Dealing With Burnout, Launching New Products & Analyzing A New Coffee Company | #FFLTV Ep 10

Hey, boys and girls. I'm Ryan Daniel Moran. Today we'll talk about dealing with burnout as an entrepreneur, launching new products and businesses. The ideal relationship between entrepreneurs and the government, if there is such a thing. And we'll look at a brand new coffee product line. Let's do it.

So I'm gonna be real honest with you, fast laners. I am not operating the fast lane. The last few days, I'm actually dealing with a decent amount of burnout. This week, I kind of hit a wall, especially yesterday, where I just had one of those moments as an entrepreneur where I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing with my life. Does anything I do really matter? Do I really want to work this hard? Where's the end in sight? When do I get to retire to a beach and just hang out and enjoy my life and not work so hard? So.

I know I'm working too hard. I know I'm trying to do too many things when I have those thoughts. But at the same time, as an entrepreneur, this naturally comes up partially because we're starters and we like to start new things and not actually complete anything. But the other is because we're making it up as we go.

There are manuals. Sometimes we put some of them right here in the stack of books about being an entrepreneur. But really we are building this plane as it is flying. And sometimes I have to remind myself of that. So I wanted to take a second and talk a little bit about dealing with burnout because it is something that I work through kind of in cycles. And I know I'm not the only one. And we don't like to talk about it as entrepreneurs. We like to talk about crushing it and hustling and work your fricking face off. And this is my ninth cup of coffee today. And really, look, we're human beings. And unless what you are doing is. If you are Gary Vaynerchuk, this is a video game to you. So it is constantly energizing. Not everything I do is energizing. And I'd love to sit here and tell you that wasn't the case. I would love to tell you that everything that I do on a daily basis leaves me more energized than the opposite. But that's just not the case. I deal with voices and voices in my head. Great, somebody's gonna edit that into a YouTube clip. I deal with you. I deal with wondering if I'm doing it right. I wonder if I'm making the impact that people tell me I'M having, like I've created over 100 millionaires and I wonder if I'm having an impact, right? Elon Musk has alluded to the fact in interviews that he wonders if he's making an impact, if he's really making a difference in the world. So us as an entrepreneur, as entrepreneurs, we all kind of deal with this. But let me get to my point, which is this. I know that the brain creates fantasy lands, which means that regardless of how good you think you're doing or how poorly you think you're doing, the truth is probably somewhere in between there. So when I'm dealing with burnout, there's two things that I do that can really switch me into a different mindset. Even when I feel like I'm balancing everything in the world, I'm managing multiple businesses, I'm building a YouTube subscriber base, I'm trying to get six pack abs, I'm trying to be a good dad while managing personal life. First thing I do is I get down on paper all the things that are irritating me, all the things that are actually causing me stress, all the things I wish weren't on my plate. And on the other side of the paper, I write down all the things that I wish were on my plate. What are the things that I wish I had more time for, what are the things that I wish I had more of in my life? And immediately upon seeing that list, it's out and it is manageable. And what's interesting is as soon as you put the list on paper, you know, the things that can be delegated, the things that can be ignored, the things that can be put off. And there are some things on there that can be scheduled, like the vacation you've been putting off, the thing that you want to add more. And last night I did this exercise and, and the first thing that was on my list of what I wish was on my plate more of was investing more in businesses. Meaning I wish that I had more deal flow, that I could just mentor people and put cash into it and inspire people. And then it was like, well, wait a minute, why don't I just do one of those? We could record it, it becomes content. That's things that people would really like to see that would create more deal flow and more good things I would want to do. So why don't we just do more of that and I can delegate some of the other things that I don't want to do. And all of a sudden there's creative strategies that start to come in and make it look more manageable. The second thing that I do is get away from it for a while after it is out on paper. Get away either for a few hours or a few days because when you come back, the list doesn't seem so bad. And giving myself a break from.

Crushing every workout or crushing every podcast or hitting everything at 100%, it's okay to take a step back because when you return, you're much sharper and that list of things to do doesn't seem so daunting anymore. So dealing with burnout comes from getting some perspective, realizing how good you have it, realizing how close you are to what you want by making that list of things that are irritating you and the things you want more of and getting away from it all so that you're sharper when you come back to it. And that is how I personally deal with burnout on weeks like I'm having right now.

