24 Tips for ENTREPRENEURS! | Make Time & Win

Start recording. Welcome everybody, another League of Legends AMA entrepreneurship featuring me and Rishi Cup TV.

Hey, good morning everybody, happy Wednesday.

Happy Wednesday, 9 AM Eastern, ready to go. Me and Rishi Cup TV, I like it.

I love it.

I like it. All right, queuing up, hopefully I get my Timo Jungle. We can go along here and let's get into the first question. What do we got, Rishi? We're gonna help answer some questions from— well, first of all, what's in the cup? We gotta— we— I feel like we haven't been— we haven't been good on that tradition of what's in the cup.

Well, today I have a coffee from Chick-fil-A, but beyond what is literally in my coffee cup, I have A cup of excitement to add massive value to entrepreneurs today.

I love it, I love it. I'm in a Fitbit competition again, so I'm stepping while I'm playing and answering questions.

Fabulous. Are you drinking your protein drink today?

I do. We got it here, but I have to drink my vitamins first because Nina says I have to drink this on an empty stomach or she gets upset at me.

We love Nina.

We do love Nina. All right, all right, let's get into it. Question time. I'm excited.

Yeah, me too. First question comes from Jeremy. Jeremy is a young entrepreneur, 20 years old, and he has a just a little bit of advice about his time because he currently is working full-time in a collections office, but his real dream is to start a clothing business, a clothing line. Okay. But what happens is he works so hard when he goes to his day job that when he gets home he's exhausted and he's just not sure what he should do because he's not finding that he has time to actually work on his passion, which is his clothing line. So, my— thanks for the question, Jeremy. You know, I think feeling like you have a lack of time is definitely common amongst anyone who wants to pursue, you know, their dream. And I think that the first thing is to look at your situation in The good news is that you have a job, that you have the ability to be making money because maybe right now that's teaching you skills that you may need for business, for your business, but also being able to make money that you could be thinking about saving to invest into this clothing line. That's the good news. You know, your job could be a means to getting to this clothing line. But I think the biggest— it can kind of be an excuse that we tell ourselves that we don't have enough time because at the end of the day you do have— you have limited time, but I believe that we all have limited time and we all have to learn how to use the limited time that we have. So to make it really practical for you, I'd be asking yourself, what are some— what's something you can do daily, uh, that is a non-negotiable time that you could spend every day on your business? And, um, I think even it might feel like you're not getting a lot done, even if it's that 30 minutes right after you eat dinner, you know, before you go to bed to get up and grind the next day, that 30 minutes just committing to it, non-negotiable, and that little amount can lead to big results if you're consistent with it. So I think it's, I think it's kind of a lie that we don't have enough time. I think there's always a way to make time for what you love. What do you think, sir?

Yeah, over to me. All right, cool. Yeah, a couple things. One, you— in agreeing with Rishi, like, you never have the time. It's like, when is the right time to have a baby? Well, there's never the right time, but you have to look after that baby, right? And when it's crying at 3 in the morning, you got to get up and look after that baby. And so your business is your baby too. And you're not looking after it and you need to make the time to be able to look after it. Whether it is like, I like the half an hour a day idea, whether that's at a certain time, like whether you wake up half an hour earlier or whether you're staying up half an hour late, whatever it is to make sure there's progress. The other thing I would say though is I would try to find a job where I'm learning about the industry that I want to get into. 'Cause you can learn so much by doing it yourself and hustling and researching and that half an hour a day you'll learn. But you'll learn a lot more when you're being mentored and when you can spend a lot more time on it. And so if your job was in collections, is that what it was? Jeremy's job was in collections?

Exactly.

Right. So he's not learning much about the clothing business by being in collections. Apart from, I guess, you know, how to make people pay when they don't pay you. There's some kind of skill to learn there, but otherwise, yeah, you're not going to be making money, you're not going to be learning about how to make money in that industry. So what I suggest is go find a job in the business where you can learn, not in some huge company, but in a smaller company where you can learn from the CEO, founder. I usually like to look for companies that are about 10 employees or less Someone who's established but not yet so big that your job will just be fetching coffee and, you know, really menial work. And get to know them and learn from them and be inspired by them and take on more projects and volunteer to be involved more often in the things that they're doing. Because you'll learn about the industry and you'll learn to make connections and you'll, you know, you'll make mistakes while getting paid to do it. Instead of making all those mistakes on your own. And so the reason to get a job is to learn. And so if you're having a hard time in your collections industry and trying to figure out how to make more time for your business and pursue your passion, then yes, I agree with setting half an hour a day, even if you're exhausted, to go and work it. But then also I'd be looking at switching my job so that I'm learning because that's going to really multiply your efforts and get you there a lot faster.

