We're here to bring you world class crypto research strategies and insights to help you crush this crypto bull market. Plus, get an exclusive behind the scenes look as we scale Australia's or one of the world's. Australia's biggest. One of the world's leading crypto research companies. Like the podcast, we'd love for you to share it around with a friend or family. It's how we grow the podcast each and every week. Speaking of growing businessbergs, we have gone on a epic, epic run. The last sort of six months. It feels like an overnight success, but ultimately it's been years and years and years and years and years of grinding, failing, smashing our head up against a wall.

Sadness, anxiety, despair, crying in the corner, stress, debilitating, sleepless nights.

And the last four months or so have been ultra, ultra amazing and fun and exciting. We've scaled to new heights that, you know, were three year goals of ours that we did and achieved within four months, consecutively doing seven figure months. We've grown from eight people to 18 in just a few months. And we know we're scaling internationally. We are growing and man, it's been tough.

I sound sorry. I feel tired just you talking about it. I'm like wolf the amount of work in the background because it's funny where people see all these posts. Oh, we did this amazing summer. We had this seven figure month. We've got these new people in. Look at our business. Yay. Celebrate. But behind the scenes, it's just brutal days. Hiring people, onboarding people, teaching them systems, spinning up new departments we didn't have before. Everything's on fire, so we're getting these people in to fix it. But then you got to train the firefighters to fight the fires, mate. It is absolute madness hyperscaling your business. I was in Melbourne with you and Trav in July and since then we've hired what, like 10 more people? Something ridiculous. Yeah, like we've signed that many people over and got new contracts. Like, the business is just huge. We went from, you know, this very small screen when we do our weekly huddle to a screen where I can't even see everyone because we've got that many people joining us. It is so crazy.

It was wild. Even though I think it was one point, it was more people in the company that had been with us less than a year that have been here longer than a year.

That's exactly right. Like it's, it's so crazy. And then just getting people in where they're experts in their area, but then they're attending to an area that we haven't really looked at before. Like, so one for us would be like customer service where we've had people in that area before. It would be people doing multiple roles and everything was going fine. And then you're hyperscaling. So you've got tons and tons of customers that come in. You got to do all this onboarding, you have to do all these one on ones and then the. It infinitely increases in complexity and interactiveness. So we've got to get some people in there, you've got to hand things over. It's just, it's crazy. Even the media side of things, where Ben was doing the majority of it with contractors, now we've got social media manager, we've got, you know, Josh in as well. So we're able to really pump on that side. But then it's like, oh wait, you're doing heaps up front. That's actually worked. Now we've got a customer problem, now we've got a servicing problem. Now we've got the next problem. It is mental. The knock on effects are crazy.

Yeah, it's been wild to, it's been good fun. It's been honestly like a lot of fun, learning and being a part of it.

To see the different problems it creates. And also like at the end of the day, our mission and the way I think about it is that there's so many, many bad.

People, companies, scammers, all sorts of different things that are preying on people that are getting into crypto and take their money, send them down a garden path, sell them stuff that is not helping them ultimately, you know, selling them a dream. Because this space is so hard to understand. Wrap your head around. And I see these companies and it makes me sick to the stomach looking at what's going on. Seeing the biggest players in our space, our biggest competitors are the ones that are doing the worst things.

And, and this is not bullshit. This literally keeps Ben up at night. So I was on Slack over the weekend and he was posting it like midnight or something ridiculous going, these are our main competitors. Look at their marketing. They're promising you a 496x return and they're telling you not to buy bitcoin and all this crazy shit. You're like, I cannot believe this shit. It literally keeps you up on the weekend.

Sickening. You know, like.

