The Evolution of Entrepreneurship: Ryan Deiss on Growing and Scaling Businesses Part 1

There's so many stories of entrepreneurs when they start to make money and people start realize it, they all of a sudden start questioning they've got to be doing something wrong. I've had other accountants say to me, who have other accounting firms say, we don't understand what it is that you're doing over there, so we don't like you. And I usually am like, what do you mean? Well, you're seeming like a nice guy and an honest guy. We have no reason not to. It's just, what are you doing over there that's different than what we're doing? Maybe you should try and figure that out. Guys. Foreign. Ryan, I am so excited to have you here again. I know our worlds have connected the last couple of years, and it's been amazing to be able to connect with you, your community, all of the incredible things that you're doing. Before we jump in here, I would love to. And this is my favorite part of these sort of episodes, is to understand a little bit about Ryan and his journey through entrepreneurship and where you've come from and where you're at now. Sure.

I mean, so entrepreneurship is all I've ever done. I've never really had a quote unquote, real job, but I didn't set out to be an entrepreneur. It's not one of these things where I grew up saying, oh, I want to be on my own business or run my own thing. I don't know that I really even knew that it was an option. You know, I came from a family of, you know, my mom was a teacher, dad was an electrician. I mean, they were wage earners. I heard the classic, you know, go to school, get a good job, and you'll be fine. And that was kind of my plan. And so I did. I mean, I graduated high school, started attending the University of Texas at Austin, which is where I still call home today. And I didn't know exactly what I was going to do, but I figured, yeah, I'd graduate and I'd get a job. And so what I started doing when I went to school is I began interning at different companies because I wanted to get a feel. I wanted to figure out, what do people who are happy in their work life, like, what do they do? And I was given advice from a mentor. He said, look for people who are old, rich, and happy. And so I was like, all right, I'm going to go around. I'm going to try to find, you know, try to do a bunch of different careers. I tried project management, financial Consult, like any, anybody who would basically give me an internship or a job. I took it because I wanted to learn. I also, frankly, needed the money. Yeah, I didn't come from money. I was on full grants and scholarships and trying to pay my own way. So I'm a full time student, I've got a part time job and I'm fine, everything's good. I'm on a path. I'm on the normal path. But then something happened. I met a girl. And so I was in my second semester of my freshman year and I meet this girl and we start hanging out. And I knew within the first couple of weeks, probably date number four, that she was the woman I was going to marry.

Wow.

Like, no joke. I knew it. And I know how weird that sounds, by the way, which is why I didn't tell her that I felt that way. But I knew. And I didn't come from, like a family, like, where they were like, oh, you should get married. Like, it, you know, it wasn't any, like, anything weird. Like, I just knew I was like this, you know, this is the woman. And so that was the first time in my life I realized that I was broke because I thought to myself, this is how my mind works. Very linear in my thinking. I was like, all right, so I met this girl, probably the woman I'm going to marry. Don't tell her that. That sounds creepy. But if you do propose to her, you're gonna need a diamond ring. Diamonds are expensive. You don't have any money. Oh, crap. And so that was the first time I realized I didn't have any money. I already had a job that was basically just paying for my extra bills and stuff like that. I thought, the only thing I have is, let me see if I can start a business on this newfangled Internet thing. It was 1999, and high speed Internet had just been installed the year before at the dorm that I was going to. I was like, let me see if I can't sell some things on the Internet. So, you know, ebay was pretty new back then. I was kind of just anything I could figure out how to sell. And I started hitting it big with ebooks. Selling stupid little ebooks on how to make your own baby food and how to roll sushi. And, you know, back then there was no Amazon, there was no Kindle. If you knew how to spell SEO, you could rank number one in all the search engines. And so that was really where I got my start. And my whole goal was if I could just make 10 grand. And I was thinking if I could just make a couple hundred bucks a month, by the time we graduate, I should have saved up enough, you know, money to where I can buy this girl a ring. That was my whole thing.

Listen, in 1999, that's an expensive wedding ring, so. Or engagement ring, so good for you. That's, that's highly ambitious back then.

