Not Everyone With a Great Idea Builds a Business — Here’s Why

We are live. Welcome to today's episode of Black Belt Startup with Feras. Thank you for tuning in. So what is happening in the world of entrepreneurship? A lot of smart professionals say they want to start consulting, and some even take the leap, but they end up stuck overwhelmed, or they second-guess every move. And we're not talking about a small group of people here, because according to Gallup, 62% of U.S. adults say they prefer to be their own boss. They all have ideas, plenty of them, but only, only a tiny fraction ever takes the leap. So today I'm cutting through the fluff and I'm going to talk about why not everyone with a great idea actually turns it into a real business. See, ideas are everywhere. They're like opinions. Everyone's got one. But what separates those who succeed from those who just talk— excuse me— from just— from those who just talk is the willingness to put the time, the effort, and the commitment. Now I know, I get it, there are so many challenges, so many obstacles that people face when they think about entrepreneurship. There's the lack of money to start a business, there's the fear of financial risk including personal financial risk, not knowing enough about business, about entrepreneurship. There's the fear of failure, the lack of confidence, the time constraints. We have family situations, we have, we have potentially aging parents, we have young ones, we have relationships, a bunch of things that could be happening around us. Not to mention, not the least of, is regulations and changes in tech and in the, in the, in the shifting, this seismic shift We call AI that's happening around us. So, so the list goes on, and many of these concerns are legitimate. And when I started my very first business, I had many of these concerns. But the good thing is they can all be addressed, whether they're perceived issues and risks and challenges, or they're real fears and real challenges. All of that can be addressed. So today, I'm going to dig into the top 10 or so questions I hear from people who say they want to start a business but have not made the leap yet. And I'll walk you through 3 exact steps to start, or if you started and you're struggling, to restart your consulting business this year. If you're serious, these answers will be your roadmap. If you're not, maybe it's time to get serious. And before we get into— dive into this topic, a couple of administrative items. I have this live stream to answer your questions, to hear from you, to learn about your challenges, the obstacles you're facing, and also your wins, small or big. So don't hesitate to reach out. Let me know. What is it that's going through your mind? You're really wanting to start a business, but you have a fear of maybe overplanning or the fear of financial risk, as I said earlier, or maybe you have the fear about your reputation, or you don't want to— maybe you feel so responsible to take care of your family and you're not ready to take that leap. Whatever those fears are, those concerns, you're not sure how to put maybe a business plan, you're not sure how to How to do sales and marketing. 68%, 70% of founders, they know their technical stuff cold, but they don't know, they don't have any experience in sales and marketing. So if you're running through any of these issues or other issues, don't hesitate to reach out. Leave a comment here on whatever platform you're on, or reach out to me at startupwithferas.com. My email is Feras, F-E-R-A-S, like my first name, startupwithferus.com. I, I read every email I get and we keep it all confidential and I'll respond to you. But let me know, let me know what's going on. I'd love to know from you. And we have these, these live streams to, to cover a business topic and then answer these questions. So let me know. Now let's jump right back into it and let's do a quick technology check. Everything seems to be going well. Great. All right, before we talk about the serious stuff, let's have a little fun. Sometimes I get questions— let me be polite here— call them creative. And when I hear these creative questions, it might mean you're just not quite ready or serious yet. Maybe, maybe you don't know. It's fair. But let's, let's— I want to make sure that you are serious about starting. Because if it's something that you're not putting any time into it, any effort into it, you're not potentially blocking some time in the evening, some time on the weekend to look into this business idea and to turn it into, into a profitable business, maybe this is not the right time. Maybe, maybe you delay it till later. But I don't want you to be in this, in this mode of I want to start a business, but I'm not starting, so I feel awful. I feel terrible. That's not a good situation to be in. Either decide to do it and do it, or put it on the shelf for when you have maybe a better time or better circumstances. But let's go through some of these creative questions I mentioned earlier. So, and I believe I can put these— yeah, I can put those on, on the, on screen for those of you watching. Again, thank you for those who are with us live. So here is the first one. Is there a way to start a business that makes money, but I never actually have to work on it? I swear to God, I'm not making this up. I am not making this up. Some— I've got this question, and the person I think was genuine. They thought they could I asked them first, I said, do you have any funds? Do you have any resources? What are the skills that you have? And they have skills in their profession that they've been at for the last 20 or so years, but they want to do something completely different, and they don't have a whole lot of skills in that new domain they want to go into. So they don't have skills in the new domain for the business idea that they have. They don't have any funds to, to start that business, and, and, and they want to do it and they don't want to work on the