Running ads telling people not to buy bitcoin. It's like, it's just, it's honestly sickening. And I, you know, really am obsessed at the fact that this whole entire space is so poorly misunderstood. And for everyday people, understanding bitcoin, understanding investing in crypto is so different to what people sell you online because their incentives are completely backwards. And we know this because I used to work for YouTube influencer and their business model is that they sell advertising and affiliate links and they want to do big clickbait content and do all this crazy stuff to get you to click on their links. That's how they make money. But that's what has littered this industry with awful information. It's why so many people lose. So we're trying to reverse that and give people actual hope through independence, through quality research, through a community, through, you know, genuine property, you know, investing framework strategies, all these things that isn't available elsewhere. And that is why the business is taking off so much because, you know, we're doing such a good job on that. But, you know, the money is just a scoreboard in my opinion. The real thing that I want us to get to is a place where Collective Shift is known and is just as trusted as a brand like Morningstar, where we are the known brand and entity for crypto research and investing. And you go to Collective Shift to get the no bullshit insights. You go to them because you know it's trusted and you don't need to go and listen to all these crazy, crazy people selling you all sorts of crap that don't even understand what they're doing themselves.

And under one of our company values, the behavior is we do long term things with long term people. So we're building this business for the future. We want this to be around in 10, 20, 30 years. And that requires scaling up significantly if we want to be able to deliver the high quality service and the standard that we hold ourselves to. And I want to ask you, mate, your role has had to change significantly from I do everything role to I get people in, I now have to hand this over to them and I also have to communicate more throughout the company. So how have you gone with delegating to people and also having to communicate a lot more to all the different teams and even across teams?

Yeah, I mean, when I first started, I was doing everything. I was everything from the dev to the sales guy, to the marketing person to content finance. And now it's like I can't be in the Weeds anymore. Like, my job is literally about trying to set people up for success, giving them the direction, the vision, the strategy, give them the tools, give them the software, give them the learnings, the courses, the content, the feedback to get people in the right direction, set them up for success and then work with them to improve that. And I, My role now is more of a. I feel as like a captain on a sports team. It's more about setting all the team up and the individuals for success so the team can win. You know, you can't win just if you've got one person on the, on the court. You need the entire team. They all need to know their role. And my job is to kind of be more of the coach. Ness maybe is probably a better, better point, like to make sure we're working on the right things, we're not wasting our time. And then also recruiting and hiring the best, best players. That's the big part, like I've learned very, very quickly in this business or in business in general, is that you can fast track and grow so much faster and live a more happier life, less stressful life if you get the right team on your side because they are a graders, make the world a better place because they elevate their level of thinking, they elevate the quality they create and they look after their stuff and you don't need to worry about them because they love what they do. They're incentivized by doing good things and they're a great team player. And when you can build a good team of a graders, it's a magical thing to see and watch.

I agree. But let's get into it. How much does this hurt, Ben? The growing pains, mate.

It's funny how we're laughing because it's kind of not as bad compared to the company's gonna die pains. And you're crying every single day. Like this is. We've got money, we've got everything. But we're working crazy hours and everyone's demanding your time, Ben. Like, they need time with you and they need that direction and you've got a lot of other duties as well. How are you finding all of that?

Yeah, it goes from stress of all we're going to run our money, we're going to be, you know, bankrupt to. Oh, now it's a different type of stress because we've got 20 employees plus all the contractors. Like, we need to pay and make sure it gets paid. We've got capacity, we've got clients we need to look after. We've got big expenses we've got to pay. We're going to make sure the marketing's working, we're going to make sure sales are working. And we've got people across the country, across the world that work for us. Communication is a big thing. Things break, systems break. You know, people want to spend a lot of time talking to me and reporting to me and like I don't have time to speak to everyone anymore. Like it just doesn't happen like that. So you know, there's a lot of tech things, communication things, human things that are, you know, when you're at 5, people work but don't work at 20.

You know, it's I'm in the office at 7:30 every day, usually get home at 8:30 every day. It's.

Trying to scale and work on the most important thing is the most important part of the day. Like if I hate wasting time, if I waste any time, my entire calendar is full to the minute, 12 hours a day.

And I'm still not getting to everything I need to. In fact, I'm not getting to everything and stressful.

