Grant Aldrich - Founder of OnlineDegree

Hey there. Welcome to another episode of the Small Business Show. I'm really excited to have you here today because we're really excited about this guest. The timeliness of it. It's almost like we planned it, right, Dave?

It's almost like we planned it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's talking about college and non traditional paths, less expensive paths, not in person paths. I mean, all of these things are very timely for a lot of reasons, for a lot of people right now. Yeah, it's great.

And I'm, I'm really looking forward to hearing what Grant has to say about his business and how he's been impacted and how they're, you know, adapting and, and, you know, learning about their. Yeah, and, and learning about how they're disrupting and their plan for disruption of some of the issues with higher education. I think it's going to be great.

No, it is great. He, he is one of those people that was sort of set up as we all do when we form our businesses. We look down the road and we say, yes, I see future success for this thing that I'm putting together here. And that's not the only thing we look at. In fact, we talk a lot about looking at other factors too, like, is this the right business for you? But certainly for Grant, one of those things was, yeah, I see down the road that, that we're, you know, we're going to have more and more school online. Well, turns out things got a little accelerated in Grant's world and that's not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, that's a really good thing.

Yeah. The other thing I really like hearing about, because I've felt this way myself, is if, if you've ever felt trapped in your own business and you know, it, it's a, it's something to really have to come to, come to grips with. And he tells a great story about that. And, you know, I'm really looking forward to sharing it with all our listeners.

Yeah, for sure. The other thing I want to share with, the other thing I want to share with everybody is our sponsor for this week, which is Linode at linode.com/sbs. When you are starting a business, when you are running a business, you will be using a server somehow. It may not be the thing that your entire business relies on, or it might be, but you're going to be using a server for something and you want to make sure you host that server with people that know what they're doing and that have been doing this for a long time and have iterated their own business to better serve customers just like you. That's what Linode has done. We talk a lot about a lot of the details when we talk about the sponsors, the fact that they are all native SSD, they have a 40 gigabit network, they have industry leading processors. You get to pick from any of their 10 worldwide data centers. We share these things because as people who have researched and signed up with companies selling servers to us, we know that these are the things that matter. But the reality is you don't have to worry about it because that's Linode's job. They've already figured out the things that matter and then they just offer them for you. So it's really easy. You just go to lino.com SBS now you go to that URL for two reasons. Number one, it helps them know that we sent you and that's a good thing for all of us. Helps the show, all of that. But there's something in it for you. Very specifically, you get a $20 credit just by visiting lino.comsbs their lowest price server starts at 5 bucks a month. So you really can experiment and maybe even just run for a little While on that $20 credit@linode.com SBS our sincere thanks to Linode for sponsoring this episode. All right, Shannon, anything else?

No, man, I'm ready to go. All right, let's get into this one.

Yeah.

Grant's got some good things to say. He is Shannon Gene. I'm Dave Hamilton and this is episode 281 of the Small Business Show.

So I think by knowing yourself and knowing, hey, I shouldn't even be in a kind of business like this that I have to do this and I don't know anything about this or kind of like heading yourself off at the pass in a way by starting at the very top is the first key thing I would suggest back to my early point. And then the only other thing I would also suggest is that, and I've definitely been a victim of this all throughout my 20s and early 30s, was thinking I know more than I actually know. And not relying on good counsel and advisors because to the point of your show, right, Your show would be an example of that. It goes back to that Greek wisdom, right? You know, the only true wisdom is you know nothing. And that's, that's always true in my, in my, in my experience. And so if you are foolish enough to keep going down a path longer than you should without good counsel, it can crush you. Hey there.

You know, we talk about disruption A lot on this show. You know, new ideas, new ways of doing things. And I, I'm really kind of passionate about what we're going to talk about today because I think education is just ripe for disruption. You know, I have kids. You know, one of my kids just got through college. I'm just starting, you know, another one, my last one on their college career. I hear About K through 12 public school systems that, you know, teachers never get any money that way, too much administration and, and then the cost of college and how it's just increased exponentially. And, you know, it just tears me up to see these young people with massive debt as they get started out because it holds them back from taking risks like starting your own business. So today I'm really excited to learn more about a new way and a business to help offset those college costs and just kind of look at the whole business of college, if you will, with the founder of OnlineDegree.com, grant Aldrich. Grant, thanks so much for being here today.

