How to Build a Business Without Betting Everything on It | Start Small and Scale Smart

Welcome everybody to another Entrepreneur AMA business Q&A, helping answer business questions. I am getting set to get my game on here with— let me close this down— with J-Rise, birthday boy J-Rise in the house, and Trainer Six is back today after skipping out on yesterday. So I'm excited, and of course my usual co-host Rishi Kheb TV. Welcome back.

Hi guys, I'm feeling the love. The chat is already on fire. Happy, happy Tuesday everyone.

All right, I love it. Well, who do we have in the chat? We got Trainer Six, we got Jen, we got Zeno, Rise Online. It's a good start. Yeah, it's blowing up. This, Rishi, this might be, uh, this might be one to watch today. This might be Interesting challenge.

Oh, we got Demas now, just popped in.

Oh, Demas is here too, keeping up with all these chatters. What's in the cup today? I'm just going to close my blinds here, but you tell us what's in the cup.

Great. Yep, today I've got my Spanish café con leche again this morning, and I'm feeling a cup of Believe. I'm actually wearing my Evan Carmichael Believe shirt this morning.

I like that.

So I got an extra dose of go out in the world and make an impact.

Extra dose of belief. I'm feeling it. I've got my usual. I already finished my vitamin water, so on to tea with honey and smoothie and water and all that stuff. I am feeling—

Hey!

I'm feeling like I'm gonna go out Evelynn today instead of Teemo.

Oh, you're feeling a change today.

I'm feeling a change today. Evelynn was the one that we did, the backup champion that I did like a number of episodes ago. We'll see, we'll see, we'll see, we'll see. Depends on how the team comp works out, but we'll see. Anyway, we are setting up for a game, and let's hope we get a birthday win for J-Rise. And let's get to some questions.

Yeah, happy birthday to Jay Rise. The chat was asking for, uh, for me to serenade, but I'll have to do that serenade another day.

Oh, he wants a birthday song?

The chat was blowing it up for happy birthday song for Jay Rise. Okay, Evan, should we sing? I think you should do that.

Okay, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. You're not gonna join me in a song? I'm going solo on this. All right.

Ready? Are we really doing it?

Are we gonna do it? Of course, I already started. I thought I was going alone. Okay, 1, 2, 3. Happy birthday to you. I'm doing it solo. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday! Alex is here! Dear Jay Ryan, happy birthday to you! There we go, the love, the Alex love. Alex is sending some love. He didn't want me to do it solo.

There we go, cool. Happy birthday, Jay. All right, first question comes from Vibe Hav, and Vibe Hav says, hi, I'm confused at this stage of my life. I need your help. Please make a video on how to differentiate, differentiate between bold strategic risk investment and greedy gamble. So, yeah, it's an interesting question. And I don't know exactly what you're wanting to apply these different things to, but it sounds like he wants a little bit of feedback on maybe the extreme of when you're starting a business, you could either start with, you know, taking bold risks, asking for investments, or I guess greedy gamble could mean that you're the other extreme, like relying too much on other people's money. I'm not really sure that I understand the question, but we've got a great episode specifically on investment, and that's episode 5, and I think it would at least be a great place to start to get a little bit more education on when it's the right time to ask for an investment. And when it's, you know, most of the time it's the right thing to, you know, just bootstrap it and take some— I don't know if you want to call it risk, but I know that investment is usually not in the early stages of the business. So I'd say check out, check out episode 5.

What were the 3? Bold strategic risk, investment, and greed. Campbell?

Yes.

