How To Create and Launch a New Business in 3 Days

I can't believe it, but we just invented a whole business in three days.

You've got no incentive to give up on the past until you have a bigger future.

Yes. The best part about the hero's journey is knowing that you have a guide or a friend.

I think that's the ultimate dopamine of entrepreneurism, is creating new capabilities that never existed before.

There's only one kind of bad money, and that's where you have far more money than you have purpose for it. I've tried small regrets and they weren't much. So I didn't think that the big regrets would be any more exciting, you know, so.

All right, Dan. Another episode of Capability Amplifier. And this is creating a business in three days. Creating a new business in three days. I just cut off just yesterday, in fact, spending three days with a coach member, Joey Osborne. Here's the backstory. Joey started the Mosquito Zone, which is a franchise business, and it took him about 15 years. And a couple of years ago, someone came up and said, well, I'd love to buy your business. And at that point, in the tens of millions of dollars, not $100 million business. But the deal ended up falling through. And as he would say, he didn't even know what EBITDA meant. You know, they asked him some questions and he just ended up getting a 15 second call. After they had been well through the due diligence and the deal ended. But a few months later, he got approached by a number of private equity firms. Well, to make a long story short, went through the effort, learned a lot. Due diligence, of course, for anyone who's been through that, is very, very painful. But sold the business. And what's great about this is he sold to a private equity firm that has tons of money. He had an eight figure exit, so his bank account was plentiful. He doesn't have any financial worries and he doesn't mind me sharing. This is something he talks about. So I'm not betraying any his trust. But he also still has a significant ownership. So he gets what's known in the industry as the second bite of the apple. Because the private equity firm comes in, brings in professional management, helps grow, does some acquisitions, and they'll at some point either sell the bigger business or do something with it and he can get paid again. He's got a beautiful opportunity where he has great relationships with the firm. He can participate however he wants, but he knows enough about himself to get out of the way and let the big dogs take over. So he joined Me for one of our Mexico masterminds. And as usual, you end up getting. Having these deep conversations, a couple glasses of wine, eating up. And I said, what are you going to do next? And he goes, I don't know. But honestly, I'm a little scared right now. It's like, what happens next? And much like some of the other conversations we've had, he said, one thing I'm struggling with is maybe this was luck. I need to prove to myself that I can do it again. Which, of course, you and I know that that's absurd, but all kinds of weird things pop up in an entrepreneur's mind, especially when you reach a brass ring or a success thing. So that's where the story continues. So I said, well, here's an idea for you, Joey. What if you started working with other Joeys from three to five years ago.

Found them and coached them and helped them get acquired by a private equity firm? Just like you have. You've got recent knowledge, a lot of value, you've been through it. And after building and selling businesses, there's a lot of Joeys who, like you, don't know how much value they have and how to put the deal together. And private equity and business buyers need vetted businesses and the business owners to know the language of the sale and know what they're really providing. And these businesses, you know, the challenge that anyone who buys businesses these days have is there's tons of cash out there, it's basically free.

There's no inventory of good businesses to buy, and there's a huge gap in knowledge and capabilities. And if you brought good deals to these PE firms, I said, I know how you can get paid six different ways. And he said, let's do it. So what we did is spent three days together and we figured out, I have a process. So I say, what's the mindset of your perfect buyer? And I said, we know it's basically a Joey, someone who has value, doesn't know how much and doesn't know what. He doesn't know the market will go after first other franchise businesses, because that's his sweet spot. But he likes businesses that are between 2 to $10 million EBITDA. That's also the sweet spot of what private equity wants. The model is, hey, we'll take you on a workshop and get you prepped for an acquisition in three days. Just like, you know, it's basically the model. I do the message. We figured out exactly what to say. We created interview videos and content, and we're going to Launch this. And it's also a collaboration because they obviously need help with the marketing. And last night, Joey and I were having a couple of cocktails together, and he says, this was probably the most profound entrepreneurial experience I've ever had. I can't believe it, but we just invented a whole business in three days, and all the marketing is prepared and done and, and ready to roll out. Like, the videos are created. All that's left are a couple landing pages and that kind of thing. So. And it was about as smooth of a experience as I've had as well, because again, for me, and this goes to congratulating you, I got to work with someone who speaks the perfect language, which is the language of coach, and has had a recent success. You know, that's. That is one of the most perfect things. But also here he said, I am so energized right now because I have total clarity in what I'm going to do next. So I'm going to turn it over to you. And.