Nice. Now Evan, sorry, really quickly, we've got some people wanting to watch the stream and they're not seeing you live. I'm not seeing you live but I thought it was just on my end.

Yeah, I saw that too. I don't know, it says I'm streaming and it's recording so at least we'll be able to upload it to YouTube but I don't know what's going on with Twitch today.

Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, a job in, you know, working with another fashion designer sounds a lot more exciting than working in collections.

For him, right? Yeah. A person who wants to start a collection business should learn about the collections industry first.

Mm-hmm.

So if you're not learning from your job, for any of you who are watching who have a job and you're not Liking it. As soon as you stop learning at your job, it's time to move on. Doesn't mean you have to start your own business yet. You may not be ready, you may not have the financial resources, you may not have the knowledge, experience, be able to add value, all that stuff. But if you're not learning at your job anymore, then you're just wasting time. You got to go do something that at least you're learning new things about. And that may mean you bounce from a couple jobs until you find the one that you really learn and makes you come alive.

Great. Hope that helps you, Jeremy.

Good luck.

Good luck. Next question comes from Nathan. Nathan says he's at the very beginning stages of being an entrepreneur. He's looking for a job. And so it kind of sounds like he's in the same situation a little bit with Jeremy, trying to get a job that will give him some skills in his ultimate dream of being an entrepreneur. He says he thought that telemarketing would be a good fit for him when he was thinking about some of his strengths. But later he felt like the telemarketing jobs were, in his own words, going to kill his character. He thought it may be a little dishonest, stressful. So he's wanting just general advice about, you know, what he should do as he looks for jobs as an aspiring entrepreneur. Okay, so Nathan, I think, you know, I don't— I definitely don't think that all telemarketing jobs necessarily necessarily require that you have to be dishonest or that, you know, I think the main thing about telemarketing jobs is finding a company and a product that you actually feel you believe in and that will give value to your customers because, you know, obviously you do have to be someone who's going to successfully sell that product. And so the way to feel dishonest— the way to not feel dishonest is to actually be selling something you think will really help people. And I think that would take away a lot of the feelings of dishonesty. So it sounds like your strengths are maybe you're interested in sales. Maybe you're— maybe the dealing with people, interpersonal skills was something that was attractive to you. About that. So if it's something that you think you still really want to pursue, I would say try to find a company and a product that you actually really believe in, and I think that will take care of the feeling that it would kill your character. Aside from that though, I want to know more about your actual business because I then would be able to give you a little bit better feedback in regards to maybe some alternatives. I mean, telemarketing may not be the best fit. I know for me in general, like, if I'm looking for jobs, um, I definitely want to be in a place that, uh, is going to bring out my strengths or help me make my strengths even stronger. Um, so maybe telemarketing isn't actually the best fit, but maybe Maybe there are other ways that you can be involved in sales or being involved with dealing with learning how to communicate to customers that will then give you some of the skills that you want to bring to your business later on.

I like it.

Yeah, what are you passionate about? What are you passionate about, Nathan? I'd love to hear more about what you really are— what really gets you excited. What do you think, Evan?

I like it. I got my Timo Jungle on, so it's a good start. Yeah, it's a good start. Yes, um, this was, this was Nathan.

Nathan.