I believe the fastest way to financial freedom and getting to a place where you have to deal with things like burnout is to start a business, because that puts you in the driver's seat of your financial future. And I think the way that you really grow wealth and diversify is by taking the profits that you make in business and then you invest them into other passive sources of cash flow. That's what we believe in here at Freedom Fast Lane. So let's address some questions about doing just that.

Sierra Robinson asks, what are some strategies for launching a new business?

I was asked a question in the first ever episode of Freedom Fast Lane TV where someone asked, what would you do if you only had $500 a month to start a business? And I said I would put every dime of that into building up an audience. It could be an email list, it could be a Facebook list, it could be an Instagram following. I don't care what it is, but spend your money on advertising so that you have leads and you have eyeballs. I think that is the best way to launch any business. I would combine that with a quote from one of my mentors, Dan Sullivan. He says, only test new ideas on check writers, meaning people who would actually be customers. Go to them and say, would you pay for X, Y and Z if we released a new product? If we released this, this service, whatever it is, ask them, would you pay for this? So those two things give you the feedback that you need to be able to launch quickly and effectively. It is a huge shot in the arm to launch a business with customers and take sales out of the gate. We will go through a case study later in this episode about doing exactly that. Because the biggest fear any new entrepreneur has is I'm gonna put all of this work, I'm going to put all this effort into a thing that nobody wants but me. And then we're going to hit store shelves or Amazon shelves and no one's going to buy it. And I'm going to put all this blood, sweat, tears and money into this thing that nobody wants. The way we mitigate that is by building up eyeballs and asking them if they actually want it and releasing that as fast as possible and getting feedback. There's a difference between feedback and failure. Feedback means something can be changed. Failure means you gave up and you scrapped the whole thing and you lost. And even then you learned something and you could reiterate the product and bring it back and be successful. But putting it out there in front of eyeballs is the thing that will make you launch fastest and be the most profitable because you have feedback and customers from day one. It's the thing that I think most people get wrong the most in business is they ignore the fact that they can collect leads and eyeballs and put a product out there really quickly. Look, it is 2017. You have things like Kickstarter. You don't even need to have an inventory order. You just need to have a prototype and you get in front of eyeballs, which, by the way, it's a lot faster and more profitable to do a Kickstarter if you've got eyeballs as well, because you can mail your list to the Kickstarter and really get things moving. We did a podcast episode about this with John Lee Dumas where he launched a book to his audience on Kickstarter and had a six figure launch of a fricking book on Kickstarter. Amazing times that we live in. This is the magic formula, people. This is a writer downer. Audience plus channel plus good product equals million dollar business. There you go. There's all the secrets. We've created over 100 millionaires with this magic formula and that's all that it takes. If you have eyeballs, which comes from a Facebook following, an email list would be preferable because the highest ROIs come from email. Actually email outpolls social like 5 to 1. Anyway, having the audience, having the eyeballs, having the channel, Amazon, Kickstarter, retail, the place where you're taking the sale, where people are already going, combine those with a really good product people want to come back for. You have a million dollar business, you are knighted. Happy Millionaire day, you get to be a millionaire. You have the formula. That's what it takes. That is the provable model to launching a new business. And every time you roll out a new product, it gets easier because you have more eyeballs, you have more provable concepts, you have more of an established presence in that channel. The way you start is, is by collecting the audience, collecting the eyeballs to launch that first product. And that's where everything starts.

Tiffany Ryder asks, in an ideal world, what would be the most effective relationship between government and private enterprise?