Yeah. Again. And I asked around, hey, what a diamond rings cost. And somebody's like, I think they're around 10 grand. You know, it's two months salary. So when you come out your first job, you'll probably be making like five grand a month. So ten grand is what you should budget for it. Okay. You know, I didn't ask a lot of questions. That was just the number. Fast forward a few years, got the ring, got the girl, and that little side hustle had ballooned into a real business where, you know, had a few dozen different websites selling different things. I was starting to, you know, get good at this new digital marketing, Internet marketing thing. I was starting to get, you know, even figure out how to do some basic coding and build some basic software and things like that. I still never thought about it as a business, but that was where I got my start. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Yeah, that's pretty cool. So it was more so like a lifestyle was just kind of feeding the beast. It was paying for bills and yeah.

I didn't, I didn't. And so much that I was making, by the time I graduated from college, I was making well in excess of $100,000 a year. I was over around $150,000 a year generated from my business. And it was almost all profit because it was all organic and the products were all digital. So I'm making six figures my way. As a senior, I didn't realize it was a lot of money. I thought that like all adults made hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Like I didn't know what really I was doing. And to me it was like, this isn't real. Because I didn't know what it meant to be a business owner. I didn't know what it meant to be an entrepreneur. And so I still, I was angling internship that could get me a good job. And I wound up getting a job after, you know, getting a job offer my senior year to go and work in financial services. And I remember when I went to my now father in law to ask permission to marry his daughter and he's like, well, how are you going to support her? I didn't mention a dang thing about my stupid little Internet sites. I mentioned the job offer that I had.

Well, that little six figure income source. Yeah, yeah.

Well, so, so funny enough, I went and worked this job. I went through training. It was like I said, I never had a real job. That's not true. I had a job, a real job for six months. So I went through like three months of training. And then now, okay, we're, we're getting started. And I realized because, you know, financial services, there's, there's a commission aspect to this. So they're posting how much money everybody makes. And, and I go and look and I'm like, wait a minute. I made more of my stupid little Internet businesses than all but two people at my branch. I'm out. And I walked into my branch manager's office that day and I was like, hey, so I quit and I went home and I told my wife, I.

Quit because I can't this job can't financially support my lifestyle.

Yeah. I was like, no, what would happen if I actually focus on the business and treated it like a real, like a real thing. And so that was when I guess I sort of got serious about the business. I still didn't know what the heck I was doing though. And so, I mean, I had a series of ups and downs. Brought us to the brink of bankruptcy a couple of times because I didn't know what I was doing.

Always a good sign of entrepreneurship. Right? You've got to say bankruptcy as a question at some point.

Oh, yeah. I mean, you love this, given what you did. I can go into that story if I want. But yeah, at one point I owed a substantial amount of money to the Internal Revenue Service because I just didn't know I was supposed to pay taxes. Nobody told me I didn't know.

Yeah, well, and so let me ask you this too, because, you know, interesting sort of way into this business, not even really telling anyone or understanding how valuable this side hustle is. When you started talking about the side hustle with family members and whatnot, were they, were you starting to feel like they were questioning whether you were doing something illegal? Because it was fairly fresh.

I literally, I didn't say anything to anybody. Even my college roommates. They were like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm building websites. I've got a little part time job building, you know, building websites for people. Which was true at one point. The very first thing I did was I would build websites for people. I didn't want to tell anybody anything. Because I was embarrassed. I mean, this idea of being an entrepreneur wasn't cool like it is today. And so I was kind of embarrassed that I'd created these little websites and I, and I didn't want to. And you know, I remember I was probably four years into my business generating, you know, many, many hundreds of thousands of dollars in, you know, in revenue again as a kid. And I did say to somebody who was like a friend of my father in law, they were like, oh, what are you doing? You know, what do you think? I was like, oh, yeah, I've got, you know, you're young. What do you think about the Internet? I was like, I think it's a thing. And you know, in fact I got some business. They told me what I was doing and I was like, yeah, I'm selling like these ebooks, you know, online and they're like, oh, what do you sell them for? I was like, well, I mean, it depends. Anywhere from like 14 to 29 dollars, like nobody will ever spend that kind of money on a PDF book. Nobody will do that. Now what I thought for, for a second was, oh my God, he's right, they're not going to do it. And then I went, wait a minute, yes they will. I've got years of experience and like many, many, many hundreds of thousands of dollars in my bank account because they will do it. But had I told people what I was doing early on, they would have doubted me and I would have probably believed them. I don't think I would have had the, the energy then to do it. So no, man, I didn't tell anybody. But yeah, when I did say tell my dad what I was doing, his first question was when I told him I quit my job and I was doing my business full time. His first question was, what are you going to do about health insurance? You know, because in the States it's not like in, you know, Canada where like you just get it. And I took, responded, I don't know, I hadn't thought about that. I'll probably figure it out. His second question was, is it legal?