I really think it just depends on you, man. I mean, for, for looking at— like, people may look at what I'm doing and feel like that's a greedy thing, or that's just an investment, or like any of the three could apply from an outsider's perspective. I think for you, it's just feeling comfortable in your own skin and knowing you're doing it for the right reasons, right? Like, why do I want to help a billion entrepreneurs? Why am I writing a book? Is that Is that just a greedy thing that I want to do? Well, some people will see it that way. Is that a bold investment? Well, maybe. Is it just something that aligns with my mission and I feel like I need to do? Probably. I think it's just up to you. I think as long as you're doing things— I think the intent matters. In all the stuff that you're doing, the intent matters for the big decisions in life, but also the small ones. Are you saying yes to this deal because it's really important for you and it aligns with your mission? Are you saying yes to this deal just to try to make some money? Are you saying yes to this deal just to screw somebody else over? Are you saying yes to this deal just to help somebody else? The intent matters, and I think only you can judge why are you doing it? And hopefully you have the right intent. I mean, we've talked about it a number of times on this channel about when you're starting a business, you want to do it because you're trying to help, because you're trying to add value, because you want to make an impact, and through that you'll make your money. But the people who just try to start a business to make money fail typically. And so That's it. Like, what do you feel in your heart? Do you feel greedy? I don't feel greedy doing my book or doing this stream or doing my YouTube channel. If you feel greedy, then maybe you shouldn't do it, or maybe you just have a limited mindset. You know, maybe, maybe that fear of being greedy has held you back a lot. You know, maybe your fear of being greedy has prevented you from doing some super important things in your life because you're worried about how other people judge you or how you judge yourself. So for all three of those things, it's really just intent. That's it. That's what I got.

Good point. All right, next question comes from Jason. And Jason says, I have aspirations to one day open an online poker site as well as a forex broker, but I have no experience, no contacts. I know you're not big on excuses, but I really don't have any means to know more. Researching on Google is just not smart at all. Could you please help me and point me in the right place to look for this kind of info? So he wants to be an online— he wants to have an online poker site and be a forex broker and doesn't want to look for information on Google. I'm trying to figure out, do you not want to look on Google because you, you know, because Google comes up with a lot of weird stuff, or is it— anyway, that's another story. I think with anything like this, if you're not wanting to kind of self-educate on the internet, you might want to find people in your local area who are already doing what you're doing. You know, I— online poker site, you might just want to start by finding not necessarily an online poker site, but a poker-playing community in your area, because for anything else, you could begin to start finding potential clients for whenever you do have an online poker site, having, you know, people who are going to be interested in your site. So I think for the poker site, I think it would be great to just start with your poker— local poker community and just kind of see what happens there. You may also find future partnerships of other people who would be interested in being a part of this poker site. Poker site. Forex? Forex broker? I mean, that would be— I know there's lots of information online about that. There seems to be tons of educational videos that seem legit online about being a forex broker, so I don't know. I'm not sure I would know where else to point you for that other than your, again, kind of reaching out to people in your local area who you could talk to and get more from.

All right, well, our team is, uh, just died twice. Not the greatest start. Um, he wants to start a casino An online casino and do, and do forex? Is that it?

He wants to do like an online poker, yep, online poker site and forex.