Hey, thank you guys for having me.

I think we're all. Dave and I know we're just ripe to have this discussion today because both our kids are that age, so it's perfect.

When I saw you were on the list, it was like, oh, I could pick this guy's brain for hours.

Well, I'll tell you, this comes out of necessity as well. I've got three children under three and a half, so I'm going to be getting quite the shotgun blast in about 16 years here. And so I, I essentially need a solution so that I don't. I can actually afford to put them.

Through college, no doubt.

Well, my presumption would be that, and certainly this has been changing even over the last 15 years, that over the next 15 years, the, the picture of higher education will change dramatically and you might actually be okay. But as with any good entrepreneur, you're not relying on others to get you there. You're figuring out how to make it happen.

That's great. So, so, so I want to talk, I want to dig into the company stuff too, but I also want to learn about your background. You know, how you got here, what led you to start your first business, and then what pushed you to start online degree.

Yeah, I think to kind of understand my story. This is something I think everybody will appreciate. Right. Because we always ask ourselves as entrepreneurs, why do we do this? What really has motivated us for the longest of time? And when I go all the way back to when I was a little kid, I've always Wanted freedom. And you know, it's, it's funny because as a little kid, even if you, you know, you ask, you know, hey, well, what do you mean freedom? You mean like to eat whatever you want or to go to bed at any time and no, I really wanted like lifestyle freedom, to have like creativity and to be able to do what I wanted to do and to build things and from a young age. And the irony of course is I didn't even know what that really meant back then. I didn't have any entrepreneurs in my life. My parents were teachers. Which of course also comes back to the story with online degree later. I never was driven by the monetary aspects of it. And I think all three of us would agree a lot of times it's not about the money. The money is not really the big part of it. You work long hours, it's hard work. It really is about the freedom. The irony though is I really feel that I got out of college, went right into startups and I think many people can appreciate this as well. I became a slave in the pursuit of freedom.

Sure.

You know, it's so easy to build blocks around you that make life miserable on a daily basis and you get stuck. And I can go into kind of some of those things with my last startup, but basically I kind of came out of that last experience before starting online degree where I said, you know what, I'm going to do things my way this time and live the life I want to live. And it really became the genesis and transition into how I live now, what I want to do now.

Yeah, that's great. You know, we say a lot around my house because my wife works with me and we've done all kinds of businesses and stuff. And I always say to my kids, we really don't have freedom, but what we have is flexibility. Because I feel the same way, you know, where you're. The responsibility net that I call it is massive, you know, for these businesses that you start. But hopefully you can get some flexibility. And you're right. The impetus I think for most successful people is not about the money, it's about doing something different, building your own life. Like Dave likes to say, create that charmed life that we're all looking for.

That's it. That's exactly right. And you're right, those responsibilities definitely add a twist from when we were young and had no kids before we started businesses. But that's right. And I really felt, I'll tell you guys, actually what happened. I almost, after 2015, to give you the background for everybody. 2015 for me was probably the best year of my life. In that year I had exited my prior startup, which had been about an eight year journey. I had married my wife and we were pregnant with our first child.

Nice.

So just top of the world, right? Yeah.

Congratulations. That's awesome.

