Steve Wynn built hotels and thousands of jobs by keeping ideas simple. Evan Carmichael's software startup failed because investors couldn't understand the pitch, but his "Believe" brand exploded once he stripped it down to one clear idea, jumping newsletter engagement 50% and hitting 100,000 views in a month.
Good morning, Believe Nation! Today's message is stick to simple ideas. Over to you, Steve Wynn.
My dad taught me that what you want to do is stick to simple ideas. And I don't know why, Tony. I don't know where or when, but ever since I was a kid, the idea of building something that would make people go, "Wow," has struck me as just about the coolest thing in the world to do. Now, it's not saving lives in the real sense or doing something really noteworthy, but it has kept me a happy, happy person. And I always think—
It's a lot of other people too.
Well, I think I got to build another hotel because maybe next time, just maybe, I could get it right. But along the way, we've created 150 or 250 50,000 jobs. And I think the most satisfaction I've ever gotten has been the fact that the family, the employees, the staffs of the hotels here and abroad, and their families have all sort of merged into one. Yes. And we've got this, this very familial kind of organization, which is very satisfying because I live in the hotels. Yes. You know, I'm there every day with my family, and it's, it's a great life.
I love this message because entrepreneurs, we tend to overcomplicate things. We make things more complicated than they need to be, and often the biggest ideas, the ones that take off, the ones that have momentum, the ones that change the world are the simple ones. I remember my first software company, we had a great product, we really believed in it, but we had a hard time explaining what we did. We had a hard time at the elevator pitch stage, and we felt like Man, if we can just get somebody— when we're looking for investors— or somebody to sit with us on the couch, and if we had half an hour of their time, we could explain it to them and they would get it. And we fully believed that they would understand it and want to invest in us, but nobody would give us the half an hour. Nobody gives you the half an hour because it's too complicated. This business I have now of helping entrepreneurs, it started to take off in a big way when I embraced Believe, because it was a simple idea. It was easy to understand, it was easy to explain, it was easy to embrace, and then people wanted to consume it and share it. I remember the first newsletter that I put out that was talking about Believe was my best newsletter ever, and engagement went up 50%. On my YouTube channel, the first Believe by video that I put up, that video had 100,000 views in one month. Where my second best video took a year to get to 100,000 views. Simple is better. I'm currently coaching a young entrepreneur and encouraged him to get him down to one word, just like I did with Believe, just like hopefully you guys are doing with your company. And he couldn't. He's down to 3 words. And so one of the things that I then challenged him to do was come up with who's your enemy, right? If you want to build a movement, you have to have an enemy, a nemesis. Who is it, or what is it? Is it a concept or a person? And he couldn't come up with one, he had to come up with three. He's overcomplicating things, right? Stop overcomplicating your business. Stop overcomplicating what you stand for. Make it easy for people to understand what you do and spread the message for you. Belief. So my question of the day for you guys today is, do you overcomplicate things or do you keep things simple? I'm curious to find out. Leave it in the comments below. Below. Thank you so much for watching. Have an amazing day. Continue to believe, and I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of espresso. Espresso, keep me going.
