From $0 to $1m With One Simple Idea (90% Success Rate)

I'm trying to build a product. I'm new to the business world.

So you feel a bit beholden to the pattern.

You want to do things the perfect way, but you don't really know the perfect way.

The one thing you're not doing is—

that's a good one. Oi, that's a good one. Hi, I just wanted some advice so you can help me out and give me direction and what are my next steps.

So on your business? Yeah, my business. Okay, what sort of business is it which you're doing?

So let's just say I'm in the waste industry. I'm trying to build a product and I want to put it through a patent.

Pattern.

Okay. So yeah, so I'm just trying to navigate through that. I'm new to like the business world, entrepreneurial world. So even trying to have a secret but also trying to establish myself is kind of like a struggle. So I'm trying to navigate.

What would you say is your biggest challenge at the moment?

I say my biggest challenge—

if you could lay it down into one thing, what would you—

my biggest challenge at the moment is legalities.

Legalities?

Legalities, yeah. So just being able to Stay inside the constraints or the parameters of a patent. Okay.

So you feel a bit beholden to the patent and maybe is the rest of the business getting a bit—

I think it's more of myself, obviously. Maybe a bit of imposter syndrome. So naturally I would just want to tell everyone my idea, but I just know you have to follow certain legal rules and go through that due process.

So I would argue that that's not true.

Okay.

Do you want to do some work on it? Sure.

Cool.

Come and join me on the business bench. So tell everybody, what's your name?

My name is Peter.

Are you based here in Bristol?

No, not based in Bristol.

Okay. Whereabouts are you based?

Based at the moment in Burma. Okay.

You've traveled from Warsaw down to here today for the Founders Playground then?

Yeah, honestly. Yeah.

What was that for? Just out of curiosity. What was the big appeal, the draw?

I think it's finding like-minded people. I think with the entrepreneurial world, obviously people see the money, they see like building businesses, but for me, it's, um, I'm just meeting people that are like-minded, so I actually don't feel out of place.

Okay.

And they understand the way I think. Um, to other people, they may see businesses, but to me, I see ideas. As a kid, it was probably just writing a random idea down and thinking, yeah, this can come to life. But in the business world, these are actual things. Obviously, you have logic, you have knowledge behind it, and that's essentially what it is. And it's helping me understand that and be comfortable with a part of myself I always knew was there.

Nice. And tell us a little bit, just a few lines if you can. I know you're worried about oversharing in terms of the details of the product. We'll come on to that. But just give us a bit of an insight into kind of how you came up with the idea. What is the idea that you're working on?

Yeah, how I came up with the idea, it's crazy. It just came like, well, I could say the setting, the setting was church, but it just randomly came to me, just randomly just dropped into my head. I think I have a very photographic memory. So I saw the idea, saw how it could work, and just saw how I would distribute it, like talking to different people. in different settings. And then, um, the idea is like, let's just say it's a bin.

Okay.

And that sounds very mundane, but however, it's, it's behind the bin.

That's, that's the business behind the, the business is like the most important part of it, right? Because I think a lot of people get hung up on the product or the idea or things like that, and they make it all about that. Whereas actually, if you learn the business skills behind the idea, yeah, you can apply that to any product or service in the future. Okay. So if you can get to a point where you can monetize your bin, like you've you've kind of solved 90% of the problems you'll ever experience as an entrepreneur, okay? And also, like, I said to you when we were like offline before we started recording as well, I was like, cool, that's really cool, I've been. And I genuinely mean that as well, right? Because the best businesses are sometimes the most boring mundane businesses.

Yeah.

Because if you think about something like, you know, the iPhone, right? Beautiful product. And the team at Apple have done a wonderful job of designing it and coming up with the concept of it. And they're great at sales and marketing. It all looks lovely, but what it fundamentally comes down to is this goes into a production line, has a screen popped onto it, a processor chip plugged into the back of it, a camera soldered onto the back of it, and that happens 440 million times a year. So the process of running the business is fundamentally boring. But look how successful they are by building a boring business when you actually think about it. And then it's branding and marketing which then brings the product to life.

Yeah, the marketing, yeah.

Now, I know you have some reluctance to share details about the product. Tell me what's going on there.

Just advice, really. Like, just advice. I think at first it was more so I didn't really know what— like, I'm just a kid that graduated, what, nearly 2 years ago? So I didn't really know what I was doing.