So there's a beautiful stat where 96% of companies are in the less than $1 million range. So only 4% of companies make it to a million dollars revenue and only 10% of those, so 0.4% actually make it to $10 million. So that's the scale up phase. So only 10% of companies succeed. And this is the danger phase in a company where you're like, yeah, I've made it over a million rev. I'm on my way to 10 million rev. And you start to scale up and get employees in and they start doing great work because you know, well, because they're great people but also you need them in order to support all the customers that you have. But at the same time you're very concerned about. Any business owner would be concerned about sales having a sustainable amount of cash flow through in order to pay these employees because your fixed costs have increased significantly. So while you've got extra help, you're always like, well we've got to keep this machine going otherwise the help goes away. And it's the massive danger zone where 90% of companies don't get through to that goal.

Yeah, yeah, we've got to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a month just to keep the lights on.

How scary is that, man?

And I think the other thing that I've learned as, as a business owner and like being in this scale up is your environment is such a massive Massive, massive.

Has a massive impact on you. And I was only listening to a podcast this morning about this of other business owners have been through this. Like if you're surrounding yourself by, with people that haven't done this before, haven't grown to this level, aren't thinking big, are thinking that this is, this is big, you know, and are stressed out and don't know how to manage this, then, then that's how you act, that's what you become. Recently I've joined a number of groups. You know, well, I've been always been a part of it. EO has been great. But I've joined a mastermind in the US with sort of seven figure month founders. You know, going to the US in October to the Hormozy event. You know, being around other big founders and listening to people that have been and grown much bigger businesses than ours and you realize that it's just a way of thinking like where we are now is big because we're never, we've never been here before and, and we're such a small percent. But if you can surround yourself by the people that are also in that small percent or even higher, you realize that we're small fish compared to so many different businesses. But it's just a different way of thinking. There's different processes and systems and thinking and strategies to, to, to implement at different levels. And that's the biggest thing. Like consistently growing and learning is the most important part.

Definitely. And even you touched on your physical environment only a couple of months ago. You were at home. You had jackhammers in the background, dog barking, staying in your room 16 hours a day. And now on the screen you've got this big beautiful office behind you with a basketball ring and a little plant in the background and all your people there. How's that experience? How different is that?

Magical. I've got my own home now. Live in my own house. It's brilliant. I feel so much less stressed and I have everything I need there. It's, it's amazing. My girlfriend's moved in like it's just wicked to live with her. Life's great. Come to the office. I can split home and work. Before I had, I just lived in a bedroom out of my mate's house and like everything was there. I didn't leave 12, 14 hours a day. Well, actually including sleep, I was probably there like 22 hours a day.

It's actually crazy when you think about it.

Come out, get, go outside, get 14 seconds of sun.

Yeah. Go back in here. We've got amazing offers. The whole team's, you know. Well, not the whole team, but the Melbourne team. Come in. It's just a great energy. Everyone's buzzing. You can go from room to room. I think it's just me, like, flying across different rooms and, you know, getting a second to talk to everyone when I can. But it's just great. The energy's fantastic and it's fun. Like, when you. It's like, you know, I was actually thinking this other day, like, what. I get asked, like, why do I do what I do? And like, what. Like, why. What makes me successful? Like, what are the. What is the trait? And I was thinking, I was watching the. The footy and, like, looking at professional athletes and what. What makes the. What. What makes athletes really good at what they do? Well, they're obsessed with winning. They want to be the best. They want to continue to improve their craft. I feel like that in business, it's just different, seen differently. You know, a lot of people think of. Of work as a job, something they have to do. I don't. I think about what I do. I fucking love. I want to be the best at it. I want to be number one, and I want to win and I want to learn, and I want to do it in a good way where I can help other people along the journey, too, and we can all win. Like, that's. That's why I love what I do.