Nathan. Yeah, so one, I guess for everybody calling, or writing, I'll say calling, everybody writing in, uh, yeah, a little bit more context helps when you're presenting a challenge to know the situation a little bit more. Doesn't mean you have to write you know, 10-page long life story because that usually gets ignored, but you know, what kind of business do you want to start would be pretty helpful. I'm assuming that you want to get into telemarketing because you want to learn how to sell because in whatever business you're gonna get into, you're gonna have to learn how to sell. I would say unless you want to start a telemarketing company, don't go work at a telemarketing company. Similar to Jeremy, the last one, I would say look at a company that has 10 employees or less in the industry that you want to start. Like, if you wanted to start in the fashion business, you might say, well, you know, I want to learn how to sell, so I'm going to get a telemarketing job and that's going to teach me the skills and then I can move on. What I love about Nathan's approach is that he's a He's trying to get a job where he can learn so that he can start the business. So it's not just earning a paycheck, but he's gonna learn something that will help him. The thing is, if you wanna learn how to sell clothes, it may not be the best start to go to a telemarketing company. Like, if you are going to go work, intern, volunteer, whatever, at a fashion company right now, they're gonna sell, right? Like, how do they sell their stuff? Right now? And how can you be on the sales team and learn from them, right? Are they using a telemarketing company? Maybe, but probably not. So you want to be looking at the ideal company that you want to build, right? That 10-person company where you say, you know, I could see myself being like this person in a couple years. That's, that's my aspiration and my goal. Then that's, that's where you should be looking for a job. That's where you want to go and learn from. And again, take on as much responsibility, get as close to the CEO, founder as possible, learn. Most people at a job do, you know, just enough so that they don't get fired. And so when you come in and you are working hard and hustling and wanting to get involved in more projects and coming with ideas, you're just gonna naturally rise up. You know, people will notice you, and especially in a small 10-person company, you're gonna get more responsibility. So even if you start at the bottom, then you gotta build your way up like pretty quickly just by showing your passion and your hustle. And so I think that's gonna be the best opportunity for you as opposed to working in a telemarketing job. And in general, anything that you feel is soul-sucking, like, don't do it. You know, like, you have limited time. You can do a lot of different things with your talents. And life is not worth spending it on things and on people that bring us down.

Yeah, that's great. I hope that Nathan, you can find something that, you know, really is in line with what your passion is, and let us know what your passion is. Alrighty, next question. Comes from Jamil.

Jamil.

And Jamil says he's 47 years old, and for most of his career he's been working in the food industry because his father, um, that was something that his father really wanted for him. And his father passed away in 2009, and that when he discovered, or actually about 4 years ago, he said he discovered that his real passion is video editing.

Alright.

So now he wants to make a change. He wants to specialize in making movies for kids' birthday parties and graduations, that sort of thing. And he's kind of stuck because he's asking, should I follow Is this my passion or should I follow what I know and what I know can be easy money, which is the food industry? He's got 24 years of experience there. And yeah, so he's just kind of, I think he's torn between the fact that he has to pay his bills and can do it with the food, but really wants to be doing the filming and the editing of parties and graduations and whatnot. Thanks, Jamil, for the question. This is definitely a common struggle. You know, you, you have your responsibilities financially, but you also want to pursue the thing that makes you come alive. So I think for sure I'm a believer in absolutely going after the thing that makes you come alive. We've just The last two questions have kind of talked about not getting, you know, not giving all your time to things that aren't going to be making you really come alive. The food, you know, I don't know if you hate doing food or if it's something that you actually do enjoy somewhat, because I think one thing you could do is you don't necessarily have to completely stop doing food right away. You know, and completely, you know, cut off your source of income just to pursue this video editing passion. But can you find a way right now to, you know, transition so that you can still be making videos, getting better at making videos, doing parties, doing graduations, and get to the point where you can sustain yourself 100% financially with your videography editing business. You know, or common theme, maybe just completely leave the food industry and start working at a job that is going to really help you get better at the video editing. We are kind of on a roll here. Why not, why not get all the skills that you need and, you know, get a job that can help you get those skills. So I think it's exciting for someone at 47 years old to all of a sudden realize your dream, realize your passion, and decide, I actually want to do this. Like, why not? You know, why not go and do it? And it obviously is something that's really exciting for you. And start by telling all your friends, I want to film your parties or your graduations, and I'm, you know, you can grow along the way. And I think it's exciting. What do you think, Evan?

Yeah, Jameel, one, I think it's, you know, it's great to want to honor your father, and I'm sure there's a lot of familiar, you know, connection, and you feel close to him by being in the business, and that can be a lot to give up. You know, at some point you do have to decide whether it's gonna be your life or your father's life, right? Like, that was his business. Do you want to make it yours or not, right? Like, he's passed, you know, you get to do what you want to do, and it's never too late to take action on it. So that's a start. I'm in the middle of trying to fight someone here, so this is a stressful situation.

Who are you today, by the way? Who's your character?