Yeah, well, I want to go back to the start that. Let's say Joey didn't meet you, okay. And, you know, and, you know, he got a paycheck. You know, you know, he got a paycheck, and he's got a paycheck. He's got more money than he ever had in his life, but absolutely zero purpose for it.

See, money bad, money good. There's only one kind of bad money, and that's where you have far money than you have purpose for it. I find that people who have more money than they have purpose always use their money badly. They, you know, I don't mean bad, that they do evil in the world. I mean, they, they just squander it. They, they just. So, wow, I got the chingles. Yeah. One thing I would say about it is that. And here is what I, you know, do with everybody that approaches me. So I would say on a quarterly basis, I have five people come and say I've gotten an offer for my business, okay. And I'm starting to get offers for my business. And, you know, and if it's got predictable, predictable monthly cash flow, it. It has a big multiplier. I mean, that's what people are looking for. They're, they're. They're looking for your cash flow to predict. Predictably multiply itself with you not being there. That's what they're looking for. The model, we take everybody, everybody who's running it out. Does it still make money without with all those people there? So I said, you know, you can't think about it in the present. You can't think about the sale in the present. You have to go three years out. I use three years out and I say, as a result of making the sale now, what does your life look like three years from now? Okay? And the reason is there's too much emotion in the present. But you go three years out.

You'Re constructing it out of what you really want. Okay, so who you want to be and how you want to be operating three years from now, is this a good deal or a bad deal? What's it do to your freedom? I mean, is your freedom of time, do you get more freedom of time, freedom of money, freedom of relationship, freedom of purpose? And I say I don't know the answer to the question because I don't have what's going on in your mind. But I know that you shouldn't think of this as the end of anything. You should think of this as a bridge to the next stage of your life. And you should keep building the next stage of your life so big that this is a no brainer. This is a no brainer. You don't all the angst about this and everything. It's a no brainer. This is where I have to. You're not doing that to get rewarded for the past. You're doing it for creating the basis for a bigger future. So that's just my first thinking about it.

Oh, man, that's deep on a gazillion levels. And I will tell you, that is precisely where Joey was. Because he was like, okay, what am I going to do next? Because he said, look, I own all the cars, toys, houses and stuff like that. There isn't anything else I need or want.

And I said, yeah, but do you have a playmate? And he says, that is right. It's like a playmate where you get to keep score. Because what I've seen, I've had plenty of friends who've had big exits. And for whatever reason, I've had quite a few billionaire clients over the past few years. And you know that old saying, it's lonely at the top is absolutely true. Because when you have your big exit, oftentimes if you're the first one to have a big exit in your group.

You'Re like, yay. And then no one's available to go out and play. It's like, okay, you're gonna take a big vacation while it's like, I gotta work, I can't do anything. And then you're in that spot where what are you gonna do? Give your friends money that completely screws up a friendship really fast. You can't buy that attention. Or if you end up being surrounded by an entourage, bad things happen. That just doesn't end well. And also, you start buying bad things. Like you say, money, good, money bad, and more money than purpose, which again, and so you got to get back in the game. And what Joey needed was something that lit him up in the morning, got him going, and where you'd feel impact, but also some resistance where you had to be pushing your capabilities and get out of your comfort zone. And.

One thing that happens, there's.

A group of bored rich guys, it's actually a club, and there's a behavior pattern in all of them, which is they have so much money they don't need to do anything and they're unwilling to take risks for fear of failure. And they look through everything of, you know, should I do this? And the answer is no, because they just rather lay around and they end up becoming basically big fat alcoholics. That's my summary of the movie. All right. It's very common behavior. And I do think it's like. And this is something else. I cannot find the original source of this, but it was in Harvard Business Review or one of the big business magazines. I've quoted it before that men who do not get back in the game after age 50, within a year, their chances of success are less than 5%. And of course, they die fast, too. I don't know if it's the same for women, but it was a fairly big study. But like I said, I haven't been able to find the data again. So I think what I found is also it has to happen fast, which is why this three day exercise is so important. It's like you can't stretch it out over a period of a year. You got to create that clarity and that vision and that feeling of purpose rapidly and also create engagement. So in Joey's case, we were together on the second day, we do an exercise, I call it the Ambassador exercise, where you really look through all of your connections and contacts and you say, who's a potential customer, who's a potential referrer, who has an affinity group that you could present in front of, who's an influencer and who's an ambassador, who would go out on your behalf and make referrals. We made the list and he immediately engaged a few people who he didn't even think of before, who could be clients. And they're like, yeah, I'd love to talk to you about this. He says, I have a new thing and I'd like to know if you'd like to prepare to sell your business. And by the way, I've got a private equity firm looking for deals. And he got two, two people in a day saying, yep, let's get together.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think the, you know, I was watching It's a world famous billionaire, not, but not going to mention the name. And recently there's been scandals or suggested scandals in his lifetime. And I saw him interviewed. It was just a little clip for about three minutes, you know, on one of the networks and. No, it was on YouTube. I just picked it up off YouTube. And I said, you know, he's in a really unfortunate position because he's got so much money that he can't fail in a way that any normal human being would understand. You know, he can't take risks anymore that.