business. See, all the above is addressable. You can work really hard and you can bootstrap and you can learn new skills. No problem with that whatsoever. But when you tell me, I never want to actually work on it— so, so when I dug deeper, they want to be the CEO, they want to be the entrepreneur, they want to be the the, the, the owner, and they want to hire people to run the business for them. But how can you hire people if you don't have money? If you don't— if you haven't saved money, if you haven't put money aside to invest in a business, how are you going to hire people to do it? And you're not willing to put the work to do it. So, so I don't know if these folks are watching a lot of YouTube, they're on Instagram all day long, and they see all these get-rich-quick schemes about doing something and then dropshipping or whatever it is today, whatever the, the, the, the latest thing, the jewel, something with AI, and you'll make $10,000 a month and you'll be a business owner. My friends, it doesn't work that way. So, so be realistic. If you want to get into something that you don't have skills in, that's okay. Maybe there's a huge business opportunity— automation, healthcare, for the elderly, you name it, you name it. There's so many opportunities out there with AI. And if you don't have skills in that, you can acquire these skills. And then from there, you can do— vet the business idea that you have, and then you can start that business. But you don't have the skills, you don't have the resources, and you don't want to work on it— that formula That's wishful thinking. That's a formula for disaster, not for business. So that is one of the questions, creative questions I have gotten before. The next one. All right. Can I be an entrepreneur without ever talking to people or clients, like at all? They don't want to speak with people. Now, I don't know why. Maybe they're introvert. I don't know. It was fascinating. So, and we're talking about services and consulting. We're not talking about products. Potentially, you can have, you can build a product. You can have maybe a few engineers, your buddies, you work together, you produce something, you sell it, you hire people to deal with customer support. Yes, you don't have to hire people. You don't have to talk to people. Okay, but you still have maybe a co-founder, your first hires, your contractors, your accountant, your lawyer. So, but in services, in consulting, it's people-based business. So you can't have— you can't— you cannot be an entrepreneur and not wanting— in services, you cannot be an entrepreneur in services and in consulting and not, not wanting to, to talk to people or to clients. Yes, some clients are difficult. You'll get a jerk every once in a while, but a lot of people are nice. Most people are nice. You take care of them, they take care of you. You help them solve a problem, they pay you, they take care of you, they refer others to you. So not talking to people in consulting, in businesses, in services, it's just not a good fit. So you have to figure that out. Maybe you're just, the back office person and you're great with strategizing and you're very creative and you, you just can't talk to people. If that's the case, find a co-founder who's the opposite because you'll need those 2 skill sets, the back end and, and all the, maybe all the implementation, all the back office. Maybe the visionary, yes, great. So get someone who, who can execute, who who loves talking to people, and then you'll make amazing business co-founders. All right? So that's that. The next one, that's one of my favorites. I hear a lot. Yep, right there. Oops. Here you go. I have 5 brilliant ideas. Believe me, they're great. And I had another 5 last year. Okay, so this is— what's that saying? The person who chases 2 rabbits ends up with none. So you have 5 rabbits here, 5 rabbits you're chasing. You ain't going to catch any one of them. And I think those of us who are more right-brained or on the creative side, They probably struggle with this more than others because you have all these ideas always, always brewing in your mind, and that's great. When you're in the very, very early stages of starting a business, you're not sure what is it that you want to build, what services you want to offer. That's when you want to— when you want— that's when you want to have this full-blown brainstorming, and no idea is a bad idea, and, and and check with other people in the industry, do the competitive research. If you have co-founders, whiteboard all this information. That's great, but at one point, at one point in time, you have to choose one of these 5 brilliant ideas and then execute. It's all about execution. Research is great, brainstorming is great at one point, but there is a time limit on that. And after that You have to execute. So, so those were some of the very creative questions that I have gotten this year, and I thought I'd share, share them with you. Again, it's not— that's where people are on their journey. Um, sometimes they just haven't had the right guidance, or some of them been praised by being very creative. And yes, pursue your dreams and pursue your passion. I'm all for that. It's really hard and difficult and sad that you spend 60 hours a week on something that you don't have any passion for. I get it. But passion is not sufficient. Creativity is not sufficient. You have to execute. You have to put the time, the effort, and the resources, and the commitment. Moving on, the next question is— now these are more serious, less creative, I would say. How do I know if my idea is actually a business or just a hobby? Well, you know, you don't expect to make a lot of money from a hobby. You're not going to scale and have team members and have accounting and have lawyers involved if this is all about This is all about a hobby. So, so if you— and that's, that's something for you to, um, to, to, uh, to think about. And actually, I was at an event yesterday where, uh, um, uh, Sal