You'll keep going where other people will stop. And this is the thing, like, you look at, like, BUDS or Navy SEAL training. Like, that's like hardcore, hardcore training. And people like, oh, I could do that for me, I'm like, no, I don't have that desire to want to win in that physical space where I will quit when. Whereas other people, like, I will die and you will carry me away and I'll be unconscious before I quit. Like, that's the kind of mentality you need to have to be the top 1% of whatever you do. Because I'm like, nah, I'm out. It's not that serious to me. Whereas, like, business, I'm like, I will fucking win. Yes.

And that's. It's a mix of, like, enjoyment, fulfillment, and also skill. Like, you've got to be good at it. You got to love it. And it's like, I'm very grateful to be in that space. And that's why it's just. It's fun. Like, it's not about the money for many more. Like, obviously the money's great, but, you know, if it was for the money. I would have given up a long time ago because I lost a lot of money for a number of years trying to figure this out.

Yeah. They say that with entrepreneurship, where it needs to be about what you want to achieve and the change you want to see in the world, because when you've got all the money, it's not really going to matter. And you realize that wasn't the thing. And also when you don't have the money and things are about to die in a couple of weeks and you don't know what to do, it's that vision and that thing you want to see in the world that will keep you going.

Yeah.

Like, you need. Like when you have those sleepless nights.

Yeah.

Being one to achieve, wanting to achieve that thing and keep going is paramount. You need that. It can't just be for the money because you will give up.

Yeah, totally. And now this is a different level of pain scaling. But if we compare it to what we've been through, it's not, bro.

Yeah. And it's like we've got all of our plans in place. We're doing it in a sustainable way. And yeah. Takes a lot of your time. You have to eat for three to six months, but you're going to be so much better off after that. And I think once you've been through the proper, proper trenches and know what that's like, you're thankful to be in this position even though you're working super hard.

100.

Yeah.

So thankful. And it's just good fun because you can do it with amazing people and you're actually, you know, you're actually being able to get the fruits of your labor of, like, we're. We're going to turn five next month. Like, I've been doing this for five years, four years before on the business prior, trying to figure it out. Nine years.

That's what Goggins talks about, man. Like, reaching into the cookie jar. He's had all those, like, terrible, terrible experiences. So when he's, you know, he's doing water torture where they're out there with all his buddies. He's got people screaming at me. Just reaches in that cookie jar and he's like, no, it's not as bad as this time when I went through this thing. So, so good. And it's even better where you and I had those shared experiences, because you can have those experiences just yourself. But when you've been through it with your other executive and you know what it's like, that really helps to Build a base, build a culture, and you can really move forward together because you can be like, hey, it wasn't like this time.

And you got to remind all the newcomers about all the pain you went through.

Oh, and that's wild as well, because they come into a business, they're like, oh, this is great. We've got money, we've got a team. I'll spend here. I'll do this, I'll do. I'm like, hang on, you're coming into the luxury point, right? This has only just happened.

Yeah.

Like, and we need to, like, tell stories about how we actually got here and how difficult things were to get to this place and recognize that you're in a place of success and a place of privilege because of all the effort that we've put in.

Yeah. Bang on. So I think, yeah. Moral of the story is, like, yeah, you just got to stick it out, keep pushing, grind hard, learn, surround yourself by good people. Pay for mentors, pay for coaches, pay for mastermind. Like, that's. That's been a big, big success point for me. And if you can find the mix of what you love, what you. What makes you fulfilled and what you're good at, that's the holy grail.

Exactly. And keep it real as you're doing it. Right.

Yeah.

Like, don't be something you're not. Don't scale way too fast. Don't spend all the money. Do in a way that makes sense to you, that aligns with your vision, and build something long term that's going to endure. Yeah.

Bang on. Hope you enjoyed the episode, folks. Enjoy. Please share around if you enjoyed it with a friend or family member. Tell we grow the podcast each and every week. Thank you for being on the journey with us at Ben and Bergs and Clinton Shift if you're on that journey too. But we'll see you on the next episode.

Thanks, champions.