Thank you. Yeah, couldn't be that year and maybe I never will. And then in 2016, earlier in that year, I almost died swimming up in Northern California at a time when I was on a beach and at a surf advisory. Shouldn't have been out there and almost died. And like, you know, as I'm out there and it's about to happen, I was thinking to myself, wow, I can't believe that's it. And after the fact, I had a very introspective period that I would, that I've now I've really been very vocal about to encourage all entrepreneurs to do. Because what came out of that was that, you know, you question everything that happened in an event like that where everything you'd worked for and everything that you were going to have was going to come to an abrupt end. And it's sad. It takes an event like that to bring about this good process. But really what came out of that process was I took about that six months to know myself. Right. I go back to that ancient Greek maxim, which. Ancient Greece for your listeners. One of the things that was on or what was inscribed on the temple of Apollo, the God of wisdom, was the, was the saying know thyself. And the whole thought process was, how could you ever obtain true wisdom if you didn't know yourself? The one thing you should know better than everything else or anybody else. And so once I went through that, I got to know myself and realized, God, I was miserable and the path that I was going to be on was miserable. And so although I like to point like, hey, I was able to get a successful event after that, I really, I'm thankful that I was able to get to that point and now move forward and really try to obtain happiness.

Yeah, that's a powerful story.

We talk a lot about self awareness on the show and you just hit it right there. If you don't know, if you're not routinely focused on knowing yourself, you will very quickly become someone that you don't know. I mean, it's too easy. So. Yeah, yeah, that's.

Yeah. And you know, actually, you guys being fellow entrepreneurs, you can appreciate this, right? Because the one thing that is never involved in any decision when you're choosing a business or I'VE never seen it. Is, is this the right business for me personally? Right. Because we all know that we love the exercise of coming up with a business ideas. It's a constant thing. You're coming up with business ideas, you're helping other people formulate their business idea or model and it never comes up in all those metrics we apply like business model, scalability and all these things. Hey, is this the right business for me? If I want to be in board shorts every day, should I go out there and have to put on a suit and be at conferences all the time? Well, the answer is probably no. Or you know, I'm a terrible manager, which is actually, that's true. I feel like I am a terrible manager. And so do I want to create a company where I have to manage people all day long like those? These questions, I think for long term happiness and the success of the business. Because we all know businesses take a lot longer to be successful than we assume from the onset. I think it's detrimental and people don't take it into consideration.

Yeah, that is just some great advice. And after talking with hundreds of entrepreneurs over the last five or six years, it is a pretty common story that the first time out you kind of get yourself in that position and then the next time, or maybe it takes a few times for some of us, you do try to create that environment that, you know, you can thrive in versus just banging your head against the wall, you know, square peg in a round Holtz, you know, type of thing.

Yeah, I think you nailed it. That's right. And you know, and you hope there's a next time because I think that's correct and I think this story embodies my story. And I think that you're right. So many people fall into that trap because I, you know, you, you, we all probably hear this often. It's, oh, you know, this is going to be a side business and it won't take up that much time and you know, I could just, you know, it's, it's not, I don't have to put so much thought into if I'm going to enjoy it or not or, you know, there's just so much money potentially here. I don't, I'm going to look past the fact I'm going to be miserable because you know what? It's going to take two years. Yeah.

What a mistake that is.

Yeah, exactly.

So, you know, you hear these mistakes all the time. And now I look back and just laugh and I try to tell people if I'm helping or I'm, you know, talking with someone about a business idea. It's like, listen, no, no, you got to play for a long ball game and you've got to make sure that this is the right business for you.

Yeah. And, you know, we're all so just listening to your words. You know, I knew I wanted to be free and have this and all of us are so, like, strong willed that, you know, many of us just have to experience ourselves. Even though everybody can tell you, hey, this is, you know, I did this. Don't do it. But I think, you know, I had to learn it myself too.

It's. Yeah. And like, you guys provide a lot of really good, you know, advice on the show with all these cool guests and all these insights from entrepreneurs and stuff that's like, very actionable. And yet, like, to me, while all that's huge, right. You learn more from your show than you're ever going to learn in a course on entrepreneurship because you're listening to real entrepreneurs. All the stories and things that have worked or not worked and insights and revelations. And yet to me, yeah, it's just one of those things. Right. We never really ask ourselves about our, like, we never apply ourselves to the situation. It's crazy.