Other people would even recognize as risk because it's way over their head. But even if he loses a billion, it's a rounding error. It's a rounding error. And.

You know what? He can't get an adrenaline rush in a normal way anymore. And so he's. He has to go into scandalous, you know, things that could be scandalous. And people are saying, why does he do that? You know, why do men do that? It's always men, you know. You know, And I said, why does he do that? And he says, because he can remember back when he. Before.

He was a success and back before he had any money at all, he used to get this incredible adrenaline rush about how exciting the future was. And he can't do that with normal things anymore. He can't get a normal adrenaline rush anymore. But he still wants the adrenaline rush. So now it's got to be.

The stuff of tabloids.

If he fails here, he's going to be all over the tabloids, you know, And I just. And that's what happens if you're an entrepreneur. What you love about it is periods where it's fearful and you need courage to do it. And if you don't have that, it's like, you know, life just doesn't. It's lost all its color, it's lost all its sound. You know, there's not a vividness to it. And, you know.

I remember I had this couple and they had dollar stores. They had dollar stores and they had 350 of them. And an equity company came along and, you know, just offered them a lot of money because it's predictable. Predictable. Income. And I remember them, they came and talked to me and they said, I said, you know, I get a feeling, you know, I got a feeling that it's a good deal, right? I mean, on the face of it, it's a good deal, isn't it? And they said, yeah. And I said, what, what holds you back? And they said, well, you know, we have about 50 employees who built the 350 stores and they're not in on the deal. And I said, well, make them, make them part of the deal. And they said, well, the buyer won't go for that. And I said, not the buyer. Take part of your check and give the check to your 50 employees. And they said, well, there's no tax provisions for that. I said, just give them the money. Yeah.

I said, just give them the money. And they said, you mean just write checks for, you know, just give them away? You know, like they got, they were basically getting a million dollar store of stores. So it was 350 million. Yeah. So I said.

What do you think? What would you think would make you feel good? That they feel that you treat them to them decently?

Yeah.

And they said, oh no. They're looking at each other and said, oh no, divide 20 million above them. I said, will that make you feel good that they feel that you've done a good thing by them? I said, yeah. I said, well, write the check, you know.

Yeah.

I mean, and they said, yeah, but you know, you know, we don't, we're getting taxed and capital gain. I said, write the check. So they did. And promptly a very exciting 35 year entrepreneurial life just came to a creaking stop and they were hanging out with the most boring wealthy people in the world and they started acquiring mansions and everything. And everything. And then she died of cancer three, four years afterwards. And you know, and everything. And I said they didn't have the higher stage that they were getting to, you know, there's no higher stage.

So true. Yeah. And that's. You do fill empty emotional holes with bad things. That is, that is absolutely consistent. And.

So when I listen to you, there's two things that pop into my mind. So I had another, another friend of mine, he's also.

I know him through Joe's group, through Genius Network, but he just got an exit and he texted me the moment the money hit. So he had an eight figure deposit in his bank account. And this was also yesterday, by the way. And.

He'S going to go work for the new firm and he knows it's going to end up disastrous.

Oh, yeah.

I'll tell you, on the first day, they hate him and he hates them. And all of his former employees are totally confused about who's the boss.

I've been in that situation twice and both times it lasted. One of them lasted about 40 days, the other one lasted about 90. And it was just bad for everyone. It was sort of like, first of all, I'm an unemployable person and I just don't do well.

