Episode #553 - Exploring Entrepreneurial Problem-Solving with Nathan Hirsch

Welcome to this edition of the Million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell.

All right, I'm talking with Nathan Hirsch. And Nathan, thanks for taking time to get on. I hear you got a little bit of the winter, winter crud you're fighting through, so I appreciate you taking the time.

Yeah. Hopefully my voice doesn't sound too bad, but thanks for having me on, Larry.

Maybe it'll make you better, you know, maybe. Yeah, you'll, you'll dig down to a level that you don't always get to, you know, fight your way through. So maybe we'll, we'll find some, some great insights today. And Nathan, if you put yourself, if you wanted to let people know the first thing about you or what that you have done, I was looking through. You got an extensive bio and one of the things it says you're best known for is starting with in 2015, which is really not. Well, I guess you co founded freeup.net, with an initial $5,000 investment, scaling it to 12 million a year in yearly revenue, having acquired in 2019. That's not that long ago. And so you've got some really fresh success which you've gone and compounded into other areas. And so it's going to be exciting to hear what you, you know, how you pull that off and then what your kind of operating principles are that you wind up going to over and over again to keep yourself on top of the water and moving forward. So congratulations on that. And how did you get to the, before you got to that point, who were you and what drove you to get the thing where you had enough confidence, enough your mind was working, where you could lay it out and see that this could be successful. How did you get prepared for that success before it happened in or it launched in 2015?

Yeah, I mean, I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. My parents were both teachers. I kind of grew up with the mentality that I was going to go to school, get a real job, work for 30 years, retire. That's what they did. And they're living the retired life, so there's nothing wrong with that. They're traveling the world. But I knew at an early age that that wasn't for me. I had a lot of internships and jobs. I worked every summer, every winter from when I was 15 to when I got to college. And I learned a lot about what it was like having a boss and going into work on time and all the stuff that I didn't want to have to do as an adult. So when I got to college, I started hustling. I started buying and selling people's textbooks, competing with the school bookstore. I would offer more money than they would. I'd hold the books from the end of the semester until the next semester and sell them when the prices were at the highest. And that was a nice little first business for me until I got a cease and desist letter from my college telling me to knock it off and stop competing with them. So that was my first glimpse into being an entrepreneur. And from that point, I was addicted. I had this Amazon account, this was 2008, 2009, and I had been selling books on this Amazon account. I started experimenting with what other products I could sell and, and really created drop shipping. Years before I even knew it was called drop shipping. I, I remember telling a buddy of mine, I was like, I, I don't have much money. I can't buy inventory. I don't have any place to store the inventory even if I could buy it. But all these manufacturers, they don't know Amazon. They don't know e commerce. I'm good at getting sales on Amazon. So what if I build relationships with the people that actually make the products? They'll keep my credit card on file, I'll get them sales, they make and ship the product to where I tell them to and I pocket the difference between what they charge me and what I sell it for. And I don't have to touch the product, I don't have to ship the product. Everything is online. And this ended up being one of the best ideas because before I knew it, I was selling hundreds of thousands of dollars, eventually millions, out of my college dorm room. And I learned a lot about customer service and following Amazon's rules and hiring people for the first time. I, I hired a lot of college kids, most of which didn't work out. Although my business partner Connor was one of my first employees, that, that did work out. And the Amazon adventure lasted about seven years. We, we sold over 25 million at, @ its peak, we thought we were going to take down Amazon and, and then Amazon became, became harder and there was more competition and their algorithm changed and it became a lot less fun. We were, instead of growing this business, we were just going in circles, adjusting to all the changes that Amazon was making. But I had built up this army of virtual assistants and freelancers that were helping me run this Amazon business because college kids were unreliable. Adults didn't want to work for me. I was 20 years old. Who wants to work for a 20 year old? And so virtual assistants were the answer. And meanwhile, as my Amazon business is getting harder, Amazon is blowing up. Their business is growing. Becoming an Amazon seller becomes a real thing. There's coaches, there's Facebook groups, there's how to sell on Amazon courses. All this stuff is going out. And there are no real service providers for Amazon. There was upwork, there was fiverr, but nothing e commerce specific. So we had the idea to start a marketplace for pre vetted e commerce freelancers and service these Amazon sellers. And that was the idea as we got it off the ground and we launched it with a minimum viable product, an okay website, a pretty crummy software that did the freelance billing and we offered some, some of our freelancers for free to, to some clients and we covered the, the cost and paid the VAs and freelancers and they really liked that experience. And we created a little affiliate program. Before we knew it, we had people signing up and saying hey, I need a graphic designer, I need a writer, I need an Amazon customer service rep, you name it. And that's really how we, we got it off the ground. Now there are a lot of e commerce service providers, age, whatever. Back then that didn't really exist. So we kind of had really good timing when it came to the Amazon business and the beginning of frea.