So first of all, I want you to stop thinking like that.

Yeah, right.

There was a— even if you look at some of the biggest entrepreneurs in the world, there was a first time when they walked into that room, right? And you have to feel like— it took me too long, which is why I'm kind hopefully giving you a bit of a shortcut.

Yeah.

You have to feel like you deserve your seat at the table. And it's not fake it till you make it. It's not being arrogant or egotistical. You seem like a really cool, humble guy. But it's about, no, no, I deserve to be here and I've got something, something of value to bring to the world. You have to, and you have to keep on training your brain to a point where— because otherwise what's going to happen is you'll talk yourself out of it. But you can talk yourself out of just making, like, just starting. So that's the first hurdle. You've got to get over. But I noticed you've, you've almost, um, avoided the question which I asked you, which was tell us about the product. What's holding you back from shouting, climbing to the rooftops up there, that balcony up there, and shouting from the rooftops, I've got the best idea for bins in the world, it's going to transform this, this planet? Feels a little bit like one of the things you said before we started recording was that you're, you're not feeling very confident about sort of putting yourself out there.

Yeah, I guess. Yeah, I feel like, yeah, not myself. Like, if confident. I'm confident about the product. So it's like, yeah, it's the product that I'm confident about. So I wish I could just— my product can just be my face. But obviously, on the side of legalities, it's like you need to even— you know, even establish yourself, you need to put yourself out there. Even if I was going to talk to investor, um, in my time of learning, I learned that investor will buy into me, not my product, essentially speaking.

So it doesn't actually matter what your product It's more— it comes down to like you. And like even off air when I was like, hey, do you want to come and film? You were a little bit hesitant, kind of stepped back.

But I'm trying to still stay in that space as well.

So, so, so that little bit of fear which you experienced there, it's just about taking the edges off that and fearing it ever so slightly less so that when an idiot like me comes along and shoves the camera in your face, you're like, yeah, let's go. Because you've got that energy. You have got that energy in you, right?

Well, yeah, I do. But I think it's when Like, in the best way I could put it, when I played football, I was good at football, so I could talk to any coach, any coach. Like, it doesn't matter what team it is, I know I'm going to perform.

But yeah, but what, what did it take to get to that point where you felt good, good and confident at football?

Um, I saw the results. Like, I was just good at football. Like, I kept on training, practice, training, playing matches, like pitch time.

But can you remember that, that point where little Peter walked out on the pitch for the first time and those other boys there probably judging you? Can you, can you, you could, you probably You maybe can't remember that exact moment, but you can imagine that, can't you?

I could imagine that, but do you know what I mean? You're so young. I think the benefit was that I was— and it's probably the problem— I was so young that—

Oh, right, so you've got old now and now you're scared.

I think I'm doing new things now. When I'm old— now I'm older, I'm not doing things that I would have— that I normally did as a kid.

Yeah.

Like, I think boxing, for example, that's a new thing I got into, but I couldn't think of myself in that space.

Remember the first time you walked into the boxing training?

Yeah, I felt so out of place. It's the coaches that made me feel comfortable. And it's like, but I still, in that moment, I still never— I wouldn't come and talk to someone about my boxing. I barely used to post my boxing, okay? Even though I was winning my fights, and I wouldn't really talk about it. And I guess with boxing, it doesn't matter, just win your fights. Now, business, I kind of have to face the music.

Why is that any different? It's not different. You're starting something again, I get that. But remember some of those internal lessons which you learned when you were going into that gym the first time and starting to get to know your coach and getting to know the other boxers, and then gradually found your place in it. No, it's no different in business. In fact, I would argue if anything, in business people are far more forgiving. It's far less judgment in business if you surround yourself with the right people.

That's what surprised me. Even speaking to you today, I think surprised me a lot. Yeah, like I felt like I found the people that actually either accept me, and it's not even just about my product, they're just actually, they're very open, which is even— that's why I was able— I think me, if it was a random setting, I'd probably be like, no, I don't want to do the interview. But because of the experiences I had with people even at this event, it meant I could stay in that moment even though Internally, I felt comfortable. There was like a sense of trust that I can just kind of stretch my arms and wiggle about and kind of get comfortable, basically.

Well, it does take a lot of courage to walk into a new situation, and you've made it here. But again, like, what is stopping you from screaming from the— literally from the rooftops, that balcony up there, and saying, I've got the best bin in the world ever?