But, well, you're a dead fish, you know, how long does that last? How many hours? How many hours before a dead fish becomes a problem, you know?

Yeah, well. And they. Yeah. Or a lion in a cage. When is a lion not a lion? When you put them in a cage. Right. They got to go out and they got to hunt, they got to kill, they got to eat. It's just part of the nature.

The second thought that that ran through my head is getting back to the beauty of the Dan Sullivan question is it causes you to create a compelling future. And I found that framing that for a founder and turning it into a sales question is super powerful. So if you frame it with, let's pretend for a moment that you and I can create.

A brand new business that gives you new capabilities, new connections, new purpose, new relationships, that you can really impact people and get paid without damaging your lifestyle. And if we were to meet three years from today, what would have happened? Right. And that's how it extends. So by framing it, two things happen. One of them is you're giving them permission to dream bigger and think of a brand new future without making a commitment. But the other side of that, that makes it powerful is they feel like you will be on the journey with them. And the best part about.

The hero's journey is knowing that you have a guide or a friend or again, I think this is a huge lesson for me over the past few years when you think in terms of a collaboration. Collaboration is such a powerful word to the entrepreneurial mind, which is someone fun that I can play with.

And we're going to create new things. We're going to create new things and neither of us can create it on our own, but together we can create new things. I think that's the ultimate dopamine of entrepreneurism is creating new capabilities that never existed before.

Yeah. And I found now the term I've been using is small container, short tail. And that is why I do everything in three day increments. Now. It'll be like by the time you're done here's what happens and we're done. That's the container. Short tail, meaning I don't have anything else to do. You walk away with everything done. And then if you want to do more will, that's another conversation. And it's so easy to say yes to that. And I found that that is a model that's easily replicable.

It's workshop. Let's do a workshop together. You'll walk away with something done.

The next person who approaches me to.

Ask about them selling their company, I said, you should do this three day workshop before you do this. There's a three day workshop you should do on what you're going to do next as a result of funding it. With what you're being offered here, all you're talking about is getting a source of funding for what you're going to do next. And you don't know the right amount of money because until you figure out what it is that you're going to create next. So I'll make a commitment that in the next quarter somebody approaches me, I'm going to say, you go talk to Mike Koenix and do whatever he says during three days. And 90% of what you think is not certain about this will be totally certain about it.

Oh, that's great. Thank you. I have one last story to tell you on that. This is a short one. And it's another coach member who I met actually through Genius Network. We had a 30 second conversation. We had a connection. He says, I want to work with you. And I'm like, all right, that sounds good. Fastest close I've ever had. I swear to God. It happened in five minutes. But we did before our three days, all he did is pre framed him. So I asked him the questions and he said, hey, do you mind if we do a collaboration together? I have an idea. And basically went to his customer base and sold a $250,000 deal before we even met. Because he started thinking differently from a collaborative point of view. And his whole deal to me is he says, I just want this to be self liquidating. He says, I'll spend as much as possible, but I want to make money while I do it. So that was our first conversation and it was $235,000 specifically. And by the way, he gave me half of that because I'm actually doing it with him. So it was like he goes, all right, this is great. So magic does happen when you start thinking, especially when you have no.

You know, like some we've oftentimes are anchored in our own muck if we have to operate within our current business model. And if you say, let's say this is brand new, when you don't have any tethers or landmines, that freedom of thought is very, very magical. So it's like, let's do something brand new. What would that look like? And especially when you do the Dan Sullivan future paced question.

It is a very magical experience. So thank you for that, Dan. That was fantastic. Any last thoughts before we wrap this one up?

No, I just think that there's a lot of themes. I had dinner with Chris Voss.

Never split the difference. His book and his Black Swan. He teaches negotiation. And I said, you know, what you do, you know Chris, and what you do is not too different. What I do. And he said, what? And I said, the reason why negotiations don't work and compromise doesn't work because you're negotiating over the present.

You know, you're just talking about what already exists and what existed in the past.

And yeah, it's not, first of all, the subject matter isn't even interesting. There's no exciting. You're not even excited about what's being bought or sold. It's not exciting. And I said, but what I think you do, Chris, is that in the form of your negotiation, you actually get them to, for the first time, to actually create a future. That.

Anything that frees you up from what you're tied down with in the present.