Yeah, let's go back. Right. That first thing, I mean it's a light bulb moment when as you're coming up as a kid where you realize there's another option to just working and that is to hustling.

Yeah.

And you know, if you want freedom, if you want independence, if you want above average income and you want to be able to move quickly and follow, you know, your, your, your instincts and all, you're going to want to get in that hustle thing where if you work hard you can. I always think of being an employee as being in somebody else's car or riding in somebody else's bus. You're a passenger, they're driving, there's, they've decided where we're going. You know, it's like when I first started going out to Aspen. It was sounded great. Hey, you know I got a friend out there. Hey, you can stay at my house. Oh, unbelievable. I'm going to stay at his. Wake up in the morning, beautiful views, get the coffee and then all of a sudden I'm looking out there like are we going to Go skiing, because I like skiing a whole lot more than him. He's like, yeah, we're going to go. And then, you know, he's piddling around the house, you know, and eventually he said, before we go to the, you know, I want to run down into town and drop off some stuff in my office. So I'm flipping quarters in his car. But I'm like an employee with more or less. It's like, you know, let me just pay for the hotel on the mountain. You know, forget this great treat you gave me, you know, guaranteed lodging at no expense, and I don't have to get a car. I'd rather pay for it and be able to get out of the mountain. We'd ski a couple of runs. And he said, had enough? And I was like, no, just warm it up. And so it's kind of like being an employee. If it's a big company, it's like, you got a seat on the bus and the bus is going somewhere. And if it's a really big company, there's a fleet of buses and you're just along for the ride. But at some point, you want to get your own transportation, and that's your own company where you can go where you want to go and change your mind and change directions and, you know, find some shortcuts. So where did you get the idea, would you think? Because I'm all about turning on young people to the idea of hustling and where, you know, a lot of these things that you hear the idea, you don't, you know, you don't. It doesn't dawn on you this is an option, but as soon as it's like a key to a door and someone just shows you a peek inside the door, it's like, thank you very much, I can take over from here. So where do you do think you got the idea that you could hustle? I remember.

So I had this internship at Aaron's Sales and Lease, which is kind of like a rent a center in the Northeast. And I got to work near the owner of the company or the CEO of the company, Dave Edwards. And I remember him showing. Showing me that he would. He'd do his job from the golf course on his phone. And as a young kid, I. I was like, I want that. I want to be able to run my business from my cell phone and have other people that are working there and working the long hours and, and doing everything. And that was kind of my motivation. And yeah, I mean, I. I was a big fan of just trying things out. And I'm still a big fan of it. Like low risk, high reward situations. I bought a few textbooks and if I lost money on them, I would stop doing it and do something else. And if it worked, I'd do it more. I, I Drop shipped 20 products and if I got bad reviews or lost money, I'd stop doing it and try something out. With Free up, we had beta clients that I gave them virtual assistants and if they didn't like it, we try something else. When we launched Outsource School, which is our hiring course, we ran a beta sale and if no one bought it again, move on to something else before we even film the course. And with Econ Balance in our monthly bookkeeping service, we gave out two free months of bookkeeping. If I couldn't sell, two free months of bookkeeping and people weren't happy, you moved on to something else. So it's a lot of trial and error and low risk, high reward situations where you kind of put yourself in the position to succeed, but you also don't give up. And I learned that as a kid when I was applying for jobs, I wanted a job that paid 12 bucks an hour. Back then that was a big deal. Now I feel like it's pretty standard, but I remember applying and getting rejected and going through interviews and not getting called back. And every day I would just consistency, just apply to 20 more jobs, 20 more jobs, 20 more jobs,. Until finally I got that job that would pay me 12 bucks an hour. Both are at Firestone, which is another internship I had. And I also took a lot of the stuff that I learned there at Errands. I learned sales at Firestone, I learned customer service. And I was able to kind of apply those to my own businesses. And, and really, if you look at any company I've created, the customer service is based on the Firestone customer service, and the, the sales is based on the Amazon, the Aaron sales. So kind of how kind of applied things that you learn along the way.