Khan, the Khan, the, the, the founder of, uh, Khan Academy, and he was actually interviewed by a VC, a venture capitalist. And the venture capitalist said the first question, tough question, why did you do this startup Khan Academy as a nonprofit, because if this was for-profit, it'd be worth billions of dollars now. I think last I checked, I think Sal Khan, the Khan Academy, had close to 10 million followers on YouTube. So they're great, they've grown, and, and the, the amount, the amount of, uh, education and, and training and, and helping all these young ones, uh, in math and other subjects has been just phenomenal. So, because, and he had, Sal had his reasons for, he didn't want to have any barriers for people throughout the US and internationally to have access to knowledge, and he had, he wanted to, it created less friction when he was pitching ideas to people who were going to use what he was producing, so that was his decision, and he grew And he grew very well. And it started as he was helping his cousins. So, and then it turned into this thing on YouTube and that just blew up. Great for him. Very happy for him. So I think for you, decide if it's something you want to do as a hobby on the side. And he said that he was working full-time. I think he was in finance, in hedge— he was in a hedge fund. And then in the evenings, he would be helping his cousins. And then the word got around, and then everyone started to call him, started calling him to help them in math. And then someone suggested, why don't you put this thing on YouTube? And we know the rest of the story. So decide if this is something, whatever is it that you're fiddling with, whatever that is you're thinking about that's brewing in your mind, put it into action. Offer your service maybe to a nonprofit, help your cousins or whomever is— whoever has a problem that your skills can solve. This is the core. This is the core of what a business is. This is the essence of a business. You're solving problems for people who are willing to pay for that solution. So if you're not sure if it's a hobby or a business, I would say first, Try it, see that, that you're benefiting others, you're getting feedback from, from the market or from your relatives, and then start to think about, do I want to make this as a business? Yes. Okay, let me talk about pricing, who my audience, who my target audience is, where is these, these potential buyers, how do I put together a plan to go and meet them and get feedback and I have to learn about marketing and sales, all that good stuff. And we have, we have videos on our channel. I have, I have, I have a playlist on sales. I have a playlist on marketing. Uh, check it out if you're new to sales and marketing. But this is really important. You shouldn't be doing a side hustle for months and months and months and years. If you need to, if you need some extra cash because of life circumstances and you're doing If you're doing a side hustle to learn a skill, I get it. But it's— you won't be able to succeed and do well with your side hustle or with your full-time hustle if your attention is divided and you're not focused. So that's the answer to this question. The next one is, What if I'm afraid of failing or losing money when I start? So, so the fear of failing, the fear of losing money, the fear of reputation, the, the fear of disappointing my family and those who maybe depend on me— those are all legitimate fears. And now we have a video on the, on the, on— I have a video on the YouTube channel, um, The 3 invisible traps that get you. They get you before you even start. And I have another video on the fears, on getting up that— building that confidence ladder and addressing the fears. And I have actually published the Founder's Fear-to-Focus Playbook listing 7 types of fears and and then how those voices started growing in your mind, and then how you can talk yourself out of it, and then specific steps you can take to move, face those fears, and turn them into focus. So I have a lot of content on this fear of failing and losing money. But to summarize all of it, if I were to do that in a few seconds, I would say, Confidence is built with action. You want to do some research, you want to do some— you want to be educated about what you want to offer, about the market, about the needs of your potential clients. But confidence is built with taking some steps, with stepping on the mat in Aikido, with taking that first roll. Very hard. Took me, took me weeks to get, get that fear out of my mind, but it happened with practice. I did watch YouTube videos on how people roll, and I was so impressed by some of these high, highly accomplished martial artists and how they move. But until you step on the mat and you try the technique and, and, and, and you just face that fear, it's really hard to overcome it. So you can read about it, you can put a whole lot of reasoning behind it and why it's good for you and why it's safe, but some of these fears have to be dealt with action. And you can have, as they talk about in psychology, you don't have to— you can go, I think they call this flooding, where you have immediate exposure to things that you are fearful of. Some of us prefer that way. Or you can do it in a gradual fashion, so you in a way desensitize yourself from from from from these concerns, from these anxieties. So if if you can't talk to people, you're just not you haven't done marketing, you haven't been out there. So you can decide to go to an event where they have 200 people all of a sudden. Just put yourself in there and deal with it. That might work for you. That flooding method or. You can go to a small event and then go to a slightly larger event and then build your confidence to go maybe and speak in public. So I think with these, a lot of these fears, some planning is required, that left brain, get that cortex working and put together a financial plan, a financial runway, study the market. That's really, really important, but