No, this show is the thing that. It sounds very crazy and meta, but this show is the thing that taught me to apply myself to the businesses that I have. Like, and like, like, think about where, where, where do I fit the best in my businesses, you know, and, and how can I make sure that. That I'm leveraging everything the way I should and. And I'm in the right spot. Yeah, it's. It. But you're right, this is our course on entrepreneurship right here, doing this show. Hopefully it's a course on entrepreneurship for people listening, but if it's not, that's okay. About which one of us. Yeah, we always argue about which one of us learns the most. He always says he does, but that's only because I know that I do. So it's all. Yeah, yeah.

So that's great. So now we know a little bit about your background. Kind of how were you going or how you got there. Talk about what's the mission of online degree. Tell us about what you guys do over there.

Yeah, well, so the mission is, and I really just started with the mission is to make college affordable and accessible. Think about now. It's funny that we need something like that today. Right. That needs to be a mission for higher education.

Right.

But that isn't just inherent.

Yeah.

Or available.

But you know, it's a different problem to solve.

Yeah, right. But sadly it's not. We all know that college has never been more unaffordable, more inaccessible for a working adult. And that isn't a, that's a crazy thing because especially at a time now where these, there's these strong macro headwinds that are forcing so many more people to go back to school because you got globalization, robot automation that's coming, that's going to wipe out just an incredible amount of jobs. You've got all these different things. And then what happened now with COVID to your guys point earlier has really just accelerated what was going to happen in education and the workplace 10, 15 years from now. And now it's happening at this very moment. And so the die had already been cast about the changes and the disruption that was going to happen. And I really feel that we're just there now and we've become even more important for what's about to come. And I'll summarize what we do. I mean essentially what we do is any, we're a modern alternative to the community college system and made it way better. Right. Than some government institution. So now students can get started in 60 seconds on our platform and start taking as many college level courses as they'd like for credit towards their degree. And we do it all for free. So that means they can get started with no applications, no entrance exams, start taking courses, try things out, see if it fits their schedule, see if it's interesting and save money and time towards their degree. And it's at no cost.

Yeah, that's cool. That just brings up more questions that I have. So I listen to it on my guest.

That sounds great.

So what's the revenue model? Everything's free. I read up on the site, it looks great. What's the long term revenue model for you guys?

Yeah, so the revenue models were totally supported by the universities. And so let me give you the genesis of this because I was in the position of absolute necessity to come up with a business model that could work with it being free. Because to my mind it had to be free. There's an estimated 35 to 40 million working adults who want to go back to school who aren't taking that first step. So I think people and all the listeners need to change their paradigm where the main constituent now for higher education is not that 18 year old, it's the working adult who's going to be a lifelong learner. That's how the market's changed. And so for that group, nothing is conducive to going back to school. I mean, I can't leave work in the middle of the day and go to drive to a community college for a couple hours and miss work or on family time, skip out to go to class. Then there's the financial component. And then finally, as adults, we all know we're totally stubborn and we're scared of change. And so, you know, to get over that leap and go in the normal process where oh yeah, I'll just start, enroll right now, come up with a big loan and kind of go that process, it doesn't work. And so my approach to this was that you have to address all the impediments. Think of it like a customer for the student and for all these working adults that the community college system doesn't address. And so that was the genesis of it. I knew it had to be free. So if it's free, if you dispense with the tuition model in your model, well, then you have to figure out a way to pay for it. I figured out, you know what, the universities get a lot of value from this as well. And they'll support it because it's obvious, right? What the value the consumer gets saving money and time on their degree weighed into the pool instead of jump in. The universities get an immense benefit as well. Because as a little known fact that universities are desperate for good students. And when I say good, I mean students who are going to finish their program, who are going to come prepared to learn, who are not going to drop out. They know how they can fit this in their schedule. So it's kind of like the minor leagues. As you go through our program, you inherently become more desirable and a better student. So the universities are willing to sponsor the entire thing. Wow.

Yeah.