Right. Yeah, yeah, because, well, it was so innovative at that time. Right. No one was doing it. And so it's. I always find when you enter an unfamiliar space, everyone questions whether or not it's legal or not, especially when money is involved.

And it was a fair question back then because, man, there were so many gypsy tramps and thieves on the, you know, in the. So it was, it was a, it was, it was, it was a fun time.

Interesting. Well, I love that. And, you know, there's so many stories of entrepreneurs when they start to make money and people start realize it, they all of a sudden start questioning. They've got to be doing something wrong. You know, I've had. I've had other accountants say to me, who have other accounting firms say, we don't understand what it is that you're doing over there, so we don't like you. And I usually am like, what do you mean? Well, you're seeming like a nice guy and an honest guy. We have no reason not to. It's just, what are you doing over there that's different than what we're doing? It's like, well, maybe you should try and figure that out, guys. Right.

Well, that's where my. I like the Don Draper response. I don't know if you've seen Mad Ben. There was a scene where somebody's going on. He's like, I don't like you, and you do this and this, and, you know, I think this about you. And he just looked at the person. He's like, I don't think about you at all. And I just love that response. And it's now the posture that I take because, you know, it is a shame. I believe that entrepreneurial energy and kind of entrepreneurship in general is a bit of a calling. You know, it's something that I believe I was kind of, you know, called into. And, yeah, I will never, ever, ever set luck aside being born when I was born, you know, if I'm two years earlier, there's not high speed in the dorm room, I don't think. I think to do this, I'm probably now on a totally different path. It doesn't happen at the same time. There were a lot of people around me with the same opportunities who didn't take advantage of them. So I'm not going to apologize for it, but because so many people are afraid to do that or afraid to take that risk, or they just missed it, too. They missed it. They either missed it from a timing perspective, or they missed it because they just don't. Their brain doesn't think that way. They don't think entrepreneurially. They don't think alchemistically, you know, which isn't a word, but they don't know how to make something from nothing. And so they just crap on the people who do because it makes them feel better than just saying, yeah, you know what? I missed it, or, yeah, that's not me. And I would say to those people, it's okay, you know, not everybody. This, this life isn't for everybody. Both my parents, wage earners. And I can tell you, man, there are plenty of days where I'd have traded places with anybody on my team.

Absolutely. Yeah. No, super, super interesting. And you know, I think there's, there's another element too where if you did start talking about your entrepreneurial journey earlier on, people would have probably convinced you, like you said, that it wasn't something that you should do because it wasn't unknown, it wasn't comfortable. And it's interesting because, and I want to talk about, you know, what you're into now because I think it's a nice transition. But I know so many entrepreneurs that are out there have that same sort of difficulty that it's hard to, to have those conversations with people because they can't relate. People who aren't entrepreneurs just don't get us and we scare people a little bit. We usually get the, well, it must be nice when you can take the afternoon off on your own schedule. But that they don't really understand. Yeah, but we went back to work until 4 in the morning and we worked all weekend. We missed all of these certain things. And, you know, people don't have an open space to be able to have those conversations, which is why I think entrepreneurial communities are so powerful. So maybe that's a nice lead in. Where are you at now, Ryan? What have you got going on these days?

Yeah, I mean, today I think it might be easier to kind of go back to that. You know, I promise I'll make it quick because it's a two decade journey, so I'm not going to go year by year. But after that initial first round of success, I experienced what a lot of entrepreneurs experience, which was growing pains. Right. And a lot of the growing pains were literal search engine algorithms. Shifting in the business model, the business landscape changing, new competition coming in, just basic business stuff that surprised me. I just assumed when it worked that it would always work and that everything that worked today would always continue to work exactly how it did in the future. I didn't know stuff was going to change.