at some point, You have to take action. You have to build. Since we're talking about psychology and brain, you have the— you have to get these neurons connected. Um, something, something about neuroplasticity where you can, you can create new— you can't erase maybe old memories, but you can create new memories. You can create new paths in your brain that will help you build, um, that will help you accomplish what you are trying to accomplish. Not easy, but again, you can do it. Gradually, you can do things step by step, just like when you learn how to ride the bike or how to swim. It was one, I guess, one pedal at a time, one strike at a time, one stroke at a time. All right, that is that. The next one is, how do I actually find my first client if I've Never done this before? The short answer is in most— I don't have stats on this, but the short answer is in speaking with over 250 founders that I've coached or advised over the years, the vast majority of these founders got their first clients from their network. So you You're more likely than not to find your first client from your network, but your network will not come to you and say, I want to buy from you. You still have to learn how to do outreach, how to connect with people, how to start a conversation about sales, and how to let the world know, your network know, that you are this amazing consultant with 5, 10, 15 years of experience in IT consulting. HR consulting, financial advisory, whatever your skills, whatever your profession is, you have to tell people that's what you are doing now. So I would say the vast majority of the cases, you will get your first clients from your network, and it's on you as a founder, as a business owner, to go out and reach your network and let them know of, of this new thing that you just started. And if, if reaching out to people is, is just not your thing, trust me, it wasn't my thing when I started. Someone told me you have to go to these networking events, and I went and I found an event at 7 AM where they have breakfast and they talk about, about what they do and they share leads. I mean, it was, it was very difficult for me to just walk in a room, walk into a room of strangers at 7 AM. I mean, I eat breakfast. I get up early, but I don't eat that early. Hey, that's where the leads are. So I went and I happened to be the first person they asked to introduce themselves, and I was so nervous. And a couple of them were nice enough to come after the session and say, hey, you were nervous. That's okay. We all started here. We're all friends. We want to help each other out. And I was consistent. It was every other Tuesday, I believe, at 7 AM. I did this for a few months. And I got 2 leads out of this networking effort that it was totally new to me. So you have to be out there. You have to get the word out. You have to find where the fish is, find where your clients, potential clients are, or those who can connect you with your potential clients and be out there and start a conversation and help out. If you help this other person find leads, then they'll likely— most people reciprocate, most people are nice and they're willing to help. And you do that, it's a numbers game and you get better at it over time. Cool. Let's see the next one. What do I need to know about pricing my services so I don't undercharge? Undercharge. So what do I need to know about pricing my services so I don't undercharge? Short answer is I have an entire video, 90-minute video, on pricing models. So check it out. I'll put the link in the description after the stream, and you can learn about all the pricing models. If you are just starting out, I would say go with hourly. Hourly pricing is very simple, very straightforward. You charge $125 an hour, 10 hours, you make $1,250. It's clear to you, clear to the client. Now there are a lot of pros and cons to, to every pricing model, okay? But for consultants who are just starting out, hourly is a, is a great way to get into this world of pricing. So don't overthink it. You can do some research, use AI. There's a good time where you can use AI. It a, a very lengthy prompt about your— where you are, about your background, about what you're selling, and ask it to give you some, some pricing. And then if you can do some competitive research, that will even be better. You get real data from, from those who are selling something similar to yours, and then you go and use that number. Now, if you are just starting out, and I want to emphasize— let me put this back on the screen. If you are just starting out, where was it? You mentioned I don't undercharge. If you're just starting out, don't worry about undercharging. Don't worry about undercharging. I want you to sell. I'd rather you sell at a fraction, a small fraction of your potential future hourly rate and have a client and practice how to put together a proposal, send the proposal, negotiate a proposal, close the deal, send an invoice, collect money, feel great that you've sold a project and you don't have any sales background, and then practice delivering what you sold and getting a testimonial from the client. I want you to go through that. That is invaluable. That is something that blocks most entrepreneurs. They get stuck with planning and pricing and this and that and the other, and they don't sell and they don't implement. And then they don't, they don't go through this full circle of marketing, selling, delivering, then getting a happy customer, and then back doing this back again. So I wouldn't worry too much. I want you to have an hourly rate. And check out the channel. Actually, I'm about to publish a, a comprehensive video on hourly pricing for new consultants. So do that, but at the same time, for the first couple of projects, don't worry too much about, about money. Don't offer anything for free. Maybe for a nonprofit it's okay, but people, in most cases, people won't value something that's free. So maybe charge, uh, and in return tell them, give