To be fair, that is true, because I don't need— I don't really need to expose like the details and the specifics of my product to do that.

Why would you not do that?

Oh, the specifics and details?

Yeah.

I need to actually— I need to file a patent. On that side, I actually need to file a patent because one of the things behind filing my patent, it needs to actually be a secret. So we had one issue with a designer, right? If I sent that designer the sketches, it wouldn't have been a secret no more, so I can't patent it. So it's just a matter of filing it. I just haven't.

I'm going to call, if it's okay, with your permission, bullshit on that.

Okay.

I think that's really bad advice that you've had around that.

Okay.

There's something called first mover advantage. That's one of the things we'll look at, is taking your product to market first.

Yeah.

90% of the time businesses win just because they're first to market. Second thing then is survivorship bias. Those that stay in business and stick around and tough it out through all the ups and downs, 90% of those businesses win over the other ones who are just like, nah, it's got a bit hard, I think we'll stop doing this bin thing.

Okay? Yeah.

So if you can take your bin to market and start making some money from it, one, you've proved your concept, but second of all, And if you can stick around with your bin and really like do everything within your power that's in your control to make a success of it more than anybody else in the market, there'll be people who come along and they copy you and they're second to market. They probably won't have the same staying power because their mindset is, oh, we'll just copy somebody else. So waiting for the patent to come around and answering all of those questions, what if that takes 5 years?

No, but once I file it, I can speak about it.

Yeah, but what if that process takes 5 years? What if it's just a long elongated protracted process or 2 years or a year? And in the meantime, yeah, you can read all of the books, you can come to all the events, you can have lots of coaching and mentoring, but the one thing you're not doing is building a business. Okay? What did you do in the boxing gym and on the football pitch?

Just started training.

Kicked a ball.

Yeah.

You punched somebody in the face.

Yeah.

Right? So I know it's not like that. I know there's a lot more to it than that.

I don't mind.

But you see, you were practicing, and business is no different. You have to practice business. That means practicing sales, practicing marketing, practicing admin, practicing finance. You've actually got to get out there and sell a product. And again, you'll learn like 90% of everything you need to know, everything you need to know about business with that first product sale.

Yeah.

Do you see? At the moment, our patent— I know, I just, I'll do that business thing later. I just got to make sure the product and the patent's sorted. A lawyer will tell you to wait, right?

Yeah.

An inexperienced business coach will tell you to wait. The most successful businesses are messy. They just knuckle down, they get on with it, they make rubbish prototypes, they go and ask for people's opinions and feedback, they build up to their second prototype which works better and people are like, oh, that's better. I can see this actually working. They build a waitlist of people who might be interested in that product. So when they actually take their third prototype to market, they've already got a waitlist of 1,000 people and 100 people buy it just like that. So imagine if rather than in a year's time you're still waiting for the legals to sort themselves out, in a year's time you've got a waitlist of 1,000 people and sold your first 100 products.

Yeah, I understand that.

You can trademark ideas. You can also protect your products through something called design rights. So there are other ways to protect your idea. There is also something called called goodwill, which is an intellectual property. The moment you put a product out there and you start selling it, building a brand up around it, you're immediately building up goodwill around that product. So imagine again, if you spent a year building up goodwill, sold those first 100 products, and then somebody comes along and copies your idea, you still have— there is still a copyright infringement. You can still go to lawyers and do a cease and desist because you came up with the idea first, irrespective of whether you've got a patent or not. So at the moment, the patent is the one thing which is standing in your way. from turning this into a real business?

It's debatable because it was legalities, but it's more strategy because I think the imposter— like, that imposter kind of syndrome stopped me from having conversations with people for a lot of time. And then it was kind of like, you got that, then you got like a fake paralysis of you want to do things the perfect way, but you don't really know the perfect So I think that's what kind of stopped me, because once my— now after speaking to so many people, I know I can file it this week, basically. I know I can file it this week. Once I file it, I'm gonna talk about it.

Okay.

But I finished strategy because there was that finding a designer, what type of designer, get someone we know, or do we do market research and stuff. And I'm working with—

Rather than think about how the product works, can you tell me about about what the end result of it is.

The end result?

What's the benefit of your product? Without disclosing anything.

The benefit is— that's a good one. Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one. Because I'm trying to think, only because I've been getting so much advice and I want to show respect to everyone that's giving me advice. But, um, the benefit effect is it'll make place— let me just put it like this— it'll make places clean with a lot of convenience. Okay, that's the best way.