Okay. So you, you are essentially finding, vetting out and finding those students that are going to apply themselves and, and getting them on the right path. I mean, effectively what you've described is a, it's not really the right term, but maybe a CPA program for yourself, for you, for, with universities to bring them leads. Right. You're, it's a lead gen program if you're, if we're just, you know, stripping it down to the brass tack. You are, you are serving a mission here as well. But, but the revenue model is a lead gen thing.

Yeah, it's a legion enrollment really, because. Yeah. You know. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So for them, it's a recruiting pool is really the way to look at it.

Okay. Yeah, right, got it.

That's great.

And so, you know, and what's great about that is that as a, as it grows, right, it has benefits on both sides. And both sides, obviously, it's a win win. They both have the same goal. We all want to get. We want you to get the education you want. Of course that's what you want. And so because it's a platform with both sides equally incentivized on that, we have all of these awesome things happening. Like, universities are giving more and more perks as you come on, bigger discounts, right? Because before all of this, the only way that you could save a college, right, in terms of the conventional wisdom, was scholarships and community college. And both of those do not work. And I will get, I can get into that further, but they don't work. And so when you look past that, instead you come to this platform and we realize that what's more important is people who are prepared, who have some credits, they've proven that they want to be there. Now universities are willing to offer you just discounts straight up, 10%, 20%, right off the top. You don't have to apply for anything. There's no ambiguity of whether you're going to get it. Just boom, right there.

So think about how amazing that is the deal.

That's it.

Exactly.

That's great. So did you, have you always been focused on the, on the, you know, adult coming back in to get additional skills or is that, you know, younger student that maybe. Especially now looking at, you know, one of the questions I wanted to ask you is, has the COVID thing changed things for you? And so I'll kind of combine these things. Is that younger student also part of the customer base that you go after?

They are now? Yeah. And so let me start with the, the end of your question, which is, you know, has Covid changed anything? And actually not a thing. Covid just accelerated what was already happening. And so, you know, college, all these trends I talked about, robot automation, the globalization, all these things were already happening. And I, you know, for example, I go out and talk all the time, like guys, you know, like, just to people, you have to start thinking about your job being outsourced. Like, you know, for example, I look at the trucking. There were, there's 2 million jobs in trucking, just to pick one example. And 2 million jobs where people make a decent living, right? They work hard, but they're probably making around 70, 80,000 a year. And that industry is right now going to be automated with robots. There are trucking convoys on the road. Right now, where they're completely robotic, that industry is going to be cut down by estimates of like 75 to 80%. One industry with high paying jobs. What are these guys going to do? And you know, people don't. They just don't want to pay attention to that until it's too late. And so what's happened now with COVID is it's, hey, this is an unavoidable thing. You can't ignore it anymore. And so now there's been this surge of what was already going to come to pass right now. And for young, you know, for young kids coming out of high school, our platform works as well. And we are about to open it up to them or when I came out of the gate, I wanted to make it very focused and make sure we hit our core constituent with the working adult. But we get probably two people banging on the door for everyone we let in who are under 18 or international, who we initially had just not allowed them to log in because we wanted to conserve our support resources. And we're in the process of remedying that. So, yeah, we will be able to offer this so that anybody can come in. Yeah. You know, either whether you're advanced and you want to knock out a few credits before you get to school, or if you want, if you're kind of part of a program where you're at risk and these kids can also try to get some college experience, maybe to get them back on track. It's really applicable.

Yeah, that's great. I mean, not now, a little different now as things are getting opened back up. But as of, you know, three, four weeks ago, when we were prepping for my son to go away, you know, they were talking about, well, most of his classes, because he can be a freshman, are going to be done online. And I was thinking, okay, well, why are we shipping you out there to, you know, I want you to have this eventual college experience. That's great. But, you know, there's got to be a better way to do it. And I just think that, you know, your service, it just so. It just makes so much sense that they could do it. Especially, you know, if. If somebody schools. I mean, the whole, you know, Cal State system is going to be online this fall. Apparently I wouldn't want to be sending my kid away just to sit in their dorm room, you know, drink beer when they're not in class and then come back and do online stuff. They can do that at home, right?