me a case, I want you to have a public case study. Or I want you to speak with me on a webinar about how great of a consultant I am, how I helped you solve your problems. So, so that is the thing about undercharging. I wouldn't want you to worry about it too much early on, but, but, but once you have a few projects under your belt and you've delivered and you're confident in your ability to, to sell and to deliver, do not stay in this zone of undercharging. You'll just lose. You'll go under. So again, use it, use this advice with handle with care, use it initially, but then at one point you want to start to charge and charge more. And then as you get better, you'll become more confident in pitching and pricing, and, and you, you'll be adding more value to the client, so you'll actually earn, potentially can sell at a premium. So that is, that is a really good question. Hopefully this is helpful. The next one is How do I— let me show it on screen. How do I balance my day job with starting a business on the side? I did talk about this just a little bit ago. If you have a full-time job and you're doing something on the side, it's really hard to do this for a long period of time. I actually, I'm an opponent of that approach. I'm not in favor of side hustling. If you have to do it for a short period of time because you You need to make extra cash. I understand it. Life is tough. I used to wash dishes. I was married with a degree in electrical engineering, and I was still washing dishes. Trust me, it was really difficult at that phase in my life. So sometimes we have to do what we have to do to take care of the bills, and nothing is wrong with that. But in that— in staying in that phase or in that situation for a long time where you have a full-time job and a second job or side hustle. It's just you won't be able to grow. And, and even if you don't want to be an entrepreneur, just to grow within the company that you are working in now, it's hard to have full focus and, and learn and become really good at what you're doing and excel and exceed expectations if you're also busy with something else. So I— my recommendation is, except for a few circumstances like you need some cash right away, or maybe you you're learning a skill, I'm— I would say do not side— do not start a side hustle, but focus on your full-time hustle. And then put a time— put a timeline, let's say a 3-month or a 6-month plan to launch your new business. And then start doing things on the side toward launching the business, not just to make an extra buck here and there. If you need to make a buck here and there, I get it, do it. But if you If you have— if you're committed to start a business, if you're committed to starting a business, it requires time. And that time is going to come— if you have a full-time job, that time is going to come from your evenings and maybe one of the weekend days. That's what it takes. There is no get-rich-quick way. It's a scheme. There is no way. That you can start a business and not put time into it upfront. It could be the most brilliant idea, but if you don't put the time— and the time has to come from somewhere. So it is really hard. I get your question. It's hard to balance, especially if you have a family and you have responsibilities. It's hard to balance. So you have to decide what is a priority for you in this season of life. And if starting a business is a priority, then you have to treat it as a priority and dedicate time to it. And hopefully, if you follow this channel, you're learning a lot of the best practices, a lot of tips. We have a ton of templates and worksheets and, and, and things you can borrow, make a copy of, and make your own. And it's all free and available. And that will help you avoid all the mistakes I made and that I learned from other founders and you can expedite or you can cut short the period from where you are today to launching a business and to making money so you can leave your full-time job. So make sure you subscribe to the channel and check out the different playlists and the videos we have on the specific area that you need in entrepreneurship, whether it's on the accounting front, on the legal front, on working with a co-founder, on sales, on marketing, the mindset aspect of things, check out the channel. A lot of good stuff for you. And let me know, let me know if you have other questions. If, if some of these videos are not addressing the question that you have, do let me know. I'd love to hear from you, and, um, and I'll be, I'll be more than happy to answer those questions. Alrighty, moving on. What if, what if I don't feel confident enough to call myself An entrepreneur yet. You got to build that confidence. And as a— you have to build that confidence, just like getting the confidence to ride the bike, or learning how to swim, or learning how to drive, or stepping on the mat and taking that fall in the Aikido context, or taking that punch in Maybe in boxing, you have to step on the mat. You have to take action. That's how you build confidence. I'm not saying you take high risks. I want you to take calculated risk. I want you to study, to prepare. I want you to be fit before you start taking roles, but you can do it gradually. This is the beauty of it. You just have to, you just have to— Start. First, you have an idea, you have to vet the idea, and then you have to be out there online reaching out to people in your network or in person talking to people locally at a conference, wherever your clients are. And yes, your pitch, your conversation starter, maybe a better word than pitch, Will be maybe awful the first time. Okay, this first person won't buy from you. Okay, you've learned, you built a little bit of that muscle. Then the second conversation, then the third conversation, and after you've done 20, 30, 40 of— 40 of these conversations, it'll be easy. It'll be much easier than the very first time. And then you'll be learning from others in this networking event that