So my, my initial thought is why? I'm thinking why do you want to do this? Why is it important to you? Why both? The easy thing to say or think about is it's just for the money. Um, pick two industries where there's, you know, high margins, trying to make a lot of money. Uh, and so, you know, our usual response about money being the reason to do something. Uh, I think there's a lot of— like with anything else, you need to get experience and figure it out. Right? Like, in my gratitude stream I mentioned Tim Schmoyer. I was doing YouTube, I wanted to figure out how to get better. And so I connected with— I never— I didn't meet him at the time, but I subscribed to his YouTube channel. I learned his strategies. I subscribed to a bunch of other people too on YouTube that I didn't— whoa, I'm gonna die, I gotta get out of here— I didn't learn so much from. And that's part of the game, right? Like, who do you talk to? Who do you trust? Who do you listen to? You know, I guess you watch my channel and you've learned some things from it, so you wanted to write in, and that's, you know, humbling, and I appreciate that. But the, you know, the search for knowledge has to continue. You have to go and educate yourself on— I would pick one to start because both of those are huge things. Like to have success, to really be at the top of your game, at least at the start, pick one that you can really focus on. But whichever one it is, maybe you don't know which one, go and subscribe to people's YouTube channels and go look. And yet a lot of the stuff on Google may be crap, but there's going to be some stuff that will help you too. Just like again, the Tim Schmoyer model, there were like maybe 15 different YouTube experts that I subscribed to. Not anymore, but I did when I was looking for information. And Tim was my favorite by far. Darryl Eves, I learned a couple things from. And everybody else was not helpful, not interesting, not useful, not valuable. You know, maybe sharing either the same information or information I didn't trust. And that's part of the process. At the same time, like, Tim gives you strategies on how to— the tips and tricks of YouTube, but I needed to learn how to be a better communicator as well. So I have a media coach who taught me how to be better on camera, and I practiced with her, and I tried to study Les Brown, and from here I learned a lot about speaking as well. And so from all these people, I learned multiple different things that could help me be better at my craft. And at the same time, like, so to find Les Brown, just like with Tim, I had to go through a bunch of people who were not great, were not helpful for me. So that's what you— like, that's what— if you don't know anything about the industry, you have to go and learn. Because I guarantee if you go out and start spending money trying to figure out how to do a casino, you're gonna blow a ton of money and won't see any of that back because you're just making a ton of mistakes. Not because you're not smart, just because you don't know what you're doing yet, and you'll figure it out with experience. So you have to go get that experience. If you're really fully committed to it, like this is really what you want to do, then I would go and try to find While doing all this, while researching and learning and improving your skills and subscribing to YouTube channels and modeling success, I would try to find a job in an existing online casino that you love. Whoa! That you know about. Am I gonna die? Am I gonna die? Am I gonna die? I'm gonna die! Nope, I'm not gonna die, alright. So you can learn about the industry. Who's one that you look up to and respect and you want to be like and then go learn Go learn from them. But yeah, you gotta— I'm not the guy who can teach you about forex or casinos. I can teach you about business, but not the specifics of those industries. So you need to go and find the guys, girls who can. And it sucks. I hear you. Google doesn't have the information, or you're— I'm assuming you've done some research already and you're frustrated. That's part of the game. Finding the right mentors for you is part of the game. So just keep going. Don't get discouraged if the first ones that you come across aren't perfect fits.

Yeah, we've got a— Damassa's given some value here. He said I'd suggest he start trading forex on a small scale first and then learn the regulation. All right, and we've got some other people in the chat saying they're excited to— they like starting their day with this.

LOL, AMA. Well, I like to start my day with you guys, so it's a win-win.

Absolutely. All right, next question comes from Zachary. Zachary is, in his own words, a wantrepreneur.

All right.

And, but he's, he's trying to find his calling. He wants to do creative work that impacts the world in a big way and allows him to socialize and doesn't require extra school because he hates the current education system. He's watched Yeah, so he's watched a couple of your videos on passion and purpose, and— but he says, I'm still lost. I know I'm smart and energetic enough to make something happen, but I don't know what field to, to be in or what skill to pick up. And I'm currently doing web design, but I can't see that changing the world. How do I figure out what I want to pursue? So, yeah, Zachary, I love that you are a wantrepreneur, and it sounds like you've got many talents, many abilities, and I definitely— we talked about this yesterday— it just can be really It's a challenge when you have a lot of interests. You're a creative person. You probably are going to be good at a lot of different things. And then how do you narrow it into, you know, something that you can tangibly and practically start working on right now? I think I'd just start with— we've talked about this a lot, I know, but I would just start with You know, what do you want to do right now that makes you come alive? And don't think of it as, if I make this choice, it's going to be the decision that is for the rest of my life, because nowadays it's the norm to try something and move on and try something and move on and try something, and whereas in the past, that might have looked as an unwise decision for your career, it's actually something now that is more and more common. So I would just start with what makes you come alive. You know, maybe you don't have to start a business around it, but get involved with, with another organization, you know, work for someone and who may have a mission that you can get on board with. Another entrepreneur would be awesome, you know, support another entrepreneur and start there and learn what it is to be an entrepreneur. Learn what makes you come alive. And then I think over time you will get more and more clear on the specific business that you want to start. All right, one more thing too, one more thing. I would suggest the Chase Jarvis interview because there's a lot of really cool nuggets of wisdom that is in the interview with Evan Carmichael and Chase Jarvis. So as a creative person, you definitely might want to check out that interview. It's called Entrepreneurs, your intuition is your friend. Yeah, that— I think that'd be great, just interview for inspiration.

I love Chase, man. It was good. Well, while that happened, I got a triple kill, so I got 3 kills. I'm pretty excited about that.

Um, nice.