I'm Timo Jungle. I got my go-to strategy, Timo Jungle. Yeah, so I would see how much do you like the business right now or not? Do you want to keep going in it at all? Does the thought of getting up and in the morning and doing this just petrify you, you hate it, you don't want to do it at all. If that's the case, you might be looking at, okay, how can I sell the business and move on to something else? He has a business right now, right? Like—

I'm not sure, he didn't actually mention if they had a business, it was just, I guess his father was, you know, they worked in the food sector.

Okay, so it may not be his own business. Okay, well, whether it is his business or or not. In general, if you are an entrepreneur and you've lost the love for your business, then I'd be looking at, okay, how can I sell this? Because it's never going to be higher value. Because if you've lost the passion for it, moving on to something else, when you've checked out mentally, the value— people think they can coast and like, oh, you know, keep making this amount per year, and it won't. Like, it'll start going down. You'll stop caring. So the time to get the most amount of dollars out of it is right now, and it also frees up your emotional energy to move on to go out and do something else. If it's just in terms of jobs, then I agree with Rishi in that I'd be looking at, hey, can I find a job where I can learn more? It also depends on your kind of financial situation, you know, if you're starting from the bottom. In the video editing business, that may not be feasible at the moment, but making sure that you're spending time every day on this business, telling your friends, volunteering, getting better, you know, interning at video production companies, researching different techniques, practicing on your own. Maybe there's a model to combine it, like if you know the food industry super well, can you combine it, video editing with the food business? You know, all restaurants need videos and like every business should have videos to talk about their business. So can you be that guy? That's great. Right? Does that like video— video production serves a lot of different industries. Do you care what industry you're serving? I know you mentioned kids' parties and stuff. Is that like what really makes you come alive or does it matter? You can probably apply your knowledge of the food industry business to go out and get clients for the video production side because you understand how to make and sell food. So that gives you a really big advantage over other video production companies, even people who may have been around for a while, because you understand that industry. So that may be your thin wedge in to be able to get some sales and get some experience. So, Those two things, like if you can afford it to go and leave your— if it's a job, to start off somewhere else where you can learn, go out and do it. If you can't yet, then you're doing it on the side and trying to combine the interest and skill level that you have to provide the best value to your clients. In this case, it'd probably be providing videos for the food service business.

Yeah, love it.

I think it starts with the decision that like, this is my life, right? I think— I feel like he's already gotten there, but a lot of people haven't, where they're doing something because their parents— either the parents are still alive and telling them, hey, you need to do this, this is, you know, you need to go do this job, you know, it's a family of lawyers, so you need to be a lawyer too. Or they've passed and you're just trying to honor, you're trying to honor their memory. Also common. But at some point you need to decide whether this is again your life or someone else's life. You know, make that decision. And from there it becomes easier. Like once you've decided Everything becomes easier. Once you've truly decided, everything's becoming easier.

I'm being attacked!

I'm being attacked! I got out, I got out, I got out. Alright, alright.

I love that, and sometimes, like you said, sometimes it's not just your family, maybe it's your friends or whoever it is that you feel their expectations you need to live up to, and that can be easier said than done. Getting to the point where you just don't— you're able to let go of what other people's expectations are of you. And like you said, when you finally make that last— you kind of finally cut the cord is when some really cool things can happen. I also will say, I just remembered there's a new book out. It's called It's Never Too Late to Begin Again: Discovering Creativity and Meaning at Midlife and Beyond. By Julia Cameron, and I think that would be an awesome book to check out because I think a lot of people think that, you know, once you're in midlife or beyond, like, trying to start over is just— it's too late, but it's not. So hopefully that will be a helpful resource to you, Emil.

Yeah, there's a video we're putting up soon on the channel with Quincy Jones. It's a Quincy Jones top 10, and he got asked that question. I really liked his answer. You guys should check it out. But basically he was also saying that he's still learning. Like, he hasn't figured it all out. He is not— he hasn't— like, even as much as he has accomplished, he still is not, you know, the know-all of everything. Did I get a kill? Yes! Haha, happy about that. So yeah, when you see the Quincy Jones video come up, I'd recommend checking that one out too.

Great.