you're attending. And as you can tell, I'm a big proponent of being out there and networking. You can do a lot of other marketing programs, you can pay for ads, you can do SEO, you can do a bunch of things, but for founders and services and consulting, there's nothing like being out there because you learn, you practice, you see others in action, and you can learn from them. All of that, all of that, they're acquired skills. Yes, some of us might be more of the extrovert type. They, they just can flow smoothly with the crowd. The rest of us, me included, I had to learn it the hard way. And then after a while, when you become better at it, you enjoy it. Because at the end of the day, as a consultant, what is it that you're doing? You'll be helping someone solve a problem. You're bringing peace of mind to someone. And that's the value you're offering and they're paying you for it. So it's not like they're doing you a favor. I mean, sales is not a dirty word. Sales is, especially for consultants, for service providers, it's something that will enable you, the trusted consultant, the expert, to help someone solve a problem, be it getting their newsletter out, be it setting up their IT security, be it designing their website, helping someone with their financial plan or get the right level of insurance, or whatever the case might be. You are solving a problem. You're helping people out. So don't feel too bad or don't feel that you're, you're not ready or you're not an entrepreneur. We were all entrepreneurs back according to the co-founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman. Back in the, in the cave, we were all entrepreneurs. So, so we got, we got, I guess, uh, started to coast once we got used to the 9 to 5. So start doing entrepreneurial things. Do things that are a bit difficult. Do things that are a bit difficult. Build that muscle of trying something new. Learn how to deal with rejections. It's not easy. It's hard. It hurts. But You can recover from it. Rejection— I heard this in the conference yesterday— rejection is redirection. I love it. So, so I know this might sound like positive thinking, and but that's it. It works. It does work. Just like if you want to build a muscle, you have to go to the gym. It doesn't show. You can't, you can't see it for weeks, for months, but after a while you start seeing it. Same thing in business. Practice, practice, practice, and and then your confidence will build up. Good questions. And for those of you who just joined us, we're going through the most common questions I get from those who have ideas, but they haven't started. And if you take notes from these questions and my answers, it should give you a roadmap on starting your own business. And if you have a specific question, do leave me a comment on whichever platform you're on. I will make sure we'll address it before the end of the stream, and if not, we will address it offline. I'll reply to your comment, or I will— if you email me, I will reply back to your email. Happy to be of help. Okay, the next one is, how much time should I realistically be putting in every week to get this off the ground? So that's an important question, time. You gotta commit time to this venture. If you're not committing time, it's not gonna work. You cannot start a business and, and just scrolling and seeing what others are doing and maybe thinking about it on your way to work like once a week. That doesn't cut it. That doesn't count. You really have to dedicate— you really have to dedicate tangible amounts of time to this venture. It could be 30 minutes a night. I'll take that. I'm happy with that. But commit to it for a few weeks and start building toward the goal of starting a business. So, so how much you want to be putting every week, it's a function of your willingness and readiness and ability. So So if you're on the younger side, you don't have a whole lot of other responsibilities, and you do have a full-time job and finances are in order, you can put a lot of time because you don't have a whole lot of other responsibilities. If you have a whole lot of hobbies, maybe cut it down to one hobby, or maybe if you're planning on these long trips, cut down on those trips. If you are serious about starting a business and reaching your financial dreams and being your own boss and have uncapped income potential and, and live the dream, if you want to do that, you have to sacrifice. You have to commit today. There's no other way around it. So, so I don't want to put a specific time. I would say, you know, my motto in life: work hard, play hard, and give back. So, so if you can put 80 hours a week, you'll do much better than the person who's doing 40 hours a week. If you can put 50 hours a week, that's better than the person who's doing 40 hours a week. Of course we want to be smarter. We want to work smarter, not harder. Doesn't make any sense. Work smarter and harder, right? Because you're building, you're building at You're building the foundation of this great company that you want to have, and you can't do that with working smarter, not harder. It doesn't work. You got to work smarter and harder. So, so keep that in mind. Some of these slogans out there, they make no sense. They make sense in some context, but when you're building, when you're building the foundation for something great, a lot of blood, sweat, and tears are required. That's just what it takes. These are timeless principles. You can't get to a black belt in any art without a lot of hard work. Same thing in business. So keep that in mind. The next one, do I need a business plan or can I just start and figure it out as I go? The answer is in between. Yes, you need a business plan, and yes, you can figure it out on the go, but I want you to be in the in-between. I don't want you to spend months putting together a 50 or a 60-page business plan. Don't do that. And at the same time, I don't want you to just go randomly doing things and you think that you're