Okay, let's just nail that down. If you look back at the Aaron's experience, you say, at Aaron's I learned sales. What is winning sales? What would you, how would you look back on that and say I learned, you know, you learned how not to bog down in sales. You learn how to get to the point, you know, make the sale and move on. How did you, what, what did you, would you say and how would you describe what you learned at Aaron?

Yeah, I mean, the first thing is to just go do it. Like you can't get the sale if you don't ask. And it's something that we apply to this day. If I'm trying to go on podcasts, I asked to be on the podcast, I'm trying to land a client. I asked to close the sale, I asked them to add a credit card. That's just a big mindset. Shift that if you can get over a young age, is only going to help you. The second part of it is valuing people's time being able to talk quickly, talk efficiently. You kind of mentioned it. People want to the information they need in a quick amount of time to be able to make a decision. And then the last piece is giving them options. Hey, do you want to buy this big TV or this smaller TV that's a little bit cheaper? What do you need a payment plan? What are the different things that we can do to get from walking in the door to adding a car to. And paying for the product? So be able to adjust on the fly, Listen to what the customer is saying, listen to what their pain points are and address them. And sales is the number one skill. I mean, if you can, if you can learn to get sales, it opens up a lot of opportunities in life. And it's something that at a young age I was very fortunate to just get a ton of experience. Every summer, every winter, I was selling, selling, selling. And it's something that now comes a little bit more natural.

Well, and the thing is that the thing that people misunderstand about sales, it's not going through and giving technical explanations about this TV versus that TV about, you know, all of that stuff bogs people down. And I went, I come out of financial services and I remember, you know, when you go in, you're ignorant about everything and then you learn everything and then you want to tell every, everybody you see, you want to vomit all this stuff that you. Hard earned information that you got and all you're doing is boring them to tears. And I remember one day the president, founder of the company, came in and he was going to help me make a sale. And you know, you, it's un, it can be unbelievably complicated, you know, doing comparison shopping and financial services. But basically here was his presentation. Do you want this? You know, do you want to, you know, your current program with what you got here, or would you rather have this, you know, your investment? Would you have, you know, when you get to retirement, you have this much or do you like to have this much? That was essentially his presentation. And it's like, I've been making this way too complicated. And so a lot of it's simplication. A lot of it is getting to, you know, striking up a, you know, getting the person to kind of relax and smile around you too. I mean, as quick as you can, you can strike a common bond, find something in common with them and break down that ice, that resistance, because they can get the idea, this is a friend, this is somebody I can relax around. That's a big thing, isn't it?

Absolutely. And I think I almost compare to comedians, you hear comedians that if they want to do stand up comedy, you got to do a lot of bad shows, you got to get booed, you got to get tomatoes thrown at you and get rejected. And sales is the same way. You only learn by getting rejected. And I was rejected hundreds of times as a kid trying to sell a TV or a couch or with Firestone, they had these Firestone critic cards or car services or whatever I was selling. And you just learn what not to do and what works and what pisses people off and, and what to avoid. And those are just great skills to learn as a young adult before you get into the real world. And even if you're not becoming an entrepreneur, sales can, can help you in any industry, any market. It can help you get a job, it can help you start a business. There's a lot of things that go with it. And sales cures everything. If you can sell at a high level, everything else can fall into place.

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