Whatever deal you can make, you'll make the deal as fast as you can so that you can get to the future. But I said you've got no incentive to give up on the past until you have a bigger future.

Yes, yes. Yeah. Even if it's bad for you, Even if it's good for you.

Well, even if. Yeah, so they get, you know, they kind of take you. It doesn't matter. You're buying freedom, you know, and, but, you know, but if you don't have anything beyond it, you're just buying, you know, you're just buying a big regret.

I've tried small regrets and they weren't much. So I didn't think that big.

The big regrets would do me any more, would be any more exciting, you know, so anyway, but it's fascinating what you're doing. I think that, you know, this thing of deciding from the future is a, you know, it's like, you know, it's like a Newtonian law for humans, you know, it's, you know, I mean, you just can't see things clearly from the presence. So the better ability you have of seeing yourself operating in the future and looking backwards. I just think you make better judgments and things that were very complicated get real simple.

God.

Absolutely. When I think about that.

And it's the Joey story, that's the Joey story, you know. But I think this thing, this three day thing and you know, is really good as a fundamental.

Thinking breakthrough. It's not so much about, you know, the business or the industry or anything. It's just that they're trapped.

They're trapped by all, you know, everything they've done. They're just trapped by everything they've done. And they can't get free from everything they've done. So they can't make. They can't think clearly about what the future should be because of that. It's a very interesting thing you're doing, but definitely I'm going to next person where I think it fits with you and everything else. I'll just send them to you. I said, do yourself a real favor, don't talk to me anymore. Go and talk to Mike.

Yes to that.

Here's all I say. Every time Dan says something, the answer is always yes. So, you know, all you got to do is ask. But thank you, Dan. That was. This has been a lot of fun. I got a lot of insights.

Let Joey listen to this because I think this would be, you know, it'd probably be more a part. More of what he's already learned. Will just reinforce.

And he is, he is one of the nicest people I've ever known. He's really an extraordinary. And he's completely self. What's it called? Like, he's like. He's the first guy. He goes, I'm just a bumbling. He says this literally. You'll see. I'm just a bumbling idiot. You know, I just happened upon this thing and I'm like, he's always the last guy to talk in a room, the first guy to. To take great notes and he always sees something profound. And that's really the sign of a wise man, you know, the last one to speak. And he is, he is really a. He's just a beautiful human being. So I know he's going to appreciate you saying that.

Yeah. Tell them the buyers haven't discovered yet that the mosquitoes come with the business.

All right, well, we'll wrap this up. Here's what I'm going to do to finish this off is for anyone who wants to talk to me or my team about doing this, I have a link. I'll have Set up. It's just go to paid for life.com go, and I've got a little video there. And you can just schedule a conversation and see if this is a right fit. And any other way you want to wrap this up, Dan, before I let you go?

No, I would just say, you know, Mike talks about coach thinking and Dan Sullivan. This is all part of the strategic Coach program. And, you know, we've gone worldwide now, and we've gone virtual, so you may want to travel to the workshops or you may want to do the workshops virtually. And so we have profited enormously from the zoom revolution that happened during the. During the last two years. And all of a sudden, things are really, really popping just because we went global against our will. I mean, we weren't trying to go global or anything, but one month before.

You'D say, that'll never happen. We're never going to.

Not one week. One week before, you know, but the world has changed in remarkable ways that if you're a great entrepreneur.

Your potential market is 10 times bigger just because of what happened to the world, not necessarily what happened to you. You got a 10 times bigger market now than you did two years ago.

Yes.

Anyway, we're very excited about everything we're doing in Coach, and we'd love to talk to anyone who wants to make their future.

Much freer, that they're a great business person, but they're trapped in too many things. And Coach frees you up.

Yeah. And my shameless plug for Coach is. It is the biggest.

Coaching investment I make every single year. It's the happiest check I write. And right now, I write as much to coach as I think I can with the new lifetime extender program, plus free zone. But it provides the greatest, not just financial roi, it has given me. It's made me a better husband, a better father, a better human and a happier person. And so I think if you're looking for what's the gateway to more happiness, it happens through Strategic Coach and learning how to think more clearly and have more certainty in your life and more freedom. And that's really what being an entrepreneur is all about. So there. That's my cherry on the bottom for you. All right, Dan Sullivan, another perfect day, another great interview. Thank you so much. This was a ton of fun.

Thank you very much, Mike.

You got it.