And just one last thought on the, like, other people's expectations. It's not that you don't care. Like, if your mom wants you to do something and you don't want to do it, it's not that you don't care about it, right? I think, I think that's what sometimes people say, like, hey, don't care about what other people say. It obviously will still impact you if your mom hates what you're doing, but it's that you're making the conscious choice that this is your life and you need to live it, and your own opinion of yourself is more important than anybody else's. It's not that you don't care, it's just you make your— you put yourself first above other people and their expectations. Yeah, it's still gonna hurt. It's still not necessarily an easy decision, but the more you get used to doing it, the easier it does become.

Great. It reminds me of that hangout you just did, which was really, really interesting. Choose Yourself.

Oh, James Altucher.

Yeah, yeah, I found that to be a fascinating interview, and it actually, in that interview also, you guys talked about how more and more people are changing careers. Like, it's, it's now no longer a, you know, rare thing for, for people to just change careers multiple times. So you're in good company, Jamil.

11.

All right, next question comes from Vivek.

Vivek.

Vivek, love it. Vivek has an educational startup.

Okay.

And what they do is they provide summer/winter training programs for Graduate Engineers. And he has a few questions for you, 3 actually. And the first question is, what percent of your profit of your business should be saved for profit or should be reinvested into the company? Let's just take that question first. You know, I think this is a great question, Evan, because I think that isn't every business, you know, it's like every business is led by a person or at least starts with a person. And that person comes with their own set of money management beliefs, rules, thoughts. And so whatever that entrepreneur practices in terms of money management will greatly affect their business. And so I think that how you answer this question in terms of what percent you save for profit and for the business, I think it's going to be variable. I can't wait to hear what you have to say. Evan Carmichael, but I would assume there are a few things you would want to be thinking about because I don't know that there's just a fixed percentage that's going to work across the board for every entrepreneur. But I'd be asking questions like, you know, what are your current commitments financially just to keep the business going right now? You know, what are those commitments? Because I think those are going to vary again across the board, person to person, business to business. And then also thinking about your future growth, you know, what commitments are going to come with the expansion of your business? Because as your business grows, then you may need more, you know, you may need to hire people. You may need to rent out space. There are all these things that are going to come up with your growth that you, I think, want to be considering when you're thinking about saving or reinvesting. So I think it's just a good point to have a good plan, not just for today, but like for your future of your business, because I think those questions of how much you— how much you save, what you do with the money, is going to be largely determined by how well you're kind of able to be where you envision your business going.

All right, over to me.

On to you, sir.

All right, so it depends on one, your phase of growth, and also on your financial situation. It is, it is super common for early-stage businesses to lose money because you're growing. Like, high-growth companies typically lose money because you're investing so much into where you can go. Now, not everybody can necessarily afford that, right? If you are reliant on that income to feed your family and pay your bills and all that stuff, then you may not be able to take all that investment and put it back in your company. You may need to take a little bit more off the table and hold it back for yourself. So there's no one rule. You know, it's nice to have a fixed easy answer and for me to say, "20%, put back in." But you know, you in the early stages of your business, you won't even have profit. I think he was asking profit, right? Not revenue, right? What percentage of profit? [Speaker:MARIA] Exactly. Oh, we got a kill, right? Yeah, so it really, it really depends on where you see the business growing, how quickly you see it growing. Companies have to make these decisions on a big scale. Even more mature companies have to decide how much dividend do we give to our customers? Right? Because if they see a lot of growth in investments that they can make, then they should not be given more dividends. But if they— can we get a kill? Yes!

Yes!

Yes!

Good job! Sounds like you're going.

Uh, I'm okay, but the team is losing so far. But it's close, it's close. So people criticize like Apple. Apple should have a higher Apple has all this cash on hand, they should have a higher dividend, give cash back to the investors. But, you know, if you see that you have a lot of opportunity to invest back in, like where do you see your business going? Do you see a ton of growth from a certain market that you need to, you know, save up and put towards the business? Then you need to save up and do that. It's in the best interest of the company. If you don't know where you're going to spend the money, then it doesn't make sense to just randomly invest in things. And so when you see companies investing, increasing their dividend rate, it's typically because they haven't figured out, you know, where else they're going to spend the money, so we might as well give it back to investors. So, you know, you may not be at that point where you're, you know, you have investors and dividends and all that, but the point of that story is there's no one fixed answer. It really depends on do you see a lot of growth potential in your business? There's a lot of different places that you can invest. Or are you just doing what you're doing and there's no growth opportunities? And then two, how badly do you need the money? You know, it's great to say, yeah, take 50% of profits and save it for, you know, future investment into the business. But, you know, if you have a mortgage bill coming up that you have to pay, that's not going to really help you. So, but be confident that there's no, like, it may slow down your growth if you're taking money off the table now because you need it, but it doesn't make it wrong too, you know. Like, you can still have a massively successful business if you're just slowing down your rate of growth, and it forces you to be a little more strategic with where you do spend the money. Are you spending on things that will make the biggest impact on your company?