We had a good little team fight there. Um, so the two— I have two Thoughts around this. First, I agree with Rishi. You need to explore, explore, explore, explore until you find the thing that makes you come alive. It's great that you know what you don't like. That's an amazing start. You know, you don't like sitting in the classroom. Awesome. You know, but now you need to continue to try new things until you find something that you do like. Just like, as I was talking in my gratitude stream this morning about Toronto Dance Salsa, You know, I didn't know if I would like salsa or not. You know, again, on paper it didn't look like it would be something that would be good for me, but I ended up really liking it. And I wouldn't have known unless I tried. And so sometimes you need to just go out and try. Whoa! I died. Very sad. I got a kill, but I died. So try it. Look, you get an idea for something, I wish that I could do whatever, right? Just go out and try it. You don't know if it'll work out or not. You know, this, this livestream as an example, right? Hey, I want to try doing livestreaming playing League and answering questions. Let's give that a shot. You know, maybe it works out, maybe it doesn't. And there's been a ton of things that I've tried that, that haven't worked out. And that's like, I'm so used to the failure, I that it doesn't faze me because you should be failing. You want to increase the rate of your failure. I think people put too much pressure on it to be the thing. Each time you do it, you get a little bit more clarity on what you want and what you don't want. But back to my usual, you know, kind of— Rishi always loves the relationship advice. I want to go into a relationship with my— you have to, you have to, like, you know who the person is for you because you've tried out a couple people, right? Like, yeah, you have to, you have to, you know, in every relationship you learn from it, right? You learn what was right for you. You learn, you know, what you need in a partner. It's really hard if it's like the very first person that you dated or gone out on a coffee with that, you know, you end up marrying them. And so it's the same thing for the task. Like, maybe you get lucky, maybe the first thing you do is something that you just absolutely love, but chances are it's gonna be, it's gonna be the opposite. Like, it's gonna take you some time to figure it out. So that's my first thought. And so don't be frustrated, just continue the journey. The second part was around the comment about web developers can't change the world. For any of this kind of stuff, I would start thinking about how can I change the world being a web developer and just reframe. Like, that's a really limiting mindset, right? Web developers can't change the world. So when you catch yourself, or hopefully you can catch yourself in these limiting beliefs, what can you do? Why can't a web developer change the world? What would— what does changing the world mean to you and how can you do that through web design, right? I look at Toronto Dance Salsa, you know, we're changing the world one student at a time, you know. It's important that for me to be part of any business there has to be a greater mission attached to it. So that's, that's our focus, and it's not just about teaching moves, and it's not just about making money. And so you can, if you're doing web design, like if you, if we try to get practical now, an easy thing to do is something like, I want to be the web design, the web designer for, for visionaries who want to have an impact, right? So all of these people who are trying to go off and change the world they need a web designer, you know, why can't that web designer be you? Or can you come up with, you know, are there campaigns that you just really love what they're doing and can you be a part of it and contribute your designs to, right? There's just so many of, you know, are there politicians you want to get involved with because you love their message? There's so many different ways to do it, but you have to find find the one that best fits you. So it starts with defining what does changing the world mean in your eyes, and then how can web design be a part of it. I think even just asking that question, like even that we brought it up, there's already some ideas coming through your head of how you can change the world by being a web designer. It's a powerful question to ask, I think would, like if web design is your thing, don't not do it because you feel like it's not important. Important enough, just find a way to make it more important. You may have already found your thing.

Yeah, we got great, great feedback. We also have a nice suggestion here. Jen So Much says Pat Flynn's book called Will It Fly is a great book for entrepreneurs and for new entrepreneurs. Pat Flynn's book, Will It Fly?

Will It Fly? I love it.

Yeah, you know, I just have to say too, Evan, it's so interesting just with all of the, you know, when you're trying to find out what you want to do, because it— I really wholeheartedly believe that if, if you don't get to it right away, like, it's inevitable you will get there. and that you had this incredible video, George Lucas, he was talking about how Star Wars was inevitable. He could have in his early years chosen to, you know, he chose to do film school, but he had all these other interests, and so he wholeheartedly believed that no matter what choices he made, whether it was film school or to go do— I can't remember what other interests he had, but he believes that no matter what decision he made, he still would have ended up at Star Wars. And I really, I really believe that wholeheartedly. Like, when it comes to purpose, those passions inside of you that, that are so strong like they will inevitably steer you to where you are going to, going to be. And so sometimes I think we just get too caught up on all the perfection, making the perfect decisions, how do I get there? But I think it's just, it really— Star Wars is coming eventually, it's going to get here. Just keep doing what you love and follow your curiosity.