making progress. So balance it out. You have to put time into brainstorming what idea you want to pursue, the skills that you have that will support pursuing this idea, and then you have to go through the vetting process. And again, we have worksheets and templates on all this stuff, on identifying your skills, on vetting the business idea, competitor research, all of that. So reach out, leave me a comment, or reach out if you're looking for those templates. We have them, we have them on the site, we have them on many of the YouTube, um, on the videos on the YouTube channel. So, so, so you have to learn, you have to do some research and learn, but do it in a gradual fashion, in a cumulative fashion. So defining your skills, defining the thing you want to pursue, vet the idea, and then from that point on, once you have the idea vetted, it's time to take action and it's time to start telling people about the idea. And this is— I mentioned in the video at the beginning in the stream that I will have the 3 steps to take to start the business right away. I'll do that. I think we have a few more questions. I'll do that, and then, and then, and then. But but but I want to address all the questions first, and then and then I'll get to the three steps. But basically, you have to do some planning, and then execute, and then iterate on that, and align and realign, and then and then. Okay, now I need um I made a couple of sales now. Okay, let's put together a sales projection for twelve months. Okay, and when can I when I when can I make enough money so that I can then leave the current job I'm at, right? So, so, so there are— there, I would say there's, there's this cumulative approach to business planning I think is, is optimal for consultants. It's optimal for those who are doing things on the side gradually. Um, and it's also good, I think, even if you're going all in, spend maybe a little bit more time— if you're going all in, spend a little more time in developing a business plan. But I want you to be testing all these assumptions in your, in your business plan right away, and then adjust, um, as, as you learn more. Learn from others and learn from your own experience. And as Eisenhower said, planning is everything and the plan is nothing, because the first time, that first punch— I think Tyson said that too, Mike Tyson— after that first punch, the whole fight plan is gone. So put some plan, a lot of planning, is important, but then you gotta put it into action. All right, a couple more questions and then we'll wrap up with the 3 steps to take to start the business and then see if we have any other questions from, from the community here. So let's see, what are the biggest mindset shifts I need to make to actually follow through? Good question. The biggest mindset shifts I would say the first one, the very first one, acknowledging that starting something new, building something from scratch is hard. I always say entrepreneurship is 5 times harder than what most people think. So that's the first mindset shift that It's hard, it's difficult, it's doable. I'm not saying this to discourage you, but it requires focus, commitment, and time. Once that's in place and you start working on the business, working in the business and on the business, then you'll need things like resilience. You'll get rejection, so you have to— you'll make mistakes. You'll run a campaign and it gets you zero leads, so you have to do another campaign, but you got to improve it, you got to tweak it. So resilience, how to get back up after we fall, things about dealing with ambiguity, dealing with uncertainties. There's a lot of— and we have a video on entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial traits and mindsets. So those are things, you know, dealing with fears, dealing with the, you know, if maybe you're an overthinker, or maybe you're on the creative side, you don't think a lot about things, and you just sort of go into execution, and you try different things. So dealing with the fears and the concerns and the anxieties, It's one thing, and then I think learning how to deal with uncertainty, learning how to get back up after you fall, those will come with time as you execute, but initially, I think ground yourself that you're about to do an amazing— you're about to build an amazing company, an amazing culture, you'll be this amazing founder, You'll make a lot of money. You'll also share some of that money. You'll help others along the way. So, so have that big dream, 100%. And then to say nothing in life, nothing worthwhile in life can be achieved easily. If you want to build something worthwhile, it takes a lot of time, a lot of effort. So, so once you have that in mind and that clear intention that you want to build something amazing, I think everything else you start to learn mindset-wise and also practically experience-wise. You learn once, once you're into it, once you start doing things. Good, good question. And then the last one here for today, unless we get something from, from the community, is on— let me show it— how do I handle the people around me who might not support my idea? There are people out there who want you to fail. Ignore these people. Ignore what they say. All right, I don't know who these could be. It could be within the family. It could be colleagues. It could be people you play basketball with. I don't know. But anyone with that kind of negative mindset, ignore them. They shouldn't be in your life in that— in the sense of the business life here. Personal relationship is a different story. But those of you— those who care about you, who care for you, who want to see you succeed, but they're not sure that you'll make it, and they're not being unrealistic or harsh on you because they hear how high of a failure rate is we have as a society for those who start businesses. 