Yeah, I liked when I was hearing your thoughts too on, for example, hiring. I think, well, you were talking about how, you know, if you do get to the stage where you can have, you can reinvest by actually hiring someone, hiring someone who maybe an hour of their time will give you, you know, frees you up to have hours. It was a profitable investment more than maybe putting the money somewhere else because hiring that one person made you way more money than if you had done it elsewhere. There are some great videos I know I've seen on your channel, Evan Carmichael, about the hiring process that could be thought of as a way of reinvesting smart into your business so that you're making more money than if you didn't.

Absolutely. And if you think like, you know, you want to— say you want to pull money off the table to be able to do something in your personal life, well, maybe investing into hiring somebody new on your team gives you the personal time off to be able to go and do, you know, whatever you want to do or take care of those resources by investing time and not— oh, okay, we're out. Good, good, good, we're doing damage, we're doing damage. Yeah, so it's not always— it doesn't mean you have to pull money off the table for yourself. It might be that you hire somebody and that frees up your time that then you can spend your time going off and doing whatever you need to on a personal level. So In all likelihood, especially at the start of a business, there's no rule of thumb because the variables are changing so often and your personal situation is changing so often that you're not some multi-billion dollar company that you have predictability in what's gonna go on. And so don't worry about it. Like, you can have a goal, but You know, if you see a high growth company, then you want to invest. If you see a lot of opportunity in your business, you want to invest as much as possible, 100% back into your business to see it grow. Because that's going to pay long-term dividends. So you want to invest as much as you can afford if you see a lot of potential. But don't feel bad if you can't because hey, you need to earn a living too. You need to be able to feed yourself because all that future growth won't mean anything if you're not around to see it. So that's the balance.

Great. He has a second question about marketing.

Okay.

And he's asking for, again, his business is a startup to train graduate engineers, and he's kind of wondering what are different ways that he could market for a training program. And I would just say There's so many ways that you could market. Obviously, I would ask, do you really know where your audience, your target market, where are they? You know, where are the people that, that you want to attract? And it could be anything from putting flyers up at a graduate school and trying to to get those recent grads to know right away that they can come to you, to social media, to getting people on an email list. There's just tons and tons of ways to market, but I think the question I'd be asking is like, where are the people that you're trying to target, where are they hanging out most, and go there.

Yeah, my favorite way is through alliances. So I'd be looking at who is already selling to engineers, where engineers are already hanging out, and how can you find a way to partner up with them so that—

Love it.

So that they can introduce you. I just got another kill, super happy. I got 4 kills and 1 assist with no deaths, so this is a rocking game so far. Believe team is doing well today. Almost. Yeah, so like where are these engineers hanging out? Ah, I got another kill. Where are the engineers hanging out? What are they doing? You know, what groups are they a part of? Who else are they buying from? Can you connect with career, like the career counselors? Or is there an engineering club? You know, where are these guys hanging out? and then how can you basically be on the radar to those people and find a way to be able to work together. That's going to be your fastest way in to be able to reach those engineers.

Thanks. And final question from Vivek is, what would I not want to do with this type of startup? So, uh, big huge general question: what not to do? And I would just say, you know, don't give up. If this is what you really want to do, if this is something that you're super passionate about, uh, go for it. Don't let any, uh, fear hold you back from just really, uh, going after You're going after it.