At Freedom Fast Lane Live this past December, I think John Mackey, the founder of Whole Foods, gave a pretty good framework for how things can get done. And he said, if anything can be done profitably, it should be done by private enterprise. If something cannot be done profitably, then it should be done by nonprofits. And if something is too big to be done through either of those, then it needs to go to government. I think that is a decent, rough outline for determining the roles of entrepreneurship and the role of government. I think it just changes over time. So some things that are not profitable right now will become profitable 10 years from now. For example, there are things that the government invests in because it thinks that it needs to be stimulated. And that might have had an argument 25 years ago. We look at health care, it might not have been as profitable 25 years ago or today. Private organizations can pretty much handle just about everything and don't need outside funding from the government because we can raise money privately to do things. Now, I would love to be able to look at you and say that I'm an anarcho capitalist that believes that there is no role of government, that private individuals can handle everything. I'm just not there. I just. I think that the government can have a role in certain things. I think that the government. I think that capitalism assumes that you have protected property rights and that the government can be an efficient way to guarantee private property rights. Of course, when you get into questions of like eminent domain, where do those lines blur? That's a tough one. But I think capitalism assumes that you have a government protecting your ability to earn and your ability to keep what you earn, and that you have safe borders and that you are protected from outside threats. So I think that is basically the framework for me, that you protect freedom from a government level. Everything else is done by government. I have heard some proposals that the government can basically issue certain challenges, kind of like the X Prize does, but for challenges that are facing the nation, for example, like who could for something that's passionate to me, who can come up with a way to better take care of livestock. Which is weird for me to talk about, but to be honest with you, I think we'll look back on our generation 50 years from now and say the way that we treat the animals that we eat is kind of an ethical problem. The way that we mass produce meat that like it's hard for us to justify what we do here. Now you have private enterprises like Impossible Foods or Beyond Meat that are basically reverse engineering the amino acid profiles of meat and then creating plant based options that are basically engineered meat products. That is a kind of like the X Prize idea. I think PETA had a kind of XPRIZE bounty on who could create the ideal plant based burger. Like the idea of creating challenges that companies then organize around to be able to.

Entrepreneurial ways of getting that prize money. Can the government get involved in that? I've heard ideas in that that are somewhat attractive. I think that would probably be the least bad type of government intervention. Barack Obama signed legislation that said that all vehicles had to be had to have a certain type of fuel efficiency by I think it was 2030. I don't think that is the best use of government, but I think putting that type of a limit or structure around how entrepreneurs need to adjust in order to meet certain regulations is a less bad form of government than the government actually going in and doing something. I think creating a challenge for an entrepreneur could be beneficial or could have benefits or at least less negative effects than the government going in and trying to do something themselves. So ideally I want the government as removed from entrepreneurs as possible, but at the same time I think it does assume certain property rights and certain protections. So there will always be a role of government. I just think it is a lot, lot less than what we have right now.

Holy crap. Where'd all this coffee come from? This is the part of the show where we go through case study usually one of our students businesses. Today we're joined by our tribe director, Maruxa Murphy. What's up? So it was a year ago that Maruxia said to me I have this idea for a coffee line that I want to launch. And pretty much everybody here@the capitalism.com team runs some sort of physical products business or some sort of a side business. And Marua had this idea for a coffee line and Maruxa, I don't think you even thought it was possible to be able to do something like this. So I wanted to kind of unpack the launch strategy here. The branding you did here because I think you've done a spot on job. So would you talk a little bit about the process and then I'm going to ask you some questions.

Sure, sure. Well, basically, the process was I joined the Freedom Fast Lane team in August of 2015 and basically started to hear and learn from you and from many of our members who had been taking their companies from just an idea and growing it and really making a big impact on so many lives and their own lives. And I started to watch literally client after client after client after client doing this. And I said to myself, I'm so incredibly appreciative of the fact that all of us are entrepreneurs here in the office. And what if that idea that I had about a year before that to start a coffee line could actually happen?

So it was just like an idea land. And then you started to see that it was possible.

Totally. You know, it's one of those moments where it's like, where you are like, oh, wouldn't it be cool if. And I had that idea about two years ago now, a year before I joined, but I didn't know how to do it and figured it out.

And now she knows. I think you have done two things incredibly well, which is the reason why this is going to be a really successful line. And the first was you started documenting the experience before the product even existed.

Right.

Like, big tip here. Write her downer here. I talk a lot about building audiences, launching to an audience. You didn't have a huge audience. You just started documenting the process of, I'm building this product line because I believe this, because I want to make this impact and this is my vision. And you started doing it just on your personal Facebook. And then you started, you know, a Facebook page for the coffee line, and you were starting to get like a thousand views here, a thousand views there. Talk a little bit about that.