That was surprise.

Right. So, I mean, beginning to kind of, you know, adapt to that and facing, you know, and facing a lot of those, a lot of those hardships and, you know, having to adapt along the way was just the ups and downs, you know, of entrepreneurship. And I do experience what it's like to have a business that makes more money while you personally bring home less money. That was weird, right? I didn't understand that.

Oh, that sucks.

Yeah. And so all of those ups and downs, but the piece that nobody really prepared me for was how sucked into it I would get and how much of an identity, how much of my identity the entrepreneurial life would consume. And, you know, so fast forward, like I said, lots of ups and downs. But generally Trendline is, you know, is up and to the right. And in 2016, I've always been a bit of a serial entrepreneur, have a little bit of entrepreneurial adhd. So I've never just had one business. I've always had a bunch of different businesses. I'd bring in partners, I'd bring in operators. Just that's how my mind works. And one year, I had three different companies in my portfolio list on the Inc. 5005000 list at the same time.

Wow, that's incredible. That's very cool.

I was like, I made it. Like, this is nobody, nobody can doubt me now. You know, I had a lot of entrepreneurial imposter syndrome, you know, not having the pedigree. I didn't graduate from business school. I didn't get the funding that Silicon Valley startups were getting. I didn't have all of the trappings of success. But at this point, finally, you know, I was dubbed by, you know, this magazine as you are officially successful not with one company, multiple years, but three different companies simultaneously, you know, in the same year. I'm getting accolades. You know, there are people coming out of the woodwork that I used to go to high school with who are like, you know, oh, my gosh, can I borrow some money? And, you know, all these kinds of things that happen. And I felt so incredibly successful, but inside I was dying. And it's because what it took to get there, based on the tool set that I had at the time, was so much work, so much time. You know, you talk about people saying, you know, oh, how nice you get to take off. You know, that wasn't happening, man. I was leaving for the office before my family woke up. I was getting home after they were all already asleep. I was missing virtually every family dinner. I was missing soccer games. I was missing dance recitals I barely knew. I've got four kids, man. I don't remember my oldest daughter. I don't really remember all that well the first two years of her life, Right? There are these chunks of time that, for me, they're just like, they're just gone. And all that reached a breaking point that year that my three companies hit the Inc. 500 list. I remember I was coming home after midnight, yet again, Pulled into my garage, walked into my house, tiptoned through so as not to wake anybody up. Rounding the corner to my bedroom. And I could see as I rounded the corner, there was a light coming into the door to my bedroom. And I thought, that's not good. She should be asleep. And so I remember kind of slowly opening the door and walking in, and there's my wife, you know, of now about a decade and a half and sitting up in bed, and it's clear that she'd been crying. And I'll never forget the words she said to me. She said, you can keep doing what you're doing. I know who I married. She was on this journey with me from day zero. She was the reason I started all this stuff. And I didn't see, like, you can keep doing what you do, and I know who I married, but you can't pretend like you're doing it for us anymore. And those words, man, cut through me so fast, so deep and just lingered there. And I just didn't know what to do. I was pretty undone. But she was right, you know, she held a mirror up in front of my face and basically said, is. Is this what you wanted? And so I realized I knew how to grow companies. I knew how to run companies. I didn't actually know how to scale companies. I certainly didn't know how to exit them. And that was the new skill I had to figure out. And so the first, call it 15, 16 years of my entrepreneurial journey were all about figuring out how to grow and how to run businesses, how to be the cool, slick entrepreneur. The last five to seven years have been learning the new skill of scale. And so in asking, what I'm doing today is that I'm all about not just how do you grow companies, but how do you grow them in a way where you don't have to sacrifice everything that you hold dear at the altar of scale. And so that's. I still run multiple businesses. We still have a portfolio group today. The portfolio group today does about $200 million in revenue collectively. So, I mean, we still have a lot of different businesses out there, but my day job is I get to be the CEO of the scalable company where we help entrepreneurs do just that.