I love it. I had a much— I had a practical answer, not that yours isn't, but I like yours better. Honestly, like, if you're giving— if giving general advice to startup, you know, most important is one, you're doing something that you love. So yeah, don't chase engineers because you think it's just a way to make a lot of money. Like, you gotta have a strong why as to why you want to help out engineers and why you're starting this business, which we didn't really address, but I guess we just did now. And then persistence, right? Like, if it's that important to you, then when it doesn't work out, when those first alliance partners don't work, when, you know, your first speaking gig flops, when all the things, you know, go wrong You stick with it, you keep doing it. Oh, my team got dragon, I wasn't there. Interesting. I'm not paying enough attention to what's going on in the map. Yeah, so like Rishi's point of not giving up, super important. Entrepreneurs usually give up too soon. They give up just as they're starting to get some momentum, and it takes a while to build momentum. I think that's the thing is people think it's gonna take a lot less time than it actually does, and so they get frustrated and they quit. They quit too soon. So I love that, super important. The one that immediately came to mind was don't spend money until you're making money.

Oh, that's good.

It's easy to go out and spend a ton of money on stuff like, hey, well, to get this business off the ground, I need to whatever, right? I need to get a website, I need to get business cards, I need to get I need to hire the best speakers. And like, it's easy to go out and spend a ton of money on stuff, but it's hard to actually go and make the money. Anybody can spend the money, and I would just encourage you to invest your heart, your hustle, your drive, your energy to go pull in business. And then once you start making a little bit of money, you can do a little— some small bets. So you can, you know, if you want to try flyers, then try flyers, but don't spend $20,000 on flyers, spend $500, right, and see if that works for you. And if it does, you can keep going, and if not, then you find another alternative. I think entrepreneurs just typically spend way too much way too soon, and it really hurts them.

That's good, really good, especially for startups, any startups. Okay, well Vivek, thanks for the question. Moving on to Charles. And Charles has a Facebook page, and he wanted some feedback on his Facebook page. He's a part of an organization called Jacob Ministries. And just a little bit about it. I know, Evan, you can't see the Facebook page. I took a little— I took a glance at it to give you an idea of what was on the Facebook page. It was— it's a religious organization, and it says, "We are a funding corporation. Our goal is to bring additional funds to any organization that needs it." local outreach to schools, churches, community building, and in the feed of the Facebook page, I just— he basically had— it looks like he could be a YouTuber because I saw some videos up that just had some—

We haven't had a YouTube Rishi answer yet. I'm excited for this.

I know, I know. Well, yeah, so he had some videos up that were just kind of like positive, very encouraging messages. That he was sharing. So maybe we can give him some feedback just in general how to make a good either business Facebook page or page for your organization that will really attract the people that you want to attract.

All right. Well, we just won the game, so that's a good start.

Wow.

Yeah, it was fast. I had 6 kills, no deaths, and 3 assists. Pretty excited about that. Uh, cool, okay, so he has a Facebook page trying to raise money for religious organizations to try to help— like, he wants to help other people raise money or he wants to raise money himself?

It sounds like he wants to help other people with their funding.

Okay, got it. And how does he do that through a Facebook page? That's his question?

Yeah, he wanted your feedback in general just about, you know, what do you think of this Facebook page and any tips or advice. Okay. I know when I looked at the page, it wasn't super clear to me. Well, first of all, it's great. It's cool to see anyone who wants to do something that is just going to help other people get what— get their needs met. So, you know, hats off to you for you having a passion to want to just help other people in their goals. And it just wasn't— when I was looking at the Facebook page, it wasn't super clear right off the bat what exactly— I know that when I went to the About section, I was able to see that you want to do funding for different, you know, these different schools, churches, and communities groups. But I wasn't really sure how, you know, it just wasn't super clear exactly beyond reading your About section what it is that you do. So I think the first thing I would just say for any Facebook page, whether it's a business or an organization, is just make it as easy as possible for people to come to your page, know exactly what you do, and then how you do it, how I can What is the value that you are immediately giving to the people that you are wanting to reach? Only because the YouTube videos, they were— it was cool to see encouraging videos, but I wasn't sure how the YouTube videos were at all connected with the About. There wasn't much information that I could see off the bat about how, if I was an organization who needed funding, how you were going to help me get from A to B. So I think it was harder— there might be ways that you can communicate your message more effectively. What do you think, Evan?