Yeah. Yeah. And it's not the experience you're paying For. Yeah, right. I mean, it, like it's a, it. You can get a good edge, you can get an education that way and, and you can probably get a good one. I mean, it, it, it. There aren't enough data points to know that. I mean, there's a few schools that have done it all online. But you know, like, we, we'll find out. But I think there's a lot of kids that are going to choose not to go in the fall. And if that happens, I think there's a lot of kids that are going to realize, wait a minute, like I can get started in my life without waiting through college. You know, that whole concept of, well, you go high school, then college, it just let you, lets you live in the shelters of academia. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that in a general sense. For certain people, yes. For certain people, no. But those, if, you know, force those kids not to have that option. And I, I think higher education, I mean, they're shaking in their boots right now because they know that like this bubble might burst for them. And what you got right, I mean, like it's, it's, it was already, I mean it's been bursting slowly in, in a controlled way for the last 15 to 20 years. Right. The whole, you know, estimated family contribution thing is, is no. Relatively new and was really introduced to mitigate the, the, you know, the, there's no way I'm going to spend 75 grand a year for school. You know, like it deals with that. But still there's, there's plenty to fix, I think. So.

Yeah, yeah, you, well, you just, what you actually just touched on is the defining issue. It's online versus traditional. And if you think about it, that is the, you know, so now of course we're seeing the wave of adoption. And what people don't realize is that before COVID higher ed is like a $700 billion industry. It's massive. And the only faction, or I'm sorry, only portion of that that was growing was the online. Every other part was in decline and it was already 50 billion rapidly growing. And the reality is, because online is as a huge point of contention internally at these groups from old guard professors, you don't want to do it. And so that's because that's it. They're resistant to change and the resistance to the marketplace because again, they're in academia and they've, they've been like, you know, they're totally insulated from that in an ivory tower. And the problem is, is that now to your Point, there is going to be a wave of closures and all these universities who are not online or not substantially enough online are either scrambling or realizing they have to close their doors. They're going to be gone. So, you know, there's been something out there saying 20% of universities are just going to be, you know, gone next few years. That's true. And the ones that are going to thrive are the ones that have adopted online and have realized that whether you like it or not, online's the future and that it is better under almost any context for learning and more immersive than the traditional setting with some very light exceptions. And again, the die had already been cast. It's going to happen. It was. Whether they're going to willing to accept that at this point or not.

Yeah, it's fascinating.

Like, you know, an analogy I'll draw is dating. Right. I mean, like, you know, 20 years ago, no one was online dating and that would have been weird. Now, I mean, it's weird. Not if you're going to go out there and dating and not have a Tinder account or not have whatever the account is. It's the gold standard.

It's.

The same will happen. Yeah.

And we're having a, it's a great segue. We have a guest coming on, it might be next week or the week after that has an online dating app and business just for athletes. And so it's a, you're right. I mean, it's, it's, it is, it is weird. If you were back in the day where, you know, you would meet people going out somewhere, it seems to be online. This is a major, major way.

Well, it's way more efficient. It is, is what it comes down to. I mean, I, I, I am, I am like maybe one of the first people to ever have dated because of someone I met online. I, I dated a girl for several years that I met because of a bulletin board that I ran back, you know, when I was like 20 or something, you know, and it worked out great because we were able to do all those things that people now do now. If I was smart enough, I would have seen this and, and built a business on it and then different conversations here. But I'm, I've proven over and over again that I'm not smart enough to apply the things that I do for myself to others all the time. I do it sometimes and it's enough to keep me from living in a cardboard box. But.

I agree, I think it's, it is efficient. But I also think it's stacked. The deck is stacked against. Because it's so visual that you're, it's, it's. I think it can be shallow and it's almost like you shouldn't get to see each other for a while. And then the thing is, though, people are.

And I'm curious to ask our, our upcoming guest about this. I don't mean to do.

No, no, me neither. It's just kind of.