Yeah, amazing. And I'm super proud to be part of that community. And you've created a community of incredible entrepreneurs all over the world. It's amazing connecting with people that are in. There you go, man. If you have a skill set or you're in an industry or In a different part of the world, you can connect and find somebody in there who you can relate to without question. I want to go back to this, though, because I think it's really important. And thank you for sharing that story because I think it's super powerful. In fact, I got chills when you said it because I was almost like you just held a mirror up to me a little bit as well. And I think all of us as entrepreneurs feel that way sometimes, too. And we've all had those hard conversations at home with family. What we definitely don't want to have is the regret. So, evolving from that conversation, what. What are maybe your top five or whatever that looks like for an entrepreneur who's at the point where they're going, I'm overwhelmed. Overwork. I'm exhausted. I need to get into a spot where I can build this without having it having to be me. What are your maybe pieces of advice for entrepreneurs at that stage?

The first piece is a mindset shift. It's realizing, just acknowledging and getting okay with the fact that the game has changed. Right. That it's cliche. What got you here won't get you there. But it's a cliche because it's true. And what we believe, I think, as entrepreneurs, is all of the skills, the playbooks, the toolbox that we have that's going to take us from zero to a million, $2 million a year, 4 million in revenue. That. That's the exact same toolbox that's going to take us to 10 million, 20 million, 30 million, 40 million. And it just isn't the case. And the reason I say that it requires that the mindset shift of the game has changed is because for me, when that game changed, I thought it was my fault and that I had broken something. Right? I thought, wait, all of this used to work and now it doesn't. So I guess my business is broken or I'm broken. And one of the very first mistakes that I made this was back in 2010. I actually fired myself from my own company. No, not because I was ready to sell it or anything. I was just so incredibly burned out. And I thought I was a failure because my business had flatlined and started to dip. And I was like, I guess I just don't know what I'm doing anymore. Well, that's true, and it's not. The reality is just the game changed. It is no longer about, like, can we just throw violence at this thing? Can we just put more energy, more time, more focus? It is exactly the right Playbook, zero to a million. It is exactly the wrong playbook. One million to ten million. And so that's just the first thing is realizing that when you get past that initial six, seven, low to mid seven figures, the game changes. You're not broken. Your business isn't broken. And don't let anybody tell you that you're not good enough to run your own company anymore. I want all of our clients and my entrepreneurial friends to one day quit, to fire themselves. But I want it to happen on a good day. I want it to happen because you just sold it for a giant pot of money, right? Not because you're tired, burnout, and frustrated. And so you fire yourself. Those are. It's very, very, very difficult, first thing. Then the second thing is realizing. And this kind of gets into something that you and I were talking about before. All businesses have an operating system. Like, period, end of story. All businesses have an operating system because an operating system is made up of the basic source code of the business, right?

And.

And the source code of the business is your processes, your procedures, the different people, the different components that are all helping you accomplish that. That's like the core source code of a business. And even if the process and procedures only exist in your head, they still exist. Even if you're the only one who knows how to do anything. Like, they still exist. They're still out there. So that's kind of the first aspect of an operating system. The second aspect is the user interface, right? And so all businesses have this as well. There's some type of scorecard, dashboard, meeting, like if you do meetings, that's the user interface. And then there's some type of desired goal, right? And that is the definition, by the way. If you just Google, what is an operating system, it's those three things, right? It's your set of algorithms, it's your source code, it's your user interface. And those things combine to achieve a specific objective. That is the definition of an operating system. All businesses have those three things. That third thing, again, if you're the only one who knows your goals, or if they're loosely defined and change every week, you still got them. The issue is, is that the first version of your operating system is always a UoS. Like, that's always the first version, because you're all you got. You are your operating system and your, you know, and your operating system is you, because you're your business. It started out with just you. And the UOS is exactly what you need. Zero to about a million, right? But at some point, just like a computer's operating system, as it gets more powerful, you gotta upgrade your operating system. And so that is the next piece is realizing that like you're not fundamentally broken. We've just got to now separate the operating system that is you into a separate distinct operating system that can run without you. Because you're still just one person. You still just got 24 hours a day you need to sleep at some point. And so we can talk more about, know, get into more about that because that's kind of the core of what we do. I, I will say that one last thing. That is it, that is an important thing for somebody and it's counterintuitive. But if you want to scale, you have to decide that you want to be wealthy. And that's a very different animal. Because if you decide I want to scale this, this business, you have to decide that you are, are, are pursuing a wealth strategy, not merely an income strategy right now. Along the way, you should be taking large amounts of money out of your business. I'm a big believer in that is the ultimate sign of a healthy business is that company's ability to distribute large, big fat chunks of cash. Okay, if you want to put them back in for R and D later on, you can do it. But I'm a big fan of sending it out because that is the ultimate sign of a healthy business. And I think if you want to grow a big business, you're not going to be able to do it as a popper who's sacrificing everything, constantly worried about tomorrow because you can't pay your own bills. I get that that's celebrated in Silicon Valley with these funded companies. It does not apply to bootstrap businesses. It doesn't apply to the vast, vast, vast majority of companies out there. You should personally be making a lot of money. You should be comfortable making a lot of money because if you personally aren't making a lot of money, you're either going to hold your business back because you have belief issues, or you're going to hold it back because you're resentful of it, is robbing your time. Those are kind of three things.