Yeah. So basically, honestly, one day I went to one of the roasters I was interviewing, and I was so incredibly pumped up about what he and I were talking about with coffee. And I'm a huge coffee snob, so I'm pretty snooty about what is in my cup. And so as I'm talking to him about my vision, he was getting excited about the vision and I was getting more excited about the vision. And I was like, okay, so if we're all excited about this vision that we're creating, maybe I should share this vision with more people. So I literally was on my way back to the office and I got my cell phone My, you know, my iPhone out and did a selfie video and I was, I was so freaking nervous, but I was just on that high of this meeting that I just had had and I was just like, hi guys on Facebook pretty much, right? Was like, this is what I'm gonna do. Well, one of our other members here in the team saw me doing this video outside the window and was like, you're posting that video? Heck no, I'm not posting this video. And I was double dog dared and if anyone ever double dog dares me. Alright, fine. So what happened was that that video in particular got about 3,500 views and.

My Facebook, you know, message box was full of people excited for me. I was getting messages over email, texts like, you need to do this, this is amazing. And honestly it was. And a lot of them were tribe members actually, which was really, really cool to experience.

And they were all people who wanted to support the vision. Like, this is really, really good coffee. But it could not be really, really good coffee. And people would still be like, I want to be a part of this. Because you put your vision out there, right? Because there's people rallying behind this. And if you as a new business owner can rally a few hundred people by just publicly talking about what you're doing as a business, it's one of the reasons why Kickstarter has been so successful. They're putting out their vision and their mission out there and people share that and they talk about it and you get a few hundred people and that builds your base for customers. Now you did one other thing. The second thing that I think you just did spot on was you absolutely dialed in your target market and you built your entire branding around that. Like when we look at this, first of all, this branding is spot on because the avatar is front and center of the package. Like you are basically targeting women, housewives. You even say on here, on the back of the package, you are powerful, you are simple, you're serious, you're thoughtful, you're playful and complex, you're silly and unstoppable. You're speaking to a very specific person and you don't care, like you're happy if I buy the coffee, but I'm not your target market. And so that allowed you to really dial in your marketing. Talk a little bit about that.

Absolutely. So in my case, in this scenario, and to really get clear on this particular target market, I had to make the choice to know who I wanted to serve.

I have a community here in Austin of moms that.

Tell me Every day, how they feel about the motherhood journey, about what it's like to know that you've had a career your whole life and have been so incredibly powerful and smart and felt so on top of the world. And then you go home to your little one and you feel like, does anyone even remember me matter? And it tears me up all the time because so many women are going through this. And so as I started to build out this coffee line and think about the journey I had been on myself as well, I started to remember that wait in the coffee space. Every single coffee, if you look around and I would encourage everyone to do this today. Go and look at the coffees that are out there. It's all marketed in a very masculine way, in dark browns and oranges and, and things like that. And there's really nothing geared to the women who are, 85% of them are the ones buying all coffee in the first place. And there's no one marketing to them and hearing them. And so a part of what I chose to make a stand for. You talk a lot about disruptor businesses and about creating a brand that either will make it and succeed majorly or fail miserably. And both are huge success successes. And I was like, you know what that I want to do that. I don't want to be lukewarm anymore. I don't want to because I've done that too and I've failed miserably.

You mean like built up cash flow businesses just there for the money? Totally fine to have a business that's just about the money. But in this case, you didn't want to do that.

I didn't want to do that. I was just like, well, if I'm going to stand for something and I want to build something long term, what would that. What could I stand behind? And it was to me, honestly, the easiest thing to stand behind was the journey that I had been on. The journey that so many women, millions and probably billions of women have been on and know very well. And so I wanted to speak to their story and to who they are.

And here's the beauty of this. As a result of having it so specific of who you're talking to, every one of those women are excited about the mission, are lining up to buy it. You have like basically a waiting list of people who want it. All of those people are going to come back and leave a review. You don't have to beg for a review. When you have a market that is passionate about what you are doing, it's actually really simple if they really believe in what you're doing. So you're already taking sales? Yep. I don't know that you're on Amazon yet, but you're getting there. But you have people. Oh, my goodness. You're taking orders through an e commerce site without having an Amazon presence or an email list. Like, you have people already coming to you and saying, I want this because you put the mission out there.