Yeah, I agree. The things that you, the things that you naturally gravitate to, you gravitate to for a reason. And you're probably denying yourself for some reason. You're denying yourself because it's not gonna change the world, or your parents don't agree with you, or whatever, you have a reason to deny yourself. I'm trying to save Jay. All right, I saved Jay. I saved Jay. I like it. And it's getting more and more used to trusting your intuition. And when something when you have that curiosity and something feels kind of right, just going out and doing it, even if it doesn't quite make total sense to you yet. And at the start it's super scary, but you get more and more used to it. The more you do it, like any other muscle, the more you'll get used to it. So that's a good point. I like it. Thanks. The extra context from Rishi.

And go watch that Chase Jarvis.

Chase Jarvis. Yeah, it's a good interview. Were you there for the live one? Did you watch it live, Rishi? You watched it after?

I was so— I was really sad. I tried to get back for that one and I, I missed it, so I didn't get to see it live.

All right, well, because remember, you're like, I'm busy today, but if I had to watch one interview, what would it be?

I know, and I thought it was— I thought I was going to be able to make it. I didn't and it's really sad. It's all good. All right, you're still, you're still alive.

You're still, uh, team is winning.

I'm doing well.

I got, I got 4 kills, 1 death, 2 assists. So believe team is doing well. Our team is 23 to 15 ahead. So, so far so good. So far so good. Trainer 6 and Jay Rise are helping carry.

All right, next question says— this is from Mr. Olilu. And Mr. Olilu, his dad has a radio station. They're planning to put on ad spots and They're kind of disagreeing on how they should go about this because his dad thinks that, you know, they can't proceed in doing ad spots on their radio station because they're going to need a big team. And he, the son, disagrees and says, "We don't need a big team. We just need to contact companies interested in having their spots played on our radio station." Basically, it's going back and forth. His father doesn't want to do it without a really clear strategy and a big team. So he wants to kind of know, what do you think, and do you have any resources for strategic marketing and a business plan for adding ads on radio? Yeah, I think this is like embrace the, the "and" here. I think it's true that you may not need a team, but I absolutely would— I absolutely would not go into this without a very clear marketing strategy and I think that starts by knowing who your audience is. I'm not sure how long you guys have been doing the radio station. I'm not sure if you have a real clear understanding of who your audience is, but it definitely wants to start with knowing that and placing ads according to who you know your listeners are. And then there's a whole bunch of other things, obviously, that would be a part of having that marketing strategy. I'm sure there are tons of people you can model success. So, I don't know if there's one right way, but yeah, I would not go into this without having a marketing strategy. And if you, Mr. Olivo, are really passionate about this, you know, you probably don't need a team if you're willing to do all the work to research your audience and create the marketing strategy, but you know, definitely model success here.

I love it. We're in the middle of a massive fight, but I got a kill, maybe two. Oh, Jay took it. It's okay, we still got the kill.

It's Jay's birthday.

It is Jay's birthday. No, it's all good. It's all good. Um, can you repeat the question again? I had, I had a train of thought.

No worries. Uh, yeah, he just has—

oh, the radio ads, radio ad spots. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I just— yeah, they're disagreeing on—