So can I modify that maybe slightly for a tax specialist or experts perspective? And I love it and I agree with everything you said. You know, for anyone who's listening, who would work with me, you might say that's not necessarily what Bob would say. But that's okay. It's fundamentally the exact same way. What I would do is take the money out of your business. But let's do it in a very tax efficient way so that we're not giving half of it up. But, but those are strategies that we can work on behind the scenes. But I agree. Ryan saying the exact same thing where he's saying, you know, the business needs to be compensating you for the work that you're doing and you need to put that in the most tax efficient way possible outside of the business because that demonstrates the business is strong and resilient and can operate without those funds because you deserve them.

So, yeah, thank you for that. I don't want anybody to think it's like, yeah, take it all out and like, take it in cash and, you know, send half of it to government. It needs to what I believe, like the goal of business is to produce excess cash. Like that's when you know it's working. Well, if all that does is just hang around into the business, like perpetually, it's not being reinvested. It's a really poor use of funds. Like, it's just not good capital allocation. And what ambitious entrepreneurs will do is spend it on stupid crap. Ask me how I know. We will buy more expensive software than we'll need. We'll overinvest in office space. We'll hire people we don't need.

Hire.

We'll will issue bonuses and things that like, are too much. If you will get it out of the company and it can go through a tax advantage structure. 1000% agree. Believe me, when distributions happen through my entities, they aren't made directly to Ryan Dice. Right. They definitely go through other structures that I know you'd be very familiar with. I just don't think they should linger forever in your business and that the person who's running them should starve to death along the way.

Yeah, no, and I completely agree. And, and just to reiterate that I think leaving. Well, I don't even think I am confident that leaving those surplus funds in your company is a dangerous way to leave your equity that you've earned on the table should something go wrong. So let's make sure that that surplus money gets the hell out of there. It's protected, it's used for whatever purpose you want, whether it's living your life or it's building your pension fund, whatever that is. We want to do it as tax efficiently as possible, utilizing the right structures like Ryan's got in place. But let's make sure it does get out of there because it's staying in there. Not only Are we spending it on dumb shit to be honest too? It's just at risk. And once we've earned it, let's get it out of there and let's protect it. So love that. Thank you for that. All right, so this is, this is exciting. I am going to tell you too, I have felt the pain of a lot of that transition from the UOS into the advanced stages of introducing a more formalized system. And I can tell you from someone with experience, getting ahead of this is much easier than just getting to the point where it blows up and you go, holy shit, I have to fix it. Right? I've been in that spot where just like you did, Ryan, you throw more energy and more personal resources time spending at it where you think if I just work a little bit harder, I'm going to be able to get this across the line. And that's just us being stubborn and saying that the UOS is the only way to go instead of incorporating in the more formalized operating system and accountability to the team. So when a business owner gets to that stage, Ryan, what should they be looking for and what are some key elements to introduce in the new operating system to help them get out of the burnout stage of overwhelm and the.