Yeah, absolutely. So once I put them. So what happened was that first video then catapulted a whole series of videos chronicling the whole process of going from an idea to this, to the product today and to being in, you know, just starting to do our first sales. And what's happened is there was. I found that my audience was incredibly invested in the process, so it's become an easy thing.

Not. I wouldn't say sales are always. You know, it's always a thing. Right. Like, at least maybe that's something I have to work on in my head. But. But at the same time, it's felt comfortable to just say, hey, our products finally here. And actually seeing all these sales coming in, because they've literally. But they. They were the ones who helped with the logo. They helped with the oh, hey, bag design. They helped me, actually. We had over 50 women taste test our roasts throughout the process. So whenever I had a potential roaster, I would interview the roasters. I'd bring home maybe anywhere from three to five different coffee roasts from our roasters. And my community said, oh, this is disgusting, or this is amazing. We need to go with this. And this one in particular won handsound five out of five, like, every single time.

And what was it like to. To put it out there and make that first inventory order once you have the decision made like this? Like, it's one thing to say, what should my logo be? And get feedback about the logo. It's another to be like, what flavor should I have? It's another to say, I'm gonna take however many thousands of dollars and say, okay, decision made. Let's go. Which is a completely different mindset, and it's scary for most entrepreneurs. What was it like for you? How'd you navigate that?

I think, I mean, a big part of that was knowing my numbers coming in, saying, okay, here's the money that we are putting into the company, and then saying, okay, so if we want to grow, you know, if we want in our first 30 days to have a thousand sales, let's say, what would. What would it take to make that happen? So we really calculated all those costs ahead of time to know what I wanted, like how much money we were, both myself and my partner were going to be putting into the company.

So that you brought on a partner, Was it a capital partner? What type of partner?

A capital partner.

Okay, got it.

So we came in together because, you know, my partner's skill set is so opposite of mine. It was a really good partnership and I was like, we can create something really fast together if we put our minds together and, and our hard work and sweat and tears.

Did having a capital partner make you feel more confident making the order okay?

Yes, yes, yes, definitely, Definitely. Simple. And part of that was because, you know, I felt like that person was that much more invested into what I was building long term. And so we were doing something pretty magical together.

That is pretty magical. Where can people find out more? Perkyperkey.com you've done a bomb ass job at your branding. This is probably the best branding I've ever seen. I'm so proud of what you have. I have begged Maruxia to take my money as a capital partner, but they're gonna be super successful with or without me. Great work.

Thanks, Ryan. Appreciate it.

So this is what lights me up. This is what gets me really excited. If this is fun for you. Maruxa is our tribe director, where we take people who are investors, we take people who are brand builders, we take people who have audiences and we put them together because magic happens when those people come together and play business with one another. I love being part of the investment side and the advisement side. So I work with tribe members and Maruxia puts those relationships together. This brand could not exist if we hadn't taken those relationships and made them happen within the tribe. That's what we do inside of the tribe. So you can join that@freedomfastlane.com tribe or if you are a new entrepreneur and you want to know what does the process look like to make a product line like this? Get it on Amazon, get those reviews, get into retail, build the audience. We have a bootcamp put together just for you, that when you go through it, you will have your product made, you will have decisions made, you will have funding allocated. We can put you together with funding partners, teach you how to get funded, whether it's your money or someone else's money. We talk about how to pre sell it so that you're profitable. From day one, we talk about kickstarting it if you want to do that. Building audiences so you have customers. From day one, we talk about that. Whole process inside of our Brand Builder Bootcamp. That is@freedomfastlane.com Bootcamp I think we need as many entrepreneurs in this world as possible. When you become an entrepreneur, you become more personally responsible. You realize what it takes to grow an economy because entrepreneurs are what stimulate hiring and new products and the growth that we experience and we enjoy. You learn so much about yourself in the world when you're an entrepreneur. That's why we run capitalism.com that's why we have created over 100 millionaires. It's why we run the tribe. Because I believe that more entrepreneurs make this world a better place. That includes you. And I appreciate you watching. We'll see you on the next show.

Sam.