Cleanliness with convenience. There you go, 3 words.

Cleanliness with convenience. Actually, look, the joy is I'm probably going to use that. Like, honestly speaking, I'm probably gonna— because I couldn't ever think of a motto, and I'm probably going to use that as a motto.

Cleanliness with convenience. When somebody asks you about the Fuck how it works, fuck the patent. Cleanliness with convenience. Do you want that? Yes.

Heck yes.

I don't want to have to walk out of my house when it's pissing down with rain like this to put rubbish out, or I don't know the ins and outs of the product, right? But anything that keeps me dry, warm and dry, I'm down for that.

It fits the name. The name of the company is going to be— well, it's registered— so Pocket Waste. So cleanliness with convenience.

Cleanliness with convenience. I'm gonna change waste management. I'm gonna make the world a better place one piece of rubbish at a time. That is your pitch. That is how you should be positioning what you're doing, right? Build a movement. That's building it. That's about building a brand, bringing a voice to what you're doing. It tells a story without having to disclose any of the ins and outs of your products, right?

That's— I just thank you for that because—

I hope you were recording that bit and it didn't stop recording.

Because honestly, honestly, Well, if I could take your contact, because yeah, after I find it, I'm gonna speak. Like, I'm finding this, well, hopefully this week. So I'm gonna speak to people. Once you see what I'm talking about, you understand why that motto is so beautiful.

I get it. I totally get it.

But it's so beautiful.

It's again, there are these dumb rules which we create for ourselves as entrepreneurs which stop us from even— like, it creates complete inertia and we just stop. Right. So over that one little flat pattern, and there's a rule there which is like, I can't go beyond this until— yeah, this X equals Y, and I can't go to Z without having done this first.

Yeah.

Whereas I'll tell you what we'll do, we'll move this interview indoors. Well, we had to take quite a slight pause in proceedings because Great British countryside here started to rain. But we hit upon something there, didn't we? I think.

Yeah.

So we changed the value proposition. We've worked on your messaging now so that you can get out there and start shouting about it. But you need to become aware. So when you hit that bit of inertia and, oh, right, computer says we stop here and I can't go further beyond, that's like your saboteur at play there. He's trying to protect you, give you a nice warm cuddle. But that little 8-year-old version of you doesn't need cuddles anymore. He just needs to be fearless and kind of step beyond that.

Yeah.

And the question becomes, instead of I'll do it when, The question becomes, what can I do to move another step forward? What do I need to do to sell my first product? Or what can I do to get my first investor on board? What can I do to— so it's always a different, you know, what can I do next? That's where you want to get to.

Yeah, makes sense.

And your saboteur will keep on popping up and you'll just find yourself sat there just doing nothing. Inertia.

Yeah.

Right? And that's your cue to move and do something with it.

Thank you. Thank you. I'm learning a lot.

And that's what I love about this.

That's why I came today. I'm just soaking in the knowledge. Yeah, because I haven't had this type of knowledge before, so it's just nice. Yeah, thank you very much.

No trouble, my pleasure. So it's shameless plug time to finish up the episode. So first of all, thank you, Peter, for taking the time out of your, your day here in Bristol. It's been a real pleasure talking to you. Don't forget, folks, you can get hold of copies of Take Your Shot by going to fearless.biz/tysh. S for Take Your Shot. This is going to be yours as well. In fact, to tell you what I'll do, I'll give you dry copies of it rather than wet copies. So those are yours to take away for giving up your time this afternoon. Just a couple of resources in there. That's more of like a workbook style one just to kind of go through 7 like thought, you know, thought processes.

Yeah.

To hopefully take your next step in your business. That one's more of a story just about one of my first coaching clients, a golf pro called Russ. So hope you enjoy those, and I look forward to hearing more about your incredible business. They're going to change the world later. Amen.

Thank you. My pleasure.

Good man.

Well, hopefully you're part of the story and have luck. Hopefully. Hopefully. I need the product to do well, and the product does well. Definitely remember this. That.

Think of it. Sell one product. Like, just keep build one, sell one, build one, sell one, build one, sell. Keep every step move forward no matter how hard it is.

And our motto is amazing.

You'll be fine. Absolutely fine.

I think that motto is actually amazing. I don't think you don't realize what the motto. It's gonna do something. Well, thank you very much.

My pleasure.