U.S. i'll tell you, I'll give you a specific step by step of what they should do. I'd like to, if you're okay with it though, cover some things not to do. Because I think not doing the wrong things is in many cases more important than doing the right things. And so thing number one, don't do what I described before and go out there and buy another frickin time management planner or just decide that you need to be more efficient with your time. Okay? When you get to this point and you find that you're giving it all you got and still isn't enough, the answer is not to try harder. One of the things that, that I absolutely believe, I refer to it as the Founder's curse. The founder's curse states that the more valuable you are to your business, the less valuable your business is. Right? I absolutely believe that to be true. And anybody who's ever sold a business will tell you that that is absolutely true. So if, if we agree that that is true, then the goal really should be to become less essential. You're always going to be valuable, you're always going to be important. Don't worry about that. But we want to be less essential. So saying, oh, I know I'll work harder. Not only again do you Are you going to run out of time? It is counterproductive to the long term goal of becoming less essential to the business. So don't do that. Also, don't just throw humans at it. People say all the time, oh, it's not a, you know, it's not a how problem, it's a who problem. You just, you need to get the right people on the bus. And that advice is correct to a certain extent at certain times. But one of the problems with like a lot of this fortune cookie wisdom, it sounds really good on social media, but if you've ever tried it, it doesn't work at all. Like, I mean, if you're flailing around and you're frustrated and stuff isn't getting done and you know you're this like machine that's whipping around and you know you're held together by duct tape and bubble gum floor, throwing humans at the problem is generally going to make things worse. And if you've done this, you've experienced this because now you got somebody who's sucking up payroll, they don't know what the hell they're doing either and you don't have time to train them. And if you try, then you're focusing less on keeping the other plate spinning. So just throwing human beings at things and expecting them to fix it usually doesn't work. At this stage, you can't afford to hire the high level experts who truly know what they're doing and can come in and fix it all for you. And even still, you're not systemized enough yet to the point where the high level experts know what to come in to do. So notice there are people at it. Kind of a secondary thing to that. Don't hire an integrator. I know that that is a very popular concept and I've got nothing but love and respect for Gina Wickman and the book Traction. I think there's a ton of good ideas, but I believe that one of the single biggest lies perpetrated on the entrepreneurial community, and it's not really perpetrated by the way, by that book or by Gino. It's perpetrated by people who read the book and think they know what it says. But that is that the solution to all your problems is just to hire an integrator. And holy crap, it doesn't work. It never freaking works. Of like, I know I'm going to make this one magical mythical unicorn hired that's going to fix all my problems so I can just go Vision 8 all over the place. It doesn't freaking work. It doesn't work. If you try it, one of two things will happen. Number one, you'll hire a competent operator, which is. Which, by the way, that's what they are. They're not integrators. That's not a thing. They're. They're an operator. Maybe they're a VP of operations. Maybe they're. And also, if you're making less than $10 million a year, you probably don't need a COO, okay? You just don't probably. Yet at that point, you might need an operations manager, VP of operations, project manager, whatever. So if you hire a competent operator, they're either going to try to build their own operating system based on what they think works best, but it's not going to be exactly what you want because you're still so close to it. So you're going to swoop in, you're going to undermine them, and they're going to quit if they have any dignity at all. Again, ask me how I know. All right? That's the first thing that happened. The second option, the second thing that might happen, scenario number two is you. All that stuff happens. You swoop in, you undermine them. They now just sit back and they're like, well, I guess I'll just do what they tell me to do. And what you wind up with is 150, $200,000 glorified executive assistant. So don't just go out there and hire this person. Don't try to grow more. Again, just saying, we'll grow our way out of this. No, you won't. Not at that point. Just like, none of those things really work. And also, don't decide that, oh, I know, I need to write a checklist and just document everything you do need to systemize. But step number one is not to go in there and create a checklist or a, you know, documentation for absolutely everything that you do. That is not it. So those. I wanted to mention that because those are the things that most people try when they start to get a. Like, flail around and they start to get frustrated. And then when those don't work, which. And by the way, they only never work, they decide that, well, their business just doesn't work. They suck. I guess we just need to kind of punt, you know, I guess we need to go back and, like, let's cut this thing off at the knees. I'll just have a simple lifestyle business. Let's decide not to scale.