And I haven't done it because I've been married and, you know, for 20 years, 25 plus. But it seems to me that, yes, there's that initial, you know, shallow thing, but then you're just texting each other for a long time before you get together necessarily. And that's way better than, you know, the only time we get to communicate is the, you know, the hour and a half that we're eating dinner together or what, you know, whatever the, the quote, unquote date.

So what you need to do is anyway. Yeah. You need to build an app that you, the pictures are faded until you do a little texting and then you pay a little more and then it comes off.

It's like the shallow hell of dating. That's right. Yeah.

It's good. It's good. All right, all right. I want to get back. I'll get us back here.

We have another business they're just going to leave on the floor. It's definitely. Yeah, that's right.

So talk about mistakes of not starting other businesses. You know, we're, we're big fans of Mistakes on the show. In fact, we just, you know, published a book called Mistakes and we think they're the, the tuition of small business owners and really can be the foundation of your success. You know, when you look back on them, you always like, yeah, I really learned that from this screw up. What would you say is your best mistake? You know, the one that stuck with you and taught you a valuable lesson as you built your businesses.

Yeah.

Wow.

It's hard to come up with one, right? You look back, I think this is.

A trail of tears. Some people are like, well, I really have to think about it. And other people like, no, you don't.

Yeah, no, you don't. That's right. I know. It's just so true because you think about it, it's more just. You're just littered more with failures and you hope that in that, you know, those, those, those few successes you get dotted in there make up for it.

Right. That's it. That's it.

Yeah.

Keeps you out of the cardboard Box. That's it, man.

That's right. Yeah. Well, you know, honestly, I could give a lot, but I think that from like a big perspective, it goes back to knowing thyself. Because I look back and I so much. It kind of goes back to that old adage that you can be your own worst enemy and that you have to kind of learn where you're the weakest and not to allow you. Because actually, let me take a step back. Usually in a startup and in a small business environment, you don't have a lot of people to bounce ideas off of. It's kind of lonely. And you hope you have maybe a co founder or someone or some good advisors, but at the same time, it always is kind of a lonely. And you're making decisions in a vacuum, it seems like, and you don't always have a lot of precedence. And so again, and then another aspect of that is that you're always thrust in all these different roles because you have to wear a lot of hats and you constantly make bad decisions because you're putting yourself in a place to make bad decisions because you shouldn't be the one necessarily doing it or all kinds of things like that. And so I think by knowing yourself and knowing, hey, I shouldn't even be in a kind of business like this, that I have to do this and I don't know anything about this, or kind of cutting yourself off at the pass in a way by starting at the very top is the first key thing I would suggest back to my early point. And then the only other thing I would also suggest is that, and I've definitely been a victim of this all throughout my 20s and early 30s, was thinking I know more than I actually know, and not relying on good counsel and advisors, because to the point of your show, your show would be an example of that. It goes back to that Greek wisdom.

Right.

The only true wisdom is you know nothing. And that's always true in my experience. And so if you are foolish enough to keep going down a path longer than you should without good counsel, it can crush you. Yeah, literally crush.

Makes sense. Well, it kind of leads us into one of the last questions I always like to ask too, is if you could give yourself one piece of advice, looking back now, as you were getting started with your first business, and you think that would be the insight that you would share with yourself.

I think I would tell them. I think I would tell myself, buy Bitcoin.

Depends on when.

Yeah, I do. No, I'm kidding. Yeah, absolutely. Because, you know, in my early 20s. A lot of the mistakes that I made, like, while it's respectable that hey, you know, you're out, you want, you're willing to get out there, you're willing to be an entrepreneur, you're willing to take the risks and just the ride in general, there are certain things that you're prone, certain problems that you're prone to approach and mistakes you're going to make. And for me personally, this is exasperated by my personality, which is that I will put my head down and I, because I think I've got a high tolerance for pain, I will sit there and think, well, if this isn't working, I'm just not enduring long enough or I'm not working hard enough. When the reality is someone pulls you out of the water and says, hey, listen man, you shouldn't be swimming in that direction in the first place and put you right back on the right track. And I think that would be the biggest one, is that you got to have advisors to say, you know, what do you think about this? And allow wisdom to come in and say, you know, you might want to rethink that.