50% of businesses fail. 95% of businesses fail. There are stats supporting all of these numbers depending on how you look at the data. So I wouldn't blame them if the people, sincere people who care for you, who care about you, who want to see you succeed, if they have, if they're concerned about your potential to succeed and they're maybe not as supportive, those people, I'd spend more time with them to share your vision, even if they're not involved in the business, even if whatever you're doing they have no idea about. But if you— if they see and feel and, and, and see you in action, that you are not going on a vacation every other weekend, on a hike, on a long hike, on, on, on, on going out with the, with, with, with, with the team, with the guys, with the boys If they see that you're not going out every night, if they see that you are sacrificing maybe weekend nights and some of the weeknights to work on the business, if they see you serious and committed to what you believe in, trust me, most reasonable people, most reasonable people would be supportive. At least you get them to be maybe on the fence initially, Because they might have some serious concerns about the financials. Let's say it's a spouse and you are the sole breadwinner and you're telling the spouse, hey, I'm leaving my nice 6-figure job and my 401 and my benefits and my PTO to start this business. It is valid. It is actually logical. It's illogical for them not to be concerned. So, so, but if you show them that you're building a financial runway, if you show them that you're doing your vetting, if you're keeping them updated about the upside, and even if there's a while here, there's a, there's a, a, a period of time while you don't have sales, you've got them covered. If you, if you show people around you that you are giving it your best, they will be supportive. At least that's my experience. That's my experience in my life, in my amazingly supportive wife that I have. At one point, I've tapped into our 401 plans and I depleted my 401 plans early on after we saw some— after we saw the light at the end of the tunnel and we saw a huge opportunity to grow, my partner and I had to put more money in the business, but I did get my wife on board with this big decision because it impacts her. It has the potential of impacting her. And after we had the discussion, she was very, very supportive, and she maintains to be very supportive after all these years. So I would say, look at those who are giving you the negative vibes. If people These people who are envious and, and they don't care about you and they want to see you fail, don't listen to them, man. Just, you might want to reconsider your relationship with them. But those who care about you, maybe depend on you, they want the best for you, get them on board, get them consulted, update them, work hard, and maybe drive that concern that they have, make it maybe a motivation for you that I want to succeed, and then share with them, take them on these amazing vacations, and have them be part of the success once you make it there to the top. So those were the questions for today. I want to end up with 3 steps you can take to start a business now, this, this year. You don't need to wait another month. You don't want to wait another year to pass by. As Mark Twain said, 20 years from now you will regret You will not regret the things that you did. You'll regret the things that you did not do. So paraphrasing, I think he had it the other way around, but this— the concept is that it's time to, if you've been thinking about starting a business, take concrete steps toward it. So first thing is identify your skills, and I'll put the links to these templates we have to help you with with these steps. Identify your hard skills and your soft skills. Second step is do the vetting, the whole vetting process, and I want you to use my 10+5 rule, so talk to 10 people who are potential clients and then research 5 competitors, and you can do that in 1 week, so 1 week to the So define your skills and study the market. Second week is to do the 10+5, talk to 10 people and research 5 competitors, and again, I have a template for that, and the third one is you have to go out and talk to people about this idea. You have to pitch. You have to start a conversation. So schedule, find an event, ideally an in-person event in your Chamber of Commerce, in BNI, a local conference. If you live in a small town, there's not a lot of conferences. Is there a town you can drive to, maybe a couple hours, and attend a conference, a meetup, a local event for people who are in your space, potential clients, and practice how to share with them how you can solve problems for them and maybe their, their network? And again, I have resources on all of these. Um, I have links to all the— I'll have links to all these resources in the description so you can— and we have videos on those so you can click on those templates, make a copy, make them your own, and put them into action. So in 3 weeks, you can do it faster, you can do it in a week, but if you're busy, tied up, you're not in the right frame of mind yet, so give yourself some time and then say, I'm starting this Saturday, this Sunday, I'm starting. I'm going to do these 3 things: assess my, my skills, assess the market, and vet the idea, and then schedule an event to go to and, and pitch. The legal stuff, the accounting stuff, starting your LLC or your S corp, all that easy. You can, you can do it online. You can use one of the services. You can speak with an attorney. That's easy. The hard part is going out there, stepping on the mat and taking that first roll in Aikido, taking that first step into telling the world about— telling one person or maybe a group of 5 people about what you do and what you offer and how you solve problems. That's it for today. If you like this content, hit the like button, subscribe to the channel on YouTube @StartupWithFeras, and let me know what is it that you're planning on doing this year, and if I can be of any help, just let me know. I'll be, I'll be more than happy to do so. See you next time.