yeah. Uh, so I'm a big believer in starting small. I love starting small. Like everything I do is starting small. And so what I would say is if there's something you really want to do, like go find a way to prove it. What's the starting small version of this? How do you, like, can you go and have one conversation with a potential company or sponsor? Right? Like the worst thing to do is go out and— so can you plan? Yes. Do you need to plan? Absolutely. If the plan is go out and hire 3 salespeople to go out and do this, I think that's a terrible plan because you don't know that it works. You have to prove that it works. So what's a small way to prove that it works? And a great way to do it is you invest in your time, your energy, your hustle, and into finding out something that does work. So what is that? And I would— I get your father's point of view, right? It's his business, he built it up, he doesn't want to take risks. You know, the new generation always wants to do things a little bit different than the old generation. We have, you know, bold ideas for change, and I get that. You want to put your mark, and that's awesome. And I think you should. And so it's understanding from your father's point of view that he doesn't want to do anything too, too crazy, and so just show him that you're not risking the business. What you're going to do to make sure that this is only one small thing that you're testing out to see if it works, and then take it from there. So I would try to think about what— oh, we're going for Baron. Think about what the smallest way to get started on this thing is. What does that look like? Is it just having a lunch meeting with a potential sponsor? You know, who is that first sponsor that you would think of for doing this? Is there somebody in your contact book who is the automatic first person that comes to mind for this, right? And then whether you ask your dad or not, I'm of two minds there. It depends It depends on your relationship. Like if you really think he's gonna say no to having a lunch meeting, then I might just go out and do it and then prove it. Like if I was confident in it, I'll often not ask for permission and just, and then just show that it works. But then it's on like, then you gotta show that it works, right? Then if it doesn't work out, you're, you know, you're a little bit screwed there. So you gotta show that it works. Or the better way, probably, you know, in quotations, better way, is if you can get his permission in support just to do one small simple test and then take it from there.

Yeah, I like it.

Cool, I like it too.

Yeah, I mean, the cool thing about the son is he really believes in his ideas. I think what you're saying is he could go out there and really just hustle and maybe come up with some really cool results.

Yeah, but it has to work. It has to work. If you're not getting the buy-in, it has to work.

Yeah. Great. Okay, next question comes from Evan Carmichael. Perennial Harvest. Perennial Harvest says, oh, this is just basically kind of a shout out, Evan. He, I guess he was in a conversation with you and he said check out Brian Lander's Missions and Values podcast. He thinks you guys would really resonate and have, he says you guys would really, you know, mesh well because you guys are doing similar things. I guess he's an entrepreneur in LA. So there you go. Just a little connection there.

Oh, that's the whole thing. You just shout out to Brian Landers.

Yeah, he wanted to connect to you. I guess you guys had a conversation. He wanted to suggest you check out Brian Landers because he said you remind him, you guys remind him of each other.

Alright, well, that's awesome. Thank you for that. Maybe tell him to join our livestream or cook us up on email. We'll figure something out. Brian Landers.

Awesome. Next question comes from Norbert.

This is going to be fast because we just won the game.

Ooh, do we want to—

I don't know. I don't want to disrespect Norbert. I don't want to disrespect Norbert and go off and like do a 2-minute answer. We won! That was a fast game.

Wow, you won! Win!

Yeah, let's see what our final stats are here. The thing with Evelyn is, uh, she's much more early game, so she does well at the beginning.

Oh, okay.

Well, I was 8-1, J-Rise was 11-3, and, uh, Trainer Six was 12-9. So, whoa, yeah, we all did pretty well there.

Good team.

Yeah, good job. How fast was that game? 30 minutes. That was pretty fast. Well, I love it. We got a quick birthday victory for J-Rise. Anything to recognize in the, in the, in the live chat?

Yeah, we just had— actually, it was really nice because we had some questions from Zeno. He was looking for some information, and of course Believe Nation stepped up big time and were providing huge value for Zeno. And Sherry was, was having a good time too. She did some kind of cutting out a little bit with her Wi-Fi, but just lots of love in the chat and lots of believe and value being given. So tribute to you, Evan, and the community you're building every day. I love it.

What's the final Rishi message of the day to end on?

The message today is cup of trust, because I know a lot of young people out there, especially this happened on yesterday's stream, are just really stressed because they want to find their purpose. They want to know exactly what they're supposed to do. And just, I wanted to encourage everyone that you're going to get there. You know, it doesn't have to be perfect. Just trust that you will get where you need to be and follow your curiosity, intuition.

I love it. Some good inspiration to end on. Well, thank you guys so much for watching. Thank you for the livestream community there too. Thank you, Rishi, for your great wisdom and optimism as usual in the morning. That's it. Let me know what you guys think in the comments below. Continue to believe or whatever your one word is. Have a great day, guys, and we'll see you soon.