Yeah, that's really good. I like it, I like it. We love advisors. Yeah, I mean, we're hard headed and you know, we don't listen to them all that, all the time. But you get enough of that feedback and you know, it's really helpful. You know, Grant, you shared just some really great lessons today. I'm just stoked about your business model and I just, you know, wish you nothing but the best and thank you for coming and talking to us today. What's the best way for our listeners to connect with you and to learn more about online degree.

Well, thank you for having me, guys. It's just been a good time chatting with you and hopefully my ramblings were somewhat useful to the crowd out there.

We all rambled today. This is great, man. Yeah, you're good. Yep.

But that's shallow. Hal out. That's got something. You know, I would say that, you know, they could definitely follow the project. It's OnlineDegree.com and I know a lot of people, thankfully, and it's always really flattering to me who kind of follow what we're doing, just kind of root and fall for us, right? That hey, can we bring a free market, better model to this industry to help a lot of people and just feel better about ourselves, make it work, let alone if it could actually help you? And then I'm on LinkedIn a lot, so that's probably a really good place too, is if you just search my name, Grant Aldrich, or OnlineDegree.com, i can pop up there.

That's great. Yeah, we're excited for you and I'm, I'm excited to check back in with you as you grow your business and, you know, celebrate your inevitable success. I think you're really onto something here. So thank you again. We really appreciate it.

Yeah, well, thank you guys, really, that would have been a really good time. And I appreciate you appreciate those thoughts.

Yeah, you know, I, no offense to our other recent guests, but Grant, perhaps just of the time because of the timeliness of it for me and my life, similar to what you're going through in your life. This, this is, you know, certainly one of my favorite recent interviews here. He, he really nailed a lot of things, which is. Plus it's also good to hear somebody agrees with me. So that's, of course, that's always nice.

The echo chamber is great. I have that same problem. But yeah, it was, it's great that he, you know, he's been through this, you know, this journey of doing something and kind of getting stuck and getting trapped, which, you know, we, we all kind of been through, through that. And I love the business model. I think it's just a very unique way to do it. And you know, after having seen my kids go through the online stuff these last, you know, few months, I'm just a firm believer that, yeah, many ways it's great. I, I do still think there's, there's some, you know, big benefit to at least occasionally having that face to face in the education in college and that kind of thing.

Well, I think what you miss is I've often referred to college as a halfway house in that. Right. I mean, you're on your own, but you're not really. I mean, there's training wheels, right? The training wheels are especially, you know, you start off in the dorms, maybe you move off campus, campus halfway through. That's, you know, one step and then, and then hopefully you're ready not to just go back and live at home. But. And, and so you don't get like that part of things does not happen as a natural course of it with online. It doesn't mean that it can't. It just means that you need to apply some intention there. It's not just baked into the program like it is going off to university or something. So, yeah, that's the part that I, I wonder about because we, but not everybody goes through that and most people turn out just fine anyway.

Oh, yeah.

You know what I mean. So just because we had a good.

Time, some people probably hate it, right?

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I actually hated it. But that's, that's a different, that's a whole different story. I mean, I, I, yeah, college was, college was not for me, but, but, you know, that, that, that's okay. You know, like I said, it worked out like here, here we are. I'm not limited in a cardboard box, you know, Check.

That's great. That's great. Well, you know, we love having those guests on. If, if you're a small business owner that wants to share your story or you know of someone that you think would be a great guest on the show, please, you know, reach out, feedback, business show dot com. The other thing we would ask you to do is please leave us a review. It only takes about 30 seconds. Go to BusinessShow Co reviews and and, or leave it in the podcast app that you're listening to right now and let everybody know what you think. It really helps. We really appreciate it.

Absolutely. All right, well, that's what it takes to get there. Thanks for listening, everybody. Make sure to check out linode.com SBS and we will see you next time. Keep living that charmed life.