I think it's an interesting cause. I think I may agree if people are having a hard time understanding what you do and they're clicking around to 1,000 pages, they may not give you the chance to let you, you know, prove yourself, right? They walk away confused. I think too, most charitable organizations do a terrible job of storytelling, and fundraising is storytelling. That's what it is. Like, you need to tell me your story. So it sounds like one, like, you're not doing a good job of telling your own story because Rishi goes to the page and doesn't understand what you're doing. So you need to improve your own storytelling, but then also learn how to tell the stories of these organizations that you're working with. I don't know, I didn't get it. This is like a business for him, or he's just— he just wants to help out and contribute back to his community. Either way, if you can tell their stories better than they can tell their stories, or help them tell their stories, or help help pull out key messages, then that's going to be the key way in because I think everybody wants to contribute back in some way. I think if every year, a lot of us, I've given to a lot of different causes, whether you guys listening, I'm sure over the past year you've given to at least one cause, whether it's Girl Guide cookies or, you know, cancer fundraiser, or your friend is biking in the race or something, and you pledged some money to help them. People want to help. There's just so many causes, right? Like, why should I do yours instead of helping feed kids in Africa, you know, or whatever? Like, there's tons of— even, even within the religious community, like, if you're, if you're picking people who you say, okay, well, I only want to contribute to religious organizations, great. There's still tons of options within the religious community. Why should I pay, you know, to support whatever organization is on your website instead of just giving more to my church? You know, like, I love my pastor and I'm gonna pay him a lot more money because he's, you know, giving me messages every week that move me. Why should I go and pay you money for it, right? And so that's where the story becomes super important. I think If I was, you know, Facebook is a great starting point. I think it's obviously so community-driven. You don't need a lot of technical skills to be able to have success on Facebook, which is great. And if you don't know how to make a website, Facebook is a great place to start for everybody out there. But I think the most important thing for you, that skill to learn, is storytelling. First your own, why it's so important, and then the causes that really mean something to you, finding their stories in a way that— like, use yourself as a barometer. You've picked these organizations for a reason. Why? And when you are helping tell their stories, is it something that moves you? Just as a quick example, at Toronto Dance Salsa, we have a TV. It's a retail store, and we have a TV at the front, and I wanted to have random acts of kindness kindness showing on that TV 24/7. Not about our— so it's not our schedule, it's not how much our classes are, it's not about our school. I want random acts of kindness. And then underneath it says like, go help somebody today, Toronto Dance Salsa, or something like that.

I love it.

And the idea was I want people to have an emotional reaction walking by my shop. And it's great, like people walk by and they stop and they look at it, and some people makes people cry and makes people think, which is great. But I made that video myself. I picked the videos that went up on that TV, and they were all ones that choked me up, that when I watched them on silent mode because we can't have volume. So I watched like hundreds of YouTube videos on silent mode to find the ones that choked me up, that I felt like I want to go do something positive and good in the world after watching it, and that's what I put up on the TV. And so use yourself as a barometer when you're trying to tell the story of a local church or whatever organization you're trying to help out. The story needs to choke you up, needs to make you want to donate money to this cause because it's so powerful. So those two things: learn storytelling better, learn how to apply it to your own business, learn how to then apply it to other organizations. There's lots of different resources on how to learn how to tell stories better. And then use yourself as a barometer so that when something motivates and inspires you, understand that that is likely going to have an impact and motivate and inspire others as well.

Wow, that's great, great. That's it. That's it.

Yeah. Love it. Cool. Well, another successful session. I think my win rate when I'm on with you is like 90% or something. I seem to always win when we do the— which looks great because a lot of people who stream and then save videos to YouTube, they only pick the ones where they win, right? It's like, oh, I just dominated with Teemo or whatever, and they post those victories. But when they get stomped and lose, they don't post them.

I've never seen you— you're right. I kind of was like, this League of Legends game. I've never seen Evan lose at it, so what's up?

It's definitely a Rishi Cup influence because when— because I'm not— they have these ranking systems where you go from bronze to silver to gold and you keep working your way up, and I'm, I'm stuck in silver, which is probably about average. Uh, okay, but I haven't— like, the way you get above it is by winning, so I keep winning when we're doing this together, but it means I'm losing when we're not. I feel like I lost one game. I feel that of all the episodes we've done, I lost one game.

I don't remember you ever losing. Seriously, I really don't. I'm intrigued. I'm going to go back and look and see.

Yeah, one of them. I'm pretty sure it was one. But anyway, this is good. This is good karma helping out entrepreneurs.

Cup of win.

Well, thank you guys for watching. Thank you, Richie, for joining in again, spreading some love. Keep the questions coming in, continue to believe, and we'll see you soon.